Imperial Constitution must be carried out, and _at once_; that on the
15th of July ensuing, the people were to elect the deputies of the new
House of Representatives, and that this House was to meet at Frankfort
on the 15th of August following. Now, this was an open declaration of
war against those Governments that had not recognized the Imperial
Constitution, the foremost among which were Prussia, Austria, Bavaria,
comprising more than three-fourths of the German population; a
declaration of war which was speedily accepted by them. Prussia and
Bavaria, too, recalled the deputies sent from their territories to
Frankfort, and hastened their military preparations against the
National Assembly, while, on the other hand, the demonstrations of
the Democratic party (out of Parliament) in favor of the Imperial
Constitution and of the National Assembly, acquired a more turbulent
and violent character, and the mass of the working people, led by the
men of the most extreme party, were ready to take up arms in a cause
which, if it was not their own, at least gave them a chance of
somewhat approaching their aims by clearing Germany of its old
monarchical encumbrances. Thus everywhere the people and the
Governments were at daggers drawn upon this subject; the outbreak was
inevitable; the mine was charged, and it only wanted a spark to make
it explode. The dissolution of the Chambers in Saxony, the calling in
of the Landwehr (military reserve) in Prussia, the open resistance of
the Government to the Imperial Constitution, were such sparks; they
fell, and all at once the country was in a blaze. In Dresden, on the
4th of May, the people victoriously took possession of the town, and
drove out the King, while all the surrounding districts sent
re-inforcements to the insurgents. In Rhenish Prussia and Westphalia
the Landwehr refused to march, took possession of the arsenals, and
armed itself in defence of the Imperial Constitution. In the
Palatinate the people seized the Bavarian Government officials, and
the public moneys, and instituted a Committee of Defence, which placed
the province under the protection of the National Assembly. In
Wuertemberg the people forced the King to acknowledge the Imperial
Constitution, and in Baden the army, united with the people, forced
the Grand Duke to flight, and erected a Provincial Government. In
other parts of Germany the people only awaited a decisive signal from
the National Assembly to rise in arms and place themselves at its
disposal.
The position of the National Assembly was far more favorable than
could have been expected after its ignoble career. The western half of
Germany had taken up arms in its behalf; the military everywhere were
vacillating; in the lesser States they were undoubtedly favorable to
the movement. Austria was prostrated by the victorious advance of the
Hungarians, and Russia, that reserve force of the German Governments,
was straining all its powers in order to support Austria against the
Magyar armies. There was only Prussia to subdue, and with the
revolutionary sympathies existing in that country, a chance certainly
existed of attaining that end. Everything then depended upon the
conduct of the Assembly.
Now, insurrection is an art quite as much as war or any other, and
subject to certain rules of proceeding, which, when neglected, will
produce the ruin of the party neglecting them. Those rules, logical
deductions from the nature of the parties and the circumstances one
has to deal with in such a case, are so plain and simple that the
short experience of 1848 had made the Germans pretty well acquainted
with them. Firstly, never play with insurrection unless you are fully
prepared to face the consequences of your play. Insurrection is a
calculus with very indefinite magnitudes, the value of which may
change every day; the forces opposed to you have all the advantage of
organization, discipline, and habitual authority: unless you bring
strong odds against them you are defeated and ruined. Secondly, the
insurrectionary career once entered upon, act with the greatest
determination, and on the offensive. The defensive is the death of
every armed rising; it is lost before it measures itself with its
enemies. Surprise your antagonists while their forces are scattering,
prepare new successes, however small, but daily; keep up the moral
ascendancy which the first successful rising has given to you; rally
those vacillating elements to your side which always follow the
strongest impulse, and which always look out for the safer side; force
your enemies to a retreat before they can collect their strength
against you; in the words of Danton, the greatest master of
revolutionary policy yet known, _de l'audace, de l'audace, encore de
l'audace!_
What, then, was the National Assembly of Frankfort to do if it would
escape the certain ruin which it was threatened with? First of all, to
see clearly through the situation, and to convince itself that there
was now no other choice than either to submit to the Governments
unconditionally, or take up the cause of the armed insurrection
without reserve or hesitation. Secondly, to publicly recognize all the
insurrections that had already broken out, and to call the people to
take up arms everywhere in defence of the national representation,
outlawing all princes, ministers and others who should dare to oppose
the sovereign people represented by its mandatories. Thirdly, to at
once depose the German Imperial Lieutenant, to create a strong,
active, unscrupulous Executive, to call insurgent troops to Frankfort
for its immediate protection, thus offering at the same time a legal
pretext for the spread of the insurrection, to organize into a compact
body all the forces at its disposal, and, in short, to profit quickly
and unhesitatingly by every available means for strengthening its
position and impairing that of its opponents.
