The Civil War in Valais

#PUBLICATION NOTE

This edition of The Civil War in Valais has been prepared and revised for digital publication by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism under the Central Committee of the Communist Party in Switzerland on the basis of the edition published in the Collected Works of Marx and Engels, First English Edition, Volume 3, Lawrence & Wishart, London.

#INTRODUCTION NOTE

This is an article written by Comrade Friedrich Engels about the class struggle in south-western Switzerland during the early-to-middle 1840s. It was first published in The Northern Star, No. 344, 15th of June, 1844.

#Workers and oppressed people of the world, unite!

#THE CIVIL WAR IN VALAIS

#Friedrich Engels

#First Half of June 1844

#★

The valley of the River Rhone, from its source at the foot of the Rhone Glacier to the Lake of Geneva, is one of the finest countries in the world. On its sides are the highest mountains of Europe, two uninterrupted chains of a mean height of 12'000 feet, covered with eternal snow, from which spring the numberless rivulets which feed the Rhone and fertilize the meadows and fields of the valley. Here, within a few hours' walk from eternal winter, the chestnut and the vine are found thriving under a sun as powerful almost in its warmth as that of the evergreen plains of Lombardy. This valley is called Valais, and inhabited partly by German-speakers, partly by French-speakers. The German-speakers, entering the country from the north-east, occupy the higher and more mountainous part of the valley, where the country is unfavourable to agriculture, but excellent for the breeding of cattle; consequently, this part of the population remains up to this time in almost the same state of nature in which their ancestors occupied Upper Valais. Political and religious education is left entirely in the hands of a few aristocratic families and of the priesthood, who, of course, keep the people as stupid and superstitious as possible. On the contrary, the French-speakers settled in Lower Valais, where the widening of the valley admits of introducing agriculture and other pursuits of industry. The French-speakers have founded the more considerable towns of Valais, are educated and developed, and, by their bordering on the lake and the Radical Canton of Vaud,¹ are brought into connection with the outer world, and enabled to keep up with the progress of their neighbour's ideas. Nevertheless, the rough mountaineers of Upper Valais had, I know not how, many hundred years ago, subdued French-speaking Lower Valais, and continued to consider this part of the country as a conquered province, and to exclude its inhabitants from any participation in government. In 1798, when the French overthrew the old aristocratic system of Swiss patrician despotism,² Lower Valais got its share of government, but not to the full extent to which it was entitled. In 1830, when the Democratic Party in all Switzerland was in the ascendant, the Constitution was remodeled upon fair and democratic principles;³ but the priest-ridden cowherds of Upper Valais, and the sovereign rulers of their minds, the parsons, have ever since tried to bring about a change in favour of the old system of injustice. The Radical Party, in order to guard against this, formed an association called Young Switzerland among themselves and the Radicals of Vaud. They were most violently assailed and calumniated by the priesthood, and usually attacked upon the ground of being infidels, which, however, on the Continent is a charge more laughed at than shuddered at. In 1840, the first outbreak against Young Switzerland took place, but, finding the Democrats well-prepared, the dupes of superstition and ignorance retreated to their unassailable mountain passes, in order to break forth again in March 1844. They have now succeeded in taking the Radicals by surprise, in profiting by the general reaction in favour of Conservative principles; and of the leading canton (the seat of the Federal Government for the time being) Lucerne, being a Conservative canton. The Democratic Party in Valais is for the moment overwhelmed. The interference of the Federal Government will be required; it remains to be seen what profit the priests, who accompanied the Conservative army and headed it, will make of their victory; but, at any rate, there is no chance, even now, to reestablish anything like the old system, or to keep Lower Valais and its spirited inhabitants in a state of subjection. A few years, no, months, may bring back the ascendancy of the Democratic Party.⁴