Völkerabfälle

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Frederick Engels

Völkerabfälle is a term used by Frederick Engels to describe small nations which he considered residual fragments of former peoples who had succumbed to more powerful neighbours in the historic process of social development and which Engels considered prone to become "fanatical standard-bearers of counter-revolution".[1]

He offers as examples:[1]

  • the Jacobites: "Such, in Scotland, are the Gaels, the supporters of the Stuarts from 1640 to 1745."
  • the Chouannerie: "Such, in France, are the Bretons, the supporters of the Bourbons from 1792 to 1800."
  • the First Carlist War: "Such, in Spain, are the Basques, the supporters of Don Carlos."

Engels was referring also specifically to the Serb uprising of 1848–49, in which Serbs from Vojvodina fought against the previously victorious Hungarian revolution. Engels finished the article with the following prediction:

But at the first victorious uprising of the French proletariat, which Louis Napoleon is striving with all his might to conjure up, the Austrian Germans and Magyars will be set free and wreak a bloody revenge on the Slav barbarians. The general war which will then break out will smash this Slav Sonderbund and wipe out all these petty hidebound nations, down to their very names.
The next world war will result in the disappearance from the face of the earth not only of reactionary classes and dynasties, but also of entire reactionary peoples. And that, too, is a step forward.

Critique[]

Engels views were criticised by leading socialist Karl Kautsky who in 1915 argued that subsequent to 1848/9 the Czech and Austrian South Slavs had transformed themselves in a manner which in practice refuted the views of Marx and Engels. Referring to Heinrich Cunow he wrote:

Today when those people have achieved such great power and significance to refer to them in the old Marxian terms of 1848/9 does appear most unfortunate. Should someone today still hold onto that standpoint he has a lot to unlearn[2]

Roman Rozdolsky analyses Engels' position in his book Engels and the 'Nonhistoric' Peoples: the National Question in the Revolution of 1848.

There are two ways to look at Marx and Engels: as the creators of a brilliant, but in its deepest essence, thoroughly critical, scientific method; or as church fathers of some sort, the bronzed figures of a monument. Those who have the latter vision will not have found this study to their taste. We, however, prefer to see them as they were in reality.

Rosdolsky examines Engels' viewpoint at length. Both Marx and Engels had supported the 1848 revolution which had spread throughout Europe. They saw this as a necessary first step towards the Socialist revolution, which was hoped to be imminent. However, the forces of reaction rallied in Klemens von Metternich's Austria in October 1848 with the brutal suppression of the Vienna Uprising. Engels was prompted to write his article thanks to the Austrian Slavs' rejection of the opportunity to liberate themselves from the oppressive rule of the Habsburgs, as well their enthusiastic embrace of Metternich’s counter-revolution.[3]

Andrzej Walicki in his analysis of Engel's stance in his book Marxism and the Leap to the Kingdom of Freedom: The Rise and Fall of the Communist Utopia stated:

Engels did not hesitate to say that entire nations are reactionary, that this is what the Slavic nations of the Habsburg monarchy turned out to be, and that their opposition to the German-Hungarian revolution qualifies them for total extermination.

and concluded that it is difficult to deny that it legitimized the policy of genocide and it was justified to suppose that they influenced the ideas of Hitler, who experienced a period of fascination with Marxism in his youth.[4]

Controversy[]

This last passage, the final paragraph of Engels' article in 1849, was analyzed by the British bibliographer, literary historian and Liberal party activist George Watson, who concluded that Hitler was a Marxist.[5] The attitudes expressed in that paragraph was quite normal for their time.[6]

References[]

  1. ^ a b Engels, Frederick (1849). "Magyar Struggle". Neue Rheinsiche Zeitung (194). Retrieved 14 July 2018.
  2. ^ Herod, N. A. (2013). The Nation in the History of Marxian Thought: The Concept of Nations with History and Nations without History. Springer Science & Business Media. ISBN 9789401747547. Retrieved 15 July 2018.
  3. ^ Clarkson, Andy. "Reviews – Engels and the 'Nonhistoric' Peoples". www.marxists.org. Retrieved 15 July 2018.
  4. ^ Walicki, Andrzej (1995). Marxism and the Leap to the Kingdom of Freedom: The Rise and Fall of the Communist Utopia. Stanford University Press. ISBN 9780804731645. Retrieved 7 January 2021.
  5. ^ Watson, George (22 November 1998). "Hitler and the Socialist Dream". The Independent. Retrieved 15 July 2018.
  6. ^ Robert Grant. The Lost Literature of Socialism by George Watson. The Review of English Studies, Nov., 1999, Vol. 50, No. 200 (Nov., 1999), pp. 557-559. Published by: Oxford University Press. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/517431
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