The following work was written in London in the summer of 1850, the recent counter-revolution still fresh in mind; it appeared in the 5th and 6th issues of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Politisch-ökonomische Revue, edited by Karl Marx, Hamburg, 1850. My political friends in Germany desire it to be reprinted, and I accede to their desire, because, to my regret, the work is still timely today.
It makes no claim to providing material derived from independent research. On the contrary, all the material on the peasant risings and on Thomas Münzer is taken from Zimmermann.[3] His book, despite gaps here and there, is still the best compilation of factual data. Moreover, old Zimmermann enjoyed his subject. The same revolutionary instinct, which prompted him throughout the book to champion the oppressed class, made him later one of the best of the extreme Left[129] in Frankfurt.b
If, nevertheless, Zimmermann's presentation lacks inner cohe-sion; if it does not succeed in showing the political and religious controversies of the times as a reflection of the contemporary class struggles; if it sees in these class struggles only oppressors and oppressed, evil folk and good folk, and the ultimate victory of the evil ones; if its exposition of the social conditions which determined both the outbreak and the outcome of the struggle is extremely defective, it was the fault of the time in which the book came into existence. On the contrary, for its time, it is written quite realistically and is a laudable exception among the German idealist works on history.
My presentation, while sketching the historical course of the struggle only in its bare outlines, attempted to explain the origin of the Peasant War, the position of the various parties that played a part in it, the political and religious theories by which those parties sought to clarify their position in their own minds, and finally the result of the struggle itself as following logically from the historically established social conditions of life of these classes; that is to say, it attempted to demonstrate the political structure of Germany at that time, the revolts against it, and the contemporary political and religious theories not as causes but as results of the stage of development of agriculture, industry, roads and water-ways, commerce in commodities and money then obtaining in Germany. This, the only materialist conception of history, originates not with myself but with Marx, and can also be found in his works on the French Revolution of 1848-49, in the same Revue, and in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.1lM)
The parallel between the German Revolution of 1525 and that of 1848-49 was too obvious to be altogether ignored at that time. Nevertheless, despite the uniformity in the course of events, where various local revolts were crushed one after another by one and the same princely army, despite the often ludicrous similarity in the behaviour of the city burghers in both cases, the difference was also clear and distinct.
"Who profited from the Revolution of 1525? The princes. Who profited from the Revolution of 1848? The big princes, Austria and Prussia. Behind the minor princes of 1525 stood the petty burghers, who chained the princes to themselves by taxes. Behind the big princes of 1850, behind Austria and Prussia, there stand the modern big bourgeois, rapidly getting them under their yoke by means of the national debt. And behind the big bourgeois stand the proletarians."[3]
I regret to have to say that in this paragraph much too much honour was done to the German bourgeoisie. Both in Austria and in Prussia it has indeed had the opportunity of "rapidly getting" the monarchy "under its yoke by means of the national debt", but nowhere did it ever make use of this opportunity.
As a result of the war of 1866 Austria fell into the lap of the bourgeoisie as a gift. But it does not know how to rule, it is powerless and incapable of anything. It can do only one thing: savagely attack the workers as soon as they begin to stir. It still remains at the helm solely because the Hungarians need it.
And in Prussia? True, the national debt has increased by leaps and bounds, the deficit has become a permanent feature, state expenditure grows from year to year, the bourgeoisie have a majority in the Chamber and without them taxes cannot be increased nor loans floated. But where is their power over the state? Only a few months ago, when there was again a deficit, the bourgeoisie occupied a most favourable position. By holding out only just a little, they could have forced far-reaching concessions. What do they do? They regard it as a sufficient concession that the government allows them to lay at its feet close on 9 millions, not just one year, oh no, but every year, and for all time to come.[131]
I do not want to blame the poor National-Liberals[132] in the Chamber more than they deserve. I know they have been left in the lurch by those who stand behind them, by the mass of the bourgeoisie. This mass does not want to rule. It still has 1848 in its bones.
Why the German bourgeoisie exhibits this astonishing cowardice will be discussed later.
In other respects the above statement has been fully confirmed. Beginning with 1850, the more and more definite recession into the background of the small states, which serve now only as levers for Prussian or Austrian intrigues; the increasingly violent struggle between Austria and Prussia for supremacy; finally, the forcible settlement of 1866,[133] under which Austria retains its own provinces, while Prussia subjugates, directly or indirectly, the whole of the North, and the three states of the Southwest[3] are left out in the cold for the time being.
