Brussels Communist Correspondence Committee

a committee formed by K. Marx and F. Engels in Brussels in early 1846 with the aim of ideologically and organizationally consolidating the socialists of different countries and preparing the formation of a proletarian party. The committee included W. Wolff, P. Gigot, and others. Led by Marx, the committee established contact with socialist groups and individual participants in the workers’ movement in Germany, France, Great Britain, and Belgium, thus promoting the formation of such committees in different localities. It maintained contact with the leadership of the League of the Just and with the leaders of Chartism. It played an important role in the struggle against sectarian tendencies in the workers’ movement. At the committee session of Mar. 30, 1846, Marx and Engels sharply criticized W. Weitling’s leveling communism. In a special circular, the committee revealed the petit-bourgeois nature of the activity of the “true socialist” H. Kriege in the USA. Engels, who went to France in 1846 upon the committee’s assignment, led the struggle against P. J. Proudhon’s reformist influence, “true socialism,” and Weitlingism among Paris workers. The committee’s activities contributed to the conversion of the progressive workers to scientific communism and played an important role in preparing the formation of the Communist League in 1847.