Critical Notes on the Article
"The King of Prussia and Social Reform.
By a Prussian"
[1]
by
KARL MARX
Vorwarts!
No.63, August 7 1844
ONLINE VERSION:
An article has appeared in the 60th issue of the Vorwarts! with the "The King of
Prussia and Social Reform" and it is signed by "A Prussian".
This so-called Prussian begins by reporting the contents of the Royal Prussian
Order in Council on the subject of the workers' uprising in Silesia [2] and goes
on to give the opinion of the French journal La Reforme [3] of the same Prussian
Order in Council. The Reforme, he says, discerns the origins of the Order in
Council in the King's "panic and his religious sentiments". It even hails this
document as a presentiment of the great reforms imminent in bourgeois society.
The "Prussian" delivers the following lecture to the Reforme.
Neither the King nor German society has had any "presentiment of its reform"
[4]; not even the uprisings in Bohemia and Silesia have managed to arouse
such feelings. In an unpolitical country like Germany it is not possible to
represent the sporadic misery of the factory districts as a matter of
universal concern, let alone as a disaster to the whole civilized world. As
far as the Germans are concerned, these events belong in the same category
as any local shortage of food or water. In accordance with this the King
views it as a failure of the administration or of charitable institutions.
For this reason and because but few troops were needed to deal with the
feeble weavers the destruction of factories and machines does not make the
King and the authorities "panic". Nor were religious sentiments responsible
for the Order in Council; it was instead a very sober expression of
Christian statesmanship and of a doctrine which does not permit any
obstacles to stand in the way of its only remedy: the "good intentions of
Christian hearts". Poverty and crimes are two great evils; who can provide a
cure for them? The state and the authorities? By no means. But the union of
all Christian hearts can do so.
Our so-called Prussian denies that the King "panicked" for a number of reasons,
among them being the fact that few troops were needed to deal with the feeble
weavers.
This means that in a country where banquets with liberal toasts and liberal
champagne froth provoke Royal Orders in Council (as we saw in the case of the
Dusseldorf banquet [5]), where the burning desire of the entire liberal
bourgeoisie for freedom of the press and a constitution could be surpassed
without the aid of a single soldier, in a country where passive obedience is the
order of the day, can it be anything but an event and indeed a terrifying event
when armed troops have to be called out against feeble wavers? And in the first
encounter the feeble weavers even gained a victory. They were only suppressed
when reinforcements were brought up. Is the uprising of a mass of workers less
dangerous because it can be defeated without the aid of a whole army? Our
sharp-witted Prussian should compare the revolt of the Silesian weavers with the
uprisings of English workers. The Silesians will then stand revealed as strong
weavers.
A consideration of the general relationship between politics and the defects of
society will enable us to explain why the weavers could not induce any great
"panic" in the King. For the present, however, we will only point out that the
uprising was directed in the first instance not against the King of Prussia but
against the bourgeoisie. As an aristocrat and an absolute monarch the King of
Prussia can have no love of the bourgeoisie; even less can he feel any anxiety
if the submissiveness and impotence of the bourgeoisie is increased by its tense
and difficult relationship with the proletariat. Similarly, an orthodox Catholic
will feel a greater hostility towards an orthodox Protestant than towards an
atheist, just as a legitimist will dislike a liberal more than a communist. This
is not because atheists are closer to Catholics or communists closer to
legitimists than they are to Protestants or liberals respectively, but, on the
contrary, because they are more remote from t hem, because the latter do not
impinge on their sphere of interests. The direct political antagonist of the
King of Prussia, in his role as politician, is to be found in liberalism. For
the King, the antagonism of the proletariat exists no more than does the King
for the proletariat. This means that if the proletariat has contrived to
eliminate such antipathies and political antagonisms, and to attract the entire
hostility of the political powers towards itself, it must have acquired a very
definite power. Lastly, the King's appetite for interesting and significant
phenomena is well known and it must have been a very pleasant surprise for him
to discover such an "interesting" and "much discussed" pauperism within his very
own frontiers and thus to find yet another opportunity to appear in the public
eye. How he must have rejoiced to hear the news that he too now possessed his
"own" Royal Prussian pauperism!
Our "Prussian" is even less fortunate when he denies that "religious sentiment"
was responsible for the Royal Order in Council.
Why is "religious sentiment" not the source of this Order in Council? Because
the latter "was the very sober expression of Christian statesmanship", a "sober"
expression of the doctrine whose "only remedy, the good intentions of Christian
hearts... does not permit any obstacles to stand in its way".
Is not religious sentiment the source of Christian statesmanship? Is it not
true that a doctrine which possesses a universal panacea in the good intentions
of Christian hearts is founded on religious sentiments? Is it true that the
expression of religious feelings ceases to be the expression of religious
feelings ceases to be the expression of religious feelings if it is sober? I
would go even further! I would maintain that any religious feelings that contest
the ability of "the state and the authorities" to "remedy great evils" while
they themselves seek a cure in the "union of Christian hearts" must be conceited
and drunk in the extreme. Only very drunk religious feelings could locate the
course of the evil -- as does our "Prussian" -- in the absence of the Christian
spirit. Such feelings alone could suggest that the authorities should resort to
"exhortation" as the only means whereby the Christian spirit might be fortified.
According to the "Prussian" Christian sentiment is the sole end aim of the Order
in Council. Religious sentiment, when it is drunk, of course, not when it is
sober, considers itself to be the only good. Whenever it comes across evil it
attributes it to its own absence, for, if it is the only good, then it alone can
create the good. Therefore, an Order in Council, dictated by religious feelings,
logically enough itself decrees religious feelings. A politician with sober
religious feelings would not attempt to find a "cure" for his own "perplexity"
in the "exhortations of the pious Preacher to cultivate Christian sentiments".
How then does out so-called "Prussian" demonstrate to the Reforme that the
Order in Council is not an emanation of religious feeling? By describing it as
an emanation of religious feeling. What insight into social movements can be
expected from such an illogical mind? Let us listen to him gossiping about the
relationship of German society to the workers' movement and social reform in
general.
Let us distinguish -- as our "Prussian" fails to do -- let us distinguish
between the various categories subsumed by the expression "German society";
government, bourgeoisie, the press and finally the workers themselves. These are
the various masses we are concerned with here. The "Prussia" merges them all
into one mass and condemns them en masses from his exalted standpoint. According
to him German society has "not even had a presentiment of its reform".
Why is it so lacking in this instinct? Because, the Prussian explains,
In an unpolitical country like Germany it is not possible to represent the
sporadic misery of the factory districts as a matter of universal concern,
let alone as a disaster to the whole civilized world. As far as the Germans
are concerned, these events belong in the same category as any local
shortage of food or water. In accordance with this the King views it as a
failure of the administration or of charitable institutions.
The "Prussian thus explain this absurd interpretation of the plight of the
workers with reference to the peculiar nature of an unpolitical country.
It will be granted that England is a political nation. It will further be
granted that England is the nation of pauperism; the work itself is English in
origin. An examination of the situation in England is thus the most certain way
whereby to discover the relation of a political nation to pauperism. In England
the misery ...
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