ONLINE EDITION: Written betweenSeptember and November 1884, this book was first published in February 1845,Frankfurt am Main. The workd was never translated into English in either man'slifetime. This 1956 English translation is by Richard Dixon and Clement Duttsand is taken from the 1845 German edition. It is transcribed for the MEIA byPeter Byrne, 1997. Andy Blunden has continued the transcribing from Chapter VIonwards and made slight modifications to the mark-up to blend the two jobs.
Foreword,by Frederick Engels
Chapter 1: "CriticalCriticism in the Form of as Master-Bookbinder", orCritical Criticism as Herr Reichardt (by Engels)
Chapter 2: "CriticalCritcism" as a "Mill-Owner", or Critical Criticism as Herr JulesFaucher (by Engels)
Chapter 3: "TheThoroughness of Critical Criticism", or Critical Criticism as Herr J. (Jungnitz?)(by Engels)
Chapter 4: "CriticalCiticism" as the Trnaquility of Knowledge, or "CriticalCriticism" as Herr Edgar
1. FloraTristan's Union Ouvriere (by Engels)
2. Beraudon Prostitutes (by Engels)
3. Marx and Engels in Paris in 1844 Love (by Marx)
4. Proudhon(by Marx)
Chapter 5: "CriticalCriticism" as a Mystery-Monger, or "Critical Criticism" as HerrSzeliga (by Marx)
1. TheMystery of Degeneracy in Civilisation
2. TheMystery of Speculative Construction
3. TheMystery of Educated Society
4. TheMystery of Probity and Piety
5. Mystery,a Mockery
6. Turtle-Dove (Rigolette)
7. TheWorld System of the Mysteries of Paris
Chapter 6: AbsoluteCritical Criticism, or Critical Criticism as Herr Bruno
1. AbsoluteCriticism's First Campaign (by Marx)
a. "Spirit"and "Mass"
b. TheJewish Question No. 1
c. Socialismand Philosophy
2. AbsoluteCricitism's Second Campaign
a. "Criticism"and Feuerbach (by Engels)
b. TheJewish Question No. 2 (by Marx)
3. AbsoluteCriticism's Third Campaign (by Marx)
a. Its"political" Past
b. TheJewish Question No. 3
c. CriticalBattle Against the French Revolution
d. CriticalBattle Against French Materialism
e. FinalDefeat of Socialism
f. Philosophyof Self-Consciousness
Chapter 7: CriticalCriticism's Correspondence
1. TheCritical Mass (by Marx)
2. The“Un-Critical Mass” and “Critical Criticism”
a. The“Obdurate Mass” and the “Unsatisfied Mass” (by Marx)
b. The“Soft-Hearted” Mass “Pining for Redemption” (by Engels)
c. GraceBestowed on the Mass (by Marx)
3. TheUn-Critically Critical Mass (by Marx)
Chapter 8: TheEarthly Course and Transfiguration of “Critical Criticism”, or “CriticalCriticism” as Rudolph, Prince of Geroldstein (by Marx)
1. CriticalTransformation of a Butcher into a Dog
2. Revelationof the Mystery of Critical Religion
3. Revelationof the Mysteries of Law
4. RevealedMystery of the “Standpoint”
5. Revelationof Mystery of the Utilisation of Human Impulses
6. Revelationof Mystery of Emancipation of Women
7. Revelationof Political Economic Mysteries
8. Rudolph:Revealed Mystery of All Mysteries
Chapter 9: TheCritical Last Judgement and HistoricalEpilogue (by Marx)
________________________________________________________________________________
The Holy FamilyChapter VI
The “Spirit”, contrary to the Mass, behavesfrom the outset in a Critical way by considering its own narrow-mindedwork, Bruno Bauer’s Die Judenfrage, as absolute, and only the opponentsof that work as sinners. In Reply No. 1 [25]to attacks on that treatise, he does not show any inkling of its defects; on thecontrary, he declares he has set forth the “true”, “general” (!)significance of the Jewish question. In later replies we shall see him obligedto admit his “oversights”.
“The reception my book has hadis the beginning of the proof that the very ones who so far haveadvocated freedom, and still advocate it, must rise against the Spirit more thanany others; the defence of my book which 1 am now going to undertake will supplyfurther pond how thoughtless the spokesmen of the Mass are; they have Godknows what a great opinion of themselves for supporting emancipation and thedogma of the ‘rights of man’.”
On the occasion of a treatise by AbsoluteCriticism, the “Mass” must necessarily have begun to prove itsantithesis to the Spirit; for it is its antithesis to Absolute Criticism that determinesand proves its very existence.
The polemic of a few liberal and rationalistJews against Herr Bruno’s Die Judenfrage has naturally a Criticalmeaning quite different from that of the mass-type polemic of the liberalsagainst philosophy and of the rationalists against Strauss. Incidentally, theoriginality of the above-quoted remark can be judged by the following passagefrom Hegel:
“We can here note theparticular form of bad conscience manifest in the kind of eloquence with whichthat shallowness” (of the liberals) “plumes itself, and first of all in thefact that it speaks most of Spirit where its speech has the leastspirit, and uses the word life”, etc., “where it is most dead andwithered.” [G.W.F. Hegel, Grundlinien der Philosophiedes Rechts. Vorrede]
As for the “rights of man”, it hasbeen proved to Herr Bruno (“On the Jewish Question”, Deutsch-FranzösischeJahrbücher) that it is “he himself’, not the spokesmen of theMass, who has misunderstood and dogmatically mishandled the essence of thoserights. Compared to his discovery that the rights of man are not “inborn”— a discovery which has been made innumerable times in England during the last40-odd years — Fourier’s assertion that the right to fish, to hunt, etc.,are inborn rights of men is one of genius.
We give only a few examples of Herr Bruno’sfight against Philippson, Hirsch and others. Even such pooropponents as these are not disposed of by Absolute Criticism. It is by no meanspreposterous of Herr Philippson, as Absolute Criticism maintains, to say:
“Bauer conceives a peculiarkind of state ... a philosophical ideal of a state.”
Herr Bruno, who confuses the state withhumanity, the rights of man with man and political emancipation with humanemancipation, was bound, if not to conceive, at least to imagine a peculiar kindof state, a philosophical ideal of a state.
“Instead of writing hislaboured statement, the rhetorician” (Herr Hirsch) “would have done betterto refute my proof that the Christian state, having as its vitalprinciple a definite religion, cannot allow adherents of another particularreligion ... complete equality with its own social estates.”
Had the rhetorician Hirsch reallyrefuted Herr Bruno’s proof and shown, as is done in the Deutsch-FranzösischeJahrbücher, that the state of social estates and of exclusive Christianityis not only an incomplete state but an incomplete Christian state, HerrBruno would have answered as he does to that refutation:
“Objections in this matter aremeaningless.” [26]
Herr Hirsch is quite correct whenin answer to Herr Bruno’s statement:
“By pressure against themainsprings of history the Jews provided counterpressure”,
he recalls:
“Then they must have countedfor something in the making of history, and if Bauer himself asserts this, hehas no right to assert, on the other hand, that they did not contribute anythingto the making of modern times.”
Herr Bruno answers:
“An eyesore is something too— does that mean it contributes to develop my eyesight?”
Something which has been an eyesore to me frombirth, as the Jews have been to the Christian world, and which persists anddevelops with the eye is not an ordinary sore, but a wonderful one, one thatreally belongs to my eye and must even contribute to a highly originaldevelopment of my eyesight. The Critical “eyesore” does not thereforehurt the rhetorician “Hirsch”. Incidentally, the criticism quotedabove revealed to Herr Bruno the significance of Jewry in “the makingof modern times”.
The theological mind of Absolute Criticismfeels so offended by a deputy of the Rhenish Landtag stating that “theJews are queer in their own Jewish way, not in our so-called Christianway”, that it is still “calling him to order for using thatargument”.
Concerning the assertion of another deputy that“civil equality of the Jews can be implemented only where Jewry no longerexists”, Herr Bruno comments:
“Correct! That is correct ifCriticism’s other proposition, which 1 put forward in my treatise, is notomitted”, namely the proposition that Christianity also must have ceased toexist.
We see that in its Reply No. 1 to the attacksupon Die Judenfrage, Absolute Criticism still regards the abolition ofreligion . atheism, as the condition for civil equality. In its first stage ithas therefore not yet acquired any deeper insight into the essence of the statethan into the “oversights” of its “work”.
Absolute Criticism feels offended when one ofits intended “latest” scientific discoveries is betrayed as somethingalready generally recognised. A Rhenish deputy remarks:
“No one has yet maintainedthat France and Belgium were distinguished by particular clarity in recognisingprinciples in the organisation of their political affairs.”
Absolute Criticism could have objected thatthat assertion transferred the present into the past by representing astraditional the now trivial view of the inadequacy of French politicalprinciples. Such a relevant objection ‘ would not be profitable for AbsoluteCriticism. On the contrary, it must assert the obsolete view to be that atpresent prevailing, and proclaim the now prevailing view a Critical mysterywhich its investigation still has to reveal to the Mass. Hence it must say:
“It” (the antiquatedprejudice) “has been asserted by very many” (of the Mass): “buta thorough investigation of history will provide the proofthat even after the great work done by France to comprehend the principles, muchstill remains to be achieved.”
That means that a thorough investigation ofhistory will not itself “achieve” the comprehension of theprinciples. It will only prove in its thoroughness that “much stillremains to be achieved”. A great achievement, especially after theworks of the Socialists! Nevertheless Herr Bruno already achieves muchfor the comprehension of the present social state of things by his remark:
“The certaintyprevailing at present is uncertainty.”
If Hegel says that the prevailing Chinesecertainty is “Being”, that the prevailing Indian certainty is“Nothing”, etc., Absolute Criticism joins him in the “pure” way when itresolves the character of the present time in the logical category “Uncertainty”,and all the purer since “Uncertainty”, like “Being” and “Nothing”,belongs to the first chapter of speculative logic, the chapter on “Quality”.
