Bismarck severed German nationalism from its liberal-reformist origins

Evidence

Bismarck… realized that, despite the setback of 1848–1849, German liberalism and nationalism supported by Austria were still a serious threat to Prussian particularism and Prussian aristocratic privilege… . Liberalism was fatal to the social order for which Bismarck stood; but nationalism, carefully handled, could be made to subserve the purposes of Prussia… . He separated German national aspirations from the liberal background which, from 1813 to 1848 and in centuries past, had given them meaning. Nationalism had grown strong as an instrument of liberal reform, as an essential means of breaking the stranglehold of particularist interest over the German people… . [H]e offered the German people unity, but at the expense of the radical reform which alone made unity worth while. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 327

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• XREF: This theme — nationalism detached from its liberatory base and repurposed by conservatism — parallels the later argument Robinson makes about how the Black radical tradition gets co-opted or severed from its origins.

Related

• Bismarck weaponized nationalism by separating it from its liberal grounding (similarity 0.96)
• Bismarck detached German nationalism from its liberal revolutionary roots. (similarity 0.96)
• German industrialization made radical reform feel less urgent, easing Bismarck’s path. (similarity 0.86)
• Nationalism subverted socialism and overtook capitalist development worldwide (similarity 0.82)
• German economic prosperity made radical reform seem less urgent (similarity 0.82)
• Marxian economism led Marxists to dismiss nationalism as backward ideology. (similarity 0.79)
• Marxism’s economism forced the conclusion that nationalism was a backward, diversionary ideology. (similarity 0.79)
• German prosperity and external threats made liberal reform seem less urgent (similarity 0.79)
• German nationalism worked against revolutionary consciousness in 1860s (similarity 0.79)
• Marx’s theories of democracy and nation formed in response to the 1848-49 defeats (similarity 0.78)
• Marx and Engels’ German nationalism skewed their judgment of Slavic liberation movements. (similarity 0.78)
• German unification was blocked by intensely persistent state particularisms into the 1860s (similarity 0.78)