October
126. Editorial Statement Concerning the Reappearance of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung
Due to the interest shown, particularly in Cologne, for the preservation of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, we have been able to overcome the financial difficulties brought about by the state of siege and to let the paper reappear. The editorial board remains the same. Ferdinand Freiligrath has newly joined it.
Karl Marx Editor-in-Chief of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung
October
127. Revolution in Vienna
Cologne, October 11. In its first issue (for June 1) the Neue Rheinische Zeitung wrote of a revolution (on May 25) in Vienna. Today, when we resume publication for the first time after the break caused by the declaration of a state of siege in Cologne, we bring news of the much more important Viennese revolution of October 6 and 7. Detailed reports on the events in Vienna compel us today to omit all analytical articles. Only a few words of comment, therefore, on the revolution in Vienna. Our readers will see from the reports of our Vienna correspondent(1) that the bourgeoisie's distrust of the working class threatens, if not to wreck the revolution, at least to hamper its development. However that may be, the repercussions of this revolution in Hungary, Italy and Germany foiled the entire plan of campaign devised by the counter-revolution. The flight from Vienna of the Emperor and of the Czech deputies[298] compels the Viennese bourgeoisie to continue the fight unless it is prepared to surrender unconditionally. The Frankfurt Assembly, which is just now engaged in presenting us Germans with
a national gaol and a common whip,(2)
has been rudely awakened from its day-dreaming by the events in Vienna, and the Government at Berlin is beginning to doubt the efficacy of the state of siege as a panacea. The state of siege, like the revolution, is making a round-the-world tour. A large-scale experi-ment has just been made to impose a state of siege on a whole country, Hungary. This attempt has called forth a revolution in Vienna instead of a counter-revolution in Hungary. The state of siege will not recover from this setback. Its reputation has been permanendy ruined. By an irony of fate, simultaneously with Jellachich, Cavaignac, the hero of the state of siege in the West, has been singled out for attack by all the factions who were saved in June by his grape-shot. Only by resolutely going over to the revolution will he be able to hold out for some time.
Following the latest news from Vienna, we publish several reports sent on October 5, because they reflect the hopes and fears current in Vienna about the fate of Hungary.
Written by Marx on October 11, 1848
128. The Latest News from the " Model State"
Brussels, October 8. La Nation yesterday led off with the following article about two members of the editorial staff of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, Herr Frederick Engels and Herr Ernst Dronke:
"The expulsions are succeeding one another and are unfortunately all too similar. While we are still awaiting a few words of explanation about the expulsion of Herr Adam, a similar measure is taken against two German citizens who were foolish enough to rely on the protection which the Belgian Constitution grants every foreigner. Yes, this protection exists in the wording of the Constitution; until a few days ago it even beamed down from one of the façades of that charming little constitutional monument with which the courtyard of the Palais de Nation was graced; but as soon as the intoxication of the national holidays is over, the liberals who rule over us hurriedly stuff away the slogans with which they so gallandy regaled the inquisitive citizens of the city and the provinces. Brussels has returned to normal and the police is fulfilling exactly as before its lofty mission of compensating by its brutal manners for the generosity of our ill-advised constitutional theories.
"Herr Engels and Herr Dronke had been staying in our city for a few days. Both members of the editorial staff of a democratic journal, the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, they left Cologne to avoid the consequences of warrants issued for their arrest because of a few speeches made at public meetings. They made their way to Belgium not in order to abuse that Belgian hospitality which on account of its rarity can be so valuable, but only to wait for the money they needed to continue their journey to Paris. The unhappy events that occurred in Cologne after their departure strengthened them in their intention. The Prussian Government has been blessed with good fortune since it followed the Belgian example and set out on the broad constitutional path — after finding a general[3] who decreed a state of siege and the suspension of the press à la Cavaignac, it also managed to find a public prosecutor-general who agreed to employ the concept of moral complicity à la Hébert and à la de Bavay. But Herr Engels and Herr Dronke had forgotten that though the traveller proposes the police disposes.
Kaiser.— Ed. Zweiffel.— Ed.
public when an inspector with his retinue turned up in their hotel. They were having their dinner. The inspector took them to the Town Hall and from there to the prison of the Petits-Carmes, whence after an hour or two they were transported in a sealed carriage to the Southern Railway Station. The police were merely using their powers in relation to "vagabonds" and, as it happened, the papers of our political refugees were not in order. It is true that they had on them a safe-conduct issued by the Cologne authorities stating that they were members of the civic militia of that city; moreover as a result of their stay in Brussels before March, they had friends who could prove their identity. But the police, only too well informed about them, preferred to treat them as vagabonds before any proof to the contrary could be obtained.
"If this is obstinacy, at least it is not blind obstinacy. "Judging from the way in which the arrests are at present taking place, we believe that this article will probably have its sequels in future issues, unless the friends of liberty of all countries become convinced that it is better 'to refrain under all circumstances from dropping in on us during their travels through this world'."
It is clear from this that the Belgian Government is increasingly learning to recognise its position. The Belgians gradually become policemen for all their neighbours, and are overjoyed when they are complimented on their quiet and submissive behaviour. Nevertheless, there is something ridiculous about the good Belgian policeman. Even the earnest Times only jestingly acknowledged the Belgian desire to please. Recently it advised the Belgian nation, after it had got rid of all the clubs, to turn itself into one big club with the motto: "Ne risquez rien!"(1)
It goes without saying that the official Belgian press, in its cretinism, also reprinted this piece of flattery and welcomed it jubilantly. The fact that in its very first issue the Neue Rheinische Zeitung quite properly ridiculed any illusions about the Belgian "model" state makes it easier to understand, moreover, why the Belgian Government meted out such brutal treatment to two members of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung's editorial staff.(2)
The Belgian press itself reveals to us how the Belgian Government seeks to perpetuate these illusions. The following report is printed word for word in the Messager de Gand:
"We now know of what this Germany consists that cherishes such great admiration for us. This Germany consists of Herr Wolfers from Lou vain, whom M. Rogier pays to produce enthusiastic articles about Belgium in German for the Kölnische Zeitung. In view of the search for all possible ways to economise, it seems to us that we could easily abolish the fund of admiration which we are paying to all the journalists in Europe. In Brussels, in the provinces, in Paris, in London and even as far as Bucharest we are buying their compliments at a very high price. Savings in this field could add up to a sum not to be despised. In London, for example, the Belgian who writes admiring articles about Belgium for the Times and for the Daily News* has to be paid out of the 80,000 francs allocated to our embassy. As soon as the Prince Ligne is installed we shall have to pay for the admiration of a Roman journalist as well."
Are these revelations not delightful? But I have not finished yet. La Nation carries the following small item in its issue of October 10.
"We have often noticed that the 'private correspondent's' column in the Indépendance, dated Frankfurt and Berlin, is as like the articles in the Kölnische Zeitung (to which Wolfers contributes) as two drops of dirty water. This newspaper does not appear on Sundays; and the Indépendance, too, has no private correspondent's column on Mondays."
We need not add much. To show its gratitude to the Indépendance for copying its German news from the Kölnische Zeitung, the Kölnische Zeitung in turn obtains its views on Belgium and France from the Indépendance.
