KARL MARX
[ATTEMPTS TO FORM A NEW OPPOSITION PARTY]
London,  Tuesday, November  9,  1852
In the same measure as the
hitherto predominating parties dissolve themselves, and as
their distinctive marks are effaced, the want of a new  oppo sition party is felt, as a matter of course. This want finds an
expression in different ways.
Lord John  Russell, in his already quoted speech, takes the
lead. Part of the alarm raised by  Lord Derby,  he says, had
sprung  from the rumours  that he, Lord J. Russell, had
adopted “highly democratical opinions ” . “Well, I need not
say on  that subject that this rumour  was totally unfounded;
that it has no  circumstances on  which it rested.” Nevertheless, he pronounces  himself a Democrat, and then explains
the harmless meaning of the word:
“The people of this country  are, in other words,  the Democracy of
the country. Democracy has as fair a right to the enjoyment  of its
rights as monarchy or nobility. Democracy does not  mean to diminish
any of the prerogatives of the Crown.  Democracy does not  attempt to
take away any of the lawful privileges of the House  of Lords. What,
then, is this Democracy? The growth  of wealth, the growth  of intellect,
the forming of opinions  more  enlightened and more  calculated to carry
on  in an enlightened manner the Government  of the world. But  I will
say more. I will say that the manner of dealing with that increase of
the position of the Democracy could not  be according to the old system
of restraint with which I was but too familiar. On  the contrary, Demo cracy ought  to be maintained and encouraged, there ought  to be given
a legitimate and legal organ to that power  and influence.”
“Lord John  Russell,” exclaims the Morning Herald in reply, “has
one set of principles for office and another set of principles for opposi 
tion. When  in office, his principle is to do nothing,  and when  out  of
office, to pledge himself to everything.”
What in all the world may the Morning Herald mean by
“nothing ” , if it calls the above trash, pronounced  by  Lord
John  Russell, “everything!” and if it menaces little John
Russell, for his king-loving, lords-respecting, bishop-conserving “Democracy” , with the fate of Frost, Williams & Co.!
But  the humour  of the thing is that Lord Derby,  in the House
of Lords, announces himself as the prominent  opponent  of
“Democracy” , and speaks of Democracy as of the only  party
against which it is worthwhile  to struggle. And  in steps the
inevitable John  Russell with an examination of what this
Democracy is, viz., the growth  of wealth, of the intellect of
this wealth, and of its claims to influence Government
through  public opinion  and through  legal organs. Thus,  then,
Democracy is nothing  but  the claims of the Bourgeoisie, the
industrial and commercial middle class. Lord Derby  stands
up  as the opponent,  Lord John  Russell volunteers as the
standard-bearer of this Democracy. Both  of them agree in
the implicit confession, that the ancient feuds within their
own  class, the aristocracy, are no  longer of any interest to
the country. And  Russell is quite prepared to drop the name
of Whig  for that of Democrat, if this be the conditio sine
qua non for turning  his opponents  out. The Whigs,  in this
case, would  in fact continue to play the same part, and
appear officially as the servants of the middle class. Thus,
Russell’s plan of a party reorganisation is confined to the
adoption of a new  party name.
Joseph  Hume,  too, considers the formation of a new
“people’s party” a necessity. But, he says, that on  tenant-
right and similar propositions  it cannot be formed. “On  these
matters you  could not  muster  a hundred out  of the 654
members  to unite.” What, then, is his nostrum?
“The people’s league or party, or union,  must  agree on  one point —
say the ballot; and after carrying the one point, proceed from step to
step to other points. And  while the movement  must  begin with a few
individual members  of the House  of Commons,  it cannot succeed until
the people out  of doors and the electors shall see the necessity of doing
their part and of giving support  to the small party of the. people in
Parliament.” .

