Friedrich Engels

From the International

Written on 19/20 June 1873.

["Der Volksstaat" No. 53, 2 July 1873]

For some time “Der Volksstaat” has carried nothing about the state of affairs in the International Working Men’s Association except the official publications of the General Council in New York. It has simply done the same as all the other international papers and as the great mass of the members of the Association themselves. While the organs of the Hague minority, led by the Bakuninist secret alliance, moved heaven and earth to set themselves up as representatives of the real majority of the International, to slander and calumniate in every key the majority of the Congress, the old General Council and especially Marx, and to gather around them the misunderstood geniuses of all nations, those attacked contented themselves with establishing once and for all the facts regarding the Hague Congress and with countering only the very greatest and most infamous slanders with the facts themselves. For the rest, they relied on the sound common sense of the workers and the action of the General Council, which had indeed also shown itself fully equal to its post.

What follows will prove that this course of action, consistently maintained everywhere without any further agreement, has borne its fruits.

In
England
some English members of the last General Council, at whom Marx in The Hague had hurled the accusation of corruption to their faces – on the basis of documentary evidence and their own admissions, and without their venturing a single word in reply – provoked a split in the British Federal Council last December. They resigned and convened a separate congress, consisting of a whole eleven men, of

whom it was not even ventured to say whether and which sections they represented. The eleven men indignantly declared themselves against the Hague resolutions and ranged themselves under the banner of the secessionists, with two foreigners, Eccarius and Jung, at their head. From then on there existed two Federal Councils, but with the difference that the one, the international, had almost all the sections behind it, while the other, the secessionist, represented no one but its own members. The latter kept up this comedy for several months, but finally fell asleep. With the English workers, who have been schooled by a fifty-year-long movement, such farces simply cannot be staged. By contrast, the Congress of the British International took place in Manchester on 1 and 2 June and decidedly made an epoch in the English labour movement. Twenty-six delegates were present, representing, alongside a few smaller localities, the main centres of English industry. The Federal Council’s report differed from all previous documents of the kind in that – in this country of hereditary legality – it claimed for the working class the right to enforce its demands by force.

The Congress approved the report and resolved: The red flag is the flag of the British International; the working class claims the return not only of all landed property, but of all means of labour in general to the labouring people; as a preliminary measure, the eight-hour normal working day is demanded; the Spanish workers are congratulated on the establishment of the republic and the election of ten workers to the Cortes; the English government is called upon to release immediately the Irish Fenians still held captive. – Anyone who knows the history of the English labour movement will admit that no English workers’ congress has ever put forward such far-reaching demands. And in any case, with this Congress and with the pitiful end of the separatist, self-concocted Federal Council, the position of the English International has been decided.

In
Switzerland
things are going no better for the secessionists. It is well known that the Jura Federation was always the soul of all secessionism in the International. Already at the Hague Congress their delegates declared that they represented the true majority of the International and that they would prove this at the next Congress. But time brings counsel, even for people who talk big. On 27 and 28 April the Jura Federation held its Congress in Neuchâtel. The proceedings show that the Federation comprises eleven Swiss sections, of which nine

were represented. How these eleven sections stand, how strong they are, etc., is not stated in the committee’s report in a single word; on the contrary, it declares that virtually the whole International has joined its secessionism. Will this enormous majority, then, appear at the next general Congress and overturn the Hague resolutions? No, not exactly that. On the contrary, the same committee proposes – which is naturally adopted at once by these “autonomous” delegates: In order that the new Congress may not again fall into the dangerous aberrations of the Hague Congress, the secessionist federations shall hold their own congress in some Swiss town and shall recognise no congress that the New York General Council might convene.

The
Hague Congress
expressly instructed the General Council to designate the Swiss town in which the next Congress is to take place. The Jura Federation’s resolution therefore means nothing more than a fresh retreat, concealed behind high-sounding phrases.

Indeed, it was time for these gentlemen to cover their backs. On 1 and 2 June – fatal days for the secessionists – the Swiss workers’ congress was held in Olten. Out of 80 delegates, a whole five from the Jura were present. It was proposed to found a centralised Swiss workers’ league.

The five Jurassians, by contrast, proposed an artificially clause-ridden federative system that would have rendered the entire organisation powerless. Being in a hopeless minority, they set about, as in The Hague, wasting the others’ time. The Congress lost the whole of Sunday with the debate on this so-called “question of principle.” Finally the majority found itself compelled, exactly as in The Hague, to shut the mouths of these long-winded orators in order simply to get down to work. On Monday it was simply resolved to found a centralised league, whereupon the five preachers, after reading a meaningless declaration, left the hall and betook themselves home. And these people, in their own country so completely null, have for years been asseverating their vocation to reorganise the International!

But misfortunes never come singly. In Italy, where the anarchists of secessionism currently hold forth, one of their number, Crescio of Piacenza, had sent his new paper, “L’Avvenire Sociale” (the Social Future), to Garibaldi, whom these gentlemen constantly claim as one of their own. The paper was full of furious invective

against what they call “the principle of authority,” which in their view is the root of all evil. Garibaldi replied as follows:

“Dear Crescio! Heartfelt thanks, etc. You want in your paper to wage war against falsehood and slavery – that is a very fine programme. But I believe that combating the principle of authority is one of the mistakes of the International which hinders its progress.
The Paris Commune fell because in Paris there was no authority, but only anarchy.”

The old freedom fighter, who in the single year 1860 achieved more than all the anarchists will ever attempt in their lives, knows the value of discipline all the more since he always had to discipline his own forces himself and did not do so like official soldiers, by drill and constant threat of shooting, but in the face of the enemy.

Unfortunately we are not yet at the end of the list of mishaps that have befallen the secessionists. Only one thing was still lacking, and this too has happened to them. Der Neue, whose police nose had for some time past detected a certain sweet smell about these prime disruptors of the International, now comes over entirely to their side. In its No. 68 it finds that the draft statutes drawn up by the Belgians – who have actually left the International – entirely corresponds to its views, and it holds out the prospect of its adhesion to the secessionists. Thus all our wishes are fulfilled. If Hasselmann and Hasenclever appear at the secessionist congress, this separate league will receive its true character. Bakunin on the right, Hasenclever on the left, and in the middle the hapless Belgians, led by the nose by their Proudhonist phrases!