Of all this the virtuous Democrats in the Frankfort Assembly did just
the contrary. Not content with letting things take the course they
liked, these worthies went so far as to suppress by their opposition
all insurrectionary movements which were preparing. Thus, for
instance, did Herr Karl Vogt at Nuremberg. They allowed the
insurrections of Saxony, of Rhenish Prussia, of Westphalia to be
suppressed without any other help than a posthumous, sentimental
protest against the unfeeling violence of the Prussian Government.
They kept up an underhand diplomatic intercourse with the South German
insurrections but never gave them the support of their open
acknowledgment. They knew that the Lieutenant of the Empire sided with
the Governments, and yet they called upon _him_, who never stirred, to
oppose the intrigues of these Governments. The ministers of the
Empire, old Conservatives, ridiculed this impotent Assembly in every
sitting, and they suffered it. And when William Wolff,[9] a Silesian
deputy, and one of the editors of the _New Rhenish Gazette_, called
upon them to outlaw the Lieutenant of the Empire--who was, he justly
said, nothing but the first and greatest traitor to the Empire, he was
hooted down by the unanimous and virtuous indignation of those
Democratic Revolutionists! In short, they went on talking, protesting,
proclaiming, pronouncing, but never had the courage or the sense to
act; while the hostile troops of the Governments drew nearer and
nearer, and their own Executive, the Lieutenant of the Empire, was
busily plotting with the German princes their speedy destruction. Thus
even the last vestige of consideration was lost to this contemptible
Assembly; the insurgents who had risen to defend it ceased to care any
more for it, and when at last it came to a shameful end, as we shall
see, it died without anybody taking any notice of its unhonored exit.
LONDON, August, 1852.
FOOTNOTES:
[9] The "Wolff" here alluded to is Wilhelm Wolff, the beloved friend
of Marx and Engels, who--to distinguish him from the many other
"Wolffs" in the movement at this period--was known to his intimates as
"Lupus." It is to this Silesian peasant that Marx dedicated the first
volume of "Capital."
"Dedicated
To My Never-To-Be-Forgotten Friend
The Brave, True, Noble Fighter In The Van-Guard
Of The Proletariat,
WILHELM WOLFF.
Born at Tornau, June 21st, 1809. Died in exile at Manchester, 9th May,
1864."
XVIII.
PETTY TRADERS.
OCTOBER 2, 1852.
In our last we showed that the struggle between the German Governments
on the one side, and the Frankfort Parliament on the other, had
ultimately acquired such a degree of violence that in the first days
of May, a great portion of Germany broke out in open insurrection;
first Dresden, then the Bavarian Palatinate, parts of Rhenish Prussia,
and at last Baden.
In all cases, the _real fighting_ body of the insurgents, that body
which first took up arms and gave battle to the troops consisted of
the _working classes of the towns_. A portion of the poorer country
population, laborers and petty farmers, generally joined them after
the outbreak of the conflict. The greater number of the young men of
all classes, below the capitalist class, were to be found, for a time
at least, in the ranks of the insurgent armies, but this rather
indiscriminate aggregate of young men very soon thinned as the aspect
of affairs took a somewhat serious turn. The students particularly,
those "representatives of intellect," as they liked to call
themselves, were the first to quit their standards, unless they were
retained by the bestowal of officer's rank, for which they, of course,
had very seldom any qualifications.
