KARL MARX, RACIST, CHAPTER 10

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KARL MARX, RACIST

1979 by Nathaniel Weyl

 

Chapter 10.

 

 

The War Mongers.

 

Throughout his long life, Karl Marx predicted and hoped for European wars on a gigantic scale. On the basis of the Jacobin experience of the Great French Revolution of 178g-94, he believed that such wars would bring to power the most resolute, ruthless, and extremist elements in European society-in short, himself and his political faction. Wars on a grand scale led to dictatorship, but the specific sort of dictatorship which Marx hoped for and expected-the dictator ship of the proletariat-was not, of course, the rule of those workers whom he called "louts. dolts. asses," but rather the rule of those "enlightened'" intellectuals who, through their profound grasp of historic materialism, under stood the class interests of the proletariat and represented their historic needs. 

 

In plain English, the dictatorship of the proletariat meant the dictatorship over the proletariat by Marx and his Communist faction. Milkhail Bakunin grasped this profound truth and expressed it eloquently. A generation after Marx's death, Lenin had the same vision: "The Soviet Socialist Democracy is in no way inconsistent with the rule and dictatorship of one person: the will of a class is at times best expressed by a dictator.

 

Did people like Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin believe most of the time that they were motivated by larger social and human ideals than the limitless thirst for personal power? Since we cannot penetrate the innermost recesses of their minds, we shall never know the answer. However. it is worth pointing out that one of the major differences between the ideological practitioner of genocide and the sociopathic criminal is that the former always needs an “idealistic'" justification for his crimes. The greatest enormities of history are not perpetrated by men who are merely greedy, corrupt, vicious, violent, and unscrupulous. These men have limited appetites and can satisfy them with small actions. The really great crimes against mankind are the work of self-styled idealistic leaders of secular or religious ideologies. When they transform earth into hell, they claim to do so for the benefit of humanity. 

 

Marx's and Engels's fervent and continuing hopes for European war were not based on any illusions concerning the consequences of such wars for the working class of the world that they claimed to represent. They had been born and raised in the aftermath of the Napoleonic wars which killed an estimated 5 million human beings. In proportion to European population, these struggles were almost as hideously genocidal as those that have disfigured our own century. 

 

 

The Neue Rheinische Zeitung.

 

The Neue Rheinische Zeitung first saw the light on June 1, 1848, with Karl Marx wielding absolute power over its contents. When it was only six days old, the NRZ  demanded that Germany be unified through " war with the East. " On June 25, Marx wrote that the Germans must " wage a war of the West against the East. " 

 

On June 12, 1848, Marx and Engels again demanded " a war with Russia... in which Germany can become virile.... " For those of us old enough to have lived through the era of Nazi propaganda, these expressions have a familiar ring. 

 

Almost forty years later, Engels reminisced in a letter to Florence Kelley Wischnewetsky dated January 27, 1887, that the program of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung " consisted of two major points: a single, indivisible democratic German republic and war with Russia. " 

 

This hatred of Russia antedated the czar's role in crushing liberal revolutions in central

Europe. Bertram Wolfe writes: 

 

Some biographers of Marx and Engels have suggested that they became enamored of war with Russia only after the " gendarme of Europe " had intervened to crush the Hungarian revolution and restore the Hapsburg Empire, and had offered aid to the Prussian king. But the two young warriors demanded war with Russia before any of these things occurred.

 

In 1848, Marx made the insane proposal in the NRZ  that " the slumbering German movement " declare war simultaneously against Prussia, Russia, and England- three of the most powerful countries on earth.

 

All of this was coupled with incessant attacks on those European leaders who preferred peace to slaughter. One of the less endearing qualities of Marx and Engels was their readiness to accuse any European statesman of cowardice and treason who refused to carry out the policies they advocated. They characterized such men as being guilty of " cowardly diplomacy... disgraceful retreat shameful armistice... betrayal of the honor and interests of Germany.”

 

Nor did they have any use for pacifism. When it stood in the way of German conquest of Danish soil, pacifism was nothing " but the most trivial soapbox oratory. " 

 

 

Russia and Poland.

 

" The policy of Russia is changeless according to the admission of its official historian, the Muscovite, Karamsin, " Marx wrote in the mid - 1860s. " Its methods, its tactics, its maneuvers, may change, but the polar star of its policy- world domination- is a fixed star. In our times, only a civilized government ruling over barbarian masses can hatch such a plan and execute it. " 

 

Marx's and Engels ' hatred of Russians was not confined to the czar and the aristocracy, but extended to the masses as well. In the NRZ  for January 1, 1849. Marx called the Slavic people " rabble " ( Lumpengesindel ). 

