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The German Social Democrats and the Eastern Question 1848-1900

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 March 2019

William George Vettes
William George Vettes*
Affiliation:
Northwestern University
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Extract

The leading german social democrats of the nineteenth century expressed opinions at various times concerning the perennial Eastern Question. These opinions are not without interest, revealing sharply conflicting viewpoints among the socialists, as well as perceptive interpretations concerning the origins and nature of the Eastern Question.

Marx and Engels have been accused of racism and anti-Slavism because they frequently attacked the revolts of the Balkan peoples for independence. This hypothesis will be tested by ascertaining precisely what positions the two socialist pioneers took on the Near Eastern Question between the 1848 Revolutions and the Balkan Crisis of 1875-78.

Type
Research Article
Information
American Slavic and East European Review , Volume 17 , Issue 1 , February 1958 , pp. 86 - 100
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies 1958

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References

1 See Malcolm MacDonald, “Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and the South Slav Question,” University of Toronto Quarterly, VIII (July, 1939) 452-60. The author attributes the anti-Slav position held by Marx and Engels in 1848 to racial prejudice. His reference to Engels’ concern for the support the Slavs might render Russia is passed over in one sentence and lumped together with Slav support of Austria, (Ibid., p. 454). See also Laskin, E., L’Internationale et le Pangermanisme (Paris: 1916)Google Scholar; Schwarzchild, Leopold, The Red Prussian (New York: 1947)Google Scholar; Parkes, H. B., Marxism, An Autopsy (Boston: 1939)Google Scholar. For a defense of Marx see the work of his son-in-law, Longuet, Jean, La Politique Internationale du marxisme (Paris: 1918)Google Scholar. For an interesting viewpoint of the nationalism of Engels see Wilson, Edmund, To the Finland Station (New York: 1949), pp. 335-36Google Scholar.

2 New York Daily Tribune, March 15, 1852. A series of articles on the 1848 Revolution were published under Marx's name in the New York Daily Tribune between September, 1851, and September, 1852. They were first edited and published in book form by Marx's daughter Eleanor Marx-Aveling. The series of newspaper articles dealing with the Revolution of 1848 was first edited by Eleanor Marx-Aveling under the title of Germany: Revolution and Counter-Revolution (London: 1896). The articles written by Marx for the New York Daily Tribune between 1853 and 1856 dealt with the events of the Crimean War. These articles, along with certain letters pertaining to the conflict, were compiled into a book by Eleanor Marx-Aveling entitled The Eastern Question and published in London in 1897. Eduard Bernstein, who was later to become the head of the Revisionist movement, was the first to introduce this material to German readers and pointed out that the editors had neglected to explain that both Engels and Ferdinand Lassalle, one of the pioneers of German socialism, had contributed considerably to this work. Most of the articles relative to the Crimean War were written directly by Engels while Lassalle is the “trustworthy source” that Marx so often refers to in his articles and was directly responsible for the fiftieth letter and for the conclusion of the fifty-fifth. E. Bernstein, “Die Briefe von Karl Marx über den Krimkrieg und die Orientfrage,” Die Neue £eit, XVI (November, 1897), 209-17.

3 Engels, F., Germany: Revolution and Counter-Revolution (New York: 1933), pp. 86–87 Google Scholar.

4 Wendel was the first German Marxist to use Serbo-Croatian and Bulgarian authorities for a study of the Southern Slav question. See his Sudosteuropaischen Fragen (Berlin: 1918) which foretold South Slav unity as a historical necessity. See also his article, “Marxism and the Southern Slav Question,” Slavonic Review, II (December, 1923), 293, hereafter cited as Wendel, “Marxism.”

5 Engels, p. 58.

6 Wendel, “Marxism,” p. 290.

7 Engels, loc. cit.

8 The Eastern Question (London: 1897), pp. 25-26.

9 Urquhart's Turcophile tendencies stemmed from his conviction that Turkey was the best bulwark in the Near East against Russian designs in India. His animosity towards Palmerston, according to Bernstein, was probably due to the English prime minister's reluctance to have a final showdown with Russia. Ibid., p. 215.

10 Kautsky, Karl, Sozialisten und Krieg , (Prague: 1937), p. 230 Google Scholar.

11 The phrase “crazy M.P.” while appearing in Kautsky's reproduction of the letter, does not appear in the Bernstein edition of the Marx-Engels correspondence. Cf. Bebel, August und Bernstein, Edward, Der Briejwechsel zwischen Friedrich Engels und Karl Marx 1884 bis 1883 , 4 vols. (Stuttgart: 1921), I, 392 Google Scholar.

12 This letter, according to Kautsky, was later used very effectively by Wilhelm Liebknecht as evidence of Marx's “Turcophilism.” The fact that Liebknecht did not identify Marx directly as the author led Kautsky to conclude that he published them without Marx's permission. Kautsky, p. 234.

13 Kautsky, p. 243.

14 Austria had occupied Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1878, though she continued to recognize Turkish sovereignty over the provinces. Yet in the fall of 1881 she attempted to introduce compulsory military service in Bosnia and also in Krivosije, with the result that a revolt broke out. The Krivosijans who had successfully beaten back the Austrians once before, in 1869, amazed all of Europe with their sturdy resistance to a first class power. Kautsky, pp. 244-45. See also Charles Jelavich, “The Revolt in Bosnia-Herzegovina, 1881-82,” Slavonic and East European Review, XXXI (June, 1953), No. 77, 420-36.

