>>2282786here are my sources
>We are at present holding public meetings all over the place to set up societies for the advancement of the workers [1] ; this causes a fine stir among the Teutons and draws the philistines' attention to social problems. These meetings are arranged on the spur of the moment and without asking the police.Engels to Marx in Paris. Nov 19 1844
[1] A reference to the Associations for the Benefit of the Working Classes formed in a number of Prussian towns in 1844 and 1845 on the initiatives of the German liberal bourgeoisie, who were alarmed at the rising of the Silesian weavers in the summer of 1844, and hoped that the associations would help to divert the German workers from militant struggle. Despite the efforts of the bourgeoisie and the government authorities to give these associations a harmless philanthropic appearance, they gave a fresh impulse to the growing political activity of the urban masses and drew the attention of broad sections of German society to social questions. The movement to establish such associations was particularly widespread in the towns of the industrial Rhine Province.
<Our affair will prosper greatly here. Ewerbeck is quite taken up with it and only asks that a committee should not be officially organised in too great haste, because there’s a split in the offing. What remains here of the Weitlingians, a small clique of tailors,[2] is now in process of being thrown out, and Ewerbeck thinks it better that this should be accomplished first. However, Ewerbeck doesn’t believe that more than four or five of the people here will be available for the correspondence, which number is, indeed, fully adequate.Engels to the Communist Correspondence Committee. Aug 19 1846
[2] Engels arrived in Paris on 15 August 1846 entrusted by the Brussels Communist Correspondence Committee with communist propaganda among the workers, primarily among the members of the Paris communities of the League of the Just, and with founding a correspondence committee. After failing to draw Weitling into the activities of the Brussels Communist Correspondence Committee, Marx and Engels broke with him in the spring of 1846, and particular importance was attached to the struggle against the sectarian views of his followers, who advocated crude egalitarian communism, and against ‘true socialism’, a petty-bourgeois socialist trend which spread between 1844 and 1846 among German intellectuals and artisans, including emigrants in France. ‘True socialism’ was a mixture of the idealistic aspects of Feuerbachianism with French utopian socialism in ail emasculated form. As a result, socialist teaching was turned into abstract sentimental moralising divorced from real needs.
<I've had several meetings with the local workers, i.e. with the leaders of the cabinet-makers from the Faubourg St. Antoine. These people are curiously organised. Apart from the business of their league [A reference to the Paris communities of the League of the Just. ] having been thrown into the utmost confusion – as a result of a serious dispute with the Weitlingian tailors – these lads, i.e. 12-20 of them, foregather once a week; they used to hold discussions but, after they ran out of matter, as indeed they were bound to do, Ewerbeck was compelled to give them lectures on German history … Here – abstraction faite de toute espace de politique ["all politics apart"] – such things as 'social questions' are discussed. It is a good way of attracting new people, for it's entirely public; a fortnight ago the police arrived and wanted to impose a veto but allowed themselves to be placated and did nothing further. Often more than 200 people foregather. … Things cannot possibly remain as they are now. A degree of lethargy has set in amongst the fellows which comes from their being bored with themselves. … the real leader of these people isn't Ewerbeck but Junge, who was in Brussels [3]; the fellow realises very well what ought to be changed, and might do a great deal since he has them all in his pocket and is ten times more intelligent than the whole clique, but … I haven't seen him for nearly 3 weeks – he never turned up and isn't to be found – which is why so little has as yet been achieved. Without him most of them are spineless and irresolute. But one must be patient with the fellows … when we've got these platitudes out of their heads, I hope to be able to achieve something with the fellows, for they all have a strong desire for instruction in economics. Engels to the Communist Correspondence Committee. Sep 16 1846
[3] Adolph Junge, a cabinet-maker from Dusseldorf, was a notable figure in the Paris communities of the League of the Just in the early 1840s. At the end of June 1846, after a short visit to Cologne, he returned to Paris via Brussels where he met Marx and Engels. In Paris he vigorously opposed Grun and other advocates of 'true socialism' and became an associate of Engels when the latter was in Paris. At the end of March 1847, the French police expelled Junge from the country.