From The Pens Of Karl Marx And Friedrich Engels-The Struggle For The Communist League-The Principles of Communism (1847)

Click on the headline to link to the Marx-Engels Internet Archives for an online copy of the article mentioned in the headline.

Markin comment:

This foundation article by Marx or Engels goes along with the propaganda points in the fight for our communist future mentioned in other posts in this space.

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.
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The Principles of Communism

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Written: October-November 1847;
Source: Selected Works, Volume One, p. 81-97, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1969;
First Published: 1914, Eduard Bernstein in the German Social Democratic Party’s Vorwärts!;
Translated: Paul Sweezy;
Transcribed: Zodiac, MEA 1993; marxists.org 1999;
HTML Markup: Brian Baggins;
Proofed: and corrected by Andy Blunden, February 2005.

Document Introduction.


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— 1 —
What is Communism?
Communism is the doctrine of the conditions of the liberation of the proletariat.




— 2 —
What is the proletariat?
The proletariat is that class in society which lives entirely from the sale of its labor and does not draw profit from any kind of capital; whose weal and woe, whose life and death, whose sole existence depends on the demand for labor – hence, on the changing state of business, on the vagaries of unbridled competition. The proletariat, or the class of proletarians, is, in a word, the working class of the 19th century.[1]




— 3 —
Proletarians, then, have not always existed?
No. There have always been poor and working classes; and the working class have mostly been poor. But there have not always been workers and poor people living under conditions as they are today; in other words, there have not always been proletarians, any more than there has always been free unbridled competitions.




— 4 —
How did the proletariat originate?
The Proletariat originated in the industrial revolution, which took place in England in the last half of the last (18th) century, and which has since then been repeated in all the civilized countries of the world.

This industrial revolution was precipitated by the discovery of the steam engine, various spinning machines, the mechanical loom, and a whole series of other mechanical devices. These machines, which were very expensive and hence could be bought only by big capitalists, altered the whole mode of production and displaced the former workers, because the machines turned out cheaper and better commodities than the workers could produce with their inefficient spinning wheels and handlooms. The machines delivered industry wholly into the hands of the big capitalists and rendered entirely worthless the meagre property of the workers (tools, looms, etc.). The result was that the capitalists soon had everything in their hands and nothing remained to the workers. This marked the introduction of the factory system into the textile industry.

Once the impulse to the introduction of machinery and the factory system had been given, this system spread quickly to all other branches of industry, especially cloth- and book-printing, pottery, and the metal industries.

Labor was more and more divided among the individual workers so that the worker who previously had done a complete piece of work now did only a part of that piece. This division of labor made it possible to produce things faster and cheaper. It reduced the activity of the individual worker to simple, endlessly repeated mechanical motions which could be performed not only as well but much better by a machine. In this way, all these industries fell, one after another, under the dominance of steam, machinery, and the factory system, just as spinning and weaving had already done.

But at the same time, they also fell into the hands of big capitalists, and their workers were deprived of whatever independence remained to them. Gradually, not only genuine manufacture but also handicrafts came within the province of the factory system as big capitalists increasingly displaced the small master craftsmen by setting up huge workshops, which saved many expenses and permitted an elaborate division of labor.

This is how it has come about that in civilized countries at the present time nearly all kinds of labor are performed in factories – and, in nearly all branches of work, handicrafts and manufacture have been superseded. This process has, to an ever greater degree, ruined the old middle class, especially the small handicraftsmen; it has entirely transformed the condition of the workers; and two new classes have been created which are gradually swallowing up all the others. These are:

(i) The class of big capitalists, who, in all civilized countries, are already in almost exclusive possession of all the means of subsistance and of the instruments (machines, factories) and materials necessary for the production of the means of subsistence. This is the bourgeois class, or the bourgeoisie.

(ii) The class of the wholly propertyless, who are obliged to sell their labor to the bourgeoisie in order to get, in exchange, the means of subsistence for their support. This is called the class of proletarians, or the proletariat.




— 5 —
Under what conditions does this sale of the
labor of the proletarians to the bourgeoisie take place?
Labor is a commodity, like any other, and its price is therefore determined by exactly the same laws that apply to other commodities. In a regime of big industry or of free competition – as we shall see, the two come to the same thing – the price of a commodity is, on the average, always equal to its cost of production. Hence, the price of labor is also equal to the cost of production of labor.

But, the costs of production of labor consist of precisely the quantity of means of subsistence necessary to enable the worker to continue working, and to prevent the working class from dying out. The worker will therefore get no more for his labor than is necessary for this purpose; the price of labor, or the wage, will, in other words, be the lowest, the minimum, required for the maintenance of life.

However, since business is sometimes better and sometimes worse, it follows that the worker sometimes gets more and sometimes gets less for his commodities. But, again, just as the industrialist, on the average of good times and bad, gets no more and no less for his commodities than what they cost, similarly on the average the worker gets no more and no less than his minimum.

This economic law of wages operates the more strictly the greater the degree to which big industry has taken possession of all branches of production.




— 6 —
What working classes were there before the industrial revolution?
The working classes have always, according to the different stages of development of society, lived in different circumstances and had different relations to the owning and ruling classes.

In antiquity, the workers were the slaves of the owners, just as they still are in many backward countries and even in the southern part of the United States.

In the Middle Ages, they were the serfs of the land-owning nobility, as they still are in Hungary, Poland, and Russia. In the Middle Ages, and indeed right up to the industrial revolution, there were also journeymen in the cities who worked in the service of petty bourgeois masters. Gradually, as manufacture developed, these journeymen became manufacturing workers who were even then employed by larger capitalists.




— 7 —
In what way do proletarians differ from slaves?
The slave is sold once and for all; the proletarian must sell himself daily and hourly.

The individual slave, property of one master, is assured an existence, however miserable it may be, because of the master’s interest. The individual proletarian, property as it were of the entire bourgeois class which buys his labor only when someone has need of it, has no secure existence. This existence is assured only to the class as a whole.

The slave is outside competition; the proletarian is in it and experiences all its vagaries.

The slave counts as a thing, not as a member of society. Thus, the slave can have a better existence than the proletarian, while the proletarian belongs to a higher stage of social development and, himself, stands on a higher social level than the slave.

The slave frees himself when, of all the relations of private property, he abolishes only the relation of slavery and thereby becomes a proletarian; the proletarian can free himself only by abolishing private property in general.




— 8 —
In what way do proletarians differ from serfs?
The serf possesses and uses an instrument of production, a piece of land, in exchange for which he gives up a part of his product or part of the services of his labor.

The proletarian works with the instruments of production of another, for the account of this other, in exchange for a part of the product.

The serf gives up, the proletarian receives. The serf has an assured existence, the proletarian has not. The serf is outside competition, the proletarian is in it.

The serf liberates himself in one of three ways: either he runs away to the city and there becomes a handicraftsman; or, instead of products and services, he gives money to his lord and thereby becomes a free tenant; or he overthrows his feudal lord and himself becomes a property owner. In short, by one route or another, he gets into the owning class and enters into competition. The proletarian liberates himself by abolishing competition, private property, and all class differences.




— 9 —
In what way do proletarians differ from handicraftsmen?
In contrast to the proletarian, the so-called handicraftsman, as he still existed almost everywhere in the past (eighteenth) century and still exists here and there at present, is a proletarian at most temporarily. His goal is to acquire capital himself wherewith to exploit other workers. He can often achieve this goal where guilds still exist or where freedom from guild restrictions has not yet led to the introduction of factory-style methods into the crafts nor yet to fierce competition But as soon as the factory system has been introduced into the crafts and competition flourishes fully, this perspective dwindles away and the handicraftsman becomes more and more a proletarian. The handicraftsman therefore frees himself by becoming either bourgeois or entering the middle class in general, or becoming a proletarian because of competition (as is now more often the case). In which case he can free himself by joining the proletarian movement, i.e., the more or less communist movement. [2]




— 10 —
In what way do proletarians differ from manufacturing workers?
The manufacturing worker of the 16th to the 18th centuries still had, with but few exception, an instrument of production in his own possession – his loom, the family spinning wheel, a little plot of land which he cultivated in his spare time. The proletarian has none of these things.

The manufacturing worker almost always lives in the countryside and in a more or less patriarchal relation to his landlord or employer; the proletarian lives, for the most part, in the city and his relation to his employer is purely a cash relation.

The manufacturing worker is torn out of his patriarchal relation by big industry, loses whatever property he still has, and in this way becomes a proletarian.




