9. Critical Marginal Notes on the Article " The King of Prussia and Social Reform. By a Prussian"
9. Critical Marginal Notes on the Article " The King of Prussia and Social Reform. By a Prussian"[37]
(Vorwärts! No. 60)
[Vorwärts/ No. 63, August 7, 1844] No. 60 of Vorwärts contains an article headed "Der König von Preussen und die Sozialreform", signed "A Prussian".
First of all this alleged Prussian sets out the content of the royal Prussian Cabinet order on the uprising of the Silesian workers and the opinion of the French newspaper La Réforme on the Prussian Cabinet order.[38] The Réforme, he writes, considers that the King's "alarm and religious feeling" are the source of the Cabinet order. It even sees in this document a presentiment of the great reforms which are in prospect for bourgeois society. The "Prussian" lectures the Réforme as follows:
"The King and German society has not yet arrived at the 'presentiment of their reform',** even the Silesian and Bohemian uprisings have not aroused this feeling. It is impossible to make such an unpolitical country as Germany regard the partial distress of the factory districts as a matter of general concern, let alone as an affliction of the whole civilised world. The Germans regard this event as if it were of the same nature as any local distress due to flood or famine. Hence the King regards it as due to deficiencies in the administration or in charitable activity. For this reason, and because a few soldiers sufficed to cope with the feeble weavers, the destruction of factories and machinery, too, did not inspire any 'alarm' either in the King or the authorities. Indeed, the Cabinet order was not prompted even by religious feeling: it is a very sober expression of the Christian art of statesmanship
* Special reasons prompt me to state that the present article is the first which I have contributed to Vorwärts. K. M.
** Note the stylistic and grammatical lack of sense. "The King of Prussia and society has not yet arrived at the presentiment of their (to whom does this "their" relate?) reform".— Not« by Marx.
and of a doctrine which considers that no difficulties can withstand its sole medicine — 'the well-disposed Christian hearts'. Poverty and crime are two great evils; who can cure them? The state and the authorities? No, but the union of all Christian hearts can."
The alleged Prussian denies the King's "alarm" on the grounds, among others, that a few soldiers sufficed to cope with the feeble weavers.
Therefore, in a country where ceremonial dinners with liberal toasts and liberally foaming champagne — recall the Düsseldorf
festival — inspired a royal Cabinet order[39]; where not a single soldier was needed to shatter the desires of the entire liberal bourgeoisie for freedom of the press and a constitution; in a country where passive obedience is the order of the day — can it be that in such a country the necessity to employ armed force against feeble weavers is not an event, and not an alarming event? Moreover, at the first encounter the feeble weavers were victorious. They were suppressed only by subsequent troop reinforcements. Is the uprising of a body of workers less dangerous because it did not require a whole army to suppress it? Let the wise Prussian compare the uprising of the Silesian weavers with the revolts of the English workers, and the Silesian weavers will be seen by him to be strong weavers.
Starting out from the general relation of politics to social ills, we shall show why the uprising of the weavers could not cause the King any special "alarm". For the time being we shall say only the following: the uprising was not aimed directly against the King of Prussia, but against the bourgeoisie. As an aristocrat and absolute monarch, the King of Prussia cannot love the bourgeoisie; still less can he be alarmed if thé- submissiveness and impotence of the bourgeoisie is increased because of a tense and difficult relationship between it and the proletariat. Further: the orthodox Catholic is more hostile to the orthodox Protestant than to the atheist, just as the Legitimist is more hostile to the liberal than to the Communist. This is not because the atheist and the Communist are more akin to the Catholic or Legitimist, but because they are more foreign to him than are the Protestant and the liberal, being outside his circle. In the sphere of politics, the King of Prussia, as a politician, has his direct opposite in liberalism. For the King, the proletariat is as little an antithesis as the King is for the proletariat. The proletariat would have to have already attained considerable power for it to stifle the other antipathies and political antitheses and to divert to itself all political enmity. Finally: in view of the well-known character of the King, avid for anything interesting and significant, it must have been a joyful surprise for him to discover this "interesting" and "much discussed" pauperism in his own territ-ory and consequently a new opportunity for making people talk about him. How pleasant for him must have been the news that henceforth he possesses his "own", royal Prussian pauperisml
Our "Prussian" is still more unlucky when he seeks to deny that "religious feeling" is the source of the royal Cabinet order.
