Citizens,

At its meeting of March 22, the General* Council declared by
unanimous vote that your programme and rules” accord with the
general rules of the International Working Men’s Association. It
immediately admitted your section into the International. I am
pleased to accept your proposal to take on the honourable duty of
being your representative on the General* Council.

You say in your programme:

“that the imperial yoke oppressing Poland is a brake equally hampering the

political and social emancipation of both nations—the Russian just as much as the
Polish.”

You might add that Russia’s violent conquest of Poland provides
a pernicious support and real reason for the existence of a military
regime in Germany, and, as a consequence, on the whole
Continent. Therefore, in working on breaking Poland’s chains,
Russian socialists take on themselves the lofty task of destroying
the military regime; that is essential as a precondition for the
general emancipation of the European proletariat.

A few months ago I received from St. Petersburg Flerovsky’s
work The Condition of the Working Class in Russia.'*’ This is a real
eye-opener for Europe. Russian optimism, which is spread over the
Continent even by the so-called revolutionaries, is mercilessly
exposed in this work. It will not retract from its worth if I say that
in one or two places it does not fully satisfy criticism from the

a “Chief” in the Russian original.— Ed.
b “Pervaya russkaya sektsiya. Programma”, “Ustav russkoi sektsii”, Narodnoye
Dyelo, No. 1, April 15, 1870.— Ed.

The General Council to the Russian Section in Geneva 111

purely theoretical point of view. It is the book of a serious
observer, a courageous worker, an unbiased critic, a great artist
and, above all, of a person intolerant of oppression in all its forms
and of all national anthems, and ardently sharing all the sufferings
and all the aspirations of the producing class.

Such works as Flerovsky’s and those of your teacher Chernyshevsky do real honour to Russia and prove that your country is
also beginning to take part in the movement of our age.

Fraternal greetings,
Karl Marx

London, March 24, 1870