The Influence of ‘Zur Judenfrage’ on the Socialist Movement

Karl Marx's early double essay ‘Zur Judenfrage’ [On the Jewish Question] has received a huge amount of attention. So much so that it feels almost embarrassing and certainly a little daunting to return to the issue yet again. The main focus of the discussion here will be on the influence that ‘Zur Judenfrage’ may or may not have exerted on the Socialist movement. This issue too has been much discussed but it has not hitherto been satisfactorily resolved and we therefore need to turn our attention to it once more. ‘Zur Judenfrage’ was published in Paris in the first and only issue of the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher [German-French Yearbook] in the spring of 1844. Technically speaking, ‘Zur Judenfrage’ was a review essay discussing Bruno Bauer's Die Judenfrage [The Jewish Question] (1843). Its first part, begun in the autumn of 1843, discussed at great length the (to Marx's mind, fundamentally flawed) assumptions on which Bauer had based his rejection of the call for Jewish emancipation. The second, much shorter part, written in the winter of 1843/1844, already took issue with Bauer's initial response to some of his critics. The first part barely touches directly on matters Jewish and is quite inoffensive in this respect. Its main focus is on the correct interpretation of the social and political factors that form the context for the debate on Jewish emancipation. In the second part, Marx turns directly to ‘the Jews’ and it is here that the real problems begin.