Karl Marx: Man and Fighter Boris Nicolaievsky and Otto Maenchen-Helfen

Chapter 11: The Communist League

The German Communists, though they criticised the harsh wording of the circular, took Marx's side. The Brussels committee thereupon demanded that 'philosophical and sentimental' Communism be combated outright. This hurt the feelings of Schapper and his followers, who rebelled at the 'intellectual arrogance' of the Brussels committee. They claimed to be free from sentimental aspirations themselves, but believed a milder attitude towards the 'sentimental' Communists, who after all meant well, to be preferable to the violence with which Marx attacked them. Marx did not and could not give in. If the small Communist élite did not have clear, definite views, any attempt to influence the broad, working masses was doomed to failure. Marx used his correspondence with the German Communists in London, to which he attached supreme importance, as he later wrote, 'to subject to merciless criticism in a series of partly printed, partly lithographed pamphlets the medley of English and French Socialism or Communism and German philosophy which then formed the secret teaching of the League, and replace it by the only tenable theoretical foundation, namely scientific insight into the economic structure of bourgeois society; and, finally, to explain in popular form that our task was not that of trying to bring any kind of Utopian system into being but was that of consciously participating in a historical revolutionary process by which society was being transformed before our eyes.'

Where possible written propaganda was supplemented by oral propaganda. Engels was particularly active in Paris, where he settled in the middle of August, 1846.

Unwilling as the members of the League of the Just, both in London and Paris, at first were to face the dilemma with which Marx confronted them, namely, that of choosing between scientific or Utopian Socialism, hard as it was for them to renounce what they had held dear for so many years, they nevertheless overcame their doubts and followed Marx. What they learned from him substantiated their own insight into affairs, brought sense and coherence into their own experiences, enabled them to understand the historical significance of the English workers' movement, gave them the firm standpoint that they needed. This does not imply that none of them fell back again in later years. But in the two years in question Marx won over the vanguard of the class for scientific Socialism.

The central offices of the League of the Just remained in Paris--mainly out of tradition, for the preponderating majority of its members no longer lived in France--until the autumn of 1846. The real headquarters were in London. Legal organisations of workers of the kind that Schapper and his comrades had created in London were impossible in Paris, and France had no mass movement like that of the Chartists in England, not even in embryo. In Paris the old forms of the conspiratorial secret society were still kept up. They did not correspond to the needs of the rising working-class movement. The first result of the Marxian criticism was the reorganisation of the League of the Just. The officers of the club were re-elected in autumn, 1846. Schapper and Moll and other 'Londoners' became the leaders.

They felt the approach of the revolution which, in the words of one of their circulars 'would probably settle the fate of the world for centuries.' They realised that their immediate task must be to carry out Marx's injunctions of a year before. They must create a Communist Party programme and decide on their tactics. A congress was to be held in London to do these things. The proposal to hold it had been made by the London correspondence committee in the summer of 1846. In November, 1846, a special circular letter was sent out, summoning the representatives of all the branches of the League to a Congress to be held on May 1, 1847.

Joseph Moll was entrusted with the task of getting into touch with Marx and inviting him to join the League. Moll arrived in Brussels at the beginning of February, 1847. He was authorised to give Marx 'an oral report on the state of affairs (in the League of the Just) and receive information from him in return.' After interviewing Marx in Brussels Moll went to Paris and interviewed Engels. He explained in his own name and that of his comrades that they were convinced of the rightness of Marx's views and agreed that they must shake off the old conspiratorial forms and traditions. Marx and Engels were to be invited to collaborate in the work of reorganisation and theoretical re-orientation.

To Marx the invitation to enter the League was by no means unexpected. If he hesitated to accept it it was because of his appreciation of the power of tradition and his consequently inevitable uncertainty about the genuineness of the League of the Just's determination fundamentally to reorganise itself. Marx had kept away from the secret societies in Paris. Repelled as he had been by their romanticism, which occasionally expressed itself in the most ludicrous forms, standing as he did a whole world apart from the doctrines of the insurrectionists and the Utopians, now that he had recognised the historical mission of the proletariat in all its immensity he had no choice but decisively and once and for all to reject secret society conspiratorialism as the method of organising the class movement. But Moll stated that it was essential that he and Engels should join the League if it were really to shake off all its archaic shackles, and Marx overcame his doubts and joined the League of the Just in February or March, 1847.

