At a meeting attended by the undermentioned Communists: 
Engels, Gigot, Heilberg, Marx, Seiler, Weitling, von Westphalen and 
Wolff, the following resolutions concerning the New York German- 
language journal 

“Der Volks-Tribun” edited by Hermann Kriege 
were passed unanimously —with the single exception of Weitling 
“who voted against”. The appendix explains the motives behind the 
resolutions. 

Resolutions: 

1. The line taken by the editor of the Volks-Tribun, Hermann 
Kriege, is not communist. 

2. Kriege’s childish pomposity in support of this line is com- 
promising in the highest degree to the Communist Party, both in 
Europe and America, inasmuch as he is held to be the literary 
representative of German communism in New York. 

3. The fantastic emotionalism which Kriege is preaching in New 
York under the name of “communism” must have an extremely 
damaging effect on the workers’ morale if it is adopted by them. 

4. The present resolutions, together with the grounds for them, 
shall be communicated to the Communists in Germany, France and 
England. 

5. One copy shall be sent to the editors of the Volks-Tribun with 
the request that these resolutions together with the grounds for them 
should be printed in the forthcoming issues of the Volks-Tribun. 

Brussels, May 11, 1846 Engels, Phil. Gigot, 
Louis Heilberg, K. Marx, 
Seiler, von Westphalen, Wolff 

SECTION ONE 

HOW COMMUNISM BECAME LOVE-SICK 

No. 13 of the Volks-Tribun contains an article entitled: “An die 
Frauen”. 

1) “Women, priestesses of love.” 

2) “It is love that has sent us.” 

3) “Apostles of love.” 

a) Literary interlude: “The flaming eyes of humanity”, “the 
sounds of truth”. 

b) Woman’s hypocritical and ignorant captatio benevolentiaé: 
“Even in the attire of a queen you cannot deny your femininity ... nor 
have you learned to speculate upon the tears of the unhappy; you 
are too soft-hearted to let a mother’s poor child starve so that you may 
profit.” 

4) “The future of the beloved child.” 

5) “Beloved sisters.” 

6) “O give ear to us, you are betraying love if you do not do so.” 

8) “Of love.” 

8) “OF love.” 

9) “For the sake of love.” 

10) “The most sacred labour of love which we entreat of you” 
(whimper). 

c) Literary-biblical platitude: “Woman is destined to bear the son 
of man”, whereby the fact is proclaimed that men do not bear 
children. 

11) “The holy spirit of community must evolve from the heart of 
LOVE.” 

4 Thirst for approval.—Ed. 

ae te Rigen aie: 
im +7 haa ag 
ae ye An td “ica “eet ae Seg 
be r ae ree) aa pot saveel 

— the YU Mine HHO 
WA aa 
Wil 

RB. 
Thelen. Wolf. 

First page of the lithographed “Circular Against Kriege” 

Circular Against Kriege 39 

d) Interpolated Ave Maria: “ Blessed, thrice blessed are you women, 
being chosen to pronounce the first consecration of the long-promised 
kingdom of bliss.” 

12) ‘Beloved sisters.” 

13) “Not love but hatred” (contrasting bourgeois and communist 
society). 

14) “You loved ones.” 

15) “Raise love on to the throne.” 

16) “Active people in loving community.” 

17) “True priestesses of love.” 

e) Aesthetic parenthesis: “If your trembling soul has not yet 
forgotten the flight sublime” — (a feat whose feasibility has yet to be 
demonstrated). 

18) “The world of love.” 

19) “The kingdom of hatred and the kingdom of love.” 

f) An attempt to hoodwink women: “And therefore you have a 
most mighty voice in politics too. You but need to use your influence, 
and all the old kingdom of hatred will fall in ruins to make way for 
the new kingdom of love.” 

g) Philosophical fanfare to drown reflection: “The ultimate goal 
of their activity is that all mankind should take an ever-joyful delight 
in itself.” 

