Feudal Socialism

Social current which advocated the interests of the declining feudal aristocracy yet flying the banner of socialism, prevalent in France, England and other countries in 1830–1840s. In the 1830s, with the gradual decline of feudal aristocratic forces in England and France under the blows of the rising bourgeoisie, the Young England faction was formed within the Tory Party of England with Disraeli as its representative; and the so-called Orthodox faction was formed by the remnants of the Bourbon Dynasty in France, with Villeneuve-Bargemont as its representative.

Standing on the standpoint of feudal aristocracy, the feudal socialists attacked capitalism and claimed that the bourgeoisie created a revolutionary proletariat, a class that would destroy the old feudal social system, but that the emergent capitalist social system would not change the status quo of workers’ exploitation either. In this regard, Marx pointed out that in order to arouse sympathy, the aristocracy was obliged to lose sight, apparently, of its own interests, and to formulate their indictment against the bourgeoisie in the interest of the exploited working class alone. Feudal socialists held that only the harmony of “noble” and “lowly” under the feudal system of estates could “heal the world”, and advocated directly entering socialism from feudal despotism. In The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels pointed out that this feudal socialism was “half lamentation, half lampoon; half an echo of the past, half menace of the future; at times, by its bitter, witty and incisive criticism, striking the bourgeoisie to the very heart’s core; but always ludicrous in its effect, through total incapacity to comprehend the march of modern history.”