Principles of Communism
Translator’s Afterword (Max Bedacht, 1925)
Section summary
Bedacht’s afterword and the introduction to his notes: the document belongs to the eve of 1848, and its timetables were too optimistic, but its sketch of social development and its insistence on an independent proletarian revolution, with the bourgeois revolution only as a first act, remain valuable.
The “Principles of Communism” is an historic document. It was born out of the historic situation preceding the revolutionary upheavals of 1848 in Europe. It deals in its immediate program with problems of its day, but while we understand this document only when we consider it together with the time in which it was written, it also helps us to understand that time.
The lasting value of the document is the keenness with which it sketches the future of social development. Engels’ draft shares this quality with the Communist Manifesto. It is true that the eyes of the authors see this development take place with a rapidity that did not compare with the slow process of reality. But the revolutionary leader, who, with his keen intellect could construct theoretically the social development of coming generations in correct forms, cannot be reproached because he could not see that the process he could describe in minutes would take decades in history. Engels’ manuscript is even more optimistic in this respect that is the Manifesto.
The Engels’ draft, like the Manifesto in its final form, builds on existing movements and tendencies. But no matter what concessions it is willing to make to these movements and tendencies it insists on raising the banner of an independent proletarian revolt. Though the revolution of its day appears as a bourgeois nationalist revolution, as for instance in Germany, and although it urges alliance of the proletariat with this revolutionary element, yet it primarily raises the slogan of revolutionary struggle against the bourgeoisie. It looks upon the impending nationalist and bourgeois upheavals only as necessary prerequisites for the proletarian revolution. It proposes to help the bourgeoisie into power because only then can the second and last act of the revolution take place, the dethronement of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of a proletarian power.
The notes here appended will assist the reader in obtaining a clearer understanding of the document and of its value for the proletarian struggles of today.