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analysis into a rather mechanistic process which would inevitably unfold in strictly

prescribed stages; and they opted to pursue electoral and parliamentary politics; an
uneasy pairing of reform and revolution. It became known as Revisionism and was
associated with Edward Bernstein. This “gradualist” approach to socialism was also
adopted by the British Fabian Society (named after the Roman general Fabius who
defeated Hannibal by a drawn-out war of attrition, avoiding pitched battles) and by
the Labour Party (established in 1900). Marx’s view was as we’ve seen that no
bourgeois parliament would ever pass reforms that genuinely helped the working
class, although he slightly modified this view later in life.

In 1916, with Russia destabilised by defeats in the First World War, Lenin said it was
ripe for revolution; why wait? Even if it meant turning key parts of Marxism upside
down: relying on Russia’s peasant majority because workers were still a minority;
industrialising after the revolution, not before; and prolonging a ruthless dictatorship
in the name of communism, perhaps indefinitely. Leninism was Marxism in a such a
hurry that it ceased to be Marxist. The claim that the Russian Revolution of 1917 and

the Soviet regime that followed owed little or nothing to the Marx of 1848 was
probably right. The Soviet nightmare was the vision of Lenin, not Marx.

Revolutionary awakening, orphaned survivor
The conversation between the Enlightenment and Romanticism contains many
complexities and nuances. Socialists, with their belief in collective action and organic
community rather than the individualism and competition of capitalism, tended to
stand on the side of Romanticism. But according to Marshall Brown, “Romanticism

was the revolutionary reawakening of the Enlightenment”.

Marx transcends the divide, applying Enlightenment reason, but borrowing language
and ideas from Romanticism. The Communist Manifesto exposes the laws of history
yet read in places reads like a Gothic tale. Its brilliance lies not so much in the detail
of its arguments, which are often questionable, but in its epic scale. The breadth of

Marx’s historical vision is breath-taking. Duncan Heath claims that “Romanticism
expires on the barricades of 1848, with Marxism as its orphaned survivor.”
But as Michael Lowy says, this does not mean that Marx wished to escape to the
past: rather, “he aims at a higher form of social organisation, which would integrate
both the technical advances of modern society and some of the human qualities of
pre-capitalist communities, as well as opening a new and boundless field for the
th
development and enrichment of human life.” Marx is the titan of 19 century
socialism, the solitary genius standing on his mountain top surveying all, like the
Romantic hero he dreamed of becoming in his youth.