Communist League

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Part of a series on Communism

Ideologies
Marxism
Leninism
Left communism
Council communism
Religious communism
Anarchist communism
Stalinism
Trotskyism
Titoism
Maoism
Eurocommunism
Basic concepts
Class struggle
Communist party
Historical materialism
Marxist philosophy
Proletarian internationalism
Socialist economics
Communist internationals
Communist League
First International
Comintern
Fourth International
Prominent communists
Karl Marx
Friedrich Engels
Rosa Luxemburg
Vladimir Lenin
Joseph Stalin
Leon Trotsky
Mao Zedong
Related subjects
Anarchism
Anti-capitalism
Anti-communism
Criticisms of communism
Democratic centralism
Dictatorship of the proletariat
History of communism
Left-wing politics
New Class
New Left
Post-Communism
Primitive communism
Socialism
Communism Portal This box: view • talk • edit

See Communist League (disambiguation) for other groups of the same name.

The Communist League was the first Marxist international organisation. It was originally founded as the League of the Just by German workers in Paris in 1836. This was initially a utopian socialist and Christian communist grouping following the ideas of Gracchus Babeuf. It grew into an international organisation, which Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and Johann Eccarius later joined.

The motto of the League of the Just 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 held a conference in London in June 1847 which Friedrich Engels attended. He convinced the League to change its motto to Karl Marx's phrase, Working Men of All Countries, Unite!. At the same conference, the organisation was renamed the Communist League and was significantly restructured. 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 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. 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 Neue Rheinische Zeitung Revue 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 formally wound up.