Page:Roads to freedom.djvu/29

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
Marx and Socialist Doctrine
27

Through his activities in Brussels he became known to the German Communist League in Paris, who, at the end of 1847, invited him and Engels to draw up for them a manifesto, which appeared in January 1848. This is the famous "Communist Manifesto," in which for the first time Marx's system is set forth. It appeared at a fortunate moment. In the following month, February, the revolution broke out in Paris, and in March it spread to Germany. Fear of the revolution led the Brussels Government to expel Marx from Belgium, but the German revolution made it possible for him to return to his own country. In Germany he again edited a paper, which again led him into a conflict with the authorities, increasing in severity as the reaction gathered force. In June 1849 his paper was suppressed, and he was expelled from Prussia. He returned to Paris, but was expelled from there also. This led him to settle in England—at that time an asylum for friends of freedom—and in England, with only brief intervals for purposes of agitation, he continued to live until his death, in 1883. The bulk of his time was occupied dn the composition of his great book "Capital."[1] His other important work during, his later years was the formation and spread of the International Working Men's Association. From 1849 onwards the greater part of his time was spent in the .British Museum, accumulating, with German patience, the materials

  1. The first and most important volume appeared in 1867: the other two volumes were published posthumously (1885 and 1894).