KARL MARX

BRUSSELS 127
thought it more prudent to turn his attention to the conquest of as many
girls of as many different nationalities as possible before he left Paris.
Correspondence with Germany was established on a fairly regular
basis: there were periodic reports from Silesia inspired by Wilhelm Wolff,
from Wuppertal where the painter Koettgen (a close friend of Hess) led
a communist group, and from Kiel where Georg Weber, a doctor, led the
movement. Marx, however, was impatient with Weydemeyer's failure in
Westphalia to find a publisher for The German Ideology and relations
became strained. The centre of communist activity was still Cologne.
Hess was there for the second half of 1846 and declared himself 'to some
extent reconciled to "the Party" '; 101 he recognised the necessity of basing
communism on historical and economic presuppositions and was waiting
with great interest for the appearance of Marx's book; his break with
Marx did not become final until early 1848. But Marx's ideas seem to
have had very little impact there, although the group there was organised
by Roland Daniels (a close friend of Marx) with the support of d'Ester
and Burgers, and was very active in local politics.
The only letter that has survived from the Brussels communists to
Germany is one to Koettgen written in June 1846. Marx, together with
the other members of the committee, criticised 'illusions' about the efficacy
of petitions to authorities - arguing that they could only carry weight
'when there is a strong and well-organised communist party in Germany
- both elements being currently lacking'. Meanwhile the Wuppertal communists
should act 'jesuitically' and support bourgeois demands for freedom
of the Press, constitutional government, etc. Only later would
specifically communist demands be possible: for the present 'it is necessary
to support, in a single party, "everything" that helps the movement forward
and not have any tiresome moral scruples about it." 02
III. THE FOUNDING OF THE COMMUNIST LEAGUE
The most important result of the Correspondence Committee was to
create close ties between Marx and Engels and the London communists
who at that time were the largest and best-organised colony of German
workers. Until the late 1830s the most important centre had been Paris
where exiled German artisans had started in 1836 the League of the Just
(a secret society with code names and passwords) which itself derived
from an earlier League of Outlaws. Its original object was to introduce
into Germany the Rights of Man and the Citizen, and very roughly half
of its membership came from artisans and half from the professions. The
League of the Just participated in the rising organised by Blanqui and