Why is religious feeling not the source of this order? Because it is a "very sober expression of the Christian art of statesmanship", a "sober" expression of the doctrine which "considers that no difficulties can withstand its sole medicine — the well-disposed Christian hearts".
Is not religious feeling the source of the Christian art of statesmanship? Is a doctrine that has its panacea in the well-disposed Christian hearts not based on religious feeling? Does a sober expression of religious feeling cease to be an expression of religious feeling? Moreover, I maintain that it is a very intoxicated religious feeling with an extremely high opinion of itself which denies that the "state and the authorities" can "cure great evils" and seeks their cure in the "union of Christian hearts". It is a very intoxicated religious feeling which — as the "Prussian" himself admits—sees the whole evil in the lack of Christian feeling and therefore refers the authorities to "admonition" as the only means of strengthening this feeling. According to the "Prussian", the Christian frame of mind is the aim of the Cabinet order. When it is intoxicated, when it is not sober, religious feeling, as a matter of course, considers itself the only good. Wherever it sees evils it ascribes them to absence of religious feeling, for if the latter is the only good, then it alone can produce what is good. Hence the Cabinet order, being dictated by religious feeling, consistently prescribes religious feeling. A politician with a sober religious feeling would not in his "perplexity" seek "aid" in the "pious preacher's admonition about a Christian frame of mind".
How then does the alleged Prussian prove in the Réforme that the Cabinet order is not a product of religious feeling? He does so precisely by everywhere depicting the Cabinet order as a product of religious feeling. Can one expect from such an illogical brain an insight into social movements? Listen to him chatting about the attitude of German society to the workers' movement and to social reform in general.
Let us distinguish—which the "Prussian" neglects to do — the different categories contained in the expression "German society": the Government, the bourgeoisie, the press and, finally, the workers themselves. These are the different masses with which we are concerned here. The "Prussian" lumps all these masses together and, from his lofty stand, passes sentence on them en bloc. German society, in his opinion, "has not yet arrived even at the presentiment of their reform".
Why does German society lack this instinct?
"It is impossible to make such an unpolitical country as Germany," replies the Prussian, "regard the partial distress of the factory districts as a matter of general concern, let alone as an affliction of the whole civilised world. The Germans regard this event as if it were of the same nature as any local distress due to flood or famine. Hence the King regards it as due to deficiencies in the administration and in charitable activity."
Thus the "Prussian" explains this misinterpretation of the dis-tressed state of the workers as due to the special character of an unpolitical country.
It will be admitted that England is a political country. It will be admitted also that England is the country of pauperism, even the word itself is of English origin. Observing the state of things in England, therefore, is the surest means of learning the attitude of a political country to pauperism. In England, the distress of the workers is not partial but universal; it is not restricted to the factory districts, but extends to the rural districts. The movements here are not just beginning to arise, for almost a century they have periodically recurred.
What then is the view about pauperism held by the English bourgeoisie and the government and press connected with it?
Insofar as the English bourgeoisie acknowledges that politics are to blame for pauperism, the Whig regards the Tory, and the Tory regards the Whig, as the cause of pauperism. According to the Whig, the main source of pauperism is the monopoly of big landownership and the prohibitive legislation against the import of corn.[40] According to the Tory, the whole evil lies in liberalism, in competition, and in the excessive development of the factory system. Neither of the parties sees the cause in politics in gênerai, but each sees it only in the politics of the opposing party; neither party even dreams of a reform of society.
The most definite expression of the English view of pauperism—we are speaking always of the view of the English bourgeoisie and government—is English political economy, i.e., the scientific reflection of English economic conditions.
One of the best and most famous English economists, McCulloch—a pupil of the cynical Ricardo—who is familiar with present-day conditions and ought to have a comprehensive view of the movement of bourgeois society, still dares in a public lecture, and with applause from the audience, to apply to political economy what Bacon says about philosophy:
"The man who, with true and untiring wisdom, suspends his judgment, who goes forward step by step, surmounting one after the other the obstacles which, like mountains, hinder the course of study, will eventually reach the summit of science, where peace and pure air may be enjoyed, where nature presents itself to the eye in all its beauty, and from where it is possible to descend by a comfortably sloping path to the last details of practice."[4]
Good pure air—the pestilential atmosphere of English cellar dwellings! Great beauty of nature—the fantastic rags worn by the English poor, and the flabby, shrunken flesh of the women, undermined by labour and poverty; children crawling about in the dirt; deformity resulting from excessive labour in the monotonous mechanical operations of the factories! The most delightful last details of practice: prostitution, murder and the gallows!
