Cologne, November 3. Our readers have never indulged in utopian
hopes in regard to Vienna. After the June revolution, we believed in
every baseness of the bourgeoisie. We said immediately in the first
issue of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung when it reappeared after the state
of siege: ‘““The bourgeoisie’s distrust of the working class threatens, if
not to wreck the revolution, at least to hamper its development.
However that may be, the repercussions of this revolution in
Hungary, Italy and Germany foiled the entire plan of campaign
devised by the counter-revolution.”?

We would therefore not be surprised by a defeat of Vienna. We
would only find ourselves called upon to break off any negotiation
with the bourgeoisie which measures freedom by the freedom to trade
and we would without conciliation and without accommodation
oppose the miserable German middle class which gladly relinquishes .
its own rule on condition that it may continue to trade without a fight.
The English and French bourgeoisie is ambitious; the infamy of the
German bourgeoisie would be confirmed by Vienna’s defeat.

Thus: at no time have we vouched for the victory of the Viennese.
Their defeat would not come as a surprise to us. It would only
convince us that no peace with the bourgeoisie is possible, not even for
the period of transition, and that the people must remain indifferent
in the battles between the bourgeoisie and the Government and must
wait for their victories or defeats in order to exploit them. Once
again: our readers have only to consult our back issues in order to
satisfy themselves that neither the victory nor the defeat of the
Viennese can surprise us.

* See this volume, p. 457.—Ed.

The Viennese Revolution and the Kélnische Zeitung 497

What does surprise us, however, is the latest special edition of the
Kélnische Zeitung. Does the Government deliberately spread false
rumours about Vienna in order to calm the excitement in Berlin and
the provinces? Does Dumont pay the Prussian state telegraph so that he,
Dumont, receives news from the “Berlin” and “Breslau” morning
papers which do not reach the “bad press”? And whence did
Dumont get his “telegraphic dispatch” this morning, which we did
not receive? Has Birk from Trier, a mere cipher who has replaced
Wittgenstein, been engaged as editor by Dumont? We do not believe
it. For even a Briggemann, a Wolfers, a Schwanbeck, all that is still
no Birk. We doubt that Dumont has engaged such a nonentity.

Today at 6 p. m., Dumont, who lied away the February and March
revolutions, carries among his first reports once again a “‘telegraphic” report according to which Vienna has surrendered to the
“Wendish itch”, the “Windischgratz”’.?

It is possible. But the possibilities of the once blood-dripping
“Brüggemann”,**° the ex-correspondent of the old Rheinische Zeitung,
this worthy whose views always go hand in hand with the “exchange
value’ of views in general, his possibilities are based upon the
Preussische Staats-Anzeiger and the Breslauer Zeitung. The tales of
“Brüggemann” or of the Kolnische Zeitung concerning the February,
March and October revolutions will offer their peculiar contribution
to history.

Now we shall give the reports which report nothing.*””