page 192

    On the outbreak of the February Revolution, the German "Communist Party," as we called it, consisted only of a small core, the Communist League, which was organized as a secret propaganda society. The League was secret only because at that time no freedom of association or assembly existed in Germany. Besides the workers' associations abroad, from which it obtained recruits, it had about thirty communities, or sections, in the country itself and, in addition, isolated members in many places. This inconsiderable fighting force, however, possessed a leader, Marx, to whom all willingly subordinated themselves, a leader of the first rank, and, thanks to him, a programme of principles and tactics that today still has full validity: The Communist Manifesto.

    It is the tactical part of the programme that concerns us here in the first instance. This part stated in general:

    "The Communists do not form a separate party opposed to other working-class parties.

page 193

"They have no interests separate and apart from those of the proletariat as a whole.

    "They do not set up any sectarian principles of their own, by which to shape and mould the proletarian movement.

    "The Communists are distinguished from the other work ing-class parties by this only: 1. In the national struggles of the proletarians of the different countries, they point out and bring to the front the common interests of the entire proletariat, independently of all nationality. 2. In the various stages of development which the struggle of the working class against the bourgeoisie has to pass through, they always and everywhere represent the interests of the movement as a whole.

    "The Communists, therefore, are on the one hand, practically, the most advanced and resolute section of the working-class parties of every country, that section which pushes forward all others; on the other hand, theoretically, they have over the great mass of the proletariat the advantage of clearly understanding the line of march, the conditions, and the ultimate general results of the proletarian movement."*

    And for the German party it stated in particular:

    "In Germany they** fight with the bourgeoisie whenever it acts in a revolutionary way, against the absolute monarchy the feudal squirearchy, and the petty bourgeoisie.

    "But they never cease, for a single instant, to instil into the working class the clearest possible recognition of the hostile antagonism between bourgeoisie and proletariat, in order that the German workers may straightway use, as so

    "The Communists turn their attention chiefly to Germany because that country is on the eve of a bourgeois revolution," etc. (Manifesto, Section IV)[*]

    Never has a tactical programme justified itself as well as this one. Put forward on the eve of a revolution, it stood the test of this revolution; whenever, since this period, a workers' party has deviated from it, the deviation has met its punishment; and today, after almost forty years, it serves as the guiding line of all resolute and class-conscious workers' parties in Europe, from Madrid to St. Petersburg.

    The February events in Paris precipitated the imminent German Revolution and thereby modified its character. The German bourgeoisie, instead of conquering by virtue of its own power, conquered in the tow of a French workers' revolution. Before it had yet conclusively overthrown its old adversaries -- the absolute monarchy, feudal landownership, the bureaucracy and the cowardly petty bourgeoisie -- it had to confront a new enemy, the proletariat. However, the effects of the economic conditions, which lagged far behind those of France and England, and of the likewise backward class position of Germany resulting therefrom, immediately showed themselves here.

    The German bourgeoisie, which had only just begun to establish its large-scale industry, had neither the strength nor the courage to win for itself absolute domination in the state,

    It was precisely Cologne and not Berlin we had to go to. First, Cologne was the centre of the Rhine Province, which had gone through the French Revolution, which had provided itself with modern legal conceptions in the Code Napoléon,[75] which had developed by far the most important large-scale industry and which was in every respect at that time the most advanced part of Germany. Contemporary Berlin we knew only too well from our own observation, with its hardly hatched bourgeoisie, its cringing petty bourgeoisie, audacious in words but craven in deeds, its still wholly undeveloped workers, its mass of bureaucrats, aristocratic and court riff-raff, its entire character of a mere "Residenz."* Decisive, however, was the following: in Berlin the wretched Prussian

page 197

Landrecht [*] prevailed and political cases were tried by professional magistrates; on the Rhine the Code Napoléon was in force, which knows no press trials, because it presupposes censorship, and if one did not commit political misdemeanours but only crimes, one came before a jury; in Berlin after the revolution young Schloffel was sentenced to a year's imprisonment for a trifle,[76] while on the Rhine we had unconditional freedom of the press -- and we used it to the last drop.

    Thus we began, on June 1, 1848, with a very limited share capital, of which only a little had been paid up and the shareholders themselves were more than unreliable. Half of them deserted us immediately after the first number and at the end of the month we no longer had any at all.

    The editorial constitution was simply the dictatorship of Marx. A big daily paper, which has to be ready at a definite hour can not observe a consistent policy with any other constitution. Moreover, Marx's dictatorship was a matter of course here, was undisputed and willingly recognized by all of us. It was primarily his clear vision and firm attitude that made this publication the most famous German newspaper of the years of revolution.

