Matière et Révolution

Besancenot au pays des soviets (4)

Alex — 2026-01-28T05:30:33Z

L'article précédent s'achevait sur le récit-témoin de Besancenot décrivant la première des journées révolutionnaires de février 1917, le jeudi 23.

Le militant bolchévique Kaiourov est catastrophé car les ouvrier(e)s ne suivent pas les consignes de son parti et rentrent en révolution. Kaiourov est passif, spectateur, totalement inactif.

Or la réalité est différente. Bien que Kaiourov comme tous les révolutionnaires ait été surpris par l'arrivée de la révolution—mais qui ne l'aurais pas été ?—il a pris le jour même la tête du mouvement. Besancenot qui se dit révolutionnaire, solidaire de la révolution, ne met pas en valeur Kaiourov. Citons-don un historien qui n'est pas révolutionnaire, mais respecte un minimum de sérieux académique, bien qu'il rebaptise, à tort, Benjamin :

(...) les instances des partis de gauche s'en tenaient à un programme très prudent (...) Dans le cadre de ce programme, la journée internationale des femmes, qui devait être célébrée le jeudi 23 février, offrait une excellente occasion de mettre sur pied des manifestations d'envergure limitée. Au congrès international des femmes socialistes à Copenhague,
en 1910, il avait en effet été décidé que chaque année, à cette date,
l'ouvrière serait mise à l'honneur. Il s'agissait d'organiser des meeting,
d'affirmer que la femme ouvrière est l'égale de l'homme et d'inciter les militantes à la lutte des classes. (...) C'est dans cet état d'esprit que benjamin Nikolaevitch Kaiourov, membre du comité bolchévique du quartier de Vyborg,
alla transmettre les instructions du parti aux ouvrières des industries textiles de Lesnoï, dans la banlieue de Petrograd. Il était lui-même ouvrier et travaillait chez Erikson, la fabrique suédoise d'appareils téléphoniques.
On le retrouvera les jours suivants, dirigeant le mouvement révolutionnaire dans la rue. Militant de base, il n'accéda jamais aux postes les plus élevés de la hiérarchie communiste. Sa vie se termina d'ailleurs tragiquement en 1936.
Refusant d'avouer les crimes et trahisons qui lui étaient imputés, il fut abattu par les agents du NKVD.

Dans la soirée du 22 février, il se trouvait donc à Lesnoï. Il commença par expliquer à ses auditrices la signification de la journée internationale des femmes. Passant ensuite à la situation politique du moment, il exposa que le comité du quartier de Vyborg déconseillait formellement toute grève. Pour justifier cette position, il insista sur le fait que l'heure n'était pas propice aux affrontements avec les forces de police. Il exhorta par conséquent les militantes à s'en tenir aux décisions prises par le comité et s'abstenir d'actions partielles et isolées, vouées par avance à l'échec.

Au matin du jeudi 23 février, il ne fut donc certainement pas enchanté en apprenant que les ouvrières, auxquelles il avait apporté la veille la bonne parole du parti, ne tenaient aucun compte de ses consignes et se mettaient en grève. Plus inquiétant encore était le fait qu'elles étaient descendues dans la rue et appelaient les ouvriers métallurgistes à se joindre à elles. Or, il était facile de prévoir que les ouvriers des usines Poutilov n'allaient pas se faire prier pour manifester dans les rues aux côtés de leurs camarades de l'industrie textile. En effet, ils négligèrent eux aussi complètement les prudentes consignes du parti. Ils avaient d'ailleurs tout intérêt à profiter du concours qui s'offrait à eux car la présence de femmes et d'enfants dans les démonstrations ouvrières de masse incitait traditionnellement les forces de l'ordre à ne pas se livrer à des brutalités trop voyantes et à faire preuve d'une certaine retenue dans leur besogne répressive. privés de travail et de salaire, il était donc bien naturel qu'ils saisissent cette possibilité de manifester publiquement leur mécontentement et d'exprimer leurs revendications.

En militant discipliné qu'il était, Kaiourov fut surpris et indigné par cette initiative qui constituait à ses yeux une méconnaissance flagrante de la décision prise par le comité de district du parti. Il éprouva également un peu d'humeur en en constatant l'inutilité de ses propres appels au calme et à la discipline. Il se trouvait aux usines Erikson lorsqu'il apprit la tournure imprévue que prenait la célébration de la journée internationale des femmes. Ce fut l'un de ses camarades, Nikifor Ilyn, qui apporta la nouvelle et qui annonça en même temps l'arrivée imminente d'un groupe de déléguées représentant les ouvrières de Lesnoï. Peu après , celles-ci vinrent en effet annocer officiellement leur décision de se mettre en grève et firent état du soutien que les ouvriers métallurgistes leur apportaient.

Aussitôt, Kaiourov avisa quatre de ses camarades et se retira avec eux dans un couloir de l'usine pour tenir une conférence improvisée. Il s'agissait de décider quelle attitude il convenait d'adopter face à ce mouvement de grèves qui venaient d'être qui venait d'être déclenché spontanément. (...) Il appela donc tous les ouvriers, hommes et femmes, à descendre dans la rue et à manifester Les dirigeants bolchéviques de Vyborg, placés devant le fait accompli, ne purent que donner après coup leur approbation. Kaiourov constitua avec ses camarades un comité de grève et descendit lui aussi dans la rue pour prendre la tête de la manifestation et la canaliser vers le centre de Petrograd.

1917 à Petrograd, F. Antoniazzi (2017)

Cette dernière phrase balaye le portrait que Besancenot à fait de Kaïourov

Besancenot prétend exalter le rôle des masses, mais il rabaisse ce que les masses ont produit de plus conscient : leurs organisations. Un résumé simple de ce qu'ont apporté de plus précieux ces organisations est résumé par Trotsky :

Prolétaires du monde entier :
La Ière Internationale vous a donné un programme et un drapeau. La IIe Internationale a dressé sur leurs pieds de grandes masse. La IIIe Internationale a donné un exemple d'action révolutionnaire hardie. La IVe Internationale vous donnera la victoire mondiale !

C'est au tour de la France ! Pour la quatrième Internationale Trotsky, mars 1934.

La première méthode de Besancenot de ne pas valoriser les travailleurs conscients et organisés est depasser sous silence l'existence même de leurs organisations. Il valorise les « masses », opposées aux « grands hommes », mais entre ces deux nivaux, il y a les organisation. Or si l'on s'adresse au grand public militant, après les classes, ce sont les grandes dates liées à l'histoire des internationales ouvrières qu'il faut connaitre.
Car ces dates sont liées aux liens entre le courant communiste et les anarchistes (I ère internationale), les socio-démocrates (IIè internationale), les staliniens (IIIè internationale).

Il [Vassili] avait franchi la porte des locaux du parti » et d'emblée on est sceptique. Un lecteur peu familier avec la Russie de 1917 ne notera peut-être pas cette phrase. Dans la France d'aujourd'hui les partis ont des locaux, les responsables s'y réunissent et leurs entrées et sorties sont guettées par les télés ou radios qui popularisent ces lieux en y interrogeant les « responsables » qui vont définir ou prendre des « consignes ». Besancenot utilise ce dernier terme en mentionnant les « consignes du parti bolchévique » élaborées dans leurs « locaux ». Nous ignorons quel était le vocabulaire de Vassili Kaiourov au quotidien. Mais ces tournures qui s'appliqueraient à une scène de grève massive dans la France d'aujourd'hui nous semble très trompeuses. Avant la fin de la révolution de février (cinq journées), le parti bolchévique était illégal, persécuté, les réunions avaient lieu clandestinement dans des appartements. Cet élément est signalé par le bolchévique Chliapnikov dans son récit « A la veille de 17 ». Il mentionne une descente de la police dans un de ces appartements, conduisant à l'arrestation de 136 révolutionnaires. Cette raffle eut lieu dans la nuit du 25 au 26 février. On est donc encore en pleine révolution, puisque celle-ci s'étendit jusqu'à la victoire en 5 journées, les 23, 24, 25,26 et 27 février.
Besancenot dénigre tout au long de son livre le concept de parti de la classe ouvrière :

les marxistes ont surrestimé la question du parti

et il prête à Kaïourov un sentiment analogue à propos des

(...) Le doute avait pris (..) à lui seul cet attroupement signifiait un désaveu pour le parti. Les décisions politiques prises la veilleavaient été sans ambiguïté : pour l'ehure pas de grève. (...) comment avait-il pu se méprendre sur la détermination des travialleurs et des ouvrières ? (...) La veille au soir, le comité du parti bolchévique qu'il présidait avait à l'unanimité pris position contre cette grève.

Le 23 février, c'était la " Journée internationale des Femmes ". On projetait, dans les cercles de la social-démocratie, de donner à ce jour sa signification par les moyens d'usage courant : réunions, discours, tracts. La veille encore, il ne serait venu à la pensée de personne que cette " Journée des Femmes " pût inaugurer la révolution. Pas une organisation ne préconisa la grève pour ce jour-là. Bien plus, une organisation bolcheviste, et des plus combatives, le Comité du rayon essentiellement ouvrier de Vyborg, déconseillait toute grève. L'état d'esprit des masses d'après le témoignage de Kaïourov, un des chefs ouvriers du rayon, était très tendu et chaque grève menaçait de tourner en collision ouverte. Mais comme le Comité estimait que le moment d'ouvrir les hostilités n'était pas encore venu – le parti n'étant pas encore assez fort et la liaison entre ouvriers et soldats étant trop insuffisante – il avait donc décidé de ne point faire appel à la grève, mais de se préparer à l'action révolutionnaire pour une date indéterminée. Telle fut la ligne de conduite préconisée par le Comité à la veille du 23, et il semblait que tous l'eussent adoptée. Mais le lendemain matin, en dépit de toutes les directives, les ouvrières du textile quittèrent le travail dans plusieurs fabriques et envoyèrent des déléguées aux métallos pour leur demander de soutenir la grève. C'est " à contrecœur ", écrit Kaïourov, que les bolcheviks marchèrent, suivis par les ouvriers mencheviks et socialistes-révolutionnaires. Mais du moment qu'il s'agissait d'une grève de masse, il fallait engager tout le monde à descendre dans la rue et prendre la tête du mouvement : telle fut la résolution que proposa Kaïourov, et le Comité de Vyborg se vit contraint de l'approuver. " L'idée d'une manifestation mûrissait depuis longtemps parmi les ouvriers, mais, à ce moment, personne ne se faisait encore une idée de ce qui en sortirait. " Prenons bonne note de ce témoignage d'un participant, très important pour la compréhension du mécanisme des événements.

Notons que Trotsky, comme tous les révolutionnaires, parle de la « journée des femmes », alors que Besancenot fait ce qui semble être un anachronisme en reprenant le jargon gouvernemental français ;

Le passage

Politiquement l'air du temps avait repris de la couleur. (...) Le 13 février, 20 000 ouvriers avaient cessé le travail à l'occasion du deuxième anniversaire du procès des députés bolchéviques. Le 27, ouvriers et soldats unissent leurs forces et investissent le palais d'Hiver, centre du pouvoir impérial au sommet duquel flotte désormais le drapeau rouge. (...) Besancenot p. 42-43

ressemble étonnament au suivant :

Avec 1917 s'ouvre une ère nouvelle (...) En février la crise éclate : le 13, 20000 ouvriers débraient pour le deuxième anniversaire des députés bolchéviques (...) Le 27 l'insurrection ouvrière et la révolte des soldats se conjuguent : le drapeau rouge flotte sur le palais d'hiver.

Faisons une courte pause. Il y a eu une insurrection ouvrière armée en 1905 et Kaïourov y a participé. Curieusement, Besancenot ne mentionne pas cette insurrection. Ce point culminant d'une montée révolutionaire n'est pas ce que Besancenot veut mettre en avant. Ce sont les aspects « démocratiques bourgeois » :

Le souvenir de la révolution russe de 1905 était dans dans tous les esprits, pour le meilleur comme pour le pire. D'un côté, la mutinerie des marins du Cuirassé Potemkine en juin, la grève générale d'octobre,
la naissance des soviets, ces assemblées populaires qui regroupaient ouvriers, paysans et soldats, puis la signature, le 17 octobre, du manifeste qui promettait des libertés politiques, de nouveaux droits de réunion et d'expression, ainsi qu'une Constitution libérale instituant un Parlement russe,
la Douma. De l'autre ce 22 janvier où la foule, , amassée devant le Palais d'hiver, avait été fauchée par la mitraille alors qu'elle réclamait au Tsar la réintégration des grévistes congédiés de l'usine Poutilov, où travaillaient d'ordinaire 10000 ouvriers. Les centaines de vies ôtées au peuple russe au cours de ce « Dimanche rouge » étaient gravées dans les mémoires

Le deuxième témoignage est caricatural. Besancenot invente un monologue de Trotsky, dans la bouche duquel il met les termes. Citons un couts extrait, quasiment tout le reste de la « scène Trotsky » est du même acabit :

Sa place au sein du soviet e Petrograd le reliait au peuple, lui permettant ainsi d'être en phase avec l'expression des espoires, des doutes et des colères (...) les classes populaires voulaient en découdre avec le vieux régime(...) Les crises politiques dues aux tergiversations des modérés(...) Cet engouement populaire

Pourtant elle peut laisser perplexe : le parti mentionné est le parti bolchévique, ce parti avait donc des locaux officiels ? Les réunions étaient clandestines, elles pouvaient avoir lieu dans les apartements de militants.

A l'inverse de Besancenot, nous donnerons la parole aux acteurs qui ont laissé leur témoignage, sans parler à leur place. Ils méritent tous qu'on les sorte des oubliettes, qu'on partage leur point de vue ou non. Le livre de Besancenot ne contient aucune bibliographie, il ne cite aucun des des témoignages écrits à l'époque. Nous allons tenter de ccombler ce

Oui les masses interviennent dans la révolution, et leur point de vue est peut se résumer de mainière souven simple mais claire et profonde par ses racines dans l'oppression séculaire. Qui était Trotsky ? Besancenot ne daigne pas consacrer un paragraphe à ce dirigeant de la révolution d'Octobre ! Laissons la parole à Jospeh Berman, fils d'un des milleirs de juifs qui devinrent des combattants de l'Armée Rouge, sans que Besancenot évoque leur existence. Il présente ainsi Trotsky

[Mon père] s'est engagé dans l'Armée Rouge non par conviction politique, mais parce que c'était la seule force armée organisée qui combattaient les formes de tueurs qui assassinaient impunément les Juifs dispersés et désarmés. (...) Voilà pourquoi il avait rejoint l'Armée Rouge. Trtsky aussi, était un juif qui ne croyait pas au paradis, il appelait les hommes à combattre, les Juifs comme les autres, pour anéantir une fois pour toutes ces bandits sanguinaires ; il voulait construire une société juste où tous les hommesauraient les mêmes droits et où tous les peuples pourraient vivre en paix.

(...) Dans ces batailles contre les bandes de Petlioura en 1918-20 , tout comme lors de la révolte du Ghetto de Varsovie en 1943, et plus tard lors des guerres d'Israel, les soldats juïfs étaient contraint à l'héroïsme (...) Revenons en 18-19 ! (...) Mon père, à la tête d'une équipe , fut chargé à plusieurs reprises d'aller chercher des volontaires dans une petite gare située dans la plaine ukrainienne, cela lui sembla le bout du monde. Là se terminait la ligne de chemin de fer, avec aux alentours quelques maisons. Quand ils arrivèrent
(...) [Mon père] se demandait e qui poussait ces paysans à rejoindre l'Armée Rouge. Pour les Juifs c'était clair, ils étaient victimes des pogromes, il fallait anéantir les assassins. Les paysans répondaient à l'appel de Lénine qui promettait la terre « à ceux qui la travaillent »

Les masses paysannes pauvres sont celles qui s'expriment le moins. Elles permettent à l'humanité de se nourri

Tous ceux qui figurent dans mon exposé étaient des révolutionnaires authentiques. (...) Le portrait sinistre de Staline, le Secrétaire général disparu, n'est devenu que trop familier tel que l'ont dépeint ses opposants déçus et défaits par l'appareil qu'il dominait, et même ses successeurs ; mais ce fut Lénine qui, avec leur aide, lui avait mis en main les armes et avait conduit Staline sur la voie qu'il devait suivre jusqu'à sa mort. (L. Shapiro, Les origines de l'absolutisme communiste.

La généalogie idéologique d'Octobre 1917

En effet jamais dans l'histoire de l'humanité aucune révolution des exploités ne fut prévue et organisée comme le fût la révolution d'Octobre 1917. Rappelons quelques étapes dans le domaine des idées :

En Russie en 1883, Plekhanov se convertissait au marxisme et appelait à former un parti prolétarien fondé sur le communisme de Marx et Engels :

Qu'est-ce que le socialisme scientifique ? On entend par ce terme la doctrine communiste qui a commencé à se développer après 1840 à partir du socialisme utopique, sous l'influence de la philosophie Hégélienne et de l'économie classique de l'autre, doctrine qui a fourni la première une explication valable pour l'ensemble de la civilisation humaine, démoli impitoyablement les sophismes des théoriciens bourgeois et mis « tout le savoir de son temps » au service du prolétariat.(...) La théorie de l'histoire de Marx et Engels constitue cette « algèbre de la révolution » que Herzen croyait trouver dans l'Hégélianisme (...) L'évolution de la société russe crée de nouvelles structures sociales, tout en détruisant les formes séculaires du rapport des paysans avec la terre et des paysans entre eux. ces nouvelles structures sociales portent les germes d'un nouveau mouvement social, le seul qui pourra mettre fin à l'exploitation de la population travailleuse de Russie. Parce qu'ils sont parvenus à un plus haut degré de développement que la paysannerie, parce qu'ils ont plus de besoins et un horizon intellectuel plus vaste, les ouvriers de l'industrie se rallieront à notre intelligentsia révolutionnaire dans sa lutte contre l'absolutisme, puis ayant obtenu la liberté politique, s'organiseront en un parti socialiste ouvrier, qui devra entreprendre la propagande systématique du socialisme chez les paysans (Plékhanov, Socialisme et lutte politique)

Les deux principaux dirigeants de la Révolution d'Octobre, Lénine et Trotski, n'ont fait que suivre le chemin tracé par Plékhanov :

C'est lui [Plékhanov] qui 34 ans avant Octobre prouva que la révolution russe triompherait sous la forme du mouvement révolutionnaire des ouvriers. Il s'est efforcé de placer le fait du mouvement de classe du prolétariat à la base de la lutte révolutionnaire des premiers cercles d'intellectuels. C'est cela que nous avons appris de lui et cela se trouve non seulement à la base de l'activité de Plekhanov, mais aussi (à la base) de toute notre lutte révolutionnaire. A cela nous somme resté fidèles jusqu'à présent. (Trotsky)

Cette généalogie, Besancenot n'en dit mot dans son livre. Il se cache derrière un de ses arguments principaux : ne pas voir l'histoire à travers les grands hoomes. Mais ce sont les millions de prolétaires qui par leurs luttes ont fait naître dans le cerveau des Marx, Engels, Plékhanov, Lénine et Trotsky des textes comme ceux cités plus haut. Ne pas les faire conaître, c'est ensevelir l'histoire de ces « masses » dont Besancenot se prétend le porte-parole. Une fois écrits ces textes furent transmis à des millions de prolétaires des nouvelles générations soit directement, soit par la propagande de milliers de militants socialistes. Pour preuve citons l'un d'eux :

Je lisais alors beaucoup de romans et d'ouvrages scientifiques. Mes auteurs favoris étaient ceux qui avaint mis leur talent au service de la lutte pour la libération de l'homme. C'étaient avant tout les écrivains russes, parmi lesquels mes préférences allaient à Andréiev, Gorki et Tolstoï. Puis venaient les auteurs français : Hugo, Zola et Mirbeau. Ensuite les allemands : Heine et Hoffman ; Oscar Wilde pour les Anglais. Zaromski et Konopnicka pour les Polonais. Sans oublier, évidemment, les écrivains juifs. J'admirais particulièrement Peretz.

Pour ce qui est de la littérature scientifique traitant des problèmes sociaux, je lisais surtout des auteurs anarchistes. Bien plus tard lors de mon exil et de la faillite de la IIe Internationale, ces écrivains exercèrent sur moi une influence déterminante. Mais dès l'époque dont il est ici question, je pris beaucoup de plaisir à lire Kropotkine. Sa profonde humanité, sa foi dans la bonté naturelle de l'Homme, son idéalisme révolutionnaire, l'élégance et la finese de son style, y compris lorsqu'il traitait de questions scientifiques, , ces qualités devaient inévitablement émouvoir un jeune homme de mon âge, qu'il fut ou non anarchiste. PAr contre, Bakounine me laissait indifférent. Sa formule célèbre, « Détruire c'est construire », ne me satisfaisait pas. Avant de détruire je voulais connaitre le but du combat et savoir que construire.

Quant à Stirner je le considérais comme un ennemi. Sa nouvelle société m'apparaissait comme une jungle oùles hommes s'entre-dévoraient tels des bêtes fauves. Ses oeuvres me semblaient avoir été écrites par un être anormal., un homme retourné à l'état sauvage.

C'était peut-être dû à l'influence de de mon entourage, qui était foncièrement Marxiste. De tous les auteurs marxistes que j'ai lu à cette époque, c'est Plékhanov, Kautsky et, un peu plus tard Engels, qui me firent la plus forte impression. Il ne s'agissait pas encore pour moi de lire Marx. Kautsky me plaisait pour deux raisons : d'abord c'était un bon vulgarisateur de Marx ; il donnait à ses lecteurs des bases solides pour poursuivre eux-mêmes l'atude du Marxisme. Ensuite parce que, contre les révisionnistes, il défendait la nécessité historique de la révolution sociale. Dan notre cercle de Bundistes, nous étions plein de fi en la révolution sociale !

Pourtant, je me sentais plus proche de Plékhanov que de Kautsky, car le premier parlait de la révolution russe en termes concrets. Plékhanov et moi étions des familiers si j'ose dire. Cela mis à part, il y avait chez lui plus d'élan. Il me donnait l'impression d'aller au fond des choses et d'apporter un élément introuvable chez Kautsky. J'ignorais alors que Lénine, qui était son adversaire politique, reconnaissait en Plékhanov l'un des plus grands philosophes marxistes, sur le plan théorique en tout cas. J'avais le sentiment que pour comprendre la théorie du matérialisme, le secours de Plékhanov m'était plus précieux que ceoui de Kautsky.

Je lisais beaucoup et je discutais souvent, avec des camarades aussi bien qu'avec des adversaires—ce n'est pas ce qui manquait. Avant qu'une année s'achève, j'étais devenu un matérialiste relativement conscient ; je pouvais même m'ne tirer honorablementdans une discussion à ce sujet.

Besancenot communiste, mais quel communisme ?

Besancenot se félicite même qu'une des prmière conqu^te de la révolution russe est la révolution dans l'enseignement, et un des aspects positifs est que le marxisme n'est pas enseigné : « Les thèmes travaillés sont définis par les enseignants et les élèves. Pas d'étude du marxisme (comme plus tard du 'marxisme-léninisme'), mais au contraire le refus de tout endoctrinement »

Besancenot se cache derrière Trotsky

« Dans une société prise de révolution, les classes sont en lutte. Il est pourtant tout à fait évident que les transformations qui se produisent entre le début et la fin d'une révolution, dans les bases économiques de la société et dans le substratum social des classes, ne suffisent pas du tout à expliquer la marche de la révolution même, laquelle, en un bref laps de temps, jette à bas des institutions séculaires, en crée de nouvelles et les renverse encore. La dynamique des événements révolutionnaires est directement déterminée par de rapides, intensives et passionnées conversions psychologiques des classes constituées avant la révolution. » (Léon Trotsly)

De ce paragraphe, Besancenot cite la dernière phrase et en fait comme le fil conducteur de son livre. Il fait mine de se placer dans la lignée du grand dirigeant de la Révolution d'Octobre que fût Trostky. Mais c'est le contraire, là git le mécanisme trompeur utilisé tout au long de son livre par Besancenot. Certes Trotsky mentionne les masses dans la dernière phrase du paragraphe cité, mais la première phrase du même paragraphe, que Besancenot ne cite pas, fait une référence claire à la lutte des classes.

Décrivons donc ce mécanisme. On a vu plus haut que pour les marxistes, le moteur de l'histoire est la lutte des classes. Or Besancenot dans son livre ne met à aucun moment en lumière cette lutte de classe. Prolétaires, paysans riches ou pauvres, propriétaires terriens ne sont pas les acteurs de la Révolution.
Introduction : Le véritable acteur de cette période, le peuple russe, ce héros qui s'est dressé, il y a cent ans, contre le tsarisme et contre la guerre, e qui s'est auto-organisé à travers une multitude de conseils populaires (les soviets) pour bâtir une nouvelle société. (...) De nos jours, l'espoir d'un affranchissement n'a pas disparu du ceour des peuples.
Chapitre 2 : En février puis en octobre 1917, deux révolutions amènent des milliers de conseils populaires autogéré, les soviets, à prendre le pouvoir dans des circonstances historiques et des proportions géographiques inégalées.
Chapitre 3 : En 1905, une première révolution avait fait vaciller le régime. De la fin du mois de janvier à octobre, le peuple s'était mobilisé et organisé en une kyrielle de soviets à travers tout le pays.

Chapitre 4 : A partir de Février, la révolution de Février entre dans une seconde phase. Jusqu'ici, les gouvernements successifs s'étaient obstinés à continuer la guerre, malgré le mécontentement et la vive déspprobation populaire.

Chapitre 5 : Entre le 23 février et le 25 octobre, la vie politique russe ne s'est pa figée (...) Chacune dans leur camp, classes populaires et classes possédantes ont radicalisé leur position sur la base des épreuves qui les opposaient pour la prise du pouvoir.

Chapitre 6 : A l'image du prolétariat, la classe aisée n'a pas l'intention de rester les bras croisés devant le péril qui se profile. Elle est prête à défendre ardemment ses intérêts. Stimulé par la défaite populair de juillet, le patronat passe à l'offensive et profite de la situation pour imposer d'importants reculs sociaux à la menaçant d'un lock-out généralisé.

Chapitre 11 : S'il existe d'emblée une relation sinueuse envtre les soviets et le parti, la population garde, à cette époque encore, la main sur son sort (...) Le peuple est à l'oeuvre et s'attelle à changer sa vie quotidienne dans une multitude de domaines, débordant les lois traditionnelles de l'histoire.

Les menchevicks, dont la propagande a volontiers mis en avant des mots d'ordre comme « Etat populaire »,« auto-administration » ou « commune »ont soutenu la création des soviets et y ont joué un réel non négligeable.

Or Octobre 1917 fur la première révolution prolétarienne victorieuse.

John Reed - Red Russia

Robert Paris — 2025-08-10T05:00:00Z

PART ONE

THE real revolution has begun. All the swift events of the last eight crowded months – the sudden debacle of Czarism in February, the brief inglorious attempt of Miliukov to establish a safe and sane bourgeois republic, the rise of Kerensky and the precarious structure of hasty compromise which constituted the Provisional Government – these were merely the prologue to the great drama of naked class-struggle which has now opened. For the first time in history the working-class has seized the power of the state, for its own purposes – and means to keep it.

Today the Bolsheviki are supreme in Russia. The ominous onward march of Kaledine, self-proclaimed military dictator and restorer of middle-class order, has stopped – his own Cossacks are turning against him. Yesterday Kerensky, after his defeat and the surrender of his staff at Galchina, fled in disguise. The news has just come that Moscow, after a bloody battle that wrecked the Kremlin and smashed thousands of lives, is undisputedly in the possession of the military Revolutionary Committee. As far as anyone can see, there is no force in Russia to challenge the Bolshevik power. And yet, as I write this, in the flush of their success, the new-born revolution of the proletariat is ringed round with a vast fear and hatred.

Last night two thousand Red Guards – the proletarian militia organized and armed by Trotzky just before the final clash – swung down the Zagarodny in triumph. Ahead a military band was playing – and never did it sound so appropriate – the Marseillaise. Blood-red flags drooped over the dark ranks of the marching workers. They were going to meet and welcome home to “Red Petrograd” the saviors of the new proletarian revolution – the troops who had just fought so desperately and so successfully against Kerensky and his Cossacks. In the bitter dusk they tramped, singing, men and women, their tall bayonets swinging, through streets faintly lighted and slippery with mud. And as they marched they passed always between crowds that were hostile, contemptuous, fearful.

The proletarian revolution has no friends except the proletariat. The bourgeoisie – business men, shop-keepers, students, land-owners, officers, political office holders and their fringe of clerks and servants and hangers-on, are solidly in opposition to the new order. The moderate Socialist parties – though they may find themselves forced by circumstances to combine with the Bolsheviks – hate them bitterly. But these elements are so far powerless. Their military strength is represented only by part of the Cossacks, and the Junkers – cadets of the Officers Schools. While on the side of the Bolsheviks are ranged the whole rank and file of the workers and the poorer peasants ; and the soldiers and sailors are with and of them. On one side the workers, on the other side, everybody else. For the moment the cleavage has all the clear and beautiful distinctness of familiar theory...

And at this date[1] – I am writing Nov. 4 – the workers are in complete control. No one can know what the next few days may bring forth. If they can persuade the other Socialist parties to join with them in accomplishing their gigantic immediate program of Bread, Peace and Land for the Peasants, this proletarian government will probably last until the Constituent Assembly – and after that, in history, a pillar of fire for mankind forever.

This is the moment toward which all revolutions tend. The course of every revolution is toward the left, swifter and swifter. And the Government which would retain power in revolutionary times must do the will of the revolutionary masses – or smash it with cannon. The Provisional Government did neither.

Since last February, when the roaring torrents of work-men and soldiers bearing upon the. Tauride Palace compelled the frightened Duma to assume the supreme power in Russia, it is the masses of the people – workmen, soldiers and peasants – who have forced every change in the course of the Revolution. It was they who hurled down the Miliukov ministry. It was their Soviets, their Council of Workingmen's and Soldiers' Delegates which proclaimed to the world the Russian peace terms : “no annexations, no indemnities, the right of peoples to dispose of themselves !” And again in July, it was the spontaneous rising up of the unorganized masses, again storming the Tauride Palace, which forced the Soviets to assume power in the name of the proletariat.

The Bolshevik party was the ultimate political expression of this popular will. It was useless to hunt down the Bolsheviks as rioters and imprison them – as was done after the riots which grew out of the July demonstrations. Useless, too, to fling at them the accusation manufactured by provocateurs and reactionaries, and repeated until it was believed by all the world, that they were the paid agents of Germany. Unable to substantiate the accusations against the arrested Bolsheviks, the Provisional Government was obliged to release them, one by one, without trial, until of the original hundred less than twenty remained in prison.

Meanwhile, day by day, the Bolshevik power was growing. It was bound to grow. For the whole Bolshevik program was simply a formulation of the desires of the masses of Russia. It called for a general, democratic immediate peace (that got the army, sick of war) ; the land to be immediately at the disposal of the Peasant Land Committees (that got the peasants) ; and control of industry by the workers (that got Labor). The demand that the government should be simply the Soviets of the Workingmen's and Soldiers' Delegates, without participation by the propertied classes, until the convocation of the Constituent Assembly at the end of November, when the political form of the new Russia should be definitely decided – this completed their program. And it is worthy of remark that when the Bolsheviks first demanded that all power should be given to the Soviets, the majority of the Soviets were still bitterly anti-Bolshevik. It is a mark both of their utter consistency and of their complete confidence in the approaching triumph of their cause. Their cry, “All power to the Soviets !” was the voice of the Russian masses ; and in the face of the increasing impotence and indecision of the ever-changing Provisional Government, it grew louder day by day.

So it was that, while the “center” Socialist parties, the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionist moderates, involved themselves in compromise with the bourgeoisie, the Bolsheviks were rapidly capturing the Russian masses. In July they had been hunted and despised ; by September the metropolitan workingmen, the sailors of the Baltic fleet, and the hotly of the army, had been won almost entirely to their cause.

It was the fate of the hesitating successive ministries of the Provisional Government to be blind to this inexorable trend of affairs. To the Soviets' call for peace without annexations or indemnities, the Government replied by ordering the June offensive into Austrian Galicia. In answer to the whole country's longing for peace, the Government permitted the Allies to postpone and again postpone the promised Conference on the Aims of the War, and finally to announce that war aims would not be discussed at all. In regard to the land question, the Government's course was equally indecisive. In the summer, Peasant Land Committees had been appointed for the purpose of temporary disposal of the great estates ; but when they began to act, they were arrested and imprisoned. To the agrarian disorders that resulted from the holding back of the long-promised land, the Government replied by sending Cossacks to put down the “anarchy.” The army was demoralized by suspicion of its officers ; the Government, instead of attempting the democratization of the reactionary staffs, tried to suppress the Soldiers' Committees, and restored the death-penalty in behalf of discipline. Industry was in a terrible state of disorganization, a struggle to the death between manufacturers and workingmen ; but instead of establishing some sort of state control over the factories, and making use of the immensely valuable democratic workingmen's organizations, Minister of Labor Skobelev tried to abolish the Shop Committees.

But the final collapse of the Provisional Government may be laid most of all to three colossal blunders : the Galician offensive of June, the Kornilov affair, and Coalition with the bourgeoisie.

After the Soviets' worldwide call for peace without annexations and indemnities, the Russian and German armies had fraternized for several months, until, according to the testimony of Rosa Luxembourg,[2] the German troops were thoroughly unwilling to fight. In June, by tricks, exhortations and lies, the Russians were cajoled into advancing the whole movement crumbling and crashing down in disaster at Kalusz and Tarnopol ; and as a result, the morale of the Russian armies and their faith in their officers irreparably ruined.

Then, after the fall of Riga, came the Kornilov attempt to march on Petrograd and establish a military dictatorship. All the details of the story have not yet come out, but it is plain that Kerensky and other members of the Government were in some way involved in the scheme. Whatever the secret facts might be, enough was disclosed to make the masses utterly lose faith in Kerensky as a friend of the revolution. After that event, the Provisional Government was doomed.

Then the Coalition, the last chapter of preparation for the final struggle. At the time of the Kornilov attempt, the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets proposed that an All-Russian Congress be called at Petrograd, to broaden the base of the Provisional Government and create some sort of temporary organ or pre-Parliament to which the Ministry could be responsible until the Constituent Assembly. The basis of the new body was, of course, to be the Soviets ; but as the Bolshevik power continued to grow, the Central Committee became anxious, and began to invite all sorts of non-political and conservative organizations, such as the Cooperatives, to participate. With the same object, to keep the pre-Parliament from being Bolshevik, it reduced the Soviet membership and increased the representation of the bourgeoisie in the last few days, until, even though the propertied classes had been expressly excluded, it was certain that the majority of the gathering would be “safe.”

It was a pre-Parliament carefully calculated to vote for the sharing of governmental power with the liberal bourgeois party. So far as plans could effect it, even the pretense of a Socialist regime was at an end.

But these plans were not easy to carry out. Russia had been shocked and frightened by the Kornilov affair, with its ominous threat against the very existence of the Republic. Investigation had proved how widespread was the responsibility for that affair, and there was profound distrust of the bourgeois politicians. In spite of Kerensky's impassioned speech of self-defense, the Assembly proved to be overwhelmingly against his project of Coalition. But on the Government's plea that the national danger demanded it, Coalition was pushed through by a narrow majority. Compromise had won. The Bolsheviks left the Assembly. The new “representative-consultative” body, the Council of the Russian Republic, with its immense proportion of business men and cadets, was officially instituted.

From the first the Bolsheviks refused to sanction the existence of the Council. At its first meeting in the Marinsky Palace, Trotzky took the tribune in the name of the Bolsheviks, and made a speech which contains the full premises of the Bolshevik insurrection. And when it became clear that there was nothing more to be said in opposition to the compromisers, but only something to be done, the Bolsheviks quitted the Council of the Russian Republic in a body.

That was on October 5th.

II. The True Revolution

The true revolution may be said to have begun on that day. For their withdrawal was a sign of the withdrawal of confidence from the Government by the whole mass of the Russian people. Those who were left behind, the hostile Cadets, Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries, realized what it meant, and there were many pale faces. Shrieks, curses, execrations, and imploring cries of “Come back !” followed the departing Bolsheviks. But they did not come back. And it was a blow from which the Council never recovered. It was to go on deliberating and speech-making, amid lethargic silence or uproarious tumult, for three weeks-appointing commissions, on land, on foreign affairs ; Terestchenko was to come and make a dull, non-committal statement of international policy ; Kerensky was to come twice to appeal with tears for national unity, and once to curse the Bolsheviks, along with the reactionaries, as traitors ; there were to be illusory conflicts between the Right and the Left, and a multitude of words added to the immense torrent of hot Russian talk that flows, turbulent and endless, on and on. Only in the last days of its existence did the denatured Council hurriedly pass a resolution to solve the land question at once and to adopt an energetic foreign policy to secure peace. It was too late, then. But they would keep on discussing until that cold grey morning, three weeks after the departure of the Bolsheviks, when they were to be interrupted – all the doors of the great imperial council room suddenly filled with rough-looking big soldiers and sailors, bristling with bayonets, and a sailor shouting, “No more Council. Run along home.”

I had seen the Bolsheviks leave the earlier Assembly. In the corridor I stopped Volodarski. “Why are you fellows going ?” I asked. “We can't work with that counter-revolutionary gang,” he replied. “They've packed the hall, and now they've put over a combination with the Kornilovtsi, to wreck the revolution.” “What are you going to do ?” I asked, “We're going to call a new All-Russian Convention of the Soviets. That's where the real revolutionary force lies. Then we'll take over the power. All power to the Soviets, where it belongs !”

It was this All-Russian Congress of Soviets that now loomed over Russia like a thunder-cloud. It was recognized to be the beginning of the Bolshevik regime, and by the bourgeoisie, the “center” Mensheviks and Social-Revolutionists, the Central Army and Fleet Committees, the Peasants Soviets, and especially the Central Executive Committee of the All-Russian Soviets itself, no pains were spared to try to prevent it. Solemn resolutions, declarations in the press, delegations from the front, the fleet, from factories, Peasants' Union (reactionary), Union of Cossacks, Knights of St. George, Death Battalions. ... In the Isvestia, official organ of the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets, a determined campaign against the Congress was carried on. The “center” Mensheviks and Social Revolutionists, led by the “Lieber-Dans” as they are called, sent instructions far and wide over the country for their party members to influence local Soviets into refusing to send delegates. But the Petrograd Soviet stubbornly insisted. At the date set, October 10, only fifteen delegates out of a possible 900 odd had arrived ; the Petrograd Soviet merely postponed the meeting until October 25, and sent another call. The next day more than a hundred arrived – among them many who had been delegated irregularly, over the heads of hostile executive committees. Confident of a majority, the Bolshevik Petrograd Soviet sent word that it would grant increased representation to small Soviets, and seat all delegates. The Central Executive Committee realized that it was beaten, and sent frantic calls over the country to the Soviets to elect Menshevik and Social Revolutionist delegates – a despairing attempt to get a majority of the “right” and “center.”

In the meantime there were more sinister signs of resistance to the will of the masses. The Government was making preparations to evacuate Petrograd ; and Rodzianko, former president of the Duma and one of the Cadet leaders, declared before a conference of business men in Moscow that the loss of Petrograd would not be a serious blow ; for in the first place the revolutionary Petrograd workers would not cause any more trouble and in the second place, the revolutionary Baltic fleet would be disposed of. And then came the declaration of the new government : suppression of mutiny at the front and anarchy in the country by force, and the transfer of the power of “irresponsible organizations” (that is, the Soviets) to the Dumas and Zemstvos.

The air was full of talk of the Bolshevik “demonstration” – the vistuplenntie, or “coming out” of the workers and soldiers. Bolshevik agitators went the rounds of the Petrograd barracks and factories, insisting that the counter-revolutionary Government wanted to open the front to the Germans, wreck the Constituent Assembly, destroy the Revolution. Lenine made his appearance – in print in the columns of the Bolshevik paper “Rabotchi Poot” preaching armed insurrection. On the extreme right the reactionary papers “Novaia Rus” and “Jivoe Slovo” called for a bloody drowning of the left elements in blood, a pitiless military dictatorship. Burtsev's paper, “Obshee Dielo,” advocated a strong patriotic government of Kornilov, Kaledine and Kerensky ! Evidently some of the Bolshevik chiefs themselves opposed the idea of an uprising, preferring to wait for the Constituent Assembly, but Lenine's great voice roared continuously, “Either armed insurrection or abandon the program of All Power to the Soviets ! The counter-revolutionists are preparing to destroy the All-Russian Congress and the Revolution !” Volodarski told me in the corridors of Smolny that the will of the masses of all Russia was that the power should immediately be given to the Soviets. “The Lieber Dan crowd are sabotaging this Congress,” he said. “But if they succeed in preventing enough delegates to come here to make a quorum, well, we are realists enough not to depend on that !” Kamenev was of the opinion that as soon as the All-Russian Soviets had declared themselves, the Provisional Government would be forced to resign...

Finally, the intention of the Bolsheviks in general was, I think, expressed best by Trotsky, who made a categorical public statement that the workers and soldiers would make no vistuplennie unless provoked, or unless some counter-revolutionary attempt was made. He was perfectly clear in his opinion that the masses of Russia, as represented in the Congress of Soviets, would demand by a huge majority that the power should pass to the Soviets ; and of course if the government resisted !

At the meeting of the Petrograd Soviet in Smolny, the night of October 17th, Trotsky branded the assertions of the bourgeois press that the Bolsheviks contemplated armed insurrection as “an attempt of the reactionaries to discredit and wreck the Congress of Soviets... The Petrograd Soviet,” he declared, “has not ordered any demonstration in the streets. When it will be necessary we will do so, and we are sure we will be supported by the workers and the Petrograd garrison...They (the Government) are preparing a counter-revolution ; and we will answer with an offensive which will be merciless and to the end !”
An Interview with Trotzky

That very day Trotsky gave me an interview about the projects of the new power – the “dictatorship of the proletariat” – which Volodarski had described to me as being in form “a loose government, sensitive to popular will, giving local forces full play.” He said :

“The Provisional Government is absolutely powerless. The bourgeoisie is in control, but this control is masked by a fictitious coalition with the moderate parties. Now, during the revolution, one sees revolts of peasants who are tired of waiting for their promised land, and all over the country, in all the toiling classes, the same disgust is evident. The domination of the bourgeoisie is only possible by civil war. The Kornilov method is the only way by which the bourgeoisie can dominate. But it is force which the bourgeoisie lacks...The army is with us. The conciliators and pacificators, Social-Revolutionists and Mensheviks, have lost all authority – because the struggle between the peasants and the landlords, between the workers and the bankers, between the soldiers and the Kornilovist officers, has become more bitter, more irreconcileable than ever. Only by the struggle of this popular mass, only by the victory of the proletarian dictatorship, can the revolution be achieved and the people saved ! The Soviets are the most perfect representatives of the people – perfect in their revolutionary experience, in their ideas and objects. Based directly on the army in the trenches, the workers in the factories, and the peasants in the fields, they are the backbone of the Revolution.

“They have tried to create a power disdaining the Soviets, and they have created only powerlessness. Counter-revolutionary schemes of all sorts organize now in the corridors of the Council of the Russian Republic. The Cadet party represents the counter-revolution militant. On the other side, the Soviets represent the cause of the people. Between the two camps there are no serious groups. It is the inevitable lutte finale. The bourgeois counter-revolution organizes all its forces and waits for a moment to attack us. Our answer will be decisive. We will finish the work scarcely begun in February, and advanced during the Kornilov affair...”

He described to me how the new government would he composed ; instead of a ministry, the different departments of the state would be directed by a series of collegia, headed by titulary commissars, who would be responsible to the Central Executive Committee of the All-Russian Soviets – the new parliament. I asked about the new government's foreign policy.

“Our first act,” said Trotsky, “will be to call for an immediate armistice on all fronts, and a conference of the peoples to discuss democratic peace terms. The quantity of democracy we get in the peace settlement depends upon the quantity of revolutionary response there is in Europe. If we create here a government of the Soviets, that will be a powerful factor for immediate peace in Europe ; for this government will address itself immediately and directly to the peoples, over the heads of their governments, proposing an armistice. At the moment of the conclusion of peace the pressure of the Russian Revolution will be in the direction of : no annexations, no indemnities, the rights of peoples to dispose of themselves, and a Federated Republic of Europe.

“At the end of this war I see Europe recreated, not by diplomats, but by the proletariat. The Federated Republic of Europe – the United States of Europe – that is what must be. National autonomy no longer suffices. Economic evolution demands the abolition of national frontiers. If Europe is to remain in national groups, then Imperialism will recommence its work. Only a Federated Republic can give peace to Europe and to the world.” He smiled, that singularly fine and somewhat melancholy smile of his. “But without the action of the European masses, these ends cannot be realized now.”

It is fashionable among the bourgeoisie to speak of the Bolshevik coup d'état as an “adventure.” Adventure it is, and one of the most splendid mankind ever embarked on, sweeping into history at the head of the toiling masses, and staking everything on their vast and simple desires. Peace, land, bread. Why not ? Already the machinery was created by which the land of the great estates could be taken over and distributed to the peasants, each according to his powers. Already the factory shop committees were ready to put into operation workmen's control of industry. The different nationalities of Russia were all ready for months to assume the administration of their own people. In every village, town, city, district and government, Soviets of Workmen's, Soldiers' and Peasants' Delegates were prepared to assume the local powers of government. Liberate the local forces of Russia – how simple, and how tremendous ! As for peace – well unless all signs lied, the peoples of the world were sick of and disillusioned with the War... What it meant was simply the liberation of the local forces of the world !

If the Bolsheviki Had Not Won

At that same meeting of the Petrograd Soviet, on October lath, some soldiers, workmen and peasants spoke, revealing very clearly the feeling of the masses, and some officers, members of the Army Central Committees, the Central Committee of Soviets, etc., opposed them. As for these last, suffice it to say that they opposed with all their might “All power to the Soviets” – and there was not a proletarian among them, just as there were no bourgeois among the representatives of the masses. The division was clean...

The peasant described the agrarian disorders in Kaluga Government, which he said were caused by the Government's arresting members of the Land Committees who were trying to distribute the uncultivated fields of the local great estates. “This Kerensky is nothing but a comrade to the pomiestchiks (landlords),” he cried. “And they know we will take the land anyway at the Constituent Assembly, so they are trying to destroy the Constituent Assembly !”

A workman from the Obukovsky Zavod, a government shop, described how the superintendents and managers were trying to close down certain departments one by one, complaining of lack of material, of fuel, etc., and how the shop committee had discovered that there was no real necessity for closing down. “They are trying to drive the revolutionary Petrograd workers out of the city,” he declared. “It is provocaisi, they want to starve us to death, or drive us to violence...”

Among the soldiers one began, “Comrades ! I bring you greetings from the spot where men are digging their own graves and call them trenches ! We must have peace !”

Another man told of the electoral campaign now being waged in the Fifth Army for the Constituent Assembly. “The officers, and especially the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries, are trying deliberately to cripple the Bolshevik campaign. Our papers are not allowed to go to the trenches. Our speakers are arrested. Our mail is censored.”

“Why don't you speak about the lack of bread ?” cried a voice. “They are sabotaging the food supply. They want to starve Red Petrograd !”

And so it went. Now is there any truth in the accusation that the bourgeoisie were trying to wreck the Revolution ? I happened, barely two weeks before, to have an exceedingly significant talk with one of the Great Russian capitalists, Stepan Georgevitch Lianosov –“the Russian Rockefeller,” as he is called.

“We manufacturers,” he said, among other things, “will never consent to allow the workmen, through their unions or any other way, any voice whatsoever in the administration or control of production in our business. ... In the government which is to cone there will be no coalition with the democratic parties – an all-Cadet ministry...

“How will this new government come into being ? I will explain. The Bolsheviks threaten to make an insurrection on the twentieth of October. We are prepared. This uprising will be crushed by military force, and from this military force will come the new government... Kornilov is not dead yet ; he failed, but he still has enough support among the people to succeed...And if the Bolsheviks do not rise, the propertied class will make a coup d'état at the Constituent Assembly ? No, we do not fear the Bolsheviks. They are cowards, and will run at the first few shots of the troops. They will be suppressed by the military... There are the Cossacks, several guard regiments, and the Junkers. That will be more than enough...It is my personal opinion that the republic will not last long in Russia. There will be a monarchy.”

At the last meeting of the Council of the Russian Republic I was wandering around the corridors and chanced upon Professor Shatsky, a little, mean-faced, dapper man, who is influential in the councils of the Cadet party. I asked what he thought of the much-talked of Bolshevik vistuplennie. He shrugged, sneering :

“They are cattle-canaille,” he answered. “They will not dare, or if they dare they will be soon sent flying. From our point of view it will not be bad, for then they will ruin themselves and have no power in the Constituent Assembly... But, my dear sir, allow me to outline to you my plan for a form of government to be submitted to the Constituent Assembly. You see, I am chairman of a commission appointed from this body, in conjunction with the Government, to work out a constitutional project...We will have a legislative body of two chambers, much as you have in the United States. In the lower chamber will be territorial representatives, and in the upper, representatives of the liberal professions, Zemstvos, trades unions, cooperatives...”

On October sixteenth a special commission of the Council of the Russian Republic and the Ministry hurriedly hammered out two projects for giving the land temporarily to the peasants and for pushing an energetic foreign policy of peace. On the seventeenth Kerensky suspended the death penalty in the army. Too late. I went over to the Cirque Moderne to one of the Bolshevik meetings which grew more and more numerous every day. The bare, gloomy wooden amphitheater, with its five tiny lights hanging from a thin wire, was packed from the ring up the steep sweep of grimy benches to the very roof – soldiers, sailors, workmen, women, listening as if their lives depended upon it, and roaring applause. A soldier was speaking, from the 548th Division, whatever and wherever that is :

“Comrades !” he cried, and there was real anguish in his drawn face and despairing gestures. “The people at the head of things are always appealing to us to sacrifice more, sacrifice more, while those who have everything are left unmolested... We are at war with Germany, and we wouldn't invite German generals to serve on our staff. Well, we're at war with the capitalists, and yet we invite capitalists into our government... The soldier says, ‘Show me what I am fighting for. Is it the Dardanelles, or is it free Russia ? Is it the democracy, or is it the capitalists ? If you can prove to me that I am fighting for the Revolution, then I'll go out and fight with capital punishment.'

“When the land is to the peasants, and the mills to the workers, and the power to the Soviets, then we'll know we have something to fight for, and we'll fight for it !”

The Last Days

Under date of October 16, I find entered in my notebook the following news culled from different newspapers :

Mogilev (Staff Headquarters). – Concentration here of Cossacks, the “Savage Division,” several guard regiments, and the “Death Battalions” – for action against the Bolsheviks.

The Junker regiments from the officers' schools of Pavlovak, Tsarkow Selo, Peterhof, ordered by the government to be ready to come to Petrograd. Oranienbaum Junkers arrived in the city.

Part of the Armored Car Division of the Petrograd Garrison stationed at the Winter Palace.

At a meeting of the City Militia of the low-Liteiny district a resolution was passed demanding that all power be pivett to the Soviets.

Upon orders signed by Trotsky, several thousand rifles delivered by the Sestroretzk government arms factory. Petrograd workers being armed, and assigned in regiments. (This was the creation of the famous Red Guard.)

At Smolny, first meeting since Kornilov days of the Committee to Fight the Counter-Revolution.

At Smolny, meeting of representatives of the Petrograd garrison, and formation of the Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet.

This is just a fragmentary sample of the confused, violent happenings of those feverish clays, when everybody sensed that something was going to happen, but no one knew just what. On Sunday, the 22nd, the Cossacks had planned a “Chrestni Chod” – Procession of the Cross – in honor of the Ikon of 1624, by whose virtue Napoleon was driven from Moscow. The Petrograd Soviet published broadcast a proclamation, headed, “Brothers-Cossacks !”

“You, Cossacks, are wanted to be up against us, workmen and soldiers. This plan of Cain is being put into operation by our common enemies – oppressors of the privileged classes, generals, bankers, landlords, former officials, former servants of the Tsar. . . . We are hated by all grafters, rich men, princes, nobility, generals, including your Cossack generals. They are ready at any moment to destroy the Petrograd Council, and crush the Revolution. . . . On the 22nd of October somebody is organizing a Cossack religious procession. It is a question of the free consciousness of every individual whether he will or will not take part in this procession. We do not interfere in this matter and do not cause any obstruction to anybody. . . . However, we warn you, Cossacks ! Look out and see to it that under the pretext of a Chrestni Chad, your Kaledines do not instigate you against workmen, against soldiers.”

The Military Commander of the Petrograd district hastily called off the procession. On the 19th all the newspapers and all the house-walls of Petrograd carried a government proclamation, signed by Polkovnikov, Commander of Petrograd, ordering the arrest of all persons inciting the soldiers to armed manifestations, forbidding all street meetings, demonstrations, and processions, and ordering the soldiers and the militia to prevent by military force all unauthorized arrests and searches in houses. As if by magic, the walls were covered with proclamations, appeals, warnings, from all the Central Committees, from the Executive Committees of the moderate and conservative parties, calling upon the workmen and soldiers not to come out, not to obey the Petrograd Soviet. For instance, this from the Military Section of the Central Committee of the Social Revolutionist Party :

“Again rumors are spreading around the town of an intended vistuplennie. What is the source of these rumors ? What organisation authorizes these agitators who talk of the insurrection ? The Bolsheviks, to a question addressed to them in the Central Executive Committee of the Soviets, replied in the negative. ... But these rumors themselves carry with them a great danger. It may easily happen that, not taking into consideration the state of mind of the majority of the workers, soldiers and peasants, the individual hot-heads will call out part of the workmen and soldiers on the streets, exciting them to rise. ... In this terrible hard time which revolutionary Russia is passing through, this insurrection can easily become civil war, and there can result from it the destruction of all organizations of the proletariat, founded with so much pains. ... The counter-revolutionary plotters are planning to take advantage of this insurrection to destroy the revolution, open the front to Wilhelm, and wreck the Constituent Assembly. ... Stick stubbornly to your posts ! Do not come out ! ...

Meanwhile from all sides the situation was growing tenser day by day. The Bolshevik papers steadily counseled that the All-Russian Soviets should assume the power, end the war, give the land to the peasants. On the extreme right, such organs as Purishkevitch's “Narodny Tribun,” the illegal monarchist paper – and the “Novaia Rus,” “Jivoe Slam,” etc., openly advocated pogroms – massacres of the Jews, of the Soviets. Mysterious individuals circulated around the long lines of miserable people waiting in queue, long cold hours for bread and milk, whispering that the Jews had cornered the food supply –and that while the people starved, the Soviet members at Smolny lived luxuriously. But the Bolshevik papers spoke, and the masses listened, and were quiet – waiting.

A Picture of Petrograd

Petrograd presented a curious spectacle in those days. Ira the factories the committee rooms filled with stacks of arms, couriers came and went, the Red Guard drilled. ... In all the barracks meetings every night, and all day long interminable hot arguments. On the streets the crowds thickened toward gloomy evening, pouring in slow, voluble tides up and down the Nevski, bunched by the hundreds around some new proclamation pasted on a wall, and fighting for the newspapers. ... At Smolny there were new strict guards at the door, at both the gates and outer gates, demanding everybody's pass. Inside the committee rooms :hummed and whirled all day and all night, hundreds of soldiers and armed workmen slept on the floor, wherever they could find room. Upstairs in the great hail which had been the ballroom of that one-time convent school for aristocratic girls, a thousand soldiers and workmen crowded for the uproarious all-night meetings of the Petrograd Soviet. From the thousand miles of battle-front the twelve millions of men in Russia's armies, moved under the wind of revolt, with a noise like the sea rising, poured their hundreds upon hundreds of delegations into the capital, crying “Peace ! Peace !” There was a convention of the All-Russian Factory Shop Committees at Smolny, passing hot resolutions about the control of workers over industry. The peasants were doming in, denouncing the Central Committee of the Peasants' Soviets as traitors, and demanding that all power be given to the Soviets. ...

And in the city the theatres were all going, the Russian Ballet appearing in new and extravagant spectacles, Chaliapine singing at the Narodny Dom. Hundreds of gambling clubs functioned feverishly all night long, with much champagne flowing, stakes of 2o,ooo roubles. ... Private entertainments were given by the millionaire speculators, who were buying and selling for fabulous prices the food, the munitions, the clothing. ... On the Nevski every night thousands of prostitutes in jewels and expensive furs walked up and down, crowded the cafes. ... Monarchist plots, German spying, smugglers hatching schemes. ... And in the rain, the bitter chill, the great throbbing city under gray skies rushing faster and faster toward – what ?

III.

Now while everybody was waiting for the Bolsheviks to appear suddenly on the streets one morning and begin to shoat down people with white collars on, the real insurrection took its way quite naturally and openly.

One of the recent blundering actions of the Provisional Government had been to order the Petrograd garrison to the front, with the object of replacing it with loyal troops. To this order the Petrograd Soviet protested, alleging that it was the intention of the Government to remove from the revolutionary capital the revolutionary troops defending it. The General Staff insisted. Thereupon the Petrograd Soviet .agreed in principle, at the same time stipulating that it be allowed to send a delegation to the front to confer with General-in-Chief Tcheremissov, and agree with him on the troops which were to come to Petrograd. The Petrograd garrison also appointed a delegation ; but an order from the General Staff forbade the committee to leave the city. To the Soviet delegation General Tcheremissov insisted that the .Petrograd garrison should obey his orders without question : .and that the General Staff would send to Petrograd whatever troops it saw fit.

At the same time the Staff in command of the Petrograd District began quietly to act. The Junker artillery was drawn into the Winter Palace. Patrols of Cossacks made their appearance, the first since July, and great heavy armored motor cars mounted with machine-guns began to lumber tap and down the Nevski. ... The military section of the Petrograd Soviet demanded that a Soviet representative be admitted to the meetings of the Staff. Refused. Petrograd Soviet asked that no orders be issued without the approval of the military section. Refused. On the sixteenth the representatives of all the regiments of the Petrograd garrison held a meeting at Smolny, at which they formed the famous Military Revolutionary Committee, and declared formally, “The Petrograd garrison no longer recognizes the Provisional Government. The Soviet is our government. We will obey only the orders of the Petrograd Soviet, through the Military Revolutionary Committee.”

On the twenty-third, the Government announced that it had sufficient force to suppress any attempted rising. That night Kerensky ordered the suppression both of the extreme right papers, “Novaia Rus” and “Jivoe Slovo,” and of the Bolshevik papers, “Rabotchi Poot” and “Saida.” An hour after the Junkers had closed the offices and printing shops, and put the Government seals on the doors, a company of soldiers from one of the Guard regiments broke the seals in the name of the Military Revolutionary Committee. At the same time other troops from Smolny seized the printing plant of the “Rousskaia Volia,” a bourgeois paper, and began to print the “Rabotchi Poor.” In trying to prevent this, Mayer, Chief of the Militia, was shot by the Red Guard.

During the night several transports full of Bolshevik sailors came from Kronstadt, with the cruiser “Aurora.” The Government ordered that the bridges over the Nova be raised, so that the regiments across the river and the work-men from the Viborg district could not come to aid the rebels. The Cronstadt sailors made a landing under fire, in which several people were killed, and closed the bridges. In the evening bands of Junkers stationed themselves at street corners near the Winter Palace and began to requisition automobiles ; and after some hours the Bolshevik troops began to do the same.

Working-Class Assumes Power

Tuesday morning, the 24th, the people of Petrograd awoke to find the city plastered with proclamations signed “Military Revolutionary Committee of the Petrograd Soviet of Work-men's and Soldiers' Delegates” :

“To the Population of Petrograd. Citizens ! Counter-Revolution has raised its criminal head. The Kornilovtsi are mobilizing their forces in order to crush down the All-Russian Congress of the Soviets and break up the Convention of the Constituent. At the same time the pogromists may attempt to call upon the people of Petrograd for trouble and bloodshed. The Petrograd Soviet of Workmen's and Soldiers' Delegates takes upon itself the guarding of revolutionary order in the city against counter-revolutionary and pogrom attempts.

“The Petrograd garrison will not allow any violence or disorders. The population is invited to arrest hooligans and Black Hundred agitators and take them to the Soviet commissars at the nearest barracks. At the first attempt of the dark forces to make trouble on the streets of Petrograd, whether robbery or fighting, the criminals will be rubbed away from the face of the earth !

“Citizens ! We call upon you to maintain complete quiet and self-possession. The cause of order and Revolution is in strong hands.”

At Smolny that night meeting of the old Central Executive Committee of the All-Russian Soviets – its last – to welcome the delegates to the new Convention. Futile resolutions against the demonstration, in favor of complete submission to the Provisional Government. ... At the Council of the Republic, Kerensky thundered that the Government would, suppress all uprisings mercilessly. ... At the Winter Palace heated conferences, expulsion of impotent Colonel Polkovnikov as Commander of Petrograd, appointment of a special committee, headed by Kishkine, to reestablish order. . . Call to the Junkers of Pavlovsk, of Tsarkoe, to come – and replies that they dare not, Bolshevik troops in the way. ... Calls to the Cossacks – who reply that they will not come out unless they are supported by infantry. ...

At midnight members of the Pavlovsk regiment, who have secreted themselves in the meeting-room of the General Staff, overhear the plans that are being made to arrest the Bolshevik leaders, capture the Smolny and disperse the All-Russian convention. Immediately they post guards at all the entrances to the Staff, begin arresting officers and members of the Ministry, take them to Smolny – where no one knows what to do with them. Released with apologies. And then, two hours later, Junkers seizing the principal points of the city, the Military Revolutionary Committee gets into action. Ministers and Staff officers to be arrested, armored cars ordered out to hold the street-corners. Bolshevik troops sent to seize the State Bank, the Telephone Station, drive the Junkers out of the Telegraph Station, and draw a cordon around the Winter Palace. ... But Kerensky has already fled.

The masses are in power. ... And on the morning of October 31, after the defeat of Kerensky's Cossack army, Lenine and Trotzky sent through me to the revolutionary proletariat of the world this message :

“Comrades ! Greeting from the first proletarian republic of the world. We call you to arms for the international social revolution.”

Notes

1. All dates according to Russian calendar. 0dr dates thirteen days earlier.

2. “So, you have broken the peace ! The Russian revolution was everything to us, too. Everything in Germany was tottering, falling... For months the soldiers of the two armies fraternized, and our officers were powerless to stop it. Then suddenly the Russians fired upon their German comrades ! After that it was easy to convince the Germans that the Russian peace was false. Alas, my poor friends ! Germany will destroy you now, and for us is black despair come again...” – Letter of Rosa Luxembourg to a Russian Socialist, July, 1917.

PART TWO

October 23, 1917.

