It was natural that, with the growth of a democratic movement in Germany, especially after the July Revolution in France, attention should be directed towards the study of the great Peasant War. A series of popular brochures and works examining individual phases of the movement made their appearance, and in 1841 there was published the monumental work of [Wilhelm] Zimmermann, which, to the present time, remains the most detailed narrative of the events of the Peasant War in Germany. It was also natural that the German communists, confronted with the necessity of determining how far the peasantry could be relied upon as a revolutionary factor, should have carefully studied the history of the Peasant War. Their attention was particularly drawn to the leaders of the Peasant War, one of whom was Thomas Muenzer. It is characteristic that as early as 1845, Engels, in one of his first articles for the Chartist Northern Star, called the attention of the English workers to this famous leader of the Peasant War of 1525, who, according to Engels, was a real democrat, and fought for real demands, not illusions. Marx and Engels, who very soberly regarded the role of the peasantry in the realization of a social revolution never underestimated its role as a revolutionary factor in the struggle against the large landowners and the feudal masters. They understood very well that the more the peasantry falls under the leadership of revolutionary classes which unite it, the more capable it is of general political actions. Led by the revolutionary proletariat, supporting its struggle against capitalism in the city and the village, the peasantry appeared to be a very important ally. This is why Marx and Engels, during the revolution of 1848 49, mercilessly exposed the cowardly conduct of the German bourgeoisie, which, currying favour with the Junkers and afraid of the proletariat, had refused to defend the interests of the peasantry. It was with the aim of instructing the German bourgeois democracy that in 1850, Engels, supported by the factual material collected by the democrat, Zimmermann, wrote this splendid account of the German Peasant War. First, he gives a picture of the economic situation and of the class composition of Germany of that time. Then he shows how out of this soil spring the various opposition groups with their programmes, and gives a colourful characterisation of Luther and Muenzer. The third chapter contains a brief history of the peasant uprisings in the German Empire from 1476 to 1517, that is, to the beginning of the Reformation. In the fourth chapter we have the history of the uprising of the nobility under the leadership of Franz von Sickingen and Ulrich von Hutten. The fifth and sixth chapters contain a narrative of the events of the Peasant War as such, with a detailed explanation of the main causes of the peasants defeat. In the seventh and last chapters the significance of the Peasant War and its consequences in German history are explained. Permeating the whole of Engels work is the idea of the necessity of a merciless struggle against the feudal masters, the landlords. Only a radical abolition of all traces of feudal domination, he said, could create the most favourable conditions for the success of a proletarian revolution. In this respect Engels was in full harmony with Marx, who wrote to him later (August 16, 1856), Everything in Germany will depend upon whether it will be possible to support the proletarian revolution by something like a second edition of the Peasant War. Only then will everything proceed well. Quite different was the conception of Lassalle, who overestimated the significance of the uprising of the nobility, idealized Franz von Sickingen and Ulrich von Hutten, and treated the revolutionary movement of the lower plebeian strata too contemptuously. In his opinion, the Peasant War, notwithstanding its revolutionary appearance, was in reality a reactionary movement. It must be noted that in the last years of his life, Engels devoted much labour to the study of the Peasant War, and was about to recast his old work. In 1882 be wrote a special addition to his Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, devoted to the history of the German peasantry. On December 31, 1884, he wrote to Sorge: I am subjecting my Peasant War to radical reconstruction. It is going to become a cornerstone of German history. It is a great piece of work. All the preliminary work is almost ready. The work of preparing the second and third volumes of Capital for publication, prevented him from carrying out his plan. In July, 1893, he wrote to Mehring, If I succeed in reconstructing anew the historic introduction to my Peasant War, which I hope will be possible during this winter, I will give there an exposition of my views [concerning the conditions of the breaking up of Germany and the causes of the defeat of the German bourgeois revolution of the Sixteenth Century]. When Kautsky was writing his book on the forerunners of modern socialism it appeared in parts Engels wrote to him on May 21, 1895: 
The Peasant War in Germany: Comments by Riazanov