Karl Marx

Cologne, 28 October. – No. 129, 29 October 1848. No. 116 of the *Neue Rheinische Zeitung* carried, below the rule, i.e. outside the political part of the paper, “A Word to the German People”, signed “Hecker”. This “historical document” had been circulated by German newspapers before the “N. Rh. Z.” Other German newspapers, not excepting the Rhenish Prussian and Old Prussian ones, carried it later. Even the *Kölnische Zeitung* had historical sense enough to print Struve’s proclamation, and no less that of Fuad Effendi.

We do not know. Were the laurels of the Republican Hecker disturbing the sleep of the Public Prosecutor Hecker? Was the astonished world to be made to realise that the German revolution had been doubly defeated – by the flight of the Republican Hecker to New-York, by the presence of the Public Prosecutor Hecker in Cologne? One cannot deny it. Posterity will see in these two colossal figures the antitheses of the modern movement dramatically epitomised. A future Goethe will bind them in a “Faust”. We leave it to him to decide which Hecker to assign the role of Faust, which that of Wagner.

Enough. The fantastical farewell message of the Republican Hecker was followed by a no less fantastical indictment by the Public Prosecutor Hecker.

Or are we mistaken? Does Hecker the Public Prosecutor think that “The Word to the German People” is a product of the *Neue Rheinische Zeitung*’s own fabrication, and that in its inventive malice this paper signed its own proclamation “Hecker”, in order to make the German people believe that Hecker, the Public Prosecutor, was emigrating to New-York; that Hecker, the Public Prosecutor, was proclaiming the German Republic; that Hecker, the Public Prosecutor, was officially sanctioning revolutionary pious wishes?

Karl Marx
Such a ruse was plausible, for the document printed in the supplement to No. 116 of the “N. Rh. Z.” is not signed Friedrich Hecker, but *tout bonnement* “Hecker”. Hecker without flourishes, plain Hecker! And does not Germany possess a twofold Hecker?
And which of the two is the “plain Hecker”? In any case this plainness remains ambiguous – we mean, incriminating for the *Neue Rheinische Zeitung*.

Be that as it may, Mr Hecker the Public Prosecutor evidently saw in “A Word to the German People” a fabrication of the *Neue Rheinische Zeitung*. He perceived in it a direct incitement to the overthrow of the government, high treason in its most developed form, or at the very least complicity in high treason, which according to the *Code pénal* is “simple” high treason.

Mr Hecker therefore petitioned the examining magistrate not to “constitute” the signatory responsible publisher, but the editor-in-chief, Karl Marx, as a traitor. To “constitute” someone as a traitor, however, means in other words to provisionally throw him into prison, and to punish him with remand pending further steps. What is at issue here is the “constitution” of the cell prison. The examining magistrate refused. Once Mr Hecker has seized on an idea, he pursues his idea. To “constitute” the editor-in-chief of the “N. Rh. Z.” had become a fixed idea with him, just as the name “Hecker” under the “farewell message” had become a fiction. He therefore turned to the council chamber. The council chamber refused. He went from the council chamber to the Appellate Senate. The Appellate Senate refused. But Mr Hecker, the Public Prosecutor, was not to be parted from his fixed idea of “constituting” the editor-in-chief of the “N. Rh. Z.”, Karl Marx, in the sense indicated. The ideas of the public prosecutor’s office are, as we see, not speculative ideas in the Hegelian sense. They are ideas in the Kantian sense: fancies of “practical” reason.

Karl Marx could never be directly “constituted” as a traitor, even if the reprinting of revolutionary facts or proclamations constituted a newspaper a traitor. To begin with, one had to keep to the person who signed the newspaper, quite particularly in this case, where the document in question stands below the rule. What remained? One idea gives rise to another. Karl Marx could be cited under Article 60 of the *Code pénal* as accomplice of the crime allegedly committed by the responsible publisher. If one likes, one can also cite him as accomplice of every advertisement, even if it appears in the “*Kölnische Zeitung*”. Karl Marx therefore received from the examining magistrate a

The Public Prosecutor “Hecker” and the *Neue Rheinische Zeitung*
summons, appeared and was examined on record. The compositors, so far as we know, were summoned as witnesses, the proofreader was summoned as a witness, the owner of the printing press was summoned as a witness. Finally, however, the responsible publisher was summoned as a witness. This last summons we do not understand.
Is the alleged author to be witness against his accomplice?

To complete our historical narrative: a house search was conducted in the office of the “N. Rh. Z.”