We cannot leave No. 1 of Die Judenfrage withouta general remark.
One of the chief pursuits of Absolute Criticismconsists in first bringing all questions of the day into their right setting.For it does not answer the real questions — it substitutes quitedifferent ones. As it makes everything, it must also first make the“questions of the day”, make them its own questions, questions ofCritical Criticism. If it were a question of the Code Napoléon, it would provethat it is properly a question of the Pentateuch. [27]Its setting of “questions of the day” is Critical distortionand misrepresentation of them. It thus distorted the “Jewishquestion”, too, in such a way that it did not need to investigate politicalemancipation, which is the subject-matter of that question, but couldinstead confine itself to a criticism of the Jewish religion and a descriptionof the Christian-Germanic state.
This method, too, like all AbsoluteCriticism’s originalities, is the repetition of a speculative verbaltrick. Speculative philosophy, namely, Hegel’s philosophy, hadto transpose all questions from the form of common sense to the form ofspeculative reason and convert the real question into a speculative oneto be able to answer it. Having distorted my question on my lips and,like the catechism, put its own question into my mouth, it could, ofcourse, like the catechism, have its ready answer to all my questions.
The Holy FamilyChapter VI
To the material, mass-type Jews is preached theChristian doctrine of freedom of the Spirit, freedom in theory,that spiritualistic freedom which imagines itself to be free evenin chains, and whose soul is satisfied with “the idea” and onlyembarrassed by any mass-type existence.
“The Jews are emancipatedto the extent they have now reached in theory, they are free tothe extent that they wish to be free.” [30]
From this proposition one can immediatelymeasure the Critical gap which separates mass-type, profane communism andsocialism from absolute socialism. The first proposition of profanesocialism rejects emancipation in mere theory as an illusion andfor real freedom it demands besides the idealistic “will” verytangible, very material conditions. How low “the Mass” is incomparison with holy Criticism, the Mass which considers material, practicalUpheavals necessary even to win the time and means required merely to occupyitself with “theory"!
Let us leave purely spiritual socialism aninstant for politics!
Herr Riesser maintains against BrunoBauer that his state (i.e., the Critical state) must exclude “Jews”and “Christians”. Herr Riesser is right. Since Herr Bauer confuses politicalemancipation with human emancipation, since the state can react toantagonistic elements — and Christianity and Judaism are described astreasonable elements in Die Judenfrage — only by forcible exclusion ofthe persons representing them (as the Terror, for instance, wished to do awaywith hoarding by guillotining the hoarders [31]),Herr Bauer must have both Jews and Christians hanged in his “Criticalstate”. Having confused political emancipation with human emancipation, he hadto be consistent and confuse the political means of emancipation with thehuman means. But as soon as Absolute Criticism is told the definitemeaning of its deductions, it gives the answer that Schelling once gaveto all his opponents who substituted real thoughts for his phrases:
“Criticism’sopponents are its opponents because they not only measure it with their dogmaticyardstick but regard Criticism itself as dogmatic; they oppose Criticismbecause it does not recognise their dogmatic distinctions, definitions andevasions.”
It is, of course, to adopt a dogmatic attitudeto Absolute Criticism, as also to Herr Schelling, if one assumes it tohave definite, real meaning, thoughts and views. In order to beaccommodating and to prove to Herr Riesser its humanity, “Criticism”,however, decides to resort to dogmatic distinctions, definitions and especiallyto “evasions”.
Thus we read:
“Had I in that work” (DieJudenfrage) “had the will or the right to go beyond,criticism, I ought’ (!) .’to have spoken” (!) “not of the state,but of ‘society’, which excludes no one but from which only thoseexclude themselves who do not wish to take part in its development.”
Here Absolute Criticism makes a dogmaticdistinction between what it ought to have done, if it had not done thecontrary, and what it actually did. It explains the narrowness of its work DieJudenfrage by the “dogmatic evasions” of having the willand the right which prohibited it from going “beyond criticism”.What? “Criticism” should go beyond “criticism"?This quite mass-type notion occurs to Absolute Criticism because of thedogmatic necessity for, on the one hand, asserting its conception of the Jewishquestion as absolute, as “Criticism”, and on the other hand,admitting the possibility of a more comprehensive conception.
The mystery of its “not having thewill” and “not having the right” will later be revealed as theCritical dogma according to which all apparent limitations of“Criticism” are nothing but necessary adaptations to the powers ofcomprehension of the Mass.
It had not the will! It had notthe right to go beyond its narrow conception of the Jewish question! Butwhat would it have done had it had the will or the right?— It would have given a dogmatic definition. It would have spoken of“society” instead of the “state”, that is to say, it would nothave studied the real relation of Jewry to present-day civil society!It would have given a dogmatic definition of “society” asdistinct from the “state”, in the sense that if the state excludes,on the other hand they exclude themselves from society who do not wish totake part in its development!
Society behaves just as exclusively as thestate, only in a more polite form: it does not throw you out, but it makes it souncomfortable for you that you go out of your own will.
Basically, the state does not behave otherwise,for it does not exclude anybody who complies with all its demands andorders and its development. In its perfection it even closes its eyes anddeclares real contradictions to be non-political contradictionswhich do not disturb it. Besides, Absolute Criticism itself has argued that thestate excludes Jew.. because and in so far as the Jews exclude the state andhence exclude themselves from the state. If this reciprocal relationshiphas a more polite, a more hypocritical, a more insidious form in Critical“society”, this only proves that “Critical” “society”is more hypocritical and less developed.
Let us follow Absolute Criticism deeper in its“dogmatic distinctions” and “definitions”, and, in particular, in its“evasions”.
Herr Riesser, for example, demands of thecritic “that he distinguish what belongs to the domain of law” from“what is beyond its sphere”.
The Critic is indignant at theimpertinence of this juridical demand.
“So far, however,” heretorts, “both feeling and conscience have interfered in law, alwayssupplemented it, and because of its character, based on its dogmatic form”(not, therefore, on its dogmatic essence?), “have always had tosupplement it.”
The Critic forgets only that law,on the other hand, distinguishes itself quite explicitly from “feelingand conscience”, that this distinction is based on the one-sided essence oflaw as well as on its dogmatic form, and is even one of the maindogmas of law; that, finally, the practical implementation of thatdistinction is just as much the peak of the development of law as theseparation of religion from all profane content makes it abstract, absolute religion.The fact that “feeling and conscience” interfere in law is sufficient reasonfor the “Critic” to speak of feeling and conscience when it is a matter of law,and of theological dogmatism when it is a matter of juridicaldogmatism.
The “definitions and distinctions of AbsoluteCriticism” have prepared us sufficiently to hear its latest “discoveries”on “society” and “law”.
“The world form that Criticismis preparing, and the thought of which it is even only justpreparing, is not a merely legal form but” (collect yourself, reader)“a social one, about which at least this much” (thislittle?) “can he said: whoever has not made his contribution to itsdevelopment and does not live with his conscience and feeling in it. cannot feelat home in it or take part in its history.”
The world form that “Criticism” ispreparing is defined as not merely legal, but social. Thisdefinition can be interpreted in two ways. The sentence quoted may be taken as“not legal but social” or as “not merely legal, but alsosocial”. Let us consider its content according to both readings, beginningwith the first. Earlier, Absolute Criticism defined the new “world form”distinct from the “state” as “society”. Now it defines the noun“society” by the adjective “social”. If Herr Hinrichs wasthree times given the word “social” in contrast to his “political”,Herr Riesser is now given social society in contrast to his “legal”society. If the Critical explanations for Herr Hinrichs reducedthemselves to the formula “social” + “social” + “social” = 3a,Absolute Criticism in its second campaign passes from addition to multiplicationand Herr Riesser is referred to society multiplied by itself, society to thesecond power, Social society = a2. In order to complete its deductions onsociety, all that now remains for Absolute Criticism to do is to go On tofractions, to extract the square root of society, and so forth.
If, on the other hand, we take the secondreading: the “not merely legal, but also social” world form,this hybrid world form is nothing but the world form existing today,the world form of present-day society. It is a great, a meritorious Criticalmiracle that “Criticism” in its pre-world thinking is only just preparingthe future existence of the world form which exists today. Buthowever matters stand with “not merely legal but social society”, Criticismcan for the time being say no more about it than “fabula docet”,[thefable teaches] the moral application. Those who do not live inthat society with their feeling and their conscience will “not feel athome” in it. In the end, no one will live in that society except “purefeeling” and “pure conscience”, that is, “the Spirit”, “Criticism”and its supporters. The Mass will be excluded from it in one wayor another so that “mass-type society” will exist outside “socialsociety”.
In a word, this society is nothing but the Criticalheaven from which the real world is excluded as being the un-Criticalhell. In its pure thinking, Absolute Criticism is preparing thistransfigured world form of the contradiction between “Mass”and “Spirit”.
Of the same Critical depth as theseexplanations on “society” are the explanations Herr Riesser is givenon the destiny of nations.
The Jews’ desire for emancipation and thedesire of the Christian states to “classify” the Jews in “their governmentscheme” — as though the Jews had not long ago been classified in theChristian government scheme! — lead Absolute Criticism to prophecies on the decayof nationalities. See by what a complicated detour Absolute Criticismarrives at the present historical movement — namely, by the detour oftheology. The following illuminating oracle shows us what great resultsCriticism achieves in this way:
“The future of allnationalities — is — very — obscure!”
But let the future of nationalities be asobscure as it may be, for Criticism’s sake. The one essential thing is clear:the future is the work of Criticism.
“Destiny,” itexclaims, “may decide as it will: we now know that it is our work.”
As God leaves his creation, man, his ownwill, so Criticism leaves destiny, which is its creation, its ownwill. Criticism, of which destiny is the work, is, like God, almighty.Even the “resistance” which it “finds” outside itself is its ownwork. “Criticism makes its adversaries.” The “mass indignation”against it is therefore “dangerous” only for “the Mass” itself.
