[HANDWRITTEN TEXT OF THE SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE CONFERENCE SESSION ON SEPTEMBER 21, 1871]
Absolute abstention from politics is impossible; all the absten-tionist newspapers go in for politics, too. It only depends how one does it and what sort of politics. Moreover, for us abstention is impossible. The workers' party already exists as a political party in most countries. It is not up to us to ruin it by preaching abstention. The experience of real life and the political oppression imposed on them by existing governments — whether for political or social ends — force the workers to concern themselves with politics, whether they wish to or not. To preach abstention would be to push them into the arms of bourgeois politics. Especially in the aftermath of the Paris Commune, which placed the political action of the proletariat on the agenda, abstention is quite impossible.
We seek the abolition of Classes. What is the means of achieving it? The political domination of the proletariat. And when everyone is agreed on that, we are asked not to get involved in politics! All abstentionists call themselves revolutionaries, even revolutionaries par excellence. But revolution is the supreme act of politics; whoever wants it must also want the means, political action, which prepares for it, which gives the workers the education for revolution and without which the workers will always be duped by the Favres and the Pyats the day after the struggle. But the politics which are needed are working class politics; the workers' party must be constituted not as the tail of some bourgeois party, but as an independent party with its own objective, its own politics.
The political freedoms, the right of assembly and association and the freedom of the press, these are our weapons — should we fold our arms and abstain if they seek to take them away from us? It is said that every political act implies recognition of the status quo. But when this status quo gives us the means of protesting against it, then to make use of these means is not to recognise the status quo.
Six m«is I * SU LÉGALITÉ
Espagne -Alletiiagne-
JOUrnal de l'Association Internationale des Travailleurs de la Suisse romande
Endnotes
[2] In May 1870, Napoleon Ill's government held a plebiscite in an attempt to strengthen the tottering regime of the Second Empire. The issues put to the vote were formulated in such a way that disapproval of the policy pursued by the Second Empire could not be expressed without opposing democratic reforms at the same time. Despite this demagogic manoeuvre, the plebiscite showed the growing opposition: 1.5 million voted against the government, 1.9 million abstained. During the preparations for the plebiscite, the government organised a broad campaign of repressions against the working class movement, scaring the middle-class sections with the threat of a revolution. On April 24, 1870, the Paris Federation of the International and the Federal Chamber of Workers' Trades Associations in Paris issued a manifesto exposing the Bonapartist plebiscite manoeuvre and called on the workers to abstain from voting. On the eve of the plebiscite many members of the Paris Federation were arrested on a charge faked by the police of plotting to assassinate Napoleon III (see present edition, Vol. 43, Engels' letter to Marx of May 8, 1870). The government used this charge for organising a broad campaign of persecution and harassment of the International's members in various French towns. In this connection, the General Council,at its meeting on May 3, 1870, adopted the Address "Concerning the Persecution of the Members of the French Sections", written by Marx (see present edition, Vol. 21), which exposed the Bonapartist police's libellous charges. At the third trial of the Paris Federation members, held from June 22 to July 5, 1870, the false character of these charges was fully disclosed. Nevertheless, a number of members of the International in France were sentenced to imprisonment merely for affiliation to the International Working Men's Association. Persecution of the International in France caused mass protests by the working class. pp. 3, 273