The working class entered upon this insurrection as they would have
done upon any other which promised either to remove some obstacles in
their progress towards political dominion and social revolution, or,
at least, to tie the more influential but less courageous classes of
society to a more decided and revolutionary course than they had
followed hitherto. The working class took up arms with a full
knowledge that this was, in the direct bearings of the case, no
quarrel of its own; but it followed up its only true policy, to allow
no class that has risen on its shoulders (as the bourgeoisie had done
in 1848) to fortify its class-government, without opening, at least, a
fair field to the working classes for the struggle for its own
interests, and, in any case, to bring matters to a crisis, by which
either the nation was fairly and irresistibly launched in the
revolutionary career, or else the _status quo_ before the Revolution
restored as nearly as possible, and, thereby, a new revolution
rendered unavoidable. In both cases the working classes represented
the real and well-understood interest of the nation at large, in
hastening as much as possible that revolutionary course which for the
old societies of civilized Europe has now become a historical
necessity, before any of them can again aspire to a more quiet and
regular development of their resources.
As to country people that joined the insurrection, they were
principally thrown into the arms of the Revolutionary party, partly by
the relatively enormous load of taxation, and partly of feudal burdens
pressing upon them.
Without any initiative of their own, they formed the tail of the other
classes engaged in the insurrection, wavering between the working men
on the one side, and the petty trading class on the other. Their own
private social position, in almost every case, decided which way they
turned; the agricultural laborer generally supported the city artisan;
the small farmer was apt to go hand in hand with the small shopkeeper.
This class of petty tradesmen, the great importance and influence of
which we have already several times adverted to, may be considered as
the leading class of the insurrection of May, 1849. There being, this
time, none of the large towns of Germany among the center of the
movement, the petty trading class, which in middling and lesser towns
always predominates, found the means of getting the direction of the
movement into its hands. We have, moreover, seen that, in this
struggle for the Imperial Constitution, and for the rights of the
German Parliament, there were the interests of this peculiar class at
stake. The Provisional Governments formed in all the insurgent
districts represented in the majority of each of them this section of
the people, and the length they went to may therefore be fairly taken
as the measure of what the German petty bourgeoisie is capable
of--capable, as we shall see, of nothing but ruining any movement
that entrusts itself to its hands.
The petty bourgeoisie, great in boasting, is very impotent for action,
and very shy in risking anything. The _mesquin_ character of its
commercial transactions and its credit operations is eminently apt to
stamp its character with a want of energy and enterprise; it is, then,
to be expected that similar qualities will mark its political career.
Accordingly the petty bourgeoisie encouraged insurrection by big
words, and great boasting as to what it was going to do; it was eager
to seize upon power as soon as the insurrection, much against its
will, had broken out; it used this power to no other purpose but to
destroy the effects of the insurrection. Wherever an armed conflict
had brought matters to a serious crisis, there the shopkeepers stood
aghast at the dangerous situation created for them; aghast at the
people who had taken their boasting appeals to arms in earnest; aghast
at the power thus thrust into their own hands; aghast, above all, at
the consequences for themselves, for their social positions, for their
fortunes, of the policy in which they were forced to engage
themselves. Were they not expected to risk "life and property," as
they used to say, for the cause of the insurrection? Were they not
forced to take official positions in the insurrection, whereby, in the
case of defeat, they risked the loss of their capital? And in case of
victory, were they not sure to be immediately turned out of office,
and to see their entire policy subverted by the victorious
proletarians who formed the main body of their fighting army? Thus
placed between opposing dangers which surrounded them on every side,
the petty bourgeoisie knew not to turn its power to any other account
than to let everything take its chance, whereby, of course, there was
lost what little chance of success there might have been, and thus to
ruin the insurrection altogether. Its policy, or rather want of
policy, everywhere was the same, and, therefore, the insurrections of
May, 1849, in all parts of Germany, are all cut out to the same
pattern.
