I.
II.
III.
IV.
V.
VI.
VII.
VIII.
IX.
X.
XI.
XII.
XIII.
XIV.
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XVI.
XVII.
XVIII.
XIX.
XX.
NOTE BY THE EDITOR
The
following articles are now, after forty-five years, for the first
time collected and printed in book form. They are an invaluable
pendant to Marx's work on the
coup d'état of
Napoleon III. ("Der Achtzehnte Brumaire des Louis Bonaparte.")
Both works belong to the same period, and both are what Engels
calls
"excellent specimens of that marvellous gift ... of Marx ... of
apprehending clearly the character, the significance, and the
necessary consequences of great historical events at a time when
these events are actually in course of taking place, or are only
just
completed."These
articles were written in 1851-1852, when Marx had been about
eighteen
months in England. He was living with his wife, three young
children,
and their life-long friend, Helene Demuth, in two rooms in Dean
Street, Soho, almost opposite the Royalty Theatre. For nearly ten
years they had been driven from pillar to post. When, in 1843, the
Prussian Government suppressed the
Rhenish Gazette
which Marx had edited, he went with his newly-married wife, Jenny
von
Westphalen, to Paris. Not long after, his expulsion was demanded by
the Prussian Government—it is said that Alexander von Humboldt
acted as the agent of Prussia on this occasion—and M. Guizot was,
of course, too polite to refuse the request. Marx was expelled, and
betook himself to Brussels. Again the Prussian Government requested
his expulsion, and where the French Government had complied it was
not likely the Belgian would refuse. Marx received marching
orders.But
at this same time the French Government that had expelled Marx had
gone the way of French Governments, and the new Provisional
Government through Ferdinand Flocon invited the "brave et loyal
Marx" to return to the country whence "tyranny had banished
him, and where he, like all fighting in the sacred cause, the cause
of the fraternity of all peoples," would be welcome. The
invitation was accepted, and for some months he lived in Paris.
Then
he returned to Germany in order to start the
New Rhenish Gazette
in Cologne. And the
Rhenish Gazette
writers had very lively times. Marx was twice prosecuted, but as
the
juries would not convict, the Prussian Government took the nearer
way
and suppressed the paper.Again
Marx and his family returned to the country whose "doors"
had only a few short months before been "thrown open" to
him. The sky had changed—and the Government. "We remained in
Paris," my mother says in some biographical notes I have found,
"a month. Here also there was to be no resting-place for us. One
fine morning the familiar figure of the sergeant of police appeared
with the announcement that Karl 'et sa dame' must leave Paris
within
twenty-four hours. We were graciously told we might be interned at
Vannes in the Morbihan. Of course we could not accept such an exile
as that, and I again gathered together my small belongings to seek
a
safe haven in London. Karl had hastened thither before us." The
"us" were my mother, Helene Demuth, and the three little
children, Jenny (Madame Longuet), Laura (Madame Lafargue), and
Edgar,
who died at the age of eight.The
haven was safe indeed. But it was storm-tossed. Hundreds of
refugees—all more or less destitute—were now in London. There
followed years of horrible poverty, of bitter suffering—such
suffering as can only be known to the penniless stranger in a
strange
land. The misery would have been unendurable but for the faith that
was in these men and women, and but for their invincible "Humor."
I use the German word because I know no English one that quite
expresses the same thing—such a combination of humor and
good-humor, of light-hearted courage, and high spirits.That
readers of these articles may have some idea of the conditions
under
which Marx was working, under which he wrote them and the
"Achtzehnte
Brumaire," and was preparing his first great economical work,
"Zur Kritik der Politischen Oeconomie" (published in 1859),
I again quote from my mother's notes. Soon after the arrival of the
family a second son was born. He died when about two years old.
Then
a fifth child, a little girl, was born. When about a year old, she
too fell sick and died. "Three days," writes my mother,
"the poor child wrestled with death. She suffered so.... Her
little dead body lay in the small back room; we all of us"
(i.e., my parents, Helene Demuth, and the three elder children)
"went
into the front room, and when night came we made us beds on the
floor, the three living children lying by us. And we wept for the
little angel resting near us, cold and dead. The death of the dear
child came in the time of our bitterest poverty. Our German friends
could not help us; Engels, after vainly trying to get literary work
in London, had been obliged to go, under very disadvantageous
conditions, into his father's firm, as a clerk, in Manchester;
Ernest
Jones, who often came to see us at this time, and had promised
help,
could do nothing.... In the anguish of my heart I went to a French
refugee who lived near, and who had sometimes visited us. I told
him
our sore need. At once with the friendliest kindness he gave me £2.
