22. Minutes of the Meeting of the Paris Circle of the Communist League. March 9,1848
MEETING OF MARCH 9, 9 P.M.
Marx submits his draft Rules,(1) which are discussed. Article 1 adopted with a minority of 2 against. Article 2 adopted unanimously; also Art. 3, Art. 4, Art. 5 and Art. 6.
The draft Rules are therefore adopted without amendments. The Rules of the Communist League are read out by the Secretary. After hearing the Rules the members newly to be admitted declare that they enter the Communist League.
Marx proposes that all members shall give their names and addresses. This is discussed and it is finally resolved that every League member shall give the name by which he is known here, and his address.
Schapper proposes to add another five members to the President and Secretary, so as to form the circle authority of Paris.
One is to be elected from each of the four communities. The elections to be postponed to the next meeting.
Schapper gives a report on the Central Authority. On Schapper's proposal resolved that everybody who speaks rises and removes his hat.
On Marx's proposal the Central Authority will give at the next meeting a report on the situation of the League in general.
Born, who was sent to give a report on the meeting in the manège, returns after three-quarters of an hour and describes the miserable state of this society.[382] The next meeting will be held next Saturday at 8 o'clock, café Belge, Rue Grenelle St. Honoré.
At the conclusion of the meeting the members give the Secretary their names together with their addresses. Marx proposes that all League members shall wear a red ribbon. Agreed unanimously.
On Schapper's proposal it is agreed that one member shall buy a blood-red ribbon for all. B. Sax is instructed to do this.
Written by Karl Marx on March 9, 1848
Endnotes
[382] March 5 and wrote to Engels (he still remained in Brussels for some time) around March 12, 1848 that the new Central Authority had been recently set up and consisted of Marx (chairman), Schapper (secretary), Wallau, Wolff, Moll, Bauer (members). Engels was appointed in his absence. An abridged version of this document was first published in French in Annales parlementaires belges. Session 1847-1848. Chambre des représentants, séance du 31 mars 1848, p. 1203. This document was first published in English in the Labour Monthly No. 3, March 1948. 1 The German Workers' Club was founded in Paris on March 8 and 9, 1848 on the initiative of the Communist League's leaders. The leading role in it belonged to Marx. The Club's aim was to unite the German emigrant workers in Paris, explain to them the tactics of the proletariat in a bourgeois-democratic revolution and also to counter the attempts of the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois democrats (among them, Herwegh, Venedey and Decker, the last two being mentioned in the minutes) to stir up the German workers by nationalist propaganda and enlist them into the adventurist march of volunteer legions into Germany. The Club was successful in arranging the return of German workers one by one to their own country to take part in the revolutionary struggle there. The German Democratic Society, formed in Paris after the February revolution of 1848, held its meetings in a riding school. The Society was headed by petty-bourgeois democrats, Herwegh, Bornstedt, Decker and others who campaigned to raise volunteer legions of German emigrants with the aim of marching into Germany. In this way they hoped to carry out a revolution in Germany and establish a republic there. Marx and Engels resolutely condemned this adventurist plan of "exporting revolution".