The "Crisis" in Prussia

Author(s) Frederick Engels
Written 1 January 1873


Written at the beginning of January 1873
First published in Der Volksstaat, No. 5, January 15, 1873
Printed according to the newspaper
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 23
Collection(s): Der Volksstaat

The "great nation" of France has, indeed, been ousted by the "great nation" of Germany, and rightly so. In Versailles, a political crisis arises because the French rural squirearchy are conspiring to replace the existing republic with the monarchy[1] ; at the same time, a crisis breaks out in Berlin because the rural squirearchy of Prussia are unwilling to sacrifice the old feudal estate-police, to which they are still entitled, eighty years after the French Revolution. Can anyone doubt for a moment longer the superiority of German "culture" over French civilisation? With their customary superficiality, the French squabble about mere forms, such as republic and monarchy. The thorough Prussians get to the bottom of the matter by safeguarding, not a day too early, in 1872—the last in Europe to do so except for Mecklenburg and Russia—the foundation of society, the peasants' backsides, from the squires' flogging—or may be not!

Nothing is more indicative of the wretched attitude of the Prussian bourgeoisie than this entire farce about district regulations.[2] In 1848, Prussia had its revolution; the bourgeoisie held power in its hands; an oath of loyalty from the army to the constitution—no matter what kind of constitution—would have sufficed to secure power to the bourgeoisie. The feudal elements and the bureaucrats were so terrified that, at the time, the abolition of the remnants of feudalism seemed to be a matter of course. The first draft constitutions of 1848 and even 1849 did, in fact, contain all the essentials for this development, if only in the usual miserable form. The very slightest resistance from the bourgeoisie would have sufficed to make a return of the feudal rights impossible; for, apart from the few rural squires, nobody had any interest in this happening, except for the romantic Frederick William IV. Yet hardly had European reaction triumphed when the Prussian bourgeoisie crawled to the feet of Manteuffel, responding to every cut from his whip with grateful tail-wagging. Not only did it return the estate-police and all sorts of other feudal rubbish to the landed nobility east of the Elbe; it chastised itself for its sinful liberalism by destroying, on its own, even the liberty to exercise trades instituted in 1808, and by restoring the guilds in the middle of the nineteenth century.[3]

The bourgeoisie is, at best, an unheroic class. Even its most brilliant achievements, those in England in the seventeenth century and those in France in the eighteenth, were not gained in battle by the bourgeoisie itself, but won for it by the popular masses, the workers and peasants. In France, too, the bourgeoisie rescued itself from the terror of the June days of 1848[4] by throwing itself at the feet of a play-actor[5] ; in England, too, 1848 was followed by a long period of reaction; but in both countries this reaction was based on the pretext of protecting the foundations of bourgeois society from attacks by the proletariat. In Prussia, the result of the revolution was to permit the romantic Frederick William IV finally to fulfil the medieval desires of his heart, as triumphant reaction swept away a multitude of anti-romantic institutions that had smuggled their way into the Prussian state in the period from Frederick II until Stein and Hardenberg. On the pretext of protecting it from the proletariat, bourgeois society was once again placed under the rule of feudalism. No bourgeoisie in the world can boast of such a period of ignominy as that experienced by the Prussian bourgeoisie under Manteuffel. In what other country would it have been possible to hail a man like Hinckeldey a champion and martyr of liberty?[6]

Finally, as a result of conflicting palace intrigues, along comes the New Era?[7] An old-style liberal ministry unexpectedly falls into the lap of the bourgeoisie, and the latter, the most cowardly of all bourgeoisies, not having raised a finger to bring it into being, suddenly imagines that it is at the helm of the state, that the old Prussian military and police state has vanished, that it can appoint and depose ministers and impose its will on the Court. If the Manteuffel period had proved the cowardliness of the bourgeoisie, the New Era exposed its political incompetence.

