At first, in Belgrade in 1865 a number of radical Balkan intellectuals founded the Democratic Oriental Federation, proposing a federation from the Alps to Cyprus based on political freedom and social equality. They confirmed their adherence to the ideals of French Revolution in the line of Saint-Simon's federalism and in relation to the socialist ideas of Karl Marx or Mikhail Bakunin. Later, in France, a League for the Balkan Confederation, was constituted in 1894, in which Greek, Bulgarian, Serbian, and Romanian socialists participated, supporting Macedonian autonomy inside the general federation of Southeast Europe, as an attempt to deal with the complexity of the Macedonian Question.