Marx in Neue Rheinische Zeitung December 1848

The Neue Rheinische Zeitung

The Coup D’Etat of the Counter-Revolution

by Karl Marx

Neue Rheinische Zeitung No. 163
Translated by the Marx-Engels Institute
Transcribed for the Internet by director@marx.org, 1994

Cologne, December 7. The National Assembly has been dissolved. The representatives of the people have been dispersed "by the grace of God".

The reason given by the government for this act of violence adds bitter contempt to the coup d'etat carried through with such insolence. [120]

The National Assembly now reaps the fruits of its perennial weakness and cowardice. For months it allowed the conspiracy against the people to do its work unmolested, to grow strong and powerful, and hence it has now become its first victim.

The people, too, is now suffering for its sins, committed out of magnanimity, or rather stupidity, in March and even in April and May, and finally for its so-called "passive resistance". It is now to be hoped that it has learned its lesson. Its next victory will put an end to the policy of "agreement" and to all other phrases and hypocrisies.