In reply to your kind letter of March 3 I thank you, on behalf of 
the General Council, for your adherence to the International 
Working Men’s Association. I must at the same time inform you that 
before accepting it, the Council requires clarification of the 
significance of the reservation you make about your “autonomy”. 

When an association is formed, the first requirement is to draw 
up rules and administrative regulations such as you yourselves 
possess, and as the International possesses too. You are perhaps 
not familiar with the latter and I am therefore enclosing a copy in 
French. Kindly submit them to your society and, if you agree to 
abide by them, let me know. These General Rules and Administra- 
tive Regulations are the only laws which our association possesses 
and which could limit your autonomy. But as you yourselves must 
realise, there cannot be two sorts of section in the International, 
one which accepts the collective laws and one which rejects them.* 
I hope, though, that you will have no difficulty in agreeing to 
these laws, made by the workers of the whole of Europe after 
seven years of annual meetings and recognised by all. 

Administrative Regulation V, Article 1, says that “every branch is 
at liberty to make rules and bye-laws for its local administration, 
adapted to local circumstances and the laws of its country”.” But 
these rules and bye-laws must not contain anything contrary to the 

4 Further on it is crossed out in the rough copy: “preserving its autonomy”.— 
Ed. 

b See this volume, p. 12.— Ed. 

To the Society of Ferrarese Workers 147 

General Rules and Regulations.* Administrative Regulation II, 
Article 5, which leaves to the General Council the responsibility for 
accepting or rejecting each new section, entrusts it with the task of 
checking whether the rules and regulations of these new sections are 
in accordance with this article. I should be grateful, therefore, if you 
would send the Council a copy of your rules so that this formality can 
be carried out. 

‘ : : copy of the letter 

Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXVI, Translated from the Italian