The price at which the old-liberal ministry was admitted was the re-organisation of the army. The Italian war[8] provided the desired opportunity to demand this of the Diet. On the one hand, the mobilisation of 1859 had proved that the old army organisation had become totally obsolete. On the other, the indifference with which the annexation of Savoy and Nice was greeted in France proved that French chauvinism could only be effectively set in motion by the prospect of conquests on the Rhine, i.e., by a war against Prussia. It was thus evident that, as soon as Louis Bonaparte's position as emperor was again placed in jeopardy by internal developments in France, this danger could only be warded off 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 for the large armies of nowadays. It was too weak for this. Yet all the less could it steer clear of the common continental necessity since its ambiguous "policy of having a free hand" had cut it off from all reliable alliances. Finally, whatever the nature of the re-organisation of the army, the Prussian bourgeoisie must have realised it could not prevent it. Its one correct plan of action could, therefore, only be to barter the approval of the inevitable re-organisation for as many political concessions as possible. But the Prussian bourgeoisie, though still black and blue from the trampling it had received from the Manteuffel regime, all at once started getting above itself. It suddenly imagined itself to be the decisive power in the state; it rejected the re-organisation of the army. With that, the dream was again over. Bismarck came to teach them that their paper constitution and their votes in the Chambers were nothing but dead wood, that in Prussia it was the King who ruled and the Chambers were only there to say Yes. The army re-organisation was carried out despite the constitution and the deputies were treated once again à la Manteuffel.[9] After a brief sham resistance, of which it tired sooner than its adversary Bismarck did, the bourgeoisie found in the Danish war[10] the first pretext for making bashful attempts at a reconciliation; and after Sadowa[11] it no longer showed any embarrassment at all, falling enthusiastically at Bismarck's feet, to figure from now on only in his retinue; after the French war [12] its enthusiasm no longer knew any bounds. From then on it belonged to Bismarck body and soul, and was virtually absorbed by him.

There is, however, a thing in this world that Hegel discovered and called "the irony of history".[13] This irony of history has played its game with greater men than Bismarck, and the Prussian state and Bismarck also succumbed to it. From the moment the long-desired goals of Prussian policy were, one by one, attained — from that moment, the foundations of the Prussian state began to shake. Old Prussia is essentially based on the Junkerdom, from which officers and bureaucracy are chiefly recruited. The Junkers exist in their most flourishing form only in the six eastern provinces, and need, their estates being mostly limited, certain feudal privileges in order to exist. Without these, most Junkers would soon sink to the level of ordinary landowners. As long as there were only the two western provinces[14] to compete with it, the Junkerdom was in no danger. But the annexations of 1866[15] had already strengthened the bourgeois and peasant element in the state to a tremendous degree. It was not merely legitimist humbug, but rather the justified awareness of its own position being endangered that provoked the resistance of the StahlGerlach party[16] to these annexations. The incorporation of the petty states in the North German Confederation, the transfer of the decisive state functions to this Confederation, the consequent médiatisation of the Prussian Upper House, the final accession of the southern states[17] —all these events were just so many hard blows to the Junkerdom, which only formed a tiny minority in the Empire. Yet this is not all. Every government, even the most despotic, is compelled to govern with due regard for the existing conditions, or else it breaks its neck. Prussia could subjugate Little Germany, but it could not impose its Junkerdom on the twentyfive million Germans west of the Elbe. On the contrary: the Junkers, a necessity for old Prussia, became a fetter on the "Empire". Just as Bismarck had been compelled, against his earlier intentions, to introduce freedom to pursue trades, freedom of movement between the individual states and other bourgeois reforms— admittedly in a bureaucratically mutilated form—the irony of history finally condemned him, the Junker par excellence, to use the axe on the Junkers by having recourse to district regulations.

These district regulations are some of the most woe-begone laws ever made. Their content may be summarised in two words. They deprive the individual Junker of the power appertaining to him by virtue of feudal prerogative, in order, in the guise of district self-administration, to give it back to the Junker class. As before, medium-size and big landed property will dominate in the agricultural districts of the eastern provinces; it will even receive a new accretion of power through having been allocated rights hitherto belonging to the state. The individual Junker, however, loses the privileged position he used to enjoy as a feudal lord. He descends to the level of an ordinary modern landowner—thus ceasing to be a Junker. But thereby the foundations of old Prussia are undermined and, therefore, the Upper House was quite right, from its own point of view, to resist the district regulations. With the district regulations—no Junkerdom, and without Junkerdom— no more Prussia as such.

The Prussian bourgeoisie remained worthy of itself in this affair. At first, it was claimed that the district regulations were merely an instalment on self-administration; they had to be accepted because, at the time, nothing better could be achieved; they were a compromise with the government, but in future not another inch should be conceded. The Upper House rejects the district regulations. Although already bound by the compromise vis-à-vis the House of Deputies, the government demands new concessions from it. The House is brave enough to grant them without any further ado; in return, the bourgeois are promised a wholesale creation of new peers[18] and are presented with the prospect of a reform of the Upper House. The new peers are created—twenty-five generals and bureaucrats—and the Upper House accepts. The compromise is saved, but—the reform of the Upper House has been shelved. Comfort is taken in the idea that the district regulations are still a quite enormous step forward— and along comes the news of the ministerial crisis. Roon, Selchow, Itzenplitz wish to resign—a sweeping victory for the Liberals— inevitability of a liberal...?—no, not precisely!—of a united ministry! Our bourgeois are so modest. In fact, they are content with even less. Bismarck vacates the premiership; Roon, the opponent of the district regulations, succeeds him; yet another general[19] enters the ministry; Selchow and Itzenplitz remain; the united ministry is less united than ever, with the feudal elements in it strengthened, while the bourgeois calmly continues to swill down his beer in the proud awareness that, when all is said and done, Bismarck is still the soul of the whole affair.