“I AM a doomed man,” said Alexander Kerensky from the tribune of the Council of the Russian Republic on October 13th, “and it doesn't matter what happens to me . ...”

Doomed indeed. Tuberculosis of the kidneys, of the lungs, and they say tumor of the stomach. Extremely emotional, strung to an almost hysterical pitch, the awful task of riding the Russian whirlwind is wearing him down visibly.

“Comrades !” he said at the Democratic Assembly, “If I speak to you like this, it is because the cross I. carry, and which forces me to be far from you, is so terribly heavy !”

At the time of this writing, October 23, Kerensky is alone, as perhaps never leader has been alone in all history. In the midst of the class-struggle, which deepens and grows bitterer day by day, his place becomes more and more precarious. Things are moving swiftly to a crisis, to the “lutte finale” between bourgeoisie and proletariat – which Kerensky tried with all his strength to avoid – and the “Moderates” disappear from the stormy scene. Kerensky alone remains, stubborn and solitary, holding his way . ...

The revolutionary democracy says that he has “sold out” to the bourgeoisie and the foreign imperialists. The bourgeoisie and the reactionary foreign influences – with the British Embassy at their head – accuse him of having “sold out” to the Germans. Upon him is concentrated the hatred of both sides, as upon a symbol of Russia torn in half. Kerensky will fall, and his fall will be the signal for civil war.

The familiar vilifications are heaped upon him ; he is everything from “traitor” to “corruptor of children.” A common tale, reprinted weekly in the newspapers, is that of his separation from his wife, and approaching marriage with a well-known variety actress – or even that the actress is living in the Winter Palace. One of the former Ministers, whose apartment was next to Kerensky's, says that he was kept awake all night by the Premier singing operatic arias – and adds that Kerensky sleeps in the gold and blue bed of the Tsar Alexander III, which is a very wide bed . ... People repeat that Kerensky is surrounding himself with imperial pomp, and I have been told how, while speaking at the Moscow Conference, he kept two. officers standing at salute until they fainted – a myth which has been exploded by every eyewitness. But the most widely-spread accusation is that “he is just trying to make a name for himself in history.” And if that is Kerensky's fell design, he has succeeded.

In all the multitudes of revolutionary leaders there is not one with Kerensky's personal magnetism, his dramatic faculty of firing men. I first saw him at the Democratic Assembly, where he marched into the middle of the great Alexandrinsky Theater, in the midst of an immense hostile crowd firmly convinced that he was implicated in the Kornilov affair, and swept them off their feet by his passionate speech. At the opening of the Council of the Russian Republic I again heard him, and twice more, raising himself and his audience to heights of emotion, collapsing utterly afterward, and the last time weeping violently in his seat. A tall, broad-shouldered figure as he stood there, in his utterly plain brown uniform, rather flabby around the middle, with flashing eyes, bristling hair, abrupt gestures, and swift, resonant speech. What did he say ? Nothing very concrete, except once when he bitterly denounced the Bolsheviki for provoking bloodshed. Otherwise vague defenses of himself, generalities about the necessity for disorder in the country to cease, about defending the revolution, about free Russia . . . . A man of moods, nervous, domineering, independent, of fearful capacity for work under frightful physical handicaps, absolutely honest but with no real fixity of purpose – as the leader of the Russian Revolution should have. And sick.

We had many appointments to see him at his office in the Winter Palace. Always at the last moment he would suddenly be taken ill, or busy – with meetings of the Government, the War Council, deputations from the front, from the Caucausus, Siberia, visits of the Allied Ambassadors, or a delegation like one we saw – reactionary priests objecting to the separation of Church and State . ...

Finally one day we penetrated as far as the private billiard-room of the Emperor, an immense chamber paneled in rosewood inlaid with brass, where in a corner beside the Gargantuan rosewood billiard table, below the shrouded portraits of the Tsars, was the plain desk at which he worked. The military Commissar for the Russian troops in France and Salonika was striding up and down, biting his nails. It appeared that the Minister-President was closeted with the British Ambassador, hours late for all appointments ...

Then, just as we were about to give up, the door opened and a smiling little spic-and-span naval adjutant beckoned. We entered a great mahogany room, lined with heavy Gothic book-cases, in the center of which a stairway mounted to a balcony above. This was the Tsar's private library and. reception-room. I had time to notice the works of jack London, in English, on a shelf, when Kerensky came toward us. As he shook hands he looked into each face searchingly for a second, and then led the way swiftly across to a big table with chairs all around.

On his high forehead the short hair bristled straight up like a brush, grey-discolored. His whole face was greyish in color, puffed out unhealthily, with deep pouches under the eyes. He looked at one shrewdly, humorously, squinting as if the light hurt. The long fingers of his hands twisted nervously tight around each other once or twice, and then he laid them on the table, and they were quiet. His whole attitude was quizzically friendly, as if receiving reporters was an amusing relaxation. When he picked up a paper with questions on it, I noticed that he put it within an inch of his eyes, as if he were terribly near-sighted.

“What do you consider your job here ?” I asked him. He laughed as if it tickled him.

“Just to free Russia,” he answered drily, and smiled as if it were a good joke.

“What do you think will be the solution of the present struggle between the extreme radicals and the extreme reactionaries ?”

“That I won't answer,” he shot back swiftly. “What's the next ?”

“What have you to say to the democratic masses of the United States ?”

“Well . . .” he rubbed his chin and grinned. “What am I going to say to that ?” His attitude said, do you think I'm God Almighty ? “Let them understand the Russian democracy,” he went on, “and help it to fight reaction – everywhere in the world. Let them understand the soul of Russia, the real spirit of the Russian people. That's all I have to say to them.”

I then asked, “What lesson do you draw from the Russian Revolution for the revolutionary democratic elements of the world ?”

“Ah-hah.” He turned that over in his mind and gave me a sharp look. “Do you think the Revolution in Russia is over, then ? It would be very shortsighted for me to draw Inv lesson from the Revolution.” He jerked his head in emphasis, and spoke vehemently. “Let the masses of the Russian people in action teach their own lesson. Draw the lesson yourself, comrade – you can see it before your eyes !”

He stopped and then began abruptly :

“This is not a political revolution. It is not like the French revolution. It is an economic revolution, and there will be necessary in Russia a profound revaluation of classes. And it is also a complicated process for the many different nationalities of Russia. Remember that the French revolution took five years, and that France was inhabited by one people, and that France is only the size of three of our provincial districts. No, the Russian revolution is not over – it is just beginning !”

I made way for the Associated Press correspondent, who had the usual Associated Press prejudices against common peasants, soldiers and workingmen who insisted upon calling one tavaristch – comrade.

“Mr. Kerensky,” said the Associated Press man, “in England and France people are disappointed with the Revolution –”

“Yes, I know,” interrupted Kerensky, quizzically. “Abroad it is fashionable to be disappointed with the Revolution !”

“I mean,” went on the Associated Press man, a little disconcerted, “people are disappointed in Russia's part in the war.”

I remember it was the day after the news reached Petrograd of the great defeat of the Italians on the Carso ; for Kerensky immediately shot back, with a grin, “The young man had better go to Italy !”

The Associated Press man tried again. “What is your explanation of why the Russians have stopped fighting ?”

“That is a foolish question to ask,” Kerensky was annoyed. “Russia started the war first, and for a long time she bore the whole brunt of it. Her losses have been inconceivably greater than any other nation. Russia has now the right to demand of the Allies that they bring to bear a greater force of arms.” He stopped and stared for a moment at his interlocutor. “You are asking why the Russians have stopped fighting, and the Russians are asking where is the British fleet – with the German battleships in the Gulf of Riga ?” Again he ceased suddenly, and as suddenly burst out again. “The Russian Revolution hasn't failed and the Revolutionary Army hasn't failed. It is not the Revolution which caused disorganization in the army – that disorganization was accomplished years ago, by the old regime. Why aren't the Russians fighting ? I will tell you. Because the masses of the people are economically tired – and because they are disillusioned with the Allies !”

The Associated Press man tried a new tack. “Do you think it would be advantageous to bring American troops to Russia ?”

“Good,” remarked the Premier off-hand, “but impossible. Transportation . . .”

“What can America do which would help Russia the most ?” Without hesitation Kerensky answered, “Send us boots, shoes, machinery – and money.”

Abruptly he stood up, shook hands, and before we were out the room he went quickly across to a desk piled high with papers, and began to write . . .

II.

November 25, 1917.

It is just a month since I wrote the first part of this article. Kerensky saw the truth but he could not gauge the excitation of spirit, the deep trouble of the slow-moving Russian masses. He thought the radical democratic program could be worked out slowly, by means of Constituent Assemblies and such-like, after the victorious end of the War which would have made “the world safe for democracy.” The idea of Socialism, or a Proletarian State, subsisting in the imperfect capitalist world of today, was to him inconceivable.

The Bolshevik peace cry had swelled into a chorus which drowned every other sound. It was at this time that a prominent American visiting Russia said to me, “There is only one real party in Russia – the peace party.”

But Kerensky defied the Bolsheviki, and commenced the struggle which ended when he fled, alone and in disguise from the battlefield where he had been defeated.

By that act he lost whatever popularity he had retained among the revolutionary masses . . . He hardly realized this, for after a silence he addressed to Russia an open letter in which he said :

“Be citizens, don't finish with your own hands the country and the revolution for which you have struggled these eight months ! Leave the fools and traitors ! Return to the people, return to the service of the country and the revolution !

“It is I, Kerensky, who say this.

“Pull yourselves together !”

In that hysterical communication may be discerned all the traits of Kerensky's character – the incomprehension of the movement, sympathy for the people, absolute and utter disbelief in the revolutionary method nervous bitterness, wounded pride . . . He could not then have grasped – and cannot now – the fact that the masses of poor people he loved and gave his life to help have turned away from him. At the moment he counts actually less in Russia than Bryan does at home.

PART THREE

“THE bearer of this, Johan Reed, known to the Cultural-Publicity office of the Political Department of the Ministry of War as a member of the American Socialist Party, is authorized to proceed to the active army to gather information for the North American Press…

“Observation : To the Commissar belongs the right to recall agitators and propagandists.”

Surely never stranger passport carried correspondent to the front, opened all doors, made the commandant of the Baltic station set aside a separate first-class compartment for the “American Mission,” as he called us. An Orthodox priest, hound on volunteer priestly duty to the trenches, humbly begged the honor of travelling in our company. He was a big, healthy man, with a wide, simple Russian face, a gentle smile, an enormous reddish beard, and an insatiable desire for conversation.

“Eta Vienna ! It's true !” he said, with the suspicion of a sigh. “The revolution has weakened the hold of the church on the masses of the people. Some say that we served the old regime – that we ‘blessed the gallows' of the revolutionary martyrs. But I remember in 1905, when thirteen sappers were executed for mutiny, no priest would administer the last rites. How could we speak consoling words to a man about to be murdered ?

“Some have lost all faith, but the great masses are still very religious – even though extreme revolutionaries. On the caps of the reserves used to be a cross and the words, ‘Zaverau, tsaria, i otechestvo' – ‘For faith, tsar, and fatherland.' Well, they scratched out the ‘faith' along with the rest. ...” He shook his head. “In the old text of the church prayers God was referred to as ‘Tsar of Heaven,' and the Virgin as ‘Tsarina.' We've had to leave that out – the people wouldn't have God insulted, they say. ...”

We went on to speak of his work in the armies, and his face grew infinitely tender.

“During regimental prayer the priest prays for peace to all nations. Whereupon the soldiers cry out, ‘Add “without annexations or indemnities !”' Then we pray for all those who are travelling, for the sick and the suffering ; and the soldiers cry, ‘Pray also for the deserters !' Simple-minded children ! They think that God must grant anything if it is included in a regular prayer by a regularly ordained priest. Woe to the priest who refuses to pray the soldiers' prayer !” He mused for a moment.

“But the soldiers are not pious when they are not in danger. It is only before an attack that they come crowding to me to confess themselves, often weeping, who beg me to pray the good God for their souls. We Russians have a proverb – ‘The Russian man won't cross himself until it thunders.'”

We talked of the great Church Congress at Moscow, the first since Peter the Great, with its convocation of the Patriarchs of Constantinople, Athens, Alexandria and Jerusalem, the Metropolitans of the Russian cities, the Arch-bishops from Japan, Persia, Roumania, Turkestan, all in a ferment of democratic revolt ; and of the innumerable Russian sects –Doukhobors, Molochani Baptists, Diendicki or a “Holers,” who must have a hole in the roof of their tabernacle for the Holy Ghost to descend through. Williams, my American companion, told of a Volga peasant, who attributed the ills of Russia to the sinful practise of crossing oneself with three fingers – he being an Old Believer, and using only two. . . . And the priest explained to us how the rites of the Orthodox Church were designed to symbolize different stages in the life and passion of Christ, and how no woman, even a girl-child being baptized, was permitted at the altar.

At every station the train made a long halt to allow the passengers time for many glasses of tea and a great gulping of food, in the cheerful, steamy clatter of crowded waiting rooms. In between times utter strangers, officers and civilians, drifted in, and our converse was of curious matters.

The evening papers announced that Martov and the Mensheviki-Internationalists had formally broken with the Tseretelli-Lieber-Dan group, because of their “hesitating policy of compromise.”

“Tseretelli, Dan, Lieber, Gotz, and Tcheidze are the Girondins of our time,” said one young captain who spoke French. “And they will share the fate of the Gironde. I am with them,” he added.

The priest lived in Tashkent, in the Trans-Caspia, where he had a wife and five children. He told about the singular institution of the Thieves' Bureau, where persons who had been robbed could go and recover their property by paying its value, less 20 per cent. discount for cash. A thin little school-teacher described the Thieves' Convention held in Rostov-on-Don this summer with delegates from all over Russia, which dispatched a formal protest to the Government against the rapacity and venality of the police. And a fat polkovnik spoke of the Convention of German and Austrian Prisoners of War, in Moscow, which demanded the eight-hour workday – and got it !

Rumor had it that the armies at the front would leave the trenches and go home for the feast of Pakrov, the first of October – then only four days off. Each one was concerned about this immense threat of dissolution. . . . The priest had been present at two meetings of regimental Soviets, where bitter. resolutions had been passed. Some one had the official newspaper of the Eighth Army soldiers' committees, with an obscure account of military riots at Gomel. The Lettish troops were also stirred up. What if the millions of Russian soldiers were simply to stop fighting and start for the cities, for the capital, for their villages ? The old polkovnik muttered, “We are lost. Russia is defeated. And besides, life is so uncomfortable now that it is not worth living. Why not finish everything ?” With whom the French-speaking officer, revolutionists by theory, debated hotly but courteously. The priest told a very simple Rabelaisian story about a soldier who seduced a peasant girl by promising that her child would be a general...

It grew late, the lights were dim and intermittent, and there was no heat in the car. The priest shivered. “Well,” he said finally, his teeth chattering, “it is too cold to stay awake !” And with that he lay down just as he was, without any covering but his long skirts, and immediately fell to snoring. ...

Very early in the morning we awoke, stiff and numb. The sun sparkled through the frosty windows. A small boy came through with tea – chocolate candy in place of sugar. The train was poking down across rich Estland, through white birch forests glorious with yellow autumn foliage like bright flame ; sometimes clumps of sombre pines, with the birch leaves breaking through as if the whole woods were on fire ; long, gently-rolling waves of opulent farmland, yellow wheat stubble, emerald green grass still, and the pale blue-green of miles of cabbages ; and immense farm-houses set in the midst of barns, the whole covered with one great thatched roof, on which thick moss was growing. On the slow rises of country, huge gray-stone windmills, weathered and mossy, whirled their agitated sails. Along the track marched a new road-bed, with the ties in place at many points, and piles of rails.

Before the revolution no effort had been made to construct this badly-needed track – since March, however, the Russians had completed twenty-six versts of it ; but the Germans, in the one month since the fall of Riga, had built more than thirty miles.

Soldiers began to thicken, at all stations, in barns and farm-houses far seen ; gigantic bearded men in dun coats, boots, peaked caps or shaggy shapkis, almost always with a touch of red somewhere about them. Patrols of Cossacks rode along the roads deep in black mud. Military trains, all box-cars with masses of men on top and inside, clanked past with broken echoes of mass-singing. The Red Cross flag made its appearance. At Valk an excited sub-officer said we must go up into the town and get passes before proceeding further. The conductor announced that the train would leave in three minutes.

“You will be arrested ! You will be arrested !” cried the sub-officer, shaking his finger at me. But we sat still, and no one ever again spoke of passes.

At Venden, beyond which no trains go, we disembarked in a swirling mob of soldiers going home. A sentry at the door was tired of examining passes and just motioned us wearily through. No one seemed to know where the Staff headquarters was ; finally an officer, after some thought, said he thought the Staff had retired to Valk. “But you don't want the Staff,” he added, “the Iskosol is in charge of things here.” And he pointed to the town's chief building, formerly the Convention of Justices of the Peace, where sat the “Iskosol,” or Central Executive Committee of the Soldiers' Deputies.

In a large bare room on the second floor, amid the clack of busy stenographers and the come-and-go of couriers, deputations, functioned the nerve-center of the Twelfth Army, the spontaneous democratic organization created by the soldiers at the outbreak of the Revolution. A handsome young lieutenant, with Jewish features, stood behind a table, running his hand through his gray-streaked hair worriedly, while a torrent of agitated complaint beat upon him. Four delegations from the regiments in the trenches, mostly soldiers, with a couple of officers mixed in, were appealing to the Iskosol all at once ; one regiment was almost without boots – the Iskosol had promised six hundred pairs and had only delivered sixty ; a very ragged private spokesman for another committee, complained that the artillery had been given their winter fur coats, but the cavalry was still in summer uniform. . . . One sub-officer, a mere boy, kept shouting angrily that the Iskosol buzzed around a good deal, but nothing seemed to be accomplished. . . .

“Da, da !” responded the officer vaguely, “Yes, yes. S chass, s chass. I will write immediately to the Commissariat. . . .”

On a little table were piled heaps of pamphlets and newspapers, among which I noticed ‘Elisee Reclus' “Anarchy and the Church.” A soldier sat in a broken chair nearby, reading aloud the Isvestia – official organ of the Petrograd Executive Committee of the All-Russian Soviets – about the formation of the new government ; and as he declaimed the names of the Cadet ministers, the listeners gave vent to laughter and ironical “hoorah's.” Near the window stood Voitinsky, assistant Commissar of the Twelfth Army, with his semi-military coat buttoned up to his chin – a little man whose blue eyes snapped behind thick glasses, with bristling red hair and beard ; he who was a famous exile in Siberia, and the author of “Snsertsiiki,” a book more terrible than “Seven Who Were Hanged. . . .”

These Commissars are civilians, suggested by the revolutionary Commissars of the French revolutionary government in 1793 ; chief representatives of the Provisional Government at the front, appointed by the Government with the approval of the Soviets.

In precise, short sentences Voitinsky explained that military operations were not his province, unless he was consulted ; but he had just that day come to Venden at the request of a general to decide a question of tactics.

“My job,” he said, “is to build a military machine which will retake Riga. But conditions here are desperate. The army lacks everything – food, clothes, boots, munitions. The roads are awful, and it has been raining steadily for two weeks. The horses of the transport are underfed and worn out, and it is all they can do to haul enough bread to keep us from starving. But the most serious lack at the front, more serious than the lack of food and clothes, is the lack of boots, pamphlets and newspapers. You see, since the revolution the army has absorbed tons of literature, propaganda, and has a gnawing hunger ; and now all that is cut off. We not only permit, but encourage the importation of all kinds of literature in the army – it is necessary in order to keep up the spirits of the troops. Since the Kornilov affair, and especially since the Democratic Congress, the soldiers have been very uneasy. Yes, many have simply laid down their arms and gone home. The Russian army is sick of war. . . .”

Voitinsky had had no sleep for thirty-six hours. Yet he fairly radiated quick energy as he saluted and ran down the steps to his mud-covered automobile-bound on a forty-mile ride through the deep mud, in the shadow of the coming rainstorm, to judge a dispute between officers and soldiers. …

Growling and grumbling the regimental delegations went their way, and the Jewish subaltern, whose name was Tumarkin, led us into another room and passed around cigarettes, while he recounted the history of the Iskosol.

It was the first revolutionary organization of soldiers in active service.

“You see,” said Tumarkin, “the row in Petrograd took us by surprise. Of course we knew that sooner or later . . . but it came all of a sudden, as such things do. There were a crowd of us revolutionists in the army – I myself was a political exile in France when the war broke out.

“Well, in the revolution of 1905 there was established a Soviet of Workmen in Petrograd, and we tried to make one in the army, at various places. But the masses of the soldiers were ignorant of Socialist ideas, and indifferent – so we failed then. Afterward we realized our mistake, and began to work on the army ; but in February, 1917, when. things broke loose in Peter, we were scared. We thought they might send us to suppress the revolution. So we hastily met, about a dozen of us, and started to win over the army. . . .

“News from Petrograd was rare and contradictory. Our own staff officers were hostile. We didn't know if the revolution was winning or not. ... For a week we hurried from place to place, holding soldiers' meetings, explaining, arguing ; and at every meeting we made the men pass a resolution swearing that they would face death for the revolution.

“On March 9, just eleven days after the outbreak in the capital, we got together a Soviet of the army in Riga – one delegate from each company, battery and squadron – three thousand in all. They elected an Executive Committee of sixty men, which began to establish communications with other revolutionary military organizations. Most of the time we didn't know even if there were any other bodies like ours, but simply telegraphed to ‘Revolutionary Soldiers, Fourth Army' – like that. And for signature we made a codeword of the first three syllables of our organization's name – ‘Is-ko-sol.' All the other Executive Committees call themselves ‘Armikom.'

“Three days after organizing we began to publish our paper, Russki Front. What a job it was, to educate, to organize ! The officers didn't understand the revolution – they had been trained to a caste apart ; hut there was no killing of officers in this army. Only expulsions. . . . Before we left Riga the Russki Front had a circulation of 25,000 among the soldiers, and 5,000 in the city ; to support it we proclaimed a Contribution Day for the Soldiers' Press, and raised 58,000 roubles. . . .”

The Iskosol is only one typical manifestation of the immense fertility of representative organization, a thousand times duplicated, which pervades Russian military and civil life now. It is primarily the organ by which the soldiers of the Twelfth Army take part in the furious new political life of the country ; but in the chaos left by the breakdown of the old regime, it has been forced to assume extraordinary functions. For example : The Iskosol fulfills the duties of commissariat department ; it attempts to reconcile differences between officers and men ; conducts primary and secondary schools among all bodies of troops in repose or reserve ; and in certain cases, like the retreat from Riga, where the commanding staff was utterly demoralized, takes actual command of the troops. Its members are scattered throughout the army, sent from place to place during engagements, encouraging, inspiring, leading. . . .

Beneath it is an intricate system of committees – in each company, regiment, brigade, division, corps – half political, half military, and all elected by the soldiers, with representatives in each higher committee – the whole finally culminating in the Little Soviet of Soldiers' Deputies, one delegate from each regiment, which meets about once a month-and the Big Soviet, five from each regiment, whose sessions are less frequent, and whose Executive Committee, elected every three months, forms the Iskosol. The Iskosol has three delegates in the Central Committee of the All-Russian Soviets at Petrograd, and one man attached to the Army Staff.

But that is not all. The passion for democratic expression and the swiftness of revolutionary events has given birth to other organizations. Three months ago, when the Iskosol was elected, there was very little Bolshevik sentiment in the Twelfth Army ; but since the Kornilov affair the masses of soldiers are largely Bolshevik. Now the Iskosol has no Bolshevik members, and the Iskosol is predominantly abaronetz – in favor of continuing the war to victory. So forty-three regiments have formed a new central body of Bolshevik delegates, called the Left Bloc, which also has representatives in Petrograd.

And then there are the Letts. There are nine Lettish regiments in the army, the most desperate fighters – since they are fighting for their own homes, and the great majority of these are revolutionary social democrats. Although represented in the Iskosol, they have their own central body also, the “Iskolostreel,” or Central Committee of the Lettish “Streelniki” – Sharp-shooters. Over the Iskolostreel is still a higher body, the “Iskolat” – Central Committee of the Lettish Soviet of Soldiers, Workers, and Landless Farm-workers. As all over Russia this district or province Soviet is fed by innumerable small Soviets in every village, town and city, and has its delegates in the All-Russian Central body at Petrograd. The landless farm-laborers, however, who are a real agricultural proletariat, in Estland replace the peasants of the other Russian provinces ; and the Russian Soviet of the district is composed only of soldiers, as there are neither Russian workmen nor Russian peasants in Livonia.

There is still another organization, called the Nationalist Bloc, composed of Poles, Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Finns and various others of the fifty-seven peoples of Russia whose purpose is to agitate for separation of various degrees. . . .

And it is a characteristic of this extraordinary complex, multiple system of elective organizations, working feverishly and often at cross-purposes, that it throws off among its other forms of expression a prodigious amount of literature. The Iskosol publishes Russki Front, the Soviet another paper called Bulletin of the Soldiers' Delegates ; from the Left Bloc comes Golos XII Armia ; the Nationalist Bloc has its own organ ; the Iskolostreel runs the daily Latwfu Strehlneeks ; and before the fall of Riga there were besides three papers of as many Social Democrat factions, one of the Socialist Revolutionists, and a fifth of the Populist party-besides all the regular pre-revolutionary journals of Riga ; and most of these have again sprung up in the little Lettish towns among the gun positions. Added to all these are the Petrograd papers, especially Gorky's Novaia Zhizn and the Bolshevik Soldat and Rabotchi Root, and all the others whose endless names escape me, which are poured into the army zone by the hundreds of millions.

And all this terrible eagerness for self-government and for self-expression is working as much in all the Russian armies, everywhere along a thousand miles of front, among twelve million men suddenly free from tyranny. . . .

Tumarkin was telling us how the Iskosol sent its own delegates to Baku for oil, to the Volga to buy or commandeer wheat, up into Archangelsk Government for timber, and how it ordered guns and ammunition from the big munitions works in Petrograd. Just then the door opened and a frowzled head peeked in, followed by a dirty, bearded face. “I am lost !” groaned Tumarkin. Immediately the room seemed full of sullen-looking soldiers ; spokesmen of delegations began.

“I represent,” said he of the face, “the cooks of the 26th Division. We haven't any more wood – the soldiers want us to tear down the farmhouses to make fires for cooking their meals.”

The next soldier elbowed his way to the front, spurs clinking. The horses of the cavalry were dying of hunger. No hay. . . . Tears welled up in his eyes ; he had seen his own horse fall down in the road. . . .

“Here !” cried the unhappy Tumarkin, holding out a paper to us. “This is a proclamation we printed in the Soldiers' Press the day Riga fell. The shells were bursting around the office while we set type. Volunteers pasted it up on the walls and posts all over the city–” And he was swallowed up.

The proclamation was in German.

“The Executive Committee of the Russian Soviet of Soldiers' Deputies of the Twelfth Army to the German Soldiers.

“German Soldiers !

“The Russian soldiers of the Twelfth Army draw your attention to the fact that you are carrying on a war for autocracy against revolution, freedom and justice. The victory of Wilhelm will be death to democracy and freedom. We withdraw from Riga, but we know that the forces of the revolution will ultimately prove themselves more powerful than the force of cannons. We know that in the long run your conscience will overcome everything, and that the German soldiers, with the Russian revolutionary army, will march to the victory of freedom. You are at present stronger than we are, but yours is only the victory of the brute force. The moral force is on our side. History will tell that the German proletarians went against their revolutionary brothers, and they forgot the international working-class solidarity. This crime you can expiate only by one means. You must understand your own and at the same time the universal interests, and strain all your immense power against imperialism, and go hand in hand with us – toward life and freedom !”

Outside it was raining, and the mud of the streets had been tracked on the sidewalks by thousands of boots until it was difficult to walk. The city was darkened against hostile aeroplanes ; only chinks of light gleamed from shutters, and blinds glowed dull red. The narrow street made unexpected turns. In the dark we hurtled incessant passing soldiers, spangled with cigarette-lights. Close by passed a series of great trucks, some army-transport, rushing down in the black gloom with a noise like thunder, and a fan-like spray of ooze. Right before me someone scratched a match, and I saw a soldier pasting a white paper on a wall. Our guide, one of the Iskosol, gave an exclamation and ran up, flashing an electric torch. We read :

“Comrade soldiers !

“The Venden Soviet of Workmen's and Soldiers' Deputies has arranged for Thursday, September 28, at 4 o'clock in the park, a MEETING. Tavaristch Peters, of the Central Committee of the Lettish Social Democratic party, will speak on :

“‘The Democratic Congress and the Crisis of Power.'”

The Iskosol man was sputtering. “That meeting is forbidden,” he cried. “The commandant has forbidden it !” The other man spat. “The commandant is a damn bourgeois,” he remarked. “This Peters is Bolshevik,” argued our friend. “Meetings are not allowed in the zone of war. That is the rule. The Iskosol has forbidden this meeting.” But the soldier only grinned maliciously. “The Iskosol too is bourgeois,” he answered, and turned away. “We want to hear about this democratic Congress.”

At the little hotel the proprietor, half hostile, half greedy-frightened, said that there were no rooms.

“How about that room ?” asked our friend, pointing.

“That is the commandants room,” he replied, gruffly.

“The Iskosol takes it,” said the other. We got it.

It was an old Lettish peasant woman who brought us tea, and peered at us out of her bleary eyes, rubbing her hand and babbling German. “You are foreigners,” she said, “glory to God. These Russians are dirty folk, and they do not pay.” She leaned down and hoarsely whispered : “Oh, if the Germans would only hurry. We respectable folk all want the Germans to come here !”

And through the shut wooden blinds, as we settled down to sleep, we could hear the far-off thud-booming of the German cannon hammering on the thin, ill-clad, underfed-Russian lines, torn by doubts, fears, distrust, dying and rotting out there in the rain because they were told that the Revolution would be saved thereby. . . .

[NOTE. – The second part of this article, which will appear next month, carries on the story of this eager and spontaneous self-government, showing it at work in the rank-and-file of the army. We see those “thin, ill-clad, underfed Russian lines,” striving to understand their situation, and trying, in the face of many impossibilities, to save the Revolution.]

PART FOUR

IN the Iskosol automobile, painted war-gray, we slipped down the hill out of Venden, through its German-looking medieval streets, thronged with masses of soldiers, past a long train of bullock-carts coming back empty from the direction of the front. At the edge of the village a regiment was swinging up, headed by its band playing the Russian “Marseillaise,” and a great flag all red, with gold letters, “Peace and Liberty.” The soldiers were coming out of the bloody trenches. They had marched thirty miles through mud. To the great sweep of the revolutionary music they tramped stiffly, arms swinging with the peculiar motion of the Russian infantry, heads thrown up and back, grey, gaunt faces strained and stern. A forest of tall bayonets swayed above them, and they choked the narrow street – a torrent of mud-colored humanity. The coats of several were in rags – some were walking in bare feet. The window in a house wall high-up swung open, and a yellow-haired girl leaned out, laughed and waved. . . .

It rained, as it had rained steadily, monotonously, for days ; as it would probably go on raining for weeks. . . . The Jewish lieutenant who went with us was pouring out scraps, odds and ends of interesting information. He told how the Jews had always been forced to serve in the ranks, but that since the Revolution thousands had become officers although many preferred to stay in the ranks because shoulder-straps are distrusted by the soldiers. Before the Revolution the soldiers only received 65 kopeks (now about thirteen cents), per month – but now they got seven and a half roubles (a dollar and a half), every thirty days ; and out of that they often had to buy food . . . Then there was the question of decorations, the various degrees of the Orders of St. Ann, St. Vladimir, and St. George, the last of which carry with them certain small money payments. Before the Revolution these crosses were bestowed by a council of superior officers, as emanating from the Emperor ; now they were given by acclamation by an assembly of the soldiers. These were only slight details indicating the profound change that had taken place in all the relations of military life.

He also spoke of the retreat from Riga, adding to the sinister story the events he himself had witnessed. “In the rout,” he said, “the army hadn't the least idea what to do. The staff completely lost its head, as it did at Tarnopol. For three days it disappeared, leaving only general orders to retreat, and scattered along the roads, each officer for himself. It was the Iskosol which decided to defend our main positions, and we set up headquarters here in Venden and organized the military resistance on our own responsibility. It was bad enough before,” he went on, “but since Riga the soldiers refuse to obey any general staff orders unless counter-signed by us. . . . But it works not badly.”

Now we were bumping along the wide, bleak Pskov chaussee, orginaily paved with cobbles, but pitted and torn by the passage of armies, and deep in mud. Straight and powerful it plunged directly southwest, to the lines – and beyond to Riga – over the rolling country. Peasants, mostly kerchiefed women who grinned cheerfully as we passed, were carelessly dumping stones and dirt on the broken places. An endless succession of trucks and wagon-trains went by, cavalry with long lances and rifles slung cross-wise on their hacks, squads of infantry straggling along, single soldiers. One drove a cow, on which he had hung his rifle and a sack of carrots. There were wounded men, with arms tied in bloody rags. Many were barefoot in the cold ooze. Almost all bore upon their uniforms somewhere a spot of red ; and everyone seemed to have a newspaper in his pocket or his hand.

We turned south off the main highway for a few miles over a road built of tree-trunks laid side by side, corduroy, through deep pine forests to the little village where the Stab Corpue has its headquarters. In the datchia of some long-vanished land-owner the officers of the staff welcomed us, but after glancing at our Socialist credentials, they cooled perceptibly, and did not even offer a glass of tea – which is about as near an insult as a Russian can get. However, the twenty-two year old captain who went with us soon began to talk with Russian expansiveness, telling many things he doubtless should not have told.

“Between ourselves,” he said,” “we all think that there was treason in the fall of Riga. Of course we were terribly overweighted by the German heavy artillery and the army was torn by all sorts of bad feeling between men and officers. But even then. . . . You remember at the Moscow Conference when General Kornilov said : ‘Must we lose Riga to awaken the country to a sense of its peril ?' Well, the retreat from Riga began at the same time as the Kornilov attempt.

“After the first withdrawal of the 186th Division beyond the Dvina, all the army received general orders to retreat – not to any particular point, but simply to retreat. Then the staff disappeared for days. There was a panic. The Iskosol was trying to stop the flight. On the Pskov chausee just north of here I came upon disorganized fragments of the Seventh Division in disorder. An officer showed me the written orders from the staff – simply this – ‘Go north and turn to the left !'”

In the deep woods muddy soldiers were digging pits and building log huts half-underground, covering the roofs with dirt and branches – for winter quarters. All through this back country soldiers swarmed. Each patch of forest was full of artillery-limbers and horses, squadrons of cavalry bivouacked under the trees, and in the sullen downpour thin curls of blue smoke mounted straight up into the cold, quiet air. Again we were speeding along the great Pskov road, through the rich, fertile country of the Estland barons – those powerful German landowners, the most reactionary in all Russia. Great estates extended on both sides of the road, solid miles of fields lately plowed or yellow-green with abandoned crops ; forests, deep green pines or flaming birches ; lakes, pools, rivers ; and the ample farmhouses of rich peasants, or chateaux of the local lords. Occasionally soldiers would be working in the fields. The Association of Zemstovs had plowed and planted all the Baltic provinces so that this year's harvest would feed the army and leave a million poods over – now almost fallen into German hands.

Whole acres of cabbages were rotting yellow, untouched, and fields of beets and carrots were washed out by the rain. The ostentatious country houses stood roofless, burnt ; the peasant homesteads had their windows smashed, and trails of loot led in all directions. And over the silent country, waste and empty, only immense flocks of rooks wheeled screaming in the rain, the throbbing mutter of far-off battle sounded, and the only human life was the hysterical life of an army in battle. . . .

Off to the right a quarter-mile across the plain, the village of Ziegewald was being bombarded. Unseen, unheralded except by the muffled boom of cannons miles away, the shells came whining down out of the gray sky, and house after house heaved up and burst apart in splinters and black smoke. Our automobile turned in and entered the village. Only a block away some unseen thing roared suddenly and tore a building apart – the air was full of bricks. Down the street some peasants stood at the door of their hut, a bearded man and a woman with a baby in her arms, quietly watching. A few soldiers went nonchalantly across the fields, hands in pockets, more interested in us than the shelling. Almost into it we drove, and then turned off to the left. The captain was laughing. Right behind us, where we had passed, a jagged pit opened in the road. Shrapnel began to burst. . . .

Along a deserted road, only used at night – for it was in sight of the enemy – we crept beside a cedar hedge, while over our heads the hurtling shells went whistling, high up. Half a mile behind, over to the right, a Russian six-inch battery fired methodically at some unseen target, so far away that the explosions were barely audible. Through a farm we went, between a big house and a stone barn, both roofless and peopled with soldiers and field-kitchens ; and along an open field to the wooded heights above the river Aa, where lay the Russian first-line trenches.

Like grotesque, mud-colored monsters the Russian soldiers crawled from their bomb-proofs to look us over – gaunt, drab-faced creatures, dressed in outlandish combinations of odds and ends of military and civilian clothes, their feet wrapped in rags. Since we were with officers they were sullenly suspicious, and demanded papers. Through the trees we could see the opposite bluffs, where the Germans lay hidden – but it was still raining steadily, drearily, and there seemed to be a tacit agreement between both sides not to shoot.

A bearded soldier came up, wearing the red arm-band of the soldiers' committee.

“Any news from Petrograd ?” he asked the captain, without saluting. All the others crowded around. The captain answered that he himself had not seen the papers. “Huh !” grunted the other, and turned slowly to us. “If these are Americans,” he went on, “ask them why their country refused to endorse the Russian peace terms. Tell them that this is prolonging the war ; that thousands of Russian men are dying because of it.”

Half a mile further along we stood in front of the company commander's dug-out while he spoke to the captain in low tones of the desperate situation. The soldiers had been saying that soon they would go home ; regiments of four thousand men had been reduced to one thousand ; there was not enough food, clothes, boots ; they had been in the trenches for months, without relief ; they did not trust their officers.

“Tell them in America,” cried a soldier, “that we are not cowards ! We did not run away from Riga without fighting. Three-quarters of us are dead. . . .”

“True ! True !” muttered others, crowding around. A voice shouted, “Riga was betrayed !” There was silence.

Now the rain had at last ceased, in the western sky the towering clouds moved and broke through to blue gold. The rich green land steamed. Birds sang. A group of soldiers stood looking up to heaven with haggard and apprehensive faces ; for with good weather the firing begins. Indeed, almost immediately came the faint high drone of an aeroplane, like a wasp, and we saw it slowly circling up above the trees. All around us the soldiers began scattering to their trenches. Rifles cracked. Behind us the Russian batteries gave tongue, and on the pale sunny sky flowered shrapnel.

“Useless !” The captain shrugged. “We have no anti-aircraft guns, no aeroplanes. The Twelfth Army is blind.”

Overhead the thing soared low, running along the lines, and on its painted armor the sun glanced dully. Guns roared now all over the country ; shells burst before and behind it, but it glided on lightly, contemptuously. From the woods they shouted hoarse insults and fired.

“Come on,” said the captain. “Let's get out of here. They are going to shell this place. . . .”

We had got up the hill behind the gutted farmhouse when it began – the far thud-thud-thud of German three-inch guns, followed by sharp explosions in groups of three, over the place where we had stood. Rifle fire began pricking along the nervous miles. Batteries far and near, concealed in copses, behind old walls, spoke to each other and replied. Invisible missiles wove in the sky a tapestry of deadly sound. The aeroplane swooped and circled alone, humming.

Behind us as we went, all the west turned swiftly golden-red, pouring sunset up the sky, and the clouds piled up in ruins like a city on fire. In the clear yellow-green between a star began to burn, and below it a sausage-shaped German observation balloon crawled slowly up and hung there, sinister, like an eye. . . . Night fell. The fire freshened, pricking and crashing everywhere. Birds sang sleepy songs. A flock of rooks wheeled around a windmill wrecked by artillery. From far-off came the feverish stutter of a machine-gun.

Back through Ziegewald, in the quiet dusk filled again with vague human shapes which moved among the ruins, and along the Pskov road through the blasted country, so empty and yet so full of unnatural life. The stars were out. It was cold. Behind us the battle fell away. Fires twinkled over the plain, in the woods-fires of soldiers, fires of refugees who camped there, many of them without blankets, because the towns were crowded. Echoes of great choruses floated to us, of songs about home, and love, and peace, and harvest –and Revolution. Our headlights picked out details of the miserable interminable procession – the homeless, the wounded, the weary, those with naked feet, patrols, reliefs. . . .

The captain was giving concise details about the state of things. Every regiment had lost at least 6o per cent of its strength. Companies normally of 250 men had now less than too. Battalion commanders now were at the head of regiments ; regimental commanders of divisions ; he himself, nominally the captain of a company, now commanded a battalion. He had been gravely wounded four times.

As for politics, the captain laughingly protested that he had none. He was just an amused onlooker, he said. “What will come will come. To me, a philosopher, life is always the same. Nitchevo. After all, external events do not matter . . . .”

* * * *

Back in Venden . . . . The day before we had seen a notice of a Bolshevik meeting. Tavaristch Peters was to speak. The commandant had forbidden it. But we learned that it had taken place after all. The Iskosol sent word that it must not be held, but the Iskosol was disregarded. The commandant of the town sent dragoons – but the dragoons stayed to the meeting.

The open market-place was thronged with soldiers, and with the few peasants who still remained in the surrounding country. The peasants had cabbages, apples, cheese and some rare belts of homemade cloth to sell ; and the soldiers had loot-chiefly worn silver watches such as the peasants carry, with here and there a ring. The wide cobbled place was thick with moving masses of dun-colored soldiers, often in rags, sometimes without boots. Bits of leather capable of being made into a shoe-sole brought fifty roubles ; aluminum shaving dishes were highly prized, and accordions. I saw a broken suspender hid in for ten roubles.
The “Death March”

A squadron of Cossacks, rifles on backs, rode up the street with their peaked caps over one ear, and their ‘love-locks' very prominent. The leader was playing an accordion ; every few minutes all the voices crashed together in a chorus. Then a Lettish regiment came marching along down, swinging their arms and singing the slow Lettish Death March, so solemn and courageous. As they went along comrades ran out from the sidewalk to kiss them farewell. They were bound for the line of fire.

In the town-hall sat the Refugee Committee, almost swamped by the thousands of people who had fled before the advance of the Germans or the retreat of the Russians – homeless, helpless. The committee had originally been created by the Imperial government, but since the revolution all members are elected by the refugees themselves. The secretary took us down into the foul, flooded cellar where every day were fed seven hundred women, children and old men.
Loot

“Why did the Russian soldiers loot ?” he repeated, thoughtfully. He himself was a Lett. “Well, there were the criminal elements that every army has, and then there were hungry men. Considering the general disorganization it is remarkable they looted so little. Then you must understand that the Russian soldiers have always been taught that on a retreat it is a patriotic duty to drive out the civilian population and destroy everything to prevent it falling into the enemy's hands. But the most important reason is that the Russians were suspicious of the Lettish population, which they thought were Germanophile, and the reactionary officers encouraged this resentment. Hideous things have been done by counter-revolutionary provocateurs.”
War As Class Issue

The Russian soldiers really consider the Baltic provinces alien territory and do not see why they should defend it. And they have looted, robbed. But in spite of all, it is only the German overlords who want the Germans to come in, and the bourgeoisie which depends upon them ; the rest of the population has had a belly-full of German civilization, and the workers, soldiers and landless laborers have long been Social-Democrats, thoroughly in sympathy with the Revolution. That is why the war against Germany was so universally popular in Livonia – it was a class issue.
A Working Class Army

This was corroborated at the office of the Iskolostreel – the Executive Committee of the Lettish Sharp-shooters, of which nine regiments, some 15,ooo men, belonged to the Twelfth Army. The Letts are almost all Bolsheviks and relied almost altogether upon their own organization, a really revolutionary crowd of fine young fighters. Originally a volunteer corps of the bourgeoisie, the sharp-shooters had finally been reorganized to include all the Letts drafted into the Russian Army, until it was overwhelmingly a working-class body.
Visitors

Word had gone about that Americans were in town – the first within the memory of local mankind – and we had visitors. First was a school-teacher, who spoke French, a little man with a carefully-trimmed beard and gold-rimmed glasses, who declared he was a member of the Intelligentsia and approved of revolutions, but not of the class struggle. He averred the he had been deputed by the peasants of his village to come and ask us how to end the war . . . Then there was a fat German-American baker by the name of Witt, who had an American passport and had lived in Cincinnati. He professed himself to be a great admirer of President Wilson, had a very hazy idea of the Russian revolution, and came for advice as to where to emigrate ; was the bakery business very profitable in Siberia ? Finally a sleek, oily prosperous-looking peasant, who represented the Lettish Independence Movement, and deluged us with bad history and shady statistics to prove the yearning desire of every Lett that Livonia should be an independent country – a desire which we already knew was almost non-existent.
The Iskolostreel Investigates

Bright and early next morning thundered at our door Dodparouchik Peterson, secretary of the Iskolostreel. The soldiers' committee of the Second Lettish Brigade had sent in a complaint about the inefficiency of sixteen officers ; a delegate of the Iskosol and the Iskolostreel was going down to the lines to see about it ; did we want to come along ?

This time it was an ambulance which carried us, together with Dr. Nahumsen, the delegate army surgeon, holder of several German university degrees, veteran revolutionist and prominent member of the Bolshevik faction. We had aboard also about half a ton of Bolshevik papers – Soldat and Rabotchie Poot – to distribute along the front. No passes were necessary, for nobody dared stop such a powerful personage.

“The condition of the army ?” the doctor shrugged his shoulders and smiled unpleasantly. “What do you want ? Our French, English and American comrades do not send us the supplies they promised. Is it possible that they are trying to starve the Revolution ?”
The Death Penalty

We asked about the death penalty in the army, over which such a bitter controversy was raging between the radicals and reactionaries.

“Consider,” he replied, “what the death penalty in this army signified. Today I will show you regiments, entirely Bolshevik, who have been reduced from four thousand men to seven – this last month's fighting. In all the Twelfth Army there have only been sixty men officially proclaimed deserters since the fall of Riga. No, my friend, Mr. Kerensky's death penalty has not been applied to cowards, deserters and mutineers. The death penalty in the Russian Army is for Bolsheviks, for ‘agitators', who can be shot down without trial by the revolver of an officer. Luckily they have not tried it here – they do not dare…”

Whenever we passed a group of soldiers, Peterson threw out a bundle of papers ; he held a pile on his lap, and doled them out one by one to passersby. Thousands of papers with the reactionary program of the new coalition government – suppression of the Soviets, iron discipline in the army, war to the uttermost . . .
Reactionary Officers

Brigade staff headquarters were in a brick farm-house, on a little hill amid wooded meadows. In the living room the officers sat at a long table, a polkovnik, his lieutenant-colonel and a group of smart youths wearing the cords of staff duty, eating stchi, mountains of meat, and drinking interminable tea in a cloud of cigarette smoke. They welcomed us with great cordiality and a torrent of Moscow French – which is very like that of Stratford ; and in fifteen minutes Dr. Nahumsen and the Colonel were bitterly disputing politics.

The Colonel was a frank reactionary – out to crush Germany, still loyal to Nicholas the Second, convinced that the country was ruined by the Revolution, and utterly opposed to the soldiers' committees.

“The trouble with the army,” he said, “is that it is concerned about politics. Soldiers have no business to think.”

All the rest followed their superior's lead. The podpolkovnik, a round, merry person with twinkling eyes, informed me confidentially that “no officer of any character or dignity would have any dealings with the soldiers' committees.”

“Are there no officers who work with the committees ?” I asked.

He shrugged disdainfully. “A few. But we call them the ‘demagogue' officers, and naturally don't associate with them.”
Pity the Officer !

The others volunteered further interesting information. In the first place, according to them, there were no Bolsheviks in the army – except the committees. The Lettish troops are ignorant and illiterate. The committees interfere seriously with military operations. And the masses of soldiers are bitterly jealous of the workmen in the towns, who get phenomenal wages and only work eight hours, while “we are on duty here twenty-four hours a day.”

By this time we had sat at the table two long hours, drinking tea and smoking, during which time the entire staff did absolutely nothing but talk. One tall boy, with a smell of brilliantine floating around his shining hair, went over to the piano and began idly fingering waltzes. Occasionally two bent and aged peasants, man and woman, she with bare feet, crept through the room to the tiny closet they had been allowed to keep for themselves. . . . An hour later, when we left to go to the soldiers' committee, the staff of the Second Lettish Brigade was still “working twenty-four hours a day,” and expressing its honest resentment against the factory workers of Moscow and Petrograd. . . .
Fraternization

The way to the Committee led down across a little brook, up a winding path through a wood all blazoned yellow and red, and out upon lush meadows where the view plunged westward forever across the rich, rolling country. A gaunt, silent youth on horseback led the way, and as we got further and further away from the staff he began to smile, and offered his horse to ride. And he talked, telling of the May days when the Russian troops fraternized with the Germans all along this front.

“The Germans sent spies,” he said, “but then, so did our officers. There is always somebody around to betray the people, no matter what nation you belong to. Many times they tried to make us attack our German comrades, but we refused. And they also refused ; I know of one regiment, where I had many friends, which was condemned for mutiny, reorganized, and twelve men were shot. And still they would not fight the Russians. So they were sent to the Western front. As it was, they finally had to tell us lies to make us advance.”
A Soviet Committee

It was about half a mile to where the low, wide, thatch-covered farm house and its great barn stood baldly on a little rise of ground. Artillery limbers stood parked there, horses were being led to water, there were little cook-fires, and many soldiers. A huge brick stove divided the interior of the house. On one side lived the peasant and his wife and children, all their belongings heaped in the corners ; the other half was bare except for two homemade benches and a rough table, heaped high with papers, reports, pamphlets – among which I noticed Lenine's “Imperialism As a New Stage in Capitalism.” Around this sat six men, one of them a non-commissioned officer, the rest privates – the presidium of the Soviet of the Second Lettish Brigade. Without any place to sleep except the hay-loft, without winter clothes or enough to eat, the committee sat permanently, and had been sitting for a month, doing the work the staff should have done.

This is no unsupported assertion on my part. One had only to ask any soldier where he got his food, his clothing – what he did get – who found and assigned his quarters, represented him politically, defended his interests ; he would always say, “The Committee.” If the Commander-in-Chief of the Russian Armies gave an order for the Second Lettish Brigade to attack, or to retreat, not a single man would move without the endorsement of the Committee. This resulted from two fears ; one that they would be sent to Petrograd to suppress the Revolution, the other that they would be tricked into an offensive as they were tricked in June.

They welcomed us with great friendliness, wiping off the bench where we were to sit, fetching cigarettes, taking our coats ; other soldiers crowded in and stood about the door, silently watching.
“Good Training”

A youth with a bright, happy face and towsled hair was the chairman. He told us how the Lettish regiments had been in the front ranks for six months without rest, and they had sent word to the Ministry of War in Petrograd that if they were not relieved by October first, they would simply leave the trenches. One regiment had been reduced from four thousand men to seven, and all were without adequate food or clothing.

“How can the men stand it ?” I asked.

“The officers say it is good training,” he answered, and everybody laughed. A soldier near the door cried, “You don't see many officers going barefoot !” And again they laughed.

The Committee seemed highly amused at the officers' accusations.

“They say we are jealous of the workmen in the cities. But we are ourselves workmen, and we will share the short hours and high wages they have won for us, when we return to the cities after the war. Most of us are union men . . . There are no Bolsheviks in the army ? Well, this committee was only elected last month, and every member of every committee in this brigade is Bolshevik . . . We are not illiterate ; on the contrary, less than two per cent. cannot read and write. The Letts all go to school. As for interfering with military matters, we have nothing to do with them whatever, except in the case of mass movement of troops, which are always arranged beforehand.”
Revolutionary Tribunals

There had been no killing of reactionary officers in this Brigade, even in the Kornilov days – although Colonel Kruskin went around at that time openly praying for the success of the counter-revolution. Several brutal officers had, however, been forced to retire, and one was brought before a revolutionary tribunal for beating a soldier ; but he died in battle before the judgment.

Courts martial in the Twelfth Army had been replaced by revolutionary military courts. Each company had a petty court of five elected members – soldiers or officers ; above that was the full regimental court, composed of 28 soldiers and 14 officers, elected by the full regiment ; and a presidium of six chosen by this assembly sat permanently for the trial of minor offenses – such as stealing. If the soldiers were dissatisfied with their officers, they appealed first to the Commissar of the Army, and if he did nothing, to the Central Executive Army Committee.

“We know,” said the chairman, “which officers are for us and which are against us. We know that Riga was betrayed. On the first of August we had aeroplanes, heavy artillery ; but when the Germans attacked, all those things had been sent away.” He shrugged. “But what can we do ? We must defend the Revolution, and Petrograd. We must watch them, and make them fight. . . .”

They showed us copies of all orders of the staff, kept carefully on file here ; the chart of location of all troops of the brigade, which had been quartered by the committee ; requisitions and purchases of food, clothing, shells, guns ; and the record of the political transactions of the soldier party – groups with the Soviets and with the Government. “We're the Ministry of War !” said one member, jocularly.

“The Ministry of War ? We're the whole government !. . . .”
“Nobody Left in Siberia”

In the loft of the barn outside were quartered several batteries of light artillery, part of a Siberian regiment which had just arrived from Irkutsk. With their enormous grey wool shapkis, boots made from wild beast hides with the fur outside, new blouses and ruddy faces, they looked like another race. They complained bitterly about their food. My companion picked out a boy who looked about thirteen.

“Aren't you too young to be a soldier ? Why, you're only just big enough to have a girl.”

“If I'm old enough to be in love, I'm old enough to fight,” answered the boy. “When the war broke out, I was only fifteen, but now I'm a man.”

“Aren't you afraid somebody will steal your girl while you are away ?”

The boy shrugged. “There's nobody left in Siberia to steal her,” he said simply.

Russia's losses in the war are already more than seven millions at the front – twice that in the rear. Four years. Children have grown up to manhood, put on uniform, gone to the trenches. . . . “There is nobody left in Siberia. . . .

* * * *
A Market for Loot

Sunday in Venden. A gusty heaven overhead, thin clouds opening in a washed blue sky, with a watery sun riding there. Underfoot, black mud, trampled by thousands of boots, townspeople and peasants, who had driven in for miles around, thronging the Lutheran church, with mingled Russian soldiers, very curious but respectful. In the open market place the bartering of odds and ends of loot was going full blast. Immensely high above the town an aeroplane drifted southwest, and all about it the firmament was splotched with white and black smoke-bursts. The sound of explosions and the hum of the motor came faintly. People looked up carelessly and said, “Niemessy !” (German.)

Along about midday tables appeared in two corners of the square. Then the banners – the revolutionary banners, in every shade of red, with gold, silver and white letters on them, moving bright and splendid through the great crowd. Speakers mounted the tables. It was a double mass-meeting, Russian in one corner, Lettish in another, forbidden by the Commandant and frowned upon by the Iskosol. All the town had turned out for it, and most of the fifteen thousand troops. And there was no doubt of the sentiments of that audience – from the great flags behind the tables, one inscribed, “Power to the People ! Long live Peace !” and the other, “Bread, Peace and Freedom !” to the thunderous roars that met the hot words of the speakers, denouncing the government for not forcing the peace conference, daring it to suppress the Soviets, and dwelling much upon the Imperialistic designs of the Allies in the war.
A Peace Meeting

Surely never since history began has a fighting army held such a peace meeting in the midst of battle. The Russian soldiers have won freedom from the tsar, they do not believe that there is any reason for continuing a war which they consider to have been imperialistic from the first, they are strongly impregnated with international Socialism –and yet they fight on. …

Under the wintry sun the banners moved in a little wind, alive and glittering, and in thousands the dun-colored soldier-masses stood listening, motionless, to any man who wanted to speak. The chairman of the Iskolostreel managed the meeting with a tiny white flag. Overhead always the aeroplanes passed and passed, sometimes circling nearby. From far rumbled the thunder of heavy artillery – it was good weather for battle. A flock of rooks wheeled in hoarse agitation around the church spire. And past the end of the square went unceasingly long trains of trucks and wagons.

There was too much noise. The speakers could not be heard. And every time a German aeroplane came near, here was an uneasy craning of necks – for the village had been bombed three times, and many people killed. The chairman of the two meetings signaled with their little flags, the speakers leaped down, tables rose upon shoulders, the great red banners dipped and moved. … First went the Letts, headed by a band of women singing the mournful, stark revolutionary songs of the country ; then the banners with Lettish inscriptions ; then the Russian banners, and after them all the thousands and thousands, pouring like a muddy river in flood along the narrow street. In at a great gate we went, and past the baronial manor of the Sievers family, liege-lords of Venden. Here on a spur of rock rose the tremendous ruins of the medieval castle of the Teutonic Knights, and below the ground fell steeply down, through ancient trees all yellow and crimson with autumn leaves, to a pond with lilies. From the window of the high keep one could see miles across the fertile, smiling country, woods, lakes, chateaux, fields all chocolate brown or vivid green, foliage all shades from gold to blood-red, gorgeous.

Rushing down torrent-like through the trees the Lettish banners moved with wailing song to the hill under the castle, while the Russians paused midway down a steep slope and set their table under a great oak tree. Around the two tribunes the people packed themselves, hung in the trees, heaped on the roofs of some old sheds. . . . Speaker followed speaker, all through the long afternoon. Five hours the immense crowd stood there, intent, listening with all its ears, with all its soul. Like a glacier, patient, slow-moving, a mass of dun caps and brown faces carpeting the steep hill-side. Spontaneous roars of applause, scattered angry cries burst from it. Almost all the speakers were Bolsheviks, and their unbroken refrain was, “All the power to the Soviets, land for the peasants, an immediate democratic peace.”. . .

Toward the last, someone undertook to deliver an old-fashioned “patriotic” oration – but the fierce blasts of disapproval quickly drove him from the platform. Then a little professor with gold-rimmed spectacles tried to deliver on the Lettish national movement ; but no one paid the least attention to him. . . .
A Relic of the Dead Past

On a knoll over the water was a black marble tomb, lettered as follows :

“Dedicated to the memory of the creator of this park, Count Carl Sievers, by his tenderly-loving and high-regarding son, Oberhofmeister Senator Count Emanuel Sievers, this memorial is erected on this little hill, which was named Carlsberg after his own name Carl. On this spot he, at that time the last-surviving lord of Castle-Wenden, together with the Duckernschen Peasants' Council and their wives, ate lunch, while the peasants' children danced on the nearby flat place.

“Thereby had he, with his own artistic sense, with his own creative talents, an idea to dig a large pit in the midst of a stream from the rich springs of Duckernschen, and to place here a great pool, by himself beautifully imagined, in which the noble ruins of the old Ordens-Schloss could reflect themselves” . . .

A couple of soldiers came lounging up. One slowly spelled out the first words.

“Graf ! Count !” he exclaimed, and spat. “Well, he's dead, like so many comrades. He was probably a good guy.” . . .

Around the monument, the “great pool,” across the rustic bridges and in and out of the artificial grottoes of the aristocratic old park, roamed hundreds of gaunt men in filthy uniforms. The ancient turf was torn to mud. Rags, papers, cigarette stubs littered the ground. Up the hillsides were banked the masses of the proletariat, under red banners of the social revolution. Surely in all its stirring history the Ordens-Schloss never looked down on any scene as strange as this !

Beyond the park music was going down the road toward the little Lutheran cemetery. They were burying three Lettish sharp-shooters, killed in action yesterday. First came two carts, each with a soldier who strewed the road with evergreen boughs. At the gate of the cemetery one of the soldiers brushed off his hands, heaved a sigh, took out a cigarette and lighted it, and began to weep. The whole town was now streaming down along the road, peasant women in their Sunday kerchiefs, old men in rusty black, soldiers. In their midst moved the military band, slowly playing that extraordinary Lettish death-march, which has such a triumphant, happy note. Then the white coffins, with aluminum plaques saying : “Eternal Peace.”

Peace, peace – how many times you hear that word at the front. The Revolution means peace, popular government means peace, and last of all, bitterly, death means peace. No funeral has the poignant solemnity of a funeral at the front. Almost all these men and women have lost some men in the war ; they know what it means, death. And these hundreds of soldiers, with stiff, drawn faces ; they knew these three dead – perhaps some of them even spoke with them, heard them laugh, joke, before the unseen whining shell fell out of the sky and tore them to bloody pieces. They realize well that perhaps next time it will be their turn.

To the quiet deepness of the pastor's voice and muffled sobbing everywhere, the coffins are lowered down, and thud, thud, drops the heavy wet earth, with a sound like cannon far away. The chairman of the Iskolostreel is making a revolutionary speech over the graves. The band plays, and a quavering hymn goes up. Nine times the rifles of the firing squad crash on the still air. . . .

Overhead is the venomous buzz of an aeroplane. From the woods comes a faint roar of applause. Here death – there life. And as we slowly disperse comes a committee to get the band, excited and eager. . . . In the park they are still speaking, and the temporary chairman asks, “Is there anyone here who wants to say anything against the Bolsheviks ?” Silence. There appears to be no one. The hand will be here in a minute” – a great shout – “and then we'll make a demonstration through the town !”'
One People – For a Moment

And now the hand is coming down through the trees, still playing the death march. On the flat place near the pool it forms, strikes up suddenly the Marseillaise. All the dun-colored thousands are singing now, a thunderous great chorus that shakes the trees. The banners are coming together in front. The chairman waves his white flag. We start – at first slowly, feet rustling over the fallen leaves, then gathering volume, pouring swifter and swifter up through the trees, a wild flood roaring up, unstoppable. . . . The band tries to play – there are snatches and rags of music, confused singing. Everybody is exalted ; faces are alight – arm and arm we go. . . . It is like what the first days of the Revolution must have been. It is the Revolution horn again, as it is without ceasing born again, braver, wiser after much suffering. . . . Through all the streets and alleys of the town we rush impetuous, and the town is people again for the moment, as Russia will again be people – for a moment. …

But only for the moment. It is Monday, and the Little Soviet is in closed session. When the doors are closed, lights are thrown into the faces of the crowds and outsiders expelled, protesting. One by one the delegates add to the gloomy picture of disaster. The scouts are in open revolt because their bread allowance has been cut ; in another regiment the officers insist on carrying the full amount of their baggage, and had to leave the field telephones behind ; in another part of the front the men refuse to build winter quarters, saying it is easier to seize the peasants' houses ; the Soviet of the Fifth Division has passed a resolution favoring peace at any cost ; here the soldiers have become apathetic, and even indifferent to politics ; there they say, “Why should we defend the country ? The country has forgotten us !”

* * * *

As we sat on the platform waiting for the Petrograd train, it occurred to Williams that we might as well give away our superfluous cigarettes. Accordingly he sat down on a trunk and held out a big box, making generous sounds. There must have been several hundred soldiers around. A few came hesitantly and helped themselves, but the rest held aloof, and soon Williams sat alone in the midst of an ever-widening circle. The soldiers were gathered in groups, talking in low tones.

