343 The reference is to the changes in the Rules of the League of the Just which were in force prior to the First Congress where it was reorganised into the Communist League. The Rules of the League of the Just have come down to us in the versions of 1838 and 1843, which contained very vague and immature formulations typical of purely conspiratorial organisations. There was possibly yet another, later version of the Rules which is referred to here.

344 The attempt made by the London Central Authority to arrange for the publication of a regular newspaper or journal of the Communist League failed through lack of funds. It managed to put out only a specimen number of Kommunistische Zeitschrift, which appeared in London early in September 1847. It was printed in the printshop of the London German Workers’ Educational Society owned by J. E. Burghard. The influence of Marx and Engels can be traced in its contents. The articles by Wilhelm Wolff, Karl Schapper and others were critical of “true socialising and various utopian socialist trends, gave a rebuff to Karl Heinzen’s attacks on the Communists and expounded a number of points concerning the tactics of the proletarian movement. It was in the specimen number that the motto, “Working Men of All Countries, Unite!”, was first used in the press as the epigraph of the journal. When the editing of the Deutsche-Brüsseler-Zeitung devolved to a considerable extent upon Marx and Engels (see Note 96), this newspaper became in fact the Communist League’s regular organ.

345 Art allusion to the crude egalitarian tendencies in the views of Weitling and his supporters and also utopias of “true socialists”.

346 The Address of the Central Authority of the Communist League dated September 14, 1847 is a quarterly report on the activity of the League after the First Congress (June 1847). It describes the situation in the League in general and the measures taken by the Central Authority to prepare for the Second Congress. Giving important data on the discussion of the draft Rules and the “Draft of a Communist Confession of Faith”, the Address reveals the ideological struggle in the local communities between the supporters of Marx and Engels and those of Weitling and Grün. The document testifies to the growing activity of the Brussels circle authority headed by Marx, and to its influence on the affairs of the League as a whole and the elaboration of its programme and organisational principles.

This document, like other documents of the First Congress of the Communist League, was discovered in Hamburg among the papers of J. F. Martens. A note made by Karl Schapper on the last page and addressed to Martens shows that this copy was intended for the Hamburg community, of which he was a member (it is not reproduced in this volume).

347 The reference is to the letter which the Communist League’s Central Authority elected at the First Congress sent with other Congress documents, in particular its Circular (see this volume, pp. 589-600), to the League’s communities in various countries in June 1847. Extant is a version of the letter addressed to the Hamburg community and dated June 24.  Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire  In this letter the Central Authority asked the Communist League members in the localities whether they were satisfied with the decisions of the First Congress, whether they accepted or rejected the new Rules, whether they could allot funds for the general needs of the organisation, whether they had formed circles in compliance with the Rules, how many copies of the Kommunistische Zeitschrift then being prepared they. could distribute and to what extent they had managed to launch communist propaganda among the masses. The letter also proposed that the League members should discuss the “Draft of a Communist Confession of Faith’ and give their opinion of this programme document, and also take steps to appoint delegates to the next congress.

348 See Note 344.

349 The reference is to the documents of the leading body of the League of the Just — the People’s Chamber — issued prior to its reorganisation as the Communist League at the First Congress in June 1847: the address of the People’s Chamber of the League of the Just to the League, November 1846 and February 1847.

350 The Scandinavian Society — a radical democratic society in the latter half of the 1840s. It was in contact with the Communist League and consisted mainly of workers and craftsmen. Its chairman was the League member Per Görtrek, a translator, publisher and bookseller.

351 According to the Communist League’s Rules adopted at the First Congress, individual communities in a given locality had either to form a circle or, if there were no other communities, join a circle already in existence (see this volume, p. 586).

352 Johann Dohl, sent to Amsterdam in August 1847, reported to the Central Authority in October on the foundation in Amsterdam of a Communist League community of eight members.

The Workers’ Educational Society in Amsterdam was set up on February 14, 1847. Members of the Communist League played an active part in its foundation and work. In March 1848 the London German Workers’ Educational Society sent its counterpart in Amsterdam a hundred copies of the Communist Manifesto. The leaders of the Educational Society in Amsterdam, who were also Communist League members, were subjected to severe police persecution for organising a mass meeting in Amsterdam on March 24, 1848 in support of the revolution in France and Germany.

353 The reference is to Karl Grün’s propaganda of Proudhon’s views among German workers in Paris and to his free translation into German of Proudhon’s Système des contradictions économiques, ou Philosophie de La misère, which he published in Darmstadt in 1847 (see Note 56).

