About Bonapartism

Bonapartism pertains to the Napoleon I, the first French emperor, after the victory of the Great French Revolution (1789-1794). The historic mission of the French Revolution was to topple down feudal system and establish a bourgeois system. Different classes engaged in the revolution with different visions: bourgeoisie, petty- bourgeoisie, peasants and proletariat. There was a competition between these classes. While bourgeoisie tried to limit the revolution’s outcome to the subversion of feudal system, petty-bourgeoisie, peasants and proletariat were willing to radicalize the revolution to realize its slogan “equality and brotherhood”, and this contrasted interests of bourgeoisie that saw in the revolution freeing peasants from the yoke of feudalism to provide labor force for manufactures and expand capitalist system.  The first stage of the French Revolution ends with the overthrow of Jacobins and the execution of Robespierre.  In the second stage, the Thermidor, the left wing of the revolution is pushed back, and the right wing paves the way for the coronation of the Napoleon I. The rule of Napoleon put an end to the revolution and checked its radicalization but at the same time stabilized achievements of the revolution and waged Napoleonic wars against European reaction.

However, the term Bonapartism found a widespread recognition when the Marx used it in his analysis of the aftermath of the 1848 revolution in France. The 1848 revolution overthrew the Louis Philippe, the symbol of financial oligarchy. The revolution brought to power a bloc of diversified political forces. As Marx says: 

“On its side stood the aristocracy of finance, the industrial bourgeoisie, the middle class, the petty bourgeois, the army, the lumpen proletariat organized as the Mobile Guard, the intellectual lights, the clergy, and the rural population.”[1]. The workers’ uprising in 23 and 24 June was brutally demolished and leaders of the riot were arrested. The bourgeoisie’s inability to put an end to revolution paved the way for Louis Bonaparte, a mediocre figure, in Marx’ words. Bonaparte was elected as the French president.  Bonaparte, taking the helm of a government that raised itself above social classes, was not the direct representative of French bourgeoisie. As Marx says: “[bourgeoisie] to preserve its social power intact its political power must be broken… in order to save its purse it must forfeit the crown, and the sword that is to safeguard it must at the same time be hung over its own head as a sword of Damocles”.[2]

Bonpartism, as a product of the fruitless 1848 revolution, continued until the defeat of France in the war with Prussia that led the Paris Commune uprising. The concept of Bonapartism has been used by other authors to describe somewhat different conditions. For instance, Lenin calls Kernesky’s government a Bonapartism one where neither bourgeoisie nor the working class had sufficient might to seize power. Trostky describes the Stalin-led bureaucracy as an instance of Thermidor of the Russian revolution and a Bonapartist state. In analyzing the rise and basis of fascism, August Thalheimer refers to Marx’s concept of Bonpartism.

At any rate, Marx’s Bonapartism shows the dialectic of the class struggle and the various forms of political institutes that may appear in this course, and refutes sticking to mechanical analysis of the relationship between classes under certain conditions.

[1] & [2] The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon