Friedrich Engels
Two years of a revolution; 1848 and 1849

The Democratic Review.
April 1850

Two Years of a Revolution;

1848 and 1849.

In the years 1848 and '49, there was published, in Cologne, a German daily
paper, the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, (New Rhenish Gazette). This paper,
edited by Charles Marx, chief editor, Frederick Engels, George Weerth,
Freiligrath the celebrated poet, F. and W.Wolff, and others, very soon
acquired an extraordinary degree of popularity, from the spirited and fearless
manner in which it advocated the most advanced revolutionary principles,
and the interests of the proletarians, of which it was the only organ in
Germany. The Prussian government took advantage of the unsuccessful
insurrections in the Rhenish provinces in May last, to stop the paper by
various persecutions directed against the editors. They, in consequence, left
the country, in order to seek new fields of activity in the various movements
which at the time were either in preparation or taking place. Several of them
went to Paris, where a decisive turn of affairs, (the 13th of June,) was near
at hand, and where they represented the German revolutionary party at the
centre of French democracy, another took his seat in the German National
Assembly, which, at that moment, was being driven into insurrection; another, again, went to Baden, and fought in the revolutionary army against the
Prussians. After the defeats of these insurrections, they found themselves
exiles in this country, in Switzerland, and France. Having no chance, for the
moment, to re-establish a daily paper, they have got up a monthly magazine,
to serve as their organ until circumstances shall allow them to re-assume their
old position in the daily press of their country.

The first number of this publication has just come to hand. It bears the
same title as the daily paper did—New Rhenish Gazette, a Political and
Economical Review, edited by Charles Marx.

This first number contains three articles only. It opens with the first of

Friedrich Engels

a series of papers upon the two past years of revolutions, by the chief editor,
Charles Marx. Then follows a relation of the insurrectionary campaign in
Western and Southern Germany, during May, June, and July last, by Frederick Engels; and, lastly, an article from the pen of Charles Blind, (exambassador at Paris of the Baden Provisional Government), upon the state
of parties in Baden. These latter articles, al||4271though containing many
important disclosures, are of interest chiefly to the German reader. The first
article is devoted to a subject of primary interest to the readers of all countries, particularly the working classes. The subject, too, has found in citizen
Marx a writer every way able to do it justice. For these reasons, we deem
it a duty to give as much in the shape of extract as our limited space will
allow.

The article under notice treats of the Revolution of February; its causes
and effects, and the succeeding events up to the great insurrection of June,
1848.

With the exception of very few chapters indeed, every important section
of the revolutionary annals of 1848 and '49 bears upon its title page—Defeat
of Revolution! But, what was really defeated in all these defeats was not
revolution itself. It was, on the contrary, nothing but the unrevolutionary
elements of the revolutionary party that were defeated; individuals, delusions, ideas, plans, and projects of a more or less unrevolutionary character;
elements from which the subversive party was not free before February, and
of which it could not be freed by the victory of February, but by a series
of defeats only. In other words: It was not by the immediate tragical or
comical results of the first victory that the revolutionising progress made its
way; this progress, on the contrary, was occasioned chiefly by the formation
of a mighty and united counter-revolutionary interest, in the procreation of
a foe, in grappling with whom the subversive party could alone develope
itself to a really revolutionary party.

This is the general theme which citizen Marx developes in the course of
his article. He begins with exposing the causes of the revolution of February,
and shews those causes to be far deeper rooted than any of the previous
writers upon the subject ever have been able to do. With all historians of
the last twenty years’ events in France, it has been a thing generally agreed
upon, that under Louis Philippe, the Bourgeoisie, as a whole, was the ruling
power, in France; that the scandalous disclosures of 1847 were the chief
cause of the revolution, and that this revolution was a direct struggle of the
Proletarians against the Bourgeoisie. Under citizen Marx's pen, these assertions, although not directly and absolutely denied, yet undergo important
modifications.

