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MARX, ENGELS, AND MARXISMS
The Marx
of Communism
Setting Limits in the
Realm of Communism
Alexandros Chrysis
Marx, Engels, and Marxisms
Series Editors
Marcello Musto, York University, Toronto, ON, Canada
Terrell Carver, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK
The Marx renaissance is underway on a global scale. Wherever the critique
of capitalism re-emerges, there is an intellectual and political demand for
new, critical engagements with Marxism. The peer-reviewed series Marx,
Engels and Marxisms (edited by Marcello Musto & Terrell Carver, with
Babak Amini, Francesca Antonini, Paula Rauhala & Kohei Saito as Assis-
tant Editors) publishes monographs, edited volumes, critical editions,
reprints of old texts, as well as translations of books already published
in other languages. Our volumes come from a wide range of political
perspectives, subject matters, academic disciplines and geographical areas,
producing an eclectic and informative collection that appeals to a diverse
and international audience. Our main areas of focus include: the oeuvre
of Marx and Engels, Marxist authors and traditions of the 19th and 20th
centuries, labour and social movements, Marxist analyses of contemporary
issues, and reception of Marxism in the world.
Alexandros Chrysis
The Marx
of Communism
Setting Limits in the Realm of Communism
Alexandros Chrysis
Department of Sociology
Panteion University
Athens, Greece
ISSN 2524-7123 ISSN 2524-7131 (electronic)

Marx, Engels, and Marxisms
ISBN 978-3-031-06741-9 ISBN 978-3-031-06742-6 (eBook)
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06742-6
Translation from the Greek language edition: “O Marx τoυ κoμμoυνισμo” ´ by Alexan-
dros Chrysis, © Author 2020. Published by Kapsimi Publishing Company. All Rights
Reserved.
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The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland
To my wife Eugenia and my daughter Zoe, with all my love and devotion
Titles Published
1. Terrell Carver & Daniel Blank, A Political History of the Editions

of Marx and Engels’s “German Ideology” Manuscripts, 2014.
2. Terrell Carver & Daniel Blank, Marx and Engels’s “German Ideol-
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Chapter,” 2014.
3. Alfonso Maurizio Iacono, The History and Theory of Fetishism,
2015.
4. Paresh Chattopadhyay, Marx’s Associated Mode of Production: A
Critique of Marxism, 2016.
5. Domenico Losurdo, Class Struggle: A Political and Philosophical
History, 2016.
6. Frederick Harry Pitts, Critiquing Capitalism Today: New Ways to
Read Marx, 2017.
7. Ranabir Samaddar, Karl Marx and the Postcolonial Age, 2017.
8. George Comninel, Alienation and Emancipation in the Work of
Karl Marx, 2018.
9. Jean-Numa Ducange & Razmig Keucheyan (Eds.), The End of
the Democratic State: Nicos Poulantzas, a Marxism for the 21st
Century, 2018.
10. Robert X. Ware, Marx on Emancipation and Socialist Goals:
Retrieving Marx for the Future, 2018.
11. Xavier LaFrance & Charles Post (Eds.), Case Studies in the Origins
of Capitalism, 2018.
vii
viii TITLES PUBLISHED
12. John Gregson, Marxism, Ethics, and Politics: The Work of Alasdair
MacIntyre, 2018.
13. Vladimir Puzone & Luis Felipe Miguel (Eds.), The Brazilian
Left in the 21st Century: Conflict and Conciliation in Peripheral
Capitalism, 2019.
14. James Muldoon & Gaard Kets (Eds.), The German Revolution and
Political Theory, 2019.
15. Michael Brie, Rediscovering Lenin: Dialectics of Revolution and
Metaphysics of Domination, 2019.
16. August H. Nimtz, Marxism Versus Liberalism: Comparative Real-
Time Political Analysis, 2019.
17. Gustavo Moura de Cavalcanti Mello and Mauricio de Souza Saba-
dini (Eds.), Financial Speculation and Fictitious Profits: A Marxist
Analysis, 2019.
18. Shaibal Gupta, Marcello Musto & Babak Amini (Eds.), Karl
Marx’s Life, Ideas, and Influences: A Critical Examination on the
Bicentenary, 2019.
19. Igor Shoikhedbrod, Revisiting Marx’s Critique of Liberalism:
Rethinking Justice, Legality, and Rights, 2019.
20. Juan Pablo Rodríguez, Resisting Neoliberal Capitalism in Chile:
The Possibility of Social Critique, 2019.
21. Kaan Kangal, Friedrich Engels and the Dialectics of Nature, 2020.
22. Victor Wallis, Socialist Practice: Histories and Theories, 2020.
23. Alfonso Maurizio Iacono, The Bourgeois and the Savage: A
Marxian Critique of the Image of the Isolated Individual in Defoe,
Turgot and Smith, 2020.
24. Terrell Carver, Engels before Marx, 2020.
25. Jean-Numa Ducange, Jules Guesde: The Birth of Socialism and
Marxism in France, 2020.
26. Antonio Oliva, Ivan Novara & Angel Oliva (Eds.), Marx and
Contemporary Critical Theory: The Philosophy of Real Abstraction,
2020.
27. Francesco Biagi, Henri Lefebvre’s Critical Theory of Space, 2020.
28. Stefano Petrucciani, The Ideas of Karl Marx: A Critical Introduc-
tion, 2020.
29. Terrell Carver, The Life and Thought of Friedrich Engels, 30th
Anniversary Edition, 2020.
30. Giuseppe Vacca, Alternative Modernities: Antonio Gramsci’s Twen-
tieth Century, 2020.
TITLES PUBLISHED ix
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Raya Dunayevskaya’s Intersectional Marxism: Race, Gender, and
the Dialectics of Liberation, 2020.
32. Marco Di Maggio, The Rise and Fall of Communist Parties in
France and Italy, 2020.
33. Farhang Rajaee, Presence and the Political, 2021.
34. Ryuji Sasaki, A New Introduction to Karl Marx: New Materialism,
Critique of Political Economy, and the Concept of Metabolism, 2021.
35. Kohei Saito (Ed.), Reexamining Engels’s Legacy in the 21st
Century, 2021.
36. Paresh Chattopadhyay, Socialism in Marx’s Capital: Towards a De-
alienated World, 2021.
37. Marcello Musto, Karl Marx’s Writings on Alienation, 2021.
38. Michael Brie & Jörn Schütrumpf, Rosa Luxemburg: A Revolu-
tionary Marxist at the Limits of Marxism, 2021.
39. Stefano Petrucciani, Theodor W. Adorno’s Philosophy, Society, and
Aesthetics, 2021.
40. Miguel Vedda, Siegfried Kracauer, or, The Allegories of Improvisa-
tion: Critical Studies, 2021.
41. Ronaldo Munck, Rethinking Development: Marxist Perspectives,
2021.
42. Jean-Numa Ducange & Elisa Marcobelli (Eds.), Selected Writings
of Jean Jaurès: On Socialism, Pacifism and Marxism, 2021.
43. Elisa Marcobelli, Internationalism Toward Diplomatic Crisis: The
Second International and French, German and Italian Socialists,
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44. James Steinhoff, Automation and Autonomy: Labour, Capital and
Machines in the Artificial Intelligence Industry, 2021.
45. Juan Dal Maso, Hegemony and Class Struggle: Trotsky, Gramsci and
Marxism, 2021.
46. Gianfranco Ragona & Monica Quirico, Frontier Socialism: Self-
organisation and Anti-capitalism, 2021.
47. Tsuyoshi Yuki, Socialism, Markets and the Critique of Money: The
Theory of “Labour Notes,” 2021.
48. Gustavo Moura de Cavalcanti Mello & Henrique Pereira Braga
(Eds.), Wealth and Poverty in Contemporary Brazilian Capitalism,
2021.
49. Paolo Favilli, Historiography and Marxism: Innovations in Mid-
century Italy, 2021.
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50. Levy del Aguila Marchena, Communism, Political Power and

Personal Freedom in Marx, 2021.
51. V. Geetha, Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar and the Question of Socialism
in India, 2021.
52. Satoshi Matsui, Normative Theories of Liberalism and Socialism:
Marxist Analysis of Values, 2022.
53. Kei Ehara (Ed.), Japanese Discourse on the Marxian Theory of
Finance, 2022.
54. Achim Szepanski, Financial Capital in the 21st Century, 2022.
55. Stephen Maher, Corporate Capitalism and the Integral State:
General Electric and a Century of American Power, 2022.
Titles Forthcoming
Vesa Oittinen, Marx’s Russian Moment

Kolja Lindner, Marx, Marxism and the Question of Eurocentrism
Adriana Petra, Intellectuals and Communist Culture: Itineraries,
Problems and Debates in Post-war Argentina
George C. Comninel, The Feudal Foundations of Modern Europe
Spencer A. Leonard, Marx, the India Question, and the Crisis of
Cosmopolitanism
Joe Collins, Applying Marx’s Capital to the 21st century
Jeong Seongjin, Korean Capitalism in the 21st Century: Marxist
Analysis and Alternatives
Marcello Mustè, Marxism and Philosophy of Praxis: An Italian
Perspective from Labriola to Gramsci
Shannon Brincat, Dialectical Dialogues in Contemporary World Poli-
tics: A Meeting of Traditions in Global Comparative Philosophy
Francesca Antonini, Reassessing Marx’s Eighteenth Brumaire: Dicta-
torship, State, and Revolution
Thomas Kemple, Capital After Classical Sociology: The Faustian Lives
of Social Theory
Xavier Vigna, A Political History of Factories in France: The Workers’
Insubordination of 1968
Attila Melegh, Anti-migrant Populism in Eastern Europe and
Hungary: A Marxist Analysis
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xii TITLES FORTHCOMING
Marie-Cecile Bouju, A Political History of the Publishing Houses of

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Peter McMylor, Graeme Kirkpatrick & Simin Fadaee (Eds.),
Marxism, Religion, and Emancipatory Politics
Mauro Buccheri, Radical Humanism for the Left: The Quest for
Meaning in Late Capitalism
Rémy Herrera, Confronting Mainstream Economics to Overcome
Capitalism
Tamás Krausz, Eszter Bartha (Eds.), Socialist Experiences in Eastern
Europe: A Hungarian Perspective
Martin Cortés, Marxism, Time and Politics: On the Autonomy of the
Political
João Antonio de Paula, Huga da Gama Cerqueira, Eduardo da
Motta e Albuquer & Leonardo de Deus, Marxian Economics for the
21st Century: Revaluating Marx’s Critique of Political Economy
Zhi Li, The Concept of the Individual in the Thought of Karl Marx
Lelio Demichelis, Marx, Alienation and Techno-capitalism
Dong-Min Rieu, A Mathematical Approach to Marxian Value
Theory: Time, Money, and Labor Productivity
Salvatore Prinzi, Representation, Expression, and Institution: The
Philosophy of Merleau-Ponty and Castoriadis
Agon Hamza, Slavoj Žižek and the Reconstruction of Marxism
Éric Aunoble, French Views on the Russian Revolution
Terrell Carver, Smail Rapic (Eds.), Friedrich Engels for the 21st
Century: Perspectives and Problems
Patrizia Dogliani, A Political History of the International Union of
Socialist Youth
Paul Raekstad, Karl Marx’s Realist Critique of Capitalism: Freedom,
Alienation, and Socialism
Alexis Cukier, Democratic Work: Radical Democracy and the Future
of Labour
Christoph Henning, Theories of Alienation: From Rousseau to the
Present
Daniel Egan, Capitalism, War, and Revolution: A Marxist Analysis
Genevieve Ritchie, Sara Carpenter & Shahrzad Mojab (Eds.),
Marxism and Migration
Emanuela Conversano, Capital from Afar: Anthropology and
Critique of Political Economy in the Late Marx
Marcello Musto, Rethinking Alternatives with Marx
TITLES FORTHCOMING xiii
Vincenzo Mele, City and Modernity in George Simmel and Walter

Benjamin: Fragments of Metropolis
David Norman Smith, Self-emancipation: Marx’s Unfinished Theory
of the Working Class
José Ricardo Villanueva Lira, Marxism and the Origins of Interna-
tional Relations
Bertel Nygaard, Marxism, Labor Movements, and Historiography
Fabio Perocco (Ed.), Racism in and for the Welfare State
Marcos Del Roio, Gramsci and the Emancipation of the Subaltern
Classes
Marcelo Badaró, The Working Class from Marx to Our Times
Tomonaga Tairako, A New Perspective on Marx’s Philosophy and
Political Economy
Matthias Bohlender, Anna-Sophie Schönfelder, & Matthias Spekker,
Truth and Revolution in Marx’s Critique of Society
Mauricio Vieira Martins, Marx, Spinoza and Darwin on Philosophy:
Against Religious Perspectives of Transcendence
Jean Vigreux, Roger Martelli, & Serge Wolikow, One Hundred Years
of History of the French Communist Party
Aditya Nigam, Border-Marxisms and Historical Materialism
Fred Moseley, Marx’s Theory of Value in Chapter 1 of Capital: A
Critique of Heinrich’s Value-Form Interpretation
Armando Boito, The State, Politics, and Social Classes: Theory and
History
Anjan Chakrabarti & Anup Dhar, World of the Third and Hegemonic
Capital: Between Marx and Freud
Hira Singh, Annihilation of Caste in India: Ambedkar, Ghandi, and
Marx
Salvatore Engel-Di Mauro, An Introduction to Ecosocialism
Contents
1 Introduction: From the Marx of Democracy

to the Marx of Communism 1
2 Marx in the City of Enlightenment and Revolutions 19
3 Marx as a Critic of Political Revolution 57
4 Marx as a Thinker of Communism: Communism
as a Social Formation (Strategy) 117
5 Marx as a Theoritician of the Communist Revolution:
Communism as a Movement (Tactics) 165
6 The Marx of Communism and the Communist Cause
of Our Time 205
Bibliography 235
Index 249
xv
CHAPTER 1
Introduction: From the Marx of Democracy

to the Marx of Communism
∗ ∗ ∗
The Marx of Communism, the book in hand, submitted here to the

critique and evaluation of the reader, is situated at a crossroads of a
research trajectory which started almost twenty years ago. The first stop
of this journey has been the writing of the book The Marx of Revolt in
the Garden of Epicurus. In his doctoral dissertation, entitled The Differ-
ence Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature, Marx
meets Epicurus, whom he thinks as a representative of the “ancient
Enlightenment” and aligns with him, enchanted by his theory on self-
consciousness and freedom qua declination [clinamen] of the individual
from the straight line. In The Marx of Revolt , then, I attempted to
infer the political ramifications of the relation between freedom and neces-
sity, which are expressed, albeit in an implied form, by Prometheus as a
philosopher, the philosopher of Negation.1
1 I intend to return to the Marx of Revolt with a new publication, which will address
those imperative changes stemming from the completion of the Marx of Democracy and
the Marx of Communism. In this context, I will also engage with cognate themes and
questions as addressed in the works of leading Marxists and post-Marxist thinkers, such
as Luis Althusser and Antonio Negri, among others.
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

