Page:Karl Marx The Man and His Work.pdf/56

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KARL MARX: THE MAN AND HIS WORK

able to obtain with its limited vitality; and that the bourgeoisie—the same bourgeoisie which had been until a few days ago fighting shoulder to shoulder with the workers against the junkers and their lackeys—would seek henceforth to ally itself with the remnants of feudality against the workers. The bourgeois class-interests dictated such an alliance with the limited feudal government, an alliance which was bound to end with the peaceful conquest of the government by the bourgeoisie and the permeation of the remaining remnants of feudalism with the principles and ideas of capitalist production. As an eye-opener, pathfinder and pioneer, the revolution had brought to the capitalists all they were able to demand under the existing conditions, always taking the fear-inspiring Communist workingmen as an ominous signpost into consideration. What the force of arms was unable to accomplish in the stormy year of 1848–49, without also endangering the existence of capitalist society, economic evolution and its social and political creatures were bound to realize slowly step by step. Marx clearly foresaw these logical effects of an abortive revolution, and also saw therein a dictate to revise the tactics of the Communists. He fully appreciated that henceforth the workers would have to organize as a class; that the capitalist class would, as indicated before, quickly overshadow and absorb all other minor ruling classes in Germany, including the junkers; and that, therefore, in the future no pact or compromise with the "democratically inclined" bourgeois elements would be advisable. In the middle of April, 1849, Marx and his Communist friends laid down their offices in the provincial committee. The Workingmen's Club of Cologne severed its connection with the Democratic Union of the Rhineland, and advocated participation of all radical organizations in a general congress of workingmen which the Brotherhood of Workers, organized by the Communist Born in Berlin, was organizing.

With the publication of Marx's "Wage-Labor and Capital," the "Neue Rheinische Zeitung" gave expression to these new