A Nation Cannot Become Free And

Engels delivered this at a public meeting in London on November 29, 1847, marking the 17th anniversary of the Polish uprising of 1830. Speaking as a German democrat, he argued that Germany bore special responsibility for Polish liberation because Prussian and Austrian armies occupied Polish territory. His core argument was that German freedom and Polish freedom were inseparable — a nation that oppresses others cannot achieve its own genuine democratic liberation. Karl Marx spoke at the same meeting; the speech was published in the Deutsche-Brüsseler-Zeitung on December 9, 1847, just weeks before Marx and Engels completed The Communist Manifesto.