Stages of the German revolution. History of Germany Weimar Constituent Assembly

Harbingers

January 1918 – general strike. 50 cities. Demands of the world. An institute of “revolutionary elders” arose and attempts to create councils. Fieldwork slave. class.

The right wing of the SPD (Ebert, Legin, Scheidemann, etc.) was afraid of going to the left. They talked about the unacceptability of socialism in Germany. The left argued that socialism was self-affirming. The idea of ​​the “German path” to socialism is affirmed (NSPD, Kautsky, Hilferding, Haase, Bernstein): without violence, without class struggle. The situation itself will push for transformation.

In 1918, Kautsky and Bernstein believed that the revolution had created unfavorable conditions for the conquest of power through revolutionary means. They insisted on a reformist path. The German proletariat is not prepared for socialism; it will take a long time to build. He warned that “the dictatorship of the lower strata will clear the way only to the dictatorship of the saber.”

BUT the ideas of K. and B. were considered as center-right by the left hands of the SPD (R. Luxemburg, K. Zetkin, Fr. Mehring, etc.). They opposed the war.

1918 - the Spartak group (Karl Liebknecht and others) joins other leftist movements (socialists of Bremen (I. Knief and others), Hamburg, etc.).

October 1918 - Spartak organizes a conference, the topic is “People's Revolution in Germany.” Requirements: radical democratic transformations in social-ec. and watered. sphere, socialist revolution. In essence, this is the path of the Russian Bolsheviks.

October 3, 1918 – coalition democratic government in Germany. The course towards “ethical imperialism”: a liberal course in domestic policy, cooperation with the left. The most right-wing Social Democrats, Scheidemann and Bauer, were called into the government.

Germany before the revolution. Rapid development after 1871 (creation of an empire). Industrial and fairly developed society. Developed economic structure, high concentration. High rates of economic development. Industrial workers -14.5 million at the beginning of the war. 72% are related to industry. pr. But in the trade unions there are 2.5 million. There are many remnants - junkerism, the preservation of the monarchy and monarchist cliques. The Constitution of 1871 is one of the most undemocratic. Suffrage is only available to men over the age of 25, military personnel do not vote, and in Prussia there is a 3-level property qualification. During the war, both reactionary and democratic tendencies intensified. All power is in the hands of the General Staff (Hindenburg, Ludendorff).

General strike of January 1918 - 1.5 million people.

After the successful operations of the Entente, the situation changes. August-September 1918 New government of Prince Max of Baden. Representatives of the S-D are also included in the government. We hoped this would calm us down. But on the contrary, now there is general discontent.

Progress and stages of the revolution

End of Oct. 1918 Kiel - The navy receives orders to engage the British. Adventure.

November 3, 1918 – general uprising of sailors. workers' strike in Kiel; strikes in other cities.

A Free Republic is proclaimed. Different republics were proclaimed everywhere - social, socialist, Soviet, etc. But the monarchy collapsed.

Leadership is taken over by the spontaneously formed Soviets of Soldiers' and Workers' Deputies.

Meeting at the Busch Circus Berlin - the largest indoor venue in Berlin. The discussion showed that all the most important tasks of the revolution were completed: the monarchy was overthrown, democratic freedoms were proclaimed, the end of the war (November 11 - the German command signed the terms of the truce in the Compiegne Forest).

November - January 1919 - the second stage of the revolution.

We must consolidate what has been achieved and stop the further development of the revolution.

Formation of Parliament. Two socialist parties - the SPD (right) and the Independent SPD (centrists), broke away from the SPD in 1918. The NSDPG included communists. "Spartak Group", later - Spartak Union.

Socialists took the first positions, but opponents of the social revolution spoke of the Soviets as a “Russian infection”

Berlin Council: 6 from the SPD, 6 from the NSDPD, 12 formally independent soldiers' deputies. The most experienced politician is Ebert.

Friedrich Ebert. Joined the government of Max Badensky. When the government was overthrown, formally the acting heads of state. On his initiative, a government was created - the Council of People's Representatives. It was headed by Ebert.

He called on workers and soldiers to go home peacefully. He said it was roaring. and so she won. In all Soviets there is a struggle between supporters and opponents of the continuation of the revolution.

The BC (Berlin Council) and the SNU are the legislative and executive branches, respectively.

The SNU proclaimed a socialist program, but in essence it was a bourgeois government, “only hiding behind socialist ideology for deception.” The old bureaucratic apparatus is intact: officials and military command are in their places. Only the soldiers of the garrisons in Germany itself are revolutionary, and the front-line troops are little affected by the revolution. moods. Reforms are declared. Freedom of speech, assembly, organization, religion, processions, rallies, press. Social gains are also declared - from January 1, 1919 - an 8-hour working day, equality of rights for entrepreneurs and workers.

Socialization Commission. During the war, the idea of ​​socialization was widespread among the masses. They are developing a project - from complete socialization to partial and gradual socialization with redemption and compensation. One of the leaders is Karl Kautsky. Kautsky: “further nationalization means bridling the horse by the tail.” But we need to really build power and govern the country.

Power structures. At the beginning of the revolution, workers' and soldiers' detachments arose. "Red Guard". But Ebert and his supporters tried to disarm her. Within a month and a half - disarmament.

November 14, 1918 - Ebert declared that the gains of the revolution would be defended by the army. He ordered the dissolution of the Red Guard detachments. But actual armed forces are beginning to be created again and recreated. Civil Defense Forces. There are representatives of the middle strata, students.

Bourgeois circles are at a loss. The counter-revolutionary bourgeoisie, sometimes monarchist, did not want to break with the cadets. She was afraid of changes and adapted to the situation. They don’t participate in anything, they don’t support anyone. In November they come to their senses. There is no strength to suppress the revolution, concessions. But the old party institutions and organizations are being restored. All traditional parties very quickly change their signs, but not their essence. Left-liberal circles = German Democratic Party. Centrists = German People's Party. Catholic Center Party = Christian Democratic People's Party of Germany. Conservatives = National German People's Party.

The SNU, having actually taken power in the center, left all power in the executive bodies unchanged. All officials and government bodies both in the center and locally were preserved. Under the terms of the Compiegne Armistice, German troops returned home from the occupied territories with weapons. Submit to Ch. Pieces Volunteer groups are formed from them. There are a lot of weapons in the country and they are organized in a new way. December 1918 - two unsuccessful attempts to overthrow the government. There are many hopes for the First All-German Congress of Soviets.

From November to December 1918, the SNU managed to limit the power of local councils. Councils are deprived of executive and power powers. Councils are only an arena for discussion. The right of parliamentary control over the executive branch, but the councils cannot cancel the decrees of the National Assembly. Soviet propaganda among the military is strictly prohibited. The right to control the railway has been taken away.

Union of Spartacus KKE (Dec. 1918). The communists’ alternative is “all power to the soviets.” Liebknecht assesses what is happening as a “bourgeois reform” and not a “socialist revolution.” It was not possible to unite large masses of workers, because

1) the groups of Spartacists were not numerous 2) they remained in the ranks of the NSDPG 3) they ran ahead and underestimated the issues of implementing the demos. Demands 4) harshly posed the question: either the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie or the dictatorship of the proletariat = loss of supporters. 5) considered supporters of the US to be opponents of socialism 6) put forward the slogan of overthrowing the Scheidemann government

And the masses believe the Social Democrats, Ebert, etc. Right-wing socialist rhetoric was discouraging workers

SNU elections to the Constituent Assembly were scheduled for February 1919.

The “third way” is a combination of political and industrial councils. But it didn’t work out: this kind of alternative could have been implemented with broad support from the population. She's gone! SNU believe + cannot agree internally. One of the unused alternatives.

Elections to the Supreme Council are being postponed. They are trying to create a special environment for the elections. They want to provoke the left to openly speak out. Provocation according to the classical scheme.

January 5, 1919 - mass demonstration, armed uprisings. Demands for the overthrow of the government and the creation of a Revolutionary Committee (alternative government) led by Liebknecht. The Ebert government was declared overthrown. Meanwhile, troops are being pulled up to Berlin.

January 15, 1919 - Berlin under government control. The uprising is drowned in blood. Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg were killed. Results of stage II: weakening of the Soviet positions, isolation of the Spartak group, beginning of preparations for an attack on the forces of the revolution.