20) “Your love.” At this point women are required to be 
“unstinting”’ in their love so that it may “embrace all mankind with 
equal surrender’. A demand that is as indecent as it is extravagant. 

h) Fugue: “That thousands and yet more thousands of deserted 
orphans are abandoned to the fearful massacre of circumstances.” 
What does this “fearfulness” consist in? In the “orphans” massacr- 
ing the “circumstances” or the “circumstances” massacring the 
“orphans”? 

i) Unveiling of the neo-communist policy: “We have no wish to lay 
hands on the private property of any man; what the usurer now has, 
let him keep; we merely wish to forestall the further pillaging of the 
people’s assets and prevent capital from continuing to withhold from 
labour its rightful property.” This purpose is to be achieved as 
follows: ““Every poor man ... will instantly become a useful member 
of human society as soon as he is offered the opportunity of produc- 
tive work.” (According to this no one is more deserving in respect of 
‘human society” than the capitalists, including those in New York 
against whom Kriege thunders so mightily.) “And this opportunity is 
assured him for ever, as soon as society gives him a piece of land on 
which he can produce food for himself and his family.... If this vast 
area of land” (the 1,400 million acres of the American state lands) “‘is 

withdrawn from commerce and ensured to labour in limited quantities, at 
one stroke all the poverty in America will have been eliminated; for 
each man will be given the opportunity to establish with his own 
hands an inviolable home for himself.” That it does not lie in the 
legislators’ power to decree either that the patriarchal system desired 
by Kriege shall not evolve into an industrial system or that the 
industrial and commercial states of the east coast of the United States 
shall revert to patriarchal barbarism — one had a right to expect that 
this would be realised. Meanwhile, for the day when the paradise 
just described will have arrived, Kriege prepares the following 
country-parson utterance: “And then we can teach men to live 
together in peace, to lighten for each other the burden and toil of 
their life and: 

21) build the first dwelling-places on earth for celestial love” (each 
one 160 acres in area). 

Kriege concludes his address to married women as follows: “Turn 
first to 

22) the men of your love, 
ask them ... to turn their backs on the politics of old,... show them 
their children, implore them in their name” (who are without reason) 
“to adopt reason.” Secondly, to the “virgins”: 

23) “For your lovers 
let the liberation of the land be the touchstone of their human worth and 
have no faith in 

24) their love 
until they have sworn fealty to mankind.” (What is that supposed to 
mean?) If the virgins behave in this manner, he guarantees them that 
their children 

25) “will become as loving 
as they themselves” (that is, “the birds of heaven”) and concludes 
this cant with another round of 

26) “true priestesses of love’, “great kingdom of community” and 
“consecration”. 

No. 13 of the Volks-Trib[un]:—“Antwort an Sollta.” 

27) “It” (the great spirit of community) “flashes from fraternal 
eyes as the fire of love.” 

28) “What is a woman without the man whom she can love, to 
whom she can surrender her trembling soul?” 

29) “To join all mankind in love.” 

30) “Mother-love’’.... 

31) “Love of mankind”’.... 

32) “All the first sounds of love’’.... 

33) “The radiance of love.” 

Circular Against Kriege 4] 

k) The purpose of communism is to “subject the whole life of 
mankind to its” (the sentient heart’s) “beating”’. 

34) “The sound of love flees before the rattle of money.” 

35) “Everything may be achieved by love and surrender.” 

In this one issue, then, we have love in approximately thirty-five 
shapes. It is in perfect accordance with this amorous slobbering that 
Kriege, in his “Antwort an Sollta” and elsewhere, presents 
communism as the love-imbued opposite of selfishness and reduces a 
revolutionary movement of world-historical importance to the few 
words: love — hate, communism — selfishness. Part and parcel of it is 
likewise the cowardice with which he here panders to the usurer by 
promising to let him keep what he already has and with which 
further on he assures that he does not want “to destroy the cherished 
sentiments of family life, of belonging to one’s native land and people’ 
but “only to fulfil them”. This cowardly, hypocritical presentation of 
communism not as “destruction” but as “fulfilment” of existing evils 
and of the illusions which the bourgeoisie have about them, is found 
in every issue of the Volks-Tribun. This hypocrisy and cowardice are 
matched by the attitude which he adopts in discussions with 
politicians. He declares it (No.10*) a sin against communism to attack 
political visionaries like Lamennais and Borne who dabble in 
Catholicism, with the result that men like Proudhon, Cabet, Dézamy, 
in short all the French Communists, are just men “who call 
themselves Communists”. The fact that the German Communists 
have left B6rne as far behind as the French have Lamennais, is 
something Kriege could have discovered back in Germany, Brussels 
and London. 

