KARL MARX

COLOGNE 179
the Democratic Society and Gottschalk's Workers' Association when Willich
appealed to the Society for financial aid on behalf of the refugee
remnants of Herwegh's Legion. The Society refused to help - fearing to
be associated with the Legion; but Gottschalk's Association (although
Gottschalk himself disagreed with the aims of the Legion) agreed to
arrange payments.
On one thing Marx and Gottschalk did agree, and that was the increasing
irrelevance of the Communist League. At a meeting of the Cologne
branch in the middle of May, Gottschalk confirmed his decision to resign
from the League, declaring that its constitution needed reframing -
though he promised his future co-operation if required. 19 However, by
this time the League had virtually ceased to exist. From Berlin Born wrote
to Marx: 'The League has dissolved; it is everywhere and nowhere.' 20 It
seems probable that Marx exercised the power granted him in Brussels
in February to declare a formal dissolution in spite of the opposition of
the former leaders of the League of the Just. According to Peter Roser,
a member of the Cologne group who later turned King's evidence:
'because it was impossible to agree and Schapper and Moll insisted on
the maintenance of the League, Marx used his discretionary power and
dissolved the League. Marx considered the continuance of the League to
be superfluous, since the aim of the League was not conspiracy but
propaganda, and under present circumstances propaganda could be conducted
openly and secrecy was not necessary since a free Press and the
right of association were guaranteed.' 21 Marx himself said later that
the League's activities 'faded out of their own accord in that more effective
means of carrying out its aims were available'. 22 And two years later in
London Marx found the Communist League 'reconstituted'. 23 The
reasons Marx gave for the dissolution seem implausible: they only argue
for the continuance of an open Communist League. More likely, Marx
considered the radical policies of the Communist League and the Seventeen
Demands harmful to the more moderate line being pursued by the
Neue Rheinische Zeitung.
III. THE 'NEUE RHEINISCHE ZEITUNG'
Marx's main energies throughout this period were concentrated on giving
effect to an idea he had had since the outbreak of the German revolution:
the founding of an influential radical newspaper. The Cologne communists
had already planned a paper of which Hess was to be the editor.
But Marx and Engels had laid their plans too. They had started collecting
subscriptions while in Paris; and on arrival in Cologne, in Engels' words,