Wagner - the Liberal Dissident in Exile

It is all to often claimed (starting with Adorno) that Wagner was a burnt out revolutionary who betrayed his earlier ideals. For a start, Wagner was never an advocate of violent revolution in the first place – only of a peaceful transition of his beloved Fatherland to a parliamentary democracy (see his Fatherland Union Paper). He thought that this needed to be done to knock the steam out of fanatical communist revolutionary movements and prevent the sort of thing that did later eventuate in Russia:

Do you think that you scent in this the teachings of communism? 

Are you then so stupid or wicked as to confound a theory so senseless as that of communism with that which is absolutely necessary to the salvation of the human race from its degraded servitude?

But though communism fails to supply the remedy, will you on that account deny the disease? Have a care! Notwithstanding that we have enjoyed peace for thirty-three years now, what do you see around you? Dejection and pitiful poverty; everywhere the horrid pallor of hunger and want. Look to it while there is yet time and before it becomes too late to act! 

As the aristocracy no longer consists of feudal lords and masters who can enslave and bodily chastise us at their will, they would do wisely to obliterate old grievances by relinquishing the last remnants of class distinction, which, at any moment, might become a Nessus shirt, consuming them if not cast off in time.  

Think not to solve the question by the giving of alms; acknowledge at once the inalienable rights of humanity, ... or else you may live to see the day that cruel scorn will be met by vengeance and brute force. Then the wild cry of victory might be that of communism...

Do you believe I threaten? No; I warn!

What Wagner really asked for was a transition to parliamentary democracy:

We insist upon the unconditional right of every natural-born subject, when of age, to a vote. The more needy he be, the more his right, and the more earnestly will he aid in keeping the laws which he himself assisted in framing and which, henceforth, are to protect him from any similar future state of need and misery. 

Therefore let us abolish monarchy altogether as autocracy, i.e. sole-reigning, becomes impossible by the strong opposition of democracy, — the reign of the many

Moreover, he wanted the transition to democracy to be peaceful and voluntary, coming from an enlightened ruler:

To the aristocracy I would say, forget your ancestors, throw away your titles and every outward sign of courtly favour, and we will promise you to be generous and efface every remembrance of our ancestors. Let us be children of one Father, brothers of one family.

But you ask, will all this be achieved under a monarchy? My answer is that throughout I have persistently kept it in view, but if you have any doubts of such a possibility, then it is you who pronounce the monarchical death-warrant. But if you agree with me, and consider it possible as I realise it, then a republic is the exact and right thing, and we should but have to petition the King to become our first and most genuine Republican.

Wagner, the political activist, was very much a prototype of the sort of pro-democratic activism which we have seen in more recent times, such as in the Middle East. Only Wagner had no ability to organise protests via Facebook or using smart phones, and the movement was violently stamped out by the authorities.

For expressing his pro-democratic views Wagner was forced into exile for twelve long years. He only barely managed to evade arrest, where he would have certainly faced the death penalty. A couple of his associates, Roeckel and Bakunin did face the death penalty, though after 13 years of imprisonment they were let free.  Praeger also describes how Roeckel and Bakunin were relentlessly interrogated, and although it is not mentioned, physical mistreatment or even frank torture were probably not out of the question:

Roeckel’s wife was ordered to quit Dresden so that she might not witness the execution of her husband. Both Bakunin and Roeckel were, by order of the Prussian commander, to be shot in the market place, an order only countermanded when it was thought that further information could be extracted from them. (Praeger, P180)

Prager also describes the active role played by Wagner in the Dresden pro-democratic movement:

Wagner was an active participator in the so-called Revolution of 1849, notwithstanding his late-day statements to the contrary. During the first few of his eleven years of exile his talk was incessantly about the outbreak, and the active aid he rendered at the time, and of his services to the cause by speech, and by pen, prior to the 1849 May days; and yet in after-life, in his talk with me, I, who held documentary evidence, under his own hand of his participation, he in petulant tones sought either to minimise the part he played, or to explain it away altogether. This change of front I first noticed about 1864, at Munich.  

