Marx & Friends

Monday, April 18, 2005

MARX SUPPORTED BRITISH RULE OVER INDIA

Marx, New-York Daily Tribune, June 25, 1853: "England, it is true, in causing a social revolution in Hindoostan, was actuated only by the vilest interests, and was stupid in her manner of enforcing them. But that is not the question. The question is, can mankind fulfil its destiny without a fundamental
revolution in the social state of Asia? If not, whatever may have been the crimes of England she was the unconscious tool of history in bringing about that revolution".

Karl Marx in the New-York Herald Tribune 1853

The British Rule in India

Written: June 10, 1853;
First published: in the New-York Daily Tribune, June 25, 1853;
Proofread: by Andy Blunden in February 2005.

In writing this article, Marx made use of some of Engels ideas as in

his letter to Marx of June 6, 1853.

London, Friday, June 10, 1853

Telegraphic dispatches from Vienna announce that the pacific
solution of the Turkish, Sardinian and Swiss questions, is regarded
there as a certainty.
Last night the debate on India was continued in the House of
Commons, in the usual dull manner. Mr. Blackett charged the
statements of Sir Charles Wood and Sir J. Hogg with bearing the stamp
of optimist falsehood. A lot of Ministerial and Directorial advocates
rebuked the charge as well as they could, and the inevitable Mr. Hume
summed up by calling on Ministers to withdraw their bill. Debate
adjourned.
Hindostan is an Italy of Asiatic dimensions, the Himalayas for the
Alps, the Plains of Bengal for the Plains of Lombardy, the Deccan for
the Apennines, and the Isle of Ceylon for the Island of Sicily. The same
rich variety in the products of the soil, and the same dismemberment in
the political configuration. Just as Italy has, from time to time, been
compressed by the conquerors sword into different national masses, so

do we find Hindostan, when not under the pressure of the

Mohammedan, or the Mogul[4], or the Briton, dissolved into as many
independent and conflicting States as it numbered towns, or even
villages. Yet, in a social point of view, Hindostan is not the Italy, but the
Ireland of the East. And this strange combination of Italy and of
Ireland, of a world of voluptuousness and of a world of woes, is
anticipated in the ancient traditions of the religion of Hindostan. That
religion is at once a religion of sensualist exuberance, and a religion of
self-torturing asceticism; a religion of the Lingam and of the
juggernaut; the religion of the Monk, and of the Bayadere.[5]
I share not the opinion of those who believe in a golden age of
Hindostan, without recurring, however, like Sir Charles Wood, for the
confirmation of my view, to the authority of Khuli-Khan. But take, for
example, the times of Aurangzeb; or the epoch, when the Mogul
appeared in the North, and the Portuguese in the South; or the age of
Mohammedan invasion, and of the Heptarchy in Southern India[6]; or, if
you will, go still more back to antiquity, take the mythological
chronology of the Brahman himself, who places the commencement of
Indian misery in an epoch even more remote than the Christian
creation of the world.
There cannot, however, remain any doubt but that the misery
inflicted by the British on Hindostan is of an essentially different and
infinitely more intensive kind than all Hindostan had to suffer before. I
do not allude to European despotism, planted upon Asiatic despotism,
by the British East India Company, forming a more monstrous
combination than any of the divine monsters startling us in the Temple
of Salsette[7]. This is no distinctive feature of British Colonial rule, but
only an imitation of the Dutch, and so much so that in order to
characterise the working of the British East India Company, it is
sufficient to literally repeat what Sir Stamford Raffles,
the English Governor of Java, said of the old Dutch East India
Company:
The Dutch Company, actuated solely by the spirit of gain, and viewing their
[Javan] subjects, with less regard or consideration than a West India planter
formerly viewed a gang upon his estate, because the latter had paid the purchase
money of human property, which the other had not, employed all the existing
machinery of despotism to squeeze from the people their utmost mite of
contribution, the last dregs of their labor, and thus aggravated the evils of a
capricious and semi-barbarous Government, by working it with all the practised
ingenuity of politicians, and all the monopolizing selfishness of traders.

All the civil wars, invasions, revolutions, conquests, famines,

strangely complex, rapid, and destructive as the successive action in
Hindostan may appear, did not go deeper than its surface. England has
broken down the entire framework of Indian society, without any
symptoms of reconstitution yet appearing. This loss of his old world,
with no gain of a new one, imparts a particular kind of melancholy to
the present misery of the Hindoo, and separates Hindostan, ruled by
Britain, from all its ancient traditions, and from the whole of its past
history.
There have been in Asia, generally, from immemorial times, but three
departments of Government; that of Finance, or the plunder of the
interior; that of War, or the plunder of the exterior; and, finally, the
department of Public Works. Climate and territorial conditions,
especially the vast tracts of desert, extending from the Sahara, through
Arabia, Persia, India, and Tartary, to the most elevated Asiatic
highlands, constituted artificial irrigation by canals and water-works
the basis of Oriental agriculture. As in Egypt and India, inundations are
used for fertilizing the soil in Mesopotamia, Persia, &c.; advantage is
taken of a high level for feeding irrigative canals. This prime necessity
of an economical and common use of water, which, in the Occident,
drove private enterprise to voluntary association, as in Flanders and
Italy, necessitated, in the Orient where civilization was too low and the
territorial extent too vast to call into life voluntary association, the
interference of the centralizing power of Government. Hence an
economical function devolved upon all Asiatic Governments, the
function of providing public works. This artificial fertilization of the
soil, dependent on a Central Government, and immediately decaying
with the neglect of irrigation and drainage, explains the otherwise
strange fact that we now find whole territories barren and desert that
were once brilliantly cultivated, as Palmyra, Petra, the ruins in Yemen,
and large provinces of Egypt, Persia, and Hindostan; it also explains
how a single war of devastation has been able to depopulate a country
for centuries, and to strip it of all its civilization.
Now, the British in East India accepted from their predecessors the
department of finance and of war, but they have neglected entirely that
of public works. Hence the deterioration of an agriculture which is not
capable of being conducted on the British principle of free competition,
of laissez-faire andlaissez-aller. But in Asiatic empires we are quite
accustomed to see agriculture deteriorating under one government and
reviving again under some other government. There the harvests

correspond to good or bad government, as they change in Europe with

good or bad seasons. Thus the oppression and neglect of agriculture,
bad as it is, could not be looked upon as the final blow dealt to Indian
society by the British intruder, had it not been attended by a
circumstance of quite different importance, a novelty in the annals of
the whole Asiatic world. However changing the political aspect of
Indias past must appear, its social condition has remained unaltered
since its remotest antiquity, until the first decennium of the 19th
century. The hand-loom and the spinning-wheel, producing their
regular myriads of spinners and weavers, were the pivots of the
structure of that society. From immemorial times, Europe received the
admirable textures of Indian labor, sending in return for them her
precious metals, and furnishing thereby his material to the goldsmith,
that indispensable member of Indian society, whose love of finery is so
great that even the lowest class, those who go about nearly naked, have
commonly a pair of golden ear-rings and a gold ornament of some kind
hung round their necks. Rings on the fingers and toes have also been
common. Women as well as children frequently wore massive bracelets
and anklets of gold or silver, and statuettes of divinities in gold and
silver were met with in the households. It was the British intruder who
broke up the Indian hand-loom and destroyed the spinning-wheel.
England began with driving the Indian cottons from the European
market; it then introduced twist into Hindostan, and in the end
inundated the very mother country of cotton with cottons. From 1818 to
1836 the export of twist from Great Britain to India rose in the
proportion of 1 to 5,200. In 1824 the export of British muslins to India
hardly amounted to 1,000,000 yards, while in 1837 it surpassed
64,000,000 of yards. But at the same time the population of Dacca
decreased from 150,000 inhabitants to 20,000. This decline of Indian
towns celebrated for their fabrics was by no means the worst
consequence. British steam and science uprooted, over the whole
surface of Hindostan, the union between agriculture and manufacturing
industry.
These two circumstances the Hindoo, on the one hand, leaving, like
all Oriental peoples, to the Central Government the care of the great
public works, the prime condition of his agriculture and commerce,
dispersed, on the other hand, over the surface of the country, and
agglomerated in small centers by the domestic union of agricultural and
manufacturing pursuits these two circumstances had brought about,
since the remotest times, a social system of particular features the socalled village system, which gave to each of these small unions their

independent organization and distinct life. The peculiar character of

this system may be judged from the following description, contained in
an old official report of the British House of Commons on Indian
affairs:
A village, geographically considered, is a tract of country comprising some
hundred or thousand acres of arable and waste lands; politically viewed it
resembles a corporation or township. Its proper establishment of officers and
servants consists of the following descriptions: The potail, or head inhabitant,
who has generally the superintendence of the affairs of the village, settles the
disputes of the inhabitants attends to the police, and performs the duty of
collecting the revenue within his village, a duty which his personal influence and
minute acquaintance with the situation and concerns of the people render him
the best qualified for this charge. The kurnum keeps the accounts of cultivation,
and registers everything connected with it. The tallier and the totie, the duty of
the former of which consists [...] in gaining information of crimes and offenses,
and in escorting and protecting persons travelling from one village to another;
the province of the latter appearing to be more immediately confined to the
village, consisting, among other duties, in guarding the crops and assisting in
measuring them. The boundary-man, who preserves the limits of the village, or
gives evidence respecting them in cases of dispute. The Superintendent of Tanks
and Watercourses distributes the water [...] for the purposes of agriculture. The
Brahmin, who performs the village worship. The schoolmaster, who is seen
teaching the children in a village to read and write in the sand. The calendarbrahmin, or astrologer, etc. These officers and servants generally constitute the
establishment of a village; but in some parts of the country it is of less extent,
some of the duties and functions above described being united in the same
person; in others it exceeds the above-named number of individuals. [...] Under
this simple form of municipal government, the inhabitants of the country have
lived from time immemorial. The boundaries of the villages have been but
seldom altered; and though the villages themselves have been sometimes
injured, and even desolated by war, famine or disease, the same name, the same
limits, the same interests, and even the same families have continued for ages.
The inhabitants gave themselves no trouble about the breaking up and divisions
of kingdoms; while the village remains entire, they care not to what power it is
transferred, or to what sovereign it devolves; its internal economy remains
unchanged. The potail is still the head inhabitant, and still acts as the petty
judge or magistrate, and collector or renter of the village.

These small stereotype forms of social organism have been to the

greater part dissolved, and are disappearing, not so much through the
brutal interference of the British tax-gatherer and the British soldier, as
to the working of English steam and English free trade. Those familycommunities were based on domestic industry, in that peculiar
combination of hand-weaving, hands-spinning and hand-tilling
agriculture which gave them self-supporting power. English
interference having placed the spinner in Lancashire and the weaver in
Bengal, or sweeping away both Hindoo spinner and weaver, dissolved

these small semi-barbarian, semi-civilized communities, by blowing up

their economical basis, and thus produced the greatest, and to speak the
truth, the only social revolution ever heard of in Asia.
Now, sickening as it must be to human feeling to witness those
myriads of industrious patriarchal and inoffensive social organizations
disorganized and dissolved into their units, thrown into a sea of woes,
and their individual members losing at the same time their ancient
form of civilization, and their hereditary means of subsistence, we must
not forget that these idyllic village-communities, inoffensive though
they may appear, had always been the solid foundation of Oriental
despotism, that they restrained the human mind within the smallest
possible compass, making it the unresisting tool of superstition,
enslaving it beneath traditional rules, depriving it of all grandeur and
historical energies. We must not forget the barbarian egotism which,
concentrating on some miserable patch of land, had quietly witnessed
the ruin of empires, the perpetration of unspeakable cruelties, the
massacre of the population of large towns, with no other consideration
bestowed upon them than on natural events, itself the helpless prey of
any aggressor who deigned to notice it at all. We must not forget that
this undignified, stagnatory, and vegetative life, that this passive sort of
existence evoked on the other part, in contradistinction, wild, aimless,
unbounded forces of destruction and rendered murder itself a religious
rite in Hindostan. We must not forget that these little communities
were contaminated by distinctions of caste and by slavery, that they
subjugated man to external circumstances instead of elevating man the
sovereign of circumstances, that they transformed a self-developing
social state into never changing natural destiny, and thus brought about
a brutalizing worship of nature, exhibiting its degradation in the fact
that man, the sovereign of nature, fell down on his knees in adoration of
Kanuman, the monkey, and Sabbala, the cow.
England, it is true, in causing a social revolution in Hindostan, was
actuated only by the vilest interests, and was stupid in her manner of
enforcing them. But that is not the question. The question is, can
mankind fulfil its destiny without a fundamental revolution in the social
state of Asia? If not, whatever may have been the crimes of England she
was the unconscious tool of history in bringing about that revolution.
Then, whatever bitterness the spectacle of the crumbling of an ancient
world may have for our personal feelings, we have the right, in point of
history, to exclaim with Goethe:

Sollte
these
Qual
Da
sie
unsre
Hat
nicht
Timurs Herrschaft aufgezehrt?

uns
Lust
myriaden

qulen
vermehrt,
Seelen

[Should
this
torture
then
torment
us
Since
it
brings
us
greater
pleasure?
Were
not
through
the
rule
of
Timur
Souls
devoured
without
measure?]
[From Goethes An Suleika, Weststlicher Diwan]

Karl Marx

Footnotes
4 A reference to the rule in India, mainly in the north, of the

Mohammedan invaders who came from Central Asia, Afghanistan

and Persia. Early in the thirteenth century the Delhi Sultanate
became the bulwark of Moslem domination but at the end of the
fourteenth century it declined and was subsequently conquered by
the Moguls, new invaders of Turkish descent, who came to India from
the east of Central Asia in the early sixteenth century and in 1526
founded the Empire of the Great Moguls (named after the ruling
dynasty of the Empire) in Northern India. Contemporaries regarded
them as the direct descendants of the Mongol warriors of Genghis
Khans time, hence the name Moguls. In the mid-seventeenth
century the Mogul Empire included the greater part of India and part
of Afghanistan. Later on, however, the Empire began to decline due
to peasant rebellions, the growing resistance of the Indian people to
the Mohammedan conquerors and increasing separatist tendencies.
In the early half of the eighteenth century the Empire of the Great
Moguls practically ceased to exist.
5 Religion of the Lingam the cult of the God Shiva, particularly

widespread among the southern Indian sect of the Lingayat (from the
word linga - the emblem of Shiva), a Hindu sect which does not
recognise distinctions of caste and rejects fasts, sacrifices and
pilgrimages.
Juggernaut (jagannath) a title of Krishna, the eighth avatar of
Vishnu. The cult of juggernaut was marked by sumptuous ritual and
extreme religious fanaticism which manifested itself in the selftorture and suicide of believers. On feast days some believers threw

themselves under the wheels of the chariot bearing the idol of

Vishnu-juggernaut.
06 Heptarchy (government by seven rulers) a term used by English

historiographers to describe the political system in England from the

sixth to eighth centuries, when the country was divided into seven
highly unstable Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, which, in their turn,
frequently split up and reunited. Marx uses this term by analogy to
describe the disunity of the Deccan (Central and South India) before
its conquest by the Mohammedans at the beginning of the fourteenth
century.
MARX: SLANDERING BOTH JEWS AND NEGROES IN ONE BREATH
I excerpt the statement below from a comment in Front Page Magazine:
Marx, as we all know, was as rabid a foe of Judaism and Christianity as were his spiritual godfathers, Voltaire and the other Enlightenment philosophers.... Marx remains the greatest advocate of the "naturalistic worldview" in modern times. He was a true "bright"; a child of the "Enlightenment". In this
passage from a letter written to Engels in 1862, he criticized his political opponent, the French Socialist Ferdinand LaSalle:

I now see clearly that he is descended, as the shape of his head and his hair clearly indicate, from the Negroes who were joined to the Jews at the time of the exodus from Egypt ( unless it was his mother or paternal grandmother who mated with a Negro). But this mixture of Judaism and Germanism with a
negro substance as a base was bound to yield a most curious product. The importunity of the man also is negroid...One of the great discoveries of this Negro, which he confided to me, is that the Pelasgians are descended from the Semites. His main proof is that, according to the Book of Maccabees, the
Jews sent messenger to Greece to ask for help and appealed to their tribal relationship..."

The above passage is interesting in three respects; it unmasks Marx's prejudices, it shows he was well within the mainstream of the "scientific" racists of his day, and also shows his willingness to slander and vilify a political opponent. This says much about one of the greatest, if not the greatest,
propagandists for the "naturalistic worldview". .... You continue to evade the fact that the United States of America was founded upon Judeo-Christian values, and the liberty you so cherish is the gift of the Judeo-Christian culture you, like Voltaire and Marx, despise. The U.S is not, I repeat not, a nation
with a "naturalistic worldview". That distinction is reserved for places like the former USSR, the PRC, Cuba, etc. Frankly, since Cuba is only 90 miles from our shores I wonder you and your ilk don't go there.

Context for the Marx quote above is here -- at the end of the letter to Engels and in a postscript to the letter. The translations differ slightly, however.

Marx-Engels Correspondence 1862

Marx To Engels
In Manchester
Source: MECW Volume 41, p. 388;
First published: abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K.

Marx, Stuttgart, 1913, and in full in MEGA, Berlin, 1930.

[London,] 30 July [1862]

Dear Engels,
From the enclosed scrawls you will partly see how bothered I am. So far,
the landlord has allowed himself to be placated; he has yet to receive 25. The
piano chap, who is being paid in instalments for the piano, should already have
had 6 at the end of June, and is a most ill-mannered brute. I have rate
demands in the house amounting to 6. The wretched school fees some 10

 I have fortunately been able to pay, for I do my utmost to spare the children
direct humiliation. I have paid the butcher $6 on account (the sum total of my
quarterly takings from the Presse!), but Im again being dunned by that fellow,
not to mention the baker, the teagrocer, the greengrocer, and such other sons
of Belial as there may be.
The Jewish nigger Lassalle who, Im glad to say, is leaving at the end of this
week, has happily lost another 5,000 talers in an ill-judged speculation. The
chap would sooner throw money down the drain than lend it to a friend, even
though his interest and capital were guaranteed. In this he bases himself on the
view that he ought to live the life of a Jewish baron, or Jew created a baron (no
doubt by the countess). Just imagine! This fellow, knowing about the
American affair, etc., and hence about the state of crisis Im in, had the
insolence to ask me whether I would be willing to hand over one of my
daughters to la Hatzfeldt as a companion, and whether he himself should
secure Gerstenbergs (!) patronage for me! The fellow has wasted my time
and, what is more, the dolt opined that, since I was not engaged upon any
business just now, but merely upon a theoretical work, I might just as well
kill time with him! In order to keep up certain dehors vis--vis the fellow, my
wife had to put in pawn everything that wasnt actually nailed or bolted down!
Had I not been in this appalling position and vexed by the way this parvenu
flaunted his money bags, hed have amused me tremendously. Since I last saw
him a year ago, hes gone quite mad. His head has been completely turned by
his stay in Zurich (with Rstow, Herwegh, etc.) and the subsequent trip to Italy
and, after that, by hisHerr Julian Schmidt, etc. He is now indisputably, not
only the greatest scholar, the profoundest thinker, the most brilliant man of
science, and so forth, but also and in addition, Don Juan cum revolutionary
Cardinal Richelieu. Add to this, the incessant chatter in a high, falsetto voice,
the unaesthetic, histrionic gestures, the dogmatic tone!
As a profound secret, he told me and my wife that he had advised Garibaldi
not to make Rome the target of his attack but instead proceed to Naples, there
set himself up as dictator (without affronting Victor Emmanuel), and call out
the peoples army for a campaign against Austria. Lassalle had him conjure
300,000 men out of thin air with whom, of course, the Piedmontese army
joined forces. And then, in accordance with a plan approved, so he says, by Mr
Rstow, a detached corps was to make, or rather set sail, for the Adriatic coast
(Dalmatia) and incite Hungary to revolt, while, heedless of the Quadrilateral,
the main body of the army under Garibaldi marched from Padua to Vienna,
where the population instantly rebelled. All over in 6 weeks. The fulcrum of
the action Lassalles political influence, or his pen, in Berlin. And Rstow

at the head of a corps of German volunteers attached to Garibaldi. Bonaparte,

on the other hand, was paralysed by this Lassallean coup dclat.
He has just been to see Mazzini, and the latter, too, approved and
admired his plan.
He introduced himself to these people as the representative of the German
revolutionary working class and assumed they knew (to use his own words)
that his (Izzys) pamphlet on the Italian war had prevented Prussias
intervention and, in fact, that he had controlled the history of the past three
years. Lassalle was absolutely furious with me and my wife for poking fun at
his plans, quizzing him as an enlightened Bonapartist, etc. He shouted,
blustered, flung himself about and finally got it fixed in his mind that I was too
abstract to understand politics.
As to America, its of no interest whatever, he says. The Yankees have no
ideas. The freedom of the individual is merely a negative idea, etc., and
other antiquated, mouldering, speculative rubbish of the same ilk.
As I have said, if circumstances had been different (and he hadnt disrupted
my work), the chap would have amused me tremendously.
And on top of it all, the sheer gluttony and wanton lechery of this idealist!
It is now quite plain to me as the shape of his head and the way his hair
grows also testify that he is descended from the negroes who accompanied
Moses flight from Egypt (unless his mother or paternal grandmother interbred
with a nigger). Now, this blend of Jewishness and Germanness, on the one
hand, and basic negroid stock, on the other, must inevitably give rise to a
peculiar product. The fellows importunity is also nigger-like.
If, by the by, Mr Rstow was responsible for thinking up the march from
Padua to Vienna, I should say that he also has a screw loose.
Salut.
Your
K. M.
One of our niggers great discoveries which, however, he only confides
to his closest friends is that the Pelasgians were of Semitic descent. The
main evidence: in the Book of Maccabbees, the Jews send emissaries to solicit

the help of Greece on grounds of kinship. Furthermore, an Etruscan inscription

has been found in Perugia, and this was simultaneously deciphered by Hofrat
Stucker in Berlin and an Italian, and both independently converted the
Etruscan into the Hebrew alphabet.
So that we can no longer discomfit him with Blue Books, he has bought 20
pounds worth of Blue Books (under Buchers guidance).
He has converted Bucher to socialism, or so he maintains. Now Buchers
quite a fine little man, if a cranky one, and, in any case, I cant believe that he
has accepted Lassalles foreign policy. Bucher is the compositress in Julian
Schmidt.
If youd been here just for a day or two, youd have been able to lay in
enough material to keep you laughing for a whole year. Thats why I was so
anxious to have you here. One doesnt get an opportunity like that every day.
Friday, April 15, 2005
MARX: NEGROES A DEGENERATE TYPE

Marx-Engels Correspondence 1866: "For certain questions, such as nationality, etc., only here has a basis in nature been found. E.g., he [Tremaux] corrects the Pole Duchinski, whose version of the geological differences between Russia and the Western Slav lands he does incidentally confirm, by saying not
that the Russians are Tartars rather than Slavs, etc., as the latter believes, but that on the surface-formation predominant in Russia the Slav has been tartarised and mongolised; likewise (he spent a long time in Africa) he shows that the common negro type is only a degeneration of a far higher one".

Context here

Marx-Engels Correspondence 1866

Marx To Engels
In Manchester
Source: MECW Volume 42, p. 303;
First published: in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K.

Marx, Stuttgart, 1913.

[London,] 7 August 1866

Dear Fred,

You inferred correctly from my last letter that my state of health has
improved, although it fluctuates from one day to the next. Meanwhile, the
feeling of being fit to work again does much for a man. Unfortunately, I am
constantly interrupted by social troubles and lose a lot of time. Thus, for
example, the butcher has suspended meat supplies today, and by Saturday even
my stock of paper will be used up.
Since yesterday Laura is half promised to Monsieur Lafargue, my medical
Creole. She treats him like the others, but the outbursts of feeling these Creoles
are subject to, a slight fear that the jeune homme (he is 25) might do away with
himself, etc., some fondness for him, undemonstrative as always with Laura
(he is a good-looking, intelligent, energetic lad of athletic build), have more or
less led to a semi-compromise. The boy attached himself to me first of all, but
soon transferred the attractionfrom the old man to his daughter. His economic
circumstances are middling, as he is the only child of a former planter-family.
He is ray de luniversit de Paris Pour deux ans, on account of the congrs
Lige, but intends to sit his examination at Strasbourg. In my judgment, he
has an outstanding gift for medicine, in which he is, however, infinitely more
sceptical than our friend Gumpert. Scepticism in medical matters appears to be
the order of the day with both professors and students in Paris. E. g.,
Magendie, who declares all therapeutics, in their present state, to be
fraudulent. As always, this scepticism not only does not exclude crotchets, but
embraces them. E. g., Lafargue believes in alcohol and electricity as the chief
cures. Fortunately, he is having a good adviser in Professor Carrre, a refugee
(hautes mathmatiques; physics and chemistry), and will be able to acquire
much practical experience in the London hospitals. I have managed to get him
admitted there through the good offices of a third party.
A very important work which I shall send on to you (but on condition that
you send it back, as it is not my property) as soon as I have made the necessary
notes, is: P.Trmaux, Origine et Transformations de lHomme et des autres
tres, Paris 1865. In spite of all the shortcomings that I have noted, it
represents a very significantadvance over Darwin. The two chief theses
are: croisements [crossings] do not produce, as is commonly thought, variety,
but, on the contrary, a unity typical of theespces. The physical features of the
earth, on the other hand, differentiate (they are the chief, though not the only
basis). Progress, which Darwin regards as purely accidental, is essential here
on the basis of the stages of the earths development, dgnrescence, which
Darwin cannot explain, is straightforward here; ditto the rapid extinction of
merely transitional forms, compared with the slow development of the type of
the espece, so that the gaps in palaeontology, which Darwin finds disturbing,

are necessary here. Ditto the fixity of the espece, once established, which is
explained as a necessary law (apart from individual, etc., variations). Here
hybridisation, which raises problems for Darwin, on the contrary supports the
system, as it is shown that an espece is in fact first established as soon
as croisement with others ceases to produce offspring or to be possible, etc.
In its historical and political applications far more significant and pregnant
than Darwin. For certain questions, such as nationality, etc., only here has a
basis in nature been found. E.g., he corrects the Pole Duchinski, whose version
of the geological differences between Russia and the Western Slav lands he
does incidentally confirm, by saying not that the Russians are Tartars rather
than Slavs, etc., as the latter believes, but that on the surface-formation
predominant in Russia the Slav has been tartarised and mongolised; likewise
(he spent a long time in Africa) he shows that the common negro type is only a
degeneration of a far higher one.
If not comprehended by the great laws of nature, mans undertakings are but calamities, witness
the efforts of the Czars to make Muscovites of the Polish people. [...] The same soil will give rise
to the same character and the same qualities. A work of destruction cannot last forever, but a
work of reconstitution is everlasting. The true frontier of the Slav and Lithuanian races with the
Muscovites is represented by the great geological line which lies to the north of the basins of the
Niemen and the Dnieper... To the south of that great line, the talents and the types fitted to that
region are and will always remain different from those of Russia. [P. Trmaux, Origine et
transformations de lhomme... pp. 402, 420, 421.]

Salut.
Your
K. M.

Thursday, April 14, 2005

MARX THOUGHT THAT RUSSIANS WERE REALLY ASIATIC AND SHOULD BE CHASED OUT OF RUSSIA
And Hitler tried to do it. Like Hitler, Marx saw race as a criterion of entitlement

Marx to Engels, 1865: "It has ditto been shown geologically and hydrographically that a great Asiatic difference occurs east of the Dnieper, compared with what lies to the west of it, and that (as Murchison has already maintained) the Urals by no means constitute a dividing line. Result as obtained by
Duchinski: Russia is a name usurped by the Muscovites. They are not Slavs; they do not belong to the Indo-Germanic race at all, they are des intrus [intruders], who must be chased back across the Dnieper, etc."
Context here

Marx-Engels Correspondence 1865

Marx To Engels
In Manchester

Source: MECW, Volume 42, p. 161;

First published: abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K.

Marx Bd. 3, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in MEGA Abt. III, Bd. 3, Berlin,
1930.

[London,] 24 June 1865

Dear Fred,
You must excuse my long silence. The whole time I have been suffering
throughout from bilious nausea (probably on account of the heat), had all kinds
of othertroubles as well, and apart from that I have used the time, when fit to
write, for official work on my book. [Capital] You know how, when one is in
such a condition, one is always resolving to send letters but never manages to.
Not much new to report. The valiant Nordstern did not appear since my last
despatch to you, probably for lack of money. I received it again today, and it
does not mention the interval at all. As you will see, the rag is nothing but a
dungheap of loutism. In their denunciation of B. Becker, these fellows are now
declaring everyone a traitor who dares to lay a finger on even one syllable of
the truth as revealed by Lassalle. Meanwhile, Mr B. Becker has provisionally
ceded his chairmanship to that lout Fritzsche (of Leipzig) and set up his
residence in Berlin in order to do business with Mr Bismarck directly.
A pretty shambles Baron Izzys whole movement has degenerated into! But
the fellow obviously had the right instinct for how to make himself Saviour of
the German louts! Meanwhile, the unfaithful one is living in blissful
happiness as a boyar lady with her Wallachian in Bucharest.
I have had no letters from Liebknecht for some while. But that is no doubt
because for a long time, while my correspondence was suspended, I did not
answer the notes that used to come in almost daily from him, none of them
having anything to say, and each successive one invariably confirming the
nullity of its precursor.
In respect of the International Association, I will just mention the
following here:

The Italian gentlemen have come back and indicated to us last Tuesday that
they have yet once again nominated Major Wolff as their delegate. Mr Mazzini
appears to have convinced himself that he may need us, whereas we care not
a farthing for him.
A Yankee by the name of Leon Lewis (in Paris at the moment) has become
the American secretary. In my opinion, he is worthless, although he has plenty
of money and even more ambition. The fellow imagined that by founding a
paper, The Commoner, he could revolutionise England in 24 hours or in 6
months at the very least. He offered this paper-to-be to us as our organ, but
found that we are setting very business-like and by no means enthusiastic
conditions, and so he has temporarily left for France with his wife, who is
also a great politician, I suspect to see if he can apply his lever there with any
more success.
I should like your advice on the following point:
I read a paper (which would perhaps cover two printed sheets) at
the Central Council about the question raised by Mr Weston as to the effect
of a general rise of wages, etc. The first part of it is a reply to Westons
nonsense; the second a theoretical exposition, insofar as it was appropriate for
the occasion.
Now they want to have it printed. On the one hand, that could perhaps be
useful to me, since they are in contact with J. St. Mill, Professor Beesly,
Harrison, etc. On the other hand, I have my doubts:
1. to have Mr Weston as adversary is not exactly vairy-flettering';
2. the second part of the paper contains, in an extraordinarily condensed but
relatively popular form, many new ideas which are anticipated from my
book, whilst at the same time it does, of necessity, have to skate over a lot of
problems. The question is, whether it is advisable to anticipate things of that
kind in such a way? I think you can decide on this better than I can because
you can look at the matter with more detachment from a distance.
I also had a lot of trouble to put off the Congress announced for this year, in
the face of pressure from Schily, J. Ph. Becker, and some of the
Paris Committee. I did, however, succeed and that was decisive in
persuading the Council here that in view of the electoral agitation, etc., there
should only be a preliminary (private)conference in London this year, to which
the Central Foreign Committees would each send one delegate (not

the affiliated societies but their administrative committees). I am certain

that the Brussels Congress would come to nought. The time was not yet ripe
for it.
Our Eccarius has become one of the main London electoral agitators and
would have accepted the invitation to agitate in the country (on 2 per week),
if this were not the height of the tailoring season. He has a peculiarly dry,
humorous manner of speaking which particularly appeals to the English.
Edgar is already much recovered. An odd fish for whom fodder and fancy
clothes really are the only things of account; as egotistical as a dog or a
cat, but a kind-natured one. His brain has also begun to display certain
activity.
Johnsons policy likes me not. A ludicrous affectation of severity towards
individuals; hitherto excessively vacillating and weak when it comes down to
it. The reaction has already set in in America and will soon be much fortified if
the present lackadaisical attitude is not ended immediately.
What do you say to the debates in the Prussian Chamber? At any rate, the
revelations about the judicial system, etc., following in rapid succession were
splendid. Ditto the obvious blow which the National Association Great-Prussia
men received, as was shown particularly in the Polish debates.
Ad vocem Poland, I was most interested to read the work by Elias
Regnault (the same who wrote the histoire des principauts danubiennes'), La
Question Europenne, faussement nomme La Question Polonaise. I see from
it that Lapinskis dogma that the Great Russians are not Slavs has been
advocated on linguistic, historical and ethnographical grounds in all
seriousness by Monsieur Duchinski (from Kiev, Professor in Paris); he
maintains that the real Muscovites, i.e., inhabitants of the former Grand
Duchy of Moscow, were for the most part Mongols or Finns, etc., as was the
case in the parts of Russia situated further east and in its south-eastern parts. I
see from it at all events that the affair has seriously worried the St Petersburg
cabinet (since it would put an end to Panslavism in no uncertain manner). All
Russian scholars were called on to give responses and refutations, and these in
the event turned out to be terribly weak. The purity of the Great Russian
dialect and its connection with Church Slavonic appear to lend more support to
the Polish than to the Muscovite view in this debate. During the last Polish
insurrection Duchinski was awarded a prize by the National Government for
his discoveries. It has ditto been shown geologically and hydrographically
that a great Asiatic difference occurs east of the Dnieper, compared with

what lies to the west of it, and that (as Murchison has already maintained)
the Urals by no means constitute a dividing line. Result as obtained by
Duchinski: Russia is a name usurped by the Muscovites. They are not Slavs;
they do not belong to the Indo-Germanic race at all, they are des
intrus [intruders], who must be chased back across the Dnieper, etc.
Panslavism in the Russian sense is a cabinet invention, etc.
I wish that Duchinski were right and at all events that this view would
prevail among the Slavs. On the other hand, he states that some of the peoples
in Turkey, such as Bulgars, e.g., who had previously been regarded as Slavs,
are non-Slav.
Salut.
Your
K. M.
Philistine Freiligrath descended on us with wife and daughter 2 weeks ago!
He now has his immediate superior Reinach on his back who is here to
investigate and is giving him a proper roasting.
Tuesday, April 12, 2005
MARX: CONTEMPT FOR INDIANS
But he thought British were superior and that their rule was a good thing

Marx, New-York Daily Tribune, August 8, 1853: "Indian society has no history at all, at least no known history. What we call its history, is but the history of the successive intruders who founded their empires on the passive basis of that unresisting and unchanging society. The question, therefore, is not
whether the English had a right to conquer India, but whether we are to prefer India conquered by the Turk, by the Persian, by the Russian, to India conquered by the Briton.....
The British were the first conquerors superior, and therefore, inaccessible to Hindoo civilization. They destroyed it by breaking up the native communities, by uprooting the native industry, and by levelling all that was great and elevated in the native society. The historic pages of their rule in India report
hardly anything beyond that destruction. The work of regeneration hardly transpires through a heap of ruins. Nevertheless it has begun.
The political unity of India, more consolidated, and extending farther than it ever did under the Great Moguls, was the first condition of its regeneration. That unity, imposed by the British sword, will now be strengthened and perpetuated by the electric t elegraph. The native army, organized and trained by
the British drill-sergeant, was thesine qua non of Indian self-emancipation, and of India ceasing to be the prey of the first foreign intruder. The free press, introduced for the first time into Asiatic society, and managed principally by the common offspring of Hindoos and Europeans, is a new and powerful
agent of reconstruction".
Context here

Works of Karl Marx 1853

The Future Results of British

Rule in India
Written: on July 22, 1853
Source: MECW Volume 12, p. 217;
First published: in the New-York Daily Tribune, August 8, 1853; reprinted

in the New-York Semi-Weekly Tribune, No. 856, August 9, 1853.

Signed: Karl Marx.

London, Friday, July 22, 1853

I propose in this letter to conclude my observations on India.
How came it that English supremacy was established in India? The
paramount power of the Great Mogul was broken by the Mogul Viceroys. The
power of the Viceroys was broken by the Mahrattas. The power of the
Mahrattas was broken by the Afghans, and while all were struggling against
all, the Briton rushed in and was enabled to subdue them all. A country not
only divided between Mahommedan and Hindoo, but between tribe and tribe,
between caste and caste; a society whose framework was based on a sort of
equilibrium, resulting from a. general repulsion and constitutional
exclusiveness between all its members. Such a country and such a society,
were they not the predestined prey of conquest? If we knew nothing of the past
history of Hindostan, would there not be the one great and incontestable fact,
that even at this moment India is held in English thraldom by an Indian army
maintained at the cost of India? India, then, could not escape the fate of being
conquered, and the whole of her past history, if it be anything, is the history of
the successive conquests she has undergone. Indian society has no history at
all, at least no known history. What we call its history, is but the history of the
successive intruders who founded their empires on the passive basis of that
unresisting and unchanging society. The question, therefore, is not whether the
English had a right to conquer India, but whether we are to prefer India
conquered by the Turk, by the Persian, by the Russian, to India conquered by
the Briton.
England has to fulfill a double mission in India: one destructive, the other
regenerating the annihilation of old Asiatic society, and the laying the material
foundations of Western society in Asia.
Arabs, Turks, Tartars, Moguls, who had successively overrun India, soon
became Hindooized, the barbarian conquerors being, by an eternal law of
history, conquered themselves by the superior civilization of their subjects.
The British were the first conquerors superior, and therefore, inaccessible to
Hindoo civilization. They destroyed it by breaking up the native communities,
by uprooting the native industry, and by levelling all that was great and
elevated in the native society. The historic pages of their rule in India report
hardly anything beyond that destruction. The work of regeneration hardly
transpires through a heap of ruins. Nevertheless it has begun.

The political unity of India, more consolidated, and extending farther than it
ever did under the Great Moguls, was the first condition of its regeneration.
That unity, imposed by the British sword, will now be strengthened and
perpetuated by the electric telegraph. The native army, organized and trained
by the British drill-sergeant, was the sine qua non of Indian self-emancipation,
and of India ceasing to be the prey of the first foreign intruder. The free press,
introduced for the first time into Asiatic society, and managed principally by
the common offspring of Hindoos and Europeans, is a new and powerful agent
of reconstruction. The Zemindari and Ryotwar themselves, abominable as they
are, involve two distinct forms of private property in land the great
desideratum of Asiatic society. From the Indian natives, reluctantly and
sparingly educated at Calcutta, under English superintendence, a fresh class is
springing up, endowed with the requirements for government and imbued with
European science. Steam has brought India into regular and rapid
communication with Europe, has connected its chief ports with those of the
whole south-eastern ocean, and has revindicated it from the isolated position
which was the prime law of its stagnation. The day is not far distant when, by a
combination of railways and steam-vessels, the distance between England and
India, measured by time, will be shortened to eight days, and when that once
fabulous country will thus be actually annexed to the Western world.
The ruling classes of Great Britain have had, till now, but an accidental,
transitory and exceptional interest in the progress of India. The aristocracy
wanted to conquer it, the moneyocracy to plunder it, and the millocracy to
undersell it. But now the tables are turned. The millocracy have discovered
that the transformation of India into a reproductive country has become of vital
importance to them, and that, to that end, it is necessary, above all, to gift her
with means of irrigation and of internal communication. They intend now
drawing a net of railroads over India. And they will do it. The results must be
inappreciable.
It is notorious that the productive powers of India are paralysed by the utter
want of means for conveying and exchanging its various produce. Nowhere,
more than in India, do we meet with social destitution in the midst of natural
plenty, for want of the means of exchange. It was proved before a Committee
of the British House of Commons, which sat in 1848, that
when grain was selling from 6/- to 8/- a quarter at Khandesh, it was sold at 64/ to 70/- at Poona,
where the people were dying in the streets of famine, without the possibility of gaining supplies
from Khandesh, because the clay-roads were impracticable.

The introduction of railroads may be easily made to subserve agricultural

purposes by the formation of tanks, where ground is required for embankment,
and by the conveyance of water along the different lines. Thus irrigation, the
sine qua non of farming in the East, might be greatly extended, and the
frequently recurring local famines, arising from the want of water, would be
averted. The general importance of railways, viewed under this head, must
become evident, when we remember that irrigated lands, even in the districts
near Ghauts, pay three times as much in taxes, afford ten or twelve times as
much employment, and yield twelve or fifteen times as much profit, as the
same area without irrigation.
Railways will afford the means of diminishing the amount and the cost of
the military establishments. Col. Warren, Town Major of the Fort St. William,
stated before a Select Committee of the House of Commons:
The practicability of receiving intelligence from distant parts of the country, in as many hours
as at present it requires days and even weeks, and of sending instructions, with troops and stores,
in the more brief period, are considerations which cannot be too highly estimated. Troops could
be kept at more distant and healthier stations than at present, and much loss of life from sickness
would by this means be spared. Stores could not to the same extent he required at the various
depots, and. the loss by decay, and the destruction incidental to the climate, would also be
avoided. The number of troops might be diminished in direct proportion to their effectiveness.

We know that the municipal organization and the economical basis of the
village communities has been broken up, but their worst feature, the
dissolution of society into stereotype and disconnected atoms, has survived
their vitality. The village isolation produced the absence of roads in India, and
the absence of roads perpetuated the village isolation. On this plan a
community existed with a given scale of low conveniences, almost without
intercourse with other villages, without the desires and efforts indispensable to
social advance. The British having broken up this self-sufficient inertia of the
villages, railways will provide the new want of communication and
intercourse. Besides,
one of the effects of the railway system will he to bring into every village affected by it such
knowledge of the contrivances and appliances of other countries, and such means of obtaining
them, as will first put the hereditary and stipendiary village artisanship of India to full proof of
its capabilities, and then supply its defects. (Chapman, The Cotton and Commerce of India [pp.
95-97].)

I know that the English millocracy intend to endow India with railways with
the exclusive view of extracting at diminished expenses the cotton and other
raw materials for their manufactures. But when you have once introduced
machinery into the locomotion of a country, which possesses iron and coals,
you are unable to withhold it from its fabrication. You cannot maintain a net of

railways over an immense country without introducing all those industrial

processes necessary to meet the immediate and current wants of railway
locomotion, and out of which there must grow the application of machinery to
those branches of industry not immediately connected with railways. The
railway-system will therefore become, in India, truly the forerunner of modern
industry. This is the more certain as the Hindoos are allowed by British
authorities themselves to possess particular aptitude. for accommodating
themselves to entirely new labor, and acquiring the requisite knowledge of
machinery. Ample proof of this fact is afforded by the capacities and
expertness of the native engineers in the Calcutta mint, where they have been
for years employed in working the steam machinery, by the natives attached to
the several steam engines in the Burdwan coal districts, and by other instances.
Mr. Campbell himself, greatly influenced as he is by the prejudices of the East
India Company, is obliged to avow
that the great mass of the Indian people possesses a great industrial energy, is well fitted to
accumulate capital, and remarkable for a mathematical clearness of head and talent for figures
and exact sciences. Their intellects, he says, are excellent.

Modern industry, resulting from the railway system, will dissolve the
hereditary divisions of labor, upon which rest the Indian castes, those decisive
impediments to Indian progress and Indian power.
All the English bourgeoisie may be forced to do will neither emancipate nor
materially mend the social condition of the mass of the people, depending not
only on the development of the productive powers, but on their appropriation
by the people. But what they will not fail to do is to lay down the material
premises for both. Has the bourgeoisie ever done more? Has it ever effected a
progress without dragging individuals and people through blood and dirt,
through misery and degradation?
The Indians will not reap the fruits of the new elements of society scattered
among them by the British bourgeoisie, till in Great Britain itself the now
ruling classes shall have been supplanted by the industrial proletariat, or till the
Hindoos themselves shall have grown strong enough to throw off the English
yoke altogether. At all events, we may safely expect to see, at a more or less
remote period, the regeneration of that great and interesting country, whose
gentle natives are, to use the expression of Prince Soltykov, even in the most
inferior classes, plus fins et plus adroits que les Italiens [more subtle and
adroit than the Italians], a whose submission even is counterbalanced by a
certain calm nobility, who, notwithstanding their natural langor, have
astonished the British officers by their bravery, whose country has been the

source of our languages, our religions, and who represent the type of the
ancient German in the Jat, and the type of the ancient Greek in the Brahmin.
I cannot part with the subject of India without some concluding remarks.
The profound hypocrisy and inherent barbarism of bourgeois civilization lies
unveiled before our eyes, turning from its home, where it assumes respectable
forms, to the colonies, where it goes naked. They are the defenders of property,
but did any revolutionary party ever originate agrarian revolutions like those in
Bengal, in Madras, and in Bombay? Did they not, in India, to borrow an
expression of. that great robber, Lord Clive himself, resort to atrocious
extortion, when simple corruption could not keep pace with their rapacity?
While they prated in Europe about the inviolable sanctity of the national debt,
did they not confiscate in India the dividends of the rajahs, 171 who had
invested their private savings in the Companys own funds? While they
combatted the French revolution under the pretext of defending our holy
religion, did they not forbid, at the same time, Christianity to be propagated in
India, and did they not, in order to make money out of the pilgrims streaming
to the temples of Orissa and Bengal, take up the trade in the murder and
prostitution perpetrated in the temple of juggernaut? These are the men of
Property, Order, Family, and Religion.
The devastating effects of English industry, when contemplated with regard
to India, a country as vast as Europe, and containing 150 millions of acres, are
palpable and confounding. But we must not forget that they are only the
organic results of the whole system of production as it is now constituted. That
production rests on the supreme rule of capital. The centralization of capital is
essential to the existence of capital as an independent power. The destructive
influence of that centralization upon the markets of the world does but reveal,
in the most gigantic dimensions, the inherent organic laws of political
economy now at work in every civilized town. The bourgeois period of history
has to create the material basis of the new world on the one hand universal
intercourse founded upon the mutual dependency of mankind, and the means
of that intercourse; on the other hand the development of the productive
powers of man and the transformation of material production into a scientific
domination of natural agencies. Bourgeois industry and commerce create these
material conditions of a new world in the same way as geological revolutions
have created the surface of the earth. When a great social revolution shall have
mastered the results of the bourgeois epoch, the market of the world and the
modern powers of production, and subjected them to the common control of
the most advanced peoples, then only will human progress cease to resemble

that hideous, pagan idol, who would not drink the nectar but from the skulls of
the slain.

Monday, April 11, 2005

NO PAST AND NO FUTURE FOR THE SLAVS

Engels in Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 222, February 1849: "We repeat: apart from the Poles, the Russians, and at most the Turkish Slavs, no Slav people has a future, for the simple reason that all the other Slavs lack the primary historical, geographical, political and industrial conditions for independence
and viability. Peoples which have never had a history of their own, which from the time when they achieved the first, most elementary stage of civilization already came under foreign sway, or which were forced to attain the first stage of civilization only by means of a foreign yoke, are not viable and will
never be able to achieve any kind of independence. And that has been the fate of the Austrian Slavs. The Czechs, among whom we would include the Moravians and Slovaks, although they differ in respect of language and history, have never had a history of their own"
Context here

Marx in Neue Rheinische Zeitung February 1849

Democratic Pan-Slavism

[314]

by Frederick Engels
Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 222
Translated by the Marx-Engels Institute
Transcribed for the Internet by director@marx.org, 1994

Cologne, February 14, 1849 - We have often enough pointed out that the
romantic dreams which came into being after the revolutions of February and
March, such as ardent fantasies about the universal fraternal union of people, a
European federative republic, and eternal world peace, were basically nothing
but screens hiding the immeasurable perplexity and inactivity of the leading
spokesmen of that time. People did not see, or did not want to see, what had to
be done to safeguard the revolution; they were unable or unwilling to carry out
any really revolutionary measures; the narrow-mindedness of some and the
counter-revolutionary intrigues of others resulted in the people getting only
sentimental phrases instead of revolutionary deeds. The scoundrel Lamartine
with his high-flown declarations was the classical hero of this epoch of
betrayal of the people disguised by poetic floridity and rhetorical tinsel.
The peoples who have been through the revolution know how dearly they
have had to pay because in their simplicity at the time they believed the loud

talk and bombastic assurances. Instead of safeguards for the revolution everywhere reactionary Chambers which undermined the revolution; instead of
fulfillment of the promises given at the barricades - counter-revolution in
Naples, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, the fall of Milan, and the war against Hungary;
instead of the fraternal union of peoples - renewal of the Holy Alliance on the
broadest basis under the patronage of England and Russia. And the very same
persons who in April and May responded jubilantly to the high-flown phrases
of the epoch, now only blush with shame at the thought of how at that time
they allowed themselves to be deceived by idiots and rogues.
People have learned by bitter experience that the "European fraternal union
of peoples" cannot be achieved by mere phrases and pious wishes, but only by
profound revolutions and bloody struggles; they have learned that the question
is not that of a fraternal union of all European peoples under a single
republican flag, but of an alliance of the revolutionary peoples against the
counter-revolutionary peoples, an alliance which comes into being not
on paper, but only on the battlefield.
Throughout Western Europe these bitter but necessary experiences have
completely discredited Lamartine's phrase-mongering. In the east, on the other
hand, there are still sections, ostensibly democratic, revolutionary sections,
which are not tired of echoing these phrases and sentimental ideas and
preaching the gospel of the European fraternal union of peoples.
These actions - we leave out of account some ignorant German-speaking
dreamers such as Herr A. Ruge, etc. - are the democratic pan-Slavists of the
various Slav peoples.
The programme of democratic pan-Slavism lies before us in the shape of a
pamphlet: Aufruf an die Slaven. Von einem russischen Patrioten, Michael
Bakunin, Mitgleid des Slavencongresses in Prag. Koethen, 1848.
Bakunin is our friend. That will not deter us from criticizing his pamphlet.
Hear how Bakunin at the very beginning of his Appeal adheres to the
illusions of last March and April:
"The very first sign of life of the revolution was a cry of hate against the old [policy of]
oppression, a cry of sympathy and love for all oppressed nationalities. The peoples... felt at last
the disgrace with which the old diplomacy had burdened mankind, and they realized that the
well-being of the nations will never be ensured as long as there is a single nation anywhere in
Europe living under oppression.... Away with the oppressors! was the unanimous cry; all hail to
the oppressed, the Poles, the Italians and all of the others! No more wars of conquest, but only
the one last war fought out to the end, the good fight of the revolution for the final liberation of

all peoples! Down with the artificial barriers which have been forcibly erected by congresses of
despots [meaning Vienna Congresses of 1814-15] in accordance with so-called historical,
geographical, commercial and strategical necessities! There should be no other frontiers than
those natural boundaries drawn in accordance with justice and democracy and established by the
sovereign will of the peoples themselves on the basis of their national characteristics. Such is the
call issued by all the people." pp. 6, 7.

In this passage we already find reproduced all the rapturous enthusiasm of the
first months after the revolution. There is not a word about the actually
existing obstacles to such a universal liberation, or about the very diverse
political needs of the individual peoples. The word "freedom" replaces all that.
There is not one word about the actual state of things, or, insofar as it does
receive attention, it is described as absolutely reprehensible, arbitrarily
established by "congresses of despots" and "diplomats". To this bad reality is
counterposed the alleged will of the people with its categorical imperative,
with the absolute demand simply for "freedom".
We have seen who proved to be the stronger. The alleged will of the people
was so disgracefully deceived precisely because it trusted in such fantastic
abstraction from the conditions actually prevailing.
"By its plenipotentiary power the revolution declared the despotic states dissolved; dissolved the
Prussian state... Austria... the Turkish Empire... and, finally, the last hope of the despots... the
Russian Empire... and as the final goal of all - the universal federation of the European
republics." p. 8.

As a matter of fact, here in the West it must strike us as peculiar that after all
of these beautiful plans have come to grief at the first attempt to fulfill them
they can still be regarded as something meritorious and great. Certainly, the
unfortunate thing was precisely that although the revolution "by its own
plenipotentiary power the revolution declared the despotic states dissolved", at
the same time "by its own plenipotentiary power" it did not lift a finger to
carry out its decree.
At that same time the Slav Congress was convened. The Slav Congress
adopted completely the standpoint of these illusions. Listen to this:
"With a lively sense of the common ties of history (?) and blood, we swore not to allow our fates
to separate us again from one another. Pronouncing a curse on the policy of which we have so
long been the victims, we ourselves asserted our right to complete independence and vowed that
henceforth this should be common to all the Slave peoples. We recognized the independence of
Bohemia and Moravia... we held out our fraternal hand to the German people, to democratic
Germany. In the name of those of us who live in Hungary, we offered the Magyars, the furious
enemies of our race... a fraternal alliance. Nor did we forget in our alliance for liberation those of
our brothers who groan under the Turkish yoke. We solemnly condemned the treacherous policy
which three times cut Poland into pieces.... All that we proclaimed, and together with the

democrats of all peoples (?) we demanded freedom, equality and the brotherhood of all nations."
p. 10.

Democratic pan-Slavism still puts forward these demands:

"At that time we felt confident of our cause... justice and humanity were wholly on our side, and
nothing but illegality and barbarity on the side of our enemies. The ideas to which we devoted
ourselves were no empty figments of a dream, they were the ideas of the sole true and necessary
policy, the policy of revolution."

"Justice", "humanity", "freedom", "equality", "fraternity", "independence" - so

far we have found nothing in the pan-Slavist manifesto but these more or less
ethical categories, which sound very fine, it is true, but prove absolutely
nothing in historical and political questions. "Justice", "humanity", "freedom",
etc., may demand this or that a thousand times over; but if the thing is
impossible it does not take place and in spite of everything remains an "empty
figment of a dream". The pan-Slavists' illusions ought to have understood that
all pious wishes and beautiful dreams are of no avail against the iron reality,
and that their policy at any time was no more the "policy of revolution" than
was that of the French Republic. Nevertheless, today, in January 1849, they
still come to us with the same old phrases, in the content of which Western
Europe has been disillusioned by the bloodiest counter-revolution!
Just a word about "universal fraternal union of peoples" and the drawing of
"boundaries established by the sovereign will of the peoples themselves on the
basis of their national characteristics". The United States and Mexico are two
republics, in both of which the people is sovereign.
How did it happen that over Texas a war broke out between these two
republics, which, according to the moral theory, ought to have been
"fraternally united" and "federated", and that, owing to "geographical,
commercial and strategical necessities", the "sovereign will" of the American
people, supported by the bravery of the American volunteers, shifted the
boundaries drawn by nature some hundreds of miles further south? And will
Bakunin accuse the Americans of a "war of conquest", which, although it deals
with a severe blow to his theory based on "justice and humanity", was
nevertheless waged wholly and solely in the interest of civilization? Or is it
perhaps unfortunate that splendid California has been taken away from the lazy
Mexicans, who could not do anything with it? That the energetic Yankees by
rapid exploitation of the California gold mines will increase the means of
circulation, in a few years will concentrate a dense population and extensive
trade at the most suitable places on the coast of the Pacific Ocean, create large
cities, open up communications by steamship, construct a railway from New

York to San Francisco, for the first time really open the Pacific Ocean to
civilization, and for the third time in history give the world trade a new
direction? The "independence" of a few Spanish Californians and Texans may
suffer because of it, in someplaces "justice" and other moral principles may be
violated; but what does that matter to such facts of world-historic significance?
We would point out, incidentally, that this theory of universal fraternal union
of peoples, which calls indiscriminately for fraternal union regardless of the
historical situation and the stage of social development of the individual
peoples, was combated by the editors of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung already
long before the revolution, and in fact in opposition to their best friends, the
English and French democrats. Proof of this is to be found in the English,
French and Belgian democratic newspapers of that period.
As far as pan-Slavism in particular is concerned, in the Neue Rheinische
Zeitung No.194 we showed that, part from the well-meaning self-deceptions of
the democratic pan-Slavists, it has in reality no other aim than to give the
Austrian Slavs, who are split up and historically, literally, politically,
commercially and industrially dependent on the Germans and Magyars, a basis
of support, in Russia on the one hand, and on the other hand in the Austrian
united monarchy, which is dominated by the Slav majority and dependent on
Russia. We have shown how such little nations. which for centuries have been
taken in tow by history against their will, must necessarily be counterrevolutionary, and that their whole position in the revolution in 1848 was
actually counter-revolutionary. In view of the democratic pan-Slavist
manifesto, which demands the independence of all Slavs without distinction,
we must return to this matter.
Let us note first of all that there is much excuse for the political romanticism
and sentimentality of the democrats at the Slav Congress. With the exception
of the Poles - the Poles are not pan-Slavists for very obvious reasons - they all
belong to peoples which are either, like the Southern Slavs, necessarily
counter-revolutionary owning to the whole of their historical position, or, like
the Russians, are still a long way from revolution and therefore, at least for the
time being, are still counter-revolutionary. These sections, democratic owing
to their education acquired abroad, seek to bring their democratic views into
harmony with their national feeling, which is known to be very pronounced
among the Slavs; and since the real world, the actual state of things in their
country, affords no basis, or only a fictitious basis for such reconciliation, there
remains for them nothing but the other-worldly "airy kingdom of dreams"
[quoting Heinrich Heine] the realm of pious wishes, the policy of fantasy. How
splendid it would be if the Croats, Pandours and Cossacks formed the

vanguard of European democracy, if the ambassador of a republic of Siberia

were to present his credentials in Paris! Certainly, such prospects would be
very delightful; but, after all, even the most enthusiastic pan-Slavist will not
demand that European democracy should wait for their realization - and at
present it is precisely those nations from whom the manifesto specially
demands independence that are the special enemies of democracy.
We repeat: apart from the Poles, the Russians, and at most the Turkish Slavs,
no Slav people has a future, for the simple reason that all the other Slavs lack
the primary historical, geographical, political and industrial conditions for
independence and viability.
Peoples which have never had a history of their own, which from the time
when they achieved the first, most elementary stage of civilization already
came under foreign sway, or which were forced to attain the first stage of
civilization only by means of a foreign yoke, are not viable and will never be
able to achieve any kind of independence.
And that has been the fate of the Austrian Slavs. The Czechs, among whom
we would include the Moravians and Slovaks, although they differ in respect
of language and history, have never had a history of their own. Bohemia has
been chained to Germany since the time of Charles the Great. The Czech
nation freed itself momentarily and formed the Great-Moravian state, only
immediately to come under subjugation again and for 500 years to be a bill
thrown from one to another by Germany, Hungary and Poland. Following that,
Bohemia and Moravia passed definitely to Germany and the Slovak regions
remained with Hungary. And this historically absolutely non-existent "nation"
puts forward claims to independence?
The same thing holds for the Southern Slavs proper. Where is the history of
the Illyrian Solvenes, the Dalmatians, Croats and Shokazians? Since the 11th
century they have lost the last semblance of political independence and have
been partly under German, partly under Venetian, and partly under Magyar
rule. And it is desired to put together a vigorous, independent, viable nation
out of these tattered remnants?
More than that. If the Austrian Slavs were a compact mass like the Poles, the
Magyars and the Italians, if they were in a position to come together to form a
state of 12-20 million people, then their claims would surely be more serious.
But the position is just the opposite. The Germans and Magyars have pushed
themselves in between them like a broad wedge to the farthest extremities of
the Carpathians, almost to the Black Sea, and have separated the Czechs,

Moravians and Slovaks from the Southern Slavs by a broad band 60-80 miles
[German mile equals 4.7 English miles] wide. To the north of this band are 5.5
million Slavs, to the south 5.5 million Slavs, separated by a compact mass of
10-11 million Germans and Magyars, made allies by history and necessity.
But why should not the 5.5 million Czechs, Moravians and Slovaks form
one state, and the 5.5 million Southern Slavs together with the Turkish Slavs
form another state?
Take a look at any good linguistic map of the distribution of the Czechs and
their neighbors akin to them in language. They have thrust themselves into
Germany like a wedge but on both sides they have been eaten into and pressed
back by the German element. One-third of Bohemia speaks German; for every
34 Czechs in Bohemia there are 17 Germans. Yet it is precisely the Czechs in
Bohemia who are supposed to form the core of the intended Slav state; for the
Moravians, too, are considerably interspersed with Germans, and the Slovaks
with Germans and Magyars end furthermore completely demoralized in a
national respect. And what a Slav state that would be, in which in the final
analysis the German urban bourgeoisie would hold sway!
The same thing applies to the Southern Slavs. The Slovenes and Croats cut
of Germany and Hungary from the Adriatic Sea; but Germany and
Hungary cannot allow themselves to be cut off from the Adriatic Sea on
account of "geographical and commercial necessities", which, it is true, are no
obstacle to Bakunin's fantasy, but which nevertheless do exist and are just as
much a vital question for Germany and Hungary as, for example, the Baltic
Sea coast from Danzig to Riga is for Poland. And where it is a question of the
existence, of the free development of all the resources of big nations, such
sentimental considerations as concern for a few scattered Germans of Slavs
will not decide anything! This apart from the fact that these Southern Slavs are
likewise everywhere mingled with German, Magyar, and Italian elements,
there here too a mere glance at a linguistic map shows the planned South-Slav
state would be delivered into the hands of the Italian bourgeoisie of Trieste,
Fiumeand Zara, and theGerman bourgeoisie of Agram, Laibach, Karlstadt,
Semlin, Pancsova, and Weisskirchen!
But could not the Austrian Southern Slavs unite with the Serbs, Bosnians,
Morlaks, and Bulgarians? Certainly they could if, besides the difficulties
mentioned above, there did not exist also the age-old hatred of the Austrian
frontier dwellers for the Turkish Slavs on the other side of the Sava and Unna;
but these people, who for centuries have considered one another as rascals and

bandits, despite all their racial kinship hate one another infinitely more than do
the Slavs and Magyars.
In point of fact, the position of the Germans and Magyars would be
extremely pleasant if the Austrian Slavs were assisted to get their so-called
rights! An independent Bohemian-Moravian state would be wedged between
Silesia and Austria; Austria and Styria would be cut off by the "South-Slav
republic" from their natural debouche [outlet] - the Adriatic Sea and the
Mediterranean; and the eastern part of Germany would be torn to pieces like a
loaf of bread that has been gnawed by rats! And all that by way of thanks for
the Germans having given themselves the trouble of civilizing the stubborn
Czechs and Slovenes, and introducing among them trade, industry, a tolerable
degree of agriculture, and culture!
But it is precisely this yoke imposed on the Slavs under the pretext of
civilization that is said to constitute one of the greatest crimes of the Germans
and Magyars! Just listen to this:
"Rightly do you rage, rightly do you breathe vengeance against the damnable German policy,
which has thought of nothing but your ruin, which has enslaved you for centuries...." p.5
"... The Magyars, the bitter enemies of our race, who number hardly four millions, have
presumed to seek to impose their yoke on eight million Slavs...." p.9
"I know all that the Magyars have done to our Slav brothers, what crimes they have committed
against our nationality, and how they have trampled underfoot our language and independence."
p.30

What then are the great, dreadful crimes committed by the Germans and
Magyars against the Slav nationality? We are not speaking here of the partition
of Poland, which is not at issue here, we are speaking of the "centuries of
injustice" supposed to have been inflicted on the Slavs.
In the north, the Germans have reconquered from the Slavs the formerly
German and subsequently Slav region from the Elbe to the Warthe; a conquest
which as determined by the "geographical and strategical necessities" resulting
from the partition of the Carolingian kingdom. These Slavs areas have been
fully Germanized; the thing has been done and cannot be undone, unless the
pan-Slavists were to resurrect the lost Sorbian, Wendish, and Obodritian
languages and impose them on the inhabitants of Leipzig, Berlin and Stettin.
But up to now it has never been disputed that this conquest was to the
advantage of civilization.

In the south, the Germans found the Slav races already split up. That had
been seen to by the non-Slav Avars, who occupied the region later inhabited
by the Magyars. The Germans exacted tribute from these Slavs and waged
many wars against them. They fought also against the Avars and Magyars,
from whom they took the whole territory from the Ems to the Leitha. Whereas
they carried out Germanization here by force, the Germanization of the Slav
territories proceeded much more on a peaceful basis, by immigration and by
the influence of the more developed nation on the undeveloped. German
industry, German trade, and German culture by themselves served to introduce
the German language into the country. As far as "oppression" is concerned, the
Slavs were not more oppressed by the Germans than the mass of the German
population itself.
As regards the Magyars, there are certainly also a large number of Germans
in Hungary, but the Magyars, although numbering "hardly four millions", have
never had the occasion to complain of the "damnable German policy"! And if
during eight centuries the "eight million Slavs" have had to suffer the yoke
imposed on them by the four million Magyars, that alone sufficiently proves
which was the more viable and vigorous, the many Slavs or the few Magyars!
But, of course, the greatest "crime" of the Germans and Magyars is that they
prevented these 12 million Slavs from becoming Turkish! What would have
become of these scattered small nationalities, which have played such a pitiful
role in history, if the Magyars and Germans had not kept them together and led
them against the armies of Mohammed and Suleiman, and if their so-called
oppressors had not decided the outcome of the battles which were fought for
the defense of these weak nationalities! The fate of the "12 million Slavs,
Wallachians, and Greeks" who have been "trampled underfoot by 700,000
Osmans" (p.8), right up to the present day, does not that speak eloquently
enough?
And finally, what a "crime" it is, what a "damnable policy" that at a time
when, in Europe in general, big monarchies had become a "historical
necessity", the Germans and Magyars untied all these small, stunted and
impotent little nations into a single big state and thereby enabled them to take
part in a historical development from which, left to themselves, they would
have remained completely aloof! Of course, matters of this kind cannot be
accomplished without many a tender national blossom being forcibly broken.
But in history nothing is achieved without violence and implacable
ruthlessness, and if Alexander, Caesar, and Napoleon had been capable of
being moved by the same sort of appeal as that which pan-Slavism now makes
on behalf of its ruined clients, what would have become of history! And are the

Persians, Celts, and Christian Germans of less value than the Czechs,
Ogulians, and Serezhans?
Now, however, as a result of the powerful progress of industry, trade and
communications, political centralization has become a much more urgent need
than it was then, in the 15th and 16th centuries. What still has to be centralized
is being centralized. And now the pan-Slavists come forward and demand that
we should "set free" these half-Germanized Slavs, and that we should abolish a
centralization which is being forced on these Slavs by all their material
interests!
In short, it turns out these "crimes" of the Germans and Magyars against the
said Slavs are among the best and most praiseworthy deeds which our and the
Magyar people can boast in their history.
Moreover, as far as the Magyars are concerned, it should be specially
pointed out here that, particularly since the revolution, they have acted too
much submissively and weakly against the puffed-up Croats. It is notorious
that Kossuth made all possible concessions to them, excepting only that their
deputies were not allowed to speak the Croatian in the Diet. And thus
submissiveness to a nation that is counter-revolutionary by nature is the only
thing with which the Magyars can be reproached.

Source: MECW Volume 8, p. 362;

Written: by Engels on February 14-15, 1849;
First published: in Neue Rheinische Zeitung Nos. 222 and 223, February 15

and 16, 1849.

Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 223, February 16, 1849

Cologne, February 15. We concluded yesterday with the proof that the
Austrian Slavs have never had a history of their own, that from the historical,
literary, political, commercial and industrial points of view they are dependent
on the Germans and Magyars, that they are already partly Germanised,
Magyarised and Italianised, that if they were to establish independent states,
not they, but the German and Italian bourgeoisie of their towns would rule
these states, and finally, that neither Hungary nor Germany can tolerate the

detachment and independent constitution of such unviable, small intercalated

states.
All that, however, would still not be decisive. If at any epoch while they
were oppressed the Slavs had begun a new revolutionary history, that by itself
would have proved their viability. From that moment the revolution would
have had an interest in their liberation, and the special interest of the Germans
and Magyars would have given way to the greater interest of the European
revolution.
Precisely that, however, never happened. The Slavs once again we
remind our readers that here we always exclude the Poles were always the
main instruments of the counter-revolutionaries. Oppressed at home, outside
their country, wherever Slav influence extended to, they were the oppressors
of all revolutionary nations.
Let no one object that we speak here on behalf of German national
prejudices. In German, French, Belgian and English periodicals, the proofs are
to be found that it was precisely the editors of Neue Rheinische Zeitung who
already long before the revolution most decisively opposed all manifestations
of German national narrowmindedness.[325] Unlike many other people, they did
not castigate the Germans at random or on the basis of mere hearsay; on the
contrary, they proved from history and mercilessly exposed the despicable role
that Germany has certainly played in history, thanks to its nobles and burghers
and thanks to its crippled industrial development; they have always recognised
the superiority of the great historical nations of the west, the English and the
French, compared with the backward Germans. But precisely for that reason
we should be permitted not to share the fantastic illusions of the Slavs and
allowed to judge other peoples as severely as we have judged our own nation.
Up to now it has always been said that the Germans have been
the Lanzknechte [spear-bearers] of despotism throughout Europe. We are far
from denying the shameful part played by the Germans in the shameful wars
against the French revolution from 1792 to 1815, and in the oppression of Italy
since 1815 and of Poland since 1772; but who stood behind the Germans, who
used them as their mercenaries or their vanguard? England and Russia. After
all, up to the present day the Russians boast of having brought about the fall of
Napoleon through their innumerable armies, which is at any rate largely
correct. This much, at least, is certain, that of the armies which by their
superior power drove back Napoleon from the Oder as far as Paris, threequarters consisted of Slavs, Russians or Austrian Slavs.

And then, too, the Germans oppression of the Italians and Poles! A wholly
Slav power and a semi-Slav power competed in the partition of Poland; the
armies which crushed Kosciuszko consisted for the most part of Slavs, the
armies of Dibich and Paskevich were exclusively Slav armies. And in Italy for
many years the Tedeschi[Germans] alone had the ignominy of being regarded
as oppressors. But, once again, what was the composition of the armies which
best let themselves be used for oppression and for whose savage acts the
Germans were blamed? Once again, they consisted of Slavs. Go to Italy and
ask who suppressed the Milan revolution; people will no longer say: the
Tedeschi since the Tedeschi made a revolution in Vienna they are no longer
hated but: the Croati. That is the word which the Italians now apply to the
whole Austrian army, i.e. to all that is most deeply hated by them: i Croati!
Nevertheless, these reproaches would be superfluous and unjustified if the
Slavs had anywhere seriously participated in the movement of 1848, if they
had hastened to join the ranks of the revolutionary peoples. A single
courageous attempt at a democratic revolution, even if it were crushed,
extinguishes in the memory of the peoples whole centuries of infamy and
cowardice, and at once rehabilitates a nation, however deeply it had been
despised. That was the experience of the Germans last year. But whereas the
French, Germans, Italians, Poles and Magyars raised high the banner of the
revolution, the Slavs one and all put themselves under the banner of
the counter-revolution. In the forefront were the Southern Slavs, who had
already for many years upheld their counter-revolutionary separatist aims
against the Magyars; then came the Czechs, and behind them the Russians,
armed for battle and ready to appear on the battlefield at the decisive moment.
It is well known that in Italy the Magyar hussars went over to the Italians
en masse, that in Hungary whole Italian battalions put themselves at the
disposal of the Magyar revolutionary Government and are still fighting under
the Magyar flag; it is well known that in Vienna the German regiments sided
with the people and even in Galicia were by no means reliable; it is well
known that masses of Austrian and non-Austrian Poles fought against the
Austrian armies in Italy, in Vienna and in Hungary, and are still fighting in the
Carpathians; but where has. anyone ever heard of Czech or South-Slav troops
revolting against the black-and-yellow flag?
On the contrary, up to now it is known only that Austria, which was shaken
to its foundations, has been kept alive and for the time being is once again in
safety owing to the enthusiasm of the Slavs for the black-and-yellow flag; that
it was precisely the Croats, Slovenes, Dalmatians, Czechs, Moravians and
Ruthenians who put their contingents at the disposal of Windischgrtz and

Jellachich for suppressing the revolution in Vienna, Cracow, Lemberg and

Hungary; and what furthermore we have now learned from Bakunin is that the
Prague Slav Congress was dispersed not by Germans, but by Galician, Czech
and Slovak Slavs and nothing but Slavs"! P.33.
The revolution of 1848 compelled all European peoples to declare
themselves for or against it. In the course of a month all the peoples ripe for
revolution had made their revolution, and all those which were not ripe had
allied themselves against the revolution. At that time it was a matter of
disentangling the confused tangle of peoples of Eastern Europe. The question
was which nation would seize the revolutionary initiative here, and which
nation would develop the greatest revolutionary energy and thereby safeguard
its future. The Slavs remained silent, the Germans and Magyars, faithful to
their previous historical position, took the lead. As a result, the Slavs were
thrown completely into the arms of the counter-revolution.
But what about the Slav Congress in Prague?
We repeat: the so-called democrats among the Austrian Slavs are either
scoundrels or fantasts, and the latter, who do not find any fertile soil among
their people for the ideas imported from abroad, have been continually led by
the nose by the scoundrels. At the Prague Slav Congress the fantasts had the
upper hand. When the fantasy seemed dangerous to the aristocratic panSlavists, Count Thun, Palack & Co., they betrayed the fantasts to
Windischgrtz and the black-and-yellow counter-revolution. What bitter,
striking irony is contained in the fact that this Congress of dreamers, defended
by the dreamy Prague youth, was dispersed by soldiers of their own nation,
and that, as it were, a military Slav Congress was set up in opposition to the
day-dreaming Slav Congress! The Austrian army which captured Prague,
Vienna, Lemberg, Cracow, Milan and Budapest that is the real, active Slav
Congress!
How unfounded and vague was the fantasy at the Slav Congress is proved by
its results. The bombardment of a town like Prague would have filled any other
nation with inextinguishable hatred of its oppressors. But what did the Czechs
do? They kissed the rod which had bloodily chastised them, they eagerly swore
obedience to the flag under which their brothers had been slaughtered and their
wives ravished. The street-fighting in Prague was the turning-point for the
Austrian democratic pan-Slavists.[326] In return for the prospect of obtaining
their pitiful national independence, they bartered away democracy and the
revolution to the Austrian united monarchy, to the centre, the systematic
enforcement of despotism in the heart of Europe, as Bakunin himself says on

p. 29. And for this cowardly, base betrayal of the revolution we shall at some
time take a bloody revenge against the Slavs.
It has at last become clear to these traitors that they have nevertheless been
cheated by the counter-revolution and that for the Austrian Slavs there can be
no thought of either a Slav Austria or a federative state of nations with
equal rights, and least of all of democratic institutions. Jellachich, who is no
bigger a scoundrel than most of the other democrats among the Austrian Slavs,
bitterly regrets the way in which he has been exploited, and Stratimirovich, in
order not to allow himself to be exploited any longer, has proclaimed an open
revolt against Austria. The Slovansk-Lipa associations [327] once more
everywhere oppose the Government and every day gain fresh painful
experience of the trap into which they let themselves be enticed. But it is now
too late; powerless in their own homeland against the Austrian soldiery, which
they themselves re-organised, rejected by the Germans and Magyars whom
they have betrayed, rejected by revolutionary Europe, they will have to suffer
the same military despotism which they helped to impose on the Viennese and
Magyars. Submit to the Emperor so that the imperial troops do not treat you
as if you were rebellious Magyars these words of the Patriarch Rajachich
express what they have to expect in the immediate future.
How very differently have the Poles behaved! For the last eighty years
oppressed, enslaved, plundered, they have always been on the side of the
revolution and proclaimed that the revolutionisation of Poland is inseparable
from the independence of Poland. In Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Italy, Hungary, the
Poles shared the fighting in all the revolutions and revolutionary wars,
regardless whether they were fighting against Germans, against Slavs, against
Magyars, or even against Poles. The Poles are the only Slav nation that is free
from all pan-Slavist aspirations. They have, however, very good reasons for
that: they have been oppressed mainly by their own so-called Slav brothers,
and among the Poles hatred of Russians takes precedence over hatred of
Germans, and with full justification. But because the liberation of Poland is
inseparable from the revolution, because Pole and revolutionary have become
synonymous, for Poles the sympathy of all Europe and the restoration of their
nation are as certain as are for the Czechs, Croats and Russians the hatred of
all Europeans and a most bloody revolutionary war of the entire west against
them.
The Austrian pan-Slavists ought to understand that all their desire insofar as
they can be fulfilled, have been realised in the restoration of the Austrian
united monarchy under Russian protection. If Austria collapses, what is in
store for them is the revolutionary terrorism of the Germans and Magyars, but

by no means, as they imagine, the liberation of all the nations enslaved under
the sceptre of Austria. They must therefore wish that Austria continues to hold
together, and indeed that Galicia remains with Austria, so that the Slavs retain
a majority in the state. Here, therefore, pan-Slavist interests are already directly
opposed to the restoration of Poland, for a Poland without Galicia, a Poland
that does not extend from the Baltic to the Carpathians, is no Poland. But
equally for that reason a Slav Austria is still a mere dream; for without the
supremacy of the Germans and Magyars, without the two centres of Vienna
and Budapest, Austria will once again fall apart, as its whole history up to
recent months has proved. Accordingly, the realisation of pan-Slavism would
have to be restricted to Russian patronage over Austria. The openly reactionary
pan-Slavists were therefore quite right in holding fast to the preservation of the
united monarchy; it was the only means of saving anything. The so-called
democratic pan-Slavists, however, were in an acute dilemma: either
renunciation of the revolution and at least a partial salvation of nationality
through the united monarchy, or abandonment of nationality and salvation of
the revolution by the collapse of the united monarchy. At that time the fate of
the revolution in Eastern Europe depended on the position of the Czechs and
Southern Slavs; we shall not forget that at the decisive moment they betrayed
the revolution to Petersburg and Olmtz for the sake of their petty national
hopes.
What would be said if the democratic party in Germany commenced its
programme with the demand for the return of Alsace, Lorraine, and Belgium,
which in every respect belongs to France, on the pretext that the majority there
is Germanic? How ridiculous the German democrats would make themselves
if they wanted to found a pan-Germanic German-Danish-Swedish-EnglishDutch alliance for the liberation of all German-speaking countries! German
democracy, fortunately, is above such fantasies. German students in 1817 and
1830 were peddling that kind of reactionary fantasies and today throughout
Germany are being given their deserts. The German revolution only came into
being, and the German nation only began to become something, when people
had freed themselves completely from these futilities.
But pan-Slavism, too, is just as childish and reactionary as pan-Germanism.
When one reads the history of the pan-Slavist movement of last spring in
Prague, one could imagine oneself back in the period of thirty years ago:
tricolour sashes, ancient costumes, ancient Slav Masses, complete restoration
of the time and customs of the primeval forests; the Svornost a complete
replica of the German Burschenschaft, the Slav Congress a new edition of
the Wartburg Festival,[328] the same phrases, the same fantasies, the same

subsequent lamentation: We had built a stately house, etc. Anyone who

would like to read this famous song translated into Slav prose has only to read
Bakunins pamphlet.
Just as in the long run the most pronounced counter-revolutionary frame of
mind, the most ferocious hatred of Frenchmen, and the most narrow-minded
national feeling, were to be found among the members of the
German Burschenschaften, and just as later they all became traitors to the
cause for which they had pretended to be enthusiastic in exactly the same
way, only more speedily, because 1848 was a year of revolution, the
democratic semblance among the democratic pan-Slavists turned into fanatical
hatred of Germans and Magyars, into indirect opposition to the restoration of
Poland (Lubomirski), and into direct adherence to the counter-revolution.
And if some sincere Slav democrats now call on the Austrian Slavs to join
the revolution, to regard the Austrian united monarchy as their chief enemy,
and indeed to be on the side of the Magyars in the interests of the revolution,
they remind one of a hen which despairingly circles the edge of a pond where
the young ducklings which she has hatched out now suddenly escape from her
into a totally foreign element into which he cannot follow them.
But let us not harbour any illusions. Among all the pan-Slavists, nationality,
i.e. imaginary common Slav nationality, takes precedence over the revolution.
The pan-Slavists want to join the revolution on condition that they will be
allowed to constitute all Slavs without exception, regardless of material
necessities, into independent Slav states. If we Germans had wanted to lay
down the same fantastic conditions, we would have got a long way in March!
But the revolution does not allow of any conditions being imposed on it. Either
one is a revolutionary and accepts the consequences of the revolution,
whatever they are, or one is driven into the arms of the counter-revolution and
one day finds oneself, perhaps without knowing or desiring it, arm in arm with
Nicholas and Windischgrtz.
We and the Magyars should guarantee the Austrian Slavs their independence
that is what Bakunin demands, and people of the calibre of Ruge are
capable of having actually made such promises to him in secret. The demand is
put to us and the other revolutionary nations of Europe that the hotbeds of
counter-revolution at our very door should be guaranteed an unhindered
existence and the free right to conspire and take up arms against the revolution;
it is demanded that we should establish a counter-revolutionary Czech state in
the very heart of Germany, and break the strength of the German, Polish and

Magyar revolutions by interposing between them Russian outposts at the Elbe,

the Carpathians and the Danube!
We have no intention of doing that. To the sentimental phrases about
brotherhood which we are being offered here on behalf of the most counterrevolutionary nations of Europe, we reply that hatred of Russians was and still
is the primary revolutionary passion among Germans; that since the revolution
hatred of Czechs and Croats has been added, and that only by the most
determined use of terror against these Slav peoples can we, jointly with the
Poles and Magyars, safeguard the revolution. We know where the enemies of
the revolution are concentrated, viz. in Russia and the Slav regions of Austria,
and no fine phrases, no allusions to an undefined democratic future for these
countries can deter us from treating our enemies as enemies.
And if Bakunin finally exclaims:
Truly, the Slav should not lose anything, he should win! Truly, he should live! And we shall
live. As long as the smallest part of our rights is contested, as long as a single member is cut off
from our whole body, so long will we fight to the end, inexorably wage a life-and-death
struggle, until the Slavs have their place in the world, great and free and independent

if revolutionary pan-Slavism means this passage to be taken seriously, and in

its concern for the imaginary Slav nationality leaves the revolution entirely out
of account, then we too know what we have to do.
Then there will be a struggle, an inexorable life-and-death struggle,
against those Slavs who betray the revolution; an annihilating fight and
ruthless terror not in the interests of Germany, but in the interests of the
revolution!

Tuesday, April 05, 2005

MORE TALK OF INFERIOR RACES

Marx, "British Politics" (April 7, 1853), Collected Works, Vol. 112, p.7: "The real point at issue always is, Turkey in Europe--the great peninsula to the south of the Save and Danube. This splendid territory has the misfortune to be inhabited by a conglomerate of different races and nationalities, of which it is
hard to say which is the least fit for progress and civilization."
Context here

ARAFIYAN: Case32 - Not

Coskun Susoy
Mon, 25 Sep 2000 22:58:57 -0700
Marks ve Engels'in New York Daily Tribune'deki mektubun'dan
Case32 - Kaynak Not:

Alinti: [ The Economic History of Turkey 1800-1914

- Charles Issawi]

s.53-54
.. Written by Marx and Engels, appeared in the 7 April 1853 issue
and the second, written by Engels, in the 19 April 1853 issue.
... Both articles, together with many others sent by Marx to the
Tribune, were published by his daughter Eleanor Marx Aveling and
her husband Edward Aveling,
under the title The Eastern Question, by Karl Marx (London, 1897),
from which the following selections are taken; in the Avelings' edition,
too, all the articles are attributed to Marx.
SELECTION 9. THE OTTOMAN EMPIRE AND THE TURKS
Karl Marx, in New York Daily Tribune, 12 and 19 April, 1853
... Let us look at the question at once. Turkey consists of three entirely
distinct portions: the vassal principalities of Africa, viz., Egypt and
Tunis; Asiatic Turkey; and European Turkey. The African possessions, of
which Egypt alone may be considered as really subject to the Sultan, may
be left for the moment out of the question. Egypt belongs more to the
English than to anybody else, and will and must necessarily form their
share in any future partition of Turkey. Asiatic Turkey is the real seat
of whatever strength there is in the empire; Asia Minor and Armenia, for
four hundred years the chief abode of the Turks,
form the reserved
ground from which the Turkish armies have been drawn, from those that
threatened the ramparts of Vienna, to those that dispersed before
Diebitsch's not very skilful manoeuvres at Kulewtscha. Turkey in Asia,
although thinly populated, yet forms too compact a mass of Mussulman
fanaticism and Turkish nationality to invite at present any attempts at
conquest; and, in fact, whenever the "Eastern Question" is mooted, the
only portions of this territory taken into consideration are Palestine
and the Christian valleys of the Lebanon.
The real point at issue always is, Turkey in Europe--the great peninsula
to the south of the Save and Danube. This splendid territory has the
misfortune to be inhabited by a conglomerate of different races and
nationalities,
of which it is hard to say which is the least fit for
progress and civilization. Slavonians, Greeks, Wallachians, Arnauts,
twelve millions of men, are all held in submission by one million of
Turks, and up to a recent period it appeared doubtful whether, of all
these different races, the Turks were not the most competent to hold the
supremacy which, in such a mixed population, could not but accrue to one
of these nationalities. But when we see how lamentably have failed all
the attempts
at civilization by Turkish authority--how the fanaticism of
Islam,
supported principally by the Turkish mob in a few great cities,
has availed itself of the assistance of Austria and Russia invariably to
regain power and to overturn any progress that might have been made;
when we see the central, i.e. Turkish, authority weakened year after
year by insurrections in the Christian provinces, none of which, thanks

to the weakness of the Porte and to the intervention of neighbouring

States, is ever completely fruitless; when we see Greece ac- quire her
independence, parts of Armenia conquered by Russia,-Moldavia, Wallachia,
Servia,successively placed under the protectorate of the latter power,-we shall be obliged to admit that the presence of the Turks in Europe is
a real obstacle to the development of the resources of the ThracoIllyrian Peninsula. We can hardly describe the Turks as the ruling class
of Turkey, because the relations of the different classes of society
there are as much mixed up as those of the various races. The Turk is,
according to localities and circumstances, workman, farmer, small free
holder, trader, feudal landlord in the lowest and most barbaric stage of
feudalism, civil officer, or soldier; but in all these different social
positions he alone has the right to carry arms,
and the highest
Christian has to give up the footpath to the lowest Moslem he meets. In
Bosnia and the Herzegovina, the nobility. of Slavonian descent,
have
passed over to Islam, while the mass of the people remain Rayahs, i.e.
Christians.
In this province, then, the ruling creed and the ruling
class are identified, as of course the Moslem Bosnian is upon a level
with his co-religionist of Turkish descent. The principal power of the
Turkish population in Europe, independently of the reserve always ready
to be drawn from Asia, lies in the mob of Constantinople and a few other
large towns.
It is essentially Turkish, and though it finds its
principal livelihood by doing jobs for Christian capitalists,
it
maintains with great jealousy the imaginary superiority and real
impunity for excesses which the privileges of Islam confer upon it as
compared with Christians.
It is well known that this mob in every
important coup d'etat has to be won over by bribes and flattery. It is
this mob alone, with the exception of a few colonized districts, which
offers a compact and imposing mass of Turkish population in Europe. And
certainly there will be, sooner or later, an absolute necessity for
freeing one of the finest parts of this continent from the rule of a
mob,
compared with which the mob of Imperial Rome was an assemblage of
sages and heroes. . . .
...
The only argument [i.e., by Urquhart] which deserves a moment's
notice upon this side of the question is this: "It is said that Turkey
is decaying;
but where is the decay. Is not civilization rapidly
spreading in Turkey and trade extending? Where you see nothing but
decay,
our statistics prove nothing but progress." Now it would be a
great fallacy to put down the increasing Black Sea trade to the credit
of Turkey alone; and yet this is done here, exactly as if the industrial
and commercial capabilities of Holland, the high road to the greater
part of Germany, were to be measured by her gross exports and imports,
ninetenths of which represent a mere transit. And yet,
what every
statistician would immediately, in the case of Holland, treat as a
clumsy concoction, the whole of the Liberal press of England, including
the learned Economist, tries, in the case of Turkey, to impose upon
public credulity. And then, who are the traders in Turkey? Certainly not
the Turks. Their way of promoting trade, when they were yet in their
original nomadic state, consisted in robbing caravans; and now that they
are a little more civilized it consists in all sorts of arbitrary and
oppressive exactions. The Greeks, the Armenians, the Slavonians, and the
Franks,
established in the large seaports, carry on the whole of the
trade,
and certainly they have no reason to thank Turkish beys and
pashas for being able to do so. Remove all the Turks out of Europe, and
trade will have no reason to suffer. And as to progress in general
civilization,
who are they that carry out that progress in all part of

European Turkey? Not the Turks, for they are few and far between, and
can hardly be said to be settled anywhere except in Constantinople and
two or three small country districts. It is the Greek and Slavonic
middle-class in all the towns and trading posts who are the real support
of whatever civilization is effectually imported into the country. That
part of the population is constantly rising in wealth and influence, and
the Turks are more and more driven into the background. Were it not for
their monopoly of civil and military power they would soon disappear.
But that monopoly has become impossible for the future, and their power
is turned into impotence except for obstructions in the way of progress.
The fact is they must be got rid of. To say that they cannot be got rid
of except by putting Russians and Austrians in their place means as much
as to say that the present political constitution of Europe will last
for ever. Who will make such an assertion?

Only when the last tree has died

\ To live! Like a tree unique and free
and the last river been poisoned
\ Like a forest in brotherhood
and the last fish been caught will we \ __Nazim Hikmet Ran (1902-1963)___
realise we cannot eat money - Indian saying - New Internationalist - \

Monday, April 04, 2005

MARX ON GERMAN NATIONAL SUPERIORITY

Marx, 1852. "Revolution and counter-revolution in Germany". Collected Works vol. 11, pp. 47, 71: "Neither Bohemia nor Croatia was strong enough to exist as a nation by herself. Their respective nationalities, gradually undermined by the action of historical causes that inevitably absorbs into a more
energetic stock, could only hope to be restored to anything like independence by an alliance with other Slavonic nations.....
Scattered remnants of numerous nations, whose nationality and political vitality had long been extinguished .... the same as the Welsh in England, the Basques in Spain, the Bas-Bretons in France, and at a more recent period the Spanish and French Creoles in those portions of North America occupied of
late by the Anglo-American race these dying nationalities, the Bohemians, Carinthians, Dalmatians, etc., had tried.... to restore their political status quo of A. D. 800. The history of a thousand years ought to have shown them that such a retrogression was impossible.... this fact merely proved the
historical tendency, and at the same time physical and intellectual power of the German nation to subdue, absorb, and assimilate its ancient eastern neighbors; that this tendency of absorption on the part of the Germans had always been, and still was one of the mightiest means by which the civilization of
Western Europe had been spread in the east of that continent.... and that, therefore, the natural and inevitable fate of these dying nations was to allow this process of dissolution and absor ption by their stronger neighbors to complete itself".
Context here and here.

Revolution and Counter-revolution in Germany

IX.
Panslavism The SchleswigHolstein War.
MARCH 15th, 1852.

BOHEMIA and Croatia (another disjected member of the Slavonic family,

acted upon by the Hungarian, as Bohemia by the German) were the homes of
what is called on the European continent "Panslavism." Neither Bohemia nor
Croatia was strong enough to exist as a nation by herself. Their respective
nationalities, gradually undermined by the action of historical causes that
inevitably absorbs into a more energetic stock, could only hope to be restored
to anything like independence by an alliance with other Slavonic nations.
There were twenty-two millions of Poles, forty-five millions of Russians, eight
millions of Serbians and Bulgarians; why not form a mighty confederation of

the whole eighty millions of Slavonians, and drive back or exterminate the
intruder upon the holy Slavonic soil, the Turk, the Hungarian, and above all
the hated, but indispensable Niemetz, the German? Thus in the studies of a few
Slavonian dilettanti of historical science was this ludicrous, this anti-historical
movement got up, a movement which intended nothing less than to subjugate
the civilized West under the barbarian East, the town under the country, trade,
manufactures, intelligence, under the primitive agriculture of Slavonian serfs.
But behind this ludicrous theory stood the terrible reality of the Russian
Empire; that empire which by every movement proclaims the pretension of
considering all Europe as the domain of the Slavonic race, and especially of
the only energetic part of this race, of the Russians; that empire which, with
two capitals such as St. Peterburg and Moscow, has not yet found its centre of
gravity, as long as the "City of the Czar" (Constantinople, called in Russian
Tzarigrad, the Czar's city), considered by every Russian peasant as the true
metropolis of his religion and his nation, is not actually the residence of its
Emperor; that empire which, for the last one hundred and fifty years, has never
lost, but always gained territory by every war it has commenced. And well
known in Central Europe are the intrigues by which Russian policy supported
the new-fangled system of Panslavism, a system than which none better could
be invented to suit its purposes. Thus, the Bohemian and Croatian Panslavists,
some intentionally, some without knowing it, worked in the direct interest of
Russia; they betrayed the revolutionary cause for the shadow of a nationality
which, in the best of cases, would have shared the fate of the Polish nationality
under Russian sway. It must, however, be said for the honor of the Poles, that
they never got to be seriously entangled in these Panslavist traps, and if a few
of the aristocracy turned furious Panslavists, they knew that by Russian
subjugation they had less to lose than by a revolt of their own peasant serfs.
The Bohemians and Croatians called, then, a general Slavonic Congress at
Prague, for the preparation of the universal Slavonian Alliance. This Congress
would have proved a decided failure even without the interference of the
Austrian military. The several Slavonic languages differ quite as much as the
English, the German, and the Swedish, and when the proceedings opened,
there was no common Slavonic tongue by which the speakers could make
themselves understood. French was tried, but was equally unintelligible to the
majority, and the poor Slavonic enthusiasts, whose only common feeling was a
common hatred against the Germans, were at last obliged to express
themselves in the hated German language, as the only one that was generally
understood! But just then another Slavonic Congress was assembling in
Prague, in the shape of Galician lancers, Croatian and Slovak grenadiers, and
Bohemian gunners and cuirassiers; and this real, armed Slavonic Congress,

under the command of Windischgratz, in less than twenty-four hours drove the
founders of an imaginary Slavonian supremacy out of the town, and dispersed
them to the winds.
The Bohemian, Moravian, Dalmatian, and part of the Polish deputies (the
aristocracy) to the Austrian Constituent Diet, made in that Assembly a
systematic war upon the German element. The Germans, and part of the Poles
(the impoverished nobility), were in this Assembly the chief supporters of
revolutionary progress; the mass of the Slavonic deputies, in opposing them,
were not satisfied with thus showing clearly the reactionary tendencies of their
entire movement, but they were degraded enough to tamper and conspire with
the very same Austrian Government which had dispersed their meeting at
Prague. They, too, were paid for this infamous conduct; after supporting the
Government during the insurrection of October, 1848, an event which finally
secured to them a majority in the Diet, this now almost exclusively Slavonic
Diet was dispersed by Austrian soldiers, the same as the Prague Congress, and
the Panslavists threatened with imprisonment if they should stir again. And
they have only obtained this, that Slavonic nationality is now being
everywhere undermined by Austrian centralization, a result for which they
may thank their own fanaticism and blindness.
If the frontiers of Hungary and Germany had admitted of any doubt, there
would certainly have been another quarrel there. But, fortunately, there was no
pretext, and the interests of both nations being intimately related, they
struggled against the same enemies, viz., the Austrian Government and the
Panslavistic fanaticism. The good understanding was not for a moment
disturbed. But the Italian Revolution entangled at least a part of Germany in an
internecine war, and it must be stated here, as a proof how far the
Metternichian system had succeeded in keeping back the development of the
public mind, that during the first six months of 1848, the same men that had in
Vienna mounted the barricades, went, full of enthusiasm, to join the army that
fought against the Italian patriots. This deplorable confusion of ideas did not,
however, last long.
Lastly, there was the war with Denmark about Schleswig and Holstein.
These countries, unquestionably German by nationality, language and
predilection, are also from military, naval and commercial grounds necessary
to Germany. Their inhabitants have, for the last three years, struggled hard
against Danish intrusion. The right of treaties, besides, was for them. The
Revolution of March brought them into open collision with the Danes, and
Germany supported them. But while in Poland, in Italy, in Bohemia, and later
on, in Hungary, military operations were pushed with the utmost vigor, in this

the only popular, the only, at least partially, revolutionary war, a system of
resultless marches and counter-marches was adopted, and an interference of
foreign diplomacy was submitted to, which led, after many an heroic
engagement, to a most miserable end. The German Government betrayed,
during the war, the Schleswig-Holstein revolutionary army on every occasion,
and allowed it purposely to be cut up, when dispersed or divided, by the
Danes. The German corps of volunteers were treated the same.
But while thus the German name earned nothing but hatred on every side,
the German Constitutional and Liberal Governments rubbed their hands for
joy. They had succeeded in crushing the Polish and the Bohemian movements.
They had everywhere revived the old national animosities, which heretofore
had prevented any common understanding and action between the German, the
Pole, the Italian. They had accustomed the people to scenes of civil war and
repression by the military. The Prussian army had regained its confidence in
Poland, the Austrian army in Prague; and while the superabundant
patriotism ("die Patriotische Ueberkraft," as Heine has it) of revolutionary but
short-sighted youth was led in Schleswig and Lombardy, to be crushed by the
grape-shot of the enemy, the regular army, the real instrument of action, both
of Prussia and Austria, was placed in a position to regain public favor by
victories over the foreigner. But we repeat: these armies, strengthened by the
Liberals as a means of action against the more advanced party, no sooner had
recovered their self-confidence and their discipline in some degree, than they
turned themselves against the Liberals, and restored to power the men of the
old system. When Radetzky, in his camp beyond the Adige, received the first
orders from the "responsible ministers" at Vienna, he exclaimed: "Who are
these ministers? They are not the Government of Austria! Austria is now
nowhere but in my camp; I and my army, we are Austria; and when we shall
have beaten the Italians we shall reconquer the Empire for the Emperor!" And
old Radetzky was right–but the imbecile "responsible" ministers at
Vienna heeded him not.
LONDON, February, 1852.
Revolution and Counter-revolution in Germany

XIV.
The Restoration of Order
Diet and Chamber
APRIL 24th, 1852

THE first months of the year 1849 were employed by the Austrian and
Prussian Governments in following up the advantages obtained in October and
November, 1848. The Austrian Diet, ever since the takings of Vienna, had
carried on a merely nominal existence in a small Moravian country-town,
named Kremsir. Here the Slavonian deputies, who, with their constituents. had
been mainly instrumental in raising the Austrian Government from its
prostration, were singularly punished for their treachery against the European
Revolution. As soon as the Government had recovered its strength, it treated
the Diet and its Slavonian majority with the utmost contempt, and when the
first successes of the Imperial arms foreboded a speedy termination of the
Hungarian War, the Diet, on the 4th of March, was dissolved, and the deputies
dispersed by military force. Then at last the Slavonians saw that they were
duped, and then they shouted: "Let us go to Frankfort and carry on there the
opposition which we cannot pursue here!" But it was then too late, and the
very fact that they had no other alternative than either to remain quiet or to join
the impotent Frankfort Assembly, this fact alone was sufficient to show their
utter helplessness.
Thus ended for the present, and most likely for ever, the attempts of the
Slavonians of Germany to recover an independent national existence. Scattered
remnants of numerous nations, whose nationality and political vitality had long
been extinguished, and who in consequence had been obliged, for almost a
thousand years, to follow in the wake of a mightier nation, their conqueror, the
same as the Welsh in England, the Basques in Spain, the Bas-Bretons in
France, and at a more recent period the Spanish and French Creoles in those
portions of North America occupied of late by the Anglo-American race
these dying nationalities, the Bohemians, Carinthians, Dalmatians, etc., had
tried to profit by the universal confusion of 1848, in order to restore their
political status quo of A. D. 800. The history of a thousand years ought to have
shown them that such a retrogression was impossible; that if all the territory
east of the Elbe and Saale had at one time been occupied by kindred

Slavonians, this fact merely proved the historical tendency, and at the same
time physical and intellectual power of the German nation to subdue, absorb,
and assimilate its ancient eastern neighbors; that this tendency of absorption on
the part of the Germans had always been, and still was one of the mightiest
means by which the civilization of Western Europe had been spread in the east
of that continent; that it could only cease whenever the process of
Germanization had reached the frontier of large, compact, unbroken nations,
capable of an independent national life, such as the Hungarians, and in some
degree the Poles: and that, therefore, the natural and inevitable fate of these
dying nations was to allow this process of dissolution and absorption by their
stronger neighbors to complete itself. Certainly this is no very flattering
prospect for the national ambition of the Panslavistic dreamers who succeeded
in agitating a portion of the Bohemian and South Slavonian people; but can
they expect that history would retrograde a thousand years in order to please a
few phthisical bodies of men, who in every part of the territory they occupy are
interspersed with and surrounded by Germans, who from time almost
immemorial have had for all purposes of civilization no other language but the
German, and who lack the very first conditions of national existence, numbers
and compactness of territory? Thus, the Panslavistic rising, which everywhere
in the German and Hungarian Slavonic territories was the cloak for the
restoration to independence of all these numberless petty nations, everywhere
clashed with the European revolutionary movements, and the Slavonians,
although pretending to fight for liberty, were invariably (the Democratic
portion of the Poles excepted) found on the side of despotism and reaction.
Thus it was in Germany, thus in Hungary, thus even here and there in Turkey.
Traitors to the popular cause, supporters and chief props to the Austrian
Government's cabal, they placed themselves in the position of outlaws in the
eyes of all revolutionary nations. And although nowhere the mass of the people
had a part in the petty squabbles about nationality raised by the Panslavistic
leaders, for the very reason that they were too ignorant, yet it will never be
forgotten that in Prague, in a half-German town, crowds of Slavonian fanatics
cheered and repeated the cry: "Rather the Prussian knout than German
Liberty!" After their first evaporated effort in 1848, and after the lesson the
Austrian Government gave them, it is not likely that another attempt at a later
opportunity will be made. But if they should try again under similar pretexts to
ally themselves to the counter-revolutionary force, the duty of Germany is
clear. No country in a state of revolution and involved in external war can
tolerate a Vendee in its very heart.
As to the Constitution proclaimed by the Emperor at the same time with the
dissolution of the Diet, there is no need to revert to it, as it never had a

practical existence, and is now done away with altogether. Absolutism has
been restored in Austria to all intents and purposes ever since the 4th March,
1849.
In Prussia, the Chambers met in February for the ratification and revision of
the new Charter proclaimed by the King. They sat for about six weeks, humble
and meek enough in their behavior toward the Government, yet not quite
prepared to go the lengths the King and his ministers wished them to go.
Therefore, as soon as a suitable occasion presented itself, they were dissolved.
Thus both Austria and Prussia had for the moment got rid of the shackles of
parliamentary control. The Governments now concentrated all power in
themselves, and could bring that power to bear wherever is was wanted:
Austria upon Hungary and Italy, Prussia upon Germany. For Prussia, too, was
preparing for a campaign by which "order" was to be restored in the smaller
States.
Counter-revolution being now paramount in the two great centres of action
in Germany,in Vienna and Berlin,there remained only the lesser States in
which the struggle was still undecided, although the balance there, too, was
leaning more and more against the revolutionary interest. These smaller States,
we have said, found a common centre in the National Assembly at Frankfort.
Now, this so-called National Assembly, although its reactionist spirit had long
been evident, so much so that the very people of Frankfort had risen in arms
against it, yet its origin was of more or less revolutionary nature; it occupied an
abnormal, revolutionary position in January; its competence had never been
defined, and it had at last come to the decisionwhich, however, was never
recognized by the larger Statesthat its resolutions had the force of law.
Under these circumstances, and when the Constitutionalist-Monarchial party
saw their positions turned by the recovering Absolutists, it is not to be
wondered that the Liberal, monarchical bourgeoisie of almost the whole of
Germany should place their last hopes upon the majority of this Assembly, just
as the petty shopkeepers in the rest, the nucleus of the Democratic party,
gathered in their growing distress around the minority of that same body,
which indeed formed the last compact Parliamentary phalanx of Democracy.
On the other hand, the larger Governments, and particularly the Prussian
Ministry, saw more and more the incompatibility of such an irregular elective
body with the restored monarchical system of Germany, and if they did not at
once force its dissolution, it was only because the time had not yet come, and
because Prussia hoped first to use it for the furthering of its own ambitious
purposes.

In the meantime, that poor Assembly itself fell into a greater and greater
confusion. Its deputations and commissaries had been treated with the utmost
contempt, both in Vienna and Berlin; one of its members, in spite of his
parliamentary inviolability, had been executed in Vienna as a common rebel.
Its decrees were nowhere heeded; if they were noticed at all by the larger
powers, it was merely by protesting notes which disputed the authority of the
Assembly to pass laws and resolutions binding upon their Governments. The
Representative of the Assembly, the Central Executive power, was involved in
diplomatic squabbles with almost all the Cabinets of Germany, and, in spite of
all their efforts, neither Assembly nor Central Government could bring Austria
and Prussia to state their ultimate views, plans and demands. The Assembly, at
last, commenced to see clearly, at least so far, that it had allowed all power to
slip out of its hands, that it was at the mercy of Austria and Prussia, and that if
it intended making a Federal Constitution for Germany at all, it must set about
the thing at once and in good earnest. And many of the vacillating members
also saw clearly that they had been egregiously duped by the Governments.
But what were they, in their impotent position, able to do now? The only thing
that could have saved them would have been promptly and decidedly to pass
over into the popular camp; but the success, even of that step, was more than
doubtful; and then, where in this helpless crowd of undecided, shortsighted,
self-conceited beings, who, when the eternal noise of contradictory rumors and
diplomatic notes completely stunned them, sought their only consolation and
support in the everlastingly repeated assurance that they were the best, the
greatest, the wisest men of the country, and that they alone could save
Germanywhere, we say, among these poor creatures, whom a single year of
Parliamentary life had turned into complete idiots, where were the men for a
prompt and decisive resolution, much less for energetic and consistent action?
At last the Austrian Government threw off the mask. In its Constitution of
the 4th of March, it proclaimed Austria an indivisible monarchy, with common
finances, system of customs-duties, of military establishments, thereby
effacing every barrier and distinction between the German and non-German
provinces. This declaration was made in the face of resolutions and articles of
the intended Federal Constitution which had been already passed by the
Frankfort Assembly. It was the gauntlet of war thrown clown to it by Austria,
and the poor Assembly had no other choice but to take it up. This it did with a
deal of blustering, which Austria, in the consciousness of her power, and of the
utter nothingness of the Assembly, could well afford to allow to pass. And this
precious representation, as it styled itself, of the German people, in order to
revenge itself for this insult on the part of Austria, saw nothing better before it
than to throw itself, hands and feet tied, at the feet of the Prussian Government.

Incredible as it would seem, it bent its knees before the very ministers whom it
had condemned as unconstitutional and antipopular, and whose dismissal it
had in vain insisted upon. The details of this disgraceful transaction, and the
tragicomical events that followed, will form the subject of our next.
LONDON, April, 1852.

Sunday, April 03, 2005

ENGELS DESPISED THE RUSSIANS

Engels. "Democratic Pan-Slavism" (NRZ February 16. 1849), Collected Works, Vol. 8 p 378. ". . . hatred of Russia was and still is the primary revolutionary passion among Germans; that since the revolution, hatred of Czechs and Croats has been added, and that only by the most determined use of terror
against these Slav peoples can we, jointly with the Poles and Magyars, safeguard the revolution."
(No Marxist seems to have put this online. I can't imagine why!)

Saturday, April 02, 2005

RACES EXIST NATURALLY BUT EUGENICS CAN AND SHOULD ABOLISH THEM

Marx & Engels, "The German Ideology", Chap. 3: "He has not the slightest idea that the ability of children to develop depends on the development of their parents and that all this crippling under existing social relations has arisen historically, and in the same way can be abolished again in the course of
historical development. Even naturally evolved differences within the species, such as racial differences, etc., which Sancho does not mention at all, can and must be abolished in the course of historical development. Sancho who in this connection casts a stealthy glance at zoology and so makes the
discovery that innate limited intellects form the most numerous class not only among sheep and oxen, but also among polyps and infusoria, which have no heads at all has perhaps heard that it is possible to improve races of animals and by cross-breeding to create entirely new, more perfect varieties
both for human enjoyment and for their own self-enjoyment.. Why should not Sancho be able to draw a conclusion from this in relation to people as well?"
Context here

The German Ideology by Marx and Engels

Chapter Three: Saint Max

C. My Self-Enjoyment
The philosophy which preaches enjoyment is as old in Europe as the Cyrenaic
school. [120] just as in antiquity it was the Greeks who were the protagonists of
this philosophy, so in modern times it is the French, and indeed for the same
reason, because their temperament and their society made them most capable
of enjoyment. The philosophy of enjoyment was never anything but the clever
language of certain social circles who had the privilege of enjoyment. Apart
from the fact that the manner and content of their enjoyment was always
determined by the whole structure of the rest of society and suffered from all
its contradictions, this philosophy became a mere phrase as soon as it began to
lay claim to a universal character and proclaimed itself the outlook on life of
society as a whole. It sank then to the level of edifying moralising, to a
sophistical palliation of existing society, or it was transformed into its
opposite, by declaring compulsory asceticism to be enjoyment.
In modern times the philosophy of enjoyment arose with the decline of
feudalism and with the transformation of the feudal landed nobility into the
pleasure-loving and extravagant nobles of the court under the absolute
monarchy. Among these nobles this philosophy still has largely the form of a
direct, naive outlook on life which finds expression in memoirs, poems,

novels, etc. It only becomes a real philosophy in the hands of a few writers of
the revolutionary bourgeoisie, who, on the one hand, participated in the culture
and mode of life of the court nobility and, on the other hand, shared the more
general outlook of the bourgeoisie, based on the more general conditions of
existence of this class. This philosophy was, therefore, accepted by both
classes, although from totally different points of view. Whereas among the
nobility this language was restricted exclusively to its estate and to the
conditions of life of this estate, it was given a generalised character by the
bourgeoisie and addressed to every individual without distinction. The
conditions of life of these individuals were thus disregarded and the theory of
enjoyment thereby transformed into an insipid and hypocritical moral doctrine.
When, in the course of further development, the nobility was overthrown and
the bourgeoisie brought into conflict with its opposite, the proletariat, the
nobility became devoutly religious, and the bourgeoisie solemnly moral and
strict in its theories, or else succumbed to the above-mentioned hypocrisy,
although the nobility in practice by no means renounced enjoyment, while
among the bourgeoisie enjoyment even assumed an official, economic form
that of luxury.
[The following passage is crossed out in the manuscript:] In the Middle
Ages the pleasures were strictly classified; each estate had its own distinct
forms of pleasure and its distinct manner of enjoyment. The nobility was the
estate privileged to devote itself exclusively to pleasure, while the separation
of work and enjoyment already existed for the bourgeoisie and pleasure was
subordinated to work. The serfs, the class destined exclusively to labour, had
only extremely few and restricted. pleasures, which came their way mostly by
chance, depended on the whim of their masters and other contingencies, and
are hardly worth considering.
Under the rule of the bourgeoisie the nature of the pleasures depended on the
classes of society. The pleasures of the bourgeoisie are determined by the
material brought forth by this class at various stages of its development and
they have acquired the tedious character which they still retain from the
individuals and from the continuous subordination of pleasure to moneymaking. The present crude form of proletarian pleasure is due, on the one
hand, to the long working hours, which led to the utmost intensification of the
need for enjoyment, and, on the other hand, to the restriction -both qualitative
and quantitative of the means of pleasure accessible to the proletarian.
In general, the pleasures of all hitherto existing estates and classes had to be
either childish, exhausting or crude, because they were always completely
divorced from the vital activity, the real content of the life of the individuals.

and more or less reduced to imparting an illusory content to a meaningless

activity. The hitherto existing forms of enjoyment could, of course, only be
criticised when the contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat
had developed to such an extent that the existing mode of production and
intercourse could be criticised as well.
It was only possible to discover the connection between the kinds of
enjoyment open to individuals at any particular time and the class relations in
which they live, and the conditions of production and intercourse which give
rise to these relations, the narrowness of the hitherto existing forms of
enjoyment, which were outside the actual content of the life of people and in
contradiction to it, the connection between every philosophy of enjoyment and
the enjoyment actually present and the hypocrisy of such a philosophy which
treated all individuals without distinction it was, of course, only possible to
discover all this when it became possible to criticise the conditions of
production and intercourse in the hitherto existing world, i.e., when the
contradiction between t he bourgeoisie and the proletariat had given rise to
communist and socialist views. That shattered the basis of all morality,
whether the morality of asceticism or of enjoyment.
Our insipid, moralising Sancho believes, of course, as his whole book shows,
that it is merely a matter of a different morality, of what appears to him a new
outlook on life, of getting out of ones head a few fixed ideas, to make
everyone happy and able to enjoy life. Hence the chapter on self-enjoyment
could at most reproduce under a new label the same phrases and maxims
which he had already so frequently had the self-enjoyment of preaching to
us. This chapter has only one original feature, namely that he deifies and turns
into philosophical German all enjoyment, by giving it the name selfenjoyment. While the French philosophy of enjoyment of the eighteenth
century at least gave a witty description of the gay and audacious mode of life
that then existed, Sanchos whole frivolity is limited to such expressions as
consuming and squandering, to images such as the light (it should read a
candle) and to natural-scientific recollections which amount either to
belletristic nonsense such as that the plant imbibes the air of the ether and
that song-birds swallow beetles, or else to wrong statements, for example,
that a candle burns itself. On the other hand, here we again enjoy all the
solemn seriousness of the statements against the holy, which, we are told, in
the guise of vocation designation task and ideal has hitherto spoiled
peoples self-enjoyment.
For the rest, without dwelling on the more or less dirty forms in which the
self in self-enjoyment can be more than a mere phrase, we must once more

as briefly as possible outline for the reader Sanchos machinations against the
holy, with the insignificant modulations occurring in this chapter.
Revolutionary Tasks

To recapitulate briefly, vocation, designation, task, ideal are either

1) the idea of the revolutionary tasks laid down for an oppressed class by the
material conditions; or
2) mere idealistic paraphrases, or also the apt conscious expression of the
individuals modes of activity which owing to division of labour have assumed
independent existence as various professions; or
3) the conscious expression of the necessity which at every moment confronts
individuals, classes and nations to assert their position through some quite
definite activity; or
4) the conditions of existence of the ruling class (as determined by the
preceding development of production), ideally expressed in law, morality, etc.,
to which [conditions] the ideologists of that class more or less consciously give
a sort of theoretical independence; they can be conceived by separate
individuals of that class as vocation, etc., and are held up as a standard of life
to the individuals of the oppressed class, partly as an embellishment or
recognition of domination, partly as a moral means for this domination. It is to
be noted here, as in general with ideologists, that they inevitably put the thing
upside-down and regard their ideology both as the creative force and as the
aim of all social relations, whereas it is only an expression and symptom of
these relations.
As for our Sancho, we know that he has the most ineradicable faith in the
illusions of these ideologists. Because people, depending on their various
conditions of life, construct various notions about themselves, that is about
man, Sancho imagines that the various ideas created the various conditions of
life and thus the wholesale manufacturers of these ideas, i.e., the ideologists,
have dominated the world. Cf. page 433.
Thinkers rule in the world, thought rules the world; priests or school-masters stuff their
heads with all sorts of trash, they imagine a human ideal which other people have to take as a
guide (p. 442).

Sancho even knows exactly the conclusion by virtue of which people were
subjected to the fancies of the school-masters and owing to their stupidity
subjected themselves to these fancies:
Because it is conceivable for me (the school-master), it is possible for people; because it is
possible for people, it means that they ought to be such, it was their vocation; and, finally, it is
only according to this vocation, only as persons having a vocation, that one must judge human
beings. And the further conclusion? It is not the individual who is man, but it is a thought,
an ideal, that is man (p. 441). species mankind

All collisions in which, owing to their actual conditions of life, human beings
become involved with themselves or with others appear to our school-master
Sancho as collisions between people and their ideas about the life of Man,
ideas which they either have put themselves into their heads or have allowed
school-masters to put into their heads. If they managed to get these ideas out of
their heads how happily these unfortunate beings could live, what capers
they could cut, whereas now they have to dance to the pipe of the schoolmasters and bear-leaders"! (p. 435). (The lowest of these bear-leaders is
Sancho, for it is only himself whom he leads by the nose.) If, for example,
people almost always and almost everywhere in China as well as in France
did not get it into their heads that they suffer from over-population, what an
overflowing abundance of the means of existence would these unfortunate
beings suddenly have at their disposal.
Under the pretext of writing a treatise on possibility and reality, Sancho here
once more attempts to put forward his old story of the rule of the holy in the
world. For him everything a school-master gets into his head about me is
possible, and then Sancho can easily prove that this possibility has no reality
except in his head. His solemn assertion that behind the word possible lay
concealed the most momentous misunderstanding of thousands of years (p.
441) is sufficient proof that it is impossible for him to conceal behind word s
the consequences of his abundant misunderstanding of thousands of years.
This treatise on the coincidence of possibility and reality (p. 439), on what
people have the ability to be and what they are, a treatise that harmonises so
well with his earlier insistent exhortations that one should bring all ones
abilities into play, etc., leads him, however, to a few more digressions on the
materialist theory of circumstances, which we shall presently deal with in more
detail. But first, one more example of his ideological distortion. On page 428
he makes the question how can one acquire life identical with the question
how is one to create in oneself the true ego (or life). According to the
same page, worrying about life ceases with his new moral philosophy and
the squandering of life begins. Our Solomon expresses still more

eloquently the miraculous power of his allegedly new moral philosophy in

the following saying:
Regard yourself as more powerful than others say You are, then you will have more power:
value yourself more and you will have more (p. 483).

See above, in the section on the union, Sanchos method of acquiring

property.
Now for his theory of circumstances.
Man has no vocation. but he has powers which manifest themselves where they exist, because
their being consists solely in their manifestation, and they cannot remain inactive any more than
life itself.... Everyone at each instant uses as much power as he has (increase your value,
follow the example of the courageous man, let each of you become an omnipotent ego, etc.
Sancho said above). ... Ones powers can indeed be intensified and multiplied, particularly by
hostile resistance or friendly support; but where their application is missing one can be sure that
they are absent. It is possible to strike fire from a stone, but without striking it, nothing comes
out; similarly man needs an impulse. Since powers always prove to be operative of themselves,
the injunction to use them would be superfluous and senseless.... Power is merely a simpler word
for manifestation of power (pp. 436, 437).

Egoism in agreement with itself, which just as it pleases brings or does not
bring its powers or abilities into play and which applies the jus utendi et
abutendi to them, here suddenly and unexpectedly comes to grief. Once they
are present, the forces here all of a sudden act autonomously, without caring
about Sanchos pleasure, they act like chemical or mechanical forces,
independently of the individual who possesses them. We learn further that a
force is not present if its manifestation is missing; the correction being made
that power requires an impulse for its manifestation. We do not learn, however,
how Sancho will decide whether it is the impulse or the power that is lacking
when the manifestation of power is deficient. On the other hand, our unique
investigator of nature teaches us that it is possible to strike fire from a stone,
and, as is always the case with Sancho, he could not have chosen a more
unfortunate example. Sancho, like a simple village school-master, believes that
the fire he strikes in this way comes from the stone, where it was previously
latent. But any fourth-form schoolboy could tell him that in this method of
obtaining fire, a method long forgotten in all civilised countries, by the friction
of steel and stone, particles which become red-hot owing to this friction are
separated from the steel, and not from the stone; that, consequently, the fire,
which for Sancho is not a definite relation, at a definite temperature, of certain
bodies to certain other bodies, in particular oxygen, but is an independent
thing, an element, a fixed idea, the holy" that this fire does not come
either from the stone or from the steel. Sancho might just as well have said:
one can make bleached linen from chlorine, but if the impulse, viz.,

the unbleached linen, is lacking, then nothing comes out. We shall take this
opportunity, for Sanchos self-enjoyment, of noting an earlier fact of
unique natural science. In the ode on crime it is stated:
Is
there
not
a
distant
peal
And
do
you
not see how
the
Filled with foreboding is silent and overcast? (p. 319 of the book),

of thunder
sky

It thunders and the sky is silent. Hence Sancho knows of some other place than
the sky from which thunder comes. Further, Sancho notices the silence of the
sky by means of his organ of sight a feat which no one will be able to
imitate. Or perhaps Sancho hears thunder and sees silence, so that the two
phenomena can take place simultaneously. We saw how Sancho in dealing
with apparitions made mountains represent the spirit of loftiness . Here the
silent sky represents for him the spirit of foreboding.
Incidentally, it is not clear why Sancho here rails against the injunction to us c
ones powers. This injunction, after all, could possibly be the missing
impulse, which, it is true, fails to have effect in the case of a stone, but the
efficacy of which Sancho could observe during the exercises of any battalion.
That the injunction is an impulse even for his feeble powers follows also
from the fact that for him it turns out to be a stumbling block. [anstoss
impulse, shock, scandal, offence; Stein des Anstosses stumbling block]
Consciousness is also a power which, according to the doctrine which has just
been enunciated, always proves to be operative of itself. In accordance with
this, therefore, Sancho ought not to have set out to change consciousness, but
at most the impulse which affects consciousness; consequently Sancho
would have written his whole book in vain. But in this case, of course, he
regards his moral preaching and injunctions as a sufficient impulse.
What an individual can become he will become. A born poet may be prevented, owing to
unfavourable circumstances, from being abreast of the times and creating great works of art, for
which much study is indispensable; but he will compose poetry whether he is an agricultural
labourer or has the good fortune to live at the Weimar Court. A born musician will occupy
himself with music, no matter whether on all instruments (he found this fantasy about all
instruments in Proudhon. See Communism) or only on a shepherds reed
(Virgils Eclogues, of course, again come into the mind of our school-master). A born
philosophical intellect can prove its worth either as a university philosopher or a village
philosopher. Finally, a born dunce always remains a blockhead. Indeed, innate limited intellects
undoubtedly form the most numerous class of mankind. And why should not the same
differences occur in the human species as are unmistakably seen in every species of animate (p.
434).

Sancho has again chosen his example with his usual lack of skill. If all his
nonsense about born poets, musicians and philosophers is accepted, then this

example only proves, on the one hand, that a born poet, etc., remains what he
is from birth namely a poet, etc.; and, on the other hand, that the born poet,
etc., in so far as he becomes, develops, may, ,owing to unfavourable
circumstances, not become what he could become. His example, therefore, on
the one hand, proves nothing at all, and, on the other hand, proves the opposite
of what it was intended to prove; and taking both aspects together it proves
that either from birth or owing to circumstances, Sancho belongs to the most
numerous class of mankind. However, he shares the consolation of being a
unique blockhead with this class and with his own blockheadedness.
Here Sancho experiences the adventure with the magic potion which Don
Quixote brewed from rosemary, wine, olive oil and salt. As Cervantes relates
in the seventeenth chapter, after Sancho had drunk this mixture he spent two
hours in sweats and convulsions pouring it out from both channels of his body.
The materialist potion which our valiant armour-bearer imbibed for his selfenjoyment purges him of all his egoism in the extraordinary sense. We saw
above that Sancho suddenly lost all his solemnity when confronted with the
impulse, and renounced his ability, like of yore the Egyptian magicians
when confronted with the lice of Moses. Now we observe two new attacks of
faint-heartedness, in which he also gives way to unfavourable circumstances
and finally even admits that his original physical organisation is something that
becomes crippled without co-operation from him. What is left now to our
bankrupt egoist? He has no power over his original physical organisation; nor
can he control the circumstances and the impulse under the influence of
which this organisation develops; what he is at every instant is not his own
creation, but something created by the interaction between his innate
potentialities and the circumstances acting on them all this Sancho
concedes. Unfortunate creator! Most unfortunate creation!
But the greatest calamity comes at the end. Sancho, not satisfied that already
long ago he received the full count of the tres mil azotes y trecientos en ambas
sus valientes posaderas [three thousand acid three burial lashes upon his ample
buttocks] finally delivers himself another and mighty blow by proclaiming
himself a believer in species. And what a believer in species! Firstly, he
attributes division of labour to species by making it responsible for the fact that
some people are poets, others musicians, and still others school-masters.
Secondly, he ascribes to species the existing physical and intellectual defects
of the most numerous class of mankind and makes it responsible for the fact
that under the rule of the bourgeoisie the majority of individuals are like
himself. According to his views on innate limited intellects, one would have to
explain the present spread of scrofula from the fact that the species finds a

special satisfaction in making innate scrofulous constitutions form the most

numerous class of mankind. Even the most ordinary materialists and medical
men had got beyond such naive views long before the egoist in agreement with
himself was called upon by the species, unfavourable circumstances and
the impulse to make his dbut before the German public. just as previously
Sancho explained all crippling of individuals, and hence of their relations, by
means of the fixed ideas of school-masters, without worrying about the origin
of these ideas, so now he explains this crippling as merely due to the natural
process of generation. He has not the slightest idea that the ability of children
to develop depends on the development of their parents and that all this
crippling under existing social relations has arisen historically, and in the same
way can be abolished again in the course of historical development. Even
naturally evolved differences within the species, such as racial differences,
etc., which Sancho does not mention at all, can and must be abolished in the
course of historical development. Sancho who in this connection casts a
stealthy glance at zoology and so makes the discovery that innate limited
intellects form the most numerous class not only among sheep and oxen, but
also among polyps and infusoria, which have no heads at all has perhaps
heard that it is possible to improve races of animals and by cross-breeding to
create entirely new, more perfect varieties both for human enjoyment and for
their own self-enjoyment.. Why should not Sancho be able to draw a
conclusion from this in relation to people as well?
We shall take this opportunity to introduce episodically Sanchos
transformations in relation to species. We shall see that his attitude to
species is exactly the same as to the holy: the more he blusters against it, the
more he believes in it.
No. I. We have already seen that species engenders division of labour and the
crippling that takes place under existing social circumstances and indeed in
such a waythat the species together with its products is regarded as something
immutable under all circumstances, as outside the control of people.
No. II. Species is already realised owing to inherent constitution; on the other hand, what you
make of this constitution (according to what was said above, this ought to be: what
circumstances make of it) is the realisation of you. Your hand is fully realised in the sense of
species, otherwise it would not be a hand but, let us sav, a paw.... You make of it what and how
you wish it to be and what you can make of it (Wigand, pp. 184, 185).

Here Sancho repeats in a different form what was already said in No. I.
We have seen, therefore, from what has been said so far that species,
independently of control by individuals and the stage of their historical

development, brings into the world all physical and spiritual potentialities, the
immediate existence of individuals and, in embryo, division of labour.
No. III. Species remains as impulse, which is only a general term for the
circumstances that determine the development of the original individual,
again engendered by species. For Sancho species is here precisely the same
mysterious force which other bourgeois call the nature of things and which
they make responsible for all relationships that are independent of them as
bourgeois, and whose interconnection, therefore, they do not understand.
No. IV. Species taken as what is possible for man and required by man
forms the basis of the organisation of labour in Stirners union, where
likewise what is possible for all and required by all is regarded as a product of
species.
No. V. We have already heard about the role that agreement plays in the union.
Page 462: If it is a matter of coming to an agreement or communicating with one another, then,
of course, I can only make use of the human means that are at my disposal because I am at the
same time a man (i.e., a specimen of the species).

Here, therefore, language is regarded as a product of the species. That Sancho

speaks German and not French, however, is something he in no way owes to
the species, but to circumstances. Incidentally, in every modern developed
language, partly as a result of the historical development of the language from
pre-existing material, as in the Romance and Germanic languages, partly
owing to the crossing and mixing of nations, as in the English language, and
partly as a result of the concentration of the dialects within a single nation
brought about by economic and political concentration, the spontaneously
evolved speech has been turned into a national language. As a matter of
course, the individuals at some time will take completely under their control
this product of the species as well. In the union, language as such will be
spoken, holy language, the language of the holy Hebrew, and indeed the
Aramaic dialect spoken by that corporeal essence, Christ. This occurred to
us here against the expectation of Sancho, and indeed exclusively because
it seems to us that it could help to clarify the remainder.
No. VI. On pages 277, 278, we learn that the species reveals itself in nations,
towns, estates, diverse corporations and, finally, in the family; hence it is
perfectly logical that up to now it has made history. Thus, here all preceding
history, up to the unfortunate history of the unique, becomes a product of the
species and, indeed, for the sufficient reason that this history has sometimes
been summed up under the title of the history of mankind, i. e., of the species.

No. VII. In what has been said so far Sancho has attributed to the species more
than any mortal had ever done before him, and he now sums it up in the
following proposition:
Species is nothing ... species is only a conception (spirit, spectre, etc.) (p. 239).

Ultimately, then, this nothing of Sanchos, which is identical with a

conception, means nothing, for Sancho himself is ,the creative nothing,
and the species, as we have seen, creates a great deal, and in doing so it can
therefore very well be nothing. Moreover Sancho tells us on page 456:
Being justifies nothing at all; something imagined exists just as well as something not
imagined.

Starting with page 448, Sancho spins out a yarn lasting thirty pages in order to
strike fire out of thought and criticism of the egoist in agreement with
himself. We have already experienced too many expressions of his thought and
criticism to give the reader further offence ,a with Sanchos beggars broth.
One spoonful of it will suffice.
Do you believe that thoughts fly about freely for the taking, so that anyone can capture some of
them and then put them forward against me as his inviolable property? Everything that flies
about, all of it is mine (p. 457).

Here Sancho poaches snipe existing only in the mind. We have seen how many
of the thoughts flying about he has captured for himself. He fancied that he
could catch them as soon as he put the salt of the holy on their tails. This
colossal contradiction between his actual property in regard to thoughts and his
illusions on that score may serve as a classic and striking example of his entire
property in the extraordinary sense. It is precisely this contrast that constitutes
his self-enjoyment.

6. Solomons Song of Songs

or
The Unique
Cease
man
of
Troy,
and
cease
To
boast
of
Navigations
Let
the
high
Fame
And Trajans Banners in the East display'd:
Cease
A
And

All,
brighter

whose
Valour
you

Actions
arises
(my

thou
great
of

ancient
in
Spree

sage
ye
Alexander

Bards
the

of

Greece,
made;
cease,

exprest:
West.
Nymphs)...

[Marx and Engels substituted Spree the river on which Berlin stands for
Give
me
a
mighty
Fury,
Nor
rude
Or
rustic
Bag-Pipes
sound,
But
such
as
Lowd
Instrument
(the
noble
Trumpet)
Which
fires
the
Breast,
and
stirs
the
blood
to
[This and the following quotations are from Luis de Cames, Lusiada]

Tagus]
Reeds
Wars
breeds,
jars.

give me, o nymphs of the Spree, a song worthy of the heroes who fight on your
banks against Substance and Man, a song that will spread over the whole
world and will be sung in all lands for it is a matter here of the man whose
deeds are
Beyond what strength of human nature here,

greater than mere human power can perform, the man who
...
A modern Scepter which to Heaven aspired

acquir'd

who has founded a new kingdom among a far-off people, viz., the union"
it is a matter here of being a
...
fair
and
tender
Belov'd by Him, who dyd on one for Man

Blossom

of

that

Tree

of the tender and young blossoming shoot of a tree especially loved by Christ,
a tree which is nothing less than
.
...
certain
One day, of narrow Christianitie.

Hope

t'extend

the

Pale,

the surest hope of growth for faint-hearted Christianity in a word, it is a

matter of something unprecedented, the unique.
Everything that is to be found in this unprecedented song of songs about the
unique was in existence earlier in the book. We mention this chapter only for
the sake of good order; so that we should be able to do it properly we have left
the examination of some points until now and we shall briefly recapitulate
others.

Friday, April 01, 2005

ENGELS: RACE A DETERMINING FACTOR IN HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT

Engels: (Marx and Engels, Selected Works, Vol. 3, p. 502.): "We regard economic conditions as the factor which ultimately determines historical development. But race is itself an economic factor".
Context here
German reference: "Brief an W. Borgius" 25.1.1894. MEW, Bd. 39, S. 205. (Not apparently online).

Marx-Engels Correspondence 1894

Engels to Borgius

[1]

Abstract

Source: Marx and Engels Correspondence;

Publisher: International Publishers (1968);
First Published: Gestamtausgabe;
Translated: Donna Torr;
Transcribed: Sally Ryan in 2000;
HTML Markup: Sally Ryan.

London, January 25, 1894

Here is the answer to your questions!
(1) What we understand by the economic conditions, which we regard as the
determining basis of the history of society, are the methods by which human
beings in a given society produce their means of subsistence and exchange the
products among themselves (in so far as division of labour exists). Thus
the entire technique of production and transport is here included. According to
our conception this technique also determines the method of exchange and,
further, the division of products, and with it, after the dissolution of tribal
society, the division into classes also and hence the relations of lordship and
servitude and with them the state, politics, law, etc. Under economic
conditions are further included the geographical basis on which they operate
and those remnants of earlier stages of economic development which have
actually been transmitted and have survived often only through tradition or
the force of inertia; also of course the external milieu which surrounds this
form of society.
If, as you say, technique largely depends on the state of science, science
depends far more still on the state and the requirements of technique. If society
has a technical need, that helps science forward more than ten universities. The
whole of hydrostatics (Torricelli, etc.) was called forth by the necessity for
regulating the mountain streams of Italy in the sixteenth and seventeenth

centuries. We have only known anything reasonable about electricity since its
technical applicability was discovered. But unfortunately it has become the
custom in Germany to write the history of the sciences as if they had fallen
from the skies.
(2) We regard economic conditions as the factor which ultimately determines
historical development. But race is itself an economic factor. Here, however,
two points must not be overlooked:
(a) Political, juridical, philosophical, religious, literary, artistic, etc.,
development is based on economic development. But all these react
upon one another and also upon the economic base. It is not that the
economic position is the cause and alone active, while everything else
only has a passive effect. There is, rather, interaction on the basis of the
economic necessity, which ultimately always asserts itself. The state,
for instance, exercises an influence by tariffs, free trade, good or bad
fiscal system; and even the deadly inanition and impotence of the
German petty bourgeois, arising from the miserable economic position
of Germany from 1640 to 1830 and expressing itself at first in pietism,
then in sentimentality and cringing servility to princes and nobles, was
not without economic effect. It was one of the greatest hindrances to
recovery and was not shaken until the revolutionary and Napoleonic
wars made the chronic misery an acute one. So it is not, as people try
here and there conveniently to imagine, that the economic position
produces an automatic effect. Men make their history themselves, only
in given surroundings which condition it and on the basis of actual
relations already existing, among which the economic relations,
however much they may be influenced by the other political and
ideological ones, are still ultimately the decisive ones, forming the red
thread which runs through them and alone leads to understanding.
(b) Men make their history themselves, but not as yet with a collective
will or according to a collective plan or even in a definitely defined,
given society. Their efforts clash, and for that very reason all such
societies are governed by necessity, which is supplemented by and
appears under the forms of accident. The necessity which here asserts
itself amidst all accident is again ultimately economic necessity. This is
where the so-called great men come in for treatment. That such and
such a man and precisely that man arises at that particular time in that
given country is of course pure accident. But cut him out and there will
be a demand for a substitute, and this substitute will be found, good or
bad, but in the long run he will be found. That Napoleon, just that

particular Corsican, should have been the military dictator whom the
French Republic, exhausted by its own war, had rendered necessary,
was an accident; but that, if a Napoleon had been lacking, another
would have filled the place, is proved by the fact that the man has
always been found as soon as he became necessary: Caesar, Augustus,
Cromwell, etc. While Marx discovered the materialist conception of
history, Thierry, Mignet, Guizot, and all the English historians up to
1850 are the proof that it was being striven for, and the discovery of the
same conception by Morgan proves that the time was ripe for it and that
indeed it had to be discovered.
So with all the other accidents, and apparent accidents, of history. The
further the particular sphere which we are investigating is removed from the
economic sphere and approaches that of pure abstract ideology, the more shall
we find it exhibiting accidents in its development, the more will its curve run
in a zig-zag. So also you will find that the axis of this curve will approach
more and more nearly parallel to the axis of the curve of economic
development the longer the period considered and the wider the field dealt
with.
In Germany the greatest hindrance to correct understanding is the
irresponsible neglect by literature of economic history. It is so hard, not only to
disaccustom oneself of the ideas of history drilled into one at school, but still
more to rake up the necessary material for doing so. Who, for instance, has
read old G. von Glich, whose dry collection of material nevertheless contains
so much stuff for the clarification of innumerable political facts!
For the rest, the fine example which Marx has given in the Eighteenth
Brumaire should already, I think, provide you fairly well with information on
your questions, just because it is a practical example. I have also, I believe,
already touched on most of the points in Anti-Dhring I, Chapters 9-11, and II,
2-4, as well as in III, I, or Introduction, and then in the last section
of Feuerbach.
Please do not weigh each word in the above too carefully, but keep the
connection in mind; I regret that I have not the time to work out what I am
writing to you so exactly as I should be obliged to do for publication.

1. This letter was first published without any mention of the addressee in the

journal Der socialistische Akademiker No 20, 1895, by its contributor H.

Starkenburg. As a result Starkenburg was wrongly identified as the

addressee in all previous editions. from Progress Publishers, 1968

Tuesday, March 29, 2005

CAPACITY FOR ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT DEPENDS ON RACE
Well, the hiatus did not last long! I have just dug up out of my files another set of famous Marx words that I will gradually put online. The first is below. I will not this time bother with digging up the original German.

Capital, vol. 3, chapter 47: "The possibility is here presented for definite economic development taking place, depending, of course, upon favourable circumstances, inborn racial characteristics, etc."
Context here

Capital Vol. III Part VI

Transformation of Surplus-Profit into Ground-Rent

Chapter 47. Genesis of

Capitalist Ground-Rent
I. Introductory Remarks

We must clarify in our minds wherein lies the real difficulty in analysing
ground-rent from the viewpoint of modern economics, as the theoretical
expression of the capitalist mode of production. Even many of the more
modern writers have not as yet grasped this, as evidenced by each renewed
attempt to "newly" explain ground-rent. The novelty almost invariably consists
in a relapse into long out-of-date views. The difficulty is not to explain the
surplus-product produced by agricultural capital and its corresponding surplusvalue in general. This question is solved in the analysis of the surplus-value
produced by all productive capital, in whatever sphere it may be invested. The
difficulty consists rather in showing the source of the excess of surplus-value
paid the landlord by capital invested in land in the form of rent, after
equalisation of the surplus-value to the average profit among the various
capitals, after the various capitals have shared in the total surplus-value
produced by the social capital in all spheres of production in proportion to their
relative size; in other words, the source subsequent to this equalisation and the
apparently already completed distribution of all surplus-value which, in
general, is to be distributed. Quite apart from the practical motives, which
prodded modern economists as spokesmen of industrial capital against landed
property to investigate this question motives which we shall point out more
clearly in the chapter on history of ground-rent the question was of

paramount interest to them as theorists. To admit that the appearance of rent

for capital invested in agriculture is due to some particular effect produced by
the sphere of investment itself, due to singular qualities of the earths crust
itself, is tantamount to giving up the conception of value as such, thus
tantamount to abandoning all attempts at a scientific understanding of this
field. Even the simple observation that rent is paid out of the price of
agricultural produce which takes place even where rent is paid in kind if the
farmer is to recover his price of production showed the absurdity of
attempting to explain the excess of this price over the ordinary price of
production; in other words, to explain the relative dearness of agricultural
products on the basis of the excess of natural productivity of agricultural
production over the productivity of other lines of production. For the reverse is
true: the more productive labour is, the cheaper is every aliquot part of its
product, because so much greater is the mass of use-values incorporating the
same quantity of labour, i.e., the same value.
The whole difficulty in analysing rent, therefore, consists in explaining the
excess of agricultural profit over the average profit, not the surplus-value, but
the excess of surplus-value characteristic of this sphere of production; in other
words, not the "net product", but the excess of this net product over the net
product of other branches of industry. The average profit itself is a product
formed under very definite historical production relations by the movement of
social processes, a product which, as we have seen, requires very complex
adjustment. To be able to speak at all of a surplus over the average profit, this
average profit itself must already be established as a standard and as a
regulator of production in general as is the case under capitalist production.
For this reason there can be no talk of rent in the modern sense, a rent
consisting of a surplus over the average profit, i.e., over and above the
proportional share of each individual capital in the surplus-value produced by
the total social capital, in social formations where it is not capital which
performs the function of enforcing all surplus-labour and appropriating directly
all surplus-value. And where therefore capital has not yet completely, or only
sporadically, brought social labour under its control. It reflects navet, e.g., of
a person like Passy (see below), when he speaks of rent in primitive society as
a surplus over profit [Passy, Rente du sol. In: Dictionnaire de lconomie
politique, Tome II. Paris, 1854, p. 511. Ed.] a historically defined social
form of surplus-value, but which, according to Passy, might almost as well
exist without any society.
For the older economists, who in general merely begin analysing the
capitalist mode of production, still undeveloped in their day, the analysis of

rent offers either no difficulty at all, or only a difficulty of a completely

different kind. Petty, Cantillon, and in general those writers who are closer to
feudal times, assume ground-rent to be the normal form of surplus-value in
general, [ [Petty] A Treatise on Taxes and Contributions, London, 1667, pp.
23-24; [Richard Cantillon] Essai sur la nature du commerce en
gneral, Amsterdam, 1756. Ed.] whereas profit to them is still amorphously
combined with wages, or at best appears to be a portion of surplus-value
extorted by the capitalist from the landlord. These writers thus take as their
point of departure a situation where, in the first place, the agricultural
population still constitutes the overwhelming majority of the nation, and,
secondly, the landlord still appears as the person appropriating at first hand the
surplus-labour of the direct producers by virtue of his monopoly of landed
property, where landed property, therefore, still appears as the main condition
of production. For these writers the question could not yet be posed, which,
inversely, seeks to investigate from the viewpoint of capitalist production how
landed property manages to wrest back again from capital a portion of the
surplus-value produced by it (that is, filched by it from the direct producers)
and already appropriated directly.
The physiocrats are troubled by difficulties of another nature. As the
actually first systematic spokesmen of capital, they attempt to analyse the
nature of surplus-value in general. For them, this analysis coincides with the
analysis of rent, the only form of surplus-value which they recognise.
Therefore, they consider rent-yielding, or agricultural, capital to be the only
capital producing surplus-value, and the agricultural labour set in motion by it,
the only labour producing surplus-value, which from a capitalist viewpoint is
quite properly considered the only productive labour. They are quite right in
considering the creation of surplus-value as decisive. Apart from other merits
to be set forth in Book IV, they deserve credit primarily for going back from
merchants capital, which functions solely in the sphere of circulation, to
productive capital, in opposition to the mercantile system, which, with its
crude realism, constitutes the actual vulgar economy of that period, pushing
into the background in favour of its own practical interests the beginnings of
scientific analysis made by Petty and his successors. In this critique of the
mercantile system, incidentally, only its conceptions of capital and surplusvalue are dealt with. It has already been indicated previously that the monetary
system correctly proclaims production for the world-market and the
transformation of the output into commodities, and thus into money, as the
prerequisite and condition of capitalist production. In this systems further
development into the mercantile system, it is no longer the transformation of
commodity-value into money, but the creation of surplus-value which is

decisive but from the meaningless viewpoint of the circulation sphere and,
at the same time, in such manner that this surplus value is represented as
surplus money, as the balance of trade surplus. At the same time, however, the
characteristic feature of the interested merchants and manufacturers of that
period, which is in keeping with the stage of capitalist development
represented by them, is that the transformation of feudal agricultural societies
into industrial ones and the corresponding industrial struggle of nations on the
world-market depends on an accelerated development of capital, which is not
to be arrived at along the so-called natural path, but rather by means of
coercive measures. It makes a tremendous difference whether national capital
is gradually and slowly transformed into industrial capital, or whether this
development is accelerated by means of a tax which they impose through
protective duties mainly upon landowners, middle and small peasants, and
handicraftsmen, by way of accelerated expropriation of the independent direct
producers, and through the violently accelerated accumulation and
concentration of capital, in short by means of the accelerated establishment of
conditions of capitalist production. It simultaneously makes an enormous
difference in the capitalist and industrial exploitation of the natural national
productive power. Hence the national character of the mercantile system is not
merely a phrase on the lips of its spokesmen. Under the pretext of concern
solely for the wealth of the nation and the resources of the state, they, in fact,
pronounce the interests of the capitalist class and the amassing of riches in
general to be the ultimate aim of the state, and thus proclaim bourgeois society
in place of the old divine state. But at the same time they are consciously
aware that the development of the interests of capital and of the capitalist class,
of capitalist production, forms the foundation of national power and national
ascendancy in modern society.
The physiocrats, furthermore, are correct in stating that in fact all production
of surplus-value, and thus all development of capital, has for its natural basis
the productiveness of agricultural labour. If man were not capable of
producing in one working-day more means of subsistence, which signifies in
the strictest sense more agricultural products than every labourer needs for his
own reproduction, if the daily expenditure of his entire labour power sufficed
merely to produce the means of subsistence indispensable for his own
individual requirements, then one could not speak at all either of surplusproduct or surplus-value. An agricultural labour productivity exceeding the
individual requirements of the labourer is the basis of all societies, and is
above all the basis of capitalist production, which disengages a constantly
increasing portion of society from the production of basic foodstuffs and
transforms them into "free heads," as Steuart [Steuart, An Inquiry Into the

Principles of Political Economy, Vol. I, Dublin, 1770, p. 396. Ed.] has it,
making them available for exploitation in other spheres.
But what can be said of more recent writers on economics, such as Daire,
Passy, etc., who parrot the most primitive conceptions concerning the natural
conditions of surplus-labour and thereby surplus-value in general, in the
twilight of classical economy, indeed on its very death-bed, and who imagine
that they are thus propounding something new and striking on ground-rent
[Daire, Introduction. In: Physiocrats, 1. Teil, Paris, 1846; Passy, Rente du
sol. In: Dictionnaire de lconomie politique, Tome II, Paris, 1854, p. 511.
Ed.] long after this ground-rent has been investigated as a special form and
become a specific portion of surplus-value? It is particularly characteristic of
vulgar economy that it echoes what was new, original, profound and justified
during a specific outgrown stage of development, in a period when it has
turned platitudinous, stale, and false. It thus confesses its complete ignorance
of the problems which concerned classical economy. It confounds them with
questions that could only have been posed on a lower level of development of
bourgeois society. The same holds true of its incessant and self-complacent
rumination of the physiocratic phrases concerning free trade. These phrases
have long since lost all theoretical interest, no matter how much they may
engage the practical attention of this or that state.
In natural economy proper, when no part of the agricultural product, or but a
very insignificant portion, enters into the process of circulation, and then only
a relatively small portion of that part of the product which represents the
landlords revenue, as, e.g., in many Roman latifundia, or upon the villas of
Charlemagne, or more or less during the entire Middle Ages (see
Vinard, Histoire du travail), the product and surplus-product of the large
estates consists by no means purely of products of agricultural labour. It
encompasses equally well the products of industrial labour. Domestic
handicrafts and manufacturing labour as secondary occupations of agriculture,
which forms the basis, are the prerequisite of that mode of production upon
which natural economy rests in European antiquity and the Middle Ages as
well as in the present-day Indian community, in which the traditional
organisation has not yet been destroyed. The capitalist mode of production
completely abolishes this relationship; a process which may be studied on a
large scale particularly in England during the last third of the 18th century.
Thinkers like Herrenschwand, who had grown up in more or less semi-feudal
societies, still consider, e.g., as late as the close of the 18th century, this
separation of manufacture from agriculture as a foolhardy social adventure, as
an unthinkably risky mode of existence. And even in the agricultural

economies of antiquity showing the greatest analogy to capitalist agriculture,

namely Carthage and Rome, the similarity to a plantation economy is greater
than to a form corresponding to the really capitalist mode of exploitation. [42a] A
formal analogy, which, simultaneously, however, turns out to be completely
illusory in all essential points to a person familiar with the capitalist mode of
production, who does not, like Herr Mommsen,[43] discover a capitalist mode of
production in every monetary economy, is not to be found at all in continental
Italy during antiquity, but at best only in Sicily, since this island served Rome
as an agricultural tributary so that its agriculture was aimed chiefly at export.
Farmers in the modern sense existed there.
An erroneous conception of the nature of rent is based upon the fact that rent
in kind, partly as tithes to the church and partly as a curiosity perpetuated by
long-established contracts, has been dragged over into modern times from the
natural economy of the Middle Ages, completely in contradiction to the
conditions of the capitalist mode of production. It thereby creates the
impression that rent does not arise from the price of the agricultural product,
but from its mass, thus not from social conditions, but from the earth. We have
previously shown that although surplus-value is manifested in a surplusproduct the converse does not hold that a surplus-product, representing a mere
increase in the mass of product, constitutes surplus-value. It may represent a
minus quantity in value. Otherwise the cotton industry of 1860, compared with
that of 1840, would show an enormous surplus-value, whereas on the contrary
the price of the yarn has fallen. Rent may increase enormously as a result of a
succession of crop failures, because the price of grain rises, although this
surplus-value appears as an absolutely decreasing mass of dearer wheat.
Conversely, the rent may fall in consequence of a succession of bountiful
years, because the price falls, although the reduced rent appears as a greater
mass of cheaper wheat. As regards rent in kind, it should be noted now that, in
the first place, it is a mere tradition carried over from an obsolete mode of
production and managing to prolong its existence as a survival. Its
contradiction to the capitalist mode of production is shown by its
disappearance of itself from private contracts, and its being forcibly shaken off
as an anachronism, wherever legislation was able to intervene as in the case of
church tithes in England. Secondly, however, where rent in kind persisted on
the basis of capitalist production, it was no more, and could be no more, than
an expression of money-rent in medieval garb. Wheat, for instance, is quoted
at 40 shillings per quarter. One portion of this wheat must replace the wages
contained therein, and must be sold to become available for renewed
expenditure. Another portion must be sold to pay its proportionate share of
taxes. Seed and even a portion of fertiliser enter as commodities into the

process of reproduction, wherever the capitalist mode of production and with it

division of social labour are developed, i.e., they must be purchased for
replacement purposes; and therefore another portion of this quarter must be
sold to obtain money for this. In so far as they need not be bought as actual
commodities, but are taken out of the product itself in kind, in order to enter
into its reproduction anew as conditions of production as occurs not only in
agriculture, but in many other lines of production producing constant capital
they figure in the books as money of account and are deducted as elements
of the cost-price. The wear and tear of machinery, and of fixed capital in
general, must be made good in money. And finally comes profit, which is
calculated on this sum, expressed as costs either in actual money or in money
of account. This profit is represented by a definite portion of the gross product,
which is determined by its price. And the excess portion which then remains
forms rent. If the rent in kind stipulated by contract is greater than this
remainder determined by the price, then it does not constitute rent, but a
deduction from profit. Owing to this possibility alone, rent in kind is an
obsolete form, in so far as it does not reflect the price of the product, but may
be greater or smaller than the real rent, and thus may comprise not only a
deduction from profit, but also from those elements required for capital
replacement. In fact, this rent in kind, so far as it is rent not merely in name but
also in essence, is exclusively determined by the excess of the price of the
product over its price of production. Only it presupposes that this variable is a
constant magnitude. But it is such a comforting reflection that the product in
kind should suffice, first, to maintain the labourer, secondly, to leave the
capitalist tenant farmer more food than he needs, and finally, that the
remainder should constitute the natural rent. Quite like a manufacturer
producing 200,000 yards of cotton goods. These yards of goods not only
suffice to clothe his labourers; to clothe his wife, all his offspring and himself
abundantly; but also leave over enough cotton for sale, in addition to paying an
enormous rent in terms of cotton goods. It is all so simple! Deduct the price of
production from 200,000 yards of cotton goods, and a surplus of cotton goods
must remain for rent. But it is indeed a naive conception to deduct the price of
production of, say, 10,000 from 200,000 yards of cotton goods, without
knowing the selling price, to deduct money from cotton goods, to deduct an
exchange-value from a use-value as such, and thus to determine the surplus of
yards of cotton goods over pounds sterling. It is worse than squaring the circle,
which is at least based upon the conception that there is a limit at which
straight lines and curves imperceptibly flow together. But such is the
prescription of M. Passy. Deduct money from cotton goods, before the cotton
goods have been converted into money, either in ones mind or in reality!
What remains is the rent, which, however, is to be grasped naturaliter (see, for

instance, Karl Arnd [K. Arnd, Die naturgemsse Volkswirtschaft, gegenber

dem Monopoliengeiste und dem Communismus, Hanau, 1845, S. 461-62.
Ed.]) and not by deviltries of sophistry. The entire restoration of rent in kind is
finally reduced to this foolishness, the deduction of the price of production
from so many and so many bushels of wheat, and the subtraction of a sum of
money from a cubic measure.
II. Labour rent

If we consider ground-rent in its simplest form, that of labour rent, where

the direct producer, using instruments of labour (plough, cattle, etc.) which
actually or legally belong to him, cultivates soil actually owned by him during
part of the week, and works during the remaining days upon the estate of the
feudal lord without any compensation from the feudal lord, the situation here is
still quite clear, for in this case rent and surplus-value are identical. Rent, not
profit, is the form here through which unpaid surplus-labour expresses itself.
To what extent the labourer (a self-sustaining serf) can secure in this case a
surplus above his indispensable necessities of life, i.e., a surplus above that
which we would call wages under the capitalist mode of production, depends,
other circumstances remaining unchanged, upon the proportion in which his
labour-time is divided into labour-time for himself and enforced labour-time
for his feudal lord. This surplus above the indispensable requirements of life,
the germ of what appears as profit under the capitalist mode of production, is
therefore wholly determined by the amount of ground-rent, which in this case
is not only directly unpaid surplus-labour, but also appears as such. It is unpaid
surplus-labour for the "owner" of the means of production, which here
coincide with the land, and so far as they differ from it, are mere accessories to
it. That the product of the serf must here suffice to reproduce his conditions of
labour, in addition to his subsistence, is a circumstance which remains the
same under all modes of production. For it is not the result of their specific
form, but a natural requisite of all continuous and reproductive labour in
general, of any continuing production, which is always simultaneously
reproduction, i.e., including reproduction of its own operating conditions. It is
furthermore evident that in all forms in which the direct labourer remains the
"possessor" of the means of production and labour conditions necessary for the
production of his own means of subsistence, the property relationship must
simultaneously appear as a direct relation of lordship and servitude, so that the
direct producer is not free; a lack of freedom which may be reduced from
serfdom with enforced labour to a mere tributary relationship. The direct
producer, according to our assumption, is to be found here in possession of his
own means of production, the necessary material labour conditions required
for the realisation of his labour and the production of his means of subsistence.

He conducts his agricultural activity and the rural home industries connected
with it independently. This independence is not undermined by the
circumstance that the small peasants may form among themselves a more or
less natural production community, as they do in India, since it is here merely
a question of independence from the nominal lord of the manor. Under such
conditions the surplus-labour for the nominal owner of the land can only be
extorted from them by other than economic pressure, whatever the form
assumed may be.[44] This differs from slave or plantation economy in that the
slave works under alien conditions of production and not independently. Thus,
conditions of personal dependence are requisite, a lack of personal freedom, no
matter to what extent, and being tied to the soil as its accessory, bondage in the
true sense of the word. Should the direct producers not be confronted by a
private landowner, but rather, as in Asia, under direct subordination to a state
which stands over them as their landlord and simultaneously as sovereign, then
rent and taxes coincide, or rather, there exists no tax which differs from this
form of ground-rent. Under such circumstances, there need exist no stronger
political or economic pressure than that common to all subjection to that state.
The state is then the supreme lord. Sovereignty here consists in the ownership
of land concentrated on a national scale. But, on the other hand, no private
ownership of land exists, although there is both private and common
possession and use of land.
The specific economic form, in which unpaid surplus-labour is pumped out
of direct producers, determines the relationship of rulers and ruled, as it grows
directly out of production itself and, in turn, reacts upon it as a determining
element. Upon this, however, is founded the entire formation of the economic
community which grows up out of the production relations themselves, thereby
simultaneously its specific political form. It is always the direct relationship of
the owners of the conditions of production to the direct producers a relation
always naturally corresponding to a definite stage in the development of the
methods of labour and thereby its social productivity which reveals the
innermost secret, the hidden basis of the entire social structure and with it the
political form of the relation of sovereignty and dependence, in short, the
corresponding specific form of the state. This does not prevent the same
economic basis the same from the standpoint of its main conditions due
to innumerable different empirical circumstances, natural environment, racial
relations, external historical influences, etc. from showing infinite variations
and gradations in appearance, which can be ascertained only by analysis of the
empirically given circumstances.

So much is evident with respect to labour rent, the simplest and most
primitive form of rent: Rent is here the primeval form of surplus-labour and
coincides with it. But this identity of surplus-value with unpaid labour of
others need not be analysed here because it still exists in its visible, palpable
form, since the labour of the direct producer for himself is still separated in
space and time from his labour for the landlord and the latter appears directly
in the brutal form of enforced labour for a third person. In the same way the
"attribute" possessed by the soil to produce rent is here reduced to a tangibly
open secret, for the disposition to furnish rent here also includes human labourpower bound to the soil, and the property relation which compels the owner of
labour-power to drive it on and activate it beyond such measure as is required
to satisfy his own indispensable needs. Rent consists directly in the
appropriation of this surplus expenditure of labour-power by the landlord; for
the direct producer pays him no additional rent. Here, where surplus-value and
rent are not only identical but where surplus-value has the tangible form of
surplus-labour, the natural conditions or limits of rent, being those of surplusvalue in general, are plainly clear. The direct producer must 1) possess enough
labour-power, and 2) the natural conditions of his labour, above all the soil
cultivated by him, must be productive enough, in a word, the natural
productivity of his labour must be big enough to give him the possibility of
retaining some surplus-labour over and above that required for the satisfaction
of his own indispensable needs. It is not this possibility which creates the rent,
but rather compulsion which turns this possibility into reality. But the
possibility itself is conditioned by subjective and objective natural
circumstances. And here too lies nothing at all mysterious. Should labourpower be minute, and the natural conditions of labour scanty, then the surpluslabour is small, but in such a case so are the wants of the producers on the one
hand and the relative number of exploiters of surplus-labour on the other, and
finally so is the surplus-product, whereby this barely productive surplus-labour
is realised for those few exploiting landowners.
Finally, labour rent in itself implies that, all other circumstances remaining
equal, it will depend wholly upon the relative amount of surplus-labour, or
enforced labour, to what extent the direct producer shall be enabled to improve
his own condition, to acquire wealth, to produce an excess over and above his
indispensable means of subsistence, or, if we wish to anticipate the capitalist
mode of expression, whether he shall be able to produce a profit for himself,
and how much of a profit, i.e., an excess over his wages which have been
produced by himself. Rent here is the normal, all-absorbing, so to say
legitimate form of surplus-labour, and far from being excess over profit, which
means in this case being above any other excess over wages, it is rather that

the amount of such profit, and even its very existence, depends, other
circumstances being equal, upon the amount of rent, i.e., the enforced surpluslabour to be surrendered to the landowners.
Since the direct producer is not the owner, but only a possessor, and since all
his surplus-labour de jure actually belongs to the landlord, some historians
have expressed astonishment that it should be at all possible for those subject
to enforced labour, or serfs, to acquire any independent property, or relatively
speaking, wealth, under such circumstances. However, it is evident that
tradition must play a dominant role in the primitive and undeveloped
circumstances on which these social production relations and the
corresponding mode of production are based. It is furthermore clear that here
as always it is in the interest of the ruling section of society to sanction the
existing order as law and to legally establish its limits given through usage and
tradition. Apart from all else, this, by the way, comes about of itself as soon as
the constant reproduction of the basis of the existing order and its fundamental
relations assumes a regulated and orderly form in the course of time. And such
regulation and order are themselves indispensable elements of any mode of
production, if it is to assume social stability and independence from mere
chance and arbitrariness. These are precisely the form of its social stability and
therefore its relative freedom from mere arbitrariness and mere chance. Under
backward conditions of the production process as well as the corresponding
social relations, it achieves this form by mere repetition of their very
reproduction. If this has continued on for some time, it entrenches itself as
custom and tradition and is finally sanctioned as an explicit law. However,
since the form of this surplus-labour, enforced labour, is based upon the
imperfect development of all social productive powers and the crudeness of the
methods of labour itself, it will naturally absorb a relatively much smaller
portion of the direct producers total labour than under developed modes of
production, particularly the capitalist mode of production. Take it, for instance,
that the enforced labour for the landlord originally amounted to two days per
week. These two days of enforced labour per week are thereby fixed, are a
constant magnitude, legally regulated by prescriptive or written law. But the
productivity of the remaining days of the week, which are at the disposal of the
direct producer himself, is a variable magnitude, which must develop in the
course of his experience, just as the new wants he acquires, and just as the
expansion of the market for his product and the increasing assurance with
which he disposes of this portion of his labour-power will spur him on to a
greater exertion of his labour-power, whereby it should not be forgotten that
the employment of his labour-power is by no means confined to agriculture,
but includes rural home industry. The possibility is here presented for definite

economic development taking place, depending, of course, upon favourable

circumstances, inborn racial characteristics, etc.
III. Rent In Kind

The transformation of labour rent into rent in kind changes nothing from the
economic standpoint in the nature of ground-rent. The latter consists, in the
forms considered here, in that rent is the sole prevailing and normal form of
surplus-value, or surplus-labour. This is further expressed in the fact that it is
the only surplus-labour, or the only surplus-product, which the direct producer,
who is in possession of the labour conditions needed for his own reproduction,
must give up to the owner of the land, which in this situation is the allembracing condition of labour. And, furthermore, that land is the only
condition of labour which confronts the direct producer as alien property,
independent of him, and personified by the landlord. To whatever extent rent
in kind is the prevailing and dominant form of ground-rent, it is further-more
always more or less accompanied by survivals of the earlier form, i.e., of rent
paid directly in labour, corve-labour, no matter whether the landlord be a
private person or the state. Rent in kind presupposes a higher stage of
civilisation for the direct producer, i.e., a higher level of development of his
labour and of society in general. And it is distinct from the preceding form in
that surplus-labour needs no longer be performed in its natural form, thus no
longer under the direct supervision and compulsion of the landlord or his
representatives: the direct producer is driven rather by force of circumstances
than by direct coercion, through legal enactment rather than the whip, to
perform it on his own responsibility. Surplus-production, in the sense of
production beyond the indispensable needs of the direct producer, and within
the field of production actually belonging to him, upon the land exploited by
himself instead of, as earlier, upon the nearby lords estate beyond his own
land, has already become a self-understood rule here. In this relation the direct
producer more or less disposes of his entire labour-time, although, as
previously, a part of this labour-time, at first practically the entire surplus
portion of it, belongs to the landlord without compensation; except that the
landlord no longer directly receives this surplus-labour in its natural form, but
rather in the products natural form in which it is realised. The burdensome,
and according to the way in which enforced labour is regulated, more or less
disturbing interruption by work for the landlord (see Buch I, Kap. VIII, 2)
[English edition Ch X, 2 Ed] ("Manufacturer and Boyard") stops wherever
rent in kind appears in pure form, or at least it is reduced to a few short
intervals during the year, when a continuation of some corve-labour side by
side with rent in kind takes place. The labour of the producer for himself and
his labour for the landlord are no longer palpably separated by time and space.

This rent in kind, in its pure form, while it may drag fragments along into more
highly developed modes of production and production relations, still
presupposes for its existence a natural economy, i.e., that the conditions of the
economy are either wholly or for the overwhelming part produced by the
economy itself, directly replaced and reproduced out of its gross product. It
furthermore presupposes the combination of rural home industry with
agriculture. The surplus-product, which forms the rent, is the product of this
combined agricultural and industrial family labour, no matter whether rent in
kind contains more or less of the industrial product, as is often the case in the
Middle Ages, or whether it is paid only in the form of actual products of the
land. In this form of rent it is by no means necessary for rent in kind, which
represents the surplus-labour, to fully exhaust the entire surplus-labour of the
rural family. Compared with labour rent, the producer rather has more room
for action to gain time for surplus-labour whose product shall belong to
himself, as well as the product of his labour which satisfies his indispensable
needs. Similarly, this form will give rise to greater differences in the economic
position of the individual direct producers. At least the possibility for such a
differentiation exists, and the possibility for the direct producer to have in turn
acquired the means to exploit other labourers directly. This, however, does not
concern us here, since we are dealing with rent in kind in its pure form; just as
in general we cannot enter into the endless variety of combinations wherein the
various forms of rent may be united, adulterated and amalgamated. The form
of rent in kind, by being bound to a definite type of product and production
itself and through its indispensable combination of agriculture and domestic
industry, through its almost complete self-sufficiency whereby the peasant
family supports itself through its independence from the market and the
movement of production and history of that section of society lying outside of
its sphere, in short owing to the character of natural economy in general, this
form is quite adapted to furnishing the basis for stationary social conditions as
we see, e.g., in Asia. Here, as in the earlier form of labour rent, ground-rent is
the normal form of surplus-value, and thus of surplus-labour, i.e., of the entire
excess labour which the direct producer must perform gratis, hence actually
under compulsion although this compulsion no longer confronts him in the old
brutal form for the benefit of the owner of his essential condition of labour,
the land. The profit, if by erroneously anticipating we may thus call that
portion of the direct producers labour excess over his necessary labour, which
he retains for himself, has so little to do with determining rent in kind, that this
profit, on the contrary, grows up behind the back of rent and finds its natural
limit in the size of rent in kind. The latter may assume dimensions which
seriously imperil reproduction of the conditions of labour, the means of
production themselves, rendering the expansion of production more or less

impossible and reducing the direct producers to the physical minimum of

means of subsistence. This is particularly the case, when this form is met with
and exploited by a conquering commercial nation, e.g., the English in India.
IV. Money-Rent

By money-rent as distinct from industrial and commercial ground-rent

based upon the capitalist mode of production, which is but an excess over
average profit we here mean the ground-rent which arises from a mere
change in form of rent in kind, just as the latter in turn is but a modification of
labour rent. The direct producer here turns over instead of the product, its price
to the landlord (who may be either the state or a private individual). An excess
of products in their natural form no longer suffices; it must be converted from
its natural form into money-form. Although the direct producer still continues
to produce at least the greater part of his means of subsistence himself, a
certain portion of this product must now be converted into commodities, must
be produced as commodities. The character of the entire mode of production is
thus more or less changed. It loses its independence, its detachment from
social connection. The ratio of cost of production, which now comprises
greater or lesser expenditures of money, becomes decisive; at any rate, the
excess of that portion of gross product to be converted into money over that
portion which must serve, on the one hand, as means of reproduction again,
and, on the other, as means of direct subsistence, assumes a determining role.
However, the basis of this type of rent, although approaching its dissolution,
remains the same as that of rent in kind, which constitutes its point of
departure. The direct producer as before is still possessor of the land either
through inheritance or some other traditional right, and must perform for his
lord, as owner of his most essential condition of production, excess corvelabour, that is, unpaid labour for which no equivalent is returned, in the form
of a surplus-product transformed into money. Ownership of the conditions of
labour as distinct from land, such as agricultural implements and other goods
and chattels, is transformed into the property of the direct producer even under
the earlier forms of rent, first in fact, and then also legally, and even more so is
this the precondition for the form of money-rent. The transformation of rent in
kind into money-rent, taking place first sporadically and then on a more or less
national scale, presupposes a considerable development of commerce, of urban
industry, of commodity-production in general, and thereby of money
circulation. It furthermore assumes a market-price for products, and that they
be sold at prices roughly approximating their values, which need not at all be
the case under earlier forms. In Eastern Europe we may still partly observe this
transformation taking place under our very eyes. How unfeasible it can be
without a certain development of social labour productivity is proved by

various unsuccessful attempts to carry it through under the Roman Empire, and
by relapses into rent in kind after seeking to convert at least the state tax
portion of this rent into money-rent. The same transitional difficulties are
evidenced, e.g., in pre-revolutionary France, when money-rent was combined
with and adulterated by, survivals of its earlier forms.
Money-rent, as a transmuted form of rent in kind, and in antithesis to it, is,
nevertheless, the final form, and simultaneously the form of dissolution of the
type of ground-rent which we have heretofore considered, namely ground-rent
as the normal form of surplus-value and of the unpaid surplus-labour to be
performed for the owner of the conditions of production. In its pure form, this
rent, like labour rent and rent in kind, represents no excess over profit. It
absorbs the profit, as it is understood. In so far as profit arises beside it
practically as a separate portion of excess labour, money-rent like rent in its
earlier forms still constitutes the normal limit of such embryonic profit, which
can only develop in relation to the possibilities of exploitation, be it of ones
own excess labour or that of another, which remains after the performance of
the surplus-labour represented by money-rent. Should any profit actually arise
along with this rent, then this profit does not constitute the limit of rent, but
rather conversely, the rent is the limit of the profit. However, as already
indicated, money-rent is simultaneously the form of dissolution of the groundrent considered thus far, coincidingprima facie with surplus-value and surpluslabour, i.e., ground-rent as the normal and dominant form of surplus-value.
In its further development money-rent must lead aside from all
intermediate forms, e.g., the small peasant tenant farmer either to the
transformation of land into peasants freehold, or to the form corresponding to
the capitalist mode of production, that is, to rent paid by the capitalist tenant
farmer.
With money-rent prevailing, the traditional and customary legal relationship
between landlord and subjects who possess and cultivate a part of the land, is
necessarily turned into a pure money relationship fixed contractually in
accordance with the rules of positive law. The possessor engaged in cultivation
thus becomes virtually a mere tenant. This transformation serves on the one
hand, provided other general production relations permit, to expropriate more
and more the old peasant possessors and to substitute capitalist tenants in their
stead. On the other hand, it leads to the former possessor buying himself free
from his rent obligation and to his transformation into an independent peasant
with complete ownership of the land he tills. The transformation of rent in kind
into money-rent is furthermore not only inevitably accompanied, but even
anticipated, by the formation of a class of propertyless day-labourers, who hire

themselves out for money. During their genesis, when this new class appears
but sporadically, the custom necessarily develops among the more prosperous
peasants subject to rent payments of exploiting agricultural wage-labourers for
their own account, much as in feudal times, when the more well-to-do peasant
serfs themselves also held serfs. In this way, they gradually acquire the
possibility of accumulating a certain amount of wealth and themselves
becoming transformed into future capitalists. The old self-employed possessors
of land themselves thus give rise to a nursery school for capitalist tenants,
whose development is conditioned by the general development of capitalist
production beyond the bounds of the country-side. This class shoots up very
rapidly when particularly favourable circumstances come to its aid, as in
England in the 16th century, where the then progressive depreciation of money
enriched them under the customary long leases at the expense of the landlords.
Furthermore: as soon as rent assumes the form of money-rent, and thereby
the relationship between rent-paying peasant and landlord becomes a
relationship fixed by contract a development which is only possible
generally when the world-market, commerce and manufacture have reached a
certain relatively high level the leasing of land to capitalists inevitably also
makes its appearance. The latter hitherto stood beyond the rural limits and now
carry over to the countryside and agriculture the capital acquired in the cities
and with it the capitalist mode of operation developed i.e., creating a
product as a mere commodity and solely as a means of appropriating surplusvalue. This form can become the general rule only in those countries which
dominate the world-market in the period of transition from the feudal to the
capitalist mode of production. When the capitalist tenant farmer steps in
between landlord and actual tiller of the soil, all relations which arose out of
the old rural mode of production are torn asunder. The farmer becomes the
actual commander of these agricultural labourers and the actual exploiter of
their surplus-labour, whereas the landlord maintains a direct relationship, and
indeed simply a money and contractual relationship, solely with this capitalist
tenant. Thus, the nature of rent is also transformed, not merely in fact and by
chance, as occurred in part even under earlier forms, but normally, in its
recognised and prevailing form. From the normal form of surplus-value and
surplus-labour, it descends to a mere excess of this surplus-labour over that
portion of it appropriated by the exploiting capitalist in the form of profit; just
as the total surplus-labour, profit and excess over profit, is extracted directly
by him, collected in the form of the total surplus-product, and turned into cash.
It is only the excess portion of this surplus-value which is extracted by him
from the agricultural labourer by direct exploitation, by means of his capital,
which he turns over to the landlord as rent. How much or how little he turns

over to the latter depends, on the average, upon the limits set by the average
profit which is realised by capital in the non-agricultural spheres of production,
and by the prices of non-agricultural production regulated by this average
profit. From a normal form of surplus-value and surplus-labour, rent has now
become transformed into an excess over that portion of the surplus-labour
claimed in advance by capital as its legitimate and normal share, and
characteristic of this particular sphere of production, the agricultural sphere of
production. Profit, instead of rent, has now become the normal form of
surplus-value and rent still exists solely as a form, not of surplus-value in
general, but of one of its offshoots, surplus-profit, which assumes an
independent form under particular circumstances. It is not necessary to
elaborate the manner in which a gradual transformation in the mode of
production itself corresponds to this transformation. This already follows from
the fact that it is normal for the capitalist tenant farmer to produce agricultural
products as commodities, and that, while formerly only the excess over his
means of subsistence was converted into commodities, now but a relatively
insignificant part of these commodities is directly used by him as means of
subsistence. It is no longer the land, but rather capital, which has now brought
even agricultural labour under its direct sway and productiveness.
The average profit and the price of production regulated thereby are formed
outside of relations in the country-side and within the sphere of urban trade
and manufacture. The profit of the rent-paying peasant does not enter into it as
an equalising factor, for his relation to the landlord is not a capitalist one. In so
far as he makes profit, i.e., realises an excess above his necessary means of
subsistence, either by his own labour or through exploiting other peoples
labour, it is done behind the back of the normal relationship, and other
circumstances being equal, the size of this profit does not determine rent, but
on the contrary, it is determined by the rent as its limit. The high rate of profit
in the Middle Ages is not entirely due to the low composition of capital, in
which the variable component invested in wages predominates. It is due to
swindling on the land, the appropriation of a portion of the landlords rent and
of the income of his vassals. If the country-side exploits the town politically in
the Middle Ages, wherever feudalism has not been broken down by
exceptional urban development as in Italy, the town, on the other hand,
exploits the land economically everywhere and without exception, through its
monopoly prices, its system of taxation, its guild organisation, its direct
commercial fraudulence and its usury.
One might imagine that the mere appearance of the capitalist farmer in
agricultural production would prove that the price of agricultural products,

which from time immemorial have paid rent in one form or another, must be
higher, at least at the time of this appearance, than the prices of production of
manufacture whether it be because the price of such agricultural products has
reached a monopoly price level, or has risen as high as the value of the
agricultural products, and their value actually is above the price of production
regulated by the average profit. For were this not so, the capitalist farmer could
not at all realise, at the existing prices of agricultural produce, first the average
profit out of the price of these products, and then pay out of the same price an
excess above this profit in the form of rent. One might conclude from this that
the general rate of profit, which guides the capitalist farmer in his contract with
the landlord, has been formed without including rent, and, therefore, as soon as
it assumes a regulating role in agricultural production, it finds this excess at
hand and pays it to the landlord. It is in this traditional manner that, for
instance, Herr Rodbertus explains the matter. [J. Rodbertus, Sociale Briefe an
von Kirchmann, Dritter Brief: Widerlegung der Ricardoschen Lehre von der
Grundrente und Begrndung einer neuen Rententheorie. See also K.
Marx, Theorien ber den Mehrwert. 2. Teil, 1957, pp. 3-106, 142-54. Ed.]
But:
First. This appearance of capital as an independent and leading force in
agriculture does not take place all at once and generally, but gradually and in
particular lines of production. It encompasses at first, not agriculture proper,
but such branches of production as cattle-breeding, especially sheep-raising,
whose principal product, wool, offers at the early stages a constant excess of
market-price over price of production during the rise of industry, and this does
not level out until later. Thus in England during the 16th century.
Secondly. Since this capitalist production appears at first but sporadically,
the assumption cannot be disputed that it first extends only to such land
categories as are able, through their particular fertility, or their exceptionally
favourable location, to generally pay a differential rent.
Thirdly. Let us even assume that at the time this mode of production
appeared and this indeed presupposes an increasing preponderance of urban
demand the prices of agricultural products were higher than the price of
production, as was doubtless the case in England during the last third of the
17th century. Nevertheless, as soon as this mode of production has somewhat
extricated itself from the mere subordination of agriculture to capital, and as
soon as agricultural improvement and the reduction of production costs, which
necessarily accompany its development, have taken place, the balance will be
restored by a reaction, a fall in the price of agricultural produce, as happened
in England in the first half of the 18th century.

Rent, thus, as an excess over the average profit cannot be explained in this
traditional way. Whatever may be the existing historical circumstances at the
time rent first appears, once it has struck root it cannot exist except under the
modern conditions earlier described.
Finally, it should be noted in the transformation of rent in kind into moneyrent that along with it capitalised rent, or the price of land, and thus its
alienability and alienation become essential factors, and that thereby not only
can the former peasant subject to payment of rent be transformed into an
independent peasant proprietor, but also urban and other moneyed people can
buy real estate in order to lease it either to peasants or capitalists and thus
enjoy rent as a form of interest on their capital so invested; that, therefore, this
circumstance likewise facilitates the transformation of the former mode of
exploitation, the relation between owner and actual cultivator of the land, and
of rent itself.
V. Mtayage And Peasant Proprietorship Of Land Parcels

We have now arrived at the end of our elaboration of ground-rent.

In all these forms of ground-rent, whether labour rent, rent in kind, or
money-rent (as merely a changed form of rent in kind), the one paying rent is
always supposed to be the actual cultivator and possessor of the land, whose
unpaid surplus-labour passes directly into the hands of the landlord. Even in
the last form, money-rent in so far as it is "pure," i.e., merely a changed form
of rent in kind this is not only possible, but actually takes place.
As a transitory form from the original form of rent to capitalist rent, we may
consider the metayer system, or share-cropping, under which the manager
(farmer) furnishes labour (his own or anothers), and also a portion of working
capital, and the landlord furnishes, aside from land, another portion of working
capital (e.g., cattle), and the product is divided between tenant and landlord in
definite proportions which vary from country to country. On the one hand, the
farmer here lacks sufficient capital required for complete capitalist
management. On the other hand, the share here appropriated by the landlord
does not bear the pure form of rent. It may actually include interest on the
capital advanced by him and an excess rent. It may also absorb practically the
entire surplus-labour of the farmer, or leave him a greater or smaller portion of
this surplus-labour. But, essentially, rent no longer appears here as the normal
form of surplus-value in general. On the one hand, the sharecropper, whether
he employs his own or anothers labour, is to lay claim to a portion of the
product not in his capacity as labourer, but as possessor of part of the

instruments of labour, as his own capitalist. On the other hand, the landlord
claims his share not exclusively on the basis of his land-ownership, but also as
lender of capital.[44a]
A survival of the old communal ownership of land, which had endured after
the transition to independent peasant farming, e.g., in Poland and Rumania,
served there as a subterfuge for effecting a transition to the lower forms of
ground-rent. A portion of the land belongs to the individual peasant and is
tilled independently by him. Another portion is tilled in common and creates a
surplus-product, which serves partly to cover community expenses, partly as a
reserve in cases of crop failure, etc. These last two parts of the surplus-product,
and ultimately the entire surplus-product including the land upon which it has
been grown, are more and more usurped by state officials and private
individuals, and thus the originally free peasant proprietors, whose obligation
to till this land in common is maintained, are transformed into vassals subject
either to corve-labour or rent in kind; while the usurpers of common land are
transformed into owners, not only of the usurped common lands, but even the
very lands of the peasants themselves.
We need not further investigate slave economy proper (which likewise
passes through a metamorphosis from the patriarchal system mainly for home
use to the plantation system for the world-market) nor the management of
estates under which the landlords themselves are independent cultivators,
possessing all instruments of production, and exploiting the labour of free or
unfree bondsmen, who are paid either in kind or money. Landlord and owner
of the instruments of production, and thus the direct exploiter of labourers
included among these elements of production, are in this case one and the
same person. Rent and profit likewise coincide then, there occurring no
separation of the different forms of surplus-value. The entire surplus-labour of
the labourers, which is manifested here in the surplus-product, is extracted
from them directly by the owner of all instruments of production, to which
belong the land and, under the original form of slavery, the immediate
producers themselves. Where the capitalist outlook prevails, as on American
plantations, this entire surplus-value is regarded as profit; where neither the
capitalist mode of production itself exists, nor the corresponding outlook has
been transferred from capitalist countries, it appears as rent. At any rate, this
form presents no difficulties. The income of the landlord, whatever it may be
called, the available surplus-product appropriated by him, is here the normal
and prevailing form, whereby the entire unpaid surplus-labour is directly
appropriated, and landed property forms the basis of such appropriation.

Further, proprietorship of land parcels. The peasant here is simultaneously

the free owner of his land, which appears as his principal instrument of
production, the indispensable field of employment for his labour and his
capital. No lease money is paid under this form. Rent, therefore, does not
appear as a separate form of surplus-value, although in countries in which
otherwise the capitalist mode of production is developed, it appears as a
surplus-profit compared with other lines of production; but as surplus-profit
which, like all proceeds of his labour in general, accrues to the peasant.
This form of landed property presupposes, as in the earlier older forms, that
the rural population greatly predominates numerically over the town
population, so that, even if the capitalist mode of production otherwise
prevails, it is but relatively little developed, and thus also in the other lines of
production the concentration of capital is restricted to narrow limits and a
fragmentation of capital predominates. In the nature of things, the greater
portion of agricultural produce must be consumed as direct means of
subsistence by the producers themselves, the peasants, and only the excess
above that will find its way as commodities into urban commerce. No matter
how the average market-price of agricultural products may here be regulated,
differential rent, an excess portion of commodity-prices from superior or more
favourably located land, must evidently exist here much as under the capitalist
mode of production. This differential rent exists, even where this form appears
under social conditions, under which no general market-price has as yet been
developed; it appears then in the excess surplus-product. Only then it flows
into the pockets of the peasant whose labour is realised under more favourable
natural conditions. The assumption here is generally to be made that no
absolute rent exists, i.e., that the worst soil does not pay any rent precisely
under this form where the price of land enters as a factor in the peasants actual
cost of production whether because in the course of this forms further
development either the price of land has been computed at a certain moneyvalue, in dividing up an inheritance, or, during the constant change in
ownership of an entire estate, or of its component parts, the land has been
bought by the cultivator himself, largely by raising money on mortgage; and,
therefore, where the price of land, representing nothing more than capitalised
rent, is a factor assumed in advance, and where rent thus seems to exist
independently of any differentiation in fertility and location of the land. For,
absolute rent presupposes either realised excess in product value above its
price of production, or a monopoly price exceeding the value of the product.
But since agriculture here is carried on largely as cultivation for direct
subsistence, and the land exists as an indispensable field of employment for the
labour and capital of the majority of the population, the regulating market-

price of the product will reach its value only under extraordinary
circumstances. But this value will, generally, be higher than its price of
production owing to the preponderant element of living labour, although this
excess of value over price of production will in turn be limited by the low
composition even of non-agricultural capital in countries with an economy
composed predominantly of land parcels. For the peasant owning a parcel, the
limit of exploitation is not set by the average profit of capital, in so far as he is
a small capitalist; nor, on the other hand, by the necessity of rent, in so far as
he is a landowner. The absolute limit for him as a small capitalist is no more
than the wages he pays to himself, after deducting his actual costs. So long as
the price of the product covers these wages, he will cultivate his land, and
often at wages down to a physical minimum. As for his capacity as land
proprietor, the barrier of ownership is eliminated for him, since it can make
itself felt only vis--vis a capital (including labour) separated from landownership, by erecting an obstacle to the investment of capital. It is true, to be
sure, that interest on the price of land which generally has to be paid to still
another individual, the mortgage creditor is a barrier. But this interest can
be paid precisely out of that portion of surplus-labour which would constitute
profit under capitalist conditions. The rent anticipated in the price of land and
in the interest paid for it can therefore be nothing but a portion of the peasants
capitalised surplus-labour over and above the labour indispensable for his
subsistence, without this surplus-labour being realised in a part of the
commodity-value equal to the entire average profit, and still less in an excess
above the surplus-labour realised in the average profit, i.e., in a surplus-profit.
The rent may be a deduction from the average profit, or even the only portion
of it which is realised. For the peasant parcel holder to cultivate his land, or to
buy land for cultivation, it is therefore not necessary, as under the normal
capitalist mode of production, that the market-price of the agricultural products
rise high enough to afford him the average profit, and still less a fixed excess
above this average profit in the form of rent. It is not necessary, therefore, that
the market-price rise, either up to the value or the price of production of his
product. This is one of the reasons why grain prices are lower in countries with
predominant small peasant land proprietorship than in countries with a
capitalist mode of production. One portion of the surplus-labour of the
peasants, who work under the least favourable conditions, is bestowed gratis
upon society and does not at all enter into the regulation of price of production
or into the creation of value in general. This lower price is consequently a
result of the producers poverty and by no means of their labour productivity.
This form of free self-managing peasant proprietorship of land parcels as the
prevailing, normal form constitutes, on the one hand, the economic foundation

of society during the best periods of classical antiquity, and on the other hand,
it is found among modern nations as one of the forms arising from the
dissolution of feudal land ownership. Thus, the yeomanry in England, the
peasantry in Sweden, the French and West German peasants. We do not
include colonies here, since the independent peasant there develops under
different conditions.
The free ownership of the self-managing peasant is evidently the most
normal form of landed property for small-scale operation, i.e., for a mode of
production, in which possession of the land is a prerequisite for the labourers
ownership of the product of his own labour, and in which the cultivator, be he
free owner or vassal, always must produce his own means of subsistence
independently, as an isolated labourer with his family. Ownership of the land
is as necessary for full development of this mode of production as ownership
of tools is for free development of handicraft production. Here is the basis for
the development of personal independence. It is a necessary transitional stage
for the development of agriculture itself. The causes which bring about its
downfall show its limitations. These are: Destruction of rural domestic
industry, which forms its normal supplement as a result of the development of
large-scale industry; a gradual impoverishment and exhaustion of the soil
subjected to this cultivation; usurpation by big landowners of the common
lands, which constitute the second supplement of the management of land
parcels everywhere and which alone enable it to raise cattle; competition,
either of the plantation system or large-scale capitalist agriculture.
Improvements in agriculture, which on the one hand cause a fall in agricultural
prices and, on the other, require greater outlays and more extensive material
conditions of production, also contribute towards this, as in England during the
first half of the 18th century.
Proprietorship of land parcels by its very nature excludes the development of
social productive forces of labour, social forms of labour, social concentration
of capital, large-scale cattle-raising, and the progressive application of science.
Usury and a taxation system must impoverish it everywhere. The
expenditure of capital in the price of the land withdraws this capital from
cultivation. An infinite fragmentation of means of production, and isolation of
the producers themselves. Monstrous waste of human energy. Progressive
deterioration of conditions of production and increased prices of means of
production an inevitable law of proprietorship of parcels. Calamity of
seasonal abundance for this mode of production.[45]

One of the specific evils of small-scale agriculture where it is combined with

free land-ownership arises from the cultivators investing capital in the
purchase of land. (The same applies also to the transitory form, in which the
big landowner invests capital, first, to buy land, and second, to manage it as his
own tenant farmer.) Owing to the changeable nature which the land here
assumes as a mere commodity, the changes of ownership increase,[46] so that
the land, from the peasants viewpoint, enters anew as an investment of capital
with each successive generation and division of estates, i.e., it becomes land
purchased by him. The price of land here forms a weighty element of the
individual unproductive costs of production or cost-price of the product for the
individual producer.
The price of land is nothing but capitalised and therefore anticipated rent. If
capitalist methods are employed by agriculture, so that the landlord receives
only rent, and the farmer pays nothing for land except this annual rent, then it
is evident that the capital invested by the landowner himself in purchasing the
land constitutes indeed an interest-bearing investment of capital for him, but
has absolutely nothing to do with capital invested in agriculture itself. It forms
neither a part of the fixed, nor of the circulating, capital employed here; [47] it
merely secures for the buyer a claim to receive annual rent, but has absolutely
nothing to do with the production of the rent itself. The buyer of land just pays
his capital out to the one who sells the land, and the seller in return
relinquishes his ownership of the land. Thus this capital no longer exists as the
capital of the purchaser; he no longer has it; therefore it does not belong to the
capital which he can invest in any way in the land itself. Whether he bought
the land dear or cheap, or whether he received it for nothing, alters nothing in
the capital invested by the farmer in his establishment, and changes nothing in
the rent, but merely alters the question whether it appears to him as interest or
not, or as higher or lower interest respectively.
Take, for instance, the slave economy. The price paid for a slave is nothing
but the anticipated and capitalised surplus-value or profit to be wrung out of
the slave. But the capital paid for the purchase of a slave does not belong to the
capital by means of which profit, surplus-labour, is extracted from him. On the
contrary. It is capital which the slave-holder has parted with, it is a deduction
from the capital which be has available for actual production. It has ceased to
exist for him, just as capital invested in purchasing land has ceased to exist for
agriculture. The best proof of this is that it does not reappear for the slaveholder or the landowner except when he, in turn, sells his slaves or land. But
then the same situation prevails for the buyer. The fact that he has bought the
slave does not enable him to exploit the slave without further ado. He is only

able to do so when he invests some additional capital in the slave economy

itself.
The same capital does not exist twice, once in the hands of the seller, and a
second time in the hands of the buyer of the land. It passes from the hands of
the buyer to those of the seller, and there the matter ends. The buyer now no
longer has capital, but in its stead a piece of land. The circumstance that the
rent produced by a real investment of capital in this land is calculated by the
new landowner as interest on capital which he has not invested in the land, but
given away to acquire the land, does not in the least alter the economic nature
of the land factor, any more than the circumstance that someone has paid
1,000 for 3% consols has anything to do with the capital out of whose
revenue the interest on the national debt is paid.
In fact, the money expended in purchasing land, like that in purchasing
government bonds, is merely capital in itself, just as any value sum is capital in
itself, potential capital, on the basis of the capitalist mode of production. What
is paid for land, like that for government bonds or any other purchased
commodity, is a sum of money. This is capital in itself, because it can be
converted into capital. It depends upon the use put to it by the seller whether
the money obtained by him is really transformed into capital or not. For the
buyer, it can never again function as such, no more than any other money
which he has definitely paid out. It figures in his accounts as interest-bearing
capital, because he considers the income, received as rent from the land or as
interest on state indebtedness, as interest on the money which the purchase of
the claim to this revenue has cost him. He can only realise it as capital through
resale. But then another, the new buyer, enters the same relationship
maintained by the former, and the money thus expended cannot be transformed
into actual capital for the expender through any change of hands.
In the case of small landed property the illusion is fostered still more that
land itself possesses value and thus enters as capital into the price of
production of the product, much as machines or raw materials. But we have
seen that rent, and therefore capitalised rent, the price of land, can enter as a
determining factor into the price of agricultural products in only two cases.
First, when as a consequence of the composition of agricultural capital a
capital which has nothing to do with the capital invested in purchasing land
the value of the products of the soil is higher than their price of production,
and market conditions enable the landlord to realise this difference. Second,
when there is a monopoly price. And both are least of all the case under the
management of land parcels and small land-ownership because precisely here
production to a large extent satisfies the producers own wants and is carried

on independently of regulation by the average rate of profit. Even where

cultivation of land parcels is conducted upon leased land, the lease money
comprises, far more so than under any other conditions, a portion of the profit
and even a deduction from wages; this money is then only a nominal rent, not
rent as an independent category as opposed to wages and profit.
The expenditure of money-capital for the purchase of land, then, is not an
investment of agricultural capital. It is a decrease pro tanto in the capital which
small peasants can employ in their own sphere of production. It reduces pro
tanto the size of their means of production and thereby narrows the economic
basis of reproduction. It subjects the small peasant to the money-lender, since
credit proper occurs but rarely in this sphere in general. It is a hindrance to
agriculture, even where such purchase takes place in the case of large estates.
It contradicts in fact the capitalist mode of production, which is on the whole
indifferent to whether the landowner is in debt, no matter whether he has
inherited or purchased his estate. The nature of management of the leased
estate itself is not altered whether the landowner pockets the rent himself or
whether he must pay it out to the holder of his mortgage.
We have seen that, in the case of a given ground-rent, the price of land is
regulated by the interest rate. If the rate is low, then the price of land is high,
and vice versa. Normally, then, a high price of land and a low interest rate
should go hand in hand, so that if the peasant paid a high price for the land in
consequence of a low interest rate, the same low rate of interest should also
secure his working capital for him on easy credit terms. But in reality, things
turn out differently when peasant proprietorship of land parcels is the
prevailing form. In the first place, the general laws of credit are not adapted to
the farmer, since these laws presuppose a capitalist as the producer. Secondly,
where proprietorship of land parcels predominates we are not referring to
colonies here and the small peasant constitutes the backbone of the nation,
the formation of capital, i.e., social reproduction, is relatively weak, and still
weaker is the formation of loanable money-capital, in the sense previously
elaborated. This presupposes the concentration and existence of a class of idle
rich capitalists (Massie). [ [Massie] An Essay on the Governing Causes of the
Natural Rate of Interest,London, 1750, pp 23-24. Ed] Thirdly, here where
the ownership of the land is a necessary condition for the existence of most
producers, and an indispensable field of investment for their capital, the price
of land is raised independently of the interest rate, and often in inverse ratio to
it, through the preponderance of the demand for landed property over its
supply. Land sold in parcels brings a far higher price in such a case than when
sold in large tracts, because here the number of small buyers is large and that

of large buyers is small (Bandes Noires, [Associations of profiteers. Ed.]

Rubichon; Newman [Newman, Lectures on Political Economy, London, 1851,
pp. 180-81. Ed.]). For all these reasons, the price of land rises here with a
relatively high rate of interest. The relatively low interest, which the peasant
derives here from the outlay of capital for the purchase of land (Mounier),
corresponds here, on the other side, to the high usurious interest rate which he
himself has to pay to his mortgage creditors. The Irish system bears out the
same thing, only in another form.
The price of land, this element foreign to production in itself, may therefore
rise here to such a point that it makes production impossible (Dombasle).
The fact that the price of land plays such a role, that purchase and sale, the
circulation of land as a commodity, develops to this degree, is practically a
result of the development of the capitalist mode of production in so far as a
commodity is here the general form of all products and all instruments of
production. On the other hand, this development takes place only where the
capitalist mode of production has a limited development and does not unfold
all of its peculiarities, because this rests precisely upon the fact that agriculture
is no longer, or not yet, subject to the capitalist mode of production, but rather
to one handed down from extinct forms of society. The disadvantages of the
capitalist mode of production, with its dependence of the producer upon the
money-price of his product, coincide here therefore with the disadvantages
occasioned by the imperfect development of the capitalist mode of production.
The peasant turns merchant and industrialist without the conditions enabling
him to produce his products as commodities.
The conflict between the price of land as an element in the producers costprice and no element in the price of production (even though the rent enters as
a determining factor into the price of the agricultural product, the capitalised
rent, which is advanced for 20 years or more, by no means enters as a
determinant) is but one of the forms manifesting the general contradiction
between private land-ownership and a rational agriculture, the normal social
utilisation of the soil. But on the other hand, private land ownership, and
thereby expropriation of the direct producers from the land private landownership by the one, which implies lack of ownership by others is the
basis of the capitalist mode of production.
Here, in small-scale agriculture, the price of land, a form and result of
private land-ownership, appears as a barrier to production itself. In large-scale
agriculture, and large estates operating on a capitalist basis, ownership
likewise acts as a barrier, because it limits the tenant farmer in his productive

investment of capital, which in the final analysis benefits not him, but the
landlord. In both forms, exploitation and squandering of the vitality of the soil
(apart from making exploitation dependent upon the accidental and unequal
circumstances of individual producers rather than the attained level of social
development) takes the place of conscious rational cultivation of the soil as
eternal communal property, an inalienable condition for the existence and
reproduction of a chain of successive generations of the human race. In the
case of small property, this results from the lack of means and knowledge of
applying the social labour productivity. In the case of large property, it results
from the exploitation of such means for the most rapid enrichment of farmer
and proprietor. In the case of both through dependence on the market-price.
All critique of small landed property resolves itself in the final analysis into
a criticism of private ownership as a barrier and hindrance to agriculture. And
similarly all counter-criticism of large landed property. In either case, of
course, we leave aside all secondary political considerations. This barrier and
hindrance, which are erected by all private landed property vis--vis
agricultural production and the rational cultivation, maintenance and
improvement of the soil itself, develop on both sides merely in different forms,
and in wrangling over the specific forms of this evil its ultimate cause is
forgotten.
Small landed property presupposes that the overwhelming majority of the
population is rural, and that not social, but isolated labour predominates; and
that, therefore, under such conditions wealth and development of reproduction,
both of its material and spiritual prerequisites, are out of the question, and
thereby also the prerequisites for rational cultivation. On the other hand, large
landed property reduces the agricultural population to a constantly falling
minimum, and confronts it with a constantly growing industrial population
crowded together in large cities. It thereby creates conditions which cause an
irreparable break in the coherence of social interchange prescribed by the
natural laws of life. As a result, the vitality of the soil is squandered, and this
prodigality is carried by commerce far beyond the borders of a particular state
(Liebig). [ Liebig, Die Chemie in ihrer Anwendung auf Agricultur und
Physiologie, Braunschweig, 1862. Ed.]
While small landed property creates a class of barbarians standing halfway
outside of society, a class combining all the crudeness of primitive forms of
society with the anguish and misery of civilised countries, large landed
property undermines labour-power in the last region, where its prime energy
seeks refuge and stores up its strength as a reserve fund for the regeneration of
the vital force of nations on the land itself. Large-scale industry and large-

scale mechanised agriculture work together. If originally distinguished by the

fact that the former lays waste and destroys principally labour-power, hence
the natural force of human beings, whereas the latter more directly exhausts
the natural vitality of the soil, they join hands in the further course of
development in that the industrial system in the countryside also enervates the
labourers, and industry and commerce on their part supply agriculture with the
means for exhausting the soil.

Notes
42a. Adam Smith emphasises how, in his time (and this applies also to the

plantations in tropical and subtropical countries in our own day), rent and
profit were not yet divorced from one another [Smith, An Inquiry into the
Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, Aberdeen, London, 1848, p.
44. Ed.], for the landlord was simultaneously a capitalist, just as Cato, for
instance, was on his estates. But this separation is precisely the prerequisite
for the capitalist mode of production, to whose conception the basis of
slavery moreover stands in direct contradiction.
43. Herr Mommsen, in his "Roman History," by no means uses the term

capitalist in the sense employed by modern economics and modern society,

but rather in the manner of popular conception, such as still continues to
thrive, though not in England or America, but nevertheless on the European
continent, as an ancient tradition reflecting bygone conditions.
44. Following the conquest of a country, the immediate aim of a conqueror

was also to convert its people to his own use. Cf. Linguet [Thorie des loi
civiles, ou Principes fondamentaux de la socit, Tomes I-II, Londres, 1767.
Ed.]. See also Mser [Osnabrkische Geschichte, 1. Theil, Berlin und
Stettin, S. 178. Ed.].
44a. Cf Buvet [Cours dconomie politique, Bruxelles, 1842. Ed.]

Tocqueville [Lancien rgime et la rvolution, Paris, 1856. Ed.],

Sismondi [Nouveaux principes dconomie politique. Seconde
dition, Tome I, Paris, 1827. Ed.]
45. See the speech from the throne of the King of France in Tooke. [New-

march, A History of Prices, and of the State of the Circulation, during the
nine years 1848-56, Vol. VI, London. 1857, pp. 29-30. Ed.]

46. See Mounier [De lagriculture en France, Paris, 1846. Ed.] and

Rubichon [Du mchanisme de la socit en France et en Angleterre, Paris.

1837. Ed.].
47. Dr. H. Maron (Extensiv oder Intensiv?) [no further information given

about this pamphlet] starts from the false assumption of the adversaries he
opposes. He assumes that capital invested in the purchase of land is
"investment capital," and then engages in a controversy about the respective
definitions of investment capital and working capital, that is, fixed and
circulating capital. His wholly amateurish conceptions of capital in general,
which may be excused incidentally in one who is not an economist in view
of the state of German political economy, conceal from him that this capital
is neither investment nor working capital, any more than the capital which
someone invests at the Stock Exchange in purchasing stocks or government
securities, and which, for him, represents a personal investment of capital, is
"invested" in any branch of production.

Sunday, March 20, 2005

FINIS
I have now come to the end of the Marx & Engels quotations that I intended to feature. So any further posts on this blog will be dependant on readers sending me any favourite quotations of theirs that I might have missed.
The one thing that does to my mind stand out in the quotations below is the utter hatred and contempt Marx had for just about everybody. Like the Greenies of today, Marx despised people generally (see my post of 7th March), he despised poor people (24th Feb.), he was utterly contemptuous of the
Russians (2nd Feb) and he even showed contempt for his fellow Germans (post of 15th March). And he was of course both a social Darwinist and a racist (16th and 21st Feb). He even had contempt for his mother (31st Jan.) and his antisemitic utterances are too numerous to mention. He also advocated
race-war (30th Jan,). I could go on ....
Engels is similarly hate-filled but the gloom is in his case slightly relieved by his passionate German nationalism (e.g. post of 12th Feb.). Like Hitler, the one love Engels seemed to have was a love for his German nation.
I believe that it is this constant undercurrent of hatred and anger in the works of Marx that accounts for his appeal to Leftists generally. Whatever they think of his theories or what he says in detail is secondary. The main attraction is that they recognize a kindred spirit bubbling up with hatred and anger
when they come across one.
And this lack of the milk of human kindness was conspicuous in Lenin too. Take this quotation from a speech that Lenin gave in the earliest days of Bolshevik power:
"The Congress therefore declares that it recognises the primary and fundamental task of our Party, of the entire vanguard of the class-conscious proletariat and of Soviet power, to be the adoption of the most energetic, ruthlessly determined and Draconian measures to improve the self-discipline and
discipline of the workers and peasants of Russia, to explain the inevitability of Russias historic advance towards a socialist, patriotic war of liberation, to create everywhere soundly co-ordinated mass organisations held together by a single iron will".
No pussy-footing there: "Draconian measures" to discipline the workers and the need to bend them to "a single iron will". It is well in line with Hegel's vision of an antlike future for humanity but pitiless power is its its theme and respect for the individual is not even thought of. Compare it with Mussolini's
definition of the Fascist ideal: "Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato" (Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State) or Hitler's famous slogan:"Ein Reich, ein Volk, ein Fuehrer" (One State, One People, One Leader). There's not a dime's worth of
difference.
And this quote is very obviously another part of the same tradition: "If we are to go forward we must move as a trained and loyal army willing to sacrifice for the good of a common discipline, because, without such discipline, no progress is made, no leadership becomes effective. We are, I know, ready and
willing to submit our lives and property to such discipline because it makes possible a leadership which aims at a larger good".
So who said that? It's mainstream Fascism/Marxism, isn't it? Totally submerging the individual into an army that works only for the common good rather than individual good. It is an excerpt from the First Inaugural Address of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Some things never change.

Saturday, March 19, 2005

ENGELS SAW RUSSIANS AS DUMB

Engels, The Armies of Europe: "But up to the present time, the Russians of all classes are too fundamentally barbarous to find any enjoyment in scientific or intellectual pursuits of any kind (except intrigues), and, therefore, almost all their distinguished men in the military service are either foreigners, or,
what nearly amounts to the same, ostzeski, Germans from the Baltic provinces. So was the last and most distinguished specimen of this class, General Todtleben, the chief engineer at Sebastopol, who died in July from the effects of a wound. He was certainly the cleverest man at his trade in the whole
siege, either in the Russian or the Allied camp; but he was a Baltic German, of Prussian extraction.
Context here
Some of the German
Engels, Die Armeen Europas, Putnams Monthly, No. XXXIII, September 1855
"Aber bis zum heutigen Tage sind die Russen aller Klassen viel zu barbarisch, um an wissenschaftlicher oder geistiger Ttigkeit irgendwelcher Art (ausser Intrigen) Gefallen zu finden (...)"
MEW a.a.O. 11, 452.

Works of Frederick Engels 1855

The Armies of Europe

Second Article
Putnams Monthly, No. XXXIII, September 1855

I. The Prussian Army

The Prussian army deserves special notice, on account of its peculiar
organization. While, in every other army, the peace-footing is the groundwork
of the entire establishment, and no cadres are provided for the new formations
which a great war at once necessitates, in Prussia, we are told, everything, to
the minutest detail, is prepared for the war-footing. Thus, the peace
establishment simply forms a school, in which the population are instructed in
arms and maneuvers. This system, including, as it professes to do, the whole
able-bodied male population in the ranks of the army on the war-footing,
would appear to render the country which adopts it safe from every attack; yet
this is by no means the case. What is attained is, that the country is stronger by
about 50 per cent. than under the French or Austrian system of recruiting; by
which means it is possible for an agricultural state of some seventeen millions
of inhabitants, on a small territory, without a fleet or direct maritime
commerce, and with comparatively little manufacturing industry, to maintain,
in some respects, the position of a great European power.
The Prussian army consists of two great divisions: of those soldiers who are
still being trained the line; and of those trained men who may be said to
have been sent home on indefinite furlough the landwehr.
The service in the line lasts five years, from the twentieth to the twenty-fifth
year of each mans age; but three years of active service are thought sufficient;
after which, the soldier is dismissed to his home, and placed for the remaining
two years in what is called the war-reserve. During this time he continues to
figure on the reserve-lists of his battalion or squadron, and is liable to be called
in at any time.
After having been, for two years, in the war-reserve, he passes into the first
levy of the landwehr (erstes Aufgebot der Landwehr), where he remains up to
his thirty-second year. During this period he is liable to be called in, every
other year, for the exercises of this corps, which generally take place upon a
pretty extensive scale, and in connection with those of the line. The maneuvers
generally last a month, and very often from 50,000 to 60,000 troops are
concentrated for this purpose. The landwehr of the first levy are destined to act
in the field along with the line. They form separate regiments, battalions, and
squadrons, the same as the line, and carry the same regimental numbers. The
artillery, however, remain attached to the respective regiments of the line.

From the thirty-second to the thirty-ninth year, inclusive, the soldier remains
in the second levy (zwettes Aufgebot) of the landwehr, during which time he is
no longer called upon for active duty, unless a war breaks out, in which case
the second levy has to do garrison duty in the fortresses, thus leaving available
the whole of the line and first levy for field operations. After the fortieth year,
he is free from all liability to be called out, unless, indeed, that mysterious
body called the Landsturm, or levy enmasse, be required to arm itself. The
landsturm includes every man not comprised in the former categories, with all
those too small or too weakly, or otherwise liberated from service, between the
sixteenth and sixtieth year of age. But this landsturm cannot even be said to
exist on paper, for there is not any organization prepared for it, no arms or
accoutrements provided; and if it should ever have to assemble, it would not be
found fit for anything but police duty at home, and for a tremendous
consumption of strong drink.
As in Prussia every citizen is, according to law, a soldier, from his twentieth
to his fortieth year, a population of seventeen millions might be expected to
furnish a total contingent of at least a million and a half of men. But, in reality,
not one half of this number can be got together. The fact is, that the training of
such a mass of men would presuppose, at three years service with the
regiments, a peace establishment of at least 300,000 men, while Prussia merely
maintains something like 130,000. Thus various devices are employed to
liberate a number of men otherwise liable to serve: men fit enough for duty are
declared too weak, the medical inspection either selecting the best candidates
only, or allowing itself to be moved by bribes in the selection of those
considered fit for duty, and so on. Formerly, the reduction of the time of actual
service, for the infantry, to two years only, was the means of bringing down
the peace establishment to some 100,000 or 10,000 men; but since the
revolution a the government, having found out how much an additional year of
service will do in making the men obedient to their officers, and reliable in
case of insurrection, the three years service has been generally introduced
again.
The standing army, or the line, is composed of nine army-corps one of
guards and eight of the line. Their peculiar organization will be explained
presently. They comprise, in all, thirty-six regiments of infantry (guards and
line), of three battalions each b ; eight regiments of reserve, of two battalions
each; eight combined reserve battalions, and ten battalions of chasseurs
(Jger); in all, 144 battalions of infantry, or 150,000 men.

The cavalry is composed of ten cuirassier, five dragoon, ten lancer, and
thirteen hussar regiments, of four squadrons, or 800 men each; in all, 30,000
men.
The artillery consists of nine regiments, each composed, when on the warfooting, of four six-pounder, three twelve-pounder, and one howitzer, foot
batteries, and three batteries of horse artillery, with one reserve company to be
turned into a twelfth battery; beside four garrison companies, and one
company of workmen. But as the whole of the war reserve and landwehr of the
first levy (of the artillery) are required to man these guns, and to complete the
companies, the line-artillery may be described as consisting of nine regiments,
of about 2,500 men each, with about thirty guns in each regiment, fully horsed
and equipped.
Thus, the grand total of the Prussian line would amount to about 200,000
men; but from 60,000 to 70,000 men may safely be deducted for the war
reserves, dismissed to their homes after three years service.
The first levy of the landwehr counts, for every regiment of the guards and
line, one of landwehr, except for the eight reserve regiments; beside, it has
eight reserve battalions, forming a total of 116 battalions, and about 100,000
men. The cavalry has two regiments of guards, and thirty-two of the line, with
eight reserve squadrons; in all, 136 squadrons, or about 20,000 men. The
artillery is attached to the line regiments, as before stated.
The second levy also counts 116 battalions, 167 squadrons (comprising
sundry reserve and dpt squadrons, whose duties are assimilated to those of
the second levy), and some garrison artillery; altogether, about 150,000 men.
With the nine battalions of sappers, several minor corps, about 30,000
pensioners, and an army train amounting, on the war-footing, to no less than
45,000 men, the whole of the Prussian force is stated to amount to 580,000
men; of which, 300,000 are for the field, 54,000 for the dpts, 170,000 for the
garrisons and as a reserve, with about 60,000 non-combatants. The number of
field-guns attached to this army should be between 800 and 850, divided into
batteries of eight guns (six cannon and two howitzers) each.
For all these troops, not only the complete organization of the cadres, but
also the arms and equipments, are provided; so that, in case of
a mobilization of the army, nothing has to be found but the horses; and as
Prussia is rich in horses, and as animals as well as men are liable to instant
requisition, no great difficulty is presented by this necessity. So says the

regulation; but how the matter stands, in point of fact, was shown when, in
1850, the army was mobilized. The first levy of the landwehr was equipped,
though not without great difficulty; but the second levy found nothing
provided, neither clothing, nor shoes, nor arms, and thus it offered the most
ridiculous spectacle imaginable. Long before this occurred, competent judges,
who had themselves served in the Prussian army, had predicted that such
would be the case; and that, in point of fact, Prussia could, on an emergency,
count upon nothing but the line and a portion of the first levy. Their opinion
was fully borne out by the event. No doubt, the equipments for the second levy
have since been provided; and this body, if called out now, would, in a month
or six weeks, form a very respectable corps for garrison, and even field duty.
But then, in time of war, three months drill is considered quite sufficient to
prepare a recruit for the field; and thus, the cumbrous organization adopted by
Prussia does not at all insure such enormous advantages as is generally
believed. Beside, in a couple of years, the material reserved for the second levy
will again have disappeared in the same way as that which had certainly once
existed, but was not to be found when needed in 1850.
Prussia, when adopting the principle that each citizen was to be a soldier,
stopped half-way, and falsified that principle, thereby falsifying all her military
organization. Once the system of conscription abandoned for that of universal
compulsory service, the standing army, as such, ought to have been abolished.
Mere cadres of officers and non-commissioned officers should have been
maintained, through whose hands the young men should have passed for
instruction, and the period of instruction should not have lasted longer than
was necessary for the purpose. If such had been the case, the time of service,
during peace, must have been brought down to a year, for all the infantry, at
least. But that would not suit either the government or the military martinets of
the old school. The government wanted a disposable and reliable army, to be
used, in case of need, against disturbances at home; the martinets wanted an
army which, in precision of drill, in general appearance, and in solidity, could
rival the remaining armies of Europe, composed of comparatively older
soldiers. A body of young troops, serving no more than a single year, would
not do for either purpose. Consequently, the middle course of three years
service was adopted, and hence arise all the faults and weaknesses of the
Prussian army.
As we have seen, at least one half of the available men are excluded from
the army. They are at once inscribed on the rolls of the second levy, which
body, swelled thereby nominally to enormous numbers, is completely
swamped, in whatever efficiency it might possess, by a mass of men who

never handled a musket, and are no better than raw recruits. This reduction of
the actual military strength of the country by at least one half, is the first bad
effect produced by the protracted time of service.
But the line itself, and the first levy of the landwehr, suffer under this
system. Of every regiment, one third has served less than three, one third less
than two years, and the remaining third less than one year. Now it is not to he
expected that an army composed like this can have those military qualities, that
strict subordination, that steadiness in the ranks, that esprit de (.orbs, which
distinguish the old soldiers of the English, Austrian, Russian, and even the
French armies. The English, who are competent judges in this matter, from the
long period their soldiers serve, consider that it takes three years completely to
break in a recruit. [See Sir W. NapiersPeninsular War] Now, as, in time of
peace, the Prussian army is composed of men none of whom have ever served
three years, the natural consequence is that these military qualities of the old
soldier, or at least the semblance of them, have to be drummed into the young
Prussian recruit by an intolerable martinetism. The Prussian subaltern and
sergeant, from the impossibility of the task imposed upon them, come to treat
their subordinates with a roughness and brutality doubly repulsive from the
spirit of pedantry with which it is coupled; and this pedantry is the more
ridiculous because it is in complete contrast with the plain and sensible system
of drill prescribed, and because it constantly appeals to the traditions of
Frederick the Great, who had to drill a quite different set of men in a quite
different system of tactics. Thus, real efficiency in the field is sacrificed to
precision on the parade-ground, and the Prussian line, upon the whole, may be
considered inferior to the old battalions and squadrons which, in the first onset,
any of the great European powers can bring forward against it.
This is the case, in spite of advantages of which no other army is possessed.
The Prussian, as well as the German in general, makes capital stuff for a
soldier. A country, composed of extensive plains varied by large groups of
mountains, furnishes material in abundance for every different arm. The
general bodily aptitude for both light infantry and line infantry duty, possessed
equally by the majority of the Germans, is scarcely equated by other nations.
The country, possessing horses in plenty, furnishes numerous men for the
cavalry, who, from their childhood, have been at home in the saddle. The
deliberate steadiness of the Germans adapts them especially for the artillery
service. They are, withal, among the most pugnacious people in the world,
enjoying war for its own sake, and often enough going to look for it abroad,
when they cannot have it at home. From the Landsknechte of the middle age to
the present foreign legions of France and England, the Germans have always

furnished the great mass of those mercenaries who fight for the sake of
fighting. If the French excel them in agility and vivacity of onslaught, if the
English are their superiors in toughness of resistance, the Germans certainly
excel all other European nations in that general fitness for military duty which
makes them good soldiers under all circumstances.
The Prussian officers form by far the best educated body of their class in the
world. The general educational tests to which they are subjected are of a far
higher standard than those of any other army. Brigade and divisional schools
are maintained to complete their theoretical education; higher or more special
military knowledge is provided for by numerous establishments. Prussian
military literature holds a very high rank; the works it has furnished for the last
twenty-five years sufficiently prove that their authors not only perfectly
understood their own business, but could challenge, for general scientific
information, the officers of any army. In fact, there is almost too much of a
smattering of metaphysics in some of them, and this is explained by the fact
that, in Berlin, Breslau, or Knigsberg, you may see officers taking their seats
amongst the students at the university lectures. Clausewitz is as much a
standard author in his line, all over the world, as Jomini; and the works of the
engineer Aster mark a new epoch in the science of fortification. Yet, the name
of a Prussian lieutenant is a by-word all over Germany, and, indeed, the
caricatured esprit de corps pedantry and impertinent manners inculcated by the
general tone of the army, fully justify the fact; while nowhere are there so
many old, stiff-necked martinets among the field-officers and generals as in
Prussia-most of them, however, relics of 1813 and 15. After all, it must be
acknowledged that the absurd attempt to force the Prussian line into what it
can never be made to be-an army of old soldiers-deteriorates the quality of the
officer as much as it does that of the soldier, and even more.
The drill-regulations in the Prussian-army are, undoubtedly, much the best in
the world. Simple, consistent, based upon a few common sense principles, they
leave very little to be desired. They are owing to the genius of Scharnhorst,
who was, perhaps, the greatest military organizer since Maurice of Nassau.
The regulations for handling large bodies of troops are equally good. The
scientific manuals, however, for the artillery service, which are officially
recommended to the officers, are old-fashioned and by no means up to the
requirements of the present time; but this blame is confined to works bearing a
more or less official stamp, and does not at all bear upon Prussian artilleristic
literature in general.
The engineering body enjoy, and deservedly, a very high character. From
them proceeded Aster, the first military engineer since Montalembert. They

have constructed a seri@s of fortresses, from K5nigsberg and Posen to

Cologne and Coblentz, which has obtained the admiration of Europe.
The equipment of the Prussian army, since the changes effected in- 1843 and
44, is not very handsome, but very convenient for the soldiers. The helmet is a
very efficient protection against sun and rain, the clothing is loose and
comfortable, the adjustment of the accoutrements still better than that adopted
in France. The guards and light battalions (one to each regiment) are armed
with the rifled needle-gun; the remainder of the line are having their muskets
transformed, by a very simple process, into good Mini@
rifles; as to the landwehr, they, too, will, in two or three years, receive the
Mini gun, but as yet they carry percussion muskets. The saber of the cavalry
is too broad and crooked most of the cuts fall flat. The material of the
artillery, both in cannon, carriages, and harness, leave much to he desired.
On the whole, the Prussian army, that is, the line and first levy, forms a
respectable body of men, but nothing like what Prussian patriotic authors
boast. The line, once in the field, will very soon throw off the fetters of the
parade-ground, and, after a few engagements, he equal to their opponents. The
landwehr of the first levy, as soon as the old soldier-like spirit has been reawakened, and if the war be popular, will equal the best old troops in Europe.
What Prussia has to fear, is an active enemy during the first period of a war,
when troops of superior organization, and of older standing, are brought
against her; but in a protracted struggle she will have a greater proportion of
old soldiers in her armies than any other European state. In the beginning of a
campaign, the line will form the nucleus of the army, but the first levy will
very soon push it into the shade, by the greater bodily strength and the higher
military qualities of its men. They are the real old soldiers of Prussia-not the
beardless youths of the line. Of the second levy we do not speak; it has yet to
show what it is.

II. The Russian Army

In Russia, too, a certain provision has been made for establishing cadres for
the war-footing, by a scheme of reserves, similar, in some points, to the
Prussian landwehr system. But, on the whole, the Russian reserve comprises
such a limited number of men, and the difficulty of bringing them together
from all the points of that vast empire is so great, that, as early as six months
after the Anglo-French declaration of war, and before a single shot had been
fired in the Crimea, the abolition of the system and the formation of new

bodies, followed up since by other new formations, at once became necessary.

Thus, in Russia, we must distinguish between the army as it was on the
breaking out of the war, and the army as it is now.
The Russian army, in time of peace, is divided as follows: 1. The active
army six corps of the line, Nos. 1 to 6; 2. The reserve army one corps of
guards, one corps of grenadiers, two corps of cavalry of the reserve; 3. The
special corps that of the Caucasus, that of Finland, that of Orenburg, that of
Siberia; 4. The troops for inland duty veterans, inland guards, invalids, and
so forth; 5. The irregular troops. To these must be added the reserves,
consisting of soldiers dismissed on furlough.
The composition of each of the six corps of the line is as follows: it
includes three divisions of infantry, consisting each of a brigade of the line and
one of light infantry, each brigade consisting of two regiments, each regiment
of four service-battalions; in all, six brigades or twelve regiments, comprising
forty-eight battalions, with one battalion of rifles, and one of sappers; total,
fifty battalions. There is also one division of light cavalry, containing one
brigade of lancers, and one brigade of hussars, each of two regiments, or
sixteen squadrons; total, thirty-two squadrons. The artillery consists of one
division [of artillery] of three foot brigades, and one horse brigade; total,
fourteen batteries or 112 guns; total, per corps, fifty battalions, thirty-two
squadrons, 112 guns; grand total, 300 battalions, 192 squadrons, 672 guns.
The guards contain three divisions, or six brigades, comprising twelve
regiments (nine of grenadiers, and three of carabineers, or light infantry); in
all, thirty-six battalions, for the regiments of guards and grenadiers count three
service-battalions only. There is also one battalion of rifles and one of sappers
and miners, beside three divisions of cavalry (one cuirassiers, one lancers, one
hussars), comprising six brigades or twelve regiments, and making in all
seventy-two squadrons of cavalry. There is one division of five brigades and
fifteen batteries (nine foot, five horse, one rockets); in all, 135 guns. The
grenadier corps consists of three divisions or six brigades, comprising twelve
regiments or thirty-six battalions of infantry, one battalion of rifles, and one of
sappers and miners. This corps also counts one division of cavalry, including
two brigades (lancers and hussars), made up of four regiments or thirty-two
squadrons. The artillery consists of three foot and one horse brigade, with
fourteen batteries; in all, 112 guns.
The reserve cavalry is organized as follows: lst corps: three divisions
(two of cuirassiers, one of lancers), comprising six brigades or twelve
regiments; in all, eighty squadrons (forty-eight of cuirassiers, thirty-two of

lancers). There is also one division of horse artillery, containing three brigades,
with six batteries; in all, forty-eight guns. 2d corps: three divisions (one
lancers, two dragoons) or six brigades; including twelve regiments or 112
squadrons (thirty-two of lancers, eighty of dragoons). There are also two
squadrons of mounted sappers and pontoniers, and six batteries of horse
artillery, comprising forty-eight guns.
The Caucasian corps is composed of one reserve grenadier brigade,
containing two regiments or six battalions; three divisions of infantry,
containing twelve regiments or forty-eight battalions; one battalion of rifles,
one of sappers; forty-seven battalions of the Caucasian line (militia); total, 103
battalions. The cavalry consists of one regiment of dragoons, of ten squadrons.
Of artillery there is one division, with ten common and six mountain batteries,
of 180 guns in all.
The Finland corps consists of one division, comprising twe, brigades or
twelve battalions of infantry; that of Orenburg, of one division, likewise of two
brigades, but of only ten battalions;, that of Siberia, of one division,
comprising three brigades; making fifteen battalions. Finally, the grand total of
the regular troops, actually under arms in time of peace, may be stated as
follows: Banal.

Squad.

Guns.

6 corps of the line

300

192

672

Guards

38

72

135

Grenadiers

38

32

112

Reserve cavalry

194

96

Caucasian corps

103

10

180

Finland corps

12

Orenburg do

10

Siberia do

15

Total

516

500

1,195

The troops for inland service consist of fifty-two battalions of inland guards,
800 companies of veterans and invalids, eleven and a half squadrons of gens
d'armes, and ninety-eight companies of artillery. These troops can hardly be
counted in an estimate of the available force of the country.
The irregular troops, mostly cavalry, form the following divisions.
1. The Don Cossacks: -fifty-six regiments, each of six sotnias; in all, 336 sotnias, thirteen
batteries.
2. The Tshornomor (Black Sea Cossacks):-seventy-two sotiiias, nine battalions, three batteries.
3. The Caucasian line Cossacks (on the Kuban and Terek):-120 sotnias and three batteries.
4.
The
Astrachan
Cossacks:-eighteen
sotnias,
one
battery.
5.
The
Orenburg
Cossacks:-sixty
sotnias,
three
batteries.
6.
The
Ural
Cossacks:-sixty
sotnias.
7. The Bashkir levy:-eighty-five sotnias, almost all Bashkirs and Kalmyks.
8. The Siberian Cossacks:-twenty-four battalions, eighty-four sotnias, three batteries, composed
partly
of
Tungusians,
Buriates,
etc.
9.
The
Azov
Cossacks,
engaged
in
naval
service.
10.
The
Danubian
Cossacks
in
Bessarabia:
twelve
sotnias.
11. The Baikal Lake Cossacks, but recently formed, of unknown organization and strength.

The total would amount to 847 sotnias (squadrons of 100 men each,
from sto, hundred), thirty-three battalions, twenty-six batteries. This would
make about 90,000 men of cavalry, and 30,000 infantry. But, for actual war
purposes on the western frontier, perhaps 40,000 to 50,000 cavalry, a few
batteries, and none of the infantry are available.
Thus, in time of peace, the Russian army (exclusive of the inland service
troops) should consist of 360,000 infantry, 70,000 cavalry, and 90,000
artillery; in all, 500,000 men; beside a number of Cossacks, varying according
to circumstances. But of these 500,000 men, the local corps of the Caucasus, of
Orenburg, and Siberia cannot be made available for any war on the western
frontier of the empire; so that, against western Europe, not more than 260,000
infantry, 70,000 cavalry, and 50,000 artillery, with about 1,000 guns, can be
used, beside some 30,000 Cossacks.
So far for the peace establishment. For the event of a war, the following
provisions were made: the full time of service was twenty, twenty-two, or
twenty-five years, according to circumstances. But after either ten or fifteen
years, according to circumstances, the soldiers we're dismissed on furlough,
after which they belonged to the reserve. The organization of this reserve has
varied very much, but it appears, now, that the men on furlough belonged,
during the first five years, to a reserve battalion (the fourth of each regiment in
the guards and grenadiers, the fifth in the line), a reserve squadron, or a reserve
battery, according to their respective arms. After the lapse of five years they

passed to the depot (fifth or respectively sixth) battalion of their regiment, or to

the dpt squadron or battery. Thus, the calling-in of the reserve would raise
the effective strength of the infantry and artillery about fifty per cent., of the
cavalry about twenty per cent. These reserves were to be commanded by
retired officers, and their cadres, if not in full organization, were nevertheless,
to a certain degree, prepared.
But when the war broke out, all this was altered. The active army had to
send two divisions to the Caucasus, though it was destined to fight on the
western frontier. Before the Anglo-French troops embarked for the east, three
corps of the active army (the third, fourth, and fifth) were engaged in the
campaign against the Turks. At that period, indeed, the reserves were
concentrating, but it took an enormous length of time before the men could be
brought up to their respective headquarters from all points of the empire. The
allied armies and fleets in the Baltic and Black Seas, as well as the wavering
policy of Austria, necessitated more vigorous measures; the levies were
doubled and tripled, and the motley mass of recruits, thus got together, were
formed, along with the reserves, into fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth
battalions for all the infantry regiments, while a similar increase was made in
the cavalry. Thus, the eight corps of guards, grenadiers, and line, instead of
376 battalions, now muster about 800, while, for every two squadrons or
batteries of the peace establishment, at least one of reserve has been added. All
these figures, however, look more formidable on paper than in reality; for,
what with the corruption of the Russian officials, the mal-administration of the
army, and the enormous length of the marches from the homes of the men to
the depots, from the depots to the points of concentration of the corps, and
from thence to the seat of war, a great proportion of the men are lost or
invalided before they come to meet the enemy. Besides, the ravages of disease,
and the losses in battle, during the two last campaigns, have been very serious,
and, altogether, we do not think that the 1,000 battalions, 800 squadrons, and
200 batteries of the Russian army, can much exceed, at present, 600,000 men.
But the government was not satisfied with this. With a promptitude which
shows how fully it is aware of the difficulty of bringing together large masses
of men from the various portions of this vast empire, it decreed the levy of the
militia as soon as the organization of the seventh and eighth battalions was
completed. The militia, oropoltshenie, was to be organized
in druginas (battalions) of 1,000 each, in proportion to the population of each
province; twenty-three men out of every 1,000 males, or nearly one-quarter per
cent. of the population were to serve. For the time being, the opoltshenic was
called out in the western provinces only. This levy, made upon a population of

18,000,000, comprising about 9,000,000 males, must have produced about

120,000 men, and this agrees with what the reports from Russia state. There is
no doubt that the militia will prove, in every respect, inferior even to the newly
formed reserve, but, at all events, it is a valuable addition to the forces of
Russia, and, if employed to do garrison duty in Poland, it can set free a good
many regiments of the line.
On the other hand, not only many Cossacks, but even considerable numbers
of Bashkirs, Kalmyks, Kirghiz, Tungusians, and other Mongol levies have
arrived on the western frontier. This shows how early they were ordered
westwards, for many of them had above a twelve-months march to make
before they could arrive at St. Petersburg, or on the Vistula.
Thus, Russia has taxed her military resources almost to the utmost; and, after
two years campaigning, during which time she has lost no decisive battle, she
cannot muster more than 600,000 to 650,000 regular troops, with 100,000
militia, and perhaps 50,000 irregular cavalry. We do not mean to say that she is
exhausted; but, there is no doubt, that now, after two years war, she could not
do what France did after twenty years war, and after the total loss of her finest
army in 1812: pour forth a fresh body of 300,000 men and arrest, for a time, at
least, the onslaught of the enemy. So enormous is the difference, in military
strength, between a densely and a thinly populated country. If France bordered
on Russia, the 66,000,000 inhabitants of Russia would be weaker than the
38,000,000 French. That the 44,000,000 Germans are more than a match for
the 66,000,000 subjects of the orthodox Czar, there is not the slightest doubt.
The Russian army is recruited in various ways. The great body of the men is
raised by the regular levy, which takes place one year in the western, and the
next in the eastern provinces of Russia in Europe. The general percentage is
four or five men levied out of every 1,000 (male) souls; for in the Russian
census the males only are counted, as, according to the orthodox belief of the
east, the women do not constitute souls. Those from the western half of the
empire serve twenty, those from the eastern half twenty-five years. The guards
serve twenty-two years; young men from the military colonies twenty years.
Beside these levies, the soldiers sons are a fertile source of recruits. Every son
born to a soldier while in service is obliged to serve; and this principle is
carried so far that children borne by soldiers wives are claimed by the state,
though the husband may have been at the other end of the empire for five or
ten years. These soldiers children are called cantonists, and most of them are
educated at the expense of the government; from them most of the noncommissioned officers are taken. Finally, criminals, vagabonds, and other
good-for-nothing individuals, are sentenced, by the courts of law, to serve in

the army. A nobleman has the right of sending a serf, if otherwise able-bodied,
into the army; and every father, when dissatisfied with his son, can do the
same. S'bogom idt pod Krasnuyu shapkoo. Begone, then, with God, and put
the red cap on that is to say, go into the army is a common saying of the
Russian peasant to a disobedient son.
The non-commissioned officers, as we have said, are mostly recruited from
the soldiers sons, educated in government establishments. From early
boyhood subject to military discipline, these lads have nothing whatever in
common with the men whom they are, subsequently, to instruct and direct.
They form a class separate from the people. They belong to the state-they
cannot exist without it: once thrown upon their own resources, they are fit for
nothing. To get on, then, under the government, is their only object. What the
lower class of employs, recruited from the sons of employs, are in the
Russian civil service, these men are in the army: a set of cunning, low-minded,
narrowly-egotistical subordinates, endowed with a smattering of elementary
education, which almost renders them more despicable; ambitious from vanity
and love of gain; sold, life and soul, to the state, and yet trying, daily and
hourly, to sell the state, in detail, whenever they can make a profit by it. A fine
specimen of this class is the feldjger or courier who accompanied M. de
Custine during his travels in Russia, and who is admirably portrayed in that
gentlemans account of Russia. It is this class of men, both in the civil and
military branches, which principally foments the immense corruption
pervading all branches of the public service in that country. But as it is, there is
no doubt that, if this system of total appropriation of the children, by the state,
were done away with, Russia would not be able to find a sufficient number of
civil subaltern employs and military non-commissioned officers.
With the class of officers it is, perhaps, still worse. The education given to a
future corporal or sergeant-major is a comparatively cheap article; but to
educate officers for an army of one million (and that is the number for which
the Russian cadres, officially speaking, should be prepared) is a costly affair.
Private establishments do nothing or little for the purpose. The state, again,
must do everything. But it evidently cannot educate such a mass of young men
as are required for this use. Consequently, the sons of the nobility are, by a
direct moral compulsion, induced to serve for at least five or ten years in the
army or the civil service; for every family in which three consecutive
generations have not served, loses its privilege of nobility, and especially the
right to own serfs a right without which, in Russia, extensive landed
property is worse than valueless. Thus, vast numbers of young men are
brought into the army with the rank of ensign or lieutenant, whose entire

education consists, at the best, in a certain fluency in French conversation on

the most ordinary topics, and some little smattering of elementary
mathematics, geography and history the whole drummed into them for mere
show. To them, to serve is an ugly necessity, to be gone through, like a
prolonged medical treatment, with unfeigned disgust; and as soon as the
prescribed time of service has elapsed, or the grade of major is attained, they
retire, and are inscribed on the rolls of the depot battalions. As to the pupils of
the military schools, they, too, have almost all been crammed so as to pass the
examinations; and they are, even in mere professional knowledge, far behind
the young men from the Austrian, the Prussian, or French military schools. On
the other hand, young men of talent, application, and passion for their special
branch, are so rare in Russia that they are seized upon wherever they show
themselves, he they foreigners or natives. With the greatest liberality, the state
provides them with all the means for completing their studies, and gives them
rapid promotion. Such men are used to show off Russian civilization before
Europe. If they are inclined to literary pursuits, they meet with every
encouragement so long as they do not overstep the bounds of Russian
government requirements, and it is they who. have furnished what little there is
of value in Russian military literature. But up to the present time, the Russians
of all classes are too fundamentally barbarous to find any enjoyment in
scientific pursuits or head-work of any kind (except intrigues), and, therefore,
almost all their distinguished men in the military service are either foreigners,
or, what nearly amounts to the same, ostzeski, Germans from the Baltic
provinces. So was the last and most distinguished specimen of this class,
General Todtleben, the chief engineer at Sebastopol, who died in July from the
effects of a wound. He was certainly the cleverest man at his trade in the whole
siege, either in the Russian or the Allied camp; but he was a Baltic German, of
Prussian extraction.
In this manner the Russian army has among its officers the very best and the
very worst men, only that the former are present in an infinitesimally small
proportion. What the Russian government thinks of its officers it has plainly
and unmistakably shown in its own tactical regulations. These regulations do
not merely prescribe a general mode of placing a brigade, division, or armycorps in action, a so-called normal disposition, which the commander is
expected to vary according to the ground and other circumstances, but they
prescribe different normal dispositions for all the different cases possible,
leaving the general no choice whatever, and tying him down in a manner
which, as much as possible, takes all responsibility from his shoulders. An
army-corps, for instance, can be arranged, in battle, in five different ways,
according to the regulations; and, at the Alma, the Russians were actually

arrayed according to one of them-the third disposition-and, of course, they

were beaten. This mania of prescribing abstract rules for all possible cases,
leaves so little liberty of action to the commander, and even forbids him to use
advantages of ground to such an extent, that a Prussian general in criticising it
says:
Such a system of regulations can he tolerated in an army, only, the majority of whose generals
are so imbecile, that the government cannot safely intrust them with an unconditional command,
or leave them to their own judgment.