Suddenly he saw coming toward him a committee of three privates, carrying rifles with fixed bayonets, and looking dangerous. “Who are you ?” the leader asked. “Why are you giving away cigarettes ? Are you a German spy, trying to bribe the Russian revolutionary army ?”

All over the platform the crowd followed, slowly packing itself around Williams and the committee, muttering angrily – ready to tear him to pieces.

* * * *

We were packed into the train too tight to move. In compartments meant for six people twelve were jammed, and there was such a crowd in the aisles that no one could pass. On the roof of the car a hundred soldiers stamped their feet and sang shrill songs in the freezing night air. Inside all the windows were shut, everybody smoked, there was universal conversation.
Meanwhile Life Goes on As Usual

At Valk some gay Red Cross nurses and young officers climbed in at the windows, with candy, bottles of vodka, cheese, sausages, and all the materials for a feast. By some miracle they wedged themselves among us and began to make merry. They grew amorous, kissing and fondling each other. In our compartment two couples fell to embracing, half lying upon the seats. Somebody pulled the black shade over the lights ; another shut the door. It was a debauch, with the rest of us looking on. . . .

In the upper birth lay a young captain, coughing incessantly and terribly. Every little while he lifted his wasted face and spat blood into a handkerchief. And over and over he cried : “The Russians are animals !”

Above the roaring of the train, coughing, bacchic cries, quarrels, all through the night one could hear the feet of ragged soldiers pounding on the roof, rhythmically, and their nasal singing. ...

https://www.marxists.org/archive/reed/index.htm

What Future ? Capitalism ? Socialism ?

Robert Paris — 2025-08-08T04:38:00Z

What Future ? Capitalism ? Socialism ?

Capitalism's "recovery plans" are a symptom of the impending death of the old dominant socio-economic system in artificial survival mode.

https://www-matierevolution-fr.translate.goog/spip.php?article5841&_x_tr_sl=fr&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=fr

When big capital no longer bets on... capitalism

https://www-matierevolution-fr.translate.goog/spip.php?article8286&_x_tr_sl=fr&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=fr

In the face of the current collapse of capitalism, the class politics of the proletariat leads it to take the leadership of the working people

https://www-matierevolution-fr.translate.goog/spip.php?article5907&_x_tr_sl=fr&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=fr

Is there a future for human society that allows us to escape from the sinking capitalist world ?

https://www-matierevolution-fr.translate.goog/spip.php?article2671&_x_tr_sl=fr&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=fr

Workers' power and socialism are vital necessities for humanity

https://www-matierevolution-fr.translate.goog/spip.php?article8073&_x_tr_sl=fr&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=fr

Big capital is still afraid... of communism !

https://www-matierevolution-fr.translate.goog/spip.php?article7912&_x_tr_sl=fr&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=fr

For Marx and Engels, what is communism ?

https://www-matierevolution-fr.translate.goog/spip.php?article1833&_x_tr_sl=fr&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=fr

Capitalism is over ! Socialism or barbarism !

https://www-matierevolution-fr.translate.goog/spip.php?article8166&_x_tr_sl=fr&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=fr

Are the ruling classes really capable of plunging us into the barbarity of a third imperialist world war

https://www-matierevolution-fr.translate.goog/spip.php?article4436&_x_tr_sl=fr&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=fr

End of capitalism or of humanity, we must choose..

https://www-matierevolution-fr.translate.goog/spip.php?article6311&_x_tr_sl=fr&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=fr

To defend itself, the world of work must govern itself !

https://www-matierevolution-fr.translate.goog/spip.php?article6004&_x_tr_sl=fr&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=fr

Communisme et Trotskisme en Grèce

Robert Paris — 2025-02-17T23:41:00Z

Communisme et Trotskisme en Grèce

The domination of the Thermidorian regime of Stalin in the Soviet Union, the bureaucratisation of the regime, the overthrow of the soviet system, the revision of the Constitution of October, the bureaucratic structure of the plan, the industrialisation (at first at snail's pace, later at maximum) and collectivisation, and the incorporation of the kulak into Socialism (“Kulaks enrich yourselves”), the crisis in the relations between town and country (the grain strike), concessions to the bourgeoisie, etc, and the general revisionist line of Stalinism, encapsulated in the reactionary theory of ‘Socialism in one country' – all of this isolated the position of the Soviet Union, strengthened restorationist elements (the kulaks) and along with the threat of external intervention, led the Soviet Union to the brink of the abyss. The Bonapartist regime of Stalin destroyed democracy, abolished workers' control, annihilated hundreds of thousands of party members and carried out an unprecedented orgy of crimes.

It imposed its bureaucratic, revisionist and counter-revolutionary methods within the Comintern as a whole, and it went down in history as the organiser of the defeats of the workers' movement, beginning with the USSR.

In Greece, the Stalinists placed themselves at the service of the Kremlin bureaucrats, supporting their criminal tactics and their suppression of all the old Bolshevik and Trotskyist vanguard, as well as subjugating the new generation, but they were also able to develop by exploiting the authority of the USSR and the traditions of the October Revolution.

Rise

The rise of the Stalinist leadership after 1924 over the KKE, to begin with through Khaita, the Secretary of the local committee of Athens, occurred in a period of a general offensive and domination by the Kremlin triumvirate against the Comintern parties, a period of defeat for the Bolshevik-Trotskyist tendency of the world Communist movement, and of the predominance of Thermidor in the USSR. It occurred after the major defeat of the proletarian revolution in Germany in 1923, without a fight, thanks to the rightist evaluation of the situation by the Zinovievist-Stalinist administration of the Comintern and of the Brandlerite leadership of the German party, in a period in which the Stresemann government thought itself to be the last government of German capitalism.

In Greece, Stalinism rose along with the retreat and defeat of the great general strike of 1923, which was drowned in blood by the ‘democratic' dictatorship of Plastiras, and the retreat of the movement for the transformation of the war into a revolution. The first Social Democratic rule of Georgiades-Sideris [1] choked off the enormous rise of the mass movement caused by long-term military adventures, as well as by the influence of the October Revolution. But the development was dialectical. The struggle against the war and the fight for a workers' and peasants' government to solve the problems offhe masses raised to the forefront the old fighting tendency of Pantelis Pouliopoulos and his elite co-workers. Pouliopoulos became secretary of the KKE, and the OKNE [2] was in the hands of the Pouliopoulos tendency. The old fighting spirit on the basis of the October Revolution penetrated to the tiniest villages. Similarly, from the war rose the revolutionary movement of the war wounded, which was dependent on the Archeiomarxist organisation and was headed by S. Verouchis [3] (the Stalinists tore him to pieces during the Nazi occupation) who led the General Confederation of Disabled and War Veterans.

The ultra-left, adventurist line of the Comintern in 1924-25 cost the movement new defeats with the coups in Estonia and Bulgaria, and sent the Greek workers' movement into a temporary new retreat after its rise in 1925. This ultra-left lurch was followed by ultra-rightism.

From the Fifth Congress of the Comintern the Stalinist bureaucracy sought allies outside the proletariat, in the pseudo-peasant ‘International', in the Macedonian-Bulgarian Federalists, in the left democrats, in the English trade union officials, etc. In China, the alliance with Chiang Kai-Shek, and Wang Ching Wei and his officers, the liquidation of the Communist party into the Guomindang, and the Menshevik-revisionist line of the bourgeois democratic revolution, led the Chinese revolution of 1925-27 to betrayal, and brought calamity to the Canton uprising (30,000 were victims of Stalin's friend, the butcher Chiang).

In Greece, the right zigzag was linked with adventures by the deformed Stalinist tendency, semi-alliances with Plastiras [4] against the Metaxas-Gargalides [5] movement (instead of an independent KKE intervention) and with proposals for collaboration with the ‘democratic' Papanastasios [6] the murderer of the workers, and against the Pangalos dictatorship, on the proposals of Zachariades [7] in Salonika and of Khaites from exile in Anafe [8] for the open support of the KKE for the dictatorship.

The rightist zigzag of the Stalinists culminated in slogans of support to ‘bourgeois democracy', and of the ‘pure democracy' of Khaites and Zachariades (1926).

With this adaptation within the confines of capitalist ‘democracy' they closed off the halting rise of the movement that occurred after the war and helped the bourgeois system overcome the great postwar crisis of Greek capitalism.

In contrast with the politics of self-determination up to separation for the oppressed nationalities, according to the Fifth Congress of the Comintern, Kolarov and Dimitrov denounced the Greek delegation of Pouliopoulos-Maximos for opportunism, and imposed the unrealistic slogan: “For a United and Independent Macedonia and Thrace”.

Contradicted

The slogan was completely unrealistic and contradicted the Leninist line of selfdetermination, which presupposed support to the nationally oppressed masses who had already begun fighting, as was the case with the Macedonian nationality, who included those inhabiting areas in Greece, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, but who did not have a basis within the solid mass of Greeks in the Macedonian-Thrace area. Thus almost ail the KKE cadre were sent into exile on a programme of independence for Macedonia-Thrace, and Pouliopoulos, the secretary of the KKE, was taken to court with the threat of execution, where he gave an heroic defence of the line of self-determination. To save the honour of the KKE the slogan was withdrawn. But the KKE disintegrated.

They used demagogy – for pure reformism – against all those who thought the slogans on the ‘national' question were wrong, and “those who later spoke of the simple protection of the minorities in the past elections” as New Beginning put it in 1926, had betrayed the Leninist principles of self-determination up to separation. They called them ‘rightist' – they who only recently had supported Pangalos and were now supporting ‘left democracy'. These were “vulgar opportunists”, said Pouliopoulos in New Beginning.

After the fall of Pangalos, the Stalinists in the events that followed opened up a foul and dishonest slander campaign and tirade against the KKE secretary Pouliopoulos. The split that opened up in the ranks of the KKE in exile from which Trotskyism emerged could have been avoided. They recruited Smeral and Remmele, and they isolated and expelled Pouliopoulos as a ‘rightist'! The expulsion of the secretary of the KKE followed the expulsion of the Secretary of the Comintern, Zinoviev, and the rise of the liquidationist operations of the clique that ruled in the Kremlin among all the Communist parties in the world. In other words, they expelled the most enlightened, internationalist and advanced Marxist revolutionaries. They dissolved the movement of the War Veterans. Thus they sank into the swamp of opportunism. The victory against the internationalist left was due to the low political-theoretical level and to the concentration of petty-bourgeois and even lumpen elements due to the unceasing degeneration of the KKE.

The number of major strikes declined significantly between 1920 and 1930. The trade union movement was split by the pseudo-Socialists, and the split was formalised with the founding of the United Confederation.

The ‘third and last period' of capitalism followed, which was the ‘Third Period of the betrayals of Stalinism'. The noncombative ‘combative demonstrations and political strikes' brought the KKE to its knees. The trade unions fell to pieces. The strike wave was destroyed, and the prisons and barren islands filled up, and all with nothing to show for it.

The Stalinists thought that the relatively short economic boom would be a longterm stabilisation. But the great crisis of 1929-30 astonished them. On their evaluation of this they framed the politics of the ‘Third Period'.

Pouliopoulos, after his return from the Fifth Congress, defended himself firmly against the dishonest and disruptive activities of the fraudulent Stalinists and started a fight against the bourgeoisdemocratic orientation. After his expulsion he started the Neo Xekinema (New Beginning), a development towards Trotskyism which closed with his legendary death in Nezero by the shots of a Fascist officer in June 1943.

Excelled

In the meantime, in 1924 the Stalinist Khaita tendency had excelled itself and expelled from the KKE General Council the Archeio leader, Tzoulatis. [9] Tzoulatis, together with Ligdopoulos, the first delegate to the founding congress of the SEKE was a continuator of the Communism group which had raised high the banner of the Third International of Lenin and Trotsky, fought for the victory of the October revolution, and for the 21 Conditions, the first documents of the Third International and the basic classic work of Marxism, and had completed the union of the Greek movement with the Third International. From 1923 it published the Archives of Marxism, the theoretical organ that supplied the original movement with Trotsky's documents Whither Russia? and Where is Britain Going?, and the fight against the Stalinisation of the KKE which was called ‘Bolshevisation', showed the firm orientation of the Archeio on the side of the International Left Opposition.

Together with Tzoulatis, dozens of Trotskyists were expelled, betrayed by the apostate Apostolou. [10] (Among these were the secretary of the largest trade union group of store clerks, Karliaftis, and the majority of the Youth groups in Athens.)

The pogrom of expulsions in 1924 also included the party organisation in the Piraeus, for its ultra-left line during the 1923 strike, with the slogan “Seize the ships” directed towards the sailors. Along with them was the Seitanidi group Towards the Masses which took its name from a similar slogan of the Comintern.

The origin of all these expulsions undoubtedly lay in the Stalinist Kremlin and they were carried out by the Stalinist faction of Khatia and company.

During the period after Pangalos (1927-30) Trotskyism developed. The Neo Xekinema (New Beginning) of Pouliopoulos discredited the degenerated leadership of the Stalinist KKE. It raised questions about the great split between Stalin and Trotsky. It noted the degeneration of the KKE and foresaw that Archeiomarxism would contribute cadres to the movement of the future. But it also fought against the particular character of Archeiomarxism and its liquidatory work against the KKE.

Spartacus put into action the slogans of the New Beginning – for the creation of a serious Communist Party upon a correct basis. They centralised a staff of coworkers unrivalled in their theoretical and political formation. They declared their solidarity with Trotskyism, and publicised the Declaration of the 83. They also gave us the rich documents of the International Left Opposition, and thus raised the level of the movement. And the chief coworkers of Pouliopoulos such as Nicolis, Maximos and others became distinguished at all levels of the class struggle.

The Spartacists revealed the disastrous results of the ‘Bolshevisation' of 1924 (with the introduction of 5,000 new members and the fall in the revolutionary level of the ranks of the KKE) which was nothing but part of the Stalinisation of the KKE.

During this period of 1927 to 1930, despite the relative ‘stabilisation' which according the the Stalinists was an ‘organic stabilisation', we had an intense crisis in prices and wages which precipitated strike struggles.

The tendency of the Archeiomarxists – of Trotskyist orientation – entered into open trade union work. Dozens of unions passed into their hands, more than 10 unions in Athens and as many in Thessalonica. They took over the Kokinias Local Centre in the Piraeus and the Local Centres of Podaradon and Kaisarianis in Athens. They organised important strikes such as the one at Lipasmate. They led the industrial strikes at Kokkaldikou and in Keremidadon, strikes against which the army was mobilised.

Equally heroic were the strikes of the bakers with Trotskyists in the leadership headed by Soula-Sakko, of the shoemakers (headed by Lampi, who went over to the Spartacists) within the context of the general strike which the Stalinists led, and of the confectionary workers in the industrial factories. They led strikes in Salonika, in Agrinni, in Patras, etc.

The strangling of democracy and the shameless outbursts of insults against the ‘Archeio-Trotskyists' as “traitors” and “fascists” led to a civil war within the trade unions.

Decline

Unacceptable methods were used by both sides, both by Stalinists and Archeiomarxists. They reflected the decline of the movement due to the degeneration of Stalinism from the political programme of Bolshevism, whose principles only Trotsky's Russian Opposition could supply. The people who hissed Trotsky in his first oppositional demonstrations and did not scruple to label Pouliopoulos with insults of “betrayal” went to the extent of murdering Archeiomarxist trade unionists, the baker Georgopapadato and the shoemaker Lada. Georgopapadato and Lada were the first martyrs of the Trotskyist movement in our country.

The accumulation of defeats and the crisis of the CPSU and the Comintern with the split of Zinoviev and Kamenev could not but influence the KKE, where we had the split between Spartacus and the Stalinists. The regime of KhaitaEftihiadi-Zachariades was overthrown and replaced by the regime of Theos and Siantos, which also fell and was succeeded by Zachariades (the GPU had the last word on these changes).

The Archeiomarxists fell into the crisis of the ‘Third Situation' of 1927, which on the one hand expressed the tendencies of a political development which began to take place and on the other hand the influence of Stalinism within the Left Opposition.

In 1929 a ‘factional crisis' broke out, which was led by Soula. In essence there were no programmatic or tactical differences, but only organisational problems. To tell the truth, these problems were caused by a lack of democratic centralism and by the personal and autocratic regime which Giotopoulos, the successor of Tzoulatis, had imposed upon the Archeiomarxists. Furthermore, there was a lack of a clear programme, which only the platform of the ILO of Trotsky was able to provide to rearm its Greek adherents. But these two tendencies were the most proletarian of the few that still existed in the international movement. On the other hand, according to Pouliopoulos, there were in the KKE a large number of members drawn from the lowest elements of the proletariat, from the lumpen proletariat and from the petty-bourgeoisie with an anti-proletarian psychology.

Finally, the group led by Pindaros, which was called ‘Democratic Centralism', in fact launched such a perspective itself in 1930. The affiliation of the Archeiomarxists to the ILO was necessary in order to make democratic centralism work.

A crisis hit Spartacus during the same period. But this crisis was more general, and it had its roots in the deeper turmoil that was occurring in the Soviet Union, due to the bureaucracy's betrayal of the revolution.

In 1930 Spartacus made a statement: At no other time – it said – had the collapse of the KKE become so catastrophic. At no other time was the retreat of Spartacus so great. At no other time was the Archeiomarxist group so strong.

In fact, as the events of 1930 showed, the Archeio-Trotskyists took the initiative of the unemployed struggle away from the KKE. From large meetings, drawing in over 1500 unemployed in Athens and as many in Thessalonica,they formed their 50-member committee in Athens and their 30-member committee in Thessalonica and mobilised wide layers of unemployed for bread and jobs.

A meeting near the Acropolis of between 3,000 and 4,000 unemployed people was drowned in blood. In Thessalonica, a meeting at the Fountain was broken up in a three hour long struggle with hordes of mounted police.

Official

In 1930 the Archeiomarxists became the official section of the ILO. The competition that took place in 1927-28 between the Archeiomarxists and Spartacus to become the official section of the International Left Opposition in Greece tended to favour the Archeiomarxists. Before the astonished eyes of the ILO representatives when they came to Greece, hundreds of militants demonstrated, devoted adherents of Leon Trotsky, who were Archeiomarxists who accepted Trotsky's platform, and agreed to unite with Spartacus. But Spartacus refused to unite unless the Archeio disavowed its past. Thus it remained outside the ILO. The Archeiomarxists assumed the name of Bolshevik-Leninists.

The crisis of 1930 brought on a new upsurge. The dilemma of Fascism or Communism was once more on the order of the day. Germany was now the key to this situation, said the famous pamphlet of Trotsky.

The retreat of the KKE from proletarian revolution, the breaking of the United Front against Hitler's rapid rise, the ultra-leftism, the theory of ‘social Fascism' which obstructed the class front, the defeatism of “first Hitler, then us”, all ruined the movement and brought Hitler to power without a fight. Centrism was transformed into opportunism.

The campaign of the Trotskyists of Pali ton Taxeon (Class Struggle), of Spartacus, and of the Leninist Opposition for the united anti-Fascist front, and Trotsky's famous What Next? and The Only Road, which the Bolshevik-Leninists published, and the general upsurge of the workers, compelled the KKE to make a turn, at the eleventh hour. But yet again their line split up the united anti-Fascist front. Now they talked of the ‘United Front from below'.

The struggle of the Bolshevik-Leninists (Archeiomarxists) within the trade unions for the programme of the United Workers Front won over substantial forces at the expense of the KKE. If the Spartacists had not refused to give them the four votes they carried, the whole Workers' Centre in Athens would have passed over to them from Kalivas' hands.

In 1933, the Bolshevik-Leninists, being at the head of the Workers' Centre is Kalamata, led the great general strike, which was smashed although the militarists could not assert their control over all the sections of the army. Here the KKE was led by Manolea, who was well known as a member of parliament, but who passed over into the service of the Metaxas dictatorship like a common agent.

With the revolutionary upsurge, in the first student strike of 1929, which lasted 50 days and shook the university and the state, the Archeio-Trotskyists with their organ Student headed by K. Anastasiadis and Pliako and 20 or so other militants pushed aside the Stalinists led by the Velouchiotis-Klaras [11] brothers, to take the leadership of this strike.

The Trotskyists fought side by side with the Stalinist OKNE (Communist Youth Organisation of Greece), which started to decay and degenerate, whereas previously it had great struggles and great gains to its credit.

A discussion meeting took place, with Vitsoris as speaker for the official organisation, Pouliopoulos for Spartacus, and a representative of the Stalinists, where the opponents of the Workers' United Front, the Stalinists, were hissed.

In the trade union movement, all the tendencies organised for the United Workers' Front. A high level meeting took place between Kalomiris, Stratia, Dimitratos and the Kalivas, and the representatives of the trade unions of the Bolshevik-Leninists, Karliaftis and Sakkos. But the Stalinists and reformists attacked the Workers' United Anti-Fascist Front in Greece as well. With the historic defeat of 1933, which led to the slaughter of thousands of anti-Fascists, the storm of counter-revolution in Europe, and the threat of war, Trotsky declared that any hope for the rebirth of the Comintern and its parties was lost. The parties that were unable to rise above this seismic catastrophe died.

Now he raised the banner for the creation of new parties and a new International.

In Greece, the ‘Bolshevik' tendency of Vitsoris, Karliaftis, Theodoratou, Sakkos, Papadopoulos and Verouchis was the first to raise the banner of the Fourth International. It declared that the KKE had died along with all the Communist Parties of the Third International, and it started to build the Revolutionary Party of the New International.

Slide

The decisions of the Sixth Plenum of the KKE in 1934 brought about a general abandonment of an orientation towards the proletarian revolution, and a slide into the anti-Marxist politics of class collaboration, along with the beginning of the class collaborationist Popular Fronts. The passing over of the KKE to the strategy of the ‘democratic dictatorship' of workers and middle and poor peasants, not as Lenin had understood it, but with the incorrect form of the Stalinists (for a regime intermediate between the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and that of the working class) led our workers' movement to great catastrophe and defeats, and confirmed the death of the KKE as a revolutionary organisation.

The Trotskyists, with an article in Class Struggle, and especially with the famous document of Pouliopoulos, showed with firm arguments that Greece was not semifeudal but a capitalist country, with all its relative backwardness. They discredited the view that “there do not exist the necessary minimum material conditions for the Socialist revolution”, with the conclusion that the unfinished bourgeois-democratic tasks will be solved only by the dictatorship of the proletariat, on the model of the Permanent Revolution. But the betrayals continued without end.

The KKE, allying with the Liberal Party in 1935 and rejecting the United Worker-Peasant Front against reaction, helped the Venizelists [12] to deceive the anti-Fascist masses and to prepare easily even from 1935 their compromise with the deposed king and restore him. When he was restored, the Popular Front (KKE) sowed dire illusions in the masses that “a new period of liberal idylls is opening up” and officially went and kowtowed to the palace. (Pouliopoulos, The Popular Front in Greece).

In the context of class collaboration, in 1935-36 the KKE renewed the collaboration of the past decade with the ‘democrats' and the ‘democratic' officers and dictators, launched the slogan of a ‘democratic coalition', signed the Sklavena-Sofouli accord and supported the Liberals in parliament, who went on the rampage with their anti-working class politics at the expense of the masses, for example the Idionym Laws. Rizospastis [13] demanded a government of the KKE, Papanastasios and the anti-Fascist officers!

In May 1936 a general strike of tobacco workers broke out and extended into a general strike in Thessalonica, and Metaxas' regime murdered strikers. Thus a revolutionary uprising of the masses was provoked. The murderers locked themselves in the police departments. The bourgeoisie panicked, and while Trotskyists like Pantazis called for a government of tobacco workers, the Stalinists (Theos) betrayed the strike with the intervention of the liberals in Parliament. Metaxas headed towards a dictatorship without facing any opposition.

Collusion

The establishment of the Metaxas dictatorship was a result of the collusion of the Court and the Premier to hold back the ascent of the working class movement as it manifested itself in the general uprising of 1936, and to prepare the “internal front” for the coming war. The dictatorship would not have triumphed if the workers' movement had not been castrated by the Popular Front. The KKE curbed the working class, and instead of sharpening and broadening the struggle against monarchic-capitalist reaction, it blunted the edge of the class with the conciliationism of the Popular Front. In the final analysis the KKE became the basis of victory of the Metaxas dictatorship.

Then came the Second World War. The theory that the Popular Fronts would avert war was shown to be mistaken. The Popular Fronts stifled the class contradictions, and the bourgeoisie, safe in the rear, felt safe to enter the war.

In the beginning the Kremlin rejected relations with Hitler. But then the Hitler-Stalin Pact was signed. The Stalinists could not believe it. Then, however, they began their new tune: for the “poor” and “anti-plutocratic” countries against the “glutted” imperialists. These anti-Fascists passed into the service of National Socialism and of its finance capital, and stifled the anti-Fascist sentiments of the masses. When Hitler broke the non aggression pact, the Stalinists made a 180 degree turn. Now they allied with the Western imperialists. They now discovered that the war of the Western Allied imperialists was “progressive” and “anti-Fascist”, and they made a holy alliance with the bourgeoisie of their “own” state in favour of bourgeois democracy. They now passed over into support for the war. They exploited the pro-Soviet and anti-Fascist mood of the masses and brought over the oppressed onto the side of “our allies”. All the ‘Socialist' and ‘Communist' parties betrayed disgracefully the traditions of proletarian internationalism.

In Greece Zachariades called on the workers to submit to the ‘fascist' Metaxas in order to fight Mussolini and Hitler, and to defend with their blood the bosses' fatherland! The KKE became even more chauvinist than the parties of the extreme right! With the “theory of the two poles” Zachariades justified the double dependence of the politics of the KKE upon the Soviet bureaucracy and upon British capitalism: “In the war a realistic foreign policy for the EAM and the PEEA [14] would have to move between two poles: the European Balkans with the Soviet Union at its centre, and the Middle East with its centre in Britain. A correct policy would be to tie together these two poles.” (Zachariades, Plenum, 1945). In reality this double dependence was leaning only to one side, because the entire organisation and policy of the Stalinists “against Hitlerism” came under the direct control of the General Staff of the Middle East. (With the necessary capitulation to sterling of ELAS as well as Zervas). [15]

During the Metaxas dictatorship and in exile, in the prisons, on the barren islands and in the concentration camps, the Trotskyists became united. The two related tendencies from which Trotskyism arose – the Spartacus-Pouliopoulos tendency, and the New Road tendency of Vitsoris, Kastritis and Theodoratou – united.

Once more, in the Second World War as in the First, Pouliopoulos was to be found in the anti-war, anti-capitalist, internationalist camp. The crisis of 1930 had brought him to the forefront against the coming storm of Fascism and war. He became the pole of attraction for all the cadres who had originated front Archeiomarxism, and later from the factions that had gathered around the KEO and the Leninist Opposition of the KKE (LAKKE), whose leaders were Soula and Pablo. [16]

With the unification Pouliopoulos now became the unquestioned leader of all the Trotskyists who remained loyal to the Fourth International, and he fought ceaselessly against all the social chauvinist opportunists who capitulated during the war.

The slogan of the Trotskyists was elaborated by Pouliopoulos in June 1937:

Independent revolutionary struggle for the establishment of a government of workers and peasants – that is the direction of struggle in the period through which we are passing, and only thus will the workers be saved from the catastrophe and horror of war.

United Front struggle for the overthrow of the monarchist dictatorship in Greece, for the imposition of the immediate political and economic demands of the workers, and for the speedy preparation of the rule of the workers and peasants.

For Marxists the war was not progressive for the two blocs outside the Soviet Union, as the social-traitors trumpeted. As Lenin wrote: “War does not cease being imperialist because charlatans and petty-bourgeois philistines throw out a sugared slogan. War is an extension of the politics of finance capital. The fundamental point is to know what class is carrying out the war. War is imperialist when it is carried out by the bourgeois class for its predatory goals.”

Pouliopoulos added: “There is no greater deception than that which is committed by Stalinism and Social Democracy with the propaganda of the so-called ‘anti-Fascist war'.”

The participation of the Soviet Union on the side of Western imperialism did not modify the character of the war of her imperialist Allies.

During the occupation the most shameless social-patriotism was shown by the so-called resistance movement of the KKE, EAM, and ELAS, with the slogans of “struggle against the occupying forces” and for the “victory of the Allies”. We declared the occupation to be a phase of the continuing war. Its character had not changed. Neither was the question of ‘national uprising' or ‘national liberation' posed. The deception of the masses with pro-Soviet and anti-capitalist tendencies, who had been led into support for the war of the western imperialists and the domestic bourgeois class, was the most dishonest deception of the masses, in contrast to the Leninist lines of transforming the war into civil war, and for the defeat of ‘our own' country.

Lenin wrote: “The national question in the imperialist epoch is characteristic of colonial and dependent countries which are permanently dependent on the imperialist governments.” “The temporary occupation of Europe by Hitler's troops”, wrote the Internationalist [17] of August-September 1965, “did not create a national question, just as the now permanent occupation by the ‘Allied' troops does not create a question of national liberation.”

Trotsky, as a result of the occupation of half of Norway by Hitler, declared that this occupation did not change our slogan of transforming the war into civil war, exactly because the temporary character of an occupation does not create a permanent colonisation and thus the question of national liberation.

The first guerrilla war of ELAS was an extension of the social-patriotic defence of the bourgeois state, according to Zachariades, of Greece under the ‘Fascist' Metaxas. Its goals were not Socialist, but completely nationalist, patriotic, against merely the Axis powers, and chauvinist.

Chariot

The pro-Soviet demonstrations of the KKE and ELAS leadership were in the spirit of pro-Allied declarations, pro-American, pro-English and pro-French, with which they aimed to mislead the masses who had confused pro-Soviet tendencies, and to tie them to the chariot of the war.

The Trotskyists were defenders of the Soviet Union, but with the only valid means, that of revolutionary anti-capitalist class revolution and of the transformation of the war into revolution in the capitalist countries, not by the shameless submission of the Communist parties to the governments of the capitalist countries.

The basis of the ELAS forces was plebeian cadres from the countryside, because basically only those drugged by the nationalist slogans of the social-traitors would volunteer (another way being forced recruitment). The ‘ELAS Reserve' meant in practice placing in reserve the proletariat of the cities. Naturally many proletarian fighters went over to guerrillaism because they were misled, still believing in the Stalinists.

But the military aid that such groups offer to the Soviet Union is insignificant. On the other hand, destroying the class thought of the workers, developing chauvinism, tearing the workers away from their struggle, sowing splits among them, and turning them against the German soldiers, these groups disarm the working class, and tie the German proletariat to their bourgeoisie and to Hitler. And they prepare the destruction of the German and world revolution. (Thesis of the 1944 Conference of the Fourth International).

But the organised groups, militarily disciplined, despite the misled masses of leftist combatants, were “objectively in goals and action, militarist, nationalist, basically counter-revolutionary, and in the service of national capitalism and of Anglo-American imperialism.” (Thesis of the 1944 Conference of the Fourth International).

Aimed

The methods of ELAS had no relation to the Leninist tactic of revolutionary defeatism, basically the destruction of the bourgeois state, defeat of ‘one's own' country, arrest of the officers, fraternal action at the front, and soviets in the army, but they aimed at the destruction of all Germans, as the Kremlin said, sabotage and the victory of the national army, etc.

The tactics of ELAS were not the relentless struggle of classes but a compromise of all parties, of Kanellopoulos [18] and Papandreou, as far as an agreement with the counter-revolutionary guerrilla groups of Zervas, and the ‘democrats' of Psarou, with the blessing of the English staff. The slogan was for a National Front and a national government.

The Lebanon, Caserta and Varkiza treaties were treaties signed by the leadership of EAM/ELAS. The Trotskyists condemned them. They were beneath the contempt of all the militants of the movement. It was simply the logical extension of guerrilla nationalism. It was not by accident that de Gaulle congratulated the Stalinist national resistance.

The feelings and the struggle of the masses against Fascism, like those in favour of peace and against war, are progressive. They are of a spontaneous character, an expression of the inevitable revolt not only against the Fascists but against the domestic bourgeoisie, one of whose sections identified itself with German and Italian Fascism.

The duty of Trotskyists was to sharpen these tendencies of the masses, and to orient them towards class and Socialist goals. In this sense they were found at the head of strikes (mainly those of clerical workers at that time) as well as against round-ups, against arrests and Nazi murders, and in solidarity with the hungry who were breaking into the storage bins of the black marketeers, etc.

In this way they provided hundreds of victims. Below we give a list of the Trotskyists killed by Stalinists. Most of them fell because of the barrier of fire organised by the KKE headed by the GPU agent Bartzotas [19], in order to prevent the independent intervention of the revolutionary workers and of the Trotskyists from taking their place on the first of the barricades during the December uprising.

In the period before December the secretary of the united Trotskyist organisation, Kastritis, narrowly escaped from an assassination attack. But hundreds of others ...

All these crimes against the Trotskyists, along with the Stalinists' operations in the cells of the Stalinist security, make up a story that has yet to be written.

The following Archeiomarxists were killed:

The whole organisation of Agriniou that went over to guerrilla warfare in that area: P. Anastasiou, M. Kapetanakis, L. Kapetanakis, M. Xanthopoulos, M. Zisimopoulos, K. Ladas, Themelis, Karoyeridis, Pagonis, a student, and many others. Of the old cadre of the KKE, and later of the Trotskyists, were the leader of the Workers' Centre of Agriniou, etc, along with More, Touris, Pliakos, Bambakis, and dozens of others.

The following were killed from the Opposition in the KKE:

Asimidis, an old cadre of the KKE, Doubas of the party organisation in Agriniou, and many others.

The uprising in the Middle East gave another opportunity for the chauvinist role of EAM/ELAS to be manifested in the war.

Infuriated by the slaughter and the destruction of war, the infantry threw down their weapons. The front broke up in all parts of the Middle East. The capitalist chain broke in the Greek link.

The war should have entered the phase of its transformation into a civil war, if there had existed a strong Trotskyist party, and if the chauvinist forces of EAM/ ELAS with their pro-war propaganda in support of the Allies had not fallen on the rebellious infantry. Churchill's staff disarmed all the infantry with the use of backward troops. He interned them in camps. Then the Stalinists began to work in support of the continuation of the war and for a government of Papandreou and EAM, while the Trotskyists inside the camps faced assassination attempts from those who had refused to transform the war into a Socialist revolution.

One occupation followed another, when the defeated troops of the German-Italian imperialists withdrew, the Anglo-Saxon troops entered Greece. This is what we said at the time, and we put out a proclamation of ours which was circulated in thousands, saying that it was a big lie that the Allied troops were entering Greece as liberators.

Tricked

The December events confirmed our view. The ‘national liberation struggle' against the ‘occupier' was a disaster for the masses, who had been tricked into supporting the alliance of the Soviet bureaucracy and the Western imperialists.

“Welcome to our allies, welcome to our friends” – the walls were filled with welcome posters, and the streets rang with the shouts of the followers of the KKE. Tens of thousands drugged by the slogans of “national liberation” welcomed Scobie triumphantly, and later Eisenhower and Montgomery, who drowned Greece and Cyprus in blood. (Nowadays those who had been allies of the imperialists only yesterday changed their tune, and shout “Americans out”. Their line was always determined by the directives of the Moscow bureaucracy.)

The revolutionary upsurge caused by the destruction of war, despair and hunger culminated in the December events. As with the revolt in the Middle East the uprising sprang from below. In fact there existed all the preconditions for the transformation of the war into a Socialist revolution – a deep crisis, a rapid turn to the left, a desire for revolutionary change, and a paralysis within the ruling class.

According to the directives of the Stalinist leadership of the Soviet Union, the KKE in Cairo made an agreement with Papandreou. It submitted itself to the demands of the British imperialists which had been agreed in the Stalin/Churchill/ Roosevelt accord. The Soviet embassy in Cairo was the godfather of the legal child of the counter-revolution, the Papandreou government of ‘Socialists' and Stalinists.

The Stalinists Zevgos and Porphyrogenis entered the government. This was ministerialism a thousand times more treacherous than that of the ‘Socialists', Millerand, MacDonald, Thomas, Noske and company. They entered a government for the reconstitution of bourgeois rule (“first of all reconstruction and work”) and for the stifling of the revolutionary storm which the war had provoked, just as happened in France and Italy. The KKE being relatively dominant in the Greek peninsula carried Papandreou on its back. The December counterrevolution was prepared with the slogans of a ‘Government of National Unity'.

“For a people's state” triumphantly cried the Stalinists. “For a people's state and law” cried Papandreou, and this law was passed with the bombs and bullets of Scobie and Papandreou on bloody Sunday in December.

ELAS, which had occupied the whole country, entered the December conflict. The rank and file ELAS members fought heroically. But the leadership did not leave the initiative to the ‘reserve' ELAS proletariat. It feared their spontaneous initiative. Even in the fire of a civil war it held out its hand to the bloody hands of Scobie and Papandreou, and for a ‘Government of National Unity'. Churchill reached Athens in haste and in a state of panic. He ordered reinforcements. While he organised the crushing of the December struggle, his lackeys in the KKE visited him in the Great Britain hotel, and implored a peaceful solution.

Quixotic

They believed that the Allied governments should try Liber and Scobie. On 17 December Rizopastis and the heroes of the slogan “Americans out”, the quixotic ‘anti-imperialists', put out an SOS “to the great Anglo-Saxon country of America”. There was no mention of the intervention of the world and Russian proletariat! Some ELASites who were revolutionists laid a mine to blow up the ‘Great Britain' and Churchill. But the capitulationist leadership of the KKE intervened, and stopped them from dynamiting Churchill.

Only a patch of land in Zervas' territory, another small islet in Syntagma Square, and Makryianni and Sotiria were in the hands of Churchill, Liber, Scobie and Papandreou. And yet something incomprehensible happened for those who could not understand, unlike the Trotskyists, what a capitulationist bureaucracy meant.

An ELAS trumpet blew for retreat. The December struggle was betrayed. The revolutionary Socialist desires of the masses were betrayed. And the Greek movement experienced a major new defeat.

Churchill declared to the world that the December events were the work of the Trotskyists. This was correct in the sense of the long term struggle of Trotskyism for the transformation of the war into a revolution, in the sense of the pressure of the radicalised masses whom the adherents of Permanent Revolution objectively represented, and in the sense of their untiring, relentless, anti-Popular Front struggle for the independent intervention of the masses, which exercised a great influence upon the rank and file of the KKE, EAM and ELAS.

It was misleading, however, in the sense of Trotskyists being in the leadership of the movement. Because within the class front there occurred an unprecedented slaughter of the Trotskyists (according to the message of Bartzotas to the GPU, 800), in order to stifle the revolution.

The betrayals continued. The first act of the ruling class after every war or defeated revolution where the masses have taken up arms, is disarmament. This was done by the Popular Front of the KKE itself and by Sofianopoulou, by means of the filthy agreement in Varkiza.

With this the EAM/ELAS/KKE leadership secured their own immunity in the ‘horror' of the betrayal. All the officers of ELAS became enrolled in the National Guard (correctly so). But 70,000 ELAS guerrillas were disarmed and given up to the mercies of the reaction, of the Fascist scum. There was one exception, Aris Velouchiotis (Klaras) and his group took a left wing stand against the agreements that the bureaucracy made.

The second guerrilla war developed on a progressive basis. The war turned Greece into a powderkeg which threatened to explode and shake capitalism to its foundations. The black market, speculation and starvation wages sharpened social discontent. The gap between the poor and the new rich became an abyss.

The turn to the left was rapid. The masses who had shed their blood for ‘liberation' against the Fascist occupier now saw that capitalist slavery still existed. It was only a change of the guards. The Anglo-Saxon imperialists had replaced the Hitlerites.

The domestic ‘democrats' who had been threatened by a victorious revolution in December, now became ferocious to stifle the workers' movement. Setting side by side the executioner Papandreou with the ‘pro-Soviet' Sofianopoulou, they managed to disarm 70,000 guerrillas, and later allowed the hordes of state auxiliaries to slaughter the betrayed combatants of both city and country.

The guerrillas were led into the dishonourable trap of war for the victory of the Allied imperialists, believing that in this way they were helping the Soviet Union, but Stalin, instead of demanding a peace without annexations such as Lenin called for, had sold out Greece to the Anglo-Saxons.

Thus, persecuted and murdered in their homes and fields, they returned to the mountains. This time, they took up arms against ‘their own' capitalist rulers, and the guerrilla war took on a class and progressive character.

Velouchiotis, with the indomitable courage which characterised him, came into violent opposition with the capitulationists of Caserta and Lebanon, and the disarmers of Varkiza. He simply constituted the left wing of the bureaucracy, the ‘Reiss tendency' as we would say in the case of Russia, or of the Mao tendency at its beginning and not in its Bonapartist decay. The Trotskyists who were alongside him in his staff were not murdered at a time when dozens of others were butchered according to Zachariades' orders.

He expressed the tendency which opposed the leadership, and which had been expelled after the betrayal and the defeat of December, and of the awakening of the vanguard and the class in general.

Zachariades' KKE expelled him for indiscipline, slandered him for ‘treason' and betrayed him. Thus in June 1945 he was surrounded and killed. Zachariades betrayed him hand in hand with the counter-revolution.

But the guerrilla war developed. The arch-capitulationists were forced to support it in order to derail it. With Vafiades [20] in the leadership, it became the fear and terror of the bourgeois class and of the British and American imperialists. The war reached up as far as Athens and Parnitha [21], as the government admitted. Stalin's Kremlin sold out the second guerrilla war, as it did with the December culmination of the first. The KKE of Zachariades, despite and against the knowledge of the leader of the ‘Democratic Army of Greece' Vafiades, who insisted on guerrillaism, wanted to fight a conventional war and produced nothing but a disastrous defeat, within a chain of defeats.

We were in solidarity with the second guerrilla war, and on the side of the revolutionary peasants who supported its leadership.

We declared, however, that guerrilla war in the mountains was equivalent to the abandonment of the class struggle in the cities and villages. It (guerrillaism) disregards the struggle for wage demands and reforms. (They did not make reforms even in the places they controlled.) It isolates itself, it breaks unity with the workers, and it leads to an impasse. It is a solution born of the weakness of the workers' movement. The peasantry, which forms the basis of guerrillaism, with its dispersion and its individualistic psychology, cannot have a strength analogous to its size. It cannot attain Socialist and internationalist goals. The peasant class cannot but vacillate, either behind the bourgeoisie or behind the proletariat.

Majority

The proletarian revolution cannot win without the revolutionary party winning the leadership of the majority of the proletariat. To win it must base itself upon soviets as organs of the United Front of the workers and peasants. Guerrilla war ignores the strategy of winning over and mobilising the masses, ignores the soviets, and avoids the front with the workers. Its petty-bourgeois, bourgeois or collaborationist leadership fears workers' control and democracy, and often silences its critics.

Revolution starts from the centre of capitalism, but guerrilla war starts from its periphery. Concentrating the struggle in the mountain isolates it from the huge reserves of the cities, and contributes to the unfavourable relation of forces and the counter-revolution. Revolution organises the supreme technique of the mass uprising, the flood of workers. Guerrilla war cannot win in a conventional fight against the superior military means of the enemy.

Hegemony

Only the working class can become the motor force of the Socialist revolution. Its hegemony comes from its position in production, from its forces and from the Socialist goals set for it by history:

The fact that individual Communists are in the leadership of the present armies does not at all transform the social character of these armies ... It is one thing when a Communist Party, firmly resting on the flower of the urban proletariat, strives through the workers to lead a peasant war. It is an altogether different thing when a few thousand or even tens of thousands of revolutionaries, who are truly Communists, or only take the name, assume the leadership of a peasant war without having serious support from the proletariat. (L.D. Trotsky, Peasant War in China and the Proletariat)

From the end of 1946 we foresaw correctly: “Guerrilla activity alone cannot defeat the capitalist attack. Left only to its own forces the new guerrillaism, sooner or later, is obliged to succumb.” (Karliaftis' speech on behalf of the KDKE in the debate with the KKE)

And the confirmation was tragic. The city movement was betrayed, the guerrilla war was sold out by Stalin to his Anglo-Saxon Allies, and Tito closed the borders to the guerrillas. The government of the mountains was not recognised by Moscow, Belgrade and Sofia. It remained without international proletarian support (world mobilisations, volunteers, etc.), and without tanks and airplanes. And in the end, the adventurist intervention of Zachariades, transforming the guerrilla war into conventional warfare, became disastrous. This is what Markos Vafiadis, leader of the ‘Democratic Army of Greece' (DSE) and president of the ‘Provisional Democratic Government', says in his document of November 1948:

The abstention from the elections by the KKE was incorrect. The KKE created illusions in the people for the peaceful solution of the Greek problem. It did not believe in the possible victory of guerrillaism. It saw it as a means of pressure and engaged in indecisive politics, while the capitalist reaction was gaining time and organising its forces. During this period the mass movement retreated to the cities. From mid-1947 the voluntary recruits to the DSE in the country did not even reach 10 per cent.

At the Fifth Plenum of the CC of the KKE in January 1949 Vafiadis and Hatzivasiliou were made scapegoats, and labelled ‘capitulationists' and ‘Trotskyists'.

The turn of Partsalides [22] came at the Seventh Plenum in May 1950, when he was denounced as a ‘factionalist', and ‘opportunist' and a ‘Trotskyist'.

In a short while the disagreements of Karageorgis, the editor of Rizopastis, and lieutenant general of the DSE, became pronounced. “Zachariades failed in the second phase of the guerrilla war,” he said, “just as Ionnides and Siantos did in the first phase ... He lacks confidence in Stalin to the point of appearing in opposition to him.” And he referred to the rottenness which existed inside the KKE.

Karageorgis, who had taunted the Trotskyists in speeches addressed “to some birds who chirp in the ravines”, now saw that the chirping of the guerrillas' guns posed no threat to capitalism.

This was not the fault of the heroic guerrillas, but of the general line of the KKE and of the Kremlin bureaucracy. Zachariades was later to characterise Siantos as a provocateur, and his policy, in the cheap agreements of Lebanon, Caserta and Varkiza, as “incorrect politics which basically comprised a submission to the interests and pursuits of the British imperialists”.

But this was really a condemnation of the line of national resistance, and it is well known that the responsibility for all of it lay with the Kremlin directives.

Loukas Karliaftis

Notes

(The footnotes are those of the author unless otherwise stated)

1. Georgiades-Sideris – right wing leaders of the Socialist Workers Party of Greece.

2. OKNE – the youth organisation of the Greek Communist Party founded in 1922.

3. S. Verouchis – a leader of the Trotskyist Archeiomarxists who had lost his eyes during the war between the Greeks and the Turks in Asia Minor, and Secretary of the Union of the War Disabled, which he led to victory, and was repeatedly sent to prison. In 1943, taking part in the anti-Nazi resistance movement on his own responsibility, he was executed by the Stalinists along with 800 others. His body was thrown to the wild dogs by the Stalinists while he was still half alive.

4. Plastiras – a bourgeois ‘liberal' politician, formerly a general.

5. Ioannis Metaxas (1871-1941) was a right wing general who ruled as dictator between 1936 and 1941 [Editor's Note].

6. Papanastasios – a bourgeois ‘democrat'.

7. Zachariades – Stalin's foremost supporter in Greece, trained along with Khaitas in the Stalinist school of Koutvi in Russia, and installed as General Secretary of the Greek Communist Party by the Stalinist Comintern. He was the chief organiser of all the executions of Trotsky‘s followers in Greece. The policy of the Greek Communist Party brought about the Metaxas dictatorship straightaway, and Zachariades was put in prison and moved to Germany by the Nazis. Mysteriously released, he went back to Greece to carry out new betrayals during the civil war. After the smashing of the second guerrilla war he was made the scapegoat by Stalin and was expelled from the party, dying recently in Russia.

8. Anafe – a barren island.

9. Tzoulatis – along with Ligdopoulos, leader of the Socialist Youth in Athens (1916), and the first martyr of Bolshevism in Greece. He was elected to the Central Committee of the Socialist Workers Party of Greece at its founding conference in 1918, and along with Giotopoulos split from the SWPG in the same way that Lenin did (1919). He published the journal Communism (1920-21) in which he fought for the 21 Conditions of adherence to the Communist International, and rejoined the SWPG in 1921, where he built up a faction publishing the journal Archives of Marxism (May 1923), and consistently orientated towards Trotsky from 1923 onwards. He was thus the first Trotskyist in Greece, and was finally expelled from the party at the beginning of 1924.

10. Apostolou – a leader of the Archeiomarxists, one of the few who went over to Stalinism.

11. Aris Velouchiotis was a famous left wing Stalinist leader during the resistance movement, who rejected the directives of the Greek Communist Party to hand over his group's guns. Expelled from the party as a ‘Trotskyist', he was soon after trapped mysteriously and executed by the Greek army.

12. Eleutherios Venizelos (1864-1936) was a well known bourgeois leader of the Liberals, frequently in office during the early part of the twentieth century [Editor's Note].

13. Rizopastis (Radical) is the daily paper of the Greek Communist Party.

14. The PEEA was the ‘Provisional Democratic Government', or 'Government of the Mountains‚.

15. Zervas was a bourgeois ‘anti-Nazi' leader.

16. Michel Pablo (Michael Raptis) later became leader of the Fourth International after the war.

17. Diethnistis (Internationalist) is the theoretical organ of the Workers Vanguard (Trotskyist) of Greece.

18. Kanellopoulos was a right wing bourgeois politician.

19. Bartzotas was a notorious leader of the Stalinists who produced a statement for his masters in the Kremlin during the second guerrilla war stating proudly that over 800 Trotskyists had been executed by the OPLA, the Stalinist militia, in Greece.

20. Vafiades – a left wing Stalinist leader who was expelled from the Central Committee as a bourgeois agent, and now lives in Russia.

21. Parnitha (ancient Mount Parnes), a mountain near Athens.

22. Partsalides was a top leader of the Stalinists, both in the EAM and amongst today's Eurocommunists.

Grèce 1922

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article6070

Trotsky et Vitsoris

https://www.marxists.org/francais/trotsky/oeuvres/1932/03/lt_00031932.htm

Trotskisme en Grèce

https://wikirouge.net/Mouvement_trotskiste_en_Gr%C3%A8ce

Grèce 1944

https://www.matierevolution.fr/spip.php?article1483

Mouvement révolutionnaire grec

https://www.marxists.org/francais/cmo/n70/cmo_070.pdf

Yannis Tamtakos

https://en-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/Yannis_Tamtakos?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=fr&_x_tr_hl=fr

Loukás Karliáftis

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louk%C3%A1s_Karli%C3%A1ftis

Pantelis Pouliopoulos

https://www.marxists.org/francais/4int/bios/pouliopoulos.htm

Pastias Giatsopoulos

https://el-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/%CE%A0%CE%B1%CF%83%CF%84%CE%B9%CE%AC%CF%82_%CE%93%CE%B9%CE%B1%CF%84%CF%83%CF%8C%CF%80%CE%BF%CF%85%CE%BB%CE%BF%CF%82?_x_tr_sl=el&_x_tr_tl=fr&_x_tr_hl=fr&_x_tr_pto=sc

Lefteris Stavridis

https://www.wikiwand.com/en/Eleftherios_Stavridis

Grégoriades (Georges Vitsoris) : lettre aux trotskystes grecs

https://www.marxists.org/francais/cmo/n24/A_PRESENTATION_8_.pdf

Cornelius Castoriadis

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelius_Castoriadis

Pendant la 2e Guerre mondiale

https://www.marxists.org/francais/cmo/n70/cmo_070.pdf

https://journals.openedition.org/ceb/756

Grèce, années 1940 : Une révolution trahie

https://spartacist.org/francais/spf/42/grecs.html

Guerre civile grecque

https://www.marxists.org/francais/cmo/n70/cmo_070.pdf

https://marxists.architexturez.net/francais/cmo/n70/cmo_070.pdf

Organisations

Organisations trotskistes en Grèce

https://en-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/Category:Trotskyist_organizations_in_Greece?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=fr&_x_tr_hl=fr

DEA

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gauche_ouvri%C3%A8re_internationaliste

EEK

https://en-m-wikipedia-org.translate.goog/wiki/Workers_Revolutionary_Party_(Greece)?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=fr&_x_tr_hl=fr

OKDE

https://everybodywiki.com/Organisation_des_Communistes_Internationalistes_de_Gr%C3%A8ce

Religion in Hegel's Philosophy of History part IV

Robert Paris — 2024-01-14T12:54:31Z

Hegel's Philosophy of History part IV

Chapter I. Christianity.

It has been remarked that Caesar inaugurated the Modern World on the side of reality, while its spiritual and inward existence was unfolded under Augustus. At the beginning of that empire, whose principle we have recognized as finiteness and particular subjectivity exaggerated to infinitude, the salvation of the World had its birth in the same principle of subjectivity – viz., as a particular person, in abstract subjectivity, but in such a way that conversely, finiteness is only the form of his appearance, while infinity and absolutely independent existence constitute the essence and substantial being which it embodies. The Roman World, as it has been described – in its desperate condition and the pain of abandonment by God – came to an open rupture with reality, and made prominent the general desire for a satisfaction such as can only be attained in “the inner man,” the Soul – thus preparing the ground for a higher Spiritual World. Rome was the Fate that crushed down the gods and all genial life in its hard service, while it was the power that purified the human heart from all speciality. Its entire condition is therefore analogous to a place of birth, and its pain is like the travail-throes of another and higher Spirit, which manifested itself in connection with the Christian Religion. This higher Spirit involves the reconciliation and emancipation of Spirit; while man obtains the consciousness of Spirit in its universelity and infinity. The Absolute Object, Truth, is Spirit; and as man himself is Spirit, he is present [is mirrored] to himself in that object, and thus in his Absolute Object has found Essential Being and his own essential being.[21] But in order that the objectivity of Essential Being may be done away with, and Spirit be no longer alien to itself – may be with itself [self- harmonized] – the Naturalness of Spirit – that in virtue of which man is a special, empirical existence – must be removed; so that the alien element may be destroyed, and the reconciliation of Spirit be accomplished.

God is thus recognized as Spirit, only when known as the Triune. This new principle is the axis on which the History of the World turns. This is the goal and the starting point of History. “When the fulness of the time was come, God sent his Son,” is the statement of the Bible. This means nothing else than that self-consciousness had reached the phases of development [Momente], whose resultant constitutes the Idea of Spirit, and had come to feel the necessity of comprehending those phases absolutely. This must now be more fully explained. We said of the Greeks, that the law for their Spirit was: “Man, know thyself.” The Greek Spirit was a consciousness of Spirit, but under a limited form, having the element of Nature as an essential ingredient. Spirit may have had the upper hand, but the unity of the superior and the subordinate was itself still Natural. Spirit appeared as specialized in the idiosyncrasies of the genius of the several Greek nationalities and of their divinities, and was represented by Art, in whose sphere the Sensuous is elevated only to the middle ground of beautiful form and shape, but not to pure Thought. The element of Subjectivity that was wanting to the Greeks, we found among the Romans: but as it was merely formal and in itself indefinite, it took its material from passion and caprice; – even the most shameful degradations could be here connected with a divine dread (vide the declaration of Hispala respecting the Bacchanalia, Livy xxxix. 13). This element of subjectivity ‘s afterwards further realized as Personality of Individuals – a realization which is exactly adequate to the principle, and is equally abstract and formal. As such an Ego [such a personality], I am infinite to myself, and my phenomenal existence consists in the property recognized as mine, and the recognition of my personality. This inner existence goes no further; all the applications of the principle merge in this. Individuals are thereby posited as atoms; but they are at the same time subject to the severe rule of the One, which as monas monadum is a power over private persons [the connection between the ruler and the ruled is not mediated by the claim of Divine or of Constitutional Right, or any general principle, but is direct and individual, the Emperor being the immediate lord of each subject in the Empire]. That Private Right is therefore, ipso facto, a nullity, an ignoring of the personality; and the supposed condition of Right turns out to be an absolute destitution of it. This contradiction is the misery of the Roman World. Each person is, according to the principle of his personality, entitled only to possesion, while the Person of Persons lays claim to the possession of all these individuals, so that the right assumed by the social unit is at once abrogated and robbed of validity. But the misery of this contradiction is the Discipline of the World. “Zucht” (discipline) is derived from “Ziehen” (to draw).[22] This “drawing” must be towards something; there must be some fixed unity in the background in whose direction that drawing takes place, and for which the subject of it is being trained, in order that the standard of attainment may be reached. A renunciation, a disaccustoming, is the means of leading to an absolute basis of existence. That contradiction which afflicts the Roman World is the very state of things which constitutes such a discipline – the discipline of that culture which compels personality to display its nothingness. But it is reserved for us of a later period to regard this as a training; to those who are thus trained [traines, dragged], it seems a blind destiny, to which they submit in the stupor of suffering. The higher condition, in which the soul itself feels pain and longing – in which man is not only “drawn,” but feels that the drawing is into himself [into his own inmost nature] – is still absent. What has been reflection on our part must arise in the mind of the subject of this discipline in the form of a consciousness that in himself he is miserable and null. Outward suffering must, as already said, be merged in a sorrow of the inner man. He must feel himself as the negation of himself; he must see that his misery is the misery of his nature – that he is in himself a divided and discordant being. This state of mind, this self-chastening, this pain occasioned by our individual nothingness – the wretchedness of our [isolated] self, and the longing to transcend this condition of soul – must be looked for elsewhere than in the properly Roman World. It is this which gives to the Jewish People their World-Historical importance and weight; for from this state of mind arose that higher phase in which Spirit came to absolute self-consciousness – passing from that alien form of being which is its discord and pain, and mirroring itself in its own essence. The state of feeling in question we find expressed most purely and beautifully in the Psalms of David, and in the Prophets; the chief burden of whose utterances is the thirst of the soul after God, its profound sorrow for its transgressions, and the desire for righteousness and holiness. Of this Spirit we have the mythical representation at the very beginning of the Jewish canonical books, in the account of the Fall. Man, created in the image of God, lost, it is said, his state of absolute contentment, by eating of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Sin consists here only in Knowledge: this is the sinful element, and by it man is stated to have trifled away his Natural happiness. This is a deep truth, that evil lies in consciousness: for the brutes are neither evil nor good; the merely Natural Man quite as little.[23]

Consciousness occasions the separation of the Ego, in its boundless freedom as arbitrary choice, from the pure essence of the Will – i.e., from the Good. Knowledge, as the disannulling of the unity of mere Nature, is the “Fall,” which is no casual conception, but the eternal history of Spirit. For the state of innocence, the paradisaical condition, is that of the brute. Paradise is a park, where only brutes, not men, can remain. For the brute is one with God only implicitly [not consciously]. Only Man's Spirit (that is) has a self-cognizant existence. This existence for self, this consciousness, is at the same time separation from the Universel and Divine Spirit. If I hold to my abstract Freedom, in contraposition to the Good, I adopt the standpoint of Evil. The Fall is therefore the eternal Mythus of Man – in fact, the very transition by which he becomes man. Persistence in this standpoint is, however, Evil, and the feeling of pain at such a condition, and of longing to transcend it, we find in David, when he says: “Lord, create for me a pure heart, a new steadfast Spirit.” This feeling we observe even in the account of the Fall; though an announcement of Reconciliation is not made there, but rather one of continuance in misery. Yet we have in this narrative the prediction of reconciliation in the sentence, “The serpent's head shall be bruised”; but still more profoundly expressed where it is stated that when God saw that Adam had eaten of that tree, he said, “Behold Adam is become as one of us, knowing Good and Evil.” God confirms the words of the Serpent. Implicitly and explicitly, then, we have the truth, that man through Spirit – through cognition of the Universel and the Particular – comprehends God Himself. But it is only God that declares this – not man: the latter remains, on the contrary, in a state of internal discord. The joy of reconciliation is still distant from humanity; the absolute and final repose of his whole being is not yet discovered to man. It exists, in the first instance, only for God. As far as the present is concerned, the feeling of pain at his condition is regarded as a final award. The satisfaction which man enjoys at first, consists in the finite and temporal blessings conferred on the Chosen Family and the possession of the Land of Canaan. His repose is not found in God. Sacrifices are, it is true, offered to Him in the Temple, and atonement made by outward offerings and inward penitence. But that mundane satisfaction in the Chosen Family, and its possession of Canaan, was taken from the Jewish people in the chastisement inflicted by the Roman Empire. The Syrian kings did indeed oppress it, but it was left for the Romans to annul its individuality. The Temple of Zion is destroyed; the God-serving nation is scattered to the winds. Here every source of satisfaction is taken away, and the nation is driven back to the standpoint of that primeval mythus – the standpoint of that painful feeling which humanity experiences when thrown upon itself. Opposed to the universel Fatum of the Roman World, we have here the consciousness of Evil and the direction of the mind Godwards. All that remains to be done, is that this fundamental idea should be expanded to an objective universel sense, and be taken as the concrete existence of man – as the completion of his nature. Formerly the Land of Canaan and themselves as the people of God had been regarded by the Jews as that concrete and complete existence. But this basis of satisfaction is now lost, and thence arises the sense of misery and failure of hope in God, with whom that happy reality had been essentially connected. Here, then, misery is not the stupid immersion in a blind Fate, but a boundless energy of longing. Stoicism taught only that the Negative is not – that pain must not be recognized as a veritable existence; but Jewish feeling persists in acknowledging Reality and desires harmony and reconciliation within its sphere; for that feeling is based on the Oriental Unity of Nature – i.e., the unity of Reality, of Subjectivity, with the substance of the One Essential Being. Through the loss of mere outward reality Spirit is driven back within itself; the side of reality is thus refined to Universelity, through the reference of it to the One. The Oriental antithesis of Light and Darkness is transferred to Spirit, and the Darkness becomes Sin. For the abnegation of reality there is no compensation but Subjectivity itself – the Human Will as intrinsically universel; and thereby alone does reconciliation become possible. Sin is the discerning of Good and Evil as separation; but this discerning likewise heals the ancient hurt, and is the fountain of infinite reconciliation. The discerning in question brings with it the destruction of that which is external and alien in consciousness, and is consequently the return of Subjectivity into itself. This, then, adopted into the actual self-consciousness of the World is the Reconciliation [atonement] of the World. From that unrest of infinite sorrow – in which the two sides of the antithesis stand related to each other – is developed the unity of God with Reality (which latter had been posited as negative i.e., with Subjectivity which had been separated from Him. The infinite loss is counterbalanced only by its infinity, and thereby becomes infinite gain. The recognition of the identity of the Subject and God was introduced into the World when the fulness of Time was come: the consciousness of this identity is the recognition of God in his true essence. The material of Truth is Spirit itself – inherent vital movement. The nature of God as pure Spirit, is manifested to man in the Christian Religion.

