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C. Andler, Le Manifeste Communiste. Introduction historique et commentaire
(Paris, 1901).
166.In a letter to Weydemeyer, written in 1852, Marx said: 'What I did that was new was to prove: (1) that the existence of classes is only bound up with
particular historical phases in the development of production; (2) that the class struggle necessarily leads to the dictatorship of the proletariat; and (3) that this dictatorship itself only constitutes the transition to the abolition of all classes and to a classless society.' K Marx and F. Engels, Selected Correspondence (London, 1934) p. 69 (hereinafter referred to as MESC).
167. See particularly the Preface to the 1872 edition in MESW 122.
F O U R
Cologne
No German newspaper, before or since, has ever had the same power and influence or been able to electrify the proletarian masses as effectively as the Neue Rheinische Zeitung. And that it owed above all to Marx.
F. Engels, 'Marx and the Neue Rheinische Zeitung', MESW 11 305.
I . F R O M B R U S S E L S T O P A R I S
T h e revolutionary movement that swept over Europe in 1848 -9 began in Switzerland in November 1847 when the unwillingness of Austria to intervene in support of reactionary cantons against the radicals severely diminished her prestige in Italy: shortly afterwards, the Bourbon King Ferdinand of Naples was overthrown and republics proclaimed in Naples, Turin and Florence. In France, Louis Philippe continued complacently to believe that the Parisians never revolted in winter, but when his troops fired on unarmed demonstrators a rash of barricades sprang up; the King was exiled and a provisional republican government formed.
News of the revolution in Paris reached Brussels on 26 February. At first the Belgian Government acted very cautiously and the King even offered to abdicate. But once its forces had been concentrated, the Government's policy became tougher. A mild demonstration on 28 February was broken up, Wilhelm Wolff was arrested and a list of foreigners to be deported was drawn up, with Marx's name at the top. T h e Democratic Association had already demanded that the Government arm the workers, and sent a congratulatory Address to the provisional French Government. 'Iwo weeks earlier Marx had inherited 6000 francs from his mother (probably as much as his total income for the three previous years) and the police suspected (there was no evidence) that he was using it to finance the revolutionary movement. T h ey even went as far as asking the authorities in Trier to question Marx's mother, who protested that the only reason she had for sending the money at that time was that 'her son had long been asking her for money for his family and this was an advance
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on his inheritance'.1 On 3 March Marx received an order, signed by the King, to leave Belgium within twenty-four hours. The same day he received from Paris a reply to his request for the cancellation of the previous expulsion order:
Brave and loyal Marx,
The soil of the French Republic is a place of refuge for all friends of freedom. Tyranny has banished you, free France opens her doors to you and all those who fight for the holy cause, the fraternal cause of all peoples. Every officer of the French Government must interpret his mission in this sense. Salut et Fratemite.
Ferdinand Flocon
Member of the Provisional Government.2
Yet Marx was not left to depart in peace. The same evening the Central Committee of the Communist League met in the Bois Sauvage guest house where Marx had moved a week earlier on receipt of his inheritance, and decided to transfer the seat of the Central Committee to Paris and to give Marx discretionary powers over all the League's affairs.5 At one o'clock in the morning the over-zealous local police commissioner broke into the guest house and arrested Marx. A week later in a letter of protest to the Paris paper La Reforme, he described the situation:
I was occupied in preparing my departure when a police commissioner, accompanied by ten civil guards, penetrated into my home, searched the whole house and finally arrested me on the pretext of my having no papers. Leaving aside the very correct papers that Monsieur Duchatel gave me on my expulsion from France, I had in my hands the deportation pass that Belgium had issued to me only several hours before....
Immediately after my arrest, my wife had herself gone to M. Jottrand, President of the Belgian Democratic Association, to get him to take the necessary steps. On returning home, she found a policeman in front of the door who told her, with exquisite politeness, that if she wanted to talk to Monsieur Marx, she had only to follow him. My wife eagerly accepted the offer. She was taken to the police station and the commissioner told her at first that Monsieur Marx was not there; he brusquely asked her who she was, what she was doing at Monsieur Jottrand's house and whether she had any papers with her... . On the pretext of vagabondage my wife was taken to the prison of the Town Hall and locked in a dark room with lost women.4 At eleven o'clock in the morning she was taken, in full daylight and with a whole escort of policemen, to the magistrate's office. For two hours she was put in a cell in spite of the most forceful protests that came from all quarters. She stayed there exposed to the rigours of the weather and the shameful propositions of the warders.
