Karl Marx: A biography by David McLellan

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58 KARL MARX: A BIOGRAPHY

Jahrbiicher. With Herwegh's expulsion from Zurich in March 1843 an
obvious gap was waiting to be filled, Ruge was all the more attracted to
Zurich as it was (together with Paris) the main centre of German expatri-
ates. Given that these exiles comprised both intellectuals and workers, it
was sensible that any new review should combine the theory of the
Deutsche Jahrbiicher with the more immediately political ideas of the Rhein-
ische Zeitung. Ruge had a great admiration for Marx and wrote to his
brother, Ludwig: 'Marx has great intelligence. He is very worried about
his future and particularly his immediate future. So in continuing with
the Jahrbiicher it is quite natural to ask for his assistance." So when Ruge
proposed in January 1843 that he and Marx be co-editors, Marx accepted
with enthusiasm.

Naturally Marx's conception of the review was conditioned by his
estimate of Germany's political future which he regarded as revolutionary.
In March 1843 he wrote: 'You could probably let a shipload of fools sail
before the wind for a good while, but it would run into its fate just
because the fools did not believe in it. This fate is the revolution which
stands before us.'^2 In a letter to Ruge, written two months later for
publication in the forthcoming review, Marx took him to task for his
pessimistic view of Germany's future. 'It is true', he wrote, 'that the old
world is in the possession of the philistine; but we should not treat him
as a scarecrow and turn back frightened. Let the dead bury and mourn
their dead. In contrast, it is enviable to be the first to go alive into the new
life; and this shall be our lot.'^3 After a lengthy analysis of the 'Philistine'
nature of contemporary Germany, Marx declared that 'it is only its own
desperate situation that fills me with hope'. He was already beginning to
envisage the possibility of revolution as consisting in an alliance of
'thinkers' and 'sufferers':

The system of profit and commerce, of property and human exploit-

ation, leads much more quickly than an increase of population to a rift

inside contemporary society that the old society is incapable of healing,

because it never heals or creates, but only exists and enjoys. The

existence of a suffering humanity which thinks and a thinking humanity

which is oppressed must of necessity be disagreeable and unacceptable

for the animal world of philistines who neither act nor think but merely

enjoy.

On our side the old world must be brought right out into the light

of day and the new one given a positive form. The longer that events

allow thinking humanity time to recollect itself and suffering humanity

time to assemble itself the more perfect will be the birth of the product

that the present carries in its womb.^4

In view of his revolutionary optimism Marx was definitely against