The Berlin *National-Zeitung* to the Primary Electors

Cologne, 25 January. Rarely, but still from time to time one has the pleasure, amidst the sediment left behind by the double deluge of revolution and counter-revolution, of seeing a signpost from the good old pre-March days sticking up. Mountains have been moved, valleys filled in, forests flattened, but the signpost still stands in its old place, painted with the old colours, and still bears the old inscription: “To Schilda!”

One such signpost stretches out its wooden arm to us from No. 21 of the Berlin *National-Zeitung* with the inscription: “To the Primary Electors. To Schilda!”

The well-meant advice of the *National-Zeitung* to the primary electors explains to them first of all: “The hour has arrived when, for the second time, the Prussian people is about to exercise the hard-won universal suffrage” (as if the octroyed so-called universal suffrage, with its interpretation varying from village to village, were still the same suffrage as that of 8 April!) “from which the men should emerge who, for the second time, have to pronounce what is the sense (!), the opinion (!!), and the will (!!!) not of individual estates and classes, but of the whole people.”

Let us pass over in silence the fat-bellied, clumsy style of this sentence, which heaves itself laboriously from one word to the next. Universal suffrage, it is said, is to reveal to us what the will is, not of individual estates and classes, but of the whole people.

Fine! And of what does “the whole people” consist?
Of “individual estates and classes”.
And of what does “the will of the whole people” consist?
Of the individual, mutually contradictory “wills” of the “individual estates and classes”, i.e., precisely of the will which the *National-Zeitung* presents as the direct opposite of the “will of the whole people”.

A great logician of the *National-Zeitung*!
But for the *National-Zeitung* there exists a will of the whole people which is no sum of contradictory wills, but a single, definite will. How so?
That is – the will of the majority. 5
And what is the will of the majority?
It is the will that arises from the interests, the position in life, the conditions of existence of the majority.
In order, then, to have one and the same will, the members of the majority must have the same interests, the same position in life, the same conditions of existence, or must, for the time being, still be bound together in their interests, their position in life, their conditions of existence.
In plain English: The will of the people, the will of the majority, is the will not of individual estates and classes, but of one single class and of those other classes and sections of classes that are socially, i.e. industrially and commercially, subjected to this one ruling class.
“But what are we to say to that?” The will of the whole people is the will of a ruling class?
Certainly, and precisely universal suffrage is the magnetic needle which, even if only after various fluctuations, finally points to this class that is called to rule.
And this worthy *National-Zeitung* still drivels on, as it did in Anno 1847, about an imaginary “will of the whole people”!
Furthermore. After this uplifting exordium, it astonishes us with the portentous remark:
“In January 1849 the state of things is different from what it was in those May days of the year 1848, so rich in hope and exaltation (why not also in devotion?).”
At that time all stood in the ornament of blossom,
And the sunlight it laughed,
And the birds they sang so hopefully,
And human beings hoped and thought,
Thought they:
“At that time all seemed united, that the great reforms which should have been introduced in Prussia long ago, if building had been continued on the foundations laid in the years 1807–14, in the spirit of that time and in accordance with the education and insight that had grown since then – must now be carried out completely and without delay.”

“At that time all seemed united”! Great, divine naivety of the *National-Zeitung*! At that time, when the Guards were pulling out of Berlin gnashing their teeth with rage, when the Prince of Prussia had to flee hurriedly in a postilion’s jacket, when the high nobility and the high bourgeoisie were inwardly devouring their fury at the ignominy inflicted on the King in the palace courtyard, when the people compelled him to bare his head before the March dead – “at that time all seemed united”!
Good God, it is bad enough to have imagined such a thing, but now, after one has had to recognise oneself as duped, to trumpet one’s duped credulity abroad – really, c’est par trop bonhomme!
And about what “did all seem united”?
About the fact “that the great reforms which ... should have been introduced ... if building had been continued ... must now ... be carried out”.
On that, everyone was – nay, seemed – agreed.
Great March achievement, expressed in worthy language!
And what were these “reforms”?
The development of the “foundations of 1807–14, in the spirit of that time and in accordance with the education and insight that had grown since then”.
That is, in the spirit of 1807–14 and at the same time in a completely different spirit.
The “spirit of that time” consisted quite simply in the highly material pressure of the French of that time on the Prussian Junker monarchy of that time, as well as in the equally unfavourable financial deficit of the Kingdom of Prussia at that time. In order to make burghers and peasants capable of paying taxes, in order to introduce, at least in appearance, some of the reforms with which the French showered the conquered parts of Germany among the royal Prussian subjects; in short, in order to patch up somewhat the Hohenzollern monarchy, which was cracking in all its joints and rotten through and through – for these reasons a few niggardly so-called municipal ordinances, redemption ordinances, military institutions, etc., were brought into being. All these reforms were distinguished by nothing except that they lagged a full hundred years behind the French Revolution of 1789, indeed behind the English one of 1640. And these are supposed to be the foundations for revolutionised Prussia?
But Old Prussian fancy always sees Prussia at the centre of world history, whereas the state of intelligence in reality has always been dragged after her through the mire. This Old Prussian fancy must of course ignore that Prussia, so long as it received no kicks from the French, remained quietly squatting on the undeveloped

