Bruno Leipold on Influence of Republicanism on Marx in Citizen Marx: Section I and II

PRE-CHRISTIAN ROOTS OF REPUBLICANISM, AND MARX’S MATERIALIST DETERMINISM

Marx’s social republicanism, as interpreted by Leipold, integrates republican theory of non-domination with historical materialism. This views economic structures as the primary engine of social change and domination, where capitalism’s class relations inevitably lead to proletarian emancipation through collectivization. REPUBLICANISM is rooted in pre-Christian roots of natural philosophy, as a spiritual and humanist quest for liberty, virtue, and divine aspiration rather than material dialectics; but I don’t keep it there in its pre-Christian roots. Its Renaissance Christian Humanist roots are vital to its further development and expression in American Republicanism as a “divine mission” and experiment (George Washington on the Sacred Fire of Liberty and the Republic).

As it is often understood, Marx’s materialism reduces human agency to economic forces, and this dilutes the spiritual depth of the philosophy inherent in classical republicanism. We have large swaths of the populace who are determined to be ignorant of this underpinning philosophy of our political system, which with the right knowledge is the best defense against what many fear — theocratic ambitions of dogmatic religionists and integralists. Mazzini’s political theology posits the origins of revolution in moral and divine law (Giuseppe Mazzini’s Cosmopolitan Politics and Influence on Woodrow Wilson) similar to Romero’s liberation theology, rejecting Marx’s perversion of utilitarianism through class struggle; and instead reiterates the communalist, faith-infused aspect of republicanism that reflected Christian and pre-Christian eclectic roots for human fraternity.

Civic Virtue and Mixed Constitution Against Class-Based Emancipation

Classical pre-Christian REPUBLICANISM, drawing from Aristotle, Polybius, Cicero and others emphasizes civic virtue, self-government, rule of law, and mixed government to prevent corruption and domination, focusing on active citizenship and common good over economic redistribution. Republicanism is built on this lineage of republicanism’s anti-arbitrary power tradition from ancient eclecticism, which challenges Marx’s hybrid, where republican institutions serve proletarian class interests, as in his Paris Commune analysis. Marx focuses on structural domination through capitalism, but subordinates virtue to materialism, potentially creating new bureaucratic dominations in socialist states. Authentic republicanism fosters non-domination through patriotic, virtuous citizens in balanced regimes, avoiding Marx’s reduction of Man to egoistic individuals or class actors. (see Martin Moorby, Who is this man who is distinct from this citizen? Revisiting Marx’s Critique of Liberal Rights).

Mazzini’s critique reinforces this by advocating class collaboration and moral virtue for national republics, dismissing Marx’s international class struggle as divisive and reactionary post-1848. Søren Mau’s in Spectre Journal

National and Moral Unity Versus Proletarian Internationalism and AtheisM

Marx’s SOCIAL REPUBLICANISM extends non-domination to global class solidarity, viewing nations as bourgeois constructs and religion as opium, prioritizing atheistic, materialist emancipation. I highlight pre-Christian theosophic republicanism and the origins of the friendship of humanity in its Stoic cosmopolitanism for national civic literacy and participatory civics, rejecting Marxist internationalism as eroding cultural roots and critique of religion. Mazzini’s political theology directly counters Marx by emphasizing God, duty, and national identity as foundations for republican democracy. I agree with criticism of Marxism’s class conflict as a conflictual vision incompatible with unitarian harmony, as Mazzini defended and advocated private property as essential for individual rights within collectives. Marx’s atheism is a fatality for republican tradition and has not prevented despotism and creation of new state religion. It should be obvious that I favor Mazzini’s faith-reason marriage for moral republics, as vital to the republic which is meant for a moral and religious people that live true to their word and social teaching.