    The political programme of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung [38] consisted of two main points:

    A democratic German republic, one and indivisible, and a war with Russia, which included the restoration of Poland.

    The petty-bourgeois democracy was divided at that time into two factions: the North German, which would not mind putting up with a democratic Prussian emperor, and the South German, then almost wholly specifically Baden, which wanted to transform Germany into a federative republic after the

    For the rest, the tone of the newspaper was by no means solemn, serious or enthusiastic. We had altogether contemptible opponents and treated the lot of them with the utmost scorn. The conspiring monarchy, the camarilla, the nobility, the Kreuz-Zeitung,[77] the entire "reaction," about which the Philistines were morally indignant -- we treated them only with mockery and derision. Not less so also the new idols that had appeared on the scene through the revolution: the March ministers, the Frankfort and Berlin assemblies, and both the Rights and the Lefts in them. The very first number began with an article which mocked at the inanity of the Frankfort parliament, the purposelessness of its long-winded speeches, the superfluity of its cowardly resolutions.[78] It cost us half the shareholders. The Frankfort parliament was not

page 199

even a debating club; hardly any debates took place there, but for the most part only academic dissertations prepared beforehand were ground out and resolutions adopted which were intended to inspire the German Philistines but of which no one else took any notice.

    The Berlin Assembly was of more importance: it confronted a real power, it debated and passed resolutions with its feet on the ground, and not in a Frankfort cuckoo land somewhere beyond the clouds. Consequently, it was dealt with in more detail. But there also, the idols of the Lefts, Schulze-Delitzsch, Berends, Elsner, Stein, etc., were just as sharply attacked as those of Frankfort, their irresolution, hesitancy and penny wisdom were mercilessly exposed, and it was proved how step by step they compromised themselves into betraying the revolution. This, of course, evoked a shudder in the democratic petty bourgeois, who had only just manufactured these idols for his own use. To us this shudder was a sign that we had hit the bull's-eye.

    We came out likewise against the illusion, zealously spread by the petty bourgeoisie, that the revolution had come to an end with the March days and that one had only now to pocket the fruits. To us, February and March could have had the significance of a real revolution only if they had not been the conclusion but, on the contrary, the starting-point of a long revolutionary movement in which, as in the Great French Revolution, the people would have developed further through its own struggles and the parties become more and more sharply differentiated until they had coincided entirely with the great classes, bourgeoisie, petty bourgeoisie and proletariat, and in which the separate positions would have been won one after another by the proletariat in a series of battles. Hence, we everywhere opposed also the democratic petty

page 200

bourgeoisie when it tried to gloss over its class antagonism to the proletariat with the favourite phrase: after all, we all want the same thing; all the differences rest on mere misunderstandings. But the less we allowed the petty bourgeoisie to misunderstand our proletarian democracy, the tamer and more amenable it became towards us. The more sharply and resolutely one opposes it, the more readily it ducks and the more concessions it makes to the workers' party. Of that we have become convinced.

    Finally, we exposed the parliamentary cretinism (as Marx called it)[79] of the various so-called national assemblies. These gentlemen had allowed all means of power to slip out of their hands, and in part had voluntarily surrendered them again to the governments. In Berlin, as in Frankfort, alongside newly strengthened, reactionary governments there stood powerless assemblies, which nevertheless imagined that their impotent resolutions would shake the world in its foundations. This cretinous self-deception prevailed even among the extreme Lefts. We told them plainly that their parliamentary victory would coincide with their real defeat.

    And it so happened both in Berlin and in Frankfort. When the "Lefts" obtained the majority, the government dispersed the entire Assembly; it could do so because the Assembly had forfeited all credit with the people.

    When later I read Bougeart's book on Marat, I found that in more than one respect we had only unconsciously imitated the great model of the genuine "Ami du Peuple "[80] (not the one forged by the royalists) and that the whole outburst of rage and the whole falsification of history, by virtue of which throughout almost a century only an entirely distorted Marat had been known, were solely due to the fact that Marat mercilessly removed the veil from the idols of the moment,

page 201

Lafayette, Bailly and others, and exposed them as already complete traitors to the revolution; and that he, like us, did not want the revolution declared finished but continuing in permanence.

    We openly proclaimed that the people of the tendency we represented could enter the struggle for the attainment of our real party aims only when the most extreme of the official parties existing in Germany came to the helm; then we would form the opposition to it.