The Congress met in London on June 1, 1847 (it had been postponed for a month). Engels was the delegate of the Paris branch and Wilhelm Wolff came from Brussels. Marx stayed in Brussels. His official reason was lack of funds for the journey, and it appears from a letter that he did in fact attempt unsuccessfully to raise the necessary sum. But money cannot have been the decisive factor. If Marx had been really determined to take part in the Congress it would not have been difficult for him to have persuaded the branch to send him instead of the excellent but not outstanding Wolff. No doubt the real explanation is the assumption that before associating himself definitely with the League Marx wanted to await the results of the Congress.

The Congress decided on a complete reorganisation of the League. In place of the old name, to which any man could attach any meaning he liked--this was actually encouraged because there were only a few real initiates and to lead the profane astray could not but be useful--a new name, the 'Communist League,' made its appearance. The statutes of the League were entirely recast. The first sentence was: 'The aim of the League is the downfall of the bourgeoisie and the ascendancy of the proletariat, the abolition of the old society based on class conflicts and the foundation of a new society without classes and without private property.' This was the language of Marx. The whole organisation was built up in the Marxian spirit. It was democratic throughout. Before joining the League Marx and Engels had stipulated that 'everything conducive to superstitious authoritarianism be struck out of the rules.' All the officers of the League were appointed by election and could be dismissed at any time by those who had elected them. This alone constituted an effective barrier against machinations and intrigues of the kind conducive to dictatorship, and the League was converted--at any rate for ordinary times of peace--into a straightforward propaganda organisation. The statutes were drafted and sent back to the branches for discussion. They were accepted after further deliberation by the second Congress in December.

Between now and the next Congress a statement of the League's programme, the League's 'profession of faith,' was to be worked out. Before parting the delegates also decided to publish a periodical. The 'trial number' of the Kommunistische Zeitschrift, the only one that ever appeared, came out in September, 1847. It was edited by the German Communists in London, no doubt with Engels's collaboration. The old motto of the League of the Just had been 'All men are brothers.' It was changed at Engels's suggestion. Whether his reasons for regarding the change as essential were the same as Marx's is not known. Marx declared that there was a whole mass of men of whom he wished anything rather than to be their brothers. The phrase that Engels proposed and the Congress of the Communist League accepted appeared for the first time on the badly printed little sheet on sale for twopence to German workers at the White Hart Inn in Drury Lane in the autumn of 1847. It was: 'Proletarians of all countries, unite!'

Marx had been trying for a long time to get hold of a legal newspaper in Germany through which he could express his views. He thought out innumerable schemes and conducted lengthy negotiations, all without success. German Socialist papers competed for contributions from him and his friends, and a few articles also appeared in the Rheinische Jahrbücher, the Deutsches Bürgerbuch, the Gesellschaftsspiegel, the Westfälische Dampfboot, and others. But Marx remained only an occasional contributor, if a highly appreciated one. He had no power to dictate the policy of any paper. Next to Engels's articles and his own there appeared others favouring the 'true' socialism which Marx was combating. The sharper the division between the Marxian group and the others became, and the better organised they grew, the more essential was it to have a mouthpiece the policy of which should be determined by them and them alone.

The German censorship made it impossible to start a newspaper in Germany. It must appear abroad, nay, in the town in which Marx lived. Only in those conditions, with the control in Marx's own hands, would there be a guarantee that it would represent his views entirely. But that would require means which were not at the disposal of Marx and his friends.

Impossible as it was to found an organ of his own, the opportunity presented itself in 1847 of so influencing a paper already in existence that it would in effect be as good as his own. Since the beginning of the year the Deutsche Brüsseler Zeitung had been published weekly in Brussels by Adalbert von Bornstedt, who had contributed in his time to the Paris Vorwärts. Bornstedt was very anxious to secure Marx as a contributor. But Bornstedt was a man with a very doubtful past and with very doubtful connections. People stated quite openly, in speech and in writing, that he was in the service of the political police. The only thing they had any doubt about was in whose pay he actually was. He was held by some to be an Austrian spy, by others to be a spy of Prussia. Others again believed that it was 'Russian roubles that seemed to smile towards him.' There is no doubt that Marx knew of these incriminating allegations, which were frequently mentioned in the letters that passed between him and Heine during the time of their friendship. Even Freiligrath, whom in the first months of his Brussels exile Marx saw practically every day, believed that Bornstedt was a spy who had come to Brussels for the special purpose of keeping watch on the 'emigrants' there.