foundations of 1807–1814 and did not stir a limb. It must ignore that these foundations were long since forgotten when, last February, the glorious bureaucratic-Junkerist royal Prussian monarchy received a new, so mighty shove from the French that it tumbled down most gloriously from its “foundations of 1807–1814”. It must ignore that for the royal Prussian monarchy the question was by no means one of these foundations, but solely of averting the further consequences of the impulse received from France. But all this Prussian fancy ignores, and when it suddenly receives the shove, it cries out, like a child for its nurse, for the rotten foundations of 1807–1814!
As if the Prussia of 1848, in territory, industry, trade, means of communication, education, and class relations, were not a quite different country from the Prussia of the “foundations of 1807–1814”!
As if two entirely new classes, the industrial proletariat and the free peasant class, had not intervened in its history since that time, as if the Prussian bourgeoisie of 1848 were not a quite different one from the timorous, humble, and grateful petty bourgeoisie of the time of the “foundations”!
But all this is of no avail. A worthy Prussian must know nothing except his “foundations of 1807 to 1814”. These are, once and for all, the foundations; building continues upon them – and that’s that.
The beginning of one of the most colossal historical upheavals is shrivelled up into the end of one of the most miniscule sham-reform swindles – that is how the revolution is understood in Old Prussia!
And in this self-satisfied, narrow-minded enthusiasm for the patriotic history, “all seemed united” – to be sure, thank God, only in Berlin!
Furthermore:
“Those estates and classes which had privileges and prerogatives to give up ... whose task it was in future to stand only with equal rights alongside all their fellow citizens, ... seemed ready to do so – filled with the conviction that the old state of things had become untenable, that it lay in their own well-understood interest ...”
Behold the gentle and sincerely humble burgher, how he once again spirits away the revolution! The nobility, the priests, the bureaucrats, the officers “seemed ready” to give up their privileges, not because the armed people forced them to do so, not because the demoralisation and disorganisation that irresistibly broke out in their own ranks, in the first terror at the European revolution, rendered them incapable of resistance – no! The peaceful, benevolent, and mutually advantageous “transactions”, to speak with Herr Camphausen,

of 24 February and 18 March had “filled” them with the “conviction” that this “lay in their own well-understood interest”!
The March Revolution, and all the more so the 24th of February, in the well-understood interest of the gentlemen junkers, consistorial councillors, government councillors, and guard lieutenants – this truly is a pyramidal fancy!
But alas! “Today it is no longer so. The beneficiaries and adherents of the old state of things, far from helping themselves, in accordance with their duty (!) to clear away the old rubble and build the new house, wish only to prop up the old ruins, under which the ground has so alarmingly trembled, and to dress them up with a few forms that appear to adapt themselves to the new age.”
“Today it is no longer so” – as it seemed to be in May, i.e. it is no longer so as it was not in May, or it is precisely as it was in May.
Such German is written in the Berlin *National-Zeitung*, and on top of that one is proud of it.
In a word: May 1848 and January 1849 differ only in appearance. Earlier, the counter-revolutionaries seemed to recognise their duty; today they genuinely and openly do not recognise it, and the tranquil citizen bewails this. It is, after all, the duty of the counter-revolutionaries to give up their interests in their own well-understood interest! It is their duty to cut open their own vital veins – and yet they do not do it – so bewails the man of well-understood interest!
And why do your enemies not now do what, as you say, is after all their duty?
Because you yourselves in the spring did not do your “duty” – because at that time, when you were strong, you behaved like poltroons and trembled before the revolution that was to make you great and mighty; because you yourselves left the old rubble lying and gazed complacently at your own reflection in the aureole of a half-success! And now, when counter-revolution has grown strong overnight and sets its foot on your necks, now, when the ground beneath your feet is trembling alarmingly, now you demand that counter-revolution shall become your servant, shall clear away the rubble that you were too weak and too cowardly to clear away, that she, the powerful one, shall sacrifice herself for you, the weak ones?
Childish fools that you are! But wait a little while, and the people will rise and with one mighty thrust dash you to the ground along with the counter-revolution, against which you are now barking so impotently!
(Conclusion follows.)

