5-" || AVID MC THE YOUNG HEGELIANS AND KARL MARX David McLellan Essential reading for students of nineteenth-century German thought and of Marxism,this book rediscovers in the Young Hegelian movement the intellectual origins of Marx's thought After an introductory analysis of the secularisation ofthe move­ ment as its members moved from theological criticism to political opposition, there followsections on the four most prominent radical disciples of Hegel: Bruno Bauer, Feuerbach, Stirner and Hess. Their work is dis­ cussed in itself and also for its influence on Marx. Inthese sections the background to such questions as the theological origins of Marx’s ideas, his relationship to Hegel and how he came to be primarily interested in economics is discussed. The book makes clear that Marxism is very much a product. albeit an original product, of its time and can only be understood with reference to the intellectual atmosphere in which it was conceived. Fora biographical note on the author see back flap. THE YOUNG l-IEGELIANS AND KARL MARX Also by David McLellan EARLY MARX TEXTS THE YOUNG HEGELIANS AND KARL MARX DAVID McLELLAN University of Kent at Canterbury MACNHLLAN London - Melbourne - Toronto 1969 © David McLellan 1969 Published by MACMILLAN AND co LTD Little Essex Street London w c 2 and also at Bombay Calcutta and Madras Macmillan South Africa (Publishers) Pty Ltd Johannesburg The Alacmillan Company of Australia Pty Ltd Melbourne The Macmillan Company of Canada Ltd Toronto Printed in Great Britain by R. a R. CLARK LTD. Edinburgh TO SIMONE BRASSART CONTENTS PREFACE ix INTRODUCTION 1. The Beginnings of the Hegelian School a. The Schoolafter Hegel's Death b. Social and Economic Background . The Young Hegelians a. General Characteristics b. Transition from Thought to Action —August von Cieszho-n'shi C. Foundation of the ‘Hallische Jahrbiicher’ and the Beginnings of the Young Hegelian Movement d. The ‘Rheinische Zeitung ’ e. The Young Hegelians and Hegel ’s Dialectic f. The Young Hegelians and Religion g. The Young Hegelians and Politics I; . Contemporary Influence of the Young IIegelians i. Government Reaction j. The Young Hegelians as a Political Party 1:. Split in the Young Hegelian Movement The Founding of the Deutschfranziisische Jahrbz'icher and the Origins of German Socialism a The Beginnings of the Deutschfranzdsische Jahrbu’cher b. The Origins of Socialism in Germany 35 c. The Failure of the Deutsch-franzdsische Jahrbu'cher 37 d. Marx's Break with Rage and the End of the Young Hegelian Movement 4-0 BRUNO BAUER Sketch of Bauer’s Life and Writings Bauer and Hegel 51 Bauer and Christianity 55 Self-consciousness and Criticism 59 9199939!" Alienation Contents Bauer’s Viewof the State 66 . Bauer’s Infiuence on Marx 69 Marx’s Break with the Freien 73 59904932 Bauer and Marx on the Jewish Question 75 10. Bauer and the ‘Einleitung zur Kritik der Hegelschen 78 Rechtsphilosophie " 11. Edgar Bauer and Marx 82 LUDWIG FE UERBACH Feuerbach’s Early Writings 85 . Das Wesen des Christentums 87 . Influence of Das Wesen des Christentums 92 "VorlaiifigeThesen" and ‘Grundsatze’ 97 Influence of the ‘Thesen’ and ‘Grundsatze" on Marx 101 113 wwewwr‘ Differences between Marx and Feuerbach MAX STIRNER 117 y—l . Stirner’s Life and Works . Stirner versus Feuerbach 129 Stirner and Marx 132 MOSES HESS Early Life and First Book: Die heilige Geschéchte der Alemchheit 137 . The Europdische Triarchie 139 Hess and the Rhez'nischcZeitung 143 Essays in 21 Bogen aus der Schweiz 147 . Hess and the Deutschfranzbsische Jahrbz’icher 152 158 azure-paw. Hess from 1844 to 1848 CONCLUSION 161 SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY 162 INDEX 167 PREFACE The following studies are intended to fill what is an increasingly evident gap in the history of ideas. The disciples of Hegel, even the radical ones, inevitably shared the eclipseof their Master, but the recent strong revival of interest in Hegel justifies a fresh look at his followers. The period has attracted attention lately owing to the publication of some of Marx’s early writings and the ensuing discussions of them. In these discussions mention of the ideas of Marx’s Young Hegelian contemporaries only occurs by the way. Here I have reversed the emphasis, believing both that the thought of the leading Young Hegelians is important in itself and also that the understanding of the genesis of Marx’s ideas wouldbe made easier by an extended study of the intellectual climate of his youth. I would like to thank Sir Isaiah Berlin and Professor James J 011 for much generous help; also Professors Theodor Adorno and Iring Fetscher of the University of Frankfurt. Needless to say, I alone am responsible for remaining deficiencies. Finally,I would like to thank St John’s College, Oxford, for continued kind hospitality. D. M. Littlecrqft, Chilkam, Kent January 