Discussion Starter: Marx on Louis Bonaparte and Modern Application

Louis Bonaparte was a popular leader with a strong basis of support in the peasantry. Why doesn’t Marx see this as a step towards Communism?

            In “The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte”, Marx outlines the political and historical events leading up to Louis Bonaparte’s (Napoleon III) coup d’état on December 2^nd, 1851. In the essay, he focuses on the political atmosphere and various resistance efforts by the proletariat between the years of 1849 and 1851. Louis Bonaparte was the nephew of Napoleon I, and the aforementioned “coup d’état” refers to his act of dismantling the French Legislative Assembly and appointing himself as emperor. Bonaparte’s sequential dictatorship has been commonly denoted as one of the first fascist regimes in history.

            In the first part of the essay, Marx mainly provides historical background for his argument, which comprises the meat of the second half. Though his argument is complex, it can be roughly broken down, as follows: Marx argues that the various social and political revolutions in France have continually shaped and reshaped the proletariat; that current peasantry cannot truly be called a “class” of people as they do not share a common culture, ideology, or political belief; that the peasantry sees their meager living the most important thing for them to hang onto; and that the peasantry that supports Bonaparte are not a radical (leftist) peasantry but instead a conservative one. Because of this, Marx argues, the peasantry feel that they must support Bonaparte (just as some peasants supported the counter-revolution and the monarchy years before) in order to protect what little they currently have instead of realizing that they must fuel a revolution against the government.

            There are two long quotes I found critical to Marx’s argument, and that help illustrate the statements above. Marx writes, “In so far as millions of families live under economic conditions of existence that divide their mode of life, their interests and their culture from those of the other classes, and put them in hostile contrast to the latter, they form a class. In so far as there is merely a local interconnection among these small peasants, and the identity of their interests begets no unity, no national union and no political organization, they do not form a class. They are consequently incapable of enforcing their class interest in their own name, whether through a parliament or through a convention. They cannot represent themselves, they must be represented” (608).

            Right after, Marx argues that “The Bonaparte dynasty represents not the revolutionary, but the conservative peasant; not the peasant that strikes out beyond the condition of his social existence, the small holding, but rather the peasant who wants to consolidate it; not the country folk who want to overthrow the old order through their own energies linked up with the towns, but on the contrary those who, in stupefied bondage to this old order, want to see themselves with their small holding saved and favoured by the ghost of the empire. It represents not the enlightenment, but the superstition of the peasant; not his judgement, but his prejudice” (609).

            I found this aspect of Marx’s argument interesting because he’s describing the determinants of fascism and the economic and social conditions that are favorable for the rise of fascism. Since the peasantry is intellectually, politically, and culturally isolated, Marx argues that they are not able to organize or even articulate a common interest. In the second quote, Marx describes how it is possible for peasants, who would logically be against the regime, support it.

            I wanted to bring this part of the essay up in class because I thought it provided an interesting application question for the group. Trump has been called a fascist many times, and I wondered whether it is possible to apply Marx’s analysis of Bonaparte (and his supporters) to the current presidency. While in many ways the U.S. of today is impossible to compare to 1851 France, do you think some connections can be made?