Franz Mehring - Absolutism & Revolution in Germany 1525-1848

Franz Mehring was one of the most fascinating characters to come out of the great period of central European Marxist thought in the early 20th century. Initially an social democrat, he developed into a serious Marxist thinker and historian. When I originially picked up this book I assumed it was a single work, but in fact it is an edited volume of works about the history of Germany, written as educational booklets for the Marxist schools that were part of German Social Democracy in the 1900s. 

I was particularly interested in his writing on the German Reformation, "and its consequences", which built upon the insights and approach taken by Friedrich Engels in his writing on the German Peasants' War. Disappointingly for me, this is the shortest section, but nonetheless it is packed with insights. Especially around the consequences of the counter-revolutionary defeat of the peasantry. 

Mehring writes about the defeat, in a characteristicly colourful way, "the blood of the peasants flowed in rivers on German soil... and yet, in the long run, this fearful defeat did not worsen the position of the peasant class." He continues by explaining how all the other classes, "the clergy, the nobility and the towns" were victims of the revolution and its defeat, and continues:

Thus only the princes had any real advantages from the pesasants war. They seized the property of the Church; a gertaer or a lesser part of the nobility had to recognise their authority, and the fines from the towns flowed into their coffers. Apart from the secular principalities there were still, it is true, ecclesiastical rulers, town republics, and sovereigh Counts and Lords. But in gernal historical development in Germany was driving towards provincial centralisation and the subordination of all other estates of the empre by the princes.

He then goes on to say, "the German Reformation, after the revolutionary fire had been extinguished with the blood of the peasants, became a campaign of robbery and plunder by the German princes and their ever growing emancipation from Imperial authority". It is this that shapes the following centuries of politics for Germany, and these then form the basis for Mehrings remaining accounts in the book.

Some of this is difficult for readers not seeped in Germany history. I found the chapter on the evolution of the "Brandenburg-Prussian State" interesting, but hard work. This looks at the series of rulers of that crucial German state, such as the "enlightened despot" Frederick II, who was trapped in a situation where the economic evolution of his state did not match that of comparable monarchs across Europe. The importance of the French Revolution for Mehring is that it both demonstrates a way forward for the masses, and is the hammer that smashes upon the German anvil transforming Germany and shaping the outlook of its rulers. It was the French Revolution that "restored the vitality of a Germany that had defenerted in the swap of feudalism". By the 1830s, the situation was smoothering for the German bourgeoisie who were trapped by the older fetters of feudal relations, and by the realities of wider European politics. Mehring writes:

It was the renown, and the undoing, of this class [the German bourgeoisie] that it could win itse revolutiion gloriously enough in the cloudy heights of literature and philosophy, but never on level ground with bare fists and cold steel.

That said, the beginnings of capitalism within Germany at this time were seeing immense fortunes made for a tiny minority on the backs of hard labour for the masses. Mehring documents these realities, and the early struggles of the German proletariat. "The original accumulation of capital was only carried out in Germany in blood, misery and shame." 

The final section, and probably the most important, of Mehring's book deals with the 1848 revolution and the class struggles within. Again, this will introduce many names and events that the non-German reader might be unfamiliar with, but the chapter can be read as a sweeping introduction to the class tensions within the 1848 revolution as it evolved in Germany. But betraying its origin in works presented to students of the Social Democratic Party's internal schools, the book fails to really teach the modern reader the events and how they concluded. I found it useful and interesting, but intend to go away and study the period more, before returning to Mehring's analysis. I suspect that his detailed study of the class conflict and tensions within the revolution will help readers understand more general history's of the period. That said, there's much here, and this is an excellent example of the Marxist method in history.

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