These four men were all chained. From this time each was examined and interrogated separately, Roeckel’s investigations were endless. He could not at the time perceive why he was repeatedly cross-questioned on the same point. Alas, it was too cruelly potent when, on the 14th January, 1850, or nineteen months after he was taken prisoner, for the first time he heard specifically with what he was charged, and his sentence, – death. He saw then clearly that the last part of Wagner’s note to him had been interpreted as implying a general organised rising throughout Saxony at a moment to be decided upon by the leaders, Bakunin, Heubner, Todt, Wagner, and Roeckel – “return immediately . . . the excitement will precipitate a premature outbreak.” The official interpretation was entirely wrong. No decision of the kind had been arrived at. There was a complete lack of organisation. They wished to be prepared for emergencies, but a deliberate attack was not contemplated. However, it sufficed to include Wagner among the chiefs of the insurrection. 

The official accusation of my friend is before me, and as Richard Wagner is concerned, I will summarise the charge. It consists of eight distinct counts to the effect that he, Roeckel, had placed himself at the disposal of the provisional government, constructed barricades, was present at military councils, received the convoys of men and provisions that were brought into Dresden by Wagner and others, prepared tar brands, was concerned in a plot for a general uprising in the principalities to overthrow the lawful rulers, as proved by the letter from Richard Wagner taken upon him, etc., etc. The sentence passed upon Roeckel was death, Heubner and Bakunin having been brought up for trial and sentenced at the same time. The friends shook hands for the last time. 

And now for the actual part played by Wagner. Throughout he was most active. He was, as he says, “everywhere." His genius for organising and directing, which we have seen carried to such perfection on the stage, proved of infinite value during those anxious days. An outbreak had long been expected, but not at the moment it actually took place, and when it came he was found ready to carry out the work appointed him. Though not on the executive of the provisional government, he was consulted regularly by the heads, and as he says, “ it was pure accident " he was not taken prisoner with Heubner and Bakunin, as he had but “left them the night before their arrest to meet them in the morning for consultation.” 

Praeger even describes an incident where Wagner actively took up arms:

It was in the morning about eight o'clock, the barricade at which Wagner and Hainberger were stationed was about to receive such morning meal as had been prepared, the outposts being kept by a few men and women. Amongst the latter was a young girl of eighteen, the daughter of a baker belonging to this particular barricade. She stood in sight of all, when to their amazement a shot was suddenly heard, a piercing shriek, followed by the fall of the girlish patriot. The miscreant Prussian soldier, one of a detachment in the neighbourhood, was caught redhanded and hurried to the barricade. Wagner seized a musket and mounting a cart called out aloud to all: “Men, will you see your wives and daughters fall in the cause of our beloved country, and not avenge their cowardly murder? All who have hearts, all who have the blood and spirit of their forefathers, and love their country follow me, and death to the tyrant.” So saying he seized a musket, and heading the barricade they came quickly upon the few Prussians who had strayed too far into the town, and who, perceiving they were outnumbered, gave themselves up as prisoners. This is but one of those many examples of what a timid man will do under excitement, for I give it as my decided opinion, and I have no fear of lack of corroboration, that Richard Wagner was not personally brave.

Wagner and his close friend Roeckel, who were described as being like twins, were eventually reunited. They maintained a close correspondence. However, nowhere in this correspondence is there a letter that says: "Dear Roeckel, old chum, I've changed my mind and don't believe in parliamentary democracy any more, despotism is all the go now, and oh yes, I now think capitalism is fine and dandy too." Quite the opposite is true. And utter drivel like this only exists in the perverted imaginations of the likes of Chamberlain who wanted to reinvent Wagner as a propagandist subservient to his demented Nazi ideology. Partly because Chamberlain was English by birth, his blatant Nazi propaganda continues to exert a frightful amount of influence in the English speaking language literature, where it is accepted virtually unchallenged as the Eternal Truth. Chamberlain has even spawned latter-day apologists for his ideologically driven monstrous misrepresentations such as Darlington.

Let's take another careful look at that letter from Wagner to Roeckel on the meaning of the Ring:

Surely you don’t seriously suggest this magnificent woman’s symbol of love is precisely this accursed ring, then that is just what I want you to feel, and to realise that this is the most awful, most tragic peak of the power of the Nibelung’s curse: for then you will realise the real need for the whole last drama Siegfrieds Tod. This is just what we still have to go through to reach a full appreciation of the evil of gold.

