-
D E U T S C H M A R X : M A R X , E N G E L S , A N D T H E G E
R M A N Q U E S T I O N *
M I C H A E L L E V I N University of London, Goldsmiths
College
Ahsrrucr. Marx and Engelss analysis of German society can be
fruitfully viewed as a materialist adaptation of earlier Romantic
views on German special development. The failure to develop a
strong bourgeois class meant that Germanys pattern of development
differed markedly from the general theory outlined in Part One of
the Manifesto. If the bourgeoisie could not further the development
of society, that task necessarily fell to the German proletariat,
thereby placing them at the head of the international workers
movement. Thus the initial relative backwardness of the German
working class could be transformed into a position prior to that of
England, the country that industrialized first, and France, where
the most complete bourgeois revolution had occurred.
The Communists turn their attention chiefly to Germany.
A M O N G the vast corpus of commentary on Marx and Engelss
writings the relative neglect of their analysis of German society
is surprising for a number of reasons. I t was, after all, the
country in which they were born, grew up, came to political
consciousness and first engaged in political activity. Furthermore
a starkly explicit statement of German pre-eminence in the advance
to communism is contained in their best-known short work, and is
part of a brief analysis which raises crucial questions concerning
not just the coherence of the Communist Manifisto itself but also
of Marxist theory as a whole.
Before turning to the Manifesto let us briefly consider the
background factors which made possible the statement with which
this enquiry commences. It was written during The Hungry Forties,
the time of German hunger riots, the 1844 Weavers Revolt and mass
emigration to the United States. Signs of discontent were there for
all to see, and the early German socialists were almost unanimously
of the view that German conditions were outmoded and due for
radical reconstruction. In 1843 Moses Hess foresaw the closing of
the thought/action divide as itldugurating the reign of freedom and
we are standing at its portals and knocking upon them A year later
Heinrich Heine wrote that the masses will no longer tolerate their
earthly poverty with Christian patience and yearn for happiness on
earth. Communism is a natural consequence of this changed
Weltanschauung and is spreading over the whole
* I a m grateful to Neil Harding and Professor David McLellan
for their comments on an earlier
* From the Mangesto of the Communisr Parry, Part IV, in Marx
Engels Collected Works,
2 My italics. Quoted in A. Fried and R. Sanders (eds), Socialist
Thought: A Documentary History
draft of this article.
henceforward referred to as MECW, Vol. 6 (London, Lawrence and
Wishart, 1976). p. 519.
(New York, Doubleday, 1964). p. 271. Political Studies, Vol.
XXIX. No. 4 (537-554)
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538 M A R X , E N G E L S , A N D T H E G E R M A N Q U E S T I
O N
of germ an^'.^ According to 0. J . Hammen the air was rife with
communist yearning^'.^ For Marx the German situation was so bad
that it filled him with hope. The draft programme of the
German-French Yearbooks (1 843) contained a plan to review the
literature and publications of the old regime of Germany which is
decaying and destroying itself, and finally a review of the books
of the two nations which mark the commencement and continuance of
the new era that we are entering.s Engels too, writing to the
editor of the Northern Star in April 1844, viewed Germany as being
on the threshold of great historical changes. The political state
of Germany is becoming more important every day. We shall have a
revolution there very shortly, which cannot but end in
establishment of a Federal Republic . . . The people are resolved
to have a free press and constitution to begin with. But there is
so much combustible matter heaped up in all Germany and the shades
of opinion are so various, that i t is impossible to predict where
the movement, if once fairly commenced, may stop. However, it will
be in the direction toward democracy: thus much is evident.6
G E R M A N Y A N D E U R O P E B E F O R E 1848
The precise justification for the Manijiesto statement on
Germanys vanguard role will emerge later. At this stage the extent
to which it fits in as a variant of the special development
(Sonderentwicklung) theory of German Romantic nationalism should be
noted. During the period of occupation by the Napoleonic armies the
view emerged that, whatever its military and political weaknesses,
Germany had a spiritual mission to fulfil. Novalis, in Die
Christenheit oder Europa, 1799, believed that whereas the rest of
the continent was absorbed in war, speculation and party politics,
the Germans are applying themselves to becoming partners in a new
and better epoch of civilization, which in time will give them a
substantial ascendancy over the others. In the following few years
Friedrich Schlegel, Holderlin and Schiller all presented Germany as
the leading force that could change world history. With Schiller,
Fichte and Arndt Germanys world role became more closely based on
its assumed linguistic superiority. Like Fichte, Arndt believed
that of all European peoples only the Germans could boast of an
original and undefiled language, an Ursprache, not a mongrel
language as did the others. The purity of language and race
established the superiority of the Germans over the French and the
Italians, the Englishmen and the Spaniards.8
The notion of German uniqueness developed out of the context of
Romantic thought, which, as a counter to Enlightenment and
Revolutionary universa- lism, propounded numerous accounts of the
uniqueness and distinctiveness of all nations, cultures and
individuals. Schleiermacher took the view that every
From Aus den Briefen iiber Deutschland, 1844, in H. Heine, Zur
Geschichte der Religion und
0. J. Hammen, The Spectre of Communism in the 1840s, Journal
ofrhe History ofIdeas, 14
Written August-September 1843. MECW. Vol. 3 (London. Lawrence
and Wishart, 1975).
MECW, Vol. 3, pp: 514, 516.
Philosophie in Deufschland (Frankfurt am-Main, Insel Verlag,
1965), p. 21 I .
(1953). p. 404.
p. 131.
Novalis, Dichtungen (Reinbek bei Hamburg, Rowohlt, 1973), p. 47.
* H. Kohn, The Mind of Germany (London, Macmillan, 1965), p.
77.
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M I C H A E L L E V I N 539
language is a particular mode of thought and what is cogitated
in one language can never be repeated in the same way in another .
. . Language, thus, like the church or the state, is an expression
of a peculiar life.9 However, this theory underwent a crucial
transformation when the content of a particular uniqueness was
designated as superiority ; when particularism was represented as
the embodiment of a higher aspect of the universal. Schiller
regarded the Germans as the universal people whose destiny it was
to fulfil the aspirations of all mankind, and Jahn wrote of the
German as a universal man (Allerwt.1lmmsc.h) to whom God has given
the whole world as his home.lo Clearly, at this stage the theory of
universal particularisms has been transformed into one of
particular universalisms.
