Marx and Engels on Imperialism: Selected Journalism, 1856-62

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For a little over a decade after the ignominious collapse of the Revolution of 1848, Karl Marx worked as a professional journalist. Writing from London for newspapers in America and, eventually, on the Continent, he continued while living in exile the analysis of the crisis of revolution that he first began in direct engagement with revolutionary events, most notably in The Class Struggles in France of 1850 and The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte of 1852. In what became a vast body of material, through this journalistic work Marx elaborated the critical concept of "bonapartism" first abumbrated in the latter book. Continuing his effort to learn the lesson of 1848, Marx concentrated on the crisis of modern society and the new mass democratic state that emerged, in the absence of the dictatorship of the proletariat, to meet that crisis. Together with Marx and Engels on Imperialism, this is the first book to select and bring together Marx’s journalism around a conceptual theme, rather than a mere topic. Whatever the subject — the emergence of a new capitalist politics or the new unionism in Britain, post-1848 Chartism, the East India Company, European nationalisms, or the Taiping Rebellion in China — Marx and Engels' journalism is shown to constellate around “bonapartism,” a concept that Marx critically appropriated from liberals distressed at the post-1848 order. Cover Half-Title Title Copyright Dedication Contents List of Abbreviations Introduction: Beyond Dispute? Editing Marx After Marxism 1 The Second Opium War and the Indian Revolt of 1857–58 Introduction The Anglo-Chinese Conflict January 23, 1857 English Atrocities in China April 10, 1857 Persia—China June 5, 1857 The Revolt in the Indian Army July 15, 1857 The Indian Question August 14, 1857 The Indian Revolt September 16, 1857 Investigation of Tortures in India September 17, 1857 British Incomes in India September 21, 1857 British Atrocities in India April 5, 1858 Details of the Attack on Lucknow May 25, 1858 The Annexation of Oude May 28, 1858 The British Army in India June 26, 1858 The Indian Bill July 24, 1858 History of the Opium Trade September, 1858 2 The Regime of Louis Bonaparte and the Post-1848 European Order Introduction The France of Bonaparte the Little April 5, 1856 The French Crédit Mobilier June - July, 1856 The Monetary Crisis in Europe October 15, 1856 State of Europe—Financial State of France July 27, 1857 The Attempt Upon the Life of Bonaparte February 22, 1858 The Rule of the Pretorians March 12, 1858 The British Government and the Slave Trade July 2, 1858 Project for the Regulation of the Price of Bread in France December 15, 1858 On Italian Unity January 24, 1859 Affairs in Prussia February 1, 1859 The War Prospect in France March 31, 1859 A Historic Parallel March 31, 1859 What has Italy Gained? July 27, 1859 Louis Napoleon and Italy August 29, 1859 3 Palmerston’s Reelection as the Political Consolidation of Imperialism Introduction The Defeat of the Palmerston Ministry and the Election of 1857 March - April, 1857 The Defeat of Cobden, Bright, and Gibson April 17, 1857 The English Bank Act of 1844 August 23, 1858 On Ernest Jones July 16, 1859 The Invasion Panic in England December 9, 1859 English Politics February 14, 1860 A Slander Trial December 24, 1861 4 The American Civil War Introduction The American Question in England October 11, 1861 The London Times and Lord Palmerston October 21, 1861 The London Times on the Orleans Princes in America November 7, 1861 The Civil War in the United States November 7, 1861 A London Workers’ Meeting February 2, 1862 A Treaty Against the Slave Trade May 22, 1862 A Criticism of American Affairs August 9, 1862 Comments on the North American Events October 12, 1862 Appendix 1: Newspapers Quoted by Marx and Engels Appendix 2: Newspapers Marx and Engels Wrote For, 1851–62 Appendix 3: Chronology: Socialism, Marxism, and Imperialism, 1815–1899 Notes to Primary Texts Index About the Editor