    Events, however, brought it about that besides mockery at our German opponents there also appeared fiery passion. The insurrection of the Paris workers in June 1848 found us at our post. From the first shot we were unconditionally on the side of the insurgents. After their defeat, Marx honoured the vanquished in one of his most powerful articles.[81]

    Then the last remaining shareholders deserted us. But we had the satisfaction of being the only paper in Germany, and almost in Europe, that held aloft the banner of the crushed proletariat at the moment when the bourgeois and petty bourgeois of all countries were overwhelming the vanquished with a torrent of slander.

    Our foreign policy was simple: to come out on behalf of every revolutionary people, and to call for a general war of revolutionary Europe against the mighty support of European reaction -- Russia. From February 24[82] onwards it was clear to us that the revolution had only one really formidable enemy, Russia, and that the more the movement took on European dimensions the more was this enemy compelled to enter the struggle. The events of Vienna, Milan and Berlin were bound to delay the Russian attack, but its final coming was the more certain the closer the revolution came to Russia. But if one succeeded in getting Germany to make war on Russia,

page 202

it was all up with the Hapsburgs and Hohenzollerns and the revolution would triumph along the whole line.

    This policy pervaded every issue of the newspaper until the moment of the actual invasion of Hungary by the Russians, which fully confirmed our forecast and decided the defeat of the revolution.

    When, in the spring of 1849, the decisive battle drew near, the language of the paper became more violent and passionate with every issue. William Wolff reminded the Silesian peasants in the "Silesian Milliard" (eight articles),[83] how on being emancipated from feudal services they had been cheated out of money and land by the landlords with the help of the government, and he demanded a thousand million thalers in compensation.

    At the same time, in April, Marx's essay "Wage-Labour and Capital" appeared in the form of a series of editorial articles as a clear indication of the social goal of our policy. Every issue, every special number, pointed to the great battle that was in preparation, to the sharpening of the antagonisms in France, Italy, Germany and Hungary. In particular, the special numbers in April and May were so many proclamations to the people to hold themselves in readiness for direct action.

    "Outside, throughout the Reich," wonder was expressed that we carried on our activities so unconcernedly within a Prussian fortress of the first rank, in the face of a garrison of eight thousand troops and in the face of the guardhouse; but, on account of the eight rifles with bayonets and 250 live cartridges in the editorial room, and the red Jacobin caps of the compositors, our house was reckoned by the officers also as a fortress which was not to be taken by a mere coup de main.

    At last, on May 18, 1849, the blow came.

page 203

    The insurrection was suppressed in Dresden and Elberfeld, in Iserlohn it was encircled; the Rhine Province and Westphalia bristled with bayonets which, after completing the rape of the Prussian Rhineland, were intended to be marched against the Palatinate and Baden. Then at last the government ventured to come to close quarters with us. One half of the editorial staff was prosecuted, the other half was liable to deportation as non-Prussians. Nothing could be done against it, as long as a whole army corps stood behind the government. We had to surrender our fortress, but we withdrew with our arms and baggage, with band playing and flag flying, the flag of the last issue, a red issue, in which we warned the Cologne workers against hopeless putsches, and called to them:

    "In taking leave, the editors of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung thank you for the sympathy you have shown them. Their last word will always and everywhere be: The Emancipation of the Working Class! "

    Thus the Neue Rheinische Zeitung came to an end, shortly before it had completed its first year. Begun almost without financial resources -- the little that had been promised it very soon, as we said, was lost to it -- it had achieved a circulation of almost 5,000 by September. The state of siege in Cologne suspended it; in the middle of October it had to begin again from the beginning. But in May 1849, when it was suppressed, it already had 6,000 subscribers again, while the "Kolnische "[84] at that time, according to its own admission, had not more than 9,000. No German newspaper, before or since, has ever had the same power and influence or been able to electrify the proletarian masses as effectively as the Neue Rheinische Zeitung.

    And that it owed above all to Marx.

page 204

    When the blow fell, the editorial staff dispersed. Marx went to Paris where the dénouement, then in preparation there, took place on June 13, 1849;[70] William Wolff now took his seat in the Frankfort parliament -- now when the Assembly had to choose between being dispersed from above or joining the revolution, and I went to the Palatinate and became an adjutant in Willich's volunteer corps.[85]

page 221

  [74] The article was written for the newspaper Der Sozialdemokrat ( The Social-Democrat ) to commemorate the first anniversary of the death of Karl Marx.    [p.192]

