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Special pages :
Gatherings from the Press
Author(s) | Karl Marx |
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Written | 15 July 1859 |
Printed according to the newspaper
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 16
These reviews printed in Das Volk (see Note 283) in the section âGatherings from the Pressâ were directed against the newspaper Hermann published in London by the petty-bourgeois democrat Gottfried Kinkel. Besides Marx, Elard Biscamp also took part in writing them. Because of the Italian war of 1859 and the revival of the activities of the petty-bourgeois democratic refugees, Marx maintained that one of the most important tasks of Das Volk should be to combat the influence of the petty-bourgeois ideology on the workers. In these reviews Marx sharply criticised the political unprincipledness and illusions of the petty-bourgeois ideologists, their philistinism and ignorance. His reviews forced Kinkel to withdraw from the editorial board of the Hermann.
The reviews published in this volume criticise the contents of issues Nos. 21, 24, 26 and 27 of the Hermann for May 28, June 18, and July 2 and 9, 1859.
âOur readers are clever peopleâsometimes, when their criticisms of the Hermann reach our ears, one could almost believe that the incalculable majorityâ (the incalculable majority of 600 readers might come to 599);âof readers are much cleverer than we ourselvesâ (Hermann).[1]
Self-knowledge is good in all things, even when, as here, it comes rather late. Howeverâ
You greybeards, muster all your forces,
Let there be more heat in your blood!
In your last, holiest of causes,
For digging trenches youâre still good,
You must bring up the soil in baskets....[2]
(Thusnelda consoles Hermann.)[3]
âWisconsin, the staunchest Republican state, has sent its clearest and soundest speaker, Herr Karl Schurz, to Massachusetts to agitate with bold words.... In an excellent and fiery speech he proved...â whatâis hard to say, unless, as is said later, âthat he does not consider himself a representative of that great nation of thinkers that is called the German nationâ.[4] (Student Schurz as calculable minority and autobiographer.[5])
You young men, sharpen up your sword-blades,
Be brave, as brave as Hermann was.
(Thusnelda.)
âWe have seen a sample of this fireproof muslin and tested it with a candle. If it is drawn slowly through the flame, it does not burn at all; if it is held in the flame for a longer time, it chars, but the fire does not spread. But an English lady who had seen the larger piece at the exposition remarked that the stuff did not look as clear and fresh as untreated muslinâ (Hermannâeditorial note).[6]
And you, O women, let the calling
Be piety for each and all!
(Thusnelda.)
It did our cosmopolitan heart good to read that Arminius, mindful of that sublime moment in which he presented
Mr. Kossuth with the revolution in the West in exchange for the one in the East,[7] takes the â17 million Slavsâ of Austria under his protection and âtherefore has not only given space for the correspondent in question directly after this leading article but has even invited him to speak in the Hermann as representative of his nationalityâ.
As âit must remain an open question for republicans on which side one will stand in the Italian warâ,[8] half will declare for Prussia, half for Louis Napoleon, half for Italy, half for Little Germany, half for Great Germany, half for regency, half for the Imperial parliament, but all for Herr Bender, 8, Little Newport Street, Leicester Square, to whom âany one who has learned to readâ (âPresse und Werkstattâ) need only apply to be initiated into the secrets of natural science without âlaborious studies and lecturesâ.[9]
* * *
A Czech says in the last number of the Hermann:
âWe were ... the first champions ... of the social idea.â[10]
To this the spiritual gentleman[11] who holds that âSalonâ remarks:
âWas it not the Swiss before the Czechs?â[12]
The only social idea that the Swiss have championed is summed up in the words: Point dâargent, point de Suisses (Kein Kreuzer, keine Schweizer)[13] The âNew-Swissâ Vogt and the âNew-Kreuzerâ Kinkel[14] know how to evaluate this âsocial ideaâ in its worldhistorical significance.
In the same âSalonâ it is said:
âWe find it understandable that English insurance companies are no longer willing to accept (!) German goods intended for overseas world markets.â[15]
Well, how many âworld marketsâ does the âspiritualâ gentleman know?
