mi Germany & the Slavonic World.

I. Historical Introduction. The 1,000-year struggle between Slavs and Germans is pressing toward a decision. The Slav claim to supremacy is drawing ever closer, ever more inescapably. 1812 the first appearance of the Slavs as a world power, represented by Russia. – 1814 & 15 immediately an influence arrogated beyond all measure (the reliability of Prussia the chief cause). Holy Alliance, congresses (Chateaubriand bribed). The July Revolution and Poland set a limit to the Holy Alliance. 1848 points to Russia that of Hungary. Invasion – second great entry of Russia into European politics – directly Pan-Slavist. Then the Vienna Conference, direct arbitrator of Germany. – Finally No. 3, the present war, which is on the point of turning into the war of the European West against the Slavs.

Simultaneously the Pan-Slavist movement. First scholarly – Dobrowski, Schafarik. Then poetic Kolär, naively national and elegiac. Finally political, twofold: I directly Russian, Gurowski, II liberal-fantastic: the Czechs, Croats, Bakunin, etc. – alongside the popular Greek-south-Slav movement.

Chief characteristic of the whole history: hatred of Germany, foundation of a Slav world-empire through the subjugation of Germany. Germany not to be subjugated. The French tried it; the 17 years’ war produced 3 years of subjection. And thereafter Germany was so agitated that a fraction of Germany was able to take over and relieve the almost annihilated Russian armies at the frontier, and to give the decision in the destruction of the French world-monarchy.

The extreme party is neither Teutonistic nor democratically German-devouring. Its outlook is essentially historical, and specifically materialist-historical. Theoretically it is indifferent whether the movement has its centre in France, Germany, or England, whether historical development throws down and crushes this or that nation. But theory by no means shows it that Germany is superannuated and approaching this fate. Practically it knows that every great nation needs a certain territorial extent for the development of its forces and that any arrogation by one, at the expense of others, harms the general development. We must develop either in Germany or not at all. Alsace, Greeks under Roman rule schoolmaster. Germany needs this terrain very much; on the one side at least as much has been taken from it over the past 500 years as it has actually conquered on the other. It is a poor substitute for this if alien appendages are tied to it, which divert it from its own interests and entangle it in foreign affairs. Yet this was the only way to give the national energy a field in the midst of fragmentation. The question, then: What terrain does Germany need for its development. (cf. Grimm on the remaining Germans*.)
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*) Here, then, the frontier question. France, well rounded-off as in everything, needs to take in only a little foreign territory. France has therefore also probably arrived roughly at the limit of its terrain – the left bank of the Rhine no strengthening, rather a weakening, despite strategic reasons; it would give 6-7 million Germanic elements. Italy likewise clear: it loses its colonies, it is fully sufficient to itself. Germany, on the other hand, has to patch up everywhere along its borders. In the west, north, south ultimately simple enough – but the linguistic confusion in the east with the Slavs! Here is where the difficulty arises, and where at the same time the danger for Germany stands out. Modestly put, the western frontier of the Slav empire runs from Pomerania to the Fichtelgebirge and from there to Trieste. 3/4 of Germany dissolve into Panslavia, and the Brandenburgers and Saxons speak Lusatian-Sorbian again and the Silesians Polish, if they do not prefer to speak Russian at once.

/[L]/ This question coincides with that of national unity, and with that of the alien appendages, and with the point of contention between Germans and Slavs.

To this must be added a point that gives Germany a different interest, especially in opposition to the Slavs: Germany entered actively into the modern movement in 1848 with full consciousness. Every nation constitutes itself through a revolution: America, France, Poland 1794; ’48 constituted, even if only as a postulate, Germany, Italy, Hungary. Since ’48 one can again stand up for Germany and the Germans; as a German one has a position vis-à-vis the foreign country, not only theoretically but also politically, which, in spite of ten restorations of the Federal Diet, can no longer be destroyed. Alsatians ’49. The left bank of the Rhine German through ’48. Our party always proud towards the foreigner. No Ruge-like cowardices and self-abasements – however bluntly we have told the Germans themselves the truth.