At first Marx had no contact with the Deutsche Brüsseler Zeitung, if for no other reason than that politically it was completely colourless. 'So far it has no significance whatever,' the Prussian ambassador reported to Berlin on January 20, 1847. But with every number the paper became more oppositional, more revolutionary. The King of Prussia was the special subject of its attacks, and on April 3 the ambassador reported that the paper 'attacked His Majesty's Government with revolting scurrility and savagery.' Not content with quoting the paper's 'scurrility,' he made representations to the Belgian police, who should 'curb' it. At the moment, however, they were not inclined to do the Prussian's bidding. The démarches of the Prussian ambassador only had the effect of causing the Belgian newspapers to take up the matter and of supplying the Deutsche Brüsseler Zeitung with new material. It became 'even more scurrilous and violent in its attacks on foreign governments and princes.'

In these circumstances the suspicion that had previously rested on Bornstedt necessarily diminished. Marx started writing for the Deutsche Brüsseler Zeitung in April, 1847. Bornstedt 'had declared himself ready to do everything possible for us.' Doubtless Marx had come to the conclusion that there was no foundation for the allegations against him. Suspicion was hurled about among the German exiles at that time just as easily as it was among the Poles, among whom every political opponent, because he was an opponent, was thought capable of being a spy.

Now that the dossiers of the secret police are available it is known that there was substance in the denunciations of Bornstedt. He spied for Austria, for Prussia and perhaps for a few of the smaller German states as well. His reports, preserved among the secret state papers in Berlin, contain a wealth of material about the German exiles. But all his reports date from the thirties and the beginning of the forties. There is, of course, no proof that he gave up his nefarious activities with the cessation of his reports, but on the other hand the possibility that he became a genuine revolutionary is not excluded. He was an adventurer. He took part in Herwegh's expedition in 1848, fought against the troops of Baden, was taken prisoner and died mentally deranged.

As soon as Marx started writing for the Deutsche Brüsseler Zeitung he started trying to persuade others to do the same. He wrote to Herwegh and complained that the Germans were always finding new faults with the paper. Instead of taking advantage of it they were merely 'wasting an opportunity of accomplishing something. Their attitude to my manuscripts is rather like their attitude to the Deutsche Brüsseler Zeitung, and at the same time the asses write to me every other day, asking me why I don't print anything, and they even try persuading me that it is better to write in French than not to write at all. One will have to atone a long time for having been born a Teuton!'

The advice to write in French annoyed Marx, in view of his criticism of Proudhon, which had appeared in July, 1847. In his reply to the invitation to co-operate from Paris in the activities of the correspondence committees Proudhon had promised to write a book giving his own solution of the social problem. He kept his promise and wrote his Système des Contradictions Economiques, ou la Philosophie de la Misère. The 'solution' turned out to be nothing but 'petty-bourgeois reformism' wrapped up in misunderstood Hegelian dialectical formulas. In his reply, Misère de la Philosophie, written in French in order to be intelligible to Proudhon's readers, Marx mercilessly cracked the 'critical whip' that Proudhon had expected down on Proudhon's 'eternal ideas' and 'eternal laws,' his philosophical confusion, his 'moral' and 'philosophical' explanations of economic conditions. Just as Marx had to fight all his life against pupils of Weitling--most of them did not know who their teacher was--so also had he to struggle against Proudhonism, in France particularly but in Germany as well.

The Deutsche Brüsseler Zeitung was a very useful platform for keeping every possible kind of pseudo-Socialist and pseudo-radical in check. It very soon occupied a prominent position in the international democratic movement. The London Chartist assembly of September, 1847, hailed the Deutsche Brüsseler Zeitung, the Paris Réforme and the Northern Star as 'the three greatest and most democratic organs of Europe.' That in spite of all obstacles it was smuggled into Germany in fairly large numbers appears from numerous complaints in the police reports. It was read by all the German workers in Brussels.

Marx had already established good relations with them. After the conversion of the Brussels correspondence committee into a branch of the Communist League he and his friends formed the Brussels German Workers' Educational Union. Wherever members of the League of the Just and later of the Communist League went they founded legal organisations of this kind as soon as ever it became possible. The Brussels Union was patterned in every way, in aims, rules and constitution, on the London German Workers' Union.

Regular meetings were held twice a week. On Wednesdays there were lectures and the speaker was usually Marx. All that has survived of his economic lectures is what was later printed in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung under the title of Wage-Labour and Capital. Sundays were devoted to entertainment, previous to which Wilhelm Wolff always gave 'a review of the events of the day, which were invariably masterpieces of popular description, humorous and at the same time vivid, duly castigating the individual pettiness and blackguardisms of rulers and ruled in Germany alike.' Afterwards there were recitations--sometimes by Marx's wife--in addition to singing and dancing.

