The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte is a long essay by Karl Marx about the December 1851 coup that ended the Second Republic of France, turning President Louis Bonaparte into Emperor Napoleon III. It was originally written and published in 1852, just a year after Napoleon III came to power. The title refers to the new calendar that was used for several years after the French Revolution of 1789 and the day of the coup. In the essay, Marx mocks the newly crowned emperor while at the same time offering an explanation for why the Revolution of 1848—which created the Second Republic—eventually led instead to a new imperial monarchy within a few years. By describing this story, Marx also lays out his own ideas of how economics and production drive society and history.

This guide is based on the 1972 Progress Publishers edition.

Summary

Karl Marx opens his essay with one of his most famous quotes: “Hegel remarks somewhere that all facts and personages of great importance in world history occur, as it were, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second as farce” (10). This is how Marx introduces Napoleon III, the nephew of Napoleon I. From there, he explains events in France that happened between 1848 and 1851. He begins with the Revolution of 1848, or the February Revolution, which started with the urban working class of Paris but was co-opted by the bourgeoisie. The revolution ended with the overthrow of King Louis-Philippe I and the establishment of the French Second Republic.

However, ironically, the Second Republic had as its president Louis Napoleon, who was given a great amount of political power within the government by the constitution of the Second Republic. The National Assembly became dominated by a conservative political party, the Party of Order, a majority of whose members were royalists who supported either Louis-Philippe’s family or the older royal line, the Bourbons. The Party of Order represented the upper, wealthier ranks of the bourgeoisie.

Opposing them in France’s national legislative body, the National Party, was another political party, the Montagne, which was “a coalition between petty bourgeois and workers” (39). However, when the Montagne tried to impeach President Louis Napoleon and start a military coup against him, they were defeated. Once the Montagne was beaten, the Party of Order split into two factions, the Legitimists and the Orleanists, over the claims of two different claimants to the French throne. Marx views these as really embodying two different and conflicting types of bourgeoisie, with the Legitimists representing landowners and the Orleanists supported by bankers.

Divided by their own rivalries, the Party of Order was outmaneuvered by Louis Napoleon. Exploiting a political debate over reforming France’s constitution and widespread public anger over the recent restriction of voting rights, Louis Napoleon weakened the National Assembly while he courted support from the military. By December of 1851, Napoleon made his move. He had numerous members of the Party of Order arrested. This caused France to “fall back beneath the despotism of an individual” (103). Napoleon enforced this despotism with military power and a powerful government run by bureaucrats independent of society.

Napoleon did enjoy the support of what Marx calls the “lumpenproletariat” (the unemployed and criminal classes) and land-owning peasants, who backed Napoleon through an election that abolished the Second Republic and named Napoleon as Emperor Napoleon III. However, Marx predicts that Napoleon III’s regime, which is based on trying to please all the social and economic classes while taking from them all, will eventually fail.