''Völkerabfälle'' is a term used by

Frederick Engels Friedrich Engels ( ,"Engels"
''

Jacobites Jacobite means follower of Jacob or James. Jacobite may refer to: Religion * Jacobites, followers of Saint Jacob Baradaeus (died 578). Churches in the Jacobite tradition and sometimes called Jacobite include: ** Syriac Orthodox Church, sometime ...

: "Such, in Scotland, are the

Gaels The Gaels ( ; ga, Na Gaeil ; gd, Na Gàidheil ; gv, Ny Gaeil ) are an ethnolinguistic group native to Ireland, Scotland and the Isle of Man in the British Isles. They are associated with the Gaelic languages: a branch of the Celtic langu ...

, the supporters of the

Stuarts The House of Stuart, originally spelt Stewart, was a royal house of Scotland, England, Ireland and later Great Britain. The family name comes from the office of High Steward of Scotland, which had been held by the family progenitor Walter fi ...

from 1640 to 1745." * the

Chouannerie The Chouannerie (from the Chouan brothers, two of its leaders) was a royalist uprising or counter-revolution in twelve of the western ''départements'' of France, particularly in the provinces of Brittany and Maine, against the First Republ ...

: "Such, in France, are the

Bretons The Bretons (; br, Bretoned or ''Vretoned,'' ) are a Celts, Celtic ethnic group native to Brittany. They trace much of their heritage to groups of Common Brittonic, Brittonic speakers who emigrated from Dumnonia, southwestern Great Britain, par ...

, the supporters of the

Bourbons The House of Bourbon (, also ; ) is a European dynasty of French origin, a branch of the Capetian dynasty, the royal House of France. Bourbon kings first ruled France and Navarre in the 16th century. By the 18th century, members of the Spanish ...

from 1792 to 1800." * the

First Carlist War The First Carlist War was a civil war in Spain from 1833 to 1840, the first of three Carlist Wars. It was fought between two factions over the succession to the throne and the nature of the Monarchy of Spain, Spanish monarchy: the conservative a ...

: "Such, in Spain, are the

Basques The Basques ( or ; eu, euskaldunak ; es, vascos ; french: basques ) are a Southwestern European ethnic group, characterised by the Basque language, a common culture and shared genetic ancestry to the ancient Vascones and Aquitanians. Bas ...

, the supporters of

Don Carlos ''Don Carlos'' is a five-act grand opera composed by Giuseppe Verdi to a French-language libretto by Joseph Méry and Camille du Locle, based on the dramatic play '' Don Carlos, Infant von Spanien'' (''Don Carlos, Infante of Spain'') by Friedri ...

." Engels was referring also specifically to the

Serb uprising of 1848–49 The Serb uprising of 1848–49, also known as the Serb revolution of 1848–49 and Serb People's Movement of 1848–49, took place in what is today Vojvodina, Serbia, and was part of the Revolutions of 1848 in the Austrian Empire. During the Hung ...

, in which Serbs from Vojvodina fought against the previously victorious Hungarian revolution. Engels finished the article with the following prediction:

''But at the first victorious uprising of the French proletariat, which Louis Napoleon is striving with all his might to conjure up, the Austrian Germans and Magyars will be set free and wreak a bloody revenge on the Slav barbarians. The general war which will then break out will smash this Slav
Sonderbund The Sonderbund War (german: Sonderbundskrieg, fr , Guerre du Sonderbund, it , Guerra del Sonderbund) of November 1847 was a civil war in Switzerland, then still a relatively loose confederacy of cantons. It ensued after seven Catholic cantons ...
and wipe out all these petty hidebound nations, down to their very names.
The next world war will result in the disappearance from the face of the earth not only of reactionary classes and dynasties, but also of entire reactionary peoples. And that, too, is a step forward.''

