26. Record of Marx's Speech on the Attitude of the International Working Men's Association to the Congress of the League of Peace and Freedom

26. Record of Marx's Speech on the Attitude of the International Working Men's Association to the Congress of the League of Peace and Freedom[329]

FROM THE MINUTES OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL MEETING

OF AUGUST 13, 1867

While the balloting was going on, Citizen Marx called attention to the Peace Congress to be held in Geneva. He said it was desirable that as many delegates as could make it convenient should attend the Peace Congress in their individual capacity; but that it would be injudicious to take part officially as representatives of the International Association. The International Working Men's Congress was in itself a peace congress, as the union of the working classes of the different countries must ultimately make international wars impossible. If the promoters of the Geneva Peace Congress really understood the question at issue they ought to have joined the International Association.

The present increase of the large armies in Europe had been brought about by the revolution of 1848; large standing armies were the necessary result of the present state of society. They were not kept up for international warfare, but to keep down the working classes.[330] However, as there were not always barricades to bombard, and working men to shoot, there was sometimes a possibility of international quarrels being fomented to keep the soldiery in trim. The peace-at-any-price party would no doubt muster strong at the Congress. That party would fain leave Russia alone in the possession of the means to make war upon the rest of Europe, while the very existence of such a power as Russia was enough for all the other countries to keep their armies intact.

It was more than probable that some of the French Radicals would avail themselves of the opportunity to make declamatory speeches against their own Government, but such would have more effect if delivered at Paris.

Those who declined putting their shoulders to the wheel to bring about a transformation in the relations of labour and capital ignored the very conditions of universal peace.(1)

First published in The Bee-Hive Newspaper, No. 305 and Working Man, No. 21, August 17, 1867

Reproduced from the Minute abridged in The Book

Endnotes

[329] T ^ Inaugural Congress of the bourgeois-pacifist League of Peace and Freedom (see Note 155) was originally to be held in Geneva on September 5, 1867. The League's Organising Committee, which had enlisted the support of bourgeois-radical and democratic leaders (John Stuart Mill, the Reclus brothers and others), also counted on the participation in the League's work of

(1) In the minutes here follow the text of the resolution moved by Marx on this point (see this volume, p. 204) and the réport on its adoption by the Council.— Ed.