4. K. Marx. Declaration of the General Council on Nechayev's Misuse of the Name of the International Working Men's Association
4. K. Marx. Declaration of the General Council on Nechayev's Misuse of the Name of the International Working Men's Association[10]
International Workingmen's Association
The Conference of the Delegates of the International Working-men's Association, assembled at London from the 17th to the 23d September 1871, has charged the General Council to declare publicly:
that Netschajeff has never been a member or an agent of the International Workingmen's Association;
that his assertions[3] to have founded a branch at Brussels and to have been sent by a Brussels branch on a mission to Geneva, are false;
that the above said Netschajeff has fraudulently used the name of the International Workingmen's Association in order to make dupes and victims in Russia.
By order of the General Council, etc.
14 October 1871
Adopted by the General Council on October 16, 1871
Endnotes
[10] On October 7, 1871, the General Council, in accordance with the London Conference decision, instructed Marx to draw up a declaration to the effect that the International Working Men's Association had nothing to do with the so-called Nechayev conspiracy. The text of the declaration was approved at the General Council meeting on October 16, 1871. The declaration is written on the form of the General Council together with Marx's letter to John Hales of October 14, 1871. In 1869 Nechayev established contacts with Bakunin and developed activities for the purpose of founding in Russia a secret society, Narodnaya Rasprava (People's Judgment). The study circles organised by Nechayev advocated anarchist ideas of "absolute destruction". Sharp criticism of the Tsarist regime and the call to wage resolute struggle against it attracted revolutionary-minded students and middle-class intellectuals (raznochintsy) to the Nechayev organisation. Nechayev received from Bakunin the credentials of the European Revolutionary Union and used them to pass himself off as a representative of the International, thereby misleading the members of the organisation. When Nechayev's organisation was broken up and its members tried in St. Petersburg in the summer of 1871, his adventurist methods were made public — blackmail, intimidation, deception and the like. The bourgeois press made use of the trial to denigrate the International, which was, in fact, not associated with Nechayev in any way. The General Council's declaration was translated into French and Italian by Engels. It was published in German in Der Volksstaat, No. 88, November 1, 1871 (signed by Marx as Corresponding Secretary for Germany and Russia); in French, in Qui vive! No. 14, October 18, and in L'Égalité, No. 21, November 5; in Italian, in Gazzettino Rosa, No. 306, November 3, L'Eguaglianza, No. 18, November 12 and in La Riebe, No. 122, October 19, 1871; in Russian, in Hedhjin, No. 16, October 19 (31), C.-TIemep6ypzcKiH efcdoMocmu, No. 292, October 23 (November 4), BupMeevie ebdoMocmu, No. 290, October 23 (November 4), /Jow>, No. 83, November 4(16), 1871; in English, in The Daily News (between October 16 and 30, 1871) (the Institute of Marxism-Leninism does not have the issue at its disposal; the fact of publication is known from the Russian newspaper Hedbjin, No. 16, October 19 (31), 1871).
[3] Jules Gottraux, a Swiss-born subject of Great Britain and a member of the International, was detained by the French police on the French-Swiss frontier on September 30, 1866, when he was returning to London from Switzerland. The police confiscated letters, printed matter, and other material entrusted to him by the International's leaders in Geneva for delivery to the General Council. The seized documents included the preliminary report on the work of the Geneva Congress which had been drawn up by Council member Joseph Card and published in French in Geneva as a pamphlet. (Later, this gave rise to rumours that the French authorities had confiscated the Congress minutes, which in fact had bv that time been brought to London by Hermann Jung.) The General Council decided to lodge a complaint about this wanton act and to use the fact publicly to expose the regime of the Second Empire. At the beginning of December, the Council addressed the British Foreign Secretary, requesting him to make a corresponding démarche to the French government, which forced the French authorities to return, on December 21, the materials taken from Gottraux.