Some wretched deceivers of the people, the so-called Central Committee of European Social-Democrats, in truth a committee of the European central mob, presided over by Messrs. Willich, Schapper, etc., celebrated in London the anniversary of the February Revolution. Louis Blanc, representative of sentimental phrase-socialism, joined this clique of second-rate pretenders in an intrigue against another traitor to the people, Ledru-Rollin. At their banquet they read out various addresses supposedly received by them. All their efforts notwithstanding, they had not succeeded in wheedling a single address from Germany. A propitious sign of the development of the German proletariat!
They wrote also to Blanqui, the noble martyr of revolutionary communism, requesting an address. He replied with the following toast:
WARNING TO THE PEOPLE
What is the pitfall that menaces tomorrow's revolution? The same which caused the dpwnfall of yesterday's, the deplorable popularity of bourgeois disguised as champions of the people.
Reaction only did its job when it strangled democracy. The crime lies with the traitors whom the trusting people accepted as leaders and who delivered the people up to reaction.
Miserable government! In spite of all the entreaties and cries of anguish it hurls at the peasants the 45-centime tax and drives them to desperation and insurrection.
It kept in being the royalist general staffs, the royalist magistrates, and the royalist law. Treason!
It fell on the workers of Paris on April 16, it imprisoned those of Limoges, fired on those of Rouen on the 27th; it let loose all its hounds, it tracked down all true republicans. Treason! Treason!
It, and it alone, bears the terrible responsibility for all the calamities which have almost annihilated the 1848 Revolution!
Ah, they are very guilty men, but the guiltiest of all are those in whom the people, deceived by their fine phrases, saw its sword and shield; those whom it enthusiastically proclaimed the arbiters of its future.
Woe betide if on the day of the approaching triumph of the people the forgetful indulgence of the masses were to allow to regain power a single one of the men who have forfeited their mandate! That would be the end of the revolution for the second time!
May the workers always keep in mind this list of cursed names, and if a single one, yes, a single one were ever to appear again in a revolutionary government, let them all cry with one voice: Treason!
Speeches, sermons, programmes would again be nothing but lies and deceit; the same conjurers would only come back to produce the same tricks from the same bag; they would form the first link in a new chain of more ferocious reaction. Curse and vengeance upon them, should they ever dare to appear again! Shame and pity on the simple masses who would be caught in their nets again!
But it is not enough that the conjurers of February are for ever banned from the Hôtel de Ville; one must insure against new traitors.
Rulers would be traitors if, raised to power on the workers' shoulders,they did not at once put in practice:
1) the general disarming of the bourgeois guards; 2) the arming and military organisation of all the workers. No doubt there are many other indispensable measures, but they naturally flow from this first act which is the preliminary guarantee, the sole pledge of security for the people.
Not a single weapon must remain in the hands of the bourgeoisie. Without that there is no salvation!
The various doctrines which today vie for the sympathy of the masses may well one day be able to keep their promises of improvements and well-being, but only on condition that they do not abandon the prize for the shadow.
They would lead to nothing but a miserable miscarriage if the people, exclusively preoccupied with theories, were to neglect the only practical element of security: force.
Arms and organisation are the decisive ingredients of progress, and the only serious means of putting an end to misery!
streets, by the planting of "trees of liberty", by the ringing phrases of lawyers, must expect holy water to begin with, injuries to follow, eventually bullets, and always misery.
Let the people choose!
Prison of Belle-île-en-Mer February 10, 1851
Veröffentlicht durch die Freunde der Gleichheit, Bern, 1851 (real place of publication: Cologne)
The introduction is published in English for the first time
Endnotes
[386] On February 24, 1851, London was the scene of an international rally known as the "banquet of the equal". It was organised by some of the French refugees headed by Louis Blanc and by the society of Blanquist emigrants (Barthélémy, Adam and others), together with the Willich-Schapper faction, to celebrate the anniversary of the February revolution. Marx and Engels asked their followers Konrad Schramm and W. Pieper to attend the banquet, but the latter were driven from the hall. The organisers of the banquet deliberately concealed the toast sent by Auguste Blanqui, who was in prison at the time, exposing Louis Blanc and other members of the Provisional Government of the French Republic (see Engels' letter to the editor of The Times). However, it was published on February 27 in La Patrie No. 58 and in a number of other French papers. Early in March, Marx and Engels translated the toast into German and English. The German version was sent to Cologne and printed in leaflet form (30,000 copies), with Berne given as the place of publication. The leaflet was circulated in Germany, where Blanqui's toast was also printed in several German papers. What became of the English translation is not known. In their letters and works Marx and Engels discuss the circumstances connected with Blanqui's toast (The Great Men of the Exile, The Knight of Noble-Minded Consciousness, see present edition, Vols. 11 and 12). For this volume the text, of the toast itself was translated from the French original published in La Patrie (No. 58, February 27, 1851) and is given according to the German edition prepared by Marx and Engels. p, 537