Switzerland AG 2022
A. Chrysis, The Marx of Communism, Marx, Engels, and Marxisms,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06742-6_1
2 A. CHRYSIS
My long-term research and writing engagement with the world of

the European Enlightenment, and in particular with the works of
Montesquieu and Rousseau, as well as my constant reference to the philo-
sophical relation between freedom and necessity allowed me to reach
the second stop of my research journey, to open the second fold of my
research map, that is the completion of the book, The Marx of Democracy.
This study focusses on the way Marx construes and engages with democ-
racy before he moves on to communism. More precisely, in The Marx
of Democracy, I argued that we could read Marx the democrat’s advo-
cacy for “true democracy” in the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right
as a philosophical pre-announcement of his support for Paris Commune,
enunciated by Marx the communist in The Civil War in France. Analysing
the pre-communist Marxian theory of politics and the state consoli-
dated my research hypothesis which maintained that the relation between
Marx the democrat and Marx the communist, or otherwise, the rela-
tion between the Marxian theory of democracy and the Marxian theory
of communism, is a relationship of transcendence. In dialectical terms,
I finally submitted that the communist Marx does not abolish his pre-
communist theory on democracy, but he transcends it: his theory of
democracy is updated and recast as a communist theory of politics via
a materialist understanding of history as class struggle and an intrinsic
relationship with the critique of political economy.
Thus, I was led to the third stop of my research trajectory, in the third
phase of my research programme, which is no other than the study in
hand, namely, The Marx of communism. For continuity purposes, let me
repeat here the concluding lines from the book on Marx of Democracy:
However, I will not talk here on behalf of the communist Marx. In a

new, independent study on this subject, I will aim to follow Marx in Paris,
where he decides to engage with the communist cause. For the time being,
as I say farewell to the Marx of democracy, I feel that I have reinforced
the validity of my research design and hypothesis. Marx’s critical defence of
‘true democracy’, as argued in this book, and of the Paris Commune, which
constitutes the focus of a forthcoming volume, are ‘moments’ in a single,
though not linear, thought process. At the turning point of democracy–
communism dialectics, ‘true democracy’, as a prelude to communism, not
1 INTRODUCTION: FROM THE MARX OF DEMOCRACY … 3
only succeeded in shedding light on the social and cultural horizons of

self-determination opened up by the democrat Marx in reference to his
contemporary world, but proves to be deeply influential and valuable to a
strategic project of social liberation in our own times as well.2
The Marx of Communism operates in the direction set by The Marx of

Democracy, an occurrence, which coincided with the two-hundred-year
anniversary of the birth of that philosopher who was not content with
interpreting the world but sought actively to contribute to its change.
∗ ∗ ∗
For those who may rush to ask whether engaging with Marxian theory
is still meaningful today, this book—a small contribution to the large and
ever-growing national and international literatures on Marx’s opus—may
be in a position to offer some positive evidence on the timelessness and
relevance of Marxian thought. For those who are sceptical, what is both
challenging and interesting is the way the two-hundred-year anniversary
of the birth of Marx was received in the quarters of the contemporary
bourgeois establishment.
“Happy Birthday, Karl Marx! You Were Right!”: that was the title of a
New York Times ’ article on the 30th of April 2018, which would declare
without any reservation: “Today the legacy would appear to be alive and
well. Since the turn of the millennium, countless books have appeared,
from scholarly works to popular biographies, broadly endorsing Marx’s
reading of capitalism and its enduring relevance to our neoliberal age”.3
A few days later, on 8th of May 2018, the Washington Post would not shy
away from stating that “the spectre of Marx still haunts the world” and
admitting that “the political demise of the Soviet Union did nothing to
2 Chrysis (2018, p. 216).

3 Jason Barker, “Happy Birthday, Karl Marx. You Were Right!”, The New York Times,
30.4.2018, available at:
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/04/30/opinion/karl-marx-at-200-influence.html
(accessed on 28/04/2021).
4 A. CHRYSIS
diminish the value of Marx’s understanding of the forces of capitalism”.4

Around the same time, The Economist would not hesitate to urge “Rulers
of the world: read Karl Marx!” and to observe quite tellingly that “the
World Economic Forum’s annual jamboree in Davos, Switzerland, might
well be retitled ‘Marx was right’”.5
Hence, there is no doubt. Marx is indeed considered by prominent
bourgeois press groups, as well as by leading ideologues of the bour-
geois academic establishment, as the most, or, at least as one of the
most distinguished, analysts of capitalism of his time. As prominent bour-
geois analysts often admit, the diagnostic scope of Marx’s work as a
critic of the economy of global capitalism transcends the boundaries of
its own time while his interpretative thrust enriches the understanding of
contemporary capitalism, i.e., the capitalism of the twenty-first century.
But beware! The Marxian critique of capitalism is recognised under the
inviolable condition of detachment and clear opposition to the Marxian
theory of communism. The economist Marx, this penetrating anatomist
of capitalism, is praised of course, yet in separation and in contrast to the
political Marx, the communist Marx. Referring to him, all kinds of ideo-
logical representatives of the bourgeoisie do not miss the opportunity to
argue that his predictions about communism as a movement which would
overthrow the capitalist order and as a social formation which would mark
the end of prehistory and the beginning of the history of mankind, were
bitterly and decisively refuted.
It is certainly not surprising that, as the strategic theoretical mind of a
global communist revolution, Marx is devalued, one way or another, by
the ideologues of the ruling class. In the same vein, besides, it is not
uncommon to invoke the deteriorating course of the so-called “actu-
ally existing socialist” regimes as evidence for the rejection of Marxian
communism. Such “documentation” undoubtedly exhibits shallowness
and an attitude of vulgar empiricism, ultimately leading to the replace-
ment of criticism by cheap, occasionally commissioned, propaganda.
4 Ishaan Tharoor, “Why the specter of Marx still haunts the world”, The Washington
Post, 8.5.2018, available at: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/
2018/05/08/why-the-specter-of-marx-still-haunts-the-world/?utm_term=.ec56ca92777b
(accessed on 28/04/2021).
5 The Economist, 3.5.2018, available at: https://www.economist.com/news/books-
and-arts/21741531-his-bicentenary-marxs-diagnosis-capitalisms-flaws-surprisingly-rel
evant-rulers (accessed on 28/04/2021).
On the other hand, though, as we approach the end of the second

decade of the twenty-first century and as we move further and further
away from the century marked by the greatness of revolutions and the
tragedy of collapses, we cannot and must not give in to easy advocacy in
favour of the Marx of communism. On the contrary, it is imperative to
critically reflect on the possible osmosis or, at least, the impact of Marxian
over historical communism, while simultaneously rejecting the uncritical
reduction of the Marx of communism to “real socialism”.
In any case, within the Marxian intellectual world, the critique of capi-
talist economics is—not directly and automatically, but indirectly and
conditionally—intertwined with the theory of communism. This very
interweaving explains the fact that Marx recognises communism not as
an abstract/normative ideal, but as a specific/historical necessity inherent
in the process of capitalist integration on a global scale.
I could cite plenty well-known and much-discussed excerpts from the
Marxian oeuvre to substantiate this statement. I would prefer, however, to
bring to the fore a not-so-classical passage, in which Marx does not hesi-
tate to directly relate diagnosis and prognosis , namely the interpretation
of capitalism in relation to the revolutions of his time and the prediction
of a proletarian, impending red revolution.
Let us, then, travel back in time, to the Victorian London. On April
14, 1856, Marx, an official guest at a celebration of the four years since
the publication of the chartist newspaper The People’s Paper, takes the
floor:
The so-called revolutions of 1848 were but poor incidents—small frac-

tures and fissures in the dry crust of European society. However, they
denounced the abyss. Beneath the apparently solid surface, they betrayed
oceans of liquid matter, only needing expansion to rend into fragments
continents of hard rock. […] On the one hand [in the 19th century],
there have started into life industrial and scientific forces, which no epoch
of the former human history had ever suspected. On the other hand, there
exist symptoms of decay, far surpassing the horrors recorded of the latter
times of the Roman Empire. In our days, everything seems pregnant with
its contrary. Machinery, gifted with the wonderful power of shortening
[time] and fructifying human labour, [while] we behold starving and over-
working it. The new-fangled sources of wealth, by some strange weird
spell, are turned into sources of want. The victories of art seem bought by
the loss of character. At the same pace that mankind masters nature, man
seems to become enslaved to other men or to his own infamy. Even the
pure light of science seems unable to shine but on the dark background of
ignorance.
6 A. CHRYSIS
This antagonism between modern industry and science on the one hand,
modern misery and dissolution on the other hand; this antagonism
between the productive powers and the social relations of our epoch is
a fact, palpable, overwhelming, and not to be controverted. […] We know
that to work well the new-fangled forces of society, they only want to be
mastered by new-fangled men—and such are the working men. They are
as much the invention of modern time as machinery itself. In the signs
that bewilder the middle class, the aristocracy and the poor prophets of
regression, we do recognise our brave friend, Robin Goodfellow, the old
mole that can work in the earth so fast, that worthy pioneer—the Revolu-
tion. […] All the houses of Europe are now marked with the mysterious
red cross. History is the judge—its executioner, the proletarian.6
To start with, I kindly ask the reader to forgive the length of the quota-
tion. But the power of Marx’s diagnosis as a critic of the capitalist
economy and society of his time did not allow for downsizing. Espe-
cially since, taking into account the changes of the historical context up
to now, the scope of such a diagnosis includes the capitalism of our time.
Nonetheless, how can the Marxian prognosis be assessed in the light of
the social revolution gestating within European capitalism?
Even if we agree that the verdict of this global court, that is History
itself, has been issued, we must admit that the sentence remains unen-
forceable. The executor, the modern proletariat, seems to have lost
its way. I recognise that there is no automatic connection whatsoever
between the capitalist crisis, no matter how deep and wide, and a revo-
lutionary explosion. Such a mechanistic association between economics
and politics has always led to economism, against which the revolutionary
Marx, the critic Marx, had an openly inimical stance. The key question,
however, remains unanswered: where is this sinister mole, where is this
global pioneer, namely the Revolution, whose emergence on the surface
of History Marx had predicted around the middle of the nineteenth
century?
This restless mole, which from time to time appeared in the “arid
surface” of urban societies, to be lost again and again, has not made
a dynamic reappearance in a long time. Already some critical thinkers,
who are certainly neither insignificant nor indifferent to the theory and
practice of the revolution, have attempted and persisted in convincing us
6 Karl Marx, “Speech at the Anniversary of the People’s Paper”, in K. Marx–F. Engels,
Collected Works, (1980, vol. 14, p. 655).
that Marx’s mole has long been dead. Consider, for example, Hardt and
Negri’s position in their well-known book Empire:
Well, we suspect that Marx’s old mole has finally died. It seems to us, in
fact, that in the contemporary passage to Empire, the structured tunnels
of the mole have been replaced by the infinite undulations of the snake.
The depths of the modern world and its subterranean passageways have
in postmodernity all become superficial. Today’s struggles slither silently
across these superficial, imperial landscapes. […] Empire presents a super-
ficial world, the virtual center of which can be accessed immediately from
any point across the surface. […] [In contrast to the era of traditional revo-
lutionary struggles] faced as we are with a series of intense subversive social
movements that attack the highest levels of imperial organization, however,
it may be no longer useful to insist on the old distinction between strategy
and tactics.7
Personally, as one can witness following the thread of reasoning unfolding

in the pages of The Marx of Communism, I disagree with the post-Marxist
version of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri, a version which I intend to
address in the near future with a new and exclusive study. I agree, on the
contrary, with the otherwise dramatic observation by Lucio Magri, who
in his swan song, namely his autobiographical treatise The Tailor of Ulm,
insists that the mole is alive:
“The old mole” as Magri notes, “continues to dig, but he is blind and
does not know where he is coming from or going to; he digs in circles.
And those who cannot or will not trust to Providence must do their best
to understand him, and by doing so help him on his way”.8
I believe that Magri is right. The mole of the revolution is alive, but it
has indeed lost its way. The cunning post-Marxist snake of Hardt and
Negri and the abolition of the distinction between strategy and tactics
it represents is not the solution to what seems like a dead end, it is not
the answer to the disorderly retreat of the communist movement in our
troubled times. The occasional appearance of the mole on the surface and
the repeated inglorious end of its brief emergence demonstrate what the
absence of a contemporary communist strategy and tactics entails. It is,
7 Michael Hardt–Antonio Negri (2000, pp. 57–8).

8 Magri (2008, p. 62).
8 A. CHRYSIS
therefore, necessary to elaborate a contemporary Marxian political theory,

which would be organically linked to the Marxian critique of political
economy.
I have already argued for such a necessity in my book The Marx of
Democracy, and I return to the study of the issue in greater detail in
the context of the Marx of Communism. For the time being, however, I
consider it appropriate to summarise the essence of my research work so
far, which was also the trigger for writing this book.
∗ ∗ ∗
Today, two centuries after the birth of Marx, although the themes of a
distinct Marxian political theory still exist as open questions—namely, the
organisation of the working class into a party, the breaking down of the
bourgeois state, the transitional political power/the dictatorship of the
proletariat, and the death of the state. Despite the significant elabora-
tions by prominent Marxist theorists and revolutionaries, such as Lenin,
Trotsky, Luxemburg, Lukàcs, and Gramsci, but also by the Marxist theo-
rists of the interwar years, such as Della Volpe, Colletti, and Althusser,
the early Balibar and Poulantzas, the statutory asymmetry between the
advanced critique of political economy and the elementary—in compar-
ison—theory of politics (I would add here culture too, in the broadest
and richest sense of the word), an asymmetry which is present in Marx’s
own work, is still evident and produces negative results.
For his part, Marx indeed acknowledged that, from 1843 to 1844
onwards, he had realised that legal relations and state forms were deter-
mined by the material conditions of life and that, therefore, an under-
standing of civil society should be pursued in terms of political economy.
This realisation entailed for him, indeed from very early on, a radical shift
with regards to the focus of his research programme, from the critique of
the philosophy of law and the state to the critique of political economy.
Thus, the conditions of a structural deficit, of vital absence, were formed.
There was a theoretical gap of major significance in the whole body of
the Marxian oeuvre, but also an indirect implication for those scholars
who wish to expand Marxian research in the field of political theory in
the future.
As I have argued in the pages of my book The Marx of Democracy,
Marx’s suggestion was not to “underestimate the critique of politics and
law or suggest that this is of secondary importance vis-à-vis the critique
of political economy”. His own categorical command could only be that

“any radical critique of the bourgeois polity should be re-founded on the
scientific analysis of civil society as this results from the critique of political
economy in every historical phase of its development”.9
A lot has been done for the implementation of this research choice,
which is, in the final analysis, a political choice too; however, they prove
far from enough in relation to the needs of a modern communist move-
ment, which still has to assume a concrete form. Steps do not suffice, what
is required is leaps in terms of research and writing. Alas, it would be a
tragic mistake to reduce deficit to virtue, as a distinguished and, in many
ways, radical thinker of our time unfortunately ends up doing. The case
of Fredric Jameson is typical in that respect. I repeat his position verbatim
this time, a position which I have already mentioned and commented on
in the Marx of Democracy:
It has often been lamented that Marxism seems to be a purely economic

theory, which makes little place for a properly Marxian political theory.
I believe that this is the strength of Marxism, and that political theory
and political philosophy are always epiphenomenal. Politics should be the
affair of an ever-vigilant opportunism, but not of any theory or philosophy
[…].10
If we agree with Jameson, then, we must admit that Marx did not estab-
lish and, even more, did not elaborate a political theory, as he considered
an economic theory which would address the critique of capitalism not
only necessary but also sufficient. With that in mind, we would conclude
that the question of political power as well as the question of a theory of
communist strategy and tactics should be addressed opportunistically, as
Marx himself allegedly did, according to Jameson!11
9 Chrysis (2018, p. 18).

