The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Volume X Part 28

Yet La.s.salle's position with regard to some important theoretical questions was distasteful to Marx. In philosophy, for example, La.s.salle was a pure Hegelian and never abandoned the idealistic standpoint of his master. Marx, as is well known, was a materialistic Hegelian. The differences between them in this regard were revealed most clearly in the _System of the Acquired Rights_. La.s.salle traced the development of the German laws of inheritance from the Roman concept of the immortality of the legal personality. Marx would have derived them from the conditions of life among the Germans themselves.

In Franz von Sickingen and his cause La.s.salle thought he saw a glimpse of the revolutionary spirit of modern times. Marx saw only a belated and futile struggle on the part of a member of the decadent medieval order of petty barons against the rising order of territorial princes.

Had La.s.salle linked up the cause of the petty barons with the revolt of the peasants, Marx would have thought better of his performance, but this La.s.salle had neglected to do. In the _Philosophy of Herac.l.i.tus_ Marx took little interest.

The most important differences between Marx and La.s.salle arose with respect to the exigencies of practical politics. Marx, like La.s.salle, was a democrat. La.s.salle, however, consistently placed the demand for manhood suffrage in the forefront of his immediate political demands, whilst Marx believed that manhood suffrage under the then-existing conditions on the Continent of Europe would prove more useful to those who controlled the electoral machinery than to the workingmen themselves. Marx, like La.s.salle, believed in the republican form of government. La.s.salle, however, could recognize the temporary value of monarchical inst.i.tutions in the struggle against the capitalistic system, whilst Marx would have had the workingmen depend upon themselves alone. Marx, like La.s.salle, believed in the inevitableness of the fall of capitalism. La.s.salle, however, could appreciate the desirability of realizing some portion of the promised future in the immediate present, whilst Marx preferred not to risk the prolongation of the life of the capitalistic system by attempting to discount the day when the wage-earning cla.s.ses should come wholly into their own.

Marx, like La.s.salle, was a revolutionist. La.s.salle, however, was interested primarily in bringing about the social revolution on German soil, whilst Marx was an internationalist, a veritable man without a country.

The two were bound to clash as soon as La.s.salle began the development of his practical political programme. Marx was not only sceptical of the wisdom of La.s.salle's campaign for manhood suffrage, but he was even strongly opposed to the campaign for the establishment of producers' a.s.sociations with the aid of subventions from the Prussian monarchy. That programme represented all that was odious to Marx: organization of the wage-earners on purely national instead of international lines, conversion of private owners.h.i.+p of capital into corporate instead of public owners.h.i.+p, establishment of a social monarchy instead of a cooperative commonwealth. Obviously Marx could not endorse La.s.salle's proposals to make the socialist movement a factor in contemporary German politics, nor did La.s.salle endorse the Marxian policy presently embodied in the "International."

In the matter of programme and tactics neither Marx nor La.s.salle has been altogether justified by the verdict of history. In the beginning the followers of La.s.salle and the followers of Marx pursued their common ends by independent roads. Brought together by the logic of events, they composed their differences, taking what seemed best to serve their purpose from the ideas of each. It is known that Marx was harshly critical of the programme adopted at Gotha in 1875. It may be guessed that La.s.salle, had he lived, would not altogether have approved of the tactics pursued by those in charge of the united party's affairs. Today, the Social Democratic party, having grown strong and great, can recognize its obligations to both Marx and La.s.salle.

La.s.salle and Marx had entirely different functions to perform in the socialist movement. Marx's part was to be the prophet of socialism, not a prophet in the vulgar sense of a mere prognosticator, but in the old Hebrew sense of an inspired voice crying in a wilderness of unbelief. La.s.salle was no prophet. His function was to reduce principles to action, to engage the forces of the times in the spirit of the times, and by combat with such weapons as lay to hand to urge the cause forward. The word "agitator" might have been invented for him. He was the first great warrior of socialism. It is no reflection upon Marx to indicate that the present need of the Social Democracy is for warriors rather than for prophets.

La.s.salle was one of the great figures of modern German history.

