The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte

After breaking the social-democratic party, Marx narrates that Bonaparte went on to dismiss his minister Odilon Barrot “in order to declare his own name independent of the National Assembly of the party of Order” (49). With Barrot’s dismissal, the Party of Order lost any control over the government. Marx attributes this defeat to the National Assembly not reducing the number of officials subservient to the government, and failing to “let civil society and public opinion create organs of their own, independent of the governmental power” (51).

However, the “material” and “political interests” of the bourgeoisie prevented such steps. The bourgeoisie relied on funds and offices from the state while needing to use the power of the state to resist opposition from the general public. At this point, Napoleon was widely hated by the public and ignored by his own ministers. Still, Marx argues the bourgeoisie had absolute control over the government through the National Assembly: “Never did the bourgeoisie rule more absolutely, never did it display more ostentatiously the insignia of domination” (52). The fear of socialism was also used to oppose proposals for even mild, liberal, and in Marx’s view, bourgeois reforms.