No. 60 of “Vorwärts” contained an article entitled “The King of
Prussia and Social Reform,” signed “A Prussian.”[8]
In the first place, the so-called Prussian refers to the contents of
the Royal Prussian Cabinet Order touching the Silesian weavers' revolt
and the opinion of the French journal La Reforme upon the
Prussian Cabinet Order. La Reforme considers that “the fears and
the religious feeling of the King” are the source of the Cabinet Order.
It even finds in this document a foreshadowing of the great reforms
which are in prospect for bourgeois society. “Prussian” instructs La
Reforme as follows:
“The King and German society have not reached the stage of
foreshadowing their reform, and even the Silesian and Bohemian revolts
have not created this state of mind. It is impossible to regard the
partial distress of the factory districts as a general question for an
unpolitical country like Germany, let alone as a blot upon the whole
civilized world. For the Germans the incident has the same significance
as any local drought or famine. Consequently the King regards it in the
light of a defect of administration or a lack of charity. For the same
reason, and because a few soldiers settled accounts with the weak
weavers, the destruction of factories and machines caused no fears to
the King and the authorities. Even religious feeling did not dictate
the Cabinet Order, which is a very sober expression of Christian
statecraft, and a doctrine which puts no obstacle in the way of the
acceptance of its medicine: the good feeling of Christian hearts.
Poverty and crime are two great evils; who can remedy them? The State
and the authorities? No, but the union of all Christian hearts.”
The so-called Prussian denies the existence of the King's “fears” on
the ground, amongst others, that a few soldiers settled accounts with
the weak weavers.
In a country then where festivals accompanied by liberal toasts and
liberal champagne froth—the Dusseldorf festival will be recalled in
this connection—provoke a Royal Cabinet Order, not a single soldier
being required, for the purpose of crushing the longing of the whole
liberal bourgeoisie for the freedom of the Press and a constitution; in
a country where passive obedience is the order of the day; in such a
country would the compulsory use of armed force against weak weavers be
no event and no startling event? And the weak weavers triumphed at the
first encounter. They were suppressed by a subsequently reinforced body
of troops. Is the revolt of a crowd of workers less dangerous because
it needs no army to suppress it? If the wise Prussian compares the
Silesian weavers' revolt with the English labour revolts, the Silesian
weavers will appear to him to be strong weavers.
From the general relation of politics to social crime we will
explain why the weavers' revolt could cause no special “fears” to the
King. For the moment only this need be said: the revolt was directed
not immediately against the King of Prussia, but against the
bourgeoisie. As an aristocrat and an absolute monarch, the King of
Prussia can have no love for the bourgeoisie; he can have even less
cause for apprehension when their submission and their impotence are
heightened by a strained and difficult relation to the proletariat.
Further: the orthodox catholic regards the orthodox protestant with
more hostility than the atheist, just as the legitimist regards the
liberal with greater hostility than the communist. Not because atheists
and communists are related to the catholic and legitimist, but because
they are more alien to him than the protestant and the liberal, because
they are outside his circle. As a politician, the King of Prussia finds
his immediate antagonism in politics, in liberalism.
For the King, the antagonism of the proletariat exists just as
little as the King exists for the proletariat. The proletariat must
attain to decisive power before it can extinguish antipathies and
political antagonisms, and draw upon itself the whole enmity of
politics. Lastly: it must even afford a delightful surprise to the
well-known character of the King, thirsting for what is interesting and
important, to find that “interesting” and “much celebrated” pauperism
on his own soil, in conjunction with an opportunity of making people
talk about him afresh. How smug he must have felt at the news that
henceforth he possessed his “own” Royal Prussian pauperism.
Our “Prussian” is even more unlucky when he denies “religious
feeling” to be the source of the Royal Cabinet Order.
Why is not religious feeling the source of this Cabinet Order?
Because it is a “very sober” expression of Christian statecraft, a
“sober” expression of the doctrine which places no difficulties in the
way of the acceptance of its own medicine: the good feeling of
Christian hearts.
