Liu Yong: The Logic of Marx's Critique of "German-style Modern Problems"

In February 1844, the young Marx published "A Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right: Introduction" (hereafter referred to as the Introduction) in the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher. In this article, Marx did not simply view Germany’s status as a "late-developing nation" as a form of developmental lag that must be overcome through mere imitative catching-up. Instead, by comparing the modernization of France and England, he profoundly elucidated the "German-style modern problem." The essence of this problem was that German particularity determined that Germany could not retrace the old path of British and French political modernization; rather, it had to forge a new path that transcended political liberation to achieve human liberation. This particularity harbored universality, becoming a completely new type of modernization. Marx’s logic in critiquing German particularity unfolded across three dimensions, which remain significantly instructive for our understanding of the modernization processes of late-developing nations today.

The "Anachronism" of the German System

In the Introduction, Marx did not rush to directly attack the German system. Instead, he took a detour through a critique of the "copies"—the German philosophy of state and philosophy of right. He first critiqued the "advanced" theoretical forms growing in the soil of Germany’s backward institutional reality; this was a critique that stood above the level of German history. However, the deepening of the critique of the "copy" is inherently a critique of the "original"—the reality at which it is aimed: the backward German system it conceals. Thus, the essence of critiquing the copies is to expose the underlying institutional problems of reality. It is evident that in "late-developing nations," the critique of "advanced" theory functions not only to expose reality but also to become a precursor to social transformation. Furthermore, the radical nature of theory can both stimulate revolutionary practice to transcend reality and serve as a driving force for modernization, thereby possessing universal significance.

Marx believed that "the modern German regime is an anachronism." This anachronism created a structural contradiction in historical time. At the historical moment of 1843, Germany attempted to negate the feudal system and transition to the capitalist stage—marked elsewhere by the French Revolution of 1789—yet it faced a temporal dislocation in institutional evolution. By 1843, the internal contradictions of the Anglo-French capitalist system had been clearly exposed, causing this system to encounter a crisis in Germany before it had even fully unfolded. Imitating the old path of Anglo-French modernization had already lost its attraction and feasibility. If Germany tried to leap over the capitalist system to enter communism directly, it would find it had missed the historical opportunity of 1789–1843, thus facing the problem of insufficient capitalist development and a missing proletariat.

The disordered state of the German system meant that in 1843, it faced a triple superposition of tasks: national unification, political liberation, and human liberation, all of which had to be resolved within the same space and time. While Anglo-French political modernization completed these tasks gradually through history, achieving formal liberation in the political sphere, Germany—having lost the opportunity for "gradual modernization"—was forced to solve these tasks simultaneously. Consequently, the particularity of the German system became a universal archetype, demonstrating how to "achieve the whole task in one stroke" ^[1] through theoretical critique and revolutionary practice, moving toward a new type of modernization.

Political and Economic Roots in Germany

Marx moved from the critique of the "copy" to the critique of the "original" precisely to reveal the underlying political and economic roots of the German system's "anachronism." Marx gained deep insight into the limitations of the various schools in the German intellectual community that were analyzing the institutional reality. These included the Historical School of Law, represented by Savigny, as well as the "practical political party" and the "theoretical political party." Marx acknowledged some of their contributions while pointing out their fundamental flaws.

Marx noted that the system of rights defended by the Historical School of Law was, in essence, the legal expression of private property. Both the practical and theoretical political parties defended private property and evaded the "question of revolution." In short, the common essence of these factions lay in maintaining the eternity and legitimacy of the private ownership system and its private rights. A critique of institutions inevitably leads to an anatomy of civil society, and "the anatomy of civil society is to be sought in political economy." Marx’s critique of German intellectual currents contains a universal critical method: as Marx stated, "Legal relations as well as forms of state are to be grasped neither from themselves nor from the so-called general development of the human mind, but rather they have their roots in the material conditions of life." This research method, later known as historical materialism, possesses universal applicability for the study of modernization.

