From The Pens Of Karl Marx And Friedrich Engels-Their
Struggles To Build Communist Organizations-The Early Days
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Marx-Engels Internet Archives.
Greg Green comment:
The foundation article by Marx or
Engels listed in the headline goes along with the propaganda points in the
fight for our communist future mentioned in other posts in this space. Just
below is a thumbnail sketch of the first tentative proceedings to form a
communist organization that would become a way-station on the road to building
a Bolshevik-type organization in order fight for the socialist revolution we so
desperately need and have since Marx and Engels first put pen to ink.
*************
Marx/Engels Internet Archive-The Communist League
A congress of the League of the Just
opened in London on June 2, 1847. Engels was in attendance as delegate for the
League's Paris communities. (Marx couldn't attend for financial reasons.)
Engels had a significant impact
throughout the congress -- which, as it turned out, was really the
"inaugural Congress" of what became known as the Communist League.
This organization stands as the first international proletarian organization.
With the influence of Marx and Engels anti-utopian socialism, the League's motto
changed from "All Men are Brothers" to "Working Men of All
Countries, Unite!"
Engels: "In the summer of 1847,
the first league congress took place in London, at which W. Wolff represented
the Brussels and I the Paris communities. At this congress the reorganization
of the League was carried through first of all. ...the League now consisted of
communities, circles, leading circles, a central committee and a congress, and
henceforth called itself the 'Communist League'."
The Rules were drawn up with the
participation of Marx and Engels, examined at the First Congress of the
Communist League, and approved at the League's Second Congress in December
1847.
Article 1 of the Rules of the
Communist League: "The aim of the league is the overthrow of the bourgeoisie,
the rule of the proletariat, the abolition of the old bourgeois society which
rests on the antagonism of classes, and the foundation of a new society without
classes and without private property."
The first draft of the Communist
League Programme was styled as a catechism -- in the form of questions and
answers. Essentially, the draft was authored by Engels. The original manuscript
is in Engels's hand.
The League's official paper was to
be the Kommunistische Zeitschrift, but the only issue produced was in September
1847 by a resolution of the League's First Congress. It was First Congress
prepared by the Central Authority of the Communist League based in London. Karl
Schapper was its editor.
The Second Congress of the Communist
League was held at the end of November 1847 at London's Red Lion Hotel. Marx
attended as delegate of the Brussels Circle. He went to London in the company
of Victor Tedesco, member of the Communist League and also a delegate to the
Second Congress. Engels again represented the Paris communities. Schapper was
elected chairman of the congress, and Engels its secretary.
Friedrich Lessner: "I was
working in London then and was a member of the communist Workers' Educational
Society at 191 Drury Lane. There, at the end of November and the beginning of
December 1847, members of the Central Committee of the Communist League held a
congress.Karl Marx and Frederick Engels came there from Brussels to present
their views on modern communism and to speak about the Communists' attitude to
the political and workers' movement. The meetings, which, naturally, were held
in the evenings, were attended by delegates only... Soon we learned that after
long debates, the congress had unanimously backed the principles of Marx and
Engels..."
The Rules were officially adopted
December 8, 1847.
Engels: "All contradiction and
doubt were finally set at rest, the new basic principles were unanimously
adopted, and Marx and I were commissioned to draw up the Manifesto." This
would, of course, become the Communist Manifesto.
************
Markin comment on this series:
No question that today at least the
figures of 19th century communist revolutionaries, Karl Marx and Friedrich
Engels, are honored more for their “academic” work than their efforts to build
political organizations to fight for democratic and socialist revolutions,
respectively, as part of their new worldview. Titles like Communist Manifesto, Das Kapital, The Peasants Wars In Germany, and
the like are more likely to be linked to their names than Cologne Communist
League or Workingmen’s International (First International).
While the theoretical and historical
materialist works have their honored place in the pantheon of revolutionary
literature it would be wrong to neglect that hard fact that both Marx and
Engels for most of their lives were not “arm chair" revolutionaries or, in
Engels case, merely smitten by late Victorian fox hunts with the upper crust.
These men were revolutionary politicians who worked at revolution in high times
and low. Those of us who follow their traditions can, or should, understand
that sometimes, a frustratingly long sometimes, the objective circumstances do
not allow for fruitful revolutionary work. We push on as we can. Part of that
pushing on is to become immersed in the work of our predecessors and in this
series specifically the work of Marx and Engels to create a new form of
revolutionary organization to fight the fights of their time, the time from
about the Revolutions of 1848 to the founding of various socialist parties in
Europe in the latter part of the 19th century.
History of the Paris Commune, Prosper Olivier Lissagaray, translated by Eleanor Marx, Black and Red Press, St. Petersburg, Florida, 2007
When one studies the history of the Paris Commune of 1871 one learns something new from it even though from the perspective of revolutionary strategy the Communards made virtually every mistake in the book. This book by a participant and survivor of the Commune has historically been the starting point for any pro-Commune analysis. The original English translation by Eleanor Marx, daughter of Karl Marx, has given the imprimatur of the Marx family to that view.
Through a close study of the Paris Commune one learn its lessons and measure it against the experience acquired by later revolutionary struggles and above all by later revolutions, not only the successful Russian Revolution of October 1917 but the failed German, Hungarian, Bulgarian, Chinese and Spanish revolutions in the immediate aftermath of World War I. More contemporaneously we have the experiences of the partial victories of the later Chinese, Cuban and Vietnamese revolutions.
Notwithstanding the contradictory nature of these later experiences, as if to show that history is not always totally a history of horrors against the fate of the masses we honor the Paris Commune as a beacon of the coming world proletarian revolution. It is just for that reason that Karl Marx fought tooth and nail in the First International to defend it against the rage of capitalist Europe. It is one of our peaks. The Commune also presented in embryo the first post-1848 Revolution instance of what was later characterized by Lenin at the beginning of World War I as the crisis of revolutionary leadership of the international labor movement. So this question that after Lenin’s death preoccupied Trotsky for much of the later part of his life really has a much longer lineage that I had previously recognized. Unfortunately, as we are too painfully aware that question is still to be resolved. Therefore, even at this great remove, it is necessary to learn the lessons of that experience in facing today’s crisis of leadership in the international labor movement.
As a final thought, I note that in the preface to this edition that the editors have given their own view about the lessons to be learned from the experience of the Paris Commune. Although virtually every page of Lissagaray’s account drips with examples of the necessity of a vanguard party their view negates that necessity. While we can argue until hell freezes over, and should, about the form that a future socialist state will take one would think that there should be no dispute on that necessity at this late date in history. In any case read this important work (including the above-mentioned provocative preface) as it tells the tale of an important part of our working class history.
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