42. K. Marx. Declaration of the General Council Concerning the Universal Federalist Council
42. K. Marx. Declaration of the General Council Concerning the Universal Federalist Council[113]
Some weeks ago a pamphlet was published under the tide "Universal Federalist Council of the International Working Men's Association and of the Republican Socialist Societies adhering". This pamphlet pretends nothing less than to inaugurate a coup
d'état within the International. It announces the formation of a second General Council, and it denounces both the organisation of the International, and the administration of its General Council. Now, who are the members of this new self-constituted Council, and the authors of these denunciations? Among the names affixed to the document we find, firstly, that of Citizen John Weston, a member of the General Council, and its former treasurer, who, in a letter to the Council, declares his name to have been made use of without his authority. Secondly, six delegates from the Universal Republican League,[114] a society entirely foreign to the International. Thirdly, two delegates from an "International Republican Federalist Section", which section is totally unknown to the International. Fourthly, two delegates from the Land and Labour League,[115] which society does not form any part of the International. Fifthly, two self-styled delegates of the German Arbeiter-Bildungs-Verein, but, in fact, delegates of a few Germans who were excluded from that society on account of their openly avowed hostility to the International.[116] Lastly, four delegates of two French societies counting together less than a score of members, and which the General Council had declined to admit as branches; amongst these we find M. Vésinier, excluded from the International by a committee appointed by the Brussels Congress in 1868,[117] and M. Landeck, whom the hasty flight of Louis Bonaparte's prefect of police,[3] on the 4th of September, 1870, liberated from the engagement he had voluntarily taken towards that officer, and "scrupulously kept, not to occupy himself any more, in France, either with politics or with the International" (see the published report of the third trial of the International at Parisa) and who only lately was expelled from the Society of the Communard Refugees in London.
It must be evident, even to the signatories of this document, that a conclave of such entire strangers to the International has exactly as much right to meddle with its organisation and to constitute itself its General Council, as the General Council of the International has to interfere with the organisation, and to declare itself the Board of Directors of the Great Northern Railway.
No wonder that these men are utterly ignorant of the history and organisation of the International. How should they be expected to know that according to our rules the General Council has to render its accounts to the General Congresses, and not to them? or that, when in 1870 the breaking out of the war prevented the Congress meeting an unanimous vote of all federations empowered the General Council to continue in office until political circumstances should permit the convocation of a public Congress? As to the fund collected by the General Council in favour of the refugees, the sum total received has, from time to time, been acknowledged in the published reports of the Council meetings, and our treasurer, Citizen Jung, 4, Charles-street, Northampton-square, Clerkenwell, holds the receipts for every farthing expended, which receipts, as well as the accounts, can be inspected any day by any of the donors. Such an inspection will show not only that the Council has devoted a great portion of its time to this object, quite foreign to its regular functions, but also that itself, as a body, and its individual members, have contributed to the refugee fund within the limits of their means.
Since the growth and power of the International have become what they are, the only way in which rival and hostile societies can attempt to attack it with any chance of success is to usurp its name in order to undermine its strength. This has been so well understood by the whole press-gang of the Governments, and of the ruling classes, that the same papers, from police press to so-called democratic and republican, which carefully suppress every official declaration of the General Council, always hasten to keep all Europe well-informed of insignificant and ridiculous manifestations like that of this "Universal Federalist. Council".
The General Council:
R. Applegarth, A. Arnaud, M. Barry, M. J. Boon, F. Bradnick, G. H. Buttery, E. Delahaye, Eugène Dupont, J. G. Eccarius, W. Hales, Hurliman, Jules Johannard, C. Keen, Harriet Law,
F. hessner, hochner, C. honguet, Mar-guerittes, C. Martin, Zévy Maurice, H. Mayo, G. Milner, T. Mottershead, Pfänder, J. Rozwadowski, V. Regis, J. Roach, Riihl, G. Ranvier, Sadler, G. Sexton, Cowell Stepney, A. Taylor, W. Townshend, E. Vaillant, J. Weston, De Wol-fers, F. J. Yarrow.