1968 INTRODUCTION 1. THE BEGINNINGS OF THE HEGELIAN SCHOOL (1. The School after Hegel’s Death IN the years immediately following the death of Hegel in 1831, his disciples continued to present as united a front as they had during the lifetime of the Master.1 Hegel’s philosophy had be­ come supreme in Germany during the 1820s, being strongly supported by the Minister of Culture, Altenstein, and found its focal point in the Berlirner-Ii’rz't'isclwAssociationwhich started in 1827 to produce the Hegelian periodical Jahrbz'icherfz'ir wissen­ schaftlz'cheKritik. Early in 1832 a union was formed of seven of Hegel’s most intimate friends and pupils, most of them from Berlin, which continued to be the intellectual centre of the School, to propagate Hegel’s teaching and to prepare a complete edition of his works, including all the lectures. The general view was that Hegel’s philosophy was the ultimate one and that all that was left for his pupils to do was to work out its implications in the various fields as yet only touched upon by Hegel himself. One of the seven editors of Hegel’s complete works, Gans, wrote in an obituary notice that ‘philosophy has now come full circle; its progress is only to be considered as the thoughtful working over of its material in the manner which the lately departed has so clearly and precisely indicated”.2 Another of the seven, Forster, likened the philosophical situation to the empire of Alexander: no successor could mount the throne, but various satraps would divide the provinces between themselves. As if to emphasise this, Hegel’s chair was occupied by the colourless Gabler. 1 L. Michelet, Geschichteder letzten Systeme der Philosophie in Deutsch­ land van Kant bis Hegel (Berlin, 1837) u, p. 636. 2 E. Gans, VermisclzteSchnften (Berlin, 1834) pp. 25lf. l 2 Introduction Inevitably, however, differencesof opinion began to appear and arguments began to break out inside the School. People started to ask whether Hegel was not really a pantheist and the two questions most hotly debated werethe immortality of the soul and the personality of God, questions that had already been raised before Hegel’s death by Feuerbach in his anonymous book Gedanken fiber Tod und Unsterblichkcz't. The scope for debate was all the larger since the verbal tradition of Hegel’s teaching was extremely varied and even Hegel’s written works on the subject were rather ambiguous.1 Hegel time and time again referred to Christianity as the ‘absolute" and ‘perfect’ religion. For him, philosophy and religion had the same content, the only difference was that philosophy made explicit what religion apprehended by means of imagination and pictures. The reality was the same: only the mode of perception differed. Hegel’s intention was to show that philosophy and religion were reconcilable and thus to refute rationalist critics of the Kantian type while at the same time attacking the supernatural theologians who believed in a philosophically unprovable revelation and also the disciples of Schleiermacher who confounded intellectual distinctions ‘by suppressing the discriminating concept and by establishing the “feeling” of the essence, promoting not so much insight as edification’.2 On the other hand, Hegel did sometimes use forms of words that suggested he conceived of God’s knowledge of him­ self simply as man’s self—consciousness—a theme later taken up by the Young Hegelians. This ambiguity was not brought out into the open during the lifetime of Hegel who considered himself an orthodox Lutheran.3 The differences inside the Hegelian School were brought more into evidence in 1835 by D. F. Strauss with his book Das Leben Jew. Strauss had been educated at Tubingen as a pupil of the radical Old Testament critic F. C. Baur and came to Berlin to attend Hegel’s lectures just before his death. Unlike Hegel, who 1 L. Michelet, op. cit. II, p. 638. 2 G. Hegel, I'Verke(Berlin, 18323.) 11,p. 8. 3 The two books recently published in English on Hegel by Findlay and Kaufmann are extremely one-sided on this point, labelling Hegel as a —perhaps unconscious - atheist on the basis of one or two texts and ignoring others. The Beginnings of the Hegclz'anSchool 3 had treated the historicity of the Gospels as a comparatively unimportant question and concentrated on a speculative inter­ pretation of their symbolic content, Strauss considered that the Gospel narratives were the essence of the Christian religion and treated them not as symbols but as myths translating the pro­ found desires of the people. The Gospels were for him imaginations of facts produced by the collective consciousness of a people who had arrived at a specific stage of development. This implied that the revelation and incarnation of the divine essence could not be limited to one individual and that its sole adequate field was the whole of humanity.