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Wilhelm Christian Weitling (; October 5, 1808 – January 25, 1871) was a German tailor, inventor, radical political activist and one of the first theorists of communism. Weitling gained fame in Europe as a social theorist before he immigrated to the United States.
In addition to his extensive political writing, Weitling was a successful inventor of attachments for commercial sewing machines, including devices for double-stitching and the creation of button holes.
Weitling was raised in dire poverty, frequently in the care of others while his mother eked out a meager living as a maid and cook. His formal education was minimal, limited to elementary study in the public school of Magdeburg and such reading as he was able to do on his own at the local library.Wittke, The Utopian Communist, pg. 5. He was raised as a Roman Catholic through the age of 12, and read the Bible attentively, retaining an ability to quote scripture throughout his life. In keeping with the dual nationality of his birth, Weitling was bilingual in French language and German language, learning English language as well as the basics of Italian language later in his life.
Weitling was to a tailor at an early age, living with his master and learning the skill of tailoring garments for women and men thoroughly.Wittke, The Utopian Communist, pg. 6. He became a journeyman at the age of 18, leaving his hometown to travel across the German states in search of employment.Wittke, The Utopian Communist, pp. 7-8. He landed in the city of Leipzig in 1830, where he began to take an interest in politics and to try his hand at the writing of satirical poetry.Wittke, The Utopian Communist, pg. 8. He made his way to Dresden in the fall of 1832 and from there to Vienna in 1834, where he worked fabricating artificial flowers and decorations for women's clothing.Wittke, The Utopian Communist, pp. 8-9.
In the fall of 1837 Weitling immigrated to Paris, a city which he had briefly visited two years before.Wittke, The Utopian Communist, pg. 11. He would remain there for four years, becoming deeply involved in the radical political ideas of the day, in particular the writings of Charles Fourier, Robert Owen and Etienne Cabet.
In conformity with the work of the Christian radical Felicité de Lamennais, Weitling urged installing communism by physical force with the help of a 40,000-strong army of ex-convicts. A prelapsarian common ownership, fellowship, and societal harmony would then ensue, directed by Weitling himself. While Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels struggled with the intricacies of industrial capitalism and modern modes of production, Weitling revived the apocalyptic politics of the sixteenth-century Münster Anabaptists and their gory attempts to usher in the Second Coming. Much to Marx and Engels's annoyance, Weitling's giddy blend of evangelism and protocommunism attracted thousands of dedicated disciples across the Continent.Hunt, Marx's General, pp. 131-32.
In 1838, he published his first work, Die Menschheit, wie sie ist und wie sie sein sollte (The human race as it is, and as it should be), which was translated into Hungarian and other languages.
In 1841, after the abortive rebellion of the Blanquists, he went to Switzerland, visiting Geneva, Vevey and Langenthal in the canton of Bern, and finally settling in Zürich in 1843. At all these places, he promoted the doctrines of communism with his preaching and publications, including the 1842 work Garantien der Harmonie und Freiheit (Guarantees of harmony and freedom).
Weitling's work Das Evangelium eines armen Sünders (The Poor Sinner's Gospel) came out in 1845, but by this time the attention of the Swiss authorities had been attracted. He was arrested and prosecuted for revolutionary agitation, including blasphemy on account of having published a text which depicted Jesus Christ as both a communist and the illegitimate child of Virgin Mary. Found guilty, he was given a six-month sentence.
On his release, he was deported back to Prussia. He resided for a time in Hamburg, but then left on a journey which took him to London, Treves, Brussels and New York City.
In Weitling's 1847 book Gospel of Poor Sinners, he traced communism back to early Christianity. Frederick Engels: On The History of the Communist League, Nov 12-26, 1885 in Sozialdemokrat Antonio Labriola, Socialism and Philosophy, VII, Rome, June 16, 1897.
Upon the outbreak of the revolutions of 1848 in Germany, Weitling returned to Germany, preaching his communism to little effect. When the revolutions failed in 1849, he returned to New York thus becoming one of the Forty-Eighters.Morris Hillquit, History of Socialism in the United States. New York: Funk & Wagnalls, 1906; pg. 163.
His book Guarantees of Harmony and Freedom was praised by Bruno Bauer, Ludwig Feuerbach and Mikhail Bakunin, the latter of whom Weitling was to meet in Zürich in 1843.Leier, 106. Karl Marx, in an article from 1844, referred to Weitling's work as the "vehement and brilliant literary debut of the German workers,"Marx, "Critical Marginal Notes on the Article "The King of Prussia and Social Reform," in The Marx-Engels Reader, 2nd ed., ed. Robert C. Tucker (New York: Norton, 1978), p. 129. Although John Spargo suggested that "what won from Marx this high-sounding praise was simply the fact that Weitling's appeals were addressed to the workers as a class",John Spargo, Karl Marx: His Life and Work. B. W. Huebsch, 1910; p. 89. Marx himself emphasized Weitling's theoretical and philosophical "brilliance," which compared favorably to the more "economically" inclined English workers and the more practical "politically" oriented French workers.Marx, "Critical Marginal Notes," p. 129.
He participated with the experimental German-American settlement of Communia, Iowa. Weitling died in New York City. A widow and six children survived him.
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