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Title: The Political Revolution Author: Edgar Bauer Date: 1842 Language: en Topics: revolution Source: Retrieved on May 26, 2011 from http://www.marxists.org/subject/anarchism/bauer/political-revolution.htm Notes: Source: The Young Hegelians, An anthology, edited by Lawrence S. Stepelevich , Cambridge University Press, 1983 p.263–274; first published in Critique’s Quarrel with Church and State, 1842, by Edgar Bauer.
We are reproached often enough that our most ambitious fantasies really
go no further than to a restoration of the French Revolution: Here,
among the anarchists of 1793, we sought our ideals and the Jacobins are
our heroes. Indeed those who say so are mistaken: Our business then
would be indeed nothing but a reaction; and a reaction has never in
history brought any good with it. Are we, then, held to be blind? Are we
believed to be unable to see the consequences of the Revolution? The
consequence of the Revolution was the empire of Napoleon and [the
Bourbon restoration with] the installation of Louis XVIII. An alert
historian will perceive that even a new, purely political revolution
will only arrive at the restoration of legitimacy.
Generally, there is nothing to gain from such a returning toward the
so-called original good. Yet the Reformation once affirmed that it only
wanted to return to the pure Christianity which had been deformed by
tradition and human institution. But what resulted from this reaction?
They arrived at a new religious tyranny, a Lutheran papacy which was
equally zealous in its accusations against heretics.
The Reformation has given us the great precept that we cannot radically
heal any evil within an organism unless we submit the entire organism to
new laws of life. The Reformation wanted to undertake a transformation
within religion; however, it did not know that religion will always
continue in the same evil, in papacy and force. Therefore the
Reformation was only fulfilled when it was preserved, cancelled, and
raised to a higher level according to its essence, and when the struggle
was directed against religion itself.
Similar is the case of the Revolution. As it returned toward the
so-called original human rights, it wanted to bring these rights to
recognition within the state; it was nothing but the attempt — as if it
were possible — to make man free in the state, and its result proved
that this is not possible. If revolution is to be fulfilled, then
freedom must become more widely apprehended and it must slough off its
exclusively political character.
We substantiate this through a scrupulous consideration of the
Revolution.
The Revolution was a result of the life of the state. Revolution will
never desist from uniting within itself two contradictory sides: on the
one hand, privilege, law sanctified by tradition, the claim of trust and
obedience — the religious side; on the other hand, the striving for
freedom, which, of course, will always remain an illusion in the life of
the state, the consciousness of self-reliant action, the insight into my
rights as a man, which the state patronizes because it above all is that
which absorbs me into a societal life of the species. These two sides
were in conflict as they entered the Revolution, and the beginning of
the Revolution was — as always — an attempt at mediation. The freedom
party proceeded from the opinion that everyone must take part in the
life of the state; it made the word ‘people’ into its pretentious
display and declared the people to be the sole legitimate power in the
state. Let the individual not be tolerated, calling himself to a higher
traditional right, to claim title to all state power, to have
exclusively the enjoyment of freedom, but then to make the living
conditions of the people dependent upon his mere grace. Let there be no
law to which the people’s reason has not assented. Let there be no right
which does not find its confirmation in the advantage of the state and
in the demand of universal equality. The freedom party was in the right.
But the other party was in the right too, for itself, on its own terms.
It demonstrated that state power has its natural representative in the
king, that the king’s right to mastery could not be allowed, and that
the law would be shaken if the inherited rights of many citizens no
longer found support in him.
