II. The Status Quo and the Bourgeoisie

With the meeting of the Prussian United Diet the struggle against the German status quo reaches a turning point. On the attitude of this Diet depends the continuation or the end of the status quo. The parties in Germany, which are still very vague, confused and fragmented through ideological subtleties, are thus faced with the necessity to clarify for themselves what interests they represent, what tactics they must follow, to demarcate themselves from other parties and to become practical. The youngest of these parties, the Communist Party, cannot evade this necessity. It must likewise clarify for itself its position, its plan of campaign, its means of action, and the first step to this is to disavow the reactionary socialists who try to insinuate themselves among the Communists. It can take this step all the sooner because it is strong enough to refuse assistance from all allies who would discredit it.

II. The Status Quo and the Bourgeoisie

The status quo in Germany is as follows. While in France and England the bourgeoisie has become powerful enough to overthrow the nobility and to raise itself to be the ruling class in the state, the German bourgeoisie has not yet had such power. It has indeed a certain influence upon the governments, but in all cases where there is a collision of interests, this influence must give way to that of the landed nobility. While in France and England the towns dominate the countryside, in Germany the countryside dominates the towns, agriculture dominates trade and industry. This is the case not only in the absolute, but also in the constitutional, monarchies of Germany, not only in Austria and Prussia, but also in Saxony, Württemberg and Baden.

The cause of this is that in its stage of civilisation Germany lags behind the Western countries. In the latter it is predominantly trade and industry which provide the mass of the population with their livelihood, but with us it is agriculture. England exports no agricultural produce whatever, but is in constant need of supplies from abroad; France imports at least as much agricultural produce as it exports, and both countries base their wealth above all on their exports of industrial products. Germany, on the contrary, exports few industrial goods, but a great quantity of corn, wool, cattle, etc. When Germany's political system was established — in 1815, the overwhelming importance of agriculture was even greater than now and it was increased still more at that time by the fact that it was precisely the almost exclusively agricultural parts of Germany that had participated most zealously in the overthrow of the French Empire.