— 11 —
What were the immediate consequences of the industrial revolution and of the division of society into bourgeoisie and proletariat?
First, the lower and lower prices of industrial products brought about by machine labor totally destroyed, in all countries of the world, the old system of manufacture or industry based upon hand labor.

In this way, all semi-barbarian countries, which had hitherto been more or less strangers to historical development, and whose industry had been based on manufacture, were violently forced out of their isolation. They bought the cheaper commodities of the English and allowed their own manufacturing workers to be ruined. Countries which had known no progress for thousands of years – for example, India – were thoroughly revolutionized, and even China is now on the way to a revolution.

We have come to the point where a new machine invented in England deprives millions of Chinese workers of their livelihood within a year’s time.

In this way, big industry has brought all the people of the Earth into contact with each other, has merged all local markets into one world market, has spread civilization and progress everywhere and has thus ensured that whatever happens in civilized countries will have repercussions in all other countries.

It follows that if the workers in England or France now liberate themselves, this must set off revolution in all other countries – revolutions which, sooner or later, must accomplish the liberation of their respective working class.

Second, wherever big industries displaced manufacture, the bourgeoisie developed in wealth and power to the utmost and made itself the first class of the country. The result was that wherever this happened, the bourgeoisie took political power into its own hands and displaced the hitherto ruling classes, the aristocracy, the guildmasters, and their representative, the absolute monarchy.

The bourgeoisie annihilated the power of the aristocracy, the nobility, by abolishing the entailment of estates – in other words, by making landed property subject to purchase and sale, and by doing away with the special privileges of the nobility. It destroyed the power of the guildmasters by abolishing guilds and handicraft privileges. In their place, it put competition – that is, a state of society in which everyone has the right to enter into any branch of industry, the only obstacle being a lack of the necessary capital.

The introduction of free competition is thus public declaration that from now on the members of society are unequal only to the extent that their capitals are unequal, that capital is the decisive power, and that therefore the capitalists, the bourgeoisie, have become the first class in society.

Free competition is necessary for the establishment of big industry, because it is the only condition of society in which big industry can make its way.

Having destroyed the social power of the nobility and the guildmasters, the bourgeois also destroyed their political power. Having raised itself to the actual position of first class in society, it proclaims itself to be also the dominant political class. This it does through the introduction of the representative system which rests on bourgeois equality before the law and the recognition of free competition, and in European countries takes the form of constitutional monarchy. In these constitutional monarchies, only those who possess a certain capital are voters – that is to say, only members of the bourgeoisie. These bourgeois voters choose the deputies, and these bourgeois deputies, by using their right to refuse to vote taxes, choose a bourgeois government.

Third, everywhere the proletariat develops in step with the bourgeoisie. In proportion, as the bourgeoisie grows in wealth, the proletariat grows in numbers. For, since the proletarians can be employed only by capital, and since capital extends only through employing labor, it follows that the growth of the proletariat proceeds at precisely the same pace as the growth of capital.

Simultaneously, this process draws members of the bourgeoisie and proletarians together into the great cities where industry can be carried on most profitably, and by thus throwing great masses in one spot it gives to the proletarians a consciousness of their own strength.

Moreover, the further this process advances, the more new labor-saving machines are invented, the greater is the pressure exercised by big industry on wages, which, as we have seen, sink to their minimum and therewith render the condition of the proletariat increasingly unbearable. The growing dissatisfaction of the proletariat thus joins with its rising power to prepare a proletarian social revolution.




— 12 —
What were the further consequences of the industrial revolution?
Big industry created in the steam engine, and other machines, the means of endlessly expanding industrial production, speeding it up, and cutting its costs. With production thus facilitated, the free competition, which is necessarily bound up with big industry, assumed the most extreme forms; a multitude of capitalists invaded industry, and, in a short while, more was produced than was needed.

As a consequence, finished commodities could not be sold, and a so-called commercial crisis broke out. Factories had to be closed, their owners went bankrupt, and the workers were without bread. Deepest misery reigned everywhere.

After a time, the superfluous products were sold, the factories began to operate again, wages rose, and gradually business got better than ever.

But it was not long before too many commodities were again produced and a new crisis broke out, only to follow the same course as its predecessor.

Ever since the beginning of this (19th) century, the condition of industry has constantly fluctuated between periods of prosperity and periods of crisis; nearly every five to seven years, a fresh crisis has intervened, always with the greatest hardship for workers, and always accompanied by general revolutionary stirrings and the direct peril to the whole existing order of things.




— 13 —
What follows from these periodic commercial crises?
First:

That, though big industry in its earliest stage created free competition, it has now outgrown free competition;

that, for big industry, competition and generally the individualistic organization of production have become a fetter which it must and will shatter;

that, so long as big industry remains on its present footing, it can be maintained only at the cost of general chaos every seven years, each time threatening the whole of civilization and not only plunging the proletarians into misery but also ruining large sections of the bourgeoisie;

hence, either that big industry must itself be given up, which is an absolute impossibility, or that it makes unavoidably necessary an entirely new organization of society in which production is no longer directed by mutually competing individual industrialists but rather by the whole society operating according to a definite plan and taking account of the needs of all.

Second: That big industry, and the limitless expansion of production which it makes possible, bring within the range of feasibility a social order in which so much is produced that every member of society will be in a position to exercise and develop all his powers and faculties in complete freedom.

It thus appears that the very qualities of big industry which, in our present-day society, produce misery and crises are those which, in a different form of society, will abolish this misery and these catastrophic depressions.

We see with the greatest clarity:

(i) That all these evils are from now on to be ascribed solely to a social order which no longer corresponds to the requirements of the real situation; and

(ii) That it is possible, through a new social order, to do away with these evils altogether.




— 14 —
What will this new social order have to be like?
Above all, it will have to take the control of industry and of all branches of production out of the hands of mutually competing individuals, and instead institute a system in which all these branches of production are operated by society as a whole – that is, for the common account, according to a common plan, and with the participation of all members of society.

It will, in other words, abolish competition and replace it with association.

Moreover, since the management of industry by individuals necessarily implies private property, and since competition is in reality merely the manner and form in which the control of industry by private property owners expresses itself, it follows that private property cannot be separated from competition and the individual management of industry. Private property must, therefore, be abolished and in its place must come the common utilization of all instruments of production and the distribution of all products according to common agreement – in a word, what is called the communal ownership of goods.

In fact, the abolition of private property is, doubtless, the shortest and most significant way to characterize the revolution in the whole social order which has been made necessary by the development of industry – and for this reason it is rightly advanced by communists as their main demand.




— 15 —
Was not the abolition of private property possible at an earlier time?
No. Every change in the social order, every revolution in property relations, is the necessary consequence of the creation of new forces of production which no longer fit into the old property relations.

Private property has not always existed.

When, towards the end of the Middle Ages, there arose a new mode of production which could not be carried on under the then existing feudal and guild forms of property, this manufacture, which had outgrown the old property relations, created a new property form, private property. And for manufacture and the earliest stage of development of big industry, private property was the only possible property form; the social order based on it was the only possible social order.

So long as it is not possible to produce so much that there is enough for all, with more left over for expanding the social capital and extending the forces of production – so long as this is not possible, there must always be a ruling class directing the use of society’s productive forces, and a poor, oppressed class. How these classes are constituted depends on the stage of development.

The agrarian Middle Ages give us the baron and the serf; the cities of the later Middle Ages show us the guildmaster and the journeyman and the day laborer; the 17th century has its manufacturing workers; the 19th has big factory owners and proletarians.

It is clear that, up to now, the forces of production have never been developed to the point where enough could be developed for all, and that private property has become a fetter and a barrier in relation to the further development of the forces of production.

Now, however, the development of big industry has ushered in a new period. Capital and the forces of production have been expanded to an unprecedented extent, and the means are at hand to multiply them without limit in the near future. Moreover, the forces of production have been concentrated in the hands of a few bourgeois, while the great mass of the people are more and more falling into the proletariat, their situation becoming more wretched and intolerable in proportion to the increase of wealth of the bourgeoisie. And finally, these mighty and easily extended forces of production have so far outgrown private property and the bourgeoisie, that they threaten at any moment to unleash the most violent disturbances of the social order. Now, under these conditions, the abolition of private property has become not only possible but absolutely necessary.




— 16 —
Will the peaceful abolition of private property be possible?
It would be desirable if this could happen, and the communists would certainly be the last to oppose it. Communists know only too well that all conspiracies are not only useless, but even harmful. They know all too well that revolutions are not made intentionally and arbitrarily, but that, everywhere and always, they have been the necessary consequence of conditions which were wholly independent of the will and direction of individual parties and entire classes.