The beginning of the Revolution was, as said above, the constitutional
mediation between both parties, a truce in which the rights of each were
pared somewhat, i.e., each was done an injustice. Kingship retained the
privilege of its hereditary succession; however it was no longer
appointed by God but by the people. Kingship was to be concluded, but
only in accordance with the laws which had been debated by the so-called
people’s representatives. But then the people only half perceived their
power over kingship; and to the contrary, they reduced this power of
theirs to a mere illusion, since they pronounced kingship to be
hereditary. The people were supposed to give themselves their laws
through their representatives, but they withheld the negative vote from
kingship. Kingship was weakened, for the glorious halo of its divine
legitimacy had been taken from it. The people’s right was ridiculed, for
an exclusive, untouchable power still was to persist against it. The
constitutional truce was nothing but the beginning of the dispute; it
was a pause in which the people’s right sought to recover from its first
exertion, as kingship sought to recover from its first defeat. It was
only the prospect of greater struggles: Should the stability of the
state be preserved, or should the striving for freedom, which of course
was still in the dark as to how it would be completely satisfied,
proceed toward an ever more vigorous abrogation of what existed? These
were the questions which the constitution raised. In it, the essence of
the state was already halfway infringed — and that is generally the sole
good of a constitution — for there still indeed remained a sort of
stability in kingship, but at the same time, according to the principle,
the laws had been made dependent upon the developing reason of the
people. The demand of freedom, without itself being clear about it,
pointed beyond the state. Yet even if the people did, through their
representatives, raise themselves above the ‘rights’ of private
property, still for all that they annulled the inherited rights of life,
spiritual and worldly privileges. Where was the security of the life of
the state when I was endangered in what had become sacred to me by the
right of possession?
The Revolution went further. The contradiction which lies in
constitutional organization made itself felt. The cause of freedom was
victorious and the tenth of August[1] demonstrated the power of the
people to tear down what was legitimate, stable, and, moreover, what
insisted upon being maintained in the state. Kingship was abolished. The
execution of Louis XVI should have taught all nations that it is a crime
to be called king in a free state, and that nothing holy and inviolable
may be permitted to stand before the people. Now, they believed, the
free state, the true republic, had been won.
Anarchy, which is the beginning of all good things, was there at least:
Events moved toward a hopeful demolition; religion was cancelled,
preserved, and raised to a higher level. But that anarchy was an anarchy
within the state. Could the state endure without stability, without
police supervision, without stern military command? Certainly not! And
that was the mistake, the only mistake, of the revolutionaries. They
believed that true freedom is to be realized in the state, and they did
not see that all of the endeavors of freedom since the beginning of the
Revolution had proceeded, according to their nature, against the state.
Robespierre surely wanted a universal equality and wanted even the
sans-culotte, the have-not, to be taken into the life of the state and
to have his voice in it. But could this equality have been accomplished
as long as the differences in position and possession still evoked a
difference in thinking and knowing? A communal education is required for
a social life of equality, as is an equal opportunity to satisfy the
higher demands of the spirit. But, considering the inequality of
possessions, this opportunity was not to be made common; thus the
Revolution, because it did not go far enough, because it could not go
far enough, had to go very quickly backwards. No doubt Robespierre saw
himself forced in that direction. He decreed the existence of God, the
reintroduction of a supreme being; and the village dwellers lit bonfires
to celebrate the returned God; through all France rang the cry, ‘Vive
l’Eternel!’ Even the desperate and magnificently striving terrorists
soon had to reach their end in order to maintain equality through the
guillotine. The people disentangled themselves from politics, which,
after all, had not brought them any freedom; they turned back to their
humdrum, everyday interests and every door was opened to reaction, i.e.,
to the attempt to form a state and to make it sacred again.
Therefore Napoleon’s tyrannical empire was a necessary result of the
inconsistent Revolution. If ever someone wanted to live in a state,
then, by all means, he also had to get accustomed to its differences,
its domineering police, its surveillance, its stability, its medals, and
its privileges. Terrorists willingly accepted their medals from the
emperor, inveterate republicans gladly allowed themselves to be made
counts and dukes — and almost without becoming inconsistent; at least it
was the state and the circumstances which made them inconsistent. Indeed
the reaction was not satisfied even with the empire; for had it not been
the Revolution which created this empire?
