Following the Lille banquet a controversy developed between the 
Réforme and the National, which has now led to a decisive split 
between the two papers. 

The facts are as follows: 

From the inception of the reform banquets the National has 
attached itself even more openly than before to the dynastic 
opposition.” At the Lille banquet M. Degeorge of the National 
withdrew together with Odilon Barrot. The National expressed its 
opinion of the Lille banquet in terms that were more than equivocal. 
Challenged by the Réforme to explain itself in more detail, it refused, 
with the excuse that it did not wish to start polemics with this 
newspaper. This was no reason at all for failing to comment on facts. 
To be brief, the Réforme did not let the matter drop and eventually 
attacked M. Garnier-Pagés of the National for a speech in which he 
denied the existence of classes and deleted the bourgeoisie and the 
proletariat in the general phrase of citoyens frangais. Now, at last, the 
National declared that it would defend its friends against a 
newspaper which cast suspicion on all worthy patriots, such as 
Carnot, Garnier-Pagés, etc. 

The National, very soon defeated on every point, could finally hit 
upon no other expedient than to accuse the Réforme of communism. 

“You speak of indefinite strivings, of theories and systems which arise among the 
people, you censure us for openly attacking these—to put it bluntly—communistic 
strivings. Very well then, declare yourselves directly, either for or against communism. 
We declare for all to hear that we have nothing in common with the Communists, with 
these people who deny property, family and country. When the day of battle comes we 

shall fight not with, but against these abominable strivings. We have no peace, no 
tolerance for these odious fantasies, for this absurd and barbarous (sauvage) system 

The Réforme and the National 407 

which bestialises man and reduces him to the level of a brute (le réduit a l’état de 
brute). And you believe the people would be with you? The people would surrender 
what little property they have earned in the sweat of their brow, their family, their 
country? You believe that the people would ever allow themselves to be persuaded 
that it is a matter of indifference whether or not Austria brings us under the yoke of 
her despotism, whether or not the Powers dismember France?”* 

To such grounds against communism the National adds its plans 
for improving the condition of the workers—postal reform, financial 
reform, luxury taxes, state subsidies, the abolition of the octrois,?" 
and free competition. 

Correcting the ridiculous ideas of communism held by the 
National is not worth the effort. It is ludicrous, however, that the 
National is still parading the terrifying fantasy of a constantly 
threatening invasion by the “Great Powers’”’, and that it still believes 
that beyond the Rhine and across the Channel there are millions of 
bayonets pointed against France, and hundreds of thousands of 
cannons aimed at Paris. The Réforme has quite correctly replied to 
this that in the event of an invasion by the Kings it will not be the 
fortifications which will serve as a rampart, but the peoples 
themselves. 

With reference to the article from the National quoted above the 
Réforme declares: 

“We are not communistic, and our reason is that communism disregards the laws 
of production, that it is not concerned with ensuring that enough is produced for the 
whole of society. But the economic proposals of the Communists stand closer to us 
than those of the National, which accepts the existing bourgeois economics without 
further ado. We shall defend the Communists against the police and the National also 
in the future, because we acknowledge at least their right of discussion, and because 

the doctrines that originate from the workers themselves always deserve considera- 
tion.” 

We thank the Réforme for the energetic way in which it has stood 
for true democracy as against the National. We thank the Réforme for 
defending communism against it. We willingly acknowledge that the 
Réforme has always defended the Communists whenever they have 
been persecuted by the government. Alone of all the Paris 
newspapers, the Réforme defended the materialistic Communists 
when they were dragged to court by M. Delangle?!; on this same 
occasion M. Cabet almost conceded that the government was right as 
against the materialists. We are glad that the Réforme, even in the 
more or less undeveloped forms in which communism has so far 
appeared, has discovered a kernel of truth to which it stands closer 

2 Quoted from the leading article in La Réforme, December 21, 1847; the reply of 
this newspaper given below is from the same source.— Ed. 

than it does to the representatives of bourgeois economics. On the 
other hand, we hope to be able to prove to the Réforme before long 
that communism as we defend it is still more closely related to the 
principles of the Réforme than to communism itself as it has hitherto 
been presented in France, and as it now is being spread, in part, 
abroad. 

In its repudiation of the National, furthermore, the Réforme is only 
pronouncing the same judgment that the democratic movement in 
Germany, England and Belgium, indeed everywhere except in 
France, has long since passed on it. 

Frederick Engels