126 KARL MARX: A BIOGRAPHYmort, la lutte sanguinaire ou le neant. C'est ainsi que la question est
invinciblement pos£e.' George Sand.^97Marx's book contained the first published and systematic statement of the
materialist conception of history and he himself recommended it as an
introduction to Capital. It also demonstrated Marx's great talent as a
pamphleteer - though Proudhon's book was certainly an easy target.
However, in spite of its having been published in both Brussels and
Paris, the total edition of 800 copies made little impression on Marx's
contemporaries and he had to pay for the printing himself. Proudhon
called the book 'a tissue of abuse, falsification and plagiarism'^98 and its
author 'the tape-worm of socialism'.^99 He carefully annotated his own
copy of The Poverty of Philosophy and probably intended to reply but was
interrupted by family affairs and the 1848 revolution. Thus culminated
the highly acrimonious debate between the two men.
Proudhon was only one of several Paris socialists that the Brussels Corre-
spondence Committee sought to recruit. The others, however, were not
much more fruitful. There was a brief exchange of letters with Louis Blanc;
and Dr Ewerbeck, who espoused a sort of peaceful communist humanism
based on Cabet's ideas, served as a rallying point for what remained of the
League of the Just. Having persuaded the Marx family to spend a fortnight
with him at Ostend, Engels himself went to Paris in August 1846. In the
regular letters he sent back to the Brussels Correspondence Committee he
reported on the progress of his propaganda among the German workers
which he directed particularly against Griin and the disciples of Proudhon.
Among the main craft unions in Paris, the tailors were still subject to the
effect of Weitling's emotionally based communist propaganda (though he
himself had left the city). Engels therefore attempted to recruit the remnants
of the League of the Just (mostly members of joiners' unions) and instil into
them some definite form of communism. By October he could report
back to Brussels that his new recruits had now accepted a definition of
communism comprising: a maintenance of the interests of the proletariat
against those of the bourgeoisie; the abolition of private property; and, as a
means, a violent democratic revolution. This ideological victory, however,
was not of great moment for Engels continued in the same letter: 'The
public in front of whom we played this face was composed of about twenty
joiners. Apart from our meetings they organise discussions with all sorts of
people in the outer boulevards, and outside their working association, they
do not form any real group. .. .'I0° This letter showed Engels in a moment
of uncharacteristic realism. In general it is clear that Engels was over-
optimistic about the success of his propaganda. At the end of October the
police intervened to stop even what small-scale activity existed and Engels