1) Lorenzo, question of principle – this decided.

2) Abstention impossible. Journalism is also politics; all abstentionist papers attack the government. The only question is  
how  
and how far to intervene in politics. This depends on the circumstances and cannot be prescribed.

2) Abstention absurd; we are supposed to abstain because bad people might be elected – therefore no collection |contribution collecting|, because the treasurer can abscond. Therefore no journal, because the editor can sell himself just as well as the deputy.

3) Political freedom – especially freedom of association, assembly, and press – our means of agitation; is it a matter of indifference whether these are taken from us or not? And are we not to defend ourselves when they are attacked?

4) Abstention preached because otherwise we recognise the existing order. The existing order exists and doesn’t care a straw |mocks| our recognition. If we use the means that the existing order gives us to protest against the existing order, is that recognition?

|Points 2, 3 and 4 were written by Engels as an addition on the right-hand side of his outline for the speech|

3) Abstention impossible. The workers’ party as a political party  
exists  
and wants to act politically, and to preach abstention to it means ruining the International. The mere observation of the conditions, of the political oppression for social purposes  
forces  
the workers into politics; the preachers of abstention drive them into the arms of the bourgeois politicians. After the Commune, which placed the political action of the workers on the order of the day, abstention impossible.

4) We want the abolition of classes. The only means is political power in the hands of the proletariat – and we are not to engage in politics? All abstentionists call themselves revolutionary. The revolution is the highest act of politics, and whoever wants it must also want the means that prepare the revolution, educate the workers for it, and take care that he is not cheated again the next day by Favre and Pyat. It only depends on  
what  
politics – the  
exclusively  
proletarian politics, not as the tail of the  
bourgeoisie  
.