Bismarck's judgment of men was of the keenest and his opinion of La.s.salle, expressed in a speech before the Reichstag (September 16, 1878) is well known: "In private life La.s.salle possessed an extraordinary attraction for me, being one of the most brilliant and most agreeable men I have ever met, and ambitious in the biggest sense of the term." The eminent cla.s.sical historian, Boeckh, who knew La.s.salle well, compared him to Alcibiades. Heine, in a letter introducing La.s.salle to a friend, wrote: "I present to you a new Mirabeau." There is much that is striking in either of these parallels.

Thoughts of what might have been, had La.s.salle's career in politics not been brought to so melancholy an end, are likely to be idle. Helen von Racowitza, the pathetic instrument of his fate, not unnaturally indulged her fancy in such thoughts. Writing in her old age she queries: "Would he, ... with his incomparable ambition and will, ever have been able to adapt himself to the compact edifice of the German empire? a.s.suredly it must always have seemed to him like a prison!" To a woman wracked by remorse it may have been comforting to believe that when the catastrophe occurred the work of the man she once had loved was really completed. Doubtless indeed La.s.salle himself had begun to realize, short as was the period from the foundation of the Workingmen's a.s.sociation to the fatal duel with the Rumanian Yanko, that he could not bring his enterprise to a head as quickly as he had hoped. Doubtless he already saw that the establishment of an independent labor party was not a matter of a single hard-fought campaign, to be waged and won by the genius of any one great leader, but a task requiring long and patient toil and the indefinite postponement of the sweet joys of victory. Certainly in his last months La.s.salle showed an unwise readiness seriously to compromise his position for the sake of more immediate success. Had he lived, he would soon have discovered that he must retrace those latest steps, or Bismarck, and not he, would have been the actual leader of the first German independent labor party. There was nothing in La.s.salle's life to warrant the a.s.sumption that he would deliberately sell his party for a mess of pottage. La.s.salle had put his hand to the plow and it was not in his nature to leave the furrow unturned.

Yet La.s.salle's t.i.tle to greatness must lie less in what he himself achieved than in the achievements of others in his name. He founded a political party; others have made that party great. But the most signal service is the service of the founder, for to found a party is to generate a living organism which will, in the fullness of time, express the purposes and unite the energies of millions. So it has been with the party of La.s.salle. Like the husbandman who casts his seed on good ground, he implanted the germs of the Social-Democracy in the hearts of his country's workingmen when the time was ripe for the sowing. It is enough to secure his fame that he had the vision to see that the time was ripe and the strength to break the ground.

_FERDINAND La.s.sALLE_

THE WORKINGMEN'S PROGRAMME (1862)

TRANSLATED BY E.H. BABBITT, A.B.

a.s.sistant Professor of German, Tufts College

Gentlemen: Requested to deliver an address before you, I have thought it best to choose, and to treat in a strictly scientific way, a subject, which, from its nature, must be particularly interesting to you, namely, the special relation of the character of the historical period in which we are living to the idea of a working cla.s.s.

I have said that my treatment of the subject will be purely scientific.

A true scientific att.i.tude, however, is nothing more than perfect clearness, and therefore the complete separation of our thinking from any preconceived notion. For the sake of this complete absence of preconceived notions with which we must approach the subject, it will even be necessary, in the course of the discussion, to form a clear conception of what we really mean by the term "workingmen" or "working cla.s.s." For even on this point we must not admit any preconceived notion, as if these terms were something perfectly well understood--which is by no means the case. The language of common life very frequently attaches at different times different conceptions to the words "workingman" or "working cla.s.s," and we must therefore, in due time, get a clear conception as to what meaning we will attach to these designations.

With this problem, however, we are not concerned at the present moment. We must rather begin this presentation with a different question: The working cla.s.s is only one cla.s.s among several which together form the body politic, and there have been workingmen at every historical period. How, then, is it possible, and what does the statement mean, that a particular connection exists between the idea of this special definite cla.s.s and the principle of the particular historical period in which we are living?

To understand this it is desirable to take a glance into history--into the past, which properly interpreted, here, as everywhere, gives us the key to the present and points out to us an outline of the future.