Neue Rheinische Zeitung.  
No. 207, January 28, 1849.  
Second Edition  
* Cologne, January 27.  
(The Berlin National-Zeitung to the Original Electors. – Conclusion.)

In our first article we did not take into account a circumstance which could indeed apparently serve as an excuse for the National-Zeitung: The National-Zeitung does not write freely, it is under the state of siege. And under the state of siege it must, of course, sing:

Bid me not speak, bid me be silent,  
For my secret is but duty;  
I would reveal my inmost heart to you,  
Alas, fate wills it not!!!

Meanwhile, newspapers do not appear, not even under the state of siege, in order to say the opposite of what they think, and then the state of siege has no bearing on the first half of the article in question, which we have so far considered.

The state of siege is not to blame for the turgid, obscure style of the National-Zeitung.

The state of siege is not to blame for the fact that the National-Zeitung entertained all kinds of philistine illusions after March.

The state of siege by no means compels the National-Zeitung to make the revolution of 1848 the train-bearer of the reforms of 1807 to 1814.

The state of siege, in a word, by no means compels the National-Zeitung to have such absurd notions about the course of development of the revolution and counter-revolution of 1848 as we demonstrated to it 2 days ago. Not the past, only the present falls to the state of siege.

Therefore, in our critique of the first half of the article in question, we did not take the state of siege into account, and for just that reason we shall take it into account today.

The National-Zeitung, after finishing its historical introduction, now turns to the original electors in the following manner:  
“It is a matter of safeguarding the progress that has been initiated, of holding fast to the gains.”

What “progress”? What “gains”? The “progress” that “today it is no longer as it ‘seemed’ in May”? The “gain” that “the beneficiaries of the old state of things are far from helping themselves as is their duty, that the old rubble be cleared away”? Or the octroyed “gains” that “prop up the old ruins and deck them out with a few forms that appear to snuggle up to the new era”?

The state of siege, gentlemen of the National-Zeitung, is no excuse for thoughtlessness and confusion.

The “progress” that has been “initiated” best of all at the moment is the retrogression to the old system, and on this path of progress we advance further daily.

The only “gain” that has remained to us – and this is no specifically Prussian, no “March” gain, but the result of the European revolution of 1848 – is the most general, the most resolute, the bloodiest, the most violent counter-revolution, which itself, however, is only a phase of the European revolution and therefore only the begetter of a new, general, and victorious revolutionary counter-blow.

But the National-Zeitung perhaps knows this as well as we do, and is only not allowed to say it on account of the state of siege? Just listen:  
“We do not want a continuation of the revolution; we are enemies of all anarchy, of every act of violence and arbitrary action; we want law, tranquillity and order.”

The state of siege, gentlemen, compels you at most to silence, never to speak. We therefore place on record this last-quoted sentence: if it is you speaking from it, so much the better; if the state of siege speaks from it, you would have no need to lend yourselves as its organ. Either you are revolutionary, or you are not. If you are not, we are from the outset opponents; if you are, you would have to remain silent.

But you speak with such conviction, you have such honourable antecedents, that we may calmly assume: the state of siege is completely alien to this protestation.

“We do not want a continuation of the revolution.” That means: we want the continuation of the counter-revolution. For from the violent counter-revolution, that is a historical fact, one either does not get out at all or only through the revolution.

“We do not want a continuation of the revolution,” that means: we recognise the revolution as closed, as having reached its goal. And the goal at which the revolution had arrived on January 21, 1849, when the article in question was written, this goal was precisely – the counter-revolution.

