The Utopian Communist: A Biography of Wilhelm Weitling

58 THE UTOPIAN COMMUNIST
to serve in the Congress of the Familienbund, and the latter, in
turn, created a Senate and a governing triumvirate as the highest
legislative and administrative body of the realm.
For this organization of families Weitling prescribed some of his
most interesting proposals. The families were to be housed in com­
mon buildings erected in the shape of a pentagon, with the build­
ings of the Familienverein located at the center of population.
Here were provided all the necessary facilities for storehouses,
offices, schools, postal and telegraph offices, theaters, an observa­
tory, a great hall with a speaker's rostrum, and quarters for tran­
sients. The interiors of these pentagonal structures were to be
designed with careful attention to considerations of beauty, econ­
omy, and convenience. Glass roofs would keep out the dirt,
windows could be moved for ventilation, and all rooms could be
kept at an even temperature. No building and no organizational
unit would be removed farther from the center of things than
five hours' walking distance, and a railroad was to be constructed
to connect the various Familienvereine so that all citizens could
reach a common meeting place in a half-hour's time.
Parallel to this organization of families, the author of the
Garantieen proposed an occupational organization, known as the
Geschäftsordnung, which was intended to control and direct the
economic activities of the society. It consisted of organizations
for farmers, workers, and teachers; and an "industrial army."
These groups chose representatives, by a complicated election
procedure, to represent their interests in the various administra­
tive bodies. In agriculture, for example, every ten farmers elected
a Zugführer; these in turn chose a business manager for every
hundred farmers, and at the top of the governing body for agri­
culture was an elected council (Landwirtschaftsrat) which chose
"presidents" to supervise each phase of agriculture, and to repre­
sent the farmers in the ministry of the all-inclusive Familienbund.
Weitling forecast the time when farmers would no longer trudge
to the fields on foot, but would ride in comfortable wagons; and
while they were working in the fields, tents would protect them