Considering, That by the Basle Congress Paris was appointed as the meeting-place for this year's Congress of the International Working Men's Association;
That the present French regime continuing, the Congress will not be able to meet at Paris;
That nevertheless the preparations for the meeting render an immediate resolution necessary;
That article 3 of the Statutes obliges the Council to change, in case of need, the place of meeting appointed by the Congress[3];
That the Central Committee of the German Social-Democratic Working Men's Party has invited the General Council to transfer this year's Congress to Germany[171];
The General Council has in its sitting of the 17th of May unanimously resolved that this year's Congress of the International Working Men's Association be opened on the 5th September next and meet at Mayence.
Adopted by the General Council on Reproduced from the Minute May 17, 1870 Book of the General Council
Endnotes
[170] •' * By decision of the Basle Congress, the next congress of the Association was to be held in Paris. At the General Council meeting of May 17, 1870 Marx proposed that the meeting-place should be changed in view of the increasing harassment by Napoleon Ill's government of the working-class and democratic movement and, in particular, of the International. It was decided to convoke the congress in Mainz. However, the congress did not meet in Mainz because of the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war in July 1870. At the General Council meeting on August 2, Marx proposed that local sections and federations must be approached in writing and asked whether they would consent to a postponement of the congress. On receiving their consent, the General Council passed a formal resolution on August 23, 1870 for the postponement of the congress "until the earliest opportunity". The resolution on the convocation of the congress in Mainz proposed by Marx was passed by the General Council on May 17, 1870. The German text, which Marx sent to Wilhelm Liebknecht, was printed in Der Volksstaat, No. 42, May 25; Der Vorbote, No. 6, June 1870, and in Volkswille, No. 20, June 11, 1870. In French the resolution wa« published in L'Égalité, No. 22, May 28 and Le Mirabeau, No. 45, May 29, 1870. In English the text of the resolution has been preserved in the Minute Book of the General Council and as a handwritten copy made by Eleanor Marx. It was first published in English in The General Council of the First International. 1868-1870, Moscow, 1966.
[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).
[171] On May 9, 1870, the Brunswick Committee of the Social-Democratic Workers' Party sent a letter to the General Council officially proposing that the next congress of the International be held in Germany.