In all this grand performance[134] only the following is of importance for the German working class:
First, that through universal suffrage the workers have got the power of being directly represented in the legislative assembly.
Secondly, that Prussia has set a good example by swallowing three other crowns held by the grace of God.[135] Even the National-Liberals do not believe that after this operation it still possesses the same immaculate crown, held by the grace of God, which it formerly ascribed to itself.
Thirdly, that there is now only one serious adversary of the revolution in Germany — the Prussian government.
And fourthly, that the German-Austrians will now at last have to make up their minds as to which they want to be, Germans or Austrians; whom they prefer to belong to — Germany or their extra-German trans-Leithan appendages.[136] It has been obvious for a long time that they have to give up one or the other, but this has been continually glossed over by the petty-bourgeois democrats.
As regards the other important issues relative to 1866, which since then have been thrashed out ad nauseam between the National-Liberals on the one hand, and the People's Party[137] on the other, the history of the next few years should prove that these two standpoints are so bitterly hostile to one another solely because they are the opposite poles of one and the same narrow-mindedness.
The year 1866 has changed almost nothing in the social relations of Germany. The few bourgeois reforms — uniform weights and measures, freedom of movement, freedom of occupation, etc., all within limits acceptable, to the bureaucracy— do not even come up to what the bourgeoisie of other West European countries have enjoyed for a long time, and leave the main abuse, the bureaucratic license system, untouched.[138] For the proletariat all laws concerning freedom of movement, the right of naturalisation, the abolition of passports, etc., are anyhow made quite illusory by the common police practices.
What is much more important than the grand performance of 1866 is the growth of German industry and commerce, of railways, telegraphs and ocean steam shipping since 1848. However much this progress lags behind that of England, or even of France, during the same period, it is unprecedented for Germany and has accomplished more in twenty years than was previously done in a whole century. Only now has Germany been drawn, seriously and irrevocably, into world commerce. The capital of the industrialists has multiplied rapidly; the social position of the bourgeoisie has risen accordingly. The surest sign of industrial prosperity—swindling—has become very widespread and chained counts and dukes to its triumphal chariot. German capital is now constructing Russian and Romanian railways — may it not come to grief!—whereas only fifteen years ago, German railways went begging to English entrepreneurs. How, then, is it possible that the bourgeoisie has not conquered political power as well, that it behaves so cowardly towards the government?
It is the misfortune of the German bourgeoisie to arrive too late, as is the favourite German manner. The period of its florescence is occurring at a time when the bourgeoisie of the other West European countries is already politically in decline. In England, the bourgeoisie could get its real representative, Bright, into the government only by an extension of the franchise, whose consequences are bound to put an end to all bourgeois rule. In France, where the bourgeoisie as such, as a class in its entirety, held power for only two years, 1849 and 1850, under the republic, it was able to continue its social existence only by abdicating its political power to Louis Bonaparte and the army. And in view of the enormously increased interaction of the three most advanced European countries, it is today no longer possible for the bourgeoisie to settle down to comfortable political rule in Germany after this rule has had its day in England and France.
It is a peculiarity of the bourgeoisie, in contrast to all former ruling classes, that there is a turning point in its development after which every further expansion of its agencies of power, hence primarily of its capital, only tends to make it more and more unfit for political rule. "Behind the big bourgeois stand the proletarians. "(1) In proportion as the bourgeoisie develops its industry, commerce and means of communication, in the same proportion it increases the numbers of the proletariat. At a certain point — which is not necessarily reached everywhere at the same time or at the same stage of development — it begins to notice that its proletarian double is outgrowing it. From that moment on, it loses the strength required for exclusive political rule; it looks around for allies with whom to share its rule, or to whom to cede it entirely, as circumstances may require.
In Germany this turning point for the bourgeoisie came as early as 1848. To be sure, at that time the German bourgeoisie was less frightened by the German proletariat than by the French. The June 1848 battle in Paris showed the bourgeoisie what it had to expect; the German proletariat was restless enough to prove to it that the seed for the same crop had already been sown on German soil, too; from that day on the edge was taken off all bourgeois political action. The bourgeoisie looked around for allies, sold itself to them regardless of the price — and even today it has not advanced one step.