In 1791 a woman from a village near Paris gave birth to triplets. At
their baptism she named the first People, the second Freedom, and the
third King. People and Freedom died after a few days; King remained
vigorous and healthy. In this little incident the course of the whole
Revolution was indicated — at its end stood legitimate kingship.
And you want to assert that the political revolution is our exemplar?
No; it is not our exemplar because nothing old, nothing settled, may be
the goal of our efforts. If the political revolution does not know how
to overcome itself, then it does not understand how to order the
abstraction of the state to depart, and how to proceed to the
understanding of full, communal freedom — hence it will forever arrive
at legitimacy and at the tyranny of stability. What exists will always
place itself above the freedom of the spirit and with perfect right, for
freedom is dangerous to it.
The political revolution serves us as nothing further than as a proof
that it alone does not finish the project — it is an instructive
example, and that may be enough. It is a historical phenomenon, complete
in itself; it cannot and may not recur as it once was.
No, says the radical; the Revolution was not complete in itself: Do you
not see that the July Revolution[2] was the beginning of the repetition
of the French Revolution in an improved way, the beginning of the now
historical elaboration of that which, in its swift run, was almost a
celestial apparition? We are now in the era of the constructive
assembly. Everyone knows that another tenth of August will be a long
time coming.
All right, we do not deny that the eternal strivings of revolution — in
search of freedom — will work continuously in history; we do not deny
that the course of these strivings will be similar to the course of the
Revolution; but we do deny that the lessons of the Revolution will pass
away in history without a trace, and we deny that the development of
modern history will arrive at the same abstract goal at which the
Revolution remained stationary in order to go downhill.
We believe that the new experiments with political freedom which the
people of many nations perform are useful just precisely to show mankind
that there is nothing of value in political freedom or in the exalted
constitutional and republican forms of the state. The attempts at a
state, for which these various peoples now toil, will finally lead them
beyond the state. The very word, ‘freedom’, is repugnant to the state —
so history will teach.
What jubilation there was in 1830 when France again received its
‘freedom’, when the people became aware of their own ’sovereignty’, when
they deposed the king who ruled by divine right and chose their own
king! And what arose from that freedom? The state has asserted more and
more its power to stagnate; the majority of property owners, who profit
from no alteration, rule; ideas are suppressed; trials in the press
persecute free expression; and the free spirit who loves the fresh air
of agitation sighs under the burden of a dull, bourgeois, egoistic
administration. Thereto leads a constitution, and thereto must it lead:
Only give it enough time and it will become just as oppressive as any
other form of the state; its laws will generally invest themselves with
the tyranny of law.
Certainly time is not lacking for freedom, grown smart through
experience, to rebel against these laws. Constitutional organization,
however, will not sign its own death warrant; it will not voluntarily
surrender its laws to the progress which criticizes them.
It is therefore clear that there can never be anything but struggle,
specifically, the life-and-death struggle through which those laws will
be destroyed. But supposing that freedom begins this devastating
struggle, will it itself contradict itself and will it consecrate new
laws? Or will it finally tear down everything completely?
You ask: ‘But then what do you want? Can you proclaim for us a form of
life which will be more suitable to freedom after the perishing of the
institutions of the state? Can you construct for us a society in which
private property will be cancelled, preserved, and raised to a higher
level? Which gangs are to hold humanity together if the laws of
Christian ethical life are despised, if every sense is relaxed and left
merely to its arbitrary comfort, if the institution of marriage does not
protect chastity, if genial family life neither makes a person’s first
years happy nor makes him receptive to delicate feelings, if it is not
obedience to the authority of the state which checks passions? Do you
offer us any other prospect besides anarchy, murder, and robbery? Show
us a free, safe form of life and we would gladly agree with you.’
To this I respond quite simply that it is not our business to construct.