But what is Spirit? It is the one immutably homogeneous infinite – pure Identity – which in its second phase separates itself from itself and makes this second aspect Its own polar opposite, viz. as existence for and in self as contrasted with the Universel. But this separation is annulled by the fact that atomistic Subjectivity, as simple relation to itself [as occupied with self alone] is itself the Universel, the Identical with self. If Spirit be defined as absolute reflection within itself in virtue of its absolute duality – Love on the one hand as comprehending the Emotional [Empfindung], Knowledge on the other hand as Spirit [including the penetrative and active faculties, as opposed to the receptive] – it is recognized as Triune: the “Father” and the “Son,” and that duality which essentially characterizes it as “Spirit.” It must further be observed, that in this truth, the relation of man to this truth is also posited. For Spirit makes itself its own [polar] opposite – and is the return from this opposite into itself. Comprehended in pure ideality, that antithetic form of Spirit is the Son of God; reduced to limited and particular conceptions, it is the World-Nature and Finite Spirit: Finite Spirit itself therefore is posited as a constituent element [Moment] in the Divine Being. Man himself therefore is comprehended in the Idea of God, and this comprehension may be thus expressed – that the unity of Man with God is posited in the Christian Religion. But this unity must not be superficially conceived, as if God were only Man, and Man, without further condition, were God. Man, on the contrary, is God only in so far as he annuls the merely Natural and Limited in his Spirit and elevates himself to God. That is to say, it is obligatory on him who is a partaker of the truth, and knows that he himself is a constituent [Moment] of the Divine Idea, to give up his merely natural being: for the Natural is the Unspiritual. In this Idea of God, then, is to be found also the Reconciliation that heals the pain and inward suffering of man. For Suffering itself is henceforth recognized as an instrument necessary for producing the unity of man with God. This implicit unity exists in the first place only for the thinking speculative consciousness; but it must also exist for the sensuous, representative consciousness – it must become an object for the World – it must appear, and that in the sensuous form appropriate to Spirit, which is the human. Christ has appeared – a Man who is God – God who is Man; and thereby peace and reconciliation have accrued to the World. Our thoughts naturally revert to the Greek anthropomorphism, of which we affirmed that it did not go far enough. For that natural elation of soul which characterized the Greeks did not rise to the Subjective Freedom of the Ego itself – to the inwardness that belongs to the Christian Religion – to the recognition of Spirit as a definite positive being. – The appearance of the Christian God involves further its being unique in its kind; it can occur only once, for God is realized as Subject, and as manifested Subjectivity is exclusively One Individual. The Lamas are ever and anon chosen anew; because God is known in the East as Substance, whose infinity of form is recognized merely in an unlimited multeity of outward and particular manifestations. But subjectivity as infinite relation to self, has its form in itself, and as manifested, must be a unity excluding all others. – Moreover the sensuous existence in which Spirit is embodied is only a transitional phase. Christ dies; only as dead, is he exalted to Heaven and sits at the right hand of God; only thus is he Spirit. He himself says: “When I am no longer with you, the Spirit will guide you into all truth.” Not till the Feast of Pentecost were the Apostles filled with the Holy Ghost. To the Apostles, Christ as living, was not that which he was to them subsequently as the Spirit of the Church, in which he became to them for the first time an object for their truly spiritual consciousness. On the same principle, we do not adopt the right point of view in thinking of Christ only as a historical bygone personality. So regarded, the question is asked, What are we to make of his birth, his Father and Mother, his early domestic relations, his miracles, etc.? – i.e., What is he unspiritually regarded? Considered only in respect of his talents, character and morality – as a Teacher and so forth – we place him in the same category with Socrates and others, though his morality may be ranked higher. But excellence of character, morality, etc. – all this is not the ne plus ultra in the requirements of Spirit – does not enable man to gain the speculative idea of Spirit for his conceptive faculty. If Christ is to be looked upon only as an excellent, even impeccable individual, and nothing more, the conception of the Speculative Idea, of Absolute Truth is ignored. But this is the desideratum, the point from which we have to start. Make of Christ what you will, exegetically, critically, historically – demonstrate as you please, how the doctrines of the Church were and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! For he that doeth the will of my Father in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister and mother.” Yes, it is even said: “Think not that I am come to send peace on the Earth. I am not come to send peace but the sword. For I am come to set a man against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law.” Here then is an abstraction from all that belongs to reality, even from moral ties. We may say that nowhere are to be found such revolutionary utterances as in the Gospels; for everything that had been respected, is treated as a matter of indifference – as worthy of no regard.
The next point is the development of this principle; and the whole sequel of History is the history of its development. Its first realization is the formation by the friends of Christ, of a Society – a Church. It has been already remarked that only after the death of Christ could the Spirit come upon his friends; that only then were they able to conceive the true idea of God, viz., that in Christ man is redeemed and reconciled: for in him the idea of eternal truth is recognized, the essence of man acknowledged to be Spirit, and the fact proclaimed that only by stripping himself of his finiteness and surrendering himself to pure self-consciousness, does he attain the truth. Christ – man as man – in whom the unity of God and man has appeared, has in his death, and his history generally, himself presented the eternal history of Spirit – a history which every man has to accomplish in himself, in order to exist as Spirit, or to become a child of God, a citizen of his kingdom. The followers of Christ, who combine on this principle and live in the spiritual life as their aim, form the Church, which is the Kingdom of God. “Where two or three are gathered together in my name” (i.e., “in the character of partakers in my being”) says Christ, “there am I in the midst of them.” The Church is a real present life in the Spirit of Christ.

It is important that the Christian religion be not limited to the teachings of Christ himself: it is in the Apostles that the completed and developed truth is first exhibited. This complex of thought unfolded itself in the Christian community. That community, in its first experiences, found itself sustaining a double relation – first, a relation to the Roman World, and secondly, to the truth whose development was its aim. We will pursue these different relations separately. The Christian community found itself in the Roman world, and in this world the extension of the Christian religion was to take place. That community must therefore keep itself removed from all activity in the State – constitute itself a separate company, and not react against the decrees, views, and transactions of the state. But as it was secluded from the state, and consequently did not hold the Emperor for its absolute sovereign, it was the object of persecution and hate. Then was manifested that infinite inward liberty which it enjoyed, in the great steadfastness with which sufferings and sorrows were patiently borne for the sake of the highest truth. It was less the miracles of the Apostles that gave to Christianity its outward extension and inward strength, than the substance, the truth of the doctrine itself. Christ himself says: “Many will say to me at that day: Lord, Lord! have we not prophesied in thy name, have we not cast out devils in thy name, have we not in thy name done many wonderful deeds? Then will I profess unto them: I never knew you, depart from me all ye workers of iniquity.”

As regards its other relation, viz., that to the Truth, it is especially important to remark that the Dogma – the Theoretical – was already matured within the Roman World, while we find the development of the State from that principle, a much later growth. The Fathers of the Church and the Councils constituted the dogma; but a chief element in this constitution was supplied by the previous development of philosophy. Let us examine more closely how the philosophy of the time stood related to religion. It has already been remarked that the Roman inwardness and subjectivity, which presented itself only abstractly, as soulless personality in the exclusive position assumed by the Ego, was refined by the philosophy of Stoicism and Scepticism to the form of Universelity. The ground of Thought was thereby reached, and God was known in Thought as the One Infinite. The Universel stands here only as an unimportant predicate – not itself a Subject, but requiring a concrete particular application to make it such. But the One and Universel, the Illimitable conceived by fancy, is essentially Oriental; for measureless conceptions, carrying all limited existence beyond its .proper bounds, are indigenous to the East. Presented in the domain of Thought itself, the Oriental One is the invisible and non-sensuous God of the Israelitish people, but whom they also make an object of conception as a person. This principle became World-Historical with Christianity. – In the Roman World, the union of the East and West had taken place in the first instance by means of conquest: it took place now inwardly, psychologically, also; – the Spirit of the East spreading over the West. The worship of Isis and that of Mithra had been extended through the whole Roman World; Spirit, lost in the outward and in limited aims, yearned after an Infinite. But the West desired a deeper, purely inward Universelity – an Infinite possessed at the same time of positive qualities. Again, it was in Egypt – in Alexandria, viz., the centre of communication between the East and the West – that the problem of the age was proposed for Thought; and the solution now found was – Spirit. There the two principles came into scientific contact, and were scientifically worked out. It is especially remarkable to observe there, learned Jews such as Philo, connecting abstract forms of the concrete, which they derived from Plato and Aristotle, with their conception of the Infinite, and recognizing God according to the more concrete idea of Spirit, under the definition of the Logos. So, also, did the profound thinkers of Alexandria comprehend the unity of the Platonic and Aristotelian Philosophy; and their speculative thinking attained those abstract ideas which are likewise the fundamental purport of the Christian religion. The application, by way of postulate, to the pagan religion, of ideas recognized as true, was a direction which philosophy had already taken among the heathen. Plato had altogether repudiated the current mythology, and, with his followers, was accused of Atheism. The Alexandrians, on the contrary, endeavored to demonstrate a speculative truth in the Greek conceptions of the gods: and the Emperor Julian the Apostate resumed the attempt, asserting that the pagan ceremonials had a strict connection with rationality. The heathen felt, as it were, obliged to give to their divinities the semblance of something higher than sensuous conceptions; they therefore attempted to spiritualize them. Thus much is also certain, that the Greek religion contains a degree of Reason; for the substance of Spirit is Reason, and its product must be something Rational. It makes a difference, however, whether Reason is explicitly developed in Religion, or merely adumbrated by it, as constituting its hidden basis. And while the Greeks thus spiritualized their sensuous divinities, the Christians also, on their side, sought for a profounder sense in the historical part of their religion. Just as Philo found a deeper import shadowed forth in the Mosaic record, and idealized what he considered the bare shell of the narrative, so also did the Christians treat their records – partly with a polemic view, but still more largely from a free and spontaneous interest in the process. But the instrumentality of philosophy in introducing these dogmas into the Christian Religion, is no sufficient ground for asserting that they were foreign to Christianity and had nothing to do with it. It is a matter of perfect indifference where a thing originated; the only question is: “Is it true in and for itself?” Many think that by pronouncing the doctrine to be Neo- Platonic, they have ipso facto banished it from Christianity. Whether a Christian doctrine stands exactly thus or thus in the Bible – the point to which the exegetical scholars of modern times devote all their attention – is not the only question. The Letter kills, the Spirit makes alive: this they say themselves, yet pervert the sentiment by taking the Understanding for the Spirit. It was the Church that recognized and established the doctrines in question – i.e. the Spirit of the Church; and it is itself an Article of Doctrine: “I believe in a Holy Church;"[24] as Christ himself also said: “The Spirit will guide you into all truth.” In the Nicene Council (A.D. 325), was ultimately established a fixed confession of faith, to which we still adhere: this confession had not, indeed, a speculative form, but the profoundly speculative is most intimately inwoven with the manifestation of Christ himself. Even in John (en arch hn o logos, ka o logos hn pros ton qewn un o logos) we see the commencement of a profounder comprehension. The profoundest thought is connected with the personality of Christ – with the historical and external; and it is the very grandeur of the Christian religion that, with all this profundity, it is easy of comprehension by our consciousness in its outward aspect, while, at the same time, it summons us to penetrate deeper. It is thus adapted to every grade of culture, and yet satisfies the highest requirements.
Having spoken of the relation of the Christian community to the Roman world on the one side, and to the truth contained in its doctrines on the other side, we come to the third point – in which both doctrine and the external world are concerned – the Church. The Christian community is the Kingdom of Christ – its influencing present Spirit being Christ: for this kingdom has an actual existence, not a merely future one. This spiritual actuality has, therefore, also a phenomenal existence; and that, not only as contrasted with heathenism, but with secular existence generally. For the Church, as presenting this outward existence, is not merely a religion as opposed to another religion, but is at the same time a particular form of secular existence, occupying a place side by side with other secular existence. The religious existence of the Church is governed by Christ; the secular side of its government is left to the free choice of the members themselves. Into this kingdom of God an organization must be introduced. In the first instance, all the members know themselves filled with the Spirit; the whole community perceives the truth and gives expression to it; yet, together with this common participation of spiritual influence, arises the necessity of a presidency of guidance and teaching – a body distinct from the community at large. Those are chosen as presidents who are distinguished for talents, character, fervor of piety, a holy life, learning, and culture generally. The presidents – those who have a superior acquaintance with that substantial Life of which all are partakers, and who are instructors in that Life – those who establish what is truth, and those who dispense its enjoyment – are distinguished from the community at large, as persons endowed with knowledge and governing power are from the governed. To the intelligent presiding body, the Spirit comes in a fully revealed and explicit form; in the mass of the community that Spirit is only implicit. While, therefore, in the presiding body, the Spirit exists as self-appreciating and self-cognizant, it becomes an authority in spiritual as well as in secular matters – an authority for the truth and for the relation of each individual to the truth, determining how he should conduct himself so as to act in accordance with the Truth. This distinction occasions the rise of an Ecclesiastical Kingdom in the Kingdom of God. Such a distinction is inevitable ; but the existence of an authoritative government for the Spiritual, when closely examined, shows that human subjectivity in its proper form has not yet developed itself. In the heart, indeed, the evil will is surrendered, but the will, as human, is not yet interpenetrated by the Deity; the human will is emancipated only abstractly – not in its concrete reality – for the whole sequel of History is occupied with the realization of this concrete Freedom. Up to this point, finite Freedom has been only annulled, to make way for infinite Freedom. The latter has not yet penetrated secular existence with its rays. Subjective Freedom has not yet attained validity as such: Insight [speculative conviction] does not yet rest on a basis of its own, but is content to inhere in the spirit of an extrinsic authority. That Spiritual [geistig] kingdom has, therefore, assumed the shape of an Ecclesiastical [geistlich] one, as the relation of the substantial being and essence of Spirit to human Freedom. Besides the interior organization already mentioned, we find the Christian community assuming also a definite external position, and becoming the possessor of property of its own. As property belonging to the spiritual world, it is presumed to enjoy special protection; and the immediate inference from this is, that the Church has no dues to pay to the state, and that ecclesiastical persons are not amenable to the jurisdiction of the secular courts. This entails the government by the Church itself of ecclesiastical property and ecclesiastical persons. Thus there originates with the Church the contrasted spectacle of a body consisting only of private persons and the power of the Emperor on the secular side; – on the other side, the perfect democracy of the spiritual community, choosing its own president. Priestly consecration, however, soon changes this democracy into aristocracy; – though the further development of the Church does not belong to the period now under consideration, but must be referred to the world of a later date. It was then through the Christian Religion that the Absolute Idea of God, in its true conception, attained consciousness. Here Man, too, finds himself comprehended in his true nature, given in the specific conception of “the Son.” Man, finite when regarded for himself, is yet at the same time the Image of God and a fountain of infinity in himself. He is the object of his own existence – has in himself an infinite value, an eternal destiny. Consequently he has his true home in a super-sensuous world – an infinite subjectivity, gained only by a rupture with mere Natural existence and volition, and by his labor to break their power within him. This is religious self- consciousness. But in order to enter the sphere and display the active vitality of that religious life, humanity must become capable of it. This capability is the dunamis for that energeia. What therefore remains to be considered is, those conditions of humanity which are the necessary corollary to the consideration that Man is Absolute Self-consciousness – his Spiritual nature being the starting-point and presupposition. These conditions are themselves not yet of a concrete order, but simply the first abstract principles, which are won by the instrumentality of the Christian Religion for the secular State. First, under Christianity Slavery is impossible; for man is man – in the abstract essence of his nature – is contemplated in God; each unit of mankind is an object of the grace of God and of the Divine purpose: “God will have all men to be saved.” Utterly excluding all speciality, therefore, man, in and for himself – in his simple quality of man – has infinite value; and this infinite value abolishes, ipso facto, all particularity attaching to birth or country. The other, the second principle, regards the subjectivity of man in its bearing on the Fortuitous – on Chance. Humanity has this sphere of free Spirituality in and for itself, and everything else must proceed from it. The place appropriated to the abode and presence of the Divine Spirit – the sphere in question – is Spiritual Subjectivity, and is constituted the place to which all contingency is amenable. It follows thence, that what we observed among the Greeks as a form of Customary Morality, cannot maintain its position in the Christian world. For that morality is spontaneous unreflected Wont; while the Christian principle is independent subjectivity – the soil on which grows the True. Now an unreflected morality cannot continue to hold its ground against the principle of Subjective Freedom. Greek Freedom was that of Hap and “Genius”; it was still conditioned by Slaves and Oracles; but now the principle of absolute Freedom in God makes its appearance. Man now no longer sustains the relation of Dependence, but of Love – in the consciousness that he is a partaker in the Divine existence. In regard to particular aims [such as the Greeks referred to oracular decision], man now forms his own determinations and recognizes himself as plenipotentiary in regard to all finite existence. All that is special retreats into the background before that Spiritual sphere of subjectivity, which takes a secondary position only in presence of the Divine Spirit. The superstition of oracles and auspices is thereby entirely abrogated: Man is recognized as the absolute authority in crises of decision.

It is the two principles just treated of, that now attach to Spirit in this its self-contained phase. The inner shrine of man is designed, on the one hand, to train the citizen of the religious life to bring himself into harmony with the Spirit of God; on the other hand, this is the point du départ for determining secular relations, and its condition is the theme of Christian History. The change which piety effects must not remain concealed in the recesses of the heart, but must become an actual, present world, complying with the conditions prescribed by that Absolute Spirit. Piety of heart does not, per se, involve the submission of the subjective will, in its external relations, to that piety. On the contrary we see all passions increasingly rampant in the sphere of reality, because that sphere is looked down upon with contempt, from the lofty position attained by the world of mind, as one destitute of all claim and value. The problem to be solved is therefore the imbuing of the sphere of [ordinary] unreflected Spiritual existence, with the Idea of Spirit. A general observation here suggests itself. From time immemorial it has been customary to assume an opposition between Reason and Religion, as also between Religion and the World; but on investigation this turns out to be only a distinction. Reason in general is the Positive Existence [Wesen] of Spirit, divine as well as human. The distinction between Religion and the World is only this – that Religion as such, is Reason in the soul and heart – that it is a temple in which Truth and Freedom in God are presented to the conceptive faculty: the State, on the other hand, regulated by the selfsame Reason, is a temple of Human Freedom concerned with the perception and volition of a reality, whose purport may itself be called divine. Thus Freedom in the State is preserved and established by Religion, since moral rectitude in the State is only the carrying out of that which constitutes the fundamental principle of Religion. The process displayed in History is only the manifestation of Religion as Human Reason – the production of the religious principle which dwells in the heart of man, under the form of Secular Freedom. Thus the discord between the inner life of the heart and the actual world is removed. To realize this is, however, the vocation of another people – or other peoples – viz., the German. In ancient Rome itself, Christianity cannot find a ground on which it may become actual, and develop an empire.

Chapter III. The Byzantine Empire.

With Constantine the Great the Christian religion ascended the throne of the empire. He was followed by a succession of Christian Emperors, interrupted only by Julian – who however, could do but little for the prostrate ancient faith. The Roman Empire embraced the whole civilized earth, from the Western Ocean to the Tigris – from the interior of Africa, to the Danube (Pannonia, Dacia). Christianity soon spread through the length and breadth of this enormous realm. Rome had long ceased to be the exclusive residence of the Emperors. Many of Constantine's predecessors had resided in Milan or other places; and he himself established a second court in the ancient Byzantium, which received the name of Constantinople. From the first its population consisted chiefly of Christians, and Constantine lavished every appliance to render this new abode equal in splendor to the old. The empire still remained in its integrity till Theodosius the Great made permanent a separation that had been only occasional, and divided it between his two sons. The reign of Theodosius displayed the last faint glimmer of that splendor which had glorified the Roman world. Under him the pagan temples were shut, the sacrifices and ceremonies abolished, and paganism itself forbidden: gradually however it entirely vanished of itself. The heathen orators of the time cannot sufficiently express their wonder and astonishment at the monstrous contrast between the days of their forefathers and their own. “Our Temples have become Tombs. The places which were formerly adorned with the holy statues of the Gods are now covered with sacred bones (relics of the Martyrs); men who have suffered a shameful death for their crimes, whose bodies are covered with stripes, and whose heads have been embalmed, are the object of veneration.” All that was contemned is exalted; all that was formerly revered, is trodden in the dust. The last of the pagans express this enormous contrast with profound lamentation. The Roman Empire was divided between the two sons of Theodosius. The elder, Arcadius, received the Eastern Empire: – Ancient Greece, with Thrace, Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt; the younger, Honorius, the Western: – Italy, Africa, Spain, Gaul, Britain. Immediately after the death of Theodosius, confusion entered, and the Roman provinces were overwhelmed by alien peoples. Already, under the Emperor Valens, the Visigoths, pressed by the Huns, had solicited a domicile on the hither side of the Danube. This was granted them, on the condition that they should defend the border provinces of the empire. But maltreatment roused them to revolt. Valens was beaten and fell on the field. The later emperors paid court to the leader of these Goths. Alaric, the bold Gothic Chief, turned his arms against Italy. Stilicho, the general and minister of Honorius, stayed his course, A.D. 403, by the battle of Pollentia, as at a later date he also routed Radagaisus, leader of the Alans, Suevi, and others. Alaric now attacked Gaul and Spain, and on the fall of Stilicho returned to Italy. Rome was stormed and plundered by him A.D. 410. Afterwards Attila advanced on it with the terrible might of the Huns – one of those purely Oriental phenomena, which, like a mere storm-torrent, rise to a furious height and bear down everything in their course, but in a brief space are so completely spent, that nothing is seen of them but the traces they have left in the ruins which they have occasioned. Attila pressed into Gaul, where, A.D. 451, a vigorous resistance was offered him by Ætius, near Chalons on the Marne. Victory remained doubtful. Attila subsequently marched upon Italy and died in the year 453. Soon afterwards however Rome was taken and plundered by the Vandals under Genseric. Finally, the dignity of the Western Emperors became a farce, and their empty title was abolished by Odoacer, King of the Heruli.

The Eastern Empire long survived, and in the West a new Christian population was formed from the invading barbarian hordes. Christianity had at first kept aloof from the state, and the development which it experienced related to doctrine, internal organization, discipline, etc. But now it had become dominant: it was now a political power, a political motive. We now see Christianity under two forms: on the one side barbarian nations whose culture was yet to begin, who have to acquire the very rudiments of science, law, and polity; on other side civilized peoples in possession of Greek science and a highly refined Oriental culture. Municipal legislation among them was complete – having reached the highest perfection through the labors of the great Roman jurisconsults; so that the corpus juris compiled at the instance of the Emperor Justinian, still excites the admiration of the world. Here the Christian religion is placed in the midst of a developed civilization, which did not proceed from it. There, on the contrary, the process of culture has its very first step still to take, and that within the sphere of Christianity. These two empires, therefore, present a most remarkable contrast, in which we have before our eyes a grand example of the necessity of a people's having its culture developed in the spirit of the Christian religion. The history of the highly civilized Eastern Empire – where as we might suppose, the Spirit of Christianity could be taken up in its truth and purity – exhibits to us a millennial series of uninterrupted crimes, weaknesses, basenesses and want of principle; a most repulsive and consequently a most uninteresting picture. It is evident here, how Christianity may be abstract, and how as such it is powerless, on account of its very purity and intrinsic spirituality. It may even be entirely separated from the World, as e.g. in Monasticism – which originated in Egypt. It is a common Concept and saying, in reference to the power of Religion, abstractly considered, over the hearts of men, that if Christian love were universel, private and political life would both be perfect, and the state of mankind would be thoroughly righteous and moral. Such representations may be a pious wish, but do not possess truth; for religion is something internal, having to do with conscience alone. To it all the passions and desires are opposed, and in order that heart, will, intelligence may become true, they must be thoroughly educated; Right must become Custom – Habit; practical activity must be elevated to rational action; the State must have a rational organ-ization, and then at length does the will of individuals become a truly righteous one. Light shining in darkness may perhaps give color, but not a picture animated by Spirit. The Byzantine Empire is a grand example of how the Christian religion may maintain an abstract character among a cultivated people, if the whole organization of the State and of the Laws is not reconstructed in harmony with its principle. At Byzantium Christianity had fallen into the hands of the dregs of the population – the lawless mob. Popular license on the one side and courtly baseness on the other side, take refuge under the sanction of religion, and degrade the latter to a disgusting object. In regard to religion, two interests obtained prominence: first, the settlement of doctrine; and secondly, the appointment to ecclesiastical offices. The settlement of doctrine pertained to the Councils and Church authorities; but the principle of Christianity is Freedom – subjective insight. These matters therefore, were special subjects of contention for the populace; violent civil wars arose, and everywhere might be witnessed scenes of murder, conflagration and pillage, perpetrated in the cause of Christian dogmas. A famous schism e.g. occurred in reference to the dogma of the Trisagion. The words read: “Holy, Holy, Holy, is the Lord God of Zebaoth.” To this, one party, in honor of Christ, added – “who was crucified for us.” Another party rejected the addition, and sanguinary struggles ensued. In the contest on the question whether Christ were omoousios or omoiousios – that is of the same or of similar nature with God – the one letter i cost many thousands their lives. Especially notorious are the contentions about Images, in which it often happened, that the Emperor declared for the images and the Patriarch against, or conversely. Streams of blood flowed as the result. Gregory Nazianzen says somewhere: “This city (Constantinople) is full of handicraftsmen and slaves, who are all profound theologians, and preach in their workshops and in the streets. If you want a man to change a piece of silver, he instructs you in what consists the distinction between the Father and the Son: if you ask the price of a loaf of bread, you receive for answer – that the Son is inferior to the Father; and if you ask, whether the bread is ready, the rejoinder is that the genesis of the Son was from Nothing.” The Idea of Spirit contained in this doctrine was thus treated in an utterly unspiritual manner. The appointment to the Patriarchate at Constantinople, Antioch and Alexandria, and the jealousy and ambition of the Patriarchs likewise occasioned many intestine struggles. To all these religious contentions was added the interest in the gladiators and their combats, and in the parties of the blue and green color, which likewise occasioned the bloodiest encounters; a sign of the most fearful degradation, as proving that all feeling for what is serious and elevated is lost, and that the delirium of religious passion is quite consistent with an appetite for gross and barbarous spectacles.

The chief points in the Christian religion were at last, by degrees, established by the Councils. The Christians of the Byzantine Empire remained sunk in the dream of superstition – persisting in blind obedience to the Patriarchs and the priesthood. Image-Worship, to which we alluded above, occasioned the most violent struggles and storms. The brave Emperor Leo the Isaurian in particular, persecuted images with the greatest obstinacy, and in the year 754, Image-Worship was declared by a Council to be an invention of the devil. Nevertheless, in the year 787 the Empress Irene had it restored under the authority of a Nicene Council, and the Empress Theodora definitively established it – proceeding against its enemies with energetic rigor. The iconoclastic Patriarch received two hundred blows, the bishops trembled, the monks exulted, and the memory of this orthodox proceeding was celebrated by an annual ecclesiastical festival. The West, on the contrary, repudiated Image-Worship as late as the year 794, in the Council held at Frankfort; and, though retaining the images, blamed most severely the superstition of the Greeks. Not till the later Middle Ages did Image-Worship meet with universel adoption as the result of quiet and slow advances.
The Byzantine Empire was thus distracted by passions of all kinds within, and pressed by the barbarians – to whom the Emperors could offer but feeble resistance – without. The realm was in a condition of perpetual insecurity. Its general aspect presents a disgusting picture of imbecility; wretched, nay, insane passions, stifle the growth of all that is noble in thoughts, deeds, and persons. Rebellion on the part of generals, depositions of the Emperors by their means or through the intrigues of the courtiers, assassination or poisoning of the Emperors by their own wives and sons, women surrendering themselves to lusts and abominations of all kinds – such are the scenes which History here brings before us; till at last – about the middle of the fifteenth century (A.D. 1453) – the rotten edifice of the Eastern Empire crumbled in pieces before the might of the vigorous Turks.

Part IV: The German World.

The German Spirit is the Spirit of the new World. Its aim is the realization of absolute Truth as the unlimited self-determination of Freedom – that Freedom which has its own absolute form itself as its purport.[25] The destiny of the German peoples is, to be the bearers of the Christian principle. The principle of Spiritual Freedom – of Reconciliation [of the Objective and Subjective], was introduced into the still simple, unformed minds of those peoples; and the part assigned them in the service of the World- Spirit was that of not merely possessing the Idea of Freedom as the substratum of their religious conceptions, but of producing it in free and spontaneous developments from their subjective self-consciousness. In entering on the task of dividing the German World into its natural periods, we must remark that we have not, as was the case in treating of the Greeks and Romans, a double external relation – backwards to an earlier World-Historical people, and forwards to a later one – to guide us. History shows that the process of development among the peoples now under consideration, was an altogether different one. The Greeks and Romans had reached maturity within, ere they directed their energies outwards. The Germans, on the contrary, began with self- diffusion – deluging the world, and overpowering in their course the inwardly rotten, hollow political fabrics of the civilized nations. Only then did their development begin, kindled by a foreign culture, a foreign religion, polity and legislation. The process of culture they underwent consisted in taking up foreign elements and reductively amalgamating them with their own national life. Thus their history presents an introversion – the attraction of alien forms of life and the bringing these to bear upon their own. In the Crusades, indeed, and in the discovery of America, the Western World directed its energies outwards. But it was not thus brought in contact with a World-Historical people that had preceded it; it did not dispossess a principle that had previously governed the world. The relation to an extraneous principle here only accompanies [does not constitute] the history – does not bring with it essential changes in the nature of those conditions which characterize the peoples in question, but rather wears the aspect of internal evolution.[26] – The relation to other countries and periods is thus entirely different from that sustained by the Greeks and Romans. For the Christian world is the world of completion; the grand principle of being is realized, consequently the end of days is fully come. The Idea can discover in Christianity no point in the aspirations of Spirit that is not satisfied. For its individual members, the Church is, it is true, a preparation for an eternal state as something future; since the units who compose it, in their isolated and several capacity, occupy a position of particularity: but the Church has also the Spirit of God actually present in it, it forgives the sinner and is a present kingdom of heaven. Thus the Christian World has no absolute existence outside its sphere, but only a relative one which is already implicitly vanquished, and in respect to which its only concern is to make it apparent that this conquest has taken place. Hence it follows that an external reference ceases to be the characteristic element determining the epochs of the modern world. We have therefore to look for another principle of division.
The German World took up the Roman culture and religion in their completed form. There was indeed a German and Northern religion, but it had by no means taken deep root in the soul; Tacitus therefore calls the Germans: “Securi adversus Deos.” The Christian Religion which they adopted, had received from Councils and Fathers of the Church, who possessed the whole culture, and in particular, the philosophy of the Greek and Roman World, a perfected dogmatic system; the Church, too, had a completely developed hierarchy. To the native tongue of the Germans, the Church likewise opposed one perfectly developed – the Latin. In art and philosophy a similar alien influence predominated. What of Alexandrian and of formal Aristotelian philosophy was still preserved in the writings of Boethius and elsewhere, became the fixed basis of speculative thought in the West for many centuries. The same principle holds in regard to the form of the secular sovereignty. Gothic and other chiefs gave themselves the name of Roman Patricians, and at a later date the Roman Empire was restored. Thus the German world appears, superficially, to be only a continuation of the Roman. But there lived in it an entirely new Spirit, through which the World was to be regenerated – the free Spirit, viz. which reposes on itself – the absolutely self-determination [Eigensinn] of subjectivity. To this self- involved subjectivity, the corresponding objectivity [Inhalt] stands opposed as absolutely alien. The distinction and antithesis which is evolved from these principles, is that of Church and State. On the one side, the Church develops itself, as the embodiment of absolute Truth; for it is the consciousness of this truth, and at the same time the agency for rendering the Individual harmonious with it. On the other side stands secular consciousness, which, with its aims, occupies the world of Limitation – the State, based on Heart [emotional and thence social affections] or mutual confidence and subjectivity generally. European history is the exhibition of the growth of each of these principles severally, in Church and State; then of an antithesis on the part of both – not only of the one to the other, but appearing within the sphere of each of these bodies themselves (since each of them is itself a totality); lastly, of the harmonizing of the antithesis. The three periods of this world will have to be treated accordingly.

The first begins with the appearance of the German Nations in the Roman Empire – the incipient development of these peoples, converts to Christianity, and now established in the possession of the West. Their barbarous and simple character prevents this initial period from possessing any great interest. The Christian world then presents itself as “Christendom” – one mass, in which the Spiritual and the Secular form only different aspects. This epoch extends to Charlemagne.

The second period develops the two sides of the antithesis to a logically consequential independence and opposition – the Church for itself as a Theocracy, and the State for itself as a Feudal Monarchy. Charlemagne had formed an alliance with the Holy See against the Lombards and the factions of the nobles in Rome. A union thus arose between the spiritual and the secular power, and a kingdom of heaven on earth promised to follow in the wake of this conciliation. But just at this time, instead of a spiritual kingdom of heaven, the inwardness of the Christian principle wears the appearance of being altogether directed outwards and leaving its proper sphere. Christian Freedom is perverted to its very opposite, both in a religious and secular respect; on the one hand to the severest bondage, on the other hand to the most immoral excess – a barbarous intensity of every passion. In this period two aspects of society are to be especially noticed: the first is the formation of states – superior and inferior suzerainties exhibiting a regulated subordination, so that every relation becomes a firmly-fixed private right, excluding a sense of universelity. This regulated subordination appears in the Feudal System. The second aspect presents the antithesis of Church and State. This antithesis exists solely because the Church, to whose management the Spiritual was committed, itself sinks down into every kind of worldliness – a worldliness which appears only the more detestable, because all passions assume the sanction of religion.

The time of Charles V's reign – i.e., the first half of the sixteenth century – forms the end of the second, and likewise the beginning of the third period. Secularity appears now as gaining a consciousness of its intrinsic worth – becomes aware of its having a value of its own in the morality, rectitude, probity and activity of man. The consciousness of independent validity is aroused through the restoration of Christian freedom. The Christian principle has now passed through the terrible discipline of culture, and it first attains truth and reality through the Reformation, This third period of the German World extends from the Reformation to our own times. The principle of Free Spirit is here made the banner of the World, and from this principle are evolved the universel axioms of Reason. Formal Thought – the Understanding – had been already developed; but Thought received its true material first with the Reformation, through the reviviscent concrete consciousness of Free Spirit. From that epoch Thought began to gain a culture properly its own: principles were derived from it which were to be the norm for the constitution of the State. Political life was now to be consciously regulated by Reason. Customary morality, traditional usage lost its validity; the various claims insisted upon, must prove their legitimacy as based on rational principles. Not till this era is the Freedom of Spirit realized. We may distinguish these periods as Kingdoms of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.[27] The Kingdom of the Father is the consolidated, undistinguished mass, presenting a self-repeating cycle, mere change – like that sovereignty of Chronos engulfing his offspring. The Kingdom of the Son is the manifestation of God merely in a relation to secular existence – shining upon it as upon an alien object. The Kingdom of the Spirit is the harmonizing of the antithesis.

These epochs may be also compared with the earlier empires. In the German aeon, as the realm of Totality, we see the distinct repetition of the earlier epochs.

Charlemagne's time may be compared with the Persian Empire; it is the period of substantial unity – this unity having its foundation in the inner man, the Heart, and both in the Spiritual and the Secular still abiding in its simplicity.

To the Greek world and its merely ideal unity, the time preceding Charles V answers; where real unity no longer exists, because all phases of particularity have become fixed in privileges and peculiar rights. As in the interior of the realms themselves, the different estates of the realm, with their several claims, are isolated, so do the various states in their foreign aspects occupy a merely external relation to each other. A diplomatic policy arises, which in the interest of a European balance of power, unites them with and against each other. It is the time in which the world becomes clear and manifest to itself (Discovery of America). So too does consciousness gain clearness in the supersensuous world and respecting it.

Substantial objective religion brings itself to sensuous clearness in the sensuous element (Christian Art in the age of Pope Leo), and also becomes clear to itself in the element of inmost truth. We may compare this time with that of Pericles. The introversion of Spirit begins (Socrates – Luther), though Pericles is wanting in this epoch. Charles V possesses enormous possibilities in point of outward appliances, and appears absolute in his power; but the inner spirit of Pericles, and therefore the absolute means of establishing a free sovereignty, are not in him. This is the epoch when Spirit becomes clear to itself in separations occurring in the realm of reality; now the distinct elements of the German world manifest their essential nature.
The third epoch may be compared with the Roman World. The unity of a universel principle is here quite as decidedly present, yet not as the unity of abstract universel sovereignty, but as the Hegemony of self-cognizant Thought. The authority of Rational Aim is acknowledged, and privileges and particularities melt away before the common object of the State. Peoples will the Right in and for itself; regard is not had exclusively to particular conventions between nations, but principles enter into the considerations with which diplomacy is occupied. As little can Religion maintain itself apart from Thought, but either advances to the comprehension of the Idea, or, compelled by thought itself, becomes intensive belief – or lastly, from despair of finding itself at home in thought, flees back from it in pious horror, and becomes Superstition.
Section I: The Elements of the Christian German World.

Chapter I. The Barbarian Migrations.

Respecting this first period, we have on the whole little to say, for it affords us comparatively slight materials for reflection. We will not follow the Germans back into their forests, nor investigate the origin of their migrations. Those forests of theirs have always passed for the abodes of free peoples, and Tacitus sketched his celebrated picture of Germany with a certain love and longing – contrasting it with the corruption and artificiality of that world to which he himself belonged. But we must not on this account regard such a state of barbarism as an exalted one, or fall into some such error as Rousseau's, who represents the condition of the American savages as one in which man is in possession of true freedom. Certainly there is an immense amount of misfortune and sorrow of which the savage knows nothing; but this is a merely negative advantage, while freedom is essential positive. It is only the blessings conferred by affirmative freedom that are regarded as such in the highest grade of consciousness.

Our first acquaintance with the Germans finds each individual enjoying an independent freedom; and yet there is a certain community of feeling and interest, though not yet matured to a political condition. Next we see them inundating the Roman empire. It was partly the fertility of its domains, partly the necessity of seeking other habitations, that furnished the inciting cause. In spite of the wars in which they engage with the Romans, individuals, and even entire clans, enter their service as soldiers. Even so early as the battle of Pharsalia we find German cavalry united with the Roman forces of Caesar. In military service and intercourse with civilized peoples, they became acquainted with their advantages – advantages tending to the enjoyment and convenience of life, but also, and principally, those of mental cultivation. In the later emigrations, many nations – some entirely, others partially – remained behind in their original abodes.

Accordingly, a distinction must be made between the German nations who remained in their ancient habitations and those who spread themselves over the Roman empire, and mingled with the conquered peoples. Since in their migratory expeditions the Germans attached themselves to their leaders of their own free choice, we find a peculiar duplicate condition of the great Teutonic families (Eastern and Western Goths; Goths in all parts of the world and in their original country; Scandinavians and Normans in Norway, but also appearing as knightly adventurers in the wide world). However different might be the fates of these peoples, they nevertheless had one aim in common – to procure themselves possessions, and to develop themselves in the direction of political organization. This process of growth is equally characteristic of all. In the West – in Spain and Portugal – the Suevi and Vandals are the first settlers, but are subdued and dispossessed by the Visigoths. A great Visigothic kingdom was established, to which Spain, Portugal, and a part of Southern France belonged. The second kingdom is that of the Franks – a name which, from the end of the second century, was given in common to the Istaevonian races between the Rhine and the Weser. They established themselves between the Moselle and the Scheldt, and under their leader, Clovis, pressed forward into Gaul as far as the Loire. He afterwards reduced the Franks on the Lower Rhine, and the Alemanni on the Upper Rhine; his sons subjugated the Thuringians and Burgundians. The third kingdom is that of the Ostrogoths in Italy, founded by Theodoric, and highly nourishing beneath his rule. The learned Romans Cassiodorus and Boëthius filled the highest offices of state under Theodoric. But this Ostrogothic kingdom did not last long; it was destroyed by the Byzantines under Belisarius and Narses. In the second half (568) of the sixth century, the Lombards invaded Italy and ruled for two centuries, till this kingdom also was subjected to the Frank sceptre by Charlemagne. At a later date, the Normans also established themselves in Lower Italy. Our attention is next claimed by the Burgundians, who were subjugated by the Franks, and whose kingdom forms a kind of partition wall between France and Germany. The Angles and Saxons entered Britain and reduced it under their sway. Subsequently, the Normans make their appearance here also. These countries – previously a part of the Roman empire – thus experienced the fate of subjugation by the Barbarians. In the first instance, a great contrast presented itself between the already civilized inhabitants of those countries and the victors; but this contrast terminated in the hybrid character of the new nations that were now formed. The whole mental and moral existence of such states exhibits a divided aspect; in their inmost being we have characteristics that point to an alien origin. This distinction strikes us even on the surface, in their language, which is an intermixture of the ancient Roman – already united with the vernacular – and the German. We may class these nations together as Romanic – comprehending thereby Italy, Spain, Portugal, and France. Contrasted with these stand three others, more or less German- speaking nations, which have maintained a consistent tone of uninterrupted fidelity to native character – Germany itself, Scandinavia, and England. The last was, indeed, incorporated in the Roman empire, but was affected by Roman culture little more than superficially – like Germany itself – and was again Germanized by Angles and Saxons. Germany Proper kept itself pure from any admixture; only the southern and western border – on the Danube and the Rhine – had been subjugated by the Romans. The portion between the Rhine and the Elbe remained thoroughly national. This part of Germany was inhabited by several tribes. Besides the Ripuarian Franks and those established by Clovis in the districts of the Maine, four leading tribes – the Alemanni, the Boioarians, the Thuringians, and the Saxons – must be mentioned. The Scandinavians retained in their fatherland a similar purity from intermixture; and also made themselves celebrated by their expeditions, under the name of Normans. They extended their chivalric enterprises over almost all parts of Europe. Part of them went to Russia, and there became the founders of the Russian Empire; part settled in Northern France and Britain; another established principalities in Lower Italy and Sicily. Thus a part of the Scandinavians founded states in foreign lands, another maintained its nationality by the ancestral hearth.

We find, moreover, in the East of Europe, the great Sclavonic nation, whose settlements extended west of the Elbe to the Danube. The Magyars (Hungarians) settled in between them. In Moldavia, Wallachia and northern Greece appear the Bulgarians, Servians, and Albanians, likewise of Asiatic origin – left behind as broken barbarian remains in the shocks and counter- shocks of the advancing hordes. These people did, indeed, found kingdoms and sustain spirited conflicts with the various nations that came across their path. Sometimes, as an advanced guard – an intermediate nationality – they took part in the struggle between Christian Europe and unchristian Asia. The Poles even liberated beleaguered Vienna from the Turks; and the Sclaves have to some extent been drawn within the sphere of Occidental Reason. Yet this entire body of peoples remains excluded from our consideration, because hitherto it has not appeared as an independent element in the series of phases that Reason has assumed in the World. Whether it will do so hereafter, is a question that does not concern us here; for in History we have to do with the Past.

The German Nation was characterized by the sense of Natural Totality – an idiosyncrasy which we may call Heart [Gemüth].[28] “Heart” is that undeveloped, indeterminate totality of Spirit, in reference to the Will, in which satisfaction of soul is attained in a correspondingly general and indeterminate way. Character is a particular form of will and interest asserting itself; but the quality in question [Gemüthlichkeit] has no particular aim – riches, honor, or the like; in fact does not concern itself with any objective condition [a “position in the world” in virtue of wealth, dignity, etc.] but with the entire condition of the soul – a general sense of enjoyment. Will in the case of such an idiosyncrasy is exclusively formal Will[29] – its purely subjective Freedom exhibits itself as self-will. To the disposition thus designated, every particular object of attraction seems important, for “Heart” surrenders itself entirely to each; but as, on the other hand, it is not interested in the quality of such aim in the abstract, it does not become exclusively absorbed in that aim, so as to pursue it with violent and evil passion – does not go the length of abstract vice. In the idiosyncrasy we term “Heart,” no such absorption of interest presents itself; it wears, on the whole, the appearance of “well-meaning.” Character is its direct opposite.[30] This is the abstract principle innate in the German peoples, and that subjective side which they present to the objective in Christianity. “Heart” has no particular object; in Christianity we have the Absolute Object [i.e., it is concerned with the entire range of Truth] – all that can engage and occupy human subjectivity. Now it is the desire of satisfaction without further definition or restriction, that is involved in “Heart”; and it is exactly that for which we found an appropriate application in the principle of Christianity. The Indefinite as Substance, in objectivity, is the purely Universel – God; while the reception of the individual will to a participation in His favor, is the complementary element in the Christian concrete Unity. The absolutely Universel is that which contains in it all determinations, and in virtue of this is itself indeterminate. Subject [individual personality] is the absolutely determinate; and these two are identical.[31] This was exhibited above as the material content [Inhalt] in Christianity; here we find it subjectively as “Heart.” Subject [Personality] must then also gain an objective form, that is, be expanded to an object. It is necessary that for the indefinite susceptibilty which we designate “Heart,” the Absolute also should assume the form of an Object, in order that man on his part may attain a consciousness of his unity with that object. But this recognition of the Absolute [in Christ] requires the purification of man's subjectivity – requires it to become a real, concrete self, a sharer in general interests as a denizen of the world at large, and that it should act in accordance with large and liberal aims, recognize Law, and find satisfaction in it. – Thus we find here two principles corresponding the one with the other, and recognize the adaptation of the German peoples to be, as we stated above, the bearers of the higher principle of Spirit.
We advance then to the consideration of the German principle in its primary phase of existence, i.e. the earliest historical condition of the German nations. Their quality of “Heart” is in its first appearance quite abstract, undeveloped and destitute of any particular object; for substantial aims are not involved in “Heart” itself. Where this susceptibilty stands alone, it appears as a want of character – mere inanity. “Heart” as purely abstract, is dulness; thus we see in the original condition of the Germans a barbarian dulness, mental confusion and vagueness. Of the Religion of the Germans we know little. – The Druids belonged to Gaul and were extirpated by the Romans. There was indeed, a peculiar northern mythology; but how slight a hold the religion of the Germans had upon their hearts, has been already remarked, and it is also evident from the fact that the Germans were easily converted to Christianity. The Saxons, it is true, offered considerable resistance to Charlemagne; but this was directed, not so much against the religion he brought with him, as against oppression itself. Their religion had no profundity; and the same may be said of their ideas of law. Murder was not regarded and punished as a crime: it was expiated by a pecuniary fine. This indicates a deficiency in depth of sentiment – that absence of a power of abstraction and discrimination that marks their peculiar temperament [Nichtentzweitseyn des Gemuthes] – a temperament which leads them to regard it only as an injury to the community when one of its members is killed, and nothing further. The blood- revenge of the Arabs is based on the feeling that the honor of the Family is injured. Among the Germans the community had no dominion over the individual, for the element of freedom is the first consideration in their union in a social relationship. The ancient Germans were famed for their love of freedom; the Romans formed a correct idea of them in this particular from the first. Freedom has been the watchword in Germany down to the most recent times, and even the league of princes under Frederick II had its origin in the love of liberty. This element of freedom, in passing over to a social relationship, can establish only popular communities ; so that these communities constitute the whole state, and every member of the community, as such, is a free man. Homicide could be expiated by a pecuniary mulct, because the individuality of the free man was regarded as sacred – permanently and inviolably – whatever he might have done. The community or its presiding power, with the assistance of members of the community, delivered judgment in affairs of private right, with a view to the protection of person and property. For affairs affecting the body politic at large – for wars and similar contingencies – the whole community had to be consulted. The second point to be observed is, that social nuclei were formed by free confederation, and by voluntary attachment to military leaders and princes. The connection in this case was that of Fidelity; for Fidelity is the second watchword of the Germans, as Freedom was the first. Individuals attach themselves with free choice to an individual, and without external prompting make this relation an inviolable one. This we find neither among the Greeks nor the Romans. The relation of Agamemnon and the princes who accompanied him was not that of feudal suit and service: it was a free association merely for a particular purpose – a Hegemony. But the German confederations have their being not in a relation to a mere external aim or cause, but in a relation to the spiritual self – the subjective inmost personality. Heart, disposition, the concrete subjectivity in its integrity, which does not attach itself to any abstract bearing of an object, but regards the whole of it as a condition of attachment – making itself dependent on the person and the cause – renders this relation a compound of fidelity to a person and obedience to a principle.

The union of the two relations – of individual freedom in the community, and of the bond implied in association – is the main point in the formation of the State. In this, duties and rights are no longer left to arbitrary choice, but are determined as fixed relations; – involving, moreover, the condition that the State be the soul of the entire body, and remain its sovereign – that from it should be derived particular aims and the authorization both of political acts and political agents – the generic character and interests of the community constituting the permanent basis of the whole. But here we have the peculiarity of the German states, that contrary to the view thus presented, social relations do not assume the character of general definitions and laws, but are entirely split up into private rights and private obligations. They perhaps exhibit a social or communal mould or stamp, but nothing universel; the laws are absolutely particular, and the Rights are Privileges. Thus the state was a patchwork of private rights, and a rational political life was the tardy issue of wearisome struggles and convulsions.
We have said, that the Germans were predestined to be the bearers of the Christian principle, and to carry out the Idea as the absolutely Rational aim. In the first instance we have only vague volition, in the background of which lies the True and Infinite. The True is present only as an unsolved problem, for their Soul is not yet purified. A long process is required to complete this purification so as to realize concrete Spirit. Religion comes forward with a challenge to the violence of the passions, and rouses them to madness. The excess of passions is aggravated by evil conscience, and heightened to an insane rage; which perhaps would not have been the case, had that opposition been absent. We behold the terrible spectacle of the most fearful extravagance of passion in all the royal houses of that period. Clovis, the founder of the Frank Monarchy, is stained with the blackest crimes. Barbarous harshness and cruelty characterize all the succeeding Merovingians; the same spectacle is repeated in the Thuringian and other royal houses. The Christian principle is certainly the problem implicit in their souls; but these are primarily still crude. The Will – potentially true – mistakes itself, and separates itself from the true and proper aim by particular, limited aims. Yet it is in this struggle with itself and contrariety to its bias, that it realizes its wishes; it contends against the object which it really desires, and thus accomplishes it; for implicitly, potentially, it is reconciled. The Spirit of God lives in the Church; it is the inward impelling Spirit. But it is in the World that Spirit is to be realized – in a material not yet brought into harmony with it. Now this material is the Subjective Will, which thus has a contradiction in itself. On the religious side, we often observe a change of this kind: a man who has all his life been fighting and hewing his way – who with all vehemence of character and passion, has struggled and revelled in secular occupations – on a sudden repudiates it all, to betake himself to religious seclusion. But in the World, secular business cannot be thus repudiated; it demands accomplishment, and ultimately the discovery is made, that Spirit finds the goal of its struggle and its harmonization, in that very sphere which it made the object of its resistance – it finds that secular pursuits are a spiritual occupation.

We thus observe, that individuals and peoples regard that which is their misfortune, as their greatest happiness, and conversely, struggle against their happiness as their greatest misery. La vérité, en la repoussant, on I'embrasse. Europe comes to the truth while, and to the degree in which, she has repulsed it. It is in the agitation thus occasioned, that Providence especially exercises its sovereignty; realizing its absolute aim – its honor – as the result of unhappiness, sorrow, private aims and the unconscious will of the nations of the earth.

While, therefore, in the West this long process in the world's history – necessary to that purification by which Spirit in the concrete is realized – is commencing, the purification requisite for developing Spirit in the abstract which we observe carried on contemporaneously in the East, is more quickly accomplished. The latter does not need a long process, and we see it produced rapidly, even suddenly, in the first half of the seventh century, in Mahometanism.

Chapter II Mohametanism.

On the one hand we see the European world forming itself anew – the nations taking firm root there, to produce a world of free reality expanded and developed in every direction. We behold them beginning their work by bringing all social relations under the form of particularity – with dull and narrow intelligence splitting that which in its nature is generic and normal, into a multitude of chance contingencies; rendering that which ought to be simple principle and law, a tangled web of convention, In short, while the West began to shelter itself in a political edifice of chance, entanglement and particularity, the very opposite direction necessarily made its appearance in the world, to produce the balance of the totality of spiritual manifestation. This took place in the Revolution of the East, which destroyed all particularity and dependence, and perfectly cleared up and purified the soul and disposition; making the abstract One the absolute object of attention and devotion, and to the same extent, pure subjective consciousness – the Knowledge of this One alone – the only aim of reality; – making the Unconditioned [das Verhältnisslose] the condition [Verhält-niss] of existence.
We have already become acquainted with the nature of the Oriental principle, and seen that its Highest Being is only negative; – that with it the positive imports an abandonment to mere nature – the enslavement of Spirit to the world of realities, Only among the Jews have we observed the principle of pure Unity elevated to a thought; for only among them was adoration paid to the One, as an object of thought. This unity then remained, when the purification of the mind to the conception of abstract Spirit had been accomplished; but it was freed from the particularity by which the worship of Jehovah had been hampered. Jehovah was only the God of that one people – the God of Abraham, of Isaac and Jacob: only with the Jews had this God made a covenant; only to this people had he revealed himself. That speciality of relation was done away with in Mahometanism. In this spiritual universelity, in this unlimited and indefinite purity and simplicity of conception, human personality has no other aim than the realization of this universelity and simplicity. Allah has not the affirmative, limited aim of the Judaic God. The worship of the One is the only final aim of Mahometanism, and subjectivity has this worship for the sole occupation of its activity, combined with the design to subjugate secular existence to the One. This One has indeed, the quality of Spirit; yet because subjectivity suffers itself to be absorbed in the object, this One is deprived of every concrete predicate; so that neither does subjectivity become on its part spiritually free, nor on the other hand is the object of its veneration concrete. But Mahometanism is not the Hindoo, not the Monastic immersion in the Absolute. Subjectivity is here living and unlimited – an energy which enters into secular life with a purely negative purpose, and busies itself and interferes with the world, only in such a way as shall promote the pure adoration of the One. The object of Mahometan worship is purely intellectual; no image, no representation of Allah is tolerated. Mahomet is a prophet but still man – not elevated above human weaknesses. The leading features of Mahometanism involve this – that in actual existence nothing can become fixed, but that everything is destined to expand itself in activity and life in the boundless amplitude of the world, so that the worship of the One remains the only bond by which the whole is capable of uniting. In this expansion, this active energy, all limits, all national and caste distinctions vanish; no particular race, political claim of birth or possession is regarded – only man as a believer. To adore the One, to believe in him, to fast – to remove the sense of speciality and consequent separation from the Infinite, arising from corporeal limitation – and to give alms – that is, to get rid of particular private possession – these are the essence of Mahometan injunctions; but the highest meed is to die for the Faith. He who perishes for it in battle is sure of Paradise.

The Mahometan religion originated among the Arabs. Here Spirit exists in its simplest form, and the sense of the Formless has its especial abode; for in their deserts nothing can be brought into a firm consistent shape. The flight of Mahomet from Mecca in the year 622 is the Moslem era. Even during his life, and under his own leadership, but especially by following up his designs after his death under the guidance of his successors, the Arabs achieved their vast conquests. They first came down upon Syria and conquered its capital Damascus in the year 634. They then passed the Euphrates and Tigris and turned their arms against Persia, which soon submitted to them. In the West they conquered Egypt, Northern Africa and Spain, and pressed into Southern France as far as the Loire, where they were defeated by Charles Martel near Tours, A.D. 732. Thus the dominion of the Arabs extended itself in the West. In the East they reduced successively Persia, as already stated, Samarkand, and the Southwestern part of Asia Minor. These conquests, as also the spread of their religion, took place with extraordinary rapidity. Whoever became a convert to Islam gained a perfect equality of rights with all Mussulmans. Those who rejected it, were, during the earliest period, slaughtered. Subsequently, however, the Arabs behaved more leniently to the conquered; so that if they were unwilling to go over to Islam, they were only required to pay an annual poll-tax. The towns that immediately submitted, were obliged to pay the victor a tithe of all their possessions; those which had to be captured, a fifth.

Abstraction swayed the minds of the Mahometans. Their object was, to establish an abstract worship, and they struggled for its accomplishment with the greatest enthusiasm. This enthusiasm was Fanaticism, that is, an enthusiasm for something abstract – for an abstract thought which sustains a negative position towards the established order of things. It is the essence of fanaticism to bear only a desolating destructive relation to the concrete; but that of Mahometanism was, at the same time, capable of the greatest elevation – an elevation free from all petty interests, and united with all the virtues that appertain to magnanimity and valor. La religion et la terreur were the principles in this case, as with Robespierre la liberté et la terreur. But real life is nevertheless concrete, and introduces particular aims; conquest leads to sovereignty and wealth, to the conferring of prerogatives on a dynastic family, and to a union of individuals. But all this is only contingent and built on sand; it is to-day, and to-morrow is not. With all the passionate interest he shows, the Mahometan is really indifferent to this social fabric, and rushes on in the ceaseless whirl of fortune. In its spread Mahometanism founded many kingdoms and dynasties. On this boundless sea there is a continual onward movement; nothing abides firm. Whatever curls up into a form remains all the while transparent, and in that very instant glides away. Those dynasties were destitute of the bond of an organic firmness: the kingdoms, therefore, did nothing but degenerate; the individuals that composed them simply vanished. Where, however, a noble soul makes itself prominent – like a billow in the surging of the sea – it manifests itself in a majesty of freedom, such that nothing more noble, more generous, more valiant, more devoted was ever witnessed. The particular determinate object which the individual embraces is grasped by him entirely – with the whole soul. While Europeans are involved in a multitude of relations, and form, so to speak, “a bundle” of them – in Mahometanism the individual is one passion and that alone; he is superlatively cruel, cunning, bold, or generous. Where the sentiment of love exists, there is an equal abandon – love the most fervid. The ruler who loves the slave, glorifies the object of his love by laying at his feet all his magnificence, power and honor – forgetting sceptre and throne for him; but on the other hand he will sacrifice him just as recklessly. This reckless fervor shows itself also in the glowing warmth of the Arab and Saracen poetry. That glow is the perfect freedom of fancy from every fetter – an absorption in the life of its object and the sentiment it inspires, so that selfishness and egotism are utterly banished.

Never has enthusiasm, as such, performed greater deeds. Individuals may be enthusiastic for what is noble and exalted in various particular forms. The enthusiasm of a people for its independence, has also a definite aim. But abstract and therefore all-comprehensive enthusiasm – restrained by nothing, finding its limits nowhere, and absolutely indifferent to all beside – is that of the Mahometan East.

Proportioned to the rapidity of the Arab conquests, was the speed with which the arts and sciences attained among them their highest bloom. At first we see the conquerors destroying everything connected with art and science. Omar is said to have caused the destruction of the noble Alexandrian library. “These books,” said he, “either contain what is in the Koran, or something else: in either case they are superfluous.” But soon afterwards the Arabs became zealous in promoting the arts and spreading them everywhere. Their empire reached the summit of its glory under the Caliphs Al-Mansor and Haroun Al-Raschid. Large cities arose in all parts of the empire, where commerce and manufactures flourished, splendid palaces were built, and schools created. The learned men of the empire assembled at the Caliph's court, which not merely shone outwardly with the pomp of the costliest jewels, furniture and palaces, but was resplendent with the glory of poetry and all the sciences. At first the Caliphs still maintained entire that simplicity and plainness which characterized the Arabs of the desert, (the Caliph Abubeker is particularly famous in this respect,) and which acknowledged no distinction of station and culture. The meanest Saracen, the most insignificant old Woman, approached the Caliph as an equal. Unreflecting naivete does not stand in need of culture; and in virtue of the freedom of his Spirit, each one sustains a relation of equality to the ruler.
The great empire of the Caliphs did not last long: for on the basis presented by Universelity nothing is firm. The great Arabian empire fell about the same time as that of the Franks: thrones were demolished by slaves and by fresh invading hordes – the Seljuks and Mongols – and new kingdoms founded, new dynasties raised to the throne. The Osman race at last succeeded in establishing a firm dominion, by forming for themselves a firm centre in the Janizaries. Fanaticism having cooled down, no moral principle remained in men's souls. In the struggle with the Saracens, European valor had idealized itself to a fair and noble chivalry. Science and knowledge, especially that of philosophy, came from the Arabs into the West. A noble poetry and free imagination were kindled among the Germans by the East – a fact which directed Goethe's attention to the Orient and occasioned the composition of a string of lyric pearls, in his “Divan,” which in warmth and felicity of fancy cannot be surpassed. But the East itself, when by degrees enthusiasm had vanished, sank into the grossest vice. The most hideous passions became dominant, and as sensual enjoyment was sanctioned in the first form which Mahometan doctrine assumed, and was exhibited as a reward of the faithful in Paradise, it took the place of fanaticism. At present, driven back into its Asiatic and African quarters, and tolerated only in one corner of Europe through the jealousy of Christian Powers, Islam has long vanished from the stage of history at large, and has retreated into Oriental ease and repose.
Chapter III. The Empire of Charlemagne.
The empire of the Franks, as already stated, was founded by Clovis. After his death, it was divided among his sons. Subsequently, after many struggles and the employment of treachery, assassination and violence, it was again united, and once more divided. Internally the power of the kings was very much increased, by their having become princes in conquered lands. These were indeed parcelled out among the Frank freemen; but very considerable permanent revenues accrued to the king, together with what had belonged to the emperors, and the spoils of confiscation. These therefore the king bestowed as personal, i.e. not heritable, beneficia, on his warriors, who in receiving them entered into a personal obligation to him – became his vassals and formed his feudal array. The very opulent Bishops were united with them in constituting the King's Council, which however did not circumscribe the royal authority. At the head of the feudal array was the Major Domus. These Majores Domus soon assumed the entire power and threw the royal authority into the shade, while the kings sank into a torpid condition and became mere puppets. From the former sprang the dynasty of the Carlovingians. Pepin le Bref, the son of Charles Martel, was in the year 752 raised to the dignity of King of the Franks. Pope Zacharias released the Franks from their oath of allegiance to the still living Childeric III – the last of the Merovingians – who received the tonsure, i.e. became a monk, and was thus deprived of the royal distinction of long hair. The last of the Merovingians were utter weaklings, who contented themselves with the name of royalty, and gave themselves up almost entirely to luxury – a phenomenon that is quite common in the dynasties of the East, and is also met with again among the last of the Carlovingians. The Majores Domus, on the contrary, were in the very vigor of ascendant fortunes, and were in such close alliance with the feudal nobility, that it became easy for them ultimately to secure the throne.