Police spies soon got excitedly to work on the paper and the club. A confidential report to the police authorities at Frankfurt-on-Main states: 'This noxious paper must indisputably exert the most corrupting influence upon the uneducated public at whom it is directed. The alluring theory of the dividing-up of wealth is held out to factory-workers and day-labourers as an innate right, and a profound hatred of the rulers and the rest of the community is inculcated into them. There would be a gloomy outlook for the Fatherland and for civilisation if such activities succeeded in undermining religion and respect for the laws and in any great measure infected the lowest class of the people by means of the Press and these clubs. ... The circumstance that the number of members (of the Workers' Union) has increased from thirty-seven to seventy within a few days is worthy of note.'

The Brussels branch of the Communist League was closely allied to the Left wing of the Belgian Democrats, not, of course, officially, but by reason of close personal connections. The editor of the Atelier Démocratique, a little paper published in a Brussels suburb, was L. Heilberg, a German refugee who died young. It was therefore quite natural for the Brussels branch of the League to take an active part in the formation of the International Democratic Union in Brussels.

Several attempts had been made in the thirties and forties to realise the idea of linking up all the revolutionary organisations in Europe and setting up a holy alliance of peoples against the Holy Alliance of kings. French, Germans, Greeks and other nationalities gathered round the headquarters of the Carbonari in Switzerland. Mazzini's Young Europe had national sections for 'Young' Italians, Germans, Poles, French, etc. Public banquets, which it was difficult for the police to ban, were a favourite method of bringing representatives of revolutionary movements together. Marx took part in a banquet of this kind in Paris in the spring of 1844. Nothing is known about it except that it took place and that French, Germans and Russians used the occasion to discuss democratic propaganda.

More, however, is known about the celebrations in Weitling's honour held in London on September 22, 1844. On this occasion Karl Schapper proposed the formation of a propaganda organisation with a view to uniting the democrats of all countries. There was unanimous enthusiasm for this proposal, but a year passed by before it was possible to take steps to carry it out. On September 22, 1845, more than a thousand Democrats of all nationalities gathered in London to celebrate the anniversary of the French Revolution. The initiator of the gathering was G.J. Harney, next to Ernest Jones the most zealous of the Chartist leaders who had risen above the prevalent insularity. Harney's words: 'We reject the word "foreigner." It must no longer exist in our democratic vocabulary,' became a reality in the society of Fraternal Democrats, formed on March 15, 1846. At first it was quite a loose association, intended to bring foreigners living in England closer to their similarly-minded English friends. In the summer of 1847 it was organised on a more formal basis.

Each nationality was given a general secretariat of its own. Harney was the English representative, the revolutionary Michelet, whose real name was Juin d'Allas, represented the French, and Karl Schapper represented the Germans. Their motto, 'All men are brothers,' was that of the London German Workers' Union.

In 1847 the Fraternal Democrats were extremely active, and there was no important event in international politics to which they did not declare their attitude, either in pamphlets or in the Press. In the autumn of 1847, they published a manifesto to all nations in which they outlined a plan for the formation of a widespread organisation, an 'International organisation eligible to people of all nationalities, with international committees in as many towns as possible.' There was a particularly lively response to the appeal in Belgium. In July, 1846, the Brussels correspondence committee had congratulated Feargus O'Connor, the Chartist, on his victory in the Nottingham election. The Northern Star had printed an article sent by the 'German Democratic Communists' and signed by Marx, Engels and Gigot, and the Fraternal Democrats greeted it as 'another proof of the advance of fraternity, and the approaching union of the Democrats of all countries in the great struggle for political and social equality.'

On September 27, 1847, the Association Démocratique, ayant pour but l'union et la fraternité de tous les peuples, was founded in Brussels. Singularly enough, it was founded originally as a counter-stroke to the local branch of the Communist League and was intended to resist the growing influence of Marx among the German refugees and the Belgian radicals. Bornstedt, who was consumed by ambition but was prevented by Marx from taking a direct part in political activity himself, wanted in all circumstances to play a political rôle. In Marx's absence from Brussels he took advantage of the opportunity to summon a conference of Democrats of various nations, at which it was decided to form a new organisation.

Marx's friends, and the nimble Engels in particular, had no difficulty in side-tracking Bornstedt, and Engels occupied the position of vice-president himself until Marx should return. In the middle of November Marx was formally elected as the German representative. The veteran General Antoine-François Mellinet, national hero of 1830, was elected honorary president. The Belgian representative was Lucien-Leopold Jottrand, a lawyer and editor of the Brussels Débat Social, the French representative was Jacques Imbert, a Blanquist with a renowned revolutionary past, and the Polish representative was the famous historian, Joachim Lelevel.