The notion of German linguistic superiority emerged closely and
often logically interconnected with a similar claim in respect of
German thought. Traces of this latter idea can be found in the
writings of both Hess and Marx in the 184Os, but for them such
development was one-sided. Thought on its own was inadequate. I t
must seek the means to actualize itself. Hess sought to connect it
with a political will, which he found in France. Thus-a significant
step-he put Germany on the same level as France. Each had advanced
in a one-sided way and needed the other to redress the balance.
France needed German philosophy as much as Germany needed French
political action. For Germany it is now the task of the philosophy
of the spirit to become the philosophy of the act. For the young
Marx also Germany was the land of theory, France of practice.
Germany had produced, in Hegel, the greatest philosopher of the
age, and France, in its Great Revolution of 1789, and in that of
1830, the foremost political movement; but German philosophy was
without political commitment while French politics was devoid of
adequate theoretical foundations. It is this concern that underlay
the production of the significantly titled German-French Yearbooks
which Marx and Ruge produced in 1844, and in which Marxs first
important theoretical publications are to be found. Thus
one-sidedness in certain aspects of national development was to be
overcome by the proposed amalgamation of French politics with
German philosophy.
As against right-wing nationalist theorists of sanderenruiekfung
Marx and the intellectual left wing did not regard Germany as
self-sufficient. For the right wing France was the traditional
enemy; its language, culture and revolutionary politics were to be
avoided at all costs. Hatred of the French became a duty. Every
kind of thinking which could rise to a higher viewpoint was
condemned as un-German.I2 Thus wrote Marx in 1841, for whom, in the
following years, France shone brightly as a beacon of modernity.
The new capital of the new world was how he described Paris in
September, 1843.13
Thomas Mann once suggested that, like Russia, Germany also had
its
Quoted in E. Kedourie, Nationalism (London, Hutchinson, 1961).
p. 63. l o Quoted in Kohn, The Mind oj Germany, pp. 59, 80. I Fried
and Sanders, Socialist Thought, p. 264. l 2 MECW, Vol. 2 (London,
Lawrence and Wishart. 1975), p. 141. l 3 MECW, Vol. 3, p. 142. Also
see MECW, Vol. 5 (London, Lawrence and Wishart, 1976), pp.
41 1-12, and D. McLellan, Marx before Marxism (Harmondsworth,
Middx., Penguin, 1972). pp. 169, 199.
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540 M A R X , E N G E L S , A N D T H E G E R M A N Q U E S T I
O N
Slavophiles (Germanophiles) and its Westernizers. Marx clearly
belonged to the latter. He wanted Germany to overcome its
backwardness and enter the mainstream of European history, rather
than wage the War against the West. Engels was later to write of
the great historical nations of the west, the English and the
French, compared with the backward Germans.Is In similar vein Marx
pointed out that The revolutions of 1648 and 1789 were not English
and French revolutions; they were revolutions of a European type.
They did not represent the victory of a particular class of society
over the oldpolitical order; they proclaimed the political order of
the new European society.16
How, then, was a country so stagnant as Germany to enter into
the mainstream of European history? How does one expose the old
world to the full light of day and shape the new one in a positive
way?Is Although in 1843 Marx appeared to be primarily concerned
with the reform of cons~iousness~ he was in fact already working
towards the identification of the proletariat as the force that
could actualize philosophy and thereby modernize Germany.
In his introduction to A Contribution to the Critique of Hegels
Philosophy of Right (18434) Marx saw Germany as lying a whole
historical stage behind England and France. The old corrupt
condition against which these countries are rebelling in theory and
which they only bear as one bears chains is greeted in Germany as
the dawn of a beautiful future.*O Germany had entered the modern
world only in respect of its suffering and thinking. In politics
the Germans thought what other nations did.21 A wide gulf had
appeared between German thought and German reality, but this
dislocation could be resolved, for theory also becomes a material
force as soon as it has gripped the masses.22 In Germany no kind of
bondage can be broken without breaking every kind of bondage,23 and
so the proletariat, as the representative of universal aspirations,
presented the possibility of a German emancipation. 2 4
This optimism was soon reinforced by the Silesian weavers
rebellion of summer 1844. Theory and practice were nearing a
harmonious consummation. Not one of the French and English workers
uprisings had such a theoretical and conscious character as the
uprising of the Silesian weavers.. . [which] begins precisely with
what the French and English workers uprisings end, with
consciousness of the nature of the proletariat . . . not a single
English workers uprising was carried out with such courage, thought
and endurance. Marx then went on to praise Weitlings Guarantees of
Harmony and Freedom (1 842) as the vehement and brilliant literary
debut of the German worker^',^ which reduced German bourgeois
literature to the level of mediocrity. From these auspicious
beginnings Marx felt able to elevate the German working class
to
l4 According to Kohn, The Mind of Germany, p. 262. MECW, Vol. 8
(London, Lawrence and Wishart, 1977). p. 372. MECW, Vol. 8, p. 161.
MECW, Vol. 5, p. 457. MECW, Vol. 3, p. 141.
l 9 MECW, Vol. 3, p. 144. 2o MECW, Vol. 3, p. 179. 2 1 MECW,
Vol. 3, p. 181. z 2 MECW, Vol. 3, p. 182. 23 MECW, Vol. 3, p. 187.
24 MECW, Vol. 3, p. 186. 2 5 MECW, Vol. 3, p. 201.
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M I C H A E L L E V l N 54 I
the level attained in their respective spheres by the English
and French. 'It has to be admitted that the German proletariat is
the theoretician of the European proletariat, just as the English
proletariat is its economist, and the French its politician'.26
Soon after Marx made a similar point concerning division of labour
at the national level. What the nations have done as nations, they
have done for human society; their whole value consists only in the
fact that each single nation has accomplished for the benefit of
other nations one of the main historical aspects [one of the main
determinations] in the framework of which mankind has accomplished
its development, and therefore after industry in England, politics
in France and philosophy in Germany have been developed, they have
been developed for the world, and their world-historic
significance, as also that of these nations, has thereby come to an
end.27
German philosophy, however, increasingly seemed to suffer from a
defect inherent in its advanced character-that is, an isolation
from real life. By 1845 Marx regarded i t as quite unprepared for a
conscious social role. Philosophy had woven the most sophisticated
mental webs; it had directed the imagination towards understanding
the whole historical process, it had reduced theology to
anthropology, but, crucially, i t had not related itself to its own
society. ' I t has not occurred to any one of these philosophers to
enquire into the connection of German philosophy with German
reality, the connection of their criticism with their own material
surroundings'.28 Somewhat similar defects aMlicted German communism
which, through lack of clear-cut indigenous class distinctions, was
led to a misplaced adoption of French communist ideas.
