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Abstract
The protagonist of Edgar Bauer’s 1843 novella Es leben feste Grundsätze! is a young intellectual named “Karl”. It can hardly be doubted that Bauer’s novella is a polemical character study of Karl Marx: the rather demeaning picture of “Herr Karl” belongs to the heat of controversy between Marx and die Freien, the Berlin Young Hegelians, after the end of their participation in the Rheinische Zeitung in late autumn 1842. So far, Bauer’s novella has never been used as a potential source to shed light on the deeper causes of animosity between Marx and die Freien.
Acknowledgements
The seminal ideas of this article were presented at the conference “Marx 1818/2018. New developments on Karl Marx’s thought and writings”, Lyon, 27–29 September 2017. I owe special thanks to Gilbert Faccarello who encouraged me to broaden my initial approach of a predominantly intellectual-biographical study of Edgar Bauer’s novella and to deeper investigate the theoretical relevance of the book. Furthermore, I would like to thank the anonymous peer reviewers of EJHET for their careful reading of the manuscript and their valuable suggestions to improve it. I am particularly grateful for their insistence to better explain the connection between both parts of this article and to clarify my own position on Edgar Bauer’s polemical portrait of Karl Marx.
Notes
1 This was particularly the case until just a few years ago, when I discovered and studied the book at the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin during a research stay in Berlin. In the meantime, a digital copy has become available through Google Books. As for the published editions, according to an extensive worldwide search with Karlsruhe Virtual Catalog, today only five public libraries, all located in Germany, appear to own a copy.
2 During Bruno Bauer’s two and a half year stay at the University of Bonn, Marx’s regular visits to the house of the Bauer family in Charlottenburg attest to an enduring friendship with Bruno’s younger brother Edgar Bauer (Bruno Bauer and Edgar Bauer Citation1844, 55–56; Bruno Bauer to Karl Marx, April 1841, in MEGA III/1, 356).
3 The energetic portrait of Karl Marx, ‘ein schwarzer Kerl aus Trier’, in the mock epic Der Triumph des Glaubens (Edgar Bauer and Friedrich Engels 1842, 28; Blumenberg Citation2000, 36) is by Edgar Bauer, because Engels had not yet met Marx in person: “Who comes last, wild and free? / A black lad from Trier now we see. / (…) / His fist is clenched, he rages without compare, / As if then thousand devils had him by the hair.”
4 The strategy of making a ‘Charakteristik’, originally developed by Arnold Ruge in The Hallische Jahrbücher as a new form of critical journalism, must also be taken into account here as a potentially illuminating source of influence. ‘Charakteristik’ was based on the (orthodox Hegelian) conviction that genuine criticism is not an active interference with the object of criticism, but simply a detached representation allowing the object ‘to criticize itself’ (viz. to expose and even eliminate itself). This idea was central to the method of ‘pure critique’ employed by many of the Berlin Young Hegelians, and was the hallmark of Edgar Bauer’s conception of ‘die Ruhe des Erkennens’ (see De Vriese Citation2011, 575–77, 583).
5 There is only one exact time reference in the novella, and it is written in the conditional mood: “If our story took place in the year 1843, then you would consider the latest censorship instruction for the beginning of how the curse of the father was fulfilled on Karl.” (Bauer Citation1843a, 179) The fact that Edgar Bauer mentions in his book the latest censorship instruction – the Prussian censorship instruction of 31. Januar 1843 (on which Edgar Bauer wrote a 60-page pamphlet, by the way) – and gives it a crucial role to develop the plot of the novella may be taken as a fairly certain starting date for the conception and writing of the book. The time of publication can be determined between 16 April and 1 May 1843, because the book is mentioned in Allgemeines Verzeichniß der Bücher, welche von Ostern 1843 bis Michaelis 1843 neu gedruckt oder aufgelegt worden sind, 197 (Easter Sunday Citation1843 was on 16 April), and because Carl Biedermann’s Deutsche Monatsschrift für Litteratur und öffentliches Leben of May Citation1843 has a review of the book.