But if Criticism, like God, is almighty,it is also, like God, all-wise and is capable of combining itsalmightiness with the freedom, the will and the natural determinationof human individuals.
“It would not be the epoch-makingforce if it did not have the effect of making each one what he willsto be and showing each one irrevocably the standpoint corresponding to hisnature and his will.”
Leibniz could not have given a happierpresentation of the re-established harmony between the almightiness of God andthe p freedom and natural determination of man.
If “Criticism” seems to clash withpsychology by not distinguishing between the will to be somethingand the ability to be something, it must be borne in mind that it hasdecisive grounds to declare this “distinction” “dogmatic”.
Let us steel ourselves for the third campaign!Let us recall once more that “Criticism makes its adversary"! Buthow could it make its adversary, the. “phrase”, if it were nota phrase-monger?
The Holy FamilyChapter VI
“Absolute Criticism” does not stop atproving by its autobiography its own singular almightiness which “properlyspeaking, first creates the old, just as much as the new”. It doesnot stop at writing in person the apology of its past. It now sets thirdpersons, the rest of the secular world, the Absolute “Task”, the “taskwhich is much more important now”, the apologia forBauer’s deeds and “works”.
The Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücherpublished a criticism of Herr Bauer’s Die Judenfrage [K.Marx, On the Jewish Question]. His basic error, the confusion of “political”with “human emancipation”, was revealed. True, the old Jewishquestion was not first brought into its “correct setting”; the“Jewish question” was rather dealt with and solved in the setting whichrecent developments have given to old questions of the day, and as aresult of which the latter have become “questions” of the present instead of“questions” of the past.
Absolute Criticism’s third campaign,it seems, is intended to reply to the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher.First of all, Absolute Criticism admits:
“In Die Judenfrage thesame ‘oversight’ was made — that of identifying the humanwith the political essence.”
Criticism remarks:
“it would be too late to reproachcriticism for the stand which it still maintained partially two yearsago.” “The question is rather to explain why criticism ...even had to engage in politics.”
“Two years ago?” We mustreckon according to the absolute chronology, from the birth of theCritical Redeemer of the world, Bauer’s Literatur-Zeitung! The Criticalworld redeemer was born anno 1843. In the same year the second, enlargededition of Die Judenfrage was published. The “Critical” treatment ofthe ,Jewish question” in Einundzwanzig Bogen aus der Schweiz appearedlater in the same year, 1843 old style.[37]After the end of the Deutsche Jahrbücher and the RheinischeZeitung, in the same momentous year 1843 old style, or anno 1 of theCritical era, appeared Herr Bauer’s fantastic-political work Staat,Religion und Parthei, which exactly repeated his old errors on the “politicalessence”. The apologist is forced to falsify chronology.
The “explanation” why Herr Bauer “evenhad to” engage in politics is a matter of general interest only undercertain conditions. If the infallibility, purity and absoluteness of CriticalCriticism are assumed as basic dogma, then, of course, the factscontradicting that dogma turn into riddles which are just as difficult, profoundand mysterious as the apparently ungodly deeds of God are for theologians.
If, on the other hand, “the Critic”is considered as a finite individual, if he is not separated from the limitationsof his time, one does not have to answer the question why he hadto develop even within the world, because the question itself doesnot exist.
If, however, Absolute Criticism insists on itsdemand, one can offer to provide a little scholastic treatise dealing with thefollowing “questions of the times":
“Why had the Virgin Mary’s conception bythe Holy Ghost to be proved by no other than Herr Bruno Bauer?” “Why hadHerr Bauer to prove that the angel that appeared to Abraham was a realemanation of God, an emanation which, nevertheless, lacked the consistencynecessary to digest food?” “Why had Herr Bauer to provide anapologia for the Prussian royal house and to raise the Prussian state to therank of absolute state?” “Why had Herr Bauer, in his Kritik derSynoptiker, to substitute ‘infinite self-consciousness’ forman?” “Why had Herr Bauer in his Das entdeckte Christenthum to repeatthe Christian theory of creation in a Hegelian form?” “Why hadHerr Bauer to demand of himself and others an ‘explanation’ of themiracle that he was bound to be mistaken?”
While waiting for proofs of these necessities,which are just as “Critical” as they are “Absolute”, let us listen oncemore to “Criticism’s” apologetic evasions.
“The Jewish question ... had... first to he brought into its correct setting, as a religiousand theological and as a political question.” “As to thetreatment and solution of both these questions, Criticism is neitherreligious nor political.”
The point is that the Deutsch-Französische-Jahrbücherdeclares Bauer’s treatment of the “Jewish question” to be reallytheological and fantastic-political.
First, “Criticism” replies to the“reproach” of theological limitation.
“The Jewish question is a religiousquestion. The Enlightenment claimed to solve it by describing the religiouscontradiction as insignificant or even by denying it. Criticism,on the contrary, had to present it in its purity.”
When we come to the political part ofthe Jewish question we shall see that in politics, too, Herr Bauer thetheologian is not concerned with politics but with theology.
But when the Deutsch-Französische-Jahrbücherattacked his treatment of the Jewish question as “purely religious”,it was concerned especially with his article in Einundzwanzig Bogen, thetitle of which was:
“Die Fähigkeit der hewigenJuden und Christen, frei zu werden”.
"The Ability of Present-Day Jews and Christians toobtain Freedom.”
This article has nothing to do with the old“Enlightenment” . It contains Herr Bauer’s positive view on theability of the present-day Jews to be emancipated, that is, on the possibilityof their emancipation.
“Criticism” says:
“The Jewish question is a religiousquestion.”
The question is: What is a religiousquestion? and, in particular, what is a religious question today?
The theologian will judge by appearancesand see a religious question in a religious question. But “Criticism”must remember the explanation it gave Professor Hinrichs that the politicalinterests of the present time have social significance, that it is “nolonger a question” of political interests.
The Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücherwith equal right said to Criticism: Religious questions of the day haveat the present time a social significance. It is no longer a question of religiousinterests as such. Only the theologian can believe it is aquestion of religion as religion. Granted, the Jahrbücher committed the errorof not stopping at the word “social”. It characterised thereal position of the Jews in civil society today. Once Jewry was stripped bareof the religious shell and its empirical, worldly, practical kernel wasrevealed, the practical, really social way in which this kernel is to beabolished could be indicated. Herr Bauer was content with a “religiousquestion” being a “religious question”.
It was by no means denied, as Herr Bauer makesout, that the Jewish question is also a religious question. On thecontrary, it was shown that Herr Bauer grasps only the religious essenceof Jewry, but not the secular, real basis of that religiousessence. He combats religious consciousness as if it were somethingindependent. Herr Bauer therefore explains the real Jews by the Jewishreligion, instead of explaining the mystery of the Jewish religion by the realJews. Herr Bauer therefore understands the Jew only insofar as he is animmediate object of theology or a theologian.
Consequently Herr Bauer has no inkling thatreal secular Jewry, and hence religious Jewry too, is beingcontinually produced by the present-day civil life and finds its finaldevelopment in the money system. He could not have any inkling of thisbecause he did not know Jewry as a part of the real world but only as a part ofhis world, theology; because he, a pious, godly man, considers not theactive everyday Jew but the hypocritical Jew of the Sabbath tobe the real Jew. For Herr Bauer, as a theologian of the Christianfaith, the world-historic significance of Jewry had to cease the momentChristianity was born. Hence he had to repeat the old orthodox view thatit has maintained itself in spite of history; and the old theologicalsuperstition that Jewry exists only as a confirmation of the divinecurse, as a tangible proof of the Christian revelation had to recur withhim in the Critical-theological form that it exists and has existed onlyas crude religious doubt about the supernatural origin of Christianity,i.e., as a tangible proof against Christian revelation.
On the other hand, it was proved that Jewry hasmaintained. itself and developed through history, in and withhistory, and that this development is to be perceived not by the eye of thetheologian, but only by the eye of the man of the world, because it is to befound, not in religious theory, but only in commercial and industrialpractice. It was explained why practical Jewry attains its full developmentonly in the fully developed Christian world, why indeed it is the fullydeveloped practice of the Christian world itself. The existence ofthe present-day Jew was not explained by his religion — as though thisreligion were something apart, independently existing — but the tenacioussurvival of the Jewish religion was explained by practical features of civilsociety which are fantastically reflected in that religion. Theemancipation of the Jews into human beings, or the human emancipation of Jewry,was therefore not conceived, as by Herr Bauer, as the special task of the Jews,but as a general practical task of the present-day world, which is Jewish tothe core. It was proved that the task of abolishing the essence of Jewry isactually the task of abolishing the Jewish character of civil society, abolishingthe inhumanity of the present-day practice of life, the most extreme expressionof which is the money system.
Herr Bauer, as a genuine, although Critical,theologian or theological Critic, could not get beyond the religiouscontradiction. In the attitude of the Jews to the Christian world he couldsee only the attitude of the Jewish religion to the Christian religion.He even had to restore the religious contradiction in a Critical way —in the antithesis between the attitudes of the Jew and the Christian to Criticalreligion — atheism, the last stage of theism, the negativerecognition of God. Finally, in his theological fanaticism he had to restrictthe ability of the “present-day Jews and Christians”, i.e., of thepresent-day world, “to obtain freedom” to their ability to grasp “theCriticism” of theology and apply it themselves. For the orthodox theologianthe whole world is dissolved in “religion and theology”. (He could just aswell dissolve it in politics, political economy, etc., and call theologyheavenly political economy, for example, since it is the theory of theproduction, distribution, exchange and consumption of “spiritual wealth”and of the treasures of heaven!) Similarly, for the radical, Criticaltheologian, the ability of the world to achieve freedom, is dissolved inthe single abstract ability to criticise “religion and theology” as“religion and theology”. The only struggle he knows is the struggle againstthe religious limitations of self-consciousness, whose Critical “purity”and “infinity” is just as much a theological limitation.