Germany at this time was a cultural rather than a political
concept. I t was a demand of considerably audacity to place it
alongside 'historic' nations with several centuries of unity behind
them. From the perspective of the 1840s the German principalities
and their inhabitants might conceivably have been dismissed along
with other 'non-historic nations' for which Engels in particular
had such contempt. Actually Marx and Engels could not avoid a
certain ambivalence on this question. In The Germun Ideology they
still distinguished between the 'Great nations-the French, North
Americans, English' as against 'petty shopkeepers and philistines,
like the Germans'.29 It is in this work that Marx quite decisively
adopted the theory of historical stages and thereby, as he later
put i t , settled 'accounts with our erstwhile philosophical c o n
~ c i e n c e ' . ~ ~ However, the break was not that clear-cut.
Part IV of the Munifesro as well as the March 1850 'Address of the
Central Committee to the Communist League' indicate that Marx
oscillated between the two alternatives of Germany going through
the full sequence of developmental stages or attempting a short
cut.
However, in summary, in the mid-1840s Marx and Engels saw the
German states system, economy, and class structure as
anachronistic-but the emergent working-class movement as making
rapid strides forward. German philosophy was sometimes praised,
sometimes derided. What remained constant in their analysis of all
these factors (apart from the tendency to over-react, either
l6 MECW, Vol. 3, p. 202. 2 7 MECW, Vol. 4 (London, Lawrence and
Wishart, 1975). p. 281. 2 8 MECW, Vol. 5, p. 30. 2 9 MECW, Vol. 5 ,
p. 441. Jo Marx and Engels, Selected Works in Two Volumes,
henceforward referred to as MESW
(Moscow, Foreign Languages Publishing House. 1962), Vol. I , p.
364.
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542 M A R X , E N G E L S , A N D T H E G E R M A N Q U E S T I
O N
positively or negatively, to every breath of German political
life) was that they were always considered in terms of the
backwardness/forwardness question ; always compared with an
external norm; always in competition with a standard of
modernization compounded out of an amalgam of, primarily, France
and England, but sometimes also of Holland, Belgium and the USA.
These countries provided the norm from which Germany was held to
diverge. Germanys distance from their achievements was taken as the
measure of its peculiarity-a notion thus clearly dependent upon a
prior frame of reference for what was to be regarded as normal. The
notion of German differentiation from this norm, appears, somewhat
paradoxically, as both a distancing from the West but
simultaneously an acknowledgement of it as a proper point of
reference.
There are, in any case, obvious dangers involved in Marx and
Engelss construction of a norm derived from various aspects of
various countries. They assume, rather than demonstrate, that the
similarities are more significant than the differences. There are
numerous factors in the respective histories of England and France
that cannot be easily amalgamated (such as the role of absolute
monarchy, class consciousness, the Reformation, etc.), although
relative to Germany the significant common factors would be earlier
national unification and the stronger development of liberal
ideology and a commercial middle class.
It is all too clearly apparent how during the 1840s the French
revolution of 1789 could be taken as the model of bourgeois
political revolution and England as the model of capitalist
industrialization. As the first industrial nation other countries
could see in England their own economic future. Aspects of this
mentality are apparent in Engelss The Conditions of the Working
Class in England. However, this very factor detracts from Englands
use as a norm in that its industrialization process was necessarily
unique-a pioneer industrialization, whereas all other countries
industrialized in the context of those already ahead of them.
By the end of the 1840s Marx and Engelss analysis of German
distinctiveness had shifted from the area of theory to that of
social structure. By the time the Manifesto was being written the
peculiarity of German development was held to lie not in the
forwardness of its thought but in the backwardness of its social
structure, as represented most significantly by the weakness of its
bourgeoisie. Furthermore this element of backwardness becomes an
advantage. It transforms itself into forwardness by facilitating
the drastic curtailment of the bourgeois stage of history.
T H E C O M M U N I S T M A N I F E S T O A N D ITS A P P L I C
A T I O N T O G E R M A N Y
Let us now return to the Communist Manifesto, for it provides
the central point from which our various lines of enquiry radiate.
The opening chapter is a brief philosophy of history, the purpose
of which is to provide a class context for historical changes
reaching as far back as Ancient Rome and forward to the presumed
victory of the proletariat. This well known summary account is
marked by a high level of generality and abstraction. There is
hardly any reference to a specific country. Industrializing Western
Europe is taken as a whole in terms of the general process it is
undergoing. When Marx and Engels
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M I C H A E L L E V l N 543
turned their attention from the general to the particular the
famous simple model of the Communist Manifesto was subjected to
considerable amendment. The process in fact began in the final
section of the very same work, where Germany appears as an
exception to the general scheme. The peculiarity of Germany is that
a proletariat has emerged before the full victory of the
bourgeoisie. In Section I it appears that the full capitalist
system, from which the proletariat are produced, is a consequence
of bourgeois power. Yet capitalism in Germany is acknowledged to
have developed without the bourgeois conquest of political power.
Economic and political developments seem to be moving at a
different pace although one had been led to regard the latter as a
product of the former. In the simple account the feudal state
placed fetters on the development of capitalism. For the bourgeois
productive forces to be fully exploited it was a necessity that
these fetters be burst asunder. Yet in Germany-in spite of the
fetters of state structures with feudal remnants-a bourgeois
economic system had developed to the stage of producing a
proletariat class that was not only beginning to organize itself,
but was actually on the verge of assisting in a bourgeois
revolution that will be but the prelude to an immediately fbllowing
proletarian rev~lut ion .~ I t was for this reason that the
communists turn their attention chiefly to Germany. a country
thought to be on the eve of a bourgeois revolution, rather than to
France and England, countries already well past that stage.
Particular circumstances evidently make it possible for a society
to skip the full development of the capitalist epoch of history, so
here in the Marzi/ksto we find an analysis that visualizes Germany
not merely catching up with the historical nations of the West but
also taking the lead from them in advancing towards communism.