Is not religious feeling the source of Christian statecraft?
Is not a doctrine which possesses its panacea in the good feeling of
Christian hearts based on religious feelings? Does a sober expression
of religious feeling cease to be an expression of religious feeling? In
fact, it must be a religious feeling greatly infatuated with itself and
very intoxicated which would seek in the “unity of Christian hearts the
remedy for great evils” which it denies can be supplied by the State
and the authorities. It must be a very intoxicated religious feeling
which, according to “Prussian's” admission, finds the entire evil to
consist in the lack of Christian sentiment, and consequently refers the
authorities to the sole means of strengthening this sentiment, to
“exhortation.” According to “Prussian,” Christian feeling is the object
at which the Cabinet Order aims. When it is intoxicated, when it is not
sober, religious feeling regards itself as the sole good. Where it
perceives evil, it ascribes the latter to its own absence, for if it be
the only good, it alone can create good.
How then does the so-called Prussian prove that the Cabinet Order is
not the outcome of religious feeling? By describing the Cabinet Order
everywhere as an outcome of religious feeling. Is an insight into
social movements to be expected from such an illogical mind? Listen to
his prattle about the relation of German society to the Labour movement
and to social reform generally.
Let us distinguish, and this “Prussian” neglects to do, between the
various categories that are comprised within the expression “German
society”: government, bourgeoisie, Press, lastly the workers
themselves. These are the various divisions with which we are here
concerned. “Prussian” lumps them all together, and appraises them in
the lump from a superior standpoint. German society, according to him,
has not yet reached the stage of foreshadowing reform.
Why does it lack this instinct?
“In an unpolitical country like Germany,” answers “Prussian,” “it is
impossible to regard the partial distresses of the factory districts as
a general question, let alone as a blot on the whole civilized world.
The incident has for the Germans the same significance as any local
drought or famine. Consequently, the King regards it in the light of a
defect in administration or a lack of charity.”
“Prussian” therefore explains this inverted conception of labour
distress from the peculiarity of an unpolitical country.
It will be conceded that England is a political country. It will be
further conceded that England is the country of pauperism, even the
word is of English origin.
The study of English conditions is thus the surest means of becoming
acquainted with the connection of a political country with pauperism.
In England labour distress is not partial but universal, not confined
to the factory districts, but co-extensive with the country districts.
The movements are not here in their initial stages; they have recurred
periodically for almost a century.
Now how does the English bourgeoisie and the government and Press
which are connected with it regard pauperism?
So far as the English bourgeoisie places the responsibility for
pauperism on politics, the Whig regards the Tory and the Tory the Whig
as the cause of pauperism. According to the Whig, the monopoly of large
landed property and the prohibitive legislation against the import of
corn constitute the chief source of pauperism. According to the Tory,
the whole evil is due to Liberalism, to competition, to a factory
system that has been carried too far. Neither of the parties finds the
cause to reside in politics generally, but each rather in the policy of
its opponent; of a reform in society neither party dreams.
The most decisive expression of the English insight into
pauperism—we refer always to the insight of the English bourgeoisie
and government—is English political economy, that is the scientific
reflexion of English economic conditions.
MacCulloch, one of the best and most famous of English political
economists, who knows existing conditions and has doubtless a clear
insight into the movement of bourgeois society, a pupil of the cynical
Ricardo,[9] ventured at a public lecture, amidst applause, to apply to
political economy what Bacon said of philosophy: “The man who with true
and untiring wisdom suspends his judgment, who progresses gradually,
surmounting one after the other the obstacles which impede like
mountains the course of study, will in time reach the summit of
knowledge, where rest and pure air may be enjoyed, where Nature offers
herself to the eye in all her beauty, and whence one may descend by a
convenient path to the last details of practice.” Good pure air, the
pestilential atmosphere of the English cellar dwellings.