354 Marx’s intention to publish a German translation of The Poverty of Philosophy did not materialise. During his lifetime only extracts from Chapter II were published in German (see Note 71). The first German edition of this work, edited by Engels, appeared in 1885.

355 By the autumn of 1847 a complicated situation had arisen in the League’s communities in Paris. The followers of Weitling, expelled by the First Congress, allied themselves with those of Grün. A split took place in October. One of the communities opposed the communist principles and was expelled from the League by a decision of the Central Authority. Engels, then in Paris, wrote to Marx on October 25-26, 1847: “A few days before my arrival the last Grün followers were thrown out, a whole community, half of which, however, will come back. We are only 30 strong. I have at once organised a propaganda community and have been running around all day and beating the drums. I have at once been elected to the circle authority and entrusted with correspondence. Some 20-30 candidates have been nominated for admission. We shall soon be stronger again.”

356 The reference is to the former members of Young Germany, a secret democratic organisation of German emigrants in Switzerland, suppressed by the police in 1845 (see Note 340). They fought against the adherents of communist ideas.

357 The reference is to the communist groups in Cologne, Westphalia, Elberfeld, which had earlier been in contact with the Brussels Communist Correspondence Committee founded by Marx and Engels, and set up Communist League communities after the League’s First Congress.

358 The reference is to the German Workers’ Society in Brussels (see Note 208).

359 The amendments made by the Brussels circle authority to the draft Rules of the Communist League were adopted at the League’s Second Congress. They revealed Marx’s efforts to work out better organisational principles of the proletarian party and overcome survivals of sectarianism in its structure. The article concerning the approval of Congress decisions by the communities was deleted and the ban of League members belonging to other political organisations was restricted to organisations hostile to the League (see this volume, p. 633).

By aristocrats in the Convention are probably meant the counter-revolutionary elements who opposed the Jacobin centralisation measures aimed at strengthening the revolutionary government.

360 The reference is to the London German Workers’ Educational Society (see Note 336).

361 The “Draft of a Communist Confession of Faith” and the Rules adopted by the First Congress were regarded as preliminary drafts to be discussed in the localities, improved and finally approved at the next congress.

362 The reference is to the trial of the members of the League of the Just arrested in Berlin in the spring of 1847. The main witness, Friedrich Mentel, who betrayed the League, withdrew his previous evidence (see this volume, pp. 593-95) and the court was compelled to pass only light sentences on some of the accused and to acquit others.

363 The Chartist Northern Star published a report on the international meeting in London organised by the Fraternal Democrats at the premises of the London German Workers’ Educational Society (about these organisations, see notes 1 and 336). It was entitled “The Polish Revolution. Important Meeting”. Speeches by Marx and Engels were reported rather abridged (for the. authorised publication of these speeches, see this volume, pp. 388-90). The report gave details about the meeting which supplemented Engels’ short correspondence about it published in La Réforme (see this volume, pp. 391-92).

364 The Manifesto issued by the National Government set upon February 22, 1846 in the course of the national liberation uprising in the Cracow republic (see Note 55) called upon the people to fight resolutely for national independence, proclaimed democratic rights, the abolition of feudal services, and the transfer of land allotments to the peasants.

365 See Note 286.

366 The reference is to the victory of the progressive forces in the civil war in Switzerland (see Note 172) and to the failure of the Sonderbund’s attempts to secure military interference by the European powers in its own interests.

367 See Note 194.

368 Marx counterposes the proposal to call an international democratic congress (on the preparations for it, see Note 206) to the International Congress of Economists held in Brussels from September 16 to 18, 1847 (see this volume, pp. 274-90 and Note 113).  Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

369 In 1845 Ludwik Mieroslawski, in his capacity as a member of the “Centralisation” (the governing body of the Polish Democratic Society), was sent to Posen to organise an uprising in the Polish lands. He was arrested by the Prussian authorities shortly before the scheduled time of the uprising (February 1846) and sentenced to death. The sentence was later commuted to life imprisonment. He was set free after the revolution began in Germany in March 1848.

370 About the civil war in Switzerland, see this volume, pp. 367-74 and Note 172.

371 The reference is to the attempts to organise diplomatic and military interference by the five European powers (France, Britain, Russia, Austria and Prussia) in the civil war in Switzerland in the interests of the Sonderbund. They were initiated by the Austrian Chancellor Metternich and supported by the Guizot ‘ government. Metternich and Guizot planned to call a conference of the five great powers on the Swiss question to dictate peace terms to the belligerent parties in Switzerland. However, the speedy rout of the Sonderbund’s troops and the negative attitude of the British government thwarted these plans.

