Friedrich Engels

The "Crisis" in Prussia

Written early in January 1873.

["Der Volksstaat", No. of 15 January 1873]

In fact, the "great nation" of France has been justifiably displaced by the "great nation" of Germany. A political crisis is developing in Versailles because the French cabbage Junkers are conspiring to replace the existing republic with the monarchy; simultaneously a crisis breaks out in Berlin because the Prussian cabbage Junkers are not willing to sacrifice the old feudal manorial police powers that are still due them, eighty years after the French Revolution. Can one doubt for a moment the superiority of German "culture" over French civilisation? The French quarrel, with their accustomed superficiality, over mere forms like republic and monarchy. The thorough Prussians get to the heart of the matter by finally – finally, in 1872, the last ones in Europe besides Mecklenburg and Russia – making secure the foundation of society, the backsides of the peasants, against manorial canings – or not!

There is nothing more characteristic of the miserable attitude of the Prussian bourgeoisie than this whole District Ordinance farce. In 1848 Prussia had its revolution; the bourgeoisie had power in its hands; the swearing in of the army to the constitution – no matter which – would have sufficed to maintain that power. The fear among the feudalists and bureaucrats was so great that the abolition of the still existing remnants of feudalism seemed a matter of course at the time. Indeed, the first constitutional drafts of 1848 and even those of 1849, albeit in the usual miserable form, contained everything essential in this direction. The very slightest resistance on the part of the bourgeoisie would have sufficed to make the return of feudal rights impossible; aside from the handful of cabbage Junkers, no one cared about them except the romanticist Frederick William IV. But no sooner had European reaction triumphed than the Prussian bourgeoisie crawled at Manteuffel's feet and responded to each of his lashings with grateful wagging of its tail. Not only did it hand back manorial police and all manner of other feudal rubbish to the East-Elbian Junkers; it chastised itself for its sinful liberalism by even destroying with its own hands the freedom of trade introduced in 1808 and restoring the guilds in the middle of the nineteenth century.

The bourgeoisie is, at best, an unheroic class. Even its most brilliant achievements, those of the English in the 17th century and the French in the 18th, were not fought for by itself but by the plebeian mass of the people for it – the workers and peasants. In France, too, the bourgeoisie saved itself from the horrors of the June days of 1848 by throwing itself at the feet of a play-actor; in England, too, a long period of reaction set in after 1848; but in both countries this reaction relied on the pretext of protecting the foundations of bourgeois society from the attacks of the proletariat. In Prussia the result of the revolution was finally to allow the romanticist Frederick William IV the fulfilment of his medieval heart's desires, while the victorious reaction swept away a host of anti-romantic institutions that had smuggled themselves into the Prussian state from Frederick II down to Stein and Hardenberg. Under the pretext of protecting bourgeois society from the proletariat, it was placed once more under the rule of feudalism. No bourgeoisie in the world can boast of such a period of ignominy as that passed through by the Prussian bourgeoisie under Manteuffel. In what other country would it have been possible to celebrate a Hinckeldey as a champion and martyr of freedom?

At last, as a result of intersecting palace intrigues, the New Era arrives. An old-liberal ministry falls unexpectedly into the lap of the bourgeoisie. And it, which had not lifted a finger to bring it into being, it, the most cowardly of all bourgeoisies, suddenly imagines itself at the helm of the state, imagines that the old Prussian military and police state has vanished, that it can appoint and dismiss ministers and brazenly impose its will on the court. If the Manteuffel period had demonstrated its cowardice, the New Era uncovered its political incapacity.

The price for which the old-liberal ministry was admitted was the implementation of the army reorganisation. The Italian war provided the desired occasion to demand it from the Landtag. On the one hand, the mobilisation of 1859 had proved that the old army organisation had completely outlived its usefulness. On the other hand, the indifference with which the annexation of Savoy and Nice was accepted in France proved that French chauvinism could be set effectively in motion only by the prospect of conquests on the Rhine, i.e., by a war against Prussia. It was therefore certain that as soon as Louis Bonaparte's empire was again endangered by internal events in France, this danger could only be diverted by a war against Prussia which, without alliances, could only result in the defeat of the old Prussian army. On the other hand, although itself essentially a military state, Prussia had not created the necessity of modern great armies. It was too weak for that. But it could all the less escape the general continental necessity since its ambiguous "policy of the free hand" had cut it off from all reliable alliances. And finally, whatever the army reorganisation might be like, the Prussian bourgeoisie had to know that it could not prevent it. Its only correct plan of operations could therefore consist in haggling for as many political concessions as possible in return for granting the inevitable reorganisation. But the Prussian bourgeoisie, still black and blue from the kicks of the Manteuffel regime, suddenly had its crest swollen overnight. It suddenly saw itself as the decisive power in the state; it rejected the army reorganisation. With that the dream was at an end once more. Bismarck came to teach it that its paper constitution and its chamber votes were simply empty straw, that in Prussia the King ruled and that the chambers existed only to say Yes. The army reorganisation was carried through despite the constitution and the deputies were again treated à la Manteuffel. After a brief sham resistance, of which it grew weary itself sooner than its opponent Bismarck, the bourgeoisie found in the Danish war the first pretext for bashful attempts at reconciliation; and after Sadowa it no longer felt embarrassed at all and sank enthusiastically at Bismarck's feet, figuring henceforth only in his retinue; after the French war its enthusiasm knew no bounds, and from then on it belonged to Bismarck body and soul, it was formally extinguished in him.

