What if Proudhon had collaborated with Marx and Engels?

Hnau

Banned
Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Karl Marx both influenced each other's works, establishing correspondence and becoming good friends until Marx brusquely published a scathing response to Proudhon's theories.

What if Karl Marx had chosen to really listen to Proudhon's ideas and accept him as part of the 'team' he had between Friedrich Engels? He never rebukes him to the point of becoming enemies with Proudhon, he may be aggressive to his theories, but he is willing to yield just enough to remain close. The famous duo is now a famous troika and Communists now include Proudhonists.

What do you call Marxism now, a few decades after?
 

The Sandman

Banned
Well, "anarcho-Communism" would be a good start. Having more of an anarchist strain in Communist Holy Writ could produce some interesting effects later on, in fact. Also, explicit denial of the idea that the state should own property would definitely influence the sort of Communist governments that might arise in this scenario.
 

Matthais Corvinus

Well the importance of the individual explicit in his anarchist thought is going to really throw Marxism as we know it for a loop. I mean I think this was probably the conflict that sparked their rivalry. Anarchism is basically predicated on the idea of the absolute supremacy of the individual, while communism was predicated on the idea of the community ownership. On a totally different level, the association with actual revolution (Proudhon was involved with the June Days Uprising during 1848) may really help to evolve Marx-Engels-Proudhon ideas of how revolution would work.
 

cow defender

it would be really interesting if the international becomes a conclusive body, a congress for the people, with each leader becoming members of seperate parties or something
 

Hnau

Banned
Thats an interesting idea, cow defender. Finally we can get down to the nitty-gritty ideological parts of this idea. :) Hey, thanks for bumping this, its an idea I was hoping would be interesting to others.

Where was Bakunin at the time? I should do some more research. Who knows? Having such larger-than-life individuals contribute to a more unified communist theory would be spectacularly interesting. Proudhon and Marx were close before, so I believe it totally plausible that they could continue to cooperate closer and closer with one another. Each concedes a few of their more different ideas (probably Proudhon more than Marx) while creating new ideas to bind their philosophies together.

Anarchism is basically predicated on the idea of the absolute supremacy of the individual, while communism was predicated on the idea of the community ownership. On a totally different level, the association with actual revolution (Proudhon was involved with the June Days Uprising during 1848) may really help to evolve Marx-Engels-Proudhon ideas of how revolution would work.
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When I read this, and think about the thread prompt, I can't help but think of that moment in A Beautiful Mind in which John Nash discovers the Equilibrium Theory (I don't know too much about it, but it is explained in the movie that the best solution works for both the individual and the group.) Perhaps an early discovery of something like the Equilibrium Theory could help fuse Proudhonism and Marxism together?
 

cow defender

thats a good idea. i have a closet full of books that i'm about to put in my new bookshelf, in that pile i have a book about bakunin. all that i remember is that marx kicked him out of the international. i seem to recall them hating each other. proudhon's in that book too.

its too late now but i'll see if i can find it tomorrow.
 

endlesstuesday

Well marx and bakunin getting on doesn't take much work, bakunin had already offered to translate marx's work into russian. The relationship between the two only broke down due to bakunin being too prone to loving up insurrections and being influenced by russian nihilism and marx being too ''soft on the state'' so to speak. It wouldn;t take a great divergence to move bakunin out of his insurrectionist tendencies and have marx rail against the state a little more. Likewise there were a whole bunch fo 19th century anarchists you could add to make a ''marx & engels + anarchism'' PoD which would probably have resulted in big changes long term in the character of bolshevism and social democracy both of which would have struggled to claim much of a ''marxist heritage''.

However to get proudhon ''onside'' so to speak means you'd pretty much have to erase his political ideas, the guy was anti-semetic, quite openly thought women should have no say in public discourse (being one o the people who said women shouldn't have any votes in the paris commune) and generally favoured a mixture of small mutualist business and conservative craft unionism. It'd be pretty difficult to ever make him and marx ever get along...
 

Matthais Corvinus

So its sounding like Proudhon was something of an anarcho-syndicatlist (sp?). Could we perhaps push Marx into thinking more organizationally, perhaps thinking more about the actually organs of revolution, and in this thinking come towards Proudhon's thinking. With this greater mesh between Proudhon's anarchism, and Marx's communism, then Bakunin's militancy and ties to Russian nihilism could give this new Anarcho-Communism the revolutionary fervor it needs. Under this new political philosophy Lenin's Revolutionary Vanguard theory wouldn't be as heretical as it was OTL, because of Anarcho-Communism's greater focus on actual organs of revolution.
 

cow defender

imagine these men as the founding fathers for the syndacalist union of europe and then as analogues to the american founding fathers. there were quite a few characters in that group and they differed on many ideas, however, there was a fundamental undercurrent that kept them together, would there be such a holy ghost to keep these men working together? i think so.

proudhon would be a weird little sideshow tho
 

Matthais Corvinus

This idea of these men as the founding fathers of a "syndacalist union of Europe" is really, supremely cool. I think I might have a POD for it as well.

This is a post i wrote a while ago, but I think it might provide a good jumping off point.

I blame Napoleon III for WWI. I know thats reaching pretty far back, but my thinking is that his adventuring, specifically the Crimean War, was what really upset the balance of power in Europe, and allowed for holes in the Congress of Vienna established balance of power to be exploited by Bismarck and the Italian whose name escapes me.