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At length she appeared before the magistrate who was astonished that the police had not carried their attentions to the extent of arresting the small children too. The interrogation could only be a farce since the only crime of my wife consisted in the fact that, although she belonged to the Prussian aristocracy, she shared the democratic opinions of her husband. I will not enter into all the details of this revolting affair. I will only say that, on our release, the 24 hours had just expired and we had to leave without even being able to take away our most indispensable belongings.5
This whole affair caused widespread protests in Brussels which resulted in questions being asked in the Chamber of Deputies and the dismissal of the police commissioner concerned. On her release Jenny Marx sold what she could, left her silver plate and best linen in the charge of a friend, and the whole family was conducted, under police escort, to the frontier. Travelling was difficult since in Belgium there were large-scale troop movements while in France portions of the track had been torn up by those who had been put out of business by the railway. The Marx family eventually reached Paris the following day after a miserably cold journey.
In the city, charred ruins and the debris of recent barricades were still evident. The tricolour was everywhere, accompanied by the red flag. Marx settled his family in the Boulevard Beaumarchais, near the Place de la Bastille, and urged Engels (who had remained behind in Brussels) to collect his old debts and use them to bring his silver and other possessions over the frontier as far as Valenciennes. Revolutionary enthusiasm was still strong in Paris, and Marx took an active part in the meetings of the Society of the Rights of Man, one of the largest of the 147 political clubs in existence in Paris in early 1848. The club had been sponsored by Ledru-Rollin and Flocon, and Marx joined it the same day he arrived in the city. Later he is known to have spoken in favour of deferring the elections to the National Assembly and for the easier recruitment of working men into the National Guard.6 Marx's main activities, however, were naturally among the expatriate Germans, many of whom were quite carried away by revolutionary enthusiasm. Before Marx's arrival the German Democratic Association had decided - as had the other main emigre groups - to form a German Legion. Recruits soon numbered several thousand and exercises were held on the Champ de Mars throughout March. The Provisional Government, by no means unwilling to see the departure of so many possible trouble-makers, placed barracks at the disposal of the Legion and granted them fifty centimes a day per man for the march to the frontier. Following the tradition of 1789, the leaders of the Legion - Bornstedt, who was a member of the Communist League,
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and Herwegh, the poet - believed that a revolutionary war was inevitable after a successful revolution and this time proposed themselves to contribute the vanguard of liberating forces. Marx was utterly opposed to these adventures. Sebastian Seiler, a member of the Communist League, later wrote:
The socialists and Communists declared themselves decidedly against any armed imposition of a German Republic from without. They held public sessions in the Rue St Denis attended by some of those who later became volunteers. In one of these sessions Marx developed in a long speech the theme that the February revolution should be viewed only as the superficial beginning of the European movement. In a short time here in Paris the open struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie would break out, as did happen, in fact, in June. The victory or defeat of revolutionary Europe would depend on this struggle.7
In order to give their opposition strength, Marx and his friends organised a meeting based on the four Parisian sections of the Communist League8 and founded a German Workers' Club (under the presidency first of Heinrich Bauer and then of Moses Hess) which by the end of March had 400 members - mainly drawn from tailors and bootmakers. It was also possible to reconstitute the Central Committee of the Communist League: the Fraternal Democrats in London had sent to Paris a deputation, including Harney and Jones, with an Address to the Provisional Government. Schapper and Moll were sent by the London German Workers' Association. At a meeting on 10 March Marx was elected President, Schapper Secretary, and Moll, Bauer, Engels, Wolff and Wallau committee members. Marx also enjoyed good relations with Ledru-Rollin and Flocon, both members of the Provisional Government. Flocon offered money to start a German-language newspaper, but Marx refused - as he wished to preserve his independence.
On 19 March news reached Paris which changed the situation radically: a week earlier Metternich had been driven out of Vienna and the Emperor was forced to grant the demands of the insurgents; and on the twentieth news came of revolution in Berlin. The Legion made immediate preparations for departure and marched out of Paris - appropriately on 1 April: at its first encounter with government troops after crossing the Rhine it was virtually annihilated. Marx and his followers also decided to return to Germany, but in a less spectacular manner. They, too, benefited from the Provisional Government's subsidy, and most of the members of the Communist League left for various towns in Germany (either singly or in small groups) with the intention of establishing a national network. They carried with them two propaganda documents: one was the Com-