We leave Kriege to reflect for himself on the enervating effect this 
love-sickness cannot fail to have on both sexes and the mass hysteria 
and anaemia it must produce in the “virgins”. 

SECTION TWO 

THE VOLKS-TRIBUNS POLITICAL ECONOMY 
AND ITS ATTITUDE TOWARDS YOUNG AMERICA™ 

We fully recognise that the American national Reformers’ 
movement is historically justified. We know that this movement has 
set its sights on a goal which, although for the moment it would 

@ Hermann Kriege an Harro Harring.—Ed. 

further the industrialism of modern bourgeois society, nevertheless, 
as the product of a proletarian movement, as an attack on landed 
property in general and more particularly in the circumstances 
obtaining in America, will by its own inner logic inevitably press on to 
communism. Kriege, who has joined the Anti-Rent movement along 
with the German Communists in New York, pastes over this plain 
fact with his customary communist and extravagant phrases, without 
ever going into the positive substance of the movement, thereby 
proving that he is quite unclear in his own mind about the 
connection between Young America and circumstances prevailing in 
America. In addition to the individual passages which in passing we 
have already quoted, we would give another example of how his 
humanjtarianising quite smothers the issue of land-distribution to 
the small farmer on an American scale. 
In No. 10, “Was wir wollen”, we read: 

“They” —that is, the Americ[an] National Reformers — “call the soil the communal 
heritage of all mankind ... and want the legislative power of the people to take steps to 
preserve as the inalienable communal property of all mankind the 1,400 mill[ion] acres of 
land which have not yet fallen into the hands of rapacious speculators.” 

In order communally to “preserve for all mankind” this 
“communal heritage”, this “inalienable communal property’, he adopts 
the plan of the National Reformers: “to place 160 acres of American 
soil at the command of every farmer, from whatever country he may 
hail, so that he may feed himself”, or, as it is put in No. 14, 
“Antwort” to Conze: 

“Of this as yet untouched property of the people no one shall take more than 160 
acres into his possession, and that only if he farms it himself.” 

So in order that the soil shall remain “inalienable communal 
property”, for “all mankind” to boot, a start must be made without 
delay on dividing it up; Kriege here imagines he can use the law to 
forbid the necessary consequences of this division, that is, concentra- 
tion, industrial progress, etc. He considers 160 acres of land as an 
ever-constant measure, as if the value of such an area did not vary 
according to its quality. The “farmers” will have to exchange, if not 
their land itself, then at least the produce of their land, with each 
other and with third parties, and when this juncture has been 
reached, it will soon become apparent that one “farmer”, even 
though he has no capital, will, simply by his work and the greater 
initial productivity of his 160 acres, reduce his neighbour to the 
status of his farm labourer. And is it not then immaterial whether “the 

Circular Against Kriege 43 

land” or the produce of the land “falls into the hands of rapacious 
speculators” ? 

Let us for the moment take Kriege’s present to mankind seriously. 

1,400 million acres are to be “preserved as the inalienable 
communal property of all mankind”. Specifically, 160 acres are to be 
the portion of each “farmer”. From this we can calculate the size of 
Kriege’s “all mankind”—exactly 83/ , million “farmers”, each of 
whom as head of family represents a family of five, a sum total 
therefore of 433/, million people. We can likewise calculate how long 
“all eternity” will last, for the duration of which “the proletariat in its 
capacity as humanity” may “claim” “the whole earth” —at least in 
the United States. If the population of the United States continues to 
grow at the same rate as hitherto (i.e., if it doubles in 25 years), this 
“all eternity” will not last out 40 years; within this period the 1,400 
mill[ion] acres will be settled, and there will be nothing left for future 
generations to “claim”. But since the release of the land would 
greatly increase immigration, Kriege’s “all eternity” might well be 
foreclosed even earlier. The more so when one considers that land 
for 44 million would not even suffice to channel off the now 
existing pauper-population of Europe, where every tenth man is a 
pauper and the British Isles alone supply 7 million. Similar economic 
naivety is to be found in No.13, “An die Frauen”, in which Kriege 
says that if the city of New York were to release its 52,000 acres on 
Long Island, this would suffice to relieve New York “at one stroke” 
of all its pauperism, poverty and crime for all time. 