372 The reference is to the German Workers’ Society in Brussels (see Note 208).

373 DuringtheirstayinLondonasdelegatestotheSecondCongressoftheCommunist League in late November and early December 1847, Marx and Engels also took part in the meetings of the London German Workers’ Educational Society (see Note 336). They made several reports to the members of the Society. The extant records of their speeches, very laconic and of poor quality, are given here and below in the same sequence as in the Minutes of the Society.

374 See Note 208.

375 These Rules of the Communist League are based on the draft Rules elaborated by the League’s First Congress (see this volume, pp. 585-88). Marx and Engels, who exerted considerable influence on the elaboration of the League’s new organisational principles, greatly contributed to improving the text of the Rules and gave it greater precision. In particular, it was they, in all probability, who drew up the new formulation of Article 1 defining the aim of the League. The Rules in their present version were adopted by the Second Congress of the Communist League.

This document was first published in English in the book: Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The Communist Manifesto, Lawrence, London, 1930.

376 Proposals to establish more regular contacts between the democrats of different countries and to prepare an international democratic congress were discussed by the representatives of the Fraternal Democrats with Marx acting on behalf of the Committee of the Democratic Association, during his and Engels’ stay in London at the end of November and the beginning of December 1847 (see also notes 192 and 206).

377 The Democratic Association’s deputation sent to Ghent for the opening of the Association’s local affiliation included Marx.

378 In mid-December 1847 Engels arrived in Brussels from London, where he had spent some time after the Second Congress of the Communist League, and at the end of December he returned to Paris with the authority of the Brussels Democratic Association to represent it in the capital of France. The French authorities were alarmed by Engels’ resumption of revolutionary propaganda among the Paris workers and craftsmen. At the end of January 1848 the Paris police proceeded against Engels under the pretext that his speech at the New Year’s Eve banquet of the German revolutionary emigrants on December 31, 1847 contained political allusions hostile to the French government. On January 29, 1848 Engels was ordered to leave France within 24 hours under the threat of extradition to Prussia. Simultaneously with Engels’ expulsion and the police breaking into his flat at night, arrests were made among the German emigrant workers. Despite the slander circulated by the governmental press (accusations of defiant behaviour, and of fighting duels), information about the real reasons behind Engels’ expulsion filtered into the appositional newspapers.

379 The original of this document is kept in the National Archives in Paris among the papers of the Provisional Government of the French Republic of 1848. The Address was published in the Belgian Le Débat social on March 1, 1848, and reprinted in La Réforme on March 4. The texts differ slightly. In this edition use is made of the text in La Réforme.

In English the Address was published with abbreviations in the Labour Monthly No. 2, February 1948.

380 The Second Congress of the Communist League retained the scat of the Central Authority in London. However, in view of the revolution starting in France, Schapper, Bauer, Moll and other members of the London Central Authority intended to move to the Continent and decided to transfer their powers of general guidance of the League to the Brussels circle authority headed by Marx. But the persecution of revolutionaries which had begun in Belgium, the order for Marx’s expulsion and the arrest of other activists of the League compelled the Brussels Central Authority that had been formed to adopt the decision (published below) to dissolve itself and to em power Marx to form a new Central Authority in Paris. Marx arrived in Paris on

March 5 and wrote to Engels (he still remained in Brussels for some time) around March 12, 1848 that the new Central Authority had been recently set up and consisted of Marx (chairman), Schapper (secretary), Wallau, Wolff, Moll, Bauer (members). Engels was appointed in his absence.  Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

An abridged version of this document was first published in French in Annales parlementaires belges. Session 1847-1848. Chambre des représentants, séance du 31 mars 1848, p. 1203. This document was first published in English in the Labour Monthly No. 3, March 1948.

381 The German Workers’ Club was founded in Paris on March 8 and 9, 1848 on the initiative of the Communist League’s leaders. The leading role in it belonged to Marx. The Club’s aim was to unite the German emigrant workers in Paris, explain to them the tactics of the proletariat in a bourgeois-democratic revolution and also to counter the attempts of the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois democrats (among them, Herwegh, Venedey and Decker, the last two being mentioned in the minutes) to stir up the German workers by nationalist propaganda and enlist them into the adventurist march of volunteer legions into Germany. The Club was successful in arranging the return of German workers one by one to their own country to take part in the revolutionary struggle there.

382 The German Democratic Society, formed in Paris after the February revolution of 1848, held its meetings in a riding school. The Society was headed by petty-bourgeois democrats, Herwegh, Bornstedt, Decker and others who campaigned to raise volunteer legions of German emigrants with the aim of marching into Germany. In this way they hoped to carry out a revolution in Germany and establish a republic there. Marx and Engels resolutely condemned this adventurist plan of “exporting revolution”.