In classical republicanism, property enables independent personality and civic participation, combating corruption without abolishing private ownership. In its pre-Christian roots, the FASCES symbolized bundled strength against tyranny (Aegean Origins and History of the Fasces: Minoan Crete to Revolutionary Republicanism), challenging Marx’s view of property as the source of alienation and domination, where Communism restores free and equal producers. Marx’s collectivization would risk new oligarchic dominations (e.g., statism), as critiqued in neo-republican debates, whereas authentic republicanism uses property to foster virtue and non-domination. Mazzini bolsters this by defending private property as inherent to human nature and social equality, opposing Marx’s collectivism as perverting utilitarianism.

‘THAT WAS NOT REAL COMMUNISM,’ WELL ‘THE CURRENT SYSTEM IS NOT REAL REPUBLICANISM’

The revolutionary fire and humanist mission of Republicanism can be reclaimed through pedagogical illumination than dialectical conflict. Marx’s republican socialism sees revolution through dialectical class conflict, as in his shift from (not through) early Republicanism to mature Communism (see Angelica Balabanoff on Mussolini’s Problem in the “The Young Mussolini” 1993 film). The humanist fight against violent upheaval of entire systems falling into the hands of despots and the use of artificial intelligence by oligarchical powers is through educational civic revival (illumination) on a mass scale This eclectic approach argues Marx’s materialism stifles human ingenuity, whereas classical republicanism fosters participatory civics, and rebellion against arbitrary power without economic determinism. Revolution has its origins in the mind and in divine moral law and is best nurtured through a pedagogy of duty and national emancipation, not Marx’s proletarian focus.

HELLO, ON THE ROAD

I will be first to admit the revolutionary folk zeal of Socialists and Communists. It is unfortunate, that republicanism has become seen as inherently status quo-biased, but this is partly due to the corrupt actions of the governments, and of Marxist and Bolshevik propaganda, alongside the actions of the colonialists and hypocrisy of the political parties that use the names “republican” and “democratic” for symbolic appeal to authority or originalism. Marx and Bakunin reframed Mazzini’s post-1848 reactionary stance, e.g., as prudent, moral republicanism preserving liberty without class war’s chaos. We have many citizens that view the system this way. It is further argued that republicanism emphasizes cultural customs and virtue over radical economic changes, to favor Marx’s synthesis, but Marx introduces the deadly consequences and exploits of revolutionary excess alien to republicanism’s classical roots. The emphasis on moderation in republicanism has also been used to argue that republicanism remains the theory of the Bourgeoisie and Statism¹. So, the critique often advocates eventual replacement, blending, recognition of slight adoption of “Socialist ideas” in capitalist economies (which have transitioned into mixed economies) and overthrow of systems for Marxism and eventually Communism.

A great majority of our citizens are couched in the vocabulary and faith in the latter, more than their own system, while the civic knowledge of citizens of their own Republic is statistically declining in general!

LACK OF FAITH IN DEMOCRATIC SYSTEMS AND HERITAGE IN THE CITIZEN IS ENGINEERED

It is our duty, not merely the material economic funds of the state, districts or government to enlighten our citizens from the Statue of Liberty to the highest peak of the Appalachians. This requires a stamina that is key to republican communalism, that Marx attempted to tap into. However, just as the Catholics and others have argued before in its early reactions to the rise of Marxism and Socialism, this stamina is uniquely of spiritual quality and spiritual expression in response to inequality and injustice.

The American Minervan’s advocates both a continuation and reinvigoration of civic traditions from all the influences we explain and can never center the story in one particular figure or a hierarchy of figures. A great body of our political and business elite class on all sides of the system merely wear the clothes and adopt the language of the heritage it betrays, while collecting their checks! So, I am adamant to highlight true republicanism as anti-totalitarian, challenging Marx’s potential for totalitarian outcomes in practice and all our own governments’. History teaches us, true; that both you and I, whether Marxist or not will be under the boot of the surveillance State when we stand physically to challenge it, but I am not so sure either of us will be free of surveillance or police if I were to join you in Marx’s proposed transition, and history has not shown this.