But as everyone knows, the Indépendance is the organ of the same M. Rogier who buys admiration for Belgium, who had the Belgian patriots of 1830, and the eighty-year-old General Mellinet, condemned to deathb and who has political refugees conveyed across the frontier in sealed carriages.
129. The " Revolution of Cologne"[300]
Cologne, October 12. The Kölnische Zeitung tells us that the "revolution of Cologne" of September 25 was a Shrovetide farce and the Kölnische Zeitung is right.(1) The "Garrison Headquarters of Cologne" plays Cavaignac on September 26. And the Kölnische Zeitung admires the wisdom and moderation of the "Garrison Headquarters of Cologne". Who, however, is more comical — the workers who practised barricade building on September 25, or the Cavaignac who most solemnly proclaimed a state of siege on September 26, suspended the newspapers, disarmed the civic militia and prohibited the associations?
Thé poor Kölnische Zeitungl The Cavaignac of the "revolution of Cologne" cannot be an inch taller than the "revolution of Cologne" itself. The poor Kölnische Zeitungl It must regard the "revolution" as a joke and has to take seriously the "Cavaignac" of this merry revolution. What a vexatious, ungrateful and contradictory topic!
We will not waste a word on the competence of the Garrison Headquarters. D'Ester has exhausted that subject.[301] We regard, moreover, the Garrison Headquarters as a subordinate tool. The real authors of this peculiar tragedy were the "loyal citizens", the Dumonts and their associates. Thus it was no wonder that Herr Dumont had the address against d'Ester, Borchardt and Kyll disseminated by his newspapers.[302] What these "loyal ones" had to defend was not the action of the Garrison Headquarters but their own action.
The event at Cologne wandered through the Sahara Desert of the German press in the form given to it by the Journal des Débats of Cologne. That is sufficient reason to revert to it.
Moll, one of the most popular leaders of the Workers' Association,[303] was to have been arrested. Schapper and Becker had already been arrested. A Monday had been selected for the execution of this measure, a day on which, as is well known, the majority of workers are not working. Thus it must have been known beforehand that the arrests might arouse a great deal of ferment among the workers and that they might even give rise to violent resistance. It was a strange accident that these arrests were planned to take place on a Monday! It was the more easy to foresee the excitement since on the occasion of Stein's Army Order, after Wrangel's proclamation[304] and Pfuel's appointment as Prime Minister, a decisive counter-revolutionary blow and thus a revolution emanating from Berlin was expected at any moment. The workers, therefore, had to regard the arrests not as legal but as political measures. They viewed the Public Prosecutor's office only as a counter-revolutionary authority. They believed that it was the intention to rob them of their leaders on the eve of important events. They decided to prevent Moll's arrest at all costs and they left the scene of action only after they had accomplished their purpose. The barricades were not built until the workers, who had assembled on the Altenmarkt, learned that the army was advancing to attack from all sides. They were not attacked; hence they did not have to defend themselves either. They had learned, moreover, that no important news at all had arrived from Berlin. Hence they withdrew after they had spent the greater part of the night waiting in vain for the enemy.
Nothing is more ridiculous, therefore, than the reproach of cowardice which has been levelled against the workers of Cologne.
One has reproached them on yet other scores in order to justify the state of siege and to fashion the events in Cologne into a small June revolution. Their actual plan is supposed to have been the looting of the good city of Cologne. This accusation is based upon the alleged looting of one drapery shop. As if not every city has its contingent of thieves who naturally take advantage of days of public excitement. Or does one mean by looting the plundering of gun-smith's shops? If this is the case, the Cologne Public Prosecutor's office should be sent to Berlin to prepare the case against the March revolution. Without the looted gunsmith's shops, we would perhaps never have had the satisfaction of witnessing the transformation of Herr Hansemann into a bank President and of Herr Müller into a Secretary of State.
But enough of the workers of Cologne. Let us discuss the so-called democrats. What do the Kölnische Zeitung, the Deutsche Zeitung, thé Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung and whatever the other "loyal" papers may be called, accuse them of?
The heroic Brüggemanns, Bassermanns etc. demanded blood and the tender-hearted democrats have out of cowardice not allowed the blood to flow.
The facts are simply these: the democrats declared to the workers in the Kranz (on the Altenmarkt), in the Eiser Hall[305] and upon the barricades that they did not want a "putsch" under any circumstances. At this moment, however, when no large issue would drive the entire people into combat, and any rising would be bound to fail, such a rising would be the more senseless since tremendous events might occur within the next few days and one would thus render oneself unfit to fight before the day of decision. Once the Government in Berlin dares a counter-revolution, the day will have arrived for the people to dare a revolution. The judicial investigation will confirm our statement. Instead of standing in "nocturnal darkness" in front of the barricades with "folded arms and ominous glances" and "contemplating the future of their people",[3] the gentlemen of the Kölnische Zeitung would have done better to stand on the barricades haranguing the deluded crowd with their words of wisdom. What good is wisdom post festumh7
On the occasion of the events in Cologne, the respectable press reserved its worst treatment for the civic militia. Let us distinguish. That the civic militia refused to degrade itself by becoming the docile servant of the police, was its duty. That it turned over its weapons voluntarily can only be excused by one fact: the liberal section of it knew that the illiberal section would jubilantly take the opportunity to rid itself of the weapons. Partial resistance, however, would have been useless.
The "revolution of Cologne" has had one result. It has revealed the existence of a phalanx of more than 2,000 saints' whose "satiated virtue and solvent morale"0 leads a "free life"d only in a state of siege. Perhaps one day the occasion will arise to write an "acta sanctorum", the biographies of these saints. Our readers will then find out how
"Köln, 29. September. Die Barrikaden in Köln", Kölnische Zeitung No. 268, September 30, 1848.— Ed.
the "treasures" are obtained that neither "moths nor rust" doth corrupt(2) and they will learn in which way the economic background of the "loyal way of thinking" is acquired.
Written by Marx on October 12, 1848
130. The Pfuel Government
Cologne, October 13. When the Camphausen Government fell we said:
"The Camphausen Government has covered the counter-revolution with its liberal-bourgeois cloak. The counter-revolution now feels strong enough to shake off this irksome mask. It is possible that the Government of March 30 will be followed for a few days by some untenable Government of the Left Centre (Hansemann). Its real successor will be the Government of the Prince of Prussia." (Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 23, June 23.)a
And in fact the Government of Pfuel (of Neufchâtel) followed the Hansemann Government.
The Pfuel Government handles constitutional phrases in the same way as the Frankfurt Central Authority treats "German unification". If we compare the corpus delicti, the real body of the Government, with its echo, its constitutional declarations, appeasings, mediations and agreements in the Berlin Assembly, we can only use Falstaff's phrase:
"Lord, lord, how subject we old men are to this vice of lying!"
The Pfuel Government can only be followed by a Government of the revolution.