This same Hume  was one of the drawers-up of the
People’s Charter. From  the People’s Charter and its six
points, he retreated to the “little Charter” of the financial
and parliamentary reformers with only  three points, and
now  we  see him reduced to one  point, the ballot. What success he promises  to himself from his new  nostrum,  he will
tell us  himself in the concluding words  of his letter to The
Hull Advertiser:
“Tell me how  many editors will risk to give their support  to a party
that, as Parliament is now  composed, can never succeed to power?”
Now,  as this new  party does not  mean to change for the
present anything in the composition  of Parliament, but  confines itself to the ballot, it will, by  its own  confession, never
succeed to power. What is the good  of forming a party of
impotence, and of openly  confessed impotence?
Next  to Joseph  Hume,  there is another attempt made for
the creation of a new  party. This is the so-called National
Party. Instead of the People’s Charter, this party would
make universal suffrage its exclusive shibboleth, and thus
leave out  those very conditions which can alone make the
movement  for universal suffrage a national movement  and
secure to it popular support. I shall hereafter have occasion
to recur to this National Party. It consists of ex-Chartists
who  wish  to conquer respectability for themselves, and of
Radicals, middle-class ideologists, who  wish  to get hold of
the Chartist movement. Behind them— whether “Nationals”
are aware of it or not — you  find the parliamentary and
financial reformers, the men  of the Manchester School,
urging  them on  and using  them as their vanguard.
Now,  what cannot but  be evident to everyone in all these
miserable compromises  and backslidings, these huntings  after
weakly expediency, these vacillations and quack nostra, is
this:— Catiline is at the gates of the city, a decisive struggle
is drawing near, the opposition  knows  its unpopularity, its
incapacity for resistance, and all the attempts at the formation of new  centres of defence agree in one point  only, in
a “going  backwards policy” . The “National Party” retreats
from the Charter to General Suffrage, Joe Hume  from
General Suffrage to the ballot, a third from the ballot to the

equalisation of electoral districts, and so  forth, until at last
we  arrive at Johnny  Russell, who  has nothing  to give out
for a battle-cry but  the mere name of democracy. Lord
J. Russell’s Democracy would  be, practically speaking, the
ultimatum of the National Party, of Hume ’s “People’s
Party” , and of all the other party shams, if any one of them
had anything like vitality about it.
But  on  the one hand, the political flaccidity and indifference consequent upon  a period of material prosperity, on
the other hand the conviction that nevertheless the Tories are
menacing mischief—on  the one hand, the certainty on  the
part of the Bourgeois leaders that they will very soon
require the people to back them, on  the other hand the
knowledge acquired by  some  popular leaders that the people
are too  indolent to create, for the moment,  a movement  of
their own — all these circumstances produce the phenomenon
that parties attempt to make themselves acceptable to each
other, and that the different fractions of the opposition  out
of Parliament attempt a union  by  making to each other
concessions, from the most  advanced faction downwards
until at last they again arrive at what Lord J. Russell is
pleased to call democracy.
Of the attempts at creating a self-styled “National Party” ,
Ernest Jones  justly remarks:
“The People’s Charter is the most  comprehensive measure of political
reform in existence, and the Chartists are the only  truly national party
of political and social reforms in Great Britain.”
And  R. G. Gammage, one of the members  of the Chartist
Executive, thus addresses the people:
“Would  you  then refuse the co-operation of the middle classes?
Certainly not, if that co-operation is offered on  fair and honourable
terms. And  what are these terms? They are easy and simple; adopt the
Charter, and having adopted that Charter, unite with its friends who  are
already organised for its achievement. If you  refuse to do this, you  must
either be opposed  to the Charter itself, or, piqueing yourselves upon
your  class superiority, you  must  imagine that superiority to entitle you
to leadership. In the first case, no  honest Chartist can unite with you,  in
the second, no  working  man ought  so  far to lose his self-respect as to
succumb  to your  class prejudices. Let the working  men  trust their own
power  alone, receiving honest aid from whatever sources, but  acting as
though  their salvation depended upon  their own  exertions.”

The mass of the Chartists, too, are at the present moment
absorbed by  material production; but  on  all points  the nucleus
of the party is reorganised, and the communications reestablished, in England as well as in Scotland, and in the
event of a commercial and political crisis, the importance of
the present noiseless activity at the headquarters of Chartism
will be felt all over Great Britain.
Written by  K. Marx
on  October 16,  1852
Published in the New-York
Daily Tribune No.  3622,
November  25, 1852
Signed: Karl Marx
Printed according
to the newspaper text