January 19, 1919 - elections to the Ukrainian Council. The old batches that have been completely hidden in the shadows collect a total of 54%. Socialists - 46%, independents - 8%.

Gathering in Weimar. The Constitution is being drafted.

January 1919 - the end of the second stage of the revolution. But the revolution continues. Strikes, armed uprisings. Saxony, Baden, Württemberg. New formations - Soviet Bremen (for 2 weeks) - formed the Council of People's Commissars.

April 1919 - speeches in Bavaria - power in the hands of deputies. Your government. Munich. Nationalization of banks and transport. Limitation of working hours, social insurance, workers' committees. They armed the workers. The creation of the Bavarian Red Army began.

The main result of the revolution was the elimination of the German monarchy, the beginning of democratic changes in the political and social spheres, and the acceleration of Germany's exit from the war. The main paradox of the German revolution was that its main leitmotif was the struggle between the left and extreme left parties with the passivity of other political forces.

Progress of the revolution

The nature of the revolution

By 1848, a revolutionary situation had completely developed in Germany, and an explosion of revolution became inevitable. Its main issues were: the national unification of Germany, the liberation of peasants from feudal duties and orders, and the destruction of the remnants of feudalism in the country.

With the spread of news of the overthrow of the monarchy in France, the workers, artisans and peasants of the Duchy of Baden were the first to enter the revolutionary struggle. On behalf of a large meeting of the working people of the city of Mannheim, representatives of the Baden petty-bourgeois democracy submitted a petition to the Duchy House on February 27, which formulated the main political demands: arming the people, unlimited freedom of the press, trial by jury and the immediate convening of an all-German parliament. Deputations from the population of cities and rural areas throughout the duchy began to arrive in the capital of Baden, the city of Karlsruhe, to support Mannheim's demands. The political tension in Baden increased every day. Duke Leopold hastened to approve the demands of the people proposed by the chamber. On March 9, the most reactionary ministers were removed from the Baden government and ministers of the moderate-liberal bourgeois trend were appointed in their place.

Following Baden, the revolutionary movement spread to Hesse-Darmstadt, Württemberg, Bavaria and Saxony. Under the pressure of the popular masses, local monarchs, saving their crowns, hastened to call to power representatives of the liberal bourgeoisie, who came to an agreement with the monarchs and the nobility.

The easy and quick victory of the liberal bourgeoisie of the Western and Southwestern states was the result of a friendly and militant action of the people, especially the peasantry, who sought the abolition of feudal and semi-feudal relations in the countryside. The peasants were satisfied with minor concessions, and the revolution in the southwestern states of Germany began to wane.

Revolution of 1848 in Prussia.

The main events of the revolution of 1848 in Germany unfolded in Prussia, where the participation of the proletariat in the revolutionary struggle was stronger than in the southwestern lands of Germany. By the time the revolutionary uprisings began in Germany, the liberal bourgeois opposition in Prussia had achieved its greatest influence in its Rhineland, the most economically developed province. The Union of Communists also operated illegally here.

In an effort to prevent mass popular uprisings in Cologne, the city municipality, under the influence of the liberal bourgeoisie, developed a moderate petition to the Prussian government, which met only the interests of the wealthy strata. However, on March 3, when the municipality was about to send the petition to Berlin, the streets of Cologne were crowded with a demonstration of 5,000 workers and artisans. The demonstrators, on behalf of the people, presented to the burgomaster for transmission to the representative of the Prussian government in the Rhine Province demands that were revolutionary-democratic in nature: the transfer of legislative and executive power to the people, the establishment of universal suffrage, the replacement of the standing army with the general arming of the people, the introduction of freedom of assembly, ensuring the protection of labor and meeting “human needs for all.”

While the people's demands were being transferred to the city council, detachments of soldiers and police began, not without the knowledge of the municipal authorities, to disperse the demonstrators, arresting three speakers who spoke before them, members of the Union of Communists. The Cologne demonstration on March 3 gave impetus to mass demonstrations of workers and artisans in all major industrial centers of the Rhineland industry.

provinces: Aachen, Düsseldorf, Elberfeld, Koblenz.

The growing popular movement also spread to Berlin. The royal government, confident of the support of the bourgeoisie, began to use weapons against workers' demonstrations on March 13. On March 16 alone, 20 workers were killed and 150 wounded.

The shootings of workers caused a new demonstration of workers on March 17, which was joined by many burghers. In a petition addressed to the king, the demonstrators demanded the immediate withdrawal of troops from Berlin, the creation of a people's armed militia, the abolition of censorship, and the convening of the United Landtag. By this time, news of the uprising in Vienna and the flight of Metternich had become known in Berlin. On March 18, the King of Prussia hastened to promulgate two decrees: on the abolition of censorship and on the convening of the United Landtag on April 2. However, this did not satisfy the people, who gathered on the palace square and demanded the withdrawal of troops from Berlin. Then the royal guard was moved against him. The first skirmishes soon turned into barricade fighting. At the alarm call, the ranks of fighters were replenished throughout the night, and armed barricade battles continued in the morning of the next day, March 19. The heroically fighting rebels, in whose ranks there were many Berlin workers, by the morning of March 19, they held most of the capital in their hands. In some areas of battle, disobedience of soldiers of the royal army to officers was observed. In the middle of the day, the king ordered the troops to leave the city. In the bloody barricade battles, the people won, having suffered great casualties: about 400 killed and many wounded.

The barricade battles of March 18-19 in Berlin were the apogee of the 1848 revolution in Germany. The first stage of the revolution ended with the defeat of the extreme reaction led by the king. The whole country was engulfed in the flames of uprisings of workers, peasants, and the broadest sections of the working people.

To further fight against the people, the king considered it necessary to unite the efforts of the reactionaries with the liberals and entered into a temporary compromise with them. On March 19, Frederick William IV gave the order to arm detachments of burghers. At the same time, in fear of the unfolding mass revolutionary movement, the king issued an appeal “To my people and the German nation,” in which he hypocritically swore allegiance to the people. On March 22, the king issued a decree promising to submit to the United Landtag a draft of a new, more democratic electoral law, to establish freedom of the individual, unions and meetings, to introduce universal arming of the people, to establish the responsibility of ministers, trial by jury, the independence of judges, to destroy the police power of landowners and to take away the nobility patrimonial jurisdiction. But these were demagogic promises.

At the same time, amid the noise of royal proclamations and decrees, reactionary circles were preparing for a counter-offensive against the people who had won on March 18. The liberal bourgeoisie, having the opportunity to create its own burgher guard, headed for an agreement with the government. The Burgher Guard was clearly intended to suppress workers' protests.

On March 29, the king called to power the leaders of the Rhineland bourgeois moderate liberals - the banker Camphausen and the manufacturer Hansemann. The Camphausen government reached an agreement with feudal-monarchist circles. It submitted for approval to the United Landtag a law convening the Prussian Constituent Assembly on the basis of two-stage elections and proved its commitment to the Hohenzollern crown by sending Prussian troops to Poznan for the bloody suppression of the Polish national liberation movement that unfolded there in April.

According to Engels, with the coming to power of the leaders of bourgeois liberalism in Prussia, nothing changed except for those who held ministerial posts, since Camphausen and Hansemann were most concerned about strengthening the shaky foundations of power. It was during that period when King Frederick William IV cowardly maneuvered and made all sorts of promises and promises to the rebellious people that the Camphausen government played the role of a “shield of the dynasty” against the actions of the Berlin workers.

Class struggle in Germany in April - June 1848

When assessing the results of the March revolution in Prussia, the following should be kept in mind. If the French workers, after the February barricade battles of 1848 in Paris, despite the tricks and demagoguery of the Provisional bourgeois government, quickly lost their illusions and faith in “universal brotherhood”, then the German workers, who had not gone through the preliminary “school of mistrust” of the bourgeoisie, after the March barricades The masses of the fighting did not allow the idea that the bourgeoisie, who had come out with them against the royal guard, would, on the second day after the victory, use it for their own selfish class purposes and would even soon come to an agreement with the monarchy. This belief in “universal brotherhood” led the German working class to allow itself to be completely disarmed after the March victory, and the bourgeoisie to create its own armed guard.