Great natural beauties, the picturesque rags of the English poor,
and the shrivelled flesh of the women, ravaged by work and poverty;
children lying in dirt; and the stunted creatures produced by overwork
in the one-sided processes of the factories! And the most charming last
details of practice: prostitution, murder and the gallows!
Middle class Englishmen who are most alive to the danger of
pauperism have an inadequate idea of its causes.
For instance Dr Kay, in his pamphlet Recent Measures for the
Promotion of Education in England, reduces everything to neglected
education. Upon what grounds, think you? Owing to the lack of
education, the worker fails to perceive the “natural laws of trade,”
laws which necessarily bring him to pauperism. Consequently he is up in
arms against them. This is calculated to “disturb the prosperity of
English manufactures and of English trade, destroy the mutual
confidence of business people, weaken the stability of political and
social institutions.”
So great is the thoughtlessness of the English bourgeoisie and its
Press with regard to pauperism, England's national epidemic.
Let us grant then that the reproaches which our “Prussian” levels at
German society are well founded. Is the explanation to be sought in the
unpolitical condition of Germany?
But if the bourgeoisie of unpolitical Germany cannot grasp the
general significance of a partial distress, the bourgeoisie of
political England, on the other hand, has managed to miss the general
significance of a universal distress, which has been forced upon its
attention partly by periodical recurrence in time, partly by extension
in space, and partly by the failure of all efforts to remedy it.
“Prussian” further lays it to the account of the unpolitical
condition of Germany that the King of Prussia finds the cause of
pauperism in administrative defects or lack of benevolence, and
consequently seeks the remedy for pauperism in administrative and
ameliorative measures.
Is this point of view peculiar to the King of Prussia? Let us take a
rapid glance at England, the only country where important political
measures have been taken against pauperism.
The present English Poor Law dates from the Forty-third Act of the
Government of Elizabeth. In what consisted the expedients of this
legislation? In the obligation laid on parishes to support their poor
workers, in the poor rate, in legal benevolence. For two hundred years
this legislation—benevolence by Act of Parliament—has lasted. What is
the attitude of Parliament in its Amendment Bill of 1834; after long
and painful experience?
First of all, the formidable increase in pauperism is explained from
a “defect in administration.”
The administration of the poor rate, which consisted of officials of
the respective parishes, is therefore reformed. Unions of about twenty
parishes are formed, united in a single administration. A Board of
Guardians, elected by taxpayers, assembles on an appointed day in the
residence of the Union and decides upon the granting of relief. These
boards are coordinated and supervised by officials of the Government,
the Central Commission of Somerset House, the Ministry of Pauperism,
Frenchman has aptly described it. The capital which this administration
supervises is almost equal to the amount which the French War Office
costs. The number of local administrations which it employs amounts to
500, and each of these local administrations keeps at least twelve
officials busy.
The English Parliament did not stop short at the mere reform of the
administration.
The chief source of the acute state of English pauperism it found in
the poor law itself. Benevolence, which is the legal remedy for social
crime, favours social crime. As regards pauperism in general, it is an
eternal natural law, according to the theory of Malthus: “As the
population unceasingly tends to overstep the means of subsistence,
benevolence is folly, a public encouragement to poverty. The State can
therefore do nothing more than leave poverty to its fate and at the
most soften death for the poor.” With this amiable theory the English
Parliament combines the opinion that pauperism is poverty for which the
worker is himself responsible. It should therefore not be regarded as a
misfortune, but rather be suppressed and punished as a crime.
Thus the workhouse system arose, that is, the houses of the poor,
whose internal arrangements deter the poverty-stricken from seeking a
refuge from starvation. In the workhouse benevolence is ingeniously
combined with the revenge of the bourgeoisie upon the poor who appeal
to its charity.
England, therefore, at first attempted to destroy pauperism by
benevolence and administrative measures. Then it perceived in the
progressive increase of pauperism, not the necessary consequence of
modern industry, but rather the consequence of the English poor rate.
