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The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte
by Karl Marx

Translator's Preface

"The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte" is one of Karl Marx'
most profound and most brilliant monographs. It may be considered the
best work extant on the philosophy of history, with an eye especially
upon the history of the Movement of the Proletariat, together with the
bourgeois and other manifestations that accompany the same, and the

tactics that such conditions dictate.
The recent populist uprising; the more recent "Debs Movement"; the
thousand and one utopian and chimerical notions that are flaring up; the
capitalist maneuvers; the hopeless, helpless grasping after straws, that
characterize the conduct of the bulk of the working class; all of these,
together with the empty-headed, ominous figures that are springing into
notoriety for a time and have their day, mark the present period of the
Labor Movement in the nation a critical one. The best information
acquirable, the best mental training obtainable are requisite to steer
through the existing chaos that the death-tainted social system of today
creates all around us. To aid in this needed information and mental
training, this instructive work is now made accessible to English
readers, and is commended to the serious study of the serious.
The teachings contained in this work are hung on an episode in recent
French history. With some this fact may detract of its value. A pedantic,
supercilious notion is extensively abroad among us that we are an
"Anglo Saxon" nation; and an equally pedantic, supercilious habit
causes many to look to England for inspiration, as from a racial
birthplace Nevertheless, for weal or for woe, there is no such thing
extant as "Anglo-Saxon"--of al nations, said to be "Anglo-Saxon," in
the United States least. What we still have from England, much as
appearances may seem to point the other way, is not of our
bone-and-marrow, so to speak, but rather partakes of the nature of
"importations. "We are no more English on account of them than we
are Chinese because we all drink tea.
Of all European nations, France is the on to which we come nearest.
Besides its republican form of government--the directness of its history,
the unity of its actions, the sharpness that marks its internal
development, are all characteristics that find their parallel her best, and
vice versa. In all essentials the study of modern French history,
particularly when sketched by such a master hand as Marx', is the most
valuable one for the acquisition of that historic, social and biologic
insight that our country stands particularly in need of, and that will be
inestimable during the approaching critical days.

For the assistance of those who, unfamiliar with the history of France,
may be confused by some of the terms used by Marx, the following
explanations may prove aidful:
On the 18th Brumaire (Nov. 9th), the post-revolutionary development
of affairs in France enabled the first Napoleon to take a step that led
with inevitable certainty to the imperial throne. The circumstance that
fifty and odd years later similar events aided his nephew, Louis
Bonaparte, to take a similar step with a similar result, gives the name to
this work--"The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte."
As to the other terms and allusions that occur, the following sketch will
suffice:
Upon the overthrow of the first Napoleon came the restoration of the
Bourbon throne (Louis XVIII, succeeded by Charles X). In July, 1830,
an uprising of the upper tier of the bourgeoisie, or capitalist class--the
aristocracy of finance-- overthrew the Bourbon throne, or landed
aristocracy, and set up the throne of Orleans, a younger branch of the
house of Bourbon, with Louis Philippe as king. From the month in
which this revolution occurred, Louis Philippe's monarchy is called the
"July Monarchy. "In February, 1848, a revolt of a lower tier of the
capitalist class-the industrial bourgeoisie--, against the aristocracy of