14. K. Marx. Resolutions of the Central Council on the Conflict in the Paris Section
I) Resolution. Whereas citizen Tolain has several times tendered his resignation, and the Central Council has as often refused to accept it, the said Council now leaves it to Citizen Tolain and the Paris Administration to reconsider, whether or not under present circumstances, this resignation be opportune. The Central Council confirms beforehand whatever resolution the administration may come to on this point.[61]
II) Resolution. In deference to the wishes of a meeting of 32 members of the Working Men's International Association held at Paris February 24,[62] and in obedience to the principles of popular sovereignty and self-government, the Central Council cancels its resolution relating to the appointment of an official vindicator for the French press. At the same time • the Council seizes this opportunity of expressing its high esteem for Citizen Lefort, in particular as one of the initiators of the Working Men's International Society and in general for his approved public character,[63] and further it protests that it does not sanction the principle that none but an ouvrier is admissible as an official in our society.
III) Resolution. The Council resolves that the present Administration with the addition of citizen Vinçard be confirmed.a65
IV. Resolution: The Central Council earnestly requests the Administration at Paris to come to an understanding with citizens Lefort and Beluze, so as to admit them, and the group of ouvriers they represent, to be represented in the Administration by three members, but the Council while emitting such a wish, has no power nor design to dictate.
V. The Administration at Paris having expressed its readiness to acknowledge a direct delegation from the Central Council, the Council accordingly appoints Citizen Schily to be its delegate to the said Administration.[66]
Private instruction to Schily "In case no compromise be arrived at, the Council declare that the group Lefort, after having taken out their cards of membership, will have the Power under our Statutes (see § 7a) to form a Local branch Society."
This to be held out in terroremb but confidentially, to Fribourg et Co., in order to induce them to make the necessary concessions, supposed Lefort and Beluze (the director of the Banque du Peuple[6]') are earnest in inducing their group to become members.
Adopted by the Central Council on Reproduced from the manuscript March 7, 1865 checked with the Minute Book of the General Council First published in: Marx/Engels, Ges-amtausgabe, Abt. 3, Bd. 3, Berlin, 1930
Endnotes
[61] Accused of contacts with Bonapartist elements, Tolain tendered his resignation, which was discussed by the Central Council on February 7, 14 and 21, 1865. The Council dissociated itself from these charges.
[62] On February 24, 1865, the Paris Section of the International called a meeting over the appointment of Lefort as the Association's "Counsel for the literary defence" in Paris. The meeting protested strongly against this appointment, believing that Lefort would exploit this to seize leadership in the Paris Section. The meeting adopted a resolution drafted by Limousin which showed, however, the sectarian position of the French Proudhonists in relation to the intellectuals. It stressed that if the purely working-class character of the Association was to be preserved, only workers should hold leading positions in it. The resolution, signed by 32 members of the Paris Section, was brought to London by Tolain and Fribourg.
[63] In a letter to Hermann Jung of March 13, 1865 Marx expressed his regret that as a result of the debate in the Central Council "too many concessions to Lefort" had been made in Resolution II (see present edition, Vol. 42).
[66] In a letter of March 20, 1865 Schily informed Marx that he had refused to accept his appointment as the Central Council representative on the Paris Administration. However, he continued informally to help Marx and the Council in consolidating the International's organisation in Paris.
[6] The phrase from Gladstone's speech on April 16, 1863, quoted here by Marx, appeared in almost all the London newspaper reports of this parliamentary session (The Times, The Morning Star, The Daily Telegraph, April 17, 1863) but was omitted in Hansard's semi-official publication of parliamentary debates in which the text was corrected by the speakers themselves. In the magazine Concordia, No. 10, March 7, 1872 the German bourgeois economist Brentano used this as a pretext for accusing Marx of unscrupulous misquotation. Marx replied to this libel in his letters to the editor of Der Volksstaat on May 23 and July 28, 1872 (see present edition, Vol. 23). After Marx's death, the same accusation was made in November 1883 by the British bourgeois economist Taylor. The lie to this assertion was given by Eleanor Marx in two letters to the magazine To-Day in February and March 1884, and then by Engels in the Preface to the fourth German edition of Capital in June 1890 and in the pamphlet Brentano Contra Marx in 1891. P. 7