The Revolution

Richard Wagner (1813-1883) `The Revolution' After a failed attempt to establish himself in Paris between 1839 and 1842, Wagner returned to Germany at the age of 28 and found employment as conductor of the court opera at Dresden. He was there until 1849. The revolutions of 1848 in Paris stimulated reform movements elsewhere, including the German states, and Wagner, although later an archconservative, was at this time caught up in the wave of radicalism. His assistant, August Rockel, lost his post due to his political activities, and started a newspaper, the Volksblatter in August 1848. Wagner contributed several anonymous articles, including 'The Revolution' on 8 April 1849. The following month, May 1849, the Dresden Uprising broke out. After its suppression, Wagner fled into exile in Switzerland, where he was to remain for the next ten years. Wagner's invocation of Revolution contains images of cataclysm, of the existing world being shaken and destroyed, comparable to those in the contemporaneous writings of such diverse figures as Marx (IIa11) and Delacroix (IIIA4). And also like the early Marx (IIA9), he identifies the freedom to be brought by Revolution with a freedom from alienated labour and enjoyment of creative power. The present extracts are from the translation of Wagner's text by P. R. J. Ford and Mary Whittal in Wagner.- A Documentary Study, compiled and edited by Herbert Barth, Dietrich Mack and Egon Voss, Vienna and London: Thames and Hudson, 1975, pp. 170-3.

If we look out over the nations and peoples of Europe we see everywhere the ferment of a mighty movement, whose first ripples have already reached us and whose full weight threatens to engulf us soon. Europe appears to us like some immense volcano, from within which a constantly growing, alarming roar can be heard; from its crater dark, stormy pillars of smoke are already rising into the sky and forming heavy blankets of cloud, plunging the surrounding earth into darkness, while individual rivers of lava have already broken through the crust and go pouring down into the valleys, destroying everything in their path, fiery harbingers of the coming eruption. A supernatural force seems to be about to seize our continent, to lift it from its welltried course and hurl it off on to another track. Yes, the old world, we can see, is about to collapse; from it a new world will arise, for the sublime Goddess of Revolution comes thundering in on the wings of the storm, lightning flashing round her august head, a sword in her right hand, torch in her left, her eye so dark, so vengeful, so cold; and yet what a glow of the purest love, what abundant happiness it radiates upon him who dares to look straight and unswerving into this sombre eye! She thunders down upon us, the ever-rejuvenating mother of mankind, destroying and blessing she sweeps across the earth; and before her the howl of the

storm, shaking so violently all that man has fashioned that vast clouds of dust darken the air; wherever her mighty foot treads what vain presumption built to last a thousand years crashes in ruins, and the hem of her robe sweeps away its last remains! But behind her there is revealed to us, bathed in glowing sunshine, an unsuspected paradise of happiness, and where her foot has passed in destruction, sweet-scented flowers spring from the ground and the joyful hallelujahs of liberated mankind fill the air, which is yet re-echoing with the din of conflict. And now look around you. There you see some mighty prince, his heart beating anxiously, his breath hesitant, struggling to put on a calm and collected air as he tries to deny to himself and to others what he nevertheless clearly sees is inescapable. And there you see another, his leathery old face furrowed with every vice, fishing out and bringing into play all those crafty little tricks which have already earned him many a little title and many a little medal; now a diplomatic smile spreads across his inscrutable countenance as he tries to calm down the snivelling Junkers and their swooning dames by the semi-official intimation that the highest authorities are already devoting their attention to this strange apparition, that couriers with Cabinet decrees have already been despatched in all directions, that the considered opinion of the wise statesman, Prince Metternich himself, is already on its way from London, that the competent security forces all around have been alerted, so that elegant society may look forward to the surprise of being able to inspect for themselves this notorious vagabond, Revolution - in chains, of course, in an iron cage - at the next Court ball. And there is yet a third, calculating the approach of the phenomenon, then running to the stock exchange to study and assess the rise and fall of the stocks, haggling and bargaining, trying to squeeze out the last ounce of speculative profit, until with one stroke his whole shabby business is blown to smithereens. And now again, see behind the dusty desk one of those rusted and furred-up cogs

of our present-day bureaucracy, scratching his blunt old pens across the page with no thought in his mind but to add more and more to the ancient heap of the paper world-order. Between the piles of documents and contracts lie the hearts of living men, like dried plants, crumbling to dust in these modern torture-chambers. There there is immense activity, for the country-wide net is torn in several places and the surprised spiders are busily spinning new threads to repair the weak spots. No ray of light enters there, all is eternal night and darkness, and it is in night and darkness that the whole apparatus will disappear without trace. But from this side can be heard bright martial music, the swords and bayonets are gleaming, heavy cannons rattle past and the long columns of troops wind along shoulder-to-shoulder. The brave band of heroes have set forth to match arms with the Revolution. The general marches them right and left and places here the infantry, there the hussars and draws up his long ranks of soldiers and the shattering artillery; and the Revolution, head high in the clouds, approaches - and they cannot see it and wait for the foe; and it is already in their midst; and its tempestuous force seizes them and scatters their ranks and pulverizes their borrowed strength, and the general sits there still, studying the map and working out from which side the enemy might attack, and how strong he is and when he will come! And now the vision again changes: we see an anxious worried face, that of an honest and industrious citizen. He has worked and struggled his whole life long and faithfully served the common weal, as far as his strength allowed him; no tears, no injustice taints the little sheaf which he has fathered through his fruitful efforts, to support him in his weak old age and his children as they enter a hostile world. Certainly he felt the approach of the storm, certainly he realizes no power can resist it, but his heart bleeds as he looks back on his arduous existence, the sole fruit of which is now destined to be destroyed. We must not condemn him if he clutches anxiously at his little nest-egg and in his blind