“We are enemies of all anarchy, of every act of violence and arbitrary action.”

Hence also enemies of the “anarchy” that sets in after every revolution until the consolidation of the new relations, enemies of the “acts of violence” of February 24 and March 18, enemies of the “arbitrary action” that ruthlessly smashes a rotten state of things and its crumbling legal props!

“We want law, tranquillity and order”!  
Indeed, the moment is well chosen to kneel down before “law, tranquillity and order”, to protest against the revolution, and to join in the trivial hue and cry against anarchy, acts of violence, and arbitrary action!  
Well chosen, at the very moment when the revolution, under the protection of bayonets and cannons, is officially stamped a common crime, when “anarchy, acts of violence, and arbitrary action” are undisguisedly put into practice by royal countersigned ordinances, when the “law” that the Camarilla octroys upon us is always applied against us, never for us, when “tranquillity and order” consist in leaving the counter-revolution in “tranquillity” so that it can restore its Old Prussian “order” of things!

No, gentlemen, out of you speaks no state of siege, out of you speaks the most unadulterated, Berlin-translated Odilon Barrot, with all his narrow-mindedness, all his impotence, all his pious wishes.

No revolutionary is so tactless, so childish, so cowardly as to disavow the revolution precisely when the counter-revolution is celebrating its most brilliant triumphs. If he cannot speak, he acts, and if he cannot act, he prefers to remain completely silent.

But perhaps the gentlemen of the National-Zeitung are pursuing a cunning policy? Do they perhaps appear so tame in order to win over still a part of the so-called moderates on the eve of the elections for the opposition?

We have said it from the very first day when the counter-revolution broke over us: from now on there are only two parties: the “revolutionaries” and the “counter-revolutionaries”; only two slogans: “the democratic republic” or “the absolute monarchy”. All that lies in between is no longer a party, is mere fraction. The counter-revolution has done everything to make our pronouncement true. The elections are its most brilliant confirmation.

And at such a time, when the parties confront one another so sharply, when the struggle is waged with the greatest embitterment, when only the overwhelming superiority of the organised soldiery prevents the struggle from being fought out with weapons in hand – at such a time all politics of mediation cease. One must oneself be an Odilon Barrot to be able to play the Odilon Barrot then.

But our Berlin Barrots have their reservations, their conditions, their interpretations. They are howlers, but by no means howlers pure and simple; they are howlers with a “That is to say”, howlers of the soft opposition:  
“But we want new laws, as required by the awakened free spirit of the people and the principle of equal rights; we want a truly democratic-constitutional order” (i.e., a true monster); “we want tranquillity that rests on more than bayonets and states of siege; one that is a politically and morally (!) grounded calming of tempers, evoked by the conviction, guaranteed by deeds and institutions, that each class of the people its right” etc., etc.

We can spare ourselves the labour of writing out this state-of-siege sentence to the end. Enough, the gentlemen do not “want” the revolution, but only a little anthology of the results of the revolution; a little democracy, but also a little constitutionalism, a few new laws, removal of the feudal institutions, bourgeois equality, etc., etc.

In other words, the gentlemen of the National-Zeitung and those of the Berlin ex-Left, whose organ it is, want to obtain exactly the same from the counter-revolution for which the counter-revolution has chased them apart.

Nothing learnt and nothing forgotten!

The gentlemen “want” nothing but things they will never obtain except through a new revolution. And they do not want a new revolution. But a new revolution would also bring them quite different things from those contained in the modest bourgeois demands set forth above. And therefore the gentlemen are quite right not to want a revolution.

But the best of it is that historical development troubles itself little about what the Barrots “want” or do not “want”. The Parisian original Barrot “wanted”, too, on February 24, only to push through quite modest reforms and, in particular, a portfolio for himself; and scarcely had he snatched both when the waves closed over his head and he disappeared with his whole virtuous, petty-bourgeois following in the revolutionary deluge. Now, too, when he has at last snatched a ministry again, he again “wants” all sorts of things; but nothing of what he wants happens. That has ever been the fate of the Barrots. And so it will go likewise with the Berlin Barrots.

They will, with or without the state of siege, continue to bore the public with their pious wishes, they will at the very most push through a few of these wishes on paper, and in the end be pensioned off either by the Crown or by the people. But pensioned off they will be in any case.