CRUCIBLE OF REVOLUTION 21
as long as twelve to fourteen hours a day, and half days on Sunday.
His earnings amounted to about 700 francs a year. Yet despite this
exacting schedule he had time and energy, not only to read and
master the growing literature of social revolt and to debate its
content in meetings with his fellow workers, but also to organize
a co-operative eating center for tailors where two plain but sub-
stantial meals were served each day for eleven sous; to translate
Lamennais' Le Livre du Peuple into German; to produce a dozen
songs for a worker's songbook (Volksklänge); and to prepare for
publication his first treatise on social reform.^14
The membership of the League of the Just was classified accord-
ing to the varying degrees of responsibility which individuals ex-
ercised and grouped under such fantastic names as "Brennpunkt"
(burning point), the very top of the hierarchy, "Kreislager" (pro-
vincial camp), "Lager" (bivouac or camp), and "Zelt" (tent).
The society in its procedure used such symbolic terminology as
"Bürgertugend" (virtue of the citizen), "Beständigkeit" (stead-
fastness), "Tatkraft" (energy), and "Volksherrschaft" (sover-
eignty of the people). It had its mystic signs and passwords, and
the initiated recited certain sentences for purposes of identifica-
tion. Each member, moreover, had a secret military name derived
from history or from some personal characteristic, Weitling being
known to the initiated as "Freymann."^15 Finally, the organiza-
tional structure also included Gemeinde, consisting of five to ten
members, the Gau which included a number of Gemeinde, and
at the apex of the pyramid, a Volkshalle and a commission of three,
elected annually and subject to recall. Much of the terminology
and plan of organization was similar to that of the earlier Society
of Exiles and to Armand Barbès and Louis Auguste Blanqui's
Société des Saisons which espoused the revolutionary principles
of Babeuf.^16 Needless to add, the secret police made every effort
(^14) Franz Mehring, Geschichte der Deutschen Sozialdemokratie (4th ed.; Stutt-
gart, 1909), 103.
(^15) See Theodor Zlocisti, Moses Hess, Der Vorkämpfer des Sozialismus und
Zionismus, 16 1812-1875 (Berlin, 1921), 112.
See also Charles Andler, Le Manifeste Comnmniste (Paris, n.d.), 20-32.