Sample of coherence in the Wochenblatt aus London, alias the Hermann :
âA pair of swallows is nesting on the laurel-covered grave of Humboldt. The dreadful region of juvenile crime, whose germs should be rooted out phrenologically and physiatrically at the outset, has been recently illustrated again by a nine-year-old boy in Schmiedeberg. â[16]
Hermannâs judgment on Metternich.âThe judgment on Metternichâs policy is formulated as follows:
âWhere Metternich and his men have committed infamy and crime for almost an entire century, for a long time no child of peace can sleep sweetly by the brook, as Schiller says.[17] Just let himâ (viz., Schiller) âtry, e.g., on the Mincio.â[18]
To change the Mincio into a âbrookâ is something that only the inventor of âoverseas world marketsâ could succeed in doing.
Hermann explains in an article on âthe vacancy at the Savoy Church in Londonâ that âheâ (Hermann) âmakes himself dearer to his countrymen in London and at home every dayâ.[19]
True enough. He gives less each week for 3d. This may be connected with the exact enumeration of the vacant âemolumeritsâ,[20] an enumeration through which there shines the desire to transfer the âSalonâ to the âSavoy Churchâ.
* * *
No. 26 of the Gottfried brings Hermannâs letter of resignation.[21] It runs as follows:
âTo our readers:
âWith the present number my activity as editor of this paper ends. The only reason for my withdrawal is the condition of my health, which does not permit me to continue, along with my previous profession of teacher, this other and so diversifying activity.â (So the profession of teacher is one activity along with this other activity.) âSince I accordinglyâ (according to what?) âam no further responsible for the content of the paperâ (he will rather not be responsible for its further contents), âI have also let the ownership pass into other hands. The enterprise, whose success is nowâ (viz., by Kinkelâs removal) âassured, will be carried on in the same spirit as previouslyâ (cheap prices and real service) âand while I previously hardly found time and space even to write for itâ (viz., the enterprise), âI will henceforwardâ (later), âfree from the burdens of outside work, submit all the more numerous contributions as correspondent.â (If Gottfried appears âall the more numerouslyâ as correspondent, the less âspaceâ he found previously, what will become of the success of the enterprise, which now was to be âassuredâ by his disappearance as editor?) âI take leave of readers and co-workers with friendly thanks for their participation and support. â
âGottfried Kinkelâ
The last Gottfried carries an editorial announcement as final sample of the âso diversifying activityâ to which Hermann bids such a friendly farewell:
âWeâ (namely Gottfried) âfeel a kind of malicious joy every time one of our correspondents once comes a regular cropper; for as a rule someone (!) will be found among our readers for whom the blunder is an occasionâ (why not rather a shock?)
âto make a penetrating and instructive communication about the thingâ (penetrating about the thing) âaimed atâ (rather, the thing hit, namely the blunder). âIt is to such an oversight that we owe in thisâ (which?) âcase as well the valuable correction from which every readerâ (but certainly no correspondent!) âwill soon see that its author, as they say on the Rhine, is a man who sticks to his guns.â (Isnât that so, fair reader?) âUnfortunately the urgent political material, especially the wretched high politics of our correspondents, only today gave us the possibility of printing this articleâ (to wit, this editorial note).[22]
We see that, despite his deeply-felt thanks, Hermann does not part from the âcorrespondentsâ without bitterness. In his own salon the poor man hardly found the space âearlierâ to place âthis articleâ on âthe cropperâ and âthe man who sticks to his gunsâ. And here we say in respect of the âformerâ editor of the Gottfried: De mortuis nil nisi bene.[23] But to the âlaterâ correspondent, Hermann: We shall meet again at Philippi.[24]
A diplomatic-strategic discovery.