If Kriege had seen the free-land movement as a first, in certain 
circumstances necessary, form of the proletarian movement, as a 
movement which because of the social position of the class from 
which it emanates must necessarily develop into a communist 
movement, if he had shown how communist tendencies in America 
could, to begin with, only emerge in this agrarian form which 
appears to be a contradiction of all communism, then no objection 
could have been raised. As things are, however, he declares what is 
after alla still subordinate form of movement of real specific people 
to be a matter for mankind in general, presents it, against his better 
knowledge, as the ultimate, supreme goal of all movement in 
general, and thereby transforms the specific aims of the movement 
into sheer, extravagant nonsense. 

In the same essay (No.10) he however continues his paean 
unperturbed, as follows: 

“In this way, therefore, the old dreams of the Europeans at last came true, on this 
side of the ocean a plot was prepared for them which they needed only to settle and 

make fruitful with the labour of their hands, and they would be able proudly to 
proclaim to all the tyrants of the world: 

This is my hut 

Which you did not build, 

This is my hearth 

Whose fire you envy me.” ? 

He could have added: This is my midden, which I and my wife, 
child, farm labourer, maid-servant and cattle have produced. Who 
are these Europeans then, whose “dreams” here come true? Not the 
communist workers, but bankrupt shopkeepers and master- 
craftsmen or ruined cottagers striving for the bliss of becoming petty 
bourgeois and peasants once more in America. And what kind of 
“wish” is this which the 1,400 million acres are to make reality? None 
other than that everybody should be turned into a private-property- 
owner, a wish that is just as practicable and communist as that 
everybody should be turned into an emperor, king or pope. The 
following sentence shall serve as a final sample of Kriege’s insight 
into communist revolutionary movements and economic conditions: 

“Every man should at least learn enough of every trade to be able to stand on his own 
feet for a while if necessary, if misfortune should sever him from human society.””> 

It is of course much easier to “gush” “love” and “surrender” than 
to concern oneself with the development of real conditions and 
practical questions. 

SECTION THREE 
METAPHYSICAL TRUMPETINGS 

No. 13 of the Volks-Trib[un]: “Antwort an Sollta’’. 

1) Kriege here asserts he is “not accustomed to performing on a 
logical tight-rope in the barren desert of theory”. That he is walking 
on a “tight-rope’’, not a logical one, it is true, but one spun from 
philosophical and love-besotted phrases, is clear from every issue of 
the Volks-Tribun. 

2) The proposition that “each separate person lives individually” 
(which is itself nonsense) is expressed by Kriege as he walks the 
following illogical “tight-rope”: “as long as the human species 
continues to find its representation in individuals at all’, 

3) “putting an end to the present state of things” is supposed to 
depend on the “pleasure” of the “creative spirit of mankind”, which 
does not exist anywhere. 

* A paraphrased stanza from Goethe’s Prometheus.— Ed. 
> H. Kriege, “Antwort an Cattanio” —Ed. 

Circular Against Kriege 45 

4) The following is the ideal of the communist man: “He bears the 
stamp of the species” (and who does not do so by the mere fact of his 
existence?), “determines his own goals according to the goals of the 
species” (as if the species were a person who could have goals) “‘and 
seeks to be completely his own, solely in order to dedicate himself to 
the species with everything that he is and is capable of becoming” 
(total self-sacrifice and self-abasement before a vaporous fantasy- 
concept). 

5) The relationship of the individual to the species is also 
described in the following extravagant nonsense: “All of us and 
our particular activities are but symptoms of the great movement 
which is afoot in the inner depths of mankind.” “In the inner 
depths of mankind”—where is that? According to this proposi- 
tion, then, real people are only “symptorns”, features of a “move- 
ment” that is afoot “in the depths” of a phantom conjured up by 
thinking. 

6) This country parson transforms the struggle for a communist 
society into “the search for that great spirit of community”. He 
pictures this “great spirit” “foaming full and fine from the cup of 
communion” and as “the holy spirit flashing from fraternal eyes”. 

Now that the revolutionary communist movement has thus 
been transformed into the “search” for the holy spirit and 
holy communion, Kriege can of course also assert that this spirit 
“needs only to be recognised for all men to be joined together in 
love”. 

