| Author(s) | Karl Marx |
|---|---|
| Written | 15 August 1851 |
MARX TO HERMANN EBNER[1]
IN FRANKFURT AM MAIN
[Copy]
[London, 15-22 August 1851]
...You will have read, in various German papers, the semi-ministerial Lithographische Correspondenz article in which the official German emigration in London notifies the public of its fraternal unification, its constitution as a joint body. The agreement-seeking united democrats fall into 3 cliques: the Ruge clique, the Kinkel clique, and the indescribable Willich clique. Between the three hover the intercalated deities, minor literati such as Meyen, Faucher, Oppenheim, etc., erstwhile Berlin agreers[2] and, finally, Tausenau along with a few Austrians.
Let us begin, as is fitting, with A. Ruge, the 5th wheel of European Central Democracy's[3] state coach. A. Ruge arrived in London, not exactly weighed down with laurels. All that was known of him was that, at the critical moment, he had cut and run from Berlin and had later vainly applied to Brentano for the post of Ambassador in Paris, that throughout the period of revolution he had espoused, always with the same unshakable conviction, whatever illusion happened to be in vogue and, at one inspired moment, had even discovered that the simplest way of resolving modern conflicts was 'after the Dessau pattern'. For that is what he called this little model state's royalist-constitutional-democratic farce. Meanwhile he was firmly determined to become a great man in London. As always, he had prudently arranged to maintain contact with a democratic local paper in Germany so that he could, without constraint, regale the German public with talk of his important person. This time the lot fell to the Bremer Tages-Chronik. Now Ruge could embark on further operations. Since he speaks only very broken French, no one could stop him presenting himself to foreigners as Germany's most important man, and Mazzini aptly summed him up at first glance as a homme sans consiquence[4] [5] whom he could, without hesitation, call on to supply the German counter-signature to his manifesto. In this way
A. Ruge became the 5th wheel of the Provisional Government of Europe and, as Ledru-Rollin once said, l'homme de Mazzini. He found himself outdone in his own ideal. However, it now behoved him to make himself appear a power in the eyes of Mazzini and Ledru-Rollin, and to prove that there was more to be thrown onto the scales than an equivocal name. A. Ruge set himself to perform three great deeds. In company with Messrs Haug, Range, Struve and Kinkel, he founded a so-called German Central Committee,[6] he founded a journal modestly entitled Der Kosmos and, finally, he sought to extract a loan of 10 millions from the German people, the quid pro quo being that he would gain them their liberty. The 10 millions never came in, but the Kosmos came to an end and the Central Committee came apart, disintegrating into its original elements. The Kosmos had appeared only three times. Ruge's classical style put his profane readers to flight, but nevertheless this much had been achieved: A. Ruge had been able to place on record his amazement at the fact that the Queen should have invited Herr von Radowitz to Windsor Castle rather than himself[7] ; and in letters of his own fabrication he had had himself hailed from Germany 'as provisional government' and condoled with in advance by gullible friends on the score that, after his return to the fatherland, 'affairs of state' would debar him from all companionable intercourse.
Hardly had the invitation to subscribe to the loan of 10 millions appeared, signed by Messrs Ruge, Ronge, Haug, Struve and Kinkel,[8] when the rumour was suddenly put round that a subscription list was circulating in the City for the purpose of dispatching Struve to America, while at the same time the Kölnische Zeitung carried a statement by Mrs Johanna Kinkel to the effect that her husband had not signed that appeal and had resigned from the newly formed Central Committee.[9]
Mr Struve's entire political wisdom before and after the March revolution had notoriously confined itself to preaching 'hatred of princes'. Nevertheless in London he found himself compelled to contribute articles for cash to Duke Karl of Brunswick's German paper[10] and even to submit to the ducal blue pencil wielded by His Grace himself. Mazzini had been secretly informed of this and, when Mr Struve wished to see his name appear in splendour beneath the European circular letter, Mazzini pronounced an interdict. His heart filled with rage against the Central Committee, Struve shook the dust off his feet and sailed for New York, there to acclimatise his idée fixe, his inevitable Deutscher Zuschauer.
Now as for Kinkel, he had not, if the gossip of A. Ruge and the New York Schnellpost are to be believed, actually signed that appeal but had approved it, the scheme had been hatched in his own room, he had himself undertaken to dispatch a number of copies to Germany and had only resigned because the Central Committee had elected General Haug chairman instead of himself.
A. Ruge accompanied this explanation with angry attacks upon the 'vanity' of Kinkel whom he described as a democratic Beckerath and with aspersions upon Mrs Johanna Kinkel for having access to newspapers as execrated as the Kölnische Zeitung.
