Just about a month ago a certain number of citizens formed in Geneva the Central Initiatory Committee of a new international society named The International Alliance of Socialist Democracy, stating that it was their "special mission to study political and philosophical questions on the basis of the grand principle of equality, etc."
The programme and rules printed by this Initiatory Committee[3]
were only communicated to the General Council of the International Working Men's Association at its meeting on December 15. According to these documents, the said "International Alliance is merged entirely in the International Working Men's Association", at the same time as it is established entirely outside this Association.
Besides the General Council of the International Association, elected at the Geneva, Lausanne and Brussels working men's congresses, there is to be, in line with the initiatory rules, another Central Council in Geneva, which is self-appointed. Besides the local groups of the International Association, there are to be local groups of the International Alliance, which "through their national bureaus", operating outside the national bureaus of the International Association, "shall ask the Central Bureau of the Alliance to admit them into the International Working Men's Association"; the Alliance Central Committee thereby takes upon itself the right of admittance to the International Association. Lastly, the General Congress of the International Association will have its parallel in the General Congress of the International Alliance, for, as the initiatory rules say,
"At the annual Working Men's Congress the delegation of the Alliance of Socialist Democracy, as a branch of the International Working Men's Association, shall hold public meetings in a separate building. "a
Considering, That the presence of a second international body operating within and outside the International Working Men's Association would be the infallible means of its disorganisation;
That every other group of individuals, residing anywhere at all, would have the right to imitate the Geneva initiatory group and, under more or less plausible excuses, to bring into the International Working Men's Association other international associations with other "special missions";
That the International Working Men's Association would thereby soon become a plaything for intriguers of all race and nationalityb;
That, moreover, the Rules of the International Working Men's Association admit only local and national branches into its ranks (see Article 1 and Article 6 of the Rules);
That sections of the International Association are forbidden to give themselves rules or administrative regulatipns contrary to the General Rules and Administrative Regulations of the International Association (see Article 12 of the Administrative Regulations^; That the Rules and Administrative Regulations of the International Association can only be revised by the General Congress in the event of two-thirds of the delegates present voting in favour of such a revision (see Article 13 of the Administrative Regulations),'[1]
'•' See this volume, p. 209.— Ed. b Les prétendues scissions dans l'Internationale by Marx and Engels (Genève, 1872, p. 7) has: "for intriguers of any nationality and any party".— Ed.
c Rules of the International Working Men's Association. Founded September 28th, 1864, London [1867], pp. 4-5, 7.—Ed.
The General Council of the International Working Men's Association unanimously agreed at its meeting on December 22, 1868, that:
1) All articles of the Rules of the International Alliance of Socialist Democracy, defining its relations with the International Working Men's Association, are declared null and void;
2) The International Alliance of Socialist Democracy may not be admitted as a branch of the International Working Men's Association;
3) These resolutions be published in all countries where the International Working Men's Association exists.[3]
By order of the General Council of the International Working Men's Association London, December 22, 1868
Adopted by the General Council on December 22, 1868
Endnotes
[55] This circular letter was written by Marx on December 22, 1868, in connection with the discussion of the admission of the Alliance to the International at the General Council on December 15 and 22. The International Alliance of Socialist Democracy (L'Alliance internationale de la démocratie socialiste) was founded by Mikhail Bakunin in Geneva in October 1868. Besides Bakunin, members of its Provisional Committee were Brosset, Duval, Guétat, Perron, Zagorsky and Johann Philipp Becker. In 1868 the Alliance published in Geneva leaflets in French and German containing its Programme and Rules. Becker, who shortly afterwards broke with Bakunin, sent the Alliance's Programme and Rules to the General Council on November 29. Both these documents were read out at its meeting on December 15, 1868, and the Council spoke against the admission of the Alliance to the International Working Men's Association. Marx thought that it was "against our Rules to admit another international association into our society" (this was written in the margin of the Minute Book on December 22 when the Minutes of December 15 were confirmed). On the same day, December 15, Marx forwarded the Alliance's Programme with his own remarks (see this volume, pp. 207-11) to Engels asking for his comments. Engels wholly shared Marx's opinion and noted that the admission of the Alliance to the IWMA would create "a state within the state" (see Marx's letters to Engels of December 15 and 19 and the latter's answer of December 18, 1868, present edition, Vol. 43). The draft reply to the Alliance was written by Marx, who took into account Engels' remarks, and adopted by the General Council meeting on December 22 as a circular letter. This circular letter, sent out to all the sections of the International as a confidential communication, was first published in Geneva in 1872 in K. Marx and F. Engels, Les prétendues scissions dans l'Internationale. Circulaire privée du Conseil Général de l'Association Internationale des Travailleurs (see present edition, Vol. 23), and reprinted in Le Courrier de France, June 1872 and Le Radical, No. 175, June 23, 1872. The text of the circular letter has been preserved in several manuscripts slightly differing in reading (two of them are Marx's manuscripts: one for December 22, 1868, and the other appended to his letter to Jung of August 6, 1870; two hand-written copies: one made by Jung, and the other by Dupont and Engels). In English the circular letter was first published in The General Council of the First International. 1868-1870, Moscow, 1966.