15 The complete text may be found in the collection of letters published by Bernstein under the title Die Briefe von F. Engels an E. Bernstein. (Berlin: 1925), pp. 54 ff.

16 That Engels was not adverse to the liberation of the Near Eastern peoples is shown by his disapproval of the Austrian seizure of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1878 and the British occupation of Egypt. When Arabi Pasha, leader of the Egyptian Nationalist Party revolted in 1882, Engels advised Bernstein to support the movement “since the satrap or pasha is the main exploiter in the East as the entrepreneur or lawyer is in the West.” Gustav Mayer, Friedrich Engels (The Hague: 1934), II, 462.

17 For an interesting portrayal of Liebknecht's friendship with Marx see Liebknecht's own book, Karl Marx (Chicago: 1901).

18 For this he was rebuked by Bernstein. See Bernstein's account of this, and of Liebknecht's anti-Armenian and anti-Greek position in the 1890's in Eduard Bernstein, “Kreta und die russische Gefahr,” Die Neue Zeit, XV (March, 1897), No. 27, p. 13.

19 Thus, for example, he stated at one point: “We must defend the English people against the charge that they should be identified with the freedom movement of the Russian agent Gladstone and the fatherless English bourgeoisie. The fact that the English Tories wish to contest the Russian politics of conquest with sword in hand is certainly no basis for us to condemn every active occurrence to the interests of Russia.” Kautsky, p. 233.

20 Ibid., p. 232.

21 Ibid., p. 233.

22 Some of these footnotes, because of the light they cast on both the nature of the controversy and on Liebknecht's character, are worthy of consideration: No. 34: “The average Turk is undoubtedly superior culturally to the average Russian.” No. 38: “It is common practice to permit the various races of Turkey to live in peace with one another on the basis of equal rights. This was and is the goal of all Turkish reform efforts.” No. 26: “It is a fact that Turkey has carried out as many thoroughgoing reforms in the last fifty years as any other European state.” Kautsky makes the observation that this would imply that the Turks had begun such reforms as early as 1828 which would make the Turkish State the most progressive in all Europe! Ibid., p. 232.

23 Ibid., p. 233.

24 Leipzig, 1878.

25 Zurich, 1878.

26 Ibid., p. 18. Quoted in Kautsky, p. 232.

27 Eduard Bernstein, “Die Briefe von Karl Marx über den Krimkrieg und die Orientfrage,” op.cit.; p. 213. Later in the same year N. Rjazanov, whose real name was David B. Goldendach, and who was destined to become director of the Marx-Engels Institute in Moscow during the Soviet period, supported Bernstein and attacked Liebknecht as one who had done great harm to the socialist movement by representing Marx as Urquhart's “parrot” on the Eastern Question. Rjazanov claimed that Marx did not have to rely on Urquhart for anti-Palmerston sentiments, that he could have just as easily consulted the Chartist periodicals of the 1850's, particularly the writings and speeches of Ernest Jones. Jones, who was an ardent advocate of independence for the Balkan peoples, was a severe critic of Palmerston's policy of maintaining the status quo in that area. While Rjazanov admitted that Marx and Jones were not in complete agreement, he nonetheless maintained that Marx's hatred of Russian despotism “didn't hide from him the fact that the preservation of the status quo on the Balkan peninsula was the most important hindrance to the development of the Balkan peoples, the source of increasing influence of Russian despotism, and consequently the main reason for the strengthening of this arch enemy of the European revolution.” N. Rjazanov, “Vorbemerkung zu Karl Marx: Was soil aus der Tiirkei in Europa Werden?” Die New Zeit, XXVIII (April 1, 1910) 11-12.

28 E. Bernstein, “Die deutsche sozialdemokratie und die tiirkischen Wirren,” Die Neut Zeit, XV, No. 4 (October, 1896), p. 113.

29 Ibid., p. 114.

30 “Quoted in E. Bernstein, ”Kreta und die russiche Gefahr,” op.cit., p. 20.

31 Ibid., p. 14.

32 Bernstein, “Der Sieg der Tiirken und die Sozialdemokratie,” Die Neue Zeit, XV2 (May, 1897), 261.

33 E. Bernstein, “Die Bulgarische Sozialdemokratie und die Orientfrage,” Die New Zeit, XV1 (March, 1897), 820.

34 Ibid.

35 Ibid., p. 821.

36 Ibid., p. 822.

37 Ibid.

38 Wendel, “Marxism,” p. 303.

39 O . Bauer, Der Balkankrieg und die deutsche Weltpolitik, (Berlin: 1912), p. 4. Another Austrian Marxist who should be mentioned in this connection is Karl Renner, who later was to become president of the Austrian Republic. In 1906, writing under the pseudonym of Rudolf Springer, he published a criticism of Engels’ views on the Hungarian state. As Wendel wrote of Renner's work: “He stripped the romantic halo from the Magyars with which Marx and Engels had invested them in 1848, and showed the Hungarian state to be the brutal rule of one nation over six others.” Wendel, “Marxism,” p. 304. See also R. Springer, Grundlagen und Entwickelungsziele der Österreichisch- Ungarischen Monarchic, 1906.