Herr Bauer, therefore, dealt with the religiousand theological question in the religious and theologicalway, if only because he saw in the “religious” question of the time a “purelyreligious” question. His “correct setting of the question” setthe question “correctly” only in respect of his “own ability” —to answer!
Let us now go on to the political part of the Jewishquestion.
The Jews (like the Christians) arefully politically emancipated in various states. Both Jews and Christiansare far from being humanly emancipated. Hence there must be a differencebetween political and human emancipation. The essence of politicalemancipation, i.e., of the developed, modern state, must therefore be studied.On the other hand, states which cannot yet politically emancipate theJews must be rated by comparison with the perfected political state and shown tobe under-developed states.
That is the point of view from which the “politicalemancipation” of the Jews should have been dealt with and is dealt with in theDeutsch-Französische Jahrbücher.
Herr Bauer offers the following defence of“Criticism’s” Die Judenfrage.
“The Jews were shown that theylaboured under an illusion about the system from which they demandedfreedom.”
Herr Bauer did show that the illusion of theGerman Jews was to demand the right to partake in the political communitylife in a land where there was no political community and to demand politicalrights where only political privileges existed. On the other hand, HerrBauer was shown that he himself, no less than the Jews, laboured under“illusions” about the “German political system”. For he explained theposition of the Jews in the German states as being due to the inability of “theChristian state” to emancipate the Jews politically. Flying in the face ofthe facts, he depicted the state of privilege, the Christian-Germanic state,as the Absolute Christian state. It was proved to him, on the contrary, that thepolitically perfected, modern state that knows no religious privileges is alsothe fully developed Christian state, and that therefore the fullydeveloped Christian state, not only can emancipate the Jews but has emancipatedthem and by its very nature must emancipate them.
.’the Jews are shown ... thatthey are under the greatest illusion about themselves when they think they aredemanding freedom and the recognition of free humanity, whereasfor them it is, and can be, only a question of a special privilege.”
Freedom! Recognition of free humanity!Special privilege! Edifying words by which to by-pass certain questionsapologetically!
Freedom? it was a question of politicalfreedom. Herr Bauer was shown that when the Jew demands freedom and neverthelessrefuses to renounce his religion, he “is engaging in politics” andsets no condition that is contrary to political freedom. Herr Bauer wasshown that it is by no means contrary to political emancipation to divideman into the non-religious citizen and the religious private individual.He was shown that just as the state emancipates itself from religion byemancipating itself from state religion and leaving religion to itselfwithin civil society, so the individual emancipates himself politicallyfrom religion by regarding it no longer as a public matter but as a privatematter. Finally, it was shown that the terroristic attitude of theFrench Revolution to religion, far from refuting this conception, bearsit out.
Instead of studying the real attitude of the modernstate to religion, Herr Bauer thought it necessary to imagine a Criticalstate, a state which is nothing but the Critic of theology inflated into astate in Herr Bauer’s imagination. If Herr Bauer is caught up in politicshe continually makes politics a prisoner of his faith, Criticalfaith. Insofar as he deals with the state he always makes out of it an argumentagainst “the adversary”, un-Critical religion and theology.The state acts as executor of Critical-theological cherished desires.
When Herr Bauer had first freed himself from orthodox,un-Critical theology, political authority took for him the place of religiousauthority. His faith in Jehovah changed into faith in the Prussian state. InBruno Bauer’s work Die evangelische Landeskirche [B.Bauer, Die evangelische Landeskirche Preussens und die Wissenschaft], notonly the Prussian state, but, quite consistently, the Prussian royal house too,was made into an absolute. In reality Herr Bauer had no politicalinterest in that state; its merit, in the eyes of “Criticism”, was ratherthat it abolished dogmas by means of the Unified Church[38]and suppressed the dissenting sects with the help of the police.
The political movement that began in the year1840 redeemed Herr Bauer from his conservative politics and raised himfor a moment to liberal politics. But here again politics was in realityonly a pretext for theology. In his work Die gute Sache der Freiheitund meine eigene Angelegenheit, the free state is the Critic of thetheological faculty in Bonn and an argument against religion. In DieJudenfrage the contradiction between state and religion is the maininterest, so that the criticism of political emancipation changes into acriticism of the Jewish religion. In his latest political work, Staat,Religion und Parthei, the most secret cherished desire of the Criticinflated into a state is at last expressed. Religion is sacrificedto the state or rather the state is only the means by which theopponent of “Criticism”, un-Critical religion and theology, is doneto death. Finally, after Criticism has been redeemed, if only apparently,from all politics by the socialist ideas, which have been spreading in Germanyfrom 1843 onwards, in the same way as it was redeemed from its conservativepolitics by the political movement after 1840, it is finally able to proclaimits writings against un-Critical theology to be social and to indulgeunhindered in its own Critical theology, the contrasting of Spirit andMass, as the annunciation of the Critical Saviour and Redeemer of the world.
Let us return to our subject!
Recognition of free humanity? “Freehumanity”, recognition of which the Jews did not merely think they wanted, butreally did want, is. the same “free humanity” which found classicrecognition in the so-called universal rights of man. Herr Bauer himselfexplicitly treated the Jews’ efforts for recognition of their free humanity astheir efforts to obtain the universal rights of man.
In the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücherit was demonstrated to Herr Bauer that this “free humanity” and the“recognition” of it are nothing but the recognition of the egoistic civilindividual and of the unrestrained movement of the spiritual andmaterial elements which are the content of his life situation, the content of present-daycivil life; that the rights of man do not, therefore, free man fromreligion, but give him freedom of religion; that they do not free him fromproperty, but procure for him freedom of property; that they do not freehim from the filth of gain, but rather give him freedom of gainful occupation.
It was shown that the recognition of therights of man by the modern state has no other meaning than the recognitionof slavery by the state of antiquity had. In other words, just as theancient state had slavery as its natural basis, the modern statehas as its natural basis civil society and the man of civilsociety, i.e., the independent man linked with other men ‘ only by the ties ofprivate interest and unconscious natural necessity, the slave oflabour for gain and of his own as well as other men’s selfish need. Themodern state has recognised this its natural basis as such in the universalrights of man. It did not create it. As it was the product of civil societydriven beyond the old political bonds by its own development, the modern state,for its part, now recognised the womb from which it sprang and its basis by the declarationof the rights of man. Hence, the political emancipation of the Jews andthe granting to them of the “rights of man” is an act the two sidesof which are mutually dependent. Herr Riesser correctly expresses themeaning of the Jews’ desire for recognition of their free humanity when hedemands, among other things, the freedom of movement. sojourn, travel, earningone’s living, etc. These manifestations of “free humanity” areexplicitly recognised as such in the French Declaration of the Rights of Man.The Jew has all the more right to the recognition of his “free humanity” as“free civil society” is of a thoroughly commercial and Jewish nature, andthe Jew is a necessary member of it. The Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücherfurther demonstrated why the member of civil society is called, parexcellence, “Man” and why the rights of man are called “inbornrights”.
The only Critical thing Criticism could sayabout the rights of man was that they are not inborn but arose in the course ofhistory. That much Hegel had already told us. Finally, to its assertionthat both Jews and Christians, in order to grant or receive the universal rightsof man, must sacrifice the privilege of faith — the Criticaltheologian supposes his one fixed idea at the basis of all things —there was specially counterposed the fact contained in all un-Criticaldeclarations of the rights of man that the right to believe what onewishes, the right to practise any religion, is explicitly recognised as a universalright of man. Besides, “Criticism” should have known that Hébert’sparty in particular was defeated on the pretext that it attacked the rights ofman by attacking freedom of religion [39],and that similarly the rights of man were invoked later when freedom of worshipwas restored.[40]
“As far as politicalessence is concerned, Criticism followed its contradictions to the pointwhere the contradiction between theory and practice had been mostthoroughly elaborated during the past fifty years — to the Frenchrepresentative system, in which the freedom of theory is disavowed bypractice and the freedom of practical life seeks in vain its expression intheory.
“Now that the basic illusionhas been done away with, the contradiction proved in the debates inthe French Chamber, the contradiction between free theory and the practicalvalidity of privileges, between the legal validity of privileges and a publicsystem in which the egoism of the pure individual tries to dominatethe exclusivity of the privileged, should be conceived as a generalcontradiction in this sphere.”
The contradiction that Criticism proved in thedebates in the French Chamber was nothing but a contradiction of constitutionalism.Had Criticism grasped it as a general contradiction it would have graspedthe general contradiction of constitutionalism. Had it gone still further thanin its opinion it “should have” gone, had it, to be precise, gone as far asthe abolition of this general contradiction, it would have proceededcorrectly from constitutional monarchy to arrive at the democraticrepresentative state, the perfected modern state. Far from having criticisedthe essence of political emancipation and proved its definite relation to theessence of man, it would have arrived only at the fact of politicalemancipation, at the fully developed modern state, that is to say, only at thepoint where the existence of the modern state conforms to its essence and where,therefore, not only the relative, but the absolute imperfections, thosewhich constitute its very essence, can be observed and described.
The above-quoted “Critical” passage is allthe more valuable as it proves beyond any doubt that at the very moment when Criticismsees the “political essence” far below itself, it is, on thecontrary, far below the political essence; it still needs to find in the latterthe solution of its own contradictions and it still persists in not giving athought to the modern principle of the state.
To “free theory” Criticism contraststhe “practical validity of privileges”; to the “legalvalidity of privileges” it contrasts the “public system”.
