ss movement of the period. Communism
in France and Germany and Chartism in England appeared to be something
more than mere chance which could just as well not have existed. These
movements became now a movement of the oppressed class of modern times,
the working class. Henceforth they were more or less developed forms of
the historically necessary struggle which this class must carry on
against the ruling class, the bourgeoisie. They were forms of the
struggle of the classes, but which were distinguished from all preceding
struggles by this fact: the class now oppressed, the proletariat, cannot
effect its emancipation without delivering all society from its division
into classes, without freeing it from class struggles. _No longer did
Communism consist in the creation of a social ideal as perfect as
possible; it resolved itself into a clear view of the nature, the
conditions, and the general ends of the struggle carried on by the
working class._"[5]

It was not the intention of Marx and Engels to communicate their new
scientific results to the intellectual world exclusively by means of
large volumes. On the contrary, they plunged into the political
movement. Besides having intercourse with well-known people,
particularly in the western part of Germany, they were also in contact
with the organized working classes. "Our duty was to found our
conception scientifically, but it was just as important that we should
win over the European, and especially the German, working classes to our
convictions. When it was all clear in our eyes, we set to work."[6] A
new German working-class society was founded in Brussels, and the
support was enlisted of the _Deutsche Bruesseler Zeitung_, which served
as an organ until the revolution of February. They were in touch with
the revolutionary faction of the English Chartists under the leadership
of George Julian Harney, editor of _The Northern Star_, to which Engels
contributed. They also had intercourse with the democrats of Brussels
and with the French social democrats of _la Reforme_, to which Engels
contributed news of the English and German movements. In short, the
relations that Marx and Engels had established with the radical and
working-class organizations fully served the great purposes they had in
mind.

It was in the Communist League that Marx and Engels saw their first
opportunity to impress their ideas on the labor movement. At the urgent
request of Joseph Moll, a watchmaker a