But they also see that the development of the proletariat in nearly all civilized countries has been violently suppressed, and that in this way the opponents of communism have been working toward a revolution with all their strength. If the oppressed proletariat is finally driven to revolution, then we communists will defend the interests of the proletarians with deeds as we now defend them with words.




— 17 —
Will it be possible for private property to be abolished at one stroke?
No, no more than existing forces of production can at one stroke be multiplied to the extent necessary for the creation of a communal society.

In all probability, the proletarian revolution will transform existing society gradually and will be able to abolish private property only when the means of production are available in sufficient quantity.




— 18 —
What will be the course of this revolution?
Above all, it will establish a democratic constitution, and through this, the direct or indirect dominance of the proletariat. Direct in England, where the proletarians are already a majority of the people. Indirect in France and Germany, where the majority of the people consists not only of proletarians, but also of small peasants and petty bourgeois who are in the process of falling into the proletariat, who are more and more dependent in all their political interests on the proletariat, and who must, therefore, soon adapt to the demands of the proletariat. Perhaps this will cost a second struggle, but the outcome can only be the victory of the proletariat.

Democracy would be wholly valueless to the proletariat if it were not immediately used as a means for putting through measures directed against private property and ensuring the livelihood of the proletariat. The main measures, emerging as the necessary result of existing relations, are the following:

(i) Limitation of private property through progressive taxation, heavy inheritance taxes, abolition of inheritance through collateral lines (brothers, nephews, etc.) forced loans, etc.

(ii) Gradual expropriation of landowners, industrialists, railroad magnates and shipowners, partly through competition by state industry, partly directly through compensation in the form of bonds.

(iii) Confiscation of the possessions of all emigrants and rebels against the majority of the people.

(iv) Organization of labor or employment of proletarians on publicly owned land, in factories and workshops, with competition among the workers being abolished and with the factory owners, in so far as they still exist, being obliged to pay the same high wages as those paid by the state.

(v) An equal obligation on all members of society to work until such time as private property has been completely abolished. Formation of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

(vi) Centralization of money and credit in the hands of the state through a national bank with state capital, and the suppression of all private banks and bankers.

(vii) Increase in the number of national factories, workshops, railroads, ships; bringing new lands into cultivation and improvement of land already under cultivation – all in proportion to the growth of the capital and labor force at the disposal of the nation.

(viii) Education of all children, from the moment they can leave their mother’s care, in national establishments at national cost. Education and production together.

(ix) Construction, on public lands, of great palaces as communal dwellings for associated groups of citizens engaged in both industry and agriculture and combining in their way of life the advantages of urban and rural conditions while avoiding the one-sidedness and drawbacks of each.

(x) Destruction of all unhealthy and jerry-built dwellings in urban districts.

(xi) Equal inheritance rights for children born in and out of wedlock.

(xii) Concentration of all means of transportation in the hands of the nation.

It is impossible, of course, to carry out all these measures at once. But one will always bring others in its wake. Once the first radical attack on private property has been launched, the proletariat will find itself forced to go ever further, to concentrate increasingly in the hands of the state all capital, all agriculture, all transport, all trade. All the foregoing measures are directed to this end; and they will become practicable and feasible, capable of producing their centralizing effects to precisely the degree that the proletariat, through its labor, multiplies the country’s productive forces.

Finally, when all capital, all production, all exchange have been brought together in the hands of the nation, private property will disappear of its own accord, money will become superfluous, and production will so expand and man so change that society will be able to slough off whatever of its old economic habits may remain.




— 19 —
Will it be possible for this revolution to take place in one country alone?
No. By creating the world market, big industry has already brought all the peoples of the Earth, and especially the civilized peoples, into such close relation with one another that none is independent of what happens to the others.

Further, it has co-ordinated the social development of the civilized countries to such an extent that, in all of them, bourgeoisie and proletariat have become the decisive classes, and the struggle between them the great struggle of the day. It follows that the communist revolution will not merely be a national phenomenon but must take place simultaneously in all civilized countries – that is to say, at least in England, America, France, and Germany.

It will develop in each of these countries more or less rapidly, according as one country or the other has a more developed industry, greater wealth, a more significant mass of productive forces. Hence, it will go slowest and will meet most obstacles in Germany, most rapidly and with the fewest difficulties in England. It will have a powerful impact on the other countries of the world, and will radically alter the course of development which they have followed up to now, while greatly stepping up its pace.

It is a universal revolution and will, accordingly, have a universal range.




— 20 —
What will be the consequences of the
ultimate disappearance of private property?
Society will take all forces of production and means of commerce, as well as the exchange and distribution of products, out of the hands of private capitalists and will manage them in accordance with a plan based on the availability of resources and the needs of the whole society. In this way, most important of all, the evil consequences which are now associated with the conduct of big industry will be abolished.

There will be no more crises; the expanded production, which for the present order of society is overproduction and hence a prevailing cause of misery, will then be insufficient and in need of being expanded much further. Instead of generating misery, overproduction will reach beyond the elementary requirements of society to assure the satisfaction of the needs of all; it will create new needs and, at the same time, the means of satisfying them. It will become the condition of, and the stimulus to, new progress, which will no longer throw the whole social order into confusion, as progress has always done in the past. Big industry, freed from the pressure of private property, will undergo such an expansion that what we now see will seem as petty in comparison as manufacture seems when put beside the big industry of our own day. This development of industry will make available to society a sufficient mass of products to satisfy the needs of everyone.

The same will be true of agriculture, which also suffers from the pressure of private property and is held back by the division of privately owned land into small parcels. Here, existing improvements and scientific procedures will be put into practice, with a resulting leap forward which will assure to society all the products it needs.

In this way, such an abundance of goods will be able to satisfy the needs of all its members.

The division of society into different, mutually hostile classes will then become unnecessary. Indeed, it will be not only unnecessary but intolerable in the new social order. The existence of classes originated in the division of labor, and the division of labor, as it has been known up to the present, will completely disappear. For mechanical and chemical processes are not enough to bring industrial and agricultural production up to the level we have described; the capacities of the men who make use of these processes must undergo a corresponding development.

Just as the peasants and manufacturing workers of the last century changed their whole way of life and became quite different people when they were drawn into big industry, in the same way, communal control over production by society as a whole, and the resulting new development, will both require an entirely different kind of human material.

People will no longer be, as they are today, subordinated to a single branch of production, bound to it, exploited by it; they will no longer develop one of their faculties at the expense of all others; they will no longer know only one branch, or one branch of a single branch, of production as a whole. Even industry as it is today is finding such people less and less useful.

Industry controlled by society as a whole, and operated according to a plan, presupposes well-rounded human beings, their faculties developed in balanced fashion, able to see the system of production in its entirety.

The form of the division of labor which makes one a peasant, another a cobbler, a third a factory worker, a fourth a stock-market operator, has already been undermined by machinery and will completely disappear. Education will enable young people quickly to familiarize themselves with the whole system of production and to pass from one branch of production to another in response to the needs of society or their own inclinations. It will, therefore, free them from the one-sided character which the present-day division of labor impresses upon every individual. Communist society will, in this way, make it possible for its members to put their comprehensively developed faculties to full use. But, when this happens, classes will necessarily disappear. It follows that society organized on a communist basis is incompatible with the existence of classes on the one hand, and that the very building of such a society provides the means of abolishing class differences on the other.

A corollary of this is that the difference between city and country is destined to disappear. The management of agriculture and industry by the same people rather than by two different classes of people is, if only for purely material reasons, a necessary condition of communist association. The dispersal of the agricultural population on the land, alongside the crowding of the industrial population into the great cities, is a condition which corresponds to an undeveloped state of both agriculture and industry and can already be felt as an obstacle to further development.

The general co-operation of all members of society for the purpose of planned exploitation of the forces of production, the expansion of production to the point where it will satisfy the needs of all, the abolition of a situation in which the needs of some are satisfied at the expense of the needs of others, the complete liquidation of classes and their conflicts, the rounded development of the capacities of all members of society through the elimination of the present division of labor, through industrial education, through engaging in varying activities, through the participation by all in the enjoyments produced by all, through the combination of city and country – these are the main consequences of the abolition of private property.




— 21 —
What will be the influence of communist society on the family?
It will transform the relations between the sexes into a purely private matter which concerns only the persons involved and into which society has no occasion to intervene. It can do this since it does away with private property and educates children on a communal basis, and in this way removes the two bases of traditional marriage – the dependence rooted in private property, of the women on the man, and of the children on the parents.