Note that this prognosis does not actually suggest that Germany
will dispense with a bourgeois revolution-although such a
revolution will not be uniquely theirs. I t will be made by the
bourgeoisie in alliance with the proletariat, who then wrest from
them the normal full fruits of victory-i.e. an epoch of class
dominance. I t is already clear that Germany is assumed capable of
attaining socialism without many of what had earlier been presented
as necessary preconditions and that the assumption of bourgeois
rule constituting a whole historical epoch-as had feudalism-need
not necessarily apply. The peculiarity of German social development
was more often attributed primarily to the weaknesses of its
bourgeoisie. In the Manifesto this is not denied, but neither is i
t where the emphasis lies. Rather it is the relative strength of
the proletariat that is to be the decisive factor. But the precise
nature of this strength-whether i t consisted of numbers,
organization or revolutionary fervour, or a combination of each-is
left unexplained. In fact the little we learn of German socialism
in the Mani/esto suggests an immaturity that quite unfits i t for
the role of European leadership. I f its literature is any index of
general development, we must note that Marx and Engels described
German True socialism as the bombastic representative of the petty-
bourgeois Philistine.. . With very few exceptions all the so-called
Socialist and Communist publications that now (1 847) circulate in
Germany belong to the domain of this foul and enervating l i t e r
a t ~ r e . ~ ~
M y italics. MECW, Vol. 6, p. 519 3z MECW, Vol. 6, pp. 512,
513.
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544 M A R X , E N G E L S , A N D T H E G E R M A N Q U E S T I
O N
A further point concerning Section IV-apart from its mention of
Germany as the place to which the communists chiefly turn their
attention, is the list of countries also considered-France,
Switzerland and Poland, in order of appearance. At least these are
the countries for which the precise placing of the Communists
vis-h-vis other opposition parties is given. As for England and
America, the chapter begins by stating that Section I1 has made
clear the relations of the Communists to the existing working-class
parties, such as the Chartists in England and the Agrarian
Reformers in America.33 However, if one turns to Section I1 for
elaboration one finds merely a general statement of the
relationship of communists to the proletarians as a ~ h o l e ~ ~ -
b u t no explicit reference to either England or America. Thus,
surprisingly, the Manifesto contains not as much as one precise
sentence on the context of communist struggle in the most
industrially advanced capitalist country of the time. Yet in the
very month (November 1847) that the Communist League commissioned
the preparation of their Manifesto, its authors had delivered
speeches containing the following pronouncements. Murx: Of all
countries, England is the one where the contradiction between the
proletariat and the bourgeoisie is most highly developed. The
victory of the English proletarians over the English bourgeoisie
is, therefore, decisive for the victory of all the oppressed over
their oppressors. Engels: I also believe that the first decisive
blow which will lead to the victory of democracy, to the liberation
of all European nations will be struck by the English
Chartists.35
One should, of course, point out that these speeches were made
in London, whereas the Manifesro, although first published in
London, was written primarily for the German Labour Movement.
Furthermore it was drafted during the course of nearly a year of
lectures and discussions with the members of the German Workers
Educational A s s ~ c i a t i o n . ~ ~
Most of the writings on Germany in the 1840s were by Engels who,
in a number of ways, was less optimistic than Marx, expecting at
most a German 1789. He could not, however, avoid the suspicion that
the German bourgeoisie were too weak-willed to take the
opportunities that came their way. With his more direct experience
of Manchester and the Chartist movement, Engels more consistently
regarded England as forming the vanguard of political as much as of
economic advance. As an example of this difference of emphasis let
us compare the section on German predominance in the Communist
Manifesto, written by Marx, with its first draft, Principles of
Communism, written by Engels in October 1847. In answer to the
question Will it be possible for this revolution to take place in
one country alone? Engels replied that communist revolution will
occur in all civilized countries at the same time, that is at least
in England, America, France and Germany. But in each of these
countries it would develop at a different pace, depending on the
level of industry, wealth, and productive strength. It will
therefore be slowest and most difficult to carry
3 3 MECW, Vol. 6, p. 518. 34 MECW, Vol. 6, p. 497. 3 5 MECW,
Vol. 6, p. 389. 36 R. Blackburn, Marxism: Theory of Proletarian
Revolution, New Left Review, 97 (1976).
p. 7.
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M I C H A E L L E V I N 545
out in Germany, quickest and easiest in England. Thus, when in
possibly the most optimistic year of their lives, Engels envisaged
Germany being caught up in worldwide revolution he saw her being
pulled along by the general tide of events rather than taking the
lead.37
A few months later, in The Movement of 1847, Engels once again
placed England and America to the fore of the communist movement.
Behind them came France and Germany, and then Italy and S ~ i t z e
r l a n d . ~ ~ We must, then, assume that the formulation in the
Manifesto represents Marxs deliberate revision of Engelss rather
different emphasis on this question.
In view of the leading role expected of the German working class
i t is now necessary to consider what attributes Marx and Engels
expected of a socialist movement ready for the seizure of state
power. Section 11 of the Manifesto notes that the immediate aim of
the Communists is the same as that of all the other proletarian
parties: formation of the proletariat into a class, overthrow of
the bourgeois supremacy, conquest of political power by the p r ~ l
e t a r i a t . ~ ~ No hint of a time sequence is given nor any
other factor concerning the relationship of the first aim to the
subsequent ones. However, only a few years previously Marx wrote:
The proletariat is coming into being in Germany only as a result of
the rising industrial movement.40 And just a mere half year before
the Manijesto was written Engels commented that the German workers
were not yet constituted into a class and would not be ready to
attain a dominant position for a long time. Their outlook was
thoroughly petty- bourgeois and, in fact, any advance in Germany at
this time could only come through the b o ~ r g e o i s i e . ~
~
Furthermore, how large was this working class from whom so much
was expected? The Manifesto described the proletarian movement as
the independent movement of the immense majority, in the interest
of the immensc
This easily gives the impression that socialist revolution is
simply a quantitative victory in the battle of numbers. But as late
as the 1870s Marx wrote that the majoritj. of the toiling people in
Germany consists of peasants, and not of proletarian^'.^^ And in
France, sixty years after their bourgeois revolution the most
numerous class of French society were the small-holding peasants.44
The simple view that size equals power, in some ways intimated in
the Manijesto, makes sense neither in terms of that work nor of
Marx and Engelss other writings. Thus the peasantry may be the
largest class in feudal and early capitalist society, yet in
Marxist theory they are always a lower class and never able to
establish their own class rule This class of the population is
absolutely incapable of any revolutionary i n i t i a t i ~ e . ~ ~
The emergence of the bourgeoisie was attributed not to its size but
to control of a mode of production that had a clear growth
potential which feudalism was
MECW, Vol. 6, pp. 351-2. 3 8 MECW, Vol. 6, p. 529. 39 MECW, Vol.
