The "Manifesto" was published as the platform of the "CommunistLeague," a workingmen's association, first exclusively German, later oninternational, and, under the political conditions of the Continentbefore 1848, unavoidably a secret society. At a Congress of theLeague, held in London in November, 1847, Marx and Engels werecommissioned to prepare for publication a complete theoretical andpractical party programme. Drawn up in German, in January, 1848, themanuscript was sent to the printer in London a few weeks before theFrench revolution of February 24. A French translation was brought outin Paris, shortly before the insurrection of June, 1848. The firstEnglish translation, by Miss Helen Macfarlane, appeared in GeorgeJulian Harney's "Red Republican," London, 1850. A Danish and a Polishedition had also been published.
The defeat of the Parisian insurrection of June, 1848—the first greatbattle between Proletariat and Bourgeoisie—drove again into thebackground, for a time, the social and political aspirations of theEuropean working class. Thenceforth, the struggle for supremacy wasagain, as it had been before the revolution of February, solely betweenthe different sections of the propertied class; the working class wasreduced to a fight for political elbow-room, and to the position ofextreme wing of the Middle-class Radicals. Wherever independentproletarian movements continued to show signs of life, they wereruthlessly hunted down. Thus the Prussian police hunted out theCentral Board of the Communist League, then located in Cologne. Themembers were arrested, and, after eighteen months' imprisonment, theywere tried in October, 1852. This celebrated "Cologne Communist trial"lasted from October 4 till November 12; seven of the prisoners weresentenced to terms of imprisonment in a fortress, varying from three tosix years. Immediately after the sentence the League was formallydissolved by the remaining members. As to the "Manifesto," it seemedthenceforth to be doomed to oblivion.
When the European working class had recovered sufficient strength foranother attack on the ruling classes, the International Workingmen'sAssociation sprang up. But this association, formed with the expressaim of welding into one body the whole militant proletariat of Europeand America, could not at once proclaim the principles laid down in the"Manifesto." The International was bound to have a programme broadenough to be acceptable to the English Trades' Unions, to the followersof Proudhon in France, Belgium, Italy and Spain, and to theLassalleans(a) in Germany. Marx, who drew up this programme to thesatisfaction of all parties, entirely trusted to the intellectu