Robert C. Tucker - The Marx-Engels Reader (Chapter 1.9.Critical Marginal Notes on the Article "The King of Prussia and Social Reform") lyrics

Critical Marginal Notes on the Article "The King of Prussia and Social Reform" KARL MARX Apart from showing Marx's pride in being the socialist spokesman of a revolutionarily "philosophical people," the Germans, and his sense of the theoretical preeminence of German socialist thought because of its philosophical depth, this early article is especially notable for its discussion of the relation between social and political revolution. The "Prussian" who wrote the article Marx attacks was Arnold Ruge. The event under discussion was the Silesian weavers' uprising of June 1844. The essay was written in July 1844 and published the following month in the newspaper Vorwarts. No. 60 of Vorwarts contains an article headed "Der Konig von Preussen und die Sozialreform," signed "A Prussian." First of all this alleged Prussian sets out the content of the royal Prussian Cabinet order on the uprising of the Silesian workers and the opinion of the French newspaper La Reforme on the Prussian Cabinet order. The Reforme, he writes, considers that the King's "alarm and religious feeling" are the source of the Cabinet order. It even sees in this document a presentiment of the great reforms which are in prospect for bourgeois society. The "Prussian" lectures the Réforme as follows : The King and German society has not yet arrived at the pre-sentiment of their reform," even the Silesian and Bohemian uprisings have not aroused this feeling. It is impossible to make such an unpolitical country as Gemany regard the partial distressof the factory districts as a matter of general concern, let alone as an affliction of the whole civilised world. The Germans regard this event as if it were of the same nature as any local distress due to flood or famine. Hence the King regards it as due to deficiencies in the administration or in charitable activity. For this reason, and because a few soldiers sufficed to cope with the feeble weavers, the destruction of factories and machinery, too, did not inspire any "alarm" either in the King or the authorities.Indeed, the Cabinet order was not prompted even by religious feeling: it is a very sober expression of the Christian art of statesmanship and of a doctrine which considers that no difficulties can withstand its sole medicine-"the well -disposed Christian hearts." Poverty and crime are two great evils; who can cure them? The state and the authorities? No, but the union of all Christian hearts can. The alleged Prussian denies the King's "alarm" on the grounds, among others, that a few soldiers sufficed to cope with the feeble weavers. Therefore, in a country where ceremonial dinners with liberal toasts and liberally foaming champagne-recall the Dusseldorf festival inspired a royal Cabinet order;1where not a single soldier was needed to shatter the desires of the entire liberal bourgeoisie for freedom of the press and a constitution; in a country where pa**ive obedience is the order of the day-<:an it be that in such a country the necessity to employ armed force against feeble weavers is not an event, and not an alarming event? Moreover, at the first encounter the feeble weavers were victorious. They were suppressed only by subsequent troop reinforcements. Is the uprising of a body of workers less dangerous because it did not require a whole army to suppress it? Let the wise Prussian compare the uprising of the Silesian weavers with the revolts of the English workers, and the Silesian weavers will be seen by him to be strong weavers. Starting out from the general relation of politics to social ills, we shall show why the uprising of the weavers could not cause the King any special "alarm." For the time being we shall say only the following: the uprising was not aimed directly against the King of Prussia, but against the bourgeoisie. As an aristocrat and absolute monarch, the King of Prussia cannot love the bourgeoisie; still less can he be alarmed if the submissiveness and impotence of the bourgeoisie is increased because of a tense and difficult relationship between it and the proletariat. Further: the orthodox Catholic is more hostile to the orthodox Protestant than to the atheist, just as the Legitimist is more hostile to the liberal than to the Communist. This is not because the atheist and the Communist are more akin to the Catholic or Legitimist, but because they are more foreign to him than are the Protestant and the liberal, being outside his circle. In the sphere of politics, the King of Prussia, as a politician, has his direct opposite in liberalism. For the King, the proletariat is as little an antithesis as the King is for the proletariat. The proletariat would have to have already attained considerable power for it to stifle the other antipathies and political antitheses and to divert to itself all political enmity. Finally: in view of the well-known character of the King, avid for anything interesting and significant, it must have been a joyful surprise for him to discover this "interesting" and "much discussed" pauperism in his own territory and consequently a new opportunity for making people talk about him. How pleasant for him must have been the news that henceforth he posseses his "own," royal Prussian pauperism! Let us suppose * * * that the "Prussian's" remarks about the German Government and the German bourgeoisie-after all, the latter is included in " German society"-are entirely well founded. Is this section of society more at a loss in Germany than in England and France? Can one be more at a loss than, for example, in England, where perplexity has been made into a system? When today workers' revolts break out throughout England, the bourgeoisie and government there know no better what to do than in the last third of the eighteenth century. Their sole expedient is material force, and since this material force diminishes in the same proportion as the spread of pauperism and the understanding of the proletariat increase, England's perplexity inevitably grows in geometrical progression. Finally, it is untrue, actually untrue, that the German bourgeoisie totally fails to understand the general significance of the Silesian uprising. In several towns the masters are trying to act jointly with the apprentices. All the liberal German newspapers, the organs of the liberal bourgeoisie, teem with articles about the organisation of labour, the reform of society, criticism of monopolies and competition, etc. All this is the result of the movements among the workers.