The Russian soldier is one of the bravest men in Europe. His tenacity almost
equals that of the English and of certain Austrian battalions. As John Bull
boasts of himself, he does not know when he is beaten. Russian squares of
infantry have resisted, and fought hand to hand, a long while after the cavalry
had broken them; and it has always been found easier to shoot them down
than to drive them back. Sir George Cathcart, who saw them in 1813 and 14,
as allies, and in 1854 in the Crimea, as enemies, gives them the honorable
testimonial that they are incapable of panic. Beside this, the Russian soldier
is well made, healthy, a good marcher, a man of few wants, who can eat and
drink almost anything, and more obedient to his officers than any other soldier
in the world. And yet the Russian army is not much to boast of. Never, since
Russia was Russia, have the Russians won a single battle against either
Germans, French, Poles, or English, without being vastly superior in numbers.
At even odds, they have always been beaten by any army, except Turks or
Prussians; and at Citate and Silistria, the Turks, though inferior in numbers,
defeated them.
The Russians are, above all things, the clumsiest soldiers in the world. They
are not fit either for light infantry or for light cavalry duty. The Cossacks,
capital light cavalry as they are in some respects, are so unreliable generally,
that before the enemy a second line of out-posts is always placed in the rear of
the line of Cossack out-posts. Beside, the Cossacks are totally unfit for a
charge. As to the regular troops, infantry and cavalry, they are not fit to act in
skirmishing order. The Russian, imitator as he is in everything, will do
anything if ordered or compelled, but will do nothing if he has to act upon his
own responsibility; in fact, this term can hardly be applied to a being who
never knew what responsibility was, and who will go to be shot at with the
same passive obedience as if he were ordered to pump water, or to whip a
comrade. To expect from the Russian soldier, when acting on out-post duty or
in skirmishing order, the rapid glance of the Frenchman, or the plain common
sense of the German, would be an insult to him. What he requires is command-

clear, distinct command and if he does not get it, he will perhaps not go
backwards, but he will certainly not go forwards, nor use his own senses.
The cavalry, though a deal of expense and care has been bestowed upon it,
has never been excellent. Neither in the wars against the French, nor in that
against Poland, did the cavalry distinguish itself. The passive, patient, enduring
obedience of the Russians is not what is wanted in cavalry. The first quality of
the horseman is just what the Russian lacks most: dash Thus, when the 600
English dragoons, with all the daring and pluck of real horsemen, dashed at the
numerically far superior Russians at Balaklava, they rode down before them
Russian artillery, Cossacks, hussars, lancers, until they came to the solid
columns of the infantry; then they had to turn back; yet, in that cavalry action,
it is still doubtful who deserves to be called the victor. If such a senseless
charge had been made against any other army, not a man would have returned;
the enemy would have taken them in flank and rear, and cut them down singly.
But the Russian horsemen actually awaited them standing, and were ridden
down before they thought of moving their horses! Surely, if anything should
condemn the Russian regular cavalry, it is such a fact as this.
The artillery is provided with a material of unequal quality, but where it has
good guns, it will do its duty well. It will display great bravery in the field, but
it will always be found wanting in intelligence. A Russian battery which has
lost its officers is good for nothing; and while the officers live, it can only take
the positions, often absurd, prescribed by the regulations. When besieged in a
fortress where patient endurance and constant exposure to danger are required,
the Russian artillery will distinguish itself, not so much by precision of aim, as
by devotion to duty and steadiness under fire. The whole of the siege of
Sebastopol proves this.
In the artillery and engineers, however, are to be found those well-educated
officers whom Russia shows off before Europe, and who are really encouraged
to use their talents freely. While in Prussia, for instance, the best men, when
subalterns, have usually been so thwarted by their superiors, and while all their
proposed improvements have been snubbed as presumptuous attempts at
innovation, so that many of them have had to seek employment in Turkey,
where they have made the regular artillery one of the best in Europe in
Russia, all such men are encouraged, and, if they distinguish themselves, make
a rapid and brilliant career. Diebitsch and Paskiewitsch were generals at
twenty-nine and thirty years of age, and Todtleben, at Sebastopol, in less than
eight months was advanced from a captain to a major-general.

The great boast of the Russians is their infantry. It is of very great solidity,
and, used in line or column, or behind breastworks, will always be awkward to
deal with. But here its good qualities end. Almost totally unfit for light infantry
duty (the so-called chasseurs are light infantry in name only, and the eight
battalions of rifles attached to the line corps are the only real light infantry in
the service), usually bad marksmen, good but slow marchers, their columns are
generally so badly placed that it will always be possible to pound them well
with artillery before they are charged. The normal dispositions, from which
the generals dare not deviate, contribute a great deal toward this. At the Alma,
for instance, the British artillery made terrible havoc amongst the Russian
columns long before the equally clumsy British line had formed, defiled across
the river and re-formed for the charge. But even the boast of solid tenacity
must be taken with a considerable grain of salt, since at Inkermann 8,000
British infantry, surprised in a position but incompletely and slovenly
occupied, resisted, in hand to hand fight, the 15,000 Russians brought against
them for more than four hours, and actually repelled every renewed attack.
This battle must have shown the Russians that, upon their own favorite ground,
they had found their masters. It was the bravery of the British soldiers and the
intelligence and presence of mind of both non-commissioned officers and
soldiers which defeated all the attempts of the Russians; and from this battle
we must consider as justified, the claim of the British to the title of the first
infantry of the line in the world.
The clothing of the Russian army is a pretty close imitation of that of the
Prussians. Their accoutrements are very badly adjusted; not only the belts for
bayonets and cartridge pouch are crossed over the chest, but also the straps
which hold the knapsack. There are, however, some alterations being made
just now, but whether they affect this point, we do not know. The small arms
are very clumsy, and have only been lately provided with percussion caps; a
Russian musket is the heaviest and most unwieldy thing of its kind. The
cavalry swords are of a bad model and badly tempered. Of the guns, the new
ones taken in the Crimea, are described as very good and of excellent
workmanship; but whether that is uniformly the case is very doubtful.
Finally, the Russian army still bears the stamp of an institution in advance of
the general state of civilization of the country, and has all the disadvantages
and drawbacks of such hot-house creations. In petty warfare, the Cossacks are
the only troops to be feared, from their activity and indefatigability; but their
love of drink and plunder makes them very unreliable for their commander. In
grand war, the slowness with which the Russians move will make their
strategic maneuvers little to be feared, unless they have to deal with such

negligent opponents as the English were last autumn. In a pitched battle, they
will be obstinate opponents to the soldiers, but not very troublesome to the
generals who attack them. Their dispositions are generally very simple,
founded upon their prescribed normal rules, and easy to be guessed at; while
the want of intelligence in both general and field officers, and the clumsiness
of the troops, make it a matter of great risk for them to undertake important
maneuvers on a battle field.

III. The Smaller Armies of Germany

Bavaria has two army-corps, of two divisions each. Each division contains
two brigades of infantry (four regiments of infantry and one battalion of rifles),
one brigade of cavalry, containing two regiments, and three foot and one horse
batteries. Each army-corps has, beside, a general reserve of artillery, of six foot
batteries, and a detachment of sappers and miners. Thus, the whole army forms
sixteen regiments of three battalions each, with six battalions of rifles, in all,
fifty-four battalions; two regiments of cuirassiers, and six of light dragoons, in
all, forty-eight squadrons; two regiments of foot artillery (of six six-pounder
and six twelve-pounder batteries each), and one of horse artillery (four sixpounder batteries), in all, twenty-eight batteries of eight guns each, making
224 guns, beside six companies of garrison artillery, and twelve train
companies; there are also one regiment of engineers, of eight companies, and
two sanitary companies. The whole strength, on the war-footing, is 72,000
men, beside a reserve and landwehr, the cadres of which, however, do not
exist.
Of the army of the Germanic Confederation, Austria furnishes the 1st, 2d,
and 3d corps; Prussia the 4th, 5th, and 6th; Bavaria the 7th. The 8th corps is
furnished by Wrttemberg, Baden, and Hesse-Darmstadt.
Wrttemberg has eight regiments (sixteen battalions) of infantry, four of
cavalry (sixteen squadrons), one regiment of artillery (four foot and three
horse-batteries, with forty-eight guns). Total, about 19,000 men on the warfooting.
Baden keeps four regiments (eight battalions), two fusileer battalions, one
rifle battalion; in all, ten battalions of infantry, with three regiments, or twelve
squadrons of cavalry, and four foot and five horse-batteries, containing
together forty guns. Total, on the war-footing, 15,000 men.

Hesse-Darmstadt has four regiments or eight battalions of infantry, one

regiment or six squadrons of light horse, and three batteries of artillery (one
mounted) of eighteen guns. Total, 10,000 men.
The only peculiarity of the 7th and 8th army-corps is, that they have adopted
the French gun-carriage for the artillery. The 9th federal army corps is formed
by the kingdom of Saxony, which furnishes one division, and Electoral Hesse
and Nassau, which furnish the second.
The quota of Saxony is four brigades of infantry, of four battalions each, and
one of rifles, of four battalions; beside four battalions of the line, and one
battalion of rifles as a reserve, still unorganized; four regiments of light horse,
of five squadrons each; one artillery regiment, six foot and two horse-batteries.
Total, twenty battalions of infantry, twenty squadrons and fifty guns; or 24,500
men on the war-footing. In Electoral Hesse there are four regiments or eight
battalions, with one battalion of fusileers and one of rifles; two squadrons of
cuirassiers, seven squadrons of hussars; three batteries, of which one of horse
artillery. Total, ten battalions, nine squadrons, nineteen guns, and 12,000 men
on the war-footing. Nassau affords seven battalions, 2 batteries, or 7,000 men,
and twelve guns, on the war-footing.
The 10th army-corps consists of Hanover and Brunswick, which maintain
the first division; and of Mecklenburg, Holstein, Oldenburg, and the Hanse
towns, which furnish the second division. Hanover furnishes eight regiments
or sixteen battalions, and four battalions of light infantry; six regiments or
twenty-four squadrons of cavalry, and four foot and two horse-batteries. Total,
22,000 men, and thirty-six guns. The artillery is on the English model.
Brunswick furnishes five battalions, four squadrons, and twelve guns, in all,
5,300 men. The small States of the second division are not worth mentioning.
Finally, the smallest of the small fry of German States form a reserve
division, with which the entire army of the German Confederation, on the warfooting, may be summed up in a table, as follows: I. CONTINGENTS.
Inf.

Cav.

Austria

73,501

Prussia

61,629

II. RESERVE CONTINGENTS.

G'ns Total.

Inf.

Cav.

G'ns Total.

13,546 192 94,822

36,750

6,773

96

47,411

11,355 160 79,484

30,834

5,660

80

39,742

Bavaria

27,566

5,086

72

35,600

13,793

2,543

36

17,800

Eighth Corps

23,369

4,308

60

30,150

11,685

2,154

32

15,075

Ninth Corps

19,294

2,887

50

24,254

9,702

1,446

25

12,136

Tenth Corps

22,246

3,572

58

28,067

11,107

1,788

29

14,019

Reserve
Division

11,116

11,116

5,584

Total

238,721 40,754 592 303,493 119,455 20,364 298 151,767

5,584

This of course does not represent the real armed force of the Confederation,
as, in case of need, Prussia, Austria, and Bavaria would furnish far more than
the above contingents. The troops of the 10th corps and reserve division,
perhaps, also, those of the 9th corps, would form the garrisons, so as not to
interfere, by their multifarious organizations and peculiarities, with the rapidity
of field operations. The military qualities of these armies are more or less the
same as those of the Austrian and Prussian soldiers; but, of course, these small
bodies furnish no occasion for developing military talents, and many oldfashioned arrangements exist among them.
In a third and concluding article, we shall consider the Spanish, Sardinian,
Turkish and other armies of Europe.

Friday, March 18, 2005

ENGELS PARANOID ABOUT THE SLAVS

Engels, Germany and Pan-Slavism, 1855: "The Slavic race, long divided by inner struggles, pushed back to the east by the Germans, subjugated in part by Germans, Turks and Hungarians, silently re-uniting its branches after 1815 by the gradual growth of Pan-Slavism, it now makes sure of its unity for
the first time, and with that declares war to-the-death on the Roman-Celtic and German races, who have ruled Europe until now."
Listed, but with no translation here
The German
Engels, "Deutschland und der Panslawismus", 1855
"Die slawische Race, lang geteilt durch innere Zwiste, nach dem Osten zurckgetrieben durch die Deutschen, unterjocht, zum Teil von Deutschen, Trken und Ungarn, still ihre Zweige wiedervereinend, nach 1815, durch das allmhliche Wachstum des Panslawismus, sie versichert nun zum ersten Mal ihre
Einheit und erklrt damit Krieg auf den Tod den rmisch-keltischen und deutschen Racen, die bisher in Europa geherrscht haben."
MEW a.a.O. 11, 198,f.

Thursday, March 17, 2005

MARX PRIVATELY ADMITS HIS OWN JEWISH ORIGINS AND RIDICULES DISRAELI'S ANGLICANISM
(In a letter to his uncle)

Marx to Lion Philips, November 29, 1864: "At a public meeting this week the fellow-member of our race Benjamin Disraeli has again made a dreadful laughing-stock of himself by assuming the mantle of guardian angel of the High Church and Church rates, repudiating criticism in relig ious affairs. He
furnishes the best evidence of how a great talent unaccompanied by conviction creates rogues, albeit gold-braided and 'Right Honorable' ones."
Context here
The German
Marx an Lion Philips, 29. November 1864
unser Stammesgenosse Benjamin Disraeli hat sich in dieser Woche wieder sehr blamiert, indem er als warnender Schutzengel der high church, der church rates und als Abwehrer gegen Kritik in religisen Dingen sich auf einem ffentlichen Meeting breitmachte. Er ist der beste Beweis, wie groes Talent
ohne berzeugung Lumpen schafft ()
MEW, a.a.O. 31, 432.

Marx-Engels Correspondence 1864

Marx To Lion Philips

In Zalt-Bommel
Source: MECW Volume 42, p. 46;
First published: in International Review of Social History, Assen, 1956.

London, 29 November 1864

1 Modena Villas, Maitland Park, Haverstock Hill
Dear Uncle,
I hope that you are in the best of health despite the abominable weather. All
is well here. Except that, to the great alarm of the whole family, I had a most
malignant carbuncle below the left breast at the beginning of this month, which
kept me in great pain for 2-3 weeks. Other than that, everything has been going
well.
The trade crisis, which I predicted to you long before its actual arrival has by
this time long since lost its edge, although its consequences in the
manufacturing districts proper are still very considerable. On the other hand, I
believe a political crisis is to be expected in the spring or early summer.
Bonaparte has again reached the point where he will have to make war again if
he is to raise a loan. The Venetian business is being kept open (I am
acquainted with some of the agents there) so that it can provide a point of
contact if need be. It is possible that Bonaparte will again find a way out, and
then he will keep the peace (for he is no real Napoleon), but that is rather
improbable.
The enclosed printed Address is written by myself. The matter hangs
together like this: in September the Parisian workers sent a delegation to the
London workers to demonstrate support for Poland. On that occasion, an
international Workers Committee was formed. The matter is not without
importance because 1. in London the same people are at the head who
organised the gigantic reception for Garibaldi and, by their monster meeting
with Bright in St Jamess Hall, prevented war with the United States. In a

word, these are the real workers leaders in London, with one or two
exceptions all workers themselves. 2. On the Parisian side, Mr Tolain
(ouvrier himself, as well) et Co. are at the head, i.e., the same people who were
prevented by a mere intrigue on the part of Garnier-Pags, Carnot, etc., from
entering the Corps lgislatif at the last elections in Paris as representatives of
the workers there, and 3. on the Italian side, it has been joined by the
representatives of the 4-500 Italian workers clubs which held their general
congress in Naples some weeks ago an event which even The
Times considered important enough to merit a few dozen lines in the paper.
Courtesy toward the French and the Italians, who always require florid
language, has obliged me to include a few superfluous turns of phrase in the
preamble to the Rules, though not in the Address.
A few days ago I received a letter from America from my friend
Weydemeyer, Colonel in the regiment stationed at St Louis (Missouri).
Amongst other things, he writes and these are his exact words:
We are regrettably being detained here at St Louis, since, in view of the many conservative
elements here, a military force is a continuing necessity to prevent a break-out and the possible
release of the numerous Southern prisoners. ... The whole campaign in Virginia is a blunder,
which has cost us innumerable men. But for all that, the South will not be able to hold out much
longer: it has sent its last man into battle and has no fresh army to call upon. The present
invasion of Missouri, like the incursions into Tennessee, has only the character of a raid, a
foray: there can be no thought of a lasting re-occupation of districts that have been lost.

When you reflect, my dear Uncle, how at the time of Lincolns election 3
years ago it was only a matter of making no further concessions to the slaveowners, whereas now the avowed aim, which has in part already been realised,
is the abolition of slavery, one has to admit that never has such a gigantic
revolution occurred with such rapidity. It will have a highly beneficial
influence on the whole world.
At a public meeting this week the fellow-member of our race Benjamin
Disraeli has again made a dreadful laughing-stock of himself by assuming the
mantle of guardian angel of the High Church and Church rates, repudiating
criticism in religious affairs. He furnishes the best evidence of how a great
talent unaccompanied by conviction creates rogues, albeit gold-braided and
Right Honorable ones.
Those jackasses in Germany have again made a proper laughing-stock of
themselves over the Muller affair, with ex-parson Kinkel at their head.

With kindest regards from the whole family to you and from me to Jettchen,
Dr, Fritz et Co.
Ever your faithful nephew
K. M.
Wednesday, March 16, 2005
MORE BELIEF IN WAR AS AN IMPROVING INFLUENCE

Marx to Engels, 12. September 1863: Our fatherland looks damned pitiful. Without a thrashing from outside nothing can be achieved with these sons-of-bitches.
From the letter about Lapinski
The German
Marx an Engels, 12. September 1863
Unser Vaterland sieht gottsjmmerlich aus. Ohne Keile von auen ist mit diesen Hunden nichts anzufangen.
MEW a.a.O. 30, 370.

Marx-Engels Correspondence 1863

Marx To Engels
In Manchester
Source: MECW, Volume 41, p. 491;
First published: abridged in Die Neue Zeit, Stuttgart, 1897-98 and in full

in MEGA, Berlin, 1930.

[London,] 12 September 1863

Dear Frederick,
My family has been back for about 10 days. Little Jenny is much better and
has stopped coughing. She is now taking salt water baths at home, i.e. baths
with sea salt.About 2 months ago I, too, started taking a bath at home every
morning, sluicing myself with cold water from head to foot, since when I have
been feeling much better.
The most interesting acquaintanceship I have struck up here is that of
Colonel Lapinski. He is without doubt the cleverest Pole besides being
an homme d'action I have ever met. His sympathies are all on the German

side, though in manners and speech he is also a Frenchman. He cares nothing

for the national struggle and only knows the racial struggle. He hates all
Orientals, among whom he numbers Russians Turks, Greeks, Armenians, etc.,
with equal impartiality. He spent some time here in company
with Urquhart, but, not content with describing him as a humbug, he actually
doubts his probity, which is unjust.
The Circassian princes exhibited in England by Urquhart and Lapinski
were two menials. Lapinski maintains that Urquhart is being well and truly
led by the nose by Zamoyski, who in turn is himself simply a tool of
Palmerstons and hence, by this circuitous route, of the Russian Embassy.
Although of Catholic stock, he (Lap.) finds Urquharts relations with the
Catholic bishops in England highly suspect. As soon as action was called for,
he says, e.g. the equipping of a Polish corps to invade Circassia, which L,
too, regards as the best diversion Urquhart allowed himself to be dissuaded
by Zamoyski. By and large, Urquhart only wants to talk. He is a big liar
and he (Lap.) took it particularly amiss that he should have made him (L.) his
co-liar without consulting him beforehand. Not a soul in Circassia knows
Urquhart, who spent only 24 hours there and doesnt speak the language. By
way of illustrating U.s imaginative powers, he mentioned the latters boast
that he (Urq.) had killedChartism in England!
There has been another purge of the National Government in Warsaw. This
had been infiltrated by Czartoryskis supporters as a result of the intrigues of
Bonaparte and Palmerston. Three of these were stabbed and that, pro nunc has
intimidated the rest. (The said Czartoryski party was headed by Majewski.)
The power of the National Government is evident from the fact that the Grand
Duke Constantine accepted a passport from it for a journey abroad. According
to L., Herzen and Bakunin are thoroughly chapfallen because your Russian,
upon being scratched a little, has again revealed himself to be a Tartar.
Bakunin has become a monster, a huge mass of flesh and fat, and is barely
capable of walking any more. To crown it all, he is sexually perverse and
jealous of the seventeen year-old Polish girl who married him in Siberia
because of his martyrdom. He is presently in Sweden, where he is hatching
revolution with the Finns.
In Poland, L. said, it had been necessary de prime abord to disregard the
peasantry, that ultra-reactionary rabble. But they were now ripe for the fray
and would rise at the governments call for a leve en masse.

Without Austria, he went on, the movement would have come to grief long
ago and, if Austria were to close her frontiers in earnest, the rebellion would be
done for in 3 weeks. But Austria was cheating the Poles. Solely out of
desperation, because Francis Joseph knew that he was threatened by a RussianSerbian-Romanian-Italian-French-Hungarian-Prussian bomb did he go to
Frankfurt, and it was for the same reason that the Pope had issued his latest
edict in support of Poland.
L. told me there could be no doubt whatever that it was not just Bangya who
had an understanding with Russia, but also Stein, Trr, Klapka, and Kossuth.
His aim now is to raise a German legion in London, even if only 200 strong,
so that he can confront the Russians in Poland with the black, red and gold
flag, partly to exasperate the Parisians, partly to see whether there is any
possibility whatsoever of bringing the Germans in Germany back to their
senses.
Whats lacking is money. Efforts are being made down here to exploit all the
German societies, etc., to this end. You must be the best judge of whether
anything can be done in this line in Manchester. The cause as such would
appear to be excellent.
Give my regards to Lupus and tell him that I've sent on his letter to Eccarius.
Salut.
Your
K. M.
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
MARX HAD CONTEMPT FOR EVERYBODY -- EVEN HIS FELLOW GERMANS
What he says below is actually pretty good compared to what he says about other nationalities

Marx to J.P. Becker, 26 Feb., 1862: "You should know that the Germans, young and old, are merely self-important, solid men of a practical bent, who consider people like you and me immature fools who still have not been cured of their revolutionary delusions. And the domest ic riff-raff is as bad as the
foreign kind. () Add to that their spent souls - a good thrashing is the only way to resurrect the German Joe ()"
Listed, but with no translation here
The German
Marx an Johann Philipp Becker, 26. Februar 1862
Sie mssen wissen, da die Deutschen, jung und alt, lauter berkluge, gediegene, praktisch einsichtige Mnner sind, die Leute wie Sie und mich fr unreife Narren halten, die immer noch nicht von der Revolutionsphantasterei geheilt sind. Und so schlimm wie im Ausland ist das inlndische Gesindel. (...)
Dazu diese Seelenmattigkeit -- Prgel ist das einzige Resurrektionsmittel fr den deutschen Michel (...)
MEW a.a.O. 30, 619

Marx-Engels Internet Archive

Interview with Karl Marx

by H.

Chicago Tribune, January 5 1879

London, December 18 [1878] In a little villa at Haverstock Hill, the

northwest portion of London, lives Karl Marx, the cornerstone of modern
socialism. He was exiled from his native country Germany in 1844, for
propagating revolutionary theories. In 1848, he returned, but in a few
months was again exiled. He then took up his abode in Paris, but his
political theories procured his expulsion from that city in 1849, and since
that year his headquarters have been in London. His convictions have caused
him trouble from the beginning. Judging from the appearance of his home,
they certainly have not brought him affluence. Persistently during all these
years he has advocated his views with an earnestness which undoubtedly
springs from a firm belief in them, and, however much we may deprecate
their propagation, we cannot but respect to a certain extent the self-denial of
the now venerable exile.
Our correspondent has called upon him twice or thrice, and each time the
Doctor was found in his library, with a book in one hand and a cigarette in
the other. He must be over seventy years of age.[18] His physique is well knit,
massive, erect. He has the head of a man of intellect, and the features of a
cultivated Jew. His hair and beard are long, and iron-gray in color. His eyes
are glittering black, shaded by a pair of bushy eyebrows. To a stranger he

shows extreme caution. A foreigner can generally gain admission; but the
ancient-looking German woman [Helene Demuth] who waits upon visitors has
instructions to admit none who hail from the Fatherland, unless they bring
letters of introduction. Once into his library, however, and having fixed his
one eyeglass in the corner of his eye, in order to take your intellectual
breadth and depth, so to speak, he loses that self-restraint, and unfolds to
you a knowledge of men and things throughout the world apt to interest one.
And his conversation does not run in one groove, but is as varied as are the
volumes upon his library shelves. A man can generally be judged by the
books he reads, and you can form your own conclusions when I tell you a
casual glance revealed Shakespeare, Dickens, Thackeray, Moliere, Racine,
Montaigne, Bacon, Goethe, Voltaire, Paine; English, American, French blue
books; works political and philosophical in Russian, German, Spanish,
Italian, etc., etc. During my conversation I was struck with
His Intimacy with American Questions which have been uppermost
during the past twenty years. His knowledge of them, and the surprising
accuracy with which he criticized our national and state legislation,
impressed upon my mind the fact that he must have derived his information
from inside sources.[19] But, indeed, this knowledge is not confined to
America, but is spread over the face of Europe. When speaking of his hobby
socialism he does not indulge in those melodramatic flights generally
attributed to him, but dwells upon his utopian plans for the emancipation of
the human race with a gravity and an earnestness indicating a firm
conviction in the realization of his theories, if not in this century, at least in
the next.
Perhaps Dr. Karl Marx is better known in America as the author of Capital,
and the founder of the International Society, or at least its most prominent
pillar. In the interview which follows, you will see what he says of this
Society as it at present exists. However, in the meantime I will give you a
few extracts from the printed general rules of The International
Society published in 1871, by order of the General Council, from which you
can form an impartial judgment of its aims and ends. The Preamble sets
forth that the emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by
the working classes themselves; that the struggle for the emancipation of the
working classes means not a struggle for class privileges and monopolies,
but for equal rights and duties, and the abolition of all class rule; that the
economical subjection of the man of labor to the monopolizer of the means
of labor that is, the sources of life lies at the bottom of servitude in all its
forms, of all social misery, mental degradation, and political dependence;

that all efforts aiming at the universal emancipation of the working classes
have hitherto failed from want of solidarity between the manifold divisions
of labor in each country, and the Preamble calls for the immediate
combination of the still-disconnected movements. It goes on to say that the
International Association acknowledges no rights without duties, no duties
without rights thus making every member a worker. the Association was
formed at London to afford a central medium of communication and
cooperation between the workingmens societies in the different countries,
aiming at the same end, namely: the protection, advancement, and
complete emancipation of the working classes. Each member, the
document further says, of the International Association, on removing his
domicile from one country to another, will receive the fraternal support of
the associated workingmen."
The Society Consists of a general Congress, which meets annually, a
general Council, which forms an international agency between the different
national and local groups of the Association, so that the workingmen in one
country can be constantly informed of the movements of their class in every
other country." This Council receives and acts upon the applications of new
branches or sections to join the International, decides differences arising
between the sections, and, in fact, to use an American phrase, runs the
machine." The expenses of the General Council are defrayed by an annual
contribution of an English penny per member. Then come the federal
councils or committees, and local sections, in the various countries. The
federal councils are bound to send one report at least every month to the
General Council, and every three months a report on the administration and
financial state of their respective branches. whenever attacks against the
International are published, the nearest branch or committee is bound to
send at once a copy of such publication to the General Council. The
formation of female branches among the working classes is recommended.
The General Council comprises the following: R. Applegarth, M.T. Boon,
Frederick Bradnick, G.H. Buttery, E. Delahaye, Eugene Dupont (on
mission), William Hales, G. Harris, Hurliman, Jules Johannard, Harriet Law,
Frederick Lessner, Lochner, Charles Longuet, C. Martin, Zevy Maurice,
Henry Mayo, George Milner, Charles Murray, Pfander, John Pach, Ruhl
Sadler, Cowell Stepney, Alfred Taylor, W. Townshend, E. Vaillant, John
Weston. The corresponding secretaries for the various countries are: Leo
Frankel, for Austria and Hungary; A. Herman, Belgium; T. Mottershead,
Denmark; A. Serrailler, France; Karl Marx, Germany and Russia; Charles
Rochat, Holland; J.P. McDonell, Ireland; Frederick Engels, Italy and Spain;

Walery Wroblewski, Poland; Hermann Jung, Switzerland; J.G. Eccarius,

United States; Le Moussu, for French branches of United States.
During my visit to Dr. Marx, I alluded to the platform given by J.C.
Bancroft Davis in his official report of 1877 as the clearest and most concise
exposition of socialism that I had seen.[20] He said it was taken from the
report of the socialist reunion at Gotha, Germany, in May, 1875. The
translation was incorrect, he said, and he Volunteered Corrections which I
append as he dictated:[21]
First: Universal, direct, and secret suffrage for all males over twenty years,
for all elections, municipal and state.
Second: Direct legislation by the people.[22] War and peace to be made by
direct popular vote.
Third: Universal obligation to militia duty. No standing army.
Fourth: Abolition of all special legislation regarding press laws and public
meetings.
Fifth: Legal remedies free of expense. Legal proceedings to be conducted by
the people.
Sixth: Education to be by the state general, obligatory, and free. Freedom
of science and religion.[23]
Seventh: All indirect taxes to be abolished. Money to be raised for state and
municipal purposes by direct progressive income tax.
Eighth: Freedom of combination among the working classes.
Ninth: The legal day of labor for men to be defined. The work of women to
be limited, and that of children to be abolished.
Tenth: Sanitary laws for the protection of life and health of laborers, and
regulation of their dwelling and places of labor, to be enforced by persons
selected by them.
Eleventh: Suitable provision respecting prison labor. In Mr. Bancroft Davis
report there is

A Twelfth Clause[24], the most important of all, which reads: State aid and
credit for industrial societies, under democratic direction. I asked the
Doctor why he omitted this, and he replied:
When the reunion took place at Gotha, in 1875, there existed a
division among the Social Democrats. The one wing were partisans of
Lassalle, the others those who had accepted in general the program of
the International organization, and were called the Eisenach party. The
twelfth point was not placed on the platform, but placed in the general
introduction by way of concession to the Lassallians. Afterwards it was
never spoken of. Mr. Davis does not say that is was placed in the
program as a compromise having no particular significance, but gravely
puts it in as one of the cardinal principles of the program.[25]
But, I said, socialists generally look upon the transformation of the
means of labor into the common property of society as the grand climax of
the movement.
Yes; we say that this will be the outcome of the movement, but it will
be a question of time, of education, and the institution of higher social
status.
This platform, I remarked, applies only to Germany and one or two other
countries.
Ah! he returned, if you draw your conclusions from nothing but this,
you know nothing of the activity of the party. Many of its points have
no significance outside of Germany. Spain, Russia, England, and
America have platforms suited to their peculiar difficulties. The only
similarity in them is the end to be attained.
And that is the supremacy of labor?
That is the Emancipation of Labor
Do European socialists look upon the movement in America as a serious
one?
Yes: it is the natural outcome of the countrys development. It has
been said that the movement has been imported by foreigners. When
labor movements became disagreeable in England, fifty years ago, the
same thing was said; and that was long before socialism was spoken of.

In American, since 1857, only has the labor movement become

conspicuous.[26] Then trade unions began to flourish; then trades
assemblies were formed, in which the workers in different industries
united; and after that came national labor unions. If you consider this
chronological progress, you will see that socialism has sprung up in that
country without the aid of foreigners, and was merely caused by the
concentration of capital and the changed relations between the
workmen and employers.
Now, asked our correspondent, what has socialism done so far?
Two things, he returned. Socialists have shown the general universal
struggle between capital and labor The Cosmopolitan Chapter in
one word and consequently tried to bring about an understanding
between the workmen in the different countries, which became more
necessary as the capitalists became more cosmopolitan in hiring labor,
pitting foreign against native labor not only in America, but in England,
France, and Germany. International relations sprang up at once between
workingmen in the three different countries, showing that socialism
was not merely a local, but an international problem, to be solved by
the international action of workmen. The working classes move
spontaneously, without knowing what the ends of the movement will
be. The socialists invent no movement, but merely tell the workmen
what its character and its ends will be.
Which means the overthrowing of the present social system, I interrupted.
This system of land and capital in the hands of employers, on the one
hand, he continued, and the mere working power in the hands of the
laborers to sell a commodity, we claim is merely a historical phase,
which will pass away and give place to A Higher Social Condition.
We see everywhere a division of society. The antagonism of the two
classes goes hand in hand with the development of the industrial
resources of modern countries. From a socialistic standpoint the means
already exist to revolutionize the present historical phase. Upon trade
unions, in many countries, have been built political organizations. In
America the need of an independent workingmens party has been
made manifest. They can no longer trust politicians. Rings and cliques
have seized upon the legislatures, and politics has been made a trade.
But America is not alone in this, only its people are more decisive than

Europeans. Things come to the surface quicker. There is less cant and
hypocrisy that there is on this side of the ocean.
I asked him to give me a reason for the rapid growth of the socialistic party
in Germany, when he replied:
The present socialistic party came last. Theirs was not the utopian
scheme which made headway in France and England. The German
mind is given to theorizing, more than that of other peoples. From
previous experience the Germans evolved something practical. This
modern capitalistic system, you must recollect, is quite new in
Germany in comparison to other states. Questions were raised which
had become almost antiquated in France and England, and political
influences to which these states had yielded sprang into life when the
working classes of Germany had become imbued with socialistic
theories. therefore, from the beginning almost of modern industrial
development, they have formed an Independent Political Party.
They had their own representatives in the German parliament. There
was no party to oppose the policy of the government, and this devolved
upon them. To trace the course of the party would take a long time; but
I may say this: that, if the middle classes of Germany were not the
greatest cowards, distinct from the middle classes of America and
England, all the political work against the government should have
been done by them.
I asked him a question regarding the numerical strength of the Lassallians in
the ranks of the Internationalists.
The party of Lassalle, he replied, does not exist. Of course there are
some believers in our ranks, but the number is small. Lassalle
anticipated our general principles. When he commenced to move after
the reaction of 1848, he fancied that he could more successfully revive
the movement by advocating cooperation of the workingmen in
industrial enterprises. It was to stir them into activity. He looked upon
this merely as a means to the real end of the movement. I have letters
from him to this effect.[27]
You would call it his nostrum?[28]

Exactly. He called upon Bismarck, told him what he designed, and

Bismarck encouraged Lassalles course at that time in every possible
way.
What was his object?
He wished to use the working classes as a set-off against the middle
classes who instigated the troubles of 1848.
It is said that you are the head and front of socialism, Doctor, and from
your villa here pull the wires of all the associations, revolutions, etc., now
going on. What do you say about it?
The old gentleman smiled: I know it.
It Is Very Absurd yet it has a comic side. For two months previous to
the attempt of Hoedel, Bismarck complained in his North German
Gazettethat I was in league with Father Beck, the leader of the Jesuit
movement, and that we were keeping the socialist movement in such a
condition that he could do nothing with it.
But your International Society in London directs the movement?
The International Society has outlived its usefulness and exists no
longer.[29] It did exist and direct the movement; but the growth of
socialism of late years has been so great that its existence has become
unnecessary. Newspapers have been started in the various countries.
These are interchanged. That is about the only connection the parties in
the different countries have with one another. The International
Society, in the first instance, was created to bring the workmen
together, and show the advisability of effecting organization among
their various nationalities. The interests of each party in the different
countries have no similarity. This specter of the Internationalist leaders
sitting at London is a mere invention. It is true that we dictated to
foreign societies when the Internationalist organization was first
accomplished. We were forced to exclude some sections in New York,
among them one in which Madam Woodhull was conspicuous. [30] that
was in 1871. there are several American politicians I will not name
them who wish to trade in the movement. They are well known to
American socialists.

You and your followers, Dr. Marx, have been credited with all sorts of
incendiary speeches against religion. Of course you would like to see the
whole system destroyed, root and branch.
We know, he replied after a moments hesitation, that violent
measures against religion are nonsense; but this is an opinion: as
socialism grows,Religion Will Disappear.
Its disappearance must be done by social development, in which
education must play a part.
The Reverend Joseph Cook,[31] of Boston you know him
We have heard of him, a very badly informed man upon the subject of
socialism.
In a lecture lately upon the subject, he said, Karl Marx is credited now
with saying that, in the United States, and in Great Britain, and perhaps in
France, a reform of labor will occur without bloody revolution, but that
blood must be shed in Germany, and in Russia, and in Italy, and in
Austria.
No socialist, remarked the Doctor, smiling, need predict that there
will be a bloody revolution in Russia, Germany, Austria, and possibly
Italy if the Italians keep on in the policy they are now pursuing. The
deeds of the French Revolution may be enacted again in those
countries. That is apparent to any political student. But those
revolutions will be made by the majority. No revolution can be made
by a party, but By a Nation.
The reverend gentleman alluded to, I remarked, gave an extract from a
letter which he said you addressed to the Communists of Paris in 1871. Here
it is:
We are as yet but 3,000,000 at most. In twenty years we shall be 50,000,000
100,000,000 perhaps. Then the world will belong to us, for it will be not only Paris, Lyon,
Marseilles, which will rise against odious capital, but Berlin, Munich, Dresden, London,
Liverpool, Manchester, Brussels, St. Petersburg, New York in short, the whole world. And
before this new insurrection, such as history has not yet known, the past will disappear like a
hideous nightmare; for the popular conflagration, kindled at a hundred points at once, will
destroy even its memory!

Now, Doctor, I suppose you admit the authorship of that extract?

I never wrote a word of it. I never write Such Melodramatic

Nonsense.
I am very careful what I do write. That was put in Le Figaro, over my
signature, about that time. There were hundreds of the same kind of
letters flying about them. I wrote to the London Times and declared
they were forgeries; but if I denied everything that has been said and
written of me, I would require a score of secretaries.
But you have written in sympathy with the Paris Communists?
Certainly I have, in consideration of what was written of them in
leading articles; but the correspondence from Paris in English papers is
quite sufficient to refute the blunders propagated in editorials. The
Commune killed only about sixty people; Marshal MacMahon and his
slaughtering army killed over 60,000. There has never been a
movement so slandered as that of the Commune.
Well, then, to carry out the principles of socialism do its believers advocate
assassination and bloodshed?
No great movement, Karl
inaugurated Without Bloodshed.

answered,

has

ever

been

The independence of America was won by bloodshed, Napoleon

captured France through a bloody process, and he was overthrown by
the same means. Italy, England, Germany, and every other country
gives proof of this, and as for assassination, he went on to say, it is
not a new thing, I need scarcely say. Orsini tried to kill Napoleon; kings
have killed more than anybody else; the Jesuits have killed; the Puritans
killed at the time of Cromwell. These deeds were all done or attempted
before socialism was born. Every attempt, however, now made upon a
royal or state individual is attributed to socialism. The socialists would
regret very much the death of the German Emperor at the present time.
He is very useful where he is; and Bismarck has done more for the
cause than any other statesman, by driving things to extremes.
I asked Dr. Marx What He Thought of Bismarck.
He replied that Napoleon was considered a genius until he fell; then he
was called a fool. Bismarck will follow in his wake. He began by
building up a despotism under the plea of unification. his course has

been plain to all. The last move is but an attempted imitation of a coup
detat; but it will fail. The socialists of Germany, as of France,
protested against the war of 1870 as merely dynastic. They issued
manifestoes foretelling the German people, if they allowed the
pretended war of defense to be turned into a war of conquest, they
would be punished by the establishment of military despotism and the
ruthless oppression of the productive masses. The Social-Democratic
party in Germany, thereupon holding meetings and publishing
manifestoes for an honorable peace with France, were at once
prosecuted by the Prussian Government, and many of the leaders
imprisoned. Still their deputies alone dared to protest, and very
vigorously too, in the German Reichstag, against the forcible
annexation of French provinces. However, Bismarck carried his policy
by force, and people spoke of the genius of a Bismarck. The war was
fought, and when he could make no conquests, he was called upon for
original ideas, and he has signally failed. The people began to lose faith
in him. His popularity was on the wane. He needs money, and the state
needs it. Under a sham constitution he has taxed the people for his
military and unification plans until he can tax them no longer, and now
he seeks to do it with no constitution at all. For the purpose of levying
as he chooses, he has raised the ghost of socialism,[32] and has done
everything in his power To Create an Emeute.
You have continual advice from Berlin?
Yes, he said; my friends keep me well advised. It is in a perfectly
quiet state, and Bismarck is disappointed. He has expelled forty-eight
prominent men among them Deputies Hasselman and Fritsche and
Rackow, Bauman, and Adler, of the Freie Presse.[33] These men kept the
workmen of Berlin quiet. Bismarck knew this. He also knew that there
were 75,000 workmen in that city upon the verge of starvation. Once
those leaders were gone, he was confident that the mob would rise, and
that would be the cue for a carnival of slaughter. The screws would
then be put upon the whole German Empire; his petty theory of blood
and iron would then have full sway, and taxation could be levied to any
extent. So far noemeute has occurred, and he stands today confounded
at the situation and the ridicule of all statesmen.
H.[34]

Transcribed in 1996 by Zodiac

Html Markup in 1999 by Brian Baggins.
Notes and Introduction added by Ellen Schwartz
MARX WELCOMED ECONOMIC RECESSION

Engels to Marx, October 29, 1857: "The American crash is wonderful and not over by a long shot. We still have to see the collapse of the majority of the import firms, so far just a few seem to have crashed. The effect on England seems also to have started in the Liverpool Borough-Bank. Tant mieux (so
much the better)"

Context here

The German

Engels an Marx, 29. Oktober 1857

Der American crash ist herrlich und noch lange nicht vorbei. Den Sturz der Masse der Importhuser haben wir noch zu erwarten, bis jetzt scheinen nur einzelne gefallen zu sein. Die Rckwirkung auf England scheint auch in der Liverpooler Borough-Bank erffnet. Tant mieux.

MEW a.a. O. 29, 204.

Marx-Engels Correspondence 1857

Engels To Marx,
In London
Source: MECW Volume 40, p. 195;
First published: abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K.

Marx, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in Marx and Engels, Works, Moscow,
1929.

[St. Hlier,] Jersey, 29 October 1857

3 Edward Place
Dear Marx,
I shall be returning to Manchester a week from today, but dont yet know
what route I shall take. Your letter induced me to question Heckscher again (I
had, of course, already consulted him concerning my return) about the
possibility of a fatal relapse. From his reply I can only conclude that he
believes a relapse might be fatal only if the lungs were affected, and is willing
to guarantee that this will not be so in my case. At all events, he doesnt think
Jersey is of much benefit to me any more; either the things over, or I must go
much further south, and should anyhow return to Manchester, if only as an
experiment, since I can always go away again. Now I'm simply waiting for
some money and then I'll be off. By that time the History of Cannon will be

finished and I'd rather do the other things with possibly a few small
exceptions in Manchester where my books are. I should like to have the D
list soon, otherwise Mr Dana will steal a march on us. What else does the
noble fellow have to say, or havent you heard from him?
So drastically has the iron acted on my blood that my pulse has begun racing
madly and the blood is always rising to my head; its as though I'd been
drinking I feel quite fuddled and my excitation is such that I cant sleep at
night. So for the time being I've had to stop taking it again. When I go back
onto it in Manchester I shall have to reduce the dose considerably.
The advancing season is having a most debilitating effect on Schramm.
Needless to say, he can only go out very little now and seldom comes into the
town and only at the cost of considerable effort. The old philistine sent to him
by his brother is a very bawdy fellow, who knows all the Berlin gossip, but in
other ways stupid and boring. However, he'll be able to pester Konrads
worthy brother on Konrads behalf and this he has promised me to do.
Schramm has had a door made in the wall between his bedroom and livingroom which enables him to heat the former a bit and avoid going out into the
hall in winter. This has put an end to the house-hunting. He'll hardly outlast the
spring, poor devil.
Harney grows more stupid every day. Considering the nature of the feudal
arrangements here, he should be able to make a deal of political capital out of
them, but he doesnt even begin to understand them and, moreover, ruins all
the best points made by the little lawyer who supplies him with material and
even complete articles. There is, by the way, much that is funny about this
dead-and-alive feudal set-up, and the whole business is preposterous to a
degree. A modern lawyer for Seigneur and St. Hliershopkeepers for vassals
the masquerade is altogether grotesque. Just now the fellows are holding
feudal courts of justice; the prvt du Seigneur is a carver andgilder who
doesnt know a word of French and, although hes the second personage here,
hasnt an inkling of whats going on. The Seigneur threatens to confiscate the
houses of his unruly vassals, who make up some 60-70 per cent of the total
number, while the vassals drapers and tallow-chandlers threaten to
meet force with force. Voil the present state of affairs.
If you write to me on Monday, but in time for the mail, your letter will still
find me here; whether I shall still be here on Thursday, I am not quite sure.
Warmest regards to your wife and children.

Your
F. E.
The Sepoys must have defended the enceinte of Delhi very badly; the real
joke was the house-to-house fighting when, presumably, the native
troops were sent in first. So the actual siege what came afterwards could
hardly be described as such lasted from the 5th to the 14th, long enough for
breaches to be made in the unprotected wall by heavy naval guns firing at a
range of 300-400 yards. These were already in position by the 5th or 6th. The
cannon on the walls do not appear to have been effectively manned, otherwise
the English wouldnt have been able to make so swift an approach.
The American crash is superb and not yet over by a long chalk. We still
have to see the collapse of the better part of the import houses; so far only one
here and there would appear to have crashed. The repercussion in England
would seem to have begun with the Liverpool Borough Bank. Tant mieux.
That means that, for the next 3 or 4 years, commerce will again be in a bad
way. Nous avons maintenant de la chance.
I havent got a stamp in the house and it is now midnight.
Sunday, March 13, 2005
MARX THOUGHT WAR WAS A HEALTHY INFLUENCE

Marx, Engels, The Boring War, 1854: Even with Europe in decay, still a war should have roused the healthy elements; a war should have awakened a lot of hidden powers, and surely so much energy would have been present among 250 million people that at least a respectable battle would have
occurred, in which both parties could have reaped some honor, as much honor as courage and bravery can gain on the battlefield.
Source (In German only). This was originally published in English but the original seems to be unavailable. The quote above is translated from the German.
The German
Marx, Engels, Der langweilige Krieg, 1854
Mag Europa verfault sein, ein Krieg htte jedoch die gesunden Elemente aufrtteln mssen; ein Krieg htte manche verborgenen Krfte wecken mssen, und sicherlich wren unter 250 Millionen Menschen soviel Energie vorhanden gewesen, da wenigstens ein ordentlicher Kampf zustande gekommen wre,
in dem beide Parteien etwas Ehre geerntet htten, soviel wie Mut und Tapferkeit eben auf dem Schlachtfeld zu erringen vermgen.
MEW a.a.O. 10, 379

Seitenzahlen verweisen auf: Karl Marx - Friedrich Engels - Werke, Band 10, S. 375-380
Dietz Verlag, Berlin/DDR 1961

Karl Marx/Friedrich Engels

Der langweilige Krieg

Geschrieben 29. Juli bis 1. August 1854.
Aus dem Englischen.

["New-York Daily Tribune" Nr. 4159 vom 17. August 1854]

<375> Fast zwlf Monate sind nun verstrichen, seit ein kleines trkisches Korps, zwei
Bataillone, bei Turtukai gegenber von Oltenitza erfolgreich die Donau berschritt,
dort Verschanzungen errichtete, und als es von den Russen angegriffen wurde, diese
in einem lebhaften kurzen Treffen zurckschlug; das war der erste Zusammensto in
diesem Kriege, und er erhielt den stolzen Namen Schlacht von Oltenitza. Hier standen
die Trken den Russen allein gegenber; sie hatten keine britischen oder
franzsischen Truppen als Reserve hinter sich und konnten keine Untersttzung von
den alliierten Flotten erwarten. Dennoch behaupteten sie sich auf der walachischen
Seite des Flusses bei Oltenitza vierzehn Tage lang und bei Kalafat den ganzen Winter.
Seitdem haben England und Frankreich Ruland den Krieg erklrt; allerlei
Heldentaten, wenn auch etwas zweifelhafter Natur, sind vollbracht worden.
Schwarzmeerflotten, Ostseeflotten und eine Armee von fast 100.000 englischen und
franzsischen Soldaten sind den Trken zu Hilfe geeilt oder suchen den Feind von
ihnen abzulenken. Und das Ergebnis davon ist nichts als eine Wiederholung des
Unternehmens von Oltenitza in grerem Stil, aber eigentlich weniger erfolgreich als
im vorigen Jahr.
Die Russen belagerten Silistria. Sie gingen sinnlos, aber tapfer dabei vor. Tag fr Tag,
Nacht fr Nacht wurden sie geschlagen; nicht etwa infolge berlegener Kenntnisse,
nicht durch Kapitn Butler oder Leutnant Nasmyth, die beiden dort anwesenden
britischen Offiziere, die nach Aussage der "Times" Silistria retteten. Sie wurden
geschlagen durch die Unwissenheit der Trken, eine Unwissenheit, die so weit ging,
da sie nicht erkannten, wann ein Fort oder ein Wall nicht mehr gehalten werden
kann, und sich hartnckig an jeden Zoll Erde, an jeden Maulwurfshgel klammerten,
den <376> der Feind zu erobern trachtete. Die Russen wurden auerdem durch die
Dummheit ihrer eigenen Generale geschlagen, durch Fieber und Cholera und endlich
durch den moralischen Eindruck einer Armee der Alliierten, die ihren linken Flgel,
und einer sterreichischen Armee, die ihren rechten Flgel bedrohte. Als der Krieg
begann, stellten wir fest, da die Russen niemals imstande gewesen waren, eine
frmliche Belagerung durchzufhren, und die schlecht geleiteten Operationen vor
Silistria beweisen, da sie seither nichts gelernt haben. Sie wurden also geschlagen,
muten in der denkbar schimpflichsten Weise abziehen, muten die Belagerung einer
unvollkommenen Festung inmitten der schnen Jahreszeit abbrechen, ohne da der
Besatzung irgendwelche Truppen zu Hilfe gekommen wren. So etwas kommt nur
alle hundert Jahre einmal vor. Und was die Russen im Herbst auch unternehmen
mgen, der Feldzug ist und bleibt fr sie schmachvoll verloren.
Nun aber zur Kehrseite der Medaille. Silistria ist frei. Die Russen ziehen sich auf das
linke Ufer der Donau zurck. Sie bereiten sich sogar auf die Rumung der
Dobrudscha vor und fhren sie nach und nach durch. Hirsowa und Matschin sind
gerumt. Der Sereth scheint die Linie zu sein, die die Russen zur Verteidigung nicht

ihrer Eroberungen; sondern ihres eigenen Gebietes ausersehen haben. Der alte schlaue
Kroate Omer Pascha, der so gut wie nur irgendeiner "in Erfllung seiner Pflicht"
schweigen oder lgen kann, sendet gleichzeitig ein Korps in die Dobrudscha und ein
anderes nach Rustschuk und bindet damit beide Flgel der Russen. Freilich wren zu
dieser Zeit viel bessere Operationen mglich gewesen, aber der gute alte Omer kennt
wahrscheinlich seine Trken und die Alliierten besser als wir. Militrisch richtig wre
es gewesen, durch die Dobrudscha oder ber Kalarasch auf die Kommunikationen des
Feindes zu marschieren; aber nach allein, was wir gesehen haben, drfen wir Omer
nicht anklagen, eine gute Gelegenheit verpat zu haben. Wir wissen, da sein Heer
sehr schlecht versorgt ist- es mangelt an fast allem - und daher keine raschen
Bewegungen ausfhren kann, die es zu weit von seiner Basis entfernen oder die neue
Operationslinien erffnen wrden. So entscheidend solche Bewegungen wirken, wenn
sie von ausreichenden Krften unternommen werden, so liegen sie fr eine Armee, die
von der Hand in den Mund lebt und durch ein unfruchtbares Land zieht, auerhalb der
Mglichkeiten. Wir wissen, da Omer Pascha nach Varna ging und die alliierten
Generale um Hilfe anflehte, die damals mit 75.000 vorzglichen Soldaten nur vier
Tagemrsche weit von der Donau standen. Aber weder Saint-Arnaud noch Raglan
dachten daran, dorthin zu gehen, wo sie dem Feind begegnen knnten. So konnte
Omer nicht mehr <377> tun, als er getan hat. Er sandte 25.000 Mann in die
Dobrudscha und marschierte mit dem Rest seiner Armee nach Rustschuk. Hier gingen
seine Truppen von Insel zu Insel, bis die Donau berschritten war; dann faten sie
durch einen pltzlichen Marsch nach links Giurgewo im Rcken und zwangen die
Russen, den Ort zu rumen. Am nchsten Tag zogen sich diese auf einige Hhen im
Norden Giurgewos zurck, wo sie von den Trken angegriffen wurden. Es kam zu
einer blutigen Schlacht, bemerkenswert durch die Zahl der englischen Offiziere, die
sich mit ungewhnlichem Erfolg darum bewarben, zuerst totgeschossen zu werden.
Jeder bekam seine Kugel, aber es hatte niemand etwas davon; denn es wre albern,
anzunehmen, da sich ein trkischer Soldat bis zur Unbesiegbarkeit begeistert fhlen
sollte, wenn er sieht, wie britische Offiziere totgeschossen werden. Wie dem auch sei,
die Russen, die nur eine Vorhut - eine Brigade, und zwar das Kolywaner und das
Tomsker Regiment - an Ort und Stelle hatten, wurden geschlagen, und die Trken
faten auf dem walachischen Ufer der Donau festen Fu. Sie machten sich gleich
daran, den Platz zu befestigen, und da sie englische Sappeure hatten und wie bei
Kalafat auch selbst famos arbeiteten, so htten sie ohne Zweifel eine
furchteinflende Position daraus gemacht. Jetzt aber hie es: bis hierher und nicht
weiter. Derselbe Kaiser von sterreich, der sich acht Monate lang so sehr bemht hat,
den Unparteiischen zu spielen, mischt sich nun pltzlich ein. Wurden ihm doch die
Frstentmer als Futterpltze fr seine Truppen versprochen, und er besteht darauf.
Was haben die Trken dort zu suchen? Sie sollen zurck nach Bulgarien gehen.
Darum kommt von Konstantinopel der Befehl, die trkischen Truppen vom linken
Ufer zurckzuziehen, und "dieses ganze Fleckchen Erde" den sterreichischen

Soldaten auf Gnade und Ungnade zu berlassen. Die Diplomatie steht ber der
Strategie. Was auch daraus entstehen mag, die sterreicher wollen ihre Grenzen
schtzen, indem sie noch einige Yards Grund und Boden darber hinaus okkupieren;
und diesem wichtigen Zweck opfern sie sogar die Notwendigkeiten des Krieges. Ist
Omer Pascha auerdem nicht ein sterreichischer Deserteur? sterreich vergit das
niemals. In Montenegro stellte es sich seiner siegreichen Laufbahn in den Weg, und
nun wiederholt es das Spiel, um den Renegaten fhlen zu lassen, da er gegen seinen
gesetzlichen Herrscher noch Untertanenpflichten hat.
Es lohnt berhaupt nicht, auf die militrischen Details im jetzigen Stadium des
Feldzugs einzugehen. Die Treffen haben geringe taktische Bedeutung, da sie einfache,
direkte Frontalangriffe sind; die Truppenbewegungen werden auf beiden Seiten mehr
von diplomatischen als von strategischen Motiven geleitet. Wahrscheinlich wird der
Feldzug ohne jedes grere Unter- <378> nehmen abschlieen, denn an der Donau ist
nichts fr eine grere Offensive vorbereitet, und was die Einnahme von Sewastopol
betrifft, von der wir so viel hren, so wird sich ihr Beginn vermutlich hinauszgern,
bis sie wegen der vorgerckten Jahreszeit bis zum nchsten Jahr verschoben werden
mu.
Wer immer in Europa irgendwelche konservativen Gesinnungen hatte, dem mten
sie, sollte man meinen, vergehen, wenn er auf diese ewige orientalische Frage blickt.
Da ist ganz Europa, unfhig, seit den letzten 60 Jahres erwiesenermaen unfhig,
diesen winzig kleinen Streit zu schlichten. Da sind Frankreich, England, Ruland, die
wirklich in den Krieg ziehen. Seit sechs Monaten fhren sie bereits Krieg; aber es ist
noch nicht einmal zum Kampf gekommen, es sei denn versehentlich oder in kaum
nennenswertem Umfang, Da sind in Varna 80.000 bis 90.000 englische und
franzsische Soldaten unter dem Befehl des ehemaligen Kriegssekretrs des alten
Wellington <Raglan> und eines Marschalls von Frankreich <Saint-Arnaud> (dessen
grte Heldentaten allerdings in Londoner Leihhusern vollbracht wurden) - da sind
die Franzosen, die nichts tun, und die Briten, die ihnen dabei soviel wie mglich
helfen. Da ihnen diese Art der Beschftigung vielleicht doch nicht gerade ehrenvoll
erscheint, sind die Flotten nach der Reede von Baltschik gekommen, um nach ihnen
zu sehen und sich zu berzeugen, welche der beiden Armeen sich des dolce far niente
<sen Nichtstun> mit grerem Anstand zu erfreuen vermag. Und obgleich die
Alliierten bisher nichts getan haben, als die Vorrte, auf die das trkische Heer
gerechnet hatte, zu verzehren und whrend der letzten zwei Monate einen Tag nach
dem anderen vor Varna zu vertrdeln, sind sie noch nicht einsatzbereit. Sie htten
Silistria, wenn ntig, ungefhr Mitte Mai nchsten Jahres entsetzt. Diese Truppen, die
Algerien erobert und die Theorie und Praxis des Kriegs auf einem der schwierigsten
vorhandenen Kriegsschaupltze kennengelernt haben, diese Soldaten, die gegen die
Sikhs an den Ufern des Indus und gegen die Kaffern im dornigen Busch Sdafrikas

kmpften, in Lndern, weit wilder als Bulgarien - sie sind in einem Lande, das sogar
Getreide exportiert, hilflos und nutzlos, zu nichts zu gebrauchen!
Die Russen aber stehen den Alliierten an Untauglichkeit nicht nach. Sie hatten
reichlich Zeit, sich vorzubereiten. Sie taten auch, was sie konnten, denn sie wuten
von Anfang an, welchen Widerstand sie finden wrden. Und trotzdem, was haben sie
geleistet? Nichts. Nicht einen Fubreit des umstrittenen Bodens haben sie den Trken
weggenommen; sie konnten Kalafat nicht nehmen und die Trken in keinem einzigen
Treffen schlagen. Dennoch sind es dieselben Russen, die unter Mnnich und
Suworow die <379> Schwarzmeerkste vom Don bis zum Dnestr eroberten. Aber
Schilder ist kein Mnnich, Paskewitsch kein Suworow, und wenn der russische Soldat
mehr Stockprgel als jeder andere vertrgt, so verliert er doch so gut wie jeder andere
seine Beharrlichkeit, wenn er stndig zurckweichen mu.
Tatsache ist, da das konservative Europa - das Europa "der Ordnung, des Besitzes,
der Familie, der Religion" - das Europa der Monarchen, der Feudalherren, der
Geldleute, wie unterschiedlich ihr Verhltnis zueinander in den einzelnen Lndern
auch sein mag, wieder einmal seine uerste Impotenz zeigt. Mag Europa verfault
sein, ein Krieg htte jedoch die gesunden Elemente aufrtteln mssen; ein Krieg htte
manche verborgenen Krfte wecken mssen, und sicherlich wre unter 250 Millionen
Menschen so viel Energie vorhanden gewesen, da wenigstens ein ordentlicher
Kampf zustande gekommen wre, in dem beide Parteien etwas Ehre geerntet htten,
soviel wie Mut und Tatkraft eben auf dem Schlachtfeld zu erringen vermgen. Aber
nein. Nicht nur das England der Bourgeoisie und das Frankreich der Bonaparte ist zu
einem ordentlichen, frischen, krftig ausgefochtenen Krieg untauglich geworden,
sondern auch Ruland, dasjenige Land Europas, das von der entnervenden, Treue und
Glauben verachtenden Zivilisation am wenigsten angekrnkelt ist, bringt derartiges
nicht zuwege. Die Trken eignen sich zu pltzlichen Aktionen in der Offensive und
zu hartnckigem Widerstand in der Defensive, aber fr groe kombinierte Manver
mit gewaltigen Armeen sind sie anscheinend nicht geschaffen. Alles bleibt daher auf
ein gewisses Unvermgen, auf ein gegenseitiges Eingestndnis von Schwche
beschrnkt, und alle Parteien scheinen voneinander nichts anderes zu erwarten. Unter
Regierungen, wie wir sie gegenwrtig haben, kann dieser orientalische Krieg noch
dreiig Jahre fortgefhrt werden und doch zu keinem Ende kommen.
Whrend sich so die offizielle Unfhigkeit in ganz Europa offenbart, bricht im
sdwestlichen Teil dieses Kontinents eine Bewegung aus, die uns auf einmal zeigt,
da es noch andere Krfte gibt, die aktiver sind als die offiziellen. Wie der wahre
Charakter und das Ende der spanischen Erhebung auch aussehen mgen, soviel lt
sich zumindest behaupten, da sie zu einer knftigen Revolution in derselben
Beziehung stehen wird wie die Schweizer und italienischen Bewegungen von 1847 zu
der Revolution von 1848. Zwei wichtige Tatsachen treten in Spanien hervor: Erstens,

das Militr, das seit 1849 den Kontinent tatschlich beherrschte, hat sich innerlich
gespalten und seinen Beruf, die Ordnung aufrechtzuerhalten, aufgegeben zu dem
Zweck, seine eigene Meinung in Opposition zur Regierung durchzusetzen. Seine
Disziplin lehrte das Militr seine Macht, und diese Macht hat seine Disziplin
gelockert. <380> Zweitens erlebten wir das Schauspiel einer erfolgreichen
Barrikadenschlacht. Wo seit dem Juni 1848 auch Barrikaden errichtet worden waren,
hatten sie sich bisher als unwirksam erwiesen. Barrikaden, die Form des Widerstandes
der Bevlkerung einer groen Stadt gegen das Militr, schienen ganz ohne Wirkung
zu sein. Dieses Vorurteil ist beseitigt. Wir haben wieder siegreiche, unangreifbare
Barrikaden gesehen. Der Bann ist gebrochen. Eine neue revolutionre ra ist wieder
mglich geworden, und es ist bezeichnend, da die Truppen des offiziellen Europas,
whrend sie sich im wirklichen Krieg als unbrauchbar erweisen, zur gleichen Zeit von
der aufstndischen Bevlkerung einer Stadt geschlagen werden.
Saturday, March 12, 2005
MARX EXPLOITED HIS ELDERLY FATHER FINANCIALLY

Heinrich Marx to son Karl, 10 February 1838: "(...) ,and I do not deny that at times I reproach myself with having left you all too loose a rein in this respect. Thus we are now in the fourth month of the law year and you have already drawn 280 Thalers. I have not yet earned that much this winter.... I am
exhausted, dear Karl, and must close."
Context here
The German
Heinrich Marx an Sohn Karl, 10. Feb. 1838
"(...) ich leugne nicht, da ich mir zuweilen Vorwrfe mache, allzu schwach Dir den Zgel gelassen zu haben. So sind wir jetzt im vierten Monat des Justizjahres, und schon hast Du 280 Taler gezogen. So viel hab' ich diesen Winter noch nicht verdient (...) Ich bin erschpft, lieber Karl, und mu schlieen."
MEGA a.a.O. 1. Abt. Bd. 1f 2. Halbbd. S. 228 f.

Letter from Heinrich Marx to

son Karl
in Berlin

Written: Trier, February 10, 1838

Source: Marx Engels Collected Works Vol 1, pg 691-694.
Publisher: International Publishers (1975)
First Published: Marx/Engels, Gesamtausgabe, Abt. 1, Hb. 2, 1929
Translated: Clemens Dutt

Transcribed: S. Ryan
HTML Markup: S. Ryan

Dear Karl,
For already two months now I have had to keep to my room, and for one
whole month to my bed, and so it has come about that I have not written to you
Today I intend to be up for a few hours and to see how far I can succeed in
writing a letter. True, I manage rather shakily, but I do manage, only I shall of
course have to be somewhat shorter than I should be and would like to be.
When I wrote you a rather blunt letter, the mood in which I was had
naturally to be taken into account, but that mood did not make me invent
anything, although of course it could make me exaggerate.
To embark again on a discussion of each separate complaint is what I am
now least capable of doing, and in general I do not want to engage with you in
the art of abstract argument, because in that case I should first of all have to
study the terminology before I could as much as penetrate into the sanctum,
and I am too old for that.
All right, if your conscience modestly harmonises with your philosophy and
is compatible with it.
Only on one point, of course, all transcendentalism is of no avail, and on that
you have very wisely found fit to observe an aristocratic silence; I am referring
to the paltry matter of money, the value of which for the father of a family you
still do not seem to recognise, but I do all the more, and I do not deny that at
times I reproach myself with having left you all too loose a rein in this respect.
Thus we are now in the fourth month of the law year and you have already
drawn 280 talers. I have not yet earned that much this winter.
But you are wrong in saying or imputing that I misjudge or misunderstand
you. Neither the one nor the other. I give full credit to your heart, to your
morality. Already in the first year of your legal career I gave you irrefutable
proof of this by not even demanding an explanation in regard to a very obscure
matter, even though it was very problematic. -- Only real faith in your high
morality could make this possible, and thank heaven I have not gone back on
it. -- But that does not make me blind, and it is only because I am tired that I
lay down my arms. But always believe, and never doubt, that you have the

innermost place in my heart and that you are one of the most powerful levers
in my life.
Your latest decision is worthy of the highest praise and well considered,
wise and commendable, and if you carry out what you have promised, it will
probably bear the best fruits. And rest assured that it is not only you who are
making a big sacrifice. The same applies to all of us, but reason must triumph.
I am exhausted, dear Karl, and must close. I regret that I have not been able
to write as I wanted to. I would have liked to embrace you with all my heart,
hut my still poor condition makes it impossible.
Your last proposal concerning me has great difficulties. What rights can I
bring to bear? What support have I?
Your faithful father
Marx
[Postscript by Marx's mother]
Dear beloved Carl,
For your sake your dear father has for the first time undertaken the effort of
writing to you. Good father is very weak, God grant that he may soon regain
his strength. I am still in good health, dear Carl, and I am resigned to my
situation and calm. Dear Jenny behaves as a loving child towards her parents,
takes an intimate part ill everything and often cheers us up by her loving
childlike disposition, which still manages to find a bright side to everything.
Write to me, dear Carl, about what has been the matter with you and whether
you are quite well again. I am the one most dissatisfied that you are not to
come during Easter; I let feeling go before reason and I regret, dear Carl, that
you are too reasonable. You must not take my letter as the measure of my
profound love; there are times when one feels much and can say little. So
good-bye, dear Carl, write soon to your good father, and that will certainly
help towards his speedy recovery.
Your ever loving mother
Henriette Marx
[Postscript by Marx's sister Sophie]

You will be glad, dear Karl, to hear from Father; my long letter now appears
to me so unimportant that I do not know whether I should enclose it, since I
fear that it might not be worth the cost of carriage.
Dear Father is getting better, it is high time too. He will soon have been in
bed for eight weeks, and he only got up for the first time a few days ago so that
the bedroom could be aired. Today he made a great effort to write a few lines
to you in a shaky hand. Poor Father is now very impatient, and no wonder: the
whole winter he has been behindhand with business matters, and the need is
now four times as great as before. I sing to him daily and also read to him. Do
send me at last the romance you have so long promised me. Write at once, it
will be a pleasant distraction for us all. Karoline is not well, and Louise is also
in bed; in all probability she has scarlet fever. Emilie keeps cheerful and in
good spirits, and Jette is not exactly in the most amiable humour.

Friday, March 11, 2005

MARX LIVED LIKE A LORD ON HIS FATHER'S MONEY

Heinrich Marx to son Karl, 9 December 1837: "As if we were men of wealth, in one year my lord son disposes of almost 700 Taler against all agreements, against all customs, while the wealthiest people dont even spend 500 ()
Context here
The German
Heinrich Marx an Sohn Karl, 9. Dez. 1837
() Als wren wir Goldmnnchen, verfgt der Herr Sohn in einem Jahre fr beinahe 700 Taler gegen alle Abrede, gegen alle Geb ruche, whrend die Reichsten keine 500 ausgeben ()
MEW a.a.O. Ergbd. 1, S. 635 ff
posted by JR at 5:40 PM

Letter from Heinrich Marx to

son Karl
in Berlin

Written: Trier, December 9, 1837

Source: Marx Engels Collected Works Vol 1, pg 685-691.

Publisher: International Publishers (1975)

First Published: Marx/Engels, Gesamtausgabe, Abt. 1, Hb. 2, 1929
Translated: Clemens Dutt
Transcribed: S. Ryan
HTML Markup: S. Ryan

Dear Karl,
If one knows one's weaknesses, one must take steps against them. If then I
wanted as usual to write in a coherent way, in the end my love for you would
mislead me into adopting a sentimental tone, and all that had gone before
would be the more wasted since you -- so it seems at least -- never take a letter
in your hand a second time, and indeed quite logically, for why read a letter a
second time if the letter sent in return is never an answer.
I will therefore give vent to my complaints in the form of aphorisms, for
they are really complaints that I am putting forward. So, in order to make them
quite clear to myself and to make you swallow them like pills, I raise questions
which I am inclined to settle quite a posteriori.
1. What is the task of a young man on whom nature has incontestably
bestowed unusual talent, in particular
a) if he, as he asserts and moreover I willingly believe, reveres his father and
idealises his mother;
b) if he, without regard to his age and situation, has bound one of the noblest
of girls to his fate, and
c) has thereby put a very honourable family into the position of having to
approve a relationship which apparently and according to the usual way of the
world holds out great dangers and gloomy prospects for this beloved child?
2. Had your parents any right to demand that your conduct, your way of life,
should bring them joy, at least moments of joy, and as far as possible banish
causes of sorrow?
3. What have been so far the fruits of your magnificent natural gifts, as far as
your parents are concerned?

4. What have been these fruits as far as you yourself are concerned?
Strictly speaking, I could and should perhaps end here and leave it to you to
reply and give a complete explanation. But I am afraid of any vein of poetry in
this connection. I will reply prosaically, from real life as it actually is, at the
risk of appearing too prosaic even to my Herr Son.
The mood in which I find myself is in fact anything but poetic. With a cough
which I have had for a year and which makes it hard for me to follow my
profession, coupled with recent attacks of gout, I find myself to be more illhumoured than is reasonable and become annoyed at my weakness of
character, and so, of course, you can only expect the descriptions of an aging,
ill-tempered man who is irritated by continual disappointments and especially
by the fact that he is to hold up to his own idol a mirror full of distorted
images.
Replies and/or Complaints
1. Gifts deserve, call for gratitude; and since magnificent natural gifts are
certainly the most excellent of all, they call for a specially high degree of
gratitude. But the only way nature allows gratitude to be shown her is by
making proper use of these gifts and, if I may use an ordinary expression,
making one's talent bear profit.
I am well aware how one should and must reply in a somewhat nobler style,
namely, such gifts should be used for one's own ennoblement, and I do not
dispute that this is true. Yes, indeed, they should be used for one's
ennoblement. But how? One is a human being, a spiritual being, and a member
of society, a citizen of the state. Hence physical, moral, intellectual and
political ennoblement. Only if unison and harmony are introduced into the
efforts to attain this great goal can a beautiful, attractive whole make its
appearance, one which is well-pleasing to God, to men, to one's parents and to
the girl one loves, and which deserves with greater truth and naturalness to be
called a truly plastic picture than would a meeting with an old schoolfellow.
But, as I have said, only the endeavour to extend ennoblement in due, equal
proportion to all parts is evidence of the will to prove oneself worthy of these
gifts; only through the evenness of this distribution can a beautiful structure,
true harmony, be found.
Indeed, if restricted to individual parts, the most honest endeavours not only
do not lead to a good result, on the contrary, they produce caricatures: if

restricted to the physical part -- simpletons; if to the moral part -- fanatical

visionaries; if to the political part -- intriguers, and if to the intellectual part -learned boors.
a) Yes, a young man must set himself this goal if he really wants to give joy
to his parents, whose services to him it is for his heart to appreciate; especially
if he knows that his parents put their finest hopes in him.
b) Yes, he must bear in mind that he has undertaken a duty, possibly
exceeding his age, but all the more sacred on that account, to sacrifice himself
for the benefit of a girl who has made a great sacrifice in view of her
outstanding merits and her social position in abandoning her brilliant situation
and prospects for an uncertain and duller future and chaining herself to the fate
of a younger man. The simple and practical solution is to procure her a future
worthy of her, in the real world, not in a smoke-filled room with a reeking oillamp at the side of a scholar grown wild.
c) Yes, he has a big debt to repay, and a noble family has the right to
demand adequate compensation for the forfeiting of its great hopes so well
justified by the excellent personality of the child. For, in truth, thousands of
parents would have refused their consent. And in moments of gloom your own
father almost wishes they had done so, for the welfare of this angelic girl is all
too dear to my heart; truly I love her like a daughter, and it is for that very
reason that I am so anxious for her happiness.
All these obligations together form such a closely woven bond that it alone
should suffice to exorcise all evil spirits, dispel all errors, compensate for all
defects and develop new and better instincts. It should suffice to turn an
uncivilised stripling into an orderly human being, a negating genius into a
genuine thinker, a wild ringleader of wild young fellows into a man fit for
society, one who retains sufficient pride not to twist and turn like an eel, but
has enough practical intelligence and tact to feel that it is only through
intercourse with moral-minded people that he can learn the art of showing
himself to the world in his most pleasant and most advantageous aspect, of
winning respect, love and prestige as quickly as possible, and of making
practical use of the talents which mother nature has in fact lavishly bestowed
upon him.
That, in short, was the problem. How has it been solved?
God's grief!!! Disorderliness, musty excursions into all departments of
knowledge, musty brooding under a gloomy oil-lamp; running wild in a

scholar's dressing-gown and with unkempt hair instead of running wild over a
glass of beer; unsociable withdrawal with neglect of all decorum and even of
all consideration for the father. -- The art of association with the world
restricted to a dirty work-room, in the classic disorder of which perhaps the
love-letters of a Jenny and the well-meant exhortations of a father, written
perhaps with tears, are used for pipe-spills, which at any rate would be better
than if they were to fall into the hands of third persons owing to even more
irresponsible disorder. -- And is it here, in this workshop of senseless and
inexpedient erudition, that the fruits are to ripen which will refresh you and
your beloved, and the harvest to be garnered which will serve to fulfil your
sacred obligations!?
3. I am, of course, very deeply affected in spite of my resolution, I am
almost overwhelmed by the feeling that I am hurting you, and already my
weakness once again begins to come over me, but in order to help myself,
quite literally, I take the real pills prescribed for me and swallow it all down,
for I will be hard for once and give vent to all my complaints. I will not
become soft-hearted, for I feel that I have been too indulgent, given too little
utterance to my grievances, and thus to a certain extent have become your
accomplice. I must and will say that you have caused your parents much
vexation and little or no joy.
Hardly were your wild goings-on in Bonn over, hardly were your old sins
wiped out -- and they were truly manifold -- when, to our dismay, the pangs of
love set in, and with the good nature of parents in a romantic novel we became
their heralds and the bearers of their cross. But deeply conscious that your
life's happiness was centred here, we tolerated what could not be altered and
perhaps ourselves played unbecoming roles. While still so young, you became
estranged from your family, but seeing with parents' eyes the beneficial
influence on you, we hoped to see the good effects speedily developed,
because in point of fact reflection and necessity equally testified in favour of
this. But what were the fruits we harvested?
We have never had the pleasure of a rational correspondence, which as a
rule is the consolation for absence. For correspondence presupposes consistent
and continuous intercourse, carried on reciprocally and harmoniously by both
sides. We never received a reply to our letters; never did your next letter have
any connection with your previous one or with ours.
If one day we received the announcement that you had made some new
acquaintance, afterwards this disappeared totally and for ever, like a still-born
child.

As to what our only too beloved son was actually busy with, thinking about
and doing, hardly was a rhapsodic phrase at times thrown in on this subject
when the rich catalogue came to an end as if by magic.
On several occasions we were without a letter for months, and the last time
was when you knew Eduard was ill, mother suffering and I myself not well,
and moreover cholera was raging in Berlin; and as if that did not even call for
an apology, your next letter contained not a single word about it, but merely
some badly written lines and an extract from the diary entitled The Visit, which
I would quite frankly prefer to throw out rather than accept, a crazy botchwork which merely testifies how you squander your talents and spend your
nights giving birth to monsters; that you follow in the footsteps of the new
immoralists who twist their words until they themselves do not hear them; who
christen a flood of words a product of genius because it is devoid of ideas or
contains only distorted ideas.
Yes, your letter did contain something -- complaints that Jenny does not
write, despite the fact that at bottom you were convinced that you were
favoured on all sides -- at least there was no reason for despair and
embitterment -- but that was not enough, your dear ego yearned for the
pleasure of reading what you knew already (which, of course, in the present
case is quite fair), and Herr Son could say to his parents, that was almost all
that suffering, whom he had oppressed by a whom he knew to be senseless
silence.
As if we were men of wealth, my Herr Son disposed in one year of almost
700 talers contrary to all agreement, contrary to all usage, whereas the richest
spend less than 500. And why? I do him the justice of saying that he is no rake,
no squanderer. But how can a man who every week or two discovers a new
system and has to tear up old works laboriously arrived at, how can he, I ask,
worry about trifles? How can he submit to the pettiness of order? Everyone
dips a hand in his pocket, and everyone cheats him, so long as he doesn't
disturb him in his studies, and a new money order is soon written again, of
course. Narrow-minded persons like G. R. and Evers may be worried about
that, but they are common fellows. True, in their simplicity these men try to
digest the lectures, even if only the words, and to procure themselves patrons
and friends here and there, for the examinations are presided over by men, by
professors, pedants and sometimes vindictive villains, who like to put to shame
anyone who is independent; yet the greatness of man consists precisely in
creating and destroying!!!

True, these poor young fellows sleep quite well, except when they
sometimes devote half a night or a whole night to pleasure, whereas my hardworking talented Karl spends wretched nights awake, weakens his mind and
body by serious study, denies himself all pleasure, in order in fact to pursue
lofty abstract studies, but what he builds today he destroys tomorrow, and in
the end he has destroyed his own work and not assimilated the work of others.
In the end the body is ailing and the mind confused, whereas the ordinary little
people continue to creep forward undisturbed and sometimes reach the goal
better and at least more comfortably than those who despise the joys of youth
and shatter their health to capture the shadow of erudition, which they would
probably have achieved better in an hour's social intercourse with competent
people, and with social enjoyment into the bargain!!!
I conclude, for I feel from my more strongly beating pulse that I am near to
lapsing into a soft-hearted tone, and today I intend to be merciless.
I must add, too, the complaints of your brothers and sisters. From your
letters, one can hardly see that you have any brothers or sisters; as for the good
Sophie, who has suffered so much for you and Jenny and is so lavish in her
devotion to you, you do not think of her when you do not need her.
I have paid your money order for 160 talers. I cannot, or can hardly, charge
it to the old academic year, for that truly has its full due. And for the future I
do not want to expect many of the same kind.
To come here at the present moment would be nonsense! True, I know you
care little for lectures, though you probably pay for them, but I will at least
observe the decencies. I am certainly no slave to public opinion, but neither do
I like gossip at my expense. Come for the Easter vacation -- or even two weeks
earlier, I am not so pedantic -- and in spite of my present epistle you can rest
assured that I shall receive you with open arms and the welcoming beat of a
father's heart, which is actually ailing only through excessive anxiety.
Your father
Marx
Thursday, March 10, 2005
MARX'S OWN FATHER SAW THAT KARL WAS HOPELESS WITH MONEY

Heinrich Marx to son Karl, 19 March 1836: "As regards your letter containing the accounts, I already told you at the time that I could not make head or tail of them. This much I did see, that you need money, and therefore I sent you 50 talers. With what you took with you, that makes 160 talers. You have
been away five months in all, and now you do not even say what you need."
Context here
The German
Heinrich Marx an Sohn Karl, 19. Mrz 1836
"Was Dein Brief mit der Rechnung betrifft, so sagte ich Dir schon damals, da ich nicht drauskommen konnte. Soviel sah ich, da Du Geld brauchst, und deswegen habe ich Dir 50 Taler geschickt. Das macht mit dem, was Du mitgenommen, immerhin 160 Taler. Du bist im Ganzen fnf Monate weg, und jetzt

sagst Du nicht einmal, was Du brauchst."

MEGA a.a.O. 1. Abt. Bd 1f 2. Halbbd. S.190 f.

Letter from Heinrich Marx to

son Karl
in Bonn

Written: Trier, March 19, 1836

Source: Marx Engels Collected Works Vol 1, pg 652-653.
Publisher: International Publishers (1975)
First Published: Marx/Engels, Gesamtausgabe, Abt. 1, Hb. 2, 1929
Translated: Clemens Dutt
Transcribed: S. Ryan
HTML Markup: S. Ryan

Dear Karl,
I have just received your letter, and I must confess that I am somewhat
surprised at it. As regards your letter containing the accounts, I already told
you at the time that I could not make head or tail of them. This much I did see,
that you need money, and therefore I sent yell 50 talers. With what you took
with you, that makes 160 talers. You have been away five months in all, and
now you do not even say what you need. That, at all events, is strange. Dear
Karl, I repeat that I do everything very willingly, but that as the father of many
children -- and you know quite well I am not rich -- I am not willing to do
more than is necessary for your well-being and progress.
If therefore you have somewhat overstepped the bounds, let it be glossed
over, since it must. But I assure you, what the "nec plus ultra" stands for is

money thrown away. I am convinced that it is possible to manage with less,

and Herr Muller, the notary here, gives less and can perhaps do better. But no
more under any condition; I should have to have some special stroke of good
fortune, but there is nothing of the kind at the present time; on the contrary, my
income has decreased. I don't by any means say that to distress you, far from it,
but to make my firm decision clear to you once and for all.
I enclose a draft on Herr Kaufmann, who, as Herr Hofmann tells me, is the
keeper of the lottery office in the university building; you will get money
there, as m[uch as] you need.
Well, may God take care of you, and come soon. We are all longing to see
you.
Your faithful father,
Marx
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
ENGELS WANTED REVENGE FOR AFFRONTS
Certainly no Christian influence there

Engels to August Bebel, 25 August 1881: Dont forget any affront done to you and to all our people, the time of revenge will come and must be put to good use.

The German
Engels an August Bebel, 25 August 1881
"Verget nur keine Euch und allen unsern Leuten getane Niedertracht, die Zeit der Rache kommt und mu redlich ausgenutzt werden."
MEW a.a.O. 35, 222

Tuesday, March 08, 2005

ENGELS ADVOCATED CONTEMPT AND RIDICULE IN ARGUMENT

Engels to Eduard Bernstein, 12 March 1881: The paper must carry this fresh air to Germany, and the best way to do that is to treat the opponent with contempt and ridicule.
Context here
The German
Engels an Eduard Bernstein, 12. Mrz 1881
"Diese freie Luft mu das Blatt nach Deutschland hineintragen, und dazu dient vor allem, da der Gegner mit Verachtung behandelt, verhhnt wird."
MEW a.a.O. 35, 171.,

Marx-Engels Correspondence 1881

Engels To Eduard
Bernstein
Abstract

Source: Marx & Engels on the Irish Question, Progress Publishers, Moscow 1971, pp. 329330; Transcribed by Einde OCallaghan.
Source: Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Selected Correspondence (Progress Publishers,
Moscow, 1975). Scanned and prepared for the Marxist Internet Archive by Paul Flewers.

March 12, 1881

Now the newspaper can really encourage and cheer our people in Germany,
which some of them very much need the so-called leaders, at least. I have
again received a number of letters full of lamentations, which I have answered
in the appropriate way. Viereck was also very low-spirited initially, but a
couple of days in the free London air have been sufficient to give him back his
buoyancy. The newspaper must carry this free air to Germany, an end which
will be served, primarily, by treating the enemy with contempt and derision.
When people again learn simply to laugh at Bismarck and Co., much will have
been gained. One must not forget, however, that this is the first time something
like this has happened, at least to the great majority of people, and that, in
particular, a great many agitators and editors have been rudely shaken from
their rather comfortable positions. That is why encouragement is needed just as
much as the constant reminder that Bismarck and Co. are still the same asses,
the samecanailles, the same pathetic manikins, powerless against the march of
history, that they were before the attempted assassinations. Therefore every
joke at the expense of this rabble is valuable.
On Ireland I shall only say the following: the people are much too clever not to
know that a revolt would spell their ruin; it could have a chance only in the
event of a war between England and America. In the meantime, the Irish have
forced Gladstone to introduce continental regulations [329] in Parliament and
thereby to undermine the whole British parliamentary system. They have also
forced Gladstone to disavow all his phrases and to become more Tory than
even the worst Tories. The coercion bills have been passed, the Land Bill will
be either rejected or castrated by the House of Lords[330], and then the fun will
start, that is, the concealed disintegration of the parties will become public.
Since Gladstones appointment, the Whigs and moderate Tories, that is, the big
landowners as a whole, are uniting on the quiet into a big landowners party.
As soon as this matures and family and personal interests are settled, or as
soon as, perhaps as a result of the Land Bill, the new party is forced to appear
in public, the Ministry and the present majority will immediately fall to pieces.
The new conservative party will then be faced by the new bourgeois radical
party, but without any backing other than the workers and Irish peasants. And

so as to avoid any humbug and trickery from taking place here again, a
proletarian radical party is now forming under the leadership of Joseph Cowen
(M.P. for Newcastle), who is an old Chartist, half, if not entirely, Communist
and a very worthy chap. Ireland is bringing all this about, Ireland is the driving
force of the Empire. This is for your private information. More about this soon.
...
... It is simply a falsification perpetrated by the Manchester bourgeoisie in
their own interests that they call socialism every interference by the state in
free competition protective tariffs, guilds, tobacco monopoly, nationalisation
of certain branches of industry, the Overseas Trade Society, and the royal
porcelain factory. We shouldcriticise this but not believe it. If we do the latter
and develop a theory on the basis of this belief our theory will collapse
together with its premises upon simple proof that this alleged socialism is
nothing but, on the one hand, feudal reaction and, on the other, a pretext for
squeezing out money, with the secondary object of turning as many
proletarians as possible into civil servants and pensioners dependent upon the
state, thus organising alongside of the disciplined army of soldiers and civil
servants an army of workers as well. Compulsory voting brought about by
superiors in the state apparatus instead of by factory overseers a fine sort of
socialism! But thats where people get if they believe the bourgeoisie what it
does not believe itself but only pretends to believe: that the state means
socialism...

Notes
329. Apparently a reference to the resolution adopted by the Commons at Gladstone s
proposal on February 3, 1881, to introduce a new procedure in the British Parliament. Since
the obstruction tactics resorted to by the Irish opposition in the House of Commons prevented
the passing by Parliament of a Bill introducing coercion laws in Ireland, Gladstone proposed
according the Speaker the right to interrupt speeches of orators and in case of insubordination
to evict them from the premises.
330. The spread of peasant action against English landlords moved Parliament to adopt, early
in 1881, two bills on the introduction of coercion laws in Ireland. These laws suspended
constitutional guarantees and introduced a state of siege in the country; troops were sent to
help the landlords evict tenants refusing to leave.
The Land Bill for Ireland, proposed by Gladstones Liberal government at the end of 1880,
was an attempt to divert the Irish peasants from the revolutionary struggle by somewhat
restricting the arbitrary rule of the English landlords over the peasant tenants. It was finally

passed on August 22, 1881. According to the Land Act of 1881 a landlord was not allowed to
evict a tenant from the land if he paid rent in time, the size of the rent being stipulated for 15
years in advance. Although the Land Act gave the landlords the opportunity to sell their land
profitably to the state and the size of the rent fixed by it continued to be extremely high, the
English landlords obstructed its implementation because they wanted to preserve their
unlimited power in Ireland.

Monday, March 07, 2005

PEOPLE WERE "DEBRIS" TO MARX

When this morning we inquired at the Hotel de lEurope, fortunately it so happened that 60 Frenchmen were preparing to leave, while on the other hand the steam ships loaded with fresh human debris had not arrived yet.
Abstract only here
The German:
Marx an Engels, 14. August 1879
"Als wir heut morgen im Htel de l'Europe anfrugen, traf es sich glcklich so, da grade 60 Franzosen sich auf die Abreise vorbereiteten, whrend andrerseits die mit frischem Menschenkehricht belasteten steamers noch nicht eingetroffen."
MEW a.a.O. 34, 89.

Marx-Engels Correspondence 1879

Marx to Engels
Abstract

Source: Marx Engels On Literature and Art, Progress Publishers, 1976;

Transcribed: by Andy Blunden;

August 14, 1879

Since my arrival here I have not looked at any newspapers and have, in fact,
read nothing apart from the first volume of Carletons Traits and Stories of the
Irish Peasantry. It was labour enough to get through the first volume and I
shall put the second aside until a better time. The work consists of unconnected
tales, in which Irish peasant life is illustrated now from this side and now from
that; so the book is not the sort one can swallow at one gulp. For this very
reason it is a book which one must buy and possess in order au fur et
mesure [according to need] to regale oneself now with this dish, now with
another. Carleton is neither a good stylist nor a master of composition; his
originality lies in the truth of his descriptions. As the son of an Irish peasant he
knows his subject better than the Levers and Lovers.

Sunday, March 06, 2005

MARX BELIEVED IN BLOODSHED

Interview with Karl Marx, Chicago Tribune, January 5 1879: "Well, then, to carry out the principles of socialism do its believers advocate assassination and bloodshed?" "No great movement," Karl answered, "has ever been inaugurated Without Bloodshed."
Context here

Marx-Engels Internet Archive

Interview with Karl Marx

by H.

Chicago Tribune, January 5 1879

London, December 18 [1878] In a little villa at Haverstock Hill, the

northwest portion of London, lives Karl Marx, the cornerstone of modern
socialism. He was exiled from his native country Germany in 1844, for
propagating revolutionary theories. In 1848, he returned, but in a few
months was again exiled. He then took up his abode in Paris, but his
political theories procured his expulsion from that city in 1849, and since
that year his headquarters have been in London. His convictions have caused
him trouble from the beginning. Judging from the appearance of his home,
they certainly have not brought him affluence. Persistently during all these
years he has advocated his views with an earnestness which undoubtedly
springs from a firm belief in them, and, however much we may deprecate

their propagation, we cannot but respect to a certain extent the self-denial of

the now venerable exile.
Our correspondent has called upon him twice or thrice, and each time the
Doctor was found in his library, with a book in one hand and a cigarette in
the other. He must be over seventy years of age.[18] His physique is well knit,
massive, erect. He has the head of a man of intellect, and the features of a
cultivated Jew. His hair and beard are long, and iron-gray in color. His eyes
are glittering black, shaded by a pair of bushy eyebrows. To a stranger he
shows extreme caution. A foreigner can generally gain admission; but the
ancient-looking German woman [Helene Demuth] who waits upon visitors has
instructions to admit none who hail from the Fatherland, unless they bring
letters of introduction. Once into his library, however, and having fixed his
one eyeglass in the corner of his eye, in order to take your intellectual
breadth and depth, so to speak, he loses that self-restraint, and unfolds to
you a knowledge of men and things throughout the world apt to interest one.
And his conversation does not run in one groove, but is as varied as are the
volumes upon his library shelves. A man can generally be judged by the
books he reads, and you can form your own conclusions when I tell you a
casual glance revealed Shakespeare, Dickens, Thackeray, Moliere, Racine,
Montaigne, Bacon, Goethe, Voltaire, Paine; English, American, French blue
books; works political and philosophical in Russian, German, Spanish,
Italian, etc., etc. During my conversation I was struck with
His Intimacy with American Questions which have been uppermost
during the past twenty years. His knowledge of them, and the surprising
accuracy with which he criticized our national and state legislation,
impressed upon my mind the fact that he must have derived his information
from inside sources.[19] But, indeed, this knowledge is not confined to
America, but is spread over the face of Europe. When speaking of his hobby
socialism he does not indulge in those melodramatic flights generally
attributed to him, but dwells upon his utopian plans for the emancipation of
the human race with a gravity and an earnestness indicating a firm
conviction in the realization of his theories, if not in this century, at least in
the next.
Perhaps Dr. Karl Marx is better known in America as the author of Capital,
and the founder of the International Society, or at least its most prominent
pillar. In the interview which follows, you will see what he says of this
Society as it at present exists. However, in the meantime I will give you a
few extracts from the printed general rules of The International
Society published in 1871, by order of the General Council, from which you

can form an impartial judgment of its aims and ends. The Preamble sets
forth that the emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by
the working classes themselves; that the struggle for the emancipation of the
working classes means not a struggle for class privileges and monopolies,
but for equal rights and duties, and the abolition of all class rule; that the
economical subjection of the man of labor to the monopolizer of the means
of labor that is, the sources of life lies at the bottom of servitude in all its
forms, of all social misery, mental degradation, and political dependence;
that all efforts aiming at the universal emancipation of the working classes
have hitherto failed from want of solidarity between the manifold divisions
of labor in each country, and the Preamble calls for the immediate
combination of the still-disconnected movements. It goes on to say that the
International Association acknowledges no rights without duties, no duties
without rights thus making every member a worker. the Association was
formed at London to afford a central medium of communication and
cooperation between the workingmens societies in the different countries,
aiming at the same end, namely: the protection, advancement, and
complete emancipation of the working classes. Each member, the
document further says, of the International Association, on removing his
domicile from one country to another, will receive the fraternal support of
the associated workingmen."
The Society Consists of a general Congress, which meets annually, a
general Council, which forms an international agency between the different
national and local groups of the Association, so that the workingmen in one
country can be constantly informed of the movements of their class in every
other country." This Council receives and acts upon the applications of new
branches or sections to join the International, decides differences arising
between the sections, and, in fact, to use an American phrase, runs the
machine." The expenses of the General Council are defrayed by an annual
contribution of an English penny per member. Then come the federal
councils or committees, and local sections, in the various countries. The
federal councils are bound to send one report at least every month to the
General Council, and every three months a report on the administration and
financial state of their respective branches. whenever attacks against the
International are published, the nearest branch or committee is bound to
send at once a copy of such publication to the General Council. The
formation of female branches among the working classes is recommended.
The General Council comprises the following: R. Applegarth, M.T. Boon,
Frederick Bradnick, G.H. Buttery, E. Delahaye, Eugene Dupont (on

mission), William Hales, G. Harris, Hurliman, Jules Johannard, Harriet Law,

Frederick Lessner, Lochner, Charles Longuet, C. Martin, Zevy Maurice,
Henry Mayo, George Milner, Charles Murray, Pfander, John Pach, Ruhl
Sadler, Cowell Stepney, Alfred Taylor, W. Townshend, E. Vaillant, John
Weston. The corresponding secretaries for the various countries are: Leo
Frankel, for Austria and Hungary; A. Herman, Belgium; T. Mottershead,
Denmark; A. Serrailler, France; Karl Marx, Germany and Russia; Charles
Rochat, Holland; J.P. McDonell, Ireland; Frederick Engels, Italy and Spain;
Walery Wroblewski, Poland; Hermann Jung, Switzerland; J.G. Eccarius,
United States; Le Moussu, for French branches of United States.
During my visit to Dr. Marx, I alluded to the platform given by J.C.
Bancroft Davis in his official report of 1877 as the clearest and most concise
exposition of socialism that I had seen.[20] He said it was taken from the
report of the socialist reunion at Gotha, Germany, in May, 1875. The
translation was incorrect, he said, and he Volunteered Corrections which I
append as he dictated:[21]
First: Universal, direct, and secret suffrage for all males over twenty years,
for all elections, municipal and state.
Second: Direct legislation by the people.[22] War and peace to be made by
direct popular vote.
Third: Universal obligation to militia duty. No standing army.
Fourth: Abolition of all special legislation regarding press laws and public
meetings.
Fifth: Legal remedies free of expense. Legal proceedings to be conducted by
the people.
Sixth: Education to be by the state general, obligatory, and free. Freedom
of science and religion.[23]
Seventh: All indirect taxes to be abolished. Money to be raised for state and
municipal purposes by direct progressive income tax.
Eighth: Freedom of combination among the working classes.
Ninth: The legal day of labor for men to be defined. The work of women to
be limited, and that of children to be abolished.

Tenth: Sanitary laws for the protection of life and health of laborers, and
regulation of their dwelling and places of labor, to be enforced by persons
selected by them.
Eleventh: Suitable provision respecting prison labor. In Mr. Bancroft Davis
report there is
A Twelfth Clause[24], the most important of all, which reads: State aid and
credit for industrial societies, under democratic direction. I asked the
Doctor why he omitted this, and he replied:
When the reunion took place at Gotha, in 1875, there existed a
division among the Social Democrats. The one wing were partisans of
Lassalle, the others those who had accepted in general the program of
the International organization, and were called the Eisenach party. The
twelfth point was not placed on the platform, but placed in the general
introduction by way of concession to the Lassallians. Afterwards it was
never spoken of. Mr. Davis does not say that is was placed in the
program as a compromise having no particular significance, but gravely
puts it in as one of the cardinal principles of the program.[25]
But, I said, socialists generally look upon the transformation of the
means of labor into the common property of society as the grand climax of
the movement.
Yes; we say that this will be the outcome of the movement, but it will
be a question of time, of education, and the institution of higher social
status.
This platform, I remarked, applies only to Germany and one or two other
countries.
Ah! he returned, if you draw your conclusions from nothing but this,
you know nothing of the activity of the party. Many of its points have
no significance outside of Germany. Spain, Russia, England, and
America have platforms suited to their peculiar difficulties. The only
similarity in them is the end to be attained.
And that is the supremacy of labor?
That is the Emancipation of Labor

Do European socialists look upon the movement in America as a serious

one?
Yes: it is the natural outcome of the countrys development. It has
been said that the movement has been imported by foreigners. When
labor movements became disagreeable in England, fifty years ago, the
same thing was said; and that was long before socialism was spoken of.
In American, since 1857, only has the labor movement become
conspicuous.[26] Then trade unions began to flourish; then trades
assemblies were formed, in which the workers in different industries
united; and after that came national labor unions. If you consider this
chronological progress, you will see that socialism has sprung up in that
country without the aid of foreigners, and was merely caused by the
concentration of capital and the changed relations between the
workmen and employers.
Now, asked our correspondent, what has socialism done so far?
Two things, he returned. Socialists have shown the general universal
struggle between capital and labor The Cosmopolitan Chapter in
one word and consequently tried to bring about an understanding
between the workmen in the different countries, which became more
necessary as the capitalists became more cosmopolitan in hiring labor,
pitting foreign against native labor not only in America, but in England,
France, and Germany. International relations sprang up at once between
workingmen in the three different countries, showing that socialism
was not merely a local, but an international problem, to be solved by
the international action of workmen. The working classes move
spontaneously, without knowing what the ends of the movement will
be. The socialists invent no movement, but merely tell the workmen
what its character and its ends will be.
Which means the overthrowing of the present social system, I interrupted.
This system of land and capital in the hands of employers, on the one
hand, he continued, and the mere working power in the hands of the
laborers to sell a commodity, we claim is merely a historical phase,
which will pass away and give place to A Higher Social Condition.
We see everywhere a division of society. The antagonism of the two
classes goes hand in hand with the development of the industrial
resources of modern countries. From a socialistic standpoint the means

already exist to revolutionize the present historical phase. Upon trade

unions, in many countries, have been built political organizations. In
America the need of an independent workingmens party has been
made manifest. They can no longer trust politicians. Rings and cliques
have seized upon the legislatures, and politics has been made a trade.
But America is not alone in this, only its people are more decisive than
Europeans. Things come to the surface quicker. There is less cant and
hypocrisy that there is on this side of the ocean.
I asked him to give me a reason for the rapid growth of the socialistic party
in Germany, when he replied:
The present socialistic party came last. Theirs was not the utopian
scheme which made headway in France and England. The German
mind is given to theorizing, more than that of other peoples. From
previous experience the Germans evolved something practical. This
modern capitalistic system, you must recollect, is quite new in
Germany in comparison to other states. Questions were raised which
had become almost antiquated in France and England, and political
influences to which these states had yielded sprang into life when the
working classes of Germany had become imbued with socialistic
theories. therefore, from the beginning almost of modern industrial
development, they have formed an Independent Political Party.
They had their own representatives in the German parliament. There
was no party to oppose the policy of the government, and this devolved
upon them. To trace the course of the party would take a long time; but
I may say this: that, if the middle classes of Germany were not the
greatest cowards, distinct from the middle classes of America and
England, all the political work against the government should have
been done by them.
I asked him a question regarding the numerical strength of the Lassallians in
the ranks of the Internationalists.
The party of Lassalle, he replied, does not exist. Of course there are
some believers in our ranks, but the number is small. Lassalle
anticipated our general principles. When he commenced to move after
the reaction of 1848, he fancied that he could more successfully revive
the movement by advocating cooperation of the workingmen in
industrial enterprises. It was to stir them into activity. He looked upon

this merely as a means to the real end of the movement. I have letters
from him to this effect.[27]
You would call it his nostrum?[28]
Exactly. He called upon Bismarck, told him what he designed, and
Bismarck encouraged Lassalles course at that time in every possible
way.
What was his object?
He wished to use the working classes as a set-off against the middle
classes who instigated the troubles of 1848.
It is said that you are the head and front of socialism, Doctor, and from
your villa here pull the wires of all the associations, revolutions, etc., now
going on. What do you say about it?
The old gentleman smiled: I know it.
It Is Very Absurd yet it has a comic side. For two months previous to
the attempt of Hoedel, Bismarck complained in his North German
Gazettethat I was in league with Father Beck, the leader of the Jesuit
movement, and that we were keeping the socialist movement in such a
condition that he could do nothing with it.
But your International Society in London directs the movement?
The International Society has outlived its usefulness and exists no
longer.[29] It did exist and direct the movement; but the growth of
socialism of late years has been so great that its existence has become
unnecessary. Newspapers have been started in the various countries.
These are interchanged. That is about the only connection the parties in
the different countries have with one another. The International
Society, in the first instance, was created to bring the workmen
together, and show the advisability of effecting organization among
their various nationalities. The interests of each party in the different
countries have no similarity. This specter of the Internationalist leaders
sitting at London is a mere invention. It is true that we dictated to
foreign societies when the Internationalist organization was first
accomplished. We were forced to exclude some sections in New York,
among them one in which Madam Woodhull was conspicuous. [30] that

was in 1871. there are several American politicians I will not name
them who wish to trade in the movement. They are well known to
American socialists.
You and your followers, Dr. Marx, have been credited with all sorts of
incendiary speeches against religion. Of course you would like to see the
whole system destroyed, root and branch.
We know, he replied after a moments hesitation, that violent
measures against religion are nonsense; but this is an opinion: as
socialism grows,Religion Will Disappear.
Its disappearance must be done by social development, in which
education must play a part.
The Reverend Joseph Cook,[31] of Boston you know him
We have heard of him, a very badly informed man upon the subject of
socialism.
In a lecture lately upon the subject, he said, Karl Marx is credited now
with saying that, in the United States, and in Great Britain, and perhaps in
France, a reform of labor will occur without bloody revolution, but that
blood must be shed in Germany, and in Russia, and in Italy, and in
Austria.
No socialist, remarked the Doctor, smiling, need predict that there
will be a bloody revolution in Russia, Germany, Austria, and possibly
Italy if the Italians keep on in the policy they are now pursuing. The
deeds of the French Revolution may be enacted again in those
countries. That is apparent to any political student. But those
revolutions will be made by the majority. No revolution can be made
by a party, but By a Nation.
The reverend gentleman alluded to, I remarked, gave an extract from a
letter which he said you addressed to the Communists of Paris in 1871. Here
it is:
We are as yet but 3,000,000 at most. In twenty years we shall be 50,000,000
100,000,000 perhaps. Then the world will belong to us, for it will be not only Paris, Lyon,
Marseilles, which will rise against odious capital, but Berlin, Munich, Dresden, London,
Liverpool, Manchester, Brussels, St. Petersburg, New York in short, the whole world. And
before this new insurrection, such as history has not yet known, the past will disappear like a

hideous nightmare; for the popular conflagration, kindled at a hundred points at once, will
destroy even its memory!

Now, Doctor, I suppose you admit the authorship of that extract?

I never wrote a word of it. I never write Such Melodramatic
Nonsense.
I am very careful what I do write. That was put in Le Figaro, over my
signature, about that time. There were hundreds of the same kind of
letters flying about them. I wrote to the London Times and declared
they were forgeries; but if I denied everything that has been said and
written of me, I would require a score of secretaries.
But you have written in sympathy with the Paris Communists?
Certainly I have, in consideration of what was written of them in
leading articles; but the correspondence from Paris in English papers is
quite sufficient to refute the blunders propagated in editorials. The
Commune killed only about sixty people; Marshal MacMahon and his
slaughtering army killed over 60,000. There has never been a
movement so slandered as that of the Commune.
Well, then, to carry out the principles of socialism do its believers advocate
assassination and bloodshed?
No great movement, Karl
inaugurated Without Bloodshed.

answered,

has

ever

been

The independence of America was won by bloodshed, Napoleon

captured France through a bloody process, and he was overthrown by
the same means. Italy, England, Germany, and every other country
gives proof of this, and as for assassination, he went on to say, it is
not a new thing, I need scarcely say. Orsini tried to kill Napoleon; kings
have killed more than anybody else; the Jesuits have killed; the Puritans
killed at the time of Cromwell. These deeds were all done or attempted
before socialism was born. Every attempt, however, now made upon a
royal or state individual is attributed to socialism. The socialists would
regret very much the death of the German Emperor at the present time.
He is very useful where he is; and Bismarck has done more for the
cause than any other statesman, by driving things to extremes.

I asked Dr. Marx What He Thought of Bismarck.

He replied that Napoleon was considered a genius until he fell; then he
was called a fool. Bismarck will follow in his wake. He began by
building up a despotism under the plea of unification. his course has
been plain to all. The last move is but an attempted imitation of a coup
detat; but it will fail. The socialists of Germany, as of France,
protested against the war of 1870 as merely dynastic. They issued
manifestoes foretelling the German people, if they allowed the
pretended war of defense to be turned into a war of conquest, they
would be punished by the establishment of military despotism and the
ruthless oppression of the productive masses. The Social-Democratic
party in Germany, thereupon holding meetings and publishing
manifestoes for an honorable peace with France, were at once
prosecuted by the Prussian Government, and many of the leaders
imprisoned. Still their deputies alone dared to protest, and very
vigorously too, in the German Reichstag, against the forcible
annexation of French provinces. However, Bismarck carried his policy
by force, and people spoke of the genius of a Bismarck. The war was
fought, and when he could make no conquests, he was called upon for
original ideas, and he has signally failed. The people began to lose faith
in him. His popularity was on the wane. He needs money, and the state
needs it. Under a sham constitution he has taxed the people for his
military and unification plans until he can tax them no longer, and now
he seeks to do it with no constitution at all. For the purpose of levying
as he chooses, he has raised the ghost of socialism,[32] and has done
everything in his power To Create an Emeute.
You have continual advice from Berlin?
Yes, he said; my friends keep me well advised. It is in a perfectly
quiet state, and Bismarck is disappointed. He has expelled forty-eight
prominent men among them Deputies Hasselman and Fritsche and
Rackow, Bauman, and Adler, of the Freie Presse.[33] These men kept the
workmen of Berlin quiet. Bismarck knew this. He also knew that there
were 75,000 workmen in that city upon the verge of starvation. Once
those leaders were gone, he was confident that the mob would rise, and
that would be the cue for a carnival of slaughter. The screws would
then be put upon the whole German Empire; his petty theory of blood
and iron would then have full sway, and taxation could be levied to any
extent. So far noemeute has occurred, and he stands today confounded
at the situation and the ridicule of all statesmen.

H.[34]
Transcribed in 1996 by Zodiac
Html Markup in 1999 by Brian Baggins.
Notes and Introduction added by Ellen Schwartz

Saturday, March 05, 2005

MORE CONTEMPT FOR IDEALS

Marx to Friedrich Adolph Sorge, October 19, 1877: "The compromise with the followers of Lassalle has also led to compromises with other half-baked elements, () but also with a whole gang of immature students and overly wise PhDs who want to give a higher, ideal twist to socialism, i.e. to replace its
materialistic foundation through modern mythology with their goddesses of Justice, Liberty, Equality and fraternit [brotherhood] .... The workers themselves, when they give up working and become professional literati like Mr. Most and his ilk, always incite theoretical trouble and are always ready to
attach themselves to muddleheads from the alleged "learned" caste."
Context here
The German
Marx an Adolph Sorge, 19. Oktober 1877
"Der Kompromi mit den Lassallianern hat zu Kompromi auch mit andren Halbheiten gefhrt,
(...) auerdem aber mit einer ganzen Bande halbreifer Studiosen und berweiser Doctores, die dem Sozialismus eine 'hhere, ideale' Wendung geben wollen, d.h. die materialistische Basis (...) zu ersetzen durch moderne Mythologie mit ihren Gttinnen der Gerechtigkeit, Freiheit, Gleichheit und fraternit
(...)
Die Arbeiter selbst, wenn sie wie Herr Most et Cons. das Arbeiten aufgeben und Literaten von Profession werden, stiften stets 'theoretisch' Unheil an (...)"
MEW a.a.O. 34, 302 f.

Marx-Engels Correspondence 1877

Marx to Frierich Adolph

Sorge
In Hoboken
Abstract

Written: October 19, 1877;

Source: Marx and Engels Correspondence;
Publisher: International Publishers (1968);
First Published: Gestamtausgabe;
Translated: Donna Torr;
Transcribed: Sally Ryan in 1999;
HTML Markup: Sally Ryan.

London, 19 October 1877

A rotten spirit is making itself felt in our Party in Germany, not so much
among the masses as among the leaders (upper class and workers).

The compromise with the Lassalleans has led to compromise with other halfway elements too; in Berlin (e.g., Most) with Dhring and his admirers, but
also with a whole gang of half-mature students and super-wise doctors who
want to give socialism a higher ideal orientation, that is to say, to replace its
materialistic basis (which demands serious objective study from anyone who
tries to use it) by modern mythology with its goddesses of Justice, Freedom,
Equality and Fraternity. Dr. Hochberg, who publishes the Zukunft [Future] is a
representative of this tendency and has bought himself in to the party with
the noblest intentions, I assume, but I do not give a damn for intentions.
Anything more miserable than his programme of the future has seldom seen
the light of day with more modest presumption.
The workers themselves when, like Mr. Most and Co. they give up work and
become professional literary men, always set some theoretical mischief going
and are always ready to attach themselves to muddleheads from the alleged
learned caste. Utopian socialism especially, which for tens of years we have
been clearing out of the German workers heads with so much toil and labour
their freedom from it making them theoretically, and therefore also practically,
superior to the French and English utopian socialism, playing with fancy
pictures of the future structure of society, is now raging in a much more futile
form, as compared not only with the great French and English utopians, but
with Weitling. Naturally utopianism, which before the time of materialisticcritical socialism concealed the germs of the latter within itself, coming
now after the event can only be silly silly, stale and basically reactionary.

Friday, March 04, 2005

MARX MOCKS JUSTICE, FREEDOM AND EQUALITY
Such an idealist!

Marx to Engels, 1 August 1877: "For when the little chap (Wedde) was in London for the first time I used the expression "modern mythology" to describe the goddesses of "Justice, Freedom, Equality, etc." who were now all the rage again; this made a deep impression on him, as he has himself done much in
the service of these higher beings."
Context here
The German
Marx an Engels, 1. August 1877
"Als nmlich das Kerlchen (Wedde) das erstemal in London war, bediente ich mich des Ausdrucks 'moderne Mythologie' zur Bezeichnung der wieder grassierenden Gttinnen der 'Gerechtigkeit, Freiheit, Gleichheit etc.' was tiefen Eindruck auf ihn gemacht hat, da er selbst viel im Dienst dieser hheren Wesen
gemacht."
MEW a.a.O. 34, 66.

Marx-Engels Correspondence 1877

Marx to Engels
In Ramsgate

Abstract

Written: August 1, 1877;

Source: Marx and Engels Correspondence and Marx & Engels on the Irish

Question;
Publisher: International Publishers (1968) and Progress Publishers (1971);
First Published: Gestamtausgabe;
Translated: Donna Torr;
Transcribed: Sally Ryan in 1999;
HTML Markup: Sally Ryan.

[London,] 1 August 1877

A few days ago the cheery little hunchback Wedde turned up only to
disappear again to Germany shortly after. He had a pressing commission from
Geib to enlist you and me for the Zukunft. I made no secret to him whatever of
our intentions of abstaining, to his great sorrow, and of our reasons for this,
and explained to him at the same time that when our time allows or
circumstances demand that we should again come forward as propagandists,
we, as internationalists, are in no wise bound or pledged to attach ourselves to
Germany, the beloved Fatherland.
In Hamburg he had seen Dr. Hchberg and ditto Wiede; the latter, he said,
was rather tinged with Berlin superficiality and arrogance, but he liked
Hchberg, who, however, was still suffering badly from modern mythology.
For when the little chap (Wedde) was in London for the first time I used the
expression modern mythology as a designation for the goddesses of Justice,
Freedom, Equality, etc. who were now all the rage again; this made a deep
impression on him, as he has himself done much in the service of these higher
beings. He thought Hchberg rather Dhringised and Wedde has a sharper
nose than Liebknecht.
...
The Irish skirmishes in the House of Commons are very amusing. Parnell,
etc., told Barry that the worst was the attitude of Butt, who hopes to be
appointed judge and has threatened to resign his leadership; and that he could
do them great harm in Ireland. Barry mentioned Butts letter to the General

Council of the International. They would like to have this document to prove
that his stand-offishness in relation to the intransigents is mere pretence. But
how am I to find the thing now? [321]

Notes
321. Isaac Butts letter from Dublin was read at the meeting of the General

Council of the First International on January 4, 1870. Butt offered his offices
in bringing about a union between English and Irish workers.

Thursday, March 03, 2005

CONTEMPT FOR DEMOCRACY

Marx: "Margin notes to the Program of the German Labor Party", 1875: Between the capitalist and the communist society is the era of the revolutionary transformation of one into the other. This corresponds to a political transitional era, in which the State cannot be anything except the revolutionary
dictatorship of the proletariat.
Now the Program has nothing to do with the latter, nor with the nature of the future State in communist society. Its political demands contain nothing besides the generally known democratic litany: universal voting rights, direct legislation, popular justice, a peoples militia etc. ....
But the entire Program, in spite of all its democratic bells and whistles, is completely infested by the Lassalle sects abject belief in the State or, even worse, by democratic faith in miracles. ()"
Context here
The German
Marx, Randglossen zum Programm der deutschen Arbeiterpartei, 1875: "Zwischen der kapitalistischen und der kommunistischen Gesellschaft liegt die Periode der revolutionren Umwandlung der einen in die andre. Der entspricht auch eine politische bergangsperiode, deren Staat nichts andres sein kann
als die revolutionre Diktatur des Proletariats.
Das Programm nun hat es weder mit letzterer zu tun, noch mit dem zuknftigen Staatswesen der kommunistischen Gesellschaft. Seine politischen Forderungen enthalten nichts auer der Welt bekannten demokratischen Litanei: a llgemeines Wahlrecht, direkte Gesetzgebung, Volksrecht, Volkswehr etc. (...)
Doch das ganze Programm, trotz alles demokratischen Geklingels, ist durch und durch vom Untertanenglauben der Lassalleschen Sekte an den Staat verpestet oder, was nicht besser, v om demokratischen Wunderglauben (...)"
MEW a.a.O. 19, 31 f.

Karl Marx
Critique of the Gotha Programme

IV

I come now to the democratic section.

A. "The free basis of the state."

First of all, according to II, the German Workers' party strives for "the free
state".
Free state what is this?
It is by no means the aim of the workers, who have got rid of the narrow
mentality of humble subjects, to set the state free. In the German Empire, the
"state" is almost as "free" as in Russia. Freedom consists in converting the
state from an organ superimposed upon society into one completely
subordinate to it; and today, too, the forms of state are more free or less free to
the extent that they restrict the "freedom of the state".
The German Workers' party at least if it adopts the program shows
that its socialist ideas are not even skin-deep; in that, instead of treating
existing society (and this holds good for any future one) as the basis of the
existing state (or of the future state in the case of future society), it treats the
state rather as an independent entity that possesses its own intellectual, ethical,
and libertarian bases.
And what of the riotous misuse which the program makes of the words
"present-day state", "present-day society", and of the still more riotous
misconception it creates in regard to the state to which it addresses its
demands?
"Present-day society" is capitalist society, which exists in all civilized
countries, more or less free from medieval admixture, more or less modified
by the particular historical development of each country, more or less
developed. On the other hand, the "present-day state" changes with a country's
frontier. It is different in the Prusso-German Empire from what it is in
Switzerland, and different in England from what it is in the United States. The
"present-day state" is therefore a fiction.
Nevertheless, the different states of the different civilized countries, in spite
or their motley diversity of form, all have this in common: that they are based
on modern bourgeois society, only one more or less capitalistically developed.
They have, therefore, also certain essential characteristics in common. In this
sense, it is possible to speak of the "present-day state" in contrast with the
future, in which its present root, bourgeois society, will have died off.
The question then arises: What transformation will the state undergo in
communist society? In other words, what social functions will remain in
existence there that are analogous to present state functions? This question can

only be answered scientifically, and one does not get a flea-hop nearer to the
problem by a thousand-fold combination of the word 'people' with the word
'state'.
Between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the
revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is
also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the
revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat.
Now the program does not deal with this nor with the future state of
communist society.
Its political demands contain nothing beyond the old democratic litany
familiar to all: universal suffrage, direct legislation, popular rights, a people's
militia, etc. They are a mere echo of the bourgeois People's party, of
the League of Peace and Freedom. They are all demands which, insofar as they
are not exaggerated in fantastic presentation, have already been realized. Only
the state to which they belong does not lie within the borders of the German
Empire, but in Switzerland, the United States, etc. This sort of "state of the
future" is a present-day state, although existing outside the "framework" of the
German Empire.
But one thing has been forgotten. Since the German Workers' party
expressly declares that it acts within "the present-day national state", hence
within its own state, the Prusso-German Empire its demands would indeed
be otherwise largely meaningless, since one only demands what one has not
got it should not have forgotten the chief thing, namely, that all those pretty
little gewgaws rest on the recognition of the so-called sovereignty of the
people and hence are appropriate only in a democratic republic.
Since one has not the courage and wisely so, for the circumstances
demand caution to demand the democratic republic, as the French workers'
programs under Louis Philippe and under Louis Napoleon did, one should not
have resorted, either, to the subterfuge, neither "honest" [1] nor decent, of
demanding things which have meaning only in a democratic republic from a
state which is nothing but a police-guarded military despotism, embellished
with parliamentary forms, alloyed with a feudal admixture, already influenced
by the bourgeoisie, and bureaucratically carpentered, and then to assure this
state into the bargain that one imagines one will be able to force such things
upon it "by legal means".

Even vulgar democracy, which sees the millennium in the democratic

republic, and has no suspicion that it is precisely in this last form of state of
bourgeois society that the class struggle has to be fought out to a conclusion
even it towers mountains above this kind of democratism, which keeps within
the limits of what is permitted by the police and not permitted by logic.
That, in fact, by the word "state" is meant the government machine, or the
state insofar as it forms a special organism separated from society through
division of labor, is shown by the words "the German Workers' party demands
as the economic basis of the state: a single progressive income tax", etc. Taxes
are the economic basis of the government machinery and of nothing else. In
the state of the future, existing in Switzerland, this demand has been pretty
well fulfilled. Income tax presupposes various sources of income of the
various social classes, and hence capitalist society. It is, therefore, nothing
remarkable that the Liverpool financial reformers bourgeois headed by
Gladstone's brother are putting forward the same demand as the program.

B. "The German Workers' party demands as the intellectual and ethical basis of the
state:
"1. Universal and equal elementary education by the state. Universal compulsory
school attendance. Free instruction."

"Equal elementary education"? What idea lies behind these words? Is it

believed that in present-day society (and it is only with this one has to deal)
education can beequal for all classes? Or is it demanded that the upper classes
also shall be compulsorily reduced to the modicum of education the
elementary school that alone is compatible with the economic conditions
not only of the wage-workers but of the peasants as well?
"Universal compulsory school attendance. Free instruction." The former
exists even in Germany, the second in Switzerland and in the United States in
the case of elementary schools. If in some states of the latter country higher
education institutions are also "free", that only means in fact defraying the cost
of education of the upper classes from the general tax receipts. Incidentally,
the same holds good for "free administration of justice" demanded under A, 5.
The administration of criminal justice is to be had free everywhere; that of
civil justice is concerned almost exclusively with conflicts over property and
hence affects almost exclusively the possessing classes. Are they to carry on
their litigation at the expense of the national coffers?

This paragraph on the schools should at least have demanded technical

schools (theoretical and practical) in combination with the elementary school.
"Elementary education by the state" is altogether objectionable. Defining by
a general law the expenditures on the elementary schools, the qualifications of
the teaching staff, the branches of instruction, etc., and, as is done in the
United States, supervising the fulfillment of these legal specifications by state
inspectors, is a very different thing from appointing the state as the educator of
the people! Government and church should rather be equally excluded from
any influence on the school. Particularly, indeed, in the Prusso-German Empire
(and one should not take refuge in the rotten subterfuge that one is speaking of
a "state of the future"; we have seen how matters stand in this respect) the state
has need, on the contrary, of a very stern education by the people.
But the whole program, for all its democratic clang, is tainted through and
through by the Lassallean sect's servile belief in the state, or, what is no better,
by a democratic belief in miracles; or rather it is a compromise between these
two kinds of belief in miracles, both equally remote from socialism.
"Freedom of science" says paragraph of the Prussian Constitution. Why,
then, here?.
"Freedom of conscience"! If one desired, at this time of the Kulturkampf to
remind liberalism of its old catchwords, it surely could have been done only in
the following form: Everyone should be able to attend his religious as well as
his bodily needs without the police sticking their noses in. But the Workers'
party ought, at any rate in this connection, to have expressed its awareness of
the fact that bourgeois "freedom of conscience" is nothing but the toleration of
all possible kinds of religious freedom of conscience, and that for its part it
endeavours rather to liberate the conscience from the witchery of religion. But
one chooses not to transgress the "bourgeois" level.
I have now come to the end, for the appendix that now follows in the
program does not constitute a characteristic component part of it. Hence, I can
be very brief.

Footnotes

[1]

Epitaph used by the Eisenachers. Here a play on words in German.

Wednesday, March 02, 2005

ENGELS DID NOT LIKE NON-GERMANS MUCH

Engels: This miserable debris of former nations, Serbs, Bulgarians, Greeks and other thieving rabble, whom the liberal Philistine raves about in the interest of the Russians, deny each other the very air they are breathing, and have to slit each others greedy throats.

The German
Engels: "Diese elenden Trmmerstcke ehemaliger Nationen, Serben, Bulgaren, Griechen und andres Rubergesindel, fr die der liberale Philister im Interessen der Russen schwrmt, gnnen also einander die Luft nicht, die sie einatmen, und mssen sich untereinand er die gierigen Hlse abschneiden."
MEW a.a.O. 36, 390.
Source (German only)

6.10.02

Engelsworte - Engelswerte
kommunistische Jugenderziehung im demokratischen
Brandenburg

zu Viola Weinerts
Engels-Apologie

In der Debatte um die Verwendung des

Namens "Friedrich Engels" im sensiblen
Erziehungsbereich hatte ich Engels-Zitate verbreitet, die
zum Nachdenken Anlass geben sollten, ob Jahrzehnte
nach Godesberg die SPD ohne Tiefenprfung diesen
Namen empfehlen kann. Einzelzitate beschreiben nie eine
ganze Persnlichkeit, knnen aber zum Ausschluss von
Eigenschaften fhren, die in einer demokratischen
Gesellschaft Vorbildfunktion haben knnen, zumal nicht
nur schne oder intelligente Worte, sondern Zielstellungen
und deren Wirkungsgeschichte zu bercksichtigen sind.
Nachfolgend meine Replik auf die Stellungnahme einer
PDS-Politikerin mit ausfhrlicheren Engels-Zitaten; im
Anschluss Zitate zur Behandlung der Demokratie, die
PDS-Stellungnahme selbstsowie fr Unentwegte weitere
Stichworte mit Suchhilfen.
Dr. Karl-Adolf Zech
(gegenber der Mail genderte Passagen sind mit [...]
gekennzeichnet)

Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,

eine Frau Viola Weinert, Studienrtin u. Lehrerin fr
Politische Bildung, PDS-Abgeordnete des Kreistages

Brandenburg-OSL und bisherige Fraktionsvorsitzende, hat

auf einen Mail-Protest von mir gegen die
Benennung "Friedrich Engels" des Senftenberger
Gymnasiums mit einem Text (eMail) reagiert, den sie an
einige Abgeordnete richtete, jedoch nicht an mich selbst.
Auf Umwegen erreichte mich ihr Text.
Leider beschftigt sich die Dame fast mehr mit meiner
Person, die sie gar nicht kennt, als mit dem fraglichen
Engels. Aber was kennt sie von ihm? Es stimmt schon:
Vielleicht kann man mit der Unlust der Leute spekulieren,
diese alten Klassiker noch lesen zu wollen. Auch ich
knnte mir Schneres vorstellen.
Ich bin Absolvent einer kommunistischen Kaderschmiede
der DDR und habe mich im Studium 13 Semester mit
Marxismus-Leninismus beschftigt. Spter stand ich
allerdings auf der KZ-Liste der Stasi
("Vorbeugungsdokument 4.1"). Aber sowas haben ja die
Klassiker gar nicht gewollt. Oder verursacht. Oder doch?
Ich glaube schon, dass ich Pisa, auf dessen
Leseverstndnistest Frau Weinert anspielt, vielleicht nicht
bestanden htte, wenn die kommunistischen
Revolutionre die Klassiker-Idee von der Notwendigkeit
der Kinderarbeit durchgesetzt htten (vgl. Marx in
seiner
Kritik am Gothaer Programm, wo die
Forderung nach ihrer Abschaffung "reaktionr" ist).
Ich bin sehr fr Differenzierung - in jeder Hinsicht. Ich
finde solche Schmhtexte wie den von Frau Weinert
schrecklich, ganz im Stile der "Klassiker" bis hin zum
DDR-ND-Stil (z.B. der berhmte Politbro -"A. Z."): zuerst
die Gegner oder Rivalen klein, dumm, bse machen wobei die Klassiker auch noch ber Rasse, krperliche
Gebrechen oder Aussehen herzogen. Dann argumentiert
es sich gleich leichter.
Allerdings halte ich es umgekehrt fr hilfreich, einige
Gedankenanste zu geben, zitatengesttzt, die
zumindest aufhorchen lassen und klar machen mssten,

dass der Name "Friedrich Engels" nicht an eine

demokratische Schule gehrt, denn das wird auch Frau
Weinert wissen: Fr Demokratie, Mehrheitsregelungen,
verbrgte Rechte etc. steht Engels ja nun gewi nicht, das
haben wir schon in der Schule gelernt (siehe unten [1]).
Es ist klar: mit ein paar Zitaten, aus dem Zusammenhang
gerissen, ohne Kenntnis der historischen
Zusammenhnge, ergibt sich kein geschlossenes Bild.
Dennoch sprechen viele Zitate fr sich, legen Ziel- und
Einstellungen blo, regen zum Nachdenken und
Weiterlesen an. Damit Verantwortliche aufhorchen, hatte
ich einige Zitate in meinen Protest einflieen lassen.
Ich hatte, wo mglich, zu den Zitaten einen Internet-Link
hinzu gefgt, damit es im Kontext lesbar wird. Wenn sie
dort nicht vorhanden sind, hatte ich auf MEW verwiesen.
(nebenbei: auch dort ist nicht alles verffentlicht, was von
den Klassikern und ihren Motiven wissenswert ist - die
MEGA wei mehr. )
Frau Weinert meint, mir unterstellen zu knnen, dass ich
schlecht lesen knne und fragt "Votiert Engels nun fr die
Vernichtung der Tschechen oder bedauert er sie ...?"
Wohlan, gehen wir in die Texte. In dem fraglichen Text
hlt Engels die Tschechen vielleicht fr brauchbare
Revolutionre, die leider an die falsche Seite gedrngt
wurden. Nur: warum ist dann ein"Vernichtungskrieg" die
einzige "Lsung"? Einige Monate spter, als die
Tschechen nicht mehr so brauchbar sind, hat er sich
weitere Gedanken darber gemacht meint im Januar 1849
in der NRZ:
"... Aber bei dem ersten siegreichen Aufstand des
franzsischen Proletariats, ... werden die streichischen
Deutschen und Magyaren frei werden und an den
slawischen Barbaren blutige Rache nehmen. Der
allgemeine Krieg, der dann ausbricht, wird diesen
slawischen Sonderbund zersprengen und alle diese
kleinen Stierkpfigen Nationen bis auf ihren Namen

vernichten. Der nchste Weltkrieg wird nicht nur

reaktionre Klassen und Dynastien, er wird auch ganze
reaktionre Vlker vom Erdboden verschwinden
machen. Und das ist auch ein Fortschritt."
MEW 6, S. 168 - 176, Neue Rheinische Zeitung
13.01.1849,
Der magyarische Kampf.
Dieser Text lag Frau Weinert vor!
Wer liest hier nicht richtig? Und vor allem: warum?! Eben
nicht"unterliegen" sollen sie, wie Frau Weinert
beschwichtigt, sondern"vernichtet" werden!
Merke: die Vernichtung von bestimmten Vlkern ist "ein
Fortschritt"!
Engels ein paar Tage vorher:
"Die Niederlage der Arbeiterklasse in Frankreich, der Sieg
der franzsischen Bourgeoisie war gleichzeitig der Sieg
des Ostens ber den Westen, die Niederlage der
Zivilisation unter der Barbarei. In der Walachei begann die
Unterdrckung der Romanen durch die Russen und ihre
Werkzeuge, die Trken; in Wien erwrgten Kroaten,
Panduren, Tschechen, Sereschaner und hnliches
Lumpengesindel die germanische Freiheit, und in diesem
Augenblicke ist der Zar allgegenwrtig in Europa. "
Neue Rheinische Zeitung Nr. 184 vom 1. Januar
1849
auch:
"Was taten die Tschechen? Sie kten die Rute, die sie
bis aufs Blut gezchtigt, sie schworen begeistert zu der
Fahne, unter der ihre Brder niedergemetzelt, ihre Weiber
geschndet worden waren. Der Prager Straenkampf war
der Wendepunkt fr die streichischen demokratischen
Panslawisten. Um die Aussicht auf ihre elende "nationale
Selbstndigkeit" verkauften sie die Demokratie, die
Revolution an die streichische Gesamtmonarchie, an
"das Zentrum", "die systematische Durchfhrung des
Despotismus im Herzen Europas", wie Bakunin p. 29
selbst sagt. Und fr diesen feigen, niedertrchtigen Verrat

an der Revolution werden wir einst blutige Rache an

den Slawen nehmen."
Klingt nicht nach "Bedauern". Es geht noch weiter:
"Auf die sentimentalen Brderschaftsphrasen, die uns hier
im Namen der kontrerevolutionrsten Nationen Europas
dargeboten werden, antworten wir, da der Russenha
die erste revolutionre Leidenschaft bei den Deutschen
war und noch ist; da seit der Revolution der Tschechenund Kroatenha hinzugekommen ist und da wir, in
Gemeinschaft mit Polen und Magyaren, nur durch den
entschiedensten Terrorismus gegen diese slawischen
Vlker die Revolution sicherstellen knnen."
Ist das "sinnentstellend" zitiert?
Oder:
"Dann Kampf, "unerbittlichen Kampf auf Leben und Tod"
mit dem revolutionsverrterischen Slawentum;
Vernichtungskampf und rcksichtslosen Terrorismus nicht im Interesse Deutschlands, sondern im Interesse der
Revolution!
Engels: Der demokratische Panslawismus",
Neue Rheinische Zeitung Nr. 222 vom 15. Februar
1849,
Weiter oben aber im Interesse Deutschlands:
"Aber ohne Gewalt und ohne eherne Rcksichtslosigkeit
wird nichts durchgesetzt in der Geschichte, und htten
Alexander, Csar und Napoleon dieselbe
Rhrungsfhigkeit besessen, an die jetzt der
Panslawismus zugunsten seiner verkommenen Klienten
appelliert, was wre da aus der Geschichte geworden!
Und sind die Perser, Kelten und
christlichen Germanen nicht dieTschechen, Oguliner und
Sereschaner wert?"
Auch noch in spteren Jahren uert sich Engels so:

Engels an Kautzky 7.2.1882

"Nun knnen Sie mich fragen, ob ich denn gar keine
Sympathien habe fr die kleinen slawischen Vlker und
Volkstrmmer, ... In der Tat verdammt wenig. "
(Tschechen, Slowaken, Serben, Bulgaren etc) MEW35,
281f
oder Engels an Eduard Bernstein, 2./25. 2.1882
"Ich bin autoritr genug, die Existenz solcher
Naturvlkchen mitten in Europa fr einen Anachronismus
zu halten. ...
... so mssen sie und ihr Recht auf Viehraub den
Interessen des europischen Proletariats ohne Gnade
geopfert werden.", MEW 35,283
(moderater MEW 35, 279); spter dann:
"Diese elenden Trmmerstcke ehemaliger Nationen,
Serben, Bulgaren, Griechen und anderes Rubergesindel,
fr die der liberale Philister im Interesse der Russen
schwrmt, gnnen also einander die Luft nicht, die sie
einatmen, und mssen sich untereinander die gierigen
Hlse abschneiden. Das wre wunderschn ..." MEW
36, 390
Noch Fragen?
Ich wre neugierig, wie die Klassiker den Beginn des
ersten Weltkrieges, ausgelst durch einen Groserbier,
oder auch das Mnchener Abkommen 1938 eingeschtzt
htten.
Es gibt noch eine ganze Reihe diesbezglicher Texte und
weiterer Untersuchungen der Klassiker bzw. Engels zu
nicht lebenswerten Nationen und auch der berlegenheit
der Deutschen:

und

MEW 6, 275, MEW 13, 468;

auch
"Und das alles zum Dank dafr, da die Deutschen sich
die Mhe gegeben haben, die eigensinnigen Tschechen
und Slowenen zu zivilisieren, Handel, Industrie,
ertrglichen Ackerbau und Bildung bei ihnen
einzufhren!", MEW 6, 277 ff,
aber auch ber
"Klassen und Rassen, die zu schwach sind, die neuen
Lebensbedingungen zu meistern." (
Marx) .
Kommt bekannt vor. Ob das Brandenburgs Nachbarn
gerne hren?
Die Polen gelten anfangs als berlebensfhige Nation,
revolutionr genug, um gegen das rckstndige russische
Barbarentum zu kmpfen:
Spter ist Polen eine verlorene Nation (une nation
fotue ), hat immer nur "tapfre krakeelschtige
Dummheiten gespielt", MEW 27, 266f.
Krieg zur Neuordnung Europas wird immer wieder
diskutiert:
"Ich habe die ganze Frage durchgeochst und bin zu dem
Schlu gekommen, ... da in diesem Augenblick die
einzige Chance Deutschlands, die Herzogtmer zu
befreien, darin besteht, da wir einen Krieg gegen
Ruland zugunsten Polens anfangen. Dann ist LouisNapoleon unser gehorsamer Diener, Schweden fllt uns
sofort in die Arme, und England, hoc est Pam
[Palmerston] ist lahmgelegt; dann nehmen wir von
Dnemark ungestraft was wir Wollen."
Engels an Marx 3.12.1863, MEW 30, 377
Glcklicherweise vollzieht sich heute Europapolitik dank
der schmerzlich erworbenen Ablehnung solcher

Gedanken auf andere Weise.

Ich lasse mich ja gerne von Frau Weinert "Denkzwerg"
nennen. Aber "Riesen von Denkkraft" hatten wir genug:
auch Lenin, Stalin usw. Aber was haben uns diese
Denker, die ihre Ideen im Gegensatz zu den Klassikern
umsetzen konnten, hinterlassen? Dazu sagt Frau Weinert
natrlich nichts. Man knnte sich ja erinnern. (An dieser
Stelle knnte ich glatt ins Polemisieren kommen.) Solche
Denkriesen als Namenspatron fr eine demokratische
Schule? Mit den Stimmen der SPD?
Der Antisemitismus von Marx, selber jdischer Herkunft,
ist nun wirklich unstrittig.
Marx hat die Juden gehasst.
Wenn Frau Weinert Marx unterstellt, er habe die
"Emanzipation" der Juden gewollt und fr den Sozialismus
erwartet (woher diese Weisheit?), warum nennt sie dann
nicht einen Satz ber die "Emanzipation? Es gibt mehrere,
bitte im Kontext. Hier ist einer:
"Wir erkennen also im Judentum ein allgemeines
gegenwrtiges antisoziales Element, welches durch die
geschichtliche Entwicklung, an welcher die Juden in
dieser schlechten Beziehung eifrig mitgearbeitet, auf
seine jetzige Hhe getrieben wurde, auf eine Hhe, auf
welcher es sich notwendig auflsen mu. Die
Judenemanzipation in ihrer letzten Bedeutung ist die
Emanzipation der Menschheit vom Judentum."
MEW 1, 372f,
geschrieben brigens 1843 (nicht 1844, wie Frau Weinert
meint), genau Hundert Jahre vor Beginn der "Endlsung"!
Stze hnlicher Storichtung wie
"So finden wir, dass hinter jedem Tyrannen ein Jude
...steht.",Eleanor Marx: "The Eastern Question - Letters written
1853-1856 Dealing with the Events for the Crimean War by Karl
Marx", London 1869, S. 600

findet man fter.

Laut Julius Carlebach: "Karl Marx And The Radical
Critique of Judaism", London 1978, sagt dazu der Jude
Franz Jona Fink:"What Jew could forget the mass
extermination of 1943 when he reads the death sentence
of 1843?"
In deutlicherer Sprache, aber weniger ffentlich in einem
Brief an Engels, ber einen politischen Rivalen:
"Es ist mir jetzt vllig klar, da er, wie auch seine
Kopfbildung und sein Haarwuchs beweist, - von den
Negern abstammt, die sich dem Zug des Moses aus
gypten anschlossen (wenn nicht seine Mutter oder
Gromutter von vterlicher Seite sich mit einem nigger
kreuzten). Nun, diese Verbindung von Judentum und
Gemanentum mit der negerhaften Grundsubstanz mssen
ein sonderbares Produkt hervorbringen. Die
Zudringlichkeit des Burschen ist auch niggerhaft." Marx an
Engels 30. Juli 1862; MEW 30, 257 ff.
Ist das nur eine leicht burschikose, aus dem
Zusammenhang gerissene Redensart (ber den
Arbeiterfhrer Ferdinand Lasalle)?
Das klingt wie Der Strmer, da kann niemand drum herum
reden. Ist das wirklich nur als Metapher fr "Kapital" zu
lesen?
Aber es geht ja hier um Engels:
"... da die deutschen Nationalgimpel und Geldmacher
des Frankfurter Sumpfparlaments bei diesen Zhlungen
immer noch die polnischen Juden zu Deutschen
gerechnet, obwohl diese schmutzigste aller Racen weder
ihrem Jargon, noch ihrer Abstammung nach, sondern
hchstens durch ihre Profitwtigkeit mit Frankfurt im
Verwandtschaftsverhltnis stehen kann ..." NRZ 29. April
1849, Zweite Ausgabe;
MEW 6, 448f .
Was wrde die Lehrerin fr Politische Bildung in der

demokratischen Bundesrepublik Deutschland einem

Schler fr eine Note erteilen, wenn er solches in einem
Aufsatz schrieb?
oder:
"Wir wnschen nur, da es recht gemeine, recht
schmutzige, recht jdische Bourgeois sein mgen, die
dies altehrwrdige Reich ankaufen. Solch eine widerliche,
stockprgelnde, vterliche, lausige Regierung verdient,
einem recht lausigen, weichselzpfigen, stinkenden
Gegner zu unterliegen. Herr Metternich kann sich darauf
verlassen, da wir spter diesen Gegner ebenso
unbarmherzig lausen werden, wie er von ihm demnchst
gelaust werden wird."
Deutsche-Brsseler-Zeitung
Nr. 8 vom 27. Januar 1848
Klingt nicht eben fein. [Immer wieder kommen Stze vor
mitschlimmsten s tereotypen Antijudaismen].
Man schaue sich die von Marx "diktatorisch" (so
Redakteur Engels: MEW 21, 19) regierte Neue
Rheinische Zeitung an. Die Artikel des von Marx gelobten
Redakteurs Mller-Tellering (MEW 27, 485) strotzen nur
so von schlimmstem Antisemitismus in ausgesprochener
Strmer-Manier. Dazu Rosdolsky, ehemaliges ZK-Mitglied
der KP Westukraine, zur Neuen Rheinischen Zeitung:
"Der Leser ist sicherlich ber die geschmacklosen
antijdischen Korrespondenzen dieses Blattes bestrzt.
Welcher trben Quelle entstammen sie? Die Antwort ist
einfach: Die vielstimmige 'Volksmeinung' war es, die in
diesen Korrespondenzen lag. Freilich war dieser
'Volksantisemitismus' in bedeutendem Mae
'antikapitalistisch' - so war aber auch der sptere
Antisemitismus Stckers, Luegers und Hitlers" (FriedrichEbert-Stiftung, Archiv fr Sozialgeschichte 1964, Band 4,
S. 194 bzw. 264).
Engels hat sich nach dem Tode von Marx mit
Antisemitismus beschftigt, nennt ihn "Dummheit", nennt

gesellschaftliche Bedingungen, wo das mchtige

Kapital, "semitisch oder arisch", die reaktionren Krfte
zerstrt und der Antisemitismus daher nur in
rckstndigen Gesellschaften anzutreffen ist, stellt fest,
dass bei den New Yorker Superreichen kein einziger Jude
sei, dass es viele jdische Proletarier gibt und sagt: "Viele
unserer besten Leute sind Juden".
Allerdings befindet er sich hier im Streit mit
kunkurrierenden Arbeiterbewegungen (zB. der christlichen
von Adolf Stoecker), die antijudaistisch argumentierten,
gegen die es sinnvoll erscheint, auch dieses Register
ziehen zu knnen. Wie wir alle wissen, hat die Geschichte
bewiesen, dass Antisemitismus langlebiger war. Die
entsprechenden antisemitischen Anmerkungen der
Klassiker (wie wird erst das nicht-berlieferte, aber
dennoch nachhaltig wirkende Gedankengut ausgesehen
haben?) sind notwendig mit in diese Geschichte
eingegangen.
Dann hat Engels wieder Verstndnis fr Antisemitismus in
Frankreich. MEW 38, p.403 (1891/92) [- vgl. auch MEW
38, p.228.]
Nicht nur das gibt ein schillerndes Bild von Engels, wie in
vielen Dingen.
berhaupt der Rassismus. Sollte man sagen, der
Rassismus der Klassiker war eben der Zeitgeist? Oder
sollte man anerkennen, dass ihr Wirken diesen verstrkt
und mit Begrndungen versehen hat? - Mit den bekannten
Folgen?
Engels beschftigt sich mit den "Menschenracen" MEW
27,385, ist der Meinung, dass die Rasse ein
konomischer Faktor ist:
"Wir sehen die konomischen Bedingungen als das in
letzter Instanz die geschichtliche Entwicklung Bedingende
an. Aber dieRasse ist selbst ein konomischer
Faktor." MEW 39, 206;
es geht um deutsche "Racen", die slawische, die

angelschsische Rasse usw. ber "zu schwache Rassen"

wurde oben schon gesprochen. Nach Marx sollten sich
die zur gleichen "groen Rasse" gehrenden Deutschen
und Skandinavier verbinden, damit sie nicht den Weg fr
ihren Erbfeind, die "Slaven", bereiten. MEW 9, 248. Man
hat frmlich bestimmte Wahlplakate der Weimarer Zeit vor
Augen. Fr Engels sind "bis heute"
"die Russen aller Klassen viel zu barbarisch, um an
wissenschaftlicher oder geistiger Ttigkeit irgendwelcher
Art (auer Intrigen) Gefallen zu finden. Deshalb sind fast
alle ihre hervorragenden Leute im Militrdienst entweder
Auslnder oder, was beinahe auf dasselbe herauskommt,
'Ostseiskije', Deutsche aus den baltischen
Provinzen."
Frau Weinert kennt ihren Marx und ihren Engels schlecht,
wenn sie verneint, dass sie Terror gewollt haben. Von der
Notwendigkeit des Terrors haben wir schon in der Schule
gehrt, nur wurde das Wrtchen "revolutionr" davor nie
vergessen:
"Die Arbeiter mssen ...
Sie mssen dahin arbeiten, da die unmittelbare
revolutionre Aufregung nicht sogleich nach dem Siege
wieder unterdrckt wird. Sie mssen sie im Gegenteil so
lange wie mglich aufrecht erhalten. Weit entfernt den
sogenannten Exzessen, den Exempeln der Volksrache an
verhaten Individuen oder ffentlichen Gebuden, an die
sich nur gehssige Erinnerungen knpfen,
entgegenzutreten, mu man diese Exempel nicht nur
dulden, sondern ihre Leitung selbst in die Hand nehmen.
..."
Marx/Engels: Ansprache der Zentralbehrde an
den Bund vom Mrz 1850 (1850 als Rundschreiben
verbreitet.) MEW 7, 249f.
(auch noch in den 1890ern: MEW 39, 32).
Engels - im Gegensatz zu Frau Weinert:

"... wir werden den Terrorismus nicht beschnigen",

MEW6, 505 .
Leicht auszumalen, was diese pseudo-wissenschaftliche,
programmatische Enttabuisierung von Terror im Namen
einer revolutionren Bewegung, im Namen eines Ideals,
im Namen von politischen Zielen bei den angesprochenen
Multiplikatoren der Arbeiterbewegung angerichtet hat.
Reichspogromnacht und Rostock-Lichtenhagen lassen
gren. Ist der Bogen zu weit gespannt?
An den Gymnasien sollen Schler die Grundlagen
demokratischen Verhaltens erlernen und erfahren. Mit
einem Vorbild, das Demokratie nur als Zwischenstadium,
als taktische Phase, das Demokraten bestenfalls als
(dumme, zu kompromittierende s. [1] unten) taktische
Bndnispartner betrachtete, dem zu gegebener Zeit der
Fu ins Genick zu stellen ist, kann das wahrscheinlich nur
nach Meinung von OSL-Kreistagsvertretern gelingen.
Die Kommunisten kooperierten in der Weimarer Republik
wenn ntig sogar mit der rivalisierenden revolutionren
NS-Bewegung, wenn es nur gegen den demokratischen
Hauptfeind SPD ging.
(

Hauptfeind Sozialdemokraten - vgl. Ulbricht im Reichstag

Feb. 1932

- Deutsches Historisches Museum Berlin)

Was wird Frau Weinert denn Schlern entgegnen, wenn

diese von Menschenkehricht, Vlkerabfllen, Nationen
ohne Existenzberechtigung, vom Recht der strkeren
Nation auf Eroberung u.dgl. reden? Sie drfen sich ja auf
ihren Namenspatron berufen. Und wenn sie sich nach
dessen Anleitung "des eigenen Verstandes ohne
Anleitung Fremder" (Frau Weinert zitiert Kant) bedienen
und solche Gedanken ins Heute projizieren?
Will man wirklich Demokraten erziehen, die mit
Mehrheitsbeschlssen umgehen knnen?
Die Anregungen htten fr die Verantwortlichen

ausreichen mssen, sich zumindest vertieft mit dem

Thema zu befassen. Literatur gibt es genug.
Ja, es geht mir ums "Abfertigen und Erledigen", aber nicht
als"Ausdruck von Denkfaulheit", wie Frau Weinert glaubt
schreiben zu mssen, sondern um meinen kleinen Beitrag
zum Erledigen von scheintoten Diktatur- und
Zerstrungsphantasien, die im vorigen Jahrhundert viele
Millionen Tote forderte. Peanuts?
Wer sich noch weitere Texte zumuten will, kann das im
Internet tun und sich ein eigenes Bild machen:
Unter
kann eine ML-Suchmaschine
angesprochen werden. Leider fehlt hier viel Material,
besonders viele persnliche Briefe der Klassiker
untereinander, in denen sie ihre Absichten verdeutlichen
(August Bebel sinngem darber: das Schlimmste
haben wir beseitigt oder entschrft) und wo sie einander
ihre ffentlichen Schriften interpretieren, sind wohl die
Aussagekrftigsten.
Eigentlich wre eine historisch und politisch begrndete
Analyse der Person Friedrich Engels die Aufgabe der
Verantwortlichen Bildungspolitiker gewesen. Die
Zahnlosigkeit der Demokraten Brandenburgs, besonders
der SPD, ist mir unverstndlich.
Dass sich Frau Weinert mit Ihrem Text sehr weit aus dem
Fenster gelehnt hat, ist ja offenkundig. Sie kennt - wie
viele - die schlimmen Texte nicht - oder sie will sie nicht
zur Kenntnis nehmen oder geben, sondern vermutlich nur
die uns immer als das Grundwissen aus der Sicht der
DDR-Notwendigkeiten angebotenen "Lehrtexte".Ich wei
nicht, ob ich "Feindbilder pflege", denke aber, dass sie die
falschen "Freundbilder" propagiert. Wie mag der politische
Bildungsunterricht bei ihr aussehen? Nein, ich will an
dieser Stelle nicht spekulieren ber ihre Motive und Ziele.
Ich kenne sie nicht. Das heit: ein bisschen habe ich sie
ja kennen gelernt...
Zum Schluss noch ein Wort von einem, der es wissen

muss, und der offensichtlich lernfhig ist:

"...fhrt sie allerdings unaufhaltsam zu der Konsequenz,
die mich heute sagen lt, nicht erst mit Stalin, sondern
mit dem Freundespaar aus Trier und Wuppertal beginnen
Misere und Hllensturz der "wissenschaftlichen"
Weitverbesserung. Ihre Virulenz wird sie solange nicht
einben, als gerade dies geleugnet wird und die
"Klassiker" von der gescheiterten Praxis ihrer Theorie
abgenabelt werden. Darum bemht sich ja krampfhaft
eine marxistische Erbengemeinschaft, zu der weit mehr und weniger suspekte - Leute gehren, als sie in der PDS
zu finden sind. Sie mchten den Schlustrich beim
blutsaufenden Georgier gezogen sehen.
Schadensbegrenzung fr Marx und Engels. Bleiben sie
unbefleckt, kann man weiter mit ihnen in sozialer
Bigotterie machen - vielleicht schon bald wieder in einer
Welt, die dafr hinreichenden sozialen Nhrboden liefert.
"
Gnter Schabowski
(zit. in K. Lw, Marx und Marxismus. Mnchen 2001)
Dem ist nichts hinzu zu fgen.
Frei nach Jewtuschenko vielleicht noch das: Verdoppelt
die Wachen an ihren Grbern! -- Ach so, Engels hat ja
keins. Eben!
KA Zech

-------------------------------------------------------[1]
" Engels an Friedrich Lener, 4. April 1869: Dabei ist es
zum Totlachen zu sehen, wie diese dummen Demokraten
jetzt erst recht angefhrt sind, und in keinem Lande der
Welt sich auch nur noch ein anstndiges Pltzchen fr sie
finden will. Fortschrittspartei in Deutschland, Republikaner
in Frankreich, Radikale in England, sie sind alle

zusammen gleich beschissen. Es gibt nichts Komischeres

als die sauersen Komplimente, die sie der sozialen
Bewegung machen mssen, whrend sie ganz genau
wissen, da diese soziale Bewegung ihnen eines schnen
Morgens den Fu auf den Nacken setzen wird. " MEW 32,
599
Gibt es immer noch "dumme Demokraten"? Also Vorsicht
SPD:
"Die Kommunisten, weit entfernt, unter den gegenwrtigen
Verhltnissen mit den Deokraten nutzlose Streitigkeiten
anzufangen, treten vielmehr fr den Augenblick in allen
praktischen Parteifragen selbst als Demokraten auf. Die
Demokratie hat in allen zivilisierten Lndern die politische
Herrschaft des Proletariats zur notwendigen Folge, und
die politische Herrschaft des Proletariats ist die erste
Voraussetzung aller kommunistischen Maregeln.
Solange die Demokratie noch nicht erkmpft ist, solange
kmpfen Kommunisten und Demokraten also zusammen,
solange sind die Interessen der Demokraten zugleich die
der Kommunisten. Bis dahin sind die Differenzen
zwischen beiden Parteien rein theoretischer Natur und
knnen theoretisch ganz gut diskutiert werden ohne da
dadurch die gemeinschaftliche Aktion irgendwie gestrt
wird. Man wird sich sogar ber manche Maregeln
verstndigen knnen, welche sofort nach Erringung der
Demokratie im Interesse der bisher unterdrckten Klassen
vorzunehmen sind, z.B. Betrieb der groen Industrie, der
Eisenbahnen durch den Staat, Erziehung aller Kinder auf
Staatskosten etc"
MEW 4, 317.
Und dann mu man die Demokraten kompromittieren:
1. die Demokraten dazu zwingen, nach mglichst vielen
Seiten hin in die bisherige Gesellschaftsordnung
einzugreifen, ihren regelmigen Gang zu stren und sich
selbst zu kompromittieren sowie mglichst viele
Produktivkrfte, Transportmittel, Fabriken, Eisenbahnen
usw. in den Hnden des Staates zu konzentrieren.

2.Sie mssen die Vorschlge der Demokraten, die

jedenfalls nicht revolutionr, sondern blo reformierend
auftreten werden, auf die Spitze treiben und sie in direkte
Angriffe auf das Privateigentum verwandeln, so zum
Beispiel, wenn die Kleinbrger vorschlagen, die
Eisenbahnen und Fabriken anzukaufen, so mssen die
Arbeiter fordern, da diese Eisenbahnen und Fabriken als
Eigentum von Reaktionren vom Staate einfach und ohne
Entschdigung konfisziert werden. Wenn die Demokraten
die proportionelle Steuer vorschlagen, fordern die Arbeiter
progressive; wenn die Demokraten selbst eine gemigte
progressive beantragen, bestehen die Arbeiter auf einer
Steuer, deren Stze so rasch steigen, da das groe
Kapital dabei zugrunde geht; wenn die Demokraten die
Regulierung der Staatsschulden verlangen, verlangen die
Arbeiter den Staatsbankerott. Die Forderungen der
Arbeiter werden sich also berall nach den Konzessionen
und Maregeln der Demokraten richten mssen .
Man knnte hier verstehen, warum manche den Namen
"Friedrich Engels" so bevorzugen.

Nachbemerkung:
Frau Weinert hat auf oben stehenden Text reagiert,
allerdings nicht mit Argumenten bezogen auf den Text.
Waren Ihr zuvor die Zitate zu beschrnkt, ohne
Zusammenhang gewesen, so sind es ihr diesmal zu viele.
Fakten gelten eben nichts im hysterisch-ideologisierten
Machtkampf.
Fr Interessenten sei ihr Text dennoch wieder gegeben.

"Ein Nachschlag" Viola Weinert zu diesem Text 09.10.02

Tuesday, March 01, 2005

MORE DISTASTE FOR JEWS

Marx to Engels, 1875: "In London a sly-looking little Jew got into our carriage in a big hurry, with a small suitcase under his arm

Listed, but with no translation here

The German
Marx an Engels, 21. August 1875
"In London stieg in unsren waggon in groer Hast ein pfiffig aussehendes Jdel, mit einem kleinen Koffer unter dem Arm."
MEW a.a.O. 34, 7 f.

Volume 45
Marx & Engels
1874-79
LETTERS
January 1874-December 1879

1874
Marx to Ludwig Kugelmann. 19 January

Engels to Wilhelm Liebknecht. 27 January

Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge. 14 February

Engels to Wilhelm Blos. 21 February

Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge. 27 February

Marx to George Moore. 26 March

10

Marx to George Moore. 28 March

12

Marx to Jenny Marx. 19 April

13

Marx to Jenny Longuet. Between 20 and 24 April

15

Marx to Maurice Lachatre. 12 May

16

Marx to Ludwig Kugelmann. 18 May

17

Engels to Gottfried Ermen. 1 June

19

Marx to Ludwig Kugelmann. 24 June

21

Marx to Engels. 15 July

21

Engels to Marx. 21 July

23

Marx to Maurice Lachatre. 23 July

25

Engels to Jenny Longuet. 2 August

27

Marx to Engels. 4 August

27

Marx to Sorge. 4 August

28

Marx to Ludwig Kugelmann. 4 August

31

Marx to Ludwig Kugelmann. 10 August

32

Engels to Marx. 12 August

32

Marx to Engels. 14 August

33

Marx to Jenny Longuet. 14 August

34

Marx to Engels. 1 September

37

Engels to Marx. 5 September

38

Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge. 12[-17] September

40

Marx to Engels. 18 September

45

Marx to Max Oppenheim. 20 September

47

Engels to Marx. 21 September

48

Engels to Laura Lafargue. 15 October

51

Marx to Max Oppenheim. 17 October

52

Engels to Hermann Lopatin. About 20 October

53

1875
Marx to Wilhelm Liebknecht. 7 January

54

Marx to Wilhelm Liebknecht. 9 January

55

Marx to Max Oppenheim. 20 January

55

Marx to Maurice Lachatre. 30 January

56

Marx to Juste Vernouillet. 3 February

57

Marx to Pyotr Lavrov. 11 February

58

Marx to Engels. February-March

59

Engels to Hermann Ramm. 18 March

59

Engels to August Bebel. 18-28 March

60

Engels to Rudolf Engels. 22 March

66

Marx to Wilhelm Bracke. 5 May

69

Marx to Pyotr Lavrov. 8 May

73

Engels to Eugen Oswald- 8 May

74

Marx to Jenny Marx 10 May

75

Engels to Patrick John Coleman 20 May

76

Engels to A Goopy 14 June

77

Marx to Pyotr Lavrov 18 June

.78

Marx to Z 12 July

79

Marx to Edwards 14 July

79

Marx to Engels 21 August

82

Marx to Max Oppenheim. 1 September

86

Marx to Max Oppenheim. 6 September

87

Marx to Engels. 8 September

87

Marx to Max Oppenheim. 9 September

89

Marx to Hermann Schumacher. 21 September

90

Engels to Pyotr Lavrov. 24 September

91

Marx to Peter Imandt. 27 September

92

Marx to Bernhard Kraus. 30 September

93

Marx to Pyotr Lavrov. 8 October

93

Engels to Wilhelm Bracke. 11 October

94

Engels to August Bebel. 12 October

97

Engels to Bebel. October 15

99

Marx to Bernhard Kraus. 20 October

103

Engels to Philipp Pauli. 8 November

104

Engels to Philipp Pauli. 9 November

105

Engels to Rudolf Engels. 9 November

105

Engels to Pyotr Lavrov. 12[-17] November

106

Engels to Paul Kersten. 24 November

110

Marx to Morel. Probably autumn

110

Marx to Pyotr Lavrov. 3 December

111

Engels to Walery Wroblewski. 4 December

111

Engels to Friedrich Lessner. 16 December

112

Marx to Pyotr Lavrov. 17 December

113

1876
Marx to Friedrich Adolph Sorge. 4 April

114

Engels to Philipp Pauli. 25 April

115

Marx to Pyotr Lavrov. 18 May

117

Engels to Marx. 24 May

117

Marx to Engels. 25 May

119

Engels to Marx. 28 May

122

Marx to Friedrich Adolph Sorge. 14 June

124

Marx to Wilhelm Liebknecht. 14 June

125

Marx to Pyotr Lavrov. 14 June

126

Marx to Pyotr Lavrov. 15 June

127

Engels to Pyotr Lavrov. 16 June

128

Engels to Pyotr Lavrov. 30 June

129

Engels to Marx. 25 July

130

Marx to Engels. 26 July

131

Engels to Philipp Pauli. 11 August

133

Engels to Pyotr Lavrov. 15 August

134

Marx to Engels. 19 August

135

Engels to Jenny Marx. 20 August

138

Engels to Marx. 25 August

139

Engels to Ida Pauli. 27 August

141

Marx to Max Oppenheim. 30 August

142

Marx to Jenny Longuet. End of August-beginning of September

143

Marx to Max Oppenheim. 1 September

144

Marx to Max Oppenheim. 6 September

144

Marx to Max Oppenheim. 9 September

145

Marx to Ida Pauli. 10 September

146

Marx to Max Oppenheim. 12 September

146

Engels to Pyotr Lavrov. 15 September

147

Marx to Ferdinand Fleckles. 21 September

148

Marx to Wilhelm Bracke. 23 September

149

Marx to Wilhelm Bracke. 30 September

151

Marx to Pyotr Lavrov. 7 October

153

Marx to Wilhelm Liebknecht. 7 October

154

Marx to Leo Frankel. 13 October

157

Engels to Ernst Dronke. 15 October

159

Marx to Thomas Allsop. 16 October

159

Engels to Emil Blank. 16 October

160

Engels to Thomas Allsop. 17 October

160

Engels to Ernst Dronke. 20 October

161

Engels to Ludwig Kugelmann. 20 October

162

Marx to Pyotr Lavrov. 21 October

163

Engels to Ernst Dronke. 1 November

164

Marx to Wilhelm Bracke. 6 November

166

Marx to Collet Dobson Collet. 10 November

167

Engels to Ernst Dronke. 13 November

171

Marx to Wilhelm Bracke. 20 November

172

Engels to Johann Philipp Becker. 20 November

173

Engels to Gustav Rasch. End of November

175

Marx to Collet Dobson Collet. 9 December

178

Marx to Engels. 11 December

179

Engels to Philipp Pauli. 16 December

180

Engels to Hermann Engels. 18 December

181

Engels to Johann Philipp Becker. 21 December

183

1877
Marx to Maxim Kovalevsky. 9 January

185

Engels to Wilhelm Liebknecht. 9 January

186

Engels to Hermann Engels. 9 January

187

Marx to Wilhelm Bracke. 21 January

188

Marx to Ferdinand Fleckles. 21 January

190

Marx to Wilhelm Alexander Freund. 21 January

191

Marx to Frederic Harrison. 21 January

192

Marx to Gabriel Deville. 23 January

193

Engels to Hermann Ramm. 25 January

194

Marx to Wilhelm Bracke. 14 February

196

Engels to Ida Pauli. 14 February

197

Engels to Marx. 23 February

198

Marx to Pyotr Lavrov. 24 February

201

Engels to Marx. 2 March

201

Marx to Engels. 3 March

203

Engels to Friedrich Lessner. 4 March

204

Marx to Engels. 5 March

205

Engels to Marx. 6 March

206

Marx to Engels. 7 March

207

Marx to Pyotr Lavrov. 16 March

:210

Marx to Mrs Wollmann. 19 March

211

Marx to Pyotr Lavrov. 23 March

213

Engels to Johann Philipp Becker. 24 March

214

Engels to Philipp Pauli. 26 March

215

Marx to Pyotr Lavrov. 27 March

216

Marx to Pyotr Lavrov. 29 March

217

Marx to Wilhelm Bracke. 11 April

217

Engels to Wilhelm Liebknecht. 11 April

219

Marx to Philip Stephen King. 14 April

220

Marx to Pyotr Lavrov. 17 April

220

Marx to Thomas Allsop. 20 April

.221

Marx to Wilhelm Bracke. 21 April

222

Marx to Pyotr Lavrov. 21 April

225

Engels to B. Lindheimer. 21 April

:225

Marx to Pyotr Lavrov. 23 April

226

Engels to Wilhelm Bracke. 24 April

227

Engels to B. Lindheimer. 26 April

229

Engels to B. Lindheimer. 3 or 4 May

229

Marx to Wilhelm Bracke. 26 July

230

Engels to Marx. 27 May

232

Marx to Engels. 31 May

234

Engels to Wilhelm Bracke. 25 June

236

Engels to Wilhelm Liebknecht. 2 July

238

Engels to Marx. 15 July

240

Marx to Engels. 18 July

241

Engels to Marx. 19 July

243

Marx to Engels. 23 July

244

Engels to Marx. 24 July

248

Marx to Engels 25 July

250

Engels to Franz Wiede. 25 July

253

Engels to Marx. 31 July

254

Engels to Natalie Liebknecht. 31 July

256

Engels to Wilhelm Liebknecht. 31 July

256

Marx to Engels. 1 August

258

Marx to Wilhelm Bracke. 1 August

262

Marx to Engels. 8 August

262

Marx to Wilhelm Bracke. 8 August

265

Marx to Maltman Barry. 15 August

266

Marx to Engels. 17 August

267

Marx to Wilhelm Bracke. 18 August

269

Marx to Wilhelm Bracke. 24 August

270

Engels to Marx. 25 August

271

Marx to Nikolaus Delius. 25 August

273

Engels to Natalie Liebknecht. 4 September

274

Marx to Friedrich Adolph Sorge. 27 September

275

Engels to Hermann Engels. 5 October

279

Engels to Ludwig Kugelmann. 12 October

280

Engels to Hermann Engels. 13 October

281

Marx to Friedrich Adolph Sorge. 19 October

282

Marx to Wilhelm Bracke. 23 October

285

Marx to Sibylle Hess. 25 October

286

Marx to Sigmund Schott. 3 November

287

Marx to Wilhelm Blos. 10 November

288

Engels to Ernst Dronke. 20 November

289

Marx to Sibylle Hess. 29 November

290

Engels to Marx. End of 1877-beginning of 1878

290

1878
Marx to Thomas Allsop. 1 January

292

Engels to Johann Philipp Becker. 11 January

293

Marx to Wilhelm Liebknecht. 4 February

296

Marx to Thomas Allsop. 4 February

298

Marx to Wilhelm Liebknecht. 11 February

299

Marx to Sigmund Schott. 29 March

304

Marx to Valerian Smirnov. 29 March

305

Engels to Carl Hirsch. 3 April

306

Engels to Hermann Lopatin. 3 April

307

Marx to Thomas Allsop. 28 April

307

Engels to Wilhelm Bracke. 30 April

308

Marx to Carl Hirsch. 26 June

310

Marx to Sigmund Schott. 13 July

311

Marx to Sigmund Schott. 15 July

311

Engels to Valerian Smirnov. 16 July

312

Engels to Oscar Schmidt. 19 July

313

Engels to Philipp Pauli. 30 July

314

Engels to Pyotr Lavrov. 10 August

316

Marx to George Rivers. 24 August

317

Marx to Friedrich Adolph Sorge. 4 September

318

Engels to Friedrich Lessner. 12 September

319

Engels to Rudolf Engels. 12 September

320

Marx to Jenny Longuet. 16 September

320

Marx to Engels. 17 September

321

Marx to Jenny Marx. 17 September

324

Engels to Marx. 18 September

325

Marx to Engels. 18 September

327

Engels to Marx. 19 September

330

Engels to Marx. 21 September

330

Marx to Engels. 24 September

331

Marx to Moritz Kaufmann. 3 October

333

Marx to Moritz Kaufmann. 10 October

334

Engels to Hermann Arnoldt. 21 October

335

Marx to an Unknown Correspondent. 4 November

356

Marx to Alfred Talandier. About 10 November-

336

Marx to Nikolai Danielson. 15 November

343

Engels to Ernst Dronke. 19 November

345

Marx to Nikolai Danielson. 28 November

346

Engels to Ernst Dronke. 29 November

347

Engels to Johann Philipp Becker. 12 December

348

1879
Marx to Hugo Heller. 29 January

350

Engels to Johann Philipp Becker. 30 January

350

Engels to Wilhelm Liebknecht. 1 March

352

Marx to Nikolai Danielson. 10 April

355

Marx to Rudolph Meyer. 28 May

359

Engels to J. Gugenheim. 16 June

359

Engels to Eduard Bernstein. 17 June

360

Engels to Eduard Bernstein. 26 June

361

Engels to Johann Philipp Becker. 1 July

364

Marx to Carlo Cafiero. 29 July

365

Engels to August Bebel. 4 August

366

Marx to Rudolph Meyer. 7 August

368

Marx to Engels. 14 August

369

Marx to Jenny Longuet. 19 August

371

Engels to Marx. 20 August

372

Engels to Marx. 25 August

374

Marx to Engels. 25 August

376

Engels to Marx. 26 August

378

Engels to Karl Hochberg. 26 August

379

Marx to Engels. 27 August

380

Marx to Engels. 28 August

381

Marx to Engels. 3 September

382

Engels to Johann Philipp Becker. 8 September

383

Marx to Engels. 9 September

385

Engels to Marx. 9 September

385

Marx to Engels. 10 September

388

Engels to Marx. 11 September

390

Marx to Engels. 11 September

391

Marx to Engels. 14 September

392

Engels to Johann Philipp Becker. 15 September

392

Marx and Engels to August Bebel, Wilhelm Liebknecht, Wilhelm Bracke and Others
(Circular Letter). 17-18 September

394

Marx to Carl Hirsch. 18 September

409

Marx to Nikolai Danielson 19 September

409

Marx to Friedrich Adolph Sorge. 19 September

410

Engels to Johann Philipp Becker. 24 September

415

Engels to Marx. After 8 October

415

Marx to Bertha August. 25 October

416

Engels to August Bebel. 14 November

416

Marx to Friedrich Adolph Sorge. 14 November

422

Engels to August Bebel. 24 November

423

Marx to Achille Loria. 3 December

426

Marx to an Unknown Correspondent. 11 December

427

Marx to Charles Walstone (Waldstein). 13 December

427

Engels to Thomas Allsop. 14 December

428

Engels to August Bebel. 16 December

429

Engels to Johann Philipp Becker. 19 December

432

Engels to Amelie Engels. Around 1879-1880

434

Appendices
Brief Account of Marx's Letters to Carl Hirsch. 31 January 1875 to 20 February 1878

439

Eleanor Marx to Carl Hirsch. 25 October 1875

441

Jenny Marx to Johann Philipp Becker. Between 16 and 20 August 1876

442

Eleanor Marx to Carl Hirsch. 25 November 1876

444

Jenny Marx to Friedrich Adolph Sorge. 20 or 21 January 1877

445

Eleanor Marx to Carl Hirsch. 8 June 1878

449

Jules Guesde to Karl Marx. March-April 1879

450

Marx to Maxim Kovalevsky. April 1879

452

Notes and Indexes

Notes

455

Name Index

520

Index of Quoted and Mentioned Literature

559

Index of Periodicals

579

Subject Index

587

Illustrations
Karl Marx (London, 1875)

50

First page of Marx's letter to Wilhelm Bracke of 5 May 1875

71

Extracts made by Marx from A. I. Koshelev's book On Communal Landownership in

Prussia, Berlin, 1875

101

Diagram of the Tableau economique

258-59

The house in London, 122 Regent's Park Road, where Engels lived from September 1870
to October 1894

290-91

Lizzie Burns, Engels' wife

290-91

Jenny and Charles Longuet, early 1870s

370-71

The house in London, 41 Maitland Park Road, where Marx lived from March 1875 till the
end of his life

370-71

Monday, February 28, 2005

THE STATE EXISTS TO OPPRESS PEOPLE, NOT TO ALLOW FREEDOM

Engels to August Bebel, March 18-28, 1875: "All these things have been done by our people to oblige the Lassalleans. And what have the others conceded? That a host of somewhat muddled and purely democratic demands should figure in the programme, some of them being of a purely fashionable nature
-- for instance "legislation by the people" such as exists in Switzerland and does more harm than good, if it can be said to do anything at all.... Now, since the state is merely a transitional institution of which use is made in the struggle, in the revolution, to keep down one's enemies by force, it is utter
madness to speak of a free people's state; so long as the proletariat still makes use of the state, it makes use of it, not for the purpose of freedom, but of keeping down its enemies."
Context here
The German
Engels an August Bebel, 18./28. Mrz 1875
"Da ein Haufen ziemlich verworrener rein demokratischer Forderungen im Programm figurieren, von denen manche reine Modesache sind, wie z.B. die 'Gesetzgebung durch das Volk' (...)
Da nun der Staat doch nur eine vorbergehende Einrichtung ist, deren man sich im Kampf, in der Revolution bedient, um seine Gegner gewaltsam niederzuhalten, so ist es purer Unsinn, vom freien Volksstaat zu sprechen: solange das Proletariat den Staat noch gebraucht, gebraucht es ihn nicht im Interesse
der Freiheit, sondern der Niederhaltung seiner Gegner (...)"
MEW a.a.O. 34, 130., Rotbuch S. 209

Marx-Engels Correspondence 1875

Engels to August Bebel

In Zwickau
Written: London, March 18-28, 1875;
First Published: A. Bebel, Aus meinem Leben, Part 2, Stuttgart, 1911;
Translated: Peter and Betty Ross;
Transcribed: Zodiac;
HTML Markup: S. Ryan and B. Baggins.

London, March 18-28, 1875

Dear Bebel,
I have received your letter of February 23 and am glad to hear that you are in
such good bodily health.
You ask me what we think of the unification affair. We are, unfortunately, in
exactly the same boat as yourself. Neither Liebknecht nor anyone else has let
us have any kind of information, and hence we too know only what is in the
papers not that there was anything in them until a week or so ago, when the
draft programme appeared. That astonished us not a little, I must say.

Our party had so often held out a conciliatory hand to the Lassalleans, or at
least proffered co-operation, only to be rebuffed so often and so
contemptuously by the Hasenclevers, Hasselmanns and Tolckes as to lead any
child to the conclusion that, should these gentlemen now come and themselves
proffer conciliation, they must be in a hell of a dilemma. Knowing full well
what these people are like, however, it behoves us to make the most of that
dilemma and insist on every conceivable guarantee that might prevent these
people from restoring, at our partys expense, their shattered reputation in
general working-class opinion. They should be given an exceedingly cool and
cautious reception, and union be made dependent on the degree of their
readiness to abandon their sectarian slogans and their state aid, [2] and to accept
in its essentials the Eisenach Programme of 1869 [3] or an improved edition of it
adapted to the present day. Our party has absolutely nothing to learn from the
Lassalleans in the theoretical sphere, i.e. the crux of the matter where the
programme is concerned, but the Lassalleans doubtless have something to
learn from the party; the first prerequisite for union was that they cease to be
sectarians, Lassalleans, i.e. that, first and foremost, they should, if not wholly
relinquish the universal panacea of state aid, at least admit it to be a secondary
provisional measure alongside and amongst many others recognised as
possible. The draft programme shows that our people, while infinitely superior
to the Lassallean leaders in matters of theory, are far from being a match for
them where political guile is concerned; once again the honest men [4]have
been cruelly done in the eye by the dishonest.
To begin with, they adopt the high-sounding but historically false Lassallean
dictum: in relation to the working class all other classes are only one
reactionary mass. This proposition is true only in certain exceptional instances,
for example in the case of a revolution by the proletariat, e.g. the Commune, or
in a country in which not only has the bourgeoisie constructed state and society
after its own image but the democratic petty bourgeoisie, in its wake, has
already carried that reconstruction to its logical conclusion. If, for instance, in
Germany, the democratic petty bourgeoisie were part of this reactionary mass,
then how could the Social-Democratic Workers Party have gone hand in hand
with it, with the Peoples Party, [5] for years on end? How could
the Volksstaat derive virtually all its political content from the petty-bourgeois
democratic Frankfurter Zeitung? And how can one explain the adoption in this
same programme of no less than seven demands that coincide exactly and
word for word with the programme of the Peoples Party and of pettybourgeois democracy? I mean the seven political demands, 1 to 5 and 1 to 2, of
which there is not one that is not bourgeois-democratic. [6]

Secondly, the principle that the workers movement is an international one

is, to all intents and purposes, utterly denied in respect of the present, and this
by men who, for the space of five years and under the most difficult
conditions, upheld that principle in the most laudable manner. The German
workers position in the van of the European movement rests essentially on
their genuinely international attitude during the war [7]; no other proletariat
would have behaved so well. And now this principle is to be denied by them at
a moment when, everywhere abroad, workers are stressing it all the more by
reason of the efforts made by governments to suppress every attempt at its
practical application in an organisation! And what is left of the
internationalism of the workers movement? The dim prospect not even of
subsequent co-operation among European workers with a view to their
liberation nay, but of a future international brotherhood of peoples of
your Peace League bourgeois United States of Europe"! [8]
There was, of course, no need whatever to mention the International as such.
But at the very least there should have been no going back on the programme
of 1869, and some sort of statement to the effect that, though first of all the
German workers party is acting within the limits set by its political frontiers
(it has no right to speak in the name of the European proletariat, especially
when what it says is wrong), it is nevertheless conscious of its solidarity with
the workers of all other countries and will, as before, always be ready to meet
the obligations that solidarity entails. Such obligations, even if one does not
definitely proclaim or regard oneself as part of the International, consist for
example in aid, abstention from blacklegging during strikes, making sure that
the party organs keep German workers informed of the movement abroad,
agitation against impending or incipient dynastic wars and, during such wars,
an attitude such as was exemplarily maintained in 1870 and 1871, etc.
Thirdly, our people have allowed themselves to be saddled with the
Lassallean iron law of wages which is based on a completely outmoded
economic view, namely that on average the workers receive only the minimum
wage because, according to the Malthusian theory of population, there are
always too many workers (such was Lassalles reasoning). Now
in Capital Marx has amply demonstrated that the laws governing wages are
very complex, that, according to circumstances, now this law, now that, holds
sway, that they are therefore by no means iron but are, on the contrary,
exceedingly elastic, and that the subject really cannot be dismissed in a few
words, as Lassalle imagined. Malthus argument, upon which the law Lassalle
derived from him and Ricardo (whom he misinterpreted) is based, as that
argument appears, for instance, on p. 5 of the Arbeiterlesebuch, where it is

quoted from another pamphlet of Lassalles, [9] is exhaustively refuted by Marx

in the section on Accumulation of Capital. Thus, by adopting the Lassallean
iron law one commits oneself to a false proposition and false reasoning in
support of the same.
Fourthly, as its one and only social demand, the programme puts forward
Lassallean state aid in its starkest form, as stolen by Lassalle from
Buchez. [10] And this, after Bracke has so ably demonstrated the sheer futility of
that demand; after almost all if not all, of our party speakers have, in their
struggle against the Lassalleans, been compelled to make a stand against this
state aid"! Our party could hardly demean itself further. Internationalism sunk
to the level of Amand Goegg, socialism to that of the bourgeois republican
Buchez, who confronted the socialists with this demand in order to supplant
them!
But state aid in the Lassallean sense of the word is, after all, at most
only one measure among many others for the attainment of an end here lamely
described as paving the way for the solution of the social question, as though
in our case there were still a social question that remained unsolved in theory!
Thus, if you were to say: The German workers party strives to abolish wage
labour and hence class distinctions by introducing co-operative production into
industry and agriculture, and on a national scale; it is in favour of any measure
calculated to attain that end! then no Lassallean could possibly object.
Fifthly, there is absolutely no mention of the organisation of the working
class as a class through the medium of trade unions. And that is a point of the
utmost importance, this being the proletariats true class organisation in which
it fights its daily battles with capital, in which it trains itself and which
nowadays can no longer simply be smashed, even with reaction at its worst (as
presently in Paris). Considering the importance this organisation is likewise
assuming in Germany, it would in our view be indispensable to accord it some
mention in the programme and, possibly, to leave some room for it in the
organisation of the party.
All these things have been done by our people to oblige the Lassalleans. And
what have the others conceded? That a host of somewhat muddled and purely
democratic demands should figure in the programme, some of them being of a
purely fashionable nature for instance legislation by the people such as
exists in Switzerland and does more harm than good, if it can be said to do
anything at all. Administration by the people that would at least be
something. Similarly omitted is the first prerequisite of all liberty that all
officials be responsible for all their official actions to every citizen before the

ordinary courts and in accordance with common law. That demands such as
freedom of science and freedom of conscience figure in every liberal bourgeois
programme and seem a trifle out of place here is something I shall not enlarge
upon.
The free peoples state is transformed into the free state. Grammatically
speaking, a free state is one in which the state is free vis--vis its citizens, a
state, that is, with a despotic government. All the palaver about the state ought
to be dropped, especially after the Commune, which had ceased to be a state in
the true sense of the term. Thepeoples state has been flung in our teeth ad
nauseam by the anarchists, although Marxs anti-Proudhon piece and after it
the Communist Manifesto declare outright that, with the introduction of the
socialist order of society, the state will dissolve of itself and disappear. Now,
since the state is merely a transitional institution of which use is made in the
struggle, in the revolution, to keep down ones enemies by force, it is utter
nonsense to speak of a free peoples state; so long as the proletariat still makes
useof the state, it makes use of it, not for the purpose of freedom, but of
keeping down its enemies and, as soon as there can be any question of
freedom, the state as such ceases to exist. We would therefore suggest
that Gemeinwesen ["commonalty"] be universally substituted for state; it is a
good old German word that can very well do service for the French
Commune.
"The elimination of all social and political inequality, rather than the
abolition of all class distinctions, is similarly a most dubious expression. As
between one country, one province and even one place and another, living
conditions will always evince a certain inequality which may be reduced to a
minimum but never wholly eliminated. The living conditions of Alpine
dwellers will always be different from those of the plainsmen. The concept of
a socialist society as a realm of equality is a one-sided French concept deriving
from the old liberty, equality, fraternity, a concept which was justified in
that, in its own time and place, it signified a phase of development, but which,
like all the one-sided ideas of earlier socialist schools, ought now to be
superseded, since they produce nothing but mental confusion, and more
accurate ways of presenting the matter have been discovered.
I shall desist, although almost every word in this programme, a programme
which is, moreover, insipidly written, lays itself open to criticism. It is such
that, should it be adopted, Marx and I could never recognise a new party set up
on that basis and shall have to consider most seriously what attitude public
as well as private we should adopt towards it. [11] Remember that
abroad we are held responsible for any and every statement and action of the

German Social-Democratic Workers Party. E.g. by Bakunin in his

work Statehood and Anarchy, in which we are made to answer for every
injudicious word spoken or written by Liebknecht since the inception of
theDemokratisches Wochenblatt. People imagine that we run the whole show
from here, whereas you know as well as I do that we have hardly ever
interfered in the least with internal party affairs, and then only in an attempt to
make good, as far as possible, what we considered to have been blunders
and only theoretical blunders at that. But, as you yourself will realise, this
programme marks a turning-point which may very well force us to renounce
any kind of responsibility in regard to the party that adopts it.
Generally speaking, less importance attaches to the official programme of a
party than to what it does. But a new programme is after all a banner planted in
public, and the outside world judges the party by it. Hence, whatever happens
there should be no going-back, as there is here, on the Eisenach programme. It
should further be considered what the workers of other countries will think of
this programme; what impression will be created by this genuflection on the
part of the entire German socialist proletariat before Lassalleanism.
I am, moreover, convinced that a union on this basis would not last a year.
Are the best minds of our party to descend to repeating, parrot-fashion,
Lassallean maxims concerning the iron law of wages and state aid? Id like to
see you, for one, thus employed! And were they to do so, their audiences
would hiss them off the stage. And I feel sure that it is precisely on these bits
of the programme that the Lassalleans are insisting, like Shylock the Jew on
his pound of flesh. The split will come; but we shall have made honest men
again of Hasselmann, Hasenclever and Tolcke and Co.; we shall emerge from
the split weaker and the Lassalleans stronger; our party will have lost its
political virginity and will never again be able to come out whole-heartedly
against the Lassallean maxims which for a time it inscribed on its own banner;
and then, should the Lassalleans again declare themselves to be the sole and
most genuine workers party and our people to be bourgeois, the programme
would be there to prove it. All the socialist measures in it are theirs,
and our party has introduced nothing save the demands of that petty-bourgeois
democracy which it has itself described in that same programme as part of the
reactionary mass"!
I had held this letter back in view of the fact that you would only be released
on April 1, in honour of Bismarcks birthday, [12] not wanting to expose it to the
risk of interception in the course of an attempt to smuggle it in. Well, I have
just had a letter from Bracke, who has also felt grave doubts about the
programme and asks for our opinion. I shall therefore send this letter to him for

forwarding, so that he can read it without my having to write the whole thing
over again. I have, by the way, also spoken my mind to Ramm; to Liebknecht I
wrote but briefly. I cannot forgive his not having told us a single word about
the whole business (whereas Ramm and others believed he had given us exact
information) until it was, in a manner of speaking, too late. True, this has
always been his wont hence the large amount of disagreeable
correspondence which we, both Marx and myself, have had with him, but this
time it really is too bad, and we definitely shant act in concert with him.
Do see that you manage to come here in the summer; you would, of course,
stay with me and, if the weather is fine, we might spend a day or two taking
sea baths, which would really do you good after your long spell in jail.
Ever your friend,
F. E.
Marx has just moved house. He is living at 41 Maitland Park Crescent, NW
London.

Footnotes
1. Engels letter to August Bebel written between March 18 and 28, 1875 is
closely connected with Marxs Critique of the Gotha Programme and is
traditionally published together with the latter work. It conveyed the joint
opinion of Marx and Engels concerning the fusion of two German workers
parties, the Eisenachers and the Lassalleans, scheduled for early 1875. The
immediate reason for the letter was the publication of the draft programme of
the future united Social-Democratic Workers Party of Germany (Programm
der deutschen Arbeiterpartei) in Der Volksstaat (the organ of the Eisenachers)
and the Neuer Social-Demokrat (the organ of the Lassalleans) on March 7,
1875. The draft programme was approved with slight changes by the unity
congress at Gotha on May 22-27, 1875, and came to be known as the Gotha
Programme.
This letter was first published by Bebel, after the lapse of 36 years, in
his Aus meinem Leben, Zweiter Teil, Stuttgart, 1911. In the present edition the
letter is printed according to this book.

It was published in English for the first time in: K. Marx, Critique of the
Gotha Programme, Lawrence, London [1933], pp. 51-62.
2. A reference to one of Lassalles programme theses on the establishment of
workers producer associations with the aid of the state. Lassalle and his
followers repeatedly emphasised that what they had in mind was a state in
which power would pass into the hands of the working people through
universal suffrage.
3. Engels is referring to the Programm und Statuten der sozial-demokratischen
Arbeiter-Partei, adopted at the general German workers congress in Eisenach
in August 1869 and published in the Demokratisches Wochenblatt on August
14, 1869. The congress founded the Social-Democratic Workers Party of
Germany. By and large the programme complied with the principles of the
International Working Mens Association.
4. The "honest men nickname of the members of the Social-Democratic
Workers Party (the Eisenachers), as distinct from the members of the General
Association of German Workers (the Lassalleans), the dishonest men.
5. The German Peoples Party, established in September 1868, embraced the
democratic section of the bourgeoisie, mostly in the South-German states. The
party opposed the establishment of Prussian hegemony in Germany and
advocated the idea of a federative German state.
6. A reference to the following articles of the draft Gotha Programme:
"The German workers party demands as the free basis of the state:
"1. Universal, equal and direct suffrage by secret ballot for all males
who have reached the age of 21, for all elections in the state and in the
community. 2. Direct legislation by the people with the right to initiate
and to reject bills. 3. Universal military training. A peoples militia in
place of the standing army. Decisions regarding war and peace to be
taken by a representative assembly of the people. 4. Abolition of all
exceptional laws, in particular the laws on the press, associations and
assembly. 5. Jurisdiction by the people. Administration of justice
without fees.
"The German workers party demands as the intellectual and moral basis of
the state:

"1. Universal and equal education of the people by the state.

Compulsory school attendance. Free instruction. 2. Freedom of science.
Freedom of conscience."
7. The reference is to the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71.
8. The League of Peace and Freedom A pacifist organisation set up in
Switzerland in 1867 with the active participation of Victor Hugo, Giuseppe
Garibaldi and other democrats. The League asserted that it was possible to
prevent wars by creating the United States of Europe. Its leaders did not
disclose the social sources of wars and often confined anti-militarist activity to
mere declarations. At the General Council meeting of August 13, 1867 Marx
spoke against the Internationals official participation in the Leagues
Inaugural Congress, since this would have meant solidarity with its bourgeois
programme, but recommended that some members of the International should
attend the Congress in their personal capacity in order to support
revolutionary-democratic decisions (see Marxs letter to Engels of September
4, 1867).
9. On page 5 of his Arbeiterlesebuch Lassalle quotes a passage about the iron
law of wages from his pamphlet Offnes Antwortschreiben an das CentralComite zur Berufung eines Allgemeinen Deutschen Arbeitercongresses zu
Leipzig, Zurich, 1863, pp. 15-16.
10. Philippe Joseph Buchez, one of the first ideologists of the so-called
Christian socialism, advanced a plan for the establishment of workers
producer associations with the aid of the state.
11. On October 12, 1875 Engels wrote to Bebel concerning this programme
that, since both workers and their political opponents interpreted it
communistically, it is this circumstance alone which has made it possible for
Marx and myself not to disassociate ourselves publicly from a programme
such as this. So long as our opponents as well as the workers continue to read
our views into that programme, we are justified in saying nothing about it.
12. In March 1872 August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht were sentenced to
two years confinement in a fortress for their adhesion to the International
Working Mens Association and their socialist views. In April Bebel was
sentenced, in addition, to nine months imprisonment and deprived of his
mandate as a Reichstag member for insulting His Majesty. Liebknecht was
released on April 15, 1874, while Bebel was freed on April 1, 1875.

Sunday, February 27, 2005

CONTEMPT FOR DEMOCRACY AND BELIEF IN VIOLENCE

Engels to Wilhelm Blos, February 21, 1874: The man is too wise. And on top of that, such offensive, vulgar, democratic arguments! To denigrate violence as something to be rejected, when we all know that in the end nothing can be achieved without violence!
Listed, but with no translation here
The German
Engels an Wilhelm Blos, 21. Februar 1874
"Der Mann ist zu weise. Und dabei so ganz platte, vulgrdemokratische Grnde! Auf die Gewalt zu schimpfen als etwas Verwerfliches an sich, wo wir doch alle wissen, da schlielich ohne Gewalt nichts durchzusetzen ist!"
MEW a.a.O. 33, 617.

Letters of Marx and Engels: 1874

Marx to Ludwig Kugelmann. 19 January
Engels to Wilhelm Liebknecht. 27 January
Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge. 14 February
Engels to Wilhelm Blos. 21 February
Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge. 27 February
Marx to George Moore. 26 March
Marx to George Moore. 28 March
Marx to Jenny Marx. 19 April
Marx to Jenny Longuet. 20/24 April
Marx to Maurice Lachatre. 12 May
Marx to Ludwig Kugelmann. 18 May
Engels to Gottfried Ermen. 1 June
Marx to Ludwig Kugelmann. 24 June
Marx to Engels. 15 July
Engels to Marx. 21 July
Marx to Maurice Lachatre. 23 July
Engels to Jenny Longuet. 2 August
Marx to Engels. 4 August
Marx to Friedrich Adolph Sorge. 4 August
Marx to Ludwig Kugelmann. 4 August
Marx to Ludwig Kugelmann. 10 August
Engels to Marx. 12 August
Marx to Engels. 14 August
Marx to Jenny Longuet. 14 August
Marx to Engels. 1 September
Engels to Marx. 5 September
Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge. 12 September
Marx to Engels. 18 September
Marx to Max Oppenheim. 20 September

Engels to Marx. 21 September

Engels to Laura Lafargue. 15 October
Marx to Max Oppenheim. 17 October
Engels to Hermann Lopatin. c. 20 October

Saturday, February 26, 2005

CAPITALIST ARE ALL JEWS AT HEART

Karl Marx, Capital, Volume One, Part II: The Transformation of Money and Capital CHAPTER FOUR: THE GENERAL FORMULA FOR CAPITAL: "The capitalist knows that all commodities, however scurvy they may look, or however badly they may smell, are in faith and in truth money, inwardly circumcised Jews,
and what is more, a wonderful means whereby out of money to make more money."
Context here
The German
Marx, Das Kapital, 1. Bd.
"Der Kapitalist wei, da alle Waren, wie lumpig sie immer aussehn oder wie schlecht sie immer riechen, im Glauben und in der Wahrheit Geld, innerlich beschnittne Juden sind, und zudem wunderttige Mittel, um aus Geld mehr Geld zu machen."
MEW a.a.O. 23, 169

Karl Marx. Capital Volume One

Part II: The Transformation of Money into Capital

Chapter Four: The General Formula for

Capital

The circulation of commodities is the starting-point of capital. The

production of commodities, their circulation, and that more developed form of
their circulation called commerce, these form the historical ground-work from
which it rises. The modern history of capital dates from the creation in the 16th
century of a world-embracing commerce and a world-embracing market.
If we abstract from the material substance of the circulation of commodities,
that is, from the exchange of the various use-values, and consider only the
economic forms produced by this process of circulation, we find its final result
to be money: this final product of the circulation of commodities is the first
form in which capital appears.
As a matter of history, capital, as opposed to landed property, invariably
takes the form at first of money; it appears as moneyed wealth, as the capital of
the merchant and of the usurer. [1] But we have no need to refer to the origin of
capital in order to discover that the first form of appearance of capital is
money. We can see it daily under our very eyes. All new capital, to commence

with, comes on the stage, that is, on the market, whether of commodities,
labour, or money, even in our days, in the shape of money that by a definite
process has to be transformed into capital.
The first distinction we notice between money that is money only, and
money that is capital, is nothing more than a difference in their form of
circulation.
The simplest form of the circulation of commodities is C-M-C, the
transformation of commodities into money, and the change of the money back
again into commodities; or selling in order to buy. But alongside of this form
we find another specifically different form: M-C-M, the transformation of
money into commodities, and the change of commodities back again into
money; or buying in order to sell. Money that circulates in the latter manner is
thereby transformed into, becomes capital, and is already potentially capital.
Now let us examine the circuit M-C-M a little closer. It consists, like the
other, of two antithetical phases. In the first phase, M-C, or the purchase, the
money is changed into a commodity. In the second phase, C-M, or the sale, the
commodity is changed back again into money. The combination of these two
phases constitutes the single movement whereby money is exchanged for a
commodity, and the same commodity is again exchanged for money; whereby
a commodity is bought in order to be sold, or, neglecting the distinction in
form between buying and selling, whereby a commodity is bought with
money, and then money is bought with a commodity. [2] The result, in which
the phases of the process vanish, is the exchange of money for money, M-M. If
I purchase 2,000 lbs. of cotton for 100, and resell the 2,000 lbs. of cotton for
110, I have, in fact, exchanged 100 for 110, money for money.
Now it is evident that the circuit M-C-M would be absurd and without
meaning if the intention were to exchange by this means two equal sums of
money, 100 for 100. The misers plan would be far simpler and surer; he
sticks to his 100 instead of exposing it to the dangers of circulation. And yet,
whether the merchant who has paid 100 for his cotton sells it for 110, or lets
it go for 100, or even 50, his money has, at all events, gone through a
characteristic and original movement, quite different in kind from that which it
goes through in the hands of the peasant who sells corn, and with the money
thus set free buys clothes. We have therefore to examine first the
distinguishing characteristics of the forms of the circuits M-C-M and C-M-C,
and in doing this the real difference that underlies the mere difference of form
will reveal itself.

Let us see, in the first place, what the two forms have in common.
Both circuits are resolvable into the same two antithetical phases, C-M, a
sale, and M-C, a purchase. In each of these phases the same material elements
- a commodity, and money, and the same economic dramatis personae, a buyer
and a seller - confront one another. Each circuit is the unity of the same two
antithetical phases, and in each case this unity is brought about by the
intervention of three contracting parties, of whom one only sells, another only
buys, while the third both buys and sells.
What, however, first and foremost distinguishes the circuit C-M-C from the
circuit M-C-M, is the inverted order of succession of the two phases. The
simple circulation of commodities begins with a sale and ends with a purchase,
while the circulation of money as capital begins with a purchase and ends with
a sale. In the one case both the starting-point and the goal are commodities, in
the other they are money. In the first form the movement is brought about by
the intervention of money, in the second by that of a commodity.
In the circulation C-M-C, the money is in the end converted into a
commodity, that serves as a use-value; it is spent once for all. In the inverted
form, M-C-M, on the contrary, the buyer lays out money in order that, as a
seller, he may recover money. By the purchase of his commodity he throws
money into circulation, in order to withdraw it again by the sale of the same
commodity. He lets the money go, but only with the sly intention of getting it
back again. The money, therefore, is not spent, it is merely advanced. [3]
In the circuit C-M-C, the same piece of money changes its place twice. The
seller gets it from the buyer and pays it away to another seller. The complete
circulation, which begins with the receipt, concludes with the payment, of
money for commodities. It is the very contrary in the circuit M-C-M. Here it is
not the piece of money that changes its place twice, but the commodity. The
buyer takes it from the hands of the seller and passes it into the hands of
another buyer. Just as in the simple circulation of commodities the double
change of place of the same piece of money effects its passage from one hand
into another, so here the double change of place of the same commodity brings
about the reflux of the money to its point of departure.
Such reflux is not dependent on the commodity being sold for more than was
paid for it. This circumstance influences only the amount of the money that
comes back. The reflux itself takes place, so soon as the purchased commodity
is resold, in other words, so soon as the circuit M-C-M is completed. We have

here, therefore, a palpable difference between the circulation of money as

capital, and its circulation as mere money.
The circuit C-M-C comes completely to an end, so soon as the money
brought in by the sale of one commodity is abstracted again by the purchase of
another.
If, nevertheless, there follows a reflux of money to its starting-point, this can
only happen through a renewal or repetition of the operation. If I sell a quarter
of corn for 3, and with this 3 buy clothes, the money, so far as I am
concerned, is spent and done with. It belongs to the clothes merchant. If I now
sell a second quarter of corn, money indeed flows back to me, not however as
a sequel to the first transaction, but in consequence of its repetition. The
money again leaves me, so soon as I complete this second transaction by a
fresh purchase. Therefore, in the circuit C-M-C, the expenditure of money has
nothing to do with its reflux. On the other hand, in M-C-M, the reflux of the
money is conditioned by the very mode of its expenditure. Without this reflux,
the operation fails, or the process is interrupted and incomplete, owing to the
absence of its complementary and final phase, the sale.
The circuit C-M-C starts with one commodity, and finishes with another,
which falls out of circulation and into consumption. Consumption, the
satisfaction of wants, in one word, use-value, is its end and aim. The circuit MC-M, on the contrary, commences with money and ends with money. Its
leading motive, and the goal that attracts it, is therefore mere exchange-value.
In the simple circulation of commodities, the two extremes of the circuit
have the same economic form. They are both commodities, and commodities
of equal value. But they are also use-values differing in their qualities, as, for
example, corn and clothes. The exchange of products, of the different materials
in which the labour of society is embodied, forms here the basis of the
movement. It is otherwise in the circulation M-C-M, which at first sight
appears purposeless, because tautological. Both extremes have the same
economic form. They are both money, and therefore are not qualitatively
different use-values; for money is but the converted form of commodities, in
which their particular use-values vanish. To exchange 100 for cotton, and
then this same cotton again for 100, is merely a roundabout way of
exchanging money for money, the same for the same, and appears to be an
operation just as purposeless as it is absurd. [4] One sum of money
is distinguishable from another only by its amount. The character and tendency
of the process M-C-M, is therefore not due to any qualitative difference
between its extremes, both being money, but solely to their quantitative

difference. More money is withdrawn from circulation at the finish than was
thrown into it at the start. The cotton that was bought for 100 is perhaps
resold for 100 + 10 or 110. The exact form of this process is therefore MC-M', where M' = M + M = the original sum advanced, plus an increment.
This increment or excess over the original value I call surplus-value. The
value originally advanced, therefore, not only remains intact while in
circulation, but adds to itself a surplus-value or expands itself. It is this
movement that converts it into capital.
Of course, it is also possible, that in C-M-C, the two extremes C-C, say corn
and clothes, may represent different quantities of value. The farmer may sell
his corn above its value, or may buy the clothes at less than their value. He
may, on the other hand, be done by the clothes merchant. Yet, in the form of
circulation now under consideration, such differences in value are purely
accidental. The fact that the corn and the clothes are equivalents, does not
deprive the process of all meaning, as it does in M-C-M. The equivalence of
their values is rather a necessary condition to its normal course.
The repetition or renewal of the act of selling in order to buy, is kept within
bounds by the very object it aims at, namely, consumption or the satisfaction
of definite wants, an aim that lies altogether outside the sphere of circulation.
But when we buy in order to sell, we, on the contrary, begin and end with the
same thing, money, exchange-value; and thereby the movement becomes
interminable. No doubt, M becomes M + M, 100 become 110. But when
viewed in their qualitative aspect alone, 110 are the same as 100, namely
money; and considered quantitatively, 110 is, like 100, a sum of definite and
limited value. If now, the 110 be spent as money, they cease to play their part.
They are no longer capital. Withdrawn from circulation, they become petrified
into a hoard, and though they remained in that state till doomsday, not a single
farthing would accrue to them. If, then, the expansion of value is once aimed
at, there is just the same inducement to augment the value of the 110 as that
of the 100; for both are but limited expressions for exchange-value, and
therefore both have the same vocation to approach, by quantitative increase, as
near as possible to absolute wealth. Momentarily, indeed, the value originally
advanced, the 100 is distinguishable from the surplus-value of 10 that is
annexed to it during circulation; but the distinction vanishes immediately. At
the end of the process, we do not receive with one hand the original 100, and
with the other, the surplus-value of 10. We simply get a value of 110, which
is in exactly the same condition and fitness for commencing the expanding
process, as the original 100 was. Money ends the movement only to begin it
again. [5] Therefore, the final result of every separate circuit, in which a

purchase and consequent sale are completed, forms of itself the starting-point
of a new circuit. The simple circulation of commodities - selling in order to
buy - is a means of carrying out a purpose unconnected with circulation,
namely, the appropriation of use-values, the satisfaction of wants. The
circulation of money as capital is, on the contrary, an end in itself, for the
expansion of value takes place only within this constantly renewed movement.
The circulation of capital has therefore no limits. [6]
As the conscious representative of this movement, the possessor of money
becomes a capitalist. His person, or rather his pocket, is the point from which
the money starts and to which it returns. The expansion of value, which is the
objective basis or main-spring of the circulation M-C-M, becomes his
subjective aim, and it is only in so far as the appropriation of ever more and
more wealth in the abstract becomes the sole motive of his operations, that he
functions as a capitalist, that is, as capital personified and endowed with
consciousness and a will. Use-values must therefore never be looked upon as
the real aim of the capitalist; [7] neither must the profit on any single
transaction. The restless never-ending process of profit-making alone is what
he aims at. [8] This boundless greed after riches, this passionate chase after
exchange-value [9], is common to the capitalist and the miser; but while the
miser is merely a capitalist gone mad, the capitalist is a rational miser. The
never-ending augmentation of exchange-value, which the miser strives after,
by seeking to save [10] his money from circulation, is attained by the more acute
capitalist, by constantly throwing it afresh into circulation. [11]
The independent form, i.e., the money-form, which the value of
commodities assumes in the case of simple circulation, serves only one
purpose, namely, their exchange, and vanishes in the final result of the
movement. On the other hand, in the circulation M-C-M, both the money and
the commodity represent only different modes of existence of value itself, the
money its general mode, and the commodity its particular, or, so to say,
disguised mode. [12] It is constantly changing from one form to the other
without thereby becoming lost, and thus assumes an automatically active
character. If now we take in turn each of the two different forms which selfexpanding value successively assumes in the course of its life, we then arrive
at these two propositions: Capital is money: Capital is commodities. [13] In
truth, however, value is here the active factor in a process, in which, while
constantly assuming the form in turn of money and commodities, it at the same
time changes in magnitude, differentiates itself by throwing off surplus-value
from itself; the original value, in other words, expands spontaneously. For the
movement, in the course of which it adds surplus-value, is its own movement,

its expansion, therefore, is automatic expansion. Because it is value, it has

acquired the occult quality of being able to add value to itself. It brings forth
living offspring, or, at the least, lays golden eggs.
Value, therefore, being the active factor in such a process, and assuming at
one time the form of money, at another that of commodities, but through all
these changes preserving itself and expanding, it requires some independent
form, by means of which its identity may at any time be established. And this
form it possesses only in the shape of money. It is under the form of money
that value begins and ends, and begins again, every act of its own spontaneous
generation. It began by being 100, it is now 110, and so on. But the money
itself is only one of the two forms of value. Unless it takes the form of some
commodity, it does not become capital. There is here no antagonism, as in the
case of hoarding, between the money and commodities. The capitalist knows
that all commodities, however scurvy they may look, or however badly they
may smell, are in faith and in truth money, inwardly circumcised Jews, and
what is more, a wonderful means whereby out of money to make more money.
In simple circulation, C-M-C, the value of commodities attained at the most
a form independent of their use-values, i.e., the form of money; but that same
value now in the circulation M-C-M, or the circulation of capital, suddenly
presents itself as an independent substance, endowed with a motion of its own,
passing through a life-process of its own, in which money and commodities are
mere forms which it assumes and casts off in turn. Nay, more: instead of
simply representing the relations of commodities, it enters now, so to say, into
private relations with itself. It differentiates itself as original value from itself
as surplus-value; as the father differentiates himself from himself qua the son,
yet both are one and of one age: for only by the surplus-value of 10 does the
100 originally advanced become capital, and so soon as this takes place, so
soon as the son, and by the son, the father, is begotten, so soon does their
difference vanish, and they again become one, 110.
Value therefore now becomes value in process, money in process, and, as
such, capital. It comes out of circulation, enters into it again, preserves and
multiplies itself within its circuit, comes back out of it with expanded bulk, and
begins the same round ever afresh. [14] M-M', money which begets money, such
is the description of Capital from the mouths of its first interpreters, the
Mercantilists.
Buying in order to sell, or, more accurately, buying in order to sell dearer,
M-C-M', appears certainly to be a form peculiar to one kind of capital alone,
namely, merchants capital. But industrial capital too is money, that is changed

into commodities, and by the sale of these commodities, is re-converted into

more money. The events that take place outside the sphere of circulation, in the
interval between the buying and selling, do not affect the form of this
movement. Lastly, in the case of interest-bearing capital, the circulation M-CM' appears abridged. We have its result without the intermediate stage, in the
form M-M', en style lapidaire so to say, money that is worth more money,
value that is greater than itself.
M-C-M' is therefore in reality the general formula of capital as it appears
prima facie within the sphere of circulation.

Footnotes
1. The contrast between the power, based on the personal relations of

dominion and servitude, that is conferred by landed property, and the

impersonal power that is given by money, is well expressed by the two
French proverbs, Nulle terre sans seigneur, and Largent na pas de
matre, No land without its lord, and Money has no master.
2. Avec de largent on achte des marchandises et avec des marchandises

on achte de largent. [With money one buys commodities, and with

commodities one buys money] (Mercier de la Rivire: Lordre naturel et
essentiel des socits politiques, p. 543.)
3. When a thing is bought in order to be sold again, the sum employed is

called money advanced; when it is bought not to be sold, it may be said to

be expended. (James Steuart: Works, &c. Edited by Gen. Sir James
Steuart, his son. Lond., 1805, V. I., p. 274.)
4. On nchange pas de largent contre de largent, [One does not

exchange money for money,] says Mercier de la Rivire to the

Mercantilists (l.c., p. 486.) In a work, which, ex professo treats of trade
and speculation, occurs the following: All trade consists in the exchange
of things of different kinds; and the advantage (to the merchant?) arises
out of this difference. To exchange a pound of bread against a pound of
bread ... would be attended with no advantage; ... Hence trade is
advantageously contrasted with gambling, which consists in a mere
exchange of money for money. (Th. Corbet, An Inquiry into the Causes
and Modes of the Wealth of Individuals; or the Principles of Trade and
Speculation Explained. London, 1841, p. 5.) Although Corbet does not see

that M-M, the exchange or money for money, is the characteristic form of
circulation, not only of merchants capital but of all capital, yet at least he
acknowledges that this form is common to gambling and to one species of
trade, viz., speculation: but then comes MacCulloch and makes out, that to
buy in order to sell, is to speculate, and thus the difference between
Speculation and Trade vanishes. Every transaction in which an individual
buys produce in order to sell it again, is, in fact, a speculation.
(MacCulloch: A Dictionary Practical, &c., of Commerce. Lond., 1847, p.
1009.) With much more naivet, Pinto, the Pindar of the Amsterdam Stock
Exchange, remarks, Le commerce est un jeu: (taken from Locke) et ce nest
pas avec des gueux quon peut gagner. Si lon gagnait longtemps en tout
avec tous, il faudrait rendre de bon accord les plus grandes parties du profit
pour recommencer le jeu. [Trade is a game, and nothing can be won from
beggars. If one won everything from everybody all the time, it would be
necessary to give back the greater part of the profit voluntarily, in order to
begin the game again] (Pinto: Trait de la Circulation et du Crdit.
Amsterdam, 1771. p. 231,)
5. Capital is divisible ... into the original capital and the profit, the

increment to the capital ... although in practice this profit is immediately

turned into capital, and set in motion with the original. (F. Engels,
Umrisse zu einer Kritik der Nationalkonomie, in: Deutsch-Franzsische
Jahrbcher, herausgegeben von Arnold Ruge und Karl Marx. Paris, 1844,
p. 99.)
6. Aristotle opposes Oeconomic to Chrematistic. He starts from the former.

So far as it is the art of gaining a livelihood, it is limited to procuring those

articles that are necessary to existence, and useful either to a household or
the state. True wealth () consists of such values in
use; for the quantity of possessions of this kind, capable of making life
pleasant, is not unlimited. There is, however, a second mode of acquiring
things, to which we may by preference and with correctness give the name
of Chrematistic, and in this case there appear to be no limits to riches and
possessions. Trade ( is literally retail trade, and Aristotle takes
this kind because in it values in use predominate) does not in its nature
belong to Chrematistic, for here the exchange has reference only to what is
necessary to themselves (the buyer or seller). Therefore, as he goes on to
show, the original form of trade was barter, but with the extension of the
latter, there arose the necessity for money. On the discovery of money,
barter of necessity developed into , into trading in commodities,
and this again, in opposition to its original tendency, grew into Chrematistic,

into the art of making money. Now Chrematistic is distinguishable from

Oeconomic in this way, that in the case of Chrematistic circulation is the
source of riches . And it
appears to revolve about money, for money is the beginning and end of this
kind of exchange (). Therefore
also riches, such as Chrematistic strives for, are unlimited. Just as every art
that is not a means to an end, but an end in itself, has no limit to its aims,
because it seeks constantly to approach nearer and nearer to that end, while
those arts that pursue means to an end, are not boundless, since the goal
itself imposes a limit upon them, so with Chrematistic, there are no bounds
to its aims, these aims being absolute wealth. Oeconomic not Chrematistic
has a limit ... the object of the former is something different from money, of
the latter the augmentation of money.... By confounding these two forms,
which overlap each other, some people have been led to look upon the
preservation and increase of money ad infinitum as the end and aim of
Oeconomic. (Aristoteles, De Rep. edit. Bekker, lib. l.c. 8, 9. passim.)
7. Commodities (here used in the sense of use-values) are not the

terminating object of the trading capitalist, money is his terminating object.

(Th. Chalmers, On Pol. Econ. &c., 2nd Ed., Glasgow, 1832, pp. 165, 166.)
8. Il mercante non conta quasi per niente il lucro fatto, ma mira sempre al

futuro. [The merchant counts the money he has made as almost nothing;
he always looks to the future.] (A. Genovesi, Lezioni di Economia Civile
(1765), Custodis edit. of Italian Economists. Parte Moderna t. viii, p. 139.)
9. The inextinguishable passion for gain, the auri sacra fames, will always

lead capitalists. (MacCulloch: The Principles of Polit. Econ. London,

1830, p. 179.) This view, of course, does not prevent the same MacCulloch
and others of his kidney, when in theoretical difficulties, such, for example,
as the question of over-production, from transforming the same capitalist
into a moral citizen, whose sole concern is for use-values, and who even
develops an insatiable hunger for boots, hats, eggs, calico, and other
extremely familiar sorts of use-values.
10. is a characteristic Greek expression for hoarding. So in English

to save has the same two meanings: sauver and pargner.

11. Questo infinito che le cose non hanno in progresso, hanno in giro.

[That infinity which things do not possess, they possess in circulation.]

(Galiani.)

12. Ce nest pas la matire qui fait le capital, mais la valeur de ces

matires. [It is not matter which makes capital, but the value of that
matter.] (J. B. Say: Trait dEcon. Polit. 3me d. Paris, 1817, t. II., p.
429.)
13. Currency (!) employed in producing articles... is capital. (Macleod:

The Theory and Practice of Banking. London, 1855, v. 1, ch. i, p. 55.)

Capital is commodities. (James Mill: Elements of Pol. Econ. Lond.,
1821, p. 74.)
14. Capital: portion fructifiante de la richesse accumule... valeur

permanente, multipliante. (Sismondi: Nouveaux Principes dEcon. Polit.,

t. i., p. 88, 89.)

Transcribed by Martha Giminez and Hinrich Kuhls

Html Markup by Stephen Baird (1999)
Friday, February 25, 2005
MARX DIDN'T UNDERSTAND THE ECONOMICS OF HIS DAY
Although a lot of still-quoted economics (Ricardo, Smith etc) had already been written by that time

Marx To Engels, 23 May 1868: "You seem to be on the wrong track with your reluctance to present such simple formulas as M - C - M [Money-Commodity-Money], etc. to the English review philistines. On the contrary. If you were forced, as I am, to read the economic articles of Messrs Lalor, Herbert
Spencer, Macleod, etc., in The Westminster Review, etc., you would see that all of them are fed up with the economic trivialities - and know their readers are fed up, too - so they try to give their scribblings some flavour through pseudo-philosophical or pseudo-scientific slang. The pseudo-character in no
way makes the writing (which by itself = 0) understandable. On the contrary. The trick lies in so mystifying the reader and causing him to rack his brain, that he may finally be relieved to discover that these hard words are only fancy dress for commonplaces."
Context here
The German
Marx an Engels, 23. Mai 1868
"Du scheinst auf dem Holzweg zu sein mit Deiner Scheu, so einfache Figuren wie G-W-G etc. dem englischen Revuephilister vorzufhren. (...) Der Pseudocharakter macht die Sache (die an sich = 0) keineswegs leicht verstndlich. Umgekehrt. Die Kunst besteht darin, den Leser so zu mystifizieren und ihm
Kopfbrechen zu verursachen, damit er schlielich zu seiner Beruhigung entdeckt, da diese hard words [gewichtige Worte] nur Maskeraden von loci communes [Gemeinpltzen] sind."
MEW a.a.O. 32, 91.

Marx-Engels Correspondence 1868

Marx To Engels
In Manchester
Source: MECW, Volume 43, p. 38;
First published: in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx,

Stuttgart, 1913.

London, 23 May 1868

Dear Fred,
It appears to me that you are on the wrong track with your fear of presenting
such simple formulas as M C M, etc. to the English review philistines.
On the contrary. If you were forced, as I am, to read the economic articles of
Messrs Lalor, Herbert Spencer, Macleod, etc., in The Westminster Review, etc.,
you would see that all of them are fed up with the economic trivialities and
know their readers are fed up, too so they try to give their scribblings some
flavour through pseudo-philosophical or pseudo-scientific slang. The
pseudo-character in no way makes the writing (content = 0) easy to
understand. On the contrary. The trick lies in so mystifying the reader and
causing him to rack his brain, that he may finally be relieved to discover that
these hard words are only fancy dress for loci communes.[platitudes] Add to
this that the readers of the Fortnightly and The Westminster Review flatter
themselves that they are the longest heads of England (let alone the rest of the
world, naturally). Even apart from that, if you had seen what Mr James
Hutchinson Stirling dares to present to the public as The Secret of Hegel, not
only in books but also in reviews, Hegel himself would not understand it
you would realise Mr J. H. Stirling is regarded as a great thinker that you
are really being too timid. People demand something new, new in form and
content.
Since you want to start with Chapter II (you must not, however, forget to
draw the readers attention somewhere to the fact that in Chapter I he will find
a newtreatment of that value and money stuff) the following should, in my
opinion, be used for the beginning, naturally in the form agreeable to you.
In his investigations into currency Th. Tooke underlines that money in its
function as capital flows back to its starting point (reflux of money to its
point of issue), but in its function simply as currency does not flow back.
This distinction, noted by Sir James Steuart, among others, long before Tooke,
serves the latter simply for a polemic against what the preachers of
the currency principle claim to be the influence the issue of credit money
(banknotes, etc.) exercises upon commodity prices. Our author, however,
makes this peculiar form of circulation of money which functions as capital
(serve in the function of capital, A. Smith) the starting point for his
investigation into the nature of capital itself, and in the first place for an
answer to the question: How is money, this independent form of value,
converted into capital? (Conversion into Capital the official expression.)
All sorts of businessmen, says Turgot have in common that they buy to sell
... their purchases are an advance which returns to them. Buying to sell, this is

in fact the transaction in which money functions as capital, and which

conditions its reflux to its point of issues in distinction to selling to buy, where
it need only function ascurrency. The differing sequence of the acts
of selling and buying imposes upon money two different circulation
movements. What is hidden behind this is the different behaviour of
the value itself expressed in money form. To illustrate this, the author gives the
following formulas, etc., etc., for the two different circulation movements.
I believe that you will make the matter easier for yourself and the reader by
quoting the formulas.
I shall reply later to the other points of your letter. Of the carbuncles there
remains only one, also soon finished. Last Wednesday I gave a lecture
(about 5/4 of an hour) on wages (especially the form of the same) to about 100
German picked workers. I was very unwell that day, and I was advised to
telegraph that I could not come. However, this was impossible, since some of
the people had come from very distant parts of London. So I went there. The
business went off very well, and after the lecture I felt better than before.
I have made concessions to my family doctor Lafargue in that I have not
yet visited the Museum again. But I have perhaps, during the past weeks,
meditated too muchat home.
I shall, if possible, come to Manchester with Tussychen at the end
of next week (say Saturday). But you will have to send me the money for the
fares and some shillings which I shall leave for my wife.
Tussychen, of course, has reminded me of the trip about every day.
Enclosed new Liebknecht stuff.
Salut.
Your
K. M.
Thursday, February 24, 2005
MARX DESPISED POOR PEOPLE

Marx: General Council to the Federal Council of Romance Switzerland, 1870: The Lumpenproletariat [rag-proletariat], this residue of the degenerated members of all classes that has its headquarters in the big cities, is the worst of all possible allies. This riff-raff is totally for sale and totally obnoxious.
Listed, but with no translation here
The German
Marx: Der Generalrat an den Fderalrat der romanischen Schweiz, 1870
"Das Lumpenproletariat, dieser Abhub der verkommenen Subjekte aller Klassen, der sein Hauptquartier in den groen Stdten aufschlgt, ist von allen mglichen Bundesgenossen der schlimmste. Dies Gesindel ist absolut kuflich und absolut zudringlich."
MEW a.a.O. 16, 398., Rotbuch 176.

Volume 21
Marx and Engels
1867-70
November 1867-mid-July 1870
The Fenian Prisoners at Manchester and the International Working Men's
Association (Marx)

The Position of the International on Prussian Protectionist Tariffs (Marx)

Resolution on Changing the Place of the International's Congress in 1868 (Marx)

Resolution of the General Council on Felix Pyat's Provocative Behaviour (Marx)

Declaration of the General Council Concerning the British Government's Attitude Towards
Tsarist Russia (Marx)

Draft Resolution on the Consequences of Using Machinery under Capitalism Proposed by

the General Council to the Brussels Congress (Marx)

To the President and Executive Committee of the General Association of German

Workers (Marx)

10

Draft Resolution on the Reduction of the Working Day Proposed by the General Council to
the Brussels Congress (Marx)

11

The Fourth Annual Report of the General Council of the International Working Men's
Association (Marx)

12

To the Directorate of the Schiller Institute (Engels)

18

On the Dissolution of the Lassallean Workers' Association (Engels)

20

On the Dissolution of the Lassallean Workers' Association (Postscript) (Engels)

24

Connections Between the International Working Men's Association and English Working
Men's Organisations (Marx)

25

How Mr. Gladstone's Bank Letter of 1866 Procured a Loan of Six Millions for Russia (Marx)

28

Preamble to the Resolutions of the Geneva (1866) and Brussels (1868) Congresses of the
International (Marx)

31

Statement to the German Workers Educational Society in London (Marx)

32

The International Working Men's Association and the International Alliance of Socialist
Democracy (Marx)

34

Resume of the Meetings of the General Council, International Working Men's

Association to the Editor of The Bee-Hive (Marx)

37

Report On the Miners' Guilds in the Coalfields of Saxony (Engels)

39

The General Council of the International Working Men's Association to the Central Bureau
of the International Alliance of Socialist Democracy (Marx)

45

The Belgian Massacres. To the Workmen of Europe and the United States (Marx)

47

Address to the National Labour Union of the United States (Marx)

53

Preface to the Second Edition of The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (Marx)

56

Karl Marx (Engels)

59

Report of the General Council on the Right of Inheritance (Marx)

65

Report of the General Council to the Fourth Annual Congress of the International Working
Men's Association (Marx)

68

Draft Resolution of the General Council on the Policy of the British Government Towards
the Irish Prisoners (Marx)

83

The General Council to the Federal Council Romance Switzerland (Marx)

84

Obituary (Marx)

92

Preface to the Second Edition of The Peasant War In Germany (Engels)

93

The English Government and the Fenian Prisoners (Marx)

101

Concerning the Conflict in the Lyons Section (Marx)

108

The General Council of the International Working Men's Association to Committee

110

Members of the Russian Section in Geneva(Marx)

Confidential Communication (Marx)

112

To the International Metalworkers' Society (Marx)

125

Resolution of the General Council on The Bee-Hive (Marx)

126

Concerning the Persecution of the Members of the French Sections. Declaration of the
General Council of the International Working Men's Association (Marx)

127

Draft Resolution of the General Council on the "French Federal Section in London" (Marx)

131

Resolution of the General Council on the Convocation of the Congress in Mainz (Marx)

132

To the Committee of the German Social-Democratic Workers' Party (Marx & Engels)

133

General Council Resolution on the Federal Committee of Romance Switzerland. The

General Council to the Romance Federal Committee (Marx)

136

The Lock-Out of the Building Trades at Geneva. The General Council of the International
Working Men's Association to the Working Men and Women of Europe and the United
States (Marx)

137

Notes for the Preface to a Collection of Irish Songs (Engels)

140

Confidential Communication to All Sections (Marx)

142

Programme for the Mainz Congress of the International (Marx)

143

The History of Ireland (Engels)

145

Natural Conditions

147

Old Ireland

168

From the Preparatory Materials

Notes for an Undelivered Speech on Ireland (Marx)

189

Outline of a Report on the Irish Question Delivered to the German Workers' Educational
Society in London on December 16, 1867 (Marx)

194

Remarks On the Programme and Rules of the International Alliance of Socialist

Democracy (Marx)

207

Ireland from the American Revolution to the Union of 1801. Extracts and Notes (Marx)

212

I From 1778 to 1782. Independence

212

II From 1782 (after the Declaration of Independence) to 1795

230

III

262

Summary

211

Notes on Goldwin Smith's Book Irish History and Irish Character (Engels)

285

Varia on the History of the Irish Confiscations (Engels)

297

Plan for The History of Ireland (Engels)

307

Plan of Chapter Two and Fragments for The History of Ireland (Engels)

308

Appendices
Record of a Speech on the Irish Question Delivered by Karl Marx to the General Workers'
Educational Society in London On December 16, 1867

317

Record of Marx's Speeches on Changing the Place of the Congress of the International in
1868. From Newspaper Reports of the General Council Meetings of May 26 and June 16,
1868

320

Wilhelm Eichhoff. The International Working Men's Association. Its Establishment,

Organisation, Political and Social Activity, and Growth

322

Record of Marx's Speech on the Successes of the International in Germany and France.
From the Newspaper Report of the General Council Meeting of July 21, 1868

380

Record of Marx's Speech on the Consequences of Using machinery under Capitalism.

From the Minutes of the General Council Meeting of July 28, 1868

382

Appeal to the German Workers in London

385

Record of Marx's Speech on the Reduction of the Working Day. From the Minutes of me

387

General Council Meeting of August 11, 1868

Record of Marx's Speech on the Influence of Competition in Cotton Industry on the
Condition of the Working Men in France. From the Minutes of the General Council
Meeting of January 5, 1869

386

Record of Marx's Speech on the Condition of the Coalminers in the Coalfields of Saxony.
From the Newspaper Record of the General Council Meeting of February 23, 1869

380

Resolution of the General Council on the Programme of the Basle Congress

391

Record of Marx's Speeches on Landed Property. From the Minutes of the General Council
Meeting of July 6, 1869

392

Record of Marx's Speech on the Right to Inheritance. From the Minutes of the General
Council Meeting of July 20, 1869

394

Record Of Marx's Speech On General Education. From the Minutes of the General Council
Meetings of August 10 and 11

398

Address or the Land and Labour League to the Working Men and Women of Great Britain
and Ireland

401

Record of Marx's Speech on the Policy of the British Government with Respect to the Irish
Prisoners. From the Minutes of the General Council Meeting of November 16, 1869

407

Record of Marx's Speeches on the Policy of the British Government with Respect to the
Irish Prisoners. From the Minutes of the General Council Meetings of November 23 and
30

411

Record of Marx's Speech on the Significance of the Irish Question. From the Minutes of
the General Council Meeting of December 14, 1869

413

Articles by Jenny Marx on the Irish Question

414

414

II

417

III

420

IV

425

429

VI Agrarian Outrages in Ireland

434

VII The Death of John Lynch

437

VIII Letter from England

439

Letter of the General Council to Robert William Hume in New York

442

Record of Marx's Speech On The Bee-Hive. From the Minutes of the General Council
Meeting of April 26, 1870

444

Account of a Letter by Karl Marx to the Committee of the Social-Democratic Workers'

Party

445

Record of Marx's Speech on the Split in the Romance Federation. From the Minutes of the
General Council Meeting of June 28, 1870

446

Notes and Indexes

Notes

449

Name Index

533

Index of Quoted and Mentioned Literature

572

Index of Periodicals

593

Subject Index

599

Illustrations
Page of the Minute Book with Marx's manuscript of "Concerning the Persecution of the
Members of the French Sections"

129

First page of Engels History of Ireland

149

Map of Ireland
Page of Marx's manuscript Ireland from The American Revolution to the Union of 1801

158-59

Wednesday, February 23, 2005

MARX WANTED TO DESTROY MODERATE LEFTIST PARTIES

Marx to Engels, February 10. 1866: "I will chew out Wilhelm [Liebknecht] with a few lines about his feebleness. For what we want is exactly the demise of the Social-Democrat and of all that Lassalle-crap".
Listed, but with no translation here
The German
Marx an Engels, 10. Februar 1866
"Dem Wilhelm [Liebknecht] werde ich einige Donnerzeilen ber seine Schwachleibigkeit schreiben. Was wir wollen, ist ja grade der Untergang des 'Social - Demokrat' und der ganzen Lassallescheie."
MEW a.a.O. 31, 175.

Tuesday, February 22, 2005

MARX HAD A FINE FEMINIST ATTITUDE TO WOMEN -- NOT

Engels To Marx, 7 November 1864: "What was obviously fatal to Lassalle was that he didnt immediately throw the creature on the bed at the boarding house and properly have his way with her, she didnt want his beautiful mind but his Jewish rod. This is yet another affair that could only happen with
Lassalle.
Context here
The German
Engels an Marx, 7. November 1864
"Der Lassalle ist offenbar daran kaputtgegangen, da er das Mensch nicht sofort in der Pension aufs Bett geworfen und gehrig hergenommen hat, sie wollte nicht seinen schnen Geist, sondern jdischen Riemen. Es ist eben wieder eine Geschichte, die nur dem Lassalle passieren konnte."

Marx-Engels Correspondence 1864

Engels To Marx
In London
Source: MECW Volume 42, p. 19;
First published: abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K.

Marx, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in MEGA, Berlin, 1930.

Manchester, 7 November 1864

Dear Moor,
Your Frisian solution is quite right, but for one word.
In North Frisian, Kimmang means: look, or eye; these North Frisians are of a
speculative disposition and have substituted the inward horizon for the
outward one, rather as Wagener is now calling for an inward Dppel. It is an
old sailors saying.
The Herwegh and Hatzfeldt papers returned enclosed. What was the further
provocation you refer to which Lassalle inflicted on the Walachian and was
suppressed by Emma? Lassalles fatal error was obviously that he did not
throw the hussy [Helene von Donniges] straight on the bed in the boarding
house and deal with her appropriately, it was not his fine mind but his Jews

pizzle she was interested in. It is yet another of these affairs that only Lassalle
could get involved in. That it was he,who forced the Wallachian into the duel,
is doubly crazy.
Old Hatzfeldts idea that you should write an apotheosis of the latterday
Redeemer [Lassalle] is really priceless.
The letter from the Solingen worker was not enclosed.
I cannot wait to see the Address to the Workers, it must be a real
masterpiece, to judge by what you tell me of the people involved. But it is
good that we are again making contact with people who do at least represent
their class, which is what really matters ultimately. The effect on the Italians
will be particularly good, as there is some chance that this will at last put an
end to this Dio e popolo among the workers it will come as quite a surprise
to the worthy Giuseppe. Incidentally, I suspect that there will very soon be a
split in this new association between those who are bourgeois in their thinking
and those who are proletarian, the moment the issues become a little more
specific.
Concerning Lupus legacy, we had a meeting with the lawyer this morning.
The sum still owing to you will amount to a little over 200; as soon as I have
the money, I shall send most of it to you. There are still some details we do not
know exactly, so we cannot finally calculate yet. The tax authorities want a list
of all the books, and the exact value, of the clock Lupus left. Please send me
something itemising all the larger works and at the end just: so many
pamphlets etc., everything in one clump.
I must close now, as I have to go to a Directors meeting of the Schiller
Institute, of which I am chairman, as you know, to Mr Borchardts annoyance.
Happily, beer has been introduced.
Kind regards to your wife and the girls.
Your
F. E.
Monday, February 21, 2005
MARX GREATLY ADMIRED A PRO-GERMAN RACIST

Marx To Engels, 12 September 1863: "The most interesting acquaintanceship I have struck up here is that of Colonel Lapinski. He is without doubt the cleverest Pole - besides being an homme d'action [man of action] - that I have ever met. His sympathies are all on the German side, though in manners and
speech he is also a Frenchman. He cares nothing for the struggle of nationalities and only knows the racial struggle. He hates all Orientals, among whom he numbers Russians Turks, Greeks, Armenians, etc., with equal impartiality.... His aim now is to raise a German legion in London, even if only 200
strong, so that he can confront the Russians in Poland with the black, red and gold flag, partly to 'exasperate' the Parisians, partly to see whether there is any possibility whatsoever of bringing the Germans in Germany back to their senses. What's lacking is money. Efforts are being made down here to
exploit all the German societies, etc., to this end. You must be the best judge of whether anything can be done in this line in Manchester. The cause itself would seem to be above reproach.
Context here
The German
Marx an Engels, 12. September 1863

"Die interessanteste Bekanntschaft, die ich hier gemacht, ist die des Oberst Lapinski. Er ist unbedingt der geistreichste Pole - dabei homme d'action -, den ich bisher kennengelernt (...)
Statt des Nationalittenkampfs kennt er nur den Rassenkampf. Er hat alle Orientalen, wozu er Russen Trken, Griechen, Armenier usw. mit gleicher Vorliebe zhlt (...)
Sein Zweck in London ist jetzt, eine deutsche Legion, wenn auch nur von 200 Mann auf die Beine zu bringen, um mit der schwarzrotgoldnen Fahne den Russen in Polen gegenberzutreten (...)
Was fehlt, ist Geld. Es werden hier Versuche gemacht, smtliche deutsche Vereine usw. fr diesen Zweck zu exploitieren. Du mut am besten wissen, ob in Manchester etwas in dieser line zu tun ist. Die Sache selbst wre vorzglich."
MEW a.a.O. 30, 371 ff., Rotbuch S. 143

Marx-Engels Correspondence 1863

Marx To Engels
In Manchester
Source: MECW, Volume 41, p. 491;
First published: abridged in Die Neue Zeit, Stuttgart, 1897-98 and in full

in MEGA, Berlin, 1930.

[London,] 12 September 1863

Dear Frederick,
My family has been back for about 10 days. Little Jenny is much better and
has stopped coughing. She is now taking salt water baths at home, i.e. baths
with sea salt.About 2 months ago I, too, started taking a bath at home every
morning, sluicing myself with cold water from head to foot, since when I have
been feeling much better.
The most interesting acquaintanceship I have struck up here is that of
Colonel Lapinski. He is without doubt the cleverest Pole besides being
an homme d'action I have ever met. His sympathies are all on the German
side, though in manners and speech he is also a Frenchman. He cares nothing
for the national struggle and only knows the racial struggle. He hates all
Orientals, among whom he numbers Russians Turks, Greeks, Armenians, etc.,
with equal impartiality. He spent some time here in company
with Urquhart, but, not content with describing him as a humbug, he actually
doubts his probity, which is unjust.
The Circassian princes exhibited in England by Urquhart and Lapinski
were two menials. Lapinski maintains that Urquhart is being well and truly
led by the nose by Zamoyski, who in turn is himself simply a tool of
Palmerstons and hence, by this circuitous route, of the Russian Embassy.
Although of Catholic stock, he (Lap.) finds Urquharts relations with the

Catholic bishops in England highly suspect. As soon as action was called for,
he says, e.g. the equipping of a Polish corps to invade Circassia, which L,
too, regards as the best diversion Urquhart allowed himself to be dissuaded
by Zamoyski. By and large, Urquhart only wants to talk. He is a big liar
and he (Lap.) took it particularly amiss that he should have made him (L.) his
co-liar without consulting him beforehand. Not a soul in Circassia knows
Urquhart, who spent only 24 hours there and doesnt speak the language. By
way of illustrating U.s imaginative powers, he mentioned the latters boast
that he (Urq.) had killedChartism in England!
There has been another purge of the National Government in Warsaw. This
had been infiltrated by Czartoryskis supporters as a result of the intrigues of
Bonaparte and Palmerston. Three of these were stabbed and that, pro nunc has
intimidated the rest. (The said Czartoryski party was headed by Majewski.)
The power of the National Government is evident from the fact that the Grand
Duke Constantine accepted a passport from it for a journey abroad. According
to L., Herzen and Bakunin are thoroughly chapfallen because your Russian,
upon being scratched a little, has again revealed himself to be a Tartar.
Bakunin has become a monster, a huge mass of flesh and fat, and is barely
capable of walking any more. To crown it all, he is sexually perverse and
jealous of the seventeen year-old Polish girl who married him in Siberia
because of his martyrdom. He is presently in Sweden, where he is hatching
revolution with the Finns.
In Poland, L. said, it had been necessary de prime abord to disregard the
peasantry, that ultra-reactionary rabble. But they were now ripe for the fray
and would rise at the governments call for a leve en masse.
Without Austria, he went on, the movement would have come to grief long
ago and, if Austria were to close her frontiers in earnest, the rebellion would be
done for in 3 weeks. But Austria was cheating the Poles. Solely out of
desperation, because Francis Joseph knew that he was threatened by a RussianSerbian-Romanian-Italian-French-Hungarian-Prussian bomb did he go to
Frankfurt, and it was for the same reason that the Pope had issued his latest
edict in support of Poland.
L. told me there could be no doubt whatever that it was not just Bangya who
had an understanding with Russia, but also Stein, Trr, Klapka, and Kossuth.
His aim now is to raise a German legion in London, even if only 200 strong,
so that he can confront the Russians in Poland with the black, red and gold

flag, partly to exasperate the Parisians, partly to see whether there is any
possibility whatsoever of bringing the Germans in Germany back to their
senses.
Whats lacking is money. Efforts are being made down here to exploit all the
German societies, etc., to this end. You must be the best judge of whether
anything can be done in this line in Manchester. The cause as such would
appear to be excellent.
Give my regards to Lupus and tell him that I've sent on his letter to Eccarius.
Salut.
Your
K. M.
Sunday, February 20, 2005
SPONGING, NOT WORKING WAS ENGELS'S WAY OF LIFE TOO

Engels To Marx, 8 August 1862: "But all this is marginal stuff and, unless we can discover the art of shitting gold, there would hardly seem to be any alternative to your extracting something from your relations by one means or another."
Context here
The German
Engels an Marx, 8. August 1862
"(...) und falls wir nicht die Kunst erfinden, Gold zu scheien, wird schwerlich etwas andres brigbleiben, als da Du auf die eine oder die andre Weise etwas aus Deinen Verwandten herausschlgst."
MEW a.a.O. 30, 273.

Marx-Engels Correspondence 1862

Engels To Marx
In London
Source: MECW Volume 41, p. 403;
First published: in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx,

Stuttgart, 1913.