Written by Marx on October 13, 1848
131. Thiers’ Speech Concerning a General Mortgage Bank with a Legal Rate
M. Thiers is publishing in the Constitutionnel a pamphlet about Property.*[06] We shall take up this classically written triviality more thoroughly as soon as the publication has appeared in its entirety. M. Thiers has suddenly discontinued it. For the time being it is enough for us to observe that the "great" Belgian newspapers, the
Observateur and the Indépendance, rave about M. Thiers' work. Today we shall follow up for a moment the speech dealing with mortgage debentures[307] which M. Thiers delivered on October 10 in the French National Assembly, a speech which according to the Belgian Indépendance has dealt the "coup de grâce" to paper money. But M. Thiers is also, as the Indépendance says, an orator who handles political, financial and social questions equally well.
This speech interests us only because it illustrates the tactic of the knights of the old state of affairs, a tactic with which they correctly confront the Don Quixotes of the new state of affairs.
If you demand a partial reform of the industrial and commercial conditions as was done by M. Turck whom Thiers was answering, they will confront you with the concatenation and interaction of the organisation as a whole. If you demand the transformation of the organisation as a whole, then you are destructive, revolutionary, unscrupulous, Utopian and you overlook partial reforms. Hence the result: leave everything as it is.
M. Turck for example wants to make it easier for the peasants to turn their landed property to account by means of official mortgage banks. He wants to bring their property into circulation without it having to pass through the hands of usurers. For in France, as generally in the countries where the land is divided into lots, the power of the feudal lords has been transformed into the power of the capitalists and the feudal obligations of the peasants have been transformed into bourgeois mortgage obligations.
What does M. Thiers reply to begin with? If you want to help the peasant by means of public banks you will encroach upon the small tradesman. You cannot aid one without hurting the other.
Consequently we have to transform the entire system of credit? By no means! That is a Utopia. Thus M. Turck is dismissed without ceremony.
The small tradesman for whom M. Thiers cares so tenderly is the big Bank of France.
The competition of paper bills for two thousand million mortgages would ruin its monopoly and dividends and perhaps still something more.[3] Behind M. Thiers' argument therefore stands Rothschild in the background.
Let us take up another of M. Thiers' arguments. The mortgage proposal, M. Thiers states, does not actually concern agriculture at all.
M. Thiers remarks that it lies in the "nature" of things that landed property can be put into circulation only under onerous conditions, that it can be turned to account only with difficulty and that capital shuns it, so to speak. For, he says, it yields only a small profit. But on the other hand, M. Thiers cannot deny that it lies in the "nature" of modern industrial organisation that all industries, hence agriculture as well, only prosper if their products and their instruments can easily be turned to account, put into circulation and mobilised. This is not the case with land. Hence the conclusion would be: agriculture cannot prosper within the existing civilised conditions. Therefore the existing conditions must be changed and M. Turck's proposal is a small, even if inconsistent, beginning. By no means! exclaims M. Thiers. "Nature", i.e. the present social conditions, condemns agriculture to its present state. The present social conditions are "nature", i.e. they are unalterable. The assertion of their immutabili-ty is, of course, the most irrefutable proof against proposals for any change. If "monarchy" is nature then any republican attempt is a rebellion against nature. According to M. Thiers, it is also obvious that landed property naturally always yields the same small profits whether the capital is advanced to the landowner at 3 per cent by the state or at 10 per cent by the usurer. Thus it is by virtue of "nature".
Marx uses the English words "something more".— Ed.
By identifying industrial profit with the rent yielded by agriculture, M. Thiers also makes an assertion which plainly contradicts the present social conditions which he calls "nature".
Whereas industrial profit in general falls constantly, rent of land, i.e. the value of the soil, rises constantly. Thus M. Thiers ought to explain the phenomenon that the peasant is constantly becoming more impoverished in spite of it. Of course, he does not want to discuss that subject.
Furthermore Thiers' comments on the difference between French and English agriculture are really of a remarkable superficiality.
Thiers instructs us that the entire difference consists of the land tax. We pay a very high land tax, the Englishmen none. Apart from the inaccuracy of the latter assertion, M. Thiers certainly knows that in England agriculture is burdened with the poor-rate as well as a mass of other taxes which do not exist in France. M. Thiers' argument is used in its inverted meaning by English adherents of small-scale agriculture. Do you know, they ask, why English corn is more expensive than the French? Because we pay a rent and a high rent at that, something that the French do not do since on the average they are not tenants but small proprietors. Therefore, long live small property!
It takes the entire insolent triviality of Thiers to reduce the English concentration of [ownership of] land, the instrument of labour, whereby the use of machinery and the division of labour is made possible on a large scale in agriculture, and the interaction of English industry and English trade with agriculture — to reduce all these highly complex relations to the meaningless phrase that the English pay no land tax.
We shall contrast M. Thiers' opinion that the present mortgage procedure in France is a matter of indifference to agriculture with the opinion of the greatest French agricultural chemist. Dombasle has proved conclusively that French agriculture will become an impossibility if the present mortgage system in France continues to develop according to "nature" .*
What insolent shallowness it takes anyway to assert that landed property relations are immaterial to agriculture, in other words that the social relations under which production takes place are immaterial to production!
By the way, there is hardly any need to add that M. Thiers, who wants to retain credits for the big capitalists, cannot give any credit to the small ones. It is precisely the credit of the big capitalists which spells lack of credit for the small ones. We deny, to be sure, that within the present system it is possible to aid the small landed proprietors by some clever financial trick. Thiers, however, had to maintain this view since he regards the present world as the best of all possible worlds.
In regard to this part of Thiers' speech we want to make just one further observation: by opposing the mobilisation of landed property and on the other hand praising English conditions, he forgets that it is exactly in England that agriculture possesses in the highest degree the advantage of being run like a factory and that the rent of land, i.e. landed property, is a movable, transferable security quoted on the Stock Exchange just like any other. Factory-type agriculture, i.e. the management of agriculture in the manner of big industry, on its part requires the mobilisation and exchangeability of landed property with commercial facility.
The second part of M. Thiers' speech consists of attacks on paper money in general. He labels the issuing of paper money on the whole as counterfeiting. He reveals to us the great truth that if one throws too large a quantity of the means of circulation, i.e. money, on the market, one devalues money itself and thus cheats doubly: the individual and the state. Allegedly this is especially the case with mortgage banks.
All these discoveries can be found in the worst catechisms of political economy.
Let us distinguish. It is clear that we do not increase production, i.e. real wealth, by arbitrarily increasing money, be it paper or metal currency. We do not double our tricks in a card game by doubling the chips.
On the other hand it is just as clear that if production is inhibited by a lack of chips, of means of exchange, of money, every increase of the means of exchange, every decrease in the difficulty of obtaining the means of exchange, implies at the same time an increase in production. Bills of exchange, banks etc. owe their origin to these needs of production. In this way mortgage banks can lead to the improvement of agriculture.
M. Thiers, however, does not fight for metal currency as opposed to paper money. He has speculated too much on the Stock Exchange to be swayed by the prejudices of the old mercantilists. What he opposes is the regulation of credit by society as represented by the state as against the regulation of credit by monopoly. Thus Turck's proposal for a general mortgage bank whose bills would have a legal rate of exchange was the beginning of a regulation of credit in the general interest of society, even though this proposal in isolation means little.
