22. From the Minute Book of the General Council. General Council Meetings ( April 1867)

April 16

Lafargue (on behalf of Marx) said that the resolution moved by Odger at one of the Reform meetings conferring a vote [of] thanks upon Count Bismarck was calculated to injure the credit of this Association.[321] He therefore demanded that a vote of censure should be passed upon Odger.

A discussion ensued which ended in instructing the Secretary(1)

to write to Odger requesting his attendance at the next meeting.

April 23

After some discussion in which several members took part, the following resolution, proposed by Citizen Lessner and seconded by Citizen Lafargue, was carried unanimously.

Resolved, "That inasmuch as Citizen Odger has proposed a resolution at the Council of the Reform League thanking Mr. Bismarck for what he had done for the democratic cause in Germany; and inasmuch as Citizen Odger is President of the International Working Men's Association,'(2) the General Council feels it to be its duty to repudiate any solidarity with the said resolution and with Citizen Odger's speech in support thereof."

First published, in Russian, in Generalny Sovet Pervogo Internatsionala. 1866-1868, Moscow, 1963

Reproduced from the Minute Book

Endnotes

[321] On April 3, 1867 the joint meeting of the Council of the Reform League (see Note 141) and delegates of the local branches adopted a resolution moved by Odger congratulating the people of North Germany on the introduction of universal suffrage in the elections to the North-German Imperial Diet. The resolution also expressed thanks to Bismarck "for the frank, manly and noble expressions on the happiness and general prosperity which must accrue to a nation governed on the principle of universal suffrage". On Marx's initiative, the resolution was discussed at the General Council meetings on April 16 and 23, 1867. Marx himself could not attend the meetings because on April 10 he left for Germany where the first volume of Capital was being printed, and did not return to London until May 19. However, Lafargue and Lessner who spoke at the meetings managed to have the resolution adopted in which the General Council of the International condemned Odger's laudation of Bismarck and disavowed itself from his appraisal of the "services" of the Chancellor of the North-German Confederation,

(1) P. Fox.— Ed.

(2) Inaccuracy in the minutes: at that time Odger was President of the General Council. There was no such post as President of the International Working Men's Association.— Ed.