31. K. Marx. Resolutions of the Meeting Held to Celebrate the Anniversary of the Paris Commune
31. K. Marx. Resolutions of the Meeting Held to Celebrate the Anniversary of the Paris Commune[93]
[I]
"That this meeting assembled to celebrate the anniversary of the 18th March last, declares, that it looks upon the glorious movement inaugurated upon the 18th March, 1871, as the dawn of the great social revolution which will for ever free the human race from class rule."
[II]
"That the incapacity and the crimes of the middle classes, extended all over Europe by their hatred against the working classes, have doomed old society no matter under what form of government — Monarchical or Republican."
[Ill]
"That the crusade of all governments against the International, and the terror of the murderers of Versailles as well as of their Prussian conquerors, attest the hollowness of their successes, and the presence of the threatening army of the proletariat of the whole world gathering in the rear of its heroic vanguard crushed by the combined forces of Thiers and William of Prussia."
Endnotes
[93] At its meeting of February 20, 1872, the General Council adopted Hermann Jung's proposal to celebrate the anniversaries of the Paris Commune by mass meetings in London. To prepare the first meeting, a special committee was appointed which included Jung. J. Patrick MacDonnell, George Milner, Alfred Taylor and Martin James Boon. Marx was to be one of the chief organisers and Engels, on Jung's request, was to draft resolutions. The meeting, however, did not take place because at the last moment the owner of the hall refused to let it. Nevertheless, the members of the International and the former Communards held a ceremonial meeting on March 18, 1872 to mark the first anniversary of the Paris Commune. The meeting, on the proposal of the Communards Albert Félix Theisz and Zéphyrin Camélinat and the General Council member Milner, adopted three resolutions which coincide word for word with the French manuscript in Jenny's (Marx's daughter) hand with Marx's corrections. On the occasion of the second anniversary of the Paris Commune in March 1873, the British Federal Council of the International adopted a special declaration consisting of a collection of extracts from Marx's The Civil War in France.