You know that in Germany the organisation of the Association is 
unable to exist under its own name, the laws not permitting any 
local society to affiliate with a foreign society, but the Association 
exists nevertheless and has experienced tremendous development 
under the name of the Socialist Democratic Party, whose 
membership of the Association already dates back a long way. But 
this membership was reaffirmed with great éclat at the Congress of 
Dresden.*"” So there is no need to propose any measure or 
declaration for this country comparable to those approved for 
countries where the Association is persecuted. 

If he [Marx] has spoken badly of the German students, he has no 
criticism to make of the workers; during the last war, which had 
become a matter of contention between the classes, the attitude of 
the German workers was quite beyond praise, moreover, the 
Socialist Democratic Party fully realised that this war had been 
undertaken by Bonaparte and Wilhelm more to stifle modern 
ideas than for ideas of conquest—the Committee of Brunswick 
had all been arrested* and taken to a fortress on the Russian 
border, and most of its members are still prisoners today, charged 
with the crime of high treason. In the Reichstag itself, Bebel and 
Liebknecht, the representatives of the German working class, were 
not afraid to declare that they were members of the International 
Association and that they were protesting against the war, for 
which they refused to vote any subsidy—the government did not 
dare to have them arrested while the House was sitting, only when 

a See this volume, p. 271.— Ed. 

620 Appendices 

they emerged did the police seize them and carry them off to 
prison.’ 

During the Commune the German workers did not cease, at 
meetings and through the newspapers that belong to them, to 
affirm their solidarity with the Revolutionaries of Paris. And when 
the Commune was crushed they held a meeting at Breslau which 
the Prussian police tried in vain to prevent; at this meeting, and at 
others in various towns in Germany, they acclaimed the Paris 
Commune— Eventually, when Kaiser Wilhelm and his army staged 
their triumphal entry into Berlin, these conquering heroes were 
greeted by the populace with cries of “Long Live the Commune!”? 

When speaking about England Citizen Marx had forgotten to 
make the following statement. 

You will know that between the English workers and the Irish 
workers there has existed of old very considerable antagonism the 
causes of which are actually very easy to enumerate. This 
antagonism has its origin in the differences of language and 
religion’; and in the competition between Irish workers and 
English workers over wages.—In England this antagonism is the 
dam that holds back the flood of Revolution, hence it is skilfully 
exploited by the government and the upper classes, who are 
convinced that no bond would be able to unite the English and 
Irish workers.—It is true that in the political field no union would 
be possible; but it is not the same in the economic field, and on 
either side sections of the International are being formed which in 
this capacity ought to march simultaneously towards the same 
goal.— Before long the Irish sections will be very numerous. 

The London Conference of the First Interna- utes, verified with Rochat’s and 
tional, 1936 Martin’s rough notes 

Translated from the French