Even that part of the English bourgeoisie which is impressed by the danger of pauperism conceives this danger, as also the means to remedy it, not merely in a partial way, but also, frankly speaking, in a childish and stupid way.
Thus Dr. Kay, for example, in his pamphlet Recent Measures for the Promotion of Education in England reduces everything to neglected education. Guess why! Owing to lack of education, the worker does not understand the "natural laws of trade", laws which necessarily reduce him to pauperism. That is why he rebels. This could
"affect t/i« prosperity of English manufactures and English commerce, shake the mutual confidence of mercantile men, and diminish the stability of political and social institutions."
So great is the mental vacuity of the English bourgeoisie and its press on the subject of pauperism, this national epidemic of England.
Let us suppose then that the reproaches our "Prussian" levels against German society are well founded. Does the reason lie in the unpolitical condition of Germany? But if the bourgeoisie of unpolitical Germany is unable to see that a partial distress is a matter of general significance, the bourgeoisie of political England, on the other hand, manages to misunderstand the general significance of a universal state of distress — a distress the general significance of which has been made evident partly by its periodical recurrence in time, partly by its extension in space, and partly by the failure of all attempts to remedy it.
Further, the "Prussian" makes the unpolitical condition of Germany responsible for the fact that the King of Prussia finds the cause of pauperism in deficiencies in the administration and in charitable activity and therefore seeks the means to counter pauperism in administrative and charitable measures.
Is this kind of view peculiar to the King of Prussia? Let us take a quick look at England, the only country where large-scale political action against pauperism can be said to have taken place.
The present English legislation on the poor dates from the Poor Law enacted in the 43rd year of the reign of Elizabeth.* What are the means adopted in this legislation? They consist in the obligation of the parishes to support their poor labourers, in the poor rate, and in legal charity. This legislation — charity carried out by administrative means—has lasted for two centuries. What attitude do we find adopted by Parliament, after long and painful experience, in its Amendment Bill of 1834?
First of all, it explains the frightful increase of pauperism by "deficiencies in the administration".
Consequently, the-administration of the poor rate, which was in the hands of officials of each of the parishes, is reformed. Unions are formed of about 20 parishes which are united in a single administration. A committee of officials, a Board of Guardians,[3]
consisting of officials elected by the taxpayers, meets on an appointed day in the administrative centre of the Union and decides on the admissibility of relief. These Boards of Guardians are directed and supervised by government representatives sitting in a Central Commission at Somerset House, the Ministry of Pauperism, as a Frenchman[b] aptly calls it. The capital supervised by this administration is almost equal to the amount which the military administration in France costs. It employs 500 local administrative bodies, and each of these in its turn has at least 12 officials working for it.
The English Parliament did not restrict itself to a formal reform of the administration.
It found the main source of the acute state of English pauperism in the Poor Law itself. Charity, the means prescribed by law against the social malady, is alleged to promote the social malady. As far as pauperism in general is concerned, it is said to be an eternal law of nature, according to the theory of Malthus:
"Since population is constantly tending to overtake the means of subsistence, charity is folly, a public encouragement of poverty. The state can therefore do nothing but leave the poor to their fate and, at the most, make death easy for them."
With this philanthropic theory the English Parliament combines the view that pauperism is poverty which the workers have brought upon themselves by their own fault, and therefore it is not a misfortune which must be prevented, but rather a crime which has to be suppressed and punished.
Thus there arose the system of workhouses," i. e., houses for the poor, the internal organisation of which tends to deter the poor wretches from seeking refuge in them from death by starvation. In the workhouses, charity is cunningly combined with revenge of the bourgeoisie on the poor who appeal to its charity.
At first, therefore, England tried to abolish pauperism by charity and administrative measures. Then it came to see in the progressive advance of pauperism not the inevitable consequence of modern industry but, on the contrary, the consequence of the English poor rate. It regarded the universal distress merely as a specific feature of English legislation. What was previously ascribed to a lack of charity now began to be attributed to an excess of charity. Finally, poverty came to be regarded as the fault of the poor themselves, and consequently they were punished for it.