10 Jameson (2010, p. 11).
11 Jameson’s reference (ibid, p. 10) to Marx as “extraordinarily opportunist, in the
good Machiavellian sense of the word” wrongs not only Marx but also Machiavelli.
Although Machiavelli advises his ruler to observe the mutation (mutatio) of times in
order to seize the opportunity (occasione) for action, he places this opportunism in the
context of one of the most complicated theories of politics of all time. It is the lack of a
corresponding distinct political theory that Jameson happily (!) recognises in Marx, while
invoking Machiavelli’s concept.
10 A. CHRYSIS
Operating in the opposite direction to that proposed by Jameson, I

firmly support, both in the pages of the Marx of Democracy and in
the pages of the Marx of Communism, the importance of developing
a distinct Marxian theory of politics, the roots of which exist and can
be traced to his oeuvre, while its various ramifications are extended to
the present-day. Naturally, observing a persistent asymmetry between the
Marxian critique of political economy and the Marxian critique of politics
(and culture), makes it necessary for us today to address the undeniable
deficits of political strategy and tactics of a modern communist movement
through collective interdisciplinary efforts. Yet, it is a different matter
altogether to reduce disadvantage into advantage (Jameson) or to treat
the issue as obsolete (Hardt and Negri), since a theoretical approach to
politics, such as Marxism, with its particular currents, insists to face the
perspective of the communist revolution in terms of strategy and tactics.
∗ ∗ ∗
Especially in times like ours, in which the Marxian critique of the polit-
ical economy of capitalism is proving increasingly pertinent, we urgently
need its association with a contemporary Marxist theory of politics and
culture. We need, first of all, a contemporary Marxist theory of transition,
which, would recognise the rapid technological and scientific develop-
ments, detect their positive and negative effects on the daily life of the
proletariat of the twenty-first century and address them through the
perspective of a communist programme of political strategy and tactics.
A militant proletariat organised on a contemporary basis, a contempo-
rary political party, a contemporary theory of needs and daily life starting
from the Marxian critique of capitalism and the still largely unexploited
and partially underestimated legacy of the Marxian oeuvre and of classical
Marxism: here are just a few—and for the time being missing—parameters
of an international communist movement.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, when social movements
were undergoing a phase of inertia, Rosa Luxemburg, assessing the stag-
nation and progress of Marxism, gave the direction of a permanently
critical yet debatable evaluation:
Only in proportion as our movement progresses, and demands the solution

of new practical problems do we dip once more into the treasury of Marx’s
thought, in order to extract therefrom and to utilize new fragments of his
doctrine. […]
If, then, today we detect a stagnation in our movement as far as these
theoretical matters are concerned, this is not because the Marxist theory
upon which we are nourished is incapable of development or has become
out-of-date. On the contrary, it is because we have not yet learned how
to make an adequate use of the most important mental weapons which we
had taken out of the Marxist arsenal on account of our urgent need for
them in the early stages of our struggle. It is not true that, as far as practical
struggle is concerned, Marx is out-of-date, that we had superseded Marx.
On the contrary, Marx, in his scientific creation, has outstripped us as a
party of practical fighters. It is not true that Marx no longer suffices for our
needs. On the contrary, our needs are not yet adequate for the utilization
of Marx’s ideas.12
Where are we today based on the evaluation criteria set by Luxembourg?

About a century after the militant Marxist’s assessments of the theory
and practice of the proletarian movements of her day, the first anti-
globalisation movements emerged and shed light on a world that seemed
to be dormant, to be experiencing the end of history, as Françis Fukuyama
had hastened to announce the day after the fall of the Wall. Since then, for
two consecutive decades, anti-capitalist movements continue to emerge
periodically. But they lack duration, coherence, and efficiency. They are
like shooting stars; they radiate for a while, before exploding and extin-
guishing in a global firmament which remains dark and closed to the
prospect of a communist revolution.
The development of social—sometimes mono-thematic and other
times multi-thematic—yet heterogeneous—anti-capitalist movements
must not, therefore, create illusions. Within the fluid and amorphous
context of movementist masses, in different ways and to varying degrees,
eclecticism and practicism flourish, while the necessity of a coherent revo-
lutionary political theory is devalued; spontaneous and extreme subjec-
tivism is deified while systematic knowledge is often demonised, whereas
violence, more often than not, is reduced to a fetish.
12 Luxemburg, “Stagnation and Progress of Marxism”, in Waters (1970, p. 111).

12 A. CHRYSIS
In the face of this theoretically off-centre and practically dead-end

movementism, the Marx of communism aspires to make its own mark.
In essence, the edification of the book’s argument tends to reinforce
the hypothesis, which had already prompted me to write both the Marx
of Revolt and the Marx of Democracy: in order to achieve the neces-
sary continuity, escalation, and effectiveness, contemporary anti-capitalist
movements must get rid of the ideological hegemony of post-Marxist
and anti-Marxist views and practices and consider substantially rather than
superficially the Marxian theory of communist revolution. Luxemburg’s
assessment, even though proposed under very different circumstances,
remains valid. Marx has not become outdated. Marxism as a coherent
critical theory, albeit riddled with internal tensions, has not been over-
come. It is necessary, however, and in fact rather rapidly, to upgrade it
with a systematic knowledge of the socio-economic, scientific-technical,
and cultural restructuring of capitalist social formation, with the goal of
overthrowing capitalism in a communist perspective.
∗ ∗ ∗
Towards the end of the 1950s, in his essay entitled “Is there a Marxist
philosophy?” Kostas Axelos, who was writing his doctoral thesis on “Marx
penseur de la technique” at the time, remaining a thinker who was still
visiting the universe of Marxian thought, asks “what are the necessary
and appropriate mediations [ …] that lead to the aim while revitalizing
the movement”. His answer directs the readers/fellow travellers towards
the following assessment:
Our vision of socialism and communism remains too vague, deformed and
amorphous, primary and abstractly complex. While we are being strong
enough in our critique of what we reject, we remain weak in relation to
what we want to construct. We do not sufficiently develop a determinate
and determinant negation and we obstruct negativity. […] The bonds that
unite crisis and criticism escape us.13
Unfortunately, six decades later, in the prolonged aftermath of the

dramatic upheavals that have taken place worldwide, this position neither
13 Axelos (1964, pp. 202, 203).

exhibits signs of refutation, nor it appears outdated. The criticism of capi-

talism remains, frequently and in many respects, abstractly negative and,
in any case, it lacks a necessary connection to an elaborate communist
alternative. For its part, the bourgeois propaganda, collapsing the distinc-
tion between Marxian and “historical communism” philosophically cum
politically, as I have already pointed out, has no difficulty to this day in
removing the Marxian version of communism from the social perspec-
tive of the subordinate classes. Without substantial consequences for the
bourgeoisie itself, the repeatedly fluctuating intensity of denunciation
of capitalism does not take long to finally evaporate, since what once
appeared as a socialist/communist alternative, i.e., the concrete nega-
tion of capitalism, as “actually existing socialism”, has proved to be a
social system not only exploitative, but also dysfunctional, even by its own
internal logic.
There is no longer room for vagueness and empty slogans. Those who
support the reasonable position that Marx’s communism “did not fail
on any account because it never existed as such”,14 must demonstrate
concretely, that is based on appropriate analysis and substantiation, in what
“Marx’s communism” consists of. Similarly, they must demonstrate how
this communism differs from the political theology, which was constructed
in its name by the so-called “socialist regimes”, but also by the many
“communist parties” in the East and the West. Aware of the problem,
the present study attempts to contribute to the definition of what Marxian
communism is—and, indirectly, of what is not, at least in terms of general
direction—a particularly difficult task, since, as it has rightly been noted:
[…], he who is considered the theoretician of communism par excellence,

as the very founder of modern communism, he whom the millions of
militant communists and socialists claimed to follow, but he, too, whom
the so-called ‘communist’ party-states—under which lived more than half
of humanity throughout the course of the twentieth century—claimed to
follow, this man ultimately wrote very little about communism as such, and
altogether—quantitatively speaking—did not say a great deal about it.15
14 Lucien Sève, “Le communisme est mort, vive le communisme!”, L’ Humanité,

24/03/2020, available at: https://www.humanite.fr/node/504140 (accessed on
01/05/2021).
15 Fischbach (2011, p. 15).
14 A. CHRYSIS
The Marx of Communism does not aim to dispute the obvious, namely
that Marx makes few references to communism and even fewer ones
to a relatively detailed approach of the subject. I argue, however, that
even these elliptical references and approaches are adequate not only
to give a general idea but also to highlight the critical components of
Marxian communist theory. Identifying and evaluating these components
of Marxist communism is certainly not an end in itself. It is, however, a
sine qua non condition for the formulation and elaboration of a contem-
porary communist alternative, which in turn requires the interdisciplinary
rallying of research forces as well as holistic planning.
∗ ∗ ∗
A real movement, embedded in the present dynamics of capitalism,

and in fact on an international level, communism, as construed and
supported by Marx, is not a regulatory principle (Idea), it is not a norma-
tive paradigm beyond experience, but a historically determined tendency,
a specific Negation, whose implementation requires the conscious action of
its individual and collective agents. But who are these agents? The Marx
of Communism focusses its attention on the question of the social and
political subject of revolution. On the basis of structural rearrangements
developing in the context of twenty-first century capitalism, however,
the need to redefine the content and the role of the modern proletariat
and its political vanguard as agents of the communist Negation, becomes
inevitable.
So, where are the conscious proletarians in our age of global capitalist
counter-reform, why are the communists absent, those whose individual
attitude to life and collective action will pave the way to radical social
transformation?
In the midst of the international financial crisis, Franck Fischbach
submits the following interesting, if anything, position:
The great problem for us, today, is that the bearers and architects of such a
negation can no longer be designated with the assurance which was, appar-
ently at least, that of Marx. […] I obviously do not mean that today there
are no longer any identifiable proletarians or workers; on the contrary,
the proletarianisation of entire sectors of the population is a process that
the current phase of capitalism has accelerated to an extent unimaginable
even fifteen years ago. But that is not where the question nor the problem
lies, simply because the objective fact of proletarianisation alone does not
suffice, and never has sufficed, to generate ‘communists’. The question is

to know who and where are those who, amongst today’s proletariat and
the workers (material or immaterial), are likely to be communists, to act,
to think and to live as communists […].16
The question of identifying the communist proletarians of our time is

indeed crucial, especially since our era is marked by the speed, sharp-
ness, as well as fluidity of the developments that permeate and readjust
the functions of bourgeois societies and the way of life within them.
In addressing the issue of a communist theory of transition, the Marx
of Communism, without underestimating the economic/structural deter-
mination of these developments, seeks to shift, to a certain extent, the
research interest from the critique of political economy to the field
of synthesis of a communist humanism, which would not only be the
outcome but also the precondition for the communist becoming of a new
world.
The observation that Marx “this outstanding critic of political
economy, was also, at the same time, the pioneer of a true revolution
in anthropology”17 is of the highest theoretical and political value in that
respect. It is, I dare say, the refutation or, at least, the undervaluation of
this truth, which is associated, at least in part, with the chronic and painful
absence of a conscious social and political agent of the great Negation.
If we want to help the old mole of the communist revolution find its
way back, the anthropological thought, whose foundations were laid by
the communist Marx himself, must be upgraded so as to give a practical
answer to the barbaric daily life of “unskilled people”, which are produced
as a natural phenomenon and as a natural need by the bourgeois system
of class exploitation and state power.
∗ ∗ ∗
In the pages of the Marx of Democracy, where I supported “true

democracy” as a philosophical prelude to communism, I approached poli-
tics in distinction to the state, but also beyond it, that is as a fundamental
16 Ibid, pp. 18–9.

17 Lucien Sève, “Marx contre-attaque”, Le Monde Diplomatique, December 2008,
available at https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2008/12/SEVE/16612 (accessed on
01/05/2021).
16 A. CHRYSIS
expression of the way of life in a classless and stateless society, a commu-

nist society. In Aristotelian terms, I traced politics on the verge of poiesis
and praxis , attempting first and foremost to demonstrate that politics is
not simply the means of solving problems of survival, as it is treated—at
best—by the instrumental bourgeois culture, but also a purpose/value
per se, given that in the context of “true democracy”, which is the
philosophical model of the communist polity, politics forms man as a
personality and transforms a set of people into a demos , into a collective
of citizens. The Marx of Communism, by defining communism as tran-
scendence, as elevation and not as abolition of democracy, deepens and
broadens the question developed initially in the Marx of Democracy.
As the French Marxist André Tosel characteristically observed:
[…] radical democracy opens at its limits. It remains for it to lead the battle
against actual submission to the practices of capital. It remains to let itself
swirl productively around the communist question posed by the old and
inexhaustible Karl Marx. If communism implies radical democracy, then it
[radical democracy] is incomplete and unachievable when it is detached
from communism.18
No objection! The inextricable link between democracy and communism

is, after all, at the heart of a contemporary communist alternative, whose
outline begins to emerge in the pages of the Marx of Communism that
follow. The communist polity, which is politically formed in a classless and
stateless society of freedom and equality, the communist collective which
does not exterminate, but respects and feeds on difference, is the subject
of our impending encounter with the communist Marx. After all, the
communism of moderation as the political culture and the cultural politics
of an autonomous demos, which sets limits to the excessive and destruc-
tive, both for man and the natural environment, worship of technology,
production, and consumption, is the locus and the means to complete, at
least for the time being, the journey of the Marx of revolt, the Marx of
democracy, and the Marx of communism.
18 Tosel (2009, p. 144).

