KARL MARX

BRUSSELS
127
would be well advised to ally itself with the royal Government which was
in reality its most dangerous rival. 'The real people, the proletarians, the
small peasants and the rabble are, as Hobbes said, puer robustus sed malitiosus
and are not taken in by kings, whether they be fat or thin. This
people would above all extract from His Majesty a constitution with
universal suffrage, freedom of association, freedom of the press and other
unpleasant things.' 122
The second of Marx's articles was a polemic against Heinzen, who
commented later that Marx was the sort of man who brought up heavy
artillery in order to smash a window-pane. Heinzen had written for the
Rheinische Zeitung in 1842 and spent much time in Marx's company in
1845, but he attacked not only communism but also 'true' socialism on
his emigration to Switzerland, where he had become friendly with Ruge.
Heinzen was a thoroughgoing republican who saw the monarchy as the
foundation of all social evil to which the proclamation of a republic
would put an end. In his reply to Heinzen Marx stated that 'the political
relationships of men ... are also social relationships', 123 and analysed the
role played by the monarchy as a transitional institution between the old
feudal classes and the nascent bourgeoisie. But the bourgeoisie was growing
ever more powerful and already found itself in opposition to the
proletariat. The solemn idea of 'humanity' would never, as Heinzen
hoped, cause classes to melt away. The task of the proletariat was 'to
overthrow the political power that the bourgeoisie already has in its
hands. They must themselves become a power, and first of all a revolutionary
power.' 124
From 16 to 18 September 1847 a congress of professional economists
- in effect, a pressure group for free trade - was held in Brussels. Marx
attended by invitation. Georg Weerth was a dissident voice in declaring
it a scandal that in all the eulogies they made of free trade there was no
mention of the misery inflicted on the working class. Marx intended to
deliver a speech in support of Weerth, but the list of speakers was closed
to prevent his intervention. Marx at once circulated his speech to several
newspapers in Belgium and abroad, but only the small Brussels Atelier
Democratique would publish it. After analysing the disastrous effect of free
trade on the working class Marx declared himself nevertheless in favour of
it 'because by Free Trade all economical laws, with their most astonishing
contradictions, will act upon a larger scale, upon a greater extent of
territory, upon the territory of the whole earth; and because from the
unity of these contradictions into a single group, where they stand face
to face, will result the struggle which will itself eventuate in the emancipation
of the proletariat'. 125
On 29 September a dinner was held in order to inaugurate in Brussels