The general significance which pauperism has acquired in political England is restricted to the fact that in the course of its development, in spite of all the administrative measures, pauperism has become a national institution and has therefore inevitably become the object of a ramified and widely extended administration, but an administration which no longer has the task of abolishing pauperism but of disciplining it, of perpetuating it. This administration has given up trying to stop pauperism at its source by positive methods; it is satisfied to dig a grave for it with policeman-like gentleness whenever it wells up to the surface of the official world. Far from going beyond administrative and charitable measures, the English state has taken a big step backwards from them. Its administration now extends only to that pauperism which is so desperate as to allow itself to be caught and locked up.
So far, therefore, the "Prussian" has not shown that there is anything original in the course adopted by the King of Prussia. But why, exclaims our great man with rare naivety,
"why does the King of Prussia not at once issue a decree for the education of all uncared-for children?"
Why does he first turn to the authorities and await their plans and proposals?
Our super-clever "Prussian" will be reassured when he learns that the King of Prussia is as little original in this matter as in all his other actions, and that the course he has taken is even the only possible one a head of state can take.
Napoleon wanted to abolish mendicancy at a stroke. He charged his official bodies with the preparation of plans for eradicating mendicancy throughout France. The drawing-up of a project dragged on. Napoleon lost patience. He wrote to Crétet, his Minister of Internal Affairs, ordering him to abolish mendicancy within one month. Napoleon said:
"One ought not to traverse this earth without leaving behind traces which would earn us the grateful memory of posterity. Do not ask me for another three or four months for collecting information. You have young judges, wise prefects, well-trained engineers from the department for roads and bridges; set them all in motion, do not go to sleep in performing ordinary office work."[3]
Within a few months everything was done. On July 5, 1808, the law abolishing mendicancy was promulgated. How? By means of the depots? which so quickly became converted into punitive institutions that very soon the poor entered them only by order of the police-court. Nevertheless M. Noailles du Gard, a member of the Legislative Corps, exclaimed at the time:
"Eternal gratitude to the hero who gave a refuge to those in need, and means of subsistence to the poor. Children will no longer be left to their fate; poor families will no longer be deprived of a source of sustenance, and the workers of encouragement and occupation. Nos pas ne seront plus arrêtés par l'image dégoûtante des infirmités et de la honteuse misère."[c]
The final cynical passage is the only truth in this eulogy. If Napoleon addresses himself to the intelligence of his judges, prefects and engineers, why should not the King of Prussia appeal to his official bodies?
Why did Napoleon not at once issue a decree for the abolition of mendicancy? This is on the same level as the "Prussian's" question: "Why does the King of Prussia not at once issue a decree for the education of all uncared-for children?" Does the "Prussian" know what the King would have to decree? Nothing less than the abolition of the proletariat. In order to educate children
This passage is taken from E. Buret, De la misère des classes laborieuses en Angleterre et en France..., t. 1, p. 227.— Ed.
they have to be fed and freed from wage-labour. The feeding and education of uncared-for children, i. e., the feeding and education of the entire rising generation of the proletariat, would be the abolition of the proletariat and pauperism.
The Convention at one moment had the courage to decree the abolition of pauperism — though not "at once", as the "Prussian" demands of his King, but only after it had instructed the Committee of Public Safety to draw up the necessary plans and proposals and after this Committee had made use of the extensive researches of the Constituent Assembly on the conditions of the French poor, and had proposed through Barère the institution of a Livre de la bienfaisance nationale, etc. What was the result of the Convention's decree? That one more decree came into the world and one year later starving women besieged the Convention.[43]
Yet the Convention represented the maximum of political energy, political power and political understanding.
No government in the world has issued regulations regarding pauperism at once, without reaching agreement with the authorities. The English Parliament even sent representatives to all the countries of Europe to learn about the various administrative remedies for pauperism. But insofar as the states have occupied themselves with pauperism, they have either confined themselves to administrative and charitable measures, or they have retreated to less than administrative action and charity.
Can the state act in any other way? The state—contrary to what the Prussian demands of his King — will never see in "the state and the system of society" the source of social maladies. Where political parties exist, each party sees the root of every evil in the fact that instead of itself an opposing party stands at the helm of the state. Even radical and revolutionary politicians seek the root of the evil not in the essential nature of the state, but in a definite state form, which they wish to replace by a different state form.
