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"I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."
Jeremiah 29:11
"There's a tendency to forget in this modern age that for much of human history, the church was a tool of the capitalist state and not of the people. Many in the conservative dominated church were openly venomous in their attacks on communists. Any short sort of combination of the religious and political ideologies seemed absurd."
From An Uneasy Salvation : An Objective History of Popular Christianity by Herbert West.
"The vast social disharmony all over Europe was a time of great hope for many communists but eventually great tragedy as one by one, uprisings were either brought to a peaceful conclusion or brutally crushed by the ruling classes. It was at this time however, that the international communist movement would begin to take shape in the League of the Just. Following on from the failed League of Outlaws, the league was created by German workers in Parisdevoted to the utopian socialist and Christian communist teachings of French writer Gracchus Babeuf. The encompassed many of the most influential communist philosophers at the time including Weitling, Bauer, Engels and Marx.
However Communism itself was going through a great period of soul searching. The Industrial Revolution had brought great change. New industries developed rapidly as a result of a number of new inventions and the way in which things were produced, and the way in which people lived and worked, changed rapidly as a result of these developments. This vast social change and the new breed of socialists who followed the writings of Marx and Engels seemed to indicate the death of the Leagues traditional ideology."
From The Biography of Wilhelm Weitling
"The first congress of the League of the Just opened in London on June 2, 1847. Engels was in attendence as delegate for the League's Paris communities, however Marx could not attend due to financial reasons.The anti-utopian and Atheist views of Engels was met with hostility from other prominent members, with Weitling being the most vocal. The suggestion of changing the League's motto from "All Men are Brothers" to "Working Men of All Countries, Unite!" led to Engels being banned from the League all together for a short while.
What followed was a now famous intellectual war between the Utopians and Marxists, were the grudging respect for each other was overshadowed by their scathing attacks on each others beliefs, despite how similar. For a man like my grandfather, who considered himself a staunch utopian yet was antagonistic to Christianity, it was a very strange time indeed."
From A Man not of his time: The life story of Robert Owen by Dale Owen
"The ideological battle of communism now famously came to a head outside a run down public house in a back alley in Bruxelles where a meeting of the League quickly degraded into tragedy. The entire point of the meeting had been to try and ease the tensions between the different theorists by organising a merger of the League of the Just and of the fifteen-man Communist Correspondence Committee of Bruxelles. However the meeting quickly broke down into the old ideological arguments and devolved into an open shouting match. Marx a famous drunkard and completely enraged at what he saw as Bauer's treachery after his declaration of atheism being "absurd", challenged the man to a duel. At first there were shouts and laughter at the notion but no-one actually took Marx seriously. Until, to Bauers horror, pistols were produced.
Bauer, although not known for pacifism, was terrified at the idea of a life or death struggle with Marx. However, the taunts from Marx's colleagues apparently led to him also losing his temper and agreeing to Marx's proposal.
Thus at dawn the next day, stood fifteen paces away from each other, the victor of the intellectual civil war was determined. Although Marx was given the first shot, his damaged left eye from a previous duel led to him missing Bauer entirely, his impacted on the ground several centimetres right of Bauer. It is unclear what Bauer intentions were as he fired that fated shot. He said later on that he had only intended to wound and humiliate Marx but that he had missed. His more right wing critics attack him for his savagery saying that he had coldly intended to kill Marx right from the start. Either way, the bullet from Bauerss gun smashed right into Marxs right eye. Instantly he crahed down to the ground with a thump and soon the screaming started.
Karl Marx was dead."
From The Biography of Wilhelm Weitling
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I would like to dedicate this TL in loving memory of Lord Roem, you'll never be forgotten.