Wilhelm Weitling

Wilhelm Christian Far Ling ( born October 5, 1808 in Magdeburg, † January 25, 1871 in New York City ) was a German theorist of communism. He was a socialist with early Christian beliefs and is considered the first German theorist of communism. He initiated the League of the Just, which is considered the precursor and the nucleus of the later socialist and communist parties of Europe and the world.

Life

Wilhelm Weitling was the illegitimate child of the maid Christiane wide Ling and later went missing in Russia French occupation officer Guillaume Terijon. He grew up in poverty and died in poverty.

Far Ling was a professional tailor's apprentice and completed in 1836 in the French emigration in Paris the League of outlaws on. This covenant was an association mainly German journeymen who had been persecuted for their democratic revolutionary sentiments of the small German states and in France lived in exile. Ideologically, they stood in the tradition of early French communists Gracchus Babeuf and his revolutionary theories, as they had been handed down through the writings of the Italian Filippo Buonarroti. Through contacts with roving journeymen, the federal government spread his views in Germany.

Under the leadership Weitlings 1836 split from a large group from the Association of outlaws and became the independent League of the Just. Content expressed this a turn to social agitation away from the tactics of conspiracy. The League of the Just moved in 1839 its headquarters from Paris to London after an attempted revolt against the French July Monarchy under King Louis Philippe citizens had failed. In London, the organization became increasingly influenced by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. In 1847 the League of the Just was renamed the League of Communists.

Weitling propagated a theory of communist class struggle and turned away from the ideas of the French Utopians, humanitarian early socialists Saint- Simon and Charles Fourier, who represented the co-operative movement in France, from. Far Ling looked in the interests of the workers and those of the middle class a irreconcilable contradiction. He demanded not only a political but also a social revolution in which it should come to a revolution of the dominant income ratios, wide Ling the essential requirement of the liberation of the working class. He campaigned for the political education of the workers in order to create the conditions for an independent struggle of the workers for their own interests in the proletariat.

In 1846 got wide Ling Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels know. Far Ling and Marx came with their leadership claims against each other and had different views on a revolution. There was then a break with Marx, and Weitlings followers were expelled from the League of Communists. Weitling then traveled to New York and returned only during the course of the revolution in 1848 returned to Germany, where he " but only a minor role " played and therefore already returned late in 1849 in the United States. Here he moved 1850-1855 the magazine republic of workers and founded the German Workers' Federation New York / German Workingsmen 's League ". In 1851, Wilhelm wide Ling went to the colony Communia in Clayton County Iowa, which had been founded in 1847 by Heinrich Koch. He invested the funds from his " German Workers' Federation New York / German Workingmen 's League " and had himself elected as stewards of Communia. Communia consisted of a core of former members of the former in 1845 failed utopian colony of New Helvetia by Andreas Dietsch in Osage County, Missouri. The end of 1851, the now socialist under Wilhelm Weitling colony Communia the German Workers' Union joins in Iowa - and three years later pulls him into financial ruin. Far Ling failed as an administrator and from 1854 Communia dissolved in hatred and discord on. With court decision Communia but was liquidated in 1864.

Far Ling, who married the German Karoline Toedt in 1854 in the United States, 1855 withdrew and henceforth worked in New York back in his dress designing.

At wide- Ling- research - not least through the polemics of Marx - his " historical Rank unclear and controversial ." " The wide- Ling- image is affected by the problem: Is Weitling a forerunner of Marxism which John the Baptist, so to speak, or it represents a not to wake Come brand of pre-March communism? " Shepherd argues that wide- Ling "the first German workers theorists and agitator of some effect - had been " - until the sixties of the 19th century into it.

Works

  • Mankind. How is and how it should be. 1838/39 text online
  • Guarantees of Harmony and Freedom. 1842 text online 2nd edition. 1845 digitized
  • Prison poems. Hoffmann und Campe, Hamburg 1844 digitized
  • The Gospel of a poor sinner and The Gospel of poor sinners. 1845 4th edition. 1854 digitized
  • A Nothruf to the men of work and worry, letter to the countrymen. 1847
  • The moving primordial matter in its Kosmo -electro - magnetic effects a image of the universe. The Academies of Sciences presented sincerely for review. New York 1856
  • Justice. A study in 500 days; Images of reality and considerations of the prisoner. First edition of Ernst Barnikol. Muehlau, Kiel 1929 (Christianity and socialism 2)
  • Theory of the world system. Muehlau, Kiel 1931 ( Christianity and socialism 4)
  • Classification of the universe. An early socialist ideology; and its annex: Weitlings " Address Book " and hamburgers Assembly speeches Muehlau 1848-49, Kiel 1931 ( Christianity and socialism 3)
  • The primary matter moving. In his cosmo- electro- magnetic effects Edited by Ernst Barnikol. Muehlau, Kiel 1931 ( Christianity and Socialism 5)
  • Broad general thinking and language teaching. Edited and introduced by Lothar Knatz. Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1991, ISBN 3-8204-8421-3.