And yet, even before the revolution, the process of growing class consciousness of the German workers, although slowly, took place simultaneously with the industrial revolution, which covered more and more areas of Germany. During the revolution, such an important form of class struggle as a mass political strike was born. The strike struggle in the period from March to June 1848 covered Berlin, Frankfurt am Main, Hamburg, Cologne, Munich and other industrial centers of Germany. During the struggle, the first workers' associations and trade unions, most of them local, were born.

The aggravation of the class struggle and the demarcation of opposing forces that occurred during it became especially clear when solving the central issue of the revolution - the national unification of Germany. However, the popular masses lacked the understanding that a consistent solution to this main issue was possible only in the conditions of a victorious revolution on a national scale, that the revolution in individual German states would end in defeat without support from the popular masses of other parts of Germany. Moreover, the demand for the creation of a unified German state was drowned in the mass of partial local

demands and often took a back seat to demands for the resignation of some minister hated by the people.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the initiator of the convening of the all-German parliament was the meeting of representatives of the class assemblies of German states, convened on March 31 and continuing its work until April 3, 1848 in Frankfurt am Main, which was called the Pre-Parliament. With an overwhelming majority, the Pre-Parliament rejected the proposal of a small group of democrats to declare a republic in Germany and decided to hold elections for the National Assembly by agreement with the German sovereigns and the Federal Diet, which meant a clear retreat of the liberals before the noble-monarchist counter-revolution.

The betrayal of the bourgeois liberals, who set a course for the restoration of the powerless Union Sejm, led to a new upsurge in the struggle of the masses. In April 1848, the republican movement spread throughout the southwestern states of Germany. It was also observed in Saxony. The republican movement gained its greatest scope in the Duchy of Baden. However, the armed uprising that began there on April 13 was defeated, since the Republicans did not secure the support of workers and artisans and did not have a clear program of action. They did not connect the slogan of the struggle for the republic with economic demands, primarily with the question of the seizure and distribution of landowners' lands to the peasants, although the latter made up the majority of the population of Baden and the success of the uprising depended on their performance. The leaders of the uprising even condemned the destruction of the landowners' castles. Finally, the Baden Republicans did not establish any close connections with the revolutionary movement in other German states.

The Baden Republican Uprising coincided with the Polish national liberation movement and the peasant movement in Silesia and Poznan. F. Engels wrote that “... since the Krakow uprising of 1846, the struggle for the independence of Poland is at the same time

the struggle of agrarian democracy..."20, that is, the struggle of peasants for land. In such conditions, the Polish landowners preferred an agreement with the foreign oppressors of their people, which the Prussian government of Camphausen took advantage of, sending troops to pacify the Poles.

Thus, under the protection of the bourgeois-liberal Prussian government of Camphausen, military-junker circles dealt with the democratic and national liberation movement in Prussia. How far the conciliatory policy of the Prussian bourgeois liberals with reaction went is shown by the activities of the Prussian Constituent Assembly, convened on May 22, 1848 in Berlin on the basis of a universal, but two-degree electoral system.

The bourgeois liberals, who had a majority in the Assembly, did not reject the draft constitution, which provided for the creation of a Prussian constitutional monarchy with two chambers and an electoral system with a high property qualification. They started a fruitless discussion on individual articles of the draft constitution, clearly leaning towards an agreement with the crown.

The groveling of the bourgeois-liberal majority of the Assembly before the king aroused the indignation of the workers of Berlin, who demanded the arming of the people. On June 14, spontaneous clashes between workers and artisans with the police and burgher guards began on the streets of Berlin. By the evening of June 14, the workers approached the Berlin Arsenal, where they were fired upon by the Burgher Guard. Two workers were killed and several were wounded. The outraged workers at night with a decisive onslaught broke the resistance of the police and burghers, broke into the arsenal (tseykhauz) and began to arm themselves. But the royal troops who soon arrived at the arsenal disarmed and pushed back the workers.

The storming of the arsenal hastened the fall of the liberal bourgeois ministry of Camphausen, which resigned on June 20; he was replaced for a short time by the Hansemann government, which became a bridge to the world

20 Marx K., Engels F. Soch. 2nd ed. T. 5. P. 353.

Ministry of the Prince of Prussia. Marx and Engels wrote about this: “The aristocratic party has become strong enough to throw its patron overboard. Mr. Camphausen sowed reaction in the spirit of the big bourgeoisie, and reaped it in the spirit of the feudal party."

The main reason for the defeat of mass popular uprisings in the spring and summer of 1848 was their disunity. The first revolutionary actions in South-West Germany began at the end of February, and in Berlin the decisive events unfolded in mid-March. The new April republican movement in Southern Germany, as well as the Polish national liberation movement, as well as the uprisings in Saxony, took place when the Berlin uprising had already ended. Finally, the storming of the arsenal by Berlin workers in June took place already in the context of a decline in revolutionary protests outside Berlin. This revealed the great weakness of the German Revolution of 1848. There was no all-German revolutionary center in the country that could direct the struggle of the masses. Powerful popular uprisings broke up into countless private class clashes that did not lead to decisive results. None of the many popular uprisings in Germany in 1848 ended completely victoriously. Even the most successful of them, the Berlin uprising on March 18, 1848, “... ended not with the overthrow of royal power, but with concessions from the king, who retained his power...”22. Meanwhile, the counter-revolutionary forces, having recovered from the first defeats, during the revolution found reliable support in the person of the Prussian royal government. At the second, descending stage of the revolution, this government played the role of its executioner.

And yet, although the unfolding revolutionary movement did not have a single all-German leadership center, its successes at the initial stage were the result of the active struggle of the people

21 Marx K., Engels F. Soch. 2nd ed. T. 5. P. 100.

22 Lenin V.I. Poly. collection op. T. 11. P. 227.

the masses, including the peasantry. At the beginning of March 1848, peasant uprisings engulfed all southwestern German states, from where the flame of peasant struggle spread to the lands located east of the Rhine. F. Engels wrote that the peasants, especially those of the lands where “... the system of latifundia and the associated forced transformation of the population into homeless farm laborers received the greatest development, attacked castles, burned the already concluded acts of redemption and forced the landowners to renounce in writing any demands for duties in the future"23.

In the revolution of 1848 in Germany, where the issue of national unification came first, the solution of the agrarian question as one of the central issues of the bourgeois revolution occupied an important place. The peasants fought for complete and free liberation from all duties. However, the Constituent Assembly in Prussia began to discuss the bill on July 11, 1848. According to the bill, only those rights of the landowner that resulted from serfdom of peasants and patrimonial jurisdiction were canceled without ransom; the most difficult duties, primarily corvée, were retained and subject to redemption. “The preservation of feudal rights, their authorization under the guise of (illusory) ransom - this is the result of the German revolution of 1848,” Marx wrote about this bill 24. However, this bill was never adopted by the Prussian Constituent Assembly; in the end, it limited itself to abolishing only the landowner's hunting right without ransom in October 1848.

Strategy and tactics of Marx and Engels in the revolution.

Activities of the Union of Communists. "Workers' Brotherhood" Marx and Engels, who deeply and comprehensively studied the development of the world revolutionary process, sought to arm the working class as an active driving force of the revolution with programmatic and tactical guidelines. At the end of March 1848 Marx

23 Marx K-, Engels F. Op. 2nd ed. T. 21. pp. 254-255.

24 Marx K-, Engels F. Op. 2nd ed.

and Engels wrote an important document - “The Demands of the Communist Party in Germany”, which was the basis of the program, strategy and tactics of the members of the “Communist League” in the 1848 revolution in Germany. The solution to the main task of the revolution - the elimination of the political fragmentation of the country and the formation of a united democratic German republic by revolutionary means, “from below” - was organically combined in the “Demands” with another most important task: the liberation of the peasantry from all feudal obligations by the destruction of large landownership - the economic basis of the rule of the reactionary nobility .

Considering the victorious bourgeois-democratic revolution, in which the proletariat is fighting against the “enemies of its enemies,” as the prologue of the proletarian revolution, Marx and Engels also outlined a number of transitional measures in their “Demands”: the conversion of feudal estates into state ownership and the organization of large-scale agricultural production on these lands production, nationalization of mines, mines, all means of transport, state provision of work for all workers and care for those unable to work, universal free public education and other demands.

Marx and Engels considered it their duty to practically promote the implementation of the “Demands of the Communist Party in Germany.” To this end, at the beginning of April 1848, they arrived from Paris with a stop in Mainz to Cologne, the center of the most developed region of Germany. At the same time as Marx and Engels, by decision of the “Union of Communists”, many members of the “Union” returned from emigration to their homeland, Germany. They organized new “Union” communities here and began working in proletarian societies. In order to unify the forces participating in the revolution, members of the “Union of Communists” joined the ranks of petty-bourgeois-democratic organizations, which then enjoyed influence among the workers. Carrying out tactics and policies in the class interests of the proletariat, taking into account the relationship of class forces that had developed in Germany in the revolution of 1848, Marx and Engels thought

and about the interests of the entire nation as a whole, the consequence of which was their entry into the Cologne Democratic Society. “When we returned to Germany in the spring of 1848,” Engels later recalled, “we joined the Democratic Party because it was the only possible means of attracting the attention of the working class; we were the most advanced wing of this party, but still its wing” 25. The condition for such cooperation was the preservation of the proletarian organization and our own political line.

The proletarian organization that maintained this line was the Cologne “Workers' Union,” which arose on April 13, 1848 and was then led by Gottschalk, a member of the “Communist League,” who was very popular among the workers (as a doctor, he served the proletarian quarters of Cologne). Professing the views of “true socialists,” Gottschalk attracted the attention of not politically sophisticated workers with his biting, arch-revolutionary, but essentially sectarian phrase. In fact, Gottschalk and his comrades opposed the participation of workers in the political struggle and considered the participation of workers in parliamentary activities to be fruitless. Gottschalk opposed workers' participation in elections to the National Assembly, for which Marx and Engels criticized him. Gottschalk oriented the workers towards winning the “supremacy of the working class”, bypassing the struggle for bourgeois-democratic transformations. This tactic of Gottschalk, which called for the struggle for a “Workers' Republic,” in fact turned into rebellion, and not into revolutionary activity: such tactics led the working class to isolation from its natural allies - the peasantry and the urban petty bourgeoisie.

In June 1848, Gottschalk broke with the “Communist League”; a comrade of Marx and Engels, Joseph Moll, was elected chairman of the Cologne “Workers’ Union”, who oriented the workers towards the political struggle as the vanguard and driving force of the democratic revolution.

The conductor of the strategy, tactics and policy of the “Union of Communists” was

25 Marx K-, Engels F. Op. 2nd ed. T. 36. P. 504.

the daily Neue Rheinische Gazeta, published since June 1, 1848, as the “organ of democracy.” It reflected the interests of broad democratic circles, united in societies that operated in many German cities. The Neue Rheinische Gazeta, led by Marx, Engels and other active figures in the Communist League, was an example of the theory of scientific communism in action. On its pages, it brightly and skillfully illuminated revolutionary practice, proclaimed slogans, and showed the people, and first of all the proletariat, the path of decisive action. While influencing democratic societies, the newspaper at the same time tactically and politically directed the struggle of the revolutionary proletariat towards the implementation of the “Demands of the Communist Party in Germany.”

One of the proletarian organizations was the Central Committee of Berlin Workers, created in the spring of 1848 by typesetting worker Stefan Born. On May 25, the committee began publishing its own newspaper, “The People,” which oriented workers to fight to improve their economic situation. S. Born considered it possible to achieve this goal by creating “corporations” in various industries with the participation of workers and capitalists - organizations of workers’ associations operating with the support of a democratic state. Believing that such organizations could peacefully supplant capitalism, Born shared the views of the utopian socialists. However, she herself reality encouraged Bohrn and his associates to pay some attention to the political tasks of the working class, which was reflected in the popularization of the “Demands of the Communist Party in Germany” by the newspaper “People”.

On the initiative of S. Born, the Workers' Congress was held in Berlin in August 1848, at which 40 workers' organizations were represented. About 100 workers' unions soon joined the "Workers' Brotherhood" formed by the congress (on the basis of the Central Committee of Workers of Berlin). After some time, the Central Committee of the Workers' Brotherhood chose the city of Leipzig as its permanent residence.

The activities of the Workers' Brotherhood and its leader S. Born were contradictory and largely unprincipled; Born mixed in his program the ideas of communism, petty-bourgeois socialism and economism. Nevertheless, Marx and Engels, sharply criticizing the opportunistic essence of S. Born’s views, at the same time took into account his contribution to the development of the German labor movement, his role as an organizer and influential leader of proletarian society, the significance of the “Workers’ Brotherhood” in the formation and development of a national solidarity of the German proletariat.

Frankfurt Parliament and its activities.

The all-German National Assembly, elected on the basis of a two-tier electoral system, opened its meetings in Frankfurt am Main on May 18, 1848. The Assembly was supposed to proclaim the sovereignty of the German people, develop an all-German constitution, and create an executive power that enjoyed the confidence of the people.

For the Frankfurt Assembly, such tasks turned out to be beyond their strength. The majority of it consisted of liberals and very moderate petty-bourgeois democrats, capable only of pompous speeches. Among the 831 deputies there were only one peasant, four artisans and not a single worker. The overwhelming majority of deputies were bourgeois and bourgeois intellectuals. The meeting included 154 professors and writers, 364 lawyers, 57 merchants and middle-level officials. Among the deputies there were only 85 nobles, but the influence of this far-right group extended to some of the other deputies.

The first issue discussed by the National Assembly was the organization of a central all-German government. The debate on this issue that lasted until June 28 ended with the election of a temporary imperial ruler - the Austrian Prince Johann, who was known as a liberal. The imperial ruler was not responsible to the National Assembly. Government was carried out through ministers appointed by the Assembly and responsible to parliament. In cannon fire, bell ringing and triple

The “hurrah” proclaimed by the President of the National Assembly, von Gagern, in honor of the new elected one, expressed the joy of the bourgeoisie at what it hoped was a peaceful revolution.

Left deputies protested and in an appeal to the people noted that the Assembly’s decision to coordinate the activities carried out by the central government with the state governments made this power illusory and “completely destroyed the power of a united free Germany.” The left deputies did not dare to take any independent decisive action.

A political struggle was unfolding in the country over the question of how to unify Germany. The German proletariat, led by Marx and Engels, resolutely advocated the revolutionary path of unification “from below”, for the creation of a united and indivisible Germany in the form of a democratic centralized republic. However, the League of Communists was a small organization; the petty-bourgeois democrats were inconsistent in their tactics. Deputies of the democratic left group of the Frankfurt Parliament made a proposal to create a federal republic in Germany on the model of bourgeois-republican Switzerland. Marx and Engels criticized this proposal.

The bourgeoisie and part of the nobility were supporters of the unification of Germany “from above” under the leadership of one of the two largest German states - Austria or Prussia. A possible path of unification under the hegemony of Austria began to be called “Greater German”, under the hegemony of Prussia, but without the inclusion of Austria - “Little German”.

Although the Austrian Archduke Johann was temporarily appointed head of the “united” Germany, the bourgeois-liberal majority of the Frankfurt Parliament clearly gravitated toward the constitutional-monarchical unification of Germany “from above,” giving preference to Prussia. But “... this was done reluctantly,” wrote Engels; - the bourgeois chose Prussia as the lesser evil, because Austria did not allow them (small and medium-sized German states. - I.G.) to its markets and because

Prussia, in comparison with Austria, still had... to some extent a bourgeois character.”26 The main thing was that in no German state by the beginning of the revolution had industry reached at least approximately the same level of development as in Prussia. And the more the Customs Union, created even before the revolution on the initiative of Prussia, expanded, drawing small states into this internal market, the more “... the rising bourgeoisie of these states got used to looking at Prussia as their economic, and in the future, political outpost” 27. And “if in Berlin the Hegelians philosophically substantiated the calling of Prussia to become the head of Germany...”28, then many deputies of the Frankfurt Parliament defended the same thing, formulating their proposals for the unification of Germany under the leadership of Prussia.

The activities of the Frankfurt Parliament took place in an atmosphere of growing counter-revolution. Parliament created one after another commissions on the abolition of feudal duties in the countryside, the elimination of customs duties that constrained internal trade and other obstacles to the economic development of the country; They endlessly discussed these issues, but never made any real decisions on them. The workers were concerned about the recognition of their right to work by law, but such a law was not adopted by the Frankfurt parliament.