6 Attempts to save the newspaper continued until the end of March (Klutentreter Citation1966, 128–133).
7 For the sake of convenience, I will capture the ‘left’, ‘progressive’ or ‘young’ wing of the Hegelian school here by the term of a Young Hegelian movement. With this general term, I refer to the journalistic activity and outspoken political activism undertaken in the period between 24 December 1841 (date of the Prussian censorship instruction that opened a period of relative freedom of the press) and 31 January 1843 (date of the Prussian censorship instruction that reversed the liberal measures) and supported by a large group of Hegelians participating in Arnold Ruge’s Deutsche Jahrbücher, the Leipziger Allgemeine Zeitung and the Rheinische Zeitung (these three organs of publicity were all suppressed at the end of 1842 and the beginning of 1843). However, the sociological dynamic of the Young Hegelians is much more complicated, as is convincingly shown by Wolfgang Eßbach’s useful distinction between philosophical school, political party, literary bohemia and atheist sect. In view of that, the category of ‘movement’, which favors the connotation of a political party, is misleading. See Eßbach Citation1988.
8 M.L. Citation1844, 28–29: “I still remember with joy the summer of the year 1842. What a united life we had among us ‘radicals’, in spite of all debates over atheism and popularity and Jacoby and Königsberg. We were connected by the Rheinische Zeitung – in short, we almost felt like a party. But then, in autumn, the Anhalt railway brought us those two ‘men of freedom’ [Freiheitsmänner], who appeared to have come to Berlin, which seemed too free and too frivolous in their eyes, with the exclusive aim of bringing a thorough ethical principle and the anchor of the religion of freedom.” See also Ruge, Letter to Prutz, 18 November 1842, Letter to Marx, 4 December 1842, Letter to Prutz, 7 December 1842, Letter to Fleischer, 12 December 1842, in Ruge Citation1886.
9 A significant observation is that Friedrich Engels, who started writing correspondence from England to the Rheinische Zeitung from the beginning of December 1842 onwards, abruptly stopped his cooperation after four weeks. Klutentreter believes this to be an obvious consequence of Engels’ awareness, probably through letters from Berlin that have been lost, of Marx’s break with die Freien. According to this hypothesis, one should include Engels within the group of the ‘Berlin’ Young Hegelians (Klutentreter Citation1966, 107).
10 To the best of my knowledge, research on the genesis of the social novel in German literature is the only scholarly context in which Edgar Bauer’s novella has been discussed so far. See Edler Citation1977, 118, 169.
11 The psychological analysis of Edgar Bauer distinguishes between Karl’s conscious rejection of the influence of his father’s admonishment and its disastrous effects on an unconscious and existential level: “And this Karl! He doesn’t seem affected by the curse, that he has taken upon him.” (Bauer Citation1843a, 168, my italics)
12 See for instance Blumenberg Citation2000, chapter “Life at the University – Conflict with his Father”, 16–32.
13 Karl’s ideas in the novella on censorhip and marriage can easily be traced back to some of Karl Marx’s articles in the Rheinische Zeitung. Especially striking is the analogy between Marx’s main argument in “Der Ehescheidungsgesetzentwurf” and the lengthy and well-elaborated critique of marriage in the novella (Bauer Citation1843a, 251–255). See also Marie’s correspondence to Karl (213): “Again, you will come to me and say: marriage is not a free relationship, because it rests on the belief in the sanctity of its institution.” Whether the novella contains substantial and sufficiently reliable material to extend our knowledge on the thought of the young Marx, should be investigated more deeply. In my reading, the philosophical reflections in the book are in part allusions to ideas of Karl Marx that were well-known in the intellectual in-crowd of that time, and in part those of Edgar Bauer himself.
14 Mehring (Citation2003, 44) underlines that Marx was ‘heart and soul’ in his work for the Rheinische Zeitung and succeeded in steadily increasing the number of subscribers under his editorship. According to Mehring, the goal of turning the Rheinische Zeitung into a successful journal appeared important enough to Marx “to risk a breach with his old companions in Berlin”.
