Letter to Hermann Becker, February 28, 1851

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 28 February 1851


First published in Anklageschrift gegen P. G. Roeser, J. H. G. Bürgers, P. Nothjung, W. J. Reiff, H. H. Becker, R. Daniels, C. W. Otto, A. Jacobi, J. J. Klein, F. Freiligrath, Cologne, 1852
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 38, p.308


TO HERMANN BECKER IN COLOGNE[1]


[London,] 28 February [1851]

Dear Becker,

I trust you have received the Rh.Z.[2] I cannot understand your silence. Had you sent me Willich's letters for which I asked you,[3] I would not have had to report the abominations related below. I must again insist on your sending these letters forthwith.... The following report is to be read out to all our friends, who must make it known throughout the whole of Germany.

It concerns the banquet held in London on 24 February, at which two of our friends and party comrades[4] were publicly 'haynaued'[5] under the chairmanship of the bold Chevalier de Willich. To help you understand what follows, a few preliminary remarks:

The French emigres, like all the others, had split up into various factions. Thereupon they combined to found an association in Church Street.[6] It was to be of a philanthropic nature, for the assistance of refugees. Politics were excluded. Thus all shades of French émigré opinion were provided with a neutral terrain.

In this way, then, Ledru-Rollin and Louis Blanc, Montagnards[7] and Cabetists, Blanquists, etc., happened to be here at the same time.

24 February was approaching. As you know, when presented with such a chance of appearing important, the French prepare for it, discuss it, examine its every aspect as long in advance as they would do a woman's impending lying-in. Accordingly, the Church Street association convened a general meeting in order to arrange the celebration of this 'glorious' day. L. Blanc and Ledru-Rollin were present. Little Blanc—NB he cannot improvise but writes his speeches and learns them by heart in front of a looking-glass—rose and made a cleverly couched, elaborate, Jesuitical speech in which he sought to prove that this association, being of a philanthropic nature, could not stage a political banquet and hence could not celebrate the February Revolution. Ledru-Rollin replied. In the heat of replying, little Blanc blurted out that, since Ledru and Mazzini had not included him in the European Central Committee,[8] he would not partake of any banquet with them. He was told that it was not the European Central Committee which was giving the banquet, but the Church Street association, comprising all shades of French émigré opinion.

The following day that association received a letter from L. Blanc in which he notified them that he intended to stage a rival monster banquet....

So L. Blanc secured Harney and with him part of his following, for his banquet. The English foundations had been laid. But the Continental background, which was also to have all the colours of a European central rainbow, was still missing. To that end Louis Blanc ran a knowledgeable eye over the caricature of Mazzini's committee — the Willich-Schapper-Barthélemy-Vidil-Peter and Paul committee.[9]

Just a few words about the origins and nature of this committee and its various hangers-on from the respective associations.

When Willich and Schapper, along with their association, were thrown out of the League,[10] they joined up with Vidil and Barthélémy ... and the dregs of the Polish, Hungarian and Italian émigrés, by which rabble they had themselves dubbed European Central Committee.... Schapper and Willich, who could reasonably hope that, from a distance, this dirty, tasteless and paltry piece of mosaic might be taken for a work of art, also had the particular aim of showing the German communists that it was themselves, not we, who had the European émigrés behind them and that, whether Germany liked it or not, they were determined to take over her government at the earliest opportunity....

In order to conduct his intrigue against Church Street, L. Blanc was not above associating himself with this gang he so despised. They, of course, were delighted. At last they were to attain a position. Although these gentlemen wish to exclude all writers, they welcome with open arms any writer of repute who places himself at their disposal. Schapper and Willich saw their day of triumph approaching ... when the German communists would assuredly not be able to resist, and would repentantly return to seek shelter beneath their wings....

The banquet took place in Islington on 24 February. Two of our friends, Schramm and Pieper attended.... Addresses were read out. L. Blanc read an address from his delegates, Landolphe one from Deputy Greppo (no other was to be had from Paris), a Pole an address from a few fellow thinkers in Paris, and the great Willich, who presided, one from La Chaux-de-Fonds. They had been unable to get hold of any from Germany....[11]

Now it is up to you to do everything in your power to brand these cowardly, calumnious, infamous assassins before the German proletariat, and wherever else this can be done.

To that end it is essential that you send us Willich's letters forthwith....

  1. ↑ The original of the letter is not extant. The excerpt published here was quoted in the indictment of Hermann Becker and others at the Cologne communist trial (1852).
  2. ↑ Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Politisch-ökonomische Revue
  3. ↑ See this volume, pp. 273, 282.
  4. ↑ Conrad Schramm and Wilhelm Pieper
  5. ↑ These cries were used at the meeting to get those present to deal with Pieper and Schramm in the same way as the workers of the Barclay, Perkins & Co. did with the Austrian Field Marshal Julius Haynau, who directed the suppression of the revolution in Italy and Hungary. Haynau was attacked by workers during a visit to Britain in September 1850.
  6. ↑ Church Street—a street in London where the Fraternal Society of French Socialist Democrats had its seat. The Society included different elements of the French emigration in London, Ledru-Rollin and Louis Blanc were among its members. The Society was founded in the autumn of 1850 for the purpose of providing material assistance to French political emigrants (see also this volume, p. 292). 24 February was the anniversary of the February 1848 revolution in France.
  7. ↑ Montagnards—during the French revolution of 1848-49 representatives in the Constituent and subsequently Legislative Assembly of a bloc of democrats and petty-bourgeois socialists grouped around the newspaper La Réforme. They called themselves the Montagne by analogy with the Montagne in the Convention of 1792-94. On 13 June 1849 the Montagne staged a peaceful demonstration to protest against the sending of French troops to suppress the Roman Republic. The demonstration was dispersed by the army and the bourgeois detachments of the National Guards and there followed a counter-revolutionary offensive, persecution of democrats and proletarian activists, including emigrants. Many Montagnards were arrested or emigrated.
  8. ↑ Two excerpts of this letter are extant: one is quoted by Roland Daniels in his letter to Marx of 28 June 1850, the other in the letter of 10 July 1850 from the Cologne leading district of the Communist League to the London Central Authority of the League. The letter reflects the disagreement which arose in the summer of 1850 between the London Central Authority and the leaders of the Cologne organisations of the Communist League (Heinrich Bürgers, Roland Daniels, Peter Röser and others). The Cologne people's claim to become the Communist League's leading centre for the whole of Germany was contrary to the League's Rules, which were inspired by democratic centralism and provided for equality of the district organisations in individual provinces and countries and their equal responsibility to the Central Authority.
  9. ↑ In the indictment the following is written over a passage omitted here: 'The following describes how L. Blanc won over his friend Harney with the progressive faction of the Chartists for his banquet.'
  10. ↑ The Communist League
  11. ↑ In the indictment the following is written over a passage omitted here: 'When, following this, the ill-treatment inflicted on these their friends, who both, according to the above, belonged to the League, has been described, the whole ends thus:'