In this retrospect we must be as brief as possible, or we shall be in danger (in the short time which is before us) of not reaching at all the essential subject of the discussion. But even at this risk we shall at least be obliged to cast such a glance into the past, even if it is limited to the most general considerations, in order to understand the import of our question and of our subject.

If, then, we go back to the Middle Ages, we shall find, in general, that the same cla.s.ses and divisions of the population which today compose the body politic were already in existence, although by no means so fully developed; but we find, furthermore, that at that time one cla.s.s, one element, is predominate--the landholding element. It is land proprietors.h.i.+p which in the Middle Ages is the controlling influence in every particular, which has put its own special stamp upon all the inst.i.tutions and upon the whole life of the time: it must be p.r.o.nounced the ruling principle of that period.

The reason why land owners.h.i.+p is the ruling principle of that time is a very simple one. It lies--at least this reason is quite sufficient for our present purposes--in the economic conditions of the Middle Ages and in the state of development of production. Commerce was then very slightly developed, manufactures still less. The chief wealth of every community consisted, in greatest measure, in the products of agriculture.

Personal property at that time, in comparison with the owners.h.i.+p of real estate, came only slightly into consideration; how far this was the case is shown very plainly by property law, which always gives a very clear criterion for the economic relations of the period in which it arises. Medieval property law, for instance, with the object of holding the property of families from generation to generation and protecting it from dissipation, declared family property or "estate"

inalienable without the consent of the heirs; but by this family property or "estate" was expressly understood only real estate.

Personal or portable property, on the other hand, could be disposed of without the consent of the heirs; and in general all personal property was treated by the old German law not as an independent self-perpetuating basis of property (capital), but always as the fruit of the soil--in the same way, for instance, as the annual crop from the soil--and was subject to the same legal conditions as the latter.

Nothing but real estate was then regularly treated as an independent self-perpetuating basis of property. It is therefore entirely in keeping with this condition of things, and a simple consequence of it, that landed property and those who had it in their hands almost exclusively--the n.o.bility and clergy--formed the ruling factor, from every point of view, in the society of that period.

Whatever inst.i.tution of the Middle Ages you may consider, you meet this phenomenon at every point. It will suffice us to glance at a few of the most essential of these inst.i.tutions in which landholding appears as a ruling principle.

First: The organization of the public power given by it, or the Feudal System. The essential point of this was that kings, princes and lords ceded to other lords and knights land for their use, in return for which the recipient had to promise military va.s.salage--that is, he had to support the feudal lord in his wards or feuds, both in person and with retainers.

Second: The organization of public law, or the const.i.tution of the empire. In the German parliaments the princes and the large landholdings of the counts, the empire, and of the clergy were represented. The cities had the right to a seat or a vote only if they had succeeded in acquiring the privileges of an imperial free city.

Third: The exemption from taxation of the large landholdings. It is a characteristic and constantly recurring phenomenon that every ruling privileged cla.s.s tries constantly to throw the burden of the maintenance of the State, in open or disguised manner, in direct or indirect form, on the propertyless cla.s.ses. When Richelieu, in 1641, demanded six million francs from the clergy as an extraordinary revenue, the latter gave, through the archbishop of Sens, the characteristic answer: "L'usage ancien de l'eglise pendant sa vigeur etait que le peuple contribuait ses biens, la n.o.blesse son sang, le clerge ses prieres aux necessites de l'etat." (The ancient custom of the church in her prosperity was that the people contributed to the needs of the State their property, the n.o.bility their blood, the clergy their prayers.)

Fourth: The social stigma that rested upon all work other than occupation of the soil. To conduct manufacturing enterprises, to acquire money by commerce and manual trades, was considered disgraceful and dishonorable for the two privileged ruling cla.s.ses, the n.o.bility and the clergy, for whom it was regarded as honorable to obtain their revenue from landowners.h.i.+p only.

These four great and determining motives which established the basic character of the period are entirely sufficient, for our purpose, to show how it was that landed property put its stamp upon that epoch and formed its ruling principle.