From the political point of view, the state and the system of society are not two different things. The state is the system of society. Insofar as the state admits the existence of social defects, it sees their cause either in the laws of nature, which no human power can command, or in private life, which does not depend on the state, or in the inexpedient activity of the administration, which does not depend on it. Thus England sees the cause of poverty in the law of nature by which the population must always be in excess of the means of subsistence. On the other hand, England explains pauperism as due to the bad will of the poor, just as the King of Prussia explains it by the un-Christian feelings of the rich, and just as the Convention explained it by the suspect counter-revolutionary mentality of the property-owners. Therefore England punishes the poor, the King of Prussia admonishes the rich, and the Convention cuts off the heads of the property owners.
Finally, every state seeks the cause in accidental or deliberate shortcomings of the administration, and therefore it seeks the remedy for its ills in measures of the administration. Why? Precisely because administration is the organising activity of the state.
The contradiction between the purpose and goodwill of the administration, on the one hand, and its means and possibilities, on the other hand, cannot be abolished by the state without the latter abolishing itself, for it is based on this contradiction. The state is based on the contradiction between public and private life, on the contradiction between general interests and private interests. Hence the administration has to confine itself to a formal and negative activity, for where civil life and its labour begin, there the power of the administration ends. Indeed, confronted by the consequences which arise from the unsocial nature of this civil life, this private ownership, this trade, this industry, this mutual plundering of the various circles of citizens, confronted by all these consequences, impotence is the law of nature of the administration. For this fragmentation, this baseness, this slavery of civil society is the natural foundation on which the modern state rests, just as the civil society of slavery was the natural foundation on which the ancient state rested. The existence of the state and the existence of slavery are inseparable. The ancient state and ancient slavery— these straightforward classic opposites — were not more inti-mately riveted to each other than are the modern state and the modern commercial world, these hypocritical Christian opposites. If the modern state wanted to abolish the impotence of its administration, it would have to abolish the private life of today. But if it wanted to abolish private life, it would have to abolish itself, for it exists only in the contradiction to private life. But no living being believes that the shortcomings of his existence have their basis in the principle of his life, in the essence of his life; everyone believes that their basis lies in circumstances external to his life. Suicide is against nature. Therefore the state cannot believe in the inherent impotence of its administration, i. e., in its own impotence. It can perceive only formal, accidental deficiencies in its administration and try to remedy them. And if these modifications prove fruitless, the conclusion is drawn that social ills are a natural imperfection independent of man, a law of God or—that the will of private individuals is too spoilt to be able to respond to the good intentions of the administration. And how preposterous these private individuals are! They grumble at the government whenever it restricts their freedom, and at the same time they demand that the government prevent the inevitable results of this freedom!
The mightier the state, and the more political therefore a country is, the less is it inclined to grasp the general principle of social maladies and to seek their basis in the principle of the state, hence in the present structure of society, the active, conscious and official expression of which is the state. The political mind is a political mind precisely because it thinks within the framework of politics. The keener and more lively it is, the more incapable is it of understanding social ills. The classic period of political intellect is the French Revolution. Far from seeing the source of social shortcomings in the principle of the state, the heroes of the French Revolution instead saw in social defects the source of political evils. Thus, Robespierre saw in great poverty and great wealth only an obstacle to pure democracy. Therefore he wished to establish a universal Spartan frugality. The principle of politics is the will. The more one-sided and, therefore, the more perfected the political mind is, the more does it believe in the omnipotence of the will, the more is it blind to the natural and spiritual limits of the will, and the more incapable is it therefore of discovering the source of social ills. There is no need of further argument against the "Prussian's" silly hope that "political understanding" is destined "to discover the roots of social distress in Germany".
It was foolish to expect from the King of Prussia not only a power such as the Convention and Napoleon together did not possess; it was foolish to expect from him a manner of viewing things that transcends the bounds of all politics and which the wise "Prussian" himself is no closer to possessing than is his King. This whole declaration was all the more foolish in that the "Prussian" admits to us:
"Good words and a good frame of mind are cheap; insight and successful deeds are dear, in the present case they are more than dear, they are still not at all to be had."
If they are still not at all to be had, then one should appreciate the attempts of anyone to do whatever is possible for him in his situation. For the rest, I leave it to the tact of the reader to decide whether in this connection the commercial gipsy jargon, i.e., "cheap", "dear", "more than dear", "still not at all to be had", is to be included in the category of "good words" and a "good frame of mind".
