Cologne Communist Trial

A provocative conspiratorial trial instigated by the Prussian government.

In the spring of 1851, the Prussian government formed a large counter-revolutionary organ headed by Berlin Police Chief Executive Wilhelm Stieber, including the administrative and foreign departments, to monitor the activities of the Communist League. Between May and June of the same year, 11 members of the Communist League were arrested in Leipzig and Cologne. The Prussian authorities fabricated perjury and deliberately prolonged the trial of the arrested communists on charges of treason in Cologne from October 4 to November 12, 1852. On the basis of forged documents and false testimonies, the court sentenced seven defendants to three to six years’ imprisonment. Marx’s Revelations Concerning the Communist Trial in Cologne and Engels’ The Late Trial at Cologne consistently exposed the provocative acts of the trial and the despicable tricks of the Prussian police state in dealing with the international workers’ movement and put forth the correct line and revolutionary tactics of the Communist League. The direct consequence of the Cologne Communist Trial was the destruction of the League’s organization in Prussia, and the League was dissolved on November 17, 1852.