The position of the deputies of the Frankfurt Parliament in relation to the national movements was clearly reactionary. They sanctioned the Prussian government's refusal to grant national autonomy to the Poznan Poles; Moreover, the parliament declared Poznan an integral part of a united Germany. The Frankfurt Parliament approved the bloody suppression of the democratic uprising in Prague by Austrian troops in June 1848, which caused deep indignation not only in German but also in all-European democratic circles.

26 Marx K., Engels F. Soch. 2nd ed. T. 21. P. 437.

The height of the cowardice and indecisiveness of the deputies of the National Assembly meeting in Frankfurt, when “... it pronounced a death sentence on itself and the so-called central power it created (Germany - I.G.)” (Engels) 29, was the attitude of the parliament towards the fate of Schleswig and Holstein. These two duchies, inhabited mainly by Germans and in a personal union with Denmark, from the first days of the revolution, as a result of the uprising, separated from Denmark and turned to the German states for help. German democratic circles unanimously supported Schleswig and Holstein. The Prussian government, taking advantage of the patriotic upsurge in the country and trying to divert the attention of revolutionary circles from the further development of the revolution, started a war with Denmark. The war ended with a quick victory, Schleswig and Holstein were free from Danish rule. However, England, Russia and France, not wanting to strengthen Germany, prompted Prussia to urgently sign a truce with Denmark. On August 26, 1848, in the Swedish city of Malmo, a Prussian-Danish agreement was signed on the withdrawal of Prussian troops from both duchies.

The liberal bourgeoisie, as well as the nobles sitting in parliament, feared that the rupture of the armistice agreement would cause an armed uprising by the coalition of England, Russia and France against Germany; They also feared a revolutionary war of the popular masses, in which reactionary regimes in large and small German states could perish. Therefore, by a majority vote they approved the truce concluded in Malmo.

As soon as news of this act became known, early in the morning of September 18, the population of Frankfurt moved in unison to the Cathedral of St. Paul, where the parliament was sitting, demanding a break in the truce and threatening to disperse the parliament. The liberal majority of the parliament was consistent in its decision: it called on the Prussian and Austrian troops located in Frankfurt to disperse the people surrounding the parliament.

29 Marx K., Engels F. Soch. 2nd ed. T. 5. P. 438.

The Frankfurt popular uprising and the bloody reprisal of the Prussian troops against the rebels, carried out at the call of parliament, testified that the German liberal bourgeoisie in September, like the republican bourgeoisie in France in June 1848, made a sharp turn to the right and finally turned into an open enemy of the revolution.

The offensive of the counter-revolution.

After the defeat of the Frankfurt popular uprising, an unstoppable reactionary offensive began in Germany. Prussia was one of the largest German states, and the success of the revolution in it would largely mean the success of the revolution throughout Germany. The enemies of the revolution understood this. King Frederick William IV of Prussia eagerly awaited the results of the uprising that began on October 6 in Vienna. As soon as it became known in Berlin that the Habsburg monarchy had drowned the uprising in blood (the number of victims reached 5 thousand), immediately, on November 2, the reactionary government of the Duke of Brandenburg was formed, and the ardent reactionary O. Manteuffel was appointed to the post of Minister of the Interior. On November 8, 1848, Manteuffel issued a decree transferring the Prussian Constituent Assembly to the provincial city of Brandenburg, away from the Berlin working masses who were monitoring the activities of the assembly. A state of siege was introduced in Berlin.

The bourgeois-liberal majority of the Prussian National Assembly expelled from Berlin obediently obeyed the king’s decree, for the sake of appearances calling on the people to “passive resistance” in the form of refusal to pay taxes. Through the tactics of “passive resistance,” bourgeois liberals tried to prevent a new rise of the revolutionary wave. However, workers, artisans, and students began to arm themselves on their own, preparing for an uprising. The central committee of the Workers' Brotherhood recommended that local committees take the lead in workers' action. In Erfurt, on November 23 and 24, armed clashes between workers and police and troops took place. Spontaneous protests by workers also took place in other German cities. There was also unrest in the village. The Neue Rheinische Gazeta wrote at the time: “Only a call from the National Assembly is required for the ferment to turn into open struggle.” But the Constituent Assembly continued to be inactive, which prompted the Prussian government to further counter-revolutionary offensive. On December 5, by decree of the king, the Prussian National Assembly was dissolved; On December 6, 1848, the new constitution “granted” by the king was promulgated, which was popularly called Manteuffel.

Not daring to immediately abolish the freedoms won by the March Revolution - the press, unions, meetings, etc., the Manteuffel constitution gave the king the right to repeal at his discretion any legislative acts adopted by the Landtag. Step by step, the counter-revolution advanced: on May 30, 1849, a new three-class electoral system was introduced into the Prussian Landtag, which was subsequently consolidated by the new constitution adopted in 1850 (to replace the one “granted” on December 6, 1848). Under the new law, all voters were divided into three classes according to the amount of taxes they paid; each class accounted for the same part (one third) of the total amount of taxation of the country. The first class consisted of a small number of the largest taxpayers; the second class included average taxpayers - there were many more of them, but the total amount of tax they paid was also equal to one third of the tax; finally, the third class included all the other, much more numerous, taxpayers. Each of these classes elected the same number of electors, who in turn elected deputies of the lower (second) house of the Landtag by open voting. This electoral system was based on a property qualification. So, for example, in 1849, for every first-class voter there were 3 second-class voters and 18 third-class voters.

In Prussia, as in a number of other German states, there was, in addition to

Moreover, the upper (first) house of the Landtag is the house of gentlemen. It consisted of representatives of the highest landed aristocracy, who, as in the Middle Ages, often sat in the House of Lords by right of inheritance. This chamber also included representatives from the highest clergy and large money magnates.

Last fights.

The suppression of the revolution in Prussia made the Prussian Junker government not only the executioner of revolutionary uprisings in other German states, but also the strangler of the popular movement for the national unity of the country.

The Frankfurt parliamentarians, having dealt with the Frankfurt popular uprising in September 1848 with the help of Prussian troops, pretended not to notice the rapid growth of reaction in Prussia, and continued to discuss endless drafts of a pan-German constitution. On March 28, 1849, the Frankfurt Parliament finally solemnly approved a constitution declaring Germany a constitutional empire with a hereditary monarch at its head and a bicameral Reichstag, the lower house of which was elected for three years. The Constitution declared the introduction of democratic freedoms: personal integrity, freedom of association, assembly, speech, and press. The constitution provided for the abolition of noble class privileges, as well as the abolition of the remaining feudal duties (personal duties were free of charge, while duties related to land were subject to ransom). At the same time, the constitution preserved all German states with the dynasties that reigned in them, but provided for some restrictions on the rights of monarchs.

The federation of kingdoms and principalities tailored in this way with a tendency towards the “Little German” version of the unification of Germany did not satisfy not only the monarchs of the southwestern German states, but also the Prussian king Frederick William IV. He was not averse to taking on the crown of the emperor, offered to him by the Frankfurt Assembly, but he was repulsed by the thought of receiving it from the hands of a body created by the revolution (though it had lost the remnants of its revolutionary spirit).

Although the imperial constitution, rejected by the king of Prussia, the monarchs and governments of Austria, Bavaria, Saxony, and Hanover, did not meet the revolutionary aspirations of the German people, under those conditions it “... was still the most liberal constitution in all of Germany. Its greatest drawback was, Engels noted, that it was just a piece of paper, not having any power behind it to implement its provisions.” 30. Its only defenders were the masses of the people, who acted scatteredly in different parts of Germany. These protests were led by the same republicans who had previously opposed the very principle of a constitutional monarchy. This was the sad logic of the development of the German Revolution of 1848-1849.

The workers of Dresden were the first to speak out. The Russian revolutionary M.A. Bakunin also took part in the street battles that began on May 4. Once again, the inconsistency in the timing of speeches had a detrimental effect. On May 9, Prussian troops brutally suppressed the Dresden uprising, and on May 10 and 11, the flames of popular uprisings engulfed Elberfeld, Barmen, Düsseldorf and other centers of the Rhine Province. Only three days later did the workers of the Palatinate and Baden enter the struggle, where 20 thousand soldiers went over to the side of the rebellious people. The reactionary governments in Baden and the Palatinate were overthrown. And at this decisive time, as elsewhere during the revolution, Prussian troops came to the aid of reaction.

On June 12, the army of the Prussian Crown Prince Wilhelm invaded Baden and the Palatinate and began punitive actions. The fighting was stubborn; the outrages of the counter-revolution pushed many petty-bourgeois democrats into the rebel camp - precisely those who had recently advocated “order” in the Frankfurt Parliament. It was they who basically led the armed struggle in Baden for the imperial constitution, although the main fighting force of the rebels were the workers. But

30 Marx K., Engels F. Soch. 2nd ed. T. 8. P. 96.

the indecision and hesitation of the petty-bourgeois democrats, and especially their disastrous defensive tactics, led the rebels to defeat. The bloody battles of Baden lasted more than a month. And again the 60,000-strong Prussian army committed its dirty deed. On June 21, in the unequal battle of Wagheisel, the rebels were defeated, suffering heavy casualties. The surviving rebels, retreating fighting, went to Switzerland. The rebels besieged in the Rastatt fortress heroically resisted for another month.

What did the Frankfurt parliamentarians do when stubborn battles were going on in defense of their brainchild - the imperial constitution? They continued to give endless speeches in the Cathedral of St. Paul, drafted appeals to the people, but did not lift a finger, so that if not to stand at the head of the rebellious people, then at least to provide them with all possible support. Instead, the “worthy gentlemen” from the Frankfurt Parliament “...went to the point that with their opposition they directly strangled all the insurrectionary movements that were being prepared” (Engels) 31.

The same reasons that determined the failure of previous revolutionary battles - cowardice and betrayal of the bourgeoisie, on the one hand, and the indecision of petty-bourgeois democrats and the weakness of the proletariat, on the other - led to the defeat of the revolution in the last, Baden battles with reaction in 1849.

The fate of the Frankfurt Parliament - the "talking shop" - was sealed. During the days of the highest rise of the popular movement in defense of the imperial constitution, in June 1849, the parliament moved its meetings to the capital of Württemberg, Stuttgart, and on June 18 the Württemberg government dispersed it.

Theoretical generalization of the experience of the revolution of 1848-1849.

The onset of counter-revolution in Germany in the spring of 1849 could not but affect the position of Marx and Engels as direct participants in the revolution. F. Engels, who took part in the battles, together with the surviving Baden soldiers

31 Marx K., Engels F. Soch. 2nd ed. T. 8. P. 101.

revolutionaries after the defeat at Wagheisel retreated to Switzerland. At the height of the fighting for the imperial constitution, on May 16, the Prussian government issued an order for the expulsion of Marx from Prussia. Further legal activities of communists in Germany and the publication of the Neue Rheinische Gazeta came to an end. May 19

1849 The last issue of the newspaper, typed in red ink, was published. Later, F. Engels wrote: “We were forced to surrender our fortress, but we retreated with weapons and equipment, with music, with the banner of the last red number waving...”32. Marx and his family went to Paris, and at the end of August 1849 to London, where F. Engels also arrived in the fall. The main attention of Marx and Engels during this period was directed to a theoretical generalization of the experience of the revolutionary battles of 1848-1849. in France and Germany, for the further development of the tactics of the proletariat, for the struggle for the creation of an independent party of the working class, independent of the petty-bourgeois democrats. To this end, Marx and Engels established close contact with the revolutionary leaders of the proletarian movement, seeking their unity around the Central Committee of the League of Communists, reorganizing and strengthening it.

Marx and Engels considered the most important means in strengthening the proletarian party to be the creation of a printed organ that would be a continuation of the Neue Rheinische Gazeta. Such a body was the magazine “New Rhine Newspaper. Political-Economic Review,” which began publication in January 1850. Marx and Engels paid special attention to the analysis of the experience of the German Revolution of 1848-1849. Its theoretical generalization was given in the “extremely interesting and instructive”33 document of the March 1850 “Address” of the Central Committee to the “Union of Communists”. The “appeal” was secretly distributed among members of the League of Communists both in exile and in Germany itself.

In this "Address" Marx and Engels,

32 Marx K., Engels F. Op. 2nd ed. T. 21. P. 22.

33 See: Lenin V.I. Poli. collection op. T. 10. P. 233.

Based on the experience of the revolutionary struggle in Germany in 1848-1849, they put forward the thesis about the need for organizational separation of the proletariat from petty-bourgeois democrats. The primary task of the League of Communists, Marx and Engels pointed out, is the creation in Germany of a secret and legal organization of the workers' party, the transformation of each secret community of the League into a center of open workers' unions, in which the positions and interests of workers would be discussed independently of bourgeois influences. But Marx and Engels, alien to any sectarianism, explained that the proletarian party must, together with petty-bourgeois democrats, fight against reaction and enter into temporary alliances with them.

The idea of ​​continuous revolution formulated by Marx and Engels in their “Address” has enduring theoretical and practical significance. While petty-bourgeois democrats, Marx and Engels wrote, strive to end the revolution as quickly as possible, limiting its scope to the achievement of bourgeois-democratic reforms, the proletarian party strives to “... make the revolution continuous until all more or less propertied classes will not be eliminated from domination until the proletariat wins state power...” “For us, the matter is not about changing private property,” concluded Marx and Engels, “but about its abolition, not about obscuring class contradictions, but about the abolition of classes, not about improving the existing society, but about the founding of a new society”34. Developing this idea, F. Engels, in his work “Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany” 35, dedicated to the events of 1848-1849, came to the most important theoretical conclusion about uprising as an art and revealed the conditions necessary for its victory. Pointing to the betrayal of the liberal bourgeoisie and the political bankruptcy of the petty-bourgeois democrats, Engels formulated the main idea of ​​his book: the need for the leading role of the working class in the struggle for laws.

34 Marx K-, Engels F. Op. 2nd ed. T. 7. P. 261.

35 See: Marx K., Engels F. Soch. 2nd ed. T. 8. P. 3-113.

the establishment of a democratic republic in Germany.

In new historical conditions, in the era of imperialism and proletarian revolutions, V.I. Lenin developed the teachings of K-Marx about continuous revolution, discovering the pattern of the development of a bourgeois-democratic revolution into a proletarian revolution, and based on the experience of the struggle of the working class of Russia and other countries, he developed a new theory socialist revolution.

Results of the German Revolution of 1848-1849. and its historical significance.

German Revolution 1848-1849 was an incomplete bourgeois-democratic revolution, in which the bourgeois-democratic revolution stopped halfway, “... without breaking the monarchy and reaction...”36. Unlike the French Revolution of the 18th century. The German revolution of 1848 developed along a descending line. It did not solve the main historical problems that faced it: a united Germany was not created; the old monarchical order was preserved in the country only in a slightly modified form; the feudal duties that remained in the countryside were not destroyed. The main reasons for the defeat of the German revolution were: with a huge number of local uprisings, the absence of a single center of struggle; the treacherous tactics of the liberal bourgeoisie, its betrayal of the revolutionary people; the indecision and hesitation of petty-bourgeois democracy, its refusal to radically solve the agrarian question; insufficient organization and weak consciousness of the proletariat, which prevented it from rising to the role of leader of the revolution; the suppression of the national liberation movement, which undermined the scope of the revolution; strength in the country of monarchical traditions.

But although the revolution of 1848 in Germany was incomplete and stopped halfway, it was not fruitless. The Junker-bureaucratic government, established after the revolution in Prussia, “... was forced... to rule in constitutional forms...” 37. This meant, he wrote

36 Lenin V.I. Poli. collection op. T. 11. P. 226.

37 Mapks K., Engels F. Op. 2nd ed. T. 21. P. 439.

Engels that “... the revolution of 1848 gave the state an external constitutional form, in which the bourgeoisie had the opportunity to also dominate politically and expand this dominance,” although “... it was still far from actual political power”38. The Prussian constitution, “granted” on December 5, 1848, however scanty it was, reflected some of the gains of the revolution, in particular universal suffrage, freedom of the press and the legality of political struggle. Even cut down after its revision in 1849 and 1850, the constitution still meant a step forward in the political structure of Prussia. The revolution forced the ruling classes to carry out some, albeit very limited, changes in the socio-economic field. In general, the bourgeois-democratic revolution of 1848 accelerated the development of Germany along the capitalist path.