Manchester, 8 August 1862

Dear Moor,

In giving you an account of my expenditure, I never remotely intended to

deter you from further squeezing, as you call it. On the contrary, we shall, I
think, go on giving each other as much mutual aid as we can, it being quite
immaterial so far as the cause is concerned which of us happens to be the
squeezer at the moment and which the squeezed, roles that are, after all,
interchangeable. My only object in drawing up this statement was to
demonstrate the impossibility of laying my hands on more than 10 just at the
moment.
I assume that you promptly requisitioned the 15 in cash from Lassalle, or
what exactly does by January a mean? That he doesnt want to fork out till
then? Now as regards bills, I for my part can perfectly well draw from 40 to
45 or some 260 to 300 talers on Lassalle, at 3, preferably 4 months date,
provided Borkheim will cash them. I shall also be able to send you another 10
in cash if I keep Borkheim waiting till September for the money I owe him for
wine. That would make 10 from me, 45 for the bill, 15 Lassalle, total 70. But
it would mean that I was completely cleaned out for some little while, not that
that would really matter, provided it got you out of the mire and enabled little
Jenny to go to the seaside. Since Borkheim is constantly having to disburse
money on the Continent and he knows that, come what may, I have got to
honour the bill if I dont want my position here to be ruined, theres absolutely
no reason why you shouldnt go and ask him whether hes willing to negotiate
the thing for us. You can tell him that just now, when times are bad for cotton,
I am honour-bound to draw as little money as possible from the firm and hence
would sooner adopt this method. You have far less cause to feel ill at ease with
him about the affair than I have, so go and see him at once and arrange matters
so that I can draw on Monsieur le Baron forthwith.
Lupus arrived on Monday, in the grip of influenza and rheumatism, which
confined him to bed for a day, the only one he spent in London. As soon as he
felt a little better, he came straight up here. That was why he didnt come and
see you. He is now better, but, being in monetibus likewise on his beam ends,
came straight to me about the 10.
You've absolutely got to pull off another financial coup, otherwise I cannot
see how on earth we're going to make up for the loss of the Tribune. Nor are
the other New York papers in any kind of a position to take the place of
the Tribune so far as you are concerned; but, should a suitable occasion arise,
it would do no harm to try, as something might come of it. With 30 sheets, the
book will raise at most some 70, but how do things stand with Brockhaus?
Did you discuss the matter at all with Lassalle? And how much longer will it
take?

I have again made contact with the Allgemeine Militr-Zeitung and shall see
how it goes, though 1 article every 6 weeks is the maximum here. Mightnt
you be able, through your mussurus or otherwise, to arrange for me to
contribute military articles to an English paper in London? But all this is
marginal stuff and, unless we can discover the art of shitting gold, there would
hardly seem to be any alternative to your extracting something from your
relations by one means or another. Rflchis-la-dessus.
Shall write to you shortly about Lassalles war plans and your theory of
rent,; though I must say I'm by no means clear about the existence of absolute
rent for, after all, you have to prove it first. I've got frightful piles and cant
go on sitting down any longer.
Regards to the family.
Your
F. E.
Saturday, February 19, 2005
MARX CARED MORE ABOUT HIS BOOK THAN HIS OWN FAMILY

Marx To Engels, 18 June 1862: "Every day my wife says she wishes she and the children were safely in their graves, and I really cannot blame her, for the humiliations, torments and alarums that one has to go through in such a situation are indeed indescribable. As you know, the 50 pounds went on debts,
more than half of which remain to be paid.... a week ago, my wife attempted to sell some books of mine 'in vain'. I feel all the more sorry for the unfortunate children in that all this is happening during the Exhibition Season, when their friends are having fun, whereas they themselves live in dread lest
someone should come and see them and realise what a mess they are in..... For the rest, I myself, by the by, am working away hard and, strange to say, my grey matter is functioning better in the midst of the surrounding misery than it has done for years. Im further expanding this volume, since the
German sons-of-bitches value a book according to its cubic content.
Context here
Some of the German
Marx an Engels, 18. Juni 1862
"Ich dehne diesen Band mehr aus, da die deutschen Hunde den Wert der Bcher nach dem Kubikinhalt schtzen."
MEW a.a.O. 30, 248 f., Rotbuch S. 139

Marx-Engels Correspondence 1862

Marx To Engels
In Manchester
Source: MECW Volume 41, p. 380;
First published: in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx,

Stuttgart, 1913.

[London,] 18 June 1862

Dear Engels,
The idea of pouring out my misre to you again sickens me, but que faire?
Every day my wife says she wishes she and the children were safely in their
graves, and I really cannot blame her, for the humiliations, torments and
alarums that one has to go through in such a situation are indeed indescribable.
As you know, the 50 went on debts, more than half of which remain to be
paid. The 2 on gas. The wretched money from Vienna wont arrive till the
end of July, and then there'll be damned little of it, since the swine arent even
printing 1 article a week now. To that must be added the fresh expenditure
since the beginning of May. I wont say anything about what, in London, is the
truly parlous situation of being without a centime for 7 weeks since for us it
is a chronically recurring state of affairs. But from your own experience, you
will at any rate know that, all the time, there are current expenses that have to
be paid in cash. This has been done by putting back in pawn the stuff that had
been redeemed at the end of April. But that source was exhausted weeks ago,
so much so that, a week ago, my wife attempted to sell some books of mine in
vain. I feel all the more sorry for the unfortunate children in that all this is
happening during the Exhibition Season, when their friends are having fun,
whereas they themselves live in dread lest someone should come and see them
and realise what a mess they are in.
For the rest, I myself, by the by, am working away hard and, strange to say,
my grey matter is functioning better in the midst of the
surrounding misre than it has done for years. I am expanding this
volume [second instalment of Critique of Political Economy], since those
German scoundrels estimate the value of a book in terms of its cubic capacity.
Incidentally, another thing I have at last been able to sort out is the shitty rent
business (which, however, I shall not so much as allude to in this part). I had
long harboured misgivings as to the absolute correctness of Ricardos theory,
and have at length got to the bottom of the swindle. Again, since we last saw
each other, I've hit on one or two pleasing and surprising novelties in
connection with whats already going into this volume.
I'm amused that Darwin, at whom I've been taking another look, should say
that he also applies the Malthusian theory to plants and animals, as though in
Mr Malthuss case the whole thing didnt lie in its not being applied to plants
and animals, but only with its geometric progression to humans as
against plants and animals. It is remarkable how Darwin rediscovers, among
the beasts and plants, the society of England with its division of labour,
competition, opening up of new markets, inventions and Malthusian struggle
for existence. It is Hobbes bellum omnium contra omnes and is reminiscent

of Hegels Phenomenology, in which civil society figures as an intellectual

animal kingdom, whereas, in Darwin, the animal kingdom figures as civil
society.
Buckle has played a trick on Ruge by dying. In his imagination, Ruge had
envisaged another library to be written by Buckle and transposed into
German by Ruge.Poor Ruge! And poor Buckle who, this very day, is traduced
by a friend in a testimonium pietatis in The Times.
Have you and Lupus received the 2 Julian Schmidts I sent off?
Apropos. If it could be done very briefly, without making undue demands on
you, I should like to have a sample of Italian book-keeping (with
explanations). It would help to throw light on Dr Quesnays Tableau
conomique.
No one comes to see me, and I'm glad of it, for I dont give a... for the sort
we have here. A fine crew!
Salut.
Your
K. M.
I've heard from Lassalle. He may come over here in July. In the late autumn
he will make a start on the initial draft of his Political Economy, which,
however, is going to take him a long time. Hes in for a surprise.
Friday, February 18, 2005
MARX SPEAKS OF "REPULSIVE JEWISH FACIAL FEATURES"
Yes. That was Marx, not Hitler

Marx to Antoinette Philips, March 24, 1861: This young lady, who instantly overwhelmed me with her kindness, is the ugliest creature I have seen in my entire life, with repulsive Jewish facial features.
Listed, without translation here
The German
Marx an Antoinette Philips, March 24. 1861
"Dieses Frulein, das mich mit ihrem Wohlwollen direkt berschwemmte, ist das hlichste Geschpf, das ich je in meinem Leben gesehen habe, mit einer garstigen jdischen Physiognomie (...)"
MEW a.a.O. 30, 591.

Volume 41

Marx & Engels

1860-64
LETTERS
January 1860-September 1864

1860
Marx to Engels. After 11 January

Marx to Bertalan Szemere. 12 January

Marx to Engels. 25 January

Engels to Marx. 26 January

Marx to Engels. 28 January

Marx to Ferdinand Lassalle. 30 January

11

Engels to Marx. 31 January

13

Marx to Engels. 31 January

15

Marx to Bertalan Szemere. 31 January

17

Engels to Marx. 1 February

18

Engels to Marx. 2 February

19

Marx to Engels. 3 February

21

Marx to Joachim Lelewel. 3 February

23

Engels to Marx. 4 February

24

Marx to Engels. 4 February

26

Marx to Franz Duncker. 6 February

27

Engels to Marx. 7 February

28

Marx to Engels. 7 February

29

Marx to Ferdinand Freiligrath. 8 February

30

Marx to Engels. 9 February

32

Engels to Marx. 9 February

38

Engels to Marx. 12 February

39

Marx to J. M. Weber. 13 February

40

Marx to Engels. 13 February

46

Marx to Engels. 14 February

47

Marx to Engels. 15 February

49

Engels to Franz Duncker. 20 February

50

Engels to Ferdinand Lassalle. 20 February

51

Marx to J. M. Weber. 21 February

52

Marx to Ferdinand Freiligrath. 23 February

54

Marx to Ferdinand Lassalle. 23 February

58

Marx to J. M. Weber. 24 February

59

Marx to Wilhelm Liebknecht. 27 February

77

Marx to Karl Schapper. 27 February

78

Marx to Muzembini. 27 February

79

Marx to Ferdinand Freiligrath. 29 February

80

Marx to Ferdinand Lassalle. 3 March

88

Marx to J. M. Weber. 3 Match

92

Marx to Collet Dobson Collet. 7 March

104

Marx to Bertalan Szemere. 13 March

106

Marx to Lucien Jottrand. 13 March

107

Engels to Ferdinand Lassalle. 15 March

108

Marx to J. M. Weber. 27 March

110

Marx to Bertalan Szemere. 4 April

111

Engels to Marx. 8 April

112

Marx to Engels. 9 April

113

Marx to Johann Philipp Becker. 9 April

114

Marx to Ferdinand Lassalle. 9 April

116

Marx to Georg Lommel. 9 April

118

Engels to Emil Engels. 11 April

120

Marx to Engels. 12 April

121

Marx to J. M. Weber. 13 April

122

Marx to Engels. 16 April

123

Marx to Mor Perczel. 16 April

125

Marx to Engels. 17 April

126

Engels to Gottfried Ermen. 19 April

127

Marx to J. M. Weber. 21 April

128

Marx to Engels. 24 April

129

Marx to Ceorg Rheinlander. 24 April

130

Marx to Ferdinand Lassalle. 24 April

131

Marx to J. M. Weber. 24 April

132

Marx to Engels. 7 May

133

Engels to Marx. 7 May

134

Marx to Engels. 8 May

135

Marx to Eduard Fischel. 8 May

136

Engels to Marx. 10 May

137

Engels to Marx. 11 May

138

Marx to Carl Siebel. 15 May

139

Marx to Engels. 28 May

141

Engels to Marx. 31 May

142

Marx to Eduard Fischel. 1 June

143

Marx to Ferdinand Lassalle. About 2 June

145

Marx to Engels. 2 June

155

Marx to Bertalan Szemere. 2 June

156

Marx to Engels. 14 June

158

Marx to Engels. 16 June

158

Engels to Marx. 20 June

160

Marx to Johann Philipp Becker. 23 June

163

Engels to Marx. About 25 June

164

Marx to Engels. 25 June

165

Marx to Engels. 26 June

167

Engels to Marx. 26 June

168

Engels to Marx. 27 June

168

Marx to Engels. 28 June

169

Engels to Marx. After 28 June

170

Marx to Engels. 9 July

171

Marx to Engels. 17 July

172

Marx to Engels. 21 July

173

Engels to Marx. About 23 July

173

Marx to Engels. 25 July

175

Marx to Engels. 29 July

175

Engels to Marx. 1 August

176

Marx to J. M. Weber. 2 August

177

Marx to Engels. 4 August

178

Engels to Jenny Marx. 15 August

179

Marx to J. A1. Weber. 20 August

180

Marx to Bertalan Szemere. 21 August

181

Marx to Engels. 27 August

182

Marx to Engels. 29 August

183

Marx to Engels. 1 September

184

Marx to Engels. After 2 September

185

Marx to Ferdinand Lassalle. 7 September

186

Marx to Engels. 13 September

188

Marx to Engels. 15 September

189

Engels to Marx. 15 September

190

Marx to Ferdinand Lassalle. 15 September

192

Marx to Ferdinand Lassalle. 15 September

195

Marx to Engels. 20 September

195

Marx to Engels. 25 September

196

Engels to Marx. 1 October

198

Marx to Engels. 2 October

201

Marx to Ferdinand Lassalle. 2 October

203

Engels to Marx. 5 October

204

Marx to Engels. 11 October

206

Marx to Ferdinand Lassalle. 23 October

207

Marx to Engels. 25 October

208

Marx to Engels. 5 November

209

Marx to Ferdinand Lassalle. 5 November

210

Marx to Engels. 13 November

211

Marx to Engels. 14 November

213

Marx to Engels. 21 November

214

Marx to Bertalan Szemere. 22 November

214

Marx to Bertalan Szemere. 22 November

215

Marx to Engels. 23 November

216

Marx to Franz Duncker. 24 November

217

Marx to Engels. 26 November

218

Marx to Engels. 28 November

220

Engels to Marx. 3 December

221

Engels to Marx. 5 December

222

Marx to Engels. 5 December

223

Marx to Engels. 6 December

225

Marx to Engels. 12 December

226

Engels to Marx. 18 December

228

Marx to Engels. 18 December

250

Engels to Marx. 19 December

231

Marx to Engels. 19 December

231

Marx to Engels. 23 December

233

Marx to Engels. 26 December

234

Marx to Engels. 27 December

237

1861
Marx to Engels. 3 January

238

Marx to Carl Siebel. 3 January

239

Marx to Carl Siebel. 3 January

240

Engels to Marx. 7 January

241

Marx to Engels. 8 January

242

Marx to Engels. 10 January

244

Marx to Ferdinand Lassalle. 16 January

245

Marx to Engels. 18 January

247

Marx to Engels. 22 January

249

Marx to Ferdinand Lassalle. 28 January

251

Marx to Engels. 29 January

252

Marx to Engels. 31 January

253

Engels to Marx. 31 January

254

Marx to Engels. 2 February

255

Engels to Marx. 4 February

256

Engels to Marx. 6 February

256

Marx to Ferdinand Freiligrath. 7 February

258

Engels to Elisabeth Engels. 13 February

259

Marx to Engels. 14 February

261

Marx to Ferdinand Lassalle. 15 February

265

Marx to Engels. 27 February

264

Engels to Elisabeth Engels. 27 February

266

Marx to Ferdinand Lassalle. 7 March

267

Marx to Antoinette Philips. 24 March

269

Marx to Carl Siebel. 28 March

272

Marx to Carl Siebel. 2 April

273

Marx to Antoinette Philips. 13 April

274

Marx to Lion Philips. 6 May

276

Marx to Engels. 7 May

279

Marx to Ferdinand Lassalle. 8 May

283

Marx to Engels. 10 May

285

Marx to Engels. 16 May

290

Marx to Ferdinand Lassalle. 29 May

291

Marx to Engels. 10 June

292

Marx to Ferdinand Lassalle. 11 June

293

Engels to Marx. 12 June

294

Marx to Engels. 19 June

297

Marx to Engels. 1 July

300

Engels to Marx. 3 July

303

Marx to Engels. 5 July

305

Marx to Engels. 12 July

309

Marx to Antoinette Philips. 17 July

311

Marx to Engels. 20 July

314

Marx to Ferdinand Lassalle. 22 July

316

Marx to Engels. 3 August

319

Marx to Antoinette Philips. 24 September

320

Marx to Engels. 28 September

321

Marx to Engels. 30 October

323

Marx to Engels. 6 November

325

Marx to Watteau. 10 November

326

Marx to Engels. 18 November

327

Marx to Engels. 20 November

328

Engels to Marx. 27 November

329

Engels to Marx. 2 December

330

Marx to Engels. 5 December

331

Marx to Engels. 9 December

332

Marx to Engels. 13 December

333

Marx to Engels. 19 December

334

Marx to Engels. 27 December

337

1862
Marx to Josef Valentin Weber. 15 January

339

Marx to Engels. 25 February

340

Marx to Johann Philipp Becker. 26 February

341

Engels to Marx. 28 February

343

Marx to Engels. 3 March

344

Engels to Marx. 5 March

346

Marx to Engels. 6 March

347

Engels to Marx. About 8 March

351

Marx to Engels. 15 March

352

Marx to Engels. 28 April

352

Marx to Ferdinand Lassalle. 28 April

355

Engels to Marx. 5 May

358

Marx to Engels. 6 May

362

Engels to Marx. 12 May

363

Engels to Marx. About 18 May

364

Marx to Engels. 19 May

365

Engels to Marx. 23 May

365

Marx to Engels. 27 May

369

Engels to Marx. 29 May

371

Engels to Marx. 4 June

372

Engels to Carl Siebel. 4 June

374

Marx to Engels. About 6 June

376

Marx to Ferdinand Lassalle. 16 June

376

Marx to Engels. 18 June

380

Engels to Marx. About 3 July

382

Marx to Engels. 5 July

382

Marx to Engels. 11 July

383

Marx to Engels. 21 July

384

Engels to Ferdinand Lassalle. 23 July

385

Engels to Marx. 30 July

386

Marx to Engels. 30 July

388

Engels to Marx. 31 July

391

Engels to Marx. 1 August

392

Marx to Engels. 2 August

394

Marx to Engels. 7 August

399

Engels to Marx. 8 August

401

Marx to Engels. 9 August

403

Engels to Marx. Before 12 August

404

Engels to Marx. 13 August

405

Marx to Ferdinand Lassalle. 13 August

405

Marx to Ferdinand Lassalle. 14 August

406

Marx to Engels. 14 August

407

Marx to Wilhelm Schwarz. 19 August

408

Marx to Ferdinand Lassalle. 20 August

409

Marx to Engels. 20 August

410

Engels to Marx. 21 August

412

Engels to Ferdinand Lassalle. 21 August

413

Engels to Marx. Beginning of September

413

Engels to Marx. 9 September

414

Marx to Engels. 10 September

415

Marx to Wilhelm Wolff. 4 October

417

Engels to Marx. 16 October

418

Marx to Engels. 29 October

419

Marx to Engels. 4 November

422

Engels to Marx. 5 November

422

Marx to Ferdinand Lassalle. 7 November

424

Marx to Engels. 9 November

426

Marx to Engels. 14 November

427

Engels to Marx. 15 November

427

Marx to Engels. 17 November

429

Marx to Engels. 20 November

431

Marx to Ferdinand Freiligrath. 15 December

432

Marx to Engels. 24 December

432

Engels to Marx. 26 December

434

Marx to Ludwig Kugelmann. 28 December

435

Engels to Marx. 30 December

437

1863
Marx to Engels. 2 January

439

Engels to Marx. 7 January

441

Marx to Engels. 8 January

442

Engels to Marx. 13 January

443

Marx to Engels. 24 January

444

Engels to Marx. 26 January

446

Marx to Engels. 28 January

448

Marx to Engels. 13 February

453

Marx to Engels. 17 February

454

Engels to Marx. 17 February

455

Engels to Marx. 19 February

457

Marx to Engels. 20 February

458

Engels to Marx. About 21 February

459

Marx to Engels. 21 February

460

Marx to Engels. 24 March

461

Engels to Marx. 8 April

464

Marx to Engels. 9 April

466

Marx to Engels. 18 April

469

Engels to Marx. 21 April

470

Marx to Josef Valentin Weber. 22 April

472

Engels to Marx. 20 May

472

Marx to Engels. 29 May

474

Marx to Engels. 10 June

476

Engels to Marx. 11 June

476

Marx to Engels. 12 June

479

Marx to Engels. 22 June

481

Engels to Marx. 24 June

482

Marx to Engels. 6 July

483

Marx to Engels. 15 August

488

Marx to Engels. 12 September

491

Engels to Marx. 24 November

493

Marx to Engels. 2 December

495

Engels to Marx. 3 December

495

Marx to Engels. 4 December

497

Marx to Jenny Marx. 15 December

498

Marx to Engels. 22 December

500

Marx to Ferdinand Freiligrath. 23 December

502

Marx to Engels. 27 December

503

1864
Engels to Marx. 3 January

505

Marx to Engels. 20 January

507

Marx to Lion Philips. 20 February

508

Marx to Engels. 25 February

511

Marx to Engels. 11 March

511

Marx to Lion Philips. 29 March

512

Marx to Lion Philips. 14 April

514

Marx to Engels. 19 April

516

Engels to Marx. 29 April

518

Engels to Marx. 1 May

520

Engels to Marx. 2 May

521

Engels to Marx. 2 May

522

Marx to Jenny Marx. 9 May

523

Marx to Jenny Marx. 10 May

524

Marx to Jenny Marx. 13 May

525

Marx to His Daughter, Jenny. 17 May

526

Engels to Hermann Engels. 24 May

528

Marx to Engels. 26 May

529

Engels to Marx. 30 May

531

Marx to Engels. 3 June

533

Engels to Marx. 3 June

535

Marx to Engels. 7 June

536

Engels to Marx. 9 June

539

Marx to Engels. 16 June

540

Marx to Lion Philips. 25 June

542

Marx to Engels. I July

545

Marx to Engels. 4 July

545

Engels to Marx. 5 July

547

Marx to Ferdinand Freiligrath. 12 July

548

Marx to Engels. 25 July

549

Marx to Lion Philips. 17 August

550

Marx to Engels. 31 August

552

Engels to Marx. 2 September

553

Marx to Engels. 2 September

555

Marx to Jenny Marx. 2 September

556

Engels to Marx. 4 September

558

Marx to Engels. 7 September

560

Marx to Sophie von Hatzfeldt. 12 September

563

Appendices
Jenny Marx to Marx. 16 March 1860

567

Jenny Marx to Engels. 14 August 1860

568

Jenny Marx to Engels. After 5 October 1860

569

Jenny Marx to Louise Weydemeyer. 11 March 1861

569

Jenny Marx to Engels. Before 16 March 1861

576

Jenny Marx to Engels. Between 21 and 24 March 1861

577

Jenny Marx to Engels. Beginning of April 1861

578

Jenny Marx to Berta Markheim. 6 July 1863

581

Jenny Marx to Berta Markheim. 12 October 1863

583

Jenny Marx to Engels. Beginning of November 1863

584

Jenny Marx to Engels. About 24 November 1863

585

Jenny Marx to Wilhelm Liebknecht. About 24 November 1863

586

Laura Marx to Engels. 10 June 1864

588

Jenny Marx to Karl Friedrich Moritz Elsner. Middle of June 1864

588

Notes and Indexes

Notes

593

Name Index

.660

Index of Quoted and Mentioned Literature

706

Index of Periodicals

728

Subject Index

737

Illustrations
Karl Marx (London, 1861)

298-99

The USA during the Civil War (period from 1861 to 1864) (map)

314-15

Marx's passport, 1861

330-31

First page of Engels' letter to Marx of 20 May 1863

474-75

Tables showing the process of social reproduction enclosed by Marx in his letter to Engels
of 6 July 1863)

490-91

Wilhelm Wolff

522-23

Marx's letter to his wife, Jenny, containing the news of Wilhelm Wolff's death

.522-23

Frederick Engels (Manchester, 1864)

538-39

Marx, Engels and Marx's daughters Laura, Eleanor and Jenny, 1864

538-39

Thursday, February 17, 2005

MARX THE PARASITE
Always sponging and cheating

Marx to Engels, November 6, 1861: I got a reply from the old lady yesterday. Nothing but tender expressions, but no cash. She also tells me something I already knew, that she is 75 years old and feeling a lot of the infirmities of old age.
(No other translation available on the net)
The German
Marx an Engels, 6. November 1861
"Von meiner Alten erhielt ich gestern Antwort. Nichts als 'zrtliche' Redensarten, but no cash. Auerdem teilt sie mir mit, was ich lngst wute, da sie 75 Jahre alt ist und manche Gebresten des Alters fhlt."
MEW a.a.O. 30, 198.

Marx to Lassalle, February 15, 1861: "You know that I want to settle difficult money matters here with my uncle (who manages my mothers fortune and earlier on has often given me significant advances on my inheritance). The man is tough, but takes a lot of pride in my position as an author. Thats why
in your letter to me you must speak of the success (lucus a non lucendo [even though the opposite is the case]) of my most recent piece against Vogt, of our joint plans for a newspaper and so on, and generally arrange your letter in such a way that I can grant my uncle the confidence of sharing the letter
with him.
(No other translation available on the net)
The German
Marx an Lassalle, 15. Februar 1861
"Du weit, da ich hier mit meinem Onkel (der das Vermgen meiner Mutter verwaltet und in frhren Zeiten mir fter bedeutende Vorschsse auf mein Erbteil gemacht) schwierige Geldverhltnisse in Ordnung bringen will. Der Mann ist zh, hat aber viel Eitelkeit auf mein Schriftstellertum. Du mut daher in
Deinem Brief an mich von dem Erfolg (lucus a non lucendo) [obgleich das Gegenteil der Fall ist]) meiner letzten Schrift gegen Vogt, von gemeinschaftlichen Zeitungsplnen usf. sprechen, berhaupt Deinen Brief so einrichten, da ich dem Herrn Onkel 'das Vertrauen' schenken kann, ihm den Brief
mitzuteilen."
MEW a.a.O. 30, 588. [lucus a non lucendo = obwohl das Gegenteil der Fall ist]
Source in German only

Wednesday, February 16, 2005

MARX WAS A SOCIAL DARWINIST

Marx To Ferdinand Lassalle, 16 January 1861: "Darwin's work is most significant and suits me as a natural science underpinning for historic class struggle. One does, of course, have to put up with the clumsy English style of argument. Despite all shortcomings, it is here that, for the first time, 'teleology' in
natural science is not only dealt a mortal blow but its rational meaning is empirically explained."
Context here
The German
Marx an Lassalle, 16. Januar 1861
"Sehr bedeutend ist Darwins Schrift und pat mir als naturwissenschaftliche Unterlage des geschichtlichen Klassenkampfes."
MEW a.a.O. 30, 578.

Marx-Engels Correspondence 1861

Marx To Ferdinand Lassalle

In Berlin

Source: MECW, Volume 41, p. 245;

First published: in F. Lassalle. Nachgelassene Briefe und

Schriften, Stuttgart, 1922.

London, 16 January 1861

9 Grafton Terrace,
Maitland Park, Haverstock Hill
Dear Lassalle,
D'abord, my best if belated wishes for a Happy New Year.
My wife is now convalescing. Her illness resulted in my falling seriously ill
myself; and, at present, I am suffering from inflammation of the liver. And a
very nice New Years gift too! Hitherto, the complaint has merely been
chronic. Now it is becoming acute.
This is the explanation for my silence, despite the very close sympathy felt
both by my wife and myself for your sufferings. I hope that when you next
write you'll have a better account to give me of yourself. If you would care to
send me a fairly detailed report on your illness, I shall consult a doctor whom I
regard as a veritable aesculapian genius. However, he does not live here, but in
Manchester.
I was greatly tickled by the Royal Prussian Amnesty which in effect
excludes all refugees from its indulgence. Gottfried Kinkel, who has recently
joined the National Association, could, however, return, if a correct
interpretation were put on the act of grace. As for Bucher, Freiligrath,
Borkheim, Zimmermann of Spandau, and many others, they have long been
naturalised Englishmen.
Faucher, former London correspondent of the Neue Preussische
Zeitung, afterwards co-editor of the (Manchester School) Morning Star, a
chap, by the by, with whom anyone can consort since he does not conceal but,
indeed, openly flaunts, a lack of character typical of the Berliners, and who
isnt actually taken politically au srieux by any of his acquaintances,
believes that he can now play the Prussian Cobden. Good luck to him. Such, at
least, was his plan when he left London.

One of my friends, J. Ph. Becker, is at present with Garibaldi in Caprera. He

has written, telling me that the Mazzinists were almost exclusively responsible
for the serious part of the south Italian movement, that Garibaldi does not
exactly possess a superfluity of brains, and that the utmost confusion reigns in
his friends camp. Garibaldi, by the by, agrees with Mazzini in believing that
Cavour isnt even well-intentioned with regard to Victor Emmanuel, that he is
rather Bonapartes direct tool and that the Gaeta intervention, as well as
Farinas appointment to Sicily and Farinis to Naples, etc., are nothing but
carefully calculated moves to compel Vic. Em. to make fresh territorial
concessions to France, and concessions in favour of Murat in southern Italy.
Which will succeed, and soon become manifest.
The slavery crisis in the United States will bring about a terrible crisis in
England in a year or two; the Manchester cotton lords are already beginning
to tremble.
I seldom read German stuff. Recently, however, I happened upon A.
Bastian, Der Mensch in der Geschichte, etc. I think its a bad book, formless
and pretentious. His endeavour to explain psychology in terms of natural
science amounts to little more than a pious wish. His endeavour to explain
history in terms of psychology, on the other hand, shows that the man does
not know what psychology is, or, for that matter, history.
Darwins work is most important and suits my purpose in that it provides a
basis in natural science for the historical class struggle. One does, of course,
have to put up with the clumsy English style of argument. Despite all
shortcomings, it is here that, for the first time, teleology in natural science is
not only dealt a mortal blow but its rational meaning is empirically explained.
I have lately had the opportunity of seeing rather more German newspapers.
Ghastly stuff. And, withal, a self-satisfied mediocrity which is
indeed nauseous.
Could you send me the 2nd volume of Eichhoffs PolizeiSilhouetten? Not to
be had here.
Another thing I have just read is Walesrodes Totenschau. Has some nice
tales! But lamely presented, though this is excusable in view of the time of its
publication.
Wishing you all good health, and with regards from my wife,

Your
K. M.
Mieroslawski, who has just been in Paris, told my friend Schily that things
looked bad. At the same time, he expressed himself most unfavourably with
respect to Klapka. Yet I myself cant quite make up my mind about
Mieroslawski.
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
MARX WAS A CHRONIC SPONGER

Marx To Engels, 7 May 1861: "First, then, to business. For a start, I squeezed 160 pounds out of my uncle so that we were able to pay off the greater part of our debts. My mother, with whom any discussion about cash is out of the question, but who is rapidly nearing her end, destroyed some I.O.U.s I had
given her in the past. That was the distinctly pleasant result of the two days I spent with her. I myself said nothing to her about money matters and it was she who took the initiative in this connection."
Context here

The German
Marx an Engels, 7. Mai 1861
"Meinem Onkel habe ich zunchst 160 abgepret, so da wir den grten Teil unsrer Schulden abzahlen konnten. Meine Mutter, bei der von barem Geld nicht die Rede ist, die aber rasch ihrer Auflsung entgegengeht, hat einige frhere Schuldscheine, die ich ihr ausgestellt, vernichtet (...)"
MEW a.a.O. 30, 161 ff.

Marx-Engels Correspondence 1861

Marx To Engels
In Manchester
Source: MECW Volume 41, p. 279;
First published: abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K.

Marx, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in MEGA, Berlin, 1930.

[London,] 7 May 1861

Dear Frederick,
Habes confitentem reum. [Your prisoner has a confession to make,
Cicero] But the circonstances attnuantes for my not writing were as
follows: D'abord I spent, as you, know, the greater part of my time in Berlin at
Lassalles house where it would have been impossible for me to write to you
without my telling Lassalle what was in the letter, and that did not serve my
purpose. Later, I was continually en route, from Berlin to Elberfeld, Cologne,
Trier, Aachen, Bommel, Rotterdam, and Amsterdam. Lastly, my original plan,
as I wrote and told my wife, had been to go from Rotterdam to Hull and from

Hull to Manchester so that I could give you a detailed verbal report. This was
frustrated by my cousin Jacques Philips. For, as I was about to leave
Rotterdam, he told me he would be coming to London the following day, and
he was as good as his word. So, of course, I had to proceed direct to London
in order to do him the honneurs there. He did not leave here until the day
before yesterday.
In any case, I now hope that you will come to us for a few days at
Whitsuntide. I heard in Elberfeld that you wanted to visit your family at
Whitsuntide. Even if you do, you could so arrange matters that you spend at
least a couple of days with us. I have much to tell you, and this can be done
better by word of mouth than in writing. Moreover, it irks my womenfolk if
you always give London a miss.
First, then, to business. For a start, I squeezed 160 out of my uncle so that
we were able to pay off the greater part of our debts. My mother, with whom
any discussion about cash is out of the question, but who is rapidly nearing her
end, destroyed some I.O.U.s I had given her in the past. That was the distinctly
pleasant result of the two days I spent with her. I myself said nothing to her
about money matters and it was she who took the initiative in this connection.
Further, when in Berlin, I paved the way for me to establish a connection with
the Vienna Presse should the need arise; in view of the present situation in
America, this will doubtless prove indispensable. Finally, I have arranged
through Lassalle for the second part of my political economy to be published
by Brockhaus instead of Duncker. As to Duncker, Camilla Essig (alias
Ludmilla Assing) rightly remarked to me that, if one wants to keep a book
secret, one must get Duncker to publish it. However, I do at least figure in the
recent piece by Rau-Rau the German Say.
Apropos. With regard to your Po and Rhine, etc., I am told by la Hatzfeldt
who converses with all the Prussian generals at the house of her brother-inlaw, General von Nostitz, and whose nephew Nostitz is, furthermore, an aidede-camp to handsome William that your pamphlet is considered in high, if
not the highest, military circles (including, inter alia, that of Prince Charles
Frederick) to be the product of an anonymous Prussian general. The same
thing happened in Vienna, or so I was told by assessor Friedlnder (brother of
the editor of the Vienna Presse). I myself have discussed it with General Pfuel,
now 82, but still mentally alert and become very radical. Pfuel didnt know, of
course, that we had conferred on him the honorary title of von Hllenstein.
He has, by the by, fallen out of favour and is ranked by the Court with the
Jacobins, atheists, etc.

Now to political business.

In Berlin there is, of course, no haute politique. Everything revolves round
the struggle with the police (not that the latter are in the least presumptuous
just now, being a model of civility and tolerance) in that people would like to
see Zedlitz, Patzke, etc., removed from office and punished; secondly, round
the opposition between the military and civilians. It is over these issues (in
bourgeois circles, other particularly sore points are the military bills and tax
exemption for the landowners) that matters will come to a head. (Count
Tavernier, an artillery officer, told me that they would like nothing better than
to turn their batteries on the Garde du Corps.) The prevailing atmosphere is
one of general dissolution, and people of every rank regard a catastrophe as
inevitable. This would seem to be more the case in the capital than in the
provinces. Curiously enough, military circles share the general conviction that
the first clash with the crapauds will result in a trouncing for the Prussians.
Berlin is in a cheeky, frivolous mood. The Chambers are despised. In one
theatre I visited, a comical ditty about Vincke was sung to the accompaniment
of loud applause. Among a broad section of the public there is much
dissatisfaction with the existing press. At the coming new elections (in the
autumn) to the Second Chamber, there is no doubt that most of the fellows
who sat in the Prussian National Assembly will be elected. This is important,
not on account of the said fellows, but because William the Handsome
mistakes them for red republicans. All in all, handsome William has been
dogged by the spectre rouge ever since he became king. He considers his
popularity as a liberal to be a trap set for him by the overthrow Party.
Now, under the circumstances it might, in fact, not be inopportune if we
could bring out a paper in Berlin next year, although I personally find the place
unpleasant. 20-30,000 talers would have to be got together in association with
Lassalle, etc. But hic jacet. Lassalle put the proposal to me direct. At the same
time, he confided that he would have to be editor en chef along with myself.
And Engels? I inquired. Well, if three arent too many, Engels can also be
editor en chef, of course. Though you two ought not to have more votes than
me, for other-wise I would always be outvoted. As reasons why he, too, must
take the helm he stated: 1. that he was generally regarded as being closer to the
bourgeois party and hence could procure funds more easily; 2. that he would
have to sacrifice his theoretical studies and his theoretical tranquillity and
ought, after all, to get something out of it, etc. If, however, we were unwilling,
he went on: I would still be prepared, as before, to assist the paper financially
and in literary ways; that would be an advantage to me; for I should have the
benefit of the paper without the responsibility for it, etc. This was just

sentimental hot air, of course. Lassalle, dazzled by the esteem earned him in
certain learned circles by his Heraclitus and, in another circle, consisting of
spongers, by his good wine and food, doesnt know, of course, that he is of ill
repute with the public at large. And then his intractability; his obsession with
the speculative concept (the fellow actually dreams of a new Hegelian
philosophy raised to the second power, which he intends to write), his
inoculation with early French liberalism, his arrogant pen, importunity,
tactlessness, etc. If subjected to rigid discipline, Lassalle might be of service as
one of the editors. Otherwise, we would simply make fools of ourselves. But,
in view of the great friendliness he showed me, you can see how difficult it
was for me to speak my mind. So, I was generally non-committal and told him
I could settle nothing without prior discussion with you and Lupus. (That was
the main reason why I didnt write to you from Berlin, for I didnt want to
have a reply from you about this while I was there.) If we decide against it, the
countess and Lassalle intend to set out on a years trip to the East or to
Italy. But heres the rub. He now expects me to give him an answer, which I
cant put off any longer. Qu'en dis-tu?
Hes a frightfully pompous fellow, and so I had no alternative but to be
constantly ironical at his expense, which wounded his amour-propre, the more
so in that it aroused in the countess, whom he has impressed as a universal
genius, a disquieting urge to emancipate herself from this Buddha. At certain
times, strangely enough, laHatzfeldts voice has a Jewish intonation that has
been acquired from and instilled in her by him.
Lupuss reservations about the Prussian police are quite out of place. The
only difficulty that still remains can at most affect those who had formerly
taken the military oath of allegiance. Assessor Friedlnder tells me that Lupus
is still the most popular man in Breslau and in another district of Silesia as
well, I forget the name. Elsner has turned into a good-for-nothing on
the Schlesische Zeitung, just as Stein has on the Breslauer. Nevertheless, a goahead democratic party has again been formed in Breslau. The enclosed
excerpt from the Preussische Gerichts-Zeitung was inserted at my instigation
by its editor, Stadtrichter Hiersemenzel. Actuarius Stein, who has returned to
Berlin from Zurich, sends Lupus his kindest regards.
You shall hear of my negotiations with the Prussian government and/or
police in my next letter.
Apropos. I have a present for you from Lassalle, a fine military atlas, which
you must come and fetch in person.

Salut to you, Lupus and Gumpert.

Your
K. M.
Monday, February 14, 2005
MARX BELIEVED IN A "JEWISH" LOOK

Marx: Mr. Vogt, 1860: "But how much good does it do Mr. Levy to attack Mr. Disraeli and to turn an I into a Y, since Mother Nature has inscribed his family tree in the craziest lettering right in the middle of his face."
(No other translation available online)
The German
Marx, Herr Vogt, 1860
"Aber was ntzt es dem Herrn Levy, den Herrn Disraeli anzugreifen und ein Y fr ein I zu machen, da Mutter Natur seinen Stammbaum in tollster Frakturschrift ihm mitten ins Gesicht geschrieben hat."
MEW a.a.O. 14, 599 ff.
(Listed here but untranslated)

1860
Vogts attack on me he is obviously seeking to represent me as an insignificant and rascally bourgeois
blackguard is intended to be the grand coup of bourgeois vulgar democracy and likewise of the Russo-Bonapartist
riff-raff against the party as a whole. Hence it must likewise be countered with a grand coup. Furthermore, the
defensive does not suit our purpose. I shall sue the National-Zeitung. I've now made up my mind to do so. [Letter from
Marx to Engels, 3rd February]

Major Works
Herr Vogt
Fragments on Art and Literature

Correspondence

Minor Works
Letters to the Editor, 1860
Articles for the New York Daily Tribune (Marx & Engels)

including: English Politics, Marx 14 February

and On Rifled Cannon (Engels)
Sunday, February 13, 2005
MORE MOCKING ALLUSIONS TO JEWS

Engels to Marx, 1860: "I intend to write to Ephraim Artful [Ferdinand Lassalle] tomorrow; a diplomatic missive such as this ought not to be sent off without due reflection.... Moreover, little Jew Braun will now see.... ".
Context here

The German
Engels an Marx, 31. Januar 1860
"Ich denke morgen an Ephraim Gescheit zu schreiben; dies diplomatische Sendschreiben darf nicht unberlegt fortgeschickt werd en (...) Jdel Braun wird jetzt auch einsehen, (....)"
MEW a.a.O. 30, 14.

Marx to Engels,25 February 1859: "Admittedly, little Jew Braun [Ferdinand Lassalle] hasn't written to me since my manuscript arrived, and that was over four weeks ago."
Context here
The German
Marx an Engels, 25. Februar 1859
"Das Jdel Braun hat mir zwar nicht geschrieben, seit mein Manuskript angekommen ist, und das sind ber vier Wochen. (...)"
MEW a.a.O. 29, 405.

Marx-Engels Correspondence 1860

Engels To Marx
In London
Source: MECW Volume 41, p. 13;
First published: in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx,

Stuttgart, 1913.

Manchester, 31 January 1860

Dear Moor,
I intend to write to Ephraim Artful [Ferdinand Lassalle] tomorrow; a
diplomatic missive such as this ought not to be sent off without due reflection.
For a day or two now, I have been mulling over Savoy, Nice and the Rhine, a
kind of sequel to Po and Rhine. I have made up my mind to offer the thing to
Duncker; it wont be more than 2 sheets long and might provide a good pretext
for getting in touch with Ephraim. At all events, I shall write the thing in the
course of next week, after which I shall immediately send the manuscript to
Berlin. Apart from one or two matters concerning the French revolutionary
campaigns in Nice and Savoy, no preparatory work is called for, so it will be
soon done.
Obviously Mr Vogt must be given a thorough lambasting; but its difficult to
say anything until we know what the fellow has actually published. At all
events, you might just as well use Fischel as anyone else, provided he really
does have connections. Moreover, little Jew Braun will now see that the
significance of your statement and of the whole set-to between Vogt and the

Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung is of quite a different order to what the Berlin

philistine at first imagined. As things stand, we must maintain all these
connections, while the conspiration du silence and other intrigues, to which we
must meanwhile turn a blind eye, will subsequently release us from all
obligations as soon as some crisis necessitates a breach on genuinely political
grounds.
As to the chances of a fresh set-to, I am entirely of your opinion. But I
believe that if, despite Vogt and Co., we are to keep our end up so far as the
public is concerned, we shall have to do it through our scientific work. We
havent the money to organise the migr press and several times we have seen
that an migr paper or German pamphlets printed in London never command
a public (in Germany) unless the thing can be kept going for a year at least. In
Germany itself direct political and polemical action, as our party understands
it., is a sheer impossibility. So, what remains? Either we hold our tongues or
we make efforts that are known only to the emigration and the American
Germans but not to anyone in Germany, or else we go on as we have begun,
you in your first instalment [Contribution to the Critique of Political
Economy] and I in Po and Rhine. That, I think, is the main thing just now and,
if we act accordingly, no matter how much Vogt may howl, we shall soon be
back on afooting, such as will enable us (whenever required) to publish the
necessary personal statements in one German paper or another. The early
appearance of your 2nd instalment is obviously of paramount importance in
this connection and I hope that you wont let the Vogt affair stop you from
getting on with it. Do try for once to be a little less conscientious with regard
to your own stuff; it is, in any case, far too good for the wretched public. The
main thing is that it should be written and published; the shortcomings that
catch your eye certainly wont be apparent to the jackasses; and, when times
become turbulent, what will it avail you to have broken off the whole thing
before you have even finished the section on capital in general? I am very well
aware of all the other interruptions that crop up, but I also know that the delay
is due mainly to your own scruples. Come to that, its surely better that the
thing should appear, rather than that doubts like these should prevent its
appearing at all.
Mr Orges has issued a pur personal statement which reveals who this queer
fish is. Originally a Prussian lieutenant of artillery at the military college in
Berlin (1845-48), at the same time, he pursued his studies and obtained his
doctorate; he left the service in March 1848 (his application to resign is dated
19 March 48) and went to Schleswig-Holstein where he joined the artillery; in
1850, he joined the crew of a merchant vessel, in which he served and sailed

round the world; in 1851, he attended the Exhibition in London, which he

reported for the A. A. Z.; he was then consorting with Schimmelpfennig,
Willich, Techow, etc., and, subsequently, became the A. A. Z.s military editor.
At all events, theres more to the man than anyone else on the paper, which he
has set on its feet again. The leaders I attributed to Heilbronner are all by him.
Nevertheless, I'll still be able to deal with him good and proper.
The invitation from the louts has come at a fairly opportune moment. But I
trust that you wont, of course, allow yourself to be drawn into anything else,
for this is ground we know only too well; fortunately you live some distance
away.
Many regards,
Your
F. E.
The Prussians have approached my old man with the intention of
confiscating my assets to the tune of 1,005 talers, 20 [silver groschen] 6
pfennigs because of my alleged desertion from the Landwehr. My old man told
them that he had no access to my assets, whereupon they calmed down. I am to
be sentenced on 18 February.

Marx-Engels Correspondence 1859

Marx To Engels
In Manchester
Source: MECW Volume 40, p. 394;
First published: abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K.

Marx, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in: Marx and Engels, Works, Moscow,
1929.

[London,] 25 February 1859

Dear Engels,
I am writing to you again this evening because time presses. I am morally
convinced that, in view of what I've written to Lassalle, Duncker will accept
the pamphlet. Admittedly, little Jew Braun hasnt written to me since my
manuscript [Contribution to Critique of Political Economy] arrived, and that
was over four weeks ago. For one thing, he was busy with the publication of
his own immortal, inflammatory work. (still, the little Jew, even
his Heraclitus although atrociously written, is better than anything the
democrats could boast of), and then he will probably have to do the final
proof-reading of my scrawl. For another thing, he may be a trifle stunned by
the terrible knock on the head dealt him indirectly by my analysis of money.
For his Heraclitus contains the following note which I shall now quote
verbatim despite its interminable length (you've got to read it, though):
If we remarked above that in the said fragment Heraclitus has specified the true nature and
function
of
money
in
political
economy
(Heraclitus
in
fact
says:

[all things are exchanged for fire and fire for all things, as wares are exchanged for
gold and gold for wares]), this, we need hardly point out, is not to make a political economist of
him, and hence it is far from our intention to suggest that he had grasped any of the wider
implications of that fragment. But although this science neither existed nor could have existed at
that time and therefore was not the object of Heraclitus thought, it is correct to say that,
precisely because he never goes by reflex categories but only by the speculative concept,
Heraclitus has, in that fragment, discerned the nature of money in all its profundity and this more
truly than many a modern economist. And it may not be altogether without interest or, indeed, so
irrelevant as might at first appear, to observe how what is simply a consequence of that
thought automatically gives rise to the modern discoveries in this field (Nota bene. Lassalle
doesnt know the first thing about these discoveries.)
When Heraclitus suggests that money as a medium of exchange is the antithesis of all real
products entering exchange and owes its real existence solely to the same (I underline where
Lassalle has underlined), this is not to say that money as such is itself a product invested with a
material value of its own, one commodity among other commodities, as Says school (a nice
Continental delusion that there is such a thing as Says school) persists in regarding coin up to
this very day; rather it is but the idealrepresentative of circulating real products, a symbol of
value for the latter, which merely stands for them. And that is only in part a conclusion drawn
from the fragment, in part only the concept implicit in it for Heraclitus himself.
But if all money is merely the ideal unit or expression of value of all real circulating products
and owes its real existence solely to these, which are at one and the same time its antithesis, it
follows from the very consequence (nice style! It follows from the very consequence') of this
concept that a countrys sum of values or its wealth may be increased only by an increase in real
products, but never by an increase in money since money, of course, far from being even merely
a factor of wealth and value (now we have wealth and value; before it was sum of values or
wealth), never expresses, as an abstract unit, more than the value which is situated in the
products (and a nice district, too), and is real only therein. Hence the error of the balance of
trade system. (This is worthy of Ruge.) It further follows that All money is always equal in
value to all circulating products, since it merely reduces the latter to an ideal unit of value, hence
merely gives expression to their value; hence that, by an increase or decrease in the amount of

money available, the value of this total sum of money will never be affected and will always
remain equal only to that of all circulating products; that strictly speaking it is never possible to
talk of the value of all money as compared with the value of all circulating products, because
such a comparison supposes that the value of money and the value of products are two values in
their own right, whereas only one value exists, which is realised in concrete form in the material
product, and expressed as an abstract unit of value in money; or rather, value itself is nothing but
a unit abstracted from real things, in which it does not exist as such, and finding its special
expression in money; not only, then, does the value of all money remain equal to the value of all
products but, properly speaking, all money is only the value of all circulating products. (This
ultra-hold type is the authors.) Hence it follows that, with an increase in the quantity of coin,
since the value of the total remains the same, that of each individual coin can only fall, just as it
will rise again with a decrease in the quantity of coin. It further follows that, since money is
merely the unreal theoretical abstraction of value and represents the antithesis of real
products and materials, money as such does not need to have any intrinsic reality, i.e. need not
consist of any truly valuable material, but may equally be paper money, and it is precisely then
that it corresponds most closely to its concept. All these and many other conclusions, which have
only been reached, and along entirely different lines, sinceRicardos studies and have by no
means found universal acceptance, follow from the mere consequence of that speculative
concept discerned by Heraclitus.'

I, of course, paid not the slightest heed to this Talmudic wisdom but roundly
slated Ricardo for his theory of money which, by the way, did not originate
with him but with Hume and Montesquieu. So Lassalle may feel this to be a
personal insult. There was actually no harm in it, for in my anti-Proudhon
piece [Poverty of Philosophy] I myself adopted Ricardos theory. But I'd had a
perfectly ridiculous letter from little Jew Braun in which he said that he had
the early publication of my manuscript at heart, although he himself was
engaged in writing a major work on political economy for which he had
allocated two years. But if I were to deprive him of too much that was new,
he might abandon the whole thing. Well, to this I replied that there was no
fear of rivalry since this new science could accommodate himself and me and
a dozen more besides. My disquisition on money will now show him, either
that I know nothing of the subject although if I'm wrong, so is the whole
history of the monetary theory or else that he is an ass, since, with a few
empty abstract expressions such as abstract unit, he presumes to lay down the
law about empirical matters which, if one wishes to hold forth about them, call
for study, and prolonged study into the bargain. For this reason he may, in the
innermost recesses of his heart, be nourishing something of a grudge against
me just now. But and this is what I have been leading up to firstly,
Lassalle has really too great a stake in the cause and, secondly, he is too
much of an Ephraim Artful not to keep in with us cote que cote which is
all the more necessary to him because of his quarrel with the Dsseldorf
people. Moreover, living in Berlin has made him see that, for an energetic
fellow like himself, the bourgeois party holds out no prospects whatever.

So with clever management the man will be ours, body and soul, no matter
how much he indulges in inflammatory antics or makes Heraclitus pay for
being the most succinct of philosophers by providing him with the most prolix
of commentaries. For the same reason I am sure that en cas de besoin he will
force Duncker to take your pamphlet. I have, by the by, so framed my letter
that he can show the whole of it to Duncker. It was, in fact, written for
Duncker rather than Lassalle, though for all his artfulness Ephraim is unlikely
to notice the fact.
Hence I consider it certain that Duncker will take the pamphlet, so the main
thing now is for you to set to work on it at once, for this is like a newspaper
article. Theres no time to be lost. For the same reason immediacy of
impact I believe you shouldnt exceed 4 or 5 sheets (if as much is needed).
So you may regard yourself as totally absolved from the Tribune work (unless
some martial occurrence steals a march on your pamphlet, which is
improbable), until you've finished the thing. The mostsensible thing to do
would be to plead sudden illness and stay away from the office, so as to write
the thing all at one go.
Amicus Engels Senior, amicus Ermen (Gotofredus!), sed magis
amicum [Engels Senior is dear to me, Ermen (Gottfried) is dear to
me, but knowledge is dearer still].

,
[Alas, tis terrible to be wise when it brings the wise man no reward']

as your old man might say to you, like Tiresias did to King Oedipus, to
which, however, you would reply that he

.
[in usury but sharp-eyed, yet in his sooth-saying blind]

Salut.
Your
K. M.
Saturday, February 12, 2005
ENGELS BELIEVED GERMANS TO BE A SUPERIOR RACE

Karl Marx, "A Contribution to the Critique of Political economy" (Review by Frederick Engels), Das Volk, 30 No. 14, August 6, 1859: "The Germans have long since shown that in all spheres of science they are equal, and in most of them superior, to other civilised nations. Only one branch of science, political
economy, had no German name among its foremost scholars."
Context here
The German
Engels: Karl Marx' "Zur Kritik der politischen konomie", 1859

"Auf allen wissenschaftlichen Gebieten haben die Deutschen lngst ihre Ebenbrtigkeit, auf den meisten ihre berlegenheit gegenber den brigen zivilisierten Nationen bewiesen. (...)"
MEW a.a.O. 13, 476.

Karl Marx: Critique of Political Economy

Review by Frederick Engels

Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political economy

First Published: Das Volk, Nos. 14 & 16, August 6 & 20, 1859;
Written: between August 3 and 15, 1859.

I
The Germans have long since shown that in all spheres of science they are
equal, and in most of them superior, to other civilised nations. Only one branch
of science, political economy, had no German name among its foremost
scholars. The reason is obvious. Political economy is the theoretical analysis of
modern bourgeois society and therefore presupposes developed bourgeois
conditions, conditions which for centuries, following the wars in the wake of
the Reformation and the peasant wars and especially the Thirty Years War,
could not establish themselves in Germany. The separation of the Netherlands
from the Empire removed Germany from the international trade routes and
restricted her industrial development from the very beginning to the pettiest
scale. While the Germans painfully and slowly recovered from the
devastations of the civil wars, while they used up their store of civic energy,
which had never been very large, in futile struggle against the customs barriers
and absurd commercial regulations which every petty princeling and imperial
baron inflicted upon the industry of his subjects, while the imperial cities with
their craft-guild practices and patrician spirit went to ruin Holland, England
and France meanwhile conquered the leading positions in international trade,
established one colony after another and brought manufactory production to
the height of its development, until finally England, with the aid of steam
power, which made her coal and iron deposits valuable, headed modern
bourgeois development. But political economy could not arise in Germany so
long as a struggle had still to be waged against so preposterously antiquated
remnants of the Middle Ages as those which hampered the bourgeois
development of her material forces until 1830. Only the establishment of the
Customs Union enabled the Germans to comprehend political economy at all.
It was indeed at this time that English and French economic works began to be

imported for the benefit of the German middle class. Men of learning and
bureaucrats soon got hold of the imported material and treated it in a way
which does little credit to the German intellect. The literary efforts of a
hotchpotch of chevaliers dindustrie, traders, schoolmasters and bureaucrats
produced a bunch of German economic publications which as regards triteness,
banality, frivolity, verbosity and plagiarism are equalled only by the German
novel. Among people pursuing practical objectives there arose first the
protectionist school of the industrialists, whose chief spokesman, List, is still
the best that German bourgeois political economy has produced although his
celebrated work is entirely copied from the Frenchman Ferrier, the theoretical
creator of the Continental System. In opposition to this trend the free-trade
school was formed in the forties by merchants from the Baltic provinces, who
fumblingly repeated the arguments of the English Free Traders with childlike,
but not disinterested, faith. Finally, among the schoolmasters and bureaucrats
who had to handle the theoretical aspects there were uncritical and desiccated
collectors of herbaria, like Herr Rau, pseudo-clever speculators who translated
foreign propositions into undigested Hegelian language like Herr Stein, or
gleaners with literary pretensions in the field of so-called history of
civilisation, like Herr Riehl. The upshot of all this was cameralistics, an
eclectic economic sauce covering a hotchpotch of sundry trivialities, of the sort
a junior civil servant might find useful to remember during his final
examination.
While in this way in Germany the bourgeoisie, the schoolmasters and the
bureaucrats were still making great exertions to learn by rote, and in some
measure to understand, the first elements of Anglo-French political economy,
which they regarded as incontestable dogmas, the German proletarian party
appeared on the scene. Its theoretical aspect was wholly based on a study of
political economy, and German political economy as an independent science
dates also from the emergence of this party. The essential foundation of this
German political economy is the materialist conception of history whose
principal features are briefly outlined in the Preface to the above-named
work. Since the Preface has in the main already been published in Das Volk,
we refer to it. The proposition that the process of social, political and
intellectual life is altogether necessitated by the mode of production of material
life"; that all social and political relations, all religious and legal systems, all
theoretical conceptions which arise in the course of history can only be
understood if the material conditions of life obtaining during the relevant
epoch have been understood and the former are traced back to these material
conditions, was a revolutionary discovery not only for economics but also for
all historical sciences and all branches of science which are not natural

sciences are historical. It is not the consciousness of men that determines their
existence, but their social existence that determines their consciousness. This
proposition is so simple that it should be self-evident to anyone not bogged
down in idealist humbug. But it leads to highly revolutionary consequences not
only in the theoretical sphere but also in the practical sphere. At a certain
stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into
conflict with the existing relations of production or this merely expresses
the same thing in legal terms with the property relations within the
framework of which they have operated hitherto. From forms of development
of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an
era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner
or later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure.... The
bourgeois mode of production is the last antagonistic form of the social
process of production antagonistic not in the sense of individual antagonism
but of an antagonism that emanates from the individuals social conditions of
existence but the productive forces developing within bourgeois society
create also the material conditions for a solution of this antagonism. The
prospect of a gigantic revolution, the most gigantic revolution that has ever
taken place, accordingly presents itself to us as soon as we pursue our
materialist thesis further and apply it to the present time.
Closer consideration shows immediately that already the first consequences
of the apparently simple proposition, that the consciousness of men is
determined by their existence and not the other way round, spurn all forms of
idealism, even the most concealed ones, rejecting all conventional and
customary views of historical matters. The entire traditional manner of
political reasoning is upset; patriotic magnanimity indignantly objects to such
an unprincipled interpretation. It was thus inevitable that the new point of view
should shock not only the exponents of the bourgeoisie but also the mass of
French socialists who intended to revolutionise the world by virtue of the
magic words, libert, galit, fraternite. But it utterly enraged the vociferous
German vulgar democrats. They nevertheless have a partiality for attempting
to plagiarise the new ideas in their own interest, although with an exceptional
lack of understanding.
The demonstration of the materialist conception even upon a single
historical example was a scientific task requiring years of quiet research, for it
is evident that mere empty talk can achieve nothing in this context and that
only an abundance of critically examined historical material which has been
completely mastered can make it possible to solve such a problem. Our party
was propelled on to the political stage by the February Revolution and thus

prevented from pursuing purely scientific aims. The fundamental conception,

nevertheless, runs like an unbroken thread through all literary productions of
the party. Every one of them shows that the actions in each particular case
were invariably initiated by material causes and not by the accompanying
phrases, that on the contrary the political and legal phrases, like the political
actions and their results, originated in material causes.
After the defeat of the Revolution of 1848-49, at a time when it became
increasingly impossible to exert any influence on Germany from abroad, our
party relinquished the field of emigrant squabbles for that was the only
feasible action left to the vulgar democrats. While these were chasing about
to their hearts content, scuffling today, fraternising tomorrow and the day
after once more washing their dirty linen in public, while they went begging
throughout America and immediately afterwards started another row over the
division of the few coins they had collected our party was glad to find once
more some quiet time for research work. It had the great advantage that its
theoretical foundation was a new scientific conception the elaboration of
which provided adequate work; even for this reason alone it could never
become so demoralised as the great men of the emigration.
The book under consideration is the first result of these studies.

II
[Das Volk, No. 16, August 20,1859]
The purpose of a work like the one under review cannot simply be desultory
criticism of separate sections of political economy or the discussion of one or
another economic issue in isolation. On the contrary, it is from the beginning
designed to give a systematic rsum of the whole complex of political
economy and a coherent elaboration of the laws governing bourgeois
production and bourgeois exchange. This elaboration is at the same time a
comprehensive critique of economic literature, for economists are nothing but
interpreters of and apologists for these laws.
Hardly any attempt has been made since Hegels death to set forth any
branch of science in its specific inner coherence. The official Hegelian school
had assimilated only the most simple devices of the masters dialectics and
applied them to everything and anything, often moreover with ridiculous
incompetence. Hegels whole heritage was, so far as they were concerned,
confined exclusively to a template, by means of which any subject could be

knocked into shape, and a set of words and phrases whose only remaining
purpose was to turn up conveniently whenever they experienced a lack of ideas
and of concrete knowledge. Thus it happened, as a professor at Bonn has said,
that these Hegelians knew nothing but could write about everything. The
results were, of course, accordingly. For all their conceit these gentlemen were,
however, sufficiently conscious of their failings to avoid major problems as far
as possible. The superannuated fossilised type of learning held its ground
because of its superior factual knowledge, and after Feuerbachs renunciation
of the speculative method, Hegelianism gradually died away, and it seemed
that science was once more dominated by antiquated metaphysics with its rigid
categories.
For this there were quite natural reasons. The rule of the Hegelian Diadochi,
which ended in empty phrases, was naturally followed by a period in which the
concrete content of science predominated once more over the formal aspect.
Moreover, Germany at the same time applied itself with quite extraordinary
energy to the natural sciences, in accordance with the immense bourgeois
development setting in after 1848; with the coming into fashion of these
sciences, in which the speculative trend had never achieved any real
importance, the old metaphysical mode of thinking, even down to the extreme
triviality of Wolff, gained ground rapidly. Hegel was forgotten and a new
materialism arose in the natural sciences; it differed in principle very little
from the materialism of the eighteenth century and its main advantage was
merely a greater stock of data relating to the natural sciences, especially
chemistry and physiology. The narrow-minded mode of thinking of the preKantian period in its most banal form is reproduced by Bchner and Vogt, and
even Moleschott, who swears by Feuerbach, frequently flounders in a highly
diverting manner through the most simple categories. The jaded cart-horse of
the commonplace bourgeois mind falters of course in confusion in front of the
ditch separating substance from appearance, and cause from effect; but one
should not ride carthorses if one intends to go coursing over the very rough
ground of abstract reasoning.
In this context, therefore, a question had to be solved which was not
connected with political economy as such. Which scientific method should be
used? There was, on the one hand, the Hegelian dialectics in the quite abstract
speculative form in which Hegel had left it, and on the other hand the
ordinary, mainly Wolffian, metaphysical method, which had come again into
vogue, and which was also employed by the bourgeois economists to write
their bulky rambling volumes. The second method had been theoretically
demolished by Kant and particularly by Hegel so that its continued use in

practice could only be rendered possible by inertia and the absence of an

alternative simple method. The Hegelian method, on the other hand, was in its
existing form quite inapplicable. It was essentially idealist and the main point
in this case was the elaboration of a world outlook that was more materialist
than any previous one. Hegels method took as its point of departure pure
thought, whereas here the starting point was to be inexorable facts. A method
which, according to its own avowal, came from nothing through nothing to
nothing was in this shape by no means suitable. It was, nevertheless, the only
element in the entire available logical material which could at least serve as a
point of origin. It had not been subjected to criticism, not been overthrown;
none of the opponents of the great dialectician had been able to make a breach
in the proud edifice. It had been forgotten because the Hegelian school did not
know how to apply it. Hence, it was first of all essential to carry through a
thorough critique of the Hegelian method.
It was the exceptional historical sense underlying Hegels manner of
reasoning which distinguished it from that of all other philosophers. However
abstract and idealist the form employed, yet his evolution of ideas runs always
parallel with the evolution of universal history, and the latter was indeed
supposed to be only the proof of the former. Although this reversed the actual
relation and stood it on its head, yet the real content was invariably
incorporated in his philosophy, especially since Hegel unlike his followers
did not rely on ignorance, but was one of the most erudite thinkers of all
time. He was the first to try to demonstrate that there is an evolution, an
intrinsic coherence in history, and however strange some things in his
philosophy of history may seem to us now, the grandeur of the basic
conception is still admirable today, compared both with his predecessors and
with those who following him ventured to advance general historical
observations. This monumental conception of history pervades
the Phnomenologies, Asthetik and Geschichte der Philosophie, and the
material is everywhere set forth historically, in a definite historical context,
even if in an abstract distorted manner.
This epoch-making conception of history was a direct theoretical precondition of the new materialist outlook, and already this constituted a
connecting link with the logical method as well. Since, even from the
standpoint of pure reasoning, this forgotten dialectics had led to such results,
and had moreover with the greatest ease coped with the whole of the former
logic and metaphysics, it must at all events comprise more than sophistry and
hairsplitting. But the critique of this method, which the entire official
philosophy had evaded and still evades, was no small matter.

Marx was and is the only one who could undertake the work of extracting
from the Hegelian logic the nucleus containing Hegels real discoveries in this
field, and of establishing the dialectical method, divested of its idealist
wrappings, in the simple form in which it becomes the only correct mode of
conceptual evolution. The working out of the method which underlies Marxs
critique of political economy is, we think, a result hardly less significant than
the basic materialist conception.
Even after the determination of the method, the critique of economics could
still be arranged in two ways historically or logically. Since in the course of
history, as in its literary reflection, the evolution proceeds by and large from
the simplest to the more complex relations, the historical development of
political economy constituted a natural clue, which the critique could take as a
point of departure, and then the economic categories would appear on the
whole in the same order as in the logical exposition. This form seems to have
the advantage of greater lucidity, for it traces the actual development, but in
fact it would thus become, at most, more popular. History moves often in leaps
and bounds and in a zigzag line, and as this would have to be followed
throughout, it would mean not only that a considerable amount of material of
slight importance would have to be included, but also that the train of thought
would frequently have to be interrupted; it would, moreover, be impossible to
write the history of economy without that of bourgeois society, and the task
would thus become immense, because of the absence of all preliminary
studies. The logical method of approach was therefore the only suitable one.
This, however, is indeed nothing but the historical method, only stripped of the
historical form and diverting chance occurrences. The point where this history
begins must also be the starting point of the train of thought, and its further
progress will be simply the reflection, in abstract and theoretically consistent
form, of the historical course. Though the reflection is corrected, it is corrected
in accordance with laws provided by the actual historical course, since each
factor can be examined at the stage of development where it reaches its full
maturity, its classical form.
With this method we begin with the first and simplest relation which is
historically, actually available, thus in this context with the first economic
relation to be found. We analyse this relation. The fact that it is
a relation already implies that it has two aspects which are related to
each other. Each of these aspects is examined separately; this reveals the
nature of their mutual behaviour, their reciprocal action. Contradictions will
emerge demanding a solution. But since we are not examining an abstract
mental process that takes place solely in our mind, but an actual event which

really took place at some time or other, or which is still taking place, these
contradictions will have arisen in practice and have probably been solved. We
shall trace the mode of this solution and find that it has been effected by
establishing a new relation, whose two contradictory aspects we shall then
have to set forth, and so on.
Political economy begins with commodities, with the moment when products
are exchanged, either by individuals or by primitive communities. The product
being exchanged is a commodity. But it is a commodity merely by virtue of
the thing, the product being linked with a relation between two persons or
communities, the relation between producer and consumer, who at this stage
are no longer united in the same person. Here is at once an example of a
peculiar fact, which pervades the whole economy and has produced serious
confusion in the minds of bourgeois economists economics is not concerned
with things but with relations between persons, and in the final analysis
between classes; these relations however are always bound to
things and appear as things. Although a few economists had an inkling of this
connection in isolated instances, Marx was the first to reveal its significance
for the entire economy thus making the most difficult problems so simple and
clear that even bourgeois economists will now be able to grasp them.
If we examine the various aspects of the commodity, that is of the fully
evolved commodity and not as it at first slowly emerges in the spontaneous
barter of two primitive communities, it presents itself to us from two angles,
that of use-value and of exchange-value, and thus we come immediately to the
province of economic debate. Anyone wishing to find a striking instance of the
fact that the German dialectic method at its present stage of development is at
least as superior to the old superficially glib metaphysical method as railways
are to the mediaeval means of transport, should look up Adam Smith or any
other authoritative economist of repute to see how much distress exchangevalue and use-value caused these gentlemen, the difficulty they had in
distinguishing the two properly and in expressing the determinate form
peculiar to each, and then compare the clear, simple exposition given by Marx.
After use-value and exchange-value have been expounded, the commodity
as a direct unity of the two is described as it enters the exchange process. The
contradictions arising here may be found on pp. 20 and 21. We merely note
that these contradictions are not only of interest for theoretical, abstract
reasons, but that they also reflect the difficulties originating from the nature of
direct interchange, i.e., simple barter, and the impossibilities inevitably
confronting this first crude form of exchange. The solution of these
impossibilities is achieved by investing a specific commodity money

with the attribute of representing the exchange-value of all other commodities.

Money or simple circulation is then analysed in the second chapter, namely (1)
money as a measure of value, and, at the same time, value measured in terms
of money, i.e., price, is more closely defined; (2) money as means of
circulation and (3) the unity of the two aspects, real money which represents
bourgeois material wealth as a whole. This concludes the first part, the
conversion of money into capital is left for the second part.
One can see that with this method, the logical exposition need by no means
be confined to the purely abstract sphere. On the contrary, it requires historical
illustration and continuous contact with reality. A great variety of such
evidence is therefore inserted, comprising references both to different stages in
the actual historical course of social development and to economic works, in
which the working out of lucid definitions of economic relations is traced from
the outset. The critique of particular, more or less one-sided or confused
interpretations is thus substantially given already in the logical exposition and
can be kept quite short.
The economic content of the book will be discussed in a third article.
Friday, February 11, 2005
DEMOCRATS AND LIBERALISM DESPISED AGAIN

Marx to Engels,25 February 1859: "Those dogs of democrats and liberal riff-raff will see that we're the only chaps who haven't been stultified by the ghastly period of peace."
Context here
The German
Marx an Engels, 25. Februar 1859
"Die Hunde von Demokraten und liberalen Lumpen werden sehn, da wir die einzigen Kerls sind, die nicht verdummt sind in der schauderhaften Friedensperiode."
MEW a.a.O. 29, 401.

Marx-Engels Correspondence 1859

Marx To Engels
In Manchester
Source: MECW Volume 40, p. 393;
First published: abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K.

Marx, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in: Marx and Engels, Works, Moscow,
1929.

[London,] 25 February 1859

Dear Engels,
Po and Rhine is a first-class idea and must be put in hand straight away. You
must set to at once, time being everything in this case. I have written to
Lassalle this very day and am sure that little Jew Braun will put the thing
through.
The pamphlet (how many sheets? Let me have the answer to this by return)
must first appear anonymously so that the public believes the author to be an
eminent general. In the second edition, which you may account a certainty
provided the thing comes out on time, you will reveal your identity in a 6line foreword, and then it will be a triumph for our party. In my Preface I
have done you a few honneurs; and thus it is all to the good if you yourself
take the stage immediately afterwards.
Those dogs of democrats and liberal riff-raff will see that we're the only
chaps who havent been stultified by the ghastly period of peace.
In any case, you'll get the copies of the Tribune. Not one of the military
articles has so far been published. Mr Dana didnt print the first, which you
wrote a long time ago, but will probably do so now. I too constantly
experience the like. Its often three months before the asses discover that we've
foretold events for them, whereupon they print the relevant articles.
My brother-in-laws address is correct save that he forgot to add City (near
the General Post Office). But I imagine he'll be in Manchester by now and
able to tell you about himself.
Salut.
Your
K. M.
Thursday, February 10, 2005
CONTEMPT FOR BOTH DEMOCRACY AND INDUSTRIOUSNESS

Marx to Engels, December 17, 1858: "The industriousness of these little Baden fleas, bred from democratic piss-sewage, is touching.

The German
Marx an Engels, 17. Dezember 1858
"Die Betriebsamkeit dieser kleinen aus der demokratischen Pijauche ausgebrteten badensischen Flhe ist rhrend."
MEW a.a.O. 29, 376., Rotbuch S. 119

Engels to Marx, letter of May 11th, 1857: Im returning the letter by Lassalle. A loony Jew, from top to toe.

The German
Engels an Marx, 11. Mai 1857
"Hierbei der Brief von Lassalle zurck. Dorch un dorch der lppische Jd."
MEW a.a.O. 29, 134., Rotbuch 115.
Source
Note: Several of the quotations I have put up recently are from documents listed by the Marxists among the official list of Marx & Engels works but which have not been reproduced in full nor translated. See for instance here. I guess they were just too embarrassing.

Zitate 6

Karl Marx und Friedrich Engels

"A very happy event, der Tod des 90jhrigen Onkels meiner Frau wurde uns
gestern mitgeteilt. Dadurch spart meine Schwiegermutter eine jhrliche Abgabe
von 200 Talern und meine Frau wird an 100 Pfund Sterling bekommen; mehr, wenn
der alte Hund den Teil seines Geldes, der nicht fidei commi war, nicht
seiner Haushlterin vermacht." Marx an Engels, 1855 (MEW 28, 438).

"Von meiner Alten erhielt ich gestern Antwort. Nichts als 'zrtliche' Redensarten, but
no cash. Auerdem teilt sie mir mit, was ich lngst wute, da sie 75 Jahre alt ist und
manche Gebresten des Alters fhlt." Marx an Engels, 1861 (MEW 30, 198).
Anmerkung: Die folgenden vier Zitate betreffen den sozialistischen Schriftsteller
Ferdinand Lassalle (1825-1864), der zu den Grndern des Allgemeinen Deutschen
Arbeitervereins gehrte.
"Die Lassalliaden haben mich sehr erheitert, der krause Juddekopp mu sich ber dem
roten Schlafrock und in der Marquisen-Draperie, wo bei jeder Bewegung der
polnische Schmuhl durchkuckt, sehr reizend ausnehmen. Gesehen, mu der Kerl
einen hchst lausig-widerwrtigen Eindruck machen." Engels an Marx, 1856 (MEW
29, 43).
"Lassalle... Dann diese Sucht, sich in die vornehme Welt einzudrngen, de parvenir,
wenn auch nur zum Schein, den schmierigen Breslauer Jud mit allerhand Pomade und
Schminke zu bertnchen, waren immer widerwrtig." Engels an Marx, 1856 (MEW
29, 31).
"Hierbei der Brief von Lassalle zurck. Dorch un dorch der lppische Jd." Engels an
Marx, 1857 (MEW 29, 134).
"Der jdische Nigger Lassalle, der glcklicherweise Ende dieser Woche abreist, hat
glcklich wieder 5000 Taler in einer falschen Spekulation verloren... Es ist mir jetzt

vllig klar, da er, wie auch seine Kopfbildung und sein Haarwuchs beweist, von den
Negern abstammt, die sich dem Zug des Moses aus gypten anschlossen (wenn nicht
seine Mutter oder Gromutter von vterlicher Seite sich mit einem Nigger kreuzten).
Nun, diese Verbindung von Judentum und Germanentum mit der negerhaften
Grundsubstanz mssen ein sonderbares Produkt hervorbringen. Die Zudringlichkeit
des Burschen ist auch niggerhaft." Marx an Engels, 1862 (MEW 30, 257).
"Liebk[necht] ist ebenso schriftstellerisch unbrauchbar wie er unzuverlssig und
charakterschwach ist, wovon ich Nheres wieder zu berichten haben werde. Der Kerl
htte diese Woche einen definitiven Abschiedstritt in den Hintern erhalten, zwngen
nicht gewisse Umstnde, ihn einstweilen noch als Vogelscheuche zu
verwenden." Marx an Engels, 1859 (MEW 29, 443).
"Ad vocem Freiligrath. Unter uns gesagt, ein Scheikerl." Marx an Engels, 1859
(MEW 29, 448).
"Der Beta ist der grte Schweinhund, der mir je vorgekommen. Der Schundartikel
hat mich in eine wahre Wut versetzt. Leider ist der Kerl solch ein Krppel, da man
ihn nicht noch krummer schlagen kann; indes an diesem Hund mu doch noch einmal
persnliche Rache genommen werden." Engels an Marx, 1859 (MEW 29, 524).
"Die Betriebsamkeit dieser kleinen aus der demokratischen Pijauche ausgebrteten
badensischen Flhe ist rhrend." Marx an Engels, 1858 (MEW 29, 376).
"Da die Herren vom 'Social-Demokrat' wieder mit uns anbinden wollten, ist
bezeichnend fr das Lumpenpack. Halten jeden fr ebensolchen Scheikerl wie sie
selbst." Engels an Marx, 1865 (MEW 31, 159).

Die andere Seite

"To save your world you asked this man to die;
Would this man, could he see you now, ask why?"
Wystan H. Auden, Epitaph for an unknown soldier

"New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason
but because they are not already common." John Locke

"To drive men from independence to live on alms, is itself great cruelty." Edmund
Burke

"The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted." James Madison

"You seem...to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all Constitutional
questions: a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one, which would place us under
the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more
so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of
their corps. ...And their power [is] the more dangerous, as they are in office for life
and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The

Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands
confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become
despots." Thomas Jefferson

"Christianity, with its denial of life and glorification of all men's brotherhood, is the
best possible kindergarten for communism. Communism is at least consistent in its
ideology. Capitalism is not; it preaches what communism actually wants to live." Ayn
Rand

"The mob had not yet been taught to openly and consistently worship itself as a mob;
it still has vestiges of respect for individualism ground into it by centuries of
aristocracy." Ayn Rand

"Eine 'altruistische' Moral, eine Moral, bei der die Selbstsucht verkmmert, bleibt
unter allen Umstnden ein schlechtes Anzeichen...'Nicht seinen Nutzen suchen' - das
ist blo das moralische Feigenblatt fr eine ganz andere, nmlich physiologische
Tatschlichkeit: 'ich wei meinen Nutzen nicht mehr zu finden'...Disgregation der
Instinkte! - Es ist zu Ende mit ihm, wenn der Mensch altruistisch wird." Friedrich
Nietzsche
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
ANTISEMITISM AND A LIKING FOR BAD NEWS ALL IN ONE

Marx to Engels, February 16, 1857: " the Jew Steinthal is supposed to have got hold of Weerths diaries. () that sweetly grinning haggler. () Since of course in my own crisis it is very gratifying to hear about crises, please let me know in a few lines how things are in the industrial areas".

The German
Marx an Engels, 16. Februar 1857
"... der Jude Steinthal habe sich der Weerthschen Tagebcher bemchtigt (...) Dieser s grinsende Schacherer. (...)
Da es mir jetzt in meiner eignen Krise natrlich sehr erbaulich ist, von Krisen zu hren, so la mich in ein paar Zeilen wissen, wie es mit den Industriebezirken steht."
MEW a.a.O. 29, 104 ff.

Tuesday, February 08, 2005

MARX ADMITS TO DELIBERATE OBFUSCATION

It is possible that I could disgrace myself. But there's always a bit of Dialectic to help out. I have naturally expressed my statements so that I am also right if the opposite thing happens.
(No other English translation available online)
The German
Marx an Engels, 15. August 1857
"Es ist mglich, da ich mich blamiere. Indes ist dann immer mit einiger Dialektik zu helfen. Ich habe natrlich meine Aufstellungen so gehalten, da ich im umgekehrten Fall auch Recht habe."
MEW a.a.O. 29, 161., Rotbuch S. 115
Source

Zitate 3

Karl Marx und Friedrich Engels

"Es ist mglich, da ich mich blamiere. Indes ist dann immer mit einiger
Dialektik zu helfen. Ich habe natrlich meine Aufstellungen so gehalten, da
ich im umgekehrten Fall auch Recht habe." Marx an Engels, 1857 (MEW 29, 161).

"Sei endlich einmal etwas weniger gewissenhaft Deinen eignen Sachen gegenber; es
[Das Kapital] ist immer noch viel zu gut fr das Lausepublikum. Da das Ding
geschrieben wird und erscheint, ist die Hauptsache; die Schwchen, die Dir auffallen,
finden die Esel doch nicht heraus." Engels an Marx, 1860 (MEW 30, 15).
"Ich dehne diesen Band [des Kapitals] mehr aus, da die deutschen Hunde den Wert
der Bcher nach dem Kubikinhalt schtzen." Marx an Engels, 1862 (MEW 30, 248).
"Komplettere Esel als diese Arbeiter gibt es wohl nicht." Marx an Adolf Clu, 1852
(MEW 28, 537).
"Ich habe nie, besoffen oder nchtern, uerungen gemacht, da die Arbeiter nur zu
Kanonenfutter gut, obgleich ich die Knoten...kaum gut genug dafr halte." Marx an
Adolf Clu, 1853 (MEW 28, 596).
[Anmerkung: "Knoten" = abfllige Bezeichnung fr junge Handwerker und Arbeiter]
"Die Hunde von Demokraten und liberalen Lumpen werden sehn, da wir die
einzigen Kerls sind, die nicht verdummt sind in der schauderhaften
Friedensperiode." Marx an Engels, 1859 (MEW 29, 401).
"Solange die Demokratie noch nicht erkmpft ist, solange kmpfen Kommunisten und
Demokraten also zusammen." Engels, 1847 (MEW 4, 317).
"Es gibt zwei Gegenden in Europa, in denen sich die alte christlich-germanische
Barbarei in ihrer ursprnglichsten Gestalt, beinahe bis aufs Eichelfressen, erhalten hat,
Norwegen und die Hochalpen, namentlich die Urschweiz. ... Jetzt aber scheint diese
Sittenreinheit aber doch einmal in Grund und Boden umgerhrt werden zu sollen.
Hoffentlich werden die Exekutionstruppen ihr mglichstes tun, um aller Biederkeit,
Urkraft und Einfalt den Garaus zu machen. Dann aber jammert, ihr Spiebrger!
Dann wird es keine armen, aber zufriednen Hirten mehr geben, deren ungetrbte
Sorglosigkeit ihr euch fr den Sonntag wnschen knnt." Engels: Der Schweizer
Brgerkrieg, 1847 (MEW 4, 395).

Die andere Seite

"Defer not till tomorrow to be wise,
Tomorrow's sun to thee may never rise."
William Congreve

"It ain't those parts of the Bible that I can't understand that bother me, it is the parts
that I do understand." Mark Twain

"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once." David Hume

"Democracy and liberty are not the same. Democracy is little more than mob rule,
while liberty refers to the sovereignty of the individual." Walter Williams

"Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is

hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against
the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well,

but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be
masters." Noah Webster

"Der Feminismus ist nicht der Kampf des Weibes gegen den Mann, sondern der
Kampf des miratenen Weibes gegen das wohlgeratene." Friedrich Nietzsche
Monday, February 07, 2005
MORE ANTISEMITIC ABUSE OF LASALLE

Engels to Marx: "The Lasalle manoeuvres have amused me greatly, the frizzy Jew-head now has to very charmingly distinguish himself in the red nightshirt and Marquis garb -- from which at every movement the Polish kike looks out. Seeing it must give the impression of louse-like repulsiveness."
(No other English translation available online)
The German
Engels an Marx, 14.April 1856
"Die Lassalliaden haben mich sehr erheitert, der krause Juddekopp mu sich ber dem roten Schlafrock und in der Marquisen-Draperie, wo bei jeder Bewegung der polnische Schmuhl durchguckt, sehr reizend ausnehmen. Gesehen, mu der Kerl einen hchst lausig-widerwrtigen Eindruck machen."
MEW a.a.O. 29, 43.
Source
Update
Since I posted the above, a reader has sent me a more polished translation than my own rather laboured version. To wit:
The volleys from Lassalle have amused me greatly, the kinky Jewface must look very enticing above his red nightgown and in the garments of a Marquis that with every movement show his Polish mug. In person, the guy must make a highly dirty and disgusting imp ression.

Zitate 6

Karl Marx und Friedrich Engels

"A very happy event, der Tod des 90jhrigen Onkels meiner Frau wurde uns
gestern mitgeteilt. Dadurch spart meine Schwiegermutter eine jhrliche Abgabe
von 200 Talern und meine Frau wird an 100 Pfund Sterling bekommen; mehr, wenn
der alte Hund den Teil seines Geldes, der nicht fidei commi war, nicht
seiner Haushlterin vermacht." Marx an Engels, 1855 (MEW 28, 438).

"Von meiner Alten erhielt ich gestern Antwort. Nichts als 'zrtliche' Redensarten, but
no cash. Auerdem teilt sie mir mit, was ich lngst wute, da sie 75 Jahre alt ist und
manche Gebresten des Alters fhlt." Marx an Engels, 1861 (MEW 30, 198).
Anmerkung: Die folgenden vier Zitate betreffen den sozialistischen Schriftsteller
Ferdinand Lassalle (1825-1864), der zu den Grndern des Allgemeinen Deutschen
Arbeitervereins gehrte.
"Die Lassalliaden haben mich sehr erheitert, der krause Juddekopp mu sich ber dem
roten Schlafrock und in der Marquisen-Draperie, wo bei jeder Bewegung der
polnische Schmuhl durchkuckt, sehr reizend ausnehmen. Gesehen, mu der Kerl

einen hchst lausig-widerwrtigen Eindruck machen." Engels an Marx, 1856 (MEW

29, 43).
"Lassalle... Dann diese Sucht, sich in die vornehme Welt einzudrngen, de parvenir,
wenn auch nur zum Schein, den schmierigen Breslauer Jud mit allerhand Pomade und
Schminke zu bertnchen, waren immer widerwrtig." Engels an Marx, 1856 (MEW
29, 31).
"Hierbei der Brief von Lassalle zurck. Dorch un dorch der lppische Jd." Engels an
Marx, 1857 (MEW 29, 134).
"Der jdische Nigger Lassalle, der glcklicherweise Ende dieser Woche abreist, hat
glcklich wieder 5000 Taler in einer falschen Spekulation verloren... Es ist mir jetzt
vllig klar, da er, wie auch seine Kopfbildung und sein Haarwuchs beweist, von den
Negern abstammt, die sich dem Zug des Moses aus gypten anschlossen (wenn nicht
seine Mutter oder Gromutter von vterlicher Seite sich mit einem Nigger kreuzten).
Nun, diese Verbindung von Judentum und Germanentum mit der negerhaften
Grundsubstanz mssen ein sonderbares Produkt hervorbringen. Die Zudringlichkeit
des Burschen ist auch niggerhaft." Marx an Engels, 1862 (MEW 30, 257).
"Liebk[necht] ist ebenso schriftstellerisch unbrauchbar wie er unzuverlssig und
charakterschwach ist, wovon ich Nheres wieder zu berichten haben werde. Der Kerl
htte diese Woche einen definitiven Abschiedstritt in den Hintern erhalten, zwngen
nicht gewisse Umstnde, ihn einstweilen noch als Vogelscheuche zu
verwenden." Marx an Engels, 1859 (MEW 29, 443).
"Ad vocem Freiligrath. Unter uns gesagt, ein Scheikerl." Marx an Engels, 1859
(MEW 29, 448).
"Der Beta ist der grte Schweinhund, der mir je vorgekommen. Der Schundartikel
hat mich in eine wahre Wut versetzt. Leider ist der Kerl solch ein Krppel, da man
ihn nicht noch krummer schlagen kann; indes an diesem Hund mu doch noch einmal
persnliche Rache genommen werden." Engels an Marx, 1859 (MEW 29, 524).
"Die Betriebsamkeit dieser kleinen aus der demokratischen Pijauche ausgebrteten
badensischen Flhe ist rhrend." Marx an Engels, 1858 (MEW 29, 376).
"Da die Herren vom 'Social-Demokrat' wieder mit uns anbinden wollten, ist
bezeichnend fr das Lumpenpack. Halten jeden fr ebensolchen Scheikerl wie sie
selbst." Engels an Marx, 1865 (MEW 31, 159).

Die andere Seite

"To save your world you asked this man to die;
Would this man, could he see you now, ask why?"
Wystan H. Auden, Epitaph for an unknown soldier

"New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason
but because they are not already common." John Locke

"To drive men from independence to live on alms, is itself great cruelty." Edmund
Burke

"The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted." James Madison

"You seem...to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all Constitutional
questions: a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one, which would place us under
the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more
so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of
their corps. ...And their power [is] the more dangerous, as they are in office for life
and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The

Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands
confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become
despots." Thomas Jefferson

"Christianity, with its denial of life and glorification of all men's brotherhood, is the
best possible kindergarten for communism. Communism is at least consistent in its
ideology. Capitalism is not; it preaches what communism actually wants to live." Ayn
Rand

"The mob had not yet been taught to openly and consistently worship itself as a mob;
it still has vestiges of respect for individualism ground into it by centuries of
aristocracy." Ayn Rand

"Eine 'altruistische' Moral, eine Moral, bei der die Selbstsucht verkmmert, bleibt
unter allen Umstnden ein schlechtes Anzeichen...'Nicht seinen Nutzen suchen' - das
ist blo das moralische Feigenblatt fr eine ganz andere, nmlich physiologische
Tatschlichkeit: 'ich wei meinen Nutzen nicht mehr zu finden'...Disgregation der
Instinkte! - Es ist zu Ende mit ihm, wenn der Mensch altruistisch wird." Friedrich
Nietzsche
Sunday, February 06, 2005
PARANOIA ABOUT BOTH JEWS AND JESUITS

Marx, The Russian loan: "So we find that behind every tyrant stands a Jew just as there is a Jesuit behind every Pope. Truly, the lusts of the oppressors would be hopeless and the possibility of war unimaginable if it were not for an army of Jesuits to throttle thought and a handful of Jews to pick pockets"
(No other English version available online even though the article was originally published in English. The version above is my translation from the German)
The German
Marx, Die russische Anleihe, 1856
"So finden wir, da hinter jedem Tyrannen ein Jude, wie hinter jedem Papst ein Jesuit steht. Wahrlich, die Gelste der Unterd rcker wren hoffnungslos, die Mglichkeit von Kriegen unvorstellbar, gbe es nicht eine Armee von Jesuiten das Denken zu drosseln, und eine Handvoll Juden, die Taschen zu
plndern."
Eleanor Marx a.a.O. S.600., Rotbuch S. 113

Seitenzahlen verweisen auf: Karl Marx - Friedrich Engels - Werke, Band 10, S. 308-316
Dietz Verlag, Berlin/DDR 1961

Karl Marx

[Der Aufstand in Madrid Die russische Anleihe -

Der sterreichisch-trkische Vertrag Die Moldau und die Walachei]

Aus dem Englischen.

["New-York Daily Tribune" Nr. 4134 vom 19. Juli 1854]

<308> London, Dienstag, 4. Juli

Der lang erwartete Militraufstand zu Madrid ist endlich unter der Fhrung der
Generale O'Donnell und Dulce durchgefhrt worden. Die franzsischen
Regierungsjournale beeilen sich, uns mitzuteilen, da nach ihren Informationen die
spanische Regierung bereits die Gefahr berwunden hat und der Aufstand unterdrckt
ist. Aber der Madrider Korrespondent des "Morning Chronicle", der einen
ausfhrlichen Bericht von der Erhebung gibt und die Proklamation der Insurgenten
bringt, meint, da sich diese nur aus der Hauptstadt zurckgezogen haben, um sich
mit der Garnison von Alcala zu vereinigen, und da, falls Madrid passiv bleiben
sollte, sie keine Schwierigkeiten haben wrden, Saragossa zu erreichen. Sollte diese
Bewegung erfolgreicher sein als die letzte Rebellion in jener Stadt, so wrde dies eine
Ablenkung der militrischen Aktion Frankreichs verursachen, einen Anla fr
Meinungsverschiedenheiten zwischen Frankreich und England bieten und
wahrscheinlich auch die schwebende Verwicklung zwischen Spanien und der
Regierung der Vereinigten Staaten beeinflussen.
Es stellt sich jetzt heraus, da die neue russische Anleihe noch nicht endgltig von
den Herren Hope aus Amsterdam kontrahiert worden ist, wie ich nach den
Bekanntmachungen der Londoner und Manchester Brse angenommen hatte, und da
diese Bankiers der russischen Schatzkammer auch keinen Teilbetrag vorgeschossen
haben. Sie bernahmen es lediglich, sie an den verschiedenen europischen Brsen
herauszubringen, ohne aber selbst ein Risiko zu bernehmen. Der Erfolg der Anleihe
wird als sehr zweifelhaft <309> dargestellt, und wir haben gehrt, da sie in Berlin
und Frankfurt sehr ungnstig aufgenommen wurde. Der Hamburger Senat hat ihre
offizielle Notierung verboten, und die englischen diplomatischen Vertreter und
Konsuln haben, nach dem "Morning Chronicle", Warnungen an die britischen
Untertanen erlassen, eine Anleihe zu zeichnen, "die dazu bestimmt ist, den Krieg
gegen die Knigin fortzusetzen".
Die Nachrichten ber die Bewegungen der russischen Truppen seit der Aufhebung der
Belagerung von Silistria sind widerspruchsvoll. Nachdem der "Moniteur" den

Rckzug der Russen hinter den Pruth gemeldet hatte, erklrt die Wiener "Presse", da
nicht der geringste Grund vorhanden war, an die Tatsache einer solchen Bewegung zu
glauben. Es zeigt sich im Gegenteil, da nicht einmal die Evakuierung der Walachei
beabsichtigt ist; General Liprandi hat eine Stellung bei Plojeschti und Kimpina
bezogen und seine Vorposten am Eingang des Rotenturm-Passes stationiert, whrend
von der Hauptarmee, zurckgezogen ber Slobodzia und entlang dem linken
Donauufer, gemeldet wird, da sie bei Braila haltgemacht hat. Andrerseits hat das
Korps von Lders, das die Dobrudscha besetzt hlt, noch nicht die Linie von
Trajanswall aufgegeben, und es ist nicht wahrscheinlich, selbst im Falle eines
weiteren Rckzuges, da sie Matschin und Isaktscha aufgeben werden. Es heit, da
frische Truppen in die Moldau strmen, wo man, wie es der Plan der Russen zu sein
scheint, eine starke Streitkraft konzentrieren will. Das Korps des Generals Panjutin ist
von Podolien aus eingedrungen, und zustzliche Hilfskrfte werden aus Bessarabien
herangezogen. Die gesamte Streitmacht der Russen in der oberen Moldau zwischen
Jassy, Roman und Botosani soll 60.000 Mann betragen, und eine Division von 20.000
Mann lagert in der Nhe von Kamenez. "Paskewitsch", so schreibt die "Ost-Deutsche
Post", "hat erklrt, da er in keinem Fall die Mndung der Donau aufgeben wird." Der
Rckzug wird von den Russen nur als eine Auswirkung der Pest erklrt, die an der
oberen Donau ausgebrochen ist.
Vorlufig ist es noch ganz unbestimmt, was die sterreicher unternehmen. Man sagt,
das Coroninische Korps habe Order, in Orsova auf Dampfern eingeschifft zu werden,
um den Flu abwrts nach Giurgewo zu gelangen; von da soll es nach Bukarest
marschieren. Der "Corriere Italiano", ein sterreichisches Regierungsorgan,
verkndet, der Zweck dieser Maregel sei blo der, eine neutrale Position in der
Walachei einzunehmen; gleichzeitig aber hren wir, Ruland habe das sterreichische
"Ultimatum" abgelehnt. Eine im "Morning Chronicle" verffentlichte Depesche sagt:
"In seiner Antwort auf die sterreichische Sommation erklrt der russische Kaiser seine Bereitwilligkeit, mit den
vier Mchten ber alle Punkte zu verhandeln, auer <310> ber die Privilegien der christlichen Untertanen des
Sultans. ber diesen Gegenstand will er blo mit der Pforte direkt verhandeln und lehnt es ab, die vier Mchte als
Zwischenhndler zuzulassen. Ebenso lehnt er es ab, Garantien fr die Rumung der Frstentmer zu geben."

Nun kann es infolge dieser Ablehnung sehr leicht zu einem Scheinkrieg zwischen
sterreich und Ruland kommen, der dann mglicherweise in ein ebenso
bemerkenswertes rencontre <Treffen> ausluft wie jene berhmte Affre von
Bronzell, die den Scheinkrieg zwischen Preuen und sterreich im Jahre 1850 schon
zu einer Zeit beendete, als sich die Zeitungen noch in Vermutungen ber den
schrecklichen Ausgang der groen "mitteleuropischen Krise" verloren. Statt daher
hnliche Spekulationen ber die mgliche Bedeutung der jetzigen Politik sterreichs
anzustellen, wenden wir uns lieber dem sterreichisch-trkischen Vertrag vom 14.
Juni zu, der nun vollstndig und offiziell bekanntgegeben wurde.

Zwei Punkte sind hier zu beachten - die Beziehungen zwischen sterreich und der
Trkei und die Beziehungen der Bevlkerung der Moldau und der Walachei zur
Trkei und zu sterreich oder zu anderen fremden Mchten; dieser letzte Punkt wird
merkwrdigerweise von der durch die Diplomatie beherrschten ffentlichen Meinung
Europas total vernachlssigt.
Durch den ersten Artikel des Vertrages verpflichtet sich der Kaiser von sterreich,
"alle Mittel der Unterhandlung und auch sonst zu erschpfen, um die Rumung der Donaufrstentmer von der sie
besetzenden fremden Armee zu bewirken und ntigenfalls die zur Erreichung dieses Zwecks erforderliche
Truppenzahl zu verwenden".

Der Kaiser von sterreich wird hierdurch ermchtigt, eine beliebige Anzahl Truppen
in die Walachei einmarschieren zu lassen, ohne vorherige Kriegserklrung von seiner
Seite an Ruland. So wird ein trkischer Vasallenstaat einer Operation unterworfen,
die ihn zu einem neutralen Besitz unter sterreich und gegen die Trkei verwandelt.
Der zweite Artikel besagt:
"fr diesen Fall wird dem kaiserlichen Oberkommandanten die ausschlieliche Leitung der Operationen seiner
Armee zustehen. Derselbe wird jedoch Sorge tragen, den Oberkommandanten der ottomanischen Armee rechtzeitig
von seinen Operationen zu verstndigen."

Durch diese Vereinbarung entgehen die sterreicher nicht nur jeglicher Kontrolle
seitens der Trkei ber eine von ihnen fr gut befundene Aktion, <311> sondern
bekommen auch vollstndig die Oberhand bei allen Operationen, die der trkische
Kommandant mglicherweise auf walachischem Boden beabsichtigt, indem sie ihn
nur zu verstndigen brauchen, da sie diesen oder jenen Punkt besetzen wollen, um
die Trken daran zu hindern, dorthin zu marschieren. Bedenkt man nun, da auer
dem schmalen Gebiet der Dobrudscha die Frstentmer das einzig mgliche
Schlachtfeld zwischen Trken und Russen bieten, so ergibt sich, da die
sterreichische Intervention es der Trkei einfach unmglich macht, ihre Siege
weiterzuverfolgen und den Eindringling zu strafen.
Durch Artikel 3
"bernimmt der Kaiser von sterreich die Verpflichtung, im Einvernehmen mit der ottomanischen Regierung in den
Donaufrstentmern so schnell wie mglich den gesetzlichen Zustand herzustellen, wie aus den von der Hohen
Pforte in bezug auf die Verwaltung dieser Lnder zugesicherten Privilegien selbst hervorgeht. Die auf diese
Weise wiedereingesetzten Lokalbehrden werden jedoch ihre Wirksamkeit nicht so weit ausdehnen knnen, um ber
die kaiserliche Armee irgendeine Kontrolle auszuben."

Der sterreichische Kaiser behlt sich also volle Freiheit vor, den gesetzlichen Stand
der Dinge wiederherzustellen, sobald ihm dies mglich scheint; und selbst dann steht
es bei ihm, die Lokalbehrden nur in der Absicht wiedereinzusetzen, sie dem

sterreichischen Militrgesetz zu unterstellen, ganz nach der Manier des russischen

Generals Budberg.
Nach Artikel 4
"verpflichtet sich der kaiserlich sterreichische Hof auerdem, sich mit dem kaiserlich russischen Hof in keinen
Vergleich einzulassen, der nicht die souvernen Rechte des Sultans und die Integritt seines Reiches zum
Ausgangspunkt htte".

Artikel 5 fgt hinzu:

"Sobald der Zweck der gegenwrtigen Konvention durch den Abschlu eines Friedensvertrages zwischen der Hohen
Pforte und dem russischen Hof erreicht ist, wird der Kaiser von sterreich sogleich Vorkehrungen treffen, um seine
Streitkrfte so bald als mglich zurckzuziehen. Die Einzelheiten in betreff des Rckzugs der sterreichischen
Truppen werden den Gegenstand eines besonderen Einvernehmens mit der Hohen Pforte bilden."

Im ersten dieser beiden Artikel behlt sterreich sich das Recht eines
bereinkommens mit Ruland vor, das blo auf dem Status quo beruhen soll, wie er
in der Wiener Note festgelegt ist. In letzterem Artikel verspricht sterreich, seine
Truppen nicht zurckzuziehen, nachdem es selbst ein bereinkommen mit Ruland
getroffen hat, sondern erst, wenn ein <312> Vertrag zwischen Ruland und der Trkei
geschlossen ist. Die "materielle Garantie", direkt in Rulands Hnden nicht mehr
sicher aufgehoben, wird an sterreich bertragen, und sterreich wird ermchtigt, sie
- mit Einwilligung der Pforte - so lange statt seiner zu behalten, bis die Trkei dem
den "Abkommen zwischen den beiden kaiserlichen Hfen" beigetreten ist. Artikel 6
ermchtigt die sterreicher, ohne auch nur einen Anschein von Bezahlung, sich alles
an Lebensmitteln anzueignen, was die Russen in den Frstentmern noch briglieen.
Die Vorteile dieser bereinkunft wird man besonders in Deutschland voll zu
wrdigen wissen, wo man gewohnt ist, fr revolutionre Snden mit sterreichischen
Garnisonen bestraft zu werden, und wo die sterreicher in den Jahren 1849 und 1850
ganze Gebiete abgegrast haben.
Der Vertrag bedeutet dem Wesen nach die Auslieferung der Frstentmer an
sterreich und das Aufgeben der trkischen Suzernitt ber sie. Die Trken haben
sich hierbei eine ebenso flagrante Vergewaltigung der Rechte des moldauwalachischen Volkes zuschulden kommen lassen wie nur je vorher die Russen. Die
Trken haben ebensowenig das Recht, die Frstentmer der sterreichischen
Okkupation preiszugeben, wie sie das Recht haben, sie zu russischen Provinzen zu
erklren.
Die Ansprche der Pforte auf die Suzernitt ber die Moldau und Walachei sind auf
die Vertrge von 1393, 1460 und 1513 gegrndet. Der Vertrag von 1393 zwischen der
Walachei und der Trkei enthlt folgende Artikel:

"Art. I. Wir, Bajezid, usw. bestimmen aus unserer auerordentlichen Huld gegenber der Walachei, die sich mit
ihrem regierenden Frsten unserm unbesiegbaren Reiche unterworfen hat, da jenes Land sich weiterhin durch seine
eigenen Gesetze selbst regieren wird und da der Frst der Walachei vllige Freiheit haben soll, seinen Nachbarn
Krieg zu erklren oder mit ihnen Frieden zu machen, wie und wann es ihm gefllt.
Art. III. Die Frsten (Christen) werden durch die Metropoliten und die Bojaren gewhlt.
Art. IV. Der Frst der Walachei hat jhrlich 500 Piaster unseres Geldes an unsere kaiserliche Schatzkammer zu
zahlen."

Der Vertrag, den Vlad V., Frst der Walachei, 1460 mit Mechmed II. schlo,
bestimmt:
"Art. I. Der Sultan willigt ein und verspricht fr sich und seine Nachfolger, die Walachei zu schtzen und sie gegen
jeden Feind zu verteidigen, ohne etwas zu fordern, auer der Suzernitt ber dieses souverne Frstentum, von
deren Wojewoden erwartet wird, da sie an die Hohe Pforte einen Tribut von 10.000 Dukaten zahlen.
<313> II. Die Hohe Pforte wird auf keine Weise in die Lokalverwaltung des besagten Frstentums eingreifen, und
keinem Trken wird es ohne ersichtlichen Grund gestattet sein, die Walachei zu betreten.
III. Die Wojewoden werden wie bisher von dem Metropoliten, den Bischfen und den Bojaren gewhlt, und die
Wahl wird von der Pforte anerkannt.
IV. Die walachische Nation wird weiterhin die freie Ausbung ihrer eigenen Gesetze genieen, und die Wojewoden
werden das Recht ber Leben und Tod ihrer Untertanen haben wie auch das Recht, Frieden zu schlieen oder Krieg
zu erklren, ohne fr irgendwelche ihrer Handlungen irgendeiner Art von Verantwortlichkeit ber der Hohen Pforte
unterworfen zu sein."

Der dritte Vertrag ist der von 1513, in dem die Moldau die Suzernitt der Pforte
anerkannte und darin noch bessere Bedingungen erlangte, als sie die Walachei
bekommen hatte.
Die zwischen Ruland und der Trkei abgeschlossenen Vertrge konnten
selbstverstndlich nicht die Vertrge entkrften, die die Moldau-Walachen selbst mit
der Pforte abgeschlossen hatten, denn diese Vlker hatten ja niemals selbst mit den
Russen unterhandelt, noch der Pforte das Recht gegeben, fr sie zu unterhandeln.
brigens mag hier festgestellt werden, da Ruland selbst die obenerwhnten
Kapitulationen im Vertrag von Adrianopel anerkannt hat, dessen Art. V folgendes
sagt:
"Nachdem sich die Frstentmer Walachei und Moldau durch Kapitulation unter die Suzernitt der Hohen Pforte
gestellt und Ruland deren Wohlfahrt (!) zugesichert hat, versteht es sich, da sie weiterhin all jene Privilegien und
Freiheiten genieen, die ihnen auf Grund ihrer Kapitulation zugesichert wurden."

Aus den oben zitierten Kapitulationen, die noch in Kraft bleiben, da sie durch keinen
spteren Vertrag berholt sind, folgt nun, da die Frstentmer zwei souverne
Staaten unter der Suzernitt der Pforte bilden, an die sie einen Tribut zahlen unter der
Bedingung, da die Pforte sie gegen jedweden ueren Feind verteidigt und sich

durchaus nicht in ihre inneren Angelegenheiten mischt. Nicht nur sind die Trken
nicht berechtigt, die Walachei einer fremden Okkupation auszuliefern, sondern ihnen
selbst ist auch verboten, die Walachei ohne plausible Ursache zu betreten. Ja, noch
mehr: Da die Trken in dieser Weise ihre Kapitulationen mit den Walachen verletzt
und sich den Anspruch auf Suzernitt verscherzt haben, so knnten die Russen sogar,
wenn die Walachen sich an sie wendeten, ihre Berechtigung, die sterreicher aus den
Frstentmern zu vertreiben, auf die gebrochenen Vertrge grnden. Und das wre
keineswegs berraschend, denn es ist die stndige Politik Rulands gewesen, die
Trkei in ihren bergriffen gegen die Rechte der Walachen zu ermutigen und sie
sogar zu solchen zu veranlassen, <314> um Feindseligkeiten zwischen ihnen zu sen
und so fr sich einen Vorwand zur Intervention zu schaffen. Was geschah zum
Beispiel 1848? Im Frhling jenes Jahres hatten einige Bojaren dem Moldaufrsten
eine Petition berreicht, in der sie bestimmte Reformen forderten; durch den Einflu
des russischen Konsuls wurden diese Forderungen nicht nur abgelehnt, sondern auch
ihre Urheber ins Gefngnis geworfen. Die durch diesen Schritt hervorgerufene
Bewegung lieferte nachher den Russen den Vorwand, am 25. Juni die Grenze zu
berschreiten und auf Jassy zu marschieren. Gleichzeitig gewhrte der Hospodar der
Walachei gleich den brigen kontinentalen Regierungen eine Reihe von Reformen,
die die liberale Partei der walachischen Bojaren gefordert hatte. Das war am 23. Juni.
Da diese Reformen in keiner Weise die Suzernitt der Pforte verletzten, braucht gar
nicht erst erwhnt zu werden. Zuflligerweise aber zerstrten sie den ganzen Einflu,
den Ruland durch das Grundgesetz erlangt hatte, das es zur Zeit der Okkupation von
1829 erlie und das durch diese Reformen abgeschafft wurde. Die an seiner Statt
errichtete Konstitution schaffte die Leibeigenschaft ab, und ein Teil des Landes, das
die Bauern bewohnten, wurde ihnen nun als Eigentum abgetreten, whrend der
Gutsherr durch den Staat fr das abgetretene Land und fr den Ausfall der Arbeit
seiner Bauern schadlos gehalten wurde. Daraufhin wurde der herrschende Frst von
den Russen zur Abdankung veranlat und eine provisorische Regierung zur Leitung
der ffentlichen Angelegenheiten eingesetzt. Die Pforte, die, wie wir schon zeigten,
kein Recht hatte, sich in die inneren Angelegenheiten der Frstentmer einzumischen,
und die es verabsumt hatte, gegen den Einmarsch der Russen in die Moldau zu
protestieren, entsandte Suleiman Pascha mit einer trkischen Armee in die Walachei
und verffentlichte eine sehr drohende Adresse des Sultans an deren Bevlkerung;
diese Manahmen traf der Diwan natrlich unter russischem Einflu. Die Walachen
zogen dem Pascha und den Trken entgegen und fraternisierten mit ihnen. Man
einigte sich dahin, da die provisorische Regierung durch eine Lieutenance Princire
<frstliche Statthalterschaft> ersetzt werde, die zuerst aus sechs, nachher aus drei
Mitgliedern bestehen sollte. Diese Regierung wurde dann vom Pascha und auf
Verlangen des Paschas auch von den fremden Konsuln anerkannt. Nachdem die neue
Konstitution noch einer Abnderung unterworfen worden war, wurde sie auch vom
Sultan besttigt.

Mittlerweile tobte die russische Regierung in Manifesten, die sie an Europa richtete,
gegen das walachische Volk und beschuldigte es, die Repu- <315> blik eingefhrt
und den Kommunismus proklamiert zu haben. Am 1. August 1848 berschritt eine
groe russische Streitmacht den Pruth auf dem Marsch nach Bukarest. Pltzlich wurde
Suleiman Pascha durch die Pforte zurckgerufen; der Sultan weigerte sich, die
walachischen Abgesandten zu empfangen, die auf seine eigene Einladung hin nach
Konstantinopel gekommen waren; und am 25. September erschien Fuad Efendi an der
Spitze einer trkischen Armee vor Bukarest und erklrte, er sei nur gekommen, um
Ruland jeden Vorwand zu nehmen, das Frstentum zu betreten. Den Worten der
Trken vertrauend, kamen mehr als 100.000 Bewohner aus Bukarest und Umgebung,
unbewaffnet, in festlichen Gewndern, an ihrer Spitze die Geistlichkeit, um die
Trken willkommen zu heien. Fuad Efendi lud sie ein, eine Deputation in sein Lager
zu entsenden, der er seine Instruktionen mitteilen knne. Herr Bratiano erzhlt in
seinem Bericht ber diese Ereignisse:
"Kaum war die Deputation vor Fuad Efendi erschienen, als sie gefangengenommen wurde; zur gleichen Zeit strzte
sich die trkische Armee in einem Eilmarsch auf Bukarest, trampelte unter den Hufen ihrer Kavallerie die
friedlichen Einwohner nieder, die entgegengekommen waren, um die Trken als Freunde zu empfangen, ri deren
Banner nieder, zerstrte ihre Kreuze, bombardierte ihre Militrkaserne, die sie an ihrem Wege fand, wie auch ein
ganzes Viertel der Stadt, feuerte Traubenschsse auf die walachischen Soldaten, die sich in jener Kaserne aufhielten,
veranlate diese, zu kapitulieren und ihre Waffen niederzulegen, ttete die Kranken und gab sich, nachdem sie die
Stadt erreicht hatte, hemmungslos dem Plndern, dem Massaker und anderen schrecklichen Taten hin!"

Hier war es, wo der russische Kommissar, General Duhamel, die trkische Armee
begleitete und sie tatschlich befehligte. Die russische Armee folgte ihm nach, und
das Ergebnis war der Vertrag von Balta-Liman, durch den nebst anderen Dingen auch
das russische Grundgesetz oder statuto wiederhergestellt wurde. Dieses ist tatschlich
der Status quo, auf den die Walachei zurckzufhren sterreich sich verpflichtet.
Es ist klar, wenn Omer Pascha jetzt die Walachei mit seiner siegreichen Armee
betrte, da die Trken, die durch ihre jngsten Erfahrungen gewitzigt und im Krieg
mit Ruland sind, die Konstitution von 1848 wiederherstellen wrden, durch die
"Republik, Kommunismus" und alle Schpfungen des Jahres 1848 neues Leben
gewnnen. Niemand wird glauben, da sterreich ber eine solche Wendung weniger
erzrnt wre als Ruland. Ebenso klar ist es andrerseits, da auf die Pforte ein ganz
auerordentlicher Druck ausgebt werden mute, ehe sie sich zu einer solchen
Verletzung ihrer Vertrge mit den Walachen drngen lie, deren Konsequenzen ihr
doch aus Erfahrung bekannt sein muten. Dieser Druck kann von niemand
anderem <316> als vom englischen Gesandten ausgegangen sein. Es ist daher
interessant, daran zu erinnern, wie derselbe Lord Redcliffe und seine Vorgesetzten in
Downing Street sich 1848 und 1849 zu den Vergewaltigungen verhielten, die sich
Russen und Trken gegen die Rechte der Moldau und Walachei zuschulden kommen
lieen.

Als die russische Armee im Juni 1848 zuerst die Moldaugrenze berschritt, erklrte
Lord Palmerston im Unterhaus auf eine Anfrage des unvermeidlichen Dudley Stuart:
"Die russischen Truppen sind in die Moldau ohne Befehle des St. Petersburger Kabinetts einmarschiert. Sie
bezwecken lediglich die Aufrechterhaltung oder Herstellung der Ordnung und werden wieder zurckgezogen
werden, wenn keine Notwendigkeit mehr vorliegt. Der Einmarsch erfolgte im Auftrag des Hospodars, und es besteht
nicht die Absicht, Gebietserwerbungen zu machen."

Als im August 1848 die russische Armee auf ihrem Zuge nach Bukarest wieder den
Pruth berschritt und die Moldau-Walachen eine Deputation nach Konstantinopel
schickten, wandte sich der Diwan an die Gesandten von England und Frankreich um
Rat und bekam von Lord Redcliffe die Anweisung, dieselbe Politik zu verfolgen, die
Ruland verfolge.
Als im Oktober die Trken und die Russen gemeinsam die Walachei besetzten, wurde
ein walachischer Offizier von den Russen bis in die Wohnung des Kommandanten der
trkischen Truppen in Bukarest, Omer Paschas, verfolgt, der zusammen mit Fuad
Efendi dagegen protestierte. Als die Pforte von diesem Schimpf erfuhr, erklrte sie,
sie wolle nichts mehr mit den Russen zu tun haben und wolle ihre Truppen ber die
Donau zurckberufen, um nicht lnger Mitschuldiger der Russen in den
Frstentmern zu sein. Auch wolle sie an die Gromchte einen feierlichen Protest
richten, dem ein ausfhrliches Memorandum ber alle Vorkommnisse in den
Frstentmern beigelegt werden solle. Wieder mischte sich derselbe Gesandte ein und
durchkreuzte diese Absichten der Pforte.
Als endlich die gemeinsame russisch-trkische Okkupation 1849 den Charakter einer
Schreckensherrschaft angenommen hatte und allein Maghiero, der Kommandant der
walachischen Irregulren, noch Widerstand leistete, wurde dieser zum Rckzug hinter
die Karpaten veranlat
"durch die berredung des britischen Generalkonsuls, der ihm vorstellte, da die Anwesenheit seiner Armee die
Aktion der Diplomatie lhme, da aber seinem Lande bald wieder zu seinem Recht verholfen werde".

Karl Marx
Saturday, February 05, 2005
LASALLE, THE "JEWISH NIGGER"
Ferdinand Lasalle was born of Jewish stock on April 11, 1825 in Breslau, Germany (now in Poland). He was one of the earliest advocates of working-class political activism and is regarded as the founder of the German SPD (Social Democratic Party) which rules Germany today. His vision was however much
more humane than Marx and centred on the formation of worker co-operatives rather than on revolution. So Marx saw him as an enemy -- but still tried to borrow money off him! Privately, however both Marx and Engels were deeply contemptuous of Lasalle and used every possible term of abuse for him -the most famous of which is "Jewish nigger". Excerpt follows:

Marx to Engels. "The Jewish nigger Lassalle who, I'm glad to say, is leaving at the end of this week, has happily lost another 5,000 talers in an ill-judged speculation. The chap would sooner throw money down the drain than lend it to a `friend', even though his interest and capital were guaranteed. In this
he bases himself on the view that he ought to live the life of a Jewish baron.... And on top of it all, the sheer gluttony and wanton lechery of this `idealist'! It is now quite plain to me - as the shape of his head and the way his hair grows also testify - that he is descended from the negroes who accompanied
Moses' flight from Egypt (unless his mother or paternal grandmother interbred with a nigger). Now, this blend of Jewishness and Germanness, on the one hand, and basic negroid stock, on the other, must inevitably give rise to a peculiar product. The fellow's importunity is also nigg er-like".
Context here
The German
Marx an Engels, 1862
"Der jdische Nigger Lassalle, der glcklicherweise Ende dieser Woche abreist, hat glcklich wieder 5000 Taler in einer falschen Spekulation verloren... Es ist mir jetzt vllig klar, da er, wie auch seine Kopfbildung und sein Haarwuchs beweist, von den Negern abstammt, die sich dem Zug des Moses aus
gypten anschlossen (wenn nicht seine Mutter oder Gromutter von vterlicher Seite sich mit einem Nigger kreuzten). Nun, diese Verbindung von Judentum und Germanentum mit der negerhaften Grundsubstanz mssen ein sonderbares Produkt hervorbringen. Die Zudringlichkeit des Burschen ist auch
niggerhaft."
Marx an Engels, 1862 (MEW Band 30, Seite 257).

Engels on Lasalle:

Lasalle. "Moreover, this mania of the greasy Breslau Jew, using all sorts of pomades and rouges to pretty himself up, to force himself into the distinguished world -- to "arrive" (even if only to appearances) -- was always repulsive"
(No other English translation available online)
The German
Engels an Marx, 7. Mrz 1856
"Lassalle. (...) Dann diese Sucht, sich in die vornehme Welt einzudrngen, de parvenir, wenn auch nur zum Schein, den schmierigen Breslauer Jud mit allerhand Pomade und Schminke zu bertnchen, waren immer widerwrtig."
MEW a.a.O. 29, 31.
Source

Marx-Engels Correspondence 1862

Marx To Engels
In Manchester
Source: MECW Volume 41, p. 388;
First published: abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K.

Marx, Stuttgart, 1913, and in full in MEGA, Berlin, 1930.

[London,] 30 July [1862]

Dear Engels,
From the enclosed scrawls you will partly see how bothered I am. So far,
the landlord has allowed himself to be placated; he has yet to receive 25. The
piano chap, who is being paid in instalments for the piano, should already have
had 6 at the end of June, and is a most ill-mannered brute. I have rate
demands in the house amounting to 6. The wretched school fees some 10
I have fortunately been able to pay, for I do my utmost to spare the children
direct humiliation. I have paid the butcher $6 on account (the sum total of my
quarterly takings from the Presse!), but Im again being dunned by that fellow,
not to mention the baker, the teagrocer, the greengrocer, and such other sons
of Belial as there may be.
The Jewish nigger Lassalle who, Im glad to say, is leaving at the end of this
week, has happily lost another 5,000 talers in an ill-judged speculation. The
chap would sooner throw money down the drain than lend it to a friend, even
though his interest and capital were guaranteed. In this he bases himself on the
view that he ought to live the life of a Jewish baron, or Jew created a baron (no
doubt by the countess). Just imagine! This fellow, knowing about the
American affair, etc., and hence about the state of crisis Im in, had the
insolence to ask me whether I would be willing to hand over one of my

daughters to la Hatzfeldt as a companion, and whether he himself should

secure Gerstenbergs (!) patronage for me! The fellow has wasted my time
and, what is more, the dolt opined that, since I was not engaged upon any
business just now, but merely upon a theoretical work, I might just as well
kill time with him! In order to keep up certain dehors vis--vis the fellow, my
wife had to put in pawn everything that wasnt actually nailed or bolted down!
Had I not been in this appalling position and vexed by the way this parvenu
flaunted his money bags, hed have amused me tremendously. Since I last saw
him a year ago, hes gone quite mad. His head has been completely turned by
his stay in Zurich (with Rstow, Herwegh, etc.) and the subsequent trip to Italy
and, after that, by hisHerr Julian Schmidt, etc. He is now indisputably, not
only the greatest scholar, the profoundest thinker, the most brilliant man of
science, and so forth, but also and in addition, Don Juan cum revolutionary
Cardinal Richelieu. Add to this, the incessant chatter in a high, falsetto voice,
the unaesthetic, histrionic gestures, the dogmatic tone!
As a profound secret, he told me and my wife that he had advised Garibaldi
not to make Rome the target of his attack but instead proceed to Naples, there
set himself up as dictator (without affronting Victor Emmanuel), and call out
the peoples army for a campaign against Austria. Lassalle had him conjure
300,000 men out of thin air with whom, of course, the Piedmontese army
joined forces. And then, in accordance with a plan approved, so he says, by Mr
Rstow, a detached corps was to make, or rather set sail, for the Adriatic coast
(Dalmatia) and incite Hungary to revolt, while, heedless of the Quadrilateral,
the main body of the army under Garibaldi marched from Padua to Vienna,
where the population instantly rebelled. All over in 6 weeks. The fulcrum of
the action Lassalles political influence, or his pen, in Berlin. And Rstow
at the head of a corps of German volunteers attached to Garibaldi. Bonaparte,
on the other hand, was paralysed by this Lassallean coup dclat.
He has just been to see Mazzini, and the latter, too, approved and
admired his plan.
He introduced himself to these people as the representative of the German
revolutionary working class and assumed they knew (to use his own words)
that his (Izzys) pamphlet on the Italian war had prevented Prussias
intervention and, in fact, that he had controlled the history of the past three
years. Lassalle was absolutely furious with me and my wife for poking fun at
his plans, quizzing him as an enlightened Bonapartist, etc. He shouted,
blustered, flung himself about and finally got it fixed in his mind that I was too
abstract to understand politics.

As to America, its of no interest whatever, he says. The Yankees have no

ideas. The freedom of the individual is merely a negative idea, etc., and
other antiquated, mouldering, speculative rubbish of the same ilk.
As I have said, if circumstances had been different (and he hadnt disrupted
my work), the chap would have amused me tremendously.
And on top of it all, the sheer gluttony and wanton lechery of this idealist!
It is now quite plain to me as the shape of his head and the way his hair
grows also testify that he is descended from the negroes who accompanied
Moses flight from Egypt (unless his mother or paternal grandmother interbred
with a nigger). Now, this blend of Jewishness and Germanness, on the one
hand, and basic negroid stock, on the other, must inevitably give rise to a
peculiar product. The fellows importunity is also nigger-like.
If, by the by, Mr Rstow was responsible for thinking up the march from
Padua to Vienna, I should say that he also has a screw loose.
Salut.
Your
K. M.
One of our niggers great discoveries which, however, he only confides
to his closest friends is that the Pelasgians were of Semitic descent. The
main evidence: in the Book of Maccabbees, the Jews send emissaries to solicit
the help of Greece on grounds of kinship. Furthermore, an Etruscan inscription
has been found in Perugia, and this was simultaneously deciphered by Hofrat
Stucker in Berlin and an Italian, and both independently converted the
Etruscan into the Hebrew alphabet.
So that we can no longer discomfit him with Blue Books, he has bought 20
pounds worth of Blue Books (under Buchers guidance).
He has converted Bucher to socialism, or so he maintains. Now Buchers
quite a fine little man, if a cranky one, and, in any case, I cant believe that he
has accepted Lassalles foreign policy. Bucher is the compositress in Julian
Schmidt.

If youd been here just for a day or two, youd have been able to lay in
enough material to keep you laughing for a whole year. Thats why I was so
anxious to have you here. One doesnt get an opportunity like that every day.
Hier das Verhltnis zu seiner Mutter-ob sie krank ist int. ihn nicht nur ob sie ihm Geld schickt(wie wrs mal mit Arbeit gewesen lieber Karl?)

"Von meiner Alten erhielt ich gestern Antwort. Nichts als 'zrtliche' Redensarten, but no cash. Auerdem teilt sie mir mit, was ich lngst wute, da sie 75 Jahre alt ist und manche Gebresten des Alters fhlt." Marx an Engels, 1861 (MEW 30, 198).

Anmerkung: Die folgenden vier Zitate betreffen den sozialistischen Schriftsteller Ferdinand Lassalle (1825-1864), der zu den Grndern des Allgemeinen Deutschen Arbeitervereins gehrte.
"Die Lassalliaden haben mich sehr erheitert, der krause Juddekopp mu sich ber dem roten Schlafrock und in der Marquisen-Draperie, wo bei jeder Bewegung der polnische Schmuhl durchkuckt, sehr reizend ausnehmen. Gesehen, mu der Kerl einen hchst lausig-widerwrtigen Eindruck machen." Engels
an Marx, 1856 (MEW 29, 43).

"Lassalle ... Dann diese Sucht, sich in die vornehme Welt einzudrngen, de parvenir, wenn auch nur zum Schein, den schmierigen Breslauer Jud mit allerhand Pomade und Schminke zu bertnchen, waren immer widerwrtig." Engels an Marx, 1856 (MEW 29, 31).

"Hierbei der Brief von Lassalle zurck. Dorch un dorch der lppische Jd." Engels an Marx, 1857 (MEW 29, 134).

"Der jdische Nigger Lassalle, der glcklicherweise Ende dieser Woche abreist, hat glcklich wieder 5000 Taler in einer falschen Spekulation verloren ... Es ist mir jetzt vllig klar, da er, wie auch seine Kopfbildung und sein Haarwuchs beweist, von den Negern abstammt, die sich dem Zug des Moses aus
gypten anschlossen (wenn nicht seine Mutter oder Gromutter von vterlicher Seite sich mit einem Nigger kreuzten). Nun, diese Verbindung von Judentum und Germanentum mit der negerhaften Grundsubstanz mssen ein sonderbares Produkt hervorbringen. Die Zudringlichkeit des Burschen ist auch
niggerhaft." Marx an Engels, 1862 (MEW 30, 257).

"Der Teufel soll diese Volksbewegungen holen und gar, wenn sie pacifiques sind." Marx an Engels, 1852 (MEW 28, 19).

"Und l'intrieur, welch famose Entwicklung! Die Mordversuche werden schon ganz alltglich und die Maregeln immer schner." Engels an Marx , 1852 (MEW 28, 11).

"Panslawismus hat sich jetzt umgewandelt aus einem Glaubensbekenntnis in ein politisches Programm, mit 800.000 Bajonetten zu seiner Verfgung. Er lt Europa nur eine Alternative: Unterjochung durch die Slawen oder Zerstrung fr immer des Zentrums ihrer Offensivkraft - Rulands." Engels, 1855
(MEW 11, 193).

"Sie haben die noch bessere Erfahrung gemacht, da sie, die Deutschen und die Skandinavier, die beide zu der gleichen groen Rasse gehren, nur den Weg fr ihren Erbfeind, den Slawen, bereiten, wenn sie miteinander streiten, statt sich zu verbinden." Marx, 1853 (MEW 9, 248).

Noch mehr gewnscht von diesen Rassisten und Kriegsbefrwortern?

Friday, February 04, 2005

MARX'S JEWISH STEREOTYPE AGAIN

Marx, About the emancipation of the small-farmers in Russia: "But it is well-known that the Russian nobility are, moreover, indebted, to a large extent, to private individuals, bankers, tradesmen, Jews and usurers, and that the great majority are so heavily encumbered as to leave them but a nominal
interest in their possessions"
Context here
The German
Marx, ber die Bauernbefreiung in Ruland, 1858
"Es ist wohlbekannt, da der russische Adel berdies in groem Mae an Privatpersonen, an Bankiers, Hndler, Juden und Wucherer verschuldet ist (...)"
MEW a.a.O. 12, 677

Works of Karl Marx 1858

The Emancipation Question

Source: MECW, Volume 16, p. 139;
Written: on December 29 and 31, 1858;
First published: in the New-York Daily Tribune, January 17 and 22, 1859.

Berlin, Dec. 29, 1858

The great initiator (to use a Mazzinian term) of the Russian Revolution,
the Emperor Alexander II, has taken a new step in advance. On Nov. 13, last,
the Imperial Central Committee for the abolition of servitude ... finally signed
its report to the Emperor, in which the bases are laid down on which the
emancipation of the serfs is proposed to be carried out. The fundamental
principles are the following:
I. The peasants cease at once to be serfs, and enter into a state of

provisional obligation toward their landlords. This state is to last for twelve
years, during which they enjoy all the rights, personal and proprietary, of all
other taxable subjects of the Empire. Serfdom and all its attributes, are
abolished forever, without any consideration being paid to their former
proprietors; for, says the report, serfdom was arbitrarily introduced by Czar
Boris Godunov, [This is anything but correct. Boris Godunov (ukase of Nov.
2, 1601) put an end to the right of the peasantry to travel about the Empire, and
tied them to the estate to which they belonged by birth or residence. Under his
successors the power of the nobility over the peasantry increased rapidly, and a
state of serfdom became gradually the general condition of the latter. But this
remained an illegal usurpation on the part of the boyars, until Peter the Great in
1723 legalized it. The peasants, without being freed from the bonds which
fettered them to the estates, now were also made the personal property of the
noble owner of that estate; he obtained the right to sell them, singly or in lots,
with or without the land, and, in consideration of this, was made personally
responsible for them and their taxes to the government. Subsequently [in 1783]
Catherine If, by one stroke of the pen, turned four or five millions of
comparatively free peasants in the newly-acquired western and southern
provinces into serfs. But it would not do in Russian official documents to
mention such facts respecting Peter I and Catherine II; and poor Boris
Godunov is made to bear the responsibility of the sins of all his
successors.] grew by an abuse of power into part and parcel of the common
law, and thus, having been created by the will of the sovereign, may also be
abolished by the will of the sovereign. As to a pecuniary consideration for its
abolition, such a money payment in return for rights which belong to the
peasantry by nature, and should never have been taken away from them, would
form, says the report, a disgraceful page, indeed, in Russian history.
II. During the twelve years of provisional obligation, the peasant remains

attached to the estate; but in case the landlord cannot find him at least five
dessiatines of land to cultivate for himself, he is at liberty to leave the estate.

The same liberty is allowed him if he finds somebody else to cultivate his
allotment, so long as he pays his taxes to the Crown.
III and IV. Every village community retains the possession of the dwelling-

houses of its members, with their inclosures, farmyards, gardens, etc., for
which a rent of 3 per cent per annum on the appraised value is paid to the
landlord. The community has the right to compel the landlord to have this
value appraised by a mixed commission of two landlords and two peasants.
Whenever the community please, they can buy their homesteads out and out by
paying down the appraised value.
V. The land allotments to be given by the landlords to the peasants are thus
regulated: Where there are on an estate more than six dessiatines to each serf
inscribed on it, every adult male peasant receives an allotment of arable land of
nine dessiatines; where there is less land, two-thirds of the whole arable land
are delivered up to the peasants; and where there are so many peasants on an
estate that out of these two-thirds there cannot be found five dessiatines, at
least, for every adult male, the land is divided into allotments of five
dessiatines, and those who, by lot, are excluded from receiving any, receive
passports from the village authorities, and are at liberty to go where they like.
As to firewood, the landlord is bound to find it for the peasants in his forests,
at a price to be fixed beforehand.
VI. In return for these advantages, the peasant has the following corves to

furnish to the landlord: For every dessiatine allotted, ten work days with a
horse and ten work days without (in case of nine dessiatines, 180 work days
per annum). The value of his corve is to be fixed, in money, in every
government (province) after this rate, that one day of corve is considered
worth one-third only of one day of free labor. After the first seven years, oneseventh of these corve and in every following year another seventh, may be
commuted into a corn-rent.
VII. The personal serfs, such as are not attached to a particular estate, but to

the family mansion or the person of their lord, will have to serve their lords for
ten years, but will receive wages. They may, however, buy their liberty any
time, at 300 roubles for a man and 120 roubles for a woman.
IX. The landlord remains the chief of the village community, and has the

right of veto against their resolutions; but in such a case an appeal lies to a
mixed commission of nobles and peasants.

Such are the contents of this important document, which expresses, in an

indirect manner, the ideas of Alexander II on the great social question of
Russia. I have omitted chapters VIII, which treats of the organization of the
village communities, and X which merely gives the legal forms in which the
official documents relating to this change are to be made out. A very
superficial comparison shows that this report is a mere continuation, and,
indeed, a filling up, of the programme issued by the Central Committee last
Spring, to the various corporations of nobles throughout the Empire. This
programme, the ten heads of which correspond exactly to the ten chapters of
the report, was, in fact, a mere form made out, to show the nobles in what
direction they were to act, and which they were expected to fill up. But, the
more they entered upon the question the greater was their repugnance; and it is
very significant that after eight months, the Government have found
themselves obliged to fill up this form themselves, and to draw up that plan
which was to be supposed to be a spontaneous act of the nobles.
So much for the history of the above document; now for its contents.
If the Russian nobility do not think that the 4th of August (1789) has yet
arrived, and that so far there is no necessity of sacrificing their privileges on
the altar of their country, the Russian Government is going a great deal faster;
it has already arrived at the declaration of the rights of man. What, indeed,
do you think of Alexander II, proclaiming rights which belong to the
peasantry by nature, and of which they ought never to have been deprived"?
Verily, these are strange times! In 1846, a Pope initiating a liberal movement;
in 1858, a Russian Autocrat, a true samoderjetz vserossiiski, proclaiming the
rights of man! And we shall see that the Czars proclamation will have as
world-wide an echo, and an ultimate effect of far greater magnitude than the
Popes liberalism.
The first of the parties dealt with in this report is the nobility. If they refuse
to celebrate a 4th of August, the Government tells them plainly enough that
they will be compelled to do so. Every chapter of the report includes a pungent
material loss to the aristocracy. One of the modes in which the nobles have
turned their human capital was to hire them out, or to allow them, on payment
of an annual sum (obrok), to travel about and gain a living as they pleased.
This custom suited admirably both the purses of the nobles and the roving
character of the Russian serf. It was one of the chief sources of income to the
former. By chapter I this is proposed to be done away with, without any
payment in return. Not only this: By chapter II every serf to whom the lord
cannot allot 5 dessiatines of arable land is free in his own right, and can go
where he pleases. By chap. Ill-V, the lord is deprived of the free disposal of

something like two-thirds of his land, and compelled to assign it to the

peasants. It is true, they occupy it now, but under his control, and in
consideration of services which were fixed entirely by him. Now, the land is to
belong, in reality, to the peasants, who are made tenants in perpetuity, who
obtain the right to buy, out and out, their homesteads, and whose services,
though fixed at a very high rate, are yet to be immutably fixed by a legal
enactment, and, worse still, may be commuted at a (to them) pretty
advantageous tariff. Even the dvorovye, the domestic servants of the hall, are
to be paid wages, and, if inclined, may buy their liberty. And what is worse,
the serfs are to receive the rights of all other citizens, which means to say that
they will have the right, hitherto unknown to them, to bring actions against
their lords, and to bear witness against them in Courts of law; and though the
lords remain the chiefs of the peasants on their estates, and retain a certain
jurisdiction over them, still the extortions by which a large portion of the
Russian nobility have scraped together the means to keep
fashionable lorettes in Paris and to gamble at German watering places, will
undergo a vast limitation in future. But, in order to judge of the effect such a
reduction of income would have upon the Russian nobles, let us cast a glance
at their financial position. The whole territorial nobility of Russia is indebted
to the Credit Banks (instituted by the Crown) in the sum of 400,000,000 silver
roubles, for which sum about 13,000,000 of serfs are pledged to these banks.
The whole of the serf population of Russia (excluding the Crown peasants)
amounts to 23,750,000 (census of 1857). Now it is evident that of the owners
of serfs the smaller ones are the principal contractors of this debt, while the
larger ones are comparatively free from debt. From the census of 1857 it
appears that about 13,000,000 of serfs belong to landlords owning less than
1,000 serfs each, while the remaining 10,750,000 belong to proprietors holding
more than 1,000 serfs each. It stands to reason that the latter will nearly
represent the unencumbered, and the former the encumbered nobles of Russia.
This may not be quite exact, but it comes near enough to. be generally correct.
The number of landed proprietors owning from one to 500 souls,
according to the census of 1857, is 105,540, while that of nobles owning 1,000
souls and above is not more than 4,015. Thus, it would appear that, at the
lowest estimate, nine-tenths of the whole Russian aristocracy are deeply
indebted to the credit banks, or, what is tantamount, to the Crown. But it is
notorious that the Russian nobility are, moreover, indebted, to a large extent, to
private individuals, bankers, tradesmen, Jews and usurers, and that the great
majority are so heavily incumbered as to leave them but a nominal interest in
their possessions. Those that were still struggling with ruin were completely
broken down by the heavy sacrifices of the late war, when, with heavy taxes,

both in men, money and corves, they found the egress for their produce shut
up, and had to contract loans on extremely onerous conditions. And now they
are called upon entirely to resign, without any return, a great portion of their
revenue, and to regulate the remainder of their income in a manner which will
not only reduce it, but also maintain it at the reduced limit.
With a nobility like the Russian, the consequences are easily foreseen.
Unless they agree to see the great majority of their order ruined, or brought at
once to bankruptcy, in order to be merged in that class of bureaucratic nobles
whose rank and position depends entirely upon the Government, they must
resist this attempt at enfranchising the peasantry. They do resist it; and if, as is
evident their present legal resistance will be of no avail against the sovereign
will, they will be compelled to resort to other more telling means.

II
Berlin, Dec. 31, 1858
The resistance of the Russian nobles against the Czars schemes of
emancipation, has already begun to manifest itself in a double way-the one
passive, the other active. The personal harangues which Alexander II, on his
journey through several provinces, condescended to address to his nobles,
harangues now mildly clothed in the garb of philanthropic appeals, now
assuming the persuasive form of didactic exposition, now rising to the shrill
tones of command and menace what have all these speeches resulted in?
The nobles listened to them in servile attitude with diminished heads, but in
their hearts they felt that the Emperor, who came to harangue, coax, persuade,
inform, and menace them, had ceased to be that almighty Czar whose will was
to stand in the place of reason itself. Consequently, they dared to give a
negative answer by giving no answer at all, by not reechoing the Czars
sentiments, and by adopting the simple process of procrastination in their
different committees. They left the Emperor no chance but that of the Roman
Church: Compelle intrare. However, the dull monotony of that restive silence
was boldly broken through by the St. Petersburg Nobility Committee, which
indorsed a paper drawn up by Mr. Platonoff, one of its members, and forming,
in fact, a petition of rights. What was asked for was nothing less than a
parliament of nobles to decide jointly with the Government not only the great
question of the hour, but all political questions. It was in vain that Mr. Lanskoi,
the Minister of the Interior, declined accepting this paper, and sent it back to
the nobility with the angry remark, that it was not their business to club
together for the purpose of presenting petitions, but simply to deliberate upon

the questions put to them by the Government. In the name of the Committee,
Gen. Shuwaloff returned to the assault, and, by the menace of himself carrying
the paper to the Emperor, compelled Mr. Lanskoi to receive it. Thus, the
Russian nobility in 1858, as the French nobility in 1788, has given out the
watchword of the Assemble des tats gnraux, or, in the Muscovite
vernacular, of Semski Sobor or Semskaja Duma. Thus, in their interested
attempts at maintaining the antiquated social basis of the pyramid intact, the
nobles themselves attack its political point of gravitation. Besides, the esprit de
vertige, as the old French emigrants styled the spirit of the age, has seized on
them so violently, that the majority of the nobles go head over heels into the
middle-class-joint-stock-company mania, while in the more western provinces
the minority affects to lead and protect the newfangled literary agitation. To
give some notion of those bold movements, it will suffice to say, that in 1858
the number of existing journals had already swelled to 180, while 109 fresh
ones were announced for 1859. On the other hand there were founded in 1857,
sixteen companies, with a capital of 303,900,000 roubles, while, from January
to August, 1858, 21 fresh new companies with a capital of 36,175,000 roubles
were added.
Let us now consider the other party to the changes intended by Alexander II.
It is not to be forgotten how often the Russian Government has, before the eyes
of the peasantry, conjured up the fata morgana of freedom. In the beginning of
his reign, Alexander I called upon the nobility to emancipate the peasants, but
without success. In 1812, when the peasantry were called on to enrol
themselves in the opolchenie (militia), emancipation from serfdom, if not
officially still with the tacit consent of the Emperor, was held out as the reward
for patriotism; the men who had defended Holy Russia could no longer be
treated as slaves. Under Nicholas even, a series of ukases restricted the power
of the nobles over their serfs, authorized the latter (ukase of 1842) to conclude
contracts with their owners as to the services to be rendered (by which
indirectly they were admitted to plead in courts of law against their lords);
undertook (1844) to guarantee, On the part of the Government, the fulfillment
of the engagements made by the peasants under such contracts; enabled the
serfs (1846) to buy their liberty, if the estate to which they were attached had
to be sold by public auction; and enabled (1847) the corporation of serfs
attached to such an estate, when first up for sale, to buy the whole estate. To
the great astonishment of both government and nobles, it all at once appeared
that the serfs were quite prepared for this, and actually did buy up one estate
after the other; nay, that, in a great many cases, the landlord was but the
nominal owner, having been liberated from his debts by the Tnoney of his own
serfs who, of course, had taken such precautions as to secure to themselves

virtually their own liberty and the property in the estate. When this came out,
the Government, frightened at such symptoms of intelligence and energy
among the serfs, and at the same time by the outbreaks of 1848 in Western
Europe, had to look out for a remedy against an enactment which threatened to
gradually turn the nobility out of their estates. But it was too late to repeal the
ukase; and thus another ukase (March 15, 1848) extended the right of
purchase, which so far had belonged to the commercial corporations of serfs
only, to every individual serf. This measure not only tended to break up the
associations, by villages and between the villages of a district, which hitherto
had enabled the serfs to concentrate the capital for such purchase; it was,
besides, seasoned with a few qualifications. The land could be bought by the
serfs, but not the people attached to it; in other words, by buying the estate to
which they belonged, the serfs did not buy their own freedom. On the contrary,
they remained serfs, and the whole purchase-transaction was, moreover, made
subject to the assent of the old landlord! To crown the whole, the numerous
nobles who held their property, So to say, in trust for their serfs, were by the
same ukase enabled and encouraged to break this trust and to recover full
possession of their estates; all pleas on the part of the serfs being expressly
excluded from the courts of law. Since then, all but the primary schools were
closed to the serfs; and all hopes of emancipation appeared cut off, when the
late war again compelled Nicholas to appeal to a general armament of the
serfs, and to support this appeal, as usual, by promises of liberation from
bondage, which the inferior servants of the Government were ordered to
spread among the peasantry.
That after such antecedents, Alexander II should feel himself compelled to
proceed seriously to an emancipation of the peasants, is quite natural. The
result of his efforts, and the outlines of his plans, so far as they have been
matured, are before its. What will the peasantry say to a twelve years
probation, accompanied by heavycorves, at the end of which they are to pass
into a state which the Government does not venture to describe in any
particular? What will they say to an organization of communal government,
jurisdiction and police, which takes away all the powers of democratic selfgovernment, hitherto belonging to every Russian village community, in order
to create a system of patrimonial government, vested in the hands of the
landlord, and modeled upon the Prussian rural legislation of 1808 and 1809?
a system utterly repugnant to the Russian peasant, whose whole life is
governed by the village association, who has no idea of individual landed
property, but considers the association to be the proprietors of the soil on
which he lives.

If we recollect that since 1842 the insurrections of serfs against their

landlords and stewards have become epidemic; that something like sixty
nobles according, even, to the official statistics of the Ministry of the
Interior have been annually murdered by the peasants; that during the late
war the insurrections increased enormously, and in the western provinces were
directed chiefly against the Government (a conspiracy was formed for an
insurrection to break out the moment the Anglo-French army the foreign
enemy approached!) there can he little doubt that, even if the nobility
does not resist the emancipation, the attempt to realize the committees
proposals must he the signal for a tremendous conflagration among the rural
population of Russia. But the nobility are sure to resist; the Emperor, tossed
about between state necessity and expediency, between fear of the nobles and
fear of the enraged peasants, is sure to vacillate; and the serfs, with
expectations worked up to the highest pitch, and with the idea that the Czar is
for them, but held down. by the nobles, are surer than ever to rise. And if they
do, the Russian 1793 will be at hand; the reign of terror of these half-Asiatic
serfs will be something unequaled in history; but it will be the second turning
point in Russian history, and finally place real and general civilization in the
place of that sham and show introduced by Peter the Great.
Thursday, February 03, 2005
DEATH AS A HAPPY EVENT

Marx to Engels: "Yesterday we were informed of a very happy event, the death of my wife's uncle, aged 90. As a result, my mother-in-law will save an annual impost of 200 talers and my wife will get almost 100; more if the old dog hasn't made over to his housekeeper that part of his money that was not
tied up".
Context here
The German
Marx an Engels, 8. Mrz 1855
"A very happy Event, der Tod des 90jhrigen Onkels meiner Frau wurde uns gestern mitgeteilt. (...) meine Frau wird an 100 b ekommen; mehr, wenn der alte Hund den Teil seines Geldes, der nicht fidei commi war, nicht seiner Haushlterin vermacht."
MEW a.a.O. 28, 438.

Marx-Engels Correspondence 1855

Marx To Engels
In Manchester
Source: MECW Volume 39, p. 526;
First published: abridged in Der Wechsel zwischen F. Engels, und K. Marx,

1913 and in full in Marx and Engels, Works, 1929.

[London,] 8 March 1855, 28 Dean Street, Soho

Dear Engels,
Received the 5.
I cannot get away until Colonel Musch is visibly recovered. However, this
week he has made rapid strides towards convalescence, today the doctor
was exceedingly pleased, and next week everything may be all right. As soon
as I can depart with a good conscience, I shall write to you. Next week, I
imagine.
Yesterday we were informed of a very happy event, the death of my wifes
uncle, aged 90. As a result, my mother-in-law will save an annual impost of
200 talers and my wife will get almost 100; more if the old dog hasnt made
over to his housekeeper such of his money as is not entailed. Another question
which will be settled is that of the Duke of Brunswicks manuscript on the
Seven Years War, for which old Scharnhorst has already offered large sums.
My wife immediately registered a protest against any attempts by her brother
to make a present of it to His Most Gracious Highness. Let the Prussian state
acquire it for cash but not otherwise.
There is a prospect of another possible source of money. My wife had
deposited 1,300 talers with one Grach, a banker in Trier. The fellow went
bankrupt and, in her case, had acted fraudulently, since he was already
insolvent (although unbeknown to the public) when he accepted her deposit.
On the urgent plea of the wife of this Grach, my wife relented and refrained
from pursuing the matter in the courts. The Chief Public Prosecutor had stated
that Grach would otherwise be brought before the Assizes. This Grachs wife
has now inherited a large fortune and, if she keeps her promise, we can count
on the recovery of at least part of the loss. In any case this will mean that the
past has been discharged once and for all and a weight lifted from our
shoulders.
Napoleon Bonapartes pamphlet (Girardin denies in La Presse that he is
the faiseur) amused me very much. Despite the attempt to present le
prince in an imposing attitude, despite the French braggadocio, superficiality,
and blunders in things military, the pamphlet is worth its weight in gold as a
memorial to our Leroy, alias St-Arnaud, and generally as typical of the
imperial barnum and his round table.

There is one point you might clear up for me about the Crimean business,
namely: General Evans declared before the committee that the main reason for
the melting of the army before Sevastopol was the absence of a road from the
harbour of Balaklava; 1,000 men would have sufficed to build one in 10 days,
but et c'est la question all men who could have been spared were
employed in the trenches, and from the start the extent of the lines to be
captured by the English was grossly disproportionate to their numerical
strength. The question is: Could the French be regarded as the contrivers of
this mischief?
A short while ago I took another look at Roman history (ancient) up to the
time of Augustus. Internal history resolves itself plainly into the struggle
between small and large landed property, specifically modified, of course, by
slavery relations. Debtor-creditor relations, which play so large a part from
the origines of Roman history, figure merely as an inherent consequence of
small landed property.
Today I saw an advertisement for 3 works by Forster, a parson, all having in
common the title Original Language.
As you will have seen, Mr Herzen is now having himself puffed in the
Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung also. At the same time his speech (at Jones
meeting) is appearing in The Peoples Paper as a fly-sheet and
in pre Ribeyrolles estimable L'Homme.
Your
K. M.
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
MARX DESPISED RUSSIA

"In the Russian vocabulary there is no such word as honour"

Context here
The German
Marx, Lord Palmerston, 1853
"In dem russischen Vokabularium existiert das Wort 'Ehre' nicht."
MEW a.a.O. 9, 396.

The Story of the Life of Lord Palmerston by Karl Marx

There is no such word in the Russian vocabulary as "honour." As to the

thing itself, it is considered to be a French delusion.
"Schto takoe honneur? Eto Fransusski chimere," is a Russian proverb. For
the invention of Russian honour the world is exclusively indebted to my Lord
Palmerston, who, during a quarter of a century, used at every critical moment
to pledge himself in the most emphatic manner, for the honour of the Czar.
He did so at the close of the session of 1853, as at the close of the session of
1833.
Now, it happens that the noble lord, while he expressed his most implicit
confidence in the honour and good faith of the Czar, had just got into
possession of documents, concealed from the rest of the world, and leaving no
doubt, if any existed, about the nature of Russian honour and good faith. He
had not even to scratch the Muscovite in order to find the Tartar. He had found
the Tartar in his naked hideousness. He found himself possessed of the selfconfessions of the leading Russian ministers and diplomatists, throwing off
their cloaks, opening out their most secret thoughts, unfolding, without
constraint, their plans of conquest and subjugation, scornfully railing at the
imbecile credulity of European courts and ministers, mocking the Villeles, the
Metternichs, the Aberdeens, the Cannings, and the Wellingtons; and devising
in common, with the savage cynicism of the barbarian, mitigated by the cruel
irony of the courtier, how to sow distrust against England at Paris, and against
Austria at London, and against London at Vienna, how to set them all by the
ears, and how to make all of them the mere tools of Russia.
At the time of the insurrection in Warsaw, the vice-royal archives kept in the
palace of Prince Constantine, and containing the secret correspondence of
Russian ministers and ambassadors from the beginning of this century down to
1830, fell into the hands of the victorious Poles. Polish refugees brought these
papers over first to France, and, at a later period, Count Zamoyski, the nephew
of Prince Czartoryski, placed them in the hands of Lord Palmerston, who
buried them in Christian oblivion. With these papers in his pocket, the noble
viscount was the more eager to proclaim in the British Senate and to the world,
his most implicit confidence in the honour and good faith of the Emperor of
Russia.
It was not the fault of the noble viscount, that those startling papers were at
length published at the end of 1835, through the famousPortfolio. King
William IV, whatsoever he was in other respects, was a most decided enemy of
Russia. His private secretary, Sir Herbert Taylor, was intimately connected
with David Urquhart,[33]introducing this gentleman to the King himself, and

from that moment Royalty was conspiring with these two friends against the
policy of the truly English minister.
William IV. ordered the above-mentioned papers to be given up by
the noble lord. They were given up and examined at the time at
Windsor Castle, and it was found desirable to print and publish them. In
spite of the great opposition of the noble lord, the King compelled him
to lend the authority of the Foreign Office to their publication, so that
the editor who took the charge of revising them for the press, published
not a single word which had not the signature or initials attached. I,
myself, have seen the noble lords initial attached to one of these
documents, although the noble lord has denied these facts. Lord
Palmerston was compelled to place the documents in the hands of Mr.
Urquhart for publication. Mr. Urquhart was the real editor of the
Portfolio. (Mr, Anstey, House of Commons, February 23, 1848.)
After the death of the King, Lord Palmerston refused to pay the printer of
the Portfolio, disclaimed publicly and solemnly all connection on the part of
the Foreign Office with it, and induced, in what manner is not known, Mr.
Backhouse, his under-secretary, to set his name to these denials. We read
in The Times of January 30, 1839:
It is not for us to understand how Lord Palmerston may feel, but we
are sure there is no misapprehending how any other person in the
station of a gentleman, and in the position of a minister, would feel after
the notoriety given to the correspondence between Mr. Urquhart, whom
Lord Palmerston dismissed from office, and Mr. Backhouse, whom the
noble viscount has retained in office, by The Times of yesterday. There
never was a fact apparently better established through this
correspondence than that the series of official documents contained in
the well-known publication called the Portfolio, were printed and
circulated by Lord Palmerston's authority, and that his lordship is
responsible for the publication of them, both as a statesman to the
political world here and abroad, and as an employer of the printers and
publishers, for the pecuniary charge accompanying it.
In consequence of her financial distress, resulting from the exhaustion of the
treasury by the unfortunate war of 1828-29, and the debt to Russia stipulated
by the Treaty of Adrianople, Turkey found herself compelled to extend that
obnoxious system of monopolies, by which the sale of almost all articles was
granted only to those who had paid Government licenses. Thus a few usurers
were enabled to seize upon the entire commerce of the country. Mr. Urquhart

proposed to King William IV a commercial treaty to be concluded with the

Sultan, which treaty, while guaranteeing great advantages to British
commerce, intended at the same time to develop the productive resources of
Turkey, to restore her exchequer to health, and thus to emancipate her from the
Russian yoke. The curious history of this treaty cannot be better related than in
the words of Mr. Anstey:
The whole of the contest between Lord Palmerston on the one hand,
and Mr. Urquhart on the other, was directed to this treaty of commerce.
On the 3rd of October, 1835, Mr Urquhart obtained his commission as
Secretary of Legation at Constantinople, given him for the one purpose
of securing the adoption there of the Turkish commercial treaty. He
delayed his departure, however, till June or July, 1836. Lord
Palmerston pressed him to go. The applications to him urging his
departure were numerous, but his answer invariably was, I will not go
until I have this commercial treaty settled with the Board of Trade and
the Foreign Office: and then I will accompany it and procure its
acceptance at the Porte. ... Finally, Lord Palmerston gave his
approbation to the treaty, and it was forwarded to Lord Ponsonby, the
Ambassador at Constantinople. [In the meantime the latter had been
instructed by Lord Palmerston to take the negotiations entirely out of
the hands of Mr. Urquhart into his own, contrary to the engagement
entered into with Mr. Urquhart.] As soon as the removal of Mr.
Urquhart from Constantinople had been effected through the intrigues
of the noble lord, the treaty was immediately thrown overboard. Two
years later the noble lord resumed it, giving Mr. Urquhart, before
Parliament, the compliment of being the author of it, and disclaiming
for himself all merits in it. But the noble lord had destroyed the treaty,
falsified it in every part, and converted it to the ruin of commerce. The
original treaty of Mr. Urquhart placed the subjects of Great Britain in
Turkey upon the footing of the most favoured nation, viz. the Russians.
As altered by Lord Palmerston, it placed the subjects of Great Britain
upon the footing of the taxed and oppressed subjects of the Porte. Mr.
Urquharts treaty stipulated for the removal of all transit duties,
monopolies, taxes, and duties of whatever character, other than those
stipulated by the treaty itself. As falsified by Lord Falmerston, it
contained a clause, declaring the perfect right of the Sublime Porte to
impose whatever regulations and restrictions it pleased, with regard to
commerce. Mr Urquharts treaty left exportation subject only to the old
duty of three shillings; that of the noble lord raised the duty from three
shillings to five shillings. Mr. Urquharts treaty stipulated for an ad

valorem duty in this manner, that if any article of commerce was so

exclusively the production of Turkey as to insure it a ready sale at the
prices usually received under the monopoly in foreign ports, then the
export duty, to be assessed by two commissioners appointed on the part
of England and Turkey, might be a high one, so as to be remunerative
and productive of revenue, but that, in the case of commodities
produced elsewhere than in Turkey, and not being of sufficient value in
foreign ports to bear a high duty, a lower duty should be assessed. Lord
Palmerstons treaty stipulated a fixed duty of twelve shillings ad
valorem upon every article, whether it would bear the duty or not. The
original treaty extended the benefit of free trade to Turkish ships and
produce; the substituted treaty contained no stipulation whatever on the
subject.... I charge these falsifications, I charge also the concealment of
them, upon the noble lord, and furtherI charge the noble lord with
having falsely stated to the House that his treaty was that which had
been arranged by Mr. Urquhart. (Mr, Anstey, House of
Commons, February 23, 1848.)
So favourable to Russia, and so obnoxious to Great Britain, was the treaty as
altered by the noble lord, that some English merchants in the Levant resolved
to trade henceforth under the protection of Russian firms, and others, as Mr.
Urquhart states, were only prevented from doing so by a sort of national pride.
With regard to the secret relations between the noble lord and William IV,
Mr. Anstey stated to the House:
The King forced the question of the process of Russian encroachment
in Turkey upon the attention of the noble lord.... I can prove that the
noble lord was obliged to take the direction in this matter from the late
Kings private secretary, and that his existence in office depended upon
his compliance with the wishes of the monarch. ... The noble lord did,
on one or two occasions, as far as he dared, resist, but his resistance
was
invariably
followed
by abject expressions
of contrition and compliance. I will not take upon myself to assert that
on one occasion the noble lord was actually out of office for a day or
two, but I am able to say that the noble lord was in danger of a most
unceremonious expulsion from office on that occasion. I refer to the
discovery which the late King had made, that the noble lord consulted
the feelings of the Russian Government as to the choice of an English
Ambassador at the Court of St. Petersburg, and that Sir Stratford
Canning, originally destined for the embassy, was set aside to make

room for the late Earl of Durham, an ambassador more agreeable to the
Czar.(House of Commons, February 23, 1853)
It is one of the most astonishing facts that, while the King was vainly
struggling against the Russian policy of the noble lord, the noble lord and his
Whig allies succeeded in keeping alive the public suspicion that the King
who was known as a Torywas paralysing the anti-Russian efforts of the
truly English Minister. The pretended Tory predilection of the monarch for
the despotic principles of the Russian Court, was, of course, made to explain
the otherwise inexplicable policy of Lord Palmerston. The Whig oligarchs
smiled mysteriously when Mr. H. L. Bulwer informed the House, that no
longer ago than last Christmas Count Apponyi, the Austrian Ambassador at
Paris, stated, in speaking of the affairs of the East, that this Court had a greater
apprehension of French principles than of Russian ambition.(House of
Commons, July 11, 1833)
They smiled again, when Mr. T. Attwood interrogated the noble lord: what
reception Count Orloff, having been sent over to England, after the treaty of
Unkiar Skelessi, had met with at his Majesty's Court?(House of
Commons, August 28, 1833)
The papers entrusted by the dying King and his secretary, the late Sir
Herbert Taylor, to Mr. Urquhart, for the purpose of vindicating, upon the
fitting opportunity, the memory of William IV, will, when published, throw a
new light upon the past career of the noble lord and the Whig oligarchy, of
which the public generally know little more than the history of their
pretensions, their phrases, and their so-called principlesin a word, the
theatrical and fictitious partthe mask.
This is a fitting occasion to give his due to Mr. David Urquhart, the
indefatigable antagonist for twenty years of Lord Palmerston, to whom he
proved a real adversaryone not to be intimidated into silence, bribed into
connivance, charmed into suitorship, while, what with cajoleries, what with
seductions, Alcine Palmerston contrived to change all other foes into fools. We
have just heard the fierce denunciation of his lordship by Mr. Anstey:
A circumstance most significant is that the accused minister sought the
member, viz. Mr. Anstey, and was content to accept his co-operation
and private friendship without the forms of recantation or apology. Mr.
Anstey's recent legal appointment by the present Government speaks
for itself.(D. Urquharts Progress of Russia.)

On February 23, 1848, the same Mr. Anstey had compared the noble
viscount to the infamous Marquis of Carmarthen, Secretary of State to
William III, whom, during his visit to his Court, the Czar, Peter I, found means
to corrupt to his interests with the gold of British merchants.(House of
Commons, February 23, 1848.)
Who defended Lord Palmerston on that occasion against the accusations of
Mr. Anstey? Mr. Sheil; the same Mr. Sheil who had, on the conclusion of the
Treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, in 1833, acted the same part of accuser against his
lordship as Mr. Anstey in 1848. Mr. Roebuck, once his strong anatagonist,
procured him the vote of confidence in 1850. Sir Stratford Canning, having
denounced during a decennium, the noble lord's connivance with the Czar, was
content to be got rid of as ambassador to Constantinople. The noble lord's own
dear Dudley Stuart was intrigued out of Parliament for some years, for having
opposed the noble lord. When returned back to it, he had become the me
damne [french: a willing tool] of the truly English&edquo; Minister.
Kossuth,[34] who might have known from the Blue Books that Hungary had
been betrayed by the noble viscount, called him the dear friend of his bosom,
when landing at Southampton.

Tuesday, February 01, 2005

MARX HAD THE USUAL ANTISEMITIC PARANOIA ABOUT JEWISH BANKERS

"Austria's Bankruptcy: The Austrian Kaiser's dependency on the Jews of the Vienna Bank grows in tandem with the military character of his rule"
(No other English version available online even though it was originally published in English. Source in German here)
The German
Marx, sterreichs Bankrott 1854
"So wchst die Abhngigkeit des Kaisers von den Juden der Wiener Bank in demselben Mae wie der militrische Charakter seiner Herrschaft."
MEW a.a.O. 10, 109.

Monday, January 31, 2005

MARX LOVED HIS MOTHER -- NOT

Marx to Engels: "If a negotiation I have initiated with Lassalle succeeds, and he lends me 30, and you lend me the remainder, I would at last be independent again and reorganise all my domestic arrangements, whereas at present I have to pay out 25 per cent to the pawnshop alone, and in general am
never able to get things in order because of arrears. As has once again been demonstrated in Trier, nothing will be achieved with my old lady until I can go and personally sit on her throat".
Context here
The German
Marx an Engels, 13. September 1854
"Mit meiner Alten ist, wie sich noch einmal in Trier bewhrt, nichts zu machen, bis ich ihr direkt auf dem Halse sitze."
MEW a.a.O. 28, 391., Rotbuch S. 108

Marx/Engels Correspondence 1854

Marx To Engels
In Manchester

Source: MECW, Volume 39, p. 481;

First published: in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx,

1913.

London, 13 September 1854, 28 Dean Street, Soho

Dear Engels,
Once again I must come knocking at your door, much though I detest doing
so, but compelled by pressure from without. I cannot draw my bills for a few
weeks yet, since in consequence of some unpleasantness he has had with
Bischoffsheim in this connection, Freiligrath is no longer drawing bills of less
than 25. On the whole, too, this is preferable, for while the constant drawing
of small sums may cover the dette flottante, the fixed debt increases. On top of
that, I shall have to deduct 8 for Freund from the next bill since, under the
present circumstances, my wife will need rather more care.
The extraordinary means to which the family is wont to resort at times of
crisis are again exhausted and, just as in the case of the Spanish Budget
everything is in pawn.
By the by, as regards the budget en gnral, I have reduced total
indebtedness to under 50, i.e. about 30 less than it was at the beginning of
the year. From this you can see that there have been some great financial
sleights of hand. If a negotiation I have initiated with Lassalle succeeds, and
he lends me 30, and you lend me the remainder, I would at last be
independent again and reorganise all my domestic arrangements, whereas at
present I have to pay out 25 per cent to the pawnshop alone, and in general am
never able to get things in order because of arrears. As has once again been
demonstrated in Trier, nothing will be achieved with my mater until I can go
and importune her in person.
Dam ce moment the total absence of money is the more horrible quite
apart from the fact that family wants do not cease for an instant as Soho is
a choice district for cholera, the mob is croaking right and left (e.g. an average
of 3 per house in Broad Street), and victuals are the best defence against the
beastly thing.

So much for that. I am sending this letter to your private address because
some strange combination of circumstances could cause precisely this by no
means edifying epistle to fall into the wrong hands at your office.

As regards the Asiatic business, a considerable stir has been made here by
the dispatches from that theatre of operations in The Morning Chronicle,
which have also been reproduced in The Observer and other weeklies.
I dont know whether the news about the Zouaves cry A bas les singes! Il
nous faut Lamoricire! [Down with the monkeys! We want Lamoricire!
Singes also means bosses] has penetrated as far as Manchester. Espinasse,
the first victim of this agitation, has been recalled to France.
The party has been having a run of bad luck. Steffen has lost his post in
Brighton through the bankruptcy of the schoolmaster in whose establishment
he was employed. It is questionable whether he will manage to get the salary
already due to him. Pieper has lost his post as correspondent to the Union,
since Mr Pierce has likewise gone bankrupt, and his papers get no more money
for foreign correspondents. MacGowan, Jones printer and source of credit, has
died of cholera. A blow for Jones. All this is not very pleasant.
I dont remember muck about Imandt. To inquire into it further would only
make matters worse. But henceforward I shall break off the moment the
gentleman makes any reference to Dronke. Dronke ne vaut pas la peine d'en
parler [isnt worth discussing].
Your
K. M.
Sunday, January 30, 2005
MARX ADVOCATED RACE WAR

Karl Marx: Advertisement Duty -- Russian Movements -- Denmark. 19.Aug.1853:

"The Scandinavians and the Germans have in this way found that they cannot base their respective national claims on the feudal laws of royal succession. They have had the even stronger experience that they, the Germans and the Scandinavians -- who both belong to one overall race -- will only pave the
way for their hereditary enemy, the Slavs, if they fight with one-another rather than uniting."

The German
Marx: Die Annoncensteuer - Russische Schritte - Dnemark - Die Vereinigten Staaten in Europa:
"Die Skandinavier und die Deutschen haben auf diese Weise die Erfahrung gemacht, da sie ihren respektiven nationalen Ansprchen nicht die feudalen Gesetze der kniglichen Erbfolge zugrunde legen drfen. Sie haben die noch bessere Erfahrung gemacht, da sie, die Deutschen und die Skandinavier, die
beide zu der gleichen groen Rasse gehren, nur den Weg fr ihren Erbfeind, den Slawen, bereiten, wenn sie miteinander streiten , statt sich zu verbinden."
Karl Marx - Friedrich Engels - Werke, Band 9, S. 245-251. MEW a.a.O. 9, 248.
Context in German only here
Note: This was originally published in English but is not available in English online. I hope my back-translation measures up.

Seitenzahlen verweisen auf: Karl Marx - Friedrich Engels - Werke, Band 9, S. 245-251
Dietz Verlag, Berlin/DDR 1960

Karl Marx

Die Annoncensteuer Russische Schritte Dnemark Die Vereinigten Staaten in Europa

Aus dem Englischen.

["New-York Daily Tribune" Nr. 3850 vom 19. August 1853]

<245> London, Freitag, 5. August 1853

Das Gesetz ber die Aufhebung der Annoncensteuer hat gestern abend die knigliche
Zustimmung erhalten und tritt heute in Kraft. Einige Morgenzeitungen haben bereits
ihre herabgesetzten Preise fr Annoncen aller Art verffentlicht.
Die Londoner Hafenarbeiter streiken. Die Gesellschaft ist bemht, neue Leute
einzustellen. Man erwartet einen Kampf zwischen den alten und den neuen Arbeitern.
Der Kaiser von Ruland hat neue Grnde ausfindig gemacht, um die
Donaufrstentmer zu behalten. Er wird sie nicht mehr als materielle Garantie fr
seine geistigen Bestrebungen festhalten oder als Schadloshaltung fr die Kosten, die
ihre Okkupation verursacht, sondern jetzt mu er sie wegen "innerer Unruhen"
festhalten, wie es der Vertrag von Balta-Liman vorsieht. Und da die Russen in den
Donaufrstentmern tatschlich alles und jedes auf den Kopf gestellt haben, kann das
Bestehen solcher Unruhen nicht geleugnet werden. Lord Clarendon besttigte in der
Sitzung des Oberhauses vom 2. August die Angaben, die ich in meinem letzten
Artikel hinsichtlich der Hospodare gemacht hatte, die daran gehindert worden waren,
an Konstantinopel ihren Tribut zu entrichten und weiterhin Verbindungen mit der
Trkei zu unterhalten. <Siehe S. 240> Lord Clarendon erklrte mit betont ernster
Miene und pompser Feierlichkeit, da er
"durch einen Kurier, der noch heute abend London verlt, Sir Hamilton Seymour anweisen wrde, von dem
russischen Kabinett die Erklrung zu verlangen, auf die England ein Recht hat".

<246> Whrend Clarendon bis nach St. Petersburg schickt, um Erklrungen zu

erbitten, verffentlicht die "Patrie" von heute eine Nachricht aus Jassy vom 20. des

vergangenen Monats, da die Russen Bukarest und Jassy befestigen, da die

Hospodare der Moldau und Walachei einer russischen Kontrollbehrde, bestehend aus
drei Mitgliedern, unterstellt sind, da das Volk mit Kontributionen in natura belastet
ist und da einige widerspenstige Bojaren in russische Regimenter gesteckt worden
sind. Das ist die "Erklrung" der Proklamation Frst Gortschakows, der zufolge
"sein erhabener Gebieter nicht die Absicht hatte, die Institutionen, die das Land regierten, zu ndern, und die
Anwesenheit seiner Truppen dem Volk weder neue Kontributionen noch andere Lasten auferlegen wurde".

In der Sitzung des Unterhauses erklrte am gleichen Tage Lord John Russell als
Antwort auf eine von Lord Dudley Stuart gestellte Frage, da die vier Mchte in Wien
zusammengewesen wren wegen eines gemeinsamen Vorschlags an den Zaren, der
fr Ruland und die Trkei "annehmbar" sei, und da dieser nach St. Petersburg
abgesandt worden wre. In seiner Antwort an Herrn Disraeli fhrte Lord Russell aus:
"Dieser Vorschlag war faktisch ein sterreichischer Vorschlag, wenngleich er ursprnglich von der Regierung
Frankreichs kam."

Dieser ursprngliche Franzose, in sterreich naturalisiert, sieht recht verdchtig aus,

und die "Neue Preuische Zeitung" gibt in einem Brief aus Wien die Erklrung, da
"das russische und das sterreichische Kabinett vllig einmtig beschlossen haben, einen vorherrschenden Einflu
Englands im Orient nicht aufkommen zu lassen".

Der "Englnder" <A. Richards> uert sich ber die Erklrungen des
Koalitionsministeriums: "Sie sind gro in der Erniedrigung, stark in der Dummheit
und hchst beredt im Schweigen."
Sobald die Moldau und die Walachei russifiziert seien, wrden Galizien, Ungarn und
Transsilvanien in russische "Enklaven" verwandelt werden.
Ich habe in einem frheren Artikel von den "verborgenen Schtzen" in der Bank von
St. Petersburg gesprochen, die die Goldreserve fr einen dreimal so groen
Papiergeldumlauf bilden. Der russische Kriegsminister <Dolgorukow> hat jetzt
beantragt, einen Teil dieses Schatzes in die Kriegskasse zu berfhren. Als der
Finanzminister <Brok> gegen diesen Schritt Einspruch erhoben hatte,
wandte <247> sich der Kaiser persnlich an den Heiligen Synod, den Verwahrer des
Kircheneigentums, wegen eines Darlehns von 60 Millionen Rubel. Whrend es dem
Zaren an Geld fehlt, fehlt es seinen Truppen an Gesundheit. Aus sehr zuverlssiger
Quelle wird mitgeteilt, da die Truppen, die die Donaufrstentmer besetzt halten, auf
ihrem Marsch frchterlich unter der Hitze zu leiden hatten, da die Zahl der Kranken
auergewhnlich hoch ist und da viele Privathuser in Bukarest und Jassy in
Krankenhuser verwandelt worden sind.

Die "Times" von gestern brandmarkte die ehrgeizigen Plne Rulands gegenber der
Trkei, versuchte jedoch gleichzeitig, die russischen Intrigen in Dnemark zu
vertuschen. Sie hilft selbst dann ihrem erlauchten Gebieter, wenn sie lauthals ber ihn
schimpft.
"Wir zweifeln die Behauptung an", sagt die "Times", "da es dem russischen Kabinett gelungen sei, Einflu auf den
Hof von Kopenhagen zu gewinnen, und die Feststellung, da die dnische Regierung unter russischem Einflu dazu
bergeht, die Verfassung von 1849 aufzuheben oder zu beeintrchtigen, ist vllig unrichtig. Die dnische Regierung
hat zwar bewirkt, da ein Gesetz oder ein Entwurf verffentlicht wird, der einige Modifikationen der
Verfassung enthlt, die augenblicklich in Kraft ist, aber dieses Gesetz wird der Debatte und Abstimmung der
Kammern unterworfen, wenn sie wieder zusammentreten; es ist nicht durch knigliche Vollmacht verkndet
worden."

Die Auflsung einer einzigen gesetzgebenden Versammlung in vier getrennte feudale

Landtage, das Recht auf Selbsteinschtzung bei der Besteuerung aufgehoben, Wahlen
unter Bedingungen des allgemeinen Wahlrechts unterdrckt, die Prefreiheit
abgeschafft, die freie Konkurrenz durch die Wiederbelebung der geschlossenen
Znfte verdrngt, die gesamte Beamtenklasse, d.h. die einzige gebildete Klasse in
Dnemark, davon ausgeschlossen, gewhlt zu werden, es sei denn auf Grund
kniglicher Erlaubnis - das alles nennt man "einige Modifikationen der
Verfassung"!Genausogut kann man Sklaverei eine geringfgige Modifikation der
Freiheit nennen. Es ist wahr, da es der dnische Knig nicht gewagt hat, dieses neue
"Grundgesetz" als Gesetz zu verknden. Er hat nur nach der Manier der orientalischen
Sultane die seidene Schnur an die Kammern geschickt, mit der Order, sich damit zu
erdrosseln. Ein derartiger Vorschlag ist mit der Drohung verbunden, ihn gewaltsam
durchzusetzen, falls man sich ihm nicht freiwillig unterwirft. Soviel, was "Einige
nderungen der Verfassung" betrifft. Nun zu dem "russischen Einflu".
Wie entstand der Konflikt zwischen dem dnischen Knig und den dnischen
Kammern? Der Knig schlug vor, die Lex Regia abzuschaffen, <248> d.h. das
bestehende Erbfolgegesetz Dnemarks. Wer drngte den Knig zu diesem Schritt?
Ruland, wie man aus der Note des Grafen Nesselrode vom 11. Mai 1853 ersehen
haben wird, von der ich in meinem letzten Artikel berichtet habe. Wer wird von der
Aufhebung der Lex Regia profitieren? Niemand auer Ruland. Die Lex Regia
erlaubt auch der weiblichen Linie der herrschenden Familie die Thronfolge. Durch
ihre Aufhebung wrden die Agnaten alle Ansprche der Kognaten, die ihnen bisher
im Wege standen, beseitigen. Bekanntlich gehren zum Knigreich Dnemark auer
dem eigentlichen Dnemark, nmlich den Inseln und Jtland, auch die beiden
Herzogtmer Schleswig und Holstein. Die Erbfolge fr das eigentliche Dnemark und
fr Schleswig wird durch die Lex Regia geregelt, whrend sie im Herzogtum
Holstein, das ein deutsches Lehen ist, entsprechend der Lex Salica den Agnaten
zufllt. Durch die Aufhebung der Lex Regia wrde die Erbfolge fr Dnemark und
Schleswig der des deutschen Herzogtums Holstein angeglichen werden, und der

russische Zar, der als der Vertreter des Hauses Holstein-Gottorp die nchsten
Ansprche auf Holstein hat, wrde in der Eigenschaft als Hauptagnat auch den
nchsten Anspruch auf den dnischen Thron erlangen. In den Jahren 1848-1850
kmpften die Dnen, untersttzt von russischen Noten und Flotten, gegen
Deutschland, um die Lex Regia zu behaupten, die Schleswig verbot, mit Holstein
vereinigt und von Dnemark getrennt zu werden. Nachdem der Zar die deutsche
Revolution unter dem Vorwand der Lex Regia geschlagen hat, konfisziert er das
demokratische Dnemark durch Abschaffung gerade dieses Gesetzes. Die
Skandinavier und die Deutschen haben auf diese Weise die Erfahrung gemacht, da
sie ihren respektiven nationalen Ansprchen nicht die feudalen Gesetze der
kniglichen Erbfolge zugrunde legen drfen. Sie haben die noch bessere Erfahrung
gemacht, da sie, die Deutschen und die Skandinavier, die beide zu der gleichen
groen Rasse gehren, nur den Weg fr ihren Erbfeind, den Slawen, bereiten, wenn
sie miteinander streiten, statt sich zu verbinden.
Das groe Ereignis des Tages ist das Auftauchen der amerikanischen Politik am
europischen Horizont. Begrt von der einen Seite, verabscheut von der anderen,
wird die Tatsache von allen anerkannt.
"sterreich mu nach der Zerstckelung des Trkischen Reichs trachten, um sich fr den Verlust seiner
italienischen Provinzen zu entschdigen - eine Perspektive, die nicht weniger wahrscheinlich geworden ist durch den
Streit, den es trichterweise mit Uncle Sam vom Zaune gebrochen hat. Ein amerikanisches Geschwader in der Adria
wrde eine recht nette Komplikation fr einen italienischen Aufstand bedeuten, und wir knnen es alle noch erleben,
denn der angelschsische Geist ist im Westen noch nicht tot."

<249> So heit es im "Morning Herald", dem alten Organ der englischen Aristokratie.
"Die Koszta-Affre", sagt die Pariser "Presse", "ist weit davon entfernt, beigelegt zu werden. Wir sind unterrichtet,
da das Wiener Kabinett vom Washingtoner Kabinett eine Reparation verlangt hat, die es ganz sicher nicht
bekommen wird. Inzwischen bleibt Koszta unter dem Schutz des franzsischen Konsuls."
"Wir mssen dem Yankee aus dem Wege gehen, der zur einen Hlfte ein Seeruber und zur anderen Hlfte ein
Hinterwldler, aber auf keinen Fall ein Gentleman ist", flstert die Wiener "Presse".

Die deutschen Zeitungen murren ber das Geheimabkommen, das angeblich zwischen
den Vereinigten Staaten und der Trkei abgeschlossen worden sein soll, wonach
letztere Geld und Flottenuntersttzung und die ersteren den Hafen von Enos in
Rumelien erhalten sollen, der einen sicheren und geeigneten Platz fr einen Handelsund Militrsttzpunkt der amerikanischen Republik im Gebiet des Mittellndischen
Meeres bieten wrde.
"Im Laufe der Zeit", sagt die Brsseler "mancipation", "wird der Konflikt von Smyrna zwischen der
amerikanischen und der sterreichischen Regierung, verursacht durch die Gefangennahme des Emigranten Koszta,
in die vorderste Linie der Ereignisse von 1853 rcken. Verglichen mit dieser Tatsache knnen die Besetzung der
Donaufrstentmer und die Schritte der westlichen Diplomatie und der vereinigten Flotten in Konstantinopel als
Ereignisse von zweitrangiger Bedeutung betrachtet werden. Das Vorkommnis von Smyrna ist der Beginn einer

neuen Geschichte, whrend der Zwischenfall von Konstantinopel nur die Aufrollung einer alten Frage ist, die im
Begriff war, ihre Bedeutung zu verlieren."

Eine italienische Zeitung, "Il Parlamento", bringt einen Leitartikel unter der
berschrift "La Politica Americana in Europa", aus dem ich die folgenden Stellen
wrtlich bersetze:
"Es ist allgemein bekannt", sagt "Il Parlamento", "da die Vereinigten Staaten schon lange versuchten, eine
Marinestation im Mittellndischen Meer und in Italien zu bekommen, und besonders zu solchen Zeiten, wenn im
Orient Komplikationen auf traten. So hatte z.B. 1840, als die groe gyptische Frage zur Diskussion stand und als
Saint-Jean-d'Acre angegriffen wurde, die Regierung der Vereinigten Staaten den Knig beider Sizilien <Ferdinand
II.> vergeblich gebeten, ihr zeitweilig den groen Hafen von Syrakus zu berlassen. Heute kann die Tendenz der
amerikanischen Politik, sich in europische Angelegenheiten einzumischen, nicht lebhafter und hartnckiger sein. Es
unterliegt keinem Zweifel, da die gegenwrtige demokratische Regierung der USA uerst laut ihre Sympathien
mit den Opfern der italienischen und ungarischen Revolution kund- <250> tut, da sie sich berhaupt nichts aus
dem Bruch der diplomatischen Beziehungen mit sterreich macht und da sie in Smyrna ihre Politik mit ihren
feuerbereiten Geschtzen verfochten hat. Es wre ungerecht, ber dieses Trachten der groen transatlantischen
Nation zu schimpfen oder es inkonsequent lcherlich zu nennen. Die Amerikaner beabsichtigen gewi nicht, den
Orient zu erobern und es zu einem Landkrieg mit Ruland kommen zu lassen. Aber wenn England und Frankreich
ihre besten Seestreitkrfte losschicken, warum sollten es dann nicht auch die Amerikaner tun, besonders dann, wenn
sie im Mittellndischen Meer einen Sttzpunkt, einen Ort der Zuflucht und fr 'Verproviantierung' bekommen
haben. Fr sie stehen groe Interessen auf dem Spiel, zumal das republikanische Element dem kosakischen
diametral gegenbersteht. Handel und Schiffahrt haben die gesetzmigen Beziehungen und Vertrge zwischen
allen Vlkern der Welt vervielfacht. Kein Volk kann sich heute als fremd in irgendeinem Meer des alten oder neuen
Kontinents oder als unbeteiligt an irgendeiner groen Frage, wie der des Schicksals des Ottomanischen Reichs,
halten. Der amerikanische Handel und die Residenten, die ihn an den Ksten unserer Meere betreiben, fordern den
Schutz des Sternenbanners, und um ihn das ganze Jahr hindurch dauerhaft und rechtskrftig zu machen, brauchen
sie einen Hafen fr ihre Kriegsmarine, die bereits an dritter Stelle unter den Seemchten der Welt rangiert. Wenn
England und Frankreich sich direkt in alles einmischen, was den Isthmus von Panama betrifft, wenn die erstere
dieser Mchte so weit geht, einen Knig der Moskitos zu erfinden, um territoriale Rechte den Operationen der
Vereinigten Staaten gegenberzustellen, wenn diese Mchte sich schlielich darber verstndigen, da die
Durchfahrt vom Atlantischen Ozean zum Stillen Ozean fr alle Nationen geffnet werden und in den Hnden eines
neutralen Staates liegen soll -, ist es dann nicht klar, da die Vereinigten Staaten im Hinblick auf die Freiheit und
Neutralitt des Isthmus von Suez beanspruchen mssen, die gleiche Wachsamkeit zu ben, indem sie aufmerksam
den Verfall des Ottomanischen Reichs beobachten, der dazu fhren kann, da gypten und Syrien vollstndig oder
teilweise der Herrschaft irgendeiner Gromacht anheimfallen werden? Suez und Panama sind die beiden groen
Eingangspforten zum Orient, die - bisher geschlossen - knftig miteinander konkurrieren werden. Die beste Art, sich
ausschlaggebenden Einflu in der transatlantischen Frage zu sichern, ist fr die USA, bei der Mittelmeerfrage
mitzuarbeiten. Wir sind berzeugt, da die amerikanischen Kriegsschiffe in der Nhe der Dardanellen nicht auf
ihren Anspruch verzichten werden, sie zu passieren, wann immer sie wollen und ohne den Beschrnkungen
unterworfen zu sein, denen die Gromchte 1841 zugestimmt hatten, und das auf Grund der unbestreitbaren
Tatsache, da die amerikanische Regierung sich nicht an jener Konvention beteiligt hatte. Europa ist erstaunt ber
diese Khnheit, weil es seit dem Frieden von 1783 gewhnt war, die Vereinigten Staaten mit solchen Augen zu
betrachten, wie man die Schweizer Kantone nach dem Westflischen Frieden betrachtete, nmlich als Lnder, denen
man eine legitime Daseinsberechtigung zuerkannte, die man aber auf keinen Fall in den aristokratischen Kreis der
alten Gromchte zulassen kann, um ihre Stimme zu Fragen der allgemeinen Politik abzugehen. Aber jenseits des
Ozeans sind die Angelsachsen zum hchsten Grad von Reichtum, Zivilisation<251> und Macht aufgestiegen, so da
sie nicht lnger die bescheidene Stellung anerkennen knnen, die ihnen in der Vergangenheit zugewiesen worden
war. Der Druck, der von der amerikanischen Union auf den Areopag der fnf Gromchte, die bis jetzt die
Geschicke der Welt lenkten, ausgebt wird, ist ein neuer Machtfaktor, der zum Niedergang des exklusiven Systems
beitragen mu, das von den Wiener Traktaten geschaffen worden war. Solange sich aber die Republik der
Vereinigten Staaten ihr positives Recht und ihren offiziellen Sitz in den Kongressen nicht erkmpft hat, die ber
Fragen der Weltpolitik entscheiden, nimmt sie mit einer ungemeinen Erhabenheit und einer besonderen Wrde die
menschlicheren Belange des Naturrechts und des jus gentium <Vlkerrechts> wahr. Ihre Flagge gibt den Opfern der

Brgerkriege Schutz, ohne Ansehen der Partei, und whrend des groen Sturms der Jahre 1848/49 lie sich die
amerikanische Flotte niemals durch Demtigungen oder Schmhungen davon abhalten, Asyl zu gewhren."

Karl Marx
MARX FORESAW RACIAL EXTINCTIONS (GENOCIDE)
And expressed not the slightest regret about it
Karl Marx in the New York Tribune 1853, "Forced Emigration":

"Society is undergoing a silent revolution, which must be submitted to, and which takes no more notice of the human existences it breaks down than an earthquake regards the houses it subverts. The classes and the races, too weak to master the new conditions of life, must give way.

Context here

Karl Marx in the New York Tribune 1853

Forced Emigration
Source: Marx Engels On Britain, Progress Publishers 1953;
Written: by Marx, March 4, 1853;
First Published: in the New York Daily Tribune of March 22, 1853

and republished in the Peoples Paper of April 16, 1853;

Transcribed: by Andy Blunden.

The Colonial Emigration Office gives the following return of the

emigration from England, Scotland, and Ireland, to all parts of the
world, from Jan. 1, 1847, to Jan. 30, 1852:
Year
1847
1848
1849
1850
1851
1852 (till
June)
Total

English
34,685
58,865
73,613
57,843
69,557
40,767

Scotch
8,616
11,505
17,127
15,154
18,646
11,562

Irish
214,969
177,719
208,758
207,852
247,763
143,375

Total
258,270
248,089
299,498
280,849
335,966
195,704

335,330

82,610

1,200,436

1,618,376

Nine-tenths, remarks the Office, of the emigrants from

Liverpool are assumed to be Irish. About three-fourths of the
emigrants from Scotland are Celts, either from the Highlands, or
from Ireland through Glasgow.

Nearly four-fifths of the whole emigration are, accordingly, to be

regarded as belonging to the Celtic population of Ireland and of the
Highlands and islands of Scotland. The London Economist says of this
emigration:
It is consequent on the breaking down of the system of society
founded on small holdings and potato cultivation; and adds:
The departure of the redundant part of the population of Ireland
and the Highlands of Scotland is an indispensable preliminary to
every kind of improvement. .The revenue of Ireland has not
suffered in any degree from the famine of 1846-47, or from the
emigration that has since taken place. On the contrary, her net
revenue amounted in 1851 to 4,281,999, being about 184,000
greater than in 1843.
Begin with pauperising the inhabitants of a country, and when there
is no more profit to be ground out of them, when they have grown a
burden to the revenue, drive them away, and sum up your Net Revenue!
Such is the doctrine laid down by Ricardo, in his celebrated work, The
Principle of Political Economy. The annual profits of a capitalist
amounting to 2,000, what does it matter to him whether he employs
100 men or 1,000 men? Is not, says Ricardo, the real income of a
nation similar? The net real income of a nation, rents and profits,
remaining the same, it is no subject of consideration whether it is
derived from ten millions of people or from twelve millions. Sismondi,
in his Nouveaux Principes d'Economie Politique, answers that,
according to this view of the matter, the English nation would not be
interested at all in the disappearance of the whole population, the King
(at that time it was no Queen, but a King) remaining alone in the midst
of the island, supposing only that automatic machinery enabled him to
procure the amount of net revenue now produced by a population of
twenty millions. Indeed that grammatical entity, the national wealth,
would in this case not be diminished.
But it is not only the pauperised inhabitants of Green
Erin [Ireland] and of the Highlands of Scotland that are swept away by
agricultural improvements, and by the breaking down of the
antiquated system of society. It is not only the able-bodied agricultural
labourers from England, Wales, and Lower Scotland, whose passages
are paid by the Emigration Commissioners. The wheel of
improvement is now seizing another class, the most stationary class in
England. A startling emigration movement has sprung up among the

smaller English farmers, especially those holding heavy clay soils, who,
with bad prospects for the coming harvest, and in want of sufficient
capital to make the great improvements on their farms which would
enable them to pay their old rents, have no other alternative but to
cross the sea in search of a new country and of new lands, I am not
speaking now of the emigration caused by the gold mania, but only of
the compulsory emigration produced by landlordism, concentration of
farms, application of machinery to the soil, and introduction of the
modern system of agriculture on a great scale.
In the ancient States, in Greece and Rome, compulsory emigration,
assuming the shape of the periodical establishment of colonies, formed
a regular link in the structure of society. The whole system of those
States was founded on certain limits to the numbers of the population,
which could not be surpassed without endangering the condition of
antique civilisation itself. But why was it so? Because the application of
science to material production was utterly unknown to them. To remain
civilised they were forced to remain few. Otherwise they would have
had to submit to the bodily drudgery which transformed the free citizen
into a slave. The want of productive power made citizenship dependent
on a certain proportion in numbers not to be disturbed. Forced
emigration was the only remedy.
It was the same pressure of population on the powers of production.
that drove the barbarians from the high plains of Asia to invade the Old
World. The same cause acted there, although under a different form. To
remain barbarians they were forced to remain few. They were pastoral,
hunting, war-waging tribes, whose manners of production required a
large space for every individual, as is now the case with the Indian
tribes in North-America. By augmenting in numbers they curtailed each
others field of production. Thus the surplus population was forced to
undertake those great adventurous migratory movements which laid
the foundation of the peoples of ancient and modern Europe.
But with modern compulsory emigration the case stands quite
opposite. Here it is not the want of productive. power which creates a
surplus population; it is the increase of productive power which
demands a diminution of population, and drives away the surplus by
famine or emigration. It is not population that presses on productive
power; it is productive power that presses on population.

Now I share neither in the opinions of Ricardo, who regards NetRevenue as the Moloch to whom entire populations must be sacrificed,
without even so much as complaint, nor in the opinion of Sismondi,
who, in his hypochondriacal philanthropy, would forcibly retain the
superannuated methods of agriculture and proscribe science from
industry, as Plato expelled poets from his Republic. Society is
undergoing a silent revolution, which must be submitted to, and which
takes no more notice of the human existences it breaks down than an
earthquake regards the houses it subverts. The classes and the races,
too weak to master the new conditions of life, must give way. But can
there be anything more puerile, more short-sighted, than the views of
those Economists who believe in all earnest that this woeful transitory
state means nothing but adapting society to the acquisitive propensities
of capitalists, both landlords and money-lords? In Great Britain the
working of that process is most transparent. The application of modern
science to production clears the land of its inhabitants, but it
concentrates people in manufacturing towns.
No manufacturing workmen, says The Economist, have been
assisted by the Emigration Commissioners, except a few
Spitalfields and Paisley hand-loom weavers, and few or none are
emigrated at their own expense.
The Economist knows very well that they could not emigrate at their
own expense, and that the industrial middle-class would not assist them
in emigrating. Now, to what does this lead? The rural population, the
most stationary and conservative element of modern society,
disappears while the industrial proletariat, by the very working of
modern production, finds itself gathered in mighty centres, around the
great productive forces, whose history of creation has hitherto been the
martyrology of the labourers. Who will prevent them from going a step
further, and appropriating these forces, to which they have been
appropriated before Where will be the power of resisting them?
Nowhere! Then, it will be of no use to appeal to the rights of property.
The modern changes in the art of production have, according to the
Bourgeois Economists themselves, broken down the antiquated system
of society and its modes of appropriation. They have expropriated the
Scotch clansman. the Irish cottier and tenant, the English yeoman, the
hand-loom weaver, numberless handicrafts, whole generations of
factory children and women; they will expropriate, in due time, the
landlord and the cotton lord.

Friday, January 28, 2005

ENGELS MOCKED EXISTING DEMOCRACIES AS REPRESENTING "PETTY TRADERS" ONLY
(I imagine the text below is a translation of a German original in which Engels originally wrote: "Kleinbrger" or "petit bourgeois" for "petty trader".)

"The practical revolutionary experience of 1848-49 confirmed the reasonings of theory, which led to the conclusion that the democracy of the petty traders must first have its turn, before the Communist working class could hope to permanently establish itself in power"
Originally published in English. See here

Works of Frederick Engels 1852

The Late Trial at

Cologne
Source: MECW, Volume 11, p. 388;
Written: about November 29, 1852;
Signed: Karl Marx;
First published: in the New-York Daily

Tribune, December 22, 1852.

London, Wednesday, December 1, 1852

You will have ere this received by the
European papers numerous reports of the Communist Monster Trial at
Cologne, Prussia, and of its result. But as none of the reports is anything like a
faithful statement of the facts, and as these facts throw a glaring light upon the
political means by which the Continent of Europe is kept in bondage, I
consider it necessary to revert to this trial.
The Communist or Proletarian party, as well as other parties, had lost, by
suppression of the rights of association and meeting, the means of giving to
itself a legalorganization on the Continent. Its leaders, besides, had been exiled
from their countries. But no political party can exist without an organization;
and that organization which both the Liberal bourgeois and the Democratic
shopkeeping class were enabled more or less to supply by, the social station,
advantages, and long-established, everyday intercourse of their members, the
proletarian class, without such social station and pecuniary means, was
necessarily compelled to seek in secret association. Hence, both in France and
Germany, sprang up those numerous secret societies which have, ever since
1849, one after another been discovered by the police and prosecuted a

conspiracies; but if many of them were really conspiracies, formed with the
actual intention of upsetting the Government for the time being and he is a
coward that under certain circumstances would not conspire, just as he is a fool
who, under other circumstances, would do so there were some other
societies which were formed with a wider and more elevated purpose, which
knew, that the upsetting of an existing government was but a passing stage in
the great impending struggle, and which intended to keep together and to
prepare the party, whose nucleus they formed, for the last, decisive combat
which must one day or another crush forever in Europe the domination, not of
mere tyrants, despots and usurpers, but of a power far superior, and far
more formidable than theirs; that of capital over labor.
The organization of the advanced Communist party in Germany was of this
kind. In accordance with the principles of its Manifesto (published in 1848)
and with those explained in the series of articles on Revolution and CounterRevolution in Germany published in The New-York Daily Tribune, this party
never imagined itself capable of producing, at any time and at its pleasure, that
revolution which was to carry its ideas into practice. It studied the causes that
had produced the revolutionary movements of 1848, and the causes that made
them fail. Recognizing the social antagonism of classes at the bottom of all
political struggles, it applied itself to the study of the conditions under which
one class of society can and must be called on to represent the whole of the
interests of a nation, and thus politically to rule over it. History showed to the
Communist party, how, after the landed aristocracy of the Middle Ages, the
monied power of the first capitalists arose and seized the reins of Government;
how the social influence and political rule of this financial section of capitalists
was superseded by the rising strength, since the introduction of steam, of
themanufacturing capitalists, and how at the present moment two more classes
claim their turn of domination, the petty trading class, and the industrial
working class. The practical revolutionary experience of 1848-49 confirmed
the reasonings of theory, which led to the conclusion that the democracy of the
petty traders must first have its turn, before the Communist working class
could hope to permanently establish itself in power and destroy that system of
wages-slavery which keeps it under the yoke of the bourgeoisie. Thus the
secret organization of the Communists could not have the direct purpose of
upsetting the present governments of Germany. Being formed to upset not
these, but the insurrectionary government, which is sooner or later to follow
them, its members might, and certainly would, individually lend an active hand
to a revolutionary movement against the present status quo in its time; but
the preparation of such a movement, otherwise than by secret spreading of
Communist opinions by the masses, could not be an object of the Association.

So well was this foundation of the society understood by the majority of its
members, that when the place-hunting ambition of some tried to turn it into a
conspiracy for making an ex tempore revolution, they were speedily turned
out.
Now, according to no law upon the face of the earth, could such an
association be called a plot, a conspiracy for purposes of high treason. If it was
a conspiracy, it was one against, not the existing Government, but its probable
successors. And the Prussian Government was aware of it. That was the cause
why the eleven defendants were kept in solitary confinement during eighteen
months, spent, on the part of the authorities, in the strangest judicial feats.
Imagine, that after eight months detention, the prisoners were remanded for
some months more, there being no evidence of any crime against them! And
when at last they were brought before a jury, there was not a single overt act of
a treasonable nature proved against them. And yet they were convicted, and
you will speedily see how.
One of the emissaries of the society [Peter Nothjung] was arrested in May,
1851, and from documents found upon him, other arrests followed. A Prussian
police officer, a certain Stieber, was immediately ordered to trace the
ramifications, in London, of the pretended plot. He succeeded in obtaining
some papers connected with the abovementioned seceders from the society,
who had, after being turned out, formed an actual conspiracy in Paris and
London. These papers were, obtained by a double crime. A man named Reuter
was bribed to break open the writing desk of the secretary of the
society [Oswald Dietz], and steal the papers therefrom. But that was nothing
yet. This theft led to the discovery and conviction of the so-called FrancoGerman plot, in Paris, but it gave no clue as to the great Communist
Association. The Paris plot, we may as well here observe, was under the
direction of a few ambitious imbeciles and political chevaliers d'industrie in
London, and of a formerly convicted forger, then acting as a police spy in
Paris [Julien Cherval]; their dupes made up, by rapid declamations and bloodthirsty rantings, for the utter insignificance of their political existence.
The Prussian police, then, had to look out for fresh discoveries. They
established a regular office of secret police at the Prussian Embassy in London.
A police agent, Greif by name, held his odious vocation under the title of
an attach to the Embassy- a step which would suffice to put all Prussian
Embassies out of the pale of international law, and which even the Austrians
have not yet dared to take. Under him worked a certain Fleury, a merchant in
the City of London, a man of some fortune and rather respectably connected,
one of those low creatures who do the basest actions from an innate inclination

to infamy. Another agent was a commercial clerk named Hirsch, who,

however, had already been denounced as a spy on his arrival. He introduced
himself into the society of some German Communist refugees in London, and
they, in order to obtain proofs of his real character, admitted him for a short
time. The proofs of his connection with the police were very soon obtained,
and Mr. Hirsch, from that time, absented himself. Although, however, he thus
resigned all opportunities of gaining the information he was paid to procure, he
was not inactive. From his retreat in Kensington, where he never met one of
the Communists in question, he manufactured every week pretended reports of
pretended sittings of a pretended Central Committee of that very conspiracy
which the Prussian police could not get hold of. The contents of these reports
were of the most absurd nature; not a Christian name was correct, not a name
correctly spelt, not a single individual made to speak as he would be likely to
speak. His master, Fleury, assisted him in this forgery, and it is not yet proved
that Attach Greif can wash his hands of these infamous proceedings. The
Prussian Government, incredible to say, took these silly fabrications for gospel
truth, and you may imagine what a confusion such depositions created in the
evidence to be brought before the jury. When the trial came on, Mr. Stieber,
the already mentioned police officer, got into the witness-box, swore to all
these absurdities, and, with no little self-complacency, maintained that he had
a secret agent in the very closest intimacy with those parties in London who
were considered the prime movers in this awful conspiracy. This secret agent
was very secret indeed, for he had hid his face for eight months in Kensington,
for fear he might actually see one of the parties whose most secret thoughts,
words and doings he pretended to report week after week.
Messrs. Hirsch and Fleury, however, had another invention in store. They
worked up the whole of the reports they had made into an original Minute
Book of the sittings of the secret supreme committee, whose existence was
maintained by the Prussian police; and Mr. Stieber, finding that this book
wondrously agreed with the reports already received from the same parties, at
once laid it before the jury, declaring upon his oath that after serious
examination and according to his fullest conviction that book was genuine. It
was then that most of the absurdities reported by Hirsch were made public.
You may imagine the surprise of the pretended members of that secret
committee when they found things stated of them which they never knew
before. Some who were baptized William, were here christened Louis or
Charles; others, at the time they were at the other end of England, were made
to have pronounced speeches in London; others were reported to have read
letters they never had received; they were made to have met regularly on a
Thursday, when they used to have a convivial reunion, once a week, on

Wednesdays; a working man, who could hardly write, figured as one of the
takers of minutes and signed as such; and they all of them were made to speak
in a language which, if it may be that of Prussian police stations, was certainly
not that of a reunion in which literary men, favorably known in their country,
formed the majority. And, to crown the whole, a receipt was forged for a sum
of money, pretended to have been paid by the fabricators to the pretended
secretary of the fictitious Central Committee for this book; but the existence of
this pretended secretary rested merely upon a hoax that some malicious
Communist had played upon the unfortunate Hirsch.
This clumsy fabrication was too scandalous an affair not to produce the
contrary of its intended effect. Although the London friends of the defendants
were deprived of all means to bring the facts of the case before the jury
although the letters they sent to the counsel for the defense were suppressed by
the post although the documents and affidavits they succeeded in getting
into the hands of these legal gentlemen were not admitted in evidence, yet the
general indignation was such that even the public accusers, nay, even Mr.
Stieber whose oath had been given as a guarantee for the authenticity of
that book were compelled to recognize it as a forgery.
This forgery, however, was not the only thing of the kind of which the police
was guilty. Two or three more cases of the sort came out during the trial. The
documents stolen by Reuter were interpolated by the police so as to disfigure
their meaning. A paper, containing some rabid nonsense, was written in a
handwriting imitating that of Dr. Marx, and for a time it was pretended that it
had been written by him, until at last the prosecution was obliged to
acknowledge the forgery. But for every police infamy that was proved as such,
there were five or six fresh ones brought forward, which could not, at the
moment, be unveiled, the defense being taken by surprise, the proofs having to
he got from London, and every correspondence of the counsel for the defense
with the London Communist refugees being in open court treated as complicity
in the alleged plot!
That Greif and Fleury are what they are here represented to be has been
stated by Mr. Stieber himself, in his evidence; as to Hirsch, he has before a
London magistrate confessed that he forged the Minute Book by order and
with the assistance of Fleury, and then made his escape from this country in
order to evade a criminal prosecution.
The Government could stand few such branding disclosures as came to light
during the trial. It had a jury such as the Rhenish Province had not yet seen.
Six nobles, of the purest reactionist water, four Lords of Finance, two

Government officials. These were not the men to look closely into the
confused mass of evidence heaped before them during six weeks, when they
heard it continually dinned into their ears that the defendants were the chiefs of
a dreadful Communist conspiracy, got up in order to subvert everything sacred
property, family, religion, order, government and law! And yet, had not the
Government, at the same time, brought it to the knowledge of the privileged
classes, that an acquittal in this trial would be the signal for the suppression of
the jury; and that it would be taken as a direct political demonstration-as a
proof of the middle-class liberal opposition being ready to unite even with the
most extreme revolutionists the verdict would have been an acquittal. As it
was, the retroactive application of the new Prussian code enabled the
Government to have seven prisoners convicted, while four merely were
acquitted, and those convicted were sentenced to imprisonment varying from
three to six years, as you have, doubtless, already stated at the time the news
reached you.

Thursday, January 27, 2005

MARX DISLIKED JEWS BUT STILL SOUGHT MONEY FROM THEM

Marx to Engels (letter, 21.Jan.1853) "The little Jew Bamberger hasn't given me a centime so far, though he promised, and until he comes, I will draw at least 15 pounds on a bill to him, little by little".
(No other English translation available online)
The German
Marx an Engels, 21. Januar 1853
"Jdchen Bamberger hat mir bisher noch keinen Centime gegeben, aber versprochen, und ich werde ihm nach und nach auf den Wechsel wenigstens 15 (bis er kmmt) abpressen."
MEW a.a.O. 28, 207.

Wednesday, January 26, 2005

MARX THOUGHT THAT THE WORKERS WERE DONKEYS
Marx to Adolf Cluss (letter, 20.Jul.1852): "There are no bigger donkeys than these workers.... Look at our "craftsmen"; Sad that world history should be be made with such people".
(No other English translation available online)
The German
Marx an Adolf Clu, 20. Juli 1852
"Komplettere Esel als diese Arbeiter gibt es wohl nicht (...) Voil unsere Straubinger; schlimm, da mit solchen Leuten Weltgeschichte gemacht werden soll (...)"
MEW a.a.O. 28, 537.

Tuesday, January 25, 2005

SO WHERE DID HEGEL GET HIS IDEAS FROM?
I have pointed out previously that Marx & Engels got a lot of their ideas from Hegel and I picked out a quote from Hegel to illustrate what his central message was. In pointing to the "origin" of any idea or type of thinking, however, we of course run into Solomon's old and wise observation that "there is
nothing new under the sun". So the obvious next question is: "Where did Hegel get his ideas from?"
It is getting too far away from the main purpose of this blog to attempt to answer that in any detail but if a one-word answer is possible the answer is "Plato". Plato's Republic with its ideal of a polity ruled by "philosopher kings" has always had a lot of appeal to Leftists -- who mentally elect themselves as
the philosopher kings concerned -- so it should be no surprise that Hegel liked Plato too. I am indebted to a commentator here for drawing my attention to some excellent quotes from a Marxist site which spell that all out: The quotes are from an article on Hegel by Z. A. Pelczynski . We start with an
excerpt from Pelczynski and then go on to a quote from Hegel himself:
Pelczynski:

In Hegels Lectures on the History of Philosophy (the Haldane-Simson translation in three volumes published 1892-6) Hegel gives Platos Republic twenty-six pages of print, compared with the less than four that he gives to Aristotles Politics. He regarded Aristotles main political work as a common-sense but
pedantic and largely empirical treatise, while the Republic seemed to him a work of true genius and a most profound theory expressing the essence of Greek society and culture (PhR, Preface). The fundamental presupposition of the Republic and ancient Greek political life generally (Hegel argues) was the
absolute priority of the community over the individual. Hegel refers to it usually as the substantiality of the polis or the substantial character of ethical life in Greece. The ancient Greek thought of himself as a political animal by nature. He saw himself as a son of his city, a member of an ongoing and
historical community and not as an independent individual, facing other similar individuals in an atomistic state of nature or some rather loosely structured society which they had voluntarily established. A Greek citizen was so wholly immersed in the politics and ethos of his city that he cared little for
himself. He guided his actions not by his self-interest or some private conception of happiness and virtue, but by the traditional ideals of his city, which he accepted without questioning. One could say that he had no individuality in the full sense of the word; he was merely an instrument, a member of an
organism, which acted through him in pursuit of its own universal ends.
Hegel:

We are accustomed to take our start from the fiction of a condition of nature, which is truly no condition of mind, of rational will, but of animals among themselves: wherefore Hobbes has justly remarked that the true state of nature is a war of every man against his neighbour . . . The fiction of a state of
nature starts from the individuality of the person, his free will, and his relation to other persons according to this free will. What has been called natural law is law in and for the individual, and the condition of society and the state has been looked upon as the means of the individual person, who is the
fundamental end. Plato, in direct contrast with this lays as his foundation the substantial, the universal, and he does this in such a way that the individual as such has this very universal as his end, and the subject has his will, activity, life and enjoyment in the state, so that it becomes his second nature, his
habits and his customs. This ethical substance which constitutes the spirit, life and being of individuality, and which is its foundation, systematises itself into a living, organic whole, and at the same time it differentiates itself into its members, whose activity brings the whole into existence.
I am not of course going to argue with Hegel's reasoning and analysis here. The whole idea of a "state of nature" or an "original state" of mankind is a theoretical invention much beloved of all sorts of Leftists from Rousseau to Rawls but rests entirely on unsubstantiated assertions. If you could get a
libertarian to venture into such speculations he would probably counter-assert that the state of nature is voluntary co-operation between free, happy and autonomous individuals. And conservatives, of course, are concerned only about what has developed so far, rather than any high-flown theories that
reduce the vast complexity of humanity to simple generalizations.

Z. A. Pelczynski (1984)

Political community and individual freedom

in Hegel's philosophy of state
Source: The State and Civil Society, Cambridge University Press, 1984.

To the best of my knowledge Hegel never once uses the expression 'political
community'. He is, in fact, very sparing with the term 'community'
(Gemeinwesen) itself. It occurs, for example, in paragraph 150 of
the Philosophy of Right: 'In an ethical community, it is easy to say what man
must do, what are the duties he has to fulfil in order to be virtuous; he has
simply to follow the well-known and explicit rules of his own situation.'
Although the idea of community is crucial to his political thought, he is very
casual and eclectic about the terms in which to express it. In different contexts
he calls it 'substance', 'organism', 'organic whole', 'totality' and 'the
universal', das Allgemeine.
When Hegel has in mind specifically political community he calls it der
Staat (the state). His definition of the state is therefore highly stipulative, and
quite removed from the conventional meaning of this term. 'The state' for
Hegel means any ethical community which is politically organised and
sovereign, subject to a supreme public authority and independent from other
such communities. Ancient oriental empires, Greek city-states, the Roman
republic and the modern nation-states are all 'states' in his sense. A few
paragraphs after the reference to 'ethical community' in the Philosophy of
Right, there is a good example of his usage: 'When a father inquired about the
best method of educating his son in ethical conduct, a Pythagorean replied:
"Make him a citizen of a state with good laws" ' ( 153). Here, as in
innumerable places, Hegel refers to the polis, which was an ethical and
political community, simply as 'the state'.
Hegel seems to have been extremely unselfconscious about his esoteric use
of the term 'state', so different from the one common in his time and even more
today. Only in one place in the Philosophy of Right ( 267) does he feel the
need to distinguish the all-embracing sense of the state as a sovereign ethical
community from what he there refers to as 'the strictly political state and its
constitution'. 'The strictly political state' is a system of public organs, powers
or authorities through which an independent nation, a sovereign community,

governs itself.' I can think of only one place in the whole corpus of Hegel's
writings where the distinction between the esoteric and the common sense of
'the state' is clearly made, and where he offers something that might be taken
as a mild apology for his peculiar usage of the term. The place isReason in
History, a name sometimes given to the Introduction to the Lectures on the
Philosophy of World History. I would like to quote Hegel's remarks in full.
The spiritual individual, the nation - in so far as it is internally differentiated so as to form an
organic whole - is what we call the state. This term is ambiguous, however, for the state and the
laws of the state, as distinct from religion, science, and art, usual ave purely political
associations. But in this context, the word 'state' is used in a more comprehensive sense, just as
we use the word 'realm' to describe spiritual phenomena. A nation should therefore be regarded
as a spiritual individual, and it is not primarily its external side that will be emphasised here, but
rather what we have previously called the spirit of the nation . . . in short, those spiritual powers
which live within the nation and rule over it. (LPhWH, 96)

This is Hegel's clearest admission that the state and its laws 'usually have
purely political associations', but that he chooses nevertheless to define it much
more widely, to include not just the ethical life of a nation (as he does in
the Philosophy of Right) but all 'those spiritual powers which live within the
nation and rule over it'. Hegel goes on to list these spiritual powers' a few
pages further on in Reason in History:
A nation's religion, its laws, its ethical life, the state of its knowledge, its other particular
aptitudes and the industry by which it satisfies its needs, its entire destiny, and the relations with
its neighbours in war and peace - all these are extremely closely connected. (LPhWH, 101-2)

These two remarks in Reason in History are worth quoting in full also for
another reason. They draw our attention to an important but to my knowledge
never before noticed ambiguity in Hegel's idea of community. In
the Philosophy of Right it is the narrower concept of ethical life
(Sittlichkeit), derived from Plato and Aristotle, and Greek experience
generally, which underlies his theory of political community. An independent
nation is a political community when its members share certain ethical ideals
and are united by a generally accepted system of social morality prescribing
their duties, roles or functions in society. In other writings it is the wider
concept of national spirit (Volksgeist) which is the foundation of community
life. Derived from Montesquieu, as Hegel generously acknowledges in many
places,' it is not only a wider but a more modern idea. It corresponds in most
respects to our contemporary concept of culture. The state from this viewpoint
is a political community because it is a cultural community, because its
constitution is grounded in a national culture, because its political institutions
are deeply interwoven and interdependent with all the other aspects of culture,
and similarly express the genius, character or 'principle' of national culture . 4

While Montesquieu is justly credited with the discovery of the idea of political
culture, and Tocqueville with its brilliant use in Democracy in America, it
seems to me that Hegel too deserves some recognition for the development and
application of Montesquieu's insight.'
Hegel's primary source of inspiration and model of political community,
however, is to be found in Plato and not Montesquieu. Hegel respected
Aristotle as a metaphysician and in several ways was deeply influenced by
him, but he thought poorly of his practical philosophy. In Hegel's Lectures on
the History of Philosophy(the Haldane-Simson translation in three volumes
published 1892-6) Hegel gives Plato's Republic twenty-six pages of print,
compared with the less than four that he gives to Aristotle's Politics. He
regarded Aristotle's main political work as a common-sense but pedantic and
largely empirical treatise, while the Republic seemed to him a work of true
genius and a most profound theory expressing the essence of Greek society
and culture (PhR, Preface). The fundamental presupposition of
the Republic and ancient Greek political life generally (Hegel argues) was the
absolute priority of the community over the individual. Hegel refers to it
usually as the 'substantiality' of the polis or 'the substantial character of ethical
life' in Greece. The ancient Greek thought of himself as a political animal by
nature. He saw himself as a son of his city, a member of an ongoing and
historical community and not as an independent individual, facing other
similar individuals in an atomistic state of nature or some rather loosely
structured society which they had voluntarily established. A Greek citizen was
so wholly immersed in the politics and ethos of his city that he cared little for
himself. He guided his actions not by his self-interest or some private
conception of happiness and virtue, but by the traditional ideals of his city,
which he accepted without questioning.' One could say that he had no
individuality in the full sense of the word; he was merely an instrument, a
member of an organism, which acted through him in pursuit of its own
universal ends.
We are accustomed to take our start from the fiction of a condition of nature, which is truly no
condition of mind, of rational will, but of animals among themselves: wherefore Hobbes has
justly remarked that the true state of nature is a war of every man against his neighbour . . . The
fiction of a state of nature starts from the individuality of the person, his free will, and his
relation to other persons according to this free will. What has been called natural law is law in
and for the individual, and the condition of society and the state has been looked upon as the
means of the individual person, who is the fundamental end. Plato, in direct contrast with this
lays as his foundation the substantial, the universal, and he does this in such a way that the
individual as such has this very universal as his end, and the subject has his will, activity, life
and enjoyment in the state, so that it becomes his second nature, his habits and his customs. This
ethical substance which constitutes the spirit, life and being of individuality, and which is its
foundation, systematises itself into a living, organic whole, and at the same time it differentiates
itself into its members, whose activity brings the whole into existence. (LHPh, II, 92-3)

The basis of Plato's Republic was the ideal of justice, defined as keeping
one's proper place in the city or fulfilling the traditional duties of one's station
in life; it was the honouring of the established social morality of the city, its
ethical life or Sittlichkeit. This, in general, was the true Greek ethical ideal, but
in the Republic according to Hegel it was given an unusually oppressive
interpretation. Plato was conscious of elements of self-interest and critical
reflection, which he feared had undermined the existence of the polis, and he
sought to counter them through restrictions on marriage, property, the choice
of career and other rights, and the despotic power of the guardians. The fact
that he was prepared to go to such length, Hegel argues, revealed a
fundamental defect of Greek ethical life - its indifference to 'subjectivity' or
'subjective freedom'. It needed centuries of cultural and social development,
above all the rise of Christianity, for the ideal of subjective freedom to become
recognised and accepted, at least in the Western world.
The thinker in Hegel's opinion who expressed the ideal most clearly in the
context of modern secular life and society was Jean-Jacques Rousseau.
Rousseau's political thought is therefore the antithesis of Plato's, so to say the
opposite pole of the community-individuality relationship. On Hegel's rather
extreme interpretation Rousseau asserts the absolute primacy of the individual
over the community. The individual, his conscience and his will, however
arbitrary, are the foundation of society and the state. Traditions, customs,
established institutions and laws have no validity whatever unless men have
accepted them voluntarily. The essence of human liberty consists precisely in
this voluntary acceptance. In the Lectures on the History of Philosophy Hegel
sets up the antithesis of Plato and Rousseau with great clarity - "
The lack of subjectivity is really the defect of the Greek ethical idea . . . Plato has not recognized
knowledge, wishes, and resolutions of the individual, nor his self-reliance, and has not succeeded
in combining them with his idea; but justice demands its rights for this just as much as it requires
the higher elucidation of the same, and its harmony with the universal. The opposite to Plato's
principle is the principle of the conscious free will of individuals which in later times was more
especially by Rousseau raised to prominence: the necessity of the arbitrary choice of the
individual, as individual, the outward expression of the individual. (LHPh,II, 114, 115)

Later in the Lectures, in a short section which does little justice to Hegel's
considered estimate of Rousseau's significance in the history of political
philosophy, Hegel quotes the famous words of Du contrat social with
complete approval (if somewhat incorrectly): 'liberty is the distinguishing
feature of man. To renounce one's liberty is to renounce one's manhood'
(LHPh, III, 401). And a page later he writes:

The principle of freedom emerged in Rousseau, and gave man, who apprehends himself as
infinite, this infinite strength. This provides the transition to the Kantian philosophy, which
theoretically considered made the principle its foundation. (LHPH, III, 402)

Rousseau rejected the validity of all established morality, religion, customs

and institutions. Nothing external to the individual could claim any authority.
His personal conscience was the supreme judge of morality. Only that to which
the individual gave his free consent was binding on his will. The will of each
individual, unrestricted and unguided by anything except his own deeply felt
conception of virtue or the common good, was the foundation of law and
political association. There was nothing to ensure that the General Will de
facto differed from the will of all or the will of the majority. Rousseau
confused the truth that there could be no freedom without the consent of one's
mind and will with the very different proposition that such consent constituted
freedom. Without an external, objective, rational principle to guide our will it
becomes arbitrary and amoral. By systematically rejecting all established order
as the source of such principles Rousseau ended with no ethical leg to stand
on. The logical consequence of Rousseau's approach when followed in practice
was the dissolution of all society, community and state. In a long passage in
the Philosophy of Right Hegel attributes the excesses of the French Revolution
to Rousseau's ideas on will, consent and freedom, and to 'the reduction of the
union of individuals in the state to a contract and therefore to something based
on their arbitrary will':
when these abstract conclusions came into power, they afforded for the first time in human
history the prodigious spectacle of the overthrow of the constitution of a great actual state and its
complete reconstruction ab initio on the basis of pure thought alone, after the destruction of all
existing and given material. The will of its refounders was to give it what they alleged was a
purely rational basis, but it was only abstractions that were being used; the Idea [the true concept
of community] was lacking; and the experiment ended in the maximum of frightfulness and
terror. (PhR, 258)

The same idea of course Hegel had expressed thirteen years earlier in the
brilliant chapter on 'Absolute freedom and terror' in the Phenomenology of
Spirit (1807).
Hegel's own political philosophy may be seen as his reply to Rousseau's
conception of individual freedom or (to put it another way) as an attempt to do
justice both to Plato's and to Rousseau's insights into the human condition. The
Philosophy of Right is the most fully developed and the most theoretical
statement of Hegel's own position and offers us what he believes is a theory of
political community adequate to the modern world. Despite its schematic form
and extremely difficult and obscure terminology there is unfortunately no
better single place in which to explore Hegel's ideas on political community.

Hegel tries to come to terms with the truth of Rousseau's - and Kant's moral position - the concept of an autonomous subject whose essential
freedom consists in not being forced to accept anything as valid unless his
conscience, will and reason have given consent to it - in three major but
distinct ways. The first concerns the construction of his theory of political
community as we find it in the Philosophy of Right. There, in the long
Introduction, Hegel starts with the concept of the individual will (as Rousseau
required that one should) and not with the Platonic substantial' ethical, legal
and political order. He believes, and indeed argues, that such normative order
(Recht, 'law' or 'right', as he generally calls it) must be proved to be in some
deep philosophical sense the creation of the individual will, the outcome of its
immanent development towards full freedom, if it is to have legitimacy in the
modern world. In this philosophical endeavour he may have learned something
from Hobbes - beside Rousseau the only modem political philosopher Hegel
takes seriously - who in his 'rational generation of the commonwealth' in The
Leviathan also starts from the abstract individual and deduces the necessity
and authority of the state from the will of the multitude of such individuals.
The second major way in which Hegel seeks to meet the challenge of
Rousseau is by developing, within the framework of his theory of political
community, a theory of 'civil society' as its distinct but necessary aspect
('moment' in the Hegelian jargon). In the city-states of ancient Greece and in
republican Rome, Hegel believes, citizens enjoyed freedom only in so far as
they participated in the political life of their community and through their
actions - in peace or war - sustained its existence and furthered its welfare. The
unhampered pursuit of private, selfish interests, although it made an
appearance at the end of the Hellenic era and was institutionalised in civil law
in the era of the Roman Empire, was not conceived as freedom by the ancients.
It is a peculiarly modern idea of freedom - civil or bourgeois rather than
political or citizen freedom and it creates a new form of interdependence
among men. Instead of men aiming consciously at the common good, they
now aim at their own good, the acquisition of property or the furtherance of
individuality. But, without realising it, they indirectly satisfy the needs or
promote the interests of other men and establish new kinds of social bonds.
The Greeks were still unacquainted with the abstract right of our modern states, that isolates the
individual, allows of his acting as such, and yet, as an invisible spirit, holds all its parts together.
This is done in such a way, however, that in no one is there properly speaking either the
consciousness of, or the activity for the whole; but because the individual is really held to be a
person, and all his concern is the protection of his individuality, he works for the whole without
knowing how. It is a divided activity in which each has only his part, just as in a factory no one
makes a whole but only a part, and does not possess skill in other departments, because only a
few are employed in fitting the different parts together. It is free [i.e. republican] nations alone
that have the consciousness of and activity for the whole; in modern times the individual is only

free for himself as such, and enjoys citizen freedom alone - in the sense of that of
a bourgeois and not a citoyen. We do not possess two separate words to mark this distinction.
The freedom of citizens in this signification is the dispensing with universality, the principle of
isolation; but it is a necessary moment unknown to ancient states. (LHPh, II, 209)

In the Philosophy of Right Hegel uses the term 'civil society' to describe this
particular dimension of the modern state as a political community the 'civil'
sphere in which individuals seek to satisfy each other's needs through work,
production and exchange; in which there is a thorough-going division of labour
and a system of social classes; and in which law courts, corporate bodies and
public regulatory and welfare authorities ('the police') promote security of
property, livelihood and other rights, This system of interdependence, says
Hegel, 'may be prima facie regarded as the external state, the state based on
need, the state as the Understanding envisages it' (PhR, 183), but only prima
facie.
The state in the proper sense of the word - as a sovereign political unit,
which is also an ethical and cultural community - implies more than a system
of needs', civil rights and social welfare. It implies an institutional public
forum in which matters concerning the community as a whole are debated and
decided upon, and the decisions carried out by the government. In this public
or political arena the needs of civil society and of the national community are
appraised and evaluated, and the unity of private interests and community
values is realised in a conscious and organised manner.
The state is the actuality of concrete freedom. But concrete freedom consists in this, that
personal individuality and its particular interests not only achieve their complete development
and gain explicit recognition for their right (as they do in the sphere of the family and civil
society) but, for one thing, they also pass over of their own accord into the interest of the
universal, and, for another thing, they know and will the universal; they even recognise it as their
own substantive mind; they take it as their end and aim and are active in its pursuit. The result is
that the universal does not prevail or achieve completion except along with particular interests
and through the co-operation of particular knowing and willing; and individuals likewise do not
live as private persons for their own ends alone, but in the very act of willing these they will the
universal in the light of the universal, and their activity is consciously aimed at none but the
universal end. The principle of modern states has prodigious strength and depth because it allows
the principle of subjectivity to progress to its culmination in the extreme of self-subsistent
personal particularity, and yet at the same time brings it back to the substantive unity and so
maintains this unity in the principle of subjectivity itself. (PhR, 260)

We are not concerned with the details of Hegel's conception of 'the political
state and its constitution', the political organisation of the modern national
community. After the breath-taking conceptualisation of the modern state in
260, Hegel's description of its political organisation comes rather as an anticlimax. The supreme public authority consists of hereditary monarchy, an
executive of ministers and higher civil servants responsible to the king, a

representative body based on estates and corporations, and a system of public

opinion or (as he puts it) 'public communication' ( 319). Through this political
mechanism and the mechanism of civil society the 'abstract' freedom of the
individual, conceived by Rousseau in complete isolation from all ethical,
social and political context, is made 'concrete'. The individual finds a scope
both for his personal interests and subjective choices and for the disinterested
service to the ethical ideals and public interests of the community. He is (as
Hegel is fond of expressing it) a bourgeois by virtue of belonging to the civil
realm but a citoyen because of his membership of the political realm.
The third major way in which Hegel responds to Rousseau's challenge is by
developing in the Philosophy of Right a theory of freedom, which is more
adequate that Rousseau's own ideas. I use the term 'theory' deliberately,
because it is not just a single alternative concept of freedom, say 'positive'
freedom, which Hegel offers us instead, but a whole series of separate but
related concepts linked together in a systematic way.
At the heart of Rousseau's political philosophy lies the well-known
conundrum which Hegel, in the Lectures on the History of Philosophy, quotes
in full in German and the original French.
The problem is to find a form of association which will defend and protect with the whole
common force the person and goods of each associate, and in which each, while uniting himself
with all, may still obey himself alone, and remain as free as before.'

Hegel denies that Rousseau has succeeded in solving the conundrum. Man
cannot 'remain as free as before' after entering the political community. He
must either restrict his freedom or transform its nature. Starting from a will
that is only potentially free, he must develop it to its full capacity - to make it
actually free, in the community. He will then not be 'as free as before', but
more free; he will have achieved a higher, more adequate and more satisfying
type of freedom - true, real or actual freedom. Many of Rousseau's interpreters
have seen him as moving in the same general direction as Hegel. As a result of
the social contract man no longer 'obeys himself alone' but the 'general will',
which is both his own higher will, and the will of the community of likeminded citizens, and is articulated and expressed through the mechanism of
direct popular legislation in a republican state. But if this is Rousseau's
solution, Hegel rejects it as unsatisfactory; he denies that Rousseau can
logically arrive at a conception of a general will which genuinely transcends
particular wills.
The merit of Rousseau's contribution to the research for a rational basis of the state is that by
adducing the will as the principle of the state, he is adducing a principle which has thought both

for its form and content, a principle indeed which is thinking itself . . . Unfortunately, however,
as Fichte did later, he takes the will only in an indeterminate form as the individual will, and he
regards the universal will not as the absolutely rational element in the will but only as a 'general'
will which proceeds out of the individual will as out of conscious will. (PhR, 258)

In other words Rousseau's general will remains an artificial construct, the

will of all or majority will, instead of becoming the living ethos of a political
community which Hegel argues is 'the absolutely rational element in the will'.
In his solution of the problem of liberty in the Philosophy of Right Hegel
enlists the help of his speculative philosophical method. He treats freedom as a
concept which develops dialectically, as a result of contradictions inherent in
its own nature and so unfolds new features at different stages of development
until the process is completed and 'the idea of freedom' - the full actualisation
of the concept - is reached in the structure of the rational modern state. The
movement is from an 'abstract' concept of freedom, linked to a single
individual will, to a 'concrete freedom' actualised in a political community as a
rational system of wills. In this essay I shall not follow Hegel's footsteps
faithfully, i.e. dialectically. Apart from the enormous difficulty and obscurity
of the dialectic method I believe that it does not really work in the Philosophy
of Right. Hegel does not succeed in proving the necessity of transition from
one stage to another, and his attempt to do so produces many tortured and
implausible arguments. I shall nevertheless follow Hegel's stages of
development, restating and simplifying them somewhat, and hoping in this
way to throw sufficient light on his solution of the individuality-community
problem.
Hegel's conception of freedom might perhaps be called 'contextual', though
this is a term which to my knowledge has not been applied to his or any other
idea of freedom. I mean by this that Hegel conceives freedom always in a
social context, or more accurately in the context of human interaction. The
structure of such interaction constitutes the context of freedom in which it
becomes something concrete and definite, an actuality rather than a mere idea.
In pursuing Hegel's line of inquiry it is possible to distinguish four major kinds
of freedom and four corresponding contexts or models of human interaction.
These are: natural, ethical, civil and political, and I propose to look at them in
this order.

Natural Freedom
The foundation of the Hegelian theory of freedom rests on his concept of the
will. Will is not a separate faculty, distinct from reason; thought and will are

simply two aspects or modes of reason: 'the will is ... a special way of thinking,
thinking translating itself into existence, thinking as the urge to give itself
existence' (PhR, 4 A). In choosing, deciding and acting a man thinks, reflects
and uses concepts; he manifests or expresses his rationality, which is his
essential characteristic. The way a man views himself, the image he has of
himself or, more adequately, the conception he has of himself as a human
being determines what kind of will he has and therefore what kind of
interaction with other men is possible for him. Freedom is therefore bound up
with self-consciousness and true freedom presupposes true self-consciousness.
The self-consciousness which purifies its object, content, and aim, and raises them to the
universality effects this as thinking getting its own way in the will. Here is the point at which it
becomes clear that it is only as thinking intelligence that the will is genuinely a will and free.
The slave does not know his essence, his infinity, his freedom; he does not know himself as
human in essence; and he lacks this knowledge of himself because he does not think himself.
This self-consciousness which apprehends itself through thinking as essentially human, and
thereby frees itself from the contingent and the false, is the principle of right, morality, and all
ethical life. (PhR, 21R)

The will itself, at its most basic, is a complex idea; in the simplest act of
willing Hegel distinguishes three elements or 'moments'. According to Hegel's
theory of 'subjective spirit' will is foreshadowed in impulse and sentiment,
which largely determine our conduct in childhood. At the level of development
at which will and thought can be clearly distinguished from desire and feeling
an act of will contains according to Hegel:
(1) 'the element of pure indeterminacy or that pure reflection of the ego into

itself which involves the dissipation of every restriction and every content'
(PhR, 5). This is the element of withdrawal from, or rejection of, all external
determinators, an assertion of the will's independence vis--vis the external
world.
When the will's self-determination consists in this alone, or when representative thinking regards
this side by itself as freedom and clings to it, then we have negative freedom or freedom as the
Understanding conceives it. (PhR, 5)

(2) The second moment, 'the particularisation of the ego', consists in the ego

giving itself 'differentiation, determination and positing a determinacy as a

content and object' ( 6). This content may be something natural a need or
desire - or something rational - some thought or principle of action. The
determination or focusing of the ego on something definite or particular, the
self-identification of the ego with it, constitutes the second, 'positive' element
involved in willing, the second partial but essential aspect of the will.

(3) 'The will is the unity of both these moments.... It is the selfdetermination of

the ego, which means that at one and the same time the ego posits itself as its
own negative, i.e. as restricted and determinate, and yet remains by itself, i.e.
in its self-identity and universality' (i.e. as a source of all determinations). 'This
is the freedom of the will and it constitutes the concept or substantiality of the
will, its weight so to speak, just as weight constitutes the substantiality of a
body' ( 7). Differently put, an act of will implies an agent capable of rejecting
all courses of action except the one that he really chooses to follow.
When a man is so self-determined but the only content of his will the only
source of his determinations - are his impulses, appetites and desires, he has
what Hegel calls an 'immediate or natural' will ( ll). Such a will does not act
according to its rational nature, although it is capable of utilitarian rationality;
Hegel admits that impulses can be compared and evaluated in the light of
experience and selected on grounds of satisfaction or happiness ( 20). The
indeterminacy of the will in the absence of a truly rational criterion of choice
constitutes 'arbitrariness' (Willkiir). Such indeterminate, arbitrary will has
sometimes been considered a paradigm of free will, but this is a serious
mistake in Hegel's view.
The choice which I have is grounded in the universality of the will, in the fact that I can make
this or that mine. This thing that is mine is particular in content and therefore not adequate to me
and so is separate from me; it is only potentially mine, while I am the potentiality of linking
myself to it. Choice, therefore, is grounded in the indeterminacy of the ego and the determinancy
of a content. Thus the will, on account of this content, is not free, although it has an infinite
aspect in virtue of its form. No single content is adequate to it and in no single content is it really
at grips with itself. Arbitrariness implies that the content is made mine not by the nature of my
will but by chance. Thus I am dependent on this content, and this is the contradiction lying in
arbitrariness. The man in the street thinks he is free if it is open to him to act as he pleases, but
his very arbitrariness implies that he is not free. When I will what is rational, then I am acting
not as a particular individual but in accordance with the concept of ethics in general. In an ethical
action, what I vindicate is not myself but the thing. (PhR, 15A)

In other words, true freedom is ethical freedom and can only be reached in
an ethical community. Because the arbitrary wills of men do not coincide when
they act capriciously, an orderly, structured society of natural men is
impossible. It can only be conceived as an abstraction, 'a state of nature', in
which impulse and violence reign unchecked, a Hobbesian state of 'war of all
against all' in which life is 'nasty, brutish and short' and from which man
should seek to escape by all means. Hegel regards 'natural freedom' as the
freedom peculiar to such a state of nature; it is the only freedom which
independent, egocentric and impulse-driven individuals can possibly have
when they find themselves in a shared physical space. However, arbitrary
choice has a place in a rational normative order, as Hegel admits in his account
of civil society; in fact it is one of its fundamental constituents.