In order not to misinterpret the opinion of Criticism,let us recall the contradiction it proved in the debates in the French Chamber,the very contradiction which “should have been conceived” as a generalone. One of the questions dealt with was the fixing of a day in the week onwhich children would be freed from work. Sunday was suggested. One deputymoved to leave out mention of Sunday in the law as being unconstitutional. TheMinister Martin (du Nord) saw in this motion an attempt to proclaim thatChristianity had ceased to exist. Monsieur Crémieux declared on behalf of theFrench Jews that the Jews, out of respect for the religion of the great majorityof Frenchmen, did not object to Sunday being mentioned. Now, according to freetheory, Jews and Christians are equal, but according to this practice Christianshave a privilege over Jews; for otherwise how could the Sunday of the Christianshave a place in a law made for all Frenchmen? Should not the Jewish Sabbath havethe same right, etc.? Or in the practical life of the French too, the Jew is notreally oppressed by Christian privileges; but the law does not dare to expressthis practical equality. All the contradictions in the political essenceexpounded by Herr Bauer in Die Judenfrage are of this kind —contradictions of constitutionalism, which is, in general, thecontradiction between the modern representative state and the old state ofprivileges.
Herr Bauer is committing a very seriousoversight when he thinks he is rising from the political to the humanessence by conceiving and criticising this contradiction as a “general” one.He would thus only rise from partial political emancipation to full Politicalemancipation, from the constitutional state to the democratic representativestate.
Herr Bauer thinks that by the abolition of privilegethe object of privilege is also abolished. Concerning the statement ofMonsieur Martin (du Nord), he says:
“There is no longer anyreligion when there is no longer any privileged religion. Take fromreligion its exclusive power and it will no longer exist.”
Just as industrial activityis not abolished when the privileges of the trades, guilds andcorporations are abolished, but, on the contrary, real industry beginsonly after the abolition of these privileges; just as ownership of the landis not abolished when privileged land-ownership is abolished, but, on thecontrary, begins its universal movement only with the abolition of privilegesand with the free division and free sale of land; just as trade is notabolished by the abolition of trade privileges, but finds its truerealisation in free trade; so religion develops in its practicaluniversality only where there is no privileged religion (cf. the NorthAmerican States).
The modern “public system”, thedeveloped modern state, is not based, as Criticism thinks, on a societyof privileges, but on a society in which privileges have been abolished anddissolved, on developed civil society in which the vital elementswhich were still politically bound under the privilege system have been setfree. Here no “privileged exclusivity,” stands opposed either to anyother exclusivity or to the public system. Free industry and free trade abolishprivileged exclusivity and thereby the struggle between the privilegedexclusivities. They replace exclusivity with man freed from privilege — whichisolates from the general totality but at the same time unites in a smallerexclusive totality — man no longer bound to other men even by the semblanceof a common bond. Thus they produce the universal struggle of man against man,individual against individual. In the same way civil society as awhole is this war against one another of all individuals, who are no longerisolated from one another by anything but their individuality, and theuniversal unrestrained movement of the elementary forces of life freed from thefetters of privilege. ‘the contradiction between the democraticrepresentative state and civil society is the completion of the classiccontradiction between public commonweal and slavery. In the modernworld each person is at the same time a member of slave society and ofthe public commonweal. Precisely the slavery of civil society is inappearance the greatest freedom because it is in appearance the fullydeveloped independence of the individual, who considers as his ownfreedom the uncurbed movement, no longer bound by a common bond or by man, ofthe estranged elements of his life, such as property, industry, religion, etc.,whereas actually this is his fully developed slavery and inhumanity. Lawhas here taken the place of privilege.
It is therefore only here, where we find nocontradiction between free theory and the practical validity of privilege, but,on the contrary, the practical abolition of privilege, free industry, freetrade, etc., conform to “free theory”, where the public system is notopposed by any privileged exclusivity, where the contradiction expounded byCriticism is abolished — only here is the fully developed modernstate to be found.
Here also reigns the reverse of the lawwhich Herr Bauer, on the occasion of the debates in the French Chamber,formulated in perfect agreement with Monsieur Martin (du Nord):
“Just as M. Martin (du Nord)saw the proposal to omit mention of Sunday in the law as a motionto declare that Christianity has ceased to exist, with equal reason (and thisreason is very well founded) — the declaration that the law of theSabbath is no longer binding on the Jews would he a proclamationabolishing Judaism.”
It is just the opposite in the developedmodern state. The state declares that religion, like the other elements of civillife, only begins to exist in its full scope when the state declares itto be non-political and therefore leaves it to itself. To the dissolutionof the political existence of these elements, as for example, the:dissolution of property by the abolition of the property qualificationfor electors, the dissolution of religion by the abolition of the statechurch, to this proclamation of their civil death corresponds their mostvigorous life, which henceforth obeys its own laws undisturbed and develops toits full scope.
Anarchy is the law of civil societyemancipated from divisive privileges, and the anarchy of. civil society isthe basis of the modern public system, just as the public system in itsturn is the guarantee of that anarchy. To the same great extent that the two areopposed to each other they also determine each other.
h is clear how capable Criticism is ofassimilating the “new”. But if we remain within the bounds of “pureCriticism”, the question arises: Why did Criticism not conceive as a universalcontradiction the contradiction which it disclosed in connection with thedebates in the French Chamber, although in its own opinion that is what it “shouldhave” been done?
“That step was,however, then impossible — not only because ... not only because ... butalso because without that last remnant of inner involvement with itsopposite Criticism was impossible and could not have come to the pointfrom which only one step remained to be taken.” [Hereand below quotations are taken from the article “Was ist jetzt der Gegenstandder Kritik?”, Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung, Heft VIII.]
It was impossible ... because ... it wasimpossible! Criticism assures us, moreover, that the fateful “onestep” necessary .,to come to the point from which only one step remainedto be taken” was impossible. Who will dispute that? In order to be able tocome to a point from which only “one step” remains to be taken, it isabsolutely impossible to take that “one step” more which leads overthe point beyond which still “one step” remains to be taken.
All’s well that ends well! At the end of theencounter with the Mass, which is hostile to Criticism’s DieJudenfrage, “Criticism” admits that its conception of the “rightsof man”, its
“appraisal of religion in theFrench Revolution”, the “free political essence it pointed to occasionally atthe conclusion of its considerations”, in short, the whole ‘.period ofthe French Revolution, was for Criticism neither more nor less than asymbol — that is to say, not the period of the revolutionary efforts of theFrench in the exact and prosaic sense — a symbol and therefore only afantastic expression of the shapes which it saw at the end”.
We shall not deprive Criticism of theconsolation that when it sinned politically it did so only at the“conclusion” and at the “end” of its works. A notorious drunkard used toconsole himself with the thought that he was never drunk before midnight.
In the sphere of the “Jewish question”, Criticismhas indisputably been winning more and more ground from the Enemy. In No.1 of the “Jewish question”, the treatise of “Criticism” defendedby Herr Bauer was still absolute and revealed the “true” and “general”significance of the “Jewish question”. In No. 2 Criticism had neitherthe “will” nor the “right” to go beyond Criticism.In No. 3 it had still to take “one step”, but that step was“impossible” — because it was — “impossible”. It was not its “willor right” but its involvement in its “opposite” that prevented it fromtaking that one step”. It would very much have liked to clearthe last obstacle, but unfortunately a last remnant of Mass stuck to itsCritical seven-league boots.
The Holy Family Chapter VI 3)
“Absolute Criticism” does not stop atproving by its autobiography its own singular almightiness which “properlyspeaking, first creates the old, just as much as the new”. It doesnot stop at writing in person the apology of its past. It now sets thirdpersons, the rest of the secular world, the Absolute “Task”, the “taskwhich is much more important now”, the apologia forBauer’s deeds and “works”.
The Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücherpublished a criticism of Herr Bauer’s Die Judenfrage [K.Marx, On the Jewish Question]. His basic error, the confusion of “political”with “human emancipation”, was revealed. True, the old Jewishquestion was not first brought into its “correct setting”; the“Jewish question” was rather dealt with and solved in the setting whichrecent developments have given to old questions of the day, and as aresult of which the latter have become “questions” of the present instead of“questions” of the past.
Absolute Criticism’s third campaign,it seems, is intended to reply to the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher.First of all, Absolute Criticism admits:
“In Die Judenfrage thesame ‘oversight’ was made — that of identifying the humanwith the political essence.”
Criticism remarks:
“it would be too late to reproachcriticism for the stand which it still maintained partially two yearsago.” “The question is rather to explain why criticism ...even had to engage in politics.”
“Two years ago?” We mustreckon according to the absolute chronology, from the birth of theCritical Redeemer of the world, Bauer’s Literatur-Zeitung! The Criticalworld redeemer was born anno 1843. In the same year the second, enlargededition of Die Judenfrage was published. The “Critical” treatment ofthe ,Jewish question” in Einundzwanzig Bogen aus der Schweiz appearedlater in the same year, 1843 old style.[37]After the end of the Deutsche Jahrbücher and the RheinischeZeitung, in the same momentous year 1843 old style, or anno 1 of theCritical era, appeared Herr Bauer’s fantastic-political work Staat,Religion und Parthei, which exactly repeated his old errors on the “politicalessence”. The apologist is forced to falsify chronology.
The “explanation” why Herr Bauer “evenhad to” engage in politics is a matter of general interest only undercertain conditions. If the infallibility, purity and absoluteness of CriticalCriticism are assumed as basic dogma, then, of course, the factscontradicting that dogma turn into riddles which are just as difficult, profoundand mysterious as the apparently ungodly deeds of God are for theologians.
If, on the other hand, “the Critic”is considered as a finite individual, if he is not separated from the limitationsof his time, one does not have to answer the question why he hadto develop even within the world, because the question itself doesnot exist.