Two years of a revolution; 1848 and 1849

The German historian proves, that, under Louis Philippe, political power
was concentrated in the hands, not of the entire Bourgeois class, but of one
fraction only of that class, that which is called in France the financial
aristocracy, and, in England, the | banking, funded, railway, etc., interests, or the moneyed interest, as opposed to the manufacturing interest.

Not the entire bourgeois class of France lorded it over the country under
Louis Philippe, but only one fraction of that class: bankers, stock-jobbers,
railway kings, mining kings, and apart of the "rallied" landlords—the so-called
financial aristocracy. It was they who sat on the throne, who dictated laws

in the Chambers, who disposed of government patronage, from the minister
down to the licensed dealer in tobacco. The manufacturing portion of the
bourgeoisie formed a part of the official opposition; they were represented
by a minority only of the Chambers. Their opposition became more obstinate
in the same measure as the exclusive sway of the financial aristocracy turned
more and more exclusive; and as they themselves, after the fruitless insurrections of the working people in 1832, 1834, and 1839, deemed their dominion
over the proletarians more firmly established... . ! The petty capitalists, the
shopocracy in all its various gradations, and the farming class, were entirely
excluded from political power.

The necessary consequences of this exclusive dominion of the financial
aristocracy were, that all public interest was made subservient to theirs; that
the State was considered by them as a mere means to increase their fortunes
at its expense. Citizen Marx depicts in a very forcible manner how this
scandalous system was carried on in France for eighteen years; how the
running up of the public debt, the increase in the public expenses, the neverending financial difficulties and defects of the public purse, were so many
sources from which new wealth flowed into the pockets of the money-lords,
sources which every year were made to flow more freely, and to exhaust
so much the quicker the resources of the country; how the expense of the
government, the army and navy, the railways, and other public works,
offered hundreds of opportunities, eagerly seized upon by the financiers, to
cheat the public by fraudulent contracts, etc. In short—

The monarchy of July was nothing else than a joint-stock company for
working up the national wealth of France; the dividends of which society
were shared amongst ministers, Chambers, 240,000 Parliamentary voters,
and their more or less numerous tail. Louis Philippe was the George Hudson
of this company—Robert Macaire on the throne. Trade, manufactures, agriculture, shipping, the interests of the manufacturing middle-classes, were
necessarily and constantly damaged and endangered under this system.

And while the jobbing interest made laws, directed the public administration, disposed of every organised public power, dominated | public

Friedrich Engels

opinion by the press and by the power of facts, there was imitated in all
spheres of society, from the court down to the cafe-borgne, that very same
prostitution, that same shameless imposition, that same avidity of accumulating wealth, not by production, but by cheating others out of produce
already existing. There was let loose—particularly in the most elevated regions of society, and coming, at every moment, into collision with bourgeois
law itself—an universal outburst of those disorderly, unsound lusts and
appetites, in which wealth acquired by gambling very naturally looks for
satisfaction, where enjoyment becomes crapuleux, where gold, mud, and
blood flow mixing together. The financial aristocracy, in its mode both of
appropriating and of enjoying, is nothing but the reproduction of "Mob "in
the elevated spheres of bourgeois society.

The scandalous disclosures of 1847, the Teste, Praslin, Gudin, Dujarrier
affairs, brought this state of things to the broad light of day. The infamous
behaviour of the government in the Cracow, and Swiss Sonderbund affairs,
violated the national pride to the utmost; while the victory of the Swiss
liberals, and the revolution at Palermo, in January, '48 exalted the spirits of
the opposition.