Let us suppose then that the "Prussian's" remarks about the German Government and the German bourgeoisie — after all the latter is included in "German society" — are entirely well founded. Is this section of society more at a loss in Germany than in England and France? Can one be more at a loss than, for example, in England, where perplexity has been made into a system? When today workers' revolts break out throughout England, the bourgeoisie and government there know no better what to do than in the last third of the eighteenth century. Their sole expedient is material force, and since this material force diminishes in the same proportion as the spread of pauperism and the understanding of the proletariat increase, England's perplexity inevitably grows in geometrical progression.
Finally, it is untrue, actually untrue, that the German bourgeoisie totally fails to understand the general significance of the Silesian uprising. In several towns the masters are trying to act jointly with the apprentices. All the liberal German newspapers, the organs of the liberal bourgeoisie, teem with articles about the organisation of labour, the reform of society, criticism of monopolies and competition, etc. All this is the result of the movements among the workers. The newspapers of Trier, Aachen, Cologne, Wesel, Mannheim, Breslau, and even of Berlin, often publish quite reasonable articles on social questions from which the "Prussian" could after all learn something. Moreover, letters from Germany constantly express surprise at the slight resistance shown by the bourgeoisie against social tendencies and ideas.
The "Prussian" — if he were more familiar with the history of the social movement — would have put his question the other way round. Why does even the German bourgeoisie interpret a partial state of distress in such a comparatively universal manner? Whence the hostility and cynicism of the politically-minded bourgeoisie towards the proletariat, and whence the lack of resistance and the sympathy towards it of the non-politically-minded bourgeoisie?
[Vorworts! No. 64, August 10, 1844] Let us pass now to the oracular pronouncements of the "Prussian" on the German workers.
"The German poor," he says wittily, "are no wiser than the poor Germans, i. e., nowhere do they see beyond their own hearth and home, their own factory, their own district; the whole question has so far still been ignored by the all-penetrating political soul."
In order to be able to compare the condition of the German workers with the condition of the French and English workers, the "Prussian" would have had to compare the first form, the. start, of the English and French workers' movement with the German movement that is just beginning. He failed to do so. Consequently, his arguments lead to trivialities, such as that industry in Germany is not yet so developed as in England, or that a movement at its start looks different from the movement in its subsequent progress. He wanted to speak about the specific character of the German workers' movement, but he has not a word to say on this subject of his.
On the other hand, suppose the "Prussian" were to adopt the correct standpoint. He will find that not one of the French and English workers' uprisings had such a theoretical and conscious character as the uprising of the Silesian weavers.
First of all, recall the song of the weavers,*[4] that bold call to struggle, in which there is not even a mention of hearth and home, factory or district, but in which the proletariat at once, in a striking, sharp, unrestrained and powerful manner, proclaims its opposition to the society of private property. The Silesian uprising begins precisely with what the French and English workers' uprisings end, with consciousness of the nature of the proletariat. The action itself bears the stamp of this superior character. Not only machines, these rivals of the workers, are destroyed, but also ledgers, the titles to property. And while all other movements were aimed primarily only against the owner of the industrial enterprise, the visible enemy, this movement is at the same time directed against the banker, the hidden enemy. Finally, not a single English workers' uprising was carried out with such courage, thought and endurance.
As for the educational level or capacity for education of the German workers in general, I call to mind Weitling's brilliant writings, which as regards theory are often superior even to those of Proudhon, however much they are inferior to the latter in their execution. Where among the bourgeoisie—including its philosophers and learned writers—is to be found a book about the emancipation of the bourgeoisie—political emancipation— similar to Weitling's work: Garantien der Harmonie und Freiheit? It is enough to compare the petty, faint-hearted mediocrity of German political literature with this vehement and brilliant literary debut of the German workers, it is enough to compare these gigantic infant shoes of the proletariat with the dwarfish, worn-out political shoes of the German bourgeoisie, and one is
8—482 bound to prophesy that the Germon Cinderella will one day have the figure of an athlete. It has to be admitted that the German proletariat is the theoretician of the European proletariat, just as the English proletariat is its economist, and the French proletariat its politician. It has to be admitted that Germany is just as much classically destined for a social revolution as it is incapable of a political one. For, just as the impotence of the German bourgeoisie is the political impotence of Germany, so also the capability of the German proletariat—even apart from German theory—represents the social capability of Germany. The disparity between the philosophical and the political development of Germany is not an anomaly. It is an inevitable disparity. A philosophical people can find its corresponding practice only in socialism, hence it is only in the proletariat that it can find the dynamic element of its emancipation.