If, however, Absolute Criticism insists on itsdemand, one can offer to provide a little scholastic treatise dealing with thefollowing “questions of the times":
“Why had the Virgin Mary’s conception bythe Holy Ghost to be proved by no other than Herr Bruno Bauer?” “Why hadHerr Bauer to prove that the angel that appeared to Abraham was a realemanation of God, an emanation which, nevertheless, lacked the consistencynecessary to digest food?” “Why had Herr Bauer to provide anapologia for the Prussian royal house and to raise the Prussian state to therank of absolute state?” “Why had Herr Bauer, in his Kritik derSynoptiker, to substitute ‘infinite self-consciousness’ forman?” “Why had Herr Bauer in his Das entdeckte Christenthum to repeatthe Christian theory of creation in a Hegelian form?” “Why hadHerr Bauer to demand of himself and others an ‘explanation’ of themiracle that he was bound to be mistaken?”
While waiting for proofs of these necessities,which are just as “Critical” as they are “Absolute”, let us listen oncemore to “Criticism’s” apologetic evasions.
“The Jewish question ... had... first to he brought into its correct setting, as a religiousand theological and as a political question.” “As to thetreatment and solution of both these questions, Criticism is neitherreligious nor political.”
The point is that the Deutsch-Französische-Jahrbücherdeclares Bauer’s treatment of the “Jewish question” to be reallytheological and fantastic-political.
First, “Criticism” replies to the“reproach” of theological limitation.
“The Jewish question is a religiousquestion. The Enlightenment claimed to solve it by describing the religiouscontradiction as insignificant or even by denying it. Criticism,on the contrary, had to present it in its purity.”
When we come to the political part ofthe Jewish question we shall see that in politics, too, Herr Bauer thetheologian is not concerned with politics but with theology.
But when the Deutsch-Französische-Jahrbücherattacked his treatment of the Jewish question as “purely religious”,it was concerned especially with his article in Einundzwanzig Bogen, thetitle of which was:
“Die Fähigkeit der hewigenJuden und Christen, frei zu werden”.
"The Ability of Present-Day Jews and Christians toobtain Freedom.”
This article has nothing to do with the old“Enlightenment” . It contains Herr Bauer’s positive view on theability of the present-day Jews to be emancipated, that is, on the possibilityof their emancipation.
“Criticism” says:
“The Jewish question is a religiousquestion.”
The question is: What is a religiousquestion? and, in particular, what is a religious question today?
The theologian will judge by appearancesand see a religious question in a religious question. But “Criticism”must remember the explanation it gave Professor Hinrichs that the politicalinterests of the present time have social significance, that it is “nolonger a question” of political interests.
The Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücherwith equal right said to Criticism: Religious questions of the day haveat the present time a social significance. It is no longer a question of religiousinterests as such. Only the theologian can believe it is aquestion of religion as religion. Granted, the Jahrbücher committed the errorof not stopping at the word “social”. It characterised thereal position of the Jews in civil society today. Once Jewry was stripped bareof the religious shell and its empirical, worldly, practical kernel wasrevealed, the practical, really social way in which this kernel is to beabolished could be indicated. Herr Bauer was content with a “religiousquestion” being a “religious question”.
It was by no means denied, as Herr Bauer makesout, that the Jewish question is also a religious question. On thecontrary, it was shown that Herr Bauer grasps only the religious essenceof Jewry, but not the secular, real basis of that religiousessence. He combats religious consciousness as if it were somethingindependent. Herr Bauer therefore explains the real Jews by the Jewishreligion, instead of explaining the mystery of the Jewish religion by the realJews. Herr Bauer therefore understands the Jew only insofar as he is animmediate object of theology or a theologian.
Consequently Herr Bauer has no inkling thatreal secular Jewry, and hence religious Jewry too, is beingcontinually produced by the present-day civil life and finds its finaldevelopment in the money system. He could not have any inkling of thisbecause he did not know Jewry as a part of the real world but only as a part ofhis world, theology; because he, a pious, godly man, considers not theactive everyday Jew but the hypocritical Jew of the Sabbath tobe the real Jew. For Herr Bauer, as a theologian of the Christianfaith, the world-historic significance of Jewry had to cease the momentChristianity was born. Hence he had to repeat the old orthodox view thatit has maintained itself in spite of history; and the old theologicalsuperstition that Jewry exists only as a confirmation of the divinecurse, as a tangible proof of the Christian revelation had to recur withhim in the Critical-theological form that it exists and has existed onlyas crude religious doubt about the supernatural origin of Christianity,i.e., as a tangible proof against Christian revelation.
On the other hand, it was proved that Jewry hasmaintained. itself and developed through history, in and withhistory, and that this development is to be perceived not by the eye of thetheologian, but only by the eye of the man of the world, because it is to befound, not in religious theory, but only in commercial and industrialpractice. It was explained why practical Jewry attains its full developmentonly in the fully developed Christian world, why indeed it is the fullydeveloped practice of the Christian world itself. The existence ofthe present-day Jew was not explained by his religion — as though thisreligion were something apart, independently existing — but the tenacioussurvival of the Jewish religion was explained by practical features of civilsociety which are fantastically reflected in that religion. Theemancipation of the Jews into human beings, or the human emancipation of Jewry,was therefore not conceived, as by Herr Bauer, as the special task of the Jews,but as a general practical task of the present-day world, which is Jewish tothe core. It was proved that the task of abolishing the essence of Jewry isactually the task of abolishing the Jewish character of civil society, abolishingthe inhumanity of the present-day practice of life, the most extreme expressionof which is the money system.
Herr Bauer, as a genuine, although Critical,theologian or theological Critic, could not get beyond the religiouscontradiction. In the attitude of the Jews to the Christian world he couldsee only the attitude of the Jewish religion to the Christian religion.He even had to restore the religious contradiction in a Critical way —in the antithesis between the attitudes of the Jew and the Christian to Criticalreligion — atheism, the last stage of theism, the negativerecognition of God. Finally, in his theological fanaticism he had to restrictthe ability of the “present-day Jews and Christians”, i.e., of thepresent-day world, “to obtain freedom” to their ability to grasp “theCriticism” of theology and apply it themselves. For the orthodox theologianthe whole world is dissolved in “religion and theology”. (He could just aswell dissolve it in politics, political economy, etc., and call theologyheavenly political economy, for example, since it is the theory of theproduction, distribution, exchange and consumption of “spiritual wealth”and of the treasures of heaven!) Similarly, for the radical, Criticaltheologian, the ability of the world to achieve freedom, is dissolved inthe single abstract ability to criticise “religion and theology” as“religion and theology”. The only struggle he knows is the struggle againstthe religious limitations of self-consciousness, whose Critical “purity”and “infinity” is just as much a theological limitation.
Herr Bauer, therefore, dealt with the religiousand theological question in the religious and theologicalway, if only because he saw in the “religious” question of the time a “purelyreligious” question. His “correct setting of the question” setthe question “correctly” only in respect of his “own ability” —to answer!
Let us now go on to the political part of the Jewishquestion.
The Jews (like the Christians) arefully politically emancipated in various states. Both Jews and Christiansare far from being humanly emancipated. Hence there must be a differencebetween political and human emancipation. The essence of politicalemancipation, i.e., of the developed, modern state, must therefore be studied.On the other hand, states which cannot yet politically emancipate theJews must be rated by comparison with the perfected political state and shown tobe under-developed states.
That is the point of view from which the “politicalemancipation” of the Jews should have been dealt with and is dealt with in theDeutsch-Französische Jahrbücher.
Herr Bauer offers the following defence of“Criticism’s” Die Judenfrage.
“The Jews were shown that theylaboured under an illusion about the system from which they demandedfreedom.”
Herr Bauer did show that the illusion of theGerman Jews was to demand the right to partake in the political communitylife in a land where there was no political community and to demand politicalrights where only political privileges existed. On the other hand, HerrBauer was shown that he himself, no less than the Jews, laboured under“illusions” about the “German political system”. For he explained theposition of the Jews in the German states as being due to the inability of “theChristian state” to emancipate the Jews politically. Flying in the face ofthe facts, he depicted the state of privilege, the Christian-Germanic state,as the Absolute Christian state. It was proved to him, on the contrary, that thepolitically perfected, modern state that knows no religious privileges is alsothe fully developed Christian state, and that therefore the fullydeveloped Christian state, not only can emancipate the Jews but has emancipatedthem and by its very nature must emancipate them.
.’the Jews are shown ... thatthey are under the greatest illusion about themselves when they think they aredemanding freedom and the recognition of free humanity, whereasfor them it is, and can be, only a question of a special privilege.”
Freedom! Recognition of free humanity!Special privilege! Edifying words by which to by-pass certain questionsapologetically!
Freedom? it was a question of politicalfreedom. Herr Bauer was shown that when the Jew demands freedom and neverthelessrefuses to renounce his religion, he “is engaging in politics” andsets no condition that is contrary to political freedom. Herr Bauer wasshown that it is by no means contrary to political emancipation to divideman into the non-religious citizen and the religious private individual.He was shown that just as the state emancipates itself from religion byemancipating itself from state religion and leaving religion to itselfwithin civil society, so the individual emancipates himself politicallyfrom religion by regarding it no longer as a public matter but as a privatematter. Finally, it was shown that the terroristic attitude of theFrench Revolution to religion, far from refuting this conception, bearsit out.
Instead of studying the real attitude of the modernstate to religion, Herr Bauer thought it necessary to imagine a Criticalstate, a state which is nothing but the Critic of theology inflated into astate in Herr Bauer’s imagination. If Herr Bauer is caught up in politicshe continually makes politics a prisoner of his faith, Criticalfaith. Insofar as he deals with the state he always makes out of it an argumentagainst “the adversary”, un-Critical religion and theology.The state acts as executor of Critical-theological cherished desires.
When Herr Bauer had first freed himself from orthodox,un-Critical theology, political authority took for him the place of religiousauthority. His faith in Jehovah changed into faith in the Prussian state. InBruno Bauer’s work Die evangelische Landeskirche [B.Bauer, Die evangelische Landeskirche Preussens und die Wissenschaft], notonly the Prussian state, but, quite consistently, the Prussian royal house too,was made into an absolute. In reality Herr Bauer had no politicalinterest in that state; its merit, in the eyes of “Criticism”, was ratherthat it abolished dogmas by means of the Unified Church[38]and suppressed the dissenting sects with the help of the police.