In the months that followed Marx worked for the Association Démocratique with the greatest energy. At a public meeting in Brussels he spoke on the question of Free Trade, and the association published his speech as a pamphlet. He travelled to Ghent, where a meeting of more than three thousand people, predominantly workers, decided to form a branch association. There seemed excellent foundation for the hope that the organisation might grow into a strong, well-organised Democratic party.

The Communist League, the Workers' Union, the Association Démocratique, writing for the Brussels newspaper, an extensive correspondence with Germany, England and France, to say nothing of his literary labours, made ample claims on Marx's energy. But nothing would be more mistaken than to imagine the young Marx--at the outbreak of the revolution of 1848 he was barely thirty years old--as a gloomy ascetic and fanatic.

The letters of Marx and Engels between 1844 and 1847 are an excellent biographical source for the life of the latter. But only one letter of Marx's has come down to us from that time. All the same there are a few documents that throw light on Marx's personal life in Brussels.

His brother-in-law, Edgar von Westphalen, stayed in Brussels until the late autumn of 1847. Jenny Marx was very fond of him. 'My one, beloved brother,' she called him in a letter to Frau Liebknecht. 'The ideal of my childhood and youth, my dear and only friend.' He was a Communist, but apparently not a very active one. He was an enemy of philistinism rather than of bourgeois society, a completely unstable and irresolute person, but good-hearted and a cheerful companion. Marx was very fond of him. Weydemeyer wrote to his fiancée in February, 1846:

'If I tell you what kind of life we have been leading here, you will certainly be surprised at the Communists. To crown the folly, Marx, Weitling, Marx's brother-in-law and I sat up the whole night playing. Weitling got tired first. Marx and I slept a few hours on a sofa and idled away the whole of the next day in the company of his wife and his brother-in-law in the most priceless manner. We went to a tavern early in the morning, then we went by train to Villeworde, which is a little place near by, where we had lunch and then returned in the most cheerful mood by the last train.'

Not nearly so many Germans found their way to Brussels as to Paris. But no one who had even the most distant sympathy with Communism failed to visit Marx. Stephan Born visited 'the spiritual centre of Communism' at the end of October. This young printer had become a friend of Engels in Paris, turned Communist and made an able defence of Communism against the Republican Karl Heinzen, the 'caricature of a German Jacobin' who was later known in America as the 'prince-killer.' In 1848 Born was one of the leaders of the Berlin workers' movement, but when he wrote his reminiscences in his old age at Bâle he was a tedious social-reformist university professor. But he always retained a shy veneration for Marx. 'I found him,' he wrote, writing in retrospect of the autumn of 1847, 'in an extremely modest, one might almost say poorly furnished, little house in a suburb of Brussels. He received me in a friendly way, asked about the success of my propaganda journey, and paid me a compliment, with which his wife associated herself, about my pamphlet against Heinzen. She bade me a very friendly welcome. Throughout her life she took the most intense interest in everything that concerned and occupied her husband, and therefore she could not fail to be interested in me, as I was considered one of his hopeful young men. ... Marx loved his wife and she shared his passion. I have never known such a happy marriage, in which joy and suffering--the latter in the richest measure--and all pain were overcome in such a spirit of mutual devotion. I have seldom known a woman, so harmoniously formed alike in outward appearance and heart and mind, make such a prepossessing impression at the first meeting. Frau Marx was fair. Her children, who were still small, were dark-haired and dark-eyed like their father."

Marx's second daughter, Laura, was born in September, 1845, and his son Edgar, in December, 1846. The irregular income he earned by writing did not suffice to keep the growing family, and Marx was forced to borrow. In February, 1848, his material position improved, although only for a short time. For the six thousand francs his mother, after long negotiations, at last paid him out of his father's estate, were applied to political ends, to which all personal needs had to take second place.

The second Communist Congress was fixed for the autumn of 1847, and by then the League's 'profession of faith' had to be ready. Schapper attempted a first draft, Moses Hess attempted another, but the Paris branch of the League rejected both. Then Engels applied himself to the task. The form he chose for it was the one that was conventional at the time for declarations of the kind by Communist and other Left wing groups. It was drawn up in the form of questions and answers, like the catechism. Engels's catechism was written in straightforward, easily intelligible language and stated the fundamental ideas of scientific Socialism tersely and with transparent clarity. But Engels was not satisfied with it. In his opinion it was wretchedly written, and he thought it would be better to abandon the form of the catechism altogether, as it was necessary for the 'thing' to contain a certain number of descriptions of events. He suggested to Marx the title of 'Communist Manifesto.'