The German revolution of 1848-1849, despite its defeat, was also an important milestone in the formation of the social and political formation of the German proletariat on the path of its transformation from a “class in itself” to a “class for itself”. In this sense, the revolution played the true role of the locomotive of history. “In all cases, the real fighting forces of the rebels consisted of urban workers who were the first to take up arms and enter into battle with the troops,” 39 wrote F. Engels. This was evidence of the class insight of the German workers and their transition to mass violent action against the monarchy. During the revolution, the first, albeit local, professional organizations were born in the large industrial centers of the country; Various political unions of workers were also active. At the high cost of defeat in class battles, the German proletariat acquired rich political experience.

Historiography of the revolution of 1848 in Germany.

Fundamentals of scientific study of re-

38 Marx K-, Engels F. Op. 2nd ed. T. 21. P. 468.

39 Marx K., Engels F. Soch. 2nd ed. T. 8. P. 103.

revolutions were laid down in the works of K. Marx and F. Engels during the revolution itself and immediately after it. In the series of articles "Bourgeoisie and Counter-Revolution" (Marx, 1848) and "Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Germany" (Engels, 1851 -1852) they gave the first Marxist account of the history of the German revolution, which remains a model scientific analysis this problem. A prominent figure in the German labor movement, historian and Marxist philosopher F. Mehring, in the second volume of his “History of German Social Democracy” (1897), from the perspective of Marxism, showed in detail and convincingly the revolutionary role of the German proletariat and its political vanguard - the “Communist League” in the events 1848-1849

V.I. Lenin showed close interest in the problems of the German revolution, who in numerous works, especially during the first Russian revolution, gave a deep analysis of the content and nature of the revolution of 1848 in Germany, the role that various social classes played in it.

Bourgeois historical science turned to a serious study of the revolution in Germany only from the end of the 19th century, after half a century of silence or unconditional condemnation of the events of the “mad” 1848. But at the end of the century, major German bourgeois historians, sensing the aggravation of social contradictions in the authoritarian Kaiser’s Germany, put forward the task of in-depth study of the place, meaning and lessons of the revolution. However, the partial “rehabilitation” of the revolution undertaken by liberal scientists E. Brandenburg, G. Oncken and others then spread only to moderate liberals, and especially to the Frankfurt National Assembly as the first experience of parliamentarism in Germany.

After the First World War, during the Weimar Republic, interest in the liberal and parliamentary traditions of German history increased significantly. The desire to connect them with the bourgeois republic and present it as their successor determined the main idea of ​​the most fundamental work of bourgeois historiography to this day - two

the voluminous “History of the German Revolution” by F. Valentin, published in 1930-1931. The author recognized the revolution as the most important event in German history and believed that its defeat was a national misfortune for the further development of Germany, which led to its Prussianization and severe defeat in the war of 1914-1918.

In modern bourgeois-reformist historiography of Germany, the revolution as a whole is interpreted primarily as a struggle of the rising bourgeoisie against the feudal nobility and state fragmentation of the country, highlighting the parliamentary history of the revolution and the activities of bourgeois politicians. West German historians (W. Konze and his school; R. Koselleck, who wrote the work “Prussia between Reform and Revolution,” 1967; M. Botzenhart, W. Boldt, etc.) attracted significant new factual material. Despite all their particular disagreements, they are unanimous on the main thing: in the desire to prove the superiority of the reformist path over the revolutionary one and (what is new) not just to condemn, but to try to “integrate” the revolutionary democratic forces into the bourgeois-parliamentary tradition. To this end, there is a persistent idea that the revolutionary democratic movement, the role of which can no longer be denied, sought only to achieve formal democracy and political freedoms. But then the question arises: why did the bourgeoisie refuse to lead the mass revolutionary movement and preferred to enter into an alliance with the feudal-monarchical reaction? Historians of the Federal Republic of Germany, responding to it, in contradiction with the first interpretation, explain and justify the political course of the bourgeoisie with the threat from the proletariat and radical democrats, who allegedly pushed it to the right with their excessive and uncompromising demands for the radicalization of the revolution, which did not meet the class interests of the bourgeoisie.

Much attention is paid to the study of the revolution in the historiography of the GDR. In the works of G. Becker, H. Bleiber, R. Weber, K. Oberman, G. Schilfert, W. Schmidt and many others, based on the introduction into scientific circulation of a large number of new sources, fundamentally important questions are raised about the role and position of various social classes in revolution. As a result of a wide discussion, it was established that at all stages of the revolution, its hegemon was actually the bourgeoisie, which did not fulfill its historical duty - to decisively lead the struggle of all truly democratic forces against reaction - and thereby betrayed the revolution. Historians of the GDR have shown that for the bourgeoisie there was a real opportunity to prevent the victory of the counter-revolution in Prussia and throughout Germany, therefore it bears the historical responsibility for the defeat of the revolution. Using extensive documentary material, GDR scientists substantiated the conclusion that the peasantry and especially the agricultural proletariat took a wider and more active part in the struggle than previously thought. New data is also presented that proves the important role of the working class and confirms the conclusion that during the revolution the process of its formation into an independent political force, liberated from bourgeois and petty-bourgeois influence, accelerated. The main results of numerous studies by historians of the GDR are summarized in the two-volume work “The Bourgeois-Democratic Revolution of 1848/49 in Germany” (1972-1973).

Soviet historians also made a significant contribution to the study of the revolution. The works of S. B. Kahn give a general picture of the revolution and the state of the German proletariat on the eve of it. E. A. Stepanova and S. Z. Leviova showed the struggle for a united democratic Germany in the period 1848-1849. In their works, in the works of S. M. Gurevich, M. I. Mikhailov, the participation of K. Marx and F. Engels in revolutionary events, the important role played in them by the “Union of Communists” and the “New Rhine Newspaper” are explored. .

Revolution of 1848-49 in Germany

bourgeois-democratic revolution, the main task of which was to create a single German national state and eliminate the feudal-absolutist order. The political fragmentation of the country and feudal relations were a serious obstacle to the further development of capitalism. A political crisis was growing in Germany, further aggravated as a result of crop failures in 1845-46 and the economic crisis of 1847. The revolutionary explosion was accelerated by the news of the proclamation of a republic in France. The driving force of the revolution was the broad masses of the people - workers, artisans, peasants. The proletariat played a particularly active role in the revolutionary struggle, but the hegemony belonged to the liberal bourgeoisie. The working class was still too small and weak to become the leading force of the movement.

Revolutionary events in Germany began on February 27 with mass public meetings and demonstrations in Baden, immediately after it became known about the proclamation of a republic in France on February 25, 1848. At the beginning of March, unrest also spread to other states of Western and Southwestern Germany. Beginning on March 6, gatherings and demonstrations took place in Berlin. On March 18, they resulted in a popular uprising, in which armed Berlin workers and artisans took an active part. The two-day struggle of the rebel people with government troops ended in victory for the rebels. The Prussian king was forced to withdraw troops from the capital and on March 29 form a liberal government led by the large Rhineland bourgeoisie L. Camphausen and D. Hansemann. On May 22, the Prussian National Assembly, elected on the basis of two-stage elections, opened, in which the majority also belonged to the liberal bourgeoisie. As a result of popular protests, liberal governments were formed in a number of other Germany. states The March revolutionary events led to a widespread rise in the labor movement and to the intensification of anti-feudal peasant protests. Petty-bourgeois democrats also became more active, led by G. Struve and F. Hecker attempted to proclaim a republic in Germany. To this end, they raised an armed uprising in Baden in mid-April. However, the rebels, who scattered their forces and did not receive support from the peasants, were defeated.

Both in Prussia and in other Germany. states, the big liberal bourgeoisie, having come to power, took the path of betraying the revolution, trying to prevent the democratization of the social and political system and preserve monarchical regimes. The liberal bourgeoisie did almost nothing to liberate the peasants from feudal oppression, did not alleviate the situation of the workers, and continued to pursue a policy of suppressing enslaved nationalities. Thus, the Prussian government brutally dealt with the national liberation uprising of the Poles in Poznan (March - May 1848). On June 14, Berlin workers and artisans who joined them stormed the arsenal and seized the weapons stored there. However, the action of the Berlin proletariat, which was spontaneous and unorganized, was defeated. On May 18, 1848, the all-German National Assembly opened in Frankfurt am Main (see Frankfurt National Assembly 1848-1849 (See Frankfurt National Assembly 1848-49)), convened to resolve the issue of unifying the country; the majority of the meeting consisted of bourgeois liberal constitutionalists. Engaging in fruitless verbal debates, it delayed the development of a pan-German constitution and gave the opportunity to strengthen the forces of counter-revolution.

