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The Communist League was the first Marxist
Marxism

Marxism is the political philosophy and practice derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxism holds at its core a Marxist analysis of Critique of capitalism and a theory of social change....
 international organization. It was founded originally as the League of the Just by German workers in Paris
Paris

Paris is the Capital of France and the country's largest city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the ?le-de-France Regions of France ....
 in 1836. This was initially a utopian socialist
Utopian socialism

Utopian socialism is a term used to define the first currents of modern Socialism thought. Although it is technically possible for any person living at any time in history to be a utopian socialist, the term is most often applied to those utopian socialists who lived in the first quarter of the 19th century....
 and Christian communist
Christian communism

Christian communism is a form of religious communism based on Christianity. It is a theological and political theory based upon the view that the teachings of Jesus compel Christians to support communism as the ideal social system....
 grouping devoted to the ideas of Gracchus Babeuf. It became an international organization, which Karl Marx
Karl Marx

Karl Heinrich Marx was a Germanphilosophy, political economy, historian, sociologist, humanism, political theorist and revolutionary credited as the founder of communism....
, Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels

Friedrich Engels was a German Social science and Philosophy, who developed Communism alongside his better-known collaborator, Karl Marx, co-authoring The Communist Manifesto ....
 and Johann Eccarius
Johann Eccarius

Johann Eccarius was a Thuringian tailor and labour activist. He was a member of the League of the Just and later of the League of Communists and the International Workingmen's Association....
 later joined.

motto of the League of the Just (Bund der Gerechten) was "All Men are Brothers" and its goals were "the establishment of the Kingdom of God on Earth, based on the ideals of love of one's neighbour, equality and justice"..






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The Communist League was the first Marxist
Marxism

Marxism is the political philosophy and practice derived from the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxism holds at its core a Marxist analysis of Critique of capitalism and a theory of social change....
 international organization. It was founded originally as the League of the Just by German workers in Paris
Paris

Paris is the Capital of France and the country's largest city. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the ?le-de-France Regions of France ....
 in 1836. This was initially a utopian socialist
Utopian socialism

Utopian socialism is a term used to define the first currents of modern Socialism thought. Although it is technically possible for any person living at any time in history to be a utopian socialist, the term is most often applied to those utopian socialists who lived in the first quarter of the 19th century....
 and Christian communist
Christian communism

Christian communism is a form of religious communism based on Christianity. It is a theological and political theory based upon the view that the teachings of Jesus compel Christians to support communism as the ideal social system....
 grouping devoted to the ideas of Gracchus Babeuf. It became an international organization, which Karl Marx
Karl Marx

Karl Heinrich Marx was a Germanphilosophy, political economy, historian, sociologist, humanism, political theorist and revolutionary credited as the founder of communism....
, Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels

Friedrich Engels was a German Social science and Philosophy, who developed Communism alongside his better-known collaborator, Karl Marx, co-authoring The Communist Manifesto ....
 and Johann Eccarius
Johann Eccarius

Johann Eccarius was a Thuringian tailor and labour activist. He was a member of the League of the Just and later of the League of Communists and the International Workingmen's Association....
 later joined.

Origins

The motto of the League of the Just (Bund der Gerechten) was "All Men are Brothers" and its goals were "the establishment of the Kingdom of God on Earth, based on the ideals of love of one's neighbour, equality and justice".. The League of the Just was itself a splinter group from the League of Outlaws (Bund der Geaechteten) created in Paris in 1834 by Theodore Schuster, Wilhelm Weitling
Wilhelm Weitling

Wilhelm Weitling was important early Germany Anarchy, Communism or Socialism. Part of the utopian socialism movement, he was respected by Marx, who broke with him in 1846....
 and others German emigrants, mostly journeymen. Schuster was inspired by the works of Philippe Buonarroti
Philippe Buonarroti

Filippo Giuseppe Maria Ludovico Buonarroti more usually referred to under the French language version Philippe Buonarroti was an Italian people Egalitarianism and Utopian socialism revolutionary, journalist, writer, agitator, and Freemasonry; he was mainly active in France....
. The latter league had a pyramidal structure inspired by the secret society
Secret society

Secret society is a term used to describe a variety of organizations. Although the exact meaning of the term is disputed, several of the definitions advanced indicate a degree of secrecy and secret knowledge, which might include denying membership or knowledge of the group, negative consequences for acknowledging one's membership, strong ties...
 of the Republican Carbonari
Carbonari

The Carbonari were groups of secret society founded in early 19th-century Italy. Their goals were patriotic and liberal and they played an important role in the Risorgimento and the early years of Italian nationalism....
, and shared ideas with Saint-Simon
Saint-Simon

Saint-Simon can refer to various things:...
 and Charles Fourier
Charles Fourier

Fran?ois Marie Charles Fourier was a France utopian socialist and philosopher. Fourier is credited by modern scholars with having originated the word f?minisme in 1837; as early as 1808, he had argued, in the Theory of the Four Movements, that the extension of the liberty of women was the general principle of all social progress, th...
's utopic socialism. Their aim was to establish a "Social Republic" in the German states which would respect "freedom", "equality" and "civic virtue".