And here is the answer to the outcry of the highly moral philistines against the “community of women”. Community of women is a condition which belongs entirely to bourgeois society and which today finds its complete expression in prostitution. But prostitution is based on private property and falls with it. Thus, communist society, instead of introducing community of women, in fact abolishes it.




— 22 —
What will be the attitude of communism to existing nationalities?
The nationalities of the peoples associating themselves in accordance with the principle of community will be compelled to mingle with each other as a result of this association and thereby to dissolve themselves, just as the various estate and class distinctions must disappear through the abolition of their basis, private property.[3]




— 23 —
What will be its attitude to existing religions?
All religions so far have been the expression of historical stages of development of individual peoples or groups of peoples. But communism is the stage of historical development which makes all existing religions superfluous and brings about their disappearance[4]




— 24 —
How do communists differ from socialists?
The so-called socialists are divided into three categories.



[ Reactionary Socialists: ]
The first category consists of adherents of a feudal and patriarchal society which has already been destroyed, and is still daily being destroyed, by big industry and world trade and their creation, bourgeois society. This category concludes, from the evils of existing society, that feudal and patriarchal society must be restored because it was free of such evils. In one way or another, all their proposals are directed to this end.

This category of reactionary socialists, for all their seeming partisanship and their scalding tears for the misery of the proletariat, is nevertheless energetically opposed by the communists for the following reasons:

(i) It strives for something which is entirely impossible.

(ii) It seeks to establish the rule of the aristocracy, the guildmasters, the small producers, and their retinue of absolute or feudal monarchs, officials, soldiers, and priests – a society which was, to be sure, free of the evils of present-day society but which brought it at least as many evils without even offering to the oppressed workers the prospect of liberation through a communist revolution.

(iii) As soon as the proletariat becomes revolutionary and communist, these reactionary socialists show their true colors by immediately making common cause with the bourgeoisie against the proletarians.



[ Bourgeois Socialists: ]
The second category consists of adherents of present-day society who have been frightened for its future by the evils to which it necessarily gives rise. What they want, therefore, is to maintain this society while getting rid of the evils which are an inherent part of it.

To this end, some propose mere welfare measures – while others come forward with grandiose systems of reform which, under the pretense of re-organizing society, are in fact intended to preserve the foundations, and hence the life, of existing society.

Communists must unremittingly struggle against these bourgeois socialists because they work for the enemies of communists and protect the society which communists aim to overthrow.



[ Democratic Socialists: ]
Finally, the third category consists of democratic socialists who favor some of the same measures the communists advocate, as described in Question 18, not as part of the transition to communism, however, but as measures which they believe will be sufficient to abolish the misery and evils of present-day society.

These democratic socialists are either proletarians who are not yet sufficiently clear about the conditions of the liberation of their class, or they are representatives of the petty bourgeoisie, a class which, prior to the achievement of democracy and the socialist measures to which it gives rise, has many interests in common with the proletariat.

It follows that, in moments of action, the communists will have to come to an understanding with these democratic socialists, and in general to follow as far as possible a common policy with them – provided that these socialists do not enter into the service of the ruling bourgeoisie and attack the communists.

It is clear that this form of co-operation in action does not exclude the discussion of differences.




— 25 —
What is the attitude of the communists to the
other political parties of our time?
This attitude is different in the different countries.

In England, France, and Belgium, where the bourgeoisie rules, the communists still have a common interest with the various democratic parties, an interest which is all the greater the more closely the socialistic measures they champion approach the aims of the communists – that is, the more clearly and definitely they represent the interests of the proletariat and the more they depend on the proletariat for support. In England, for example, the working-class Chartists are infinitely closer to the communists than the democratic petty bourgeoisie or the so-called Radicals.

In America, where a democratic constitution has already been established, the communists must make the common cause with the party which will turn this constitution against the bourgeoisie and use it in the interests of the proletariat – that is, with the agrarian National Reformers.

In Switzerland, the Radicals, though a very mixed party, are the only group with which the communists can co-operate, and, among these Radicals, the Vaudois and Genevese are the most advanced.

In Germany, finally, the decisive struggle now on the order of the day is that between the bourgeoisie and the absolute monarchy. Since the communists cannot enter upon the decisive struggle between themselves and the bourgeoisie until the bourgeoisie is in power, it follows that it is in the interest of the communists to help the bourgeoisie to power as soon as possible in order the sooner to be able to overthrow it. Against the governments, therefore, the communists must continually support the radical liberal party, taking care to avoid the self-deceptions of the bourgeoisie and not fall for the enticing promises of benefits which a victory for the bourgeoisie would allegedly bring to the proletariat. The sole advantages which the proletariat would derive from a bourgeois victory would consist

(i) in various concessions which would facilitate the unification of the proletariat into a closely knit, battle-worthy, and organized class; and

(ii) in the certainly that, on the very day the absolute monarchies fall, the struggle between bourgeoisie and proletariat will start. From that day on, the policy of the communists will be the same as it now is in the countries where the bourgeoisie is already in power.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Footnotes
The following footnotes are from the Chinese Edition of
Marx/Engels Selected Works
Peking, Foreign Languages Press, 1977.
with editorial additions by marxists.org




Introduction In 1847 Engels wrote two draft programmes for the Communist League in the form of a catechism, one in June and the other in October. The latter, which is known as Principles of Communism, was first published in 1914. The earlier document Draft of the Communist Confession of Faith, was only found in 1968. It was first published in 1969 in Hamburg, together with four other documents pertaining to the first congress of the Communist League, in a booklet entitled Gründungs Dokumente des Bundes der Kommunisten (Juni bis September 1847) (Founding Documents of the Communist League).

At the June 1847 Congress of the League of the Just, which was also the founding conference of the Communist League, it was decided to issue a draft “confession of faith” to be submitted for discussion to the sections of the League. The document which has now come to light is almost certainly this draft. Comparison of the two documents shows that Principles of Communism is a revised edition of this earlier draft. In Principles of Communism, Engels left three questions unanswered, in two cases with the notation “unchanged” (bleibt); this clearly refers to the answers provided in the earlier draft.

The new draft for the programme was worked out by Engels on the instructions of the leading body of the Paris circle of the Communist League. The instructions were decided on after Engles’ sharp criticism at the committee meeting, on October 22, 1847, of the draft programme drawn up by the “true socialist” Moses Hess, which was then rejected.

Still considering Principles of Communism as a preliminary draft, Engels expressed the view, in a letter to Marx dated November 23-24 1847, that it would be best to drop the old catechistic form and draw up a programme in the form of a manifesto.

“Think over the Confession of Faith a bit. I believe we had better drop the catechism form and call the thing: Communist Manifesto. As more or less history has got to be related in it, the form it has been in hitherto is quite unsuitable. I am bringing what I have done here with me; it is in simple narrative form, but miserably worded, in fearful haste. ...”

At the second congress of the Communist League (November 29-December 8, 1847) Marx and Engels defended the fundamental scientific principles of communism and were trusted with drafting a programme in the form of a manifesto of the Communist Party. In writing the manifesto the founders of Marxism made use of the propositions enunciated in Principles of Communism.

Engels uses the term Manufaktur, and its derivatives, which have been translated “manufacture”, “manufacturing”, etc., Engels used this word literally, to indicate production by hand, not factory production for which Engels uses “big industry”. Manufaktur differs from handicraft (guild production in mediaeval towns), in that the latter was carried out by independent artisans. Manufacktur is carried out by homeworkers working for merchant capitalists, or by groups of craftspeople working together in large workshops owned by capitalists. It is therefore a transitional mode of production, between guild (handicraft) and modern (capitalist) forms of production.

(Last paragraph paraphrased from the
Introduction by Pluto Press, London, 1971)

1. In their works written in later periods, Marx and Engels substituted the more accurate concepts of “sale of labour power”, “value of labour power” and “price of labour power” (first introduced by Marx) for “sale of labour”, “value of labour” and “price of labour”, as used here.

2. Engels left half a page blank here in the manuscript. The Draft of the Communist Confession of Faith, has the answer shown for the same question (Number 12).

3. Engels’ put “unchanged” here, referring to the answer in the June draft under No. 21 which is shown.

4. Similarly, this refers to the answer to Question 23 in the June draft.

5. The Chartists were the participants in the political movement of the British workers which lasted from the 1830s to the middle 1850s and had as its slogan the adoption of a People’s Charter, demanding universal franchise and a series of conditions guaranteeing voting rights for all workers. Lenin defined Chartism as the world’s “first broad, truly mass and politically organized proletarian revolutionary movement” (Collected Works, Eng. ed., Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965, Vol. 29, p. 309.) The decline of the Chartist movement was due to the strengthening of Britain’s industrial and commercial monopoly and the bribing of the upper stratum of the working class (“the labour aristocracy”) by the British bourgeoisie out of its super-profits. Both factors led to the strengthening of opportunist tendencies in this stratum as expressed, in particular, by the refusal of the trade union leaders to support Chartism.

