From the Deutsche-Brusseler-Zeitung's Report on the Meeting of the Democratic Association of February 20, 1848

Author(s)	Friedrich Engels Karl Marx
Written	24 February 1848

First published in the Deutsche-Brüsseler- Zeitung No. 16, February 24, 1848
Printed according to the newspaper
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 6

Collection(s): Deutsche-Brüsseler-Zeitung

Brussels. Meeting of the Democratic Association of February 20. President: Herr Marx.—Frederick Engels first took the floor to reply to an article concerning his expulsion from France, published by the French Government in the Moniteur Parisien. He related briefly the circumstances in which his expulsion took place.^[1]

The association was completely satisfied with the explanations of Frederick Engels. Several speakers expressed this satisfaction and further added remarks concerning the behaviour of the French Government already on the occasion of earlier expulsions of foreigners.

These proceedings were entered in the official report of the Democratic Association....

↑ In mid-December 1847 Engels arrived in Brussels from London, where he had spent some time after the Second Congress of the Communist League, and at the end of December he returned to Paris with the authority of the Brussels Democratic Association to represent it in the capital of France. The French authorities were alarmed by Engels' resumption of revolutionary propaganda among the Paris workers and craftsmen. At the end of January 1848 the Paris police proceeded against Engels under the pretext that his speech at the New Year's Eve banquet of the German revolutionary emigrants on December 31, 1847 contained political allusions hostile to the French government. On January 29, 1848 Engels was ordered to leave France within 24 hours under the threat of extradition to Prussia. Simultaneously with Engels' expulsion and the police breaking into his flat at night, arrests were made among the German emigrant workers. Despite the slander circulated by the governmental press (accusations of defiant behaviour, and of fighting duels), information about the real reasons behind Engels' expulsion filtered into the appositional newspapers.

[1] In mid-December 1847 Engels arrived in Brussels from London, where he had spent some time after the Second Congress of the Communist League, and at the end of December he returned to Paris with the authority of the Brussels Democratic Association to represent it in the capital of France. The French authorities were alarmed by Engels' resumption of revolutionary propaganda among the Paris workers and craftsmen. At the end of January 1848 the Paris police proceeded against Engels under the pretext that his speech at the New Year's Eve banquet of the German revolutionary emigrants on December 31, 1847 contained political allusions hostile to the French government. On January 29, 1848 Engels was ordered to leave France within 24 hours under the threat of extradition to Prussia. Simultaneously with Engels' expulsion and the police breaking into his flat at night, arrests were made among the German emigrant workers. Despite the slander circulated by the governmental press (accusations of defiant behaviour, and of fighting duels), information about the real reasons behind Engels' expulsion filtered into the appositional newspapers.

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