IN SWITZERLAND 3?
"not to engage in politics," but that decision could have had little
effect in view of the fact that radicals like Albert Galeer, the good
angel for many a homeless refugee, were prominent members. In
Geneva a reading room for German workers was founded by a
Lutheran pastor, who stocked the warm room, where men smoked
their pipes and drank a glass of wine, with the right kind of
religious tracts.^4 By 1840 the number of such Arbeiterlesevereine
(workers' reading circles) had grown considerably, and most of
them ostensibly were nothing more than singing, study, and pleas
ure clubs.
The transformation of such organizations into centers for the
serious discussion of internationalism, socialism, and other reforms
was relatively simple. On his arrival in Switzerland, Weitling
found that communist propaganda had not yet penetrated these
societies to any considerable extent. The seeds of communism
were already sprouting, but the Swiss groups had little connection
with the headquarters of radicalism in Paris.^5 By the middle forties,
moreover, they were being closely watched, and Metternich's
police spies reported regularly on their activities and on the num
ber of initiates. Nevertheless, a German translation of Lamennais
was fairly well known in the German workers' clubs of Switzer
land; Swiss papers occasionally published items sympathetic to
communism; and a little communist journal, known as Posthörn-
chen, was printed for a time in Zofingen.^6 Communist tracts and
books were available in Geneva in spite of the vigilance of a
government which was becoming less and less tolerant. Lausanne
had a communist club known as "La Société du cygne," and Con¬
siderant lectured in the town hall in 1846 to a sizable audience.
Cabet's Populaire was available in the coffeehouses of St. Gervais;
the followers of Fourier published their Edificateur here, and
(^4) Seiler, Der Schriftsteller Weitling, 9.
(^6) Otto Brugger, Geschichte der deutschen Handwerker in der Schweiz, 1836-
43, Die Wirksamkeit Weldings, 1841-43 (Bern, 1932), passim.
(^6) Brügel, Österreichische Sozialdemokratie, I, 20-21. See also Ernst Barnikol
(ed.), Geschichte des religiösen und atheistischen Frühsozialismus, nach der
Darstellung August Beckers vom Jahre 2843 (Kiel, 1932), passim.