Hecker the Public Prosecutor has outdone Hecker the Republican. The one performs rebellious acts and issues rebellious proclamations. The other, despite all resistance, obliterates the acts from the memoirs of contemporary history, from the newspapers. He makes what has happened not to have happened. If the “bad press” circulates revolutionary facts and proclamations, it commits high treason doubly. It is morally an accomplice; it circulates the rebellious acts only because they tickle it inwardly. It is an accomplice in the ordinary legal sense; by reporting it disseminates, and by disseminating it makes itself the instrument of insurrection. On both counts it is therefore “constituted” and thus enjoys the fruits of the “constitution”. The “good press”, by contrast, will have the monopoly of circulating or not circulating revolutionary documents and facts, falsifying them or not falsifying them. Radetzky applied this theory by forbidding the Milan papers to circulate the Viennese facts and proclamations. Instead, the “Milanese Newspaper” printed, in the place of the great Viennese “Revolution”, a little Viennese riot specially composed by Radetzky. A rising is, so it is whispered, nevertheless said to have broken out in Milan.

Mr Hecker, the Public Prosecutor, is, as everybody knows, a contributor to the *Neue Rheinische Zeitung*. As our contributor we forgive him much, but not the sin against the unholy “spirit” of our paper. And he commits such a sin when, with a lack of criticism unheard of in a contributor to the “N. Rh. Z.”, he transforms the proclamation of Hecker the refugee into a proclamation of the *Neue Rheinische Zeitung*. Friedrich Hecker strikes pathetic attitudes; the “N. Rh. Z.” adopts a critical attitude towards the movement. Friedrich Hecker expects everything from the magical workings of single individuals. We expect everything from the collisions arising out of economic conditions. Friedrich Hecker travels to the United States to study the “republic”. The “N. Rh. Z.” finds in the grand class struggles that are going on within the French Repub-

Karl Marx
lic more interesting objects of study than in a republic where class struggles in the West do not yet exist, and in the East still move only in the old, noiseless English form. For Friedrich Hecker the social questions are consequences of political struggles; for the “N. Rh. Z.” political struggles are only the forms of appearance of social collisions. Friedrich Hecker might be a good tricolour republican. The real opposition of the “N. Rh. Z.” only begins in the tricolour republic.

How, for example, could the “*Neue Rheinische Zeitung*”, without completely disavowing its past, have called out to the German people:
“Rally round the men who hold high the banner of popular sovereignty and keep true guard over it, round the men of the extreme Left in Frankfurt on Main, unite in counsel and deed firmly with the brave leaders of the republican armed rising.”
We have repeatedly declared that we are no “parliamentary” paper, and consequently do not shrink from drawing down upon our heads from time to time the wrath even of the extreme Left in Berlin and Frankfurt. We have called upon the gentlemen in Frankfurt to rally to the people; we have never called upon the people to rally to the gentlemen in Frankfurt. And “the brave leaders of the republican armed rising” – where are they, who are they? Hecker, as is well known, is in America, Struve in prison. Herwegh then? The editors of the N. Rh. Z., in particular Karl Marx, publicly stood out against the Herwegh expedition in Paris in open popular assemblies, not shunning the disfavour of the excited masses. They were for this, in due course, cast in suspicion by utopians who fancied themselves revolutionaries. (Compare, among other things, the “*Deutsche Volkszeitung*”.) And now that events have repeatedly confirmed our predictions, should we attach ourselves to the men of the opposite opinion?

Let us be fair, however. Mr Hecker, the Public Prosecutor, is still a young contributor to our paper. The beginner in politics as well as the beginner in natural science resembles that painter who knows only two colours, white and black, or, if one prefers, black and white and red. The finer distinctions within each *espèce* only reveal themselves to the practised and experienced eye. And above all, was not Mr Hecker dominated by the fixed idea of “constituting” the editor-in-chief of the “N. Rh. Z.”, Karl Marx – a fixed idea that melted neither in the purgatory of the investigating court, nor of the council chamber, nor of the Appellate Senate, and must therefore be a fireproof fixed idea.

The Public Prosecutor “Hecker” and the *Neue Rheinische Zeitung*
The greatest achievement of the March Revolution is indisputably, to speak with Brutus Bassermann, the “rule of the noblest and best”, and its rapid ascent on the ladder of rule. We hope, therefore, that the merits of our honoured contributor, Mr Public Prosecutor Hecker, like the snow-white doves harnessed before Aphrodite’s chariot that bore her arrow-swift to Olympus, will bear him to the heights of the State Olympus. Our government is, as everybody knows, constitutional. Pfuel swears by constitutionalism. In constitutional states it is the custom to give attentive ear to the recommendations of opposition papers. We are therefore moving on constitutional ground when we advise the government to confer upon our Hecker the vacant post of Chief Public Prosecutor in Düsseldorf. Mr Public Prosecutor Ammon of Düsseldorf, who, as far as we know, has so far earned no life-saving medal for the fatherland, will not hesitate for a moment to impose reverent silence on any possible claims of his own before this higher merit. Should, however, Mr Heimsoeth become Minister of Justice, as we hope, we recommend Mr Hecker for Advocate-General. Greater things we expect for Mr Hecker. Mr Hecker is still young. And, as that Russian says: the Tsar is great, God is still greater, but the Tsar is still young.