COLOGNE 183Neue Rheinische Zeitung did not preach a socialist republic nor exclusively
a workers' one. The programme was universal suffrage, direct elections,
the abolition of all feudal dues and charges, the establishment of a state
banking system, and the admission of state responsibility for unemploy-
ment. Capitalism (even state capitalism), private property and class anta-
gonism would still exist and, indeed, expand. The essence of the
programme was the emancipation of the bourgeoisie with some con-
cessions to workers and peasants. This position implied a certain standing
apart from the efforts of workers' organisations for self-improvement, and
lay behind Marx's criticism of Gottschalk's policies in Cologne and his
lack of enthusiasm for Born's success in Berlin in founding an all-German
workers' movement and various mutual-aid funds and co-operatives. Marx
declared that, in this context, 'the proletariat has not the right to isolate
itself; however hard it may seem, it must reject anything that could
separate it from its allies'.^34 This policy was so carefully carried out in
the Neue Rheinische Zeitung that, with one exception and notwithstand-
ing the declaration of Engels above, neither Marx nor Engels published
anything during 1848 that dealt with the situation or interests of the
working class as such.
The one exception was Marx's impassioned article on the 'June days'
in Paris. Finding conditions worse than they had been before the February
revolution, the workers in Paris rose spontaneously only to be killed in
their thousands by the troops of General Cavaignac in six days of bitter
street fighting; those who survived were transported. Marx finished the
article by saying:
They will ask us whether we have no tears, no sighs and no words of
regret for the victims in the ranks of the National Guard, the Mobile
Guard, the Republican Guard and the Regiments of the Line who fell
before the anger of the people. The State will look after their widows
and orphans, pompous decrees will glorify them and solemn processions
will bear their remains to the grave. The official press will declare them
immortal and the European reaction from East to West will sing their
praises. On the other hand, it is the privilege and right of the demo-
cratic press to place the laurel wreaths on the lowering brows of the
plebeians tortured with the pangs of hunger, despised by the official
press, abandoned by the doctors, abused as thieves, vandals and galley-
slaves by all respectable citizens, their wives and children plunged into
still greater misery and the best of their survivors deported overseas.^35The second plank in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung's platform was a
revolutionary war against Russia.^36 On the model of the French offensive
against feudal Germany after 1789 , it seemed to Marx that only an attack
on Russia could enable the revolution to survive. Russia was Germany's