Articles by Karl Marx in the New-York Herald Tribune

Revolutionary Spain


Written: August-November 1854;
First Published: in New-York Daily Tribune, September 9 to December 2, 1854.

map of spain

The series of articles Revolutionary Spain was written by Marx for the New-York Daily Tribune between August and November 1854. Marx observed all the symptoms of the revolutionary movement in Europe and paid much attention to the revolutionary events in the summer of 1854 in Spain. He held that the revolutionary struggle there could provide a stimulus for the development of the revolutionary movement in other European countries. In 1854, Marx made a thorough study of the events of the Spanish revolutions of the first half of the nineteenth century so as to improve his understanding of the specific character and features of the new Spanish revolution; Marx sent nine articles to the New-York Daily Tribune relating to the first (1808-14), second (1820-23) and partly third (1834-43) Spanish bourgeois revolutions, of which only the first six were published (the articles of September 29 and October 20 were printed in four issues of the newspaper) — thus eight articles in all. The remaining three were not published and the manuscripts have not been found. Only a small fragment from the draft manuscript has survived dealing with the causes that led to the defeat of the second revolution. It is probably part of the eighth article and is reproduced here as Chapter IX.

The articles “Revolutionary Spain” were reproduced in English in 1939 by Lawrence & Wishart Ltd. and International Publishers as Revolution in Spain.


Table of Contents

I. Survey of the Revolutionary History of Spain prior to the 19th Century

II. Expulsion of the Bonapartes and Restoration of the Spanish Crown

III. The Dissensions between the Provincial Juntas

IV. The Royal Council (Consejo Real) and the Inquisition (Santo Oficio)

V. Guerilla Warfare

VI. Extraordinary Cortes adopts the Jacobin Constitution

VII. The Disappointment of the Masses

VIII. The Revolution of 1820

IX. The Approaching Storm