In Dresden, the struggle was kept on for four days in the streets of
the town. The shopkeepers of Dresden, the "communal guard," not only
did not fight, but in many instances favored the proceedings of the
troops against the insurgents. These again consisted almost
exclusively of working men from the surrounding manufacturing
districts. They found an able and cool-headed commander in the Russian
refugee Michael Bakunin, who afterwards was taken prisoner, and now is
confined in the dungeons of Munkacs, Hungary. The intervention of
numerous Prussian troops crushed this insurrection.
In Rhenish Prussia the actual fighting was of little importance. All
the large towns being fortresses commanded by citadels, there could be
only skirmishing on the part of the insurgents. As soon as a
sufficient number of troops had been drawn together, there was an end
to armed opposition.
In the Palatinate and Baden, on the contrary, a rich, fruitful
province and an entire state fell into the hands of the insurrection.
Money, arms, soldiers, warlike stores, everything was ready for use.
The soldiers of the regular army themselves joined the insurgents;
nay, in Baden, they were amongst the foremost of them. The
insurrections in Saxony and Rhenish Prussia sacrificed themselves in
order to gain time for the organization of the South German movement.
Never was there such a favorable position for a provincial and partial
insurrection as this. A revolution was expected in Paris; the
Hungarians were at the gates of Vienna; in all the central States of
Germany, not only the people, but even the troops, were strongly in
favor of the insurrection, and only wanted an opportunity to join it
openly. And yet the movement, having once got into the hands of the
petty bourgeoisie, was ruined from its very beginning. The petty
bourgeois rulers, particularly of Baden--Herr Brentano at the head of
them--never forgot that by usurping the place and prerogatives of the
"lawful" sovereign, the Grand Duke, they were committing high treason.
They sat down in their ministerial armchairs with the consciousness of
criminality in their hearts. What can you expect of such cowards? They
not only abandoned the insurrection to its own uncentralized, and
therefore ineffective, spontaneity, they actually did everything in
their power to take the sting out of the movement, to unman, to
destroy it. And they succeeded, thanks to the zealous support of that
deep class of politicians, the "Democratic" heroes of the petty
bourgeoisie, who actually thought they were "saving the country,"
while they allowed themselves to be led by their noses by a few men of
a sharper cast, such as Brentano.
As to the fighting part of the business, never were military
operations carried on in a more slovenly, more stolid way than under
the Baden General-in-Chief Sigel, an ex-lieutenant of the regular
army. Everything was got into confusion, every good opportunity was
lost, every precious moment was loitered away with planning colossal,
but impracticable projects, until, when at last the talented Pole
Mieroslawski, took up the command, the army was disorganized, beaten,
dispirited, badly provided for, opposed to an enemy four times more
numerous, and withal, he could do nothing more than fight, at
Waghaeusel, a glorious though unsuccessful battle, carry out a clever
retreat, offer a last hopeless fight under the walls of Rastatt, and
resign. As in every insurrectionary war where armies are mixed of
well-drilled soldiers and raw levies, there was plenty of heroism, and
plenty of unsoldierlike, often unconceivable panic, in the
revolutionary army; but, imperfect as it could not but be, it had at
least the satisfaction that four times its number were not considered
sufficient to put it to the rout, and that a hundred thousand regular
troops, in a campaign against twenty thousand insurgents, treated
them, militarily, with as much respect as if they had to fight the Old
Guard of Napoleon.
In May the insurrection had broken out; by the middle of July, 1849,
it was entirely subdued and the first German Revolution was closed.
LONDON. (Undated.)
XIX.
