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VIOLENCE AND THE LABOR MOVEMENT
became thoroughly schooled in philosophy, economics,
science, and languages. They pursued, to the minutest
detail, with an inexhaustible thirst, the theories not only
of the "authorities" but also of nearly every obscure socialist,
radical, and revolutionist in England, France,
Russia, and Germany.
In Brussels, Paris, and London, around the forties, a
number of brilliant minds seemed somehow or other to
come frequently in contact with each other. Many of
them had been driven out of their own countries, and,
as exiles abroad, they had ample leisure to plan their
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great conspiracies or to debate their great theories.
of the notable radicals of the period were Heine, Freiligrath,
Herwegh, Willich, Kinkel, Weitling, Bakounin,
Ruge, Ledru-Rollin, Blanc, Blanqui, Cabet, Proudhon,
Ernest Jones, Eccarius, Marx, Engels, and Liebknecht;
and many of them came together from time to time and,
as "Roman to
in great excitement and passion, fought
Roman" over their panaceas. Marx and Engels knew
most of them and spent innumerable hours, not infrequently
entire days and nights, at a sitting,
in their intellectual
battles.
It was a most fortunate thing for Marx that the
French Government should have driven him in 1849 to
London. "Capital" might never have been written had
he not been forced to study for a long period the first
land in all
Europe in which modern capitalism had obtained
a footing. On his earlier visit in 1845 ne nad
spent a few weeks with Engels in the great factory centers,
and he had been deeply impressed with this new
industrialism and no less, of course, with the English
labor movement. Nothing to compare with it then existed
in France or Germany. As early as 1840 many of
the trades were well organized, and repeated efforts had