6. Probably a references to the National Reform Association, founded during the 1840s by George H. Evans, with headquarters in New York City, which had for its motto, “Vote Yourself a Farm”.

From The Pens Of Karl Marx And Friedrich Engels-The Struggle For The Communist League-Report by the Central Authority to the League (1847)

Click on the headline to link to the Marx-Engels Internet Archives for an online copy of the article mentioned in the headline.

Markin comment:

This foundation article by Marx or Engels goes along with the propaganda points in the fight for our communist future mentioned in other posts in this space.

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.
***********
Report by the Central Authority to the League [346]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Written: September 14 1847;
Source: MECW Volume 6, p. 602;
First published: Gründungsdokumente des Bundes der Kommunisten (Juni bis September 1847), Hamburg, 1969;


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Brothers: Working Men of All Countries, Unite!
Three months have now passed since the Congress was held and its Circular was dispatched to you; we therefore now send you another report on our activity since then, and give you a summary of the present state of the League.

We regret that we are unable to send you very encouraging news, but we have resolved to tell you the plain truth, be it encouraging or disheartening. Some of you may well think that emphasis should always be placed on the bright side of the situation so that people should not lose heart; we on the contrary are of the opinion that all should know the enormous and diverse difficulties with which we have to contend. Real men will not he deterred by this, but on the contrary spurred on to new activity.

As long as our League is not strongly and firmly established, as long as it fails to intervene effectively in the course of events, our influence will be insignificant. Admittedly we now have a new basis, and in some places people seem to work with new enthusiasm but on the whole we are still far from the position we should have reached long ago. When the Congress Circular was dispatched we hoped we would receive favourable and definite replies to it from all quarters. The Central Authority had enclosed with it an accompanying letter calling attention once more to the points requiring a response and requesting prompt and definite replies.[347]

So far we have only received a definite reply from the Brussels [yesterday we received a letter from Leipzig, for details see below] circle, other places have only acknowledged receipt of the Circular, thanked us for our efforts, made some general comments, and no more.

What is the cause of this negligence and where is it going to lead us? Many German proletarians are anxious to liberate themselves, but, if they do not set about the task more energetically than they have done so far, they will indeed not make much progress. We can’t wait for things to fall into our lap. Many people are hindered in their activity by their mental sluggishness; others talk a great deal but when money contributions are requested they pull long faces, make all manner of excuses and give nothing; others again possess a large share of bourgeois cowardice, see policemen and gendarmes at every turn and never believe it is time to act. It gives one the gripes to see all the goings-on. The majority of the proletarians, and the most active at that — those in Silesia, Saxony, Rhenish Prussia, Westphalia and Hesse have poor or indeed no leadership, at least no communist one.

We therefore call upon all members of our League once more to rise up at last out of their sleep and set to work, and we demand that first of all definite replies to the Congress Circular be sent in so that we can at least know whom we can count upon.

After the Congress was over we sent the Congress Circular, the new Rules a the Communist . Credo’ and an accompanying letter from the Central Authority to ten towns in Switzerland, France, Belgium, Germany and Sweden where we have communities. In addition we sent out from London two authorised emissaries to America, one to Norway, one to Germany and one to Holland. All promised the Central Authority to work to the best of their ability and to set up new communities in the places in which they settled and to put them in touch with us.

In accordance with the resolution adopted at the Congress the League’s new newspaper [Kommunistische Zeitschrift] should have begun to appear in August... and we had been promised articles and also financial support for it; all League members were moreover requested to give all the help they could. Unfortunately here again most promises have been confined to words alone. Apart from the Brussels circle, which for the time being made a monthly allocation of one pound sterling for printing expenses and five francs for propaganda and Brother Heide [Wilhelm Wolff] who sent us an article, we have received nothing so far. The editorial commission, which from one week to the next was being promised the necessary articles, was finally compelled to do everything itself, so as at least to be able to get the specimen issue out. If we do not receive better support in the future than we have received so far, we shall not make any progress here either. In order to set up our printing-press properly, so that besides the League newspaper we can also print leaflets and small pamphlets, we still need another 600 francs. We are not in a position to raise this sum in London alone.

Since the Congress Circular was sent out we have received news from the following places.

Sweden. We received a letter dated Upsala, May 23 from our emissary who travelled to Sweden via Helsingör, crossing the whole country on foot. Here in London, having nothing else, he had filled his kitbag with communist leaflets which he successfully took over the border into Sweden. He writes that in all towns where there are German workers, he called on them in their workshops, distributed our leaflets among them and found their response to our ideas most enthusiastic. Unfortunately, since he did not find any work he was unable to stay in any one place long enough to set up a community. In Stockholm he transmitted to the local community (our communist outpost in the North) the first two circulars from the Central Authority,[349] and his news lent the Brothers there new heart. From Stockholm he went to Upsala, from there on to Gävle, where he worked for a time, and is now on the way to Umei and Tornea. A communist emissary among the Lapps!

A member of the League who arrived in London from Karlskrona informed us: Brother C., who was previously working in Paris and London, has set up communities in W. and there are already over a hundred League members there now. The Brother from Karlskrona gave us C.’s address and we shall be sending him this Circular together with the New Rules and a special appeal for the League members there. From Stockholm we have received a letter dated July 8 saying that our Brothers there are most zealous supporters of our principles. A public attack on communism made by a local priest was countered by a League member, Brother Forsell, in a pamphlet written in Swedish in which he expounded our principles to the people as well a Sweden’s biggest newspaper, the Aftonbladet, also defends communism against the clerics. We were also told in the letter: “The educational society here in Stockholm, which we were formerly able to regard as a gateway to communism has now unfortunately landed in the clutches of the philistines. On the other hand the democratic element within the local Scandinavian society, [350] of which we are all members and which has one of us as President, is pure and unsullied and it is from this society that we recruit our members:” Immediately on receiving this letter we made handwritten copies of the Congress Circular, the Communist Credo and the Rules in Latin characters (since most Swedes cannot read German letters) and then sent them everything by post. We are now waiting for their reply to this dispatch.

Germany. Approximately six weeks ago an emissary from here went to Berlin taking with him letters from us for the Brothers there, and, in order to put new heart into them, exhorting them to be steadfast. He was to spend only about a week there and then travel to Leipzig, from where he was to send us a report. We are expecting news shortly.

The Brothers in Br. acknowledged receipt of our letters and promised to send us a detailed reply in the immediate future, which they have not yet done.

The Brothers in Hamburg acknowledge receipt of our letters and express their regret that the name League of the just has been changed and wish the former name restored: they also inform us that it is not at all to their liking when the supporters of W. Weitling and Grün are exposed to such hostile criticism, as was the case in the Congress Circular. They call for moderation and unity and write: “Whether someone stands one rung higher or lower as regards the main principle, that is no reason for us to persecute him and cause a split, for how do you think we can make an impact if we take such a one-sided approach. We attract all forces who wish for progress and then seek to win them over to our ideas gradually by persuasion.”

We must reply to the Brothers in Hamburg that the reasons for the change in the name notified in the Congress Circular are significant ones and that if no important counter-arguments are put forward, the Central Authority will defend the retention of the name Communist League at the next Congress. This latter name says clearly what we are and what we want, which the previous one did not. League of the just says everything and nothing, but we must be definite. The Hamburg Brothers would do well to read the reasons given in the Congress Circular once more — if they can refute those arguments then we shall agree with them — we have no right to take mere emotions into consideration.

As regards the second point we stress that we are in no way persecuting Weitling’s and Grün’s supporters, but purely and simply representing them in their true colours. It is time we came to our senses and therefore we can no longer waste time on dreamers and system-mongers who have no energy for action — we will drag no corpse along behind us. Grün’s supporters are people who chatter a great deal about equality without knowing what the word means, who criticise everything except themselves, in other words, opinionated men who talk a great deal, but do nothing. We are no elegant bourgeois and therefore do not beat about the bush but say what we think, i. e., call things by their names.