Indeed, can any new crop sprout up as long as the old weeds thrive
luxuriantly? Thus you must first exterminate the old weeds. And surely
no new thoughts can come into the world before the old ones have been
overcome, can they? Do you know that you are like a group of Ph.D.s who
believe that we want to give the people a philosophy with propositions,
conclusions, and concepts? Nonsense! In any case, our philosophy exists
only for the purpose of clearing away the traditional ideas of belief
from human heads; thus, just at first, we can do nothing further than to
criticize political forms, political concepts, and the religio-political
trust, and to be satisfied if our critique is accurate and if it has
proven that it is a contradiction to want to win freedom within the
context of existing forms. Then in spite of all that, everyone and his
brother may come and say: ‘But my God, there must be religion, there
must be a state, there must be righteousness, there must be law.’ This
outcry does not bother us, since it proceeds against critique out of
fear, out of the presuppositions of faithfulness; there is no other way
to refute it than by referring to history. Now those people are just
naturally deaf to deductive arguments for a rational freedom.
‘No private property, no privilege, no difference in status, no
usurpatory regime.’ So reads our pronunciamento; it is negative, but
history will write its affirmation.
Therefore you ask me what ‘the free community’ is, what it looks like,
how it is possible. To that I can give you no answer, for who is
permitted to think beyond his own time? Our time, though, is only
critical and destructive.
You question further: ‘But then what do you want to do? Nothing depends
on forms, everything depends only on people. You want to make people
free and rational very well, existing institutions are oppressive only
because of the wickedness of mankind, but surely good people will live
freely within them. Imagine, for example, a wise, good king: Will anyone
experience any tyranny under him? Imagine an administration composed of
rational men: Will it restrict the freedom of the spirit in any way, and
will it fail to know how to insure that no-one starves in physical or
emotional need? Imagine that all men are good; then can their marriages
be unhappy? Will they educate their children to be narrow-minded and
commonplace fellows? Forms are of no importance; people are the main
thing and those forms are only necessary in order to check the human
propensity to commit crimes.’
That sounds very convincing, except that it is only sentimental chatter.
Forms are not at all accidental; they are creations of the human spirit
and therefore they are only suitable to this or that determined content
of spirit. If people change, then the forms of life must also change. We
set ourselves directly against our determined institutions, because the
spirit of non-freedom (Unfreiheit) manifests itself in them. We do not
bear ill will toward kings, but toward kingship; strip this man of the
glitter of the throne, and he will be harmless. We do not accuse wicked
married couples, but marriage, the vulgar exclusivity, the religious
control of the form, the reciprocal constraint, the dominion which one
sex exercises over the other, the aristocratic use which one intends to
make of the other. You say that a wise administration will rule wisely.
Very smart! But we say that it lies in the nature of administration to
assume police supervision and to resist critique.
Obviously, for you, forms are only something external, because you
consider them superficial. But we seek to fathom their character and to
prove that they are not harmonious with the demand of freedom. Forms
which have arisen out of egoism will create, in their turn, as long as
they exist, egoistic people. Therefore they are not of no importance.
The human propensity to commit crimes! You must know that crimes are
always a result, a product, of these determined conditions; crimes are
the complements of institutions, their reverse image. Robbery and murder
are a result of private property, because this possession itself is a
kind of robbery; and the egoism of privilege commits, not daily, but
hourly, the murder of the soul of a poor, oppressed person, deprived of
cultural sophistication. So-called immorality is nothing but a reaction
which natural freedom instigates against the artful and supernatural
pretensions of Christian ethical life. Prostitution is a result of
marriage, because...
If this determined possession is for one, then the necessary complement
of that is that it is for all who feel themselves wronged by it, who
hold it to be usurpation, and who seek to appropriate it.
If this woman is for one, then there will be other women who are for
all.
Here you interrupt me and say: ‘Then your whole plan for the improvement
of the world thus amounts to you wanting to make us all into thieves,
and all women into prostitutes; you want to abolish robbery while you
make it universal, and abolish prostitution while you transform it from
the exception into the rule.’
