Karl Marx: A biography by David McLellan

TRIER, BONN AND BERLIN 47

of communism was required if it was going to be discussed at all. I

then asked that religion be criticised more through a criticism of the

political situation, than that the political situation be criticised through

religion. For this approach is more suited to the manner of a newspaper

and the education of the public, because religion has no content of its

own and lives not from heaven but from earth, and falls of itself with

the dissolution of the inverted reality whose theory it is.^186

The furore caused by the publication of the draft law on divorce had
increased governmental pressure on the Rheinische Zeitung and Marx found
that more and more of his time was taken up in dealing with censorship
officials. 'The Rheinische Zeitung\ wrote Engels, 'managed almost always
to get through the most important articles; we first of all fed smaller
fodder to the censor until he either gave up his of own accord or was
forced to do so by the threat: in that case the paper will not appear
tomorrow."^87 Until December 1842 the censorship was exercised by an
official so crass that he was said to have censored an advertisement for a
translation of Dante's Divine Comedy saying that divine things were no fit
subject for comedy. He was frequently not astute enough to note what it
was important to censor and, on being reprimanded by his superiors for
his negligence, was wont to approach his daily task with the words: 'now
my livelihood is at stake. Now I'll cut at everything'.^188 Bios related a
story told him by Marx about the same official. 'He had been invited,
with his wife and nubile daughter, to a grand ball given by the President
of the Province. Before leaving he had to finish work on the censorship.
But on precisely this evening the proofs did not arrive. The bewildered
censor went in his carriage to Marx's lodging which was quite a distance.
It was almost eleven o'clock. After much bell-ringing, Marx stuck his
head out of a third-storey window. "The proofs'" bellowed the censor.
"Aren't any!" Marx yelled down. "But - !" "We're not publishing tomor-
row!" Thereupon Marx shut the window. The censor, thus fooled, was at
a loss for words. But he was much more polite thereafter.'^189

In January 1843 , Marx published a piece of research on poverty that
was to be his last substantial contribution to the Rheinische Zeitung. The
Mosel wine-farmers had suffered greatly from competition after the estab-
lishment of the Zollverein. Already the subject of considerable public
outcry, their impoverishment prompted a report in November 1842 from
a Rheinische Zeitung correspondent whose accuracy was at once questioned
by von Schaper, the President of the Rhineland Province. Judging the
correspondent's reply unsatisfactory, Marx prepared to substantiate the
report himself. He planned a series of five articles. In the event, only
three were written and only two were published before the Rheinische
Zeitung was banned. Comprising a mass of detail to justify his