At last, the outbreak of the universal unsettled feeling was ripened into
revolt by two great and general economical events. The first of these events
was the potatoe disease, and the bad harvests of 1845 and '46. The all-but
famine of 1847 provoked in France and other continental countries numerous
bloody conflicts. Here the orgies of the financial aristocracy, there the people
struggling for the first necessaries of life! At Buzangais the mutineers of
hunger beheaded, at Paris aristocratic thimble-riggers saved from the law by
the royal family! The second great economical event was an universal commercial and industrial revulsion. Announced in England already in autumn

1845 by the wholesale breakdown of railway speculation, interrupted during
1846 by a series of incidents, and particularly the repeal of the Corn-laws—at
last, in autumn 1847, it broke out in the failures of the large London colonial
firms, followed up by the failures of country bankers, and the shutting up
of the factories in the English manufacturing districts. The reaction of this
crisis upon continental trade was not exhausted at the time the revolution
broke out. This devastation of trade made still more insupportable, in
France, the exclusive rule of the monied interest. The opposing fractions of
the bourgeoisie united in the banquet agitation for a reform in Parliament,
which should secure the majority to them. The commercial revulsion in
Paris threw a number of manufacturers and wholesale dealers upon the
home trade, as the foreign market offered for the moment no chance of
profit. These capitalists set up large retail concerns, the competition of
which ruined hundreds of smaller shop|keepers. Thence the numerous

Two years of a revolution; 1848 and 1849

failures in this section of the Paris bourgeoisie, thence its revolutionary
spirit in February.

The united action of these causes made the revolution of February break
out. The provisional government was established. All opposing parties were
represented in this government: the monarchical opposition (Cremieux and
even Dupont de l'Eure), the republican bourgeoisie (Marrast, Marie, Garnier-
Pages), the republican small trading class (Ledru-Rollin and Flocon), and the
proletarians (Louis Blanc and Albert). Lamartine, lastly, represented the
revolution of February itself, the common insurrection of bourgeois and
proletarians, with its imaginary results, its delusions, its poetry, and its big
words. By his position and his views he belonged to the bourgeoisie, the
representatives of whom, therefore, formed the large majority of the new
government.

If in consequence of political centralisation Paris governs France, the
working class in moments of revolutionary earthquakes govern Paris. The
first act of the provisional government was directed against this overwhelming influence; it was an appeal from "revolution-intoxicated Paris" to
"sober France." Lamartine contested the right of the combatants to proclaim
the republic; "the majority of the French people alone were alone competent

to do so; the working men had better not stain their victory by an usurpation,"
etc. The bourgeoisie permitted to the working men one usurpation only: that
of the combat.

The proletarians forced the government to proclaim the republic. Raspail
acted as their speaker. He declared that, if in two hours this was not done,
he should call again at the head of 200,000 armed working men. Before the
term had elapsed the republic was proclaimed.

The working class, in dictating the republic to the government and to
France, all at once stepped forward into the foreground as an independent
party, but at the same time provoked against itself all the bourgeois interest
of France. What the proletarians had conquered, was not their emancipation,
but the battle-field, upon which they could fight for their emancipation. The
republic of February, in the beginning, could do nothing but complete the
government of the middle classes, in opening the circle of political action
to all the propertied classes of France. The majority of the large landlords,
the Legitimists, were emancipated from the political nullity to which they
had been doomed by the revolution of 1830. By universal suffrage, that vast
class of mere nominal landed proprietors (the real proprietors are the capital] |431 jists, to whom the property is mortgaged), that class which forms the
large majority of Frenchmen—the peasantry—was called upon to arbitrate
the destinies of France. And lastly, the republic of February made openly
manifest the rule of the bourgeoisie by setting aside the crown behind which

Friedrich Engels

capital had hitherto hid itself. The working men had established, in July 1830,
the bourgeois monarchy—in February, 1848, they established the bourgeois
republic. But as the monarchy of 1830 was forced to announce itself a"monarchy surrounded withrepublican institutions," therepublic of 1848 announced itself "a republic surrounded with social institutions." This concession,
too, was forced from the republic by the Parisian working men.

