4 - The Communist Manifesto and the Idea of Permanent Revolution

Summary

INTRODUCTION

The Manifesto does not actually use the slogan of the permanent revolution (although elsewhere Marx does). But it does enunciate the idea which lies behind the slogan and in a way which captures the ambiguities which have dogged the idea ever since. I shall argue that in essence the theory of permanent revolution implies that capitalism and communism, democracy and socialism, liberalism and emancipation are indissolubly linked. Hence the theory is crucial to Marxism as a whole and is expounded in the Manifesto. However the term is often taken to mean that the link between a ‘bourgeois revolution’ which establishes capitalism, and a ‘proletarian revolution’ which seeks to introduce a communist society, involves a process of revolutionary struggle within a relatively short time scale. One revolution is followed immediately by another.

I shall call this version of the permanent revolution the ‘immediacy thesis’ and I will argue that although the immediacy thesis does receive textual support within the Manifesto (and elsewhere in Marx's writings), it is in conflict both with the general argument of this document and with Marx's overall political theory.

PERMANENT REVOLUTION AND THE IMMEDIACY THESIS

As far as the Manifesto in general is concerned, a communist revolution is only possible because ‘the weapons used by the bourgeoisie to strike down feudalism are now turned against the bourgeoisie itself. It is the bourgeoisie which supplies the proletariat ‘with its own materials for development, i.e. weapons for use against the bourgeoisie itself. This ‘weapons’ argument contains, I would suggest, the essence of the permanent revolution idea — the notion that capitalism and communism are indissolubly linked. That Marx and Engels regarded this idea as distinctive to their particular theory of communism can be seen from Part III of the Manifesto where the other variants of communism and socialism around in 1848 are criticised either because they reject the revolutionary character of the bourgeoisie, or because they are uncritical towards capitalism. Marx and Engels believe that it is necessary and possible to be both critical of capitalism and to accept the revolutionary part played historically by the bourgeoisie.