The Hermann says:
âPrussiaâs armed mediation, it is said, takes the Mincio line as its basis; well, after the battle of Solferino this line stands out in clearer relief. Only the shadows of the walls of Mantua and Peschiera still darken it. A siege must bring light into this darkness.â[25]
The skilful columnist[26] of the Hermann sends his articles, after they have been worn out in London, to Leipzig as well, to the Gartenlaube. To spice the report of the Humboldt festival[27] arranged by the Association of German Men we are informed that
âa communist association, which now publishes a weekly paper, has made it its special task to vilify not only Kinkelâs journal but him personally, in the most offensive way, not stopping at the baldest lies, etc.â
On this we remark only that our journal, as the columnist must know from our repeated statements, is not a paper published by any kind of association and that the charges we have made against Herr Kinkel cannot be branded as lies until they have been refuted, and that has not happened yet and will never happen. By the way, we are indebted to the honourable reporter for the news that Kinkelâs sermon,
âthe finest fragrance of thĂ© festivitiesâ, took as its text, âAs thou forgetten[28] Zion, so shalt thou be forgottenâ,e and that he began it âraising his hand to the black-red-gold flagâ.
The Hermann makes a joke. In a Hermann article on Austria, we hear that the Habsburgs have always been stepfathers for their hereditary lands but stepmothers for the German Empire. The author of the article in question, full of excerpts from Pölitzâs Weltgeschichte for German maidens, has adequately demonstrated that an old or a young man can be an old woman, but that a stepfather can be a stepmother is something we had not previously believed to be possible.
* * *
The rejuvenated Hermann under the editorship of E. J. Juch & Co. merits an exhaustive review. Let us begin at once with the first leader[29] on âPrussiaâs positionâ.[30]
In the event that peace is concluded between France and Austria
âPrussia will remain for some time pretty much the same as it has been. At the same time it will gradually come into another position. Still more rapidlyâ (than gradually), âhowever, it must change its position, provided (!) the war continues; for it would then be (!) forced to act and, if it does not seek (!) a secure position for itself in good time, lose every solid foundation, in order to go under with the rest of the states of the German Confederation.â (Prussia might perhaps not be unwilling to lose âthe solid foundation in order to go underâ.)
The author now brings Prussia on in various more or less enticing poses plastiques[31] Firstly, Prussia could act as a European great power, and, indeed, in a double fashion.
âPrussia could, by behaving as an independent great power, act completely on its ownâ (independently?). âThisâ (action!) âwould be a purely European standpoint, whose purposeâ (the purpose of a standpoint) ... âwould prove to be a question of power; for preservation of the equilibrium, which the treaties will subserve, is the balancing of the power available to theâ (which?) ânational interest. In that case Prussia could take as its starting point the violation of the 1815 treaties caused by the present war, treaties to which it was a contracting partyâ (o father instead of one of the fathers), âwhile it sought to indemnify itself by material guarantees for the services it herebyâ (by the violation of the treaties?) ârendered to the monarchical order of Europe.â Besides this crafty proceeding âPrussia could also as a European great power place itself on purely political ground, by opposing, for reasons of self-preservation, the overstrengthening of its French rivalâ (non bis in idem[32] ; the balance of power has come up already). âIt could plead on its own behalf that because England be (!!) still an open and Russia an already secret Ally of France, the enemy of Austria, etc.â
After Prussia has thus in so many ways proved itself as a European great power,
âit can thereafter take up an exclusively German standpoint. Here too it has a choice. That is, it can either take a place as a German great power above the other statesâ (including Turkey) âor, while assuming the humble attitude of an equal confederate, put itself below or alongside the small countriesâ (Swiss cantons?). (It is not quite clear why an equal confederate should occupy a lower place.)
In other words, either Prussian Kaiser rule or continuance of the German Confederation.
