Quiz: The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

All 35 questions. A perfect score earns the gold medal; 80% earns silver.

1. 1. What has become of the small peasant property that Napoleon I strengthened, according to Marx?

   A trap of mortgage debt and pauperism The basis of a prosperous and independent peasantry Collective farms run by the village communes Large capitalist estates worked by hired labour
2. 2. Which general, the military protector of the party of Order, did Bonaparte dismiss?

   Saint-Arnaud Bugeaud Changarnier Lamoricière
3. 3. Why, according to Marx, do the smallholding peasants need someone to represent them?

   They have delegated their votes to the Legitimist landowners of the provinces They cannot represent themselves; their representative must appear as their master They are excluded from the suffrage by the electoral law of 31 May 1850 and its residence rule They prefer to leave all politics to the village priest and the notary
4. 4. On which date in 1849 did the Mountain’s protest collapse?

   10 December 2 December 13 June 24 February
5. 5. What, according to Marx, did the first Napoleon at least do on the 18th Brumaire that his nephew did not?

   Called a plebiscite before acting, so that the whole people sanctioned the coup in advance by vote Left the deputies untouched and simply ruled beside them for some years as First Consul Went into the legislative body himself and, in a tremulous voice, read it its death sentence Abolished the legislative body by a regular law passed by a majority of its own sitting members
6. 6. Who made the first English translation of The Eighteenth Brumaire (1897)?

   Ernest Untermann Daniel De Leon Samuel Moore Eleanor Marx
7. 7. Who stood on the side of the Parisian proletariat in the June insurrection of 1848?

   The National Guard None but itself The petty bourgeoisie The peasantry
8. 8. On how many civil employees, according to Marx, did a million and a half French existences depend?

   500,000 1,500,000 5,000 5 million
9. 9. What did the Legitimists and Orleanists represent, according to Marx, beneath their loyalties to rival dynasties?

   Town and country, Paris and the provinces The army and the clergy Land and capital Catholics and Protestants
10. 10. What makes politicians representatives of the small traders’ class, according to Marx?

    They do not leap in thought the bounds that the class itself does not leap in practice They are themselves shopkeepers by trade and share the daily concerns of the shop counter They are elected by the shopkeepers and must answer to them for every vote they cast They are paid by the shopkeepers’ associations to defend their interests in the Assembly
11. 11. To what does Marx compare the mass of French smallholding peasants?

    A bag of potatoes: the simple addition of equal magnitudes An army without officers A flock of sheep waiting for a shepherd A beehive, each cell joined to all the others
12. 12. With what image does Marx end the book?

    The tricolour hauled down from the dome of the Invalides by the people The sun of Austerlitz rising once more over the palace of the Tuileries Napoleon’s statue falling from the top of the Vendôme column The Imperial eagle carried once more at the head of the army into Belgium
13. 13. What did the election law of 31 May 1850 do?

    Introduced proportional representation by departments for the Assembly Gave the vote to women of property, doubling the electorate Abolished universal suffrage, excluding much of the working population Extended the suffrage to soldiers and abolished all residence rules
14. 14. How does Marx contrast the course of the revolution of 1848 with that of 1789?

    1848 moved along an ascending line, like 1789, power passing to ever bolder parties 1848 was led by the peasants 1848 had no real parties, only clubs and newspapers 1848 moved along a descending line, each party leaning on the one to its right
15. 15. How do proletarian revolutions differ from bourgeois revolutions, according to Marx?

    They criticise themselves constantly and start anew until retreat is impossible They avoid all force and advance only by winning majorities in parliament, step by step They storm swiftly from success to success, each stage effect outdoing the one before They borrow names, battle-cries and costumes from the past to stage their new scene
16. 16. How does Marx qualify the statement that man makes his own history?

    Not out of conditions he chose, but those he finds at hand Not out of his own will, but as the instrument of the absolute Idea Only great men make history; the masses merely follow the paths those men lay out Not freely, but as the climate and soil of each country dictate
17. 17. How long did the dictatorship of the “pure” bourgeois republicans last?

    Through the year 1849 From June 24 to December 10, 1848 From February to June 1848 From 1848 to 1851
18. 18. What does the bourgeoisie outside parliament cry out at its parliamentary republic in 1851?