Quote

Preliminary Weitlings to Humanity. As it is and as it should be from 1838 / 39th

Literature chronologically

  • The Communists in Switzerland according to the encountered in wide- Ling papers. Literal imprint of the Commission to the H. Alber Ichtes government of the state of Zurich. The rapporteur, Dr. Bluntschli. Orell, Füßli & Co., Zurich 1843 digitized
  • Silvius Landsberg: In blissful Schneider's wide- Ling doctrine of socialism and communism. German Publishing Company, New York 1879
  • Emil Kaler: Wilhelm Weitling. His agitation and teaching presented in historical context. People's bookstore, Hottingen - Zurich 1887 ( Social Democratic library. XI)
  • Eduard Fuchs ( Foreword ): In: Prospectus of the collection of social scientific essays. Edited by Eduard Fuchs. 4th and 5th book: The Gospel of a poor sinner. From Wilhelm Weitling. Second reprint, Munich 1897
  • Ernst Barnikol: Weitling the prisoner and his "justice." Muehlau, Kiel 1929
  • Carl Wittke: The Utopian Communist. A Biography of Wilhelm Weitling. Nineteen Century reformer. Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge. 1950
  • Werner Blumenberg: Wilhelm Weitling. In: fighter for freedom. JHW Dietz Nachf., Berlin / Hannover 1959, pp. 18-21.
  • Waltraud Seidel Hoeppner: Wilhelm Weitling, the first German theorist and agitator of communism. Dietz Verlag, Berlin, 1961 ( Inst Swiss society. While ZK d SED, Diss v. March 23, 1961 ).
  • Ahlrich Meyer: Early socialism. Theories of social movement from 1789 to 1848. Verlag Karl Alber, Freiburg / Munich 1977, ISBN 3-495-47376-9, pp. 157-222.
  • Ellen Drünert: The religious- ethical motivation of communism in Wilhelm Weitling. Attempt an analysis. Bonn 1979. Dissertation Swiss education. PHR, Bonn.
  • H. Roger Grant: Utopias that failed. The antebellum years. In: Western Illinois Regional Studies, Spring 1979, pp. 38-51.
  • Wolfram von Moritz Wilhelm Weitling. Religious issues and literary form. Bern, among others in 1981. (Dissertation Germ. / Theol. Wuppertal University ) ISBN 3-8204-7067-0.
  • Wolf Schäfer: The unfamiliar modernity. Historical outlines of other natural and social history. Frankfurt am Main 1985, ISBN 3-596-27356-0.
  • Jürg Haefelin: Wilhelm Weitling. Biography and theory. The Zurich Communists process of 1843 Lang, Bern, among other things, 1986, ISBN 3-261-03583-8. ; at the same time: Zurich University, Dissertation 1985
  • Jacob Rokitjanski / Waltraud Seidel Hoeppner: Wilhelm Weitlings autobiographical records 1858 - 1870 (first published ). In: Yearbook of History. Volume 38, Berlin 1989
  • Waltraud Seidel Hoeppner: Wilhelm Weitling. Life and political activity. In: Rosa - Luxembourg -Verein eV Releases 12, Leipzig 1993
  • Martin Huettner: Wilhelm wide Ling as an early socialist. Essay. Hague and Herchenhain, Frankfurt am Main 1985; 2nd edition. 1994, ISBN 3-86137-127-8.
  • Ahlrich Meyer: Weitlings social revolutionary concepts. In: . Writings, The logic of revolt. Studies on the social history 1789-1848, Publisher Black Tears - Red Road, Berlin 1999, ISBN 3-924737-42-8, pp. 257-271.
  • Helmut Asmus: in: Magdeburg Biographical Dictionary. Magdeburg 2002, ISBN 3-933046-49-1.
  • Selcuk Cara Wilhelm Weitling - Caught between God and communism. Tragi-comedy in four acts, Dreimasken Verlag, Munich 2008
  • Daniel Nagel: From Republican to German German - American Republicans. A contribution to the identity transformation in the German Forty in the United States from 1850 to 1861. Roehrig University Press, St. Ingbert 2012, ISBN 978-3-86110-504-6.
  • Waltraud Seidel Hoeppner: The liberal self-deception [ to 200.Geburtstag Wilhelm Weitlings ] In: The time. October 9, 2008, p 110
  • Karl Josef Rivinius: Wide Ling, William. In: Biographic- bibliographic church encyclopedia ( BBKL ). Volume 13, Bautz, Herzberg 1998, ISBN 3-88309-072-7, 699-705 Sp. (Articles / Articles beginning possibly in the Internet Archive )
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