At the present moment, however, I have neither the time nor the desire to explain to the "Prussian" the relationship of "German society" to social revolution, and, arising from this relationship, on the one hand, the feeble reaction of the German bourgeoisie against socialism and, on the other hand, the excellent capabilities of the German proletariat for socialism. He will find the first rudiments for an understanding of this phenomenon in my "Einleitung zur Kritik der Hegeischen Rechtsphilosophie" (Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher) .[a]
The wisdom of the German poor, therefore, is in inverse ratio to the wisdom of poor Germans. But people for whom every subject has to serve as a vehicle for stylistic exercises performed in public hit upon a distorted content owing to this formal kind of activity, while the distorted content, for its part, puts its stamp of baseness on the form. Thus, the "Prussian's" attempt — when an opportunity such as the Silesian workers' disturbances presents itself — to develop his arguments in the form of an antithesis leads him to the greatest antithesis to the truth. Confronted with the first outbreak of the Silesian workers' uprising, the sole task of one who thinks and loves the truth consisted not in playing the role of schoolmaster in relation to this event, but instead in studying its specific character. This, of course, requires some scientific insight and some love of mankind, whereas for the other operation a glib phraseology, impregnated with empty love of oneself, is quite enough.
Why does the "Prussian" judge the German workers so con-temptuously? Because he finds that the "whole question" — namely, the question of the distressed state of the workers — has "so far still" been ignored by the "all-penetrating political soul". He expounds his platonic love for the political soul in more detail as follows:
"All uprisings which break out in this disastrous isolation of people from the community, and of their thoughts from social principles, will be smothered in blood and incomprehension; but when distress produces understanding, and the political understanding of the Germans discovers the roots of social distress, then in Germany too these events will be appreciated as symptoms of a great revolution."
First of all, let the "Prussian" allow us to make a comment of a stylistic nature. His antithesis is defective. In the first half it says: "when distress produces understanding", but in the second it says: "when political understanding discovers the roots of social distress". The simple understanding of the first half of the antithesis becomes political understanding in the second half, just as the simple distress of the first half of the antithesis becomes social distress in the second half. Why does our stylistic artist endow the two halves of his antithesis so unequally? I do not think that he realised why he did it. I will explain to him his correct instinct here. If the "Prussian" had written "when social distress produces political understanding, and political understanding discovers the roots of social distress", no unbiassed reader could have failed to see the nonsense of this antithesis. Everyone would at once have asked himself: why does the anonymous author not couple social understanding with social distress, and political understanding with political distress, as the simplest logic requires? And now to the matter itself!
That social distress produces political understanding is so incorrect that, on the contrary, what is correct is the opposite: social well-being produces political understanding. Political understanding is a spiritualist, and is given to him who already has, to him who is already comfortably situated. Let our "Prussian" listen to a French economist, M. Michel Chevalier, on this subject:
"When the bourgeoisie rose up in 1789, it lacked — in order to be free — only participation in governing the country. Emancipation consisted for it in wresting the control of public affairs, the principal civil, military and religious functions, from the hands of the privileged who had the monopoly of these functions. Rich and enlightened, capable of being self-sufficient and of managing its own affairs, it wanted to escape from the system of arbitrary rule.""
We have already shown the "Prussian" how incapable political understanding is of discovering the source of social distress. Just one word more on this view of his. The more developed and universal the political understanding of a people, the more does the proletariat—at any rate at the beginning of the movement— squander its forces in senseless, useless revolts, which are drowned in blood. Because it thinks in the framework of politics, the proletariat sees the cause of all evils in the will, and all means of remedy in violence and in the overthrow of a particular form of state. The proof: the first uprisings of the French proletariat.[45] The Lyons workers believed that they were pursuing only political aims, that they were only soldiers of the republic, whereas actually they were soldiers of socialism. Thus their political understanding concealed from them the roots of social distress, thus it falsified their insight into their real aim, thus their political understanding deceived their social instinct.
But if the "Prussian" expects understanding to be produced by distress, why does he lump together "smothering in blood" and "smothering in incomprehension"} If distress is in general a means of producing understanding, then bloody distress is even a very acute means to this end. The "Prussian" therefore should have said: smothering in blood will smother incomprehension and procure a proper current of air for the understanding.
The "Prussian" prophesies the smothering of uprisings which break out in "disastrous isolation of people from the community, and in the separation of their thoughts from social principles".