K. Marx and F. Engels took an active part in the revolution. At the end of March 1848, they developed the “Demands of the Communist Party in Germany,” which were distributed in the form of leaflets and also published in a number of newspapers. This document formulated the main tasks of the revolution, aimed at creating a unified democratic republic by bringing the bourgeois-democratic revolution to complete victory and providing the most favorable conditions for the further struggle of the proletariat. In April 1848, Marx and Engels arrived in Germany and settled in Cologne. Due to the lack of conditions for the creation of a mass proletarian party, they joined the general democratic movement, taking a place on its extreme left flank. Published under the leadership of Marx and Engels, the Neue Rheinische Gazeta became the tribune of the proletariat and advanced revolutionary democracy, and waged a consistent struggle to deepen the revolution and to involve the broad masses in it.

The defeat of the June Uprising of 1848 (See June Uprising of 1848) of the Parisian workers accelerated the transition of the German bourgeoisie to the camp of counter-revolution. The uprising that broke out on September 18 in Frankfurt am Main was suppressed by troops at the request of the liberal majority of the Frankfurt National Assembly. Immediately after the defeat of the October popular uprising in Vienna, the Prussian king appointed on November 2 a new government exclusively consisting of representatives of the nobility and the highest bureaucracy, led by the sworn enemies of the revolution, Count Brandenburg and Baron Manteuffel. Troops were sent to Berlin. Soon a coup d'état took place in Prussia. The National Assembly was dispersed. On December 6, 1848, a constitution “granted” from above was promulgated, which cleared the way for the restoration of absolutism in Prussia. The coup in Prussia was the signal for the onset of counter-revolution throughout Germany. But the revolutionary forces did not lay down their arms. In the spring and summer of 1849, an uprising broke out in defense of the imperial constitution, adopted in March 1849 by the Frankfurt National Assembly and rejected by the governments of Prussia and a number of other German states. This movement spread to Saxony and South-West Germany (see Dresden Uprising 1849, Baden-Palatinate Uprising 1849) and was the last battle between the forces of the German revolution and the counter-revolution; F. Engels took a direct part in the armed struggle for the imperial constitution. But the forces were unequal, which determined the defeat of the rebels.

R. 1848-49 in Georgia turned out to be unfinished; the objective tasks facing it were not solved. Main reason The defeat of the revolution was the betrayal of the liberal bourgeoisie. The defeat of the revolutionary forces was also facilitated by the cowardly and indecisive policies of the petty-bourgeois democrats, and the weakness and disorganization of the working class. The victory of the counter-revolution largely determined the further unification of the country in an anti-democratic way under the leadership of militarist Prussia.

Lit.: Marx K. and Engels F., Demands of the Communist Party in Germany, Works, 2nd ed., t, 5; them, [Articles from the “Neue Rheinische Zeitung”], ibid., vol. 5-6; Engels F., The German Campaign for the Imperial Constitution, ibid., vol. 7; his, Revolution and counter-revolution in Germany, ibid., vol. 8; his, Marx and “Neue Rheinische Zeitung”, ibid., vol. 21; his, On the history of the Union of Communists, ibid.; Lenin V.I., On the provisional revolutionary government, Complete collection of works, 5th ed., vol. 10; him, Two tactics of social democracy in the democratic revolution, ibid., vol. 11, p. 20-21, 58-59; him, The Russian Revolution and the Tasks of the Proletariat, ibid., vol. 12, p. 209-11; him, Fr. Mering about the Second Duma, ibid., vol. 15, p. 260-66; him, Against the boycott, ibid., vol. 16, p. 23-25; Revolutions 1848-1849, vol. 1-2, M., 1952; Kahn S. B., Revolution of 1848 in Austria and Germany, M., 1948; his, German historiography of the revolution of 1848-1849. in Germany, M., 1962; Leviova S.Z., Marx in the German revolution of 1848-1849, M., 1970; Obermann K., Die deutschen Arbeiter in der ersten burgerlichen Revolution von 1848, V., 1950; Becker G., K. Marx und F. Engels in Köln, 1848-1849, V., 1963; Strey J. und Winkier G., Marx und Engels 1848/49. Die Politik und Taktik der “Neuen Rheinischen Zeitung” während der bürgerlich-demokratischen Revolution in Deutschland, B., 1972; Illustrierte Geschichte der deutschen Revolution 1848/49, V., 1973.

B. A. Krylov.

Great Soviet Encyclopedia. - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia. 1969-1978 .

See what the “Revolution of 1848-49 in Germany” is in other dictionaries:

REVOLUTION OF 1848 49 IN GERMANY. On February 27, 1848, mass public meetings and demonstrations began in Baden. On March 18, an uprising occurred in Berlin, and on March 29, a liberal government was formed. On May 22, the Prussian National Assembly convened. IN… … Encyclopedic Dictionary

The crisis of German imperialism, which worsened during the World War, confronted the German working class with the need to complete the tasks of the bourgeois-democratic revolution: to destroy militarism, to cleanse the state apparatus, to expropriate the property of junkers and war criminals, to overthrow the monarchical system and create a unified German republic.

“In this struggle,” as indicated in the theses of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, published in 1958 for the 40th anniversary of the November Revolution, “it was about the working class gaining experience, creating a communist party and establishing an alliance with the working peasantry in order to then move on to the proletarian revolution, which was objectively on the agenda.”

The masses of the people spontaneously rushed into battle to achieve these goals, and the ruling classes did not have sufficient forces to suppress the revolution.

The revolution that broke out in November 1918 overthrew the Kaiser's monarchy. The working class acted as the main driving force in this revolution. The workers' and soldiers' councils formed in a number of German centers enjoyed the support of the broad masses. The revolution was extremely favored by the created international situation. Soviet Russia successfully fought against foreign intervention and internal counter-revolution. Many European countries were gripped by revolutionary upsurge. A proletarian revolution was brewing in Hungary.

However, despite the fact that the socio-economic prerequisites for a socialist revolution had been created in Germany even before the war, the November Revolution lingered at the bourgeois-democratic stage. This stemmed primarily from the weakness of the German working class, its political inexperience, lack of unity, and inability to lead the broad masses of the people. The German Soviets, which emerged under the influence of the Great October Socialist Revolution, had opportunistic leadership and were captive of parliamentary illusions. The political immaturity of the many millions of soldiers, revolutionary in relation to militarism, war and open representatives of imperialism, but unstable and wavering in relation to socialism, also had an effect.

All this allowed opportunistic leaders to confuse the people, undermine the forces of the revolution and support the counter-revolution. There was no truly revolutionary proletarian party capable of leading the struggle for the socialist revolution in Germany at that time. Spartacists could not complete this task, especially since it was the decisive one! During the period of the revolutionary crisis they were not yet organized as a party.

As a result, the German working class was unable to realize the great historical opportunity that opened up to it in the century. November 1918. The leading forces of the German bourgeoisie and the Entente, wrote forty years later, the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany, Walter Ulbricht, “drew their lessons from the October Revolution and did everything to, using German social democracy, split the working class, stop the development of the revolution and suppress the vanguard of the working class.

The November Revolution did not solve its historical problem. Due to the opportunist opposition of the Social Democratic Party, even the bourgeois-democratic revolution was not completed.”

The largest since the Peasant War of the 16th century. The mass revolutionary movement in Germany only led to the fact that a bourgeois-democratic revolution took place, carried out to a certain extent by proletarian means and methods. Its course confirmed the most important position of Leninism, which is that the socialist revolution can only be victorious under the leadership of a Marxist-Leninist proletarian party of a new type.

Nevertheless, the revolutionary struggle of the German working class during the November Revolution was not in vain. It provided the people of Germany with significant achievements of a bourgeois-democratic nature: the monarchy was overthrown, the Kaiser, 22 kings, dukes and princes were deposed, the 8-hour working day was enshrined in law, universal suffrage, including for women, the right to form unions, freedom words and meetings, etc.

At the same time, the German proletariat acquired extensive political experience. After the November Revolution, a new stage in the struggle of the German working class for its interests began.