 

On November 7, 1848, he wrote in the same organ that " Croat freedom and order has conquered and the subjects celebrated the victory with arson, rape, pillage and nameless atrocities. " 

 

On January 1, 1849, Marx observed in the NRZ  that the defeat of the June uprising in Paris " was simultaneously the victory of East over West, the defeat of civilization by barbarism. " He added that " Croats, Panduren, Czechs, Serechaner and similar riff-raff strangled German freedom " during the fighting in Vienna. " 

 

Marx and Engels believed that the forward bastion for Russia's assault with her Asian hordes on European civilization would be Moscow-dominated Poland. Therefore, both men were, most of the time, fervent supporters of Polish culture, Polish civilization, Polish freedom, and Polish territorial expansion.

 

Marx and Engels totally rejected the theory that the Greater Poland which they hoped to create should consist only of Poles. It must include all of Lithuania, Galicia, most of the Ukraine, vast stretches of the Baltic seacoast. A Poland that " does not extend from the Baltic to the Carpathians is no Poland. " " How about the German enclaves in this great new nation? Were they to have the right of self-determination? Of course not. They would be ruled by the Poles. 

 

But in the 1848 revolutionary upsurge the Poles did not live up to Marx's and Engels ' expectation. " The more I think over the business, " Engels wrote Marx on May 23, 1851, " the clearer it becomes to me that the Poles as a nation are done for.... The Poles have never done anything in history except play at brave, quarrelsome stupidity. And one cannot point to a single instance in which Poland represented progress successfully, even if only in relation to Russia, or did anything at all of historic importance. " 

 

Thus, Marx and Engels temporarily " punished " Poland by putting her in the category of nations without history and sweeping her off the map of Europe. But when the Poles revolted against Russian rule in 1863, the two pundits changed their tune. " That Poland is not going to be killed was proved in 1863 and is still proved every day, " Engels wrote in the socialist organ Volksstaat for June 17, 1874. " Its claim to an independent existence in the European family of nations is undeniable. " 

 

Extermination of Slavic Peoples.

 

Hegel had developed the theory that some peoples, among them the Slavs, had remained outside the mainstream of significant history largely because they had remained agrarian and because the Renaissance had hardly touched them.

 

This view, which Hegel expressed with characteristic moderation, became a justification for oppression and racial genocide in the hands of Marx and Engels. The fact that both men were ignorant of the history, culture, and civilization of the peoples of Eastern Europe did not make them any the less doctrinaire in demanding their total obliteration. Writing in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung in 1849 with Marx's full blessing, Engels declared that the fate of these " retrograde " Balkan nations and peoples was " the immediate task of perishing in the revolutionary world storm. " The Germans, the Poles, and the Hungarians would " take frightful revenge on Slavic barbarism. The general war that will then begin will ... destroy all these little, bull-headed nations so that their very name will vanish. The coming world war will cause not only reactionary classes and dynasties but entire reactionary peoples, too, to disappear from the face of the earth. And that also will be progress. " The vision of a war in which " entire reactionary peoples " -Slavic peoples, of course- will " disappear from the face of the earth " is too reminiscent of Nazi theory and practice to require explanatory comment. 

 

Engels recognized that some liberals did not share his bloodthirsty visions or approve of his genocidal solutions to racial problems. These " so-called democrats among the Austrian Slavs are either scoundrels or visionaries. " The visionaries, of course, were " led by the nose by the scoundrels. " As against the " sentimental slogans " advanced by the liberals, " we reply that hatred of Russia was, and still is, the first revolutionary passion of the Germans; and that, since the Revolution, hatred of the Czechs and Croats has been added.... We and the Poles and the Magyars will only be able to safeguard the revolution through the most determined terror against these Slavic peoples. "

 

The most determined terror " against the " Slavic peoples " -again the phrase sounds as if it had been uttered a century later by Adolf Hitler. When Hitler was a half-vagabond, half-artist, living in Vienna and soaking up an enormous amount of racist hate literature, did he come across these early appeals for genocide by Engels and Marx? It would be interesting to know the answer. 

 

But weren't these violent appeals for war and extermination merely the extravagant rhetoric of young men? Didn't the mature Marx and Engels change their views? 

 

In the first place, Marx and Engels were not juveniles during the Neue Rheinische Zeitung period. They were thirty and twenty-eight respectively. Marx was seven years older than Newton was when he discovered the law of gravitation and the calculus and seven years older than was Pitt when he became Prime Minister of England. Since the average lifespan was shorter then than now, men were expected to reach mental maturity, sagacity, and sound judgment earlier. 

 

The belief that Marx changed his views concerning Slavs in later years is based on some correspondence he had with Russian revolutionaries toward the end of his life at a time when he suffered from deep, chronic depression and had ceased to do original intellectual work of significance. In 1877, Marx wrote that it was possible that a Russian revolutionary movement might use the old institution of the mir, a sort of peasant commons, as the basis for a direct transition toward socialism. And in 1882, the year before his death, he and Engels wrote in a new preface to The Communist Manifesto : 

 

If the Russian revolution gives the signal for a proletarian revolution in the West, so that the two complete one another, the form of communal property in the land which now exists in Russia can contribute the starting point for a communist development. " 

 

This didn't involve any basic change in his theories. Marx had always asserted that the decisive revolutionary struggle must occur in Western Europe and the United States. Once the proletarian dictatorship was firmly established there, it would probably proceed to rule the backward peoples and " Oriental despotisms " such as that of Russia " by some sort of condominium. The precise details could not be predicted in advance

. 

