mmon with the
petty shopkeepers for the attainment of those rights, which would
allow them to fight afterwards their own battle?

There were only three points, then, by which the Proletarian party in
its political action essentially distinguished itself from the petty
trading class, or properly so-called Democratic party; firstly, in
judging differently the French movement, with regard to which the
democrats attacked, and the Proletarian revolutionists defended, the
extreme party in Paris; secondly, in proclaiming the necessity of
establishing a German Republic, one and indivisible, while the very
extremest ultras among the democrats only dared to sigh for a
Federative Republic; and thirdly, in showing upon every occasion, that
revolutionary boldness and readiness for action, in which any party
headed by, and composed principally of petty tradesmen, will always be
deficient.

The Proletarian, or really Revolutionary party, succeeded only very
gradually in withdrawing the mass of the working people from the
influence of the Democrats, whose tail they formed in the beginning of
the Revolution. But in due time the indecision, weakness, and
cowardice of the Democratic leaders did the rest, and it may now be
said to be one of the principal results of the last years'
convulsions, that wherever the working-class is concentrated in
anything like considerable masses, they are entirely freed from that
Democratic influence which led them into an endless series of blunders
and misfortunes during 1848 and 1849. But we had better not
anticipate; the events of these two years will give us plenty of
opportunities to show the Democratic gentlemen at work.

The peasantry in Prussia, the same as in Austria, but with less
energy, feudalism pressing, upon the whole, not quite so hardly upon
them here, had profited by the revolution to free themselves at once
from all feudal shackles. But here, from the reasons stated before,
the middle classes at once turned against them, their oldest, their
most indispensable allies; the democrats, equally frightened with the
bourgeoisie, by what was called attacks upon private property, failed
equally to support them; and thus, after three months' emancipation,
after bloody struggles and military executions, particularly in
Silesia, feudalism was restored by the hands of the, until yesterday,
anti-feudal bourgeoisie. There is not a more damning fact to be
brought against them than this. Similar treaso