These allies are all reactionary by nature. There is the monarchy with its army and its bureaucracy; there is the big feudal nobility; there are the small country squires, and there are even the priests. With all of these the bourgeoisie made pacts and bargains, if only to save its dear skin, until in the end it had nothing left to barter.
And the more the proletariat developed, the more it became aware of itself as a class and acted as a class, the more faint-hearted did the bourgeois become. When the astonishingly bad strategy of the Prussians triumphed over the astonishingly worse strategy of the Austrians at Sadowa, it was difficult to say who heaved a deeper sigh of relief — the Prussian bourgeois, who was also defeated at Sadowa, or the Austrian.
In 1870 our big bourgeois are acting exactly the same way as the middle burghers acted in 1525. As to the petty bourgeois, artisans and shopkeepers, they will always be the same. They hope to swindle their way up into the big bourgeoisie; they are afraid of being pushed down into the proletariat. Hovering between fear and hope, they will save their precious skins during the struggle and join the victor when the struggle is over. Such is their nature.
The social and political activity of the proletariat has kept pace with the rise of industry since 1848. The role that the German workers play today in their trade unions, cooperative societies, political associations and at meetings, elections and in the so-called Reichstag, is by itself sufficient proof of the transformation Germany has imperceptibly undergone in the last twenty years. It redounds to the credit of the German workers that they alone have succeeded in sending workers and workers' representatives into parliament, whereas neither the French nor the English have so far achieved this.
But even the proletariat has not yet outgrown the parallel of 1525. The class exclusively dependent on wages all its life is still far from being the majority of the German people. It is, therefore, also compelled to seek allies. These can be looked for only among the petty bourgeois, the lumpenproletariat of the cities, the small peasants and the agricultural labourers.
The petty bourgeois we have spoken of above. They are extremely unreliable except after a victory has been won, when their shouting in the beer houses knows no bounds. Nevertheless, there are very good elements among them, who join the workers of their own accord.
The lumpenproletariat, this scum of depraved elements from all classes, with headquarters in the big cities, is the worst of all the possible allies. This rabble is absolutely venal and absolutely brazen. If the French workers, in every revolution, inscribed on the houses: Mort aux voleurs! Death to thieves! and even shot some, they did so not out- of reverence for property, but because they rightly considered it necessary above all to keep that gang at bay. Every leader of the workers who uses these scoundrels as guards or relies on them for support proves himself by this action alone a traitor to the movement.
The small peasants—for the bigger peasants belong to the bourgeoisie — differ in kind. They are either feudal peasants and still have to perform corvée services for their gracious lord. Now that the bourgeoisie has failed in its duty of freeing these people from serfdom, it will .not be difficult to convince them that they can expect salvation only from the working class.
Or they are tenant farmers. In this case the situation is for the most part the same as in Ireland. Rents are pushed so high that in times of average crops the peasant and his family can barely make ends meet; when the crops are bad he is on the verge of starvation, is unable to pay his rent and is consequently entirely at the mercy of the landowner. The bourgeoisie never does anything for these people, unless it is compelled to. From whom then should they expect salvation if not from the workers?
There remain the peasants who cultivate their own small plots of land. In most cases they are so burdened with mortgages that they are as dependent on the usurer as the tenant on the landlord. For them also there remains only a meagre wage, which, moreover, since there are good years and bad years, is highly uncertain. These people can least of all expect anything from the bourgeoisie, because it is precisely the bourgeoisie, the capitalist usurers, who suck the lifeblood out of them. Still, most of these peasants cling to their property, though in reality it does not belong to them but to the usurer. It will have to be brought home to them all the same that they can be freed from the usurer only when a government dependent on the people has transformed all mortgages into debts to the state, and thereby lowered the interest rates. And this can be brought about only by the working class.