Corresponding Secretaries:
heo Frankel, for Austria and Hungary; A. Herman, Belgium; F. Cournet, Denmark; A. Serraillier, France; Karl Marx, Germany and Russia; C. Rochat, Holland; /. P. McDonnell, Ireland; F. Engels, Italy and Spain; Walery Wröblewski, Poland; Hermann Jung, Switzerland; he Moussu, for French Branches of United States.
33, Rathbone-place, London, W. May 20th, 1872
C. Murray, Chairman, H. Jung, Treasurer, John Hales, Gen. Sec.
Endnotes
[113] This declaration was read out by Marx at the General Council meeting of May 21, 1872, and adopted by the Council. It was occasioned by the pamphlet Conseil fédéraliste universel de l'Association Internationale des Travailleurs et des sociétés républicaines socialistes adhérentes, which was published in London in April 1872 in French, English and German and contained libels against the leaders of the International. The Universal Federalist Council was set up early in 1872 and included the remaining members of the French Section of 1871 (see notes 11 and 20), members of various bourgeois and petty-bourgeois organisations, a few Lassalleans expelled from the German Workers' Educational Society in London and other people who strove to worm their way into the leadership of the International. They concentrated their attacks on the London Conference resolutions relating to the political action of the working class and to the struggle against sectarianism. The Hague Congress of the International decided to include the resolution on political action of the working class in the General Rules and so inflicted a decisive blow on the elements hostile to the International. The Universal Federalist Council summoned its congress in London in late September 1872 and tried to pass it off as a congress of the International Working Men's Association. Further activity of the Federalist Council developed into a struggle between various groups for the leadership of the "movement". Apart from The Eastern Post, the declaration was published in nearly all the press organs of the International, including The International Herald, No. 9, June 1, Der Volksstaat, No. 44, June 1, La Liberté, No. 22, June 22, La Emancipacion, No. 52, June 8, O Pensamento Social, No. 16, June, L'Egalité, No. 13, June 23, 1872. In La Emancipacion it ended with the following editorial comment: "This important document, exposing as it does the intrigues of the bourgeois parties, reveals their desire to split the ranks of the International and paralyse its activities. In all countries, in Britain and Germany, in Belgium and Switzerland, in America and Italy, the bourgeoisie strives to distort the principles of workers' solidarity so as to wreak havoc in our Association. Let it serve us as a lesson."
[114] n* See Note 29.
[115] The Land and Labour League was founded, with the participation of General Council members, in London in October 1869. Along with general democratic demands, its programme included those for the nationalisation of land, a shorter working day, and Chartist demands for universal suffrage and home colonisation. By the autumn of 1870, however, the influence of the reformists had increased in the League and by 1872 it had lost contact with the International.
[116] In late 1871, a group of Lassalleans who slandered the General Council were expelled from the German Workers' Educational Society in London. This Society was founded in February 1840 by Karl Schapper, Joseph Moll and other leaders of the League of the Just. After the Communist League came into existence in 1847, members of the League's local communes played the leading role in the Society. In 1847 and 1849-50 Marx and Engels took an active part in its work, but they, as well as a number of their supporters, abandoned the Society on September 17, 1850, since most of its members sided with the sectarian Willich-Schapper group. Marx and Engels resumed their work in the Society in the late 1850s. When the International was founded, the Society became the German Section of the International Association in London and, since the end of 1871, a section of the British Federation. The Educational Society existed till 1918, when it was closed down by the British government.
[117] Drawing on the protests against Pierre Vesinier's slanders against the French members of the International, the Brussels Congress of 1868 instructed the Brussels Section to demand proofs of his accusations from Vésinier and, should they be insufficient, expel him from the International. On October 26, 1868, the Brussels Section resolved to expel Vésinier from the International.
[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.