Tocqueville with Those of Marx and Engels
A combination of diametrical opposition of beliefs and remarkable overlap in areas of interest to the writer may be seen in de Tocqueville’s Recollections and the Communist Manifesto. It is fascinating how both touch upon so many of the same grounds, often both perceiving the same problems, while interpreting them in radically different lights. A parallel reading of the two pieces enhances one’s understanding of each, as well as prompting critical thought regarding the respective roles of different influences in history.
One of the basic foundations of the Communist Manifesto is an extremely fatalist concept of history as a series of unavoidable and irresistible events. The primary premise of the Manifesto, in fact, is the concept of history as consisting primarily of an inevitably (this is stressed) occurring series of desperate struggles between classes which, also inevitably, result in revolution or the destruction of the conflicting classes. The selection of Tocqueville’s Recollections, however, actually opens in the midst of a reflection upon the accidental nature of the successful revolt against the French monarchy in February of 1848. But the writers of the Manifesto invest much of the first nine paragraphs of their work in arguing the certainty with which the events they describe, i.e. the collapse of one socio-economic system after another, were fated to occur.
Tocqueville states that the rebels were so aided by accidental and unexpected circumstances that they were actually as astounded at their victory as their adversaries were at their defeat. He mentions that some even went so far as to believe it was altogether an accident and nothing more. Going on, he relates a number of the contingent events which made the success of the revolt possible, particularly the riot which occurred when the Opposition proposed a reform to the aristocracy; the first excessive and then abandoned effort to repress this riot; the disappearance of the old Ministry of the nation and the resulting lack of leadership; the disorder of the new ministers; the indecision of the generals; the absence of the only charismatic leaders among the nobility; and the “senile imbecility ” of King Louis-Philippe.
He braids this, however, into a logical embrace of the greater events which drove the actions which these accidents made possible, stating that contingent events cannot make anything possible which has not already been prepared. History, the existing institutions, and the moral and intellectual environment of the time are all vitally important. Such pre-existing conditions which he lists for the revolt include the industrial revolution which had filled paris with workmen, many of whom later became unemployed; the growth of envy with the spread of unrealistic political and economic theories of destroying poverty by remaking society; contempt for the governing class; and the “mobility ” of all elements of a society buffeted by revolution.
It is interesting that de Tocqueville, writing some thirty years before the Manifesto saw the light of day, gives vent to a condemnation of the imperfect vision of fatalistic social philosophers which perfectly fits Marx and Engels, in an essay which covers much of the same ground as their work does. He states quite specifically that the theorists he loathes “represent all the events of history as depending upon great first causes linked by the chain of fatality… ”
One might care to contrast this with statements Marx and Engels make to support their thesis, of history constituting a story of constant class struggles. For example, following a list of members of different classes from ancient times to mediaeval to modern, they affirm that these “stood in constant opposition to one another, carried on an uninterrupted, now hidden, now open fight, a fight that each time ended, either in a revolutionary reconstitution of society at large, or in the common ruin of the contending classes. ” They go on to present the concept that contemporary social structures are merely a slightly reshuffled and repackaged set of battling classes and hatreds. The inconvenient bourgeoisie is also displayed as the product of a series of quite definite steps in the progress of history. Intriguingly, the process the Manifesto narrates of the development of the bourgeoisie is an almost Darwinian tale, of a class which ever manages to rise like froth over the surge of clashing elements of society to eventually benefit from the struggle. However, in each stage, the outcome is seemingly predetermined. Further, within the contemporary situation, of the supposedly parasitic bourgeoisie preying upon the masses of workers, a single concept is portrayed as the sole source of all struggle, namely, the existence of private property and capital. From this “great first cause” is supposed to descend all the miseries of the lower classes, and hence the abolition of such a pestilential right as private ownership is advanced as the punchline of the Communist Manifesto.
Tocqueville and the Manifesto clash on a number of related issues. Most fundamentally, Tocqueville expresses a substantial distrust of revolutions themselves. An ardent defender of liberty, he is nevertheless aware that although a great revolution is sometimes needed to establish liberty in a country, “a number of succeeding revolutions make all regular liberty impossible for very many years. ” He is painfully aware of the vast number of grand, impractical dreams and illusions which accompany such activities and the disorder which they help to cause. Further, his experience with the repeated revolutions occurring in his homeland, France, has been rather bleak, as he observes each new, hopeful young revolution to mature in general along the same path as its predecessors. Obviously, the whole point of Marx and Engels’ literary endeavor, on the other hand, is to incite their readers to advocate (and participate in) an eventual revolution. Tocqueville, after expressing his concerns over the efficacy of the revolutions he has witnessed, also goes on to vent his frustrations over the theoreticians, the intellectual elite, who so often inspired such (and among whom Marx and Engels may be considered to stand). He finds these (as he illustrates with his friend’s case) to be well meaning, intelligent, and genuinely good people, but detached from reality, to often have ideas as shallow as they are glib, to be overcome by idealism without the tempering effect of realism, and to have a tendency to be “seeking for what is novel and ingenious rather than for what is true; in preferring the showy to the useful; in showing one’s self very sensible to the playing and elocution of the actors, without regard to the results of the play… ” Tocqueville also commits what to Marx and Engels would be mortal sin: He distrusts the working class as a political power. Concerned about the spread of Socialist theories, he reflects that such are a result of workers seeking escape from the basic realities of their situation in life. Socialism presents such as being unconscionable oppression and, to Tocqueville’s view, offers them moral justification for use of force in altering the current state. He regards these people as being, when considered as a whole, a rather childlike entity, easily deluded and drawn into using its strength on efforts ghastly in their political and social danger.
One of Tocqueville’s final paragraphs in the selection covers two more topics which overlap with those covered by the Manifesto. The first of these is the role which women played in the 1848 revolution in France. He notes the intensity of their involvement in it, and moves from this to point out that this revolution constituted “the revolt of one whole section of the population against another. ” The clear parallels with Marx and Engels are first, that they took the bold (though briefly treated) step of extending equality to women and bringing them to equal involvement in the coming revolution. Secondly, one of the huge points of the Manifesto is that there needs be a revolution of the entire class of proletariat workers against all others (particularly the bourgeoisie).
Although separated by over thirty years and primarily inspired by revolutions in different countries, the writings of Tocqueville and Marx and Engels can be seen to be remarkably similar in the general issues and concepts discussed, coming from two different poles of thought though they do. And though a divide of over a hundred years lies between both works and the current day, one finds in reading them (and getting the built-in double critique that occurs from simultaneously absorbing both works) valuable insights into struggles between different political and social groups which carry on today. Perhaps this would argue for Marx and Engels thesis that all history is a series of essentially similar struggles. One might, however, also draw a de Tocquevillian conclusion that the influence of the events and ideas of his time has managed to carry on into modern times.
| back to essay index |