[1] In the autumn of 1867 the General Council of the International Working Men's Association launched a widespread campaign among the English workers in support of the Irish national liberation movement led by the Fenians. The memorial written by Marx was an integral part of this campaign. The Fenians were Irish revolutionaries who named themselves after the "Féne"— a name of the ancient population of Ireland. Their first organisations appeared in the 1850s in the USA among the Irish immigrants and later in Ireland itself. The secret Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood, as the organisation was known in the early 1860s, aimed at establishing an independent Irish republic by means of an armed uprising. The Fenians, who expressed the interests of the Irish peasantry, came chiefly from the urban petty bourgeoisie and intelligentsia and believed in conspiracy tactics. The British Government attempted to suppress the Fenian movement by severe police reprisals. On September 18, 1867, the Fenians made an armed attack on a prison van in an attempt to liberate Kelly and Deasy, two of their leaders. The latter managed to escape but a policeman was killed during the clash. Five Irishmen (Maguire, Condon, Larkin, Allen and O'Brien) were charged with murder and brought to trial. Although there was no direct evidence, they were sentenced to death. Maguire was subsequently pardoned, and Condon, as an American citizen, had his sentence commuted to life imprisonment. The others were executed. The Fenian trial in Manchester aroused a storm of protest in Ireland and England. On the insistence of Marx, the General Council of the International began, on November 19, a discussion on the Irish question during which the leaders of the international proletarian organisation expressed their solidarity with the struggle of the Irish people for independence and condemned the position of the reformist trade union leaders who, in the wake of the English bourgeois radicals, denied the right of the Fenians to resort to revolutionary methods in the struggle. The discussion was scheduled to continue on November 26 (see this volume, pp. 189-93), but when the news of the conviction was received, the General Council convened a special meeting on November 20 and addressed a memorial to the Home Secretary asking for the commutation of the death sentence. The British Government ignored the memorial. Because of opposition from the trade union leaders, the English labour press did not publish the memorial in its original wording. A report on the special meeting of the General Council, published in The Bee-Hive, No. 319, November 23, 1867, only summarised it, and named the General Council members who had signed it. The French translation was published by Le Courrier français, No. 163, November 24. In English the memorial was first published in full in The General Council of the First International. 1866-1868, Moscow, 1964. This document is also preserved in the form of the manuscript copy made by Mrs. Marx which fully coincides with the text entered into the Minute Book. Written as an article, this copy was apparently to be sent to the press. In this volume the memorial is reproduced from this copy.
[3] Marx wrote this item on the basis of a letter from Johann Baptist Schweitzer dated April 29, 1868. The item was included in the report of the General Council meeting of May 12, 1868 published in The Bee-Hive Newspaper, No. 344, May 16, 1868, but is not to be found in the Minute Book. Informing Engels of Schweitzer's letter, Marx wrote to him on May 4, 1868 that he intended "to use this question in the interests of the Party", and insisted on an inquiry into the condition of the workers employed in the iron trade of the Rhine Province (see this letter and Marx's letter to Engels of May 7 and the latter's reply of May 6-7, 1868, present edition, Vol. 43).