The hatred of Slavs which Marx and Engels expressed in the NRZ would persist through middle age and into old age: Marx's hatred was lifelong. Its targets might change but not the emotional animus. Marx's and Engels's contributions to the New York Daily Tribune in the 1860s are filled with invidious contrasts between the " civilized " Germans and the " barbarous " Slavs. Long after the collapse of the 1848 revolutions, Marx and Engels " ridiculed " those peoples they chose to brand as without history " whenever and wherever the opportunity was presented. " 

 

Even after Marx's death, Engels continued to argue that " those wretched fragments or ruins of former nations- Serbs, Bulgarians, Greeks, and other robber riff-raff who begrudge each other even the air they breathe, ought to cut each other's throats. " 

 

 

Imperialists and War Mongers.

 

The call for European or world war was incessant and monotonous up to Marx's death; to enumerate all the instances would be tiresome and serve no sensible purpose. Here are a few examples: 

 

In 1853, there was trouble between Britain and Russia. Marx called Lord Palmerston- an English statesman and later prime minister-a Russian agent and cried for war. He was " the unflinching and persevering advocate of Russian interests... a man so false and hollow... this wily enemy to the progress of human freedom. " This time Marx got his conflict. It was the Crimean War. The prime minister of England during the conflict was Palmerston. 

 

In 1857, there was a business recession. War and revolution were on the immediate horizon. On October 8, Engels wrote Marx that he had hurled himself into military studies " and beyond that into nothing but riding, " no doubt so he could lead red cavalry charges. Marx replied on December 8: " I am working like mad, day and night, at putting my economic studies together so that I may at least have the outlines clear before the deluge comes. " But no deluge came. There was an economic revival.

 

A year later, the revolution was again about to erupt. On October 8, Marx wrote Engels " that in Russia the revolution has begun. " He added the confident prediction: " On the Continent, the revolution is imminent and will immediately assume a socialist character. " How fortunate are those who can foresee the future! 

 

In 1859, Marx's prophecy of war came true. France and Italy clashed in battle. But there was no revolution. Not a hint of it. Later, Prussia attacked Austria. It was 1866. Five years previously, Marx had proved that in such a conflict Prussia would be beaten. On April 2, 1866, Engels wrote Marx that Prussia " will be licked. " As a great military expert, he knew that " this Prussian army is incapable of waging a war of attack. There is no doubt that this army will be instantaneously crushed by the furious Austrians. " What actually happened was that the Prussian forces decisively crushed Austria in a three-weeks campaign! 

 

In consequence, Marx and Engels reevaluated Prince Bismarck's abilities. They no longer referred to the Iron Chancellor as " Pismarck "! He had now , in their imagination, the unconscious catalyst of the coming revolution.

 

Engels wrote a German correspondent in 1870: " If we were paying the old boy [ Bismarck ] he couldn't do better work for us.... " He elaborated on this grandiose illusion in a letter to the Russian, Peter Lavrov: " After me the deluge ' isn't good enough for him. He insists on having the deluge during his lifetime. "  But no deluge came. 

 

In 1884, a year after Marx's death, Engels hailed the Bismarckian state as " a thoroughly revolutionary creation. " In 1891, near death, Engels wrote Sorge: "... if the Russians begin a war with us, we should be attacking the Russians and their allies à l'outrance, no matter who these allies may be. If Germany is beaten, we will be beaten with her. " 

 

Their dreams were not only of war, revolution, destruction, and chaos; they also dreamed of German military expansion, of snuffing out the existence of the miserable little nations that stood in the way of expanded, paramount Teutonic power. Back in 1848-49, Marx and Engels voiced their imperialist convictions in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung: 

 

With the same right with which France has taken Flanders, Lorraine and Alsace, and sooner or later will take Belgium, with that same right Germany takes Silesia, with the right of civilization against barbarism, of progress against stability. This right is worth more than all treaties, for it is the right of historical development. 

 

Note that the term barbarism is not being applied in this instance to North African pirates or Montenegrin bandits, but to Belgium, the Netherlands, Silesia -to cultivated, scientifically advanced, European nations and regions with a long and proud history. They were branded as barbarians because they stood in the path of German military imperialism and because they constricted the frontiers of that imaginary Greater German Communist Reich over which Marx hoped to exercise dictatorial dominion. Note also that Marx and Engels gave the same justification for breaking treaties and trampling on the neutrality of smaller nations that the German Kaiser would use in the first World War and the German Führer would use in the second. 

 

 

 

This is the end of Chapter 10.