The first âwould mean taking its place seriously at the head of Germany, like a power that knows that necessity makes a lawâ (for ordinary people necessity knows no law, for Gothaists it makes a law, and a very unpretentious one at that), âwherefore itâ (necessity), âsince its existence is at stakeâ (the existence of necessity is at stake), âmust depart from inhibiting forms, etc.â
The reasons that âPrussia could adduce for such a revolutionary policyâ involve our author in a true embarras de richesses. Among other things:
âThe foreign countries hostile to the unity of GermanyâRussia and England, which with the complicated seesaw system of German counterbalancing hindered the power development of the German great powers by continual mutual weakeningâworked rather for themselves than for Germany in the establishment of the Confederation, etc.â (A strange plan of Russia and England, die foreign countries, to weaken each other in order to prevent the power development of Prussia!) âFinally, itâ (Prussia) âshows that it completely understands the essential nature of the present war, which, like the Thirty Yearsâ War, has as its purpose the termination of the 1848 revolution.â âFor these reasonsâ (that is, because the Thirty YearsâWar had the purpose of terminating the revolution of 1848) âPrussia no longer recognises the Federal Diet ... and regards the sovereignty of all the other German princes for extinguished, etc.â Finally, however, âthe Prussian Government, if this revolutionary policy seemed too precarious to itâ (i.e. Prussia), âcould choose the conservative standpoint. It could choose it ... because the Prussian reigning dynasty as an equalâ (to what?) âhas to respect the maintenance of the othersâ (what others?), ... âbecause Prussia, while it is not independent, governs its conduct by those of neutral England, etc.â
Up to now it has âwaveredâ. It let ârival Austriaâ be defeated.
âIt sought constantly to pull over the small states by means of treaties.â (To put one over on them, pull the wool over their eyes, or to win them over?) âIt came back to Frankfurtâ (from Erfurt466) âwith almost the identical proposals which, i/they came from Hanover or Bavaria, Prussia would not have sanctioned.â
In the end the author designates this as a âroutine procedureâ, although it shows little routine in the consecutio temporum.[33]
Unfortunately, the treaty of Villafranca at one blow brushed away all the Prussian positions that Gotha fantasy could arrive at. Accordingly, we turn from the âhigh policyâ of Messrs. Juch & Comp, to Tyrtaeus, who sings of the battle of Solferino in the rejuvenated Hermann. This Tyrtaeus seems to be an easy-going fellow. He does not doubt for a moment that the Zouaves, Turcos, Croats, Raizen, Czechs et autres[34] ZĂ©phyres,[35] who fought at Solferino,
âwere it not for the two emperors}â would have, everywhere in the .world that chance might have brought them together, eaten and drunk, treated and greeted one another as harmless, amiable peopleâ. (They would have eaten and drunk one another!
What cannibalistic amiability!)
The metre in which the battle is sung is that of the heroic epic, hexameter. Kleist, as we know, enlarged the hexameter with a short anacrusis. Our singer outdoes Kleist; a couple of anacrustic or complementary syllables more or less make no difference to him. On the other hand, these are hexameters that come straight from battle, and should be pardoned if here and there a foot is lacking or a member dislocated.
And so, a few samples:
âSo mortally sickened
BÂŁ exhaustion, heat, and by thTrst with its merciless torture.â âOnly at least this recent decade burdened with curses.â
âOut in blistering sunshine, all bloody and thirsty, some struck by The coup de grace from a bayonet blade of a sudden descending, In most cases only, however, by
Slashes and blows on wide-open wounds,
Tö Ă€ horrible death pain waking them.â
âThe hot and naked summits flowed with steaming red blood, in Which there wallowed mutilated men.â
âAn arm missing here, there Ă€ leg, or
All thë jùw from À face, or all the
Side öf Ă€ head.â
âThen it all went
Still and sombre. From hills and from dales came shuddĂ«rings, cries and Moaning amain, now here, now there, everywhere hour-broad.â
âOn the day of battle
All hot and burning, they had not Ă€ drop of water to ease them.â
âOthers panted and
Gurgled and showed the whites of their glazing ëyës
To the tardy surgeon.â 0
After the battle song, historical criticism. In an article from Paris the âthinkerâ of the rejuvenated Hermann reveals to us Louis Bonaparteâs relation to the revolution.
- â From the leading article "Furor Teutohicus", Hermann, No. 21, May 28, 1859.â Ed.
