Karl Marx and the Rothschilds

[Young Master Smeet]

I remember the[phrase ‘Stock market Jews’ arresting me when reading the de Leonite translation of the Class Struggles in Franc (1848-50).

Here’s a paragraph from MIA:

And the nonruling factions of the French bourgeoisie cried: Corruption! The people cried: <i>À bas les grands voleurs! À bas les assassins</i>! [Down with the big thieves! Down with the assassins!] when in 1847, on the most prominent stages of bourgeois society, the same scenes were publicly enacted that regularly lead the <i>lumpenproletariat</i> to brothels, to workhouses and lunatic asylums, to the bar of justice, to the dungeon, and to the scaffold. The industrial bourgeoisie saw its interests endangered, the petty bourgeoisie was filled with moral indignation, the imagination of the people was offended, Paris was flooded with pamphlets – “The Rothschild Dynasty,” “Usurers Kings of the Epoch,” etc. – in which the rule of the finance aristocracy was denounced and stigmatized with greater or less wit.

<i>Rien pour la gloire</i>! [Nothing for glory!] Glory brings no profit! <i>La paix partout et toujours</i>! [Peace everywhere and always!] War depresses the quotations of the 3 and 4 percents which the France of the Bourse jobbers had inscribed on her banner. Her foreign policy was therefore lost in a series of mortifications to French national sentiment, which reacted all the more vigorously when the rape of Poland was brought to its conclusion with the incorporation of Cracow by Austria, and when Guizot came out actively on the side of the Holy Alliance in the Swiss separatist war.<sup class=”enote”>[66]</sup> The victory of the Swiss liberals in this mimic war raised the self-respect of the bourgeois opposition in France; the bloody uprising of the people in Palermo worked like an electric shock on the paralyzed masses of the people and awoke their great revolutionary memories and passions. [Annexation of Cracow by Austria in agreement with Russia and Prussia on November 11, 1846. – Swiss Sonderbund war: November 4 to 28, 1847. – Rising in Palermo: January 12, 1848; at the end of January, nine days’ bombardment of the town by the Neapolitans. Note by Engels to the edition of 1895.]

Here is the same paragraph in the original (I think) German:

Und die nicht herrschenden Fraktionen der französischen Bourgeoisie schrien <i>Korruption!</i> Das Volk schrie: <i>À bas les grands voleurs! À bas les assassins!</i> <<i>Nieder mit den großen Dieben! Nieder mit den Mördern!</i>> als im Jahre 1847 auf den erhabensten Bühnen der bürgerlichen Gesellschaft dieselben Szenen öffentlich aufgeführt wurden, welche das Lumpenproletariat regelmäßig in die Bordells, in die Armen- und Irrenhäuser, vor den Richter, in die Bagnos und auf das Schafott führen. Die industrielle Bourgeoisie sah ihre Interessen gefährdet, die kleine Bourgeoisie war moralisch entrüstet, die Volksphantasie war empört, Paris war von Pamphlets überflutet – “La dynastie Rothschild”, “Les juifs rois de l’époque” <“Die Dynastie Rothschild”, “Die Juden – Könige unserer Zeit“> etc. -, worin die Herrschaft der Finanzaristokratie mit mehr oder weniger Geist denunziert und gebrandmarkt wurde.

Rien pour la gloire! <Nichts für den Ruhm!> Der Ruhm bringt nichts ein! La paix partout et toujours! <>Friede überall und immer!> Der Krieg drückt den Kurs der drei- und vierprozentigen! – hatte das Frankreich der Börsenjuden auf seine Fahne geschrieben. Seine auswärtige Politik verlor sich daher in eine Reihe von Kränkungen des französischen Nationalgefühls, das um so lebhafter auffuhr, als mit der Einverleibung Krakaus in Österreich der Raub an Polen vollendet wurde und Guizot im schweizerischen Sonderbundskrieg aktiv auf seiten der Heiligen Allianz trat. Der Sieg der Schweizer Liberalen in diesem Scheinkriege hob das Selbstgefühl der bürgerlichen Opposition in Frankreich, die blutige Erhebung des Volkes zu Palermo wirkte wie ein elektrischer Schlag auf die paralysierte Volksmasse und rief ihre großen revolutionären Erinnerungen und Leidenschaften wach.

http://www.mlwerke.de/me/me07/me07_012.htm

 

[ALB]

That is out of order, both on the part of Marx and of the translators. “Börsenjuden” should have been translated as “stock exchange Jews”. And it would have been better if Marx had put it in inverted commas.

The first Thesis on Feuerbach contains the adjective “schmutzig-jüdischen” which is generally translated as “dirty-Jewish”. This was a reference and follow-up to something Feuerbach had written on Judaism as a religion and its philosophical significance (dirty as in getting your hands dirty as opposed to airy theorising). Which is why some translations have “dirty-judaical”.  I think that conveys Marx’s meaning better; “dirty, judaical” would be even better. “dirty-Jewish” certainly gives quite the wrong impression.

It is of course possible to criticise Judaism as a religion without being antisemitic. Whether Judaism (only strict orthodox Judaism existed at the time) was as materialistic as German philosophy generally at the time regarded it, is another matter; they based this view on the Judaism’s god being a mere tribal one serving the interest of one group of people while the god of Christianity was a universal one for all people. Rightly or wrongly, Marx shared this assumption in his 1843/4 articles on The Jewish Question which were a criticism of Judaism as a religion not of Jews as people.

[Anonymous]

Many things that Marx expressed on the Jewish Question. have been taken out of context, and they have been interpreted in the incorrect way including Jews who have said that Marx was an anti-semite, even more, some expression that Marx used on Ferdinand Lasalle have also been translated incorrectly or have been taken out of context

The Jewish question is not about the Jewish peoples, it is about Judaism, in the same way that he says that mankind would liberate itself as human being, but not as religious peoples.

Several works of Marx have been translated incorrectly and some publishers are now trying to make the proper corrections.

Others groups who want to denigrate Marx they have said that he was a Jew because one of his relative was a Rabbi, the same things have been said about Lenin and Trotsky but they were atheists, they were not Jewish. The problem is that many believe that Jews is a nationality or an ethnic group, it is a person who professes Judaism

The new MEGA collection is going to correct many wrong translation made on Marx and Engels works. Raya Dunayeskaya tried to correct certain translations made on the Thesis on Feuerbach, and she considered that the best translation of Capital is in the French version.

The publishers from Spain, Mexico and Argentina  have made very good translations on the works of Marx and Engels

[ZJW]

Relatedly, see the paragraph that begins ‘ Nevertheless, I also write about the situation of Jews ‘ here in this interview with Michael Heinrich about his ongoing biography of Marx:

https://mronline.org/2019/06/03/106637/

(The first volume, I did not know, has already appeared in English: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/39975054-karl-marx-and-the-birth-of-modern-society )

[Anonymous]

 

This is the best biography of Marx after the one written by Franz Mehring in 1918

 

 

 

[Anonymous]

There is a new theory that Rothschild, the Rockefeller family, and the Vatican are unified to create a new government and a new world order. As the great modern Confucian  Mao Tse Tung wrote: Let a hundred flowers bloom; let a hundred schools of thought contend. It might compete with Trump who said that he knows that there are extraterrestrial and that he has a connection with them. We are living in a world of conspiracists

[Author]

Posts