Mazzini and Marx: Thoughts Upon Democracy in Europe

by Salvo Mastellone

Overview

Between August 1846 and April 1847, Guiseppe Mazzini, in London exile, published six articles in English in the People's Journal, the last of which was on Communism. With these articles, which became known in his native country in an 1852 Italian reworking, Mazzini powerfully inserted himself into the debate on the nature of democracy, alongside the most illustrious intellectuals of the time, Tocqueville, Blanc, Cabet, and Proudon.

In two of his pieces, Mazzini answered the democratic communists-the Fraternal Democrats-who in 1847 invited the twenty-eight year old Karl Marx to London to rebut Mazzini's perceptive criticisms of communism and to explore a new possible elaboration of the ideology. Mastellone confronts the English text of Mazzini with the German text of Marx and traces an almost forgotten theoretical contest that has been ignored, but remains crucial for an understanding of two fundamental movements of the modern world: communism and democracy.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780275980764
Publisher:	ABC-CLIO, Incorporated
Publication date:	10/30/2003
Series:	Italian and Italian American Studies
Pages:	232
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.30(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

SALVO MASTELLONE is Professor of Political Doctrines at Florence University, where he directs the Cultural Centre for Foreigners. A former president of the International Commission for the History of Representative and Parliamentary Institutions, he is Editor-in-Chief of the journal Il Pensiero Politico. His publications range from studies on Victor Cousin and on Mazzini and the Giovine Italia to works on the Venality of Offices in France, and on the Regency of Maria de' Medici. He is the author of an Ideological History of Europe from the 15th to the 20th Century in three volumes and a History of European Political Thought in two volumes.

Table of Contents

Foreword by Spencer M. DiScala

Introduction

In London: The Idea of Democracy

The Italian Workers' Union: "A Democratic Society"

The Opening Letters Affair

Italy and the English Institutions (1845)

Mazzini and the Northern Star

The "German Communism"

The Polish Democracy and the Cracow Manifesto

The Democratic Communists of Brussels: Engels and Marx

Thoughts upon Democracy in Europe

Agreement and Disagreement on Democracy

The People's International League: "A Democratic Society"

The Deficiencies of Communism and Cosmopolitism

The Replies of the Cosmopolites

The Communist League in London and the Communist Manifesto

The Political Language of the "Thoughts"

Conclusion

Appendix

Subject Index

Index of Political Terms