The "right to work" and the commission of the Luxembourg (by which
Louis Blanc and Albert were virtually excluded from the government, the
bourgeois majority of which retained the actual power) were the mostconspicuous of these social institutions. The working men saw themselves reduced
to work out their salvation, not against the bourgeoisie, but independent of,
and side by side with the bourgeoisie. The bourse and the bank continued
to exist; only the Socialist church of the Luxembourg was set up by the side
of these two great bourgeois churches; and as the working men believed they
could emancipate themselves without interfering with the interests of the
bourgeoisie, they also believed they could do so without interfering with
remaining bourgeois nations of Europe.

The development of the industrial working class is entirely dependent upon
the development of the industrial capitalist class. Itis only under the government of this latterclass, that the industrial proletarians attain that importance
which alone can make their revolution a national one; that they create those
immense productive powers of modern industry, which will become the
means of their revolutionary emancipation; that the last roots of feudalism
are torn up, and thus the field prepared upon which alone a proletarian
revolution is possible. Now, manufacturing industry, in France, is more
advanced than in any other country of the continent. But the fact, that the
revolution of February was directed, before all, against the financial
aristocracy—this fact proves clearly that the industrial bourgeoisie, before
February, did not govern France. Indeed, the industrial bourgeoisie can
govern in a country only, whose manufacturing industry commands, for its
produce, the universal market; the limits of the home market are too narrow
for its development. The manufacturing industry of France, however, in a
great measure commands even the home markets, by the protective duties
only. Therefore, if in Paris the proletarians, at the moment of a revolution,
possess a real power, and an influence which lead them to outrun their
ultimate | means of action—in the remainder of France they are concentrated in afew industrial centres, such as Lyons, Lille, Mulhouse, Rouen,
and almost disappear under the vast majority of surrounding peasants and
small tradesmen. Therefore, the struggle against capital in its most developed
and decisive form, the struggle of the industrial salaried working man against
the industrial working capitalist, in France, is a mere local fact, which, after

Two years of a revolution; 1848 and 1849

February, could not form the prominent national feature of the revolution.
And it could do so the less, as the struggle against the more subordinate
modes of action of capital, the struggle of the peasant against usury and the
mortgaging system, of the small tradesman against the wholesale dealer, the
banker, and manufacturer, in one word, against bankruptcy, were as yet
enveloped in the general rising against the financial aristocracy. The French
proletarians could not take a single step in advance, could destroy not a single
atom of the existing bourgeois institutions, until the march of the revolution
had aroused against the rule of capital, had forced to join the proletarians,
all those intermediate classes, the peasants and the small tradesmen, who
are neither bourgeois nor proletarians, and who, in France, form the large
mass of the nation. Then, and then only, the Proletarians, instead of pursuing
their interests without interfering with those of the bourgeoisie, could proclaim the proletarian interests to be the revolutionary interests of the nation,
and assert them in direct opposition to those of the bourgeoisie. And it was
only by their immense defeat in June, '48, that the proletarians could
approach that victory__
Thus the government of the bourgeoisie was abolished by the establishment of the republic; it was abolished, not in reality, but in the imagination
of the working men, who took the financial aristocracy for the entire bourgeoisie; in the imagination of republican worthies who denied the existence
of hostile classes, or who, at the very utmost, admitted it as a consequence
of monarchy. Thus every royalist all at once called himself a republican, and
every millionaire a working man. The word which corresponded to this
imaginary abolition of classes and class interests was the word Fraternity,
the universal brotherhood. This very pleasant abstraction from all existing
antagonism of classes, this sentimental adjustment of opposed class-interests, this enthusiastic elevation into those sublime regions where no earthly
class-struggles exist, this fraternity was the great word of the revolution of
February. The struggling classes were divided by a mere mistake, and
Lamartine, on the 24th of February, called for a government which should
put an end to that "dreadful misunderstanding," which had sprung up between the several classes of society.
We shall continue these extracts in our next. The acts of the provisional

government, the convocation of the National Assembly, and the insurrection
of June will then be passed in review. |