REPRESENTATIVE OF THE SOUL OF A COUNTRY IN REPUBLICAN VISION OF COSMOPOLITANISM

I am thinking of Hasan Piker’s propagandist work in China, because China is my focus in my university studies. I am still studying Mandarin and have to anyway to complete graduation. I admire many things about China, but there is a difference from representing the highest expression of your country, people, culture and civilization versus coming to a country with an empty void of an idea or groundedness in your own identity then becoming a mere propagandist of another country. It does not do China or American affairs a great service. I believe I have a different, but better means of going about this, opposed to those who would like to see America or Westerners fail, or embody merely the debased and anti-intellectual stereotypes other countries have about particularly, Americans. This is the soul of a REPUBLICAN DEMOCRATIC COSMOPOLITANISM, that is noble, non-imposing, non-totalitarian; and expresses the history of trans-national philosophical lineages based on the motto and ideas of solidarity (association, fraternity, brotherhood) and love of wisdom, which the Chinese and other peoples understand lies also at the soul of their own complex history.

Here, in this understanding the two stand as matured, understanding their history and struggles, with both recognizing the advantages and disadvantages of being a youthful or older civilization.

In 2018, when Xi Jinping told China’s communists in his speech to mark the 200th birthday of Marx as the ‘greatest thinker of modern times’, he advocated to stick to Karl Marx’s true path. This path is what Bruno Leipold explains. The Americans ought to do the same, by sticking to its synthesis, heritage and path of REPUBLICANISM, which is not based on one singular individual to raise portraits to, to be clear. I do not share the belief of Xi Jinping about Marx being the greatest thinker of modern times, but I wish no country or people any ill or failure.

BEYOND THE INFLUENCE AND APPEAL OF MARX AND COMMUNISM

Limiting and reconstructing our present-day political ideals within Socialist and Communist frameworks as the solution to modern ills mixed with our governments’ corruption make us vulnerable to public alignment of sentiment with deliberately targeted foreign disinformation from Chinese, Iranian, Russian and other political commentators who advocate and represent other histories, system models and world orders as a replacement. Systems replacing other systems is not cooperation, but another form of dominance. I strongly argue that we do not need or require Marx, but it is legitimate to argue, that Marx’s evolution cannot be studied alone within the historical contexts of Socialism. Bruno Leipold in this respect makes a good thesis.

In this state of the mind of people, in or out of economic strife, no genuine human ingenuity in philosophical depth for solution pulling from our roots can shine through. We have cut ourselves off from the original influences and lineage of philosophy. We have become distracted and lost the soul of our republican tradition, and you must admit it to begin the real work and give birth to new humanist revival, which is the mission of republicanism even Marx recognized.

---

References

• Bruno Leipold, Citizen Marx: The Relationship Between Karl Marx and Republicanism, PhD Thesis, University of Oxford, 2017.
• Bruno Leipold, Citizen Marx: Republicanism and the Formation of Karl Marx’s Social and Political Thought, Princeton University Press, 2024.
• Bruno Leipold, Citizen Marx: Republicanism and the Formation of Karl Marx’s Social and Political Thought, YouTube Talk, UCL Institute of Advanced Studies, 2023.
• Nadia Urbinati, Republicanism Was Central to Karl Marx’s Thought, Jacobin, May 2025. https://jacobin.com/2025/05/republicanism-karl-marx-leipold-review jacobin.com
• Tim Christiaens, Book Review: Citizen Marx – Republicanism and the Formation of Karl Marx’s Social and Political Thought by Bruno Leipold, LSE Review of Books, Feb 2025.
• Social Republicanism, Public Autonomy Network, October 23, 2014.
• Søren Mau, Marx’s Republican Communism: A Review of Bruno Leipold’s Citizen Marx, Spectre Journal, May 29, 2025.
• Ben Burgis, Søren Mau vs. Bruno Leipold on Analytical Marxism, Market Socialism, and Value, Ben Burgis Substack, July 6, 2025.
• Gordon S. Wood, Classical Republicanism and the American Revolution, Scholarly Commons: IIT Chicago-Kent College of Law, 1990.

---

FOOTNOTE

1. Stuart White, Why Civic Republicanism Remains a Statist Theory, Res Publica, 2025 ↩︎

Pages: 1 2