"Neue Rheinische Zeitung" – Ruge

Ruge

["Neue Rheinische Zeitung" No. 242, March 10, 1849]

Cologne, March 9. The "Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung" contains the following declaration by its old contributor Arnold Ruge, that Pomeranian character and Saxon thinker:

"
Berlin, March 5. The present members of the Central Committee of the Democrats of Germany, d’Ester, Reichenbach and Hexamer, announce a new democratic newspaper which ‘in reality’ is to be an organ of the party in Berlin, under the name ‘Allgemeine demokratische Zeitung’. This announcement could arouse the suspicion that the newspapers ‘Die Reform’ and ‘Die Zeitungs-Halle’ are not really organs of the party, and in the opening part of the announcement both are even fairly clearly described as suppressed. The passage in which the Central Committee proclaims and accepts the suspension by Wrangel as a definitive suppression reads word for word: ‘The severe trials which the democratic party has had to endure in all parts of Germany during the last few months have demonstrated to it, besides the necessity of a firm organisation, also the need for representation in the press through definite organs belonging to the party. The sabre rule of those in power has succeeded in suppressing the democratic organs in many places’ (the ‘sabre rule’ exists only in Berlin!), ‘because individuals were not in a position to make such great sacrifices as to render these arbitrary measures ineffective.’ Because of the sabre rule, when one speaks of ‘many places’ everyone thinks only of Berlin. Even the whole democracy could not have made these measures ‘ineffective’ otherwise than by eliminating the sabre, for Wrangel closed Berlin and the Berlin postal service to the democratic organs. The Central Committee should name the means, or ‘sacrifices’, by which it would have been able, in our situation, to render this force ineffective. However, according to Wrangel’s own view the ‘Reform’ and the ‘Zeitungs-Halle’ are not ‘suppressed’. Nevertheless, I have had the experience that democrats who have received that circular of the Central Committee understand it as meaning that the ‘Reform’ and the ‘Zeitungs-Halle’ will cease to appear and that the ‘Allgemeine demokratische Zeitung’ will take their place. I find myself compelled to clear up this misconception. The ‘Reform’ is not definitively suppressed and will continue to appear in Berlin as soon as the siege of Berlin ends, and indeed as a real organ of the democratic party which, in consequence of explicit resolutions of the Left of the dissolved National Assembly and of the earlier Central Committee of the German Democrats, belongs to the party no less than the new sheet most graciously octroyed by two members of the present Central Committee (d’Ester and Hexamer).

The editorial board of the ‘Reform’:

Arnold Ruge
”

P.S. by the author: “I request all honourable editorial boards of German newspapers to include this our declaration in their columns.”

We learn from this memorable declaration, to our great satisfaction, that the ci-devant <former> Frankfurt “editor of the reason of events” and present printer – no doubt “as such” – declares himself by no means satisfied with the octroying of a new democratic sheet “in Berlin”, a newspaper which is to be “in reality” an organ of the “party in Berlin”.

Herr Arnold Ruge, the Frankfurt “editor of the reason of events” and Berlin editor of the “Reform”, claims “as such” also to have been an organ of the “party in Berlin”; the “Reform” was, by resolution of the “earlier” Central Committee of the Democrats, “belonging to the party” (elle avait été <it had been>, as the French say). The “earlier” Central Committee indeed no longer exists “in reality”, – but for all that the newly resurrected “Reform” can still be a “real” organ of the dead Central Committee and of the dismissed Left of the “dissolved” National Assembly.

Herr Arnold Ruge may indeed be fighting a bookseller’s competition in the newly octroyed Berlin “Allgemeine demokratische Zeitung”; outside Berlin there will undoubtedly be fewer rivals for the honorary name of an organ of the “party in Berlin”. We at least have never mistaken the “Reform” for a “real” organ of the “party in Berlin”; we also know how fully to appreciate the self-overcoming of the patriot Ruge with regard to the mentioned “sacrifices”. At any rate, it remains a most peculiar contradiction. The honest printing-shop owner Ruge places himself on legal ground in order to claim that his sheet, the “Reform”, is a “real” (patented sans garantie du gouvernement <without government guarantee>) organ of the party.

On the other hand, the philosopher Ruge places himself on the ground of rebellion against the “real” democratic Central Committee, in order to be able to “really” make further “sacrifices” in his (bookseller’s) sense.

A datum for the solution of this contradiction might be the following:

The democratic Central Committee had declared to Ruge its intention of naming the “Reform” as its Moniteur <here: its official newspaper>, on condition that the said Ruge abstain from all reasoning and writing.