7) This metaphysical conclusion is preceded by the following 
confusion of communism with communion: “The spirit that conquers 
the world, the spirit that commands the storm and the thunder and 
lightning (!!!!), the spirit that heals the blind and the lepers, the spirit 
that offers all men to drink of one wine” (we prefer a variety of kinds) 
‘and to eat of one bread” (the French and English Communists are 
rather more demanding), “the spirit that 1s eternal and omnipresent, 
that is the spirit of community.” If this “spirit” is “eternal and 
omnipresent”, it is quite beyond comprehension how, according to 
Kriege, private property has managed to exist for so long. But, true 
enough, it has not been “recognised” and was thus “eternal and 
omnipresent” solely in his own imagination. 

Kriege is therefore here preaching in the name of communism the 
old fantasy of religion and German philosophy which is the direct | 
antithesis of communism. Faith, more specifically, faith in the “holy 
spirit of community” is the last thing required for the achievement of 
communism. 

SECTION FOUR 

FLIRTATIONS WITH RELIGION 

It is self-evident that Kriege’s amorous slobberings and _ his 
antithesis to selfishness are no more than the inflated utterances of a 
mind that has become utterly and completely absorbed in religion. 
We shall see how Kriege, who in Europe always claimed to be an 
atheist, here seeks to foist off all the infamies of Christianity under 
the signboard of communism and ends, perfectly consistently, with 
man’s self-desecration. 

In No.10, “Was wir wollen” and “H{ermann] Kriege an Harro 
Harring” define the purpose of the communist struggle in the 
following terms: 

1) “To make a truth of the religion of love and a reality of the long 
yearned-for community of the blessed denizens of heaven.” Kriege 
merely overlooks the fact that these obsessions of Christianity are 
only the fantastic expression of the existing world and that their 
“reality” therefore already exists in the evil conditions of this existing 
world. 

2) ‘We demand in the name of that religion of love that the hungry 
should be given food, the thirsty be given drink and the naked 
clothed.” — A demand which has been reiterated ad nauseam for 
1,800 years already, without the slightest success. 

3) “We teach the practice of love” in order to 

4) “receive love’. 

5) “In their realm of love there is no room for devils.” 

6) ‘It is his” (man’s) “most sacred need to merge his own person 
and whole individuality in the society of loving beings, towards whom 
he can retain nothing but 

7) his boundless love.” One might think that with this boundless- 
ness the theory of love had reached its highest peak, a peak so 
high that one can think of nothing higher; and yet the ascent con- 
tinues. 

8) “This hot outpouring of love, this surrender to all, this divine 
urge towards community — what else is this but the Communists’ 
innermost religion which is only lacking in the appropriate external 
world to express itself in the fulness of human life.” The present 
“external world” however seems to be quite sufficient for Kriege to 
lend the most lavish “expression” to his “innermost religion”, his 
“divine urge”, his “surrender to all” and his “hot outpouring” in the 
“fulness” of his own “human life”. 

Circular Against Kriege 47 

9) “Do we not have the right to take the long pent-up desires of 
the religious heart seriously and march into battle in the name of the 
poor, the unhappy, and the rejected, for the final realisation of the 
sublime realm of brotherly love?” Kriege marches into battle, then, 
in order to take seriously the desires not of the real and the secular, 
but of the religious heart, not those of the heart made bitter by real 
need but those of the heart inflated by a fantasy of bliss. He 
forthwith offers proof of his “religious heart” by marching into 
battle as a priest, in the name of others, that is, in the name of the 
“poor”, and in such a manner as to make it absolutely plain that he 
does not need communism for himself, he would have it that he is 
marching into battle in a spirit of pure, generous, dedicated, effusive 
self-sacrifice for the “poor, the unhappy and the rejected” who are. 
in need of it—a feeling of elation which swells the heart of this 
worthy man in times of isolation and dejection, and outweighs all the 
troubles of this evil world. 

10) Kriege concludes his pompous prating: ‘““Any man who does 
not support such a party can with justice be treated as an enemy of 
mankind.” This intolerant sentence appears to be in contradiction to 
“surrender to all’, and the “religion of love” towards all. It is 
however a perfectly consistent conclusion of this new religion, which 
like every other mortally detests and persecutes all its enemies. The 
enemy of the party is quite consistently turned into a heretic, by 
transforming him from an enemy of the actually existing party who is 
combated, into a sinner against humanity— which only exists in the 
imagination — who must be punished. 

