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magnitudes, where Prussia and Austria had been incessantly bickering and fighting
for dominance, for the so-called hegemony in the union of German states.
In 1858 there already began a general rise of the opposition and revolutionary
movements in all western European countries. The old unsolved problems were
again brought to the fore. In Germany the strife for unification asserted itself once
more. The struggle between the party which wanted a Great Germany, which
clamoured for the unification of the whole of Germany including Austria, and the
"Little German" party which demanded that Prussia be the point around which all
the German states with the exception of Austria be united, was still going on.
In Italy there was an analogous awakening of national aspirations. In France
the panic of 1857 brought in its train the ruin of many inflated enterprises; it affected
particularly the textile industries. The petty-bourgeoisie began to show a spirit of
opposition. A new vigour was also manifested by the underground revolutionary
organisations. The labour movement which had become moribund after the June
defeat, was revivified, particularly in the building and the furniture-making trades.
Russia, too, received its first capitalist baptism in a series of colossal business failures
in Moscow; it now began to hobble along the path of liberal reforms.
To rid themselves of internal difficulties the governments, and first of all
Napoleon, endeavoured to distract the attention of their peoples by starting up a
tinsel show in external politics. Napoleon was reminded by the attempt of the Italian
revolutionist Orsini, in 1858, that the police was not always omnipotent. He was
forced to take into consideration the popular discontent. To dissipate the
revolutionary sentiment of the labouring masses, Napoleon raised the progressive
slogan of liberating Italy from the Austrian yoke. He immediately entered into secret
agreements with Cavour, the minister of the Sardinian king. The role played by
Sardinia in Italy was analogous to that of Prussia in Germany.
While the babble of the official press implied that it was all a question of
unifying Italy, the actual agreement, upon the basis of which Napoleon had promised
to help Sardinia, had an entirely different content; it was not the unification of Italy
but the rounding out of Sardinia which was promised Lombardy and Venice. Besides
the promise that the Papal Dominions would be left intact, Napoleon was to receive
as compensation Nice and Savoy. Napoleon, who was compelled to wriggle between
opposition from the left and the clerical party, did not want to quarrel with the Pope
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and was therefore against an actual unification of Italy. On the other hand, he hoped
that the acquisition of two new territories would satisfy the French patriots.
Thus arose a new and an extremely important political question which
perturbed all Europe and especially the revolutionists within the different countries.
What attitude were the revolutionists and socialists to assume? Were they to side
with Napoleon who had stepped forth almost as a revolutionist, who was advocating
the liberal principle of the right of Italy to self-determination, or were they to be on
the side of Austria which was the personification of despotism, which was the
oppressor of Italy and Hungary? This was a question of supreme importance. The
different answers to this question dictated the different tactics of such revolutionists
as Marx and Engels on one side, and Ferdinand Lassalle (1825-1864) on the other.
Until now we had no occasion to mention Lassalle, though he had been one of
the first disciples of Marx and had already taken part in the events of 1848. We shall
not dwell on his biography, for it would lead us too much astray from our main topic.
During the fifties, after having served a short term in prison, Lassalle stayed in
Germany and continued his scientific work, keeping up his relations with Marx and
Engels at the same time. In 1859, a controversy between them arose in connection
with the Italian question. This was an extremely interesting polemic, and the two
sides to this controversy were finally crystallised into two factions within the same
party. The disagreements were reduced to the following:
Napoleon III and his clique were great adepts at shaping public opinion. Just
as during the Crimean War, the market was flooded with a great mass of booklets
and pamphlets in which the liberalism of Napoleon and the justice of the Italian
cause were most eloquently championed. Many voluntary and a much greater
number of mercenary journalists joined this literary campaign. The volunteers were
recruited chiefly from among the Hungarian and the Polish emigrants. Just as they
had, a few years before, regarded the Crimean War as a war of progress and
civilisation against Asiatic despotism and had formed and equipped legions of
volunteers in order to aid Palmerston and Napoleon, so did the Hungarian and
Polish emigrants, with very few exceptions, maintain now that Napoleon was fighting
for progress and for the self-determination of nations, and that it was incumbent
upon all forward-looking people to hasten to his aid. These emigrants, among whom
there were many who did not disdain Napoleon's money, entered the Italo-French
army.
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Neither was Austria slumbering. She financed the publicists who were trying
to prove that in this war Austria was defending the interests of all of Germany, that in
case Napoleon conquered Austria, he could seize the Rhine, that if this were the case,
it was really Germany and not Italy that Austria was concerned with, that, therefore
Austria's retention of her dominion over Northern Italy was for the purpose of
protecting Germany.
These were the two main channels in which the opinions of European
journalism of the time were coursing. In Germany itself the problem was complicated
by the controversy between the "Great-Germany" and the "Little-Germany" parties.
It was quite natural that the Great-Germanists who wanted the unification of the
whole of Germany, Austria included, should lean to the side of the latter, while the
Little-Germanists, who pulled toward Prussia, should maintain that Austria be left to
her own fate. Of course, there were various shadings, but these did not essentially
change the general picture.
What then were the attitudes taken by Marx and Engels on the one hand, and
by Lassalle on the other? They all held to the principles of the Communist Manifesto.
During the Revolution of 1848 they had all declared themselves in favour of a United
German Republic, with the German districts of Austria incorporated. It seemed that
there was no place for any disagreements. In reality these differences were not any
less profound than the differences which arose among the various Social-Democrats
who stood on the same Marxian platform at the beginning of the Great War in 1914.
Marx and Engels, in their articles and pamphlets, reasoned that in order to
protect the Rhine, Germany was not in need of Northern Italy, and that it could very
well afford to permit Austria to give up all its Italian possessions to a United Italy,
that any attempt to support Austria, supposedly in the interests of Germany, meant a
compromise with Austrian despotism.
Marx and Engels were consistent. They attacked Napoleon as relentlessly as
they lashed Austrian and Prussian reaction. A complete victory for Napoleon, they
felt, would be as much of a calamity as a complete victory for Austria. Engels
maintained that Napoleon, should he defeat Austria, would also attack Germany. He
therefore advanced the idea that the unification of Italy as well as that of Germany
should be accomplished by forces within these countries themselves. Revolutionists,
according to him, could not consistently support either side. The only thing for them
to consider should be the interests of the proletarian revolution. We must not
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