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PARTISAN REVIEW
ent. Paying :;pecial attention to France, the first section traces the contra·
dictions and decline of revolutionary Democracy and the appropriation of
the name "Democrat" hy the anti-Jacohin bourgeois republicans, to whom
Democracy meant a strong modern State defending "property, family, and
fatherland". Here Dr. Rosenberg notes that this "extreme Left wing among
all the defenders of private property" would, in a revolutionary situation,
serve as a "protective shield, in order to intercept the assault of the radi–
cal masses". But while touching thus the historic nerve center of the
republican parties, nowhere in his hook does Rosenberg analyze the class
function of the State created hy these parties. Instead, these "Left wing"
States are referred to throughout as "social democracies"; and a "demo·
cratic state" is defined as "a state in which the democratic movement
rules". The struggles centering on the U. S. Constitution-an epical inci–
dent in the
conversion of Derrwcracy
into a bourgeois State-form-are
passed over in part of a sentence dealing with the organization of the
Republican Party hy Thomas Jefferson. Yet it is the relation of the hour·
geois democratic State to both Democracy and Socialism that is the crux
of Dr. Rosenberg's subject. Surely, the historian of the German Republic
must he aware of this.
Rosenberg's account of the rise and decline of early Democracy is
merely an introduction to the main body of his hook, which is "intended
.to present primarily the practical work of Marx and Engels during the
period of 1845-95". Here the ambiguity of Democracy, which the first
section has avoided dispelling, gives birth to a remarkable fruit. The
Communist Manifesto
favored the advance of democratic revolutions. But
democratic revolutions are the act of The People, not of any one class. It
follows, Dr. Rosenberg argues, that Marx, as a revolutionist, was opposed
to the independent action of the working class. What he demanded was
unity with the democrats, and this alone can he the policy of the workers.
Hence every true Marxist will today support the actions of the Democ·
racies, in the interests of Revolution.
In his
18th Brumaire
Marx had already appraised the consequences
of union with the "petty-bourgeois or democratic party": As against the
coalition of the bourgeoisie, a coalition between petty-bourgeois aid wc;>rk–
ers had been formed, the so-called Social-Democratic Party .•. banquets
celebrated the reconciliation. A joint program was drafted, joint election
committees were set up, and joint candidates put forward. From the
social demands of the proletariat the revolutionary point was broken off
and a democratic turn given to them; from the democratic claims of the
petty bourgeois the purely political form was stripped off and their social·
ist point thrust forward. Thus arose
Social Democracy.
... The peculiar
character of Social Democracy is epitomized in the fact that democratic–
republican institutions are demanded not as a means of doing away with
both extremes, capital and wage labor, hut of weakening their antagonism
and transforming it into harmony.... Finally, instead of gaining an
accession of strength from it, the democratic party had infected the pro·
