A LONDON INTERLUDE 103readiness to accept the aid of all classes whenever the time should
arrive for a temporary dictatorship to usher in the new society.
Another cause of friction between the Schapper-Bauer faction
and Weitling was the latter's interest in emigration societies and
model colonies. Schapper denounced such impractical and roman
tic proposals with the caustic reminder that his opponent had once
proposed community of wives and the use of the "thieving pro
letariat" to bring about revolution. Again, only Kriege came to
Weitling's defense. From major differences of this kind the dis
pute degenerated into discussions of minor matters. One was the
question whether books or papers were the better form of propa
ganda. Weitling preferred books, and Bauer promptly reminded
him that "Lycurgus and the first Christians had no books." Bauer
opposed the creation of additional "systems" and preferred to stick
strictly to oral propaganda. From such trivialities the debaters
moved again to more profound issues, such as the question of in
dividual liberty in a communist society and an analysis of Owen's
"system," which Weitling declared the "best of all" and which
Schapper rejected along with Cabet's Icarie and the Garantieen,
on the ground that they established a "barracks state" utterly con
trary to the nature of man.
Not much historical imagination is needed to sense the fire and
heat with which these radicals and former members of the same
persecuted league in Paris now debated their differences in the
smoke-filled rooms of their London clubhouse. As was the custom
in workers' clubs, a vote was taken at the end of each discussion
and Weitling consistently lost by a heavy majority. He never re
acted calmly to opposition, and now he became embittered and
suspected intrigue and treachery. At one period he stayed away
from the meetings of the society for nearly two months, though
this may have been the time when he was serving incognito as an
assistant editor of a paper in Trier, the Trierische Zeitung.^10
When he returned to resume the discussions he found that Schap-
(^10) See Marx-Engels Archiv, II (1927), 594. There is much confusion about
this stay in Trier which it has been impossible to unravel.