Here is the essential difference between Germans and Slavs. While in Germany the struggle for internal unity and national terrain of movement coincides with the class struggle, so that the most resolute party is at the same time also the most national one, with the Slavs the opposite is the case. All actual expressions of Pan-Slavism hitherto reactionary. The Slav Congress confused – a resultless attempt. The Czechs, since the movement in Austria has somewhat clarified itself, reactionary, ||[2]|| so the Slovaks, so the South Slavs – even the Pan-Slavist part of the Poles. Germans and Magyars have been defeated in Austria. The Slavs were cheated. Of the representatives of Tsarism à la Gurowski not a word lost.

Against this, recently a Russian Pan-Slavism which quite directly sees in the Slavs the people of the future and the appointed realiser of the West European theories: in fact the eight Slav peoples, the Russians and Serbs, already have it: instead of the Russians learning from the West, the West is to learn from the Russians. That is very innocent, but alongside it there runs the idea that the West is old, worn out, superannuated, and the Slavonic world youthfully fresh and vigorous, from which it follows that the Slavonic world will conquer Europe and, from Constantinople, its capital, introduce the thousand-year empire of the Russian commune and the artel.

It is comical that the arch-reactionary Haxthausen is the father of this story. From him Herzen got to know it and his Russian fatherland, and both of them are copied by B. Bauer, who attaches politico-theological gossip-mongering and smart-aleckery to it and pretends that this is “the critique”.

I. Before the frontier question comes the independence question. German reactionaries, who venerate Russia as their protective refuge and tremble at the historical movement, malcontent misunderstood critics who want at any price to distinguish themselves from the mass, ambitious-vain Russians and Pan-Slavists, who begrudge the Germans their influence on history – an influence that, in spite of all fragmentation and mutual neutralisation, cannot be done away with – and specifically on the Slavs, put that question, and it must be answered. So above all the Russians; once we are done with them, the remaining Slavs are easily shown back into their frontiers.

1. Origines, cf. old Schlözer, Haxthausen, the aristocratic-bureaucratic hen that has hatched out the ducks and now sees them ot odnavo berega otstal i k drugomu ne pristal, whereas of the imposingly-tranquil Russia it believes: sizu u morja i zdu pogody – but yet is convinced that Russia wants to conquer nothing except its own interior. Then Herzen, who comes forward in 1849 post Haxthausen, gets to know from him Russia’s socialist future mission, and turns out the Pan-Slavist phrase about old Europe and the young Slavonic world. Title and content of Herzen’s works: Vom andern Ufer, then the whole question of the future of Europe set up identically with Haxthausen, as also that concerning the future of Russia – of the Greeks, etc. Further, in his description of the Russian commune and artel nothing new, pure Haxthausen, /Shameless: You don’t believe Herzen, you must believe Haxthausen!!!/ merely the democratic-social phrase added and the twist: whether then Russia will have to pass through all the bourgeois conditions? – Finally B. Bauer: the critique consists in this: since a reactionary and a so-called revolutionary both say the same thing about Russia, it is true, and I copy both, and I add as confirmation my discontent with France, platitudes about the impe||[3]||rialism, and divers malicious remarks against unnamed friends of light and other German theologians, including the Pope. At the same time I agree with Mr Ledru-Rollin on the decay of England. –

2. Gospodin Herzen.

a. In order to do justice to Mr Herzen and to spare oneself false ideas, an excursus on Russian education “la plus polyglotte & la moins religieuse & son caractère d’universalité (Linton p. 33) & about Russian literature – une littérature d’hommes de monde, avec une certaine élégance de bonne compagnie, une noblesse d’images qui distinguent la conversation des gens bien élevés. L’élément grossier & vulgaire qui se rencontre parfois dans la littérature allemande n’a jamais pénétré dans les livres russes!” (p. 56, Idées). –

D’abord. Education. Vide Pushkin, who is decisive, since Onegin is in one respect the normal Russian (the other is Lenskij, the Göttingen student). Blistat’ the main thing.