    “Rather an End With Fright, Than a Fright Without End” “Order reigns in Paris, as in Warsaw” “Long live the Republic and the Constitution” “After us, the deluge”
19. 19. What was the “Society of December 10”?

    A royalist club of Legitimist nobles plotting the return of the Bourbons under Henry V A workers’ cooperative founded by followers of Louis Blanc after the June days of 1848 Bonaparte’s private army of the Paris slum-proletariat, posing as a charity A society of deputies of the party of Order, sworn to defend the Assembly against Bonaparte
20. 20. What was the original 18th Brumaire, sketched in De Leon’s preface?

    The coronation of Charles X Napoleon Bonaparte’s coup of 9 November 1799 The storming of the Bastille on 14 July 1789 The execution of Louis XVI in January 1793
21. 21. On what date did Louis Bonaparte carry out his coup?

    13 June 1849 18 Brumaire 1799 24 February 1848 2 December 1851
22. 22. With which Latin phrase do the conditions themselves “cry out” when retreat has become impossible?

    “Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam” “Salus populi suprema lex esto” “Hic Rhodus, hic salta!” “Fiat iustitia, ruat caelum”
23. 23. Which military action was decided at the very first session of Bonaparte’s ministry?

    The invasion of Belgium The expedition to Rome The war with Russia The conquest of Algeria
24. 24. What does Marx say is reared upon the different forms of property and the social conditions of existence?

    A whole superstructure of feelings, illusions, habits of thought and views of life A system of natural laws, fixed and eternal, governing every class of society alike Nothing at all; ideas and sentiments arise quite independently of the forms of property A religion of reason, common to all classes and standing above their particular interests
25. 25. How does Marx define the peculiar character of the Social Democracy of 1849?

    It demands the immediate abolition of capital and wage-labour by a proletarian revolution It rejects all democratic institutions as illusions cherished by the petty bourgeoisie It demands democratic institutions to harmonise capital and wage-labour, not abolish them It demands a restored monarchy to protect small property against the great capitalists of Paris
26. 26. What question does Marx pose about the French nation?

    Why a nation of thirty-six millions always let the city of Paris decide its revolutions Why France alone had made no revolution in 1848 while the rest of Europe rose in arms How a nation of thirty-six millions could be surprised by three swindlers and taken prisoner How a nation that had once defeated all Europe could let itself be ruled by a king of bankers
27. 27. What did the bourgeoisie come to call every liberal and progressive demand, including its own former ones?

    “Bonapartist” “Jacobin” “Anarchist” “Socialistic”
28. 28. Which recent American events does De Leon’s preface mention as marking a critical period for the labour movement?

    The Spanish-American War and its colonies The Civil War and Reconstruction The Haymarket affair only The populist uprising and the “Debs Movement”
29. 29. In what disguise, according to Marx, did the revolution of 1789–1814 drape itself?

    As ancient Athens and Sparta As the English Commonwealth of Cromwell Alternately as Roman Republic and Roman Empire As the Holy Roman Empire of Charlemagne
30. 30. What did Hegel forget to add, according to Marx, when he said great historic facts and personages recur twice?

    “Once as tragedy, and again as farce” “Once in thought, and again in deed” “Once in France, and again in Germany” “Once as hope, and again as bitter despair”
31. 31. How did Bonaparte win over the soldiers, according to Marx?

    With higher pay voted by the Assembly With promises of land in Algeria after service With medals and promotions to the ranks With cigars, champagne, cold poultry and garlic-sausage
32. 32. What does Marx imagine Europe exclaiming at the revolution’s preparatory work?

    “The king is dead, long live the king!” “Well hast thou grubbed, old mole!” “It is finished” “Eureka!”
33. 33. Which slogans did the bourgeois society give out as pass-words against the June insurgents?

    “God, King and Fatherland” “Bread and Work” “Property, Family, Religion, Order” “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death”
34. 34. Over how large an army of office-holders does the French executive dispose, according to Marx in chapter IV?

    Two hundred thousand About ten thousand More than half a million Five million
35. 35. Why does Marx say the nephew became Emperor?

    He was elected by the Paris workers in gratitude for the National Workshops of 1848 He was backed by England, which feared a restoration of the Bourbons more than a Bonaparte The peasants’ belief that a man named Napoleon would restore their glory met his fixed idea He won victories in Italy that made the army demand him as Emperor of the French