4. The Dialectical ‘Moment’ of Marx’s Theory of Democracy: From the Theory of the Rational State to ‘True Democracy’

The manuscript is composed of thirty-nine large pages, numbered II to XL. The first page, unfortunately, is lost; this page should correspond to the Marxian critique of §§257–260 (see also Bert 1964/1965, p. 355). These are the paragraphs with which the section of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right with the title ‘Das innere Staatsrecht’ begins, and this is precisely the section that constitutes the target of Marx’s critique. As Ilting (1984, p. 94) informs us, Hegel’s text is ‘an expanded version of the corresponding exposition in his lecture course on Natural Law and the Science of the State from the winter term of 1818–1819’. On the other hand, it is worth noting that, according to the editors of MEGA ₂ (I, 2 [Apparat], p. 584), the title that Marx gave to the manuscript cannot be attributed with precision. On their part, however, the editors at Progress Publishers of Marx–Engels, Collected Works (vol. 3, p. 588) argue that the missing title of the work can be reproduced from the subsequent introduction published in Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher. The full title of this introduction is ‘Zur Kritik der Hegelschen Rechtsphilosophie. Einleitung’. Nevertheless, the editors and translators of Marx–Engels, Collected Works preferred the following translation: ‘Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law’ and ‘Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Law. Introduction’, respectively. For my part, I use the version ‘Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right’. Details on the historical background and conditions under which the 1843 Manuscript was found, as well as information on its editing by Riazanov and its publication in 1927, are revealed by Joseph O’Malley (1970, pp. ix–xiv, lxiv–lxv). The manuscript is exhibited today in the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam.

There are many views on the chronology of the writing of the Critique. According to Norman Levine (2012, pp. 34, 47), Marx had already read Hegel’s Philosophy of Right by 1841, since the book is included in the bibliography and index of Marx’s doctoral dissertation. Megill (2002, p. 18) argues that Marx ‘first began to think of offering a critique of Hegel’s political philosophy’ in September 1841. According to the editors of MEGA ₂ , it is necessary to distinguish between the time of Marx’s critical engagement with Hegel’s philosophy of the state and right, on the one hand, and the time of writing up the 1843 Manuscript, on the other. Following this view, Marx worked for the first time on a critical contribution to Hegel’s philosophy of right from November 1841 until September 1842. There is evidence for the existence of this critical essay on Hegel’s philosophy of right, but it has never been found (MEGA _2, I, 1, p. 67*, MEGA ₂ , I, 2, p. 13* and MEGA ₂ , I, 2 [Apparat] p. 574).

In a second phase, Marx dedicated himself to working on the manuscript of the Critique; this occurred either from spring 1843 until summer 1843 or from mid-March 1843 until the end of September 1843 (MEGA ₂ I, 2, p. 14* and MEGA _2, I, 2 [Apparat], pp. 575–7). In any event, crucial turning points are Marx’s departure from the editorship of Rheinische Zeitung in March 1843 and leaving Kreuznach to settle in Paris in October 1843. In an informative passage (vol. 3, p. 587), the editors of the Collected Works argue—following Riazanov—that the work was carried out during the time when Marx was settled in Kreuznach, i.e. between March/May and October 1843. Distinguished students, such as O’Malley (1970, p. ix), Rubel (1971, pp. 50–1) and Lapine (1980, pp. 183–4), also deem that the period between spring and autumn 1843 is the most likely period in which Marx wrote the work. Oizerman (1981, pp. 166–7), however, argues that the text was written in part in 1842 but mainly in 1843, when Marx not only added new pages, but also carried out a few corrections in the first part.

Finally, it is worth mentioning the view expressed by Landshut and Mayer, who argue that that particular manuscript was written between April 1841 and April 1842 (see references in Rubel 1971, p. 51, footnote 6; O’Malley 1970, p. ix). This view finds no support in the relevant bibliography.

This written material, without a precise date (MEGA ₂ , IV, 1, p. 368) is a kind of brief page index referring to Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, including short titles as mentioned by Marx:

‘The Duplication of Systematic Development’ (‘Die Verdopplung der systematischen Entwicklung’); ‘Logical Mysticism’ (‘Logischer Mysticismus’); ‘Mystical Mode of Expression’ (‘Die mystische Sprachweise’); ‘The Idea as Subject’ (‘Die Idee als Subjekt’);

‘The Real Subjects Are Transformed into Mere Names’ (‘Die wirklichen Subjekte warden zu blosen Namen’).

Marx, ‘Preface to A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy’, in Marx–Engels, Collected Works, vol. 29, p. 262.

Engels, Karl Marx, in Marx–Engels, Collected Works, vol. 21, pp. 60–1.

