“Marx and Engels constantly chided both Frankfurt and the separate state assemblies for their shortsighted timidity and drew examples from English and French history to demonstrate how ‘real’ parliaments controlled the executive branch of government (53). Not only did Marx and Engels counsel the Frankfurt liberals on how to inspire popular confidence by defending revolutionary gains, but they counselled the new liberal ministers in Berlin on how to gain peasant support by abolishing all the old despised manorial obligations without compensation. But the bourgeois ministers were hesitant to tamper with property rights, even those of feudal property, and came forth with a meek legislative proposal that prompted Marx to exclaim that “the German revolution of 1848 is merely a ‘parody of the French revolution of 1789: «The French bourgeoisie of 1780 never left its allies, the peasants, in the lurch. It knew that the abolition of feudalism in the country-side and the creation of a free, landowning peasant class was the basis of its rule. The German bourgeoisie of 1848 unhesitatingly betrays the peasant, who are its ‘natural allies’, flesh of its own flesh, and without it cannot stand up to the aristocracy» (54)” (page 195) [Richard N. Hunt, The Political Ideas of Marx and Engels. I. Marxism and Totalitarian Democracy, 1818-1850, Univ of Pittsburgh, 1974] [(53) ‘The Programmes of the Radical-Democratic Party and of the Left at Frankfurt’ (June 1848, ibid, pp.63-65, Werke 5, 216-17; (54) ‘The Bill Proposing the Abolition of Feudal Obligations’ (July 1848), ‘Neue Rheinische Zeitung’ p. 76]
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- Articolo pubblicato:24 Ottobre 2023