[Deutsche-Brüsseler-Zeitung No. 79, October 3, 1847]
Brussels, September 26. Today's number of the D[eutsche]-Br[iisseler]-Z[ei]t[un]g contains an article by Heinzen(1) 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 Heinzen's 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(2) (even Jacob Venedey wrote a far better book about Prussia years ago(3)) 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 sérient Rüge, who taught him the little philosophy he has, consisting of a confused hotch-potch of Feuerbachian atheism and humanism, reminiscences of Hegel and rhetorical phrases from Stirner. Thus equipped, Herr Heinzen considered himself mature and inaugu-rated 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 cutoff 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 Rüge, 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 Rüge 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 Heinzen's 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 printed(4) 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 party's 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 Heinzen's peasant-socialist 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 today's 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 Heinzen's 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, outshouts whole tables of drinkers in the taverns for him (just as, according to Herr Heinzen, the Communists "outshouted the whole literary opposition"). This class is the numerous, enlightened, noble-minded and influential class of commis-voyageurs.*
And this Heir 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 Marx's
Misere de la Philosophie to close study. But as things are, in response to his advice to us to read Fröbel's 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 batallion commander as he is a bad writer.
So that Herr Heinzen cannot complain about anonymous attacks, we are signing this article.
F. Engels
Endnotes
[124] The two articles by Engels against Karl Heinzen were written in reply to this petty-bourgeois democrat's slanderous attacks against the Communists and communism as a social trend. In particular, the Polemik column of the Deutsche-Brüsseler-Zeitung No. 77 for September 26, 1847 contained Heinzen's statement in which, among other things, he accused the Communists of seeking to split the German revolutionary movement. Heinzen used as a pretext an editorial note in No. 73 of the Deutsche-Brüsseler-Zeitung, September 12, 1847, in which, while refuting the allegation of a certain German newspaper that the article "Der deutsche Hunger und die deutschen Fürsten" published in the Deutsche-Brüsseler-Zeitung (No. 49, June 20, 1847) was of a communist character, the editors pointed out that the author of the said article was Heinzen who "as is known ... repeatedly attacked communism". Publishing Heinzen's reply to this note, Adalbert Bornstedt, the paper's editor-in-chief, instead of refuting the insinuations it contained called for appeasement between "various shades of German revolutionaries abroad"; in particular he wrote on behalf of the editors: "We consider it our duty to advise both parties in case polemic arises in some other place to give it up." As is seen from Engels'letter of September 30,1847 to Marx the first article with a reply to Heinzen was submitted to the Deutsche-Brüsseler-Zeitung on September 27. However, Bornstedt, despite his agreement with Marx and Engels on their regularly contributing to the paper, did not publish Engels' article in the next issue (No. 78) on the pretext of lack of space. Compelled to publish it in No. 79 on October 3, 1847 in the Polemik column he again repeated in the editorial note his appeal to both parties to avoid mutual accusations.
[125] Heinzen visualised the future Germany as a republican federation of autonomous lands, similar to the Swiss Confederation. This was the meaning given by many petty-bourgeois democrats to the slogan of German unity, the symbol of which was the black-red-and-gold banner. Marx and Engels considered such an interpretation of the slogan inconsistent with the struggle against the survivals of medieval seclusion and political disunity. To oppose this they put forward the demand of a single, centralised democratic republic of Germany.
[126] Engels enumerates some major peasant rebellions of the Middle Ages: the rebel-lions of Wat Tyler (1381) and Jack Cade (1450) in England, the peasant revolt in France in 1358 (Jacquerie) and the peasant war in Germany (1524-25). In later years as a result of studying the history of the peasant struggle against feudalism and drawing on the experience of revolutionary actions of the peasantry during the revolution of 1848-49 Engels changed his estimate of the peasant movements' character. In The Peasant War in Germany (1850) and other works he showed the foundations of feudalism.