The Communist Manifesto in the Revolutionary Politics of 1848 by David Ireland;

Author:David Ireland;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9783030994648
Publisher: Springer Nature

By November 1848—although in the dying days of that year’s German states’ revolution—Marx had realised, in his ‘No More Taxes!!!’ campaign, that German peasants in the countryside were both responsive and practically (in contrast to garrisoned towns) more difficult to police. Marx writes to Lassalle on 13 November 1848, telling him to resolve at his meeting of the People’s Club in Düsseldorf a ‘general refusal to pay taxes—to be advocated especially in rural areas’.149 Marx later (18 November) says the countryside has ‘the best opportunity to serve the revolution’.150 The tax boycott campaign certainly energises the rural peasantry who are also urged to write to their enlisted sons urging them not to betray their (tax-boycotting) parliament.151 The Deutsche Zeitung of 20 November 1848 writes that ‘the peasants are dreaming of nothing more and nothing less than complete freedom from taxes’.152

Within Marx’s circle, much the most concerted, and certainly the highest profile and highest achieving, intervention on behalf of peasants came through two series of articles, in the NRZ, written by Wilhelm Wolff. The first series, of six articles—Wozu das Volk Steuern Zahlt (Why the People Pay Taxes)—running from mid-December 1848 until mid-January 1849, dealt successively with the respective taxation of the ‘Junker-clique’,153 and of the Prussian peasantry, the abolition of feudal obligations, King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, and finally suffrage and parliamentary manoeuvrings affecting peasants. Wolff’s Die Schlesische Milliarde (The Silesian Milliard)154 is altogether more heavyweight, a sustained attack on regressive taxes in a series of nine lead NRZ articles between 22 March and 25 April 1849. While also criticising the Grundsteuer (Land Tax) and Schutzgeld (Federal Caution Money), Wolff rails most forcefully against the Klassensteuer (Class Tax), described by historian Huber as ‘something between a poll tax and an income tax’155 and by Prussian statistician Dieterici as ‘a personal tax on everybody’.156

Wolff’s skill, in the Silesian Milliard—‘the highpoint in Wolff’s overall political and journalistic output. It is his most comprehensive and best Marxist work’157—but also in general, was his ability to break down complex subjects to render them intelligible, and to introduce journalistic hooks that would resonate with his peasant audience. Here, he disentangles the Class Tax:

Let’s pluck someone out from the masses. He owns eight Morgen158 of land of middling quality, pays a host of tithes annually to his ‘gracious’ lord, must perform a large amount of statute labour for him every year, and still has to pay Class Tax of seven Silver Groschen and six Pfennigs monthly, or three Thalers annually. Contrasted with him, we have a ‘gracious’ lord with the most extensive estates, with forests and meadows, iron-works, zinc ore mines, coal mines etc.—as an example, the arch-wailer, Russophile, feaster on democrats and Deputy to the Second Chamber, Count Renard. This man has an annual income of 240,000 Thalers. He sits on the highest rung of the Class Tax, paying no more than 12 Thalers monthly, or 144 annually. Compared with the rustic tenant with the eight Morgen, he should have been paying at least 7,000 Thalers in Class Tax annually.

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