Project Gutenberg's The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, by Karl Marx

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Title: The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

Author: Karl Marx

Release Date: February 18, 2006 [EBook #1346]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOUIS BONAPARTE ***

Produced by An Anonymous Volunteer and David Widger

THE EIGHTEENTH BRUMAIRE OF LOUIS BONAPARTE

by Karl Marx

Translator's Preface

"The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte" is one of Karl Marx' most
profound and most brilliant monographs. It may be considered the best
work extant on the philosophy of history, with an eye especially upon
the history of the Movement of the Proletariat, together with the
bourgeois and other manifestations that accompany the same, and the
tactics that such conditions dictate.

The recent populist uprising; the more recent "Debs Movement"; the
thousand and one utopian and chimerical notions that are flaring up; the
capitalist maneuvers; the hopeless, helpless grasping after straws, that
characterize the conduct of the bulk of the working class; all of these,
together with the empty-headed, ominous figures that are springing into
notoriety for a time and have their day, mark the present period of
the Labor Movement in the nation a critical one. The best information
acquirable, the best mental training obtainable are requisite to steer
through the existing chaos that the death-tainted social system of today
creates all around us. To aid in this needed information and mental
training, this instructive work is now made accessible to English
readers, and is commended to the serious study of the serious.

The teachings contained in this work are hung on an episode in recent
French history. With some this fact may detract of its value. A
pedantic, supercilious notion is extensively abroad among us that we
are an "Anglo Saxon" nation; and an equally pedantic, supercilious
habit causes many to look to England for inspiration, as from a racial
birthplace Nevertheless, for weal or for woe, there is no such thing
extant as "Anglo-Saxon"--of all nations, said to be "Anglo-Saxon,"
in the United States least. What