6, p. 498. 40 MECW, Vol. 3, p. 186. 4 1 MECW, Vol. 6, pp. 84-6. 4 2
My italics. MECW, Vol. 6, p. 495 43 My italics. MESW, Vol. 2, p.
31. 44 MESW, Vol. I , p. 333.
MESW, Vol. 1, p. 230.
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546 M A R X , E N G E L S , A N D T H E G E R M A N Q U E S T I
O N
unable to contain. Its position had become too narrow for its
expansive power as Engels once put it.46
Numbers, then, are obviously a factor in class power, but they
are not everything. The revolutionary class is not necessarily the
largest submerged class, but that which combines strategic position
and growth potential with class consciousness and organization. On
all these counts, however, any proletarian revolution in Germany
around the time the Manifesto was written would have to be judged
premature.
A further prerequisite for proletarian revolution is the full
acquisition of the bourgeois heritage. The notion that Germany
could achieve socialism without having first developed a capitalist
economy, state, and ideology is prob- lematical in this respect.
The Manifesto assumes that one ruling class not only creates its
successor but also provides it with a political education. The
bourgeoisie itself, therefore, supplies the proletariat with its
own elements of political and general education, in other words, it
furnishes the proletariat with weapons for fighting the
bo~rgeoisie.~ Clearly a working class coming to power in the
situation envisaged for Germany would miss out on much of the
liberal heritage. What, then, is this heritage and what are the
consequences of its curtailment prior to full development? Among
the significant factors in this respect are political
centralization, high productivity, and the dominance of liberal
ideology in terms of both the free market and political
participation. Political centralization had not yet been achieved
in Germany a t the time the Manifesto was written. Its achievement
by the communists would have secured for them the nationalist
loyalties that went instead, not to the bourgeoisie, for whom the
1848 revolution was ultimately a failure, but to the military and
Junker aristocratic class, who, with the prestige thereby attained,
further reinforced their hold on Germany for virtually half a
century after 1870. The need to achieve high productivity would
have caught a dominant German communism in the contradiction later
experienced by the Russians-of incurring the disability of imposing
the hardships that as yet appear to be an inseparable part of the
industrialization process. On the simple theory of Section I of the
Manifesto communist rule arrives just at the time when it can
garner the fruits of the process of industrialization rather than
suffer the agonies of its creation. Capitalism shared with the
apple the tendency for the ripest to fall first. That certain
material prerequisites have to be met before socialist revolution
is feasible is a recurrent, but not consistent, theme in Marx and
Engelss writings. In the German Zdeofogy they noted that i t is
possible to achieve real liberation only in the real world and by
real means, that slavery cannot be abolished without the
steam-engine and the mule jenny, serfdom cannot be abolished
without improved agriculture, and that, in general, people cannot
be liberated as long as they are unable to obtain food and drink,
housing and clothing in adequate quality and quantity. Liberation
is a historical and not a mental act, and it is brought about by
historical conditions, the level of industry, commerce, a g r i ~ u
l t u r e . ~ ~
46 Introduction (1892) to Socialism: Utopian and Scientific in
MESW, Vol. 2, pp. 102-3.
48 MECW, Vol. 5, p. 38, and see p. 54. MECW, Vol. 6, p. 493.
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M I C H A E L L E V I N 547
A similar approach is implicit in Engelss later statement that
the bourgeoisie, therefore, in this respect also is just as
necessary a precondition of the socialist revolution as the
proletariat itself.49
Further, the weakness of the liberal ideological heritage
lessens the likelihood of the participatory demands that communism
is designed to accommodate. In a sense the vision of communism is
that of an antithesis to liberalism-the meeting of the expectations
i t creates but is unable to fulfil, the deliverance of its false
promises. I t assumes that liberal demands have been made but not
met-that the liberal experience has been gone through and found
wanting. I t is in this area that we come to one of the basic
factors of German political culture. The concept of the citizen as
an active participant in the affairs of his state was a key
component of the political thought of the late eighteenth century.
I t is with figures such as Rousseau, Paine and Jefferson that such
notions are associated. (The first two proudly adopted the title of
Citizen.) Alongside this emphasis on meaningful citizenship and a
community of the politically aware and active, there developed a
whole civil rights tradition that viewed the state as an object of
suspicion rather than glorification, and so sought constitutional
safeguards against it rather than integration within it . The
individual rights of liberalism explicitly included the right to
express different opinions, to oppose either in speech, through the
press or, as a last resort, by force of arms (as in the American
Declaration of Independence). Classical liberalism thereby
articulated an opposition to the whole mentality of the
Obrigkeitsstaut. The weakness of this emphasis underlies the
tradition of the unpolitical German and helps explain crucial areas
of German politics in our own century. In Germany the middle
classes did not develop an ideology of independence and opposition
to the state because they experienced a relatively high level of
integration within it-as officials and teachers and through
state-guided and protected industrialization. The status of the
military was such that its ethic of obedience to orders pervaded
wider areas of society, for whom the liberal virtues of pluralism
and free speech came to appear as inappropriate as they were for
the military itself. Opposition was not so much integrated as
exported. Thus Germany maintained into the twentieth century an
attitude toward political parties-the association of sectional
interest and political opposition with faction, selfishness or
treason-that in Britain had been a characteristic of eighteenth-
century politics.
T H E T I M I D I T Y O F T H E B O U R G E O I S I E
The previously suspected weaknesses of the German bourgeoisie
were, for Marx and Engels, fully confirmed by the dismal
performance of the Frankfurt parliament and failure of the 1848
uprisings. Unification from below-a central aspect of their
strategy-had not occurred. Anger was the initial response: History
presents no more shameful and pitiful spectacle than that of the
German b o u r g e ~ i s i e . ~ ~ In a series of works in the
early 1850s Marx and
J9 On Social Relations in Russia. 1875 in MESW. Vol. 2, p. 50.
lo MECW, Vol. 7 (London, Lawrence and Wishart. 1977), p. 504
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548 M A R X , E N G E L S , A N D T H E G E R M A N Q U E S T I
O N
Engels developed a comprehensive theory of the weaknesses of the
German bourgeoisie in which its main features were its belated
historical emergence and consequent possibility of political
influence only at a time when it also had to contend with the
proletariat below as well as the aristocracy above.
