That was the tendency. The starting point was a world still far from such uniformity. That is why the revolutionaries in Cracow in 1846 had to fight for what was already the conservative program in France.
The idea is presented in the Manifesto as follows:
Though not in substance, yet in form, the struggle of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie is at first a national struggle. The proletariat of each country must, of course, first of all settle matters with its own bourgeoisie.46
It is worth pointing out that in this passage the word country is a translation of the German Land. The term is simply the standard German for a geographical-political fact. It does not, like the word Vaterland, also imply a state of mind or political program.
The practical consequence of this perspective was that it made it the responsibility of the communists in the various countries to subordinate the immediate concerns of the national revolution to the European one.
One of the most striking statements of this view with respect to Germany is in one of the earliest issues of the NRZ. It is an axiom of Marx studies that the unification of Germany was the demand that formed the core of Marx and Engels foreign policy in 1848. And in general that was true. Even this demand, however, was subordinated to the needs of the revolution. On June 25, 1848, Marx discussed the possibility that Prussia “the western province of Russia” would join forces with the Tsar. Marx proposes to counter the anticipated alliance between Prussia and Russia with an alliance of “Germany” and France:
If the Prussians ally themselves with the Russians, the Germans will ally themselves with the French and united they will wage the war of the West against the East, of civilization against barbarism, of the republic against autocracy.
The common portrait of Marx as a kind of pan-German patriot whose foreign policy was dominated in 1848 (and perhaps after) by a desire for a united German state hardly squares with this kind of talk. Marx had not, however, abandoned the idea of a united Germany. He continues in the next paragraph:
We want the unification of Germany. Only as the result of the disintegration of the large German monarchies, however, can the elements of this unity crystallize. They will be welded together only by the stress of war and revolution.47
The unification of Germany on a democratic basis and the maintenance of a revolutionary front of democratic nations also meant that purely German interests were sometimes secondary.
A little later in the year48 Marx summed up his attitude towards the German revolution which, in its provincial narrow-mindedness, fell so far below the demands of the international movement. Marx’s judgement of this Prussian revolution is at the same time an implicit statement of his view of what the revolution should have been:
Far from being a European Revolution it was merely the stunted after-effect of a European revolution in a backward country. Instead of being ahead of its century, [like the seventeenth century English and eighteenth century French revolutions] it was over half a century behind its time. . . . The Prussian March revolution was not even a national, German revolution; from the outset it was a provincial, Prussian revolution.49
Because the German revolutionaries in 1848 were unable to think in international terms they were unable to solve even the most pressing national problems of Germany.
* Literally, “French-eaters.” A better contemporary translation would be “French-bashers” on the analogy of “Japan-basher.”
** A caveat. Neither Marx nor Engels ever stopped using terms like “civilization,” “European civilization” or “Western civilization” interchangeably and meaning thereby bourgeois civilization.
Marx and Engels’ attitude towards the process of bourgeoisification and modernization is complex enough as it is. KMTR II discussed in some detail Marx and Engels’ estimation of the bourgeoisie as a revolutionary class, their insistence on its progressive character vis à vis pre-bourgeois social strata in European society and the political conclusions they drew from these assumptions. The task is not made easier by Marx and Engels’ imprecise use of language. In this early passage, of course, it is the idea, not just the language, that is imprecise.
* Franz Mehring, in his biography of Marx, has a passage which explains the politics of the war with Denmark very well. He does not mention, however, Engels initial support for the Danes. It is a good example of Mehring’s consistent downplaying or belittling of Marx and Engels anti-Prussianism.
* A detailed discussion of the references by other writers to Marx and Engels on “the National Question in 1848” would be digressive in this chapter. These views are taken up in Special Note A.
* A word on the use of the terms ‛Hungary’ and ‘Magyar’ in 1848. Generally speaking, ‘Magyar’ refers to an ethnic group speaking a non-Indo-European language akin neither to that of the Germans or Slavs who surrounded them. ‘Hungary’ refers both to a geographical area and to the traditional kingdom of the Magyars. The distinction is important because the Magyar ethnic group was a privileged minority within the kingdom of Hungary. They were the largest minority in a country of minorities. The political significance in 1848 was that the revolutionaries claimed to be fighting for a state in which all citizens were equal. The ‘Hungarians’ were the citizens of this ‘Hungarian’ state regardless of ethnic group.
But the legacy of centuries of Magyar privilege could not be overcome in a few months. A particularly thorny issue was the insistence of the revolutionary government on Magyar as the official language. Nevertheless, the claim that the revolutionaries were fighting for a modern national state based on equality before the law was not just propaganda. The militant support of the Jewish minority for the revolutionary government despite the widespread and virulent antisemitism of Magyars and non-Magyars alike was noted by all. The question of the response of the Slavic, German and Romanian minorities to the revolution is more controversial and will be dealt with later.
Engels most often used the term Hungarian and Hungarian revolution.
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