References
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Vers la pensée planetaire: le devenir-pensée du monde et le devenir-monde de
la pensée. Paris: Éditions de Minuit, pp. 178-216.
Barker, Jason. 2018. “Happy Birthday, Karl Marx. You Were Right!”, The New
York Times, 04.30.2018, available at: https://mobile.nytimes.com/2018/
04/30/opinion/karl-marx-at-200-influence.html.
Chrysis, Alexandros. 2018. “True Democracy” as a Prelude to Communism. The
Marx of Democracy. Cham Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan.
Fischbach, Franck. 2011. “Marx and Communism”. Krisis, 1, pp. 14–20.
Hardt, Michael - Negri, Antonio. 2000. Empire. Cambridge MA and London:
Harvard University Press.
Jameson, Fredric. 2010. “A New Reading of Capital”. Mediations 25 (1), Fall,
pp. 5–14.
Luxemburg, Rosa. 1970. “Stagnation and Progress of Marxism”, in Mary-Alice
Waters (ed.). Rosa Luxemburg Speaks. New York: Pathfinder Press.
Magri, Lucio. 2008. “The Tailor of Ulm”. New Left Review, 51, May-June,
pp. 47–62.
Marx, Karl. 1980. “Speech at the Anniversary of the People’s Paper”, in K. Marx –
F. Engels. Collected Works, vol. 14. Progress Publishers, Moscow.
Sève Lucien. 2008. “Marx contre-attaque”, Le Monde Diplomatique, December
2008, available at: https://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/2008/12/SEVE/
16612.
Sève, Lucien. 2020. “Le communisme est mort, vive le communisme!”, L’
Humanité, 24/03/2020, available at: https://www.humanite.fr/lucien-seve-
le-communisme-est-mort-vive-le-communisme-686802.
Tharoor, Ishaan. 2018. “Why the Specter of Marx Still Haunts the World”,
The Washington Post, 05.08.2018, available at: https://www.washingtonpost.
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nts-the-world/?utm_term=.ec56ca92777b.
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lisms-flaws-surprisingly-relevant-rulers.
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Contretemps, 1, January, 135–144.
CHAPTER 2
Marx in the City of Enlightenment

and Revolutions
∗ ∗ ∗
When the Marx couple settled in Paris in October 1843, two of the
most radical intellectuals of the time, the democrat, Arnold Ruge, and the
exponent of philosophical communism, Moses Hess, personalities whose
lives and work intersected in a short, yet dense, period of time with
Marx’s life and work, had already settled there. Their main purpose was
the publication of a new review, the German–French Chronicles [Deutsch-
Französische Jahrbücher], while they shared a sense of the new course
that the world had taken with the French Revolution. Ruge’s confession
is typical in that respect:
We are going to France, the threshold of a new world. May it live up to

our dreams! At the end of our journey, we will find the vast valley of Paris,
the cradle of the new Europe, the great laboratory where world history is
formed and has its ever-fresh source. It is in Paris that we shall live our
victories and our defeats. Even our philosophy, the field where we are in
advance of our time, will only be able to triumph when proclaimed in Paris
and impregnated with the French spirit. [Paris] is the focal point of the
European spirit, here the heart of world history lies before us … Above
all, since the time of Athens and Rome, the history of men became the
© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 19

Switzerland AG 2022
A. Chrysis, The Marx of Communism, Marx, Engels, and Marxisms,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-06742-6_2
20 A. CHRYSIS
history of their absurdities; the renewal of the humanised world movement

is still very young. It begins with the Revolution. For the Revolution has
been the first reminder that heroes, republicans and free men once existed
in the world.1
Friedrich Engels’ view of Paris remained unchanged a few years later,

when, in the end of October of the emblematic year 1848, travelling on
foot towards Bern, he emphatically noted:
And only France has a Paris, a city in which European civilisation has its
finest flowering, in which all the nerve-fibres of European history unite
and from which emanate at measured intervals those electric shocks which
can shake a whole world; a city whose population combines a passion for
pleasure with a passion for historical action like no other people, whose
populace know how to live like the most refined Epicurean of Athens
and to die like the most intrepid Spartan, Alcibiades and Leonidas in one
person; a city which really is, as Louis Blanc says, the heart and mind of
the world.2
In such a cultural and historical milieu, it must be taken for granted that,
even for Marx, settling in Paris was not simply the culmination of a move-
ment in terms of space. It marks the end of a deeper existential shift
from the German atmosphere, from the “the reign of stupidity itself”, to
the bright world of the French capital, the city he described as “the old
university of philosophy”, “the new capital of the new world!”.3 Even if
1 Excerpts from Alnord Ruge’s oeuvre Two Years in Paris, cited in David McLellan
(1973, p. 57) and in Gareth Stedman Jones (2016, p. 147).
2 Friedrich Engels, “From Paris to Berne”, in Marx and Engels (1977, vol. 7, p. 512).
3 Karl Marx, Marx to Ruge, September 1843, in K. Marx and F. Engels (1975, vol. 3,
p. 142). It is worth noting, however, that one of the most important historians of ideas
of the twentieth century, Isaiah Berlin (1939, p. 85), does not share the deeper existential
motives of Marx’s movement. He focuses, instead, on the practical aspects, maintaining
that: “Marx had not, however, come to Paris in quest of novel experience. He was a man
of unemotional, even frigid nature, upon whom environment produced little effect, and
who rather imposed his own unvarying form on any situation in which he found himself:
he distrusted all enthusiasm and in particular one which fed on gallant phrases. Unlike his
compatriot, the poet Heine, or the Russian revolutionaries Herzen and Bakunin, he did
not experience that sense of emancipation, which in ecstatic letters they proclaimed that
they had found in this centre of all that was most admirable in European civilisation. He
chose Paris rather than Brussels or some town in Switzerland for the more practical and
specific reason that it seemed to him the most convenient place from which to issue the
2 MARX IN THE CITY OF ENLIGHTENMENT AND REVOLUTIONS 21
the attempt to publish the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher proved unsuc-

cessful, Marx insisted his decision to leave Germany should be considered
irreversible, since in Germany “the atmosphere […] makes one a serf”
and there is no prospect of “free activity”.4
So, let us ask ourselves:
What is the true character of Paris in the 1840s, in which Marx, as a
thinker and revolutionary, would be elevated from the level of democracy
to that of communism?
In the middle of the nineteenth century, the French capital of more
than one million inhabitants, an urban metropolis with skilled workers, is
certainly far from the factory-type capitalism. In particular, according to
the data cited by Gareth Stedman Jones—among others—in his critical
biography of Karl Marx, “in 1848, [in Paris] 50 per cent worked alone or
were assisted by a single employee; and only one in ten shops employed
more than ten workers”.5 During the same period, Paris had established
itself as a capitalist metropolis which “hosted” a significant number of
immigrants, who had settled there arriving mainly from neighbouring
countries, primarily from Germany. This migration to the city of Revolu-
tion began after 1815, and by the mid-1840s a population of 40–60,000
German immigrants—craftsmen (shoemakers, printers, tailors, etc.) and
intellectuals (teachers, artists, etc.)—had already been formed.6
Therefore, a number of critical questions arise in this regard:
In what way and to what extent was the social and cultural osmosis
of these two elements of the German world, the craftsmen and the
intellectuals, practically achieved in Paris?
From their own point of view, eminent scholars of the Marxian oeuvre
and biography, such as Boris Nikolaievsky and Otto Maenchen-Helfen,
Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, which was intended as much for the non-German as for
the German public”.
4 Karl Marx, Marx to Ruge, September 1843, in Marx and Engels (1975, vol. 3,
p. 142).
5 Gareth Stedman Jones (2016, p. 146).
6 Ibid. Similar data are provided by Marx’s biographer Jonathan Sperber (2013,
pp. 116–119).
Besides, in the context of his own research, P. H. Noyes (1966, p. 50) estimates
the size of the German community in Paris during the same period at around 80–85
thousand.
Boris Nicolaievsky and Otto Maenchen-Helfen’s (1936, p. 85) estimation is similar to
that of Noyes.
22 A. CHRYSIS
are adamant when stating that “this large colony was divided into two
sections having practically no contact with one another. One consisted
of writers and artists and the other of artisans”.7 And perhaps, this is
the ground where the historical roots of one of the most divisive issues
for the communist movement to this day is located. I am alluding here
to the relationship between radical bourgeois intellectuals and workers, a
relationship inextricably linked to the organisation of the working class
into a political party, that is, an organised political vanguard fighting for a
communist revolution. I cannot but persist for a bit longer in examining
the historical and sociological question inevitably arising here, in order to
avoid being trapped from the outset in an abstract—and, at the end of
the day, metaphysical—view of the proletariat as the subject of a radical
revolution.
Who are the workers are we referring to? Who are the workers that
Marx is going to meet in Paris, and, ultimately, who is the proletariat
that this radical bourgeois intellectual conceives as the potential subject
of universal emancipation?
According to P. H. Noyes’ historical/sociological study:
Artisans, and not industrial workers, were the major source of mass revo-
lutionary unrest in mid-nineteenth century Europe. In England it was the
depressed and declining handloom weavers who formed the core of the
Chartist movement; in France it was a Paris where small craftsmen still
predominated that fought the classical social-revolutionary battles of the
June Days; in Germany the artisans provided the force, or potential force,
which lay behind the revolutions of 1848. Threatened with extinction or
submersion in the mass of the proletariat, the artisans revolted, some-
times in the name of their traditional guilds, sometimes paradoxically in
the name of that “working class” whose very formation they sought to
avoid. Indeed, the decline of the artisans, or rather their changed position,
may well account for the decreasing danger of revolution in the latter part
of the century.8
7 Nikolaievsky and Maenchen-Helfen (1936), ibid.

8 Noyes (1966, p. 3).
Noyes (1966, p. 9) notes in regard to the German proletariat: “The working class
in Germany in 1848, […] was not a modern ‘industrial proletariat’; it was composed
primarily of artisans, trained in the guild system to carry out the old skilled trades
which were being threatened by the use of machines, the factory system and the growing
competition from abroad”.
At this point, a number of crucial conclusions can safely be drawn:
1. The working class of the 1840s, especially, but not only, in Germany,
is to a large extent a multifaceted and multi-layered social subject, far
distanced from the “ideal proletariat” of an anti-capitalist revolution.
The constitution of this subject is the outcome of a wide class spec-
trum, ranging from the declining strata of craftsmen to the social
stratum, to which Marx attributes the term “Lumpen-Proletariat”.9
2. Within this class-defined, multi-coloured spectrum, often obscured
by the term “proletariat”, the industrial proletariat, which develops
dynamically yet asymmetrically from country to country, does not
cease to fall quantitatively behind in comparison to craftsmen, at
least in continental Europe.
3. The boundaries between the working class and the small and
medium-sized urban strata are proven fluid.10
4. On the European continent, and especially in countries such as
France and, even more so, Germany, the proletariat is formed not
so much as the outcome but as a constitutive part of the Indus-
trial Revolution, in the sense that it precedes capitalist industrial
development.11
In such a context, what proves to be of major importance is the fact

that the proletarians in Paris, and especially those who found themselves
in the French capital after “escaping” from the inhospitable and authori-
tarian Prussia, do not originate in the productive cells of the rising factory
capitalism, but in the production structures of a declining pre-industrial
mode of production.12 Therefore, the following question arises:
9 Ibid., pp. 15–16. In relation to the stratification of the German proletariat, see the
table quoted by Noyes, according to which, in 1846, 33% of those employed in the
industrial sector of Prussia were independent craftsmen. Excluding craftsmen, the industrial
working class of Prussia accounted for 27.2% of the total male Prussian population over
the age of 14, but only 4.2% of this population were factory workers (ibid., p. 21). Finally,
during the same period, the most populous stratum of the Prussian working class in toto
was the traditional artisans working in the sector of the medieval guilds (about 14% of
the total population; ibid., p. 24).
10 Ibid., p. 16.
11 Ibid., p. 23.
12 Based on this historically indisputable sociological observation, George C. Comninel
(2000, pp. 470–471), in mistaking the pre-capitalist stage of development in continental
24 A. CHRYSIS
To what extent is the communist ideal of the Parisian proletarians a

variant of the anti-capitalist romanticism of the guild? And to what extent
is it a prelude to a communist social formation, that is to a technologically
advanced community of autonomous and creative people?
Actually, the communist alternative to capitalism is still drawing its
poetry from the past. At the same time, however, such a communist ideal
proves to be the horizon of social emancipation for those people who see
their lives, their profession-craft crushed by the escalating development
of capitalism and the Industrial Revolution. In search of this social and
cultural perspective, the role of proletarian study associations and groups,
but also that of educational clubs, is crucial.13 While showing a lively
interest in the most radical aspects of the European Enlightenment, these
institutions serve and promote the contact between a proletarian avant-
garde and the communist and socialist literature of the time. Thus, the
associations and clubs, within which the most socially sensitive and intel-
lectually restless elements of the proletarian world of the European urban
centres are gathered, would become, depending on the particularities of
each case, the cradle of a new class consciousness and a new culture.14
Europe for a pre-industrial one, concludes with a provocative yet disputable claim: “Nev-
ertheless, it was in Marx’s earliest writings, specifically through the development of his
ideas between the summer of 1843 and the spring of 1844, that pre-capitalist Europe first
confronted the profoundly new reality of capitalist social relations. One lesson we may
learn for a contextually specific consideration of these works is the paradoxical one that
Marx’s critical insights into the nature of capitalist society may well have been facilitated
by the very absence of capitalist presuppositions in his intellectual formation”.
13 Referring specifically to the case of such proletarian institutions in Germany, Noyes
(op. cit., pp. 44, 46), takes an interesting sceptical stance and comments accordingly:
“Most were organised by workers who had travelled abroad during their period as jour-
neymen and had been in contact with the various branches of the old League of the
Just, which had dispersed from Paris after its implication in the Blanquist conspiracy of
1839. […] Yet it is very doubtful if this sort of socialist organisation attracted much
support among the workers themselves. The communist groups in Germany were prob-
ably uninterested in the reforms made by Marx and the London group; they remained
loyal to the older Utopian theories, or perhaps unable to distinguish between them and
the newer sort, accepting any theory without a great deal of care as to its precise meaning
or implications”.
14 Ibid., p. 49: “The clubs, whatever their declared purpose, served to develop a spirit
of unity among the working-class members, a sense of common cause which was to carry
over into the revolution. They provided an alternative to the declining master-dominated
guilds. Moreover, in discussions with the more travelled members, many workers came
through the clubs to be aware of the growing body of socialist theory. Specific attempts
to use the clubs to form ‘communist cells’ were generally unsuccessful, but at the same
In other words, politics and culture intersect and flourish in these

meeting places of the proletarian avant-garde of the 1840s. Both the
general and specific conditions of the French capital proved to be
exceptionally conducive to such a productive process. Besides being the
epicentre of critical social and political developments, the City of Enlight-
enment would never cease to be a multifaceted field of intellectual and
artistic production, within which politics intervened in fascinating, and
sometimes subversive, ways since the eighteenth century. The Paris of
culture and the Paris of politics were two interconnected aspects of the
new world, a bi-polar phenomenon that exerted a special attraction to the
sensitive minds receptive to art as well as political theory and praxis. And
in that sense, it would not be an exaggeration to claim that the case of
Paris is revealed as the cradle of Marxian communism qua a condensed
expression of such a convergence between politics and culture, a conver-
gence which was announced by the Gallic rooster of revolution. As Isaiah
Berlin reminds us, “the social, political and artistic ferment of Paris in
the middle of the nineteenth century is a phenomenon without parallel in
European history. A remarkable concourse of poets, painters, musicians,
writers, reformers and theorists had gathered in the French capital, which,
under the comparatively tolerant monarchy of Louis Philippe, provided
asylum to exiles and revolutionaries of many lands”.15
For his part, Marx himself did not fail to define the character of this
still moderate constitutional monarchy of Louis Philippe, which came
to power with the so-called July Revolution of 1830. According to the
time the attempt to keep the clubs apolitical, to prevent the discussion of controversial
topics, also failed. The clubs were, in the words of one of their members, ‘a school for
growing revolutionaries.’ [Born] They produced a degree of class consciousness which,
though not always corresponding to the actual social and economic situation in Germany,
was to prepare the workers and artisans to defend and promote the interests of their
‘class.’”
15 Isaiah Berlin (1939, p. 82).
In his description, Sperber (2013, p. 102), referring to the Paris of culture, notes: “no
central European city could compete with the richness and diversity of the cultural and
intellectual life in the great French metropolis. Every kind of literature abounded, from
the classics portrayed by the Comédie Française, to the Romantic writings of Victor Hugo
or Jules Michelet, to the realism of Honoré de Balzac, whom Marx admired greatly, to
the popular forms of literature in the boulevard theaters and the enormously successful
works of the sentimental novelist Eugène Sue, whom Marx deeply despised. The art world
was no less varied, from the old masters at the Louvre to the avant-garde realists, such as
Courbet, to the intensely politicised satirical cartoons and lampoons of Daumier”.
26 A. CHRYSIS
radical intellectual, this was the regime that expressed a dynamically rising
aristocracy of money, a part of the bourgeoisie mainly connected to the
banking sector, with leading figures, such as the banker, Laffite, and the
historian and politician, Guizot. In his Class Struggles in France. 1848–
1850, Marx, while analysing the revolutionary events of 1848 in the heat
of the moment, would look back and give a brief but accurate description
of the 1830–1848 monarchy, which had just collapsed:
After the July Revolution [of 1830], when the liberal banker Laffitte led
his compère, the Duke of Orleans, in triumph to the Hôtel de Ville, he let
fall the words: ‘From now on the bankers will rule.’ Laffitte had betrayed
the secret of the revolution.16
∗ ∗ ∗
Undoubtedly, France of the 1830–1848 period marked a turning point