The source of Germanys divergence from the Western pattern could
be traced at least as far back as the peasant wars of the sixteenth
century. These had, in short, been won by the wrong side-the
princes. They had maintained and even furthered their predominance
whereas their opponents, the clergy, the aristocracy, and the town
interests, had lost out. Engels saw this as a clear contrast to the
English and French situation, where an alliance between the
monarchy and the rising bourgeoisie paved the way for national
unification. The function of absolute monarchy for the bourgeoisie
lay in its power to shatter provincial boundaries and restrictions,
thereby facilitating the full development of internal trade on
which the bourgeoisie rely and from which they grow. The
centralization of the state that modern society requires arises
only on the ruins of the military-bureaucratic government machinery
which was forged in opposition to f e u d a l i ~ m . ~ ~ German
backwardness was a consequence of a situation in which disunity
both led to the victory of the princes and was thereby strengthened
by it. Germany had nothing more than regional centres, with the
separate interests of the north and south developing quite
different trading connections and outlets. No single city was in
the situation of becoming the industrial and commercial centre of
the whole country, as, for example, London was for England. 5 2
Engels also referred to a long period of freedom from foreign
invasion, which made the need for unity appear less strong.53
Germanys disadvantages were further compounded by the
devastation and depopulation of the Thirty Years War, which pushed
it backward just at the time when the modern world market opened up
and facilitated the rise of large scale manufacturing. In a lecture
to the London German Workers Educational Society in November 1847,
Engels pointed out that the world market primarily benefited
England and the European Atlantic seaboard nations. In contrast
Italian and German commerce were totally ruined.54 Engels had
previously emphasized the extremely late appearance of the
bourgeois class in Germany, attributing its emergence to foreign
invasion. The creator of the German bourgeoisie was Napoleon. Until
then there had been rich shipowners in the Hansa cities and some
wealthy bankers further inland but no class of big capitalists, and
least of all of big industrial capitalist^'.^^ But, for all their
weaknesses the bourgeoisie still presented the only conceivable
base for a conquest of power.
Engelss account is more discriminating and significantly
different from the more famous general formulation in Part I of the
Manifesro: The discovery of America, the rounding of the Cape,
opened up fresh ground for the rising bourgeoisie . . . gave to
commerce, to navigation, to industry, an impulse never
d l MESW, Vol. 1 , p. 340. dl Marx and Engels, Vber Deurschland
und die deursche Arbeirerbewegung (Berlin, Dietz Verlag.
1973). Band 1, p. 191. 5 3 Uber Deurschland und die deursche
Arbeirerbewegung, Band 1 , p. 280. d 4 MECW, Vol. 6, p. 627.
MECW, Vol. 6, p. 80.
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M I C H A E L L E V I N 549
before known, and thereby to the revolutionary element in the
tottering feudal society, a rapid d e v e l ~ p m e n t . ~ ~ The
reference to Germany and Italy in the same section assumed them to
be part of the aforementioned general development.
Already in 1844 Marx had foreshadowed the problems that beset a
class whose successor has appeared before it has itself achieved
emancipation, a class whose opportunity to imprint its character
upon history disappeared before it had the strength to take it . In
Germany the very opportunity of a great role has on every occasion
passed away before it is to hand, thus every class, once i t begins
the struggle against the class above it, is involved in the
struggle against the class below it. Hence the princes are
struggling against the monarchy, the bureaucrats against the
nobility, and the bourgeoisie against them all, while the
proletariat is already beginning to struggle against the
bourgeoisie. No sooner does the middle class dare to think of
emancipation from its own standpoint than the development of the
social conditions and the progress of political theory pronounce
that standpoint antiquated or at least p r o b l e m a t i ~ . ~
~
The events of 1848-9 strengthened the conviction that the full
victory of liberal economic and political ideas could only be
gained by a bourgeoisie that sees opponents above i t ; not by one
that has enemies on both sides, for then it is made too aware that
the liberties it seeks for itself become socialistic in the sense
that they also aid the emerging working class.
A bourgeoisie in this position has nowhere to turn. Unable to
rely on itself alone it is torn between a half-hearted radicalism
in pursuit of its own economic interests and subservience to the
aristocracy as a means of protection from the mob. Such is the
social background to the vacillation, timidity, treachery and
cowardice that Marx and Engels observed in the German middle
classes. Why press boldly forward when 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.SR
Looking back on the 1848 revolutions Engels later noted how The
German bourgeoisie, instead of conquering by virtue of its own
power, conquered in the tow of a French workers revolution,, .
Terrified not by what the German proletariat was, but by what it
threatened to become and what the French proletariat already was,
the bourgeoisie saw its sole salvation in some compromise, even the
most cowardly, with monarchy and nobility.sg
The consequence of this was that political Liberalism, the rule
of the bourgeoisie, be it under a Monarchical or Republican form of
government, is forever impossible in Germany.60
5 6 MECW, Vol. 6, p. 485.
s 8 F. Engels, Cerniany: Revolurion and Counrer-Revolurion
(London, Lawrence and Wishart,
s Q MESW, Vol. 2. pp. 329, 330. Marx had also suspected the
French bourgeoisie of accepting
6o Engels, Germany: Revolution and Counter-Revolurion. p. 1
12.
MECW, Vol. 3. pp. 185-6.
1969). p. 105.
political nullity in return for economic security. See MESW.
Vol. I , pp. 288, 319.
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550 M A R X , E N G E L S , A N D T H E G E R M A N Q U E S T I
O N
T H E RISE O F T H E P R O L E T A R I A T
In this situation the torch of progress necessarily passes to
the class that remains unequivocally radical. As E. H. Carr has put
it: Once bourgeois democracy was recognised as a stepping-stone to
socialism, it could be brought into being only by those who
believed also in socialism.61 Thus it is to the further analysis of
the German working class that we must now turn.
