Decisions of the General Meeting of the Cologne Workers' Association Held on April 16, 1849

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Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Karl Marx
Written 22 April 1849


First published in the newspaper Freiheit, BrĂŒderlichkeit, Arbeit No. 22, April 22, 1849
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 9
Collection(s): Freiheit‚ BrĂŒderlichkeit‚ Arbeit
Keywords : Germany, Labour movement, Minutes

These decisions by the general meeting of the Cologne Workers’ Association were connected with the policy of strengthening the class independence of the workers’ organisations and with practical steps to form a mass political party in Germany. Marx, Engels and their associates in the Communist League and the Neue Rheinische Zeitung adopted this policy in view of the changes that had taken place in the country’s political situation by the spring of 1849 (see Note 225). Marx and Engels attached great importance to the Cologne Workers’ Association in their plans for founding the party. By that time, the Association had become the bulwark of their ideological influence on the workers’ movement and one of the initiators of the union of workers’ associations in the Rhine Province and throughout Germany.

The Cologne Workers’ Association — a workers’ organisiation founded on April 13, 1848 by Andreas Gottschalk. By the beginning of May it had up to 5,000 members, most of whom were workers and artisans. The Association was headed by a President and a committee, which included representatives of various trades, and had several branches.

Most of the leading figures in the Workers’ Association (Gottschalk, Anneke, Schapper, Moll, Lessner, Jansen, Rïżœser, Nothjung, Bedorf) were members of the Communist League. After Gottschalk’s arrest on July 6, Moll was elected President of the Association, and on October 16, on request of the Association’s members, the presidency was temporarily assumed by Marx. From February to May 1849 the post was held by Schapper.

In the initial period of its existence, the Workers’ Association was influenced by Gottschalk who ignored the tasks of the proletariat in the democratic revolution, pursued a policy of boycotting elections to representative institutions and came out against a union with democracy. Gottschalk combined ultra-Left phrases with quite moderate methods of struggle (e.g. petitions) and support for the demands advanced by workers affected by craft prejudices. From the very outset, Gottschalk’s sectarian position was opposed by the supporters of Marx and Engels. Under their impact, a change took place at the end of June 1848 in the activities of the Workers’ Association, which became a centre of revolutionary agitation among the workers, and from the autumn of 1848 among the peasants as well. Propaganda of scientific communism and study of Marx’s works were carried on within the Association. It maintained contacts with other workers’ and democratic organisations.

With the aim of strengthening the Association, Marx, Schapper and its other leaders reorganised it in January and February 1849. On February 25, new Rules were adopted declaring a higher class consciousness on the part of the workers to be the main task of the Association.

The mounting counter-revolution and intensified police persecution frustrated the Association’s activities aimed at unity and organisation of the working masses. After the Neue Rheinische Zeitung was suppressed and Marx, Schapper and other leaders left Cologne, the Association gradually turned into an ordinary workers’ educational society.

The meeting unanimously resolves:

1. To withdraw from the Union of Democratic Associations of Germany and to join instead the Union of German Workers’ Associations, the Central Committee of which is in Leipzig.[1]

2. With the aim of a closer union of the purely social party, to authorise the Committee of the Workers’ Association to convene in Cologne a provincial congress of all Workers’ Associations of the Rhineland and Westphalia, prior to the holding of the general Workers’ Congress in Leipzig.[2]

3. To send delegates to the Congress of Workers’ Associations of Germany which will take place shortly in Leipzig.

  1. ↑ The reference is to the Central Committee of German Workers that was elected at the Workers’ Congress held in Berlin from August 23 to September 3, 1848. At this congress the Workers’ Fraternity, a union of many workers’ associations, was founded. The programme of the congress was drawn up under the influence of Stephan Born and set the workers the task of implementing narrow craft-union demands, thereby diverting them from the revolutionary struggle. The Central Committee, which included Stephan Born, Schwenniger and Kick, had its headquarters in Leipzig. At the end of 1848, under the impact of the revolutionary events and experience drawn from them, the leaders of the Workers’ Fraternity began to display certain revolutionary tendencies. They recognised the need to arm the workers and for them to take an active part in the political struggle. There was a great desire to set up an all-German workers’ organisation. In the spring of 1849, the Workers’ Fraternity and a number of regional congresses of workers’ associations proposed that a national workers’ congress be convened in Leipzig to found a general workers’ union. These plans, however, were frustrated by the developing counter-revolution.
  2. ↑ See this volume, p. 495.— Ed.
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