Written by Marx on October 13, 1848
132. The Frankfurter Oberpostamts-Zeitung and the Viennese Revolution
Cologne, October 18.
"A peculiar destiny seems to hold sway over Germany. When one believes that one has reached the point where it is possible to help with the reconstruction of the common fatherland, when one raises one's eyes gratefully towards heaven for this blessing, then the thunderclouds which are still hanging over Europe, discharge new and mighty claps and make the hands tremble which have dedicated themselves to the drawing up_ of a Constitution for Germany. We have just experienced such a thunderclap again in Vienna."
Thus complains the Frankfurter Oberpostamts-Zeitung, the Moniteur of the Imperial Administration. This worthy paper, whose recent editor[3] appeared on the list of Guizot's paid creatures, took itself au sérieux for a moment. The Central Authority with its parliamentary framework, the Council of Frankfurt, appeared to it as a serious power. Instead of issuing their counter-revolutionary orders directly to their subjects, the 38 German governments let the Central Authority in Frankfurt issue to them the order to carry out their own decisions. Everything was running smoothly just as at the time of the Direct Commission of Mainz.[30] The Central Authority was able to imagine that it was a power and its Moniteur was able to imagine that it was a Moniteur. It sang "Now thank ye all our God, your hands raised up to heaven".
And now we "experience" a thunderclap from Vienna. The "hands" of our Lycurguses "tremble" in spite of the army in spiked helmets which are so many lightning-conductors of the revolution; in spite of the decrees which declare criticism of black-red-golden
Karl Peter Berly.— Ed.
persons and gestae to be a criminal offence[309]; and in spite of the strong language of those gigantic figures, Schmerling, Mohl and Gagern. The revolutionary monster roars anew — and in Frankfurt they "tremble". The Frankfurter Oberpostamts-Zeitung is frightened out of its thanksgiving prayer. It tragically grumbles at its iron fate.
In Paris the party of Thiers is in control, in Berlin the Pfuel Government with Wrangels in all the provinces; in Frankfurt a central gendarmerie; in all Germany a more or less hidden state of siege; Italy pacified by the gentle Ferdinand and Radetzky; after the annihilation of the Magyars Jellachich, the commander of Hungary, proclaiming together with Windischgrätz "Croatian freedom and order" in Vienna; in Bucharest the revolution drowned in blood; the Danube principalities blessed by the good deeds of the Russian regime; in England all the Chartist leaders arrested and deported; Ireland too starved to be able to move — tell me, what more do you want?b
The Viennese revolution has not yet won. Its first summer lightning suffices, however, to illuminate all the positions of the counter-revolution in Europe and thus to render inevitable a universal fight to the death.
The counter-revolution is not yet destroyed but it has made a fool of itself. With the hero Jellachich all its heroes are transformed into comical figures, and with Fuad Effendi's proclamation after the blood bath of Bucharest,[310] all proclamations of the friends of "constitutional freedom and order", from the proclamations of the Imperial Diet down to the most insignificant statement of the wailers, are parodied to death.
Tomorrow we shall discuss at length the immediate situation in Vienna and the Austrian situation in general.
Written by Marx on October 18, 1848
Deeds.— Ed.
From Heinrich Heine's poem "Du hast Diamanten und Perlen". In Die Heimkehr.— Ed.
133. Reply of the King of Prussia to the Delegation of the National Assembly
Cologne, October 18. The King is consistent at any rate. His Majesty never contradicts himself. On the occasion of the festival celebrating the building of Cologne's cathedral, he told the delegation of the Frankfurt National Assembly:
"Gentlemen, I fully understand the significance of your Assembly. I realise very well how important your Assembly is!" The voice of His Majesty then assumed a very solemn and biting tone: "But please do not forget that there are still sovereigns in Germany"—at this point His Majesty placed his hand upon his heart and spoke with uncommon emphasis—"and do not forget that I am one of them!"
A similar reply was also given to the delegation of the Berlin Assembly when it visited His Majesty at Bellevue Castle on October 15(1) in order to congratulate him. The King said:
"We are in the process of constructing an edifice which is to last for centuries. But, gentlemen, I would like to call your attention to one matter. We still possess an hereditary authority by the grace of God"—these words were spoken by the King with great emphasis—"which is surely envied in many places and which is still endowed with full powers. It is the only foundation upon which that edifice can be constructed if it is to last for as long as I have indicated."
The King is consistent. He would always have been consistent had it not been for the unfortunate fact that the March days interposed that fateful scrap of paper between His Majesty and his people.[311]
At this moment, His Majesty, just as he did before the March days, seems again to believe in Slavdom's "legs of irori,h. Perhaps the people in Vienna will turn out to be the magician who will transform the iron into clay.
Written by Marx on October 18, 1848
134. Reply of Frederick William IV to the Delegation of the Civic Militia
Cologne, October 18. Frederick William IV replied to Rimpler, the commander of the civic militia of Berlin, in response to the latter's congratulations on the occasion of October 15a:
"I know that a heroic and brave people is also a loyal one. But do not forget that you obtained the weapons from me and that I demand that you stand up dutifully for the preservation of order, law and freedom."
Constitutional kings are not responsible, on the understanding that they are not answerable, in the constitutional sense, of course. Their actions, their words, their countenances do not belong to them, they belong to the responsible Ministers.
Hansemann, for example, on the occasion of his exit, had the King say that he considered the execution of Stein's Army Order[312]
incompatible with constitutional monarchy. Pfuel carried it out, that is in the parliamentary sense. Hansemann was compromised, in the constitutional sense. The King had not contradicted himself, because he had not spoken, always in the constitutional sense.
Thus the above declaration of the King is nothing but a ministerial declaration and as such is subject to criticism.
If Pfuel claims that the King has created the civic militia on his own accord, then he claims that the King is the originator of the March revolution which is nonsense, even in the constitutional sense.
Apart from this. After God had created the world and the kings by the grace of God, he relinquished the smaller industry to human beings. Even "weapons" and lieutenants' uniforms are manufactured by profane
Birthday of Frederick William IV.— Ed.
methods and the profane method of manufacturing does not create from nothing as the heavenly industry does. It needs raw materials, the tools of labour and wages, all items which are summed up by the unpretentious term: production costs. These production costs are defrayed for the state by taxes and the taxes are raised by the work of the nation. Thus in an economic sense it remains an enigma how any king can give anything to a nation. First of all, the people have to produce weapons and give the weapons to the king, in order to obtain weapons from the king. In all cases, the king can only give what is given to him. That is the position in an economic sense. It so happens, however, that constitutional kings arise exactly at those moments when people find the clue to this economic secret. Therefore the initial causes for the overthrow of the kings by the grace of God have always been questions of taxation. It is the same in Prussia. Even the immaterial goods, the privileges, which the nations allowed the kings to grant to them, were not only bestowed by them upon the kings in the first place but in order to get them back the people always had to pay in cash—in blood and ringing coin. Trace, for example, English history since the eleventh century and you will be able to calculate pretty accurately how many crushed skulls and how many pound sterling every constitutional privilege cost. Herr Pfuel apparently wants to take us back to the good old times of the Davenant Economic Chart.* In this chart concerning English production we read among other items:
Section 1. Productive workers: kings, officers, lords, country clergymen etc.
