Reactionary Socialism

Owing to their historical position, it became the vocation of aristocrats of France and England to write pamphlets against modern bourgeois society.

In the French Revolution of July 1830, and in the English reform agitation, these aristocracies again succumbed to the hateful upstart.

Thenceforth, a serious political contest was altogether out of the question.

A literary battle alone remained possible.

But even in the domain of literature, the old cries of the Restoration period had become impossible.

In order to arouse sympathy, the aristocracy were obliged to lose sight, apparently, of their own interests and to formulate their indictment against the bourgeoisie in the interest of the exploited working class alone.

Thus the aristocrats took their revenge by singing lampoons on their new master and whispering in his ear sinister prophecies of coming catastrophe.

In this way arose feudal socialism, half lamentation, half lampoon, half echo of the past, half menace of the future, at times, by its bitter, witty, and incisive criticism, striking the bourgeoisie to the very heart's core, but always ludicrous in its effect, through total incapacity to comprehend the march of modern history.

The aristocracy, in order to rally the people to them, wave the proletarian alms bag in front of a banner.

But the people, so often as it joined them, saw on their hindquarters the old feudal coat of arms and deserted with loud and irreverent laughter.

One section of the French Legitimists and Young England exhibited this spectacle.

In pointing out that their mode of exploitation was different to that of the bourgeoisie, the feudalists forget that they exploited under circumstances and conditions that were quite different and that are now antiquated.

In showing that, under their rule, the modern proletariat never existed, they forget that the modern bourgeoisie is the necessary offspring of their own form of society.

For the rest, so little do they conceal the reactionary character of their criticism, that their chief accusation against the bourgeoisie amounts to this, that under the bourgeois regime a class is being developed which is destined to cut up root and branch the old order of society.

What they upbraid the bourgeoisie with is not so much that it creates a proletariat, as that it creates a revolutionary proletariat.

In political practice, therefore, they join in all coercive measures against the working class, and in ordinary life, despite their highfalutin phrases, they stoop to pick up the golden apples dropped from the trees of industry, and to barter truth, love, and honor for traffic in wool, beetroot sugar, and potato spirit.

As the parson has ever gone hand in hand with the landlord, so has the clerical socialism with feudal socialism.

Nothing is easier than to give Christian asceticism a socialist tinge.

Has not Christianity declaimed against private property, against marriage, against the state? Has it not preached in the place of these charity and poverty, celibacy and mortification of the flesh, monastic life and Mother Church? Christian socialism is but the holy water with which the priest consecrates the heartburnings of the aristocrat.

All right, so that is an overview as well as critique for what Marx refers to as feudal socialism.

Basically, it's a form of reactionary socialism from the old aristocrats of old Europe.

Basically, it's a realization that the old ruling class, the feudal powers of Europe, were going to lose to the new ruling class, the bourgeoisie of Europe.

But by applying socialist thinking, they could recognize that the bourgeoisie's newfound power was coming from the proletariat, and so they might be able to pull the power of the proletariat over to their side if they actually do anything to improve the lives and working conditions of the proletariat.

Basically promising the proletariat that there would be more checks on their royal powers, that there would be more protections for proletariat workers Basically, we're going to choose to be the least powerful aristocracy that Europe has ever seen so that we get to continue to be an aristocracy.

But what they failed to recognize is that leaving the aristocracy in place leaves class antagonism in place, and then inherently, any amount of aristocracy is going to generate new bourgeoisie.