32 THE UTOPIAN COMMUNIST
journals advocating everything from mild republicanism to ex
treme communism circulated in Switzerland, usually without too
much interference from the police. Fröbel, a professor at the Uni
versity of Zurich, edited the Schweizerischer Republikaner. The
home of August Adolf Ludwig Follen was a center for revolution
ary literati, and his Tafelrunde (Round Table) in Zurich at one
time or another included such distinguished guests as Freiligrath,
von Fallersleben, Herwegh, Fröbel, and Mikhail Bakunin. Many
cantons harbored refugees from Germany, Poland, France, Hun
gary, Austria, and Italy, some of whom actually planned to attack
neighboring states from the friendly soil of Switzerland.^2
A number of these revolutionary groups were seriously in
terested in enlisting the support of the working class. As early as
the 1830's, for example, a group of radical students who left Göt-
tingen for the new university in Zurich published a paper, known
as Das Nordlicht, which was addressed primarily to workers and
farmers.^3 By 1836 some of the Swiss cantons were so alarmed by
the multiplication of workers' organizations among Swiss and Ger
man journeymen that an effort was made to control these Hand-
werkervereine whose agitation sometimes precipitated diplomatic
crises with neighboring governments. Geneva, burial place of
Calvin and birthplace of Rousseau, was a notable exception and
managed to avoid such repressive measures.
While some leaders of the workers' organizations had moved on
to Paris and London, the membership which remained behind in
Switzerland continued to meet under the guise of harmless singing
societies and reading clubs whose ostensible purposes were recrea
tion and education. Geneva, for example, had in 1839 a Bildungs
und Unterrichtsverein which operated its own eating hall, owned
a fair library and a collection of maps, and provided its members
with facilities for instruction in singing, natural science, history,
geography, French, and drawing. The club solemnly had resolved
(^2) Wilhelm Marr, Das junge Deutschland in der Schweiz (Leipzig, 1846),
passim.
(^3) Hermann Buddensieg, Die Kultur des deutschen Proletariats im Zeitalter
des Frühkapitalismus (Lauenburg, 1923), 13-14.