For over ten years moderation, forbearance and unity have been preached in the League and with all this preaching, with all this brotherly love we have accomplished virtually nothing, and last year the League almost collapsed entirely. We must put an end to this; it’ Is wrong to demand that we should spend our whole life on trifles and idle dreams. Our opinion is that 100 active members are better than 1,000 of whom half are indecisive and lukewarm. Instead of looking back and helping the lame to catch up, we march boldly forward, which will probably get others to their feet somewhat more nimbly as well. The Brothers in Hamburg incidentally do not seem to have got very far with their moderation, for they make no allusion to the dispatch of money for propaganda and printing, and as for the League’s newspaper they declare that they are only in a position to take a few copies in view of growing unemployment.

We must make it clear here that every member of the League is bound to take a copy of the newspaper; if he is not able to pay for it, then the community he belongs to must do so for him.

Once more, Brothers, let us not allow all our strength to be undermined through untimely moderation, through lumping together opposing forces and thus become a laughing-stock for the other parties. We can make a powerful impact, if we only have the will, and if we do have the will there is only one thing we need courage! courage! and once again courage! If people are unable or unwilling to go as far as we do — all well and good; if their intentions are honest, we shall not cease to respect them, but when we are called upon to step backwards in order to join up with such people, then we reply: Never!

Not long ago our Brothers in Leipzig wrote that several members who had been intimidated by the somewhat stark terms of the Central Authority’s circular had withdrawn their membership. The others promised to remain loyally united and work to the best of their ability. We can only congratulate the Brothers in Leipzig on having rid themselves of people who lacked the courage to behave as men. The letter which we received from Leipzig yesterday was already written in a quite different and more forceful style than previous letters, which shows that the community there is no longer dogged by indecisiveness.

First of all the community in Leipzig believes that it was necessary to phrase the Credo in terms more scientific and more suitable for all social classes. They suggest an almost complete recast and give their reasons for this. We shall put the suggested changes before the next Congress for discussion. The Central Authority agrees with the majority of the points listed in their letter. The community states further that apart from copies of our newspaper for all the members, they wish to take an extra 12 for distribution. If all communities were to follow the example provided in Leipzig, the League’s newspaper could appear weekly and at half the price. We request that all contributions for propaganda and printing that have been collected should be sent in as soon as possible. We hope that a second community can soon be set up in Leipzig; if this does not however take place this community could adhere to those in Berlin"'; we shall take the necessary steps for this.

From Mn we have received no news, nor do we know any address there, for our correspondent in that town is supposed to have left for Paris. We shall try to restore contact with the communities there as soon as possible.

We were unable to send the Congress Circular to Mainz by post. It was not until four weeks ago that a member from here left for that destination with whom we dispatched everything. Thus we could not have received an answer from there yet. In a letter which we received from the Mainz members some time back we were informed that a second community was about to be set up, which means a circle will be formed. Our Brothers in Mainz are being constantly subjected to police harassment, but this only serves to spur them on to work all the more energetically for our cause. Credit is due to the gallant proletarians in Mainz; if people were as active as that all over Germany, our prospects would be brilliant.

Holland. In Amsterdam an educational society has been set up which is in touch with us and has competent men. Three weeks ago we sent an authorised emissary there to set up a community.[352]

America. The emissary who this spring set out for New York from here paints us a sad picture of the state of the League in the New World. In New York the League had already made remarkable progress when Weitling arrived. and sowed discord there. The meetings were soon the scene of violent disputes and the result was that the whole set-up collapsed. The communities in New York had earlier always been urging us to be moderate and begging us most earnestly to be reconciled with Weitling. After they themselves, a fortnight after Weitling’s arrival, entered into a bitter conflict with him, our correspondents there lost heart to such an extent that they no longer wished to write to us any more so as not to have to reveal the sad state of the League there. This is what the emissary sent to New York writes; in this situation he himself was unable to do anything in New York and has now left for the state of Wisconsin, where he promises to promote our cause to the best of his ability.

In Philadelphia there are still several League members whom we have earnestly begged to set up communities there again. We have instructed the two emissaries who left from here for New York and Philadelphia to do their utmost so that the League may be restored in the above-mentioned places, in accordance with the improved Rules.

France. In Marseilles things are as before. A number of members from Lyons have gone there, promising to do their very best to inject new life into the League.

From Lyons we have received word that the League members are sparing no effort in our work and are discussing the Credo. The Lyons circle endorses the new Rules with the exception of Section VII, concerning conditions of memberships The Lyons members believe it to be unnecessary to demand that new members take an oath for there are countless cases of people taking all manner of oaths and not keeping any of them; attention should be paid mainly to conduct. We call the Lyons members’ attention to the fact that no oath is demanded, but only the new member’s, word of honour. The Lyons members also write:

“Since now in September we are again in a critical position, we beg you to ask the Parisians if they could not spare a few competent members, who would be ready to make a sacrifice for the common cause and settle in Lyons for a time. The old members all want to leave here and we are therefore short of people who can take over the leadership.

“So try to prevent the possibility of this community breaking up.

“As for the newspaper which you will be putting out, we cannot yet stipulate how many copies we can take, because everything will change.

Not a word about money for printing and propaganda.

We urgently request our Brothers in Paris to send a few competent members to Lyons as soon as possible.

From Paris we have been informed that the Rules have been unanimously endorsed there, that the Credo is being discussed in the various communities and that the membership has increased considerably. We have not yet heard anything about the results of their discussions or any news as to whether money is being collected for printing and propaganda. But it must be said to the credit of the Parisians that they recently made significant money contributions by sending a delegate to the Congress.’ and an emissary to Switzerland.’ It unfortunately emerges from a private letter written by a Parisian League member. and handed to the Central Authority, that there are still many people in the Paris communities who have not yet shaken themselves free of Grün’s nonsense and Proudhon’s most strange ideas. Oddly enough, these people, who are members of the Communist League, seem to reject communism; they want equality and nothing else. This inner split also seems to be the reason why we so seldom receive any news from Paris. Proudhon has become such a truly German philosopher that he no longer knows himself what he wants; Grün has made Proudhon’s ideas still more obscure, [353] so it is now clearly impossible to demand that the people who follow these two really know where they are going. We urge Proudhon’s and Grün’s supporters to read Marx’s Misère de la philosophie, which we have heard has already been translated into German.[354] Then they will see that their state where all are equal and which they demand with a great deal of talk and fuss is no different from that of today. This leads people round and round in circles, chasing false ideas, only to end up where they started.

We call upon the Communists in Paris to stand firm together and to work to rid their communities of these false ideas. If Grün’s and Proudhon’s supporters insist on their principles, then, if they wish to remain men of honour, they should leave the League and start working on their own. There is only room for Communists in our League. As long as there are followers of Grün in our communities, neither they nor we can conduct effective propaganda; our forces will be divided and our young people low in spirits; so separation is better than an internal split.[355]

Weitling’s expelled supporters have again sent us a long letter in which they inveigh against us and the Paris communities maintaining that it is they who are the real Communists. At the end of their letter they ask for a reliable address for they have further instructions for us. Yet they make no reference to the fact that they, although in the minority, appropriated the whole Paris League’s treasury which one of them had in his keeping. Such behaviour most certainly accords with their leader’s theory on theft.

We wrote to them in very polite terms saying that we had acted in accordance with our duty and convictions and would also insist on what we considered to be right. Their abuse could not therefore hurt us. We sent them the address they asked for but have not heard anything more from them since.

Switzerland. The Central Authority informed the Brothers in La Chaux-de-Fonds of the imminent arrival of an emissary’ and urged them to work with all their might towards a reorganisation of the League in Switzerland.

The Berne community has of late appeared in a somewhat dubious light. We were informed that they were planning to bring out a communist newspaper, Der Wanderer and our support was requested.

We sent off 25 francs and a remittance for 50 francs to Lausanne and La Chaux-de-Fonds. However, this money was used by the Berne members to print leaflets by Karl Heinzen, who even then had already shown himself to be the bitterest enemy of the Communists. On June 29 we received another letter from Berne which informed us that the Young Germany[356] group were making use of all possible means to work against the Communists in Switzerland and urged us to found a press organ as soon as possible. At the same time they sent us a small leaflet entitled Der deutsche Hunger und die debts Fürsten and asked for voluntary contributions so that the “Kriegsartikel”, “Vorbereitung”, etc., might be more widely distributed. It was stated: “Certain members of the republican party may well have noble intentions, our worthy Heinzen for example, but his hands are tied; he is not the soul of the German republican movement but its right hand for the moment, etc.”

Heinzen attacks the Communists most violently; yet, the Berne community is printing and circulating his pamphlets and seems to be in close touch with him. This appeared to us suspicious and indeed still does so. We do not want to let ourselves be led by the nose; every honest man must hold up his banner for all to see today. So we wrote a serious letter to the Berne community asking for a prompt explanation, but as yet have received no reply.

