BRUSSELS 127necessary money; at least six other prospective publishers were
approached; the manuscript was sent to Cologne and even split up into
sections to be published separately. The authors continued their efforts
up till the end of 1847 , but only the short review of Griin was ever
published. This failure was due to the strict censorship regulations and
the serious financial risks incurred in publishing radical works, though
Marx considered that the refusals were motivated by the publishers' oppo-
sition to his ideas.^50 Thus, as Marx wrote later, 'we abandoned the manu-
script to the gnawing of the mice all the more willingly as we had achieved
our main purpose - self-clarification'.^51 And, in fact, the manuscript as it
survives does bear considerable traces of mice's teeth. Marx nevertheless
continued to work frantically on his Economics and PoliticsHis publisher
Leske had threatened to cancel the contract. Marx duly promised the first
volume by the end of November. But he was distracted by his polemic
with Proudhon. Leske accordingly cancelled the contract in February
1847 - though he was still trying to recover his advance in 1871!
II. WEITLING AND PROUDHONWith The German Ideology, Marx and Engels clarified their fundamental
differences with the Young Hegelians and - more importantly - with
contemporary German socialists. They now turned their attention to
impress their newly acquired insights on the very varied existing left-wing
groups, and 'to win over to our convictions the European proletariat in
general and the German proletariat in particular'.^53 Brussels was an ideal
vantage point from which to build up contacts among German socialists,
for it was in the middle of a triangle formed by Paris and London (where
the largest colonies of expatriate German workers had congregated) and
Cologne (capital of the Rhineland, the German province by far the most
receptive to communist ideas). In Brussels a colony of gifted German
exiles soon began to form around Marx. He had been accompanied on
his journey from Paris by Heinrich Burgers, a young journalist who had
contributed to the Rheinische Zeitung and become a communist in Paris.
The morning after their arrival Marx insisted that they call on the poet
Ferdinand Freiligrath who had been attacked by the Rheinische Zeitung
for subservience to the Prussian Government which had none the less
later exiled him for his radical writings.^54 Their meeting was a cordial
one in which Freiligrath found Marx 'an interesting fellow - agreeable
and unpretentious'.^55 Through Freiligrath and the German solicitor Karl
Maynz, Marx met the leading Belgian democrats - in particular the lawyer
I ucien Jottrand, and the leader of the Polish exiles Lelewel - and also