With that we paid for the little coffin in which the poor child now
sleeps peacefully. I had no cradle for her when she was born, and
even the last small resting-place was long denied her." ... "It
was a terrible time," Liebknecht writes to me (the Editor), "but
it was grand nevertheless."In
that "front room" in Dean Street, the children playing
about him, Marx worked. I have heard tell how the children would
pile
up chairs behind him to represent a coach, to which he was
harnessed
as horse, and would "whip him up" even as he sat at his
desk writing.Marx
had been recommended to Mr. C. A. Dana,[1]
the managing director of the
New York Tribune,
by Ferdinand Freiligrath, and the first contributions sent by him
to
America are the series of letters on Germany here reprinted. They
seem to have created such a sensation that before the series had
been
completed Marx was engaged as regular London correspondent. On the
12th of March, 1852, Mr. Dana wrote: "It may perhaps give you
pleasure to know that they" (i.e., the "Germany"
letters) "are read with satisfaction by a considerable number of
persons, and are widely reproduced." From this time on, with
short intervals, Marx not only sent letters regularly to the New
York
paper; he wrote a large number of leading articles for it. "Mr.
Marx," says an editorial note in 1853, "has indeed opinions
of his own, with some of which we are far from agreeing; but those
who do not read his letters neglect one of the most instructive
sources of information on the great questions of European
politics."Not
the least remarkable among these contributions were those dealing
with Lord Palmerston and the Russian Government. "Urquhart's
writings on Russia," says Marx, "had interested but not
convinced me. In order to arrive at a definite opinion, I made a
minute analysis of Hansard's Parliamentary Debates, and of the
Diplomatic Blue Books from 1807 to 1850. The first fruits of these
studies was a series of articles in the
New York Tribune,
in which I proved Palmerston's relations with the Russian
Government.... Shortly after, these studies were reprinted in the
Chartist organ edited by Ernest Jones,
The People's Paper....
Meantime the Glasgow
Sentinel had
reproduced one of these articles, and part of it was issued in
pamphlet form by Mr. Tucker, London."[2]
And the Sheffield Foreign Affairs Committee thanked Marx for the
"great public service rendered by the admirable
exposé" in
his "Kars papers," published both in the
New York Tribune
and the People's
Paper. A large
number of articles on the subject were also printed in the
Free Press by
Marx's old friend, C. D. Collett. I hope to republish these and
other
articles.As
to the New York
Tribune, it was at
this time an admirably edited paper, with an immense staff of
distinguished contributors,[3]
both American and European. It was a passionate anti-slavery organ,
and also recognized that there "was need for a true organization
of society," and that "our evils" were "social,
not political." The paper, and especially Marx's articles, were
frequently referred to in the House of Commons, notably by John
Bright.It
may also interest readers to know what Marx was paid for his
articles—many of them considerably longer even than those here
collected. He received £1 for each contribution—not exactly
brilliant remuneration.It
will be noted that the twentieth chapter, promised in the
nineteenth,
does not appear. It may have been written, but was certainly not
printed. It was probably crowded out. "I do not know,"
wrote Mr. Dana, "how long you intend to make the series, and
under ordinary circumstances I should desire to have it prolonged
as
much as possible. But we have a presidential election at hand,
which
will occupy our columns to a great extent.... Let me suggest to you
if possible to condense your survey ... into say half a dozen more
articles" (eleven had then been received by Mr. Dana). "Do
not, however, close it without an exposition of the forces now
remaining at work there (Germany) and active in the preparation of
the future." This "exposition" will be found in the
article which I have added to the "Germany" series, on the
"Cologne Communist Trial." That trial really gives a
complete picture of the conditions of Germany under the triumphant
Counter-Revolution.Marx
himself nowhere says the series of letters is incomplete, although
he
occasionally refers to them. Thus in the letter on the Cologne
trial
he speaks of the articles, and in 1853 writes: "Those of your
readers who, having read my letters on the German Revolution and
Counter-Revolution written for the
Tribune some two
years ago, desire to have an immediate intuition of it, will do
well
to inspect the picture by Mr. Hasenclever now being exhibited in
...
New York ... representing the presentation of a workingmen's
petition
to the magistrates of Düsseldorf in 1848. What the writer could
only
analyze, the eminent painter has reproduced in its dramatic
vitality."Finally,
I would remind English readers that these articles were written
when
Marx had only been some eighteen months in England, and that he
never
had any opportunity of reading the proofs. Nevertheless, it has not
seemed to me that anything needed correction. I have therefore only
removed a few obvious printer's errors.The
date at the head of each chapter refers to the issue of the
Tribune in which
the article appeared, that at the end to the time of writing. I am
alone responsible for the headings of the letters as published in
this volume.Eleanor
Marx Aveling.Sydenham,
April, 1896.FOOTNOTES:[1]
Mr. C. A. Dana was at this time still in sympathy with Socialism.
The
effects of Brook Farm had not yet worn off.[2]
"Herr Vogt," pp. 59 and 185. London, 1860.[3]
Including Bruno Bauer, Bayard Taylor, Ripley, and many of the Brook
Farmers. The editor was Horace Greeley.
I.
GERMANY
AT THE OUTBREAK OF THE REVOLUTION.
October
25, 1851.
