KARL MARX

II.| KARL MARX: A BIOGRAPHY
proletariat and whose only means of attaining practical influence was
contact with workers' associations on the model of the London group.
These associations - a response to direct social needs - held open elections,
exerted strict control over elected representatives, and concentrated
on practical activities such as mutual aid and formal education. Although
in some towns - Cologne and Frankfurt, for example - the influence of
League members on the associations was considerable, the grandiose
claims made in the June Address of the London Central Committee
should not be taken at their face value.
Although this second Address still stated 'that the early outbreak of a
new revolution could not be far away', 22 its tone and purpose was different
from that of the March Address: it asserted the supreme authority of the
London Central Committee when confronted with the claims to a separate
autonomy made, for example, by a German refugee organisation
in Switzerland, as well as by other groups all of which were active in
Germany itself. The Address gave a rather optimistic account of the
state of the League in Belgium, Germany, France and England, and also
postponed the General Congress which had been requested by Cologne.
Its bombastic style, lack of realism and excessive optimism concerning
contacts with workers' organisations and the army make it doubtful that
Marx and Engels played a large part in drawing it up, though they must
have acquiesced in its final form as they never disavowed it - and it was
even reprinted by Engels. The Address did not entirely achieve its purpose
for there were still disagreements between London and the Cologne
group: the latter had always viewed itself as no more than a propaganda
society and angrily accused Marx of 'unbrotherly conduct' when he
charged them with 'lack of energetic activity'. 2 ' A General Congress was
to be held in London in September, but the split in the Central Committee
in September 1850 prevented it taking place.
The Address also announced to the German groups the Central Committee's
contacts with French and English revolutionary parties. At the
end of 1849 Marx had attended a dinner organised by the left wing of
the disintegrating Chartist movement, known as the Fraternal Democrats,
whose leader (George Harney) Marx knew from his previous stay in
London. At this dinner Marx made the acquaintance of exiled leaders of
Blanqui's party and in April 1850 the Universal Society of Communist
Revolutionaries was formed. The signatories were Marx, Engels and Willich
for the Germans, Harney for the English and Vidil and Adam for
the French. The first of the six statutes, couched in the spirit of the
March Address, read:
The aim of the society is the overthrow of all the privileged classes,