The Popes were most severely pressed by the Lombard kings and sought protection from the Franks. Out of gratitude Pepin undertook to defend Stephen II. He led an army twice across the Alps, and twice defeated the Lombards. His victories gave splendor to his newly established throne, and entailed a considerable heritage on the Chair of St. Peter. In A.D. 800 the son of Pepin – Charlemagne – was crowned Emperor by the Pope, and hence originated the firm union of the Carlovingians with the Papal See. For the Roman Empire continued to enjoy among the barbarians the prestige of a great power, and was ever regarded by them as the centre from which civil dignities, religion, laws and all branches of knowledge – beginning with written characters themselves – flowed to them. Charles Martel, after he had delivered Europe from Saracen domination, was – himself and his successors – dignified with the title of “Patrician” by the people and senate of Rome; but Charlemagne was crowned Emperor, and that by the Pope himself. There were now, therefore, two Empires, and in them the Christian confession was gradually divided into two Churches, the Greek and the Roman. The Roman Emperor was the born defender of the Roman Church, and this position of the Emperor towards the Pope seemed to declare that the Frank sovereignty was only a continuation of the Roman Empire. The Empire of Charlemagne had a very considerable extent. Franconia Proper stretched from the Rhine to the Loire. Aquitania, south of the Loire, was in 768 – the year of Pepin's death – entirely subjugated. The Frank Empire also included Burgundy, Alemannia (southern Germany between the Lech, the Maine and the Rhine), Thuringia, which extended to the Saale, and Bavaria. Charlemagne likewise conquered the Saxons, who dwelt between the Rhine and the Weser, and put an end to the Lombard dominion, so that he became master of Upper and Central Italy.

This great empire Charlemagne formed into a systematically organized State, and gave the Frank dominion settled institutions adapted to impart to it strength and consistency. This must however not be understood, as if he first introduced the Constitution of his empire in its whole extent, but as implying that institutions partly already in existence, were developed under his guidance, and attained a more decided and unobstructed efficiency. The King stood at the head of the officers of the empire, and the principle of hereditary monarchy was already recognized. The King was likewise master of the armed force, as also the largest landed proprietor, while the supreme judicial power was equally in his hands. The military constitution was based on the “arrière- ban.” Every freeman was bound to arm for the defence of the realm, and had to provide for his support in the field for a certain time. This militia (as it would now be called) was under the command of Counts and Margraves, which latter presided over large districts on the borders of the empire – the “Marches.” According to the general partition of the country, it was divided into provinces [or counties], over each of which a Count presided. Over them again, under the later Carlovingians, were Dukes, whose seats were large cities, such as Cologne, Ratisbon, and the like. Their office gave occasion to the division of the country into Duchies: thus there was a Duchy of Alsatia, Lorraine, Frisia, Thuringia, Rhaetia. These Dukes were appointed by the Emperor. Peoples that had retained their hereditary princes after their subjugation, lost this privilege and received Dukes, when they revolted; this was the case with Alemannia, Thuringia, Bavaria, and Saxony. But there was also a kind of standing army for readier use. The vassals of the emperor, namely, had the enjoyment of estates on the condition of performing military service, whenever commanded. And with a view to maintain these arrangements, commissioners (Missi) were sent out by the emperor, to observe and report concerning the affairs of the Empire, and to inquire into the state of judicial administration and inspect the royal estates.

Not less remarkable is the management of the revenues of the state. There were no direct taxes, and few tolls on rivers and roads, of which several were farmed out to the higher officers of the empire. Into the treasury flowed on the one hand judicial fines, on the other hand the pecuniary satisfactions made for not serving in the army at the emperor's summons. Those who enjoyed beneficia, lost them on neglecting this duty. The chief revenue was derived from the crown- lands, of which the emperor had a great number, on which royal palaces [Pfalzen] were erected. It had been long the custom for the kings to make progresses through the chief provinces, and to remain for a time in each palatinate; the due preparations for the maintenance of the court having been already made by Marshals, Chamberlains, etc.

As regards the administration of justice, criminal causes and those which concern real property were tried before the communal assemblies under the presidency of a Count. Those of less importance were decided by at least seven free men – an elective bench of magistrates – under the presidency of the Centgraves. The supreme jurisdiction belonged to the royal tribunals, over which the king presided in his palace: to these the feudatories, spiritual and temporal, were amenable. The royal commissioners mentioned above gave especial attention in their inquisitorial visits to the judicial administration, heard all complaints, and punished injustice. A spiritual and a temporal envoy had to go their circuit four times a year.

In Charlemagne's time the ecclesiastical body had already acquired great weight. The bishops presided over great cathedral establishments, with which were also connected seminaries and scholastic institutions. For Charlemagne endeavored to restore science, then almost extinct, by promoting the foundation of schools in towns and villages. Pious souls believed that they were doing a good work and earning salvation by making presents to the church; in this way the most savage and barbarous monarchs sought to atone for their crimes. Private persons most commonly made their offerings in the form of a bequest of their entire estate to religious houses, stipulating for the enjoyment of the usufruct only for life or for a specified time. But it often happened that on the death of a bishop or abbot, the temporal magnates and their retainers invaded the possessions of the clergy, and fed and feasted there till all was consumed; for religion had not yet such an authority over men's minds as to be able to bridle the rapacity of the powerful. The clergy were obliged to appoint stewards and bailiffs to manage their estates; besides this, guardians had charge of all their secular concerns, led their men-at-arms into the field, and gradually obtained from the king territorial jurisdiction, when the ecclesiastics had secured the privilege of being amenable only to their own tribunals, and enjoyed immunity from the authority of the royal officers of justice (the Counts). This involved an important step in the change of political relations, inasmuch as the ecclesiastical domains assumed more and more the aspect of independent provinces enjoying a freedom surpassing anything to which those of secular princes had yet made pretensions. Moreover the clergy contrived subsequently to free themselves from the burdens of the state, and opened the churches and monasteries as asylums – that is, inviolable sanctuaries for all offenders. This institution was on the one hand very beneficial as a protection in cases of violence and oppression; but it was perverted on the other hand into a means of impunity for the grossest crimes. In Charlemagne's time, the law could still demand from conventual authorities the surrender of offenders. The bishops were tried by a judicial bench consisting of bishops; as vassals they were properly subject to the royal tribunal. Afterwards the monastic establishments sought to free themselves from episcopal jurisdiction also: and thus they made themselves independent even of the church. The bishops were chosen by the clergy and the religious communities at large; but as they were also vassals of the sovereign, their feudal dignity had to be conferred by him. The contingency of a contest was avoided by the obligation to choose a person approved of by the king.

The imperial tribunals were held in the palace where the emperor resided. The sovereign himself presided in them, and the magnates of the imperial court constituted with him the supreme judicial body. The deliberations of the imperial council on the affairs of the empire did not take place at appointed times, but as occasions offered – at military reviews in the spring, at ecclesiastical councils and on court-days. It was especially these court-days, to which the feudal nobles were invited – when the king held his court in a particular province, generally on the Rhine, the centre of the Frank empire – that gave occasion to the deliberations in question. Custom required the sovereign to assemble twice a year a select body of the higher temporal and ecclesiastical functionaries, but here also the king had decisive power. These conventions are therefore of a different character from the Imperial Diets of later times, in which the nobles assume a more independent position.
Such was the state of the Frank Empire – that first consolidation of Christianity into a political form proceeding from itself, the Roman empire having been swallowed up by Christianity. The constitution just described looks excellent; it introduced a firm military organization and provided for the administration of justice within the empire. Yet after Charlemagne's death it proved itself utterly powerless – externally defenceless against the invasions of the Normans, Hungarians, and Arabs, and internally inefficient in resisting lawlessness, spoliation, and oppression of every kind. Thus we see, side by side with an excellent constitution, the most deplorable condition of things, and therefore confusion in all directions. Such political edifices need, for the very reason that they originate suddenly, the additional strengthening afforded by negativity evolved within themselves: they need reactions in every form, such as manifest themselves in the following period.

Section II: The Middle Ages

While the first period of the German World ends brilliantly with a mighty empire, the second is commenced by the reaction resulting from the antithesis occasioned by that infinite falsehood which rules the destinies of the Middle Ages and constitutes their life and spirit. This reaction is first, that of the particular nationalities against the universel sovereignty of the Frank empire – manifesting itself in the splitting up of that great empire. The second reaction is that of individuals against legal authority and the executive power – against subordination, and the military and judicial arrangements of the constitution. This produced the isolation and therefore defencelessness of individuals. The universelity of the power of the state disappeared through this reaction: individuals sought protection with the powerful, and the latter became oppressors. Thus was gradually introduced a condition of universel dependence, and this protecting relation is then systematized into the Feudal System. The third reaction is that of the church – the reaction of the spiritual element against the existing order of things. Secular extravagances of passion were repressed and kept in check by the Church, but the latter was itself secularized in the process, and abandoned its proper position. From that moment begins the introversion of the secular principle. These relations and reactions all go to constitute the history of the Middle Ages, and the culminating point of this period is the Crusades; for with them arises a universel instability, but one through which the states of Christendom first attain internal and external independence.
Chapter I. The Feudality and the Hierarchy.
The First Reaction is that of particular nationality against the universel sovereignty of the Franks. It appears indeed, at first sight, as if the Frank empire was divided by the mere choice of its sovereigns; but another consideration deserves attention, vis. that this division was popular, and was accordingly maintained by the peoples. It was, therefore, not a mere dynastic act – which might appear unwise, since the princes thereby weakened their own power – but a restoration of those distinct nationalities which had been held together by a connecting bond of irresistible might and the genius of a great man. Louis the Pious [le Débonnaire] son of Charlemagne, divided the empire among his three sons. But subsequently, by a second marriage, another son was born to him – Charles the Bald. As he wished to give him also an inheritance, wars and contentions arose between Louis and his other sons, whose already received portion would have to be diminished by such an arrangement. In the first instance, therefore, a private interest was involved in the contest; but that of the nations which composed the empire made the issue not indifferent to them. The western Franks had already identified themselves with the Gauls, and with them originated a reaction against the German Franks, as also at a later epoch one on the part of Italy against the Germans. By the treaty of Verdun, A.D. 843, a division of the empire among Charlemagne's descendants took place; the whole Frank empire, some provinces excepted, was for a moment again united under Charles the Gross. It was, however, only for a short time that this weak prince was able to hold the vast empire together; it was broken up into many smaller sovereignties, which developed and maintined an independent position. These were the Kingdom of Italy, which was itself divided, the two Burgundian sovereignties – Upper Burgundy, of which the chief centres were Geneva and the convent of St. Maurice in Valaise, and Lower Burgundy between the Jura, the Mediterranean and the Rhone – Lorraine, between the Rhine and the Meuse, Normandy, and Brittany. France Proper was shut in between these sovereignties; and thus limited did Hugh Capet find it when he ascended the throne. Eastern Franconia, Saxony, Thuringia, Bavaria, Swabia, remained parts of the German Empire. Thus did the unity of the Frank monarchy fall to pieces. The internal arrangements of the Frank empire also suffered a gradual but total decay; and the first to disappear was the military organization. Soon after Charlemagne we see the Norsemen from various quarters making inroads into England, France and Germany. In England seven dynasties of Anglo-Saxon Kings were originally established, but in the year 827 Egbert united these sovereignties into a single kingdom. In the reign of his successor the Danes made very frequent invasions and pillaged the country. In Alfred the Great's time they met with vigorous resistance, but subsequently the Danish King Canute conquered all England. The inroads of the Normans into France were contemporaneous with these events. They sailed up the Seine and the Loire in light boats, plundered the towns, pillaged the convents, and went off with their booty. They beleaguered Paris itself, and the Carlovingian Kings were reduced to the base necessity of purchasing a peace. In the same way they devastated the towns lying on the Elbe; and from the Rhine plundered Aix-la-Chapelle and Cologne, and made Lorraine tributary to them. The Diet of Worms, in 882, did indeed issue a general proclamation, summoning all subjects to rise in arms, but they were compelled to put up with a disgraceful composition. These storms came from the north and the west. The Eastern side of the empire suffered from the inroads of the Magyars. These barbarian peoples traversed the country in wagons, and laid waste the whole of Southern Germany. Through Bavaria, Swabia, and Switzerland they penetrated into the interior of France and reached Italy. The Saracens pressed forward from the South. Sicily had been long in their hands: they thence obtained a firm footing in Italy, menaced Rome – which diverted their attack by a composition – and were the terror of Piedmont and Provence.

Thus these three peoples invaded the empire from all sides in great masses, and in their desolating marches almost came into contact with each other. France was devastated by the Normans as far as the Jura; the Hungarians reached Switzerland, and the Saracens Valaise. Calling to mind that organization of the “arrière-ban,” and considering it in juxtaposition with this miserable state of things, we cannot fail to be struck with the inefficiency of all those far- famed institutions, which at such a juncture ought to have shown themselves most effective. We might be inclined to regard the picture of the noble and rational constitution of the Frank monarchy under Charlemagne – exhibiting itself as strong, comprehensive, and well ordered, internally and externally – as a baseless figment. Yet it actually existed; the entire political system being held together only by the power, the greatness, the regal soul of this one man – not based on the spirit of the people – not having become a vital element in it. It was superficially induced – an a priori constitution like that which Napoleon gave to Spain, and which disappeared with the physical power that sustained it. That, on the contrary, which renders a constitution real, is that it exists as Objective Freedom – the Substantial form of volition – as duty and obligation acknowledged by the subjects themselves. But obligation was not yet recognized by the German Spirit, which hitherto showed itself only as “Heart” and subjective choice; for it there was as yet no subjectivity involving unity, but only a subjectivity conditioned by a careless superficial self-seeking. Thus that constitution was destitute of any firm bond; it had no objective support in subjectivity; for in fact no constitution was as yet possible.

This leads us to the Second Reaction – that of individuals against the authority of law. The capacity of appreciating legal order and the common weal is altogether absent, has no vital existence in the peoples themselves. The duties of every free citizen, the authority of the judge to give judicial decisions, that of the count of a province to hold his court, and interest in the laws as such, are no longer regarded as valid now that the strong hand from above ceases to hold the reins of sovereignty. The brilliant administration of Charlemagne had vanished without leaving a trace, and the immediate consequence was the general defencelessness of individuals. The need of protection is sure to be felt in some degree in every well-organized state: each citizen knows his rights and also knows that for the security of possession the social state is absolutely necessary. Barbarians have not yet attained this sense of need – the want of protection from others. They look upon it as a limitation of their freedom if their rights must be guaranteed them by others. Thus, therefore, the impulse towards a firm organization did not exist: men must first be placed in a defenceless condition, before they were sensible of the necessity of the organization of a State. The political edifice had to be reconstructed from the very foundations. The commonwealth as then organized had no vitality or firmness at all either in itself or in the minds of the people; and its weakness manifested itself in the fact that it was unable to give protection to its individual members. As observed above, the idea of duty was not present in the Spirit of the Germans; it had to be restored. In the first instance volition could only be arrested in its wayward career in reference to the merely external point of possession; and to make it feel the importance of the protection of the State, it had to be violently dislodged from its obtuseness and impelled by necessity to seek union and a social condition. Individuals were therefore obliged to consult for themselves by taking refuge with Individuals, and submitted to the authority of certain powerful persons, who constituted a private possession and personal sovereignty out of that authority which formerly belonged to the Commonwealth. As officers of the State, the counts did not meet with obedience from those committed to their charge, and they were as little desirous of it. Only for themselves did they covet it. They assumed to themselves the power of the State, and made the authority with which they had been intrusted as a beneficium, a heritable possession. As in earlier times the King or other magnates conferred fiefs on their vassals by way of rewards, now, conversely, the weaker and poorer surrendered their possessions to the strong, for the sake of gaining efficient protection. They committed their estates to a Lord, a Convent, an Abbot, a Bishop (feudum oblatum), and received them back, encumbered with feudal obligations to these superiors. Instead of freemen they became vassals – feudal dependants – and their possession a beneficium. This is the constitution of the Feudal System. “Feudum” is connected with “fides”; the fidelity implied in this case is a bond established on unjust principles, a relation that does indeed contemplate a legitimate object, but whose import is not a whit the less injustice ; for the fidelity of vassals is not an obligation to the Commonwealth, but a private one – ipso facto therefore subject to the sway of chance, caprice, and violence. Universel injustice, universel lawlessness is reduced to a system of dependence on and obligation to individuals, so that the mere formal side of the matter, the mere fact of compact constitutes its sole connection with the principle of Right. – Since every man had to protect himself, the martial spirit, which in point of external defence seemed to have most ignominiously vanished, was reawakened; for torpidity was roused to action partly by extreme ill-usage, partly by the greed and ambition of individuals. The valor that now manifested itself, was displayed not on behalf of the State, but of private interests. In every district arose castles; fortresses were erected, and that for the defence of private property, and with a view to plunder the tyranny. In the way just mentioned, the political totality was ignored at those points where individual authority was established, among which the seats of bishops and archbishops deserve especial mention. The bishoprics had been freed from the jurisdiction of the judicial tribunals, and from the operations of the executive generally. The bishops had stewards on whom at their request the Emperors conferred the jurisdiction which the Counts had formerly exercised. Thus there were detached ecclesiastical domains – ecclesiastical districts which belonged to a saint (Germ. Weichbilder). Similar suzerainties of a secular kind were subsequently constituted. Both occupied the position of the previous Provinces [Gaue] or Counties [Grafschaften]. Only in a few towns where communities of freemen were independently strong enough to secure protection and safety, did relics of the ancient free constitution remain. With these exceptions the free communities entirely disappeared, and became subject to the prelates or to the Counts and Dukes, thenceforth known as seigneurs and princes. The imperial power was extolled in general terms, as something very great and exalted: the Emperor passed for the secular head of entire Christendom: but the more exalted the ideal dignity of the emperors, the more limited was it in reality. France derived extraordinary advantage from the fact that it entirely repudiated this baseless assumption, while in Germany the advance of political development was hindered by that pretence of power. The kings and emperors were no longer chiefs of the state, but of the princes, who were indeed their vassals, but possessed sovereignty and territorial lordships of their own. The whole social condition therefore, being founded on individual sovereignty, it might be supposed that the advance to a State would be possible only through the return of those individual sovereignties to an official relationship. But to accomplish this, a superior power would have been required, such as was not in existence; for the feudal lords themselves determined how far they were still dependent on the general constitution of the state. No authority of Law and Right is valid any longer; nothing but chance power – the crude caprice of particular as opposed to universelly valid Right; and this struggles against equality of Rights and Laws. Inequality of political privileges – the allotment being the work of the purest haphazard – is the predominant feature. It is impossible that a Monarchy can arise from such a social condition through the subjugation of the several minor powers under the Chief of the State, as such. Reversely, the former were gradually transformed into Principalities [Fürstenthumer], and became united with the Principality of the Chief; thus enabling the authority of the king and of the state to assert itself. While, therefore, the bond of political unity was still wanting, the several seigneuries attained their development independently.
In France the dynasty of Charlemagne, like that of Clovis, became extinct through the weakness of the sovereigns who represented it. Their dominion was finally limited to the petty sovereignty of Laon; and the last of the Carlovingians, Duke Charles of Lorraine, who laid claim to the crown after the death of Louis V, was defeated and taken prisoner. The powerful Hugh Capet, Duke of France, was proclaimed king. The title of King, however, gave him no real power; his authority was based on his territorial possessions alone. At a later date, through purchase, marriage, and the dying out of families, the kings became possessed of many feudal domains; and their authority was frequently invoked as a protection against the oppressions of the nobles. The royal authority in France became heritable at an early date, because the fiefs were heritable; though at first the kings took the precaution to have their sons crowned during their lifetime. France was divided into many sovereignties: the Duchy of Guienne, the Earldom of Flanders, the Duchy of Gascony, the Earldom of Toulouse, the Duchy of Burgundy, the Earldom of Vermandois; Lorraine too had belonged to France for some time. Normandy had been ceded to the Normans by the kings of France, in order to secure a temporary repose from their incursions. From Normandy Duke William passed over into England and conquered it in the year 1066. Here he introduced a fully developed feudal constitution – a network which, to a great extent, encompasses England even at the present day. And thus the Dukes of Normandy confronted the comparatively feeble Kings of France with a power of no inconsiderable pretensions. – Germany was composed of the great duchies of Saxony, Swabia, Bavaria, Carinthia, Lorraine and Burgundy, the Margraviate of Thuringia, etc. with several bishoprics and archbishoprics. Each of those duchies again was divided into several fiefs, enjoying more of less independence. The emperor seems often to have united several duchies under his immediate sovereignty. The Emperor Henry III was, when he ascended the throne, lord of many large dukedoms; but he weakened his own power by enfeoffing them to others. Germany was radically a free nation, and had not, as France had, any dominant family as a central authority; it continued an elective empire. Its princes refused to surrender the privilege of choosing their sovereign for themselves; and at every new election they introduced new restrictive conditions, so that the imperial power was degraded to an empty shadow. – In Italy we find the same political condition. The German Emperors had pretensions to it: but their authority was valid only so far as they could support it by direct force of arms, and as the Italian cities and nobles deemed their own advantage to be promoted by submission. Italy was, like Germany, divided into many larger and smaller dukedoms, earldoms, bishoprics and seigneuries. The Pope had very little power, either in the North or in the South; which latter was long divided between the Lombards and the Greeks, until both were overcome by the Normans. – Spain maintained a contest with the Saracens, either defensive or victorious, through the whole mediaeval period, till the latter finally succumbed to the more matured power of Christian civilization.
Thus all Right vanished before individual Might; for equality of Rights and rational legislation, where the interests of the political Totality, of the State, are kept in view, had no existence. The Third Reaction, noticed above, was that of the element of Universelity against the Real World as split up into particularity. This reaction proceeded from below upwards – from that condition of isolated possession itself; and was then promoted chiefly by the church. A sense of the nothingness of its condition seized on the world as it were universelly. In that condition of utter isolation, where only the unsanctioned might of individuals had any validity [where the State was non-existent,] men could find no repose, and Christendom was, so to speak, agitated by the tremor of an evil conscience. In the eleventh century, the fear of the approaching final judgment and the belief in the speedy dissolution of the world, spread through all Europe. This dismay of soul impelled men to the most irrational proceedings. Some bestowed the whole of their possessions on the Church, and passed their lives in continual penance; the majority dissipated their worldly all in riotous debauchery. The Church alone increased its riches by the hallucinations, through donations and bequests. – About the same time too, terrible famines swept away their victims: human flesh was sold in open market. During this state of things, lawlessness, brutal lust, the most barbarous caprice, deceit and cunning, were the prevailing moral features. Italy, the centre of Christendom, presented the most revolting aspect. Every virtue was alien to the times in question; consequently virtus had lost its proper meaning: in common use it denoted only violence and oppression, sometimes even libidinous outrage. This corrupt state of things affected the clergy equally with the laity. Their own advowees had made themselves masters of the ecclesiastical estates intrusted to their keeping, and lived on them quite at their own pleasure, restricting the monks and clergy to a scanty pittance. Monasteries that refused to accept advowees were compelled to do so; the neighboring lords taking the office upon themselves or giving it to their sons. Only bishops and abbots maintained themselves in possession, being able to protect themselves partly by their own power, partly by means of their retainers; since they were, for the most part, of noble families.

The bishoprics being secular fiefs, their occupants were bound to the performance of imperial and feudal service. The investiture of the bishops belonged to the sovereigns, and it was their interest that these ecclesiastics should be attached to them. Whoever desired a bishopric, therefore, had to make application to the king; and thus a regular trade was carried on in bishoprics and abbacies. Usurers who had lent money to the sovereign, received compensation by the bestowal of the dignities in question; the worst of men thus came into possession of spiritual offices. There could be no question that the clergy ought to have been chosen by the religious community, and there were always influential persons who had the right of electing them; but the king compelled them to yield to his orders. Nor did the Papal dignity fare any better. Through a long course of years the Counts of Tusculum near Rome conferred it on members of their own family, or on persons to whom they had sold it for large sums of money. The state of things became at last so intolerable, that laymen as well as ecclesiastics of energetic character opposed its continuance. The Emperor Henry III put an end to the strife of factions, by nominating the Popes himself, and supporting them by his authority in defiance of the opposition of the Roman nobility. Pope Nicholas II decided that the Popes should be chosen by the Cardinals; but as the latter partly belonged to dominant families, similar contests of factions continued to accompany their election. Gregory VII (already famous as Cardinal Hildebrand) sought to secure the independence of the church in this frightful condition of things, by two measures especially. First, he enforced the celibacy of the clergy. From the earliest times, it must be observed, the opinion had prevailed that it was commendable and desirable for the clergy to remain unmarried. Yet the annalists and chroniclers inform us that this requirement was but indifferently complied with. Nicholas II had indeed pronounced the married clergy to be a new sect; but Gregory VII proceeded to enforce the restriction with extraordinary energy, excommunicating all the married clergy and all laymen who should hear mass when they officiated. In this way the ecclesiastical body was shut up within itself and excluded from the morality of the State. – His second measure was directed against simony, i.e. the sale of or arbitrary appointment to bishoprics and to the Papal See itself.

Ecclesiastical offices were thenceforth to be filled by the clergy, who were capable of administering them; an arrangement which necessarily brought the ecclesiastical body into violent collision with secular seigneurs.

These were the two grand measures by which Gregory purposed to emancipate the Church from its condition of dependence and exposure to secular violence. But Gregory made still further demands on the secular power. The transference of benefices to a new incumbent was to receive validity simply in virtue of his ordination by his ecclesiastical superior, and the Pope was to have exclusive control over the vast property of the ecclesiastical community. The Church as a divinely constituted power, laid claim to supremacy over secular authority – founding that claim on the abstract principle that the Divine is superior to the Secular. The Emperor at his coronation – a ceremony which only the Pope could perform – was obliged to promise upon oath that he would always be obedient to the Pope and the Church. Whole countries and states, such as Naples, Portugal, England and Ireland came into a formal relation of vassalage to the Papal chair.

Thus the Church attained an independent position: the Bishops convoked synods in the various countries, and in these convocations the clergy found a permanent centre of unity and support. In this way the Church attained the most influential position in secular affairs. It arrogated to itself the award of princely crowns, and assumed the part of mediator between sovereign powers in war and peace. The contingencies which particularly favored such interventions on the part of the Church were the marriages of princes. It frequently happened that princes wished to be divorced from their wives; but for such a step they needed the permission of the Church. The latter did not let slip the opportunity of insisting upon the fulfilment of demands that might have been otherwise urged in vain, and thence advanced till it had obtained universel influence. In the chaotic state of the community generally, the intervention of the authority of the Church was felt as a necessity. By the introduction of the “Truce of God,” feuds and private revenge were suspended for at least certain days in the week, or even for entire weeks; and the Church maintained this armistice by the use of all its ghostly appliances of excommunication, interdict and other threats and penalties. The secular possessions of the Church brought it however into a relation to other secular princes and lords, which was alien to its proper nature; it constituted a formidable secular power in contraposition to them, and thus formed in the first instance a centre of opposition against violence and arbitrary wrong. It withstood especially the attacks upon the ecclesiastical foundations – the secular lordships of the Bishops; and on occasion of opposition on the part of vassals to the violence and caprice of princes, the former had the support of the Pope. But in these proceedings the Church brought to bear against opponents only a force and arbitrary resolve of the same kind as their own, and mixed up its secular interest with its interest as an ecclesiastical, i.e., a divinely substantial power. Sovereigns and peoples were by no means incapable of discriminating between the two, or of recognizing the worldly aims that were apt to intrude as motives for ecclesiastical intervention. They therefore stood by the Church as far as they deemed it their interest to do so; otherwise they showed no great dread of excommunication or other ghostly terrors. Italy was the country where the authority of the Popes was least respected; and the worst usage they experienced was from the Romans themselves. Thus what the Popes acquired in point of land and wealth and direct sovereignty, they lost in influence and consideration.

We have then to probe to its depths the spiritual element in the Church – the form of its power. The essence of the Christian principle has already been unfolded; it is the principle of Mediation. Man realizes his Spiritual essence only when he conquers the Natural that attaches to him. This conquest is possible only on the supposition that the human and the divine nature are essentially one, and that Man, so far as he is Spirit, also possesses the essentiality and substantiality that belong to the idea of Deity. The condition of the mediation in question is the consciousness of this unity; and the intuition of this unity was given to man in Christ. The object to be attained is therefore, that man should lay hold on this consciousness, and that it should be continually excited in him. This was the design of the Mass: in the Host Christ is set forth as actually, present; the piece of bread consecrated by the priest is the present God, subjected to human contemplation and ever and anon offered up. One feature of this representation is correct, inasmuch as the sacrifice of Christ is here regarded as an actual and eternal transaction, Christ being not a mere sensuous and single, but a completely universel, i.e., divine, individuum; but on the other hand it involves the error of isolating the sensuous phase; for the Host is adored even apart from its being partaken of by the faithful, and the presence of Christ is not exclusively limited mental vision and Spirit. Justly therefore did the Lutheran Reformation make this dogma an especial object of attack. Luther proclaimed the great doctrine that the Host had spiritual value and Christ was received only on the condition of faith in him; apart from this, the Host, he affirmed, was a mere external thing, possessed of no greater value than any other thing. But the Catholic falls down before the Host; and thus the merely outward has sanctity ascribed to it. The Holy as a mere thing has the character of externality; thus it is capable of being taken possession of by another to my exclusion: it may come into an alien hand, since the process of appropriating it is not one that takes place in Spirit, but is conditioned by its quality as an external object [Dingheit]. The highest of human blessings is in the hands of others. Here arises ipso facto a separation between those who possess this blessing and those who have to receive it from others – between the Clergy and the Laity. The laity as such are alien to the Divine. This is the absolute schism in which the Church in the Middle Ages was involved: it arose from the recognition of the Holy as something external. The clergy imposed certain conditions, to which the laity must conform if they would be partakers of the Holy. The entire development of doctrine, spiritual insight and the knowledge of divine things, belonged exclusively to the Church: it has to ordain, and the laity have simply to believe: obedience is their duty – the obedience of faith, without insight on their part. This position of things rendered faith a matter of external legislation, and resulted in compulsion and the stake. The generality of men are thus cut off from the Church; and on the same principle they are severed from the Holy in every form. For on the same principle as that by which the clergy are the medium between man on the one hand and God and Christ on the other hand, the layman cannot directly apply to the Divine Being in his prayers, but only through mediators – human beings who conciliate God for him, the Dead, the Perfect – Saints. Thus originated the adoration of the Saints, and with it that conglomerate of fables and falsities with which the Saints and their biographies have been invested. In the East the worship of images had early become popular, and after a lengthened struggle had triumphantly established itself: – an image, a picture, though sensuous, still appeals rather to the imagination; but the coarser natures of the West desired something more immediate as the object of their contemplation, and thus arose the worship of relics. The consequence was a formal resurrection of the dead in the mediaeval period, every pious Christian wished to be in possession of such sacred earthly remains. Among the Saints the chief object of adoration was the Virgin Mary. She is certainly the beautiful concept of pure love – a mother's love; but Spirit and Thought stand higher than even this; and in the worship of this conception that of God in Spirit was lost, and Christ himself was set aside. The element of mediation between God and man was thus apprehended and held as something external. Thus through the perversion of the principle of Freedom, absolute Slavery became the established law. The other aspects and relations of the spiritual life of Europe during this period flow from this principle. Knowledge, comprehension of religious doctrine, is something of which Spirit is judged incapable; it is the exclusive possession of a class, which has to determine the True. For man may not presume to stand in a direct relation to God; so that, as we said before, if he would apply to Him, he needs a mediator – a Saint. This view imports the denial of the essential unity of the Divine and Human; since man, as such, is declared incapable of recognizing the Divine and of approaching thereto. And while humanity is thus separated from the Supreme Good, no change of heart, as such, is insisted upon – for this would suppose that the unity of the Divine and the Human is to be found in man himself – but the terrors of Hell are exhibited to man in the most terrible colors, to induce him to escape from them, not by moral amendment, but in virtue of something external – the “means of grace.” These, however, are an arcanum to the laity; another – the “Confessor,” must furnish him with them. The individual has to confess – is bound to expose all the particulars of his life and conduct to the view of the Confessor – and then is informed what course he has to pursue to attain spiritual safety. Thus the Church took the place of Conscience: it put men in leading strings like children, and told them that man could not be freed from the torments which his sins had merited, by any amendment of his own moral condition, but by outward actions, opera operata – actions which were not the promptings of his own good-will, but performed by command of the ministers of the church; e.g., hearing mass, doing penance, going through a certain number of prayers, undertaking pilgrimages – actions which are unspiritual, stupefy the soul, and which are not only mere external ceremonies, but are such as can be even vicariously performed, The supererogatory works ascribed to the saints, could be purchased, and the spiritual advantage which they merited, secured to the purchaser. Thus was produced an utter derangement of all that is recognized as good and moral in the Christian Church: only external requirements are insisted upon, and these can be complied with in a merely external way. A condition the very reverse of Freedom is intruded into the principle of freedom itself.

With this perversion is connected the absolute separation of the spiritual from the secular principle generally. There are two Divine Kingdoms – the intellectual in the heart and cognitive faculty, and the socially ethical whose element and sphere is secular existence. It is science alone that can comprehend the kingdom of God and the socially Moral world as one Idea, and that recognizes the fact that the course of Time has witnessed a process ever tending to the realization of this unity. But Piety [or Religious Feeling] as such, has nothing to do with the Secular: it may make its appearance in that sphere on a mission of mercy, but this stops short of a strict socially ethical connection with it – does not come up to the idea of Freedom. Religious Feeling is extraneous to History, and has no History; for History is rather the Empire of Spirit recognizing itself in its Subjective Freedom, as the economy of social morality [sittliches Reich] in the State. In the Middle Ages that embodying of the Divine in actual life was wanting; the antithesis was not harmonized. Social morality was represented as worthless, and that in its three most essential particulars.

One phase of social morality is that connected with Love – with the emotions called forth in the marriage relation. It is not proper to say that Celibacy is contrary to Nature, but that it is adverse to Social Morality [Sittlichkeit]. Marriage was indeed reckoned by the Church among the Sacraments; but notwithstanding the position thus assigned it, it was degraded, inasmuch as celibacy was reckoned as the more holy state. A second point of social morality is presented in Activity – the workman has to perform for his subsistence. His dignity consists in his depending entirely on his diligence, conduct, and intelligence, for the supply of his wants. In direct contravention of this principle, Pauperism, laziness, inactivity, was regarded as nobler: and the Immoral thus received the stamp of consecration. A third point of morality is, that obedience be rendered to the Moral and Rational, as an obedience to laws which I recognize as just; that it be not that blind and unconditional compliance which does not know what it is doing, and whose course of action is a mere groping about without clear consciousness or intelligence. But it was exactly this latter kind of obedience that passed for the most pleasing to God; a doctrine that exalts the obedience of Slavery, imposed by the arbitrary will of the Church, above the true obedience of Freedom.
In this way the three vows of Chastity, Poverty, and Obedience turned out the very opposite of what they assumed to be, and in them all social morality was degraded. The Church was no longer a spiritual power, but an ecclesiastical one; and the relation which the secular world sustained to it was unspiritual, automatic, and destitute of independent insight and conviction. As the consequence of this, we see everywhere vice, utter absence of respect for conscience, shamelessness, and a distracted state of things, of which the entire history of the period is the picture in detail.

According to the above, the Church of the Middle Ages exhibits itself as a manifold Self- contradiction. For Subjective Spirit, although testifying of the Absolute, is at the same time limited and definitely existing Spirit, as Intelligence and Will. Its limitation begins in its taking up this distinctive position, and here consentaneously begins its contradictory and self-alienated phase; for that intelligence and will are not imbued with the Truth, which appears in relation to them as something given [posited ab extra]. This externality of the Absolute Object of comprehension affects the consciousness thus: – that the Absolute Object presents itself as a merely sensuous, external thing – common outward existence – and yet claims to be Absolute: in the mediaeval view of things this absolute demand is made upon Spirit. The second form of the contradiction in question has to do with the relation which the Church itself sustains. The true Spirit exists in man – is his Spirit; and the individual gives himself the certainty of this identity with the Absolute, in worship – the Church sustaining merely the relation of a teacher and directress of this worship. But here, on the contrary, we have an ecclesiastical body, like the Brahmins in India, in possession of the Truth – not indeed by birth, but in virtue of knowledge, teaching and training – yet with the proviso that this alone is not sufficient, an external form, an unspiritual title being judged essential to actual possession. This outward form is Ordination, whose nature is such that the consecration imparted inheres essentially like a sensuous quality in the individual, whatever be the character of his soul – be he irreligious, immoral, or absolutely ignorant. The third kind of contradiction is the Church itself, in its acquisition as an outward existence, of possessions and an enormous property – state of things which, since that Church despises or professes to despise riches, is none other than a Lie.
And we found the State, during the mediaeval period, similarly involved in contradictions. We spoke above of an imperial rule, recognized as standing by the side of the Church and constituting its secular arm. But the power thus acknowledged is invalidated by the fact that the imperial dignity in question is an empty title, not regarded by the Emperor himself or by those who wish to make him the instrument of their ambitious views, as conferring solid authority on its possessor; for passion and physical force assume an independent position, and own no subjection to that merely abstract conception. But secondly, the bond of union which holds the Mediaeval State together, and which we call Fidelity, is left to the arbitrary choice of men's disposition [Gemüth] which recognizes no objective duties. Consequently, this Fidelity is the most unfaithful thing possible. German Honor in the Middle Ages has become a proverb; but examined more closely as History exhibits it we find it a veritable Punica fides or Groeca fides; for the princes and vassals of the Emperor are true and honorable only to their selfish aims, individual advantage and passions, but utterly untrue to the Empire and the Emperor; because in “Fidelity” in the abstract, their subjective caprice receives a sanction, and the State is not organized as a moral totality. A third contradiction presents itself in the character of individuals, exhibiting, as they do on the one hand, piety – religious devotion, the most beautiful in outward aspect, and springing from the very depths of sincerity – and on the other hand a barbarous deficiency in point of intelligence and will. We find an acquaintance with abstract Truth, and yet the most uncultured, the rudest ideas of the Secular and the Spiritual: a truculent delirium of passion and yet a Christian sanctity which renounces all that is worldly, and devotes itself entirely to holiness. So self-contradictory, so deceptive is this mediaeval period ; and the polemical zeal with which its excellence is contended for, is one of the absurdities of our times. Primitive barbarism, rudeness of manners, and childish fancy are not revolting; they simply excite our pity. But the highest purity of soul defiled by the most horrible barbarity; the Truth, of which a knowledge has been acquired, degraded to a mere tool by falsehood and self-seeking; that which is most irrational, coarse and vile, established and strengthened by the religious sentiment – this is the most disgusting and revolting spectacle that was ever witnessed, and which only Philosophy can comprehend and so justify. For such an antithesis must arise in man's consciousness of the Holy while this consciousness still remains primitive and immediate; and the profounder the truth to which Spirit comes into an implicit relation – while it has not vet become aware of its own presence in that profound truth – so much the more alien is it to itself in this its unknown form: but only as the result of this alienation does it attain its true harmonization.

We have then contemplated the Church as the reaction of the Spiritual against the secular life of the time; but this reaction is so conditioned, that it only subjects to itself that against which it reacts – does not reform it. While the Spiritual, repudiating its proper sphere of action, has been acquiring secular power, a secular sovereignty has also consolidated itself and attained a systematic development – the Feudal System. As through their isolation, men are reduced to a dependence on their individual power and might, every point in the world on which a human being can maintain his ground becomes an energetic one. While the Individual still remains destitute of the defence of laws and is protected only by his own exertion, life, activity and excitement everywhere manifest themselves. As men are certain of eternal salvation through the instrumentality of the Church, and to this end are bound to obey it only in its spiritual requirements, their ardor in the pursuit of worldly enjoyment increases, on the other hand, in inverse proportion to their fear of its producing any detriment to their spiritual weal; for the Church bestows indulgences, when required, for oppressive, violent and vicious actions of all kinds.

The period from the eleventh to the thirteenth century witnessed the rise of an impulse which developed itself in various forms. The inhabitants of various districts began to build enormous churches – Cathedrals, erected to contain the whole community. Architecture is always the first art, forming the inorganic phase, the domiciliation of the divinity; not till this is accomplished does Art attempt to exhibit to the worshippers the divinity himself – the Objective. Maritime commerce was carried on with vigor by the cities on the Italian, Spanish, and Flemish coasts, and this stimulated the productive industry of their citizens at home. The Sciences began in some degree to revive: the Scholastic Philosophy was in its glory. Schools for the study of law were founded at Bologna and other places, as also for that of medicine. It is on the rise and growing importance of the Towns, that all these creations depend as their main condition; a favorite subject of historical treatment in modern times. And the rise of such communities was greatly desiderated. For the Towns, like the Church, present themselves as reactions against feudal violence – as the earliest legally and regularly constituted power. Mention has already been made of the fact that the possessors of power compelled others to put themselves under their protection. Such centres of safety were castles [Burgen], churches and monasteries, round which were collected those who needed protection. These now became burghers [Burger], and entered into a cliental relation to the lords of such castles or to monastic bodies. Thus a firmly established community was formed in many places. Many cities and fortified places [Castelle] still existed in Italy, in the South of France, and in Germany on the Rhine, which dated their existence from the ancient Roman times, and which originally possessed municipal rights, but subsequently lost them under the rule of feudal governors [Vögte]. The citizens, like their rural neighbors, had been reduced to vassalage.

The principle of free possession however began to develop itself from the protective relation of feudal protection; i.e., freedom originated in its direct contrary. The feudal lords or great barons enjoyed, properly speaking, no free or absolute possession, any more than their dependents ; they had unlimited power over the latter, but at the same time they also were vassals of princes higher and mightier than themselves, and to whom they were under engagements – which, it must be confessed, they did not fulfil except under compulsion. The ancient Germans had known of none other than free possession; but this principle had been perverted into its complete opposite, and now for the first time we behold the few feeble commencements of a reviving sense of freedom. Individuals brought into closer relation by the soil which they cultivated, formed among themselves a kind of union, confederation, or conjuratio. They agreed to be and to perform on their own behalf that which they had previously been and performed in the service of their feudal lord alone. Their first united undertaking was the erection of a tower in which a bell was suspended: the ringing of the bell was a signal for a general rendezvous, and the object of the union thus appointed was the formation of a kind of militia. This is followed by the institution of a municipal government, consisting of magistrates, jurors, consuls, and the establishment of a common treasury, the imposition of taxes, tolls, etc. Trenches are dug and walls built for the common defence, and the citizens are forbidden to erect fortresses for themselves individually. In such a community, handicrafts, as distinguished from agriculture, find their proper home. Artisans necessarily soon attained a superior position to that of the tillers of the ground, for the latter were forcibly driven to work; the former displayed activity really their own, and a corresponding diligence and interest in the result of their labors. Formerly artisans had been obliged to get permission from their liege lords to sell their work, and thus earn something for themselves: they were obliged to pay them a certain sum for this privilege of market, besides contributing a portion of their gains to the baronial exchequer. Those who had houses of their own were obliged to pay a considerable quit-rent for them; on all that was imported and exported, the nobility imposed large tolls, and for the security afforded to travellers they exacted safe-conduct money. When at a later date these communities became stronger, all such feudal rights were purchased from the nobles, or the cession of them compulsorily extorted: by degrees the towns secured an independent jurisdiction and likewise freed themselves from all taxes, tolls and rents. The burden which continued the longest was the obligation the towns were under to make provision for the Emperor and his whole retinue during his stay within their precincts, as also for seigneurs of inferior rank under the same circumstances. The trading class subsequently divided itself into guilds, to each of which were attached particular rights and obligations. The factions to which episcopal elections and other contingencies gave rise, very often promoted the attainment by the towns of the rights above-mentioned. As it would not infrequently happen that two rival bishops were elected to the same see, each one sought to draw the citizens into his own interest, by granting them privileges and freeing them from burdens. Subsequently arose many feuds with the clergy, the bishops and abbots. In some towns they maintained their position as lords of the municipality; in others the citizens got the upper hand, and obtained their freedom. Thus, e.g., Cologne threw off the yoke of its bishop; Mayence on the other hand remained subject. By degrees cities grew to be independent republics: first and foremost in Italy, then in the Netherlands, Germany, and France. They soon come to occupy a peculiar position with respect to the nobility. The latter united itself with the corporations of the towns, and constituted as e.g., in Berne, a particular guild. It soon assumed special powers in the corporations of the towns and attained a dominant position; but the citizens resisted the usurpation and secured the government to themselves. The rich citizens (populus crassus) now excluded the nobility from power. But in the same way as the party of the nobility was divided into factions – especially those of Ghibellines and Guelfs, of which the former favored the Emperor, the latter the Pope – that of the citizens also was rent in sunder by intestine strife. The victorious faction was accustomed to exclude its vanquished opponents from power. The patrician nobility which supplanted the feudal aristocracy, deprived the common people of all share in the conduct of the state, and thus proved itself no less oppressive than the original noblesse. The history of the cities presents us with a continual change of constitutions, according as one party among the citizens or the other – this faction or that, got the upper hand. Originally a select body of citizens chose the magistrates; but as in such elections the victorious faction always had the greatest influence, no other means of securing impartial functionaries was left, but the election of foreigners to the office of judge and podésta. It also frequently happened that the cities chose foreign princes as supreme seigneurs, and intrusted them with the signoria. But all of these arrangements were only of short continuance; the princes soon misused their sovereignty to promote their own ambitious designs and to gratify their passions, and in a few years were once more deprived of their supremacy. – Thus the history of these cities presents on the one hand, in individual characters marked by the most terrible or the most admirable features, an astonishingly interesting picture; on the other hand it repels us by assuming, as it unavoidably does, the aspect of mere chronicles. In contemplating the restless and ever-varying impulses that agitate the very heart of these cities and the continual struggles of factions, we are astonished to see on the other side industry – commerce by land and sea – in the highest degree prosperous. It is the same principle of lively vigor, which, nourished by the internal excitement in question, produces this phenomenon.

We have contemplated the Church, which extended its power over all the sovereignties of the time, and the Cities, where a social organization on a basis of Right was first resuscitated, as powers reacting against the authority of princes and feudal lords. Against these two rising powers, there followed a reactionary movement of princely authority; the Emperor now enters on a struggle with the Pope and the cities. The Emperor is recognized as the apex of Christian, i.e. secular power, the Pope on the other hand as that of Ecclesiastical power, which had now however become as decidedly a secular dominion. In theory, it was not disputed that the Roman Emperor was the Head of Christendom – that he possessed the dominium mundi – that since all Christian states belonged to the Roman Empire, their princes owed him allegiance in all reasonable and equitable requirements. However satisfied the emperors themselves might be of the validity of this claim, they had too much good sense to attempt seriously to enforce if but the empty title of Roman Emperor was a sufficient inducement to them to exert themselves to the utmost to acquire and maintain it in Italy. The Othos especially cherished the idea of the continuation of the old Roman empire, and were ever and anon summoning the German princes to join them in an expedition to Rome with a view to coronation there; – an undertaking in which they were often deserted by them and had to undergo the shame of a retreat. Equal disappointment was experienced by those Italians who hoped for deliverance at the hands of the Emperor from the ochlocracy that domineered over the cities, or from the violence of the feudal nobility in the country at large. The Italian princes who had invoked the presence of the Emperor and had promised him aid in asserting his claims, drew back and left him in the lurch; and those who had previously expected salvation for their country, then broke out into bitter complaints that their beautiful country was devastated by barbarians, their superior civilization trodden under foot, and that right and liberty, deserted by the Emperor, must also perish. Especially touching and deep are the lamentations and reproaches which Dante addresses to the Emperors.
The second complication with Italy was that struggle which contemporaneously with the former was sustained chiefly by the great Swabians – the house of Hohenstaufen – and whose object was to bring back the secular power of the Church, which had become independent, to its original dependence on the state. The Papal See was also a secular power and sovereignty, and the Emperor asserted the superior prerogative of choosing the Pope and investing him with his secular sovereignty. It was these rights of the State for which the Emperors contended. But to that secular power which they withstood, they were at the same time subject, in virtue of its spiritual pretensions: thus the contest was an interminable contradiction. Contradictory as the varying phases of the contest, in which reconciliation was ever alternating with renewed hostilities, was also the instrumentality employed in the struggle. For the power with which the Emperors made head against their enemy – the princes, their servants and subjects, were divided in their own minds, inasmuch as they were bound by the strongest ties of allegiance to the Emperor and to his enemy at one and the same time. The chief interest of the princes lay in that very assumption of independence in reference to the State, against which on the part of the Papal See the Emperor was contending ; so that they were willing to stand by the Emperor in cases where the empty dignity of the imperial crown was impugned, or on some particular occasions – e.g., in a contest with the cities – but abandoned him when he aimed at seriously asserting his authority against the secular power of the clergy, or against other princes. As, on the one hand, the German emperors sought to realize their title in Italy, so, on the other hand, Italy had its political centre in Germany. The interests of the two countries were thus linked together, and neither could gain political consolidation within itself. In the brilliant period of the Hohenstaufen dynasty, individuals of commanding character sustained the dignity of the throne; sovereigns like Frederick Barbarossa, in whom the imperial power manifested itself in its greatest majesty, and who by his personal qualities succeeded in attaching the subject princes to his interests. Yet brilliant as the history of the Hohenstaufen dynasty may appear, and stirring as might have been the contest with the Church, the former presents on the whole nothing more than the tragedy of this house itself, and the latter had no important result in the sphere of Spirit. The cities were indeed compelled to acknowledge the imperial authority, and their deputies swore to observe the decisions of the Roncalian Diet; but they kept their word no longer than they were compelled to do so. Their sense of obligation depended exclusively on the direct consciousness of a superior power ready to enforce it. It is said that when the Emperor Frederick I asked the deputies of the cities whether they had not sworn to the conditions of peace, they answered: “Yes, but not that we would observe them.” The result was that Frederick I at the Peace of Constance (1183) was obliged to concede to them a virtual independence; although he appended the stipulation, that in this concession their feudal obligations to the German Empire were understood to be reserved. The contest between the Emperors and the Popes regarding investitures was settled at the close of 1122 by Henry V and Pope Calixtus II on these terms: the Emperor was to invest with the sceptre; the Pope with the ring and crosier; the chapter were to elect the Bishops in the presence of the Emperor or of imperial commissioners; then the Emperor was to invest the Bishop as a secular feudatory with the temper alia, while the ecclesiastical investiture was reserved for the Pope. Thus the protracted contest between the secular and spiritual powers was at length set at rest.

Chapter II. The Crusades.

The Church gained the victory in the struggle referred to in the previous chapter; and in this way secured as decided a supremacy in Germany, as she did in the other states of Europe by a calmer process. She made herself mistress of all the relations of life, and of science and art; and she was the permanent repository of spiritual treasures. Yet notwithstanding this full and complete development of ecclesiastical life, we find a deficiency and consequent craving manifesting itself in Christendom, and which drove it out of itself. To understand this want, we must revert to the nature of the Christian religion itself, and particularly to that aspect of it by which it has a footing in the Present in the consciousness of its votaries.

The objective doctrines of Christianity had been already so firmly settled by the Councils of the Church, that neither the mediaeval nor any other philosophy could develop them further, except in the way of exalting them intellectually, so that they might be satisfactory as presenting the form of Thought. And one essential point in this doctrine was the recognition of the Divine Nature as not in any sense an other-world existence [ein Jenseits], but as in unity with Human Nature in the Present and Actual. But this Presence is at the same time exclusively Spiritual Presence. Christ as a particular human personality has left the world; his temporal existence is only a past one – i.e., it exists only in mental conception. And since the Divine existence on earth is essentially of a spiritual character, it cannot appear in the form of a Dalai-Lama. The Pope, however high his position as Head of Christendom and Vicar of Christ, calls himself only the Servant of Servants. How then did the Church realize Christ as a definite and present existence? The principal form of this realization was, as remarked above, the Holy Supper, in the form it presented as the Mass: in this the Life, Suffering, and Death of the actual Christ were verily present, as an eternal and daily repeated sacrifice. Christ appears as a definite and present existence in a sensuous form as the Host, consecrated by the Priest; so far all is satisfactory: that is to say, it is the Church, the Spirit of Christ, that attains in this ordinance direct and full assurance. But the most prominent feature in this sacrament is, that the process by which Deity is manifested, is conditioned by the limitations of particularity – that the Host, this Thing, is set up to be adored as God. The Church then might have been able to content itself with this sensuous presence of Deity; but when it is once granted that God exists in external phenomenal presence, this external manifestation immediately becomes infinitely varied; for the need of this presence is infinite. Thus innumerable instances will occur in the experience of the Church, in which Christ has appeared to one and another, in various places; and still more frequently his divine Mother, who as standing nearer to humanity, is a second mediator between the Mediator and man (the miracle-working images of the Virgin are in their way Hosts, since they supply a benign and gracious presence of God). In all places, therefore, there will occur manifestations of the Heavenly, in specially gracious appearances, the stigmata of Christ's Passion, etc.; and the Divine will be realized in miracles as detached and isolated phenomena. In the period in question the Church presents the aspect of a world of miracle; to the community of devout and pious persons natural existence has utterly lost its stability and certainty: rather, absolute certainty has turned against it, and the Divine is not conceived of by Christendom under conditions of universelity as the law and nature of Spirit, but reveals itself in isolated and detached phenomena, in which the rational form of existence is utterly perverted.

In this complete development of the Church, we may find a deficiency: but what can be felt as a want by it? What compels it, in this state of perfect satisfaction and enjoyment, to wish for something else within the limits of its own principles – without apostatizing from itself? Those miraculous images, places, and times, are only isolated points, momentary appearances – are not an embodiment of Deity, not of the highest and absolute kind. The Host, the supreme manifestation, is to be found indeed in innumerable churches; Christ is therein transubstantiated to a present and particular existence: but this itself is of a vague and general character; it is not his actual and very presence as particularized in Space. That presence has passed away, as regards time; but as spatial and as concrete in space it has a mundane permanence in this particular spot, this particular village, etc. It is then this mundane existence [in Palestine] which Christendom desiderates, which it is resolved on attaining. Pilgrims in crowds had indeed been able to enjoy it; but the approach to the hallowed localities is in the hands of the Infidels, and it is a reproach to Christendom that the Holy Places and the Sepulchre of Christ in particular are not in possession of the Church. In this feeling Christendom was united; consequently the Crusades were undertaken, whose object was not the furtherance of any special interests on the part of the several states that engaged in them, but simply and solely the conquest of the Holy Land.
The West once more sallied forth in hostile array against the East. As in the expedition of the Greeks against Troy, so here the invading hosts were entirely composed of independent feudal lords and knights; though they were not united under a real individuality, as were the Greeks under Agamemnon or Alexander. Christendom, on the contrary, was engaged in an undertaking whose object was the securing of the definite and present existence [of Deity] – the real culmination of Individuality. This object impelled the West against the East, and this is the essential interest of the Crusades.
The first and immediate commencement of the Crusades was made in the West itself. Many thousands of Jews were massacred, and their property seized; and after this terrible prelude Christendom began its march. The monk, Peter the Hermit of Amiens, led the way with an immense troop of rabble. This host passed in the greatest disorder through Hungary, and robbed and plundered as they went; but their numbers dwindled away, and only a few reached Constantinople. For rational considerations were out of the question; the mass of them believed that God would be their immediate guide and protector. The most striking proof that enthusiasm almost robbed the nations of Europe of their senses, is supplied by the fact that at a later time troops of children ran away from their parents, and went to Marseilles, there to take ship for the Holy Land. Few reached it; the rest were sold by the merchants to the Saracens as slaves.
At last, with much trouble and immense loss, more regular armies attained the desired object; they beheld themselves in possession of all the Holy Places of note – Bethlehem, Gethsemane, Golgotha, and even the Holy Sepulchre. In the whole expedition – in all the acts of the Christians – appeared that enormous contrast (a feature characteristic of the age) – the transition on the part of the Crusading host from the greatest excesses and outrages to the profoundest contrition and humiliation. Still dripping with the blood of the slaughtered inhabitants of Jerusalem, the Christians fell down on their faces at the tomb of the Redeemer, and directed their fervent supplications to him.

Thus did Christendom come into the possession of its highest good. Jerusalem was made a kingdom, and the entire feudal system was introduced there – a constitution which, in presence of the Saracens, was certainly the worst that could be adopted. Another crusade in the year 1204 resulted in the conquest of Constantinople and the establishment of a Latin Empire there. Christendom, therefore, had appeased its religious craving; it could now veritably walk unobstructed in the footsteps of the Saviour. Whole shiploads of earth were brought from the Holy Land to Europe. Of Christ himself no corporeal relics could be obtained, for he was arisen: the Sacred Handkerchief, the Cross, and lastly the Sepulchre, were the most venerated memorials. But in the Grave is found the real point of retro-version; it is in the grave that all the vanity of the Sensuous perishes. At the Holy Sepulchre the vanity of [the cherished] opinion passes away [the fancies by which the substance of truth has been obscured disappear] ; there all is seriousness. In the negation of that definite and present embodiment – i.e., of the Sensuous – it is that the turning-point in question is found, and those words have an application: “Thou wouldst not suffer thy Holy One to see corruption.” Christendom was not to find its ultimatum of truth in the grave. At this sepulchre the Christian world received a second time the response given to the disciples when they sought the body of the Lord there: “Why seek ye the living among the dead? He is not here, but is risen.” You must not look for the principle of your religion in the Sensuous, in the grave among the dead, but in the living Spirit in yourselves. We have seen how the vast idea of the union of the Finite with the Infinite was perverted to such a degree as that men looked for a definite embodiment of the Infinite in a mere isolated outward object [the Host]. Christendom found the empty Sepulchre, but not the union of the Secular and the Eternal; and so it lost the Holy Land. It was practically undeceived; and the result which it brought back with it was of a negative kind: viz., that the definite embodiment which it was seeking, was to be looked for in Subjective Consciousness alone, and in no external object; that the definite form in question, presenting the union of the Secular with the Eternal, is the Spiritual self-cognizant independence of the individual. Thus the world attains the conviction that man must look within himself for that definite embodiment of being which is of a divine nature: subjectivity thereby receives absolute authorization, and claims to determine for itself the relation [of all that exists] to the Divine.[32] This then was the absolute result of the Crusades, and from them we may date the commencement of self-reliance and spontaneous activity. The West bade an eternal farewell to the East at the Holy Sepulchre, and gained a comprehension of its own principle of subjective infinite Freedom. Christendom never appeared again on the scene of history as one body.

Crusades of another kind, bearing somewhat the character of wars with a view to mere secular conquest, but which involved a religious interest also, were the contests waged by Spain against the Saracens in the peninsula itself. The Christians had been shut up in a corner by the Arabs; but they gained upon their adversaries in strength, because the Saracens in Spain and Africa were engaged in war in various directions, and were divided among themselves. The Spaniards, united with Frank knights, undertook frequent expeditions against the Saracens; and in this collision of the Christians with the chivalry of the East – with its freedom and perfect independence of soul – the former became also partakers in this freedom. Spain gives us the fairest picture of the knighthood of the Middle Ages, and its hero is the Cid. Several Crusades, the records of which excite our unmixed loathing and detestation, were undertaken against the South of France also. There an aesthetic culture had developed itself: the Troubadours had introduced a freedom of manners similar to that which prevailed under the Hohenstaufen Emperors in Germany; but with this difference, that the former had in it something affected, while the latter was of a more genuine kind. But as in Upper Italy, so also in the South of France fanatical ideas of purity had been introduced;[33] a Crusade was therefore preached against that country by Papal authority. St. Dominic entered it with a vast host of invaders, who, in the most barbarous manner, pillaged and murdered the innocent and the guilty indiscriminately, and utterly laid waste the fair region which they inhabited.

Through the Crusades the Church reached the completion of its authority: it had achieved the perversion of religion and of the divine Spirit; it had distorted the principle of Christian Freedom to a wrongful and immoral slavery of men's souls; and in so doing, far from abolishing lawless caprice and violence and supplanting them by a virtuous rule of its own, it had even enlisted them in the service of ecclesiastical authority. In the Crusades the Pope stood at the head of the secular power: the Emperor appeared only in a subordinate position, like the other princes, and was obliged to commit both the initiative and the executive to the Pope, as the manifest generalissimo of the expedition. We have already seen the noble house of Hohenstaufen presenting the aspect of chivalrous, dignified and cultivated opponents of the Papal power, when Spirit [the moral and intellectual element in Christendom] had given up the contest. We have seen how they were ultimately obliged to yield to the Church; which, elastic enough to sustain any attack, bore down all opposition and would not move a step towards conciliation. The fall of the Church was not to be effected by open violence; it was from within – by the power of Spirit and by an influence that wrought its way upwards – that ruin threatened it. Respect for the Papacy could not but be weakened by the very fact that the lofty aim of the Crusades – the satisfaction expected from the enjoyment of the sensuous Presence – was not attained. As little did the Popes succeed in keeping possession of the Holy Land. Zeal for the holy cause was exhausted among the princes of Europe. Grieved to the heart by the defeat of the Christians, the Popes again and again urged them to advance to the rescue; but lamentations and entreaties were vain, and they could effect nothing. Spirit, disappointed with regard to its craving for the highest form of the sensuous presence of Deity, fell back upon itself. A rupture, the first of its kind and profound as it was novel, took place. From this time forward we witness religious and intellectual movements in which Spirit – transcending the repulsive and irrational existence by which it is surrounded – either finds its sphere of exercise within itself, and draws upon its own resources for satisfaction, or throws its energies into an actual world of general and morally justified aims, which are therefore aims consonant with Freedom. The efforts thus originated are now to be described: they were the means by which Spirit was to be prepared to comprehend the grand purpose of its Freedom in a form of greater purity and moral elevation.