This was so far the case that even the movement of the Peasant War, which apparently was completely revolutionary--the one which broke out in Germany in 1524 and involved all Swabia, Franconia, Alsace, Westphalia, and other parts of Germany--depended absolutely upon this same principle, and was therefore in fact a reactionary movement in spite of its revolutionary att.i.tude. The peasants at that time burned down the castles of the n.o.bles, killed the n.o.bles themselves, and made them run the gauntlet according to the custom of the times; but, nevertheless, in spite of this externally revolutionary appearance, the movement was essentially thoroughly reactionary. For the new birth of State relations--the German freedom which the peasants desired to establish--was to consist, according to their ideas, in the abolition of the special and intermediary position which the princes occupied between the emperor and the empire, and, in its stead, the representation in the German parliament of nothing but free and independent landed property, including that of the peasants and knights (these two cla.s.ses up to this time not having been represented), as well as the individual independent estates of the n.o.bles of every degree--knights, counts, and princes, without regard to former differences; and, on the other hand, of the landed property of the n.o.bles as well as of the peasants.

It is clear at once, then, that this plan, in the last instance, results in nothing more than still more logical, clear, and equitable carrying-out of the principle which had formed the basis of the historical period which was even then approaching its end; that is, landowners.h.i.+p was to be the ruling element and the only condition which ent.i.tled anybody to partic.i.p.ation in the government of the State: that anybody should demand such partic.i.p.ation just because he was a man, because he was a reasonable being, even without owning any land--this did not occur to the peasants in the remotest degree! For this the conditions of the time were not sufficiently developed, the method of thought of the time was not revolutionary enough.

So then this peasant uprising, which came forward externally with such revolutionary determination, was in its essence completely reactionary; that is to say, instead of standing upon a new revolutionary principle, it stood unconsciously on the old, existing principle of the period which was then just closing; and just because it was reactionary, while it thought itself revolutionary, did the peasant uprising fail.

Accordingly, in comparison with the uprising of the peasants as well as that of the n.o.bles under Franz von Sickingen--both of which had the principle in common of basing partic.i.p.ation in the government, more definitely than had before been the case, upon landholding--the rising monarchical idea was relatively a justifiable and revolutionary factor, since it was based upon the idea of a state sovereignty independent of landholding, representing the national idea independent of private property relations; and it was just this which gave it the power for a victorious development and for the suppression of the uprising of the peasants and the n.o.bles.

I have gone into this point somewhat explicitly, in the first place to show the reasonableness and the progress of liberty in the development of history, even by an example in which this is not at all evident on superficial observation; in the second place, because historians are still far from recognizing this reactionary character of the peasant uprising and the reason for its failure, which lay chiefly in this aspect; but, rather deceived by external appearances, they have considered the Peasant War a truly revolutionary movement.

Finally, in the third place, because at all ages this phenomenon is frequently repeated--that men who do not think clearly (among whom are often found those apparently most highly educated, even professors) have fallen into the tremendous mistake of taking for a new revolutionary principle what is only a more logical and clear expression of the thought of a period and of inst.i.tutions which are just pa.s.sing away.

Gentlemen, let me warn you against such men, who are revolutionists only in their own imaginations, and such tendencies, because we shall have them in the future as we have had them in the past. We can also derive consolation from the fact that the numerous movements which, after momentary success, have immediately, or in a short time, come to naught again, which we find in history and which may cloud the superficial vision of many a patriot with gloomy forebodings, have never been revolutionary movements except in imagination. A true revolutionary movement, one which rests upon a really new idea, as the more thoughtful man can prove from history to his consolation, has never yet failed, at least not permanently.

I return to my main subject. If the Peasant Wars are revolutionary only in imagination, what was really and truly revolutionary at that time was the advance in manufacturing--the production of the middle cla.s.s, the constantly developing division of labor, and the resulting wealth in capital, which acc.u.mulated exclusively in the hands of the middle cla.s.s because it was just this cla.s.s that devoted itself to production and reaped its profits.

It is usual to date the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of modern history from the Reformation--accordingly, from the year 1517.

This is correct in the sense that, in the two centuries immediately following the Reformation, a slow, gradual, and unnoticed change took place, which completely transformed the aspect of society and accomplished within it a revolution that later, in 1789, was merely proclaimed, not actually produced, by the French Revolution.