It regarded the universal distress as nothing more than a peculiarity
of English legislation. What was formerly ascribed to the lack of
charity was now attributed to a superfluity of charity. Finally,
poverty was regarded as the fault of the poor, and punished as such.
The general significance to which pauperism has attained in
political England is limited to the fact that, in course of
development, in spite of the administrative measures, pauperism has
grown into a national institution, and has therefore inevitably become
the subject of a ramified and extensive administration, an
administration, however, which no longer aims at extinguishing it, but
at disciplining and perpetuating it. This administration has abandoned
all thought of stopping up the source of pauperism by constructive
measures; it is content to dig a grave for it with official gentleness
whenever it breaks out on the surface of the official country. Instead
of going beyond the administrative and charitable measures, the English
State has actually gone back upon them. Its administration is confined
to that pauperism which is so despairing as to allow itself to be
caught and detained.
So far, therefore, “Prussian” has not demonstrated anything peculiar
in the procedure of the King of Prussia. But why, exclaims the great
man with rare simplicity: “Why does not the King of Prussia immediately
order the education of all destitute children?” Why does he first look
to the authorities and wait upon their plans and proposals?
The over-wise “Prussian” may calm himself on learning that in this
respect the King of Prussia displays as little originality as in his
other actions, that he has even adopted the only course that a Chief of
State can adopt.
Napoleon desired to destroy mendicancy at one blow. He instructed
his authorities to draw up proposals for the extirpation of mendicancy
in the whole of France. The project kept him waiting; and Napoleon lost
patience. Writing to his Home Secretary, Cretet, he ordered him to
destroy mendicancy within one month, and said: “One should not tarry in
this world without leaving behind that which would commend our memory
to posterity. Do not keep me waiting another three or four months for
information; you have your lawyers, your prefects, your properly
trained engineers of roads and bridges, set all these to work, do not
go to sleep in the usual official manner.” Within a few months
everything was done. On the 5th July 1808 a law was passed which put
down mendicancy. How? By means of the depôts, which were rapidly
transformed into penal institutions, and it was not long before the
poor would only reach the harbour of these institutions by way of legal
punishment. And yet M. Noailles du Gard, member of the Legislative
Assembly, exclaimed at the time: “Everlasting gratitude to the hero who
assures a place of refuge for the needy and sustenance to the poor:
childhood will no longer be neglected, poor families will no longer be
deprived of their resources, nor the workers of encouragement and
employment. Our steps will no longer be dogged by the disgusting
spectacle of infirmities and of shameful poverty.” The last cynical
passage is the single truth in this eulogy.
If Napoleon asks for the views of his lawyers, prefects, and
engineers, why should not the King of Prussia address himself to his
authorities?
Why did not Napoleon order the immediate extinction of mendicancy?
Of equal value is “Prussian's” question: “Why does not the King of
Prussia order the immediate education of neglected children?” Does
“Prussian” know what the King should have ordered? Nothing less than
the immediate extinction of the proletariat. Children cannot be
educated unless they are fed and freed from industrial labour. The
feeding and educating of neglected children is tantamount to feeding
and educating the whole adolescent proletariat, and would mean the
extinction of the proletariat and of pauperism.
The Convention once had the courage to order the abolition of
pauperism, yet not “immediately,” as “Prussian” requires of his king,
but only after it had entrusted the Committee of Public Safety with the
preparation of the necessary plans and proposals, and after the latter
had utilized the exhaustive investigations of the Constituent Assembly
into the state of French poverty and proposed through Barrère the
establishment of the Livre de la bienfaisance nationale, etc.
What was the result of the instructions of the Convention? That there
was one more order in the world and a year later starving women
besieged the Convention.
The Convention, however, represented the maximum of political
energy, of political power, and of political insight.
No government in the world has ever issued peremptory orders
concerning pauperism, without an understanding with the authorities.
The English parliament even sent commissioners into all the countries
of Europe, in order to become acquainted with the various
administrative remedies for pauperism. But so far as States have been
concerned with pauperism, they have either confined themselves to
administrative and charitable measures, or have gone back upon such
measures.