THE CLOSE OF THE INSURRECTION.
OCTOBER 23, 1852.
While the south and west of Germany was in open insurrection, and
while it took the Governments from the first opening of hostilities at
Dresden to the capitulation of Rastatt, rather more than ten weeks, to
stifle this final blazing up of the first German Revolution, the
National Assembly disappeared from the political theater without any
notice being taken of its exit.
We left this august body at Frankfort, perplexed by the insolent
attacks of the Governments upon its dignity, by the impotency and
treacherous listlessness of the Central Power it had itself created,
by the risings of the petty trading class for its defence, and of the
working class for a more revolutionary ultimate end. Desolation and
despair reigned supreme among its members; events had at once assumed
such a definite and decisive shape that in a few days the illusions of
these learned legislators as to their real power and influence were
entirely broken down. The Conservatives, at the signal given by the
Governments, had already retired from a body which, henceforth, could
not exist any longer, except in defiance of the constituted
authorities. The Liberals gave the matter up in utter discomfiture;
they, too, threw up their commissions as representatives. Honorable
gentlemen decamped by hundreds. From eight or nine hundred members the
number had dwindled down so rapidly that now one hundred and fifty,
and a few days after one hundred, were declared a quorum. And even
these were difficult to muster, although the whole of the Democratic
party remained.
The course to be followed by the remnants of a parliament was plain
enough. They had only to take their stand openly and decidedly with
the insurrection, to give it, thereby, whatever strength legality
could confer upon it, while they themselves at once acquired an army
for their own defence. They had to summon the Central Power to stop
all hostilities at once; and if, as could be foreseen, this power
neither could nor would do so, to depose it at once and put another
more energetic Government in its place. If insurgent troops could not
be brought to Frankfort (which, in the beginning, when the State
Governments were little prepared and still hesitating, might have been
easily done), then the Assembly could have adjourned at once to the
very center of the insurgent district. All this done at once, and
resolutely, not later than the middle or end of May, might have opened
chances both for the insurrection and for the National Assembly.
But such a determined course was not to be expected from the
representatives of German shopocracy. These aspiring statesmen were
not at all freed from their illusions. Those members who had lost
their fatal belief in the strength and inviolability of the Parliament
had already taken to their heels; the Democrats who remained, were not
so easily induced to give up dreams of power and greatness which they
had cherished for a twelvemonth. True to the course they had hitherto
pursued, they shrank back from decisive action until every chance of
success, nay, every chance to succumb, with at least the honors of
war, had passed away. In order, then, to develop a fictitious,
busy-body sort of activity, the sheer impotency of which, coupled with
its high pretension, could not but excite pity and ridicule, they
continued insinuating resolutions, addresses, and requests to an
Imperial Lieutenant, who not even noticed them; to ministers who were
in open league with the enemy. And when at last William Wolff, member
for Striegan, one of the editors of the _New Rhenish Gazette_, the
only really revolutionary man in the whole Assembly, told them that if
they meant what they said, they had better give over talking, and
declare the Imperial Lieutenant, the chief traitor to the country, an
outlaw at once; then the entire compressed virtuous indignation of
these parliamentary gentlemen burst out with an energy which they
never found when the Government heaped insult after insult upon them.
Of course, for Wolff's proposition was the first sensible word spoken
within the walls of St. Paul's Church; of course, for it was the very
thing that was to be done, and such plain language going so direct to
the purpose, could not but insult a set of sentimentalists, who were
resolute in nothing but irresolution, and who, too cowardly to act,
had once for all made up their minds that in doing nothing, they were
doing exactly what was to be done. Every word which cleared up, like
lightning, the infatuated, but intentional nebulosity of their minds,
every hint that was adapted to lead them out of the labyrinth where
they obstinated themselves to take up as lasting an abode as possible,
every clear conception of matters as they actually stood, was, of
course, a crime against the majesty of this Sovereign Assembly.