Ethical Freedom
In order to have a minimum kind of stable interaction possible it is necessary
that all men should recognise certain rules or principles of action, and follow
them in practice. The minimum amount of rules that a rational agent will
recognise and accept as rational will obviously be those which safeguard his
life, limb and possessions, and which guarantee to him an area of activity free
from the invasion and interference of others. Within this area each man can do
what he pleases and can exercise his natural, immediate or arbitrary will to the
fullest extent compatible with an equal opportunity of everybody else in
society to do the same. The system of such rational rules, based on reciprocity
and a necessary minimum of restriction, Hegel calls 'abstract right'. It is really
the natural law of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which was based
on the revival of Roman law; in his discussions of the Roman Empire Hegel
makes it clear that the idea of law as defining and protecting private rights of
individuals was discovered precisely in that epoch of world history.
Hegel's analysis of abstract right and its component elements of personality
(capacity for rights), property, contract and wrongdoing in the Philosophy of
Right add much to our understanding of his conception of freedom. Hegel
bases the system of personal rights on man's appropriation of natural objects
and the recognition of possessions as rightful property by other men. By
appropriating things man rises above nature and asserts his independence as a
free agent: 'a person is a unit of freedom aware of its sheer independence'
(PhR, 35A). However, the principles of abstract right are 'actualised' in the
positive legal system of civil society and thus become a part of the broader
normative order of Sittlichkeit. They need not be discussed separately.
The same applies to the sphere of morality which in Hegel's view forms
another element of ethical life. By morality Hegel means conduct determined
by one's conscience, noble intentions or subjective judgement of what is
absolutely good. Abstract right (and the positive law based upon it) is
indifferent to motives and merely requires external conformity to objective
rules of conduct. The
question about the self-determination and motive of the will now enters . . . in connection with
morality. Since man wishes to be judged in accordance with his own self-determined choices, he
is free in this relation to himself whatever the external situation may impose upon him ... Man's
worth is estimated by reference to his inward action and hence the standpoint of morality is that
of freedom aware of itself. (PhR, 106A)

As we have already seen this is the conception of freedom Hegel ascribes to

Rousseau and Kant and criticizes as inadequate - false in theory and disastrous
in practice. However, as an element of Sittlichkeit it has an essential place in
modern social and political life. It is a necessary corrective to all normative
structures based on positive law, conventional morality and traditional
institutions.
Sittlichkeit is the real context in which men achieve freedom or
selfdetermination. It is a structure of human interaction based on established
laws and institutions which have survived the test of experience but also
theoretical scrutiny. It is the actual, social mechanism through which men are
shaped into ethical agents - creatures in practice acting according to laws,
recognising and fulfilling obligations, sometimes sharing aims and purposes
with other men, and pursuing them through their joint endeavours. When
Hegel speaks of ethical life as a 'substance' and men as its accidents' he wishes
to draw our attention to the thoroughgoing way in which ethical life moulds
man's nature or 'socialises' individuals." Sittlichkeit comprises the existing
normative world, the historical world of human relations and ideals, and is so
to speak the soil in which abstract right and morality grow. Without it the other
two are meaningful only as hypothetical conditions or abstract models of
human interaction.
The right and the moral cannot exist independently; they must have the
ethical as their support and foundation, for the right lacks the moment of
subjectivity, while morality in turn possesses that moment alone, and
consequently both the right and the moral lack actuality by themselves. (PhR,
141A)
In concrete historical terms the right and the moral are simply 'moments' or
aspects of Sittlichkeit, which develop within the matrix of man's traditional
social life in the course of world history, in the modern era, and enrich the
primitive, simple, undifferentiated customary ethics with new and important
elements: self-interest and conscience or, in Hegelian terminology,
'particularity' and 'subjectivity'. In terms of European culture Sittlichkeit is the
ethical existence of the modem European man when he has become aware of
his individuality, asserted its rights in theory and practice, and at the same time
has accepted the necessity of an objectively existing ethical order in which his
individuality is realised.
Looked at from another angle ethical life is the sum total of the determinants
of the will - the ethical norms, rules or principles of actions which provide the
substance of human decisions in so far as they are the acts of concrete

thinking, choosing and willing agents. The key normative idea of Sittlichkeit is
duty (Pflicht).
In Sittlichkeit the agent is faced with clusters of duties arising out of his
concrete social position, for example as husband or father, employer or
employee, teacher or student, member of an estate, profession or corporation, a
voter, a parliamentary representative or a civil servant. These duties are not
abstract or general as Kantian categorical imperatives are; they are contextual,
particularised, tied to our special social roles, dependent on the sphere of
activity in which we are engaged. The more complex, articulated and
developed a structure society or community forms, the wider is the range of
roles available to its individual members, but also the more elaborate the
system of duties which ethically bind them. In other words duties are the
content of laws, institutions, organisations and communities which together
make up the structure of an ethical community. And in so far as they have been
internalised as habits and dispositions, they are the content of volitions
(cp. PhR, 150R).
Hegel defines the freedom peculiar to Sittlichkeit ('ethical freedom') in terms
of duty. This is paradoxical only if we accept the Hobbesian view that duties
bind us and restrict our freedom of movement. But for Hegel there is no
paradox.
The bond of duty can appear as a restriction only on indeterminate subjectivity or abstract
freedom, and on the impulses either of the natural will or of the moral will which determines its
indeterminate good arbitrarily. The truth is, however, that in duty the individual finds his
liberation; first, liberation from dependence on mere natural impulse and from the depression
which as a particular subject he cannot escape in his moral reflections on what ought to be and
what might be; secondly, liberation from the indeterminate subjectivity which, never reaching
reality or the objective determinacy of action, remains self-enclosed and devoid of actuality. In
duty the individual acquires his substantive freedom. (PhR, 149)

In the Addition to this paragraph he concludes:

Thus duty is not a restriction on freedom, but only on freedom in the abstract, i.e. on unfreedom.
Duty is the attainment of our essence, the winning of positive freedom.

This conception of freedom as the conscientious acceptance and fulfilment

of one's ethical obligations (in Bradley's famous phrase 'my station and its
duties') may at first sight appear somewhat unattractive. Even if Hegel's perfect
freedom was not simply the obedience to the Prussian state that it has
sometimes been alleged to be, this kind of 'substantial' or 'positive' freedom
appears compatible with all sorts of situations in which there is very little
liberty as it is generally understood by liberals or democrats. A traditional

patriarchal society, a feudal monarchy or a modern collectivise, highly

regulated state would all seem happily to fit Hegel's conception of an ethical
order. But to think that would be to ignore the peculiar modern dimensions
of Sittlichkeit represented by abstract right and morality, which have just been
mentioned. To count as true Sittlichkeit the ethical order in our own epoch
must be shot through with personal rights and spheres of autonomy, and be
acceptable to individual conscience. It must (in other words) incorporate the
principles of particularity and subjectivity (cp. PhR, 260 quoted above).
Hegel develops this point at great length in the Philosophy of Right in the
sections of ethical life dealing with civil society and the state, but a word must
be said about his concept of family which is, in fact, the basic form of ethical
life. The family (i.e. the modern family) also has a subjective dimension - for
example in the free choice of partners in marriage or the decision to beget
children. It may also satisfy particular needs and desires of individuals for
companionship, affection, emotional security and sexual gratification; to some
extent it still has an economic function. Yet the dominant elements even in the
modem family are 'universality' and 'objectivity'. It is a community which,
despite love and affection, often faces its members as something burdensome,
something which essentially restricts their arbitrary will. It requires of
everybody frequent acts of self-sacrifice and the submersion of particularity in
a common life. It is also, for the children at least, a necessity they cannot easily
escape. The family is the only community in the modem world
where Sittlichkeit in its primordial sense operates in a more or less pure form
through precept, habit, unconscious imitation and other devices; these shape
the individual's natural will and teach him the elements of ethical life - the
recognition and acceptance of multifarious duties and moral discipline over
desires and appetites, a discipline which is external to start with, but gradually
becomes internalised as self-discipline.
In one sense Sittlichkeit pervades all aspects of social life, all relations,
institutions, organisations and communities; it is, so to speak, their ethical
substratum. But in the modern world it takes on the shape of two
distinct ethical systems - complex and interdependent ('organic') social wholes
the civil and the political order. In the latter, as in the family, the universal and
the substantial elements predominate.

Civil Freedom
By contrast with the family and the political community the elements of
particularly and subjectivity (self-interest and personal choice) come to the

fore in, and are the dominant characteristics of, civil society. In civil society
men interact with the minimum of ethical or legal constraints. In 206 of
the Philosophy of Right Hegel observes that in modern society, in the choice of
a career or trade (and therefore class or estate membership), 'the essential and
final and determining factors are subjective opinions and the individual
arbitrary will, which win in this sphere their right, their merit and their dignity'.
In Plato's Republic and in the ancient world generally (as Hegel points out
in PhR, 206R) one's social status was largely determined by the accident of
birth or by the fiat of a despotic authority; free choice of one's role in society
was not recognized or secured by appropriate law and institutions as it is in the
modern civil society.
when subjective particularity is upheld by the objective order in conformity
with it and is at the same time allowed its rights, then it becomes the animating
principle of the entire civil society, of the development alike of mental activity,
merit and dignity. The recognition and the right that what is brought about by
reason of necessity in civil society and the state shall at the same time be
effected by the mediation of the arbitrary will is the more precise definition of
what is primarily meant by freedom in common parlance. (PhR, 206R)
'Freedom in common parlance', or what one might call 'civil freedom' in the
context of civil society, implies for Hegel the presence of various civil and
economic rights, the right of association, the right to a trial by jury, the right to
promote group interests through corporations, and the right to public assistance
and protection against misfortune or the vagaries of the market. Many of them
represent the enactment and institutionalisation of the sphere of abstract right the realm of legal prohibitions which make it possible for men to act without
getting into each other's way. In 230 he seems to anticipate the rise of the socalled social or welfare state rights because he argues that 'the right actually
present in the particular requires . . . that the securing of every single person's
livelihood and welfare be treated and actualised as a right, i.e. that particular
welfare as such be treated'. 'The police' in his special sense of the word and the
corporation are concerned with the security of such social rights.
If we consider the question of duties, we can see that civil society with its
complex and increasingly articulated structure provides individuals with a host
of new social roles and ethical duties. They are not left to custom or
convention alone. They are formulated in clear and unambiguous laws.
Positive law, when rationally reformed, ensures that our actual social
obligations do not contradict the principles of abstract right and morality, for
example do not involve slavery, serfdom, arbitrary restrictions on property,
compulsory religious attendance or membership of a religious sect. As a self-

conscious ethical agent the modern man accepts his obligations gladly and
performs them willingly. But he does nevertheless make a sacrifice of a part of
his individuality in so doing. Modern community, so to speak, compensates the
individual for this sacrifice by furthering his self-interest, by protecting his
private rights and welfare, by caring for him as an individual. And this care is
extended to him equally and universally as a man, irrespective of religion or
nationality, as his basic human right (cf. PhR, 209R).

Political Freedom
The culminating point of the development of individual will towards freedom
in the Philosophy of Right is the political realm, the sphere o' the supreme
public authority of 'the strictly political state'. it would seem to follow that
'political freedom' - the ethical freedom corresponding to this sphere of
interaction - is the highest form of human freedom. We find, however, that
'political freedom' is an elusive concept in the Philosophy of Right, and Hegel
has rather more to say about it in his minor political works, especially those
which he wrote before he took up residence in Berlin. The most likely
explanation is that the completion of the Philosophy of Rightcoincided with the
onset of reaction in Prussia, after a period of considerable liberalism, and it is
more than likely that prudence (or political expediency) tempered Hegel's
theoretical zeal in this area of his political philosophy. In fact the clearest
acknowledgment of the importance of public freedom occurs in the Philosophy
of Right not in the section on the constitution of the state, but in the context of
Hegel's discussion of the corporation, which is an institution of civil society.
The primary work of the corporation is to achieve security and other sectional
benefits for its members, to promote group interests; but it incidentally fosters
various ethical characteristics in its members - a sense of honesty, group pride,
a sense of belonging and the consciousness of a common end for which they
are united. 'As family was the first, so the Corporation is the second ethical
root of the state, the one planted in civil society' (PhR, 255).
Under modern political conditions, the citizens have only a restricted share in the public business
of the state, yet it is essential to provide men - ethical entities - with work of a public character
over and above their private business. This work of a public character, which the modern state
does not always provide, is found in the Corporation. . . . It is in the Corporation that
unconscious compulsion first changes into a known and ethical mode of life. (PhR, 255A)

In the strictly political section of the Philosophy of Right we get only a

vague idea what political freedom means and why it is the culminating
moment in the development of the will to complete self-determination.
Although Hegel purports to offer a dialectical argument, it is clear that for

pragmatic reasons he does not think that the opportunity to exercise political
freedom need be as wide as the scope to enjoy civil freedom, and makes
political freedom a universal right of all citizens only in a very attenuated
form. Effectively political participation is a privilege of an elite.
There are a number of reasons why Hegel nevertheless thinks the state to be
vitally important for freedom and why it is in the state, a politically organised
and governed community, that human freedom reaches it fullest embodiment.
Let us imagine that we are members of a Hegelian civil society which appears
to be fully rational and developed, in that it genuinely respects and promotes
our particular interests and subjective choices through an appropriate system of
laws and institutions. We fully enjoy what Hegel calls 'freedom in the common
parlance', or civil freedom. Are we then completely self-conscious and selfdetermined, or is there still some extra element or dimension of freedom which
is lacking? Hegel would probably answer this question along the following
lines.
(1) Civil society, although autonomous, is ultimately subject to the political

state and its governmental authority ('state power'). Rights may be abrogated,
as they are in times of war or civil disturbance; property may be taxed for
public purposes; corporate rights may be curtailed or independent social
activities taken over by public bodies.
In contrast with the spheres of private rights and private welfare (the family and civil society),
the state is from one point of view an external necessity and their higher authority; its nature is
such that their laws and interests are subordinate to it and dependent on it. (PhR, 261)

When the need for the state's intervention arises there is no machinery within
civil society to explain and justify the need, and without it the intervention has
the appearance of an arbitrary, high-handed activity. The certainty that
sacrifices for the sake of the common good or some other higher ethical
principles are justified requires an exchange of views, an expression of
opinions, an institutional channel for the debate of public issues. Although
Hegel in the Philosophy of Right goes out of his way to stress the capricious
and often trivial character of public opinion, and wishes to curb its 'excesses',
he regards it as a necessary element of political life and the chief manifestation
of 'subjective freedom' in the public realm.
The formal subjective freedom of individuals consists in their having and expressing their own
private judgments, opinions and recommendations on affairs of state. This freedom is
collectively manifested as what is called 'public opinion'. (PhR, 316)

The operation of public opinion presupposes the freedom of the press,

publication and association, all of which can exist in civil society and indeed
constitute essential civic freedoms. Hegel, however, argues - quite correctly that such public opinion is either impotent or dangerous as long as it is not
related to governmental authority. It is the function of a representative body to
remedy this defect. This body, which Hegel call, 'the Assembly of Estates',
forms part of the governmental authority or state power', and is a specifically
political, not civil, institution.
The Estates have the function of bringing public affairs into existence not only implicitly, but
also actually, i.e., of bringing into existence the moment of subjective formal freedom, the public
consciousness as an empirical universal, of which the thoughts and opinions of the Many are
particulars. (PhR, 300)

in them [the Estates] the subjective moment in universal freedom - the

private judgement and private will of the sphere called 'civil society' in this
book - comes into existence integrally related to the state. (PhR 111)
It is well known that in the Philosophy of Right Hegel is extremely vague
about the power of the Estates' Assembly, and in all his political writings he
insists that rational suffrage is not universal, direct and individual, but limited,
indirect and based on communities or organised interests. It should reflect the
social articulation of the national and ethical community. Nevertheless, even in
the Philosophy of Right, he treats the principle of representation as a rational
feature of the modern state.
(2) Hegel makes the further point that the representative assembly, like the rest

of the supreme public authority, is concerned with laws and policies which are
necessarily general and must be discussed in universal, rational terms.
The state, therefore knows what it wills and knows it in its universality, i.e. as something
thought. Hence it works and acts by reference to consciously adopted ends, known principles,
and laws which are not merely implicit but are actually present to consciousness. (PhR, 315A)

In the final analysis such ends and principles are part of the general culture
of a particular country and express its 'national spirit'. Public opinion and
representative institutions are the means through which the principles are
related to the practical concerns of the community, where fundamental issues
of public life are raised and thrashed out in debate. This makes deputies and
the country at large conscious of the principles underlying the actual ethical
order, reveals possible inadequacies and contradictions, and generates
demands for reform. As for J. S. Mill, so for Hegel, representative government
is an essential agency of national education (see PhR, 315A). Political
institutions promote the kind of national and political self-consciousness which

men do not acquire by being mere members of civil society, and they
contribute to freedom because they clarify the principles on which the ethical,
social and political life of their community is based.
(3) Another reason for Hegel's dissatisfaction with civil freedom as an

adequate form of ethical freedom stems from the form of human interaction
peculiar to civil society. Although 'burghers' come to depend closely on each
other and form a relatively integrated society, their social interdependence is
brought about to some extent by the external forces of needs, labour, the
division of labour and the market, and not merely through inner individual
commitment or personal choice. Also, while performing their duties to each
other and cooperating closely, men remain primarily their own private ends they (or as Hegel would say, their wills) do not consciously pursue their
'substantial' end, which is the existence of an ethical community making
complete freedom possible, They promote the interest of such community only
implicitly, indirectly, unconsciously. To this extent they remain within the
realm of necessity more akin to nature than to the spiritual realm of freedom.
The unity of particularity and universality in civil society is achieved without
the knowledge and will of its members and so
is not the identity which the ethical order requires, because at this level, that of division, both
principles are self-subsistent. It follows that this unity is present here not as freedom but as
necessity, since it is by compulsion that the particular rises to the form of universality and seeks
and gains its stability in that form. (PhR, 186)

By contrast in the political community or the state

the universal does not prevail or achieve completion except along with particular interests and
through the co-operation of particular knowing and willing and individuals likewise do not live
as private persons for their own ends alone, but in the very act of willing these they will the
universal in the light of the universal, and their activity is consciously aimed at none but the
universal end. (PhR, 260)

Man as potentially free, self-determined agent, once he has become

conscious of his nature, cannot allow himself to be determined by social forces
operating on him externally, like natural forces, all the more so as those forces
are in the last resort the product of his thought and will and so are potentially
under his control. His proper end - the membership of a rational ethical
community - must be his own conscious aim, otherwise he is not fully free. By
participating in political activities, the public affairs of his state, the individual
makes a direct contribution to the life and development of the community and
thereby increases his selfdetermination. As we have seen, a start towards this
kind of freedom is made already in civil society through the corporation, which
changes the unconscious compulsion' of working for others in the market

economy into 'a known and thoughtful ethical mode of life' (PhR, 255A).
The modern state creates further opportunities for participation to its citizens,
although it allocates different shares according to education, property and
status.
(4) Hegel's final line of argument that political freedom is distinct from civil

freedom, and represents the highest stage in the development of freedom, is his
version of Rousseau's idea of the General Will. Rousseau insisted that the
General Will had to express or manifest itself in the actions of individual
citizens performing public functions, especially voting on laws. The General
Will is the rational or moral will of citizens acting for the common good (the
general interest of the body politic) rather than for their own personal good or
private interest. For Hegel the common good or public interest is identical with
the totality of rational laws and institutions of a community and constitutes the
'objective will' of the community.
Confronted with the claims made for the individual will, we must remember the fundamental
conception that the objective will is rationality simplicity or in conception, whether it be
recognised or not by individuals, whether their whims be deliberately for it or not. (PhR, 258R)

But although Hegel differs from Rousseau by postulating a transcendent

General Will which, as the 'objective will' of a rationally structured
community, is more than the sum of individual wills, he agrees with him that
such will must express or manifest itself in the actual thinking and willing of
individual citizens, consciously identifying their subjective will with the
'objective will' and its needs. This union of subjective and objective will
constitutes 'concrete freedom', which is higher than the abstract subjective and
objective freedoms taken by themselves. It is through the political institutions
of the ethical community that the reconciliation of the subjective and objective
aspects of the will is effected.
In the Philosophy of Right the necessity of the subjective will assenting to
laws and other requirements of the common good is argued by Hegel only with
the reference to the monarch, as the official head of the political community,
but in his Philosophy of Mind, the third part of the Encyclopaedia of the
Philosophical Sciences(1830), this necessity is explicitly stated also with
reference to the mass of citizens. In paragraph 544 of this work Hegel raises
the question 'in what sense are we to understand the participation of private
persons in state affairs?', and after ruling out superior intelligence or good will
of the people as an adequate reason he answers his question as follows:
The desirability of private persons taking part in public affairs is partly to be put in their
concrete, and therefore more urgent, sense of general wants. But the true motive is the right of

the community (collective) spirit to appear as an externally universal will, acting with orderly
and express efficacy for the public concerns. By such satisfaction of this right it gets its own life
quickened, and at the same time breathes fresh life in the administrative officials; who thus have
it brought home to them that not merely have they to enforce duties but also to have regard to
rights. Private citizens are in the state the incomparably greater number and form the multitude
of such as are recognised as persons. Hence the rational will (will-reason) exhibits its existence
in them as a preponderating majority of freemen, or in its 'reflectional universality' which has its
actuality vouchsafed it as a participation in the sovereignty.

The meaning of this somewhat poorly translated passage is fairly clear: the
rational will of the ethical community, public, affairs must be mediated
through the wills of the multitude and must take the form of an externally
universal (general) will', i.e. one embodied in the particular wills of the citizens
exercising political rights or participating in sovereignty. Only then does the
general will become fully alive and acquire universal existence.
We may therefore conclude that Hegel has largely justified his claim that
'the [modern] state is the actuality of concrete freedom'. Freedom defined as
the self-determination of a rational, moral and ethical agent reaches its fullest
development only in a politically organised modern community, in which he
interacts with other citizens and the government through free public debate,
suffrage and representation. Political liberty, involved in these activities, is
distinct from civil liberty. The raison d'tre of civil society and the
justification of civil freedom is the private interest and subjective choice of the
individual bourgeois which, mediated through a system of economic and social
relations as well as laws, institutions and authorities, promotes the interest of
the ethical community only indirectly and in the last resort. The raison
d'tre of political community and the justification of political liberty are the
good of the ethical community itself, the common good or the public interest,
which the fully self-conscious and self-determined citizen promotes for its own
sake. In so doing he actualises his own deepest freedom and realises his nature
not simply as a particular but as a universal, communal being. Political
freedom, although roughly hewn, is the indispensable coping stone of Hegel's
theory of freedom which (so to speak) is the obverse of his theory of political
community. And the two theories taken as a whole represent Hegel's
adaptation of Plato's idea of 'ethical substance' to the modern world and the
solution of Rousseau's problems of political association how to live in
community with others and yet remain a free individual.
Monday, January 24, 2005
ENGELS MOURNED GOOD HARVESTS
And welcomed economic difficulties

Engels: "There seems little doubt about the advent of the crisis, even if the recent bankruptcies were no more than precursor s. Unfortunately the harvests in North-East Germany, Poland and Russia show signs of being passable, and in places even good. Here the recent good weather has likew ise borne
fruit. But France is still in the soup, and that's enough to be going on with."
Context here
The German

Engels an Marx, 24. August 1852

"Leider scheint die Ernte in Nordostdeutschland, Polen und Russland passabel, stellenweise gut zu werden. Hier hat auch das letzte gute Wetter gefruchtet. Aber Frankreich bleibt in der Sauce, und das ist schon viel."
MEW a.a.O. 28, 118.

Engels To Marx
In London
Source: MECW Volume 39, p. 164;
First published: in full in MEGA, Berlin 1929.

[Manchester, 24 August 1852]

Dear Marx,
This evening I shall translate the final part of your article and shall do the
article on Germany tomorrow or Thursday. Charles has gone away for a few
days and I have a great deal to do in the office so that by evening my mind is
often in a whirl.
Thanks for the suggestions on military history. Could you sometime have a
look in the British Museum to see if they have
1. The Oesterreichische Militirische Zeitschrift from 1848 onwards, 2. the
Prussian Militr-Wochenblatt the Berlin Wehr-Zeitung, 3. any other military
periodicals, especially reviews, including French ones from 1848 onwards?
Also a set of the Augsburg Allg. Ztg., particularly from 1850. I need these
things very badly and, if it could somehow be arranged, would find time to
work through them there, when I have got to that stage.
The excerpt from Cluss letter shows up pre Weydemeyer in an even more
Westphalian light than we had ever expected. Bielefeld tout pur. It beats
everything.
Johann Gottfried [Kinkel]s end is pleasing indeed. All that is left to the
noble fellow is the cold comfort of knowing that he has done his duty and
swollen the stock of bullion in the Bank of England. Furthermore, in fixing a
new date for the liberation of the world, he had based himself, not on vague

trade crises, but on hard, ineluctable fact, namely a spurious document in The
Morning Chronicle!
The
Willich-Schily
farce
must
have
been
a
hilarious
performance. Pauvre Willich, how often during his harassment by the
philistines must he have wished himself back in red Wolffs company!
So Harneys Star of Freedom has faded away?
There seems little doubt about the advent of the crisis, even if the recent
bankruptcies were no more than precursors. Unfortunately the harvests in
north-cast Germany, Poland and Russia show signs of being passable, and in
places even good. Here the recent good weather has likewise borne fruit. But
France is still in the soup, and thats enough to be going on with.
The
minor panic in
the
money
market
appears
to
be
over, consols and railway shares are again rising merrily, money is easier,
speculation is still pretty evenly distributed over corn, cotton, steam boats,
mining operations, etc., etc. But cotton has already become a very risky
proposition; despite what is so far a very promising crop, prices are rising
continuously, merely as a result of high consumption and the possibility of a
brief cotton shortage before fresh imports can arrive. Anyway I dont believe
that the crisis will this time be preceded by a regular rage for speculation; if
circumstances are favourable in other respects, a few mails bringing bad news
from India, a panic in New York, etc., will very soon prove that many a
virtuous citizen has been up to all kinds of sharp practice on the quiet. And
these crucial ill-tidings from overstocked markets must surely come soon.
Massive shipments continue to leave for China and India, and yet the advices
are nothing out of the ordinary; indeed, Calcutta is decidedly overstocked,
and here and there native dealers are going bankrupt. I dont believe
that prosperity will continue beyond October or November even Peter
Ermen is becoming worried.
At all events, whether a revolution is immediately produced immediately,
i.e. in 6-8 months very largely depends on the intensity of the crisis. The
poor harvest in France makes it look as though something is going to happen
there; but if the crisis becomes chronic and the harvest turns out after all a little
better than expected, we might even have to wait until 1854. I admit that I
should like another year in which to swot, having still a good deal of stuff to
get through.

Australia also does some harm. First, directly through her gold and the
stoppage of all her other exports, as also through the correspondingly heavier
imports of allcommodities and the fact that she is draining off the surplus
population here at the rate of 5,000 a week. California and Australia are two
cases which were not foreseen in the Manifesto: creation of large new markets
out of nothing. They will have to be included.
Your
F. E.
Sunday, January 23, 2005
HEGEL: WHERE MARX, ENGELS AND HITLER GOT THEIR INSPIRATION
I deliberately called this blog "Marx and Friends" because I wanted to give a few quotes from related thinkers at some stage. So I am now going to inflict Hegel on whoever is reading this. Hegel is VERY heavy going but he seems to have had practically all of the many second -rate 19th century German and
American thinkers enraptured so it seems important to get at least some idea of what he was on about. The excerpt below is from an essay called "The Nature of Spirit". And I have highlighted in red what I think are the most significant phrases:

"We have considered subjective volition where it has an object which is the truth and essence of a reality, viz. where it constitutes a great world-historical passion. As a subjective will, occupied with limited passions, it is dependent, and can gratify its desires only within the limits of this dependence. But the
subjective will has also a substantial life -- a reality, -- in which it moves in the region of essential being, and has the essential itself as the object of its existence. This essential being is the union of the subjective with the rational will: it is the moral whole, the state, which is that form of reality in which the
individual has and enjoys his freedom; but on the condition of his recognizing, believing in and willing that which is common to the whole. And this must not be understood as if the subjective will of the social unit attained its gratification and enjoyment through that common will; as if this were a means
provided for its benefit; as if the individual, in his relations to other individuals, thus limited his freedom, in order that this universal limitation -- the mutual constraint of all -- might secure a small space of liberty for each. Rather, we affirm, are law, morality, government, and they alone, the positive reality
and completion of freedom. Freedom of a low and limited order, is mere caprice; which finds its exercise in the sphere of particular and limited desires.
Aaaargh! Is that what you are saying? I don't blame you. Anyone used to Anglo-Saxon ideals of making things clear should gag on that lot. I hope the red bits helped, anyway. So let me try to sum up in plain words what Hegel is on about. Very cheeky of me to think I can do that in ju st a few paragraphs
but we Anglo-Saxon analytical philosophers are a disrespectful lot.
Hegel's basic idea -- and the idea that absolutely GRABBED Marx, Engels and Hitler -- was that history is ORDERLY -- rather than just repeating itself, it is actually a progression towards an endpoint of perfection. And that perfect end is freedom -- but not freedom as we would know it. And history somehow
also has a spirit -- in a way that makes sense only to German philosophers as far as I can see. So M, E & H all thought they saw the perfection of human history gradually unfolding before their eyes and wanted to give it a kick along. And they were greatly motivated by Hegel's view that some people and
events are of "world-historical" significance. Anybody reading this blog will have noticed that phrase cropping up and, as you can see from the excerpt above, the phrase comes from Hegel. In other words, some people and events are major influences in giving history a kick along in its journey towards its
ultimate end. And guess who wanted to be counted among those "world-historical" figures? Our old friends M, E and H, of course. Being a world-historical figure would have to be the ultimate ego-trip.
So you also see where Marx's theory of historical stages comes from. It is just an attempt to firm up Hegel's basic idea.
And you also note what an Orwellian view of freedom Hegel had. THE STATE is the essential reality and embodies all of human progress. And we are free only when we are all merged into a common will within the State. So the ultimate freedom is the freedom of the ant -- freedom to march happily and
voluntarily in lockstep with everybody else. Any other freedom is "of a low and limited order" and "mere caprice".
Horrific? Maybe to most people reading this but the political Left of today still seems to have that ideal. That is where the political correctness movement seems to be marching off towards -- a total uniformity of thought and speech where nobody is "offended" and everybody lives by "enlightened" rules.
And you can also see the foundation for the ideas that Hitler, Mussolini and Lenin had about the supremacy of the State over the individual. And hopefully, seeing how those particular States ended up warns us of how dangerous Hegel's seemingly obscur e ideas in fact are.

On the Nature of Spirit

by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

The nature of spirit may be understood by a glance at its direct opposite -- Matter. As the essence
of matter is gravity, so, on the other hand, we may affirm that the substance, the essence, of spirit
is freedom. All will readily assent to the doctrine that spirit, among other properties, is also
endowed with freedom; but philosophy teaches that all the qualities of spirit exist only through
freedom; that all are but means for attaining freedom; that all seek and produce this and this
alone. It is a result of speculative philosophy, that freedom is the sole truth of spirit. Matter
possesses gravity in virtue of its tendency towards a central point. It is essentially composite;
consisting of parts that exclude each other. It seeks its unity; and therefore exhibits itself as selfdestructive, as verging towards its opposite [an indivisible point]. If it could attain this, it would
be matter no longer, it would have perished. It strives after the realization of its idea; for in unit it
exists ideally. Spirit, on the contrary, may be defined as that which has its center in itself. It has
not a unity outside itself, but has already found it; it exists in andwith itself. Matter has its
essence out of itself; spirit is self-contained existence. Now this is freedom, exactly. For if I am
dependent, my being is referred to something else which I am not; I cannot exist independently
of anything external. I am free, on the contrary, when my existence depends upon myself. This
self-contained existence of spirit is none other than self-consciousness -- consciousness of one's
own being. Two things must be distinguished in consciousness; first, the fact that 1
know; secondly what I know. In self-consciousness these are merged in one; for spirit knows
itself. It involves an appreciation of its own nature, as also an energy enabling it to realize itself;

to make itself actuallythat which it is potentially. According to this abstract definition it may be
said of universal history, that it is the exhibition of spirit in the process of working out the
knowledge of that which it is potentially. . . .
This vast congeries of volitions, interests, and activities, constitutes the instruments and means of
the world-spirit for attaining its object; bringing it to consciousness, and realizing it. And this
aim is none other than finding itself -- coming to itself -- and contemplating itself in concrete
actuality. But that those manifestations of vitality on the part of individuals and peoples, in
which they seek and satisfy their own purposes, are, at the same time, the means and instruments
of a higher and broader purpose of which they know nothing, -- which they realize
unconsciously, -- might be made a matter of question; rather has been questioned, and in every
variety of form negatived, decried, and contemned as mere dreaming and "Philosophy." But on
this point I announced my view at the very outset, and asserted our hypothesis, -- which,
however, will appear in the sequel, in the form of a legitimate inference, and our belief that
reason governs the world, and has consequently governed its history. In relation to this
independently universal and substantial existence -- all else is subordinate, subservient to it, and
the means for its development. The union of universal abstract existence generally with the
individual, the subjective, that this alone is truth, belongs to the department of speculation, and is
treated in this general form in logic. But in the process of the world's history itself -- as still
incomplete, -- the abstract final aim of history is not yet made the distinct object of desire and
interest. While these limited sentiments are still unconscious of the purpose they are fulfilling,
the universal principle is implicit in them and is realizing itself through them. The question also
assumes the form of the union of freedom and necessity; the latent abstract process of spirit being
regarded as necessity, while that which exhibits itself in the conscious will of men, as their
interest, belongs to the domain of freedom. As the metaphysical connection (i.e. the connection
in the idea) of these forms of thought, belongs to logic, it would be out of place to analyze it
here. The chief and cardinal points only shall be mentioned.
Philosophy shows that the idea advances to an infinite antithesis; that, viz. between the idea in its
free, universal form -- in which it exists for itself -- and the contrasted form of abstract
introversion, reflection on itself, which is formal existence-for-self, personality, formal freedom,
such as belongs to spirit only. The universal idea exists thus as the substantial essence of free
volition on the other side. This reflection of the mind on itself is individual self-consciousness -the polar opposite of the idea in its general form, and therefore existing in absolute limitation.
This polar opposite is consequently limitation, particularization for the universal absolute thing;
it is the side of its definite existence; the sphere of its formal reality, the sphere of the reverence
paid to God. To comprehend the absolute connection of this antithesis, is the profound task of
metaphysics. This limitation originates all forms of particularity of whatever kind. The formal
volition (of which we have spoken) wills itself; desires to make its own personality valid in all
that it purposes and does; even the pious individual wishes to be saved and happy. This pole of
the antithesis, existing for itself, is -- in contrast with the absolute universal being -- a special
separate existence, taking cognizance of specialty only, and willing that alone. In short it plays
its part in the region of mere phenomena. This is the sphere of particular purposes, in effecting
which individuals exert themselves on behalf of their individuality -- give it full play and
objective realization. This is also the sphere of happiness and its opposite. He is happy who finds

his condition suited to his special character, will, and fancy, and so enjoys himself in that
condition.
The history of the world is not the theater of happiness. Periods of happiness are blank pages in
it, for they are periods of harmony, -- periods when the antithesis is in abeyance. Reflection on
self, -- the freedom above described -- is abstractly defined as the formal element of the activity
of the absolute idea. The realizing activity of which we have spoken is the middle term of
syllogism, one of whose extremes is the universal essence, the idea, which reposes in the
penetralia of spirit; and the other, the complex of external things, -- objective matter. That
activity is the medium by which the universal latent principle is translated into the domain of
objectivity.
***
What is the material in which the ideal of reason is wrought out? The primary answer would be, - personality itself -- human desires -- subjectivity, generally. In human knowledge and volition,
as its material element, reason attains positive existence. We have considered subjective volition
where it has an object which is the truth and essence of a reality, viz. where it constitutes a great
world-historical passion. As a subjective will, occupied with limited passions, it is dependent,
and can gratify its desires only within the limits of this dependence. But the subjective will has
also a substantial life -- a reality, -- in which it moves in the region of essential being, and has the
essential itself as the object of its existence. This essential being is the union of
thesubjective with the rational will: it is the moral whole, thestate, which is that form of reality
in which the individual has enjoys his freedom; but on the condition of his recognizing, believing
in and willing that which is common to the whole. And this must not be understood as if the
subjective will of the social unit attained its gratification and enjoyment through that common
will; as if this were a means provided for its benefit; as if the individual, in his relations to other
individuals, thus limited his freedom, in order that this universal limitation -- the mutual
constraint of all -- might secure a small space of liberty for each. Rather, we affirm, are law,
morality, government, and they alone, the positive reality and completion of freedom. Freedom
of a low and limited order, is mere caprice; which finds its exercise in the sphere of particular
and limited desires.
Subjective volition -- passion -- is that which sets men in activity, that which effects "practical"
realization. The idea is the inner spring of action; the state is the actually existing, realized moral
life. For it is the unity of the universal, essential will, with that of the individual; and this is
"morality." The individual living in this unity has a moral life; possesses a value that consists in
this substantiality alone. Sophocles in his Antigone says, "The divine commands are not of
yesterday, nor of today; no, they have an infinite existence, and no one could say whence" they
came." The laws of morality are not accidental, but are the essentially rational. It is the very
object of the state, that what is essential in the practical activity of men, and in their dispositions,
should be duly recognized; that it should have a manifest existence, and maintain its position. It
is the absolute interest of reason that this moral whole should exist; and herein lies the
justification and merit of heroes who have founded states, -- however rude these may have been.
In the history of the world, only those peoples can come under our notice which form a state. For
it must be understood that this latter is the realization of freedom, i.e. of the absolute final aim,

and that it exists for its own sake. It must further be understood that all the worth which the
human being possesses -- all spiritual reality, he possesses only through the state. For his
spiritual reality consists in this, that his own essence -- reason -- is objectively present to him,
that it possesses objective immediate existence for him. Thus only is he fully conscious; thus
only is he a partaker of morality -- of a just and moral social and political life. For truth is the
unity of the universal and subjective will; and the universal is to be found in the state, in its laws,
its universal and rational arrangements. The state is the divine idea as it exists on earth. We have
in it therefore, the object of history in a more definite shape than before; that in which freedom
obtains objectivity, and lives in the enjoyment of this objectivity. For law is the objectivity of
spirit; volition in its true form. Only that will which obeys law is free; for it obeys itself -- it is
independent and so free. When the state or our country constitutes a community of existence;
when the subjective will of man submits to laws, -- the contradiction between liberty and
necessity vanishes. The rational has necessary existence, as being the reality and substance of
things, and we are free in recognizing it as law, and following it as the substance of our own
being. The objective and the subjective will are then reconciled, and present one identical
homogeneous whole. For the morality of the state is not of that ethical reflective kind, in which
one's conviction bears sway; this latter is rather the peculiarity of the modern time, while the true
antique morality is based on the principle of abiding by ones duty (to the State at large). An
Athenian citizen did what was required of him, as it were from instinct: but if I reflect on the
object of my activity, I must have the consciousness that my will has been called into exercise.
But morality is duly -- substantial right -- a "second nature" as it has been justly called; for
the firstnature of man is his primary merely animal existence.
***
Summing up what has been said of the state, we find that we have been led to call its vital
principle, as actuating the individuals who compose it, -- morality. The state, its laws, its
arrangements, constitute the rights of its members; its natural features, its mountains, air, and
waters are their country, their fatherland, their outward material property the history of this
state, their deeds; what their ancestors have produced belongs to them and lives in their memory.
All is their possession, just as they are possessed by it; for it constitutes their existence, their
being.
Their imagination is occupied with the ideas thus presented, while the adoption of these laws,
and of a fatherland so conditioned is the expression of their will. It is this matured totality which
thus constitutes one being, the spirit of onepeople. To it the individual members belong; each
unit is the son of his nation, and at the same time -- in so far as the state to which he belongs is
undergoing development -- the son of his age. None remains behind it, still less advances beyond
it. This spiritual being (the spirit of his time) is his; he is a representative of it; it is that in which
he originated, and in which he lives. Among the Athenians the word Athens had a double import;
suggesting primarily, a complex of political institutions, but no less, in the second place, that
goddess who represented the spirit of the people and its unity.
This spirit of a people is a determinate and particular spirit, and is, as just stated, further
modified by the degree of its historical development. This spirit, then, constitutes the basis and
substance of those other forms of a nation's consciousness, which have been noticed. For spirit in

its self-consciousness must become an object of contemplation to itself, and objectivity involves,
in the first instance, the rise of differences which make up a total of distinct spheres of objective
spirit, in the same way as the soul exists only as the complex of its faculties, which in their form
of concentration in a simple unity produce that soul. It is thus one individuality which, presented
in its essence as God, is honored and enjoyed in religion; which is exhibited as an object of
sensuous contemplation in art; and is apprehended as an intellectual conception in philosophy. In
virtue of the original identity of their essence, purport, and object, these various forms are
inseparably united with the spirit of the state. Only in connection with this particular religion,
can this particular political constitution exist; just as in such or such a state, such or such a
philosophy or order of art.
The remark next in order is, that each particular national genius is to be treated as only one
individual in the process of universal history. For that history is the exhibition of the divine,
absolute development of spirit in its highest forms, -- that gradation by which it attains its truth
and consciousness of itself. The forms which these grades of progress assume are the
characteristic "national spirits" of history, the peculiar tenor of their moral life, of their
Government, their art, religion, and science. To realize these grades is the boundless impulse of
the world-spirit -- the goal of its irresistible urging; for this division into organic members, and
the full development of each, is its idea. Universal history is exclusively occupied with showing
how spirit comes to a recognition and adoption of the truth: the dawn of knowledge appears; it
begins to discover salient principles, and at last it arrives at full consciousness.
Having, therefore, learned the abstract characteristics of the nature of spirit, the means which it
uses to realize its idea, and the shape assumed by it in its complete realization in phenomenal
existence, -- namely, the state, nothing further remains for this introductory section to
contemplate, but --the course of the world's history.
Excerpted from Lectures on the Philosophy of History, by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Saturday,

January 22, 2005

ILLNESS IN A RELATIVE WAS GOOD NEWS TO MARX

Marx to Engels: "The only good news we have received came from my Sheriff's-wife sister-in-law, the news about the illness of my wife's indestructible uncle. If the dog dies now, I'm out of trouble".
MEW a.a.O. 28,30.
(No version in English available elsewhere online)
The German
Marx an Engels, 27. Februar 1852
"Die einzige gute Nachricht haben wir von meiner ministeriellen Schwgerin erhalten, die Nachricht von der Krankheit des unverwstlichen Onkels meiner Frau. Stirbt der Hund jetzt, so bin ich aus der Patsche heraus."
MEW a.a.O. 28,30., Rotbuch S. 98
Note: I don't know enough about the life and times of Marx's family to be 100% certain of the translation of "ministeriellen" above but Brockhaus tells me that "der Ministeriale" is a sheriff, presumably an official of a court of justice.

Update
I have now had it on good authority that "ministeriell" should be translated as "bossy". So the translation now reads: "The only good news we have received came from my bossy sister-in-law, the news about the illness of my wife's indestructible uncle. If the dog dies now, I'm out of trouble".
I am still rather bemused by the fact that I, as a conservative with a very imperfect grasp of German, seem to be the first p erson to put English translations of some Marxian texts onto the net. Fortunately, I do have some helpers but occasional expressions in Marx's German puzzle all of us at times -probably because the expressions were common at the time Marx wrote but are no longer so.

Friday, January 21, 2005

MARX DESPISED PEACEFUL POLITICAL MOVEMENTS

"May the devil take these peoples movements, especially when they are "peaceful""
(No version in English available elsewhere online)
The German
Marx an Engels, 4. Februar 1852
"Der Teufel soll diese Volksbewegung holen und gar, wenn sie pacifiques sind."
MEW a.a.O. 28, 19.
Note: Marx used a French word in this letter to Engels: "pacifiques". In French, it just means any peaceful people, not pacifists. At least, that is what my Larousse tells me.

Thursday, January 20, 2005

MARX WANTED DEMOCRACY TO "ROT AWAY"

Marx: "It would perhaps be as well if things were to remain quiet for a few years yet, so that all this 1848 democracy has time to rot away."
Context here
The German
Marx an Joseph Weydemayer, 27. Juni 1851
"Es wre vielleicht gut, wenn es noch einige Jahre ruhig bliebe, damit diese gesamte Demokratie von 1848 Zeit fnde zu verfaulen."
MEW a.a.O. 27, 558 ff.

Marx-Engels Correspondence 1851

Marx To Joseph Weydemeyer

In Frankfurt Am Main
Source: MECW Volume 38, p. 375;
First published: in MEW, 1934.

[London,] 27 June 1851

Dear Hans,
I am not at all sure whether I am doing the right thing in sending you a letter
with Fabricius. What assurance have I that this man wont be nabbed at the
border, since he is letting people here burden him with a veritable valiseful of
letters?
As your proposed American plan Engels may have already written to you
about this has come to nothing, you will have no alternative but to come
and reinforce us here. Something might even turn up that would enable us to
collaborate for payment, of course, car il faut vivre [for one has to live].
I have now heard from a reliable source that betrayal and denunciation are
playing a part in the arrests of our friends. I am morally convinced that Messrs
Willich and Schapper and their good-for-nothing pack of rascally curs are
directly taking part in this infamy. You will appreciate how important it is to
these great men in partibus to remove such people in Germany as they
believe to be directly in the way of their accession to the throne. The jackasses

fail to comprehend that we regard them as jackasses and accord them at best
our disdain.
Despite his respectably high-minded, broth-without-bread, noncommissioned officers moral hypocrisy, Willich is a thoroughly common,
mark
well, thoroughly
common
chevalier
d'industrie.
pillier d'estaminet [adventurer, pillar of the taproom] and or so I am told by
a respectable philistine, though I cannot myself vouch for it
also cardsharper. The lad loafs around all day at the pub, a democratic pub,
naturally, where he drinks gratis, bringing customers in lieu of payment and
entertaining them with his stereotyped phrases about a future revolution in
which the chevalier himself no longer believes, so often has he reiterated them
under such widely disparate circumstances, and always with the same result.
The fellow is a parasite of the basest kind invariably, of course, under
patriotic pretences.
All this individuals communism amounts to is a determination to tread the
primrose path, always at the public expense, in communion with other
footloose chevaliers. This mans activities consist solely in gossiping and lying
about us in pubs, and boasting of connections in Germany which, though nonexistent, are nevertheless taken for gospel by the Central clown A. Ruge, the
ideological boor Heinzen and by the stagey, coquettish, theologising belletrist
Kinkel, connections of which he also boasts to the French.
Apropos, while this last-named sanctimonious Adonis runs off his legs in
bourgeois cercles, permitting himself to be fed, cosseted, etc., etc., by them, he
associates secretly and illicitly with Schapper and Willich in order to keep in
touch with the Workers Party as well. This lad would greatly like to be all
things to all men. In every respect he bears a most striking resemblance to
Frederick William IV who is nothing more than a Kinkel enthroned and is
afflicted with the same rhetorical leucorrhoea.
Were you to ask me how you are to subsist here, my answer would be:
follow in the footsteps of the doughty Willich. He sows not neither does he
reap, and yet the heavenly Father feeds him.
But now au srieux! If living in Germany is becoming too dangerous for
you, it might be good for you to come here. If you could remain in Germany
unmolested, that would, of course, be preferable, since its more useful to have
people there than here.

Your
K. M.
Apropos, Britains overseas trade amounts to at least 1/3 of its entire trade
more, since the repeal of the corn duties. There is, by the by, no sense at all
in Mr Christs arguments. Pinto has already pointed out that, if 10/10 are
necessary to something, the final 1/10 is as important as the previous 9/10.
Granted that Britains overseas trade amounts to only 1/4 (which is wrong),
there can be no doubt that without that, the other 3 /4 would not exist, and still
less the 4/4, which alone can produce the numeral 1.
The democrats have long been accustomed to miss no opportunity of
compromising themselves, making themselves ridicules, and risking their own
skins. But never has the impotence of the infiniment petits succeeded in
demonstrating itself so strikingly as in the paper which the local Central
democrats Ruge, Hang, Ronge, etc. are bringing out. Under the
presumptuous title Der Kosmos (or Das Kosmos as Freiligrath aptly calls it)
there appears a weekly scrawl the like of which, in its brazen and insipid
insignificance, the German language and that is saying a great deal-has
never, perhaps, produced before. Not even one of little-German democratic
parish magazines has ever brought forth such evil-smelling wind as this.
It would perhaps be as well if things were to remain quiet for a few years
yet, so that all this 1848 democracy has time to moulder away. Untalented as
our governments may be, they are veritable lumina mundi as compared with
these bumptious mediocre jackasses.
Adieu!
I am usually at the British Museum from 9 in the morning until 7 in the
evening. The material I am working on is so damnably involved that, no matter
how I exert myself, I shall not finish for another 6-8 weeks. There are,
moreover, constant interruptions of a practical kind, inevitable in the wretched
circumstances in which we are vegetating here. But for all that, for all that, the
thing is rapidly approaching completion. There comes a time when one has
forcibly to break off. The democratic simpletons to whom inspiration comes
from above need not, of course, exert themselves thus. Why should these
people, born under a lucky star, bother their heads with economic and
historical material? Its really all so simple, as the doughty Willich used to tell
me. All so simple to these addled brains! Ultra-simple fellows!
Wednesday, January 19, 2005

MARX EVEN BLACKMAILED HIS OWN MOTHER FOR MONEY

Nice type

Marx: "Then I wrote to my mother, threatening to draw bills on her and, in case of non-payment, to go to Prussia and get myself locked up."
Context here
The German
Marx an Engels, 31. Mrz 1851
Dann schrieb ich meiner Mutter, drohte ihr, Wechsel auf sie zu ziehn und im Nichtzahlungsfall nach Preuen zu gehn und mich einsperren zu lassen (...)
MEW a.a.O. 27, 226 f.

Marx-Engels Correspondence 1851

Marx to Engels
In Manchester
Source: MECW Volume 38, p. 322;
First published: slightly abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels

und K. Marx, 1913.

[London,] 31 March 1851, 28 Dean Street, Soho

Dear Engels,
While you busy yourself with military history, I am conducting a little
campaign in which I am likely to be vanquished by and by, and from which
neither Napoleon nor even Willich the communist Cromwell would have
been able to extricate themselves.
You should know that I had to pay 31/10 shillings to old Bamberger on 23
March, and 10 to the Jew, Stiebel, on the sixteenth, all on current bills. I first
got Jenny to ask my mother-in-law outright. The answer to this was that Mr
Edgar [von Westphalen] had been sent back to Mexico with the remainder
of Jennys money, and I couldnt extract a single centime.
Then I wrote to my mother, threatening to draw bills on her and, in case of
non-payment, to go to Prussia and get myself locked up. I had really intended
to take the latter course if such should be the case, but this device ceased to be
feasible from the moment the jackasses began to fill the press with their
jeremiads about the workers deserting me, my declining popularity and the
like. As it was, the thing would have looked like a piece of political histrionics,

a more or less deliberate imitation of Jesus Christ-Kinkel. The time-limit I set

my mater was 20 March.
On 10 March she wrote and told me they intended to write to our relations;
on 18 March she wrote to say the relations had not written which was intended
to mean the matter was concluded. I at once replied, saying that I stood by my
first letter.
On 16 March, with Piepers help, I paid Stiebel his 10. On 23 March, after I
had made a number of fruitless moves, the bill for old Bamberger was
inevitably protested. I had a frightful scene with the old man who, moreover,
was frightfully abusive about me to the worthy Seiler. Through his banker in
Trier the idiot had asked for information about me from the banker, Lautz.
This fellow, my maters banker and my personal enemy, naturally wrote and
told him the most absurd things about me and, on top of that, thoroughly
stirred up my mater against me.
As regards old [Simon] Bamberger, I had no alternative but to make out two
bills for him, one on him in London to run for 4 weeks from 24 March, the
other, payable in Trier in 3 weeks, on my mater in order to cover the first. I at
once advised my mater of this. Today, at the same time as your letter, one
arrived from my mater in which, full of moral indignation, she addresses me in
the most insolent terms, declaring positivement that she will protest any bill I
draw on her.
So when 21 April comes round I shall have to expect the very worst from a
thoroughly incensed old Simon Bamberger.
At the same time my wife was brought to bed on 28 March. [Jenny Marx
gave birth to a daughter Franziska on that day] Though the confinement was an
easy one, she is now very ill in bed, the causes being domestic rather than
physical. And thereby I have verbalement not a farthing in the house, so that
tradesmens bills butchers, bakers and so forth keep mounting up.
In 7 or 8 days time, I shall have a copy of the will from Scotland. If
anythings to be made of it, little [Louis] Bamberger is the one to do so, if only
in his own interest. But I cant rely on it.
You will admit that this is a pretty kettle of fish and that I am up to my neck
in petty-bourgeois muck. And at the same time one is also said to have
exploited the workers! and to aspire to dictatorship! Quelle horreur!

Mais ce n'est pas tout. [but thats not all] The manufacturer who, in
Brussels, loaned me money from Trier, is dunning me for it because his ironworks are doing badly. Tant pis pour lui. [so much the worse for him] I cant
do as he asks.
But finally, to give the matter a tragicomic turn, there is in addition
a mystre which I will now reveal to you en trs peu de mots [in a very few
word]. However, I've just been interrupted and must go and help nurse my
wife. The rest, then, in which you also figure, in my next.
Your
K. M.
Apropos, how do merchants, manufacturers, etc., account for the portion of
their income which they themselves consume? Is this money too fetched from
the banker or how is it arranged? I'd be glad to have your answer to this.
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
A POLICE-STATE FORESHADOWED
Rules written by Marx and others

Rules of the Communist League (Art. 42): Removed and expelled members, like suspect individuals in general, are to be watched in the interest of the League, and prevented from doing harm. Intrigues of such individuals are at once to be reported to the community concerned.
Context here
The German
Marx u.a.: Statuten des Kommunistischen Bundes, 1850
4. Wer die Bedingungen der Mitgliedschaft verletzt, wird ausgeschlossen (...)
Die Ausgeschlossenen werden dem ganzen Bunde angezeigt und gleich allen verdchtigen Subjekten von Bundes wegen berwacht.
MEW a.a.O. 7, 565 f.

The Communist League

Rules of the Communist

League
[375]

Working Men of All Countries, Unite!

Written: December 1847;

Source: MECW Volume 6, p. 633;
First published: Wermuth und Stieber, Die Communisten-Verschwrungen

des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, Erster Theil, Berlin, 1853;

SECTION I
THE LEAGUE
Art. 1. The aim of the League is the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the rule of

the proletariat, the abolition of the old bourgeois society which rests on the
antagonism of classes, and the foundation of a new society without classes and
without private property.
Art. 2. The conditions of membership are:

A) A way of life and activity which corresponds to this aim;

B) Revolutionary energy and zeal in propaganda;
C) Acknowledgment of communism;
D) Abstention from participation in any anti-communist political or
national association and notification of participation in any kind of
association to the superior authority.
E) Subordination to the decisions of the League;
F) Observance of secrecy concerning the existence of all League affairs;
G) Unanimous admission into a community.
Whosoever no longer complies with these conditions is expelled (see Section
VIII).
Art. 3. All members are equal and brothers and as such owe each other

assistance in every situation.

Art. 4. The members bear League names.
Art. 5. The League is organised in communities, circles, leading circles,

Central Authority and congresses.

SECTION II
THE COMMUNITY
Art. 6. The community consists of at least three and at most twenty members.

Art. 7. Every community elects a chairman and deputy chairman. The

chairman presides over the meeting, the deputy chairman holds the funds and
represents the chairman in case of absence.
Art. 8. The admission of new members is effected by the chairman and the

proposing member with previous agreement of the community.

Art. 9. Communities of various kinds do not know each other and do not

conduct any correspondence with each other.

Art. 10. Communities bear distinctive names.
Art. 11. Every member who changes his place of residence must first inform

his chairman.
SECTION III
THE CIRCLE
Art. 12. The circle comprises at least two and at most ten communities.
Art. 13. The chairmen and deputy chairmen of the communities form the circle

authority. The latter elects a president from its midst. It is in correspondence

with its communities and the leading circle.
Art. 14. The circle authority is the executive organ for all the communities of

the circle.
Art. 15. Isolated communities must either join an already existing circle or

form a new circle with other isolated communities.

SECTION IV
THE LEADING CIRCLE
Art. 16. The various circles of a country or province are subordinated to a

leading circle.
Art. 17. The division of the circles of the League into provinces and the

appointment of the leading circle is effected by the Congress on the proposal

of the Central Authority.
Art. 18. The leading circle is the executive authority for all the circles of its

province. It is in correspondence with these circles and with the Central

Authority.

Art. 19. Newly formed circles join the nearest leading circle.
Art. 20. The leading circles are provisionally responsible to the Central

Authority and in the final instance to the Congress.

SECTION V
THE CENTRAL AUTHORITY
Art. 21. The Central Authority is the executive organ of the whole League and

as such is responsible to the Congress.

Art. 22. It consists of at least five members and is elected by the circle

authority of the place in which the Congress has located its seat.
Art. 23. The Central Authority is in correspondence with the leading circles.

Once every three months it gives a report on the state of the whole League.
SECTION VI
COMMON REGULATIONS
Art. 24. The communities, and circle authorities and also the Central Authority

meet at least once every fortnight.

Art. 25. The members of the circle authority and of the Central Authority are

elected for one year, can be re-elected and recalled by their electors at any
time.
Art. 26. The elections take place in the month of September.
Art. 27. The circle authorities have to guide the discussions of the communities

in
accordance
with
the
purpose
of
the
League.
If the Central Authority deems the discussion of certain questions to be of
general and immediate interest it must call on the entire League to discuss
them.
Art. 28. Individual members of the League must maintain correspondence with

their circle authority at least once every three months, individual communities
at
least
once
a
month.
Every circle must report on its district to the leading circle at least once every
two months, every leading circle to the Central Authority at least once every
three months.

Art. 29. Every League authority is obliged to take the measures in accordance

with the Rules necessary for the security and efficient work of the League
under its responsibility and to notify the superior authority at once of these
measures.
SECTION VII
THE CONGRESS
Art. 30. The Congress is the legislative authority of the whole League. All

proposals for changes in the Rules are sent to the Central Authority through the
leading circles and submitted by it to the Congress.
Art. 31. Every circle sends one delegate.
Art. 32. Every individual circle with less than 30 members sends one delegate,

with less than 60 two, less than 90 three, etc. The circles can have themselves
represented by League members who do not belong to their localities.
In this case, however, they must send to their delegate a detailed mandate.
Ait. 33. The Congress meets in the month of August of every year. In urgent
cases the Central Authority calls an extraordinary congress.
Art. 34. The Congress decides every time the place where the Central

Authority is to have its seat for the coming year and the place where the
Congress is next to meet.
Art. 35. The Central Authority sits in the Congress, but has no deciding vote.
Art. 36. After every sitting the Congress issues in addition to its circular a

manifesto in the name of the Party.

SECTION VIII
OFFENCES AGAINST THE LEAGUE
Art. 37. Whoever violates the conditions of membership (Art. 2) is according

to the circumstances removed

Expulsion precludes re-admission.

from

the

League

or

expelled.

Art. 38. Only the Congress decides on expulsions.

Art. 39. Individual members can be removed by the circle or the isolated

community, with immediate notification of the superior authority. Here also

the Congress decides in the last instance.

Art. 40. Re-admission of removed members is effected by the Central

Authority on the proposal of the circle.

Art. 41. The circle authority passes judgment on offences against the League

and also sees to the execution of the verdict.

Art. 42. Removed and expelled members, like suspect individuals in general,

are to be watched in the interest of the League, and prevented from doing
harm. Intrigues of such individuals are at once to be reported to the community
concerned.
SECTION IX
LEAGUE FUNDS
Art. 43. The Congress fixes for every country the minimum contribution to be

paid by every member.

Art. 44. Half of this contribution goes to the Central Authority, the other half

remains in the funds of the circle or community.

Art. 45. The funds of the Central Authority are used:

1. to cover the costs of correspondence and administration;

2. to print and distribute propaganda leaflets;
3. to send out emissaries of the Central Authority for particular purposes.
Art. 46. The funds of the local authorities are used:

1. to cover the costs of correspondence;2. to print and distribute propaganda leaflets;

3. to send out occasional emissaries.
Art. 47. Communities and circles which have not paid their contributions for

six months are notified by the Central Authority of their removal from the
League.
Art. 48. Circle authorities have to render account of their expenditure and

income to their communities at least every three months. The Central

Authority renders account to the Congress on the administration of League

funds and the state of the League finances. Any embezzlement of League
funds is subject to the severest punishment.
Art. 49. Extraordinary and Congress costs are met from extraordinary

contributions.
SECTION X
ADMISSION
Art. 50. The chairman of the community reads to the applicant Art. 1 to 49,

explains them, emphasises particularly in a short speech the obligations which

the new member assumes, and then puts to him the question: Do you now
wish to enter this League? If he replies Yes, the chairman takes his word of
honour to the effect that he will fulfil the obligations of a League member,
declares him a member of the League, and introduces him to the community at
the next meeting.
London,
December
8,
In the name of the Second Congress of the autumn of 1847
The
Signed Engels

Secretary

The
Signed Karl Schapper

1847

President

Monday, January 17, 2005

POLISH JEWS PARTICULARLY DESPISED

Engels: "We discovered that in connection with these figures the German national simpletons and money-grubbers of the Frankfurt parliamentary swamp always counted as Germans the Polish Jews as well, although this dirtiest of all races, neither by its jargon nor by its descent, but at most only through its
lust for profit, could have any relation of kinship with Frankfurt".
Context here
The German
Engels, NRZ 29. Apr. 1849
... da die deutschen Nationalgimpel und Geldmacher des Frankfurter Sumpfparlaments bei diesen Zhlungen immer noch die polnischen Juden zu Deutschen gerechnet, obwohl diese schmutzigste aller Rassen weder in ihrem Jargon, noch ihrer Abstammung nach, sondern hchstens durch ihre
Profitwtigkeit mit Frankfurt im Verwandtschaftsverhltnis stehen kann (...)
MEW a.a.O. 6, 448 f.

Engels in Neue Rheinische Zeitung April 1849

Posen
Source: MECW Volume 9, p. 359;
Written: by Engels on April 28, 1849;
First published: in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 285 (second edition),

April 29, 1849.

Cologne, April 28. Our readers will be thankful to us if from time to time we
examine the splendour and might of our Hohenzollern royal family and the
simultaneous wonderful prosperity of the chief supports of its noble throne, the
bug-ridden knights of Brandenburg who have been transplanted into every
province.
In this instructive investigation we deal today with the Polish part of our
fatherland in the narrower sense. Already last summer, on the occasion of the
glorious pacification and reorganisation of Poland carried out by shrapnel and
caustic,[274] we tested the German-Jewish lies about the predominantly German
population in the towns, the large German landed estates in the countryside,
and the royal-Prussian merit for the growth of general well-being. Readers of
the Neue Rheinische Zeitungwill recall that we learned from official figures
and reports of the Archbishop of Gnesen and Posen to the bourgeois
transitional Minister Camphausen that in the parts of the territory included
within the Prussian demarcation lines, not about one half, but hardly one-sixth,
of the population is Germans, whereas the lying statistics of the Prussian
Government step by step increased the alleged German population the more
the progress of the counter-revolution seemed to make possible a new division
and a new diminution of the Polish part of Posen. We discovered that in
connection with these figures the German national simpletons and moneygrubbers of the Frankfurt parliamentary swamp always counted as Germans
the Polish Jews as well, although this meanest of all races, neither by its jargon
nor by its descent, but at most only through its lust for profit, could have any
relation of kinship with Frankfurt. We discovered that in fact relatively very
few of small German landowners were ensconced in individual districts of
Posen, and then only as a result of treacherous Prussian speculation on Polish
poverty, since, by the Cabinet Order of 1833, all auctioned estates could be
sold exclusively to Prussian Junkers from the backwoods, to whom the
Government advanced money for that purpose. Finally, we discovered that the
benefits and services rendered by the Hohenzollern paternalism consisted in
the fact that after the March revolution, out of cowardice, the finest promises
were given of a national reorganisation, and then, with the growth of the
counter-revolution, by means of a five times repeated and ever greater
partition, the noose was fastened more tightly round the neck of the country,
whereupon reorganisation was made dependent on pacification i.e. the
surrender of weapons. Finally, when this condition was fulfilled, My glorious
army [275] was let loose on the unarmed, trustful country in order in alliance
with the Jews to plunder the churches, set fire to the villages, beat the Poles to
death in public places with ramrods or brand them with caustic and, after

having taken revenge for their belief in the March promises, pay honour to
God and his Christian-Germanic Majesty on this field of corpses.
Such was the charitable work of Prussian reorganisation in Posen. Let us
now deal also with the origin of large-scale Prussian landownership, the
domains and estates. Their history is no less instructive as regards the
splendour and might of the Hohenzollern family and the value of its beloved
rogue knights.
In 1793 the three crowned thieves divided the Polish booty among
themselves according to the same right by which three highwaymen divide
among themselves the purse of a defenceless traveller.[276] Posen and South
Prussia on that occasion received the Hohenzollerns as hereditary rulers in
exactly the same way as the Rhine Province in 1815 received them
as hereditary rulers, in accordance with the right of trafficking in people
and of kidnapping. As soon as this right of trafficking in people and of
kidnapping is abolished, the Poles, like the Rhinelanders, will cancel with
a red stroke the title-deed of their hereditary Hohenzollern Grand Duke.
The first thing by which in plundered Poland the Hohenzollern Father of the
country manifested his Prussian benevolence was the confiscation of the lands
formerly belonging to the Polish Crown and Church. In general we have not
the slightest objection to such confiscation; on the contrary, we hope it will
soon be the turn of othercrown lands. We ask however for what purpose were
these confiscated estates used? In the interest of the general well-being of
the country, for which the Brandenburg paternal regime was so benevolently
concerned during the work of pacification and reorganisation in 1848? In the
interests of the people whose sweat and blood created those estates? We shall
see.
At that time Minister Hoym, who for twenty years had administered the
province of Silesia quite free from any supervision and used that power for the
most Junker-like swindling and extortions, was entrusted with the
administration of South Prussia as well, in reward for his services to God, King
and country. In the interests of the splendour and might of the dynasty and in
order to create a splendid and mighty class of devoted Junkers from the
backwoods, Hoym proposed to his lord and master that he should bestow as
many as possible of the confiscated Church and Crown lands to so-called
deserving persons. And that was done. A host of rascally knights, favourites
of royal mistresses, creatures of the Ministers, accomplices whom one wanted
to silence, were presented with the largest and richest estates of the plundered

country and thereby German interests and predominantly German

landownership were implanted among the Poles.
In order not to arouse royal cupidity, Hoym had as a precaution assessed
these estates for the King at a quarter or sixth part of their value, and
sometimes even less; he was afraid, and probably not without reason, that if
the King were to learn the true value of these estates, he would think of his
own paternal pocket before anything else. During Hoyms four years of
administration after the pacification"[277] from 1794 to 1798, there were in this
manner given away: in the Posen administrative region 22, in the Kalisch,
formerly Petrikau, region 19, in the Warsaw region 11, altogether 52 larger and
smaller groups of estates, which in total contained not less than two hundred
and forty-one separate estates. The King was told that the value of these estates
was 3 1/2 million talers, but their true value exceeded twenty million talers.
The Poles will know from whom during the coming revolution they will have
to extract these 20 million talers, that Polish milliard, stolen from them by the
right of traffic in people.
In the Kalisch region alone the area of the estates given away amounted
to more than a third of all the Crown and Church lands, and the income from
these estates, even according to the miserable estimates of the value of the
grants in 1799 alone, was 247,000 talers annually.
In the Posen administrative region the Owinsk estate with its extensive
forests was presented to Tresckow, a haberdasher. At the same time the
adjacent Crown estate of Szrin, which had not a single tree, was declared a
state domain and had to buy its timber at government expense from
Tresckows forests.
Finally, in other regions, the deeds of gift expressly freed the estates from
ordinary taxes, and moreover freed them in perpetuity, so that no Prussian
King should ever have the right to impose new taxes on them.
We shall now see in what manner the stolen estates were given away and to
which deserving persons. The extent of the services of these Junkers from
the backwoods, however, compels us for the sake of coherent exposition to
deal with this subject in a special article.[278]
Sunday, January 16, 2005
ENGELS SAID GERMANS SHOULD USE TERROR AGAINST THE SLAVS
And dismissed justice and morality from consideration in the matter. And he didn't think much of brotherhood either

(...)Justice and other moral considerations may be damaged here and there; but what does that matter to such facts of world-historic significance?
(...)

Following that, Bohemia and Moravia passed definitely to Germany and the Slovak regions remained with Hungary. And this historically absolutely non-existent "nation" puts forward claims to independence?
(...)
Of course, matters of this kind cannot be accomplished without many a tender national blossom being forcibly broken. But in history nothing is achieved without power and implacable ruthlessness,
(...)
To the sentimental phrases about brotherhood which we are being offered here on behalf of the most counter-revolutionary nations of Europe, we reply that hatred of Russians was and still is the primary revolutionary passion among Germans; that since the revolution hatred of Czechs and Croats has been
added, and that only by the most determined use of terror against these Slav peoples can we, jointly with the Poles and Magyars, safeguard the revolution.
(...)
Then there will be a struggle, an "unrelenting life-and-death struggle" against those Slavs who betray the revolution; an annihilating fight and most determined terrorism -- not in the interests of Germany, but in the interests of the revolution!
Context here
The German
Engels, NRZ 15. Feb. 1849
... die 'Gerechtigkeit' und andere moralische Grundstze mgen hier und da verletzt sein; aber was gilt das gegen solche weltgeschichtlichen Tatsachen? (....)
Dann kommt Bhmen und Mhren definitiv zu Deutschland, und die slowakischen Gegenden bleiben bei Ungarn. Und diese geschichtlich gar nicht existiende 'Nation' macht Ansprche auf Unabhngigkeit? (...)
Freilich, dergleichen lt sich nicht durchsetzen ohne manch sanftes Nationenblmlein gewaltsam zu zerknicken. Aber ohne Gewalt und ohne eherne Rcksichtslosigkeit wird nichts durchgesetzt in der Geschichte, (...)
Auf die sentimentalen Brderschaftsphrasen, die uns hier im Namen der kontrevolutionrsten Nationen Europas dargeboten werden, antworten wir, da der Russenha die erste revolutionre Leidenschaft bei den Deutschen war und noch ist; da seit der Revolution der Tschechen- und Kroatenha
hinzugekommen ist und da wir, in Gemeinschaft mit Polen und Magyaren, nur durch den entschiedensten Terrorismus gegen diese slawischen Vlker die Revolution sicherstellen knnen (....)
Dann Kampf, 'unerbittlicher Kampf auf Leben und Tod' mit dem revolutionsverrterischen Slawentum; Vernichtungskampf und rcksichtslosen Terrorismus - nicht im Interesse Deutschlands, sondern im Interesse der Revolution!
MEW a.a.O. 6, 286.

Marx in Neue Rheinische Zeitung February 1849

Democratic Pan-Slavism

[314]

by Frederick Engels
Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 222
Translated by the Marx-Engels Institute
Transcribed for the Internet by director@marx.org, 1994

Cologne, February 14, 1849 - We have often enough pointed out that the
romantic dreams which came into being after the revolutions of February and
March, such as ardent fantasies about the universal fraternal union of people, a
European federative republic, and eternal world peace, were basically nothing
but screens hiding the immeasurable perplexity and inactivity of the leading
spokesmen of that time. People did not see, or did not want to see, what had to
be done to safeguard the revolution; they were unable or unwilling to carry out
any really revolutionary measures; the narrow-mindedness of some and the
counter-revolutionary intrigues of others resulted in the people getting only
sentimental phrases instead of revolutionary deeds. The scoundrel Lamartine
with his high-flown declarations was the classical hero of this epoch of
betrayal of the people disguised by poetic floridity and rhetorical tinsel.
The peoples who have been through the revolution know how dearly they
have had to pay because in their simplicity at the time they believed the loud
talk and bombastic assurances. Instead of safeguards for the revolution everywhere reactionary Chambers which undermined the revolution; instead of

fulfillment of the promises given at the barricades - counter-revolution in

Naples, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, the fall of Milan, and the war against Hungary;
instead of the fraternal union of peoples - renewal of the Holy Alliance on the
broadest basis under the patronage of England and Russia. And the very same
persons who in April and May responded jubilantly to the high-flown phrases
of the epoch, now only blush with shame at the thought of how at that time
they allowed themselves to be deceived by idiots and rogues.
People have learned by bitter experience that the "European fraternal union
of peoples" cannot be achieved by mere phrases and pious wishes, but only by
profound revolutions and bloody struggles; they have learned that the question
is not that of a fraternal union of all European peoples under a single
republican flag, but of an alliance of the revolutionary peoples against the
counter-revolutionary peoples, an alliance which comes into being not
on paper, but only on the battlefield.
Throughout Western Europe these bitter but necessary experiences have
completely discredited Lamartine's phrase-mongering. In the east, on the other
hand, there are still sections, ostensibly democratic, revolutionary sections,
which are not tired of echoing these phrases and sentimental ideas and
preaching the gospel of the European fraternal union of peoples.
These actions - we leave out of account some ignorant German-speaking
dreamers such as Herr A. Ruge, etc. - are the democratic pan-Slavists of the
various Slav peoples.
The programme of democratic pan-Slavism lies before us in the shape of a
pamphlet: Aufruf an die Slaven. Von einem russischen Patrioten, Michael
Bakunin, Mitgleid des Slavencongresses in Prag. Koethen, 1848.
Bakunin is our friend. That will not deter us from criticizing his pamphlet.
Hear how Bakunin at the very beginning of his Appeal adheres to the
illusions of last March and April:
"The very first sign of life of the revolution was a cry of hate against the old [policy of]
oppression, a cry of sympathy and love for all oppressed nationalities. The peoples... felt at last
the disgrace with which the old diplomacy had burdened mankind, and they realized that the
well-being of the nations will never be ensured as long as there is a single nation anywhere in
Europe living under oppression.... Away with the oppressors! was the unanimous cry; all hail to
the oppressed, the Poles, the Italians and all of the others! No more wars of conquest, but only
the one last war fought out to the end, the good fight of the revolution for the final liberation of
all peoples! Down with the artificial barriers which have been forcibly erected by congresses of
despots [meaning Vienna Congresses of 1814-15] in accordance with so-called historical,
geographical, commercial and strategical necessities! There should be no other frontiers than

those natural boundaries drawn in accordance with justice and democracy and established by the
sovereign will of the peoples themselves on the basis of their national characteristics. Such is the
call issued by all the people." pp. 6, 7.

In this passage we already find reproduced all the rapturous enthusiasm of the
first months after the revolution. There is not a word about the actually
existing obstacles to such a universal liberation, or about the very diverse
political needs of the individual peoples. The word "freedom" replaces all that.
There is not one word about the actual state of things, or, insofar as it does
receive attention, it is described as absolutely reprehensible, arbitrarily
established by "congresses of despots" and "diplomats". To this bad reality is
counterposed the alleged will of the people with its categorical imperative,
with the absolute demand simply for "freedom".
We have seen who proved to be the stronger. The alleged will of the people
was so disgracefully deceived precisely because it trusted in such fantastic
abstraction from the conditions actually prevailing.
"By its plenipotentiary power the revolution declared the despotic states dissolved; dissolved the
Prussian state... Austria... the Turkish Empire... and, finally, the last hope of the despots... the
Russian Empire... and as the final goal of all - the universal federation of the European
republics." p. 8.

As a matter of fact, here in the West it must strike us as peculiar that after all
of these beautiful plans have come to grief at the first attempt to fulfill them
they can still be regarded as something meritorious and great. Certainly, the
unfortunate thing was precisely that although the revolution "by its own
plenipotentiary power the revolution declared the despotic states dissolved", at
the same time "by its own plenipotentiary power" it did not lift a finger to
carry out its decree.
At that same time the Slav Congress was convened. The Slav Congress
adopted completely the standpoint of these illusions. Listen to this:
"With a lively sense of the common ties of history (?) and blood, we swore not to allow our fates
to separate us again from one another. Pronouncing a curse on the policy of which we have so
long been the victims, we ourselves asserted our right to complete independence and vowed that
henceforth this should be common to all the Slave peoples. We recognized the independence of
Bohemia and Moravia... we held out our fraternal hand to the German people, to democratic
Germany. In the name of those of us who live in Hungary, we offered the Magyars, the furious
enemies of our race... a fraternal alliance. Nor did we forget in our alliance for liberation those of
our brothers who groan under the Turkish yoke. We solemnly condemned the treacherous policy
which three times cut Poland into pieces.... All that we proclaimed, and together with the
democrats of all peoples (?) we demanded freedom, equality and the brotherhood of all nations."
p. 10.

Democratic pan-Slavism still puts forward these demands:

"At that time we felt confident of our cause... justice and humanity were wholly on our side, and
nothing but illegality and barbarity on the side of our enemies. The ideas to which we devoted
ourselves were no empty figments of a dream, they were the ideas of the sole true and necessary
policy, the policy of revolution."

"Justice", "humanity", "freedom", "equality", "fraternity", "independence" - so

far we have found nothing in the pan-Slavist manifesto but these more or less
ethical categories, which sound very fine, it is true, but prove absolutely
nothing in historical and political questions. "Justice", "humanity", "freedom",
etc., may demand this or that a thousand times over; but if the thing is
impossible it does not take place and in spite of everything remains an "empty
figment of a dream". The pan-Slavists' illusions ought to have understood that
all pious wishes and beautiful dreams are of no avail against the iron reality,
and that their policy at any time was no more the "policy of revolution" than
was that of the French Republic. Nevertheless, today, in January 1849, they
still come to us with the same old phrases, in the content of which Western
Europe has been disillusioned by the bloodiest counter-revolution!
Just a word about "universal fraternal union of peoples" and the drawing of
"boundaries established by the sovereign will of the peoples themselves on the
basis of their national characteristics". The United States and Mexico are two
republics, in both of which the people is sovereign.
How did it happen that over Texas a war broke out between these two
republics, which, according to the moral theory, ought to have been
"fraternally united" and "federated", and that, owing to "geographical,
commercial and strategical necessities", the "sovereign will" of the American
people, supported by the bravery of the American volunteers, shifted the
boundaries drawn by nature some hundreds of miles further south? And will
Bakunin accuse the Americans of a "war of conquest", which, although it deals
with a severe blow to his theory based on "justice and humanity", was
nevertheless waged wholly and solely in the interest of civilization? Or is it
perhaps unfortunate that splendid California has been taken away from the lazy
Mexicans, who could not do anything with it? That the energetic Yankees by
rapid exploitation of the California gold mines will increase the means of
circulation, in a few years will concentrate a dense population and extensive
trade at the most suitable places on the coast of the Pacific Ocean, create large
cities, open up communications by steamship, construct a railway from New
York to San Francisco, for the first time really open the Pacific Ocean to
civilization, and for the third time in history give the world trade a new
direction? The "independence" of a few Spanish Californians and Texans may
suffer because of it, in someplaces "justice" and other moral principles may be
violated; but what does that matter to such facts of world-historic significance?

We would point out, incidentally, that this theory of universal fraternal union
of peoples, which calls indiscriminately for fraternal union regardless of the
historical situation and the stage of social development of the individual
peoples, was combated by the editors of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung already
long before the revolution, and in fact in opposition to their best friends, the
English and French democrats. Proof of this is to be found in the English,
French and Belgian democratic newspapers of that period.
As far as pan-Slavism in particular is concerned, in the Neue Rheinische
Zeitung No.194 we showed that, part from the well-meaning self-deceptions of
the democratic pan-Slavists, it has in reality no other aim than to give the
Austrian Slavs, who are split up and historically, literally, politically,
commercially and industrially dependent on the Germans and Magyars, a basis
of support, in Russia on the one hand, and on the other hand in the Austrian
united monarchy, which is dominated by the Slav majority and dependent on
Russia. We have shown how such little nations. which for centuries have been
taken in tow by history against their will, must necessarily be counterrevolutionary, and that their whole position in the revolution in 1848 was
actually counter-revolutionary. In view of the democratic pan-Slavist
manifesto, which demands the independence of all Slavs without distinction,
we must return to this matter.
Let us note first of all that there is much excuse for the political romanticism
and sentimentality of the democrats at the Slav Congress. With the exception
of the Poles - the Poles are not pan-Slavists for very obvious reasons - they all
belong to peoples which are either, like the Southern Slavs, necessarily
counter-revolutionary owning to the whole of their historical position, or, like
the Russians, are still a long way from revolution and therefore, at least for the
time being, are still counter-revolutionary. These sections, democratic owing
to their education acquired abroad, seek to bring their democratic views into
harmony with their national feeling, which is known to be very pronounced
among the Slavs; and since the real world, the actual state of things in their
country, affords no basis, or only a fictitious basis for such reconciliation, there
remains for them nothing but the other-worldly "airy kingdom of dreams"
[quoting Heinrich Heine] the realm of pious wishes, the policy of fantasy. How
splendid it would be if the Croats, Pandours and Cossacks formed the
vanguard of European democracy, if the ambassador of a republic of Siberia
were to present his credentials in Paris! Certainly, such prospects would be
very delightful; but, after all, even the most enthusiastic pan-Slavist will not
demand that European democracy should wait for their realization - and at

present it is precisely those nations from whom the manifesto specially

demands independence that are the special enemies of democracy.
We repeat: apart from the Poles, the Russians, and at most the Turkish Slavs,
no Slav people has a future, for the simple reason that all the other Slavs lack
the primary historical, geographical, political and industrial conditions for
independence and viability.
Peoples which have never had a history of their own, which from the time
when they achieved the first, most elementary stage of civilization already
came under foreign sway, or which were forced to attain the first stage of
civilization only by means of a foreign yoke, are not viable and will never be
able to achieve any kind of independence.
And that has been the fate of the Austrian Slavs. The Czechs, among whom
we would include the Moravians and Slovaks, although they differ in respect
of language and history, have never had a history of their own. Bohemia has
been chained to Germany since the time of Charles the Great. The Czech
nation freed itself momentarily and formed the Great-Moravian state, only
immediately to come under subjugation again and for 500 years to be a bill
thrown from one to another by Germany, Hungary and Poland. Following that,
Bohemia and Moravia passed definitely to Germany and the Slovak regions
remained with Hungary. And this historically absolutely non-existent "nation"
puts forward claims to independence?
The same thing holds for the Southern Slavs proper. Where is the history of
the Illyrian Solvenes, the Dalmatians, Croats and Shokazians? Since the 11th
century they have lost the last semblance of political independence and have
been partly under German, partly under Venetian, and partly under Magyar
rule. And it is desired to put together a vigorous, independent, viable nation
out of these tattered remnants?
More than that. If the Austrian Slavs were a compact mass like the Poles, the
Magyars and the Italians, if they were in a position to come together to form a
state of 12-20 million people, then their claims would surely be more serious.
But the position is just the opposite. The Germans and Magyars have pushed
themselves in between them like a broad wedge to the farthest extremities of
the Carpathians, almost to the Black Sea, and have separated the Czechs,
Moravians and Slovaks from the Southern Slavs by a broad band 60-80 miles
[German mile equals 4.7 English miles] wide. To the north of this band are 5.5
million Slavs, to the south 5.5 million Slavs, separated by a compact mass of
10-11 million Germans and Magyars, made allies by history and necessity.

But why should not the 5.5 million Czechs, Moravians and Slovaks form
one state, and the 5.5 million Southern Slavs together with the Turkish Slavs
form another state?
Take a look at any good linguistic map of the distribution of the Czechs and
their neighbors akin to them in language. They have thrust themselves into
Germany like a wedge but on both sides they have been eaten into and pressed
back by the German element. One-third of Bohemia speaks German; for every
34 Czechs in Bohemia there are 17 Germans. Yet it is precisely the Czechs in
Bohemia who are supposed to form the core of the intended Slav state; for the
Moravians, too, are considerably interspersed with Germans, and the Slovaks
with Germans and Magyars end furthermore completely demoralized in a
national respect. And what a Slav state that would be, in which in the final
analysis the German urban bourgeoisie would hold sway!
The same thing applies to the Southern Slavs. The Slovenes and Croats cut
of Germany and Hungary from the Adriatic Sea; but Germany and
Hungary cannot allow themselves to be cut off from the Adriatic Sea on
account of "geographical and commercial necessities", which, it is true, are no
obstacle to Bakunin's fantasy, but which nevertheless do exist and are just as
much a vital question for Germany and Hungary as, for example, the Baltic
Sea coast from Danzig to Riga is for Poland. And where it is a question of the
existence, of the free development of all the resources of big nations, such
sentimental considerations as concern for a few scattered Germans of Slavs
will not decide anything! This apart from the fact that these Southern Slavs are
likewise everywhere mingled with German, Magyar, and Italian elements,
there here too a mere glance at a linguistic map shows the planned South-Slav
state would be delivered into the hands of the Italian bourgeoisie of Trieste,
Fiumeand Zara, and theGerman bourgeoisie of Agram, Laibach, Karlstadt,
Semlin, Pancsova, and Weisskirchen!
But could not the Austrian Southern Slavs unite with the Serbs, Bosnians,
Morlaks, and Bulgarians? Certainly they could if, besides the difficulties
mentioned above, there did not exist also the age-old hatred of the Austrian
frontier dwellers for the Turkish Slavs on the other side of the Sava and Unna;
but these people, who for centuries have considered one another as rascals and
bandits, despite all their racial kinship hate one another infinitely more than do
the Slavs and Magyars.
In point of fact, the position of the Germans and Magyars would be
extremely pleasant if the Austrian Slavs were assisted to get their so-called
rights! An independent Bohemian-Moravian state would be wedged between

Silesia and Austria; Austria and Styria would be cut off by the "South-Slav
republic" from their natural debouche [outlet] - the Adriatic Sea and the
Mediterranean; and the eastern part of Germany would be torn to pieces like a
loaf of bread that has been gnawed by rats! And all that by way of thanks for
the Germans having given themselves the trouble of civilizing the stubborn
Czechs and Slovenes, and introducing among them trade, industry, a tolerable
degree of agriculture, and culture!
But it is precisely this yoke imposed on the Slavs under the pretext of
civilization that is said to constitute one of the greatest crimes of the Germans
and Magyars! Just listen to this:
"Rightly do you rage, rightly do you breathe vengeance against the damnable German policy,
which has thought of nothing but your ruin, which has enslaved you for centuries...." p.5
"... The Magyars, the bitter enemies of our race, who number hardly four millions, have
presumed to seek to impose their yoke on eight million Slavs...." p.9
"I know all that the Magyars have done to our Slav brothers, what crimes they have committed
against our nationality, and how they have trampled underfoot our language and independence."
p.30

What then are the great, dreadful crimes committed by the Germans and
Magyars against the Slav nationality? We are not speaking here of the partition
of Poland, which is not at issue here, we are speaking of the "centuries of
injustice" supposed to have been inflicted on the Slavs.
In the north, the Germans have reconquered from the Slavs the formerly
German and subsequently Slav region from the Elbe to the Warthe; a conquest
which as determined by the "geographical and strategical necessities" resulting
from the partition of the Carolingian kingdom. These Slavs areas have been
fully Germanized; the thing has been done and cannot be undone, unless the
pan-Slavists were to resurrect the lost Sorbian, Wendish, and Obodritian
languages and impose them on the inhabitants of Leipzig, Berlin and Stettin.
But up to now it has never been disputed that this conquest was to the
advantage of civilization.
In the south, the Germans found the Slav races already split up. That had
been seen to by the non-Slav Avars, who occupied the region later inhabited
by the Magyars. The Germans exacted tribute from these Slavs and waged
many wars against them. They fought also against the Avars and Magyars,
from whom they took the whole territory from the Ems to the Leitha. Whereas
they carried out Germanization here by force, the Germanization of the Slav
territories proceeded much more on a peaceful basis, by immigration and by

the influence of the more developed nation on the undeveloped. German

industry, German trade, and German culture by themselves served to introduce
the German language into the country. As far as "oppression" is concerned, the
Slavs were not more oppressed by the Germans than the mass of the German
population itself.
As regards the Magyars, there are certainly also a large number of Germans
in Hungary, but the Magyars, although numbering "hardly four millions", have
never had the occasion to complain of the "damnable German policy"! And if
during eight centuries the "eight million Slavs" have had to suffer the yoke
imposed on them by the four million Magyars, that alone sufficiently proves
which was the more viable and vigorous, the many Slavs or the few Magyars!
But, of course, the greatest "crime" of the Germans and Magyars is that they
prevented these 12 million Slavs from becoming Turkish! What would have
become of these scattered small nationalities, which have played such a pitiful
role in history, if the Magyars and Germans had not kept them together and led
them against the armies of Mohammed and Suleiman, and if their so-called
oppressors had not decided the outcome of the battles which were fought for
the defense of these weak nationalities! The fate of the "12 million Slavs,
Wallachians, and Greeks" who have been "trampled underfoot by 700,000
Osmans" (p.8), right up to the present day, does not that speak eloquently
enough?
And finally, what a "crime" it is, what a "damnable policy" that at a time
when, in Europe in general, big monarchies had become a "historical
necessity", the Germans and Magyars untied all these small, stunted and
impotent little nations into a single big state and thereby enabled them to take
part in a historical development from which, left to themselves, they would
have remained completely aloof! Of course, matters of this kind cannot be
accomplished without many a tender national blossom being forcibly broken.
But in history nothing is achieved without violence and implacable
ruthlessness, and if Alexander, Caesar, and Napoleon had been capable of
being moved by the same sort of appeal as that which pan-Slavism now makes
on behalf of its ruined clients, what would have become of history! And are the
Persians, Celts, and Christian Germans of less value than the Czechs,
Ogulians, and Serezhans?
Now, however, as a result of the powerful progress of industry, trade and
communications, political centralization has become a much more urgent need
than it was then, in the 15th and 16th centuries. What still has to be centralized
is being centralized. And now the pan-Slavists come forward and demand that

we should "set free" these half-Germanized Slavs, and that we should abolish a
centralization which is being forced on these Slavs by all their material
interests!
In short, it turns out these "crimes" of the Germans and Magyars against the
said Slavs are among the best and most praiseworthy deeds which our and the
Magyar people can boast in their history.
Moreover, as far as the Magyars are concerned, it should be specially
pointed out here that, particularly since the revolution, they have acted too
much submissively and weakly against the puffed-up Croats. It is notorious
that Kossuth made all possible concessions to them, excepting only that their
deputies were not allowed to speak the Croatian in the Diet. And thus
submissiveness to a nation that is counter-revolutionary by nature is the only
thing with which the Magyars can be reproached.

Source: MECW Volume 8, p. 362;

Written: by Engels on February 14-15, 1849;
First published: in Neue Rheinische Zeitung Nos. 222 and 223, February 15

and 16, 1849.

Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 223, February 16, 1849

Cologne, February 15. We concluded yesterday with the proof that the
Austrian Slavs have never had a history of their own, that from the historical,
literary, political, commercial and industrial points of view they are dependent
on the Germans and Magyars, that they are already partly Germanised,
Magyarised and Italianised, that if they were to establish independent states,
not they, but the German and Italian bourgeoisie of their towns would rule
these states, and finally, that neither Hungary nor Germany can tolerate the
detachment and independent constitution of such unviable, small intercalated
states.
All that, however, would still not be decisive. If at any epoch while they
were oppressed the Slavs had begun a new revolutionary history, that by itself
would have proved their viability. From that moment the revolution would
have had an interest in their liberation, and the special interest of the Germans

and Magyars would have given way to the greater interest of the European
revolution.
Precisely that, however, never happened. The Slavs once again we
remind our readers that here we always exclude the Poles were always the
main instruments of the counter-revolutionaries. Oppressed at home, outside
their country, wherever Slav influence extended to, they were the oppressors
of all revolutionary nations.
Let no one object that we speak here on behalf of German national
prejudices. In German, French, Belgian and English periodicals, the proofs are
to be found that it was precisely the editors of Neue Rheinische Zeitung who
already long before the revolution most decisively opposed all manifestations
of German national narrowmindedness.[325] Unlike many other people, they did
not castigate the Germans at random or on the basis of mere hearsay; on the
contrary, they proved from history and mercilessly exposed the despicable role
that Germany has certainly played in history, thanks to its nobles and burghers
and thanks to its crippled industrial development; they have always recognised
the superiority of the great historical nations of the west, the English and the
French, compared with the backward Germans. But precisely for that reason
we should be permitted not to share the fantastic illusions of the Slavs and
allowed to judge other peoples as severely as we have judged our own nation.
Up to now it has always been said that the Germans have been
the Lanzknechte [spear-bearers] of despotism throughout Europe. We are far
from denying the shameful part played by the Germans in the shameful wars
against the French revolution from 1792 to 1815, and in the oppression of Italy
since 1815 and of Poland since 1772; but who stood behind the Germans, who
used them as their mercenaries or their vanguard? England and Russia. After
all, up to the present day the Russians boast of having brought about the fall of
Napoleon through their innumerable armies, which is at any rate largely
correct. This much, at least, is certain, that of the armies which by their
superior power drove back Napoleon from the Oder as far as Paris, threequarters consisted of Slavs, Russians or Austrian Slavs.
And then, too, the Germans oppression of the Italians and Poles! A wholly
Slav power and a semi-Slav power competed in the partition of Poland; the
armies which crushed Kosciuszko consisted for the most part of Slavs, the
armies of Dibich and Paskevich were exclusively Slav armies. And in Italy for
many years the Tedeschi[Germans] alone had the ignominy of being regarded
as oppressors. But, once again, what was the composition of the armies which
best let themselves be used for oppression and for whose savage acts the

Germans were blamed? Once again, they consisted of Slavs. Go to Italy and
ask who suppressed the Milan revolution; people will no longer say: the
Tedeschi since the Tedeschi made a revolution in Vienna they are no longer
hated but: the Croati. That is the word which the Italians now apply to the
whole Austrian army, i.e. to all that is most deeply hated by them: i Croati!
Nevertheless, these reproaches would be superfluous and unjustified if the
Slavs had anywhere seriously participated in the movement of 1848, if they
had hastened to join the ranks of the revolutionary peoples. A single
courageous attempt at a democratic revolution, even if it were crushed,
extinguishes in the memory of the peoples whole centuries of infamy and
cowardice, and at once rehabilitates a nation, however deeply it had been
despised. That was the experience of the Germans last year. But whereas the
French, Germans, Italians, Poles and Magyars raised high the banner of the
revolution, the Slavs one and all put themselves under the banner of
the counter-revolution. In the forefront were the Southern Slavs, who had
already for many years upheld their counter-revolutionary separatist aims
against the Magyars; then came the Czechs, and behind them the Russians,
armed for battle and ready to appear on the battlefield at the decisive moment.
It is well known that in Italy the Magyar hussars went over to the Italians
en masse, that in Hungary whole Italian battalions put themselves at the
disposal of the Magyar revolutionary Government and are still fighting under
the Magyar flag; it is well known that in Vienna the German regiments sided
with the people and even in Galicia were by no means reliable; it is well
known that masses of Austrian and non-Austrian Poles fought against the
Austrian armies in Italy, in Vienna and in Hungary, and are still fighting in the
Carpathians; but where has. anyone ever heard of Czech or South-Slav troops
revolting against the black-and-yellow flag?
On the contrary, up to now it is known only that Austria, which was shaken
to its foundations, has been kept alive and for the time being is once again in
safety owing to the enthusiasm of the Slavs for the black-and-yellow flag; that
it was precisely the Croats, Slovenes, Dalmatians, Czechs, Moravians and
Ruthenians who put their contingents at the disposal of Windischgrtz and
Jellachich for suppressing the revolution in Vienna, Cracow, Lemberg and
Hungary; and what furthermore we have now learned from Bakunin is that the
Prague Slav Congress was dispersed not by Germans, but by Galician, Czech
and Slovak Slavs and nothing but Slavs"! P.33.
The revolution of 1848 compelled all European peoples to declare
themselves for or against it. In the course of a month all the peoples ripe for

revolution had made their revolution, and all those which were not ripe had
allied themselves against the revolution. At that time it was a matter of
disentangling the confused tangle of peoples of Eastern Europe. The question
was which nation would seize the revolutionary initiative here, and which
nation would develop the greatest revolutionary energy and thereby safeguard
its future. The Slavs remained silent, the Germans and Magyars, faithful to
their previous historical position, took the lead. As a result, the Slavs were
thrown completely into the arms of the counter-revolution.
But what about the Slav Congress in Prague?
We repeat: the so-called democrats among the Austrian Slavs are either
scoundrels or fantasts, and the latter, who do not find any fertile soil among
their people for the ideas imported from abroad, have been continually led by
the nose by the scoundrels. At the Prague Slav Congress the fantasts had the
upper hand. When the fantasy seemed dangerous to the aristocratic panSlavists, Count Thun, Palack & Co., they betrayed the fantasts to
Windischgrtz and the black-and-yellow counter-revolution. What bitter,
striking irony is contained in the fact that this Congress of dreamers, defended
by the dreamy Prague youth, was dispersed by soldiers of their own nation,
and that, as it were, a military Slav Congress was set up in opposition to the
day-dreaming Slav Congress! The Austrian army which captured Prague,
Vienna, Lemberg, Cracow, Milan and Budapest that is the real, active Slav
Congress!
How unfounded and vague was the fantasy at the Slav Congress is proved by
its results. The bombardment of a town like Prague would have filled any other
nation with inextinguishable hatred of its oppressors. But what did the Czechs
do? They kissed the rod which had bloodily chastised them, they eagerly swore
obedience to the flag under which their brothers had been slaughtered and their
wives ravished. The street-fighting in Prague was the turning-point for the
Austrian democratic pan-Slavists.[326] In return for the prospect of obtaining
their pitiful national independence, they bartered away democracy and the
revolution to the Austrian united monarchy, to the centre, the systematic
enforcement of despotism in the heart of Europe, as Bakunin himself says on
p. 29. And for this cowardly, base betrayal of the revolution we shall at some
time take a bloody revenge against the Slavs.
It has at last become clear to these traitors that they have nevertheless been
cheated by the counter-revolution and that for the Austrian Slavs there can be
no thought of either a Slav Austria or a federative state of nations with
equal rights, and least of all of democratic institutions. Jellachich, who is no

bigger a scoundrel than most of the other democrats among the Austrian Slavs,
bitterly regrets the way in which he has been exploited, and Stratimirovich, in
order not to allow himself to be exploited any longer, has proclaimed an open
revolt against Austria. The Slovansk-Lipa associations [327] once more
everywhere oppose the Government and every day gain fresh painful
experience of the trap into which they let themselves be enticed. But it is now
too late; powerless in their own homeland against the Austrian soldiery, which
they themselves re-organised, rejected by the Germans and Magyars whom
they have betrayed, rejected by revolutionary Europe, they will have to suffer
the same military despotism which they helped to impose on the Viennese and
Magyars. Submit to the Emperor so that the imperial troops do not treat you
as if you were rebellious Magyars these words of the Patriarch Rajachich
express what they have to expect in the immediate future.
How very differently have the Poles behaved! For the last eighty years
oppressed, enslaved, plundered, they have always been on the side of the
revolution and proclaimed that the revolutionisation of Poland is inseparable
from the independence of Poland. In Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Italy, Hungary, the
Poles shared the fighting in all the revolutions and revolutionary wars,
regardless whether they were fighting against Germans, against Slavs, against
Magyars, or even against Poles. The Poles are the only Slav nation that is free
from all pan-Slavist aspirations. They have, however, very good reasons for
that: they have been oppressed mainly by their own so-called Slav brothers,
and among the Poles hatred of Russians takes precedence over hatred of
Germans, and with full justification. But because the liberation of Poland is
inseparable from the revolution, because Pole and revolutionary have become
synonymous, for Poles the sympathy of all Europe and the restoration of their
nation are as certain as are for the Czechs, Croats and Russians the hatred of
all Europeans and a most bloody revolutionary war of the entire west against
them.
The Austrian pan-Slavists ought to understand that all their desire insofar as
they can be fulfilled, have been realised in the restoration of the Austrian
united monarchy under Russian protection. If Austria collapses, what is in
store for them is the revolutionary terrorism of the Germans and Magyars, but
by no means, as they imagine, the liberation of all the nations enslaved under
the sceptre of Austria. They must therefore wish that Austria continues to hold
together, and indeed that Galicia remains with Austria, so that the Slavs retain
a majority in the state. Here, therefore, pan-Slavist interests are already directly
opposed to the restoration of Poland, for a Poland without Galicia, a Poland
that does not extend from the Baltic to the Carpathians, is no Poland. But

equally for that reason a Slav Austria is still a mere dream; for without the
supremacy of the Germans and Magyars, without the two centres of Vienna
and Budapest, Austria will once again fall apart, as its whole history up to
recent months has proved. Accordingly, the realisation of pan-Slavism would
have to be restricted to Russian patronage over Austria. The openly reactionary
pan-Slavists were therefore quite right in holding fast to the preservation of the
united monarchy; it was the only means of saving anything. The so-called
democratic pan-Slavists, however, were in an acute dilemma: either
renunciation of the revolution and at least a partial salvation of nationality
through the united monarchy, or abandonment of nationality and salvation of
the revolution by the collapse of the united monarchy. At that time the fate of
the revolution in Eastern Europe depended on the position of the Czechs and
Southern Slavs; we shall not forget that at the decisive moment they betrayed
the revolution to Petersburg and Olmtz for the sake of their petty national
hopes.
What would be said if the democratic party in Germany commenced its
programme with the demand for the return of Alsace, Lorraine, and Belgium,
which in every respect belongs to France, on the pretext that the majority there
is Germanic? How ridiculous the German democrats would make themselves
if they wanted to found a pan-Germanic German-Danish-Swedish-EnglishDutch alliance for the liberation of all German-speaking countries! German
democracy, fortunately, is above such fantasies. German students in 1817 and
1830 were peddling that kind of reactionary fantasies and today throughout
Germany are being given their deserts. The German revolution only came into
being, and the German nation only began to become something, when people
had freed themselves completely from these futilities.
But pan-Slavism, too, is just as childish and reactionary as pan-Germanism.
When one reads the history of the pan-Slavist movement of last spring in
Prague, one could imagine oneself back in the period of thirty years ago:
tricolour sashes, ancient costumes, ancient Slav Masses, complete restoration
of the time and customs of the primeval forests; the Svornost a complete
replica of the German Burschenschaft, the Slav Congress a new edition of
the Wartburg Festival,[328] the same phrases, the same fantasies, the same
subsequent lamentation: We had built a stately house, etc. Anyone who
would like to read this famous song translated into Slav prose has only to read
Bakunins pamphlet.
Just as in the long run the most pronounced counter-revolutionary frame of
mind, the most ferocious hatred of Frenchmen, and the most narrow-minded
national feeling, were to be found among the members of the

German Burschenschaften, and just as later they all became traitors to the
cause for which they had pretended to be enthusiastic in exactly the same
way, only more speedily, because 1848 was a year of revolution, the
democratic semblance among the democratic pan-Slavists turned into fanatical
hatred of Germans and Magyars, into indirect opposition to the restoration of
Poland (Lubomirski), and into direct adherence to the counter-revolution.
And if some sincere Slav democrats now call on the Austrian Slavs to join
the revolution, to regard the Austrian united monarchy as their chief enemy,
and indeed to be on the side of the Magyars in the interests of the revolution,
they remind one of a hen which despairingly circles the edge of a pond where
the young ducklings which she has hatched out now suddenly escape from her
into a totally foreign element into which he cannot follow them.
But let us not harbour any illusions. Among all the pan-Slavists, nationality,
i.e. imaginary common Slav nationality, takes precedence over the revolution.
The pan-Slavists want to join the revolution on condition that they will be
allowed to constitute all Slavs without exception, regardless of material
necessities, into independent Slav states. If we Germans had wanted to lay
down the same fantastic conditions, we would have got a long way in March!
But the revolution does not allow of any conditions being imposed on it. Either
one is a revolutionary and accepts the consequences of the revolution,
whatever they are, or one is driven into the arms of the counter-revolution and
one day finds oneself, perhaps without knowing or desiring it, arm in arm with
Nicholas and Windischgrtz.
We and the Magyars should guarantee the Austrian Slavs their independence
that is what Bakunin demands, and people of the calibre of Ruge are
capable of having actually made such promises to him in secret. The demand is
put to us and the other revolutionary nations of Europe that the hotbeds of
counter-revolution at our very door should be guaranteed an unhindered
existence and the free right to conspire and take up arms against the revolution;
it is demanded that we should establish a counter-revolutionary Czech state in
the very heart of Germany, and break the strength of the German, Polish and
Magyar revolutions by interposing between them Russian outposts at the Elbe,
the Carpathians and the Danube!
We have no intention of doing that. To the sentimental phrases about
brotherhood which we are being offered here on behalf of the most counterrevolutionary nations of Europe, we reply that hatred of Russians was and still
is the primary revolutionary passion among Germans; that since the revolution
hatred of Czechs and Croats has been added, and that only by the most

determined use of terror against these Slav peoples can we, jointly with the
Poles and Magyars, safeguard the revolution. We know where the enemies of
the revolution are concentrated, viz. in Russia and the Slav regions of Austria,
and no fine phrases, no allusions to an undefined democratic future for these
countries can deter us from treating our enemies as enemies.
And if Bakunin finally exclaims:
Truly, the Slav should not lose anything, he should win! Truly, he should live! And we shall
live. As long as the smallest part of our rights is contested, as long as a single member is cut off
from our whole body, so long will we fight to the end, inexorably wage a life-and-death
struggle, until the Slavs have their place in the world, great and free and independent

if revolutionary pan-Slavism means this passage to be taken seriously, and in

its concern for the imaginary Slav nationality leaves the revolution entirely out
of account, then we too know what we have to do.
Then there will be a struggle, an inexorable life-and-death struggle,
against those Slavs who betray the revolution; an annihilating fight and
ruthless terror not in the interests of Germany, but in the interests of the
revolution!
Saturday, January 15, 2005
ENGELS DIDN'T THINK ALL RACES WERE EQUAL
He thought the Yugoslavs in particular deserved to be wiped out .... Hmmmm

"Among all the nations and sub-nations of Austria, only three standard-bearers of progress took an active part in history, and are still capable of life -- the Germans, the Poles and the Magyars. Hence they are now revolutionary. All the other large and small nationalities and peoples are destined to perish
before long in the revolutionary world storm.
(...)
This remnant of a nation that was, as Hegel says, suppressed and held in bondage in the course of history, this human trash, becomes every time -- and remains so until their complete obliteration or loss of national identity -- the fanatical carriers of counter-revolution, just as their whole existence in
general is itself a protest against a great historical revolution.
(...)
Such, in Austria, are the pan-Slavist Southern Slavs, who are nothing but the human trash of peoples, resulting from an extremely confused thousand years of development.
(...)
The next world war will result in the disappearance from the face of the earth not only of reactionary classes and dynasties, but also of entire reactionary peoples. And that, too, is progress.
A source in English

The German
Friedrich Engels, NRZ 13. Jan. 1849
Unter all den Nationen und Natinchen sterreichs sind nur drei, die die Trger des Fortschritts waren, die aktiv in die Geschichte eing egriffen haben, die jetzt noch lebensfhig sind - die Deutschen, die Polen, die Magyaren. Daher sind sie jetzt revolutionr. Alle anderen groen und kleinen Stmme und
Vlker haben zunchst die Mission, im revolutionren Weltsturm unterzugehen. (...)
Diese Reste einer von dem Gang der Geschichte, wie Hegel sagt, unbarmherzig zertretenen Nationen, diese Vlkerabflle werden jedesmal und bleiben bis zu ihrer gnzlichen Vertilgung oder Entnationalisierung die fanatischen Trger der Kontrerevolution, wie ihre ganze Existenz berhaupt schon ein Protest
gegen eine groe geschichtliche Revolution ist (...)
So in sterreich die panslawistischen Sdslawen, die weiter nichts sind als der Vlkerabfall einer hchst verworrenen tausendjhrigen Entwicklung. (...)
Der nchste Weltkrieg wird nicht nur reaktionre Klassen und Dynastien, er wird auch ganze reaktionre Vlker vom Erdboden verschwinden machen. Und das ist auch ein Fortschritt.
MEW a.a.O. 6, 176.

Engels in Neue Rheinische Zeitung January 1849

The Magyar Struggle

[221]

Source: MECW Volume 8, p. 227;

Written: by Engels about January 8, 1849;
First published: in Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 194, January 13, 1849.

Cologne, January. While in Italy the first counterblow is already being

struck against the counter-revolution of last summer and autumn, in the plains
of Hungary the last stage of the struggle to suppress the movement which arose
directly out of the February revolution is being completed. The new Italian
movement is the prologue of the movement of 1849, the war against the
Magyars is the epilogue to the movement of 1848. Probably this epilogue will
yet pass into the new drama that is being prepared in secret.
Like the first scenes of the revolutionary tragedy of 1848, which rapidly
succeeded one another, and like the fall of Paris and Vienna, this epilogue too
is heroic, and pleasantly heroic after the partly colourless and partly petty
episodes of the period between June and October. The last act of 1848 passes
through terrorism into the first act of 1849.
For the first time in the revolutionary movement of 1848, for the first time
since 1793, a nation surrounded by superior counter-revolutionary forces dares
to counter the cowardly counter-revolutionary fury by revolutionary passion,
the terreur blanche by the terreur rouge. For the first time after a long period
we meet with a truly revolutionary figure, a man who in the name of his people
dares to accept the challenge of a desperate struggle, who for his nation is
Danton and Carnot in one person Lajos Kossuth.
The superiority of forces is frightful. The whole of Austria, 16 million
fanaticised Slavs in the forefront, against 4 million Magyars.
Mass uprising, national manufacture of arms, issue of banknotes, short shrift
for anyone hindering the revolutionary movement, revolution in permanence
in short, all the main features of the glorious year 1793 are found again in
the Hungary which Kossuth has armed, organised and inspired with
enthusiasm. This revolutionary organisation, which on pain of utter ruin had to
be completed, so to speak, in 24 hours, was lacking in Vienna, otherwise
Windischgrtz would never have been able to enter it. We shall see whether he
will succeed in entering Hungary in spite of this revolutionary organisation.
Let us take a closer look at the struggle and the combatant parties.

The Austrian monarchy arose out of the attempt to unite Germany in a single
monarchy just as the French kings up to Louis XI did in France. The attempt
failed because of the pitiful provincial narrow-mindedness of both the
Germans and the Austrians, and because of the corresponding petty
commercial spirit of the Habsburg dynasty. Instead of the whole of Germany,
the Habsburgs obtained only those South-German lands which were in direct
conflict with the isolated Slav tribes, or in which a German feudal nobility and
German burghers ruled jointly over enslaved Slav tribes. In both cases the
Germans of each province required support from outside. This support they
received through the association against the Slavs, and this association came
into being through the union of the provinces in question under the sceptre of
the Habsburgs.
That is how German Austria originated. It suffices to read in any textbook
how the Austrian monarchy came into being, how it split up and arose again,
all in the course of struggle against the Slavs, to see how correct this
description is.
Adjacent to German Austria is Hungary. In Hungary the Magyars waged the
same struggle as the Germans in German Austria. A German wedge driven
between the Slav barbarians in the Archduchy of Austria and Styria went hand
in hand with the Magyar wedge driven in the same way between the Slav
barbarians on the Leitha. Just as in the south and north, in Bohemia, Moravia,
Carinthia and Kraina the German nobility ruled over Slav tribes, Germanised
them and so drew them into the European movement, the Magyar nobility
likewise ruled over Slav tribes in the south and north, in Croatia, Slavonia and
the Carpathian territories. The interests of both were the same; opponents of
both were natural allies. The alliance of the Magyars and the Austrian
Germans was a necessity. All that was still lacking was some great event, a
heavy attack on both of them, in order to make this alliance indissoluble. Such
an event came with the Turks conquest of the Byzantine Empire. The Turks
threatened Hungary and, secondly, Vienna, and for centuries Hungary came
indissolubly under the Flabsburg dynasty.
But the common opponents of both became gradually weak. The Turkish
Empire became powerless, and the Slavs lost the strength to revolt against the
Magyars and Germans. Indeed, a part of the German and Magyar nobility
ruling in Slav lands adopted Slav nationality and thereby the Slav nationalities
themselves became interested in preserving the monarchy, which had more and
more to defend the nobility against the developing German and Magyar
bourgeoisie. The national contradictions were disappearing and the Habsburg
dynasty adopted a different policy. The same Habsburg dynasty which had

climbed to the German imperial throne on the shoulders of the German

burghers became more decisively than any other dynasty the champion of the
feudal nobility against the burghers.
In the same spirit Austria participated in the partition of Poland. [222] The
important Galician elders and army commanders, the Potockis, Lubomirskis
and Czartoryskis, betrayed Poland to Austria and became the most loyal
supports of the Habsburg dynasty, which in return guaranteed them their
possessions against attacks from the lower nobility and burghers.
But the burghers in the towns continually grew in wealth and influence and
the progress of agriculture alongside that of industry changed the position of
the peasants in relation to the landowners. The movement of the burghers and
peasants against the nobility became more and more menacing. And since the
movement of the peasants, who everywhere are the embodiment of national
and local narrow-mindedness, necessarily assumes a local and national
character, it was accompanied by a resurgence of the old national struggles.
In this state of affairs, Metternich achieved his master stroke. With the
exception of the most powerful feudal barons, he deprived the nobility of all
influence on state administration. He sapped the strength of the bourgeoisie by
winning to his side the most powerful financial barons he had to do this, the
state of the finances made it compulsory for him. Supported in this way by the
top feudal and financial aristocracy, as well as by the bureaucracy and the
army, he far more than all his rivals attained the ideal of an absolute monarchy.
He kept the burghers and the peasantry of each nation under control by means
of the aristocracy of that nation and the peasantry of every other nation, and he
kept the aristocracy of each nation under control by its fear of that nations
burghers and peasantry. The different class interests, the national features of
narrow-mindedness, and local prejudices, despite their complexity, were
completely held in check by their mutual counteraction and allowed the old
scoundrel Metternich the utmost freedom to manoeuvre. How far he succeeded
in this setting of one nation against another is proved by the Galician scenes of
slaughter when the democratic Polish movement which began in the interests
of the peasantry was crushed by Metternich by means of the Ruthenian
peasants themselves who were animated by religious and national
fanaticism.[223]
The year 1848 first of all brought with it the most terrible chaos for Austria
by setting free for a short time all these different nationalities which, owing to
Metternich, had hitherto been enslaving one another. The Germans, Magyars,
Czechs, Poles, Moravians, Slovaks, Croats, Ruthenians, Rumanians, Illyrians

and Serbs came into conflict with one another, while within each of these
nationalities a struggle went on also between the different classes. But soon
order came out of this chaos. The combatants divided into two large camps:
the Germans, Poles and Magyars took the side of revolution; the remainder, all
the Slavs, except for the Poles, the Rumanians and Transylvanian Saxons, took
the side of counter-revolution.
How did this division of the nations come about, what was its basis?
The division is in accordance with all the previous history of the
nationalities in question. It is the beginning of the decision on the life or death
of all these nations, large and small.
All the earlier history of Austria up to the present day is proof of this and
1848 confirmed it. Among all the large and small nations of Austria, only three
standard-bearers of progress took an active part in history, and still retain their
vitality the Germans, the Poles and the Magyars. Hence they are now
revolutionary.
All the other large and small nationalities and peoples are destined to perish
before long in the revolutionary world storm. For that reason they are now
counter-revolutionary.
As for the Poles, we refer the reader to our article about the debates on the
Polish question in Frankfurt. In order to curb their revolutionary spirit,
Metternich had appealed to the Ruthenians, a nationality differing from the
Poles by its somewhat different dialect and especially by its Greek orthodox
religion. The Ruthenians had belonged to Poland for a long time and learned
only from Metternich that the Poles were their oppressors. As though in the old
Poland the Poles themselves were not oppressed just as much as the
Ruthenians, as though under Austrian domination Metternich was not their
common oppressor!
So much for the Poles and Ruthenians who, moreover because of their
history and geographical position, are so sharply separated from Austria proper
that we have had to get them out of the way first of all in order to reach clarity
in regard to the chaos of the other peoples.
Let us, however, also remark at the outset that the Poles have revealed great
political understanding and a true revolutionary spirit by now entering into an
alliance with their old enemies, the Germans and Magyars, against the panSlav counter-revolution. A Slav people for whom freedom is clearer than

Slavism proves its vitality by this fact alone, and thereby already assures a
future for itself.
We pass now to Austria proper.
Situated to the south of the Sudetic and Carpathian mountains, in the upper
valley of the Elbe and in the region of the Middle Danube, Austria in the early
Middle Ages was a country populated exclusively by Slavs. By language and
customs these Slavs belong to the same stock as the Slavs of Turkey, the
Serbs, Bosnians, Bulgarians, and the Slavs of Thrace and Macedonia; these, in
contrast to the Poles and Russians, are called Southern Slavs. Apart from these
related Slav nationalities, the vast region from the Black Sea to the Bohemian
forests and Tyrolean Alps, was inhabited only by a few Greeks in the south of
the Balkans, and in the Lower Danube region by scattered Rumanian-speaking
Wallachians.
Into this compact Slav mass a wedge was driven by Germans from the west
and the Magyars from the east. The German element conquered the western
part of Bohemia and pushed forward on both sides of the Danube as far as the
other side of the Leitha. The Archduchy of Austria, part of Moravia, and the
greater part of Styria were Germanised and thus I separated the Czechs and
Moravians from the inhabitants of Carinthia and Kraina. In the same way
Transylvania and Central Hungary up to the German frontier was completely
cleared of Slavs and occupied by Magyars, who here separated the Slovaks and
a few Ruthenian localities (in the north) from the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes,
and subjected all these peoples to their rule. Finally, the Turks, following the
example of the Byzantines, subjugated the Slavs south of the Danube and the
Sava, and the historical role of the Southern Slavs was ended for ever.[224]
The last attempt of the Southern Slavs to play an independent part in history
was the Hussite war[225], a national peasant war of the Czechs under the flag of
religion against the German nobility and the supremacy of the German
Emperor. The attempt failed, and ever since then the Czechs have remained
fettered under the yoke of the German Empire.
On the other hand, their conquerors the Germans and Magyars took
over the historical initiative in the Danube regions. Without the aid of the
Germans and particularly of the Magyars, the Southern Slavs would have
become Turkish, as actually happened to part of them, indeed Mohammedan,
as the Slavs of Bosnia still are today. And for the Southern Slavs of Austria
this is a service which is not too dear even at the price of exchanging their
nationality for German or Magyar.

The Turkish invasion of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was a second
edition of the Arab invasion of the eighth century. Charles Martels victory
was repeatedly re-won at the walls of Vienna and on the Hungarian plain. As
then at Poitiers, and later at Wahlstatt, during the invasion of the
Mongols,[226] there was here once more a threat to the whole of European
development. And where it was a matter of saving this, how could it be
achieved by a few nationalities, like the Austrian Slavs, which had long ago
disintegrated and become impotent and which, moreover, themselves needed
to be saved?
The situation internally was like that externally. The class that was the
driving force and standard-bearer of the movement, the bourgeoisie, was
everywhere German or Magyar. The Slavs could only with difficulty give rise
to a national bourgeoisie, and the Southern Slavs only in quite isolated cases.
And with the bourgeoisie, industrial power and capital were in the hands of
Germans or Magyars, German culture developed, and intellectually too the
Slavs became subordinate to the Germans, even as far as Croatia. The same
thing happened only later and therefore to a lesser extent in Hungary,
where the Magyars together with the Germans took the lead in intellectual and
commercial affairs. But the Hungarian Germans, although they retained the
German language, became genuine Hungarians in disposition, character and
customs. Only the newly introduced peasant colonists, the Jews and the Saxons
in Transylvania, are an exception and stubbornly retain an absurd nationality in
the midst of a foreign land.
And if the Magyars were a little behind the German Austrians in civilisation,
they have recently brilliantly overtaken them by their political activity.
Between 1830 and 1848 there was more political life in Hungary alone than in
the whole of Germany, and the feudal forms of the old Hungarian Constitution
were better exploited in the interests of democracy than the modern forms of
South-German constitutions. And who was at the head of the movement here?
The Magyars. Who supported Austrian reaction? The Croats and Slovenes.
Against the Magyar movement, as also against the reawakening political
movement in Germany, the Austrian Slavs founded a Sonderbund [227] panSlavism.
Pan-Slavism did not originate in Russia or Poland, but in Prague and in
Agram.[228] Pan-Slavism means the union of all the small Slav nations and
nationalities of Austria, and secondarily of Turkey, for struggle against the
Austrian Germans, the Magyars and, eventually, against the Turks. The Turks
are only incidentally included here and, as a nation which is also in a state of

complete decline, can be entirely disregarded. In its basic tendency, panSlavism is aimed against the revolutionary elements of Austria and is therefore
reactionary from the outset.
Pan-Slavism immediately gave proof of this reactionary tendency by a
double betrayal: it sacrificed to its petty national narrow-mindedness the only
Slav nation which up to then had acted in a revolutionary manner,
the Poles; it sold both itself and Poland to the Russian Tsar.
The direct aim of pan-Slavism is the creation of a Slav state under Russian
domination, extending from the Erzgebirge and the Carpathians to the Black,
Aegean and Adriatic seas a state which would include, besides the German,
Italian, Magyar, Wallachian, Turkish, Greek and Albanian languages, also
approximately a dozen Slav languages and basic dialects. All this would be
held together not by the elements which have hitherto held Austria together
and ensured its development, but by the abstract quality of Slavism and the socalled Slav language, which is at any rate common to the majority of the
inhabitants. But where does this Slavism exist except in the minds of a few
ideologists, where is the Slav language except in the imagination of Herren
Palack, Gaj and Co., and, to some extent, in the old Slav litany of the Russian
church, which no Slav any longer understands? In reality, all these peoples are
at the most diverse stages of civilisation, ranging from the fairly highly
developed (thanks to the Germans) modern industry and culture of Bohemia
down to the almost nomadic barbarism of the Croats and Bulgarians; in reality,
therefore, all these nations have most antagonistic interests. In reality, the Slav
language of these ten or twelve nations consists of an equal number of dialects,
mostly incomprehensible to one another, which can be reduced to different
main stems (Czech, Illyrian, Serbian, Bulgarian) and which, owing to the total
neglect of all literature and the lack of culture of the majority of these peoples,
have become a sheer patois, and with few exceptions have always had above
them an alien, non-Slav language as the written language. Thus, pan-Slav
unity is either pure fantasy or the Russian knout.
And what nations are supposed to head this great Slav state? Precisely those
nations which for a thousand years have been scattered and split up, those
nations
whose
elements
capable
of
life
and
development
were forcibly imposed on them by other, non-Slav peoples, those nations
which were saved from downfall in Turkish barbarism by the victorious arms
of non-Slav peoples, small, powerless nationalities, everywhere separated from
one another and deprived of their national strength, numbering from a few
thousand up to less than two million people! They have become so weak that,
for example, the race which in the Middle Ages was the strongest and most

terrible, the Bulgarians, are now in Turkey known only for their mildness and
soft-heartedness and set great store on being called dobre chrisztian, good
Christians! Is there a single one of these races, not excluding the Czechs and
Serbs, that possesses a national historical tradition which is kept alive among
the people and stands above the pettiest local struggles?
Pan-Slavism was at its height in the eighth and ninth centuries, when the
Southern Slavs still held the whole of Hungary and Austria and were
threatening Byzantium. If at that time they were unable to resist the German
and Magyar invasion, if they were unable to achieve independence and form a
stable state even when both their enemies, the Magyars and Germans, were
tearing each other to pieces, how will they be able to achieve it today, after a
thousand years of subjection and loss of their national character?
There is no country in Europe which does not have in some corner or other
one or several ruined fragments of peoples, the remnant of a former population
that was suppressed and held in bondage by the nation which later became the
main vehicle of historical development. These relics of a nation mercilessly
trampled under foot in the course of history, as Hegel says, these residual
fragments of peoples always become fanatical standard-bearers of counterrevolution and remain so until their complete extirpation or loss of their
national character, just as their whole existence in general is itself a protest
against a great historical revolution.
Such, in Scotland, are the Gaels, the supporters of the Stuarts from 1640 to
1745.
Such, in France, are the Bretons, the supporters of the Bourbons from 1792
to 1800.
Such, in Spain, are the Basques, the supporters of Don Carlos.
Such, in Austria, are the pan-Slavist Southern Slavs, who are nothing but
the residual fragment of peoples, resulting from an extremely
confused thousand years of development. That this residual fragment, which is
likewise extremely confused, sees its salvation only in a reversal of the whole
European movement, which in its view ought to go not from west to east, but
from east to west, and that for it the instrument of liberation and the bond of
unity is the Russian knout that is the most natural thing in the world.
Already before 1848, therefore, the Southern Slavs had clearly shown their
reactionary character. The year 1848 brought it fully into the light of day.

When the February storm broke, who made the Austrian revolution? Vienna
or Prague? Budapest or Agram? The Germans and Magyars, or the Slavs?
It is true that among the more educated Southern Slavs there was a small
democratic party which, although not wanting to renounce its nationality,
nevertheless desired to put it at the disposal of the struggle for freedom. This
illusion, which succeeded in arousing sympathy also among West-European
democrats, sympathy that was fully justified as long as the Slav democrats
took part in the struggle against the common enemy this illusion was
shattered by the bombardment of Prague. After that event all the South-Slav
races, following the example of the Croats, put themselves at the disposal of
Austrian reaction. Those leaders of the South-Slav movement who continue to
talk drivel about the equality of nations, about democratic Austria, and so on,
are either stupid dreamers, such as, for example, many journalists, or they are
scoundrels like Jellachich. Their democratic assurances have no more
significance than the democratic assurances of official Austrian counterrevolution. It suffices to say that in practice the restoration of the South-Slav
nationality begins with the most savage outbursts of fury against the Austrian
and Magyar revolution, with a first great good turn rendered to the Russian
Tsar.
Apart from the higher nobility, the bureaucracy and the military, the
Austrian camarilla found support only among the Slavs. The Slavs played the
decisive part in the fall of Italy, the Slavs stormed Vienna, and it is the Slavs
who are now attacking the Magyars from all sides. At their head as spokesmen
are the Czechs under Palack, as leaders of armed forces the Croats under
Jellachich.
That is the gratitude shown for the fact that the German democratic press in
June everywhere sympathised with the Czech democrats when they were shot
down by Windischgrtz, the same Windischgrtz who is now their hero.
To sum up:
In Austria, apart from Poland and Italy, it is the Germans and Magyars in
1848, as during the past thousand years already, who have assumed the
historical initiative. They represent the revolution.
The Southern Slavs, who for a thousand years have been taken in tow by the
Germans and the Magyars, only rose up in 1848 to achieve their national
independence in order thereby at the same time to suppress the GermanMagyar revolution. They represent the counter-revolution. They were joined

by two nations, which had likewise long ago degenerated and were devoid of
all historical power of action: the Saxons and the Rumanians of Transylvania.
The Habsburg dynasty, whose power was based on the union of Germans
and Magyars in the struggle against the Southern Slavs, is now prolonging the
last moments of its existence through the union of the Southern Slavs in the
struggle against the Germans and Magyars.
That is the political aspect of the question. Now for the military aspect.
The region inhabited exclusively by Magyars does not form even one-third
of the whole of Hungary and Transylvania. In the area from Pressburg,
northwards from the Danube and Theiss up to the rear of the Carpathians there
live several million Slovaks and a few Ruthenians. In the south, between the
Sava, Danube and Drava, there live Croats and Slovenes; farther to the east,
along the Danube is a Serb colony of more than half a million people. These
two Slav stretches are linked by the Wallachians and the Saxons of
Transylvania.
On three sides, therefore, the Magyars are surrounded by natural enemies. If
the Slovaks, occupying the mountain passes, were of a less lukewarm
disposition, they would be dangerous opponents, in view of their region being
excellently adapted for guerilla warfare.
As things are, however, the Magyars have only to withstand from the north
attacks of invading armies from Galicia and Moravia. In the east, on the other
hand, the Rumanians and Saxons rose up in a mass and joined the Austrian
army corps there. Their situation is an excellent one, partly because of the
mountainous nature of the country and partly because they occupy most of the
towns and fortresses.
Finally, in the south are the Banat Serbs, supported by the German colonists,
the Wallachians and also an Austrian corps, protected by the vast Alibunar
morass and almost impregnable.
The Croats are protected by the Drava and the Danube, and since they have
at their disposal a strong Austrian army with all its auxiliary resources, they
advanced into the Magyar region already before October and now have little
difficulty in holding their line of defence on the Lower Drava.

Finally, from the fourth side, from Austria, the serried columns of
Windischgrtz and Jellachich are now advancing. The Magyars are encircled
on all sides, and encircled by an enemy of vastly superior power.
The fighting is reminiscent of that against France in 1793, but with the
difference that the sparsely populated and only half-civilised country of the
Magyars is far from having at its disposal the resources which the French
Republic then had.
The weapons and munitions manufactured in Hungary are bound to be of
very poor quality; in particular, it is impossible for the manufacture of artillery
to go ahead rapidly. The country is far smaller than France and every inch of
territory lost is therefore a much greater loss. All that is left to the Magyars is
their revolutionary enthusiasm, their courage and the energetic, speedy
organisation that Kossuth was able to give them.
But for all that, Austria has not yet won.
If we fail to beat the imperial troops on the Leitha, we shall beat them on the Rabnitz; if not on
the Rabnitz, we shall beat them at Pest; if not at Pest, then on the Theiss, but in any case we shall
beat
them."
[From Kossuths speech in the Hungarian parliament on November 9, 1848]

So said Kossuth, and he is doing his utmost to keep his word.

Even with the fall of Budapest, the Magyars still have the great Lower
Hungarian steppe, a terrain as it were specially created for cavalry guerilla
warfare and offering numerous almost unassailable points between the swamps
where the Magyars can dig themselves in. And the Magyars, who are almost
all horsemen, possess all the qualities needed to wage such a war. If the
imperial army dares to enter this desert region, where it will have to obtain all
its provisions from Galicia or Austria, for it will find nothing, absolutely
nothing on the spot, it is impossible to see how it will be able to hold out. It
will achieve nothing in a closed formation; and if it splits up into flying
detachments it is lost. Its clumsiness would deliver it irretrievably into the
hands of the swift Magyar cavalry detachments, without any possibility of
pursuit even if it should be victorious, and every isolated soldier of the
imperial army would find a mortal enemy in every peasant, in every herdsman.
War in these steppes is like war in Algeria, and the clumsy Austrian army
would require years to end it. And the Magyars will be saved if they hold out
for only a few months.

The Magyar cause is not in such a bad way as mercenary black-andyellow [colours of the Austrian flag] enthusiasm would have us believe. The
Magyars are not yet defeated. But if they fall, they will fall gloriously, as the
last heroes of the 1848 revolution, and only for a short time. Then for a time
the Slav counter-revolution will sweep down on the Austrian monarchy with
all its barbarity, and the camarilla will see what sort of allies it has. But at the
first victorious uprising of the French proletariat, which Louis Napoleon is
striving with all his might to conjure up, the Austrian Germans and Magyars
will be set free and wreak a bloody revenge on the Slav barbarians. The
general war which will then break out will smash this Slav Sonderbund and
wipe out all these petty hidebound nations, down to their very names.
The next world war will result in the disappearance from the face of the
earth not only of reactionary classes and dynasties, but also of entire
reactionary peoples. And that, too, is a step forward.
Friday, January 14, 2005
MARX CALLED NON-GERMANS "RABBLE"

"(...) In Vienna, Croats, Pandours, Czechs, Serezhans and similar rabble throttled German liberty, and the Tsar is now omnipresent in Europe"
Source
The German
Karl Marx, NRZ 1. Jan. 1849
(...) in Wien erwrgten Kroaten, Panduren, Tschechen, Sereczaner und hnliches Lumpengesindel die germanische Freiheit (...)
MEW a.a.O. 6, 150.

Marx in Neue Rheinische Zeitung January 1849

The Revolutionary Movement

by Karl Marx
Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 184
Translated by the Marx-Engels Institute
Transcribed for the Internet by director@marx.org, 1994

Cologne, December 31. Never was a revolutionary movement opened with

such an edifying overture as the revolutionary movement of 1848. The Pope

gave it the blessing of the Church, and Lamartine's aeolian harp vibrated with
tender philanthropical tunes on the words of fraternity, the brotherhood of
members of society and nations.
Welcome
all
Brethren, take the kiss of love! [150]

ye

myriad

creatures!

Driven out of Rome, the Pope at present is staying at Gaeta under the
protection of the tigerish idiot Ferdinand; Italy's "iniciatore" [151] conspires
against Italy with Austria, Italy's traditional mortal enemy, whom in happier
days he threatened to excommunicate. The recent French presidential elections
have given statistical proof of the unpopularity of Lamartine, the traitor. There
has been no event more philanthropic, humane, and weak than the February
and March revolutions, nothing more brutal than the inevitable consequences
of this humanity of weakness. The proofs are Italy, Poland, Germany, and
above all, those who were defeated in June.
But the defeat of the French workers in June was the defeat of the June
victors themselves. Ledru- Rollin and the other men of the Mountain [152]
were ousted by the party of the National, the party of the bourgeois
republicans; the party of the National was ousted by Thiers-Barrot, the
dynastic opposition; these in turn would have had to make way for the
legitimists if the cycle of the three restorations had not come to an end, and if
Louis Napoleon was something more than an empty ballot-box by means of
which the French peasants announced their entry into the revolutionary social
movement, and the French workers their condemnation of all leaders of the
preceding periods -- Thiers-Barrot, Lamartine and Cavaignac-Marrast. But let
us note the fact that the inevitable consequence of the defeat of the
revolutionary French working class was the defeat of the republican French
bourgeoisie, to which it had just succumbed.
The defeat of the working class in France and the victory of the French
bourgeoisie at the same time signified the renewed suppression of the
nationalities, who had responded to the crowing of the Gallic cock with heroic
attempts to liberate themselves. Prussian, Austrian and English Sbirri once
more plundered, ravished and murdered in Poland, Italy and Ireland. The
defeat of the working class in France and the victory of the French bourgeoisie
was at the same time the defeat of the middle classes in all European countries
where the middle classes, united for the moment with the people, responded to
the crowing of the Gallic cock with sanguinary insurrections against feudalism.
Naples, Vienna, Berlin. The defeat of the working class in France and the
victory of the French bourgeoisie was at the same time a victory of East over

West, the defeat of civilization by barbarism. The suppression of the

Romanians by the Russians and their tools, the Turks, began in Wallachia;
Croats, pandours, Czechs, serezhans [Mounted troops in the Austrian army
who were notorious for their cruelty. -- Ed.] and similar rabble throttled
German liberty in Vienna, and the Tsar is now omnipresent in Europe. The
overthrow of the bourgeoisie in France, the triumph of the French working
class, and the liberation of the working class in general is therefore the
rallying-cry of European liberation.
But England, the country that turns whole nations into her proletarians, that
spans the whole world with her enormous arms, that has already once defrayed
the cost of a European Restoration, the country in which class contradictions
have reached their most acute and shameless form -- England seems to be the
rock which breaks the revolutionary waves, the country where the new society
is stifled before it is born. England dominates the world market. Any upheaval
in economic relations in any country of the European continent, in the whole
European continent without England, is a storm in a teacup. Industrial and
commercial relations within each nation are governed by its intercourse with
other nations, and depend on its relations with the world market. But the world
market is dominated by England and England is dominated by the bourgeoisie.
Thus, the liberation of Europe, whether brought about by the struggle of the
oppressed nationalities for their independence or by overthrowing feudal
absolutism, depends on the successful uprising of the French working class.
Every social upheaval in France, however, is bound to be thwarted by the
English bourgeoisie, by Great Britain's industrial and commercial domination
of the world. Every partial social reform in France or on the European
continent as a whole, if designed to be lasting, is merely a pious wish. Only a
world war can break old England, as only this can provide the Chartists, the
party of the organized English workers, with the conditions for a successful
rising against their powerful oppressors. Only when the Chartists head the
English government will the social revolution pass from the sphere of utopia to
that of reality. But any European war in which England is involved is a world
war, waged in Canada and Italy, in the East Indies and Prussia, in Africa and
on the Danube. A European war will be the first result of a successful workers'
revolution in France. England will head the counter-revolutionary armies, just
as she did during the Napoleonic period, but the war itself will place her at the
head of the revolutionary movement and she will repay the debt she owes to
the revolution of the eighteenth century.
The table of contents for 1849 reads: Revolutionary rising of the French
working class, world war.

Thursday, January 13, 2005

FARMERS TO COP IT

Engels: "And the farmers have over six million votes, over two thirds of all votes in the elections in France. (...) The French proletariat, before it can accomplish its demands, will have to defeat a general farmer's war."
The German
Friedrich Engels, Von Paris nach Bern, 1848
Und die Bauern haben ber sechs Millionen Stimmen, ber zwei Drittel aller Stimmen bei den Wahlen in Frankreich (...) Das franzsische Proletariat, ehe es seine Forderungen durchsetzt, wird zuerst einen allgemeinen Bauernkrieg zu unterdrcken haben (...)
MEW a.a.O. 5, 474 f.
No respect for the voters there! Military oppression instead is envisaged. And Stalin and others did just that.

Wednesday, January 12, 2005

MARX SAW THE JEWS AS RIGHTISTS
"And as for the Jews, who since the emancipation of their sect have everywhere put themselves, at least in the person of their eminent representatives, at the head of the counter-revolution -- what awaits them?"
Source

The German
Karl Marx, NRZ 17. Nov.1848
Und nun gar die Juden, die seit der Emanzipation ihrer Sekte wenigstens in ihren vornehmen Vertretern berall an die Spitze der Kontrerevolution getreten sind, was harrt ihrer?
MEW a.a.O. 6, 25.
Marx is here gloating that the conservatism of the German Jews has not saved them from loss of their rights at the hands of the government. At least that's one way Hitler and Marx differed. Hitler thought the Jews were too revolutionary and Marx thought they were too conservative. Either way it was tough
luck to be a Jew, though.

Marx in Neue Rheinische Zeitung November 1848

Confessions of a Noble Soul

[the title of the sixth book of Goethes novel Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre]

Source: MECW Volume 8, p. 30;

Written: by Marx on November 16, 1848;
First published: in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 145, November 17,

1848.

Cologne, November 16. We predicted to the Right what would await them if
the camarilla was victorious a tip and kicks.
We were mistaken. The struggle has not yet been decided, but they are
already being given kicks by their chiefs, without receiving any tip.
The Neue Preussische Zeitung, Dame of the Army Reserve Cross with God
for King and Fatherland, the official organ of those now in power, states in
one of its recent issues that the deputies Zweiffel (Chief Public Prosecutor in
Cologne) and Schlink (Counsellor of the Court of Appeal in Cologne) are
let the reader guess revolutionary stomachs [Magen] (the Neue
Preussische Zeitung writes Mgen). It speaks of these gentlemens
inexpressible emptiness of thought and absence of thought. It finds even

Robespierres fantasies far superior to the ideas of these gentlemen of the

central section. Avis [take notice] Messieurs Zweiffel et Schlink!
In the same issue of this newspaper Pinto-Hansemann [44] is declared to be a
leader of the extreme Left, and according to the same newspaper there is
only one remedy for leaders of the extreme Left summary justice the
rope. Avis a M. Pinto-Hansemann, ex-Minister of action and of the
constabulary.[45]
For an official news sheet, the Neue Preussische Zeitung is too naively frank.
It tells the various parties too explicitly what is locked in the files of the Santa
Casa.[46]
In the Middle Ages, people used to open Virgil at random in order to
prophesy. In the Prussian Brumaire of 1848, people open the Neue Preussische
Zeitung to save themselves the trouble of prophesying. We shall give some
new examples. What has the camarilla in store for the Catholics?
Listen!
No. 115 of the Neue Preussische Zeitung states:
It is equally untrue that the state (namely the royal Prussian state, the state of the Army
Reserve Cross in its pre-March period) has assumed a narrow denominational character and
has guided religious affairs from this one-sided standpoint Admittedly this reproach, if it were
true, would be an expression of definite praise. But it is untrue; for it is well known that our
Government has expressly abandoned the old and standpoint of an evangelical government.

It is well known that Frederick William III made religion a branch of military
discipline and had dissenters[48] thrashed by the police. It is well known
that Frederick William IV, as one of the twelve minor prophets, wanted
through the agency of the Eichhorn-Bodelschwingh-Ladenberg Ministry to
convert the people and men of science forcibly to the religion of Bunsen. It is
well known that even under the Camphausen Ministry the Poles were just as
much plundered, scorched and clubbed because they were Poles as because
they were Catholics. The Pomeranians always made a point of thrusting their
bayonets through images of the Virgin Mary in Poland and hanging Catholic
priests.
The persecution of dissenting Protestants under Frederick
III and Frederick William IV is equally well known.

William

The former immured in fortresses the Protestant pastors who repudiated the
ritual and dogmas that he himself had invented. He was a great inventor of
soldiers uniforms and rituals. And the latter? The Eichhorn Ministry? It
suffices to mention the name of the Eichhorn Ministry.
But all that was a mere nothing!
Our Government had expressly abandoned the old and good
standpoint of an evangelical government. Await therefore the restoration of
Brandenburg-Manteuffel,
you Catholics
of
the
Rhine
Province and Westphalia and Silesia! Previously you were punished with rods,
you will be scourged with scorpions.[paraphrased words of Rehoboam, King
of Judah. See 1 Kings 12:11] You will get to know expressly the old and good
standpoint of an evangelical government"!
And as for the Jews, who since the emancipation of their sect have
everywhere put themselves, at least in the person of their eminent
representatives, at the head of the counter-revolution what awaits them?
There has been no waiting for victory in order to throw them back into their
ghetto.
In Bromberg the Government is renewing the old restrictions on freedom of
movement and thus robbing the Jews of one of the first of Rights of Man of
17891 the right to move freely from one place to another.
That is one aspect of the government of voluble Frederick William
IV under the auspices of Brandenburg-Manteuffel-Ladenberg.
In its issue of November 11 the Neue Preussische Zeitung threw out wellbeing as bait to the liberal-constitutional party. But it was already shaking its
head doubtfully over the constitutionalists.
For the time being at any rate, our constitutionalists are still exceedingly shy of admitting, when
together in their clubs or in their public press, that they are reactionaries.

However, it adds soothingly and pertinently:

Every single one (of the liberal-constitutionalists) has long ago ceased to conceal that at the
present time there is no salvation except in legal reaction,

that is to say, in making the law reactionary or reaction legal, elevating

reaction to the level of law.

In its issue of November 15 the Neue Preussische Zeitung already makes short
work of the constitutionalists who want reaction elevated to the level of law,
but are opposed to the Brandenburg-Manteuffel Ministry because it
wants counter-revolution sans phrase. [without mincing words]
The ordinary constitutionalists, it says, must be left to their fate.

Captured together! Hanged together!

For the information of the ordinary constitutionalists!
And wherein lies the extraordinary constitutionalism of Frederick William
IV under the auspices of Brandenburg-Manteuffel-Ladenberg?
The official government organ, the Dame of the Army Reserve Cross with
God for King and Fatherland, betrays the secrets of extraordinary
constitutionalism.
The simplest, most straightforward and least dangerous remedy, of course,
is to remove the Assembly to another place, from a capital to a guardroom,
from Berlin to Brandenburg.
However, this removal is, as the Neue Preussische Zeitung reveals, only an
attempt.
The attempt must be made, it says, to see whether the Assembly by removal to another place
regains internal freedom along with the re-achievement of external freedom of movement.

In Brandenburg the Assembly will be externally free. It will no longer be

under the influence of the blouses [i.e., workers] it will only still be under the
influence of the sabres of moustached cavalrymen.
But what about internal freedom?
Will the Assembly in Brandenburg free itself from the prejudices and
reprehensible revolutionary sentiments of the nineteenth century? Will its
soul be free enough to proclaim once more as official articles of faith feudal
hunting rights, all the musty lumber of former feudal burdens, social estate
distinctions, censorship, tax inequalities, aristocracy, absolute monarchy and
the death penalty, for which Frederick William IV is so enthusiastic, the
plundering and squandering of national labour by

the
pale
canaille
who
as
faith,
love
[Heinrich Heine, Deutschland. Ein Wintermrchen]

are

looked
and

upon
hope"

by starved country Junkers,. guard lieutenants and personifications of good

conduct records? Will the National Assembly even in Brandenburg
be internally free enough to proclaim once more all these items of the old
wretchedness to be official articles of faith?
It is known that the counter-revolutionary party put forward the
constitutional watchword: Completion of the work on the Constitution!
The organ of the Brandenburg-Manteuffel-Ladenberg Ministry scorns to
wear this mask any longer.
The state of affairs, the official organ admits, has reached a point at which even the long
desired completion of the work on the Constitution can no longer help us. For who can any
longer conceal from himself that a legal document which has been dictated to the peoples
representatives, paragraph by paragraph, under threat of the wheel and the gallows, and which
has been wrung from the Crown by these same representatives, will be considered binding only
as long as the most direct compulsion is capable of maintaining it in force.

Therefore, to abolish once again, paragraph by paragraph, the meagre rights

of the people achieved through the National Assembly in Berlin such is the
task of the National Assembly in Brandenburg!
If it does not completely restore the old lumber, paragraph by paragraph,
that just proves that while it is true that it has regained external freedom of
movement in Brandenburg, it has not regained internal freedom as claimed by
Potsdam.[49]
And how should the Government act against the spiritual obduracy, against
the internal lack of freedom of the Assembly that has migrated to
Brandenburg?
Dissolution ought to follow, exclaims the Neue Preussische Zeitung.
But the idea occurs to it that perhaps the people is internally still less
free than the Assembly.
It would be possible, it says, shrugging its shoulders, for doubt to arise whether new primary
elections might not produce a still more pitiful result than the first.

In its primary elections the people is said to have external freedom of

movement. But what about internal freedom?

That is the question!

The statutes of the Assembly resulting from new primary elections could
exceed the old ones in their iniquity.
What is to be done then against the old statutes?
The Dame of the Army Reserve Cross strikes an attitude.
The fist gave birth to them (the old statutes of the Assembly after March 19), the fist will
overthrow them and that in the name of God and right.

The fist will restore the good old government.

The fist is the ultimate argument of the Crown, the fist will be the ultimate
argument of the people.
Above all, let the people ward off the mendicant hungry fists which take out
of their pockets civil lists and cannon. The boastful fists will become
emaciated as soon as they are no longer fed. Above all, let the people refuse to
pay taxes and later it will be able to count on which side is the greater number
of fists.
All the so-called March achievements will be considered binding only as
long as the most direct compulsion is capable of maintaining them in force.
The fist gave birth to them, the fist will overthrow them.
That is what the Neue Preussische Zeitung says, and what
the Neue Preussische Zeitung says, Potsdam has said. Therefore, let there be
no more illusion! The people must put an end to the halfway measures of
March, or the Crown will put an end to them.
Tuesday, January 11, 2005
MARX ADVOCATED TERRORISM
Nice guy. He got his wish, though

The purposeless massacres perpetrated since the June and October events, the tedious offering of sacrifices since February and March, the very cannibalism of the counterrevolution will convince the nations that there is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody
birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terrorism.
Source
The German:
Karl Marx, NRZ 7.Nov. 1848
...da es nur ein Mittel gibt, die mrderischen Todeswehen der alten Gesellschaft, die blutigen Geburtswehen der neuen Gesellschaft abzukrzen, zu vereinfachen, zu konzentrieren, nur ein Mittel - den revolutionren Terrorismus.
MEW a.a.O. 5, 457.
I note that the Marxists translate "Terrorismus" above as "Terror". If Marx had meant "terror" he would presumably have said so. The word is the same in English and in German. In fact what he clearly said was "terrorism".

Engels in Neue Rheinische Zeitung November 1848

The Victory of the CounterRevolution in Vienna

by Karl Marx
Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 136
Translated by the Marx-Engels Institute
Transcribed for the Internet by director@marx.org, 1994

Cologne, November 6. Croatian freedom and order has won the day, and this
victory was celebrated with arson, rape, looting and other atrocities. Vienna is
in the hands of Windischgratz, Jellachich and Auersperg. Hecatombs of
victims are sacrificed on the grave of the aged traitor Latour.
The gloomy forecasts of our Vienna correspondent [Muller-Tellering. See
Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 127, October 27, 1848. -- Ed.] have come true,
and by now he himself may have become a victim of the butchery.
For a while we hoped Vienna could be liberated by Hungarian
reinforcements, and we are still in the dark regarding the movements of the
Hungarian army.
Treachery of every kind prepared the way for Vienna's fall. The entire
performance of the Imperial Diet and the town council since October 6 is a tale
of continuous treachery. Who are the people represented in the Imperial Diet
and the town council?
The bourgeoisie.
A part of the Viennese National Guard openly sided with the camarilla from
the very beginning of the October revolution. Towards the end of the October
revolution another part of the National Guard in collusion with the imperial

bandits fought against the proletariat and the Academic Legion. To which
strata do these groups of the National Guard belong?
To the bourgeoisie.
The bourgeoisie in France, however, headed the counterrevolution only after
it had broken down all obstacles to the rule of its own class. The bourgeoisie in
Germany meekly joins the retinue of the absolute monarchy and of feudalism
before securing even the first conditions of existence necessary for its own
civic freedom and its rule. In France it played the part of a tyrant and made its
own counter-revolution. In Germany it acts like a slave and carries out the
counter-revolution for its own tyrants. The bourgeoisie in France won its
victory in order to humble the people. In Germany it humbled itself to prevent
the victory of the people. History presents no example of greater wretchedness
than that of the German bourgeoisie.
Who fled from Vienna in large numbers leaving their wealth to be watched
over by the magnanimous people, the people whom, in reward for their
watchman's duties, they maligned While away and whose massacre they
witnessed on their return?
The bourgeoisie.
Whose innermost secrets were revealed by the thermometer which dropped
whenever the people of Vienna showed signs of life, and rose whenever the
people were in the throes of death? Who used the runic script of the stock
exchange quotations?
The bourgeoisie.
The "German National Assembly" and its "central authority" have betrayed
Vienna. Whom do they represent?
Mainly the bourgeoisie.
The victory of "Croatian order and freedom" at Vienna depended on the
victory of the "genteel" republic in Paris. Who won the day in June?
The bourgeoisie.
European counter-revolution began its debaucheries with its victory in Paris.

In February and March armed force was beaten everywhere. Why? Because
it represented only the government. After June it was everywhere victorious
because the bourgeoisie everywhere had come to a secret understanding with
it, while retaining official leadership of the revolutionary movement and
introducing all those half measures which by the very nature of things were
bound to miscarry.
The national fanaticism of the Czechs was the most powerful instrument the
Viennese camarilla possessed. The allies are already at loggerheads. In this
issue our readers will find the protest of the Prague delegation against the
insolent rudeness with which it was greeted in Olmutz.
This is the first symptom of the struggle which is going to break out between
the Slav party and its hero Jellachich on the one hand, and the party of the
plain camarilla, which stands above all nationality, and its hero Windischgratz
on the other. Moreover the German peasants in Austria are not yet pacified.
Their voice will be loudly heard above the caterwauling of the Austrian
nationalities. And from a third quarter the voice of the Tsar, the friend of the
people, reaches as far as Pest; his henchmen are waiting for the word of
command in the Danubian principalities.
Finally, the last decision of the German National Assembly at Frankfurt,
which incorporates German Austria into the German empire, should lead to a
gigantic conflict, unless the German central authority and the German National
Assembly see it as their task to enter the arena in order to be hissed off the
boards by European public. For all their pious resignation the struggle in
Austria will assume gigantic dimensions such as world history has never yet
witnessed.
The second act of the drama has just been performed in Vienna, its first act
having been staged in Paris under the title of The June Days. In Paris the
Guarde mobile, in Vienna "Croats" -- in both cases lazzaroni,
lumpenproletariat hired and armed -- were used against the working and
thinking proletarians. We shall soon see the third act performed in Berlin.
Assuming that arms will enable the counter-revolution to establish itself in
the whole of Europe, money would then kill it in the whole of Europe.
European bankruptcy, national bankruptcy would be the fate nullifying the
victory. Bayonets crumble like tinder when they come into contact with the
salient "economic" facts.

But developments will not wait for the bills of exchange drawn by the
European states on European society to expire. The crushing counter-blow of
the June revolution will be struck in Paris. With the victory of the "red
republic" in Paris, armies will be rushed from the interior of their countries to
the frontiers and across them, and the real strength of the fighting parties will
become evident. We shall then remember this June and this October and we
too shall exclaim:
Vae victis!
The purposeless massacres perpetrated since the June and October events,
the tedious offering of sacrifices since February and March, the very
cannibalism of the counterrevolution will convince the nations that there is
only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the
bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and
concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terror.
Monday, January 10, 2005
ENGELS ADVOCATED NATIONALIZATION OF INDUSTRY AND EDUCATION AS STEPS TO COMMUNISM

Far from starting futile quarrels with the democrats, in the present circumstances, the Communists for the time being rather take the field as democrats themselves in all practical party matters. In all civilised countries, democracy has as its necessary consequence the political rule of the proletariat, and the
political rule of the proletariat is the first condition for all communist measures. As long as democracy has not been achieved, thus long do Communists and democrats fight side by side, thus long are the interests of the democrats at the same time those of the Communists. Until that time, the differences
between the two parties are of a purely theoretical nature and can perfectly well be debated on a theoretical level without common action being thereby in any way prejudiced. Indeed, understandings will be possible concerning many measures which are to be carried out in the interests of the previously
oppressed classes immediately after democracy has been achieved, e.g. the running of large-scale industry and the railways by the state, the education of all children at state expense, etc.
Source
The first part in German:
Friedrich Engels, Die Kommunisten und Karl Heinzen, 1847
Die Kommunisten, weit entfernt, unter den gegenwrtigen Verhltnissen mit den Demokraten nutzlose Streitfragen anzufangen, treten vielmehr fr den Augenblick in allen praktischen Parteifragen selbst als Demokraten auf. (...) Solange die Demokratie noch nicht erkmpft ist, solange kmpfen
Kommunisten und Demokraten also gemeinsam (...)
MEW a.a.O. 4, 317.
This passage is of course a classical formulation of the "fellow-traveller" doctrine. As we saw in my post of 2nd., Engels despised democracy but above he sees Communism as the ultimate endpoint of democracy so says that Communists and democrats should work together to achieve State control of
industry and education as the final steps before Communism is achieved.
The State control of industry has fallen by the wayside in modern times but education still seems to be well on track.

Frederick Engels in The Deutsche-Brsseler Zeitung

The Communists and Karl

Heinzen
[124]

Source: MECW Volume 6, p. 291

Written: on September 26 and October 3, 1847;
First published: in the Deutsche-Brsseler-Zeitung Nos. 79 and 80, October

3 and 7, 1847;
Signed: F. Engels.

First Article
Deutsche-Brsseler-Zeitung No. 79, October 3, 1847
Brussels, September 26. Todays number of the D-Br-Ztg contains an article
by Heinzen [published as a statement in the Polemik column with a note by the
editors entitled Karl Heinzen und die Kommunisten"] in which under the
pretext of defending himself against a trivial accusation by the editors, he
embarks on a long polemic against the Communists.
The editors advise both sides to drop the polemic. In that case however they
ought only to reproduce that part of Heinzens article in which Heinzen really
defends himself against the accusation of having attacked the Communists
first. Even if Heinzen has no paper at his disposal, that is no reason for
placing one at his disposal for the publication of attacks which the editors of
the paper themselves consider stupid.
Incidentally, no greater service could have been rendered to the Communists
than has been rendered through the publication of this article. Sillier and more
narrow-minded criticisms than those Heinzen here makes of the Communists
have never been made of any party. The article is the most dazzling
vindication of the Communists. It proves that if they had not already attacked
Heinzen, they would be obliged to do so at once.
At the very outset Herr Heinzen presents himself as the representative of all
the non-communist German radicals; his intention is to debate with the
Communists as one party with another. He is entitled to demand, he
announces with the greatest assurance what must be expected of the
Communists, what must be demanded of them, what the duty of real
Communists is. He identifies his differences with the Communists in all
respects with those the German republicans and democrats have with them
and speaks of we in the name of these republicans.
Who is Herr Heinzen, then, and what does he represent?
Herr Heinzen is a former liberal, lower-ranking civil servant who in 1844
was still enthusiastic about legitimate progress and the wretched German
Constitution, and who at best confessed in a confidential whisper that a
republic might be desirable and possible, of course in the far distant future.
Herr Heinzen was wrong however about the possibility of legal resistance in
Prussia. The bad book he wrote on the bureaucracy [Heinzen, Die Preussische

Bureaukratie] (even Jacob Venedey wrote a far better book about Prussia years
ago [Venedey, Preussen und Preussenthum]) compelled him to flee the
country. Now the truth dawned on him. He declared legal resistance to be
impossible, became a revolutionary and naturally a republican as well. In
Switzerland he made the acquaintance of that savant srieux Ruge, who taught
him the little philosophy he has, consisting of a confused hotchpotch of
Feuerbachian atheism and humanism, reminiscences of Hegel and rhetorical
phrases from Stirner. Thus equipped, Herr Heinzen considered himself mature
and inaugurated his revolutionary propaganda, leaning on Ruge to the right
and Freiligrath to the left.
We are most certainly not criticising Herr Heinzen for his transition from
liberalism to bloodthirsty radicalism. But we do maintain that he has made this
transition as a result of merely personal circumstances. As long as Herr
Heinzen was able to put up legal resistance, he attacked all those who admitted
the necessity of a revolution. Scarcely was legal resistance rendered impossible
for him when he declared it to be impossible absolutely, without taking into
account that for the present this resistance is still perfectly possible for the
German bourgeoisie, which is constantly putting up a highly legal resistance.
Scarcely had the way back been cut off for him when he declared the necessity
of an immediate revolution. Instead of studying conditions in Germany, taking
overall stock of them and deducing from this what progress, what development
and what steps were necessary and possible, instead of obtaining for himself a
clear picture of the complex situation of the individual classes in Germany
with regard to each other and to the government and concluding from this what
policy was to be followed, instead, in a word, of accommodating himself to the
development of Germany, Herr Heinzen quite unceremoniously demands that
the development of Germany should accommodate itself to him.
Herr Heinzen was a violent opponent of philosophy as long as it
remained progressive. Scarcely had it become reactionary, scarcely had it
become the refuge of all waverers, weaklings and literary hacks, when Herr
Heinzen did himself the disservice of joining it. And worse still, fate would
have it that Herr Ruge, who himself has been a mere proselyte all his life, has
found his only proselyte in Herr Heinzen. Herr Heinzen is thus condemned to
provide Herr Ruge with the consolation that at least one person believed he
had penetrated his verbal edifices.
For what end is Herr Heinzen actually working then? For the instant
establishment of a German republic combining American and 1793 traditions
with a few measures borrowed from the Communists, and looking very black,
red and gold. [125] As a result of its industrial lethargy, Germany occupies such a

wretched position in Europe that it can never seize an initiative, never be the
first to proclaim a great revolution, never establish a republic on its own
account without France and England. Any German republic that is supposed to
be created independently of the development of the civilised countries, any
German revolution that is supposed to be carried out on its own and, as
happens in Herr Heinzens case, leaves the real development of classes in
Germany totally out of consideration, any such republic or revolution is
nothing but black, red and gold day-dreaming. And in order to make this
glorious German republic even more glorious, Herr Heinzen garnishes it with
Feuerbachian, Rugified humanism, and proclaims it as the kingdom of man
which is almost at hand. And the Germans are supposed to make something of
all this topsy-turvy day-dreaming?
But how does the great agitator Herr Heinzen conduct his propaganda? He
declares the princes to be the chief authors of all poverty and distress. This
assertion is not only ridiculous but exceedingly damaging. Herr Heinzen could
not flatter the German princes, those impotent and feeble-minded puppets,
more than by attributing to them fantastic, preternatural, daemonic
omnipotence. If Herr Heinzen asserts that the princes can do so much evil, he
is thereby also conceding them the power to perform as many good works. The
conclusion this leads to is not the necessity of a revolution but the pious desire
for a virtuous prince, for a good Emperor Joseph. In any case, the people know
far better than Herr Heinzen who their oppressors are. Herr Heinzen will never
transfer to the princes the hatred which the serf feels for the feudal lord and the
worker for his employer. But of course Herr Heinzen is working in the
interests of the landowners and capitalists when he puts the blame for the
exploitation of the people by these two classes not on them but on the princes;
and the exploitation by the landowners and capitalists is after all surely
responsible for nineteen-twentieths of all the misery in Germany!
Herr Heinzen calls for an immediate insurrection. He has leaflets [ Heinzen,
Teutsche Revolution. Gesammelte Flugschriften] printed to this effect and
attempts to distribute them in Germany. We would ask whether blindly lashing
out with such senseless propaganda is not injurious in the highest degree to the
interests of German democracy. We would ask whether experience has not
proved how useless it is. Whether, at a time of far greater unrest, in the thirties,
hundreds of thousands of such leaflets, pamphlets, etc., were not distributed in
Germany and whether a single one of them had any success whatever. We
would ask whether any person who is in his right mind at all can imagine that
the people will pay any attention whatever to political sermonising and
exhortations of this kind. We would ask whether Herr Heinzen has ever done

anything else in his leaflets except exhort and sermonise. We would ask
whether it is not positively ridiculous to trumpet calls for revolution out into
the world in this way, without sense or understanding, without knowledge or
consideration of circumstances.
What is the task of a party press? To debate, first and foremost, to explain, to
expound, to defend the partys demands, to rebut and refute the claims and
assertions of the opposing party. What is the task of the German democratic
press? To demonstrate the necessity for democracy by the worthlessness of the
present government, which by and large represents the nobility, by the
inadequacy of the constitutional system that brings the bourgeoisie to the helm,
by the impossibility of the people helping itself so long as it does not have
political power. Its task is to reveal the oppression of the proletarians, small
peasants and urban petty bourgeoisie, for in Germany these constitute the
people, by the bureaucracy, the nobility and the bourgeoisie; how not only
political but above all social oppression has come about, and by what means it
can be eliminated; its task is to show that the conquest of political power by
the proletarians, small peasants and urban petty bourgeoisie is the first
condition for the application of these means. Its task is further to examine the
extent to which a rapid realisation of democracy may be expected, what
resources the party can command and what other parties it must ally itself with
as long as it is too weak to act alone. Well, and has Herr Heinzen done even
one of these things?
No. He has not put himself to so much trouble. He has revealed absolutely
nothing to the people, in other words to the proletarians, small peasants and
urban petty bourgeoisie. He has never examined the position of the classes and
parties. He has done nothing but play variations on the one theme: Fight'em,
fight'em, fight'em!
And to whom does Herr Heinzen address his revolutionary sermonising?
First and foremost to the small peasants, to that class which in our day and age
is least of all capable of seizing a revolutionary initiative. For 600 years, all
progressive movements have issued so exclusively from the towns that the
independent democratic movements of country people (Wat Tyler, Jack Cade,
the Jacquerie, the Peasants War[126]) were firstly always reactionary
manifestations and were secondly always crushed. The industrial proletariat of
the towns has become the vanguard of all modern democracy; the urban petty
bourgeoisie and still more the peasants depend on its initiative completely. The
French Revolution of 1789 and the most recent history of England, France and
the eastern states of America prove this. And Herr Heinzen hopes the peasants
will fight now, in the nineteenth century?

But Herr Heinzen also promises social reforms. Of course, the indifference
of the people towards his appeals has gradually forced him to. And what kind
of. reforms are these? They are such as the Communists themselves suggest in
preparation for the abolition of private property. The only point Herr Heinzen
makes that deserves recognition he has borrowed from the Communists, the
Communists whom he attacks so violently, and even that is reduced in his
hands to utter nonsense and mere day-dreaming. All measures to restrict
competition and the accumulation of capital in the hands of individuals, all
restriction or suppression of the law of inheritance, all organisation of labour
by the state, etc., all these measures are not only possible as revolutionary
measures, but actually necessary. They are possible because the whole
insurgent proletariat is behind them and maintains them by force of arms. They
are possible, despite all the difficulties and disadvantages which are alleged
against them by economists, because these very difficulties and disadvantages
will compel the proletariat to go further and further until private property has
been completely abolished, in order not to lose again what it has already won.
They are possible as preparatory steps, temporary transitional stages towards
the abolition of private property, but not in any other way.
Herr Heinzen however wants all these measures as permanent, final
measures. They are not to be a preparation for anything, they are to be
definitive. They are for him not a means but an end. They are not designed for
a revolutionary but for a peaceful, bourgeois condition. But this makes them
impossible and at the same time reactionary. The economists of the
bourgeoisie are quite right in respect of Herr Heinzen when they present these
measures as reactionary compared with free competition. Free competition is
the ultimate, highest and most developed form of existence of private property.
All measures, therefore, which start from the basis of private property and
which are nevertheless directed against free competition, are reactionary and
tend to restore more primitive stages in the development of property, and for
that reason they must finally be defeated once more by competition and result
in the restoration of the present situation. These objections the bourgeoisie
raises, which lose all their force as soon as one regards the above social
reforms as pure mesures de salut public, as revolutionary and transitory
measures, these objections are devastating as far as Herr Heinzens peasantsocialist black, red and gold republic is concerned.
Herr Heinzen of course imagines that property relations, the law of
inheritance, etc., can at will be altered and trimmed to shape. Herr Heinzen
one of the most ignorant men of this century may, of course, not know that
the property relations of any given era are the necessary result of the mode of

production and exchange of that era. Herr Heinzen may not know that one
cannot transform large-scale landownership into small-scale without the whole
pattern of agriculture being transformed, and that otherwise large-scale
landownership will very rapidly re-assert itself. Herr Heinzen may not know
what a close relationship exists between todays large-scale industry, the
concentration of capital and the creation of the proletariat. Herr Heinzen may
not know that a country as industrially dependent and subservient as Germany
can never presume to undertake on its own account a transformation of its
property relations other than one that is in the interests of the bourgeoisie and
of free competition.
In short: with the Communists these measures have sense and reason
because they are not conceived as arbitrary measures but as consequences
which will necessarily and of themselves ensue from the development of
industry, agriculture, trade and communications, from the development of the
class struggle between bourgeoisie and proletariat which is dependent on
these; which will ensue not as definitive measures but as transitory
ones, mesures de salut public arising from the transitory struggle between the
classes itself.
With Herr Heinzen, they have neither sense nor reason, because they take
the form of quite arbitrarily conceived, obtusely bourgeois visions of putting
the world to rights; because there is no mention of a connection between these
measures and historical development; because Herr Heinzen is not in the least
concerned about the material feasibility of his proposals; because it is not his
aim to formulate industrial necessities but on the contrary to overturn them by
decree.
The same Herr Heinzen who is only able to adopt the demands of the
Communists after he has so cruelly confused them and transformed them into
pure fantasies, that same Herr Heinzen criticises the Communists for
confusing the minds of the uneducated, for chasing fantasies and for
failing to keep their feet on the ground (!) of reality"!
There we have Herr Heinzen in all his activity as an agitator, and we make
no bones about our opinion that it brings nothing but harm and discredit upon
the whole German radical party. A party writer requires quite different
qualities from those possessed by Herr Heinzen, who, as we said, is one of the
most ignorant men of our century. Herr Heinzen may have the best will in the
world, he may be the most steadfast man in his convictions in the whole of
Europe. We also know that he is personally a man of honour and has courage
and endurance. But all that does not make him a party writer. To be that, one

requires more than convictions, good will and a stentorian voice, to be that,
one requires a little more intelligence, a little more lucidity, a better style and
more knowledge than Herr Heinzen possesses and, as long experience has
proved, than he is capable of acquiring.
Herr Heinzens flight has faced him with the necessity of becoming a party
writer nevertheless. He was compelled to try to form a party of his own among
the radicals. Thus he got into a situation he was not equal to, in which through
his unsuccessful efforts to meet the demands of this situation he only makes
himself ridiculous. He would make the German radicals look equally
ridiculous if they left him the pretence that he was representing them, that he
was making himself ridiculous in their name.
But Herr Heinzen does not represent the German radicals. They have quite
other representatives, e.g., Jacoby and others. Herr Heinzen represents no one
and is recognised by no one as their representative, apart perhaps from some
few German bourgeois who sent him money for the purposes of agitation. But
we are Mistaken: one class in Germany recognises him as its representative,
adores him and roars its head off for him, out-shouts whole tables of drinkers
in the taverns for him (just as, according to Herr Heinzen, the Communists
out-shouted the whole literary opposition). This class is the numerous,
enlightened,
noble-minded
and
influential
class
ofcommisvoyageurs. [commercial travellers]
And this Herr Heinzen demands that the Communists should recognise him
as representative of the radical bourgeoisie and debate with him in that
capacity?
For the moment, these are reasons enough to justify the polemic the
Communists are conducting against Herr Heinzen. In the next issue we shall
investigate the criticisms which Herr Heinzen makes of the Communists in No.
77 of the paper.
If we were not completely convinced that Herr Heinzen is utterly
incompetent as a party writer, we would advise him to subject Marxs Misre
de la Philosophie to close study. But as things are, in response to his advice to
us to read Frbels Neue Politik, we can only give him the alternative advice to
maintain absolute silence and wait quietly until the fighting starts. We are
convinced that Herr Heinzen will prove as good a battalion commander as he
is a bad writer.

So that Herr Heinzen cannot complain about anonymous attacks, we are

signing this article.
F. Engels

Second Article
Deutsche-Brsseler-Zeitung No. 80, October 7, 1847
The Communists this we established in the first article are attacking
Heinzen not because he is no Communist, but because he is a bad democratic
party writer. They are attacking him not in their capacity as Communists but in
their capacity as democrats. It is purely coincidental that it is precisely the
Communists who have opened the polemic against him; even if there were no
Communists at all in the world, the democrats would still have to take the field
against Heinzen. In this whole controversy it is only a question of: 1. whether
Herr Heinzen as a party writer and agitator is capable of serving German
democracy, which we deny; 2. whether Herr Heinzens manner of agitation is
a correct one, whether it is merely tolerable, which we likewise deny. It is
therefore a question neither of communism nor of democracy, but just of Herr
Heinzens person and his personal eccentricities.
Far from starting futile quarrels with the democrats, in the present
circumstances, the Communists for the time being rather take the field as
democrats themselves in all practical party matters. In all civilised countries,
democracy has as its necessary consequence the political rule of the proletariat,
and the political rule of the proletariat is the first condition for all communist
measures. As long as democracy has not been achieved, thus long do
Communists and democrats fight side by side, thus long are the interests of the
democrats at the same time those of the Communists. Until that time, the
differences between the two parties are of a purely theoretical nature and can
perfectly well be debated on a theoretical level without common action being
thereby in any way prejudiced. Indeed, understandings will be possible
concerning many measures which are to be carried out in the interests of the
previously oppressed classes immediately after democracy has been achieved,
e.g. the running of large-scale industry and the railways by the state, the
education of all children at state expense, etc.
Now to Herr Heinzen.

Herr Heinzen declares the Communists had begun a quarrel with him, not he
with them. The well-known argument of the street-porter, then, which we will
readily concede to him. He calls his conflict with the Communists the absurd
split which the Communists have provoked in the camp of the German
radicals. He says that as long as three years ago he had been concerned to
prevent the approaching split as far as his powers and circumstances might
permit. These fruitless exertions were followed, he says, by attacks on him by
the Communists.
Herr Heinzen, as everyone perfectly well knows, was not yet in the radical
camp three years ago. At that time Herr Heinzen was progressive-within-thelaw and liberal. A split with him was therefore by no means a split in the camp
of the radicals.
Herr Heinzen met some Communists here in Brussels at the beginning of
1845. Far from attacking Herr Heinzen for his ostensible political radicalism,
they rather took the greatest trouble to bring the then liberal Herr Heinzen over
to just this radicalism. But in vain. Herr Heinzen only became a democrat in
Switzerland.
I later became more and more convinced (!) of the need for a vigorous
struggle against the Communists in other words, of the need for an absurd
split in the radical camp! We ask the German democrats whether someone who
contradicts himself so absurdly is fitted to be a party writer?
But who are the Communists by whom Herr Heinzen claims he was
attacked? The above innuendoes and particularly the ensuing reproaches
against the Communists show who it was clearly. The Communists, we read,
were out-shouting the whole camp of the literary opposition, confusing the minds of the
uneducated, decrying even the most radical men in the most uninhibited manner, ... they were
intent on paralysing the political struggle as far as possible, ... indeed, they were finally
positively allying themselves ... even with reaction. Furthermore they often descended, obviously
as a result of their doctrine, to base and false intrigues in practical life......

out of the fog and vagueness of these criticisms looms an easily recognisable
figure: that of the literary hack, Herr Karl Grn. Three years ago Herr Grn
had some personal dealings with Herr Heinzen, whereupon Herr Grn attacked
Herr Heinzen in the Triersche Zeitung, Herr Grn attempted to out-shout the
whole camp of the literary opposition, Herr Grn strove to paralyse the
political struggle as far. as possible, etc.

But since when has Herr Grn been a representative of communism? If he

thrust himself on the Communists three years ago, he has never been
recognised as a Communist, he has never openly declared himself to be a
Communist, and more than a year ago he thought it proper to inveigh against
the Communists.
Moreover, even at that time, for Herr Heinzens benefit, Marx repudiated
Herr Grn, just as he later publicly showed him up in his true colours at the
first opportunity.
Concerning Herr Heinzens final base and false insinuation about the
Communists, one incident which occurred between Herr Grn and Herr
Heinzen, and nothing more, lies behind this. This incident concerns the two
gentlemen in question and not the Communists at all. We are not even so
exactly acquainted with this incident as to be able to pass judgment on it. But
let us assume Herr Heinzen is in the right. If he then, after Marx and other
Communists have repudiated his adversary, after it has been shown beyond all
doubt that his adversary was never a Communist, if Herr Heinzen then still
presents the incident as a necessary consequence of communist doctrine, it is
monstrously perfidious of him.
And furthermore, if in his above reproaches Herr Heinzen has in mind
persons other than Herr Grn, he can only mean those true socialists whose
admittedly reactionary theories have long ago been repudiated by the
Communists. All members of this now completely dissolved movement who
are capable of learning anything have come over to the Communists and are
now themselves attacking true socialism wherever it still shows itself. Herr
Heinzen is thus again speaking with his customary crass ignorance when he
once more disinters these superannuated visions in order to lay them at the
Communists door. Whilst Herr Heinzen here reproaches the true socialists,
whom he confuses with the Communists, he subsequently makes the same
nonsensical criticisms of the Communists as the true socialists did. He thus has
not even the right to attack the true socialists, he belongs, in one respect, to
them himself. And whilst the Communists were writing sharp attacks on these
socialists, the same Herr Heinzen was sitting in Zurich being initiated by Herr
Ruge into those fragments of true socialism which had found a niche for
themselves in the latters confused brain. Herr Ruge had indeed found a pupil
worthy of him!
But what of the real Communists then? Herr Heinzen speaks of honourable
exceptions and talented men, of whom he foresees that they will reject
communist solidarity (!). The Communists have already rejected solidarity

with the writings and actions of the true socialists. Of all the above reproaches,
not a single one applies to the Communists, unless it be the conclusion of the
whole passage, which reads as follows:
The Communists ... in the arrogance of their imagined superiority laughed to scorn everything
which is indispensable for forming the basis of an association of honourablepeople.

Herr Heinzen appears, to be alluding here to the fact that Communists have
made fun of his sternly moral demeanour and mocked all those sacred and
sublime ideas, virtue, justice, morality, etc., which Herr Heinzen imagines
form the basis of all society. We accept this reproach. The Communists will
not allow the moral indignation of that, honourable man Herr Heinzen to
prevent them from mocking these eternal verities. The Communists, moreover,
maintain that these eternal verities are by no means the basis, but on the
contrary the product, of the society in which they feature.
If, incidentally, Herr Heinzen foresaw that the Communists would reject
solidarity with those people he takes it into his head to associate with them
what is the point of all his absurd reproaches and lying insinuations? If Herr
Heinzen only knows the Communists from hearsay, as almost appears to be the
case, if he knows so little who they are that he demands they should designate
themselves more closely, and so to speak introduce themselves to him, what
brazenness is this he exhibits in polemicising against them?
A designation of those ... who ... actually represent communism or manifest it in its pure form
would ... probably have to exclude completely the vast majority of those who base themselves
upon communism and are used for it, and it would hardly be the people from the Triersche
Zeitung alone who would protest against the assertion of such a claim.

And a few lines later:

Those who are really Communists now must be allowed the consistency and honesty (what a
decent philistine speaks here!) of coming forward and openly professing their doctrine and
declaring their dissociation from those who are not Communists.... They are under the moral
obligation (how typical of the philistine these expressions are) not to
maintain unscrupulously (!) the confusion which is created in the minds of a thousand suffering,
uneducated minds by the impossibility (!!), dreamt of or falsely advertised as a possibility, of
finding a way, based on real conditions, to implement that doctrine (!). It is the duty (the
philistine again) of the real Communists either completely to clarify things for all their
unenlightened adherents and to lead them to a definite goal, or else to detach themselves from
them and not to use them.

If Herr Ruge had produced these last three periods, he could have been well
pleased. Entirely matching the philistine demands is the philistine confusion of
thought, which is concerned only with the matter and not with the form and for
that very reason says the exact opposite of what it wants to say. Herr Heinzen

demands that the real Communists should detach themselves from the merely
seeming ones. They should put an end to the confusion which (that is what he
wants to say) arises from the mixing up of two different trends. But as soon as
the two words Communists and confusion collide in his mind, confusion
arises there too. Herr Heinzen loses the thread; his constantly reiterated
formula, that the Communists in general are confusing the minds of the
uneducated, trips him up, he forgets the real Communists and the unreal
Communists, he stumbles with farcical clumsiness over a host of
impossibilities dreamt of or falsely advertised as possibilities, and finally falls
flat on his face on the solid ground of real conditions, where he regains his
faculty of reflection. Now he is reminded that he meant to talk about
something quite different, that it was not a question of whether this or that was
possible. He returns to his theme, but is still so dazed that he does not even
cross out that magnificent sentence in which he executed the somersault just
described.
So much for the style. Regarding the matter, we repeat that, honest German
that he is, Herr Heinzen comes too late with his demands, and that the
Communists repudiated those true socialists long ago. But then we see here
once again that the application of sly insinuations is by no means
irreconcilable with the character of a decent philistine. For Herr Heinzen gives
it clearly enough to be understood that the communist writers are only using
the communist workers. He says in almost as many words that if these writers
were to come forward openly with their intentions, the vast majority of those
who are being used for communism would be excluded completely. He regards
the communist writers as prophets, priests or preachers who possess a secret
wisdom of their own but deny it to the uneducated in order to keep them on
leading-strings. All his decent philistine demands that things be clarified for
the unenlightened and that these persons must not be used, obviously proceed
from the assumption that the literary representatives of communism have an
interest in keeping the workers in the dark, as though they were. merely using
them, just as theIlluminati [127] wished to use the common people in the last
century. This insipid idea also causes Herr Heinzen to burst forth with always
inopportune talk about confusion in the minds of the uneducated, and compels
him, as a penalty for not speaking his mind plainly, to perform stylistic
somersaults.
We merely take note of these insinuations, we do not take issue with them.
We leave it to the communist workers to pass judgment on them themselves.

At last, after all these preliminaries, diversions, appeals, insinuations and

somersaults by Herr Heinzen, we come to his theoretical attacks on and
reflections about the Communists.
Herr Heinzen
discerns the core of the communist doctrine simply in ... the abolition of private property
(including that earned through labour) and in the principle of the communal utilisation of the
earths riches which follows inescapably from that abolition.

Herr Heinzen imagines communism is a certain doctrine which proceeds

from a definite theoretical principle as its core and draws further conclusions
from that. Herr Heinzen is very much mistaken. Communism is not a doctrine
but a movement; it proceeds not from principles but from facts. The
Communists do not base themselves on this or that philosophy as their point of
departure but on the whole course of previous history and specifically its
actual results in the civilised countries at the present time. Communism has
followed from large-scale industry and its consequences, from the
establishment of the world market, of the concomitant uninhibited competition,
ever more violent and more universal trade crises, which have already become
fully fledged crises of the world market, from the creation of the proletariat
and the concentration of capital, from the ensuing class struggle between
proletariat and bourgeoisie. Communism, insofar as it is a theory, is the
theoretical expression of the position of the proletariat in this struggle and the
theoretical summation of the conditions for the liberation of the proletariat.
Herr Heinzen will now no doubt realise that in assessing communism he has
to do rather more than discern its core simply in the abolition of private
property; that he would do better to undertake certain studies in political
economy than to gabble wildly about the abolition of private property; that he
cannot know the first thing about theconsequences of the abolition of private
property if he does not also know its conditions.
However, in this respect, Herr Heinzen labours under such gross ignorance
that he even says the communal utilisation of the earths riches (another fine
expression) is the consequence of the abolition of private property. Precisely
the contrary is the case. Because large-scale industry, the development of
machinery, communications and world trade are assuming such gigantic
proportions that their exploitation by individual capitalists is becoming daily
more impossible; because the mounting crises of the world market are the most
striking proof of this; because the productive forces and the means of exchange
which characterise the present mode of production and exchange are daily
becoming increasingly more than individual exchange and private property can

manage; because, in a word, the moment is approaching when communal

management of industry, of agriculture and of exchange will become a
material necessity for industry, agriculture and exchange themselves for this
reason private property will be abolished.
So when Herr Heinzen forcibly separates the abolition of private property,
which is of course the condition for the liberation of the proletariat, from the
conditions that attach to it, when he considers it quite out of all connection
with the real world simply as an ivory-tower fantasy, it becomes a pure clich
about which he can only talk platitudinous nonsense. This he does as follows:
By its above-mentioned casting-off of all private property..., communism necessarily also
abolishes individual existence. (So Herr Heinzen is reproaching us for wanting to turn people
into Siamese twins.) The consequence of this is once more ... the incorporation of each
individual into a perhaps (!!) communally organised barracks ... economy. (Would the reader
kindly note that this is avowedly only the consequence of Herr Heinzens own absurd remarks
about individual existence.) By these means communism destroys ... individuality ...
independence ... freedom. (The same old twaddle as we had from the true socialists and the
bourgeoisie. As though there was any individuality to be destroyed in the individuals whom the
division of labour has today turned against their will into cobblers, factory workers, bourgeois,
lawyers, peasants, in other words, into slaves of a particular form of labour and of the mores,
way of life, prejudices and blinkered attitudes, etc., that go with that form of labour!) It
sacrifices the individual person with its necessary attribute or basis (that or is marvellous)
of earned private property to the phantom of the community or society' (is Stirner here as
well?), whereas the community cannot and should not (should not!!) be the aim but only the
means for each individual person.

Herr Heinzen attaches particular importance to earned private property and

in so doing once again proves his crass unfamiliarity with the matter on which
he is speaking. Herr Heinzens philistine justice, which allows to each man
what he has earned, is unfortunately frustrated by large-scale industry. As long
as large-scale industry is not so far advanced that it frees itself completely
from the fetters of private property, thus long does it permit no other
distribution of its products than that at present occurring, thus long will the
capitalist pocket his profit and the worker increasingly know by practice just
what a minimum wage is. M. Proudhon attempted to develop a system
for earned property which would relate it to existing conditions, and, we all
know, he failed spectacularly. Herr Heinzen, it is true, will never risk a similar
experiment, for in order to do so he would need to study, and he will not do
that. But let the example of M. Proudhon teach him to expose his earned
property less to public scrutiny.
And if Herr Heinzen reproaches the Communists for chasing fantasies and
failing to keep their feet on the ground of reality to whom does this
reproach properly apply?

Herr Heinzen goes on to say a number of other things which we need not
enter into. We merely observe that his sentences get worse and worse the
further he proceeds. The clumsiness of his language, which can never find the
right word, would of itself suffice to discredit any party which acknowledged
him as its literary representative. The solidity of his conviction constantly
makes him say something quite different from what he intends to say. Thus
each of his sentences contains a twofold nonsense: firstly the nonsense he
intends to say, and secondly the one he doesnt intend to say but nevertheless
says. We gave an example of it above. It only remains for us to observe that
Herr Heinzen repeats his old superstition about the power of the princes when
he says that the power which must be overthrown and which is none other than
the power of the State, is and always has been the progenitor and preserver of
all injustice, and that his aim is to establish a State really based on justice (!)
and within this fantasy structure
to undertake all those social reforms which have emerged in the course of events m general (!),
as correct (!) in theory and possible (!) in practice"!!!

His intentions are as good as his style is bad, and that is the fate of the wellmeaning in this bad world.
From
seduction
Nature-nurtured
Dancing
badly,
Good
intentions
in
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Void
of
talent,
[Heine, Atta Troll]

by
but
a
.

.
yet

yet
bosom
.
.
a

the Zeitgeist,
sansculotte
bearing
rough;
.
.
.
character.

Our articles will fill Herr Heinzen with all the righteous indignation of an
outraged honest philistine, but for all that he is not going to give up either his
style of writing or his discreditable and ineffectual manner of agitation. We
found his threat to string us up on the nearest lamp-post when the day for
action and decision comes most entertaining.
In short: the Communists must co-operate with the German radicals and
desire to do so. But they reserve the right to attack any writer who discredits
the entire party. This, and no other, was our intention in attacking Heinzen.
Brussels, October 3, 1847
F. Engels

N. B. We have just received a pamphlet written by a worker [Stephan

Born]: Der Heinzensche Staat, eine Kritik von Stephan, Bern, Rtzer. If Herr
Heinzen wrote half so well as this worker, he might be well satisfied. From
this pamphlet Herr Heinzen can see clearly enough, amongst other things, why
the workers want nothing to do with his peasant republic. We also observe that
this pamphlet is the first written by a worker which does not adopt a moral
attitude but attempts to trace the political struggles of the present back to the
struggle of the various classes of society with one another.
Sunday, January 09, 2005
MARX BELIEVED IN DICTATORSHIP

Every provisional political set-up following a revolution requires a dictatorship, and an energetic dictatorship at that.
Source
The German
Karl Marx, NRZ 14. Sep. 1848
Jeder provisorische Staatszustand nach einer Revolution erfordert eine Diktatur, und zwar eine energische Diktatur.
MEW a.a.O. 5, 401.

Marx in Neue Rheinische Zeitung September 1848

The Crisis and the CounterRevolution

by Karl Marx
Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 100
Transcribed for the Internet by director@marx.org

Cologne, September 11. Anyone reading the reports from Berlin printed
below can judge for himself whether we predicted the course of the
government crisis correctly. The ministers resigned and it seems that the
camarilla did not approve of the government's plan to dissolve the Assembly of
conciliation and to use martial law and guns in order to remain in office. The
titled landowners from the Brandenburg backwoods are thirsting for a conflict
with the people and a repetition of the Parisian June scenes in the streets of
Berlin, but they will never fight for the Hansemann government, they will fight

for a government of the Prince of Prussia. The choice will fall on Radowitz,
Vincke and similar reliable men who are strangers to the Berlin Assembly and
are in no way committed to it. The government of the Prince of Prussia which
is to be bestowed on us will comprise the cream of the Prussian and
Westphalian knights associated for form's sake with a few bourgeois worthies
from the extreme Right, such as Beckerath and his like, to whom will be
assigned the conduct of the prosaic commercial side of the business of state.
Meanwhile hundreds of rumors are being spread, Waldeck or Rodbertus is
perhaps summoned, and public opinion is misled, while at the same time
military preparations are being made to come out openly at the appropriate
moment.
We are facing a decisive struggle. The concurrent crises at Frankfurt and
Berlin and the latest decisions of the two Assemblies compel the counterrevolution to give its last battle. If the people in Berlin dare to spurn the
constitutional principle of majority rule, if they confront the 219 members of
the majority with twice as many guns, if they dare to defy the majority not
only in Berlin but also in Frankfurt by presenting to them a government which
is quite unacceptable to either of the two Assemblies -- if they thus provoke a
civil war between Prussia and Germany, then the democrats know what they
have to do.

Source: MECW Volume 7, p. 427;

Written: by Marx on September 11, 12, 13 and 15, 1848;
First published: in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung Nos. 100, 101, 102 and

104, September 12, 13, 14 and 16, 1848.

Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 101, September 13, 1848

Cologne, September 12. Although already by midday we may receive news of
the definite formation of a new Government as described by us yesterday and
confirmed from other quarters, the government crisis in Berlin continues.
There are only two solutions to this crisis:
Either a Waldeck Government, recognition of the authority of the German
National Assembly and recognition of popular sovereignty;

Or a Radowitz-Vincke Government, dissolution of the Berlin Assembly,

abolition of the revolutionary gains, a sham constitutionalism or even the
United Diet.
Dont let us shut our eyes to the fact that the conflict which has broken out
in Berlin is a conflict not between the agreers and the Ministers, but between
the Assembly, which for the first time acts as a Constituent Assembly, and
the Crown.
The point is whether or not the latter will have the courage to dissolve the
Assembly.
But has the Crown the right to dissolve the Assembly?
True, in constitutional states the Crown in case of disputes has the right to
dissolve the legislative chambers convened on the basis of the Constitution and
to appeal to the people by means of new elections.
Is the Berlin Assembly a constitutional, legislative chamber?
It is not. It has been convened to come to an agreement with the Crown on
the Prussian Constitution, it has been convened not on the basis of a
Constitution, but on that of a revolution. It received its mandate by no means
from the Crown or from the Ministers answerable to the Crown, but from those
who elected it and from the Assembly itself. The Assembly was sovereign as
the legitimate expression of the revolution, and the mandate which Herr
Camphausen jointly with the United Diet prepared for it in the shape of the
electoral law of April 8 was nothing but a pious wish, in regard to which the
Assembly had to decide.
At first the Assembly more or less accepted the theory of agreement. It
realised that in doing so it had been cheated by the ,Ministers and the
camarilla. At last it performed a sovereign act, acting for a moment as a
constituent assembly and no longer as an Assembly of Agreement.
Being the sovereign Assembly of Prussia, it had a perfect right to do this.
A sovereign assembly, however, cannot be dissolved by anybody, and
cannot be given orders by anybody.
Even as a mere Agreement Assembly, even according to Herr Camphausens
own theory, it has equal status with the Crown. Both parties conclude a

political treaty, both parties have an equal share of sovereignty that is the
theory of April 8, the Camphausen-Hansemann theory, the official theory
recognised by the Crown itself.
If the Assembly and the Crown have equal rights, then the Crown has no
right to dissolve the Assembly.
Otherwise, to be consistent, the Assembly would also have the right to
depose the King.
The dissolution of the Assembly would therefore be a coup d'tat. And how
people reply to a coup d'tat was demonstrated on July 29, 1830, and February
24, 1848.[reference to overthrow of Charles X in July 1830 and of Louis
Philippe in February 1848]
One may say the Crown could appeal again to the same voters. But who
does not know that today the voters would elect an entirely different assembly,
an assembly which would treat the Crown with much less ceremony?
Everyone knows that after the dissolution of this Assembly it will only be
possible to appeal to voters of an entirely different kind from those of April 8,
that the only elections possible will be elections carried through under the
tyranny of the sword.
Let us have no illusions.
If the Assembly wins and succeeds in setting up a Left Government, then the
power of the Crown existing alongside the Assembly is broken, then the King
is merely a paid servant of the people and we return again to the morning of
March 19 provided the Waldeck Government does not betray us, as did
many a Government before it.
If the Crown wins and succeeds in setting up a Government of the Prince of
Prussia, then the Assembly will be dissolved, the right of association
abolished, the press muzzled, an electoral law based on property qualifications
introduced, and, as we have already mentioned, even the United Diet may be
reinvoked and all this will be done under cover of a military dictatorship,
guns and bayonets.
Which of the two sides will win depends on the attitude of the people,
especially that of the democratic party. It is up to the democrats to choose.

We have again the situation of July 25. Will they dare to issue the decrees
being devised in Potsdam? Will the people be provoked to make the leap from
July 26 to February 24 in a single day?[279]
The will to do it is certainly there, but what about the courage!

Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 102, September 14, 1848

Cologne, September 13. The crisis in Berlin has advanced a step further. The
conflict with the Crown, which yesterday could still be described as
inevitable, has actually taken place.
our readers will find below the Kings reply to the resignation of the
Ministers. [280] By this letter the Crown itself comes to the fore, sides with the
Ministers and opposes the Assembly.
It goes even further it forms a Government outside the Assembly, it
nominates Beckerath, who represents the extreme Right at Frankfurt and who,
as everyone knows, will never be able to count on the support of the majority
in Berlin.
The Kings message is countersigned by Herr Auerswald. Let Herr
Auerswald, if he can, justify the fact that he thus uses the Crown to cover up
his ignominious retreat, that at one and the same time he tries to hide behind
the constitutional principle as far as the Chamber is concerned and tramples on
the constitutional principle bycompromising the Crown and invoking the
republic.
Constitutional principle! shout the Ministers. Constitutional principle! shouts
the Right. Constitutional principle! faintly echoes the Klnische Zeitung.
Constitutional principle! Are these gentlemen really so foolish as to
believe that it is possible to extricate the German people from the storms of
1848, and from the imminent threat of collapse of all traditional institutions, by
means of the Montesquieu-Delolme worm-eaten theory of division of powers,
by means of worn-out phrases and long exploded fictions!
Constitutional principle! But the very gentlemen who want to save the
constitutional principle at all costs should realise first of all that at a
provisional stage it can only he saved by energetic action.

Constitutional principle! But the vote of the Berlin Assembly, the clashes
between Potsdam and Frankfurt, the disturbances, the reactionary attempts, the
provocations of the brutal soldiery has all this not shown long ago that
despite all the empty talk we are still on a revolutionary basis, and the
pretence that we have already reached the basis of an established, complete
constitutional monarchy only leads to collisions, which have already brought
the constitutional principle. to the brink of the abyss?
Every provisional political set-up following a revolution requires a
dictatorship, and an energetic dictatorship at that. From the very beginning we
blamed Camphausen for not having acted in a dictatorial manner, for not
having immediately smashed up and removed the remains of the old
institutions. While thus Herr Camphausen indulged in constitutional dreaming,
the defeated party strengthened its positions within the bureaucracy and in the
army, and occasionally even risked an open fight. The Assembly was
convened for the purpose of agreeing on the terms of the Constitution. It
existed as an equal party alongside the Crown. Two equal powers in a
provisional situation! It was this division of powers with the aid of which Herr
Camphausen sought to save freedom it was this very division of powers
in a provisional situation that was bound to lead to conflicts. The Crown
served as a cover for the counter-revolutionary aristocratic, military and
bureaucratic camarilla. The bourgeoisie stood behind the majority of the
Assembly. The Government tried to mediate. Too weak to act resolutely on
behalf of the bourgeoisie and the peasants and overthrow the power of the
nobility, the bureaucracy and the army chiefs at one blow, too unskilled to
avoid always harming the bourgeoisie by its financial measures, the
Government merely succeeded in compromising itself in the eyes of all the
parties and bringing about the very clash it sought to avoid.
In any unconstituted state of affairs it is solely the salut public, the public
welfare, and not this or that principle that is the decisive factor. The only way
in which the Government could avoid a conflict between the Assembly and the
Crown lay in recognising the public welfare as the sole principle, even at the
risk of the Governmentitself coming into conflict with the Crown. But it
preferred not to compromise itself in Potsdam. It never hesitated to employ
public welfare measures (mesures de salut public), dictatorial measures,
against the democratic forces. What else was the application of the old laws to
political crimes, even after Herr Mrker had recognised that these articles of
the Prussian Law ought to be repealed? What else were the wholesale arrests in
all parts of the kingdom?

But the Government carefully refrained from intervening against the

counter-revolution in the name of public welfare.
It was this half-heartedness of the Government in face of the counterrevolution, which became more menacing with every day, that compelled the
Assembly itself to dictate measures of public welfare. If the Crown represented
by the Ministers was too weak, then the Assembly itself had to intervene. It did
so by passing the resolution of August 9. It did so in a form still rather mild, by
merely warning the Ministers. The Ministers took no notice. of it.[281]
Indeed, how could they have agreed to it? The resolution of August 9 flouted
the constitutional principle, it is an encroachment of the legislative power on
the executive power, it destroys the division of powers and their mutual
control, which are essential in the interests of freedom, it turns the Assembly
of Agreement into a National Convention.
There follows a running fire of threats, a vociferous appeal to the fears of the
petty bourgeois and the prospect of a reign of terror with ,guillotines,
progressive taxes, confiscations and the red flag.
To compare the Berlin Assembly with the Convention. What irony!
But these gentlemen were not altogether wrong. If the Government
continues in the way it has been doing, we shall have a Convention before long
not merely for Prussia, but for Germany as a whole a Convention which
will have to use all means to cope with the civil war in our twenty Vendes
and with the inevitable war with Russia. At present, however, we merely have
a parody of the Constituent Assembly. [282]
But how have the Ministers who invoke the constitutional principle upheld
this principle?
On August 9, they calmly allowed the Assembly to break up in the belief
that the Ministers would carry out the resolution. They had no intention of
making known to the Assembly their refusal to do so, and still less of resigning
their office.
They ruminated on the matter for a whole month and finally, when
threatened with a number of parliamentary questions, they curtly informed the
Assembly that it was self-evident that they would not put the resolution into
effect.

When the Assembly thereupon instructs the Ministers, nevertheless, to put

the resolution into effect, they take refuge behind the Crown, and cause a
rupture between the Crown and the Assembly, thus invoking the republic.
And these gentlemen still talk about the constitutional principle!
To sum up:
The inevitable conflict between two powers having equal rights in a
provisional situation has broken out. The Ministry was unable to govern with
sufficient energy; it has failed to take the necessary measures of public
welfare. The Assembly has merely performed its duty in demanding that the
Ministry do its duty. The Ministry declares this to be an encroachment upon
the rights of the Crown and discredits the Crown at the very moment of its
resignation. The Crown and the Assembly confront each other. The
agreement has led to separation, to conflict. It is possible that arms will
decide the issue.
The side that has the greater courage and consistency will win.

Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 104, September 16, 1848

Cologne, September 15. The government crisis has once again. entered a new
phase, due, not to the arrival and vain efforts of the impossible Herr Beckerath,
but to thearmy revolt in Potsdam and Nauen. [283] The conflict between
democracy and aristocracy has broken out even within the guard regiments.
The soldiers consider that the resolution carried by the Assembly on the 7th
liberates them from the tyranny of their officers; they cheer the Assembly and
send letters of thanks to it.
This has wrenched the sword from the hands of the counter-revolutionaries.
They will not dare now to dissolve the Assembly, and since this cannot be
attempted, they will have to give in, carry out the resolution of the Assembly
and form a Waldeck Ministry.
It is quite possible that the soldiers in revolt at Potsdam will save us a
revolution.
Saturday, January 08, 2005
ENGELS SAID GERMANY HAD A "RIGHT" TO CONQUER OTHER LANDS
Because Germany was more "civilized"! Adolf, of course, agreed

"By the same right under which France took Flanders, Lorraine and Alsace, and will sooner or later take Belgium -- by that same right Germany takes over Schleswig; it is the right of civilization as against barbarism, of progress as against stability. Even if the agreements were in Denmark's favor -- which is
very doubtful-this right carries more weight than all the agreements, for it is the right of historical evolution"
Source
The German:

Friedrich Engels, NRZ 10. Sep. 1848 (NRZ = Neue Rheinische Zeitung)
Mit demselben Recht, mit dem die Franzosen Flandern, Lothringen und Elsa genommen haben und Belgien frher oder spter nehmen werden, mit demselben Recht nimmt Deutschland Schleswig: mit dem Recht der Zivilisation gegen die Barbarei, des Fortschritts gegen die Stabilitt.
MEW a.a.O. 5, 395.
I note that the Marxists I link to above have translated the "Stabilitt" that Engels referred to as "static stability" rather than just "stability". I wonder why? Let me guess: Stability is good once the Marxists are in charge. That is "progressive" stability, not "static stability". So the enforced inertia and
uniformity of the old USSR was "progressive stability". Too bad they made such little progress that they eventually collapsed! But how sad it is that the Marxists have to mistranslate their own found ing fathers to justify themselves! I can't say I am surprised, though.

Engels in Neue Rheinische Zeitung September 1848

The Danish-Prussian
Armistice
by Frederick Engels
Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 99
Transcribed for the Internet by director@marx.org

Cologne, September 9. Again we revert to the Danish armistice -- we are

given time to do this owing to the thoroughness of the National Assembly,
which, instead of taking prompt and energetic decisions and getting new
ministers appointed, allows the committees to deliberate in the most leisurely
manner and leaves the solution of the government crisis to God -- a
thoroughness which barely conceals "our dear friends' lack of courage". [69]
The war in Italy was always unpopular with the democratic party, and has
for a long time been unpopular even with the democrats of Vienna. The storm
of public indignation over the war of extermination in Poznan could be staved
off only for a few weeks by means of falsifications and lies on the part of the
Prussian government. The streetfighting in Prague, despite all the efforts of the
national press, excited sympathy among the people towards the defeated, but
not towards the victors. The war in Schleswig-Holstein, however, from the
outset was popular also among the people. What is the reason?
Whereas in Italy, Poznan and Prague the Germans were fighting the
revolution, in Schleswig-Holstein they were supporting it. The Danish war is
the first revolutionary war waged by Germany. We therefore advocated a
resolute conduct of the Danish war, from the very beginning, but this does not
in any way denote kinship with the sea-girt bourgeois beer-garden enthusiasm.

A sad thing for Germany that her first revolutionary war is the most
ridiculous war ever waged.
But come to the point. The Danish nation is in commercial, industrial,
political and literary matters completely dependent on Germany. It is well
known that the real capital of Denmark is not Copenhagen but Hamburg; that
for a whole year the Danish government copied all the United Provincial Diet
experiments conducted by the Prussian government, which passed away on the
barricades; that Denmark obtains all her literary as well as material fare via
Germany, and that apart from Holberg, Danish literature is a poor imitation of
that of Germany.
Impotent though Germany has been from time immemorial, she has the
satisfaction of knowing that the Scandinavian nations, and especially
Denmark, have fallen under her sway, and that compared with them she is
even revolutionary and progressive.
Do you require proofs? Then read the polemics carried on by the
Scandinavian nations against each other ever since the concept of
Scandinavianism arose. Scandinavianism is enthusiasm for the brutal, sordid,
piratical, Old Norse national traits, for that profound inner life which is unable
to express its exuberant ideas and sentiments in words, but can express them
only in deeds, namely, in rudeness towards women, perpetual drunkenness and
the wild frenzy of the Berserker alternating with tearful sentimentality.
Scandinavianism and the theory of kinship with sea-girt Schleswig-Holstein
appeared simultaneously in the states of the King of Denmark. The two
concepts are correlated; they evoked each other and were in conflict with each
other, thereby asserting their existence.
Scandinavianism was the pattern of the Danes' appeals for Swedish and
Norwegian support. But as always happens with the Christian-Teutonic nation,
a dispute immediately arose as to who was the genuine Christian-Teuton, the
true Scandinavian. The Swede contended that the Dane had become
"Germanized" and had degenerated, the Norwegian said the same of the Swede
and the Dane, and the Icelander of all three. Obviously, the more primitive a
nation is, the more closely its customs and way of life resemble those of the
Old Norse people, the more "Scandinavian" it must be.
The Christiania Morgenbladet [70] for November 18, 1846, is lying in front
of us. This charming sheet contains the following amusing passages in an
article on Scandinavianism.

After stating that the whole concept of Scandinavianism is nothing but an

attempt by the Danes to create a movement in their own interest, the paper
says:
"What have these gay vivacious people in common with the ancient, gloomy and melancholy
world of warriors (med den gamle, alvorlige og vemodsfulde Kjampeverden)? How can this
nation, which -- as even a Danish writer admits -- has a docile and gentle disposition, believe
itself to be spiritually related to the tough, lusty and vigorous men of a past age? And how can
these people with their soft southern accent imagine that they speak a northern tongue? Although
the main trait of our nation and the Swedes, like that of the ancient Northerners, is that our
feelings are kept hidden in the innermost part of the soul, and not given outward expression,
nevertheless these sentimental and affectionate people, who can so easily be astonished, moved
and swayed and who wear their hearts upon their sleeves, nevertheless these people believe that
they are of a northern cast and that they are related to the two other Scandinavian nations!"

The Morgenbladet attributes the degeneration of the Danes to their

association with Germany and the spread of German traits in Denmark. The
Germans have indeed
"lost their most sacred asset, their national character; but feeble and insipid though the German
nation is, there is another nation still more feeble and insipid, namely, the Danes. While the
German language is being ousted in Alsace, Vaud and on the Slav border" (!the services of the
Netze brethren remained unnoticed at the time) "it has made enormous progress along the
Danish border."

The Danes, we are told, now had to oppose their nationality to the Germans
and for this purpose they invented Scandinavianism. The Danes were unable to
resist,
"for the Danish nation, as we have said before, was essentially Germanized, although it did not
adopt the German language. The writer of these lines has seen it admitted in a Danish paper that
the Danish nation does not differ essentially from the German nation."

Thus the Morgenbladet.

Of course, it cannot be denied that the Danes are a more or less civilized
nation. Poor Danes!
By the same right under which France took Flanders, Lorraine and Alsace,
and will sooner or later take Belgium -- by that same right Germany takes over
Schleswig; it is the right of civilization as against barbarism, of progress as
against static stability. Even if the agreements were in Denmark's favor -which is very doubtful-this right carries more weight than all the agreements,
for it is the right of historical evolution.
So long as the Schleswig-Holstein movement remained a purely legal
philistine agitation of a civic and peaceful nature it merely filled well-meaning

petty bourgeois with enthusiasm. When, before the outbreak of the February
revolution, the present King of Denmark at his accession promised a liberal
constitution for all his states, envisaging the same number of deputies for the
duchies as for Denmark, and the duchies were opposed to this, the pettybourgeois parochial nature of the Schleswig-Holstein movement became
distastefully conspicuous. The issue, at that time, was not so much union with
Germany -- did a Germany exist at that time? -- as separation from Denmark
and establishment of a small independent parochial state.
But then came the revolution, which imparted to the movement a different
character. The Schleswig- Holstein party was forced either to attempt a
revolution or to perish. It quite correctly chose the revolution. The Danish
promises, which were very favorable before the revolution, were quite
inadequate after the revolution; union with Germany -- formerly an empty
phrase -- now acquired meaning. Germany made a revolution and as usual
Denmark copied it on a small provincial scale.
The Schleswig-Holstein revolution and the Provisional Government to
which it gave rise behaved at first still in a rather philistine way, but the war
soon compelled them to adopt a democratic course. This government, whose
members are all moderate liberal worthies, formerly kindred spirits of
Welcker, Gagern and Camphausen, has given Schleswig-Holstein laws which
are more democratic than those of any other German state. The Kiel Provincial
Assembly is the only German assembly based on universal suffrage and direct
elections. The draft constitution which the government submitted to it was the
most democratic constitution ever drawn up in the German language. As a
result of the revolutionary war, Schleswig-Holstein, which had always trailed
behind Germany in political matters, suddenly acquired more progressive
institutions than the rest of Germany.
The war we are waging in Schleswig-Holstein is therefore a truly
revolutionary war.
And who, from the outset, supported Denmark? The three most counterrevolutionary powers in Europe -- Russia, England and the Prussian
government. As long as it was possible the Prussian government merely
pretended to be waging a war -- this is evidenced by Wildenbruch's Note, by
the alacrity with which the Prussian government, on the representations of
England and Russia, ordered the withdrawal from Jutland, and finally by the
two armistice agreements. Prussia, England and Russia are the three powers
which have greater reason than anyone else to fear the German revolution and
its first result -- German unity: Prussia because she would thereby cease to

exist, England because it would deprive her of the possibility of exploiting the
German market, and Russia because, it would spell the advance of democracy
not only to the Vistula but even as far as the Dvina and the Dnieper. Prussia,
England and Russia have conspired against Schleswig-Holstein, against
Germany and against the revolution.
The war that may now arise from the decisions taken at Frankfurt would be a
war waged by Germany against Prussia, England and Russia. This is just the
kind of war that the flagging German movement needs -- a war against the
three great counter-revolutionary powers, a war which would really cause
Prussia to merge into Germany, which would make an alliance with Poland an
indispensable necessity and would lead to the immediate liberation of Italy; a
war which would be directed against Germany's old counterrevolutionary allies
of 1792-1815, a war which would "imperil the fatherland" and for that very
reason save it by making the victory of Germany dependent on the victory of
democracy.
The bourgeois and titled landowners at Frankfurt should not deceive
themselves -- if they decide to reject the armistice they will be setting the seal
to their own downfall, just as the Girondins did during the first revolution
when they took part in the events of August 10 and voted for the death of the
ex-King, thereby preparing their own downfall on May 31. If, on the other
hand, they accept the armistice, they will still be sealing their own downfall:
they will be placing themselves under the jurisdiction of Prussia and cease to
have any say in things. It is up to them to choose.
The news of Hansemann's downfall probably reached Frankfurt before the
vote was taken. This may influence the vote significantly, especially since it is
expected that a government of Waldeck and Rodbertus will follow who, as we
know, recognize the sovereignty of the National Assembly.
The future will show. But we repeat -- Germany's honor is in bad hands.
MARX GOT MONEY BY DECEIVING ENGELS SENIOR
Marx to Engels:

I have devised an infallible plan for extracting money from your old man, as we now have none.
Write me a begging letter (as crude as possible), in which you retail your past vicissitudes, but in such a way that I can pass it on to your mother. The old man's beginning to get the wind up.

More here

The German:

Karl Marx an Engels, 29. November 1848

Ich habe einen sicheren Plan entworfen, Deinem Alten Geld abzupressen, da wir jetzt keins haben. Schreib einen Geldbrief (mglichst gra an mich), worin Du Deine bisherige Fata erzhlst, aber so, da ich ihn Deiner Mutter mitteilen kann. Die Alte fngt an, Furcht zu bekommen.

MEW a.a.O. 27, 131.

Letters of Marx and Engels 1848

Marx To Engels
In Berne
Source: MECW Volume 38, p. 181;
Written: 29 November 1848;
First published: abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K.

Marx, 1913 and in full in MEGA, 1929

Cologne, 29 November 1848

Dear Engels,
The papers have been sent to you. If this was not done sooner the fault lies
with that jackass Korff who, because I was overworked, a circumstance
aggravated by repeated summonses, has so far failed to carry out my orders.
In the meantime remain in Berne. I shall write to you as soon as you can
come. Seal your letters better. One of them had been opened, as I indicated in
the paper, without, of course, mentioning your name. [Marx, Letters Opened']
Write in detail about Proudhon and, since your geography is good, about the
dirty business in Hungary (nations swarming like bees). [Engels, Proudhon and
The Magyar Struggle] Dont forget me [i.e., The Poverty of Philosophy] in the
piece on Proudhon, since our articles are reprinted by a great many French
newspapers.
Write something, too, attacking the Federal Republic, to which end
Switzerland provides the best opportunity. [Engels, The National Council]
K. Heinzen has published his old trashy piece attacking us. [K. Heinzen, Die
Helden des teutschen Kommunismus, 1848]
Our paper continues to stand by the principle of meute [uprising], but
despite all my summonses in court, it has succeeded in sailing clear of
the Code pnal.[241] It is now very much en vogue. We are also issuing posters
daily. [242] La rvolution marche. Write diligently.

I have devised an infallible plan for extracting money from your old man, as
we now have none. Write me a begging letter (as crude as possible), in which
you retail your past vicissitudes, but in such a way that I can pass it on to your
mother. The old mans beginning to get the wind up.
I hope to see you again soon.
Your
Marx

Thursday, January 06, 2005

MARX WANTED TO DESTROY THE FAMILY -- LOVELY GUY
Sounds a lot like Pol Pot, funnily enough

Feuerbach starts out from the fact of religious self-alienation, of the duplication of the world into a religious world and a secular one. His work consists in resolving the religious world into its secular basis. But that the secular basis detaches itself from itself and establishes itself as an independent realm in
the clouds can only be explained by the cleavages and self-contradictions within this secular basis. The latter must, therefore, in itself be both understood in its contradiction and r evolutionized in practice. Thus, for instance, after the earthly family is discovered to be the secret of the holy family, the former
must then itself be annihilated in theory and in practice.

The German
Karl Marx, Thesen ber Feuerbach, 1845
....Also nachdem z.B. die irdische Familie als das Geheimnis der Heiligen Familie entdeckt ist, mu nun erstere selbst theoretisch und praktisch vernichtet werden.
MEW a.a.O. 3, 6.
See also here

Theses On Feuerbach
Download PDF

Written: by Marx in the Spring of 1845, but slightly edited by Engels;

First Published: As an appendix to Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of

Classical German Philosophy in 1888;

Source: Marx/Engels Selected Works, Volume One, p. 13 15.
Note that this version differs from the version of Engels edition
published in MECW Volume 5, pp. 6-8;
Publisher: Progress Publishers, Moscow, USSR, 1969;
Translated: W. Lough from the German;
Transcription/Markup: Zodiac/Brian Baggins;
Copyleft: Marx/Engels Internet Archive (marxists.org) 1995, 1999,
2002. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document
under the terms of the Creative Commons ShareAlike License;
Proofread: by Andy Blunden February 2005.

I
The chief defect of all hitherto existing materialism that of Feuerbach
included is that the thing, reality, sensuousness, is conceived only in
the form of the object or of contemplation, but not as sensuous human
activity, practice, not subjectively. Hence, in contradistinction to
materialism, the active side was developed abstractly by idealism
which, of course, does not know real, sensuous activity as such.
Feuerbach wants sensuous objects, really distinct from the thought
objects, but he does not conceive human activity itself
asobjective activity. Hence, in The Essence of Christianity, he regards the
theoretical attitude as the only genuinely human attitude, while practice
is conceived and fixed only in its dirty-judaical manifestation. Hence he
does not grasp the significance of revolutionary, of practical-critical,
activity.

II
The question whether objective truth can be attributed to human
thinking is not a question of theory but is a practical question. Man must
prove the truth i.e. the reality and power, the this-sidedness of his
thinking in practice. The dispute over the reality or non-reality of
thinking that is isolated from practice is a purely scholastic question.

III
The materialist doctrine concerning the changing of circumstances and
upbringing forgets that circumstances are changed by men and that it is
essential to educate the educator himself. This doctrine must, therefore,
divide society into two parts, one of which is superior to society.
The coincidence of the changing of circumstances and of human
activity or self-changing can be conceived and rationally understood only
as revolutionary practice.

IV

Feuerbach starts out from the fact of religious self-alienation, of the

duplication of the world into a religious world and a secular one. His
work consists in resolving the religious world into its secular basis.
But that the secular basis detaches itself from itself and establishes
itself as an independent realm in the clouds can only be explained by the
cleavages and self-contradictions within this secular basis. The latter
must, therefore, in itself be both understood in its contradiction and
revolutionized in practice. Thus, for instance, after the earthly family is
discovered to be the secret of the holy family, the former must then itself
be destroyed in theory and in practice.

V
Feuerbach, not satisfied with abstract thinking, wants contemplation;
but he does not conceive sensuousness as practical, human-sensuous
activity.

VI
Feuerbach resolves the religious essence into the human essence. But the
human essence is no abstraction inherent in each single individual.
In its reality it is the ensemble of the social relations.
Feuerbach, who does not enter upon a criticism of this real essence, is
consequently compelled:
1. To abstract from the historical process and to fix the religious
sentiment as something by itself and to presuppose an
abstract isolated human individual.
2. Essence, therefore, can be comprehended only as genus, as
an internal, dumb generality which naturally unites the many
individuals.

VII
Feuerbach, consequently, does not see that the religious sentiment is
itself a social product, and that the abstract individual whom he analyses
belongs to a particular form of society.

VIII
All social life is essentially practical. All mysteries which lead theory to
mysticism find their rational solution in human practice and in the
comprehension of this practice.

IX
The highest point reached by contemplative materialism, that is,
materialism which does not comprehend sensuousness as practical
activity, is contemplation of single individuals and of civil society.

X
The standpoint of the old materialism is civil society; the standpoint of
the new is human society, or social humanity.

XI
The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the
point is to change it.
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
ENGELS LOOKED FORWARD TO NEW HEIGHTS OF MASS SLAUGHTER
Another indication of how hate-filled Leftists are. And how odd that his followers -- such as Lenin and Hitler -- actually put his vision into practice!

"The proletarians, driven to despair, will seize the torch which Stephens has preached to them; the vengeance of the people will come down with a wrath of which the rage of 1795 gives no true idea. The war of the poor against the rich will be the bloodiest ever waged".

Source

Condition of the Working Class in England, by Engels, 1845

The Attitude of the

Bourgeoisie Towards the
Proletariat
In speaking of the bourgeoisie I include the so-called aristocracy, for this is a
privileged class, an aristocracy, only in contrast with the bourgeoisie, not in
contrast with the proletariat. The proletarian sees in both only the propertyholder i.e., the bourgeois. Before the privilege of property all other privileges
vanish. The sole difference is this, that the bourgeois proper stands in active
relations with the manufacturing, and, in a measure, with the mining
proletarians, and, as farmer, with the agricultural labourers, whereas the socalled aristocrat comes into contact with the agricultural labourer only.
I have never seen a class so deeply demoralised, so incurably debased by
selfishness, so corroded within, so incapable of progress, as the English
bourgeoisie; and I mean by this, especially the bourgeoisie proper, particularly
the Liberal, Corn Law repealing bourgeoisie. For it nothing exists in this
world, except for the sake of money, itself not excluded. It knows no bliss save
that of rapid gain, no pain save that of losing gold. In the presence of this
avarice and lust of gain, it is not possible for a single human sentiment or
opinion to remain untainted. True, these English bourgeois are good husbands
and family men, and have all sorts of other private virtues, and appear, in
ordinary intercourse, as decent and respectable as all other bourgeois; even in
business they are better to deal with than the Germans; they do not higgle and
haggle so much as our own pettifogging merchants; but how does this help
matters? Ultimately it is self-interest, and especially money gain, which alone
determines them. I once went into Manchester with such a bourgeois, and
spoke to him of the bad, unwholesome method of building, the frightful
condition of the working-peoples quarters, and asserted that I had never seen
so ill-built a city. The man listened quietly to the end, and said at the corner
where we parted: "And yet there is a great deal of money made here, good
morning, sir." It is utterly indifferent to the English bourgeois whether his
working-men starve or not, if only he makes money. All the conditions of life
are measured by money, and what brings no money is nonsense, unpractical,

idealistic bosh. Hence, Political Economy, the Science of Wealth, is the

favourite study of these bartering Jews. Every one of them is a Political
Economist. The relation of the manufacturer to his operatives has nothing
human in it; it is purely economic. The manufacturer is Capital, the operative
Labour. And if the operative will not be forced into this abstraction, if he
insists that he is not Labour, but a man, who possesses, among other things, the
attribute of labour-power, if he takes it into his head that he need not allow
himself to be sold and bought in the market, as the commodity "Labour", the
bourgeois reason comes to a standstill. He cannot comprehend that he holds
any other relation to the operatives than that of purchase and sale; he sees in
them not human beings, but hands, as he constantly calls them to their faces;
he insists, as Carlyle says, that "Cash Payment is the only nexus between man
and man." Even the relation between himself and his wife is, in ninety-nine
cases out of a hundred, mere "Cash Payment". Money determines the worth of
the man; he is "worth ten thousand pounds". He who has money is of "the
better sort of people", is "influential", and what he does counts for something
in his social circle. The huckstering spirit penetrates the whole language, all
relations are expressed in business terms, in economic categories. Supply and
demand are the formulas according to which the logic of the English bourgeois
judges all human life. Hence free competition in every respect, hence the
regime of laissez-faire, laissez-aller in government, in medicine, in education,
and soon to be in religion, too, as the State Church collapses more and more.
Free competition will suffer no limitation, no State supervision; the whole
State is but a burden to it. It would reach its highest perfection in a wholly
ungoverned anarchic society, where each might exploit the other to his hearts
content. Since, however, the bourgeoisie cannot dispense with government, but
must have it to hold the equally indispensable proletariat in check, it turns the
power of government against the proletariat and keeps out of its way as far as
possible.
Let no one believe, however, that the "cultivated" Englishman openly brags
with his egotism. On the contrary, he conceals it under the vilest hypocrisy.
What? The wealthy English fail to remember the poor? They who have
founded philanthropic institutions, such as no other country can boast of!
Philanthropic institutions forsooth! As though you rendered the proletarians a
service in first sucking out their very life-blood and then practising your selfcomplacent, Pharisaic philanthropy upon them, placing yourselves before the
world as mighty benefactors of humanity when you give back to the plundered
victims the hundredth part of what belongs to them! Charity which degrades
him who gives more than him who takes; charity which treads the
downtrodden still deeper in the dust, which demands that the degraded, the

pariah cast out by society, shall first surrender the last that remains to him, his
very claim to manhood, shall first beg for mercy before your mercy deigns to
press, in the shape of an alms, the brand of degradation upon his brow. But let
us hear the English bourgeoisie's own words. It is not yet a year since I read in
the Manchester Guardian the following letter to the editor, which was
published without comment as a perfectly natural, reasonable thing:
"MR. EDITOR, For some time past our main streets are haunted by
swarms of beggars, who try to awaken the pity of the passers-by in a
most shameless and annoying manner, by exposing their tattered
clothing, sickly aspect, and disgusting wounds and deformities. I should
think that when one not only pays the poor-rate, but also contributes
largely to the charitable institutions, one had done enough to earn a
right to be spared such disagreeable and impertinent molestations. And
why else do we pay such high rates for the maintenance of the
municipal police, if they do not even protect us so far as to make it
possible to go to or out of town in peace? I hope the publication of
these lines in your widely- circulated paper may induce the authorities
to remove this nuisance; and I remain, Your obedient servant,
"A Lady."
There you have it! The English bourgeoisie is charitable out of self-interest;
it gives nothing outright, but regards its gifts as a business matter, makes a
bargain with the poor, saying: "If I spend this much upon benevolent
institutions, I thereby purchase the right not to be troubled any further, and you
are bound thereby to stay in your dusky holes and not to irritate my tender
nerves by exposing your misery. You shall despair as before, but you shall
despair unseen, this I require, this I purchase with my subscription of twenty
pounds for the infirmary!" It is infamous, this charity of a Christian bourgeois!
And so writes "A Lady"; she does well to sign herself such, well that she has
lost the courage to call herself a woman! But if the "Ladies" are such as this,
what must the "Gentlemen" be? It will be said that this is a single case; but no,
the foregoing letter expresses the temper of the great majority of the English
bourgeoisie, or the editor would not have accepted it, and some reply would
have been made to it, which I watched for in vain in the succeeding numbers.
And as to the efficiency of this philanthropy, Canon Parkinson himself says
that the poor are relieved much more by the poor than by the bourgeoisie; and
such relief given by an honest proletarian who knows himself what it is to be
hungry, for whom sharing his scanty meal is really a sacrifice, but a sacrifice
borne with pleasure, such help has a wholly different ring to it from the
carelessly-tossed alms of the luxurious bourgeois.

In other respects, too, the bourgeoisie assumes a hypocritical, boundless

philanthropy, but only when its own interests require it; as in its Politics and
Political Economy. It has been at work now well on towards five years to
prove to the working-men that it strives to abolish the Corn Laws solely in
their interest. But the long and short of the matter is this: the Corn Laws keep
the price of bread higher than in other countries, and thus raise wages; but
these high wages render difficult competition of the manufacturers against
other nations in which bread, and consequently wages, are cheaper. The Corn
Laws being repealed, the price of bread falls, and wages gradually approach
those of other European countries, as must be clear to every one from our
previous exposition of the principles according to which wages are determined.
The manufacturer can compete more readily, the demand for English goods
increases, and, with it, the demand for labour. In consequence of this increased
demand wages would actually rise somewhat, and the unemployed workers be
re-employed; but for how long? The surplus population of England, and
especially of Ireland, is sufficient to supply English manufacture with the
necessary operatives, even if it were doubled; and, in a few years, the small
advantage of the repeal of the Corn Laws would be balanced, a new crisis
would follow, and we should be back at the point from which we started, while
the first stimulus to manufacture would have increased population meanwhile.
All this the proletarians understand very well, and have told the manufacturers
to their faces; but, in spite of that, the manufacturers have in view solely the
immediate advantage which the repeal of the Corn Laws would bring them.
They are too narrow-minded to see that, even for themselves, no permanent
advantage can arise from this measure, because their competition with each
other would soon force the profit of the individual back to its old level; and
thus they continue to shriek to the working-men that it is purely for the sake of
the starving millions that the rich members of the Liberal party pour hundreds
and thousands of pounds into the treasury of the Anti-Corn Law League, while
every one knows that they are only sending the butter after the cheese, that
they calculate upon earning it all back in the first ten years after the repeal of
the Corn Laws. But the workers are no longer to be misled by the bourgeoisie,
especially since the insurrection of 1842. They demand of every one who
presents himself as interested in their welfare, that he should declare himself in
favour of the Peoples Charter as proof of the sincerity of his professions, and
in so doing, they protest against all outside help, for the Charter is a demand
for the power to help themselves. Whoever declines so to declare himself they
pronounce their enemy, and are perfectly right in so doing, whether he be a
declared foe or a false friend. Besides, the Anti-Corn Law League has used the
most despicable falsehoods and tricks to win the support of the workers. It has
tried to prove to them that the money price of labour is in inverse proportion to

the price of corn; that wages are high when grain is cheap, and vice versa, an
assertion which it pretends to prove with the most ridiculous arguments, and
one which is, in itself, more ridiculous than any other that has proceeded from
the mouth of an Economist. When this failed to help matters, the workers were
promised bliss supreme in consequence of the increased demand in the labour
market; indeed, men went so far as to carry through the streets two models of
loaves of bread, on one of which, by far the larger, was written: American
Eightpenny Loaf, Wages Four Shillings per Day, and upon the much smaller
one: English Eightpenny Loaf, Wages Two Shillings a Day. But the workers
have not allowed themselves to be misled. They know their lords and masters
too well.
But rightly to measure the hypocrisy of these promises, the practice of the
bourgeoisie must be taken into account. We have seen in the course of
our.report how the bourgeoisie exploits the proletariat in every conceivable
way for its own benefit! We have, however, hitherto seen only how the.single
bourgeois maltreats the proletariat upon his own account. Let us turn now to
the manner in which the bourgeoisie as a party, as the power of the State,
conducts itself towards the proletariat. Laws are necessary only because there
are persons in existence who own nothing; and although this is directly
expressed in but few laws, as, for instance, those against vagabonds and
tramps, in which the proletariat as such is outlawed, yet enmity to the
proletariat is so emphatically the basis of the law that the judges, and
especially the Justices of the Peace, who are bourgeois themselves, and with
whom the proletariat comes most in contact, find this meaning in the laws
without further consideration. If a rich man is brought up, or rather summoned,
to appear before the court, the judge regrets that he is obliged to impose so
much trouble, treats the matter as favourably as possible, and, if he is forced to
condemn the accused, does so with extreme regret, etc., etc., and the end of it
all is a miserable fine, which the bourgeois throws upon the table with
contempt and then departs. But if a poor devil gets into such a position as
involves appearing before the Justice of the Peace he has almost always
spent the night in the station-house with a crowd of his peers he is regarded
from the beginning as guilty; his defence is set aside with a contemptuous
Oh! we know the excuse, and a fine imposed which he cannot pay and must
work out with several months on the treadmill. And if nothing can be proved
against him, he is sent to the treadmill, none the less, as a rogue and a
vagabond. The partisanship of the Justices of the Peace, especially in the
country, surpasses all description, and it is so much the order of the day that all
cases which are not too utterly flagrant are quietly reported by the newspapers,
without comment. Nor is anything else to be expected. For on the one hand,

these Dogberries do merely construe the law according to the intent of the
farmers, and, on the other, they are themselves bourgeois, who see the
foundation of all true order in the interests of their class. And the conduct of
the police corresponds to that of the Justices of the Peace. The bourgeois may
do what he will and the police remain ever polite, adhering strictly to the law,
but the proletarian is roughly, brutally treated; his poverty both casts the
suspicion of every sort of crime upon him and cuts him off from legal redress
against any caprice of the administrators of the law; for him, therefore, the
protecting forms of the law do not exist, the police force their way into his
house without further ceremony, arrest and abuse him; and only when a
working-men's association, such as the miners, engages a Roberts, does it
become evident how little the protective side of the law exists for the workingman, how frequently he has to bear all the burdens of the law without enjoying
its benefits.
Down to the present hour, the property-holding class in Parliament still
struggles against the better feelings of those not yet fallen a prey to egotism,
and seeks to subjugate the proletariat still further. One piece of common land
after another is appropriated and placed under cultivation, a process by which
the general cultivation is furthered, but the proletariat greatly injured. Where
there were still commons, the poor could pasture an ass, a pig, or geese, the
children and young people had a place where they could play and live out of
doors; but this is gradually coming to an end. The earnings of the worker are
less, and the young people, deprived of their play-ground, go to the beer-shops.
A mass of acts for enclosing and cultivating commons is passed at every
session of Parliament. When the Government determined during the session of
1844 to force the all monopolising railways to make travelling possible for the
workers by means of charges proportionate to their means, a penny a mile, and
proposed therefore to introduce such a third class train upon every railway
daily, the "Reverend Father in God", the Bishop of London, proposed that
Sunday, the only day upon which working-men in work can travel, be
exempted from this rule, and travelling thus be left open to the rich and shut
off from the poor. This proposition was, however, too direct, too undisguised
to pass through Parliament, and was dropped. I have no room to enumerate the
many concealed attacks of even one single session upon the proletariat. One
from the session of 1844 must suffice. An obscure member of Parliament, a
Mr. Miles, proposed a bill regulating the relation of master and servant which
seemed comparatively unobjectionable. The Government became interested in
the bill, and it was referred to a committee. Meanwhile the strike among the
miners in the North broke out, and Roberts made his triumphal passage
through England with his acquitted working-men. When the bill was reported

by the committee, it was discovered that certain most despotic provisions had
been interpolated in it, especially one conferring upon the employer the power
to bring before any Justice of the Peace every working-man who had
contracted verbally or in writing to do any work whatsoever, in case of refusal
to work or other misbehaviour, and have him condemned to prison with hard
labour for two months, upon the oath of the employer or his agent or
overlooker, i.e., upon the oath of the accuser. This bill aroused the workingmen to the utmost fury, the more so as the Ten Hours Bill was before
Parliament at the same time, and had called forth a considerable agitation.
Hundreds of meetings were held, hundreds of working-men's petitions
forwarded to London to Thomas Duncombe, the representative of the interests
of the proletariat. This man was, except Ferrand, the representative of "Young
England", the only vigorous opponent of the bill; but when the other Radicals
saw that the people were declaring against it, one after the other crept forward
and took his place by Duncombe's side; and as the Liberal bourgeoisie had not
the courage to defend the bill in the face of the excitement among the workingmen, it was ignominiously lost.
Meanwhile the most open declaration of war of the bourgeoisie upon the
proletariat is Malthus Law of Population and the New Poor Law framed in
accordance with it. We have already alluded several times to the theory of
Malthus. We may sum up its final result in these few words, that the earth is
perennially over-populated, whence poverty, misery, distress, and immorality
must prevail; that it is the lot, the eternal destiny of mankind, to exist in too
great numbers, and therefore in diverse classes, of which some are rich,
educated, and moral, and others more or less poor, distressed, ignorant, and
immoral. Hence it follows in practice, and Malthus himself drew this
conclusion, that charities and poor-rates are, properly speaking, nonsense,
since they serve only to maintain, and stimulate the increase of, the surplus
population whose competition crushes down wages for the employed; that the
employment of the poor by the Poor Law Guardians is equally unreasonable,
since only a fixed quantity of the products of labour can be consumed, and for
every unemployed labourer thus furnished employment, another hitherto
employed must be driven into enforced idleness, whence private undertakings
suffer at cost of Poor Law industry; that, in other words, the whole problem is
not how to support the surplus population, but how to restrain it as far as
possible. Malthus declares in plain English that the right to live, a right
previously asserted in favour of every man in the world, is nonsense. He
quotes the words of a poet, that the poor man comes to the feast of Nature and
finds no cover laid for him, and adds that she bids him begone, for he did not
before his birth ask of society whether or not he is welcome. This is now the

pet theory of all genuine English bourgeois, and very naturally, since it is the
most specious excuse for them, and has, moreover, a good deal of truth in it
under existing conditions. If, then, the problem is not to make the surplus
population useful, to transform it into available population, but merely to let it
starve to death in the least objectionable way and to prevent its having too
many children, this, of course, is simple enough, provided the surplus
population perceives its own superfluousness and takes kindly to starvation.
There is, however, in spite of the violent exertions of the humane bourgeoisie,
no immediate prospect of its succeeding in bringing about such a disposition
among the workers. The workers have taken it into their heads that they, with
their busy hands, are the necessary, and the rich capitalists, who do nothing,
the surplus population.
Since, however, the rich hold all the power, the proletarians must submit, if
they will not good-temperedly perceive it for themselves, to have the law
actually declare them superfluous.. This has been done by the New Poor Law.
The Old Poor Law which rested upon the Act of 1601 (the 43rd of Elizabeth),
naively started from the notion that it is the duty of the parish to provide for
the maintenance of the poor. Whoever had no work received relief, and the
poor man regarded the parish as pledged to protect him from starvation. He
demanded his weekly relief as his right, not as a favour, and this became, at
last, too much for the bourgeoisie. In 1833, when the bourgeoisie had just
come into power through the Reform Bill, and pauperism in the country
districts had just reached its full development, the bourgeoisie began the
reform of the Poor Law according to its own point of view. A commission was
appointed, which investigated the administration of the Poor Laws, and
revealed a multitude of abuses. It was discovered that the whole working-class
in the country was pauperised and more or less dependent upon the rates, from
which they received relief when wages were low; it was found that this system
by which the unemployed were maintained, the ill-paid and the parents of large
families relieved, fathers of illegitimate children required to pay alimony, and
poverty, in general, recognised as needing protection, it was found that this
system was ruining the nation, was
a check to industry, a reward for improvident marriages, a stimulant to
population, and a blind to its effects on wages; a national institution for
discountenancing the industrious and honest, and for protecting the
idle, the improvident and the vicious; the destroyer of the bonds of
family life; a system for preventing the accumulation of capital, for
destroying that which exists, and for reducing the rate-payer to

pauperism; and a premium for illegitimate children" in the provision of

aliment. (Words of the Report of the Poor Law Commissioners.)
This description of the action of the Old Poor Law is certainly correct; relief
fosters laziness and increase of surplus population. Under present social
conditions it is perfectly clear that the poor man is compelled to be an egotist,
and when he can choose, living equally well in either case, he prefers doing
nothing to working. But what follows therefrom? That our present social
conditions are good for nothing, and not as the Malthusian Commissioners
conclude, that poverty is a crime, and, as such, to be visited with heinous
penalties which may serve as a warning to others.
But these wise Malthusians were so thoroughly convinced of the infallibility
of their theory that they did not for one moment hesitate to cast the poor into
the Procrustean bed of their economic notions and treat them with the most
revolting cruelty. Convinced with Malthus and the rest of the adherents of free
competition that it is best to let each one take care of himself, they would have
preferred to abolish the Poor Laws altogether. Since, however, they had neither
the courage nor the authority to do this, they proposed a Poor Law constructed
as far as possible in harmony with the doctrine of Malthus, which is yet more
barbarous than that of laissez-faire, because it interferes actively in cases in
which the latter is passive. We have seen how Malthus characterises poverty,
or rather the want of employment, as a crime under the title "superfluity", and
recommends for it punishment by starvation. The commissioners were not
quite so barbarous; death outright by starvation was something too terrible
even for a Poor Law Commissioner. "Good," said they, "we grant you poor a
right to exist, but only to exist; the right to multiply you have not, nor the right
to exist as befits human beings. You are a pest, and if we cannot get rid of you
as we do of other pests, you shall feel, at least, that you are a pest, and you
shall at least be held in check, kept from bringing into the world other surplus,
either directly or through inducing in others laziness and want of employment.
Live you shall, but live as an awful warning to all those who might have
inducements to become superfluous."
They accordingly brought in the New Poor Law, which was passed by
Parliament in 1834, and continues in force down to the present day. All relief
in money and provisions was abolished; the only relief allowed was admission
to the workhouses immediately built. The regulations for these workhouses, or,
as the people call them, Poor Law Bastilles, is such as to frighten away every
one who has the slightest prospect of life without this form of public charity.
To make sure that relief be applied for only in the most extreme cases and after
every other effort had failed, the workhouse has been made the most repulsive

residence which the refined ingenuity of a Malthusian can invent. The food is
worse than that of the most ill-paid working-man while employed, and the
work harder, or they might prefer the workhouse to their wretched existence
outside. Meat, especially fresh meat, is rarely furnished, chiefly potatoes, the
worst possible bread and oatmeal porridge, little or no beer. The food of
criminal prisoners is better, as a rule, so that the paupers frequently commit
some offence for the purpose of getting into jail. For the workhouse is a jail
too; he who does not finish his task gets nothing to eat; he who wishes to go
out must ask permission, which is granted or not, according to his behaviour or
the inspectors whim; tobacco is forbidden, also the receipt of gifts from
relatives or friends outside the house; the paupers wear a workhouse uniform,
and are handed over, helpless and without redress, to the caprice of the
inspectors. To prevent their labour from competing with that of outside
concerns, they are set to rather useless tasks: the men break stones, as much
as a strong man can accomplish with effort in a day; the women, children, and
aged men pick oakum, for I know not what insignificant use. To prevent the
superfluous from multiplying, and demoralised parents from influencing
their children, families are broken up; the husband is placed in one wing, the
wife in another, the children in a third, and they are permitted to see one
another only at stated times after long intervals, and then only when they have,
in the opinion of the officials, behaved well. And in order to shut off the
external world from contamination by pauperism within these bastilles, the
inmates are permitted to receive visits only with the consent of the officials,
and in the reception-rooms; to communicate in general with the world outside
only by leave and under supervision.
Yet the food is supposed to be wholesome and the treatment humane with all
this. But the intent of the law is too loudly outspoken for this requirement to be
in any wise fulfilled. The Poor Law Commissioners and the whole English
bourgeoisie deceive themselves if they believe the administration of the law
possible without these results. The treatment, which the letter of the law
prescribes, is in direct contradiction of its spirit. If the law in its essence
proclaims the poor criminals, the workhouses prisons, their inmates beyond the
pale of the law, beyond the pale of humanity, objects of disgust and repulsion,
then all commands to the contrary are unavailing. In practice, the spirit and not
the letter of the law is followed in the treatment of the poor, as in the following
few examples:
In the workhouse at Greenwich, in the summer of 1843, a boy five years old
was punished by being shut into the dead-room, where he had to sleep upon
the lids of the coffins. In the workhouse at Herne, the same punishment was

inflicted upon a little girl for wetting the bed at night, and this method of
punishment seems to be a favourite one. This workhouse, which stands in one
of the most beautiful regions of Kent, is peculiar, in so far as its windows open
only upon the court, and but two, newly introduced, afford the inmates a
glimpse of the outer world. The author who relates this in the Illuminated
Magazine, closes his description with the words:
"If God punished men for crimes as man punishes man for poverty,
then woe to the sons of Adam!"
In November, 1843, a man died at Leicester, who had been dismissed two
days before from the workhouse at Coventry. The details of the treatment of
the poor in this institution are revolting. The man, George Robson, had a
wound upon the shoulder, the treatment of which was wholly neglected; he
was set to work at the pump, using the sound arm; was given only the usual
workhouse fare, which he was utterly unable to digest by reason of the
unhealed wound and his general debility; he naturally grew weaker, and the
more he complained, the more brutally he was treated. When his wife tried to
bring him her drop of beer, she was reprimanded, and forced to drink it herself
in the presence of the female warder. He became ill, but received no better
treatment. Finally, at his own request, and under the most insulting epithets, he
was discharged, accompanied by his wife. Two days later he died at Leicester,
in consequence of the neglected wound and of the food given him, which was
utterly indigestible for one in his condition, as the surgeon present at the
inquest testified. When he was discharged, there were handed to him letters
containing money, which had been kept back six weeks, and opened,
according to a rule of the establishment, by the inspector! In Birmingham such
scandalous occurrences took place, that finally, in 1843, an official was sent to
investigate the case. He found that four tramps had been shut up naked under a
stair-case in a black hole, eight to ten days, often deprived of food until noon,
and that at the severest season of the year. A little boy had been passed through
all grades of punishment known to the institution; first locked up in a damp,
vaulted, narrow, lumber- room; then in the dog-hole twice, the second time
three days and three nights; then the same length of time in the old dog-hole,
which was still worse; then the tramp-room, a stinking, disgustingly filthy
hole, with wooden sleeping stalls, where the official, in the course of his
inspection, found two other tattered boys, shrivelled with cold, who had been
spending three days there. In the dog-hole there were often seven, and in the
tramp-room, twenty men huddled together. Women, also, were placed in the
dog-hole, because they refused to go to church and one was shut four days into
the tramp-room, with God knows what sort of company, and that while she

was ill and receiving medicines. Another woman was placed in the insane
department for punishment, though she was perfectly sane. In the workhouse at
Bacton, in Suffolk, in January, 1844, a similar investigation revealed the fact
that a feeble-minded woman was employed as nurse, and took care of the
patients accordingly, while sufferers, who were often restless at night, or tried
to get up, were tied fast with cords passed over the covering and under the
bedstead, to save the nurses the trouble of sitting up at night. One patient was
found dead, bound in this way. In the St. Pancras workhouse in London (where
the cheap shirts already mentioned are made), an epileptic died of suffocation
during an attack in bed, no one coming to his relief; in the same house, four to
six, sometimes eight children, slept in one bed. In Shoreditch workhouse a man
was placed, together with a fever patient violently ill, in a bed teeming with
vermin. In Bethnal Green workhouse, London, a woman in the sixth month of
pregnancy was shut up in the reception-room with her two-year- old child,
from February 28th to March 19th, without being admitted into the workhouse
itself, and without a trace of a bed or the means of satisfying the most natural
wants. Her husband, who was brought into the workhouse, begged to have his
wife released from this imprisonment, whereupon he received twenty-four
hours imprisonment, with bread and water, as the penalty of his insolence. In
the workhouse at Slough, near Windsor, a man lay dying in September, 1844.
His wife journeyed to him, arriving at midnight; and hastening to the
workhouse, was refused admission. She was not permitted to see her husband
until the next morning, and then only in the presence of a female warder, who
forced herself upon the wife at every succeeding visit, sending her away at the
end of half-an-hour. In the workhouse at Middleton, in Lancashire, twelve, and
at times eighteen, paupers, of both sexes, slept in one room. This institution is
not embraced by the New Poor Law, but is administered under an old special
act (Gilberts Act). The inspector had instituted a brewery in the house for his
own benefit. In Stockport, July 31st, 1844, a man, seventy-two years old, was
brought before the Justice of the Peace for refusing to break stones, and
insisting that, by reason of his age and a stiff knee, he was unfit for this work.
In vain did he offer to undertake any work adapted to his physical strength; he
was sentenced to two weeks upon the treadmill. In the workhouse at Basford,
an inspecting official found that the sheets had not been changed in thirteen
weeks, shirts in four weeks, stockings in two to ten months, so that of fortyfive boys but three had stockings, and all their shirts were in tatters. The beds
swarmed with vermin, and the tableware was washed in the slop-pails. In the
west of London workhouse, a porter who had infected four girls with syphilis
was not discharged, and another who had concealed a deaf and dumb girl four
days and nights in his bed was also retained.