in the continuum of the long revolutionary waves that began to unfold
in mainland Europe in 1789. This is a new era, a new “moment” for the
bourgeois dynamics of French society. And, naturally, Marx was not the
only one, but neither was he the first to approach and understand the
social and political developments of those times in terms of class analysis.
As he would later acknowledge and recall in one of his letters to Joseph
Weydemeyer, his friend, collaborator, and an important figure of the inter-
national communist movement, it was not he himself who had discovered
the existence of classes and class struggle in modern society. “Long
before me”, Marx admits “bourgeois historians had described the histor-
ical development of this struggle between the classes, as had bourgeois
economists their economic anatomy”.17 In fact, the Marxian reference
to historians such as Guizot, Thierry, and Wade in the same letter is
rather telling.18 Yet, the work which most clearly documents Marx’s
specific remark is that of the German Hegelian Lorenz von Stein, with
the characteristic title Socialism and Communism in Modern France.19
16 Karl Marx, The Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850 (1978, vol. 10, p. 48).
17 Karl Marx, Marx to Joseph Weydemeyer, 5 March 1852, in Marx and Engels (1978,
vol. 39, p. 62).
18 Ibid., p. 61.
19 As Charles Rihs (1969, p. 405) notes, “Through the perspective of Hegel’s dialectic,
his teacher, [Stein] perhaps the first to identify the notion of class struggle in history,
The first version of von Stein’s study, who would remain in Paris from
October 1841 until March 1843, developing direct contacts with, among
others, Considérant, Reybaud, Blanc, and Cabet, would get published in
1842, about a year before the Marx couple arrived and settled in Paris.20
The study would meet considerable publishing success and an extended
version would be republished in 1848 and in 1850, thus taking the form
of a three-volume opus entitled The History of the Social Movement in
France from 1789 to the present day [1850].
I do not intend to expand on a general presentation and related crit-
ical commentary of Lorenz von Stein’s work, as this is not the aim of
my own engagement. Nonetheless, I believe that the demonstration of
the influence—however indirect—that von Stein’s work had on Marxian
thought can be proven productive. This is because the pages of these
three volumes reveal and highlight aspects of French society which had
certainly attracted the young Marx’s interest at the exact time when his
own endorsement of the communist cause was maturing at a rapid pace.
Moreover, the fact that Marx did not take long to read Stein’s work
and form an opinion about it, is sufficiently substantiated via the rele-
vant literary sources. Suffice it to note Marx’s direct reference to Stein
in his critique against the “true socialist” Karl Grün, as it figures in the
pages of The German Ideology in the mid-1840s. By accusing Grün of
being a copyist of Stein, Marx takes a critical stance against the ideas of
Saint-Simon and his followers, and, while quoting several passages from
Socialism and Communism in Modern France, he concludes, among other
things, on the following observation:
Stein […] at least tried to explain the connection between socialist liter-
ature and the real development of French society. […] Stein himself is
extremely vague when he speaks of a ‘political factor’ in ‘the science of
defined the role of the proletariat in the French Revolution, in socialism and communism,
its logical extensions”.
20 On the ideological determinants of Lorenz von Stein’s thought, see Kaethe Mengel-
berg’s introduction, who edited and translated his work into English, Lorenz von Stein,
The History of the Social Movement in France, 1789–1850 (1964). See also: Stefan
Koslowski (2017), Charles Rihs (1969), Norbert Waszek (2001).
28 A. CHRYSIS
industry’. But he shows that he is on the right track by adding that the
history of the state is intimately connected with the history of national
economy.21
It goes without saying that the direct engagement with Lorenz von Stein’s
work and thought is not sufficient to allow for the assessment of his
writings’ influence on Marx’s transition to communism.22 After all, the
debate about the manner and degree of influence Lorenz von Stein’s anal-
yses had on the emerging communist Marx has preoccupied the relevant
literature23 for a long time and to a considerable extent. In fact, Marx’s
approach to the work of Lorenz von Stein did not came out of the blue.
Von Stein’s monograph on socialism and communism in the France of his
time not only expressed, but also promoted, the dynamics of the socialist
and communist currents in the French capital, the capital of politics and
revolutions, but also beyond it.24
Indeed, as attested in Bakunin’s confession, Lorenz von Stein’s work
had caused a sensation well beyond Paris. “At that time”, as Bakunin
21 Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, The German Ideology, in Marx and Engels (1976,
vol. 5, pp. 492, 503). Engels rejects Stein’s work, describing the book’s content as “dull”
and “miserable” (Friedrich Engels, “Letters from London”, in Marx and Engels (1975,
vol. 3, p. 388).
22 Kaethe Mengelberg (1961, p. 267) who had previously argued that “the extent
to which Marx was familiar with Stein’s concepts and the degree to which he adopted
them cannot be adequately determined” notes in a later account of the matter: “Marx
certainly never acknowledged having received any stimulation from Stein. The comments
in his Anti-Grün, though not unfavourable—due to the fact that he wanted to illustrate
Grün’s plagiarism—indicate that Marx looks down upon Stein as having merely presented
a rehash of Saint-Simon’s theory. He did not consider him as an original thinker”.
23 The opposition between the Russian “legitimate Marxist” Struve and the German
Social Democrat Mehring is typical in this case: while the former advocates the influence
of Stein’s ideas on the thought and work of the young Marx by recognizing social realism
in terms of class struggle in Stein’s analysis, the latter rejects such an interpretation and
treats Stein as the author of a compilation of other works and ideas. In the relevant
post-war research, John Weiss’s (1963, p. 81, note 1) well-documented and moderately
formulated position is remarkable: “There is little evidence that Stein had much direct
or far-reaching influence over Karl Marx. Their ideas have much in common, but that is
because many of their ideas were fairly common among the intellectuals of the German
forties”.
24 For a more comprehensive view of the treatment of Stein’s ideas by the socialist liter-
ature of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, see the interesting accounts by: Raimund
Hörburger (1974, pp. 388 ff.); Kaethe Mengelberg, “Introduction”, in The History of the
Social Movement in France, 1789–1850 (1964, pp. 25–33).
admits, “a number of pamphlets, reviews, political poems appeared in

Germany, which I read insatiably. It was then that I first heard the word
communism. Dr Stein published a book entitled The Socialists in France,
which made such a vivid and unanimous sensation as that of Dr Strauss’
Life of Jesus”.25
The interest of the Rheinische Zeitung , even in the last days of its publi-
cation, in the work of Lorenz von Stein, should not be ignored either. The
book review of Stein’s monograph on socialism and communism on the
eve of Marx’s forced withdrawal from the editorial board demonstrates
the importance of Stein’s positions to the Hegelian Left of his time.26
Arnold Ruge’s personal relationship and correspondence with Lorenz
von Stein also reinforces the working hypothesis of a strong osmosis
between French socialism and communism—largely still utopian—and
German left-wing Hegelianism.27 Furthermore, it could be argued—and
it was indeed argued, albeit without adequate substantiation—that the
undisputed shift of the young editor-in-chief of the Rheinische Zeitung ,
25 “Bakounine et sa confession au Tsar Nicolas 1er”, in Jacques Duclos, Bakounine et

Marx. Ombre et lumière, Plon, Paris 1974, p. 347.
Moses Hess (“Socialism and Communism”, in Moses Hess 2004, p. 107) takes a
critical stance against Lorenz von Stein’s work and writes accordingly: “The whole of
Stein’s book is basically nothing else than a long groan, which is what one can expect
from those who cannot grasp the positive substance of our modern strivings and therefore
imagine that they can nonetheless stand above them—and who then bemoan the ‘negative’
tendencies of the age because they are incapable of perceiving their positive content”.
26 We are not sure about the identity of the author of this book review, which was
published in the Rheinische Zeitung on March 16, 1843. However, according to Raimund
Hörburger (1974, p. 405), the author is not Moses Hess, as it has been assumed at times,
but someone from “Marx’s immediate environment, if not Marx himself”.
27 For the Ruge-Stein relationship and the reception of the latter’s work on socialism
and communism in 1842 by the German philosophical reviews, see, among others,
Hörburger’s article “Lorenz von Stein et Karl Marx” (1974, pp. 390–392).
As Norbert Waszek (2001, p. 222) said, shortly after the publication of Socialism and
Communism (1842), Stein and the New Hegelians would fall out, as Stein’s work would
be strongly criticised on their part.
30 A. CHRYSIS
Marx, towards the critical correlation between the state and material inter-
ests/property is due, in part, to the impact of Stein’s ideas.28 But let us
be more specific.
Stein’s emblematic work on socialism and communism in the France of
his own time sees the July Revolution from the outset as “the beginning
of a completely new era” and as “a new chapter in the fierce antagonism
between society and the state”.29 During this period, Stein would argue,
“it will become evident that this antagonism between capitalists and the
proletariat is the essential factor in the coming history of Europe, which
is based on an acquisitive society”.30 Indeed, although it was a victory for
the people, the revolution of 1830 established a political system in the
service of the class of bourgeois private owners. We can observe at this
point an inherent contradiction which pervades French society and, as it
has rightly been pointed out, this contradiction could only be resolved
in one of two ways: either in the direction of a republican state or in
that of a communist society.31 As Rihs notes, although during the first
phase (1830–1835), communists and republicans formed a united oppo-
sition party against the new monarchy of Louis Philippe, over time the
paths of the communist and the radical democratic currents started to
diverge. It was a process that culminated in the Blanquist uprising of May
12, 1839, which marked the political divorce between republicanism and
communism of that time.32
28 Raimund Hörburger (1974, pp. 394 ff.), attempts to attribute Marx’s writings on
the theft of wood as well as the correlation of Marxian critique of the state with property
and material interests to the influence of Lorenz von Stein’s positions on socialism and
communism. For my part, I have argued that, as early as October 1842, Marx turned
to a republican critique of the state as a servant of material interests and private owners
(Chrysis 2018, especially pp. 119–120). Yet, in the absence of convincing evidence, I
cannot accept the direct connection of this turn with Stein’s social realism, as Hörburger
claims.
29 Lorenz von Stein (1964, p. 239).
30 Ibid., p. 269.
31 Rihs (1969, pp. 437–438).
32 Ibid., pp. 438–439.
The “acquisitive society”, which is assuming an increasingly intense

class form, according to Lorenz von Stein, is the society of “free enter-
prise” and “freedom of contract”,33 an “industrial society”,34 which,
operating on the basis of social division of labour,
assigns to each individual worker a specific task which he has to perform

throughout his whole working life. The constant repetition in the applica-
tion of the same skill affects the equilibrium not only of his body but also
of his mind. … The industrial workers lose perspective and become merely
an instrument without a will of his own.35
It is in this sense that the July Revolution inaugurates a new era in the
social formation and functioning not only of France, but also of the Euro-
pean continent in general.36 The class of those deprived of capital and
property, the working class, the proletarians of this period, Stein writes,
become aware of their opposition to the domination of capital and, thus,
“with the appearance of the industrial laboring class, which was joined by
more and more workers, released from the bonds of their former masters,
the difference between the propertied and the non-propertied class had
been clearly established”.37
Following Hegel’s philosophy of right, Lorenz von Stein considers
private property as an essential condition for personality flourishing and
33 Lorenz von Stein, The History of the Social Movement in France, 1789–1850 (1964,
p. 239).
34 On the industrial society as described and analysed by Stein (1964), see, in particular,
pp. 244 ff.
35 Ibid., p. 263.
Elsewhere, Stein (1964, p. 265), concludes that: “There is no doubt that industrial
society consumes people, that it consumes the working population for the benefit of
capital.…By destroying the vitality of the individual, by debilitating whole generations, by
dissolving families, demoralisation and destruction of the will to work seriously endanger
the general conditions of civilised society”.
36 As Stein maintains (1964, p. 243), “The July Revolution definitely established indus-
trial society by destroying the last remnants of feudal society. […] the July Revolution
spells the end of the first Revolution. […] it represents the terminal point of that era.
However, by putting into effect … the social order of free acquisition the July Revolution
represents at the same time the turning point at which the inherent contradiction of this
society evolves”.
37 Ibid., p. 259.
32 A. CHRYSIS
for the harmonious functioning of society.38 As Stein observes, however,

the acquisitive society, as it emerges and takes shape through the July
Revolution, turns more and more of its members into proletarians,
hinders the development of their personality, exacerbates social inequality
and class struggle, and creates the conditions for social revolution, in the
event of which, Stein appears particularly anxious.39
The legal freedom, formally enjoyed by the worker in industrial society,
Stein argues, should not create illusions. Given his own and his family’s
dependence on a wage determined and paid by his capitalist employer,
“the labourer submits to the factory owner with the same inevitable neces-
sity that he submits to his needs. In spite of all legal liberty, he is in fact
not free.”40 Hence, the clear distinction between the formal and substan-
tive recognition of rights, above all, those of freedom and equality in
Stein’s sociological approach. Such a view derives, in the final instance,
from an understanding of the French Revolution of 1789, but also that
of 1830, as radical transformations which evolve not only on the polit-
ical, but primarily on the social level. In that sense, Stein, while taking
notice of the fact that the social issue is not addressed in terms of class
struggle, reaches the conclusion that freedom and equality are reduced in
formal political principles and rights.41 For the author of the History of the
Social Movement in France from 1789 to the Present Day, the dynamics of
the acquisitive/industrial society forces a large part of its members into a
state of wage slavery. In the real world the rights of equality and freedom
proclaimed by the declarations of bourgeois revolutions do not acquire
substantial content:
38 As Norbert Waszek (2001, p. 233) notes, “It is in Stein’s argument for private
property that its proximity with Hegel is the greatest. But it is also at this point where
one of the most important dividing lines between his thought and that by Karl Marx is
located”.
39 As John Weiss has aptly noted (1963, p. 85): “The undoubted supremacy of the
bourgeoisie in the July Monarchy became, for Stein, the unqualified first premise of a
deductive system of class law. If nothing interferes (an important qualification as we shall
see) the capitalists will establish a true Kastenstaat: workers organisations will be outlawed,
the proletariat will be condemned to remain propertyless, and eventually the owners will
make their rule lasting by associating the power of the state with divinity itself”.
40 Lorenz von Stein (1964, p. 260).
41 In an important remark, Kaethe Mengelberg (1961, p. 274) submits the following
parallel: “There is a certain kinship between the views of Lorenz von Stein and those
of his French contemporary Alexis de Tocqueville. The interest of both was primarily
focused on the French Revolution. If Tocqueville’s concern was to interpret it not so
much as a political event but as a ‘manifestation of a great global movement towards
social democracy’ […] the very same may be said about Lorenz von Stein”.
Another random document with
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libertad personal. En el procedimiento civil podía también privarse a
ciudadano de su libertad incapacitándolo para realizar actos de
derecho privado, mas no era posible privarle definitivamente de su
situación o estado de ciudadano; solo con respecto a la addictio
establecida por la ley para el hurto calificado, se ha discutido si e
condenado por tal hecho no caería en esclavitud. Acaso la
inadmisibilidad de la cualidad de ciudadano cuando alcanzara toda su
completa fuerza fuese en la época republicana ya avanzada.
La pura renuncia del derecho de ciudadano no produce efectos
jurídicos, pues ni el ciudadano puede por sí mismo, unilateralmente
romper sus relaciones con la comunidad, ni para la confirmación po
parte de esta de un acto semejante, completamente negativo, ha
existido forma jurídica ninguna.
CAPÍTULO V
organización de la comunidad patricio-plebeya
La organización mediante la cual se hizo posible que la ciudadanía

