Page:Karl Marx The Man and His Work.pdf/44

42 smoldering fires of revolt also burst into bright flames, eating and devouring the worm-eaten and brittle social and political remnants of past ages. Everywhere the representatives of modern society vigorously fought for political recognition and rights, and everywhere, even in arch-reactionary Prussia, the so-called god-ordained ruling powers were compelled to capitulate before the united onslaughts of the workers and the bourgeoisie.

The powers in Belgium, which had not been affected by the revolutionary wave, sought to insure their tranquillity by inaugurating a most brutal and unwarranted persecution against Marx and his followers. Under the charge of being alien agitators and inflamers to riot, they were subjected to the most infamous indignities by the governmental officials and finally expelled. Marx and comrades were virtually hounded over the boundary line; the former, in the haste of the moment, being compelled to leave his young wife behind, at the tender mercies of the upholders of law and order. These chivalrous authorities, delighted with the opportunity, gratified their lust for "revenge" by craftily and brutally torturing helpless and penniless Jenny Marx.

Marx retraced his steps to Paris, having been honored by the victorious revolutionary government there with an invitation to return to do practical work. After the outbreak of the revolution, the central committee or executive offices of the Communist League had been transferred from London to Brussels. However, through the autocratic expulsion by the police, these connections were broken up and Marx was momentarily entrusted with the management of the League's affairs, being also charged with the authority to organize a new executive body in Paris. However, Marx's stay in Paris was not to be of a long duration.

As stated before, in Prussia the revolutionary wave had swept away the god-ordained, feudal despotism of the Hohenzollerns. Humiliated and trembling, the king of Prussia accepted the generous but foolish gift of his crown out of the blood-stained hands of the barricade-fighters, thereby accepting