To this class of movements belongs in the first place the establishment of monastic and chivalric orders, designed to carry out those rules of life which the Church had distinctly enjoined upon its members. That renunciation of property, riches, pleasures, and free will, which the Church had designated as the highest of spiritual attainments, was to be a reality – not a mere profession. The existing monastic and other institutions that had adopted this vow of renunciation, had been entirely sunk in the corruption of worldliness. But now Spirit sought to realize in the sphere of the principle of negativity – purely in itself – what the Church had demanded. The more immediate occasion of this movement was the rise of numerous heresies in the South of France and Italy, whose tendency was in the direction of enthusiasm; and the unbelief which was now gaining ground, but which the Church justly deemed not so dangerous as those heresies. To counteract these evils, new monastic orders were founded, the chief of which was that of the Franciscans, or Mendicant Friars, whose founder, St. Francis of Assisi – a man possessed by an enthusiasm and ecstatic passion that passed all bounds – spent his life in continually striving for the loftiest purity. He gave an impulse of the same kind to his order; the greatest fervor of devotion, the sacrifice of all pleasures in contravention of the prevailing worldliness of the Church, continual penances, the severest poverty (the Franciscans lived on daily alms) – were therefore peculiarly characteristic of it. Contemporaneously with it arose the Dominican order, founded by St. Dominic; its special business was preaching. The mendicant friars were diffused through Christendom to an incredible extent; they were, on the one hand, the standing apostolic army of the Pope, while, on the other hand, they strongly protested against his worldliness. The Franciscans were powerful allies of Louis of Bavaria in his resistance of the Papal assumptions, and they are said to have been the authors of the position, that a General Council was higher authority than the Pope; but subsequently they too sank down into a torpid and unintelligent condition. In the same way the ecclesiastical Orders of Knighthood contemplated the attainment of purity of Spirit. We have already called attention to the peculiar chivalric spirit which had been developed in Spain through the struggle with the Saracens: the same spirit was diffused as the result of the Crusades through the whole of Europe. The ferocity and savage valor that characterized the predatory life of the barbarians – pacified and brought to a settled state by possession, and restrained by the presence of equals – was elevated by religion and then kindled to a noble enthusiasm through contemplating the boundless magnanimity of Oriental prowess. For Christianity also contains the element of boundless abstraction and freedom; the Oriental chivalric spirit found therefore in Occidental hearts a response, which paved the way for their attaining a nobler virtue than they had previously known. Ecclesiastical orders of knighthood were instituted on a basis resembling that of the monastic fraternities. The same conventual vow of renunciation was imposed on their members – the giving up of all that was worldly. But at the same time they undertook the defence of the pilgrims: their first duty therefore was knightly bravery; ultimately, they were also pledged to the sustenance and care of the poor and the sick. The Orders of Knighthood were divided into three: that of St. John, that of the Temple, and the Teutonic Order. These associations are essentially distinguished from the self-seeking principle of feudalism. Their members sacrificed themselves with almost suicidal bravery for a common interest. Thus these Orders transcended the circle of their immediate environment, and formed a network of fraternal coalition over the whole of Europe. But their members sank down to the level of vulgar interests, and the Orders became in the sequel a provisional institute for the nobility generally, rather than anything else. The Order of the Temple was even accused of forming a religion of its own, and of having renounced Christ in the creed which, under the influence of the Oriental Spirit, it had adopted.

A second impulsion, having a similar origin, was that in the direction of Science. The development of Thought – the abstractly Universel – now had its commencement. Those fraternal associations themselves, having a common object, in whose service their members were enlisted, point to the fact that a general principle was beginning to be recognized, and which gradually became conscious of its power. Thought was first directed to Theology, which now became Philosophy under the name of Scholastic Divinity. For philosophy and theology have the Divine as their common object; and although the theology of the Church was a stereotyped dogma, the impulse now arose to justify this body of doctrine in the view of Thought. “When we have arrived at Faith,” says the celebrated scholastic, Anselm, “it is a piece of negligence to stop short of convincing ourselves, by the aid of Thought, of that to which we have given credence.” But thus conditioned Thought was not free, for its material was already posited ab extra; it was to the proof of this material that philosophy devoted its energies. But Thought suggested a variety of questions, the complete answer to which was not given directly in the symbols of the Church; and since the Church had not decided respecting them, they were legitimate subjects of controversy. Philosophy was indeed called an ancilla fidei, for it was in subjection to that material of the Church's creed, which had been already definitely settled; but yet it was impossible for the opposition between Thought and Belief not to manifest itself. As Europe presented the spectacle of chivalric contests generally – passages of arms and tournaments – it was now the theatre for intellectual jousting also. It is incredible to what an extent the abstract forms of Thought were developed, and what dexterity was acquired in the use of them. This intellectual tourneying for the sake of exhibiting skill, and as a diversion (for it was not the doctrines themselves, but only the forms in which they were couched that made the subject of debate), was chiefly prosecuted and brought to perfection in France. France, in fact, began at that time to be regarded as the centre of Christendom : there the scheme of the first Crusades originated, and French armies carried it out: there the Popes took refuge in their struggles with the German emperors and with the Norman princes of Naples and Sicily, and there for a time they made a continuous sojourn. – We also observe in the period subsequent to the Crusades, commencements of Art – of Painting, viz.: even during their continuance a peculiar kind of poetry had made it appearance. Spirit, unable to satisfy its cravings, created for itself by imagination fairer forms and in a calmer and freer manner than the actual world could offer.

Chapter III. The Transition from Feudalism to Monarchy.

The moral phenomena above mentioned, tending in the direction of a general principle, were partly of a subjective, partly of a speculative order. But we must now give particular attention to the practical political movements of the period. The advance which that period witnessed, presents a negative aspect in so far as it involves the termination of the sway of individual caprice and of the isolation of power. Its affirmative aspect is the rise of a supreme authority whose dominion embraces all – a political power properly so called, whose subjects enjoy an equality of rights, and in which the will of the individual is subordinated to that common interest which underlies the whole. This is the advance from Feudalism to Monarchy. The principle of feudal sovereignty is the outward force of individuals – princes, liege lords; it is a force destitute of intrinsic right. The subjects of such a Constitution are vassals of a superior prince or seigneur, to whom they have stipulated duties to perform: but whether they perform these duties or not, depends upon the seigneur's being able to induce them so to do, by force of character or by grant of favors: – conversely, the recognition of those feudal claims themselves was extorted by violence in the first instance; and the fulfilment of the corresponding duties could be secured only by the constant exercise of the power which was the sole basis of the claims in question. The monarchical principle also implies a supreme authority, but it is an authority over persons possessing no independent power to support their individual caprice; where we have no longer caprice opposed to caprice; for the supremacy implied in monarchy is essentially a power emanating from a political body, and is pledged to the furtherance of that equitable purpose on which the constitution of a state is based. Feudal sovereignty is a polyarchy: we see nothing but Lords and Serfs; in Monarchy, on the contrary, there is one Lord and no Serf, for servitude is abrogated by it, and in it Right and Law are recognized; it is the source of real freedom. Thus in monarchy the caprice of individuals is kept under, and a common gubernatorial interest established. In the suppression of those isolated powers, as also in the resistance made to that suppression, it seems doubtful whether the desire for a lawful and equitable state of things, or the wish to indulge individual caprice, is the impelling motive. Resistance to kingly authority is entitled Liberty, and is lauded as legitimate and noble when the idea of arbitrary will is associated with that authority. But by the arbitrary will of an individual exerting itself so as to subjugate a whole body of men, a community is formed; and comparing this state of things with that in which every point is a centre of capricious violence, we find a much smaller number of points exposed to such violence. The great extent of such a sovereignty necessitates general arrangements for the purposes of organization, and those who govern in accordance with those arrangements are at the same time, in virtue of their office itself, obedient to the state: Vassals become Officers of State, whose duty it is to execute the laws by which the state is regulated. But since this monarchy is developed from feudalism, it bears in the first instance the stamp of the system from which it sprang. – individuals quit their isolated capacity and become members of Estates [or Orders of the Realm] and Corporations; the vassals are powerful only by combination as an Order; in contraposition to them the cities constitute Powers in virtue of their communal existence. Thus the authority of the sovereign inevitably ceases to be mere arbitrary sway. The consent of the Estates and Corporations is essential to its maintenance ; and if the prince wishes to have that consent, he must will what is just and reasonable. We now see a Constitution embracing various Orders, while Feudal rule knows no such Orders. We observe the transition from feudalism to monarchy taking place in three ways: 1. Sometimes the lord paramount gains a mastery over his independent vassals, by subjugating their individual power – thus making himself sole ruler.

2. Sometimes the princes free themselves from the feudal relation altogether, and become the territorial lords of certain states; or lastly

3. The lord paramount unites the particular lordships that own him as their superior, with his own particular suzerainty, in a more peaceful way, and thus becomes master of the whole.

These processes do not indeed present themselves in history in that pure and abstract form in which they are exhibited here: often we find more modes than one appearing contemporaneously ; but one or the other always predominates. The cardinal consideration is that the basis and essential condition of such a political formation is to be looked for in the particular nationalities in which it had its birth. Europe presents particular nations, constituting a unity in their very nature, and having the absolute tendency to form a state. All did not succeed in attaining this political unity: we have now to consider them severally in relation to the change thus introduced. First, as regards the Roman empire, the connection between Germany and Italy naturally results from the idea of that empire : the secular dominion united with the spiritual was to constitute one whole; but this state of things was rather the object of constant struggle than one actually attained. In Germany and Italy the transition from the feudal condition to monarchy involved the entire abrogation of the former: the vassals became independent monarchs.

Germany had always embraced a great variety of stocks: – Swabians, Bavarians, Franks, Thuringians, Saxons, Burgundians: to these must be added the Sclaves of Bohemia, Germanized Sclaves in Mecklenburg, in Brandenburg, and in a part of Saxony and Austria; so that no such combination as took place in France was possible. Italy presented a similar state of things. The Lombards had established themselves there, while the Greeks still possessed the Exarchate and Lower Italy: the Normans too established a kingdom of their own in Lower Italy, and the Saracens maintained their ground for a time in Sicily. When the rule of the house of Hohenstaufen was terminated, barbarism got the upper hand throughout Germany; the country being broken up into several sovereignties, in which a forceful despotism prevailed. It was the maxim of the electoral princes to raise only weak princes to the imperial throne; they even sold the imperial dignity to foreigners. Thus the unity of the state was virtually annulled. A number of centres of power were formed, each of which was a predatory state: the legal constitution recognized by feudalism was dissolved, and gave place to undisguised violence and plunder; and powerful princes made themselves lords of the country. After the interregnum the Count of Hapsburg was elected Emperor, and the House of Hapsburg continued to fill the imperial throne with but little interruption. These emperors were obliged to create a force of their own, as the princes would not grant them an adequate power attached to the empire. But that state of absolute anarchy was at last put an end to by associations having general aims in view. In the cities themselves we see associations of a minor order; but now confederations of cities were formed with a common interest in the suppression of predatory violence. Of this kind was the Hanseatic League in the North, the Rhenish League consisting of cities lying along the Rhine, and the Swabian League. The aim of all these confederations was resistance to the feudal lords; and even princes united with the cities, with a view to the subversion of the feudal condition and the restoration of a peaceful state of things throughout the country. What the state of society was under feudal sovereignty is evident from the notorious association formed for executing criminal justice: it was a private tribunal, which, under the name of the Vehmgericht, held secret sittings; its chief seat was the northwest of Germany. A peculiar peasant association was also formed. In Germany the peasants were bondmen; many of them took refuge in the towns, or settled down as freemen in the neighborhood of the towns (Pfahlbürger); but in Switzerland a peasant fraternity was established. The peasants of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden were under imperial governors; for the Swiss governments were not the property of private possessors, but were official appointments of the Empire. These the sovereigns of the Hapsburg line wished to secure to their own house. The peasants, with club and ironstudded mace [Morgenstern], returned victorious from a contest with the haughty steel-clad nobles, armed with spear and sword, and practised in the chivalric encounters of the tournament. Another invention also tended to deprive the nobility of the ascendancy which they owed to their accoutrements – that of gunpowder. Humanity needed it, and it made its appearance forthwith. It was one of the chief instruments in freeing the world from the dominion of physical force, and placing the various orders of society on a level. With the distinction between the weapons they used, vanished also that between lords and serfs. And before gunpowder fortified places were no longer impregnable, so that strongholds and castles now lose their importance. We may indeed be led to lament the decay or the depreciation of the practical value of personal valor – the bravest, the noblest may be shot down by a cowardly wretch at safe distance in an obscure lurking-place; but, on the other hand, gunpowder has made a rational, considerate bravery – Spiritual valor – the essential to martial success. Only through this instrumentality could that superior order of valor be called forth – that valor in which the heat of personal feeling has no share; for the discharge of firearms is directed against a body of men – an abstract enemy, not individual combatants. The warrior goes to meet deadly peril calmly, sacrificing himself for the common weal; and the valor of cultivated nations is characterized by the very fact, that it does not rely on the strong arm alone, but places its confidence essentially in the intelligence, the generalship, the character of its commanders; and, as was the case among the ancients, in a firm combination and unity of spirit on the part of the forces they command.

In Italy, as already noticed, we behold the same spectacle as in Germany – the attainment of an independent position by isolated centres of power. In that country, warfare in the hand of the Condottieri became a regular business. The towns were obliged to attend to their trading concerns, and therefore employed mercenary troops, whose leaders often became feudal lords; Francis Sforza even made himself Duke of Milan. In Florence, the Medici, a family of merchants, rose to power. On the other hand, the larger cities of Italy reduced under their sway several smaller ones and many feudal chiefs. A Papal territory was likewise formed. There, also, a very large number of feudal lords had made themselves independent; by degrees they all became subject to the one sovereignty of the Pope. How thoroughly equitable in the view of social morality such a subjugation was, is evident from Machiavelli's celebrated work “The Prince.” This book has often been thrown aside in disgust, as replete with the maxims of the most revolting tyranny; but nothing worse can be urged against it than that the writer, having the profound consciousness of the necessity for the formation of a State, has here exhibited the principles on which alone states could be founded in the circumstances of the times. The chiefs who asserted an isolated independence, and the power they arrogated, must be entirely subdued; and though we cannot reconcile with our idea of Freedom, the means which he proposes as the only efficient ones, and regards as perfectly justifiable – inasmuch as they involve the most reckless violence, all kinds of deception, assassination, and so forth – we must nevertheless confess that the feudal nobility, whose power was to be subdued, were assailable in no other way, since an indomitable contempt for principle, and an utter depravity of morals, were thoroughly engrained in them.

In France we find the converse of that which occurred in Germany and Italy. For many centuries the Kings of France possessed only a very small domain, so that many of their vassals were more powerful than themselves: but it was a great advantage to the royal dignity in France, that the principle of hereditary monarchy was firmly established there. The consideration it enjoyed was increased by the circumstance that the corporations and cities had their rights and privileges confirmed by the king, and that the appeals to the supreme feudal tribunal – the Court of Peers, consisting of twelve members enjoying that dignity – became increasingly frequent. The king's influence was extended by his affording that protection which only the throne could give. But that which essentially secured respect for royalty, even among the powerful vassals, was the increasing personal power of the sovereign. In various ways, by inheritance, by marriage, by force of arms, etc., the Kings had come into possession of many Earldoms [Grafschaften] and several Duchies. The Dukes of Normandy had, however, become Kings of England; and thus a formidable power confronted France, whose interior lay open to it by way of Normandy. Besides this there were powerful Duchies still remaining; nevertheless, the King was not a mere feudal suzerain [Lehnsherr] like the German Emperors, but had become a territorial possessor [Landesherr] : he had a number of barons and cities under him, who were subject to his immediate jurisdiction; and Louis IX succeeded in rendering appeals to the royal tribunal common throughout his kingdom. The towns attained a position of greater importance in the state. For when the king needed money, and all his usual resources – such as taxes and forced contributions of all kinds – were exhausted, he made application to the towns and entered into separate negotiations with them. It was Philip the Fair who, in the year 1302, first convoked the deputies of the towns as a Third Estate in conjunction with the clergy and the barons. All indeed that they were in the first instance concerned with was the authority of the sovereign as the power that had convoked them, and the raising of taxes as the object of their convocation; but the States nevertheless secured an importance and weight in the kingdom, and as the natural result, an influence on legislation also. A fact which is particularly remarkable is the proclamation issued by the kings of France, giving permission to the bondsmen on the crown lands to purchase their freedom at a moderate price. In the way we have indicated the kings of France very soon attained great power; while the flourishing state of the poetic art in the hands of the Troubadours, and the growth of the scholastic theology, whose especial centre was Paris, gave France a culture superior to that of the other European states, and which secured the respect of foreign nations.
England, as we have already had occasion to mention, was subjugated by William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy. William introduced the feudal system into it, and divided the kingdom into fiefs, which he granted almost exclusively to his Norman followers. He himself retained considerable crown possessions; the vassals were under obligation to perform service in the field, and to aid in administering justice: the King was the guardian of all vassals under age; they could not marry without his consent. Only by degrees did the barons and the towns attain a position of importance. It was especially in the disputes and struggles for the throne that they acquired considerable weight. When the oppressive rule and fiscal exactions of the Kings became intolerable, contentions and even war ensued: the barons compelled King John to swear to Magna Charta, the basis of English liberty, i.e., more particularly of the privileges of the nobility. Among the liberties thus secured, that which concerns the administration of justice was the chief: no Englishman was to be deprived of personal freedom, property, or life without the judicial verdict of his peers. Every one, moreover, was to be entitled to the free disposition of his property. Further, the King was to impose no taxes without the consent of the archbishops, bishops, earls, and barons. The towns, also, favored by the Kings in opposition to the barons, soon elevated themselves into a Third Estate and to representation in the Commons' House of Parliament. Yet the King was always very powerful, if he possessed strength of character: his crown estates procured for him due consideration; in later times, however, these were gradually alienated – given away – so that the King was reduced to apply for subsidies to the parliament.
We shall not pursue the minute and specifically historic details that concern the incorporation of principalities with states, or the dissensions and contests that accompanied such incorporations. We have only to add that the kings, when by weakening the feudal constitution, they had attained a higher degree of power, began to use that power against each other in the undisguised interest of their own dominion. Thus France and England carried on wars with each other for a century. The kings were always endeavoring to make foreign conquests; the towns, which had the largest share of the burdens and expenses of such wars, were opposed to them, and in order to placate them the kings granted them important privileges.

The Popes endeavored to make the disturbed state of society to which each of these changes gave rise, an occasion for the intervention- of their authority; but the interest of the growth of states was too firmly established to allow them to make their own interest of absolute authority valid against it. Princes and peoples were indifferent to papal clamor urging them to new crusades. The Emperor Louis set to work to deduce from Aristotle, the Bible, and the Roman Law a refutation of the assumptions of the Papal See; and the electors declared at the Diet held at Rense in 1338, and afterwards still more decidedly at the Imperial Diet held at Frankfort, that they would defend the liberties and hereditary rights of the Empire, and that to make the choice of a Roman Emperor or King valid, no papal confirmation was needed. So, at an earlier date, 1302, on occasion of a contest between Pope Boniface and Philip the Fair, the Assembly of the States convoked by the latter had offered opposition to the Pope. For states and communities had arrived at the consciousness of independent moral worth. – Various causes had united to weaken the papal authority: the Great Schism of the Church, which led men to doubt the Pope's infallibility, gave occasion to the decisions of the Councils of Constance and Basle, which assumed an authority superior to that of the Pope, and therefore deposed and appointed Popes. The numerous attempts directed against the ecclesiastical system confirmed the necessity of a reformation. Arnold of Brescia, Wickliffe, and Huss met with sympathy in contending against the dogma of the papal vicegerency of Christ, and the gross abuses that disgraced the hierarchy. These attempts were, however, only partial in their scope. On the one hand the time was not yet ripe for a more comprehensive onslaught; on the other hand the assailants in question did not strike at the heart of the matter, but (especially the two latter) attacked the teaching of the Church chiefly with the weapons of erudition, and consequently failed to excite a deep interest among the people at large.

But the ecclesiastical principle had a more dangerous foe in the incipient formation of political organizations, than in the antagonists above referred to. A common object, an aim intrinsically possessed of perfect moral validity,[34] presented itself to secularity in the formation of states; and to this aim of community the will, the desire, the caprice of the individual submitted themselves. The hardness characteristic of the selfseeking quality of “Heart,” maintaining its position of isolation – the knotty heart of oak underlying the national temperament of the Germans – was broken down and mellowed by the terrible discipline of the Middle Ages. The two iron rods which were the instruments of this discipline were the Church and serfdom. The Church drove the “Heart” [Gemüth] to desperation – made Spirit pass through the severest bondage, so that the soul was no longer its own; but it did not degrade it to Hindoo torpor, for Christianity is an intrinsically spiritual principle and, as such, has a boundless elasticity. In the same way serfdom, which made a man's body not his own, but the property of another, dragged humanity through all the barbarism of slavery and unbridled desire, and the latter was destroyed by its own violence. It was not so much from slavery as through slavery that humanity was emancipated. For barbarism, lust, injustice constitute evil: man, bound fast in its fetters, is unfit for morality and religiousness; and it is from this intemperate and ungovernable state of volition that the discipline in question emancipated him. The Church fought the battle with the violence of rude sensuality in a temper equally wild and terroristic with that of its antagonist: it prostrated the latter by dint of the terrors of hell, and held it in perpetual subjection, in order to break down the spirit of barbarism and to tame it into repose. Theology declares that every man has this struggle to pass through, since he is by nature evil, and only by passing through a state of mental laceration arrives at the certainty of Reconciliation. But granting this, it must on the other hand be maintained, that the form of the contest is very much altered when the conditions of its commencement are different, and when that reconciliation has had an actual realization. The path of torturous discipline is in that case dispensed with (it does indeed make its appearance at a later date, but in a quite different form), for the waking up of consciousness finds man surrounded by the element of a moral state of society. The phase of negation is, indeed, a necessary element -in human development, but it has now assumed the tranquil form of education, so that all the terrible characteristics of that inward struggle vanish.

Humanity has now attained the consciousness of a real internal harmonization of Spirit, and a good conscience in regard to actuality – to secular existence. The Human Spirit has come to stand on its own basis. In the self-consciousness to which man has thus advanced, there is no revolt against the Divine, but a manifestation of that better subjectivity, which recognizes the Divine in its own being; which is imbued with the Good and True, and which directs its activities to general and liberal objects bearing the stamp of rationality and beauty.

Art and Science as Putting a Period to the Middle Ages

Humanity beholds its spiritual firmament restored to serenity. With that tranquil settling down of the world into political order which we have been contemplating, was conjoined an exaltation of Spirit to a nobler grade of humanity in a sphere involving more comprehensive and concrete interests than that with which political existence is concerned. The Sepulchre – that caput mortuum of Spirit – and the Ultramundane cease to absorb human attention. The principle of a specific and definite embodiment of the Infinite – that desideratum which urged the world to the Crusades, now developed itself in a quite different direction, viz. in secular existence asserting an independent ground: Spirit made its embodiment an outward one and found a congenial sphere in the secular life thus originated. The Church, however, maintained its former position, and retained the principle in question in its original form. Yet even in this case, that principle ceased to be limited to a bare outward existence [a sacred thing, the Host, e.g.]: it was transformed and elevated by Art. Art spiritualizes – animates the mere outward and material object of adoration with a form which expresses soul, sentiment, Spirit; so that piety has not a bare sensuous embodiment of the Infinite to contemplate, and does not lavish its devotion on a mere Thing, but on the higher element with which the material object is imbued – that expressive form with which Spirit has invested it. – It is one thing for the mind to have before it a mere Thing – such as the Host per se, a piece of stone or wood, or a wretched daub; – quite another thing for it to contemplate a painting, rich in thought and sentiment, or a beautiful work of sculpture, in looking at which, soul holds converse with soul and Spirit with Spirit. In the former case, Spirit is torn from its proper element, bound down to something utterly alien to it – the Sensuous, the Non-Spiritual. In the latter, on the contrary, the sensuous object is a beautiful one, and the Spiritual Form with which it is endued, gives it a soul and contains truth in itself. But on the one hand, this element of truth as thus exhibited, is manifested only in a sensuous mode, not in its appropriate form; on the other hand, while Religion normally involves independence of that which is essentially a mere outward and material object – a mere thing – that kind of religion which is now under consideration, finds no satisfaction in being brought into connection with the Beautiful: the coarsest, ugliest, poorest representations will suit its purpose equally well – perhaps better. Accordingly real masterpieces – e.g. Raphael's Madonnas – do not enjoy distinguished veneration, or elicit a multitude of offerings: inferior pictures seem on the contrary to be especial favorites and to be made the object of the warmest devotion and the most generous liberality. Piety passes by the former for this very reason, that were it to linger in their vicinity it would feel an inward stimulus and attraction; – an excitement of a kind which cannot but be felt to be alien, where all that is desiderated is a sense of mental bondage in which self is lost – the stupor of abject dependence. – Thus Art in its very nature transcended the principle of the Church. But as the former manifests itself only under sensuous limitations [and does not present the suspicious aspect of abstract thought], it is at first regarded as a harmless and indifferent matter. The Church, therefore, continued to follow it; but as soon as the free Spirit in which Art originated, advanced to Thought and Science, a separation ensued.

For Art received a further support and experienced an elevating influence as the result of the study of antiquity (the name humaniora is very expressive, for in those works of antiquity honor is done to the Human and to the development of Humanity) : through this study the West became acquainted with the true and eternal element in the activity of man. The outward occasion of this revival of science was the fall of the Byzantine Empire. Large numbers of Greeks took refuge in the West and introduced Greek literature there; and they brought with them not only the knowledge of the Greek language but also the treasures to which that knowledge was the key. Very little of Greek literature had been preserved in the convents, and an acquaintance with the language could scarcely be said to exist at all. With the Roman literature it was otherwise ; in regard to that, ancient traditions still lingered: Virgil was thought to be a great magician (in Dante he appears as the guide in Hell and Purgatory). Through the influence of the Greeks, then, attention was again directed to the ancient Greek literature; the West had become capable of enjoying and appreciating it; quite other ideals and a different order of virtue from that with which mediaeval Europe was familiar were here presented; an altogether novel standard for judging of what was to be honored, commended and imitated was set up. The Greeks in their works exhibited quite other moral commands than those with which the West was acquainted; scholastic formalism had to make way for a body of speculative thought of a widely different complexion: Plato became known in the West, and in him a new human world presented itself. These novel ideas met with a principal organ of diffusion in the newly discovered Art of Printing, which, like the use of gunpowder, corresponds with modern character, and supplied the desideratum of the age in which it was invented, by tending to enable men to stand in an ideal connection with each other. So far as the study of the ancients manifested an interest in human deeds and virtues, the Church continued to tolerate it, not observing that in those alien works an altogether alien spirit was advancing to confront it.
As a third leading feature demanding our notice in determining the character of the period, might be mentioned that urging of Spirit outwards – that desire on the part of man to become acquainted with his world. The chivalrous spirit of the maritime heroes of Portugal and Spain opened a new way to the East Indies and discovered America. This progressive step also, involved no transgression of the limits of ecclesiastical principles or feeling. The aim of Columbus was by no means a merely secular one: it presented also a distinctly religious aspect; the treasures of those rich Indian lands which awaited his discovery were destined in his intention to be expended in a new Crusade, and the heathen inhabitants of the countries themselves were to be converted to Christianity. The recognition of the spherical figure of the earth led man to perceive that it offered him a definite and limited object, and navigation had been benefited by the new found instrumentality of the magnet, enabling it to be something better than mere coasting: thus technical appliances make their appearance when a need for them is experienced. These three events – the so-called Revival of Learning, the flourishing of the Fine Arts and the discovery of America and of the passage to India by the Cape – may be compared with that blush of dawn, which after long storms first betokens the return of a bright and glorious day. This day is the day of Universelity, which breaks upon the world after the long, eventful, and terrible night of the Middle Ages – a day which is distinguished by science, art and inventive impulse – that is, by the noblest and highest, and which Humanity, rendered free by Christianity and emancipated through the instrumentality of the Church, exhibits as the eternal and veritable substance of its being.

Section III: The Modern Time.

We have now arrived at the third period of the German World, and thus enter upon the period of Spirit conscious that it is free, inasmuch as it wills the True, the Eternal – that which is in and for itself Universel.
In this third period also, three divisions present themselves. First, we have to consider the Reformation in itself – the allenlightening Sun, following on that blush of dawn which we observed at the termination of the mediaeval period; next, the unfolding of that state of things which succeeded the Reformation; and lastly, the Modern Times, dating from the end of the last century.

Chapter I. The Reformation

The Reformation resulted from the corruption of the Church. That corruption was not an accidental phenomenon; it was not the mere abuse of power and dominion. A corrupt state of things is very frequently represented as an “abuse”; it is taken for granted that the foundation was good – the system, the institution itself faultless – but that the passion, the subjective interest, in short the arbitrary volition of men has made use of that which in itself was good to further its own selfish ends, and that all that is required to be done is to remove these adventitious elements. On this showing the institute in question escapes obloquy, and the evil that disfigures it appears something foreign to it. But when accidental abuse of a good thing really occurs, it is limited to particularity. A great and general corruption affecting a body of such large and comprehensive scope as a Church, is quite another thing. – The corruption of the Church was a native growth; the principle of that corruption is to be looked for in the fact that the specific and definite embodiment of Deity which it recognizes, is sensuous – that the external in a coarse material form, is enshrined in its inmost being. (The refining transformation which Art supplied was not sufficient.) The higher Spirit – that of the World – has already expelled the Spiritual from it; it finds nothing to interest it in the Spiritual or in occupation with it; thus it retains that specific and definite embodiment; – i.e., we have the sensuous immediate subjectivity, not refined by it to Spiritual subjectivity. – Henceforth it occupies a position of inferiority to the World- Spirit; the latter has already transcended it, for it has become capable of recognizing the Sensuous as sensuous, the merely outward as merely outward; it has learned to occupy itself with the Finite in a finite way, and in this very activity to maintain an independent and confident position as a valid and rightful subjectivity.[35]
The element in question which is innate in the Ecclesiastical principle only reveals itself as a corrupting one when the Church has no longer any opposition to contend with – when it has become firmly established. Then its elements are free to display their tendencies without let or hindrance. Thus it is that externality in the Church itself which becomes evil and corruption, and develops itself as a negative principle in its own bosom. – The forms which this corruption assumes are coextensive with the relations which the Church itself sustains, into which consequently this vitiating element enters. The ecclesiastical piety of the period displays the very essence of superstition – the fettering of the mind to a sensuous object, a mere Thing – in the most various forms: – slavish deference to Authority; for Spirit, having renounced its proper nature in its most essential quality [having sacrificed its characteristic liberty to a mere sensuous object], has lost its Freedom, and is held in adamantine bondage to what is alien to itself; – a credulity of the most absurd and childish character in regard to Miracles, for the Divine is supposed to manifest itself in a perfectly disconnected and limited way, for purely finite and particular purposes; – lastly, lust of power, riotous debauchery, all the forms of barbarous and vulgar corruption, hypocrisy and deception – all this manifests itself in the Church; for in fact the Sensuous in it is not subjugated and trained by the Understanding; it has become free, but only in a rough and barbarous way. – On the other hand the virtue which the Church presents, since it is negative only in opposition to sensual appetite, is but abstractly negative; it does not know how to exercise a moral restraint In the indulgence of the senses; in actual life nothing is left for it but avoidance, renunciation, inactivity.

These contrasts which the Church exhibits – of barbarous vice and lust on the one hand, and an elevation of soul that is ready to renounce all worldly things, on the other hand – became still wider in consequence of the energetic position which man is sensible of occupying in his subjective power over outward and material things in the natural world, in which he feels himself free, and so gains for himself an absolute right. – The Church whose office it is to save souls from perdition, makes this salvation itself a mere external appliance, and is now degraded so far as to perform this office in a merely external fashion. The remission of sins – the highest satisfaction which the soul craves, the certainty of its peace with God, that which concerns man's deepest and inmost nature – is offered to man in the most grossly superficial and trivial fashion – to be purchased for mere money; while the object of this sale is to procure means for dissolute excess. One of the objects of this sale was indeed the building of St. Peter's, that magnificent chef-d'oeuvre of Christian fabrics erected in the metropolis of religion. But, as that paragon of works of art, the Athene and her temple-citadel at Athens, was built with the money of the allies and issued in the loss of both allies and power; so the completion of this Church of St. Peter and Michael Angelo's “Last Judgment” in the Sistine Chapel, were the Doomsday and the ruin of this proud spiritual edifice.
The time-honored and cherished sincerity of the German people is destined to effect this revolution out of the honest truth and simplicity of its heart. While the rest of the world are urging their way to India, to America – straining every nerve to gain wealth and to acquire a secular dominion which shall encompass the globe, and on which the sun shall never set – we find a simple Monk looking for that specific embodiment of Deity which Christendom had formerly sought in an earthly sepulchre of stone, rather in the deeper abyss of the Absolute Ideality of all that is sensuous and external – in the Spirit and the Heart – the heart, which, wounded unspeakably by the offer of the most trivial and superficial appliances to satisfy the cravings of that which is inmost and deepest, now detects the perversion of the absolute relation of truth in its minutest features, and pursues it to annihilation. Luther's simple doctrine is that the specific embodiment of Deity – infinite subjectivity, that is true spirituality, Christ – is in no way present and actual in an outward form, but as essentially spiritual is obtained only in being reconciled to God – in faith and spiritual enjoyment. These two words express everything. That which this doctrine desiderates, is not the recognition of a sensuous object as God, nor even of something merely conceived, and which is not actual and present, but of a Reality that is not sensuous. This abrogation of externality imports the reconstruction of all the doctrines, and the reform of all the superstition into which the Church consistently wandered, and in which its spiritual life was dissipated. This change especially, affects the doctrine of works; for works include what may be performed under any mental conditions – not necessarily in faith, in one's own soul, but as mere external observances prescribed by authority. Faith is by no means a bare assurance respecting mere finite things – an assurance which belongs only to limited mind – as e.g., the belief that such or such a person existed and said this or that; or that the Children of Israel passed dry-shod through the Red Sea – or that the trumpets before the walls of Jericho produced as powerful an impression as our cannons; for although nothing of all this had been related to us, our knowledge of God would not be the less complete. In fact it is not a belief in something that is absent, past and gone, but the subjective assurance of the Eternal, of Absolute Truth, the Truth of God. Concerning this assurance, the Lutheran Church affirms that the Holy Spirit alone produces it – i.e., that it is an assurance which the individual attains, not in virtue of his particular idiosyncrasy, but of his essential being. – The Lutheran doctrine therefore involves the entire substance of Catholicism, with the exception of all that results from the element of externality – as far as the Catholic Church insists upon that externality. Luther therefore could not do otherwise than refuse to yield an iota in regard to that doctrine of the Eucharist in which the whole question is concentrated. Nor could he concede to the Reformed [Calvinistic] Church, that Christ is a mere commemoration, a mere reminiscence: in this respect his view was rather in accordance with that of the Catholic Church, viz. that Christ is an actual presence, though only in faith and in Spirit. He maintained that the Spirit of Christ really fills the human heart – that Christ therefore is not to be regarded as merely a historical person, but that man sustains an immediate relation to him in Spirit.

While, then, the individual knows that he is filled with the Divine Spirit, all the relations that sprung from that vitiating element of externality which we examined above, are ipso facto abrogated: there is no longer a distinction between priests and laymen; we no longer find one class in possession of the substance of the Truth, as of all the spiritual and temporal treasures of the Church; but the heart – the emotional part of man's Spiritual nature – is recognized as that which can and ought to come into possession of the Truth; and this subjectivity is the common property of all mankind. Each has to accomplish the work of reconciliation in his own soul. – Subjective Spirit has to receive the Spirit of Truth into itself, and give it a dwelling place there. Thus that absolute inwardness of soul which pertains to religion itself, and Freedom in the Church are both secured. Subjectivity therefore makes the objective purport of Christianity, i.e. the doctrine of the Church, its own. In the Lutheran Church the subjective feeling and the conviction of the individual is regarded as equally necessary with the objective side of Truth. Truth with Lutherans is not a finished and completed thing; the subject himself must be imbued with Truth, surrendering his particular being in exchange for the substantial Truth, and making that Truth his own. Thus subjective Spirit gains emancipation in the Truth, abnegates its particularity and comes to itself in realizing the truth of its being. Thus Christian Freedom is actualized. If Subjectivity be placed in feeling only, without that objective side, we have the standpoint of the merely Natural Will.

In the proclamation of these principles is unfurled the new, the latest standard round which the peoples rally – the banner of Free Spirit, independent, though finding its life in the Truth, and enjoying independence only in it. This is the banner under which we serve, and which we bear. Time, since that epoch, has had no other work to do than the formal imbuing of the world with this principle, in bringing the Reconciliation implicit [in Christianity] into objective and explicit realization.
Culture is essentially concerned with Form; the work of Culture is the production of the Form of Universelity, which is none other than Thought.[36] Consequently Law, Property, Social Morality, Government, Constitutions, etc., must be conformed to general principles, in order that they may accord with the idea of Free Will and be Rational. Thus only can the Spirit of Truth manifest itself in Subjective Will – in the particular shapes which the activity of the Will assumes. In virtue of that degree of intensity which Subjective Free Spirit has attained, elevating it to the form of Universelity, Objective Spirit attains manifestation. This is the sense in which we must understand the State to be based on Religion. States and Laws are nothing else than Religion manifesting itself in the relations of the actual world. This is the essence of the Reformation: Man is in his very nature destined to be free.

At its commencement, the Reformation concerned itself only with particular aspects of the Catholic Church: Luther wished to act in union with the whole Catholic world, and expressed a desire that Councils should be convened. His theses found supporters in every country. In answer to the charge brought against Luther and the Protestants, of exaggeration – nay, even of calumnious misrepresentation in their descriptions of the corruption of the Church, we may refer to the statements of Catholics themselves, bearing upon this point, and particularly to those contained in the official documents of Ecclesiastical Councils. But Luther's onslaught, which was at first limited to particular points, was soon extended to the doctrines of the Church; and leaving individuals, he attacked institutions at large – conventual life, the secular lordships of the bishops, etc. His writings now controverted not merely isolated dicta of the Pope and the Councils, but the very principle on which such a mode of deciding points in dispute was based – in fact, the Authority of the Church. Luther repudiated that authority, and set up in its stead the Bible and the testimony of the Human Spirit. And it is a fact of the weightiest import that the Bible has become the basis of the Christian Church: henceforth each individual enjoys the right of deriving instruction for himself from it, and of directing his conscience in accordance with it. We see a vast change in the principle by which man's religious life is guided: the whole system of Tradition, the whole fabric of the Church becomes problematical, and its authority is subverted. Luther's translation of the Bible has been of incalculable value to the German people. It has supplied them with a People's Book, such as no nation in the Catholic world can boast; for though the latter have a vast number of minor productions in the shape of prayer books, they have no generally recognized and classical book for popular instruction. In spite of this it has been made a question in modern times whether it is judicious to place the Bible in the hands of the People. Yet the few disadvantages thus entailed are far more than counterbalanced by the incalculable benefits thence accruing: narratives, which in their external shape might be repellent to the heart and understanding, can be discriminatingly treated by the religious sense, which, holding fast the substantial truth, easily vanquishes any such difficulties. And even if the books which have pretensions to the character of People's Books, were not so superficial as they are, they would certainly fail in securing that respect which a book claiming such a title ought to inspire in individuals. But to obviate this difficulty is no easy matter, for even should a book adapted to the purpose in every other respect be produced, every country parson would have some fault to find with it, and think to better it. In France the need of such a book has been very much felt; great premiums have been offered with a view to obtaining one, but, from the reason stated, without success. Moreover, the existence of a People's Book presupposes as its primary condition an ability to read on the part of the People; an ability which in Catholic countries is not very commonly to be met with.

The denial of the Authority of the Church necessarily led to a separation. The Council of Trent stereotyped the principles of Catholicism, and made the restoration of concord impossible. Leibnitz at a later time discussed with Bishop Bossuet the question of the union of the Churches; but the Council of Trent remains the insurmountable obstacle. The Churches became hostile parties, for even in respect to secular arrangements a striking difference manifested itself. In the non-Catholic countries the conventual establishments and episcopal foundations were broken up, and the rights of the then proprietors ignored. Educational arrangements were altered; the fasts and holy days were abolished. Thus there was also a secular reform – a change affecting the state of things outside the sphere of ecclesiastical relations: in many places a rebellion was raised against the temporal authorities. In Münster the Anabaptists expelled the Bishop and established a government of their own; and the peasants rose en masse to emancipate themselves from the yoke of serfdom. But the world was not yet ripe for a transformation of its political condition as a consequence of ecclesiastical reformation. – The Catholic Church also was essentially influenced by the Reformation: the reins of discipline were drawn tighter, and the greatest occasions of scandal, the most crying abuses were abated. Much of the intellectual life of the age that lay outside its sphere, but with which it had previously maintained friendly relations, it now repudiated. The Church came to a dead stop – “hitherto and no farther!” It severed itself from advancing Science, from philosophy and humanistic literature; and an occasion was soon offered of declaring its enmity to the scientific pursuits of the period. The celebrated Copernicus had discovered that the earth and the planets revolve round the sun, but the Church declared against this addition to human knowledge. Galileo, who had published a statement in the form of a dialogue of the evidence for and against the Copernican discovery (declaring indeed his own conviction of its truth), was obliged to crave pardon for the offence on his knees. The Greek literature was not made the basis of culture; education was intrusted to the Jesuits. Thus does the Spirit of the Catholic world in general sink behind the Spirit of the Age.

Here an important question solicits investigation: – why the Reformation was limited to certain nations, and why it did not permeate the whole Catholic world. The Reformation originated in Germany, and struck firm root only in the purely German nations; outside of Germany itself it established itself in Scandinavia and England. But the Romanic and Sclavonic nations kept decidedly aloof from it. Even South Germany has only partially adopted the Reformation – a fact which is consistent with the mingling of elements which is the general characteristic of its nationality. In Swabia, Franconia, and the Rhine countries there were many convents and bishoprics, as also many free imperial towns; and the reception or rejection of the Reformation very much depended on the influences which these ecclesiastical and civil bodies respectively exercised ; for we have already noticed that the Reformation was a change influencing the political life of the age as well as its religious and intellectual condition. We must further observe, that authority has much greater weight in determining men's opinions than people are inclined to believe. There are certain fundamental principles which men are in the habit of receiving on the strength of authority; and it was mere authority which in the case of many countries decided for or against the adoption of the Reformation. In Austria, in Bavaria, in Bohemia, the Reformation had already made great progress; and though it is commonly said that when truth has once penetrated men's souls, it cannot be rooted out again, it was indisputably stifled in the countries in question, by force of arms, by stratagem or persuasion. The Sclavonic nations were agricultural. This condition of life brings with it the relation of lord and serf. In agriculture the agency of nature predominates; human industry and subjective activity are on the whole less brought into play in this department of labor than elsewhere. The Sclavonians therefore did not attain so quickly or readily as other nations the fundamental sense of pure individuality – the consciousness of Universelity – that which we designated above as “political power,” and could not share the benefits of dawning freedom. – But the Romanic nations also – Italy, Spain, Portugal, and in part France – were not imbued with the Reformed doctrines. Physical force perhaps did much to repress them; yet this alone would not be sufficient to explain the fact, for when the Spirit of a Nation craves anything no force can prevent its attaining the desired object: nor can it be said that these nations were deficient in culture; on the contrary, they were in advance of the Germans in this respect. It was rather owing to the fundamental character of these nations, that they did not adopt the Reformation. But what is this peculiarity of character which hindered the attainment of Spiritual Freedom? We answer: the pure inwardness of the German nation was the proper soil for the emancipation of Spirit; the Romanic Nations, on the contrary, have maintained in the very depth of their soul – in their Spiritual Consciousness – the principle of Disharmony: they are a product of the fusion of Roman and German blood, and still retain the heterogeneity thence resulting. The German cannot deny that the French, the Italians, the Spaniards, possess more determination of character – that they pursue a settled aim (even though it have a fixed idea for its object) with perfectly clear consciousness and the greatest attention – that they carry out a plan with great circumspection, and exhibit the greatest decision in regard to specific objects. The French call the Germans entiers, “entire” – i.e., stubborn; they are also strangers to the whimsical originality of the English. The Englishman attaches his idea of liberty to the special [as opposed to the general] ; he does not trouble himself about the Understanding [logical inference], but on the contrary feels himself so much the more at liberty, the more his course of action or his license to act contravenes the Understanding – i.e., runs counter to [logical inferences or] general principles. On the other hand, among the Romanic peoples we immediately encounter that internal schism, that holding fast by an abstract principle, and as the counterpart of this, an absence of the Totality of Spirit and sentiment which we call “Heart”; there is not that meditative introversion of the soul upon itself; – in their inmost being they may be said to be alienated from themselves [abstract principles carry them away]. With them the inner life is a region whose depth they do not appreciate; for it is given over “bodily” to particular [absorbing] interests, and the infinity that belongs to Spirit is not to be looked for there. Their inmost being is not their own. They leave it as an alien and indifferent matter, and are glad to have its concerns settled for them by another. That other to which they leave it is the Church. They have indeed something to do with it themselves; but since that which they have to do is not self-originated and self-prescribed, not their very own, they are content to leave the affair to be settled in a superficial way. “Eh bien,” said Napoleon, “we shall go to mass again, and my good fellows will say: ‘That is the word of command!'” This is the leading feature in the character of these nations – the separation of the religious from the secular interest, i.e., from the special interest of individuality; and the ground of this separation lies in their inmost soul, which has lost its independent entireness of being, its profoundest unity. Catholicism does not claim the essential direction of the Secular; religion remains an indifferent matter on the one side, while the other side of life is dissociated from it, and occupies a sphere exclusively its own. Cultivated Frenchmen therefore feel an antipathy to Protestantism because it seems to them something pedantic, dull, minutely captious in its morality; since it requires that Spirit and Thought should be directly engaged in religion: in attending mass and other ceremonies, on the contrary, no exertion of thought is required, but an imposing sensuous spectacle is presented to the eye, which does not make such a demand on one's attention as entirely to exclude a little chat, while yet the duties of the occasion are not neglected.

We spoke above of the relation which the new doctrine sustained to secular life, and now we have only to exhibit that relation in detail. The development and advance of Spirit from the time of the Reformation onwards consist in this, that Spirit, having now gained the consciousness of its Freedom, through that process of mediation which takes place between man and God – that is, in the full recognition of the objective process as the existence [the positive and definite manifestation] of the Divine essence – now takes it up and follows it out in building up the edifice of secular relations. That harmony [of Objective and Subjective Will] which has resulted from the painful struggles of History, involves the recognition of the Secular as capable of being an embodiment of Truth; whereas it had been formerly regarded as evil only, as incapable of Good – the latter being considered essentially ultramundane. It is now perceived that Morality and Justice in the State are also divine and commanded by God, and that in point of substance there is nothing higher or more sacred. One inference is that Marriage is no longer deemed less holy than Celibacy. Luther took a wife to show that he respected marriage, defying the calumnies to which he exposed himself by such a step. It was his duty to do so, as it was also to eat meat on Fridays; to prove that such things are lawful and right, in opposition to the imagined superiority of abstinence. The Family introduces man to community – to the relation of interdependence in society; and this union is a moral one: while on the other hand the monks, separated from the sphere of social morality, formed as it were the standing army of the Pope, as the janizaries formed the basis of the Turkish power. The marriage of the priests entails the disappearance of the outward distinction between laity and clergy. – Moreover the repudiation of work no longer earned the reputation of sanctity; it was acknowledged to be more commendable for men to rise from a state of dependence by activity, intelligence, and industry, and make themselves independent. It is more consonant with justice that he who has money should spend it even in luxuries, than that he should give it away to idlers and beggars; for he bestows it on an equal number of persons by so doing, and these must at any rate have worked diligently for it. Industry, crafts and trades now have their moral validity recognized, and the obstacles to their prosperity which originated with the Church, have vanished. For the Church had pronounced it a sin to lend money on interest: but the necessity of so doing led to the direct violation of her injunctions. The Lombards (a fact which accounts for the use of the term “lombard” in French to denote a loan-office), and particularly the House of Medici, advanced money to princes in every part of Europe. The third point of sanctity in the Catholic Church – blind obedience, was likewise denuded of its false pretensions. Obedience to the laws of the State, as the Rational element in volition and action, was made the principle of human conduct. In this obedience man is free, for all that is demanded is that the Particular should yield to the General. Man himself has a conscience; consequently the subjection required of him is a free allegiance. This involves the possibility of a development of Reason and Freedom, and of their introduction into human relations; and Reason and the Divine commands are now synonymous. The Rational no longer meets with contradiction on the part of the religious conscience; it is permitted to develop itself in its own sphere without disturbance, without being compelled to resort to force in defending itself against an adverse power. But in the Catholic Church, that adverse element is unconditionally sanctioned. Where the Reformed doctrine prevails, princes may still be bad governors, but they are no longer sanctioned and solicited thereto by the promptings of their religious conscience. In the Catholic Church on the contrary, it is nothing singular for the conscience to be found in opposition to the laws of the State. Assassinations of sovereigns, conspiracies against the state, and the like, have often been supported and carried into execution by the priests.

This harmony between the State and the Church has now attained immediate realization.[38] We have, as yet, no reconstruction of the State, of the system of jurisprudence, etc., for thought must first discover the essential principle of Right. The Laws of Freedom had first to be expanded to a system as deduced from an absolute principle of Right. Spirit does not assume this complete form immediately after the Reformation; it limits itself at first to direct and simple changes, as e.g., the doing away with conventual establishments and episcopal jurisdiction, etc. The reconciliation between God and the World was limited in the first instance to an abstract form; it was not yet expanded into a system by which the moral world could be regulated.
In the first instance this reconciliation must take place in the individual soul, must be realized by feeling; the individual must gain the assurance that the Spirit dwells in him – that, in the language of the Church, a brokenness of heart has been experienced, and that Divine grace has entered into the heart thus broken. By Nature man is not what he ought to be; only through a transforming process does he arrive at truth. The general and speculative aspect of the matter is just this – that the human heart is not what it should be. It was then required of the individual that he should know what he is in himself; that is, the teaching of the Church insisted upon man's becoming conscious that he is evil. But the individual is evil only when the Natural manifests itself in mere sensual desire – when an unrighteous will presents itself in its untamed, untrained, violent shape; and yet it is required that such a person should know that he is depraved, and that the good Spirit dwells in him; in fact he is required to have a direct consciousness of and to “experience” that which was presented to him as a speculative and implicit truth. The Reconciliation having, then, assumed this abstract form, men tormented themselves with a view to force upon their souls the consciousness of their sinfulness and to know themselves as evil. The most simple souls, the most innocent natures were accustomed in painful introspection to observe the most secret workings of the heart, with a view to a rigid examination of them. With this duty was conjoined that of an entirely opposite description; it was required that man should attain the consciousness that the good Spirit dwells in him – that Divine Grace has found an entrance into his soul. In fact the important distinction between the knowledge of abstract truth and the knowledge of what has actual existence was left out of sight. Men became the victims of a tormenting uncertainty as to whether the good Spirit has an abode in them, and it was deemed indispensable that the entire process of spiritual transformation should become perceptible to the individual himself. An echo of this self-tormenting process may still be traced in much of the religious poetry of that time; the Psalms of David which exhibit a similar character were then introduced as hymns into the ritual of Protestant Churches. Protestantism took this turn of minute and painful introspection, possessed with the conviction of the importance of the exercise, and was for a long time characterized by a self-tormenting disposition and an aspect of spiritual wretchedness; which in the present day has induced many persons to enter the Catholic pale, that they might exchange this inward uncertainty for a formal broad certainty based on the imposing totality of the Church. A more refined order of reflection upon the character of human actions was introduced into the Catholic Church also. The Jesuits analyzed the first rudiments of volition (velleitas) with as painful minuteness as was displayed in the pious exercises of Protestantism ; but they had a science of casuistry which enabled them to discover a good reason for everything, and so get rid of the burden of guilt which this rigid investigation seemed to aggravate.

With this was connected another remarkable phenomenon, common to the Catholic with the Protestant World. The human mind was driven into the Inward, the Abstract, and the Religious element was regarded as utterly alien to the secular. That lively consciousness of his subjective life and of the inward origin of his volition that had been awakened in man, brought with it the belief in Evil, as a vast power the sphere of whose malign dominion is the Secular. This belief presents a parallelism with the view in which the sale of Indulgences originated : for as eternal salvation could be secured for money, so by paying the price of one's salvation through a compact made with the Devil, the riches of the world and the unlimited gratification of desires and passions could be secured. Thus arose that famous legend of Faust, who in disgust at the unsatisfactory character of speculative science, is said to have plunged into the world and purchased all its glory at the expense of his salvation. Faust, if we may trust the poet, had the enjoyment of all that the world could give, in exchange for his soul's weal; but those poor women who were called Witches were reputed to get nothing more by the bargain than the gratification of a petty revenge by making a neighbor's cow go dry or giving a child the measles. But in awarding punishment it was not the magnitude of the injury in the loss of the milk or the sickness of the child that was considered; it was the abstract power of the Evil One in them that was attacked. The belief in this abstract, special power whose dominion is the world – in the Devil and his devices – occasioned an incalculable number of trials for witchcraft both in Catholic and Protestant countries. It was impossible to prove the guilt of the accused; they were only suspected : it was therefore only a direct knowledge [one not mediated by proofs] on which this fury against the evil principle professed to be based. It was indeed necessary to have recourse to evidence, but the basis of these judicial processes was simply the belief that certain individuals were possessed by the power of the Evil One. This delusion raged among the nations in the sixteenth century with the fury of a pestilence. The main impulse was suspicion. The principle of suspicion assumes a similarly terrible shape during the sway of the Roman Emperors, and under Robespierre's Reign of Terror; when mere disposition, unaccompanied by any overt act or expression, was made an object of punishment. Among the Catholics, it was the Dominicans to whom (as was the Inquisition in all its branches) the trials for witchcraft were intrusted. Father Spee, a noble Jesuit, wrote a treatise against them (he is also the author of a collection of fine poems bearing the title of “Trutznachtigall,”) giving a full exposure of the terrible character of criminal justice in proceedings of this kind. Torture, which was only to be applied once, was continued until a confession was extorted. If the accused fainted under the torture it was averred that the Devil was giving them sleep: if convulsions supervened, it was said that the Devil was laughing in them; if they held out steadfastly, the Devil was supposed to give them power. These persecutions spread like an epidemic sickness through Italy, France, Spain and Germany. The earnest remonstrances of enlightened men, such as Spec and others, already produced a considerable effect. But it was Thomasius, a Professor of Halle, who first opposed this prevalent superstition with very decided success. The entire phenomenon is in itself most remarkable when we reflect that we have not long been quit of this frightful barbarity (even as late as the year 1780 a witch was publicly burned at Glarus in Switzerland). Among the Catholics persecution was directed against heretics as well as against witches: we might say indeed that they were placed in one category; the unbelief of the heretics was regarded as none other than the indwelling principle of Evil – a possession similar to the other.
Leaving this abstract form of Subjectiveness we have now to consider the secular side – the constitution of the State and the advance of Universelity – the recognition of the universel laws of Freedom. This is the second and the essential point.

Chapter II. Influence of the Reformation on Political Development.

In tracing the course of the political development of the period, we observe in the first place the consolidation of Monarchy, and the Monarch invested with an authority emanating from the State. The incipient stage in the rise of royal power, and the commencement of that unity which the states of Europe attained, belong to a still earlier period. While these changes were going forward, the entire body of private obligations and rights which had been handed down from the Middle Age, still retained validity. Infinitely important is this form of private rights, which the organic constituents of the executive power of the State have assumed. At their apex we find a fixed and positive principle – the exclusive right of one family to the possession of the throne, and the hereditary succession of sovereigns further restricted by the law of primogeniture. This gives the State an immovable centre. The fact that Germany was an elective empire prevented its being consolidated into one state; and for the same reason Poland has vanished from the circle of independent states. The State must have a final decisive will: but if an individual is to be the final deciding power, he must be so in a direct and natural way, not as determined by choice and theoretic views, etc. Even among the free Greeks the oracle was the external power which decided their policy on critical occasions; here birth is the oracle – something independent of any arbitrary volition. But the circumstance that the highest station in a monarchy is assigned to a family, seems to indicate that the sovereignty is the private property of that family. As such that sovereignty would seem to be divisible; but since the idea of division of power is opposed to the principle of the state, the rights of the monarch and his family required to be more strictly defined. Sovereign possession is not a peculium of the individual ruler, but is consigned to the dynastic family as a trust; and the estates of the realm possess security that that trust shall be faithfully discharged, for they have to guard the unity of the body politic. Thus, then, royal possession no longer denotes a kind of private property, private possession of estates, demesnes, jurisdiction, etc., but has become a State-property – a function pertaining to and involved with the State.

Equally important, and connected with that just noticed, is the change of executive powers, functions, duties and rights, which naturally belong to the State, but which had become private property and private contracts or obligations – into possession conferred by the State. The rights of seigneurs and barons were annulled, and they were obliged to content themselves with official positions in the State. This transformation of the rights of vassals into official functions took place in the several kingdoms in various ways. In France, e.g., the great Barons, who were governors of provinces, who could claim such offices as a matter of right, and who like the Turkish Pashas, maintained a body of troops with the revenues thence derived – troops which they might at any moment bring into the field against the King – were reduced to the position of mere landed proprietors or court nobility, and those Pashalics became offices held under the government; or the nobility were employed as officers – generals of the army, an army belonging to the State. In this aspect the origination of standing armies is so important an event; for they supply the monarchy with an independent force and are as necessary for the security of the central authority against the rebellion of the subject individuals as for the defence of the state against foreign enemies. The fiscal system indeed had not as yet assumed a systematic character – the revenue being derived from customs, taxes and tolls in countless variety, besides the subsidies and contributions paid by the estates of the realm; in return for which the right of presenting a statement of grievances was conceded to them, as is now the case in Hungary. – In Spain the spirit of chivalry had assumed a very beautiful and noble form. This chivalric spirit, this knightly dignity, degraded to a mere inactive sentiment of honor, has attained notoriety as the Spanish grandezza. The Grandees were no longer allowed to maintain troops of their own, and were also withdrawn from the command of the armies; destitute of power they had to content themselves as private persons with an empty title. But the means by which the royal power in Spain was consolidated, was the Inquisition. This, which was established for the persecution of those who secretly adhered to Judaism, and of Moors and heretics, soon assumed a political character, being directed against the enemies of the State. Thus the Inquisition confirmed the despotic power of the King: it claimed supremacy even over bishops and archbishops, and could cite them before its tribunal. The frequent confiscation of property – one of the most customary penalties – tended to enrich the treasury of the State. Moreover, the Inquisition was a tribunal which took cognizance of mere suspicion; and while it consequently exercised a fearful authority over the clergy, it had a peculiar support in the national pride. For every Spaniard wished to be considered Christian by descent, and this species of vanity fell in with the views and tendency of the Inquisition. Particular provinces of the Spanish monarchy, as e.g., Aragon, still retained many peculiar rights and privileges; but the Spanish Kings from Philip II downwards proceeded to suppress them altogether. It would lead us too far to pursue in detail the process of the depression of the aristocracy in the several states of Europe. The main scope of this depressing process was, as already stated, the curtailment of the private rights of the feudal nobility, and the transformation of their seigneurial authority into an official position in connection with the State. This change was in the interest of both the King and the People. The powerful barons seemed to constitute an intermediate body charged with the defence of liberty; but properly speaking, it was only their own privileges which they maintained against the royal power on the one hand and the citizens on the other hand. The barons of England extorted Magna Charta from the King; but the citizens gained nothing by it, on the contrary they remained in their former condition. Polish Liberty too, meant nothing more than the freedom of the barons in contraposition to the King, the nation being reduced to a state of absolute serfdom. When liberty is mentioned, we must always be careful to observe whether it is not really the assertion of private interests which is thereby designated. For although the nobility were deprived of their sovereign power, the people were still oppressed in consequence of their absolute dependence, their serfdom, and subjection to aristocratic jurisdiction; and they were partly declared utterly incapable of possessing property, partly subjected to a condition of bond-service which did not permit of their freely selling the products of their industry. The supreme interest of emancipation from this condition concerned the power of the State as well as the subjects – that emancipation which now gave them as citizens the character of free individuals, and determined that what was to be performed for the Commonwealth should be a matter of just allotment, not of mere chance. The aristocracy of possession maintains that possession against both – viz., against the power of the State at large and against individuals. But the aristocracy have a position assigned them, as the support of the throne, as occupied and active on behalf of the State and the common weal, and at the same time as maintaining the freedom of the citizens. This in fact is the prerogative of that class which forms the link between the Sovereign and the People – to undertake to discern and to give the first impulse to that which is intrinsically Rational and Universel ; and this recognition of and occupation with the Universel must take the place of positive personal right. This subjection to the Head of the State of that intermediate power which laid claim to positive authority was now accomplished, but this did not involve the emancipation of the subject class. This took place only at a later date, when the idea of right in and for itself arose in men's minds. Then the sovereigns relying on their respective peoples, vanquished the caste of unrighteousness; but where they united with the barons, or where the latter maintained their freedom against the kings, those positive rights or rather wrongs continued.
We observe also as an essential feature now first presenting itself in the political aspect of the time, a connected system of States and a relation of States to each other. They became involved in various wars: the Kings having enlarged their political authority, now turn their attention to foreign lands, insisting upon claims of all kinds. The aim and real interest of the wars of the period is invariably conquest.
Italy especially had become such an object of desire, and was a prey to the rapacity of the French, the Spaniards, and at a later date, of the Austrians. In fact absolute disintegration and dismemberment has always been an essential feature in the national character of the inhabitants of Italy, in ancient as well as in modern times. Their stubborn individuality was exchanged for a union the result of force, under the Roman dominion ; but as soon as this bond was broken, the original character reappeared in full strength. In later times, as if finding in them a bond of union otherwise impossible – after having escaped from a selfishness of the most monstrous order and which displayed its perverse nature in crimes of every description – the Italians attained a taste for the Fine Arts: thus their civilization, the mitigation of their selfishness, reached only the Grade of Beauty, not that of Rationality – the higher unity of Thought. Consequently, even in poetry and song the Italian nature is different from ours. Improvisation characterizes the genius of the Italians; they pour out their very souls in Art and the ecstatic enjoyment of it. Enjoying a naturel so imbued with Art, the State must be an affair of comparative indifference, a merely casual matter to the Italians. But we have to observe also that the wars in which Germany engaged, were not particularly honorable to it: it allowed Burgundy, Lorraine, Alsace, and other parts of the empire to be wrested from it. From these wars between the various political powers there arose common interests, and the object of that community of interest was the maintenance of severalty – the preservation to the several States of their independence – in fact the “balance of power.” The motive to this was of a decidedly “practical” kind, viz., the protection of the several States from conquest. The union of the States of Europe as the means of shielding individual States from the violence of the powerful – the preservation of the balance of power, had now taken the place of that general aim of the elder time, the defence of Christendom, whose centre was the Papacy. This new political motive was necessarily accompanied by a diplomatic condition – one in which all the members of the great European system, however distant, felt an interest in that which happened to any one of them. Diplomatic policy had been brought to the greatest refinement in Italy, and was thence transmitted to Europe at large. Several princes in succession seemed to threaten the stability of the balance of power in Europe. When this combination of States was just commencing, Charles V was aiming at universel monarchy; for he was Emperor of Germany and King of Spain to boot: the Netherlands and Italy acknowledged his sway, and the whole wealth of America flowed into his coffers. With this enormous power, which, like the contingencies of fortune in the case of private property, had been accumulated by the most felicitous combinations of political dexterity – among other things by marriage, – but which was destitute of an internal and reliable bond, he was nevertheless unable to gain any advantage over France, or even over the German princes; nay he was even compelled to a peace by Maurice of Saxony. His whole life was spent in suppressing disturbances in all parts of his empire and in conducting foreign wars. The balance of power in Europe was similarly threatened by Louis XIV. Through that depression of the grandees of his kingdom which Richelieu and after him Mazarin had accomplished, he had become an absolute sovereign. France, too, had the consciousness of its intellectual superiority in a refinement of culture surpassing anything of which the rest of Europe could boast. The pretensions of Louis were founded not on extent of dominion, (as was the case with Charles V) so much as on that culture which distinguished his people, and which at that time made its way everywhere with the language that embodied it, and was the object of universel admiration: they could therefore plead a higher justification than those of the German Emperor. But the very rock on which the vast military resources of Philip II had already foundered – the heroic resistance of the Dutch – proved fatal also to the ambitious schemes of Louis. Charles XII also presented a remarkably menacing aspect; but his ambition had a Quixotic tinge and was less sustained by intrinsic vigor. Through all these storms the nations of Europe succeeded in maintaining their individuality and independence. An external relation in which the States of Europe had an interest in common, was that sustained to the Turks – the terrible power which threatened to overwhelm Europe from the East. The Turks of that day had still a sound and vigorous nationality, whose power was based on conquest, and which was therefore engaged in constant warfare, or at least admitted only a temporary suspension of arms. As was the case among the Franks, the conquered territories were divided among their warriors as personal, not heritable possessions; when in later times the principle of hereditary succession was adopted, the national vigor was shattered. The flower of the Osman force, the Janizaries, were the terror of the Europeans. Their ranks were recruited from a body of Christian boys of handsome and vigorous proportions, brought together chiefly by means of annual conscriptions among the Greek subjects of the Porte, strictly educated in the Moslem faith, and exercised in arms from early youth. Without parents, without brothers or sisters, without wives, they were, like the monks, an altogether isolated and terrible corps. The Eastern European powers were obliged to make common cause against the Turks – viz.: Austria, Hungary, Venice and Poland. The battle of Lepanto saved Italy, and perhaps all Europe, from a barbarian inundation.

