ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the Marxian element of the synthesis but it must be admitted that because Karl Marx showed only scant interest in discussing either the constitutional details of existing states or of his own future communist society, very little can be said with certainty about what his view of ‘democratic monarchy’ might be. It shows why a follower of Marx should logically endorse democratic monarchy as his or her own general prescriptive guide. The least controversial claim is that Marx’s preferred constitution is “democratic”. The further suggestion, however, that by extension he should logically support democratic monarchy will probably seem much more doubtful to most readers. Marx both openly and implicitly declared his support for “democracy” and its institutions in pamphlets written from the 1840s to 1870s. Marx never systematically presented his theory of the state but an examination of “The Civil War in France” will help us to infer the outline of such a theory.