Thus the democratic Central Committee was reduced to Messrs Ruge, Range and Haug; even A. Ruge realised that this trinity was incapable of creating anything at all, let alone a world. However, the tireless fellow by no means threw up the sponge. All this great man was really concerned about was that something or other should be always afoot, which would lend him an air of activity, of being engaged in deep political combinations, and, above all, afford him material for self-important chitchat, for comings and goings, negotiations, complacent gossip and notices in the press. Luckily for him, Fickler now arrived in London. Like his fellow South Germans, Goegg and Sigel, he was repelled by Kinkel's pretentious mannerisms. Sigel felt no inclination whatever to place himself under the supreme command of Willich, any more than did Goegg to accept his plans for world improvement. Finally, all 3 were too little acquainted with the history of German philosophy not to mistake Ruge for a significant thinker, too naive not to be taken in by his false bonhomie, and too gullible not to take au sérieux[11] all the doings of the so-called emigration. They decided, as one of them[12] writes in the New York Schnellpost, upon union with the other coteries for the purpose of restoring the reputation of the moribund Central Committee. But, the same correspondent complains, there was little prospect for this pious and well-intentioned task; Kinkel was continuing to intrigue; he had formed a committee consisting of his saviour,[13] his biographer[14] and several Prussian lieutenants; it was to work unseen, expand in secret, if possible attract democratic funds and then, suddenly, emerge into the light of day as the mighty Kinkel party. This was neither honourable, nor just, nor sensible. In the same issue of the paper Ruge was unable to resist a few innuendoes at the expense of the 'absolute martyr'. On the very same day that the New York Schnellpost brought this gossip to London, the hostile coteries for the first time officially celebrated their fraternal unification. But that is not all. A. Ruge is making propaganda in America through the New York Schnellpost on behalf of the unfortunate European loan. But Kinkel, who disavowed this absurd undertaking in the Kölnische Zeitung, is now, off his own bat, calling for a loan in the transatlantic papers, with the comment that the money should be sent to the man who enjoys the greatest confidence; that he is that man, goes without saying.
For the present he is demanding an instalment of £500 sterling in order to manufacture revolutionary paper money. Ruge, no sluggard, lets it be known through the Schnellpost that he, A. Ruge, is the treasurer of the democratic Central Committee and the notes, ready and to hand, are to be had from him; anybody with £500 sterling to lose would do better to exchange it for already printed notes than as yet non-existent ones. And the editorial department of the Schnellpost has stated pretty plainly that, if Mr Kinkel does not desist from his machinations, he will be treated as an enemy of the revolution. Finally, while Ruge disposes of his weekly gossip in the Schnellpost, cuts his capers here as man of the future and has himself accorded all the honours due to a 5th wheel, Kinkel writes in the New-Yorker Staatszeitung, the direct antagonist of the Schnellpost:
'So you see that, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, war is waged in due form, whereas on this side Judas kisses are exchanged.'
If you were to ask me how an A. Ruge—a man who, almost from the start, has been quite useless, who in theory has long departed this life and distinguished himself only by his classically confused style—how he can continue to play any role at all, I would first remark that that role is a pure newspaper fiction which he tries, with a unique and persistent diligence and by the most mean-minded methods, to disseminate and convince himself and others. As regards his position among the so-called emigration here, it is a fitting one, be it only as a gutter for the reception of all the contradictions, inconsistencies and limitations of the united democrats. As the classic representative of their general confusion and woolly state of mind, he rightly claims his place as their Confucius.[15]
From the foregoing you will have seen how Kinkel now advances, now retreats, now embarks on an undertaking, now disavows it, always in accordance with the way he believes the popular wind to be blowing. In a piece for the short-lived Kosmos, he expressed particular admiration for a gigantic mirror exhibited in the Crystal Palace.[16] That's Kinkel for you; the mirror is the element in which he exists. He is first and foremost an actor. As the martyr par excellence of the German revolution, he has received here in London the honours due to the other battle victims. But while, officially, he allows himself to be paid and feted by the liberal-aesthetic bourgeoisie, he engages behind the latter's back in illicit dealings with the most extreme fraction of the agreement-seeking emigres represented by Willich, thinking thereby to assure himself both the delights of the bourgeois present and a title to the revolutionary future. While the conditions in which he lives here might be called splendid by comparison with his former position in Bonn, he nonetheless writes to St Louis saying he lodges and lives as befits the representative of the poor.[17] Thus he simultaneously complies with the required etiquette vis-a-vis the bourgeoisie, while making the obeisance that is due to the proletariat. However, as a man in whom imagination far outweighs intelligence, he has been unable to avoid succumbing to some of the vices and pretensions of the parvenu, and this has alienated from him many a pompous emigre worthy. At this moment he apparently intends to make a tour of England to lecture in various towns to audiences of German merchants, receive homage and extend to the North of England the privilege of the double harvest normally confined to southern climes. It is self-delusion on Kinkel's part if he regards himself as ambitious. He is a man of vain appetites, and fate could play this otherwise innocuous speechifier no worse trick than to permit him to attain the goal of his desires and a responsible position. He would be a complete and irretrievable failure.