An event of special importance following in the train of the Reformation was the struggle of the Protestant Church for political existence. The Protestant Church, even in its original aspect, was too intimately connected with secular interests not to occasion secular complications and political contentions respecting political possession. The subjects of Catholic princes become Protestant, have and make claims to ecclesiastical property, change the nature of the tenure, and repudiate or decline the discharge of those ecclesiastical functions to whose due performance the emoluments are attached (jura stoloe). Moreover a Catholic government is bound to be the brachium seculare of the Church; the Inquisition, e.g., never put a man to death, but simply declared him a heretic, as a kind of jury; he was then punished according to civil laws. Again, innumerable occasions of offence and irritation originated with processions and feasts, the carrying of the Host through the streets, withdrawals from convents, etc. Still more excitement would be felt when an Archbishop of Cologne attempted to make his archepiscopate a secular princedom for himself and his family. Their confessors made it a matter of conscience with Catholic princes to wrest estates that had been the property of the Church out of the hands of the heretics. In Germany, however, the condition of things was favorable to Protestantism in as far as the several territories which had been imperial fiefs, had become independent principalities. But in countries like Austria, the princes were indifferent to Protestants, or even hostile to them; and in France they were not safe in the exercise of their religion except as protected by fortresses. War was the indispensable preliminary to the security of Protestants ; for the question was not one of simple conscience, but involved decisions respecting public and private property which had been taken possession of in contravention of the rights of the Church, and whose restitution it demanded. A condition of absolute mistrust supervened; absolute, because mistrust bound up with the religious conscience was its root. The Protestant princes and towns formed at that time a feeble union, and the defensive operations they conducted were much feebler still. After they had been worsted, Maurice the Elector of Saxony, by an utterly unexpected and adventurous piece of daring, extorted a peace, itself of doubtful interpretation, and which left the real sources of embitterment altogether untouched. It was necessary to fight out the battle from the very beginning. This took place in the Thirty Years' War, in which first Denmark and then Sweden undertook the cause of freedom. The former was compelled to quit the field, but the latter under Gustavus Adolphus – that hero of the North of glorious memory – played a part which was so much the more brilliant inasmuch as it began to wage war with the vast force of the Catholics, alone – without the help of the Protestant states of the Empire. The powers of Europe, with a few exceptions, precipitate themselves on Germany – flowing back towards it as to the fountain from which they had originally issued, and where now the right of inwardness that has come to manifest itself in the sphere of religion, and that of internal independence and severalty is to be fought out. The struggle ends without an Ideal result – without having attained the consciousness of a principle as an intellectual concept – in the exhaustion of all parties, in a scene of utter desolation, where all the contending forces have been wrecked; it issues in letting parties simply take their course and maintain their existence on the basis of external power. The issue is in fact exclusively of a political nature.

In England also, war was indispensable to the establishment of the Protestant Church: the struggle was in this case directed against the sovereigns, who were secretly attached to Catholicism because they found the principle of absolute sway confirmed by its doctrines. The fanaticized people rebelled against the assumption of absolute sovereign power – importing that Kings are responsible to God alone (i.e., to the Father Confessor) – and in opposition to Catholic externality, unfurled the banner of extreme subjectivity in Puritanism – a principle which, developing itself in the real world, presents an aspect partly of enthusiastic elevation, partly of ridiculous incongruity. The enthusiasts of England, like those of Münster, were for having the State governed directly by the fear of God; the soldiery sharing the same fanatical views prayed while they fought for the cause they had espoused. But a military leader now has the physical force of the country and consequently the government in his hands: for in the State there must be government, and Cromwell knew what governing is. He, therefore, made himself ruler, and sent that praying parliament about their business. With his death however his right to authority vanished also, and the old dynasty regained possession of the throne. Catholicism, we may observe, is commended to the support of princes as promoting the security of their government – a position supposed to be particularly manifest if the Inquisition be connected with the government; the former constituting the bulwark of the latter. But such a security is based on a slavish religious obedience, and is limited to those grades of human development in which the political constitution and the whole legal system still rest on the basis of actual positive possession; but if the constitution and laws are to be founded on a veritable eternal Right, then security is to be found only in the Protestant religion, in whose principle Rational Subjective Freedom also attains development. The Dutch too offered a vigorous opposition to the Catholic principle as bound up with the Spanish sovereignty. Belgium was still attached to the Catholic religion and remained subject to Spain: on the contrary, the northern part of the Netherlands – Holland – stood its ground with heroic valor against its oppressors. The trading class, the guilds and companies of marksmen formed a militia whose heroic courage was more than a match for the then famous Spanish infantry. Just as the Swiss peasants had resisted the chivalry of Austria, so here the trading cities held out against disciplined troops. During this struggle on the Continent itself, the Dutch fitted out fleets and deprived the Spaniards of part of their colonial possessions, from which all their wealth was derived. As independence was secured to Holland in its holding to the Protestant principle, so that of Poland was lost through its endeavor to suppress that principle in the case of dissidents. Through the Peace of Westphalia the Protestant Church had been acknowledged as an independent one – to the great confusion and humiliation of Catholicism. This peace has often passed for the palladium of Germany, as having established its political constitution. But this constitution was in fact a confirmation of the particular rights of the countries into which Germany had been broken up. It involves no thought, no conception of the proper aim of a state. We should consult “Hippolytus à lapide” (a book which, written before the conclusion of the peace, had a great influence on the condition of the Empire) if we would become acquainted with the character of that German freedom of which so much is made. In the peace in question the establishment of a complete particularity, the determination of all relations on the principle of private right is the object manifestly contemplated – a constituted anarchy, such as the world had never before seen; – i.e., the position that an Empire is properly a unity, a totality, a state, while yet all relations are determined so exclusively on the principle of private right that the privilege of all the constituent parts of that Empire to act for themselves contrarily to the interest of the whole, or to neglect that which its interest demands and which is even required by law – is guaranteed and secured by the most inviolable sanctions. Immediately after this settlement, it was shown what the German Empire was as a state in relation to other states: it waged ignominious wars with the Turks, for deliverance from whom Vienna was indebted to Poland. Still more ignominious was its relation to France, which took possession in time of peace of free cities, the bulwarks of Germany, and of flourishing provinces, and retained them undisturbed.
This constitution, which completely terminated the career of Germany as an Empire, was chiefly the work of Richelieu, by whose assistance – Romish Cardinal though he was – religious freedom in Germany was preserved. Richelieu, with a view to further the interests of the State whose affairs he superintended, adopted the exact opposite of that policy which he promoted in the case of its enemies; for he reduced the latter to political impotence by ratifying the political independence of the several parts of the Empire, while at home he destroyed the independence of the Protestant party. His fate has consequently resembled that of many great statesmen, inasmuch as he has been cursed by his countrymen, while his enemies have looked upon the work by which he ruined them as the most sacred goal of their desires – the consummation of their rights and liberties. The result of the struggle therefore was the forcibly achieved and now politically ratified coexistence of religious parties, forming political communities whose relations are determined according to prescriptive principles of civil or [rather, for such their true nature was] of private right.

The Protestant Church increased and so perfected the stability of its political existence by the fact that one of the states which had adopted the principles of the Reformation raised itself to the position of an independent European power. This power was destined to start into a new life with Protestantism: Prussia, viz., which making its appearance at the end of the seventeenth century, was indebted, if not for origination, yet certainly for the consolidation of its strength, to Frederick the Great; and the Seven Years' War was the struggle by which that consolidation was accomplished. Frederick II demonstrated the independent vigor of his power by resisting that of almost all Europe – the union of its leading states. He appeared as the hero of Protestantism, and that not individually merely, like Gustavus Adolphus, but as the ruler of a state. The Seven Years' War was indeed in itself not a war of religion; but it was so in view of its ultimate issues, and in the disposition of the soldiers as well as of the potentates under whose banner they fought. The Pope consecrated the sword of Field-Marshal Daun, and the chief object which the Allied Powers proposed to themselves was the crushing of Prussia as the bulwark of the Protestant Church. But Frederick the Great not only made Prussia one of the great powers of Europe as a Protestant power, but was also a philosophical King – an altogether peculiar and unique phenomenon in modern times.
There had been English Kings who were subtle theologians, contending for the principle of absolutism: Frederick on the contrary took up the Protestant principle in its secular aspect; and though he was by no means favorable to religious controversies, and did not side with one party or the other, he had the consciousness of Universelity, which is the profoundest depth to which Spirit can attain, and is Thought conscious of its own inherent power.

Chapter III. The Éclaircissement and Revolution[39]

Protestantism had introduced the principle of Subjectivity, importing religious emancipation and inward harmony, but accompanying this with the belief in Subjectivity as Evil, and in a power [adverse to man's highest interests] whose embodiment is “the World.” Within the Catholic pale also, the casuistry of the Jesuits brought into vogue interminable investigations, as tedious and wire-drawn as those in which the scholastic theology delighted, respecting the subjective spring of the Will and the motives that affect it. This Dialectic, which unsettles all particular judgments and opinions, transmuting the Evil into Good and Good into Evil, left at last nothing remaining but the mere action of subjectivity itself, the Abstractum of Spirit – Thought. Thought contemplates everything under the form of Universelity, and is consequently the impulsion towards and production of the Universel. In that elder scholastic theology the real subject-matter of investigation – the doctrine of the Church – remained an ultramundane affair; in the Protestant theology also Spirit still sustained a relation to the Ultramundane; for on the one side we have the will of the individual – the Spirit of Man – I, myself, and on the other the Grace of God, the Holy Ghost; and so in the Wicked, the Devil. But in Thought, Self moves within the limits of its own sphere; that with which it is occupied – its objects are as absolutely present to it [as they were distinct and separate in the intellectual grade above mentioned] ; for in thinking I must elevate the object to Universelity.[40] This is utter and absolute Freedom, for the pure Ego, like pure Light, is with itself alone [is not involved with any alien principle] ; thus that which is diverse from itself, sensuous or spiritual, no longer presents an object of dread, for in contemplating such diversity it is inwardly free and can freely confront it. A practical interest makes use of, consumes the objects offered to it: a theoretical interest calmly contemplates them, assured that in themselves they present no alien element. – Consequently, the ne plus ultra of Inwardness, of Subjectiveness, is Thought. Man is not free, when he is not thinking; for except when thus engaged he sustains a relation to the world around him as to another, an alien form of being. This comprehension – the penetration of the Ego into and beyond other forms of being with the most profound self-certainty [the identity of subjective and objective Reason being recognized], directly involves the harmonization of Being: for it must be observed that the unity of Thought with its Object is already implicitly present [i.e., in the fundamental constitution of the Universe], for Reason is the substantial basis of Consciousness as well as of the External and Natural. Thus that which presents itself as the Object of Thought is no longer an absolutely distinct form of existence [ein Jenseits], not of an alien and grossly substantial [as opposed to intelligible] nature.
Thought is the grade to which Spirit has now advanced. It involves the Harmony of Being in its purest essence, challenging the external world to exhibit the same Reason which Subject [the Ego] possesses. Spirit perceives that Nature – the World – must also be an embodiment of Reason, for God created it on principles of Reason. An interest in the contemplation and comprehension of the present world became universel. Nature embodies Universelity, inasmuch as it is nothing other than Sorts, Genera, Power, Gravitation, etc., phenomenally presented. Thus Experimental Science became the science of the World; for experimental science involves on the one hand the observation of phenomena, on the other hand also the discovery of the Law, the essential being, the hidden force that causes those phenomena – thus reducing the data supplied by observation to their simple principles. Intellectual consciousness was first extricated from that sophistry of thought, which unsettles everything, by Descartes. As it was the purely German nations among whom the principle of Spirit first manifested itself, so it was by the Romanic nations that the abstract idea (to which the character assigned them above – viz., that of internal schism, more readily conducted them) was first comprehended. Experimental science therefore very soon made its way among them (in common with the Protestant English), but especially among the Italians. It seemed to men as if God had but just created the moon and stars, plants and animals, as if the laws of the universe were now established for the first time; for only then did they feel a real interest in the universe, when they recognized their own Reason in the Reason which pervades it. The human eye became clear, perception quick, thought active and interpretative. The discovery of the laws of Nature enabled men to contend against the monstrous superstition of the time, as also against all Concepts of mighty alien powers which magic alone could conquer. The assertion was even ventured on, and that by Catholics not less than by Protestants, that the External [and Material], with which the Church insisted upon associating superhuman virtue, was external and material, and nothing more – that the Host was simply dough, the relics of the Saints mere bones. The independent authority of Subjectivity was maintained against belief founded on authority, and the Laws of Nature were recognized as the only bond connecting phenomena with phenomena. Thus all miracles were disallowed: for Nature is a system of known and recognized Laws; Man is at home in it, and that only passes for truth in which he finds himself at home; he is free through the acquaintance he has gained with Nature. Nor was thought less vigorously directed to the Spiritual side of things: Right and [Social] Morality came to be looked upon as having their foundation in the actual present Will of man, whereas formerly it was referred only to the command of God enjoined ab extra, written in the Old and New Testament, or appearing in the form of particular Right [as opposed to that based on general principles] in old parchments, as privilegia, or in international compacts. What the nations acknowledge as international Right was deduced empirically from observation (as in the work of Grotius) ; then the source of the existing civil and political law was looked for, after Cicero's fashion, in those instincts of men which Nature has planted in their hearts – e.g., the social instinct; next the principle of security for the person and property of the citizens, and of the advantage of the commonwealth – that which belongs to the class of “reasons of State.” On these principles private rights were on the one hand despotically contravened, but on the other hand such contravention was the instrument of carrying out the general objects of the State in opposition to mere positive or prescriptive claims. Frederick II may be mentioned as the ruler who inaugurated the new epoch in the sphere of practical life – that epoch in which practical political interest attains Universelity [is recognized as an abstract principle], and receives an absolute sanction. Frederick II merits especial notice as having comprehended the general object of the State, and as having been the first sovereign who kept the general interest of the State steadily in view, ceasing to pay any respect to particular interests when they stood in the way of the common weal. His immortal work is a domestic code – the Prussian municipal law. How the head of a household energetically provides and governs with a view to the weal of that household and of his dependents – of this he has. given a unique specimen.
These general conceptions, deduced from actual and present consciousness – the Laws of Nature and the substance of what is right and good, have received the name of Reason. The recognition of the validity of these laws was designated by the term Éclaircissement (Aufklärung). From France it passed over into Germany, and created a new world of ideas. The absolute criterion – taking the place of all authority based on religious belief and positive laws of Right (especially political Right) – is the verdict passed by Spirit itself on the character of that which is to be believed or obeyed. After a free investigation in open day, Luther had secured to mankind Spiritual Freedom and the Reconciliation [of the Objective and Subjective] in the concrete: he triumphantly established the position that man's eternal destiny [his spiritual and moral position] must be wrought out in himself [cannot be an opus operatum, a work performed for him]. But the import of that which is to take place in him – what truth is to become vital in him, was taken for granted by Luther as something already given, something revealed by religion. Now, the principle was set up that this import must be capable of actual investigation – something of which I [in this modern time] can gain an inward conviction – and that to this basis of inward demonstration every dogma must be referred.

This principle of thought makes its appearance in the first instance in a general and abstract form; and is based on the axiom of Contradiction and Identity.[41] The results of thought are thus posited as finite, and the eclaircissement utterly banished and extirpated all that was speculative from things human and divine. Although it is of incalculable importance that the multiform complex of things should be reduced to its simplest conditions, and brought into the form of Universelity, yet this still abstract principle does not satisfy the living Spirit, the concrete human soul.

This formally absolute principle brings us to the last stage in History, our world, our own time.

Secular life is the positive and definite embodiment of the Spiritual Kingdom – the Kingdom of the Will manifesting itself in outward existence. Mere impulses are also forms in which the inner life realizes itself; but these are transient and disconnected; they are the ever-changing applications of volition. But that which is just and moral belongs to the essential, independent, intrinsically universel Will; and if we would know what Right really is, we must abstract from inclination, impulse and desire as the particular; i.e., we must know what the Will is in itself. For benevolent, charitable, social impulses are nothing more than impulses – to which others of a different class are opposed. What the Will is in itself can be known only when these specific and contradictory forms of volition have been eliminated. Then Will appears as Will, in its abstract essence. The Will is Free only when it does not will anything alien, extrinsic, foreign to itself (for as long as it does so, it is dependent), but wills itself alone – wills the Will. This is absolute Will – the volition to be free. Will making itself its own object is the basis of all Right and Obligation – consequently of all statutory determinations of Right, categorical imperatives, and enjoined obligations. The Freedom of the Will per se, is the principle and substantial basis of all Right – is itself absolute, inherently eternal Right, and the Supreme Right in comparison with other specific Rights; nay, it is even that by which Man becomes Man, and is therefore the fundamental principle of Spirit. But the next question is: How does Will assume a definite form? For in willing itself, it is nothing but an identical reference to itself; but, in point of fact, it wills something specific: there are, we know, distinct and special Duties and Rights. A particular application, a definite form of Will, is desiderated; for pure Will is its own object, its own application, which, as far as this showing goes, is no object, no application. In fact, in this form it is nothing more than formal Will. But the metaphysical process by which this abstract Will develops itself, so as to attain a definite form of Freedom, and how Rights and Duties are evolved therefrom, this is not the place to discuss.[42] It may however be remarked that the same principle obtained speculative recognition in Germany, in the Kantian Philosophy. According to it the simple unity of Self-consciousness, the Ego, constitutes the absolutely independent Freedom, and is the fountain of all general conceptions – i.e., all conceptions elaborated by Thought – Theoretical Reason; and likewise of the highest of all practical determinations [or conceptions] – Practical Reason, as free and pure Will; and Rationality of Will is none other than the maintaining one's self in pure Freedom – willing this and this alone – Right purely for the sake of Right, Duty purely for the sake of Duty. Among the Germans this view assumed no other form than that of tranquil theory; but the French wished to give it practical effect. Two questions, therefore, suggest themselves: Why did this principle of Freedom remain merely formal?[43] and why did the French alone, and not the Germans, set about realizing it? With the formal principle more significant categories were indeed connected: one of the chief of these (for instance) was Society, and that which is advantageous for Society: but the aim of Society is itself political – that of the State (vid. “Droits de l'homme et du citoyen,” 1791) – the conservation of Natural Rights; but Natural Right is Freedom, and, as further determined, it is Equality of Rights before the Law. A direct connection is manifest here, for Equality, Parity, is the result of the comparison of many;[44] the “Many” in question being human beings, whose essential characteristic is the same, viz., Freedom. That principle remains formal, because it originated with abstract Thought – with the Understanding, which is primarily the selfconsciousness of Pure Reason, and as direct [unreflected, undeveloped] is abstract. As yet, nothing further is developed from it, for it still maintains an adverse position to Religion, i.e. to the concrete absolute substance of the Universe. As respects the second question – why the French immediately passed over from the theoretical to the practical, while the Germans contented themselves with theoretical abstraction, it might be said: the French are hot-headed [ils ont la tête près du bonnet]; but this is a superficial solution: the fact is that the formal principle of philosophy in Germany encounters a concrete real World in which Spirit finds inward satisfaction and in which conscience is at rest. For on the one hand it was the Protestant World itself which advanced so far in Thought as to realize the absolute culmination of Self-Consciousness; on the other hand, Protestantism enjoys, with respect to the moral and legal relations of the real world, a tranquil confidence in the [Honorable] Disposition of men – a sentiment, which, [in the Protestant World,] constituting one and the same thing with Religion, is the fountain of all the equitable arrangements that prevail with regard to private right and the constitution of the State. In Germany the éclaircissement was conducted in the interest of theology: in France it immediately took up a position of hostility to the Church. In Germany the entire compass of secular relations had already undergone a change for the better; those pernicious ecclesiastical institutes of celibacy, voluntary pauperism, and laziness, had been already done away with; there was no dead weight of enormous wealth attached to the Church, and no constraint put upon Morality – a constraint which is the source and occasion of vices; there was not that unspeakably hurtful form of iniquity which arises from the interference of spiritual power with secular law, nor that other of the Divine Right of Kings, i.e. the doctrine that the arbitrary will of princes, in virtue of their being “the Lord's Anointed,” is divine and holy: on the contrary their will is regarded as deserving of respect only so far as in association with reason, it wisely contemplates Right, Justice, and the weal of the community. The principle of Thought, therefore, had been so far conciliated already; moreover the Protestant World had a conviction that in the Harmonization which had previously been evolved [in the sphere of Religion] the principle which would result in a further development of equity in the political sphere was already present.

Consciousness that has received an abstract culture, and whose sphere is the Understanding [Verstand] can be indifferent to Religion, but Religion is the general form in which Truth exists for non-abstract consciousness. And the Protestant Religion does not admit of two kinds of consciences, while in the Catholic world the Holy stands on the one side and on the other side abstraction opposed to Religion, that is to its superstition and its truth. That formal, individual Will is in virtue of the abstract position just mentioned made the basis of political theories; Right in Society is that which the Law wills, and the Will in question appears as an isolated individual will; thus the State, as an aggregate of many individuals, is not an independently substantial Unity, and the truth and essence of Right in and for itself – to which the will of its individual members ought to be conformed in order to be true, free Will; but the volitional atoms [the individual wills of the members of the State] are made the starting point, and each will is represented as absolute. An intellectual principle was thus discovered to serve as a basis for the State – one which does not, like previous principles, belong to the sphere of opinion, such as the social impulse, the desire of security for property, etc., nor owe its origin to the religious sentiment, as does that of the Divine appointment of the governing power – but the principle of Certainty, which is identity with my self-consciousness, stopping short however of that of Truth, which needs to be distinguished from it. This is a vast discovery in regard to the profoundest depths of being and Freedom. The consciousness of the Spiritual is now the essential basis of the political fabric, and Philosophy has thereby become dominant. It has been said, that the French Revolution resulted from Philosophy, and it is not without reason that Philosophy has been called “Weltweisheit” [World Wisdom;] for it is not only Truth in and for itself, as the pure essence of things, but also Truth in its living form as exhibited in the affairs of the world. We should not, therefore, contradict the assertion that the Revolution received its first impulse from Philosophy. But this philosophy is in the first instance only abstract Thought, not the concrete comprehension of absolute Truth – intellectual positions between which there is an immeasurable chasm.

The principle of the Freedom of the Will, therefore, asserted itself against existing Right. Before the French Revolution, it must be allowed, the power of the grandees had been diminished by Richelieu, and they had been deprived of privileges; but, like the clergy, they retained all the prerogatives which gave them an advantage over the lower class. The political condition of France at that time presents nothing but a confused mass of privileges altogether contravening Thought and Reason – an utterly irrational state of things, and one with which the greatest corruption of morals, of Spirit was associated – an empire characterized by Destitution of Right, and which, when its real state begins to be recognized, becomes shameless destitution of Right. The fearfully heavy burdens that pressed upon the people, the embarrassment of the government to procure for the Court the means of supporting luxury and extravagance, gave the first impulse to discontent. The new Spirit began to agitate men's minds: oppression drove men to investigation. It was perceived that the sums extorted from the people were not expended in furthering the objects of the State, but were lavished in the most unreasonable fashion. The entire political system appeared one mass of injustice. The change was necessarily violent, because the work of transformation was not undertaken by the government. And the reason why the government did not undertake it was that the Court, the Clergy, the Nobility, the Parliaments themselves, were unwilling to surrender the privileges they possessed, either for the sake of expediency or that of abstract Right; moreover, because the government as the concrete centre of the power of the State, could not adopt as its principle abstract individual wills, and reconstruct the State on this basis; lastly, because it was Catholic, and therefore the Idea of Freedom – Reason embodied in Laws – did not pass for the final absolute obligation, since the Holy and the religious conscience are separated from them. The conception, the idea of Right asserted its authority all at once, and the old framework of injustice could offer no resistance to its onslaught. A constitution, therefore, was established in harmony with the conception of Right, and on this foundation all future legislation was to be based. Never since the sun had stood in the firmament and the planets revolved around him had it been perceived that man's existence centres in his head, i.e., in Thought, inspired by which he builds up the world of reality. Anaxagoras had been the first to say that nous; governs the World; but not until now had man advanced to the recognition of the principle that Thought ought to govern spiritual reality, This was accordingly a glorious mental dawn. All thinking beings shared in the jubilation of this epoch. Emotions of a lofty character stirred men's minds at that time; a spiritual enthusiasm thrilled through the world, as if the reconciliation between the Divine and the Secular was now first accomplished.
The two following points must now occupy our attention: 1st. The course which the Revolution in France took; 2d. How that Revolution became World-Historical.

1. Freedom presents two aspects: the one concerns its substance and purport – its objectivity – the thing itself – [that which is performed as a free act]; the other relates to the Form of Freedom, involving the consciousness of his activity on the part of the individual; for Freedom demands that the individual recognize himself in such acts, that they should be veritably his, it being his interest that the result in question should be attained. The three elements and powers of the State in actual working must be contemplated according to the above analysis, their examination in detail being referred to the Lectures on the Philosophy of Right.

(1.) Laws of Rationality – of intrinsic Right – Objective or Real Freedom: to this category belong Freedom of Property and Freedom of Person. Those relics of that condition of servitude which the feudal relation had introduced are hereby swept away, and all those fiscal ordinances which were the bequest of the feudal law – its tithes and dues, are abrogated. Real [practical] Liberty requires moreover freedom in regard to trades and professions – the permission to every one to use his abilities without restriction – and the free admission to all offices of State. This is a summary of the elements of real Freedom, and which are not based on feeling – for feeling allows of the continuance even of serfdom and slavery – but on the thought and self- consciousness of man recognizing the spiritual character of his existence.

(2.) But the agency which gives the laws practical effect is the Government generally. Government is primarily the formal execution of the laws and the maintenance of their authority: in respect to foreign relations it prosecutes the interest of the State; that is, it assists the independence of the nation as an individuality against other nations; lastly, it has to provide for the internal weal of the State and all its classes – what is called administration: for it is not enough that the citizen is allowed to pursue a trade or calling, it must also be a source of gain to him; it is not enough that men are permitted to use their powers, they must also find an opportunity of applying them to purpose. Thus the State involves a body of abstract principles and a practical application of them. This application must be the work of a subjective will, a will which resolves and decides. Legislation itself – the invention and positive enactment of these statutory arrangements, is an application of such general principles. The next step, then, consists in [specific] determination and execution. Here then the question presents itself: what is the decisive will to be? The ultimate decision is the prerogative of the monarch: but if the State is based on Liberty, the many wills of individuals also desire to have a share in political decisions. But the Many are All; and it seems but a poor expedient, rather a monstrous inconsistency, to allow only a few to take part in those decisions, since each wishes that his volition should have a share in determining what is to be law for him. The Few assume to be the deputies, but they are often only the despoilers of the Many. Nor is the sway of the Majority over the Minority a less palpable inconsistency.

(3.) This collision of subjective wills leads therefore to the consideration of a third point, that of Disposition – an ex animo acquiescence in the laws; not the mere customary observance of them, but the cordial recognition of laws and the Constitution as in principle fixed and immutable, and of the supreme obligation of individuals to subject their particular wills to them. There may be various opinions and views respecting laws, constitution and government, but there must be a disposition on the part of the citizens to regard all these opinions as subordinate to the substantial interest of the State, and to insist upon them no further than that interest will allow; moreover nothing must be considered higher and more sacred than good will towards the State; or, if Religion be looked upon as higher and more sacred, it must involve nothing really alien or opposed to the Constitution. It is, indeed, regarded as a maxim of the profoundest wisdom entirely to separate the laws and constitution of the State from Religion, since bigotry and hypocrisy are to be feared as the results of a State Religion. But although the aspects of Religion and the State are different, they are radically one; and the laws find their highest confirmation in Religion.

Here it must be frankly stated, that with the Catholic Religion no rational constitution is possible; for Government and People must reciprocate that final guarantee of Disposition, and can have it only in a Religion that is not opposed to a rational political constitution.

Plato in his Republic makes everything depend upon the Government, and makes Disposition the principle of the State; on which account he lays the chief stress on Education. The modern theory is diametrically opposed to this, referring everything to the individual will. But here we have no guarantee that the will in question has that right disposition which is essential to the stability of the State.

In view then of these leading considerations we have to trace the course of the French Revolution and the remodelling of the State in accordance with the Idea of Right. In the first instance purely abstract philosophical principles were set up: Disposition and Religion were not taken into account. The first Constitutional form of Government in France was one which recognized Royalty; the monarch was to stand at the head of the State, and on him in conjunction with his Ministers was to devolve the executive power; the legislative body on the other hand were to make the laws. But this constitution involved from the very first an internal contradiction; for the legislature absorbed the whole power of the administration: the budget, affairs of war and peace, and the levying of the armed force were in the hands of the Legislative Chamber. Everything was brought under the head of Law. The budget however is in its nature something diverse from law, for it is annually renewed, and the power to which it properly belongs is that of the Government. With this moreover is connected the indirect nomination of the ministry and officers of state, etc. The government was thus transferred to the Legislative Chamber, as in England to the Parliament. This constitution was also vitiated by the existence of absolute mistrust; the dynasty lay under suspicion, because it had lost the power it formerly enjoyed, and the priests refused the oath. Neither government nor constitution could be maintained on this footing, and the ruin of both was the result. A government of some kind however is always in existence. The question presents itself then, Whence did it emanate? Theoretically, it proceeded from the people; really and truly from the National Convention and its Committees. The forces now dominant are the abstract principles – Freedom, and, as it exists within the limits of the Subjective Will – Virtue. This Virtue has now to conduct the government in opposition to the Many, whom their corruption and attachment to old interests, or a liberty that has degenerated into license, and the violence of their passions, render unfaithful to virtue. Virtue is here a simple abstract principle and distinguishes the citizens into two classes only – those who are favorably disposed and those who are not. But disposition can only be recognized and judged of by disposition. Suspicion therefore is in the ascendant; but virtue, as soon as it becomes liable to suspicion, is already condemned. Suspicion attained a terrible power and brought to the scaffold the Monarch, whose subjective will was in fact the religious conscience of a Catholic. Robespierre set up the principle of Virtue as supreme, and it may be said that with this man Virtue was an earnest matter. Virtue and Terror are the order of the day; for Subjective Virtue, whose sway is based on disposition only, brings with it the most fearful tyranny. It exercises its power without legal formalities, and the punishment it inflicts is equally simple – Death. This tyranny could not last; for all inclinations, all interests, reason itself revolted against this terribly consistent Liberty, which in its concentrated intensity exhibited so fanatical a shape. An organized government is introduced, analogous to the one that had been displaced; only that its chief and monarch is now a mutable Directory of Five, who may form a moral, but have not an individual unity; under them also suspicion was in the ascendant, and the government was in the hands of the legislative assemblies; this constitution therefore experienced the same fate as its predecessor, for it had proved to itself the absolute necessity of a governmental power. Napoleon restored it as a military power, and followed up this step by establishing himself as an individual will at the head of the State: he knew how to rule, and soon settled the internal affairs of France. The avocats, idealogues and abstract-principle men who ventured to show themselves he sent “to the right about,” and the sway of mistrust was exchanged for that of respect and fear. He then, with the vast might of his character turned his attention to foreign relations, subjected all Europe, and diffused his liberal institutions in every quarter. Greater victories were never gained, expeditions displaying greater genius were never conducted: but never was the powerlessness of Victory exhibited in a clearer light than then. The disposition of the peoples, i.e. their religious disposition and that of their nationality, ultimately precipitated this colossus; and in France constitutional monarchy, with the “Charte” as its basis, was restored. But here again the antithesis of Disposition [good feeling] and Mistrust made its appearance. The French stood in a mendacious position to each other, when they issued addresses full of devotion and love to the monarchy, and loading it with benediction. A fifteen years' farce was played. For although the Charte was the standard under which all were enrolled, and though both parties had sworn to it, yet on the one side the ruling disposition was a Catholic one, which regarded it as a matter of conscience to destroy the existing institutions. Another breach, therefore, took place, and the Government was overturned. At length, after forty years of war and confusion indescribable, a weary heart might fain congratulate itself on seeing a termination and tranquillization of all these disturbances. But although one main point is set at rest, there remains on the one hand that rupture which the Catholic principle inevitably occasions, on the other hand that which has to do with men's subjective will. In regard to the latter, the main feature of incompatibility still presents itself, in the requirement that the ideal general will should also be the empirically general – i.e. that the units of the State, in their individual capacity, should rule, or at any rate take part in the government. Not satisfied with the establishment of rational rights, with freedom of person and property, with the existence of a political organization in which are to be found various circles of civil life each having its own functions to perform, and with that influence over the people which is exercised by the intelligent members of the community, and the confidence that is felt in them, “Liberalism” sets up in opposition to all this the atomistic principle, that which insists upon the sway of individual wills; maintaining that all government should emanate from their express power, and have their express sanction. Asserting this formal side of Freedom – this abstraction – the party in question allows no political organization to be firmly established. The particular arrangements of the government are forthwith opposed by the advocates of Liberty as the mandates of a particular will, and branded as displays of arbitrary power. The will of the Many expels the Ministry from power, and those who had formed the Opposition fill the vacant places; but the latter having now become the Government, meet with hostility from the Many, and share the same fate. Thus agitation and unrest are perpetuated. This collision, this nodus, this problem is that with which history is now occupied, and whose solution it has to work out in the future.

2. We have now to consider the French Revolution in its organic connection with the History of the World; for in its substantial import that event is World-Historical, and that contest of Formalism which we discussed in the last paragraph must be properly distinguished from its wider bearings. As regards outward diffusion its principle gained access to almost all modern states, either through conquest or by express introduction into their political life. Particularly all the Romanic nations, and the Roman Catholic World in special – France, Italy, Spain – were subjected to the dominion of Liberalism. But it became bankrupt everywhere; first, the grand firm in France, then its branches in Spain and Italy; twice, in fact, in the states into which it had been introduced. This was the case in Spain, where it was first brought in by the Napoleonic Constitution, then by that which the Cortes adopted – in Piedmont, first when it was incorporated with the French Empire, and a second time as the result of internal insurrection; so in Rome and in Naples it was twice set up. Thus Liberalism as an abstraction, emanating from France, traversed the Roman World; but Religious slavery held that world in the fetters of political servitude. For it is a false principle that the fetters which bind Right and Freedom can be broken without the emancipation of conscience – that there can be a Revolution without a Reformation. – These countries, therefore, sank back into their old condition – in Italy with some modifications of the outward political condition. Venice and Genoa, those ancient aristocracies, which could at least boast of legitimacy, vanished as rotten despotisms. Material superiority in power can achieve no enduring results: Napoleon could not coerce Spain into freedom any more than Philip II could force Holland into slavery.

Contrasted with these Romanic nations we observe the other powers of Europe, and especially the Protestant nations. Austria and England were not drawn within the vortex of internal agitation, and exhibited great, immense proofs of their internal solidity. Austria is not a Kingdom, but an Empire, i.e., an aggregate of many political organizations. The inhabitants of its chief provinces are not German in origin and character, and have remained unaffected by “ideas.” Elevated neither by education nor religion, the lower classes in some districts have remained in a condition of serfdom, and the nobility have been kept down, as in Bohemia; in other quarters, while the former have continued the same, the barons have maintained their despotism, as in Hungary. Austria has surrendered that more intimate connection with Germany which was derived from the imperial dignity, and renounced its numerous possessions and rights in Germany and the Netherlands. It now takes its place in Europe as a distinct power, involved with no other. England, with great exertions, maintained itself on its old foundations ; the English Constitution kept its ground amid the general convulsion, though it seemed so much the more liable to be affected by it, as a public Parliament, that habit of assembling in public meeting which was common to all orders of the state, and a free press, offered singular facilities for introducing the French principles of Liberty and Equality among all classes of the people. Was the English nation too backward in point of culture to apprehend these general principles? Yet in no country has the question of Liberty been more frequently a subject of reflection and public discussion. Or was the English constitution so entirely a Free Constitution – had those principles been already so completely realized in it, that they could no longer excite opposition or even interest? The English nation may be said to have approved of the emancipation of France; but it was proudly reliant on its own constitution and freedom, and instead of imitating the example of the foreigner, it displayed its ancient hostility to its rival, and was soon involved in a popular war with France.

The Constitution of England is a complex of mere particular Rights and particular privileges: the Government is essentially administrative – that is, conservative of the interests of all particular orders and classes; and each particular Church, parochial district, county, society, takes care of itself, so that the Government, strictly speaking, has nowhere less to do than in England. This is the leading feature of what Englishmen call their Liberty, and is the very antithesis of such a centralized administration as exists in France, where down to the least village the Maire is named by the Ministry or their agents. Nowhere can people less tolerate free action on the part of others than in France: there the Ministry combines in itself all administrative power, to which, on the other hand, the Chamber of Deputies lays claim. In England, on the contrary, every parish, every subordinate division and association has a part of its own to perform. Thus the common interest is concrete, and particular interests are taken cognizance of and determined in view of that common interest. These arrangements, based on particular interests, render a general system impossible. Consequently, abstract and general principles have no attraction for Englishmen – are addressed in their case to inattentive ears. – The particular interests above referred to have positive rights attached to them, which date from the antique times of Feudal Law, and have been preserved in England more than in any other country. By an inconsistency of the most startling kind, we find them contravening equity most grossly; and of institutions characterized by real freedom there are nowhere fewer than in England. In point of private right and freedom of possession they present an incredible deficiency: sufficient proof of which is afforded in the rights of primogeniture, involving the necessity of purchasing or otherwise providing military or ecclesiastical appointments for the younger sons of the aristocracy.

The Parliament governs, although Englishmen are unwilling to allow that such is the case. It is worthy of remark, that what has been always regarded as the period of the corruption of a republican people, presents itself here; viz. election to seats in parliament by means of bribery. But this also they call freedom – the power to sell one's vote, and to purchase a seat in parliament.

But this utterly inconsistent and corrupt state of things has nevertheless one advantage, that it provides for the possibility of a government – that it introduces a majority of men into parliament who are statesmen, who from their very youth have devoted themselves to political business and have worked and lived in it. And the nation has the correct conviction and perception that there must be a government, and is therefore willing to give its confidence to a body of men who have had experience in governing; for a general sense of particularity involves also a recognition of that form of particularity which is a distinguishing feature of one class of the community – that knowledge, experience, and facility acquired by practice, which the aristocracy who devote themselves to such interests exclusively possess. This is quite opposed to the appreciation of principles and abstract views which everyone can understand at once, and which are besides to be found in all Constitutions and Charters. It is a question whether the Reform in Parliament now on the tapis, consistently carried out, will leave the possibility of a Government.

The material existence of England is based on commerce and industry, and the English have undertaken the weighty responsibility of being the missionaries of civilization to the world; for their commercial spirit urges them to traverse every sea and land, to form connections with barbarous peoples, to create wants and stimulate industry, and first and foremost to establish among them the conditions necessary to commerce, viz. the relinquishment of a life of lawless violence, respect for property, and civility to strangers.

Germany was traversed by the victoriouss French hosts, but German nationality delivered it from this yoke. One of the leading features in the political condition of Germany is that code of Rights which was certainly occasioned by French oppression, since this was the especial means of bringing to light the deficiencies of the old system. The fiction of an Empire has utterly vanished. It is broken up into sovereign states. Feudal obligations are abolished, for freedom of property and of person have been recognized as fundamental principles. Offices of State are open to every citizen, talent and adaptation being of course the necessary conditions. The government rests with the official world, and the personal decision of the monarch constitutes its apex; for a final decision is, as was remarked above, absolutely necessary. Yet with firmly established laws, and a settled organization of the State, what is left to the sole arbitrament of the monarch is, in point of substance, no great matter. It is certainly a very fortunate circumstance for a nation, when a sovereign of noble character falls to its lot; yet in a great state even this is of small moment, since its strength lies in the Reason incorporated in it. Minor states have their existence and tranquillity secured to them more or less by their neighbors: they are therefore, properly speaking, not independent, and have not the fiery trial of war to endure. As has been remarked, a share in the government may be obtained by every one who has a competent knowledge, experience, and a morally regulated will. Those who oi airstoi, not ignorance and the presumptuous conceit of “knowing better.” Lastly, as to Disposition, we have already remarked that in the Protestant Church the reconciliation of Religion with Legal Right has taken place. In the Protestant world there is no sacred, no religious conscience in a state of separation from, or perhaps even hostility to Secular Right.
This is the point which consciousness has attained, and these Mr. G. H. Lewes, in his Biographical History of Philosophy, Vol. IV, Ed. 1841.

I cannot mention any work that will serve as a compendium of the course, but I may remark that in my “Outlines of the Philosophy of Law,” §§341-360, I have already given a definition of such a Universel History as it is proposed to develop, and a syllabus of the chief elements or periods into are the principal phases of that form in which the principle of Freedom has realized itself; – for the History of the World is nothing but the development of the Idea of Freedom. But Objective Freedom – the laws of real Freedom – demand the subjugation of the mere contingent Will – for this is in its nature formal. If the Objective is in itself Rational, human insight and conviction must correspond with the Reason which it embodies, and then we have the other essential element – Subjective Freedom – also realized.[45] We have confined ourselves to the consideration of that progress of the Idea [which has led to this consummation], and have been obliged to forego the pleasure of giving a detailed picture of the prosperity, the periods of glory that have distinguished the career of peoples, the beauty and grandeur of the character of individuals, and the interest attaching to their fate in weal or woe. Philosophy concerns itself only with the glory of the Idea mirroring itself in the History of the World. Philosophy escapes from the weary strife of passions that agitate the surface of society into the calm region of contemplation; that which interests it is the recognition of the process of development which the Idea has passed through in realizing itself – i.e., the Idea of Freedom, whose reality is the consciousness of Freedom and nothing short of it.
That the History of the World, with all the changing scenes which its annals present, is this process of development and the realization of Spirit – this is the true Theodicaea, the justification of God in History. Only this insight can reconcile Spirit with the History of the World – viz., that what has happened, and is happening every day, is not only not “without God,” but is essentially His Work.

https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hegel/works/hi/lectures.htm

Trotsky's answer to Stalin

Robert Paris — 2023-12-13T11:43:20Z

Trotsky's answer to Stalin

November 1926

The following speech was delivered by Trotsky at the Seventh Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International in November 1926.

Comrades! The resolution accuses the Opposition including me, of a social democratic deviation. I have thought over all the points of contention which have divided us, the minority of the CC from the majority during the period just past, that is, the period in which the designation “Opposition bloc” has been in use. I must place on record that the points of contention, and our standpoint with respect to the point of contention, offer no basis for the accusation of a “social democratic deviation.”

The question upon which we have disagreed most, comrades, is that which asks which danger threatens us during the present epoch: the danger that our state industry remains backward, or that it rushes too hastily forward. The Opposition – in which I am included – has proved that the real danger threatening us is that our state industry may remain behind the development of the national economy as a whole. We have pointed out that the policy being pursued in the distribution of national income involves the further growth of the disproportion. For some reason or other this has been named “pessimism.” Comrades, arithmetic knows neither pessimism nor optimism, neither discouragement nor capitulation. Figures are figures. If you examine the control figures of our planned economics you will find that these figures show the disproportion, or more exactly expressed, the shortage of industrial goods, to have reached the amount of 380 million roubles last year, while this year the figure will be 500 million, that is, the original figures of the planning commission show the disproportion to have increased by 25 per cent. Comrade Rykov states in his thesis that we might hope (merely hope) that the disproportion will not increase this year. What justification is there for this “hope”? The fact is that the harvest is not so favorable as we all expected. Were I to follow in the false tracks of our critics, I might say that Comrade Rykov's theses welcome the fact that the unfavorable conditions obtaining at harvest time detracted from crops which were otherwise not bad, since, had the harvest been greater, the result would have been a greater disproportion. (Comrade Rykov: “I am of a different opinion.”) The figures speak for themselves. (A voice: “Why did you not take part in the discussion on Comrade Rykov's report?”) Comrade Kamenev has here told you why he did not. Because I could not have added anything to this special economic report, in the form of amendments or arguments, that we had not brought forward at the April plenum. The amendments and other proposals submitted by me and other comrades to the April plenum remain in full force today. But the economic experience gained since April is obviously too small to give us room for hope that at the present stage the comrades present at this conference will be convinced. To bring up these points of contention again, before the actual course of economic life has tested them, would arouse useless discussion. These questions will be more acceptable to the party when they can be answered by the statistics based on the latest experience; for objective economic experience does not decide whether figures are optimistic or pessimistic, but solely whether they are right or wrong. I believe our standpoint on the disproportion has been right.

We have disagreed on the rate of our industrialization, and I have been among those comrades who have pointed out that the present rate is insufficient, and that precisely this insufficient speed in industrialization imparts the greatest importance to the differentiation process going on in the villages. To be sure, it is no catastrophe that the kulak raises his head or – this is the other aspect of the same subject – that the poorer peasantry no longer preponderates. These are some of the serious accompaniments of the period of transition. They are unhealthy signs. It need not be said that they give no cause for “alarm.” But they are phenomena which must be correctly estimated. And I have been among those comrades who have maintained that the process of differentiation of the village may assume a dangerous form if industry lags behind, that is, if the disproportion increases. The Opposition maintains that it is our duty to lessen the disproportion year by year. I see nothing social democratic in this.

We have insisted that the differentiation of the village demands a more elastic taxation policy with respect to the various strata of the peasantry, a reduction of taxation for the poorer middle strata of the peasantry, and increased taxation for the well to do middle strata, and an energetic pressure upon the kulak, especially in his relations to trading capital. We have proposed that 40 per cent of the poor peasantry should be freed from taxation altogether. Are we right or not? I believe that we are right; you believe we are wrong. But what is “social democratic” about this is a mystery to me (laughter).

Question of the Peasantry

We have asserted that the increasing differentiation among the peasantry, taking place under the conditions imposed by the backwardness of our industry, brings with it the necessity of double safeguards in the field of politics, that is, we were entirely unable to agree with the extension of the franchise with respect to the kulak, the employer and exploiter, if only on a small scale. We raised the alarm when the election inspectorates extended the suffrage among the petty bourgeoisie. Were we right or not? You consider that our alarm was “exaggerated.” Well, even assuming that it was, there is nothing social democratic about it.

We demanded and proposed that the course being taken by the agricultural cooperatives toward the “highly productive middle farmer,” under which name we generally find the kulak, should be severely condemned. We proposed that the tendency of the credit cooperatives toward the side of the well to do peasantry should be condemned. I cannot comprehend, comrades, what you find “social democratic” in this.

There have been differences of opinion in the question of wages. In substance these differences consist of our being of the opinion that at the given stage of development of our industry and economics, and at our present level of economics, the wage question must not be settled on the assumption that the worker must first increase the productivity of labor, which will then raise the wages, but that the contrary must be the rule, that is, a rise in wages, however modest, must be the prerequisite for an increased productivity of labor. (A voice: “And where is the money coming from?”) This may be right or it may not, but it is not “social democratic.”

We have pointed out the connection between various well known aspects of our inner party life and the growth of bureaucratism. I believe there is nothing “social democratic” about this either.

We have further opposed an overestimation of the economic elements of the capitalist stabilization and the underestimation of its political elements. If we inquire, for instance: What does the economic stabilization consist of in England at the present time? then it appears that England is going to ruin, that its trade balance is adverse, that its foreign trade returns are falling off, that its production is declining. This is the “economic stabilization” of England. But to whom is bourgeois England clinging? Not to Baldwin, not to Thomas, but to Purcell. Purcellism is the pseudonym of the present “stabilization” in England. We are therefore of the opinion that it is fundamentally wrong, in consideration of the working masses who carried out the general strike, to combine either directly or indirectly with Purcell. This is the reason why we have demanded the dissolution of the Anglo-Russian Committee. I see nothing “social democratic” in this.

We have insisted upon a fresh revision of our trade union statutes, upon which subject I reported to the CC. A revision of those statutes from which the word “Profintern” was struck out last year and replaced by “International Trade Union Association,” under which it is impossible to understand anything else than “Amsterdam.” I am glad to say that this revision of last year's revision has been accomplished, and the word “Profintern” has been rejected in our trade union statutes. But why was our uneasiness on the subject “social democratic?” That, comrades, is something which I entirely fail to understand.

I should like, as briefly as possible, to enumerate the main points of the differences of opinion, which have arisen of late. Our standpoint in the questions concerned has been that we have observed the dangers likely to threaten the class line of the party and of the workers' state under the conditions imposed by a long continuance of the NEP, and our encirclement by international capitalism. But these differences of opinion, and the standpoint adopted by us in the defense of our opinions, cannot be construed into a “social democratic deviation” by the most complicated logical or even scholastic methods.

Past Differences

It has therefore been found necessary to leave these actual and serious differences of opinion, engendered by the given epoch of our economic and political development, and to go back into the past in order to construe differences in the conception of the “character of our revolution” in general – not in the given period of our revolution, not with regard to the given concrete task, but with regard to the character of the revolution in general, or as expressed in the theses, the revolution “in itself,” the revolution “in its substance.” When a German speaks of a thing “in itself,” he is using a metaphysical term placing the revolution outside of all connection with the real world around it; it is abstracted from yesterday and tomorrow, and regarded as a “substance” from which everything will proceed. Now, then, in the question of the actual “substance” of revolution, I have been found guilty, in the ninth year of our revolution, of having denied the socialist character of our revolution! No more and no less! I discovered this for the first time in this resolution itself. If the comrades find it necessary for some reason to construct a resolution on quotations from my writings – and the main portion of the resolution, pushing into the foreground the theory of original sin (“Trotskyism”), is built upon quotations from my writings between 1917 and 1922 – then it would at least be advisable to select the essential from all I have written on the character of our revolution.

You will excuse me, comrades, but it is no pleasure to have to set aside the actual subject and to retail where and when I wrote this or that. But this resolution, in substantiating the “social democratic” deviation, refers to passages from my writings, and I am obliged to give the information. In 1922 I was commissioned by the party to write the book, Terrorism and Communism, against Kautsky, against the characterization of our revolution by Kautsky as a non-proletarian and non-socialist revolution. A large number of editions of this book were distributed both at home and abroad by the Comintern. The book met with no hostile reception among our nearest comrades, nor from Lenin. This book is not quoted in the resolution.

In 1922 I was commissioned by the Political Bureau to write the book entitled Between Imperialism and Revolution. In this book I utilized the special experience gained in Georgia, in the form of a refutation of the standpoint of those international social democrats who were using the Georgian rising as material against us, for the purpose of subjecting to a fresh examination the main questions of that proletarian revolution which has a right to tear down not only petty bourgeois prejudices, but also petty bourgeois institutions.

At Comintern Congresses

At the third congress of the Comintern I gave a report, on behalf of the CC, declaring in substance that we had entered on an epoch of unstable balance. I opposed Comrade Bucharin, who at that time was of the opinion that we should pass through an uninterrupted series of revolutions and crises until the victory of socialism in the whole world, and that there would not and could not be any “stabilization.” At the time Comrade Bucharin accused me of a Right deviation (perhaps social democratic too?). In full agreement with Lenin I defended at the third congress the theses which I had formulated. The import of the theses was that we, despite the slower speed of the revolution, would pass successfully through this epoch by developing the socialist elements of our economics.

At the fourth world congress in 1923 I was commissioned by the CC to follow Lenin with a report on the NEP. What did I prove? I proved that the NEP merely signifies a change in the forms and methods of socialist development. And now, instead of taking these works of mine, which may have been good or bad, but were at least fundamental, and in which, on behalf of the party, I defined the character of our revolution in the years between 1920 and 1923, you seize upon a few little passages, each only two or three lines, out of a preface and a postscript written at the same period.

I repeat that none of the passages quoted is from a fundamental work. These four little quotations (1917 to 1922) form the sole foundation for the accusation that I deny the socialist character of our revolution. The structure of the accusation thus being completed, every imaginable original sin is added to it, even the sin of the Opposition of 1925. The demand for a more rapid industrialization and the proposal to increase the taxation of the kulaks, all arise from these four passages. (A voice: “Form no fractions!”)

Comrades, I regret having to take your time, but I must quote a few more passages – I could adduce hundreds – in confutation of all that the resolution ascribes to me. First of all I must draw your attention to the fact that the four quotations upon which the theory of my original sin is based, have all been taken from writings of mine between 1917 and 1922. Everything that I have said since appears to have been swept away by the wind. Nobody knows whether I subsequently regarded our revolution as socialist or not. Today, at the end of 1926, the present standpoint of the so-called Opposition in the leading questions of economics and politics is sought in passages from my personal writings between 1917 and 1922, and not even in passages from my chief works, but in works written for some quite chance occasion. I shall return to these quotations and answer for every one of them. But first permit me to adduce some quotations of a more essential character, written at the same period:

For instance, the following is an extract from my speech at the conference of the Moscow Trade Union Council on October 28, 1921, after the introduction of the NEP:

We have reorganized our economic policy in anticipation of a slow development of out economics. We reckon with the possibility that the revolution in Europe, though developing and growing, is developing more slowly than we expected. The bourgeoisie has proved more tenacious. Even in our own country we are obliged to reckon with a slower transition to socialism, for we are surrounded by capitalist countries. We must concentrate our forces on the largest and best equipped undertakings. At the same time we must not forget that the taxation in kind among the peasantry, and the increase of leased undertakings form a basis for the development of the economics of commodities, for the accumulation of capital, and for the rise of a new bourgeoisie. At the same time the socialist economy will be built up on the narrower but firmer basis of big industry.

At a members' meeting of the CP of the SU, on November 10 of the same year, in the Moscow district of Sokolniki, I stated:

What have we now? We have now the process of socialist revolution, in the first place in a state and in the second place in a state which is the most backward of all, both economically and culturally, and surrounded on all sides by capitalist countries.

What conclusion did I draw from this? Did I propose capitulation? I proposed the following:

It is our task to make socialism prove its advances. The peasants will be the judge who pronounces on the advantages or drawbacks of the socialist state. We are competing with capitalism in the peasant market ...

What is the present basis for our conviction that we shall be victorious? There are many reasons justifying our belief. These lie both in the international situation and in the development of the Communist Party; in the fact that we retain the power in our hands, and in the fact that we permit free trade solely within the limits which we deem necessary.

This, comrades, was said in 1921, and not in 1926!

In my report at the IV World Congress (directed against Otto Bauer, to whom my relationship has now been discovered) I spoke as follows:

Our main weapon in the economic struggle, as based on the market, is state power. Only shortsighted reformists are unable to grasp the importance of this instrument. The bourgeoisie knows it well. That is proved by its whole history.

Other tools in the hands of the proletariat are: the possession of the most important productive forces of the country, of all economic traffic, of all mines, of the undertakings working up raw materials. These are subject to the immediate economic control of the working class. At the same time the working class owns the land and the peasant gives hundreds of millions of poods of grain for it every year, in the form of taxation in kind.

The frontiers of the country are in the hands of the workers' state; foreign goods, and foreign capital, can only be imported into the country to the extent approved by the workers' state.

These are the instruments and means for building up socialism.

In a booklet published by me in 1923 under the title of Questions of Daily Life, you may read on this subject:

What has the working class actually attained and secured by its struggle up to now?

The dictatorship of the proletariat (with the aid of the workers' and peasants' state led by the Communist Party).

The Red Army as the material support of the proletarian dictatorship.

The socialization of the most important means of production, without which the dictatorship of the proletariat would be an empty form, without meaning.

The monopoly of foreign trade, a necessary premise for the building up of socialism in a country surrounded by capitalism.

These four elements, irrevocably gained, form the steel framework of our work. Thanks to this framework, every further economic or cultural success which we achieve – provided it is a real and not a supposed success – will necessarily become a constituent part of our socialist structure.

This same booklet contains another and even more definite formulation:

The easier the revolutionary upheaval has been – relatively speaking – to the Russian proletariat, the more difficult is its task of establishing the socialist state of society. But the framework of our new social life, welded by the revolution, supported by four fundamental pillars (see beginning of chapter) imparts to every sincere and sensibly directed effort in economics and culture and objectively socialist character. In the bourgeois state of society the worker, unconsciously and unintentionally, enriches the bourgeoisie more and more the better he works. In the Soviet state the good and conscientious worker, without thinking of it or troubling himself about it (if he is a non-political worker), performs socialist work and increases the means of the working class. This is the actual import of the October revolution and in this sense the New Economic Policy brings no change whatever.

Toward Capitalism or Socialism?

I could prolong this chain of quotations indefinitely, for I never have and never could characterize our revolution differently. I shall confine myself, however, to one more passage, from a book quoted by Comrade Stalin (Toward Capitalism or Socialism?). This book was published for the first time in 1925 and was printed originally as feuilleton in the Pravda. The editors of our central organ have never drawn my attention to any heresies in this book with respect to the character of our revolution. This year the second edition of the book was issued. It has been translated into different languages by the Comintern and it is the first time that I hear that it gives a false idea of our economic development. Comrade Stalin has read you a few lines picked out arbitrarily in order to show that this is “unclearly formulated,” I am thus obliged to read a somewhat longer passage, in order to prove that the idea in question is quite clearly formulated. The following is stated in the preface, devoted to a criticism of our bourgeois and social democratic critics, above all, Kautsky and Otto Bauer. Here you may read:

These judgments (formed by the enemies of our economics) assume two forms: in the first place they assert that in building up socialist economics we are ruining the country; but in the second place they assert thai in developing the forces of production we are really returning to capitalism.

The former of these two criticisms is characteristic of the mentality of the bourgeoisie. The second is peculiar to social democracy, that is, to the bourgeois mentality socialistically veiled. There is no strict boundary between these two descriptions of criticism, and very frequently interchange of arguments between them, without either of them noticing that he is using his neighbor's weapon, in the enthusiasm of the old way against “communist barbarity.”

The present booklet hopes to serve the object of showing the unprejudiced reader that both are deceivers – both the openly big bourgeois and the petty bourgeois masquerading as socialist. They lie when they say that the Bolsheviki have ruined Russia ... They lie when they say that the development of productive forces is the road to capitalism; the role played by state economics in industry, in transport and traffic service, trade, finance and credit does not lessen with the growth of productive forces, but on the contrary increases within the collective economics of the country. Facts and figures prove this beyond all doubt.

In agriculture the matter is much more complicated. To a Marxist there is nothing unexpected in this. The transition from the “atomized” individual farming system of agriculture to socialist agriculture is only conceivable after a number of steps have been surmounted in technics, economics and cultivation. The fundamental premise for this transition is that the power remain in the hands of the class anxious to lead society to socialism, and becoming increasingly capable of influencing the peasant population by means of slate industry, by means of technical improvements in agriculture, and thereby furnishing the prerequisites for the collectivisation of agricultural work.

The draft of the resolution on the Opposition states that Trotsky's standpoint closely approaches that of Otto Bauer, who had said that: “In Russia, where the proletariat represents only a small minority of the nation, the proletariat can only maintain its rule temporarily, and is bound to lose it again as soon as the peasant majority of the nation has become culturally mature enough to take over the rule itself.”

In the first place, comrades, who could entertain the idea that so absurd a formulation could occur to any one of us? Whatever is to be understood by: “as soon as the peasant majority of the nation has become culturally mature enough”? What does this mean? What are we to understand by “culture”? Under capitalist conditions the peasantry have no independent culture. As far as culture is concerned, the peasantry may mature under the influence of the proletariat or of the bourgeoisie. These are the only two possibilities existing for the cultural advance of the peasantry. To a Marxist, the idea that the “culturally matured” peasantry, having overthrown the proletariat, could take over power on its own account, is a wildly prejudiced absurdity. The experience of two revolutions has taught us that the peasantry, should it come into conflict with the proletariat and overthrow the proletarian power, simply forms a bridge – through Bonapartism – for the bourgeoisie. An independent peasant state founded neither on proletarian nor bourgeois culture is impossible. This whole construction of Otto Bauer's collapses into a lamentable petty bourgeois absurdity.

We are told that we have not believed in the establishment of socialism. And at the same time we are accused of wanting to pillage the peasantry (not the kulaks, but the peasantry!).

I think, comrades, that these are not words out of our dictionary at all. The communists cannot propose to the workers' state to “plunder” the peasantry, and it is precisely with the peasantry that we are concerned. A proposal to free 40 per cent of the poor peasantry from all taxation, and to lay these taxes upon the kulak, may be right or it may be wrong, but it can never be interpreted as a proposal to “plunder” the peasantry,

I ask you: If we have no faith in the establishment of socialism in our country, or (as is said of me) we propose that the European revolution be passively awaited, then why do we propose to “plunder” the peasantry? To what end? That is incomprehensible. We are of the opinion that industrialization – the basis of socialization – is proceeding too slowly, and that this places the peasantry at a disadvantage. If, let us say, the quantity of agricultural products put upon the market this year be 20 per cent more than last – I take these figures with a reservation – and at the same time the grain price has sunk by 18 per cent and the prices of various industrial products have risen by 16 per cent, as has been the case, then the peasant gains less than when his crops are poorer and the retail prices for industrial products lower. The acceleration of industrialization, made possible to a great extent by the increased taxation of the kulak, will result in the production of a larger quantity of goods, reducing the retail prices, to the advantage of the workers and of the greater part of the peasantry.