Can the State behave otherwise?
The State will never find the cause of social crime in the “State
and the institution of society,” as “Prussian” requires of his king.
Where there are political parties, each finds the cause of every evil
in the fact that its opponent, instead of itself, is at the helm of the
State. Even the radical and revolutionary politicians seek the cause of
the evil not in the essence of the State, but in a specific form of the
State, which they aim at replacing by another State form.
From the political standpoint, the State and the institution of
society are not two separate things. The State is the institution of
society. So far as the State recognizes social evils, it attributes
them either to natural laws, which are amenable to no human power, or
to the defects of private life, which is independent of the State, or
in the futility of the administration which is dependent on it. Thus
England finds poverty to be grounded in the natural law according to
which the population is always bound to overstep the means of
subsistence. According to another side, it explains pauperism from the
wicked dispositions of the poor, just as the King of Prussia explained
it from the unchristian sentiment of the rich, and just as the
Convention explained it from the counter-revolutionary and suspicious
dispositions of the property owners. England therefore punishes the
poor, the King of Prussia exhorts the rich, and the Convention
decapitates the property owners.
Finally, all States seek the cause of social evil in accidental or
deliberate defects of administration, and therefore look to
administrative measures for the remedy. Why? Just because the
administration is the organized activity of the State.
The State cannot abolish the contradiction between the intentions
and the good will of the administration, on the one hand, and its
expedients and its resources, on the other hand, without abolishing
itself, for it is based upon this contradiction. It is based upon the
contradiction between public and private life, upon the contradiction
between the general interest and individual interests. The
administration is therefore obliged to confine itself to a formal and
negative activity, for its power ceases where middle-class life and its
work begin. Yes, as against the consequences which spring from the
unsocial nature of this middle-class life, this private property, this
trade, this industry, this mutual plundering of various middle-class
circles, as against these consequences impotence is the natural law of
the administration.
For this dismemberment, this slavery of middle-class society, is the
natural foundation upon which the modern State rests, just as the civil
society of slavery was the natural foundation upon which the antique
State rested. The existence of the State is inseparable from the
existence of slavery. The antique State and antique slavery—manifest
classical antagonisms—were not more intimately connected than is the
modern State with the modern huckstering world—sanctimonious Christian
antagonisms. If the modern State wishes to abolish the impotence of its
administration, it would have to abolish the present-day mode of
living. If it wishes to abolish this mode of living, it would have to
abolish itself, for it exists only in opposition to the same. No living
person, however, would believe that defects in his existence are due to
the vital principle of his life, but would rather attribute them to
circumstances outside his life. Suicide is unnatural.
The State cannot therefore believe in the innate impotence of its
administration. It can only take notice of formal and accidental
defects therein and attempt to remedy them. If these modifications are
fruitless, social crime must be a natural imperfection independent of
mankind, a law of God, or else the dispositions of private individuals
are too vitiated to second the good intentions of the administration.
And what perverted private individuals! They murmur against the
government whenever the latter restricts freedom, and they demand that
the government should provide against the necessary consequences of
this freedom.
The more powerful the State, and the more political, therefore, a
country is, all the less is it inclined to seek in the principle of the
State, and consequently in the existing institution of society, whose
self-conscious and official expression the State is, for the cause of
social crime, and to grasp its general principle.
Political understanding is political understanding precisely because
it thinks within the limitations of politics. The more acute, the more
alert it is, the more incapable it is of perceiving social crime. The
classic period of political understanding is the French Revolution. Far
from perceiving the source of social defects in the principle of the
State, the heroes of the French Revolution rather perceived in social
defects the source of political abuses. Thus Robespierre saw in great
poverty and great riches only an obstacle to pure democracy.
Consequently, he desired to establish a general Spartan frugality.
The principle of politics is will-power. The more one-sided, which
means the more complete, political understanding is, all the more does
it believe in the omnipotence of will-power, all the more blind is it
to the natural and intellectual limitations to will-power, all the more
incapable is it, therefore, of discovering the source of social crime.
