38
PARTISAN REVIEW
The three march out arm in arm, singing,
"Hold the fort, for
we are coming!"
* * *
The Revolution of
1848:
just behind the barricaaes. Shots and
sounds of fighting. Enter Engels, Lassalle and Proudhon. Engels has a
bloody bandage around his head.
ENGELS. Phew! that's hot work! Now that we've joined forces
with the liberal bourgeoisie to overthrow the feudal monarchy, we
must bring pressure on the former to grant our demands.
Marx emerges from the doorway of a house.
MARX. What, Friedrich: still fighting in the streets? Don't you
know that we must turn the intellectual weapons which we have
acquired through our bourgeois education against the institutions of
our own class?
LASSALLE. Intellectual weapons! What we need is a
coup d'etat!
MARX. Always a careerist, Comrade Lassalle! That way lies
counter-revolution.
PROUDHON. Why can't we just have cooperatives, so that we
won't have to do any more fighting?
MARX. That's the poverty of your philosophy, Proudhon. We
must not shrink from violence to achieve our ends. But, Friedrich,
your place is there with me
(pointing toward the house where he has
been working).
Remember we have the Dialectic in our keeping.
Have you drafted the Communist Manifesto?
ENGELS
(taking a manuscript from his pocket).
What do you
think of this for an opening?
"A
specter is haunting Europe-the
specter of Communism."
MARX. No, Friedrich: that will never do. That's not the way to
put it. Make
it: "A
specter is haunting Europe-the specter of De–
mocracy."
* * *
A congress of the Workers' International. Lassalle and Bakunin,
looking furtively about them, slip into the empty hall.
BAKUNIN. I've got the bomb ready and will stand right here
by the door. When Marx comes in, I'll assassinate him.
LASSALLE. There's nothing like individual terrorism!
The delegates begin to gather, Bruno Bauer and Proudhon
among them.
BRUNO BAUER
(to Proudhon).
They say that Comrade Marx is
going to announce an important change of policy.
Marx and Engels come in, Engels with his lifelong companion,
Mary Burns.
