The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1931-03-18
KARL MARX AND THE PARIS
COMMUNE

and the like in this estimation Of a movement
storning the heavens!
Marx was not permeated by the wisdom Of
those pen-veXers who are afraid to discuss the
technique of highei forms of the revolutionary
struggle. He discusses precisely the technical
questions of the uprising. Attack or defense,
he asks, as if it we're a question OF military
operations, right before the gates Of London
and he dicides: unconditional attack. 'They
should have marched Immediately to Versailles"
This was written in April 1870 few weeks
before the mighty bloody May.
The insurgents who had begun the insane"
act (September, 1870 of stor1ning heaven,
should have marched Immediately to YER
sailles"
"They should not have taken up arms" in
December, 1905, in order to defend themselves
by force against the first attempts at taking
away the conquered liberties.
Yes, it was not in vain that Plekhanov COM
pared himself with Marx!
"The second mistake"-continued Marx in his
technical critisicm-"the Central Committed"
(notice that the military leadership is meant
here, since he is talking about the Central Com
mittee of the National Guard Surrendered its
power too early
Marx knew how to warn the leaders against
d
storn1ing proIetariat, however, he was practical
adviser, a co-participant in the struggle of the
masses who raised the entire movement to
higher level regardless of the false theories and
mistakes of Blanqui and Proudhon.
"Be this as it may" he writes "the present
uprising of Paris-even if it succomb to the
wolves, swine and common ours of the old So
ciety-remains as the most glorious deed of our
party since the June instruction"
At the same time Marx did not hide from the
proletariat a single error of the Commune. He
dedicated to this heroic deed, work. which up
to ne present day is the best guide in the strug-
gle for heaven" and has remained the most
frightful scarecrow for the liberal and radical
Swine" Plekhanov has dedicated work" to
December which has almost become the gospel
of the Cadets.
Yes, it was not in vain that Plekhsnov COM
pared himself with Marx.
Kugelnann replied to Marx apparently ex-
pressing doubt and pointing to the hopelessness
of the situation, to realism in contrast to ro-
manticism at least he compared the Commune
the uprising-with the peaceful demonstration
in Paris of June 10, 1849.
Immediately april II. 1S7D Marx rebukes
Kugelmann properly for this
World history" he writes, would certainly be
very convenient TO MAKE, III inc Struggle cOuiu
be t. IN up only under the condition of unfail-
ingly favorable odds"
In September 1870, Marx called the uprising
an act of insanity. But when the masses arose,
Marx wants to march with them, wants himself
to learn with them, united in the struggle, but
not to deliver sermons to them. He understands
that an attempt to determine beforehand. the
odds with absolute precision would be either
charlatanisrn or hopeless pedantry. Above every
thing he places the fact that the working class
is making world history, ourageously self-sac-
rificingly, with initiative Marx viewed history
from the standpoint of those who make it with
out the possibility of infalbly calculating be-
forehand the odds, and not from the standpoint
of the petty-bourgeois intellectual who poralzes:
cit was easy to foresee. :" or "They should
not have taken up.
Marx even understood how to estimate the
fact that there are moments in history when
a desperate struggle of the masses even for the
sake of a hopeless cause is necessary for the
further education of these masses and their prep
aration for the next struggle.
Such formulation of the question is entirely
incomprehensible, yes, in principle unapproach-
able to our present day quasi-Marxists who SO
eagerly quote Marx calumniatingly in order to
get his estimation Of the past but not the ability
to create the future. Plekhanov did not even
raise this question when he proceeded to the
task of putting on the brakes" after December,
1905
Marx, however. raises precisely the question
without in the least forgetting that in September,
1870, he had himself recognized the insanity of
an instruction
"The bourgeois Versailles dogs" he writes, put
the Parisians before he alternative of either
taking up the struggle or of succombng without
struggle The decentralization of the working
class in the latter case would have been a much
greater misfortune than the destruction of any
number of leaders.