Agitation: The Plot Against Civilization pp. 217-224

 We’ve arrived at the Franco-Prussian war, a war that Webster has told us is the German’s fault because they tricked Napolean III into declaring it. That Bismark is a crafty one. She wants to implicate Marx because he’s a Jew, a German, and a Socialist; but it’s going to take a lot of work to do that. Perhaps, somewhere, there exists some letters or a manuscript where Marx and Engles were all about the German conquering of France. Maybe they’ve written a book about how France sucks, and really the best thing for the working classes is the elimination of all those extra vowels the French use. That would take the research of a proper historian, luckily for us, Webster isn’t a proper historian.

Pay attention to what she does here. She writes that the “French branch of the internationale in London actually denounced him as an agent of Bismarck.”

Our first evidence is an accusation by someone in London. We have no citation for this.

“Marx wrote to Engles on August 3, 1870, saying that he was not only accused of being a Prussian agent but of hacving received 10,000 from Bismarck.”

Two accusations, only this time we have Marx saying that he was accused of being a German agent. Here’s the trick:

“Fortunately, adds the author of the Pan-German Internationale, who quotes these admissions…”

The trick is that Marx admitted he was accused, he didn’t admit to what he was accused of. Webster is playing sleight of hand. The rest of the paragraph is her reminding the author that the words come from Socialists, so we know that they must be true. Why would the Socialists print lies about their intellectual leader? All they are printing is Marx telling Engles that he’s been accused. Anyone not carefully reading is going to make this mistake, and it’s a mistake she intends for people to make.

The next few pages are gossip column talk by Marx and Engles about how they need to wait until peace happens before the revolution can continue. The Franco-Prussian war is an absolute blindspot for me. My Roman Empire was the Roman Republic; not this period of European history. I do understand this: that applauding the gains of the German armies is not a betrayal of Socialism when your enemy is Napolean III.

In September of 1870 Napolean III surrenders and the second French Empire collapses with him. This plunges us into France’s favorite past time Revolution. Seriously I think they love this more than baguettes and wine. What’s more important though is that Webster’s boyfriend Mikhael Bakunin makes his reappearance. Somehow this is going to show us how the plan of Weishaupt is going to come to fruition—but I’m not going to hold my breath on that.

“Public meetings of extraordinary violence were taking place, at which, ‘the most sanguinary motions were put forward and received with enthusiasm;’ in a word, it was a state of affairs after Bakunin’s own heart.”

Bakunin is an “own-goal” by Webster. No matter how much she brings him up, and its seriously getting weird, she fails to understand that no one liked him. Every revolutionary, Socialist, Jew, she mentions as being enamored of this violent sociopath eventually kicks him out of their group. They like his passion but they being to hate that his passion is for violence.

We have another revolutionary period, and Webster points out that this is another period of violence. Which is terrible, but what’s the point of bringing this up? She’s just reporting events and without her usual accusations too. I supposed she wants to explain that this bloodshed wouldn’t be happening without the Illuminati, but she hasn’t done enough work to show their hand in this war. She pivots to Marx and Engles controlling this new revolution but all she can do is provide a quote which claims that the General Council in London wanted reports of the activity in France at the time. This isn’t so bad, why wouldn’t they want reports of this kind of news.

I got curious about this quote because she cites from Kropotkine’s “Memoirs of a Revolutionist” and for once she provides the citation. Her quotation is incomplete and she leaves out a couple of important facets. First was that Marx and Engles weren’t directing anything they were it’s “leading spirits.” Kropotkine would have just said they were its leaders if that were the case. The second is that the general council is demanding the reports, approving and denying some requests, and we are never told what this means. Finally, the entire section is not about the effect or the control of the London Commune but by its ineptitude at following a central governing committee which they eventually decided against any governing hand.

From the London Commune we get the Paris Commune and Webster gives us her most revealing “I’m a fascist” paragraph yet. She points out that the Paris Commune now includes foreigners. Everything from 19 Poles, 7 Germans, and even a Dutchman. She claims that this heterogeneous crowd goes against the spirit of France and because it includes foreigners— “there could be no unity of action or of purpose.” See, if there are foreigners, they can’t agree because of the racial blood makes them all behave differently. You can’t trust a Dutchman to think of anything other than his wooden shoes and plugging dams with his finger.

It may actually seem non-racist odd to include these groups but we must remember a few things. Most importantly the foreigners were among the group, there were still Frenchmen in the Commune…lots of them. Secondly, this is not the government of France, this is the Socialist commune and as Webster has been reminding us—they don’t believe in nationalism. National identities do not matter to the movement. I think she’s trying to scare her English readers, “blimey, you won’t be considered English anymore you won’t.”

Then she gets annoying like a post-modernist major who just read the syphilis bits of Nietzsche and wants to be “profound.” She starts jumping from one time to another. We get accusations of a new reign of terror like in 1793. Comparisons to 1848, the current time of 1871; without pattern or reason, “But alas! to what purpose?” I don’t know Webster, I just don’t know.