The February Revolution broke out.The London Central Committee functioning hitherto immediately transferred its powers to the Brussels leading circle.But this decision came at a time when an actual state of siege already existed in Brussels, and the Germans in particular could no longer assemble anywhere.We were all of us just on the point of going to Paris, and so the new Central Committee decided likewise to dissolve, to hand over all its powers to Marx and to empower him immediately to constitute a new Central Committee in Paris.Hardly had the five persons who adopted this decision (March 3, 1848) separated, before police forced their way into Marx's house, arrested him and compelled him to leave for France the following day, which was just where he was wanting to go.
In Paris we all soon came together again.There the following document was drawn up and signed by all the members of the new Central Committee.It was distributed throughout Germany and many a one can still learn something from it even today:
DEMANDS OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY IN GERMANY
1.The whole of Germany shall be declared a single indivisible republic.
3.Representatives of the people shall be paid sot hat workers also can sit in the parliament of the German people.
4.Universal arming of the people.
7.The estates of the princes and other feudal estates, all mines, pits, etc., shall be transformed into state property.On these estates, agriculture is to be conducted on a very large scale and with the most modern scientific means for the benefit of all society.
8.Mortgages on peasant holdings shall be declared state property;interest on such mortgages shall be paid by the peasants to the state.
9.In the districts where tenant farming is developed, land rent or farming dues shall be paid to the state as a tax.
11.All means of transport: railway, canals, steamships, roads, post, etc., shall be taken over by the state.They are to be converted into state property and put at the disposal of the non-possessing class free of charge.
14.Limitation of the right of inheritance.
15.Introduction of a steeply graded progressive taxation and abolition of taxes on consumer goods.
16.Establishment of national workshops.The state shall guarantee a living to all workers and provide for those unable to work.
17.Universal free elementary education.
It is in the interest of the German proletariat, of the petite Bourgeoisie and peasantry, to work with all possible energy to put the above measures through.For only by their education can the millions in Germany, who up to now have been exploited by a small number of people and whom it will be attempted to keep in further subjection, get their rights and the power that are their due as the producers of all wealth.
The Committee: Karl Marx, Karl Schapper, H.Bauer, F.Engels, J.Moll, W.Wolff At that time the craze for revolutionary legions prevailed ni Paris.Spaniards, Italians, Belgians, Dutch, Poles and Germans flocked together in crowds to liberate their respective fatherlands.The German legion was led by Herwegh, Bornsted, Bornstein.Since immediately after the revolution all foreign workers not only lost their jobs but in addition were harassed by the public, the influx into these legions was very great.the new government saw in them a means of getting rid of foreign workers and granted them _l'etape du soldat_, that is, quarters along their line of march and a marching allowance of 50 centimes per day up to the frontier, whereafter the eloquent Lamartine, the Foreign Minister who was so readily moved to tears, quickly found an opportunity of betraying them to their respective governments.
We opposed this playing with revolution in the most decisive fashion.To carry an invasion, which was to import the revolution forcibly from outside, into the midst of the ferment then going on in Germany, meant to undermine the revolution in Germany itself, to strengthen the governments and to deliver the legionnaires -- Lamartine guaranteed for that -- defenceless into the hands of the German troops.
When subsequently the revolution was victorious in Vienna and Berlin, the legion became all the more purposeless; but once begun, the game was continued.
We founded a German communist club, in which we advised the workers to keep away from the legion and to return instead to their homes singly and work there for the movement.Our old friend Flocon, who had a seat in the Provisional Government, obtained for the workers sent by us the same travel facilities as had been granted to the legionnaires.In this way we returned three or four hundred workers to Germany, including the great majority of the League members.
As could easily be foreseen, the League proved to be much too weak a lever as against the popular mass movement that had now broken out.
Three-quarters of the League members who had previously lived abroad had changed their domicile by returning to their homeland; their previous communities were thus to a great extent dissolved and they lost all contact with the League.One part, the more ambitious among them, did not even try to resume this contact, but each one began a small separate movement on his own account in his own locality.Finally, the conditions in each separate petty state, each province and each town were so different that the League would have been incapable of giving more than the most general directives; such directives were, however, much better disseminated through the press.In short, from the moment when the causes which had made the secret League necessary ceased to exist, the secret League as such ceased to mean anything.But this could least of all surprise the persons who had just stripped this same secret League of the last vestige of its conspiratorial character.