The Paris branch appointed Engels their delegate to the Congress, and this time the Brussels branch sent Marx. The two friends met at Ostend, discussed the draft and agreed that the first statement of aims of the Communist League to which they now belonged and of which they had become the leaders must not be one of the conventional popular pamphlets, however good it might be of its kind.

Marx, in addition to being the representative of the Brussels Communists, had a mandate to represent the Association Démocratique at the conference of the Fraternal Democrats on November 29. The Fraternal Democrats had organised some celebrations in memory of the Polish revolt of 1830. The celebrations were typical of those held in those years of demonstrations of international solidarity in all the lands of Western Europe. The Communist Congress was to meet next day in the same hall, that of the London German Workers' Union, and the Communist delegates took part in the celebrations in honour of the Polish revolutionaries. Marx spoke side by side with English, French, German, Belgian and Polish speakers. He spoke of the imminent revolution. 'The old Poland is lost,' he said, 'and we should be the last to wish its restoration. But it is not only old Poland that is lost, but old Germany, old France, old England, the whole of our antiquated society. But the loss of our antiquated society is no loss for those who have nothing to lose in it, and the great majority in all the countries of the present day are in that position. They have far more to win by the downfall of our antiquated society, which will bring in its train the formation of a new society, no longer resting on class-conflicts.' Marx announced that the Association Démocratique proposed to summon an international Democratic congress for the following year. It coincided with a similar proposal by the Fraternal Democrats. It was decided to hold the congress in Brussels on October 25, 1848. It was not held, for events were too fast for it.

Next day the deliberations of the Communists began. They lasted for ten days, a time of strenuous activity for Marx and Engels. True, the Londoners had been won over to Marx, but much human effort and patient instruction and wary indulgence for old sensibilities were required before the last traces of mistrust of the 'intellectuals' were extinguished. The newly organised League--the statutes were definitely fixed--was without a trace of the conspiratorial character which had been such an essential element in the League of the Just. That it must remain a secret society was obvious. Even outside Germany, in free England, the Communists could not well have their organisation registered with the police. But within these limits, which were set by external necessity and were not self-imposed as they were in the case of the League of the Just or the French secret societies, because the Communist League had no secret teaching for initiates only and did not plot, and because 'Communists scorned to keep their views and intentions secret,' within these limits it was an association for propaganda on a democratic basis.

Whether Engels laid his catechism before the Congress or not is not known. The delegates decided to entrust Marx and Engels with the drafting of their programme. The headquarters of the League remained in London, and Schapper, Heinrich Bauer and Moll remained its leaders. They were unanimous that the theoretical guidance of the League must be left to Marx.

Marx worked on the Communist Manifesto from the middle of December till the end of January. That was too slow for the German Communists in London. On January 24 they admonished him to hasten. They would take disciplinary measures against Citizen Marx, they wrote rather harshly, if the manuscript were not in their hands by February 1. But the ultimatum was superfluous, because Marx sent the manuscript to London before the prescribed day.

The Communist Manifesto was the common work of Marx and Engels. It is impossible to distinguish their respective contributions. But, as Engels frequently repeated, the fundamental ideas, the groundwork, belong to Marx alone. Marx gave it its form too. It is Marx's tremendous power that flows from every word, it is his fire with which the most brilliant pamphlet in world literature illuminates the times, to-day just as on the day on which it was completed.

The Manifesto gave an unerring leader to the proletariat in its struggle; not unerring in the narrow sense a dogmatist might attribute to the word, not unerring in the sense that every word is valid for the present day. It was written a few weeks before the outbreak of the European revolution of 1848. It proposed revolutionary measures which a quarter of a century later Marx and Engels called out-of-date because of the development of economic, social and political conditions. Unerring rather because, surveying the whole course of historical development, it enabled the workers concretely to understand their historical situation. The tremendous revolutionary pathos of the Manifesto does not dazzle but sharpens the view for the direct task ahead. Because it saw into the most distant future, it saw into the most immediate present. It was the programme for the historical epoch of the struggle for the proletarian revolution and at the same time the programme for the next day's sober, disillusioned fight.

When the last sheets of the Communist Manifesto left the printing press Marx was in the midst of revolutionary Paris.