Notes by A. J. P. Taylor

1. This sentence omits to say that the Communist League was itself the creation, more or less imaginary, of Marx and Engels.

2. On 24 February 1848, the constitutional monarchy of Louis Philippe was overthrown, and a provisional government set up, which shortly afterwards proclaimed a republic.

3. In June 1848 the masses of Paris were provoked into insurrection by the closing of the National Workshops. The insurrection was crushed by Cavaignac who then became dictator.

4. The Paris Commune held power during April and May 1871. It was mainly a protest against peace with Germany and against the harsh conditions following the Franco-German war.

5. Alexander II was assassinated by social revolutionaries in 1881. Alexander III, his son, sought and found safety in the seclusion of Gatchina.

6. This congress inaugurated the Second International.

7. Metternich, chancellor of the Austrian empire, was overthrown by revolution on 13 March 1848. Guizot, French premier, was overthrown by the February revolution.

8. The French revolution of July 1830 overthrew the legitimist Charles X and raised up the bourgeois monarch Louis Philippe. The English reform act of 1832 gave the vote to substantial householders.

9. ‘Young England’ was a rather fancy literary movement, led by Disraeli and his aristocratic friends.

10. Sismondi (1773–1842) was a French writer on political economy whom Marx much admired.

11. Proudhon (1809–65) coined two immortal phrases: ‘Property is theft’ and ‘universal suffrage is counter- revolution’. He advocated co-operative societies instead of political revolution and put his faith in Napoleon III. His followers gave Marx trouble during the First International.

12. Babeuf (1760–97) attempted to lead a new proletarian rising towards the end of the great French revolution.

13. Saint-Simon (1760–1825) and Fourier (1772–1837) described socialist Utopias. Robert Owen (1771–1858) preached cooperation and ran a cotton mill on idealistic lines. His followers founded Utopian colonies in the United States. In old age, he became a spiritualist.