cumpliera sus fines administrativos, especialmente el servicio de las
armas y el de impuestos, y participase en el Gobierno, la tenemos en
el Estado patricio-plebeyo, en cuanto a partir de este momento la
ordenación por curias del Estado gentilicio en la forma dicha (pág. 25
comprende también a los plebeyos y penetra en el ampliado círculo de
la ciudadanía. Pero de esta ordenación por curias no se hizo uso más
que para ciertos actos de Gobierno de orden subordinado
especialmente para la adrogación y el testamento; toda la
administración y la parte esencial de la autonomía gubernativa, la
legislación y la elección para los cargos públicos tuvieron en la nueva
ciudadanía otro fundamento, de conformidad con el cual fue
nuevamente organizada la ciudadanía misma.
Este fundamento fue la posesión inmueble, la propiedad privada
del suelo. Junto a la obligación de las armas y de los impuestos que
comprenden a todos los ciudadanos, tenemos el servicio militar con
armas propias y el impuesto territorial basado en la posesión. Además
el pueblo armado reunido en Asamblea se considera como la
comunidad que se determina por sí misma. Con lo cual la curia, o lo
que es lo mismo, la familia, desaparece bajo el aspecto político: si en
otro tiempo solo el patricio como tal era llamado a servir militarmente y
a pagar impuestos, y su lugar en la milicia y entre los contribuyentes lo
indicaba la familia, ahora ya, en las cosas capitales — en la caballería
le quedan aún a los miembros de la familia algunos derechos
privilegiados — no se tiene en cuenta la distinción entre nobles y
ciudadanos, y cada uno ocupa el lugar que le corresponde según e
círculo en que se halla colocado por razón de los bienes inmuebles
que posee.
La denominación dada a los círculos de posesión es la misma con
la cual se designaban los tres más antiguos Estados de familia que
mezclados, componían un todo (pág. 25); pero estas nuevas tribus, las
denominadas servianas, se diferenciaban completamente de las
romulianas, tanto en su esencia como en su número. La tribu antigua
era un compuesto de cierto número de familias; por tanto, su lazo era
personal, hallándose unida territorialmente solo en cuanto y mientras
estas familias se hallaban aposentadas unas al lado de otras en
propiedad inalienable; la tribu nueva es esencialmente local, es e
compuesto de aquellos ciudadanos que poseen una determinada
porción del territorio del Estado, por lo que su personal cambia
frecuentemente. Si las primeras fueron todos propiamente políticos, y
solo se convirtieron en partes por la evolución synokística, las
segundas, en cambio, sin la menor duda fueron consideradas desde
un principio como barrios de ciudadanos. Conforme a lo cual, mientras
las antiguas tribus se nos presentan, por sus denominaciones, como
grupos de población, los círculos posesorios son denominados
topográficamente, y así, aquellas tres tribus de Ticios, Ramnes y
Luceres, nada tienen de común con los cuatro cuarteles Suburana
Palatina, Esquilina y Collina, que es la forma más antigua en que los
conocemos. Y que dichos cuarteles, como lo indican sus nombres
fueron desde luego distritos de la ciudad, puede inducirse
conjeturalmente por la circunstancia de que la evolución de los círculos
de posesión se verificó desde un principio, según todas las
probabilidades, paralelamente a la de la propiedad privada del suelo, y
la propiedad sobre la casa y el jardín se estableció mucho antes que la
del suelo cultivable. En esta forma, la división en cuarteles se puede
haber remontado hasta la época del Estado familiar, y puede habe
carecido en un principio de importancia política. Es inútil hace
conjeturas sobre las relaciones que pudieran existir entre las casas de
la ciudad que se hallaron en posesión particular y la porción
correspondiente a sus dueños en el campo cultivable de la familia
(pág. 16), pues no nos queda de ello vestigio alguno que pueda n
siquiera ponernos en camino de averiguarlo. Los cuarteles adquieren
reconocidamente importancia cuando la tierra se desliga de los grupos
de familias, y cada casa de la ciudad, lo propio que todo pedazo de
tierra, pueden ser adquiridos en plena propiedad romana por todos y
cada uno de los ciudadanos de la comunidad patricio-plebeya. La
obligación gentilicia del servicio militar dependía de la posesión
gentilicia del suelo; la propiedad privada del suelo trajo consigo la
obligación privada de tal servicio. La tradición histórica no se remonta
hasta el origen de esa propiedad privada; pero el establecimiento de
veinte tribus, formadas de los cuatro cuarteles primitivos de la ciudad y
de dieciséis distritos territoriales denominados con nombres de los
antiguos campos arables de las familias, indican claramente este
tránsito, debiendo notarse que, como el número de familias era mucho
mayor, cada distrito abarcó una multitud de tales cotos arables
tomando su denominación de los Emilios, Cornelios, Fabios y otras
familias de las más distinguidas. De conformidad con este punto de
partida, la división de los distritos se hizo de tal suerte, que cada
porción asignada del campo romano, es decir, cada pedazo de tierra
que el Estado declaró para propiedad particular, fue adjudicado a una
tribu, quedando fuera de estos el campo de la comunidad. Para
atender a este fin, por un lado se añadieron a los antiguos veinte
distritos otros nuevos: primero, probablemente en el año 283 (471 a
de J. C.), el Crustumina, y luego, en el año 513 (242 a. de J. C.), e
Velina y el Quirina, con lo que se llegó a alcanzar la cifra, no
traspasada, de 35 distritos; por otro lado, el Areal nuevamente añadido
se inscribió en un distrito de los ya existentes. Las cuatro antiguas
tribus urbanas fueron delimitadas y cerradas topográficamente
delimitación que pudo también servir de base a la primera introducción
de las tribus posteriormente formadas; pero no fue permanente y fija, y
sobre todo después que concluyó de formarse el número de tribus, en
el año 513 (241 a. de J. C.), fue por completo abolida.
La tribu del Estado patricio-plebeyo se halla, pues, unida al terreno
y en relación con este es invariable; pero también se enlaza con la
persona, supuesto que esta, en cuanto propietario territorial, se halla
obligada a hacer prestaciones al Estado. Ese enlace sufre ya
ampliaciones, ya limitaciones: el hijo de familia del ciudadano
poseedor pertenece a la tribu lo mismo que el padre, porque también a
él le coge la obligación del servicio militar; por el contrario, como no
tienen esta obligación la mujer propietaria ni el latino poseedor, no
pertenecen a la tribu. De la propia manera, aquel que es poseedor en
varios distritos, como solo le corresponde en uno la obligación de
servicio de las armas, solo a una tribu puede pertenecer. Enlázase con
esto también el ingreso o la cancelación o el cambio de tribu en e
censo; las autoridades no pueden alterar el hecho de la posesión, pero
pueden perfectamente modificar en los casos singulares las
consecuencias jurídicas de aquella, especialmente la obligación de las
armas. — Por consecuencia de lo dicho, en los primeros tiempos de la
República la ciudadanía se dividió en dos categorías: la de los
ciudadanos que tenían derecho para prestar el servicio militar con
armas propias, y, por tanto, el de pertenecer a tribus personales, y la
de aquellos otros que no eran tribules y que recibían la denominación
de aerarii, porque para lo que principalmente se les tenía en cuenta
era para la tributación.
Esta contraposición no llegó a consolidarse. Si en casos
particulares el magistrado negaba al poseedor el derecho de
pertenecer a las tribus personales, y acaso también llegaba a
reconocer por excepción este derecho al no poseedor, el año 442 (312
a. de J. C.) el censor Appio Claudio inscribió en las tribus a todos los
ciudadanos no poseedores en general, según parece en globo y po
voluntaria elección de las tribus, con lo cual la obligación del servicio
militar con armas propias se hizo independiente del patrimonio y no
mucho después de la posesión inmueble, y por consecuencia, la
contraposición de tribules y aerarii quedó borrada. Es verdad que los
censores del año 450 (304 a. de J. C.) limitaron los ciudadanos no
poseedores a las cuatro tribus urbanas; pero todo pleno ciudadano
romano quedó formando parte de una tribu y (prescindiendo de una
clase de semi-ciudadanos que luego examinaremos) ya no hubo, po
tanto, aerarii, ni la obligación del servicio militar fue de aquí en
adelante exclusiva de los poseedores. Por el contrario, en el respecto
político estos conservaron todavía en lo sucesivo su preeminencia
porque la gran mayoría de los distritos votantes siguieron siendo
suyos.
En el último capítulo de este libro (pág. 130) se tratará de la
conexión de las tribus con la comunidad de ciudadanos de época
posterior, tal como hubo de originarse principalmente a consecuencia
de las guerras entre los miembros que constituían la confederación, y
del cambio de tribus desde los signos de la variable posesión al de
derecho fijo de nacionalidad o de la patria, requisito para gozar de
derecho de ciudadano del Reino.
La tribu territorial corresponde en lo esencial a la antigua curia, solo
que, como más joven y menos orgánicamente formada que esta
carece por completo del culto divino común. La ley rigurosa de la
centralización política, que no puede consentir que se conceda
facultad de determinarse por sí mismas a las partes del Estado, tuvo
también aquí aplicación. La tribu se estableció primitivamente como
grupo secundario o auxiliar, carácter que conservó en cierta medida
aun después de ser abandonada la relación de proximidad local, sobre
todo porque en esta circunstancia se apoyaba la cualidad de común
que tenía el voto que le correspondía y porque los particulares distritos
fueron utilizados como corporaciones electorales independientes. Pero
la organización de distribuciones y limosnas públicas por distritos en
los últimos tiempos de la República, y más todavía durante el Imperio
dio a la tribu un carácter corporativo contrario a su propia esencia
Cada tribu tenía un jefe. En materia de impuestos es en lo que
especialmente obraban las tribus, las cuales parece que no tuvieron
significación política.
El distrito estaba destinado, parte a administrar, singularmente los
asuntos relativos al servicio de impuestos y al de las armas
practicando las operaciones necesarias al efecto; parte a procurar que
la voluntad general de la ciudadanía tuviese su legítima y adecuada
expresión, mediante la organización de los Comicios. La organización
de la ciudadanía patricio-plebeya por tribus y por centurias, que más o
menos sobre las tribus se apoyaban, lo mismo que la contraposición
entre tribules y aerarii, contraposición que todo lo dominaba, no
pueden ser explicadas de otro modo que penetrando en la manera de
hallarse organizados los impuestos y sobre todo el ejército de la época
más antigua: supuesto que la tribu es el distrito de percepción y leva, y
por ella se regula la paga y la posición del soldado de a pie y e
impuesto necesario para este fin, y la centuria comprende el efectivo
de las tropas de la caballería permanente y las unidades o individuos
jurídicamente disponibles para cada uno de los cuerpos de tropa de la
infantería no permanente, pero ambas, tribu y centuria, expresan en
conjunto la totalidad de los ciudadanos que tienen la obligación de
servir en el ejército. De esto depende la forma que ha de darse a la
Asamblea de los ciudadanos, esto es, a los Comicios, cuya naturaleza
examinaremos en el libro quinto.
Solo por excepción se hacía uso del distrito para los fines
económicos de la comunidad, puesto que por regla general esta
economía, lo mismo que la economía doméstica de los particulares, se
servía de recursos propios, esto es, de las utilidades de la posesión
común, rendimientos de pastos, diezmos de los frutos, aduanas
marítimas y otros recursos análogos, además de los productos y
adquisiciones de las guerras, de modo que en la más antigua época
los particulares tenían que soportar pocas cargas impuestas por la
comunidad. Como el terreno de esta se hallaba fuera de los distritos, la
organización de los distritos nada tenía que ver tampoco con la
administración del patrimonio de la comunidad. Los ciudadanos no
tenían que soportar más impuestos permanentes, en beneficio de la
comunidad, que los que fueran necesarios para suplir los gastos
originados por el servicio militar. En este sentido, las mujeres y
huérfanos que poseyeran un patrimonio independiente estaban
obligados a contribuir al pago del sueldo de los caballeros. Es también
probable que por todo el tiempo que el servicio de las armas solo
recayó sobre los ciudadanos poseedores, esto es, hasta mediados de
siglo V de la ciudad, los ciudadanos no inscritos como poseedores
estuvieran obligados a pagar un impuesto permanente, en razón de lo
cual se les llamó aerarii. Por el contrario, no tenemos noticia alguna de
que el extranjero que vivía en Roma en virtud del derecho de
hospitalidad, estuviese obligado al pago de semejantes impuestos
Pero en los tiempos más antiguos encontramos en la paga de los
soldados una carga de distrito que, a lo menos de hecho, puede se
considerada como permanente. Originariamente, cuando los jefes de
ejército no pagaban los gastos hechos por los soldados de a pie de las
adquisiciones realizadas en la guerra, este pago había que hacerlo po
medio de impuestos dentro del círculo o distrito, probablemente de ta
