ABSTRACT
On November 18 Marx, jointly with Schapper and the lawyer, Schneider, issued an appeal for a tax-boycott in the name of the Rhineland district Democratic committee. Passive resistance presupposed active resistance, the Neue Rheinische Zeitung proclaimed, otherwise it would be equivalent to the struggles of a calf in the slaughter-house. From the autumn of 1848 onwards the Neue Rheinische Zeitung started changing its tone. If previously it had only paid slight attention to specifically working-class questions, wishing to avoid anything tending to disturb harmonious co-operation between bourgeoisie and proletariat against the forces of absolutism, it now set itself to demonstrating the full extent of the antagonism between proletariat and bourgeoisie. The Neue Rheinische Zeitung declared that this was evidence of what kind of constitution the German bourgeoisie would give the people if it came into power. The weakness of the German Revolution was now manifest.