The political movement that began in the year1840 redeemed Herr Bauer from his conservative politics and raised himfor a moment to liberal politics. But here again politics was in realityonly a pretext for theology. In his work Die gute Sache der Freiheitund meine eigene Angelegenheit, the free state is the Critic of thetheological faculty in Bonn and an argument against religion. In DieJudenfrage the contradiction between state and religion is the maininterest, so that the criticism of political emancipation changes into acriticism of the Jewish religion. In his latest political work, Staat,Religion und Parthei, the most secret cherished desire of the Criticinflated into a state is at last expressed. Religion is sacrificedto the state or rather the state is only the means by which theopponent of “Criticism”, un-Critical religion and theology, is doneto death. Finally, after Criticism has been redeemed, if only apparently,from all politics by the socialist ideas, which have been spreading in Germanyfrom 1843 onwards, in the same way as it was redeemed from its conservativepolitics by the political movement after 1840, it is finally able to proclaimits writings against un-Critical theology to be social and to indulgeunhindered in its own Critical theology, the contrasting of Spirit andMass, as the annunciation of the Critical Saviour and Redeemer of the world.
Let us return to our subject!
Recognition of free humanity? “Freehumanity”, recognition of which the Jews did not merely think they wanted, butreally did want, is. the same “free humanity” which found classicrecognition in the so-called universal rights of man. Herr Bauer himselfexplicitly treated the Jews’ efforts for recognition of their free humanity astheir efforts to obtain the universal rights of man.
In the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücherit was demonstrated to Herr Bauer that this “free humanity” and the“recognition” of it are nothing but the recognition of the egoistic civilindividual and of the unrestrained movement of the spiritual andmaterial elements which are the content of his life situation, the content of present-daycivil life; that the rights of man do not, therefore, free man fromreligion, but give him freedom of religion; that they do not free him fromproperty, but procure for him freedom of property; that they do not freehim from the filth of gain, but rather give him freedom of gainful occupation.
It was shown that the recognition of therights of man by the modern state has no other meaning than the recognitionof slavery by the state of antiquity had. In other words, just as theancient state had slavery as its natural basis, the modern statehas as its natural basis civil society and the man of civilsociety, i.e., the independent man linked with other men ‘ only by the ties ofprivate interest and unconscious natural necessity, the slave oflabour for gain and of his own as well as other men’s selfish need. Themodern state has recognised this its natural basis as such in the universalrights of man. It did not create it. As it was the product of civil societydriven beyond the old political bonds by its own development, the modern state,for its part, now recognised the womb from which it sprang and its basis by the declarationof the rights of man. Hence, the political emancipation of the Jews andthe granting to them of the “rights of man” is an act the two sidesof which are mutually dependent. Herr Riesser correctly expresses themeaning of the Jews’ desire for recognition of their free humanity when hedemands, among other things, the freedom of movement. sojourn, travel, earningone’s living, etc. These manifestations of “free humanity” areexplicitly recognised as such in the French Declaration of the Rights of Man.The Jew has all the more right to the recognition of his “free humanity” as“free civil society” is of a thoroughly commercial and Jewish nature, andthe Jew is a necessary member of it. The Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücherfurther demonstrated why the member of civil society is called, parexcellence, “Man” and why the rights of man are called “inbornrights”.
The only Critical thing Criticism could sayabout the rights of man was that they are not inborn but arose in the course ofhistory. That much Hegel had already told us. Finally, to its assertionthat both Jews and Christians, in order to grant or receive the universal rightsof man, must sacrifice the privilege of faith — the Criticaltheologian supposes his one fixed idea at the basis of all things —there was specially counterposed the fact contained in all un-Criticaldeclarations of the rights of man that the right to believe what onewishes, the right to practise any religion, is explicitly recognised as a universalright of man. Besides, “Criticism” should have known that Hébert’sparty in particular was defeated on the pretext that it attacked the rights ofman by attacking freedom of religion [39],and that similarly the rights of man were invoked later when freedom of worshipwas restored.[40]
“As far as politicalessence is concerned, Criticism followed its contradictions to the pointwhere the contradiction between theory and practice had been mostthoroughly elaborated during the past fifty years — to the Frenchrepresentative system, in which the freedom of theory is disavowed bypractice and the freedom of practical life seeks in vain its expression intheory.
“Now that the basic illusionhas been done away with, the contradiction proved in the debates inthe French Chamber, the contradiction between free theory and the practicalvalidity of privileges, between the legal validity of privileges and a publicsystem in which the egoism of the pure individual tries to dominatethe exclusivity of the privileged, should be conceived as a generalcontradiction in this sphere.”
The contradiction that Criticism proved in thedebates in the French Chamber was nothing but a contradiction of constitutionalism.Had Criticism grasped it as a general contradiction it would have graspedthe general contradiction of constitutionalism. Had it gone still further thanin its opinion it “should have” gone, had it, to be precise, gone as far asthe abolition of this general contradiction, it would have proceededcorrectly from constitutional monarchy to arrive at the democraticrepresentative state, the perfected modern state. Far from having criticisedthe essence of political emancipation and proved its definite relation to theessence of man, it would have arrived only at the fact of politicalemancipation, at the fully developed modern state, that is to say, only at thepoint where the existence of the modern state conforms to its essence and where,therefore, not only the relative, but the absolute imperfections, thosewhich constitute its very essence, can be observed and described.
The above-quoted “Critical” passage is allthe more valuable as it proves beyond any doubt that at the very moment when Criticismsees the “political essence” far below itself, it is, on thecontrary, far below the political essence; it still needs to find in the latterthe solution of its own contradictions and it still persists in not giving athought to the modern principle of the state.
To “free theory” Criticism contraststhe “practical validity of privileges”; to the “legalvalidity of privileges” it contrasts the “public system”.
In order not to misinterpret the opinion of Criticism,let us recall the contradiction it proved in the debates in the French Chamber,the very contradiction which “should have been conceived” as a generalone. One of the questions dealt with was the fixing of a day in the week onwhich children would be freed from work. Sunday was suggested. One deputymoved to leave out mention of Sunday in the law as being unconstitutional. TheMinister Martin (du Nord) saw in this motion an attempt to proclaim thatChristianity had ceased to exist. Monsieur Crémieux declared on behalf of theFrench Jews that the Jews, out of respect for the religion of the great majorityof Frenchmen, did not object to Sunday being mentioned. Now, according to freetheory, Jews and Christians are equal, but according to this practice Christianshave a privilege over Jews; for otherwise how could the Sunday of the Christianshave a place in a law made for all Frenchmen? Should not the Jewish Sabbath havethe same right, etc.? Or in the practical life of the French too, the Jew is notreally oppressed by Christian privileges; but the law does not dare to expressthis practical equality. All the contradictions in the political essenceexpounded by Herr Bauer in Die Judenfrage are of this kind —contradictions of constitutionalism, which is, in general, thecontradiction between the modern representative state and the old state ofprivileges.
Herr Bauer is committing a very seriousoversight when he thinks he is rising from the political to the humanessence by conceiving and criticising this contradiction as a “general” one.He would thus only rise from partial political emancipation to full Politicalemancipation, from the constitutional state to the democratic representativestate.
Herr Bauer thinks that by the abolition of privilegethe object of privilege is also abolished. Concerning the statement ofMonsieur Martin (du Nord), he says:
“There is no longer anyreligion when there is no longer any privileged religion. Take fromreligion its exclusive power and it will no longer exist.”
Just as industrial activityis not abolished when the privileges of the trades, guilds andcorporations are abolished, but, on the contrary, real industry beginsonly after the abolition of these privileges; just as ownership of the landis not abolished when privileged land-ownership is abolished, but, on thecontrary, begins its universal movement only with the abolition of privilegesand with the free division and free sale of land; just as trade is notabolished by the abolition of trade privileges, but finds its truerealisation in free trade; so religion develops in its practicaluniversality only where there is no privileged religion (cf. the NorthAmerican States).
The modern “public system”, thedeveloped modern state, is not based, as Criticism thinks, on a societyof privileges, but on a society in which privileges have been abolished anddissolved, on developed civil society in which the vital elementswhich were still politically bound under the privilege system have been setfree. Here no “privileged exclusivity,” stands opposed either to anyother exclusivity or to the public system. Free industry and free trade abolishprivileged exclusivity and thereby the struggle between the privilegedexclusivities. They replace exclusivity with man freed from privilege — whichisolates from the general totality but at the same time unites in a smallerexclusive totality — man no longer bound to other men even by the semblanceof a common bond. Thus they produce the universal struggle of man against man,individual against individual. In the same way civil society as awhole is this war against one another of all individuals, who are no longerisolated from one another by anything but their individuality, and theuniversal unrestrained movement of the elementary forces of life freed from thefetters of privilege. ‘the contradiction between the democraticrepresentative state and civil society is the completion of the classiccontradiction between public commonweal and slavery. In the modernworld each person is at the same time a member of slave society and ofthe public commonweal. Precisely the slavery of civil society is inappearance the greatest freedom because it is in appearance the fullydeveloped independence of the individual, who considers as his ownfreedom the uncurbed movement, no longer bound by a common bond or by man, ofthe estranged elements of his life, such as property, industry, religion, etc.,whereas actually this is his fully developed slavery and inhumanity. Lawhas here taken the place of privilege.
It is therefore only here, where we find nocontradiction between free theory and the practical validity of privilege, but,on the contrary, the practical abolition of privilege, free industry, freetrade, etc., conform to “free theory”, where the public system is notopposed by any privileged exclusivity, where the contradiction expounded byCriticism is abolished — only here is the fully developed modernstate to be found.
