300 The reference is to the rescripts of Frederick William IV convening a United Diet in Prussia (see Note 51).

301 The report on the meeting in Brussels to mark the second anniversary of the Cracow uprising (see Note 55) was published in the Deutsche-Brüsseler-Zeitung on February 24, 1848 (see this volume, p. 644). After the meeting a pamphlet in French was issued, containing the reports of the main speakers. The letters of C. G. Vogler, a German publisher in Brussels, member of the communist League. to Marx, who on March 5, 1848 moved to Paris after his expulsion from Belgium, show that Marx and Engels took a direct part in the publication of this pamphlet. It came out about March 15, 1848 under the title: “Célébration, à Bruxelles, du deuxième anniversaire de la Révolution Polonaise du 22 février 1846. — Discours. prononcés par MM. A. J. Senault, Karl Marx, Lelewel, F. Engels et Louis Lubliner, Avocat, Bruxelles, C. G. Vogler, Libraire-Editeur, 1848.” The pamphlet was prefaced with the following short introductory note (possibly written by Marx or Engels):

“Together with the Polish democrats, the Brussels Democratic Association consisting of representatives of various nations celebrated at a public meeting the second anniversary of the Polish revolution of 1846. The hall was crowded out, and the public most enthusiastically expressed its sympathy for the event.

“Unfortunately, we were unable to reproduce the ardent speeches in Flemish made by two workers, MM. Kats and Pellering. M. Wallau, President of the German Workers’ Society in Brussels, himself a working man, spoke in German. His extemporaneous and highly enthusiastic speech testified that the German workers fully share the sentiments of their brothers in France and in England.

“The speeches are given here in the order they were made. They are preceded by the Manifesto of the Provisional Government formed in Cracow on February 22, 1846.”

Extracts from Marx’s speech were first published in English in the journal Labour Monthly, February 1948, and in the collection, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Ireland and the Irish Question Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1971.

302 The reference is to the constitution of May 3, 1791 adopted by the Four Years’ Diet (1788-92). “The Party of Patriots” which constituted a majority in the Diet strove, through a new constitution and reforms, to undermine the rule of feudal anarchy and the domination of the magnates, to strengthen the Polish state (demands to establish a hereditary constitutional monarchy, to abolish the right of every deputy of the nobility to veto the decisions of the Diet) and also to adapt the feudal system to the needs of bourgeois development (the demand to extend the rights of the urban population, and recognise a moderate form of certain bourgeois freedoms). The constitution preserved serfdom, but gave the peasants a certain opportunity to establish state-guaranteed contractual relations with the landowners. The constitution was opposed by the big land magnates, on whose call Prussia and Russia occupied Poland in 1793 and partitioned it for the second time (it was first partitioned by Prussia, Russia and Austria in 1772). After the suppression of the Polish insurrection of 1794 (the insurgents aimed at restoring the 1791 constitution), the Polish state ceased to exist in .1795 as a result of the third partition of Poland by Austria, Prussia and tsarist Russia.

303 The Congress of Vienna (September 1814-June 1815) composed of European monarchs and their ministers established, after the war of the European powers against Napoleonic France, a system of general treaties embracing the whole of Europe (with the exception of Turkey). The Congress decisions helped to restore feudal order and a number of former dynasties in the states previously conquered by Napoleon, sanctioned the political fragmentation of Germany and Italy, the incorporation of Belgium into Holland and the partition of Poland and outlined repressive measures to be taken against the revolutionary movement.

304 See Note 172.

305 See Note 72.

306 On the Reform Bill of 1832 in England — see Note 33; on the abolition of the Corn Laws — see Note 28.

307 An allusion to the results of the liberation war of 1813-15 against Napoleon’s rule. The victory was taken advantage of by the aristocracy and nobility of the German states to help preserve the political fragmentation of Germany (see Note 26).

308 The reference is to the Irish Confederation founded in January 1847 by the radical and democratic elements in the Irish national movement who had broken away from the Repeal Association (see Note 240). The majority of them belonged to the Young Ireland group which was formed in 1842 by the Irish bourgeois and petty-bourgeois intellectuals. The Left, revolutionary wing of the Irish Confederation advocated a people’s uprising against English rule and tried to combine the struggle for Irish independence with the campaign for democratic reforms. The Irish Confederation ceased to exist in the summer of 1848 after the English authorities crushed the uprising in Ireland.

309 See note 32.

310 , rite Congress of Vienna in 1814-15 liquidated the so-called duchy of Warsaw which depended on Napoleonic France. It was formed by Napoleon in 1807, after the defeat of Prussia, on the Polish territory seized by Prussia as a result of the three partitions of Poland. The Congress repartitioned the duchy between Prussia, Austria and Russia with the exception of the free city of Cracow, which was under the joint protection of the three powers up to 1846. The part incorporated into Russia was called the Kingdom of Poland with Warsaw as its capital.

311 Engels refers to the editorial in La Riforma No. 14, February 11, 1848 in reply to the article “Von der italienischen Gränze” published Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire  in the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung No. 3 1, January 31, 1848.

312 Treaties of 1815 — see Note 303; on the liberation wars against Napoleonic France and Engels’ opinion of them in the forties and subsequent years — see Note 22.

313 The reference is to the plan of deployment and operation of government troops in case of a revolt in Paris. It was adopted in 1840.

314 When the Guizot government fell on February 23, 1848, the supporters of the House of Orleans attempted to form a ministry consisting of moderate monarchists (the Orleanists) Thiers, Billault, and others and headed by Count Molé. The victorious people’s insurrection in Paris, however, thwarted the plan to retain the Orleans monarchy.

315 The posts in the French Provisional Government formed on February 24, 1848, were held mainly by moderate republicans (Lamartine, Depont de l'Eure, Crémieux, Arago, Marie, and the two men mentioned by Engels from the National, Marrast and Garnier-Pagès). Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire  There were three representatives of the Réforme in the government — Ledru-Rollin, Flocon and Louis Blanc, and a mechanic Albert (real name Martin).

316 The editor George Julian Harney added the following introductory note when publishing this letter in The Northern Star, March 25, 1848: ... The following letter was received at the time the editor was in Paris; hence its non-appearance until now. Thank God, the days of the contemptible, ‘constitutional’ tyranny of Belgium are numbered. Leopold is packing his carpet bag.”

317 The Brussels Association Démocratique and the Alliance — see notes 194 and 291.

318 See Note 208.