As in life, so in death. The poor are dumped into the earth like infected
cattle. The pauper burial-ground of St. Brides, London, is a bare morass, in use
as a cemetery since the time of Charles II., and filled with heaps of bones;
every Wednesday the paupers are thrown into a ditch fourteen feet deep; a
curate rattles through the Litany at the top of his speed; the ditch is loosely
covered in, to be reopened the next Wednesday, and filled with corpses as long
as one more can be forced in. The putrefaction thus engendered contaminates
the whole neighbourhood. In Manchester, the pauper burial-ground lies
opposite to the Old Town, along the Irk; this, too, is a rough, desolate place.
About two years ago a railroad was carried through it. If it had been a
respectable cemetery, how the bourgeoisie and the clergy would have shrieked
over the desecration! But it was a pauper burial-ground, the resting-place of
the outcast and superfluous, so no one concerned himself about the matter. It
was not even thought worth while to convey the partially decayed bodies to the
other side of the cemetery; they were heaped up just as it happened, and piles
were driven into newly made graves, so that the water oozed out of the
swampy ground, pregnant with putrefying matter, and filled the neighbourhood
with the most revolting and injurious gases. The disgusting brutality which
accompanied this work I cannot describe in further detail.
Can any one wonder that the poor decline to accept public relief under these
conditions? That they starve rather than enter these bastilles? I have the reports
of five cases in which persons actually starving, when the guardians refused
them outdoor relief, went back to their miserable homes and died of starvation
rather than enter these hells. Thus far have the Poor Law Commissioners
attained their object. At the same time, however, the workhouses have
intensified, more than any other measure of the party in power, the hatred of
the working-class against the property-holders, who very generally admire the
New Poor Law.
From Newcastle to Dover, there is but one voice among the workers the
voice of hatred against the new law. The bourgeoisie has formulated so clearly
in this law its conception of its duties towards the proletariat, that it has been
appreciated even by the dullest. So frankly, so boldly has the conception never
yet been formulated, that the non-possessing class exists solely for the purpose
of being exploited, and of starving when the property- holders can no longer
make use of it. Hence it is that this New Poor Law has contributed so greatly to
accelerate the labour movement, and especially to spread Chartism; and, as it
is carried out most extensively in the country, it facilitates the development of
the proletarian movement which is arising in the agricultural districts.

Let me add that a similar law in force in Ireland since 1838, affords a similar
refuge for eighty thousand paupers. Here, too, it has made itself disliked, and
would have been intensely hated if it had attained anything like the same
importance as in England. But what difference does the ill-treatment of eighty
thousand proletarians make in a country in which there are two and a half
millions of them? In Scotland there are, with local exceptions, no Poor Laws.
I hope that after this picture of the New Poor Law and its results, no word
which I have said of the English bourgeoisie will be thought too stern. In this
public measure, in which it acts in corpore as the ruling power, it formulates
its real intentions, reveals the animus of those smaller transactions with the
proletariat, of which the blame apparently attaches to individuals. And that this
measure did not originate with any one section of the bourgeoisie, but enjoys
the approval of the whole class, is proved by the Parliamentary debates of
1844. The Liberal party had enacted the New Poor Law; the Conservative
party, with its Prime Minister Peel at the head, defends it, and only alters some
pettifogging trifles in the Poor Law Amendment Bill of 1844. A Liberal
majority carried the bill, a Conservative majority approved it, and the "Noble
Lords" gave their consent each time. Thus is the expulsion of the proletariat
from State and society outspoken, thus is it publicly proclaimed that
proletarians are not human beings, and do not deserve to be treated as such.
Let us leave it to the proletarians of the British Empire to reconquer their
human rights. [1]
Such is the state of the British working-class as I have come to know it in
the course of twenty-one months, through the medium of my own eyes, and
through official and other trustworthy reports. And when I call this condition,
as I have frequently enough done in the foregoing pages, an utterly unbearable
one, I am not alone in so doing. As early as 1833, Gaskell declared that he
despaired of a peaceful issue, and that a revolution can hardly fail to follow. 1n
1838, Carlyle explained Chartism and the revolutionary activity of the
working-men as arising out of the misery in which they live, and only
wondered that they have sat so quietly eight long years at the Barmecide feast,
at which they have been regaled by the Liberal bourgeoisie with empty
promises. And in 1844 he declared that the work of organising labour must be
begun at once
"if Europe, at any rate if England, is to continue inhabitable much
longer."
And the Times, the first journal of Europe, said in June, 1844:

War to the mansion, peace to the cottage is a watchword of terror

which may yet ring through the land. Let the wealthy beware!
Meanwhile, let us review once more the chances of the English bourgeoisie.
In the worst case, foreign manufacture, especially that of America, may
succeed in withstanding English competition, even after the repeal of the Corn
Laws, inevitable in the course of a few years. German manufacture is now
making great efforts, and that of America has developed with giant strides.
America, with its inexhaustible resources, with its unmeasured coal and iron
fields, with its unexampled wealth of water-power and its navigable rivers, but
especially with its energetic, active population, in comparison with which the
English are phlegmatic dawdlers, America has in less than ten years created a
manufacture which already competes with England in the coarser cotton
goods, has excluded the English from the markets of North and South
America, and holds its own in China, side by side with England. If any country
is adapted to holding a monopoly of manufacture, it is America. Should
English manufacture be thus vanquished and in the course of the next twenty
years, if the present conditions remain unchanged, this is inevitable the
majority of the proletariat must become forever superfluous, and has no other
choice than to starve or to rebel. Does the English bourgeoisie reflect upon this
contingency? On the contrary; its favourite economist, McCulloch, teaches
from his students desk, that a country so young as America, which is not even
properly populated, cannot carry on manufacture successfully or dream of
competing with an old manufacturing country like England. It were madness in
the Americans to make the attempt, for they could only lose by it; better far for
them to stick to their agriculture, and when they have brought their whole
territory under the plough, a time may perhaps come for carrying on
manufacture with a profit. So says the wise economist, and the whole
bourgeoisie worships him, while the Americans take possession of one market
after another, while a daring American speculator recently even sent a
shipment of American cotton goods to England, where they were sold for reexportation!
But assuming that England retained the monopoly of manufactures, that its
factories perpetually multiply, what must be the result? The commercial crises
would continue, and grow more violent, more terrible, with the extension of
industry and the multiplication of the proletariat. The proletariat would
increase in geometrical proportion, in consequence of the progressive ruin of
the lower middle-class and the giant strides with which capital is concentrating
itself in the hands of the few; and the proletariat would soon embrace the
whole nation, with the exception of a few millionaires. But in this development

there comes a stage at which the proletariat perceives how easily the existing
power may be overthrown, and then follows a revolution.
Neither of these supposed conditions may, however, be expected to arise.
The commercial crises, the mightiest levers for all independent development of
the proletariat, will probably shorten the process, acting in concert with foreign
competition and the deepening ruin of the lower middle-class. I think the
people will not endure more than one more crisis. The next one, in 1846 or
1847, will probably bring with it the repeal of the Corn Laws and the
enactment of the Charter. What revolutionary movements the Charter may give
rise to remains to be seen. But, by the time of the next following crisis, which,
according to the analogy of its predecessors, must break out in 1852 or 1853,
unless delayed perhaps by the repeal of the Corn Laws or hastened by other
influences, such as foreign competition by the time this crisis arrives, the
English people will have had enough of being plundered by the capitalists and
left to starve when the capitalists no longer require their services. If, up to that
time, the English bourgeoisie does not pause to reflect and to all appearance
it certainly will not do so a revolution will follow with which none hitherto
known can be compared. The proletarians, driven to despair, will seize the
torch which Stephens has preached to them; the vengeance of the people will
come down with a wrath of which the rage of 1795 gives no true idea. The war
of the poor against the rich will be the bloodiest ever waged. Even the union of
a part of the bourgeoisie with the proletariat, even a general reform of the
bourgeoisie, would not help matters. Besides, the change of heart of the
bourgeoisie could only go as far as a lukewarm juste-milieu; the more
determined, uniting with the workers, would only form a new Gironde, and
succumb in the course of the mighty development. The prejudices of a whole
class cannot be laid aside like an old coat: least of all, those of the stable,
narrow, selfish English bourgeoisie. These are all inferences which may be
drawn with the greatest certainty: conclusions, the premises for which are
undeniable facts, partly of historical development, partly facts inherent in
human nature. Prophecy is nowhere so easy as in England, where all the
component elements of society are clearly defined and sharply separated. The
revolution must come; it is already too late to bring about a peaceful solution;
but it can be made more gently than that prophesied in the foregoing pages.
This depends, however, more upon the development of the proletariat than
upon that of the bourgeoisie. In proportion, as the proletariat absorbs socialistic
and communistic elements, will the revolution diminish in bloodshed, revenge,
and savagery. Communism stands, in principle, above the breach between
bourgeoisie and proletariat, recognises only its historic significance for the
present, but not its justification for the future: wishes, indeed, to bridge over

this chasm, to do away with all class antagonisms Hence it recognises as

justified, so long as the struggle exists, the exasperation of the proletariat
towards its oppressors as a necessity, as the most important lever for a labour
movement just beginning; but it goes beyond this exasperation, because
Communism is a question of humanity and not of the workers alone. Besides,
it does not occur to any Communist to wish to revenge himself upon
individuals, or to believe that, in general, the single bourgeois can act
otherwise, under existing circumstances, than he does act. English Socialism,
i.e., Communism, rests directly upon the irresponsibility of the individual.
Thus the more the English workers absorb communistic ideas, the more
superfluous becomes their present bitterness, which, should it continue so
violent as at present, could accomplish nothing; and the more their action
against the bourgeoisie will lose its savage cruelty. If, indeed, it were possible
to make the whole proletariat communistic before the war breaks out, the end
would be very peaceful; but that is no longer possible, the time has gone by.
Meanwhile, I think that before the outbreak of open, declared war of the poor
against the rich, there will be enough intelligent comprehension of the social
question among the proletariat, to enable the communistic party, with the help
of events, to conquer the brutal element of the revolution and prevent a "Ninth
Thermidor". In any case, the experience of the French will not have been
undergone in vain, and most of the Chartist leaders are, moreover, already
Communists. And as Communism stands above the strife between bourgeoisie
and proletariat, it will be easier for the better elements of the bourgeoisie
(which are, however, deplorably few, and can look for recruits only among the
rising generation) to unite with it than with purely proletarian Chartism.
If these conclusions have not been sufficiently established in the course of
the present work, there may be other opportunities for demonstrating that they
are necessary consequences of the historical development of England. But this
I maintain, the war of the poor against the rich now carried on in detail and
indirectly will become direct and universal. It is too late for a peaceful
solution. The classes are divided more and more sharply, the spirit of
resistance penetrates the workers, the bitterness intensifies, the guerrilla
skirmishes become concentrated in more important battles, and soon a slight
impulse will suffice to set the avalanche in motion. Then, indeed, will the warcry resound through the land: "War to the mansion, peace to the cottage!" but
then it will be too late for the rich to beware.

NOTES

1. To prevent misconstructions and consequent objections, I would observe

that I have spoken of the bourgeoisie as a class, and that all such facts as refer
to individuals serve merely as evidence of the way of thinking and acting of a
class. Hence I have not entered upon the distinctions between the diverse
sections, subdivisions and parties of the bourgeoisie, which have a mere
historical and theoretical significance. And I can, for the same reason, mention
but casually the few members of the bourgeoisie who have shown themselves
honourable exceptions. These are, on the one hand, the pronounced Radicals,
who are almost Chartists, such as a few members of the House of Commons,
the manufacturers Hindley of Ashton, and Fielden of Todmorden (Lancashire),
and, on the other hand, the philanthropic Tories, who have recently constituted
themselves "Young England", among whom are the Members of Parliament,
Disraeli, Borthwick, Ferrand, Lord John Manners, etc., Lord Ashley, too, is in
sympathy with them. The hope of "Young England" is a restoration of the old
"merry England" with its brilliant features and its romantic feudalism. This
object is of course unattainable and ridiculous, a satire upon all historic
development; but the good intention, the courage to resist the existing state of
things and prevalent prejudices, and to recognise the vileness of our present
condition, is worth something anyhow. Wholly isolated is the half-German
Englishman, Thomas Carlyle, who, originally a Tory, goes beyond all those
hitherto mentioned. He has sounded the social disorder more deeply than any
other English bourgeois, and demands the organisation of labour.

Tuesday, January 04, 2005

ENGELS DESPISED SMALL FARMERS (THE 19TH. CENTURY "REDNECKS")
He was good at despising. Just like modern-day Leftist elitists, Engels thought country-people were stupid

Firstly, the farmers, the most stupid set of people in existence, who, clinging to feudal prejudices, burst forth in masses, ready to die rather than cease to obey those whom they, their fathers and grandfathers, had called their masters; and submitted to be trampled on and horse-whipped by.
Context here
The original German follows:
Friedrich Engels, Deutsche Zustnde, 1845
Zunchst die Bauernschaft, die stupideste Menschenklasse auf Erden, eine Klasse, die, feudalen Vorurteilen anhngend, (...)
MEW a.a.O. 2, 570., Rotbuch S. 49
Note: I have translated "Bauernschaft" as "farmers" above rather than as "peasantry" because "peasant" is derogatory. "Bauer" is the normal German word for "farmer". "Schaft" means something like "fraternity". So "farming fraternity" would be a third possible translation. However you translate it,
however, it is clear that Engels was referring to the small farmers of his day.

Articles by Frederick Engels for The Northern Star

The State of Germany

Source: MECW Volume 6, p. 15;

Written: between October 15, 1845 and February 20, 1846;
First published: in The Northern Star Oct 25, Nov 8, 1845 and Apr 4, 1846.

Letter I, To The Editor

The Northern Star No. 415, October 25, 1845
Dear Sir, In compliance with your wish, I commence by this letter a
series of articles on the present state of my native country. In order to make my
opinions on the subject plainly understood, and to justify the same as being
well founded, I shall have to trace with a few words the history of Germany
from the event which shook modern society to its very foundation I mean to
say, from the French Revolution.
Old Germany was at that time known by the name of The Holy Roman
Empire,[15] and consisted of God knows how many little states, kingdoms,
electorates, dukedoms, arch and grand dukedoms, principalities, counties,
baronies, and free Imperial cities every one independent of the other, and
only subjected to the power (if there was any, which however, for hundreds of
years, had not been the case) of the Emperor and Diet. The independence of
these little states went so far, that in every war with the arch-enemy (France,
of course), there was a part of them allied to the French king, and in open war
with their own Emperor. The Diet, consisting of the deputations from all these
little states, under the presidency of the Imperial one, being intended to check
the power of the Emperor, was always assembled without ever coming to any,
even the most insignificant, results. They killed their time with the most futile
questions of ceremony, whether the embassy of Baron so-and-so (consisting,
perhaps, of the tutor of his son and an old livery-servant, or worn-out gamekeeper) ought to have precedency before the embassy of Baron so-and-so-or
whether the deputy from one Imperial city ought to salute the deputy of
another without waiting for his salute, etc. Then there were so many hundreds
of thousands of little privileges, mostly burthensome to the privileged
themselves, but which were considered as points of honour, and, therefore,
quarrelled about with the utmost obstinacy. This and similar important things
took up so much of the time of the wise Diet, that this honourable assembly
had not a minute to spare for discussing the weal of the empire. In
consequence of this, the greatest possible disorder and confusion was the order
of the day. The empire, divided within itself in time of war as well as peace,
passed through a series of internal wars from the time of the Reformation
down to 1789, in every one of which France was allied to the party opposed to

the weak and easily vanquished party of the Emperor, and took, of course, its
lions share in the plunder first, Burgundy; then the three bishoprics, Metz,
Toul, and Verdun; then the rest of Lorraine; then parts of Flanders and Alsace
were in this manner separated from the Holy Roman Empire and united to
France. Thus Switzerland was allowed to become independent from the
empire; thus Belgium was made over to the Spaniards by legacy of Charles V;
and all these countries fared better after their separation from Germany. To this
progressive external ruin of the empire, was joined the greatest possible
internal confusion. Every little prince was a blood-sucking, arbitrary despot to
his subjects. The empire never cared about the internal concerns of any states
except by forming a court of law (Imperial Court Chamber at Wetzlar [16]) for
attending to suits of subjects against their superiors, but that precious court
attended so well to these actions, that not one of them has ever been heard of
as having been settled. It is almost incredible what cruelties and arbitrary acts
were committed by the haughty princes towards their subjects. These princes,
living for pleasure and debauchery only, allowed every despotic power to their
ministers and government officers, who were thus permitted, without any risk
of punishment, to trample into the dust the unfortunate people, on this
condition only, that they filled their masters treasury and procured him an
inexhaustible supply of female beauty for his harem. The nobility, too, such as
were not independent but under the dominion of some king, bishop, or prince,
used to treat the people with greater contempt than they bestowed upon dogs,
and squeezed as much money as they possibly could out of the labour of their
serfs for servitude was quite a common thing, then, in Germany. Nor was
there any sign of liberty in those emphatically, so-called, free Imperial cities;
for here a burgomaster and self-elected senate, offices which, in the course of
centuries, had become as hereditary as the Imperial crown, ruled with greater
tyranny still. Nothing can equal the infamous conduct of these petty-bourgeois
aristocrats of the towns, and, indeed, it would not be believed that such was the
state of Germany fifty years ago, if it was not in the memory still of many who
remember that time, and if it was not confirmed by a hundred authorities. And
the people! What did they say to this state of things? What did they do? Why,
the middle classes, the money-loving bourgeois, found, in this continued
confusion, a source of wealth; they knew that they could catch the most fish in
the troubled waters; they suffered themselves to be oppressed and insulted
because they could take a revenge upon their enemies worthy of
themselves; they avenged their wrongs by cheating their oppressors. United to
the people, they might have overthrown the old dominions and refounded the
empire, just as the English middle classes had partly done from 1640 to 1688,
and as the French bourgeois were then about to do. But, no, the German
middle classes had not that energy, never pretended to that courage; they knew

Germany to be nothing but a dunghill, but they were comfortable in the dung
because they were dung themselves, and were kept warm by the dung about
them. And the working people were not worse off than they are now, except
the peasantry, who were mostly serfs, and could do nothing without the
assistance of the towns, hired armies being always quartered on them, who
threatened to stifle in blood every attempt at revolt.
Such was the state of Germany towards the end of the last century. It was all
over one living mass of putrefaction and repulsive decay. Nobody felt himself
at ease. The trade, commerce, industry, and agriculture of the country were
reduced to almost nothing; peasantry, tradesmen and manufacturers felt the
double pressure of a blood-sucking government and bad trade; the nobility and
princes found that their incomes, in spite of the squeezing of their inferiors,
could not be made to keep pace with their increasing expenditure; everything
was wrong, and a general uneasiness prevailed throughout the country. No
education, no means of operating upon the minds of the masses, no free press,
no public spirit, not even an extended commerce with other countries
nothing but meanness and selfishness a mean, sneaking, miserable
shopkeeping spirit pervading the whole people. Everything worn out,
crumbling down, going fast to ruin, and not even the slightest hope of a
beneficial change, not even so much strength in the nation as might have
sufficed for carrying away the putrid corpses of dead institutions.
The only hope for the better was seen in the countrys literature. This
shameful political and social age was at the same time the great age of German
literature. About 1750 all the master spirits of Germany were born, the
poets Goethe and Schiller, the philosophers Kant and Fichte, and, hardly
twenty years later, the last great German metaphysician, [17] Hegel. Every
remarkable work of this time breathes a spirit of defiance, and rebellion against
the whole of German society as it then existed. Goethe wrote Goetz von
Berlichingen, a dramatic homage to the memory of a rebel. Schiller,
the Robbers, celebrating a generous young man, who declares open war
against all society. But these were their juvenile productions; when they grew
older they lost all hope; Goethe restrained himself to satire of the keenest
order, and Schiller would have despaired if it had not been for the refuge
which science, and particularly the great history of ancient Greece and Rome,
afforded to him. These, too, may be taken as examples of the rest. Even the
best and strongest minds of the nation gave up all hope as to the future of their
country.
All at once, like a thunderbolt, the French Revolution struck into this chaos,
called Germany. The effect was tremendous. The people, too little instructed,

too much absorbed in the ancient habit of being tyrannised over, remained
unmoved. But all the middle classes, and the better part of the nobility, gave
one shout of joyful assent to the national assembly and the people of France.
Not one of all the hundreds of thousands of existing German poets failed to
sing the glory of the French people. But this enthusiasm was of the German
sort, it was merely metaphysical, it was only meant to apply to the theories of
the French revolutionises. As soon as theories were shuffled into the
background by the weight and bulk of facts; as soon as the French court and
the French people could in practice no longer agree, notwithstanding their
theoretical union, by the theoretical constitution of 1791; as soon as the people
asserted their sovereignty practically by the 10th of August": and when,
moreover, theory was entirely made silent on the 31st of May, 1793, [18] by the
putting down of the Girondists then this enthusiasm of Germany was
converted into a fanatic hatred against the revolution. Of course this
enthusiasm was meant to apply to such actions only as the night of the 4th of
August, 1789, when the nobility resigned their privileges,[19] but the good
Germans never thought of such actions having consequences in practice
widely differing from those inferences which benevolent theorists might draw.
The Germans never meant to approve of these consequences, which were
rather serious and unpleasant to many parties, as we all know well. So the
whole mass, who in the beginning had been enthusiastic friends to the
revolution, now became its greatest opponents, and getting, of course, the most
distorted news from Paris by the servile German press, preferred their old quiet
holy Roman dunghill to the tremendous activity of a people who threw off
vigorously the chains of slavery, and flung defiance to the faces of all despots,
aristocrats, and priests.
But the days of the Holy Roman Empire were numbered. The French
revolutionary armies walked straight into the very heart of Germany, made the
Rhine the frontier of France, and preached liberty and equality everywhere.
They drove away by shoals noblemen, bishops, and abbots, and all those little
princes that for so long a time had played in history the part of dolls. They
effected a clearing, as if they were settlers advancing in the backwoods of the
American Far West; the antediluvian forest of Christian-Germanic society
disappeared before their victorious course, like clouds before the rising sun.
And when the energetic Napoleon took the revolutionary work into his own
hands, when he identified the revolution with himself that same revolution
which after the ninth Thermidor 1794 [20] had been stifled by the money-loving
middle classes, when he, the democracy with a single head, as a French
author termed him, poured his armies again and again over Germany,
Christian-Germanic society was finally destroyed. Napoleon was not that

arbitrary despot to Germany which he is said to have been by his enemies;

Napoleon was in Germany the representative of the revolution, the propagator
of its principles, the destroyer of old feudal society. Of course he proceeded
despotically, but not even half as despotically as the deputies from the
Convention would have done, and really did, wherever they came; not half so
much so as the princes and nobles used to do whom he sent a-begging.
Napoleon applied the reign of terror, which had done its work in France, to
other countries, in the shape of war and this reign of terror was sadly
wanted in Germany. Napoleon dissolved the Holy Roman Empire, and reduced
the number of little states in Germany by forming large ones. He brought his
code of laws with himself into the conquered countries, a code infinitely
superior to all existing ones, and recognising equality in principle. He forced
the Germans, who had lived hitherto for private interests only, to work at the
carrying out of a great idea of some overwhelming public interest. But that was
just what aroused the Germans against him. He offended the peasantry by. the
very same measures that relieved them from the oppression of feudalism,
because he struck at the roots of their prejudices and ancient habits. He
offended the middle classes by the very means that laid the foundation of
German manufacturing industry: the prohibition of all English goods and the
war with England [21] was the cause of their beginning to manufacture for
themselves, but, at the same time, it made coffee and sugar, tobacco and snuff,
very dear; and this, of course, was sufficient to arouse the indignation of the
German patriotic shopkeepers. Besides, they were not the people to understand
any of the great plans of Napoleon. They cursed him because he led their
children away into wars, got up by the money of the English aristocracy and
middle classes; and hailed as friends those same classes of Englishmen who
were the real cause of the wars, who profited by those wars, and who duped
their German instruments not only during, but also after the war. They cursed
him, because they desired to remain confined to their old, miserable sort of
life, where they had nothing but their own little interest to attend to, because
they desired to have nothing to do with great ideas and public interest. And at
last, when Napoleons army had been destroyed in Russia, they took that
opportunity of shaking off the iron yoke of the great conqueror.
The glorious liberation war of 1813-14 and 15, the most glorious period
of German history, etc., as it has been called, was a piece of insanity such as
will drive the blood into the cheeks of every honest and intelligent German for
some time to come.[22] True, there was great enthusiasm then, but who were
these enthusiasts? Firstly, the peasantry, the most stupid set of people in
existence, who, clinging to feudal prejudices, burst forth in masses, ready to
die rather than cease to obey those whom they, their fathers and grandfathers,

had called their masters; and submitted to be trampled on and horse-whipped

by. Then the students and young men generally, who considered this war as a
war of principle, nay, as a war of religion; because not only they believed
themselves called upon to fight for the principle of legitimacy, called their
nationality, but also for the Holy Trinity and existence of God; in all poems,
pamphlets, and addresses of that time, the French are held up as the
representatives of atheism, infidelity, and wickedness, and the Germans as
those of religion, piety, and righteousness. Thirdly, some more enlightened
men, who mixed up with these ideas some notions about liberty,
constitutions, and a free press; but these were by far the minority. And
fourthly, the sons of tradesmen, merchants, speculators, etc., who fought for
the right of buying in the cheapest market, and of drinking coffee without the
admixture of chicory; of course, disguising their aims under the expressions of
the enthusiasm of the day, liberty, great German people, national
independence, and so forth. These were the men, who, with the assistance of
the Russians, English and Spaniards, beat Napoleon.
In my next letter I shall proceed to the history of Germany since the fall of
Napoleon. Let me only add, in qualification of the opinion above given of this
extraordinary man, that the longer he reigned, the more he deserved his
ultimate fate. His ascending the throne I will not reproach him with; the power
of the middle classes in France, who never cared about public interests,
provided their private ones went on favourably, and the apathy of the people,
who saw no ultimate benefit [for] themselves from the revolution, and were
only to be roused to the enthusiasm of war, permitted no other course; but that
he associated with the old anti-revolutionary dynasties by marrying the
Austrian Emperors daughter that he, instead of destroying every vestige of
Old Europe, rather sought to compromise with it that he aimed at the
honour of being the first among the European monarchs, and therefore
assimilated his court as much as possible to theirs that was his great fault.
He descended to the level of other monarchs he sought the honour of being
their equal he bowed to the principle of legitimacy and it was a matter of
course, then, that the legitimists kicked the usurper out of their company.
I
am,
Your German Correspondent

sir,

yours

respectfully,

October 15th, 1845

Letter II, To The Editor

The Northern Star No. 417, November 8, 1845

Dear Sir, Having in my first letter described the state of Germany before
and during the French Revolution, as well as during the reign of Napoleon;
having related how the great conqueror was overthrown, and by what parties, I
now resume the thread of my narrative to show what Germany made of herself
after this glorious restoration of national independence.
The view I took of all these events was diametrically opposed to that in
which they generally are represented; but my view is, to a letter, confirmed by
the events of the following period of German history. Had the war against
Napoleon really been a war of liberty against despotism, the consequence
would have been, that all those nations which Napoleon had subdued, would,
after his downfall, have proclaimed the principles and enjoyed the blessings of
equality. But quite the contrary was the case. With England, the war had been
commenced by the frightened aristocracy, and supported by the moneyocracy,
who found a source of immense profit in the repeated loans, and the swelling
of the National Debt; in the opportunity afforded them to enter into the South
American markets, to cram them with their own manufactures, and to conquer
such French, Spanish and Dutch colonies as they thought proper, for the better
filling of their purses; to make Britannia rule the waves despotic, that they
might harass to their hearts pleasure the trade of any other nation, whose
competition threatened to endanger the progress of their own enrichment; and
lastly, to assert their right of making enormous profits, by providing the
European markets, in opposition to Napoleons continental system. Such were
the real causes of the long war on the part of those classes in whose hands the
Government of England was then deposited; and as to the pretext, that the
fundamental principles of the English Constitution were endangered by the
French Revolution, it only shows what a precious piece of workmanship this
perfection of human reason must have been. As to Spain, the war had
commenced in defence of the principle of legitimate succession, and of the
inquisitorial despotism of the priesthood. The principles of the constitution of
1812 [23] were introduced later, in order to give the people some inducement to
continue the struggle, being themselves of French origin. Italy never was
opposed to Napoleon, having received nothing but benefits from his hands, and
having to thank him for her very existence as a nation. The same was the case
with Poland. What Germany was indebted for to Napoleon I have related in
my first letter.
By all and each of the victorious powers the downfall of Napoleon was
considered as the destruction of the French Revolution, and the triumph of
legitimacy. The consequences were, of course, the restoration of this principle
at home, first under the disguise of such sentimentalities as Holy

Alliance,[24] eternal peace, public weal, confidence between prince and

subject, etc., etc., afterwards undisguised by the bayonet and the dungeon.
The impotency of the conquerors was sufficiently shown by this one fact, that,
after all, the vanquished French people, with a hated dynasty forced upon
them, and maintained by 150,000 foreign muskets, yet inspired such awe in the
breasts of their victorious enemies, that they got a tolerably liberal constitution,
while the other nations, with all their exertions, and all their boasting of
liberty, got nothing but fine words first, and hard bullets afterwards. The
putting down of the French Revolution was celebrated by the massacres of
Republicans in the south of France; by the blaze of the inquisitorial pile and
the restoration of native despotism in Spain and Italy, and by the gagging-bills
and Peterloo in England. [25] We shall now see that in Germany things took a
similar course.
The Kingdom of Prussia was the first of all German states to declare war
against Napoleon. It was then governed by Frederick William III, nicknamed
The Just, one of the greatest blockheads that ever graced a throne. Born to be
a corporal and to inspect the buttons of an army; dissolute, without passion,
and a morality-monger at the same time, unable to speak otherwise but in the
infinite tense, surpassed only by his son [Frederick William IV] as a writer of
proclamations; he knew only two feelings fear and corporal-like
imperiousness. During the first half of his reign his predominating state of
mind was the fear of Napoleon, who treated him with the generosity of
contempt in giving him back half his kingdom, which he did not think worth
the keeping. It was this fear which led him to allow a party of half-and-half
reformers to govern in his stead, Hardenherg, Stein, Schn, Scharnhorst, etc.,
who introduced a more liberal organisation of municipalities, abolition of
servitude, commutation of feudal services into rent, or a fixed sum of twentyfive years purchase, and above all, the military organisation, which gives the
people a tremendous power, and which some time or other will be used against
the Government. They also prepared a constitution which, however, has not
yet made its appearance. We shall soon see what turn the affairs of Prussia
took after the putting down of the French Revolution.
The Corsican monster being got into safe custody, there was immediately
a great congress of great and petty despots held at Vienna, in order to divide
the booty and the prize-money, and to see how far the ante-revolutionary state
of things could be restored. Nations were bought and sold, divided and united,
just as it best suited the interests and purposes of their rulers. There were only
three states present who knew what they were about England, intending to
keep up and extend her commercial supremacy, to retain the lions share out of

the colonial plunder, and to weaken all the remainder France, not to suffer
too much, and weaken all others Russia, to get increase of strength and
territory, and to weaken all others; the remainder were directed by
sentimentalities, petty egotism, and some of them even by a sort of ridiculous
disinterestedness. The consequence was, that France spoiled the job for the
great German states; that Russia got the best part of Poland; and England
extended her maritime power more by the peace than by the war, and obtained
the superiority in all continental markets of no use for the English people,
but means of enormous enrichment to the English middle classes. The German
states, who thought of nothing but of their darling principle of legitimacy, were
cheated once more, and lost by the peace everything they had won by the war.
Germany remained split up into thirty-eight states, whose division hinders all
internal progress, and makes France more than a match for her; and who,
continuing [to be] the best market for English manufactures, served only to
enrich the English middle classes. It is all well for this section of the English
people to boast of the generosity which prompted them to send enormous sums
of money to keep up the war against Napoleon; but, if we even suppose that it
was them, and not the working people, who in reality had to pay these
subsidies they only intended, by their generosity, to re-open the continental
markets, and in this they succeeded so well that the profits they have drawn
since the peace, from Germany alone, would repay those sums at least six
times over. It is really middle-class generosity which first makes you a present
in the shape of subsidies, and afterwards makes you repay it six-fold in the
shape of profits. Would they have been so eager to pay those subsidies, if at
the end of the war, the reverse had been likely to be the case, and England
been inundated with German manufactures, instead of Germany being kept in
manufacturing bondage by a few English capitalists?
However, Germany was cheated on all hands, and mostly by her own socalled friends and allies. This I should not much care for myself, as I know
very well that we are approaching to a reorganisation of European society,
which will prevent such tricks on the one hand, and such imbecilities on the
other; what I want to show is, first, that neither the English people, nor any
other people profited by cheating the German despots, but that it all was for the
benefit of other despots; or of one particular class, whose interest is opposed to
the people; and second, that the very first act of the German restored despots
showed their thorough incapacity. We now turn to the home affairs of
Germany.
We have seen who were the parties that, with the aid of English money and
Russian barbarism, put down the French Revolution. They were divided into

two sections; first, the violent partisans of old Christian-Germanic society,

the peasantry and the enthusiastic youth, who were impelled by the fanaticism
of servitude, of nationality, of legitimacy and religion; and second, the more
sober middle-class men, who wished to be let alone, to make money and to
spend it without being bothered with the impudent interference of great
historical events. The latter party were satisfied as soon as they had obtained
the peace, the right to buy in the cheapest market, to drink coffee without
admixture of chicory, and to be excluded from all political affairs. The
Christian Germanics, however, now became the active supporters of the
restored governments, and did everything in their power to screw history back
to 1789. As to those who wished to see the people enjoy some of the fruits of
their exertions, they had been strong enough to make their watchwords the
battle-cry of 1813, but not the practice of 1815. They got some fine promises
of constitutions, free press, etc., and that was all; in practice everything was
carefully left as it had been previously. The Frenchified parts of Germany were
purged, as far as possible, from the traces of foreign despotism, and those
provinces only which were situated on the left of the Rhine retained their
French institutions. The Elector of Hesse [Ludwig I] went so far as to restore
even the pig-tails of his soldiers, which had been cut off by the impious hands
of the French. In short, Germany, as well as every other country, offered the
picture of a shameless reaction which was only distinguished by a character of
timidity and weakness; it did not even elevate itself to that degree of energy
with which revolutionary principles were combated in Italy, Spain, France and
England.
The cheating system to which Germany had been subjected at the Congress
of Vienna, now commenced to be practised between the different German
states themselves. Prussia and Austria, in order to weaken the power of the
different states, forced them to give some sort of mongrel constitutions, which
weakened the governments, without imparting any power to the people, or
even the middle classes. Germany being constituted a confederacy of states,
whose embassies, sent by the governments alone, formed the diet, there was no
risk that the people might become too strong, as every state was bound by the
resolutions of the diet, which were law for all Germany, without being subject
to the approval of any representative assembly. In this diet it was a matter of
course that Prussia and Austria ruled absolutely; they only had to threaten the
lesser princes to abandon them in their struggle with their representative
assemblies, in order to frighten them into implicit obedience. By these means,
by their overwhelming power, and by their being the true representatives of
that principle from which every German prince derives his power, they have
made themselves the absolute rulers of Germany. Whatever may be done in the

small states is without any effect in practice. The struggles of the Liberal
middle classes of Germany remained fruitless as long as they were confined to
the smaller southern states; they became important as soon as the middle
classes of Prussia were aroused from their lethargy. And as the Austrian people
can hardly he said to belong to the civilised world, and, in consequence,
submit quietly to their paternal despotism, the state which may be taken as the
centre of German modern history, as the barometer of the movements of public
opinion, is Prussia.
After the downfall of Napoleon, the King of Prussia spent some of his
happiest years. He was cheated, it is true, on every hand. England cheated him;
France cheated him; his own dear friends, the Emperors of Austria and
Russia [Ferdinand I and Alexander I] cheated him over and over again; but he,
in the fullness of his heart, did not even find it out; he could not think of the
possibility of there being any such scoundrels in the world who could cheat
Frederick William III, The Just. He was happy. Napoleon was overthrown.
He had no fear. He pressed Article 13 of the Fundamental Federative Act of
Germany, which promised a constitution for every state. He pressed the other
article about the liberty of the press.[26] Nay, on the 22nd of May, 1815, he
issued a proclamation commencing with these words words in which his
benevolent happiness was beautifully blended with his corporal-like
imperiousness There shall be a representation of the people! He went on
to order that a commission should be named to prepare a constitution for his
people; and even in 1819, when there had been revolutionary symptoms in
Prussia, when reaction was rifest all over Europe, and when the glorious fruit
of the Congresses was in its full blossom, even then he declared that, in future,
no public loan should be contracted without the assent of the future
representative assemblies of the kingdom.
Alas! this happy time did not last. The fear of Napoleon was but too soon
replaced in the kings mind by the fear of the revolution. But of that in my
next.
I have only one word to add. Whenever in English democratic meetings the
patriots of all countries are toasted, Andreas Hofer is sure to be amongst
them. Now, after what I have said on the enemies of Napoleon in Germany, is
Hofers name worthy to be cheered by democrats? Hofer was a stupid,
ignorant, bigoted, fanatical peasant, whose enthusiasm was that of La
Vende,[27] that of Church and Emperor. He fought bravely but so did the
Vendans against the Republicans. He fought for the paternal despotism of
Vienna and Rome. Democrats of England, for the sake of the honour of the
German people, leave that bigot out of the question in future. Germany has

better patriots than him. Why not mention Thomas Mnzer, the glorious chief
of the peasant insurrection of 1525, who was a real democrat, as far as
possible, at that time? Why not glorify George Forster, the German Thomas
Paine, who supported the French Revolution in Paris up to the last, in
opposition to all his countrymen, and died on the scaffold? Why not a host of
others, who fought for realities, and not for delusions?
I
am,
dear
Your German Correspondent

Sir,

yours

respectfully,

Letter III, To The Editor

The Northern Star No. 438, April 4, 1846
Dear Sir, I really must beg of you and your readers to excuse my apparent
negligence in not continuing sooner the series of letters on the above subject
which I commenced writing for this paper. You may, however, rest assured
that nothing but the necessity of devoting some weeks to the German
movement exclusively could detain me from the pleasant task I have
undertaken, of informing the English democracy of the state of things in my
native country
Your readers will, perhaps, have some recollection of the statements made in
my first and second letters. I there related how the old, rotten state of Germany
was rooted up by the French armies from 1792 to 1813; how Napoleon was
overthrown by the union of the feudalists, or aristocrats, and the bourgeois, or
trading middle classes of Europe; how, in the subsequent peace arrangements
the German princes were cheated by their allies, and even by vanquished
France; how the German Federative Act, and the present political state of
Germany was brought about; and how Prussia and Austria, by inducing the
lesser states to give constitutions, made themselves the exclusive masters of
Germany. Leaving Austria, as a half-barbarian country, out of the question, we
come to the result that Prussia is the battle-field on which the future fate of
Germany is to be decided.
We said in our last, that Frederick William Ill, King of Prussia, after being
delivered from the fear of Napoleon, and spending a few happy, because
fearless years, acquired another bugbear to frighten him the revolution.
The way in which the revolution was introduced into Germany we shall now
see.
After the downfall of Napoleon, which I must repeat again, by the kings and
aristocrats of the time, was totally identified with the putting down of the

French Revolution, or, as they called it, the revolution, after 1815, in all
countries, the anti-revolutionary party held the reins of government. The
feudalist aristocrats ruled in all cabinets from London to Naples, from Lisbon
to St. Petersburg. However, the middle classes, who had paid for the job and
assisted in doing it, wanted to have their share of the power. It was by no
means their interest which was placed in the ascendant by the restored
governments. On the contrary, middle-class interests were neglected
everywhere, and even openly set at nought. The passing of the English Corn
Law of 1815 [28] is the most striking example of a fact which was common to all
Europe; and yet the middle classes were more powerful then than ever they
had been. Commerce and manufactures had been extending everywhere, and
had swelled the fortunes of the fat bourgeois; their increased well-being was
manifested in their increased spirit of speculation, their growing demand for
comforts and luxuries. It was impossible, then, that they should quietly submit
to be governed by a class whose decay had been going on for centuries
whose interests were opposed to those of the middle classes whose
momentary return to power was the very work of the bourgeois. The struggle
between the middle classes and the aristocracy was inevitable; it commenced
almost immediately after the peace.
The middle classes being powerful by money only, cannot acquire political
power but by making money the only qualification for the legislative capacity
of an individual. They must merge all feudalistic privileges, all political
monopolies of past ages, in the one great privilege and monopoly of money.
The political dominion of the middle classes is, therefore, of an
essentially liberal appearance. They destroy all the old differences of several
estates coexisting in a country, all arbitrary privileges and exemptions; they are
obliged to make the elective principle the foundation of government to
recognise equality in principle, to free the press from the shackles of
monarchical censorship, to introduce the jury, in order to get rid of a separate
class of judges, forming a state in the state. So far they appear thorough
democrats. But they introduce all the improvements so far only, as thereby all
former individual and hereditary privileges are replaced by the privilege of
money. Thus the principle of election is, by property qualifications for the
right of electing and being elected, retained for their own class. Equality is set
aside again by restraining it to a mere equality before the law, which means
equality in spite of the inequality of rich and poor equality within the limits
of the chief inequality existing which means, in short, nothing else but
giving inequality the name of equality. Thus the liberty of the press is, of itself,
a middle-class privilege, because printing requires money, and buyers for the
printed productions, which buyers must have money again. Thus the jury is a

middle-class privilege, as proper care is taken to bring none but respectables

into the jury-box.
I have thought it necessary to make these few remarks upon the subject of
middle-class government in order to explain two facts. The first is, that in all
countries, during the time from 1815 to 1830, the essentially democratic
movement of the working classes was more or less made subservient to the
liberal movement of the bourgeois. The working people, though more
advanced than the middle classes, could not yet see the total difference
between liberalism and democracy emancipation of the middle classes and
emancipation of the working classes; they could not see the difference between
liberty of money and liberty of man, until money had been made politically
free, until the middle class had been made the exclusively ruling class.
Therefore the democrats of Peterloo were going to petition, not only for
Universal Suffrage, but for Corn Law repeal at the same time; therefore, the
proletarians fought in 1830 in Paris, and threatened to fight in 1831 in
England, for the political interest of the bourgeoisie. In all countries the middle
classes were, from 1815 to 1830, the most powerful component, and, therefore,
the leaders of the revolutionary party. The working classes are necessarily the
instruments in the hands of the middle classes, as long as the middle classes
are themselves revolutionary or progressive. The distinct movement of the
working classes is, therefore, in this case always of a secondary importance.
But from that very day when the middle classes obtain full political power
from the day on which all feudal and aristocratic interests are annihilated by
the power of money from the day on which the middle classes cease to be
progressive and revolutionary, and become stationary themselves, from that
day the working-class movement takes the lead and becomes the national
movement. Let the Corn Laws be repealed today, and tomorrow the Charter is
the leading question in England tomorrow the Chartist movement will
exhibit that strength, that energy, that enthusiasm and perseverance which
ensures success.
The second fact, for the explanation of which I ventured to make some few
remarks on middle-class government, refers to Germany exclusively. The
Germans being a nation of theorists, and little experienced in practice, took the
common fallacies brought forward by the French and English middle classes to
be sacred truths. The middle classes of Germany were glad to be left alone to
their little private business, which was all in the small way; wherever they
had obtained a constitution, they boasted of their liberty, but interfered little in
the political business of the state; wherever they had none, they were glad to be
saved the trouble of electing deputies and reading their speeches. The working

people wanted that great lever which in France and England aroused them
extensive manufactures and the consequence of it, middle-class rule. They,
therefore, remained quiet. The peasantry in those parts of Germany where the
modern French institutions had been again replaced by the old feudal regime,
felt oppressed, but this discontent wanted another stimulus to break out in open
rebellion. Thus, the revolutionary party in Germany, from 1815 to 1830,
consisted of theoristsonly. Its recruits were drawn from the universities; it was
made up of none but students.
It had been found impossible in Germany to re-introduce the old system of
1789. The altered circumstances of the time forced the governments to invent a
new system, which has been peculiar to Germany. The aristocracy was willing
to govern, but too weak; the middle classes were neither willing to govern nor
strong enough both, however, were strong enough to induce the government
to some concessions. The form of government, therefore, was a sort of
mongrel monarchy. A constitution, in some states, gave an appearance of
guarantee to the aristocracy and middle classes; for the remainder there was
everywhere a bureaucratic government that is, a monarchy which pretends
to take care of the interests of the middle class by a good administration, which
administration is, however, directed by aristocrats, and whose proceedings are
shut out as much as possible from the eyes of the public. The consequence is
the formation of a separate class of administrative government officers, in
whose hands the chief power is concentrated, and which stands in opposition
against all other classes. It is the barbarian form of middle-class rule.
But this form of government satisfied neither the Aristocrats, Christian
Germanics, Romantics, Reactionaries, nor the Liberals. They,
therefore, united against the governments, and formed the secret societies of
the students. From the union of those two sects for parties they cannot be
called arose that sect of mongrel Liberals, who in their secret societies
dreamt of a German Emperor wearing crown, purple, sceptre, and all the
remainder of that sort of apparatus, not to forget a long grey or red beard,
surrounded by an assembly of estates in which clergy, nobility, burgesses, and
peasants should be duly separated. It was the most ridiculous mixing up of
feudal brutality with modern middle-class fallacies that could be imagined. But
that was just the thing for the students, who wanted enthusiasm, no matter for
what, nor at what price. Yet these ridiculous idiosyncrasies, together with the
revolutions in Spain, Portugal and Italy, the movements of the Carbonari in
France, and the Reformation in England, [29] frightened the monarchs almost out
of their wits. Frederick William III got his bugbear, the revolution under

which name all these different and partly discordant movements were
comprised.
A number of incarcerations and wholesale prosecutions quashed this
revolution in Germany; the French bayonets in Spain, and the Austrian in
Italy, secured for a while the ascendancy of legitimate kings and rights divine.
Even the right divine of the Grand Turk to hang and quarter his Grecian
subjects was for a while maintained by the Holy Alliance; but this case was too
flagrant, and the Greeks were allowed to slip from under the Turkish yoke.[30]
At last, the three days of Paris [31] gave the signal for a general outbreak of
middle-class, aristocratic, and popular discontent throughout Europe. The
aristocratic Polish revolution was put down; the middle classes of France and
Belgium succeeded in securing to themselves political power [32]; the English
middle classes likewise obtained this end by the Reform Bill; the partly
popular, partly middle-class, partly national insurrections of Italy, were
suppressed; and in Germany numerous insurrections and movements
betokened a new era of popular and middle-class agitation.
The new and violent character of liberal agitation in Germany, from 1830 to
1834, showed that the middle classes had now taken up the question for
themselves. But Germany being divided into many states, almost each of
which had a separate line of customs and separate rates of duty, there was no
community of interest in these movements. The middle classes of Germany
wanted to become politically free, not for the purpose of arranging public
matters in accordance with their interest, but because they were ashamed of
their servile position in comparison to Frenchmen and Englishmen. Their
movement wanted the substantial basis which had ensured the success of
Liberalism in France and England; their interest in the question was far more
theoretical than practical; they were, upon an average, what is called
disinterested. The French bourgeois of 1830 were not. Laffitte said, the day
after the revolution: Now we, the bankers, will govern; and they do up to
this hour. The English middle classes, too, knew very well what they were
about when they fixed the ten-pound qualification[33]; but the German middle
classes being, as aforesaid, men in a small way of business, were mere
enthusiasts admirers of liberty of the press, trial by jury, constitutional
guarantees for the people, rights of the people, popular representation,
and such like, which they thought not means, but ends; they took the shadow
for the substance, and therefore got nothing. However, this middle-class
movement was sufficient to bring about several dozens of revolutions, of
which two or three contrived somehow to succeed; a great number of popular

meetings, a deal of talk and newspaper-boasting, and a very slight beginning of

a democratic movement among students, working men, and peasants.
I shall not enter into the rather tedious details of this blustering and
unsuccessful movement. Wherever somewhat important had been won, as
liberty of the press in Baden, the German Diet stepped in and put a stop to it.
The whole farce was concluded by a repetition of the wholesale imprisonments
of 1819 and 1823, and, by a secret league of all German princes, concluded in
1834, at a Conference of delegates at Vienna to resist all further progress of
Liberalism. [34] The resolutions of this Conference were published some years
ago.
From 1834 to 1840, every public movement in Germany died out. The
agitators of 1830 and 1834 were either imprisoned or scattered in foreign
countries, where they had fled. Those who had kept much of their middle-class
timidity during the times of agitation, continued to struggle against the
growing rigour of the censor, and the growing neglect and indifference of the
middle classes. The leaders of Parliamentary opposition went on speechifying
in the Chambers, but the governments found means to secure the votes of the
majorities. There appeared no further chance of bringing about any public
movement whatsoever in Germany; the governments had it all their own way.
In all these movements the middle classes of Prussia took almost no part.
The working people uttered their discontent throughout that country in
numerous riots, having, however, no defined purpose, and therefore no result.
The apathy of the Prussians was the principal strength of the German
confederacy. It showed that the time for a general middle-class movement in
Germany was not yet come.
In my next [Engels letter did not appear in the following numbers], I shall
pass to the movement of the last six years, unless I can bring together the
necessary materials for characterising the spirit of the German governments by
some of their own doings, in comparison to which those of your precious
Home Secretary b are pure and innocent.[35]
I
am,
in
respectfully,
Your German Correspondent

the

Febr. 20th,[36] 1846

Monday, January 03, 2005

meantime,

dear

Sir,

ENGELS ON LIBERTY AND DEMOCRACY

He despised both

The French Revolution was the rise of democracy in Europe. Democracy is, as I take all forms of government to be, a contradiction in itself, an untruth, nothing but hypocrisy (theology, as we Germans call it), at the bottom. Political liberty is sham-liberty, the worst possible sort of slavery; the appearance of
liberty, and therefore the worst servitude. Just so also is political equality for me; therefore democracy, as well as every other form of government, must ultimately break to pieces.
Another translation and more context here
The original German follows:
Friedrich Engels, Frankreich, 1843
Demokratie ist - und so schtze ich alle Regierungsformen ein - ein Widerspruch in sich, eine Unwahrheit, im Grunde nichts als Heuchelei (...) Politische Freiheit ist Scheinfreiheit, die schlimmste Art von Sklaverei, der Schein der Freiheit und deshalb die schlimmste Knechtschaft. Ebenso verhlt es sich mit
der politischen Gleichheit, deshalb mu die Demokratie so gut wie jede andere Regierungsform schlielich in Scherben gehen: (...)
MEW a.a.O. 1, 481.

Articles for The New Moral World by Frederick Engels

Progress of Social Reform On the Continent

Written: October 23 1843;
First published: in The New Moral World, 3rd Series, Nos. 19, Nov. 4,

1843;
Signed: F. Engels;
Printed: according to the newspaper. English original;
Transcribed: in 2000 for marxists.org by Andy Blunden.

The New Moral World No. 19, November 4, 1843

It has always been in some degree surprising to me, ever since I met with
English Socialists, to find that most of them are very little acquainted with the
social movement going on in different parts of the continent. And yet there are
more than half a million of Communists in France, not taking into account the
Fourierists, and other less radical Social reformers; there are Communist
associations in every part of Switzerland, sending forth missionaries to Italy,
Germany, and even Hungary; and German philosophy, after a long and
troublesome circuit, has at last settled upon Communism.
Thus, the three great and civilised countries of Europe England, France,
and Germany, have all come to the conclusion, that a thorough revolution of
social arrangements, based on community of property, has now become an
urgent and unavoidable necessity. This result is the more striking, as it was
arrived at by each of the above nations independently of the others; a fact, than
which there can be no stronger proof, that Communism is not the consequence
of the particular position of the English, or any other nation, but that it is a
necessary conclusion, which cannot he avoided to be drawn from the premises
given in the general facts of modern civilisation.

It must, therefore, appear desirable, that the three nations should understand
each other, should know how far they agree, and how far they disagree;
because there must be disagreement also, owing to the different origin of the
doctrine of Community in each of the three countries. The English came to the
conclusion practically, by the rapid increase of misery, demoralisation, and
pauperism in their own country: the French politically, by first asking for
political liberty and equality; and, finding this insufficient, joining social
liberty, and social equality to their political claims: the Germans became
Communists philosophically, by reasoning upon first principles. This being the
origin of Socialism in the three countries, there must exist differences upon
minor points; but I think I shall be able to show that these differences are very
insignificant, and quite consistent with the best feeling on the part of the Social
reformers of each country towards those of the other. The thing wanted is, that
they should know each other; this being obtained, I am certain, they all will
have the best wishes for the success of their foreign brother Communists.

I
FRANCE
France is, since the Revolution, the exclusively political country of Europe.
No improvement, no doctrine can obtain national importance in France, unless
embodied in some political shape. It seems to be the part the French nation
have to perform in the present stage of the history of mankind, to go through
all the forms of political development, and to arrive, from a merely political
beginning, at the point where all nations, all different paths, must meet at
Communism. The development of the public mind in France shows this
clearly, and shows at the same time, what the future history of the English
Chartists must be.
The French Revolution was the rise of democracy in Europe. Democracy is,
as I take all forms of government to be, a contradiction in itself, an untruth,
nothing but hypocrisy (theology, as we Germans call it), at the bottom.
Political liberty is sham-liberty, the worst possible slavery; the appearance of
liberty, and therefore the reality of servitude. Political equality is the same;
therefore democracy, as well as every other form of government, must
ultimately break to pieces: hypocrisy cannot subsist, the contradiction hidden
in it must come out; we must have either a regular slavery that is, an
undisguised despotism, or real liberty, and real equality that is,
Communism. Both these consequences were brought out in the French
Revolution; Napoleon established the first, and Babeuf the second. I think I

may be short upon the subject of Babouvism, as the history of his conspiracy,
by Buonarroti, has been translated into the English language. The Communist
plot did not succeed, because the then Communism itself was of a very rough
and superficial kind; and because, on the other hand, the public mind was not
yet far enough advanced.
The next French Social reformer was Count de Saint-Simon. He succeeded
in getting up a sect, and even some establishments; none of which succeeded.
The general spirit of the Saint-Simonian doctrines is very much like that of the
Ham-Common Socialists, in England; although, in the detail of the
arrangements and ideas, there is a great difference. The singularities and
eccentricities of the Saint-Simonians very soon became the victims of French
wit and satire; and everything once made ridiculous is inevitably lost in
France. But, besides this, there were other causes for the failure of the SaintSimonian establishments; all the doctrines of this party were enveloped in the
clouds of an unintelligible mysticism, which, perhaps, in the beginning, attract
the attention of the people; but, at last, must leave their expectations
disappointed. Their economical principles, too, were not unexceptionable; the
share of each of the members of their communities in the distribution of
produce was to be regulated, firstly, by the amount of work he had done; and,
secondly, the amount of talent he displayed. A German Republican, Boerne,
justly replied to this principle, that talent, instead of being rewarded, ought
rather to be considered as a natural preference; and, therefore, a deduction
ought to be made from the share of the talented, in order to restore equality.
Saint-Simonism, after having excited, like a brilliant meteor, the attention of
the thinking, disappeared from the Social horizon. Nobody now thinks of it, or
speaks of it; its time is past.
Nearly at the same time with Saint-Simon, another man directed the activity
of his mighty intellect to the social state of mankind Fourier. Although
Fouriers writings do not display those bright sparks of genius which we find
in Saint-Simons and some of his disciples; although his style is hard, and
shows, to a considerable extent, the toil with which the author is always
labouring to bring out his ideas, and to speak out things for which no words are
provided in the French language nevertheless, we read his works with
greater pleasure; and find more real value in them, than in those of the
preceding school. There is mysticism, too, and as extravagant as any, but this
you may cut off and throw it aside, and there will remain something not to be
found among the Saint-Simonians scientific research, cool, unbiased,
systematic thought; in short, social philosophy; whilst Saint-Simonism can
only be called social poetry. It was Fourier, who, for the first time, established

the great axiom of social philosophy, that every individual having an

inclination or predilection for some particular kind of work, the sum of all
these inclinations of all individuals must be, upon the whole, an adequate
power for providing for the wants of all. From this principle, it follows, that if
every individual is left to his own inclination, to do and to leave what he
pleases, the wants of all will be provided for, without the forcible means used
by the present system of society. This assertion looks bold, and yet, after
Fouriers mode of establishing it, is quite unassailable, almost self-evident
the egg of Columbus. Fourier proves, that every one is born with an inclination
for some kind of work, that absolute idleness is nonsense, a thing which never
existed, and cannot exist: that the essence of the human mind is to be active
itself, and to bring the body into activity; and that, therefore, there is no
necessity for making the people active by force, as in the now existing state of
society, but only to give their natural activity the right direction. He goes on
proving the identity of labour and enjoyment, and shows the irrationality of the
present social system, which separates them, making labour a toil, and placing
enjoyment above the reach of the majority of the labourers; he shows further,
how, under rational arrangements, labour may be made, what it is intended to
be, an enjoyment, leaving every one to follow his own inclinations. I cannot, of
course, follow Fourier through the whole of his theory of free labour, and I
think this will be sufficient to show the English Socialists that Fourierism is a
subject well worthy of their attention.
Another of the merits of Fourier is to have shown the advantages nay, the
necessity of association. It will be sufficient only to mention this subject, as I
know the English to be fully aware of its importance.
There is one inconsistency, however, in Fourierism, and a very important
one too, and that is, his nonabolition of private property. In his Phalanstres or
associative establishments, there are rich and poor, capitalists and working
men. The property of all members is placed into a joint stock, the
establishment carries on commerce, agricultural and manufacturing industry,
and the proceeds are divided among the members; one part as wages of labour,
another as reward for skill and talent, and a third as profits of capital. Thus,
after all the beautiful theories of association and free labour; after a good deal
of indignant declamation against commerce, selfishness, and competition, we
have in practice the old competitive system upon an improved plan, a poor-law
bastile on more liberal principles! Certainly, here we cannot stop; and the
French, too, have not stopped here.
The progress of Fourierism in France was slow, but regular. There are not a
great many Fourierists, but they count among their numbers a considerable

portion of the intellect now active in France. Victor Considrant is one of their
cleverest writers. They have a newspaper, too, the Phalange, published
formerly three times a week, now daily.
As the Fourierists are now represented in England also by Mr. Doherty, I
think I may have said enough concerning them, and now pass to the most
important and most radical party in France, the Communists.
I said before, that everything claiming national importance in France must
be of a political nature, or it will not succeed. Saint-Simon and Fourier did not
touch politics at all, and their schemes, therefore, became not the common
property of the nation, but only subjects of private discussion. We have seen
how Babeufs Communism arose out of the democracy of the first revolution.
The second revolution, of 1830, gave rise to another and more powerful
Communism. The great week of 1830 was accomplished by the union of the
middle and working classes, the liberals and the republicans. After the work
was done, the working classes were dismissed, and the fruits of the revolution
were taken possession of by the middle classes only. The working men got up
several insurrections, for the abolition of political monopoly, and the
establishment of a republic, but were always defeated; the middle class having
not only the army on their side, but forming themselves the national guard
besides. During this time (1834 or 1835) a new doctrine sprang up among the
republican working men. They saw that even after having succeeded in their
democratic plans, they would continue the dupes of their more gifted and
better educated leaders, and that their social condition, the cause of their
political discontent, would not be bettered by any political change whatsoever.
They referred to the history of the great revolution, and eagerly seized upon
Babeufs Communism. This is all that can, with safety, be asserted concerning
the origin of modern Communism in France; the subject was first discussed in
the dark lanes and crowded alleys of the Parisian suburb, Saint-Antoine, and
soon after in the secret assemblies of conspirators. Those who know more
about its origin are very careful to keep their knowledge to themselves, in
order to avoid the strong arm of the law. However, Communism spread
rapidly over Paris, Lyons, Toulouse, and the other large and manufacturing
towns of the realm; various secret associations followed each other, among
which the Travailleurs Egalitaires, or Equalitarian Working Men, and the
Humanitarians," were the most considerable. The Equalitarians were rather a
rough set, like the Babouvists of the great revolution; they purposed making
the world a working-mans community, putting down every refinement of
civilisation, science, the fine arts, etc., as useless, dangerous, and aristocratic
luxuries, a prejudice necessarily arising from their total ignorance of history

and political economy. The Humanitarians, were known particularly for their
attacks on marriage, family, and other similar institutions. Both these, as well
as two or three other parties, were very short-lived, and the great bulk of the
French working classes adopted, very soon, the tenets propounded by M.
Cabet, Pre Cabet (Father C.), as he is called, and which are known on the
continent under the name of Icarian Communism.
This sketch of the History of Communism in France shows, in some
measure, what the difference of French and English Communism must be. The
origin of Social reform, in France, is a political one; it is found, that democracy
cannot give real equality, and therefore the Community scheme is called to its
aid. The bulk of the French Communists are, therefore, republicans besides;
they want a community state of society, under a republican form of
government. Now, I do not think that the English Socialists would have serious
objections to this; because, though they are more favourable to an elective
monarchy, I know them to be too enlightened to force their kind of
government upon a people totally opposed to it. It is evident, that to try this
would involve this people in far greater disorders and difficulties than would
arise from their own democratic mode of government, even supposing this to
be bad.
But there are other objections that could be made to the French Communists.
They intend overthrowing the present government of their country by force,
and have shown this by their continual policy of secret associations. This is
true. Even the Icarians, though they declare in their publications that they
abhor physical revolutions and secret societies, even they are associated in this
manner, and would gladly seize upon any opportunity to establish a republic
by force. This will be objected to, I dare say, and rightly, because, at any rate,
secret associations are always contrary to common prudence, inasmuch as they
make the parties liable to unnecessary legal persecutions. I am not inclined to
defend such a line of policy, but it has to be explained, to be accounted for;
and it is fully done so by the difference of the French and English national
character and government. The English constitution has now been, for about
one hundred and fifty years, uninterruptedly, the law of the land; every change
has been made by legal means, by constitutional forms; therefore the English
must have a strong respect for their laws. But, in France, during the last fifty
years, one forced alteration has followed the other; all constitutions, from
radical democracy to open despotism, all kinds of laws were, after a short
existence, thrown away and replaced by others; how can the people then
respect their laws? And the result of all these convulsions, as now established
in the French constitution and laws, is the oppression of the poor by the rich,

an oppression kept up by force how can it be expected that the oppressed

should love their public institutions, that they should not resort to the old tricks
of 1792? They know that, if they are anything, they are it by meeting force by
force, and having, at present, no other means, why should they hesitate a
moment to apply this? It will be said further: why do not the French
Communists establish communities, as the English have done? My reply is,
because they dare not. If they did, the first experiment would be put down by
soldiers. And if they were suffered to do so, it would be of no use to them. I
always understood the Harmony Establishment to be only an experiment, to
show the possibility of Mr. Owens plans, if put into practice, to force public
opinion to a more favourable idea of the Socialist schemes for relieving public
distress. Well, if that be the case, such an experiment would be of no avail in
France. Show the French, not that your plans are practical, because that would
leave them cool and indifferent. Show them that your communities will not
place mankind under an ironbound despotism, as Mr. Bairstow the Chartist
said, in his late discussion with Mr. Watts. Show them that real liberty and real
equality will be only possible under Community arrangements, show them
that justice demands such arrangements, and then you will have them all on
your side.
But to return to the social doctrines of the Icarian Communists. Their holy
book is the Voyage en Icarie (Travels in Icaria) of Father Cabet, who, by-theby, was formerly Attorney-General, and Member of the Chamber of Deputies.
The general arrangements for their Communities are very little different to
those of Mr. Owen. They have embodied in their plans everything rational they
found in Saint-Simon and Fourier; and, therefore, are very much superior to
the old French Communists. As to marriage, they perfectly agree with the
English. Everything possible is done to secure the liberty of the individual.
Punishments are to be abolished, and to be replaced by education of the young,
and rational mental treatment of the old.
It is, however, curious, that whilst the English Socialists are generally
opposed to Christianity, and have to suffer all the religious prejudices of a
really Christian people, the French Communists, being a part of a nation
celebrated for its infidelity, are themselves Christians. One of their favourite
axioms is, that Christianity is Communism, le Christianisme c'est le
Communisme. This they try to prove by the bible, the state of community in
which the first Christians are said to have lived, etc. But all this shows only,
that these good people are not the best Christians, although they style
themselves so; because if they were, they would know the bible better, and
find that, if some few passages of the bible may be favourable to Communism,

the general spirit of its doctrines is, nevertheless, totally opposed to it, as well
as to every rational measure.
The rise of Communism has been hailed by most of the eminent minds in
France; Pierre Leroux, the metaphysician; George Sand, the courageous
defender of the rights of her sex; Abb de Lamennais, author of the Words of a
Believer and a great many others, are, more or less, inclined towards the
Communist doctrines. The most important writer, however, in this line is
Proudhon, a young man, who published two or three years ago his work: What
is Property? (Qu'est ce que la Proprit?) where he gave the answer: La
proprit c'est le vol, Property is robbery. This is the most philosophical
work, on the part of the Communists, in the French language; and, if I wish to
see any French book translated into the English language, it is this. The right
of private property, the consequences of this institution, competition,
immorality, misery, are here developed with a power of intellect, and real
scientific research, which I never since found united in a single volume.
Besides this, he gives very important remarks on government, and having
proved that every kind of government is alike objectionable, no matter whether
it be democracy, aristocracy, or monarchy, that all govern by force; and that, in
the best of all possible cases, the force of the majority oppresses the weakness
of the minority, he comes, at last, to the conclusion: Nous voulons
l'anarchie! What we want is anarchy; the rule of nobody, the responsibility of
every one to nobody but himself.
Upon this subject I shall have to speak more, when I come to the German
Communists. I have now only to add, that the French Icarian Communists are
estimated at about half a million in number, women and children not taken into
account. A pretty respectable phalanx, isnt it? They have a monthly paper,
the Populaire, edited by Father Cabet; and, besides this, P. Leroux publishes a
periodical, the Independent Review, in which the tenets of Communism are
philosophically advocated.
F. Engels
Manchester, Oct. 23, 1843
Sunday, January 02, 2005
MARX WANTED TO USE THE JEWS TO UNDERMINE CHRISTIANITY
His words:

"I have just been visited by the president of the Israelites here, who has asked me for a petition for the Jews to the Provincia l Assembly, and I am willing to do it. Given how repellent the Israelite faith is to me, Bauer's view seems to me too abstract. It is still however worthwhile to knock as many breaches
as possible into the Christian state and to smuggle in as much good sense as we can. At least, it must be attempted--and the embitterment grows with every petition that is rejected with protestations".
So, in order to further his political ends, Marx was prepared to pretend that he favoured a group that he really loathed. Sounds VERY familiar -- like the modern day American Leftists who despise "rednecks" and "trailer trash" but still pretend to be for "the little guy".

The original German follows:

Karl Marx an Arnold Ruge, 13. Mrz 1843
Soeben kmmt der Vorsteher der hiesigen Israeliten zu mir und ersucht mich um eine Petition fr die Juden an den Landtag, und ich will's tun. So widerlich mir der israelitische Glaube ist, so scheint mir Bauers Ansicht doch zu abstrakt. Es gilt so viele Lcher in den christlichen Staat zu stoen als mglich
und das Vernnftige, soviel an uns, einzuschmuggeln.
MEW a.a.O. 1, 338.,

There is a more sanitized translation here

Letters of Marx and Engels 1843

Letter from Marx to Arnold Ruge

in Dresden
Written: Cologne, March 13 [1843];
Source: Marx Engels Collected Works Vol 1, pp. 398-399;
Publisher: International Publishers (1975);
First Published: journal Documente des Socialismus, Bd I, 1902;
Translated: Clemens Dutt;
Transcribed: S. Ryan.

Dear Friend,
As soon as it is at all possible I shall set my course straight for Leipzig. I
have just had a talk with Stucke, who seems to have been greatly impressed by
most of the statesmen in Berlin. This Dr. Stucke is an extremely good-natured
man.
As for our plan, as a preliminary I will tell you of my own conviction. When
Paris was taken, some people proposed Napoleons son with a regency, others
Bernadotte, while yet others suggested that Louis Philippe should rule. But
Talleyrand replied: Louis XVIII or Napoleon. That is a principle, anything
else is intrigue.
In the same way I could call almost anything else, other than Strasbourg (or
at any rate Switzerland), not a principle, but an intrigue. Books of more than
20 printed sheets are not books for the people. The most that one can venture
on there are monthly issues.
Even if the publication of the Deutsche Jahrbcher were again permitted, at
the very best we could achieve a poor copy of the deceased publication, and
nowadays that is no longer enough. On the other hand, Deutsch-Franzsische
Jahrbcher that would be a principle, an event of consequence, an
undertaking over which one can be enthusiastic. It goes without saying that I

am only expressing my own unauthoritative opinion, and for the rest submit
myself to the eternal powers of fate.
Finally newspaper affairs compel me to close let me tell you also about
my personal plans. As soon as we had concluded the contract, I would travel
to Kreuznach, marry and spend a month or more there at the home of my
wifes mother, so that before starting work we should have at any rate a few
articles ready. The more so since I could, if necessary, spend a few weeks in
Dresden, for all the preliminaries, the announcement of the marriage, etc., take
considerable time.
I can assure you, without the slightest romanticism, that I am head over heels
in love, and indeed in the most serious way. I have been engaged for more than
seven years, and for my sake my fiance has fought the most violent battles,
which almost undermined her health, partly against her pietistic aristocratic
relatives, for whom the Lord in heaven and the lord in Berlin are equally
objects of religious cult, and partly against my own family, in which some
priests and other enemies of mine have ensconced themselves. For years,
therefore, my fiance and I have been engaged in more unnecessary and
exhausting conflicts than many who are three times our age and continually
talk of their life experience (the favourite phrase of our Juste-Milieu).
Apropos, we have received an anonymous reply to Prutzs report against the
new Tbingen Jahrbcher. I recognised Schwegler by the handwriting. You
are described as an over-excited agitator, Feuerbach as a frivolous mocker, and
Bauer as a man of wholly uncritical mind! The Swabians! The Swabians! That
will be a fine concoction!
On the subject of your very fine, truly popular written complaint, we have
inserted a superficial article by Pftzner half of which, moreover, I have
deleted for lack of a better criticism and of time. P. P. does not go
sufficiently deep into the matter and the little capers he cuts tend to turn him
into a laughing-stock instead of making his enemy ridiculous.
Yours,
Marx
I have arranged for the books for Fleischer. Your correspondence published
at the beginning is interesting. Bauer on Ammon is delightful. The Sorrows
and Joys of the Theological Mind seems to me a not very successful
rendering of the section of the Phenomenology: The Unfortunate
Consciousness. Feuerbachs aphorisms seem to me incorrect only in one

respect, that he refers too much to nature and too little to politics. That,
however, is the only alliance by which present-day philosophy can become
truth. But things will probably go as they did in the sixteenth century, when the
nature enthusiasts were accompanied by a corresponding number of state
enthusiasts. I was most of all pleased by the criticism of the good Literarische
Zeitung.
You have probably already read Bauers self-defence. In my opinion, he has
never before written so well.
As far as the Rheinische Zeitung is concerned I would not remain under any
conditions; it is impossible for me to write under Prussian censorship or to live
in the Prussian atmosphere.
I have just been visited by the chief of the Jewish community here, who has
asked me for a petition for the Jews to the Provincial Assembly, and I am
willing to do it. However much I dislike the Jewish faith, Bauers view seems
to me too abstract. The thing is to make as many breaches as possible in the
Christian state and to smuggle in as much as we can of what is rational. At
least, it must be attempted and the embitterment grows with every petition
that is rejected with protestations.
Saturday, January 01, 2005
REVOLUTION IS AUTHORITARIAN
Leftist psychologists have, since the 1950 work of Theodor Adorno and his collaborators, been enthusiastic in claiming that conservatives are "authoritarian" -- despite much contrary evidence. But Engels had a very different view of the matter -- a much more straightforward one:
"Revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon" (Friedrich Engels -- from his controversy with the Anarchists).
This rather obvious insight from Karl Marx's collaborator -- which associates authoritarianism with Leftism -- seems to have been totally overlooked by psychologists. This is rather surprising when we realize that the tradition of research into psychological authoritarianism traces back to The Authoritarian
Personality by Adorno, Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson and Sanford (1950). And the leading author (Adorno) of the study concerned was a prominent Marxist theoretician! One might have thought that a Marxist would have made the quotation mentioned central to his discussion of authoritarianism.
This overlooking of the obvious by the Adorno team was however symptomatic of their whole approach. Apparently, as committed Leftists, they wanted to explain Nazism and Fascism in a way that discredited Rightists rather than Leftists. But the theoretical convolutions required for that were from the
outset truly heroic -- considering that Hitler was a socialist rather than a conservative, considering that Mussolini was a prominent Marxist theoretician, considering that Stalin had been a willing ally of Hitler as long as Hitler wanted him and considering that Hitler's most unrelenting enemy was no Leftist but
the arch-Conservative Winston Churchill.
But facts never trouble Leftists.

Human Relations 1990, 43, 997-1015.

THE OLD-FASHIONED PERSONALITY

J.J. Ray
University of New South Wales, Australia

Abstract
It is noted that the authoritarian personality theory of
Adorno et al is now seldom referred to in race relations
research and that the scale used to operationalize the
theory (the F scale) is a very poor measure of what it
purports to measure (Right-wing authoritarianism). The F
scale does have many correlates, however, and the work
of Pflaum is referred to support the contention that the F
scale in fact taps an old-fashioned orientation. A large
correlational study by Kline & Cooper is reinterpreted in
this light and it is shown that when pejorative assumptions
are discarded, the old-fashioned person would appear to
have many potentially admirable characteristics. The new
understanding of what the F scale measures is also shown
to be helpful in making sense of the findings from many
other studies.

What the 'F' scale measures

Although devised as a means of explaining racism,
the authoritarian personality theory of Adorno,
Frenkel-Brunswik, Levinson & Sanford (1950) is now
little used for that purpose. Current research into race
relations or intergroup relations tends to give it at
best token mention (e.g. Doise, 1985; Cobas, 1986;
Sniderman & Tetlock, 1986; Brewer & Kramer, 1985;
Messick & Mackie, 1989). This seems to be because
group loyalty is now generally seen as a universal
human attribute rather than as an attribute of deviants

only. In the words of one elementary textbook writer,

ethnocentrism and stereotyping are "universal
ineradicable psychological processes" (Brown, 1986.
See also Tajfel & Fraser, 1978). Another reason for
disregarding the Adorno et al work is that its chief
measuring instrument (the F scale) and key to the
theory has been repeatedly shown as invalid. It does
not predict authoritarian behavior (Titus & Hollander,
1957; Titus, 1968; Altemeyer, 1981; Ray & Lovejoy,
1983) and it is a poor predictor of political Rightism. In
general population samples, many Leftist voters get
high scores on it (Hanson, 1975; Ray, 1973b, 1983c,
1984 & 1985a).
Although this is a considerable record of failure, it
only tells part of the story. The other side is of course
the fact that vast numbers of articles have been
published wherein the F scale has been shown to
have significant relationships with other variables.
The F scale may not measure what it purports to
measure but it does measure something that seems to
have an effect on many other variables. But what
could this be? If the scale does not measure what it
was devised to measure, is it likely that it
adventitiously measures something else? If it does
not measure authoritarianism or political
conservatism, what could it measure that would
produce the relationships observed?
We do of course have Gabennesch's (1972)
suggestion that a high F score represents narrowness

of world-view and a narrow breadth of perspective but

this would seem to come rather close to equating
authoritarianism with lack of education and the
correlations between F scale score and education are
not generally high and have even been on some
occasions non-significant (See Table 1 in Ray, 1983a
and also the -.047 correlation discussed under a later
heading in this paper). There may therefore be some
tendency for F scale scorers to be as Gabennesch
characterizes them but that is surely not the whole of
what the F scale measures.
Aside from the Gabennesch work, however, no
systematic investigation of alternatives to
authoritarianism as an explanation of what the F scale
measures appears to have been so far attempted in
the literature (though I have mentioned in passing the
proposal to be explored here on a number of previous
occasions. See e.g. Ray, 1983c, 1987 and 1988), but
there is fortunately on record one finding that gives a
very strong clue about what the answer might be.
Pflaum (1964) showed that a parallel form of the 'F'
scale could be produced from collections of myths
and superstitions that had been popular in the 1920's.
Now this is very strong data indeed. If Pflaum had
simply shown that the 'F' scale correlated with assent
to popular myths and superstitions of the past, that
could simply be written off as just another interesting
finding of uncertain implication. The correlations
Pflaum found, however, were so high that they
enabled claims that a parallel form of the 'F' scale had

been found. Pflaum has therefore made an explicit

discovery about what the F scale consists of. It is a
collection of old-fashioned myths and superstitions or
statements that strongly resemble them. Hartmann
(1977) described the 'F' scale as a collection of
"Victorian" values (no doubt Biedemeyer values in the
German case) so the culture that produced 'F' scale
type sentiments may go back even earlier than the
1920's. At any event, it is clear that the attitudes
expressed in the 'F' scale were old-fashioned even
when the 'F' scale was compiled. How much more oldfashioned they must be today! That they are is also
shown by the fact that the F scale always seems to
correlate with age (e.g. Meloen, Hagendoorn,
Raaijmakers & Visser, 1988). Older people tend to get
higher scores on it.
Another piece of work which supports this
interpretation of the F scale is the finding by Alwin
(1988) to the effect that the ideals for child behavior in
the U.S.A. have changed a lot since the 1920's. In the
20's conformity and obedience to authority were what
was expected of children. In present times, however,
this is replaced by values directed toward the child
being more autonomous. So what do we find in the F
scale? About a third of the items stress the
importance of authority in general and several
specifically advocate obedience to authority by young
people -- exactly what we would expect of a scale
embodying 1920's values. Putting it another way, the
pro-authority content of the F scale is an important

part of its "old-fashionedness". Koomen (1972) has

also documented (for both Germany and the United
States) the authoritarian nature of child-rearing
practices in the 1920's and 1930's.
In short, a high 'F' scorer is not a Fascist but rather
someone who is still lost in the culture of the pre-war
era. He or she tends to be "old-fashioned". Since
Hitler's Nazism did strongly tend to romanticize the
past and perhaps took some of its values from the
past, some understanding of how the two variables
got mixed up would seem possible. Adorno et al heard
various expressions of attitude from various sources
in California that sounded to them like what they had
heard from Hitler. They mistakenly assumed that the
old-fashioned people who uttered these statements
must also be like Hitler. They did, of course attempt to
substantiate their suspicions empirically but their
methods for doing so have long ago been shown as
prejudging the question (Christie & Jahoda, 1954;
McKinney, 1973; Ray, 1973a). In other words, the
"authoritarian" was essentially a case of mistaken
identity -- unless, of course, someone wishes to
propose that all old- fashioned people are Nazis.
Surely, however, no-one would propose that all oldfashioned people are Nazis. Nor is it clear, in fact, that
the Nazis were old- fashioned. They may have
romanticized the past but their military doctrine and
technology, for instance, were very advanced for the
times -- as their several years of initial military

success showed (Dupuy, 1986). In the non-military

sphere, too, many Nazi preoccupations seem even
today to be startlingly modern -- beliefs in whole-grain
bread, holistic medicine, ecology etc. (Proctor, 1988).
Proctor (1988) also points out that even Nazi ideas of
racial hygiene were and are essentially "normal"
science in the Kuhnian sense. Nazism and being oldfashioned are, then, clearly far from being one and the
same. What being old-fashioned implies, then, must
be studied in its own right.
The problem of value-judgments
At this point it would be easy to conduct some new
research with the F scale that was guided by this new
understanding of what it measures. Given the vast
volume of extant research with the 'F' scale, however,
this would surely be a wasteful strategy. Could not
one or many of the existing studies of the scale be reused to give us any information we need? It is
proposed here that such re- interpretation can
usefully be done and some attempts at it by way of
example will be made. Before this can be done,
however, a very important caveat has to be entered. It
needs to be pointed out that the implications of 'F'
scale research have never really been straightforward
and that interpretation has always been needed before
any conclusions were drawn.
This can perhaps best be seen if it is realized that
(Brown, 1965) the origin of the authoritarian

personality concept lies not with Adorno et al (1950)

but rather with the Nazi psychologist Jaensch (1938) -who appears to have initiated the suggestion that
variables from the psychology of perception could be
used to index or explain personality. His 'J Type' (later
called "authoritarian") had strong, clear, unambiguous
perceptions and Jaensch presented this as being
obviously desirable. The 'J Type' became, then, the
Nazi ideal. Perhaps rather surprisingly, the group of
Left-wing Jewish psychologists (Adorno et al, 1950)
who first undertook the task of explaining Nazi-type
character in the post-war era, appear to have accepted
the Nazi theory with little change. They adopted the
judgments of their oppressors (or would-be
oppressors). Cf Bettelheim (1943). The main
(inevitable?) amendment they made to the theory was
to reverse the value judgments. Tolerance of
ambiguity became desirable where it previously had
been seen as undesirable. The seeking of a simple
conceptual world became suspect.
Yet can it coherently be suspect? Ever since Einstein
first attempted it, the Holy Grail of modern physics
has been the search for a "unified field theory" -- i.e. a
simple explanation which integrates the explanation
of all the forces in the universe into a single theory.
Physicists want to simplify their conceptual world. Yet
on a strict application of the Adorno et al account are
not Einstein and all his successors simply showing
their personal inadequacy by their search for
simplicity? That is surely obvious nonsense. The

truth, of course, is that both the desire for simplicity

and tolerance of ambiguity can be adaptive from time
to time and from circumstance to circumstance. We
cannot oversimplify by saying that one or the other is
overall more valuable, adaptive or praiseworthy.
Welsh (1981) recognizes this when he systematically
presents preference for structure and order as merely
an alternative to its opposite rather than as some sort
of inferior orientation.
Defining "old-fashioned"
With the need for caution about value-judgments in
mind, we may then perhaps look at a recent large
study by Kline & Cooper (1984). In this study a large
number of possible correlates of the 'F' scale were
surveyed. The relationships observed should, then,
tell us something about the current correlates of being
old-fashioned. While being old- fashioned could be
formally defined as: "Having attitudes, values,
outlooks and practices characteristic of the past" or
some such, this does not tell us much about just what
those attitudes, values and practices actually are at
the present time. The Kline & Cooper study should
help us to find out. It should help give us an
operational definition of "old-fashioned".
To begin, we might perhaps look at what Kline &
Cooper themselves thought that they had found. They
claimed that their results showed that "authoritarians"
are conscientious, conventional, conservative, and

controlled, with high will-power. They also found that

"authoritarians" were "anal" and low scorers on
Eysenck's 'P' scale. The pejorative tone of this
description may be noted.
Since we now know that the study of high 'F' scale
scorers is not synonymous with the study of political
villains, however, any pejorative preconceptions
concerning what was found may be set aside. Instead,
it seems reasonable to say that Kline & Cooper
showed that old-fashioned people at the present time
are especially "nice" to others (i.e. low scorers on the
Eysenck "P" scale), forceful, conscientious,
conservative and inclined to perfectionism with good
self-control. It will be noted that this description is not
notably pejorative and may even be slightly laudatory.
What was presented by Kline & Cooper (1984) as
confirming the Adorno et al theory need bear no such
interpretation at all. It is, however, interesting
information about old-fashioned people.
An example of where the Kline & Cooper findings
need reinterpretation is in the case of the Freudian
term "anal". While there may be some justification for
using such an offensive label with clinical
populations, it is surely much less suitable for use
and potentially misleading with normal populations.
The scale used to measure this attribute is now out of
print and Kline did not respond to a request for a copy
of it so one cannot be absolutely sure what it
measures but the proposal above that it be said to

measure "perfectionism" is unlikely to be too wide of

the mark. Such a label would at least contain a better
balance between positive and negative connotations.
People such as scientists may be in considerable
need of the tendency to give obsessive attention to
detail. Such attention may even be needed for
scientific progress. To characterize it in uniformly
pejorative ways is surely therefore inadequate.
One finding that even Kline & Cooper saw a need to
reinterpret was their finding that "authoritarians" were
especially low scorers on the Eysenck 'P' scale. The
simplest interpretation of this finding is that
"authoritarians" are especially sane. Such a
conclusion is, of course, very upsetting to the Adorno
et al theory. What the Eysenck 'P' scale measures,
however, is not at all obvious. Despite the name it is
not simply a measure of Psychoticism and Eysenck
himself proposes that in normal populations the scale
measures "tough-mindedness" (Eysenck & Eysenck,
1976). The scale is, however, a factor analytic product
and, like most such, can be interpreted in a variety of
ways. In the present context the alternative might be
considered that the 'P' scale measures whether or not
people are "nice" to one-another. Thus Kline & Cooper
appear to have found that old-fashioned people are
"nicer" than other people. Since it appears to be a
common occurrence today that people look back to
the past as a time of greater civility, this would be an
eminently understandable finding. The new
understanding of what the 'F' scale measures turns a

troublesome finding into something much more easily

assimilated.
The other Kline & Cooper variables that have been
renamed need no elaborate explanation. Kline &
Cooper rely heavily in their work on the Cattell "16PF"
and the naming of those scales has always been to
some extent problematical. The fact that Cattell
himself had to invent or disinter many words to name
his scales ("surgency", "rhathymia" etc.) is fairly clear
evidence of that. There certainly need to be no
pejorative assumptions concerning their implications.
It is in the end all a matter of interpretation and no-one
can be dogmatic either way.
It seems at least possible, however, that being oldfashioned could be quite creditable. Old-fashioned
people do not sound very difficult to live with. Being
conscientious and self-controlled could be overdone
but surely many of modern society's ills (e.g. violent
crime, welfare cheating) would seem to stem from a
deficiency in such attributes.
Reinterpreting other studies
It seems of interest to note that similar
reinterpretation exercises performed with other sets
of data available in the literature also yield improved
insights.
Maier & Lavrakas (1984), for instance, found a

relationship between 'F' scale score and sex-typed

body ideals. This suggests that it is old-fashioned to
idealize a muscular physique among males. Since
human muscle has been supplanted by machines in
so many ways since the Second World war, this
finding would seem an expected one. If muscle is less
important, it should be less idealized. What seems at
first like an obscure finding about authoritarianism
becomes instead a readily understandable finding
about what has become old-fashioned.
Similarly, Kelley (1985) found that high 'F' scorers
tended more than others to dislike being shown
pictures of masturbation. An elaborate interpretation
of this finding in terms of the psychodynamic
processes described by Adorno et al is, of course,
possible but a much more straightforward
interpretation is that sexual prudery is old- fashioned.
Given the great liberalization of sexual attitudes since
"the Pill", this too fits in well with what is already
known. Fisher et al (1988) also report prudery among
high F scorers.
The finding by Larsen, Reed & Hoffman (1980) to the
effect that high F scorers (old-fashioned people)
dislike homosexuals is, of course, also similarly
explained. Homosexuals were once so disfavoured
that homosexuality was almost universally illegal.
Now they are generally tolerated and may even be
accepted. So it is old-fashioned nowadays to decry
homosexuality -- which the Larsen, Reed & Hoffman

data confirm.
One study with the F scale that seems of considerable
potential importance is one by Mercer & Kohn (1980).
These authors relate "authoritarianism" to adolescent
drug abuse. They find that young adolescents with
high F scores are less likely to take recreational
drugs. As this seems a clear instance of
"authoritarianism" being highly adaptive it must have
been something of a bitter pill for anyone accepting
the Adorno et al (1950) view of authoritarianism as
being highly maladaptive. As it is, however, the finding
simply shows that it is a mainly modern phenomenon
to make regular use of illicit drugs. Since drug abuse
does appear to have spiralled in recent years, this is
an eminently understandable finding. We may
however regret that it is now old-fashioned to make no
use of recreational drugs.
Perhaps a final study that should be reinterpreted
here is one by Siegel & Mitchell (1979). These authors
did at least use a form of the F scale that was
balanced against acquiescent bias. These authors
conducted a mock-jury study in which the effect of
juror authoritarianism (among other things) on final
verdict was examined. The findings include many
complicated interactions so are not easy to
summarize and a further complication is that much
that was true for males was not true for females and
vice versa but some effects can nonetheless be
descried.

The facts of the case presented to the jurors were that

a drug pusher had been caught "red-handed" by the
police. The results showed that males scoring high on
the F scale were more certain of the defendant's guilt
than were high F females. Since it was hard in the
circumstances for certainty not to be high, this seems
to mean that the high F (but not low F) females were
influenced by compassion in their judgments. Oldfashioned women were more compassionate than
their men? It seems reasonable. It was further found
that high F scorers were more punitive to a person of
low moral character than to a person of generally high
character. Low F scorers did not differentiate in terms
of character. This suggests that it is modern to ignore
morality and character. As this is an age where all
values are challenged that would seem to fit in with
what we know of modern times. It was also found that
high F males rated the defendant as less honest. This
suggests that it is modern to see drug-dealing as
honest. Drugs certainly do seem to have much more
acceptance now than they once did so this makes
good sense of the findings.
South African data
One study that needs only minor elaboration is the
work of Duckitt (1983) in South Africa. Duckitt found
that authoritarian personality, social class and various
demographic variables were poor predictors of F
scale score but that being of an Afrikaner or English-

speaking background had a big effect. As the

Afrikaners, with their strict Calvinistic Protestantism,
are a notably old-fashioned group in all sorts of ways,
their high F scores represent good confirmation for
the present theory.
It will be noted that all the studies that have been
reinterpreted above were published in the ten-year
period from 1979 to 1988. Others could have been
mentioned and there certainly is a host of earlier
studies (e.g. Garcia & Griffitt (1978) but it is hoped that
enough has been said to show how they too could be
reinterpreted should the need arise.
Racial attitudes and the F scale
What about the relationship between the 'F' scale and
racial attitudes? Is that now to be challenged too? Not
at all. The prediction of expressed racial attitudes
provided by the 'F' scale is surely one of the most
frequently replicated findings in the whole of
psychology (though there have been odd exceptions
e.g. McAbee & Cafferty, 1982). Hardly a year goes by
without it being rediscovered and those who make the
rediscovery tend to present it as important support for
the Adorno et al theory (e.g. Meloen et al, 1988). It is of
course nothing of the kind. It simply shows that it is
now old- fashioned to make public avowals of racial
sentiment. Such avowals were common and
respectable before World War II but once the horror of
Hitler's genocide attempt became known, they rapidly

became very un- respectable. Nowadays, if you are

going to support racist policies, it helps to be living in
the past.
If writers such as Meloen et al (1988) believe that it is
the pro- authority content of the 'F' scale that enables
its prediction of racial attitudes, what do they make of
the finding by Heaven (1983) to the effect that a scale
with equal numbers of pro-authority and antiauthority items (scored so that assent to any item
earned a high score) also gave a highly significant
prediction of racial attitudes? If it is pro-authority
content that predicts racial attitudes, should not the
scale's anti-authority items have cancelled that out
and caused the scale overall not to correlate with
racial attitudes? How, then, do we explain Heaven's
finding? Why did he score his pro-and anti- authority
items the same anyway? He did so because he was
measuring acquiescent response bias according to a
schema that has often been advocated by the present
writer (e.g. Ray, 1983b) and which has recently been
supported by Davison & Srichantra (1988). Authors
such as Meloen et al who use one-way worded
versions of the 'F' scale ignore a great deal of
evidence (e.g. Roberts, Forthofer & Fabrega, 1976;
Ray & Pratt, 1979; Ray, 1983b & 1985b; Vagt & Wendt,
1978; Peabody, 1966; Jackson, 1967; Campbell,
Siegman & Rees, 1967; Milbrath, 1962) to the effect
that acquiescence can be a seriously distorting
influence and can have correlates of its own. In
Heaven's study the pro- and anti- authority items, far

from being responded to in opposite ways, were in

fact uncorrelated. The scale lacked meaningful
internal consistency. Scores on it, therefore, simply
measure acquiescence. Respondents got a high score
for "Yes", regardless of the meaning of the item.
Heaven showed, in other words, that scores on a
scale of acquiescent bias predict scores on a
balanced scale of racial attitudes. Both oldfashionedness and carelessness (if that is what
underlies acquiescent bias) predict racial attitudes.
Not all the prediction of racial attitudes given by the 'F'
scale is the outcome of its one-way-worded form,
however. This is shown by the fact that successfully
balanced forms of the 'F' scale (i.e. forms where the
pro-authority and anti- authority items do correlate
significantly negatively and are scored oppositely)
also predict racial attitudes. The correlations with
racial attitudes shown by balanced scales are,
however, much lower than those reported by Adorno
et al (Ray, 1980). In other words, the original 'F' scale
has a particularly high correlation with racial attitudes
because it taps two important sources of expressed
racial attitudes -- carelessness about what you say
and an old-fashioned orientation. Controlling out the
carelessness does however still leave a good measure
of old-fashioned attributes and this too predicts racial
attitudes -- though not as strongly as a measure that
adds in other predictors as well.
It may also be worth noting at this point that knowing
predictors of avowed racial dislikes may tell us

nothing about the predictors of actual racism or racist

behavior (La Piere, 1934; Crosby, Bromley & Saxe,
1980; Rule, Haley & McCormack, 1971). One study that
may reflect this is by Stephan & Rosenfield (1978). As
we have seen, "authoritarian" attitudes generally
predict anti-black attitudes. Stephan & Rosenfield
(1978), however, found that schoolchildren who had
been subjected to "authoritarian" child-rearing
practices tended to show (r = .33. See Table 2) the
greatest increases in inter-ethnic contact after a
desegregation program came into force. This is
clearly troubling. It is so contrary to expectation that
even the authors of the study seemed not to notice
the sign of the correlation. When I wrote to one of
them about it, he acknowledged the anomaly but
could offer no explanation for it. We have however
noticed some tendency in the studies so far reviewed
for old-fashioned people to be "nicer" towards others
in various ways. Could it be that this "niceness" was a
stronger determinant of actions towards minorities
than was the evaluative judgments held concerning
those minorities? Was old- fashioned courtesy more
significant than old-fashioned openness about racial
judgments? In the absence of other explanations, it
seems worth considering.
Another study that bears on the attitude/behaviour
distinction is by Katz & Benjamin (1960). These
authors noted that very little had been done to find out
how high F scorers actually behaved towards blacks
and set out to remedy the deficit. They conducted a

small group study in which various tasks had to be

carried out co-operatively. Each group had two blacks
and two whites and the whites were one high and one
low scorer on the F scale. It was found that the high F
whites (the "authoritarians") accepted black
suggestions more and that, presumably as a
consequence, the blacks were more assertive and
more co-operative back. The high F whites also
changed their behaviour more than low scorers in
order to accommodate situational changes brought
about by the experimenters. They were in a word,
more flexible. The negroes saw the low F scorers as
less co-operative. Katz & Benjamin made an attempt
to explain away these results but it is surely clear that
the results are the exact reverse of what the Adorno et
al theory would predict. The results are, however, very
much in accord with the Stephan & Rosenfield (1978)
results mentioned above and can be explained in a
similar way. Once again we see evidence for the
"niceness" of old-fashioned people. As the thing that
we most reliably know about high F scorers is that
they are more ready to avow racially negative
attitudes this work also highlights yet again the folly
of inferring behaviour from attitudes (Cf. La Piere,
1934; Crosby, Bromley & Saxe, 1980; Rule, Haley &
McCormack, 1971).
Old-fashioned orientation in the general population
The research so far discussed has shown the
explanatory power of the new conceptualization of

what the 'F' scale measures but only the research by

Heaven (1983) was based on general population
sampling. As is often the case in psychology, students
were the predominant source of the data analyzed.
This is not entirely satisfactory (Sears, 1982). The
picture of the old-fashioned person that we derive
from (say) Kline & Cooper (1984) may not be accurate
as a description of old-fashioned people in the
population at large. A general population survey that
used a successful balanced form of the 'F' scale will
therefore be described. The correlates of oldfashionedness will thus be studied with no influence
from acquiescent response bias present.
The study has previously been described in Study II,
Ch. 43 of Ray (1974) and Ray (1973b) -- where fuller
details may be found. Briefly, however, it was a
random doorstep survey of the Australian city of
Sydney. N = 118. The Balanced 'F' (BF) scale showed
that old- fashioned people tended to be older (r =
.218), in humbler occupations (-.304), were equally
likely to be male or female (.031), could have any level
of education (-.047), were equally likely to vote Leftist
or Rightist (.097), might or might not be alienated (.020) and tended to accept that aggression was
inevitable in life (.254).
There were other correlations with political
conservatism (.519), social conservatism (.717), moral
conservatism (.580), attitude to authority (.539) and
Dogmatism (.617) but one must ask to what degree

these might be artifactual. Adorno et al used many

items that express admiration of authority in their
scale so the correlation between the BF scale and the
AA (attitude to authority) scale is obviously artifactual.
Clearly, the BF scale must to some degree measure (at
least verbal) acceptance of some kinds of authority as
well as old- fashioned orientation. Interestingly,
however, the AA scale does not predict racism (Ray,
1984) so the pro-authority aspect of the 'F' scale is not
what leads it to predict racism. This is, of course, the
exact reverse of what Adorno et al thought.
It should be noted that the sort of attitude to authority
measured by the 'F' scale does not appear to have
behavioral implications. Both the original 'F' scale and
the BF scale do not appear to predict any sort of
authoritarian behavior (Titus, 1968; Ray & Lovejoy,
1983). The attitude to authority component of what the
'F' scale measures should not therefore be a serious
confound when the scale is being used to measure
old-fashioned orientation.
In the light of the fact that the BF scale does not
predict general population vote (a finding also
common with the original form of the 'F' scale. See
Hanson, 1975), the correlations with the conservatism
scales also begin to look suspect. Is being oldfashioned necessarily to be conservative? Certainly in
one respect it is not. The BF scale correlated only .102
(N.S.) with the scale of economic conservatism. Lipset
(1959 & 1960) has, however, claimed that

conservatism on economic questions (redistribution

of the wealth etc.) is differently determined from
conservatism in other areas so this might not be an
important exception. See also Felling & Peters (1986)
and Himmelweit, Humphreys, Jaeger & Katz (1981 pp.
138/9). It has been shown (Ray, 1973a) that acceptance
of conventional authority has always been an
important part of conservative ideology so perhaps
any scale that measures acceptance of authority is
also thereby measuring acceptance of conservative
philosophy. Certainly, the AA scale also correlated
highly with the conservatism scales. Would a scale of
old-fashioned outlook that did not include proauthority items also predict conservatism of
ideology? Only further research could tell.
The implications of the correlation between the BF
and BD (balanced Dogmatism) scale are also not as
clear as they might at first seem. What the Rokeach
(1960) Dogmatism scale measures (if anything) is very
much open to question (Ray, 1979) but perhaps it too
might be substantially old-fashioned to modern ears.
That there may be a variety of scales that to different
degrees express an old-fashioned orientation is
perhaps also suggested by a study in which Ray
(1985c) looked at the demographic correlates of a
variety of measures of conservatism and related
concepts. Some of these measures correlated little
with age of the respondent and some correlated
strongly. The scale that showed the strongest

correlation (.51) with age was derived primarily from

the Eysenck (1954) 'R' scale and the Lentz et al (1935)
C-R scale. The composition of both scales was
influenced by pre-World War II issues so this is not
inherently surprising. It does however help to explain
findings such as De Man's (1985). De Man found that
high scorers on the Eysenck 'R' scale
("conservatives") perceived their parents as less
permissive and more controlling. In other words,
permissiveness is modern. Once again a finding of
some apparent theoretical interest turns out to be in
fact much more mundane.
An objection to the present account
As was mentioned at the outset of this paper, the idea
that the F scale measures an old-fashioned outlook
rather than authoritarianism has previously been
mentioned in passing in the literature even if it has not
been given the thorough examination attempted here.
For this reason, there is already one objection to the
idea in print. This is in the form of a short paper by
Kelley (1989) responding to my critique (see also
above) of an earlier paper by her (Kelley, 1985). If the
strength of a theory can be gauged by the weakness
of the objections to it, however, the present theory
must be a very strong one. Kelley touches on a
number of areas wherein she believes that the data
supports the F scale as measuring authoritarianism
but does so in a very selective manner. Other studies
in the areas she explores that conflict with her

conception of what the F scale measures are simply

ignored. It would seem that the many authors who
have questioned the validity of the F scale (e.g.
Christie & Jahoda, 1954; McKinney, 1973; Altemeyer,
1981) wrote in vain as far as Kelley is concerned.
For instance, she mentions that some high F scorers
have been found to prefer conservative political
candidates and that some neo-Nazis and John
Birchers have been found to have high F scores but
she ignores the fact mentioned above to the effect
that many people in the general population have high
F scores and that even people who vote for Leftist
candidates often have high F scores (Hanson, 1975;
Ray, 1973, 1983c and 1984). Old-fashioned people in
the general population (and even to some extent
among students) simply have a variety of political
orientations. They are certainly not all Rightists and,
in at least some general population samples, they are
not even predominantly Rightists. Furthermore, even
if high F scale scorers in the general population were
predominantly Rightist voters, that would hardly
suffice as a demonstration that the F scale measured
authoritarianism. One would have thought that no-one
now would need to have pointed out to them that both
Leftists and Rightists on the world scene can be either
authoritarian or non-authoritarian. It apparently suits
Kelley's politics to see a vote for Lyndon Baines
Johnson as pro- authoritarian but the fact of the
matter is that President Johnson was the popular and
democratically elected leader of one of the world's

most democratic countries who relinquished power at

a constitutionally proper time. An admiration of Mao,
Castro or the pre-Gorbachev Soviet system, on the
other hand would be rather more clearly proauthoritarian.
Kelley (1989) goes on to point out that in her earlier
study (Kelley, 1985) high F scorers were not
particularly prudish in responding to erotica except
that they showed a greater dislike of being shown
pictures of "same-sex masturbation" than did low
scorers. Kelley fairly reasonably explains the general
lack of prudishness in this area on the part of high F
scorers by proposing that erotica and masturbation
are as old as the hills and that the culture of the past
also therefore featured them. What she fails to
explain, however, is the one exception she found. She
fails to explain that her high F scorers were more
prudish in responding to pictures of "same-sex
masturbation". Finding an explanation for it in terms
of the present theory, however, is not at all difficult.
One simply has to associate "same-sex masturbation"
with homosexuality to make the connection. As has
already been mentioned, homosexuality has only
recently gained some degree of social acceptability so
anything associated with it in people's minds should
be disliked by old-fashioned people. Kelley's work
does nothing, therefore, to upset the present account
of what the F scale measures.
Conclusion

A great deal of data has been surveyed and the

inevitable complexities have arisen but throughout it
all, it has been obvious that a view of the 'F' scale as
primarily a measure of old-fashioned orientation has
considerable explanatory force. It may be, of course,
that having an "old-fashioned orientation" is not the
most ultimately accurate way of characterizing high F
scale scorers. That they could also fairly reasonably
be characterized by related descriptions such as
"cultural traditionalists" or "cultural conservatives" is
admitted. "Old fashioned" would, however seem to be
a simpler characterization so is perhaps to be
preferred under the principle of parsimony. The many
correlates of the scale also suggest that this
orientation is an important one for study. There must
be a great range in the degree to which and the rate at
which people absorb what is new so the variable may
be one of the more important for understanding
individuals. Now that it is clear that we have at least
one measure of it, there will hopefully be much future
research in the field.
Future researchers should however take care to use
only balanced forms of the 'F' scale (e.g. Ray, 1972).
Most of the existing literature is based on one-way
worded versions of the scale and is, as such,
generally unrewarding to attempt to interpret. Any
given correlation could be due either to the oldfashioned character of the items or to their direction
of wording. Research of such uncertain implication

hardly seems worth doing.

REFERENCES
{Articles below by J.J. Ray can generally be accessed
simply by clicking on the name of the article. I am
however also gradually putting online a lot of
abstracts, extracts and summaries from older articles
by other authors so if an article not highlighted below
seems of particular interest,
clickinghere or here might just save you a trip to the
library}
Adorno,T.W., Frenkel-Brunswik, E., Levinson, D.J. &
Sanford, R.N. (1950) The authoritarian personality.
N.Y.: Harper.
Altemeyer, R.A.(1981)Right-wing authoritarianism.
Winnipeg: Univ. Manitoba Press.
Alwin, D.F. (1988) From obedience to autonomy:
Changes in traits desired in children 1924-1978. Public
Opinion Quarterly 52, 33-52.
Bettelheim, B. (1943) Individual and mass behavior in
extreme situations. J. Abnorm. Soc. Psychol. 38, 417452.
Brewer, M.B. & Kramer, R.M.(1985) The psychology of
intergroup attitudes and behavior. Annual Review of
Psychology 36, 219-243.

Brown, R.(1965) Social psychology N.Y.: Free Press.

Brown, R.(1986) Social psychology (2nd. Ed.) N.Y.:
Free Press.
Campbell, D.T., Siegman, C.R. & Rees, M.B. (1967)
Direction of wording effects in the relationship
between scales. Psychological Bulletin 68, 293-303.
Christie, R. & Jahoda, M. (1954) Studies in the scope
and method of "The authoritarian personality"
Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press.
Cobas, J.A. (1986) Puerto-Rican reactions to Cuban
migrants: Insights from trading minority
interpretations. Ethnic & Racial Studies 9, 529-536.
Doise, W. (1985) Nouvelle recherches sur les relations
intergroupes Psychologie Francaise 30, 141-146.
Eysenck, H.J. & Eysenck, S.B.G. (1976) Psychoticism
as a dimension of personality London: Hodder &
Stoughton.
Hanson, D.J. (1975) Authoritarianism as a variable in
political research. Il Politico 40, 700-705.
Hartmann, P. (1977) A perspective on the study of
social attitudes. European J. Social Psychol. 7, 85-96.

Heaven, P.C.L. (1983) Authoritarianism or

acquiescence? South African findings. J. Social
Psychol. 119, 11-15.
Jackson, D.N. (1967) Acquiescence response styles:
Problems of identification and control. In I.A. Berg
(Ed.) Response set in personality measurement
Chicago: Aldine.
Jaensch, E.R. (1938) Der Gegentypus Leipzig: Barth.
Kelley, K. (1985) Sex, sex-guilt and authoritarianism:
Differences in response to explicit heterosexual and
masturbatory styles. J. Sex Research 21, 68-85.
Kline, P. & Cooper, C. (1984) A factorial analysis of the
authoritar- ian personality. British J. Psychol. 75, 171176.
Koomen, W. (1974) A note on the authoritarian German
family. J. Marriage & Family 36, 634-636.
La Piere, R. (1934) Attitudes and actions. Social
Forces 13, 230-237
Larsen, K.S., Reed, M. & Hoffman, S. (1980) Attitudes
of heterosexuals towards homosexuals: A Likert-type
scale and construct validity. J. Sex Roles 16, 245-257.
Lipset, S.M. (1960) Political man N.Y.: Doubleday.

Maier, R.A. & Lavrakis, P.J. (1984) Attitudes towards

women, personality rigidity and idealized physique
preferences in males. Sex Roles 11(5-6), 425-433.
McKinney, D.W. (1973) The authoritarian personality
studies The Hague: Mouton.
Meloen, J.D., Hagendoorn, L., Raaimakers, Q. & Visser,
L. (1988) Authoritarianism and the revival of political
racism: Reassessment in the Netherlands of the
reliability and validity of the concept of
authoritarianism by Adorno et al Political Psychology
9, 413-429.
Mercer, G.W. & Kohn, P.M. (1980) Child-rearing factors,
authoritarianism, drug-use attitudes and adolescent
drug use: A model. J. Genetic Psychology 136, 159171.
Peabody, D. (1966) Authoritarianism scales and
response bias. Psychological Bulletin 65, 11-23.
Pflaum, J. (1964) Development and evaluation of
equivalent forms of the F scale. Psychol. Reports 15,
663-669.
Ray, J.J. (1972) A new balanced F scale -- And its
relation to social class. Australian Psychologist 7,
155-166.
Ray, J.J. (1973a) Conservatism, authoritarianism and
related variables: A review and an empirical study. Ch.

2 in: G.D. Wilson (Ed.) The psychology of

conservatism London: Academic Press.
Ray, J.J. (1973b) Dogmatism in relation to sub-types of
conservatism: Some Australian data. European J.
Social Psychology 3, 221-232.
Ray, J.J. (1974) Conservatism as heresy Sydney:
A.N.Z. Book Co.
Ray, J.J. (1979) Is the Dogmatism scale
irreversible? South African Journal of Psychology 9,
104-107.
Ray, J.J. (1980) Authoritarianism in California 30 years
later -- with some cross-cultural comparisons. Journal
of Social Psychology, 111, 9-17.
Ray, J.J. (1983a) Reviving the problem of acquiescent
response bias. Journal of Social Psychology 121, 8196.
Ray, J.J. (1983b). Half of all authoritarians are Leftwing: A reply to Eysenck and Stone. Political
Psychology, 4, 139-144.
Ray, J.J. (1984). Half of all racists are Leftwing. Political Psychology, 5, 227-236.
Ray, J.J. (1985a). The psychopathology of the political
Left. High School Journal, 68, 415-423.

Ray, J.J. (1985b) Acquiescent response bias as a

recurrent psychometric disease: Conservatism in
Japan, the U.S.A. and New Zealand.Psychologische
Beitraege 27, 113-119.
Ray, J.J. (1987) Intolerance of ambiguity among
psychologists: A comment on Maier & Lavrakas. Sex
Roles 16, 559-562.
Ray, J.J. & Lovejoy, F.H. (1983). The behavioral validity
of some recent measures of authoritarianism. Journal
of Social Psychology, 120, 91-99.
Ray, J.J. & Pratt, G.J. (1979) Is the influence of
acquiescence on "catchphrase" type attitude scale
items not so mythical after all? Australian Journal of
Psychology 31, 73-78.
Rokeach, M. (1960) The open and closed mind N.Y.:
Basic Books.
Siegel, J.M. & Mitchell, H.E. (1979) The influences of
expectancy violations, sex, and authoritarianism on
simulated trial outcomes. Representative Research in
Social Psychology 10, 37-47.
Sniderman, P.M. & Tetlock, P.E. (1986) Reflections on
American racism. J. Social Issues 42, 173-187.
Titus, H.E. (1968) F scale validity considered against

peer nomination criteria. Psychological Record 18,

395-403.
Titus, H.E. & Hollander, E.P. (1957) The California F
scale in psychological research: 1950-1955.
Psychological Bulletin 54, 47-64.
Vaid-Razada, V.K. (1983) Statistical analysis of multiracial group characteristics and interracial conflict.
Psychol. Reports 52, 39-42.
Welsh, G.S. (1981) Personality assessment with
origence/intellectence scales. Academic Psychology
Bulletin 3, 299--307.
POST-PUBLICATION ADDENDUM
Some other references that might have been
mentioned above are as under:
Kagitcibasi, C. (1970) Social norms and
authoritarianism: A Turkish- American comparison. J.
Pers. & Social Psychology, 16 (3), 444-451
Krishna, K.P. & Prasad, S.C. (1971) Authoritarianism
as a Function of Security-Insecurity and Anxiety.
Manas, 18 (2), 85-90.
Robitaille, J. et al. (1985) Child abuse potential and
authoritarianism Journal of Clinical Psychology, 41
(6), 839-844.

Stankov, L. (1977) Some experiences with the F scale

in Yugoslavia. British J. Soc. Clin. Psychology 16, 111121.
If the F scale measures old-fashioned values we
would expect scores on it to be high in old-fashioned
or backward cultures and that such values would be a
sign of good adjustment in those cultures. Kagitcibasi
(1977) reports high F scores in Turkey. Stankov (1977)
reports that high F scores went with better adjustment
in Communist-era Yugoslavia and Krishna & Prasad
(1971) report that high F score went with better
adjustment in India.
Robitaille et al. (1985) report no correlation between
child-abuse potential and authoritarianism -- which is
pretty surprising in the light of the Adorno theory but
is perfectly consistent with so-called
"authoritarianism" being simply an old-fashioned
outloook. H.1.15 Why does Engels argument that revolution is "the most authoritarian thing there is" totally
miss the point ?

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Dans la mme rubrique

H.1.13 Is the way industry operates "independent of all social organisation" ?

H.1. 1 Que reprochait Bakounine au Marxisme ?
H.1.14 Why does Engels "On Authority" harm Marxism ?
H.1. 4 Les anarchistes nont-ils "absolument aucun ide" de ce que le proltariat mettra la place de ltat ?
H.1. 2 Quelles sont les diffrences principales entre les anarchistes et les marxistes ?
H.1. 7 Avez-vous lu "Ltat et la rvolution" de Lenine ?
H.1.12 How does the class struggle refute Engels arguments that industry required leaving "all autonomy behind" ?
H.1. 5 Pourquoi les anarchistes refusent-ils d"utiliser ltat actuel" ?

As well as the argument that "authority" is essential for every collective activity, Engels raises

another argument against anarchism. This second argument is that revolutions are by nature
authoritarian. In his words, a "revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is ; it is
the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles,
bayonets and cannon authoritarian means, if such there be at all ; and if the victorious party
does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror its arms
inspire in the reactionaries." [Marx-Engels Reader, p. 733]
However, such an analysis is without class analysis and so will, by necessity, mislead the
writer and the reader. Engels argues that revolution is the imposition by "one part of the
population" on another. Very true but Engels fails to indicate the nature of class
society and, therefore, of a social revolution. In a class society "one part of the
population" constantly "imposes its will upon the other part" those with power
imposes its decisions to those beneath them in the social hierarchy. In other words, the
ruling class imposes its will on the working class everyday in work by the hierarchical
structure of the workplace and in society by the state. Discussing the "population" as if it
was not divided by classes and so subject to specific forms of authoritarian social
relationships is liberal nonsense.
Once we recognise that the "population" in question is divided into classes we can easily
see the fallacy of Engels argument. In a social revolution, the act of revolution is the
overthrow of the power and authority of an oppressing and exploiting class by those
subject to that oppression and exploitation. In other words, it is an act of liberation in
which the hierarchical power of the few over the many is eliminated and replaced by the
freedom of the many to control their own lives. It is hardly authoritarian to destroy
authority ! Thus a social revolution is, fundamentally, an act of liberation for the
oppressed who act in their own interests to end the system in which "one part of
population imposes its will upon the other" everyday.
Malatesta states the obvious :
"To fight our enemies effectively, we do not need to deny the principle of freedom, not
even for one moment : it is sufficient for us to want real freedom and to want it for all,
for ourselves as well as for others.

Aussi bien que largument qui l"autorit" est essentielle pour chaque activit
collective, Engels soulve un autre argument contre lanarchisme. Cet
deuxime argument est que les rvolutions sont par la nature autoritaire. Dans
ses mots, une "rvolution est certainement la chose la plus autoritaire l est ;
cest lacte par lequel une part de la population impose sa volont lautre
partie laide des fusils, des baonnettes et du canon moyens autoritaires, si
telles l soient du tout ; et si la partie victorieuse ne veut pas avoir combattu
en vain, il doit maintenir cette rgle au moyen de la terreur que ses bras
inspirent dans le lecteur de reactionaries."[Marx-Engels, P. 733] cependant,
une telle analyse est sans analyse de classe et ainsi, par ncessit, trompera
lauteur et le lecteur. Engels argue du fait que la rvolution est limposition par

"une part du population"on une autre. Trs vrai mais Engels nindique pas
la nature de la socit de classes et, en consquence, dune rvolution sociale.
Dans une socit de classes "une part de population"constantly" impose sa
volont lautre partie "- - que ceux avec la puissance impose ses dcisions
ceux sous elles dans la hirarchie sociale. En dautres termes, la classe de
rgner impose sa volont la classe ouvrire journalire dans le travail par la
structure hirarchique du lieu de travail et dans la socit par ltat. La
discussion de la "population" comme si elle na pas t divise par des classes
et ainsi sujet aux formes spcifiques de rapports sociaux autoritaires est nonsens libral. Une fois que nous identifions que la "population" en question est
divise en classes nous pouvons facilement voir lerreur de largument
dEngels. En rvolution sociale, lacte de la rvolution est le renversement de la
puissance et de lautorit dune classe doppression et dexploitation par ceux
sujet ces oppression et exploitation. En dautres termes, cest un acte de
liberationin quon limine la puissance hirarchique des peu excdent les
nombreux et remplac par la libert des nombreux pour commander leurs
propres vit. Il est peine autoritaire pour dtruire lautorit ! Ainsi une
rvolution sociale est, fondamentalement, un acte de la libration pour
opprim qui acte dans leurs propres intrts de finir le systme dans lequel
"une part de population impose sa volont lother"everyday. Malatesta
nonce lvident : "pour combattre nos ennemis efficacement, nous navons
pas besoin de nier le principe de la libert, non mme pendant un moment : il
est suffisant que nous de vouloir la vraie libert et la veuillent pour tous, pour
nous-mmes aussi bien que pour dautres.
"We want to expropriate the property-owning class, and with violence, since it is with violence
that they hold on to social wealth and use it to exploit the working class. Not because freedom is
a good thing for the future, but because it is a good thing, today as well as tomorrow, and the
property owners, be denying us the means of exercising our freedom, in effect, take it away from
us.
"We want to overthrow the government, all governments and overthrow them with
violence since it is by the use of violence that they force us into obeying and once
again, not because we sneer at freedom when it does not serve our interests but because
governments are the negation of freedom and it is not possible to be free without getting
rid of them . . .
"The freedom to oppress, to exploit, to oblige people to take up arms [i.e. conscription],
to pay taxes, etc., is the denial of freedom : and the fact that our enemies make
irrelevant and hypocritical use of the word freedom is not enough to make us deny the
principle of freedom which is the outstanding characteristic of our movement and a
permanent, constant and necessary factor in the life and progress of humanity." [Life
and Ideas, p. 51]

It seems strange that Engels, in effect, is arguing that the abolition of tyranny is tyranny
against the tyrants ! As Malatesta so clearly argued, anarchists "recognise violence only
as a means of legitimate self-defence ; and if today they are in favour of violence it is
because they maintain that slaves are always in a state of legitimate defence." [Op. Cit.,
p. 59] As such, Engels fails to understand the revolution from a working class
perspective (perhaps unsurprisingly, as he was a capitalist). The "authority" of the
"armed workers" over the bourgeois is, simply, the defence of the workers freedom
against those who seek to end it by exercising/recreating the very authoritarian social
relationships the revolution sought to end in the first place. Ultimately, Engels is like the
liberal who equates the violence of the oppressed to end oppression with that the
oppressors !
Needless to say, this applies to the class struggle as well. Is, for example, a picket line
really authoritarian because it tries to impose its will on the boss, police or scabs ?
Rather, is it not defending the workers freedom against the authoritarian power of the
boss and their lackeys (the police and scabs) ? Is it "authoritarian" to resist authority
and create a structure a strike assembly and picket line which allows the formally
subordinated workers to manage their own affairs directly and without bosses ? Is it
"authoritarian" to combat the authority of the boss, to proclaim your freedom and
exercise it ? Of course not. Little wonder Bakunin talked about "the development and
organisation" of the "social (and, by consequence, anti-political) power of the working
masses" and "the revolutionary organisation of the natural power of the masses" !

"nous voulons lexpropriate la classe de proprit-possession, et avec la

violence, puisquelle est avec la violence quils tiennent dessus sur la richesse
sociale et emploient la pour exploiter la classe ouvrire. Pas parce que la
libert est une bonne chose lavenir, mais parce que cest une bonne chose,
aujourdhui aussi bien que le demain, et les propritaires, nous nie que les
moyens dexercer notre libert, en effet, la prennent loin de nous. "nous
voulons renverser le gouvernement, tous les gouvernements et les renverser
avec la violence puisquelle est par lutilisation de la violence quils nous
forcent dans obir et de nouveau, pas parce que nous ricanons la libert
quand il ne sert pas nos intrts mais parce que les gouvernements sont la
ngation de la libert et il nest pas possible dtre libre sans se dbarasser
deux. . . "la libert oppriment, pour exploiter, obliger des personnes prendre
des bras [ c.--d. conscription ], payer des impts, etc., est le dmenti de la
libert : et le fait que nos ennemis rendent non pertinent et lutilisation
hypocrite de la libert de mot nest pas assez pour nous inciter nier le
principe de la libert qui est la caractristique exceptionnelle notre
mouvement et un facteur permanent, constant et ncessaire dans la vie et
progrs humanity."[Life et ides, P. 51] il semble trange quEngels, en effet,
argue du fait de de que labolition de la tyrannie est tyrannie contre les
tyrants ! Car Malatesta a tellement clair discut, les anarchistes "identifient la
violence seulement en tant que des moyens de lgitime dfense lgitime ; et si

aujourdhui ils sont en faveur de violence il est parce quils maintiennent que
les esclaves sont toujours dans un tat de defence."[Op lgitime. CIT, P. 59] en
tant que tel, Engels ne comprend pas la rvolution dun fonctionnement
classperspective (peut-tre unsurprisingly, car il tait un capitaliste).
L"autorit" du "a arm des ouvriers" au-dessus des bourgeois est,
simplement, la dfense de la libert des ouvriers contre ceux qui cherchent la
finir par exercising/recreating les rapports sociaux trs autoritaires la
rvolution cherche pour finir en premier lieu. Finalement, Engels est comme
le libral qui galise la violence de loppression opprime de fin avec celle les
oppresseurs ! Inutile de dire, ceci sapplique la lutte de classe aussi bien. par
exemple, un piquet de grve est-il vraiment autoritaire parce quil essaye
dimposer sa volont au patron, la police ou aux crotes ? Plutt, ne dfendil pas la libert des ouvriers contre la puissance autoritaire le patron et leurs
lackeys (de la police et des crotes) ? Est-il "autoritaire" pour rsister
lautorit et crer une structure une grve et un piquet de grve qui
permet aux ouvriers formellement subordonns de contrler leurs propres
affaires directement et sans patrons ? Est-il "autoritaire" pour combattre
lautorit du patron, pour proclamer votre libert et pour lexercer ?
Naturellement pas. Peu se demandent Bakunin parl "le dveloppement et
lorganisation" "de la puissance sociale (et, par la consquence, anti-politique)
de travailler amasse" et "lorganisation rvolutionnaire de la puissance
normale des masses" !
Structurally, a strikers assembly and picket line which are forms of self-managed association
cannot be compared to an "authority" (such as a state). To try and do so fails to recognise the
fundamental difference. In the strikers assembly and picket line the strikers themselves decide
policy and do not delegate power away into the hands of an authority (any strike committees
execute the strikers decisions or is replaced). In a state, power is delegated into the hands of a
few who then use that power as they see fit. This by necessity disempowers those at the base,
who are turned into mere electors and order takers (i.e. an authoritarian relationship is created).
Such a situation can only spell death of a social revolution, which requires the active
participation of all if it is to succeed. It also, incidentally, exposes a central fallacy of Marxism,
namely that it claims to desire a society based on the participation of everyone yet favours a form
of organisation centralisation that excludes that participation.
Georges Fontenis summarises anarchist ideas on this subject when he writes :
"And so against the idea of State, where power is exercised by a specialised group
isolated from the masses, we put the idea of direct workers power, where accountable
and controlled elected delegates (who can be recalled at any time and are remunerated
at the same rate as other workers) replace hierarchical, specialised and privileged
bureaucracy ; where militias, controlled by administrative bodies such as soviets, unions
and communes, with no special privileges for military technicians, realising the idea of
the armed people, replace an army cut off from the body of Society and subordinated to

the arbitrary power of a State or government." [Manifesto of Libertarian Communism,

p. 24]
Anarchists, therefore, are no more impressed with this aspect of Engels critique than his
"organisation equals authority" argument. In summary, his argument is simply a liberal
analysis of revolution, totally without a class basis or analysis and so fails to understand
the anarchist case nor answer it. To argue that a revolution is made up of two groups of
people, one of which "imposes its will upon the other" fails to indicate the social
relations that exist between these groups (classes) and the relations of authority
between them which the revolution is seeking to overthrow. As such, Engels critique
totally misses the point.

Structurellement, une bute et un piquet de grve qui est des formes

dassociation individu-contrle ne peuvent pas tre compars une
"autorit" (comme un tat). Pour essayer et ainsi nidentifie pas la diffrence
fondamentale. Dans la bute et le piquet de grve les grvistes eux-mmes
dcident la politique et ne dlguent pas la puissance loin dans les mains
dune autorit (tous les comits de grve excutent les dcisions de butes ou
sont remplacs). Dans un tat, poweris dlgus dans les mains de quelques
uns qui emploient alors cette puissance pendant quelles voient lajustement.
Ceci par des disempowers de ncessit ceux la base, qui sont transforms en
seuls lecteurs et preneurs dordre (c.--d. un rapport autoritaire est cr).
Une telle situation peut seulement signifier la mort dune rvolution sociale,
qui exige la participation active de tous si elle doit russir. Elle galement, par
ailleurs, expose une erreur centrale du marxisme, savoir ce elle prtend
dsirer une socit base sur la participation de chacun pourtant des faveurs
une forme dorganisation la centralisation qui exclut cette participation.
Georges Fontenis rcapitule des ides danarchiste ce sujet quand il crit : "et
ainsi contre lide de ltat, o la puissance est exerce par un groupe
spcialis disolement dans les masses, nous mettons lide de la puissance
douvriers directs, o les dlgus lus responsables et commands (qui
peuvent tre rappels tout moment et sont rmunrs au mme taux que
dautres ouvriers) remplacent la bureaucratie hirarchique, spcialise et
favorise ; l o les milices, commandes par les corps administratifs tels que
des Sovitiques, syndicats et communes, sans des privilges spciaux pour les
techniciens militaires, ralisant lide des personnes armes, remplacent une
arme coupe du corps de la socit et subordonn la puissance arbitraire
dun tat ou dun government."[Manifesto du communisme de Libertarian,
des anarchistes de P. 24], donc, pas plus ne sont impressionns de cet aspect
de critique dEngels que son argument "dautorit dgales dorganisation". En
rsum, son argument est simplement une analyse librale de rvolution,
totalement sans base ou analyse de classe et ainsi choue pour comprendre le
cas danarchiste ni pour lui rpondre. Arguer du fait quune rvolution se

compose de deux groupes de personnes, dont un "impose sa volont lautre"

nindique pas les relations sociales qui existent entre ces groupes (classes) et
les relations de lautorit entre eux ce que la rvolution cherche renverser.
En tant que tels, la critique dEngels manque totalement le point.

Marx-Engels Correspondence 1862

Marx To Engels
In Manchester
Source: MECW Volume 41, p. 388;
First published: abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K.

Marx, Stuttgart, 1913, and in full in MEGA, Berlin, 1930.

[London,] 30 July [1862]

Dear Engels,
From the enclosed scrawls you will partly see how bothered I am. So far,
the landlord has allowed himself to be placated; he has yet to receive 25. The
piano chap, who is being paid in instalments for the piano, should already have
had 6 at the end of June, and is a most ill-mannered brute. I have rate
demands in the house amounting to 6. The wretched school fees some 10
I have fortunately been able to pay, for I do my utmost to spare the children
direct humiliation. I have paid the butcher $6 on account (the sum total of my
quarterly takings from the Presse!), but Im again being dunned by that fellow,
not to mention the baker, the teagrocer, the greengrocer, and such other sons
of Belial as there may be.
The Jewish nigger Lassalle who, Im glad to say, is leaving at the end of this
week, has happily lost another 5,000 talers in an ill-judged speculation. The
chap would sooner throw money down the drain than lend it to a friend, even

though his interest and capital were guaranteed. In this he bases himself on the
view that he ought to live the life of a Jewish baron, or Jew created a baron (no
doubt by the countess). Just imagine! This fellow, knowing about the
American affair, etc., and hence about the state of crisis Im in, had the
insolence to ask me whether I would be willing to hand over one of my
daughters to la Hatzfeldt as a companion, and whether he himself should
secure Gerstenbergs (!) patronage for me! The fellow has wasted my time
and, what is more, the dolt opined that, since I was not engaged upon any
business just now, but merely upon a theoretical work, I might just as well
kill time with him! In order to keep up certain dehors vis--vis the fellow, my
wife had to put in pawn everything that wasnt actually nailed or bolted down!
Had I not been in this appalling position and vexed by the way this parvenu
flaunted his money bags, hed have amused me tremendously. Since I last saw
him a year ago, hes gone quite mad. His head has been completely turned by
his stay in Zurich (with Rstow, Herwegh, etc.) and the subsequent trip to Italy
and, after that, by hisHerr Julian Schmidt, etc. He is now indisputably, not
only the greatest scholar, the profoundest thinker, the most brilliant man of
science, and so forth, but also and in addition, Don Juan cum revolutionary
Cardinal Richelieu. Add to this, the incessant chatter in a high, falsetto voice,
the unaesthetic, histrionic gestures, the dogmatic tone!
As a profound secret, he told me and my wife that he had advised Garibaldi
not to make Rome the target of his attack but instead proceed to Naples, there
set himself up as dictator (without affronting Victor Emmanuel), and call out
the peoples army for a campaign against Austria. Lassalle had him conjure
300,000 men out of thin air with whom, of course, the Piedmontese army
joined forces. And then, in accordance with a plan approved, so he says, by Mr
Rstow, a detached corps was to make, or rather set sail, for the Adriatic coast
(Dalmatia) and incite Hungary to revolt, while, heedless of the Quadrilateral,
the main body of the army under Garibaldi marched from Padua to Vienna,
where the population instantly rebelled. All over in 6 weeks. The fulcrum of
the action Lassalles political influence, or his pen, in Berlin. And Rstow
at the head of a corps of German volunteers attached to Garibaldi. Bonaparte,
on the other hand, was paralysed by this Lassallean coup dclat.
He has just been to see Mazzini, and the latter, too, approved and
admired his plan.
He introduced himself to these people as the representative of the German
revolutionary working class and assumed they knew (to use his own words)
that his (Izzys) pamphlet on the Italian war had prevented Prussias

intervention and, in fact, that he had controlled the history of the past three
years. Lassalle was absolutely furious with me and my wife for poking fun at
his plans, quizzing him as an enlightened Bonapartist, etc. He shouted,
blustered, flung himself about and finally got it fixed in his mind that I was too
abstract to understand politics.
As to America, its of no interest whatever, he says. The Yankees have no
ideas. The freedom of the individual is merely a negative idea, etc., and
other antiquated, mouldering, speculative rubbish of the same ilk.
As I have said, if circumstances had been different (and he hadnt disrupted
my work), the chap would have amused me tremendously.
And on top of it all, the sheer gluttony and wanton lechery of this idealist!
It is now quite plain to me as the shape of his head and the way his hair
grows also testify that he is descended from the negroes who accompanied
Moses flight from Egypt (unless his mother or paternal grandmother interbred
with a nigger). Now, this blend of Jewishness and Germanness, on the one
hand, and basic negroid stock, on the other, must inevitably give rise to a
peculiar product. The fellows importunity is also nigger-like.
If, by the by, Mr Rstow was responsible for thinking up the march from
Padua to Vienna, I should say that he also has a screw loose.
Salut.
Your
K. M.
One of our niggers great discoveries which, however, he only confides
to his closest friends is that the Pelasgians were of Semitic descent. The
main evidence: in the Book of Maccabbees, the Jews send emissaries to solicit
the help of Greece on grounds of kinship. Furthermore, an Etruscan inscription
has been found in Perugia, and this was simultaneously deciphered by Hofrat
Stucker in Berlin and an Italian, and both independently converted the
Etruscan into the Hebrew alphabet.
So that we can no longer discomfit him with Blue Books, he has bought 20
pounds worth of Blue Books (under Buchers guidance).

He has converted Bucher to socialism, or so he maintains. Now Buchers

quite a fine little man, if a cranky one, and, in any case, I cant believe that he
has accepted Lassalles foreign policy. Bucher is the compositress in Julian
Schmidt.
If youd been here just for a day or two, youd have been able to lay in
enough material to keep you laughing for a whole year. Thats why I was so
anxious to have you here. One doesnt get an opportunity like that every day.
Marx-Engels Correspondence 1862

Engels To Marx
In London
Source: MECW Volume 41, p. 403;
First published: in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx,

Stuttgart, 1913.

Manchester, 30 July 1862

Dear Moor,
I was very sorry not to have been able to come on Friday. Apart from
anything else, I had more or less fallen out with Ermen, and hence could
neither ask a favour of him, nor stay away without saying a word. Otherwise,
nothing would have prevented me from coming, not even the risk of missing
something important on the Saturday.
Things are going awry in America and, in fact, Mr Stanton is after
all chiefly to blame in that, after the conquest of Tennessee, sheer boastfulness
led him to stop recruiting, so that the army was doomed to grow constantly
weaker at the very time when it particularly needed reinforcing with a view to
a rapid and decisive offensive. With a steady influx of recruits the war had
hitherto not, perhaps, been decided, but there could be no doubt about its

successful outcome. Moreover, the run of victories had ensured a brisk supply
of recruits.
This measure was all the more inane in that, at that very time, the South was
calling up all men aged between 18 and 35, i.e. staking everything on one
throw. It is these men, who have meanwhile become seasoned troops, that have
since enabled the Confederates to gain the upper hand everywhere, and assured
them the initiative. They pinned down Halleck, drove Curtis out of Arkansas,
beat McClellan and, in the Shenandoah Valley, under Jackson, gave the signal
for guerrilla bands, which are now already penetrating as far as the Ohio.
Stanton could not have acted more stupidly had he tried.
Again, when Stanton saw that he would be unable to oust McClellan from
the command of the Potomac Army, he perpetrated the stupidity of reducing
McClellans strength by detaching special commands to Frmont, Banks and
McDowell, and dispersing the forces with a view to displacing McClellan. Not
only was McClellan defeated as a result, but public opinion is laying the blame
for that defeat, not on McClellan, but on Stanton. Serves Mr Stanton right.
None of this would have signified, and it might even have been all to the
good in as much as the war might at last have been conducted along
revolutionary lines. But theres the rub. Defeats dont spur these Yankees on,
they just make them flabby. If things have come to such a pass that, to get
recruits at all, they say they are prepared to take them on for only 9
months, then this is tantamount to admitting: We're in the shit and all we want
is a make-believe army to do some sabre-rattling during the peace
negotiations. Those 300,000 volunteers, that was the criterion, and in refusing
to muster them, the North is declaring that it doesnt, au fond, give a damn
about the whole thing. And then, what cowardice on the part of the
government and Congress!
They shrink from conscription, from resolute fiscal measures, from attacking
slavery, from everything that is urgently necessary; everythings left to amble
along at will, and, if some factitious measure finally gets through Congress, the
honourable Lincoln hedges it about with so many clauses that its reduced to
nothing at all. It is this flabbiness, this wilting like a pricked balloon under the
pressure of defeats, which have destroyed an army, the strongest and the best,
and left Washington virtually undefended, it is this complete absence of any
resilience among the people at large which proves to me that it is all up. The
occasional mass meeting, etc., means nothing at all, and doesnt even rival the
excitement of a presidential election.

Add to that a complete want of talent. One general more stupid than the
other. Not one who would be capable of the slightest initiative or of an
independent decision. For 3 months the initiative has again rested wholly with
the enemy. Then, the fiscal measures, each one crazier than the last.
Fecklessness and cowardice everywhere except among the common soldiers.
The same applies to the politicians just as absurd, just as much at a loss.
And the populus is more feckless than if it had idled away 3,000 years under
the Austrian sceptre.
For the South, on the other hand its no use shutting ones eyes to the
fact the affair is a matter of life and death. Our not getting any cotton is one
proof of this. The guerrillas in the Border States are another. But, in my view,
what clinches the matter is the ability of an agrarian population, after such
complete isolation from the rest of the world, to endure such a war and, having
suffered severe defeats and the loss of resources, men and territory,
nevertheless to emerge victorious and threaten to carry their offensive into the
North. On top of that, they are really fighting quite splendidly, and what
remained of union feeling, save in the mountain districts, will now, with the
re-occupation of Kentucky and Tennessee, undoubtedly evaporate.
If they get Missouri, they will also get the territories, and then the North
might as well pack up and go home. As I have already said, unless the North
instantly adopts a revolutionary stance, it will get the terrible thrashing it
deserves and thats what seems to be happening.
How is little Jenny getting on?
Cordial regards to your wife and children.
Your
F. E.

Marx-Engels Correspondence 1862

Marx To Engels
In Manchester

Source: MECW Volume 41, p. 388;

First published: abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K.

Marx, Stuttgart, 1913, and in full in MEGA, Berlin, 1930.

[London,] 30 July [1862]

Dear Engels,
From the enclosed scrawls you will partly see how bothered I am. So far,
the landlord has allowed himself to be placated; he has yet to receive 25. The
piano chap, who is being paid in instalments for the piano, should already have
had 6 at the end of June, and is a most ill-mannered brute. I have rate
demands in the house amounting to 6. The wretched school fees some 10
I have fortunately been able to pay, for I do my utmost to spare the children
direct humiliation. I have paid the butcher $6 on account (the sum total of my
quarterly takings from the Presse!), but Im again being dunned by that fellow,
not to mention the baker, the teagrocer, the greengrocer, and such other sons
of Belial as there may be.
The Jewish nigger Lassalle who, Im glad to say, is leaving at the end of this
week, has happily lost another 5,000 talers in an ill-judged speculation. The
chap would sooner throw money down the drain than lend it to a friend, even
though his interest and capital were guaranteed. In this he bases himself on the
view that he ought to live the life of a Jewish baron, or Jew created a baron (no
doubt by the countess). Just imagine! This fellow, knowing about the
American affair, etc., and hence about the state of crisis Im in, had the
insolence to ask me whether I would be willing to hand over one of my
daughters to la Hatzfeldt as a companion, and whether he himself should
secure Gerstenbergs (!) patronage for me! The fellow has wasted my time
and, what is more, the dolt opined that, since I was not engaged upon any
business just now, but merely upon a theoretical work, I might just as well
kill time with him! In order to keep up certain dehors vis--vis the fellow, my
wife had to put in pawn everything that wasnt actually nailed or bolted down!
Had I not been in this appalling position and vexed by the way this parvenu
flaunted his money bags, hed have amused me tremendously. Since I last saw
him a year ago, hes gone quite mad. His head has been completely turned by
his stay in Zurich (with Rstow, Herwegh, etc.) and the subsequent trip to Italy

and, after that, by hisHerr Julian Schmidt, etc. He is now indisputably, not
only the greatest scholar, the profoundest thinker, the most brilliant man of
science, and so forth, but also and in addition, Don Juan cum revolutionary
Cardinal Richelieu. Add to this, the incessant chatter in a high, falsetto voice,
the unaesthetic, histrionic gestures, the dogmatic tone!
As a profound secret, he told me and my wife that he had advised Garibaldi
not to make Rome the target of his attack but instead proceed to Naples, there
set himself up as dictator (without affronting Victor Emmanuel), and call out
the peoples army for a campaign against Austria. Lassalle had him conjure
300,000 men out of thin air with whom, of course, the Piedmontese army
joined forces. And then, in accordance with a plan approved, so he says, by Mr
Rstow, a detached corps was to make, or rather set sail, for the Adriatic coast
(Dalmatia) and incite Hungary to revolt, while, heedless of the Quadrilateral,
the main body of the army under Garibaldi marched from Padua to Vienna,
where the population instantly rebelled. All over in 6 weeks. The fulcrum of
the action Lassalles political influence, or his pen, in Berlin. And Rstow
at the head of a corps of German volunteers attached to Garibaldi. Bonaparte,
on the other hand, was paralysed by this Lassallean coup dclat.
He has just been to see Mazzini, and the latter, too, approved and
admired his plan.
He introduced himself to these people as the representative of the German
revolutionary working class and assumed they knew (to use his own words)
that his (Izzys) pamphlet on the Italian war had prevented Prussias
intervention and, in fact, that he had controlled the history of the past three
years. Lassalle was absolutely furious with me and my wife for poking fun at
his plans, quizzing him as an enlightened Bonapartist, etc. He shouted,
blustered, flung himself about and finally got it fixed in his mind that I was too
abstract to understand politics.
As to America, its of no interest whatever, he says. The Yankees have no
ideas. The freedom of the individual is merely a negative idea, etc., and
other antiquated, mouldering, speculative rubbish of the same ilk.
As I have said, if circumstances had been different (and he hadnt disrupted
my work), the chap would have amused me tremendously.
And on top of it all, the sheer gluttony and wanton lechery of this idealist!

It is now quite plain to me as the shape of his head and the way his hair
grows also testify that he is descended from the negroes who accompanied
Moses flight from Egypt (unless his mother or paternal grandmother interbred
with a nigger). Now, this blend of Jewishness and Germanness, on the one
hand, and basic negroid stock, on the other, must inevitably give rise to a
peculiar product. The fellows importunity is also nigger-like.
If, by the by, Mr Rstow was responsible for thinking up the march from
Padua to Vienna, I should say that he also has a screw loose.
Salut.
Your
K. M.
One of our niggers great discoveries which, however, he only confides
to his closest friends is that the Pelasgians were of Semitic descent. The
main evidence: in the Book of Maccabbees, the Jews send emissaries to solicit
the help of Greece on grounds of kinship. Furthermore, an Etruscan inscription
has been found in Perugia, and this was simultaneously deciphered by Hofrat
Stucker in Berlin and an Italian, and both independently converted the
Etruscan into the Hebrew alphabet.
So that we can no longer discomfit him with Blue Books, he has bought 20
pounds worth of Blue Books (under Buchers guidance).
He has converted Bucher to socialism, or so he maintains. Now Buchers
quite a fine little man, if a cranky one, and, in any case, I cant believe that he
has accepted Lassalles foreign policy. Bucher is the compositress in Julian
Schmidt.
If youd been here just for a day or two, youd have been able to lay in
enough material to keep you laughing for a whole year. Thats why I was so
anxious to have you here. One doesnt get an opportunity like that every day.

Tuesday, April 19, 2005

ENGELS: POLISH JEWS GET A BLAST

Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England, 1886 Appendix to the American Edition: "The pettifogging business-tricks of the Polish Jew, the representative in Europe of commerce in its lowest stage, those tricks that serve him so well in his own country, and are generally practiced there, he finds
to be out of date and out of place when he comes to Hamburg or Berlin"

Context here

Works of Frederick Engels 1886

The Condition of the Working Class in

England
1886 Appendix to the American Edition

Source: The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844, New

York, 1887;

Transcribed: by Tony Brown.

The book which is herewith submitted to the English-speaking public

in its own language, was written rather more than forty years ago. The
author, at the time, was young, twenty-four years of age, and his
production bears the stamp of his youth with its good and its faulty
features, of neither of which he feels ashamed. That it is now translated
into English, is not in any way due to his initiative. Still he may be
allowed to say a few words, to show cause why this translation should
not be prevented from seeing the light of day.
The state of things described in this book belongs to-day in many
respects to the past, as far as England is concerned. Though not
expressly stated in our recognized treatises, it is still a law of modern
Political Economy that the larger the scale on which Capitalistic
Production is carried on, the less can it support the petty devices of
swindling and pilfering which characterize its early stages. The
pettifogging business-tricks of the Polish Jew, the representative in
Europe of commerce in its lowest stage, those tricks that serve him so
well in his own country, and are generally practiced there, he finds to be
out of date and out of place when he comes to Hamburg or Berlin; and
again the Commission Agent, who hails from Berlin or Hamburg, Jew
or Christian, after frequenting the Manchester Exchange for a few
months, finds out that in order to buy cotton-yarn or cloth cheap, he,
too, had better drop those slightly more refined but still miserable wiles
and subterfuges which are considered the acme of cleverness in his
native country. The fact is, those tricks do not pay any longer in a large
market, where time is money, and where a certain standard of
commercial morality is unavoidably developed, purely as a means of
saving time and trouble. And it is the same with the relation between

the manufacturer and his hands. The repeal of the Corn-laws, the
discovery of the Californian and Australian gold-fields, the almost
complete crushing-out of domestic handweaving in India, the
increasing access to the Chinese market, the rapid multiplication of
railways and steam-ships all over the world, and other minor causes
have given to English manufacturing industry such a colossal
development, that the status of 1844 now appears to us as
comparatively primitive and insignificant. And in proportion as this
increase took place, in the same proportion did manufacturing industry
become apparently moralized. The competition of manufacturer against
manufacturer by means of petty thefts upon the workpeople did no
longer pay. Trade had outgrown such low means of making money; they
were not worth while practicing for the manufacturing millionaire, and
served merely to keep alive the competition of smaller traders, thankful
to pick up a penny wherever they could. Thus the truck-system was
suppressed; the Ten Hours Bill was enacted, and a number of other
secondary reforms introduced much against the spirit of Free Trade
and unbridled competition, but quite as much in favor of the giantcapitalist in his competition with his less favored brother. Moreover,
the larger the concern, and with it the number of hands, the greater the
loss and inconvenience caused by every conflict between master and
men; and thus a new spirit came over the masters, especially the large
ones, which taught them to avoid unnecessary squabbles, to acquiesce
in the existence and power of Trades Unions, and finally even to
discover in strikes at opportune times a powerful means to serve
their own ends. The largest manufacturers, formerly the leaders of the
war against the working-class, were now the foremost to preach peace
and harmony. And for a very good reason, The fact is, that all these
concessions to justice and philanthropy were nothing else but means to
accelerate the concentration of capital in the hands of the few, for whom
the niggardly extra extortions of former years had lost all importance
and had become actual nuisances; and to crush all the quicker and all
the safer their smaller competitors who could not make both ends meet
without such perquisites. Thus the development of production on the
basis of the capitalistic system has of itself sufficed at least in the
leading industries, for in the more unimportant branches this is far
from being the case to do away with all those minor grievances which
aggravated the workmans fate during its earlier stages. And thus it
renders more and more evident the great central fact, that the cause of
the miserable condition of the working class is to be sought, not in these
minor grievances, but in the Capitalistic System itself. The wage-worker
sells to the capitalist his labor-force for a certain daily sum. After a few

hours work he has reproduced the value of that sum; but the substance
of his contract is, that he has to work another series of hours to
complete his working day; and the value he produces during these
additional hours of surplus labor is surplus value which costs the
capitalist nothing but yet goes into his pocket. That is the basis of the
system which tends more and more to split up civilized society into a
few Vanderbilts, the owners of all the means of production and
subsistence, on the one hand, and an immense number of wageworkers, the owners of nothing but their labor-force, on the other. And
that this result is caused, not by this or that secondary grievance, but by
the system itself this fact has been brought out in bold relief by the
development of Capitalism in England since 1847.
Again, the repeated visitations of cholera, typhus, small-pox and
other epidemics have shown the British bourgeois the urgent necessity
of sanitation in his towns and cities, if he wishes to save himself and
family from falling victims to such diseases. Accordingly, the most
crying abuses described in this book have either disappeared or have
been made less conspicuous. Drainage has been introduced or
improved, wide avenues have been opened out athwart many of the
worst slums I had to describe. Little Ireland has disappeared and
the Seven Dials, are next on the list for sweeping away. But what of
that? Whole districts which in 1844 I could describe as almost idyllic
have now, with the growth of the towns, fallen into the same state of
dilapidation, discomfort and misery. Only the pigs and the heaps of
refuse are no longer tolerated. The bourgeoisie have made further
progress in the art of hiding the distress of the working class. But that,
in regard to their dwellings, no substantial improvement has taken
place, is amply proved by the Report of the Royal Commission on the
Housing of the Poor, 1885. And this is the case, too, in other respects.
Police regulations have been plentiful as blackberries; but they can only
hedge in the distress of the workers, they cannot remove it.
But while England has thus outgrown the juvenile state of capitalist
exploitation described by me, other countries have only just attained it.
France, Germany, and especially America, are the formidable
competitors who at this moment as foreseen by me in 1844 are
more and more breaking up Englands industrial monopoly. Their
manufactures are young as compared with those of England, but
increasing at a far more rapid rate than the latter; but curious enough,
they have at this moment arrived at about the same phase of
development as English manufacture in 1844. With regard to America,

the parallel is indeed most striking. True, the external surroundings in

which the working class is placed in America are very different, but the
same economical laws are at work, and the results, if not identical in
every respect, must still be of the same order. Hence we find in America
the same struggles for a shorter working-day, for a legal limitation of
the working time, especially of women and children in factories; we find
the truck system in full blossom, and the cottage-system, in rural
districts, made use of by the bosses as a means of domination over the
workers. At this very moment I am receiving the American papers with
accounts of the great strike of 12,000 Pennsylvanian coal-miners in the
Connellsville district, and I seem but to read my own description of the
North of England colliers strike of 1844. The same cheating of the
work-people by false measure; the same truck system; the same attempt
to break the miners resistance by the Capitalists last, but crushing,
resource, the eviction of the men out of their dwellings, the cottages
owned by the companies.
There were two circumstances which for a long time prevented the
unavoidable consequences of the Capitalist system from showing
themselves in the full glare of day in America. These were the easy
access to the ownership of cheap land, and the influx of immigration.
They allowed, for many years, the great mass of the native American
population to retire in early manhood from wage-labor and to become
farmers, dealers, or employers of labor, while the hard work for wages,
the position of a proletarian for life, mostly fell to the lot of immigrants.
But America has outgrown this early stage. The boundless backwoods
have disappeared, and the still more boundless prairies are fast and
faster passing from the hands of the Nation and the States into those of
private owners. The great safety-valve against the formation of a
permanent proletarian class has practically ceased to act. A class of lifelong and even hereditary proletarians exists at this hour in America. A
nation of sixty millions striving hard to become and with every
chance of success, too the leading manufacturing nation of the world
such a nation cannot permanently import its own wage-working
class; not even if immigrants pour in at the rate of half a million a year.
The tendency of the Capitalist system towards the ultimate splitting-up
of society into two classes, a few millionaires on the one hand, and a
great mass of mere wage-workers on the other, this tendency, though
constantly crossed and counteracted by other social agencies, works
nowhere with greater force than in America; and the result has been the
production of a class of native American wage-workers, who form,
indeed, the aristocracy of the wage-working class as compared with the

immigrants, but who become conscious more and more every day of
their solidarity with the latter and who feel all the more acutely their
present condemnation to life-long wage-toil, because they still
remember the bygone days, when it was comparatively easy to rise to a
higher social level. Accordingly the working class movement, in
America, has started with truly American vigor, and as on that side of
the Atlantic things march with at least double the European speed, we
may yet live to see America take the lead in this respect too.
I have not attempted, in this translation, to bring the book up to date,
to point out in detail all the changes that have taken place since 1844.
And for two reasons: Firstly, to do this properly, the size of the book
must be about doubled, and the translation came upon me too suddenly
to admit of my undertaking such a work. And secondly, the first volume
of Das Kapital, by Karl Marx, an English translation of which is about
to appear, contains a very ample description of the state of the British
working class, as it was about 1865, that is to say, at the time when
British industrial prosperity reached its culminating point. I should,
then, have been obliged again to go over the ground already covered by
Marxs celebrated work.
It will be hardly necessary to point out that the general theoretical
standpoint of this book philosophical, economical, political does
not exactly coincide with my standpoint of to-day. Modern
international Socialism, since fully developed as a science, chiefly and
almost exclusively through the efforts of Marx, did not as yet exist in
1844. My book represents one of the phases of its embryonic
development; and as the human embryo, in its early stages, still
reproduces the gill-arches of our fish ancestors, so this book exhibits
everywhere the traces of the descent of Modern Socialism from one of
its ancestors, German philosophy. Thus great stress is laid on the
dictum that Communism is not a mere party doctrine of the working
class, but a theory compassing the emancipation of society at large,
including the Capitalist class, from its present narrow conditions. This
is true enough in the abstract, but absolutely useless, and worse, in
practice. So long as the wealthy classes not only do not feel the want of
any emancipation, but strenuously oppose the self-emancipation of the
working class, so long the social revolution will have to be prepared and
fought out by the working class alone. The French bourgeois of 1789,
too, declared the emancipation of the bourgeoisie to be the
emancipation of the whole human race; but the nobility and clergy
would not see it; the proposition though for the time being, with

respect to feudalism, an abstract historical truth soon became a mere

sentimentalism, and disappeared from view altogether in the fire of the
revolutionary struggle. And to-day, the very people who, from the
impartiality of their superior stand-point preach to the workers a
Socialism soaring high above their class interests and class struggles,
and tending to reconcile in a higher humanity the interests of both the
contending classes these people are either neophytes, who have still
to learn a great deal, or they are the worst enemies of the workers
wolves in sheeps clothing.
The recurring period of the great industrial crises is stated in the text
as five years. This was the period apparently indicated by the course of
events from 1825 to 1842. But the industrial history from 1842 to 1868
has shown that the real period is one of ten years; that the intermediate
revolutions were secondary and tended more and more to disappear.
Since 1868 the state of things has changed again, of which more anon.
I have taken care not to strike out of the text the many prophecies,
amongst others that of an imminent social revolution in England, which
my youthful ardor induced me to venture upon. The wonder is, not that
a good many of them proved wrong, but that so many of them have
proved right, and that the critical state of English trade, to be brought
on by German and especially American competition, which I then
foresaw though in too short a period has now actually come to
pass. In this respect I can, and am bound to, bring the book up to date,
by placing here an article which I published in the London
Commonweal of March 1, 1885, under the heading: England in 1845
and in 1885. It gives at the same time a short outline of the history of
the English working class during these forty years.
London, February 25, 1886
Frederick Engels

ENGELS APPROVES OF ANTISEMITISM

Engels to Paul Lafargue, July 22, 1892: "I begin to understand French anti-Semitism when I see how many Jews of Polish origin and with German names intrude themselves everywhere, arrogate everything to themselves and push themselves forward to the point of creating public opinion in the ville
lumiere [Paris], of which the Paris philistine is so proud and which he believes to be the supreme power in the universe."

(Not online but found in Frederick Engels, Paul and Laura Lafargue, Correspondence, Vol iii, Moscow. p 184.)

Friedrich Engels: Racist and German

nationalist

By John J. Ray (M.A.;Ph.D.)

The reason why the Soviet version of Communism was
always known as "Marxism-Leninism" is of course that
Lenin "developed" Marxist doctrine in various ways. One
of those developments, however, is almost never
mentioned -- though it can hardly be unknown to any
serious student of Marx and Engels: Although Marx and
Engels were great advocates for the working class, they
were also antisemitic German nationalists who took a very
dim view of Russians. Lenin concentrated on the first part
of Marxism and, understandably, largely ignored the latter.
There was however considerable devotion to the original
Marxian writings among the Bolsheviks so when Lenin
said: "it is not the Jews who are the enemies of the
working people" but "the capitalists of all countries", it was
to a degree Marx himself whom he was critcizing.
It is customary to treat Marx and Engels as a unit, failing to
take any note of the individuals concerned. As they were
such close collaborators, that is not unreasonable but

there were nonetheless differences of emphasis between

them. Marx was the most antisemitic and it was Engels
who was the fervent German nationalist. I reproduce
initially below the most famous antisemitic utterance by
Marx (more in the archives here) by way of context but,
after that, I simply reproduce a host of statements by
Engels. I think they speak for themselves.
"Let us consider the actual, worldly Jew -- not the Sabbath
Jew, as Bauer does, but the everyday Jew. Let us not look
for the secret of the Jew in his religion, but let us look for
the secret of his religion in the real Jew. What is the
secular basis of Judaism? Practical need, self-interest.
What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What
is his worldly God? Money. Very well then! Emancipation
from huckstering and money, consequently from practical,
real Jewry, would be the self-emancipation of our time....
We recognize in Jewry, therefore, a general present-timeoriented anti-social element, an element which through
historical development -- to which in this harmful respect
the Jews have zealously contributed -- has been brought
to its present high level, at which it must necessarily
dissolve itself. In the final analysis, the emancipation of the
Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Jewry".
ENGELS BELIEVED GERMANS TO BE A SUPERIOR
RACE

Karl Marx, "A Contribution to the Critique of Political

economy" (Review by Frederick Engels), Das Volk, 30 No.
14, August 6, 1859: "The Germans have long since shown
that in all spheres of science they are equal, and in most
of them superior, to other civilised nations. Only one
branch of science, political economy, had no German
name among its foremost scholars."
Context here
The German
Engels: Karl Marx' "Zur Kritik der politischen Oekonomie",
1859
"Auf allen wissenschaftlichen Gebieten haben die
Deutschen laengst ihre Ebenbuertigkeit, auf den meisten
ihre Ueberlegenheit gegenueber den uebrigen zivilisierten
Nationen bewiesen. (...)" Karl Marx: Critique of Political Economy
Review by Frederick Engels

Karl Marx, A Contribution to the Critique of Political economy

First Published: Das Volk, Nos. 14 & 16, August 6 & 20, 1859;
Written: between August 3 and 15, 1859.

I
The Germans have long since shown that in all spheres of science they
are equal, and in most of them superior, to other civilised nations. Only

one branch of science, political economy, had no German name among

its foremost scholars. The reason is obvious. Political economy is the
theoretical analysis of modern bourgeois society and therefore
presupposes developed bourgeois conditions, conditions which for
centuries, following the wars in the wake of the Reformation and the
peasant wars and especially the Thirty Years War, could not establish
themselves in Germany. The separation of the Netherlands from the
Empire removed Germany from the international trade routes and
restricted her industrial development from the very beginning to the
pettiest scale. While the Germans painfully and slowly recovered from
the devastations of the civil wars, while they used up their store of civic
energy, which had never been very large, in futile struggle against the
customs barriers and absurd commercial regulations which every petty
princeling and imperial baron inflicted upon the industry of his
subjects, while the imperial cities with their craft-guild practices and
patrician spirit went to ruin Holland, England and France meanwhile
conquered the leading positions in international trade, established one
colony after another and brought manufactory production to the height
of its development, until finally England, with the aid of steam power,
which made her coal and iron deposits valuable, headed modern
bourgeois development. But political economy could not arise in
Germany so long as a struggle had still to be waged against so
preposterously antiquated remnants of the Middle Ages as those which
hampered the bourgeois development of her material forces until 1830.
Only the establishment of the Customs Union enabled the Germans
to comprehend political economy at all. It was indeed at this time that
English and French economic works began to be imported for the
benefit of the German middle class. Men of learning and bureaucrats
soon got hold of the imported material and treated it in a way which
does little credit to the German intellect. The literary efforts of a
hotchpotch of chevaliers dindustrie, traders, schoolmasters and
bureaucrats produced a bunch of German economic publications which
as regards triteness, banality, frivolity, verbosity and plagiarism are
equalled only by the German novel. Among people pursuing practical
objectives there arose first the protectionist school of the industrialists,
whose chief spokesman, List, is still the best that German bourgeois
political economy has produced although his celebrated work is entirely
copied from the Frenchman Ferrier, the theoretical creator of the
Continental System. In opposition to this trend the free-trade school
was formed in the forties by merchants from the Baltic provinces, who
fumblingly repeated the arguments of the English Free Traders with
childlike, but not disinterested, faith. Finally, among the schoolmasters

and bureaucrats who had to handle the theoretical aspects there were
uncritical and desiccated collectors of herbaria, like Herr Rau, pseudoclever speculators who translated foreign propositions into undigested
Hegelian language like Herr Stein, or gleaners with literary pretensions
in the field of so-called history of civilisation, like Herr Riehl. The
upshot of all this was cameralistics, an eclectic economic sauce covering
a hotchpotch of sundry trivialities, of the sort a junior civil servant
might find useful to remember during his final examination.
While in this way in Germany the bourgeoisie, the schoolmasters and
the bureaucrats were still making great exertions to learn by rote, and
in some measure to understand, the first elements of Anglo-French
political economy, which they regarded as incontestable dogmas, the
German proletarian party appeared on the scene. Its theoretical aspect
was wholly based on a study of political economy, and German political
economy as an independent science dates also from the emergence of
this party. The essential foundation of this German political economy is
the materialist conception of history whose principal features are
briefly outlined in the Preface to the above-named work. Since the
Preface has in the main already been published in Das Volk, we refer
to it. The proposition that the process of social, political and
intellectual life is altogether necessitated by the mode of production of
material life"; that all social and political relations, all religious and
legal systems, all theoretical conceptions which arise in the course of
history can only be understood if the material conditions of life
obtaining during the relevant epoch have been understood and the
former are traced back to these material conditions, was a revolutionary
discovery not only for economics but also for all historical sciences
and all branches of science which are not natural sciences are historical.
It is not the consciousness of men that determines their existence, but
their social existence that determines their consciousness. This
proposition is so simple that it should be self-evident to anyone not
bogged down in idealist humbug. But it leads to highly revolutionary
consequences not only in the theoretical sphere but also in the practical
sphere. At a certain stage of development, the material productive
forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of
production or this merely expresses the same thing in legal terms
with the property relations within the framework of which they have
operated hitherto. From forms of development of the productive forces
these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social
revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or
later to the transformation of the whole immense superstructure.... The

bourgeois mode of production is the last antagonistic form of the social

process of production antagonistic not in the sense of individual
antagonism but of an antagonism that emanates from the individuals
social conditions of existence but the productive forces developing
within bourgeois society create also the material conditions for a
solution of this antagonism. The prospect of a gigantic revolution, the
most gigantic revolution that has ever taken place, accordingly presents
itself to us as soon as we pursue our materialist thesis further and apply
it to the present time.
Closer consideration shows immediately that already the first
consequences of the apparently simple proposition, that the
consciousness of men is determined by their existence and not the other
way round, spurn all forms of idealism, even the most concealed ones,
rejecting all conventional and customary views of historical matters.
The entire traditional manner of political reasoning is upset; patriotic
magnanimity indignantly objects to such an unprincipled
interpretation. It was thus inevitable that the new point of view should
shock not only the exponents of the bourgeoisie but also the mass of
French socialists who intended to revolutionise the world by virtue of
the magic words, libert, galit, fraternite. But it utterly enraged the
vociferous German vulgar democrats. They nevertheless have a
partiality for attempting to plagiarise the new ideas in their own
interest, although with an exceptional lack of understanding.
The demonstration of the materialist conception even upon a single
historical example was a scientific task requiring years of quiet
research, for it is evident that mere empty talk can achieve nothing in
this context and that only an abundance of critically examined historical
material which has been completely mastered can make it possible to
solve such a problem. Our party was propelled on to the political stage
by the February Revolution and thus prevented from pursuing purely
scientific aims. The fundamental conception, nevertheless, runs like an
unbroken thread through all literary productions of the party. Every
one of them shows that the actions in each particular case were
invariably initiated by material causes and not by the accompanying
phrases, that on the contrary the political and legal phrases, like the
political actions and their results, originated in material causes.
After the defeat of the Revolution of 1848-49, at a time when it
became increasingly impossible to exert any influence on Germany
from abroad, our party relinquished the field of emigrant squabbles

for that was the only feasible action left to the vulgar democrats.
While these were chasing about to their hearts content, scuffling today,
fraternising tomorrow and the day after once more washing their dirty
linen in public, while they went begging throughout America and
immediately afterwards started another row over the division of the few
coins they had collected our party was glad to find once more some
quiet time for research work. It had the great advantage that its
theoretical foundation was a new scientific conception the elaboration
of which provided adequate work; even for this reason alone it could
never become so demoralised as the great men of the emigration.
The book under consideration is the first result of these studies.

II
[Das Volk, No. 16, August 20,1859]
The purpose of a work like the one under review cannot simply be
desultory criticism of separate sections of political economy or the
discussion of one or another economic issue in isolation. On the
contrary, it is from the beginning designed to give a
systematic rsum of the whole complex of political economy and a
coherent elaboration of the laws governing bourgeois production and
bourgeois exchange. This elaboration is at the same time a
comprehensive critique of economic literature, for economists are
nothing but interpreters of and apologists for these laws.
Hardly any attempt has been made since Hegels death to set forth
any branch of science in its specific inner coherence. The official
Hegelian school had assimilated only the most simple devices of the
masters dialectics and applied them to everything and anything, often
moreover with ridiculous incompetence. Hegels whole heritage was, so
far as they were concerned, confined exclusively to a template, by
means of which any subject could be knocked into shape, and a set of
words and phrases whose only remaining purpose was to turn up
conveniently whenever they experienced a lack of ideas and of concrete
knowledge. Thus it happened, as a professor at Bonn has said, that
these Hegelians knew nothing but could write about everything. The
results were, of course, accordingly. For all their conceit these
gentlemen were, however, sufficiently conscious of their failings to
avoid major problems as far as possible. The superannuated fossilised

type of learning held its ground because of its superior factual

knowledge, and after Feuerbachs renunciation of the speculative
method, Hegelianism gradually died away, and it seemed that science
was once more dominated by antiquated metaphysics with its rigid
categories.
For this there were quite natural reasons. The rule of the Hegelian
Diadochi, which ended in empty phrases, was naturally followed by a
period in which the concrete content of science predominated once
more over the formal aspect. Moreover, Germany at the same time
applied itself with quite extraordinary energy to the natural sciences, in
accordance with the immense bourgeois development setting in after
1848; with the coming into fashion of these sciences, in which the
speculative trend had never achieved any real importance, the old
metaphysical mode of thinking, even down to the extreme triviality of
Wolff, gained ground rapidly. Hegel was forgotten and a new
materialism arose in the natural sciences; it differed in principle very
little from the materialism of the eighteenth century and its main
advantage was merely a greater stock of data relating to the natural
sciences, especially chemistry and physiology. The narrow-minded
mode of thinking of the pre-Kantian period in its most banal form is
reproduced by Bchner and Vogt, and even Moleschott, who swears by
Feuerbach, frequently flounders in a highly diverting manner through
the most simple categories. The jaded cart-horse of the commonplace
bourgeois mind falters of course in confusion in front of the ditch
separating substance from appearance, and cause from effect; but one
should not ride carthorses if one intends to go coursing over the very
rough ground of abstract reasoning.
In this context, therefore, a question had to be solved which was not
connected with political economy as such. Which scientific method
should be used? There was, on the one hand, the Hegelian dialectics in
the quite abstract speculative form in which Hegel had left it, and on
the other hand the ordinary, mainly Wolffian, metaphysical method,
which had come again into vogue, and which was also employed by the
bourgeois economists to write their bulky rambling volumes. The
second method had been theoretically demolished by Kant and
particularly by Hegel so that its continued use in practice could only be
rendered possible by inertia and the absence of an alternative simple
method. The Hegelian method, on the other hand, was in its existing
form quite inapplicable. It was essentially idealist and the main point in
this case was the elaboration of a world outlook that was more

materialist than any previous one. Hegels method took as its point of
departure pure thought, whereas here the starting point was to be
inexorable facts. A method which, according to its own avowal,
came from nothing through nothing to nothing was in this shape by
no means suitable. It was, nevertheless, the only element in the entire
available logical material which could at least serve as a point of origin.
It had not been subjected to criticism, not been overthrown; none of the
opponents of the great dialectician had been able to make a breach in
the proud edifice. It had been forgotten because the Hegelian school did
not know how to apply it. Hence, it was first of all essential to carry
through a thorough critique of the Hegelian method.
It was the exceptional historical sense underlying Hegels manner of
reasoning which distinguished it from that of all other philosophers.
However abstract and idealist the form employed, yet his evolution of
ideas runs always parallel with the evolution of universal history, and
the latter was indeed supposed to be only the proof of the former.
Although this reversed the actual relation and stood it on its head, yet
the real content was invariably incorporated in his philosophy,
especially since Hegel unlike his followers did not rely on
ignorance, but was one of the most erudite thinkers of all time. He was
the first to try to demonstrate that there is an evolution, an intrinsic
coherence in history, and however strange some things in his
philosophy of history may seem to us now, the grandeur of the basic
conception is still admirable today, compared both with his
predecessors and with those who following him ventured to advance
general historical observations. This monumental conception of history
pervades the Phnomenologies, Asthetik and Geschichte der
Philosophie, and the material is everywhere set forth historically, in a
definite historical context, even if in an abstract distorted manner.
This epoch-making conception of history was a direct theoretical precondition of the new materialist outlook, and already this constituted a
connecting link with the logical method as well. Since, even from the
standpoint of pure reasoning, this forgotten dialectics had led to such
results, and had moreover with the greatest ease coped with the whole
of the former logic and metaphysics, it must at all events comprise more
than sophistry and hairsplitting. But the critique of this method, which
the entire official philosophy had evaded and still evades, was no small
matter.

Marx was and is the only one who could undertake the work of
extracting from the Hegelian logic the nucleus containing Hegels real
discoveries in this field, and of establishing the dialectical method,
divested of its idealist wrappings, in the simple form in which it
becomes the only correct mode of conceptual evolution. The working
out of the method which underlies Marxs critique of political economy
is, we think, a result hardly less significant than the basic materialist
conception.
Even after the determination of the method, the critique of economics
could still be arranged in two ways historically or logically. Since in
the course of history, as in its literary reflection, the evolution proceeds
by and large from the simplest to the more complex relations, the
historical development of political economy constituted a natural clue,
which the critique could take as a point of departure, and then the
economic categories would appear on the whole in the same order as in
the logical exposition. This form seems to have the advantage of greater
lucidity, for it traces the actual development, but in fact it would thus
become, at most, more popular. History moves often in leaps and
bounds and in a zigzag line, and as this would have to be followed
throughout, it would mean not only that a considerable amount of
material of slight importance would have to be included, but also that
the train of thought would frequently have to be interrupted; it would,
moreover, be impossible to write the history of economy without that of
bourgeois society, and the task would thus become immense, because of
the absence of all preliminary studies. The logical method of approach
was therefore the only suitable one. This, however, is indeed nothing
but the historical method, only stripped of the historical form and
diverting chance occurrences. The point where this history begins must
also be the starting point of the train of thought, and its further
progress will be simply the reflection, in abstract and theoretically
consistent form, of the historical course. Though the reflection is
corrected, it is corrected in accordance with laws provided by the actual
historical course, since each factor can be examined at the stage of
development where it reaches its full maturity, its classical form.
With this method we begin with the first and simplest relation which
is historically, actually available, thus in this context with the first
economic relation to be found. We analyse this relation. The fact that it
is a relation already implies that it has two aspects which are related to
each other. Each of these aspects is examined separately; this reveals
the nature of their mutual behaviour, their reciprocal action.

Contradictions will emerge demanding a solution. But since we are not

examining an abstract mental process that takes place solely in our
mind, but an actual event which really took place at some time or other,
or which is still taking place, these contradictions will have arisen in
practice and have probably been solved. We shall trace the mode of this
solution and find that it has been effected by establishing a new
relation, whose two contradictory aspects we shall then have to set
forth, and so on.
Political economy begins with commodities, with the moment when
products are exchanged, either by individuals or by primitive
communities. The product being exchanged is a commodity. But it is a
commodity merely by virtue of the thing, the product being linked with
a relation between two persons or communities, the relation between
producer and consumer, who at this stage are no longer united in the
same person. Here is at once an example of a peculiar fact, which
pervades the whole economy and has produced serious confusion in the
minds of bourgeois economists economics is not concerned with
things but with relations between persons, and in the final analysis
between classes; these relations however are always bound to
things and appear as things. Although a few economists had an inkling
of this connection in isolated instances, Marx was the first to reveal its
significance for the entire economy thus making the most difficult
problems so simple and clear that even bourgeois economists will now
be able to grasp them.
If we examine the various aspects of the commodity, that is of the
fully evolved commodity and not as it at first slowly emerges in the
spontaneous barter of two primitive communities, it presents itself to
us from two angles, that of use-value and of exchange-value, and thus
we come immediately to the province of economic debate. Anyone
wishing to find a striking instance of the fact that the German dialectic
method at its present stage of development is at least as superior to the
old superficially glib metaphysical method as railways are to the
mediaeval means of transport, should look up Adam Smith or any other
authoritative economist of repute to see how much distress exchangevalue and use-value caused these gentlemen, the difficulty they had in
distinguishing the two properly and in expressing the determinate form
peculiar to each, and then compare the clear, simple exposition given by
Marx.

After use-value and exchange-value have been expounded, the

commodity as a direct unity of the two is described as it enters
the exchange process. The contradictions arising here may be found on
pp. 20 and 21. We merely note that these contradictions are not only of
interest for theoretical, abstract reasons, but that they also reflect the
difficulties originating from the nature of direct interchange, i.e., simple
barter, and the impossibilities inevitably confronting this first crude
form of exchange. The solution of these impossibilities is achieved by
investing a specific commodity money with the attribute of
representing the exchange-value of all other commodities. Money or
simple circulation is then analysed in the second chapter, namely (1)
money as a measure of value, and, at the same time, value measured in
terms of money, i.e., price, is more closely defined; (2) money as means
of circulation and (3) the unity of the two aspects, real money which
represents bourgeois material wealth as a whole. This concludes the
first part, the conversion of money into capital is left for the second
part.
One can see that with this method, the logical exposition need by no
means be confined to the purely abstract sphere. On the contrary, it
requires historical illustration and continuous contact with reality. A
great variety of such evidence is therefore inserted, comprising
references both to different stages in the actual historical course of
social development and to economic works, in which the working out of
lucid definitions of economic relations is traced from the outset. The
critique of particular, more or less one-sided or confused
interpretations is thus substantially given already in the logical
exposition and can be kept quite short.
The economic content of the book will be discussed in a third article.

ENGELS SUPPORTED GERMAN TERRITORIAL

CLAIMS AND BELIEVED IN "GERMANIZATION" OF
OTHERS
"True, it is a fixed idea with the French that the Rhine is
their property, but to this arrogant demand the only reply
worthy of the German nation is Arndt's: "Give back Alsace

and Lorraine". For I am of the opinion, perhaps in contrast

to many whose standpoint I share in other respects, that
the reconquest of the German-speaking left bank of the
Rhine is a matter of national honour, and that the
Germanisation of a disloyal Holland and of Belgium is a
political necessity for us. Shall we let the German
nationality be completely suppressed in these countries,
while the Slavs are rising ever more powerfully in the
East?"
Written by Engels in 1841
The German
"...Allerdings ist es eine fixe Idee bei den Franzosen,
dass der Rhein ihr Eigentum sei, aber die einzige
des deutschen Volkes wuerdige Antwort auf diese
anmassende Forderung ist das Arndtsche 'Heraus
mit dem Elsass und Lothringen!' Denn ich bin vielleicht im Gegensatz zu vielen, deren Standpunkt
ich sonst teile - allerdings der Ansicht, dass die
Wiedereroberung der deutschsprechenden linken
Rheinseite eine nationale Ehrensache, die
Germanisierung des abtruennig gewordenen
Hollands und Belgiens eine politische
Notwendigkeit fuer uns ist. Sollen wir in jenen
Laendern die deutsche Nationalitaet vollends
unterdruecken lassen, waehrend im Osten sich das

Slawentum immer maechtiger erhebt?"

Moritz Arndt

Ernst

[98]

Written: in October-December 1840

First published: in Telegraph fr Deutschland Nos. 2-5, January 1841
Signed: F. Oswald

Telegraph fr Deutschland No. 2, January 1841

Like the faithful Eckart of the legend, old Arndt stands on the Rhine
and warns the youth of Germany, who for many years now have been
gazing across to the French Venusberg and the seductive, passionate
maidens, the ideas, [99] that beckon from its pinnacles. But the wild
youths do not heed the old hero and storm across, and not all of them
remain in enervated prostration like the new Tannhuser Heine.
This is Arndts position in relation to the German youth of today.
Though all hold him in high esteem, his ideal of German life does not
satisfy them; they want more freedom to act, fuller, more exuberant
vitality, ardent, impetuous throbbing in the veins of world history which
carry Germanys life-blood. Hence the sympathy for France, not, of
course, the sympathy of submission about which the French romance,
but that loftier and freer form whose nature has been so admirably set
forth by Brne in his Franzosenfresser, in contrast to Germanising onesidedness.
Arndt has sensed that the present is estranged from him, that it does
not respect him for his thought but respects his thought for the sake of
his strong, manly personality. Hence, as a man whose life had been
given meaning both by his talent and conviction and by the course of
developments over a number of years, he was faced with the duty of
leaving his nation a memorial of his cultural development, his way of
thinking and his times, which he has done in his much
discussed Erinnerungen aus dem ussern Leben.

Disregarding its trend for the moment, Arndts book is also

aesthetically a most interesting publication. This concise, pithy
language has not been heard in our literature for a long time and
deserves to make a lasting impression on many of the young generation.
Better firm than flabby! There are, of course, authors for whom the
essence of the modern style is that every ripple of the muscles, every
taut sinew of speech should be prettily enveloped in soft flesh, even at
the risk of appearing effeminate. No, give me the manly, bony structure
of Arndts style rather than the spongy manner of certain modern
stylists! Particularly since Arndt has avoided the idiosyncrasies of his
comrades of 1813 so far as possible and comes near to affectation only
in the absolute use of the superlative (as in the southern Romance
languages). Nor should one look in him for that repulsive mixing of
languages which has again become the fashion; on the contrary, he
shows how few alien shoots we need graft on our language without
being at a loss. The carriage of our thoughts does indeed run better on
most roads with German rather than French or Greek horses, a fact
which ridicule of the extremes of the puristic trend does not alter.
Let us now examine the book more closely. Most of it is taken up with
the idyll of his early life, which is drawn with a genuinely poetic hand.
Anyone who has spent his first years as Arndt did, can be eternally
thankful to God! Not in the dust of a big city, where the joys of the
individual are crushed by the interests of the whole, not in childrens
homes or philanthropic prisons, where budding vigour is blunted; no, it
was under the open sky in fields and woods that nature formed the man
of steel at whom an effeminate generation gazes as at a northern
warrior. The great plastic force with which Arndt depicts this period of
his life almost compels one to believe that all idyllic composition are
superfluous as long as our authors experience such idylls as Arndt did.
What will appear most strange to our century is the self-discipline of
the young Arndt, which combines German chastity with Spartan vigour.
But this vigour, so naive, so free from any Jahn-like bragging, as it
hums to itself its hoc tibi proderit olim [this will come in handy one
day], cannot be recommended enough to our stay-at-home youths.
Young men who shun cold water like mad dogs, who put on three or
four layers of clothing when the weather is the least bit frosty, who
make it a point of honour to obtain exemption from military service on
grounds of physical weakness, are truly a fine support for the
Fatherland! As for chastity, it is regarded as a crime even to speak of it
in an age where ones first inquiry in every town is the way to the gate
where the last of The houses stand. [From Goethes ballad Der Gott

und die Bajadere] I am certainly no abstract moralist, I detest all

ascetic nonsense, and shall never pass judgment on fallen love; but it
grieves me that moral seriousness threatens to disappear and that
sensuality strives to set itself up as the highest good. The emancipation
of the flesh in practice will always have to blush beside an Arndt.
With the year 1800 Arndt enters the profession allotted to him.
Napoleons armies flood Europe, and as the French Emperors power
increases Arndts hatred of him grows; the, Greifswald professor
protests in the name of Germany against the oppression and has to flee.
At last the German nation rises up and Arndt returns. We could wish
that this part of the book contained more detail; Arndt retires modestly
into the background before the arming of the nation and its deeds.
Instead of leaving us to guess that he was not inactive he should have
described his part in the developments of the time in greater detail, and
told us the history of these days from the subjective standpoint. Later
events are treated still more briefly. What is remarkable here is on the
one hand the increasingly pronounced tendency to orthodoxy in
religious matters, on the other the mysterious, almost servile, kiss-therod manner in which Arndt speaks of his suspension. But those who
find this strange will have been convinced by Arndts statements issued
recently in the public press, in which he regards his reinstatement as an
act of justice, not of grace and favour, that he still possesses his old
firmness and determination.
Arndts book gains particular importance, however, from the
simultaneous publication of a mass of memoirs on the war of liberation.
The glorious period when the German nation, for the first time in
centuries, rose once more in all its power and greatness and opposed
foreign oppression is vividly brought close to us again. And we Germans
cannot recall these battles often enough if we are to keep awake our
somnolent national consciousness; of course not in the sense of a party
which believes it has now done everything and regards itself
complacently in the mirror of history, resting on the laurels of 1813, but
rather in the opposite sense. For the greatest result of the struggle was
not the shaking off of foreign rule, whose elaborate artificiality, resting
as it did solely on the Atlas shoulders of Napoleon, was bound to come
crashing down of its own accord sooner or later, nor was it the
freedom which was won; it was the deed itself, or rather an aspect of
it, which only very few people at the time clearly sensed. That we
became conscious of the loss of our national sanctuaries, that we armed
ourselves without waiting for the most gracious permission of the

sovereigns, that we actually compelled those in power to take their place

at our head [Cf, K. Bade, Napoleon im jahre 1813, Altona, 1840 Note
by F. Engels], in short, that for a moment we acted as the source of
state power, as a sovereign nation, that was the greatest gain of those
years, and therefore after the war the men who had felt this most clearly
and had acted accordingly with the greatest resolution, were bound to
appear dangerous to the governments. But how soon the moving
power went to sleep again! The bane of disunity absorbed for the parts
the impulse so much needed for the whole, split the general German
interest into a multitude of provincial interests and made it impossible
to provide Germany with a foundation for state life such as Spain
created for herself in the Constitution of 1812.[100] On the contrary, the
gentle spring rain of general promises which surprised us from the
higher regions was too much for our hearts bowed down by
oppression, and we fools did not reflect that there are promises the
breaking of which can never be excused from the point of view of the
nation, but very easily from that of the individual. (?) Then came the
Congresses <[101] giving the Germans time to sleep off their intoxication
with freedom and wake up to find themselves back in the old
relationship of Your Most Gracious Majesty and Your Most Humble
Servant. Those who had not yet lost their old aspirations, and could not
reconcile themselves to having no active part in the life of the nation,
were driven by all the forces of the time into the blind alley of
Germanisation. Only a few distinguished spirits broke out of the
labyrinth and found the path which leads to true freedom.
The Germanisers wanted to complete the facts of the war of liberation
and to free a now materially independent Germany from foreign
intellectual hegemony as well. But for that very reason Germanisation
was negation, and the positive elements with which it plumed itself lay
buried in an unclarity from which they never quite emerged; what did
come up into the daylight of reason was for the most part paradoxical
enough. Its whole world view was philosophically without foundation
since it held that the entire world was created for the sake of the
Germans, and the Germans themselves had long since arrived at the
highest stage of evolution. The Germanising trend was negation,
abstraction in the Hegelian sense. It created abstract Germans by
stripping off everything that had not descended from national roots
over sixty-four purely German generations. Even its seemingly positive
features were negative, for Germany could only be led towards its ideals
by negating a whole century and her development, and thus its
intention was to push the nation back into the German Middle Ages or

even into the primeval German purity of the Teutoburger Wald. Jahn
embodied this trend in its extreme. This one-sidedness turned the
Germans into the chosen people of Israel and ignored all the
innumerable seeds of world history which had grown on soil that was
not German. It is against the French especially, whose invasion had
been repulsed and whose hegemony in external matters is based on the
fact that they master, more easily than all nations at least, the form of
European culture, namely, civilisation it is against the. French that
the iconoclastic fury was directed most of all. The great, eternal
achievements of the revolution were abhorred as foreign frivolities or
even foreign lies and falsehoods; no one thought of the kinship
between this stupendous act of the people and the national uprising of
1813; that which Napoleon had introduced, the emancipation of the
Israelites, trial by jury, sound civil law in place of the pandects, [102] was
condemned solely because of its initiator. Hatred of the French became
a duty. Every kind of thinking which could rise to a higher viewpoint
was condemned as un-German. Hence patriotism too was essentially
negative and left the Fatherland without support in the struggle of the
age, while it went to great pains to invent bombastic German
expressions for foreign words which had long been assimilated into
German. If this trend had been concretely German, if it had taken the
German for what he had become in two thousand years of history, if it
had not overlooked the truest element of our destiny, namely, to be the
pointer on the scales of European history, to watch over the
development of the neighbouring nations, it would have avoided all its
mistakes On the other hand, one must not ignore the fact that
Germanisation was a necessary stage in the formation of our national
spirit and that together with the succeeding stage it formed the contrast
on whose shoulders the modern world view rests.

Telegraph fr Deutschland No. 3, January 1841

This contrast to the Germanising trend was the cosmopolitan
liberalism of the South-German estates which worked for the negation
of national differences and the formation of a great, free, united
humanity. It corresponded to religious rationalism and stemmed from
the same source, the philanthropy of the previous century, whereas the
Germanising trend consistently led to theological orthodoxy, at which
almost all its adherents (Arndt, Steffens, Menzel) arrived in due course.
The one-sidedness of cosmopolitan liberalism has so often been
exposed by its opponents, albeit in a one-sided fashion, that I can be
brief where this trend is concerned. The July revolution at first seemed

to favour it, but this event was exploited by all parties. The actual
destruction of the Germanising trend or rather of its propagating power
dates from the July revolution and was inherent in it. Yet so was the
collapse of the cosmopolitan trend; for the overwhelming significance of
the great week [The events of the July revolution in France (July 27August 2, 1830)] was the restitution of the French nation in its position
as a great power, whereby the other nations were compelled to close
their ranks as well.
Even before this latest world-shaking event two men had been
working quietly on the development of the German, or as it is preferably
called the modern, spirit, two men who almost ignored each other in
their lifetime and whose complementary relationship was not to be
recognised until after their death, Brne and Hegel. Brne has often
and most unjustly been branded as a cosmopolitan, but he was more
German than his opponents. The HallischeJahrbcher has recently
linked a discussion of political practice with the name of Herr von
Florencourt [103]; but he is certainly not its representative. He stands at
the point where the extremes of the Germanising trend and
cosmopolitanism meet, as happened in the Burschenschaften, [104] and
was only superficially affected by the later developments of the national
spirit. The man of political practice is Brne, and his place in history is
that he fulfilled this calling perfectly. He tore the ostentatious finery off
the Germanising trend and also unmercifully exposed the shame of
cosmopolitanism, which merely had impotent, more pious wishes. He
confronted the Germans with the words of the Cid: Lengua sin manos,
cuemo osas fablar? [Tongue without hands, how dare you speak?
(Poema del Cid.)] No one has described the glory of the deed like Brne.
With him all is life, all is vigour. Only of his writings can it be said that
they are deeds for freedom. Do not speak to me here of reasoned
definitions, of finite categories"! The manner in which Brne
understood the position of the European nations and their destiny is
not speculative. Yet Brne was the first to show the relationship of
Germany and France in its reality and thereby did a greater service to
the idea than the Hegelians, who were meanwhile learning
Hegels Enzyklopdie by heart and thought that they had thereby done
enough for the century. That same portrayal also proves how high
Brne stands above the level of cosmopolitanism. Rational onesidedness was as necessary for Brne as excessive schematism for
Hegel; but instead of understanding this we do not get beyond the
crude and often false axioms of the Briefe aus Paris.

By the side of Brne and opposed to him, Hegel, the man of thought,
presented big already completed system to the nation. Authority did not
take the trouble to work its way through the abstruse forms of Hegels
system and his brazen style; but then, how could it have known that this
philosophy would venture from the quiet haven of theory onto the
stormy sea of actuality, that it was already brandishing its sword in
order to strike directly against existing practice? For Hegel himself was
such a solid, orthodox man, whose polemic was directed at precisely
those trends which the state power rejected, at rationalism and
cosmopolitan liberalism! But the gentlemen at the helm did not
appreciate that these trends were only combated in order to make room
for the higher, that the new teaching must first root itself in recognition
of the nation before it could freely develop its living consequences.
When Brne attacked Hegel he was perfectly right from his standpoint,
but when authority protected Hegel, when it elevated his teaching
almost to a Prussian philosophy of the state, it laid itself open to attack,
a fact which it now evidently regrets. Or did Altenstein, whose more
advanced standpoint was a legacy of a more liberal age, receive such a
free hand here that everything was laid to his account? Be that as it
may, when after Hegels death the fresh air of life breathed upon his
doctrine, the Prussian philosophy of the state sprouted shoots of
which no party had ever dreamt. Strauss will remain epoch-making in
the theological field, Gans and Ruge in the political. Only now do the
faint nebulae of speculation resolve themselves into the shining stars of
the ideas which are to light the movement of the century. One may
accuse Ruges aesthetic criticism of being prosaic and confined within
the schematism of the doctrine; yet credit must go to him for showing
the political side of the Hegelian system to be in accord with the spirit
of the time and for restoring it in the nations esteem. Gans had done
this only indirectly, by carrying the philosophy of history forward into
the present; Ruge openly expressed the liberalism of Hegelianism, and
Kppen supported him; neither was afraid of incurring enmity, both
pursuing their course, even at the risk of a split in the school, and all
due respect to their courage for it! The enthusiastic, unshakeable
confidence in the idea, inherent in the New Hegelianism, is the sole
fortress in which the liberals can find safe retreat whenever reaction
gains a temporary advantage over them with aid from above.
These are the most recent developments of German political
consciousness, and the task of our age is to complete the fusion of Hegel
and Brne. There is already a good deal of Brne in Young Hegelianism,
and Brne would have little hesitation in signing many an article in

the Hallische Jahrbcher. However, the combining of thought and

action is in part not yet conscious enough, in part it has not yet
penetrated the nation. Brne is still looked upon by many as the exact
opposite of Hegel, but just as Hegels practical importance for the
present (not his philosophical significance for eternity) is not to be
judged by the pure theory of his system, neither is Brne to be flatly
rejected because of his one-sidedness and his extravagances, which
have never been denied.

Telegraph fr Deutschland No. 4, January 1841

I trust that I have characterised the attitude of the Germanising trend
to the present day sufficiently and may now proceed to a detailed review
of the trends individual aspects as expounded by Arndt in his book. The
wide gulf which separates Arndt from the present generation is
expressed most clearly in the fact that he is indifferent to those matters
of state for which we sacrifice our life-blood. Arndt declares himself a
decided monarchist; good. Yet he never once discusses whether the
monarchy is to be constitutional or absolute. The point of difference is
this: Arndt and his whole company believe that the well-being of the
state consists in sovereign and people being attached to each other by
sincere love and co-operating with each other in the striving for the
common good. We, however, are convinced that the relationship
between the governing and the governed must first be regulated by law
before it can become and remain amicable. First law, then equity!
Where is there a sovereign so bad that he does not love his people and is
not loved by them I speak here of Germany simply because he is
their sovereign? But where is there a sovereign who can claim to have
brought his people any real advance since 1815? Is it not all our own
work; is not what we own our in spite of control and supervision? It is
all very fine to talk of the love between a sovereign and his people, and
since the great poet [An ironical reference to Balthasar Gerhard
Schumacher] of Heil Dir im Siegerkranz sang that a free mans love
makes the steep heights secure where sovereigns stand, ever since then
infinite nonsense has been talked about it. The kind of government
threatening us from a certain quarter might be called an up-to-date
reaction. Patrimonial courts to promote the formation of a high
aristocracy; guilds to reawaken a respectable burgher estate;
encouragement of all so-called historical seeds, which in reality are old,
cut-off stalks.

But it is not only in this respect that the Germanising trend has let
itself be cheated of freedom of thought by a determined reaction; its
ideas on the constitution are the whispered promptings of the
gentlemen of the Berliner politisches Wochenblatt. It was painful to see
how even the solid, quiet Arndt allowed himself to be dazzled by the
sophisticated glitter of the organic state. Phrases about historical
development, making use of the given factors, organism, and so on,
must once have possessed a charm which entirely eludes us now
because we realise that they are mostly fine words which do not
seriously mean what they actually signify. Challenge these ghosts pointblank! What do you understand by the organic state? A state whose
institutions have grown with and out of the nation in the course of the
centuries, and which have not been constructed from theory. Very well;
now apply this to Germany! This organism is supposed to consist of the
citizens being divided into nobility, burghers and peasants, and
everything else that goes with it. All this is supposed to lie hidden in
nuce in the word organism. Is that not deplorable, shameful sophistry?
Self-development of the nation, does that not look exactly like freedom?
You grasp at it with both hands and what you get is the full burden of
the Middle Ages and the ancien regime. Fortunately this sleight-ofhand cannot be laid to Arndts account. Not the supporters of division
into estates, but we, its opponents, want an organic state life. The point
at the moment is not construction from theory; it is what they want to
blind us with: the self-development of the nation. We alone are serious
and sincere about it. But these gentlemen do not know that every
organism becomes inorganic as soon as it dies; they set the corpses of
the past in motion with their galvanic wires and try to fool us that this is
not a mechanism but life. They want to promote the self-development
of the nation and fasten the ball and chain of absolutism to its ankle so
that it will go ahead more quickly. They do not want to know that what
they call theory, ideology, or God knows what, has long passed into the
blood and sap of the nation and in part has already come to life; that
not we, therefore, but they have lost their way in the utopias of theory.
For that which was indeed still theory half a century ago has developed
as an independent element in the state organism since the revolution.
Moreover, and this is the main thing, does the development of mankind
not rank above that of the nation?
And what about the estates? The dividing line between burghers and
peasants simply does not exist; not even the historical school [105] takes it
seriously; it is put there only pro forma, to make the separation of the
nobility more plausible to us. Everything turns on the nobility. When

the nobility goes, so does the estates system. And with the nobilitys
position as an estate things look even worse than with its composition
[A pun on the German words Stand andBestand]. An entailed
hereditary estate is absolute nonsense according to modern
conceptions. Not in the Middle Ages, of course. In those days in the free
cities of the Empire (as in Bremen, for example, even today) there were
hereditary guilds with hereditary privileges, pure bakers blood and
pure pewterers blood. Indeed, what is the pride of the nobility
compared with the consciousness: My ancestors have been beerbrewers for twenty generations We still have butchers, or in the more
poetical Bremen name, bone-choppers blood in the nobility, since the
military profession, laid down by Herr Fouqu as proper to it, is
continual butchery and bone-chopping. For the nobility to regard itself
as an estate, when no calling is exclusively reserved for it under the law
of any state, neither the military nor that of the large landowner, is
ridiculous arrogance. Anything written on the nobility could have as a
motto this line by the troubadour William of Poitiers: I'll make a song
about sheer nothing. And since the nobility feels its own inner
nothingness, no nobleman can hide the pain of it, from the very
intelligent Baron of Sternberg to the very unintelligent C. L. F. W. G.
von Alvensleben. The tolerance which would leave the nobility the
pleasure of regarding itself as something special so long as it does not
demand any privileges is most misplaced. For as long as the nobility
represents something special, it will desire and must have privileges.
We stand by our demand: No estates, but a great, united nation of
citizens with equal rights!

Telegraph fr Deutschland No. 5, January 1841

Another thing which Arndt demands of his state is entails, in general
an agrarian legislation laying down fixed conditions for landed
property. Apart from its general importance, this point also deserves
attention because here too the up-to-date reaction already mentioned
threatens to put things back on the footing before 1789. How many have
been raised to the nobility recently on condition that they institute an
entail guaranteeing the prosperity of the family! Arndt is definitely
against the unlimited freedom and divisibility of landed property; he
sees as its inevitable consequence the division of the land into plots
none of which could support its owner. But he fails to see that complete
freeing of the land provides the means of restoring in general the
balance which in individual cases it may, of course, upset. While the
complicated legislation in most German states and Arndts equally

complicated proposals will never eliminate, but only aggravate

anomalies in agrarian relations, they also hinder a voluntary return to
the proper order in the event of any dislocation, necessitate
extraordinary interference by the state and hinder the progress of this
legislation by a hundred petty but unavoidable private considerations.
By contrast, freedom of the land allows no extremes to arise, neither the
development of big landowners into an aristocracy, nor the splitting up
of fields into patches so small as to become useless. If one scale of the
balance goes down too far, the content of the other soon becomes
concentrated in compensation. And even if landed property were to fly
from hand to hand I would rather have the surging ocean with its grand
freedom than the narrow inland lake with its quiet surface, whose
miniature waves are broken every three steps by a spit of land, the root
of a tree, or a stone. It is not merely that the permission to entail means
the consent of the state to the formation of an aristocracy; no, this
fettering of landed property, like all entails, works directly towards a
revolution. When the best part of the land is welded to individual
families and made inaccessible to all other citizens, is not that a direct
provocation of the people? Does not the right of primogeniture rest on a
view of property which has long ceased to correspond to our ideas? As if
one generation had the right to dispose absolutely of the property of all
future generations, which at the moment it enjoys and administers, as if
the freedom of property were not destroyed by so disposing of it that all
descendants are robbed of this freedom! As if human beings could thus
be tied to the soil for all eternity Incidentally, landed property well
deserves the attention which Arndt devotes to it and the importance of
the subject would certainly merit thorough discussion from the highest
standpoint of the present time. Previous theories all suffer from the
hereditary disease of German men of learning who think they must
assert their independence by each having a separate system of his own.
If the retrograde aspects of Germanisation deserve closer
examination partly for the sake of the revered man, who defends them
as his own convictions, partly because of the favour which they have
found of late in Prussia, another of its tendencies must be all the more
decisively rejected because it is again threatening to prevail among us:
hatred of the French. I will not join issue with Arndt and the other men
of 1813, but the servile twaddle which without any principle all
newspapers now serve up against the French is utterly repulsive to me.
It requires a high degree of obsequiousness to be convinced by the July
convention [106] that the Eastern question is a matter of life or death for
Germany and that Mohammed Ali endangers our nationhood. By

supporting the Egyptian, France has from that standpoint indeed

committed against the German nation the same crime of which she
became guilty at the beginning of the century. It is sad that for half a
year already one has not been able to open a newspaper without
meeting this newly awakened French-eating fury. And what is it for? To
give the Russians enough additional land and the English enough
trading power so that they can get us Germans in a vice and crush us to
smithereens! The stable principle of England and the system of Russia,
these are the sworn enemies of European progress, not France and her
movement. But because two German sovereigns have found it proper to
join the convention, the affair has suddenly become a German concern,
France is the old godless, Gallic sworn enemy, and the perfectly
natural arming of a truly insulted France is a crime against the German
nation. The ridiculous clamour of a few French journalists for the Rhine
frontier is thought worthy of lengthy rejoinders, which are
unfortunately never read by Frenchmen, and Beckers song They shall
not have it" ["Sie sollen ihn nicht haben the first line of N. Beckers
song Der deutsche Rhein ] is par force turned into a folk-song. I do not
grudge Becker his songs success and I will not examine its poetic
content, I am even glad to hear such expressions of German sentiment
from the left bank of the Rhine, but I share the view of the articles
already published in this journal which have just come to hand that it is
ridiculous to want to elevate this modest poem into a national anthem.
They shall not have it. So again negative? Can you be satisfied with a
negative folk -song? Can German nationhood find support solely in
polemic against foreign countries? The text of the Marseillaise is not
worth much in spite of all its enthusiasm, but how much more noble is
its reaching out beyond nationality to mankind. And now, after
Burgundy and Lorraine have been torn from us, after we have let
Flanders become French and Holland and Belgium independent, after
France has already advanced in Alsace as far as the Rhine and only a
relatively small part of the once German left bank of the Rhine is still
ours, we are not ashamed to talk big and to write: at least you shall not
have the last piece. Oh, the Germans! And if the French had the Rhine,
we would cry with the most ridiculous pride: they shall not have it, the
free German Weser, and so on to the Elbe and Oder, until Germany was
divided up between France and Russia, and it was only left for us to
sing: they shall not have it, the free stream of German theory, so long as
it calmly flows into the ocean of infinity, so long as a single unpractical
ideal fish flaps a fin on its bottom! Instead of which we should do
penance in sackcloth and ashes for the sins through which we have lost
all those beautiful lands, for the disunity and the betrayal of the idea,

for the provincial patriotism which deserts the whole for the sake of
local advantage, and for the lack of national consciousness. True, it is a
fixed idea with the French that the Rhine is their property, but to this
arrogant demand the only reply worthy of the German nation is
Arndts: Give back Alsace and Lorraine[
For I am of the opinion, perhaps in contrast to many whose
standpoint I share in other respects, that the reconquest of the Germanspeaking left bank of the Rhine is a matter of national honour, and that
the Germanisation of a disloyal Holland and of Belgium is a political
necessity for us. Shall we let the German nationality be completely
suppressed in these countries, while the Slavs are rising ever more
powerfully in the east? Shall we give up the Germanness of our most
beautiful provinces to buy the friendship of France; possession going
back barely a century which could not even assimilate what was
conquered-shah we accept this and the treaties of 1815 [the decisions of
the Vienna Congress] as a judgment of the world spirit against which
there is no appeal?
On the other hand, however, we are not worthy of the Alsatians so
long as we cannot give them what they now have: a free public life in a
great state. Without doubt, there will be another war between us and
France, and then we shall see who is worthy of the left bank of the
Rhine. Until then we can well leave the question to the development of
our nationhood and of the world spirit, until then let us work for a clear,
mutual understanding among the European nations and strive for the
inner unity which is our prime need and the basis of our future
freedom. So long as our Fatherland remains split we shall be politically
null, and public life, developed constitutionalism, freedom of the press,
and all else that we demand will be mere pious wishes always only halffulfilled; so let us strive for this and not for the extirpation of the
French! Nevertheless, Germanising negation has still not fully
completed its task: there is still plenty to be sent home over the Alps,
the Rhine, and the Vistula. The Russians can have the pentarchy, [107] the
Italians their papism with all its hangers-on, their Bellini, Donizetti and
even Rossini if they want to make him out greater than Mozart and
Beethoven, and the French their arrogant opinion of us, their
vaudevilles and operas, their Scribe and Adam. We want to chase all
these crazy foreign habits and fashions, all the superfluous foreign
words back whence they came; we want to cease to be the dupes of
foreigners and want to stand together as a single, indivisible, strong,
and with Gods will free German nation.

Engels liked the idea of a "Thousand year Reich" too

This is our calling, that we shall become the templars of
this Grail, gird the sword round our loins for its sake and
stake our lives joyfully in the last, holy war which will be
followed by the thousand-year reign of freedom.
Frederick Engels
Schelling and Revelation

Conclusion
That is the main content of Schellings lectures, as far as it could be made
out by comparing three notebooks. I am conscious of having proceeded with
the greatest sincerity and candour. Here we have the entire dogma: the Trinity,
the creation from nothing, the fall of man, original sin and the impotence to do
good, the reconciliation through the death of Christ, the resurrection, the
descent of the Holy Ghost, the community of the Saints, the resurrection of the
dead and eternal life. Thus Schelling himself negates the separation of fact and
dogma which he had stipulated. But if we look at the matter more closely, is
this Christianity still the old one? If you approach it without prejudice you will
have to say: Yes and No. The irreconcilability of philosophy and Christianity
has gone so far that even Schelling falls into a still worse contradiction than
Hegel. The latter had at least a philosophy, even if the outcome was only an
apparent Christianity; by contrast, what Schelling produces is neither
Christianity nor philosophy, and his passing it off for both is the measure of his
straightforwardness and frankness, of the merit that to those who asked him
for bread he gave real bread, not a stone, while saying it was bread. That
Schelling does not know himself in the least is again proved by the speech
from which these words are taken. Such a doctrine again really brings home to
one how weak are the foundations on which modern Christianity rests.
If we once more review this doctrine in its entirety, in addition to what has
already been said we obtain also the following results for the definition of the
neo-Schellingian manner of thinking. The confusion of freedom and
arbitrariness is in full flower. God is always conceived as acting in a humanly
arbitrary fashion. This is indeed necessary so long as God is conceived as

single, but it is not philosophical. Only that freedom is genuine which contains
necessity, nay, which is only the truth, the reasonableness of necessity.
Therefore Hegels God cannot now or ever be a single person, since everything
arbitrary has been removed from Him. Therefore when he speaks of God,
Schelling has to employ free thinking, for the necessary thinking of logical
inference excludes any kind of divine person. The Hegelian dialectic, this
mighty, never resting driving force of thought, is nothing but the consciousness
of mankind in pure thinking, the consciousness of the universal, Hegels
consciousness of God. Where, as with Hegel, everything produces itself, a
divine personality is superfluous.
Furthermore, another contradiction is revealed in the division of philosophy.
If the negative philosophy is without all reference to existence, there is no
logical necessity that it should not also contain things which do not occur in
the real world. Schelling admits this when he says of it that it is not concerned
with the world, and that if the world agrees with its constructions, this is
accidental. In this way, however, negative philosophy becomes quite empty
and hollow, wandering around in the most arbitrary possibility and flinging its
doors wide open to fantasy. On the other hand, however, if it contains only
what is real in nature and spirit, it, of course, includes reality and the positive
philosophy is superfluous. This is to be seen also from the other side. Nature
and spirit are for Schelling all that is rational. God is not rational.. So here also
it is shown that the infinite can only rationally exist in reality when it appears
as finite, as nature and spirit, and that any other-worldly, extra-mundane
existence of the infinite must be relegated to the realm of abstractions. That
particular positive philosophy depends entirely on faith, as we have seen, and
exists only for faith. If now a Jew or Mohammedan accepts Schellings
premises in the negative science, he will necessarily also have to fashion for
himself a Jewish or Mohammedan positive philosophy. Indeed, it will differ
even for Catholicism and for the Anglican Church. All are equally justified, for
it is not dogma that matters, but fact. And the so beloved free thinking
allows everything to be construed as absolute. Particularly in
Mohammedanism, the facts are far better construed than in Christianity.
So we have come to the end of Schellings philosophy and can only regret
that such a man should have become so caught in the snares of faith and
unfreedom. He was different when he was still young. Then there arose from
the ferment of his brain forms as radiant as Pallas, of which many a one forged
to the front also in later struggles; then freely and boldly he sailed into the
open sea of thought to discover Atlantis, the absolute, whose image he had so
often seen rising from the distant horizon of the sea like a dreamily

shimmering fata morgana; then all the fire of youth broke from him in flames
of enthusiasm; a prophet drunk with God, he foretold a new era; carried away
by the spirit which came over him, he often did not know himself the meaning
of his words. He tore wide open the doors to philosophising so that the breath
of nature wafted freshly through the chambers of abstract thought and the
warm rays of spring fell on the seed of the categories and awakened all
slumbering forces. But the fire burnt itself out, the courage vanished, the
fermenting new wine turned into sour vinegar before it could become clear
wine. The old ship dancing joyfully through the waves turned back and entered
the shallow haven of faith, ran it& keel so fast into the sand that it is still stuck
there. There it lies, and nobody recognises in the old, frail wreck the old ship
which went out with all sails spread and flags flying. The sails have long since
rotted, the masts are broken, the waves pour in through the gaping planks, and
every day the tides pile up more sand around the keel.
Let us turn away from this waste of time. There are finer things for us to
contemplate. No one will want to show us this wreck and claim that it alone is
a seaworthy vessel while in another port an entire fleet of proud frigates lies at
anchor, ready to put out to the high seas. Our salvation, our future, lies
elsewhere. Hegel is the man who opened up a new era of consciousness by
completing the old. It is curious that just now he is being attacked from two
sides, by his predecessor Schelling and by his youngest follower Feuerbach.
When the latter charges Hegel with being stuck deeply in the old, he should
consider that consciousness of the old is already precisely the new, that the old
is relegated to history precisely when it has been brought completely into
consciousness. So Hegel is indeed the new as old, the old as new. And so
Feuerbachs critique of Christianity is a necessary complement to the
speculative teaching on religion founded by Hegel. This has reached its peak in
Strauss, through its own history the dogma dissolves objectively in
philosophical thought. At the same time Feuerbach reduces the religious
categories to subjective human relations, and thereby does not by any means
annul the results achieved by Strauss, but on the contrary puts them to the real
test and in fact both come to the same result, that the secret of theology is
anthropology.
A fresh morning has dawned, a world-historic morning, like the one in
which the bright, free, Hellenic consciousness broke out of the dusk of the
Orient. The sun has risen greeted with smiles by sacrificial fires on all the
mountain peaks, the sun, whose coming was announced in ringing fanfares
from every watch-tower, whose light mankind was anxiously awaiting. We are
awakened from long slumber, the nightmare which oppressed us has fled, we

rub our eyes and look around us in amazement. Everything has changed. The
world that was so alien to us, nature whose hidden forces frightened us like
ghosts, how familiar, how homely they now are! The world which appeared to
us like a prison now shows itself in its true form, as a magnificent royal palace
in which we all go in and out, poor and rich, high and low. Nature opens up
before us and calls to us.. Do not flee from me, I am not depraved, I have not
fallen away from the truth; come and see, it is your own inmost and truest
essence which gives also to me the fullness of life and the beauty of youth!
Heaven has come down to earth, its treasures lie scattered like stones on the
road-side, whoever desires them has but to pick them up. All confusion, all
fear, all division has vanished. The world is again a whole, independent and
free; it has burst open the doors of its dank cloister, has thrown off its
sackcloth and chosen the free, pure ether to dwell in. No longer does it have to
justify itself to unreason, which could not. grasp it; its splendour and glory, its
fullness and strength, its life is its justification. He was surely right who
eighteen hundred years ago divined that the world, the cosmos, would one day
push him aside, and bade his disciples renounce the world.
And man, the dearest child of nature, a free man after the long battles of
youth, returning to his mother after the long estrangement, protecting her
against all the phantoms of enemies slain in battle, has overcome also the
separation from himself, the division in his own breast. After an inconceivably
long age of wrestling and striving, the bright day of self-consciousness has
risen for him. Free and strong he stands there, confident in himself and proud,
for he has fought the battle of battles, he has overcome himself and pressed the
crown of freedom on his head. Everything has become revealed to him and
nothing had the strength to shut itself up against him. Only now does true life
open to him. What formerly he strove towards in obscure presentiment, he now
attains with complete, free will. What seemed to lie outside him, in the hazy
distance, he now finds in himself as his own flesh and blood. He does not care
that he has bought it dearly, with his hearts best blood, for the crown was
worth the blood; the long time of wooing is not lost to him, for the noble,
splendid bride whom he leads into the chamber has only become the clearer to
him for it; the jewel, the holy thing he has found after long searching was
worth many a fruitless quest. And this crown, this bride, this holy thing is
the self-consciousness of mankind, the new Grail [126] round whose throne the
nations gather in exultation and which makes kings of all who submit to it, so
that all splendour and might, all dominion and power, all the beauty and
fullness of this world lie at their feet and must yield themselves up for their
glorification. This is our calling, that we shall become the templars of this

Grail, gird the sword round our loins for its sake and stake our lives joyfully in
the last, holy war which will be followed by the thousand-year reign of
freedom. And such is the power of the Idea that he who has recognised it
cannot cease to speak of its splendour or to proclaim its all-conquering might,
that in gaiety and good heart he gives up all else at its bidding, that he
sacrifices body and soul, life and property in order that it and it alone shall
triumph. He who has once beheld it, to whom in the nightly stillness of his
little room it has once appeared in all its brightness, can never abandon it, he
must follow where it leads, even to death. For he knows that it is stronger than
everything in heaven and on earth, that it fights its way through against all
enemies. And this belief in the all-conquering might of the Idea, in the victory
of eternal truth, this firm confidence that it can never waver or yield, even if
the whole world were to rise against it, that is the true religion of every
genuine philosopher, that is the basis of the true positive philosophy, the
philosophy of world history. This is the supreme revelation, that of man to
man, in which all negation of criticism is positive. This press and storm of
nations and heroes over which the Idea hovers in eternal peace and at last
comes down into the midst of the turmoil and becomes its inmost, most living,
self-conscious soul, that is the source of all salvation and all deliverance; that
is the realm in which each one of us in his place has to work and act. The Idea,
the self-consciousness of mankind, is that wonderful phoenix who builds for
himself a funeral pyre out of all that is most precious in the world and rises
rejuvenated from the flames which destroy an old time.
So let us carry to this phoenix on the funeral pyre all that is most dear to us
and most beloved, all that was sacred and great for us before we were free! Let
us not think any love, any gain, any riches too great to sacrifice gladly to the
Idea it will repay us everything a thousandfold! Let us fight and bleed, look
undismayed into the grim eye of the enemy and hold out to the end! Do you
see our flags wave from the mountain peaks? Do you see the swords of our
comrades glinting, the plumes on the helmets fluttering? They are coming,
they are coming, from all valleys, from all heights they are streaming towards
us with song and the call of trumpets; the day of the great decision, of the
battle of the nations, is approaching, and victory must be ours!

ENGELS SAID GERMANS SHOULD USE TERROR

AGAINST THE SLAVS
And dismissed justice and morality from consideration in

the matter. And he didn't think much of brotherhood either

(...)Justice and other moral considerations may be
damaged here and there; but what does that matter to
such facts of world-historic significance? (...)
Following that, Bohemia and Moravia passed definitely to
Germany and the Slovak regions remained with Hungary.
And this historically absolutely non-existent "nation" puts
forward claims to independence? (...)
Of course, matters of this kind cannot be accomplished
without many a tender national blossom being forcibly
broken. But in history nothing is achieved without power
and implacable ruthlessness, (...)
To the sentimental phrases about brotherhood which we
are being offered here on behalf of the most counterrevolutionary nations of Europe, we reply that hatred of
Russians was and still is the primary revolutionary passion
among Germans; that since the revolution hatred of
Czechs and Croats has been added, and that only by the
most determined use of terror against these Slav peoples
can we, jointly with the Poles and Magyars, safeguard the
revolution. (...)
Then there will be a struggle, an "unrelenting life-anddeath struggle" against those Slavs who betray the
revolution; an annihilating fight and most determined

terrorism -- not in the interests of Germany, but in the

interests of the revolution!
Context here
The German
Engels, NRZ 15. Feb. 1849
,... die 'Gerechtigkeit' und andere moralische
Grundsaetze moegen hier und da verletzt sein; aber was
gilt das gegen solche weltgeschichtlichen Tatsachen?
(....)
Dann kommt Boehmen und Maehren definitiv zu
Deutschland, und die slowakischen Gegenden bleiben
bei Ungarn. Und diese geschichtlich gar nicht existiende
'Nation' macht Ansprueche auf Unabhaengigkeit? (...)
Freilich, dergleichen lae t sich nicht durchsetzen ohne
manch sanftes Nationenbluemlein gewaltsam zu
zerknicken. Aber ohne Gewalt und ohne eherne
Ruecksichtslosigkeit wird nichts durchgesetzt in der
Geschichte, (...)
Auf die sentimentalen Bruederschaftsphrasen, die uns
hier im Namen der kontrevolutionaersten Nationen
Europas dargeboten werden, antworten wir, da der
Russenha die erste revolutionaere Leidenschaft bei den
Deutschen war und noch ist; da seit der Revolution der
Tschechen- und Kroatenha hinzugekommen ist und da
wir, in Gemeinschaft mit Polen und Magyaren, nur durch

den entschiedensten Terrorismus gegen diese

slawischen Voelker die Revolution sicherstellen koennen
(....)
Dann Kampf, 'unerbittlicher Kampf auf Leben und Tod'
mit dem revolutionsverraeterischen Slawentum;
Vernichtungskampf und ruecksichtslosen Terrorismus nicht im Interesse Deutschlands, sondern im Interesse
der Revolution!"
MEW a.a.O. 6, 286. Marx in Neue Rheinische Zeitung February
1849

Democratic Pan-Slavism

[314]

by Frederick Engels
Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 222
Translated by the Marx-Engels Institute
Transcribed for the Internet by director@marx.org, 1994

Cologne, February 14, 1849 - We have often enough pointed out that the
romantic dreams which came into being after the revolutions of February and
March, such as ardent fantasies about the universal fraternal union of people,
a European federative republic, and eternal world peace, were basically
nothing but screens hiding the immeasurable perplexity and inactivity of the
leading spokesmen of that time. People did not see, or did not want to see,
what had to be done to safeguard the revolution; they were unable or
unwilling to carry out any really revolutionary measures; the narrowmindedness of some and the counter-revolutionary intrigues of others

resulted in the people getting only sentimental phrases instead of

revolutionary deeds. The scoundrel Lamartine with his high-flown
declarations was the classical hero of this epoch of betrayal of the people
disguised by poetic floridity and rhetorical tinsel.
The peoples who have been through the revolution know how dearly they
have had to pay because in their simplicity at the time they believed the loud
talk and bombastic assurances. Instead of safeguards for the revolution everywhere reactionary Chambers which undermined the revolution; instead of
fulfillment of the promises given at the barricades - counter-revolution in
Naples, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, the fall of Milan, and the war against Hungary;
instead of the fraternal union of peoples - renewal of the Holy Alliance on the
broadest basis under the patronage of England and Russia. And the very same
persons who in April and May responded jubilantly to the high-flown phrases
of the epoch, now only blush with shame at the thought of how at that time
they allowed themselves to be deceived by idiots and rogues.
People have learned by bitter experience that the "European fraternal union
of peoples" cannot be achieved by mere phrases and pious wishes, but only by
profound revolutions and bloody struggles; they have learned that the question
is not that of a fraternal union of all European peoples under a single
republican flag, but of an alliance of the revolutionary peoples against the
counter-revolutionary peoples, an alliance which comes into being not
on paper, but only on the battlefield.
Throughout Western Europe these bitter but necessary experiences have
completely discredited Lamartine's phrase-mongering. In the east, on the other
hand, there are still sections, ostensibly democratic, revolutionary sections,
which are not tired of echoing these phrases and sentimental ideas and
preaching the gospel of the European fraternal union of peoples.
These actions - we leave out of account some ignorant German-speaking
dreamers such as Herr A. Ruge, etc. - are the democratic pan-Slavists of the
various Slav peoples.
The programme of democratic pan-Slavism lies before us in the shape of a
pamphlet: Aufruf an die Slaven. Von einem russischen Patrioten, Michael
Bakunin, Mitgleid des Slavencongresses in Prag. Koethen, 1848.
Bakunin is our friend. That will not deter us from criticizing his pamphlet.

Hear how Bakunin at the very beginning of his Appeal adheres to the
illusions of last March and April:
"The very first sign of life of the revolution was a cry of hate against the old [policy of]
oppression, a cry of sympathy and love for all oppressed nationalities. The peoples... felt at last
the disgrace with which the old diplomacy had burdened mankind, and they realized that the
well-being of the nations will never be ensured as long as there is a single nation anywhere in
Europe living under oppression.... Away with the oppressors! was the unanimous cry; all hail to
the oppressed, the Poles, the Italians and all of the others! No more wars of conquest, but only
the one last war fought out to the end, the good fight of the revolution for the final liberation of
all peoples! Down with the artificial barriers which have been forcibly erected by congresses of
despots [meaning Vienna Congresses of 1814-15] in accordance with so-called historical,
geographical, commercial and strategical necessities! There should be no other frontiers than
those natural boundaries drawn in accordance with justice and democracy and established by the
sovereign will of the peoples themselves on the basis of their national characteristics. Such is the
call issued by all the people." pp. 6, 7.

In this passage we already find reproduced all the rapturous enthusiasm of

the first months after the revolution. There is not a word about the actually
existing obstacles to such a universal liberation, or about the very diverse
political needs of the individual peoples. The word "freedom" replaces all
that. There is not one word about the actual state of things, or, insofar as it
does receive attention, it is described as absolutely reprehensible, arbitrarily
established by "congresses of despots" and "diplomats". To this bad reality is
counterposed the alleged will of the people with its categorical imperative,
with the absolute demand simply for "freedom".
We have seen who proved to be the stronger. The alleged will of the people
was so disgracefully deceived precisely because it trusted in such fantastic
abstraction from the conditions actually prevailing.
"By its plenipotentiary power the revolution declared the despotic states dissolved; dissolved the
Prussian state... Austria... the Turkish Empire... and, finally, the last hope of the despots... the
Russian Empire... and as the final goal of all - the universal federation of the European
republics." p. 8.

As a matter of fact, here in the West it must strike us as peculiar that after all
of these beautiful plans have come to grief at the first attempt to fulfill them
they can still be regarded as something meritorious and great. Certainly, the
unfortunate thing was precisely that although the revolution "by its own
plenipotentiary power the revolution declared the despotic states dissolved",
at the same time "by its own plenipotentiary power" it did not lift a finger to
carry out its decree.

At that same time the Slav Congress was convened. The Slav Congress
adopted completely the standpoint of these illusions. Listen to this:
"With a lively sense of the common ties of history (?) and blood, we swore not to allow our fates
to separate us again from one another. Pronouncing a curse on the policy of which we have so
long been the victims, we ourselves asserted our right to complete independence and vowed that
henceforth this should be common to all the Slave peoples. We recognized the independence of
Bohemia and Moravia... we held out our fraternal hand to the German people, to democratic
Germany. In the name of those of us who live in Hungary, we offered the Magyars, the furious
enemies of our race... a fraternal alliance. Nor did we forget in our alliance for liberation those of
our brothers who groan under the Turkish yoke. We solemnly condemned the treacherous policy
which three times cut Poland into pieces.... All that we proclaimed, and together with the
democrats of all peoples (?) we demanded freedom, equality and the brotherhood of all nations."
p. 10.

Democratic pan-Slavism still puts forward these demands:

"At that time we felt confident of our cause... justice and humanity were wholly on our side, and
nothing but illegality and barbarity on the side of our enemies. The ideas to which we devoted
ourselves were no empty figments of a dream, they were the ideas of the sole true and necessary
policy, the policy of revolution."

"Justice", "humanity", "freedom", "equality", "fraternity", "independence" so far we have found nothing in the pan-Slavist manifesto but these more or
less ethical categories, which sound very fine, it is true, but prove absolutely
nothing in historical and political questions. "Justice", "humanity", "freedom",
etc., may demand this or that a thousand times over; but if the thing is
impossible it does not take place and in spite of everything remains an
"empty figment of a dream". The pan-Slavists' illusions ought to have
understood that all pious wishes and beautiful dreams are of no avail against
the iron reality, and that their policy at any time was no more the "policy of
revolution" than was that of the French Republic. Nevertheless, today, in
January 1849, they still come to us with the same old phrases, in the content
of which Western Europe has been disillusioned by the bloodiest counterrevolution!
Just a word about "universal fraternal union of peoples" and the drawing of
"boundaries established by the sovereign will of the peoples themselves on the
basis of their national characteristics". The United States and Mexico are two
republics, in both of which the people is sovereign.
How did it happen that over Texas a war broke out between these two
republics, which, according to the moral theory, ought to have been
"fraternally united" and "federated", and that, owing to "geographical,
commercial and strategical necessities", the "sovereign will" of the American

people, supported by the bravery of the American volunteers, shifted the

boundaries drawn by nature some hundreds of miles further south? And will
Bakunin accuse the Americans of a "war of conquest", which, although it deals
with a severe blow to his theory based on "justice and humanity", was
nevertheless waged wholly and solely in the interest of civilization? Or is it
perhaps unfortunate that splendid California has been taken away from the lazy
Mexicans, who could not do anything with it? That the energetic Yankees by
rapid exploitation of the California gold mines will increase the means of
circulation, in a few years will concentrate a dense population and extensive
trade at the most suitable places on the coast of the Pacific Ocean, create large
cities, open up communications by steamship, construct a railway from New
York to San Francisco, for the first time really open the Pacific Ocean to
civilization, and for the third time in history give the world trade a new
direction? The "independence" of a few Spanish Californians and Texans may
suffer because of it, in someplaces "justice" and other moral principles may be
violated; but what does that matter to such facts of world-historic significance?
We would point out, incidentally, that this theory of universal fraternal union
of peoples, which calls indiscriminately for fraternal union regardless of the
historical situation and the stage of social development of the individual
peoples, was combated by the editors of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung already
long before the revolution, and in fact in opposition to their best friends, the
English and French democrats. Proof of this is to be found in the English,
French and Belgian democratic newspapers of that period.
As far as pan-Slavism in particular is concerned, in the Neue Rheinische
Zeitung No.194 we showed that, part from the well-meaning self-deceptions of
the democratic pan-Slavists, it has in reality no other aim than to give the
Austrian Slavs, who are split up and historically, literally, politically,
commercially and industrially dependent on the Germans and Magyars, a basis
of support, in Russia on the one hand, and on the other hand in the Austrian
united monarchy, which is dominated by the Slav majority and dependent on
Russia. We have shown how such little nations. which for centuries have been
taken in tow by history against their will, must necessarily be counterrevolutionary, and that their whole position in the revolution in 1848 was
actually counter-revolutionary. In view of the democratic pan-Slavist
manifesto, which demands the independence of all Slavs without distinction,
we must return to this matter.
Let us note first of all that there is much excuse for the political romanticism
and sentimentality of the democrats at the Slav Congress. With the exception
of the Poles - the Poles are not pan-Slavists for very obvious reasons - they all

belong to peoples which are either, like the Southern Slavs, necessarily
counter-revolutionary owning to the whole of their historical position, or, like
the Russians, are still a long way from revolution and therefore, at least for the
time being, are still counter-revolutionary. These sections, democratic owing
to their education acquired abroad, seek to bring their democratic views into
harmony with their national feeling, which is known to be very pronounced
among the Slavs; and since the real world, the actual state of things in their
country, affords no basis, or only a fictitious basis for such reconciliation, there
remains for them nothing but the other-worldly "airy kingdom of dreams"
[quoting Heinrich Heine] the realm of pious wishes, the policy of fantasy. How
splendid it would be if the Croats, Pandours and Cossacks formed the
vanguard of European democracy, if the ambassador of a republic of Siberia
were to present his credentials in Paris! Certainly, such prospects would be
very delightful; but, after all, even the most enthusiastic pan-Slavist will not
demand that European democracy should wait for their realization - and at
present it is precisely those nations from whom the manifesto specially
demands independence that are the special enemies of democracy.
We repeat: apart from the Poles, the Russians, and at most the Turkish Slavs,
no Slav people has a future, for the simple reason that all the other Slavs lack
the primary historical, geographical, political and industrial conditions for
independence and viability.
Peoples which have never had a history of their own, which from the time
when they achieved the first, most elementary stage of civilization already
came under foreign sway, or which were forced to attain the first stage of
civilization only by means of a foreign yoke, are not viable and will never be
able to achieve any kind of independence.
And that has been the fate of the Austrian Slavs. The Czechs, among whom
we would include the Moravians and Slovaks, although they differ in respect
of language and history, have never had a history of their own. Bohemia has
been chained to Germany since the time of Charles the Great. The Czech
nation freed itself momentarily and formed the Great-Moravian state, only
immediately to come under subjugation again and for 500 years to be a bill
thrown from one to another by Germany, Hungary and Poland. Following that,
Bohemia and Moravia passed definitely to Germany and the Slovak regions
remained with Hungary. And this historically absolutely non-existent "nation"
puts forward claims to independence?
The same thing holds for the Southern Slavs proper. Where is the history of
the Illyrian Solvenes, the Dalmatians, Croats and Shokazians? Since the 11th

century they have lost the last semblance of political independence and have
been partly under German, partly under Venetian, and partly under Magyar
rule. And it is desired to put together a vigorous, independent, viable nation
out of these tattered remnants?
More than that. If the Austrian Slavs were a compact mass like the Poles, the
Magyars and the Italians, if they were in a position to come together to form a
state of 12-20 million people, then their claims would surely be more serious.
But the position is just the opposite. The Germans and Magyars have pushed
themselves in between them like a broad wedge to the farthest extremities of
the Carpathians, almost to the Black Sea, and have separated the Czechs,
Moravians and Slovaks from the Southern Slavs by a broad band 60-80 miles
[German mile equals 4.7 English miles] wide. To the north of this band are 5.5
million Slavs, to the south 5.5 million Slavs, separated by a compact mass of
10-11 million Germans and Magyars, made allies by history and necessity.
But why should not the 5.5 million Czechs, Moravians and Slovaks form
one state, and the 5.5 million Southern Slavs together with the Turkish Slavs
form another state?
Take a look at any good linguistic map of the distribution of the Czechs and
their neighbors akin to them in language. They have thrust themselves into
Germany like a wedge but on both sides they have been eaten into and pressed
back by the German element. One-third of Bohemia speaks German; for every
34 Czechs in Bohemia there are 17 Germans. Yet it is precisely the Czechs in
Bohemia who are supposed to form the core of the intended Slav state; for the
Moravians, too, are considerably interspersed with Germans, and the Slovaks
with Germans and Magyars end furthermore completely demoralized in a
national respect. And what a Slav state that would be, in which in the final
analysis the German urban bourgeoisie would hold sway!
The same thing applies to the Southern Slavs. The Slovenes and Croats cut
of Germany and Hungary from the Adriatic Sea; but Germany and
Hungary cannot allow themselves to be cut off from the Adriatic Sea on
account of "geographical and commercial necessities", which, it is true, are no
obstacle to Bakunin's fantasy, but which nevertheless do exist and are just as
much a vital question for Germany and Hungary as, for example, the Baltic
Sea coast from Danzig to Riga is for Poland. And where it is a question of the
existence, of the free development of all the resources of big nations, such
sentimental considerations as concern for a few scattered Germans of Slavs
will not decide anything! This apart from the fact that these Southern Slavs are
likewise everywhere mingled with German, Magyar, and Italian elements,

there here too a mere glance at a linguistic map shows the planned South-Slav
state would be delivered into the hands of the Italian bourgeoisie of Trieste,
Fiumeand Zara, and theGerman bourgeoisie of Agram, Laibach, Karlstadt,
Semlin, Pancsova, and Weisskirchen!
But could not the Austrian Southern Slavs unite with the Serbs, Bosnians,
Morlaks, and Bulgarians? Certainly they could if, besides the difficulties
mentioned above, there did not exist also the age-old hatred of the Austrian
frontier dwellers for the Turkish Slavs on the other side of the Sava and Unna;
but these people, who for centuries have considered one another as rascals and
bandits, despite all their racial kinship hate one another infinitely more than do
the Slavs and Magyars.
In point of fact, the position of the Germans and Magyars would be
extremely pleasant if the Austrian Slavs were assisted to get their so-called
rights! An independent Bohemian-Moravian state would be wedged between
Silesia and Austria; Austria and Styria would be cut off by the "South-Slav
republic" from their natural debouche [outlet] - the Adriatic Sea and the
Mediterranean; and the eastern part of Germany would be torn to pieces like a
loaf of bread that has been gnawed by rats! And all that by way of thanks for
the Germans having given themselves the trouble of civilizing the stubborn
Czechs and Slovenes, and introducing among them trade, industry, a tolerable
degree of agriculture, and culture!
But it is precisely this yoke imposed on the Slavs under the pretext of
civilization that is said to constitute one of the greatest crimes of the Germans
and Magyars! Just listen to this:
"Rightly do you rage, rightly do you breathe vengeance against the damnable German policy,
which has thought of nothing but your ruin, which has enslaved you for centuries...." p.5
"... The Magyars, the bitter enemies of our race, who number hardly four millions, have
presumed to seek to impose their yoke on eight million Slavs...." p.9
"I know all that the Magyars have done to our Slav brothers, what crimes they have committed
against our nationality, and how they have trampled underfoot our language and independence."
p.30

What then are the great, dreadful crimes committed by the Germans and
Magyars against the Slav nationality? We are not speaking here of the
partition of Poland, which is not at issue here, we are speaking of the
"centuries of injustice" supposed to have been inflicted on the Slavs.