- â Here and below Kathinka Zitz's poem "Das Vaterland ist in Gefahr!" is quoted, ibid.â Ed.
- â The reference is to the author of the poem quoted, which was printed in the newspaper over the signature of Kathinka Zitz, and the editor of the Hermann Gottfried Kinkel.
- â Quoted from a report from New York of May 11, 1859, "Der europĂ€ische Krieg. Karl Schurz in Boston", ibid.â Ed.
- â An ironical allusion to the ties between the petty-bourgeois democrat Schurz and Kinkel. On this see Marx's and Engels' pamphlet The Great Men of the Exile (present edition, Vol. 11).
- â The Hermann's editorial note to the article "Die Society of Arts, und die elfte Ausstellung neuer Erfindungen in ihrem GebĂ€ude: John Street, Adelfi. Schluss", ibid.â Ed.
- â The reference is to Kinkels activity in the period of reaction in Europe which followed the defeat of the 1848-49 revolution. As a leader of the German petty-bourgeois democratic refugees, Kinkel proceeded in his policy not from the objective economic and socio-political conditions prevailing in Europe at the time, but from his own subjective, voluntarist idea that revolution in Europe might be started at any moment. In their pamphlet The Great Men of the Exile (present edition, Vol. 11), Marx and Engels denounced the illusory views and adventurist tactics of Kinkel and other leaders of the petty-bourgeois refugees.
- â From the leading article "Furor Teutonicus".â Ed.
- â Quoted from the unsigned article "Deutsche Naturwissenschaft, fĂŒr das praktische VerstĂ€ndniss und Leben", published in the section "Presse und Werkstatt", Hermann, No. 21, May 28, 1859.â Ed.
- â From the unsigned article "Der Germanismus in Böhmen", Hermann, No. 24, June 18, 1859.â Ed.
- â xhis refers to Gottfried Kinkel, who began his career as a pastor's assistant.
- â The Hermann's editorial note to the above-quoted article.â Ed.
- â "No money, no Swiss"âallegedly said by the Swiss mercenaries who refused to serve the French King Francis I when his treasury was empty. The words were used by Jean Baptiste Racine in Les Plaideurs, Act I, Scene 1.â Ed.
- â Marx alludes to Vogtâs naturalisation in Switzerland where he emigrated after the defeat of the 1848-49 revolution in Germany. By calling Kinkel a Kreuzer (a German small coin) Marx derides his pettiness in money questions.
- â From the unsigned article "Unsere Politik. London, 17.Juni", Hermann,No. 24, June 18, 1859.â Ed.
- â ibid.â Ed.
- â Cf. Schiller, Die Braut von Messina.âEd
- â From the article "Unsere Politik".â Ed.
- â From the unsigned article "Die Vacanz an der Savoy-Kirche in London", Hermann, No. 24, June 18, 1859.â Ed.
- â Ibid.â Ed.
- â It was dated London, June 30, 1859, Hermann, No. 26, July 2, 1859.â Ed
- â Editorial note to the article "Ueber die Verunreinigungen der Luft", Hermann, No. 26, July 2, 1859.â Ed.
- â Of the dead say nothing but good. See Diogenes Laertius, De vitis philosophorum, I, 3, 70.â Ed.
- â Cf. Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act IV, Scene 3.â Ed.
- â "Die Volksstimmung. Die Schlacht am Mincio. Paris, 29. Juni", Hermann, No. 26, July 2, 1859.â Ed.
- â Heinrich Beta.â Ed.
- â xh e reference is to the meetings held to mourn the death of the outstanding German scientist Alexander Humboldt (May 6, 1859), in which German refugees' organisations as well as the newspaper Hermann took part.
- â Cf. Psalms 137:5.â Ed.
- â The English words "first leader" are used in the original.â Ed
- â "Die Stellung Preussens", Hermann, No. 27, July 9, 1859. The quotations that follow are from this article.â Ed
- â Artificial poses.â Ed.
- â Not the same thing twice.â Ed
- â Sequence of tenses.â Ed.
- â And other.â Ed.
- â See Note 154.