Now, now, I have already told you truly that the existing relationships
themselves generate the crimes which correspond to them. Whether these
relationships will now perish through these so-called crimes; whether,
for example, private property in a general theft, marriage in a general
prostitution, will find their ends — who can say? But the one will cease
to be only with the other.
‘Do you therefore want,’ you say further, ‘to remedy by general murder
the aristocrat’s murder of the poor person’s soul?’
Favete Unguis?[3] When kings lead entire nations into war, are murder
and manslaughter then contained in their plan? Have they not rather
higher aims; are there not principles in the service of which the
peoples’ blood is shed? You are much too willing to make us into
preachers of the universal bloodbath. And we are indeed nothing but the
servants of thought who, as honestly and as truthfully as possible, seek
to articulate what critique says to them. Do you want to hold kings
accountable for every drop of blood which has flowed from their
slaughters? No, here you are not sentimental, here you unfeelingly tally
up the thousands who have fallen in battle. Indeed you celebrate
properly your lord’s great military glory. But if blood flows in the
service of freedom, or in the struggle of principles, then do you want
to hold these things accountable? The crowns of your kings always
radiate beams of pure splendor, and their wars may have cost just as
many human lives; but freedom and its axioms are to be stained forthwith
if egoism and human obstinacy force them to do battle! If it is true
that no great cause can succeed without thoroughly vigorous strife,
without blood, then, by all means, history accuses any such cause of
moving forward according to these laws, or, better, history complains to
you about the human half-deafness which is insensitive to the voice of
freedom and reason.
‘And then here we stand again,’ you say, ’and we still do not know what
you understand by your free community.’ But I want to tell you of
something distinct from the life of the state.
Only with revolution, which begins the destruction of the forms of the
state, does genuine history commence, because here it becomes conscious.
Although peoples have hitherto comported themselves religiously, even
over against history, and, because they did not understand history, have
seen in it the governance of a divine spirit; although they were
unconsciously driven forward, and were at one time the plaything of
kings, then of priests, then of a blind religious fanaticism; we know
now that it is human beings alone who make history. The modern pressure
to busy themselves with politics — what is it other than the
consciousness that history is something human, communal, and that
nothing higher drives them except the spirit of society?
From now on history is a self-conscious history, because mankind knows
the principles by which it moves forward, because mankind has history’s
goal — freedom — in sight.
Mere political curiosity is already properly hostile to the state, since
a person signifies thereby that he no longer is fully confident to let
only the holy power of the state conduct business, and that he wants, in
spite of all that may happen, to be present at hand with his insight.
And that is the characteristic of the free community. It knows what it
is doing.
On this account the designation ‘people’ really no longer fits it;
‘people’ is a political concept, a word of the heart; ‘the people’ is
the trusting flock which allows itself to be led. What prevents a tyrant
from perpetrating his deeds in the name of the people? What prevents a
people from standing up for and shedding blood for a determined reigning
family? Thus, the concept of freedom is not yet included in the
political concept of people. Indeed, the people is merely this external
union, this messy bundle of conditions and individuals, begotten on this
determined ground, grown up in this climate, according to these laws.
Indeed, for the most part, the people finds its representation outwardly
only in a certain national pride, in national fads.
[1] On August 10, 1792, a mob sacked the Tuileries and the Assembly
imprisoned the royal family, thus initiating the brief rule of Danton,
which included, on September 21, 1792, the formal abolition of the
monarchy and, on January 21, 1793, the execution of the king.
[2] The July Revolution was the armed revolt in Paris from July 27 to
July 30, 1830, which overthrew the last Bourbon king of France, Charles
X, and thus established, on August 7, 1830, the ‘bourgeois monarchy’ of
Louis Philippe, the ‘citizen king’, who was on the throne at the time of
this polemic.
[3] Horace, Odes, Book III, Ode i, line 2. Literally, ‘Favor your
tongues’, a call for the laymen or the uninitiated in a religious order
to use their silence to avoid saying anything foolish, blasphemous, or
ill-omened.