We have shown that the Silesian uprising occurred by no means in circumstances of the separation of thoughts from social principles. It only remains for us to deal with the "disastrous isolation of people from the community". By community here is meant the political community, the state. This is the old story about unpolitical Germany.
But do not all uprisings, without exception, break out in a disastrous isolation of man from the community? Does not every uprising necessarily presuppose isolation? Would the 1789 revolution have taken place without the disastrous isolation of French citizens from the community? It was intended precisely to abolish this isolation.
But the community from which the worker is isolated is a community the real character and scope of which is quite different from that of the political community. The community from which the worker is isolated by his own labour is life itself, physical and mental life, human morality, human activity, human enjoyment, human nature. Human nature is the true community of men. The disastrous isolation from this essential nature is incomparably more universal, more intolerable, more dreadful, and more contradictory, than isolation from the political community. Hence, too, the abolition of this isolation — and even a partial reaction to it, an uprising against it—is just as much more infinite as man is more infinite than the citizen, and human life more infinite than political life. Therefore, however partial the uprising of the industrial workers may be, it contains within itself a universal soul; however universal a political uprising may be, it conceals even in its most grandiose form a narrow-minded spirit.
The "Prussian" worthily concludes his article with the following sentence:
"A social revolution without a political soul (i.e., without an organising idea from the point of view of the whole) is impossible."
We have already seen that a social revolution is found to have the point of view of the whole because — even if it were to occur in only one factory district — it represents man's protest against a dehumanised life, because it starts out from the point of view of a separate real individual, because the community, against the separation of which from himself the individual reacts, is man's true community, human nature. The political soul of revolution, on the other hand, consists in the tendency of classes having no political influence to abolish their isolation from statehood and rule. Its point of view is that of the state, of an abstract whole, which exists only through separation from real life, and which is inconceivable without the organised contradiction between the universal idea of man and the individual existence of man. Hence, too, a revolution with a political soul, in accordance with the limited and dichotomous nature of this soul, organises a ruling stratum in society at the expense of society itself.
We want to divulge to the "Prussian" what a "social revolution with a political soul" actually is; we shall thereby at the same time confide the secret to him that he himself is unable, even in words, to rise above the narrow-minded political point of view.
A "social" revolution with a political soul is either a nonsensical concoction, if by "social" revolution the "Prussian" means a "social" as opppsed to a political revolution, and nevertheless endows the social revolution with a political soul instead of a social one; or else a "social revolution with a political soul" is only a paraphrase for what was usually called a "political revolution", or "simply a revolution". Every revolution dissolves the old society and to that extent it is social. Every revolution overthrows the old power and to that extent it is political.
Let the "Prussian" choose between the paraphrase and the nonsensel But whereas a social revolution with a political soul is a paraphrase or nonsense, a political revolution with a social! soul has a rational meaning. Ä«voiution in general—the overthrow of the existing power and dissolution of the old relationships — is a political act. But socialism cannot be realised without revolution. It needs this political act insofar as it needs destruction and dissolution. But where its organising activity begins, where its proper object, its soul, comes to the fore — there socialism throws off the political cloak.
How much detailed argument has been necessary to tear to pieces the tissue of errors concealed on a single newspaper column. Not all readers can have the education and time to get to the bottom of such literary charlatanism. Is it therefore not the anonymous "Prussian's" duty to the reading public to refrain for the time being from all writing on political and social matters, such as the declamations about conditions in Germany, and instead sincerely try to come to an understanding of his own condition?
Paris, July 31, 1844.
Endnotes
[37] [Editorial note 37: text not recovered from the source scan.]
[38] [Editorial note 38: text not recovered from the source scan.]
[39] [Editorial note 39: text not recovered from the source scan.]
[40] [Editorial note 40: text not recovered from the source scan.]
[4] Apparently this refers to G. W. F. Hegel, Encyclopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse, Erster Theil, Die Wissenschaft der Logik.
[3] [Editorial note 3: text not recovered from the source scan.]
[3] [Editorial note 3: text not recovered from the source scan.]
[43] [Editorial note 43: text not recovered from the source scan.]
[4] Apparently this refers to G. W. F. Hegel, Encyclopädie der philosophischen Wissenschaften im Grundrisse, Erster Theil, Die Wissenschaft der Logik.
[45] [Editorial note 45: text not recovered from the source scan.]