67. K. Marx. On the Hague Congress. A Correspondent's Report of a Speech Made at a Meeting in Amsterdam on September 8, 1872
67. K. Marx. On the Hague Congress. A Correspondent's Report of a Speech Made at a Meeting in Amsterdam on September 8, 1872[194]
In the 18th century the kings and potentates were in the habit of assembling at The Hague to discuss the interests of their dynasties.
It is there that we decided to hold our workers' congress despite the attempts to intimidate us. In the midst of the most reactionary population we wanted to affirm the existence, the spreading and hopes for the future of our great Association.
When our decision became known, there was talk of emissaries we had sent to prepare the ground. Yes, we have emissaries everywhere, we do not deny it, but the majority of them are unknown to us. Our emissaries in The Hague were the workers, whose labour is so exhausting, just as in Amsterdam they are workers too, workers who toil for sixteen hours a day. Those are our emissaries, we have no others; and in all the countries in which we make an appearance we find them ready to welcome us, for they understand very quickly that the aim we pursue is the improvement of their lot.
The Hague Congress has achieved three main things:
It has proclaimed the necessity for the working classes to fight the old disintegrating society in the political as well as the social field; and we see with satisfaction that henceforth this resolution of the London Conference will be included in our Rules.(1)
A group has been formed in our midst which advocates that the workers should abstain from political activity.
We regard it as our duty to stress how dangerous and fatal we considered those principles to be for our cause.
One day the worker will have to seize political supremacy to establish the new organisation of labour; he will have to overthrow the old policy which supports the old institutions if he wants to escape the fate of the early Christians who, neglecting and despising politics, never saw their kingdom on earth.
But we by no means claimed that the means for achieving this goal were identical everywhere.
We know that the institutions, customs and traditions in the different countries must be taken into account; and we do not deny the existence of countries like America, England, and if I knew your institutions better I might add Holland, where the workers may achieve their aims by peaceful means. That being true We must also admit that in most countries on the Continent it is force which must be the lever of our revolution; it is force which will have to be resorted to for a time in order to establish the rule of the workers.(2)
The Hague Congress has endowed the General Council with new and greater powers. Indeed, at a time when the kings are assembling in Berlin and when from this meeting of powerful representatives of feudalism and the past there must result new and more severe measures of repression against us [195]; at a time when persecution is being organised, the Hague Congress rightly believed that it was wise and necessary to increase the powers of its General Council and to centralise, in view of the impending struggle, activity which isolation would render impotent. And, by the way, who but our enemies could take alarm at the authority of the General Council? Has it a bureaucracy and an armed police to ensure that it is obeyed? Is not its authority solely moral, and does it not submit its decisions to the Federations which have to carry them out? In these conditions, kings, with no army, no police, no magistracy, and reduced to having to maintain their power by moral influence and authority, would be feeble obstacles to the progress of the revolution.
Finally, the Hague Congress transferred the seat of the General Council to New York. Many, even of our friends, seemed to be surprised at such a decision. Are they then forgetting that America is becoming the world of workers par excellence; that every year half a million men, workers, emigrate to that other continent, and that the International must vigorously take root in that soil where the worker predominates? Moreover, the decision taken by the Congress gives the General Council the right to co-opt those members whom it judges necessary and useful for the good of the common cause. Let us rely on its wisdom to choose men equal to the task and able to carry with a steady hand the banner of our Association in Europe.
Citizens, let us bear in mind this fundamental principle of the International: solidarity! It is by establishing this life-giving principle on a reliable base among all the workers in all countries that we shall achieve the great aim which we pursue. The revolution must display solidarity, and we find a great example of this in the Paris Commune,(3) which fell because there did not appear in all the centres, in Berlin, Madrid, etc., a great revolutionary movement corresponding to this supreme uprising of the Paris proletariat.
For my part I will persist in my task and will constantly work to establish among the workers this solidarity which will bear fruit for the future. No, I am not withdrawing from the International, and the rest of my life will be devoted, like my efforts in the past, to the triumph of the social ideas which one day, be sure of it, will bring about the universal rule of the proletariat.
Endnotes
[194] On the invitation of the Dutch Federal Council most delegates to the Hague Congress went to Amsterdam when the Congress was over to meet the local section of the International. The meeting took place on September 8, 1872. Speeches were made by Marx, Friedrich Sorge, Paul Lafargue and other delegates. Marx delivered his speech in German and French; it was published in the Dutch, Belgian, French, German, Spanish and English press, in particular, in The Times, No. 27479, September 11, 1872, in Eccarius' record. The Belgian and French newspapers gave the most accurate records of Marx's speech, which tally. Der Volksstaat published it, with certain changes, according to the Belgian Liberté. Adolf Hepner wrote to Marx on September 26 that they could not print his speech verbatim, for in the conditions prevailing in Germany mention of the need for a violent revolution would immediately provide a pretext for a case against the newspaper. The Dutch Algemeen Handelsblad gave a résumé of Marx's speech. Its correspondent wrote: "After Citizen Sorge, there was a speech by Citizen Marx... The speaker said that formerly The Hague had been a centre of European diplomacy. Here, hardly had peace treaties been signed when plans of all sorts of war had been made. In sharp contrast to that was the congress of workers, whose purpose was to make war impossible. The International had been told that The Hague was the most reactionary city in Holland and that its ignorant population would 'tear to pieces' the 'scum of the Paris Commune'. But that was all the more reason for choosing precisely that 'blood-thirsty' city to show that the International did not fear any reactionary excesses. Moreover, it hoped to find here, too, people who sympathised with it, such as were to be found wherever there were working people. "Citizen Marx went on to consider the results of the Congress, which had just finished work. He qualified them as important. A strong concentration of power in the hands of the General Council was an imperative necessity in the face of the conference in Berlin, which, in the speaker's opinion, presaged a general attack on the proletariat, persecution and repression of the working class. Until the International came forward as a closely united organisation, it 24* would not be able to make the movement universal, to succeed in making it arise everywhere simultaneously, and its efforts would produce no significant results. The speaker cited the example of the Paris Commune. Why had it been defeated? Because it had remained isolated. If, simultaneously with the uprising in Paris, revolutions had flared up in Berlin, Vienna and other capitals, there would have been a greater chance of success. "The speaker defended the use of force when other means produce no result. Barricades were not necessary in North America because there the proletarians would, if they wanted, achieve victory through elections. The same applied to England and some other countries where the working class enjoyed freedom of speech. But in the enormous majority of states revolution must replace legality because otherwise — by false magnanimity, a wrongly directed sense of justice — it would not be possible to achieve the necessary goal. Vigorous, energetic propaganda must prepare and support this revolution. For these reasons it was also extremely necessary to have an enormous centralisation of power in the hands of the General Council. "Citizen Marx said that the Congress decided yesterday (Saturday) to transfer the General Council from London to New York. He approved this decision. America was a country of working men. Every year hundreds of thousands of people went there, driven out of Europe or forced to go by privation. What a new and beneficial field of activity for the efforts of the International. The speaker hoped that this step would produce good results. "As for himself, he was giving up the title of member of the General Council, but — contrary to rumours — not the title of member of the International! Quite the contrary. Having freed himself of the burden of administrative activity, he would devote himself with new energy to the task to which he had given 25 years of his life and to which he would devote himself to his very last breath: the emancipation of labour. (Stormy applause.)" Marx's speech, as reported by La Liberté, was published in English for the first time in K. Marx and F. Engels, On Britain, Second Edition, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1962.
[195] For th e meeting of the three emperors see Note 181.