Here also reigns the reverse of the lawwhich Herr Bauer, on the occasion of the debates in the French Chamber,formulated in perfect agreement with Monsieur Martin (du Nord):
“Just as M. Martin (du Nord)saw the proposal to omit mention of Sunday in the law as a motionto declare that Christianity has ceased to exist, with equal reason (and thisreason is very well founded) — the declaration that the law of theSabbath is no longer binding on the Jews would he a proclamationabolishing Judaism.”
It is just the opposite in the developedmodern state. The state declares that religion, like the other elements of civillife, only begins to exist in its full scope when the state declares itto be non-political and therefore leaves it to itself. To the dissolutionof the political existence of these elements, as for example, the:dissolution of property by the abolition of the property qualificationfor electors, the dissolution of religion by the abolition of the statechurch, to this proclamation of their civil death corresponds their mostvigorous life, which henceforth obeys its own laws undisturbed and develops toits full scope.
Anarchy is the law of civil societyemancipated from divisive privileges, and the anarchy of. civil society isthe basis of the modern public system, just as the public system in itsturn is the guarantee of that anarchy. To the same great extent that the two areopposed to each other they also determine each other.
h is clear how capable Criticism is ofassimilating the “new”. But if we remain within the bounds of “pureCriticism”, the question arises: Why did Criticism not conceive as a universalcontradiction the contradiction which it disclosed in connection with thedebates in the French Chamber, although in its own opinion that is what it “shouldhave” been done?
“That step was,however, then impossible — not only because ... not only because ... butalso because without that last remnant of inner involvement with itsopposite Criticism was impossible and could not have come to the pointfrom which only one step remained to be taken.” [Hereand below quotations are taken from the article “Was ist jetzt der Gegenstandder Kritik?”, Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung, Heft VIII.]
It was impossible ... because ... it wasimpossible! Criticism assures us, moreover, that the fateful “onestep” necessary .,to come to the point from which only one step remainedto be taken” was impossible. Who will dispute that? In order to be able tocome to a point from which only “one step” remains to be taken, it isabsolutely impossible to take that “one step” more which leads overthe point beyond which still “one step” remains to be taken.
All’s well that ends well! At the end of theencounter with the Mass, which is hostile to Criticism’s DieJudenfrage, “Criticism” admits that its conception of the “rightsof man”, its
“appraisal of religion in theFrench Revolution”, the “free political essence it pointed to occasionally atthe conclusion of its considerations”, in short, the whole ‘.period ofthe French Revolution, was for Criticism neither more nor less than asymbol — that is to say, not the period of the revolutionary efforts of theFrench in the exact and prosaic sense — a symbol and therefore only afantastic expression of the shapes which it saw at the end”.
We shall not deprive Criticism of theconsolation that when it sinned politically it did so only at the“conclusion” and at the “end” of its works. A notorious drunkard used toconsole himself with the thought that he was never drunk before midnight.
In the sphere of the “Jewish question”, Criticismhas indisputably been winning more and more ground from the Enemy. In No.1 of the “Jewish question”, the treatise of “Criticism” defendedby Herr Bauer was still absolute and revealed the “true” and “general”significance of the “Jewish question”. In No. 2 Criticism had neitherthe “will” nor the “right” to go beyond Criticism.In No. 3 it had still to take “one step”, but that step was“impossible” — because it was — “impossible”. It was not its “willor right” but its involvement in its “opposite” that prevented it fromtaking that one step”. It would very much have liked to clearthe last obstacle, but unfortunately a last remnant of Mass stuck to itsCritical seven-league boots.
25 Concerning ReplyNo. 1, Bruno Bauer’s first article against critics of his Die Judenfrage, seeNote 22. In this article Bauer polemises with the authors of a number of reviewson his book, as well as with the authors of books and pamphlets, including thefollowing: Die Judenfrage von Bruno Bauer näher beleuchtet, by Dr.Gustav Philippson, Dessau, 1843; Briefe zur Beleuchtung der Judenfrage vonBruno Bauer, by Dr-. Samuel Hirsch, Leipzig, 1843; Literaturblatt desOrients, 1843, No. 25 & ff. (Recension der Judenfrage von Bruno Bauerund der Briefe von Hirsch); Der Israelit des neunzehnten Jahrhundert,published by Dr. M. Hess, 1843, and others.
26 This quotation isfrom Bruno Bauer’s third article in reply to criticisms of his book Die Judenfrage. The article, a polemic against Marx and his work “Zur Judenfrage”,published in the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher, was printedanonymously in the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung, Heft VIII, July 1844,under the title: “Was ist jetzt der Gegenstand der Kritik?” Below Marxresumes his quotations from and criticism of Bruno Bauer’s first article,“Neueste Schriften über die Judenfrage” published in the AllgemeineLiteratur-Zeitung, Heft I, December 1843.
27 The allusion hereis to the five Napoleonic codes.
28 Here and elsewhereMarx criticises and quotes Bruno Bauer’s review of the first volume of acourse of lectures by the right Hegelian Hinrichs: Politische Vorlesungen,Bd. I-II, Halle, 1843. This review appeared anonymously in the AllgemeineLiteratur-Zeitung, Heft I, December 1843. Subsequently the same monthly(Heft V, April 1844) carried Bauer’s reviews of the second volume of lectures,which is analysed in the same chapter of The Holy Family under the title:“Hinrichs No. 2. ‘Criticism’ and ‘Feuerbach’. Condemnation ofPhilosophy.”
29 Here and elsewhereEngels quotes and analyses Bauer’s anonymous review of the second volume ofHinrichs’ lectures. The review was printed in the AllgemeineLiteratur-Zeitung, Heft V, April 1844.
30 Here and elsewhereMarx quotes and analyses Bauer’s second article in reply to criticism of hisDie Judenfrage. it was printed anonymously under the same title as thefirst-"Neueste Schriften Über die Judenfrage"- in the AllgemeineLiteratur-Zeitung, Heft IV, March 1844. The article analyses four polemicalworks, including Die Judenfrage. Gegen Bruno Bauer, by Dr. Gabriel Riesser inHamburg, which appeared in Weil’s Konstitutionelle Jahrbücher, 1843,Bd. 2 and 3.
31 The reference isto the measures taken by the Convention against speculators in foodstuffs. inSeptember 1793 the Convention decreed the establishment of a generalmaximum-fixed prices for the main food products and consumer articles; the deathpenalty was introduced for speculation in @and concealment of products.
32 “Was ist jetztder Gegenstand der Kritik?” was the title of an article by Bruno Bauer printedanonymously in the Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung, Heft VIII, July 1844. Itwas the third polemical article against critics of his Die Judenfrage, in thiscase primarily against Marx’s article “Zur Judenfrage” in the Deutsch-FranzösischeJahrbücher. This article of Bauer’s is quoted and analysed by Marx notonly under the title “Absolute Criticism’s Self-Apology. Its ‘Political’Past” but also under the other tides in the section “Absolute Criticism’sThird Campaign”.
33 In January 1843the Young Hegelians’ journal Deutsche Jahrbücher für Wissenschaft undKunst, then appearing in Leipzig (up to July 1841 it had been published inthe Prussian town of Halle under the title Hallische Jahrbücher fürDeutsche Wissenschaft und Kunst), was closed down by the government ofSaxony and prohibited throughout Germany by a decree of the Federal Diet. OnJanuary 19 of the same year the Prussian Government decided to forbid as ofApril 1, 1843, the publication of the Rheinische Zeitung für Politik, Handelund Gewerbe, which had been appearing in Cologne since January 1, 1842, andwhich, under the editorship of Marx (from October 1842), had acquired arevolutionary-democratic trend. Marx’s resignation from the editorship onMarch 18, 1843, did not cause the government to rescind its decision, and thelast issue appeared on March 31, 1843.
34 Concerning BrunoBauer’s dismissal from the chair of theology, see Note 10, Bauer replied tothe Government’s repressive measures by the publication in Zurich andWinterthur in 1842 of the pamphlet: Die gute Sache der Freiheit und meineeigene Angelegegen.
35 The reference isto the review by Kari Christian Planck of Bauer’s Kritik der evangelischenGeschichte der Synoptiker, Bd. 1-2, Leipzig, 1841, Bd. 3, Braunschweig,1842. (“Synoptics” is the name given in the history of religion to thecompilers of the first three Gospels.) The review was published in the Jahrbücherfür wissenschaftliche Kritik, Berlin, June 1842, Nos. 107-114. Planckdisputed Bauer’s Young Hegelian theory on the origin of Christianity from thepositions of the more moderate criticism of the Gospel sources given by Strauss.
36 Marx has in mindthe section of Hegel’s book Phänomenologie des Geistes entitled “DieKampf der Aufklärung mit dem Aberglauben”.
37 The article inquestion is Bruno Bauer’s “Die Fähigkeit der heutigen Juden und Christen,frei zu werden”, which was published in the collection Einundzwanzig Bogen ausder Schweiz, Zurich and Winterthur, 1843; along with the book Die Judenfrage (anenlarged edition of Bauer’s articles on this subject first published in 1842),this article was subjected to a critical analysis by Marx in his article “ZurJudenfrage” in the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher.
38 The reference isto the attempt to unite the various Lutheran trends by means of the forced Unionof 1817, when the Lutherans were united with the Reformed (Calvinist) Church toform the Evangelical Church. The Old Lutherans, who opposed this union, secededto form their own trend defending the “true” Lutheran Church.
39 The reference isto the policy of de-christianisation pursued in France by Hébert and hissupporters in the autumn of 1793. Outwardly it was expressed in the closing ofchurches and the renunciation of Catholic rites. The forcible methods used toimplement these measures outraged believers, especially among the peasants.
40 In their effortsto consolidate the Jacobin dictatorship, Robespierre and his supporters opposedthe policy of de-Christianisation. A decree of the Convention on December 6,1793, prohibited “all violence or threats directed against the freedom ofworship”.