‘Pressure from Without’: Karl Marx and 1867

Abstract

The period 1864 to 1867 was among the most fruitful of Karl Marx's life. As well as writing up the manuscript of Capital, he was an active participant in the International Working Men's Association (IWMA), which had been founded in London in 1864. It was Marx who composed its ‘Inaugural Address’ and the ‘Rules’ of the Association, helping to define the new social democratic language of the 1860s. Internationally, the civil war in America, the Polish Rising and the achievements of Mazzini and Garibaldi in Italy provided a new context for radical thought in Britain, contributing to a new political activism among trade unionists. Marx was closely engaged in these debates, as well as with the leading figures in the campaign for reform of parliament. He followed the reform debates closely, debating both the goals and tactics of reformers as well as the potential for ‘pressure from without’. As such, the reform struggle provides an important case study in Marx's evolving political thought and in his understanding of the means by which political change might be achieved. It is important to remember that, until the eve of publication, his intention was to publish the whole of Capital in two volumes. This would have established a far closer connection between his ‘Critique of Political Economy’ and his concurrent conception of ‘pressure from without’. Had this happened, it would have led to a significantly different conception of the relationship between the politics and economics of ‘Marxism’.