ABSTRACT
If the national question received relatively scant attention in the Communist Manifesto, the course of events over the months following its publication led Marx and Engels to write rather more extensively about it. Their remarks in 1848 concerning it, however, were expressed not so much as a general theory of wide applicability, but rather were concerned for the most part with specific situations in particular regions. The German bourgeoisie's insufficiently revolutionary stance in 1848 may be attributed also to other factors besides national disunity. Relations between it and government should also be taken into account. In Marx's and Engels’ eyes, German unification could benefit the workers even though it had been brought about by forces rather different from the proletariat of whom they had made much wildly optimistic predictions early in 1848.