Wherever medium-sized and large estates prevail, farm labourers form the most numerous class in the countryside. This is the case throughout the North and East of Germany and it is there that the industrial workers of the towns find their most numerous and most natural allies. In the same way as the capitalist confronts the industrial worker, the landowner or large tenant confronts thé farm labourer. The same measures that help the one must also help the other. The industrial workers can free themselves only by transforming the capital of the bourgeois, that is, the raw materials, machines and tools, and the means of subsistence they need to work in production, into the property of society, that is, into their own property, used by them in common. Similarly, the farm labourers can be rescued from their hideous misery only when, primarily, their chief object of labour, the land itself, is withdrawn from the private ownership of the big peasants and the still bigger feudal lords, transformed into public property and cultivated by cooperative associations of agricultural workers on their common account. And here we come to the famous resolution of the International Working Men's Congress in Basle that it is in the interest of society to transform landed property into common, national property.[139] This resolution was adopted mainly for countries where there is large-scale landed property, and, consequently, big estates are operated, with one master and many labourers on them. This state of affairs is still largely predominant in Germany, and therefore, next to England, the resolution was most timely precisely for Germany. The agricultural proletariat, the farm labourers — that is the class from which the bulk of the armies of the princes is recruited. It is the class which, thanks to universal suffrage, now sends into parliament the large number of feudal lords and Junkers; but it is also the class nearest to the industrial workers of the towns, which shares their living conditions and is steeped even more in misery than they. This class is impotent because it is split and scattered, but its latent power is so well known to the government and nobility that they let the schools fall into decay deliberately in order to keep it ignorant. It is the immediate and most urgent task of the German labour movemerit to breathe life into this class and draw it into the movement. The day the mass of the farm labourers will have learned to understand their own interests, a reactionary — feudal, bureaucratic or bourgeois — government will become impossible in Germany.
Endnotes
[128] Engels prepared the second edition of his The Peasant War in Germany (see present edition, Vol. 10) in 1870 together with Wilhelm Liebknecht, originally as a reprint in 29 numbers of Der Volksstaat, Leipzig (April 2-October 15, Nos. 27-83, at irregular intervals). Numbers 27 and 28 of the newspaper carried Engels' preface to the 1870 edition. In October 1870 this work was published in book form—Der deutsche Bauernkrieg von Friedrich Engels. Zweiter, mit einer Einleitung versehener Abdruck, Leipzig, Verlag der Expedition des Volksstaat. A new, third, authorised edition came out in 1875. For this edition Engels wrote a special addendum to the 1870 Preface, dated July 1, 1874. In this volume the Preface is printed according to the 1870 Preface verified with the 1875 edition. In English the Preface was first published in F. Engels, The Peasant War in Germany, International Publishers, New York, 1926.
[129] The extreme Left was one of the two factions of the Left wing of the Frankfurt National Assembly during the revolution of 1848-49 in Germany. The extreme Left, known as the radical-democratic party, mainly represented the petty bourgeoisie, but was nevertheless supported by a section of the German workers. The extreme Left vacillated and took a half-way position on the basic problems of the German revolution — abolition of the remnants of feudalism and unification of the country. Engels described the position of the petty bourgeoisie in the revolution of 1848-49 in his works, The Campaign for the German Imperial Constitution and The Peasant War in Germany (see present edition. Vol. 10).
[131] On May 15, 1860, the Prussian Ghamber of Deputies voted, at the Government's demand, for the allocation of 9,000,000 talers to the War Ministry till June 30, 1861 "for the temporary maintenance of the arm) in fighting trim and for the increase of its military might". The results of the voting (315 for, 2 against and 5 abstaining) showed that the Prussian bourgeoisie had in fact given in to the government over the reorganisation of the army.
[132] The National-Liberals—members of the party formed by the German, principally Prussian, bourgeoisie in the autumn of 1866 after a split in the Party of Progress. Their policy showed that a considerable part of the liberal bourgeoisie had abandoned its claims to extend its political prerogatives and had capitulated to Bismarck's Junker government as a result of Prussia's victory in the Austro-Prussian war and the establishment of her supremacy in Germany.