* * * * * * Let us pa** now to the oracular pronouncements of the "Prussian" on the German workers. "The German poor," he says wittily, "are no wiser than the poor Germans, i.e., nowhere do they see beyond their own hearth and home, their own factory, their own district; the whole question has so far still been ignored by the all-penetrating political soul." In order to be able to compare the condition of the German workers with the condition of the French and English workers, the "Prussian" would have had to compare the first form, the start, of the English and French workers' movement with the Germanmovement that is just beginning. He failed to do so. Consequently, his arguments lead to trivialities, such as that industry in Germany is not yet so developed as in England, or that a movement at its start looks different from the movement in its subsequent progress. He wanted to speak about the specific character of the German workers' movement, but he has not a word to say on this subject of his. On the other hand, suppose the "Prussian" were to adopt the correct standpoint. He will find that not one of the French and English workers' uprisings had such a theoretical and consciouscharacter as the uprising of the Silesian weavers. First of all, recall the song of the weavers,2 that bold call to struggle, in which there is not even a mention of hearth and home, factory or district, but in which the proletariat at once, in a striking, sharp, unrestrained and powerful manner, proclaims its opposition to the society of private property. The Silesian uprising begins precisely with what the French and English workers' uprisings end, with consciousness of the nature of the proletariat. The action itself bears the stamp of this superior character. Not only machines, these rivals of the workers, are destroyed, but also ledgers, the titles to property. And while all other movements were aimed primarily only against the owner of the industrial enterprise, the visible enemy, this movement is at the same time directed against the banker, the hidden enemy. Finally, not a single English workers' uprising was carried out with such courage, thought and endurance. As for the educational level or capacity for education of the German workers in general, I call to mind Weitling's brilliant writings, which as regards theory are often superior even to those of Proudhon, however much they are inferior to the latter in their exe¬cution. Where among the bourgeoisie including its philosophers and learned writers is to be found a book about the emancipation of the bourgeoisie-political emancipation similar to Weitling's work: Garantien der Harmonie und Freiheit? It is enough to compare the petty, faint-hearted mediocrity of German political literature with this vehement and briliant literary debut of the German workers, it is enough to compare these gigantic infant shoes of the proletariat with the dwarfish, worn-out political shoes of the German bourgeoisie, and one is bound to prophesy that the German Cinderella will one day have the figure of an athlete. It has to be admitted that the German proletariat is the theoretician of the European proletariat, just as the English proletariat is its econo¬mist, and the French proletariat its politician. It has to be admitted that Germany is just as much cla**ically destined for a social revolution as it is incapable of a political one. For, just as the impotence of the German bourgeoisie is the political impotence of Germany cial capability of Germany. The disparity between the philosophical and the political development of Germany is not an anomaly. It is an inevitable disparity. A philosophical people can find its corresponding practice only in socialism, hence it is only in the proletariat that it can find the dynamic elements of its emancipation. *** Why does the "Prussian" judge the German workers so contemptuously? Because he finds that the "whole question"-namely, the question of the distressed state of the workers-has "so far still" been ignored by the "all-penetrating politicalsoul" He expounds his platonic love for the political soul in more detail as follows : "All uprisings which break out in this disastrous isolation of people from the community, and of their thoughts from social principles, will be smothered in blood and incomprehension; but when distress pro¬duces understanding, and the political understanding of the Germans discovers the roots of social distress, then in Germany too these events will be appreciated as symptoms of a great revolution." * * * Thatsocial distress produces political understanding is so incorrect . that, on the contrary, what is correct is the opposite : social well-being produces political understanding. Political understanding is a spiritualist, and is given to him who already has, to him who is already comfortably situated. Let our "Prussian" listen to a French economist, M. Michel Chevalier, on this subject: "'When the bourgeoisie rose up in 1789, it lacked in order to be free only participation in governing the country. Emancipation consisted for it in wresting the control of public affairs, the principal civil, military and religious functions, from the hands of the privileged who had the monopoly of these functions. Rich and enlightened, capable of being self-sufficient and of managing its own affairs, it wanted to escape from the system of arbitrary rule."3 We have already shown the "Prussian" how incapable politicalunderstanding is of discovering the source of social distress. Just oneword more on this view of his. The more developed and universal the political understanding of a people, the more does the proletariat-at any rate at the