These allies are all of a reactionary turn.It is the king's power, with his army and his bureaucracy; it is the big feudal nobility; it is the smaller junker; it is even the clergy.The bourgeoisie has made so many compacts and unions with all of them to save its dear skin, that now it has nothing more to barter.And the more the proletariat developed, the more it began to feel as a class and to act as one, the feebler became the bourgeoisie.When the astonishingly bad strategy of the Prussians triumphed over the astonishingly worse strategy of the Austrians at Sadowa, it was difficult to say who gave a deeper sigh of relief, the Prussian bourgeois, who was a partner to the defeat at Sadowa, or his Austrian colleague.
Our upper middle-class of 1870 acted in the same fashion as did the moderate middle-class of 1525.As to the small bourgeoisie, the master artisans and merchants, they remain unchanged.They hope to climb up to the big bourgeoisie, and they are fearful lest they be pushed down into the ranks of the proletariat.Between fear and hope, they will in times of struggle seek to save their precious skin and to join the victors when the struggle is over.Such is their nature.
The social and political activities of the proletariat have kept pace with the rapid growth of industry since 1848.The role of the German workers, as expressed in their trade unions, their associations, political organisations and public meetings, at elections, and in the so-called Reichstag, is alone a sufficient indication of the transformation which came over Germany in the last twenty years.It is to the credit of the German workers that they alone have managed to send workers and workers' representatives into the Parliament -- a feat which neither the French nor the English had hitherto accomplished.
Still, even the proletariat shows some resemblance to 1525.The class of the population which entirely and permanently depends on wages is now, as then, a minority of the German people.This class is also compelled to seek allies.The latter can be found only among the petty bourgeoisie, the low grade proletariat of the cities, the small peasants, and the wage-workers of the land.
The petty bourgeoisie has been mentioned above.This class is entirely unreliable except when a victory has been won.Then its noise in the beer saloons is without limit.Nevertheless, there are good elements among it, who, of their own accord, follow the workers.
The lumpenproletariat, this scum of the decaying elements of all classes, which establishes headquarters in all the big cities, is the worst of all possible allies.It is an absolutely venal, an absolutely brazen crew.If the French workers, in the course of the Revolution, inscribed on the houses: Mort aux voleurs! (Death to the thieves!) and even shot down many, they did it, not out of enthusiasm for property, but because they rightly considered it necessary to hold that band at arm's length.
Every leader of the workers who utilises these gutter-proletarians as guards or supports, proves himself by this action alone a traitor to the movement.
The small peasants (bigger peasants belong to the bourgeoisie)are not homogeneous.They are either in serfdom bound to their lords and masters, and inasmuch as the bourgeoisie has failed to do its duty in freeing those people from serfdom, it will not be difficult to convince them that salvation, for them, can be expected only from the working class; or they are tenants, whose situation is almost equal to that of the Irish.Rents are so high that even in times of normal crops the peasant and his family can hardly eke out a bare existence; when the crops are bad, he virtually starves.When he is unable to pay his rent, he is entirely at the mercy of the landlord.The bourgeoisie thinks of relief only under compulsion.
Where, then, should the tenants look for relief outside of the workers?
There is another group of peasants, those who own a small piece of land.In most cases they are so burdened with mortgages that their dependence upon the usurer is equal to the dependence of the tenant upon the landlord.
What they earn is practically a meagre wage, which, since good and bad crops alternate, is highly uncertain.These people cannot have the least hope of getting anything out of the bourgeoisie, because it is the bourgeoisie, the capitalist usurers, that squeeze the life-blood out of them.Still, the peasants cling to their property, though in reality it does not belong to them, but to the usurers.It will be necessary to make it clear to these people that only when a government of the people will have transformed all mortages into a debt to the State, and thereby lowered the rent, will they be able to free themselves from the usurer.This, however, can be accomplished only by the working class.
Wherever middle and large land ownership prevails, the wage-workers of the land form the most numerous class.This is the case throughout the entire north and east of Germany, and it is here that the industrial workers of the city find their most numerous and natural allies.In the same way as the capitalist is opposed to the industrial worker, the large landowner or large tenant is opposed to the wage-workers of the land.The measures that help the one must also help the other.The industrial workers can free themselves only by turning the capital of the bourgeoisie, that is, the raw materials, machines and tools, the foodstuffs necessary for production, into social property, their own property, to be used by them in common.