After 1850 Marx and Engelss analysis of German socialism
contained three main aspects. (1) The initial response was to
stress the immaturity of the working-class movement and the danger
of its being thrust forward prematurely. In 1850 Marx declared his
devotion to a party which would do best not to assume power just
now. The proletariat, if it should come to power, would not be able
to implement proletarian measures immediately, but would have to
produce petty-bourgeois ones. Our party can only become the
government when conditions allow its views to be put into
practice.62 At this point Marx broke unequivocally with the section
of the Communist League supported by Schapper and Willich. They
regarded will as more important than economic development in
bringing about a socialist revolution, whereas Marx was now looking
much more predominantly for the economic crisis that would herald
the demise of the capitalist mode of production. Rising prosperity
had been the material basis of the counter-revolution, and while it
lasted the progress of the proletariat would necessarily be slow.
We tell the workers: If you want to change conditions and make
yourselves capable of government, you will have to undergo fifteen,
twenty or fifty years of civil war.63 Engels, too, pointed out how
far the German proletariat lay behind that of England or France,
how modern ideas had hardly penetrated to a class mainly employed
by small tradesmen, and that, in consequence, their aspirations
were often directed backwards to the feudal guild system rather
than forward to industrial unionism.64
(2) A second stage of the evaluation of German socialism
consisted of a strong antipathy to Lassalles influence on the
nascent SPD. Lassalleanism, to Marx and Engels, consisted of
subservience to the Prussian state, a compromise with feudalism,
bogus economic theory and the abandonment of internationalism. Long
after his death in a duel (1864) Lassalles theories continued to
vie with Marxs own for dominance within the party. The 1875 Gotha
Programme, an attempted reconcilation between the Eisenach and
Lassallean factions, was seen as far too much of a victory for the
latter. In 1877 Marx declared that a rotten spirit is making itself
felt in our Party in Germany, not so much among the masses as among
the leaders.65 But however suspect the leadership might be, the
class it represented was, thought
6 1 E. H. Carr, The Bolshevik Revolution, 1917-1923
(Harmondsworth, Middx., Penguin, 1975),
6z Minutes of the Central Committee Meeting of 15 September 1850
in Karl Marx, The Revolutions of 1848 (Harmondsworth, Middx.,
Penguin, 1973), p. 343. Also see Engels letter to J. Weydemeyer, 12
April 1853, in Marx, Engels, Selected Correspondence, p. 71.
63 Marx, The Revolutions of 1848, p. 341. Also see MECW, Vol. I
, pp. 231, 233, 242, and D. McLellan, Karl Marx. His Lye and
Thought (London and Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1973), pp.
25&2.
V O l . I , p. 54.
64 Engels, Germany: Revolution and Counter-Revolution, p. 15. 6
5 Quoted in McLellan, Karl Marx. His Life and Thoughr, p. 434.
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M I C H A E L L E V l N 55 I
Engels, the only healthy class in Germany, the only class that
had avoided the hereditary German plague of petty-bourgeois and
philistine sentiment. Only the proletariat had given evidence of a
free outlook, energy, humour, tenacity in struggle.66 Economic and
political developments were gradually fitting this class for the
task of European leadership.
(3) By the 1870s Germany had emerged from the industrially
backward position that Marx and Engels had lamented nearly a
quarter of a century earlier. In an 1873 preface to the second
edition of Cupiful Marx noted that since 1848 capitalist production
has developed rapidly in Germany, and at the present time i t is in
the full bloom of speculation and wind ling'.^' In this vital
aspect, then, Germany no longer lagged so far behind France and
England. A limitation that long held back its working-class
movement had now been overcome. The war of 1870 was seen as a
turning-point. Political unification and economic advance radically
altered the German situation just as French socialism, already
beset with a surfeit of Proudhonism, suffered a severe setback with
the defeat of the Paris commune. That Germany finds her unity at
first in the Prussian barracks is a punishment she has amply
merited, wrote Marx in 1870. But, he continued, this war has
shifted the centre of gravity of the working-class movement on the
Continent from France to Germany. This places greater
responsibility upon the German working class.68 It also appeared to
present a favourable opportunity for Marxism to become the dominant
mode of European socialism. Writing to Engels in July 1870, Marx
declared that the French need a thrashing. If the Prussians win,
the centralisation of the state power will be useful for the
centralisation of the German working class. German predominance
would also transfer the centre of gravity of the workers movements
in western Europe from France to Germany, and one has only to
compare the movement in the two countries from 1866 till now to see
that the German working class is superior to the French both
theoretically and organisationally. This predominance over the
French on the world stage would also mean the predominance of our
theory over Proudhons e t ~ . ~ ~
Grounds exist for suspecting Marx and Engels of putting an
optimistic gloss on the situation of any country for whom they were
writing. (See, for example, the Prefaces to the Manifesto
translations into Russian and Italian.) Thus one might explain an
apparent partiality for Germany in terms of the context in which it
was expressed. However, this conclusion is not supported by the
evidence. In 1891-2, when the German socialists had just emerged
from the banishment to which Bismarck confined them, Engels
informed both the French and the English that German socialism was
at the head of the workers movement. Socialism in Germany was
written at the request of Parisian socialists and first appeared in
French in 1892. In it Engels explained that now the German Social
Democratic Party. thanks to its uninterrupted battles and
sacrifices over a period of thirty years, has attained a position
unequalled by any other socialist party in the world, a position
which will, within a short period of time, secure
66 Letter to E. Bernstein, 1883. in Marx, Engels. Srlecterl
Corrrspondenc,e. p. 358 6 K. Marx, Capital. Vol. I (Harmondsworth,
Middx., Penguin, 1976), p. 96. 6n Marx, Engels. Selwted
Correspondence, p. 241. 69 K . Marx and F. Engels. Wrrke (Berlin,
Dietz Verlag. 1966). Band 33. p. 5.
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552 M A R X , E N G E L S , A N D T H E G E R M A N Q U E S T I
O N
for it political power. The German socialists assume the
foremost, the most glorious, the most responsible place in the
international workers movement.70
The English received somewhat similar treatment in Engelss 1892
special introduction to the English edition of Socialism: Utopian
and Scientific. The whole tenor of the introduction shows it to be
very deliberately geared to an English audience. Engels clearly
felt the burden of introducing to an English readership a manner of
thinking they would consider alien and continental. This explains
his effort to present materialism as part of the English
philosophical tradition of Bacon, Hobbes, and Locke. (Such a
reminder was possibly felt to be particularly necessary at a time
when English educated opinion was much influenced by the idealism
of Bosanquet and Green.) In a brief account of English historical
development we learn that the country with the most developed
capitalist economy had not even had a clear-cut bourgeois
revolution, but only a series of compromises; that the bourgeoisie
never held undisputed sway; that Germany rather than England is in
the forefront of the world socialist movement.
