Having identified, as early as 1844–1845, one of the fundamental shortcomings of old materialism—namely, its inability to grasp the conditions underlying and to appraise the significance of revolutionary, practical activity—Marx devoted unwavering attention, throughout his entire life, alongside his theoretical works, to questions of the tactics of the proletariat’s class struggle. The vast body of material on this subject is amply represented in all of Marx’s writings, and especially in the four-volume correspondence with Engels, published in 1913. Yet this material has by no means been fully collected, systematically organized, thoroughly studied, or rigorously developed. Accordingly, we must limit ourselves here to only the most general and concise remarks, emphasizing that without this dimension of materialism, Marx rightly regarded it as incomplete, one-sided, and lifeless. Marx defined the principal task of proletarian tactics in strict accordance with all the premises of his materialist‑dialectical worldview. Only by objectively accounting for the totality of interclass relations within any given society—and thus taking into consideration both the objective stage of development of that society and the relationships between it and other societies—can the advanced class’s correct tactics be grounded. In doing so, all classes and all countries are to be viewed not in a static, but in a dynamic light; that is, not in a state of immobility, but in motion—whose laws are derived from the economic conditions of each class’s existence. And this movement, in turn, is to be considered not merely from the perspective of the past, but also from that of the future—not in the narrow, “evolutionary” sense favored by those who see only gradual change, but in a dialectical manner: “Twenty years may amount to a single day in great historical developments,” Marx wrote to Engels, “though later there may come days in which twenty years are concentrated” (Vol. III, p. 127 of the Correspondence){87}. At every stage of development, at every moment, the proletariat’s tactics must take into account this objectively inevitable dialectic of human history—on the one hand, harnessing the consciousness, strength, and combat effectiveness of the advanced class during periods of political stagnation or slow, so‑called “peaceful” development; and on the other hand, directing all such efforts toward the “ultimate goal” of the class’s movement and cultivating within it the capacity to tackle great tasks in great days—days that “concentrate twenty years’ worth of time.” Two of Marx’s reflections are particularly significant in this regard: one from The Poverty of Philosophy, concerning the economic struggles and economic organizations of the proletariat; and another from the Communist Manifesto, addressing the political tasks of the proletariat. The former states: “Large-scale industry brings together in one place masses of people who are strangers to one another. Competition tears their interests apart. But the defense of wages—a common interest vis-à-vis their employer—unites them in a shared idea of resistance, of coalition… These coalitions, initially isolated, coalesce into groups, and the workers’ defense of their trade unions against the ever‑united capital becomes more essential to them than the defense of wages… In this struggle—a veritable civil war—all the elements necessary for the coming battle are united and developed. Once this point is reached, the coalition assumes a political character”{88}. Here we have before us a program and a tactic for economic struggle and for the labor movement spanning several decades—spanning the long epoch of preparing the proletariat’s forces “for the coming battle.” To this must be juxtaposed the numerous directives issued by Marx and Engels, drawing on the example of the English labor movement: how industrial ‘prosperity’ gives rise to attempts to ‘buy off the workers’ (I, 136, Correspondence with Engels){89}, to distract them from struggle—as this very prosperity, in general, ‘demoralizes the workers’ (II, 218); how the English proletariat becomes ‘bourgeoisified’—how the ‘most bourgeois of all nations’ (the English) ‘seems intent on ultimately bringing matters to a point where, alongside the bourgeoisie, one finds a bourgeois aristocracy and a bourgeois proletariat’ (II, 290){90}; how its ‘revolutionary energy’ begins to fade (III, 124); how one must wait a more or less lengthy period before the English workers can be ‘freed from their apparent bourgeois corruption’ (III, 127); how the English labor movement lacks the ‘fiery zeal of the Chartists’ (1866; III, 305){91}; how English labor leaders emerge in a middle ground “between radical bourgeois and workers” (regarding Goliath, IV, 209); and how, due to England’s monopoly—and until that monopoly finally bursts—“there is little that can be done about British workers” (IV, 433){92}. The tactics of economic struggle, in relation to the overall trajectory (and ultimate outcome) of the labor movement, are here examined from a remarkably broad, comprehensive, dialectical, and truly revolutionary standpoint.

