2. Record of Marx's Speeches on Changing the Place of the Congress of the International in 1868. From Newspaper Reports of the General Council Meetings of May 26 and June 16, 1868 :

[May 26, 1868]

Notice of motion was given that a resolution should be moved on Tuesday next[3] to cancel the resolution of the last congress[15]

appointing Brussels as the place of meeting for the next congress, and that London be appointed instead.0

The Council considers it incompatible with the honour and dignity of the Association to assemble a congress, surrounded, as it would be, by French spies, and in a country whose Government is capable of committing such wanton outrages as have been perpetrated against the half-starved miners of Charleroi.[392]

[June 16, 1868]

The mover of the resolutionsd then stated, that besides the foregoing assurances things had transpired since he had given notice which compelled the Council to abstain from revoking the vote of the Laussane Congress.[393] The Belgian section had already taken action. M. Bara, the Minister of Justice, was reported to have said in the Chamber of Deputies, that he would not permit the Congress to assemblee; in a remonstrance signed by all the members of the Brussels committee and the executive of the Free Workmen — an affiliated political society of Verviers, the resident members of the Association had declared that "in spite of all the vain rhodomontade of the Minister of Justice, the International Congress should be held at Brussels".[3] The question, therefore, was strictly one of resistance of the Belgian working men against the police regulations of their government, with which the Council had no right to interfere. He should, therefore, withdraw his resolutions.b

First published in The Bee-Hive Newspaper, Nos. 346 and 349, May 30 and June 20, 1868

Reproduced from the newspaper

Endnotes

[15] Marx refers to the Memoire of the Paris Section for the Geneva Congress, containing a detailed exposition of Proudhonist views on the main issues of the workers' struggle. It was supported by the Lyons and Rouen sections and read as the report of the French delegates at the congress on September 4. The full text of the Memoire was published in Brussels in September 1866 under the title Congrès de Genève. Mémoire des délégués français.

[3 9 2] See Note 18.

[3 9 3] See Note 4.

a June 2.—Ed. b In Lausanne.— Ed. c For the text of the resolution, tabled by Marx, see this volume, p. 6.— Ed. d Karl Marx.— Ed. e J. Bara, Speech in the Chamber of Deputies on May 16, 1868, La Liberté, No. 47, May 17, 1868.— Ed.
a La Tribune du peuple, No. 5, May 24, 1868.— Ed. b The newspaper report further has: "which met with general approval, several members declaring that only the altered state of the case had changed their opinion".— Ed.

[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).