See, among others, the classical, though debatable, analysis of Avineri (1966).

Here, I allude to and recall the Marx–Bauer collaboration, which aimed at designing and writing The Trumpet of the Last Judgement against Hegel, the Atheist and Anti-Christ: An Ultimatum. Marx was supposed to write the second part of the work, including elements of his critique of Hegel’s philosophy of right (MEGA ₂ , I, 2 [Apparat], p. 572). However, despite the fact that he worked on this project during the last few months of 1841, in the end Marx did not contribute. As already pointed out (see Chap. 2, note 96), the remaining section was written by Bauer himself and published as a monograph in Leipzig in 1842 as Hegels Lehre von der Religion und Kunst von dem Standpunkte des Glaubens abs beurteilt (Hegel’s Theory of Religion and Art from the Point of View of Faith) (see, MEGA ₂ , I, 2 [Apparat], p. 572; Rosen 1977, pp. 129–32).

This work is included in Feuerbach (2012).

See MEGA ₂ , I, 2, p. 15* and MEGA ₂ , I, 2 [Apparat], pp. 576–8.

Feuerbach’s two works—‘Preliminary Theses on the Reform of Philosophy’ and ‘Principles of the Philosophy of the Future’—are organically linked. The ‘Principles’ were published in July 1843, during a period in which Marx, living in Kreuznach, was mainly reviewing works of political philosophy and history. Cornu’s view (1954, p. 72) seems reasonable, according to which the ‘Principles’ influenced Marx a bit later, in his articles published in Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher (see also McLellan 1978, pp. 101–13).

In the same vein, see Leopold (2007, pp. 203–18).

Feuerbach (2012, p. 155).

Ibid., pp. 154, 157, 160.

Ibid., p. 161.

Ibid., p. 162.

Feuerbach (2012, p. 163).

Ibid., p. 164.

Ibid., p. 164.

Ibid., p. 168.

Ibid., p. 169.

Ibid., p. 172.

Ibid., p. 173.

Ibid., p. 172.

See Stepelevich (1983, pp. 237–59). This article is in strict continuity with Ruge’s previous text, ‘Hegel’s Philosophy of Right and the Politics of our Times’, a text that I have commented on earlier in relation to Marx’s republicanism. Ruge’s ‘A Self-critique of Liberalism’ was published in the first 1843 issue of Deutsche Jahrbücher. On Ruge’s critique of liberalism, see, in particular, Brazill (1970, pp. 227–60).

Ruge, ‘A Self-critique of Liberalism’, in Stepelevich (1983, p. 244).

Ibid., pp. 245–6.

Ibid., p. 243.

Ibid., p. 246.

Ibid., p. 252.

Ibid., p. 252.

Ibid., p. 256.

Ibid., pp. 246–7.

Ibid., p. 258.

Ibid., p. 259.

The material can be found in MEGA ₂ , IV, 2, pp. 9–278. The editors’ Introduction consists of a short presentation of the material and useful comments on the historical parameters that influenced it. See also Rubel (1989, pp. 17–22).

The editors of MEGA ₂ agree that the Notebooks were written in July–August 1843, when Marx was continuing to write the Critique (MEGA ₂ , IV, 2, p. 12*). The same position is taken by Lapine (1980, p. 210), Rubel (1971, p. 68, note 55) and O’Malley (1970, pp. lxiv–lxv). O’Malley supports his thesis by comparing Marx’s writing style in the Notebooks and the Critique. Contrary to this mainstream view, Screpanti (2011, p. 73) argues that the Critique was not influenced by the Notebooks because it was completed before them, i.e. in July–August 1843.

O’Malley (1970, p. xii).

As Lapine notes (1980, p. 211), ‘although the themes tackled by Marx in the Notebooks are many, they are not a hotchpotch of data. On the contrary, it is a list of a multicolor variety of works that Marx recalls in order to accomplish the theoretical aim as it appears in the 1843 Manuscript, which is to show the relationship between the state and civil society and demarcate the history of the separation between state and civil society.’

See MEGA ₂ , IV, 2, pp. 23*–25*. Oizerman (1981, p. 183) comments on the importance of Rousseau’s distinction between ‘general will’ and ‘will of all’ in the shaping of Marx’s arguments as follows: ‘Special interest, as I see it, attaches to Marx’s extract from Rousseau’s Contrat Social, where Marx emphasizes the ideas about the inalienability of the people’s sovereignty and the distinction between the general will, by which the state must be guided, and the will of all. Marx also quotes Rousseau as saying that the distinction between the two types of will are relative.’