Section 2. Unproductive workers: sailors, peasants, weavers, spinners etc.
According to this chart section 1 produces and section 2 receives. It is in this sense that Herr Pfuel says the king gives.
Pfuel's declaration shows what one expects in Berlin from the hero of "Croatian order and freedom".15
The most recent incidents in Berlin remind one of the conflicts in Vienna on August 23 between the civic militia and the people, conflicts which were also provoked by the camarilla. That August 23 was followed by October 5.[3 3]
Written by Marx on October 18, 1848
135. The Réforme on the June Insurrection
Paris. When on June 29 the Neue Rheinische Zeitung was the only European newspaper, with the exception of the English Northern Star, which had the courage and the discernment to give a true appreciation of the June revolution,(1) it was not refuted but denounced.
The facts have subsequently confirmed our interpretation even for the weakest eye as long as interest has not entirely destroyed the eyesight.
At that time the French press, too, disgraced itself. The resolute Paris newspapers were suppressed. The Réforme, the only radical newspaper which Cavaignac allowed to continue to exist, stammered excuses for the magnanimous June fighters and begged the victor to treat the conquered with some humanity as an act of charity. The beggar, of course, was not listened to. It took first the complete course of the June victory, the months-long diatribes of the provincial newspapers which were not fettered by the state of siege and the obvious resurrection of the Thiers party[314] to bring the Réforme to its senses.
On the occasion of the amnesty project of the extreme Left, it remarked in its issue of October 18:
"The people did not punish anybody when they descended from the barricades. The people! In those days it was the ruler, the sovereign and the victor. One kissed its feet and hands, saluted its tunic and acclaimed its noble sentiments. And rightly so. It was magnanimous.
"Today the people has its children and brothers in the dungeons, on the galleys and before courts martial. After hunger had exhausted its patience, after it had seen a whole crowd of ambitious people whom it had picked out of the gutter, calmly walk by and ascend to palaces, after it had for three long months put its trust in the republic, it finally lost its head in the midst of its starving children and slowly dying fathers and plunged into battle.
"It has paid dearly. Its sons have dropped under a hail of bullets and those who remained were divided into two parts. One part was thrown to the courts martial, the other was packed up for deportation without investigation, without the right of defence and without a verdict! This method is strange for any land, even for the land of the Kabyles.
"Never during its twenty years' existence did the monarchy dare to do anything similar.
"In those days the journals that speculate in dynasties arrived inebriated by the corpses' smell, boldly and immediately ready to insult the dead" (cf. the Kölnische Zeitung of June 29) "spewing forth calumnies of odious malice, drawing and quartering the honour of the people before the judicial investigation and dragging the vanquished, the dead and the living, before special courts. They denounced them to the destructive fury of the national guard and the army and turned themselves into agents for the hangmen and servants of the pillory. These lackeys of insane desires for vengeance invented crimes; they exacerbated our misfortune and they perfected the insult and the lie!" (Cf. the Neue Rheinische Zeitung of July 1 concerning the French
Constitutionnel, the Belgian Indépendance and the Kölnische Zeitung.(2))
"The Constitutionnel openly displayed gruesome mutilations and despicable atrocities. It knew very well that it was lying but that suited its business and its politics, and being businessman and diplomatist all at the same time, it sold 'by the crime' as elsewhere one sells 'by the yard'. This beautiful speculation had to end some time or other. The contradictions poured out: not a single name of a galley convict could be found in the documents of the courts martial or the bulletins of transportation. There were no longer any means to degrade the despair, and one kept silence, having cashed in on the profit."
Written by Marx about October 20, 1848
136. English-French Mediation in Italy
Cologne, October 21. The English-French mediation in Italy has been given up. The death's head of diplomacy grins after every revolution and particularly after the reactions which follow every revolution. Diplomacy hides itself in its perfumed charnel-house as often as the thunder of a new revolution rumbles. The Viennese revolution has blown away French-English diplomacy.
Palmerston has admitted his impotence and so has Bastide. The Viennese revolution, as they explain, has put an end to the boring correspondence of these gentlemen. Bastide has officially notified of this fact Marquis Ricci, the Sardinian envoy.
When the latter asked "whether France would under certain circumstances take up arms in favour of Sardinia"(1) the farouche republican Bastide (of the National) made a curtsy once, twice, thrice and sang:
Put trust in me and help yourselves Then God will help you, brothers.
France, he said, abides by the principle of non-intervention, that same principle which was fought by Bastide and the other gentlemen of the National for years during Guizot's times.
The "respectable" French Republic would have made a deadly fool of itself in regard to this Italian question were it not above all disgrace since the portentous June.
Rien pour la gloire!(2) say the friends of business in all circumstances. Rien pour la gloire! is the motto of the virtuous, the moderate, the decent, the sedate, the respectable, in a word, the bourgeois republic. Rien pour la gloire!
Lamartine was the imaginary picture which the bourgeois republic had of itself, the exuberant, fantastic, visionary conception which it had formed of itself, the dream of its own splendour. It is quite remarkable what one can imagine! As Aeolus unleashed all the winds from his bag, so Lamartine set free all spirits of the air, all the phrases of the bourgeois republic, and he blew them towards the east and the west, empty words of the fraternity of all nations, of the impending emancipation of all the nations by France and of France's sacrifice for all the nations.
He did—nothing.
It was Cavaignac who undertook to supply the deeds correspond-ing to Lamartine's phrases and Bastide, his outward turned organ.
They calmly allowed the shocking scenes in Naples, the shocking scenes in Messina and the shocking scenes in the Milan region to take place before their very eyes.[315]
And so that not the least bit of doubt should remain as to the fact that the same class as well as the same foreign policy prevail in the "respectable" republic as under the constitutional monarchy, under Cavaignac as well as under Louis Philippe, in case of strife between nations, one has recourse to the old and eternally new means, the entente cordiale with England,[316] with the England of Palmerston and with the England of the counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie.
History could not, however, omit the climax, the point. Bastide, an editor of the National, had to grasp England's hand frantically. And the entente cordiale has been the main trump which the poor Anglophobe National played off against Guizot all life long.
On the gravestone of the "respectable" republic,* will be inscribed: Bastide-Palmerston.
But even Guizot's entente cordiale has been surpassed by the "respectable" republicans. The officers of the French fleet let themselves be treated to a banquet by the Neapolitan officers and cheered the health of the King of Naples, the idiotic tiger Ferdinand, on the still smoking ruins of Messina. Above their heads, however, the phrases of Lamartine were evaporating.
Written by Marx on October 21, 1848
137. The " Model Constitutional State"
Cologne, October 21. We always revert again, and always with renewed satisfaction, to Belgium, our "model constitutional state".
We proved in a previous number of our newspaper that "pauperism" is "Leopold's greatest vassal". We showed that if the crimes of just the boys and girls under 18 years of age were to continue to develop spontaneously at the same ratio as in 1845-47, "by 1856 all Belgium would be in gaol, the unborn children included". We proved in the same article that the drying up of Belgium's industrial sources of income keeps in step with the growth of pauperism and crime (No. 68 of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung).(1)
Today we will look at the financial situation of the "model state".
