The Young Karl Marx Page #7

on which we plan to base

the coming struggles...

Let's not delude ourselves, these

struggles will be extremely violent...

Enough! Enough violence!

What we demand...

What humanity demands

is kindness.

Quiet!

- Fraternity!

What our world lacks and needs more than

our bodies need fresh water is gentleness.

A kind of ardent fraternity...

- Let him speak!

Fraternity!

There are probably some people here

who weep

when they hear the words kindness,

gentleness and fraternity.

But tears do not give power.

Power does not shed tears.

The bourgeoisie shows you no gentleness

and you won't conquer it with kindness.

Citizens, friends, comrades,

Why are we here?

Because we are fighting.

- Yes, of course!

Yes!

- What are we fighting for?

Freedom!

- Equality! - All men are brothers!

All men are brothers.

- No!

All men are brothers.

- Yes!

You? And You?

- Yes, of course.

What about you? Me?

All of them today?

Are the bourgeois

and the workers brothers?

No!

- No, they are not.

They are enemies!

We need to know

what we have gathered here for.

Is it for an abstract idea?

A sentimental day-dream?

How far will that get us?

We need to know what the League wants,

what it's fighting for, for what society.

And we have to decide that now.

- Why now?

Let him speak!

- We know who you represent.

Marx is here, skulking in the crowd

after firing his darts.

Long live Weitling!

- Long live Proudhon!

No, I'm here. I'm not sulking.

You call:

Long live Proudhon and Weitling.

What's the point?

- Shut him up!

We heard you already.

- Proudhon won't leave France,

And Weitling has given up!

You're cheering for shadows!

All of you! All of you!

I have here the book Marx is referring to.

His answer to Proudhon.

He asks the fundamental question,

the question that sums up our struggle.

Karl!

Go on, you have the floor.

"The antagonism between the proletariat

and the bourgeoisie...

can only lead to a complete revolution... "

Shut him up!

"... and as long as classes exist,

the last word of social science will

always be, as George Sand said,

the struggle or death.

The bloody fight...

Or nothingness. "

Long live George Sand!

Long live Mam!

Let those who refuse to fight

stand up and say so!

The industrial revolution of today has

created the modern slave.

This slave is the proletariat.

By freeing itself,

it will free the whole of mankind.

And that freedom has a name:

Communism.

That is why I propose

to abolish that motto

because it's misleading and weak!

This is a coup!

Here is our motto!

Workers of all countries unite!

I request that the League of the Just

shall henceforth be called

the Communist League!

Hands up those in favour!

And hands up those against.

We are now called...

the Communist League!

Unbelievable!

The Communist League

Ostend, January 1848

Come on!

You got two beautiful children, Jenny.

Will you have any?

- Fred? A dad?

No, his feet are too itchy.

And having kids when you're poor,

is too much misery.

But Fred...

- I know.

His money.

His filthy money.

No, I want to be free.

I am free. I want to fight.

And to fight, I have to stay poor.

That's the way I see it.

He understands me.

So no children with him ever?

Maybe with Lizzy, later on.

Who is Lizzy?

My sister. She's 16.

She could give him some.

Bless her heart, she's begging for it.

Did I say something wrong?

No time?

You were due to deliver the programme

last week!

I owe the New York Tribune

three articles.

I need money!

- The time is now!

I have a family to feed,

a problem you don't know!

You're unfair.

Forgive me.

What I mean is...

I cannot depend on others

all my life.

Not even on you.

And I can't work from your notes.

A communist catechism?

What is that?

It's what they asked for.

- Why? It's absurd.

It's to help the workers remember it.

It's useless.

It's totally boring!

I didn't say that.

- You did.

Blame it on me.

Just tell the committee

it's all my fault.

Is that how I work?

- I don't know.

But they're losing faith in London.

We have one final delivery date:

February 1st.

That's in five weeks.

And otherwise?

You must return

all documents provided and...

measures will be taken against you.

They can take them.

I'm tired.

Tired?

You?

People are in an uproar.

The price of bread is rising.

The Irish famine has left

half a million dead.

Unemployment is rising.

Metternich in Austria

and Guizot in France will soon fall!

Poland is ready!

We're winning!

Rise up too! Wake up!

I've never stopped.

Not for one second.

I'm nearly thirty.

I have no more money,

no more energy.

I want to write books.

It's a time-consuming task.

I'm sick of flyers,

manifestos, pamphlets...

All right.

You know as I do that...

all this work,

books, articles, talks,

will have been to no avail

if we don't write a simple book

that comprehensively sums it up.

The Poverty of Philosophy.

That was good, but we need

a communist manifesto!

Proudhon will never rally.

Weitling is finished..

You want to stop?

Really?

You'll rest afterwards.

I'll do the same. We'll rest.

We'll be good bourgeois men.

I in Barmen with my mother,

you in Trier with ten kids.

Does that suit you?

I thought you were serious for a second.

Karl, what's this word?

"Bogeyman".

"Bogeyman".

No, hold on.

"A spectre...

haunts Europe. "

"A spectre haunts Europe,

the spectre of Communism.

All the powers of old Europe... "

"All the powers of old Europe... "

Jenny, read it for him.

"A spectre is haunting Europe,

the spectre of Communism.

All the powers of old Europe

have entered into a holy alliance

to exorcize this spectre:

Pope and Tsar,

Metternich and Guizot,

French Radicals

and German police-spies... "

It doesn't make sense.

What doesn't?

- This part.

There's a paragraph missing.

Friedrich,

where's the central paragraph?

Where is it? Quick!

Don't pressure me.

Here.

"It is high time for communists

to publish

their views, aims and tendencies

and counter this tale

of the spectre of Communism

with a party manifesto. "

Let me see.

So...

I would write:

"... to expose to the world at large

their views, goals and tendencies. "

The history of hitherto existing societies

is the history of class struggles.

Society is splitting

into two great hostile camps,

into two great classes

that confront each other,

Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.

The bourgeoisie has resolved

personal worth into an exchange value,

and, in place of indefeasible

chartered freedoms,

has set up that single, unconscionable

freedom - Free Trade and profit.

It has torn away from the family

its sentimental veil,

and has reduced the family relation

to a mere money relation.

It has drowned the heavenly ecstasies

of religious fervour,

of philistine sentimentalism,

in the icy water of selfish calculation.

Commercial crises,

by their periodical return,

put the existence

of bourgeois society in peril.

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes