We hasten to answer your call, communicated to us a few days ago, 
as follows: 

We are in full agreement with your view that the German 
Communists must emerge from the isolation in which they have 
hitherto existed and establish durable mutual contacts with one 
another; similarly, that associations for the purpose of reading and 
discussion are necessary. For Communists must first of all clear 
things up among themselves, and this cannot be done satisfactorily 
without regular meetings to discuss questions concerning commu- 
nism. We therefore also agree with you completely that cheap, easily 
understandable books and pamphlets with a communist content 
must be widely circulated. Both of these things, the former as well as 
the latter, should be taken up soon and energetically. You recognise 
the necessity of establishing regular money contributions; but your 
suggestion to support the authors by means of these contributions, to 
provide a comfortable life for them we must for our part reject. In 
our view the contributions should be used only for the printing of 
cheap communist leaflets and pamphlets and to cover the costs of 
correspondence, including that from here abroad. It will be 
necessary to fix a minimum sum for the monthly contributions, so 
that the amount of money that can be used for common purposes 
can be accurately determined at any moment. It is furthermore 
necessary that you should communicate to us the names of the 
members of your communist association — since we have to know, as 
you know of us, who it is we are dealing with. Finally, we await your 
statement of the size of the monthly contributions earmarked for 
common purposes, since the printing of several popular pamphlets 

Brussels Communist Correspondence Committee to G. A. Kottgen 55 

ought to be proceeded with as soon as possible. That these pamphlets 
cannot be published in Germany is evident and needs no proof. 

With regard to the Federal Diet, the King of Prussia, the 
assemblies of the estates, etc., you cherish really extensive illusions. A 
memorandum could only be effective if there already existed in 
Germany a strong and organised Communist Party, but neither is 
the case. A petition is only useful when at the same time it appears as 
a threat, behind which there stands a compact and organised mass. 
The only thing you could do, given suitable circumstances in your 
area, would be to produce a petition furnished with numerous and 
impressive workers’ signatures. 

We do not consider the time to be appropriate yet for a communist 
congress. Only when communist associations have been formed in 
the whole of Germany and means for action have been collected will 
delegates from the individual associations be able to gather for a 
congress with any prospect of success. And this will not be likely to 
occur before next year. 

Until then the sole means of cooperation is the clarification of 
questions by letter and regular correspondence. 

We have already, from time to time, been engaged in correspon- 
dence from here with the English and French Communists, as well as 
with the German Communists abroad. Whenever reports on the 
communist movement in England and France reach us, we shall 
communicate them to you, and we shall enclose anything else which 
comes to our notice in our current correspondence with you. 

We request you to specify a safe address to us (and in future not to 
print the complete name, like G. A. Kéttgen, on the seal, since this 
permits immediate identification of the sender as well as the 
recipient). 

Write to us, however, at the following completely safe address: 

Monsieur Ph[ilippe] Gigot, 8, rue de Bodenbroek, Bruxelles. 
K. Marx, F. Engels, Ph. Gigot, F. Wolff 

Weerth sends his regards, is at the moment in Amiens. 

If you should carry out your intention with the petition, it would 
lead to nothing but the C[ommunist] Party publicly proclaiming its 
weakness, and at the same time giving to the Government the names 
of the people it has specially to watch. If you cannot produce a 
working men’s petition with at least 500 signatures, then petition 
rather, as the bourgeoisie in Trier wish to do, for a progressive 

* Wilhelm (full name Friedrich Wilhelm) Wolff.— Ed. 

property tax, and if, even then, the bourgeoisie of the area do not 
join in, eh bien,? join them for the time being in public 
demonstrations, proceed jesuitically, put aside teutonic probity, 
true-heartedness and decency, and sign and push forward the 
bourgeois petitions for freedom of the press, a constitution, and so 
on. When this has been achieved a new era will dawn for 
cfommunist] propaganda. Our means will be increased, the an- 
tithesis between bourgeoisie and proletariat will be sharpened. In a 
party one must support everything which helps towards progress, 
and have no truck with any tedious moral scruples. For the rest, you 
must elect a standing committee for your correspondence, which will 
draft and discuss the letters to be written to us, and meet regularly. 
Otherwise matters will become disorganised. For drafting the letters 
you must elect the person you consider most capable. Personal 
considerations must be utterly disregarded, they ruin everything. 
The names of the committee members must naturally be communi- 
cated to us. : 

Salut. 
Signatories, as overleaf 
in the journal Bolshevik No. 3, script 
February: 1933 Published in English for the first 
time 

4 Well and good.—Ed.