On this point, it is worth noting Abensour’s critical reference to Marx’s letters to Ruge in May and, particularly, in September 1843, when Marx wrote the letter that Abensour himself characterises and analyses as a ‘letter-program’ (Abensour 2011, pp. 33–7).

Ruge, ‘Letter to Marx, March 1843’, MEGA ₂ , I, 2, pp. 472–5.

Ibid., p. 134.

Ibid., p. 137.

Ibid., p. 137. At this point, we should recall that Lucio Colletti (1973, p. 257) stresses the fact that both the Hegelian and the Marxian analysis of the ancient Greek polis are foreshadowed by Rousseau’s confrontation with this issue:

This analysis by Hegel and Marx, whose positions thus far largely coincide, naturally had a prehistory of its own in the eighteenth century, particularly in Rousseau. The organicism of the ancient city, the integration which it achieves between individual and community, the coincidence of public life and private life – not to mention the corrosive effect of exchange, commerce, and the circulation of money on the solidarity and cohesiveness of the ancient ‘republics’ – these are all themes which can be found already developed in the work of the great Genevan.

See also Levine (2012, p. 198), who follows a similar line.

Ibid., p. 137.

Ibid., p. 138.

Ibid., p. 139.

Ibid., p. 141.

Ibid., p. 141.

As Berki notes characteristically (1971, p. 202), ‘Marx’s critique of the Hegelian philosophy of the state appears, incidentally, to be his first work where these characteristically Feuerbachian tools of analysis are employed in a systematic manner’. From a different point of view, MacGregor (1984, p. 236), while recognising Feuerbach’s influence on Marx, considers its role to be negative and a source of Marx’s misinterpretation of Hegel’s own work.

Marx, Critique, in Marx–Engels, Collected Works, vol. 3, pp. 14–15.

Ibid., p. 18.

Ibid., p. 17.

Ibid., pp. 17–18. At this point, Mercier-Josa (1980, p. 42) is right when she argues that ‘in a way, Marx accuses Hegel for subscribing to an aspect of Kantianism, in the sense that Hegel thinks of the state as a universal interest a priori’.

Marx, Critique, in Marx–Engels, Collected Works, vol. 3, p. 8.

Ibid., p. 9.

Ibid., p. 10.

Ibid., p. 11.

Ibid., pp. 10–11.

Ibid., p. 12.

Ibid., p. 6.

Ibid., p. 63.

But, if constructing the future and settling everything for all times are not our affair, it is all the more clear what we have to accomplish at present: I am referring to ruthless criticism of all that exists, ruthless both in the sense of not being afraid of the results it arrives at and in the sense of being just as little afraid of conflict with the powers that be.

On the other hand, it is precisely the advantage of the new trend that we do not dogmatically anticipate the world, but only want to find the new world through criticism of the old one.

Hegel (1991, §267).

Ibid., §268. See also Hegel (ibid., §269):

The [political] disposition takes its particularly determined content from the various aspects of the organism of the state. This organism is the development of the Idea in its differences and their objective actuality. These different aspects are accordingly the various powers [within the state] with their corresponding tasks and functions, through which the universal continually produces itself. It does so in a necessary way, because these various powers are determined by the nature of the concept; and it preserves itself in so doing, because it is itself the presupposition of its own production. This organism is the political constitution.

Ilting (1984, pp. 96ff.) pinpoints a methodological entrapping of the Marxian critique under the influence of Feuerbach’s inversion of the Hegelian ‘subject–predicate’ idealist relation. According to Ilting, due to his attraction to the Feuerbachian reversal of the ‘subject–predicate’ pair, Marx fails to understand Hegel’s ideological identity. In fact, the Hegelian text of 1820, which Marx criticises in his 1843 Manuscript, constitutes, following Ilting, a political drawback compared with Hegel’s own university lectures of 1818–19, which are imbued with republicanism (see especially Ilting 1984, pp. 98–104). Ilting’s analysis is taken up by David MacGregor (1999) in order to argue for a social democrat Hegel.

Hegel (1991, §270, emphasis added). It is interesting to realise that, despite expressing the intention to return later to this issue (Critique, in Marx–Engels, Collected Works, vol. 3, p. 15), Marx never undertook a reconsideration of Hegel’s §270 remark.

Marx, Critique, in Marx–Engels, Collected Works, vol. 3, p. 19.

Galvano della Volpe (1978, pp. 165–6) raises the significance of this issue in Marx’s pre-communist critique, especially against the ‘vulgar empiricism’ of Hegel’s philosophy of right, even suggesting a kind of agreement between Marx’s critical analysis and Galileo’s ‘dialectical-experimental’ method.

Marx, Critique, in Marx–Engels, Collected Works, vol. 3, pp. 38–40.

Ibid., p. 65.