Finally, as to Willich, I need do no more than apprise you of the opinion of his acquaintances, all of whom regard him as an uninspired visionary. They doubt his talent but, for that very reason, declare him to be a character.[18] He is happy in this situation and exploits it with more Prussian cunning than he is generally credited with. Now you know who the great men of the future are.
The vast majority of the official emigration consists with very few exceptions of noughts, each of whom thinks to become the number one by combining with others to form a dozen. Hence their constant attempts at uniting and conglomerating, which are constantly being undone by the petty jealousies, intrigues, basenesses and rivalries of these petits grands hommes[19] ; and as ceaselessly entered into again. While slinging mud at each other in the North American papers they believe that, vis-a-vis Germany, they form a front, and that by coagulating to form a great gossiping cheese-pat they will inevitably produce the effect of being a power and a corpus venerabile.[20] They are always under the impression that there is still something they lack if they are to impress, hence their organised courtship of every new arrival. Their efforts to win over Freiligrath, whom they have now sent to Coventry, and to lure him away from Marx, were as importunate as they were, of course, fruitless. Kinkel left no stone unturned, and A. Ruge actually wrote him a letter to induce him to join the League of the Just. He does not now, of course, belong to 'the emigration' any more than W. Wolff and other refugees who remain aloof from these goings-on. One more name! If these capuchins of the revolution, these mendicant friars of the same, had anything at all to give away, they would give a kingdom for one more name,[21] especially a name as popular as Freiligrath's. Place-seekers and popularity-mongers, that's what all this crowd amounts to. These gentlemen believe that the revolution is at hand and that they must naturally make their dispositions. In like manner did the Imperial Assembly[22] men in Switzerland form themselves into an association in which future posts were shared out hierarchically by number. And it bred bitter strife as to who should represent No. 17 or 18.
You express surprise that these gentlemen should make the semi-ministerial Lithographische Correspondenz their monitor. Your surprise will be at an end when I tell you that one of its scribes regularly scribbles in the Neue Preussische Zeitung,[23] another serves as general factotum to the Russian Morning Chronicle, etc., etc. Nor does this take place behind the backs of the official emigration—far from it. Indeed, their first general assembly opened with a reading of the article from the Lithographische Correspondenz. They mustered some 50 men, a number which, at the second sitting, dwindled to less than half.[24] The seed of discord had already begun to germinate freely among those craving agreement, who, by the by, as one of them remarked in confidence, consisted solely of 'superior refugees'. Of the profane vulgus[25] of the refugee working men, none was to be seen.
If there is one point upon which the fraternising emigration are all unanimous, it is their common and fanatical hatred of Marx, a hatred which regards no fatuity, no baseness, no intrigue as too high a price to pay for the gratification of their ill-humour towards this, their bête noire. For these gentlemen have not even thought it beneath their dignity to make contact with Beta or Bettziech, a former collaborator on Gubitz's Gesellschafter, and through that great author and patriot writing in the organ of the merry vintner, Louis Drucker,[26] to insinuate that Marx is a spy because he is brother-in-law to the Prussian minister, von Westphalen.[27] The only connection Herr von Westphalen ever had with Marx lay in the former's confiscation of Becker's printing works and the incarceration of H. Becker in Cologne, by which he frustrated the publication of Marx's Gesammelte Aufsätze which Becker had undertaken and of which the first volume had already appeared,[28] and likewise prevented the publication of a Revue then actually printing. Their hatred of Marx was further intensified by the Saxon Government's publication of the communist address,[29] since he was held to be its author. Marx, however, being wholly engaged in working out his critique and history of political economy, begun years before, had no more time or inclination than Freiligrath and their mutual friends to attend to the tittle-tattle of the fraternising emigration.
But the more one ignores them, the more frantic the yapping of these pug-dogs of the future becomes. Gustav Julius, a man with a thoroughly critical and scientifically trained intellect, who died all too young and is now being claimed by the emigration for their own, grew so weary of their shallow and preposterous goings-on that he wrote a full and detailed description of the same and, only a few weeks before his death, sent it to a North German newspaper[30] which, however, rejected it....