fervour vainly resists the impending change with all his strength. Harken, unfortunate! Lift your eyes and look up to where thousands upon thousands are gathering on the hillsides to await the new sun, full of joyful expectation! Look at them, they are your brothers, your sisters, they are the host of all the poor, those wretches who have never vet known anything from life but suffering, who were strangers on this earth of joy; they are all longing for just this Revolution, which you are afraid of, to set them free from this world of despair, to create a new world of happiness for everyone! Look, there come thousands pouring from the factories; they have laboured and produced the finest cloths, but they themselves and their children are naked, they freeze and hunger for it is not to them that the fruits of their labour belong, they belong to the rich and mighty, who call the earth and its inhabitants their own. See how they come from the farms and villages; they have tilled the soil and made of it a garden of plenty, and their efforts have produced crops in abundance, enough to feed every man alive - and yet they are poor and hungry and naked, for it is not to them and the others who are in need that the earth's gifts belong, they belong to the rich and mighty, who call earth and its inhabitants their own. By the hundred thousand, by the million, they are all assembled on the heights and look out to the far horizon, where the gathering clouds announce the approach of the liberating Revolution, and all of them, who have nothing left to regret, whose very sons are stolen from them to be turned into devoted warders of their imprisoned father, whose daughters must walk the streets of our cities laden with shame, victims of the low desires of the rich and mighty, all of them with their pallid, care-worn faces, their weak and shivering limbs, all of them, who have never known happiness, they are gathered there on the heights and, trembling with excited expectation, they look out with fervent gaze upon the approaching phenomenon, and listen in silent rapture to the roar of the rising storm as it brings to their ears the greeting of the

Revolution; `I am the ever-rejuvenating, ever-creating life! Where I am not is death! I am the dream, the comfort, the hope of the oppressed! I destroy what is, and wherever I go new life springs from the dead rocks. I come to you to smash all the chains which crush you, to redeem you from the embrace of death and breathe young life into your veins. All that exists must pass away, that is the eternal law of nature, the rule of life, and I, the eternal destroyer, have come to fulfil the law and create the eternally youthful life. I will utterly annihilate the established order in which you live, for it springs from sin, its flower is misery and its fruit is crime; but the seed has ripened and I am the reaper. I will destroy every wrong which has power over men. I will destroy the domination of one over the other, of the dead over the living, of the material over the spiritual, I will shatter the power of the mighty, of the law and of property. Man's master shall be his own will, his own desire his only law, his own strength his only property, for only the free man is holy and there is nought higher than he. Let there be an end to the wrong that gives one man power over millions, which subjects millions to the will of one individual, to the evil which teaches that one has the power to give happiness to all others. Equals may not rule equals, equals have no higher power than equals, and since all are equal I shall destroy all dominion of one over the other. [ ... ] `Let there be an end to the injustice that makes man subject to his own works, to property. Man's highest possession is his creative power, that is the spring from which all happiness for ever arises and your greatest real pleasure lies not in what is produced but in the act of production, in the use of your own power. [ ... ] `I will destroy the existing order of things which divides mankind into hostile nations, into strong and weak, into those with rights and those without, into rich and poor, for this order simply makes wretches of all. I will destroy the order of things which makes millions

into slaves of the few, and these few into slaves of their own paper and their own wealth. I will destroy this order of things which divides work from enjoyment, which makes work a burden and enjoyment a vice, and renders one man miserable through want and the other miserable through excess. I will destroy this order of things which consumes men's strength in the service of the dominion of the dead, of lifeless matter which keeps half of mankind inactive or engaged in useless activity, which compels hundreds of thousands to devote the flower of their youth in busy indolence to the preservation of this damnable state of affairs as soldiers, officials, speculators and financiers, while the other half has to sustain the whole shameful edifice at the cost of the exhaustion of their powers and the sacrifice of any enjoyment of life. I will wipe from the face of the earth every trace of this crazy order of things, this compact of violence, lies, worry, hypocrisy, poverty, misery, suffering, tears, deceit and crime which fathers an occasional burst of impure lust, but almost never a ray of pure joy.' [ ... ] And see, the hosts on the hillsides fall silent on their knees, they hark with dumb rapture, and as the sunparched earth sucks up the cooling raindrops, so their hearts, scorched by misery, gulp down the draught of the thundering storm and new life courses through their veins. The storm rolls nearer and nearer, on its wings the Revolution; the reawakened hearts open wide and the Revolution, victorious, enters into their minds, their bones, their flesh and fills them utterly. They jump up from the earth in divine rapture; no longer are they the poor, the starving, bowed down by misery, their proud figures arise, with the glow of enthusiasm transfiguring their faces, their eyes are alight with excitement and, with the heaven-shaking cry `I am a man!', the millions, the living Revolution, the

man-become-god, burst forth into the valleys and the plains and proclaim to the whole world the new gospel of happiness!