Marx frees himself later from this inconsistency by ascribing surplus
value solely to the operation of the variable part of capital
(wage-labour)--a doctrine which he develops with iron logic in his
principal work, "Capital."
III. THE REVOLUTION OF 1848.
The ink had hardly dried on the Communist Manifesto when the February
Revolution broke out. The crowing of the Gallic cock soon awoke an
echo in the various German States, whilst in Brussels the democrats
were attacked and ill-treated by the mob. One of the victims of this
attack was Karl Marx, who was, moreover, banished shortly afterwards
by the Belgian Government. This action, however, did not cause him any
embarrassment, as he was ready in any case to proceed to Paris,
whither the Provisional Government of the French Republic had already
invited him in the following terms:
"Paris, March 1, 1848.
"BRAVE AND FAITHFUL MARX,
"The soil of the French Republic is a place of refuge for all
friends of freedom. Tyranny has banished you; France, the free,
opens to you her gates--to you and to all who fight for the holy
cause, the fraternal cause of every people. In this sense shall
every officer of the French Government understand his duty.
_Salut et Fraternite._
FERDINAND FLOCON,
Member of the Provisional Government."
The stay in Paris was, however, of short duration. Marx and Engels
gathered together the members of the League of Communists and procured
them the means for returning to Germany to take part in the German
revolution. They themselves travelled to the Rhineland and succeeded
in getting the establishment of the newspaper planned in Cologne into
their hands. On the first of June, 1848, the _Neue Rheinische Zeitung_
appeared for the first time. It goes without saying that the editor
was Karl Marx, and among his collaborators were Engels, Freiligrath,
Wilhelm Wolff, and Georg Weerth. Occasionally, too, Lassalle sent
contributions. It is but rarely given to a daily paper to have such an
editorial staff. In the third volume of his "Collected Papers of Marx
and Engels," Franz Mehring gives a selection of the articles which
appeared in this journal. They are still worth reading. Here are a few
examples. After the fall of Vienna he wrote an article concluding with
the following words: "With the victory of the 'Red Republic' in Paris
the armies from the inmost recesses of every land will be vomited
forth upon the boundaries and over them, and the real strength of the
combatants will clearly appear. Then we shall remember June and
October, and we too shall cry, 'Woe to the vanquished!' The fruitless
butcheries which have occurred since those June and October days ...
will convince the peoples that there is only one means of shortening,
simplifying, and concentrating the torturing death agonies of
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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