In the north, the Germans have reconquered from the Slavs the formerly
German and subsequently Slav region from the Elbe to the Warthe; a conquest
which as determined by the "geographical and strategical necessities" resulting
from the partition of the Carolingian kingdom. These Slavs areas have been
fully Germanized; the thing has been done and cannot be undone, unless the
pan-Slavists were to resurrect the lost Sorbian, Wendish, and Obodritian
languages and impose them on the inhabitants of Leipzig, Berlin and Stettin.
But up to now it has never been disputed that this conquest was to the
advantage of civilization.
In the south, the Germans found the Slav races already split up. That had
been seen to by the non-Slav Avars, who occupied the region later inhabited
by the Magyars. The Germans exacted tribute from these Slavs and waged
many wars against them. They fought also against the Avars and Magyars,
from whom they took the whole territory from the Ems to the Leitha. Whereas
they carried out Germanization here by force, the Germanization of the Slav
territories proceeded much more on a peaceful basis, by immigration and by
the influence of the more developed nation on the undeveloped. German
industry, German trade, and German culture by themselves served to introduce
the German language into the country. As far as "oppression" is concerned, the
Slavs were not more oppressed by the Germans than the mass of the German
population itself.
As regards the Magyars, there are certainly also a large number of Germans
in Hungary, but the Magyars, although numbering "hardly four millions", have
never had the occasion to complain of the "damnable German policy"! And if
during eight centuries the "eight million Slavs" have had to suffer the yoke
imposed on them by the four million Magyars, that alone sufficiently proves
which was the more viable and vigorous, the many Slavs or the few Magyars!
But, of course, the greatest "crime" of the Germans and Magyars is that they
prevented these 12 million Slavs from becoming Turkish! What would have
become of these scattered small nationalities, which have played such a pitiful
role in history, if the Magyars and Germans had not kept them together and led
them against the armies of Mohammed and Suleiman, and if their so-called
oppressors had not decided the outcome of the battles which were fought for
the defense of these weak nationalities! The fate of the "12 million Slavs,
Wallachians, and Greeks" who have been "trampled underfoot by 700,000
Osmans" (p.8), right up to the present day, does not that speak eloquently
enough?

And finally, what a "crime" it is, what a "damnable policy" that at a time
when, in Europe in general, big monarchies had become a "historical
necessity", the Germans and Magyars untied all these small, stunted and
impotent little nations into a single big state and thereby enabled them to take
part in a historical development from which, left to themselves, they would
have remained completely aloof! Of course, matters of this kind cannot be
accomplished without many a tender national blossom being forcibly broken.
But in history nothing is achieved without violence and implacable
ruthlessness, and if Alexander, Caesar, and Napoleon had been capable of
being moved by the same sort of appeal as that which pan-Slavism now makes
on behalf of its ruined clients, what would have become of history! And are the
Persians, Celts, and Christian Germans of less value than the Czechs,
Ogulians, and Serezhans?
Now, however, as a result of the powerful progress of industry, trade and
communications, political centralization has become a much more urgent need
than it was then, in the 15th and 16th centuries. What still has to be centralized
is being centralized. And now the pan-Slavists come forward and demand that
we should "set free" these half-Germanized Slavs, and that we should abolish a
centralization which is being forced on these Slavs by all their material
interests!
In short, it turns out these "crimes" of the Germans and Magyars against the
said Slavs are among the best and most praiseworthy deeds which our and the
Magyar people can boast in their history.
Moreover, as far as the Magyars are concerned, it should be specially
pointed out here that, particularly since the revolution, they have acted too
much submissively and weakly against the puffed-up Croats. It is notorious
that Kossuth made all possible concessions to them, excepting only that their
deputies were not allowed to speak the Croatian in the Diet. And thus
submissiveness to a nation that is counter-revolutionary by nature is the only
thing with which the Magyars can be reproached.

Source: MECW Volume 8, p. 362;

Written: by Engels on February 14-15, 1849;
First published: in Neue Rheinische Zeitung Nos. 222 and 223, February 15

and 16, 1849.

Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 223, February 16, 1849

Cologne, February 15. We concluded yesterday with the proof that the
Austrian Slavs have never had a history of their own, that from the historical,
literary, political, commercial and industrial points of view they are
dependent on the Germans and Magyars, that they are already partly
Germanised, Magyarised and Italianised, that if they were to establish
independent states, not they, but the German and Italian bourgeoisie of their
towns would rule these states, and finally, that neither Hungary nor Germany
can tolerate the detachment and independent constitution of such unviable,
small intercalated states.
All that, however, would still not be decisive. If at any epoch while they
were oppressed the Slavs had begun a new revolutionary history, that by itself
would have proved their viability. From that moment the revolution would
have had an interest in their liberation, and the special interest of the Germans
and Magyars would have given way to the greater interest of the European
revolution.
Precisely that, however, never happened. The Slavs once again we
remind our readers that here we always exclude the Poles were always the
main instruments of the counter-revolutionaries. Oppressed at home, outside
their country, wherever Slav influence extended to, they were the oppressors of
all revolutionary nations.
Let no one object that we speak here on behalf of German national
prejudices. In German, French, Belgian and English periodicals, the proofs are
to be found that it was precisely the editors of Neue Rheinische Zeitung who
already long before the revolution most decisively opposed all manifestations
of German national narrowmindedness.[325] Unlike many other people, they did
not castigate the Germans at random or on the basis of mere hearsay; on the
contrary, they proved from history and mercilessly exposed the despicable role
that Germany has certainly played in history, thanks to its nobles and burghers
and thanks to its crippled industrial development; they have always recognised
the superiority of the great historical nations of the west, the English and the
French, compared with the backward Germans. But precisely for that reason
we should be permitted not to share the fantastic illusions of the Slavs and
allowed to judge other peoples as severely as we have judged our own nation.
Up to now it has always been said that the Germans have been
the Lanzknechte [spear-bearers] of despotism throughout Europe. We are far

from denying the shameful part played by the Germans in the shameful wars
against the French revolution from 1792 to 1815, and in the oppression of Italy
since 1815 and of Poland since 1772; but who stood behind the Germans, who
used them as their mercenaries or their vanguard? England and Russia. After
all, up to the present day the Russians boast of having brought about the fall of
Napoleon through their innumerable armies, which is at any rate largely
correct. This much, at least, is certain, that of the armies which by their
superior power drove back Napoleon from the Oder as far as Paris, threequarters consisted of Slavs, Russians or Austrian Slavs.
And then, too, the Germans oppression of the Italians and Poles! A wholly
Slav power and a semi-Slav power competed in the partition of Poland; the
armies which crushed Kosciuszko consisted for the most part of Slavs, the
armies of Dibich and Paskevich were exclusively Slav armies. And in Italy for
many years the Tedeschi[Germans] alone had the ignominy of being regarded
as oppressors. But, once again, what was the composition of the armies which
best let themselves be used for oppression and for whose savage acts the
Germans were blamed? Once again, they consisted of Slavs. Go to Italy and
ask who suppressed the Milan revolution; people will no longer say: the
Tedeschi since the Tedeschi made a revolution in Vienna they are no longer
hated but: the Croati. That is the word which the Italians now apply to the
whole Austrian army, i.e. to all that is most deeply hated by them: i Croati!
Nevertheless, these reproaches would be superfluous and unjustified if the
Slavs had anywhere seriously participated in the movement of 1848, if they
had hastened to join the ranks of the revolutionary peoples. A single
courageous attempt at a democratic revolution, even if it were crushed,
extinguishes in the memory of the peoples whole centuries of infamy and
cowardice, and at once rehabilitates a nation, however deeply it had been
despised. That was the experience of the Germans last year. But whereas the
French, Germans, Italians, Poles and Magyars raised high the banner of the
revolution, the Slavs one and all put themselves under the banner of
the counter-revolution. In the forefront were the Southern Slavs, who had
already for many years upheld their counter-revolutionary separatist aims
against the Magyars; then came the Czechs, and behind them the Russians,
armed for battle and ready to appear on the battlefield at the decisive moment.
It is well known that in Italy the Magyar hussars went over to the Italians
en masse, that in Hungary whole Italian battalions put themselves at the
disposal of the Magyar revolutionary Government and are still fighting under
the Magyar flag; it is well known that in Vienna the German regiments sided
with the people and even in Galicia were by no means reliable; it is well

known that masses of Austrian and non-Austrian Poles fought against the
Austrian armies in Italy, in Vienna and in Hungary, and are still fighting in the
Carpathians; but where has. anyone ever heard of Czech or South-Slav troops
revolting against the black-and-yellow flag?
On the contrary, up to now it is known only that Austria, which was shaken
to its foundations, has been kept alive and for the time being is once again in
safety owing to the enthusiasm of the Slavs for the black-and-yellow flag; that
it was precisely the Croats, Slovenes, Dalmatians, Czechs, Moravians and
Ruthenians who put their contingents at the disposal of Windischgrtz and
Jellachich for suppressing the revolution in Vienna, Cracow, Lemberg and
Hungary; and what furthermore we have now learned from Bakunin is that the
Prague Slav Congress was dispersed not by Germans, but by Galician, Czech
and Slovak Slavs and nothing but Slavs"! P.33.
The revolution of 1848 compelled all European peoples to declare
themselves for or against it. In the course of a month all the peoples ripe for
revolution had made their revolution, and all those which were not ripe had
allied themselves against the revolution. At that time it was a matter of
disentangling the confused tangle of peoples of Eastern Europe. The question
was which nation would seize the revolutionary initiative here, and which
nation would develop the greatest revolutionary energy and thereby safeguard
its future. The Slavs remained silent, the Germans and Magyars, faithful to
their previous historical position, took the lead. As a result, the Slavs were
thrown completely into the arms of the counter-revolution.
But what about the Slav Congress in Prague?
We repeat: the so-called democrats among the Austrian Slavs are either
scoundrels or fantasts, and the latter, who do not find any fertile soil among
their people for the ideas imported from abroad, have been continually led by
the nose by the scoundrels. At the Prague Slav Congress the fantasts had the
upper hand. When the fantasy seemed dangerous to the aristocratic panSlavists, Count Thun, Palack & Co., they betrayed the fantasts to
Windischgrtz and the black-and-yellow counter-revolution. What bitter,
striking irony is contained in the fact that this Congress of dreamers, defended
by the dreamy Prague youth, was dispersed by soldiers of their own nation,
and that, as it were, a military Slav Congress was set up in opposition to the
day-dreaming Slav Congress! The Austrian army which captured Prague,
Vienna, Lemberg, Cracow, Milan and Budapest that is the real, active Slav
Congress!

How unfounded and vague was the fantasy at the Slav Congress is proved by
its results. The bombardment of a town like Prague would have filled any other
nation with inextinguishable hatred of its oppressors. But what did the Czechs
do? They kissed the rod which had bloodily chastised them, they eagerly swore
obedience to the flag under which their brothers had been slaughtered and their
wives ravished. The street-fighting in Prague was the turning-point for the
Austrian democratic pan-Slavists.[326] In return for the prospect of obtaining
their pitiful national independence, they bartered away democracy and the
revolution to the Austrian united monarchy, to the centre, the systematic
enforcement of despotism in the heart of Europe, as Bakunin himself says on
p. 29. And for this cowardly, base betrayal of the revolution we shall at some
time take a bloody revenge against the Slavs.
It has at last become clear to these traitors that they have nevertheless been
cheated by the counter-revolution and that for the Austrian Slavs there can be
no thought of either a Slav Austria or a federative state of nations with
equal rights, and least of all of democratic institutions. Jellachich, who is no
bigger a scoundrel than most of the other democrats among the Austrian Slavs,
bitterly regrets the way in which he has been exploited, and Stratimirovich, in
order not to allow himself to be exploited any longer, has proclaimed an open
revolt against Austria. The Slovansk-Lipa associations [327] once more
everywhere oppose the Government and every day gain fresh painful
experience of the trap into which they let themselves be enticed. But it is now
too late; powerless in their own homeland against the Austrian soldiery, which
they themselves re-organised, rejected by the Germans and Magyars whom
they have betrayed, rejected by revolutionary Europe, they will have to suffer
the same military despotism which they helped to impose on the Viennese and
Magyars. Submit to the Emperor so that the imperial troops do not treat you
as if you were rebellious Magyars these words of the Patriarch Rajachich
express what they have to expect in the immediate future.
How very differently have the Poles behaved! For the last eighty years
oppressed, enslaved, plundered, they have always been on the side of the
revolution and proclaimed that the revolutionisation of Poland is inseparable
from the independence of Poland. In Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Italy, Hungary, the
Poles shared the fighting in all the revolutions and revolutionary wars,
regardless whether they were fighting against Germans, against Slavs, against
Magyars, or even against Poles. The Poles are the only Slav nation that is free
from all pan-Slavist aspirations. They have, however, very good reasons for
that: they have been oppressed mainly by their own so-called Slav brothers,
and among the Poles hatred of Russians takes precedence over hatred of

Germans, and with full justification. But because the liberation of Poland is
inseparable from the revolution, because Pole and revolutionary have become
synonymous, for Poles the sympathy of all Europe and the restoration of their
nation are as certain as are for the Czechs, Croats and Russians the hatred of
all Europeans and a most bloody revolutionary war of the entire west against
them.
The Austrian pan-Slavists ought to understand that all their desire insofar as
they can be fulfilled, have been realised in the restoration of the Austrian
united monarchy under Russian protection. If Austria collapses, what is in
store for them is the revolutionary terrorism of the Germans and Magyars, but
by no means, as they imagine, the liberation of all the nations enslaved under
the sceptre of Austria. They must therefore wish that Austria continues to hold
together, and indeed that Galicia remains with Austria, so that the Slavs retain
a majority in the state. Here, therefore, pan-Slavist interests are already directly
opposed to the restoration of Poland, for a Poland without Galicia, a Poland
that does not extend from the Baltic to the Carpathians, is no Poland. But
equally for that reason a Slav Austria is still a mere dream; for without the
supremacy of the Germans and Magyars, without the two centres of Vienna
and Budapest, Austria will once again fall apart, as its whole history up to
recent months has proved. Accordingly, the realisation of pan-Slavism would
have to be restricted to Russian patronage over Austria. The openly reactionary
pan-Slavists were therefore quite right in holding fast to the preservation of the
united monarchy; it was the only means of saving anything. The so-called
democratic pan-Slavists, however, were in an acute dilemma: either
renunciation of the revolution and at least a partial salvation of nationality
through the united monarchy, or abandonment of nationality and salvation of
the revolution by the collapse of the united monarchy. At that time the fate of
the revolution in Eastern Europe depended on the position of the Czechs and
Southern Slavs; we shall not forget that at the decisive moment they betrayed
the revolution to Petersburg and Olmtz for the sake of their petty national
hopes.
What would be said if the democratic party in Germany commenced its
programme with the demand for the return of Alsace, Lorraine, and Belgium,
which in every respect belongs to France, on the pretext that the majority there
is Germanic? How ridiculous the German democrats would make themselves
if they wanted to found a pan-Germanic German-Danish-Swedish-EnglishDutch alliance for the liberation of all German-speaking countries! German
democracy, fortunately, is above such fantasies. German students in 1817 and
1830 were peddling that kind of reactionary fantasies and today throughout

Germany are being given their deserts. The German revolution only came into
being, and the German nation only began to become something, when people
had freed themselves completely from these futilities.
But pan-Slavism, too, is just as childish and reactionary as pan-Germanism.
When one reads the history of the pan-Slavist movement of last spring in
Prague, one could imagine oneself back in the period of thirty years ago:
tricolour sashes, ancient costumes, ancient Slav Masses, complete restoration
of the time and customs of the primeval forests; the Svornost a complete
replica of the German Burschenschaft, the Slav Congress a new edition of
the Wartburg Festival,[328] the same phrases, the same fantasies, the same
subsequent lamentation: We had built a stately house, etc. Anyone who
would like to read this famous song translated into Slav prose has only to read
Bakunins pamphlet.
Just as in the long run the most pronounced counter-revolutionary frame of
mind, the most ferocious hatred of Frenchmen, and the most narrow-minded
national feeling, were to be found among the members of the
German Burschenschaften, and just as later they all became traitors to the
cause for which they had pretended to be enthusiastic in exactly the same
way, only more speedily, because 1848 was a year of revolution, the
democratic semblance among the democratic pan-Slavists turned into fanatical
hatred of Germans and Magyars, into indirect opposition to the restoration of
Poland (Lubomirski), and into direct adherence to the counter-revolution.
And if some sincere Slav democrats now call on the Austrian Slavs to join
the revolution, to regard the Austrian united monarchy as their chief enemy,
and indeed to be on the side of the Magyars in the interests of the revolution,
they remind one of a hen which despairingly circles the edge of a pond where
the young ducklings which she has hatched out now suddenly escape from her
into a totally foreign element into which he cannot follow them.
But let us not harbour any illusions. Among all the pan-Slavists, nationality,
i.e. imaginary common Slav nationality, takes precedence over the revolution.
The pan-Slavists want to join the revolution on condition that they will be
allowed to constitute all Slavs without exception, regardless of material
necessities, into independent Slav states. If we Germans had wanted to lay
down the same fantastic conditions, we would have got a long way in March!
But the revolution does not allow of any conditions being imposed on it. Either
one is a revolutionary and accepts the consequences of the revolution,
whatever they are, or one is driven into the arms of the counter-revolution and

one day finds oneself, perhaps without knowing or desiring it, arm in arm with
Nicholas and Windischgrtz.
We and the Magyars should guarantee the Austrian Slavs their independence
that is what Bakunin demands, and people of the calibre of Ruge are
capable of having actually made such promises to him in secret. The demand is
put to us and the other revolutionary nations of Europe that the hotbeds of
counter-revolution at our very door should be guaranteed an unhindered
existence and the free right to conspire and take up arms against the revolution;
it is demanded that we should establish a counter-revolutionary Czech state in
the very heart of Germany, and break the strength of the German, Polish and
Magyar revolutions by interposing between them Russian outposts at the Elbe,
the Carpathians and the Danube!
We have no intention of doing that. To the sentimental phrases about
brotherhood which we are being offered here on behalf of the most counterrevolutionary nations of Europe, we reply that hatred of Russians was and still
is the primary revolutionary passion among Germans; that since the revolution
hatred of Czechs and Croats has been added, and that only by the most
determined use of terror against these Slav peoples can we, jointly with the
Poles and Magyars, safeguard the revolution. We know where the enemies of
the revolution are concentrated, viz. in Russia and the Slav regions of Austria,
and no fine phrases, no allusions to an undefined democratic future for these
countries can deter us from treating our enemies as enemies.
And if Bakunin finally exclaims:
Truly, the Slav should not lose anything, he should win! Truly, he should live! And we shall
live. As long as the smallest part of our rights is contested, as long as a single member is cut off
from our whole body, so long will we fight to the end, inexorably wage a life-and-death
struggle, until the Slavs have their place in the world, great and free and independent

if revolutionary pan-Slavism means this passage to be taken seriously, and in

its concern for the imaginary Slav nationality leaves the revolution entirely
out of account, then we too know what we have to do.
Then there will be a struggle, an inexorable life-and-death struggle,
against those Slavs who betray the revolution; an annihilating fight and
ruthless terror not in the interests of Germany, but in the interests of the
revolution!

ENGELS DIDN'T THINK ALL RACES WERE EQUAL

He thought the Yugoslavs in particular deserved to be
wiped out .... Hmmmm
"Among all the nations and sub-nations of Austria, only
three standard-bearers of progress took an active part in
history, and are still capable of life -- the Germans, the
Poles and the Magyars. Hence they are now revolutionary.
All the other large and small nationalities and peoples are
destined to perish before long in the revolutionary world
storm. (...)
This remnant of a nation that was, as Hegel says,
suppressed and held in bondage in the course of history,
this human trash, becomes every time -- and remains so
until their complete obliteration or loss of national identity - the fanatical carriers of counter-revolution, just as their
whole existence in general is itself a protest against a
great historical revolution. (...)
Such, in Austria, are the pan-Slavist Southern Slavs, who
are nothing but the human trash of peoples, resulting from
an extremely confused thousand years of development.
(...)
The next world war will result in the disappearance from
the face of the earth not only of reactionary classes and

dynasties, but also of entire reactionary peoples. And that,

too, is progress.
A source in English
The German
Friedrich Engels, NRZ 13. Jan. 1849
,Unter all den Nationen und Natioenchen OEsterreichs
sind nur drei, die die Traeger des Fortschritts waren, die
aktiv in die Geschichte eingegriffen haben, die jetzt noch
lebensfaehig sind - die Deutschen, die Polen, die
Magyaren. Daher sind sie jetzt revolutionaer. Alle
anderen gro en und kleinen Staemme und Voelker haben
zunaechst die Mission, im revolutionaeren Weltsturm
unterzugehen. (...)
Diese Reste einer von dem Gang der Geschichte, wie
Hegel sagt, unbarmherzig zertretenen Nationen, diese
Voelkerabfaelle werden jedesmal und bleiben bis zu ihrer
gaenzlichen Vertilgung oder Entnationalisierung die
fanatischen Traeger der Kontrerevolution, wie ihre ganze
Existenz ueberhaupt schon ein Protest gegen eine gro e
geschichtliche Revolution ist (...)
So in OEsterreich die panslawistischen Suedslawen, die
weiter nichts sind als der Voelkerabfall einer hoechst
verworrenen tausendjaehrigen Entwicklung. (...)
Der naechste Weltkrieg wird nicht nur reaktionaere
Klassen und Dynastien, er wird auch ganze reaktionaere

Voelker vom Erdboden verschwinden machen. Und das

ist auch ein Fortschritt."
MEW a.a.O. 6, 176. Engels in Neue Rheinische Zeitung January
1849

The Magyar Struggle

[221]

Source: MECW Volume 8, p. 227;

Written: by Engels about January 8, 1849;
First published: in Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 194, January 13, 1849.

Cologne, January. While in Italy the first counterblow is already being

struck against the counter-revolution of last summer and autumn, in the plains
of Hungary the last stage of the struggle to suppress the movement which arose
directly out of the February revolution is being completed. The new Italian
movement is the prologue of the movement of 1849, the war against the
Magyars is the epilogue to the movement of 1848. Probably this epilogue will
yet pass into the new drama that is being prepared in secret.
Like the first scenes of the revolutionary tragedy of 1848, which rapidly
succeeded one another, and like the fall of Paris and Vienna, this epilogue too
is heroic, and pleasantly heroic after the partly colourless and partly petty
episodes of the period between June and October. The last act of 1848 passes
through terrorism into the first act of 1849.
For the first time in the revolutionary movement of 1848, for the first time
since 1793, a nation surrounded by superior counter-revolutionary forces dares
to counter the cowardly counter-revolutionary fury by revolutionary passion,
the terreur blanche by the terreur rouge. For the first time after a long period
we meet with a truly revolutionary figure, a man who in the name of his people
dares to accept the challenge of a desperate struggle, who for his nation is
Danton and Carnot in one person Lajos Kossuth.

The superiority of forces is frightful. The whole of Austria, 16 million

fanaticised Slavs in the forefront, against 4 million Magyars.
Mass uprising, national manufacture of arms, issue of banknotes, short shrift
for anyone hindering the revolutionary movement, revolution in permanence
in short, all the main features of the glorious year 1793 are found again in
the Hungary which Kossuth has armed, organised and inspired with
enthusiasm. This revolutionary organisation, which on pain of utter ruin had to
be completed, so to speak, in 24 hours, was lacking in Vienna, otherwise
Windischgrtz would never have been able to enter it. We shall see whether he
will succeed in entering Hungary in spite of this revolutionary organisation.
Let us take a closer look at the struggle and the combatant parties.
The Austrian monarchy arose out of the attempt to unite Germany in a single
monarchy just as the French kings up to Louis XI did in France. The attempt
failed because of the pitiful provincial narrow-mindedness of both the
Germans and the Austrians, and because of the corresponding petty
commercial spirit of the Habsburg dynasty. Instead of the whole of Germany,
the Habsburgs obtained only those South-German lands which were in direct
conflict with the isolated Slav tribes, or in which a German feudal nobility and
German burghers ruled jointly over enslaved Slav tribes. In both cases the
Germans of each province required support from outside. This support they
received through the association against the Slavs, and this association came
into being through the union of the provinces in question under the sceptre of
the Habsburgs.
That is how German Austria originated. It suffices to read in any textbook
how the Austrian monarchy came into being, how it split up and arose again,
all in the course of struggle against the Slavs, to see how correct this
description is.
Adjacent to German Austria is Hungary. In Hungary the Magyars waged the
same struggle as the Germans in German Austria. A German wedge driven
between the Slav barbarians in the Archduchy of Austria and Styria went hand
in hand with the Magyar wedge driven in the same way between the Slav
barbarians on the Leitha. Just as in the south and north, in Bohemia, Moravia,
Carinthia and Kraina the German nobility ruled over Slav tribes, Germanised
them and so drew them into the European movement, the Magyar nobility
likewise ruled over Slav tribes in the south and north, in Croatia, Slavonia and
the Carpathian territories. The interests of both were the same; opponents of
both were natural allies. The alliance of the Magyars and the Austrian

Germans was a necessity. All that was still lacking was some great event, a
heavy attack on both of them, in order to make this alliance indissoluble. Such
an event came with the Turks conquest of the Byzantine Empire. The Turks
threatened Hungary and, secondly, Vienna, and for centuries Hungary came
indissolubly under the Flabsburg dynasty.
But the common opponents of both became gradually weak. The Turkish
Empire became powerless, and the Slavs lost the strength to revolt against the
Magyars and Germans. Indeed, a part of the German and Magyar nobility
ruling in Slav lands adopted Slav nationality and thereby the Slav nationalities
themselves became interested in preserving the monarchy, which had more and
more to defend the nobility against the developing German and Magyar
bourgeoisie. The national contradictions were disappearing and the Habsburg
dynasty adopted a different policy. The same Habsburg dynasty which had
climbed to the German imperial throne on the shoulders of the German
burghers became more decisively than any other dynasty the champion of the
feudal nobility against the burghers.
In the same spirit Austria participated in the partition of Poland. [222] The
important Galician elders and army commanders, the Potockis, Lubomirskis
and Czartoryskis, betrayed Poland to Austria and became the most loyal
supports of the Habsburg dynasty, which in return guaranteed them their
possessions against attacks from the lower nobility and burghers.
But the burghers in the towns continually grew in wealth and influence and
the progress of agriculture alongside that of industry changed the position of
the peasants in relation to the landowners. The movement of the burghers and
peasants against the nobility became more and more menacing. And since the
movement of the peasants, who everywhere are the embodiment of national
and local narrow-mindedness, necessarily assumes a local and national
character, it was accompanied by a resurgence of the old national struggles.
In this state of affairs, Metternich achieved his master stroke. With the
exception of the most powerful feudal barons, he deprived the nobility of all
influence on state administration. He sapped the strength of the bourgeoisie by
winning to his side the most powerful financial barons he had to do this, the
state of the finances made it compulsory for him. Supported in this way by the
top feudal and financial aristocracy, as well as by the bureaucracy and the
army, he far more than all his rivals attained the ideal of an absolute monarchy.
He kept the burghers and the peasantry of each nation under control by means
of the aristocracy of that nation and the peasantry of every other nation, and he
kept the aristocracy of each nation under control by its fear of that nations

burghers and peasantry. The different class interests, the national features of
narrow-mindedness, and local prejudices, despite their complexity, were
completely held in check by their mutual counteraction and allowed the old
scoundrel Metternich the utmost freedom to manoeuvre. How far he succeeded
in this setting of one nation against another is proved by the Galician scenes of
slaughter when the democratic Polish movement which began in the interests
of the peasantry was crushed by Metternich by means of the Ruthenian
peasants themselves who were animated by religious and national
fanaticism.[223]
The year 1848 first of all brought with it the most terrible chaos for Austria
by setting free for a short time all these different nationalities which, owing to
Metternich, had hitherto been enslaving one another. The Germans, Magyars,
Czechs, Poles, Moravians, Slovaks, Croats, Ruthenians, Rumanians, Illyrians
and Serbs came into conflict with one another, while within each of these
nationalities a struggle went on also between the different classes. But soon
order came out of this chaos. The combatants divided into two large camps:
the Germans, Poles and Magyars took the side of revolution; the remainder, all
the Slavs, except for the Poles, the Rumanians and Transylvanian Saxons, took
the side of counter-revolution.
How did this division of the nations come about, what was its basis?
The division is in accordance with all the previous history of the
nationalities in question. It is the beginning of the decision on the life or death
of all these nations, large and small.
All the earlier history of Austria up to the present day is proof of this and
1848 confirmed it. Among all the large and small nations of Austria, only three
standard-bearers of progress took an active part in history, and still retain their
vitality the Germans, the Poles and the Magyars. Hence they are now
revolutionary.
All the other large and small nationalities and peoples are destined to perish
before long in the revolutionary world storm. For that reason they are now
counter-revolutionary.
As for the Poles, we refer the reader to our article about the debates on the
Polish question in Frankfurt. In order to curb their revolutionary spirit,
Metternich had appealed to the Ruthenians, a nationality differing from the
Poles by its somewhat different dialect and especially by its Greek orthodox
religion. The Ruthenians had belonged to Poland for a long time and learned

only from Metternich that the Poles were their oppressors. As though in the old
Poland the Poles themselves were not oppressed just as much as the
Ruthenians, as though under Austrian domination Metternich was not their
common oppressor!
So much for the Poles and Ruthenians who, moreover because of their
history and geographical position, are so sharply separated from Austria proper
that we have had to get them out of the way first of all in order to reach clarity
in regard to the chaos of the other peoples.
Let us, however, also remark at the outset that the Poles have revealed great
political understanding and a true revolutionary spirit by now entering into an
alliance with their old enemies, the Germans and Magyars, against the panSlav counter-revolution. A Slav people for whom freedom is clearer than
Slavism proves its vitality by this fact alone, and thereby already assures a
future for itself.
We pass now to Austria proper.
Situated to the south of the Sudetic and Carpathian mountains, in the upper
valley of the Elbe and in the region of the Middle Danube, Austria in the early
Middle Ages was a country populated exclusively by Slavs. By language and
customs these Slavs belong to the same stock as the Slavs of Turkey, the
Serbs, Bosnians, Bulgarians, and the Slavs of Thrace and Macedonia; these, in
contrast to the Poles and Russians, are called Southern Slavs. Apart from these
related Slav nationalities, the vast region from the Black Sea to the Bohemian
forests and Tyrolean Alps, was inhabited only by a few Greeks in the south of
the Balkans, and in the Lower Danube region by scattered Rumanian-speaking
Wallachians.
Into this compact Slav mass a wedge was driven by Germans from the west
and the Magyars from the east. The German element conquered the western
part of Bohemia and pushed forward on both sides of the Danube as far as the
other side of the Leitha. The Archduchy of Austria, part of Moravia, and the
greater part of Styria were Germanised and thus I separated the Czechs and
Moravians from the inhabitants of Carinthia and Kraina. In the same way
Transylvania and Central Hungary up to the German frontier was completely
cleared of Slavs and occupied by Magyars, who here separated the Slovaks and
a few Ruthenian localities (in the north) from the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes,
and subjected all these peoples to their rule. Finally, the Turks, following the
example of the Byzantines, subjugated the Slavs south of the Danube and the
Sava, and the historical role of the Southern Slavs was ended for ever.[224]

The last attempt of the Southern Slavs to play an independent part in history
was the Hussite war[225], a national peasant war of the Czechs under the flag of
religion against the German nobility and the supremacy of the German
Emperor. The attempt failed, and ever since then the Czechs have remained
fettered under the yoke of the German Empire.
On the other hand, their conquerors the Germans and Magyars took
over the historical initiative in the Danube regions. Without the aid of the
Germans and particularly of the Magyars, the Southern Slavs would have
become Turkish, as actually happened to part of them, indeed Mohammedan,
as the Slavs of Bosnia still are today. And for the Southern Slavs of Austria
this is a service which is not too dear even at the price of exchanging their
nationality for German or Magyar.
The Turkish invasion of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries was a second
edition of the Arab invasion of the eighth century. Charles Martels victory
was repeatedly re-won at the walls of Vienna and on the Hungarian plain. As
then at Poitiers, and later at Wahlstatt, during the invasion of the
Mongols,[226] there was here once more a threat to the whole of European
development. And where it was a matter of saving this, how could it be
achieved by a few nationalities, like the Austrian Slavs, which had long ago
disintegrated and become impotent and which, moreover, themselves needed
to be saved?
The situation internally was like that externally. The class that was the
driving force and standard-bearer of the movement, the bourgeoisie, was
everywhere German or Magyar. The Slavs could only with difficulty give rise
to a national bourgeoisie, and the Southern Slavs only in quite isolated cases.
And with the bourgeoisie, industrial power and capital were in the hands of
Germans or Magyars, German culture developed, and intellectually too the
Slavs became subordinate to the Germans, even as far as Croatia. The same
thing happened only later and therefore to a lesser extent in Hungary,
where the Magyars together with the Germans took the lead in intellectual and
commercial affairs. But the Hungarian Germans, although they retained the
German language, became genuine Hungarians in disposition, character and
customs. Only the newly introduced peasant colonists, the Jews and the Saxons
in Transylvania, are an exception and stubbornly retain an absurd nationality in
the midst of a foreign land.
And if the Magyars were a little behind the German Austrians in civilisation,
they have recently brilliantly overtaken them by their political activity.
Between 1830 and 1848 there was more political life in Hungary alone than in

the whole of Germany, and the feudal forms of the old Hungarian Constitution
were better exploited in the interests of democracy than the modern forms of
South-German constitutions. And who was at the head of the movement here?
The Magyars. Who supported Austrian reaction? The Croats and Slovenes.
Against the Magyar movement, as also against the reawakening political
movement in Germany, the Austrian Slavs founded a Sonderbund [227] panSlavism.
Pan-Slavism did not originate in Russia or Poland, but in Prague and in
Agram.[228] Pan-Slavism means the union of all the small Slav nations and
nationalities of Austria, and secondarily of Turkey, for struggle against the
Austrian Germans, the Magyars and, eventually, against the Turks. The Turks
are only incidentally included here and, as a nation which is also in a state of
complete decline, can be entirely disregarded. In its basic tendency, panSlavism is aimed against the revolutionary elements of Austria and is therefore
reactionary from the outset.
Pan-Slavism immediately gave proof of this reactionary tendency by a
double betrayal: it sacrificed to its petty national narrow-mindedness the only
Slav nation which up to then had acted in a revolutionary manner,
the Poles; it sold both itself and Poland to the Russian Tsar.
The direct aim of pan-Slavism is the creation of a Slav state under Russian
domination, extending from the Erzgebirge and the Carpathians to the Black,
Aegean and Adriatic seas a state which would include, besides the German,
Italian, Magyar, Wallachian, Turkish, Greek and Albanian languages, also
approximately a dozen Slav languages and basic dialects. All this would be
held together not by the elements which have hitherto held Austria together
and ensured its development, but by the abstract quality of Slavism and the socalled Slav language, which is at any rate common to the majority of the
inhabitants. But where does this Slavism exist except in the minds of a few
ideologists, where is the Slav language except in the imagination of Herren
Palack, Gaj and Co., and, to some extent, in the old Slav litany of the Russian
church, which no Slav any longer understands? In reality, all these peoples are
at the most diverse stages of civilisation, ranging from the fairly highly
developed (thanks to the Germans) modern industry and culture of Bohemia
down to the almost nomadic barbarism of the Croats and Bulgarians; in reality,
therefore, all these nations have most antagonistic interests. In reality, the Slav
language of these ten or twelve nations consists of an equal number of dialects,
mostly incomprehensible to one another, which can be reduced to different
main stems (Czech, Illyrian, Serbian, Bulgarian) and which, owing to the total

neglect of all literature and the lack of culture of the majority of these peoples,
have become a sheer patois, and with few exceptions have always had above
them an alien, non-Slav language as the written language. Thus, pan-Slav
unity is either pure fantasy or the Russian knout.
And what nations are supposed to head this great Slav state? Precisely those
nations which for a thousand years have been scattered and split up, those
nations
whose
elements
capable
of
life
and
development
were forcibly imposed on them by other, non-Slav peoples, those nations
which were saved from downfall in Turkish barbarism by the victorious arms
of non-Slav peoples, small, powerless nationalities, everywhere separated from
one another and deprived of their national strength, numbering from a few
thousand up to less than two million people! They have become so weak that,
for example, the race which in the Middle Ages was the strongest and most
terrible, the Bulgarians, are now in Turkey known only for their mildness and
soft-heartedness and set great store on being called dobre chrisztian, good
Christians! Is there a single one of these races, not excluding the Czechs and
Serbs, that possesses a national historical tradition which is kept alive among
the people and stands above the pettiest local struggles?
Pan-Slavism was at its height in the eighth and ninth centuries, when the
Southern Slavs still held the whole of Hungary and Austria and were
threatening Byzantium. If at that time they were unable to resist the German
and Magyar invasion, if they were unable to achieve independence and form a
stable state even when both their enemies, the Magyars and Germans, were
tearing each other to pieces, how will they be able to achieve it today, after a
thousand years of subjection and loss of their national character?
There is no country in Europe which does not have in some corner or other
one or several ruined fragments of peoples, the remnant of a former population
that was suppressed and held in bondage by the nation which later became the
main vehicle of historical development. These relics of a nation mercilessly
trampled under foot in the course of history, as Hegel says, these residual
fragments of peoples always become fanatical standard-bearers of counterrevolution and remain so until their complete extirpation or loss of their
national character, just as their whole existence in general is itself a protest
against a great historical revolution.
Such, in Scotland, are the Gaels, the supporters of the Stuarts from 1640 to
1745.

Such, in France, are the Bretons, the supporters of the Bourbons from 1792
to 1800.
Such, in Spain, are the Basques, the supporters of Don Carlos.
Such, in Austria, are the pan-Slavist Southern Slavs, who are nothing but
the residual fragment of peoples, resulting from an extremely
confused thousand years of development. That this residual fragment, which is
likewise extremely confused, sees its salvation only in a reversal of the whole
European movement, which in its view ought to go not from west to east, but
from east to west, and that for it the instrument of liberation and the bond of
unity is the Russian knout that is the most natural thing in the world.
Already before 1848, therefore, the Southern Slavs had clearly shown their
reactionary character. The year 1848 brought it fully into the light of day.
When the February storm broke, who made the Austrian revolution? Vienna
or Prague? Budapest or Agram? The Germans and Magyars, or the Slavs?
It is true that among the more educated Southern Slavs there was a small
democratic party which, although not wanting to renounce its nationality,
nevertheless desired to put it at the disposal of the struggle for freedom. This
illusion, which succeeded in arousing sympathy also among West-European
democrats, sympathy that was fully justified as long as the Slav democrats
took part in the struggle against the common enemy this illusion was
shattered by the bombardment of Prague. After that event all the South-Slav
races, following the example of the Croats, put themselves at the disposal of
Austrian reaction. Those leaders of the South-Slav movement who continue to
talk drivel about the equality of nations, about democratic Austria, and so on,
are either stupid dreamers, such as, for example, many journalists, or they are
scoundrels like Jellachich. Their democratic assurances have no more
significance than the democratic assurances of official Austrian counterrevolution. It suffices to say that in practice the restoration of the South-Slav
nationality begins with the most savage outbursts of fury against the Austrian
and Magyar revolution, with a first great good turn rendered to the Russian
Tsar.
Apart from the higher nobility, the bureaucracy and the military, the
Austrian camarilla found support only among the Slavs. The Slavs played the
decisive part in the fall of Italy, the Slavs stormed Vienna, and it is the Slavs
who are now attacking the Magyars from all sides. At their head as spokesmen

are the Czechs under Palack, as leaders of armed forces the Croats under
Jellachich.
That is the gratitude shown for the fact that the German democratic press in
June everywhere sympathised with the Czech democrats when they were shot
down by Windischgrtz, the same Windischgrtz who is now their hero.
To sum up:
In Austria, apart from Poland and Italy, it is the Germans and Magyars in
1848, as during the past thousand years already, who have assumed the
historical initiative. They represent the revolution.
The Southern Slavs, who for a thousand years have been taken in tow by the
Germans and the Magyars, only rose up in 1848 to achieve their national
independence in order thereby at the same time to suppress the GermanMagyar revolution. They represent the counter-revolution. They were joined
by two nations, which had likewise long ago degenerated and were devoid of
all historical power of action: the Saxons and the Rumanians of Transylvania.
The Habsburg dynasty, whose power was based on the union of Germans
and Magyars in the struggle against the Southern Slavs, is now prolonging the
last moments of its existence through the union of the Southern Slavs in the
struggle against the Germans and Magyars.
That is the political aspect of the question. Now for the military aspect.
The region inhabited exclusively by Magyars does not form even one-third
of the whole of Hungary and Transylvania. In the area from Pressburg,
northwards from the Danube and Theiss up to the rear of the Carpathians there
live several million Slovaks and a few Ruthenians. In the south, between the
Sava, Danube and Drava, there live Croats and Slovenes; farther to the east,
along the Danube is a Serb colony of more than half a million people. These
two Slav stretches are linked by the Wallachians and the Saxons of
Transylvania.
On three sides, therefore, the Magyars are surrounded by natural enemies. If
the Slovaks, occupying the mountain passes, were of a less lukewarm
disposition, they would be dangerous opponents, in view of their region being
excellently adapted for guerilla warfare.

As things are, however, the Magyars have only to withstand from the north
attacks of invading armies from Galicia and Moravia. In the east, on the other
hand, the Rumanians and Saxons rose up in a mass and joined the Austrian
army corps there. Their situation is an excellent one, partly because of the
mountainous nature of the country and partly because they occupy most of the
towns and fortresses.
Finally, in the south are the Banat Serbs, supported by the German colonists,
the Wallachians and also an Austrian corps, protected by the vast Alibunar
morass and almost impregnable.
The Croats are protected by the Drava and the Danube, and since they have
at their disposal a strong Austrian army with all its auxiliary resources, they
advanced into the Magyar region already before October and now have little
difficulty in holding their line of defence on the Lower Drava.
Finally, from the fourth side, from Austria, the serried columns of
Windischgrtz and Jellachich are now advancing. The Magyars are encircled
on all sides, and encircled by an enemy of vastly superior power.
The fighting is reminiscent of that against France in 1793, but with the
difference that the sparsely populated and only half-civilised country of the
Magyars is far from having at its disposal the resources which the French
Republic then had.
The weapons and munitions manufactured in Hungary are bound to be of
very poor quality; in particular, it is impossible for the manufacture of artillery
to go ahead rapidly. The country is far smaller than France and every inch of
territory lost is therefore a much greater loss. All that is left to the Magyars is
their revolutionary enthusiasm, their courage and the energetic, speedy
organisation that Kossuth was able to give them.
But for all that, Austria has not yet won.
If we fail to beat the imperial troops on the Leitha, we shall beat them on the Rabnitz; if not on
the Rabnitz, we shall beat them at Pest; if not at Pest, then on the Theiss, but in any case we shall
beat
them."
[From Kossuths speech in the Hungarian parliament on November 9, 1848]

So said Kossuth, and he is doing his utmost to keep his word.

Even with the fall of Budapest, the Magyars still have the great Lower
Hungarian steppe, a terrain as it were specially created for cavalry guerilla

warfare and offering numerous almost unassailable points between the swamps
where the Magyars can dig themselves in. And the Magyars, who are almost
all horsemen, possess all the qualities needed to wage such a war. If the
imperial army dares to enter this desert region, where it will have to obtain all
its provisions from Galicia or Austria, for it will find nothing, absolutely
nothing on the spot, it is impossible to see how it will be able to hold out. It
will achieve nothing in a closed formation; and if it splits up into flying
detachments it is lost. Its clumsiness would deliver it irretrievably into the
hands of the swift Magyar cavalry detachments, without any possibility of
pursuit even if it should be victorious, and every isolated soldier of the
imperial army would find a mortal enemy in every peasant, in every herdsman.
War in these steppes is like war in Algeria, and the clumsy Austrian army
would require years to end it. And the Magyars will be saved if they hold out
for only a few months.
The Magyar cause is not in such a bad way as mercenary black-andyellow [colours of the Austrian flag] enthusiasm would have us believe. The
Magyars are not yet defeated. But if they fall, they will fall gloriously, as the
last heroes of the 1848 revolution, and only for a short time. Then for a time
the Slav counter-revolution will sweep down on the Austrian monarchy with
all its barbarity, and the camarilla will see what sort of allies it has. But at the
first victorious uprising of the French proletariat, which Louis Napoleon is
striving with all his might to conjure up, the Austrian Germans and Magyars
will be set free and wreak a bloody revenge on the Slav barbarians. The
general war which will then break out will smash this Slav Sonderbund and
wipe out all these petty hidebound nations, down to their very names.
The next world war will result in the disappearance from the face of the
earth not only of reactionary classes and dynasties, but also of entire
reactionary peoples. And that, too, is a step forward.

ENGELS SAID GERMANY HAD A "RIGHT" TO

CONQUER OTHER LANDS
Because Germany was more "civilized"!
"By the same right under which France took Flanders,
Lorraine and Alsace, and will sooner or later take Belgium

-- by that same right Germany takes over Schleswig; it is

the right of civilization as against barbarism, of progress
as against stability. Even if the agreements were in
Denmark's favor -- which is very doubtful-this right carries
more weight than all the agreements, for it is the right of
historical evolution"
Source
The German:
Friedrich Engels, NRZ 10. Sep. 1848 (NRZ = Neue
Rheinische Zeitung)
,Mit demselben Recht, mit dem die Franzosen Flandern,
Lothringen und Elsa genommen haben und Belgien
frueher oder spaeter nehmen werden, mit demselben
Recht nimmt Deutschland Schleswig: mit dem Recht der
Zivilisation gegen die Barbarei, des Fortschritts gegen die
Stabilitaet."
MEW a.a.O. 5, 395.
I note that the Marxists I link to above have translated the
"Stabilitaet" that Engels referred to as "static stability"
rather than just "stability". I wonder why? Let me guess:
Stability is good once the Marxists are in charge. That is
"progressive" stability, not "static stability". So the
enforced inertia and uniformity of the old USSR was
"progressive stability". Too bad they made such little
progress that they eventually collapsed! But how sad it is
that the Marxists have to mistranslate their own founding

fathers to justify themselves! I can't say I am surprised,

though. Engels in Neue Rheinische Zeitung September 1848

The Danish-Prussian
Armistice
by Frederick Engels
Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 99
Transcribed for the Internet by director@marx.org

Cologne, September 9. Again we revert to the Danish armistice -- we are

given time to do this owing to the thoroughness of the National Assembly,
which, instead of taking prompt and energetic decisions and getting new
ministers appointed, allows the committees to deliberate in the most
leisurely manner and leaves the solution of the government crisis to God -- a
thoroughness which barely conceals "our dear friends' lack of courage". [69]
The war in Italy was always unpopular with the democratic party, and has
for a long time been unpopular even with the democrats of Vienna. The storm
of public indignation over the war of extermination in Poznan could be staved
off only for a few weeks by means of falsifications and lies on the part of the
Prussian government. The streetfighting in Prague, despite all the efforts of the
national press, excited sympathy among the people towards the defeated, but
not towards the victors. The war in Schleswig-Holstein, however, from the
outset was popular also among the people. What is the reason?
Whereas in Italy, Poznan and Prague the Germans were fighting the
revolution, in Schleswig-Holstein they were supporting it. The Danish war is
the first revolutionary war waged by Germany. We therefore advocated a
resolute conduct of the Danish war, from the very beginning, but this does not
in any way denote kinship with the sea-girt bourgeois beer-garden enthusiasm.

A sad thing for Germany that her first revolutionary war is the most
ridiculous war ever waged.
But come to the point. The Danish nation is in commercial, industrial,
political and literary matters completely dependent on Germany. It is well
known that the real capital of Denmark is not Copenhagen but Hamburg; that
for a whole year the Danish government copied all the United Provincial Diet
experiments conducted by the Prussian government, which passed away on the
barricades; that Denmark obtains all her literary as well as material fare via
Germany, and that apart from Holberg, Danish literature is a poor imitation of
that of Germany.
Impotent though Germany has been from time immemorial, she has the
satisfaction of knowing that the Scandinavian nations, and especially
Denmark, have fallen under her sway, and that compared with them she is
even revolutionary and progressive.
Do you require proofs? Then read the polemics carried on by the
Scandinavian nations against each other ever since the concept of
Scandinavianism arose. Scandinavianism is enthusiasm for the brutal, sordid,
piratical, Old Norse national traits, for that profound inner life which is unable
to express its exuberant ideas and sentiments in words, but can express them
only in deeds, namely, in rudeness towards women, perpetual drunkenness and
the wild frenzy of the Berserker alternating with tearful sentimentality.
Scandinavianism and the theory of kinship with sea-girt Schleswig-Holstein
appeared simultaneously in the states of the King of Denmark. The two
concepts are correlated; they evoked each other and were in conflict with each
other, thereby asserting their existence.
Scandinavianism was the pattern of the Danes' appeals for Swedish and
Norwegian support. But as always happens with the Christian-Teutonic nation,
a dispute immediately arose as to who was the genuine Christian-Teuton, the
true Scandinavian. The Swede contended that the Dane had become
"Germanized" and had degenerated, the Norwegian said the same of the Swede
and the Dane, and the Icelander of all three. Obviously, the more primitive a
nation is, the more closely its customs and way of life resemble those of the
Old Norse people, the more "Scandinavian" it must be.
The Christiania Morgenbladet [70] for November 18, 1846, is lying in front
of us. This charming sheet contains the following amusing passages in an
article on Scandinavianism.

After stating that the whole concept of Scandinavianism is nothing but an

attempt by the Danes to create a movement in their own interest, the paper
says:
"What have these gay vivacious people in common with the ancient, gloomy and melancholy
world of warriors (med den gamle, alvorlige og vemodsfulde Kjampeverden)? How can this
nation, which -- as even a Danish writer admits -- has a docile and gentle disposition, believe
itself to be spiritually related to the tough, lusty and vigorous men of a past age? And how can
these people with their soft southern accent imagine that they speak a northern tongue? Although
the main trait of our nation and the Swedes, like that of the ancient Northerners, is that our
feelings are kept hidden in the innermost part of the soul, and not given outward expression,
nevertheless these sentimental and affectionate people, who can so easily be astonished, moved
and swayed and who wear their hearts upon their sleeves, nevertheless these people believe that
they are of a northern cast and that they are related to the two other Scandinavian nations!"

The Morgenbladet attributes the degeneration of the Danes to their

association with Germany and the spread of German traits in Denmark. The
Germans have indeed
"lost their most sacred asset, their national character; but feeble and insipid though the German
nation is, there is another nation still more feeble and insipid, namely, the Danes. While the
German language is being ousted in Alsace, Vaud and on the Slav border" (!the services of the
Netze brethren remained unnoticed at the time) "it has made enormous progress along the
Danish border."

The Danes, we are told, now had to oppose their nationality to the Germans
and for this purpose they invented Scandinavianism. The Danes were unable to
resist,
"for the Danish nation, as we have said before, was essentially Germanized, although it did not
adopt the German language. The writer of these lines has seen it admitted in a Danish paper that
the Danish nation does not differ essentially from the German nation."

Thus the Morgenbladet.

Of course, it cannot be denied that the Danes are a more or less civilized
nation. Poor Danes!
By the same right under which France took Flanders, Lorraine and Alsace,
and will sooner or later take Belgium -- by that same right Germany takes over
Schleswig; it is the right of civilization as against barbarism, of progress as
against static stability. Even if the agreements were in Denmark's favor -which is very doubtful-this right carries more weight than all the agreements,
for it is the right of historical evolution.
So long as the Schleswig-Holstein movement remained a purely legal
philistine agitation of a civic and peaceful nature it merely filled well-meaning

petty bourgeois with enthusiasm. When, before the outbreak of the February
revolution, the present King of Denmark at his accession promised a liberal
constitution for all his states, envisaging the same number of deputies for the
duchies as for Denmark, and the duchies were opposed to this, the pettybourgeois parochial nature of the Schleswig-Holstein movement became
distastefully conspicuous. The issue, at that time, was not so much union with
Germany -- did a Germany exist at that time? -- as separation from Denmark
and establishment of a small independent parochial state.
But then came the revolution, which imparted to the movement a different
character. The Schleswig- Holstein party was forced either to attempt a
revolution or to perish. It quite correctly chose the revolution. The Danish
promises, which were very favorable before the revolution, were quite
inadequate after the revolution; union with Germany -- formerly an empty
phrase -- now acquired meaning. Germany made a revolution and as usual
Denmark copied it on a small provincial scale.
The Schleswig-Holstein revolution and the Provisional Government to
which it gave rise behaved at first still in a rather philistine way, but the war
soon compelled them to adopt a democratic course. This government, whose
members are all moderate liberal worthies, formerly kindred spirits of
Welcker, Gagern and Camphausen, has given Schleswig-Holstein laws which
are more democratic than those of any other German state. The Kiel Provincial
Assembly is the only German assembly based on universal suffrage and direct
elections. The draft constitution which the government submitted to it was the
most democratic constitution ever drawn up in the German language. As a
result of the revolutionary war, Schleswig-Holstein, which had always trailed
behind Germany in political matters, suddenly acquired more progressive
institutions than the rest of Germany.
The war we are waging in Schleswig-Holstein is therefore a truly
revolutionary war.
And who, from the outset, supported Denmark? The three most counterrevolutionary powers in Europe -- Russia, England and the Prussian
government. As long as it was possible the Prussian government merely
pretended to be waging a war -- this is evidenced by Wildenbruch's Note, by
the alacrity with which the Prussian government, on the representations of
England and Russia, ordered the withdrawal from Jutland, and finally by the
two armistice agreements. Prussia, England and Russia are the three powers
which have greater reason than anyone else to fear the German revolution and
its first result -- German unity: Prussia because she would thereby cease to

exist, England because it would deprive her of the possibility of exploiting the
German market, and Russia because, it would spell the advance of democracy
not only to the Vistula but even as far as the Dvina and the Dnieper. Prussia,
England and Russia have conspired against Schleswig-Holstein, against
Germany and against the revolution.
The war that may now arise from the decisions taken at Frankfurt would be a
war waged by Germany against Prussia, England and Russia. This is just the
kind of war that the flagging German movement needs -- a war against the
three great counter-revolutionary powers, a war which would really cause
Prussia to merge into Germany, which would make an alliance with Poland an
indispensable necessity and would lead to the immediate liberation of Italy; a
war which would be directed against Germany's old counterrevolutionary allies
of 1792-1815, a war which would "imperil the fatherland" and for that very
reason save it by making the victory of Germany dependent on the victory of
democracy.
The bourgeois and titled landowners at Frankfurt should not deceive
themselves -- if they decide to reject the armistice they will be setting the seal
to their own downfall, just as the Girondins did during the first revolution
when they took part in the events of August 10 and voted for the death of the
ex-King, thereby preparing their own downfall on May 31. If, on the other
hand, they accept the armistice, they will still be sealing their own downfall:
they will be placing themselves under the jurisdiction of Prussia and cease to
have any say in things. It is up to them to choose.
The news of Hansemann's downfall probably reached Frankfurt before the
vote was taken. This may influence the vote significantly, especially since it is
expected that a government of Waldeck and Rodbertus will follow who, as we
know, recognize the sovereignty of the National Assembly.
The future will show. But we repeat -- Germany's honor is in bad hands.

ENGELS THOUGHT ARYANS WERE SUPERIOR

"The plentiful meat and milk diet among the Aryans and
the Semites, and particularly the beneficial effects of these
foods on the development of children, may, perhaps,
explain the superior development of these two races."

No Marxist has dared to put this online yet so I cannot

provide a link for context. The quotation is from Engels,
"Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State",
Fourth revised edition, 1891, in Marx & Engels, Selected
Works In One Volume, Lawrence & Wishart: London,
1980, p 464.
ENGELS ADVOCATES THAT GERMANY DEFEAT
FRANCE BY ANY MEANS POSSIBLE

Engels to August Bebel In Berlin, 19 September, 1891: "In

any case we must declare that since 1871 we have always
been ready for a peaceful understanding with France, that
as soon as our Party comes to power it will be unable to
exercise that power unless Alsace-Lorraine freely
determines its own future, but that if war is forced upon us,
and moreover a war in alliance with Russia, we must
regard this as an attack on our existence and defend
ourselves by every method, utilising all positions at our
disposal and therefore Metz and Strasbourg also..... so
our army will have to lead and sustain the main push.... So
much seems certain to me: if we are beaten, every barrier
to chauvinism and a war of revenge in Europe will be
thrown down for years hence. If we are victorious our
Party will come into power. The victory of Germany is
therefore the victory of the revolution, and if it comes to
war we must not only desire victory but further it by every
means...."
Marx-Engels Correspondence 1891

Engels to August Bebel

In Berlin
Abstract

Published: Gesamtausgabe, International Publishers, 1942;

Transcribed: Sally Ryan;
HTML Markup: Sally Ryan.

London, 29 September, 1891

You are right; if it comes to war we must demand the general arming of the
people. But in conjunction with the already existing organisation or that
specially prepared in case of war. Enlistment, therefore, of the hitherto
untrained in supplementary reserves and Landsturm and above all immediate
emergency training besides arming and organisation into fixed cadres.
The proclamation to the French will have to come out rather differently in
form. The Russian diplomats are not so stupid as to provoke a war in face of
the whole of Europe. On the contrary, things will be so operated that either
France appears as the provoking party or one of the Triple Alliance
countries. Russia always has dozens ofcasus belli [occasions for war] of this
kind to hand; the special answer to be given depends on the pretext for war put
forward. In any case we must declare that since 1871 we have always been
ready for a peaceful understanding with France, that as soon as our Party
comes to power it will be unable to exercise that power unless Alsace-Lorraine
freely determines its own future, but that if war is forced upon us, and
moreover a war in alliance with Russia, we must regard this as an attack on our
existence and defend ourselves by every method, utilising all positions at our
disposal and therefore Metz and Strasbourg also.
As to the conduct of the war itself, two aspects are immediately decisive:
Russia is weak in attack but strong in defensive man-power. A stab in the heart
is impossible. France is strong in attack but rendered incapable of attack,
innocuous, after a few defeats. I do not give much either for Austrians as

generals or for Italians as soldiers, so our army will have to lead and sustain
the main push. The war will have to begin with the holding back of the
Russians but the defeat of the French. When the French offensive has been
rendered innocuous things may get as far as the conquest of Poland up to the
Dvina and Dnieper, but hardly before. This must be carried out by
revolutionary methods and if necessary by giving up a piece of Prussian
Poland and the whole of Galicia to the Poland to be established. If this goes
well revolution will doubtless follow in France. At the same time we must
press for at least Metz and Lorraine to be offered as a peace offering to France.
Probably, however, it will not go so well. The French will not allow
themselves to be so easily defeated, their army is very good and better armed
than ours, and what we achieve in the way of generalship does not look as if
very much would come of it either. That the French have learnt how to
mobilise has been shown this summer. And also that they have enough officers
for their first field army which is stronger than ours. Our superiority in
officers will only be proved with the troops brought up later into the line.
Moreover the direct line between Berlin and Paris is strongly defended by
fortifications on both sides. In short, in the most favourable case it will
probably turn out a fluctuating war which will be carried on with constant
drawing in of fresh reinforcements by both sides until one party is exhausted,
or until the active intervention of England, who, by simply blockading corn
imports can, under the then existing conditions, starve out whichever party she
decides against, Germany or France, and force it to make peace. In the
meantime what happens on the Russian frontier mainly depends on the way the
Austrians conduct the war and is therefore incalculable.
So much seems certain to me: if we are beaten, every barrier to chauvinism
and a war of revenge in Europe will be thrown down for years hence. If we are
victorious our Party will come into power. The victory of Germany is therefore
the victory of the revolution, and if it comes to war we must not only desire
victory but further it by every means....
What should have been categorically stated [by Bernstein] was that if France
formally represents the revolution in relation to Germany, Germany, through
its workers' Party, stands materially at the head of the revolution, and this is
bound to come to light in the war in which we, and with us the revolution,
will either be crushed or else come to power.

WAR AGAINST RUSSIA A GOOD THING FOR

GERMANY
Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 42, July 12, 1848: "Only a
war against Russia would be a war of revolutionary
Germany, a war by which she could cleanse herself of her
past sins, could take courage, defeat her own autocrats,
spread civilisation by the sacrifice of her own sons as
becomes a people that is shaking off the chains of long,
indolent slavery"
It is not clear whether it was Marx or Engels that wrote
this. Context here Marx and Engels in Neue Rheinische Zeitung
July 1848

German Foreign Policy and

the Latest Events in Prague
Source: MECW Volume 7, p. 212;
Written: on July 11, 1848;
First published: in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 42, July 12, 1848.

Cologne, July 11. Despite the patriotic shouting and beating of the drums of
almost the entire German press, the Neue Rheinische Zeitung from the very
first moment has sided with the Poles in Posen, the Italians in Italy, and the
Czechs in Bohemia. From the very first moment we saw through the
Machiavellian policy which, shaking in its foundations in the interior of
Germany, sought to paralyse democratic energies, to deflect attention from
itself, to dig conduits for the fiery lava of the revolution and forge the weapon
of suppression within the country by calling forth a narrow-minded national
hatred which runs counter to the cosmopolitan character of the Germans, and

in national wars of unheard-of atrocity and indescribable barbarity trained a

brutal soldiery such as could hardly be found even in the Thirty Years War. [155]
What deep plot it is to let the Germans under the command of their
governments undertake a crusade against the freedom of Poland, Bohemia and
Italy at the same moment that they are struggling with these same governments
to obtain freedom at home! What an historical paradox! Gripped by
revolutionary ferment, Germany seeks relief in a war of restoration, in a
campaign for the consolidation of the old authority against which she has just
revolted. Only a war against Russia would be a war ofrevolutionary Germany,
a war by which she could cleanse herself of her past sins, could take courage,
defeat her own autocrats, spread civilisation by the sacrifice of her own sons as
becomes a people that is shaking off the chains of long, indolent slavery and
make herself free within her borders by bringing liberation to those outside.
The more the light of publicity reveals in sharp outlines the most recent
events, the more facts confirm our view of the national wars by which
Germany has dishonoured her new era. As a contribution to this enlightenment
we publish the following report by a German in Prague even though it reached
us belatedly:
Prague, June 24, 1848 (delayed)
The Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung of the 22nd [of this month] contains an article about the
assembly of Germans held in Aussig on the 18th [of this month] in which speeches were made
which show such ignorance of our recent events and, in part, to put it mildly, such a willingness
to heap abusive accusations upon our independent press that [this] writer considers it his duty to
correct these errors as far as this is now possible and to confront these thoughtless and malicious
persons with the firmness of truth. It comes as a surprise when a man like the founder of the
League to Preserve German Interests in the East [Johann Wuttke] exclaims before an entire
assembly: There can be no talk of forgiveness so long as the battle in Prague continues and,
should the victory be ours, we must make full use of it in future. What victory then have the
Germans achieved and what conspiracy then has been crushed? Whoever, of course, lends
credence to the correspondent of the Deutsche Allgemeine, who, it seems, is always only
superficially informed, and whoever trusts the pathetic catchwords of a small-time Polonophobe
and Francophobe or the articles of the perfidious Frankfurter Journal which seeks to incite
Germans against Bohemians just as it stirred up Germans against Germans during the events in
Baden, such a person will never obtain a clear view of the situation here. Everywhere in
Germany the opinion seems to prevail that the battle in the streets of Prague was aimed solely at
the suppression of the German element and the founding of a Slav republic. We will not even
discuss the latter suspicion, for it is too naive; in regard to the former, however, not the smallest
trace of a rivalry between nationalities could be observed during the fighting on the barricades.
Germans and Czechs stood side by side ready for defence, and I myself frequently requested a
Czech-speaking person to repeat what he had said in German, which was always done without
the slightest remark. One hears it said that the outbreak of the revolution came two days too
early; this would imply that there must already have been a certain degree of organisation and at
least provisions made for the supply of ammunition; however, there was no trace of this either.
The barricades grew out of the ground in a haphazard way wherever ten to twelve people
happened to he together; incidentally, it would have been impossible to raise any more

barricades, for even the smallest alleys contained three or four of them. The ammunition was
mutually exchanged in the streets and was exceedingly sparse. There was no question
Whatsoever of a supreme command or of any other kind of command. The defenders stayed
where they were being attacked and fired without direction and without command from houses
and barricades. No thought of a conspiracy could have had any foundation in such an unguided
and unorganised resistance, unless this is suggested by some official declaration and publication
of the results of an investigation. The Government, however, does not seem to find this
appropriate, for nothing has transpired from the castle that might enlighten Prague about its
blood June days. With the exception of a few, the imprisoned members of the
[156]
Svornosts
have all been released again. Other prisoners are also being released, only Count
Buquoy, Villiny and a few others are still under arrest, and one fine morning we will perhaps
read a poster on the walls of Prague according to which it was all based on a misunderstanding.
The operations of the commanding general do not suggest protection of Germans against Czechs
either; for in that case, instead of winning the German population to his side by explaining the
situation to them, storming the barricades and protecting the life and property of the loyal
inhabitants of the city, he evacuates the Old City, moves to the left bank of the Moldau and
shoots down Czechs and Germans alike; for the bombs and bullets that flew into the Old City
could not possibly seek out only Czechs, they mowed people down without looking at the
cockade. How can one rationally deduce a Slav conspiracy when the Government up to now has
been unable or unwilling to give any clarification?
Dr. Gschen, a citizen of Leipzig, has drawn up a letter of thanks to Prince von Windischgrtz,
to which the general should not ascribe too much importance as an expression of the popular
voice. Citizen Gschen is one of those circumspect liberals who suddenly turned liberal after the
February days; he was the initiator of a letter of confidence to the Saxon Government concerning
the electoral law while the whole of Saxony cried out in indignation, for one-sixth of her
inhabitants, especially some of her more able citizens, thereby lost their first civil right, the right
to vote; he is one of those who spoke out emphatically in the German League against the
admission of German non-Saxons to the election in Saxony and listen to the double-dealing
who shortly afterwards in the name of his club promised to the League of the non-Saxon
German citizens who reside in Saxony complete co-operation in the election of a deputy of its
own for Frankfurt. In short, to characterise him in a word: he is the founder of the German
League. This man has addressed a letter of thanks to the Austrian general and thanked him for
the protection which he allegedly bestowed upon the entire German fatherland. I believe that I
have shown that the events do not as yet prove at all to what extent, if any, Prince von
Windischgrtz has deserved well of the German fatherland. Only the result of the investigation
will determine that. We will, therefore, leave the high courage, the bold enterprise and firm
endurance of the general to the judgment of history. As for the expression cowardly
assassinations in regard to the death of the Princess [Maria Eleonora Windischgrtz] we will
only mention that it has by no means been proved that that bullet was intended for the Princess
who had enjoyed the undivided respect of all Prague. If it should be the case, however, the
murderer will not escape his punishment, and the grief of the Prince was surely no greater than
that of the mother who saw her nineteen-year-old daughter, also an innocent victim, carried off
with a shattered skull. I am in complete agreement with Citizen Gschen concerning the passage
in the address which speaks of brave bands that fought so gallantly under your leadership, for
if he had been able to observe, as I did, the warlike vehemence with which these brave bands
rushed upon the defenceless crowd in the Zeltner Lane on Monday at noon, he would have found
his expressions much too weak. Much as it hurts my military vanity, I have to admit that I
myself, peacefully strolling among a group of women and children near the temple, allowed
thirty to forty royal and imperial grenadiers to put myself to flight together with these people and
so effectively that I had to leave my entire baggage, i.e. my hat, in the hands of the victors, for I
considered it unnecessary to wait for the beatings, which were being administered to the crowd
behind me, to reach me as well. I had the opportunity, nevertheless, to observe that six hours
later at the Zeltner Lane barricade these same royal and imperial grenadiers thought it proper to
fire for half an hour with canister-shot and six-pounders at this barricade which was defended by
at most twenty men, and then not to take it, however, until it was abandoned by its defenders

around midnight. There was no hand-to-hand fighting except in a few instances where the
superior strength was on the side of the grenadiers. To judge by the devastation of the houses,
the Graben and the Neue Allee were largely cleared by artillery, and I leave it open whether or
not it takes great defiance of death to clear a broad avenue of a hundred barely armed defenders
with canister-shot.
Concerning the most recent speech by Dr. Stradal from Teplitz according to which the Prague
newspapers are acting for foreign interests, that is presumably Russian, I declare in the name of
the independent press of Prague that this comment is either an abundance of ignorance or an
infamous calumny whose absurdity has been and will be sufficiently proved by the attitude of
our newspapers. Pragues free press has never defended any other goal than the preservation of
Bohemias independence and the equal rights of both nationalities. It knows, however, very well
that German reaction is seeking to rouse a narrow-minded nationalism just as in Posen and in
Italy, partly in order to suppress the revolution in the interior of Germany and partly to train the
soldiery for civil war.

Letters of Marx and Engels 1842

Letter from Marx to Arnold Ruge

In Dresden
Written: Cologne, November 30 1842;
Source: Marx Engels Collected Works Vol 1, pp. 393-395;
Publisher: International Publishers 1975;
First Published: journal Documente des Socialismus, Bd I, 1902;
Translated: Clemens Dutt;
Transcribed: S. Ryan.

Dear Friend,
My letter today will be confined to the confusion with The Free.
As you already know, every day the censorship mutilates us mercilessly, so
that frequently the newspaper is hardly able to appear. Because of this, a mass
of articles by The Free have perished. But I have allowed myself to throw
out as many articles as the censor, for Meyen and Co. sent us heaps of
scribblings, pregnant with revolutionising the world and empty of ideas,
written in a slovenly style and seasoned with a little atheism and communism
(which these gentlemen have never studied). Because of Rutenbergs complete
lack of critical sense, independence and ability, Meyen and Co. had become
accustomed to regard the Rheinische Zeitung as their own, docile organ, but I

believed I could not any longer permit this watery torrent of words in the old
manner. This loss of a few worthless creations of freedom, a freedom which
strives primarily to be free from all thought, was therefore the first reason
for a darkening of the Berlin sky.
Rutenberg, who had already been removed from the German department
(where his work consisted mainly in inserting punctuation marks) and to
whom, only on my application the French department was provisionally
transferred Rutenberg, thanks to the monstrous stupidity of our state
providence, has had the luck to be regarded as dangerous, although he was not
a danger to anyone but the Rheinische Zeitung and himself. A categorical
demand was made for the removal of Rutenberg. Prussian providence,
this despotisme prussien, le plus hypocrite, le plus fourbe, spared the manager
an unpleasant step, and the new martyr, who has already learned to display
consciousness of martyrdom in facial expression, behaviour and speech with
some virtuosity, is exploiting this turn of events. He writes to all the corners of
the earth, he writes to Berlin that he is the banished principle of the Rheinische
Zeitung, which is adopting a different position in relation to the government. It
goes without saying that this also evoked demonstrations from the heroes of
freedom on the banks of the Spree, whose muddy water washes souls and
dilutes tea.
Finally, on top of this came your and Herweghs attitude to The Free to
cause the cup of the angry Olympians to overflow.
A few days ago I received a letter from little Meyen, whose favourite
category is, most appropriately, what ought to be. In this letter I am taken to
task over my attitude 1) to you and Herwegh, 2) to The Free, 3) to the new
editorial principle and the position in relation to the government. I replied at
once and frankly expressed my opinion about the defects of their writings,
which find freedom in a licentious, sansculotte-like, and at the same time
convenient, form, rather than in a free, i.e., independent and profound, content.
I demanded of them less vague reasoning, magniloquent phrases and selfsatisfied self-adoration, and more definiteness, more attention to the actual
state of affairs, more expert knowledge. I stated that I regard it as
inappropriate, indeed even immoral, to smuggle communist and socialist
doctrines, hence a new world outlook, into incidental theatrical criticisms, etc.,
and that I demand a quite different and more thorough discussion of
communism, if it should be discussed at all. I requested further that religion
should be criticised in the framework of criticism of political conditions rather
than that political conditions should be criticised in the framework of religion,
since this is more in accord with the nature of a newspaper and the educational

level of the reading public; for religion in itself is without content, it owes its
being not to heaven but to the earth, and with the abolition of distorted reality,
of which it is the theory, it will collapse of itself. Finally, I desired that, if there
is to be talk about philosophy, there should be less trifling with
the label atheism (which reminds one of children, assuring everyone who is
ready to listen to them that they are not afraid of the bogy man), and that
instead the content of philosophy should be brought to the people. Voil tout.
Yesterday I received an insolent letter from Meyen, who had not yet
received this work and who now questions me on every possible thing: 1) I
should state on whose side I am in their quarrel with Bauer, about which I
know absolutely nothing; 2) why did I not allow this and that to go through; I
am threatened with being accused of conservatism; 3) the newspaper should
not temporise, it must act in the most extreme fashion, i.e., it should calmly
yield to the police and the censorship instead of holding on to its positions in a
struggle, imperceptible to the public but nevertheless stubborn and in
accordance with its duty. Finally, an infamous report is given of Herweghs
betrothal, etc., etc.
All this is evidence of a terrible dose of the vanity which does not
understand how, in order to save a political organ, one can sacrifice a few
Berlin windbags, and thinks of nothing at all except the affairs of its clique.
Moreover, this little man strutted like a peacock, solemnly laid his hand on his
breast and on his dagger, let fall something about his party, threatened me
with his displeasure, declaimed la Marquis Posa, only somewhat worse, etc.
Since we now have to put up from morning to night with the most horrible
torments of the censorship, ministerial communications, complaints of the
Oberprsident, accusations in the Provincial Assembly, howls from
shareholders, etc., etc., and I remain at my post only because I consider it my
duty to prevent, to the best of my ability, those in power from carrying out
their plans, you can imagine that I am somewhat irritated and that I replied
rather sharply to Meyen. It is possible, therefore, that The Free will
withdraw for a while. Therefore I earnestly beg that you yourself help us by
contributing articles, and also ask your friends to do the same.
Yours,
Marx

ENGELS MAKES IT CLEAR WHAT HE MEANS BY

"NIGGER"
Marx's second daughter, Laura, married Paul Lafargue
who, Engels said, had "one eighth or one twelfth Nigger
blood". In 1887, Paul was a candidate for the Paris
Municipal Council, in a district which contained the Jardin
des Plantes and the Zoo. In a letter to Laura (April 26,
1887), Engels referred to:
"Paul, the candidate of the Jardin des Plantes - and the
animals" and added: "Being in his quality as a nigger a
degree nearer to the rest of the animal kingdom than the
rest of us, he is undoubtedly the most appropriate
representative of that district."
This letter (in German translation) is in Marx &
Engels Werke vol. 36, 1967, p. 645. It is not online but is
mentioned here ENGELS CELEBRATED THE
CONQUEST OF NORTH AFRICAN ARABS BY THE
FRENCH

Engels in The Northern Star January 22, 1848: "Upon the

whole it is, in our opinion, very fortunate that the Arabian
chief has been taken. The struggle of the Bedouins was a

hopeless one, and though the manner in which brutal

soldiers, like Bugeaud, have carried on the war is highly
blamable, the conquest of Algeria is an important and
fortunate fact for the progress of civilisation. The piracies
of the Barbaresque states, never interfered with by the
English government as long as they did not disturb their
ships, could not be put down but by the conquest of one of
these states. And the conquest of Algeria has already
forced the Beys of Tunis and Tripoli, and even the
Emperor of Morocco, to enter upon the road of civilisation.
They were obliged to find other employment for their
people than piracy, and other means of filling their
exchequer than tributes paid to them by the smaller states
of Europe. And if we may regret that the liberty of the
Bedouins of the desert has been destroyed, we must not
forget that these same Bedouins were a nation of robbers,
- whose principal means of living consisted of making
excursions either upon each other, or upon the settled
villagers, taking what they found, slaughtering all those
who resisted, and selling the remaining prisoners as
slaves. All these nations of free barbarians look very
proud, noble and glorious at a distance, but only come
near them and you will find that they, as well as the more
civilised nations, are ruled by the lust of gain"
Context here Frederick Engels in The Northern Star

Extraordinary Revelations. Abd-ElKader. Guizots Foreign Policy

Source: MECW Volume 6, p. 469;

Written: in mid-January 1848;
First published: in The Northern Star, January 22, 1848.

A curious document has just been published and distributed ["Rponse de

M. Petit, ex-receveur des finances A Corbeil, aux calumnies rpandues
l'occasion de son procs en sparation."] as if for a New Years gift to the
Chamber of Deputies. It is a statement of facts explaining how a certain M.
Petit got the place of a tax collector (receveur particulier) at Corbeil, near
Paris, and has been published by M. Petit himself. M. Petit has been forced to
this act in consequence of a suit for separation pending between himself and
his wife, and in which action it had been alleged that he had bought his place
by prostituting his wife to a gentleman intimately connected with M. Guizot.
He now declares in his publication
Yes, my place was bought, as all places are bought now-a-day; but it was bought not with
prostitution, but with hard cash only.

Then he goes on to detail how he first aspired to the office of a Councillor

Referendary at the Court of Accounts. How the ministry promised him that
place, if he only could procure the resignation of one of the councillors; how
the ministers secretary intimated to him, which of the councillors would most
likely sell their charge; how he then, for 15,000 francs, procured the wishedfor resignation; how then he was told he must procure a resignation of a
Councillor Referendary, not of the second, but of the first class, as the
government wanted such a one in order to fulfil a promise made by them on
their coming into office; how by makeshifts of different sorts, the difference of
price of the two resignations was made up; how at last the resignation was
procured; how then the ministry wanted not only a resignation like that
tendered, but one of a higher degree still, of a Master Councillor; how this new
resignation was also procured by the means of cash down; how finally it was
offered to M. Petit to accept the tax collectorship of Corbeil, rather than the
place in the Court of Accounts; how M. Petit accepted this; how then the
different resignations were signed and exchanged against the amounts of
money stipulated; and how, two days later, the whole of the royal ordinances
were published, accepting the resignations, and promoting and naming the
several individuals concerned, to the offices stipulated by the transaction.
These are the principal facts of the matter. There are some others of less
importance, proving how M. Petit, as soon as he was once hooked by having

paid the first sum, was made to pay more and more. But these I pass over. I
only mention, that in the publication of M. Petit all the names are given in full.
You will easily imagine what a noise this little pamphlet has made in Paris.
All papers are full of it, and the more so, as the Minister of Finance (to which
department the Court of Accounts belongs) under whose direction the above
transactions took place, had openly denied anything of the sort ever having
occurred, when questioned about it in the Chamber by M. Luneau. M. Luneau,
at the time, declared the sale of places in the above department to be a matter
of public notoriety. Known to the majority, as well as to the opposition.
Known to every one, in short, except, it appeared, to the minister himself. M.
Lacave met this by a flat denial.[251] Now the matter has come out in a manner
which makes all burking impossible. And yet, although all Paris has been full
of it for almost a week past, the government has not opened its mouth.
We only repeat the words of M. Dupin the elder, pronounced when M.
Luneau brought the matter forward in the Chamber
It was hardly worth while to make a revolution to abolish the venality of places, if this infamous
system is suffered to lift up its head again.

The next subject occupying the papers is the capture of Abd-elKader, [252] and the resolution which the government will come to as to his
future location. There is no doubt they will confirm and execute the Duke
D'Aumales promise, and send the Emir to Egypt. [253] It is curious that almost
all the papers of the Opposition, from theNational to the Constitutionnel,
demanded the breach of that promise. Now, there is no doubt the promise was
granted conditionally, and leaving the government free to confirm, or not to
confirm it. The refusal of confirmation would not directly imply, as
the Sun has it, an infamy. But there is no doubt, either, that a similar act on the
part of any other government, particularly the English, would have been
treated by those very same papers as the most infamous treason. It is evident,
that, it being impossible to replace matters in the same state as they were when
Abd-el-Kader conditionally surrendered, it would imply a want of generosity
of the first order to refuse to him the confirmation of the conditions of
surrender. But in such questions these national papers are blind, and would
commit the same acts for whose commission they blame others. The only two
papers which have spoken in favour of confirming the treaty with Abd-elKader, are the Presse and the Rforme. The first, a monarchical paper, wanted
it confirmed, because the government could not give the lie to a son of the
king, to a son of France; thus reviving the old title of the princes of Royal
blood before the revolution.

No, said the Rforme, the matter is a delicate one the honour of our country is implied; in
such matters we had better be too generous than too narrow, and therefore, confirm the word
given, were it even that of a prince.

Again, the Rforme alone has taken the right view of the matter.
Upon the whole it is, in our opinion, very fortunate that the Arabian chief
has been taken. The struggle of the Bedouins was a hopeless one, and though
the manner in which brutal soldiers, like Bugeaud, have carried on the war is
highly blamable, the conquest of Algeria is an important and fortunate fact for
the progress of civilisation. The piracies of the Barbaresque states, never
interfered with by the English government as long as they did not disturb their
ships, could not be put down but by the conquest of one of these states. And
the conquest of Algeria has already forced the Beys of Tunis and Tripoli, and
even the Emperor of Morocco, to enter upon the road of civilisation. They
were obliged to find other employment for their people than piracy, and other
means of filling their exchequer than tributes paid to them by the smaller states
of Europe. And if we may regret that the liberty of the Bedouins of the desert
has been destroyed, we must not forget that these same Bedouins were a nation
of robbers, whose principal means of living consisted of making excursions
either upon each other, or upon the settled villagers, taking what they found,
slaughtering all those who resisted, and selling the remaining prisoners as
slaves. All these nations of free barbarians look very proud, noble and glorious
at a distance, but only come near them and you will find that they, as well as
the more civilised nations, are ruled by the lust of gain, and only employ ruder
and more cruel means. And after all, the modernbourgeois, with civilisation,
industry, order, and at least relative enlightenment following him, is preferable
to the feudal lord or to the marauding robber, with the barbarian state of
society to which they belong.
M. Guizot has laid before the Chambers part of the diplomatic
correspondence relating to Switzerland and Italy. The first proves again that he
has been regularly doneby Lord Palmerston, and both prove the intimate
alliance France has entered into with Austria. That was the last infamy which
as yet had been spared to Louis-Philippistic France. The representative of
tyranny, of oppression attained by means the most infamous, the country of
stability and reaction, the ally of France, as reconstituted by two revolutions!
Deeper she cannot sink. But this is quite well. The deeper
the bourgeoisie brings down this country, the nearer draws the day of
reckoning. And it will come, before the bourgeoisie think of it. There is a party
they do not take into account, and that party is the noble, the generous, the
brave French people.

The dispute between the Rforme and the National. has been submitted to a
jury selected by both parties. All hostilities are suspended. By the end of this
month the decision will be given. May it be as it will, we hope
the Rforme will continue in the only course which can save the Democracy of
France.

ENGELS WAS PRO-AMERICAN

Marx, Engels and Hitler were all favourably disposed
towards their "racial brethren" in Britain and the USA. It
was Slavs whom they really despised. So it is a
considerable irony that a Slavic nation was the first to take
up Marxism in a big way and that it was primarily the same
Slavic nation that defeated Hitler
Engels in Deutsche-Bruesseler-Zeitung 1848: "In America
we have witnessed the conquest of Mexico and have
rejoiced at it. It is also an advance when a country which
has hitherto been exclusively wrapped up in its own
affairs, perpetually rent with civil wars, and completely
hindered in its development, a country whose best
prospect had been to become industrially subject to Britain
- when such a country is forcibly drawn into the historical
process. It is to the interest of its own development that
Mexico will in future be placed under the tutelage of the
United States. The evolution of the whole of America will
profit by the fact that the United States, by the possession
of California, obtains command of the Pacific"
Context here Frederick Engels in Deutsche-Brsseler-Zeitung 1848

The Movements of 1847

[266]

Source: MECW Volume 6, p. 520

Written: about January 20, 1848;
First published: in the Deutsche-Brsseler-Zeitung, January 23, 1848;
Signed: F. E.

The year 1847 was certainly the most stormy we have experienced for a very
long time. A constitution and a United Diet in Prussia [267] ; an unexpectedly
rapid awakening in political life and a general arming against Austria in Italy;
a civil war in Switzerland [268] ; a new Parliament of pronounced radical
complexion in Britain; in France scandals and Reform banquets; in America
the conquest of Mexico by the United States that is a series of changes and
movements such as no other recent year can show.
The last turning point in history was the year 1830. The July revolution in
France and the Reform Bill in Britain finally secured the victory of the
bourgeoisie; and in Britain this was, indeed, the victory of the industrial
bourgeoisie, the manufacturers, over the non-industrial bourgeoisie, the
rentiers. Belgium, and to a certain extent Switzerland, followed suit; here again
the bourgeoisie triumphed .[269] Poland rose in revolt [270] Italy chafed under
Metternichs heel. Germany was seething. All countries were preparing for a
mighty struggle.
But after 1830 there was everywhere a set-back. Poland fell, the insurgents
in Romagna were dispersed, [271] the movement in Germany was suppressed.
The French bourgeoisie defeated the republicans in France itself, and betrayed
the liberals of other countries whom it had spurred on to revolt. The liberal
ministry in Britain could accomplish nothing. Finally, in 1840, reaction was in
full swing. Poland, Italy, and Germany were politically dead: the Berliner
politisches Wochenblatt [allusion is to Frederick William IV, who patronised
this reactionary newspaper] sat enthroned in Prussia; Herr Dahlmanns all-tooclever constitution was repealed in Hanover [272]; the decisions of the Vienna
Conference of 1834 were in full force[273] The Conservatives and the Jesuits
were thriving in Switzerland. In Belgium, the Catholics were at the helm.
Guizot ruled supreme over France. In Britain, under pressure from the growing
power of Peel, the Whig government was in its last throes, and the Chartists
were vainly endeavouring to reorganise their ranks after their great defeat of
1839.[274] Everywhere the reactionary party was victorious; everywhere the

progressive parties were broken up and dispersed. The arrest of the historical
movement this seemed to be the final result of the mighty struggles of 1830.
1840 was, however, also the peak of reaction just as 1830 had been the peak
of the revolutionary movement of the bourgeoisie. From 1840 onward the
movements against the existing state of affairs began afresh. Though often
defeated, in the long run they gained more and more ground. While in England
the Chartists reorganised themselves and became stronger than ever, Peel was
forced time and again to betray his party, dealing it a fatal blow by the repeal
of the Corn Laws, [275] and finally himself to resign. The radicals gained ground
in Switzerland. In Germany, and especially in Prussia, the liberals were
pressing their demands more vigorously with every year. The liberals emerged
victorious from the Belgian elections of 1847. France was an exception, for
there the reactionary ministry secured a triumphant majority in the 1846
elections; and Italy remained dead, until Pius IX mounted the papal throne, and
at the end of 1846 attempted a few dubious reforms. So came the year 1847,
and with it a series of victories for the progressive parties of nearly all
countries. Even where they sustained defeat, this was more advantageous to
them than an immediate victory would have been.
The year 1847 decided nothing, but everywhere it brought the parties into
sharp and clear confrontation; it brought no final solution of any questions, but
it posed all questions in such a way that now they must be solved.
Among all the movements and changes of the year 1847 the most important
were those in Prussia, in Italy and in Switzerland.
In Prussia, Frederick William IV was at length forced to grant a
constitution. The sterile Don Quixote of Sans-Souci,[276] after long struggles and
labour-pains, was delivered of a constitution which was to establish for all time
the victory of the feudalist, patriarchal, absolutist, bureaucratic, and clerical
reaction. But he had miscalculated. The bourgeoisie was strong enough by then
to turn even that constitution into a weapon against the king and all the
reactionary classes of society. In Prussia, as everywhere else, the bourgeoisie
began by refusing him money. The king was in despair. One could say that in
the first days after the refusal of the money Prussia was without a king. The
country was in the throes of revolution without knowing it. Then by good luck
came the fifteen million from Russia; Frederick William was king again, the
bourgeoisie of the Diet crumpled up in alarm, and the revolutionary storm
clouds scattered. The Prussian bourgeoisie was, for the time being, defeated.
But it had made a great step forward, had won for itself a forum, had given the
king a proof of its power, and had worked the country up into a great state of

agitation. The question: who shall govern Prussia the alliance of nobles,
bureaucrats, and priests headed by the king, or the bourgeoisie is now posed
in such a way that it must be decided in favour of one side or of the other. In
the United Diet a compromise between the two parties was still possible, but
today no longer. Now it is a matter of life-and-death struggle between the two.
To make matters worse, the committees (those unhappy inventions of the
Berlin constitution manufacturers) are now assembling.[277]They will make the
already complicated legal issues so enormously more involved, that no man
will any longer know where he stands. They will tie matters up into a Gordian
knot which will have to be cut with the sword. They will complete the final
preparations for the bourgeois revolution in Prussia.
We can therefore await the advent of this Prussian revolution with the
utmost calm. The United Diet will have to be convened in 1849 whether the
king wants it or not. We will give His Majesty a breathing space till then, but
not a moment longer. Then he will have to resign his sceptre and his
unimpaired crown[278] to the Christian and the Jewish bourgeois of his realm.
Thus 1847 was politically a very good year for the Prussian bourgeoisie in
spite of their temporary defeat. The bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie of the
other German states have also noted this and shown the most heartfelt
sympathy towards them. They know that the victory of the Prussian
bourgeoisie is their own victory.
In Italy we have witnessed the amazing spectacle of the man who occupies
the most reactionary position in the whole of Europe, who represents the
petrified ideology of the Middle Ages, the Pope [Pius IX], taking the lead in a
liberal movement. The movement grew to power in a night, carrying along
with it the Austrian archduke[Leopold II] of Tuscany and the traitor Charles
Albert of Sardinia, undermining the throne of Ferdinand of Naples, its waves
sweeping over Lombardy to the Tyrolese and Styrian Alps.
Today the movement in Italy resembles that which took place in Prussia
from 1807 to 1812.[279] As in Prussia of those days, there are two issues:
external independence and internal reforms. For the moment there is no
demand for a constitution, but only for administrative reforms. Any serious
conflict with the government is avoided in the meantime so as to maintain as
united a front as possible in face of the foreign overlord. What kind of reforms
are these? To whose advantage are they? In the first place to that of the
bourgeoisie. The press is to be favoured; the bureaucracy to be made to serve
the interests of the bourgeoisie (cf. the Sardinian reforms, the Roman
consulta, [280] and the reorganisation of the ministries); the bourgeois are to be

granted extended influence on communal administration; the bon plaisir of the

nobles and of the bureaucracy is to be restricted; the bourgeoisie is to be armed
as guardia civica. Hitherto all the reforms have been and could be only in the
interests of the bourgeoisie. Compare the Prussian reforms of Napoleonic
times. These are exactly the same, only that in many respects they go further:
the administration made subservient to the interests of the bourgeoisie; the
arbitrary power of the nobility and the bureaucracy broken; municipal selfgovernment established; a militia inaugurated; the corve abolished. As earlier
in Prussia, so today in Italy, the bourgeoisie, owing to its growing wealth and,
in particular, to the growing importance of industry and commerce in the life
of the people as a whole, has become the class upon which the countrys
liberation from foreign domination mainly depends.
The movement in Italy is thus a decisively bourgeois movement. All the
classes now inspired with a zeal for reform, from the princes and the nobility
down to the pifferari and the lazzaroni,[281] appear for the nonce as bourgeois,
and 1 the Pope himself is the First Bourgeois in Italy. But once the Austrian
yoke has finally been thrown off, all these classes will be greatly disillusioned.
Once the bourgeoisie has finished off the foreign enemy, it will start on the
separation of the sheep from the goats at home; then the princes and the counts
will again call out to Austria for help, but it will be too late, and then the
workers of Milan, of Florence, and of Naples will realise that their work is
only really beginning.
Finally Switzerland. For the first time in its history, this country has played a
definite part in the European system of states, for the first time it has dared to
act decisively and has had the courage to enter the arena as a federal republic
instead of as heretofore an agglomeration of twenty-two antagonistic cantons,
utter strangers to one another. By most resolutely putting down the civil war, it
has assured the supremacy of the central power in a word, has become
centralised. The de factocentralisation will have to be legalised through the
impending reform of the Federal Pact.
Who, we again ask, is going to profit by the outcome of the war, by federal
reform, by the reorganisation of the Sonderbund cantons? The victorious party,
the party which was victorious in the individual cantons from 1830 to 1834,
the liberals and radicals, i.e., the bourgeoisie and the peasantry. The rule of the
patriciate in the former imperial towns was already overthrown as a result of
the July revolution. Where it had been practically restored, as in Berne and
Geneva, revolutions followed in 1846. Where it as yet remained intact, as for
instance in Basle City, it was shaken to its foundations in the same year. There
was little feudal aristocracy in Switzerland, and where it still survived it found

its chief strength in an alliance with the herdsmen of the upper Alps. These
men were the last, the most obstinate and the most rabid enemies of the
bourgeoisie. They were the mainstay of the reactionary elements in the liberal
cantons. Aided by the Jesuits and the pietists,[282] they covered the whole of
Switzerland with a network of. reactionary conspiracies (cf. the canton of
Vaud). They thwarted all the plans laid before the Diet by the bourgeoisie, and
hindered the final defeat of the philistine patriciate in the former imperial
cities.
In 1847 these last enemies of the Swiss bourgeoisie were completely broken.
In almost all the cantons the Swiss bourgeoisie had had a pretty free hand in
commerce and industry. In so far as the guilds still existed, they did little to
hamper bourgeois development. Tolls within the country hardly existed.
Wherever the bourgeoisie had developed to any considerable extent, political
power was in its hands. But although it had made good progress in the
individual cantons and had found support there, the main thing was still
lacking, namely centralisation. Whereas feudalism, patriarchalism, and
philistinism flourish in separated provinces and individual towns, the
bourgeoisie needs for its growth as wide a field as possible; instead of twentytwo small cantons it needed one large Switzerland. Cantonal sovereignty,
which best suited the conditions in the old Switzerland, had become a crushing
handicap for the bourgeoisie. The bourgeoisie needed a centralised power,
strong enough to impose a particular course of development on the legislation
of the individual cantons and, by sheer weight of influence, to cancel out the
differences in their constitutions and laws, to wipe out the vestiges of the.
feudal, patriarchal and philistine legislation, and energetically to represent the
interests of the Swiss bourgeoisie in relation to other countries.
The bourgeoisie has won for itself this centralised power.
But did not the peasants also help in overthrowing the Sonderbund?
Certainly they did! So far as the peasants are concerned, they will play the
same part towards the bourgeoisie as they played for so long towards the petty
bourgeoisie. The peasants will remain the exploited arm of the bourgeoisie,
they will fight its battles for it, weave its calico and ribbons, and provide the
recruits for its proletariat. What else can they do? They are owners, like the
bourgeois, and for the moment their interests are almost identical with those of
the bourgeoisie. All the political measures which they are strong enough to put
through, are hardly more advantageous to the bourgeoisie than to the peasants
themselves. Nevertheless, they are weak in comparison with the bourgeoisie,
because the latter are more wealthy and have in their hands the lever of all

political power in our century industry. With the bourgeoisie, the peasantry
can achieve much; against the bourgeoisie, nothing.
It is true that a time will come when the fleeced and impoverished section of
the peasantry will unite with the proletariat, which by then will be further
developed, and will declare war on the bourgeoisie but that does not
concern us here.
Enough that the expulsion of the Jesuits and their associates, those organised
opponents of the bourgeoisie, the general introduction of civil instead of
religious education, the seizure of most of the church estates by the state,
benefit above all the bourgeoisie.
Thus the common factor in the three most noteworthy movements of the
year 1847 is that all are primarily and chiefly in the interests of the
bourgeoisie. The party of progress was, everywhere, the party of the
bourgeoisie.
It is indeed the characteristic feature of these movements that those countries
which remained backward in 1830 are precisely those which last year took the
first decisive steps to raise themselves to the level of 1830 that is, to secure
the victory of the bourgeoisie.
So far, then, we have seen that the year 1847 was a brilliant year for the
bourgeoisie.
Let us proceed.
In Britain a new parliament has assembled, a parliament which, in the words
of John Bright the Quaker, is the most bourgeois ever convened. John Bright is
the best authority in the matter, seeing that he himself is the most determined
bourgeois in the whole of Britain. But the bourgeois John Bright is not the
bourgeois who rules in France or who thunders with pathetic bravado against
Frederick William IV. When John Bright speaks of a bourgeois he means a
manufacturer. Ever since 1688, separate sections of the bourgeois class have
been ruling in England. But, in order to facilitate their seizure of power, the
bourgeoisie has allowed the aristocrats, its dependent debtors, to retain their
rule in name. Whereas, in reality, the struggle in England is between sections
of the bourgeoisie, between rentiers and manufacturers, the manufacturers are
able to represent it as a struggle between the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie,
or, in case of necessity, as a struggle between the aristocracy and the people.
The manufacturers have no interest in maintaining the appearance of

government by the aristocracy, for the lords, the baronets and the squires do
not owe them a farthing. On the other hand they have a great interest in
destroying this appearance, for with it the rentiers lose their last sheet-anchor.
The present bourgeois or manufacturers parliament will see to this. It will
change the old feudal-looking England into a more or less modern country of
bourgeois organisation. It will bring the British constitution nearer to those of
France and of Belgium. It will complete the victory of the English industrial
bourgeoisie.
Another advance of the bourgeoisie: for an advance within the bourgeoisie is
also an extension and a strengthening of bourgeois rule.
France alone appears to be an exception. The power which fell into the
hands of the whole of the big bourgeoisie in 1830 is being year by year
increasingly limited to the rule of the wealthiest section of this big bourgeoisie,
to the rule of the rentiers and the stock exchange speculators. They have made
the majority of the big bourgeoisie serve their interest. The minority, which is
headed by a section of the manufacturers and shipping owners, is continually
diminishing. This minority has now made common cause with the middle and
petty bourgeoisie who have no electoral rights and celebrates its alliance at
reform banquets. It despairs of ever coming to power with the present
electorate. After long hesitation, it has made up its mind to promise a share of
political power to the sections of the bourgeoisie next below itself, and
especially the bourgeois ideologists, as being the least dangerous the
lawyers, doctors, and so on. It is, of course, still very far from being able to
keep its promise.
Thus also in France we see approaching the struggle within the bourgeoisie
which in Britain has already been almost ended. But, as always in France, the
situation is more sharply defined, more revolutionary than elsewhere. This
distinct division into two camps is also an advance for the bourgeoisie.
In Belgium the bourgeoisie won a decisive victory in the elections of 1847.
The Catholic ministry was forced to resign, and here also the liberal
bourgeoisie now rule for the time being.
In America we have witnessed the conquest of Mexico and have rejoiced at
it. It is also an advance when a country which has hitherto been exclusively
wrapped up in its own affairs, perpetually rent with civil wars, and completely
hindered in its development, a country whose best prospect had been to
become industrially subject to Britain when such a country is forcibly
drawn into the historical process. It is to the interest of its own development
[283]

that Mexico will in future be placed under the tutelage of the United States.
The evolution of the whole of America will profit by the fact that the United
States, by the possession of California, obtains command of the Pacific. But
again we ask: Who is going to profit immediately by the war? The
bourgeoisie alone. The North Americans acquire new regions in California and
New Mexico for the creation of fresh capital, that is, for calling new bourgeois
into being, and enriching those already in existence; for all capital created
today flows into the hands of the bourgeoisie. And what about the proposed
cut through the Tehuantepec isthmus?[284] Who is likely to gain by that? Who
else but the American shipping owners? Rule over the Pacific, who will gain
by that but these same shipping owners? The new customers for the products
of industry, customers who will come into being in the newly acquired
territories who will supply their needs? None other than the American
manufacturers.
Thus also in America the bourgeoisie has made great advances, and if its
representatives now oppose the war, that only proves that they fear that these
advances have in some ways been bought too dear.
Even in quite barbarous lands the bourgeoisie is advancing. In Russia,
industry is developing by leaps and bounds and is succeeding in converting
even the boyars into bourgeois. Both in Russia and Poland serfdom is being
restricted and the nobility thereby weakened in the interest of the bourgeoisie,
and a class of free peasants is being created which the bourgeoisie everywhere
needs. The Jews are being persecuted entirely in the interest of the settled
Christian bourgeois, whose business was spoiled by the pedlars. In
Hungary, the feudal magnates are more and more changing into wholesale
corn and wool merchants and cattle dealers, and consequently now appear in
the Diet as bourgeois. What of all the glorious advances of civilisation in
such lands as Turkey, Egypt, Tunis, Persia, and other barbarous countries?
They are nothing else but a preparation for the advent of a future bourgeoisie.
In these countries the word of the prophet is being fulfilled: Prepare ye the
way of the Lord ....[Isaiah 40:3] Lift up your heads, 0 ye gates; and be ye lift
up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. Who is this King
of glory? [Psalms 24:7, 8] The bourgeois!
Wherever we look, the bourgeoisie are making stupendous progress. They
are holding their heads high, and haughtily challenge their enemies. They
expect a decisive victory, and their hopes will not be disappointed. They intend
to shape the whole world according to their standard; and, on a considerable
portion of the earths surface, they will succeed.

We are no friends of the bourgeoisie. That is common knowledge. But this

time we do not grudge the bourgeoisie their triumph. We can chuckle over the
haughty looks which the bourgeois deign to bestow (especially in Germany)
upon the apparently tiny band of democrats and Communists. We have no
objection if everywhere they force through their purposes.
Nay more. We cannot forbear an ironical smile when we observe the terrible
earnestness, the pathetic enthusiasm with which the bourgeois strive to achieve
their aims. They really believe that they are working on their own behalf! They
are so short-sighted as to fancy that through their triumph the world will
assume its final configuration Yet nothing is more clear than that they are
everywhere preparing the way for us, for the democrats and the Communists;
than that they will at most win a few years of troubled enjoyment, only to be
then immediately overthrown. Behind them stands everywhere the proletariat,
sometimes participating in their endeavours and partly in their illusions, as in
Italy and Switzerland, sometimes silent and reserved, but secretly preparing
the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, as in France and Germany; finally, in Britain
and America, in open rebellion against the ruling bourgeoisie.
We can do still more. We can say all this to the bourgeoisie straight out, we
can lay our cards on the table. Let them know in advance that they are working
only in our interest. They still cannot for that reason give up their fight against
the absolute monarchy, the nobility, and the clergy. They must conquer or
already now go under.
In Germany in a very short time they will even have to ask for our help.
So just fight bravely on, most gracious masters of capital! We need you for
the present; here and there we even need you as rulers. You have to clear the
vestiges of the Middle Ages and of absolute monarchy out of our path; you
have to annihilate patriarchalism; you have to carry out centralisation; you
have to convert the more or less propertyless classes into genuine proletarians,
into recruits for us; by your factories and your commercial relationships you
must create for us the basis of the material means which the proletariat needs
for the attainment of freedom. In recompense whereof you shall be allowed to
rule for a short time. You shall be allowed to dictate your laws, to bask in the
rays of the majesty you have created, to spread your banquets in the halls of
kings, and to take the beautiful princess to wife but do not forget that
The
hangman
[Heinrich Heine, Ritter Olaf"]

stands

at

the

door!

NO PAST AND NO FUTURE FOR THE SLAVS

Engels in Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 222, February
1849: "We repeat: apart from the Poles, the Russians, and
at most the Turkish Slavs, no Slav people has a future, for
the simple reason that all the other Slavs lack the primary
historical, geographical, political and industrial conditions
for independence and viability. Peoples which have never
had a history of their own, which from the time when they
achieved the first, most elementary stage of civilization
already came under foreign sway, or which were forced to
attain the first stage of civilization only by means of a
foreign yoke, are not viable and will never be able to
achieve any kind of independence. And that has been the
fate of the Austrian Slavs. The Czechs, among whom we
would include the Moravians and Slovaks, although they
differ in respect of language and history, have never had a
history of their own"
Context here Marx in Neue Rheinische Zeitung February 1849

Democratic Pan-Slavism
by Frederick Engels
Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 222
Translated by the Marx-Engels Institute
Transcribed for the Internet by director@marx.org, 1994

[314]

Cologne, February 14, 1849 - We have often enough pointed out that the
romantic dreams which came into being after the revolutions of February and
March, such as ardent fantasies about the universal fraternal union of people,
a European federative republic, and eternal world peace, were basically
nothing but screens hiding the immeasurable perplexity and inactivity of the
leading spokesmen of that time. People did not see, or did not want to see,
what had to be done to safeguard the revolution; they were unable or
unwilling to carry out any really revolutionary measures; the narrowmindedness of some and the counter-revolutionary intrigues of others
resulted in the people getting only sentimental phrases instead of
revolutionary deeds. The scoundrel Lamartine with his high-flown
declarations was the classical hero of this epoch of betrayal of the people
disguised by poetic floridity and rhetorical tinsel.
The peoples who have been through the revolution know how dearly they
have had to pay because in their simplicity at the time they believed the loud
talk and bombastic assurances. Instead of safeguards for the revolution everywhere reactionary Chambers which undermined the revolution; instead of
fulfillment of the promises given at the barricades - counter-revolution in
Naples, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, the fall of Milan, and the war against Hungary;
instead of the fraternal union of peoples - renewal of the Holy Alliance on the
broadest basis under the patronage of England and Russia. And the very same
persons who in April and May responded jubilantly to the high-flown phrases
of the epoch, now only blush with shame at the thought of how at that time
they allowed themselves to be deceived by idiots and rogues.
People have learned by bitter experience that the "European fraternal union
of peoples" cannot be achieved by mere phrases and pious wishes, but only by
profound revolutions and bloody struggles; they have learned that the question
is not that of a fraternal union of all European peoples under a single
republican flag, but of an alliance of the revolutionary peoples against the
counter-revolutionary peoples, an alliance which comes into being not
on paper, but only on the battlefield.
Throughout Western Europe these bitter but necessary experiences have
completely discredited Lamartine's phrase-mongering. In the east, on the other
hand, there are still sections, ostensibly democratic, revolutionary sections,
which are not tired of echoing these phrases and sentimental ideas and
preaching the gospel of the European fraternal union of peoples.

These actions - we leave out of account some ignorant German-speaking

dreamers such as Herr A. Ruge, etc. - are the democratic pan-Slavists of the
various Slav peoples.
The programme of democratic pan-Slavism lies before us in the shape of a
pamphlet: Aufruf an die Slaven. Von einem russischen Patrioten, Michael
Bakunin, Mitgleid des Slavencongresses in Prag. Koethen, 1848.
Bakunin is our friend. That will not deter us from criticizing his pamphlet.
Hear how Bakunin at the very beginning of his Appeal adheres to the
illusions of last March and April:
"The very first sign of life of the revolution was a cry of hate against the old [policy of]
oppression, a cry of sympathy and love for all oppressed nationalities. The peoples... felt at last
the disgrace with which the old diplomacy had burdened mankind, and they realized that the
well-being of the nations will never be ensured as long as there is a single nation anywhere in
Europe living under oppression.... Away with the oppressors! was the unanimous cry; all hail to
the oppressed, the Poles, the Italians and all of the others! No more wars of conquest, but only
the one last war fought out to the end, the good fight of the revolution for the final liberation of
all peoples! Down with the artificial barriers which have been forcibly erected by congresses of
despots [meaning Vienna Congresses of 1814-15] in accordance with so-called historical,
geographical, commercial and strategical necessities! There should be no other frontiers than
those natural boundaries drawn in accordance with justice and democracy and established by the
sovereign will of the peoples themselves on the basis of their national characteristics. Such is the
call issued by all the people." pp. 6, 7.

In this passage we already find reproduced all the rapturous enthusiasm of

the first months after the revolution. There is not a word about the actually
existing obstacles to such a universal liberation, or about the very diverse
political needs of the individual peoples. The word "freedom" replaces all
that. There is not one word about the actual state of things, or, insofar as it
does receive attention, it is described as absolutely reprehensible, arbitrarily
established by "congresses of despots" and "diplomats". To this bad reality is
counterposed the alleged will of the people with its categorical imperative,
with the absolute demand simply for "freedom".
We have seen who proved to be the stronger. The alleged will of the people
was so disgracefully deceived precisely because it trusted in such fantastic
abstraction from the conditions actually prevailing.
"By its plenipotentiary power the revolution declared the despotic states dissolved; dissolved the
Prussian state... Austria... the Turkish Empire... and, finally, the last hope of the despots... the
Russian Empire... and as the final goal of all - the universal federation of the European
republics." p. 8.

As a matter of fact, here in the West it must strike us as peculiar that after all
of these beautiful plans have come to grief at the first attempt to fulfill them
they can still be regarded as something meritorious and great. Certainly, the
unfortunate thing was precisely that although the revolution "by its own
plenipotentiary power the revolution declared the despotic states dissolved",
at the same time "by its own plenipotentiary power" it did not lift a finger to
carry out its decree.
At that same time the Slav Congress was convened. The Slav Congress
adopted completely the standpoint of these illusions. Listen to this:
"With a lively sense of the common ties of history (?) and blood, we swore not to allow our fates
to separate us again from one another. Pronouncing a curse on the policy of which we have so
long been the victims, we ourselves asserted our right to complete independence and vowed that
henceforth this should be common to all the Slave peoples. We recognized the independence of
Bohemia and Moravia... we held out our fraternal hand to the German people, to democratic
Germany. In the name of those of us who live in Hungary, we offered the Magyars, the furious
enemies of our race... a fraternal alliance. Nor did we forget in our alliance for liberation those of
our brothers who groan under the Turkish yoke. We solemnly condemned the treacherous policy
which three times cut Poland into pieces.... All that we proclaimed, and together with the
democrats of all peoples (?) we demanded freedom, equality and the brotherhood of all nations."
p. 10.

Democratic pan-Slavism still puts forward these demands:

"At that time we felt confident of our cause... justice and humanity were wholly on our side, and
nothing but illegality and barbarity on the side of our enemies. The ideas to which we devoted
ourselves were no empty figments of a dream, they were the ideas of the sole true and necessary
policy, the policy of revolution."

"Justice", "humanity", "freedom", "equality", "fraternity", "independence" so far we have found nothing in the pan-Slavist manifesto but these more or
less ethical categories, which sound very fine, it is true, but prove absolutely
nothing in historical and political questions. "Justice", "humanity", "freedom",
etc., may demand this or that a thousand times over; but if the thing is
impossible it does not take place and in spite of everything remains an
"empty figment of a dream". The pan-Slavists' illusions ought to have
understood that all pious wishes and beautiful dreams are of no avail against
the iron reality, and that their policy at any time was no more the "policy of
revolution" than was that of the French Republic. Nevertheless, today, in
January 1849, they still come to us with the same old phrases, in the content
of which Western Europe has been disillusioned by the bloodiest counterrevolution!

Just a word about "universal fraternal union of peoples" and the drawing of
"boundaries established by the sovereign will of the peoples themselves on the
basis of their national characteristics". The United States and Mexico are two
republics, in both of which the people is sovereign.
How did it happen that over Texas a war broke out between these two
republics, which, according to the moral theory, ought to have been
"fraternally united" and "federated", and that, owing to "geographical,
commercial and strategical necessities", the "sovereign will" of the American
people, supported by the bravery of the American volunteers, shifted the
boundaries drawn by nature some hundreds of miles further south? And will
Bakunin accuse the Americans of a "war of conquest", which, although it deals
with a severe blow to his theory based on "justice and humanity", was
nevertheless waged wholly and solely in the interest of civilization? Or is it
perhaps unfortunate that splendid California has been taken away from the lazy
Mexicans, who could not do anything with it? That the energetic Yankees by
rapid exploitation of the California gold mines will increase the means of
circulation, in a few years will concentrate a dense population and extensive
trade at the most suitable places on the coast of the Pacific Ocean, create large
cities, open up communications by steamship, construct a railway from New
York to San Francisco, for the first time really open the Pacific Ocean to
civilization, and for the third time in history give the world trade a new
direction? The "independence" of a few Spanish Californians and Texans may
suffer because of it, in someplaces "justice" and other moral principles may be
violated; but what does that matter to such facts of world-historic significance?
We would point out, incidentally, that this theory of universal fraternal union
of peoples, which calls indiscriminately for fraternal union regardless of the
historical situation and the stage of social development of the individual
peoples, was combated by the editors of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung already
long before the revolution, and in fact in opposition to their best friends, the
English and French democrats. Proof of this is to be found in the English,
French and Belgian democratic newspapers of that period.
As far as pan-Slavism in particular is concerned, in the Neue Rheinische
Zeitung No.194 we showed that, part from the well-meaning self-deceptions of
the democratic pan-Slavists, it has in reality no other aim than to give the
Austrian Slavs, who are split up and historically, literally, politically,
commercially and industrially dependent on the Germans and Magyars, a basis
of support, in Russia on the one hand, and on the other hand in the Austrian
united monarchy, which is dominated by the Slav majority and dependent on
Russia. We have shown how such little nations. which for centuries have been

taken in tow by history against their will, must necessarily be counterrevolutionary, and that their whole position in the revolution in 1848 was
actually counter-revolutionary. In view of the democratic pan-Slavist
manifesto, which demands the independence of all Slavs without distinction,
we must return to this matter.
Let us note first of all that there is much excuse for the political romanticism
and sentimentality of the democrats at the Slav Congress. With the exception
of the Poles - the Poles are not pan-Slavists for very obvious reasons - they all
belong to peoples which are either, like the Southern Slavs, necessarily
counter-revolutionary owning to the whole of their historical position, or, like
the Russians, are still a long way from revolution and therefore, at least for the
time being, are still counter-revolutionary. These sections, democratic owing
to their education acquired abroad, seek to bring their democratic views into
harmony with their national feeling, which is known to be very pronounced
among the Slavs; and since the real world, the actual state of things in their
country, affords no basis, or only a fictitious basis for such reconciliation, there
remains for them nothing but the other-worldly "airy kingdom of dreams"
[quoting Heinrich Heine] the realm of pious wishes, the policy of fantasy. How
splendid it would be if the Croats, Pandours and Cossacks formed the
vanguard of European democracy, if the ambassador of a republic of Siberia
were to present his credentials in Paris! Certainly, such prospects would be
very delightful; but, after all, even the most enthusiastic pan-Slavist will not
demand that European democracy should wait for their realization - and at
present it is precisely those nations from whom the manifesto specially
demands independence that are the special enemies of democracy.
We repeat: apart from the Poles, the Russians, and at most the Turkish Slavs,
no Slav people has a future, for the simple reason that all the other Slavs lack
the primary historical, geographical, political and industrial conditions for
independence and viability.
Peoples which have never had a history of their own, which from the time
when they achieved the first, most elementary stage of civilization already
came under foreign sway, or which were forced to attain the first stage of
civilization only by means of a foreign yoke, are not viable and will never be
able to achieve any kind of independence.
And that has been the fate of the Austrian Slavs. The Czechs, among whom
we would include the Moravians and Slovaks, although they differ in respect
of language and history, have never had a history of their own. Bohemia has
been chained to Germany since the time of Charles the Great. The Czech

nation freed itself momentarily and formed the Great-Moravian state, only
immediately to come under subjugation again and for 500 years to be a bill
thrown from one to another by Germany, Hungary and Poland. Following that,
Bohemia and Moravia passed definitely to Germany and the Slovak regions
remained with Hungary. And this historically absolutely non-existent "nation"
puts forward claims to independence?
The same thing holds for the Southern Slavs proper. Where is the history of
the Illyrian Solvenes, the Dalmatians, Croats and Shokazians? Since the 11th
century they have lost the last semblance of political independence and have
been partly under German, partly under Venetian, and partly under Magyar
rule. And it is desired to put together a vigorous, independent, viable nation
out of these tattered remnants?
More than that. If the Austrian Slavs were a compact mass like the Poles, the
Magyars and the Italians, if they were in a position to come together to form a
state of 12-20 million people, then their claims would surely be more serious.
But the position is just the opposite. The Germans and Magyars have pushed
themselves in between them like a broad wedge to the farthest extremities of
the Carpathians, almost to the Black Sea, and have separated the Czechs,
Moravians and Slovaks from the Southern Slavs by a broad band 60-80 miles
[German mile equals 4.7 English miles] wide. To the north of this band are 5.5
million Slavs, to the south 5.5 million Slavs, separated by a compact mass of
10-11 million Germans and Magyars, made allies by history and necessity.
But why should not the 5.5 million Czechs, Moravians and Slovaks form
one state, and the 5.5 million Southern Slavs together with the Turkish Slavs
form another state?
Take a look at any good linguistic map of the distribution of the Czechs and
their neighbors akin to them in language. They have thrust themselves into
Germany like a wedge but on both sides they have been eaten into and pressed
back by the German element. One-third of Bohemia speaks German; for every
34 Czechs in Bohemia there are 17 Germans. Yet it is precisely the Czechs in
Bohemia who are supposed to form the core of the intended Slav state; for the
Moravians, too, are considerably interspersed with Germans, and the Slovaks
with Germans and Magyars end furthermore completely demoralized in a
national respect. And what a Slav state that would be, in which in the final
analysis the German urban bourgeoisie would hold sway!
The same thing applies to the Southern Slavs. The Slovenes and Croats cut
of Germany and Hungary from the Adriatic Sea; but Germany and

Hungary cannot allow themselves to be cut off from the Adriatic Sea on
account of "geographical and commercial necessities", which, it is true, are no
obstacle to Bakunin's fantasy, but which nevertheless do exist and are just as
much a vital question for Germany and Hungary as, for example, the Baltic
Sea coast from Danzig to Riga is for Poland. And where it is a question of the
existence, of the free development of all the resources of big nations, such
sentimental considerations as concern for a few scattered Germans of Slavs
will not decide anything! This apart from the fact that these Southern Slavs are
likewise everywhere mingled with German, Magyar, and Italian elements,
there here too a mere glance at a linguistic map shows the planned South-Slav
state would be delivered into the hands of the Italian bourgeoisie of Trieste,
Fiumeand Zara, and theGerman bourgeoisie of Agram, Laibach, Karlstadt,
Semlin, Pancsova, and Weisskirchen!
But could not the Austrian Southern Slavs unite with the Serbs, Bosnians,
Morlaks, and Bulgarians? Certainly they could if, besides the difficulties
mentioned above, there did not exist also the age-old hatred of the Austrian
frontier dwellers for the Turkish Slavs on the other side of the Sava and Unna;
but these people, who for centuries have considered one another as rascals and
bandits, despite all their racial kinship hate one another infinitely more than do
the Slavs and Magyars.
In point of fact, the position of the Germans and Magyars would be
extremely pleasant if the Austrian Slavs were assisted to get their so-called
rights! An independent Bohemian-Moravian state would be wedged between
Silesia and Austria; Austria and Styria would be cut off by the "South-Slav
republic" from their natural debouche [outlet] - the Adriatic Sea and the
Mediterranean; and the eastern part of Germany would be torn to pieces like a
loaf of bread that has been gnawed by rats! And all that by way of thanks for
the Germans having given themselves the trouble of civilizing the stubborn
Czechs and Slovenes, and introducing among them trade, industry, a tolerable
degree of agriculture, and culture!
But it is precisely this yoke imposed on the Slavs under the pretext of
civilization that is said to constitute one of the greatest crimes of the Germans
and Magyars! Just listen to this:
"Rightly do you rage, rightly do you breathe vengeance against the damnable German policy,
which has thought of nothing but your ruin, which has enslaved you for centuries...." p.5
"... The Magyars, the bitter enemies of our race, who number hardly four millions, have
presumed to seek to impose their yoke on eight million Slavs...." p.9

"I know all that the Magyars have done to our Slav brothers, what crimes they have committed
against our nationality, and how they have trampled underfoot our language and independence."
p.30

What then are the great, dreadful crimes committed by the Germans and
Magyars against the Slav nationality? We are not speaking here of the
partition of Poland, which is not at issue here, we are speaking of the
"centuries of injustice" supposed to have been inflicted on the Slavs.
In the north, the Germans have reconquered from the Slavs the formerly
German and subsequently Slav region from the Elbe to the Warthe; a conquest
which as determined by the "geographical and strategical necessities" resulting
from the partition of the Carolingian kingdom. These Slavs areas have been
fully Germanized; the thing has been done and cannot be undone, unless the
pan-Slavists were to resurrect the lost Sorbian, Wendish, and Obodritian
languages and impose them on the inhabitants of Leipzig, Berlin and Stettin.
But up to now it has never been disputed that this conquest was to the
advantage of civilization.
In the south, the Germans found the Slav races already split up. That had
been seen to by the non-Slav Avars, who occupied the region later inhabited
by the Magyars. The Germans exacted tribute from these Slavs and waged
many wars against them. They fought also against the Avars and Magyars,
from whom they took the whole territory from the Ems to the Leitha. Whereas
they carried out Germanization here by force, the Germanization of the Slav
territories proceeded much more on a peaceful basis, by immigration and by
the influence of the more developed nation on the undeveloped. German
industry, German trade, and German culture by themselves served to introduce
the German language into the country. As far as "oppression" is concerned, the
Slavs were not more oppressed by the Germans than the mass of the German
population itself.
As regards the Magyars, there are certainly also a large number of Germans
in Hungary, but the Magyars, although numbering "hardly four millions", have
never had the occasion to complain of the "damnable German policy"! And if
during eight centuries the "eight million Slavs" have had to suffer the yoke
imposed on them by the four million Magyars, that alone sufficiently proves
which was the more viable and vigorous, the many Slavs or the few Magyars!
But, of course, the greatest "crime" of the Germans and Magyars is that they
prevented these 12 million Slavs from becoming Turkish! What would have
become of these scattered small nationalities, which have played such a pitiful

role in history, if the Magyars and Germans had not kept them together and led
them against the armies of Mohammed and Suleiman, and if their so-called
oppressors had not decided the outcome of the battles which were fought for
the defense of these weak nationalities! The fate of the "12 million Slavs,
Wallachians, and Greeks" who have been "trampled underfoot by 700,000
Osmans" (p.8), right up to the present day, does not that speak eloquently
enough?
And finally, what a "crime" it is, what a "damnable policy" that at a time
when, in Europe in general, big monarchies had become a "historical
necessity", the Germans and Magyars untied all these small, stunted and
impotent little nations into a single big state and thereby enabled them to take
part in a historical development from which, left to themselves, they would
have remained completely aloof! Of course, matters of this kind cannot be
accomplished without many a tender national blossom being forcibly broken.
But in history nothing is achieved without violence and implacable
ruthlessness, and if Alexander, Caesar, and Napoleon had been capable of
being moved by the same sort of appeal as that which pan-Slavism now makes
on behalf of its ruined clients, what would have become of history! And are the
Persians, Celts, and Christian Germans of less value than the Czechs,
Ogulians, and Serezhans?
Now, however, as a result of the powerful progress of industry, trade and
communications, political centralization has become a much more urgent need
than it was then, in the 15th and 16th centuries. What still has to be centralized
is being centralized. And now the pan-Slavists come forward and demand that
we should "set free" these half-Germanized Slavs, and that we should abolish a
centralization which is being forced on these Slavs by all their material
interests!
In short, it turns out these "crimes" of the Germans and Magyars against the
said Slavs are among the best and most praiseworthy deeds which our and the
Magyar people can boast in their history.
Moreover, as far as the Magyars are concerned, it should be specially
pointed out here that, particularly since the revolution, they have acted too
much submissively and weakly against the puffed-up Croats. It is notorious
that Kossuth made all possible concessions to them, excepting only that their
deputies were not allowed to speak the Croatian in the Diet. And thus
submissiveness to a nation that is counter-revolutionary by nature is the only
thing with which the Magyars can be reproached.

Source: MECW Volume 8, p. 362;

Written: by Engels on February 14-15, 1849;
First published: in Neue Rheinische Zeitung Nos. 222 and 223, February 15

and 16, 1849.

Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 223, February 16, 1849

Cologne, February 15. We concluded yesterday with the proof that the
Austrian Slavs have never had a history of their own, that from the historical,
literary, political, commercial and industrial points of view they are
dependent on the Germans and Magyars, that they are already partly
Germanised, Magyarised and Italianised, that if they were to establish
independent states, not they, but the German and Italian bourgeoisie of their
towns would rule these states, and finally, that neither Hungary nor Germany
can tolerate the detachment and independent constitution of such unviable,
small intercalated states.
All that, however, would still not be decisive. If at any epoch while they
were oppressed the Slavs had begun a new revolutionary history, that by itself
would have proved their viability. From that moment the revolution would
have had an interest in their liberation, and the special interest of the Germans
and Magyars would have given way to the greater interest of the European
revolution.
Precisely that, however, never happened. The Slavs once again we
remind our readers that here we always exclude the Poles were always the
main instruments of the counter-revolutionaries. Oppressed at home, outside
their country, wherever Slav influence extended to, they were the oppressors of
all revolutionary nations.
Let no one object that we speak here on behalf of German national
prejudices. In German, French, Belgian and English periodicals, the proofs are
to be found that it was precisely the editors of Neue Rheinische Zeitung who
already long before the revolution most decisively opposed all manifestations
of German national narrowmindedness.[325] Unlike many other people, they did
not castigate the Germans at random or on the basis of mere hearsay; on the
contrary, they proved from history and mercilessly exposed the despicable role

that Germany has certainly played in history, thanks to its nobles and burghers
and thanks to its crippled industrial development; they have always recognised
the superiority of the great historical nations of the west, the English and the
French, compared with the backward Germans. But precisely for that reason
we should be permitted not to share the fantastic illusions of the Slavs and
allowed to judge other peoples as severely as we have judged our own nation.
Up to now it has always been said that the Germans have been
the Lanzknechte [spear-bearers] of despotism throughout Europe. We are far
from denying the shameful part played by the Germans in the shameful wars
against the French revolution from 1792 to 1815, and in the oppression of Italy
since 1815 and of Poland since 1772; but who stood behind the Germans, who
used them as their mercenaries or their vanguard? England and Russia. After
all, up to the present day the Russians boast of having brought about the fall of
Napoleon through their innumerable armies, which is at any rate largely
correct. This much, at least, is certain, that of the armies which by their
superior power drove back Napoleon from the Oder as far as Paris, threequarters consisted of Slavs, Russians or Austrian Slavs.
And then, too, the Germans oppression of the Italians and Poles! A wholly
Slav power and a semi-Slav power competed in the partition of Poland; the
armies which crushed Kosciuszko consisted for the most part of Slavs, the
armies of Dibich and Paskevich were exclusively Slav armies. And in Italy for
many years the Tedeschi[Germans] alone had the ignominy of being regarded
as oppressors. But, once again, what was the composition of the armies which
best let themselves be used for oppression and for whose savage acts the
Germans were blamed? Once again, they consisted of Slavs. Go to Italy and
ask who suppressed the Milan revolution; people will no longer say: the
Tedeschi since the Tedeschi made a revolution in Vienna they are no longer
hated but: the Croati. That is the word which the Italians now apply to the
whole Austrian army, i.e. to all that is most deeply hated by them: i Croati!
Nevertheless, these reproaches would be superfluous and unjustified if the
Slavs had anywhere seriously participated in the movement of 1848, if they
had hastened to join the ranks of the revolutionary peoples. A single
courageous attempt at a democratic revolution, even if it were crushed,
extinguishes in the memory of the peoples whole centuries of infamy and
cowardice, and at once rehabilitates a nation, however deeply it had been
despised. That was the experience of the Germans last year. But whereas the
French, Germans, Italians, Poles and Magyars raised high the banner of the
revolution, the Slavs one and all put themselves under the banner of
the counter-revolution. In the forefront were the Southern Slavs, who had

already for many years upheld their counter-revolutionary separatist aims

against the Magyars; then came the Czechs, and behind them the Russians,
armed for battle and ready to appear on the battlefield at the decisive moment.
It is well known that in Italy the Magyar hussars went over to the Italians
en masse, that in Hungary whole Italian battalions put themselves at the
disposal of the Magyar revolutionary Government and are still fighting under
the Magyar flag; it is well known that in Vienna the German regiments sided
with the people and even in Galicia were by no means reliable; it is well
known that masses of Austrian and non-Austrian Poles fought against the
Austrian armies in Italy, in Vienna and in Hungary, and are still fighting in the
Carpathians; but where has. anyone ever heard of Czech or South-Slav troops
revolting against the black-and-yellow flag?
On the contrary, up to now it is known only that Austria, which was shaken
to its foundations, has been kept alive and for the time being is once again in
safety owing to the enthusiasm of the Slavs for the black-and-yellow flag; that
it was precisely the Croats, Slovenes, Dalmatians, Czechs, Moravians and
Ruthenians who put their contingents at the disposal of Windischgrtz and
Jellachich for suppressing the revolution in Vienna, Cracow, Lemberg and
Hungary; and what furthermore we have now learned from Bakunin is that the
Prague Slav Congress was dispersed not by Germans, but by Galician, Czech
and Slovak Slavs and nothing but Slavs"! P.33.
The revolution of 1848 compelled all European peoples to declare
themselves for or against it. In the course of a month all the peoples ripe for
revolution had made their revolution, and all those which were not ripe had
allied themselves against the revolution. At that time it was a matter of
disentangling the confused tangle of peoples of Eastern Europe. The question
was which nation would seize the revolutionary initiative here, and which
nation would develop the greatest revolutionary energy and thereby safeguard
its future. The Slavs remained silent, the Germans and Magyars, faithful to
their previous historical position, took the lead. As a result, the Slavs were
thrown completely into the arms of the counter-revolution.
But what about the Slav Congress in Prague?
We repeat: the so-called democrats among the Austrian Slavs are either
scoundrels or fantasts, and the latter, who do not find any fertile soil among
their people for the ideas imported from abroad, have been continually led by
the nose by the scoundrels. At the Prague Slav Congress the fantasts had the
upper hand. When the fantasy seemed dangerous to the aristocratic pan-

Slavists, Count Thun, Palack & Co., they betrayed the fantasts to
Windischgrtz and the black-and-yellow counter-revolution. What bitter,
striking irony is contained in the fact that this Congress of dreamers, defended
by the dreamy Prague youth, was dispersed by soldiers of their own nation,
and that, as it were, a military Slav Congress was set up in opposition to the
day-dreaming Slav Congress! The Austrian army which captured Prague,
Vienna, Lemberg, Cracow, Milan and Budapest that is the real, active Slav
Congress!
How unfounded and vague was the fantasy at the Slav Congress is proved by
its results. The bombardment of a town like Prague would have filled any other
nation with inextinguishable hatred of its oppressors. But what did the Czechs
do? They kissed the rod which had bloodily chastised them, they eagerly swore
obedience to the flag under which their brothers had been slaughtered and their
wives ravished. The street-fighting in Prague was the turning-point for the
Austrian democratic pan-Slavists.[326] In return for the prospect of obtaining
their pitiful national independence, they bartered away democracy and the
revolution to the Austrian united monarchy, to the centre, the systematic
enforcement of despotism in the heart of Europe, as Bakunin himself says on
p. 29. And for this cowardly, base betrayal of the revolution we shall at some
time take a bloody revenge against the Slavs.
It has at last become clear to these traitors that they have nevertheless been
cheated by the counter-revolution and that for the Austrian Slavs there can be
no thought of either a Slav Austria or a federative state of nations with
equal rights, and least of all of democratic institutions. Jellachich, who is no
bigger a scoundrel than most of the other democrats among the Austrian Slavs,
bitterly regrets the way in which he has been exploited, and Stratimirovich, in
order not to allow himself to be exploited any longer, has proclaimed an open
revolt against Austria. The Slovansk-Lipa associations [327] once more
everywhere oppose the Government and every day gain fresh painful
experience of the trap into which they let themselves be enticed. But it is now
too late; powerless in their own homeland against the Austrian soldiery, which
they themselves re-organised, rejected by the Germans and Magyars whom
they have betrayed, rejected by revolutionary Europe, they will have to suffer
the same military despotism which they helped to impose on the Viennese and
Magyars. Submit to the Emperor so that the imperial troops do not treat you
as if you were rebellious Magyars these words of the Patriarch Rajachich
express what they have to expect in the immediate future.
How very differently have the Poles behaved! For the last eighty years
oppressed, enslaved, plundered, they have always been on the side of the

revolution and proclaimed that the revolutionisation of Poland is inseparable

from the independence of Poland. In Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Italy, Hungary, the
Poles shared the fighting in all the revolutions and revolutionary wars,
regardless whether they were fighting against Germans, against Slavs, against
Magyars, or even against Poles. The Poles are the only Slav nation that is free
from all pan-Slavist aspirations. They have, however, very good reasons for
that: they have been oppressed mainly by their own so-called Slav brothers,
and among the Poles hatred of Russians takes precedence over hatred of
Germans, and with full justification. But because the liberation of Poland is
inseparable from the revolution, because Pole and revolutionary have become
synonymous, for Poles the sympathy of all Europe and the restoration of their
nation are as certain as are for the Czechs, Croats and Russians the hatred of
all Europeans and a most bloody revolutionary war of the entire west against
them.
The Austrian pan-Slavists ought to understand that all their desire insofar as
they can be fulfilled, have been realised in the restoration of the Austrian
united monarchy under Russian protection. If Austria collapses, what is in
store for them is the revolutionary terrorism of the Germans and Magyars, but
by no means, as they imagine, the liberation of all the nations enslaved under
the sceptre of Austria. They must therefore wish that Austria continues to hold
together, and indeed that Galicia remains with Austria, so that the Slavs retain
a majority in the state. Here, therefore, pan-Slavist interests are already directly
opposed to the restoration of Poland, for a Poland without Galicia, a Poland
that does not extend from the Baltic to the Carpathians, is no Poland. But
equally for that reason a Slav Austria is still a mere dream; for without the
supremacy of the Germans and Magyars, without the two centres of Vienna
and Budapest, Austria will once again fall apart, as its whole history up to
recent months has proved. Accordingly, the realisation of pan-Slavism would
have to be restricted to Russian patronage over Austria. The openly reactionary
pan-Slavists were therefore quite right in holding fast to the preservation of the
united monarchy; it was the only means of saving anything. The so-called
democratic pan-Slavists, however, were in an acute dilemma: either
renunciation of the revolution and at least a partial salvation of nationality
through the united monarchy, or abandonment of nationality and salvation of
the revolution by the collapse of the united monarchy. At that time the fate of
the revolution in Eastern Europe depended on the position of the Czechs and
Southern Slavs; we shall not forget that at the decisive moment they betrayed
the revolution to Petersburg and Olmtz for the sake of their petty national
hopes.

What would be said if the democratic party in Germany commenced its

programme with the demand for the return of Alsace, Lorraine, and Belgium,
which in every respect belongs to France, on the pretext that the majority there
is Germanic? How ridiculous the German democrats would make themselves
if they wanted to found a pan-Germanic German-Danish-Swedish-EnglishDutch alliance for the liberation of all German-speaking countries! German
democracy, fortunately, is above such fantasies. German students in 1817 and
1830 were peddling that kind of reactionary fantasies and today throughout
Germany are being given their deserts. The German revolution only came into
being, and the German nation only began to become something, when people
had freed themselves completely from these futilities.
But pan-Slavism, too, is just as childish and reactionary as pan-Germanism.
When one reads the history of the pan-Slavist movement of last spring in
Prague, one could imagine oneself back in the period of thirty years ago:
tricolour sashes, ancient costumes, ancient Slav Masses, complete restoration
of the time and customs of the primeval forests; the Svornost a complete
replica of the German Burschenschaft, the Slav Congress a new edition of
the Wartburg Festival,[328] the same phrases, the same fantasies, the same
subsequent lamentation: We had built a stately house, etc. Anyone who
would like to read this famous song translated into Slav prose has only to read
Bakunins pamphlet.
Just as in the long run the most pronounced counter-revolutionary frame of
mind, the most ferocious hatred of Frenchmen, and the most narrow-minded
national feeling, were to be found among the members of the
German Burschenschaften, and just as later they all became traitors to the
cause for which they had pretended to be enthusiastic in exactly the same
way, only more speedily, because 1848 was a year of revolution, the
democratic semblance among the democratic pan-Slavists turned into fanatical
hatred of Germans and Magyars, into indirect opposition to the restoration of
Poland (Lubomirski), and into direct adherence to the counter-revolution.
And if some sincere Slav democrats now call on the Austrian Slavs to join
the revolution, to regard the Austrian united monarchy as their chief enemy,
and indeed to be on the side of the Magyars in the interests of the revolution,
they remind one of a hen which despairingly circles the edge of a pond where
the young ducklings which she has hatched out now suddenly escape from her
into a totally foreign element into which he cannot follow them.
But let us not harbour any illusions. Among all the pan-Slavists, nationality,
i.e. imaginary common Slav nationality, takes precedence over the revolution.

The pan-Slavists want to join the revolution on condition that they will be
allowed to constitute all Slavs without exception, regardless of material
necessities, into independent Slav states. If we Germans had wanted to lay
down the same fantastic conditions, we would have got a long way in March!
But the revolution does not allow of any conditions being imposed on it. Either
one is a revolutionary and accepts the consequences of the revolution,
whatever they are, or one is driven into the arms of the counter-revolution and
one day finds oneself, perhaps without knowing or desiring it, arm in arm with
Nicholas and Windischgrtz.
We and the Magyars should guarantee the Austrian Slavs their independence
that is what Bakunin demands, and people of the calibre of Ruge are
capable of having actually made such promises to him in secret. The demand is
put to us and the other revolutionary nations of Europe that the hotbeds of
counter-revolution at our very door should be guaranteed an unhindered
existence and the free right to conspire and take up arms against the revolution;
it is demanded that we should establish a counter-revolutionary Czech state in
the very heart of Germany, and break the strength of the German, Polish and
Magyar revolutions by interposing between them Russian outposts at the Elbe,
the Carpathians and the Danube!
We have no intention of doing that. To the sentimental phrases about
brotherhood which we are being offered here on behalf of the most counterrevolutionary nations of Europe, we reply that hatred of Russians was and still
is the primary revolutionary passion among Germans; that since the revolution
hatred of Czechs and Croats has been added, and that only by the most
determined use of terror against these Slav peoples can we, jointly with the
Poles and Magyars, safeguard the revolution. We know where the enemies of
the revolution are concentrated, viz. in Russia and the Slav regions of Austria,
and no fine phrases, no allusions to an undefined democratic future for these
countries can deter us from treating our enemies as enemies.
And if Bakunin finally exclaims:
Truly, the Slav should not lose anything, he should win! Truly, he should live! And we shall
live. As long as the smallest part of our rights is contested, as long as a single member is cut off
from our whole body, so long will we fight to the end, inexorably wage a life-and-death
struggle, until the Slavs have their place in the world, great and free and independent

if revolutionary pan-Slavism means this passage to be taken seriously, and in

its concern for the imaginary Slav nationality leaves the revolution entirely
out of account, then we too know what we have to do.

Then there will be a struggle, an inexorable life-and-death struggle,

against those Slavs who betray the revolution; an annihilating fight and
ruthless terror not in the interests of Germany, but in the interests of the
revolution!

BOTH MARX AND ENGELS THOUGHT THAT THE

CHINESE SUFFERED FROM HEREDITARY STUPIDITY
I guess Chairman Mao did not read these bits!
Marx, "Revolution in China and in Europe" (May 20, 1853):
"It is almost needless to observe that, in the same
measure in which opium has obtained the sovereignty
over the Chinese, the Emperor and his staff of pedantic
mandarins have become dispossessed of their own
sovereignty. It would seem as though history had first to
make this whole people drunk before it could rouse them
out of their hereditary stupidity".
Engels, "Persia and China" (June 5,1857): "... China, the
rotting semi-civilization of the oldest State in the world . . .
In short, instead of moralizing on the horrible atrocities of
the Chinese, as the chivalrous English press does, we had
better recognize that this is a war pro aris et focis, a
popular war for the maintenance of Chinese nationality,
with all its overbearing prejudice, stupidity, learned
ignorance and pedantic barbarism . . .
Context for the quote from Marx is here
The latter part of the quote from Engels is online here but
the rest is not freely online. See Marx & Engels On

Colonialism, 6th printing, Moscow, 1976, pp. 120 & 124.

from the Marx/Engels WWW Archive
http://www.marx.org
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
REVOLUTION IN CHINA AND IN EUROPE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
New York Daily Tribune
June 14, 1853
by
KARL MARX
A most profound yet fantastic speculator on the principles which govern
the movements of Humanity was wont to extol as one of the ruling
secrets of nature what he called the law of the contact of extremes.
The homely proverb that "extremes meet" was, in his view, a grand and
potent truth in every sphere of life; an axiom with which the
philosopher could as little dispense as the astronomer with the laws of
Kepler or the great discovery of Newton.
Whether the "contact of extremes" be such a universal principle or not,
a striking illustration of it may be seen in the effect the Chinese
revolution seems likely to exercise upon the civilized world. It may
seem a very strange, and a very paradoxical assertion that the next
uprising of the people of Europe, and their next movement for
republican freedom and economy of Government, may depend more probably
on what is now passing in the Celestial Empire -- the very opposite of
Europe-than on any other political cause that now exists -- more even
than on the menaces of Russia and the consequent likelihood of a
general European war. But yet it is no paradox, as all may understand
by attentively considering the circumstances of the case.
Whatever be the social causes, and whatever religious, dynastic, or
national shape they may assume, that have brought about the chronic
rebellions subsisting in China for about ten years past, and now
gathered together in one formidable revolution the occasion of this
outbreak has unquestionably been afforded by the English cannon forcing
upon China that soporific drug called opium. Before the British arms
the authority of the Manchu dynasty fell to pieces; the superstitious
faith in the eternity of the Celestial Empire broke down; the barbarous
and hermetic, isolation from the civilized world was infringed; and an
opening was made for that intercourse which has since proceeded so
rapidly under the golden attractions of California and Australia. At
the same time the silver coin of the Empire, its lifeblood, began to be
drained away to the British East Indies.
Up to 1830, the balance of trade being continually in favour of the
Chinese, there existed an uninterrupted importation of silver from
India, Britain And the United States into China. Since 1833, and

especially since 1840, the export of silver from China to India has
become almost exhausting for the Celestial Empire. Hence the strong
decrees of the Emperor against the opium trade, responded to by still
stronger resistance to his measures. Besides this immediate economical
consequence, the bribery connected with opium smuggling has entirely
demoralized the Chinese State officers in the Southern provinces. just
as the Emperor was wont to be considered the father of all China, so
his officers were looked upon as sustaining the paternal relation to
their respective districts. But this patriarchal authority, the only
moral link embracing the vast machinery of the State, has gradually
been corroded by the corruption of those officers, who have made great
gains by conniving at opium smuggling. This has occurred principally
in the same Southern provinces where the rebellion commenced. It is
almost needless to observe that, in the same measure in which opium has
obtained the sovereignty over the Chinese, the Emperor and his staff of
pedantic mandarins have become dispossessed of their own sovereignty.
It would seem as though history had first to make this whole people
drunk before it could rouse them out of their hereditary stupidity.
Though scarcely existing in former times, the import of English
cottons, and to a small extent of English woollens, has rapidly risen
since 1833, the epoch when the monopoly of trade with China was
transferred from the East India Company to Private commerce, and on a
much greater scale since 1840, the epoch when other nations, and
especially our own, also obtained a share in the Chinese trade. This
introduction of foreign manufactures has had a similar effect on the
native industry to that which it formerly had on Asia Minor, Persia and
India. In China the spinners and weavers have suffered greatly under
this foreign competition, and the community has become unsettled in
proportion.
The tribute to be paid to England after the unfortunate war of 1840,
the great unproductive consumption of opium, the drain of the precious
metals by this trade, the destructive influence of foreign competition
on native manufactures, the demoralized condition of the public
administration, produced two things: the old taxation became more
burdensome and harassing, and new taxation was added to the old. Thus
in a decree of the Emperor, dated Peking, Jan 5 1853, we find orders
given to the viceroys and governors of the southern provinces of
Wuchang and Hanyang to remit and defer the payment of taxes, and
especially not in any case to exact more than the regular amount; for
otherwise, says the decree, "how will the poor people be able to bear
it?" And "Thus, perhaps," continues the Emperor, "will my people, in a
period of general hardship and distress, be exempted from the evils of
being pursued and worried by the tax-gatherer." Such language as this,
and such concessions we remember to have he ard from Austria, the China
of Germany, in 1848.
All these dissolving agencies acting together on the finances, the
morals, the industry, and political structure of China, received their
full development under the English cannon in 1840, which broke down the
authority of the Emperor, and forced the Celestial Empire into contact
with the terrestrial world. Complete isolation was the prime condition
of the preservation of Old China. That isolation having come to a
violent end by the medium of England, dissolution must follow as surely
as that of any mummy carefully preserved in a hermetically sealed
coffin, whenever it is brought into contact with the open air. Now,

England having brought about the revolution of China, the question is

how that revolution will in time react on England, and through England
on Europe. This question is not difficult of solution.
The attention of our readers has often been called to the unparalleled
growth of British manufactures since 1850. Amid the most surprising
prosperity, it has not been difficult to point out the clear symptoms
of an approaching industrial crisis. Notwithstanding California and
Australia, notwithstanding the immense and unprecedented emigration,
there must ever, without any particular accident, in due time arrive a
moment when the extension of the markets is unable to keep pace with
the extension of British manufactures, and this disproportion must
bring about a new crisis with the same certainty as it has done in the
past. But, if one of the great markets suddenly becomes contracted,
the arrival of the crisis is necessarily accelerated thereby. Now, the
Chinese rebellion must, for the time being, have precisely this effect
upon England. The necessity for opening new markets, or for extending
the old ones, was one of the principle causes of the reduction of the
British tea-duties, as, with an increased importation of tea, an
increased exportation of manufactures to China was expected to take
place. Now, the value of the annual exports from the United Kingdom to
China amounted, before the repeal in 1834 of the trading monopoly
possessed by the East India Company, to only 600,000; in 1836, it
reached the sum of 1,326,388; in 1845, it had risen to 2,394,827; in
1852 it amounted to about 3,000,000. The quantity of tea imported
from China did not exceed, in 1793, 16,167,331 lbs.; but in 1845, it
amounted to 50,714,657 lbs.; in 1846, to 57,584,561 lbs.; it is now
above 60,000,000 lbs.
The tea crop of the last season will not prove short, as shown already
by the export lists from Shanghai, of 2,000,000 lbs. above the
preceding year. This excess is to be accounted for by two
circumstances. On one hand, the state of the market at the close of
1851 was much depressed, and the large surplus stock left has been
thrown into the export of 1852. On the other hand, the recent accounts
of the altered British legislation with regard to imports of tea,
reaching China, have brought forward all the available teas to a ready
market, at greatly enhanced prices. But with respect to the coming
crop, the case stands very differently. This is shown by the following
extracts from the correspondence of a large tea-firm in London:
"In Shanghai the terror is described as extreme. Gold had
advanced in value upwards of 25 per cent., being eagerly sought
for hoarding; silver had so far disappeared that none could be
obtained to pay the Chinese dues on the British vessels requiring
port clearance; and in consequence of which Mr. Consul Alcock has
consented to become responsible to the Chinese authorities for the
payment of these dues, on receipt of East India Company's bills,
or other approved securities. The scarcity of the precious metals
is one of the most unfavourable features, when viewed in reference
to the immediate future of commerce, as this abstraction occurs
precisely at that period when their use is most needed, to enable
the tea and silk buyers to go into their interior and effect their
purchases, for which a large portion of bullion if paid in
advance, to enable the producers to carry on their operations."
At this period of the year it is usual to begin making arrangements for

the new teas, whereas at present nothing is talked of but the means of
protecting person and property, all transactions being at a stand.
"...if the means are not applied to secure the leaves in April and
May, the early crop, which includes all the finer descriptions,
both of black and green teas, will be as much lost as unreaped
wheat at Christmas."
Now the means for securing the tea leaves will certainly not be given
by the English, American or French squadrons stationed in the Chinese
seas, but these may easily, by their interference, produce such
complications as to cut off-all transactions between the tea-producing
interior and the tea exporting sea ports. Thus, for the present crop,
a rise in the prices must be expected -- speculation has already
commenced in London -- and for the crop to come a large deficit is as
good as certain. Nor is this all. The Chinese, ready though they may
be, as are all people in periods of revolutionary convulsion, to sell
off to the foreigner all the bulky commodities they have on hand, will,
as the Orientals are used to do in the apprehension of great changes,
set to hoarding, not taking much in return for their tea and silk,
except hard money. England has accordingly to expect a rise in the
price of one of her chief articles of consumption, a drain of bullion,
and a great contraction of an important market for her cotton and
woollen goods. Even the Economist, that optimist conjurer of all
things menacing the tranquil minds of the mercantile community, is
compelled to use language like this:
"We must not flatter ourselves with finding as extensive a market
as formerly for our exports to China ... It is more probable,
therefore, that our export trade to China should suffer, and that
there should be a diminished demand for the produce of Manchester
and Glasgow."
It must not be forgotten that the rise in the price of so indispensable
an article as tea, and the contraction of so important a market as
China, will coincide with a deficient harvest in Western Europe, and,
therefore, with rising prices of meat, corn, and all other agricultural
produce. Hence contracted markets for manufacturers, because every
rise in the prices of the first necessaries of life is counterbalanced,
at home and abroad, by a corresponding reduction in the demand for
manufactures. From every part of Great Britain complaints have been
received on the backward state of most of the crops. The Economist
says on this subject:
In the South of England "not only will there be left much land unsown,
until too late for a crop of any sort, but much of the sown land will
prove to be foul, or otherwise in a bad state for corn-growing." On the
wet or poor soils destined for wheat, signs that mischief is going on
are apparent. "The time for planting mangel-wurzel may now be said to
have passed away, and very little has been planted, while the time for
preparing land for turnips is rapidly going by, without any adequate
preparation for this important crop having been accomplished...
oat-sowing has been much interfered with by the snow and rain. Few
oats were sown early, and late-sown oats seldom produce a large crop.
In many districts losses among the breeding flocks have been
considerable. The price of other farm-produce than corn is from 20 to

30, and even 50 per cent. higher than last year. On the Continent,
corn has risen comparatively more than in England. Rye has risen in
Belgium and Holland a full 100 per cent. Wheat and other grains are
following suit.
Under these circumstances, as the greater part of the regular
commercial circle has already been run through by British trade, it may
safely be augured that the Chinese revolution will throw the spark into
the overloaded mine of the present industrial system and cause the
explosion of the long-prepared general crisis, which, spreading abroad,
will be closely followed by political revolutions on the Continent. It
would be a curious spectacle, that of China sending disorder into the
Western World while the Western Powers, by English, French and American
war-steamers, are conveying "order" to Shanghai, Nanking and the mouths
of the Great Canal. Do these order-mongering Powers, which would
attempt to support the wavering Manchu dynasty, forget that the hatred
against foreigners and their exclusion from the Empire, once the mere
result of China's geographical and ethnographical situation, have
become a political system only since the conquest of the country by the
race of the Manchu Tatars? There can be no doubt that the turbulent
dissensions among the European nations who, at the later end of the
17th century, rivaled each other in the trade with China, lent a mighty
aid to the exclusive policy adopted by the Manchus. But more than this
was done by the fear of the new dynasty, lest the foreigners might
favour the discontent existing among a large proportion of the Chinese
during the first half-century or thereabouts of their subjection to the
Tatars. From these considerations, foreigners were then prohibited
from all communication with the Chinese, except through Canton, a town
at a great distance from Peking and the tea-districts, and their
commerce restricted to intercourse with the Hong merchants, licensed by
the Government expressly for the foreign trade, in order to keep the
rest of its subjects from all connection with the odious strangers. In
any case an interference on the part of the Western Governments at this
time can only serve to render the revolution more violent, and protract
the stagnation of trade.
At the same time it is to be observed with regard to India that the
British Government of that country depends for full one seventh of its
revenue on the sale of opium to the Chinese while a considerable
proportion of the Indian demand for British manufactures depends on the
production of that opium in India. The Chinese, it is true, are no more
likely to renounce the use of opium than are the Germans to forswear
tobacco. But as the new Emperor is understood to be favourable to the
culture of the poppy and the preparation of opium in China itself, it
is evident that a death-blow is very likely to be struck at once at the
business of opium-raising in India, the Indian revenue, and the
commercial resources of Hindostan. Though this blow would not
immediately be felt by the interests concerned, it would operate
effectually in due time, and would come in to intensify and prolong the
universal financial crisis whose horoscope we have cast above.
Since the commencement of the eighteenth century there has been no
serious revolution in Europe which had not been preceded by a
commercial and financial crisis. This applies no less to the
revolution of 1789 than to that of 1848. It only that we every day
behold more threatening s conflict between the ruling powers and their
subjects the State and society, between the various classes; conflict

of the existing powers among each other reaching that height where the
sword must be drawn, and the ultima ratio of princes be recurred to.
In the European capitals, every day brings despatches big with
universal war, vanishing under the despatches of the following day,
bearing the assurance of peace for a week or so. We may be sure,
nevertheless, that to whatever height the conflict between the European
powers may rise, however threatening the aspect of the diplomatic
horizon may appear, whatever movements may be attempted by some
enthusiastic fraction in this or that country, the rage of princes and
the, fury of the people are alike enervated by the breath of
prosperity. Neither wars nor revolutions are likely to put Europe by
the ears, unless in consequence of a general commercial and industrial
crisis, the signal of which has, as usual, to be given by England, the
representative of European industry in the market of the world.
It is unnecessary to dwell on the political consequences such a crisis
must produce in these times, with the unprecedented extension of
factories in England, with the utter dissolution of her official
parties, with the whole State machinery of France transformed into one
immense swindling and stockjobbing concern, with Austria on the eve of
bankruptcy, with wrongs everywhere accumulated to be revenged by the
people, with the conflicting interests of the reactionary powers
themselves, and with the Russian dream of conquest once more revealed
to the world.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
transcribed into ascii by harold@ezwp.demon.co.uk
report errors to director@marx.org

Frederick Engels
The abolition of the antithesis between town and country is no more and no less utopian than the
abolition of the antithesis between capitalists and wage workers. From day to day it is becoming more
and more a practical demand of both industrial and agricultural production. No one has demanded this
more energetically then Liebig in his writings on the chemistry of agriculture, in which his first demand
has always been that man shall give back to the land what he takes from it, and in which he proves that
only the existence of the towns, and in particular the big towns, prevents this. When one observes how
here in London alone a greater quantity of manure than is produced by the whole kingdom of Saxony is
poured away every day into the sea with an expenditure of enormous sums, and when one observes
what colossal works are necessary in order to prevent this manure from poisoning the whole of London,
then the utopian proposal to abolish the antithesis between town and country is given a peculiarly
practical basis. And even comparatively insignificant Berlin has been wallowing in its own filth for at
least thirty years.

On the other hand, it is completely utopian to want, like Proudhon, to transform present-day
bourgeois society while maintaining the peasant as such. Only as uniform a distribution as
possible of the population over the whole country, only an integral connection between industrial
and agricultural production together with the thereby necessary extension of the means of
communication-presupposing the abolition of the capitalist mode of production-would be able to
save the rural population from the isolation and stupor in which it has vegetated almost

unchanged for thousands of years. It is not utopian to declare that the emancipation of humanity
from the chains which its historic past has forged will only be complete when the antithesis
between town and country has been abolished; the utopia begins when one undertakes "from
existing conditions" to prescribe the form in which this or any other of the antitheses of presentday society is to be solved. And this is what Mulberger does by adopting the Proudhonist
formula for the solution of the housing question.
On the Housing Question

Let us not, however, flatter ourselves overmuch on account of our human victories over nature.
For each such victory nature takes its revenge on us. Each victory, it is true, in the first place
brings about the results we expected, but in the second and third places it has quite different,
unforeseen effects which only too often cancel the first. The people who, in Mesopotamia,
Greece, Asia Minor and elsewhere, destroyed the forests to obtain cultivable land, never dreamed
that by removing along with the forests the collecting centres and reservoirs of moisture they
were laying the basis for the present forlorn state of those countries. When the Italians of the
Alps used up the pine forests on the southern slopes, so carefully cherished on the northern
slopes, they had no inkling that by doing so they were cutting at the roots of the dairy industry in
their region; they had still less inkling that they were thereby depriving their mountain springs of
water for the greater part of the year, and making it possible for them to pour still more furious
torrents on the plains during the rainy seasons. Those who spread the potato in Europe were not
aware that with these farinaceous tubers they were at the same time spreading scrofula. Thus at
every step we are reminded that we by no means rule over nature like a conqueror over a foreign
people, like someone standing outside nature -- but that we, with flesh, blood and brain, belong
to nature, and exist in its midst, and that all our mastery of it consists in the fact that we have the
advantage over all other creatures of being able to learn its laws and apply them correctly.
The Part Played by Labor in the Transition from Ape to Man

The Utopians' mode of thought has for a long time governed the Socialist ideas of the 19th
century, and still governs some of them. Until very recently, all French and English Socialists did
homage to it. The earlier German Communism, including that of Weitling, was of the same
school. To all these, Socialism is the expression of absolute truth, reason and justice, and has
only to be discovered to conquer all the world by virtue of its own power. And as an absolute
truth is independent of time, space, and of the historical development of man, it is a mere
accident when and where it is discovered. With all this, absolute truth, reason, and justice are
different with the founder of each different school. And as each one's special kind of absolute
truth, reason, and justice is again conditioned by his subjective understanding, his conditions of
existence, the measure of his knowledge and his intellectual training, there is no other ending
possible in this conflict of absolute truths than that they shall be mutually exclusive of one
another. Hence, from this nothing could come but a kind of eclectic, average Socialism, which,
as a matter of fact, has up to the present time dominated the minds of most of the socialist

workers in France and England. Hence, a mish-mash allowing of the most manifold shades of
opinion: a mish-mash of such critical statements, economic theories, pictures of future society by
the founders of different sects, as excite a minimum of opposition; a mish-mash which is the
more easily brewed the more definite sharp edges of the individual constituents are rubbed down
in the stream of debate, like rounded pebbles in a brook.
Socialism, Utopian and Scientific

"We find two great gangs of political speculators, who alternately take possession of the state
power and exploit it by the most corrupt ends -- the nation is powerless against these two great
cartels of politicians who are ostensibly its servants, but in reality dominate and plunder it."
1891 "Introduction" to _The Civil War in France

They [the Chinese] kidnap and kill every foreigner within their reach. The very coolies
emigrating to foreign countries rise in mutiny, and as if by concert, on board every emigrant
ship, and fight for its possession, and, rather than surrender, go down to the bottom with it, or
perish in its flames. Even out of China, the Chinese colonists, the most submissive and meek of
subjects hitherto, conspire and suddenly rise in nightly insurrection, as at Sarawak; or, as at
Singapore, are held down by main force and vigilance only. The piratical policy of the British
Government has caused this universal outbreak of all Chinese against all foreigners, and marked
it as a war of extermination.
What is an army to do against a people resorting to such means of warfare? Where, how far, is it
to penetrate into the enemy's country, how to maintain itself there? Civilization-mongers who
throw hot shells on a defenceless city and add rape to murder, may call the system cowardly,
barbarous, atrocious; but what matters it to the Chinese if it be only successful? Since the British
treat them as barbarians, they cannot deny to them the full benefit of their barbarism. If their
kidnappings, surprises, midnight massacres are what we call cowardly, the civilization-mongers
should not forget that according to their own showing they could not stand against European
means of destruction with their ordinary means of warfare.
In short, instead of moralizing on the horrible atrocities of the Chinese, as the chivalrous English
press does, we had better recognize that this is a war pro aris et focis, a popular war for the
maintenance of Chinese nationality, with all its overbearing prejudice, stupidity, learned
ignorance and pedantic barbarism if you like, but yet a popular war. And in a popular war the
means used by the insurgent nation cannot be measured by the commonly recognized rules of
regular warfare, nor by any other abstract standard, but by the degree of civilization only attained
by that insurgent nation.
1857 Tribune article

OUR HATE-FILLED ENGELS DESPISED THE IRISH

TOO
(At least Engels had TWO master races in his thinking:
Germans and Hungarians ("Magyars"))
Engels: The condition of the working class in England,
1892 "The southern facile character of the Irishman, his
crudity, which places him but little above the savage, his
contempt for all humane enjoyments, in which his very
crudeness makes him incapable of sharing, his filth and
poverty, all favour drunkeness. . . . the pressure of this
race has done much to depress wages and lower the
working-class. . . . That poverty manifests itself in Ireland
thus and not otherwise, is owing to the character of the
people, and to their historical development. The Irish are a
people related in their whole character to the Latin nations,
to the French, and especially to the Italians.... With the
Irish, feeling and passion predominate; reason must bow
before them. Their sensuous, excitable nature prevents
reflection and quiet, persevering activity from reaching
development -- such a nation is utterly unfit for
manufacture as now conducted. . . . Irish distress cannot
be removed by any Act of Repeal. Such an Act would,
however, at once lay bare the fact that the cause of Irish
misery, which now seems to come from abroad is really to
be found at home"
Context here Condition of the Working Class in England, by Engels,
1845

Irish Immigration
We have already referred several times in passing to the Irish who have
immigrated into England; and we shall now have to investigate more closely
the causes and results of this immigration.
The rapid extension of English industry could not have taken place if
England had not possessed in the numerous and impoverished population of
Ireland a reserve at command. The Irish had nothing to lose at home, and much
to gain in England; and from the time when it became known in Ireland that
the east side of St. George's Channel offered steady work and good pay for
strong arms, every year has brought armies of the Irish hither. It has been
calculated that more than a million have already immigrated, and not far from
fifty thousand still come every year, nearly all of whom enter the industrial
districts, especially the great cities, and there form the lowest class of the
population. Thus there are in London, 120,000; in Manchester, 40,000; in
Liverpool, 34,000; Bristol, 24,000; Glasgow, 40,000; Edinburgh, 29,000, poor
Irish people. [4]These people having grown up almost. without civilisation,
accustomed from youth to every sort of privation, rough, intemperate, and
improvident, bring all their brutal habits with them among a class of the
English population which has, in truth, little inducement to cultivate education
and morality. Let us hear Thomas Carlyle upon this subject: [5]
"The wild Milesian [6] features, looking false ingenuity, restlessness,
unreason, misery, and mockery, salute you on all highways and
byways. The English coachman, as he whirls past, lashes the Milesian
with his whip, curses him with his tongue; the Milesian is holding out
his hat to beg. He is the sorest evil this country has to strive with. In his
rags and laughing savagery, he is there to undertake all work that can
be done by mere strength of hand and back -- for wages that will
purchase him potatoes. He needs only salt for condiment, he lodges to
his mind in any pig-hutch or dog-hutch, roosts in outhouses, and wears
a suit of tatters, the getting on and off of which is said to be a difficult
operation, transacted only in festivals and the high tides of the calendar.
The Saxon-man, if he cannot work on these terms, finds no work. The
uncivilised Irishman, not by his strength, but by the opposite of
strength, drives the Saxon native out, takes possession in his room.
There abides he, in his squalor and unreason, in his falsity and drunken
violence, as the ready-made nucleus of degradation and disorder.
Whoever struggles, swimming with difficulty, may now find an

example how the human being can exist not swimming, but sunk....
That the condition of the lower multitude of English labourers
approximates more and more to that of the Irish, competing with them
in all the markets: that whatsoever labour, to which mere strength with
little skill will suffice, is to be done, will be done not at the English
price, but at an approximation to the Irish price; at a price superior as
yet to the Irish, that is, superior to scarcity of potatoes for thirty weeks
yearly; superior, yet hourly, with the arrival of every new steamboat,
sinking nearer to an equality with that."
If we except his exaggerated and one-sided condemnation of the Irish national
character, Carlyle is perfectly right. These Irishmen who migrate for fourpence
to England, on the deck of a steamship on which they are often packed like
cattle, insinuate themselves everywhere. The worst dwellings are good enough
for them; their clothing causes them little trouble, so long as it holds together
by a single thread; shoes they know not; their food consists of potatoes and
potatoes only; whatever they earn beyond these needs they spend upon drink.
What does such a race want with high wages? The worst quarters of all the
large towns are inhabited by Irishmen. Whenever a district is distinguished for
especial filth and especial ruinousness, the explorer may safely count upon
meeting chiefly those Celtic faces which one recognises at the first glance as
different from the Saxon physiognomy of the native, and the singing, aspirate
brogue which the true Irishman never loses. I have occasionally heard the
Irish-Celtic language spoken in the most thickly populated parts of
Manchester. The majority of the families who live in cellars are almost
everywhere of Irish origin. In short, the Irish have, as Dr. Kay says, discovered
the minimum of the necessities of life, and are now making the English
workers acquainted with it. Filth and drunkenness, too, they have brought with
them. The lack of cleanliness, which is not so injurious in the country, where
population is scattered, and which is the Irishman's second nature, becomes
terrifying and gravely dangerous through its concentration here in the great
cities. The Milesian deposits all garbage and filth before his house door here,
as he was accustomed to do at home, and so accumulates the pools and dirtheaps which disfigure the working- people's quarters and poison the air. He
builds a pig-sty against the house wall as he did at home, and if he is prevented
from doing this, he lets the pig sleep in the room with himself. This new and
unnatural method of cattle-raising in cities is wholly of Irish origin. The
Irishman loves his pig as the Arab his horse, with the difference that he sells it
when it is fat enough to kill. Otherwise, he eats and sleeps with it, his children
play with it, ride upon it, roll in the dirt with it, as any one may see a thousand
times repeated in all the great towns of England. The filth and comfortlessness

that prevail in the houses themselves it is impossible to describe. The Irishman

is unaccustomed to the presence of furniture; a heap of straw, a few rags,
utterly beyond use as clothing, suffice for his nightly couch. A piece of wood,
a broken chair, an old chest for a table, more he needs not; a tea-kettle, a few
pots and dishes, equip his kitchen, which is also his sleeping and living room.
When he is in want of fuel, everything combustible within his reach, chairs,
door-posts, mouldings, flooring, finds its way up the chimney. Moreover, why
should he need much room? At home in his mud-cabin there was only one
room for all domestic purposes; more than one room his family does not need
in England. So the custom of crowding many persons into a single room, now
so universal, has been chiefly implanted by the Irish immigration. And since
the poor devil must have one enjoyment, and society has shut him out of all
others, he betakes himself to the drinking of spirits. Drink is the only thing
which makes the Irishman's life worth having, drink and his cheery care-free
temperament; so he revels in drink to the point of the most bestial
drunkenness. The southern facile character of the Irishman, his crudity, which
places him but little above the savage, his contempt for all humane
enjoyments, in which his very crudeness makes him incapable of sharing, his
filth and poverty, all favour drunkenness. The temptation is great, he cannot
resist it, and so when he has money he gets rid of it down his throat. What else
should he do? How can society blame him when it places him in a position in
which he almost of necessity becomes a drunkard; when it leaves him to
himself, to his savagery?
With such a competitor the English working-man has to struggle, with a
competitor upon the lowest plane possible in a civilised country, who for this
very reason requires less wages than any other. Nothing else is therefore
possible than that, as Carlyle says, the wages of English working-man should
be forced down further and further in every branch in which the Irish compete
with him. And these branches are many. All such as demand little or no skill
are open to the Irish. For work which requires long training or regular,
pertinacious application, the dissolute, unsteady, drunken Irishman is on too
low a plane. To become a mechanic, a mill-hand, he would have to adopt the
English civilisation, the English customs, become, in the main, an Englishman.
But for all simple, less exact work, wherever it is a question more of strength
than skill, the Irishman is as good as the Englishman. Such occupations are
therefore especially overcrowded with Irishmen: hand-weavers, bricklayers,
porters, jobbers, and such workers, count hordes of Irishmen among their
number, and the pressure of this race has done much to depress wages and
lower the working-class. And even if the Irish, who have forced their way into
other occupations, should become more civilised, enough of the old habits

would cling to them to have a strong, degrading influence upon their English
companions in toil, especially in view of the general effect of being surrounded
by the Irish. For when, in almost every great city, a fifth or a quarter of the
workers are Irish, or children of Irish parents, who have grown up among Irish
filth, no one can wonder if the life, habits, intelligence, moral status -- in short,
the whole character of the working-class assimilates a great part of the Irish
characteristics. On the contrary, it is easy to understand how the degrading
position of the English workers, engendered by our modern history, and its
immediate consequences, has been still more degraded by the presence of Irish
competition.

NOTES
4. Archibald Alison, The Principles of Population, and their Connection
with Human Happiness, two vols., 1840. This Alison is the historian of the
French Revolution, and, like his brother, Dr. W. P. Alison, a religious Tory.-Note by Engels. Return to Text
5.Chartism, pp. 28, 31, etc.-- Note by Engels. Return to Text
6. Milesian -- the name of an ancient family of Celtic kings of Ireland.-Note by Engels Return to Text

ENGELS: CONTEMPT FOR SCANDINAVIANS TOO

Engels in Neue Rheinische Zeitung September 1848;
"Scandinavianism is enthusiasm for the brutal, sordid,
piratical, Old Norse national traits, for that profound inner
life which is unable to express its exuberant ideas and
sentiments in words, but can express them only in deeds,
namely, in rudeness towards women, perpetual
drunkenness and the wild frenzy of the Berserker
alternating with tearful sentimentality".
Context here Engels in Neue Rheinische Zeitung September 1848

The Danish-Prussian
Armistice
by Frederick Engels
Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 99
Transcribed for the Internet by director@marx.org

Cologne, September 9. Again we revert to the Danish armistice -- we are

given time to do this owing to the thoroughness of the National Assembly,
which, instead of taking prompt and energetic decisions and getting new
ministers appointed, allows the committees to deliberate in the most
leisurely manner and leaves the solution of the government crisis to God -- a
thoroughness which barely conceals "our dear friends' lack of courage". [69]
The war in Italy was always unpopular with the democratic party, and has
for a long time been unpopular even with the democrats of Vienna. The storm
of public indignation over the war of extermination in Poznan could be staved
off only for a few weeks by means of falsifications and lies on the part of the
Prussian government. The streetfighting in Prague, despite all the efforts of the
national press, excited sympathy among the people towards the defeated, but
not towards the victors. The war in Schleswig-Holstein, however, from the
outset was popular also among the people. What is the reason?
Whereas in Italy, Poznan and Prague the Germans were fighting the
revolution, in Schleswig-Holstein they were supporting it. The Danish war is
the first revolutionary war waged by Germany. We therefore advocated a
resolute conduct of the Danish war, from the very beginning, but this does not
in any way denote kinship with the sea-girt bourgeois beer-garden enthusiasm.
A sad thing for Germany that her first revolutionary war is the most
ridiculous war ever waged.

But come to the point. The Danish nation is in commercial, industrial,

political and literary matters completely dependent on Germany. It is well
known that the real capital of Denmark is not Copenhagen but Hamburg; that
for a whole year the Danish government copied all the United Provincial Diet
experiments conducted by the Prussian government, which passed away on the
barricades; that Denmark obtains all her literary as well as material fare via
Germany, and that apart from Holberg, Danish literature is a poor imitation of
that of Germany.
Impotent though Germany has been from time immemorial, she has the
satisfaction of knowing that the Scandinavian nations, and especially
Denmark, have fallen under her sway, and that compared with them she is
even revolutionary and progressive.
Do you require proofs? Then read the polemics carried on by the
Scandinavian nations against each other ever since the concept of
Scandinavianism arose. Scandinavianism is enthusiasm for the brutal, sordid,
piratical, Old Norse national traits, for that profound inner life which is unable
to express its exuberant ideas and sentiments in words, but can express them
only in deeds, namely, in rudeness towards women, perpetual drunkenness and
the wild frenzy of the Berserker alternating with tearful sentimentality.
Scandinavianism and the theory of kinship with sea-girt Schleswig-Holstein
appeared simultaneously in the states of the King of Denmark. The two
concepts are correlated; they evoked each other and were in conflict with each
other, thereby asserting their existence.
Scandinavianism was the pattern of the Danes' appeals for Swedish and
Norwegian support. But as always happens with the Christian-Teutonic nation,
a dispute immediately arose as to who was the genuine Christian-Teuton, the
true Scandinavian. The Swede contended that the Dane had become
"Germanized" and had degenerated, the Norwegian said the same of the Swede
and the Dane, and the Icelander of all three. Obviously, the more primitive a
nation is, the more closely its customs and way of life resemble those of the
Old Norse people, the more "Scandinavian" it must be.
The Christiania Morgenbladet [70] for November 18, 1846, is lying in front
of us. This charming sheet contains the following amusing passages in an
article on Scandinavianism.

After stating that the whole concept of Scandinavianism is nothing but an

attempt by the Danes to create a movement in their own interest, the paper
says:
"What have these gay vivacious people in common with the ancient, gloomy and melancholy
world of warriors (med den gamle, alvorlige og vemodsfulde Kjampeverden)? How can this
nation, which -- as even a Danish writer admits -- has a docile and gentle disposition, believe
itself to be spiritually related to the tough, lusty and vigorous men of a past age? And how can
these people with their soft southern accent imagine that they speak a northern tongue? Although
the main trait of our nation and the Swedes, like that of the ancient Northerners, is that our
feelings are kept hidden in the innermost part of the soul, and not given outward expression,
nevertheless these sentimental and affectionate people, who can so easily be astonished, moved
and swayed and who wear their hearts upon their sleeves, nevertheless these people believe that
they are of a northern cast and that they are related to the two other Scandinavian nations!"

The Morgenbladet attributes the degeneration of the Danes to their

association with Germany and the spread of German traits in Denmark. The
Germans have indeed
"lost their most sacred asset, their national character; but feeble and insipid though the German
nation is, there is another nation still more feeble and insipid, namely, the Danes. While the
German language is being ousted in Alsace, Vaud and on the Slav border" (!the services of the
Netze brethren remained unnoticed at the time) "it has made enormous progress along the
Danish border."

The Danes, we are told, now had to oppose their nationality to the Germans
and for this purpose they invented Scandinavianism. The Danes were unable to
resist,
"for the Danish nation, as we have said before, was essentially Germanized, although it did not
adopt the German language. The writer of these lines has seen it admitted in a Danish paper that
the Danish nation does not differ essentially from the German nation."

Thus the Morgenbladet.

Of course, it cannot be denied that the Danes are a more or less civilized
nation. Poor Danes!
By the same right under which France took Flanders, Lorraine and Alsace,
and will sooner or later take Belgium -- by that same right Germany takes over
Schleswig; it is the right of civilization as against barbarism, of progress as
against static stability. Even if the agreements were in Denmark's favor -which is very doubtful-this right carries more weight than all the agreements,
for it is the right of historical evolution.
So long as the Schleswig-Holstein movement remained a purely legal
philistine agitation of a civic and peaceful nature it merely filled well-meaning

petty bourgeois with enthusiasm. When, before the outbreak of the February
revolution, the present King of Denmark at his accession promised a liberal
constitution for all his states, envisaging the same number of deputies for the
duchies as for Denmark, and the duchies were opposed to this, the pettybourgeois parochial nature of the Schleswig-Holstein movement became
distastefully conspicuous. The issue, at that time, was not so much union with
Germany -- did a Germany exist at that time? -- as separation from Denmark
and establishment of a small independent parochial state.
But then came the revolution, which imparted to the movement a different
character. The Schleswig- Holstein party was forced either to attempt a
revolution or to perish. It quite correctly chose the revolution. The Danish
promises, which were very favorable before the revolution, were quite
inadequate after the revolution; union with Germany -- formerly an empty
phrase -- now acquired meaning. Germany made a revolution and as usual
Denmark copied it on a small provincial scale.
The Schleswig-Holstein revolution and the Provisional Government to
which it gave rise behaved at first still in a rather philistine way, but the war
soon compelled them to adopt a democratic course. This government, whose
members are all moderate liberal worthies, formerly kindred spirits of
Welcker, Gagern and Camphausen, has given Schleswig-Holstein laws which
are more democratic than those of any other German state. The Kiel Provincial
Assembly is the only German assembly based on universal suffrage and direct
elections. The draft constitution which the government submitted to it was the
most democratic constitution ever drawn up in the German language. As a
result of the revolutionary war, Schleswig-Holstein, which had always trailed
behind Germany in political matters, suddenly acquired more progressive
institutions than the rest of Germany.
The war we are waging in Schleswig-Holstein is therefore a truly
revolutionary war.
And who, from the outset, supported Denmark? The three most counterrevolutionary powers in Europe -- Russia, England and the Prussian
government. As long as it was possible the Prussian government merely
pretended to be waging a war -- this is evidenced by Wildenbruch's Note, by
the alacrity with which the Prussian government, on the representations of
England and Russia, ordered the withdrawal from Jutland, and finally by the
two armistice agreements. Prussia, England and Russia are the three powers
which have greater reason than anyone else to fear the German revolution and
its first result -- German unity: Prussia because she would thereby cease to

exist, England because it would deprive her of the possibility of exploiting the
German market, and Russia because, it would spell the advance of democracy
not only to the Vistula but even as far as the Dvina and the Dnieper. Prussia,
England and Russia have conspired against Schleswig-Holstein, against
Germany and against the revolution.
The war that may now arise from the decisions taken at Frankfurt would be a
war waged by Germany against Prussia, England and Russia. This is just the
kind of war that the flagging German movement needs -- a war against the
three great counter-revolutionary powers, a war which would really cause
Prussia to merge into Germany, which would make an alliance with Poland an
indispensable necessity and would lead to the immediate liberation of Italy; a
war which would be directed against Germany's old counterrevolutionary allies
of 1792-1815, a war which would "imperil the fatherland" and for that very
reason save it by making the victory of Germany dependent on the victory of
democracy.
The bourgeois and titled landowners at Frankfurt should not deceive
themselves -- if they decide to reject the armistice they will be setting the seal
to their own downfall, just as the Girondins did during the first revolution
when they took part in the events of August 10 and voted for the death of the
ex-King, thereby preparing their own downfall on May 31. If, on the other
hand, they accept the armistice, they will still be sealing their own downfall:
they will be placing themselves under the jurisdiction of Prussia and cease to
have any say in things. It is up to them to choose.
The news of Hansemann's downfall probably reached Frankfurt before the
vote was taken. This may influence the vote significantly, especially since it is
expected that a government of Waldeck and Rodbertus will follow who, as we
know, recognize the sovereignty of the National Assembly.
The future will show. But we repeat -- Germany's honor is in bad hands.

ENGELS DESPISED THE WHOLE OF THE BALKANS -INCLUDING THE GREEKS

Engels to August Bebel, November 17, 1885. "These
wretched, ruined fragments of one-time nations, the
Serbs, Bulgars, Greeks, and other robber bands, or,

behalf of which the liberal philistine waxes enthusiastic in

the interests of Russia, are unwilling to grant each other
the air they breathe, and feel obliged to cut each other's
greedy throats... the lousy Balkan peoples . . . ".
(Not online. From Marx-Engels, Briefe an A. Bebel, W.
Liebknecht, K. Kautsky und Andere, Moscow, 1933, pp
411, 412; translation by Bertram D. Wolfe, Marxism, 1967,
p 68.)
ENGELS: SLAVS ARE INFERIOR AND DESERVE TO
BE OPPRESSED BY GERMANS AND THE AUSTROHUNGARIAN EMPIRE

Neue Rheinische Zeitung February 1849: "And if during

eight centuries the "eight million Slavs" have had to suffer
the yoke imposed on them by the four million Magyars,
that alone sufficiently proves which was the more viable
and vigorous, the many Slavs or the few Magyars! .... what
a "crime" it is, what a "damnable policy" that at a time
when, in Europe in general, big monarchies had become a
"historical necessity", the Germans and Magyars untied all
these small, stunted and impotent little nations into a
single big state and thereby enabled them to take part in a
historical development from which, left to themselves, they
would have remained completely aloof! Of course, matters
of this kind cannot be accomplished without many a tender
national blossom being forcibly broken. But in history
nothing is achieved without violence and implacable
ruthlessness... In short, it turns out these "crimes" of the

Germans and Magyars against the said Slavs are among

the best and most praiseworthy deeds which our and the
Magyar people can boast in their history".
Context here Marx in Neue Rheinische Zeitung February 1849

Democratic Pan-Slavism

[314]

by Frederick Engels
Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 222
Translated by the Marx-Engels Institute
Transcribed for the Internet by director@marx.org, 1994

Cologne, February 14, 1849 - We have often enough pointed out that the
romantic dreams which came into being after the revolutions of February and
March, such as ardent fantasies about the universal fraternal union of people,
a European federative republic, and eternal world peace, were basically
nothing but screens hiding the immeasurable perplexity and inactivity of the
leading spokesmen of that time. People did not see, or did not want to see,
what had to be done to safeguard the revolution; they were unable or
unwilling to carry out any really revolutionary measures; the narrowmindedness of some and the counter-revolutionary intrigues of others
resulted in the people getting only sentimental phrases instead of
revolutionary deeds. The scoundrel Lamartine with his high-flown
declarations was the classical hero of this epoch of betrayal of the people
disguised by poetic floridity and rhetorical tinsel.
The peoples who have been through the revolution know how dearly they
have had to pay because in their simplicity at the time they believed the loud
talk and bombastic assurances. Instead of safeguards for the revolution everywhere reactionary Chambers which undermined the revolution; instead of
fulfillment of the promises given at the barricades - counter-revolution in

Naples, Paris, Vienna, Berlin, the fall of Milan, and the war against Hungary;
instead of the fraternal union of peoples - renewal of the Holy Alliance on the
broadest basis under the patronage of England and Russia. And the very same
persons who in April and May responded jubilantly to the high-flown phrases
of the epoch, now only blush with shame at the thought of how at that time
they allowed themselves to be deceived by idiots and rogues.
People have learned by bitter experience that the "European fraternal union
of peoples" cannot be achieved by mere phrases and pious wishes, but only by
profound revolutions and bloody struggles; they have learned that the question
is not that of a fraternal union of all European peoples under a single
republican flag, but of an alliance of the revolutionary peoples against the
counter-revolutionary peoples, an alliance which comes into being not
on paper, but only on the battlefield.
Throughout Western Europe these bitter but necessary experiences have
completely discredited Lamartine's phrase-mongering. In the east, on the other
hand, there are still sections, ostensibly democratic, revolutionary sections,
which are not tired of echoing these phrases and sentimental ideas and
preaching the gospel of the European fraternal union of peoples.
These actions - we leave out of account some ignorant German-speaking
dreamers such as Herr A. Ruge, etc. - are the democratic pan-Slavists of the
various Slav peoples.
The programme of democratic pan-Slavism lies before us in the shape of a
pamphlet: Aufruf an die Slaven. Von einem russischen Patrioten, Michael
Bakunin, Mitgleid des Slavencongresses in Prag. Koethen, 1848.
Bakunin is our friend. That will not deter us from criticizing his pamphlet.
Hear how Bakunin at the very beginning of his Appeal adheres to the
illusions of last March and April:
"The very first sign of life of the revolution was a cry of hate against the old [policy of]
oppression, a cry of sympathy and love for all oppressed nationalities. The peoples... felt at last
the disgrace with which the old diplomacy had burdened mankind, and they realized that the
well-being of the nations will never be ensured as long as there is a single nation anywhere in
Europe living under oppression.... Away with the oppressors! was the unanimous cry; all hail to
the oppressed, the Poles, the Italians and all of the others! No more wars of conquest, but only
the one last war fought out to the end, the good fight of the revolution for the final liberation of
all peoples! Down with the artificial barriers which have been forcibly erected by congresses of
despots [meaning Vienna Congresses of 1814-15] in accordance with so-called historical,
geographical, commercial and strategical necessities! There should be no other frontiers than
those natural boundaries drawn in accordance with justice and democracy and established by the

sovereign will of the peoples themselves on the basis of their national characteristics. Such is the
call issued by all the people." pp. 6, 7.

In this passage we already find reproduced all the rapturous enthusiasm of

the first months after the revolution. There is not a word about the actually
existing obstacles to such a universal liberation, or about the very diverse
political needs of the individual peoples. The word "freedom" replaces all
that. There is not one word about the actual state of things, or, insofar as it
does receive attention, it is described as absolutely reprehensible, arbitrarily
established by "congresses of despots" and "diplomats". To this bad reality is
counterposed the alleged will of the people with its categorical imperative,
with the absolute demand simply for "freedom".
We have seen who proved to be the stronger. The alleged will of the people
was so disgracefully deceived precisely because it trusted in such fantastic
abstraction from the conditions actually prevailing.
"By its plenipotentiary power the revolution declared the despotic states dissolved; dissolved the
Prussian state... Austria... the Turkish Empire... and, finally, the last hope of the despots... the
Russian Empire... and as the final goal of all - the universal federation of the European
republics." p. 8.

As a matter of fact, here in the West it must strike us as peculiar that after all
of these beautiful plans have come to grief at the first attempt to fulfill them
they can still be regarded as something meritorious and great. Certainly, the
unfortunate thing was precisely that although the revolution "by its own
plenipotentiary power the revolution declared the despotic states dissolved",
at the same time "by its own plenipotentiary power" it did not lift a finger to
carry out its decree.
At that same time the Slav Congress was convened. The Slav Congress
adopted completely the standpoint of these illusions. Listen to this:
"With a lively sense of the common ties of history (?) and blood, we swore not to allow our fates
to separate us again from one another. Pronouncing a curse on the policy of which we have so
long been the victims, we ourselves asserted our right to complete independence and vowed that
henceforth this should be common to all the Slave peoples. We recognized the independence of
Bohemia and Moravia... we held out our fraternal hand to the German people, to democratic
Germany. In the name of those of us who live in Hungary, we offered the Magyars, the furious
enemies of our race... a fraternal alliance. Nor did we forget in our alliance for liberation those of
our brothers who groan under the Turkish yoke. We solemnly condemned the treacherous policy
which three times cut Poland into pieces.... All that we proclaimed, and together with the
democrats of all peoples (?) we demanded freedom, equality and the brotherhood of all nations."
p. 10.

Democratic pan-Slavism still puts forward these demands:

"At that time we felt confident of our cause... justice and humanity were wholly on our side, and
nothing but illegality and barbarity on the side of our enemies. The ideas to which we devoted
ourselves were no empty figments of a dream, they were the ideas of the sole true and necessary
policy, the policy of revolution."

"Justice", "humanity", "freedom", "equality", "fraternity", "independence" so far we have found nothing in the pan-Slavist manifesto but these more or
less ethical categories, which sound very fine, it is true, but prove absolutely
nothing in historical and political questions. "Justice", "humanity", "freedom",
etc., may demand this or that a thousand times over; but if the thing is
impossible it does not take place and in spite of everything remains an
"empty figment of a dream". The pan-Slavists' illusions ought to have
understood that all pious wishes and beautiful dreams are of no avail against
the iron reality, and that their policy at any time was no more the "policy of
revolution" than was that of the French Republic. Nevertheless, today, in
January 1849, they still come to us with the same old phrases, in the content
of which Western Europe has been disillusioned by the bloodiest counterrevolution!
Just a word about "universal fraternal union of peoples" and the drawing of
"boundaries established by the sovereign will of the peoples themselves on the
basis of their national characteristics". The United States and Mexico are two
republics, in both of which the people is sovereign.
How did it happen that over Texas a war broke out between these two
republics, which, according to the moral theory, ought to have been
"fraternally united" and "federated", and that, owing to "geographical,
commercial and strategical necessities", the "sovereign will" of the American
people, supported by the bravery of the American volunteers, shifted the
boundaries drawn by nature some hundreds of miles further south? And will
Bakunin accuse the Americans of a "war of conquest", which, although it deals
with a severe blow to his theory based on "justice and humanity", was
nevertheless waged wholly and solely in the interest of civilization? Or is it
perhaps unfortunate that splendid California has been taken away from the lazy
Mexicans, who could not do anything with it? That the energetic Yankees by
rapid exploitation of the California gold mines will increase the means of
circulation, in a few years will concentrate a dense population and extensive
trade at the most suitable places on the coast of the Pacific Ocean, create large
cities, open up communications by steamship, construct a railway from New
York to San Francisco, for the first time really open the Pacific Ocean to

civilization, and for the third time in history give the world trade a new
direction? The "independence" of a few Spanish Californians and Texans may
suffer because of it, in someplaces "justice" and other moral principles may be
violated; but what does that matter to such facts of world-historic significance?
We would point out, incidentally, that this theory of universal fraternal union
of peoples, which calls indiscriminately for fraternal union regardless of the
historical situation and the stage of social development of the individual
peoples, was combated by the editors of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung already
long before the revolution, and in fact in opposition to their best friends, the
English and French democrats. Proof of this is to be found in the English,
French and Belgian democratic newspapers of that period.
As far as pan-Slavism in particular is concerned, in the Neue Rheinische
Zeitung No.194 we showed that, part from the well-meaning self-deceptions of
the democratic pan-Slavists, it has in reality no other aim than to give the
Austrian Slavs, who are split up and historically, literally, politically,
commercially and industrially dependent on the Germans and Magyars, a basis
of support, in Russia on the one hand, and on the other hand in the Austrian
united monarchy, which is dominated by the Slav majority and dependent on
Russia. We have shown how such little nations. which for centuries have been
taken in tow by history against their will, must necessarily be counterrevolutionary, and that their whole position in the revolution in 1848 was
actually counter-revolutionary. In view of the democratic pan-Slavist
manifesto, which demands the independence of all Slavs without distinction,
we must return to this matter.
Let us note first of all that there is much excuse for the political romanticism
and sentimentality of the democrats at the Slav Congress. With the exception
of the Poles - the Poles are not pan-Slavists for very obvious reasons - they all
belong to peoples which are either, like the Southern Slavs, necessarily
counter-revolutionary owning to the whole of their historical position, or, like
the Russians, are still a long way from revolution and therefore, at least for the
time being, are still counter-revolutionary. These sections, democratic owing
to their education acquired abroad, seek to bring their democratic views into
harmony with their national feeling, which is known to be very pronounced
among the Slavs; and since the real world, the actual state of things in their
country, affords no basis, or only a fictitious basis for such reconciliation, there
remains for them nothing but the other-worldly "airy kingdom of dreams"
[quoting Heinrich Heine] the realm of pious wishes, the policy of fantasy. How
splendid it would be if the Croats, Pandours and Cossacks formed the
vanguard of European democracy, if the ambassador of a republic of Siberia

were to present his credentials in Paris! Certainly, such prospects would be

very delightful; but, after all, even the most enthusiastic pan-Slavist will not
demand that European democracy should wait for their realization - and at
present it is precisely those nations from whom the manifesto specially
demands independence that are the special enemies of democracy.
We repeat: apart from the Poles, the Russians, and at most the Turkish Slavs,
no Slav people has a future, for the simple reason that all the other Slavs lack
the primary historical, geographical, political and industrial conditions for
independence and viability.
Peoples which have never had a history of their own, which from the time
when they achieved the first, most elementary stage of civilization already
came under foreign sway, or which were forced to attain the first stage of
civilization only by means of a foreign yoke, are not viable and will never be
able to achieve any kind of independence.
And that has been the fate of the Austrian Slavs. The Czechs, among whom
we would include the Moravians and Slovaks, although they differ in respect
of language and history, have never had a history of their own. Bohemia has
been chained to Germany since the time of Charles the Great. The Czech
nation freed itself momentarily and formed the Great-Moravian state, only
immediately to come under subjugation again and for 500 years to be a bill
thrown from one to another by Germany, Hungary and Poland. Following that,
Bohemia and Moravia passed definitely to Germany and the Slovak regions
remained with Hungary. And this historically absolutely non-existent "nation"
puts forward claims to independence?
The same thing holds for the Southern Slavs proper. Where is the history of
the Illyrian Solvenes, the Dalmatians, Croats and Shokazians? Since the 11th
century they have lost the last semblance of political independence and have
been partly under German, partly under Venetian, and partly under Magyar
rule. And it is desired to put together a vigorous, independent, viable nation
out of these tattered remnants?
More than that. If the Austrian Slavs were a compact mass like the Poles, the
Magyars and the Italians, if they were in a position to come together to form a
state of 12-20 million people, then their claims would surely be more serious.
But the position is just the opposite. The Germans and Magyars have pushed
themselves in between them like a broad wedge to the farthest extremities of
the Carpathians, almost to the Black Sea, and have separated the Czechs,
Moravians and Slovaks from the Southern Slavs by a broad band 60-80 miles

[German mile equals 4.7 English miles] wide. To the north of this band are 5.5
million Slavs, to the south 5.5 million Slavs, separated by a compact mass of
10-11 million Germans and Magyars, made allies by history and necessity.
But why should not the 5.5 million Czechs, Moravians and Slovaks form
one state, and the 5.5 million Southern Slavs together with the Turkish Slavs
form another state?
Take a look at any good linguistic map of the distribution of the Czechs and
their neighbors akin to them in language. They have thrust themselves into
Germany like a wedge but on both sides they have been eaten into and pressed
back by the German element. One-third of Bohemia speaks German; for every
34 Czechs in Bohemia there are 17 Germans. Yet it is precisely the Czechs in
Bohemia who are supposed to form the core of the intended Slav state; for the
Moravians, too, are considerably interspersed with Germans, and the Slovaks
with Germans and Magyars end furthermore completely demoralized in a
national respect. And what a Slav state that would be, in which in the final
analysis the German urban bourgeoisie would hold sway!
The same thing applies to the Southern Slavs. The Slovenes and Croats cut
of Germany and Hungary from the Adriatic Sea; but Germany and
Hungary cannot allow themselves to be cut off from the Adriatic Sea on
account of "geographical and commercial necessities", which, it is true, are no
obstacle to Bakunin's fantasy, but which nevertheless do exist and are just as
much a vital question for Germany and Hungary as, for example, the Baltic
Sea coast from Danzig to Riga is for Poland. And where it is a question of the
existence, of the free development of all the resources of big nations, such
sentimental considerations as concern for a few scattered Germans of Slavs
will not decide anything! This apart from the fact that these Southern Slavs are
likewise everywhere mingled with German, Magyar, and Italian elements,
there here too a mere glance at a linguistic map shows the planned South-Slav
state would be delivered into the hands of the Italian bourgeoisie of Trieste,
Fiumeand Zara, and theGerman bourgeoisie of Agram, Laibach, Karlstadt,
Semlin, Pancsova, and Weisskirchen!
But could not the Austrian Southern Slavs unite with the Serbs, Bosnians,
Morlaks, and Bulgarians? Certainly they could if, besides the difficulties
mentioned above, there did not exist also the age-old hatred of the Austrian
frontier dwellers for the Turkish Slavs on the other side of the Sava and Unna;
but these people, who for centuries have considered one another as rascals and
bandits, despite all their racial kinship hate one another infinitely more than do
the Slavs and Magyars.

In point of fact, the position of the Germans and Magyars would be

extremely pleasant if the Austrian Slavs were assisted to get their so-called
rights! An independent Bohemian-Moravian state would be wedged between
Silesia and Austria; Austria and Styria would be cut off by the "South-Slav
republic" from their natural debouche [outlet] - the Adriatic Sea and the
Mediterranean; and the eastern part of Germany would be torn to pieces like a
loaf of bread that has been gnawed by rats! And all that by way of thanks for
the Germans having given themselves the trouble of civilizing the stubborn
Czechs and Slovenes, and introducing among them trade, industry, a tolerable
degree of agriculture, and culture!
But it is precisely this yoke imposed on the Slavs under the pretext of
civilization that is said to constitute one of the greatest crimes of the Germans
and Magyars! Just listen to this:
"Rightly do you rage, rightly do you breathe vengeance against the damnable German policy,
which has thought of nothing but your ruin, which has enslaved you for centuries...." p.5
"... The Magyars, the bitter enemies of our race, who number hardly four millions, have
presumed to seek to impose their yoke on eight million Slavs...." p.9
"I know all that the Magyars have done to our Slav brothers, what crimes they have committed
against our nationality, and how they have trampled underfoot our language and independence."
p.30

What then are the great, dreadful crimes committed by the Germans and
Magyars against the Slav nationality? We are not speaking here of the
partition of Poland, which is not at issue here, we are speaking of the
"centuries of injustice" supposed to have been inflicted on the Slavs.
In the north, the Germans have reconquered from the Slavs the formerly
German and subsequently Slav region from the Elbe to the Warthe; a conquest
which as determined by the "geographical and strategical necessities" resulting
from the partition of the Carolingian kingdom. These Slavs areas have been
fully Germanized; the thing has been done and cannot be undone, unless the
pan-Slavists were to resurrect the lost Sorbian, Wendish, and Obodritian
languages and impose them on the inhabitants of Leipzig, Berlin and Stettin.
But up to now it has never been disputed that this conquest was to the
advantage of civilization.
In the south, the Germans found the Slav races already split up. That had
been seen to by the non-Slav Avars, who occupied the region later inhabited
by the Magyars. The Germans exacted tribute from these Slavs and waged

many wars against them. They fought also against the Avars and Magyars,
from whom they took the whole territory from the Ems to the Leitha. Whereas
they carried out Germanization here by force, the Germanization of the Slav
territories proceeded much more on a peaceful basis, by immigration and by
the influence of the more developed nation on the undeveloped. German
industry, German trade, and German culture by themselves served to introduce
the German language into the country. As far as "oppression" is concerned, the
Slavs were not more oppressed by the Germans than the mass of the German
population itself.
As regards the Magyars, there are certainly also a large number of Germans
in Hungary, but the Magyars, although numbering "hardly four millions", have
never had the occasion to complain of the "damnable German policy"! And if
during eight centuries the "eight million Slavs" have had to suffer the yoke
imposed on them by the four million Magyars, that alone sufficiently proves
which was the more viable and vigorous, the many Slavs or the few Magyars!
But, of course, the greatest "crime" of the Germans and Magyars is that they
prevented these 12 million Slavs from becoming Turkish! What would have
become of these scattered small nationalities, which have played such a pitiful
role in history, if the Magyars and Germans had not kept them together and led
them against the armies of Mohammed and Suleiman, and if their so-called
oppressors had not decided the outcome of the battles which were fought for
the defense of these weak nationalities! The fate of the "12 million Slavs,
Wallachians, and Greeks" who have been "trampled underfoot by 700,000
Osmans" (p.8), right up to the present day, does not that speak eloquently
enough?
And finally, what a "crime" it is, what a "damnable policy" that at a time
when, in Europe in general, big monarchies had become a "historical
necessity", the Germans and Magyars untied all these small, stunted and
impotent little nations into a single big state and thereby enabled them to take
part in a historical development from which, left to themselves, they would
have remained completely aloof! Of course, matters of this kind cannot be
accomplished without many a tender national blossom being forcibly broken.
But in history nothing is achieved without violence and implacable
ruthlessness, and if Alexander, Caesar, and Napoleon had been capable of
being moved by the same sort of appeal as that which pan-Slavism now makes
on behalf of its ruined clients, what would have become of history! And are the
Persians, Celts, and Christian Germans of less value than the Czechs,
Ogulians, and Serezhans?

Now, however, as a result of the powerful progress of industry, trade and

communications, political centralization has become a much more urgent need
than it was then, in the 15th and 16th centuries. What still has to be centralized
is being centralized. And now the pan-Slavists come forward and demand that
we should "set free" these half-Germanized Slavs, and that we should abolish a
centralization which is being forced on these Slavs by all their material
interests!
In short, it turns out these "crimes" of the Germans and Magyars against the
said Slavs are among the best and most praiseworthy deeds which our and the
Magyar people can boast in their history.
Moreover, as far as the Magyars are concerned, it should be specially
pointed out here that, particularly since the revolution, they have acted too
much submissively and weakly against the puffed-up Croats. It is notorious
that Kossuth made all possible concessions to them, excepting only that their
deputies were not allowed to speak the Croatian in the Diet. And thus
submissiveness to a nation that is counter-revolutionary by nature is the only
thing with which the Magyars can be reproached.

Source: MECW Volume 8, p. 362;

Written: by Engels on February 14-15, 1849;
First published: in Neue Rheinische Zeitung Nos. 222 and 223, February 15

and 16, 1849.

Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 223, February 16, 1849

Cologne, February 15. We concluded yesterday with the proof that the
Austrian Slavs have never had a history of their own, that from the historical,
literary, political, commercial and industrial points of view they are
dependent on the Germans and Magyars, that they are already partly
Germanised, Magyarised and Italianised, that if they were to establish
independent states, not they, but the German and Italian bourgeoisie of their
towns would rule these states, and finally, that neither Hungary nor Germany
can tolerate the detachment and independent constitution of such unviable,
small intercalated states.

All that, however, would still not be decisive. If at any epoch while they
were oppressed the Slavs had begun a new revolutionary history, that by itself
would have proved their viability. From that moment the revolution would
have had an interest in their liberation, and the special interest of the Germans
and Magyars would have given way to the greater interest of the European
revolution.
Precisely that, however, never happened. The Slavs once again we
remind our readers that here we always exclude the Poles were always the
main instruments of the counter-revolutionaries. Oppressed at home, outside
their country, wherever Slav influence extended to, they were the oppressors of
all revolutionary nations.
Let no one object that we speak here on behalf of German national
prejudices. In German, French, Belgian and English periodicals, the proofs are
to be found that it was precisely the editors of Neue Rheinische Zeitung who
already long before the revolution most decisively opposed all manifestations
of German national narrowmindedness.[325] Unlike many other people, they did
not castigate the Germans at random or on the basis of mere hearsay; on the
contrary, they proved from history and mercilessly exposed the despicable role
that Germany has certainly played in history, thanks to its nobles and burghers
and thanks to its crippled industrial development; they have always recognised
the superiority of the great historical nations of the west, the English and the
French, compared with the backward Germans. But precisely for that reason
we should be permitted not to share the fantastic illusions of the Slavs and
allowed to judge other peoples as severely as we have judged our own nation.
Up to now it has always been said that the Germans have been
the Lanzknechte [spear-bearers] of despotism throughout Europe. We are far
from denying the shameful part played by the Germans in the shameful wars
against the French revolution from 1792 to 1815, and in the oppression of Italy
since 1815 and of Poland since 1772; but who stood behind the Germans, who
used them as their mercenaries or their vanguard? England and Russia. After
all, up to the present day the Russians boast of having brought about the fall of
Napoleon through their innumerable armies, which is at any rate largely
correct. This much, at least, is certain, that of the armies which by their
superior power drove back Napoleon from the Oder as far as Paris, threequarters consisted of Slavs, Russians or Austrian Slavs.
And then, too, the Germans oppression of the Italians and Poles! A wholly
Slav power and a semi-Slav power competed in the partition of Poland; the
armies which crushed Kosciuszko consisted for the most part of Slavs, the

armies of Dibich and Paskevich were exclusively Slav armies. And in Italy for
many years the Tedeschi[Germans] alone had the ignominy of being regarded
as oppressors. But, once again, what was the composition of the armies which
best let themselves be used for oppression and for whose savage acts the
Germans were blamed? Once again, they consisted of Slavs. Go to Italy and
ask who suppressed the Milan revolution; people will no longer say: the
Tedeschi since the Tedeschi made a revolution in Vienna they are no longer
hated but: the Croati. That is the word which the Italians now apply to the
whole Austrian army, i.e. to all that is most deeply hated by them: i Croati!
Nevertheless, these reproaches would be superfluous and unjustified if the
Slavs had anywhere seriously participated in the movement of 1848, if they
had hastened to join the ranks of the revolutionary peoples. A single
courageous attempt at a democratic revolution, even if it were crushed,
extinguishes in the memory of the peoples whole centuries of infamy and
cowardice, and at once rehabilitates a nation, however deeply it had been
despised. That was the experience of the Germans last year. But whereas the
French, Germans, Italians, Poles and Magyars raised high the banner of the
revolution, the Slavs one and all put themselves under the banner of
the counter-revolution. In the forefront were the Southern Slavs, who had
already for many years upheld their counter-revolutionary separatist aims
against the Magyars; then came the Czechs, and behind them the Russians,
armed for battle and ready to appear on the battlefield at the decisive moment.
It is well known that in Italy the Magyar hussars went over to the Italians
en masse, that in Hungary whole Italian battalions put themselves at the
disposal of the Magyar revolutionary Government and are still fighting under
the Magyar flag; it is well known that in Vienna the German regiments sided
with the people and even in Galicia were by no means reliable; it is well
known that masses of Austrian and non-Austrian Poles fought against the
Austrian armies in Italy, in Vienna and in Hungary, and are still fighting in the
Carpathians; but where has. anyone ever heard of Czech or South-Slav troops
revolting against the black-and-yellow flag?
On the contrary, up to now it is known only that Austria, which was shaken
to its foundations, has been kept alive and for the time being is once again in
safety owing to the enthusiasm of the Slavs for the black-and-yellow flag; that
it was precisely the Croats, Slovenes, Dalmatians, Czechs, Moravians and
Ruthenians who put their contingents at the disposal of Windischgrtz and
Jellachich for suppressing the revolution in Vienna, Cracow, Lemberg and
Hungary; and what furthermore we have now learned from Bakunin is that the

Prague Slav Congress was dispersed not by Germans, but by Galician, Czech
and Slovak Slavs and nothing but Slavs"! P.33.
The revolution of 1848 compelled all European peoples to declare
themselves for or against it. In the course of a month all the peoples ripe for
revolution had made their revolution, and all those which were not ripe had
allied themselves against the revolution. At that time it was a matter of
disentangling the confused tangle of peoples of Eastern Europe. The question
was which nation would seize the revolutionary initiative here, and which
nation would develop the greatest revolutionary energy and thereby safeguard
its future. The Slavs remained silent, the Germans and Magyars, faithful to
their previous historical position, took the lead. As a result, the Slavs were
thrown completely into the arms of the counter-revolution.
But what about the Slav Congress in Prague?
We repeat: the so-called democrats among the Austrian Slavs are either
scoundrels or fantasts, and the latter, who do not find any fertile soil among
their people for the ideas imported from abroad, have been continually led by
the nose by the scoundrels. At the Prague Slav Congress the fantasts had the
upper hand. When the fantasy seemed dangerous to the aristocratic panSlavists, Count Thun, Palack & Co., they betrayed the fantasts to
Windischgrtz and the black-and-yellow counter-revolution. What bitter,
striking irony is contained in the fact that this Congress of dreamers, defended
by the dreamy Prague youth, was dispersed by soldiers of their own nation,
and that, as it were, a military Slav Congress was set up in opposition to the
day-dreaming Slav Congress! The Austrian army which captured Prague,
Vienna, Lemberg, Cracow, Milan and Budapest that is the real, active Slav
Congress!
How unfounded and vague was the fantasy at the Slav Congress is proved by
its results. The bombardment of a town like Prague would have filled any other
nation with inextinguishable hatred of its oppressors. But what did the Czechs
do? They kissed the rod which had bloodily chastised them, they eagerly swore
obedience to the flag under which their brothers had been slaughtered and their
wives ravished. The street-fighting in Prague was the turning-point for the
Austrian democratic pan-Slavists.[326] In return for the prospect of obtaining
their pitiful national independence, they bartered away democracy and the
revolution to the Austrian united monarchy, to the centre, the systematic
enforcement of despotism in the heart of Europe, as Bakunin himself says on
p. 29. And for this cowardly, base betrayal of the revolution we shall at some
time take a bloody revenge against the Slavs.

It has at last become clear to these traitors that they have nevertheless been
cheated by the counter-revolution and that for the Austrian Slavs there can be
no thought of either a Slav Austria or a federative state of nations with
equal rights, and least of all of democratic institutions. Jellachich, who is no
bigger a scoundrel than most of the other democrats among the Austrian Slavs,
bitterly regrets the way in which he has been exploited, and Stratimirovich, in
order not to allow himself to be exploited any longer, has proclaimed an open
revolt against Austria. The Slovansk-Lipa associations [327] once more
everywhere oppose the Government and every day gain fresh painful
experience of the trap into which they let themselves be enticed. But it is now
too late; powerless in their own homeland against the Austrian soldiery, which
they themselves re-organised, rejected by the Germans and Magyars whom
they have betrayed, rejected by revolutionary Europe, they will have to suffer
the same military despotism which they helped to impose on the Viennese and
Magyars. Submit to the Emperor so that the imperial troops do not treat you
as if you were rebellious Magyars these words of the Patriarch Rajachich
express what they have to expect in the immediate future.
How very differently have the Poles behaved! For the last eighty years
oppressed, enslaved, plundered, they have always been on the side of the
revolution and proclaimed that the revolutionisation of Poland is inseparable
from the independence of Poland. In Paris, Vienna, Berlin, Italy, Hungary, the
Poles shared the fighting in all the revolutions and revolutionary wars,
regardless whether they were fighting against Germans, against Slavs, against
Magyars, or even against Poles. The Poles are the only Slav nation that is free
from all pan-Slavist aspirations. They have, however, very good reasons for
that: they have been oppressed mainly by their own so-called Slav brothers,
and among the Poles hatred of Russians takes precedence over hatred of
Germans, and with full justification. But because the liberation of Poland is
inseparable from the revolution, because Pole and revolutionary have become
synonymous, for Poles the sympathy of all Europe and the restoration of their
nation are as certain as are for the Czechs, Croats and Russians the hatred of
all Europeans and a most bloody revolutionary war of the entire west against
them.
The Austrian pan-Slavists ought to understand that all their desire insofar as
they can be fulfilled, have been realised in the restoration of the Austrian
united monarchy under Russian protection. If Austria collapses, what is in
store for them is the revolutionary terrorism of the Germans and Magyars, but
by no means, as they imagine, the liberation of all the nations enslaved under
the sceptre of Austria. They must therefore wish that Austria continues to hold

together, and indeed that Galicia remains with Austria, so that the Slavs retain
a majority in the state. Here, therefore, pan-Slavist interests are already directly
opposed to the restoration of Poland, for a Poland without Galicia, a Poland
that does not extend from the Baltic to the Carpathians, is no Poland. But
equally for that reason a Slav Austria is still a mere dream; for without the
supremacy of the Germans and Magyars, without the two centres of Vienna
and Budapest, Austria will once again fall apart, as its whole history up to
recent months has proved. Accordingly, the realisation of pan-Slavism would
have to be restricted to Russian patronage over Austria. The openly reactionary
pan-Slavists were therefore quite right in holding fast to the preservation of the
united monarchy; it was the only means of saving anything. The so-called
democratic pan-Slavists, however, were in an acute dilemma: either
renunciation of the revolution and at least a partial salvation of nationality
through the united monarchy, or abandonment of nationality and salvation of
the revolution by the collapse of the united monarchy. At that time the fate of
the revolution in Eastern Europe depended on the position of the Czechs and
Southern Slavs; we shall not forget that at the decisive moment they betrayed
the revolution to Petersburg and Olmtz for the sake of their petty national
hopes.
What would be said if the democratic party in Germany commenced its
programme with the demand for the return of Alsace, Lorraine, and Belgium,
which in every respect belongs to France, on the pretext that the majority there
is Germanic? How ridiculous the German democrats would make themselves
if they wanted to found a pan-Germanic German-Danish-Swedish-EnglishDutch alliance for the liberation of all German-speaking countries! German
democracy, fortunately, is above such fantasies. German students in 1817 and
1830 were peddling that kind of reactionary fantasies and today throughout
Germany are being given their deserts. The German revolution only came into
being, and the German nation only began to become something, when people
had freed themselves completely from these futilities.
But pan-Slavism, too, is just as childish and reactionary as pan-Germanism.
When one reads the history of the pan-Slavist movement of last spring in
Prague, one could imagine oneself back in the period of thirty years ago:
tricolour sashes, ancient costumes, ancient Slav Masses, complete restoration
of the time and customs of the primeval forests; the Svornost a complete
replica of the German Burschenschaft, the Slav Congress a new edition of
the Wartburg Festival,[328] the same phrases, the same fantasies, the same
subsequent lamentation: We had built a stately house, etc. Anyone who

would like to read this famous song translated into Slav prose has only to read
Bakunins pamphlet.
Just as in the long run the most pronounced counter-revolutionary frame of
mind, the most ferocious hatred of Frenchmen, and the most narrow-minded
national feeling, were to be found among the members of the
German Burschenschaften, and just as later they all became traitors to the
cause for which they had pretended to be enthusiastic in exactly the same
way, only more speedily, because 1848 was a year of revolution, the
democratic semblance among the democratic pan-Slavists turned into fanatical
hatred of Germans and Magyars, into indirect opposition to the restoration of
Poland (Lubomirski), and into direct adherence to the counter-revolution.
And if some sincere Slav democrats now call on the Austrian Slavs to join
the revolution, to regard the Austrian united monarchy as their chief enemy,
and indeed to be on the side of the Magyars in the interests of the revolution,
they remind one of a hen which despairingly circles the edge of a pond where
the young ducklings which she has hatched out now suddenly escape from her
into a totally foreign element into which he cannot follow them.
But let us not harbour any illusions. Among all the pan-Slavists, nationality,
i.e. imaginary common Slav nationality, takes precedence over the revolution.
The pan-Slavists want to join the revolution on condition that they will be
allowed to constitute all Slavs without exception, regardless of material
necessities, into independent Slav states. If we Germans had wanted to lay
down the same fantastic conditions, we would have got a long way in March!
But the revolution does not allow of any conditions being imposed on it. Either
one is a revolutionary and accepts the consequences of the revolution,
whatever they are, or one is driven into the arms of the counter-revolution and
one day finds oneself, perhaps without knowing or desiring it, arm in arm with
Nicholas and Windischgrtz.
We and the Magyars should guarantee the Austrian Slavs their independence
that is what Bakunin demands, and people of the calibre of Ruge are
capable of having actually made such promises to him in secret. The demand is
put to us and the other revolutionary nations of Europe that the hotbeds of
counter-revolution at our very door should be guaranteed an unhindered
existence and the free right to conspire and take up arms against the revolution;
it is demanded that we should establish a counter-revolutionary Czech state in
the very heart of Germany, and break the strength of the German, Polish and
Magyar revolutions by interposing between them Russian outposts at the Elbe,
the Carpathians and the Danube!

We have no intention of doing that. To the sentimental phrases about

brotherhood which we are being offered here on behalf of the most counterrevolutionary nations of Europe, we reply that hatred of Russians was and still
is the primary revolutionary passion among Germans; that since the revolution
hatred of Czechs and Croats has been added, and that only by the most
determined use of terror against these Slav peoples can we, jointly with the
Poles and Magyars, safeguard the revolution. We know where the enemies of
the revolution are concentrated, viz. in Russia and the Slav regions of Austria,
and no fine phrases, no allusions to an undefined democratic future for these
countries can deter us from treating our enemies as enemies.
And if Bakunin finally exclaims:
Truly, the Slav should not lose anything, he should win! Truly, he should live! And we shall
live. As long as the smallest part of our rights is contested, as long as a single member is cut off
from our whole body, so long will we fight to the end, inexorably wage a life-and-death
struggle, until the Slavs have their place in the world, great and free and independent

if revolutionary pan-Slavism means this passage to be taken seriously, and in

its concern for the imaginary Slav nationality leaves the revolution entirely
out of account, then we too know what we have to do.
Then there will be a struggle, an inexorable life-and-death struggle,
against those Slavs who betray the revolution; an annihilating fight and
ruthless terror not in the interests of Germany, but in the interests of the
revolution!

ENGELS DESPISED THE RUSSIANS

Engels. "Democratic Pan-Slavism" (NRZ February 16.
1849), Collected Works, Vol. 8 p 378. ". . . hatred of
Russia was and still is the primary revolutionary passion
among Germans; that since the revolution, hatred of
Czechs and Croats has been added, and that only by the
most determined use of terror against these Slav peoples
can we, jointly with the Poles and Magyars, safeguard the
revolution."

(No Marxist seems to have put this online. I can't imagine

why!) ENGELS: RACE A DETERMINING FACTOR IN
HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT

Engels: (Marx and Engels, Selected Works, Vol. 3, p.

502.): "We regard economic conditions as the factor which
ultimately determines historical development. But race is
itself an economic factor".
Context here
German reference: "Brief an W. Borgius" 25.1.1894.
MEW, Bd. 39, S. 205. Not apparently online. Marx-Engels
Correspondence 1894

Engels to Borgius
Abstract

Source: Marx and Engels Correspondence;

Publisher: International Publishers (1968);
First Published: Gestamtausgabe;
Translated: Donna Torr;
Transcribed: Sally Ryan in 2000;
HTML Markup: Sally Ryan.

London, January 25, 1894

Here is the answer to your questions!

[1]

(1) What we understand by the economic conditions, which we regard as the

determining basis of the history of society, are the methods by which human
beings in a given society produce their means of subsistence and exchange the
products among themselves (in so far as division of labour exists). Thus
the entire technique of production and transport is here included. According to
our conception this technique also determines the method of exchange and,
further, the division of products, and with it, after the dissolution of tribal
society, the division into classes also and hence the relations of lordship and
servitude and with them the state, politics, law, etc. Under economic
conditions are further included the geographical basis on which they operate
and those remnants of earlier stages of economic development which have
actually been transmitted and have survived often only through tradition or
the force of inertia; also of course the external milieu which surrounds this
form of society.
If, as you say, technique largely depends on the state of science, science
depends far more still on the state and the requirements of technique. If society
has a technical need, that helps science forward more than ten universities. The
whole of hydrostatics (Torricelli, etc.) was called forth by the necessity for
regulating the mountain streams of Italy in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries. We have only known anything reasonable about electricity since its
technical applicability was discovered. But unfortunately it has become the
custom in Germany to write the history of the sciences as if they had fallen
from the skies.
(2) We regard economic conditions as the factor which ultimately determines
historical development. But race is itself an economic factor. Here, however,
two points must not be overlooked:
(a) Political, juridical, philosophical, religious, literary, artistic, etc.,
development is based on economic development. But all these react
upon one another and also upon the economic base. It is not that the
economic position is the cause and alone active, while everything else
only has a passive effect. There is, rather, interaction on the basis of the
economic necessity, which ultimately always asserts itself. The state,
for instance, exercises an influence by tariffs, free trade, good or bad
fiscal system; and even the deadly inanition and impotence of the
German petty bourgeois, arising from the miserable economic position
of Germany from 1640 to 1830 and expressing itself at first in pietism,
then in sentimentality and cringing servility to princes and nobles, was
not without economic effect. It was one of the greatest hindrances to
recovery and was not shaken until the revolutionary and Napoleonic

wars made the chronic misery an acute one. So it is not, as people try
here and there conveniently to imagine, that the economic position
produces an automatic effect. Men make their history themselves, only
in given surroundings which condition it and on the basis of actual
relations already existing, among which the economic relations,
however much they may be influenced by the other political and
ideological ones, are still ultimately the decisive ones, forming the red
thread which runs through them and alone leads to understanding.
(b) Men make their history themselves, but not as yet with a collective
will or according to a collective plan or even in a definitely defined,
given society. Their efforts clash, and for that very reason all such
societies are governed by necessity, which is supplemented by and
appears under the forms of accident. The necessity which here asserts
itself amidst all accident is again ultimately economic necessity. This is
where the so-called great men come in for treatment. That such and
such a man and precisely that man arises at that particular time in that
given country is of course pure accident. But cut him out and there will
be a demand for a substitute, and this substitute will be found, good or
bad, but in the long run he will be found. That Napoleon, just that
particular Corsican, should have been the military dictator whom the
French Republic, exhausted by its own war, had rendered necessary,
was an accident; but that, if a Napoleon had been lacking, another
would have filled the place, is proved by the fact that the man has
always been found as soon as he became necessary: Caesar, Augustus,
Cromwell, etc. While Marx discovered the materialist conception of
history, Thierry, Mignet, Guizot, and all the English historians up to
1850 are the proof that it was being striven for, and the discovery of the
same conception by Morgan proves that the time was ripe for it and that
indeed it had to be discovered.
So with all the other accidents, and apparent accidents, of history. The
further the particular sphere which we are investigating is removed from the
economic sphere and approaches that of pure abstract ideology, the more shall
we find it exhibiting accidents in its development, the more will its curve run
in a zig-zag. So also you will find that the axis of this curve will approach
more and more nearly parallel to the axis of the curve of economic
development the longer the period considered and the wider the field dealt
with.
In Germany the greatest hindrance to correct understanding is the
irresponsible neglect by literature of economic history. It is so hard, not only to

disaccustom oneself of the ideas of history drilled into one at school, but still
more to rake up the necessary material for doing so. Who, for instance, has
read old G. von Glich, whose dry collection of material nevertheless contains
so much stuff for the clarification of innumerable political facts!
For the rest, the fine example which Marx has given in the Eighteenth
Brumaire should already, I think, provide you fairly well with information on
your questions, just because it is a practical example. I have also, I believe,
already touched on most of the points in Anti-Dhring I, Chapters 9-11, and II,
2-4, as well as in III, I, or Introduction, and then in the last section
of Feuerbach.
Please do not weigh each word in the above too carefully, but keep the
connection in mind; I regret that I have not the time to work out what I am
writing to you so exactly as I should be obliged to do for publication.

1. This letter was first published without any mention of the addressee in the

journal Der socialistische Akademiker No 20, 1895, by its contributor H.

Starkenburg. As a result Starkenburg was wrongly identified as the
addressee in all previous editions. from Progress Publishers, 1968

ENGELS: NATIVE BLACKS DUMBER THAN AN EIGHTYEAR-OLD

Engels. "Notes to Anti-Duehring": "On the other hand,
modern natural science has extended the principle of the
origin of all thought content from experience in a way that
breaks down its old metaphysical limitation and
formulation. By recognising the inheritance of acquired
characters, it extends the subject of experience from the
individual to the genus; the single individual that must
have experienced is no longer necessary, its individual
experience can be replaced to a certain extent by the
results of the experiences of a number of its ancestors. If,

for instance, among us the mathematical axioms seem

self-evident to every eight-year-old child, and in no need of
proof from experience, this is solely the result of
"accumulated inheritance." It would be difficult to teach
them by a proof to a bushman or Australian negro".
Context here Engels' Dialectics of Nature

Appendix: Notes to AntiDhring

The following notes were written by Engels towards the end of 1877 and
beginning of 1878, after the publication in separate form of the first section
(Philosophy) of "Anti- Dhring," to the pages of which he refers at the
beginning of each note. In view of their great intrinsic importance and their
close connection with the subjects dealt with in Dialectics of Nature, they are
included here as an appendix.
(a) On the Prototype of Mathematical "Infinity" in the Real World.
Re pp. 17-18: Concordance of thought and being - Mathematical infinity.
The fact that our subjective thought and the objective world are subject to
the same laws, and that consequently too in the final analysis they cannot be in
contradiction to one another in their results, but must coincide, governs
absolutely our whole theoretical thought. It is the unconscious and
unconditional premise for theoretical thought. Eighteenth century materialism,
owing to its essentially metaphysical character, investigated this premise only
as regards content. It restricted itself to the proof that the content of all thought
and knowledge must derive from sensuous experience, and revived the
principle: nihil est in intellectu, quod non fuerit in sensu. It was modern
idealistic, but at the same time dialectical, philosophy, and especially Hegel,
which for the first time investigated it also as regards form. In spite of all the
innumerable arbitrary constructions and fantasies that we encounter here, in
spite of the idealist, topsy-turvy, form of its result - the unity of thought and
being - it is undeniable that this philosophy proved the analogy of the
processes of thought to those of nature and history and vice versa, and the

validity of similar laws for all these processes, in numerous cases and in the
most diverse fields. On the other hand, modern natural science has extended
the principle of the origin of all thought content from experience in a way that
breaks down its old metaphysical limitation and formulation. By recognising
the inheritance of acquired characters, it extends the subject of experience
from the individual to the genus; the single individual that must have
experienced is no longer necessary, its individual experience can be replaced
to a certain extent by the results of the experiences of a number of its
ancestors. If, for instance, among us the mathematical axioms seem selfevident to every eight-year-old child, and in no need of proof from experience,
this is solely the result of "accumulated inheritance." It would be difficult to
teach them by a proof to a bushman or Australian negro.
In the present work dialectics is conceived as the science of the most general
laws of all motion. Therein is included that their laws must be equally valid for
motion in nature and human history and for the motion of thought. Such a law
can be recognised in two of these three spheres, indeed even in all three,
without the metaphysical philistine being clearly aware that it is one and the
same law that he has come to know.
Let us take an example. Of all theoretical advances there is surely none that
ranks so high as a triumph of the human mind as the discovery of the
infinitesimal calculus in the last half of the seventeenth century. If anywhere, it
is here that we have a pure and exclusive feat of human intelligence. The
mystery which even to-day surrounds the magnitudes employed in the
infinitesimal calculus, the differentials and infinites of various degree, is the
best proof that it is still imagined that what are dealt with here are pure "free
creations and imaginings " of the human mind, to which there is nothing
corresponding in the objective world. Yet the contrary is the case. Nature
offers prototypes for all these imaginary magnitudes.
Our geometry has, as its starting point, space relations, and our arithmetic
and algebra numerical magnitudes, which correspond to our terrestrial
conditions, which therefore correspond to the magnitude of bodies that
mechanics terms masses - masses such as occur on earth and are moved by
men. In comparison to these masses, the mass of the earth seems infinitely
large and indeed terrestrial mechanics treats it as infinitely large. The radius of
the earth == , this is the basic principle of all mechanics in the law of falling.
But not merely the earth but the whole solar system and the distances
occurring in the latter in their turn appear infinitely small as soon as we have to
deal with the distances reckoned in light years in the stellar system visible to
us through the telescope. We have here, therefore, already an infinity, not only

of the first but of the second degree, and we can leave it to the imagination of
our readers to construct further infinities of a higher degree in infinite space, if
they feel inclined to do so.
According to the view prevailing in physics and chemistry today, however,
the terrestrial masses, the bodies with which mechanics operates, consists of
molecules, of smallest particles which cannot be further divided without
abolishing the physical and chemical identity of the body concerned.
According to W. Thomson's calculations, the diameter of the smallest of these
molecules cannot be smaller than a fifty-millionth of a millimetre. But even if
we assume that the largest molecule itself attains a diameter of a twentyfivemillionth of a millimetre, it still remains an infinitesimally small magnitude
compared with the smallest mass dealt with by mechanics, physics, or even
chemistry. Nevertheless, it is endowed with all the properties peculiar to the
mass in question, it can represent the mass physically and chemically, and does
actually represent it in all chemical equations. In short, it has the same
properties in relation to the corresponding mass as the mathematical
differential has in relation to its variable. The only difference is that what
seems mysterious and inexplicable to us in the case of the differential, here
seems a matter of course and as it were obvious.
Nature operates with these differentials, the molecules, in exactly the same
way and according to the same laws as mathematics does with its abstract
differentials. Thus, for instance, the differential of x3==3x2dx, where
3xdx2 and dx3 are neglected. If we put this in geometrical form, we have a cube
with sides of length x, the length being increased by the infinitely small
amount dx. Let us suppose that this cube consists of a sublimated element, say
sulphur; and that three of the surfaces around one corner are protected, the
other three being free. Let us now expose this sulphur cube to an atmosphere
of sulphur vapour and lower the temperature sufficiently; sulphur will be
deposited on the three free sides of the cube. We remain quite within the
ordinary mode of procedure of physics and chemistry in supposing, in order to
picture the process in its pure form, that in the first place a layer of thickness of
a single molecule is deposited on each of these three sides. The length x of the
sides of the cubes will have increased by the diameter of a molecule dx. The
content
of
the
cube x3 has
increased
by
the
difference
3
3
2
2
3
3
between x and x +3x dx+3xdx +dx , where dx , a single molecule and 3xdx2,
three rows of length x+dx, consisting merely of lineally arranged molecules,
can be neglected with the same justification as in mathematics. The result is
the same, the increase in mass of the cube is 3x2dx.

Strictly speaking dx3 and 3xdx2 do not occur in the case of the sulphur
molecule, because two or three molecules cannot occupy the same space, and
the cube's increase of bulk is therefore exactly 3x2dx+3xdx+dx. This is
explained by the fact that in mathematics dx is a linear magnitude, while it is
well known that such lines, without thickness or breadth, do not occur
independently in nature, hence also the mathematical abstractions have
unrestricted validity only in pure mathematics. And since the latter neglects
3xdx2+dx3, it makes no difference.
Similarly in evaporation. When the uppermost molecular layer in a glass of
water evaporates, the height of the water layer, x, is decreased by dx, and the
continual flight of one molecular layer after another is actually a continued
differentiation. And when the warm vapour is once more condensed to water in
a vessel by pressure and cooling, and one molecular layer is deposited on
another (it is permissible to leave out of account secondary circumstances that
make the process an impure one) until the vessel is full, then literally an
integration has been performed which differs from the mathematical one only
in that the one is consciously carried out by the human brain, while the other is
unconsciously carried out by nature. But it is not only in a transition from the
liquid to the gaseous state and vice versa that processes occur which are
completely analogous to those of the infinitesimal calculus.
When mass motion, as such, is abolished - by impact - becomes transformed
into heat, molecular motion, what is it that happens but that the mass motion is
differentiated? And when the movements of the molecules of steam in the
cylinder of the steam engine become added together so that they lift the piston
by a definite amount, so that they become transformed into mass motion, have
they not been integrated? Chemistry dissociates the molecules into atoms,
magnitudes of more minute mass and spatial extension, but magnitudes of the
same order, so that the two stand in definite, finite relations to one another.
Hence, all the chemical equations which express the molecular composition of
bodies are in their form differential equations. But in reality they are already
integrated in the atomic weights which figure in them. For chemistry calculates
with differentials, the mutual proportions of their magnitudes being known.
Atoms, however, are in no wise regarded as simple, or in general as the
smallest known particles of matter. Apart from chemistry itself, which is more
and more inclining to the view that atoms are compound, the majority of
physicists assert that the luminiferous ether, which transmits light and heat
radiations, likewise consists of discrete particles, which, however, are so small
that they have the same relation to chemical atoms and physical molecules as
these have to mechanical masses, that is to say as d2x to dx. Here, therefore, in

the now usual notion of the constitution of matter, we have likewise a

differential of the second degree, and there is no reason at all why anyone, to
whom it would give satisfaction, should not imagine that analogies of d3x, d4x,
etc., also occur in nature.
Hence, whatever view one may hold of the constitution of matter, this much
is certain, that it is divided up into a series of big, well-defined groups of a
relatively massive character in such a way that the members of each separate
group stand to one another in definite finite mass ratios, in contrast to which
those of the next group stand to them in the ratio of the infinitely large or
infinitely small in the mathematical sense. The visible system of stars, the solar
system, terrestrial masses, molecules and atoms, and finally ether particles,
each of them form such a group. It does not alter the case that intermediate
links can be found between the separate groups. Thus, between the masses of
the solar system and terrestrial masses come the asteroids (some of which have
a diameter no greater than, for example, that of the Reuss principality, younger
branch), meteors, etc. Thus, in the organic world the cell stands between
terrestrial masses and molecules. These intermediate links prove only that
there is no leap in nature, precisely because nature is composed entirely of
leaps.
In so far as mathematics calculates with real magnitudes, it also employs this
mode of outlook without hesitation. For terrestrial mechanics the mass of the
earth is regarded as infinitely large, just as for astronomy terrestrial masses and
the corresponding masses of meteors are regarded as infinitely small, and just
as the distances and masses of the planets of the solar system are reduced to
nothing as soon as astronomy investigates the constitution of our system of
stars extending beyond the nearest fixed stars. As soon, however, as the
mathematicians withdraw into their impregnable fortress of abstraction, socalled pure mathematics, all these analogies are forgotten, infinity becomes
something totally mysterious, and the manner in which operations are carried
out with it in analysis appears as something absolutely incomprehensible,
contradicting all experience and all reason. The stupidities and absurdities by
which mathematicians have rather excused than explained their mode of
procedure, which remarkably enough always leads to correct results, exceed
the most pronounced apparent and real fantasies, e.g. of the Hegelian
philosophy of nature, about which mathematicians and natural scientists can
never adequately express their horror. What they charge Hegel with doing, viz.
pushing abstractions to the extreme limit, they do themselves on a far greater
scale. They forget that the whole of so-called pure mathematics is concerned
with abstractions, that all their magnitudes, taken in a strict sense, are

imaginary, and that all abstractions when pushed to extremes are transformed
into nonsense or into their opposite. Mathematical infinity is taken from
reality although unconsciously, and consequently also can only be explained
from reality and not from itself, from mathematical abstraction. And, as we
have seen, if we investigate reality in this regard we come also upon the real
relations from which the mathematical relation of infinity is taken, and even
the natural analogies of the way in which this relation operates. And thereby
the matter is explained. (Hckel's bad reproduction of the identity of thinking
and being.) But also the contradiction between continuous and discrete matter,
see Hegel.
(b) On the "Mechanical Conception of Nature.
Note 2. Re page 46: The various forms of motion and the sciences dealing
with them.
Since the above article appeared (Vorwrts, Feb. 9, 1877), Kekul (Die
wissenschaftlichen Ziele and Leistungen der Chemie [The Scientific Aims and
Achievements of Chemistry] has defined mechanics, physics, and chemistry in
a very similar way:
"If this idea of the nature of matter is made the basis, one could define chemistry as the science
of atoms and physics as the science of molecules, and then it would be natural to separate that
part of modern physics which deals with masses as a special science, reserving for it the name of
mechanics. Thus mechanics appears as the basic science of physics and chemistry, in so far as in
certain aspects and especially in certain calculations both of these have to treat their molecules or
atoms as masses."

It will be seen that this formulation differs from that in the text and in the
previous note only by being rather less definite. But when an English journal
(Nature)[1]translated the above statement of Kekul to the effect that mechanics
is the statics and dynamics of masses, physics the statics and dynamics of
molecules, and chemistry the statics and dynamics of atoms, then it seems to
me that this unconditional reduction of even chemical processes to
something merely mechanical unduly restricts the field, at least of chemistry.
And yet it is so much the fashion that, for instance, Hckel continually uses
"mechanical" and "monistic" as having the same meaning, and in his opinion
"modern physiology ... in its field allows only of the operation of physicochemical - r in the wider sense, mechanical - forces." (Perigenesis.[2])
If I term physics the mechanics of molecules, chemistry the physics of
atoms, and furthermore biology the chemistry of proteins, I wish thereby to
express the transition of each of these sciences into the other, hence both the

connection, the continuity, and the distinction, the discrete separation. To go

further and to define chemistry as likewise a kind of mechanics seems to me
inadmissible. Mechanics - in the broader or narrower sense - knows only
quantities, it calculates with velocities and masses, and at most with volumes.
When the quality of bodies comes across its path, as in hydrostatics and
aerostatics, it cannot achieve anything without going into molecular states and
molecular motion, it is itself only a mere auxiliary science, the prerequisite for
physics. In physics, however, and still more in chemistry, not only does
continual qualitative change take place in consequence of quantitative change,
the transformation of quantity into quality, but there are also many qualitative
changes to be taken into account whose dependence on quantitative change is
by no means proven. That the present tendency of science goes in this
direction can be readily granted, but does not prove that this direction is the
exclusively correct one, that the pursuit of this tendency will exhaust the whole
of physics and chemistry. All motion includes mechanical motion, change of
place of the largest or smallest portions of matter, and the first task of science,
but only the first, is to obtain knowledge of this motion. But this mechanical
motion does not exhaust motion as a whole. Motion is not merely change of
place, in fields higher than mechanics it is also change of quality. The
discovery that heat is a molecular motion was epoch-making. But if I have
nothing more to say of heat than that it is a certain displacement of molecules,
I should best be silent. Chemistry seems to be well on the way to explaining a
number of chemical and physical properties or elements from the ratio of the
atomic volumes to the atomic weights. But no chemist would assert that all the
properties of an element are exhaustively expressed by its position in the
Lothar Meyer curve,[3] that it will ever be possible by this alone to explain, for
instance, the peculiar constitution of carbon that makes it the essential bearer
of organic life, or the necessity for phosphorus in the brain. Yet the
"mechanical" conception amounts to nothing else. It explains all change from
change of place, all qualitative differences from quantitative, and overlooks
that the relation of quality and quantity is reciprocal, that quality can become
transformed into quantity just as much as quantity into quality, that, in fact,
reciprocal action takes place. If all differences and changes of quality are to be
reduced to quantitative differences and changes, to mechanical displacement,
then we inevitably arrive at the proposition that all matter consists of identical,
smallest particles, and that all qualitative differences of the chemical elements
of matter are caused by quantitative differences in number and by the spatial
grouping of those smallest particles to form atoms. But we have not got so far
yet.