This example describes exactly the position of the Prussian bourgeoisie. It claims the credit for the fact that Bismarck is forced, by the historical situation in which he has placed Prussia and by the industrial progress of the last twenty years, to do what it itself was too cowardly to push through between 1848 and 1850. It does not even have the courage to force its Bismarck to carry out these small reforms in a straightforward, openly bourgeois way without police-state bungling; it loudly rejoices that Bismarck is compelled to—castrate—its own demands of 1846.[20] And, mark well, only its economic demands—which not even a thousand Bismarcks could prevent being put into effect, even if they wanted to. The political demands, the transfer of political power to the bourgeoisie, are now only mentioned for decency's sake, if at all. The Prussian bourgeoisie does not want political dominance; rotten without having reached maturity, as official Russia already was in the age of Voltaire, it has already arrived, without ever having ruled, at the same stage of degeneration that the French bourgeoisie has attained after eighty years of struggles and a long period of dominance. Panem et circenses, bread and circuses, the degenerate Roman plebs demanded of their emperors; panem et circenses, soaring profits and brute luxury, are what the Prussian bourgeoisie, not the Prussian people, demand of theirs. The Roman plebeians were swept away, along with their emperors, by the Germanic barbarians; behind the Prussian bourgeoisie, the German workers loom up menacingly.

