1850 Address to the Communist League

The Classics, Revolutionary Work, Part 4

1848 in Berlin

1850 Address to the Communist League

When history is on the move the changes run all over the place. The job of the communists is invariably to urge history on, and to push all the players, including the bourgeoisie, to play their parts to the utmost extent.

The phrase "permanent revolution" belongs first to Marx and not to Trotsky. It comes from the March, 1850 Address given by Karl Marx to the Central Committee of the Communist League, of which "permanent revolution" are the last two words. See below for a link to a downloadable file of this classic document.

"Permanent revolution" only means a qualitative change that will be defended.

It does not mean that the revolution is irreversible.

Nor does it mean that the revolution has to be repeated constantly like the punishment of Sisyphus.

The March, 1850 Address to the Communist League is an internationalist document which shows that communism and internationalism have been united from the beginning. At that time, the newly formed communist organisation was already active all over Europe, in a time when monarchies were falling and feudalism was on the way out in many countries.

Read this document with care and attention!

Please download and read this brief but powerful text:

Address to the Communist League Central Committee, March 1850, Marx (4120 words)

Further (optional) reading:

Introduction to a Contribution to a Critique of Political Economy, 1857, Marx (11186 words)

International Working Mens’ Association Inaugural Address, 1864, Marx (3320 words)

Value, Price and Profit, Chapters 6 to 10, 1865, Marx (6563 words)

The Marxist Classics

This is a key to our current course

Communist University

The Marxist Classics

Week	Part	Work (linked to MIA)	Author	Date	Last CU blog
1	Beginnings	Theses on Feuerbach	Karl Marx	1845	26 September 2010
		The German Ideology	Marx and Engels	1845-1847	27 September 2010
		The Condition of the Working Class in England	Frederick Engels	1845	28 September 2010
2	Salvo	The Poverty of Philosophy	Karl Marx	1847	02 October 2010
		Communist Manifesto	Marx and Engels	1848	04 October 2010
3	French Trilogy	Class Struggles in France, 1848-1850	Karl Marx	1850	10 October 2010
		The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte	Karl Marx	1852	11 October 2010
		The Civil War in France	Karl Marx	1871	12 October 2010
4	Working Revolutionaries	Address to the Central Comittee of the Communist League	Marx and Engels	1850	17 October 2010
		A Contribution to a Critique of Political Economy	Karl Marx	1859	24 March 2008
		Inaugural Address to the First Workers' International	Karl Marx	1864	13 October 2009
		Value, Price and Profit	Karl Marx	1865	22 June 2010
	Separate Course	"Capital", Volumes 1, 2 and 3	Karl Marx	from 1867	08 June 2010
5	Mature Struggles	The Housing Question	Frederick Engels	1872	26 July 2010
		On Authority	Frederick Engels	1872
		Political Indifferentism	Karl Marx	1873
		Critique of the Gotha Programme	Karl Marx	1875	05 October 2009
6	Engels’ Classics	Socialism, Utopian and Scientific	Frederick Engels	1880	29 June 2010
		Origin of the Family, Private Property & the State	Frederick Engels	1884	29 May 2010
		Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of German Philosophy	Frederick Engels	1886
7	New Century	Reform or Revolution?	Rosa Luxemburg	1900	16 September 2009
		What Is To Be Done?	V I Lenin	1902	11 February 2008
		One Step Forward, Two Steps Back	V I Lenin	1904
		Leninism or Marxism?	Rosa Luxemburg	1904	02 March 2008
		Reply to Rosa Luxemburg	V I Lenin	1904	10 March 2008
8	Strategy and Tactics	Two Tactics of Social Democracy in the Democratic Revolution	V I Lenin	1905	19 October 2007
		The Mass Strike	Rosa Luxemburg	1906
		Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism	V I Lenin	1916	13 October 2009
9	Revolution	The April Theses	V I Lenin	1917
		The State and Revolution	V I Lenin	1917	07 June 2010
		The Proletarian Revolution and The Renegade Kautsky	V I Lenin	1918
10	Aftermath	Left-Wing Communism, an Infantile Disorder	V I Lenin	1920
		The Tax in Kind	V I Lenin	1921
		The Role and Functions of the Trade Unions under the NEP	V I Lenin	1922
		On Co-operation	V I Lenin	1923
		Some Aspects of the Southern Question	Antonio Gramsci	1926	14 September 2009