beginning of the movement-squander its forces in senseless, useless revolts, which are drowned in blood. Because it thinks in the framework of politics, the proletariat sees the cause of all evils in the will, and all means of remedy in violence and in the overthrow of a particular form of state. The proof: the first uprisings of the French proletariat.4 The Lyons workers believed that they were pursuing only political aims, that they were only soldiers of the republic, whereas actually they were soldiers of socialism. Thus their political understanding concealed from them the roots of social distress, thus it falsified their insight into their real aim, thus their political understanding deceived their social instinct. But if the "Prussian" expects understanding to be produced by distress, why does he lump together "smothering in blood" and "smothering in incomprehension"? If distress is in general a means of producing understanding, then bloody distress is even a very acute means to this end. The "Prussian" therefore should have said: smothering in blood will smother incomprehension and procure a proper current of air for the understanding. The "Prussian" prophesies the smothering of uprisings which break out in "disastrous isolation of people from the community, and in the separation of their thoughts from social principles." We have shown that the Silesian uprising occurred by no means in circumstances of the separation of thoughts from social principles. It only remains for us to deal with the "disastrous isolation of people from the community." By community here is meant the political community, the state. This is the old story about unpolitical Germany. But do not all uprisings, without exception, break out in a disastrous isolation of man from the community? Does not every uprising necessarily presuppose isolation? Would the 1789 revolution have taken place without the disastrous isolation of French citizens from the community? It was intended precisely to abolish this isolation. But the community from which the worker is isolated is a community the real character and scope of which is quite different from that of the political community . The community from which the worker is isolated by his own labour is life itself, physical and mental life, human morality, human activity, human enjoyment, human nature. Human nature is the true community of men. The disastrous isolation from this essential nature is incomparably more universal, more intolerable, more dreadful, and more contradictory, than isolation from the political community. Hence, too, the abolition of this isolation and even a partial reaction to it, an uprisingagainst it-is just as much more infinite as man is more infinite than the citizen, and human life more infinite than political life. Therefore, however partial the uprising of the industrial workersmay be, it contains within itself a universal soul; however universal a political uprising may be, it conceals even in its most grandioseform a narrow-minded spirit. The "Prussian" worthily concludes his article with the following sentence: "A social revolution without a political soul (i.e., without an organising idea from the point of view of the whole ) is impossible." We have already seen that a social revolution is found to have the point of view of the whole because even if it were to occur in only one factory district it represents man's protest against a de-humanised life, because it starts out from the point of view of a separate real individual, because the community, against the separation of which from himself the individual reacts, is man's true community, human nature. The political soul of revolution, on the other hand, consists in the tendency of cla**es having no political influence to abolish their isolation from statehood and rule. Its point of view is that of the state, of an abstractwhole, which exists only through separation from real life, and which is inconceivablewithout the organized contradiction between the universal idea of man and the individual existence of man. Hence, too, a revolution with a political soul, in accordance with the limited and dichotomous nature of this soul, organises a ruling stratum in society at the expense of society itself. nbsp;We want to divulge to the "Prussian" what a "social revolutionwith a political soul" actually is; we shall thereby at the same time confide the secret to him that he himself is unable, even in words, to rise above the narrow-minded political point of view. A "social" revolution with a political soul is either a nonsensical concoction, if by "social" revolution the "Prussian" means a "social" as opposed to a political revolution, and nevertheless endows the social revolution with a political soul instead of a social one; or else a "social revolution with a political soul" is only a paraphrase for what was usually called a "political revolution," or "simply a revolution." Every revolution dissolves the old society!' and to that extent it is social. Every revolution overthrows the old powerand to that extent it is political. Let the "Prussian" choose between theparaphrase and the nonsense! But whereas a social revolution with a political soul is a para-phrase or nonsense, a political revolution with a social soul has a rational meaning. Revolution in general-the overthrow of the existing power and dissolution of the old relationships is a political act. But socialism cannot be realised without revolution. It needs this political act insofar as it needs destruction and dissolution. But where its organizing activity!' begins, where its proper object, its soul, comes to the fore-there socialism throws off the political cloak. * * * Footnotes: 1. A royal order of July 18, 1843 , prohibiting government officials from taking part in events such as an official banquet arranged by the liberals in Dusseldorf. 2. This refers to the song Das Blutgerichtwhich was popular among the weavers on the eve of the revolt. 3. M. Chevalier, Des interets materiels en France, p. 3 (Marx gives a free translation) . 4. Marx is referring to the revolts of the Lyons weavers in November 1831 and April 1834.