  1. ↑ Engels is alluding to the growing desire of the French reactionaries to restore the monarchy after the fall of the Paris Commune. Monarchist elements prevailed in the National Assembly (nicknamed the Rural Assembly) which was elected in February 1871 and had its seat in Versailles. However, the attempts at restoration were hampered by the quarrels continuing between various monarchist factions and, above all, by the fear felt by the greater part of the bourgeoisie of a new revolutionary action by the republican-minded masses. Therefore many bourgeois politicians, Thiers, President of the Republic, among them, preferred to leave the republican form of government intact, preserving at the same time the monarchist institutions ("a republic without republicans").
  2. ↑ See Note 253.
  3. ↑ Engels is referring to the restoration of patrimonial jurisdiction (that is, the landlord's right to exercise police and legal functions with respect to peasants dependent on him), which was abolished in 1848-49 but actually sanctioned by the law of April 14, 1856, for the six provinces of the Kingdom of Prussia lying east of the Elbe (Prussia, Brandenburg, Pomerania, Posen, Silesia and Saxony). On February 9, 1849, the Prussian government issued two decrees prescribing changes in the Trades Rules, which introduced Trades Councils (Gewerberäte) and Trades Courts (Gewerbegerichte), thus virtually restoring medieval trade legislation. These decrees nullified attempts to eliminate the medieval barriers to industrial and commercial activities which were made in the period of liberal reforms in Prussia after its defeat in the war against Napoleonic France. In particular, they actually annulled the decree of October 24, 1808 on the elimination of guild restrictions and monopolies, and also the order of December 26, 1808 which declared, in general terms, the freedom of industry and commerce.
  4. ↑ Engels is referring to the June insurrection of the Paris proletariat, see Note 135.
  5. ↑ Louis Bonaparte.— Ed.
  6. ↑ In 1856, the head of the Prussian police department Hinckeldey was killed in a duel by Baron Rochow, a representative of an ultra-conservative grouping interested in the business of a gambling-house closed down by the police. A number of bourgeois newspapers, the Berlin National Zeitung (No. 119/120, March 11, 1856) in particular, responded to this event with laudatory articles about Hinckeldey, describing him as a champion of liberty and progress.
  7. ↑ The reference is to the "liberal" course announced by Prince William of Prussia (King of Prussia since 1861) when he became regent in October 1858. He made the Manteuffel ministry resign and called the moderate liberals to power. The bourgeois press dubbed this the policy of the "New Era". It was, in fact, solely intended to strengthen the position of the Prussian monarchy and the Junkers. This soon became clear to the representatives of the liberal opposition whose hopes had been deceived and who refused to approve the government project of a military reform.
  8. ↑ A reference to the war waged by France and the Kingdom of Sardinia (Piedmont), on the one side, and Austria, on the other, from April 29 to July 8, 1859. Austria suffered a defeat and was compelled to cede Lombardy to Piedmont, while Piedmont, in its turn, ceded Savoy and Nice to Bonapartist France. During the war, the Prussian government, pursuing the "policy of having a free hand", declared neutrality.
  9. ↑ Engels is referring to the so-called constitutional conflict in Prussia which started in February 1860 when the liberal majority of the Provincial Diet refused to approve the projected army reorganisation moved by von Roon, Minister of War. The government, however, soon succeeded in obtaining allocations for the maintenance of the army in fighting trim, and this helped it to begin the planned reorganisation. In March 1862, the liberal majority refused to approve the military expenditure and demanded that the ministry should be answerable to the Provincial Diet. The government dissolved the Diet and fixed a new election. In late September the Bismarck ministry was formed which, in October of the same year, dissolved the Diet again and began to effect a military reform without the Diet's sanction. The conflict was settled only in 1866, when after Prussia's victory over Austria the Prussian bourgeoisie gave in to Bismarck. For details see Engels' "The Prussian Military Question and the German Workers' Party" (present edition, Vol. 20).
  10. ↑ This refers to the war of Prussia and Austria against Denmark in 1864 over Schleswig and Holstein, duchies subject to Denmark but inhabited mainly by Germans. Austria joined the war in the fear that if its rival, Prussia, fought on its own, it would enjoy all the fruits of victory. Denmark was defeated. Schleswig and Holstein were declared joint possessions of Austria and Prussia, which aggravated the conflict between the two countries. After its defeat in the war against Prussia in 1866, Austria had to renounce its right to the duchies in Prussia's favour.
  11. ↑ On July 3, 1866, a decisive battle of the Austro-Prussian war took place near the village of Sadowa at Königgrätz (Hradec Krâlové), Bohemia. The Austrian troops suffered a major defeat.
  12. ↑ The Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71.— Ed.
  13. ↑ Engels, apparendy, refers to the idea of the recurrence of historical events which Hegel expressed in his work Vorlesungen über die Philosophie der Geschichte, the first edition of which was published in Berlin in 1837 (see Part 3, Section 2, entitled "Rom vom zweiten punischen Krieg bis zum Kaiserthum"). Hegel also repeatedly expressed the idea that in the process of dialectical development there is bound to be a transition from the stage of formation and efflorescence to that of disintegration and ruin (see, in particular, G.W.F. Hegel, Grundlinien der Philosophie des Rechts (Part 3, Section 3, § 347). Hegel's idea was developed by Marx in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (see present edition, Vol. 11, p. 103), Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Law. Introduction (Vol. 3, p. 179), The Deeds of the Hohenzollern Dynasty (Vol. 9, p. 421), and by Engels in his letter to Marx of December 3, 1851 (Vol. 38, p. 505).
  14. ↑ Westphalia and the Rhine Province.— Ed.
  15. ↑ As a result of Prussia's victory in the Austro-Prussian war of 1866, Prussia annexed the Kingdom of Hanover, the Electorate of Hesse-Kassel, the Grand Duchy of Nassau, the free city of Frankfort on the Main, and the duchies of Holstein and Schleswig.
  16. ↑ The Stahl-Gerlach party, or party of the Kreuz-Zeitung (as the Neue Preußische Zeitung was called), was formed during the revolution of 1848-49 and consisted of representatives of the counter-revolutionary court clique and feudal Junkers. Striving to restore limited absolutism, the party defended privileges of the aristocracy and nobility. It opposed Bismarck's policy of Germany's unification from above seeing it as a threat to feudal privileges.
  17. ↑ The North German Confederation was a federative state formed in 1867 under Prussia's supremacy after its victory in the Austro-Prussian war. It replaced the German Confederation which was established in 1815. The North German Confederation incorporated 19 German states and three free cities. The King of Prussia was declared president of the Confederation and commander-in-chief of the confederate armed forces; he was also in charge of foreign policy. The creation of the North German Confederation was an important stage in implementing the so-called Little Germany plan for the unification of Germany (without Austria) which was carried out by Bismarck. In 1870 the Confederation was joined by Bavaria, Baden, Württemberg and Hesse-Darmstadt. In January 1871 upon the formation of the German Empire the Confederation ceased to exist.
  18. ↑ As a rule, the British Parliament created new peers when the government sought to form a majority in the House of Lords which would support its measures. The ruling circles in several other countries also used this device to influence the upper chambers (the Prussian Upper House, in particular).
  19. ↑ A. K. G. von Kameke.— Ed.
  20. ↑ The Prussian bourgeoisie was pressing its demands with increased force in 1845-46, its hopes for liberal reform having failed to materialise at Frederick William IV's ascension to the throne in 1840. In 1845, almost all the provincial diets demanded a constitution. In his memorandum of 1846 David Hansemann, a wealthy bourgeois of the Rhine Province, suggested that an all-Prussian parliament should be summoned, the Customs Union strengthened and enlarged, patrimonial jurisdiction and a number of other privileges of the nobility abolished, freedom of the press and the jury system introduced, etc.