Frederick Engels
ON THE HISTORY OF THE COMMUNIST LEAGUE
London
October 8, 1885
With the sentence of the Cologne Communists in 1852, the curtain
falls on the first period of the independent German workers' movement.
Today this period is almost forgotten. Yet it lasted from 1836 to 1852
and, with the spread of German workers abroad, the movement developed in
almost all civilized countries. Nor is that all. The present-day
international workers' movement is in substance a direct continuation of
the German workers' movement of that time, which was the _first
international workers' movement_ of all time, and which brought forth
many of those who took the leading role in he International Working
Men's Association. And the theoretical principles that the Communist
League had inscribed on its banner in the _Communist Manifesto_ of 1847
constitute today the strongest international bond of the entire
proletarian movement of both Europe and America.
Up to now there has been only one source for a coherent history of
that movement. This is the so-called Black Book, _The Communist
Conspiracies of the Nineteenth Century_, by Wermuth and Stieber, Erline,
two parts, 1853 and 1854. This crude compilation, which bristles with
deliberate falsifications, fabricated by two of the most contemptible
police scoundrels of our century, today still serves as the final source
for all non-communist writings about that period.
What I am able to give here is only a sketch, and even this only in
so far as the League itself is concerned; only what is absolutely
necessary to understand the _Revelations_. I hope that some day I shall
have the opportunity to work up the rich material collected by Marx and
myself on the history of that glorious period of the youth of the
international workers' movement.
*
In 1836 the most extreme, chiefly proletarian elements of the
secret democratic-republican Outlaws' League, which was founded by
German refugees in Paris in 1834, split off and formed the new secret
League of the Just. The parent League, in which only sleepy-headed
elements a la Jakobus Venedey were left, soon fell asleep altogether;
when in 1840 the police scented out a few sections in Germany, it was
hardly even a shadow of its former self. The new League, on the
contrary, developed comparatively rapidly. Originally it was a German
outlier of the French worker-Communism, reminiscent of Babouvism and
taking shape in Paris at about this time; community of goods was
demanded as the necessary consequence of "equality". The aims were
those of the Parisian secret societies of the time: half propaganda
association, half conspiracy, Paris, however, being always regarded as
the central point of revolutionary action, although the preparation of
occassional _putsches_ in Germany was by no means excluded. But as
Paris remained the decisive battleground, the League was at that time
actually not much more than the German branch of the French secret
societies, especially the Societe des saisons led by Blanqui and Barbes,
with which a close connections was maintained. The French went into
action on May 12, 1839; the sections of the League marched with them and
thus were involved in the common defeat.
Among the Germans arrested were Karl Schapper and Heinrich Bauer;
Louis Philippe's government contented itself with deporting them after a
fairly long imprisonment. Both went to London. Schapper came from
Weilburg in Nassau and while a student of forestry at Giessen in 1832
was a member of the conspiracy organized by Georg Buchner; he took part
in the storming of the Frankfort constable station on April 3, 1833,
escaped abroad and in February 1834 joined Mazzini's march on Savoy. Of
gigantic stature, resolute and energetic, always ready to risk civil
existence and life, he was a model of the professional revolutionist
that played an important role in the thirties. In spite of a certain
sluggishness of thought, he was by no means incapable of profound
theoretical understanding, as is proved by his development from
"demagogue" to Communist, and he held then all the more rigidly to what
he had once come to recognize. Precisely on that account his
revolutionary passion sometimes got the better of understanding, but he
always afterwards realized his mistake and openly acknowledged it. He
was fully a man and what he did for the founding of the German workers'
movement will not be forgotten.
Heinrich Bauer, from Franconia, was a shoemaker; a lively, alert,
witty little fellow, whose little body, however, also contained much
shrewdness and determination.
Arrived in London, where Schapper, who had been a compositor in
Paris, now tried to earn his living as a teacher of languages, they both
set to work gathering up the broken threads and made London the centre
of the League. They were joined over here, if not already earlier in
Paris, by Joseph Moll, a watchmaker from Cologne, a medium-sized
Hercules -- how often did Schapper and he victoriously defend the
entrance to a hall against hundreds of onrushing opponents! -- a man who
was at least the equal of his two comrades in energy and determination,
and intellectually superior to both of them. Not only was he a born
diplomat, as the success of his numerous trips on various mission
proved; he was also more capable of theoretical insight. I came to know
all three of them in London in 1843. There were the first revolutionary
proletarians whom I met, and however far apart our views were at that
time -- for I still owned, as against their narrow-minded equalitarian
Communism [by equalitarian Communism I understand, as stated, only that
Communism which bases itself exclusively or predominantly on the demand
for equality], a goodly does of just as narrow-minded philosophical
arrogance -- I shall never forget the deep impression that these three
real men made upon me, who was then still only wanting to become a man.
In London, as in a lesser degree in Switzerland, they had the
benefit of freedoms of association and assembly. As early as February
7, 1840, the legally functioning German Workers' Educational
Association, which still exists, was founded. This Association served
the League as a recruiting ground for new members, and since, as always,
the Communists were the most active and intelligent members of the
Association, it was a matter of course that its leadership lay entirely
in the hands of the League. The League soon had several communities,
or, as they were then still called, "lodges", in London. The same
obvious tactics were followed in Switzerland and elsewhere. Where
workers' associations could be founded, they were utilized in like
manner. Where this was forbidden by law, one joined choral societies,
athletic clubs, and the like. Connections were to a large extent
maintained by members who were continually travelling back and forth;
they also, when required, served as emissaries. In both respects the
League obtained lively support through the wisdom of the governments
which, by resorting to deportation, converted any objectionable worker
-- and in nine cases our of ten he was a member of the League -- into an
emissary.
The extent to which the restored League was spread was
considerable. Notably in Switzerland, Weitling, August Becker (a highly
gifted man who, however, like so many Germans, came to grief because of
innate instability of character) and others created a strong
organization more or less pledged to Weitling's communist system. This
is not the place to criticize the Communism of Weitling. But as regards
its significance as the first independent theoretical stirring of the
German proletariat, I still today subscribe to Marx's words in the Paris
_Vorwarts_ of 1844:
"Where could the (German) bourgeoisie -- including its philosophers
and learned scribes -- point to a work relating to the emancipation
of the bourgeoisie -- its political emancipation -- comparable to
Weitlings' _Guarantees of Harmony and Freedom_? If one compares
the drab mealy-mouthed mediocrity of German political literature
with this immeasurable and brilliant debut of the German workers,
if one compares these gigantic children's shoes of the proletariat
with the dwarf proportions of the worn-out political shows of the
bourgeoisie, one must prophesy an athlete's figure for this
Cinderella."
This athlete's figure confronts us today, although still far from being
fully grown.
Numerous sections existed also in Germany; in the nature of things
they were of a transient character, but those coming into existence more
than made up for those passing away. Only after seven years, at the end
of 1846, did the police discover traces of the League in Berlin (Mentel)
and Magdeburg (Beck), without being in a position to follow them
further.
In Paris, Weitling, who was still there in 1840, likewise gathered
the scattered elements together again before he left for Switzerland.
The tailors formed the central force of the League. German tailors
were everywhere: in Switzerland, in London, in Paris. In the last-named
city, German was so much the prevailing tongue in this trade that I was
acquainted there in 1846 with a Norwegian tailor who had travelled
directly by sea from Trondhjem to France and ...
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