Kill off Napoleon III sometime before 1848. If there is not a Bonaparte to take advantage of the fall of the July Monarchy (and without Nappy III I don't see one who can), then the Second Republic gets to stumble along, Nappy III never gets the chance to unbalance Europe via the Crimean War. Without the Crimean War then Austria and Russia remains conservative status quo-er pals facing down liberal nationalism wherever it rears its ugly head. Without Russian-Austrian animosity the Prussians don't get a chance to upset the balance of power in Germany. Nappy III was the mover behind Italian unification, and without him France is not going to back Italian unification. Europe continues down the path of boiling nationalism, with no great power sponsorship to make any of it more than rhetoric from exiles.

Another '48 is probably inevitable, in say another generation. History progresses anyway though, as with a united Austrian-Russian front the Balkans is more carefully sliced up, perhaps the Austrians and Russians even come to some kind of agreement whereby the Austrians get the Danube basin (in effect the Balkans) in return for support of Russian designs on Constantinople.

In Germany nationalism becomes increasingly the province of liberals. Without backing from any of the princes German nationalism begins to spread via labor unions and intellectual centers. When the next '48-esque crisis occurs German nationalism is in the form a National Strike, with Workers and Students uniting to face down the princes. In Aachen the "German National Republic" is declared. Many troops go over to the rebels and the Prussians and Austrians call out their armies, and civil war between the Nationalists and the Princes appears inevitable. In Hungary Louis Kossuth appears again, this time declaring the "Republic of Hungary" and leading another insurrection. With Hungary in revolt and Germany on the edge of civil war the Hapsburgs are at their lowest ebb in generations . . .

In Italy Garibaldi begins his own revolution, launched from Rome itself. However, his forces are able to gain control of Sicily, Naples, and in Austrian Lombardy the Italian cities throw out their Austrian overlords and annex themselves to Garibaldi's "Italian Republic." In Piedmont the French-speaking King calls out the Army when pro-Garibaldi rioting threatens to overthrow his throne . . .

In France economic difficulties provoke rioting and the inability of the government to respond brings its collapse. The threat of a Restoration brings out the Communards in the streets of Paris and they hoist the Red Flag. The French recall Philip V to the throne, and the war between the Tricolors and Reds begins in the streets of Paris . . .

Anyway, the end result is a Europe that is much more democratic and liberal. With democracies in Germany, Italy, France, and Hungary, as a result of liberal nationalism and essentially "people power" the threat of war between the Republics is very reduced. I don't think that World War I that we had OTL would occur in this kind of world. I'm kind of an optimist though.
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Basically, with this POD, and with the proposed cooperation we have between Europe's Radical Intellectual Elite, then while the nationalist pressure is building up within this alt-Europe, the Syndacalists can be spreading their organizational tentacles, and when the next great nationalist explosion goes off (probably starting in France, but perhaps in Germany) the Grand Old Men of Syndicatalism (or their heirs) would be well positioned to take play a key role in the establishment of these new National Republics.
 

Uber_Amoeba

I have to throw in my support for the combined will of these men forming some kind of United Syndicates of Europe, since a nineteenth-century Anarcho-Syndicalist revolutionary European Union-thing is way too cool not be made into a timeline. I can see particularly a nation founded on the strength of Western Germany, Northern Italy, and perhaps France becoming the next great power in Europe, pitched against the ossified monarchies, the Second Enlightenment rearing its revolutionary head...

Er, got carried away there for a moment. Still though, this would be jawesome.
 

Matthais Corvinus

What I would imagine is that the Syndicalism of Marx, Engels, and Proudhon (the Great Radicals) would have a profound effect on the way that the politics of these countries evolve. I would say that the biggest effects would be seen in the more industrialized areas of Europe: Germany, France, the Low Countries, Northern Italy, and Great Britain. With more of a focus on the organs of revolution, and with a scenario where you don't have Great Power sponsorship of nationalism, then I think that the nationalists will be pushed into more radical arenas, arenas where the revolutionary ideas laid out in the "Freeman's Manifesto" (I don't think the "Syndicalist Manifesto" has the same ring, maybe im too much of an OTL Marxist . . .) our alternate statement produced by the Great Radicals, would find fertile ground. In the more divided politics of this alt-Europe the radical labor unions, student groups, and nihilist terrorists . . . sorry I mean self-less freedom fighters, my bad . . . cross the boundaries of princely states, linking together based on language, not borders. I think some kind of crisis in Germany, precipitating a National Strike, would start the "second '48," and spread into Italy and France. The organized labor movement and fellow travelers in the student movements provide the leadership for these nationalist revolts, and find much support among the younger military leadership of various princely armed forces.

Oh, I've got the crisis. A strike in Vienna results in the arrest and show trails of several prominent Austro-German syndicalists. Their trail creates massive amounts of rioting, and the powers that be decide to have a public hanging to show that they mean business. Their execution never happens. While they are being driven to the gallows "Freeman's Brigades," the popular name for syndicalist terrorists, ambush the guard and set off a revolt in Vienna. Street fighting rages for a few days, then the syndicalists declare victory. Elsewhere in Germany, the fighting in Vienna spawns other political violence and soon several major German cities are under "the People's Control." Chaos in Austria provokes Hungarian and Italian revolts. In Italy Garibaldi appears in Milan, then Venice, then leads an army to Rome, while the Sardinia-Piedmont troops battle with pro-Garibaldi rebels. In France the Communards, the popular name for the Syndicalist sympathizers in Paris, take to the streets and declare the "People's Republic."

In Germany and Italy the organizing done by labor unions was essential for these revolts united leadership. The unions and student organizations working together are able to establish governments, and their ties into the the armed forces of their respective armed forces bring about mutinies, the killing of officers, and in many places in Germany, coups in the name of the Volk.
 
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