The “Communist Manifesto,” in its discussion of the tactics of political struggle, advanced the fundamental tenet of Marxism: “Communists fight for the immediate aims and interests of the working class, yet at the same time they champion the future of the movement itself.”{93} In this spirit, in 1848 Marx supported in Poland the party of “agrarian revolution”—the very same party that had sparked the Kraków Uprising of 1846.{94} In Germany during the years 1848–1849, Marx aligned himself with the most radical revolutionary democrats and never once retracted his earlier pronouncements on tactical matters. He regarded the German bourgeoisie as an element that “from the very outset was inclined to betray the people” (for only an alliance with the peasantry could enable the bourgeoisie to fully realize its own objectives) “and to compromise with the crowned representatives of the old order.” This was Marx’s definitive analysis of the class position of the German bourgeoisie in the era of the bourgeois-democratic revolution—a diagnosis that, among other things, exemplifies a materialist approach that views society in motion, not merely from the perspective of that which is directed backward: “…without faith in itself, without faith in the people; grumbling before the upper classes, trembling before the lower;…frightened by the storms of the world; nowhere marked by genuine initiative, everywhere steeped in imitation;…lacking in originality;…a wretched old man, condemned to guide, in the interests of his own senile concerns, the first impulses of a young and vigorous people…” (“Neue Rheinische Zeitung,” 1848, see “Literarisches Erbe,” vol. III, p. 212){95}. Some twenty years later, in a letter to Engels (III, 224), Marx attributed the failure of the 1848 Revolution to the fact that the bourgeoisie had chosen peace with slavery over the prospect of a struggle for freedom. When the era of the revolutions of 1848–1849 came to an end, Marx rose up against all forms of “revolutionary play-acting” (as exemplified by Schapper and Willich—and the struggle against them), calling instead for the ability to work in an age of new developments that were, it was claimed, quietly preparing the ground for fresh revolutions. The spirit in which Marx approached this task is evident in his assessment of the situation in Germany during the darkest, most reactionary period of 1856: “In Germany, everything will depend on whether we can somehow revive the proletarian revolution through a second edition of the Peasants’ War” (“Correspondence with Engels,” II, 108){96}. As long as the democratic (bourgeois) revolution in Germany remained unfinished, Marx focused his tactical attention on nurturing the democratic energies of the peasantry. He regarded Lassalle as someone who was, “objectively betraying the workers’ movement in favor of Prussia” (III, 210)—not least because Lassalle had made concessions to the landowners and to Prussian nationalism. “It is base,” Engels wrote in 1865, while exchanging ideas with Marx about their forthcoming joint publication, “to attack, in an agricultural country, only the bourgeoisie in the name of industrial workers, while forgetting the patriarchal ‘rod-based exploitation’ of rural laborers by the feudal nobility” (III, 217){97}. During the years 1864–1870, as the era of the completion of the bourgeois-democratic revolution in Germany drew to a close—the era in which the exploiting classes of Prussia and Austria competed to determine, from above, the particular form that this revolution would take—Marx not only condemned Lassalle for courting Bismarck, but also corrected Liebknecht when he slipped into “Austrophilism” and began to advocate for local particularism. Marx demanded a revolutionary tactic that would wage an equally relentless struggle against both Bismarck and the Austrophiles—a tactic that would not seek to ingratiate itself with the “victor,” the Prussian Junker, but would instead immediately resume revolutionary struggle against him, building upon the foundations laid by Prussia’s military victories (“Correspondence with Engels,” III, 134, 136, 147, 179, 204, 210, 215, 418, 437, 440–441){98}. In the famous Address of the International of September 9, 1870, Marx warned the French proletariat against an untimely uprising{99}, yet when the uprising did indeed break out (in 1871), Marx greeted the revolutionary initiative of the masses—those who were “storming the heavens”—with great enthusiasm (Marx’s letter to Kugelmann){100}. From the standpoint of Marx’s dialectical materialism, the defeat of the revolutionary insurrection in this instance, as in many others, was, in the overall course and ultimate outcome of the proletarian struggle, a lesser evil than abandoning the position one had occupied or surrendering without a fight: such a surrender would have demoralized the proletariat and undermined its capacity for struggle. While fully recognizing the value of legal means of struggle in periods of political stagnation and the dominance of bourgeois legality, Marx, in 1877–1878—after the enactment of the infamous Anti-Socialist Law{101}—strongly condemned Most’s “revolutionary rhetoric,” but he lashed out at opportunism no less, if not more, sharply when it temporarily took hold within the official Social-Democratic Party, which failed to demonstrate, from the outset, the steadfastness, firmness, revolutionary spirit, and readiness to move into illegal struggle that were required in response to the Anti-Socialist Law (“Letters from Marx to Engels,” IV, 397, 404, 418, 422, 424.{102} See also the letters to Zorge).