The International Workingmen's Association, 1871

Activities of the Alliance of Socialist Democracy

Speech by Marx, September 18, 1871


The conflict began with the creation of the Alliance
of Socialist Democracy, founded by Bakunin and others in Geneva. Marx read
the two reports, of [December 22] 1868 and of March [9] 1869, against the
Alliance; in the second report, the dissolution of the Alliance and the
publication of the number of its members and sections were made a condition
of the latter's admission to the International. These conditions have never
been fulfilled; the Alliance has never really dissolved, but always maintained
a kind of organization. The organ of the Geneva sections, L'Egalite,
in its issue of December 11, 1869, rebuked Marx for not having done his
duty by replying to its articles; to which the General Council replied
that it was not his duty to enter into a newspaper polemic, but that he
was, nevertheless, prepared to answer the questions and complaints of the
Romanish Federal Council. This Circular Letter was sent to all the sections;
they all approved the attitude of the General Council. The Swiss Council
disvowed L'Egalite and broke with its management. The management
was changed, and ever since then the organs of the followers of the Alliance
have been Le Progres and, later, La Solidarite. Then at the
Congress in Locle [April 4-6, 1870] it came to an open split between
the two parties, the Romanish Federation and the Jura Federation (Alliance).
The General Council let the matter rest; it absolutely forbade the new
Council to act as the Romanish Federal Council alongside the existing one.
Guillaume, who, contrary to our Statutes, preached abstention from all
political activities, at the outbreak of the [Franco-Prussian] war published
an appeal, calling for the creation of an army in support of France, in
the name of the International, which is even more contrary to our Statutes.
[The article, "To the Sections of the International", by James Guillaume
and Gaspard Blanc, was printed September 5, 1870].