What could be the reasons for this? On grounds of strict
historical materialism one would expect the working-class movement
to be most advanced in the country where capitalism had developed
furthest. However, the reasons for Englands loss of leadership
appear to rest on the qualities of the respective labour movements.
The German Social Democrats had just emerged from banishment to
significant electoral advances and the formu- lation of a Marxist
programme at their 1891 Erfurt conference. In contrast, the English
Fabians were-according to Engelss letters of this period-primarily
intent on handing the organized labour movement over to an alliance
with the Liberals and, at all cost, avoiding class conflict. German
superiority was significantly demonstrated by the very existence of
its own workers party. In contrast, the French had mere factions
and the English were dependent primarily on trade unionism,
co-operatives, utopian projects and philanthropy.
Engels closes his introduction to the English edition of
Socialism: Utopian and Scientific as follows : But the triumph of
the European working class does not depend upon England alone. It
can only be secured by the co-operation of, a t least, England,
France, and Germany. In both the latter countries the working class
movement is well ahead of England. In Germany it is even within
measurable distance of success. The progress is has there made
during the last twenty-five years is unparalleled. It advances with
ever-increasing velocity. If the German middle-class have shown
themselves lamentably deficient in political capacity, discipline,
courage, energy and perseverance, the German working class have
given ample proof of all these qualities. Four hundred years ago,
Germany was the starting-point of the first upheaval of the
European middle class; as things now are, is it outside the limits
of possibility that Germany will be the scene, too, of the first
great victory of the European proletariat?7
II F. Engels, Der Sozialismus in Deutschland, Werke (Berlin,
Diem Verlag, 1970), Band 22, p. 255. In his 1891 introduction to
Marxs The Civil War in France Engels referred to German scientific
socialism (MESW, Vol. 1, p. 481).
I MESW, Vol. 2, p. 115. Also see MESW, Vol. I , pp. 640-54.
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M I C H A E L L E V l N 553
C O N C L U S I O N
By way of conclusion one should emphasize the major contribution
that Marx and Engels made to the German Sonderenrwicklung
literature. Theirs was the first significant analysis to locate
Germanys peculiarity in terms of its social structure, and also
inaugurated a line of enquiry echoed in significant and influential
writings down to our own day-in the works of, for example, Mehring,
Lukacs, Marcuse and Kiihn1,72 not to mention numerous others who
would be embarrassed by the association.
In terms of our own century, it will be evident that the theory
of Germanys leap forward to socialism has an obvious relevance to
Bolshevism, just as Germanys weak liberal tradition was one of the
many factors facilitating the rise of Nazism. Both these aspects,
however, require more extended treatment than can be offered
here.
For both Marx and Engels Germany remained a special concern.
Fifty years after he first came to England Engels could still refer
to the German Social Democrats as our part^'.'^ So, to the extent
that they saw Germany as the major hope for advance to socialism,
Marx and Engels can-surprisingly, and in rather a deviant manner-be
related to the long tradition of German nationalist thought.
The relative significance of various statements by Marx and
Engels must at least partially depend on the status attributed to
the works from which they are taken. The present discussion assumes
that the MuniJesto occupies a major place in the corpus of their
writings and notes that throughout their lives they referred to the
Munijesro in the warmest terms, regarding it as the first
comprehensive statement of their position. 7 4
I t must be clear that in a number of ways Marx and Engels were
less dogmatic than is often thought. We have noted that change need
not be determined solely by internal economic and social factors.
Chance, coincidence and geographical position can also play a part.
Proximity to the Atlantic was mentioned as a factor favouring the
rise of the bourgeoisie and lack of foreign invasion as a
hindrance. Also, the path of historical development is evidently
less straightforward than some of the shorter summaries (most
obviously the 1859 Preface) appear to suggest. Helmut Fleischer has
noted that what he calls Marxs homological approach is more evident
in short summaries, prefaces, and postscripts, and that in more
detailed studies axiomatic deduction from laws retreats behind
complex description. Fleischer thus tries to read-out or dismiss
the former as a tendency to rhetorical flourish or figure of
speech,75 both of which distort what Marxism is really about. This
approach might yield consistency but to deny the actuality of
ambiguity and contradiction is an improper distortion of the facts
and, in this instance, submerges the very real
2 F. Mehring, Ahsolurism mid Rivolurion in Gerniuns 152/-1848
(London. New Park Publications, 1975): G. Lukacs, Die Zersthwng der
beniurz/i (Darmstadt und Neuwied, Luchterhand Verlag, 1973). Band I
. Ch. I ; H. Marcuse, Reason urtd Rrvolurion (London. Routledge and
Kegan Paul, 1969); R. Kiihnl. Formen Burgerlicher Herrsc,bu/i:
Liberdisntus- Faschismus (Reinbek bei Hamburg, 1976). See, for
example. Marx and Engels, Werke, Band 22, pp. 243, 249: we in
Germany in
MESW, Vol. I , p. 473; McLellan. Kurl M a n . His Lifb and
Thought, p. 430. 4 Blackburn, Marxism: Theory of Proletarian
Revolution, p. 13. 7 5 H. Fleischer, Murxisni and Hisrory (New
York. Harper and Row, 1969), pp. 36, 35.
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554 M A R X , E N G E L S , A N D T H E G E R M A N Q U E S T I
O N
basis for the positivist Marxism of the Second International. A
too assertive reduction of variety to whatever type of dogmatic
uniformity might have its political justifications but is of little
service to real understanding. Marxism certainly cannot be whatever
we care to make it, but on certain themes there is a duality of
attitudes that it would be misleading not to acknowledge. In this
enquiry we have seen how Marx and Engels's particular
investigations of German development pose difficult problems
concerning compatibility with their general theory of history. This
duality cannot be overcome or integrated into one consistent
pattern. Michael Evans has noted that the Manifesto version of what
a normal development constituted had been effectively discarded
both by the changes Marx made to his economic theory and by his
recognition of the various changes in political circumstances which
followed in the wake of the failure of the 1848 revolutions. No
coherent political theory was put forward to cope with the new
phenomena. Indeed, both Marx and Engels continued to refer to the
Manifesto as the classic outline of their political strategy.. . in
fact the ambiguities of Marx's position mean that there will always
be competing orthodoxies of interpretation.76
'' M. Evans, Karl Marx (London, 1975), p. 168.