Notice those final words: "this is just what we still have to go through to reach a full appreciation of the evil of gold". So that is the ultimate meaning of the Ring - that the lust for money and power is the root of all evil. It is a profoundly anti-capitalist message. It is as clear as daylight that the composer of the Ring of the Nibelungs is the same as that of the Fatherland Union Paper:

In the coming contest we shall find that society will be maintained by the physical activity of individuals, and we shall destroy the nebulous notion that money possesses any inherent power. And heaven will help us ... dispel the false halo with which the unthinking mind invests this demon money. Then shall we root out the miseries engendered and nourished by public and secret usury, deceptive paper money and fraudulent speculations. This will tend to promote the emancipation of the human race

Notice Wagner's denunciation of monetarism: "the miseries engendered by public and secret usury, deceptive paper money and fraudulent speculations". I wonder what Wagner would have said about the Global Financial Crisis, and the greedy bankers gorging themselves on bonuses in its aftermath. Of course, the Great Depression after the collapse of Wall Street was one of main social forces that caused  WWII or to use Wagner's terms, war was "the root of miseries engendered" by capitalism.

The phrase about "usury" also tells us much about Wagner's anti-Semitism: it is an anti-capitalist sentiment. Wagner would have blamed the GFC on greedy Jewish bankers stealing money from the common man - unfairly so since monetarism is globalised outside of the boarders of any specific ethnic clique.

Notice that even here, Wagner was already concerned about "salvation" for the human race from its "degraded servitude" to the "demon money". The question of how mankind can attain that salvation is, as Wagner explains to Roeckel, the central question of the Ring, where the source of all "degraded servitude" is the blind lust for the gold of the Ring of the Nibelungs.

Of course, the next thing these Nazi nut-cases come up with is the claim that because Wagner was proud of his country, as the homeland of Beethoven and Goethe, that he must be a proto-Nazi, since every German who is proud of his nation could only ever be a nutcase fascist. Even here the Fatherland Union Paper makes a laughing mockery of the bizarre perversions of these complete lunatics:

And when all who draw breath in our dear German land are united into one great free people, when class prejudices shall have ceased to exist, then do you suppose we have reached our goal? Oh, no; we are just equipped for the beginning. Then will it be our duty to investigate boldly ... the cause of misery of our present social status, and determine whether man ... can have been destined by God to be the servile slave of inert base metal. We must decide whether money shall exert such degrading power over the image of God — man — as to render him the despicable slave of the passions of usury and avarice. The war against this existing evil will cause neither tears nor blood.

Wagner was a Nationalist who wanted a unified German Fatherland "when all who draw breath in our dear German land are united in one great free people". He even goes on to tell us that in this land of freedom "class prejudices shall have ceased to exist" and that "we further insist upon the unconditional right of every natural-born subject, when of age, to a vote". It is out of patriotic duty and love of his country that he insist on democracy and equal right for all in a united Fatherland.

It is exactly as the words of the modern German national anthem state: "Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit für das deutsche Vaterland (unity and justice and freedom for the German Fatherland)." This is the democratic ideal that Wagner believed in. That is why the paper for which he served twelve years in exile was entitled The Fatherland Union Paper. Wagner the patriot and Wagner the pro-democracy activist are one and the same man.

Not only that but the Paper is a call for a united German democratic state where:

The sun of German freedom and German gentleness shall alike warm and elevate Cossack, Frenchmen, Bushmen, and Chinese.

Yes, that's right, where all races would be treated equally in a universal brotherhood of man: the ideals praised in Wagner's favourite symphony, the Beethoven Ninth. Indeed, Wagner late in his life wrote that he thought that the racist ideology of Gobineau was a "completely immoral world order". That is to say Wagner remained true to Schiller's words: "alle Menschen werden Brüder." Not only is Wagner the musical successor of Beethoven, he is also his successor as the enlightened and liberal social conscience of German art.