11) In the letter to Harro Harring we read: “Our aim is to make 
all the poor of the world rebel against Mammon, under whose 
scourge they are condemned to work themselves to death, and when 
we have toppled the fearsome tyrant from his ancient throne, our 
aim will be to unite mankind by love, our aim will be to teach men to 
work communally and enjoy communally until the long-promised 
kingdom of joy finally comes about.” In order to work up a fury 
against the present-day sovereignty of money, he first has to 
transform it into the idol Mammon. This idol is toppled — how, we 
do not discover; the revolutionary movement of the proletariat of all 
countries shrinks to no more than a rebellion—and when this 
toppling is complete, then the prophets — ‘“‘we” — appear to “teach” 
the proletariat what is to be done next. These prophets “teach” their 
disciples, who here appear in remarkable ignorance of their own 
interests, how they are “to work and enjoy communally”, not, 
indeed, for the sake of ‘working and enjoying communally” 
but rather just so that the scriptures shall be fulfilled and a 

number of visionaries shall not have prophesied in vain 1,800 years 
ago.—This prophetical manner is found elsewhere as well, for 
example: 

In No. 8, “Was ist das Proletariat?”’ and ‘“‘Andreas Dietsch’’, with 

a) “Proletarians,... the hour of your redemption has come.” 

b) “A thousand hearts beat joyfully in anticipation of the 
promised time” —in other words, “of that great realm of love ... for 
the long yearned-for realm of love.” 

c) In No. 12, “Antwort an Koch, den Antipfaffen”, 

“Already the gospel of the infinite redemption of the world goes 
quivering from eye to eye” and—even— “from hand to hand”. 
This miracle of the “quivering gospel”, this nonsense about the 
“infinite redemption of the world” is in perfect accordance with 
another miracle, namely that the long-abandoned prophecies of the 
old evangelists are unexpectedly fulfilled by Kriege. 

12) Seen from this religious point of view, the answer to all real 
questions can only consist in a few images of extravagant religiosity 
which befog all sense, in a few high-sounding catchwords, such as 
“mankind”, “humanity”, “species”, etc., and in turning every real 
action into a fantastic phrase. This is particularly evident in the essay 
“Was ist das Proletariat?’ (No. 8). The answer given to this 
title-question is: “The proletariat is mankind” ,—a deliberate lie, 
according to which the Communists are aiming at the abolition of 
mankind. This answer, “mankind”, is supposed to be the same as 
the one Sieyés gave to the question: What is the tiers-état?39 Proof 
enough of how Kriege befuddles historical facts. He then forthwith 
provides more proof of this in his bigoted presentation of the 
American Anti-Rent movement: “And how would it be in the end if 
this proletariat, in its capacity as mankind” (a necessary character- 
mask for its appearance on the scene —a moment ago the proletariat 
was mankind, now mankind is only a capacity of the proletariat), 
“laid claim to the whole earth as its undisputed property for all 
eternity?” One observes how even an extremely simple, practical 
movement is transformed into empty phrases like “mankind”, 
“undisputed property”, “all eternity”, etc., and for that reason rests 
content with a mere “claim”.— Apart from the usual catchwords 
such as “outcast”, etc., which is joined by the religious “accursed”’, all 
Kriege’s statements about the proletariat amount to no more than 
the following mythological-biblical images: 

“Prometheus bound”, 
“the Lamb of God which bears the sins of the world”’, 
“the Wandering Jew”, 

Circular Against Kriege 49 

and finally he brings up the following remarkable question: “Is 
mankind to wander for ever, then, a homeless vagabond, about the 
earth?” Meanwhile it is precisely the exclusive settlement of a 
part of “mankind” on the land which is his particular bugbear! 

13) The real point about Kriege’s religion is revealed in the 
following passage: ‘We have other things to do than worry about our 
miserable selves, we belong to mankind.” With this shameful and 
nauseating grovelling before a “mankind” that is separate and 
distinct from the “self” and which is therefore a metaphysical and in 
his case even a religious fiction, with what is indeed the most utterly 
“miserable” slavish self-abasement, this religion ends up like any 
other. Such a doctrine, preaching the voluptuous pleasure of 
cringing and self-contempt, is entirely suited to valiant— monks, but 
never to men of action, least of all in a time of struggle. It only 
remains for these valiant monks to castrate their “miserable selves” 
and thereby provide sufficient proof of their confidence in the ability 
of “mankind” to reproduce itself! —If Kriege has nothing better to 
offer than these sentimentalities in pitiful style, it would indeed be 
wiser for him to translate his ““Pére Lamennais” again and again in 
each issue of the Volks-Tribun. 

