Karl Marx: Style and Distortion

In general, political beliefs which appeal to 'the people' or a class of 'ordinary people' are often held to be suspect, because they are tacitly speaking about the reader. When they refer to these masses, they mean to refer to an overall category which these readers are or might as well be in. Hence, when they attempt 'rousing' rhetoric and so on, this can also serve to promote the listeners and involve them in this upwards movement - in a slightly back-handed manner. Populism tends to use this to notable effect, although even North American politicians are known to frequently call on populist rhetoric and especially on the campaign trail. There are other reasons why people are concerned about such beliefs, but we shall discuss that in a post following this.

In general, when people in capitalism encounter Marxism and related viewpoints in a positive manner, they are experiencing some amount of disillusionment with official politics and trying to see past the illusions of such political forms. However, that Marxism is effective in intercepting this, or the revolutionary or 'disillusioned' element in such societies, is not entirely coincidental. It is actually something which is deeply inter-woven in Marxist texts in a stylistic sense, which invites their viewing in such a context.

However, this can at times seem to distort the message. If a text is encountered in the context of disillusionment, then it often has to be seen in the context of another political view or situation. It cannot present a focussed and emphatic proclamation of its perspective, but must respond to other things or possibly qualify this. For instance, Das Kapital is forced in its presentation of value to continually respond to possible criticisms of itself - which many critics have taken as an authoritative documentation of ways to dispute it. These opposed points force their way into the texts. That readers then complain, although of course people would do whatever they could to dispute or question the points made by Marxism, that it is too boring and laboured is really to leave Marx no way out in this endeavour.

Nonetheless, these texts which were abandoned by most do hold notable interest. There is no need to heap calumny upon condemnation just for mild personal caprice.

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The effectiveness of Marx in intercepting certain situation is manifested in multiple ways. However, we must also note that this form of political straying, or disillusionment with the major Parties and beliefs, can also seem to capitalism like a turn towards laissez-faire. Hence, its promoters do their best to assimilate this form of politics into a sort of indifferent, ecstatic, laissez-faire posturing. They will take for granted that that is what is being attempted, as they will not acknowledge the albeit complex content of revolutionary politics. Hence, Marxism can also form something of an ambiguous area. The strictness of Das Kapital, which at least firmly defines that which it takes issue with, can often dissuade these although they might occasionally also assume that they know what it's on about without engaging with it. In any case, after this general caution we may move on.

Firstly, let us examine the structuring of a paragraph in the article 'The June Revolution.' We are first presented with a somewhat 'optimistic,' rousing - but highly subdued - couple of sentences.

"The workers of Paris were overwhelmed by superior strength, but they were not subdued. They have been defeated but their enemies are vanquished."

Hence, there is no decisive demolition here. As we have noted, by this category readers of various kinds are also designated or involved, and hence here it seems a re-assuring and slightly encouraging statement. It refers, like the Christian myth, to perseverance despite the odds, to the re-assuring ability to keep going. However, contrast this to what follows:

"The momentary triumph of brute force has been purchased with the destruction of all the delusions and illusions of the February revolution, the dissolution of the entire moderate republican party and the division of the French nation into two nations, the nation of owners and the nation of workers. The tricolor republic now displays only one color, the color of the defeated, the color of blood. It has become a red republic."

After the dedicated denial of a decisive destruction, now we are presented with images of not only decisive but slightly hyperbolic destruction. Words like 'all' and 'entire' appear notable, along with repetitions of certain words which serve to stress this aspect of their text. However, this is not merely a contrast. This is the general direction of the paragraph from its opening. 

The final sentence might seem vaguely humorous insofar as a 'red' republic could give the overly-optimistic sense of a communist region, but in any case it just lurks there like a punch-line hanging ghost-like between the lines.

Hence, from the presentation of perseverance and a cause, we are led instead into a portrayal of general destruction and blood-shed. The final sentences meditate for a while on the theme of blood. Of course, part of the point here is of interest: with the decline of the moderates, the division is no longer as clearly obscured. At least not to Marx, which is fortunate.

The situation is also of interest: it describes a National Assembly being set up in the throes of an uprising, with various political forces within it. After some time of being indecisive, they were eventually displaced. This would seem to indicate the paralytic force of these diverse strains being placed together in this eclectic organisation.  This situation would recur later on in history, albeit leading instead to things like Stalin instead of an eventual monarchist revival. Which some might not find entirely dissimilar.

Hence, after the stirring initial theme, you do not have a continuation but rather a 'descent' or rather a distortion. This allows Marx to make more notable and insightful political points than are usually allowed to ordinary populists. However, the overall movement is in general a disillusioned one, where after a general sense of hope this is turned into a dark 'realisation.' Most political figures or texts would rather stop at the first, strangely. Marx, however, does better than that here.

Of course, this kind of shift or distortion in tone need not always imply the blatant conjuring of blood and wanton destruction. Nonetheless, it can take up a slightly humorously exaggerated form as in this rather special paragraph:

"Fraternite, [...] this fraternity which in February was proclaimed and inscribed in large letters on the facades of Paris, on every prison and every barracks -- this fraternity found its true, unadulterated and prosaic expression in civil war, civil war in its most terrible aspect, the war of labor against capital. This brotherhood blazed in front of the windows of Paris on the evening of June 25, when the Paris of the bourgeoisie held illuminations while the Paris of the proletariat was burning, bleeding, groaning in the throes of death."