Do you ask in what this transformation consisted?

In the legal position of the n.o.bility there had been no change.

Legally the n.o.bility and the clergy had remained the two ruling cla.s.ses, and the middle cla.s.s the cla.s.s universally kept down and oppressed. But although there had legally been no change, yet actually the reversal of conditions had been all the more tremendous.

By the production and acc.u.mulation of capital and of personal property, in contrast to real estate, in the hands of the middle cla.s.s, the n.o.bility had dwindled into complete insignificance--even into actual dependence upon the enriched middle cla.s.s. If the n.o.bles wished to maintain their place beside the middle cla.s.s, they must renounce all cla.s.s traditions and begin to adopt the same methods of industrial acquisition to which the middle cla.s.s owed their wealth and in consequence their _de facto_ power. The comedies of Moliere, who lived at the time of Louis XIV., show us, as an extremely interesting phenomenon, the n.o.bles of the times despising the rich middle cla.s.s and at the same time playing the parasite at its tables. Louis XIV. himself, this proudest of monarchs, takes off his hat in his palace at Versailles and humbles himself before the Jew, Samuel Bernard, the Rothschild of the times, in order to influence him in favor of a loan.

When Law, the famous Scotch financier, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, formed in France his trading companies--a stock corporation which was formed for the exploitation of the Mississippi region, the East Indies, etc., the Regent of France himself was on its directorate--a member of a merchant company! The Regent found himself in fact compelled in August, 1717, to issue edicts in virtue of which the n.o.bles might, without loss of dignity, enter into the naval and military service of these trading companies! To that point, then, the warlike and proud feudal aristocracy of France had fallen--to be the armed employees of the industrial and commercial enterprises of the middle cla.s.s, whose relations extended through all continents.

Corresponding to this radical change, there had already developed a materialism and an eager, grasping struggle for money and property which could overcome all moral ideas and (what I regret to say was generally still more significant for the privileged cla.s.ses) even all privileges of rank. Under this same Regent of France, Count Horn, one of the highest of the aristocracy and connected with the first families of France, even with the Regent himself, was broken on the wheel as a common robber and murderer; and the d.u.c.h.ess of Orleans, a German princess, writes in a letter of November 29, 1719, that six ladies of the highest rank waylaid in the court of a building the above-mentioned Law, who was at that time the most courted and the busiest man in France and therefore very hard to interview, in order to induce him to dispose of some of the shares founded by him, for which at that time all France was competing and which brought on the Exchange six and eight times the nominal price at which Law had issued them.

If you ask me again what the causes were which made possible this development of manufacturing and the consequent wealth of the middle cla.s.s, I should have to exceed, if I tried to give them thorough treatment, the time at my disposal. I can only enumerate for you the most essential ones: The discovery of America and its tremendous influence on production; the route to the East Indies around the Cape of Good Hope, taking the place of the former land route by way of Suez for all trade with the East Indies; the discovery of the magnetic needle and the invention of the mariner's compa.s.s, and in consequence greater safety and speed and lower insurance rates for all ocean traffic; the waterways established in the interior of the countries, the ca.n.a.ls, also the good roads which made possible for the first time a more remote market through the lessening of the transportation costs of various commodities which formerly could not carry the raise in price thus caused; greater security of property; well-established courts of law; the invention of powder, and, in consequence of this invention, the breaking down by the monarchy of the feudal military power of the n.o.bility; the dismissal of the mercenaries and mounted retainers of the n.o.bles on account of the destruction of their castles and of their independent military power. For these retainers there was now nothing left but to find work in the medieval workshops. All these events gave impetus to the triumphal chariot of the middle cla.s.s. All these events, and many more which might be enumerated, combined to produce this one effect. By the opening of wider markets and the accompanying reduction of the costs of production and transportation, there comes production for the world-market, and consequently the necessity for cheap production which, in its turn, can be met only by a constantly extending division of labor, i.e., by the more perfectly developed division of the work into its simplest mechanical processes; this in turn brings about a constantly increasing output.