Germany in the mid-19th century was still a non-unified Christian state, ruled politically by a coalition of feudal monarchs, Junker ^[2] aristocrats, and high-ranking clergy; feudal forces were powerful. Although the German Reformation brought a degree of liberation at the spiritual level, it failed to touch the political and economic roots and thus had limited impact. Germany only began its first Industrial Revolution in the 1830s and largely completed it by the end of the 19th century, leaping to become the premier industrial power in Europe and the second in the world. This "time-compressed modernization" process saw the economy display a momentum of rapid catching-up on the one hand, while on the other, it created the immense labor pains of transitioning from a traditional to a modern society. A large proletariat gathered in cities within a short period, enduring extreme poverty and alienated labor. However, the political system failed to reform in step to alleviate social contradictions, causing social tensions to become exceptionally sharp and concentrated. In the process of "time-compressed modernization," political liberation simply could not solve the problem of the proletariat’s alienated labor; therefore, the human liberation of the proletariat became the inevitable choice. The heart of human liberation is the proletariat, and its head is the philosophy of the proletariat. From German particularity, Marx discovered the universal historical mission of the proletariat: to fundamentally resolve the problems of modernization through human liberation.

The German Class Condition

The German class composition and its relations were the concentrated expression of its political and economic roots. They not only determined the particularity of the German problem but also logically and inevitably deduced a solution of universal historical significance.

As a vested interest group, the feudal forces controlled the political and economic lifelines of Germany. They fundamentally opposed any revolution touching upon private ownership and its property rights, opposed political liberation led by the bourgeoisie in alliance with the proletariat, and even more so opposed human liberation led by the proletariat. However, to cope with external shocks brought by the Napoleonic Wars and internal pressures, the "enlightened" representatives of feudal interests in the early 19th century were forced to initiate "top-down" reforms, promoting the limited modernization of the "Great Prussian Reforms." Their fundamental goal remained the preservation of feudal rule. These Junker landlord classes transformed themselves into the big bourgeoisie. They invested in factories but discarded the constraints of "bourgeois morality," openly advocating the use of all violent means to more cruelly oppress the working class. Marx and Engels vividly revealed their conservative and reactionary nature in the Manifesto of the Communist Party. This "new wine in old bottles" ^[3] modernization model was subsequently adopted by other countries, resulting in the birth of a distorted and highly oppressive mode of modernization.

Engels once said: "In England since the 17th century and in France since the 18th, a wealthy and powerful bourgeoisie had been forming, whereas in Germany a so-called bourgeoisie only dates from the beginning of the 19th century." The birth of the German bourgeoisie was far later than that of the British and French; its development of national industry relied heavily on feudal state protections such as tariffs. In reality, however, this "cunning" policy used the name of patriotism to maintain its own particular interests. Economically dependent on feudal forces and politically lacking a bold revolutionary spirit, they were more inclined to compromise with the Junker landlords, seeking top-down reform rather than revolution. The intellectuals representing bourgeois interests were immersed in abstract theoretical activity, detached from the real needs of the people, and dared not undertake the historical task of political liberation. In short, the bourgeoisie was weak and prone to compromise, incapable of leading modernization.

The German proletariat was the true representative of civil society, a class of radical universal significance. They embodied the "double suffering" of "civilized defects" and "barbaric defects." The universal obstacles they faced were the basis and root of the specific obstacles. These universal obstacles were the class oppression of the Junker landlord class and the bourgeoisie based on private property. It was this common oppression that forged the "resolute, sharp, courageous, and ruthless" ^[4] revolutionary spirit of the proletariat, which took philosophy as its spiritual weapon. To solve the practical problem of class oppression, the proletariat had to transform philosophical critique into social revolution and theoretical weapons into material force. Only by guiding practical struggle with scientific theory can the proletariat ultimately negate private property and achieve true human liberation. This harbors a universality: a modernization that completes multiple superimposed tasks simultaneously and transitions directly toward communism. This is a completely new type of modernization.

In summary, Marx’s Introduction begins by dissecting the particularity of German "anachronism," delves into its political and economic roots, and through an analysis of class forces, ultimately points toward a universal path for fundamentally resolving the problem of modernization through proletarian revolution. This was not only a diagnosis of the 19th-century German problem but also provided inspiration for late-developing nations facing similar dilemmas of "time-compressed modernization."