What the practical consequences are of Kriege’s religion of infinite 
mercy and boundless surrender, is shown by the pleas for work 
which feature in almost every issue of the Volks-Tribun. We read, for 
instance, in No. 8: 

“Arbeit! Arbeit! Arbeit!” 

“Is there no one amongst all the wise* gentlemen who does not consider it a waste 
of effort to provide sustenance for deserving families and preserve helpless young 
people from poverty and despair? Firstly there is Johann Stern from Mecklenburg, 
still without work, and he is only asking to work himself to skin and bone for the 
benefit of some capitalist and at the same time earn enough bread as will suffice 
to sustain him for his work,—is that asking too much, then, in civilised society?—And 
then Karl Gescheidtle from Baden, a young man of the most excellent qualities and 
not without higher education—he looks so trustworthy and good, I guarantee 
he is honesty itself.... And an old man, too, and several other young people are 
begging for occupation for their hands, for their daily bread.—Let any person 
who can help delay no longer, or his conscience will one day rob him of his sleep 
when he most needs it. It is true you might say: There are thousands crying out in 
vain for work, and we certainly can’t help all of them—you could, no doubt, 
but you are slaves of selfishness and have no heart to do anything. But for as long 
as you will not help all, at least show that you have left still a vestige of human feeling 
and help as many individuals as is in your power.” 

4 In Volks-Tribun No. 8: rich.— Ed. 

Of course, if they wished, they could help more than is in their 
power. That is how it is in practice, that is the real implementation of 
the self-abasement and degradation which this new religion teaches. 

SECTION FIVE 

KRIEGE’S PERSONAL STAND 

The nature of Kriege’s personal stand in his journal cannot fail to 
be evident from the above quotations; we will therefore only single 
out a small number of points. 

Kriege appears as a prophet and therefore necessarily also as an 
emissary from a secret league of Essenes,*° the “League of Justice”. 
Hence, when he is not speaking in the name of the “oppressed”, he 
is speaking in the name of “justice”, which is not ordinary justice, 
however, but the justice of the “League of Justice”. He not merely 
envelops himself in a fog of mystery, but history too. He envelops the 
real historical development of communism in the various countries 
of Europe, which he is not acquainted with, in a fog of mystery, by 
ascribing the origin and progress of communism to fabulous, 
novelettish and fictitious intrigues by this league of Essenes. There is 
evidence of this in every issue, especially in the reply to Harro 
Harring, which also contains the most absurd fantasies about the 
power of this league. 

As a true apostle of love Kriege addresses himself firstly to women, 
whom he cannot believe to be so depraved as to resist a heart beating 
with love, secondly, to the newly discovered agitators “filially and 
conciliatorily”,— as a “son” —as a “brother” —as “brother of the 
heart” —and finally as a human being to the rich. Hardly has he 
arrived in New York when he sends out circulars to all rich German 
merchants, presses the popgun of love to their chests, takes very 
good care not to say what he wants of them, signs variously as “A 
Human Being”, “A Friend of Man” or “A Fool” —and, “would you 
believe it, my friends?”, nobody responds to his high-falutin’ 
tomfoolery. This can surprise no one but Kriege himself.— The 
familiar phrases of love we have already quoted are occasionally 
spiced with ejaculations like (No. 12, “Antwort an Koch”’): “Hurrah! 
Long live community, long live equality, long live love!” Practical 
questions and doubts (cf. No. 14, “Antwort” to Conze) he can only 
explain to himself as deliberate malice and obtuseness. As a true 
prophet and exponent of love, he expresses all the hysterical 
irritation which a sensitive soul who has been snubbed feels towards 
the mockers, the unbelievers and those people in the old world 

Circular Against Kriege 51 

whom the sweet warmth of his love fails to transmute into “the 
blessed denizens of heaven”. It is in such a mood of sulky 
sentimentality that he cries out to them in No. 11, under the heading, 
“Fruhling”: “Therefore, you who mock us now, you shall soon have 
faith, for you shall know, spring is coming.” 

and May 11, 1846 graphic circular 

in May 1846 time 

Signed: Engels, K. Marx and others