But there is a thing in the world that Hegel discovered and called "the irony of history". This irony of history has played its tricks with greater people than Bismarck, and the Prussian state and Bismarck too have fallen prey to it. From the moment when the long-desired goals of Prussian politics were achieved one after another, from that moment the foundations of the Prussian state began to totter. Old Prussia rests essentially on the Junkers, from whom officers and bureaucracy are mainly recruited. The Junker class exists in full bloom only in the six eastern provinces and, given the mostly limited landed property of the Junkers, requires a certain measure of feudal privileges for its existence; without these, most Junkers would soon sink to the level of simple estate owners. As long as it was opposed only by two western provinces, the Junker class ran no danger. But already the annexations of 1866 tremendously strengthened the bourgeois and peasant element in the state. It was not merely legitimist moonshine; it was far more the correct awareness of its own endangered position that provoked the resistance of the Stahl-Gerlach party against these annexations. The incorporation of the small states into the North German Confederation, the transfer of decisive state functions to this Confederation, the concomitant mediatisation of the Prussian House of Lords, the final adhesion of the South German states – all these were just so many hard blows for Junkerdom, which in the Empire now constituted only a vanishing minority. Nor was that enough. Every government, even the most despotic, is forced to govern with regard to existing circumstances, otherwise it breaks its own neck. Prussia could subjugate Little Germany, but it could not force its Junker class onto twenty-five million West-Elbian Germans. On the contrary: Junkerdom, a necessity for old Prussia, became a drag on the "Empire". Just as Bismarck had been compelled, against his earlier views, to carry through freedom of trade, freedom of movement between the individual states and other bourgeois reforms – albeit in a bureaucratically mutilated form – so the irony of history finally condemned him, the Junker par excellence, to lay the axe to Junkerdom by means of the District Ordinance.

This District Ordinance is one of the most pitiful pieces of legislation ever made. Its content can be summed up in two words. It takes away from the individual Junker the power to which he is entitled by virtue of feudal privilege, in order to give it back to the Junker class under the guise of self-government of the districts. Now as before, the larger and great landed property will dominate in the agricultural districts of the eastern provinces; it even receives a new accretion of power through the assignment of powers that previously belonged to the state. But the individual Junker loses the exceptional position he had as a feudal lord. He sinks to the level of a simple modern estate owner – and thereby ceases to be a Junker. But thereby the foundation of old Prussia is also undermined, and hence the House of Lords, from its standpoint, was quite right in its resistance to the District Ordinance. With the District Ordinance, no more Junkerdom, and without Junkerdom no more specific Prussia.

The Prussian bourgeoisie remained true to itself in this affair. First it was said that the Kreisordnung was only a first instalment on self-government, that one had to take it because at the moment nothing better could be achieved, that it was a compromise with the government, but that now not an inch more should be haggled away. The Herrenhaus rejects the Kreisordnung. The government, although already bound by the compromise with the Abgeordnetenhaus, demands new concessions from the latter. The House is courageous enough to grant them without more ado; in return, the bourgeois are promised an appointment of peers and a reform of the Herrenhaus is held out in prospect. The appointment of peers takes place – twenty-five generals and bureaucrats –, the Herrenhaus accepts. The compromise is saved, but – the reform of the Herrenhaus is done away with. One consoles oneself that the Kreisordnung is nevertheless quite a tremendous step forward – when the news of the ministerial crisis arrives. Roon, Selchow, Itzenplitz want to resign – victory of the liberals all along the line – unavoidability of a liberal? – no, not exactly that, of a – unified ministry! Our bourgeois are so easily content! They even content themselves with still less. Bismarck surrenders the presidency of the ministry, Roon, the opponent of the Kreisordnung, takes his place, yet another general enters the ministry, Selchow and Itzenplitz remain, the unified ministry is less unified than ever, the feudal elements in it are strengthened, and the bourgeois calmly continues to drink his pint in the proud consciousness that, after all, Bismarck is still the soul of the whole.

This example precisely depicts the position of the Prussian bourgeoisie. It credits itself with the merit that Bismarck, through the historical situation into which he has placed Prussia and through the industrial progress of the last twenty years, is compelled to do what it was itself too cowardly to push through from 1848 to 1850. It does not even have the courage to compel its Bismarck to carry through these small reforms simply, openly, in a bourgeois manner, without police-state botching; it shouts aloud with joy that Bismarck is forced to – castrate its own demands of 1846. And, mind you, only its economic demands – things whose implementation a thousand Bismarcks could not prevent, even if they wanted to. Of political demands, of the transfer of political power to the bourgeoisie, there is at most still talk for the sake of decency. The Prussian bourgeoisie does not want political rule; rotten before maturity, like official Russia already in Voltaire’s time, it has, without ever having ruled, already arrived at the same stage of degeneracy that the French bourgeoisie reached after eighty years of struggles and after long rule. Panem et circenses, bread and spectacles, the decadent Roman plebeians demanded of their emperors; panem et circenses, swindling profit and brutal luxury, demands not the Prussian people, but the Prussian bourgeoisie of its own. The Roman plebeians together with their emperors were swept away by the Germanic barbarians; behind the Prussian bourgeois, the German workers rise up threateningly.