It is our modern natural scientists' lack of acquaintance with any other

philosophy than the most mediocre vulgar philosophy, like that now rampant
in the German universities, which allows them to use expressions like
"mechanical" in this way, without taking into account, or even suspecting, the
consequences with which they thereby necessarily burden themselves. The
theory of the absolute qualitative identity of matter has its supporters empirically it is equally impossible to refute it or to prove it. But if one asks
these people who want to explain everything "mechanically" whether they are
conscious of this consequence and accept the identity of matter, what a variety
of answers will be heard!
The most comical part about it is that to make "materialist" equivalent to
"mechanical" derives from Hegel, who wanted to throw contempt on
materialism by the addition "mechanical." Now the materialism criticised by
Hegel - the French materialism of the eighteenth century - was in fact
exclusively mechanical, and indeed for the very natural reason that at that time
physics, chemistry, and biology were still in their infancy, and were very far
from being able to offer the basis for a general outlook on nature. Similarly
Hckel takes from Hegel the translation: causae efficientes==mechanically
acting causes, and causae finales==purposively acting causes; where Hegel,
therefore, puts mechanical as equivalent to blindly acting, unconsciously
acting, and not as equivalent to mechanical in Hckel's sense of the
word.[4] But this whole antithesis is for Hegel himself so much a superseded
standpoint that he does not even mention it in either of his two accounts of
causality in his Logic - but only in hisHistory of Philosophy, in the place
where it comes historically (hence a sheer misunderstanding on Hckel's part
due to superficiality!) and quite incidentally in dealing with teleology (Logic,
III, II, 3) where he mentions it as the form in which the old
metaphysics conceived the antagonism of mechanism and teleology, but
otherwise treating it as a long superseded standpoint.[5] Hence Hckel copied
incorrectly in his joy at finding a confirmation of his "mechanical" conception
and so arrives at the beautiful result that if a particular change is produced in
an animal or plant by natural selection it has been effected by a causa efficiens,
but if the same change arises byartificial selection then it has been effected by
a causa finalis! The breeder as causa finalis! Of course a dialectician of Hegel's
calibre could not be caught in the vicious circle of the narrow opposition
of causa efficiens, and causa finalis. And for the modern standpoint the whole
hopeless rubbish about this opposition is put an end to because we know from
experience and from theory that both matter and its mode of existence, motion,
are uncreatable and are, therefore, their own final cause; while to give the
name effective causes to the individual causes which momentarily and locally

become isolated in the mutual interaction of the motion of the universe, or

which are isolated by our reflecting mind, adds absolutely no new
determination but only a confusing element. A cause that is not effective is no
cause.
N.B. Matter as such is a pure creation of thought and an abstraction. We
leave out of account the qualitative difference of things in comprehending
them as corporeally existing things under the concept matter. Hence matter as
such, as distinct from definite existing pieces of matter, is not anything
sensuously existing. If natural science directs its efforts to seeking out uniform
matter as such, to reducing qualitative differences to merely quantitative
differences in combining identical smallest particles, it would be doing the
same thing as demanding to see fruit as such instead of cherries, pears, apples,
or the mammal as such instead of cats, dogs, sheep, etc., gas as such, metal,
stone, chemical compound as such, motion as such. The Darwinian theory
demands such a primordial mammal, Hckel's pro-mammal, but it, at the same
time, has to admit that if this pro-mammal contains within itself in germ all
future and existing mammals, it was in reality lower in rank than all existing
mammals and exceedingly crude, hence more transitory than any of them. As
Hegel has already shown, Encyclopdia I, p.199,[6] this view is therefore "a
one-sided mathematical standpoint," according to which matter must be looked
upon as having only quantitative determination, but, qualitatively, as identical
originally, "no other standpoint than that" of the French materialism of the
eighteenth century. It is even a retreat to Pythagoras, who regarded number,
quantitative determination as the essence of things.
In the first place, Kekul. Then: the systematising of natural science, which
is now becoming more and more necessary, cannot be found in any other way
than in the interconnections of phenomena themselves. Thus the mechanical
motion of small masses on any heavenly body ends in the contact of two
bodies, which has two forms, distinct from one another only in degree, viz.
friction and impact. So we investigate first of all the mechanical effect of
friction and impact. But we find that they are not thereby exhausted: friction
produces heat, light, and electricity, impact produces heat and light if not
electricity also - hence conversion of motion of masses into molecular motion.
We enter the realm of molecular motion, physics, and investigate further. But
here too we find that molecular motion does not represent the conclusion of the
investigation. Electricity passes into and arises from chemical reaction. Heat
and light, ditto. Molecular motion becomes transformed into motion of atoms chemistry. The investigation of chemical processes is confronted by the
organic world as a field for research, that is to say, a world in which chemical

processes take place, although under different conditions, according to the

same laws as in the inorganic world, for the explanation of which chemistry
suffices. In the organic world, on the other hand, all chemical investigations
lead back in the last resort to a body - protein - which, while being the result of
ordinary chemical processes, is distinguished from all others by being a selfacting, permanent chemical process. If chemistry succeeds in preparing this
protein, a so-called protoplasm, with the specific nature which it obviously had
at its origin, a specificity, or rather absence of specificity, such that it contains
potentially within itself all other forms of protein (though it is not necessary to
assume that there is only one kind of protoplasm), then the dialectical
transition has also been accomplished in reality, hence completely
accomplished. Until then, it remains a matter of thought, alias of hypothesis.
When chemistry produces protein, the chemical process will reach out beyond
itself, as in the case of the mechanical process above, that is, it will come into a
more comprehensive realm, that of the organism. Physiology is, of course, the
chemistry and especially the physics of the living body, but with that it also
ceases to be specially chemistry, on the one hand its domain becomes
restricted but, on the other hand, inside this domain it becomes raised to a
higher power.

(c) On Nageli's Incapacity to Know the Infinite.

Ngeli,[7] pp. 12, 13.
Ngeli first of all says that we cannot know real qualitative differences, and
immediately afterwards says that such "absolute differences" do not occur in
Nature! P.12.
In the first place, every qualitative infinity has many quantitative
gradations, e.g. shades of colour, hardness and softness, length of life, etc., and
these, although qualitatively distinct, are measurable and knowable.
In the second place, qualities do not exist but only things with qualities and
indeed with infinitely many qualities. Two different things always have certain
qualities (properties attaching to corporeality at least) in common, others
differing in degree, while still others may be entirely absent in one of them. If
we consider two such extremely different things - e.g. a meteorite and a man together but in separation, we get very little out of it, at most that heaviness
and other corporeal properties are common to both. But an infinite series of
other natural objects and natural processes can be put between the two things,

permitting us to complete the series from meteorite to man and to allocate to

each its place in the interconnection of nature and thus to know them. Ngeli
himself admits this.
Thirdly, our various senses might give us absolutely different impressions as
regards quality. According to this, properties which we experience by means of
sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch would be absolutely different. But even
here the differences disappear with the progress of investigation. Smell and
taste have long ago been recognised as allied senses belonging together, which
perceive conjoint if not identical properties; sight and hearing both perceive
wave oscillations. The sense of touch and sight are mutually complementary to
such an extent that from the appearance of an object we can often enough
predict its tactile properties. And, finally, it is always the same "I" that receives
and elaborates all these different sense impressions, that comprehends them
into a unity, and likewise these various impressions are provided by the same
thing, appearing as its common properties, and therefore helping us to know it.
To explain these different properties, accessible only to different senses, to
bring them into connection with one another, is therefore the task of science
which so far has not complained because we have not a general sense in place
of the five special senses, or because we are not able to see or hear tastes and
smells.
Wherever we look, nowhere in nature are there to be found such
"qualitatively or absolutely distinct fields," which are put forward as
incomprehensible. The whole confusion springs from the confusion about
quality and quantity. In accordance with the prevailing mechanical view,
Ngeli regards all qualitative differences as explained only in so far as they can
be reduced to quantitative differences (on which what is necessary to be said
will be found elsewhere), or because quality and quantity are for him
absolutely distinct categories. Metaphysics.
"We can know only the finite, etc." This is quite correct in so far as only
finite objects enter the sphere of our knowledge. But the statement needs to be
completed by this: "fundamentally we can know only the infinite." In fact all
real, exhaustive knowledge consists solely in raising the single thing in thought
from singularity into particularity and from this into universality in seeking
and establishing the infinite in the finite, the eternal in the transitory. The form
of universality, however, is the form of self-completeness, hence infinity; it is
the comprehension of the many finites in the infinite. We know that chlorine
and hydrogen within certain limits of temperature and pressure and under the
influence of light, combine with an explosion to form hydrochloric acid gas,
and as soon as we know this, we know also that this takes place

everywhere and at all times where the above conditions are present, and it can
be a matter of indifference, whether this occurs once or is repeated a million
times, or on how many heavenly bodies. The form of universality in nature
is law, and no one talks more of the eternal character of the laws of nature than
the natural scientist. Hence if Ngeli says that the finite is made impossible to
establish by not desiring to investigate merely this finite, adding instead
something eternal to it, then he denies either the possibility of knowing the
laws of nature or their eternal character. All true knowledge of nature is
knowledge of the eternal, the infinite, and hence essentially absolute.
But this absolute knowledge has an important drawback. Just as the infinity
of knowable matter is composed of the purely finite, so the infinity of thought
which knows the absolute is composed of an infinite number of finite human
minds, working side by side and successively at this infinite knowledge,
committing practical and theoretical blunders, setting out from erroneous, onesided, and false premises, pursuing false, tortuous, and uncertain paths, and
often not even finding the right one when they run their noses against it
(Priestley[8]).
The cognition of the infinite is therefore beset with double difficulty and
from its very nature can only take place in an infinite asymptotic progress. And
that fully suffices us in order to be able to say: the infinite is just as much
knowable as unknowable, and that is all that we need.
Curiously enough, Ngeli says the same thing: "We can know only the
finite, but also we can know all that is finite that comes into the sphere of our
sensuous perception." The finite that comes into the sphere, etc., constitutes in
sum precisely the infinite, for it is just from this that Ngeli has derived his
idea of the infinite!Without this finite, etc., he would have indeed no idea of
the infinite!
(Bad infinity, as such, to be dealt with elsewhere.)

(Before this investigation of infinity comes the following):

(1) The "insignificant sphere" in regard to space and time.
(2) The "probably defective elaboration of the sense organs."

(3) That we can only know the finite, transitory, changing and what differs
in degree, the relative, etc. (as far as), "we do not know what time, space, force
and matter, motion and rest, cause and effect are."
It is the old story. First of all one makes sensuous things into abstractions
and then one wants to know them through the senses, to see time and smell
space. The empiricist becomes so steeped in the habit of empirical experience,
that he believes that he is still in the field of sensuous knowledge when he is
operating with abstractions. We know what an hour is, or a metre, but not what
time and space are! As if time was anything other than just hours, and space
anything but just cubic metres! The two forms of existence of matter are
naturally nothing without matter, empty concepts, abstractions which exist
only in our minds. But, of course, we are also not supposed to know what
matter and motion are! Of course not, for matter as such and motion as such
have not yet been seen or otherwise experienced by anyone, but only the
various, actually existing material things and forms of motion. Matter is
nothing but the totality of material things from which this concept is
abstracted, and motion as such nothing but the totality of all sensuously
perceptible forms of motion; words like matter and motion are nothing
but abbreviations in which we comprehend many different sensuously
perceptible things according to their common properties. Hence matter and
motion cannot be known in any other way than by investigation of the separate
material things and forms of motion, and by knowing these, we also pro
tanto know matter and motion as such. Consequently, in saying that we do not
know what time, space, motion, cause, and effect are, Ngeli merely says that
first of all we make abstractions of the real world through our minds, and then
cannot know these self-made abstractions because they are creations of
thought and not sensuous objects, while all knowing is sensuous
measurement! This is just like the difficulty mentioned by Hegel, we can eat
cherries and plums, but not fruit, because no one has so far eaten fruit as such.
When Ngeli asserts that there are probably a whole number of forms of
motion in nature which we cannot perceive by our senses, that is a poor
apology, equivalent to the suspension - at least for our knowledge - of the law
of the uncreatability of motion. For they could certainly be transformed into
motion perceptible to us! That would be an easy explanation, of, for instance,
contact electricity.
Ad vocem Ngeli. Impossibility of conceiving the infinite. As soon as we
say that matter and motion are not created and are indestructible, we are saying
that the world exists as infinite progress, i.e. in the form of bad infinity, and
thereby we have conceived all of this process that is to be conceived. At the

most the question still arises whether this process is an eternal repetition - in a
great cycle - or whether the cycles have upward and downward portions.

Notes
1. See quotation in Appendix II, p. 329.
2. See Appendix II, p. 330.
3. In which atomic volumes are plotted against atomic weights.
4., 5. See Appendix 11, p. 330.
6. See Appendix II, p. 331.
7. C.

von Ngeli. ber die Schranken der naturwissenschaftlichen

Erkenntnis [The Limits of Scientific Knowledge], September, 1877.
8. Priestley discovered oxygen without knowing it.

Transcribed in 2001 for MEIA by jjazz@hwcn.org

ENGELS SAW RUSSIANS AS DUMB

Engels, The Armies of Europe: "But up to the present time, the Russians of all
classes are too fundamentally barbarous to find any enjoyment in scientific or
intellectual pursuits of any kind (except intrigues), and, therefore, almost all
their distinguished men in the military service are either foreigners, or, what
nearly amounts to the same, "ostze<="" blockquote=""> Context here
Some of the German
Engels, ,Die Armeen Europas", Putnam's Monthly, No. XXXIII, September
1855
"Aber bis zum heutigen Tage sind die Russen aller Klassen viel zu barbarisch,
um an wissenschaftlicher oder geistiger Taetigkeit irgendwelcher Art (ausser
Intrigen) Gefallen zu finden (...)"
MEW a.a.O. 11, 452.

ENGELS PARANOID ABOUT THE SLAVS

Engels, "Germany and Pan-Slavism", 1855: "The Slavic

race, long divided by inner struggles, pushed back to the
east by the Germans, subjugated in part by Germans,
Turks and Hungarians, silently re-uniting its branches after
1815 by the gradual growth of Pan-Slavism, it now makes
sure of its unity for the first time, and with that declares
war to-the-death on the Roman-Celtic and German races,
who have ruled Europe until now."
Listed, but with no translation here
The German
Engels, "Deutschland und der Panslawismus",
1855
"Die slawische Race, lang geteilt durch innere
Zwiste, nach dem Osten zurueckgetrieben durch die
Deutschen, unterjocht, zum Teil von Deutschen,
Tuerken und Ungarn, still ihre Zweige
wiedervereinend, nach 1815, durch das allmaehliche
Wachstum des Panslawismus, sie versichert nun
zum ersten Mal ihre Einheit und erklaert damit Krieg
auf den Tod den roemisch-keltischen und
deutschen Racen, die bisher in Europa geherrscht
haben."
MEW a.a.O. 11, 198,f.

Volume 14

Marx and Engels

1855-56
The Struggle in the Crimea (Engels)

Palmerston. - The Army (Marx & Engels)

From Parliament. - Gladstone at the Dispatch Box (Marx)

12

Lord Palmerston (Marx)

14

Herbert's Re-election. - The First Measures of the New Ministry. - News from India (Marx)

21

Parliament (Marx)

24

The Coalition between Tories and Radicals (Marx)

29

The War That Looms on Europe (Engels)

32

Parliamentary and Military Affairs (Marx & Engels)

40

On the New Ministerial Crisis (Marx)

43

Joseph Hume (Marx)

47

Palmerston (Marx)

49

The British Constitution (Marx)

53

Layard (Marx)

57

The Crisis in England (Marx)

59

The Buying of Commissions. - News from Australia (Marx)

63

The English Press on the Late Tsar (Marx)

67

On the History of the French Alliance (Marx)

69

The Committee of Inquiry (Marx)

73

The Brussels Mmoire (Marx)

76

Ireland's Revenge (Marx)

78

The Results in the Crimea (Engels)

81

Fate of the Great Adventurer (Engels)

86

Criticism of the French Conduct of the War (Marx & Engels)

90

Agitation against Prussia. - A day of Fasting (Marx)

94

A Meeting (Marx)

98

Reports from the English Press (Marx)

102

From Parliament (Marx)

104

Napoleon's Last Dodge (Engels)

109

A Battle at Sebastopol (Engels)

113

Some Observations on the History of the French Alliance (Marx)

118

Napoleon and Barbs.- The Newspaper Stamp (Marx)

121

The Committee of Inquiry (Marx)

124

The British Army (Marx)

128

Progress of the War (Engels)

132

The Situation in the Crimea (Engels)

I36

A Scandal in the French Legislature.-Drouyn de Lhuys' Influence. The State of the Militia
(Marx)

139

Prospect in France and England (Marx)

141

Napoleon's Apology (Engels)

146

The Siege of Sebastopol (Engels)

151

Germany and Pan-Slavism (Engels)

156

The European Struggle (Engels)

163

On the History of Political Agitation (Marx)

166

From Sebastopol (Engels)

110

Pianori. - Dissatisfaction with Austria (Marx)

177

The New Move in the Crimea (Engels)

180

The Morning Post versus Prussia.-The Character of the Whigs and Tories (Marx)

186

A Sitting of the House of Lords (Marx)

189

The Agitation Outside Parliament (Marx)

194

Questions of Finance (Marx)

198

The Crimean War (Engels)

201

On the Reform Movement (Marx)

208

A Critique of the Crimean Affair.-From Parliament (Marx)

211

The New French Commander (Engels)

215

Prologue at Lord Palmerston's.-Course of the Latest Events in the Crimea (Marx & Engels)

218

Parliamentary Reform.-The Break-off and Continuation of the Vienna Conference.-The SoCalled War of Annihilation (Marx)

222

Disraeli's Motion (Marx)

227

From Parliament (Marx)

231

A Critique of Palmerston's Latest Speech (Marx)

237

The Association for Administrative Reform. - People's Charter (Marx)

240

Parliamentary (Marx)

245

From the Crimea (Engels)

249

A Critique of the Events in the Crimea (Engels)

253

The Great Parliamentary Debate (Marx)

257

Sebastopol (Engels)

260

Napoleon's War Plans (Engels)

267

Napier's Letters.-Roebuck's Committee (Marx)

273

The Debate on Layard's Motion- The War in the Crimea (Marx & Engels)

277

Prince Albert's Toast.-The Stamp Duty on Newspapers (Marx)

280

Eccentricities of Politics (Marx)

283

The Local War. - Debate on Administrative Reform. - Report of the Roebuck Committee,
etc (Marx & Engels)

287

Announcement Concerning the Taking of Sebastopol.-From the Paris Bourse. - On the

Massacre at Hango in the House of Lords (Marx)

292

The Mishap of June 18.-Reinforcements (Marx)

297

Anti-Church Movement.-Demonstration in Hyde Park (Marx)

302

Miscellaneous Reports (Marx)

308

From Sebastopol (Engels)

313

Miscellaneous Reports (Marx)

320

Agitation over the Tightening-up of Sunday Observance (Marx)

323

The Late Repulse of the Allies (Engels)

328

Clashes between the Police and the People.-The Events in the Crimea (Marx & Engels)

333

From Parliament.-Roebuck's and Bulwer's Motions (Marx)

337

From the Houses of Parliament.-Bulwer's Motion. - The Irish Question (Marx)

340

The Great Crimean Blunder (Engels)

344

Russell's Resignation.-The Events in the Crimea (Marx & Engels)

348

Russell's Dismissal (Marx)

352

From Parliament (Marx)

355

War Prospects (Engels)

358

From Parliament. - From the Theatre of War (Marx & Engels)

363

Palmerston. The Physiology of the Ruling Class of Great Britain (Marx)

367

Lord John Russell (Marx)

371

The Late Birmingham Conference (Marx)

394

The Armies of Europe (Engels)

401

General Simpson's Resignation. - From Parliament (Marx)

470

Commentary on the Parliamentary Proceedings (Marx)

472

The Military Forces against Russia (Marx)

476

The Poland Meeting (Marx)

477

On the Critique of Austrian Policy in the Crimean Campaign (Marx)

481

The Anglo-French War against Russia (Marx & Engels)

484

Events at the Theatres of War (Marx)

490

Napier's Letter (Marx)

493

Austria and the War (Marx)

495

The Punishment of the Ranks (Marx & Engels)

501

The Battle of the Chernaya (Engels)

504

Another British Revelation (Marx)

513

The Fall of Sebastopol (Engels)

519

O'Connor's Funeral (Marx)

524

Crimean Prospects (Engels)

525

Events in the Crimea (Marx & Engels)

531

The Commercial and Financial Situation (Marx)

5S4

The State of the War (Engels)

537

The Reports of Generals Simpson, Pelissier and Niel (Marx & Engels)

542

The Great Event of the War (Engels)

546

A Diplomatic Impropriety (Marx)

553

The Official Financial Report (Marx)

554

The Bank of France.-Reinforcements to the Crimea.-The New Field Marshals (Marx)

557

The Committee at Newcastle-upon-Tyne (Marx)

560

Progress of the War (Engels)

563

Aspects of the War (Engels)

569

The Russian Army (Engels)

575

Big Meeting in Support of Political Refugees (Marx)

581

Traditional English Policy (Marx)

584

The War in Asia (Engels)

588

The European War (Engels)

595

The American Difficulty.-Affairs of France (Marx)

599

The Fall of Kars (Marx)

605

The France of Bonaparte the Little (Marx)

615

The Fall of Kars (Marx)

621

Speech at the Anniversary of The People's Paper. Delivered in London, April 14, 1856
(Marx)

655

Prussia (Marx)

657

The House of Lords and the Duke of York's Monument (Marx)

662

To the Editor of The Free Press (Marx)

672

Kars Papers Curiosities (Marx)

673

From The Preparatory Materials

Crimean War (Engels)

685

Appendices
Austria's Weakness

689

Progress of the War

694

Notes and Indexes

Notes

705

Name Index

704

Index of Quoted and Mentioned Literature

795

Index of Periodicals

816

Subject Index

820

Glossary of Geographical Names

832

Illustrations
Crimean War 1853-56. The Crimean Theatre

204-05

Crimean War 1853-56 The Siege of Sebastapol

330-31

Chart of the Battle of Chernaya (August 16, 1855) made by Engels

Crimean War 1853-56 The General Course of the War

505
598-99

Fragment of the first Page of Marx's notes for his articles on the fall of Kars

607

Engels' summary "Crimean War"

683

ENGELS DID NOT LIKE NON-GERMANS MUCH

Engels: "This miserable debris of former nations, Serbs,
Bulgarians, Greeks and other thieving rabble, whom the
liberal Philistine raves about in the interest of the
Russians, deny each other the very air they are breathing,
and have to slit each others' greedy throats."
The German
Engels: "Diese elenden Truemmerstuecke ehemaliger
Nationen, Serben, Bulgaren, Griechen und andres
Raeubergesindel, fuer die der liberale Philister im
Interessen der Russen schwaermt, goennen also einander
die Luft nicht, die sie einatmen, und muessen sich
untereinander die gierigen Haelse abschneiden."
MEW a.a.O. 36, 390.
Source (German only) Engelsworte - Engelswerte
kommunistische Jugenderziehung im demokratischen Brandenburg
In der Debatte um die Verwendung des Namens "Friedrich Engels" im
sensiblen Erziehungsbereich hatte ich Engels-Zitate verbreitet, die zum
Nachdenken Anlass geben sollten, ob Jahrzehnte nach Godesberg
die SPD ohne Tiefenprfung diesen Namen empfehlen kann. Einzelzitate
beschreiben nie eine ganze Persnlichkeit, knnen aber zum Ausschluss von
Eigenschaften fhren, die in einer demokratischen Gesellschaft
Vorbildfunktion haben knnen, zumal nicht nur schne oder intelligente Worte,
sondern Zielstellungen und deren Wirkungsgeschichte zu bercksichtigen
sind.

Nachfolgend meine Replik auf die Stellungnahme einer PDS-Politikerin mit

ausfhrlicheren Engels-Zitaten; im Anschluss Zitate zur Behandlung der
Demokratie, die PDS-Stellungnahme selbst sowie fr Unentwegte weitere
Stichworte mit Suchhilfen.
Dr. Karl-Adolf Zech
(gegenber der Mail genderte Passagen sind mit [...] gekennzeichnet)

Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren,

eine Frau Viola Weinert, Studienrtin u. Lehrerin fr Politische Bildung,
PDS-Abgeordnete des Kreistages Brandenburg-OSL und bisherige
Fraktionsvorsitzende, hat auf einen Mail-Protest von mir gegen die
Benennung "Friedrich Engels" des Senftenberger Gymnasiums mit einem
Text (eMail) reagiert, den sie an einige Abgeordnete richtete, jedoch nicht an
mich selbst. Auf Umwegen erreichte mich ihr Text.
Leider beschftigt sich die Dame fast mehr mit meiner Person, die sie gar
nicht kennt, als mit dem fraglichen Engels. Aber was kennt sie von ihm? Es
stimmt schon: Vielleicht kann man mit der Unlust der Leute spekulieren, diese
alten Klassiker noch lesen zu wollen. Auch ich knnte mir Schneres
vorstellen.
Ich bin Absolvent einer kommunistischen Kaderschmiede der DDR und habe
mich im Studium 13 Semester mit Marxismus-Leninismus beschftigt. Spter
stand ich allerdings auf der KZ-Liste der Stasi ("Vorbeugungsdokument 4.1").
Aber sowas haben ja die Klassiker gar nicht gewollt. Oder verursacht. Oder
doch?
Ich glaube schon, dass ich Pisa, auf dessen Leseverstndnistest Frau
Weinert anspielt, vielleicht nicht bestanden htte, wenn die kommunistischen
Revolutionre die Klassiker-Idee von der Notwendigkeit der Kinderarbeit
durchgesetzt htten (vgl. Marx in seiner
Kritik am Gothaer Programm,
wo die Forderung nach ihrer Abschaffung "reaktionr" ist).
Ich bin sehr fr Differenzierung - in jeder Hinsicht. Ich finde solche
Schmhtexte wie den von Frau Weinert schrecklich, ganz im Stile der
"Klassiker" bis hin zum DDR-ND-Stil (z.B. der berhmte Politbro -"A. Z."):
zuerst die Gegner oder Rivalen klein, dumm, bse machen - wobei die

Klassiker auch noch ber Rasse, krperliche Gebrechen oder Aussehen

herzogen. Dann argumentiert es sich gleich leichter.
Allerdings halte ich es umgekehrt fr hilfreich, einige Gedankenanste zu
geben, zitatengesttzt, die zumindest aufhorchen lassen und klar machen
mssten, dass der Name "Friedrich Engels" nicht an eine demokratische
Schule gehrt, denn das wird auch Frau Weinert wissen: Fr Demokratie,
Mehrheitsregelungen, verbrgte Rechte etc. steht Engels ja nun gewi nicht,
das haben wir schon in der Schule gelernt (siehe unten [1]).
Es ist klar: mit ein paar Zitaten, aus dem Zusammenhang gerissen, ohne
Kenntnis der historischen Zusammenhnge, ergibt sich kein geschlossenes
Bild. Dennoch sprechen viele Zitate fr sich, legen Ziel- und Einstellungen
blo, regen zum Nachdenken und Weiterlesen an. Damit Verantwortliche
aufhorchen, hatte ich einige Zitate in meinen Protest einflieen lassen.
Ich hatte, wo mglich, zu den Zitaten einen Internet-Link hinzu gefgt, damit
es im Kontext lesbar wird. Wenn sie dort nicht vorhanden sind, hatte ich auf
MEW verwiesen. (nebenbei: auch dort ist nicht alles verffentlicht, was von
den Klassikern und ihren Motiven wissenswert ist - die MEGA wei mehr. )
Frau Weinert meint, mir unterstellen zu knnen, dass ich schlecht lesen knne
und fragt"Votiert Engels nun fr die Vernichtung der Tschechen oder bedauert
er sie ...?"
Wohlan, gehen wir in die Texte. In dem fraglichen Text hlt Engels die
Tschechen vielleicht fr brauchbare Revolutionre, die leider an die falsche
Seite gedrngt wurden. Nur: warum ist dann ein "Vernichtungskrieg" die
einzige "Lsung"? Einige Monate spter, als die Tschechen nicht mehr so
brauchbar sind, hat er sich weitere Gedanken darber gemacht meint im
Januar 1849 in der NRZ:
"... Aber bei dem ersten siegreichen Aufstand des franzsischen Proletariats,
... werden die streichischen Deutschen und Magyaren frei werden und an
den slawischen Barbaren blutige Rache nehmen. Der allgemeine Krieg,
der dann ausbricht, wird diesen slawischen Sonderbund zersprengen und alle
diese kleinen Stierkpfigen Nationen bis auf ihren Namen vernichten.
Der nchste Weltkrieg wird nicht nur reaktionre Klassen und Dynastien, er
wird auch ganze reaktionre Vlker vom Erdboden verschwinden machen.
Und das ist auch ein Fortschritt."
MEW 6, S. 168 - 176, Neue Rheinische Zeitung 13.01.1849,
Der
magyarische Kampf.

Dieser Text lag Frau Weinert vor!

Wer liest hier nicht richtig? Und vor allem: warum?! Eben
nicht "unterliegen" sollen sie, wie Frau Weinert beschwichtigt,
sondern "vernichtet" werden!
Merke: die Vernichtung von bestimmten Vlkern ist "ein Fortschritt"!
Engels ein paar Tage vorher:
"Die Niederlage der Arbeiterklasse in Frankreich, der Sieg der franzsischen
Bourgeoisie war gleichzeitig der Sieg des Ostens ber den Westen, die
Niederlage der Zivilisation unter der Barbarei. In der Walachei begann die
Unterdrckung der Romanen durch die Russen und ihre Werkzeuge, die
Trken; in Wien erwrgten Kroaten, Panduren, Tschechen, Sereschaner und
hnliches Lumpengesindel die germanische Freiheit, und in diesem
Augenblicke ist der Zar allgegenwrtig in Europa. "
Neue Rheinische Zeitung Nr. 184 vom 1. Januar 1849
auch:
"Was taten die Tschechen? Sie kten die Rute, die sie bis aufs Blut
gezchtigt, sie schworen begeistert zu der Fahne, unter der ihre Brder
niedergemetzelt, ihre Weiber geschndet worden waren. Der Prager
Straenkampf war der Wendepunkt fr die streichischen demokratischen
Panslawisten. Um die Aussicht auf ihre elende "nationale Selbstndigkeit"
verkauften sie die Demokratie, die Revolution an die streichische
Gesamtmonarchie, an "das Zentrum", "die systematische Durchfhrung des
Despotismus im Herzen Europas", wie Bakunin p. 29 selbst sagt. Und fr
diesen feigen, niedertrchtigen Verrat an der Revolution werden wir einst
blutige Rache an den Slawen nehmen."
Klingt nicht nach "Bedauern". Es geht noch weiter:
"Auf die sentimentalen Brderschaftsphrasen, die uns hier im Namen der
kontrerevolutionrsten Nationen Europas dargeboten werden, antworten wir,
da der Russenha die erste revolutionre Leidenschaft bei den Deutschen
war und noch ist; da seit der Revolution der Tschechen- und Kroatenha
hinzugekommen ist und da wir, in Gemeinschaft mit Polen und Magyaren,
nur durch den entschiedensten Terrorismus gegen diese slawischen Vlker
die Revolution sicherstellen knnen."

Ist das "sinnentstellend" zitiert?

Oder:
"Dann Kampf, "unerbittlichen Kampf auf Leben und Tod" mit dem
revolutionsverrterischen Slawentum; Vernichtungskampf und rcksichtslosen
Terrorismus - nicht im Interesse Deutschlands, sondern im Interesse der
Revolution!
Engels: Der demokratische Panslawismus",
Neue Rheinische Zeitung Nr. 222 vom 15. Februar 1849,
Weiter oben aber im Interesse Deutschlands:
"Aber ohne Gewalt und ohne eherne Rcksichtslosigkeit wird nichts
durchgesetzt in der Geschichte, und htten Alexander, Csar und Napoleon
dieselbe Rhrungsfhigkeit besessen, an die jetzt der Panslawismus
zugunsten seiner verkommenen Klienten appelliert, was wre da aus der
Geschichte geworden! Und sind die Perser, Kelten und
christlichenGermanen nicht die Tschechen, Oguliner und Sereschaner
wert?"
Auch noch in spteren Jahren uert sich Engels so:
Engels an Kautzky 7.2.1882
"Nun knnen Sie mich fragen, ob ich denn gar keine Sympathien habe fr die
kleinen slawischen Vlker und Volkstrmmer, ... In der Tat verdammt wenig. "
(Tschechen, Slowaken, Serben, Bulgaren etc) MEW35, 281f
oder Engels an Eduard Bernstein, 2./25. 2.1882
"Ich bin autoritr genug, die Existenz solcher Naturvlkchen mitten in Europa
fr einen Anachronismus zu halten. ...
... so mssen sie und ihr Recht auf Viehraub den Interessen des
europischen Proletariats ohne Gnade geopfert werden.", MEW 35,283
(moderater MEW 35, 279); spter dann:
"Diese elenden Trmmerstcke ehemaliger Nationen, Serben, Bulgaren,
Griechen und anderes Rubergesindel, fr die der liberale Philister im
Interesse der Russen schwrmt, gnnen also einander die Luft nicht, die sie
einatmen, und mssen sich untereinander die gierigen Hlse abschneiden.
Das wre wunderschn ..." MEW 36, 390

Noch Fragen?
Ich wre neugierig, wie die Klassiker den Beginn des ersten Weltkrieges,
ausgelst durch einen Groserbier, oder auch das Mnchener Abkommen
1938 eingeschtzt htten.
Es gibt noch eine ganze Reihe diesbezglicher Texte und weiterer
Untersuchungen der Klassiker bzw. Engels zu nicht lebenswerten Nationen
und auch der berlegenheit der Deutschen:

und
MEW 6, 275, MEW 13, 468;
auch
"Und das alles zum Dank dafr, da die Deutschen sich die Mhe gegeben
haben, die eigensinnigen Tschechen und Slowenen zu zivilisieren, Handel,
Industrie, ertrglichen Ackerbau und Bildung bei ihnen einzufhren!", MEW 6,
277 ff,
aber auch ber
"Klassen und Rassen, die zu schwach sind, die neuen Lebensbedingungen zu
meistern." (
Marx) .
Kommt bekannt vor. Ob das Brandenburgs Nachbarn gerne hren?
Die Polen gelten anfangs als berlebensfhige Nation, revolutionr genug, um
gegen das rckstndige russische Barbarentum zu kmpfen:
Spter ist Polen eine verlorene Nation (une nation fotue ), hat immer
nur "tapfre krakeelschtige Dummheiten gespielt", MEW 27, 266f.
Krieg zur Neuordnung Europas wird immer wieder diskutiert:
"Ich habe die ganze Frage durchgeochst und bin zu dem Schlu gekommen,
... da in diesem Augenblick die einzige Chance Deutschlands, die
Herzogtmer zu befreien, darin besteht, da wir einen Krieg gegen Ruland
zugunsten Polens anfangen. Dann ist Louis-Napoleon unser gehorsamer
Diener, Schweden fllt uns sofort in die Arme, und England, hoc est Pam

[Palmerston] ist lahmgelegt; dann nehmen wir von Dnemark ungestraft was
wir Wollen."
Engels an Marx 3.12.1863, MEW 30, 377
Glcklicherweise vollzieht sich heute Europapolitik dank der schmerzlich
erworbenen Ablehnung solcher Gedanken auf andere Weise.
Ich lasse mich ja gerne von Frau Weinert "Denkzwerg" nennen. Aber "Riesen
von Denkkraft" hatten wir genug: auch Lenin, Stalin usw. Aber was haben uns
diese Denker, die ihre Ideen im Gegensatz zu den Klassikern umsetzen
konnten, hinterlassen? Dazu sagt Frau Weinert natrlich nichts. Man knnte
sich ja erinnern. (An dieser Stelle knnte ich glatt ins Polemisieren kommen.)
Solche Denkriesen als Namenspatron fr eine demokratische Schule? Mit den
Stimmen der SPD?
Der Antisemitismus von Marx, selber jdischer Herkunft, ist nun wirklich
unstrittig.
Marx hat die Juden gehasst.
Wenn Frau Weinert Marx unterstellt, er habe die "Emanzipation" der Juden
gewollt und fr den Sozialismus erwartet (woher diese Weisheit?), warum
nennt sie dann nicht einen Satz ber die "Emanzipation? Es gibt mehrere,
bitte im Kontext. Hier ist einer:
"Wir erkennen also im Judentum ein allgemeines gegenwrtiges antisoziales
Element, welches durch die geschichtliche Entwicklung, an welcher die Juden
in dieser schlechten Beziehung eifrig mitgearbeitet, auf seine jetzige Hhe
getrieben wurde, auf eine Hhe, auf welcher es sich notwendig auflsen mu.
Die Judenemanzipation in ihrer letzten Bedeutung ist die Emanzipation der
Menschheit vom Judentum."
MEW 1, 372f,
geschrieben brigens 1843 (nicht 1844, wie Frau Weinert meint), genau
Hundert Jahre vor Beginn der "Endlsung"!
Stze hnlicher Storichtung wie
"So finden wir, dass hinter jedem Tyrannen ein Jude ...steht.", Eleanor Marx:
"The Eastern Question - Letters written 1853-1856 Dealing with the Events for the
Crimean War by Karl Marx", London 1869, S. 600

findet man fter.

Laut Julius Carlebach: "Karl Marx And The Radical Critique of

Judaism", London 1978, sagt dazu der Jude Franz Jona Fink: "What Jew
could forget the mass extermination of 1943 when he reads the death
sentence of 1843?"
In deutlicherer Sprache, aber weniger ffentlich in einem Brief an Engels, ber
einen politischen Rivalen:
"Es ist mir jetzt vllig klar, da er, wie auch seine Kopfbildung und sein
Haarwuchs beweist, - von den Negern abstammt, die sich dem Zug des
Moses aus gypten anschlossen (wenn nicht seine Mutter oder Gromutter
von vterlicher Seite sich mit einem nigger kreuzten). Nun, diese Verbindung
von Judentum und Gemanentum mit der negerhaften Grundsubstanz mssen
ein sonderbares Produkt hervorbringen. Die Zudringlichkeit des Burschen ist
auch niggerhaft." Marx an Engels 30. Juli 1862; MEW 30, 257 ff.
Ist das nur eine leicht burschikose, aus dem Zusammenhang gerissene
Redensart (ber den Arbeiterfhrer Ferdinand Lasalle)?
Das klingt wie Der Strmer, da kann niemand drum herum reden. Ist das
wirklich nur als Metapher fr "Kapital" zu lesen?
Aber es geht ja hier um Engels:
"... da die deutschen Nationalgimpel und Geldmacher des Frankfurter
Sumpfparlaments bei diesen Zhlungen immer noch die polnischen Juden zu
Deutschen gerechnet, obwohl diese schmutzigste aller Racen weder ihrem
Jargon, noch ihrer Abstammung nach, sondern hchstens durch ihre
Profitwtigkeit mit Frankfurt im Verwandtschaftsverhltnis stehen kann
..." NRZ 29. April 1849, Zweite Ausgabe;
MEW 6, 448f .
Was wrde die Lehrerin fr Politische Bildung in der demokratischen
Bundesrepublik Deutschland einem Schler fr eine Note erteilen, wenn er
solches in einem Aufsatz schrieb?
oder:
"Wir wnschen nur, da es recht gemeine, recht schmutzige, recht jdische
Bourgeois sein mgen, die dies altehrwrdige Reich ankaufen. Solch eine
widerliche, stockprgelnde, vterliche, lausige Regierung verdient, einem
recht lausigen, weichselzpfigen, stinkenden Gegner zu unterliegen. Herr
Metternich kann sich darauf verlassen, da wir spter diesen Gegner ebenso

unbarmherzig lausen werden, wie er von ihm demnchst gelaust werden

wird."
Deutsche-Brsseler-Zeitung Nr. 8 vom 27. Januar 1848
Klingt nicht eben fein. [Immer wieder kommen Stze vor mit schlimmsten
stereotypen Antijudaismen].
Man schaue sich die von Marx "diktatorisch" (so Redakteur Engels: MEW 21,
19) regierte Neue Rheinische Zeitung an. Die Artikel des von Marx gelobten
Redakteurs Mller-Tellering (MEW 27, 485) strotzen nur so von schlimmstem
Antisemitismus in ausgesprochener Strmer-Manier. Dazu Rosdolsky,
ehemaliges ZK-Mitglied der KP Westukraine, zur Neuen Rheinischen Zeitung:
"Der Leser ist sicherlich ber die geschmacklosen antijdischen
Korrespondenzen dieses Blattes bestrzt. Welcher trben Quelle entstammen
sie? Die Antwort ist einfach: Die vielstimmige 'Volksmeinung' war es, die in
diesen Korrespondenzen lag. Freilich war dieser 'Volksantisemitismus' in
bedeutendem Mae 'antikapitalistisch' - so war aber auch der sptere
Antisemitismus Stckers, Luegers und Hitlers" (Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung,
Archiv fr Sozialgeschichte 1964, Band 4, S. 194 bzw. 264).
Engels hat sich nach dem Tode von Marx mit Antisemitismus beschftigt,
nennt ihn "Dummheit", nennt gesellschaftliche Bedingungen, wo das mchtige
Kapital, "semitisch oder arisch", die reaktionren Krfte zerstrt und der
Antisemitismus daher nur in rckstndigen Gesellschaften anzutreffen ist,
stellt fest, dass bei den New Yorker Superreichen kein einziger Jude sei, dass
es viele jdische Proletarier gibt und sagt: "Viele unserer besten Leute sind
Juden".
Allerdings befindet er sich hier im Streit mit kunkurrierenden
Arbeiterbewegungen (zB. der christlichen von Adolf Stoecker), die
antijudaistisch argumentierten, gegen die es sinnvoll erscheint, auch dieses
Register ziehen zu knnen. Wie wir alle wissen, hat die Geschichte bewiesen,
dass Antisemitismus langlebiger war. Die entsprechenden antisemitischen
Anmerkungen der Klassiker (wie wird erst das nicht-berlieferte, aber
dennoch nachhaltig wirkende Gedankengut ausgesehen haben?) sind
notwendig mit in diese Geschichte eingegangen.
Dann hat Engels wieder Verstndnis fr Antisemitismus in Frankreich. MEW
38, p.403 (1891/92) [- vgl. auch MEW 38, p.228.]
Nicht nur das gibt ein schillerndes Bild von Engels, wie in vielen Dingen.

berhaupt der Rassismus. Sollte man sagen, der Rassismus der Klassiker
war eben der Zeitgeist? Oder sollte man anerkennen, dass ihr Wirken diesen
verstrkt und mit Begrndungen versehen hat? - Mit den bekannten Folgen?
Engels beschftigt sich mit den "Menschenracen" MEW 27,385, ist der
Meinung, dass die Rasse ein konomischer Faktor ist:
"Wir sehen die konomischen Bedingungen als das in letzter Instanz die
geschichtliche Entwicklung Bedingende an. Aber die Rasse ist selbst ein
konomischer Faktor." MEW 39, 206;
Es geht um deutsche "Racen", die slawische, die angelschsische Rasse
usw. ber "zu schwache Rassen" wurde oben schon gesprochen. Nach Marx
sollten sich die zur gleichen"groen Rasse" gehrenden Deutschen und
Skandinavier verbinden, damit sie nicht den Weg fr ihren Erbfeind,
die "Slaven", bereiten. MEW 9, 248. Man hat frmlich bestimmte Wahlplakate
der Weimarer Zeit vor Augen. Fr Engels sind "bis heute"
"die Russen aller Klassen viel zu barbarisch, um an wissenschaftlicher oder
geistiger Ttigkeit irgendwelcher Art (auer Intrigen) Gefallen zu finden.
Deshalb sind fast alle ihre hervorragenden Leute im Militrdienst entweder
Auslnder oder, was beinahe auf dasselbe herauskommt, 'Ostseiskije',
Deutsche aus den baltischen Provinzen."
Frau Weinert kennt ihren Marx und ihren Engels schlecht, wenn sie verneint,
dass sie Terrorgewollt haben. Von der Notwendigkeit des Terrors haben wir
schon in der Schule gehrt, nur wurde das Wrtchen "revolutionr" davor nie
vergessen:
"Die Arbeiter mssen ...
Sie mssen dahin arbeiten, da die unmittelbare revolutionre Aufregung
nicht sogleich nach dem Siege wieder unterdrckt wird. Sie mssen sie im
Gegenteil so lange wie mglich aufrecht erhalten. Weit entfernt den
sogenannten Exzessen, den Exempeln der Volksrache an verhaten
Individuen oder ffentlichen Gebuden, an die sich nur gehssige
Erinnerungen knpfen, entgegenzutreten, mu man diese Exempel nicht nur
dulden, sondern ihre Leitung selbst in die Hand nehmen. ..."
Marx/Engels: Ansprache der Zentralbehrde an den Bund vom Mrz
1850 (1850 als Rundschreiben verbreitet.) MEW 7, 249f.
(auch noch in den 1890ern: MEW 39, 32).
Engels - im Gegensatz zu Frau Weinert:

"... wir werden den Terrorismus nicht beschnigen", MEW6, 505 .

Leicht auszumalen, was diese pseudo-wissenschaftliche, programmatische
Enttabuisierung von Terror im Namen einer revolutionren Bewegung, im
Namen eines Ideals, im Namen von politischen Zielen bei den
angesprochenen Multiplikatoren der Arbeiterbewegung angerichtet hat.
Reichspogromnacht und Rostock-Lichtenhagen lassen gren. Ist der Bogen
zu weit gespannt?
An den Gymnasien sollen Schler die Grundlagen demokratischen Verhaltens
erlernen und erfahren. Mit einem Vorbild, das Demokratie nur als
Zwischenstadium, als taktische Phase, das Demokraten bestenfalls als
(dumme, zu kompromittierende s. [1] unten) taktische Bndnispartner
betrachtete, dem zu gegebener Zeit der Fu ins Genick zu stellen ist, kann
das wahrscheinlich nur nach Meinung von OSL-Kreistagsvertretern gelingen.
Die Kommunisten kooperierten in der Weimarer Republik wenn ntig sogar
mit der rivalisierenden revolutionren NS-Bewegung, wenn es nur gegen den
demokratischen Hauptfeind SPD ging.
(
Hauptfeind Sozialdemokraten - vgl. Ulbricht im Reichstag Feb. 1932
Deutsches Historisches Museum Berlin)

Was wird Frau Weinert denn Schlern entgegnen, wenn diese von
Menschenkehricht, Vlkerabfllen, Nationen ohne Existenzberechtigung, vom
Recht der strkeren Nation auf Eroberung u.dgl. reden? Sie drfen sich ja auf
ihren Namenspatron berufen. Und wenn sie sich nach dessen Anleitung "des
eigenen Verstandes ohne Anleitung Fremder" (Frau Weinert zitiert Kant)
bedienen und solche Gedanken ins Heute projizieren?
Will man wirklich Demokraten erziehen, die mit Mehrheitsbeschlssen
umgehen knnen?
Die Anregungen htten fr die Verantwortlichen ausreichen mssen, sich
zumindest vertieft mit dem Thema zu befassen. Literatur gibt es genug.
Ja, es geht mir ums "Abfertigen und Erledigen", aber nicht als "Ausdruck von
Denkfaulheit", wie Frau Weinert glaubt schreiben zu mssen, sondern um
meinen kleinen Beitrag zum Erledigen von scheintoten Diktatur- und
Zerstrungsphantasien, die im vorigen Jahrhundert viele Millionen Tote
forderte. Peanuts?

Wer sich noch weitere Texte zumuten will, kann das im Internet tun und sich
ein eigenes Bild machen: Unter
kann eine ML-Suchmaschine
angesprochen werden. Leider fehlt hier viel Material, besonders viele
persnliche Briefe der Klassiker untereinander, in denen sie ihre Absichten
verdeutlichen (August Bebel in einem Brief an Kautzky sinngem darber:
das Schlimmste haben wir beseitigt oder entschrft) und wo sie einander ihre
ffentlichen Schriften interpretieren, sind wohl die Aussagekrftigsten.
Eigentlich wre eine historisch und politisch begrndete Analyse der Person
Friedrich Engels die Aufgabe der Verantwortlichen
Bildungspolitiker gewesen. Die Zahnlosigkeit der Demokraten
Brandenburgs, besonders der SPD, ist mir unverstndlich.
Dass sich Frau Weinert mit Ihrem Text sehr weit aus dem Fenster gelehnt hat,
ist ja offenkundig. Sie kennt - wie viele - die schlimmen Texte nicht - oder sie
will sie nicht zur Kenntnis nehmen oder geben, sondern vermutlich nur die uns
immer als das Grundwissen aus der Sicht der DDR-Notwendigkeiten
angebotenen "Lehrtexte". Ich wei nicht, ob ich "Feindbilder pflege", denke
aber, dass sie die falschen "Freundbilder" propagiert. Wie mag der politische
Bildungsunterricht bei ihr aussehen? Nein, ich will an dieser Stelle nicht
spekulieren ber ihre Motive und Ziele. Ich kenne sie nicht. Das heit: ein
bisschen habe ich sie ja kennen gelernt...
Zum Schluss noch ein Wort von einem, der es wissen muss, und der
offensichtlich lernfhig ist:
"...fhrt sie allerdings unaufhaltsam zu der Konsequenz, die mich heute sagen
lt, nicht erst mit Stalin, sondern mit dem Freundespaar aus Trier und
Wuppertal beginnen Misere und Hllensturz der "wissenschaftlichen"
Weitverbesserung. Ihre Virulenz wird sie solange nicht einben, als gerade
dies geleugnet wird und die "Klassiker" von der gescheiterten Praxis ihrer
Theorie abgenabelt werden. Darum bemht sich ja krampfhaft eine
marxistische Erbengemeinschaft, zu der weit mehr - und weniger suspekte Leute gehren, als sie in der PDS zu finden sind. Sie mchten den
Schlustrich beim blutsaufenden Georgier gezogen sehen.
Schadensbegrenzung fr Marx und Engels. Bleiben sie unbefleckt, kann man
weiter mit ihnen in sozialer Bigotterie machen - vielleicht schon bald wieder in
einer Welt, die dafr hinreichenden sozialen Nhrboden liefert. "
Gnter Schabowski
(zit. in K. Lw, Marx und Marxismus. Mnchen 2001)

Dem ist nichts hinzu zu fgen.

Frei nach Jewtuschenko vielleicht noch das: Verdoppelt die Wachen an ihren
Grbern! -- Ach so, Engels hat ja keins. Eben!
KA Zech

-------------------------------------------------------[1]
" Engels an Friedrich Lener, 4. April 1869: Dabei ist es zum Totlachen zu
sehen, wie diese dummen Demokraten jetzt erst recht angefhrt sind, und in
keinem Lande der Welt sich auch nur noch ein anstndiges Pltzchen fr sie
finden will. Fortschrittspartei in Deutschland, Republikaner in Frankreich,
Radikale in England, sie sind alle zusammen gleich beschissen. Es gibt nichts
Komischeres als die sauersen Komplimente, die sie der sozialen
Bewegung machen mssen, whrend sie ganz genau wissen, da diese
soziale Bewegung ihnen eines schnen Morgens den Fu auf den Nacken
setzen wird. " MEW 32, 599
Gibt es immer noch "dumme Demokraten"? Also Vorsicht SPD:
"Die Kommunisten, weit entfernt, unter den gegenwrtigen Verhltnissen mit
den Deokraten nutzlose Streitigkeiten anzufangen, treten vielmehr fr den
Augenblick in allen praktischen Parteifragen selbst als Demokraten auf. Die
Demokratie hat in allen zivilisierten Lndern die politische Herrschaft des
Proletariats zur notwendigen Folge, und die politische Herrschaft des
Proletariats ist die erste Voraussetzung aller kommunistischen Maregeln.
Solange die Demokratie noch nicht erkmpft ist, solange kmpfen
Kommunisten und Demokraten also zusammen, solange sind die Interessen
der Demokraten zugleich die der Kommunisten. Bis dahin sind die Differenzen
zwischen beiden Parteien rein theoretischer Natur und knnen theoretisch
ganz gut diskutiert werden ohne da dadurch die gemeinschaftliche Aktion
irgendwie gestrt wird. Man wird sich sogar ber manche Maregeln
verstndigen knnen, welche sofort nach Erringung der Demokratie im
Interesse der bisher unterdrckten Klassen vorzunehmen sind, z.B. Betrieb
der groen Industrie, der Eisenbahnen durch den Staat, Erziehung aller
Kinder auf Staatskosten etc"
MEW 4, 317.

Und dann mu man die Demokraten kompromittieren:

1. die Demokraten dazu zwingen, nach mglichst vielen Seiten hin in die
bisherige Gesellschaftsordnung einzugreifen, ihren regelmigen Gang zu
stren und sich selbst zu kompromittieren sowie mglichst viele
Produktivkrfte, Transportmittel, Fabriken, Eisenbahnen usw. in den Hnden
des Staates zu konzentrieren.
2. Sie mssen die Vorschlge der Demokraten, die jedenfalls nicht
revolutionr, sondern blo reformierend auftreten werden, auf die Spitze
treiben und sie in direkte Angriffe auf das Privateigentum verwandeln, so zum
Beispiel, wenn die Kleinbrger vorschlagen, die Eisenbahnen und Fabriken
anzukaufen, so mssen die Arbeiter fordern, da diese Eisenbahnen und
Fabriken als Eigentum von Reaktionren vom Staate einfach und ohne
Entschdigung konfisziert werden. Wenn die Demokraten die proportionelle
Steuer vorschlagen, fordern die Arbeiter progressive; wenn die Demokraten
selbst eine gemigte progressive beantragen, bestehen die Arbeiter auf
einer Steuer, deren Stze so rasch steigen, da das groe Kapital dabei
zugrunde geht; wenn die Demokraten die Regulierung der Staatsschulden
verlangen, verlangen die Arbeiter den Staatsbankerott. Die Forderungen der
Arbeiter werden sich also berall nach den Konzessionen und Maregeln der
Demokraten richten mssen .
Man knnte hier verstehen, warum manche den Namen "Friedrich Engels" so
bevorzugen.

Nachbemerkung:
Frau Weinert hat auf oben stehenden Text reagiert, allerdings nicht mit
Argumenten bezogen auf den Text.
Waren Ihr zuvor die Zitate zu beschrnkt, ohne Zusammenhang gewesen, so
sind es ihr diesmal zu viele. Fakten gelten eben nichts im hysterischideologisierten Machtkampf.
Fr Interessenten sei ihr Text dennoch wieder gegeben.

MORE ANTISEMITIC ABUSE OF LASALLE

Engels to Marx: "The Lasalle manoeuvres have amused
me greatly, the frizzy Jew-head now has to very
charmingly distinguish himself in the red nightshirt and
Marquis garb -- from which at every movement the Polish
kike looks out. Seeing it must give the impression of louselike repulsiveness."
(No other English translation available online)
The German
Engels an Marx, 14.April 1856
"Die Lassalliaden haben mich sehr erheitert, der
krause Juddekopp mu sich ueber dem roten
Schlafrock und in der Marquisen-Draperie, wo bei
jeder Bewegung der polnische Schmuhl durchguckt,
sehr reizend ausnehmen. Gesehen, mu der Kerl einen
hoechst lausig-widerwaertigen Eindruck machen."
MEW a.a.O. 29, 43. Zitate

Karl Marx und Friedrich Engels

"A very happy event, der Tod des 90jhrigen Onkels meiner Frau wurde uns
gestern mitgeteilt. Dadurch spart meine Schwiegermutter eine jhrliche Abgabe
von 200 Talern und meine Frau wird an 100 Pfund Sterling bekommen; mehr, wenn

der alte Hund den Teil seines Geldes, der nicht fidei commi war, nicht
seiner Haushlterin vermacht." Marx an Engels, 1855 (MEW 28, 438).

"Von meiner Alten erhielt ich gestern Antwort. Nichts als 'zrtliche' Redensarten, but
no cash. Auerdem teilt sie mir mit, was ich lngst wute, da sie 75 Jahre alt ist und
manche Gebresten des Alters fhlt." Marx an Engels, 1861 (MEW 30, 198).
Anmerkung: Die folgenden vier Zitate betreffen den sozialistischen Schriftsteller
Ferdinand Lassalle (1825-1864), der zu den Grndern des Allgemeinen Deutschen
Arbeitervereins gehrte.
"Die Lassalliaden haben mich sehr erheitert, der krause Juddekopp mu sich ber dem
roten Schlafrock und in der Marquisen-Draperie, wo bei jeder Bewegung der
polnische Schmuhl durchkuckt, sehr reizend ausnehmen. Gesehen, mu der Kerl
einen hchst lausig-widerwrtigen Eindruck machen." Engels an Marx, 1856 (MEW
29, 43).
"Lassalle... Dann diese Sucht, sich in die vornehme Welt einzudrngen, de parvenir,
wenn auch nur zum Schein, den schmierigen Breslauer Jud mit allerhand Pomade und
Schminke zu bertnchen, waren immer widerwrtig." Engels an Marx, 1856 (MEW
29, 31).
"Hierbei der Brief von Lassalle zurck. Dorch un dorch der lppische Jd." Engels an
Marx, 1857 (MEW 29, 134).
"Der jdische Nigger Lassalle, der glcklicherweise Ende dieser Woche abreist, hat
glcklich wieder 5000 Taler in einer falschen Spekulation verloren... Es ist mir jetzt
vllig klar, da er, wie auch seine Kopfbildung und sein Haarwuchs beweist, von den
Negern abstammt, die sich dem Zug des Moses aus gypten anschlossen (wenn nicht
seine Mutter oder Gromutter von vterlicher Seite sich mit einem Nigger kreuzten).
Nun, diese Verbindung von Judentum und Germanentum mit der negerhaften
Grundsubstanz mssen ein sonderbares Produkt hervorbringen. Die Zudringlichkeit
des Burschen ist auch niggerhaft." Marx an Engels, 1862 (MEW 30, 257).
"Liebk[necht] ist ebenso schriftstellerisch unbrauchbar wie er unzuverlssig und
charakterschwach ist, wovon ich Nheres wieder zu berichten haben werde. Der Kerl
htte diese Woche einen definitiven Abschiedstritt in den Hintern erhalten, zwngen
nicht gewisse Umstnde, ihn einstweilen noch als Vogelscheuche zu
verwenden." Marx an Engels, 1859 (MEW 29, 443).
"Ad vocem Freiligrath. Unter uns gesagt, ein Scheikerl." Marx an Engels, 1859
(MEW 29, 448).

"Der Beta ist der grte Schweinhund, der mir je vorgekommen. Der Schundartikel
hat mich in eine wahre Wut versetzt. Leider ist der Kerl solch ein Krppel, da man
ihn nicht noch krummer schlagen kann; indes an diesem Hund mu doch noch einmal
persnliche Rache genommen werden." Engels an Marx, 1859 (MEW 29, 524).
"Die Betriebsamkeit dieser kleinen aus der demokratischen Pijauche ausgebrteten
badensischen Flhe ist rhrend." Marx an Engels, 1858 (MEW 29, 376).
"Da die Herren vom 'Social-Demokrat' wieder mit uns anbinden wollten, ist
bezeichnend fr das Lumpenpack. Halten jeden fr ebensolchen Scheikerl wie sie
selbst." Engels an Marx, 1865 (MEW 31, 159).

Die andere Seite

"To save your world you asked this man to die;
Would this man, could he see you now, ask why?"
Wystan H. Auden, Epitaph for an unknown soldier

"New opinions are always suspected, and usually opposed, without any other reason
but because they are not already common." John Locke

"To drive men from independence to live on alms, is itself great cruelty." Edmund
Burke

"The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted." James Madison

"You seem...to consider the judges as the ultimate arbiters of all Constitutional
questions: a very dangerous doctrine indeed, and one, which would place us under
the despotism of an oligarchy. Our judges are as honest as other men, and not more
so. They have, with others, the same passions for party, for power, and the privilege of
their corps. ...And their power [is] the more dangerous, as they are in office for life
and not responsible, as the other functionaries are, to the elective control. The
Constitution has erected no such single tribunal, knowing that to whatever hands
confided, with the corruptions of time and party, its members would become
despots." Thomas Jefferson

"Christianity, with its denial of life and glorification of all men's brotherhood, is the
best possible kindergarten for communism. Communism is at least consistent in its
ideology. Capitalism is not; it preaches what communism actually wants to live." Ayn
Rand

"The mob had not yet been taught to openly and consistently worship itself as a mob;
it still has vestiges of respect for individualism ground into it by centuries of
aristocracy." Ayn Rand

"Eine 'altruistische' Moral, eine Moral, bei der die Selbstsucht verkmmert, bleibt
unter allen Umstnden ein schlechtes Anzeichen...'Nicht seinen Nutzen suchen' - das
ist blo das moralische Feigenblatt fr eine ganz andere, nmlich physiologische
Tatschlichkeit: 'ich wei meinen Nutzen nicht mehr zu finden'...Disgregation der
Instinkte! - Es ist zu Ende mit ihm, wenn der Mensch altruistisch wird." Friedrich
Nietzsche

POLISH JEWS PARTICULARLY DESPISED

Engels: "We discovered that in connection with these
figures the German national simpletons and moneygrubbers of the Frankfurt parliamentary swamp always
counted as Germans the Polish Jews as well, although
this dirtiest of all races, neither by its jargon nor by its
descent, but at most only through its lust for profit, could
have any relation of kinship with Frankfurt".
Context here
The German
Engels, NRZ 29. Apr. 1849
,... da die deutschen Nationalgimpel und Geldmacher
des Frankfurter Sumpfparlaments bei diesen Zaehlungen
immer noch die polnischen Juden zu Deutschen
gerechnet, obwohl diese schmutzigste aller Rassen
weder in ihrem Jargon, noch ihrer Abstammung nach,
sondern hoechstens durch ihre Profitwuetigkeit mit
Frankfurt im Verwandtschaftsverhaeltnis stehen kann
(...)"
MEW a.a.O. 6, 448 f. Engels in Neue Rheinische Zeitung April
1849

Posen

Source: MECW Volume 9, p. 359;

Written: by Engels on April 28, 1849;
First published: in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 285 (second edition),

April 29, 1849.

Cologne, April 28. Our readers will be thankful to us if from time to time we
examine the splendour and might of our Hohenzollern royal family and the
simultaneous wonderful prosperity of the chief supports of its noble throne, the
bug-ridden knights of Brandenburg who have been transplanted into every
province.
In this instructive investigation we deal today with the Polish part of our
fatherland in the narrower sense. Already last summer, on the occasion of the
glorious pacification and reorganisation of Poland carried out by shrapnel and
caustic,[274] we tested the German-Jewish lies about the predominantly German
population in the towns, the large German landed estates in the countryside,
and the royal-Prussian merit for the growth of general well-being. Readers of
the Neue Rheinische Zeitungwill recall that we learned from official figures
and reports of the Archbishop of Gnesen and Posen to the bourgeois
transitional Minister Camphausen that in the parts of the territory included
within the Prussian demarcation lines, not about one half, but hardly one-sixth,
of the population is Germans, whereas the lying statistics of the Prussian
Government step by step increased the alleged German population the more
the progress of the counter-revolution seemed to make possible a new division
and a new diminution of the Polish part of Posen. We discovered that in
connection with these figures the German national simpletons and moneygrubbers of the Frankfurt parliamentary swamp always counted as Germans
the Polish Jews as well, although this meanest of all races, neither by its jargon
nor by its descent, but at most only through its lust for profit, could have any
relation of kinship with Frankfurt. We discovered that in fact relatively very
few of small German landowners were ensconced in individual districts of
Posen, and then only as a result of treacherous Prussian speculation on Polish
poverty, since, by the Cabinet Order of 1833, all auctioned estates could be
sold exclusively to Prussian Junkers from the backwoods, to whom the
Government advanced money for that purpose. Finally, we discovered that the
benefits and services rendered by the Hohenzollern paternalism consisted in
the fact that after the March revolution, out of cowardice, the finest promises
were given of a national reorganisation, and then, with the growth of the

counter-revolution, by means of a five times repeated and ever greater

partition, the noose was fastened more tightly round the neck of the country,
whereupon reorganisation was made dependent on pacification i.e. the
surrender of weapons. Finally, when this condition was fulfilled, My glorious
army [275] was let loose on the unarmed, trustful country in order in alliance
with the Jews to plunder the churches, set fire to the villages, beat the Poles to
death in public places with ramrods or brand them with caustic and, after
having taken revenge for their belief in the March promises, pay honour to
God and his Christian-Germanic Majesty on this field of corpses.
Such was the charitable work of Prussian reorganisation in Posen. Let us
now deal also with the origin of large-scale Prussian landownership, the
domains and estates. Their history is no less instructive as regards the
splendour and might of the Hohenzollern family and the value of its beloved
rogue knights.
In 1793 the three crowned thieves divided the Polish booty among
themselves according to the same right by which three highwaymen divide
among themselves the purse of a defenceless traveller.[276] Posen and South
Prussia on that occasion received the Hohenzollerns as hereditary rulers in
exactly the same way as the Rhine Province in 1815 received them
as hereditary rulers, in accordance with the right of trafficking in people
and of kidnapping. As soon as this right of trafficking in people and of
kidnapping is abolished, the Poles, like the Rhinelanders, will cancel with
a red stroke the title-deed of their hereditary Hohenzollern Grand Duke.
The first thing by which in plundered Poland the Hohenzollern Father of the
country manifested his Prussian benevolence was the confiscation of the lands
formerly belonging to the Polish Crown and Church. In general we have not
the slightest objection to such confiscation; on the contrary, we hope it will
soon be the turn of othercrown lands. We ask however for what purpose were
these confiscated estates used? In the interest of the general well-being of
the country, for which the Brandenburg paternal regime was so benevolently
concerned during the work of pacification and reorganisation in 1848? In the
interests of the people whose sweat and blood created those estates? We shall
see.
At that time Minister Hoym, who for twenty years had administered the
province of Silesia quite free from any supervision and used that power for the
most Junker-like swindling and extortions, was entrusted with the
administration of South Prussia as well, in reward for his services to God, King
and country. In the interests of the splendour and might of the dynasty and in

order to create a splendid and mighty class of devoted Junkers from the
backwoods, Hoym proposed to his lord and master that he should bestow as
many as possible of the confiscated Church and Crown lands to so-called
deserving persons. And that was done. A host of rascally knights, favourites
of royal mistresses, creatures of the Ministers, accomplices whom one wanted
to silence, were presented with the largest and richest estates of the plundered
country and thereby German interests and predominantly German
landownership were implanted among the Poles.
In order not to arouse royal cupidity, Hoym had as a precaution assessed
these estates for the King at a quarter or sixth part of their value, and
sometimes even less; he was afraid, and probably not without reason, that if
the King were to learn the true value of these estates, he would think of his
own paternal pocket before anything else. During Hoyms four years of
administration after the pacification"[277] from 1794 to 1798, there were in this
manner given away: in the Posen administrative region 22, in the Kalisch,
formerly Petrikau, region 19, in the Warsaw region 11, altogether 52 larger and
smaller groups of estates, which in total contained not less than two hundred
and forty-one separate estates. The King was told that the value of these estates
was 3 1/2 million talers, but their true value exceeded twenty million talers.
The Poles will know from whom during the coming revolution they will have
to extract these 20 million talers, that Polish milliard, stolen from them by the
right of traffic in people.
In the Kalisch region alone the area of the estates given away amounted
to more than a third of all the Crown and Church lands, and the income from
these estates, even according to the miserable estimates of the value of the
grants in 1799 alone, was 247,000 talers annually.
In the Posen administrative region the Owinsk estate with its extensive
forests was presented to Tresckow, a haberdasher. At the same time the
adjacent Crown estate of Szrin, which had not a single tree, was declared a
state domain and had to buy its timber at government expense from
Tresckows forests.
Finally, in other regions, the deeds of gift expressly freed the estates from
ordinary taxes, and moreover freed them in perpetuity, so that no Prussian
King should ever have the right to impose new taxes on them.
We shall now see in what manner the stolen estates were given away and to
which deserving persons. The extent of the services of these Junkers from

the backwoods, however, compels us for the sake of coherent exposition to

deal with this subject in a special article.[278]

FINAL COMMENT
Although I am no fan of Engels, I might say that to me
Engels seems a much more human and likable figure than
Marx. Engels had enthusiasms. Marx had only hatreds -he hated even the workers whose cause he claimed to
espouse. Even the kindly Heinrich Marx -- Karl's father -thought Karl was not much of a human being. The letter
from Heinrich to Karl below was written when Karl was still
only 19. Heinrich seems to have been a decent and
generous guy. It must have pained him greatly to see how
his son turned out.
Letter from Heinrich Marx to son Karl, written in Trier,
March 2, 1837: "It is remarkable that I, who am by nature a
lazy writer, become quite inexhaustible when I have to
write to you. I will not and cannot conceal my weakness
for you. At times my heart delights in thinking of you and
your future. And yet at times I cannot rid myself of ideas
which arouse in me sad forebodings and fear when I am
struck as if by lightning by the thought: is your heart in
accord with your head, your talents? Has it room for the
earthly but gentler sentiments which in this vale of sorrow
are so essentially consoling for a man of feeling? And
since that heart is obviously animated and governed by a
demon not granted to all men, is that demon heavenly or
Faustian? Will you ever -- and that is not the least painful
doubt of my heart -- will you ever be capable of truly

human, domestic happiness? Will -- and this doubt has no

less tortured me recently since I have come to love a
certain person [Jenny von Westfalen] like my own child -will you ever be capable of imparting happiness to those
immediately around you?
What has evoked this train of ideas in me, you will ask ?
Often before, anxious thoughts of this kind have come into
my mind, but I easily chased them away, for I always felt
the need to surround you with all the love and care of
which my heart is capable, and I always like to forget. But I
note a striking phenomenon in Jenny. She, who is so
wholly devoted to you with her childlike, pure disposition,
betrays at times, involuntarily and against her will, a kind
of fear, a fear laden with foreboding, which does not
escape me, which I do not know how to explain, and all
trace of which she tried to erase from my heart, as soon
as I pointed it out to her. What does that mean, what can it
be? I cannot explain it to myself, but unfortunately my
experience does not allow me to be easily led astray.

Letter from Heinrich Marx to

son Karl
in Berlin

Written: Trier, March 2, 1837

Source: Marx Engels Collected Works Vol 1, pg 670-673.
Publisher: International Publishers (1975)
First Published: Marx/Engels, Gesamtausgabe, Abt. 1, Hb. 2, 1929
Translated: Clemens Dutt
Transcribed: S. Ryan
HTML Markup: S. Ryan

It is remarkable that I, who am by nature a lazy writer, become quite

inexhaustible when I have to write to you. I will not and cannot conceal my
weakness for you. At times my heart delights in thinking of you and your
future. And yet at times I cannot rid myself of ideas which arouse in me sad
forebodings and fear when I am struck as if by lightning by the thought: is
your heart in accord with your head, your talents? Has it room for the earthly
but gentler sentiments which in this vale of sorrow are so essentially
consoling for a man of feeling? And since that heart is obviously animated and
governed by a demon not granted to all men, is that demon heavenly or
Faustian? Will you ever -- and that is not the least painful doubt of my heart -will you ever be capable of truly human, domestic happiness? Will -- and this
doubt has no less tortured me recently since I have come to love a certain
person like my own child -- will you ever be capable of imparting happiness to
those immediately around you?
What has evoked this train of ideas in me, you will ask ? Often before,
anxious thoughts of this kind have come into my mind, but I easily chased
them away, for I always felt the need to surround you with all the love and care
of which my heart is capable, and I always like to forget. But I note a striking
phenomenon in Jenny. She, who is so wholly devoted to you with her
childlike, pure disposition, betrays at times, involuntarily and against her will,
a kind of fear, a fear laden with foreboding, which does not escape me, which I
do not know how to explain, and all trace of which she tried to erase from my
heart, as soon as I pointed it out to her. What does that mean, what can it be? I
cannot explain it to myself, but unfortunately my experience does not allow me
to be easily led astray.

That you should rise high in the world, the flattering hope to see your name
held one day in high repute, and also your earthly well-being, these are not the
only things close to my heart, they are long-cherished illusions that have taken
deep root in me. Basically, however, such feelings are largely characteristic of
a weak man, and are not free from all dress, such as pride, vanity, egoism, etc.,
etc., etc. But I can assure you that the realisation of these illusions could not
make me happy. Only if your heart remains pure and beats in a purely human
way, and no demonic spirit is capable of estranging your heart from finer
feelings -- only then would I find the happiness that for many years past I have
dreamed of finding through you; otherwise I would see the finest aim of my
life in ruins. But why should I grow so soft and perhaps distress you? At
bottom, I have no doubt of your filial love for me and your good, dear mother,
and you know very well where we are most vulnerable.
I pass on to positive matters. Some days after receiving your letter, which
Sophie brought her, Jenny visited us and spoke about your intention. She
appears to approve your reasons, but fears the step itself, and that is easy to
understand. For my part, I regard it as good and praiseworthy. As she
intimates, she is writing to you that you should not send the letter direct -- an
opinion I cannot agree with. What you can do to put her mind at rest is to tell
us eight days beforehand on what day you are posting the letter. The good girl
deserves every consideration and, I repeat, only a lifetime full of tender love
can compensate her for what she has already suffered, and even for what she
will still suffer, for they are remarkable saints she has to deal with.
It is chiefly regard for her that makes me wish so much that you will soon
take a fortunate step forward in the world, because it would give her peace of
mind, at least that is what I believe. And I assure you, dear Karl, that were it
not for this, I would at present endeavour to restrain you from coming forward
publicly rather than spur you on. But you see, the bewitching girl has turned
my Old head too, and I wish above all to see her calm and happy. Only you
can do that and the aim is worthy of your undivided attention, and it is perhaps
very good and salutary that, immediately on your entry into the world, you are
compelled to show human consideration, indeed wisdom, foresight and mature
reflection, in spite of all demons. I thank heaven for this, for it is the human
being in you that I will eternally love. You know that, a practical man though I
am, I have not been ground down to such a degree as to be blunted to what is
high and good. Nevertheless, I do not readily allow myself to be completely
torn up from the earth, which is my solid basis, and wafted exclusively into
airy spheres where I have no firm ground under my feet. All this naturally
gives me greater cause than I would otherwise have had to reflect on the means

which are at your disposal. You have taken up dramatic composition, and of
course it contains much that is true. But closely bound up with its importance,
its great publicity, is quite naturally the danger of coming to grief. Not always,
especially in the big cities, is it necessarily the inner value which is decisive.
Intrigues, cabals, jealousy, perhaps among those who have had the most
experience of these, often outweigh what is good, especially if the latter is not
yet raised to and maintained in high honour by a well-known name.
What, therefore, would be the wisest course? To look for a possible way by
which this great test would be preceded by a smaller one involving less danger,
but sufficiently important for you to emerge from it, in the event of success,
with a not quite unimportant name. If, however, this has to be achieved by
something small, then the material, the subject, the circumstances, must have
some exceptional quality. I racked my brains for a long time in the search for
such a subject and the following idea seemed to me suitable.
The subject should be a period taken from the history of Prussia, not one so
prolonged as to call for an epic, but a crowded moment of time where,
however, the future hung in the balance.
It should redound to the honour of Prussia and afford the opportunity of
allotting a role to the genius of the monarchy -- if need be, through the mind of
the very noble Queen Louise.
Such a moment was the great battle at La Belie Alliance-Waterloo. The
danger was enormous, not only for Prussia, for its monarch, for the whole of
Germany, etc., etc., etc. In fact, it was Prussia that decided the great issue here
-- hence, at all events this could be the subject of an ode in the heroic genre, or
otherwise -- you understand that better than I do.
The difficulty would not be too great in itself. The biggest difficulty, in any
case, would be that of compressing a big picture into a small frame and of
giving a successful and skilful portrayal of the great moment. But if executed
in a patriotic and German spirit with depth of feeling, such an ode would itself
be sufficient to lay the foundation for a reputation, to establish a name.
But I can only propose, advise. You have outgrown me; in this matter you
are in general superior to me, so I must leave it to you to decide as you will.
The subject I have spoken of would have the great advantage that it could
very soon be presented apropos, since the anniversary is on June 18. The cost
would not be very considerable, and if necessary I will bear it. -- I should so

very much like to see good Jenny calm and able to hold up her head proudly.
The good child must not wear herself out. And if you are successful in this
project -- and the demand is not beyond your powers -- then you will be in a
secure position and able to relax somewhat from the hothouse life.
In point of fact, too, it is impossible not to be enthusiastic over this moment
of time, for its failure would have imposed eternal fetters on mankind and
especially on the human mind. Only today's two-faced liberals can deify a
Napoleon. And in truth under his rule not a single person would have dared to
think aloud what is being written daily and without interference throughout
Germany, and especially in Prussia. And anyone who has studied the history of
Napoleon and what he understood by the absurd expression of ideology can
rejoice greatly and with a clear conscience at his downfall and the victory of
Prussia.
Give my cordial greetings to our friend Meurin. Tell him that until now I
have not been able to carry out the commission with which I have been
charged. I suffered from a cold for eight days and since then I have not
ventured any farther than to attend the sitting.
Your faithful father
Marx
Thursday, April 21, 2005
MARX SUPPORTED BLACK SLAVERY IN AMERICA

Letter from Marx to Pavel Vasilyevich Annenkov, 1846: "As for slavery, there is no need for me to speak of its bad aspects. The only thing requiring explanation is the good side of slavery. I do not mean indirect slavery, the slavery of proletariat; I mean direct slavery, the slavery of the Blacks in Surinam, in
Brazil, in the southern regions of North America.
Direct slavery is as much the pivot upon which our present-day industrialism turns as are machinery, credit, etc. Without slavery there would be no cotton, without cotton there would be no modern industry. It is slavery which has given value to the colonies, it is the colonies which have created world trade,
and world trade is the necessary condition for large-scale machine industry. Consequently, prior to the slave trade, the colonies sent very few products to the Old World, and did not noticeably change the face of the world. Slavery is therefore an economic category of paramount importance. Without slavery,
North America, the most progressive nation, would he transformed into a patriarchal country. Only wipe North America off the map and you will get anarchy, the complete decay of trade and modern civilisation. But to do away with slavery would be to wipe America off the map. Being an economic category,
slavery has existed in all nations since the beginning of the world. All that modern nations have achieved is to disguise slavery at home and import it openly into the New World"

Letters of Marx and Engels 1846

Letter from Marx to Pavel Vasilyevich

Annenkov[1]

in Paris
Written: December 28, 1846 Rue d'Orleans, 42, Faubourg Namur;
Source: Marx Engels Collected Works Vol 38, pg 95;
Publisher: International Publishers (1975);

First Published: in full in the French original in M.M. Stasyulevich i yego

sovremenniki v ikh perepiske, Vol III, 1912;

Translated: Peter and Betty Ross;
Transcribed: S. Ryan.

My dear Mr Annenkov,
You would long since have had a reply to your letter of 1 November had not
my bookseller delayed sending me Mr Proudhon's book, Philosophie de la
misre, until last week. I skimmed through it in two days so as to be able to
give you my opinion straight away. Having read the book very cursorily, I
cannot go into details but can only let you have the general impression it made
on me. Should you so desire, I could go into it in greater detail in another
letter.
To be frank, I must admit that I find the book on the whole poor, if not very
poor. You yourself make fun in your letter of the 'little bit of German
philosophy' paraded by Mr Proudhon in this amorphous and overweening
work, but you assume that the economic argument has remained untainted by
the philosophic poison. Therefore I am by no means inclined to ascribe the
faults of the economic argument to Mr Proudhon's philosophy. Mr Proudhon
does not provide a false critique of political economy because his philosophy
is absurdhe produces an absurd philosophy because he has not understood
present social conditions in their engrnement,[2] to use a word which Mr
Proudhon borrows from Fourier, like so much else.
Why does Mr Proudhon speak of God, of universal reason, of mankind's
impersonal reason which is never mistaken, which has at all times been equal
to itself and of which one only has to be correctly aware in order to arrive at
truth? Why does he indulge in feeble Hegelianism in order to set himself up as
an esprit fort?[3]
He himself provides the key to this enigma. Mr Proudhon sees in history a
definite series of social developments; he finds progress realised in history;
finally, he finds that men, taken as individuals, did not know what they were
about, were mistaken as to their own course, i. e. that their social development
appears at first sight to be something distinct, separate and independent of their
individual development. He is unable to explain these facts, and the hypothesis
of universal reason made manifest is ready to hand. Nothing is easier than to
invent mystical causes, i.e. phrases in which common sense is lacking.

But in admitting his total incomprehension of the historical development of

mankindand he admits as much in making use of high-flown expressions
such as universal reason, God, etc.does not Mr Proudhon admit, implicitly
and of necessity, his inability to understand economic development?
What is society, irrespective of its form? The product of man's interaction
upon man. Is man free to choose this or that form of society? By no means. If
you assume a given state of development of man's productive faculties, you
will have a corresponding form of commerce and consumption. If you assume
given stages of development in production, commerce or consumption, you
will have a corresponding form of social constitution, a corresponding
organisation, whether of the family, of the estates or of the classesin a word,
a corresponding civil society. If you assume this or that civil society, you will
have this or that political system, which is but the official expression of civil
society. This is something Mr Proudhon will never understand, for he imagines
he's doing something great when he appeals from the state to civil society, i. e.
to official society from the official epitome of society.
Needless to say, man is not free to choose his productive forcesupon
which his whole history is basedfor every productive force is an acquired
force, the product of previous activity. Thus the productive forces are the result
of man's practical energy, but that energy is in turn circumscribed by the
conditions in which man is placed by the productive forces already acquired,
by the form of society which exists before him, which he does not create,
which is the product of the preceding generation. The simple fact that every
succeeding generation finds productive forces acquired by the preceding
generation and which serve it as the raw material of further production,
engenders a relatedness in the history of man, engenders a history of mankind,
which is all the more a history of mankind as man's productive forces, and
hence his social relations, have expanded. From this it can only be concluded
that the social history of man is never anything else than the history of his
individual development, whether he is conscious of this or not. His material
relations form the basis of all his relations. These material relations are but the
necessary forms in which his material and individual activity is realised.
Mr Proudhon confuses ideas and things. Man never renounces what he has
gained, but this does not mean that he never renounces the form of society in
which he has acquired certain productive forces. On the contrary. If he is not to
be deprived of the results obtained or to forfeit the fruits of civilisation, man is
compelled to change all his traditional social forms as soon as the mode of
commerce ceases to correspond to the productive forces acquired. Here I use
the word commerce in its widest senseas we would say Verkehr in German.

For instance, privilege, the institution of guilds and corporations, the

regulatory system of the Middle Ages, were the only social relations that
corresponded to the acquired productive forces and to the pre-existing social
conditions from which those institutions had emerged. Protected by the
corporative and regulatory system, capital had accumulated, maritime trade
had expanded, colonies had been foundedand man would have lost the very
fruits of all this had he wished to preserve the forms under whose protection
those fruits had ripened. And, indeed, two thunderclaps occurred, the
revolutions of 1640 and of 1688. In England, all the earlier economic forms,
the social relations corresponding to them, and the political system which was
the official expression of the old civil society, were destroyed. Thus, the
economic forms in which man produces, consumes and exchanges
are transitory and historical. With the acquisition of new productive faculties
man changes his mode of production and with the mode of production he
changes all the economic relations which were but the necessary relations of
that particular mode of production.
It is this that Mr Proudhon has failed to understand, let alone demonstrate.
Unable to follow the real course of history, Mr Proudhon provides a
phantasmagoria which he has the presumption to present as a dialectical
phantasmagoria. He no longer feels any need to speak of the seventeenth,
eighteenth or nineteenth centuries, for his history takes place in the nebulous
realm of the imagination and soars high above time and place. In a word, it is
Hegelian trash, it is not history, it is not profane historyhistory of mankind,
but sacred historyhistory of ideas. As seen by him, man is but the instrument
used by the idea of eternal reason in order to unfold itself. Theevolutions of
which Mr Proudhon speaks are presumed to be evolutions such as take place in
the mystical bosom of the absolute idea. If the veil of this mystical language be
rent, it will be found that what Mr Proudhon gives us is the order in which
economic categories are arranged within his mind. It would require no great
effort on my part to prove to you that this arrangement is the arrangement of a
very disorderly mind.
Mr Proudhon opens his book with a dissertation on value which is his
hobby-horse. For the time being I shall not embark upon an examination of
that dissertation.
The series of eternal reason's economic evolutions begins with the division
of labour. For Mr Proudhon, the division of labour is something exceedingly
simple. But was not the caste system a specific division of labour? And was
not the corporative system another division of labour? And is not the division
of labour in the manufacturing system, which began in England in the middle

of the seventeenth century and ended towards the end of the eighteenth
century, likewise entirely distinct from the division of labour in big industry, in
modern industry?
Mr Proudhon is so far from the truth that he neglects to do what even
profane economists do. In discussing the division of labour, he feels no need to
refer to the worldmarket. Well! Must not the division of labour in the
fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, when there were as yet no colonies, when
America was still non-existent for Europe, and when Eastern Asia existed only
through the mediation of Constantinople, have been utterly different from the
division of labour in the seventeenth century, when colonies were already
developed?
And that is not all. Is the whole internal organisation of nations, are their
international relations, anything but the expression of a given division of
labour? And must they not change as the division of labour changes?
Mr Proudhon has so little understood the question of the division of labour
that he does not even mention the separation of town and country which
occurred in Germany, for instance, between the ninth and twelfth centuries.
Thus, to Mr Proudhon, that separation must be an eternal law because he is
unaware either of its origin or of its development. Throughout his book he
speaks as though this creation of a given mode of production were to last till
the end of time. All that Mr Proudhon says about the division of labour is but a
resume, and a very superficial and very incomplete resume at that, of what
Adam Smith and a thousand others said before him.
The second evolution is machinery. With Mr Proudhon, the relation between
the division of labour and machinery is a wholly mystical one. Each one of the
modes of the division of labour had its specific instruments of production. For
instance, between the mid-seventeenth and mid-eighteenth century man did not
make everything by hand. He had tools and very intricate ones, such as looms,
ships, levers, etc., etc.
Thus nothing could be more absurd than to see machinery as deriving from
the division of labour in general.
In passing I should also point out that, not having understood the historical
origin of machinery, Mr. Proudhon has still less understood its development.
Up till 1825when the first general crisis occurredit might be said that the
requirements of consumption as a whole were growing more rapidly than
production, and that the development of machinery was the necessary

consequence of the needs of the market. Since 1825, the invention and use of
machinery resulted solely from the war between masters and workmen. But
this is true only of England. As for the European nations, they were compelled
to use machinery by the competition they were encountering from the English,
in their home markets as much as in the world market. Finally, where North
America was concerned, the introduction of machinery was brought about both
by competition with other nations and by scarcity of labour, i.e. by the
disproportion between the population and the industrial requirements of North
America. From this you will be able to see what wisdom Mr Proudhon evinces
when he conjures up the spectre of competition as the third evolution, as the
antithesis of machinery!
Finally, and generally speaking, it is truly absurd to make machinery an
economic category alongside the division of labour, competition, credit, etc.
Machinery is no more an economic category than the ox who draws the
plough. The present use of machinery is one of the relations of our present
economic system, but the way in which machinery is exploited is quite distinct
from the machinery itself. Powder is still powder, whether you use it to wound
a man or to dress his wounds.
Mr Proudhon surpasses himself in causing to grow inside his own brain
competition, monopoly, taxes or police, balance of trade, credit and property in
the order I have given here. Nearly all the credit institutions had been
developed in England by the beginning of the eighteenth century, before the
invention of machinery. State credit was simply another method of increasing
taxes and meeting the new requirements created by the rise to power of the
bourgeois class. Finally, property constitutes the last category in Mr
Proudhon's system. In the really existing world, on the other hand, the division
of labour and all Mr Proudhon's other categories are social relations which
together go to make up what is now known as property; outside these relations
bourgeois property is nothing but a metaphysical or juridical illusion. The
property of another epoch, feudal property, developed in a wholly different set
of social relations. In establishing property as an independent relation, Mr
Proudhon is guilty of more than a methodological error: he clearly proves his
failure to grasp the bond linking all forms of bourgeois production, or to
understand the historical and transitory nature of the forms of production in
any one epoch. Failing to see our historical institutions as historical products
and to understand either their origin or their development, Mr Proudhon can
only subject them to a dogmatic critique.

Hence Mr Proudhon is compelled to resort to a fiction in order to explain

development. He imagines that the division of labour, credit, machinery, etc.,
were all invented in the service of his ide fixe, the idea of equality. His
explanation is sublimely naive. These things were invented for the sake of,
equality, but unfortunately they have turned against equality. That is the whole
of his argument. In other words, he makes a gratuitous assumption and,
because actual development contradicts his fiction at every turn, he concludes
that there is a contradiction. He conceals the fact that there is a contradiction
only between his ide fixes, and the real movement.
Thus Mr Proudhon chiefly because he doesn't know history, fails to see that,
in developing his productive faculties, i.e. in living, man develops certain
inter-relations, and that the nature of these relations necessarily changes with
the modification and the growth of the said productive faculties. He fails to see
that economic categories are but abstractions of those real relations, that they
are truths only in so far as those relations continue to exist. Thus he falls into
the error of bourgeois economists who regard those economic categories as
eternal laws and not as historical laws which are laws only for a given
historical development, a specific development of the productive forces. Thus,
instead of regarding politico-economic categories as abstractions of actual
social relations that are transitory and historical, Mr Proudhon, by a mystical
inversion, sees in the real relations only the embodiment of those abstractions.
Those abstractions are themselves formulas which have been slumbering in the
bosom of God the Father since the beginning of the world.
But here our good Mr Proudhon falls prey to severe intellectual convulsions.
If all these economic categories are emanations of God's heart, if they are the
hidden and eternal life of man, how is it, first, that there is any development
and, secondly, that Mr Proudhon is not a conservative? He explains these
evident contradictions in terms of a whole system of antagonisms.
In order to explain this system of antagonisms, let us take an example.
Monopoly is good because it is an economic category, hence an emanation
of God. Competition is good because it, too, is an economic category. But
what is not good is the reality of monopoly and the reality of competition. And
what is even worse is that monopoly and competition mutually devour each
other. What is to be done about it? Because these two eternal thoughts of God
contradict each other, it seems clear to him that, in God's bosom, there is
likewise a synthesis of these two thoughts in which the evils of monopoly are
balanced by competition and vice versa. The result of the struggle between the
two ideas will be that only the good aspects will be thrown into relief. This

secret idea need only be wrested from God and put into practice and all will be
for the best; the synthetic formula concealed in the night of mankind's
impersonal reason must be revealed. Mr Proudhon does not hesitate for a
moment to act as revealer.
But take a brief glance at real life. In present-day economic life you will
find, not only competition and monopoly, but also their synthesis, which is not
a formula but amovement. Monopoly produces competition, competition
produces monopoly. That equation, however, far from alleviating the
difficulties of the present situation, as bourgeois economists suppose, gives
rise to a situation even more difficult and involved. Thus, by changing the
basis upon which the present economic relations rest, by abolishing the
present mode of production, you abolish not only competition, monopoly and
their antagonism, but also their unity, their synthesis, the movement whereby a
true balance is maintained between competition and monopoly.
Let me now give you an example of Mr Proudhon's dialectics.
Freedom and slavery constitute an antagonism. There is no need for me to
speak either of the good or of the bad aspects of freedom. As for slavery, there
is no need for me to speak of its bad aspects. The only thing requiring
explanation is the good side of slavery. I do not mean indirect slavery, the
slavery of proletariat; I mean direct slavery, the slavery of the Blacks in
Surinam, in Brazil, in the southern regions of North America.
Direct slavery is as much the pivot upon which our present-day industrialism
turns as are machinery, credit, etc. Without slavery there would be no cotton,
without cotton there would be no modern industry. It is slavery which has
given value to the colonies, it is the colonies which have created world trade,
and world trade is the necessary condition for large-scale machine industry.
Consequently, prior to the slave trade, the colonies sent very few products to
the Old World, and did not noticeably change the face of the world. Slavery is
therefore an economic category of paramount importance. Without slavery,
North America, the most progressive nation, would he transformed into a
patriarchal country. Only wipe North America off the map and you will get
anarchy, the complete decay of trade and modern civilisation. But to do away
with slavery would be to wipe America off the map. Being an economic
category, slavery has existed in all nations since the beginning of the world.
All that modern nations have achieved is to disguise slavery at home and
import it openly into the New World. After these reflections on slavery, what
will the good Mr Proudhon do? He will seek the synthesis of liberty and

slavery, the true golden mean, in other words the balance between slavery and
liberty.
Mr Proudhon understands perfectly well that men manufacture worsted,
linens and silks; and whatever credit is due for understanding such a trifle!
What Mr Proudhon does not understand is that, according to their faculties,
men also produce the social relations in which they produce worsted and
linens. Still less does Mr Proudhon understand that those who produce social
relations in conformity with their material productivity also produce the ideas,
categories, i.e. the ideal abstract expressions of those same social relations.
Indeed, the categories are no more eternal than the relations they express. They
are historical and transitory products. To Mr Proudhon, on the contrary, the
prime cause consists in abstractions and categories. According to him it is
these and not men which make history. The abstraction, the category regarded
as such, i.e. as distinct from man and his material activity, is, of course,
immortal, immutable, impassive. It is nothing but an entity of pure reason,
which is only another way of saying that an abstraction, regarded as such, is
abstract. An admirable tautology!
Hence, to Mr Proudhon, economic relations, seen in the form of categories,
are eternal formulas without origin or progress.
To put it another way: Mr Proudhon does not directly assert that to
him bourgeois life is an eternal truth; he says so indirectly, by deifying the
categories which express bourgeois relations in the form of thought. He
regards the products of bourgeois society as spontaneous entities, endowed
with a life of their own, eternal, the moment these present themselves to him in
the shape of categories, of thought. Thus he fails to rise above the bourgeois
horizon. Because he operates with bourgeois thoughts and assumes them to be
eternally true, he looks for the synthesis of those thoughts, their balance, and
fails to see that their present manner of maintaining a balance is the only
possible one.
In fact he does what all good bourgeois do. They all maintain that
competition, monopoly, etc., are, in principlei.e. regarded as abstract
thoughtsthe only basis for existence, but leave a great deal to be desired in
practice. What they all want is competition without the pernicious
consequences of competition. They all want the impossible, i.e. the conditions
of bourgeois existence without the necessary consequences of those
conditions. They all fail to understand that the bourgeois form of production is
an historical and transitory form, just as was the feudal form. This mistake is
due to the fact that, to them, bourgeois man is the only possible basis for any

society, and that they cannot envisage a state of society in which man will have
ceased to be bourgeois.
Hence Mr Proudhon is necessarily doctrinaire. The historical movement by
which the present world is convulsed resolves itself, so far as he is concerned,
into the problem of discovering the right balance, the synthesis of two
bourgeois thoughts. Thus, by subtlety, the clever fellow discovers God's secret
thought, the unity of two isolated thoughts which are isolated thoughts only
because Mr Proudhon has isolated them from practical life, from present-day
production, which is the combination of the realities they express. In place of
the great historical movement which is born of the conflict between the
productive forces already acquired by man, and his social relations which no
longer correspond to those productive forces, in the place of the terrible wars
now imminent between the various classes of a nation and between the various
nations, in place of practical and violent action on the part of the masses,
which is alone capable of resolving those conflicts, in place of that
movementvast, prolonged and complexMr Proudhon puts the cackydauphin [4] movement of his own mind. Thus it is the savants, the men able to
filch from God his inmost thoughts, who make history. All the lesser fry have
to do is put their revelations into practice.
Now you will understand why Mr Proudhon is the avowed enemy of all
political movements. For him, the solution of present-day problems does not
consist in public action but in the dialectical rotations of his brain. Because to
him the categories are the motive force, it is not necessary to change practical
life in order to change the categories; on the contrary, it is necessary to change
the categories, whereupon actual society will change as a result.
In his desire to reconcile contradictions Mr Proudhon does not ask himself
whether the very basis of those contradictions ought not to be subverted. He is
exactly like the political doctrinaire who wants a king and a chamber of
deputies and a chamber of peers as integral parts of social life, as eternal
categories. Only he seeks a new formula with which to balance those powers
(whose balance consists precisely in the actual movement in which one of
those powers is now the conqueror now the slave of the other). In the
eighteenth century, for instance, a whole lot of mediocre minds busied
themselves with finding the true formula with which to maintain a balance
between the social estates, the nobility, the king, the parliaments [5] etc., and
the next day there was neither king, nor parliament, nor nobility. The proper
balance between the aforesaid antagonisms consisted in the convulsion of all
the social relations which served as a basis for those feudal entities and for the
antagonism between those feudal entities.

Because Mr Proudhon posits on the one hand eternal ideas, the categories of
pure reason, and, on the other, man and his practical life which according to
him, is the practical application of these categories, you will find in him from
the very outset a dualism between life and ideas, between soul and bodya
dualism which recurs in many forms. So you now see that the said antagonism
is nothing other than Mr Proudhon's inability to understand either the origin or
the profane history of the categories he has deified.
My letter is already too long for me to mention the absurd case Mr Proudhon
is conducting against communism. For the present you will concede that a man
who has failed to understand the present state of society must be even less able
to understand either the movement which tends to overturn it or the literary
expression of that revolutionary movement.
The only point upon which I am in complete agreement with Mr Proudhon is
the disgust he feels for socialist sentimentalising. I anticipated him in
provoking considerable hostility by the ridicule I directed at ovine,
sentimental, utopian socialism. But is not Mr Proudhon subject to strange
delusions when he opposes his petty-bourgeois sentimentality, by which I
mean his homilies about home, conjugal love and suchlike banalities, to
socialist sentimentality whichas for instance in Fourier's caseis infinitely
more profound than the presumptuous platitudes of our worthy Proudhon? He
himself is so well aware of the emptiness of his reasoning, of his complete
inability to discuss such things, that he indulges in tantrums, exclamations
and irae hominis probi, [6] that he fumes, cures, denounces, cries pestilence
and infamy, thumps his chest and glorifies himself before God and man as
being innocent of socialist infamies! It is not as a critic that he derides socialist
sentimentalities, or what he takes to be sentimentalities. It is as a saint, a pope,
that he excommunicates the poor sinners and sings the praises of the petty
bourgeoisie and of the miserable patriarchal amourous illusions of the
domestic hearth. Nor is this in any way fortuitous. Mr Proudhon is, from top to
toe, a philosopher, an economist of the petty bourgeoisie. In an advanced
society and because of his situation, a petty bourgeois becomes a socialist on
the one hand, and economist on the other, i.e. he is dazzled by the
magnificence of the upper middle classes and feels compassion for the
sufferings of the people.
He is at one and the same time bourgeois and man of the people. In his heart
of hearts he prides himself on his impartiality, on having found the correct
balance, allegedly distinct from the happy medium. A petty bourgeois of this
kind deifies contradiction, for contradiction is the very basis of his being. He is
nothing but social contradiction in action. He must justify by means of theory

what he is in practice, and Mr Proudhon has the merit of being the scientific
exponent of the French petty bourgeoisie, which is a real merit since the petty
bourgeoisie will be an integral part of all the impending social revolutions.
With this letter I should have liked to send you my book on political
economy, but up till now I have been unable to have printed either this work or
the critique of German philosophers and socialists [7] which I mentioned to you
in Brussels. You would never believe what difficulties a publication of this
kind runs into in Germany, on the one hand from the police, on the other from
the booksellers, who are themselves the interested representatives of all those
tendencies I attack. And as for our own party, not only is it poor, but there is a
large faction in the German communist party which bears me a grudge because
I am opposed to its utopias and its declaiming.
Ever yours
Charles Marx
P.S. Perhaps you may wonder why I should be writing in bad French rather
than in good German. It is because I am dealing with a French writer.
You would greatly oblige me by not keeping me waiting too long for a reply,
as I am anxious to know whether you understand me wrapped up as I am in my
barbarous French.

Footnotes
Marx wrote this letter in reply to the request of his Russian acquaintance
Pavel Vasilyevich Annenkov for his opinion on Proudhon's Systme des
contradictions conomiques, ou Philosophie de la misre. On 1 November
1846 Annenkov wrote to Marx, concerning Proudhon's book: 'I admit that
the actual plan of the work seems to be a jeu d'esprit, designed to give a
glimpse of German philosophy, rather than something grown naturally out
of the subject and requirements of its logical development.
[1]

Marx's profound and precise criticism of Proudhon's views, and his

exposition of dialectical and materialist views to counterbalance them,
produced a strong impression even on Annenkov, who was far from
materialism and communism. He wrote to Marx on 6 January 1847: 'Your
opinion of Proudhon`s book produced a truly invigorating effect on me by

its preciseness, its clarity, and above all its tendency to keep within the
bounds of reality' (MEGA-2, Abt III, Bd. 2, S 321).
When in 1880 Annenkov published his reminiscences 'Remarkable Decade
1838-1848', in the Vestnik Yevropy, he included in them long extracts from
Marx's letter. In 1883, the year when Marx died, these extracts, translated
into German, were published in Die Neue Zeit and New-Yorker
Volkszeitung.
The original has not been found. The first English translation of this letter
was published in Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Correspondence, 18461895, Martin Lawrence Ltd., London. 1934.
[2]

intermeshing.

[3]

Literally: strong intellect.

Here Marx uses the word 'cacadauphin' by which during the French
Revolution opponents of the absolutist regime derisively described the
mustard-coloured cloth, recalling the colour of the Dauphin's napkins,
made fashionable by Queen Marie Antoinette.
[4]

Parliamentsjuridical institutions which arose in France in the Middle

Ages. They enjoyed the right to remonstrate government decrees. In the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries their members were officials of high
birth called noblesse de robe (the nobility of the mantle). The parliaments,
which finally became the bulwark of feudal opposition to absolutism and
impeded the implementation of even moderate reforms, were abolished in
1790, during the French Revolution.
[5]

[6]

the anger of an upright man.

[7]

The German Ideology

Friday, April 22, 2005

ENGELS WAS CONTEMPTUOUS OF "NIGGERS"

Letter from Engels to Marx, October 2, 1866: "I have arrived at the conviction that there is nothing to his [Tremaux's] theory if for no other reason than because he neither understands geology nor is capable of the most ordinary literary historical criticism. One could laugh oneself sick about his stories of
the nigger Santa Maria and of the transmutations of the whites into Negroes. Especially, that the traditions of the Senegal niggers deserve absolute credulity, just because the rascals cannot write! . . . Perhaps this man will prove in the second volume, how he explains the fact, that we Rhinelanders have not
long ago turned into idiots and niggers on our own Devonian Transition rocks . . . Or perhaps he will maintain that we are real niggers."
(Not fully online. Source: Quoted by Diane Paul, "'In the Interests of Civilization': Marxist Views of Race and Culture in the Nineteenth Century", Journal of the History of Ideas, Jan-March 1981, p 123. [Werke, Vol. 31, p 256.])
Note that Engels uses both the neutral term "negroes" and the derogatory "nigger". So he clearly knew what the different implications of the two terms were. "Nigger" was not as verboten in the 19th century as it is now but it was still derogatory -- and it is presumably because of that aspect of the word
that both Marx and Engels used what is after all an English word in their German writings.
To undersrtand what Engels was talking about, one needs to realize that both Marx and Engels were Lamarckians -- they believed that acquired characteristics could be inherited. That fact is no doubt part of the reason why Stalin so heavily sponsored the ideas of the Lamarckian Trofim Lysenko right into
the 20th century -- long after Lamarckian theories had been generally discredited in the West. And the particular strand of Lamarckian thinking that appealed most strongly to both Marx and Engels was that the type of soil and landscape in which a nation grew up could influence their national character. Just
what the relationship between geology and national characteristics was, however, they did not fully agree. The following commentary on the matter may also be helpful:

To cite one final anecdote, the scholarly literature frequently cites Marx's great enthusiasm (until the more scientifically savvy Engels set him straight) for a curious book, published in 1865 by the now (and deservedly) unknown French explorer and ethnologist Pierre Tremaux, Origine et transformations de
l'homme et des autres etres(Origin and transformation of man and other beings). Marx professed ardent admiration for this work, proclaiming it "einen Fortschritt uber Darwin" (an advance over Darwin). The more sober Engels bought the book at Marx's urging, but then dampened his friend's ardor by
writing: "I have arrived at the conclusion that there is nothing to his theory if for no other reason than because he neither understands geology nor is capable of the most ordinary literary historical criticism."
I had long been curious about Tremaux and sought a copy of his book for many years. I finally purchased one a few years ago--and I must say that I have never read a more absurd or more poorly documented thesis. Basically, Tremaux argues that the nature of the soil determines national characteristics
and that higher civilizations tend to arise on more complex soils formed in later geological periods. If Marx really believed that such unsupported nonsense could exceed the Origin of Species in importance, then he could not have properly understood or appreciated the power of Darwin's facts and ideas.
More here
A DARWINIAN GENTLEMAN AT MARX'S FUNERAL
The odd friendship of an evolutionist and a revolutionist
By Stephen Jay Gould

What could possibly be deemed incongruous on a shelf of Victorian bric-a-brac, the ultimate anglophone symbol for miscellany? What, to illustrate the same principle on a larger scale, could possibly seem out of place in London's Highgate Cemetery--the world's most fantastic funerary park of overgrown
vegetation and overblown statuary, once described as a "Victorian Valhalla . . . a maze of rising terraces, winding paths, tombs and catacombs . . . a monument to the Victorian age and to the Victorian attitude to death . . . containing some of the most celebrated--and often most eccentric--funerary
architecture to be found anywhere" (from Highgate Cemetery, by Felix Barker and John Gay, published in 1984 by John Murray in London, the same firm that printed Darwin's major books--score one for British continuity!)?
Highgate holds an unparalleled variety of mortal remains from Victoria's era--from eminent scientists like Michael Faraday to literary figures like George Eliot, premier pundits like Herbert Spencer, and idols of popular culture like Tom Sayers (one of the last champions of bare-knuckle boxing), to the
poignancy of ordinary folks who died too young, like the Hampstead girl "who was burned to death when her dress caught fire" or "Little Jack," described as "a boy missionary," who died at age seven on the shores of Lake Tanganyika in 1899.
But one monument in Highgate Cemetery might seem conspicuously out of place, at least to people who have forgotten an odd fact from their high school course in European history. The grave of Karl Marx stands almost adjacent to the tomb of his rival and an arch opponent of all state intervention (even
for streetlights and sewers), Herbert Spencer. The apparent anomaly only becomes exacerbated by the maximal height of Marx's monument, capped by an outsize bust. (Marx had originally been buried in an inconspicuous spot adorned by a humble marker, but visitors complained that they could not find
the site, so in 1954, with funds raised by the British Communist Party, Marx's bones reached higher and more conspicuous ground.) To highlight the peculiarity of his presence, this monument, until the past few years at least, attracted a constant stream of dour, identically suited groups of Russian or
Chinese pilgrims, all snapping their cameras or laying their "fraternal" wreaths.
Marx's monument may be out of scale, but his presence could not be more appropriate. Marx lived most of his life in London, following exile from Belgium, Germany, and France for his activity in the Revolutions of 1848 (and for general political troublemaking: he and Friedrich Engels had just published the
Communist Manifesto). He arrived in London in August 1848, at age thirty-one, and lived there until his death in 1883. Marx wrote all his mature works as an expatriate in England, where the great (and free) library of the British Museum served as his research base for Das Kapital.
Let me now introduce another anomaly, not so easily resolved this time, about the death of Karl Marx in London. This item, in fact, ranks as my all-time favorite, niggling little incongruity from the history of my profession of evolutionary biology. I have been living with this bothersome fact for twenty-five
years, and I pledged long ago to offer some resolution before ending this series of essays at the millennium. I think that I now have the basic answer, and not a moment too soon. Let us, then, return to Highgate Cemetery and to Karl Marx's burial on March 17, 1883.
Engels, Marx's lifelong friend and collaborator (also his financial "angel," thanks to a textile business in Manchester), described the short and modest proceedings (see Philip S. Foner, editor, Karl Marx Remembered: Comments at the Time of His Death, San Francisco: Synthesis Publications, 1983). Engels
himself gave a brief speech in English that included the following widely quoted comment: "Just as Darwin discovered the law of evolution in organic nature, so Marx discovered the law of evolution in human history." Contemporary reports vary somewhat, but the most generous count places only nine
mourners at the graveside--a disconnect between immediate notice and later influence exceeded only, perhaps, by Mozart's burial in a pauper's grave (I exclude, of course, famous men like Giordano Bruno and Antoine-Laurent Lavoisier, executed by state power and therefore officially denied any funerary
rites).
The list, not even a minyan in extent, makes sense (with one exception): Engels himself; Marx's daughter Eleanor (his wife and another daughter had died recently, thus increasing Marx's depression and probably hastening his death); his two French socialist sons-in-law, Charles Longuet and Paul Lafargue;
and four nonrelatives with longstanding ties to Marx and impeccable socialist and activist credentials--Wilhelm Liebknecht, a founder and leader of the German Social-Democratic Party (who gave a rousing speech in German, which, together with Engels's English oration, a short statement in French by
Longuet, and the reading of two telegrams from workers' parties in France and Spain, built the entire program of the burial); Friedrich Lessner, sentenced to three years in prison at the Cologne communist trial of 1852; G. Lochner, described by Engels as "an old member of the Communist League"; and Carl
Schorlemmer, a professor of chemistry in Manchester but also an old communist associate of Marx's and Engels's and a fighter at Baden in the last uprising of the 1848 Revolutions.
But the ninth and last mourner seems to fit about as well as that proverbial snowball in hell or that square peg trying to squeeze into a round hole: E. Ray Lankester (1847-1929), at that time already a prominent young British evolutionary biologist and a leading disciple of Darwin, but later to b ecome--as
Professor Sir E. Ray Lankester, K.C.B. (Knight Commander, Order of the Bath), M.A. (the "earned" degree of Oxford or Cambridge), D.Sc. (a later honorary degree as doctor of science), F.R.S. (Fellow of the Royal Society, the leading honorary academy of British science)--just about the most celebrated, and
the stuffiest, of conventional and socially prominent British scientists. Lankester moved up the academic ladder from exemplary beginnings to a finale of unmatched prominence, serving as professor of zoology at University College London, then as Fullerian professor of physiology at the Royal Institution,
and finally as Linacre professor of comparative anatomy at Oxford University. Lankester then capped his career by serving as director (from 1898 to 1907) of the British Museum (Natural History), the most powerful and prestigious post in his field. Why, in heaven's name, was this exemplar of British
respectability, this basically conservative scientist's scientist, hanging out with a group of old (and mostly German) commun ists at the funeral of a person described by Engels, in his graveside oration, as "the best hated and most calumniated man of his times"?
Even Engels seemed to sense the anomaly, for he ended his official report of the funeral, published in Der Sozial-demokrat of Zurich on March 22, 1883, by writing: "The natural sciences were represented by two celebrities of the first rank, the zoology Professor Ray Lankester and the chemistry Professor
Schorlemmer, both members of the Royal Society of London." Yes, but Schorlemmer was a countryman, a lifelong associate, and a political ally. Lan-kester did not meet Marx until 1880 and could not, by any stretch of the imagination, be called a political supporter or even a symp athizer (beyond a very
general shared belief in human improvement through education and social progress). As I shall discuss in detail later in this essay, Marx first sought Lankester's advice in recommending a doctor for his ailing wife and daughter, and later for himself. This professional connection evidently developed into a firm
friendship. But what could have drawn these maximally disparate people together?
We certainly cannot seek the primary cause for warm sympathy in any radical cast to Lankester's biological work that might have matched the tenor of Marx's efforts in political science. Lankester may rank as the best evolutionary morphologist in the first generation following Darwin's epochal discovery.
T.H. Huxley became Lankester's guide and mentor, while Darwin certainly thought well of his research, writing to Lankester (then a young man of twenty-five) on April 15, 1872: "What grand work you did at Naples [at the marine research station]! I can clearly see that you will some day become our first
star in Natural History." But Lankester's studies now read as little more than an exemplification and application of Darwin's insights to several specific groups of organisms--a "filling in" that often follows a great theoretical advance and that seems, in retrospect, not overly blessed with originality.
As his most enduring contribution, Lankester proved that the ecologically diverse spiders, scorpions, and horseshoe crabs form a coherent evolutionary group, now called the Chelicerata, within the arthropod phylum. Lankes-ter's research ranged widely from protozoans to mammals. He systematized the
terminology and evolutionary understanding of embryology, and he wrote an important paper on degeneration, showing that Darwin's mechanism of natural selection led only to local adaptation, not to general progress, and that such immediate improvement will often be gained (in many parasites, for
example) by morphological simplification and loss of organs.
In a fair and generous spirit, one might say that Lankester experienced the misfortune of residing in an "in between" generation that had imbibed Darwin's insights for reformulating biology but did not yet possess the primary tool--an understanding of the mechanism of inheritance--so vitally needed for the
next great theoretical step. But people make their own opportunities, and Lankester, by then in his grumpily conservative maturity, professed little use for Mendel's insights upon their rediscovery in the early twentieth century.
In the first biography of Lankester ever published (the document that finally provided me with enough information to write this essay after a gestation period of twenty-five years!), Joseph Lester, with editing and additional material by Peter Bowler, assessed his career in a fair and judicious way (E. Ray
Lankester and the Making of British Biology, British Society for the History of Science, 1995):
Evolutionary morphology was one of the great scientific enterprises of the late nineteenth century. By transmuting the experiences gained by their predecessors in the light of the theory of evolution, morphologists such as Lankester threw new light on the nature of organic structures and created an
overview of the evolutionary relationships that might exist between different forms. . . . Lankester gained an international reputation as a biologist, but his name is largely forgotten today. He came onto the scene just too late to be involved in the great Darwinian debate, and his creative period was over
before the great revolutions of the early twentieth century associated with the advent of Mendelian genetics. He belonged to a generation whose work has been largely dismissed as derivative, a mere filling in of the basic details of how life evolved.
Lankester's conservative stance deepened with the passing years, thus increasing the anomaly of his early friendship with Karl Marx. His imposing figure only enhanced his aura of staid respectability (Lankester stood well over six feet tall, and he became quite stout, in the manner then favored by men of
high station). He spent his years of retirement writing popular articles on natural history for newspapers and collecting them into several successful volumes. But few of these pieces hold up well today, for his writing lacked both the spark and the depth of the great British essayists in natural history: T.H.
Huxley, J.B.S. Haldane, J.S. Huxley, and P.B. Medawar.
As the years wore on, Lankester became ever more stuffy and isolated in his elitist attitudes and fealty to a romanticized vision of a more gracious past. He opposed the vote for women and became increasingly wary of democracy and mass action, writing in 1900: "Ger many did not acquire its admirable
educational system by popular demand. . . . The crowd cannot guide itself, cannot help itself in its blind impotence." He excoriated all "modern" trends in the arts, especially cubism in painting and self-expression (rather than old-fashioned storytelling) in literature. Writing to H.G. Wells in 1919, he stated:
"The rubbish and self-satisfied bosh which pours out now in magazines and novels is astonishing. The authors are so set upon being 'clever,' 'analytical,' and 'up-to-date,' and are really mere prattling infants."
As a senior statesman of science, Lankester kept his earlier relationship with Marx safely hidden. He confessed to his dearest friend and near contemporary, H.G. Wells, that he had known Karl Marx, but he never told the young communist J.B.S. Haldane, whom he befriended late in life and admired greatly.
When, upon the fiftieth anniversary of the Highgate burial, the Marx-Engels Institute of Moscow tried to obtain reminiscences from all those who had known Karl Marx, Lankester, by then the only living witness of Marx's funeral, replied curtly that he had no letters and would offer no p ersonal comments.
Needless to say, neither the fate of the world nor the continued progress of evolutionary biology depend to the slightest perceptible degree upon a resolution of this strange affinity between two such different people. But little puzzles gnaw at the soul of any scholar, and answers to small problems sometimes
lead to larger insights rooted in the principles utilized for explanation. I believe that I have developed a solution, satisfactory (at least) for the dissolution of my own former puzzlement. But, surprisingly to me, no decisive fact emerged from the literature in which I finally found enough information to write
this essay--the recent Lankester biography mentioned above and two excellent articles on the relationship of Marx and Lankester: "The friendship of Edwin Ray Lankester and Karl Marx," by Lewis S. Feuer (Journal of the History of Ideas 40, 1979) and "Marx's Darwinism: a historical note," by Diane B. Paul
(Socialist Review 13, 1983). Rather, my proposed solution invokes a principle that may seem disappointing and entirely uninteresting at first but that may embody a generality worth discussing, particularly for the analysis of historical sequences--a common form of inquiry in both human biography and
evolutionary biology. In short, I finally realized I had been asking the wrong question all along.
A conventional solution would try to dissolve the anomaly by arguing that Marx and Lankester shared far more similarity in belief or personality than appearances would indicate, or at least that each man hoped to gain something direct and practical from the relationship. But I do not think that this ordinary
form of argument can possibly prevail in this case.
To be sure, Lankester maintained a highly complex and, in some important ways, almost secretive personality beneath his aura of establishment respectability. But he displayed no tendencies at all to radicalism in politics, and he surely experienced no Marxist phase in what he might later have regarded as
the folly of youth. But Lankester did manifest a fierce independence of spirit, a kind of dumb courage in the great individualistic British tradition of "I'll do as I see fit, and bugger you or the consequences"--an attitude that inevitably attracted all manner of personal trouble but that also might have led
Lankester to seek interesting friendships that more timid or opportunistic colleagues would have shunned.
Despite his basically conservative views in matters of biological theory, Lankester was a scrappy fighter by nature, an indomitable contrarian who relished professional debate and never shunned acrimonious controversy. In a remarkable letter, his mentor T.H. Huxley, perhaps the most famous contrarian in
the history of British biology, warned his protege about the dangers of sapping time and strength in unnecessary conflict, particularly in the calmer times that had descended after the triumph of Darwin's revolution. Huxley wrote to Lankester on December 6, 1888:
Seriously, I wish you would let an old man, who has had his share of fighting, remind you that battles, like hypotheses, are not to be multiplied beyond necessity. . . . You have a fair expectation of ripe vigor for twenty years; just think what may be done with that capital. No use to tu quoque ["thou also"-that is, you did it yourself] me. Under the circumstances of the time, warfare has been my business and duty.
To cite the two most public examples of Lankester's dogged defense of science and skepticism, Lankester unmasked the American medium Henry Slade in September 1876. Slade specialized in seances (at high fees), featuring spirits that wrote messages on a slate. Lankester, recognizing Slade's modus
operandi, grabbed the slate from the medium's hands just before the spirits should have begun their ghostly composition. The slate already contained the messages supposedly set for later transmission from a higher realm of being. Lankester then charged Slade with defrauding his clients, and a judge
sentenced him to three months at hard labor. Slade appealed and won on a technicality. Lan-kester then filed a new summons, but Slade decided to pack up and return to a more gullible America. (As an interesting footnote in the history of evolutionary theory, the spiritualistically inclined Alfred Russel
Wallace testified on Slade's behalf, while Darwin, on the opposite side of rational skepticism, quietly contributed funds for Lankester's efforts in prosecution [see Richard Milner, "Charles Darwin and Associates, Ghostbusters," Scientific American, October 1996].)
Three years later, in the summer of 1879, Lankester visited the laboratory of the great French physician and neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot. To test his theories on the role of electricity and magnetism in anesthesia, Charcot induced insensitivity by telling a patient to hold an electromagnet, energized by a
bichromate battery, in her hand. Charcot then thrust large carpet needles into the patient's affected arm and hand, apparently without causing any pain.
The skeptical Lankester--no doubt remembering the similar and fallacious procedures of Franz Mesmer a century before--suspected psychological suggestion, rather than any physical effect of magnetism, as the cause of anesthesia. When Charcot left the room, Lankester surreptitiously emptied the
chemicals from the battery and replaced the fluid with ordinary water, thus disabling the device. He then urged Charcot to repeat the experiment--with the same result of full anesthesia! Lankester promptly confessed what he had done and fully expected to be booted out of Char cot's lab tout de suite. But
the great French scientist grabbed his hand and exclaimed, "Well done, monsieur," and a close friendship then developed between the two men.
One additional, and more conjectural, matter must be aired as we try to grasp the extent of Lankester's personal unconventionalities (despite his conservative stance in questions of biological theory) for potential insight into his willingness to ignore the social norms of his time. The existing literature
maintains a wall of total silence on this issue, but the pattern seems unmistakable. Lankester remained a bachelor, although he often wrote about his loneliness and his desire for family life. He was twice slated for marriage, but both fiancees broke their engagements for mysterious and unstated reasons. He
took long European vacations nearly every year, nearly always to Paris, where he maintained a clear distance from his professional colleagues. Late in life, Lankester became an intimate platonic friend and admirer of the great ballerina Anna Pavlova. I can offer no proof, but if these events don't point
toward the love that may now be freely discussed but then dared not speak its name (to paraphrase the one great line written by Oscar Wilde's paramour, Lord Alfred Douglas), well then, Professor Lankester was more mysterious and secretive than even I can imagine.
Still, none of these factors, while they may underscore Lankester's general willingness to engage in contentious and unconventional behavior, can explain any special propensity for friendship with a man like Karl Marx. (In particular, orthodox Marxists have always taken a dim view of personal, particularly
sexual, idiosyncrasy as a self-centered diversion from the social goal of revolution.) Lankester did rail against the social conservatives of his day, particularly against hidebound preachers who opposed evolution and university professors who demanded the standard curriculum of Latin and Greek in
preference to any newfangled study of natural science.
But his reforming spirit centered only upon the advance of science--and his social attitudes, insofar as he discussed such issues at all, never transcended the vague argument that increasing scientific knowledge must liberate the human spirit, thus leading to political reform and e quality of opportunity. Again,
this familiar stance of rational scientific skepticism evoked only the disdain of orthodox Marxists, who viewed this position as a bourgeois escape for decent-minded people who lacked the courage to grapple with the true depth of social problems and the consequent need for political revolution. As Feuer
states in his article on Marx and Lankester: "Philosophically, moreover, Lankester stood firmly among the agnostics, the followers of Thomas Henry Huxley, whose standpoint Engels derided as a 'shamefaced materialism.'"
If Lankester showed so little affinity for Marx's worldview, perhaps we should try the opposite route and ask if Marx had any intellectual or philosophical reason to seek Lankester's company. Again, after debunking some persistent mythology, we can find no evident basis for their friendship.
The mythology centers upon a notorious, if understandable, scholarly error that once suggested far more affinity between Marx and Darwin (or at least a one-way hero worshiping of Darwin by Marx) than corrected evidence can validate. Marx did admire Darwin, and he did send an autog raphed copy of Das
Kapital to the great naturalist; Darwin, in the only recorded contact between the two men, sent a short, polite, and basically contentless letter of thanks. We do know that Darwin (who read German poorly and professed little interest in political science) never spent much time with Marx's magnum opus. All
but the first 105 pages in Darwin's copy of Marx's 822-page book remain uncut (as does the table of contents), and Darwin, contrary to his custom when reading books carefully, made no marginal annotations. In fact, we have no evidence that Darwin ever read a word of Das Kapital.
The legend of greater contact began with one of the few errors ever made by one of the finest scholars of this, or any other, century--Isaiah Berlin, in his 1939 biography of Marx. Based on a dubious inference from Darwin's short letter of thanks to Marx, Berlin concluded that Marx had offered to dedicate
volume 2 of Kapital to Darwin and that Darwin had politely refused.
This tale of Marx's proffered dedication then gained credence when a second letter, ostensibly from Darwin to Marx but addressed only to "Dear Sir," turned up among Marx's papers in the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam. This letter, written on October 13, 1880, does politely decline a
suggested dedication: "I Shd. prefer the Part or Volume not be dedicated to me (though I thank you for the intended honor) as it implies to a certain extent my approval of the general publication, about which I know nothing." This second find seemed to seal Isaiah Berlin's case, and the story achieved
general currency. (To my embarrassment, and as a reminder of how long these essays have been running in Natural History, I repeated the tale in one of my first columns ["Darwin's Delay," December 1974]--subsequently corrected in the reprinted version of my book Ever Since Darwin.)
To shorten a long story, two scholars, working independently and simultaneously in the mid-1970s, discovered the almost comical basis of the error (see Margaret A. Fay, "Did Marx offer to dedicate Capital to Darwin?" Journal of the History of Ideas 39, 1978, and Lewis S. Feuer, "Is the 'Darwin-Marx
correspondence' authentic?" Annals of Science 32, 1975). Marx's daughter Eleanor became the common-law wife of the British socialist Edward Aveling. The couple safeguarded Marx's papers for several years, and the 1880 letter, evidently sent by Darwin to Aveling himself, must have strayed into the
Marxian collection.
Aveling belonged to a group of radical atheists. He sought Darwin's official approval, and status as dedicatee, for a volume he had edited on Darwin's work and his (that is, Aveling's, not necessarily Darwin's) view of its broader social meaning (published in 1881 as The Student's Darwin, volume 2 in the
International Library of Science and Free-thought). Darwin, who understood Aveling's opportunism and cared little for his antireligious militancy, refused with his customary politeness but with no lack of firmness. Darwin ended his letter to Aveling (and not to Marx, who did not treat religion as a primary
subject in Das Kapital) by writing:
It appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against christianity and theism produce hardly any effect on the public; and freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illuminat ion of men's minds which follows from the advance of science. It has, therefore, been always my
object to avoid writing on religion, and I have confined myself to science.
Nonetheless, despite this correction, Marx might still have regarded himself as a disciple of Darwin and might have sought the company of a key Darwinian in the younger generation--a position rendered more plausible by Engels's famous comparison (quoted earlier) in his funerary oration. But this
interpretation must also be rejected. Engels maintained far more interest in the natural sciences than Marx ever did (as best expressed in two books, Anti-Duhring and Dialectics of Nature). Marx, as stated above, certainly admired Darwin as a liberator of knowledge from social prejudice and as a useful ally,
at least by analogy. In a famous letter of 1869, Marx wrote to Engels about Darwin's Origin of Species: "Although it is developed in the crude English style, this is the book which contains the basis in natural history for our view."
But Marx also criticized the social biases in Darwin's formulation, again writing to Engels, and with keen insight:
It is remarkable how Darwin recognizes among beasts and plants his English society with its division of labor, competition, opening up of new markets, 'invention,' and the Malthusian 'struggle for existence.' It is Hobbes's bellum omnium contra omnes [the war of all against all].
Marx remained a committed evolutionist, of course, but his interest in Darwin clearly diminished through the years. An extensive scholarly literature treats this subject, and I think that Margaret Fay speaks for a consensus when she writes (in her previously cited article):
Marx . . . though he was initially excited by the publication of Darwin's Origin . . . developed a much more critical stance toward Darwinism, and in his private correspondence of the 1860s poked gentle fun at Darwin's ideological biases. Marx's Ethnological Notebooks, compiled circa 1879-81, in which Darwin
is cited only once, provide no evidence that he reverted to his earlier enthusiasm.
To cite one final anecdote, the scholarly literature frequently cites Marx's great enthusiasm (until the more scientifically savvy Engels set him straight) for a curious book, published in 1865 by the now (and deservedly) unknown French explorer and ethnologist Pierre Tremaux, Origine et transformations de
l'homme et des autres etres (Origin and transformation of man and other beings). Marx professed ardent admiration for this work, proclaiming it "einen Fortschritt uber Darwin" (an advance over Darwin). The more sober Engels bought the book at Marx's urging, but then dampened his friend's ardor by
writing: "I have arrived at the conclusion that there is nothing to his theory if for no other reason than because he neither understands geology nor is capable of the most ordinary literary historical criticism."

I had long been curious about Tremaux and sought a copy of his book for many years. I finally purchased one a few years ago--and I must say that I have never read a more absurd or more poorly documented thesis. Basically, Tremaux argues that the nature of the soil determines national characteristics
and that higher civilizations tend to arise on more complex soils formed in later geological periods. If Marx really believed that such unsupported nonsense could exceed the Origin of Species in importance, then he could not have properly understood or appreciated the power of Darwin's facts and ideas.
We must therefore conclude that Lan-kester harbored no secret sympathy for Marxism and that Marx sought no Darwinian inspiration in courting Lankester's friendship. Our confusion only deepens: What brought these disparate men together? What kind of bond could have nurtured their friendship? The first
question, at least, can be answered, and may even suggest a route toward resolving the second puzzle--the central conundrum of this essay.
Four short letters from Lankester remain among Marx's papers. (Marx probably wrote to Lankester as well, but no evidence of such reciprocity has surfaced.) These letters clearly indicate that Marx first approached Lankester for medical advice in the treatment of his wife, who was dying, slowly and painfully,
of breast cancer. Lankester suggested that Marx consult his dear friend (and co-conspirator in both the Slade and the Charcot incidents), the physician H.B. Donkin. Marx took Lankester's advice and proclaimed himself well satisfied with the result, as Donkin, whom Marx described as "a bright and intelligent
man," cared, with great sensitivity, both for Marx's wife and then for Marx himself in their final illnesses.
We do not know for sure how Marx and Lankester first met, but Lewis Feuer develops an eminently plausible hypothesis in his p reviously cited article--one, moreover, that may finally lead us to understand the basis of this maximally incongruous pairing. The intermediary may well have been Charles
Waldstein, born in New York in 1856, the son of a German Jewish immigrant. Waldstein, who later served as professor of classical archaeology at Cambridge, knew Lan-kester well when they both lived in London during the late 1870s. Waldstein became an intimate friend of Karl Marx, an experience he
remembered warmly in an autobiographical work written in 1917 (when he had attained eminence and respectability under the slightly but portentously altered name of Sir Charles Walston):
In my young days, when I was little more than a boy, about 1877, the eminent Russian legal and political writer . . . Professor Kovalevsky, whom I had met at one of G.H. Lewes and George Eliot's Sunday afternoon parties in London, had introduced me to Karl Marx, then living in Hampstead. I had seen
very much of this founder of modern theoretic socialism, as well as of his most refined wife; and, though he had never succeeded in persuading me to adopt socialist views, we often discussed the most varied topics of politics, science, literature, and art. Besides learning much from this great man, who was
a mine of deep and accurate knowledge in every sphere, I learnt to hold him in high respect and to love the purity, gentleness, and refinement of his big heart. He seemed to find so much pleasure in the mere freshness of my youthful enthusiasm and took so great an interest in my own life and welfare, that
one day he proposed that we should become Dutz-freunde.
The last comment is particularly revealing. Modern English has lost its previous distinction between intimate and formal identification ("thou" versus "you"), a difference that remains crucially important--a matter not to be taken lightly--in most European languages. In German, Dutz-freunde address each
other with the intimate Du, rather than the formal Sie (just as the verb tutoyer, in French, means literally to use the intimate tu rather than the formal vous). In both nations, especially in the far more conservative social modes of nineteenth-century life, permission to switch from formal to intimate address
marked a rare and precious privilege, reserved only for one's family, one's God, one's pets, and one's absolutely dearest friends. If an older and established intellectual like Marx suggested such a change of address to a young man in his early twenties, he must have felt especially close to Charles Waldstein.
Lankester's first letter to Marx, written on September 19, 1880, mentions Waldstein, thus supporting Feuer's conjecture: "I shall be very glad to see you. . . . I had been intendin g to return to you the book you kindly lent to me--but had mislaid your address and could not hear from Waldstein who is away
from England." Lankester and Waldstein remained close friends throughout their lives. Waldstein's son responded to Feuer's inquiry about his father's relationship with Lankester by writing, in 1978, that he retained a clear childhood memory of "Ray Lankester . . . coming to dinner from time to time at my
home--a very fat man with a face like a frog."
Waldstein's memories of Marx as a kind man and a brilliant intellectual mentor suggest an evident solution to the enigma of Marx and Lankester--once we recognize that we had been asking the wrong question all along. No error of historical inquiry can match the anachronistic fallacy of using a known
outcome to misread a past circumstance that could not possibly have been defined or influenced by events yet to occur. When we ask how a basically conservative biologist like Lankester could have respected and valued the company of an aging agitator like Karl Marx, we can hardly help viewing Marx
through the lens of later human catastrophes perpetrated in his name by leaders from Stalin to Pol Pot. Even if we choose to blame Marx, in part, for not foreseeing these possible consequences of his own doctrines, we must still allow that when he died in 1883, these tragedies resided only in an unknowable
future. Karl Marx the man who met Lankester in 1880 must not be confused with Karl Marx the posthumous standard-bearer for some of the worst crimes in human history. We err when we pose E. Ray Lankester, the stout and imposing relic of Victorian and Edwardian biology, with Karl Marx, viewed as the
supposed rationale for Stalin's murderous career--and then wonder how two such different men could inhabit the same room, much less feel warm ties of friendship.
In 1880 Lankester was a young biologist with a broad view of life and intellect, and an independent streak that cared not a fig for conventional notions of political respectability, whatever his own b asically conservative convictions. Lankester, showing a rare range of interests among professional scientists,
also loved art and literature and had developed fluency in both German and French. Moreover, Lankester particularly admired the German system of university education, then a proud model of innovation, especially in contrast with the hidebound classicism of Oxford and Cambridge, the object of
Lankester's greatest scorn and frustration.
Why should Lankester not have enjoyed, even cherished, the attention of such a remarkable intellect (for that he was, whatever you may think of his doctrines and their consequences) as Karl Marx? What could possibly have delighted Lankester more than the friendship of such a brilliant older man, who
knew art, philosophy, and the classics so well and who represented the epitome of German intellectual excellence, the object of Lankester's highest admiration? As for the ill, aging, and severely depressed Karl Marx, what could have brought more solace in the shadow of death than the company of bright,
enthusiastic, optimistic young men in the flower of their intellectual development?
Waldstein's memories clearly capture, in an evocative and moving way, this aspect of Marx's persona in his final days. Many scholars have emphasized this feature of Marx's later life. Diane Paul, for example, states that "Marx had a number of much younger friends. . . . The aging Marx became increasingly
difficult in his personal relationships, easily offended and irritated by the behavior of old friends, but he was a gracious mentor to younger colleagues who sought his advice and support." Seen in the appropriate light of their own time, and not with the anachronistic distortion of later events that we can't
escape but that they couldn't know, Marx and Lankester seem ideally suited, indeed almost destined, for the warm friendship that actually developed.
All historical studies--whether of human biography or of evolutionary lineages in biology--potentially suffer from this "presentist" fallacy. Modern chroniclers know the outcomes that actually unfolded as unpredictable consequences of past events--and historians often, and inappropriately, judge the motives
and actions of their subjects in terms of futures unknowable at the time. Thus, and far too frequently, evolutionists view a small and marginal lineage of pond-dwelling Devonian fishes as higher in the scale of being and destined for success because we know, but only in retrospect, that these organisms
spawned all modern terrestrial vertebrates, including our exalted selves. And we overly honor a peculiar species of African primate as central to the forward thrust of evolution because our unique brand of consciousness arose, by contingent good fortune, from such a precarious stock. And as we Northerners
once reviled Robert E. Lee as a traitor, we now tend to view him, in a more distant and benevolent light, as a man of principle and a great military leader--although neither extreme position can match or explain this fascinating man in his own time.
A little humility toward the luck of our present circumstances might serve us well. A little more fascination for past realities, freed from judgment by outcomes that only we can know, may help us understand our history, the primary source for our present condition. Perhaps we might borrow a famous line
from a broken man who died in sorrow--still a stranger in a strange land, in 1883--but who at least enjoyed the solace of young companions like E. Ray Lankester, a loyal friend who did not shun the funeral of such an unpopular and rejected expatriate.
History reveals patterns and regularities that enhance our potential for understanding. But history also expresses the unpredictable foibles of human passion, ignorance, and dreams of transcendence. We can only understand the meaning of past events in their own terms and circumstances, however

legitimately we may choose to judge the motives and intentions of our forebears. Karl Marx began his most famous historical treatise, his study of Napoleon III's rise to power, by writing: "Men make their own history, but they do not make it just as they please."

Friday,

December 31, 2004

HITLER AND MARX AGREED ABOUT THE JEWS
I have noted previously important ways in which Friedrich Engels had similar views to Hitler. The most spectacular aspect of Nazism, however, was surely its antisemitism. And that had a grounding in Marx himself. The following passage is from Marx but it could just as well have been from Hitler:

"Let us consider the actual, worldly Jew -- not the Sabbath Jew, as Bauer does, but the everyday Jew. Let us not look for the secret of the Jew in his religion, but let us look for the secret of his religion in the real Jew. What is the secular basis of Judaism? Practical need, self-interest. What is the worldly
religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly God? Money. Very well then! Emancipation from huckstering and money, consequently from practical, real Jewry, would be the self-emancipation of our time.... We recognize in Jewry, therefore, a general present-time-oriented anti-social element, an
element which through historical development -- to which in this harmful respect the Jews have zealously contributed -- has been brought to its present high level, at which it must necessarily dissolve itself. In the final analysis, the emancipa tion of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Jewry".
Note that Marx wanted to "emancipate" (free) mankind from Jewry ("Judentum" in Marx's original German), just as Hitler did and that the title of Marx's essay in German was "Zur Judenfrage" -- which is exactly the same expression ("Jewish question") that Hitler used in his famous phrase "Endloesung der
Judenfrage" ("Final solution of the Jewish question"). And when Marx speaks of the end of Jewry by saying that Jewish identity must necessarily "dissolve" itself, the word he uses in German is "aufloesen", which is a close relative of Hitler's word "Endloesung" ("final solution"). So all the most condemned
features of Nazism can be traced back to Marx and Engels. The thinking of Hitler, Marx and Engels differed mainly in emphasis rather than in content. All three were second-rate German intellectuals of their times.
Marx's original German for confirming the translation above is given below:
Zur Judenfrage
"Welches ist der weltliche Grund des Judentums? Das praktische Bedrfnis, der Eigennutz. Welches ist der weltliche Kultus des Juden? Der Schacher. Welches ist sein welt licher Gott? Das Geld. Nun wohl! Die Emanzipation vom Schacher und vom Geld, also vom praktischen, realen Judentum wre die
Selbstemanzipation unsrer Zeit.... Wir erkennen also im Judentum ein allgemeines gegenwrtiges antisoziales Element, welches durch die geschichtliche Entwicklung, an welcher die Juden in dieser schlechten Beziehung eifrig mitgearbeitet, auf seine jetzige Hhe getrieben wurde, auf eine Hhe, auf welcher
es sich notwendig auflsen mu. Die Judenemanzipation in ihrer letzten Bedeutung ist die Emanzipation der Menschheit vom Judentum."
(MEW a.a.O. 1, 372 f.)
Find a translation into English by Marxists here. They do their best to "correct" it.

Works of Karl Marx 1844

On The Jewish Question

Written: Autumn 1843;
First Published: February, 1844 in Deutsch-Franzsische Jahrbcher;
Proofed and Corrected: by Andy Blunden, Matthew Grant and

Matthew Carmody, 2008/9.

See Citizen in the Encyclopedia of Marxism, for an explanation of the

various words for citizen.

I
Bruno Bauer,

The Jewish Question,

Braunschweig, 1843

The German Jews desire emancipation. What kind of emancipation do

they desire? Civic, political emancipation.
Bruno Bauer replies to them: No one in Germany is politically
emancipated. We ourselves are not free. How are we to free you? You
Jews are egoists if you demand a special emancipation for yourselves as
Jews. As Germans, you ought to work for the political emancipation of
Germany, and as human beings, for the emancipation of mankind, and
you should feel the particular kind of your oppression and your shame
not as an exception to the rule, but on the contrary as a confirmation of
the rule.
Or do the Jews demand the same status as Christian subjects of the
state? In that case, they recognize that the Christian state is justified
and they recognize, too, the regime of general oppression. Why should
they disapprove of their special yoke if they approve of the general
yoke? Why should the German be interested in the liberation of the
Jew, if the Jew is not interested in the liberation of the German?
The Christian state knows only privileges. In this state, the Jew has
the privilege of being a Jew. As a Jew, he has rights which the
Christians do not have. Why should he want rights which he does not
have, but which the Christians enjoy?
In wanting to be emancipated from the Christian state, the Jew is
demanding
that
the
Christian
state
should
give
up
its religious prejudice. Does he, the Jew, give up his religious prejudice?
Has he, then, the right to demand that someone else should renounce
his religion?
By its very nature, the Christian state is incapable of emancipating
the Jew; but, adds Bauer, by his very nature the Jew cannot be
emancipated. So long as the state is Christian and the Jew is Jewish, the
one is as incapable of granting emancipation as the other is of receiving
it.

The Christian state can behave towards the Jew only in the way
characteristic of the Christian state that is, by granting privileges, by
permitting the separation of the Jew from the other subjects, but
making him feel the pressure of all the other separate spheres of
society, and feel it all the more intensely because he is
in religious opposition to the dominant religion. But the Jew, too, can
behave towards the state only in a Jewish way that is, by treating it as
something alien to him, by counterposing his imaginary nationality to
the real nationality, by counterposing his illusory law to the real law, by
deeming himself justified in separating himself from mankind, by
abstaining on principle from taking part in the historical movement, by
putting his trust in a future which has nothing in common with the
future of mankind in general, and by seeing himself as a member of the
Jewish people, and the Jewish people as the chosen people.
On what grounds, then, do you Jews want emancipation? On account
of your religion? It is the mortal enemy of the state religion. As citizens?
In Germany, there are no citizens. As human beings? But you are no
more human beings than those to whom you appeal.
Bauer has posed the question of Jewish emancipation in a new form,
after giving a critical analysis of the previous formulations and solutions
of the question. What, he asks, is the nature of the Jew who is to be
emancipated and of the Christian state that is to emancipate him? He
replies by a critique of the Jewish religion, he analyzes
the religious opposition between Judaism and Christianity, he
elucidates the essence of the Christian state and he does all this
audaciously, trenchantly, wittily, and with profundity, in a style of
writing that is as precise as it is pithy and vigorous.
How, then, does Bauer solve the Jewish question? What is the result?
The formulation of a question is its solution. The critique of the Jewish
question is the answer to the Jewish question. The summary, therefore,
is as follows:
We must emancipate ourselves before we can emancipate others.
The most rigid form of the opposition between the Jew and the
Christian is the religious opposition. How is an opposition resolved? By
making it impossible. How is religious opposition made impossible?
By abolishing religion. As soon as Jew and Christian recognize that
their respective religions are no more than different stages in the

development of the human mind, different snake skins cast off

by history, and that man is the snake who sloughed them, the relation
of Jew and Christian is no longer religious but is only a
critical, scientific, and human relation. Science, then, constitutes their
unity. But, contradictions in science are resolved by science itself.
The German Jew, in particular, is confronted by the general absence
of political emancipation and the strongly marked Christian character
of the state. In Bauers conception, however, the Jewish question has a
universal significance, independent of specifically German conditions.
It is the question of the relation of religion to the state, of
the contradiction between religious constraint and political
emancipation. Emancipation from religion is laid down as a condition,
both to the Jew who wants to be emancipated politically, and to the
state which is to effect emancipation and is itself to be emancipated.
Very well, it is said, and the Jew himself says it, the Jew is to become emancipated
not as a Jew, not because he is a Jew, not because he possesses such an excellent,
universally human principle of morality; on the contrary, the Jew will retreat behind
the citizen and be a citizen, although he is a Jew and is to remain a Jew. That is to say,
he is and remains a Jew, although he is a citizen and lives in universally human
conditions: his Jewish and restricted nature triumphs always in the end over his human
and political obligations. The prejudice remains in spite of being outstripped
by general principles. But if it remains, then, on the contrary, it outstrips everything
else.
Only sophistically, only apparently, would the Jew be able to remain a Jew in the life of
the state. Hence, if he wanted to remain a Jew, the mere appearance would become the
essential and would triumph; that is to say, his life in the state would be only a
semblance or only a temporary exception to the essential and the rule. (The Capacity
of Present-Day Jews and Christians to Become Free, Einundzwanzig Bogen, pp. 57)

Let us hear, on the other hand, how Bauer presents the task of the state.
France, he says, has recently shown us (Proceedings of the Chamber of Deputies,
December 26, 1840) in the connection with the Jewish question just as it has
continually done in all other political questions the spectacle of a life which is free, but
which revokes its freedom by law, hence declaring it to be an appearance, and on the
other hand contradicting its free laws by its action. (The Jewish Question, p. 64)
In France, universal freedom is not yet the law, the Jewish question too has not yet
been solved, because legal freedom the fact that all citizens are equal is restricted in
actual life, which is still dominated and divided by religious privileges, and this lack of
freedom in actual life reacts on law and compels the latter to sanction the division of the
citizens, who as such are free, into oppressed and oppressors. (p. 65)

When, therefore, would the Jewish question be solved for France?

The Jew, for example, would have ceased to be a Jew if he did not allow himself to be
prevented by his laws from fulfilling his duty to the state and his fellow citizens, that is,
for example, if on the Sabbath he attended the Chamber of Deputies and took part in the
official proceedings. Every religious privilege, and therefore also the monopoly of a
privileged church, would have been abolished altogether, and if some or many persons,
or even the overwhelming majority, still believed themselves bound to fulfil religious
duties, this fulfilment ought to be left to them as a purely private matter. (p. 65)
There is no longer any religion when there is no longer any privileged religion. Take
from religion its exclusive power and it will no longer exist. (p. 66)
Just as M. Martin du Nord saw the proposal to omit mention of Sunday in the law as a
motion to declare that Christianity has ceased to exist, with equal reason (and this
reason is very well founded) the declaration that the law of the Sabbath is no longer
binding on the Jew would be a proclamation abolishing Judaism. (p. 71)

Bauer, therefore, demands, on the one hand, that the Jew should
renounce Judaism, and that mankind in general should renounce
religion, in order to achieve civic emancipation. On the other hand, he
quite consistently regards the political abolition of religion as the
abolition of religion as such. The state which presupposes religion is not
yet a true, real state.
Of course, the religious notion affords security to the state. But to what state? To what
kind of state? (p. 97)

At this point, the one-sided formulation of the Jewish question becomes

evident.
It was by no means sufficient to investigate: Who is to emancipate?
Who is to be emancipated? Criticism had to investigate a third point. It
had to inquire: What kind of emancipation is in question? What
conditions follow from the very nature of the emancipation that is
demanded? Only the criticism of political emancipation itself would
have been the conclusive criticism of the Jewish question and its real
merging in the general question of time.
Because Bauer does not raise the question to this level, he becomes
entangled in contradictions. He puts forward conditions which are not
based on the nature of political emancipation itself. He raises questions
which are not part of his problem, and he solves problems which leave
this question unanswered. When Bauer says of the opponents of Jewish
emancipation: Their error was only that they assumed the Christian
state to be the only true one and did not subject it to the same criticism
that they applied to Judaism (op. cit., p. 3), we find that his error lies
in the fact that he subjects to criticismonly the Christian state, not the

state as such, that he does not investigate the relation of political

emancipation to human emancipation and, therefore, puts forward
conditions which can be explained only by uncritical confusion of
political emancipation with general human emancipation. If Bauer asks
the Jews: Have you, from your standpoint, the right to want political
emancipation? We ask the converse question: Does the standpoint
ofpolitical emancipation give the right to demand from the Jew the
abolition of Judaism and from man the abolition of religion?
The Jewish question acquires a different form depending on the state
in which the Jew lives. In Germany, where there is no political state, no
state as such, the Jewish question is a purely theological one. The Jew
finds himself in religious opposition to the state, which recognizes
Christianity as its basis. This state is a theologian ex professo. Criticism
here is criticism of theology, a double-edged criticism criticism of
Christian theology and of Jewish theology. Hence, we continue to
operate in the sphere of theology, however much we may
operate critically within it.
In France, a constitutional state, the Jewish question is a question of
constitutionalism, the question of the incompleteness of political
emancipation. Since the semblance of a state religion is retained here,
although in a meaningless and self-contradictory formula, that of
a religion of the majority, the relation of the Jew to the state retains
the semblance of a religious, theological opposition.
Only in the North American states at least, in some of them does
the Jewish question lose its theological significance and become a
really secularquestion. Only where the political state exists in its
completely developed form can the relation of the Jew, and of the
religious man in general, to the political state, and therefore the relation
of religion to the state, show itself in its specific character, in its purity.
The criticism of this relation ceases to be theological criticism as soon
as the state ceases to adopt a theological attitude toward religion, as
soon as it behaves towards religion as a state i.e.,politically. Criticism,
then, becomes criticism of the political state. At this point, where the
question ceases to be theological, Bauers criticism ceases to be critical.
In the United States there is neither a state religion nor a religion declared to be that of
the majority, nor the predominance of one cult over another. The state stands aloof
from all cults. (Marie ou lesclavage aux Etats-Unis, etc., by G. de Beaumont, Paris,
1835, p. 214)

Indeed, there are some North American states where the constitution does not impose
any religious belief or religious practice as a condition of political rights. (op. cit., p.
225)
Nevertheless, in the United States people do not believe that a man without religion
could be an honest man. (op. cit., p. 224)

Nevertheless, North America is pre-eminently the country of religiosity,

as Beaumont, Tocqueville, and the Englishman Hamilton unanimously
assure us. The North American states, however, serve us only as an
example. The question is: What is the relation of complete political
emancipation to religion? If we find that even in the country of
complete political emancipation, religion not only exists, but displays a
fresh and vigorous vitality, that is proof that the existence of religion is
not in contradiction to the perfection of the state. Since, however, the
existence of religion is the existence of defect, the source of this defect
can only be sought in the nature of the state itself. We no longer regard
religion as the cause, but only as the manifestation of secular
narrowness. Therefore, we explain the religious limitations of the free
citizen by their secular limitations. We do not assert that they must
overcome their religious narrowness in order to get rid of their secular
restrictions, we assert that they will overcome their religious
narrowness once they get rid of their secular restrictions. We do not
turn secular questions into theological ones. History has long enough
been merged in superstition, we now merge superstition in history. The
question of the relation of political emancipation to religion becomes
for us the question of the relation of political emancipation to human
emancipation. We criticize the religious weakness of the political state
by criticizing the political state in its secular form, apart from its
weaknesses as regards religion. The contradiction between the state and
a particular religion, for instance Judaism, is given by us a human form
as the contradiction between the state and particular secular elements;
the contradiction between the state and religion in general as the
contradiction between the state and its presuppositions in general.
The political emancipation of the Jew, the Christian, and, in general,
of religious man, is the emancipation of the state from Judaism, from
Christianity, from religion in general. In its own form, in the manner
characteristic of its nature, the state as a state emancipates itself from
religion by emancipating itself from the state religion that is to say, by
the state as a state not professing any religion, but, on the contrary,
asserting itself as a state. The politicalemancipation from religion is not
a religious emancipation that has been carried through to completion

and is free from contradiction, because political emancipation is not a

form of human emancipation which has been carried through to
completion and is free from contradiction.
The limits of political emancipation are evident at once from the fact
that the state can free itself from a restriction without man being really
free from this restriction, that the state can be a free state [pun on word
Freistaat, which also means republic] without man being a free man. Bauer
himself tacitly admits this when he lays down the following condition
for political emancipation:
Every religious privilege, and therefore also the monopoly of a privileged church, would
have been abolished altogether, and if some or many persons, or even the overwhelming
majority, still believed themselves bound to fulfil religious duties, this fulfilment ought
to be left to them as a purely private matter. [The Jewish Question, p. 65]

It is possible, therefore, for the state to have emancipated itself from

religion even if the overwhelming majority is still religious. And the
overwhelming majority does not cease to be religious through being
religious in private.
But, the attitude of the state, and of the republic [free state] in
particular, to religion is, after all, only the attitude to religion of
the men who compose the state. It follows from this that man frees
himself through the medium of the state, that he frees
himself politically from a limitation when, in contradiction with
himself, he raises himself above this limitation in an abstract, limited,
and partial way. It follows further that, by freeing himself politically,
man frees himself in a roundabout way, through an intermediary,
although an essential intermediary. It follows, finally, that man, even if
he proclaims himself an atheist through the medium of the state that
is, if he proclaims the state to be atheist still remains in the grip of
religion, precisely because he acknowledges himself only by a
roundabout route, only through an intermediary. Religion is precisely
the recognition of man in a roundabout way, through an intermediary.
The state is the intermediary between man and mans freedom. Just as
Christ is the intermediary to whom man transfers the burden of all his
divinity, all his religious constraint, so the state is the intermediary to
whom man transfers all his non-divinity and all his human
unconstraint.
The political elevation of man above religion shares all the defects
and all the advantages of political elevation in general. The state as a

state annuls, for instance, private property, man declares by political

means that private property is abolished as soon as the property
qualification for the right to elect or be elected is abolished, as has
occurred in many states of North America. Hamilton quite correctly
interprets this fact from a political point of view as meaning:
the masses have won a victory over the property owners and financial wealth.
[Thomas Hamilton, Men and Manners in America, 2 vols, Edinburgh, 1833, p. 146]

Is not private property abolished in idea if the non-property owner has

become the legislator for the property owner? The property
qualification for the suffrage is the last political form of giving
recognition to private property.
Nevertheless, the political annulment of private property not only
fails to abolish private property but even presupposes it. The state
abolishes, in its own way, distinctions of birth, social rank, education,
occupation, when it declares that birth, social rank, education,
occupation, are non-political distinctions, when it proclaims, without
regard to these distinction, that every member of the nation is
an equal participant in national sovereignty, when it treats all elements
of the real life of the nation from the standpoint of the state.
Nevertheless, the state allows private property, education, occupation,
to act in theirway i.e., as private property, as education, as
occupation, and to exert the influence of their special nature. Far from
abolishing these real distinctions, the state only exists on the
presupposition of their existence; it feels itself to be a political state and
asserts its universality only in opposition to these elements of its being.
Hegel, therefore, defines the relation of the political state to religion
quite correctly when he says:
In order [...] that the state should come into existence as the self-knowing, moral
reality of the mind, its distraction from the form of authority and faith is essential. But
this distinction emerges only insofar as the ecclesiastical aspect arrives at a separation
within itself. It is only in this way that the state, above the particular churches, has
achieved and brought into existence universality of thought, which is the principle of its
form (Hegels Philosophy of Right, 1st edition, p. 346).

Of course! Only in this way, above the particular elements, does the
state constitute itself as universality.
The perfect political state is, by its nature, mans species-life, as
opposed to his material life. All the preconditions of this egoistic life
continue to exist incivil society outside the sphere of the state, but as

qualities of civil society. Where the political state has attained its true
development, man not only in thought, in consciousness, but in
reality, in life leads a twofold life, a heavenly and an earthly life: life in
the political community, in which he considers himself a communal
being, and life in civil society, in which he acts as a private individual,
regards other men as a means, degrades himself into a means, and
becomes the plaything of alien powers. The relation of the political state
to civil society is just as spiritual as the relations of heaven to earth. The
political state stands in the same opposition to civil society, and it
prevails over the latter in the same way as religion prevails over the
narrowness of the secular world i.e., by likewise having always to
acknowledge it, to restore it, and allow itself to be dominated by it. In
his most immediate reality, in civil society, man is a secular being. Here,
where he regards himself as a real individual, and is so regarded by
others, he is a fictitious phenomenon. In the state, on the other hand,
where man is regarded as a species-being, he is the imaginary member
of an illusory sovereignty, is deprived of his real individual life and
endowed with an unreal universality.
Man, as the adherent of a particular religion, finds himself in conflict
with his citizenship and with other men as members of the community.
This conflict reduces itself to the secular division between
the political state and civil society. For man as a bourgeois [i.e., as a
member of civil society, bourgeois society in German], life in the state is only
a semblance or a temporary exception to the essential and the rule. Of
course, the bourgeois, like the Jew, remains only sophistically in the
sphere of political life, just as the citoyen [citizen in French, i.e., the
participant in political life] only sophistically remains a Jew or a bourgeois.
But, this sophistry is not personal. It is the sophistry of the political
state itself. The difference between the merchant and the
citizen[Staatsbrger], between the day-laborer and the citizen, between
the landowner and the citizen, between the merchant and the citizen,
between the living individual and the citizen. The contradiction in
which the religious man finds himself with the political man is the same
contradiction in which the bourgeois finds himself with the citoyen, and
the member of civil society with his political lions skin.
This secular conflict, to which the Jewish question ultimately reduces
itself, the relation between the political state and its preconditions,
whether these are material elements, such as private property, etc., or
spiritual elements, such as culture or religion, the conflict between the
general interest and private interest, the schism between the political

state and civil society these secular antitheses Bauer allows to persist,
whereas he conducts a polemic against their religious expression.
It is precisely the basis of civil society, the need that ensures the continuance of this
society and guarantees its necessity, which exposes its existence to continual dangers,
maintains in it an element of uncertainty, and produces that continually changing
mixture of poverty and riches, of distress and prosperity, and brings about change in
general. (p. 8)

Compare the whole section: Civil Society (pp. 8-9), which has been
drawn up along the basic lines of Hegels philosophy of law. Civil
society, in its opposition to the political state, is recognized as
necessary, because the political state is recognized as necessary.
Political emancipation is, of course, a big step forward. True, it is not
the final form of human emancipation in general, but it is the final form
of human emancipation within the hitherto existing world order. It goes
without saying that we are speaking here of real, practical
emancipation.
Man emancipates himself politically from religion by banishing it
from the sphere of public law to that of private law. Religion is no
longer the spirit of the state, in which man behaves although in a
limited way, in a particular form, and in a particular sphere as a
species-being, in community with other men. Religion has become the
spirit of civil society, of the sphere of egoism, of bellum omnium contra
omnes. It is no longer the essence of community, but the essence
of difference. It has become the expression of mans separation from
his community, from himself and from other men as it was originally.
It is only the abstract avowal of specific perversity, private whimsy, and
arbitrariness. The endless fragmentation of religion in North America,
for example, gives it even externally the form of a purely individual
affair. It has been thrust among the multitude of private interests and
ejected from the community as such. But one should be under no
illusion about the limits of political emancipation. The division of the
human being into a public man and a private man, the displacement of
religion from the state into civil society, this is not a stage of political
emancipation but its completion; this emancipation, therefore, neither
abolished the real religiousness of man, nor strives to do so.
The decomposition of man into Jew and citizen, Protestant and
citizen, religious man and citizen, is neither a deception
directed against citizenhood, nor is it a circumvention of political

emancipation, it is political emancipation itself, the political method of

emancipating oneself from religion. Of course, in periods when the
political state as such is born violently out of civil society, when political
liberation is the form in which men strive to achieve their liberation, the
state can and must go as far as the abolition of religion,
the destruction of religion. But it can do so only in the same way that it
proceeds to the abolition of private property, to the maximum, to
confiscation, to progressive taxation, just as it goes as far as the
abolition of life, the guillotine. At times of special self-confidence,
political life seeks to suppress its prerequisite, civil society and the
elements composing this society, and to constitute itself as the real
species-life of man, devoid of contradictions. But, it can achieve this
only by coming into violent contradiction with its own conditions of life,
only by declaring the revolution to be permanent, and, therefore, the
political drama necessarily ends with the re-establishment of religion,
private property, and all elements of civil society, just as war ends with
peace.
Indeed, the perfect Christian state is not the so-called Christian state
which acknowledges Christianity as its basis, as the state religion,
and, therefore, adopts an exclusive attitude towards other religions. On
the contrary, the perfect Christian state is the atheistic state,
the democratic state, the state which relegates religion to a place among
the other elements of civil society. The state which is still theological,
which still officially professes Christianity as its creed, which still does
not dare to proclaim itself as a state, has, in its reality as a state, not yet
succeeded in expressing the human basis of which Christianity is the
high-flown expression in a secular, human form. The so-called
Christian state is simply nothing more than a non-state, since it is not
Christianity as a religion, but only the human background of the
Christian religion, which can find its expression in actual human
creations.
The so-called Christian state is the Christian negation of the state, but
by no means the political realization of Christianity. The state which
still professes Christianity in the form of religion, does not yet profess it
in the form appropriate to the state, for it still has a religious attitude
towards religion that is to say, it is not the true implementation of the
human basis of religion, because it still relies on the unreal,
imaginary form of this human core. The so-called Christian state is
the imperfect state, and the Christian religion is regarded by it as
the supplementation and sanctification of its imperfection. For the

Christian state, therefore, religion necessarily becomes a means; hence,

it is a hypocritical state. It makes a great difference whether
the complete state, because of the defect inherent in the
general nature of the state, counts religion among its presuppositions,
or whether the incomplete state, because of the defect inherent in
its particular existence as a defective state, declares that religion is its
basis. In the latter case, religion becomes imperfect politics. In the
former case, the imperfection even of consummate politics becomes
evident in religion. The so-called Christian state needs the Christian
religion in order to complete itself as a state. The democratic state, the
real state, does not need religion for its political completion. On the
contrary, it can disregard religion because in it the human basis of
religion is realized in a secular manner. The so-called Christian state, on
the other hand, has a political attitude to religion and a religious
attitude to politics. By degrading the forms of the state to mere
semblance, it equally degrades religion to mere semblance.
In order to make this contradiction clearer, let us consider Bauers
projection of the Christian state, a projection based on his observation
of the Christian-German state.
Recently, says Bauer, in order to prove the impossibility or non-existence of a
Christian state, reference has frequently been made to those sayings in the Gospel with
which the [present-day] state not only does not comply, but cannot possibly comply, if
it does not want to dissolve itself completely [as a state]. But the matter cannot be
disposed of so easily. What do these Gospel sayings demand? Supernatural renunciation
of self, submission to the authority of revelation, a turning-away from the state, the
abolition of secular conditions. Well, the Christian state demands and accomplishes all
that. It has assimilated thespirit of the Gospel, and if it does not reproduce this spirit in
the same terms as the Gospel, that occurs only because it expresses this spirit in political
forms, i.e., in forms which, it is true, are taken from the political system in this world,
but which in the religious rebirth that they have to undergo become degraded to a mere
semblance. This is a turning-away from the state while making use of political forms for
its realization. (p. 55)

Bauer then explains that the people of a Christian state is only a nonpeople, no longer having a will of its own, but whose true existence lies
in the leader to whom it is subjected, although this leader by his origin
and nature is alien to it i.e., given by God and imposed on the people
without any co-operation on its part. Bauer declares that the laws of
such a people are not its own creation, but are actual revelations, that
its supreme chief needs privileged intermediaries with the people in the
strict sense, with the masses, and that the masses themselves are
divided into a multitude of particular groupings which are formed and
determined by chance, which are differentiated by their interests, their

particular passions and prejudices, and obtain permission as a

privilege, to isolate themselves from one another, etc. (p. 56)
However, Bauer himself says:
Politics, if it is to be nothing but religion, ought not to be politics, just as the cleaning of
saucepans, if it is to be accepted as a religious matter, ought not to be regarded as a
matter of domestic economy. (p. 108)

In the Christian-German state, however, religion is an economic

matter just as economic matters belong to the sphere of religion. The
domination of religion in the Christian-German state is the religion of
domination.
The separation of the spirit of the Gospel from the letter of the
Gospel is an irreligious act. A state which makes the Gospel speak in
the language of politics that is, in another language than that of the
Holy Ghost commits sacrilege, if not in human eyes, then in the eyes
of its own religion. The state which acknowledges Christianity as its
supreme criterion, and the Bible as its Charter, must be confronted
with the words of Holy Scripture, for every word of Scripture is holy.
This state, as well as the human rubbish on which it is based, is caught
in a painful contradiction that is insoluble from the standpoint of
religious consciousness when it is referred to those sayings of the
Gospel with which it not only does not comply, but cannot possibly
comply, if it does not want to dissolve itself completely as a state. And
why does it not want to dissolve itself completely? The state itself
cannot give an answer either to itself or to others. In its own
consciousness, the official Christian state is an imperative, the
realization of which is unattainable, the state can assert the reality of its
existence only by lying to itself, and therefore always remains in its own
eyes an object of doubt, an unreliable, problematic object. Criticism is,
therefore, fully justified in forcing the state that relies on the Bible into
a mental derangement in which it no longer knows whether it is
an illusion or areality, and in which the infamy of its secular aims, for
which religion serves as a cloak, comes into insoluble conflict with the
sincerity of its religiousconsciousness, for which religion appears as the
aim of the world. This state can only save itself from its inner torment if
it becomes the police agent of the Catholic Church. In relation to the
church, which declares the secular power to be its servant, the state is
powerless, the secular power which claims to be the rule of the religious
spirit is powerless.

It is, indeed, estrangement which matters in the so-called Christian

state, but not man. The only man who counts, the king, is a being
specifically different from other men, and is, moreover, a religious
being, directly linked with heaven, with God. The relationships which
prevail here are still relationships dependent of faith. The religious
spirit, therefore, is still not really secularized.
But, furthermore, the religious spirit cannot be really secularized, for
what is it in itself but the non-secular form of a stage in the
development of the human mind? The religious spirit can only be
secularized insofar as the stage of development of the human mind of
which it is the religious expression makes its appearance and becomes
constituted in its secular form. This takes place in the democratic state.
Not Christianity, but the human basis of Christianity is the basis of this
state. Religion remains the ideal, non-secular consciousness of its
members, because religion is the ideal form of the stage of human
development achieved in this state.
The members of the political state are religious owing to the dualism
between individual life and species-life, between the life of civil society
and political life. They are religious because men treat the political life
of the state, an area beyond their real individuality, as if it were their
true life. They are religious insofar as religion here is the spirit of civil
society, expressing the separation and remoteness of man from man.
Political democracy is Christian since in it man, not merely one man but
everyman, ranks as sovereign, as the highest being, but it is man in his
uncivilized, unsocial form, man in his fortuitous existence, man just as
he is, man as he has been corrupted by the whole organization of our
society, who has lost himself, been alienated, and handed over to the
rule of inhuman conditions and elements in short, man who is not yet
a real species-being. That which is a creation of fantasy, a dream, a
postulate of Christianity, i.e., the sovereignty of man but man as an
alien being different from the real man becomes, in democracy,
tangible reality, present existence, and secular principle.
In the perfect democracy, the religious and theological consciousness
itself is in its own eyes the more religious and the more theological
because it is apparently without political significance, without worldly
aims, the concern of a disposition that shuns the world, the expression
of intellectual narrow-mindedness, the product of arbitrariness and
fantasy, and because it is a life that is really of the other world.
Christianity attains, here, the practicalexpression of its universal-

religious significance in that the most diverse world outlooks are

grouped alongside one another in the form of Christianity and still more
because it does not require other people to profess Christianity, but only
religion in general, any kind of religion (cf. Beaumonts work quoted
above). The religious consciousness revels in the wealth of religious
contradictions and religious diversity.
We have, thus, shown that political emancipation from religion leaves
religion in existence, although not a privileged religion. The
contradiction in which the adherent of a particular religion finds
himself involved in relation to his citizenship is only one aspect of the
universal secular contradiction between the political state and civil
society. The consummation of the Christian state is the state which
acknowledges itself as a state and disregards the religion of its
members. The emancipation of the state from religion is not the
emancipation of the real man from religion.
Therefore, we do not say to the Jews, as Bauer does: You cannot be
emancipated politically without emancipating yourselves radically from
Judaism. On the contrary, we tell them: Because you can be
emancipated politically without renouncing Judaism completely and
incontrovertibly, political
emancipation itself
is
not human emancipation. If you Jews want to be emancipated
politically, without emancipating yourselves humanly, the half-hearted
approach and contradiction is not in you alone, it is inherent in
the nature and category of political emancipation. If you find yourself
within the confines of this category, you share in a general confinement.
Just as the state evangelizes when, although it is a state, it adopts a
Christian attitude towards the Jews, so the Jew acts politically when,
although a Jew, he demands civic rights.
[*]
But, if a man, although a Jew, can be emancipated politically and
receive civic rights, can he lay claim to the so-called rights of man and
receive them? Bauer denies it.
The question is whether the Jew as such, that is, the Jew who himself admits that he is
compelled by his true nature to live permanently in separation from other men, is
capable of receiving the universal rights of man and of conceding them to others.
For the Christian world, the idea of the rights of man was only discovered in the last
century. It is not innate in men; on the contrary, it is gained only in a struggle against
the historical traditions in which hitherto man was brought up. Thus the rights of man

are not a gift of nature, not a legacy from past history, but the reward of the struggle
against the accident of birth and against the privileges which up to now have been
handed down by history from generation to generation. These rights are the result of
culture, and only one who has earned and deserved them can possess them.
Can the Jew really take possession of them? As long as he is a Jew, the restricted nature
which makes him a Jew is bound to triumph over the human nature which should link
him as a man with other men, and will separate him from non-Jews. He declares by this
separation that the particular nature which makes him a Jew is his true, highest nature,
before which human nature has to give way.
Similarly, the Christian as a Christian cannot grant the rights of man. (p. 19-20)

According to Bauer, man has to sacrifice the privilege of faith to be

able to receive the universal rights of man. Let us examine, for a
moment, the so-called rights of man to be precise, the rights of man
in their authentic form, in the form which they have among those
who discovered them, the North Americans and the French. These
rights of man are, in part, political rights, rights which can only be
exercised in community with others. Their content isparticipation in
the community, and specifically in the political community, in the life
of the state. They come within the category of political freedom, the
category of civic rights, which, as we have seen, in no way presuppose
the incontrovertible and positive abolition of religion nor, therefore,
of Judaism. There remains to be examined the other part of the rights
of man the droits dhomme, insofar as these differ from the droits
dcitoyen.
Included among them is freedom of conscience, the right to practice
any religion one chooses. The privilege of faith is expressly recognized
either as aright of man or as the consequence of a right of man, that of
liberty.
Dclaration des droits de ldroits et du citoyen, 1791, Article 10:
No one is to be subjected to annoyance because of his opinions,
even religious opinions. The freedom of every man to practice
the religion of which he is an adherent.
Declaration of the Rights of Man, etc., 1793, includes among the
rights of man, Article 7: The free exercise of religion. Indeed, in
regard to mans right to express his thoughts and opinions, to
hold meetings, and to exercise his religion, it is even stated: The
necessity of proclaiming these rights presupposes either the
existence or the recent memory of despotism. Compare the
Constitution of 1795, Section XIV, Article 354.

Constitution of Pennsylvania, Article 9, 3: All men have

received from nature the imprescriptible right to worship the
Almighty according to the dictates of their conscience, and no
one can be legally compelled to follow, establish, or support
against his will any religion or religious ministry. No human
authority can, in any circumstances, intervene in a matter of
conscience or control the forces of the soul.
Constitution of New Hampshire, Article 5 and 6: Among these
natural rights some are by nature inalienable since nothing can
replace them. The rights of conscience are among them.
(Beaumont, op. cit., pp. 213,214)
Incompatibility between religion and the rights of man is to such a
degree absent from the concept of the rights of man that, on the
contrary, a mans right to be religious, in any way he chooses, to
practise his own particular religion, is expressly included among the
rights of man. The privilege of faith is auniversal right of man.
The droits de lhomme, the rights of man, are, as such, distinct from
the droits du citoyen, the rights of the citizen. Who is homme as distinct
fromcitoyen? None other than the member of civil society. Why is the
member of civil society called man, simply man; why are his rights
called the rights of man? How is this fact to be explained? From the
relationship between the political state and civil society, from the
nature of political emancipation.
Above all, we note the fact that the so-called rights of man, the droits
de lhomme as distinct from the droits du citoyen, are nothing but the
rights of amember of civil society i.e., the rights of egoistic man, of
man separated from other men and from the community. Let us hear
what the most radical Constitution, the Constitution of 1793, has to say:
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.
Article 2. These rights, etc., (the natural and imprescriptible
rights) are: equality, liberty, security, property.
What constitutes liberty?
Article 6. Liberty is the power which man has to do everything
that does not harm the rights of others, or, according to

theDeclaration of the Rights of Man of 1791: Liberty consists in

being able to do everything which does not harm others.
Liberty, therefore, is the right to do everything that harms no one
else. The limits within which anyone can act without harming someone
else are defined by law, just as the boundary between two fields is
determined by a boundary post. It is a question of the liberty of man as
an isolated monad, withdrawn into himself. Why is the Jew, according
to Bauer, incapable of acquiring the rights of man?
As long as he is a Jew, the restricted nature which makes him a Jew is bound to
triumph over the human nature which should link him as a man with other men, and
will separate him from non-Jews.

But, the right of man to liberty is based not on the association of man
with man, but on the separation of man from man. It is the right of this
separation, the right of the restricted individual, withdrawn into
himself.
The practical application of mans right to liberty is mans right
to private property.
What constitutes mans right to private property?
Article 16. (Constitution of 1793): The right of property is that which every citizen has
of enjoying and of disposing at his discretion of his goods and income, of the fruits of his
labor and industry.

The right of man to private property is, therefore, the right to enjoy
ones property and to dispose of it at ones discretion ( son gr),
without regard to other men, independently of society, the right of selfinterest. This individual liberty and its application form the basis of civil
society. It makes every man see in other men not the realization of his
own freedom, but the barrier to it. But, above all, it proclaims the right
of man
of enjoying and of disposing at his discretion of his goods and
income, of the fruits of his labor and industry.
There remain the other rights of man: galit and sret.
Equality, used here in its non-political sense, is nothing but the
equality of the libert described above namely: each man is to the
same extent regarded as such a self-sufficient monad. The Constitution

of 1795 defines the concept of this equality, in accordance with this

significance, as follows:
Article 3 (Constitution of 1795): Equality consists in the law
being the same for all, whether it protects or punishes.
And security?
Article 8 (Constitution of 1793): Security consists in the protection afforded by society
to each of its members for the preservation of his person, his rights, and his property.

Security is the highest social concept of civil society, the concept

of police, expressing the fact that the whole of society exists only in
order to guarantee to each of its members the preservation of his
person, his rights, and his property. It is in this sense that Hegel calls
civil society the state of need and reason.
The concept of security does not raise civil society above its egoism.
On the contrary, security is the insurance of egoism.
None of the so-called rights of man, therefore, go beyond egoistic
man, beyond man as a member of civil society that is, an individual
withdrawn into himself, into the confines of his private interests and
private caprice, and separated from the community. In the rights of
man, he is far from being conceived as a species-being; on the contrary,
species-life itself, society, appears as a framework external to the
individuals, as a restriction of their original independence. The sole
bond holding them together is natural necessity, need and private
interest, the preservation of their property and their egoistic selves.
It is puzzling enough that a people which is just beginning to liberate
itself, to tear down all the barriers between its various sections, and to
establish a political community, that such a people solemnly proclaims
(Declaration of 1791) the rights of egoistic man separated from his
fellow men and from the community, and that indeed it repeats this
proclamation at a moment when only the most heroic devotion can save
the nation, and is therefore imperatively called for, at a moment when
the sacrifice of all the interest of civil society must be the order of the
day, and egoism must be punished as a crime. (Declaration of the
Rights of Man, etc., of 1793) This fact becomes still more puzzling when
we see that the political emancipators go so far as to reduce citizenship,
and the political community, to a mere means for maintaining these socalled rights of man, that, therefore, the citoyen is declared to be the

servant of egotistic homme, that the sphere in which man acts as a

communal being is degraded to a level below the sphere in which he
acts as a partial being, and that, finally, it is not man as citoyen, but
man as private individual [bourgeois] who is considered to be
the essential and true man.
The aim of all political association is the preservation of the natural and
imprescriptible rights of man. (Declaration of the Rights, etc., of 1791, Article 2)
Government is instituted in order to guarantee man the enjoyment of his natural and
imprescriptible rights. (Declaration, etc., of 1793, Article 1)

Hence, even in moments when its enthusiasm still has the freshness of
youth and is intensified to an extreme degree by the force of
circumstances, political life declares itself to be a mere means, whose
purpose is the life of civil society. It is true that its revolutionary
practice is in flagrant contradiction with its theory. Whereas, for
example, security is declared one of the rights of man, violation of the
privacy of correspondence is openly declared to be the order of the day.
Whereas unlimited freedom of the press (Constitution of 1793, Article
122) is guaranteed as a consequence of the right of man to individual
liberty, freedom of the press is totally destroyed, because freedom of
the press should not be permitted when it endangers public liberty.
(Robespierre jeune, Historie parlementaire de la Rvolution
franaise by Buchez and Roux, vol.28, p. 159) That is to say, therefore:
The right of man to liberty ceases to be a right as soon as it comes into
conflict with political life, whereas in theory political life is only the
guarantee of human rights, the rights of the individual, and therefore
must be abandoned as soon as it comes into contradiction with its aim,
with these rights of man. But, practice is merely the exception, theory is
the rule. But even if one were to regard revolutionary practice as the
correct presentation of the relationship, there would still remain the
puzzle of why the relationship is turned upside-down in the minds of
the political emancipators and the aim appears as the means, while the
means appears as the aim. This optical illusion of their consciousness
would still remain a puzzle, although now a psychological, a theoretical
puzzle.
The puzzle is easily solved.
Political emancipation is, at the same time, the dissolution of the old
society on which the state alienated from the people, the sovereign
power, is based. What was the character of the old society? It can be

described in one word feudalism. The character of the old civil society
was directly political that is to say, the elements of civil life, for
example, property, or the family, or the mode of labor, were raised to
the level of elements of political life in the form of seigniory, estates,
and corporations. In this form, they determined the relation of the
individual to the state as a whole i.e., his political relation, that is, his
relation of separation and exclusion from the other components of
society. For that organization of national life did not raise property or
labor to the level of social elements; on the contrary, it completed
their separation from the state as a whole and constituted them
as discrete societies within society. Thus, the vital functions and
conditions of life of civil society remained, nevertheless, political,
although political in the feudal sense that is to say, they secluded the
individual from the state as a whole and they converted
the particular relation of his corporation to the state as a whole into his
general relation to the life of the nation, just as they converted his
particular civil activity and situation into his general activity and
situation. As a result of this organization, the unity of the state, and also
the consciousness, will, and activity of this unity, the general power of
the state, are likewise bound to appear as the particular affair of a ruler
and of his servants, isolated from the people.
The political revolution which overthrew this sovereign power and
raised state affairs to become affairs of the people, which constituted
the political state as a matter of general concern, that is, as a real state,
necessarily smashed all estates, corporations, guilds, and privileges,
since they were all manifestations of the separation of the people from
the community. The political revolution thereby abolished the political
character of civil society. It broke up civil society into its simple
component parts; on the one hand, the individuals; on the other hand,
the material and spiritual elements constituting the content of the life
and social position of these individuals. It set free the political spirit,
which had been, as it were, split up, partitioned, and dispersed in the
various blind alleys of feudal society. It gathered the dispersed parts of
the political spirit, freed it from its intermixture with civil life, and
established it as the sphere of the community, the general concern of
the nation, ideally independent of those particular elements of civil life.
A personsdistinct activity and distinct situation in life were reduced to
a merely individual significance. They no longer constituted the general
relation of the individual to the state as a whole. Public affairs as such,
on the other hand, became the general affair of each individual, and the
political function became the individuals general function.

But, the completion of the idealism of the state was at the same time
the completion of the materialism of civil society. Throwing off the
political yoke meant at the same time throwing off the bonds which
restrained the egoistic spirit of civil society. Political emancipation was,
at the same time, the emancipation of civil society from politics, from
having even the semblance of a universal content.
Feudal society was resolved into its basic element man, but man as
he really formed its basis egoistic man.
This man, the member of civil society, is thus the basis, the
precondition, of the political state. He is recognized as such by this state
in the rights of man.
The liberty of egoistic man and the recognition of this liberty,
however, is rather the recognition of the unrestrained movement of the
spiritual and material elements which form the content of his life.
Hence, man was not freed from religion, he received religious
freedom. He was not freed from property, he received freedom to own
property. He was not freed from the egoism of business, he received
freedom to engage in business.
The establishment of the political state and the dissolution of civil
society into independent individuals whose relation with one another
on law, just as the relations of men in the system of estates and guilds
depended on privilege is accomplished by one and the same act. Man
as a member of civil society, unpolitical man, inevitably appears,
however, as the natural man. The rights of man appears as natural
rights, because conscious activity is concentrated on the political act.
Egoistic man is the passive result of the dissolved society, a result that is
simply found in existence, an object of immediate certainty, therefore
a natural object. The political revolution resolves civil life into its
component parts, without revolutionizing these components themselves
or subjecting them to criticism. It regards civil society, the world of
needs, labor, private interests, civil law, as the basis of its existence, as a
precondition not requiring further substantiation and therefore as
its natural basis. Finally, man as a member of civil society is held to be
man
in
his
sensuous,
individual, immediate existence,
whereas political man is only abstract, artificial man, man as an
allegorical, juridical person. The real man is recognized only in the

shape of the egoistic individual, the true man is recognized only in the
shape of the abstract citizen.
Therefore, Rousseau correctly described the abstract idea of political
man as follows:
Whoever dares undertake to establish a peoples institutions must feel himself capable
of changing, as it were, human nature, of transforming each individual, who by himself
is a complete and solitary whole, into a part of a larger whole, from which, in a sense,
the individual receives his life and his being, of substituting a limited and mental
existence for the physical and independent existence. He has to take from man his own
powers, and give him in exchange alien powers which he cannot employ without the
help of other men.

All emancipation is a reduction of the human world and relationships

to man himself.
Political emancipation is the reduction of man, on the one hand, to a
member of civil society, to an egoistic, independent individual, and, on
the other hand, to a citizen, a juridical person.
Only when the real, individual man re-absorbs in himself the abstract
citizen, and as an individual human being has become a speciesbeing in his everyday life, in his particular work, and in his particular
situation, only when man has recognized and organized his own
powers as social powers, and, consequently, no longer separates social
power from himself in the shape of political power, only then will
human emancipation have been accomplished.

II
Bruno Bauer,
The Capacity of Present-day Jews and Christians to Become Free,
Einundzwanzig Bogen aus der Schweiz, pp. 56-71
It is in this form that Bauer deals with the relation between the Jewish
and the Christian religions, and also with their relation to criticism.
Their relation to criticism is their relation to the capacity to become
free.
The result arrived at is:
The Christian has to surmount only one stage, namely, that of his religion, in order to
give up religion altogether,

and therefore become free.

The Jew, on the other hand, has to break not only with his Jewish nature, but also with
the development towards perfecting his religion, a development which has remained
alien to him. (p. 71)

Thus, Bauer here transforms the question of Jewish emancipation into

a purely religious question. The theological problem as to whether the
Jew or the Christian has the better prospect of salvation is repeated
here in the enlightened form: which of them is more capable of
emancipation. No longer is the question asked: Is it Judaism or
Christianity that makes a man free? On the contrary, the question is
now: Which makes man freer, the negation of Judaism or the negation
of Christianity?
If the Jews want to become free, they should profess belief not in Christianity, but in
the dissolution of Christianity, in the dissolution of religion in general, that is to say, in
enlightenment, criticism, and its consequences, free humanity. (p. 70)

For the Jew, it is still a matter of a profession of faith, but no longer a

profession of belief in Christianity, but of belief in Christianity in
dissolution.
Bauer demands of the Jews that they should break with the essence of
the Christian religion, a demand which, as he says himself, does not
arise out of the development of Judaism.
Since Bauer, at the end of his work on the Jewish question, had
conceived Judaism only as crude religious criticism of Christianity, and
therefore saw in it merely a religious significance, it could be foreseen
that the emancipation of the Jews, too, would be transformed into a
philosophical-theological act.
Bauer considers that the ideal, abstract nature of the Jew,
his religion, is his entire nature. Hence, he rightly concludes:
The Jew contributes nothing to mankind if he himself disregards his narrow law, if he
invalidates his entire Judaism. (p. 65)

Accordingly, the relation between Jews and Christians becomes the

following: the sole interest of the Christian in the emancipation of the
Jew is a general human interest, a theoretical interest. Judaism is a fact
that offends the religious eye of the Christian. As soon as his eye ceases
to be religious, this fact ceases to be offensive. The emancipation of the
Jew is, in itself, not a task for the Christian.

The Jew, on the other hand, in order to emancipate himself, has to

carry out not only his own work, but also that of the Christian i.e.,
the Critique of the Evangelical History of the Synoptics and the Life of
Jesus, etc.
It is up to them to deal with it: they themselves will decide their fate; but history is not
to be trifled with. (p. 71)

We are trying to break with the theological formulation of the question.

For us, the question of the Jews capacity for emancipation becomes the
question: What particular social element has to be overcome in order to
abolish Judaism? For the present-day Jews capacity for emancipation
is the relation of Judaism to the emancipation of the modern world.
This relation necessarily results from the special position of Judaism in
the contemporary enslaved world.
Let us consider the actual, worldly Jew not the Sabbath Jew, as
Bauer does, but the everyday Jew.
Let us not look for the secret of the Jew in his religion, but let us look
for the secret of his religion in the real Jew.
What is the secular basis of Judaism? Practical need, self-interest.
What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his
worldly God?Money.
Very well then! Emancipation from huckstering and money,
consequently from practical, real Judaism, would be the selfemancipation of our time.
An organization of society which would abolish the preconditions for
huckstering, and therefore the possibility of huckstering, would make
the Jew impossible. His religious consciousness would be dissipated
like a thin haze in the real, vital air of society. On the other hand, if the
Jew recognizes that thispractical nature of his is futile and works to
abolish it, he extricates himself from his previous development and
works for human emancipation as such and turns against the supreme
practical expression of human self-estrangement.
We recognize in Judaism, therefore, a general anti-social element of
the present time, an element which through historical development to
which in this harmful respect the Jews have zealously contributed has

been brought to its present high level, at which it must necessarily begin
to disintegrate.
In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the
emancipation of mankind from Judaism.
The Jew has already emancipated himself in a Jewish way.
The Jew, who in Vienna, for example, is only tolerated, determines the fate of the whole
Empire by his financial power. The Jew, who may have no rights in the smallest German
state, decides the fate of Europe. While corporations and guilds refuse to admit Jews, or
have not yet adopted a favorable attitude towards them, the audacity of industry mocks
at the obstinacy of the material institutions. (Bruno Bauer, The Jewish Question, p.
114)

This is no isolated fact. The Jew has emancipated himself in a Jewish

manner, not only because he has acquired financial power, but also
because, through him and also apart from him, money has become a
world power and the practical Jewish spirit has become the practical
spirit of the Christian nations. The Jews have emancipated themselves
insofar as the Christians have become Jews.
Captain Hamilton, for example, reports:
The devout and politically free inhabitant of New England is a kind of Laocon who
makes not the least effort to escape from the serpents which are crushing
him. Mammon is his idol which he adores not only with his lips but with the whole force
of his body and mind. In his view the world is no more than a Stock Exchange, and he is
convinced that he has no other destiny here below than to become richer than his
neighbor. Trade has seized upon all his thoughts, and he has no other recreation than to
exchange objects. When he travels he carries, so to speak, his goods and his counter on
his back and talks only of interest and profit. If he loses sight of his own business for an
instant it is only in order to pry into the business of his competitors.

Indeed, in North America, the practical domination of Judaism over the

Christian world has achieved as its unambiguous and normal
expression that thepreaching of the Gospel itself and the Christian
ministry have become articles of trade, and the bankrupt trader deals in
the Gospel just as the Gospel preacher who has become rich goes in for
business deals.
The man who you see at the head of a respectable congregation began as a trader; his
business having failed, he became a minister. The other began as a priest but as soon as
he had some money at his disposal he left the pulpit to become a trader. In the eyes of
very many people, the religious ministry is a veritable business career. (Beaumont, op.
cit., pp. 185,186)

According to Bauer, it is

a fictitious state of affairs when in theory the Jew is deprived of political rights,
whereas in practice he has immense power and exerts his political influence en gros,
although it is curtailed en dtail. (Die Judenfrage, p. 114)

The contradiction that exists between the practical political power of

the Jew and his political rights is the contradiction between politics and
the power of money in general. Although theoretically the former is
superior to the latter, in actual fact politics has become the serf of
financial power.
Judaism has held its own alongside Christianity, not only as religious
criticism of Christianity, not only as the embodiment of doubt in the
religious derivation of Christianity, but equally because the practical
Jewish spirit, Judaism, has maintained itself and even attained its
highest development in Christian society. The Jew, who exists as a
distinct member of civil society, is only a particular manifestation of the
Judaism of civil society.
Judaism continues to exist not in spite of history, but owing to
history.
The Jew is perpetually created by civil society from its own entrails.
What, in itself, was the basis of the Jewish religion? Practical need,
egoism.
The monotheism of the Jew, therefore, is in reality the polytheism of
the many needs, a polytheism which makes even the lavatory an object
of divine law.Practical need, egoism, is the principle of civil society,
and as such appears in pure form as soon as civil society has fully given
birth to the political state. The god of practical need and selfinterest is money.
Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may
exist. Money degrades all the gods of man and turns them into
commodities. Money is the universal self-established value of all things.
It has, therefore, robbed the whole world both the world of men and
nature of its specific value. Money is the estranged essence of mans
work and mans existence, and this alien essence dominates him, and
he worships it.

The god of the Jews has become secularized and has become the god
of the world. The bill of exchange is the real god of the Jew. His god is
only an illusory bill of exchange.
The view of nature attained under the domination of private property
and money is a real contempt for, and practical debasement of, nature;
in the Jewish religion, nature exists, it is true, but it exists only in
imagination.
It is in this sense that [in a 1524 pamphlet] Thomas Mnzer declares it
intolerable
that all creatures have been turned into property, the fishes in the water, the birds in
the air, the plants on the earth; the creatures, too, must become free.

Contempt for theory, art, history, and for man as an end in himself,
which is contained in an abstract form in the Jewish religion, is the real,
conscious standpoint, the virtue of the man of money. The speciesrelation itself, the relation between man and woman, etc., becomes an
object of trade! The woman is bought and sold.
The chimerical nationality of the Jew is the nationality of the
merchant, of the man of money in general.
The groundless law of the Jew is only a religious caricature of
groundless morality and right in general, of the purely formal rites with
which the world of self-interest surrounds itself.
Here, too, mans supreme relation is the legal one, his relation to laws
that are valid for him not because they are laws of his own will and
nature, but because they are the dominant laws and because departure
from them is avenged.
Jewish Jesuitism, the same practical Jesuitism which Bauer discovers
in the Talmud, is the relation of the world of self-interest to the laws
governing that world, the chief art of which consists in the cunning
circumvention of these laws.
Indeed, the movement of this world within its framework of laws is
bound to be a continual suspension of law.

Judaism could not develop further as a religion, could not develop

further theoretically, because the world outlook of practical need is
essentially limited and is completed in a few strokes.
By its very nature, the religion of practical need could find its
consummation not in theory, but only in practice, precisely because its
truth is practice.
Judaism could not create a new world; it could only draw the new
creations and conditions of the world into the sphere of its activity,
because practical need, the rationale of which is self-interest, is passive
and does not expand at will, but finds itself enlarged as a result of the
continuous development of social conditions.
Judaism reaches its highest point with the perfection of civil society,
but it is only in the Christian world that civil society attains perfection.
Only under the dominance of Christianity, which makes all national,
natural, moral, and theoretical conditions extrinsic to man, could civil
society separate itself completely from the life of the state, sever all the
species-ties of man, put egoism and selfish need in the place of these
species-ties, and dissolve the human world into a world of atomistic
individuals who are inimically opposed to one another.
Christianity sprang from Judaism. It has merged again in Judaism.
From the outset, the Christian was the theorizing Jew, the Jew is,
therefore, the practical Christian, and the practical Christian has
become a Jew again.
Christianity had only in semblance overcome real Judaism. It was
too noble-minded, too spiritualistic to eliminate the crudity of practical
need in any other way than by elevation to the skies.
Christianity is the sublime thought of Judaism, Judaism is the
common practical application of Christianity, but this application could
only become general after Christianity as a developed religion had
completed theoretically the estrangement of man from himself and
from nature.
Only then could Judaism achieve universal dominance and make
alienated man and alienated nature into alienable, vendible objects
subjected to the slavery of egoistic need and to trading.

Selling [verausserung] is the practical aspect of alienation

[Entausserung]. Just as man, as long as he is in the grip of religion, is
able to objectify his essential nature only by turning it into
something alien, something fantastic, so under the domination of
egoistic need he can be active practically, and produce objects in
practice, only by putting his products, and his activity, under the
domination of an alien being, and bestowing the significance of an alien
entity money on them.
In its perfected practice, Christian egoism of heavenly bliss is
necessarily transformed into the corporal egoism of the Jew, heavenly
need is turned into world need, subjectivism into self-interest. We
explain the tenacity of the Jew not by his religion, but, on the contrary,
by the human basis of his religion practical need, egoism.
Since in civil society the real nature of the Jew has been universally
realized and secularized, civil society could not convince the Jew of
the unreality of his religious nature, which is indeed only the ideal
aspect of practical need. Consequently, not only in the Pentateuch and
the Talmud, but in present-day society we find the nature of the modern
Jew, and not as an abstract nature but as one that is in the highest
degree empirical, not merely as a narrowness of the Jew, but as the
Jewish narrowness of society.
Once society has succeeded in abolishing the empirical essence of
Judaism huckstering and its preconditions the Jew will have
become impossible, because his consciousness no longer has an object,
because the subjective basis of Judaism, practical need, has been
humanized, and because the conflict between mans individualsensuous existence and his species-existence has been abolished.
The social emancipation of the Jew is the emancipation of society
from Judaism.
Thursday, December 30, 2004
MARXIST ELITISM
Who wrote a poem containing this verse?

Like unto a God I dare

Through that ruined realm in triumph roam.
Every word is Deed and Fire,
And my bosom like the Creator's own.
It was our old friend, Herr Karl Marx, no less. So modern Leftist elitism is not exactly new. In this poem, old Karl actually compares himself to God. Beat that! Not much doubt about where he was coming from. Modern day Leftist elitists are actually quite modest by comparison.
For those who doubt the translation, the original German is:
Menschenstolz
"Goetteraehnlich darf ich wandeln,
Siegreich ziehn durch ihr Ruinenreich,
Jedes Wort ist Glut und Handeln,
Meine Brust dem Schoepferbusen gleich."
Old Karl was quite a poet -- with about 150 of his poems on record.

Early Works of Karl Marx: Book of Verse

Human Pride
When
these
stately
Halls
And
the
giant
burden
of
And
the
stormy
pilgrimage
And the frenzied race that never ceases,
Pulse's
throbbing
do
And
the
giant
flame
of
Shall
the
Waves
then
Into Life, into the Ocean's flood?
Shall
I
then
Heavenward
soaring,
Should
I
yield
before
Towards the Indeterminate?

I
Soul
bear

revere
proud,
Life

the

stone
eyes
circles
all
fire,
down
and
lie
Splendour

There
is
drawn
No
hard,
wretched
earth-clod
And
we
sail
across
And we wander countries far away.
bids
locks

to

stay
our

that

so

Swift
eye
scans
the
Hastens
through
them
Yearning,
as
on
Mocking through the vast Halls and away.
When
you
all
go
Fragment-world
shall
Even
though
cold
Even though grim Ruin stand its ground.

so
you
these

No!
You
pigmy-giants
And
you
ice-cold
See
how
in
these
Burns the Soul's impetuosity.

Nothing
Nothing

I
these
of

no
bars

scan
Houses,
Man
sense
proud?
hence
forms
inviolate?
storms
wretched,
Monstrosity,
averted
round,
exploringly,
resounds,
sink,
around,
blink,

boundary,
our
way,
the
sea,

our
hopes

going,
inside;

Swift
away
go
And the bosom's joy and pain abide.
All
those
monstrous
Tower
aloft
Feeling
not
love's
That creates them out of nothingness.
No
giant
column
In
a
single
One
stone
on
the
Emulates the timid snail laborious.
But
the
Soul
Is
a
lofty
giant
Even
in
its
Dragging Suns in its destructive throes.

fancies

fleeing,

shapes
in

so
fiery

soars
block,
other

to

vast
fearfulness,
blast

meanly

Heaven
victorious;
woven

embraces
flame
that
very

all,
glows,
Fall

And
out
of
itself
Up
to
Heaven's
realms
Gods
within
its
depths
Thunderous lightning flashes in its eye.

it
on
it

And
it
wavers
not
a
Where
the
very
God-Thought
On
its
breast
will
cherish
Soul's own greatness is its lofty Prayer.
Soul
its
greatness
In
its
greatness
must
Then
volcanoes
seethe
And lamenting Demons gather round.
succumbing
Raises
up
a
throne
Downfall
turns
Hero's prize is proud renunciation.

must
go
and

Soul,

But
when
two
are
When
two
souls
Each
one
softly
tells
No more need alone through space to go.

to
to

giant

bound
together
the

swells
high;
lulls,
whit
fares,
it;
devour,
down;
roar,
haughtily,
derision;
Victory,
together,
flow,
other

Then

all
Like

Worlds
Aeolian

the
In
eternal
Wish and Soul's desire together flowing.

hear
harp
Beauty's

melodies
sighing,
rays

full

Jenny!

Do
I
dare
That
in
love
we
have
exchanged
our
That
as
one
they
throb
and
And that through their waves one current rolls?
Then

the
gauntlet
do
Scornful
in
the
World's
wide
Down
the
giant
She-Dwarf,
Plunges, cannot crush my happiness.
Like
unto
a
God
Through
that
ruined
realm
in
Every
word
is
Deed
And my bosom like the Maker's own.

avow
Souls,
glow,

I
fling
open
face.
whimpering,
I
triumph
and

dare
roam.
Fire,

Wednesday, December 29, 2004

Engels was a German nationalist

This is our calling, that we shall become the templars of this Grail, gird the sword round our loins for its sake and stake our lives joyfully in the last, holy war which will be followed by the thousand-year reign of freedom.
So Engels said. See here.
And who does not know of Hitler's glorification of military sacrifice and his aim to establish a "thousand-year Reich"? What a copycat old Adolf was!

Wednesday, December 29, 2004

Engels was a German nationalist

This is our calling, that we shall become the templars of this Grail, gird the sword round our loins for its sake and stake our lives joyfully in the last, holy war which will be followed by the thousand-year reign of freedom.
So Engels said. See here.
And who does not know of Hitler's glorification of military sacrifice and his aim to establish a "thousand-year Reich"? What a copycat old Adolf was!

Tuesday, December 28, 2004

ORIGINS OF NAZISM
A typical Hitler rant: "True, it is a fixed idea with the French that the Rhine is their property, but to this arrogant demand the only reply worthy of the German nation is Arndt's: "Give back Alsace and Lorraine". For I am of the opinion, perhaps in contrast to many whose standpoint I share in other respects,
that the reconquest of the German-speaking left bank of the Rhine is a matter of national honour, and that the Germanisation of a disloyal Holland and of Belgium is a p olitical necessity for us. Shall we let the German nationality be completely suppressed in these countries, while the Slavs are rising ever
more powerfully in the East?" But it was not Hitler who said it. It was written in 1841 by Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx's co-author.
The original German of the above quote is: "...Allerdings ist es eine fixe Idee bei den Franzosen, dass der Rhein ihr Eigentum sei, aber die einzige des deutschen Volkes wuerdige Antwort auf diese anmassende Forderung ist das Arndtsche 'Heraus mit dem Elsass und Lothringen!' Denn ich b in - vielleicht im
Gegensatz zu vielen, deren Standpunkt ich sonst teile - allerdings der Ansicht, dass die Wiedereroberung der deutschsprechenden linken Rheinseite eine nationale Ehrensache, die Germanisierung des abtruennig gewordenen Hollands und Belgiens eine politische Notwendigkeit fuer uns ist. Sollen wir in jenen
Laendern die deutsche Nationalitaet vollends unterdruecken lassen, waehrend im Osten sich das Slawentum immer maechtiger erhebt?"Nazism was Marxist!

Ernst Moritz Arndt

[98]

Written: in October-December 1840

First published: in Telegraph fr Deutschland Nos. 2-5, January 1841
Signed: F. Oswald

Telegraph fr Deutschland No. 2, January 1841

Like the faithful Eckart of the legend, old Arndt stands on the Rhine and
warns the youth of Germany, who for many years now have been gazing
across to the French Venusberg and the seductive, passionate maidens, the
ideas, [99] that beckon from its pinnacles. But the wild youths do not heed the
old hero and storm across, and not all of them remain in enervated prostration
like the new Tannhuser Heine.
This is Arndts position in relation to the German youth of today. Though all
hold him in high esteem, his ideal of German life does not satisfy them; they
want more freedom to act, fuller, more exuberant vitality, ardent, impetuous
throbbing in the veins of world history which carry Germanys life-blood.
Hence the sympathy for France, not, of course, the sympathy of submission
about which the French romance, but that loftier and freer form whose nature
has been so admirably set forth by Brne in his Franzosenfresser, in contrast
to Germanising one-sidedness.
Arndt has sensed that the present is estranged from him, that it does not
respect him for his thought but respects his thought for the sake of his strong,
manly personality. Hence, as a man whose life had been given meaning both
by his talent and conviction and by the course of developments over a number
of years, he was faced with the duty of leaving his nation a memorial of his
cultural development, his way of thinking and his times, which he has done in
his much discussed Erinnerungen aus dem ussern Leben.
Disregarding its trend for the moment, Arndts book is also aesthetically a
most interesting publication. This concise, pithy language has not been heard
in our literature for a long time and deserves to make a lasting impression on
many of the young generation. Better firm than flabby! There are, of course,
authors for whom the essence of the modern style is that every ripple of the
muscles, every taut sinew of speech should be prettily enveloped in soft flesh,
even at the risk of appearing effeminate. No, give me the manly, bony
structure of Arndts style rather than the spongy manner of certain modern
stylists! Particularly since Arndt has avoided the idiosyncrasies of his
comrades of 1813 so far as possible and comes near to affectation only in the
absolute use of the superlative (as in the southern Romance languages). Nor
should one look in him for that repulsive mixing of languages which has again
become the fashion; on the contrary, he shows how few alien shoots we need
graft on our language without being at a loss. The carriage of our thoughts

does indeed run better on most roads with German rather than French or Greek
horses, a fact which ridicule of the extremes of the puristic trend does not
alter.
Let us now examine the book more closely. Most of it is taken up with the
idyll of his early life, which is drawn with a genuinely poetic hand. Anyone
who has spent his first years as Arndt did, can be eternally thankful to God!
Not in the dust of a big city, where the joys of the individual are crushed by the
interests of the whole, not in childrens homes or philanthropic prisons, where
budding vigour is blunted; no, it was under the open sky in fields and woods
that nature formed the man of steel at whom an effeminate generation gazes as
at a northern warrior. The great plastic force with which Arndt depicts this
period of his life almost compels one to believe that all idyllic composition are
superfluous as long as our authors experience such idylls as Arndt did. What
will appear most strange to our century is the self-discipline of the young
Arndt, which combines German chastity with Spartan vigour. But this vigour,
so naive, so free from any Jahn-like bragging, as it hums to itself its hoc tibi
proderit olim [this will come in handy one day], cannot be recommended
enough to our stay-at-home youths. Young men who shun cold water like mad
dogs, who put on three or four layers of clothing when the weather is the least
bit frosty, who make it a point of honour to obtain exemption from military
service on grounds of physical weakness, are truly a fine support for the
Fatherland! As for chastity, it is regarded as a crime even to speak of it in an
age where ones first inquiry in every town is the way to the gate where the
last of The houses stand. [From Goethes ballad Der Gott und die Bajadere] I
am certainly no abstract moralist, I detest all ascetic nonsense, and shall never
pass judgment on fallen love; but it grieves me that moral seriousness threatens
to disappear and that sensuality strives to set itself up as the highest good. The
emancipation of the flesh in practice will always have to blush beside an
Arndt.
With the year 1800 Arndt enters the profession allotted to him. Napoleons
armies flood Europe, and as the French Emperors power increases Arndts
hatred of him grows; the, Greifswald professor protests in the name of
Germany against the oppression and has to flee. At last the German nation
rises up and Arndt returns. We could wish that this part of the book contained
more detail; Arndt retires modestly into the background before the arming of
the nation and its deeds. Instead of leaving us to guess that he was not inactive
he should have described his part in the developments of the time in greater
detail, and told us the history of these days from the subjective standpoint.
Later events are treated still more briefly. What is remarkable here is on the

one hand the increasingly pronounced tendency to orthodoxy in religious

matters, on the other the mysterious, almost servile, kiss-the-rod manner in
which Arndt speaks of his suspension. But those who find this strange will
have been convinced by Arndts statements issued recently in the public press,
in which he regards his reinstatement as an act of justice, not of grace and
favour, that he still possesses his old firmness and determination.
Arndts book gains particular importance, however, from the simultaneous
publication of a mass of memoirs on the war of liberation. The glorious period
when the German nation, for the first time in centuries, rose once more in all
its power and greatness and opposed foreign oppression is vividly brought
close to us again. And we Germans cannot recall these battles often enough if
we are to keep awake our somnolent national consciousness; of course not in
the sense of a party which believes it has now done everything and regards
itself complacently in the mirror of history, resting on the laurels of 1813, but
rather in the opposite sense. For the greatest result of the struggle was not the
shaking off of foreign rule, whose elaborate artificiality, resting as it did solely
on the Atlas shoulders of Napoleon, was bound to come crashing down of its
own accord sooner or later, nor was it the freedom which was won; it was
the deed itself, or rather an aspect of it, which only very few people at the time
clearly sensed. That we became conscious of the loss of our national
sanctuaries, that we armed ourselves without waiting for the most gracious
permission of the sovereigns, that we actually compelled those in power to take
their place at our head [Cf, K. Bade, Napoleon im jahre 1813, Altona, 1840
Note by F. Engels], in short, that for a moment we acted as the source of state
power, as a sovereign nation, that was the greatest gain of those years, and
therefore after the war the men who had felt this most clearly and had acted
accordingly with the greatest resolution, were bound to appear dangerous to
the governments. But how soon the moving power went to sleep again! The
bane of disunity absorbed for the parts the impulse so much needed for the
whole, split the general German interest into a multitude of provincial interests
and made it impossible to provide Germany with a foundation for state life
such as Spain created for herself in the Constitution of 1812. [100] On the
contrary, the gentle spring rain of general promises which surprised us from
the higher regions was too much for our hearts bowed down by oppression,
and we fools did not reflect that there are promises the breaking of which can
never be excused from the point of view of the nation, but very easily from
that of the individual. (?) Then came the Congresses <[101]giving the Germans
time to sleep off their intoxication with freedom and wake up to find
themselves back in the old relationship of Your Most Gracious Majesty and
Your Most Humble Servant. Those who had not yet lost their old aspirations,

and could not reconcile themselves to having no active part in the life of the
nation, were driven by all the forces of the time into the blind alley of
Germanisation. Only a few distinguished spirits broke out of the labyrinth and
found the path which leads to true freedom.
The Germanisers wanted to complete the facts of the war of liberation and to
free a now materially independent Germany from foreign intellectual
hegemony as well. But for that very reason Germanisation was negation, and
the positive elements with which it plumed itself lay buried in an unclarity
from which they never quite emerged; what did come up into the daylight of
reason was for the most part paradoxical enough. Its whole world view was
philosophically without foundation since it held that the entire world was
created for the sake of the Germans, and the Germans themselves had long
since arrived at the highest stage of evolution. The Germanising trend was
negation, abstraction in the Hegelian sense. It created abstract Germans by
stripping off everything that had not descended from national roots over sixtyfour purely German generations. Even its seemingly positive features were
negative, for Germany could only be led towards its ideals by negating a whole
century and her development, and thus its intention was to push the nation
back into the German Middle Ages or even into the primeval German purity of
the Teutoburger Wald. Jahn embodied this trend in its extreme. This onesidedness turned the Germans into the chosen people of Israel and ignored all
the innumerable seeds of world history which had grown on soil that was not
German. It is against the French especially, whose invasion had been repulsed
and whose hegemony in external matters is based on the fact that they master,
more easily than all nations at least, the form of European culture, namely,
civilisation it is against the. French that the iconoclastic fury was directed
most of all. The great, eternal achievements of the revolution were abhorred as
foreign frivolities or even foreign lies and falsehoods; no one thought of
the kinship between this stupendous act of the people and the national uprising
of 1813; that which Napoleon had introduced, the emancipation of the
Israelites, trial by jury, sound civil law in place of the pandects, [102] was
condemned solely because of its initiator. Hatred of the French became a duty.
Every kind of thinking which could rise to a higher viewpoint was condemned
as un-German. Hence patriotism too was essentially negative and left the
Fatherland without support in the struggle of the age, while it went to great
pains to invent bombastic German expressions for foreign words which had
long been assimilated into German. If this trend had been concretely German,
if it had taken the German for what he had become in two thousand years of
history, if it had not overlooked the truest element of our destiny, namely, to be
the pointer on the scales of European history, to watch over the development

of the neighbouring nations, it would have avoided all its mistakes On the
other hand, one must not ignore the fact that Germanisation was a necessary
stage in the formation of our national spirit and that together with the
succeeding stage it formed the contrast on whose shoulders the modern world
view rests.

Telegraph fr Deutschland No. 3, January 1841

This contrast to the Germanising trend was the cosmopolitan liberalism of
the South-German estates which worked for the negation of national
differences and the formation of a great, free, united humanity. It corresponded
to religious rationalism and stemmed from the same source, the philanthropy
of the previous century, whereas the Germanising trend consistently led to
theological orthodoxy, at which almost all its adherents (Arndt, Steffens,
Menzel) arrived in due course. The one-sidedness of cosmopolitan liberalism
has so often been exposed by its opponents, albeit in a one-sided fashion, that I
can be brief where this trend is concerned. The July revolution at first seemed
to favour it, but this event was exploited by all parties. The actual destruction
of the Germanising trend or rather of its propagating power dates from the July
revolution and was inherent in it. Yet so was the collapse of the cosmopolitan
trend; for the overwhelming significance of the great week [The events of the
July revolution in France (July 27-August 2, 1830)] was the restitution of the
French nation in its position as a great power, whereby the other nations were
compelled to close their ranks as well.
Even before this latest world-shaking event two men had been working
quietly on the development of the German, or as it is preferably called the
modern, spirit, two men who almost ignored each other in their lifetime and
whose complementary relationship was not to be recognised until after their
death, Brne and Hegel. Brne has often and most unjustly been branded as a
cosmopolitan, but he was more German than his opponents.
The Hallische Jahrbcher has recently linked a discussion of political
practice with the name of Herr von Florencourt [103]; but he is certainly not its
representative. He stands at the point where the extremes of the Germanising
trend and cosmopolitanism meet, as happened in the Burschenschaften, [104] and
was only superficially affected by the later developments of the national spirit.
The man of political practice is Brne, and his place in history is that he
fulfilled this calling perfectly. He tore the ostentatious finery off the
Germanising trend and also unmercifully exposed the shame of
cosmopolitanism, which merely had impotent, more pious wishes. He
confronted the Germans with the words of the Cid: Lengua sin manos, cuemo
osas fablar? [Tongue without hands, how dare you speak? (Poema del Cid.)]

No one has described the glory of the deed like Brne. With him all is life, all
is vigour. Only of his writings can it be said that they are deeds for freedom.
Do not speak to me here of reasoned definitions, of finite categories"! The
manner in which Brne understood the position of the European nations and
their destiny is not speculative. Yet Brne was the first to show the
relationship of Germany and France in its reality and thereby did a greater
service to the idea than the Hegelians, who were meanwhile learning
Hegels Enzyklopdie by heart and thought that they had thereby done enough
for the century. That same portrayal also proves how high Brne stands above
the level of cosmopolitanism. Rational one-sidedness was as necessary for
Brne as excessive schematism for Hegel; but instead of understanding this we
do not get beyond the crude and often false axioms of the Briefe aus Paris.
By the side of Brne and opposed to him, Hegel, the man of thought,
presented big already completed system to the nation. Authority did not take
the trouble to work its way through the abstruse forms of Hegels system and
his brazen style; but then, how could it have known that this philosophy would
venture from the quiet haven of theory onto the stormy sea of actuality, that it
was already brandishing its sword in order to strike directly against existing
practice? For Hegel himself was such a solid, orthodox man, whose polemic
was directed at precisely those trends which the state power rejected, at
rationalism and cosmopolitan liberalism! But the gentlemen at the helm did not
appreciate that these trends were only combated in order to make room for the
higher, that the new teaching must first root itself in recognition of the nation
before it could freely develop its living consequences. When Brne attacked
Hegel he was perfectly right from his standpoint, but when authority protected
Hegel, when it elevated his teaching almost to a Prussian philosophy of the
state, it laid itself open to attack, a fact which it now evidently regrets. Or did
Altenstein, whose more advanced standpoint was a legacy of a more liberal
age, receive such a free hand here that everything was laid to his account? Be
that as it may, when after Hegels death the fresh air of life breathed upon his
doctrine, the Prussian philosophy of the state sprouted shoots of which no
party had ever dreamt. Strauss will remain epoch-making in the theological
field, Gans and Ruge in the political. Only now do the faint nebulae of
speculation resolve themselves into the shining stars of the ideas which are to
light the movement of the century. One may accuse Ruges aesthetic criticism
of being prosaic and confined within the schematism of the doctrine; yet credit
must go to him for showing the political side of the Hegelian system to be in
accord with the spirit of the time and for restoring it in the nations esteem.
Gans had done this only indirectly, by carrying the philosophy of history
forward into the present; Ruge openly expressed the liberalism of Hegelianism,

and Kppen supported him; neither was afraid of incurring enmity, both
pursuing their course, even at the risk of a split in the school, and all due
respect to their courage for it! The enthusiastic, unshakeable confidence in the
idea, inherent in the New Hegelianism, is the sole fortress in which the liberals
can find safe retreat whenever reaction gains a temporary advantage over them
with aid from above.
These are the most recent developments of German political consciousness,
and the task of our age is to complete the fusion of Hegel and Brne. There is
already a good deal of Brne in Young Hegelianism, and Brne would have
little hesitation in signing many an article in the Hallische Jahrbcher.
However, the combining of thought and action is in part not yet conscious
enough, in part it has not yet penetrated the nation. Brne is still looked upon
by many as the exact opposite of Hegel, but just as Hegels practical
importance for the present (not his philosophical significance for eternity) is
not to be judged by the pure theory of his system, neither is Brne to be flatly
rejected because of his one-sidedness and his extravagances, which have never
been denied.

Telegraph fr Deutschland No. 4, January 1841

I trust that I have characterised the attitude of the Germanising trend to the
present day sufficiently and may now proceed to a detailed review of the
trends individual aspects as expounded by Arndt in his book. The wide gulf
which separates Arndt from the present generation is expressed most clearly in
the fact that he is indifferent to those matters of state for which we sacrifice
our life-blood. Arndt declares himself a decided monarchist; good. Yet he
never once discusses whether the monarchy is to be constitutional or absolute.
The point of difference is this: Arndt and his whole company believe that the
well-being of the state consists in sovereign and people being attached to each
other by sincere love and co-operating with each other in the striving for the
common good. We, however, are convinced that the relationship between the
governing and the governed must first be regulated by law before it can
become and remain amicable. First law, then equity! Where is there a
sovereign so bad that he does not love his people and is not loved by them I
speak here of Germany simply because he is their sovereign? But where is
there a sovereign who can claim to have brought his people any real advance
since 1815? Is it not all our own work; is not what we own our in spite of
control and supervision? It is all very fine to talk of the love between a
sovereign and his people, and since the great poet [An ironical reference to
Balthasar Gerhard Schumacher] of Heil Dir im Siegerkranz sang that a free
mans love makes the steep heights secure where sovereigns stand, ever since

then infinite nonsense has been talked about it. The kind of government
threatening us from a certain quarter might be called an up-to-date reaction.
Patrimonial courts to promote the formation of a high aristocracy; guilds to
reawaken a respectable burgher estate; encouragement of all so-called
historical seeds, which in reality are old, cut-off stalks.
But it is not only in this respect that the Germanising trend has let itself be
cheated of freedom of thought by a determined reaction; its ideas on the
constitution are the whispered promptings of the gentlemen of
the Berliner politisches Wochenblatt. It was painful to see how even the solid,
quiet Arndt allowed himself to be dazzled by the sophisticated glitter of the
organic state. Phrases about historical development, making use of the given
factors, organism, and so on, must once have possessed a charm which entirely
eludes us now because we realise that they are mostly fine words which do not
seriously mean what they actually signify. Challenge these ghosts point-blank!
What do you understand by the organic state? A state whose institutions have
grown with and out of the nation in the course of the centuries, and which have
not been constructed from theory. Very well; now apply this to Germany! This
organism is supposed to consist of the citizens being divided into nobility,
burghers and peasants, and everything else that goes with it. All this is
supposed to lie hidden in nuce in the word organism. Is that not deplorable,
shameful sophistry? Self-development of the nation, does that not look exactly
like freedom? You grasp at it with both hands and what you get is the full
burden of the Middle Ages and the ancien regime. Fortunately this sleight-ofhand cannot be laid to Arndts account. Not the supporters of division into
estates, but we, its opponents, want an organic state life. The point at the
moment is not construction from theory; it is what they want to blind us
with: the self-development of the nation. We alone are serious and sincere
about it. But these gentlemen do not know that every organism becomes
inorganic as soon as it dies; they set the corpses of the past in motion with their
galvanic wires and try to fool us that this is not a mechanism but life. They
want to promote the self-development of the nation and fasten the ball and
chain of absolutism to its ankle so that it will go ahead more quickly. They do
not want to know that what they call theory, ideology, or God knows what, has
long passed into the blood and sap of the nation and in part has already come
to life; that not we, therefore, but they have lost their way in the utopias of
theory. For that which was indeed still theory half a century ago has developed
as an independent element in the state organism since the revolution.
Moreover, and this is the main thing, does the development of mankind not
rank above that of the nation?

And what about the estates? The dividing line between burghers and
peasants simply does not exist; not even the historical school [105] takes it
seriously; it is put there only pro forma, to make the separation of the nobility
more plausible to us. Everything turns on the nobility. When the nobility goes,
so does the estates system. And with the nobilitys position as an estate things
look even worse than with its composition [A pun on the German
words Stand and Bestand]. An entailed hereditary estate is absolute nonsense
according to modern conceptions. Not in the Middle Ages, of course. In those
days in the free cities of the Empire (as in Bremen, for example, even today)
there were hereditary guilds with hereditary privileges, pure bakers blood and
pure pewterers blood. Indeed, what is the pride of the nobility compared with
the consciousness: My ancestors have been beer-brewers for twenty
generations We still have butchers, or in the more poetical Bremen name,
bone-choppers blood in the nobility, since the military profession, laid down
by Herr Fouqu as proper to it, is continual butchery and bone-chopping. For
the nobility to regard itself as an estate, when no calling is exclusively reserved
for it under the law of any state, neither the military nor that of the large
landowner, is ridiculous arrogance. Anything written on the nobility could
have as a motto this line by the troubadour William of Poitiers: I'll make a
song about sheer nothing. And since the nobility feels its own inner
nothingness, no nobleman can hide the pain of it, from the very intelligent
Baron of Sternberg to the very unintelligent C. L. F. W. G. von Alvensleben.
The tolerance which would leave the nobility the pleasure of regarding itself as
something special so long as it does not demand any privileges is most
misplaced. For as long as the nobility represents something special, it will
desire and must have privileges. We stand by our demand: No estates, but a
great, united nation of citizens with equal rights!

Telegraph fr Deutschland No. 5, January 1841

Another thing which Arndt demands of his state is entails, in general an
agrarian legislation laying down fixed conditions for landed property. Apart
from its general importance, this point also deserves attention because here too
the up-to-date reaction already mentioned threatens to put things back on the
footing before 1789. How many have been raised to the nobility recently on
condition that they institute an entail guaranteeing the prosperity of the family!
Arndt is definitely against the unlimited freedom and divisibility of landed
property; he sees as its inevitable consequence the division of the land into
plots none of which could support its owner. But he fails to see that complete
freeing of the land provides the means of restoring in general the balance
which in individual cases it may, of course, upset. While the complicated

legislation in most German states and Arndts equally complicated proposals

will never eliminate, but only aggravate anomalies in agrarian relations, they
also hinder a voluntary return to the proper order in the event of any
dislocation, necessitate extraordinary interference by the state and hinder the
progress of this legislation by a hundred petty but unavoidable private
considerations. By contrast, freedom of the land allows no extremes to arise,
neither the development of big landowners into an aristocracy, nor the splitting
up of fields into patches so small as to become useless. If one scale of the
balance goes down too far, the content of the other soon becomes concentrated
in compensation. And even if landed property were to fly from hand to hand I
would rather have the surging ocean with its grand freedom than the narrow
inland lake with its quiet surface, whose miniature waves are broken every
three steps by a spit of land, the root of a tree, or a stone. It is not merely that
the permission to entail means the consent of the state to the formation of an
aristocracy; no, this fettering of landed property, like all entails, works directly
towards a revolution. When the best part of the land is welded to individual
families and made inaccessible to all other citizens, is not that a direct
provocation of the people? Does not the right of primogeniture rest on a view
of property which has long ceased to correspond to our ideas? As if one
generation had the right to dispose absolutely of the property of all future
generations, which at the moment it enjoys and administers, as if the freedom
of property were not destroyed by so disposing of it that all descendants are
robbed of this freedom! As if human beings could thus be tied to the soil for all
eternity Incidentally, landed property well deserves the attention which Arndt
devotes to it and the importance of the subject would certainly merit thorough
discussion from the highest standpoint of the present time. Previous theories
all suffer from the hereditary disease of German men of learning who think
they must assert their independence by each having a separate system of his
own.
If the retrograde aspects of Germanisation deserve closer examination partly
for the sake of the revered man, who defends them as his own convictions,
partly because of the favour which they have found of late in Prussia, another
of its tendencies must be all the more decisively rejected because it is again
threatening to prevail among us: hatred of the French. I will not join issue with
Arndt and the other men of 1813, but the servile twaddle which without any
principle all newspapers now serve up against the French is utterly repulsive to
me. It requires a high degree of obsequiousness to be convinced by the July
convention [106] that the Eastern question is a matter of life or death for
Germany and that Mohammed Ali endangers our nationhood. By supporting
the Egyptian, France has from that standpoint indeed committed against the

German nation the same crime of which she became guilty at the beginning of
the century. It is sad that for half a year already one has not been able to open a
newspaper without meeting this newly awakened French-eating fury. And
what is it for? To give the Russians enough additional land and the English
enough trading power so that they can get us Germans in a vice and crush us to
smithereens! The stable principle of England and the system of Russia, these
are the sworn enemies of European progress, not France and her movement.
But because two German sovereigns have found it proper to join the
convention, the affair has suddenly become a German concern, France is the
old godless, Gallic sworn enemy, and the perfectly natural arming of a truly
insulted France is a crime against the German nation. The ridiculous clamour
of a few French journalists for the Rhine frontier is thought worthy of lengthy
rejoinders, which are unfortunately never read by Frenchmen, and Beckers
song They shall not have it" ["Sie sollen ihn nicht haben the first line of
N. Beckers song Der deutsche Rhein ] is par force turned into a folk-song. I
do not grudge Becker his songs success and I will not examine its poetic
content, I am even glad to hear such expressions of German sentiment from the
left bank of the Rhine, but I share the view of the articles already published in
this journal which have just come to hand that it is ridiculous to want to elevate
this modest poem into a national anthem. They shall not have it. So again
negative? Can you be satisfied with a negative folk -song? Can German
nationhood find support solely in polemic against foreign countries? The text
of the Marseillaise is not worth much in spite of all its enthusiasm, but how
much more noble is its reaching out beyond nationality to mankind. And now,
after Burgundy and Lorraine have been torn from us, after we have let
Flanders become French and Holland and Belgium independent, after France
has already advanced in Alsace as far as the Rhine and only a relatively small
part of the once German left bank of the Rhine is still ours, we are not ashamed
to talk big and to write: at least you shall not have the last piece. Oh, the
Germans! And if the French had the Rhine, we would cry with the most
ridiculous pride: they shall not have it, the free German Weser, and so on to
the Elbe and Oder, until Germany was divided up between France and Russia,
and it was only left for us to sing: they shall not have it, the free stream of
German theory, so long as it calmly flows into the ocean of infinity, so long as
a single unpractical ideal fish flaps a fin on its bottom! Instead of which we
should do penance in sackcloth and ashes for the sins through which we have
lost all those beautiful lands, for the disunity and the betrayal of the idea, for
the provincial patriotism which deserts the whole for the sake of local
advantage, and for the lack of national consciousness. True, it is a fixed idea
with the French that the Rhine is their property, but to this arrogant demand the

only reply worthy of the German nation is Arndts: Give back Alsace and
Lorraine[
For I am of the opinion, perhaps in contrast to many whose standpoint I
share in other respects, that the reconquest of the German-speaking left bank of
the Rhine is a matter of national honour, and that the Germanisation of a
disloyal Holland and of Belgium is a political necessity for us. Shall we let the
German nationality be completely suppressed in these countries, while the
Slavs are rising ever more powerfully in the east? Shall we give up the
Germanness of our most beautiful provinces to buy the friendship of France;
possession going back barely a century which could not even assimilate what
was conquered-shah we accept this and the treaties of 1815 [the decisions of
the Vienna Congress] as a judgment of the world spirit against which there is
no appeal?
On the other hand, however, we are not worthy of the Alsatians so long as
we cannot give them what they now have: a free public life in a great state.
Without doubt, there will be another war between us and France, and then we
shall see who is worthy of the left bank of the Rhine. Until then we can well
leave the question to the development of our nationhood and of the world
spirit, until then let us work for a clear, mutual understanding among the
European nations and strive for the inner unity which is our prime need and the
basis of our future freedom. So long as our Fatherland remains split we shall
be politically null, and public life, developed constitutionalism, freedom of the
press, and all else that we demand will be mere pious wishes always only halffulfilled; so let us strive for this and not for the extirpation of the French!
Nevertheless, Germanising negation has still not fully completed its task: there
is still plenty to be sent home over the Alps, the Rhine, and the Vistula. The
Russians can have the pentarchy, [107] the Italians their papism with all its
hangers-on, their Bellini, Donizetti and even Rossini if they want to make him
out greater than Mozart and Beethoven, and the French their arrogant opinion
of us, their vaudevilles and operas, their Scribe and Adam. We want to chase
all these crazy foreign habits and fashions, all the superfluous foreign words
back whence they came; we want to cease to be the dupes of foreigners and
want to stand together as a single, indivisible, strong, and with Gods will free
German nation.
Monday, December 27, 2004
Taxes
Who said this? "It is high treason to pay taxes. Refusal to pay taxes is the primary duty of the citizen!". It was none other thanKarl Marx!.

Marx in Neue Rheinische Zeitung November 1848

No Tax Payments!
by Karl Marx
Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 145 (special supplement)
Translated by the Marx-Engels Institute
Transcribed for the Internet by director@marx.org, 1994

Cologne, November 16. All the Berlin newspapers, with the exception of the
Preussische Staats-Anzeiger, [112] Vossische Zeitung, [113] and Neue
Preussische Zeitung, [114] have failed to arrive.
The Civil Guard in the wealthy south-western district of Berlin has been
disarmed, but only there. It is the same battalion that dastardly murdered the
engineering workers on October 31. [115] The disarming of this battalion
strengthens the popular cause.
The National Assembly was again driven out of the Kolnische Rathaus [116]
by force of arms. It assembled then in the Mielenz Hotel, where finally it
unanimously (by 226 votes) passed the following resolution on the nonpayment of taxes:
"So long as the National Assembly is not at liberty to continue its sessions in Berlin, the
Brandenburg cabinet has no right to dispose of government revenues and to collect taxes.
"This decree comes into force on November 17.
"The National Assembly, November 15."

From today, therefore, taxes are abolished! It is high treason to pay taxes.
Refusal to pay taxes is the primary duty of the citizen!
Friday, December 24, 2004
THE IDEOLOGICAL ORIGINS OF GENOCIDE

"In January 1849, months before he migrated to London, Karl Marx published an article by Friedrich Engels in Die Neue Rheinische Zeitung announcing that in Central Europe only Germans, Hungarians and Poles counted as bearers of progress. The rest must go. "The chief mission of all other races and
peoples, large and small, is to perish in the revolutionary holocaust."

Genocide arose out of Marx's master-theory of history -- feudalism giving place inevitably to capitalism, capitalism to socialism. The lesser races of Europe -- Basques, Serbs, Bretons and others -- being sunk in feudalism, were counter-revolutionary; having failed to develop a bourgeoisie, they would be two
steps behind in the historical process. Engels dismissed them as left-overs and ethnic trash (Voelkerabfall), and called for their extinction.
So genocide was born as a doctrine in the German Rhineland in January 1849, in a Europe still reeling from the revolutions of 1848. It was to become the beacon light of socialism, proudly held and proudly proclaimed."
The above is a quote from the latest article by George Watson -- a literary historian specializing in the early history of socialism (I have an earlier article of his posted here and there is a review of his major book here). The quote is taken from an article in the December 2004 issue of Quadrant,
Australia's premier intellectual conservative magazine. The article will not be online for a month or so yet but I have temporarily posted here a PDF of the first page.
I have of course for some time been pointing out that eugenics was a great Leftist cause right up until Hitler thoroughly discredited the idea with his atrocities. Documenting the Leftist infatuation with eugenics in the first half of the 20th century is all too easy. But the fact that the idea largely originated
with Marx and Engels themselves has been hidden from public awareness with almost total success. There are many avid scholars of Marx's every word but some things are just too embarrassing to mention. I earnestly hope that the Marxian origin of Hitler's doctrines will become increasingly well-known.

George Watson

HE TWENTIETH CENTURY had two world wars. It did something else, too, no less tragic and original. It was the first age to practise terror by concentrating civilians by the thousand for slaughter in lonely places.

'The Soviets, it is now known, even pioneered the use of poison gas, so the Nazi debt was practical as well as theoretical, and Hitler often praised
Stalin in conversation. "The whole of National Socialism," he once confessed to a confidant, was based on Marx...'

The new terror was cyclic, and the cycle took exactly a century to complete. It began as a Marxian revolutionary doctrine in mid-nineteenth-century Germany; Lenin acted on it promptly after the October Revolution, Hitler after his
conquest of eastern lands in 1941; and it was finally turned against the Germans by Stalin in the Soviet zone of occupation in 1945. The last stage was little reported, however, being the work of an ally, and though recent it is now
largely forgotten. It can be surprising to learn that Stalin used some of Hitler's concentration camps, notably Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen, for their original purpose. The last link in the cycle of terror is the least known.

The background may be briefly sketched. In January 1849, months before he migrated to London, Karl Marx published an article by Friedrich Engels in Die Neue Rheinische Zeitung announcing that in Central Europe only Germans,
Hungarians and Poles counted as bearers of progress. The rest must go. "The chief mission of all other races and peoples, large and small, is to perish in the revolutionary holocaust."

Genocide arose out of Marx's master-theory of history - feudalism giving place inevitably to capitalism, capitalism to socialism. The lesser races of Europe - Basques, Serbs, Bretons and others - being sunk in feudalism, were
counter-revolutionary; having failed to develop a bourgeoisie, they would be two steps behind in the historical process. Engels dismissed them as leftovers and ethnic trash (Vlkerabfall), and called for their extinction.

So genocide was born as a doctrine in the German Rhineland in January 1849, in a Europe still reeling from the revolutions of 1848. It was to become the beacon-light of socialism, proudly held and proudly proclaimed, and for a
century it remained a doctrine uniquely socialist.

It differed from earlier doctrines and earlier massacres in striking ways. It involved millions, and it was racial. In both respects it differed from the Jacobin terror in Paris. In 1793-94 the Jacobins had publicly guillotined several
thousand enemies of the Republic; but that had nothing to do with race, and the numbers in retrospect look modest. The concentration camps of colonial Cuba in 1895, and British camps in the Boer War soon after, are distinct too,
though the term began there. Their purpose was to isolate women and children and hasten the end of colonial wars. Lenin may well have found the term in a newspaper, probably in a report of the South African war; the
Bolsheviks, at all events, adopted it. The term sounds neutral. But what Lenin built in 1918, months after the October Revolution, and Stalin and Hitler after him, was far different. Their camps were meant to kill. In 1918 the death
factory was born.

It is clear that all three dictators knew and applauded Marx's genocidal call. In a 1908 essay "Lessons of the Commune", Lenin had held up the defeat of the French Left after the Franco-Prussian War as a warning. Paris in 1871 had
shown that the first, necessary act of any revolutionary government was terror: to kill your opponents before they killed you. Lenin's motto, "Who whom?", sums up his credo. In class war, those who hesitate will pay. The first act
of the French Left, when Napoleon III was overthrown, should have been extermination, and that must be the first act in Russia - "the cleansing of Russian soil of all harmful insects, of scoundrel fleas, of bedbugs".

'In a 1908 essay "Lessons of the Commune", Lenin had held up the defeat of the French Left after the Franco-Prussian War as a warning. Paris in
1871 had shown that the first, necessary act of any revolutionary government was terror: to kill your opponents before they killed you.'

That was a decade before the October Revolution, but racialism was already widely accepted as the mark of the Left in many countries, including England. There the Fabians led. In 1900, in Fabianism and the Empire, they
announced in imperial vein that "the state which obstructs international civilisation will have to go, be it big or little". Two years later H.G. Wells, another Fabian, wrote Anticipations, where in its last pages he called for the
extermination or all non-white races to build a universal socialist utopia; and in August 1913, in the New Statesman, Sidney and Beatrice Webb called for the endless domination of the world by the white races:

Idle to pretend that anything like effective self-government, even as regards strictly local affairs, can be introduced for many generations to come - in some cases, conceivably never.

Years later, in February 1938, Bernard Shaw sent Beatrice a letter, contemplating Hitler's anti-Jewish program. Whatever Hitler's faults, he told her, we must assert "the right of states to make eugenic experiments by weeding out
any strains they think undesirable", though he hoped their methods, at least, would be humane. Indeed in a newspaper he calle d on scientists to invent a humane gas.

BY THEN, as everybody knew, Stalin's terror was in full spate. The Webbs had included a cautiously approving chapter on political murder in Soviet Communism: A New Civilization? in 1935, removing the question-mark from the
title page in the second edition of 1937 and adding a new entry on concentration camps to the index. Socialism meant terror.

Stalin too acknowledged his debt to Marx, and at the Twelfth Party Congress in Moscow in 1923, as Lenin lay dying, he proposed a threefold division of the Soviet people according to the new principles of scientific socialism: one
with a grasp of revolutionary doctrine, like the Bolsheviks; one at the capitalist stage, ripe for conversion; and one composed of communities too primitive to count, like Poles and Jews. (Engels, by then, had demoted Poles from his
list of the master races.) They must be destroyed. So it would be a mistake to suppose that communism was about class and fascism about race. "Race is itself an economic factor," Engels had written in a letter of January 1894 - a
view to be echoed by all who believed that economics determines history. Marxism was genocidal from the start.

