Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany
In this course we move from the general principles of Marxist methodology and their application in the formation of a conceptual model of capitalist production in general to the analysis of concrete sequences of class struggle through the application of the same principles. We emphasize the need for a close reading of every text in relation to its historical context. A reading which grasps the way in which the text applies general methodological principles to clarify the dynamics of specific historical moments. Not a naive reading which sees the concrete conclusions of these texts about their situations as immediately applicable to our own.
Session One: Prussia, Austria and the Other German States at the Outbreak of Revolution
In this session we discuss the economic class structure and politico-ideological formation of the classes in the German states prior to the revolution. We ask to what extent is there a parallel between the task of revolutionaries after the 1848 revolutions and our own task today and discuss the relation between democratic and socialist revolution and the defining significance of the agrarian question in the historical formulation of Marxist politics.
Readings: The first four chapters of Revolution and Counter Revolution in Germany.
Session Two: The Revolution and its Defeat
In this session we discuss union between classes as the precondition of revolution, the inevitability of antagonistic division within the revolutionary party, the relation between the economic structure and the political alignment of the classes the difference between progressive and reactionary national movements and the point at which the bourgeois turns against the democratic revolution. We further discuss the three principles of revolutionary strategy, the political value of defeat and the advantages of the offensive. Finally we reflect on why the democratic revolution is both no business of the working class and also something it must lead and close by inquiring what Marxists mean when they talk about the people or the nation.
Readings: The remaining chapters of Revolution and Counter Revolution in Germany.
Further Reading for Course Three
Blum: Noble Landowners and Agriculture in Austria, 1815-1848
Brass: On the Barricades of Berlin
Bachleitner: Censorship of Literature in Austria, 1751-1848
Polisensky: Aristocrats and the Crowd in the Revolutionary Year 1848: A Contribution to the History of Revolution and Counter-Revolution
Sperber: Rhineland Radicals: The Democratic Movement and the Revolution of 1848-1849
Noyes: Organization and revolution : working-class associations in the German revolutions of 1848-1849
Mehring: Absolutism and Revolution in Germany, 1525-1848
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