9I4 0 KARL MARX: A BIOGRAPHYpsychological deterioration caused by his imprisonment: all these factors
ended by alienating the majority of the London German communists who
felt his approach to be impractical and unrealistic.^62 On his way back to
the Continent in early 1846 Weitling stopped in Brussels and the newly
founded Correspondence Committee invited him to a discussion in Marx's
house. Among those present were Engels, Gigot, Edgar von Westphalen,
Weydemeyer, Seiler, a journalist Heilberg, and a visitor by special invi-
tation, Paul Annenkov, a well-to-do Russian tourist whom Marx had
known in Paris.^6 ' Weitling struck him as 'a handsome fair-haired young
man in a coat of elegant cut, a coquettishly trimmed small beard -
someone more like a commercial traveller than the stern, embittered
worker that I had expected to meet'. Annenkov continued:
We introduced ourselves to each other casually - with a touch of
elaborate courtesy on Weitling's side, however - and took our places at
the small green table. Marx sat at one end of it with a pencil in his
hand and his leonine head bent over a sheet of paper, while Engels,
his inseparable fellow-worker and comrade in propaganda, tall and erect
and as dignified and serious as an Englishman, made the opening
speech. He spoke of the necessity for people, who have devoted them-
selves to transforming labour, to explain their views to one another and
agree on a single common doctrine that could be a banner for all their
followers who lack the time and opportunity to study theory. Engels
had not finished his speech when Marx raised his head, turned to
Weitling and said: 'Tell us, Weitling, you who have made such a noise
in Germany with your preaching: on what grounds do you justify your
activity and what do you intend to base it on in the future?'
I remember quite well the form of the blunt question, because it
was the beginning of a heated discussion, which, as we shall see, was
very brief. Weitling apparently wanted to keep the conference within
the bounds of common-place liberal talk. With a serious, somewhat
worried face he started to explain that his aim was not to create new
economic theories but to adopt those that were most appropriate, as
experience in France had shown, to open the eyes of the workers to
the horrors of their condition and all the injustices which it had
become the motto of the rulers and societies to inflict on them, and to
teach them never more to believe any promises of the latter, but to rely
only upon themselves, and to organize in democratic and communist
associations. He spoke for a long time, but - to my astonishment and
in contrast to Engels - confusedly and not too well from the literary
point of view, often repeating and correcting himself and arriving with
difficulty at his conclusions, which either came too late or preceded his
propositions. He now had quite different listeners from those who
generally surrounded him at his work or read his newspaper and pam-
phlets on the contemporary economic system: he therefore lost his ease