Struggle of Two Tendencies

It is possible that you do not agree with this. But nobody can deny that it is a system of views on the development of our economics. How can you assert that we do not believe in the possibility of socialist development, and yet at the same time that we demand the plundering of the mujik? With what object? For what purpose? Nobody can explain this. Again, I have often asked myself why the dissolution of the Anglo-Russian Committee can be supposed to imply a call to leave the trade unions? And why does the non-entry into the Amsterdam International not constitute an appeal to the workers not to join the Amsterdam trade unions? (A voice: “That will be explained to you!”) I have never received an answer to this question, and never will. (A voice: “You will get your answer.”) Neither shall I receive a reply to the question of how we contrive to disbelieve in the realization of socialism and yet endeavor to “plunder” the peasantry.

The book of mine from which I last quoted speaks in detail of the importance of the correct distribution of our national income, since our economic development is proceeding amidst the struggle of two tendencies: the socialist and the capitalist tendency.

The issue of the struggle depends on the rate of development of these tendencies. In other words, should state industry develop more slowly than agriculture; should the opposite poles of capitalist farmer “on top” and proletariat “at bottom” separate more widely and rapidly in the course of development – then the process would of course lead to the restoration of capitalism.

But our enemies may do their best to prove the inevitability of this possibility. Even if they go about it much more skillfully than the unfortunate Kautsky (or MacDonald), they will burn their fingers. Is the possibility just indicated entirely excluded? Theoretically it is not. If the ruling party were to commit one error after another, both in politics and economics, if it should thus hamper the development of industry now so promising, and if it were to relinquish control of the political and economic development of the peasantry, then, of course, the cause of socialism in our country would be lost. But we have not the slightest reason to adopt such premises for our prognosis. How to lose power, how to throw away the achievements of the proletariat, and how to work for capitalism, these are points which were made brilliantly clear by Kautsky and his friends to the international proletariat after November 9, 1918. Nobody needs to add anything on this subject.

Our tasks, our aims, and our methods are very different. What we want to show is the way to maintain and firmly establish the power once seized and the way in which the proletarian form of state is to be given the economic content of socialism.

The whole content of this book (A voice: “There is nothing about the cooperatives in it!”) – I shall come to the cooperatives – the whole content of this book is devoted to the subject of how the proletarian form of state is to be given the economic content of socialism. It may be said (insinuations have already been made in this direction): Yes, you believed that we were moving toward socialism so long as the process of reconstruction was going on, and so long as industry developed at a speed of 45 or 35 per cent year, but now that we have arrived at a crisis of foundation capital and you see the difficulties of extending foundation capital, you have been seized with a so-called “panic.”

I cannot quote the whole of the chapter on: The Rate of Development, Its Material Possibilities and Its Limits. It points out the four elements characterizing the advantages of our system over capitalism and draws the following conclusion:

Taken all in all, these four advantages – properly applied – will enable us to increase the coefficient of our industrial growth, not only to double the per cent of the pre-war period, but to triple this, or even more.

If I am not mistaken, the coefficient of our industrial growth will amount, according to the plans, to 18 per cent. In this there are, of course, still reconstruction elements. But in any case the extremely rough statistical prognosis which I made as an example eighteen months ago coincides fairly well with our actual speed this year.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1926/11/answer.htm

You ask: What is the explanation of those frightful passages quoted in the resolution. I shall have to answer this question. I must first, however, repeat that no single word has been quoted from the fundamental works which I wrote on the character of the revolution between 1917 and 1922, and complete silence is preserved on everything that I have written since 1922, even on that written last year and this year. Four passages are quoted. Comrade Stalin has dealt with them in detail, and they are referred to in the resolution, so you will permit me to devote some words to them as well.

The workers' movement is victorious in the democratic revolution. The bourgeoisie becomes counter-revolutionary. Among the peasantry the well-to-do elements, as well as a considerable section of the middle farmers, will become more “sensible,” quieted down, and go over to the counter-revolution, in order that they may snatch the power out of the hands of the proletariat and the poor peasantry ... The struggle would be almost helpless for the Russian proletariat alone, and its defeat would be inevitable ... were the European socialist proletariat not to hasten to the aid of the Russian proletariat.

I am afraid, comrades, that if anyone told you that these lines represented a malicious product of Trotskyism, many comrades would believe it. But this passage is Lenin's. The Lenin portfolio contains a draft of a pamphlet which Lenin intended to write at the end of 1905. Here this possible situation is described: The workers are victorious in the democratic revolution, the well-to-do section of the peasantry go over to counter-revolution. I may say that this passage is quoted in the last number of the Bolshevik, on page 68, but unfortunately with a grave misrepresentation, although the quotation is given in inverted commas: the words referring to the considerable section of the middle farmers are simply left out. I call upon you to compare the fifth Lenin portfolio, page 451, with the last number of the Bolshevik, page 68.

I could quote dozens of such passages from Lenin's works: Vol. VI, page 398; Vol. IX, page 410; vol. VIII, page 192. (I have not the time to read them, but anyone may look up the references for himself.) I shall only quote one passage from Vol. IX, page 415:

The Russian revolution (he is referring to the democratic revolution) cannot maintain and firmly establish its achievements by its own powers ... if there is no revolution in the West. Without this prerequisite a restoration of the old order is unavoidable, both in communalization and in the distribution of land, for the small farmer will always form a support of restoration of any form of property or ownership. After the complete victory of the proletariat, the small farmer will inevitably turn against the proletariat.

(A voice: “We have introduced the NEP.”)

True, I shall refer to that presently.

Let us now turn to that passage which I wrote in 1922, in order that we may see how my standpoint on the revolution in the epoch of 1904–05 had developed.

I have no intention, comrades, of raising the question of the theory of permanent revolution. This theory – both in respect of what has been right in it and of what has been incomplete and wrong – has nothing whatever to do with our present contentions. In any case this theory of permanent revolution, to which so much attention has been devoted of late, is not to the smallest extent among the responsibilities of either the opposition of 1925 nor the opposition of 1923, and even I myself regard it as a question which has long been settled ad acta.

But let us return to the passage quoted in the resolution. (This I wrote in 1922, but from the standpoint of 1905–06.)

After seizing power, the proletariat will come into hostile conflict with not only all those groups of the bourgeoisie which supported it at the commencement of its revolutionary struggle, but with the broad masses of the peasantry, with whose help it came into power.

Although this was written in 1922, it is put into the future tense: The proletariat will come into conflict with the bourgeoisie, etc., since pre-revolutionary views are being described. I ask you: Has Lenin's prognosis of 1905–06, that the middle peasantry will go over to counter-revolution to a great extent, proved true? I maintain that it has proved true in part. (Voices: In part? When? Disturbance.) Yes, under the leadership of the party and above all under Lenin's leadership, the division between us and the peasantry was bridged over by the new economic policy. This is indisputable. (Disturbance) If any of you imagine, comrades, that in 1926 I do not grasp the meaning of the new economic policy, you are mistaken. I grasp the meaning of the new economic policy in 1926, perhaps not so well as other comrades, but still I grasp it. But you must remember that at that time, before there was any New Economic Policy, before there had been a revolution of 1917, and we were sketching the first outlines of possible developments, utilizing the experience won in previous revolutions – the great French revolution and the revolution of 1848 – at that time all Marxists, not omitting Lenin (I have given quotations), were of the opinion that after the democratic revolution was completed and the land given to the peasantry, the proletariat would encounter opposition from not only the big peasants, but from a considerable section of the middle peasants, who would represent a hostile and even counter-revolutionary force.

Have there been signs among us of the truth of this prognosis? Yes, there have been signs, and fairly distinct ones. For instance, when the Machno movement in the Ukraine helped the White Guards to sweep away the Soviet power this was one proof of the correctness of Lenin's prognosis. The Antonov rising, the rising in Siberia, the rising on the Volga, the rising in Ural, the Kronstadt revolt, when the “middle peasantry” expressed their opinions to the Soviet power by means of ships' cannon – does not all this prove that Lenin's forecast was correct for a certain stage of development in the revolution? (Comrade Moyssenyenko: “And what did you propose?”) Is it not perfectly clear that the passage written by me in 1922 on the division between us and the peasantry was simply a statement of these facts?

We bridged over the schism between us and the peasantry by means of the NEP. And were there differences between us during the transition to the NEP? There were no differences during the transition to the NEP. (Disturbance) There were differences in the trade union question before the transition to the NEP, whilst the party was still seeking a means of escape from the blind alley. These differences were of serious importance. But in the question of the NEP, when Lenin submitted the NEP standpoint to the X Party Congress, we all voted unanimously for this standpoint. And when the new trade union resolution arose as a result of the New Economic Policy – a few months after the X Party Congress – we again voted unanimously for this resolution in the CC. But during the period of transition – and the change wrought by it was no small one – the peasants declared: “We are for the Bolsheviki, but against the Communists.” What does this mean? It means a peculiarly Russian form of desertion from the proletarian revolution on the part of the middle peasantry at a given stage.

I am reproached with having said that it is “hopeless to suppose that Revolutionary Russia can maintain itself in opposition to a conservative Europe.” This I wrote in August, 1917, and I believe that it was perfectly right. Have we maintained ourselves against a conservative Europe? Let us consider the facts. At the moment when Germany concluded the peace treaty with the Entente, the danger was especially great. Had the German revolution not broken out at this point – that German revolution which remained incompleted, suffocated by the social democrats, yet still sufficing to overthrow the old regime and to demoralize the Hohenzollern army – had, I repeat, the German revolution, such as it was, not broken out, then we should have been overthrown. It is not by accident that the passage contains the phrase “in opposition to a conservative Europe,” and not “in opposition to a capitalist “Europe.” Against a conservative Europe, maintaining its whole apparatus, and in particular its armies. I ask you: Could we maintain ourselves under these circumstances, or could we not? (A voice: “Are you talking to children?”) That we still continue to exist is due to the fact that Europe has not remained what it was. Lenin wrote as follows on this subject:

We are living not only in one state, but in a system of states, and the continued existence of the Soviet Republic side by side with imperialist states is unthinkable as a permanency. In the end either one system or the other will win.

When did Lenin say this? On March 18, 1919, that is two years after the October Revolution. My words of 1917 signified that if our revolution did not shake Europe, did not move it, then we were lost. Is this not in substance the same? I ask all the older comrades, who thought politically before and during 1917: What was your conception of the revolution and its consequences?

When I try to recollect this, I can find no other formulation than approximately the following:

We believed: either the international revolution will hasten to our aid and then our victory is perfectly secure, or we shall perform our modest revolutionary work in the consciousness that even if we are defeated we have served the cause of revolution, and that our experience will be useful for later revolutions. It was clear to us that the victory of the proletarian revolution is impossible without the support of the international, the world revolution. Both before and after the revolution we believed: Now, or at least very soon, the revolution will break out in the other highly developed capitalist countries, or, should this not be the case, we are lost.

This was our conception of the fate of the revolution. Who said this? (Comrade Moyssenyenko: “Lenin!” A voice: “And what did he say later on?”)

Lenin said this in 1921, whilst the passage quoted from me dates from 1917. I have thus a right to refer to what Lenin said in 1921. (A voice: “And what did Lenin say later on?) Later on I too said something different. (Laughter) Both before the revolution, and after it, we believed that:

Now, or at least very soon, the revolution will break out in the other highly developed capitalist countries, or, should this not be the case, we are lost.

But in spite of this:

We exerted every effort to maintain the Soviet system at all costs, for we were aware that we were not only working for ourselves, but for the international revolution. We knew this, and we expressed this conviction both before the October Revolution and after it, and at the time when the Brest-Litovsk peace was concluded. And speaking generally, we were right.

This passage goes on to say that our path has become more intricate and winding, but that in all essentials our prognosis was correct. As I have already said, we went over to the NEP unanimously, without any differences whatever. (Comrade Moyssenyenko: “To save us from utter ruin!”)

True, just for that reason, to save us from utter ruin.

Comrades, I beg you to extend the time allotted for my speech. I should like to speak on the theory of socialism in one country. I ask for another half hour. (Disturbance)

Comrades, in the question of the relations between the proletariat and the peasantry ...

Chairman: Please wait till we have decided. I submit three proposals: firstly, to adhere to the original time allotted to Comrade Trotsky; secondly: a prolongation of half an hour; thirdly, a prolongation of a quarter of an hour. (On a vote being taken there is a majority for the half hour prolongation.)

Relations to the Peasantry

The next passage quoted from my writings has brought me the reproach that: Whilst Lenin said: ten to twenty years of correct relations with the peasantry, and our victory is assured on an international scale; Trotskyism, on the contrary, assumes that the proletariat cannot enter into any correct relations with the peasantry until the world revolution has been accomplished. First of all I must ask the actual meaning of the passage quoted. Lenin speaks of ten to twenty years of correct relations to the peasantry. This means that Lenin did not expect socialism to be established within ten to twenty years. Why? Because under socialism we must understand a state of society in which there is neither proletariat nor peasantry, or any classes whatever. Socialism abolishes the opposition between town and country. Thus the term of twenty years is set before us, in the course of which we must pursue a political line leading to correct relations between the proletariat and the peasantry.

It has been asserted, however, that Trotskyism is of the opinion that there can be no correct relations between the proletariat and the peasantry until the world revolution has been accomplished. I am thus alleged to lay down a law according to which incorrect relations must be maintained with the peasantry as far as possible, until international revolution has been victorious. (Laughter) Apparently it was not intended to express this idea here, as there is no sense in it whatever.

What was the NEP? The NEP has been a process of shunting onto a new track, precisely for the establishment of correct relations between the proletariat and the peasantry. Were there differences between us on this subject? No, there were none. What we are quarreling about now is the taxation of the kulak, and the forms and methods to be adopted in allying the proletariat with the village poor. What is the actual matter in hand? The best method of establishing correct relations between the peasantry and the proletariat. You have the right to disagree with individual proposals of ours, but you must recognize that the whole ideological struggle revolves around the question of what relations are correct at the present stage of development.

Were there differences between us in 1917 on the peasant question? No. The peasant decree, the “social revolutionary” peasant decree, was adopted unanimously by us as our basis. The land decree, drawn up by Lenin, was accepted by us unanimously and gave rise to no differences in our circles. Did the policy of “de-kulakization” afford any cause for differences? No, there were no differences on this. (A voice: “And Brest?”) Did the struggle commenced by Lenin, for winning over the middle peasantry, give rise to differences? No, it gave rise to none. I do not assert that there were no differences whatever, but I definitely maintain that however great the differences of opinion may have been in various and even important questions, there were no differences of opinion in the matter of the main line of policy to be pursued with regard to the peasantry.

In 1919 there were rumors abroad of differences on this question. And what did Lenin write on the subject? Let us look back. I was asked at that time by the peasant Gulov: “What are the differences of opinion between you and Ilyitsch?” and I replied to this question both in the Pravda and in Izvestia. Lenin wrote as follows on the matter, both in Pravda and Izvestia, in February, 1919:

The Izvestia of February 2, 1919, published a letter from a peasant named Gulov, who raises the question of the relations between our workers' and peasants' government and the middle peasantry, and states that there are rumors spread about to the effect that there is no harmony between Lenin and Trotsky, that there are great differences of opinion between them, and precisely in the question of the middle peasantry. Comrade Trotsky has already replied in his Letter to the Middle Peasants, published in the Izvestia on February 7. Comrade Trotsky states in his letter than the rumors of differences between me and him are the most monstrous and wicked lies, spread abroad by the landowners and capitalists or their willing and unwilling accomplices. I for my part fully endorse the declaration thus made by Comrade Trotsky. There are no differences between us, and with reference to the middle peasants there are not only no differences between me and Trotsky, but no differences in the whole Communist Party, of which we are both members. Comrade Trotsky explains in his letter, clearly and in detail, why the Communist Party and the present workers' and peasants' government, elected by the Soviets and composed of members of the party, do not regard the middle peasantry as their enemies. I give my signature doubly to everything said by Comrade Trotsky.

This was before the NEP. Then came the transition to the NEP. I repeat once more that the transition to the NEP gave rise to no differences. On the NEP question I gave a report before the IV World Congress, in the course of which I polemized against Otto Bauer. Later I wrote as follows:

The NEP is regarded by the bourgeoisie and the Mensheviki as a necessary (but of course “insufficient”) step toward the release of productive forces. The Menshevist theoreticians both of the Kautsky and the Otto Bauer variety, have welcomed the NEP as the dawn of capitalist restoration in Russia. They add: Either the NEP will destroy the Bolshevist dictatorship (favorable result) or the Bolshevist dictatorship will destroy the NEP (regrettable result.)

The whole of my report at the IV Party Congress went to prove that the NEP will not destroy the Bolshevist dictatorship, but that the Bolshevist dictatorship, under the conditions given by the NEP, will secure the supremacy of the socialist elements of economics over the capitalist.

Lenin on Socialism in One Country

Another passage from my works has been brought up against me – and here I come to the question of the possibility of the victory of socialism in one country – which reads as follows:

The contradictions in the position of the workers' government in a backward country with an overwhelming agrarian population can only be solved on an international scale and in the arena of the proletarian world revolution.

This was said in 1922. The accusing resolution makes the following statement:

The conference places on record that such views as these on the part of Comrade Trotsky and his followers, in the fundamental question of the character and prospects of our revolution, have nothing in common with the views of our party, with Leninism.”

If it had been stated that a shade of difference existed – I do not find this even today – or that these views have not yet been precisely formulated (and I do not see the precise formulation). But it is stated quite flatly: these views “have nothing in common with the views of the party, with Leninism.”

Here I must quote a few lines closely related to Leninism:

The complete victory of the socialist revolution in one country is unthinkable, and demands the active co-operation of at least some advanced countries, among which we cannot count Russia.

It was not I who said this, but one greater than I. Lenin said this November 8, 1918. Not before the October Revolution, but on November 8, 1918, one year after we had seized power. If he had said nothing else but this, we could easily infer what we liked from it by tearing one sentence or the other out of its context. (A voice: “He was speaking of the final victory!”) No, pardon me, he said: “demands the active cooperation.” Here it is impossible to sidetrack from the main question to the question of “intervention,” for it is plainly stated that the victory of socialism demands – not merely protection against intervention – but the cooperation of “at least some advanced countries, among which we cannot count Russia.” (Voices: “And what follows from that?”) This is not the only passage in which we see that not merely an intervention is meant. And thus the conclusion to be drawn is the fact that the standpoint which I have defended, to the effect that the internal contradictions arising out of the backwardness of our country must be solved by international revolution, is not my exclusive property, but that Lenin defended these same views, only incomparably more definitely and categorically.

We are told that this applied to the epoch in which the law of the unequal development of the capitalist countries is supposed to have been still unknown, that is, the epoch before imperialism. I cannot go thoroughly into this. But I must unfortunately place on record that Comrade Stalin commits a great theoretical and historical error here. The law of the unequal development of capitalism is older than imperialism. Capitalism is developing very unequally today in the various countries. But in the nineteenth century this inequality was greater than in the twentieth. At that time England was lord of the world, while Japan on the other hand was a feudal state closely confined within its own limits. At the time when serfdom was abolished among us, Japan began to adapt itself to capitalist civilization. China was, however, still wrapped in the deepest slumber. And so forth. At this time the inequality of capitalist development was greater than now. Those inequalities were as well known to Marx and Engels as they are to us. Imperialism has developed a more “leveling tendency than has pre-imperialist capitalism, for the reason that financial capital is the most elastic form of capital. It is, however, indisputable that today, too, there are great inequalities in development. But if it is maintained that in the nineteenth century, before imperialism, capitalism developed less unequally, and the theory of the possibility of socialism in one country was therefore wrong at that time, whilst today, now that imperialism has increased the heterogeneity of development, the theory of socialism in one country has become correct, then this assertion contradicts all historical experience, and completely reverses fact. No, this will not do; other and more serious arguments must be sought: Comrade Stalin has written:

Those who deny the possibility of the establishment of socialism in one country must deny at the same time the justifiability of the October Revolution. (Stalin, Problems of Leninism, p. 215)

But in 1918 we heard from Lenin that the establishment of socialism requires the direct cooperation of some advanced countries, “among which we cannot count Russia.” Yet Lenin did not deny the justifiability of the October Revolution. And he wrote as follows regarding this in 1918:

I know that there are some ingenious people (this was written against the adherents of Kautsky and Suchanov), who think themselves very clever, and even call themselves socialists; these maintain that we should not have seized power until revolution had broken out in all countries. They are not aware that in speaking thus they are deviating from revolution and going over to the bourgeoisie. To wait until the working masses accomplish the international revolution is to wait till we are stiff and rigid, to wait till we are frozen to death. This is nonsense ...

I am sorry, but it goes on as follows:

This is nonsense. The difficulty of revolution is known to all of us. For the final victory can only be on an international scale, and can only be brought about by the joint exertions of the workers of all countries. (Lenin, Vol. 15, page 287, written on May 14, 1918.)

Despite this, Lenin did not deny the “justifiability” of the October Revolution.

And further. In 1921 – not in 1914, but in 1921 – Lenin wrote:

In the advanced capitalist countries there is a class of agricultural laborers, created by decades of wage work. It is only in countries where this class is sufficiently developed that the transition from capitalism to socialism is possible.

Here it is not a question of intervention but of the level of economic development and of the development of the class relations of the country.

In many of our works, and in all of our utterances in the press, we have emphasized that this is not the case in Russia, that in Russia the industrial workers are in the minority, and that the overwhelming majority are small farmers. Social revolution in such a country as this can only be finally successful under two conditions: firstly, the condition that it is supported at the right time by the social revolution in one or several more advanced countries ...

The other condition is the understanding between the proletariat and the majority of the peasant population ...

We know that only an understanding with the peasantry can save the socialist revolution in Russia, so long as social revolution has not broken out in other countries. This must be stated openly at all meetings, and in the whole press. (Lenin, speech at the Xth Party Congress of the RCP, 1921)

Lenin did not state that the understanding with the peasantry sufficed, enabling us to build up socialism independent of the fate of the international proletariat. No, this understanding is only one of the conditions. The other condition is the support to be given the revolution by other countries. He combines these two conditions with each other, emphasizing their special necessity for us as we live in a backward country.

And finally, it is brought up against me that I have stated that “a real advance of socialist economy in Russia is only possible after the victory of the proletariat in the most important countries of Europe.” It is probable, comrades, that we have become inaccurate in the use of various terms. What do we understand under “socialist economy” in the strict sense of the term? We have great successes to record, and are naturally proud of these. I have endeavored to describe them in my booklet, Toward Socialism or Capitalism, for the benefit of extent of these successes. Comrade Rykov's theses state that we are approaching the pre-war level. But this is not quite accurate. Is our population the same as before the war? No, it is larger. And the average consumption of industrial goods per head is considerably less than in 1913. The people's Supreme Economic Council calculates that in this respect we shall not regain the pre-war level until 1930. And then, what was the level of 1913? It was the level of misery, of backwardness, of barbarism. If we speak of socialist economy, and of a real advance in socialist economy, we mean: no antagonism between town and country, general content, prosperity, culture. This is what we understand under the real advance of socialist economy. And we are still far indeed from this goal. We have destitute children, we have unemployed, from the villages there come three million superfluous workers every year, half a million of whom seek work in the cities, where the industries cannot absorb more than 1,100,000 yearly. We have a right to be proud of what we have achieved, but we must not distort the historical perspective. What we have accomplished is not yet a real advance of socialist economy, but only the first serious steps on that long bridge leading from capitalism to socialism. Is this the same thing? By no means. The passage quoted against me stated the truth.

In 1922 Lenin wrote:

But we have not yet even completed the foundation of our socialist economy, and the hostile forces of expiring capitalism may even yet deprive us of it again This must be clearly recognized and openly admitted, for there is nothing so dangerous as illusions and dizziness, especially at great heights. And there is nothing “frightful,” nothing which can give the slightest cause for despair, in the recognition of this bitter truth, for we have always proclaimed and repeated that elementary truth of Marxism, that the joint efforts of the workers of some advanced countries are necessary for the victory of socialism.” (Lenin, Complete Works, Russian edition, Vol. XX/2, page 487.)

The question here is therefore not of intervention, but of the joint efforts of several advanced countries for the establishment of socialism. Or was this written by Lenin before the epoch of imperialism, before the law of unequal development was known? No, he wrote this in 1922.

There is, however, another passage, in the article on cooperatives, one single passage, which is set up against everything else that Lenin wrote, or rather the attempt is made so to oppose it. (A voice: “Accidentally!”) Not by any means accidentally. I am in full agreement with the sentence. It must be understood properly. The passage is as follows:

As a matter of fact, all the great means of production are in the possession of the state, the state power is in the hands of the proletariat: the alliance of this proletariat with the many millions of poor and poorest peasantry, the security of the leadership of this proletariat over the peasantry, etc.; is then this not everything which we require to enable us to build up out of the cooperatives, of the cooperatives alone, which we treated at one time in a step-motherly manner, as petty tradesman affairs and which we are now justified to a certain extent in so treating under the NEP – to build up out of the cooperatives alone the complete socialist state of society? This is not yet the establishment of the socialist state of society, but it is everything which is necessary and sufficient for this realization ...

(A voice: “You read much too quickly.” Laughter) Then you must give me a few minutes more, comrades. (Laughter. A voice: “Right!”) Right? I am agreed. (A voice: “That is just what we want.”)

What is the question here? What elements are here enumerated? In the first place, the possession of the means of production; in the second, the power of the proletariat; thirdly, the alliance between the proletariat and the peasantry; fourthly, the proletarian leadership of the peasantry, and fifthly, the cooperatives. I ask you: does any one of you believe that socialism can be established in one single isolated country? Could perchance the proletariat in Bulgaria alone, if it had the peasantry behind it, seize power, build up the cooperatives and establish socialism? No, that would be impossible. Consequently further elements are required in addition to the above: the geographical situation, natural wealth, techniques culture. Lenin enumerates here the conditions of the state power, property relations and the organizatory forms of the cooperatives. Nothing more. And he says that we, in order to establish socialism, need not proletarianize the peasantry, nor need we any fresh revolutions, but that we are able, with power in our hands, in alliance with the peasantry, and with the aid of the cooperatives, to carry our task to completion through the agency of these state and social forms and methods.

But, comrades, we know another definition which Lenin gave of socialism. According to this definition, socialism is equal to soviet power plus electrification. Is electrification cancelled in the passage just quoted? No, it is not cancelled. Everything which Lenin otherwise said about the establishment of socialism – and I have adduced clear formulations above – is supplemented by this quotation, but not cancelled. For electrification is not something to be carried out in a vacuum, but under certain conditions, under the conditions imposed by the world market and the world economy, which are very tangible facts. The world economy is not mere theoretical generalization, but a definite and powerful reality, whose laws encompass us; a fact of which every year of our development convinces us.

The New Theory

Before dealing with this in detail, I should like to remind you of the following: Some of our comrades, before they created an entirely new theory, and in my opinion an entirely wrong one, based on a one-sided interpretation of Lenin's article on the cooperatives, held quite a different standpoint. In 1924 Comrade Stalin did not say the same as he does today. This was pointed out at the XIV Party Congress, but the passage quoted did not disappear on that account, but remains fully maintained even in 1926.

Let us read:

Is it possible to attain the final victory of socialism in one single country without the joint efforts of the proletariats of several advanced countries? No, it is impossible. The exertions of a single country suffice to overthrow the bourgeoisie – this is shown by the history of our revolution. But for the final victory of socialism, for the organization of socialist production, the efforts of one single country, especially of such an agrarian country as Russia, are not sufficient – for this the efforts of the proletariats of several advanced countries are necessary. (The Principles of Leninism, April 1924.)

This was written by Stalin in 1924, but the resolution quotes me only up to 1922. (Laughter) Yes, this is what was said in 1924: For the organization of socialist economy – not for protection against intervention, not as guarantee against the restoration of the capitalist order, no, no, but for “the organization of socialist production,” the efforts of one single country, especially such an agrarian country as Russia, do not suffice. Comrade Stalin has given up this standpoint. He has of course a right to do so.

In his book, Problems of Leninism, he says:

What are the defects of this formulation? They consist of the fact that it throws two different questions together: the question of the possibility of the establishment of socialism in one country, by its own unaided efforts – to which an affirmative reply must be given; and the question of whether a country in which the dictatorship of the proletariat has been established can be considered as completely secure against intervention, and consequently as completely secure against the restoration of the capitalist order, unless a victorious revolution has taken place in a number of other countries – to which a negative reply must be given. (Stalin, Problems of Leninism, page 44, 1926.)

But if you will allow me to say so, we do not find these two questions confused with one another in the first passage quoted, dating from 1924. Here it is not a question of intervention, but solely of the impossibility of the complete organization of a completely socialized production by the unaided efforts of such a peasant country as Russia.

And truly, comrades, can the whole question be reduced to one of intervention? Can we simply imagine that we are establishing socialism here in this house, while the enemies outside in the street are throwing stones through the window panes? The matter is not so simple. Intervention is war, and war is a continuation of politics, but with other weapons. But politics are applied economics. Hence the whole question is one of the economic relations between the Soviet Union and the capitalist countries. These relations are not exhausted in that one form known as intervention. They possess a much more continuous and profound character. Comrade Bucharin has stated in so many words that the sole danger of intervention consists of the fact that in the event that no intervention comes:

... we can work toward socialism even on this wretched technical basis (we can work toward it, that is true. – L.T.), that this growth of socialism will be much slower, that we shall move forward at a snail's pace; but all the same we shall work toward socialism, and we shall realize it. (At the XIV Party Congress)

That we are working toward socialism is true. That we shall realize it hand in hand with the world proletariat is incontestable. (Laughter) In my opinion it is out of place at a communist conference to laugh when the realization of socialism hand in hand with the international proletariat is spoken of. (Laughter. Voices: “No demagogy!” “You cannot catch us with that!!”) But I tell you that we shall never realize socialism at a snail's pace, for the world's markets keep too sharp a control over us. (A voice: “You are quite alarmed!”) How does Comrade Bucharin imagine this realization? In his last article in The Bolshevik, which I must say is the most scholastic work which has ever issued from Bucharin's pen (laughter), he says:

The question is whether we can work toward socialism, and establish it, if we abstract this from the international questions.

Just listen to this: “If we can work toward socialism, and establish it, if we abstract this question from the international questions.” If we accomplish this “abstraction,” then of course the rest is easy. But we cannot. That is the whole point. (Laughter)

It is possible to walk naked in the streets of Moscow in January, if we can abstract ourselves from the weather and the police. (Laughter) But I am afraid that this abstraction would fail, both with respect to weather and to police, were we to make the attempt. (Laughter)

https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1926/11/answer2.htm

We repeat once more: it is a question of internal forces and not of the dangers connected with abroad. It is therefore a question of the character of the revolution. (Bucharin, No. 19/20 of The Bolshevik)

The character of our revolution, independent of international relations I Since when has this self-sufficing character of our revolution existed? I maintain that our revolution, as we know it, would not exist at all but for two international prerequisites: firstly, the factor of financial capital, which, in its greed, has fertilized our economic development, and secondly, Marxism, the theoretical quintessence of the international labor movement, which has fertilized our proletarian struggle. This means that the revolution was being prepared, before 1917, at those cross-roads where the great forces of the world encounter one another. Out of this clash of forces arose the great war, and out of this the October Revolution. And now we are told to abstract ourselves from the international situation and to construct our socialism at home for ourselves. That is a metaphysical method of thought. There is no possibility of abstraction from world economics.

What is export? An internal or an international affair? The goods to be exported must be produced at home, thus it is an internal matter. But they must be exported abroad, hence it is an international transaction. And what is import? Import is international! The goods have to be purchased abroad. But they have to be brought into the country, so it is a home affair after all. (Laughter) This example of import and export alone suffices to cause the collapse of Comrade Bucharin's whole theory, which proposes an “abstraction” from the international situation. The success of socialist construction depends on the speed of economic development, and this speed is now being determined directly and more sharply than ever by the imports of raw materials and machinery. To be sure, we can abstract ourselves from the shortage of foreign securities, and order more cotton and machines But we can only do that once. A second time we shall not be able to accomplish this abstraction. (Laughter) The whole of our constructive work is determined by international conditions.

If I am asked whether our state is proletarian, I can only reply that the question is out of place. If you do not wish to form your judgment on two or three words picked at random from an uncorrected stenographic report, but on what I have said and written in dozens of speeches and articles – and this is the only way in which we should form a judgment on one another's views – if we do not wish to trip one another up with an uncorrected sentence, but seek to understand one another's real opinions, then you must admit without hesitation that I join with you in regarding our state as a proletarian state. I have already replied by several quotations to the question of whether this state is building up socialism. If you ask whether there are in this country sufficient forces and means to carry out completely the establishment of socialism within thirty or fifty years, quite independent of what is going on in the world outside, then I must answer that the question is put in an entirely wrong form. We have at our disposal adequate forces for the furtherance of the work of socialization, and thereby also to aid the international revolutionary proletariat, which has no less prospect of gaining power in ten, twenty or thirty years, than we have of establishing socialism; in no way less prospect, but much greater prospect.

I ask you, comrades – and this is the axis upon which the whole question turns – what will be going on in Europe while we are working at our socialization? You reply: We shall establish socialism in our country, independent of what is going on all over the world. Good.

How much time shall we require for the establishment of socialism? Lenin was of the opinion that we shall not have established socialism in twenty years, since our agrarian country is so backward. And in thirty years we shall not have established it either. Let us take thirty to fifty years as a minimum. What will be happening in Europe during all this time? I cannot make a prognosis for our country without including a prognosis for Europe. There may be some variations. If you say that the European proletariat will certainly have come into power within the next thirty to fifty years, then there is no longer any question in the matter. For if the European proletariat captures power in the next ten, twenty or thirty years, then the position of socialism is secured, both in our country and internationally. But you are probably of the opinion that we must assume a future in which the European proletariat does not come into power? Otherwise why your whole prognosis? Therefore, I ask what you suppose will be happening in Europe in this time? From the purely theoretical standpoint, three variations are possible. Europe will either vacillate around about the pre-war level, as at present, the proletariat and the bourgeoisie balancing to and fro and just maintaining an equilibrium. We must however designate this “equilibrium” as inconstant, for it is extremely so. This situation cannot last for twenty, thirty or forty years. It must be decided one way or the other.

Do you believe that capitalism will find a renewed dynamical equilibrium? Do you believe that capitalism can secure a fresh period of ascendancy, a new and extended reproduction of that process which took place before the imperialist war? If you believe that this is possible (I myself do not believe that capitalism has any such prospect before it), if you permit it even theoretically for one moment, this would mean that capitalism has not yet fulfilled its historical mission in Europe and the rest of the world, and that present-day capitalism is not an imperialist and decaying capitalism, but a capitalism still on the upgrade, developing economics and culture. And this would mean that we have appeared too early on the scene.

Chairman: Comrade Trotsky has more than exceeded the time allotted him. He has been speaking for more than one and a half hours. He asks for a further five minutes. I shall take your vote. Who is in favor? Who is against? Does anybody demand that a fresh vote be taken?

Comrade Trotsky: I ask for a fresh vote.

Chairman: Who is in favor of Comrade Trotsky's being given five minutes more? Who is against? The majority is against.

Comrade Trotsky: I wished to utilize these five minutes for a brief summary of conclusions.

Chairman: I shall take the vote again. Who is in favor of Comrade Trotsky's time being extended by five minutes? Those in favor hold up their delegate's tickets. Who is against? The majority is in favor. It is better to prolong the time than to count votes for five minutes. Comrade Trotsky will continue.

Comrade Trotsky: If it is assumed that during the next thirty to fifty years which we require for the establishment of socialism, European capitalism will be developing upward, then we must come to the conclusion that we shall certainly be strangled or crushed, for ascending capitalism will certainly possess, besides everything else, correspondingly improved technics of war. We are, moreover, aware that a capitalism with a rapidly rising prosperity is well able to draw the masses into war, aided by the labor aristocracy which it is able to create. These gloomy prospects are, in my opinion, impossible of fulfillment; the international economic situation offers no basis. In any case we have no need to base the future of socialism in our country on this supposition.

There remains the second possibility of a declining and decaying capitalism. And this is precisely the basis upon which the European proletariat is learning, slowly but surely, the art of making revolution.

Is it possible to imagine that European capitalism will continue a process of decay for thirty to fifty years, and the proletariat will meanwhile remain incapable of accomplishing revolution? I ask why I should accept this assumption, which can only be designated as the assumption of an unfounded and most profound pessimism with respect to the European proletariat, and at the same time of an uncritical optimism with respect to the establishment of socialism by the unaided forces of our country? In what way can it be the theoretical or political, duty of a communist to accept the premise that the European proletariat will not have seized power within the next forty to fifty years? (Should it seize power, then the point of dispute vanishes.) I maintain that I see no theoretical or political reason for believing that we shall build up socialism with the cooperation of the peasantry more easily than the proletariat of Europe will seize power.

No. The European proletariat has the greater chances. And if this is the case, then I ask you: Why are these two elements opposed to one another, instead of being combined like the “two conditions” of Lenin? Why is the theoretical recognition of the establishment of socialism in one country demanded? What gave rise to this standpoint? Why was this question never brought forward by anyone before 1925? (A voice: “It was!”) That is not the case, it was never brought forward. Even Comrade Stalin wrote in 1924 that the efforts of an agrarian country were insufficient for the establishment of socialism. I am today still firm in my belief that the victory of socialism in our country is only possible in conjunction with the victorious revolution of the European proletariat. This does not mean that we are not working toward the socialist state of society, or that we should not continue this work with all possible energy. Just as the German worker is preparing to seize power, we are preparing the socialism of the future, and every success which we can record facilitates the struggle of the German proletariat, just as its struggle facilitates our socialist progress. This is the sole true international view to be taken of our work for the realization of the socialist state of society.

Conclusion

In conclusion I repeat the words which I spoke at the Plenum of the CC: Did we not believe that our state is a proletarian state, though with bureaucratic deformations, that is, a state which should be brought into much closer contact with the working class, despite many wrong bureaucratic opinions to the contrary; did we not believe that our development is socialist; did we not believe that our country possesses adequate means for the furtherance of socialist economics; were we not convinced of our complete and final victory: then, it need not be said, our place would not be in the ranks of a Communist Party.

The Opposition can and must be estimated by these two criteria: it can accept the one line or the other. Those who believe that our state is not a proletarian state, and that our development is not socialist, must lead the proletariat against such a state and must found another party.

But those who believe that our state is a proletarian state, but with bureaucratic deformations formed under the pressure of the petty bourgeois elements and the capitalist encirclement; who believe that our development is socialist, but that our economic policy does not sufficiently secure the necessary redistribution of national income; these must combat with party methods and party means that which they hold to be wrong, mistaken or dangerous, but must share at the same time the full responsibility for the whole policy of the party and of the workers' state. (The chairman rings.) I am almost finished. A minute and a half more.

It is incontestable that the inner party contentions have been characterized of late by extreme acuteness of form, and by the fractional attitude. It is incontestable that this fractional aggravation of the contention on the part of the Opposition – no matter by what premises it was called forth – could be taken, and has been taken by a wide section of the party members, to mean that the differences of opinion had reached a point rendering joint work impossible, that is, that they could lead to a split. This means an obvious discrepancy between the means and the aims, that is, between those aims for which the Opposition has been anxious to fight, and the means which it has employed for one reason or another. It is for that reason we have recognized this means – the fraction – as being faulty,and not for any reason arising out of present consideration. (A voice: “Your forces were inadequate; you have been defeated!”) We recognize this in consideration of the whole inner party situation. The aim and object of the declaration of October 16 was to defend the views which we hold, but to do this under the observance of the confines set by our joint work and our solidarity of responsibility for the whole policy of the party.

Comrades, what is the objective danger involved in the resolution on the social democratic deviation? The danger lies in the fact that it attributes to us views which would necessarily lead, not merely to a fractional policy, but to a policy of two parties.

This resolution has the objective tendency of transforming both the declaration of October 16 and the communiqué of the CC into fragments of paper that with satisfaction ... (A voice: “Is that a threat?”) No, comrades, that is no threat. It is my last thought to utter any threat. (A voice: “Why raise that again?”) You will hear in a moment. Only a few words more.

In our opinion the acceptance of this resolution will be detrimental, but in so far as I can judge of the attitude of the so-called Opposition, especially of the leading comrades, the acceptance of this resolution will not cause us to depart from the line of the declaration of October 16. We do not accept the views forced upon us. We have no intention of artificially enlarging the differences, or of aggravating them and of thus preparing for a relapse into the fractional struggle. On the contrary, each one of us, without seeking to minimize the existing difference of opinion, will exert every endeavor to adapt these differences within the confines of our continued work and our joint responsibility for the policy of the party.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1926/11/answer3.htm

December 1928

To the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union!

To the Executive Committee of the Communist International!

Today, December 16th, the representative of the Council of the G.P.U. Volinsky transmitted the following ultimatum to me orally:

“The work of your own colleagues in the country” – he declared almost literally – “has lately assumed an open counter-revolutionary character. The conditions under which you live in Alma Alta give you full possibilities to direct this work. On this ground the Council of the G.P.U. has decided to demand of you the categorical promise to discontinue this work, or else the Council will be obliged to change your conditions of existence in the sense of a complete isolation from political life. In connection with this the question of changing your place of residence is also raised.”

I declared to the representative of the G.P.U. that I would only give him a written answer to a written formulation. My refusal to give an oral reply to the G.P.U. was called forth by experiences of previous times; my words would be maliciously distorted in order to mislead the working masses of the U.S.S.R. and the whole world.

Nevertheless, irrespective of the further steps to be undertaken by the G.P.U., which after all plays no independent role in this matter but only carries out technically the old decision of the narrow Stalin faction which I have known for some time, I consider it necessary to submit the following to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Executive Committee of the Comintern:

To demand that I renounce my political activity is to demand that I abjure the struggle for the interests of the international proletariat, a struggle 1 have been conducting without interruption for thirty-two years, that is, during my whole conscious life. The attempt to represent this activity of mine as “counter-revolutionary” emanates from those whom I accuse before the international proletariat of trampling under foot the basic teachings of Marx and Lenin, of injuring the historical interests of the world revolution, of breaking with the traditions and the heritage of the October, of the unconscious – and therefore the more dangerous – preparation for the Thermidor.

To renounce political activity would mean to give up the struggle against the blindness of the present leadership which heaps upon the objective difficulties of socialist construction ever greater political difficulties that arise out of the opportunist incapacity to conduct a proletarian policy on A large historical scale.

It would mean the renunciation of the struggle against the stifling regime in the Party which reflects the growing pressure of the enemy classes upon the proletarian vanguard.

It would mean to be passively reconciled to the economic policy of opportunism, a policy which undermines and destroys the foundations of the proletarian dictatorship, which hampers the material and cultural growth of this dictatorship and at the same time deals heavy blows at the alliance of the workers and the working peasants, the basis of the Soviet power.

The renunciation of political activity would mean to cover with silence the disastrous policy of the International leadership which, in Germany, 1923, led to the surrender of great revolutionary positions without a struggle; a policy which attempted to cover up its opportunistic mistakes with the adventures in Esthonia and Bulgaria; which falsely estimated the international situation at the Fifth Congress and gave the Parties directives which only weakened and split them, a policy which, through the Anglo-Russian Committee, supported the British General Council, the bulwark of imperialist reaction, in the most difficult months for the traitorous reformists; which in Poland, at the sharp internal turning point, transformed the vanguard of the proletariat into a rearguard of Pilsudski; which in China carried out to the end the historical line of Menshevism and thereby helped the bourgeoisie to demolish, to bleed and to behead the revolutionary proletariat; which weakened the Comintern everywhere and squandered its ideological capital.

To cease political activity would mean to submit passively to the blunting and the direct falsification of our most important weapon: the Marxist method, and the strategical lessons we acquired in struggle under the leadership of Lenin and with the aid of this method.

It would mean to be reconciled passively – by bearing the responsibility for them – to the theory of the Kulak's growing into Socialism, to the myth about the revolutionary mission of the colonial bourgeoisie, to the slogan of the “combined workers' and peasants' parties” for the East, a slogan which breaks with the foundations of class theory, and finally to that which is the crowning point of all these reactionary fables and many others, the theory of socialism in a single country, the greatest crime against revolutionary internationalism.

The Leninist wing of the Party has endured blows since 1923, that is, since the unprecedented defeat of the German revolution. The force of these blows has increased with every successive defeat of the international and the Russian proletariat as a result of the opportunist leadership.

Theoretical understanding and political experience teach us that a period of retreat, of retrogression, that is, of reaction, can take place not only after bourgeois revolutions, but also after proletarian revolutions. For six years we have lived in the U.S.S.R. under conditions of growing reaction against the October, and with it the clearing of the road for the Thermidor. The most open and consummate expression of this reaction within the Party is the wild persecution and the organised smashing of the Left wing.

In its last attempts to resist the open Thermidorians, the Stalin faction had to borrow the “rubbish” and the “remnants” of the ideas of the Opposition. Creatively, it is impotent. The struggle against the Left deprives it of all firmness. Its practical policy is unbalanced, false, contradictory and unworthy of confidence.

The campaign against the Right Danger, undertaken with such clamor, remains three-quarters only a sham campaign and serves above all to coyer up the real war of annihilation against the Bolshevik-Leninists before the masses. The world bourgeoisie and international menshevism. have both blessed this war: these judges have long ago awarded the “historical right” to Stalin.

If this blind, cowardly, incompetent policy of adaptation to the bureaucracy and the petty bourgeoisie had not been followed, the situation of the working masses in the twelfth year of the dictatorship would be far more favorable; the military defense far firmer and more trustworthy; the Comintern would be in quite a different position and would not have to retreat step by step before the traitorous and bribed social democracy.

The incurable weakness of this apparatus reaction in the Party, despite all its apparent power, lies in the fact that it does not know what it is doing. It is carrying out the command of the enemy classes. There can be no greater historical curse for a faction that arose out of the Revolution and is now undermining it.

The great historical strength of the Opposition, despite its momentary weakness, lies in the fact that it feels the pulse of world historical processes, that it clearly perceives the dynamics of class forces, that it foresees the future and prepares for it consciously. Te renounce political activity would be to renounce the preparations for the coming day.

* * *

The threat to change my conditions of existence and to isolate me from political activity sounds as though I am not separated by 2,500 miles from Moscow and by 150 miles from the nearest railroad and by approximately the same distance from the border of the desolate Western provinces of China, where the fiercest malaria shares its dominion with leprosy and pestilence. As though the Stalin faction, whose direct organ is the G.P.U., had not done everything in its power to isolate me not only from political life, but from any other form of life as well. The Moscow newspapers arrive here only after a delay of ten days to a month, sometimes more. Letters get to me only in exceptional cases, after they have lain around for two or three months in the drawers of the G.P.U. and the Secretariat of the Central Committee.

Two of my closest co-workers since the civil war, comrades Sermouks and Fosnansky, who accompanied me voluntarily to my place of exile, were arrested immediately upon their arrival, thrown into a cellar with common criminals, and then sent away to the remotest corners of the North. A letter from my hopelessly sick daughter, whom you expelled from the Party and kept from all work, took seventy-three days to get to me from the hospital, so that my answer found her no longer alive. Another letter on the serious illness of my second daughter, whom you also expelled from the Party and drove from all work, I received a month ago from Moscow, forty-three days after it was mailed. Telegraphic inquiries about health hardly ever reach their destination. In a similar or far worse position are thousands of the best Bolshevik-Leninists, whose services to the October revolution and to the international proletariat are infinitely greater than the services of those who exiled or imprisoned them.

In preparing still more cruel repressions against the Opposition, true narrow faction of Stalin, whom Lenin characterised in his Testament as rude and disloyal, (at a time when these characteristics had not yet reached a one-hundredth part of their present development), is attempting with the help of the G.P.U. to lay at the door of the Opposition some kind of “connection” with the enemies of the dictatorship. Among themselves the present leaders say: “We have to do this for the masses.” And very often even more cynically: “That is for the simpletons.” My close co-worker, Georgi Vassilievitch Butov, secretary of the Revolutionary War Council during all the years of the civil war, was arrested and detained under unheard of conditions. From this upright and modest man and irreproachable Party comrade they tried to extort confirmation of their consciously concocted and false accusations in the Thermidorian spirit. Butov answered with his heroic hunger strike which lasted fifty days and brought on his death in prison in September of this year. Violence, blows, torture – physical and moral – are applied to the best worker-Bolsheviks for their loyalty to the October.

These are the general conditions which according to the Council of the G.P.U. “offer no obstacle at all” to the political activity of the Opposition in general and of myself in particular.

The miserable threat to change these conditions in the sense of a stricter isolation simply signifies that the Stalin faction has decided to replace exile by imprisonment. This decision, as is mentioned above, is nothing new to me. Already adopted as a perspective in 1924, this decision has been gradually converted into deed over a series of stages, in order to accustom the crushed and deceived Party in a roundabout manner to the methods of Stalin, whose rule disloyalty has today matured to the most venomous bureaucratic dishonesty.

In the Declaration to the Sixth Congress of the Comintern, where we refuted the slanders which besmirch only their authors, we made known our unshakable readiness to fight within the framework of the Party with all the methods of Party democracy for the ideas of Marx and Lenin without which the Party suffocates, petrifies and crumbles. Once more we made known our unflinching readiness to help the proletarian kernel of the Party with word and deed to change the political course, to restore the health of the Party and the Soviet power with united forces – without convulsions or catastrophes. We will stand firm by these words. To the accusation of factional work we answered that it can be liquidated immediately only when Article 58 [1] perfidiously applies to us, is recalled and we are taken back into the Party again, not as repentant sinners but as revolutionary fighters who are not betraying their banner. As though we had foreseen the ultimatum presented to us today, we wrote literally in the Declaration:

“Only a bureaucracy corrupted to its roots can demand this renunciation (from political activity, that is, from service to the Party and the international proletariat). Only contemptible renegades can give such a promise.”

I can change nothing in these words. I submit them again to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and the Executive Committee of the Comintern which bear the full responsibility for the work of the G.P.U.

Each to his own part! You want to continue to carry out the promptings of the class forces hostile to the proletariat. We know our duty. We will carry it out to the end.

L.D. TROTSKY

December 16, 1928, Alma Alta.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1928/12/reply.htm

1933

In the past year a new bit of gossip emanating from Moscow was put into circulation Lenin declared Trotsky to be a “Judas.” When? Where? Why? At first, the European Stalinists were a little disturbed about telling this filthy rot to the face of the advanced workers. But when the defeat of the German proletariat entered another crime, the most terrible of all, into the inventory of the exploits of the Staliinst bureaucracy, they had to take recourse in very stiff measures. They now began to circulate the gossip about a “Judas” with increasing frequency.

What is it based upon? Two years before the war, in one of the moments of the accentuation of the emigrant struggle, Lenin angrily called Trotsky a “yudushka” in a note which he wrote. Whoever is even slightly acquainted with Russian literature knows that “Yudushka” (Golovlev) is a literary type, the hero of the Russian satirist Saltykov-Shtshedrin. In the emigrant struggle of those days one could find in almost every polemical article “digs” borrowed from Saltykov. In the case before us, it was not even an article, but a note written in a moment of anger. At all events, Yudushka Golovlev has no relation at all to the Judas of the Evangels.

In connection with the unavoidable exaggerations in the polemical letters of Lenin, Stalin taking up the defense of the attitudes of Zinoviev-Kamenev in October 1917, wrote in 1924:

“Lenin sometimes deliberately runs ahead in his letters, pushes into the foreground such possible mistakes as may be made, and criticizes them in advance with the aim of warning the party and insuring it against mistakes, or else he sometimes puffs up trifles and makes ‘an elephant out of a gnat' towards the same pedagogical aim ... To draw from such letters of Lenin (and there are not a few of such letters by him) a conclusion about ‘tragic' differences of opinion, and to make a big to-do about it, means not to understand Lenin's letters, not to know Lenin.” (Trotskyism or Leninism? – 1924)

These deductions of Stalin, which stand up very badly as a justification for the conduct of Zinoviev-Kamenev in October 1917 – it was not a question of a “trifle”' at that time, nor a “gnat” – can nevertheless be completely applied to that third-rate episode which produced Lenin's note from exile on Yudushka Golovlev.

That Lenin had violent encounters with Trotsky in the years of emigration, is known to everyone. But all that was a number of years before the October revolution, the civil war, the upbuilding of the Soviet state and the founding of the Communist International. The true relations between Lenin and Trotsky are, it would appear, set down in later and more authoritative documents than that of a note resulting from a conflict in the emigration. What do the professional calumniators want to say when they throw the comparison with “Judas” into the debate: that Lenin did not trust Trotsky politically? Or that he did not trust him morally? Out of hundreds of utterances of Lenin, we cite two or three.

On November 1, 1917, Lenin said at a session of the Petrograd party committee:

“I cannot even speak seriously about it. Trotsky has long said that the unification (with the Mensheviks) is impossible. Trotsky has grasped this and since then there has not been a better Bolshevik.”

In the days of the civil war, when Trotsky by himself had to make decisions of extraordinary scope, Lenin, on his own initiative, handed him a blank sheet of paper with the following inscription at the bottom:

“Comrades! I know the rigorous character of the orders of comrade Trotsky, but I am so convinced, convinced to such an absolute degree of the correctness, the expediency and the necessity of the order issued by comrade Trotsky in the interest of the cause, that I completely support the order – V. Ulianov-Lenin”

If the first of the two declarations cited above gives a clear enough political evaluation, the second one reveals the degree of moral confidence. It is hardly necessary to quote the dozens of citations from the articles and speeches of Lenin where he expresses his attitude toward Trotsky, or to reproduce here once more the correspondence of Lenin-Trotsky on the national question or on the question of the foreign trade monopoly. We will confine ourselves only to recalling that letter which N.K. Krupskaia, Lenin's companion for so many years, addressed to Trotsky a few days after Lenin's death:

“Dear Lev Davidovitch: I am writing to tell you how Vladmir Illitch, about a month before his death, stopped, in reading through your book, at the passage where you gave a characterization of Marx and Lenin, and he asked me to read the passage to him, how attentively he listened and then how he himself read it over again. And there is another thing I want to tell you: the feelings which Lenin conceived for you when you came to us in London from Siberia, had not change to his dying day. I wish you, Lev Davidovitch, strength and health, and I embrace you warmly. – N. Krupskaia”

The overzealous agents of Stalin would have acted more prudently had they not raised the question of moral confidence. Already ill, Lenin urged Trotsky not to come to an agreement with Stalin: “Stalin will make a rotten compromise and then he will deceive.” In his Testament, Lenin urged the removal of Stalin from his post as general secretary, giving as his motivation the disloyalty of Stalin. Finally, the last document dictated by Lenin the day before his second attack, was his letter to Stalin in which he broke off “all personal and comradely relations” with him.

Will this perhaps suffice, Messrs. Calumniators?

https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1933/xx/falsify.htm

1935

Conditions now permit us to elucidate briefly the latest episodes of the investigation relating to the assassination of Kirov as well as the amalgams (or more exactly, series of amalgams) interwoven with, this affair.

1. The mysterious consul has now turned out to be a Latvian consul: our supposition that a petty consul of a tiny nation would be chosen for the amalgam has been fully confirmed. However, it become necessary to name the consul. – obviously because of diplomatic pressure – and this necessity threatened to blast the amalgam: for, who would believe that a consul of Latvia is the organizer of world intervention against the U.S.S.R. A new version had to be found: the Latvian consul was, as a matter of fact, the agent of Hitler. Quite possible. But, how then to connect Trotsky with Hitler? Stalin did not even attempt to provide an explanation. He left his hirelings abroad to extricate themselves as best they could. But the hirelings are incapable of giving more than nature has endowed them with.

Why Was Zinoviev Arrested?

2. The Zinoviev group was arrested in connection with the Kirov assassination. Yet the indictment does not so much as let out a peep concerning a single one of the Zinovievists arrested in Moscow. But why then are they arrested? The foreign lackeys now besmirch Zinoviev with mud as shamelessly as in 1928-25 they crawled on their bellies before him.

3. What charge, politically, may be brought against Zinoviev, Kamenev and their friends? Their capitulation. By this act of political cowardice, they drove the revolutionary youth into a blind alley. The youth has been left without perspectives. At the same time, under the ponderous lid of bureaucratism the youth is not permitted to think, live, or breathe. Under precisely such conditions are terrorist moods bred. Only the growth of genuine Bolshevism, on a world scale, can instil new hopes into the Soviet revolutionary youth and safeguard it from taking the road of despair and adventurism.

1926 Platform of Russian Opposition Cited

4. The gap between the terrorist group and Zinoviev and his friends was to be bridged by the “platform of the Left Opposition” of the year 1926. Citing one of the accused, who obviously mouths the formula of the G.P.U. examining magistrate, the indictment proclaims the “ideological” succession from the “new opposition” of 1926 (the Zinoviev faction) to the Nicolaiev group. But how to link this up with the consul, intervention and the terrorist act?

The “platform” of 1926 has been published in every language. The attitude towards the U.S.S.R. was there set forth with exhaustive clarity. The lackeys, it is true, do not have to bother pondering over this. But class conscious workers, even at this date, can profit, much by acquainting themselves with the 1926 document. Upon acquainting themselves with it, they will draw the specific conclusion that while the bureaucracy did appropriate the most progressive measures from the program it had vilified, the Leningrad terrorists could never derive from this Marxist document any justification for senseless adventurism.

5. There is a specific historical stench to this attempt at connecting the Left Opposition with the idea of intervention. In 1917, Miliukov, Kerensky and Co. accused Lenin, Trotsky and other Bolsheviks of being agents of the German General staff, and serving the interventionist plans of the Hohenzollern. In its time, this moronic calumny made a tour of the entire world. Stalin has been unable to think up a single new word. He slavishly repeats the hoary calumny about the leaders of Bolshevism. He is only the pupil of Miliukov and Kerensky.

6. When, in March 1917, I was arrested by the British naval authorities and incarcerated in a concentration camp in Canada, Lenin wrote in Pravda (No. 34, April 1917):

“Can one for a moment believe in the veracity of the dispatch which the British government: has received, and which purports that TROTSKY, the former chairman of the Petersburg Soviet of Workers' Deputies, in 1905, a revolutionist, who has unselfishly devoted himself for decades to the service of the revolution – that this man is involved in a plan subsidized by the German government? This is indeed a deliberate, and unheard-of, and unconscionable vilification of a revolutionist!”

These words were written before I joined with Lenin, prior to my election as chairman of the Bolshevik Soviet in 1917, prior to the October revolution, the civil war, the creation of the Third International, and the founding of the Soviet state. Today, after a lapse of eighteen years no agents of British counter-espionage, but Stalinists are repeating this very same “deliberate, and unheard-of, and unconscionable vilification of a revolutionist!” This simple juxtaposition reveals best of all the poison of lies, vilification and fraud which the Stalinist bureaucracy is pouring into the world working class movement!

“We Do Not Believe the Indictment”

7. The fourteen who were accused in connection with the Kirov assassination were all shot. Did they all participate in the terrorist act? The indictment answers this question in the affirmative, but does not adduce even the semblance of proof. We do not believe the indictment. We have seen with what brazen and cowardly tendenciousness it has injected the name of Trotsky into its text; and how deliberately it passes in silence over what happened to the consul's provocation regarding the “letter”.

It is much easier to implicate in the affair a dozen or so Leningrad Y.C.L.ers than to implicate Trotsky. Who are these Y.C.L.ers? We do not know. There is not much difficulty in executing unknown Y.C.L. ers. Among the number there must have also been G.P.U. agents: the very ones who had arranged to bring Nicolaiev together with the “consul” and who had prepared the amalgam, but who, at the last moment, proved negligent, and allowed Nicolaiev to fire the fatal shot. The physical elimination of these agents became necessary in order to remove embarrassing participants in and witnesses of the amalgam. But among those shot there may also have been Y.C.L.ers who were simply critically minded. The task of the amalgam was: to terrorize completely the youth, which was thirsting for independence, by showing it that the slightest doubt about the divine blessings which flow from Stalin, or about the immaculate conception of Kaganovich would meet, hereafter, with the same penalty as terrorist acts.

8. The foreign agents of the G.P.U., who often pass themselves off for friends of the U.S.S.R., and who compromise the real friends of the U.S.S.R., accuse everyone of being in sympathy with (!) the terrorists, who has a critical attitude towards the repressions which have taken place. A revolutionist, can feel nothing but contempt for these toadying methods. It is indubitable that the enemies and stealthy opponents of the October revolution utilize to the utmost, for their own aims, the confused and contradictory statements, as well as the summary measures of repression. But this circumstance should not at all impel us to blind ourselves to the dual role of the Soviet bureaucracy, which, on the one hand, guards (in its own fashion) the conquests of the October revolution against the class enemies; and which, on the other hand, tigerishly defends its own economic and political privileges against criticisms and protests by the advanced workers.

G.P.U. Is Tool of Bureaucracy

As a tool of the bureaucracy, the G.P.U. directs the weapon of terror both against, the counter-revolutionists, who threaten the workers' state, and against the Y.C.L.ers who are dissatisfied with the absolutism of the uncontrolled bureaucracy. Identifying itself with the workers' state – in accordance with the ancient formula, “I am the state!” – the bureaucratic upper crust portrays the terror against the party and the Y.C.L. as terror against the counter-revolution. This is the very goal that the venomous amalgams are intended to achieve.

9. What is here involved is not so much the struggle of the Soviet bureaucracy against Trotsky and the “Trotskyists”; but the question of the moral atmosphere of the world working class movement. The vile amalgam constructed around the “consul” who, apparently, was in the simultaneous employ of three governments, stands today as one of a number of ordinary and normal measures utilized by the Stalinist bureaucracy in the struggle for its caste positions. In 1921, warning his most intimate comrades against electing Stalin as general secretary, Lenin said, “This cook will prepare only peppery dishes.” At that time there could, of course, be no reference as yet to the poisoned dishes of the amalgams. To whom are they being offered today? To the workers. The Stalinists are systematically poisoning the world proletarian vanguard with lies. Can the interests of the workers' state possibly demand this? Never! But this is demanded by the rapacious interests of the uncontrolled bureaucracy, which seeks to guard at all costs its prestige, its power, and its privileges, by means of terror against everyone in the ranks of the proletariat who thinks and criticizes.

Real Devotion to Soviet Union Means Struggle Against Bureaucracy

10. However passionate may be one's devotion to the Soviet Union, it must not be blind; or else it is worthless. The development of the workers' state proceeds through contradictions, internal and external. The forms and the methods of the workers' state have already changed several times, and they will continue to change in the future. The bureaucratic stage, for which there were objective causes, is exhausted.

The absolutism of the bureaucracy has become the greatest brake upon the further cultural and economic growth of the Soviets. The lackeys of the bureaucracy who deify its regime play a reactionary role. The Marxists – revolutionists set as their task to free the world proletarian vanguard from the fatal influence of the uncontrolled bureaucratic clique, in order subsequently to aid the workers in the U.S.S.R. to regenerate the party and the Soviets, not by means of terrorist adventures which are doomed beforehand, but by means of the class conscious mass movement against bureaucratic absolutism.

https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1935/01/amalgam.htm