The League of the Just participated in the Blanquist uprising of May 1839 in Paris. Hereafter expelled from France, the League of the Just moved to London where they founded a front group, the Educational Society for German Working-men, in 1840. While Weitling moved to Switzerland, Bauer and Schapper escaped to London.

The League of Outlaws numbered approximatively 100 in Paris and 80 in Frankfurt, but by 1847 its successor the League of the Just numbered about 1,000, including members in Latin America.

Wilhelm Weitling's 1842 book, Guarantees of Harmony and Freedom, which criticized private property and bourgeois society, was one of the bases of the League of Just's social theory.

Creation of the Communist League

The Communist League was created in London in June 1847 out of a merger of the League of the Just and of the fifteen-man Communist Correspondence Committee of Bruxelles, headed by Karl Marx. The birth conference was attended by Friedrich Engels
Friedrich Engels

Friedrich Engels was a German Social science and Philosophy, who developed Communism alongside his better-known collaborator, Karl Marx, co-authoring The Communist Manifesto ....
, who convinced the League to change its motto to Karl Marx
Karl Marx

Karl Heinrich Marx was a Germanphilosophy, political economy, historian, sociologist, humanism, political theorist and revolutionary credited as the founder of communism....
's phrase, Working Men of All Countries, Unite!. At the same conference, the organisation was renamed the Communist League and was restructured significantly. In particular, Marx did away with all "superstitious authoritarianism," as he called the rituals pertaining to secret societies. The conference itself was counted as the first congress of the new League.

The Communist League held a second congress, also in London, in November and December 1847. Both Marx and Engels attended, and they were mandated to draw up a manifesto for the organisation. This became The Communist Manifesto
The Communist Manifesto

Manifesto of the Communist Party , often referred to as The Communist Manifesto, was first published on February 21, 1848, and is one of the world's most influential Politics manuscripts....
.

The League was not able to function effectively during the 1848 revolution, despite temporarily abandoning its clandestine nature. The Workers' Brotherhood was established in Germany by members of the League, and became the most significant revolutionary organisation there. During the revolution Marx edited the radical journal the Neue Rheinische Zeitung
Neue Rheinische Zeitung

The Neue Rheinische Zeitung was a Germany daily newspaper, published by Karl Marx from Cologne in 1848 and 1849. Its name refers to a paper earlier edited by Marx, the Rheinische Zeitung....
. Engels fought in the Baden campaign against the Prussians (June and July 1849) as the aide-de-camp of August Willich.

The Communist League reassembled in late 1849, and by 1850 they were publishing the journal, but by the end of the year, publication had ceased amid disputes between the leading members of the group. In 1852, the organisation was ended formally.

In 1850, the German master spy Wilhelm Stieber
Wilhelm Stieber

Wilhelm Johann Carl Eduard Stieber was Otto von Bismarck's master spy and director of the Kingdom of Prussia Feldgendarmerie. Stieber was both an agent of domestic surveillance and an external agent....
 broke into Marx's house and stole the register of the League's members, which he sent to France and several German states. This caused the imprisonment of several members.

Members

  • Bruno Bauer
    Bruno Bauer

    Bruno Bauer , was a Germany theology, philosopher and historian.Bauer investigated the sources of the New Testament and controversially concluded that early Christianity owed more to Greek philosophy than to Judaism.....
  • Heinrich Bauer
  • Johann Eccarius
    Johann Eccarius

    Johann Eccarius was a Thuringian tailor and labour activist. He was a member of the League of the Just and later of the League of Communists and the International Workingmen's Association....
  • Friedrich Engels
    Friedrich Engels

    Friedrich Engels was a German Social science and Philosophy, who developed Communism alongside his better-known collaborator, Karl Marx, co-authoring The Communist Manifesto ....
  • Karl Marx
    Karl Marx

    Karl Heinrich Marx was a Germanphilosophy, political economy, historian, sociologist, humanism, political theorist and revolutionary credited as the founder of communism....
  • Joseph Moll
  • Karl Pfänder
  • Karl Schapper
  • Wilhelm Weitling
    Wilhelm Weitling

    Wilhelm Weitling was important early Germany Anarchy, Communism or Socialism. Part of the utopian socialism movement, he was respected by Marx, who broke with him in 1846....
  • Joseph Weydemeyer
    Joseph Weydemeyer

    Joseph Arnold Weydemeyer was an officer in the Kingdom of Prussia and the United States, as well as a journalist, politician and Marxism revolutionary....
  • August Willich


See also

  • History of the Left in France
    History of the Left in France

    The Left in France at the beginning of the France in the 20th century was represented by two main political parties, the Republican, Radical and Radical-Socialist Party and the SFIO , created in 1905 as a merger of various Marxist parties....
  • July Monarchy


External links

  • , documents of the league on Marxists.org.
  • by Karl Marx.