The next paragraph is a slightly peculiar adventure where Marx anticipates their future of requesting alms from Engels, and eventually follows this 'burning, bleeding and groaning' with a paragraph ending about how the people thought they had destroyed, "their enemy when they had overthrown the enemy of their enemies, their common enemy." It is at the least a decent example of 19th Century slap-stick, like much of the 1848 revolution.

 This kind of structure is reprised yet again, however, and quite clearly, in the following paragraph:

"The February revolution was the nice revolution, the revolution of universal sympathies, because the contradictions which erupted in it against the monarchy were still undeveloped and peacefully dormant, because the social struggle which formed their background had only achieved an ephemeral existence, an existence in phrases, in words. The June revolution is the ugly revolution, the nasty revolution, because the phrases have given place to the real thing, because the republic has bared the head of the monster by knocking off the crown which shielded and concealed it."

Oddly, this could also be used to describe other February Revolutions, although revolutions in June need not have the same historical co-ordination. Strangely, even the description of the February revolution goes from paraphrasing praises to a negative appraisal.

This structure becomes quite entrenched, even in slightly subtle ways, through the rest of the text. For example:

"Order! was Guizot's war-cry. Order! shouted Sebastiani, the Guizotist, when Warsaw became Russian. Order! shouts Cavaignac, the brutal echo of the French National Assembly and of the republican bourgeoisie."

"Is the deep chasm which has opened at our feet to mislead us, democrats, or cause us to believe that the struggle for a form of polity is meaningless, illusory and futile?"


"For whom did you make the February revolution, you rascals -- for yourselves or for us? The bourgeoisie put this question in such a way that it had to be answered in June with grape-shot and barricades."

"Thus the workers fought in February in order to be engulfed in an industrial crisis."

 In general, this structure of a clear and inviting situation - at least in appearance - followed by a grim atmosphere is one which relates quite clearly to the sense of disillusionment or slipping away from certain portrayals. Strangely, this kind of thing is now associated more with the Soviet Union, although of course usually it is the preserve of Marxism and conspiracy theories. An aesthetic which so favours conspiracy theorists is one which is generally safe from such extensive foreign intrusion, although the Cold War was a site of many 'conspiratorial' actions and groupings (the name itself is conspiratorial - claiming a war when each nation itself stringently avoids declaring a state of war) and hence allows these elements a seeming alibi. However, conspiracy theories can be iffy in this regard: after presenting an appealing image of things, they then wish to demonstrate that things are not appealing - but this would seem if anything to encourage an overly optimistic view of things and the sense that only minor obstacles must be dealt with or shoved out of the way. Generally, this is unrealistic even by the conspiracists' terms: they portray a situation where a whole realm exists often out of most people's explicit control, and which is rather sinister. The perspective where conspiracy theorists merely become part of the glorification of the social system is that of the person with comfortable personal position in this system, who expects much from it or aspires to receive this and hence can only admit conspiracies to appear on the sides. Apart from this, conspiracy theories can at the least involve notable observations on a society which is highly 'alienated' in Marx's terms and where events might appear to inhabit a realm apart from the disenfranchised citizens of the nation. They hence deal with elements which call this social system into question. In any case, their format allows for Marx to seem highly appropriate to certain situations, in terms of political conflict - at least if these are present.

The danger otherwise is that people might dismiss it as garish and overly dark, or in general not see the appeal in such texts.

Nonetheless, this type of method tends to be prominent, in various forms, as Marx continues on. The general tone of this is quite apt:

"For the entire duration of its rule, for as long as it gave its grand performance of state on the proscenium, an unbroken sacrificial feast was being staged in the background – the continual sentencing by courts–martial of the captured June insurgents or their deportation without trial. The Constituent Assembly had the tact to admit that in the June insurgents it was not judging criminals but wiping out enemies."

While most Christianity speaks of  walking away from 'the world,' before sanctifying and chanting hymns to everything in it, Marxism at least on some level attempts to enact this. It moves from the official 'performance' to a tone quite different, and often dark in subject-matter. The texts with Engels can often be of interest because this tendency interacts with some others, with various results; however, generally Marx's texts written without such interference are not as well recognised. This might be in part due to the style bringing up things people would rather not be reminded of.

In any case, such distortions do have occasional note in popular culture. Even in video games, the sudden shift of a 'heroic' journey to a dark place with blood-thirsty characters in Lavender Town has been associated in pop culture with not only horror but also suicides. There is something that people find unnerving about it, allowing for rather exotic or troubling stories to be easily associated with it. Likewise, Dracula has an influential shift from the tone of the early novel, giving notes on the location almost reminiscent of travel-writing, to the sudden influx of a darker atmosphere which seemingly appears in the form of an animal. The whole of the area is tainted with this kind of darkness, as though it had distorted into something new. The animals are strange, and so are the people - indeed, the image of an eccentric or highly peculiar person is called upon for Dracula's associate, albeit with the absurdity occasionally played up to the point where it might seem inadvertently humorous rather than fitting with the pathos of the story. This is less thorough in that novel, however, where a neat ending must be drawn regardless - the distortion is a phenomenon that enters into the style, but not an abiding characteristic. However, Marx's use of it can not only easily lead to associations such as that which Wurmbrand drew to the Satanic, but can at times lead to notable insights in the area. In this sense, Marxism cannot stay fixated upon the idea of rousing or positive emotions, but must deal with the darker aspects of what is before it. Hence, it has an interest which can easily continue to torment and disturb anew.