5 - The Communist Manifesto, Marx’s Theory of History and the Russian Revolution

Summary

‘Thus the bourgeois revolution in Germany can be merely the immediate prelude to a proletarian revolution.’

It has been argued that this statement represents a contradiction in Marxist theory so fundamental as to raise ‘crucial questions concerning not just the coherence of the Manifesto itself but also of Marxist theory as a whole’. The suggestion that a proletarian revolution could immediately follow a bourgeois revolution is seen to be inconsistent with Marx's general conception of full capitalist development as a necessary pre-condition for the establishment of communism. As actual ‘communist’ revolutions have all taken place in relatively underdeveloped countries this is an important issue for those concerned with the relevance of Marxist theory to actual historical events and processes.

Although the suggested inconsistency in the Manifesto relates to the situation in Germany in 1848 it is also relevant to the 1917 revolutions in Russia and the subsequent rise and fall of the Soviet Union. The political victory of the bourgeois interest in Russia in February 1917 was followed, just eight months later, by the Bolshevik seizure of power, in the name of the proletariat.

By drawing on the debates surrounding the ‘German question’ in the Manifesto and relating these to Marx and Engels's other works this chapter will develop a coherent historical materialist approach to the question of ‘premature’ proletarian revolutions, and suggest the means by which the ‘tensions’ in the Manifesto may be resolved. The Bolshevik reading of the Manifesto, and its approach to this issue will then be examined, and the relationship between Marx's theory of history and the Bolshevik revolution will be assessed.

Before assessing the damage to the coherence of Marxist theory which is inflicted by the ‘strategy for Germany’ in the Manifesto, it is useful to consider briefly two preliminary questions. First, which of the various interpretations of Marx's theory of history is supposed to be rendered incoherent by this passage? And, second, what are the particular features of that interpretation which are held to conflict with the Manifesto's treatment of the ‘German question’?