Francs
The regular budget of 1848 119,000,000 The first compulsory loan 12,000,000 The second compulsory loan 25,000,000 Banknotes with a fixed rate of exchange 12,000,000
Total sum: 168,000,000
In addition banknotes with a fixed rate
of exchange guaranteed by the state . . . . . . . . 40,000,000
Total: 208,000,000 Belgium, so Rogier tells us, stands like a rock amid world-historic tempests, but is not affected by them. It stands on the bed-rock of its broad institutions. The 208,000,000 francs are the prosaic translation of the miraculous power of those model institutions. Constitutional Belgium will not be brought down by revolutionary development. It will perish ignominiously through bankruptcy.
The liberal Belgian Government, the Rogier Government, like all liberal governments, is nothing but a Government of capitalists, bankers and the big bourgeoisie. We shall see right away how in spite of growing pauperism and declining industry, it does not disdain the most cunning means to exploit ever anew the entire nation for the benefit of the bank barons.
The second loan listed in the above compilation, has been chiefly wrested from the Parliament by the assurance that government bonds were to be redeemed. These government bonds had been issued under the Catholic de Theux Government by the Catholic Finance Minister Malou These were the government bonds issued against voluntary loans made to the state by a few financial barons. They constituted the main theme, the inexhaustible theme of the howling diatribes which our Rogier and his liberal accomplices directed against the de Theux Government.
And what does the liberal Government proceed to do? It announces in the Moniteur—Belgium has its Moniteur—a new issue of government bonds at 5 per cent.
What shamelessness to issue government bonds after a compulsory loan of 25,000,000 francs has been obtained surreptitiously solely under the pretext that the so much maligned government bonds issued by Malou were to be redeemed! But that is not all.
The government bonds are issued at 5 per cent. Belgian securities, which are also guaranteed by the state, yield an interest of 7 and 8 per cent. Who then will put his money into government bonds? And besides, the situation of the country in general and the compulsory loans have left few who are able to make voluntary loans to the state.
What then is the purpose of this new issue of government bonds? The banks have not yet been able by far to put into circulation all the notes with a legally fixed rate of exchange which the liberal Government had authorised them to issue. There are in their portfolios still several million of these useless securities which naturally yield nothing as long as they remain hermetically sealed in the portfolios. Is there a better way of putting these securities into circulation than to give them to the state in exchange for government bonds which yield 5 per cent?
Thus the bank draws 5 per cent on several million scraps of paper which have not cost it anything and which only have an exchange value at all because the state has given them an exchange value. The taxable Belgian masses will find in the next budget a deficit of an additional several hundred thousand francs which they will be in duty bound to raise, all for the benefit of the poor. bank.
Is it surprising that the Belgian financial barons find the constitutional monarchy more lucrative than the republic? The Catholic Government cherished and protected primarily the holiest, i.e. the material, interests of the landlords. The liberal Government looks with equally tender care after the interests of the landlords, the financial barons and the court lackeys. Is it any wonder that under its skilful direction these so-called parties, which equally voraciously pounce upon the national wealth, or rather in the case of Belgium, upon the national poverty, and which on such occasions sometimes quarrel amongst themselves, now, fully reconciliated, fall into each other's arms and form only one big party: the "national party"?
Written by Marx on October 21,1848
138. Public Prosecutor " Hecker" and the Neue Rheinische Zeitung[317]
Cologne, October 28. No. 116 of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung carried in the feuilleton section, i.e. outside the political part of the newspaper, "A Word to the German People" signed "Hecker". This "historical document' was printed by a number of German newspapers before the Neue Rheinische Zeitung printed it. Other German newspapers, Rhenish-Prussian and old-Prussian not excluded, carried it later. Even the Kölnische Zeitung possessed enough historical sense to print the proclamation of Struve and likewise that of Fuad Effendi.[318]
We do not know whether the laurels of the republican Hecker did not let Public Prosecutor Hecker sleep in peace. Was the astonished world to learn that the German revolution had been twice beaten by the flight of the republican Hecker to New York and the presence of the Public Prosecutor Hecker in Cologne? It cannot be denied. Posterity will see in these two giant figures the dramatic synopsis of the contradictions of the modern movement. A future Goethe will unite them in a Faust. We shall leave it to him to which Hecker he wants to assign the role of Faust and to which that of Wagner.
In short. The fantastic farewell address of the republican Hecker was followed by the no less fantastic case of Public Prosecutor Hecker.
Or are we mistaken? Does Hecker, the Public Prosecutor, believe that "the word to the German people" is the product of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung itself, that this newspaper with its inventive maliciousness has signed its own proclamation "Hecker" in order to make the German people believe that Hecker, the Public Prosecutor, is emigrating to New York, that Hecker, the Public Prosecutor, proclaims the German republic, that Hecker, the Public Prosecutor, officially sanctions pious revolutionary wishes?
Such a trick was credible because the document reproduced in the supplement to No. 116 of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung is not signed
Friedrich Hecker but tout bonnement "Hecker". A Hecker without flourishes, a simple Hecker! And does not Germany possess a twofold Hecker?
And who of the two is the "simple Hecker"? In any case, this simplicity remains ambiguous and, in our opinion, embarrassing for the Neue Rheinische Zeitung.
Be that as it may, Herr Hecker, the Public Prosecutor, apparently viewed the "word to the German people" as a product of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung. He saw in it a direct appeal to overthrow the Government, high treason in its most developed form or at the very least complicity in high treason which according to the Code pénal[319]
constitutes "simple" high treason.
Thus Herr Hecker requested the examining magistrate to "assume" not that the undersigned responsible publisher,(1) but that the editor-in-chief, Karl Marx, is guilty of high treason. But to "assume" somebody guilty of high treason means in other words to put him into prison for the time being and to punish him until further notice with detention pending investigation. We are dealing here with the "imposition" of solitary confinement. The examining magistrate refused to do this. Once Herr Hecker has conceived of an idea, he pursues his idea. To "constitute" the editor-in-chief of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung became a fixed idea for him just as the name of "Hecker" underneath the "farewell address" was for him fictitious. Hence he turned to the Council Chamber. The Council Chamber declined. He went from the Council Chamber to the Senate of Appeal. The Senate of Appeal refused to become involved. Herr Hecker, the Public Prosecutor, however, did not give up his fixed idea to "constitute", always in the above sense, the editor-in-chief of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, Karl Marx. As one can see, the ideas of the Public Prosecutor's office are not speculative ideas in the Hegelian sense. They are ideas in the Kantian sense, notions of "practical" reason.
Karl Marx could never be directly "accused" of high treason, even if the printing of revolutionary facts or proclamations constituted a newspaper guilty of high treason. In the first place, one had to charge the one who had signedthe newspaper, especially in this case, where the document in question appeared in the feuilleton
section. What else could one do? One idea leads to another. One could cite Karl Marx, under Article 60 of the Code pénal, as an accomplice to the crime allegedly committed by the responsible publisher. One can also cite him, if one wants to, as an accomplice of that declaration even if it was printed in the Kölnische Zeitung. Hence Karl Marx received a summons from the examining magistrate. He appeared and his evidence was taken down. The compositors were, as far as we know, summoned as witnesses, the proof-reader was summoned as a witness and the owner of the printshop was summoned as a witness. Finally, though, the responsible publisher was invited as a witness. We do not understand the last summons.