manera, que cada pedazo de terreno de los que no tenían la
obligación de empuñar las armas soportase un recargo compensatorio
en beneficio de los que la tenían, siendo el presidente del mismo, que
para esto era el tribunus, el que hacía el cómputo al efecto a cada
ciudadano, aerarius. Luego que, hacia el año 348 (406 a. de J. C.), la
paga de los soldados dejó de percibirse de los distritos y se cobraba
de la caja del Estado, siguió existiendo esta institución, pero de ta
manera, que desde entonces la caja del Estado indicaba a los
presidentes de distrito la suma con que les correspondía contribuir.
Si pues, en un principio la comunidad, como tal, no recibía
ordinariamente prestaciones económicas de los ciudadanos, sin
embargo, pudo la misma exigir de estos por modo extraordinario, tanto
servicio o prestaciones personales (operae), especialmente trabajos
manuales y de yuntas y caballos para las obras públicas, como
también ingresos en dinero (tributus), y lo mismo los unos que las
otras formaron sin duda parte esencial de la vida de los ciudadanos en
los primeros siglos de Roma. Pero los servicios personales fueron muy
pronto abolidos y los ingresos extraordinarios en la caja del Estado
llegaron también a hacerse con el tiempo innecesarios, sin que
nosotros podamos decir, sobre algunas cosas de un modo absoluto y
sobre otras insuficientemente, qué marcha se siguió en esto, y, sobre
todo, nos está vedado perseguir de una manera exacta la aplicación
que para tales fines se hizo de la organización de los distritos.
Esta afirmación vale incondicionalmente por lo que a los servicios
personales se refiere. De cuánta importancia han debido ser los
mismos, puede sospecharse por las construcciones colosales de los
muros de las ciudades, cuyo origen indica su denominación, tomada
prestada a las «obligaciones» (moenia, munera); es probable que
estas obligaciones se exigieran ante todo a los ciudadanos
poseedores, y también a los extranjeros que tuviesen bienes
inmuebles (municipes); pero no tenemos noticia ni tradición alguna
respecto a la dirección y a la distribución de los trabajos. En los
tiempos históricos, la forma de ejecución de las obras públicas fue
seguramente la de contrata.
El pago extraordinario de dinero a la comunidad, el tributus, no era
propiamente un impuesto, sino una suscripción o desembolso que la
comunidad obligaba a hacer a los ciudadanos en el caso de hallarse
temporalmente incapacitada para hacer sus pagos, y cuyo importe les
devolvía más tarde, siempre que a su juicio se hallase en disposición
de poder verificarlo. La facultad para obrar de este modo debe de
haber existido desde muy temprano. Pero ya se comprende que esta
carga debe haber aumentado considerablemente cuando el pago de
las tropas de infantería pasó a la caja del Estado. La denominación de
este desembolso, así como su conexión con el censo formado po
distritos, no ofrece duda alguna de que los distritos eran los que
servían de base para tales percepciones. Está demostrada la
participación de los jefes o presidentes de las tribus en el censo, y la
percepción del desembolso ellos eran los que la llevaban a cabo
Mientras las tribus estuvieron compuestas únicamente de ciudadanos
poseedores, parece lo natural que solo ellos fueran los que tuvieran
que pagar el tributus, y no debe tampoco extrañar esto, porque no se
trata de percibir un impuesto, sino de una prestación forzosa, y puede
haber existido otra manera adecuada para hacer que contribuyeran los
ciudadanos no poseedores. Luego que, hacia mediados del siglo V de
la ciudad, se impuso a los ciudadanos en general la obligación de
defender la patria con las armas y dejaron de existir los aerarii en e
antiguo sentido, el desembolso o suscripción de que se trata se
impuso a todos los ciudadanos en proporción al patrimonio registrado
a este efecto en la tribu a que pertenecían. No se tiene noticia de que
sobre los más grandes patrimonios pesaran las cargas en proporción
relativamente más alta que sobre los pequeños; lo que sí existe es un
límite del impuesto, en cuanto que el que tuviera un patrimonio de más
de 1500 ases quedaba sometido al desembolso como «constante»
(adsiduus) o «capaz de pago» (locuplex), mientras que, por e
contrario, el que figurara en el censo con menos de aquella cantidad
solo formaba parte de las listas «por la persona» (capite census) y
como «padre de sus hijos» (proletarius), considerándosele, en cambio
como desprovisto de patrimonio para los efectos del pago de
impuesto. Durante los siglos en que el poder romano fue en aumento
el desembolso creció con frecuencia y no pocas veces la ciudadanía
estuvo en peligro de desaparecer bajo tal carga, pero la comunidad
romana supo utilizar su gran poderío universal, una vez que lo hubo
conquistado, principalmente para bastarse a sí misma en el terreno
económico y librar a los ciudadanos de todo gravamen de esta índole
Desde el año 587 (167 a. de J. C.) hasta el Emperador Diocleciano
solo una vez, durante la confusión que siguió al asesinato de César, e
año 711 (43 antes de J. C.), se cobró el desembolso.
De un modo análogo a la de los impuestos se organizó la
obligación del servicio militar, y por consiguiente, la Asamblea de los
ciudadanos aptos para la defensa nacional pudo ser convocada po
tribus. Pero si estas han de ser consideradas como círculos o distritos
de percepción y se subrogaron en el lugar de las curias, lo que se
tomó como unidad militar base de la ciudadanía militarmente
organizada, mejor dicho, del exercitus, así en el Estado gentilicio como
en el patricio-plebeyo, fue la centuria, tanto con respecto a la infantería
como a la caballería. Si la centuria vino a ser suplantada, para e
servicio de campaña, en la caballería por la turma, en la infantería po
el manipulus, esta nueva organización, por lo mismo que no era
aplicable a los Comicios, puede considerarse como puramente militar y
prescindirse de ella en el derecho político. A la originaria división de la
ciudadanía en poseedores (tribules) y no poseedores (aerarii
corresponde el establecimiento de 188 centurias para el servicio milita
de los ciudadanos obligados a él, mientras cuatro centurias más
comprenden las personas destinadas a prestar en el ejército los
servicios de su profesión, los carpinteros (fabri tignarii), los herreros
(fabri ferrarii), los trompeteros (liticines o tubicines) y los tocadores de
bocina (cornicines), y en otra centuria se reunía toda la masa de los
suplentes desarmados (velati), los cuales, alistados (adcensi) como
auxiliares o sustitutos de aquellos que tenían la obligación del servicio
militar, solo por excepción y no a su propia costa podían prestar este
servicio. Pero el ejército de ciudadanos comprendía todos los varones
adultos que fueran miembros de la comunidad. Las centurias no
guardaban una relación fija con las tribus; más bien, las particulares
centurias se componían regularmente de tribules de distintos distritos
mezclados entre sí todo lo posible, tanto militar como políticamente
Del conjunto de los obligados a prestar el servicio de las armas se
separaba desde luego la caballería permanente, organizada en diez y
ocho centurias, seis de las cuales eran las reservadas a la comunidad
patricia (pág. 28), y las doce restantes se formaban eligiendo al efecto
las personas que por su patrimonio e idoneidad se considerasen más
adecuadas para prestar el privilegiado servicio de caballería. Los
demás obligados al servicio militar fueron divididos por su edad en un
primer grupo que abrazaba a los individuos obligados a ir a campaña
desde los diez y ocho a los cuarenta y seis años cumplidos, los
iuniores, y en un segundo grupo de los más viejos, los seniores; a
cada uno de estos grupos se le asignaron ochenta y cinco centurias
pero cada mitad se dividió, con arreglo a la cantidad de posesión
territorial, en los enteramente obligados al servicio, o sea los classici
que comprendían cuarenta centurias, y los que servían con
armamento aminorado (por tanto, infra classem), los cuales se
agruparon en cuatro grados, de diez, diez, diez y quince centurias
Parece que la distribución de los ciudadanos en las particulares
centurias, cualificados por su edad y patrimonio para formar los
referidos grupos de centurias, dependía del arbitrio del Magistrado
Como el número de las divisiones se fijaba de una vez para todas, es
claro que, fuera de las centurias permanentes de soldados de
caballería, compuestas de un número cerrado de cien hombres cada
una, el número de individuos asignados a las demás centurias había
de ser forzosamente diferente, pues, en efecto, considerando en
conjunto tal organización, se advierte que el segundo de los grupos
arriba mencionados, el cual comprendía muchos menos hombres que
el primero, tenía el mismo número de centurias que este, y, sobre todo
los ciudadanos poseedores predominaban tan decisivamente sobre los
no poseedores, así en lo que toca al servicio militar como al derecho
de voto, que parecen perfectamente ilusorios la obligación militar y e
derecho de voto de los últimos. En cambio, ateniéndonos a la
tradición, nada podemos concluir, a lo menos de un modo seguro
sobre si los grandes poseedores sacaban ventaja a los dueños de
pequeños fundos rústicos. Por el contrario, dentro de cada grupo de
centurias, cada centuria particular debe de haber tenido igual número
de cabezas que las restantes, y por tanto, deben de haber existido
disposiciones tales que impidieran, por ejemplo, que los individuos que
reunieran condiciones para formar parte de las 40 centurias del prime
grupo de la primera clase fueran distribuidos caprichosamente entre
ellas. — La colocación de los aerarii bajo los tribules no produjo más
alteración en esta organización que la de que, en lugar de los
diferentes grados o escalas de posesión, se atendía con respecto a
ellos a las correspondientes escalas graduales en que figuraran en e
censo, y la de que las cinco centurias auxiliares hubieron de
comprender, no ya a los ciudadanos no poseedores, sino a los más
pobres, a los que figuraran con menos riqueza imponible que la más
inferior de las necesarias para el servicio militar, o sea menos de
11.000 ases, que posteriormente fue menos de 4000 ases.
Esta organización, que en el respecto militar hubo de ser pronto
abolida, continuó existiendo para lo político hasta las guerras con
Aníbal, y más tarde fue de nuevo puesta en vigor por Sila, aunque
seguramente por poco tiempo. Probablemente el año 534 (220 a. de J
C.) fue reformada, sobre todo, a lo que parece, en el sentido de hace
independiente el derecho electoral activo de los ciudadanos del arbitrio
de los censores y del de los magistrados que dirigían las elecciones
Ya se ha advertido que, en la organización antigua del ejército
mientras la colocación de los ciudadanos en los grandes grupos de
centurias se hacía por edades y patrimonios, la distribución de los
mismos en las centurias particulares se dejaba probablemente a
arbitrio del magistrado. Aun cuando ciertas normas legales y
consuetudinarias debieron de impedir en todo tiempo que hubiese
desigualdad esencial en el número de personas atribuido a cada una
de las centurias jurídicamente iguales entre sí, sin embargo, en la
época republicana es cuando se manifiesta de una manera clara la
tendencia a poner limitaciones también en este campo al arbitrio de
magistrado. Lo cual se hizo más indispensable después, cuando los
ciudadanos no poseedores empezaron también a formar parte de las
tribus, porque la inclusión de los mismos en tal o tal otra centuria o
grupo de centurias, cosa que se proyectaba de un modo tan
acentuado en la organización de las tribus, dependía sin duda de la
discreción de la magistratura. Y aconteció esto, probablemente
porque los 170 cuerpos votantes de infantería que existían se pusieron
en relación fija e íntima, por disposición de la ley, con los 35 distritos
cuyo número, cabalmente por eso, no pudo, a partir de entonces, se
aumentado. Los tribules de cada tribu se dividieron, con arreglo a la
edad, en dos grupos, de los jóvenes y de los viejos, y cada uno de los
setenta grupos que resultaron se descompuso, con arreglo a las cinco
escalas de patrimonios formadas, en cinco centurias; los 170 votos
dichos fueron distribuidos entre las 350 centurias resultantes, de ta
manera que a cada una de las 70 centurias de la primera clase se
adjudicó un voto, y de las otras 280 se formaron cien cuerpos
votantes, agrupándolos de una forma que no podemos determinar en
detalle. Los 70 grupos referidos sustituyeron en cierto modo a los 35
distritos, y los centuriones puestos al frente de cada uno de aquellos a
los jefes de las tribus. De esta manera se logró que el predominio de
los ciudadanos poseedores pertenecientes a las 31 tribus rústicas
sobre los no poseedores adscritos a las cuatro tribus urbanas, no
estuviera pendiente del arbitrio prudencial del magistrado, como
acontecía algunos decenios antes para la asamblea de las tribus y
aconteció después en la organización centurial, sino que se hallara
fijamente determinado por ley. Respecto a las centurias de caballeros
conservose vigente la organización anterior; lo que, sin embargo, es
probable que aconteciera es que perdiesen entonces la importante
preferencia de voto que hasta allí habían disfrutado y que de ahora en
adelante votaran con o después de los ciudadanos que tenían la
obligación completa de servir en la infantería.
CAPÍTULO VI
las clases privilegiadas de ciudadanos
La Roma patricia, como hemos visto, no conoció clases