Our emissary writes from Geneva that our affairs are progressing in a most heartening way there. Two League members succeeded in setting up a community in Geneva this spring. While the emissary was there a second came into being and a third was planned. In addition there is a public society there which is being “ed to train efficient Communists. In Geneva our party seems once again to have found a firm footing, and if our Brothers there continue to work as hard as before, then the Communists in Switzerland will soon be stronger than ever. Weitling’s expelled supporters, our emissary writes, have already sent to La Chaux-de-Fonds several letters full of the most shameful personal insults to several League members and calling upon the local members to join them. However the communities in La Chaux-de-Fonds have not complied With those people’s solicitation and are waiting till our emissary arrives before giving them a final answer. From Geneva the emissary contacted Petersen in Lausanne who still enjoys quite significant influence among the Communists in Switzerland. We hope the former will succeed in winning him over for our movement’.

Weitling’s followers in Paris have sent a certain Hornschuh as their emissary to Switzerland with the money stolen from our League, in order to bring the communities there over to their side. This Hornschuh is at present in Lausanne. Before that he was in London; we therefore know precisely what he is and can assure you that he is quite incapable of any kind of propaganda work. He is a horribly tedious windbag and in other respects worth precious little as well. When he left London he asked his community for a small advance for the journey promising to pay the money back in the very near future. The community granted him 25 francs. Two years have passed since then and Hornschuh, despite frequent reminders, has not paid anything back yet. It is really sad that people like Hornschuh, whose sole purpose is to indulge their laziness and self-conceit, still find opportunities to squander away the proletarians’ hard earned money.

Our emissary is now touring the towns on Lake Geneva and will then visit La Chaux-de-Fonds, etc. He asked us for additional funds to be able to make this journey and we immediately sent him 50 francs, which we were obliged to borrow however, since our resources are exhausted.

Belgium. In Belgium our prospects are good. Since the Congress two circles have been set up in that country; we have not yet established direct contact with the one based in Liège but are expecting letters from them any day.

The Brussels circle is in touch with the Rhenish Prussia people [357] and working most energetically. It has already set up a singing and an educational society[358]; both are led by League members and serve as a preparatory school for the League.

The Rules were adopted in Brussels; however two alterations were proposed for discussion at the next Congress. The first concerns letter (e), Article 3, section 1 and the second — Article 21, Section V.

The Brussels members write: “We hold it for unpolitic to forbid League members to belong to any political or national organisation, since by doing so we deprive ourselves of all opportunities for influencing such organisations.” Further on in connection with Article 21, they add: “If the present period were a more revolutionary one, the whole activity of the Congress would be hindered by this restriction. We recall that in 1794 the aristocrats put the same demand before the Convention, in order to paralyse all action."[359]

We request the communities to consider these proposals more closely and to give their delegates to the next Congress appropriate instructions.

As regards the Communist Credo a good number of important alterations were suggested, which we shall put before the Congress for discussion.

As was mentioned above the Brussels circle allocated 25 francs for printing and has agreed to send 5 francs for propaganda work each month. We call upon the other circles to follow this example as soon as possible.

London. The new Rules were unanimously adopted in London and lively discussion of the Credo is in progress in all communities. The local circle authority will be sending us all suggestions for amendments and additions as soon as the discussions are over. During the last two months a large number of League members have left London but we shall have filled the resulting gaps soon. The educational societies provide us with preparatory schools, whose great benefit makes itself felt more and more with each passing day.

In the London circle a remarkable sense of unity reigns and members are keen to devote all their energies to our cause. In the last six months we have spent here over 1,000 francs for pamphlets, etc., for the journal a postage and printing costs, Congress expenses, emissaries, etc. In addition, each member has to pay threepence a week into the educational society[360] fund and, besides, hardly a meeting goes by without private collections being made for the needy. Over half our members are out of work and in dire straits, which means it is becoming impossible for us to bear all these expenses alone as we have done hitherto. We are therefore forced to request all circles and communities most earnestly to contribute as much as they can and as soon as possible to the complete installation of the League printing-press, continued publication of our paper and propaganda work: at the present moment our resources are completely . exhausted. In the past we always used to send out money as soon as it was requested and so we believe we can rely on you not to leave us in the lurch now.

The specimen number of our League newspaper sells well in London and arouses great interest among the foreigners living here. We have displayed it for sale in several bookshops and newsstands. We have sent copies to all our regular addresses and have another 1,000 still available, so that we shall be able to send off copies wherever they are required.

With this we come to the end of our report on the state of the League and our work; you can judge now for yourselves how things stand and whether the Central Authority has done its duty as the executive body of the League over the last three months.

You will appreciate that although active work is being carried on here and there, as we noted at the beginning of this letter, in general we are still far from the point we should have reached long since. We therefore hope, Brothers, that you will now muster all your strength so that we shall make rapid steps forward and that in the next report we shall be able to give you more encouraging news than has been the case so far.

However, before closing this letter we must ask you to pay particular attention to the following points. We earnestly request that:

1) All circles and independent communities, if it is at all possible, must elect a delegate to the next congress and see to it that he will be able to come to London on November 29 of this year. You know that we were unable to adopt any definitive decisions at the First Congress[361] and that it was thus considered necessary to hold a second one this year. The Second Congress will be most important because it has not only to formulate the Communist Credo but also to determine the final organisation of the League and its press organ and the future pattern of our propaganda work. It is therefore absolutely essential that as many delegates as possible attend this Congress. Brothers! — We hope that you will not shrink from any sacrifices which the fulfilment of your duty may require;

2) All circles and communities, which have not yet made any collections for printing and propaganda work must do so without delay. If everyone contributes something, then we shall be in a position to engage in forceful action. Without money we cannot carry on any propaganda work. Those circles and communities which have already made collections should dispatch the same to us as soon as possible;

3) All circles and communities, which have not yet sent in definite replies to the Congress Circular should do so without delay;

4) All circles and communities, which have not yet informed us how many copies of our newspaper they wish to take should do so at once. In addition they should inform us of the best and most reliable ways of dispatching the paper to their respective localities;

5) All circles and communities should inform us whether communist propaganda is being carried on in their particular region and if so what form it takes;

6) All members of the League should send to the editorial office essays and poems. Several members promised essays for the first issue, as observed earlier, but these promises have not been kept: we can only attribute this to negligence, which definitely ought not to be prevalent in our organisation.

Hoping to receive favourable and definite news from you soon, we greet you in the name and on behalf of the Central Authority.

Karl Schapper, Henry Bauer, Joseph Moll

London, September 14, 1847

P.S. just as this letter was to be printed, letters arrived from our the case so far. emissaries in Germany and Switzerland.

From Germany it was reported that the enthusiasm of our Brothers in Berlin is extraordinary, particularly since the important events there.[362] The government has indeed played straight into our hands. Our principles were made public through the uproar about the Communists, and the people, instead of being scared away by these principles, became enthusiastic for them. The emissary concludes his letter with the words: “Brothers, we can look to the future with confidence-there are efficient men on every side who are championing the just cause.”

The news from Switzerland also sounds highly favourable. The League is organised there and now established in more than ten different localities. Petersen has been won over. The emissary writes: “In La Chaux-de-Fonds and Le Locle I believe we have the best and most devoted members of our League. Their courage is unshakeable.” Bravo, Brothers-forward! Weitling’s expelled followers have been turned away wherever they went. The misunderstanding with the Berne community has been clarified. We now declare that we were unjust towards the Brothers there. They adhere firmly to our principles. We are extremely happy to be able to announce this.

More details will be supplied in the next report.

The Central Authority
Karl Schapper, Henry Bauer, Joseph Moll

London, September 14, 1847

From The Pens Of Karl Marx And Friedrich Engels-The Struggle For The Communist League-Draft of a Communist Confession of Faith (1847)

Click on the headline to link to the Marx-Engels Internet Archives for an online copy of the article mentioned in the headline.

Markin comment:

This foundation article by Marx or Engels goes along with the propaganda points in the fight for our communist future mentioned in other posts in this space.

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.

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Draft of a Communist Confession of Faith

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Source: MECW Volume 6, p. 92;
Written: by Engels, June 9 1847;
First published: in Gründungsdokumente des Bundes der Kommunisten, Hamburg, 1969.

Editor's Note: From Progress Prublishers.


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Question 1: Are you a Communist?

Answer: Yes.

Question 2: What is the aim of the Communists?