  ^[75] The Code Napoléon in its broad sense includes the Civil Code, the Code of Civil Procedure, tbe Commercial Code, the Criminal Code, and the Code of Criminal Procedure, which were adopted in 1804-10. These codes were also introduced in the western and southwestern parts of Germany seized by Napoleonic France and continued to operate in the Rhine Province even after it was ceded to Prussia in 1815. In the narrow sense the Code Napoléon is the Civil Code adopted in 1804, which Engels called "so classic a legal code . . . for bourgeois society." (Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy, FLP, Peking, 1976, p. 53.)    [p.196]

  ^[76] Gustav Adolf Schlöffel, a German student democrat, was put on trial in April 1848 for his two articles defending the rights of the working people, both of which were carried on April 19 in No. 5 of Volksfreund (People's Friend ), a journal he had published in Berlin since the March

page 222

revolution of 1848. He was sentenced to six months' imprisonment in a fortress on a charge of agitating for rebellion.    [p.197]

  ^[38] Neue Rheinische Zeitung (New Rhine Gazette ) -- a daily published in Cologne from June 1, 1848 to May 19, 1849, which was the militant organ of the proletarian wing of the democratic movement. Marx was its editor-in-chief; Marx and Engels wrote leading articles which determined its attitucle to the principal problems of the revolution in Germany and Europe. After the defeat of the German Revolution, the paper ceased publication. Lenin said that the Neue Rheinische Zeitung "to this very day remains the best and the unsurpassed organ of the revolutionary proletariat." (V. I. Lenin, Karl Marx, Foreign Languages Press, Peking, 1974, p. 50.)    [p.197]

  ^[77] Kreuz-Zeitung (Gazette of the Cross ) -- a name used for the German daily the Neue Preussische Zeitung (New Prussian Gazette ), because its masthead bore a cross, the emblem of the Landwehr, the military reserves. Published in Berlin from June 1848 to 1939, it was the organ of the counter-revolutionary court camarilla and the Prussian Junkers; later it became the organ of the ultra-Right wing of the conservatives.    [p.198]

  ^[78] This refers to Engels' article, "The Frankfort Assembly," written on May 31, 1848.    [p.198]

  ^[79] Engels refers to the articles in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung which were devoted to criticism of the Frankfort and Berlin National Assemblies and of which some were written by Marx. In a generalized form, this criticism was also made by Engels in Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany.    [p.200]

  ^[80] Alfred Bougeart, Marat, I'ami du peuple (Marat, Friend of the People ), Vols. I and II, Paris, 1865.

    L'Ami du peuple -- a daily newspaper published in Paris by Jean Paul Marat, one of the leaders of the Jacobins, from September 12, 1789 to July 14,1793; it bore this name from September 16, 1789 to September 21, 1792, and was signed: "Marat, Friend of the People."    [p.200]

  ^[81] This refers to Marx's article, "The June Revolution," written in June 1848.    [p.201]

  ^[82] February 24, 1848, was the date of the overthrow of King Louis Philippe in France. On receiving the news of the victory of the February Revolution in France, Nicholas I gave an order to the War Minister for a partial mobilization in Russia to prepare for struggle against the revolution in Europe.    [p.201]

  ^[83] The Silesian Milliard (Die schlesische Milliarde ) consisted of a series of articles by Wilhelm Wolff, a friend and comrade-in-arms of Marx and Engels, and was carried in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung from March 22 to April 25, 1849. In 1886, the articles were published in pamphlet form with minor changes in the text and a preface by Engels, entitled "A Contribution to the History of Prussian Peasantry." Engels commented on these articles in detail in his work, "Wilhelm Wolff" (1876).    [p.202]

page 223

  ^[84] The Kölnische Zeitung (Cologne Gazette ) -- a German daily newspaper which appeared in Cologne from 1802. During the revolution of 1848-49 and the reign of reaction that followed, the newspaper reflected the cowardly and treacherous policy of the Prussian liberal-bourgeoisie and constantly made violent attacks on the Neue Rheinische Zeitung.    [p.203]

  ^[70] On June 13, 1849, the petty-bourgeois party of Montagnards organized a peaceful demonstration in Paris to protest against the dispatch of French troops to Italy to suppress the revolution there in violation of the Constitution of the French Republic which prohibited the sending of French forces abroad to interfere with the freedom of foreign peoples. The demonstration was dispersed by troops. Its failure testified to the bankruptcy of French petty-bourgeois democracy. From that day the French authorities launched persecutions against democrats, including foreigners residing in France.    [p.204]

  ^[85] With regard to Engels' participation in the Baden-Palatinate uprising of 1849, when he fought in the ranks of Willich's volunteer corps, see Engels' "The Campaign for the Imperial Constitution in Germany," written in 1849-50.    [p.204]