No further proof is needed to refute the absurd hope entertained by
“Prussian", according to which “political understanding” is called upon
“to discover the roots of social distress in Germany.”
It was ridiculous to impute to the King of Prussia a power which the
Convention and Napoleon together did not possess; it was ridiculous to
credit him with an insight that went beyond the limits of all politics,
an insight which the wise “Prussian” possesses no more than his king.
Let us suppose that “Prussian's” observations upon the German
Government and the German bourgeoisie—the latter is of course included
in “German society”—are perfectly justified. Is this section of
society more perplexed in Germany than in England and France? Is it
possible to be more perplexed than, for example, in England, where
perplexity has been elevated into a system?
If Labour revolts are now breaking out all over England, the
bourgeoisie and the Government there are no better advised than in the
last third of the eighteenth century. Their sole expedient is material
force, and as material force diminishes in the same degree as the
spread of pauperism and the insight of the proletariat increase,
English perplexity necessarily grows in geometrical proportion.
Lastly, it is in point of fact untrue that the German bourgeoisie
has entirely missed the general significance of the Silesian revolt.
In several towns the masters are endeavouring to combine with the
journeymen. All the liberal German newspapers, the organs of the
liberal bourgeoisie, are gushing about the organization of labour, the
reform of society, the criticism of monopoly and of competition, etc.
All this as a result of the labour movements. The newspapers of Treves,
Aachen, Cologne, Wesel, Mannheim, Breslau, even of Berlin, are
constantly publishing quite intelligent articles on social affairs,
from which “Prussian” may learn at any time. Yes, letters from Germany
are constantly expressing astonishment at the slight opposition which
the bourgeoisie offers to social tendencies.
If “Prussian” had been better acquainted with the history of the
social movement, he would have put his question the other way round.
Why does the German bourgeoisie itself interpret the partial distress
as relatively universal? Whence the animosity and cynicism of the
political bourgeoisie? Whence the supineness and the sympathies of the
unpolitical bourgeoisie with respect to the proletariat?
Now to “Prussian's” oracular pronouncements concerning the German
workers. “The German poor,” he puns, “are not wiser than the poor
Germans, that is, they can nowhere see beyond their hearth, their
factory, their district: the whole question has so far been neglected
by the all-comprehending political soul.”
In order to be able to compare the condition of the German workers
with the condition of the French and English workers, “Prussian” must
compare the first manifestation, the beginning of the English and
French Labour movement, with the German movement which has just begun.
He neglects to do this. His reasoning therefore runs upon a triviality,
such as that industry in Germany is not yet so developed as in England,
or that a movement in its beginnings looks different from a movement
that has made progress.
If, however, “Prussian” would place himself at the correct
standpoint, he would find that not any of the French and English Labour
revolts possessed such a theoretical and conscious character as the
Silesian weavers' revolt.
In the first place, let us recall the song of the weavers, those
bold accents of the struggle, wherein hearth, factory, and district are
not once mentioned, but the proletariat immediately gets into the
stride of its opposition to the society of private property in the most
vigorous, ruthless, and powerful fashion. The Silesian revolt begins
just where the French and English Labour revolts end, with the
consciousness of the being of the proletariat. The action itself bears
this superior character. Not only the machines, these rivals of the
worker, were destroyed, but also the ledgers, the title of property,
and while all other movements have been directed in the first place
against the visible enemy, the lords of industry, this movement was
simultaneously directed against the bankers, the concealed foe.
Lastly, no single English Labour revolt has been conducted with
equal bravery, circumspection, and persistence.
As regards the state of education or the capacity for education of
the German workers generally, I may recall Weitling's excellent
writings, which frequently represent an advance upon Proudhon in a
theoretical respect, although they may be inferior to him in finish.