Critique

Engels views were criticised by leading socialist

Karl Kautsky Karl Johann Kautsky (; ; 16 October 1854 – 17 October 1938) was a Czech-Austrian philosopher, journalist, and Marxist theorist. Kautsky was one of the most authoritative promulgators of orthodox Marxism after the death of Friedrich Engels in ...

who in 1915 argued that subsequent to 1848/9 the Czech and Austrian South Slavs had transformed themselves in a manner which in practice refuted the views of Marx and Engels. Referring to

Heinrich Cunow Heinrich Cunow (11 April 1862, in Schwerin, Mecklenburg-Schwerin – 20 August 1936) was a German Social Democratic Party politician and a Marxist theorist. Cunow was originally against the First World War in 1914 but he changed his viewpoint. ...

he wrote:

''Today when those people have achieved such great power and significance to refer to them in the old Marxian terms of 1848/9 does appear most unfortunate. Should someone today still hold onto that standpoint he has a lot to unlearn''

Roman Rozdolsky Roman Osipovich Rosdolsky ( uk, Рома́н О́сипович Роздо́льський ''Roman Osipovič Rozdol's'kyj'') (Lemberg, July 19, 1898 – Detroit, October 20, 1967) was a prominent Ukrainian Marxian scholar, historian and politica ...

analyses Engels' position in his book ''Engels and the 'Nonhistoric' Peoples: the National Question in the Revolution of 1848''.

''There are two ways to look at Marx and Engels: as the creators of a brilliant, but in its deepest essence, thoroughly critical, scientific method; or as church fathers of some sort, the bronzed figures of a monument. Those who have the latter vision will not have found this study to their taste. We, however, prefer to see them as they were in reality.''

Rosdolsky examines Engels' viewpoint at length. Both Marx and Engels had supported the

1848 revolution The Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Springtime of the Peoples or the Springtime of Nations, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe starting in 1848. It remains the most widespread revolutionary wave in Europea ...

which had spread throughout Europe. They saw this as a necessary first step towards the Socialist revolution, which was hoped to be imminent. However, the forces of reaction rallied in

Klemens von Metternich Klemens Wenzel Nepomuk Lothar, Prince of Metternich-Winneburg zu Beilstein ; german: Klemens Wenzel Nepomuk Lothar Fürst von Metternich-Winneburg zu Beilstein (15 May 1773 – 11 June 1859), known as Klemens von Metternich or Prince Metternic ...

's Austria in October 1848 with the brutal suppression of the

Vienna Uprising The Vienna Uprising or October Revolution (german: Wiener Oktoberaufstand, or ) of October 1848 was the last uprising in the Austrian Revolution of 1848. On 6 October 1848, as the troops of the Austrian Empire were preparing to leave Vienna to s ...

. Engels was prompted to write his article thanks to the Austrian Slavs' rejection of the opportunity to liberate themselves from the oppressive rule of the

Habsburgs The House of Habsburg (), alternatively spelled Hapsburg in Englishgerman: Haus Habsburg, ; es, Casa de Habsburgo; hu, Habsburg család, it, Casa di Asburgo, nl, Huis van Habsburg, pl, dom Habsburgów, pt, Casa de Habsburgo, la, Domus Hab ...

, as well their enthusiastic embrace of Metternich’s counter-revolution.

Andrzej Walicki Andrzej Stanisław Walicki (15 May 1930 – 20 August 2020) was a Polish historian. He was a professor at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, United States. He specialized in philosophy of sociopolitics, history of Polish and Russian philosop ...

in his analysis of Engel's stance in his book ''Marxism and the Leap to the Kingdom of Freedom: The Rise and Fall of the Communist Utopia'' stated:

''Engels did not hesitate to say that entire nations are reactionary, that this is what the Slavic nations of the Habsburg monarchy turned out to be, and that their opposition to the German-Hungarian revolution qualifies them for total extermination.''

and concluded that it is difficult to deny that it legitimized the policy of genocide and it was justified to suppose that they influenced the ideas of Hitler.

Controversy

This last passage, the final paragraph of Engels' article in 1849, was analyzed by the British bibliographer, literary historian and Liberal party activist George Watson, who concluded that

Hitler Adolf Hitler (; 20 April 188930 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was dictator of Germany from 1933 until his death in 1945. He rose to power as the leader of the Nazi Party, becoming the chancellor in 1933 and then ...

was a

Marxist Marxism is a Left-wing politics, left-wing to Far-left politics, far-left method of socioeconomic analysis that uses a Materialism, materialist interpretation of historical development, better known as historical materialism, to understand S ...

. The attitudes expressed in that paragraph was quite normal for their time.Robert Grant. The Lost Literature of Socialism by George Watson. ''The Review of English Studies'', Nov., 1999, Vol. 50, No. 200 (Nov., 1999), pp. 557-559. Published by: Oxford University Press. Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/517431

References

{{Authority control Concepts in the philosophy of history German words and phrases Marxism Hegelianism