The response of National Socialism to all that is famous, and Hitler's holocaust is the most extensively studied massacre in all history. But though Hitler called himself a socialist, and was widely accepted as one, inside and outside
Germany, his socialist sources are less well known, though they reached as far as Soviet exterminatory techniques. After the war Rudolf Hoess wrote a memoir called Kommandant in Auschwitz, as he awaited execution in a Polish
prison, recalling how as commandant of a death camp he received detailed reports of what the Soviet camps did. The Soviets, it is now known, even pioneered the use of poison gas, so the Nazi debt was practical as well as
theoretical, and Hitler often praised Stalin in conversation. "The whole of National Socialism," he once confessed to a confidant, was based on Marx.

In 1945 Stalin, as the master of East Germany, turned extermination back on the Germans, though his revenge is less well known. He was understandably nervous, however, about his collaboration with Hitler in 1939, and in 1946
at the Nuremberg trials he put Vyshinsky in charge of a secret commission to stage-manage the trial of Nazi war criminals, blocking any evidence of criminal collaboration between the two dictatorships as allies in Poland in 1939 41. The fear lingered. When I first visited Poland, which was in 1957, it was still forbidden in a post-Stalinist state to describe the Nazi camps in the Polish press, for fear it might be seen as a covert attack on the Soviet camps. The
resemblances, after all, were vivid, and far from accidental.

SINCE THE FALL of the Wall in 1989, the Soviet use of Nazi camps has become easier to grasp, and survivors have told their story. In 1991, for example, Benno Priess published a memoir of his arrest by Soviet authorities in East
Germany in May 1946, when he was a teenager. His story echoes that of millions under the Nazis: arrest without trial and without charge, a packed train, and years on a starvation diet with beatings and humiliation. The book,
Innocent in the NKVD Death Camps, was privately published in Germany and remains little known, and it tells of imprisonment in four former Nazi camps, notably Sachsenhausen, and later in the Soviet Union itself.

It is a stark tale of bare existence without hope. For years Priess had no contact with the outside world, so that his parents had no idea if he was alive or dead. When German guards replaced the Russians they proved even harsher,
and the death rate rose, mainly through starvation and tuberculosis; in March 1950, in a night that lives in memory as Hubert Night, there was a revolt in Bautzen, east of Dresden, with prisoners shouting through the bars, "We are
starving!" Release came after seven years, and very suddenly, in January 1954, nearly a year after Stalin's death.

By then the East German regime had closed Buchenwald and Sachsenhausen, and Buchenwald is now a national monument, on a hillt op near Weimar. What it commemorates is a Nazi atrocity rather than a communist, though the
death toll of some 13,000 prisoners in Soviet Buchenwald probably exceeded the Nazi death toll as a percentage.

The most famous prisoner of the Nazi period, Leon Blum, summed up the consequences. A former French prime minister, he spent the last two years of the war there as a privileged prisoner, and wrote a memoir after the liberation
called Le Dernier Mois. "You are already conquerors in this sense," he wrote bitterly of his Nazi captors. "You have succeeded in communicating to the world your cruelty and your hatred," and he duly predicted that their enemies
would imitate them, as they did, in "exasperated rage". He foresaw the revenge that would come.

The two camp regimes can, however, be distinguished. Soviet prisoners did not usually die quickly, by shooting or hanging, but slowly of hunger and disease. Survivors of Soviet Buchenwald and elsewhere tell how they seldom saw
a Russian soldier, except at one of the endless parades or high above on one of the control towers preserved from Nazi times. There was no prison uniform now and little discipline. You died unnoticed and by inadvertence.

The daily diet, according to one report, amounted to 800 to 900 calories, which is enough to sustain life if you sit or lie but not if you move. In one reported case, only 10 per cent of prisoners worked; the rest were shut up in
crowded barracks. Daily parades took two hours, when prisoners were forced to stand or march. Dying prisoners were carried to a sick bay once Soviet doctors had declared them unfit, while their companions seized their clothes
and their spoons as objects too precious to lose.

The Soviet camps of the German Democratic Republic were not a secret, but newspaper reports in the West were sparse. Few remember it happened at all, fewer still resent it. An ally of the Second World War took its silent
revenge on the enemy of all mankind, and the world hardly noticed.

Fewer still remember, or even know, that the Soviets were occupying sites Marx had once inspired. The Nazi camp system owed a lot to the Russians, as its camp commandants knew, and Stalin's terror had owed its prime impul se
to Marx. The first conquerors to enter the main gate of Buchenwald in 1945 were Americans, and Eisenhower's report of what his troops had seen was announced in the spring of 1945 in tones of muted horror by Winston Churchill,
as prime minister, to a shocked House of Commons.

The Americans torched Buchenwald's putrid barracks and handed it over, by prior agreement, to the Russians. They, at least, can have had no doubts what it was for. Over the main gate, in bold iron work, still stands the Nazi
slogan JEDEM DAS SEINE - to each his own - and the Soviets may have reflected too on Lenin's adage WHO WHOM? The Nazis had once promised to each his own. And that, in heaping measure, is what they got.

Note: Gerhard Finn, Die Politischen Hftlinge der Sowjetzone (1960, reprinted 1989) is a documented report of the years 1945 to 1959; see also K.W. Fricke, Politik und Justiz in der DDR (1979). For a survivor's account see Benno
Priess, Unschuldig in den Todeslargern der NKVD (privately printed, 1991). Stalin's suppression of evidence at the Nuremberg trials is detailed in Arkady Vaksberg, The Prosecutor and the Prey (1990), translated from Russian.

George Watson, who has taught at New York University and the universities of Minnesota and Georgia, is the author of The Lost Literature of Socialism (Lutterworth Press, 1998), which details Hitler's praise of Marx and Stalin. He is
a Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge.

NEVER BLAME THE LEFT

By George Watson
The Left is perceived as kind and caring, despite its extensive history of
promoting genocide.
When it comes to handing out blame, it is widely assumed that the Right is
wicked and the Left incompetent. Or rather, you sometimes begin to feel, any
given policy must have been Right if it was wicked, Left if it was incompetent.
To give an example: I happened recently in Vienna to pass a restaurant that
was advertising Jewish food, with two armed policemen standing outside.
They were there, one of them explained to me, to guard against right wing

radical extremists. There had been no violence against the restaurant then,
and I believe there has been none since. But racism, and especially antiSemitism, is wicked, so it must be right-wing.
That is fairly astounding, when you think about it. The truth is that in modern
Europe, genocide has been exclusively a socialist idea, ever since Engels
proclaimed it in Marx's journal the Neue Rheinische Zeitung in JanuaryFebruary 1849. Ever since then everyone who has advocated genocide has
called himself a socialist, without exception.
The Left has a lot to hide. In the 1890s, for example, French socialists
dissociated themselves from the Dreyfus affair, and in January 1898 the
French Socialist Party issued a manifesto that called it a power struggle within
the ruling classes, and warned the workers against taking sides in the matter.
Dreyfus's supporters were Jewish capitalists, they argued, eager to clear
themselves of financial scandals. A few years later, in 1902, H. G. Wells
in Anticipations repeated the Marxist demand for genocide, but with variations,
since the book is a blueprint for a socialist utopia that would be exclusively
white.
A generation later Bernard Shaw, another socialist, in a preface to his play On
the Rocks (1933), called on scientists to devise a painless way of killing large
multitudes of people, especially the idle and the incurable, which is where
Hitler's program began six years later. In a letter to his fellow socialist Beatrice
Webb (February 6, 1938) Shaw remarked of Hitler's program to exterminate
the Jews that "we ought to tackle the Jewish question,'' which means
admitting "the right of States to make eugenic experiments by weeding out
any strains that they think undesirable.'' His only proviso was that it should be
done humanely.
Ethnic cleansing was an essential part of the socialist program before Hitler
had taken any action in the matter. The Left, for a century, was proud of its
ruthlessness, and scornful of the delicacy of its opponents. "You can't make
an omelette,'' Beatrice Webb once told a visitor who had seen cattle cars full
of starving people in the Soviet Union, "without breaking eggs.''

There is abundant evidence, what is more, that the Nazi leaders believed they
were socialists and that anti-Nazi socialists often accepted that claim. In Mein
Kampf(1926) Hitler accepted that National Socialism was a derivative of
Marxism. The point was more bluntly made in private conversations. "The
whole of National Socialism is based on Marx,'' he told Hermann Rauschning.
Rauschning later reported the remark in Hitler Speaks (1939), but by that time
the world was at war and too busy to pay much attention to it. Goebbels too
thought himself a socialist. Five days before the German invasion of the
Soviet Union, in June 1941, he confided in his diary that "real socialism'' would
be established in that country after a Nazi victory, in place of Bolshevism and
Czarism.
The evidence that Nazism was part of the socialist tradition continues to
accumulate, even if it makes no headlines. In 1978 Otto Wagener's Hitler:
Memoirs of a Confidant appeared in its original German. Wagener was a
lifelong Nazi who had died in 1971. His recollections of Hitler's conversations
had been composed from notes in a British prisoner-of-war camp, and they
represent Hitler as an extreme socialist utopian, anti-Jewish because "the Jew
is not a socialist.'' Nor are Communists--``basically they are not socialistic,
since they create mere herds, as in the Soviet Union, without individual life.''
The real task, Hitler told Wagener, was to realize the socialist dream that
mankind over the centuries had forgotten, to liberate labor, and to displace the
role of capital. That sounds like a program for the Left, and many parties
called socialist have believed in less.
Hitler's allegiance, even before such sources were known, was acknowledged
by socialists outside Germany. Julian Huxley, for example, the pro-Soviet
British biologist who later became director-general of UNESCO, accepted
Hitler's claim to be a socialist in the early 1930s, though without enthusiasm
(indeed, with marked embarrassment).
Hitler's program demanded central economic planning, which was at the heart
of the socialist cause; and genocide, in the 1930s, was well known to be an
aspect of the socialist tradition and of no other. There was, and is, no
conservative or liberal tradition of racial extermination. The Nazis, what is
more, could call on socialist practice as well as socialist theory when they

invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 and began their exterminatory program.
That is documented by Rudolf Hoess in his memoir Kommandant in
Auschwitz (1958). Detailed reports of the Soviet camp system were circulated
to Nazi camp commandants as a model to emulate and an example to follow.
Soviet exterminations under Lenin and Stalin may have totaled 25 to 30
million, which (if the estimate is accepted) would represent about three times
the Nazi total of nine million. That seems to matter very little now. My Austrian
policeman was still certain that racism is right-wing. As are a lot of people.
After a recent bomb outrage against a synagogue in Luebeck, the German
press instantly assumed, before anyone was charged with the crime, that the
Right was to blame. The fact that there is no non-socialist tradition of
genocide in Europe has not even been noticed.
That is an impressive act of suppression. The Left may have lost the political
battle, almost everywhere in the world. But it does not seem to have lost the
battle of ideas. In intellectual circles, at least, it is still believed that racism and
the Left do not mix.
Why is this? How has the evidence of socialist genocide, how has Hitler's
acknowledgement of his debt to Marx, been so efficiently suppressed?
The answer, I suspect, lies in the nature of political commitment. Political
knowledge is not like botany or physics, and commitment is not usually made
by examining evidence. When socialism was fashionable I used to ask those
who believed in it why they thought public ownership would favor the poor.
What struck me about their responses was not just that they did not know but
that they did not think they were under any obligation to know. But if they had
really cared about poverty they would have demanded an answer before they
signed up, and would have gone on demanding an answer until they got one.
In other words, they were hardly interested in solving poverty. What really
interested them was looking and sounding as if they did.
When Marxism was fashionable, similarly, I used to ask Marxists what book
by Marx or Engels they had read all the way through, and watch them look
shifty and change the subject. Or, for a change, I might ask them what they

thought of Engels's 1849 program of racial extermination, and watch them

lose their temper. Politics, for lots of people, is not evidence based. It is more
like showing off a new dress or a new suit.
There are three motives, broadly speaking, for political commitment, of which
the third is admirable. I shall leave it till last.
The first is self-definition. You call yourself Left or Right, that is, as a way of
proclaiming to the world and to yourself that you are a certain sort of person-kind and caring if you are Left, competent and realistic if you are Right. The
reasons for these associations of ideas are far older than our century and
matter now only to historians, and even they would usually prefer not to be
asked about them. It might be worrying if anyone did. The line between the
efficient and the inefficient, after all, is nothing like as simple as the line
between the private and the public, and not all public enterprise is caring:
Auschwitz was public enterprise. Never mind. If you want to look caring, you
will not ask such questions, and if anybody does it is always possible to
change the subject.
The second motive is a sense of community. You choose a political side
because the people you know, or would like to know, are already there, and
you would like them to be like you. There was a time when, in university life,
you would not be accepted unless you were Left, and it took enormous
courage in that age to speak out on campus against Soviet or Chinese
exterminations. That view is not yet dead. There are still those on both sides
of the Atlantic who move, and intend to go on moving, in circles that think antiAmericanism a sufficient substitute for connected thought.
The third motive is instrumental. You can hold a political view with the
admirable purpose of achieving something specific like constitutional change
or a balanced budget, and support those who support it, whatever their party
color. A moment's reflection suggests that this is rare. It is hard work, for one
thing. It seldom attracts admiration, for another, though it often should. And it
is not always easy to believe that this will work. Much more agreeable, on the
whole, to use politics as a way of defining yourself or of making and keeping
friends.

The Left got away with its crimes, I suggest, because those who form opinion
had their own reasons for looking in another direction. They wanted to see
themselves in a certain light and to keep the good opinion of the people
whose friendship they valued. They had no wish to look at evidence, and they
were adept at pretending, when it was produced, that it did not mean what it
said. I remember once, in a controversy in a British journal, being told that
Marx, Wells, and Shaw were being whimsical and nothing more when they
committed socialists to mass-murder. Couldn't I take a joke? Evidence is
seldom as inconvenient as that in the physical sciences, and scientists do not
enjoy such convenient excuses for dismissal as whimsy or irony. Most critical
theory, in our times, has been a way of pretending that evidence does not,
and perhaps cannot, be taken literally.
The effects of that mood are still visible. The history of socialism, above all, is
studiously neglected and even, in some aspects, simply taboo. What we need
now is a serious and unblinking study of socialism, of what it said and what it
did: one that does not judge the evidence; one that is brave enough to tell it as
it was.
Mr. Watson, formerly a professor at New York University and now a fellow of
St. John's College, Cambridge, is the author of "Politics & Literature in Modern
Britain" and "The Idea of Liberalism" He is currently completing a history of
socialism.
This essay appears to have been published originally in National Review of
1995 -- Dec 31 issue -- but is not available on their website. A

slightly

edited version of this article appeared in Front

Page magazine of September 25, 2003. There is also a
supplement giving further evidence in support of the
contentions of this article here and a much more broadranging paper by a German historian on nationalism,
socialism, eugenics and social Darwinism here (PDF).

******************************************************************
**********************

EUGENICS AND THE LEFT

John J. Ray
Hitler's American inspiration
Everybody now knows how evil Nazi eugenics were: How
all sorts of people were exterminated not because of
anything they had done but simply because of the way
they had been born. And we have all heard how
disastrous were the Nazi efforts to build up the "master
race" through selective breeding of SS men with the best
of German women -- the "Lebensborn" project. Good
Leftists today recoil in horror from all that of course and
use their "Hitler was a Rightist" mantra to load those evils
onto conservatives. But Hitler was a socialist. As he
himself said:

"We are socialists, we are enemies of today's capitalistic

economic system for the exploitation of the economically

weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation

of a human being according to wealth and property
instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all
determined to destroy this system under all conditions."
(Speech of May 1, 1927. Quoted by Toland, 1976, p. 306)
So it should come as no surprise that Hitler's eugenics
were an intergral part of his socialism and that the great
supporters of COMPULSORY eugenics worldwide in
Hitler's day were overwhelmingly of the Left. Leftinfluenced historians commonly blur the distinction
between a belief in eugenic or dysgenic processes and
actually advocating a State-enforced eugenics program
but we can find the facts if we look carefully. And it was
American Leftists upon whom Hitler principally drew for his
"inspiration" in the eugenics field.
In the USA, the great eugenicists of the first half of the
20th century were the "Progressives". As it says here:
A significant number of Progressives -- including David
Starr Jordan, Robert Latham Owen, William Allen Wilson,
Harry Emerson Fosdick, Robert Latou Dickinson,
Katherine Bement Davis, and Virginia Gildersleeve--were
deeply involved with the eugenics movement
And as we read further here:

The second stage in the development of the eugenics

movement extended from 1905 to 1930, when eugenics
entered its period of greatest influence. More and more
progressive reformers became convinced that a good
proportion of the social ills in the United States lay in
hereditary factors....
An educator, biologist, and leader of the American peace
movement, Jordan's main contribution as a major architect
of American eugenics was to bridge the gap between
eugenics and other reform groups. Like other
progressives, Jordan subscribed to the PopulistProgressive criticism of laissez-faire capitalism. Jordan
had faith in progress and in a new generation. Yet, this
optimistic environmentalism of Jordan's contradicted his
Darwinian-hereditarian outlook of the world. Ironically, a
similar ambivalence - - a "love-hate" attitude toward
environmentalism - - ran through most progressive
ideology.
For Jordan, the first president of Leland Stanford
University, education permitted society's better members
to outlive inferior peoples. Jordan believed the twentieth
century had no place for the weak, the incompetent, and
the uneducated. In addition, Jordan urged an end to
indiscriminate and sentimental charity, a major factor he
believed in the survival of the unfit. Jordan, like most
progressives, viewed the urban setting as detrimental and
destructive to human life. He held the general progressive
belief in the social goodness of the small town or farm.
The progressive's romantic attraction to the countryside

can be partly explained by the alien character of the urban

population. An increasing number of city dwellers
belonged to the "undesirable foreign element".

And who were the Progressives? Here is the same writer's

summary of them:
"Originally, progressive reformers sought to regulate
irresponsible corporate monopoly, safeguarding
consumers and labor from the excesses of the profit
motive. Furthermore, they desired to correct the evils and
inequities created by rapid and uncontrolled urbanization.
Progressivism ..... asserted that the social order could and
must be improved..... Some historians, like Richard
Hofstadter and George Mowry, have argued that the
progressive movement attempted to return America to an
older, more simple, agrarian lifestyle. For a few
progressives, this certainly was true. But for most, a
humanitarian doctrine of social progress motivated the
reforming spirit"
.
Sound familiar? The Red/Green alliance of today is
obviously not new. So Hitler's eugenics were yet another
part of Hitler's LEFTISM! He got his eugenic theories from
the Leftists of his day. He was simply being a good Leftist
intellectual in subscribing to such theories.
Both quotes above are from De Corte (1978). Against all
his own evidence, De Corte also claims that the

Progressives were "conservative". More Leftist whitewash!

Unless it was glaringly obvious that someone was of the
Left, just believing in eugenics MADE that person
conservative in De Corte's view. Other evidence of their
conservatism was not needed or cited. There is a detailed
discussion of what the "Progressivism" of the time actually
was here. Whatever else it was, it was clearly not
conservative.
But the book by Pickens (1968) sets out the connection
between the Progressives and eugenics far more
throughly than the few quotes here can indicate.
Eugenics, however, was popular science generally in the
first half of the 20th century. As a scientific idea it was not
confined to Leftists. But note the difference in the
IMPLEMENTATION of eugenic ideas (again from De
Corte):
Even early social crusaders held similar illiberal views.
Josephine Shaw Lowell, a leader in asylum reform, stated
in 1884 that "every person born into a civilized community
has a right to live, yet the community has the right to say
that incompetent and dangerous persons shall not, so far
as can be helped, be born to acquire this right to live upon
others. Thus, strands of eugenic-style racism not only
found their way into conservative philosophy represented
by Sumner and other Social Darwinists but so did
progressive reform ideals. Consequently, reformers began
viewing the criminal, insane, epileptic, retarded and

impoverished as more products of their heredity than of

their social surroundings.
Whereas Social Darwinists desired to let nature take its
course in eliminating the "unfit," eugenicists, on the other
hand, felt Social Darwinism had not accomplished the task
of guaranteeing the "survival of the fittest" quickly enough.
For eugenicists, the "vigorous classes" should be
encouraged to have more children, while the "incompetent
classes" should be compelled to have fewer.
Consequently, eugenicists in their distrust of laissez-faire
concluded that "natural selection" must be helped along.
So conservatives, in their usual way, wanted to leave well
enough alone. It was the LEFTISTS, in their usual way,
who actually wanted to start compulsion in the matter.
And in Britain too the Leftists of the first half of the 20th
century were outspokenly in favour of eugenics. As just
one instance, that famous philosopher, peacenik and antinuclear camapaigner, Bertrand Russell spoke in favour of
it. Writing in "Icarus Or the Future of Science" in 1924 he
clearly approved of it though he did voice doubts about it
falling into the wrong hands. And in a letter to his first wife,
feminist Alys Pearsall Smith, about socialism and "the
woman question," he wrote of eugenics in words that
could well have been Hitler's -- even echoing Hitler's bad
grammar:

"Thee might observe incidentally that if the state paid for

child-bearing it might and ought to require a medical
certificate that the parents were such as to give a
reasonable result of a healthy child -- this would afford a
very good inducement to some sort of care for the race,
and gradually as public opinion became educated by the
law, it might react on the law and make that more
stringent, until one got to some state of things in which
there would be a little genuine care for the race, instead of
the present haphazard higgledy-piggledy ways."
(Quoted from here)
Even when Russell came to realize that State-sponsored
eugenics could very easily fall into the wrong hands -- a
realization he expresses inIcarus he still clearly saw it as
desirable at least in theory.
And Russell was not alone in Britain. As it says here:
The fact is that eugenics was popular across the political
spectrum for many years, both in England and in North
America (e.g., Paul, 1984; Soloway, 1990). In England,
many socialists supported eugenics. Even those viewed
as critics, such as J. B .S. Haldane, Lancelot Hogben and
Julian Huxley were not against eugenics per se, but came
to believe that eugenics in capitalist societies was infected
with class bias. Even so, some (see Paul, 1984), accepted
the idea of upper class genetic superiority.

Not only were R. B. Cattell's eugenic beliefs commonplace

in that milieu, but he was influenced by prominent
socialists who supported eugenics, men such as Shaw,
Wells, Huxley and Haldane, some of whom he knew (Hurt,
1998). Jonathan Harwood (1980) actually cited the
example of Cattell to demonstrate that British eugenics
was not a right-wing preserve in the inter-war years
(although Keith Hurt, 1998, has noted that Harwood later
characterised Cattell's 1972 book on Beyondism as a
"right-wing eugenic fantasy").
Oppenheim (1982) claimed that American eugenicists
were opposed by those in the Progressive Movement,
juxtaposing the hereditarian reformism of the former with
the environmental reformism of the latter. Actually many
progressives were also eugenicists and incorporated the
idea of eugenic reforms into their larger agenda (e.g.,
Burnham, 1977); there was a great deal of cross-over
between the two movements (e.g., Pickens, 1968).
The few real critics of eugenics in the early 20th century
were mainly conservatives and Christians like G.K.
Chesterton who saw eugenic planning as just another arm
of the wider campaign to impose a "scientific" socialist
planning. In fact Chesterton subtitled his anti-eugenics
tract "Eugenics and Other Evils" as: "An Argument Against
the Scientifically Organized State".
So, as we see from all the quotes above, the racialist
thinking of the eugenic socialists was quite "scientific" and
progressive in it's day, much as 'global warming' is seen

as scientific and progressive today. And many of the

eugenics true believers continued on postwar moving into
campaigns for legalised abortion, planned parenthood and
population control. In fact some modern-day pro-lifers
have highlighted the racist roots of much of the liberal proabortion movement.
And eugenics of a sort IS back on the Left: The Zero
Population Growth brigade are back with their "people are
pollution" attitudes! Only this time they want to HALVE our
population! And it does seem to be the old gang from the
1960's again -- including Paul Ehrlich. The abject failure of
their earlier prophecies -- e.g. that we would all be
doomed by the 1970s -- has not dampened them down a
bit.
The Feminist connection
And are feminists conservative? Hardly. And feminists are
hardly a new phenomenon either. In the person
of Margaret Sanger and others, they were very active and
prominent in the USA in first half of the 20th century,
advocating (for instance) abortion. And Margaret Sanger
was warmly praised by Hitler for her energetic
championship of eugenics. And the American eugenicists
were very racist. They wanted to reduce the black
population and they shared Hitler's view that Jews were
genetically inferior -- opposing moves to allow into the
USA Jews fleeing from Hitler. So if Hitler's eugenics and
racial theories were loathsome, it should be acknowledged
that his vigorous supporters in the matter at that time were

Leftists and feminists, rather than conservatives.

The Greenie connection
As in America, Hitler's eugenics were in fact just one
aspect of a larger "Greenie" theme -- a theme that
continues, of course, as the Red/Green alliance of today.
The Nazis were in fact probably the first major political
party in the Western world to have a thoroughgoing
"Green" agenda. A good short summary of that has been
written by Andrew Bolt. Excerpts:
Hitler's preaching about German strength and destiny was
water in the desert to the millions of Germans who'd been
stripped of pride, security and hope by their humiliating
defeat in World War I, and the terrible unemployment that
followed.
The world was also mad then with the idea that a
dictatorial government should run the economy itself and
make it "efficient", rather than let people make their own
decisions.
The Nazis -- National Socialists -- promised some of that,
and their sibling rivals in the Communist Party more.
The theory of eugenics -- breeding only healthy people -was also in fashion, along with a cult of health.
The Nazis, with their youth camps and praise of strong

bodies and a strong people, endorsed all that, and soon

were killing the retarded, the gay and the different.
Tribalism was popular, too. People weren't individuals, but
members of a class, as the communists argued, or of a
race, as the Nazis said. Free from freedom -- what a relief
for the scared!
You'd think we'd have learned. But too much of such
thinking is back and changing us so fast that we can't say
how our society will look by the time we die.
A KIND of eugenics is with us again, along with an
obsession for perfect bodies.
Children in the womb are being killed just weeks before
birth for the sin of being a dwarf, for instance, and famed
animal rights philosopher Peter Singer wants parents free
to kill deformed children in their first month of life.
Meanwhile support for euthanasia for the sick, tired or
incompetent grows.
As for tribalism, that's also back -- and as official policy.
We now pay people to bury their individuality in tribes,
giving them multicultural grants or even an Aboriginal
"parliament".....
People need to feel part of something bigger and better
than ourselves -- a family, or a church, or a tradition or a
country. Or, as a devil may whisper, the greens.

The greens. Here's a quote which may sound very familiar

-- at least in part. "We recognise that separating humanity
from nature, from the whole of life, leads to humankind's
own destruction and to the death of nations. "Only through
a re-integration of humanity into the whole of nature can
our people be made stronger . .
"This striving toward connectedness with the totality of life,
with nature itself, a nature into which we are born, this is
the deepest meaning and the true essence of National
Socialist thought."
That was Ernst Lehmann, a leading biologist under the
Nazi regime, in 1934, and he wasn't alone. Hitler, for one,
was an avid vegetarian and green, addicted to
homeopathic cures. His regime sponsored the creation of
organic farming, and SS leader Heinrich Himmler even
grew herbs on his own organic farm with which to treat his
beloved troops.
HITLER also banned medical experiments on animals, but
not, as we know to our grief, on Jewish children. And he
created many national parks, particularly for Germany's
"sacred" forests.
This isn't a coincidence. The Nazis drew heavily on a
romantic, anti-science, nature worshipping, communal and
anti-capitalist movement that tied German identity to
German forests. In fact, Professor Raymond Dominick
notes in his book, The Environmental Movement in
Germany, two-thirds of the members of Germany's main

nature clubs had joined the Nazi Party by 1939, compared

with just 10 per cent of all men.
The Nazis also absorbed the German Youth Movement,
the Wandervogel, which talked of our mystical relationship
with the earth. Peter Staudenmaier, co-author
of Ecofascism: Lessons from the German Experience,
says it was for the Wandervogel that the philosopher
Ludwig Klages wrote his influential essay Man and Earth
in 1913.
In it, Klages warned of the growing extinction of species,
the destruction of forests, the genocide of aboriginal
peoples, the disruption of the ecosystem and the killing of
whales. People were losing their relationship with nature,
he warned.
Heard all that recently? I'm not surprised. This essay by
this notorious anti-Semite was republished in 1980 to mark
the birth of the German Greens -- the party that inspired
the creation of our own Greens party.
Its message is much as Hitler's own in Mein Kampf:
"When people attempt to rebel against the iron logic of
nature, they come into conflict with the very same
principles to which they owe their existence as human
beings. Their actions against nature must lead to their own
downfall."
Why does this matter now? Because we must learn that
people who want animals to be treated like humans really

want humans to be treated like animals.

We must realise a movement that stresses "natural order"
and the low place of man in a fragile world, is more likely
to think man is too insignificant to stand in the way of
Mother Earth, or the Fatherland, or some other man-hating
god.
We see it already. A Greenpeace co-founder, Paul
Watson, called humans the "AIDS of the earth", and one
of the three key founders of the German Greens, Herbert
Gruhl, said the environmental crisis was so acute the state
needed perhaps "dictatorial powers"....
The "big government" connection
As they do today, the Leftists of the 1920s and 1930s
captured most of the intellectuals and much of the
educated class of the day and this gave them access to
the levers of government power -- which is of course what
Leftists want above all. Leftists never tire of finding
reasons for big government. But once something gets into
the hands of big government, it can turn out to be very
destructive indeed. And the American eugenics laws of the
first half of the 20th century are a very good example of
that. As it says here:
"President Woodrow Wilson signed New Jersey's
sterilization law, and one of his deputies descended to
greater fame as a Nazi collaborator at Buchenwald.

Pennsylvania's legislature passed an 'Act for the

Prevention of Idiocy,' but the governor vetoed it .... Other
states, however, joined the crusade. ... Eventually, the
eugenicist virus found a hospitable host in Germany.
There... it led to the death chambers of Buchenwald and
Auschwitz. Thanks to the Nazis, highly praised by
eugenicists here, the movement eventually collapsed. But
not before nearly 50,000 Americans were sterilized."
And someone from the past who is still something of a
hero to the Left is the American jurist Oliver Wendell
Holmes Jr., who famously said: "When you pay taxes you
buy civilisation". This was quoted approvingly recently
by Simon Crean, Federal Parliamentary leader of the
Australian Labor party. Crean somehow failed to note that
Holmes was also known for ordering compulsory
sterilizations of the supposedly mentally ill: Yet another
forgotten American inspiration for Adolf.
And California was one of the earliest supporters of
Eugenics laws and in fact provided the model for Hitler's
laws. -- as it says here:
Under the banner of "national regeneration," tens of
thousands, mostly poor women, were subjected to
involuntary sterilization in the United States between 1907
and 1940. And untold thousands of women were sterilized
without their informed consent after World War II. Under
California's 1909 sterilization law, at least 20,000
Californians in state hospitals and prisons had been

involuntarily sterilized by 1964. California, according to a

recent study, "consistently outdistanced every other state"
in terms of the number of eugenic sterilizations....
California not only led the nation in forced sterilizations,
but also in providing scientific and educational support for
Hitler's regime. In 1935, Sacramento's Charles M. Goethe
praised the Human Betterment Foundation for effectively
"shaping the opinions of the group of intellectuals who are
behind Hitler." In 1936, Goethe acknowledged the United
States and Germany as leaders in eugenics ("two
stupendous forward movements"), but complained that
"even California's quarter century record has, in two years,
been outdistanced by Germany." In 1936, California
eugenicist Paul Popenoe was asking one of his Nazi
counterparts for information about sterilization policies in
Germany in order to make sure that "conditions in
Germany are not misunderstood or misrepresented." .....
California's eugenicists could not claim ignorance that
Germany's sterilization program was motivated primarily
by racial politics. For example, in 1935, the Los Angeles
Times published a long defense of Germany's sterilization
policies, in which the author noted that the Nazis "had to
resort to the teachings of eugenic science" because
Germany had been "deprived of her colonies, blessed with
many hundreds of defective racial hybrids as a lasting
memory of the colored army of occupation, and
dismembered all around." Not only did California
eugenicists know about Nazi efforts to use sterilization as
a method of "race hygiene" -- targeted primarily at Jews --

they also approved efforts to stop "race-mixing" and

increase the birth rate of the "Northern European type of
family." The chilling words of Progressive reformer John
Randolph Haynes anticipated the Nazi regime's murder of
100,000 mentally ill patients: "There are thousands of
hopelessly insane in California, the condition of those
minds is such that death would be a merciful release. How
long will it be before society will see the criminality of using
its efforts to keep alive these idiots, hopelessly insane,
and murderous degenerates. . Of course the passing of
these people should be painless and without warning.
They should go to sleep at night without any intimation of
what was coming and never awake."
And a country that is to this day a model and inspiration to
Leftists everywhere is Sweden -- with its all-embracing
welfare State. So what happened in Sweden? As we
read here:
During the Nazi era in Germany, eugenics prompted the
sterilisation of several hundred thousand people then
helped lead to antisemitic programmes of euthanasia and
ultimately, of course, to the death camps. The association
of eugenics with the Nazis is so strong that many people
were surprised at the news several years ago that Sweden
had sterilised around 60 000 people (mostly women)
between the 1930s and 1970s. The intention was to
reduce the number of children born with genetic diseases
and disorders. After the turn of the century, eugenics
movements--including demands for sterilisation of people

considered unfit--had, in fact, blossomed in the United

States, Canada, Britain, and Scandinavia, not to mention
elsewhere in Europe and in parts of Latin America and
Asia. Eugenics was not therefore unique to the Nazis.

So what exactly did happen in the USA? I am indebted

to one of my fellow bloggers for a useful summary of one
of the cases. Some extracts:
In the 1920's, the eugenics movement was ... popular. So
popular in fact, that mandatory sterilization laws were
passed in 34 states from the mid-1920's to mid 30's.
Basically, these laws stated that sterilization was
mandatory for socially undesirable persons. "The socially
inadequate classes, regardless of etiology or prognosis,
are the following: (1) Feeble-minded; (2) Insane, (including
psychopathic); (3) Criminalistic (including the delinquent
and wayward); (4) Epileptic; (5) Inebriate (including drug
habitues)..." [etc]. So basically, if you were hyperactive,
promiscuous, an alcoholic or drug addict, had cerebral
palsy or Down's syndrome, were epileptic, (etc., ad
nauseum), or exhibited ANY socially undesirable behavior
at all, you were eligible for mandatory sterilization. And not
you, nor your parents (if you were a minor) had any right
to say "No".
In the mid 1920's, Carrie Buck, at the ripe old age of 17,
fought the state of Virginia's mandatory sterilization
statute. She was classified as a socially inferior woman,

having born a child out of wedlock and her foster parents

stated that she was "a handful". Carrie's mother had also
been incarcerated in a state institution as a 'promiscuous
woman'. And at the age of 7 months, Carrie's child, Vivian,
was 'certified' as being 'deficient', based on the 'history' of
Carrie and her mother.
Carrie lost her case at the state court level, and it wound
up in front of the Supreme Court in 1927. The prominent
Supreme Court jurist, Oliver Wendel Holmes, wrote the
opinion in Buck v. Bell. The decision was 8-1, Justice
Butler dissenting. Here's what the majority opinion boiled
down to:
"In order to prevent our being swamped with
incompetents... society can prevent those who are
manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle
that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to
cover cutting the Fallopian tubes." ...
"It is better for all the world, if instead of waiting to execute
degenerate offspring for crime, or to let them starve for
their imbecility, society can prevent those who are
manifestly unfit from continuing their kind.Three
generations of imbeciles are enough." - Justice Oliver
Wendell Holmes, Jr., (Buck v. Bell, 1927)
Five months after this decision, Carrie was forcibly
sterilized. It later came out that her promiscuity was
nothing of the sort. She'd been raped by the nephew of
her foster parents, himself a violent (unsterilized) little

scumbag. And her daughter's school records show that

Vivian was a B student, receiving an A in deportment
(behavior), and she was on the honor roll. Genetic tests
later showed that neither Carrie nor her daughter had any
genetic defects.

Conservative eugenics?
I should note that economist Steven Levitt's work suggests
that the old Leftist eugenics program of reducing the birth
rate (via abortion) among the "lower classes" was not
totally misconceived. Levitt's findings seem to show that
making VOLUNTARY abortion available to poorer mothers
reduces the crime rate years later. He is at pains of course
to indicate that his empirical findings are not an
endorsement of either eugenics or abortion. Slate featured
a 3 day correspondence between him and Steve Sailer
dealing with the issue.
Given the traditional conservative regard for individual
liberty, it seems to me that the only eugenics programs
that conservatives could justify would be voluntary ones -such as the large material incentives to reproduce that the
Singapore government offers to highly educated
Singaporean women. Christian conservatives, however,
tend to regard all reproduction as God-given so would
oppose even voluntary eugenic programs
that limited reproduction -- such as the Woodhill
Foundation programs that pay crack-addicted mothers to
undertake contraception.

Leftists, however, oppose the Woodhill

programs because they are voluntary and privatelyfunded. They like such matters to be in the hands of the
State (i.e. under their control).
And the problem of a self-perpetuating and substantially
criminal underclass does not need to be addressed by
eugenics. It can be addressed by addressing its major
causes -- such as the over-generous welfare system that
the Leftists have created in their hunger for praise.
And despite everything, there ARE useful and noncoercive Eugenics programs in operation right
now. Genetic screening in the U.S. Jewishcommunity has
now all but eliminated an awful hereditary disease -- TaySachs -- from that community.
Shifting the blame
Modern-day Leftists hate it when you point out that it was
THEY who were the inspiration for Hitler. So what do they
do? They try to shift the blame -- to even the most unlikely
targets. A recent book has tried to lay the blame for the
Leftist eugenicists of the early 20th century at the door of
someone who opposed ALL compulsion. As the book
reviewer says:
"It has long been open season on Herbert Spencer (18201903). Perhaps because he was the 19th century's most

prominent defender of individual liberty and critic of the

violence of the state, Spencer has always been the object
of hatred and distortion; indeed, it sometimes seems that
no accusation is too bizarre to be leveled against him...
What common ground could there be between Spencer
and the eugenicists? Both, to be sure, were 'Social
Darwinists,' if that means that both thought there were
important sociopolitical lessons to be drawn from
evolutionary biology. But Spencer and the eugenicists
drew opposite lessons. For the eugenicists, the moral of
evolutionary biology was that the course of human
evolution must be coercively managed and controlled by a
centralized, paternalistic technocracy. For Spencer, by
contrast, the moral was that coercive, centralized,
paternalistic approaches to social problems were
counterproductive and so would tend to be eliminated by
the spontaneous forces of social evolution ..."
It is a good comment on the dismal minds of Leftists that
they think that nothing can be accomplished except
through compulsion.
Hitler's Marxist inspiration
It may be objected, however, that comparing Hitler with
the fashionable eugenicists among Western Leftists of the
20s and 30s is rather beside the point. Western Leftists
surely did not contemplate anything as extreme as Hitler's
genocide. Given some of the pitiless utterances of
Western Leftists already mentioned, that is a fairly feeble

protest but it should be noted that Hitler did not get ALL
his ideas from the West of his time. He got some of them
from none other than Marx and Engels. And if it can be
argued that Western Leftists did not condone genocide,
the same cannot be said of Marx and Engels. They in fact
vociferously ADVOCATED genocide. Note this quote:
"In January 1849, months before he migrated to London,
Karl Marx published an article by Friedrich Engels in Die
Neue Rheinische Zeitung announcing that in Central
Europe only Germans, Hungarians and Poles counted as
bearers of progress. The rest must go. "The chief mission
of all other races and peoples, large and small, is to perish
in the revolutionary holocaust."
Genocide arose out of Marx's master-theory of history -feudalism giving place inevitably to capitalism, capitalism
to socialism. The lesser races of Europe -- Basques,
Serbs, Bretons and others -- being sunk in feudalism,
were counter-revolutionary; having failed to develop a
bourgeoisie, they would be two steps behind in the
historical process. Engels dismissed them as left-overs
and ethnic trash (Voelkerabfall), and called for their
extinction.
So genocide was born as a doctrine in the German
Rhineland in January 1849, in a Europe still reeling from
the revolutions of 1848. It was to become the beacon light
of socialism, proudly held and proudly proclaimed."

The above is a quote from the latest article by George

Watson -- a literary historian specializing in the early
history of socialism (I have an earlier article of his
posted here and there is a review of his major book here).
The quote is taken from an article in the December 2004
issue ofQuadrant, Australia's premier intellectual
conservative magazine. I have posted here a PDF of the
first page.
The fact that Hitler's genocidal ideas largely originated
with Marx and Engels themselves has of course been
hidden from public awareness with almost total success by
a Left-dominated media and academe. It would be too
embarrassing to admit. But if we look at all the historical
materials available to us, there can be no doubt of the
Leftist origins of Hitler's genocidal "eugenics".

References:
De Corte, T.L. (1978) Menace of Undesirables: The
Eugenics Movement During the Progressive Era.
University of Nevada, Las Vegas.
Pickens, D. (1968) Eugenics and the Progressives.

Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press.

Toland, J. (1976) Adolf Hitler Garden City, N.Y. :
Doubleday.
MARX THOUGHT WAR WAS A GOOD THING

As did many others in the 19th and early 20th centuries -- including Mussolini, Hitler and "Progressive" U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt

Marx, Sept 24, 1855: "The redeeming feature of war is that it puts a nation to the test. As exposure to the atmosphere reduces all mummies to instant dissolution, so war passes supreme judgment upon social systems that have outlived their vitality".

(Full context for this quote does not appear to be available online but it is mentioned in various places on the net -- e.g. here. See also Collected Works, vol. 14, p. 516)

Monday, April 25, 2005

WAR AGAINST RUSSIA A GOOD THING FOR GERMANY

And Hitler carried it out

Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 42, July 12, 1848: "Only a war against Russia would be a war of revolutionary Germany, a war by which she could cleanse herself of her past sins, could take courage, defeat her own autocrats, spread civilisation by the sacrifice of her own sons as becomes a people that is
shaking off the chains of long, indolent slavery"
It is not clear whether it was Marx or Engels that wrote this. Context here

Marx and Engels in Neue Rheinische Zeitung July 1848

German Foreign Policy and

the Latest Events in Prague
Source: MECW Volume 7, p. 212;
Written: on July 11, 1848;
First published: in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 42, July 12, 1848.

Cologne, July 11. Despite the patriotic shouting and beating of the drums of
almost the entire German press, the Neue Rheinische Zeitung from the very
first moment has sided with the Poles in Posen, the Italians in Italy, and the
Czechs in Bohemia. From the very first moment we saw through the
Machiavellian policy which, shaking in its foundations in the interior of
Germany, sought to paralyse democratic energies, to deflect attention from
itself, to dig conduits for the fiery lava of the revolution and forge the weapon
of suppression within the country by calling forth a narrow-minded national
hatred which runs counter to the cosmopolitan character of the Germans, and
in national wars of unheard-of atrocity and indescribable barbarity trained a
brutal soldiery such as could hardly be found even in the Thirty Years War. [155]

What deep plot it is to let the Germans under the command of their
governments undertake a crusade against the freedom of Poland, Bohemia and
Italy at the same moment that they are struggling with these same governments
to obtain freedom at home! What an historical paradox! Gripped by
revolutionary ferment, Germany seeks relief in a war of restoration, in a
campaign for the consolidation of the old authority against which she has just
revolted. Only a war against Russia would be a war ofrevolutionary Germany,
a war by which she could cleanse herself of her past sins, could take courage,
defeat her own autocrats, spread civilisation by the sacrifice of her own sons as
becomes a people that is shaking off the chains of long, indolent slavery and
make herself free within her borders by bringing liberation to those outside.
The more the light of publicity reveals in sharp outlines the most recent
events, the more facts confirm our view of the national wars by which
Germany has dishonoured her new era. As a contribution to this enlightenment
we publish the following report by a German in Prague even though it reached
us belatedly:
Prague, June 24, 1848 (delayed)
The Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung of the 22nd [of this month] contains an article about the
assembly of Germans held in Aussig on the 18th [of this month] in which speeches were made
which show such ignorance of our recent events and, in part, to put it mildly, such a willingness
to heap abusive accusations upon our independent press that [this] writer considers it his duty to
correct these errors as far as this is now possible and to confront these thoughtless and malicious
persons with the firmness of truth. It comes as a surprise when a man like the founder of the
League to Preserve German Interests in the East [Johann Wuttke] exclaims before an entire
assembly: There can be no talk of forgiveness so long as the battle in Prague continues and,
should the victory be ours, we must make full use of it in future. What victory then have the
Germans achieved and what conspiracy then has been crushed? Whoever, of course, lends
credence to the correspondent of the Deutsche Allgemeine, who, it seems, is always only
superficially informed, and whoever trusts the pathetic catchwords of a small-time Polonophobe
and Francophobe or the articles of the perfidious Frankfurter Journal which seeks to incite
Germans against Bohemians just as it stirred up Germans against Germans during the events in
Baden, such a person will never obtain a clear view of the situation here. Everywhere in
Germany the opinion seems to prevail that the battle in the streets of Prague was aimed solely at
the suppression of the German element and the founding of a Slav republic. We will not even
discuss the latter suspicion, for it is too naive; in regard to the former, however, not the smallest
trace of a rivalry between nationalities could be observed during the fighting on the barricades.
Germans and Czechs stood side by side ready for defence, and I myself frequently requested a
Czech-speaking person to repeat what he had said in German, which was always done without
the slightest remark. One hears it said that the outbreak of the revolution came two days too
early; this would imply that there must already have been a certain degree of organisation and at
least provisions made for the supply of ammunition; however, there was no trace of this either.
The barricades grew out of the ground in a haphazard way wherever ten to twelve people
happened to he together; incidentally, it would have been impossible to raise any more
barricades, for even the smallest alleys contained three or four of them. The ammunition was
mutually exchanged in the streets and was exceedingly sparse. There was no question
Whatsoever of a supreme command or of any other kind of command. The defenders stayed
where they were being attacked and fired without direction and without command from houses

and barricades. No thought of a conspiracy could have had any foundation in such an unguided
and unorganised resistance, unless this is suggested by some official declaration and publication
of the results of an investigation. The Government, however, does not seem to find this
appropriate, for nothing has transpired from the castle that might enlighten Prague about its
blood June days. With the exception of a few, the imprisoned members of the
[156]
Svornosts
have all been released again. Other prisoners are also being released, only Count
Buquoy, Villiny and a few others are still under arrest, and one fine morning we will perhaps
read a poster on the walls of Prague according to which it was all based on a misunderstanding.
The operations of the commanding general do not suggest protection of Germans against Czechs
either; for in that case, instead of winning the German population to his side by explaining the
situation to them, storming the barricades and protecting the life and property of the loyal
inhabitants of the city, he evacuates the Old City, moves to the left bank of the Moldau and
shoots down Czechs and Germans alike; for the bombs and bullets that flew into the Old City
could not possibly seek out only Czechs, they mowed people down without looking at the
cockade. How can one rationally deduce a Slav conspiracy when the Government up to now has
been unable or unwilling to give any clarification?
Dr. Gschen, a citizen of Leipzig, has drawn up a letter of thanks to Prince von Windischgrtz,
to which the general should not ascribe too much importance as an expression of the popular
voice. Citizen Gschen is one of those circumspect liberals who suddenly turned liberal after the
February days; he was the initiator of a letter of confidence to the Saxon Government concerning
the electoral law while the whole of Saxony cried out in indignation, for one-sixth of her
inhabitants, especially some of her more able citizens, thereby lost their first civil right, the right
to vote; he is one of those who spoke out emphatically in the German League against the
admission of German non-Saxons to the election in Saxony and listen to the double-dealing
who shortly afterwards in the name of his club promised to the League of the non-Saxon
German citizens who reside in Saxony complete co-operation in the election of a deputy of its
own for Frankfurt. In short, to characterise him in a word: he is the founder of the German
League. This man has addressed a letter of thanks to the Austrian general and thanked him for
the protection which he allegedly bestowed upon the entire German fatherland. I believe that I
have shown that the events do not as yet prove at all to what extent, if any, Prince von
Windischgrtz has deserved well of the German fatherland. Only the result of the investigation
will determine that. We will, therefore, leave the high courage, the bold enterprise and firm
endurance of the general to the judgment of history. As for the expression cowardly
assassinations in regard to the death of the Princess [Maria Eleonora Windischgrtz] we will
only mention that it has by no means been proved that that bullet was intended for the Princess
who had enjoyed the undivided respect of all Prague. If it should be the case, however, the
murderer will not escape his punishment, and the grief of the Prince was surely no greater than
that of the mother who saw her nineteen-year-old daughter, also an innocent victim, carried off
with a shattered skull. I am in complete agreement with Citizen Gschen concerning the passage
in the address which speaks of brave bands that fought so gallantly under your leadership, for
if he had been able to observe, as I did, the warlike vehemence with which these brave bands
rushed upon the defenceless crowd in the Zeltner Lane on Monday at noon, he would have found
his expressions much too weak. Much as it hurts my military vanity, I have to admit that I
myself, peacefully strolling among a group of women and children near the temple, allowed
thirty to forty royal and imperial grenadiers to put myself to flight together with these people and
so effectively that I had to leave my entire baggage, i.e. my hat, in the hands of the victors, for I
considered it unnecessary to wait for the beatings, which were being administered to the crowd
behind me, to reach me as well. I had the opportunity, nevertheless, to observe that six hours
later at the Zeltner Lane barricade these same royal and imperial grenadiers thought it proper to
fire for half an hour with canister-shot and six-pounders at this barricade which was defended by
at most twenty men, and then not to take it, however, until it was abandoned by its defenders
around midnight. There was no hand-to-hand fighting except in a few instances where the
superior strength was on the side of the grenadiers. To judge by the devastation of the houses,
the Graben and the Neue Allee were largely cleared by artillery, and I leave it open whether or

not it takes great defiance of death to clear a broad avenue of a hundred barely armed defenders
with canister-shot.
Concerning the most recent speech by Dr. Stradal from Teplitz according to which the Prague
newspapers are acting for foreign interests, that is presumably Russian, I declare in the name of
the independent press of Prague that this comment is either an abundance of ignorance or an
infamous calumny whose absurdity has been and will be sufficiently proved by the attitude of
our newspapers. Pragues free press has never defended any other goal than the preservation of
Bohemias independence and the equal rights of both nationalities. It knows, however, very well
that German reaction is seeking to rouse a narrow-minded nationalism just as in Posen and in
Italy, partly in order to suppress the revolution in the interior of Germany and partly to train the
soldiery for civil war.

Tuesday, April 26, 2005

MARX: GERMANS SHOULD THRASH THE FRENCH
I guess Hitler got that message too

Marx to Engels, July 20, 1870: "The French need a thrashing. If the Prussians win, the centralisation of the state power will be useful for the centralisation of the German working class. German predominance would also transfer the centre of gravity of the workers' movement in Western Europe from France
to Germany, and one has only to compare the movement in the two countries from 1866 till now to see that the German working class is superior to the French both theoretically and organisationally. Their predominance over the French on the world stage would also mean the predominance of our theory
over Proudhon's, etc."
Context here

Marx-Engels Correspondence 1870

Marx to Engels
In Manchester
Abstract

Written: July 20, 1870;

Source: Marx and Engels Correspondence;
Publisher: International Publishers (1968);
First Published: Gestamtausgabe;
Translated: Donna Torr;
Transcribed: Sally Ryan in 1999;
HTML Markup: Sally Ryan.

[London,] 20 July 1870

But the paper [Le Rveil, a democratic French newspaper] is also interesting on
account of the leading article by old Delescluze. Despite his opposition to the
government, the most complete expression of chauvinism--because France
alone is the home of ideas--(of the ideas it has got about itself). The only thing

that annoys these republican chauvinists is that the real expression of their
idol--L. Bonaparte the long-nosed Stock Exchange shark--does not correspond
to their fancy picture. The French need a thrashing. If the Prussians win, the
centralisation of the state power will be useful for the centralisation of the
German working class. German predominance would also transfer the centre
of gravity of the workers' movement in Western Europe from France to
Germany, and one has only to compare the movement in the two countries
from 1866 till now to see that the German working class is superior to the
French both theoretically and organisationally. Their predominance over the
French on the world stage would also mean the predominance of our theory
over Proudhon's, etc.
Finally, I am also enclosing the criticism of my book [Capital Vol I] in
Hildebrand's Journal of Economy and Statistics. My physical state scarcely
disposes me to merriment, but I have cried with laughter over this essay--bona
fide tears of mirth. With the reaction and the downfall of the heroic age of
philosophy in Germany the "petty bourgeois", inborn in every German citizen,
has again asserted himself--in philosophic drivel worthy of Moses
Mendelssohn, would-be clever and superior peevish nagging. And so now
even political economy is to be dissolved into twaddle about "conceptions of
justice!"
Wednesday, April 27, 2005
MARX SAW FUTURE WARS AS RACE WARS
And Hitler again waged exactly the war that Marx predicted

Marx, SECOND ADDRESS On The War To the Members of the International Working-Mens Association, 1870: "If the fortune of her arms, the arrogance of success, and dynastic intrigue lead Germany to a spoliation of French territory, there will then only remain two courses open to her. She must at all risks
become the avowed tool of Russian aggrandisement, or, after some short respite, make again ready for another defensive war, not one of those new-fangled localised wars, but a war of races a war with the combined Slavonian and Roman races".
Context here

Appendix
The General Council of the
International Working-Mens Association

SECOND ADDRESS.
On The War.
To the Members of the International Working-Mens Association
In Europe and the United States.

Written: July 23rd and September 9th, 1870.

First Published: The first of two pamphlets which were issued by the

General Council of the International Working-Mens Association during the

progress of the War of 1870 and on the Communal rising in the spring of
1871;
Source: Appendix to 1903 edition of A History of the Paris Commune by
Belfort Bax, 1895;
Transcribed: by Ted Crawford, for marxists.org 2004.

In our first manifesto of the 23rd of July we said:The death-knell of the Second Empire has already sounded at Paris. It will
end, as it began, by a parody. But let us not forget that it is the Governments
and the ruling classes of Europe who enabled Louis Napoleon to play during
eighteen years the ferocious farce of the Restored Empire.
Thus, even before war operations had actually set in, we treated the
Bonapartist bubble as a thing of the past.
If we were not mistaken as to the vitality of the Second Empire, we were not
wrong in our apprehension lest the German war should lose its strictly
defensive character and degenerate into a war against the French people. The
war of defence ended, in point of fact, with the surrender of Louis Bonaparte,
the Sedan capitulation, and the proclamation of the Republic at Paris. But long
before these events, the very moment that the utter rottenness of the Imperialist
arms became evident, the Prussian military camarilla had resolved upon
conquest. There lay an ugly obstacle in their way King Williams own
proclamations at the commencement of the war. In his speech from the throne
to the North German Diet, he had solemnly declared to make war upon the
Emperor of the French, and not upon the French people. On the 11th of August
he had issued a manifesto to the French nation, where he said: The Emperor
Napoleon having made, by land and sea, an attack on the German nation which
desired and still desires to live in peace with the French people, I have
assumed the command of the German armies to repel his aggression, and I
have been led by military events to cross the frontiers of France. Not content
to assert the defensive character of the war by the statement that he only
assumed the command of the German armies to repel aggression, he added
that he was only led by military events to cross the frontiers of France. A
defensive war does, of course, not exclude offensive operations, dictated by
military events.
Thus this pious king stood pledged before France and the world to a strictly
defensive war. How to release him from his solemn pledge? The stage

managers had to exhibit him as reluctantly yielding to the irresistible behest of

the German nation. They at once gave the cue to the liberal German middle
class, with its professors, its capitalists, its aldermen, and its penmen. That
middle class, which, in its struggles for civil liberty, had, from 1846 to 1870,
been exhibiting an unexampled spectacle of irresolution, incapacity, and
cowardice, felt, of course, highly delighted to bestride the European scene as
the roariug lion of German patriotism. It re-vindicated its civic independence
by affecting to force upon the Prussian Government the secret designs of that
same Government. It does penance for its long-continued and almost religious
faith in Louis Bonapartes infallibility, by shouting for the dismemberment of
the French Republic. Let us for a moment listen to the special pleadings of
those stout-hearted patriots!
They dare not pretend that the people of Alsace and Lorraine pant for the
German embrace; quite the contrary. To punish their French patriotism,
Strasburg, a town with an independent citadel commanding it, has for six days
been wantonly and fiendishly bombarded by German explosive shells,
setting it on fire, and killing great numbers of its defenceless inhabitants! Yet,
the soil of those provinces once upon a time belonged to the whilom German
Empire. Hence, it seems, the soil and the human beings grown on it must be
confiscated as imprescriptible German property. If the map of Europe is to be
re-made in the antiquarys vein, let us by no means forget that the Elector of
Brandenburg, for his Prussian dominions, was the vassal of the Polish
Republic.
The more knowing patriots, however, require Alsace and the German
speaking part of Lorraine as a material guarantee against French aggression.
As this contemptible plea, has bewildered many weak-minded people, we are
bound to enter more fully upon it.
There is no doubt that the general configuration of Alsace, as compared with
the opposite bank of the Rhine, and the presence of a large fortified town like
Strasburg, about halfway between Basle and Germersheim, very much favour
a French invasion of South Germany, while they offer peculiar difficulties to
an invasion of France from South Germany. There is, further, no doubt that the
addition of Alsace and German-speaking Lorraine would give South Germany
a much stronger frontier, inasmuch as she would then be master of the crest of
the Vosges mountains in its whole length, and of the fortresses which cover its
northern passes. If Metz were annexed as well, France would certainly for the
moment be deprived of her two principal bases of operation against Germany,
but that would not prevent her from constructing a fresh one at Nancy or
Verdun. While Germany owns Coblentz. Mainz, Germersheim, Rastadt, and

Ulm, all bases of operation against France, and plentifully made use of in this
war, with what show of fair play can she begrudge France Strasburg and Metz,
the only two fortresses of any importance she has on that side? Moreover,
Strasburg endangers South Germany only while South Germany is a separate
power from North Germany. From 1792 to 1815 South Germany was never
invaded front that direction, because Prussia was a party to the war against the
French Revolution; but as soon as Prussia made a peace of her own in 1796,
and left the South to shift for itself, the invasions of South Germany, with
Strasburg for a base began, and continued till 1809. The fact is,
a united Germany can always render Strasbourg and any French army in
Alsace innocuous by concentrating all her troops, as was done in the present
war, between Saarlouis and Landau, and advancing, or accepting battle, on the
line of road between Mainz and Metz. While the mass of the German troops is
stationed there, any French army advancing from Strasburg into South
Germany would be outflanked, and have its communications threatened. If the
present campaign has proved anything, it is the facility of invading France
from Germany.
But, in good faith, is it not altogether an absurdity and an anachronism to
make military considerations the principle by which the boundaries of nations
are to be fixed? If this rule were to prevail, Austria would still be entitled to
Venetia and the line of the Mincio, and France to the line of the Rhine, in order
to protect Paris, which lies certainly more open to an attack from the North
East than Berlin does from the South West. If limits are to be fixed by military
interests, there will be no end to claims, because every military line is
necessarily faulty, and may be improved by annexing some more outlying
territory; and, moreover, they can never be fixed finally and fairly, because
they always must be imposed by the conqueror upon the conquered, and
consequently carry within them the seed of fresh wars.
Such is the lesson of all history. Thus with nations as with individuals. To
deprive them of the power of offence, you must deprive them of the means of
defence. You must not only garrot, but murder. If ever conqueror took
material guarantees for breaking the sinews of a nation, the first Napoleon
did so by the Tilsit treaty, and the way he executed it against Prussia and the
rest of Germany. Yet, a few years later, his gigantic power split like a rotten
reed upon the German people. What are the material guarantees Prussia, in
her wildest dreams, can, or dare impose upon France, compared to the
material guarantees the first Napoleon had wrenched from herself? The
result will not prove the less disastrous. History will measure its retribution,
not by the extent of the square miles conquered from France, but by the

intensity of the crime of reviving, in the second half of the 19th century,
the policy of conquest!
But, say the mouth-pieces of Teutonic patriotism, you must not confound
Germans with Frenchmen. What we want is not glory, but safety. The Germans
are an essentially peaceful people. In their sober guardianship, conquest itself
changes from a condition of future war into a pledge of perpetual peace. Of
course, it is not Germans that invaded France in 1792, for the sublime purpose
of bayonetting the revolution of the 18th century. It is not Germans that
befouled their hands by the subjugation of Italy, the oppression of Hungary,
and the dismemberment of Poland. Their present military system, which
divides the whole able-bodied male population into two parts one standing
army on service, and another standing army on furlough, both equally bound in
passive obedience to rulers by divine right such a military system is, of
course, a material guarantee for keeping the peace, and the ultimate goal of
civilising tendencies! In Germany, as everywhere else the sycophants of the
powers that be poison the popular mind by the incense of mendacious selfpraise.
Indignant as they pretend to be at the sight of French fortresses in Metz and
Strasburg, those German patriots see no harm in the vast system of Moscovite
fortifications at Warsaw, Modlin, and Ivangorod. While gloating at the terrors
of Imperialist invasion, they blink the infamy of Autocratic tutelage.
As in 1865 promises were exchanged between Louis Bonaparte and
Bismarck, so in 1870 promises have been exchanged between Gortschakoff
and Bismarck. As Louis Bonaparte flattered himself That the war of 1866,
resulting in the common exhaustion of Austria and Prussia, would make him
the supreme arbiter of Germany, so Alexander flattered himself that the war of
1870, resulting in the common exhaustion of Germany and France, would
make him the supreme arbiter of the Western Continent. As the second Empire
thought the North German Confederation incompatible with its existence, so
autocratic Russia must think herself endangered by a German empire under
Prussian leadership. Such is the law of the old political system. Within its pale
the gain of one State is the loss of the other. The Czars paramount influence
over Europe roots in his traditional hold on Germany. At a moment when in
Russia herself volcanic social agencies threaten to shake the very base of
autocracy, could the Czar afford to bear with such a loss of foreign prestige?
Already the Moscovite journals repeat the language of the Bonapartist journals
after the war of 1866. Do the Teuton patriots really believe that liberty and
peace will be guaranteed to Germany by forcing France into the arms of
Russia? If the fortune of her arms, the arrogance of success, and dynastic

intrigue lead Germany to a spoliation of French territory, there will then only
remain two courses open to her. She must at all risks become theavowed tool
of Russian aggrandisement, or, after some short respite, make again ready for
another defensive war, not one of those new-fangled localised wars, but
awar of races a war with the combined Sclavonian and Roman races.
The German working-class have resolutely supported the war, which it was
not in their power to prevent, as a war for German independence and the
liberation of France and Europe from that pestilential incubus, the Second
Empire. It was the German workmen who, together with the rural labourers,
furnished the sinews and muscles of heroic; hosts, leaving behind their halfstarved families. Decimated by the battles abroad, they will be once more
decimated by misery at home. In their turn they are now coming forward to ask
for guarantees, guarantees that their immense sacrifices have not been
brought in vain, that they have conquered liberty, that the victory over the
Imperialist armies will not, as in 1815, be turned into the defeat of the German
people; and, as the first of these guarantees, they claim an honourable peace
for France, and the recognition of the French Republic.
The Central Committee of the German Socialist Democratic Workmens
Party issued, on the 5th of September, a manifesto, energetically insisting upon
these guarantees. We, they say, we protest against the annexation of Alsace
and Lorraine. And we are conscious of speaking in the name of the German
working-class. In the common interest of France and Germany, in the interest
of peace and liberty, in the interest of Western civilisation against Eastern
barbarism, the German workmen will not patiently tolerate the annexation of
Alsace and Lorraine .... We shall faithfully stand by our fellow-workmen in all
countries for the common International cause of the Proletariat!
Unfortunately, we cannot feel sanguine of their immediate success. If the
French workmen amidst peace failed to stop the aggressor, are the German
workmen more likely to stop the victor amidst the clangour of arms? The
German workmens manifesto demands the extradition of Louis Bonaparte as
a common felon to the French Republic. Their rulers are, on the contrary,
already trying hard to restore him to the Tuileries as the best man to ruin
France. However that may be, history will prove that the German working
class are not made of the same malleable stuff as the German middle class.
They will do their duty.
Like them, we hail the advent of the Republic in France, but at the same time
we labour under misgivings which we hope will prove groundless. That
Republic has not subverted the throne, but only taken its place become vacant.

It has been proclaimed, not as a social conquest, but as a national measure of

defence. It is in the hands of a Provisional Government composed partly of
notorious Orleanists, partly of middle-class Republicans, upon some of whom
the insurrection of June, 1848, has left its indelible stigma. The division of
labour amongst the members of that Government looks awkward. The
Orleanists have seized the strongholds of the army and the police, while to the
professed Republicans have fallen the talking departments. Some of their first
acts go far to show that they have inherited from the Empire, not only ruins,
but also its dread of the working-class. If eventual impossibilities are in wild
phraseology promised in the name of the Republic, is it not with a view to
prepare the cry for a possible government? Is the Republic, by some of its
middle-class undertakers, not intended to serve as a mere stop-gap and bridge
over an Orleanist Restoration?
The French working-class moves, therefore, under circumstances of extreme
difficulty. Any attempt at upsetting the new Government in the present crisis,
when the enemy is almost knocking at the doors of Paris, would be a desperate
folly. The French workmen must perform their duties as citizens; but, at the
same time, they must not allow themselves to be swayed by the
national souvenirs of 1792, as the French peasants allowed themselves to be
deluded by the national souvenirs of the First Empire. They have not to
recapitulate the past, but to build up the future. Let them calmly and resolutely
improve the opportunities of Republican liberty, for the work of their own
class organisation. It will gift them with fresh Herculean powers for the
regeneration of France, and our common task the emancipation of labour.
Upon their energies and wisdom hinges the fate of the Republic.
The English workmen have already taken measures to overcome, by a
wholesome pressure from without, the reluctance of their Government to
recognise the French Republic. The present dilatoriness of the British
Government is probably intended to atone for the Anti-Jacobin war and the
former indecent haste in sanctioning the coup d'etat. The English workmen
call also upon their Government to oppose by all its power the dismemberment
of France, which a part of the English press is shameless enough to howl for. It
is the same press that for twenty years deified Louis Bonaparte as the
providence of Europe, that frantically cheered on the slaveholders to rebellion.
Now, as then, it drudges for the slaveholder.
Let the sections of the International Working Mens Association in every
country stir the working classes to action. If they forsake their duty, if they
remain passive, the present tremendous war will be but the harbinger of still

deadlier international feuds, and lead in every nation to a renewed triumph

over the workman by the lords of the sword, of the soil, and of capital.
Vive la Rpublique!

The GENERAL COUNCIL

Robert Applegarth; Martin J. Boon; Fred. Bradnick; Caihil; John Hales;
William Hales; George Harris; Fred Lessner; Laysatine; B. Lucraft; George
Milner; Thomas Mottershead: Charles Murray; George Odger; James Parnell;
Pfnder: Rhl; Joseph Shepherd; Cowell Stepney; Stoll; Schmitz.

CORRESPONDING SECRETARIES
EUGENE
DUPONT for
KARL
MARX Germany
SERRAILLER Belgium,
Holland,
HERMANN
GIOVANNI
ZENY
ANTON
JAMES
J. G. ECCARIUS The United States

France
and
Russia
and
Spain
JUNG Switzerland
BORA Italy
MAURICE Hungary
ZABIKI Poland
COHEN Denmark

WILLIAM
TOWNSEND,
JOHN
WESTON,
J. GEORGE ECCARIUS, General Secretary.

Chairman.
Treasurer.

OFFICES 256, High Holborn, London

W.C., September 9th, 1870.
Thursday, April 28, 2005
ENGELS FORESAW AND WELCOMED WORLD WAR

Engels, London, December 15, 1887: . . . No war is any longer possible for Prussia-Germany except a world war and a world war indeed of an extent and violence hitherto undreamt of. Eight to ten millions of soldiers will massacre one another and in doing so devour the whole of Eurepe until they have
stripped it barer than any swarm of locusts has ever done. The devastations of the Thirty Years War compressed into three or four years, and spread over the whole Continent; famine, pestilence, general demoralisation both of the armies and of the mass of the people produced by acute distress; hopeless
confusion of our artificial machinery in trade, industry and credit, ending in general bankruptcy; collapse of the old states and their traditional state wisdom to such an extent that crowns will roll by dozens on the pavement and there will be no body to pick them up; absolute impossibility of foreseeing how it
will all end and who will come out of the struggle as victor; only one result is absolutely certain: general exhaustion and the establishment of the conditions for the ultimate victory of the working class.
This is the prospect when the system of mutual outbidding in armaments, taken to the final extreme, at last bears its inevitable fruits. This, my lords, princes and statesmen, is where in your wisdom you have brought old Europe. And when nothing more remains to you but to open the last great war
dancethat will suit us all right (uns kann es recht sein ). The war may perhaps push us temporarily into the background, may wrench from us many a position already conquered. But when you have unfettered forces which you will then no longer be able again to control, thing s may go as they will: at the
end of the tragedy you will be ruined and the victory of the proletariat will either be already achieved or at any rate (doch ) inevitable".

Some context here

V. I. Lenin

Prophetic Words

Delivered: 29 June, 1918

First Published: July 2, 1918 Pravda;No. 133, and Signed:N. Lenin;

Published according to the Pravda text

Source: Lenins Collected Works, 4th English Edition, Progress
Publishers, Moscow, 1972 Volume 27, pages 494-499
Translated: Clemens Dutt; Edited by Robert Daglish
Transcription/HTML Markup: David Walters & Robert Cymbala
Online Version: Lenin Internet Archive March, 2002

Nobody, thank God, believes in miracles nowadays. Miraculous

prophecy is a fairy-tale. But scientific prophecy is a fact. And in these
days, when we so very often encounter shameful despondency and even
despair around us, it is useful to recall one scientific prophecy which
has come true.
Frederick Engels had occasion in 1887 to write of the coming world
war in a preface to a pamphlet by Sigismund Borkheim, In Memory of
the German Arch-Patriots of 1806-1807 (Zur Erinnerung fr die
deutschen Mordspatrioten 1806-1807 ). (This pamphlet is No. XXIV of
the Social-Democratic Library published in Gttingen-Zrich in 1888.)
This is how Frederick Engels spoke over thirty years ago of the future
world war:
. . . No war is any longer possible for Prussia-Germany except a world war and a
world war indeed of an extent and violence hitherto undreamt of. Eight to ten
millions of soldiers will massacre one another and in doing so devour the whole of
Eurepe until they have stripped it barer than any swarm of locusts has ever done.
The devastations of the Thirty Years War compressed into three or four years, and
spread over the whole Continent; famine, pestilence, general demoralisation both of
the armies and of the mass of the people produced by acute distress; hopeless
confusion of our artificial machinery in trade, industry and credit, ending in general
bankruptcy; collapse of the old states and their traditional state wisdom to such an
extent that crowns will roll by dozens on the pavement and there will be no body to
pick them up; absolute impossibility of foreseeing how it will all end and who will
come out of the struggle as victor; only one result is absolutely certain: general
exhaustion and the establishment of the conditions for the ultimate victory of the
working class.
This is the prospect when the system of mutual outbidding in armaments, taken
to the final extreme, at last bears its inevitable fruits. This, my lords, princes and

statesmen, is where in your wisdom you have brought old Europe. And when
nothing more remains to you but to open the last great war dancethat will suit us
all right (uns kann es recht sein ). The war may perhaps push us temporarily into
the background, may wrench from us many a position already conquered. But when
you have unfettered forces which you will then no longer be able again to control,
things may go as they will: at the end of the tragedy you will be ruined and the
victory of the proletariat will either be already achieved or at any rate (doch )
inevitable.

London, December 15, 1887

Frederick Engels
What genius is displayed in this prophecy! And how infinitely rich in
ideas is every sentence of this exact, clear, brief and scientific class
analysis! How much could be learnt from it by those who are now
shamefully succumbing to lack of faith, despondency and despair, if . . .
if people who are accustomed to kowtow to the bourgeoisie, or who
allow themselves to be frightened by it, could but think, were but
capable of thinking!
Some of Engelss predictions have turned out differently; and one
could not expect the world and capitalism to have remained unchanged
during thirty years of frenzied imperialist development. But what is
most astonishing is that so many of Engelss predictions are turning out
to the letter. For Engels gave a perfectly exact class analysis, and
classes and the relations between them have remained unchanged.
. . . The war may perhaps push us temporarily into the background. . . .
Developments have proceeded exactly along these lines, but have gone even further
and even worse: some of the social-chauvinists who have been pushed back, and
their spineless semi-opponents, the Kautskyites, have begun to extol their
backward movement and have become direct traitors to and betrayers of socialism.
. . . The war may perhaps wrench from us many a position already conquered. . .
. A number of legal positions have been wrenched from the working class. But on
the other hand it has been steeled by trials and is receiving severe but salutary
lessons in illegal organisation, in illegal struggle and in preparing its forces for a
revolutionaly attack.
. . . Crowns will roll by dozens. . . . Several crowns have already fallen. And one
of them is worth dozens of othersthe crown of the autocrat of all the Russias,
Nicholas Romanov.
. . . Absolute impossibility of foreseeing how it will all end. . . . After four years of
war this absolute impossibility has, if one may say so, become even more absolute.

. . . Hopeless confusion of our artificial machinery in trade, industry and credit. .

. . At the end of the fourth year of war this has been fully borne out in the case of
one of the biggest and most backward of the states drawn into the war by the
capitalistsRussia. But do not the growing starvation in Gerrnany and Austria, the
shortage of clothing and raw material and the wearing out of the means of
production show that a similar state of affairs is very rapidly overtaking other
countries as well?

Engels depicts the consequences brought about only by foreign war;

he does not deal with internal, i.e., civil war, without which not one of
the great revolutions of history has taken place, and without which not a
single serious Marxist has conceived the transition from capitalism to
socialism. And while a foreign war may drag on for a certain time
without causing hopeless confusion in the artificial machinery of
capitalism, it is obvious that a civil war without such a consequence is
quite inconceivable.
What stupidity, what spinelessnessnot to say mercenary service to
the bourgeoisieis displayed by those who, like our Novaya
Zhizn group, Mensheviks, Right Socialist-Revolutionaries, etc., while
continuing to call themselves socialists, maliciously point to the
manifestation of this hopeless confusion and lay the blame for
everything on the revolutionary proletariat, the Soviet power, the
utopia of the transition to socialism. The confusion,
or razrukha,[Dislocation, disruption.Editor] to use the excellent Russian
word, has been brought about by the war. There can be no severe war
without disruption. There can be no civil warthe inevitable condition
and concomitant of socialist revolutionwithout disruption. To
renounce revolution and socialism in view of the disruption, only
means to display ones lack of principle and in practice to desert to the
bourgeoisie.
. . . Famine, pestilence, general demoralisation both of the armies
and of the mass of the people produced by acute distress. . . .
How simply and clearly Engels draws this indisputable conclusion,
which must be obvious to everyone who is at all capable of reflecting on
the objective consequences of many years of severe and agonising war.
And how astonishingly stupid are these numerous Social-Democrats
and pseudo-Socialists who will not or cannot realise this most simple
idea.

Is it conceivable that a war can last many years without both the
armies and the mass of the people becoming demoralised ? Of course
not. Such a consequence of a long war is absolutely inevitable over a
period of several years, if not a whole generation. And our men in
mufflers, the bourgeois intellectual snivelers who call themselves
Social-Democrats and Socialists, second the bourgeoisie in blaming
the revolution for the manifestations of demoralisation or for the
inevitable severity of the measures taken to combat particularly acute
cases of demoralisationalthough it is as clear as noonday that this
demoralisation has been produced by the imperialist war, and that no
revolution can rid itself of such consequences of war without a long
struggle and without a number of stern measures of repression.
Our sugary writers in Novaya Zhizn, Vperyod or Dyelo Naroda are
prepared to grant a revolution of the proletariat and other oppressed
classes theoretically, provided only that the revolution drops from
heaven and is not born and bred on earth soaked in the blood of four
years of imperialist butchery of the peoples, with millions upon millions
of people exhausted, tormented and demoralised by this butchery.
They had heard and admitted in theory that a revolution should be
compared to an act of childbirth; but when it came to the point, they
disgracefully took fright and their fainthearted whimperings echoed the
malicious outbursts of the bourgeoisie against the insurrection of the
proletariat. Consider the descriptions of childbirth given in literature,
when the authors aim at presenting a truthful picture of the severity,
pain and horror of the act of travail, as in Emile Zolas La joie de
vivre (The Joy of Life ), for instance, or in Veresayevs Notes of a
Doctor. Human child birth is an act which transforms the woman into
an almost lifeless, bloodstained heap of flesh, tortured, tormented and
driven frantic by pain. But can the individual that sees only this in
love and its sequel, in the transformation of the woman into a mother,
be regarded as a human being? Who would renounce love and
procreation for thisreason?
Travail may be light or severe. Marx and Engels, the founders of
scientific socialism, always said that the transition from capitalism to
socialism would be inevitably accompanied by prolonged birth pangs.
And analysing the consequences of a world war, Engels outlines simply
and clearly the indisputable and obvious fact that a revolution that
follows and is connected with a war (and still morelet us add for our
parta revolution which breaks out during a war, and which is obliged

to grow and maintain itself in the midst of a world war) is a particularly

severe case of childbirth.
Clearly realising this, Engels speaks with great caution of socialism
being brought to birth by a capitalist socicty which is perishing in a
world war. Only one result [of a world war], he says, is absolutely
certain: general exhaustion and the establishment of the conditions for
the ultimate victory of the working class.
This thought is expressed even more clearly at the end of the preface
we are examining.
. . . At the end of the tragedy you (the capitalists and landowners, the
kings and statesmen of the bourgeoisie) will be ruined and the victory of
the proletariat will either be already achieved or at any rate inevitable.
Severe travail greatly increases the danger of grave illnes or of a fatal
issue. But while individuals may die in the act of childbirth, the new
society to which the old system gives birth cannot die; all that may
happen is that the birth may be more painful, more prolonged, and
growth and development slower.
The war has not yet ended. General exhaustion has already set in. As
regards the two direct results of war predicted by Engels conditionally
(either the victory of the working class already achieved, or the
establishment of conditions which will make this inevitable, despite all
difficulties ) as regards these two conditions, now, in the middle of 1918,
we find both in evidence.
In one, the least developed, of the capitalist countries, the victory of
the working class is already achieved. In the others, with unparalleled
pain and effort, the conditions are being established which will make
this victory at any rate inevitable.
Let the socialist snivelers croak, let the bourgeoisie rage and fume,
but only people who shut their eyes so as not to see, and stuff their ears
so as not to hear, can fail to notice that all over the world the birth
pangs of the old, capitalist society, which is pregnant with socialism,
have begun. Our country, which has temporarily been advanced by the
march of events to the van of the socialist revolution, is undergoing the
particularIy severe pains of the first period of travail. We have every
reason to face the future with complete assurance and absolute

confidence, for it is preparing for us new allies and new victories of the
socialist revolution in a number of the more advanced countries. We are
entitled to be proud and to consider ourselves fortunate that it has come
to our lot to be the first to fell in one part of the globe that wild beast,
capitalism, which has drenched the earth in blood, which has reduced
humanity to starvation and demoralisation, and which will assuredly
perish soon, no matter how monstrous and savage its frenzy in the face
of death.
June 29, 1918
N. Lenin
Friday, April 29, 2005
ENGELS ADVOCATES THAT GERMANY DEFEAT FRANCE BY ANY MEANS POSSIBLE

Engels to August Bebel In Berlin, 19 September, 1891: "In any case we must declare that since 1871 we have always been ready for a peaceful understanding with France, that as soon as our Party comes to power it will be unable to exercise that power unless Alsace-Lorraine freely determines its own
future, but that if war is forced upon us, and moreover a war in alliance with Russia, we must regard this as an attack on our existence and defend ourselves by every method, utilising all positions at our disposal and therefore Metz and Strasbourg also..... so our army will have to lead and sustain the main
push.... So much seems certain to me: if we are beaten, every barrier to chauvinism and a war of revenge in Europe will be thrown down for years hence. If we are victorious our Party will come into power. The victory of Germany is therefore the victory of the revolution, and if it comes to war we must not
only desire victory but further it by every means...."
Context here

Marx-Engels Correspondence 1891

Engels to August Bebel

In Berlin
Abstract

Published: Gesamtausgabe, International Publishers, 1942;

Transcribed: Sally Ryan;
HTML Markup: Sally Ryan.

London, 29 September, 1891

You are right; if it comes to war we must demand the general arming of the
people. But in conjunction with the already existing organisation or that
specially prepared in case of war. Enlistment, therefore, of the hitherto
untrained in supplementary reserves and Landsturm and above all immediate
emergency training besides arming and organisation into fixed cadres.

The proclamation to the French will have to come out rather differently in
form. The Russian diplomats are not so stupid as to provoke a war in face of
the whole of Europe. On the contrary, things will be so operated that either
France appears as the provoking party or one of the Triple Alliance
countries. Russia always has dozens ofcasus belli [occasions for war] of this
kind to hand; the special answer to be given depends on the pretext for war put
forward. In any case we must declare that since 1871 we have always been
ready for a peaceful understanding with France, that as soon as our Party
comes to power it will be unable to exercise that power unless Alsace-Lorraine
freely determines its own future, but that if war is forced upon us, and
moreover a war in alliance with Russia, we must regard this as an attack on our
existence and defend ourselves by every method, utilising all positions at our
disposal and therefore Metz and Strasbourg also.
As to the conduct of the war itself, two aspects are immediately decisive:
Russia is weak in attack but strong in defensive man-power. A stab in the heart
is impossible. France is strong in attack but rendered incapable of attack,
innocuous, after a few defeats. I do not give much either for Austrians as
generals or for Italians as soldiers, so our army will have to lead and sustain
the main push. The war will have to begin with the holding back of the
Russians but the defeat of the French. When the French offensive has been
rendered innocuous things may get as far as the conquest of Poland up to the
Dvina and Dnieper, but hardly before. This must be carried out by
revolutionary methods and if necessary by giving up a piece of Prussian
Poland and the whole of Galicia to the Poland to be established. If this goes
well revolution will doubtless follow in France. At the same time we must
press for at least Metz and Lorraine to be offered as a peace offering to France.
Probably, however, it will not go so well. The French will not allow
themselves to be so easily defeated, their army is very good and better armed
than ours, and what we achieve in the way of generalship does not look as if
very much would come of it either. That the French have learnt how to
mobilise has been shown this summer. And also that they have enough officers
for their first field army which is stronger than ours. Our superiority in
officers will only be proved with the troops brought up later into the line.
Moreover the direct line between Berlin and Paris is strongly defended by
fortifications on both sides. In short, in the most favourable case it will
probably turn out a fluctuating war which will be carried on with constant
drawing in of fresh reinforcements by both sides until one party is exhausted,
or until the active intervention of England, who, by simply blockading corn
imports can, under the then existing conditions, starve out whichever party she

decides against, Germany or France, and force it to make peace. In the

meantime what happens on the Russian frontier mainly depends on the way the
Austrians conduct the war and is therefore incalculable.
So much seems certain to me: if we are beaten, every barrier to chauvinism
and a war of revenge in Europe will be thrown down for years hence. If we are
victorious our Party will come into power. The victory of Germany is therefore
the victory of the revolution, and if it comes to war we must not only desire
victory but further it by every means....
What should have been categorically stated [by Bernstein] was that if France
formally represents the revolution in relation to Germany, Germany, through
its workers' Party, stands materially at the head of the revolution, and this is
bound to come to light in the war in which we, and with us the revolution,
will either be crushed or else come to power.

Saturday, April 30, 2005

I have now finished the quotes from Marx that I wanted to put up but I still have a few quotes about Marx from others that may be of interest:
EVEN MARX'S KINDLY FATHER SUSPECTED THAT KARL WAS NOT MUCH OF A HUMAN BEING
Written when Karl was still only 19. Heinrich seems to have been a decent and generous guy. It must have pained him greatly to see how his son turned out.

Letter from Heinrich Marx to son Karl, written in Trier, March 2, 1837: "It is remarkable that I, who am by nature a lazy writer, become quite inexhaustible when I have to write to you. I will not and cannot conceal my weakness for you. At times my heart delights in thinking of you and your future. And yet
at times I cannot rid myself of ideas which arouse in me sad forebodings and fear when I am struck as if by lightning by the thought: is your heart in accord with your head, your talents? Has it room for the earthly but gentler sentiments which in this vale of sorrow are so essentially consoling for a man of
feeling? And since that heart is obviously animated and governed by a demon not granted to all men, is that demon heavenly or Faustian? Will you ever -- and that is not the least painful doubt of my heart -- will you ever be capable of truly human, domestic happiness? Will -- and this doubt has no less
tortured me recently since I have come to love a certain person [Jenny von Westfalen] like my own child -- will you ever be capable of imparting happiness to those immediately around you?
What has evoked this train of ideas in me, you will ask ? Often before, anxious thoughts of this kind have come into my mind, but I easily chased them away, for I always felt the need to surround you with all the love and care of which my heart is capable, and I always like to forget. But I note a striking
phenomenon in Jenny. She, who is so wholly devoted to you with her childlike, pure disposition, betrays at times, involuntarily and against her will, a kind of fear, a fear laden with foreboding, which does not escape me, which I do not know how to explain, and all trace of which she tried to erase from my
heart, as soon as I pointed it out to her. What does that mean, what can it be? I cannot explain it to myself, but unfortunately my experience does not allow me to be easily led astray.
Context here

Letter from Heinrich Marx to

son Karl
in Berlin

Written: Trier, March 2, 1837

Source: Marx Engels Collected Works Vol 1, pg 670-673.
Publisher: International Publishers (1975)
First Published: Marx/Engels, Gesamtausgabe, Abt. 1, Hb. 2, 1929
Translated: Clemens Dutt
Transcribed: S. Ryan
HTML Markup: S. Ryan

It is remarkable that I, who am by nature a lazy writer, become quite

inexhaustible when I have to write to you. I will not and cannot conceal my
weakness for you. At times my heart delights in thinking of you and your
future. And yet at times I cannot rid myself of ideas which arouse in me sad
forebodings and fear when I am struck as if by lightning by the thought: is
your heart in accord with your head, your talents? Has it room for the earthly
but gentler sentiments which in this vale of sorrow are so essentially consoling
for a man of feeling? And since that heart is obviously animated and governed
by a demon not granted to all men, is that demon heavenly or Faustian? Will
you ever -- and that is not the least painful doubt of my heart -- will you ever
be capable of truly human, domestic happiness? Will -- and this doubt has no
less tortured me recently since I have come to love a certain person like my
own child -- will you ever be capable of imparting happiness to those
immediately around you?
What has evoked this train of ideas in me, you will ask ? Often before,
anxious thoughts of this kind have come into my mind, but I easily chased
them away, for I always felt the need to surround you with all the love and care
of which my heart is capable, and I always like to forget. But I note a striking
phenomenon in Jenny. She, who is so wholly devoted to you with her
childlike, pure disposition, betrays at times, involuntarily and against her will,
a kind of fear, a fear laden with foreboding, which does not escape me, which I
do not know how to explain, and all trace of which she tried to erase from my
heart, as soon as I pointed it out to her. What does that mean, what can it be? I
cannot explain it to myself, but unfortunately my experience does not allow me
to be easily led astray.
That you should rise high in the world, the flattering hope to see your name
held one day in high repute, and also your earthly well-being, these are not the
only things close to my heart, they are long-cherished illusions that have taken
deep root in me. Basically, however, such feelings are largely characteristic of
a weak man, and are not free from all dress, such as pride, vanity, egoism, etc.,

etc., etc. But I can assure you that the realisation of these illusions could not
make me happy. Only if your heart remains pure and beats in a purely human
way, and no demonic spirit is capable of estranging your heart from finer
feelings -- only then would I find the happiness that for many years past I have
dreamed of finding through you; otherwise I would see the finest aim of my
life in ruins. But why should I grow so soft and perhaps distress you? At
bottom, I have no doubt of your filial love for me and your good, dear mother,
and you know very well where we are most vulnerable.
I pass on to positive matters. Some days after receiving your letter, which
Sophie brought her, Jenny visited us and spoke about your intention. She
appears to approve your reasons, but fears the step itself, and that is easy to
understand. For my part, I regard it as good and praiseworthy. As she
intimates, she is writing to you that you should not send the letter direct -- an
opinion I cannot agree with. What you can do to put her mind at rest is to tell
us eight days beforehand on what day you are posting the letter. The good girl
deserves every consideration and, I repeat, only a lifetime full of tender love
can compensate her for what she has already suffered, and even for what she
will still suffer, for they are remarkable saints she has to deal with.
It is chiefly regard for her that makes me wish so much that you will soon
take a fortunate step forward in the world, because it would give her peace of
mind, at least that is what I believe. And I assure you, dear Karl, that were it
not for this, I would at present endeavour to restrain you from coming forward
publicly rather than spur you on. But you see, the bewitching girl has turned
my Old head too, and I wish above all to see her calm and happy. Only you
can do that and the aim is worthy of your undivided attention, and it is perhaps
very good and salutary that, immediately on your entry into the world, you are
compelled to show human consideration, indeed wisdom, foresight and mature
reflection, in spite of all demons. I thank heaven for this, for it is the human
being in you that I will eternally love. You know that, a practical man though I
am, I have not been ground down to such a degree as to be blunted to what is
high and good. Nevertheless, I do not readily allow myself to be completely
torn up from the earth, which is my solid basis, and wafted exclusively into
airy spheres where I have no firm ground under my feet. All this naturally
gives me greater cause than I would otherwise have had to reflect on the means
which are at your disposal. You have taken up dramatic composition, and of
course it contains much that is true. But closely bound up with its importance,
its great publicity, is quite naturally the danger of coming to grief. Not always,
especially in the big cities, is it necessarily the inner value which is decisive.
Intrigues, cabals, jealousy, perhaps among those who have had the most

experience of these, often outweigh what is good, especially if the latter is not
yet raised to and maintained in high honour by a well-known name.
What, therefore, would be the wisest course? To look for a possible way by
which this great test would be preceded by a smaller one involving less danger,
but sufficiently important for you to emerge from it, in the event of success,
with a not quite unimportant name. If, however, this has to be achieved by
something small, then the material, the subject, the circumstances, must have
some exceptional quality. I racked my brains for a long time in the search for
such a subject and the following idea seemed to me suitable.
The subject should be a period taken from the history of Prussia, not one so
prolonged as to call for an epic, but a crowded moment of time where,
however, the future hung in the balance.
It should redound to the honour of Prussia and afford the opportunity of
allotting a role to the genius of the monarchy -- if need be, through the mind of
the very noble Queen Louise.
Such a moment was the great battle at La Belie Alliance-Waterloo. The
danger was enormous, not only for Prussia, for its monarch, for the whole of
Germany, etc., etc., etc. In fact, it was Prussia that decided the great issue here
-- hence, at all events this could be the subject of an ode in the heroic genre, or
otherwise -- you understand that better than I do.
The difficulty would not be too great in itself. The biggest difficulty, in any
case, would be that of compressing a big picture into a small frame and of
giving a successful and skilful portrayal of the great moment. But if executed
in a patriotic and German spirit with depth of feeling, such an ode would itself
be sufficient to lay the foundation for a reputation, to establish a name.
But I can only propose, advise. You have outgrown me; in this matter you
are in general superior to me, so I must leave it to you to decide as you will.
The subject I have spoken of would have the great advantage that it could
very soon be presented apropos, since the anniversary is on June 18. The cost
would not be very considerable, and if necessary I will bear it. -- I should so
very much like to see good Jenny calm and able to hold up her head proudly.
The good child must not wear herself out. And if you are successful in this
project -- and the demand is not beyond your powers -- then you will be in a
secure position and able to relax somewhat from the hothouse life.

In point of fact, too, it is impossible not to be enthusiastic over this moment

of time, for its failure would have imposed eternal fetters on mankind and
especially on the human mind. Only today's two-faced liberals can deify a
Napoleon. And in truth under his rule not a single person would have dared to
think aloud what is being written daily and without interference throughout
Germany, and especially in Prussia. And anyone who has studied the history of
Napoleon and what he understood by the absurd expression of ideology can
rejoice greatly and with a clear conscience at his downfall and the victory of
Prussia.
Give my cordial greetings to our friend Meurin. Tell him that until now I
have not been able to carry out the commission with which I have been
charged. I suffered from a cold for eight days and since then I have not
ventured any farther than to attend the sitting.
Your faithful father
Marx
Sunday, May 01, 2005
THE PROPHETIC WORDS OF (ANARCHIST) MIKHAIL BAKUNIN
Written in 1872
The reasoning of Marx ends in absolute contradiction. Taking into account only the economic question, he insists that only the most advanced countries, those in which capitalist production has attained greatest development, are the most capable of making social revolution. These civilized countries, to the
exclusion of all others, are the only ones destined to initiate and carry through this revolution. This revolution will expropriate either by peaceful, gradual, or by violent means, the present property owners and capitalists. To appropriate all the landed property and capital, and to carry out its extensive
economic and political programs, the revolutionary State will have to be very powerful and highly centralized. The State will administer and direct the cultivation of the land, by means of its salaried officials commanding armies of rural workers organized and disciplined for this purpose. At the same time, on
the ruins of the existing banks, it will establish a single state bank which will finance all labor and national commerce.
It is readily apparent how such a seemingly simple plan of organization can excite the imagination of the workers, who are as eager for justice as they are for freedom; and who foolishly imagine that the one can exist without the other; as if, in order to conquer and consolidate justice and equality, one could
depend on the efforts of others, particularly on governments, regardless of how they may be elected or controlled, to speak and act for the people! For the proletariat this will, in reality, be nothing but a barracks: a regime, where regimented workingmen and women will sleep, wake, work, and live to the
beat of a drum; where the shrewd and educated will be granted government privileges; and where the mercenary-minded, attracted by the immensity of the international speculations of the state bank, will find a vast field for lucrative, underhanded dealings.
There will be slavery within this state, and abroad there will be war without truce, at least until the inferior races, Latin and Slav, tired of bourgeois civilization, no longer resign themselves to the subjection of a State, which will be even more despotic than the former State, although it calls itself a Peoples
State.
Context here

Mikhail Bakunin 1872

Letter to La Libert
Written: October 5, 1872;
Source: Bakunin on Anarchy, translated and edited by Sam Dolgoff, 1971.

This long letter to La Libert (dated October 5, 1872), never completed and
never sent, was written about a month after the expulsion of Bakunin from
the International Workingmen's Association by the Hague Congress of
September 2-7, 1872. In extract I, Bakunin protests the General Councils
procedure and the sentence of excommunication just pronounced against
me; he also sums up the fundamental disagreements between the two
opposing tendencies in the International, as well as his position on Marxs

theories of revolutionary dictatorship, the transitional period, provisional

governments, constituent assemblies, and related themes.
Extract II offers a critique of practically the whole range of Marxist theory
of history, political economy, the nature of the State, parliamentary action,
the dictatorship of the proletariat, urban workers and rural masses, the
possibilities of revolution in advanced and backward countries, etc.
Bakunin also outlines the difference between the anarchist and Marxist
conceptions of freedom and social cohesion, as well as the federalistdecentralized versus centralized statist form of organization.

To the Editors of La Libert

I
Gentlemen:
Since you published the sentence of excommunication which the Marxian
Congress of the Hague has just pronounced against me, you will surely, in all
fairness, publish my reply. Here it is.
The triumph of Mr. Marx and his group has been complete. Being sure of a
majority which they had been long preparing and organizing with a great deal
of skill and care, if not with much respect for the principles of morality, truth,
and justice as often found in their speeches and so seldom in their actions, the
Marxists took off their masks. And, as befits men who love power, and always
in the name of that sovereignty of the people which will, from now on, serve as
a stepping-stone for all those who aspire to govern the masses, they have
brazenly decreed their dictatorship over the members of the International.
If the International were less sturdy and deeply rooted, if it had been based,
as they imagine, only upon the formally organized official leadership and not
on the real solidarity of the effective interests and aspirations of the proletariat
of all the countries of the civilized world, on the free and spontaneous
federation of workers sections and associations, independent of any
government control, the decrees of this pernicious Hague Congress, a far too
indulgent and faithful incarnation of the Marxist theories and practice, would
have sufficed to kill it. They would have reduced to ridicule and odium this

magnificent association, in the foundation of which, I am pleased to state, Mr.

Marx had taken an intelligent and energetic part.
A state, a government, a universal dictatorship! The dreams of Gregory VII,
Boniface VII, Charles V, and the Napoleons reappearing in new forms, but
ever with the same claims, in the Social Democratic camp! Can one imagine
anything more burlesque and at the same time more revolting? To claim that a
group of individuals, even the most intelligent and best-intentioned, would be
capable of becoming the mind, the son], the directing and unifying will of the
revolutionary movement and the economic organization of the proletariat of all
lands this is such heresy against common sense and historical experience that
one wonders how a man as intelligent as Mr. Marx could have conceived it!
The popes at least had the excuse of possessing absolute truth, which they
stated they held in their hands by the grace of the Holy Ghost and in which
they were supposed to believe. Mr. Marx has no such excuse, and I shall not
insult him by suggesting that he imagines he has scientifically invented
something that comes close to absolute truth. But from the moment that
absolute truth is eliminated, there can be no infallible dogma for the
International, and, consequently, no official political or economic theory,, and
our congresses should never assume the role. of ecumenical councils which
proclaim obligatory principles for all their members and believers to follow.
There is but one law that is really obligatory upon all the members,
individuals, sections, and federations of the International, for all of which this
law is the true and the only, basis. In its most complete form with all its
consequences and applications, this law advocates the international solidarity
of workers of all trades and all countries in their economic struggle against
the exploiters of labor. The living unity of the International resides solely in
the real organization of this solidarity by the spontaneous action of the
workers groups and by the absolutely free federation of the masses of workers
of all languages and all nations, all the more powerful because it is free; the
International cannot be unified by decrees and under the whip of any sort of
government whatsoever.
Who can entertain any doubt that out of this ever-growing organization of
the militant solidarity of the proletariat against bourgeois exploitation there
will issue forth the political struggle of the proletariat against the bourgeoisie?
Both the Marxists and ourselves are in unanimous agreement on this point. But
here a question comes up which separates us completely from the Marxists.

We believe that the policy of the proletariat, necessarily revolutionary,

should have the destruction of the State for its immediate and only goal. We
cannot understand how one can speak of international solidarity when there is
a wish to preserve the State, unless one dreams of the Universal State, that is,
of universal slavery, such as the great emperors and popes dreamed of. For the
State is, by its very nature, a breach of this solidarity and hence a permanent
cause of war. Nor can we understand how anyone could speak of the liberty of
the proletariat, or the real emancipation of the masses, within the State and by
the State. State means domination, and any domination presupposes the
subjugation of the masses and, consequently, their exploitation for the benefit
of some ruling minority.
We do not accept, even for the purposes of a revolutionary ,transition,
national conventions, constituent assemblies, provisional governments, or socalled revolutionary dictatorships, because we are convinced that revolution is
sincere and permanent only within the masses; that when it is concentrated in
the hands of a few ruling individuals, it inevitably and immediately turns into
reaction. Such is our belief; this is not the proper time for enlarging upon it.
The Marxists profess quite contrary ideas. As befits good Germans, they are
worshippers of the power of the State, and are necessarily also the prophets of
political and social discipline, champions of the social order built from the top
down, always in the name of universal suffrage and the sovereignty of the
masses upon whom they bestow the honor of obeying their leaders, their
elected masters. The Marxists admit of no other emancipation but that which
they expect from their so-called Peoples State (Volksstaat).
Between the Marxists and ourselves there is an abyss. They are the
governmentalists; we are the anarchists, in spite of it all.
Such are the two principal political tendencies which at present separate the
International into two camps. On one side there is nothing, properly speaking,
but Germany; on the other we find, in varying degrees, Italy, Spain, the Swiss
Jura, a large part of France, Belgium, Holland, and in the very near future, the
Slav peoples. These two tendencies came into direct confrontation at the
Hague Congress, and, thanks to Mr. Marxs great tactical skill, thanks to the
thoroughly artificial organization of his last congress, the Germanic tendency
has prevailed.
Does this mean that the obnoxious question has been resolved? It was not
even properly discussed; the majority, having voted like a well-drilled
regiment, crushed all discussions under its vote. Thus the contradiction still
remains, sharper and more alarming than ever, and Mr. Marx himself,

intoxicated as he may be by his victory, can hardly imagine that he has

disposed of it at so small a price. And if he did, for a moment, entertain such a
foolish hope, he must have been promptly undeceived by the united stand of
the delegates from the Jura, Spain, Belgium, and Holland (not to mention Italy,
which did not even deign to send delegates to this so blatantly fraudulent
congress), a protest quite moderate in tone, yet all the more powerful and
deeply significant.
But what is to be done today? Today, since solution and reconciliation in the
field of politics are impossible, we should practice mutual toleration, granting
to each country the incontestable right to follow whatever political tendencies
it may prefer or find most suitable for its own particular situation.
Consequently, by rejecting all political questions from the obligatory program
of the International, we should seek to strengthen the unity of this great
association solely in the field of economic solidarity. Such solidarity unites us
while political questions inevitably separate us.
That is where the real Unity of the International lies; in the common
economic aspirations and the spontaneous movement of the masses of all the
countries not in any government whatsoever nor in any uniform political
theory imposed upon these masses by a general congress. This is so obvious
that one would have to be dazzled by the passion for power to fail to
understand it.
I could understand how crowned or uncrowned despots might have dreamed
of holding the sceptered world in their hands. But what can one say of a friend
of the proletariat, a revolutionary who claims he truly desires the emancipation
of the masses, when he poses as a director and supreme arbiter of all the
revolutionary movements that may arise in different countries and dares to
dream of subjecting the proletariat to one single idea hatched in his own brain?
I believe that Mr. Marx is ail earnest revolutionary, though not always a very
consistent one, and that he really desires the revolt of the masses. And I
wonder how he fails to see how the establishment of a universal dictatorship,
collective or individual, a dictatorship that would in one way or another
perform the task of chief engineer of the world revolution, regulating and
directing ail insurrectionary movement of the masses in all countries pretty
much as one would run a machine that the establishment of such a
dictatorship would be enough of itself to kill the revolution, to paralyze and
distort all popular movements.

Where is the man, where is the group of individuals, however great their
genius, who would dare flatter themselves that they alone could encompass
and understand the infinite multitude of diverse interests, tendencies, and
activities in each country, in each province, in each locality, in each profession
and craft, and which in their immense aggregate are united, but not
regimented, by certain fundamental principles and by a great common
aspiration, the same aspiration [economic equality without loss of autonomy]
which, having sunk deep into the conscience of the masses, will constitute the
future Social Revolution?
And what can one think of an International Congress which, in the alleged
interest of this revolution, imposes on the proletariat of the whole civilized
world a government invested with dictatorial power, with the inquisitorial and
pontifical right to suspend the regional federations of the International and shut
out whole nations in the name of an alleged official principle which is in fact
only the idea of Marx, transformed by the vote of a fictitious majority into an
absolute truth? What can one think of a Congress which, to render its folly
even more glaring, relegates to America this dictatorial government [the
General Council of the International] composed of men who, though probably
honest, are ignorant, obscure, absolutely unknown even to the Congress itself?
Our enemies, the bourgeoisie, would be right if they mocked the Congress and
maintained that the International Workingmens Association combats existing
tyranny only to set up a new tyranny over itself; that in rightfully trying to
replace old absurdities, it creates new ones!

II
Why men like Messrs. Marx and Engels should be indispensable to the
partisans of a program consecrating political power and opening the door to all
their ambitions is understandable. Since there will he political power, there
will necessarily be subjects, who will be forced to obey, for without obedience
there can be no power. One may object that they will obey not men but the
laws which they have themselves made. But to that I reply that everybody
knows how people make these laws and set up standards of obedience to these
laws even in the most democratic and free countries. Anyone not involved in a
party which takes fiction for reality will remember that even in these countries
the people obey not the laws made by themselves but the laws made in their
name; and that their obedience to these laws can never be anything but
obedience to the arbitrary will of some tutelary and governing minority, or, in
a word, a voluntary servitude.

We revolutionary anarchists who sincerely want full popular emancipation

view with repugnance another expression in this program: it is the designation
of the proletariat, the workers, as a class and not a mass. Do you know what
this signifies? It is no more nor less than the aristocratic rule of the factory
workers and of the cities over the millions who constitute the rural proletariat,
who, in the anticipations of the German Social Democrats, will in effect
become the subjects of their so-called Peoples State. Class, power ... ..
state are three inseparable terms, one of which presupposes the other two, and
which boil down to this: the political subjection and economic exploitation of
the masses.
The Marxists think that just as in the eighteenth century the bourgeoisie
dethroned the nobility in order to take its place and gradually absorb and then
share with it the domination and exploitation of the workers in the cities as
well as in the countryside, so the proletariat in the cities is exhorted to dethrone
and absorb the bourgeoisie, and then jointly dominate and exploit the land
workers...
Though differing with us in this respect, they do not entirely reject our
program. They only reproach us for wanting to hasten, to outstrip the slow
march of history, and for ignoring the scientific law of successive revolutions
in inevitable stages. Having proclaimed in their works of philosophical
analysis of the past that the bloody defeat of the insurgent peasants of
Germany and the triumph of the despotic states in the sixteenth century
constituted a great revolutionary move forward, they now have the nerve to
call for the establishment of a new despotism, allegedly for the benefit of the
urban workers and to the detriment of the toilers in the countryside.
This same logic leads the Marxists directly and fatally to what we
call bourgeois socialism and to the conclusion of a new political pact between
the bourgeois who are radicals, or who are forced to become such, and the
intelligent, respectable bourgeoisified minority of city workers, to the
detriment of the proletarian masses, not only in the country but also in the
cities.
Such is the meaning of workers candidacies to the parliaments of existing
states, and of the conquest of political power. Is it not clear that the popular
nature of such power will never be anything but a fiction? It will obviously he
impossible for hundreds or even tens of thousands or indeed only a few
thousand to exercise this power effectively. They will necessarily have to
exercise power by proxy, to entrust this power to a group of men elected to
represent them and govern them... After a few brief moments of freedom or

revolutionary euphoria, these new citizens of a new state will awake to find
themselves again the pawns and victims of the new power clusters...
I am fully confident that in a few years even the German workers will go the
way that seems best to them, provided they allow us the same liberty. We even
recognize the possibility that their history, their particular nature, their state of
civilization, and their whole situation today impel them to follow this path. Let
the German, American, and English toilers and those of other nations march
with the same energy toward the destruction of all political power, liberty for
all, and a natural respect for that liberty; such are the essential conditions of
international solidarity.
To support his program for the conquest of political power, Marx has a very
special theory, which is but the logical consequence of his whole system. He
holds that the political condition of each country is always the product and the
faithful expression of its economic situation; to change the former it is
necessary only to transform the latter. Therein lies the whole secret of historic
evolution according to Marx., He takes no account of other factors in history,
such as the ever-present reaction of political, juridical, and religious
institutions on the economic situation. He says: Poverty produces political
slavery, the State. But he does not allow this expression to be turned around,
to say: Political slavery, the State, reproduces in its turn, and maintains
poverty as a condition for its own existence; so that to destroy poverty, it is
necessary to destroy the State! And strangely enough, Marx, who forbids his
disciples to consider political slavery, the State, as a real cause of poverty,
commands his disciples in the Social Democratic party to consider the
conquest of political power as the absolutely necessary preliminary condition
for economic emancipation!

[We insert here a paragraph from Bakunins speech at the September 1869
Congress of the International following the same line of argument:]

The report of the General Council of the International [drawn up by

Marx] says that the judicial fact being nothing but the consequence of the
economic fact, it is therefore necessary to transform the latter in order to
eliminate the former. It is incontestable that what has been called juridical or
political right in history has always been the expression and the product of an
accomplished fact. But it is also incontestable that after having been the effect

of acts or facts previously accomplished, this right causes in its turn further
effects, becoming itself a very real and powerful fact which must be eliminated
if one desires an order of things different from the existing one. It is thus that
the right of inheritance, after having been the natural consequence of the
violent appropriation of natural and social wealth, becomes later the basis for
the political state and the juridical family, which guarantees and sanctions
private property... .
Likewise, Marx completely ignores a most important element in the historic
development of humanity, that is, the temperament and particular character of
each race and each people, a temperament and a character which are
themselves the natural product of a multitude of ethnological, climatological,
economic, and historic causes, but which exercise, even apart from and
independent of the economic conditions of each country, a considerable
influence on its destinies and even on the development of its economic forces.
Among these elements, and these so-called natural traits, there is one whose
action is completely decisive in the particular history of each people; it is the
intensity of the spirit of revolt, and by that I mean the token of liberty with
which a people is endowed or which it has conserved. This instinct is a fact
which is completely primordial and animalistic; one finds it in different
degrees in every living being, and the energy and vital power of each is to he
measured by its intensity. In Man this instinct, in addition to the economic
needs which urge him on, becomes the most powerful agent of total human
emancipation. And since it is a matter of temperament rather than intellectual
and moral culture, although these ordinarily complement each other, it
sometimes happens that civilized peoples possess it only in a feeble degree,
either because they have exhausted it during their previous development, or
have been depraved by their civilization, or possibly because they were
originally less fully endowed with it than other peoples...
The reasoning of Marx ends in absolute contradiction. Taking into account
only the economic question, he insists that only the most advanced countries,
those in which capitalist production has attained greatest development, are the
most capable of making social revolution. These civilized countries, to the
exclusion of all others, are the only ones destined to initiate and carry through
this revolution. This revolution will expropriate either by peaceful, gradual, or
by violent means, the present property owners and capitalists. To appropriate
all the landed property and capital, and to carry out its extensive economic and
political programs, the revolutionary State will have to be very powerful and
highly centralized. The State will administer and direct the cultivation of the
land, by means of its salaried officials commanding armies of rural workers

organized and disciplined for this purpose. At the same time, on the ruins of
the existing banks, it will establish a single state bank which will finance all
labor and national commerce.
It is readily apparent how such a seemingly simple plan of organization can
excite the imagination of the workers, who are as eager for justice as they are
for freedom; and who foolishly imagine that the one can exist without the
other; as if, in order to conquer and consolidate justice and equality, one could
depend on the efforts of others, particularly on governments, regardless of how
they may be elected or controlled, to speak and act for the people! For the
proletariat this will, in reality, be nothing but a barracks: a regime, where
regimented workingmen and women will sleep, wake, work, and live to the
beat of a drum; where the shrewd and educated will be granted government
privileges; and where the mercenary-minded, attracted by the immensity of the
international speculations of the state bank, will find a vast field for lucrative,
underhanded dealings.
There will be slavery within this state, and abroad there will be war without
truce, at least until the inferior races, Latin and Slav, tired of bourgeois
civilization, no longer resign themselves to the subjection of a State, which
will be even more despotic than the former State, although it calls itself a
Peoples State.
The Social Revolution, as envisioned and hoped for by the Latin and Slav
workers, is infinitely broader in scope than that advanced by the German or
Marxist program. For them it is not a question of the emancipation of the
working class, parsimoniously doled out and realizable only in the remote
future, but rather the completed and real emancipation of all workers, not only
in some but in all nations, developed and undeveloped. And the first
watchword of this emancipation can be none other than freedom. Not the
bourgeois political freedom so extolled and recommended as the first step in
the conquest of full freedom by Marx and bis followers, but a broad
humanfreedom, a freedom destroying all the dogmatic, metaphysical, political,
and juridical fetters by which everyone today is loaded down, which will give
everybody, collectives as well as individuals, full autonomy in their activities
and their development, delivered once and for all from inspectors, directors,
and guardians.
The second watchword of this emancipation is solidarity, not Marxian
solidarity, decreed from the top down by some government, by trickery or
force, upon the masses; not that unity of all which is the negation of the liberty
of each, and which by that very fact becomes a falsehood, a fiction, hiding the

reality of slavery; but that solidarity which is, on the contrary, the confirmation
and realization of every freedom, having its origin not in any political law
whatsoever but in the inherent social nature of Man, in virtue of which no man
is free if all men who surround him and exercise an influence, direct or
indirect, on his life, are not equally free...
The solidarity which is sought, far from being the product of any artificial
authoritarian organization whatsoever, can only be the spontaneous product of
social life, economic as well as moral; the result of the free federation of
common interests, aspirations, and tendencies... . It has for its essential basis
equality and collective labor obligatory not by law, but by the force of
realities and collective property; as a guiding light, it has experience, the
practice of the collective life, knowledge, and learning; as a final goal, the
establishment of a free humanity, beginning with the downfall of all states.
This is the ideal, not divine, not metaphysical, but human and practical,
which corresponds to the modern aspirations of the Latin and Slav peoples.
They want full freedom, complete solidarity, complete equality; in short, they
want a full-scale humanity, and they will not accept less, even on the pretext
that limited freedom is only temporary. The Marxists will denounce these
aspirations as folly, as they have been doing for a long time ... but the Latins
and Slavs will never exchange these magnificent objectives for the completely
bourgeois platitudes of Marxian socialism.

Monday, May 02, 2005

I expect that this will be the last post on this blog for a while but readers with interesting quotes are welcome to send them in for possible posting.
GARY NORTH'S SUMMARY OF MARX:
The summary below accords with my reading of Marx. He hated everybody and that angry hatred has always been his chief attraction to Leftists. They instinctively recognize in him a kindred spirit.
"Karl Marx was the foremost hater and most incessant whiner in the history of Western Civilization. He was a spoiled, overeducated brat who never grew up; he just grew more shrill as he grew older. His lifelong hatred and whining have led to the deaths (so far) of perhaps a hundred million people,
depending on how many people perished under Maos tyranny. We will probably never know.
Whiners, if given power, readily become tyrants. Marx was seen by his contemporaries as a potential tyrant. Giuseppe Mazzini (1805-72), the Italian revolutionary, and a rival of Marxs in the International Workingmens Association in the mid- 1860s, once described Marx as a destructive spirit whose heart
was filled with hatred rather than love of mankind . . . extraordinarily sly, shifty and taciturn. Marx is very jealous of his authority as leader of the Party; against his political rivals and opponents he is vindictive and implacable; he does not rest until he has beaten them down; his overriding characteristic is
boundless ambition and thirst for power. Despite the communist egalitarianism which he preaches he is the absolute ruler of his party; admittedly he does everything himself but he is also the only one to give orders and he tolerates no opposition"
ENGELS PREFERRED TO BE IN TROUBLE WITH THE POLICE RATHER THAN WORK

"I have allowed myself to be persuaded by the arguments of my brother-in-law [Emil Blank] and the doleful expression on both my parents faces to give huckstering another trial and for [...] days have been working in the office. Another motive was the course my love affair was taking. But I was sick
of it all even before I began work; huckstering is too beastly, Barmen is too beastly, the waste of time is too beastly and most beastly of all is the fact of being, not only a bourgeois, but actually a manufacturer, a bourgeois who actively takes sides against the proletariat. A few days in my old mans
factory have sufficed to bring me face to face with this beastliness, which I had rather overlooked. I had, of course, planned to stay in the huckstering business only as long as it suited me and then to write something the police wouldnt like so that I could with good grace make off across the border, but

I cant hold out even till then."

Letters of Marx and Engels, 1845

Engels To Marx
In Paris

[20]

Source, MECW Volume 38, p. 15;

Written: 20 January 1845;
First published: abridged in Die Neue Zeit, Bd. 2, No. 44, Stuttgart, 1900-

01 and in full in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 1,

Stuttgart, 1913

Barmen, about 20 January 1845

Dear Marx,
If I havent answered your letter before, its mainly because I was waiting
for the Vorwrts you promised me. But as the thing has still not arrived, I've
given up waiting, either for that or for the Critical Criticism [The Holy
Family] of which I have no further news whatever. As regards Stirner, I
entirely agree with you. When I wrote to you, I was still too much under the
immediate impression made upon me by the book [M. Stirner, Der Einzige und
sein Eigenthum] Since I laid it aside and had time to think it over, I feel the
same as you. Hess, who is still here and whom I spoke to in Bonn a fortnight
ago, has, after several changes of mind, come to the same conclusion as
yourself. He read me an article, which he is shortly to publish, about the
book [M. Hess, Die letzten Philosophen, published in pamphlet form in June
1845]; in it he says the same as you, although he hadnt read your letter. I left
your letter with him,[21] because he still wished to use some things out of it, and
so I have to reply from memory. As regards my removal to Paris, there is no
doubt that in some two years time I shall be there; and I've made up my mind
too that at any cost I shall spend 4 to 6 weeks there next autumn. If the police
make life difficult for me here, I'll come anyway, and as things are now, it may
occur to these scum any day to molest us. Pttmanns Brgerbuch [Deutsches
Brgerbuch fr 1845]. Will show us just how far one can go without being
locked up or thrown out.
My love affair came to a fearful end. [reference to German saying, coined in
1809 by Major Ferdinand von Schill] I'll spare you the boring details, nothing
more can be done about it, and I've already been through enough over it as it
is. I'm glad that I can at least get down to work again, and if I were to tell you
the whole sorry tale, I'd be incapable of anything this evening.
The latest news is that from 1 April Hess and I will be publishing at Thieme
& Butzs in Hagen the Gesellschaftsspiegel, a monthly in which we shall
depict socialmisre and the bourgeois regime. Prospectus, etc., shortly.[22] In the

meantime it would be a good idea if the poetical Ein Handwerker [23] would
oblige by sending us material on misre in Paris. Particularly individual cases,
exactly whats needed to prepare the philistine for communism. Not much
effort will be involved in editing the thing; contributors enough can be found
to supply sufficient material for 4 sheets a month we shant have much
work to do with it, and might exert a lot of influence. Moreover, Leske has
commissioned Pttmann to put out a quarterly, the Rheinische
Jahrbcher, bulky enough to evade censorship, [24] which is to be communism
unalloyed. You too will doubtless be able to have a hand in it. In any case it
will do no harm if we have part of our work printed twice first in a
periodical and then on its own and in context; after all, banned books circulate
less freely and in this way we'll have twice as much chance of exerting an
influence. So you see we here in Germany have our work cut out if we're to
keep all these undertakings supplied with material and at the same time
elaborate greater things but we shall have to put our backs into it if we're to
achieve anything, and thats all to the good when you're itching to do
something. My book on the English workers [Engels, The Condition of the
Working-Class in England] will be finished in two or three weeks, after which
I shall set aside four weeks for lesser things and then go on to the historical
development of England and English socialism.[25]
What specially pleases me is the general recognition, now a fait accompli,
which communist literature has found in Germany. A year ago it began to gain
recognition, indeed, first saw the light of day, outside Germany, in Paris, and
now its already worrying the German man-in-the-street. Newspapers,
weeklies, monthlies and quarterlies, and reserves of heavy artillery coming up
everythings in the best of order. Its certainly happened devilish fast! Nor
has the underground propaganda been unfruitful. Every time I visit Cologne,
every time I enter a pub here, I find fresh progress, fresh proselytes. The
Cologne meeting has worked wonders. One gradually discovers individual
communist groups which have quietly evolved without any direct cooperation
on our part.
The Gemeinntziges Wochenblatt which was formerly published together
with the Rheinische Zeitung, is now also in our hands. It has been taken over
by d'Ester who will see what can be done. But what we need above all just now
are a few larger works to provide an adequate handhold for the many who
would like to improve their imperfect knowledge, but are unable to do so
unassisted. Do try and finish your political economy book, even if theres
much in it that you yourself are still dissatisfied with, it doesnt really matter;
minds are ripe and we must strike while the iron is hot. Presumably my

English things cannot fail to have some effect either, the facts are too
convincing, but all the same I wish I had less on my hands so that I could do
some things which would be more cogent and effective in regard both to the
present moment and to the German bourgeoisie. We German theoreticians
it may be ludicrous, but its a sign of the times and of the dissolution of the
German national filth cannot yet so much as develop our theory, not even
having been able as yet to publish the critique of the nonsense. But now it is
high time. So try and finish before April, do as I do, set yourself a date by
which you will definitely have finished, and make sure it gets into print
quickly. If you cant get it printed in Paris, have it done in Mannheim,
Darmstadt or elsewhere. But it must come out soon.
The fact that you enlarged the Critical Criticism to twenty sheets surprised
me not a little. But it is all to the good, for it means that much can now be
disseminated which would otherwise have lain for heaven knows how long in
your escritoire. But if you have retained my name on the title page it will look
rather odd since I wrote barely 1 1/2 sheets. As I told you, I have as yet heard
nothing from Lwenberg [lions mountain a pun on Lwenthal lions
valley, the Frankfort publishers name], nor anything about the publication of
the book, which I most eagerly await.
Yesterday I received Vorwrts, which I havent seen since my departure. I
was greatly amused by some of Bernays jokes; the fellow can make one laugh
so heartily, which I seldom do when reading. For the rest, it is definitely bad
and neither interesting nor instructive enough to induce many Germans to take
it for any length of time. How does it stand now, and is it true, as I hear in
Cologne, that it is to be turned into a monthly [18]? We're so terribly
overburdened with work here that you can expect no more than an occasional
contribution from us. You over there will also have to bestir yourselves. You
should write an article every 4 or 6 weeks for it and not allow yourself to be
governed by your moods. Why doesnt Bakunin write anything, and why
cant Ewerbeck be induced to write at least something humdrum? Poor
Bernays is, I suppose, by now in jug. Give him my regards and tell him not to
take this dirty business too much to heart. Two months is not an eternity,
although its dreadful enough. What are the lads doing generally? You tell me
nothing about it in your letters. Has Guerrier returned, and is Bakunin writing
French? Whats become of the tot who used to frequent the Quai Voltaire
every evening in August? And what are you doing yourself? How goes it with
your situation there? Is the Fouine [marten, Arnold Ruges nickname] still
living under your feet? Not long ago, the Fouine again let fly in
the Telegraph [A. Ruge. An einen Patrioten, Telegraph fr Deutschland, Nos.

203 and 204, December 1844] On the subject of patriotism, needless to say.
Splendid how he rides it to death, how he doesnt care a rap, provided he
succeeds in demolishing patriotism. Probably that was the substance of what
he refused to give Frbel. German newspapers recently alleged that
the Fouine intends to return to Germany. If its true I congratulate him, but it
cant be true, else he'd have to provide himself for the second time with an
omnibus with privy, and thats out of the question.
Not long ago I spoke to someone who'd come from Berlin. The dissolution
of the caput mortuum [literally: dead head; the term is borrowed from the
alchemists and figuratively means the remnants'] of The Free [17] would appear
to be complete. Besides the Bauers, Stirner also seems no longer to have
anything to do with them. The few who remain, Meyen, Rutenberg and Co.,
carry on serenely, foregathering at Stehelys every afternoon at 2 o'clock, as
they have done for six years past [26], and amusing themselves at the expense of
the newspapers. But now they have actually got as far as the organisation of
labour, [allusion to Louis Blancs Organisation du travail] and they will get no
farther. It would seem that even Mr Nauwerck has ventured to take this step,
for he participates with zeal in popular meetings. I told you all these people
would become dmocrates pacifiques. At the same time they have much
acclaimed the lucidity, etc., of our articles in the [DeutschFranzsische]Jahrbcher. When next the devil drives I shall begin
corresponding with little Meyen; one can, perhaps, derive some entertainment
from the fellows even if one doesnt find them entertaining. As it is, theres
never any opportunity here for an occasional outburst of high spirits, the life I
lead being all that the most splendiferous philistine could desire, a quiet,
uneventful existence, replete with godliness and respectability; I sit in my
room and work, hardly ever go out, am as staid as a German. If things go on
like this, I fear that the Almighty may overlook my writings and admit me to
heaven. I assure you that I'm beginning to acquire a good reputation here in
Barmen. But I'm sick of it all and intend to get away at Easter, probably to
Bonn. I have allowed myself to be persuaded by the arguments of my brotherin-law [Emil Blank] and the doleful expression on both my parents faces to
give huckstering another trial and for [...] days have been working in the
office. Another motive was the course my love affair was taking. But I was
sick of it all even before I began work; huckstering is too beastly, Barmen is
too beastly, the waste of time is too beastly and most beastly of all is the fact
of being, not only a bourgeois, but actually a manufacturer, a bourgeois who
actively takes sides against the proletariat. A few days in my old mans factory
have sufficed to bring me face to face with this beastliness, which I had rather
overlooked. I had, of course, planned to stay in the huckstering business only

as long as it suited me and then to write something the police wouldnt like so
that I could with good grace make off across the border, but I cant hold out
even till then. Had I not been compelled to record daily in my book the most
horrifying tales about English society, I would have become fed up with it, but
that at least has kept my rage on the simmer. And though as a communist one
can, no doubt, provided one doesnt write, maintain the outward appearance of
a bourgeois and a brutish huckster, it is impossible to carry on communist
propaganda on a large scale and at the same time engage in huckstering and
industry. Enough of that at Easter I shall be leaving this place. In addition
there is the enervating existence in this dyed-in-the-wool Christian-Prussian
family its intolerable; I might end up by becoming a German philistine and
importing philistinism into communism.
Well, dont leave me so long without a letter as I have left you this time. My
greetings to your wife, as yet a stranger, and to anyone else deserving of them.
For the time being write to me here. If I have already left, your letters will be
forwarded.
Your
F. E.
Madame Marx. Rue Vanneau N 38, Paris.
Monday, January 29, 2007
ANOTHER COLLECTION OF QUOTES FROM MARX AND HIS EARLY FOLLOWERS
Note the open avowal of terrorism
"As for slavery, there is no need for me to speak of its bad aspects. The only thing requiring explanation is the good side of slavery. I do not mean indirect slavery, the slavery of proletariat; I mean direct slavery, the slavery of the Blacks in Surinam, in Brazil, in the southern regions of North America. Direct
slavery is as much the pivot upon which our present-day industrialism turns as are machinery, credit, etc. Slavery is therefore an economic category of paramount importance."
- Karl Marx
(Letter to Pavel Vasilyevich Annenkov, December 28, 1846)
" the very cannibalism of the counterrevolution will convince the nations that there is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terror."
- Karl Marx
("The Victory of the Counter-Revolution in Vienna," Neue Rheinische Zeitung, November 7, 1848)

"All the other large and small nationalities and peoples are destined to perish before long in the revolutionary world storm these residual fragments of peoples always become fanatical standard-bearers of counter-revolution and remain so until their complete
extirpation or loss of their national character [A general war will] wipe out all these petty hidebound nations, down to their very names. The next world war will result in the disappearance from the face of the earth not only of reactionary classes and dynasties,
but also of entire reactionary peoples. And that, too, is a step forward."
- Friedrich Engels
("The Magyar Struggle," Neue Rheinische Zeitung, January 13, 1849)
" only by the most determined use of terror against these Slav peoples can we [Germans], jointly with the Poles and Magyars, safeguard the revolution there will be a struggle, an inexorable life-and-death struggle, against those Slavs who betray the
revolution; an annihilating fight and ruthless terror - not in the interests of Germany, but in the interests of the revolution!"
- Friedrich Engels
("Democratic Pan-Slavism, Cont.," Neue Rheinische Zeitung, February 16, 1849)
"We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror."
- Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
("Suppression of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung," Neue Rheinische Zeitung, May 19, 1849)
"Psychologically, this talk of feeding the starving is nothing but an expression of the saccharine-sweet sentimentality so characteristic of our intelligentsia."
- V. I. Lenin
(Robert Conquest, The Harvest of Sorrow [London: Arrow Books, 1988], p234)
"... whoever recognizes class war must recognize civil wars, which in any class society represent the natural and, in certain circumstances, inevitable continuation, development and sharpening of class war."
- V. I. Lenin
(Dmitri Volkogonov, Lenin: Life and Legacy [London: HarperCollins, 1994], p196)
"Until we apply terror to speculators - shooting on the spot - we wont get anywhere."
- V. I. Lenin
(George Leggett, The Cheka: Lenins Political Police [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981], p55)
"Let them shoot on the spot every tenth man guilty of idleness."
- V. I. Lenin
(George Leggett, The Cheka: Lenins Political Police [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981], p55)
"Surely you do not imagine that we shall be victorious without applying the most cruel revolutionary terror?"
- V. I. Lenin
(George Leggett, The Cheka: Lenins Political Police [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981], p57)
"You can tell Ter [a local Cheka commander] that if there is an offensive, he must make all preparations to burn Baku down totally, and this should be announced in print in Baku."
- V. I. Lenin
(Dmitri Volkogonov, Lenin: Life and Legacy [London: HarperCollins, 1994], p202)
"Merciless war against these kulaks! Death to them!"
- V. I. Lenin
(Dmitri Volkogonov, Lenin: Life and Legacy [London: HarperCollins, 1994], p197)
"... carry out merciless mass terror against the kulaks, priests and White Guards; unreliable elements to be locked up in a concentration camp outside the town."
- V. I. Lenin
(George Leggett, The Cheka: Lenins Political Police [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981], p103)
"I am confident that the suppression of the Kazan Czechs and White Guards, and likewise of the bloodsucking kulaks who support them, will be a model of mercilessness."
- V. I. Lenin

(George Leggett, The Cheka: Lenins Political Police [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981], p119)
"When we are reproached with cruelty, we wonder how people can forget the most elementary Marxism."
- V. I. Lenin
(Robert Conquest, The Human Cost of Soviet Communism [Washington: Committee on the Judiciary, US Senate, 91st Congress, 2nd Session, 1970], p10)
"... catch and shoot the Astrakhan speculators and bribe-takers. These swine have to be dealt [with] so that everyone will remember it for years."
- V. I. Lenin
(Dmitri Volkogonov, Lenin: Life and Legacy [London: HarperCollins, 1994], p201)
"Russians are too kind, they lack the ability to apply determined methods of revolutionary terror."
- V. I. Lenin
(Dmitri Volkogonov, Lenin: Life and Legacy [London: HarperCollins, 1994], p203)
"Dictatorship is rule based directly on force and unrestricted by any laws. The revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat is rule won and maintained through the use of violence by the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, rule that is unrestricted by any laws."
- V. I. Lenin
(Stephan Courtois, "Conclusion," in The Black Book of Communism, ed. Stephane Courtois [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1999], p741)
"I come to the inescapable conclusion that we must now launch the most decisive and merciless battle against the Black Hundreds clergy and crush their resistance with such ferocity that they will not forget it for several decades... The bigger the number of
reactionary clergy and reactionary bourgeois we manage to shoot in the process, the better."
- V. I. Lenin
(Dmitri Volkogonov, Trotsky: The Eternal Revolutionary [London: HarperCollins, 1996], p227)
"But couldnt this correlation [of political and social forces] be altered? Say, through the subjection or extermination of some classes of society?"
- Feliks Dzerzhinsky
(George Leggett, The Cheka: Lenins Political Police [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981], p252)
"Do not believe that I seek revolutionary forms of justice. We dont need justice at this point... I propose, I demand, the organization of revolutionary annihilation against all active counterrevolutionaries."
- Feliks Dzerzhinsky
(Michel Heller and Aleksandr Nekrich, Utopia in Power: A History of the USSR From 1917 to the Present [London: Hutchinson, 1986], p54)
"[The Red Terror involves] the extermination of enemies of the revolution on the basis of their class affiliation or of their pre-revolutionary roles."
- Feliks Dzerzhinsky
(George Leggett, The Cheka: Lenins Political Police [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981], p114)
"In not more than a months time terror will assume very violent forms, after the example of the great French Revolution; the guillotine... will be ready for our enemies... that remarkable invention of the French Revolution which makes man shorter by a head."
- Leon Trotsky
(George Leggett, The Cheka: Lenins Political Police [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981], p54)
"Root out the counterrevolutionaries without mercy, lock up suspicious characters in concentration camps... Shirkers will be shot, regardless of past service..."
- Leon Trotsky
(Dmitri Volkogonov, Trotsky: The Eternal Revolutionary [London: HarperCollins, 1996], p213)
"We have to run a hot iron down the spine of the Ukrainian kulaks - that will create a good working environment."
- Leon Trotsky
(Dmitri Volkogonov, Trotsky: The Eternal Revolutionary [London: HarperCollins, 1996], p183)
"As for us, we were never concerned with the Kantian-priestly and vegetarian-Quaker prattle about the sacredness of human life."
- Leon Trotsky
(Terrorism and Communism: A Reply to Karl Kautsky [London: New Park Publications, 1975], p82)
"The Red Terror is a weapon utilized against a class, doomed to destruction, which does not wish to perish... the Red Terror hastens the destruction of the bourgeoisie."
- Leon Trotsky
(Terrorism and Communism: A Reply to Karl Kautsky [London: New Park Publications, 1975], p83)
"... the road to socialism lies through a period of the highest possible intensification of the principle of the state Just as a lamp, before going out, shoots up in a brilliant flame, so the state, before disappearing, assumes the form of the dictatorship of the
proletariat, i.e., the most ruthless form of state, which embraces the life of the citizens authoritatively in every direction..."
- Leon Trotsky
(Terrorism and Communism: A Reply to Karl Kautsky [London: New Park Publications, 1975], p177)
"... the very principle of labour conscription has replaced the principle of free labour as radically and irreversibly as socialization of the means of production has replaced capitalist ownership."
- Leon Trotsky
(Dmitri Volkogonov, Trotsky: The Eternal Revolutionary [London: HarperCollins, 1996], pp216-7)

The Communists As They Really Are

Compiled by Paul Bogdanor
It is slavery which has given value to the colonies Slavery is therefore an economic category of paramount importance. Without slavery, North America, the most progressive nation, would he transformed into a patriarchal country.
- Karl Marx
(Letter to Annenkov, December 28, 1846)
the very cannibalism of the counterrevolution will convince the nations that there is only one way in which the murderous death agonies of the old society and the bloody birth throes of the new society can be shortened, simplified and concentrated, and that way is revolutionary terror.
- Karl Marx
(The Victory of the Counter-Revolution in Vienna, Neue Rheinische Zeitung, November 7, 1848)
We have no compassion and we ask no compassion from you. When our turn comes, we shall not make excuses for the terror.
- Karl Marx
(Suppression of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, Neue Rheinische Zeitung, May 19, 1849)
The present generation resembles the Jews whom Moses led through the wilderness. It must not only conquer a new world, it must also perish in order to make room for people who will be equal to a new world.
- Karl Marx
(Gyorgy Lukacs, History and Class Consciousness [MIT Press, 1972], p315)
We say to the workers: you will have to go through 15, 20, 50 years of civil wars and national struggles not only to bring about a change in society but also to change yourselves, and prepare yourselves for the exercise of political power.
- Karl Marx
(Revelations Concerning the Communist Trial in Cologne, 1852-3, Marx-Engels Collected Works, Vol. 11, p403)
Society is undergoing a silent revolution, which must be submitted to, and which takes no more notice of the human existences it breaks down than an earthquake regards the houses it subverts. The classes and the races, too weak to master the new conditions of life, must give way.
- Karl Marx
(Forced Emigration, New York Daily Tribune, March 22, 1853)
England has to fulfill a double mission in India: one destructive, the other regenerating the annihilation of old Asiatic society, and the laying the material foundations of Western society in Asia When a great social revolution shall have mastered the results of the bourgeois epoch and subjected them to the common control
of the most advanced peoples, then only will human progress cease to resemble that hideous, pagan idol, who would not drink the nectar but from the skulls of the slain.
- Karl Marx
(The Future Results of British Rule in India, New York Daily Tribune, August 8, 1853)
Thus we find every tyrant backed by a Jew, as is every Pope by a Jesuit. In truth, the cravings of oppressors would be hopeless, and the practicability of war out of the question, if there were not an army of Jesuits to smother thought and a handful of Jews to ransack pockets.
- Karl Marx
(The Russian Loan, New York Tribune, January 4, 1856)
All the other large and small nationalities and peoples are destined to perish before long in the revolutionary world storm The next world war will result in the disappearance from the face of the earth not only of reactionary classes and dynasties, but also of entire reactionary peoples. And that, too, is a step forward.
- Friedrich Engels
(The Magyar Struggle, Neue Rheinische Zeitung, January 13, 1849)
People have learned by bitter experience that the European fraternal union of peoples cannot be achieved by mere phrases and pious wishes, but only by profound revolutions and bloody struggles Of course, matters of this kind cannot be accomplished without many a tender national blossom being forcibly broken. But in
history nothing is achieved without violence and implacable ruthlessness
- Friedrich Engels
(Democratic Pan-Slavism, Neue Rheinische Zeitung, February 15, 1849)
Then there will be a struggle, an inexorable life-and-death struggle, against those Slavs who betray the revolution; an annihilating fight and ruthless terror not in the interests of Germany, but in the interests of the revolution!
- Friedrich Engels
(Democratic Pan-Slavism, Cont., Neue Rheinische Zeitung, February 16, 1849)
A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon and if the victorious party does not want to have fought in vain, it must maintain this rule by means of the terror which its arms inspire in the

reactionists.
- Friedrich Engels
(Robert C. Tucker, ed., The Marx-Engels Reader [W. W. Norton, 1978], pp730-3)
By destroying the peasant economy and driving the peasant from the country to the town, the famine creates a proletariat... Furthermore the famine can and should be a progressive factor not only economically. It will force the peasant to reflect on the bases of the capitalist system, demolish faith in the tsar and tsarism, and
consequently in due course make the victory of the revolution easier Psychologically all this talk about feeding the starving and so on essentially reflects the usual sugary sentimentality of our intelligentsia.
- V. I. Lenin
(Michael Ellman, The Role of Leadership Perceptions and of Intent in the Soviet Famine of 1931-1934, Europe-Asia Studies, September 2005, p823)
[Use] rifles, revolvers, bombs, knives, knuckle-dusters, sticks, rags soaked in kerosene for starting fires barbed wire, nails (against cavalry) or acids to be poured on t he police The killing of spies, policemen, gendarmes, the blowing up of police stations [must start] at a moments notice.
- V. I. Lenin
(Tasks of Revolutionary Army Contingents, Collected Works, Vol. 9, pp420-4)
there are times when the interests of the proletariat call for ruthless extermination of its enemies in open armed clashes.
- V. I. Lenin
(Lessons of the Commune, Collected Works, Vol. 13, p478)
He who accepts the class struggle cannot fail to accept civil wars, which in every class society are the natural, and under certain conditions inevitable, continuation, development and intensification of the class struggle To repudiate civil war, or to forget about it, is to fall into extreme opportunism and renounce the socialist
revolution.
- V. I. Lenin
(The Military Programme of the Proletarian Revolution, Collected Works, Vol. 23, pp78-9)
War to the death against the rich and their hangers-on, the bourgeois intellectuals He who does not work, neither shall he eat this is the practical commandment of socialism [Our] common aim [is] to clean the land of Russia of all vermin, of fleas the rogues, of bugs the rich, and so on and so forth.
- V. I. Lenin
(How to Organise Competition? Collected Works, Vol. 26, pp411, 414)
We cant expect to get anywhere unless we resort to terrorism: speculators must be shot on the spot. Moreover, bandits must be dealt with just as resolutely: they must be shot on the spot.
- V. I. Lenin
(Meeting of the Presidium of the Petrograd Soviet With Delegates From the Food Supply Organisations,Collected Works, Vol. 26, p501)
Surely you do not imagine that we shall be victorious without applying the most cruel revolutionary terror?
- V. I. Lenin
(George Leggett, The Cheka: Lenins Political Police [Clarendon Press, 1981], p57)
... prepare eveything to burn Baku to the ground, if there is an attack
- V. I. Lenin
(Richard Pipes, ed., The Unknown Lenin: From the Secret Archive [Yale University Press, 1996], p46)
... carry out merciless mass terror against the kulaks, priests and White Guards; unreliable elements to be locked up in a concentration camp outside the town.
- V. I. Lenin
(George Leggett, The Cheka: Lenins Political Police [Clarendon Press, 1981], p103)
The uprising of the five kulak districts should be mercilessly suppressed Hang (hang without fail, so the people see) no fewer than one hundred kulaks, rich men, bloodsuckers Do it in such a way that for hundreds of versts[km] around, the people will see, tremble, know, shout: they are strangling and will strangle to death
the bloodsucker kulaks.
- V. I. Lenin
(Richard Pipes, ed., The Unknown Lenin: From the Secret Archive [Yale University Press, 1996], p50)
About three million must be regarded as middle peasants, while barely two million consist of kulaks, rich peasants, grain profiteers Ruthless war on the kulaks! Death to them! [Class struggle entails] ruthless suppression of the kulaks, those bloodsuckers, vampires, plunderers of the people and profiteers, who batten on
famine.
- V. I. Lenin
(Comrade Workers, Forward To The Last, Decisive Fight! Collected Works, Vol. 28, pp53-7)
I am confident that the suppression of the Kazan Czechs and White Guards, and likewise of the bloodsucking kulaks who support them, will be a model of mercilessness.
- V. I. Lenin
(George Leggett, The Cheka: Lenins Political Police [Clarendon Press, 1981], p119)
Dictatorship is rule based directly upon force and unrestricted by any laws. The revolutionary dictatorship of the proletari at is rule won and maintained by the use of violence by the proletariat against the bourgeoisie, rule that is unrestricted by any laws.
- V. I. Lenin
(The Proletarian Revolution and the Renegade Kautsky [Foreign Languages Press, 1972], p11)
when people charge us with harshness we wonder how they can forget the rudiments of Marxism.
- V. I. Lenin
(Speech to the All-Russia Extraordinary Commission Staff, Collected Works, Vol. 28, pp169-70)
... catch and shoot the Astrakhan speculators and bribe-takers. These swine have to be dealt [with] so that everyone will remember it for years.
- V. I. Lenin
(Dmitri Volkogonov, Lenin: Life and Legacy [HarperCollins, 1994], p201)
When we are reproached with having established a dictatorship of one party we say, Yes, it is a dictatorship of one party! This is what we stand for and we shall not shift from that position
- V. I. Lenin
(Speech to the First All-Russia Congress of Workers in Education and Socialist Culture, Collected Works, Vol. 29, p535)
Russians are too kind, they lack the ability to apply determined methods of revolutionary terror.
- V. I. Lenin
(Dmitri Volkogonov, Lenin: Life and Legacy [HarperCollins, 1994], p203)
Use both bribery and threats to exterminate every Cossack to a man if they set fire to the oil in Guriev.
- V. I. Lenin
(Richard Pipes, ed., The Unknown Lenin: From the Secret Archive [Yale University Press, 1996], p69)
Treat the Jews (express it politely: Jewish petty bourgeoisie) and urban inhabitants in the Ukraine with an iron rod, transferring them to the front, not letting them into the government agencies (except in an insignificant percentage, in particularly exceptional circumstances, under class control).
- V. I. Lenin
(Richard Pipes, ed., The Unknown Lenin: From the Secret Archive [Yale University Press, 1996], p77)
It is precisely now and only now, when in the starving regions people are eating human flesh, and hundreds if not thousands of corpses are littering the roads, that we can (and therefore must) carry out the confiscation of church valuables I come to the categorical conclusion that precisely at this moment we must give battle to
the Black Hundred clergy in the most decisive and merciless manner and crush its resistance with such brutality that it will not forget it for decades to come The greater the number of representatives of the reactionary clergy and reactionary bourgeoisie we succeed in executing for this reason, the better.
- V. I. Lenin
(Richard Pipes, ed., The Unknown Lenin: From the Secret Archive [Yale University Press, 1996], pp152-4)
There is nothing immoral in the proletariat finishing off the dying class in one month at most this terror will assume more frightful forms, on the model of the great revolutionaries of France. Our enemies will face not prison but the guillotine [which] shortens a man by the length of a head.
- Leon Trotsky
(Richard Pipes, The Russian Revolution [Vintage, 1990], pp791-2)
Root out the counterrevolutionaries without mercy, lock up suspicious characters in concentration camps... Shirkers will be shot, regardless of past service
- Leon Trotsky
(Dmitri Volkogonov, Trotsky: The Eternal Revolutionary [HarperCollins, 1996], p213)
We have to run a hot iron down the spine of the Ukrainian kulaks that will create a good working
environment.
- Leon Trotsky
(Dmitri Volkogonov, Trotsky: The Eternal Revolutionary [HarperCollins, 1996], p183)
These Cains [Don Cossacks] must be annihilated, no mercy must be shown to any settlement that gives resistance. Mercy only for those who hand over their weapons voluntarily and come over to our side... You must cleanse the Don of the black stain of treason within a few days.
- Leon Trotsky
(Dmitri Volkogonov, Trotsky: The Eternal Revolutionary [HarperCollins, 1996], p156)
More and more we hear the voice of the workers and peasants, saying: we must exterminate all Cossacks, then peace and calm will come to South Russia!
- Leon Trotsky
(Peter Holquist, Making War, Forging Revolution: Russia's Continuum of Crisis, 1914-1921 [Harvard University Press, 2002], p178)
[We propose] the creation of a penal work command out of [work] deserters, and their internment in concentration camps.
- Leon Trotsky
(Richard Day, Leon Trotsky and the Politics of Economic Isolation [Cambridge University Press, 1973], p29)
As for us, we were never concerned with the Kantian-priestly and vegetarian-Quaker prattle about the sacredness of human life.
- Leon Trotsky
(Terrorism and Communism: A Reply to Karl Kautsky [New Park Publications, 1975], p82)
The bourgeoisie today is a falling class We are forced to tear it off, to chop it away. The Red Terror is a weapon utilized against a class, doomed to destruction, which does not wish to perish. If the White Terror can only retard the historical rise of the proletariat, the Red Terror hastens the destruction of the bourgeoisie.
- Leon Trotsky
(Terrorism and Communism: A Reply to Karl Kautsky [New Park Publications, 1975], p83)
Repression for the attainment of economic ends is a necessary weapon of the socialist dictatorship.
- Leon Trotsky
(Terrorism and Communism: A Reply to Karl Kautsky [New Park Publications, 1975], p159)
... the road to socialism lies through a period of the highest possible intensification of the principle of the state Just as a lamp, before going out, shoots up in a brilliant flame, so the state, before disappearing, assumes the form of the dictatorship of the proletariat, i.e., the most ruthless form of state, which embraces the life of the
citizens authoritatively in every direction...
- Leon Trotsky
(Terrorism and Communism: A Reply to Karl Kautsky [New Park Publications, 1975], p177)
What, however, is our relation to revolution? Civil war is the most severe of all forms of war. It is unthinkable not only without violence against tertiary figures but, under contemporary technique, without murdering old men, old women and children... There is no impervious demarcation between peaceful class struggle and
revolution. Every strike embodies in an unexpanded form all the elements of civil war.
- Leon Trotsky
(Their Morals and Ours, New International, June 1938)
if the dictatorship of the proletariat means anything at all, then it means that the vanguard of the class is armed with t he resources of the state in order to repel dangers, including those emanating from the backward layers of the proletariat itself.
- Leon Trotsky
(Moralists and Sycophants Against Marxism, New International, August 1939)
All the parties of capitalist society, all its moralists and all its sycophants will perish beneath the debris of the impending catastrophe. The only party that will survive is the party of the world socialist re volution
- Leon Trotsky
(Moralists and Sycophants Against Marxism, New International, August 1939)
We must carry along with us 90 million out of the 100 million of Soviet Russias population. As for the rest, we have nothing to say to them. They must be annihilated.
- Grigori Zinoviev
(George Leggett, The Cheka: Lenins Political Police [Clarendon Press, 1981], p114)
But couldnt this correlation [of political and social forces] be altered? Say, through the subjection or extermination of some classes of society?
- Feliks Dzerzhinsky
(George Leggett, The Cheka: Lenins Political Police [Clarendon Press, 1981], p252)
Do not believe that I seek revolutionary forms of justice. We dont need justice at this point... I propose, I demand, the organisation of revolutionary annihilation against all active counterrevolutionaries.
- Feliks Dzerzhinsky
(Michel Heller and Aleksandr Nekrich, Utopia in Power: A History of the USSR From 1917 to the Present[Hutchinson, 1986], p54)
[The Red Terror is] the extermination of enemies of the revolution on the basis of their class affiliation or of their pre-revolutionary roles.
- Feliks Dzerzhinsky
(George Leggett, The Cheka: Lenins Political Police [Clarendon Press, 1981], p114)
We do not wage war against individuals. We are exterminating the bourgeoisie as a class. Do not look during an investigation for evidence that the accused acted, by word or deed, against the Soviet power. The first question we ask is: to what class does he belong, what are his origins, upbringing, education or profession? These

questions should decide the fate of the accused. This is the essence of the Red Terror.
- Martin Latsis, Cheka commander
(George Leggett, The Cheka: Lenins Political Police [Clarendon Press, 1981], p114)
As far as the bourgeoisie are concerned, the tactics of mass extermination must be introduced.
- Martin Latsis
(Bruce Lincoln, Red Victory: A History of the Russian Civil War [Simon and Schuster, 1989], p160)
Sooner or later we will have to exterminate, simply physically destroy, the Cossacks, or at least the vast majority of them.
- I. I. Reingold, Bolshevik official
(Peter Holquist, Making War, Forging Revolution: Russia's Continuum of Crisis, 1914-1921 [Harvard University Press, 2002], pp166, 194-5)
we are conducting a struggle not for the Cossackry but against the Cossackry, before us stands the task of the Dons complete conquest and extinction.
- Iosif Khodorovskii, Bolshevik official
(Peter Holquist, Making War, Forging Revolution: Russia's Continuum of Crisis, 1914-1921 [Harvard University Press, 2002], p195)
Considering the experience of a year of civil war against the Cossackry, we must recognize the only proper means to be a merciless struggle with the entire Cossack elite by means of their total extermination Therefore it is necessary to conduct merciless mass terror against wealthy Cossacks, exterminating them totally; to
conduct merciless mass terror against all those Cossacks who participated, directly or indirectly, in the struggle against Soviet power
- Bolshevik order
(Peter Holquist, Making War, Forging Revolution: Russia's Continuum of Crisis, 1914-1921 [Harvard University Press, 2002], pp181)
[The Cossack threat] makes vital the question of the complete, immediate and decisive destruction of the Cossackry as a specific cultural and economic group, the destruction of its economic foundations, the physical elimination of the Cossack bureaucrats and officers (indeed, the entire counterrevolutionary Cossack elite) and
the formal liquidation of the Cossackry.
- Bolshevik order
(Peter Holquist, Making War, Forging Revolution: Russia's Continuum of Crisis, 1914-1921 [Harvard University Press, 2002], p192)
... anyone who dares to agitate against Soviet authority will be arrested immediately and confined in a concentration camp.
- Bolshevik order
(George Leggett, The Cheka: Lenins Political Police [Clarendon Press, 1981], p179)
It is essential to safeguard the Soviet Republic from its class enemies by isolating them in concentration camps.
- Bolshevik order
(George Leggett, The Cheka: Lenins Political Police [Clarendon Press, 1981], p179)
Workers, the time has come when either you must destroy the bourgeoisie, or it will destroy you. Prepare for a mass merciless onslaught upon the enemies of the revolution. The towns must be cleansed of this bourgeois putrefaction... all who are dangerous to the cause of revolution must be exterminated... Henceforth the hymn of
the working class will be a hymn of hatred and revenge.
- Bolshevik order
(George Leggett, The Cheka: Lenins Political Police [Clarendon Press, 1981], pp113-4)
1. Citizens who refuse to give their names are to be shot on the spot without trial; 2. The penalty of hostage-taking should be announced and they are to be shot when arms are not surrendered; 3. In the event of concealed arms being found, shoot the eldest worker in the family on the spot and without trial; 4. Any family which
harboured a bandit is subject to arrest and deportation from the province, their property to be confiscated and the eldest worker in the family to be shot without trial; 5. The eldest worker of any families hiding members of the family or the property of bandits is to be shot on the spot without trial.
- Bolshevik order
(Dmitri Volkogonov, Lenin: Life and Legacy [HarperCollins, 1994], pp343-4)
[Lenin] is talented, he has all the qualities of a leader, but also, what is essential for that role, an absence of morality and a purely lordly, merciless attitude to the lives of the masses.
- Maksim Gorky, Soviet writer
(Dmitri Volkogonov, Trotsky: The Eternal Revolutionary [HarperCollins, 1996], p184)
I assume that most of the 35 million affected by the famine will die.
- Maksim Gorky
(Michel Heller and Aleksandr Nekrich, Utopia in Power: A History of the USSR From 1917 to the Present[Hutchinson, 1986], p121)
The half-savage, stupid, difficult people of the Russian villages will die out... and their place will be taken by a new tribe of the literate, the intelligent, the vigorous.
- Maksim Gorky
(Michel Heller and Aleksandr Nekrich, Utopia in Power: A History of the USSR From 1917 to the Present[Hutchinson, 1986], p121)
Experiments on human beings are indispensable Hundreds of human guinea pigs are required.
- Maksim Gorky
(Stephan Courtois, The Black Book of Communism [Harvard University Press, 1999], p751)
In order to oust the kulaks as a class, the resistance of this class must be smashed in open battle and it must be deprived of the productive sources of its existence and development... That is a turn towards the policy of eliminating the kulaks as a class.
- Joseph Stalin
(Concerning the Policy of Eliminating the Kulaks as a Class, Krasnaya Zvezda, January 21, 1930, Works, Vol. 12, p189)
There is, of course, a certain small section of the population that really does stand in fear of the Soviet power, and fights against it. I have in mind the remnants of the moribund classes, which are being eliminated, and primarily that insignificant part of the peasantry, the kulaks Everybody knows that in this case we Bolsheviks
do not confine ourselves to intimidation but go further, aiming at the elimination of this bourgeois stratum.
- Joseph Stalin
(Talk With the German Author Emil Ludwig, Bolshevik, April 30, 1932, Works, Vol. 13, pp113-4)
The abolition of classes is not achieved by the extinction of the class struggle, but by its intensification. The state will wither away, not as a result of weakening the state power, but as a result of strengthening it to the utmost, which is necessary for finally crushing the remnants of the dying classes we have routed the kulaks and
have prepared the ground for their elimination.
- Joseph Stalin
(The Results of the First Five-Year Plan, Pravda, January 10, 1933, Works, Vol. 13, p215)
Of course, we are far from being enthusiastic about the fascist regime in Germany. But it is not a question of fascism here, if only for the reason that fascism in Italy, for example, has not prevented the USSR from establishing the best relations with that country.
- Joseph Stalin
(Report to the Seventeenth Party Congress, Pravda, January 28, 1934, Works, Vol. 13, pp308-9)
I know how much the German nation loves its Fuhrer; I should therefore like to drink to his health.
- Joseph Stalin
(John Lukacs, June 1941: Hitler and Stalin [Yale University Press 2006], p55)
... the peasant is adopting a new tactic. He refuses to reap the harvest. He wants the bread grain to die in order to choke the Soviet government with the bony hand of famine. But the enemy miscalculates. We will show him what famine is.
- Stanislav Kossior, Ukrainian communist leader
(Robert Conquest, The Harvest of Sorrow [Arrow Books, 1988], p221)
We know that millions are dying. That is unfortunate, but the glorious future of the Soviet Union will justify that.
- G. I. Petrovsky, Ukrainian communist leader
(Robert Conquest, The Harvest of Sorrow [Arrow Books, 1988], p324)
A ruthless struggle is going on between the peasantry and our regime. Its a struggle to the death. This year was a test of our strength and their endurance. It took a famine to show them who is master here. It has cost millions of lives, but the collective farm system is here to stay.
- M. M. Khatayevich, Ukrainian communist leader
(Victor A. Kravchenko, I Chose Freedom [Transaction Publishers, 1989], p130)
... no compassion and sniveling humanism can be shown toward enemies of socialism. To pity a kulak, a speculator, a traitor, an enemy of the people, is to feel sorry for the wolf that will respond to the pity with fresh crimes and acts of treachery the supreme act of humanism is the destruction of these vicious snakes
dispatched by fascism into the land of socialism.
- Vladimir Stavsky, Secretary of the Soviet Writers Union
(Robert C. Tucker, Stalin in Power: The Revolution From Above, 1928-1941 [W. W. Norton, 1992], p576)
Better that ten innocent people should suffer than one spy get away. When you cut down the forest, woodchips fly.
- Nikolai Ezhov, NKVD commander
(Roy Medvedev, Let History Judge [Columbia University Press, 1989], p603)
[It is] better to condemn a hundred innocent persons than let one guilty person escape.
- Dolores Ibarruri (La Pasionaria), Spanish communist politician
(Victor Alba, The Communist Party in Spain [Transaction Publishers, 1983], p256)
You are protesting against Jewish capitalism, gentlemen? Whoever protests against Jewish capitalism, gentlemen, is already a class-warrior, whether he knows it or not. You are against Jewish capitalism and want to beat down stock exchange jobbers. Thats all right. Stamp on the Jewish capitalists, string them up from the lampposts, trample them underfoot...
- Ruth Fischer, German communist leader
(Mario Kessler, Leon Trotskys Position on Anti-Semitism, Zionism and the Perspectives of the Jewish Question, New Interventions, Vol. 5, No. 2, 1994)
The National Socialist Party, like all other socialist organizations, has within its ranks a number of convinced and honest people. Dedicated to a cause we reject, they pledge to it their lives. This courage and bravery we honor and respect.
- Hermann Remmele, German communist spokesman
(Abraham Ascher and Guenter Lewy, National Bolshevism in Weimar Germany: Alliance of Political Extremes Against Democracy, Social Research, Winter 1956, p468)
Young Socialists! Brave fighters for the nation: the Communists do not want to engage in fraternal strife with the National Socialists.
- Heinz Neumann, German communist leader, speaking at a Nazi rally
(Abraham Ascher and Guenter Lewy, National Bolshevism in Weimar Germany: Alliance of Political Extremes Against Democracy, Social Research, Winter 1956, p478)
[Resolved: that] the revolt of the oppressed peoples in the colonies against imperialism has always been accompanied by dest ructive attacks against the national minorities when they aided the imperialist regime, and that the revolt of the Arab masses in Palestine against the imperialists had been and would in the future be
accompanied by a war of annihilation against the Jewish minority, as long as it cooperated with the British imperi alists.
- Palestine Communist Party
(Resolution of the 7th Party Congress, 1932; quoted in Zachary Lockman, The Left in Israel: Zionism vs Socialism, MERIP Reports, July 1976, p8)
Moscow is convinced that the road to Soviet Germany leads through Hitler.
- Soviet Embassy in Berlin
(Robert C. Tucker, The Emergence of Stalins Foreign Policy, Slavic Review, December 1977, p582)
There are magnificent lads in the SA and SS. Youll see, the day will come when theyll be throwing hand grenades for us.
- Karl Radek
(Robert C. Tucker, The Emergence of Stalins Foreign Policy, Slavic Review, December 1977, p587)
One can accept or reject the ideology of Hitlerism, just as one can any other ideological system, thats a matter of political views it is not only senseless but criminal to wage such a war as a war to destroy Hitlerism under the false flag of a struggle for democracy.
- V. M. Molotov
(Robert C. Tucker, Stalin in Power: The Revolution From Above, 1928-1941 [W. W. Norton, 1992], p602)
Look at World War II, at Hitlers cruelty. The more cruelty, the more enthusiasm for revolution.
- Mao Zedong
(New York Times, August 31, 1990)
Youd better have less conscience. Some of our comrades have too much mercy, not enough brutality, which means that they are not so Marxist. On this matter, we indeed have no conscience! Marxism is that brutal.
- Mao Zedong
(Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, Mao: The Unknown Story [Jonathan Cape, 2005], p411)
Lets contemplate this, how many people would die if war breaks out. There are 2.7 billion people in the world. One-third could be lost; or, a little more, it could be half... I say that, taking the extreme situation, half dies, half lives, but imperialism would be razed to the ground and the whole world would become socialist.
- Mao Zedong
(Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, Mao: The Unknown Story [Jonathan Cape, 2005], p428)
We are prepared to sacrifice 300 million Chinese for the victory of the world revolution.
- Mao Zedong
(Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, Mao: The Unknown Story [Jonathan Cape, 2005], pp457-8)
Dont make a fuss about a world war. At most, people die Half the population wiped out this happened quite a few times in Chinese history Its best if half the population is left, next best one-third
- Mao Zedong
(Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, Mao: The Unknown Story [Jonathan Cape, 2005], p458)
There should be celebration rallies when people die We believe in dialectics, and so we cant not be in favor of death.
- Mao Zedong
(Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, Mao: The Unknown Story [Jonathan Cape, 2005], p457)

Working like this, with all these projects, half of China may well have to die. If not half, one-third, or one-tenth 50 million die. Fifty million deaths, I could be fired, and I might even lose my head but if you insist, Ill just have to let you do it, and you cant blame me when people die.
- Mao Zedong
(Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, Mao: The Unknown Story [Jonathan Cape, 2005], p458)
Deaths have benefits. They can fertilise the ground.
- Mao Zedong
(Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, Mao: The Unknown Story [Jonathan Cape, 2005], p457)
People say that poverty is bad, but in fact poverty is good. The poorer people are, the more revolutionary they are. It is dreadful to imagine a time when everyone will be rich... From a surplus of calories people will have two heads and four legs.
- Mao Zedong
(Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, Mao: The Unknown Story [Jonathan Cape, 2005], p428)
The weeds of socialism are better than the crops of capitalism.
- Mao Zedong
(Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, Mao: The Unknown Story [Jonathan Cape, 2005], p643)
I ask you, Ladies and Gentlemen, for permission to bow down before the memory of all the innocent people killed, not by the enemy, but by our own hands... While destroying the landowner class, we simultaneously condemned to dreadful death numberless old people and children... A slogan has been put out: Better kill ten
innocent people than let one enemy escape... Let me recall here some fundamental principles of justice... [such as:] The responsibility falls on the guilty person only, not on wives, children or relatives.
- Nguyen Manh Tuong, North Vietnamese dissident
(Concerning Mistakes Committed in Land Reform, Speech to the National Congress of the Fatherland Front, Hanoi, October 30, 1956, in Hoang Van Chi, ed., The New Class in North Vietnam [Saigon: Cong Dan, 1958], pp135, 138, 142-3)
In the [North Vietnamese] agrarian reform, illegal arrests, imprisonments, investigations (with barbarous torture), executions, requisitions of property, and the quarantining of landowners houses (or houses of peasants wrongly classified as landowners), which left innocent children to die of starvation, are not exclusively due to
the shortcomings of the leadership, but also due to the lack of a complete legal code. If the cadres had felt that they were closely observed by the god of justice... calamities might have been avoided for the masses.
- Nguyen Huu Dang, North Vietnamese dissident
(It is Necessary to Have a More Ordered Society, Nhan Van, Hanoi, No. 4, November 5, 1956)
we had to make the people suffer, suffer until they could no longer endure it. Only then would they carry out the Partys armed policy.
- Senior Viet Cong defector
(Jeffrey Race, War Comes to Long An [University of California Press, 1972], p112)
Weve been worse than Pol Pot, but the outside world knows nothing.
- Vietnamese communist boast
(Nguyen Van Canh, Vietnam Under Communism, 1975-1982 [Hoover Institution Press, 1983], p207)
Ho Chi Minh may have been an evil man; Nixon may have been a great man. The Americans may have had the just cause; we may not have had the just cause. But we won and the Americans were defeated because we convinced the people that Ho Chi Minh is the great man, that Nixon is a murderer, and the Americans are the
invaders The key factor is how to control people and their opinions. Only Marxism-Leninism can do that.
- Mai Chi Tho, Vietnamese communist politician
(New York Times Magazine, March 29, 1981)
I propose the immediate launching of a nuclear strike on the United States. The Cuban people are prepared to sacrifice themselves for the cause of the destruction of imperialism and the victory of world revolution.
- Fidel Castro
(Fedor Burlatsky, Castro Wanted a Nuclear Strike, New York Times, October 23, 1992)
If the [Soviet nuclear] rockets had remained, we would have used them all and directed them against the very heart of the United States, including New York
- Che Guevara
(UPI, December 10, 1962)
What we affirm is that we must proceed along the path of liberation even if this costs millions of atomic victims advancing fearlessly towards the hecatomb which signifies final redemption.
- Che Guevara
(Hugh Thomas, Cuba, or the Pursuit of Freedom [Da Capo Press, 1998], p1,417)
Hatred as an element of the struggle; a relentless hatred of the enemy, impelling us over and beyond the natural limitations that man is heir to and transforming him into an effective, violent, selective and cold killing machine... We must carry the war into every corner the enemy happens to carry it we must attack him wherever
he may be; make him feel like a cornered beast wherever he may move He will even become more beastly, but we shall notice how the signs of decadence begin to appear How close we could look into a bright future should two, three or many Vietnams flourish throughout the world with their share of deaths and their
immense tragedies
- Che Guevara
(Message to the Tricontinental [OSPAAAL, 1967]).
The rebels weapon is the proof of his humanity. For in the first days of the revolt you must kill: to shoot down a European is to kill two birds with one stone, to destroy an oppressor and the man he oppresses at the same time once the last settler is killed, shipped home or assimilated, the minority breed disappears, to be
replaced by socialism.
- Jean-Paul Sartre
(Preface, Frantz Fanon, The Wretched of the Earth [Penguin, 1967], pp19-20)
Auschwitz means that 6 million Jews were killed, and thrown onto the waste heap of Europe, for what they were: money-Jews. Finance capital and the banks, the hard core of the system of imperialism and capitalism, had turned the hatred of men against money and exploitation, and against the Jews Antisemitism is really a
hatred of capitalism.
- Ulrike Meinhof, German Red Army Faction terrorist
(Paul Lawrence Rose, German Question/Jewish Question: Revolutionary Antisemitism From Kant to Wagner[Princeton University Press, 1990], p304)
In the new Kampuchea, one million is all we need to continue the revolution. We dont need the rest. We prefer to kill ten friends rather than keep one enemy alive.
- Khmer Rouge slogan
(Pin Yathay, Stay Alive, My Son [Touchstone, 1987], p148)
We need only 2 million troops to crush the 50 million Vietnamese; and we still would have 6 million people left.
- Khmer Rouge broadcast
(Stephen J. Morris, Why Vietnam Invaded Cambodia [Stanford University Press, 1999], p104)
Lenin taught us to be merciless towards the enemies of the revolution, and millions of people had to be eliminated in order to se cure the victory of the October Revolution.
- Nur Muhammad Taraki, Afghan communist dictator
(Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive II: The KGB and the World [Penguin, 2006], p389)
Well leave only 1 million Afghans alive thats all we need to build socialism.
- Sayyed Abdullah, Afghan communist prison governor
(Sylvain Boulouque, Communism in Afghanistan, in Stephane Courtois et al., The Black Book of Communism[Harvard University Press, 1999], p713)
We are doing what Lenin did. You cannot build socialism without Red Terror.
- Asrat Destu, Ethiopian army political commissar
(Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive II: The KGB and the World [Penguin, 2006], pp467-8)
[In a civil war] whole classes of people will disappear. The people will obliterate some classes and then these classes will know the fury of the public.
- Daniel Ortega, Sandinista leader
(Wall Street Journal, October 12, 1984)
The triumph of the revolution will cost a million deaths.
- Shining Path slogan
(Final Report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Peru, August 28, 2003, General Conclusions, para. 21)
Q: In 1934, millions of people are dying in the Soviet experiment. If you had known that, would it have made a difference to you at that time? To your commitment? To being a communist?
A: ... Probably not...
Q: What that comes down to is saying that had the radiant tomorrow actually been created, the loss of 15, 20 million people might have been justified?
A: Yes.
- Eric Hobsbawm, British communist historian
(Times Literary Supplement, October 28, 1994)
To the grave with all the Yids!
- General Albert Makashov, Russian communist politician
(The Guardian, UK, November 5, 1998)
We would be better off with only 6 million people, with our own people who support the liberation struggle. We dont want all these extra people.
- Didymus Mutasa, Zimbabwean ruling party official
(Washington Post, January 1, 2003)
Absolute power is when a man is starving and you are the only one able to give him food.
- Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwean dictator
(The Times, UK, July 9, 2004)
[Last updated February 7, 2008]

Saturday, July 07, 2007

A COMPREHENSIVE LOOK AT MARX THE ANTISEMITE
(The article below is from Encounter of July 1975, pages 18-23. The authors, W. O. Henderson and W. H. Chaloner, translated and edited a 1971 edition of Engels' The Condition of the Working Class in England. The article below was part of a "Men and Ideas" series. You can see a photocopy of the original
article here. The quotations given are fairly fully footnoted except for the initial selection, which mostly come from Zur Judenfrage. Zur Judenfrage is available in German here and in English here. Online links for most of the quotes can be found via Google once allowance for differences in translation are
made. The translations below are generally very elegant. Where Google does not satisfy, most works by Marx and Engels can be found online in order of date at the Marx/Engels library)
Marx/Engels and Racism
By W. H. Chaloner & W. O. Henderson
WHILE Scholars on the Continent have long been aware of the fact that Karl Marx held anti-Semitic views, the same cannot generally be said of their colleagues in England and America.
Marx was a Jew; and when he was growing up in Trier the Jews, though not persecuted, were treated as second-class citizens and excluded from certain professions. No Jew could hold a commission in the Prussian army or practise as a lawyer at the bar. To continue as a member of the legal profession
Marx's father became a Christian and was baptised by a Lutheran army chaplain.
As a boy Marx realised that he was different from his fellows. He had been baptised, but he was "a Jew by race" and suffered from the anti-Semitism prevalent in Germany in his day. His reaction to the situation was an extraordinary one. He ranged himself with the anti-Semites and denounced his own
people in a most violent fashion. [1]
His attitude towards the Jews was made clear in two articles which he wrote in 1843 at the age of 25. They were reviews of a book and an article by Bruno Bauer on the Jewish question, and they appeared in the Deutsch-Franzoesische Jahrbuecher(published in Paris in 1844) [2]. Marx regarded capitalism,
as operated by the middle classes, as inherently evil; and he argued that Jewish money-making activities lay at the very heart of the obnoxious capitalist system. The following extracts from Marx's articles indicate his point of view of the Jewish question in his day.
"What is the worldly raison d'etre of Jewry [Judaism]? The practical necessity of Jewry is self-interest."
"What is the worldly religion of the Jews? It is the petty haggling of the hawker."
"What is his worldly God?" "It is money."
"So in Jewry we recognise a contemporary universal anti-social phenomenon, which has reached its present pitch through a process of, historical development in which the Jews have zealously co-operated. And this evil anti-social aspect of Jewry has grown to a stage at which: it must necessarily collapse."
"The Jews have emancipated themselves in a Jewish fashion. Not only have they mastered the; power of money but - with or without the Jews - money has become a world power. The Jews have emancipated themselves by turning Christians into Jews:"
"Money is the most zealous God of Israel and no other God can compete with him. Money debases all human Gods and turns them into goods. Money is the universal value of everything."
"The God of the Jews has become secularised and bas become a World God. The bill of exchange is the real God of the Jews."
"Jewry reaches its climax in the consummation of bourgeois society - and bourgeois society has reached its highest point in the Christian world."
In 1845, in The Holy Family, Marx claimed that in his articles in the Deutsch-Franzoesische Jahrbuecher he had "proved that the task of abolishing the essence of Jewry is in truth the task of abolishing Jewry in civil society, abolishing the inhumanity of today's practice of life, the summit of which is the
money system." [3]
In 1849 an article in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung (of which Marx was the editor) criticised the notion that Jews living in Prussia's Polish provinces should be regarded as Germans. The article declared that these Jews were "the filthiest of all races." "Neither by speech nor by descent - but only by their greed
for profit - can they be looked upon as relatives of the Germans in Frankfurt."

One of Marx's critical biographers has remarked: "this solution of the Jewish question was not very different from Adolf Hitler's, for it involved the liquidation of Judaism.." [4]
THERE ARE NUMEROUS uncomplimentary references to Jews in Karl Marx's letters to his close friend Friedrich Engels in the 1850s and 1860s. At that time Marx was living in London and his earnings as a free-lance journalist - he was a regular contributor to the New York Daily Tribune - were quite
insufficient for his needs. Engels, then employed as a clerk by the firm of Ermen & Engels in Manchester, sent him small remittances whenever he could. Even so Marx failed to make ends meet and - when there was nothing more to pledge at the pawnbrokers - he borrowed money from anyone who would
lend it.
He had many dealings with Jewish financial agents in the City of London. The Bambergers (father and son) [5], as well as Stiefel and Spielmann, were German Jews whose names frequently crop up in the Marx-Engels correspondence. Marx made use of the Jews to raise small loans and, to discount bills of
exchange received from Charles A. Dana (editor of the New York Tribune) in advance payment of articles which Marx had agreed to write. Marx complained bitterly that the Jews would not discount his bills until confirmation from Dana had been received; [6] and he was furious when they pressed him to
honour debts due-for repayment. Marx showed his contempt by always referring to them as "Jew [or "little Jew"] Bamberger" and "Jew Spielmann", or by imitating the nasal twang characteristic of the way in which some Jews from Eastern Europe spoke German. [7]
Yet Marx had cause to regret the day when the Bambergers were not in business in London any more and were no longer available to discount his bills of exchange. In 1859 he wrote to Engels: "it is the devil of a nuisance that I have no Bamberger in London any more.." [8]
MARX'S ANTI-SEMITISM may be illustrated by examining his attitude towards Ferdinand Lassalle, who was a Jew from Breslau in Silesia. As. a young man Lassalle had led the workers of Duesseldorf during the revolution of 1848. But he had never been a member of the Communist League, since his
application to join the Cologne branch had been turned down: and he had taken no part in the risings in Germany in 1849 in support of the Frankfurt constitution, since he had been in jail at that time.
Consequently in the 1850s, while nearly all the former supporters of the revolution were either in prison or in exile, Lassalle was able to live in Duesseldorf, without being unduly molested by the authorities. It was to Marx's advantage to keep in touch with Lassalle, who gave him news of the underground
workers' movement "in the Rhineland. And through his aristocratic connections - he was a close friend of the Countess of Hatzfeld - he was sometimes able to provide Marx with useful political information which he could use in articles contributed to the New York Tribune and Die Presse. But while Marx
regarded himself as the head or a great politica1 movement who should be obeyed by his followers, Lassalle declined to be a mere disciple and was determined to be a leader of the German workers in his own right.
The correspondence between Marx and Lassalle [9] suggests that the two men were colleagues who - despite certain differences of opinion - were collaborating to achieve a common aim. But the letters exchanged between Marx and Engels tell a very different story. He re Marx showed his contempt for the
Jew who presumed to have opinions and ambitions of his own. When Lassalle was Marx's guest in London in 1862 Marx wrote to Engels:
"It is now perfectly clear to me that, as the shape of his head and the growth of his hair indicate, he is descended from the negroes who joined in the flight of Moses from Egypt (unless his mother or grandmother on the father's side was crossed with a nigger). Now this union of Jewishness to Germanness
on a negro basis was bound to produce an extraordinary hybrid. The importunity of the fellow is also niggerlike." [10]
Marx referred to his guest as a "Jewish nigger" who was "completely deranged." He frequently used derogatory epithets when writing about Lassalle, such as "Itzig" (Ikey), "Ephraim Gescheit" and "Judel Braun." And Marx's wife, in a letter to Engels, called Lassalle "the little Berlin Jew."
AFTER LASSALLE'S DEATH in 1864 there are fewer uncomplimentary remarks about Jews in the Marx-Engels correspondence than before. In that year Engels became a partner in the firm of Ermen & Engels, and from 1867 onwards he paid Marx an annual allowance of 350 pounds. So, although Marx's
financial problems were by no means solved, he had less need than formerly to try to borrow money from Jews - such as Ignaz Horn [12] and Leo Frankel [13].
He wrote to Engel's in 1875 that he had got into conversation with "a sly looking Yid" on a journey from London to Rotterdam. He was clearly delighted to be able to report that his loquacious Jewish travelling companion had been the victim of some sharp practice in a business deal [14]. And in his old age
when on holiday in Ramsgate, Marx declared that there were "many Jews and fleas" at the resort [15].
IT WAS NOT ONLY in private letters to his closest friend that Marx indulged in anti-Semitic outbursts. In an article in the New York Tribune (4 January 1856), in which he discussed an international loan to be raised by the Russian government to finance the war in the Crimea, Marx savagely attacked the
Jewish financiers who co-operated to place the loan [16]. Marx wrote:
"This loan is brought out under the auspices of the house of Stieglitz at St Petersburg. Stieglitz is to Alexander what Rothschild is to Francis Joseph, what Fould is to Louis Napoleon. The late Czar Nicholas made Stieglitz a Russian baron, as the late Kaiser Franz made old Rothschild an Austrian baron, while
Louis Napoleon has made a cabinet minister of Fould, with a free ticket to the Tuileries for the females of his family. Thus we find every tyrant backed by a Jew. as is every Pope by a Jesuit. In truth, the cravings of oppressors would be hopeless, and the practicab ility of war out of the question, if there were
not an army of Jesuits to smother thought and a handful of Jews to ransack pockets."
Hope & Co. of Amsterdam played an important role in placing the Russian loan. This was not a Jewish firm, but Marx declared that
"the Hopes lend only the prestige of their name; the real work is done by Jews, and can only be done by them as they monop olise the machinery of the loan-mongering mysteries by concentrating their energies upon the barter-trade in securities, and the changing of money and negotiating of bills in a great
measure arising there from.
Take Amsterdam for instance, a city harbouring many of the worst descendants of the Jews whom Ferdinand and Isabella drove out of Spain, and who, after lingering a while in Portugal, were driven thence also, and eventually found a safe place of retreat in Holland. In Amsterdam alone they numb er not
less: than 35,000, many of whom are engaged in this gambling and jobbing of securities... Their business is to watch the monies available for investment and keenly observe where they lie. Here and there and everywhere that a little capital courts inv estment there is ever one of these little Jews ready to
make a little suggestion or place a little bit of a loan. The smartest highwayman in the Abruzzi is not better posted about the locale of the hard cash in a traveller's valise or pocket, than those Jews about any loose capital in the hands of a trader."
Marx went on to attack the Jewish finance houses of Koenigswarter, Raphael, Stem, Bischoffsheim, Rothschild, Mendelssohn, Bleichroeder, Fould and many others. He declared that many of these families were linked by marriage and he observed that
"the loan mongering Jews derive much of their strength from these family relations, as these, in addition to their lucre affinities, give a compactness and unity to their operations which ensure their success."
Marx concluded his article as follows:
"This Eastern war is destined at all events to throw some light upon this system of loan-mongering as well as other systems. Meanwhile the Czar will get his fifty millions and let the English journals say what they please, if he wants five fifties more, the Jews will dig them up. Let us not be thought too severe
upon these loan-mongering gentry. The fact that 1855 years ago Christ drove the Jewish money-changers out of the temple, and that the money-changers of our age enlisted on the side of tyranny happen again chiefly to be Jews, is perhaps no more than a historical coincidence.
The loan-mongering Jews of Europe do only on a larger and more obnoxious scale what many others do on one smaller and less significant. But it is only because the Jews are so strong that it is timely and expedient to expose and stigmatise their organisation."
There was a kind of bitter justice in the fact that Marx, who detested his own race, should have suffered from the anti-Semitic views of others. There were those who attacked Marx because he was a Jew and who branded the political movement that he led as a Jewish conspiracy. [16a]
ENGELS' ATTITUDE towards the Jews was quite different from that of Marx. [17] He had never denounced the Jews as a race of petty traders and money-lenders and as Marx had done in his youthful article in the Deutsch-Franzoesische Jahrbuecher [18]. Indeed he later declared that anti-Semitism was the
mark of a backward culture and was confined to Russia, Austria and Prussia [19].
In 1881 Eduard Bernstein sent Engels some examples of anti-Semitic propaganda in Germany. Engels replied that he had never seen anything so stupid or childish. He praised the Sozial-Demokrat - the leading socialist paper in Germany at the time of Bismarck's Anti-Socialist Law - for coming out firmly
against anti-Semitism. Engels quoted with approval a passage from a letter which he had recently received from a Jewish correspondent (Carl Hirsch), who had just been to Berlin. Hirsch had written that "the official press which prints anti-Semitic articles has few readers."
"While it is true that the Germans have a natural antipathy towards the Jews, it is also a fact that the working class, the r adical petty bourgeoisie, and the middle-class philistines hate the government far more than they hate the Jews."
Bernstein, however disagreed with "Hirsch and claimed that anti-Semitic propaganda was falling upon fertile soil in Germany as far as civil servants, teachers, craftsmen, and peasants were concerned.
Ten years later Engels wrote to August Bebel that he was glad to learn that new Jewish recruits were joining the German Social Democrat Party. But he warned Bebel that socialists would have to keep a watchful eye on these Jewish colleagues because they were cleverer than the average bourgeois socialist
and were - owing to centuries of oppression - in the habit of pushing themselves forward! [20]
ALTHOUGH ENGELS DISAPPROVED of anti-Semitism and welcomed Jews like Karl Kautsky and Alfred Adler as party colleagues, he did criticise particular Jews and groups of Jews. For example, in a comment on English politics in 1852 he contemptuously dismissed Disraeli as a "Jewish swindler." A few years
later when he wished to express his disapproval of Lassalle's conduct, he referred to him as "a real Jew from the Slav frontier" and as "a greasy Jew disguised under brilliantine and flashy jewels." [22] In 1862, in a letter to Carl Siebel, he attacked the Jewish members of a German club (the Schiller Anstalt)
in Manchester. He declared that he seldom visited this veritable "Jerusalem Club" any more because the noisy behaviour of the Jews inconvenienced other members.
"What has happened is what always happens when Jews are about. At first they thank God that they had a Schiller Anstalt, but hardly had they got inside than they declared that it was not good enough for them and that they wanted to build a bigger club house - a true temple of Moses - to which the
Schiller Anstalt could be moved. This would indeed be the quickest road to bankruptcy . Look out! In a year or two you will get a circular reading like this: 'In view of the bankruptcy of the late Schiller Anstalt'" [23]
A few years later, however, when he was President of the Schiller Anstalt, Engels played a leading part in securing the larger premises that the Jewish members desired.
In 1864, during the crisis in the Lancashire cotton industry at the time of the American Civil War, Engels complained of the vexations that he had to endure in the office of Ermen & Engels because of "Jewish chicaneries." [24] In October 1867 and again in May 1868, Engels complained that his time was
being wasted by visits from "that damned old Jew" Leibel Choras, who was a refugee from Moldavia where the Jews were being persecuted [25]. Engels obviously had little sympathy for Leibel Choras. And in 1870 Engels dismissed Leo Frankel as "a real little Yid" [26]
In 1892 in a letter to the French socialist leader Paul Lafargue - Marx's son-in-law - Engels even expressed a certain sympathy for the anti-Jewish movement in France. He wrote:
"I begin to understand French anti-Semitism when I see how many Jews of Polish origin with German names intrude themselves everywhere to the point of arousing public opinion in the ville lumiere, of which the Parisian philistine is so proud and which he believes to be the supreme power in the
universe." [27]
Engels also expressed his contempt for the Polish Jews who were, in his view, "caricatures of Jews" [27]. He wrote to Laura Lafargue:
Business principle of the Polish Jew to ask much so as to be able to rebate, as for instance: "How much is a yard of this cloth?" "15 groschen." "He says 15, he means 12.5, he would take 10, and the cloth is worth 7.5. I am prepared to pay 5 so I will offer him 2.5 groschen." [29]
JUST AS ENGELS RARELY SHOWED any antipathy towards the Jews, so he had no prejudices against coloured peoples. He rejected the view commonly expressed by explorers and missionaries in his day that native peoples were "heathen savages" who were obviously inferior to white races. Indeed he
argued that primitive peoples were superior to modern Europeans because they did not recognise private property or capitalism, or the state. In 1884 in his book on The Origin of the Family - based upon the researches of the American anthropologist L. H. Morgan - Engels gave a lyrical account of the
"wonderful child-like simplicity" of the way of life in the Iroquois Indian tribes.
"Everything runs smoothly without soldiers, gendarmes, or police; without nobles, kings, governors, prefects, or judges, without prisons, without trials. All quarrels and disputes are settled by the whole body of those concerned. The household is run in common and communistically by a number of families,
the land is tribal property, only the small gardens being temporarily assigned to the households. Not a bit of our extensive and complicated machinery of administration is required. There can be no poor or needy - the communistic household and the gens know their obligations towards the aged, the sick,
and those disabled in war. All are free and equal - including the women. There is, as yet, no room for slaves nor, as a rule, for the subjugation of alien tribes." [30]
As an admirer of primitive races, Engels (like Marx) was strongly opposed to the exploitation of native peoples by white colonists. He denounced the expansion of the empires of European states in India, Java, Algiers and elsewhere. For Marx and Engels the rising in India in 1857 was no mere mutiny of
Sepoy troops but a national revolt against the English oppressors. In a series of articles in the New York Tribune they analysed the causes and events of the Mutiny, which they regarded as an illustration of the "general disaffection exhibited against English supremacy on the part of the great Asiatic nations."
[31]
In view of Engels's attitude towards the Jews, the Iroquois, and the natives in colonial territories, his attitude towards some of the Slavs is difficult to understand. When a Pan-Slav movement developed with Russian support in central and eastern Europe during the revolution of 1848 Engels rejected the
demands of the Czechs, Serbs, Croats, and Ruthenians for independence from Habsburg or Turkish rule. Early in 1849 (in two articles in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung [32]) he argued that these peoples had no natura1 capacity for self-government and were for ever doomed to be ruled by more advanced
nations. They were "peoples without any history."
Engels asserted that these peoples would always be subject races and would "never achieve national independence." "They are peoples who were either already under foreign rule when they entered into the first primitive phase of civilisation or who were actually forced into earliest phase of civilisation by
their foreign masters." In the true spirit of Pan-Germanism, Marx and Engels considered the Czechoslovakian peoples and the South Slavs to be "ethnic trash."
TWO THINGS EMERGE from this study. The first is the extent to which Marx's anti-Semitism has been played down, or even ignored, in some popular socialist accounts of Marx's career and doctrines published in the West and intended for radical and socialist consumption. Thus, readers of Franz
Mehring's Karl Marx (first published in English translation in 1936) will find little to enlighten them on Marx's anti-Semitism.
There may not be exactly a conspiracy of silence but attention may be drawn to the fact that there is a difference between telling the truth and telling the whole truth. Deception by omission is still deception. Western commentators, too, with a few honourable exceptions, have tended to dodge the issue or
to gloss over unwelcome facts. Scholars unfamiliar with the German language, who rely only upon English translations of the writings of Marx and Engels, may be led astray if they use selections compiled by Marxists who are prepared to suppress evidence which might d isplay their hero in a somewhat
unfavourable light.
The second point is the striking contrast between Marx's benevolent desire to liberate the toiling masses from the tyranny of their capitalist exploiters and his ferocious attacks upon those; who appeared to stand in the way of his messianic hopes - the "idiotic" peasants and the "rapacious" Jews for example.
Long after Marx's death his followers in Soviet Russia were acting quite in accordance with their master's views when they eliminated the Kulaks and persecuted the Jews.

FOOTNOTES:
1. Arnold Kuenzii has examined the psychological roots of Marx's anti-Semitism in Karl Marx: eine Psychographie (Vienna, 1966), esp. pp. 33-169, 195-226, 289-93. See also Camillo Berneri, Le Juif anti-Semite (Paris, 1935).
Yet even in West Germany an attempt is apparently being made to counter this realist view. There has recently been published in Hamburg a selection of Marxist pronouncements on the Jewish question (but omitting Marx's "Zur Judenfrage" of 1844 on the grounds that it is "easily available" elsewhere) see: Marxisten gegen Antisemitismus (Hoffmann & Campe, 1974), with heavily pro-Marxist introductions by Iring Fetscher and Ilse Yago-Jung. One wonders whether a more appropriate title for this volume might not have been Marxisten gegen Judentum und Zionismus.
2. Karl Marx, "Zur Judenfrage" in Deutsch-Franzoesische Jahrbuecher (Paris, 1844), reprinted in Karl Marx/Friedrich 'Engels, Werke, Vol. 1 (1964), pp. 347-377; A World without Jews (tr. D.D. Runes, 1959). The first article reviewed Bruno Bauer, Die Judenfrage (1843), the second Bruno Bauer's article on
"Die Fahigheit der heutigen Juden und Christen frei zu werden" inEinundzwanzig Bogen aus der Schweiz (ed. Georg Herwegh, 1843, pp.56-71). A reprint of the D-.F. Jahrbuecher has recently been issued in Leipzig, Verlag Reclam (1973); Marx's article appears on pp. 295-333.
The most recent discussion of Marx's views is R. S. Wistrich, "Karl Marx and the Jewish Question", Soviet-Jewish Affairs, vol. IV, No. 1 (Spring 1974), pp. 53-60, which contains copious documentation. See, especially, Arthur Prinz., "New Perspectives on Marx as a Jew" Leo Baeck Year Book (1970), pp. 10725; it includes the revealing text of a letter by Heinrich Graetz, the Jewish historian and a friend of Marx.
3. Marx/Engels, The Holy Family (1845; Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1956), p.148.
4. Neue Rheinische Zeitung (No. 285 Sunday 29 April 1849), p. 1, col. 1. Marx was probably the author of the article. The Unknown Karl Marx; Documents concerning Karl Marx (ed. R. Payee. 1972), pp.14-15.
5. A small colony of Bambergers can be traced in the City of London during the mid-1850s, based on King Street, Snowhill. Zacharias Bamberger (of 19 King Street, ship and commission agents) was a partner in the firm of Prager & Bamberger, 84 Lower Thomas Street, while Louis Bamberger and Co.,
merchants, and Abraham Bamberger & Co., wholesale boot manufacturers, both operated from 20 King Street., Snowhill. See: Kelly & Co., Post Office London Directory (1855), p. 813. Of these Zacharias Bamberger seems most likely to have been Marx's money-lender.
6. See Marx to Engels, 31 July 1851, in Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe , Part iii, Vol. I, p. 224; and 21 January 1852, p. 444.
7. For example: "Spielmann always sends one away with the nasal Jewish remark 'Kaine Nootiz da' [i.e. Keine Notiz da]": Marx to Engels, 18 August 1853 in Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe , Part iii, Vol. 1. p.492. The word Yiddish, used to describe this form of speech, is noted as first appearing in print in
English in the mid-1880s (Oxford English Dictionary).
8. Marx to Engels, 21 September 1859, in Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe , Part iii, Vol. 2, p. 416.
9. Gustav Mayer, Der Briefwechsel zwischen Lassalle und Marx, Vol. 3 of Ferdinand Lassalle: Nachgelassene Briefe und Schriften(first edition 1922; new edition issued by the Historical Commission of the Bavarian Academy of Science, 1967).
10. Marx to Engels, 30 July 1862, in Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe , Part iii. Vol. 3, pp. 82-84. On Marx as "at once a racialist himself and the cause of racialism in others", see George Watson, The English Ideology (1973), p. 211.
11. Jenny Marx to Engels, 9 April 1858, in Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe , Part iii. Vol. 2, p. 314. See also the malicious and anti-Semitic gossip about Moses and Sybille Hess, in Marx to Engels, 22 September 1856, Part iii, Vol. 2, p. 147.
12. Marx to Engels, 10 February 1865 ("Jud Horn") and 14 November 1868 ("Rabbi A Einhorn generally known by the name of A. E. Horn") in Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe , Part iii, Vol. 3, p.232; and Vol. 4, p. 124.
13. Marx to Engels, 14 April and 8 July 1870 ("little Jew Leo Frankel") in Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe , Part iii, Vol. 4, pp. 302, 338.
14. Marx to Engels, 21 August 1875, in Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe , Part iii, Vol. 4, pp. 428-9.
15. Marx to Engels, 25 August 1879 in Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe , Part iii, Vol. 4, p.490.
16. Reprinted in Karl Marx, The Eastern Question (ed. by Eleanor Marx & Edward Aveling, 1897: new ed. 1969). pp. 600-606.
16a. See, for example, Edward von Mueller-Tellering, Vorgeschmack in die kuenftige deutsche Diktatur von Marx und Engels(1850).
17. For the attitude of socialists to the Jews, see E. Silberner, Sozialisten zur Judenfrage (1962) and George Lichtheim, "Socialism and the Jews" in Dissent (New York), July-August 1968.
18. Karl Marx, "Zur Judenfrage", in the Deutsch Franzoesische Jahrbuecher (1844), reprinted in Marx/Engels, Werke, Vol. 1 (1964), pp, 347-77. See also, Marx/Engels, The Holy Family (Moscow, 1965), pp.149-150.

19. Engels to a correspondent in Vienna, 19 April 1890, in Marx/Engels, Werke, Vol. XXII, p. 49. See, however, Engels' 1892 preface to the London edition of his Condition of the Working Class in England (1845), where he refers to "the pettifogging business tricks of the Polish Jew, the representative: in
Europe of commerce at its lowest stage" (p. 360 in 1971 edition by Henderson & Chaloner).
20. Engels to Bernstein, 17 August 1881, in Eduard Bernsteins Briefwechsel mit Friedrich Engels (ed. Hirsch, 1970), pp. 28-29. Bernstein to Engels, 9 September 1881: Briefwechsel, p. 37. Engels to Bebel. 1 December 1891, in August Bebels Briefwechsel mit Friedrich Engels (ed. Blumenberg, 1965), p. 487.
21. Engels to Marx, 24 September 1852, in Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe , Part iii. Vol. 1, p. 405.
22. Engels to Marx, 7 March 1856 in Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe , Part iii, Vol. 2, p. 122. English translation: Engels: Selected Writings (ed. Henderson. Penguin, 1967), pp. 129-30.
23. Engels to Carl Siebel, 4 June 1862, in Friedrich Engels Profile (ed. Hirsch, 1970) p. 250.
24. Engels to Marx, 2 November 1864, in Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe , Part iii, Vol. 3, p. 192.
25. Engels to Marx, 11 October 1867 and 6 May 1868, in Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe , Part iii, Vol. 3. p. 432 and Vo1. 4, p. 52. It has not proved possible to identify Choras further.
26. Engels to Marx, 15 April 1870, in Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe , Part iii, Vol. 4, p. 305.
27. Engels to Paul Lafargue, 22 July 1892, in F.Engels - Paul and Laura Lafargue: Correspondence (Moscow). Vol. iii, 1891-95, p.184.
28. Engels to Pau1 Ernst, 5 June 1890, in Engels Profile, p. 190.
29. Engels to Laura Lafargue, 27 October 1893, in Engels-Lafargue: Correspondence, Vol iii, 1891?95, p.307.
30. Engels, Der Ursprung der Familie, des Privateigentums und des Staates (1884: new ed., 1962), p.96. English translation:Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State (Moscow), p. 159. Engels' book was based upon Lewis Henry Morgan, Ancient Society, or Researches in the Line of
Human Progress from Savagery through Barbarism to Civilisation (1877). Engels also made use of the notes which Karl Marx had made (probably in the winter of 1880-1) on Morgan's book, The Ethnological Notebooks of Karl Marx (ed. Lawrence Krader, 1972).
31. For selections of articles and letters written by Marx and Engels on colonisation, see Marx/Engels, On Colonisation (Moscow) and The First Indian War of Independence, 1857-1859 (Moscow; London, 1960).
32. Engels, "Der magyarische Kampf" and "Der demokratische Panslavismus", in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, 13 January and 15 February 1849; reprinted in Karl Marx/Engels Werke, Vol. VI p. 165 ff. P. W. Blackstock and B. F. Hoselitz have translated and edited a useful anthology of these in Marx/Engels,
The Russian Menace to Europe (1952). Pages 56-9, and 241 are important for "peoples without a history."
posted by JR at 11:08 PM

Sunday, February 03, 2008

MARX THE HATER
From my own readings of Marx, what stood out was how he despised just about everybody. So I thought the small excerpt below from David Hulme about Marx was to the point:

A violent man will beget violent ideas. As noted earlier, Bruno Bauer had taught that a world catastrophe was in the making. From an early age Marx was possessed of the idea that Doomsday was around the corner. Johnson notes that Marx's poetry includes expressions of "savagery . . . intense pessimism
about the human condition, hatred, a fascination with corruption and violence, suicide pacts and pacts with the devil." A poem about Marx, variously attributed to Engels and to Bauer's brother Edgar, describes him as "A dark fellow from Trier, a vigorous monster, / . . . / With angry fist clenched, he rants
ceaselessly, / As though ten thousand devils held him by the hair."
In Marx's personal life, violence was never far from the surface. He was verbally abusive, and arguments were common within his family. According to an Encyclopedia Britannica account on Marx, his father even expressed fears that Jenny von Westphalen was "destined to become a sacrifice to the demon
that possessed his son." Jenny commented early about the rancor and irritation she often experienced in dealing with her fiance.
Summarizing Marx's animosities, the late British historian Sir Arthur Bryant wrote: "Among his innumerable hates were the Christian religion, his parents, his wife's uncle'the hound'his German kinsfolk, his own race'Ramsgate is full of fleas and Jews', the Prussian reactionaries, the Liberal and utopian
Socialist allies, the labouring population'Lumpenproletariat' or 'riff-raff'democracy'parliamentary cretinism'and the British royal family'the English mooncalf and her princely urchins,' as he called them. His self-imposed task he defined as 'the ruthless criticism of everything that exists.'"
Source
Marx did of course have a nasty skin disease (hidradenitis suppurativa) which would probably have made most people pretty grumpy.
And Karl's father, Heinrich, was a real gentleman. You can read his letter to Karl about Jenny von Westfalen here

Philosophy & Ideas

Karl Marx saw his task as the ruthless criticism of everything that exists and advocated the forcible overthrow of the social classes. What fueled his intense anger and caused
him to demonize virtually every aspect of society?

Six Dominant Ideas

Part 2

A Dark Fellow From Trier

Karl Heinrich Marx was a great admirer of Charles Darwin. He believed that he had discovered the scientific laws of history, in similar fashion to
Darwins work on the origin of life.

Marx asked the famous naturalist if he could dedicate the English translation of his 1867 work, Das Kapital, to him. No doubt Marxs scorn for
religion had preceded him, however. Darwin refused in deference to his wife, who was a staunch believer in God.

Spring 2002 Issue

It may seem paradoxical that two men with a similar impact on the religious belief of the Western world could not agree on so simple a request. But
there are many paradoxes in the life of each man when it comes to their subsequent profound influence.

In the Winter 2002 issue of Vision we began a series on six ideas that have dominated the education and thinking of millions since their introduction
in the late 19th century. We looked first at Darwins theory of evolution. We noted that its component partsthe idea that higher forms continually
develop out of lower forms as a natural and automatic process; and the survival of the fittest, or competition, as the mechanism of that evolutionary
processhave debilitated the beliefs, thinking and morality of many for well over a century.

Another idea that has deeply influenced millions in the modern world is Marxism, along with its stepchild Marxist-Leninism. Although the end of the
20th century saw the startling collapse of communism in the Soviet bloc, the concepts of Marx and Lenin continue to have a subterranean impact. In
the Middle East, for instance, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, the second-largest faction of the PLO, operates on a platform of Arab
nationalism combined with Marxist-Leninist ideology.

CONFLICTED YOUTH

From the beginning it seemed that Marx was going to lead a life punctuated by conflict. He was born of Jewish parents in 1818 in the city of Trier,
then a part of Prussia. His mother was Dutch and his father Prussian, both from a long line of rabbis. Just before Karls birth, however, his father,
Heinrich, converted to Christianity and became a baptized member of the Evangelical Established Church. It is thought that this was an attempt to
help his professional life as a lawyer at a time when anti-Semitism was on the rise, with the Prussian government banning Jews from high positions
in law and medicine.

Young Karl was baptized at the age of six and defended his Christian faith in his early years. But the familys experience with discrimination was
never far from the surface. Combined with Heinrich Marxs interest in Enlightenment social thinkers such as Voltaire and Kant, this may have led the
young Marx to an interest in radical social ideas and his later questioning of religions role in human existence.

In 1835 Marx entered the University of Bonn and found himself among a politically rebellious student body. In his one year there, he studied Greek
and Roman mythology and the history of art. He also fought a duel, was arrested for possessing a pistol, was imprisoned briefly for drunken
conduct, and participated in various antiestablishment student activities.

He continued his studies in Berlin, changing his focus to law and philosophy. There he came in contact with the works of the philosopher Hegel. As a
Young Hegelian, Marx joined the Doctor Club, whose leader was Bruno Bauer, a lecturer in theology. In Bauers view, a social catastrophe was
brewingone that would have a greater impact than that of the advent of Christianity. Under his influence, the Young Hegelians began migrating
toward atheism and hinting at political action.

At the same time, the anti-Semitic Bauer was advocating the notion that the Christian Gospels were not a historical record but merely human
fantasies arising from emotional needs. He claimed that Jesus had not been a flesh-and-blood person but rather a figment of the imagination. Was it
Bauers influence in part that led Marx to his later well-known statements about religion and his own Jewish heritage? Marx wrote, Man makes
religion, religion does not make man. . . . Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, just as it is the spirit of

spiritless conditions. It is the opium of the people.

Commenting on this infamous dictum, one current author, Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, writes, Marx drew a sociological conclusion based on the role and
impact of religion within oppressive societies. . . . For Marx, religion was like a drug that diverted attention from the social causes of human misery.
It served the interests of the upper classes and robbed the oppressed of authentic hope (Jesus Against Christianity: Reclaiming the Missing
Jesus, 2001).

Religion is the opium of the people.

Karl Marx

Marx concluded that the higher manifestations of human life, such as art and religion, are phantasmagorias in the brains of men. He said that these
activities and others like them are nothing but the evidence of the class struggle between the economically deprived and their masters. In his view
they are invented to promote the economic interests of the rich. Thus Marx reduced all higher order human endeavor to nothing but a Darwinianstyle competition for advantage. He believed religion played a deceptive role in inducing the compliance of the underclasses to the dominant
capitalist system with the promise of an infinitely superior afterlife: suffer now, postpone your reward, receive it in heaven.

GROWING ANTI-SEMITIC

By 1841 Marx had received his doctorate from the University of Jena, after encouragement by his friends to submit his dissertation to an institution
known for its lax academic standards. He subsequently wrote for the Rheinische Zeitung of Cologne, which because of its radical articles was
suspended from publishing by the Prussian authorities in 1843.

A few months later Marx married Jenny von Westphalen after a seven-year engagement. Four years his senior, she was from a prominent Prussian
military family. The couple soon moved to Paris, the center of socialist thought in Europe. Here Marx immersed himself in communism and the plight
of the working man, and helped establish a second publication, the Deutsch-Franzsische Jahrbcher (German-French Yearbooks).

In response to an essay written by his former teacher, Bauer, who had demanded that the Jews give up Judaism, Marx published two essays in
1844 On the Jewish Question, in which his own anti-Semitic attitude came to the fore.

He asserted that the Jews antisocial nature was not, as Bauer claimed, the result of their religion but of economics. It is interesting to note that
Marx had money problems most of his adult life, so moneylenders were not his favorite people. He wrote: Money is the jealous god of Israel, in
face of which no other god may exist. Money degrades all the gods of manand turns them into commodities. Money is the universal selfestablished value of all things. It has, therefore, robbed the whole world, both the world of men and nature, of its specific value. Money is the
estranged essence of mans work and mans existence, and this alien essence dominates him, and he worships it. The god of the Jews has become
secularized and has become the god of the world.

In turn, Marx said, the Jew had corrupted the Christian and persuaded him that the pursuit of materialism was the goal of human life. The moneyJew had become the universal antisocial element of the present time, he wrote. If the Jewish approach to money could be changed for good, then
the Jew and his religion and corrupted Christianity would disappear.

Marxs stay in Paris was not to last. By this time he also had begun to call for an uprising of the proletariatthe underclass. In 1845 he and his wife
moved to Brussels following his expulsion from France through intervention by the Prussian government. Perhaps not surprisingly, that year Marx
renounced his Prussian citizenship.

ENTER COMMUNISM, STAGE LEFT

Marxs ideas about the social and economic order now developed to the point that in late 1847 he and the man who became his lifelong collaborator
and financial supporter, Friedrich Engels, were asked by a group of German craftsmen in London to join their secret society and write a declaration
of principles. Marx and Engels worked intensively for about a month on the project. The result was The Communist Manifesto, which laid out the
proposition that up to that time all of human history had been a series of class struggles and resulting economic developments. It predicted that
eventually the proletariat would rise up and abolish class society forever. This was based on the Hegelian notion of dialecticsthat everything is in a
continual process of change due to the conflict between contradictory aspectsand the additional notion that material conditions are more important
than the world of ideas.

The Communist Manifesto included 10 necessary action steps. Among them were progressive income tax, the abolition of inheritances, and free
education for children. Other steps clearly became part of the revolutionary programs of the communist states of the 20th century, denying many of
the customary freedoms that the world now takes for granted. The document ended: The Communists disdain to conceal their views and aims.
They openly declare that their ends can be attained only by the forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions. Let the ruling classes tremble at a
communist revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have a world to win. Working men of all countries, unite!

In the months that followed, parts of Europe were convulsed by working-class struggles. In France, Italy and Austria revolutions were in progress.
Marx advocated that workers join forces with the democratic bourgeoisie, or capitalist middle class, rather than directly overthrow the entire system.
He believed that the ultimate downfall of the capitalist order would take years and should proceed in gradual stages. At the same time, with this
approach the workers would have time to prepare for positions of leadership.

Because of the volatility of the revolutionaries in Europe, Marx and Engels agreed in 1848 that their communist manifesto should be set aside for a
time to avoid encouraging too hasty an overthrow of the economic and social order. Irrespective of the reasons for backing away from instant
overthrow, it is an irony that throughout Marxs dealings with the working class he did not accord them much respect, preferring the company of
intellectuals.

In 1849 Marx and his wife moved to London, where they would live for the rest of their time together. He spent the next 34 years in the British
Museum, poring over books in an effort to write his monumental work on capital. He managed only one volume before his death in 1883; the other
two volumes were completed by Engels from his friends notes.

A VIOLENT RECLUSE

What is peculiar about Marx and his writing is that so much of what he produced was based on notes he took from other books; rarely was it from
personal experience. Though his uncle was the founder of what became the Dutch electrical giant Philips, Marx never consulted with him about labor
and capital, nor about any of his other research interests. According to author Paul Johnson, so far as we know Marx never set foot in a mill,
factory, mine or other industrial workplace in the whole of his life (Intellectuals, 1988).

Yet, Johnson comments, despite the poverty of experience behind his writings, Marx has had more impact on actual events, as well as on the minds
of men and women, than any other intellectual in modern times. The reason is that his ideas were institutionalized by two of the worlds largest
countries, Russia and China, and followed slavishly with disastrous consequences by Lenin, Stalin and Mao Zedong.

The violence perpetrated by these men and their regimes has some telling parallels in the life of Karl Marx. A violent man will beget violent ideas. As
noted earlier, Bruno Bauer had taught that a world catastrophe was in the making. From an early age Marx was possessed of the idea that
Doomsday was around the corner. Johnson notes that Marxs poetry includes expressions of savagery . . . intense pessimism about the human
condition, hatred, a fascination with corruption and violence, suicide pacts and pacts with the devil. A poem about Marx, variously attributed to
Engels and to Bauers brother Edgar, describes him as A dark fellow from Trier, a vigorous monster, / . . . / With angry fist clenched, he rants
ceaselessly, / As though ten thousand devils held him by the hair.

In Marxs personal life, violence was never far from the surface. He was verbally abusive, and arguments were common within his family. According
to anEncyclopedia Britannica account on Marx, his father even expressed fears that Jenny von Westphalen was destined to become a sacrifice to
the demon that possessed his son. Jenny commented early about the rancor and irritation she often experienced in dealing with her fianc.

Summarizing Marxs animosities, the late British historian Sir Arthur Bryant wrote: Among his innumerable hates were the Christian religion, his
parents, his wifes unclethe houndhis German kinsfolk, his own raceRamsgate is full of fleas and Jews, the Prussian reactionaries, the Liberal
and utopian Socialist allies, the labouring populationLumpenproletariat or riff-raffdemocracyparliamentary cretinismand the British royal
familythe English mooncalf and her princely urchins, as he called them. His self-imposed task he defined as the ruthless criticism of everything

that exists.

Looking back on the life and writings of Karl Marx, it is difficult to erase the more recent memory of the spectacular failure of his theories. Stalin and
Mao killed millions in their efforts to maintain ruthless state control. Marxs economic theories did not bring resolution to the wrongs that he saw in
the social order. In fact, his theories were catastrophic for the lives of millions, and continue to be so in the aftermath of communisms collapse.

Along with the ideas of the man he respected so highlyCharles Darwinthe certainty accorded Marxs theories of economic man has proven ill
founded.

DAVID HULME

Related Articles
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The Bible and Class Struggle
Six Dominant Ideas: Series Index

Return to top of page

A violent man will beget violent ideas.

From The Times

October 31, 2007

Disease made Karl Marx boil

with anger
Nigel Hawkes, Health Editor

Karl Marx suffered from a skin disease that can cause severe psychological effects such as self-loathing and alienation, according to a British dermatologist.

The father of communisms life and attitudes were shaped by hidradenitis suppurativa, said Sam Shuster in the British Journal of Dermatology. One of its symptoms is alienation a concept that Marx, a martyr to boils and carbuncles, put into words as he wrote Das Kapital.

The condition was described as early as 1839 by a French physician, Alfred Velpeau. But, Professor Shuster says, ideas crossed the Channel less readily than wine and Marxs true condition was never diagnosed.

Hidradenitis suppurativa is a disease of the apocrine sweat glands, found in the armpits and the groins. The skin in the affected areas shows a mixture of blackheads, lumps that look like boils, spots and areas that leak pus. Doctors and Marx, who was born in Germany but lived most of his life in

London, called them furuncles, boils and carbuncles, but Professor Shuster says that they were too persistent and recurrent for that. He searched Marxs letters and found that he had started complaining of carbuncles in 1864, when he was 46, though it is possible that he had them earlier.

RELATED LINKS

Quiet interrogator dies

In 1867 he wrote to Friedrich Engels of the boils on my posterior and near the penis areas characteristic of the condition. Marx was often unable to work because of the pain. He wrote to Ludwig Kugelmann in 1867: I still have a carbuncle on the left loin not far from the centre of propagation, as well

as numerous furuncles.

The evidence that he suffered hidradenitis suppurativa is strong, says Professor Shuster. Marx was treated with arsenic, poultices and lancing, but with little effect. His only consolation, he told Engels, was that carbuncles were a truly proletarian disease.

The illness also contributed to Marxs poverty, Professor Shuster says. This new diagnosis is not just important in terms of historical accuracy, he said. The skin is an organ of communication, which is why its disorders produce so much psychological distress, with depression of self-image, mood and

wellbeing, and with self-loathing and disgust.

In addition to reducing his ability to work, which contributed to his depressing poverty, hidradenitis greatly reduced his self-esteem. This explains his self-loathing and alienation, a response reflected by the alienation Marx developed in his writing.

Nina Goad, of the British Association of Dermatologists, said: It is fascinating to discover that such an influential figure suffered from [hidradenitis], especially considering how it might have affected his work.

Illness of the people

Hidradenitis suppurativa is found in about one in 100 people

It more often affects women, and only appears after puberty, when the apocrine glands are activated by hormones

It is often treated with antibiotics or anti-acne drugs

In severe cases, oral corticosteroids may be prescribed

Source: British Association of Dermatologists

Letter from Heinrich Marx

to son Karl
in Berlin

Written: Trier, March 2, 1837

Source: Marx Engels Collected Works Vol 1, pg 670-673.

Publisher: International Publishers (1975)

First Published: Marx/Engels, Gesamtausgabe, Abt. 1, Hb. 2,
1929
Translated: Clemens Dutt
Transcribed: S. Ryan
HTML Markup: S. Ryan

It is remarkable that I, who am by nature a lazy writer, become quite

inexhaustible when I have to write to you. I will not and cannot conceal
my weakness for you. At times my heart delights in thinking of you and
your future. And yet at times I cannot rid myself of ideas which arouse
in me sad forebodings and fear when I am struck as if by lightning by
the thought: is your heart in accord with your head, your talents? Has it
room for the earthly but gentler sentiments which in this vale of sorrow
are so essentially consoling for a man of feeling? And since that heart is
obviously animated and governed by a demon not granted to all men, is
that demon heavenly or Faustian? Will you ever -- and that is not the
least painful doubt of my heart -- will you ever be capable of truly
human, domestic happiness? Will -- and this doubt has no less tortured
me recently since I have come to love a certain person like my own
child -- will you ever be capable of imparting happiness to those
immediately around you?
What has evoked this train of ideas in me, you will ask ? Often before,
anxious thoughts of this kind have come into my mind, but I easily
chased them away, for I always felt the need to surround you with all
the love and care of which my heart is capable, and I always like to
forget. But I note a striking phenomenon in Jenny. She, who is so
wholly devoted to you with her childlike, pure disposition, betrays at
times, involuntarily and against her will, a kind of fear, a fear laden with
foreboding, which does not escape me, which I do not know how to
explain, and all trace of which she tried to erase from my heart, as soon
as I pointed it out to her. What does that mean, what can it be? I cannot
explain it to myself, but unfortunately my experience does not allow me
to be easily led astray.
That you should rise high in the world, the flattering hope to see your
name held one day in high repute, and also your earthly well-being,
these are not the only things close to my heart, they are long-cherished
illusions that have taken deep root in me. Basically, however, such

feelings are largely characteristic of a weak man, and are not free from
all dress, such as pride, vanity, egoism, etc., etc., etc. But I can assure
you that the realisation of these illusions could not make me happy.
Only if your heart remains pure and beats in a purely human way, and
no demonic spirit is capable of estranging your heart from finer feelings
-- only then would I find the happiness that for many years past I have
dreamed of finding through you; otherwise I would see the finest aim of
my life in ruins. But why should I grow so soft and perhaps distress
you? At bottom, I have no doubt of your filial love for me and your
good, dear mother, and you know very well where we are most
vulnerable.
I pass on to positive matters. Some days after receiving your letter,
which Sophie brought her, Jenny visited us and spoke about your
intention. She appears to approve your reasons, but fears the step itself,
and that is easy to understand. For my part, I regard it as good and
praiseworthy. As she intimates, she is writing to you that you should not
send the letter direct -- an opinion I cannot agree with. What you can do
to put her mind at rest is to tell us eight days beforehand on what day
you are posting the letter. The good girl deserves every consideration
and, I repeat, only a lifetime full of tender love can compensate her for
what she has already suffered, and even for what she will still suffer, for
they are remarkable saints she has to deal with.
It is chiefly regard for her that makes me wish so much that you will
soon take a fortunate step forward in the world, because it would give
her peace of mind, at least that is what I believe. And I assure you, dear
Karl, that were it not for this, I would at present endeavour to restrain
you from coming forward publicly rather than spur you on. But you see,
the bewitching girl has turned my Old head too, and I wish above all to
see her calm and happy. Only you can do that and the aim is worthy of
your undivided attention, and it is perhaps very good and salutary that,
immediately on your entry into the world, you are compelled to show
human consideration, indeed wisdom, foresight and mature reflection, in
spite of all demons. I thank heaven for this, for it is the human being in
you that I will eternally love. You know that, a practical man though I
am, I have not been ground down to such a degree as to be blunted to
what is high and good. Nevertheless, I do not readily allow myself to be
completely torn up from the earth, which is my solid basis, and wafted
exclusively into airy spheres where I have no firm ground under my
feet. All this naturally gives me greater cause than I would otherwise

have had to reflect on the means which are at your disposal. You have
taken up dramatic composition, and of course it contains much that is
true. But closely bound up with its importance, its great publicity, is
quite naturally the danger of coming to grief. Not always, especially in
the big cities, is it necessarily the inner value which is decisive.
Intrigues, cabals, jealousy, perhaps among those who have had the most
experience of these, often outweigh what is good, especially if the latter
is not yet raised to and maintained in high honour by a well-known
name.
What, therefore, would be the wisest course? To look for a possible
way by which this great test would be preceded by a smaller one
involving less danger, but sufficiently important for you to emerge from
it, in the event of success, with a not quite unimportant name. If,
however, this has to be achieved by something small, then the material,
the subject, the circumstances, must have some exceptional quality. I
racked my brains for a long time in the search for such a subject and the
following idea seemed to me suitable.
The subject should be a period taken from the history of Prussia, not
one so prolonged as to call for an epic, but a crowded moment of time
where, however, the future hung in the balance.
It should redound to the honour of Prussia and afford the opportunity
of allotting a role to the genius of the monarchy -- if need be, through
the mind of the very noble Queen Louise.
Such a moment was the great battle at La Belie Alliance-Waterloo.
The danger was enormous, not only for Prussia, for its monarch, for the
whole of Germany, etc., etc., etc. In fact, it was Prussia that decided the
great issue here -- hence, at all events this could be the subject of an ode
in the heroic genre, or otherwise -- you understand that better than I do.
The difficulty would not be too great in itself. The biggest difficulty,
in any case, would be that of compressing a big picture into a small
frame and of giving a successful and skilful portrayal of the great
moment. But if executed in a patriotic and German spirit with depth of
feeling, such an ode would itself be sufficient to lay the foundation for a
reputation, to establish a name.

But I can only propose, advise. You have outgrown me; in this matter
you are in general superior to me, so I must leave it to you to decide as
you will.
The subject I have spoken of would have the great advantage that it
could very soon be presented apropos, since the anniversary is on June
18. The cost would not be very considerable, and if necessary I will bear
it. -- I should so very much like to see good Jenny calm and able to hold
up her head proudly. The good child must not wear herself out. And if
you are successful in this project -- and the demand is not beyond your
powers -- then you will be in a secure position and able to relax
somewhat from the hothouse life.
In point of fact, too, it is impossible not to be enthusiastic over this
moment of time, for its failure would have imposed eternal fetters on
mankind and especially on the human mind. Only today's two-faced
liberals can deify a Napoleon. And in truth under his rule not a single
person would have dared to think aloud what is being written daily and
without interference throughout Germany, and especially in Prussia.
And anyone who has studied the history of Napoleon and what he
understood by the absurd expression of ideology can rejoice greatly and
with a clear conscience at his downfall and the victory of Prussia.
Give my cordial greetings to our friend Meurin. Tell him that until
now I have not been able to carry out the commission with which I have
been charged. I suffered from a cold for eight days and since then I have
not ventured any farther than to attend the sitting.
Your faithful father
Marx
Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Karl Marx: Radical Antisemitism
Post by Michael Ezra
In a review of the recently published book, Antisemitic Myths: A Historical and Contemporary Anthology, edited by Marvin Perry and Frederick M. Schweitzer, David Hirsh has argued that it is a standard misreading of Marx to say that Marx was an antisemite. With this, he concurs with Robert
Fine, who attempted to explode the myth of Marxs antisemitism. As far as Professor Fine is concerned, those who believe this myth have an inability to read Marx or comprehend Marxs ironic style of writing.
What truth is there in this argument? Marxs essay, On the Jewish Question, originally published in 1844 contains the following:
What is the worldly religion of the Jew? Huckstering. What is his worldly God? Money.. Money is the jealous god of Israel, in face of which no other god may exist. Money degrades all the gods of man and turns them into commodities. The bill of exchange is the real god of the Jew. His god is only an
illusory bill of exchange. Thechimerical nationality of the Jew is the nationality of the merchant, of the man of money in general.
Marx argues that, In the final analysis, the emancipation of the Jews is the emancipation of mankind from Judaism. Larry Rayexplains, Marxs position is essentially an assimilationist one in which there is no room within emancipated humanity for Jews as a separate ethnic or cultural identity. Dennis
Fischman puts it, Jews, Marx seems to be saying, can only become free when, as Jews, they no longer exist.
The British journalist and historian Paul Johnson has argued that The second part of Marxs essay is almost a classic anti-Semitic tract, based upon a fantasied Jewish archetype and a conspiracy to corrupt the world. The American historian, Gertrude Himmelfarb argued that it cannot be denied that in
his essay On the Jewish Question, Marx expressed views that were part of the classic repertoire of anti-Semitism.
And so it goes on. Noted expert on antisemitism, Robert Wistrich, declared, (Soviet Jewish Affairs, 4:1, 1974) the net result of Marxs essay [On The Jewish Question] is to reinforce a traditional anti-Jewish stereotype - the identification of the Jews with money-making - in the sharpest possible manner. In
his book, Political Discourse in Exile: Karl Marx and the Jewish Question , Denis Fischman comments that in the second section of his essay, Marx seems fairly to bristle with anti-Jewish sentiments.
Even the anti-Zionist Joel Kovel, whose political views I normally have no time for, has said:
By anti-Semitism I mean the denial of the right of the Jew to autonomous existence, i.e., to freely determine his/her own being as Jew. Anti-Semitism therefore entails an attitude of hostility to the Jew as Jew. This is an act of violence, addressed to an essential property of humanity: the assertion of
an identity, which may be understood as a socially shared structuring of subjectivity. To attack the free assumption of identity is to und ermine the social foundation of the self. Judged by these criteria, OJQ [On the Jewish Question] is without any question an anti-Semitic tract - significantly, only in its
second part, Die Fhigkeit. No attempt to read these pages as a play on words can conceal the hostility which infuses them, and is precisely directed against the identity of the Jew.
In fact, so commonly held is the view that Marx was an anti-Semite that in 1964, Shlomo Avineri, a leading commentator on Marx, stated (Marx and Jewish Emancipation, Journal of the History of Ideas, 1964) That Karl Marx was an inveterate antisemite is today considered a commonplace which is hardly
ever questioned. Despite the opinions of numerous commentators, for Professor Fine, Marxs stated views are not anti-Semitic but witty and ironic. In On the Jewish Question,Marx discusses the practical domination of Judaism over the Christian world. I am not sure whether this is witty or ironic.
Perhaps Professor Fine would like to explain. Marxs essay also contains accusations against the Jewish religion which Marx says has Contempt for theory, art, history, and for man as an end in himself. Witty? Ironic? I think not.
To the credit of Professor Fine, he does not exonerate the left: modern, political anti-Semitism is a creature of the left as well as the right but what he does seem to do is disassociate left antisemitism from Marx.

Ulrike Meinhof of the Marxist Red Army Faction posed the question How was Auschwitz possible, what was anti-Semitism? and stated the opinion that Auschwitz means that six million Jews were murdered and carted on to the rubbish dumps of Europe for being that which was maintained of them
Money-Jews. As far as she was concerned, hatred of Jews was actually the hatred of capitalism and hence the murder of the Israeli Olympic team, at 1972 Munich Olympics, was not only justified but something that could be praised. Whilst Meinhofs explanation is perverse, it seems to me that such an
interpretation can be explained if ones understanding of how Marxists should view Jews is obtained from Marxs own essay,On the Jewish Question.
When considering Marx and his views towards Jews, one must go further than his infamous essay, his correspondence also needs to be considered. Marx used the Bambergers to borrow money but showed contempt for them. In a derogatory fashion he referred to the father and son as Jew Bamberger or
little Jew Bamberger. Similarly, Spielmann, whose name appears frequently in correspondence between Marx and Engels was referred to as Jew Spielmann. When on holiday in Ramsgate in 1879, Marx reported to Engels that the resort contained many Jews and fleas. In an earlier letter to Engels, Marx
referred to Ferdinand Lassalle as a Jewish nigger. Professor Fine has not discussed this but I do not see such comments as witty or ironic, they are simply racist.
If they are not ignoring such expressions, apologists for Marx will even try and whitewash them. In a 1942 Soviet English language publication of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels: Selected Correspondence, 1846-1895, such terminology could not be ignored and the following note (cited by Diane Paul, In the
Interests of Civilization: Marxist Views of Race and Culture in the Nineteenth Century, Journal of the History of Ideas, 1981) was included:
With reference to the use of the word nigger which occurs in this book: Marx used the word while living in England, in the last century. The word does not have the same connotation as it has now in the U.S. and should be read as Negro whenever it occurs in the text.
The excuse seems to be along the lines of: Yes, a racist term is used, but pretend that a non racist term was used instead. It is a simply ludicrous excuse and it exposes the depths to which apologists of Marx will sink.
It was in his article, The Russian Loan, published in the New-York Daily Tribune on January 4, 1856, that the grotesque antisemitism of Karl Marxs writing was on full display:
Thus we find every tyrant backed by a Jew, as is every pope by a Jesuit. In truth, the cravings of oppressors would be hopeless, and the practicability of war out of the question, if there were not an army of Jesuits to smother thought and a handful of Jews to ransack pockets.
the real work is done by the Jews, and can only be done by them, as they monopolize the machinery of the loanmongering mysteries by concentrating their energies upon the barter trade in securities Here and there and everywhere that a little capital courts investment, there is ever one of these little
Jews ready to make a little suggestion or place a little bit of a loan. The smartest highwayman in the Abruzzi is not better posted up about the locale of the hard cash in a travelers valise or pocket than those Jews about any loose capital in the hands of a trader The language spoken smells strongly of
Babel, and the perfume which otherwise pervades the place is by no means of a choice kind.
Thus do these loans, which are a curse to the people, a ruin to the holders, and a danger to the governments, become a blessing to the houses of the children of Judah. This Jew organization of loan-mongers is as dangerous to the people as the aristocratic organization of landowners The fortunes
amassed by these loan-mongers are immense, but the wrongs and sufferings thus entailed on the people and the encouragement thus afforded to their oppressors still remain to be told.
The fact that 1855 years ago Christ drove the Jewish moneychangers out of the temple, and that the moneychangers of our age enlisted on the side of tyranny happen again chiefly to be Jews, is perhaps no more than a historical coincidence. The loan-mongering Jews of Europe do only on a larger and
more obnoxious scale what many others do on one smaller and less significant. But it is only because the Jews are so strong that it is timely and expedient to expose and stigmatize their organization.
A Marxist website has provided a list of articles written by Karl Marx between 1852 and 1861 for the New York Daily Tribune. It does not surprise me that The Russian Loan does not appear on this list. When apologists for Marxs antisemitism run out of explanations, they simply ignore his words.
Source
Note from JR: The Marx article referred to immediately above was however reprinted in "Karl Marx, The Eastern Question" (ed. by Eleanor Marx & Edward Aveling, 1897: new ed. 1969). pp. 600-606. I have also previously excerpted it here

Karl Marx: Radical Antisemitism II

Your View, June 9th 2009, 9:46 am

This is a guest post by Michael Ezra

My post on the antisemitism of Karl Marx provoked much controversy. More than one person has told me to my face that I am wrong on the matter. In that case, I am in distinguished company.

Sir Isaiah Berlin was one of the greatest historians of ideas of the last century. He was unequivocal in his verdict on Marx and the Jewish question:

As for the Jews, in [On the Jewish Question, Marx] declared them to be a repellent symptom of the social malaise of the time, an excrescence upon the social body not a race, or a nation, or even a religion to be saved by conversion to some other faith or way of life, but a collection of parasites, a gang
of money-lenders rendered inevitable by the economically self-contradictory and unjust society that had generated them to be eliminated as a group by the final solution to all social ills the coming, inescapable, universal, social revolution. The violently anti-Semitic tone became more and more
characteristic of Marx in his later years and is one of the most neurotic and revolting aspects of his masterful but vulgar personality.[1]

Likewise, biographer Robert Payne declared that Marx harboured a deeply personal hatred of Jews and displayed virulent antisemitism.[2] Another biographer, Saul Padover, argued that Marxs hatred of Jews was a canker which neither time nor experience ever eradicated from his soul.[3]

The American sociologist Lewis Feuers edition of Marx became the standard text used in American college classrooms to study Marxism for almost a generation.[4] Feuer argued that Marx had hysterical hatred of the Jews.[5] The distinguished historian Walter Laqueur wrote that for Marx, Judaism
was a totally negative phenomenon.[6] Seymour Martin Lipset, subsequent president of both the American Sociological Association and American Political Science Association, also defined Marxs comments as anti-Semitic.[7]

In the socialist journal Dissent, Joseph Clark argued that the association by Marx of Jews and huckstering, Jews and money-grubbing, Jews and loan-mongering, Jews and capital, has been a standard of all anti-Semitic propaganda. He labelled Marxs article The Russian Loan as viciously antiSemitic.[8] A New York Times reviewer noted dozens of anti-Semitic remarks in Marxs collected letters, which he found disgusting.[9]

These examples could be multiplied. Yet Robert Fine accuses all these commentators of being unable to comprehend what Marx was actually saying![10]

What of Marxs other apologists?

David McLellan

Marx biographer David McLellans short defence seems rather confused:

It is largely [On the Jewish Question] that has given rise to the view that Marx was an anti-semite. It is true that a quick and unreflective reading of, particularly, the briefer second section leaves a nasty impression. It is also true that Marx indulged elsewhere in anti-Jewish remarks though none as
sustained as here.

So on the one hand, only a quick and unreflective reading leaves a nasty impression, but on the other hand the anti-Jewish remarks in this essay are sustained. McLellan adds that Marx was himself attacked as a Jew by many of his most pro minent opponents. But how does this change the
meaning of Marxs own words?

McLellan argues that On the Jewish Question was not aimed at Jews as such but at vulgar capitalism, which was popularly associated with Jews. He continues: the German word for Jewry Judentum, has the secondary sense of commerce and, to some extent, Marx played on this double
meaning. He adds that Marxs friend Moses Hess used similar language.[11]

These excuses have not convinced the scholarly community. As John Maguire observed: When Marx tells us that the empirical essence of Judentum/Judaism is Judentum/commerce, there is every reason to believe that he means what he has said.[12] Neil McInnes pointed out that on McLellans
view, Marx was making the circular argument that Western society became commercialised when it was commercialised.[13] And Dennis Fischman warned: If modern writers on Marx leave his scurrilous attacks on Judaism unanswered, then, they run the risk of helping to perpetuate them.[14]

Hal Draper and Henry Pachter

Among Robert Fines sources is the American Marxist, Hal Draper, author of a famous 5-volume study of Marxs theory of revolution.[15] Drapers essay on Marx and the Economic Jew Stereotype rejected the antisemitism charge as anachronistic. The political historian Henry Pachter also insisted that
the term anti-Semitic as we understand it today does not apply in spite of Marxs anti-Semitic expletives and his use of anti-Semitic invective whenever it served a propagandistic purpose![16]

Even the anti-Zionist Joel Kovel dismissed these excuses:

Both Hal Draper and Henry Pachter make essentially the same point. Marx should not be judged by the standards of our day for using the common language of his To excise anti-Semitism from Marxs discourse because everybody else was saying the same thing would simply erase all social science.
Imagine making the same judgment on, say, Goebbels, who after all was only repeating what other Nazis said about Jews.[17]

Erich Fromm

According to the social psychologist Erich Fromm, it was cold-war propaganda to suggest that Marx was anti-Semitic. Conceding that Marx wrote harsh and not always correct things about Judaism, Fromm objected that he said equally harsh words about the British shopkeepers, the German
philosophers, and the Russians.[18]

As Joseph Clark aptly commented:

Apart from the question whether racism applied to many nationalities is better than exclusive anti-Semitism, there is an astounding lack of symmetry that eludes Fromm. For it wasnt the Jews of medieval times who drove the British out of their island kingdom; nor did the Jews exterminate the
Germans; and the Russians were not deprived of their language, their culture, their national existence by the Jews.[19]

Abram Leon

In my previous article, I wrote that when apologists for Marxs antisemitism run out of explanations, they simply ignore his words.[20] A case in point is the Trotsykist ideologue Abram Leon. In his tract The Jewish Question: A Marxist Interpretation,[21] Leon made use of a simple remedy for Marxs
statements that the Jews religion is huckstering and the Jews god is Money. He didnt mention them.

Let me now turn to the serious research.

Julius Carlebach

The essential work on this subject is Julius Carlebachs Karl Marx and the Radical Critique of Judaism.[22] Carlebach is an admirer of Marx (a great man, a true genius, one of the greatest minds in the history of man).[23] In his astonishingly detailed study, he nevertheless concludes:

Marxs second essay on the Jewish question is cast in the same mould of those of Luther and Hitler. Like them, Marx knew little about Judaism and cared little for any empirical realities. Luther wanted to convert the Jews; Marx wanted to abolish them; Hitler wanted to expel and subsequently
exterminate them. Marx is the logical and indispensable link between Luther and Hitler. He transmitted many of Luthers ideas on the Jewish religion in secular form and underwrote many of the ideas which were eventually to find their way into Hitlers conceptual system.[24]

So in a book that Professor Fine calls wonderfully erudite,[25] the very same essay that Professor Fine considers witty and deeply ironic is judged to be anti-semitic and an indispensable link between Luther and Hitler!

Edmund Silberner

By far the most comprehensive and scholarly contribution, according to Carlebach, was Edmund Silberners Sozialisten zur Judenfrage.[26] Silberners seminal chapter on Marx was originally published in English in 1949.[27] This essay adduces a wealth of evi dence that Marx was a bigot whose
aversion to Jews was deeply rooted in his heart and mind.[28] Silberner noted that Marxs Jewish self-hatred led to repeated attacks on Jews as a means of convincing himself and the outside the world how little Jewish he was, in spite of his rabbinical ancestors.[29]

Symptomatic were not just his statements about Jews but also what he did notsay or do in their favour. Although Marx felt pity for the Rumanian people, oppressed by the Russians, when he was informed that there had been a complaint of anti-Jewish persecutions in Moldavia, he did not seem to
react at all. And he remained silent when, from April to June 1881, a series of pogroms broke out in Russia.[30]

As Silberner concluded:

If the pronouncements of Marx are not chosen at random, but are examined as a whole, and if, on the other hand, by anti-Semitism aversion to Jews is meant, Marx not only can but must be regarded as an outspoken anti-Semite.[31]

Thanks to Paul Bogdanor for editing this article and also thanks to the librarians at the Wiener Library, UCL Main Library, UCL Jewish Studies Library and the School of Slavonic and East European Studies Library for their assistance with numerous requests.

[1]Isaiah Berlin, The Life and Opinions of Moses Hess (W. Heffer, 1959), pp.17-18.
[2]Robert Payne, Marx, (W. H. Allen, 1968) pp.93-95.
[3]Saul K. Padover, Karl Marx: An Intimate Biography (McGraw-Hill, 1978) pp.17, 169; cited by Dennis Fischman, Political Discourse in Exile: Karl Marx and the Jewish Question (University of Massachusetts Press, 1991), p.7.
[4]Thomas Cushman and John Rodden, Sociology and the Intellectual Life: An Interview with Lewis S. Feuer, American Sociologist, Winter1997, p.58.
[5]Lewis S. Feuer, Karl Marx and the Promethean Complex, Encounter, December 1968, p.26.
[6]Walter Laqueur, Zionism and the Marxist Critique of the left, in Irving Howe and Carl Gershman (eds.) Israel, The Arabs & The Middle East (Bantam Books, 1972) p.18.
[7]Seymour Martin Lipset, The Return of Anti-Semitism as a Political Force, in ibid., p.419.
[8]Joseph Clark, Marx and the Jews: Another View, Dissent, September 1979.
[9]New York Times, December 6, 1979.
[10]Robert Fine, Karl Marx and the Radical Critique of Anti-Semitism, Engage Journal, May 2006.
[11]David McLellan, Karl Marx: A Biography (Macmillan, 1995) pp.76-77.
[12]John Maguire, Marxs Paris Writings: An Analysis (Gill and Macmillan, 1972) p.30; cited by Julius Carlebach, Karl Marx and the Radical Critique of Judaism (Routledge, 1978), p.267.
[13]Neil McInnes, The Western Marxists (Alcove Press, 1972) pp.193, 227; cited by ibid.
[14]Fischman, op. cit., p.18.
[15]Hal Draper, Karl Marxs Theory of Revolution, Vol.1: State and Bureaucracy (Monthly Review, 1977), pp.591-608.
[16]Henry Pachter, Marx and the Jews, Dissent, September 1979.
[17]Joel Kovel, Marx on the Jewish Question, Dialectical Anthropology, October 1983, pp. 35-36.
[18]Cited by Clark, op. cit, p.80.
[19]Ibid.
[20]Ezra, op. cit.
[21]Abram Leon, The Jewish Question: A Marxist Interpretation (Pathfinder Press, 1970).
[22]Carlebach, op. cit.
[23]Ibid., p.358.
[24]Ibid., p.352.
[25]Fine, op. cit.
[26]Carlebach, op. cit., p.447.
[27]Edmund Silberner, Was Marx an Anti-Semite? Historia Judaica, April 1949.
[28]Ibid., p.51.
[29]Ibid., p.14.
[30]Ibid., p.50.
[31]Ibid. (Emphasis in original).