Where can the bourgeoisie—their philosophers and scholars
included—show a work similar to Weitling's “Guarantees of Harmony and
Freedom” pertaining to the emancipation of the bourgeoisie—the
political emancipation? If we compare the mediocrity of German
political literature with this expansive and brilliant literary début
of the German worker; if we compare this giant child's shoe of the
proletariat with the dwarf proportions of the worn-out political shoe
of the German bourgeoisie, we must predict an athletic figure for the
German Cinderella. It must be admitted that the German proletariat is
the theorist of the European proletariat, just as the English
proletariat is its political economist, and the French proletariat its
politician. Germany possesses a classical vocation for the social
revolution although she is incapable of the political revolution. For
if the impotence of the German bourgeoisie is the same thing as the
political impotence of Germany, the talent of the German
proletariat—even apart from German theory—is the social talent of
Germany. The disproportion between the philosophical and the political
development in Germany is no abnormality. It is a necessary
disproportion. Only by means of socialism can a philosophical people
put its philosophy into practice, and only in the proletariat,
therefore, can it find the active element for its emancipation.
At this moment, however, I have neither the time nor the inclination
to explain to “Prussian” the relation of “German society” to the social
transformation, and from this relation to explain, on the one side, the
weak reaction of the German bourgeoisie to socialism, and, on the other
hand, the exceptional talent of the German proletariat for socialism.
The first elements for the understanding of this phenomenon he will
find in my introduction to the criticism of Hegel's philosophy of right
(“Franco-German Annuals"). (See pp. 11 et seq. of this book.)
The wisdom of the German poor is therefore in inverse proportion to
the wisdom of the poor Germans. Thus “Prussian's” attempt to manipulate
his thought in the form of antithesis on the occasion of the Silesian
labour unrest had led to the greatest antithesis against the truth.
What a thoughtful mind should do in connection with a first outbreak,
such as the Silesian workers' revolt, is not to play the schoolmaster
to this event, but to study its peculiar character. For this a certain
amount of scientific insight and some goodwill is necessary, whereas
for the other operation a glib phraseology, saturated in shallow
egoism, fully suffices.
Why does “Prussian” judge the German workers so contemptuously?
Because he finds that the “whole question,”—namely the question of
labour distress—has not yet been taken up by the “all-comprehending
political soul.” He carries his Platonic love to the political soul so
far as to say:
“All revolts which break out from the isolation of men from the
community and the separation of their thoughts from the social
principles will be extinguished in blood and unreason; but if the
distress first creates the understanding, and if the political
understanding of the Germans discovers the roots of social distress,
then these incidents would also be felt in Germany as the symptom of a
great transformation.”
In the first half of the sentence we read: if distress creates
understanding, and in the second half: if political understanding
discovers the roots of social distress. Simple understanding in the
first half of the antithesis becomes political understanding in the
second half, just as the simple distress of the first half of the
antithesis becomes social distress in the second half. Why has the
artist in style so unequally endowed the two halves of the antithesis?
Had “Prussian” written: “If social distress creates political
understanding, and if political understanding discovers the roots of
social distress,” the absurdity of this antithesis could not have
escaped any impartial reader. Such a reader would have immediately
wondered why the anonymous writer did not couple social understanding
with social distress and political understanding with political
distress, as the simplest logic dictates? Now to business.
So false is it to say that social distress creates political
understanding that the truth is rather the reverse; social well-being
creates political understanding. Political understanding is an
intellectual quality and is given to him who already has, who lives in
clover. Our “Prussian” should hear what a French political economist,
M. Michel Chevalier, has to say upon this subject: “In the year 1789
when the bourgeoisie revolted, the sole thing they wanted was a share
in the government of the country. Emancipation consisted in snatching
the direction of public affairs, the high civic, military and religious
functions, from the hands of the privileged persons who possessed the
monopoly of these functions. Wealthy and enlightened, able to govern
themselves, they desired to escape from the régime du bon plaisir.”
