ngs,
which frequently represent an advance upon Proudhon in a theoretical
respect, although they may be inferior to him in finish. Where can the
bourgeoisie--their philosophers and scholars included--show a work
similar to Weitling's "Guarantees of Harmony and Freedom" pertaining
to the emancipation of the bourgeoisie--the political emancipation? If
we compare the mediocrity of German political literature with this
expansive and brilliant literary debut of the German worker; if we
compare this giant child's shoe of the proletariat with the dwarf
proportions of the worn-out political shoe of the German bourgeoisie,
we must predict an athletic figure for the German Cinderella. It must
be admitted that the German proletariat is the theorist of the
European proletariat, just as the English proletariat is its political
economist, and the French proletariat its politician. Germany
possesses a classical vocation for the social revolution although she
is incapable of the political revolution. For if the impotence of the
German bourgeoisie is the same thing as the political impotence of
Germany, the talent of the German proletariat--even apart from German
theory--is the social talent of Germany. The disproportion between the
philosophical and the political development in Germany is no
abnormality. It is a necessary disproportion. Only by means of
socialism can a philosophical people put its philosophy into practice,
and only in the proletariat, therefore, can it find the active element
for its emancipation.

At this moment, however, I have neither the time nor the inclination
to explain to "Prussian" the relation of "German society" to the
social transformation, and from this relation to explain, on the one
side, the weak reaction of the German bourgeoisie to socialism, and,
on the other hand, the exceptional talent of the German proletariat
for socialism. The first elements for the understanding of this
phenomenon he will find in my introduction to the criticism of Hegel's
philosophy of right ("Franco-German Annuals"). (See pp. 11 _et seq._
of this book.)

The wisdom of the German poor is therefore in inverse proportion to
the wisdom of the poor Germans. Thus "Prussian's" attempt to
manipulate his thought in the form of antithesis on the occasion of
the Silesian labour unrest had led to the greatest antithesis against
the truth. What a thoughtful mind should do in connection with a first
outbreak, such as the Silesian worker