It is predictable that those Nazi apologist who wish to usurp Wagner as as propagandist for their lunatic cause will object that Wagner had to have betrayed his friends and their liberal ideals since he accepted royal patronage from King Ludwig II of Bavaria. Wagner also wrote him a musical hommage in the form of the Huldigungsmarsch. Wagner even omitted the Fatherland Union Paper from a publication of his collected works - surely a betrayal of Roeckel and his other pro-democracy activist friends, it will be alleged.

The answer is obviously that Wagner was never a revolutionary who believed in shooting royalty - there was never a leap away from advocating shooting them to accepting their money. He believed that an enlightened royalty would one day voluntarily grant a transition to parliamentary democracy. His notoriety as a revolutionary, once wanted by the police for his activities, made it difficult for him to mingle with royalty. If he were to find funding for his liberal minded arts projects, to further his career as a composer he had to make this compromise - otherwise, he may have had to do what Roeckel in largely giving up his musical career.

Wagner's pro-democracy activist past made for a certain awkwardness whenever he was introduced to royalty, such as when he was presented before Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in London. It is little wonder he played down his role in the Dresden uprisings. Like Beethoven, Wagner turned out to be reliant on the patronage of royalty for his art. However, it is no more fair to call Wagner a Nazi for it than to call Beethoven that for accepting aristocratic patronage. Liberal artists often have conservative patrons.

Indeed, this is an ethical problem that remains to this day in the arts. It is common for liberal arts organisation to have their conscience troubled by donations from multinational corporations with a questionable ethical background.  Likewise, it has not been unknown for artists with strong left wing views to have received commissions from wealthy capitalists. However, it would pretty severe to accuse any artist who accepts commissions or donations from dubious capitalists to be condemned forever as being a traitor to the liberal cause, and to have every one of their works of art be forever interpreted as ultra right-wing hate propaganda. Yet that is the lot of Wagner.

In addition, it might be mentioned that Wagner also took a commission from his publisher for a Kaisermarsch to mark the unification of Germany following the Franco-Prussian War. It is a pretty trivial work - his heart was clearly not in this - and Wagner desperately needed the money to pay his debts (a reason why he also composed a march for the centenary of the American Declaration of Independence). Moreover, national unification was a momentous occasion in German history. Not only that, but the Prussians were the ones that defeated the French at the Battle of Waterloo, and were at that time remembered as much for being an anti-despotic force that stood up to the tyrant Napoleon. Indeed, Wagner's father died of typhoid fever caught off Napoleonic French soldiers as they occupied Leipzig (Praeger, Wagner as I Knew Him, Pg 4).

No other major composer in the history of music ever went into exile for twelve years for expressing peaceful pro-democratic and egalitarian ideals. Indeed, exceeding few, if any major artist in the history of Western Art in general has gone into exile to escape the death sentence for taking such a stand. By all accounts, it was an exile from the country he loved, and for which he suffered deeply. Of course, there are artists who have served persecution for expressing liberal ideas in their art such as Victor Hugo, Václav Havel and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, however exceedingly few of them are considered anywhere as major an artist as Wagner.

Even more unprecedented is the fact that history has rewarded Wagner for his unshaken belief in a more enlightened future, expressed through political activism as well as his art, by accusing Wagner of being a proto-Nazi fascist ideologue, who rejected democracy and out of contempt for equal rights, expounded race hate propaganda. Some have even gone as far as calling him the Prophet and Hitler his most loyal disciple. Wagner, hater of equality, hater of democracy, we are told, is singularly responsible for World War II and the Holocaust. The Ring of the Nibelungs, we are told, is nought but an expression of these hatreds.

Wagner the liberal dissident writer and composer remains firmly in exile to this day. It is high time he were liberated. Liberated from the web of lies concocted by Nazi propagandists, who attempt to plunder the riches of enlightened liberal German art by falsely appropriate Wagner for themselves and enslave him in servitude their despicable lies. To this day, the Nazis and their latter day apologists have been allowed to get away with this unspeakable plunder of an enlightened liberal art for their evil ends. It is high time they were stopped, and the lunatic rot about Wagner erected as the Eternal Truth by Chamberlain, Hitler and their blood sucking hoard, ripped down and exposed for the monstrous lies that they are.

For the time being, however, the Nazis are winning the battle, and Wagner looks like he will remain in exile for some time.


Notes:
For a discussion on the Fatherland Union Paper please see this thread.