Thus Blistatj: linguistic facility. The Russian does not converse, he applies learned-by-heart phrases adroitly – even the rattling tone of speech without any declamation proves the mechanical element. This naturally does not prevent linguistic howlers and braggadocio. Then the universality that knows nothing. Pupils of the Petersburg gymnasium who have not grasped the first elements of the first science. Always učilis’ ponemnogú, čemú nibúd’ i kák nibúd’! The entire Russian nobility like that. Imposing the main thing. Parallel: Bradford, populated by nothing but commercial travellers. Whoever allows himself to be imposed upon is done for. – Thus dilettantism in all matters, which goes as far as atheism and communism and boasts of it in Europe, but in Russia regards everything as a play, a theoretical amusement. As the individual, so the nation. Only to impress Europe. Behind that the bad conscience of inner barbarism, cf. Custine.

Exemplum in Mr Herzen: what lies behind the blistatj, sheer ignorance, howlers, and impudent swagger, and plagiarisms from Haxthausen.

b. Mr Herzen’s revolutionary Pan-Slavist writings.

a. Old Europe — young Russia. It has already been shown above how the “old” Europe arose from Haxthausen’s fear. Now to go into this. The absurdity of speaking of young Russia when everything has been stable there for x years. What is young is South Russia & Siberia, and that through western industry & corn demand. Let him take a look at Lancashire, instead of getting himself shut in on Primrose Hill by fog etc. Petersburg & Liverpool are the same age; indeed Petersburg is older & forced, Liverpool grew of its own accord. Manchester etc. ou tout sent la chaux bien autrement qu’en Russie where they build of wood. France since 1789 considerably younger than Russia since 1700; even Germany since 1848. The phrase about the ageing of peoples still dates from the old Oriental epoch which lasted up to the Germans, when one nation always held world dominion. Since the Germans that’s different: states side by side, especially since 1500 the world has become too large to be ruled in that way. The Slavs quite welcome if they wish to develop alongside us, but their crazy pretensions will be écrasés all the same; against such things the whole West is solidary, especially if, as hitherto, they make their appearance in a reactionary manner. And since at best they can represent their own cause, they have nothing to do among us. — Industry has put an end to the ageing of peoples. The old peoples perished through their conditions of production, which were completely exhausted; modern conditions of production contain their own development within themselves, which must be fought through, but without struggle nothing is achieved, even for the Russians, & then they themselves must always yet ot odnova berega otstat’. — It is precisely the peripeteias to which we are exposed, and which become greater & more frequent as the terrain expands, that demonstrate the vitality & freshness of Europe. The greater & more universal the crisis

Germany and the Slavs

the more frequent the incipient movements. All of them, however, are connected by the common material foundations & the corresponding common consciousness. In Russia dead stability, interrupted by unconscious & unsuccessful peasant uprisings, which are everywhere the same but never unite.

ß. The Russian commune. Here we reply to Haxthausen, who knows more than Herzen. Haxthausen is right: the complement of commune democracy is tsarism. Cf. the whole Orient without landed property, without intermediate link between commune & state. Here the Germans & the Punjab, the gau constitution the organic advance. To declare something of the kind to be communism is possible only for Haxthausen, and to believe him possible only for Herzen the ignoramus. — The artel, the continuation of the commune on industrial lines. The sharing of profits as yet not at all clear.

y. Herzen’s attitude towards tsarism, the “German” tsarism. Direct continuation of ß.

6. Mr Herzen’s Panslavic Empire. Constantinople as capital. Here to assemble the conquering posture, especially that directed against the Germans. His philosophy of history.

3. Russia’s power. The Turkish war 28/29. Polish war 31. War 53/55. Military power against Germany. Invulnerability diminished by denser population. Germany’s violence precisely against Russia.

II. The remaining Slavs or the border question. — Nations in decline

1. South Slavs — Turkey — Istria — Carantanians.
2. Czechs & Slovaks.
3. Poles.

III. Conclusion: The foreign appendages, Lombardy; Hungary, Galicia. The German interest on the Danube, Germany’s misfortune. The Hungarians must look after our interests; they have a genuine need of us only when they are free. The Wallachian Danube confederation. — Brawling of the Slavs among themselves despite Panslavism. Greek & Roman Church — impossible peaceful solution between Poles & Little & White Russians.