How incapable political understanding is of discovering the source
of social distress we have already demonstrated to “Prussian.” Another
word about this opinion of his. The more cultivated and general the
political understanding of a people is, all the more does the
proletariat—at least at the beginning of the movement—dissipate its
energies in irrational, useless, and brutally suppressed revolts.
Because it thinks along political lines, it perceives the cause of all
evils in the wills of men, and all remedies to lie in force and the
overthrow of a particular form of the State. In proof whereof we cite
the first outbreak of the French proletariat. The workers in Lyons
believed they were only pursuing political aims and were only soldiers
of the Republic, whereas they were in truth soldiers of socialism. Thus
their political understanding hid from them the roots of social
distress; it distorted their insight into their real aims; their
political understanding deceived their social instinct.
“Prussian” prophesies the suppression of revolts which break out
owing to the “isolation of men from the community and the separation of
their thoughts from social principles.”
We have shown that the Silesian revolt was by no means characterized
by the separation of ideas from social principles. It remains to deal
with the “isolation of men from the community.” By community is to be
understood in this connection the political community, the State
institution. It is the old story of unpolitical Germany.
But do not all revolts without exception break out from the
isolation of men from the community? Does not every revolt necessarily
presuppose this isolation? Would the Revolution of 1789 have taken
place without the isolation of the French citizens from the community?
Its aim, in fact, was to end this isolation.
But the community from which the worker is isolated is a community
of quite a different nature from and of quite other dimensions than the
political community. This community, from which his own labour
separates him, is life itself, physical and intellectual life, human
morality, human activity, human enjoyment, the human community.
Human life is the real community of men. Just as the isolation from
this body is more complete, more painful, more to be feared, more
contradictory than is isolation from the political community, so too
the removal of this isolation, and even a partial reaction, a revolt
against the same, are tasks all the more infinite as man is more
infinite than the citizen, and human life than political life. However
partial the industrial revolt may be, it conceals within itself a
universal soul: political revolt may be never so universal but it hides
a narrow-minded spirit under the most colossal form.
“Prussian” worthily closes his article with the following phrase: “A
social revolution without a political soul (that is, without organized
insight from the standpoint of the whole) is impossible.”
We have seen that a social revolution maybe considered to be from
the standpoint of the whole because, even if it only occurs in a
factory district, it is a protest of men against degraded life, because
it proceeds from the standpoint of the real individual, because the
community against whose separation from himself the individual reacts,
is the real community of men, the civic community.
The political soul of a revolution, on the other hand, consists in
the endeavour of the classes without political influence to abolish
their isolation from the community and from government. Their
standpoint is that of the State, an abstract whole, which exists only
in and through its separation from real life, which is unthinkable
without the organized antagonism between the general idea and the
individual existence of man. Consequently a revolution of political
souls organizes a ruling clique in society, in accordance with the
limited and doubly-cleft nature of these souls, at the cost of society.
We should like to confide to “Prussian” what a “social revolution
with a political soul” is; we should like at the same time to suggest
to him that not once has he been able to raise himself above the
restricted political standpoint.
A “social” revolution with a political soul is either a composite
absurdity, if “Prussian” means by “social” revolution a social
revolution in contrast to a political, and yet invests the social
revolution with a political, instead of a social, soul. Or a “social
revolution with a political soul” is nothing but what is otherwise
called a “political revolution” or a “revolution pure and simple.”
Every revolution dissolves the old society; in so far it is social.
Every revolution overthrows the old power; in so far it is political.
“Prussian” may choose between the paraphrase and the absurdity.
Equally ridiculous is the notion of a political revolution with a
social soul. The revolution as such—the overthrow of the existing
power and the dissolution of the old conditions—is a political act.
But without a revolution, socialism cannot be enforced. It requires
this political act, so far as it has need of the process of destruction
and dissolution. But where its organizing activity begins, where its
proper aim, its soul, emerges, there socialism casts away the political
hull.
FOOTNOTES:
[8] Arnold Ruge was the author of this article.
[9] Marx in later years changed his views about MacCulloch and
Ricardo.