Is the alleged author supposed to bear witness against his accomplice?
So that nothing is omitted from our narrative: a police raid was conducted against the office of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung.
Hecker, the Public Prosecutor, has surpassed Hecker, the republican. The one accomplishes rebellious facts and issues rebellious proclamations. The other, despite every reluctance, erases facts from the memoirs of contemporary history, from the newspapers. He makes what has happened not to have happened. If the "bad press" reports revolutionary facts and proclamations, it commits twofold high treason. It is a moral accomplice since it only reports the rebellious facts because it is inwardly titillated by them. It is an accomplice in the ordinary juridical sense; by reporting, it disseminates, and by disseminating, it turns itself into a tool of the rebellion. It will, therefore, be "constituted" on both counts and will thus enjoy the fruits of the "constitution". The "good press", by contrast, will have the monopoly to report or not to report, to falsify or not to falsify revolutionary documents and facts. Radetzky has made use of this theory by prohibiting the Milanese newspapers to report the Viennese facts and proclamations. The Milanese Newspaper,[3] on the other hand, reported in place of the great Viennese "revolution" a small Viennese riot especially composed by Radetzky. It is rumoured that an insurrection has nonetheless broken out in Milan.
Herr Hecker, the Public Prosecutor, is, as everybody knows, a contributor to the Neue Rheinische Zeitung.(2) As our contributor we forgive him much except the sin against the unholy "spirit" of our newspaper. And he commits this sin by transforming, with a lack of critical faculty unheard of in a contributor to the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, the proclamation of Hecker the fugitive into the proclamation of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Friedrich Hecker adopts a passionate attitude and the Neue Rheinische Zeitung a critical attitude towards the movement. Friedrich Hecker expects everything from the magic influence of single personalities. We expect everything from the collisions which arise from the economic conditions. Friedrich Hecker travels to the United States in order to study the "republic". The Neue Rheinische Zeitung finds that the grandiose class struggles which are taking place in the French Republic are more interesting subjects of study than those in a republic in which in the west class struggles do not yet exist and in the east move only within the old quiet English forms. For Friedrich Hecker social questions are consequences of political struggles, for the Neue Rheinische Zeitung political struggles are merely the manifestations of social collisions. Friedrich Hecker could be a good tricolour republican. The actual opposition of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung only begins with the tricolour republic.
How, for example, could the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, without completely repudiating its past, have called upon the German people to
"rally around the men who hold high the banner of popular sovereignty and who guard it faithfully, the men of the extreme Left in Frankfurt am Main; join firmly by word and deed the brave leaders of the republican rising".
We have repeatedly declared that we are not a "parliamentary" newspaper and that we do not hesitate, therefore, from time to time to draw the wrath of even the extreme Left of Berlin and Frankfurt upon our heads. We have called upon the gentlemen of Frankfurt to join the people, we have never called upon the people to join the gentlemen of Frankfurt. And "the brave leaders of the republican rising", where are they and who are they? Hecker is, as is well known, in America, Struve is in prison. Is it Herwegh? The editors of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, in particular Karl Marx, have at public meetings decisively opposed Herwegh's initiative[320] in Paris without fearing the ill favour of the excited masses. They were, therefore, duly mistrusted at that time (compare the Deutsche Volkszeitunff[21]
among others) by Utopians who mistook themselves for revolutionaries. Are we supposed to join the people of the opposite opinion now that events have repeatedly confirmed our predictions?
But let us be just. Herr Hecker, the Public Prosecutor, is still a young contributor to our newspaper. The novice in politics just as the novice in natural science resembles that painter who knows only two colours, white and black, or, if you prefer, black-white and red. The finer differences within each espèce reveal themselves only to the skilled and experienced eye. And besides, was Herr Hecker not dominated by the fixed idea to "constitute" Karl Marx, the editor-in-chief of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, a fixed idea which melted in the purgatory neither of the Investigating Court, nor of the Council Chamber, nor of the Senate of Appeal; hence it must be a fire-proof fixed idea.
The greatest achievement of the March revolution is unquestion-ably, to use the words of Brutus Bassermann, the "rule of the most noble and best" and their rapid rise on the scale of power. We hope therefore that the merits of Public Prosecutor Hecker, our esteemed contributor, will also carry him to the heights of the state's Olympus, as the snow-white doves which were harnessed to the chariot of Aphrodite, carried her with lightning speed to Olympus. As everybody knows, our Government is constitutional. Pfuel is full of enthusiasm for constitutionalism. It is the custom in constitutional states to pay close attention to the recommendations of opposition newspapers. We are therefore moving on constitutional grounds when we advise the Government to award to our Hecker the vacant position of Chief Public Prosecutor of Düsseldorf. Public Prosecutor Amnion of Düsseldorf, who, as far as we know, has not yet earned a life-saving medal for his services to the fatherland, will not hesitate for one moment to dictate reverential silence to his own possible claims in view of the higher merits. If, however, Herr Heimsoeth should become Minister of Justice, as we hope he will, we will recommend Herr Hecker as Attorney General. We expect still bigger things for Herr Hecker. Herr Hecker is still young. And as the Russians say: the Tsar is great, God is greater still, but the Tsar is still young.
Written by Marx on October 28, 1848
Endnotes
[298] A popular uprising that took place in Vienna on October 6-7, 1848, was sparked off by the orders of the Austrian Government to dissolve the Hungarian Diet and send Austrian troops to the Croatian Ban Jellachich who, supported by the Imperial Court, had started a counter-revolutionary campaign against Hungary but sustained defeat at the hands of the Hungarian revolutionary troops on September 29. The masses, headed by the petty-bourgeois democrats, prevented the Vienna garrison from marching on Hungary and, after fierce fighting, captured the city. The Austrian Emperor and his court fled to Olmütz (Olomouc) on October 7, 1848, and were later followed by the Ministry. The majority of Czech deputies to the Austrian National Assembly (Reichstag) who belonged to the national-liberal party departed for Prague in haste.
[300] This article was first published in English in the collections: Karl Marx, On Revolution, ed. by S. K. Padover, New York, 1971, and Karl Marx, The Revolutions of 1848. Political Writings, Vol. 1, London, Penguin Books, 1973.
[301] At the session of the Prussian National Assembly on September 29, 1848, Deputy d'Ester demanded that the Government lift the siege of Cologne and call the Cologne Garrison Headquarters to account for unlawful actions.
[302] On October 2, 1848, a group of counter-revolutionary bourgeois in Cologne (Stupp, Ammon and others) handed an address to the Prussian National Assembly in which they stated that the demand that the siege of Cologne be lifted put forward by d'Ester and supported by the Rhine Province deputies Borchardt and Kyll allegedly "does not reflect the mood and opinions of the burghers",
[303] See Note 245.
