Cologne Workers Union

a workers’ organization founded on the initiative of members from the Communist League on Apr. 13, 1848, during the Revolution of 1848–49 in Germany. At the beginning sectarian-adventurist elements dominated the leadership (A. Gottschalk was its first chairman), but in June 1848, Marx and his supporters succeeded in changing the character of the organization. J. Moll became chairman of the union, a post held later by Marx (from October 1848, in connection with Moll’s departure) and then K. Schapper (February-May 1849). Under the influence of Marx and Engels it became an important center in the revolutionary struggle; it maintained ties with other workers’ and democratic organizations. Its membership, mostly workers and apprentices, reached 5,000–6,000. Between April 1848 and June 1849 it published its own newspaper. The Cologne Workers’ Union played the main role in the convocation on May 6, 1849, of the congress of workers’ unions from the Rhine province and Westphalia. It was disbanded after the triumph of counterrevolution in Germany.