15 An allusion to the distance between Marx’s romantic life in Trier and his professional life in Cologne?
16 I make abstraction from a much more complicated narrative thread (see 239–47).
17 Without a doubt, this plan to ‘buy’ Karl out of his situation – and out of his solid principles – is the most curious passage of the entire novella. For it is a historical fact that Karl Marx had effectively received an offer to enter the state service in Berlin. This occurred in the period between the banning of the Rheinische Zeitung and his marriage to Jenny von Westphalen – the period in which Edgar Bauer wrote his novella. Is it credible that Bauer knew about this offer, which was most probably arranged thanks to the efforts of Jenny’s half-brother Ferdinand (who would later become the Prussian interior minister) in order to turn her improper liaison into a decent and respectable marriage? If so, it can hardly be doubted that the entire novella Es leben feste Grundsätze! has sprung from this specific knowledge, because in Bauer’s eyes this unexpected move from the Prussian government could be nothing else than unambiguous proof of Karl Marx’s secret connections and intriguing with the powers that be, and thus as the real cause of his sudden break with the too radical Berlin Young Hegelians in autumn 1842. I will leave it an open question. At any rate, if it should be answered affirmatively, it is sure that Bauer had not (yet) been informed that Marx had rejected the offer. Probably – but I am building speculation upon speculation here – this may also explain why Bauer’s book completely missed its mark at that time. The Cologne censor of the Rheinische Zeitung, who wrote a final evaluation of Karl Marx to the Prussian government, acknowledged that Marx might be accused of “anything, but not a lack of principles [Gesinnungslosigkeit]” (Peters Citation1984, 42–48; Hosfeld Citation2009, 32).
18 Bauer Citation1843a, 304, for the deeper reasons of her repugnance, and 313.
19 The dialectical relationship between individual and society is an important philosophical theme in the book (see 155, 178, 182, 191, 194–95, 209, 214, 218, 259–60, 283, 292).
20 The following passage (289) depicts Karl’s sister as a strong, and therefore exceptional, human being: “The uncomplicated dignity, the serene elevation, with which she resigned herself to her misery, reconciled him [August, another character in the novella] with his own misery. It was the first time that he had seen a strong human being.”
21 The reference to Bauer is to Bruno Bauer, Edgar’s brother. With respect to Marx’s ‘egoism’, see also Ruge Citation1886, 350: “Marx (…) has attracted the German laborers for no other reason than to have a party and to have people as servants.” Cf. Hosfeld Citation2009, 28–29. With respect to Marx’s ‘excessive irritability’, see Ruge Citation1886, 344. For a broader analysis, see Weigel Citation1976.
22 Ruge to Fröbel, 6 December 1844, in Ruge Citation1886, 380: “In his eyes, I am the cause of the failed project.” Ibid., 343–45, 351, 367.
23 An analogous argument can be developed for the conflict between Marx and Bruno Bauer: it was mainly due to the latter’s radicalism in his theological writings, which in March 1842 led to Bauer’s removal from his academic post at the University of Bonn, that Marx himself lost a viable prospect on a future academic career (Rosen Citation1977, 128).
24 The following passage (Bauer Citation1843a, 242) clearly expresses a world view in which everything is arranged and determined according to a formula: “Deep down, he is a good guy – Arthur thought – but it is his misfortune, that he sees all things too sharply and that he wants to act according to principles everywhere. (…) With this Karl, everthing must go according to a formula.” See also 176 (“the principles of a radical”), 246–47, 249, 262.
25 According to an eyewitness account, this is how one of Ruge’s reproaches rang: “You want to be free and do not notice, that you are up to your ears in the mud! One cannot liberate people and populations by means of dirty tricks [Schweinereien]!” (Ruge Citation1886, 286 footnote). Ruge defined political freedom as “serious passion for a particular formation and transformation, not for revolution as such” (291, my italics).
26 Bruno Bauer’ method can be seen as a theoretical application of the theorem of the ‘second Aufhebung’, which had been proposed by August von Cieszkowki (Citation1838) as a historical tool of analysis to compare the world-historical significance of the French Revolutions of 1789 and 1830: definitive emancipation is in need of a second negation, after the result of the first negation has been neutralized. The influence can also be traced in Marx’s famous contention that great historical events always occur twice: once as tragedy, then as comedy.