The
first act of the revolutionary drama on the continent of Europe has
closed. The "powers that were" before the hurricane of 1848
are again the "powers that be," and the more or less
popular rulers of a day, provisional governors, triumvirs,
dictators,
with their tail of representatives, civil commissioners, military
commissioners, prefects, judges, generals, officers, and soldiers,
are thrown upon foreign shores, and "transported beyond the
seas" to England or America, there to form new governments
in partibus infidelium,
European committees, central committees, national committees, and
to
announce their advent with proclamations quite as solemn as those
of
any less imaginary potentates.
A
more signal defeat than that undergone by the continental
revolutionary party—or rather parties—upon all points of the line
of battle, cannot be imagined. But what of that? Has not the
struggle
of the British middle classes for their social and political
supremacy embraced forty-eight, that of the French middle classes
forty years of unexampled struggles? And was their triumph ever
nearer than at the very moment when restored monarchy thought
itself
more firmly settled than ever? The times of that superstition which
attributed revolutions to the ill-will of a few agitators have long
passed away. Everyone knows nowadays that wherever there is a
revolutionary convulsion, there must be some social want in the
background, which is prevented, by outworn institutions, from
satisfying itself. The want may not yet be felt as strongly, as
generally, as might ensure immediate success; but every attempt at
forcible repression will only bring it forth stronger and stronger,
until it bursts its fetters. If, then, we have been beaten, we have
nothing else to do but to begin again from the beginning. And,
fortunately, the probably very short interval of rest which is
allowed us between the close of the first and the beginning of the
second act of the movement, gives us time for a very necessary
piece
of work: the study of the causes that necessitated both the late
outbreak and its defeat; causes that are not to be sought for in
the
accidental efforts, talents, faults, errors, or treacheries of some
of the leaders, but in the general social state and conditions of
existence of each of the convulsed nations. That the sudden
movements
of February and March, 1848, were not the work of single
individuals,
but spontaneous, irresistible manifestations of national wants and
necessities, more or less clearly understood, but very distinctly
felt by numerous classes in every country, is a fact recognized
everywhere; but when you inquire into the causes of the
counter-revolutionary successes, there you are met on every hand
with
the ready reply that it was Mr. This or Citizen That who "betrayed"
the people. Which reply may be very true or not, according to
circumstances, but under no circumstances does it explain
anything—not even show how it came to pass that the "people"
allowed themselves to be thus betrayed. And what a poor chance
stands
a political party whose entire stock-in-trade consists in a
knowledge
of the solitary fact that Citizen So-and-so is not to be
trusted.
The
inquiry into, and the exposition of, the causes, both of the
revolutionary convulsion and its suppression, are, besides, of
paramount importance from a historical point of view. All these
petty, personal quarrels and recriminations—all these contradictory
assertions that it was Marrast, or Ledru Rollin, or Louis Blanc, or
any other member of the Provisional Government, or the whole of
them,
that steered the Revolution amidst the rocks upon which it
foundered—of what interest can they be, what light can they afford,
to the American or Englishman who observed all these various
movements from a distance too great to allow of his distinguishing
any of the details of operations? No man in his senses will ever
believe that eleven men,[4]
mostly of very indifferent capacity either for good or evil, were
able in three months to ruin a nation of thirty-six millions,
unless
those thirty-six millions saw as little of their way before them as
the eleven did. But how it came to pass that thirty-six millions
were
at once called upon to decide for themselves which way to go,
although partly groping in dim twilight, and how then they got lost
and their old leaders were for a moment allowed to return to their
leadership, that is just the question.
If,
then, we try to lay before the readers of
The Tribune the
causes which, while they necessitated the German Revolution of
1848,
led quite as inevitably to its momentary repression in 1849 and
1850,
we shall not be expected to give a complete history of events as
they
passed in that country. Later events, and the judgment of coming
generations, will decide what portion of that confused mass of
seemingly accidental, incoherent, and incongruous facts is to form
a
part of the world's history. The time for such a task has not yet
arrived; we must confine ourselves to the limits of the possible,
and
be satisfied, if we can find rational causes, based upon undeniable
facts, to explain the chief events, the principal vicissitudes of
that movement, and to give us a clue as to the direction which the
next, and perhaps not very distant, outbreak will impart to the
German people.
And
firstly, what was the state of Germany at the outbreak of the
Revolution?
The
composition of the different classes of the people which form the
groundwork of every political organization was, in Germany, more
complicated than in any other country. While in England and France
feudalism was entirely destroyed, or, at least, reduced, as in the
former country, to a few insignificant forms, by a powerful and
wealthy middle class, concentrated in large towns, and particularly
in the capital, the feudal nobility in Germany had retained a great
portion of their ancient privileges. The feudal system of tenure
was
prevalent almost everywhere. The lords of the land had even
retained
the jurisdiction over their tenants. Deprived of their political
privileges, of the right to control the princes, they had preserved
almost all their Mediæval supremacy over the peasantry of their
demesnes, as well as their exemption from taxes. Feudalism was more
flourishing in some localities than in others, but nowhere except
on
the left bank of the Rhine was it entirely destroyed. This feudal
nobility, then extremely numerous and partly very wealthy, was
considered, officially, the first "Order" in the country.
It furnished the higher Government officials, it almost exclusively
officered the army.
