BRUSSELS 141of thought and speech. Weitling would probably have gone on talking
had not Marx checked him with an angry frown and started his reply.
Marx's sarcastic speech boiled down to this: to rouse the population
without giving them any firm, well-thought-out reasons for their activity
would be simply to deceive them. The raising of fantastic hopes just
spoken of, Marx continued, led only to the final ruin and not to the
saving of the sufferers. To call to the workers without any strictly scien-
tific ideas or constructive doctrine, especially in Germany, was equivalent
to vain dishonest play at preaching which assumed on the one side an
inspired prophet and on the other only gaping asses.... Weitling's pale
cheeks coloured and he regained his liveliness and ease of speech. In a
voice trembling with emotion he started trying to prove that a man who
had rallied hundreds of people under the same banner in the name of
justice, solidarity and mutual brotherly assistance could not be called
completely vain and useless. Weitling consoled himself for the evening's
attacks by remembering the hundreds of letters and declarations of grati-
tude that he had received from all parts of his native land and by the
thought that his modest spadework was perhaps of greater weight for
the common cause than criticism and armchair analysis of doctrines far
from the world of the suffering and afflicted people.
On hearing these last words Marx finally lost control of himself and
thumped so hard with his fist on the table that the lamp on it rung
and shook. He jumped up saying: 'Ignorance never yet helped anybody!'
We followed his example and left the table. The sitting ended, and as
Marx paced up and down the room, extraordinarily irritated and angry,
I hurriedly took leave of him and his interlocutors and went home,
amazed at all I had seen and heard.^64The day after this discussion Weitling wrote to Hess that Marx had
insisted on vetting party members; that for Marx the question of financial
resources was all important (Weitling had the impression that Marx
wished to exclude him from the Westphalian publishing project);^65 there
was to be no propaganda based on emotional appeals; and lastly 'there can
be no talk at present of achieving communism; the bourgeoisie must first
come to the helm'. Weitling continued: 'I see in Marx's head only a good
encylopaedia, but no genius. He owes his influence to other people. Rich
men back him in journalism, that's all.'^66
This was not the end of all contact between Weitling and Marx; for
the next few weeks Weitling continued to accept a midday meal from
Marx.^67 But Marx went on with his campaign by issuing a circular against
I lermann Kriege, a young Westphalian journalist who had been a member
of the Brussels group before going to London and finally emigrating to
America where he published a weekly entitled VoIkstribun.6S Kriege's views
were much more representative of 'true socialism' than Weitling's and