[304] For Stein's Army Order see Note 273. On September 17, 1848, the commander of the Brandenburg military area, General Wrangel, issued an army order which demanded that "public law and order" be secured, threatened "elements who were against law" and called upon the soldiers to rally around their officers and the King.
[305] When the popular unrest in Cologne provoked by the arrests of democratic and workers' leaders on orders of the Cologne authorities was at its highest, Marx and his associates called upon the workers to refrain from premature armed actions and from succumbing to provocation in a situation unfavourable for the revolutionary forces. Marx uttered this warning at the meeting of the Cologne Workers' Association in the Kranz Hotel on September 25, 1848, and later at a popular meeting in the Eiser Hall attended by members of the Cologne Democratic Society.
[6] The German Workers' Club was founded in Paris on March 8 and 9, 1848, on the initiative of Communist League leaders. The club's aim was to unite German emigrant workers in Paris, to explain to them the tactics of the proletariat in a bourgeois-democratic revolution, and also to counter the attempts of the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois democrats to stir up the German workers by nationalist propaganda and enlist them into the adventurist invasion of Germany by volunteer legions. The club successfully arranged the return of German workers one by one to their home country to take part in the revolutionary struggle there.
[307] Thiers' speech was a reply to the proposal made by Deputy Turck to found a state mortgage bank with a fixed rate of exchange.
[30] See Note 25.
[309] The reference is to the "law on the protection of the Constituent National Assembly and the officials of the Central Authority" according to which offences against National Assembly deputies and the officials of the Central Authority were punishable by imprisonment. This law was a repressive measure adopted by the Frankfurt National Assembly majority and the Imperial Government on October 9, 1848, i.e. after the September uprising in Frankfurt. Black-red-golden—a symbolic combination of colours signifying the unity of Germany.
[310] In September 1848 Turkish troops supported by the Tsarist Government occupied Wallachia to suppress the national liberation movement. In Bucharest, they were guilty of bloody outrages against the civil population. The proclamation published by the Turkish government commissioner Fuad Effendi declared the necessity of establishing "constitutional order" and "eliminating all vestiges of the revolution".
[311] See Note 86.
[312] See Note 273.
[33] Concerning the German-Danish war over Schleswig-Holstein see Note 28.
[314] See Note 133.
[315] On May 15, 1848, a popular uprising in Naples, caused by King Ferdinand II's infringement of constitutional rights, was savagely crushed (see this volume, pp. 24-26), declassed elements (lazzaroni) being active in its suppression. Early in September 1848 Neapolitan troops sent by Ferdinand II to suppress the revolutionary movement in Sicily bombarded the town of Messina for four days and, having captured it, committed violent outrages. Ferdinand earned for himself the derisive nickname "Bomba". The capture of Milan by Austrian troops on August 6, 1848, was accompanied by outrages against the population.
[316] See Note 18.
[317] In the summer of 1848 the Cologne Public Prosecutor's office was already trying to start legal proceedings against the editors and the publisher of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, accusing them of insulting the Public Prosecutor and police in connection with the newspaper's defence of the arrested leaders of the Cologne Workers' Association Gottschalk and Anneke (see this volume, pp. 176-79). In the autumn, the Cologne Public Prosecutor Hecker issued orders to bring to trial Marx, the editor-in-chief, and Korff, the newspaper's responsible publisher, for printing a number of articles, including the proclamation "To the German People" written by the republican Friedrich Hecker. Despite the negative findings of the examining magistrate, who in October 1848 stated that there were insufficient grounds for prosecution, the Public Prosecutor's office insisted on pressing its accusations and, in addition, put forward new ones (see Marx's article "Three State Trials against the Neue Rheinische Zeitung", present edition, Vol. 8). Another charge was brought against Marx for his participation in the revolutionary movement as a leader of the Cologne democratic organisation,
[318] See Note 310.
[319] See Note 139.
[320] The reference is to the opposition of Marx and his followers in March 1848 to the plan of the German legion of volunteers to enter Germany with the aim of starting a revolution; this plan was supported by Herwegh, Bornstedt and others (see Note 2). '
[21] The reference is to treaties concluded between the middle of the fifteenth and the middle of the nineteenth centuries between Swiss cantons and European states for the supply of Swiss mercenaries.
[3] At the end of 1848 or the beginning of 184-9 an abridged version of the "Demands" was published in pamphlet form by Weiler Publishers in Leipzig. The slogan at the beginning of the document, the second paragraph of point 9 and the last sentence of point 10 were omitted, and the words "The Committee" were not included among the signatories. In 1853, an abridged version of the "Demands" was printed, together with other documents of the Communist League, in the first part of the book Die Communisten-Ver schworungen des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts, published in Berlin for purposes of information by Wermuth and Stieber, two police officials, who staged a trial against the Communists in Cologne in 1852. Later Engels reproduced the main points of the "Demands" in his essay On the History of the Communist League, published in November 1885 in the newspaper Sozialdemokrat, and as an introduction to the pamphlet: K. Marx, Enthüllungen über den Kommunisten Prozess zu Köln, Hottingen-Zürich, 1885. English translations of the "Demands of the Communist Party in Germany" appeared in the collections: The Communist Manifesto of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels with an introduction and explanatory notes by D. Ryazanoff, Martin Lawrence, London (1930); K. Marx, Selected Works, Vol. II, ed. V. Adoratsky, Moscow-Leningrad, Co-operative Publishing Society of Foreign Workers in the USSR (1936); ibid., New York (1936); Birth of the Communist Manifesto, edited and annotated, with an Introduction by D. J. Struik, International Publishers, New York, 1971, and in other publications. The letter to the editor of the Populaire and the Declaration are in Engels' handwriting. Both documents were drawn up at the end of March 1848 after Engels' arrival in Paris and reflect the struggle which the leaders of the Communist League were waging against those German petty-bourgeois emigrant leaders in Paris, Herwegh and Bornstedt among others, who intended to speed up revolution in Germany by moving in a volunteer legion organised by using private donations and subsidies from the Provisional Government of the French Republic. Appeals to enlist were accompanied by demagogic appeals to the patriotic and revolutionary sentiments of German emigrants. Marx, Engels and other members of the Central Authority of the Communist League spoke out against the adventurist nature of such plans to "export revolution" and advised German workers instead to return to their home country individually in order to take part in the revolutionary events that were brewing there. "We opposed this playing with revolution in the most decisive fashion," Engels later wrote in his work On the History of the Communist League. "To carry out an invasion, which was to import the revolution forcibly from outside, into the midst of the ferment then going on in Germany, meant to undermine the revolution in Germany itself, to strengthen the governments and to deliver the legionaries ... defenceless into the hands of the German troops." The letter and the Declaration were first published in English in the journal Science and Society, 1940, Vol. IV, No. 2. The first publication in the language of the original appeared in the collection Der Bund der Kommunisten. Dokumente und Materialien, Bd. I, 1836-1849, Berlin, 1970. The Cerman Democratic Society (below it is called the Society of German Democrats) was formed in Paris after the February revolution of 1848. The society was headed by petty-bourgeois democrats, Herwegh, Bornstedt (the latter expelled from the Communist League) and others, who campaigned to raise a volunteer legion of German emigrants with the intention of marching into