privilegiadas de ciudadanos. En la Roma patricio-plebeya
encontramos, como tales, aunque ciertamente en muy diversas
épocas y bajo muy distintas formas, el patriciado, la nobleza, el orden
de los Senadores y el de los caballeros. Todas ellas tienen de común
que no revisten carácter corporativo ni poseen el derecho de toma
resoluciones, ni tienen jefe; por tanto, la comunidad conservó frente a
ellas su unidad interna con tanto rigor como frente a las partes
componentes de la ciudadanía (pág. 15): las indicadas categorías se
distinguen por los privilegios personales o hereditarios que disfrutan
esto es, porque los individuos pertenecientes a ellas son ciudadanos
de mejor derecho.
1. — El Patriciado.
El patriciado, que en algún tiempo equivalía sencillamente a

derecho de ciudadano (pág. 14), en la posterior ciudadanía se convirtió
en nobleza hereditaria. El concepto y la esencia del mismo
permanecieron inalterables en lo fundamental, y, por consiguiente
para todo cuanto toca a él en sus relaciones con las instituciones de
Derecho privado, sobre todo, con el derecho riguroso de matrimonio y
con la clientela, podemos remitirnos a lo que queda expuesto
anteriormente. Ahora vamos a indicar los privilegios políticos que en
los tiempos posteriores correspondieron a los patricios, incluso
aquellos puestos que en el curso de la evolución dejaron de poder se
ocupados por el patriciado.
a) Los Comicios por curias de los antiguos patricios, lo propio que
los Comicios por centurias, perdieron su competencia legislativa
general desde el momento en que comenzó a existir la ciudadanía
patricio-plebeya; a las curias solo le quedó esa competencia en cosas
de mero Derecho privado, singularmente sobre los actos tocantes a la
organización gentilicia. Es probable que todavía largo tiempo después
de haber comenzado a existir la comunidad patricio-plebeya, los
patricios fueran los únicos que tuviesen derecho de voto en estos
comicios. Lo cual está, sin embargo, en contradicción con el principio
según el cual las clases privilegiadas de ciudadanos no funcionan
como cuerpos; además de que, como ya se ha notado (pág. 25), en
los tiempos históricos, los Comicios curiados son tan patricio-plebeyos
como los por centurias y los por tribus.
b) En la primitiva organización patricio-plebeya del servicio militar y
en la organización del voto basado en ella, las seis centurias más
distinguidas, los sex suffragia de los caballeros, se les conservaron a
los patricios como procum patricium, y probablemente esas centurias
se distinguían de las otras doce de los caballeros y votaban antes que
estas y que las de los soldados de infantería. Pero este derecho
preferente de voto se concedió después también a las doce centurias
patricio-plebeyas, con lo que el mejor derecho se cambió en un mero
orden de colocación y asiento. Y posteriormente todavía, hacia el año
534 (220 a. de J. C.), parece que aquellas seis centurias privilegiadas
fueron también abiertas a los plebeyos.
c) La incapacidad de los plebeyos para ejercer funciones sagradas
en la comunidad era un principio fundamental de la primitiva
organización patricio-plebeya, y hasta dentro de los tiempos de
Imperio estuvo vigente la regla según la cual los patricios eran aptos
para el desempeño de todos y cada uno de los sacerdocios de la
comunidad por ser patricios, mientras que los plebeyos solo podían se
sacerdotes en virtud de una especial disposición legislativa; de hecho
esta regla había ido poco a poco siendo aceptada como consecuencia
de la gradual desaparición de la rígidamente estrecha nobleza
hereditaria. Para los tres grandes flaminados, que ocupaban el rango
más alto de todos los sacerdotes, y para los dos colegios de los salios
se exigió el patriciado durante todo el Imperio. También por espacio de
mucho tiempo estuvieron legalmente excluidos los plebeyos de los dos
colegios sacerdotales nacidos cuando Roma, y que tan grande
importancia política tuvieron, el de los pontífices y el de los augures
igualmente que del más moderno, aunque también muy antiguo, a
cual estaba confiada la guarda del oráculo de las sibilas. En este
último se reservaron a los plebeyos, por disposición de la ley licinia
año 387 (367 a. de J. C.), la mitad de los puestos; la ley ogulnia, año
454 (300 a. de J. C.), les reservó también la mitad mayor — o sea
cinco de nueve — de los lugares en los colegios de los pontífices y de
los augures, y los demás puestos quedaron igualmente abiertos a
ambas clases. Del cuarto de los grandes colegios, el de los epulones
parece que fueron excluidos los patricios en la época republicana. Los
demás sacerdocios, el de las vestales, para mujeres, los colegios de
los feciales y de los lupercios, el pequeño flaminado, hasta donde
nuestra tradición alcanza, parecen haber sido accesibles a los
plebeyos. Como el nacimiento de estos sacerdocios tuvo lugar en la
época del Estado gentilicio, no es posible decidir si constituyeron en un
principio privilegios patricios abolidos después, tanto más, cuanto que
varias de estas instituciones, sobre todo las vestales, no podían
propiamente tener su fundamento en la representación del Estado
frente a la divinidad, y, por consiguiente, pudo muy bien ocurrir que
desde un principio fuese innecesario para desempeñar tales cargos e
derecho completo de ciudadano.
d) Si la concesión a los plebeyos del derecho de servicio milita
llevaba consigo lógica y prácticamente el reconocimiento a los mismos
del derecho de ejercer mando militar bajo el magistrado, y, por tanto
desde ese momento un plebeyo pudo ser nombrado jefe de legión
(tribunus militum), no cabe decir lo propio de la magistratura misma
sin duda porque el magistrado representaba también a la comunidad
enfrente de los dioses. Esto es aplicable sin restricción alguna al Rey
que es al mismo tiempo magistrado y sacerdote, y siguió aplicándose
también, hasta la propia época del Imperio, al esquema o
representante religioso del Rey, esto es, al rex sacrorum. Pero aun en
los primeros tiempos de la República, la incapacidad de los plebeyos
para ocupar una magistratura constituyó la piedra angular de la
organización política existente a la sazón. Solo con el tiempo fue ta
precepto cayendo parcialmente en desuso, mas nunca sufrió una
derogación general y en principio; sobre todo, el interregnado, todavía
a fines de la República era un cargo patricio. Los plebeyos fueron
admitidos desde bien pronto a ocupar la magistratura suprema po
modo extraordinario o en representación: entre los decenviros que
funcionaron en 303 (451 a. de J. C.) y 304 (450 a. de J. C.) para da
una constitución a la comunidad, se encuentran plebeyos, y lo que
poco después ocurrió, quizá como consecuencia del decenvirato, esto
es, el permitirse unir las más altas funciones públicas con la mera
posición o cargo de oficial de ejército, que es lo que acontece con e
llamado tribunado consular, significa propiamente el otorgamiento a los
plebeyos de la facultad de desempeñar la magistratura suprema sin
llevar el título de tal. De entre las magistraturas ordinarias hubieron de
empezar los plebeyos por desempeñar la cuestura, en cuanto que e
cargo subordinado, según en su tiempo debió ser mirado, no puede
ser considerado en rigor como una magistratura; en el año 333 (421 a
de J. C.), al aumentarse los puestos de cuestor de dos a cuatro, debió
permitirse el acceso al cargo a ambas clases, patricios y plebeyos. E
paso decisivo se dio el año 387 (367 a. de J. C.) con el plebiscito
licinio, en cuanto por él fue abolido el tribunado consular, y los dos
puestos de cónsul se dividieron entre ambas clases, de manera que
uno debía ser ocupado por los patricios y el otro por los plebeyos
Según todas las probabilidades, en estos mismos momentos debió
disponerse que fueran igualmente accesibles a ambas clases, tanto la
antigua dictadura como otro tercer puesto de magistrado supremo
instituido recientemente, la pretura, pues es verosímil que la
determinación de las condiciones exigibles para los cargos públicos
superiores se hiciera de una manera general y a la vez para todos
ellos. También parece que, a consecuencia de la ley licinia, se dio
acceso a los plebeyos a la censura, cargo desprendido algún tiempo
antes, lo mismo que la pretura, de la magistratura suprema; de suerte
que todo ciudadano pudo desde entonces ser elegido tanto preto
como censor. La edilidad, instituida también en 387 (367 a. de J. C.)
se atribuyó igualmente a ambas clases, de manera que los dos ediles
plebeyos, antes cargos especiales de la plebe, se cambian ahora en
cargos de la comunidad, privando a los patricios de los dos ediles
curules nuevamente instituidos. La igualdad jurídica de nobles y
ciudadanos que de esta suerte se perseguía se cambió bien pronto en
una postergación jurídica de los primeros: las decisiones tomadas po
el pueblo los años 412 (342 a. de J. C.) y 415 (339 a. de J. C.
determinaron, con relación al consulado y la censura, que el uno de
estos cargos se reservara a la plebe y que el otro debía estar abierto a
ambas clases; por la misma época se sometió a turno la edilidad curul
de manera que la misma fue poseída por los patricios los años
impares de la ciudad, según el cómputo varroniano, y por los plebeyos
los años pares, mientras la edilidad plebeya se reservó exclusivamente
a los plebeyos. El tribunado del pueblo, aun después que este cargo
se cambió realmente de especial de la plebe en cargo de la
comunidad, le estuvo vedado a los patricios. Pero aun esto mismo da
testimonio de que la situación política de prepotencia de la nobleza
gentilicia sobrevivió largo tiempo a la pérdida de sus privilegios y aun a
su postergación jurídica; sobre aquella prepotencia es sobre lo único
que se apoyó el patriciado para poseer él solo un puesto especial de
cónsul hasta el año 582 (172 a. de J. C.) y un puesto de censor hasta
el año 623 (131 a. de J. C.); y las antiguas familias, a pesar de que su
número fue gradualmente disminuyendo, ejercieron una decisiva
influencia por todo el período de duración de la República, y aun
después de ella, mientras el Imperio de las primeras dinastías de los
Julios y los Claudios, salidas de aquellas familias, en tanto que la
nobleza hereditaria de la época imperial no llegó a alcanzar ninguna
importancia política.
e) El Senado de la comunidad patricia pasó inalterable a la
patricio-plebeya, en cuanto también en esta conservaron los patricios
como derechos privativos suyos el de confirmar los acuerdos
populares y el interregnado. Por el contrario, para cuanto se refiere a
gobierno o régimen propio de la comunidad, el cual fue pasando más y
más cada vez al Consejo de esta, entraron en la organización de
Estado patricio-plebeyo, y hasta donde nos es conocido desde los
comienzos, al lado de los patres patricios, los conscripti plebeyos, pero
no ocupando una posición igual a la de los primeros, ya que el plebeyo
que se sentaba al lado del patricio no podía reclamar ni el nombre n
las insignias honoríficas de Senador; además, así como en la
ciudadanía tuvo el plebeyo el derecho de sufragio y no el de optar a
las magistraturas, así también en el Senado tuvo el derecho de voto y
no el de proponer resoluciones. Ni aun en la época posterio
consiguieron equipararse jurídicamente los Senadores plebeyos a los
patricios. Solo a consecuencia del acceso de los plebeyos a la
magistratura suprema, el año 387 (367 a. de J. C.), se concedió a los
que consiguieran conquistarla que fuesen jurídicamente iguales en e
Senado a los Senadores patricios; y como muy pronto hubo de
corresponder, sin duda alguna, al Senador revestido de la magistratura
más elevada un derecho preferente de proponer acuerdos, es claro
que el consulado plebeyo no pudo seguir, a partir de este instante
siendo un asistente mudo a las discusiones del Senado. Más tarde, la
situación privilegiada del noble en el Senado fue gradualmente
sufriendo restricciones, hasta ser abolida del todo, gracias a la
circunstancia de que los puestos en aquel se fueron dando poco a
poco, y por fin se reservaron todos a los elegidos para alguna
magistratura. Volveremos a tratar de esto en el libro V, al ocuparnos
del Senado.
2. — La nobleza.
La nobleza es un patriciado ampliado, y del patriciado procede, en

cuanto este círculo comprendía, además de patricios verdaderos
aquellos plebeyos que han salido del patriciado y aquellos otros que a
los patricios se equiparan por el cargo público que desempeñan. E
concepto de la nobleza se originó del principio según el cual, el noble
que por medio de la emancipación o de la separación hubiere dejado
de pertenecer a la familia, perdía sus derechos de nobleza, pero
conservaba su nombre familiar y seguía además siendo un hombre
determinado, «conocido» (nobilis). Pero la aplicación principal que de
este concepto se hizo fue para designar a aquellos plebeyos que
conforme a la ley licinia, lograban ocupar los puestos públicos
reservados hasta entonces a los patricios. Como estos cargos se
siguieron considerando como «patricios» aun después de la ley licinia
sus poseedores no podían continuar por derecho perteneciendo a la
clientela, jurídicamente ligada al plebeyado (pág. 40), y en el Senado
hubieron de equipararse a los patricios de aquí que, si no a este
«hombre nuevo» (homo novus), sí por lo menos a sus descendientes
se les contó entre la nobleza, de manera que la posesión de un cargo
público curul llevaba anejo para los plebeyos este quasi-patriciado
hereditario. No tiene la nobleza privilegios jurídicos, tales como los que
al patriciado pertenecen; el derecho de tener en las habitaciones
domésticas los retratos de los antepasados que hubieran ejercido
algún cargo curul era, sí, un distintivo de nobleza, pero más bien que
de un privilegio de clase, se trataba de un derecho honorífico
concedido a los magistrados. Sin embargo, como después que fueron
abolidas las prerrogativas jurídicas de los nobles, en punto a la
adquisición de cargos públicos, continuaron todavía por largo tiempo
ejerciendo poderosa influencia las consuetudinarias, estas últimas
pasaron también al quasi-patriciado, señaladamente en cuanto la
nobleza toda se ponía enfrente de la plebe, sobre todo en las
elecciones. El carácter de exclusividad jurídica del patriciado hubiera
incapacitado necesariamente a este para asegurar el gobierno po
parte de los nobles, si no hubiese hecho posible la persistencia de
dominio de estos la quasi-recepción en la nobleza hereditaria de
aquellos plebeyos que al ser elevados a la magistratura rompían e
estrecho anillo de la aristocracia. La igualdad jurídica entre patricios y
plebeyos, conseguida a consecuencia de la lucha de clases, no sufrió
alteración formal por el nacimiento de los nuevos nobles, pero en
realidad recibió con ello un embate rudo, y con el tiempo hasta llegó a
desaparecer de hecho. Lo que sucede a menudo en las luchas
políticas por la igualdad sucedió también ahora, o sea que los
vencedores convirtieron la disputada y conquistada igualdad en una
nueva forma de privilegio.
3. — El orden de los Senadores.
De las sesiones del Senado y de la participación de este Cuerpo en

el gobierno de la comunidad, se trata en el libro quinto. Ahora vamos a
exponer las prerrogativas que se concedieron a los Senadores, y con
el tiempo también a sus mujeres, hijos y descendientes hasta el terce
grado, en cuanto tales prerrogativas se refieran al rango de aquellos o
tengan índole política. De la posición especial de los Senadores por lo
que toca al derecho de matrimonio y al derecho relativo a los bienes
podemos prescindir aquí. El Senado como tal no tenía derechos
corporativos, ni tampoco un patrimonio propio ni caja propia.
a) La más antigua insignia de los Senadores, el calzado de cordón
solo perteneció en un principio a los Senadores patricios, únicos que
originariamente fueron considerados como Senadores efectivos. Más
tarde encontramos que esta insignia, aunque con la limitación de que
la hebilla (lunula) de marfil quedara reservada para los Senadores
patricios, se hizo extensiva en el siglo VI a los que desempeñaran

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The Marx of Communism: Setting

Limits in the Realm of Communism

The Rise and Demise of World Communism George W

Translation Under Communism Christopher Rundle

Communism and Culture: An Introduction Radu Stern

Women Archaeologists under Communism, 1917-1989:

A Thousand Cuts : Social Protection in the Age of

The Concept of the Individual in the Thought of Karl

Purging the Odious Scourge of Atrocities: The Limits of

Kant's Reason: The Unity of Reason and the Limits of

ISSN 2524-7123 ISSN 2524-7131 (electronic)

Cover illustration: Jean-François Monnot/EyeEm/Getty Images

1. Terrell Carver & Daniel Blank, A Political History of the Editions

31. Kevin B. Anderson, Kieran Durkin & Heather Brown (Eds.),

50. Levy del Aguila Marchena, Communism, Political Power and

Vesa Oittinen, Marx’s Russian Moment

Marie-Cecile Bouju, A Political History of the Publishing Houses of

Vincenzo Mele, City and Modernity in George Simmel and Walter

1 Introduction: From the Marx of Democracy

Introduction: From the Marx of Democracy

The Marx of Communism, the book in hand, submitted here to the

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 1

My long-term research and writing engagement with the world of

However, I will not talk here on behalf of the communist Marx. In a

only succeeded in shedding light on the social and cultural horizons of

The Marx of Communism operates in the direction set by The Marx of

2 Chrysis (2018, p. 216).

diminish the value of Marx’s understanding of the forces of capitalism”.4

On the other hand, though, as we approach the end of the second

The so-called revolutions of 1848 were but poor incidents—small frac-

Personally, as one can witness following the thread of reasoning unfolding

7 Michael Hardt–Antonio Negri (2000, pp. 57–8).

therefore, necessary to elaborate a contemporary Marxian political theory,

of political economy”. His own categorical command could only be that

It has often been lamented that Marxism seems to be a purely economic

9 Chrysis (2018, p. 18).

Operating in the opposite direction to that proposed by Jameson, I

Only in proportion as our movement progresses, and demands the solution

Where are we today based on the evaluation criteria set by Luxembourg?

12 Luxemburg, “Stagnation and Progress of Marxism”, in Waters (1970, p. 111).

In the face of this theoretically off-centre and practically dead-end

Unfortunately, six decades later, in the prolonged aftermath of the

13 Axelos (1964, pp. 202, 203).

exhibits signs of refutation, nor it appears outdated. The criticism of capi-

[…], he who is considered the theoretician of communism par excellence,

14 Lucien Sève, “Le communisme est mort, vive le communisme!”, L’ Humanité,

A real movement, embedded in the present dynamics of capitalism,

suffice, and never has sufficed, to generate ‘communists’. The question is

The question of identifying the communist proletarians of our time is

In the pages of the Marx of Democracy, where I supported “true

16 Ibid, pp. 18–9.

expression of the way of life in a classless and stateless society, a commu-

No objection! The inextricable link between democracy and communism

18 Tosel (2009, p. 144).

Marx in the City of Enlightenment

We are going to France, the threshold of a new world. May it live up to

© The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature 19

history of their absurdities; the renewal of the humanised world movement

Friedrich Engels’ view of Paris remained unchanged a few years later,

the attempt to publish the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher proved unsuc-

7 Nikolaievsky and Maenchen-Helfen (1936), ibid.

At this point, a number of crucial conclusions can safely be drawn:

In such a context, what proves to be of major importance is the fact