80. F. Engels. Letters from London. IV. Meeting in Hyde Park. Situation in Spain
London, December 11, 1872
The trial by the British government of speakers at the Irish MEETING in Hyde Park[3] has brought a storm on its head. It is true that the justice of the peace made the accused pay a fine of five pounds. But the trial has completely proved the illegality in several respects of the new regulation on public parks, such that the Court of Appeal, which is now handling the case, will have to absolve the accused.
And this is not all: after this first MEETING, not a Sunday goes by without public assemblies in Hyde Park; and the government dare not disturb a single orator. On one occasion there was a meeting there in support of policemen, who had come out on strike; on another a MEETING was held simply to reaffirm the right of assembly in parks.
A strike by policemen? I hear you say. Yes indeed; England is a devil of a country in which strikes penetrate everywhere. I remember that fifteen years ago the POLICEMEN of Manchester went on strike for a wage increase and were completely successful after just two days. A few weeks ago the policemen of the capital threatened to strike because a wage increase of about 20 per cent had been refused them. At the last moment the government deemed it expedient to comply with all their demands. By way of reprisal, however, it punished the secretary of the resistance society which the policemen had formed; and as he did not agree to submit to the punishment inflicted on him he was removed from office. A re-action then broke out in the ranks of the police and the Hyde Park meeting was announced. The government gave
a See this volume, pp. 294-96.— Ed way once again, granting the rebels an amnesty before the meeting took place — with the exception of the aforementioned secretary. This goes to show that in England — beneath its utterly aristocratic appearance — the spirit of the bourgeoisie has penetrated everywhere. What other nation is so bourgeois as to be able to permit itself resistance societies and strikes among policemen?
The news that has reached us of the attitude of the various federations of the International to the resolutions of the Hague Congress is most satisfying. In Holland (where that country's delegates had voted with the minority) a regional congress deliberated in conformity with the spirit of the great Association.[219] It was agreed that the Rules and Regulations of the General Council in New York should be followed, while reserving the right to make observations which are considered necessary at the Universal Congress, to be held in September 1873, and not to recognise the right of any other Congress to make decrees on the general interests of the Association.
In Spain too, where the leaders of the Hague minority thought they held absolute sway, the good sense of the workers is making headway. The partisans of the Alliance, who are at the head of the Federal Council, have called a regional Congress for December 25 in Cordova. This Congress, following the agenda voted at the previous one in Saragossa, should deal with the matter of bringing the Spanish federal organisation into line with the resolutions to be adopted by the international general Congress.[220] And yet the Federal Council has put on the agenda a choice between the resolutions of the international Congress at The Hague and the anti-international Congress at Saint-Imier.[221] This constitutes a flagrant violation of the General Rules. The New Federation of Madrid has consequently launched an appeal to all the truly international federations (namely those which recognise the General Rules and resolutions of Congresses) to elect a new provisional Federal Council.(1) Important federations and sections, such as those of Lérida, Badalona, Denia and Pont de Vilumara, have already responded with their support. In addition, the federations of Gracia, Toledo, Alcalâ and a large number of those in Cadiz and Valencia have declared themselves against the present Federal Council. In Gracia, a manufacturing suburb of Barcelona, after three nights of discussions sustained by the Alliancists of Barcelona, the local federation — 500 members strong — unanimously deliberated all the Hague resolutions and agreed to rebuke the Spanish delegates for their conduct at the last General Congress. In Valencia the Federal Council itself, seeing that it was in danger of being beaten in plenary session, blocked a vote which might have gone against it — a step which provoked splits.[222] And this is just the beginning of the movement in Spain. In a few weeks it will be strong enough to prove that the Spanish workers are not going to let the International be thrown into disarray for the profit of the leaders of a handful of secret societies.
The Hague Congress dealt with a certain Bousquet, secretary of the police commissariat at Béziers, who had infiltrated the ranks of the International, but who had in fact already been expelled at his section's request by the last General Council.3 This gentleman, who was subsequently promoted by M. Thiers to the rank of chief of the police brigade in his town, found a defender in issue No. 21 of the Bulletin jurassien} Hardly surprising, given that from the ranks of the Jura Federation have emerged two gentlemen — Albert Richard and Gaspard Blanc — who are currently collaborating with M. Louis Napoleon.
Signed: F. Engels Translated from the Italian
Endnotes
[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.
[219] Engels is referring to the congress of representatives of several Dutch sections of the International convened in Amsterdam on November 24, 1872, by the Dutch Federal Council in connection with the anarchists' opposition to the decisions of the Hague Congress. The congress resolved to support the General Council.
[220] The congress of Spanish anarchists in Cordova was held between December 25, 1872 and January 2, 1873. The congress turned down the decisions of the Hague Congress and the General Rules of the International Working Men's Association and supported the resolutions of the international congress of anarchists in Saint-Imier, Switzerland (September 1872). On the Saragossa Congress see Note 99.
[221] A congress of representatives of secret organisations of the Bakuninist Alliance from various countries was held in Saint-Imier on September 15-16, 1872, on the initiative of the Jura Federation. The congress decided to reject the resolutions of the Hague Congress and the authority of the General Council. It adopted a special resolution against the political struggle of the working class and the necessity of an independent political party of the proletariat. Its address called upon sections to oppose the General Council and to convene their own "anti-authoritarian" congress in six months' time. The decisions of the Saint-Imier Congress signified an actual split in the International, p. 299
[222] The Gracia Federation meeting took place on November 4-6, 1872. On hearing the report on the Hague Congress delivered by an Alliance leader Charles Alerini it rejected the anarchists' proposal to support the Saint-Imier Congress decisions and approved the Hague Congress resolutions by a majority vote. The Valencia Federation meeting was held on November 9, 1872. It rejected the Alliance members' proposal to include the demand to support the decisions of the Saint-Imier Congress in the imperative mandate of the delegate to the Cordova Congress.