[133] Engels refers to the Austro-Prussian war of 1866 which wound up the long rivalry between Austria and Prussia and predetermined the unification of Germany under the supremacy of Prussia. Several German states — including Hanover, Saxony, Bavaria, Württemberg and Baden — fought on Austria's side. Prussia formed an alliance with Italy. After a serious defeat at Sadowa on July 3 Austria began peace negotiations and signed a treaty in Prague on August 23. Austria conceded Schleswig and Flolstein to Prussia, paid small indemnities to her and gave the province of Venetia to Italy. The German Confederation, which was founded in 1815 by decision of the Vienna Congress and embraced over 30 German states, ceased to exist, and North German Confederation was founded in its place under Prussia's supremacy (see Note 135 102). Austria, Bavaria, Baden, Württemberg, Hesse-Darmstadt remained outside the Confederation. As a result of the war, Prussia annexed the Kingdom of Hanover, the Electorate of Hesse-Cassel, the Grand Duchy of Nassau and the free city of Frankfurt am Main. (On the events of the Austro-Prussian war see Engels' "Notes on the War in Germany", present edition, Vol. 20).
[134] In the German original the term Haupt- und Staatsaktionen (principal and spectacular actions) is used; this has several meanings. In the seventeenth and the first half of the eighteenth century, it denoted plays performed by German touring companies. The plays, which were rather formless, presented tragic historical events in a bombastic and at the same time coarse and farcical manner. Secondly, this term can denote major political events. It was used in this sense by a trend in German historical science known as "objective historiography". Leopold Ranke was one of its chief representatives. He regarded Haupt- und Staatsaktionen as the main subject-matter to be set forth. Objective historiography, which was primarily interested in the political and diplomatic history of nations, proclaimed the pre-eminence of foreign politics over domestic politics and disregarded the social relations of men and their active role in history.
[135] Engels refers to the Kingdom of Hanover, the Electorate of Hesse-Cassel and the Grand Duchy of Nassau annexed by Prussia following the Austro-Prussian war of 1866.
[136] Engels refers to what is known as Trans-Leithania (see Note 110).
[137] The German People's Party (Deutsche Volkspartei) was set up in 1865 and consisted of democratic elements of the petty bourgeoisie and partly of representatives of the bourgeoisie, chiefly from South-German states. As distinct from the National-Liberals (see Note 132), the People's Party was against Prussia's supremacy in Germany and advocated the plan of the so-called Great Germany uniting both Prussia and Austria. While pursuing an anti-Prussian policy and advancing general democratic slogans, the People's Party at the same time voiced the particularist aspirations of some German states. It was against Germany's unification as a single centralised democratic republic, advocating the idea of a federative German state. In 1866 the Saxon People's Party, whose nucleus consisted of workers, joined the German People's Party. This Left wing of the German People's Party had, in effect, nothing in common with it except anti-Prussian sentiments and the desire jointly to solve the problems of Germany's national unification in a democratic way; it subsequently developed along socialist lines. The main section of the Party split away from the petty-bourgeois democrats and took part in founding the Social-Democratic Workers' Party in August 1869.
[138] In the 1860s a number of finance reforms in the interests of the bourgeoisie were carried out in the North German Confederation. In 1867 passports were abolished and freedom of movement and domicile established; in 1868 the system of uniform measures and weights was introduced and the trading code of the Customs Union extended to cover the entire territory of the Confederation. All these reforms undoubtedly facilitated the development of industry and the formation of the German nation. However, medieval guild regulations in Prussia during the mid-1860s was a great hindrance to the development of capitalism in Germany. In conformity with the bureaucratic system of regulating industry, there were branches in which no one could engage in business without a special license (concession). Only the Regulations of June 21, 1869 abolished the last remnants of guild privileges, and the law of June 11, 1870 provided for the establishment of joint-stock companies without preliminary permission.
[139] "Jhe Basle Congress of the International adopted, on September 10, 1869, the following resolution on landed property proposed by Marx's followers: " 1. That Society has the right to abolish private property in land, and convert it into common property. "2. That it is necessary to abolish private property in land, and convert it into common property."
[3] Marx wrote this item on the basis of a letter from Johann Baptist Schweitzer dated April 29, 1868. The item was included in the report of the General Council meeting of May 12, 1868 published in The Bee-Hive Newspaper, No. 344, May 16, 1868, but is not to be found in the Minute Book. Informing Engels of Schweitzer's letter, Marx wrote to him on May 4, 1868 that he intended "to use this question in the interests of the Party", and insisted on an inquiry into the condition of the workers employed in the iron trade of the Rhine Province (see this letter and Marx's letter to Engels of May 7 and the latter's reply of May 6-7, 1868, present edition, Vol. 43).