Answer: To organise society in such a way that every member of it can develop and use all his capabilities and powers in complete freedom and without thereby infringing the basic conditions of this society.

Question 3: How do you wish to achieve this aim?

Answer: By the elimination of private property and its replacement by community of property.

Question 4: On what do you base your community of property?

Answer: Firstly, on the mass of productive forces and means of subsistence resulting from the development of industry, agriculture, trade and colonisation, and on the possibility inherent in machinery, chemical and other resources of their infinite extension.

Secondly, on the fact that in the consciousness or feeling of every individual there exist certain irrefutable basic principles which, being the result of the whole of historical development, require no proof.

Question 5: What are such principles?

Answer: For example, every individual strives to be happy. The happiness of the individual is inseparable from the happiness of all, etc.

Question 6: How do you wish to prepare the way for your community of property?

Answer: By enlightening and uniting the proletariat.

Question 7: What is the proletariat?

Answer: The proletariat is that class of society which lives exclusively by its labour and not on the profit from any kind of capital; that class whose weal and woe, whose life and death, therefore, depend on the alternation of times of good and bad business;. in a word, on the fluctuations of competition.

Question 8: Then there have not always been proletarians?

Answer: No. There have always been poor and working classes; and those who worked were almost always the poor. But there have not always been proletarians, just as competition has not always been free.

Question 9: How did the proletariat arise?

Answer: The proletariat came into being as a result of the introduction of the machines which have been invented since the middle of the last century and the most important of which are: the steam-engine, the spinning machine and the power loom. These machines, which were very expensive and could therefore only be purchased by rich people, supplanted the workers of the time, because by the use of machinery it was possible to produce commodities more quickly and cheaply than could the workers with their imperfect spinning wheels and hand-looms. The machines thus delivered industry entirely into the hands of the big capitalists and rendered the workers’ scanty property which consisted mainly of their tools, looms, etc., quite worthless, so that the capitalist was left with everything, the worker with nothing. In this way the factory system was introduced. Once the capitalists saw how advantageous this was for them, they sought to extend it to more and more branches of labour. They divided work more and more between the workers so that workers who formerly had made a whole article now produced only a part of it. Labour simplified in this way produced goods more quickly and therefore more cheaply and only now was it found in almost every branch of labour that here also machines could be used. As soon as any branch of labour went over to factory production it ended up, just as in the case of spinning and weaving. in the hands of the big capitalists, and the workers were deprived of the last remnants of their independence. We have gradually arrived at the position where almost all branches of labour are run on a factory basis. This has increasingly brought about the ruin of the previously existing middle class, especially of the small master craftsmen, completely transformed the previous position of the workers, and two new classes which are gradually swallowing up all other classes have come into being, namely:

I. The, class of the big capitalists, who in all advanced countries are in almost exclusive possession of the means of subsistence and those means (machines, factories, workshops, etc.) by which these means of subsistence are produced. This is the bourgeois class, or the bourgeoisie.

II. The class of the completely propertyless, who are compelled to sell their labour[70] to the first class, the bourgeois, simply to obtain from them in return their means of subsistence. Since the parties to this trading in labour are not equal, but the bourgeois have the advantage, the propertyless must submit to the bad conditions laid down by the bourgeois. This class, dependent on the bourgeois, is called the class of the proletarians or the proletariat.

Question 10: In what way does the proletarian differ from the slave?

Answer: The slave is sold once and for all, the proletarian has to sell himself by the day and by the hour. The slave is the property of one master and for that very reason has a guaranteed subsistence, however wretched it may be. The proletarian is, so to speak, the slave of the entire bourgeois class, not of one master, and therefore has no guaranteed subsistence, since nobody buys his labour if he does not need it. The slave is accounted a thing and not a member of civil society. The proletarian is recognised as a person, as a member of civil society. The slave may, therefore, have a better subsistence than the proletarian but the latter stands at a higher stage of development. The slave frees himself by becoming a proletarian, abolishing from the totality of property relationships only the relationship of slavery. The proletarian can free himself only by abolishing property in general.

Question 11: In what way does the proletarian differ from the serf?

Answer: The serf has the use of a piece of land, that is, of an instrument of production, in return for handing over a greater or lesser portion of the yield. The proletarian works with instruments of production which belong to someone else who, in return for his labour, hands over to him a portion, determined by competition, of the products. In the case of the serf, the share of the labourer is determined by his own labour, that is, by himself. In the case of the proletarian it is determined by competition, therefore in the first place by the bourgeois. The serf has guaranteed subsistence, the proletarian has not. The serf frees himself by driving out his feudal lord and becoming a property owner himself, thus entering into competition and joining for the time being the possessing class, the privileged class. The proletarian frees himself by doing away with property, competition, and all class differences.

Question 12: In what way does the proletarian differ from the handicraftsman?

Answer: As opposed to the proletarian, the so-called handicraftsman, who still existed nearly everywhere during the last century and still exists here and there, is at most a temporary proletarian. His aim is to acquire capital himself and so to exploit other workers. He can often achieve this aim where the craft guilds still exist or where freedom to follow a trade has not yet led to the organisation of handwork on a factory basis and to intense competition. But as soon as the factory system is introduced into handwork and competition is in full swing, this prospect is eliminated and the handicraftsman becomes more and more a proletarian. The handicraftsman therefore frees himself either by becoming a bourgeois or in general passing over into the middle class, or, by becoming a proletarian as a result of competition (as now happens in most cases) and joining the movement of the proletariat — i. e., the more or less conscious communist movement.

Question 13: Then you do not believe that community of property has been possible at any time?

Answer: No. Communism has only arisen since machinery and other inventions made it possible to hold out the prospect of an all-sided development, a happy existence, for all members of society. Communism is the theory of a liberation which was not possible for the slaves, the serfs, or the handicraftsmen, but only for the proletarians and hence it belongs of necessity to the 19th century and was not possible in any earlier period.

Question 14: Let m go back to the sixth question. As you wish to prepare for community of property by the enlightening and uniting of the proletariat, then you reject revolution?

Answer: We are convinced not only of the uselessness but even of the harmfulness of all conspiracies. We are also aware that revolutions are not made deliberately and arbitrarily but that everywhere and at all times they are the necessary consequence of circumstances which are not in any way whatever dependent either on the will or on the leadership of individual parties or of whole classes. But we also see that the development of the proletariat in almost all countries of the world is forcibly repressed by the possessing classes and that thus a revolution is being forcibly worked for by the opponents of communism. If, in the end, the oppressed proletariat is thus driven into a revolution, then we will defend the cause of the proletariat just as well by our deeds as now by our words.

Question 15: Do you intend to replace the existing social order by community of Property at one stroke?

Answer: We have no such intention. The development of the masses cannot he ordered by decree. It is determined by the development of the conditions in which these masses live, and therefore proceeds gradually.

Question 16: How do you think the transition from the present situation to community of Property is to be effected?

Answer: The first, fundamental condition for the introduction of community of property is the political liberation of the proletariat through a democratic constitution.

Question 17: What will be your first measure once you have established democracy?

Answer: Guaranteeing the subsistence of the proletariat.

Question 18: How will you do this?

Answer. I. By limiting private property in such a way that it gradually prepares the way for its transformation into social property, e. g., by progressive taxation, limitation of the right of inheritance in favour of the state, etc., etc.

II. By employing workers in national workshops and factories and on national estates.

III. By educating all children at the expense of the state.

Question 19: How will you arrange this kind of education during the period of transition?

Answer: All children will be educated in state establishments from the time when they can do without the first maternal care.

Question 20: Will not the introduction of community of property be accompanied by the proclamation of the community of women?

Answer: By no means. We will only interfere in the personal relationship between men and women or with the family in general to the extent that the maintenance of the existing institution would disturb the new social order. Besides, we are well aware that the family relationship has been modified in the course of history by the property relationships and by periods of development, and that consequently the ending of private property will also have a most important influence on it.

Question 21: Will nationalities continue to exist under communism?

Answer: The nationalities of the peoples who join together according to the principle of community will be just as much compelled by this union to merge with one another and thereby supersede themselves as the various differences between estates and classes disappear through the superseding of their basis — private property.

Question 22. Do Communists reject existing religions?

Answer: All religions which have existed hitherto were expressions of historical stages of development of individual peoples or groups of peoples. But communism is that stage of historical development which makes all existing religions superfluous and supersedes them.

In the name and on the mandate of the Congress.

Secretary: Heide [Alias of Wilhelm Wolff in the League of the Just]

President: Karl Schill [Alias of Karl Schapper in the League of the Just]

London, June 9, 1847