27 In the opinion of his brother Edgar Bauer (Citation1843c, 41), the presence of apparent contradictions in Bruno Bauer’s work is a proof of the purity of his critique: “This inner and necessary development of the critique of Bruno Bauer explains why apparent contradictions can be found in it – contradictions, however, that eventually resolve themselves. They, in specific, are proof of the purity of Bauer’s critique. Only those who do not understand a thing about the organic growth of a scientific work, can use them to refute Bauer.”
28 For an extensive analysis, see De Vriese Citation2011, the chapter “Reine Kritik”, 547–602.
29 The historical example Bruno Bauer has in mind, is the French Enlightenment. I am reminded here of a striking characterization of the French philosophes by Will and Ariel Durant (Citation1965, 324): “Never in literature had there been such subtle wit, such delicate pleasantry, such coarse buffoonery, such lethal ridicule. Every orthodoxy of Church or state trembled under the assault of these sharply pointed, sometimes poisoned, usually nameless, pens.”
30 Gamby’s study of Edgar Bauer’s stay in London during the 1850s and his regular contact with Karl Marx at that time throws an entirely new light on the issue of ‘principledness’. Under the cover of friendship and devotion to the communist cause, Bauer actually spied on the activities of Marx and other revolutionaries in London. Working as a secret agent for the Danish government, he sent more than hundred reports with information on revolutionary movements and organizations, including reports on Marx and Engels (Gamby Citation1985, 30–37). The irony of history? Because my focus in this paper is on the split in the Young Hegelian movement of the early 1840s, I have decided to leave out this dubious episode of Edgar Bauer’s later life. I feel obliged to mention it here succinctly, in order to remove the false impression that it is Edgar Bauer who, in contrast to ‘Karl’, is the more laudable and ‘principled’ character: strong, reliable and self-sacrificing. Moreover, my main concern in this paper is about better understanding the personal and philosophical motives behind the split in the Young Hegelian movement, not about passing a moral judgement. If one were to embark on such a precarious investigation, one would certainly have to pay attention to personal and philosophical developments of the later 1840s, and in particular to the impact of the failed 1848 revolution in Germany.
31 That book was entitled Hegel's Lehre von der Religion und Kunst von dem Standpuncte des Glaubens aus beurtheilt. See also Rosen Citation1977, 159.
32 Unlike Strauss and Feuerbach, Ruge had for a long time been sympathetic to, and even in support of the Bauerian method of ‘extreme liquidation’ (Ruge to Prutz, 8 January 1842, in Ruge Citation1886, 258–60). In his introduction to the 1842 volume of the Deutsche Jahrbücher, he had even developed similar views: “Can one reproach theory with being extreme? Isn’t extremity its mode of existence?” (1842, 3–4). One year later, in his introduction to the 1843 volume of the Deutsche Jahrbücher, Ruge offered a sharp philosophical refutation of the ‘blasé consciousness’ of the Berlin Young Hegelians, unmasking their ‘frivolity’ as sheer vanity and their ‘self-satisfied theory’ as a ‘vain movement inside one’s own subjectivity’. Instead of promoting dedication to the philosophical cause, Ruge now realized, the frivolous radicalism of die Freien would only engender ‘lack of character’ and ‘cowardice’ (1843, 9–12).
33 An alternative view is that this was essentially a dispute over the correct interpretation of ‘earnestness and manliness’. See Bauer to Marx, 12 April 1841, in MEGA III/1, 357: “They cannot bear earnestness and acuteness and manliness.”
34 In light of Ruge’s visit to the Young Hegelians in Berlin, it seems obvious to conclude that Ruge was the principal instigator of a philosophical campaign against the ‘frivolity’ of die Freien, eventually succeeding in winning Marx’s support for his view. Nonetheless, the opposite interpretation can be developed, with Marx being (partly) responsible for the change in Ruge’s opinion. See Marx to Ruge, 9 July 1842, in MEGA III/1, 28–30.