The Russian Bakunin (although I have known him since 1843, I 
shall here ignore everything not absolutely necessary for the 
understanding of what follows) met Marx in London? shortly after 
the foundation of the International. There the latter took him into 
the Association, for which Bakunin promised to work to the best 
of his ability. Bakunin went to Italy and received there from Marx 
the Provisional Rules and Address to the Working Classes,” answered 
“very enthusiastically” and did nothing. After some years, during 
which nothing was heard from him, he turned up again in 
Switzerland. There he joined, not the International, but the League 
de la paix et de la liberté.'*? After the congress of this Peace League 
(Geneva, 1867) Bakunin got on to its Executive Committee, but 
found opponents there, who not only denied him any “dictatorial” 
influence, but watched him closely as being “suspect as a Russian”’. 
Shortly after the Brussels Congress of the International (September 
1868) the Peace League held its congress at Berne. Here Bakunin 
acted the riresranp and—be it remarked en passant—denounced 
the occidental bourgeoisie in the tone in which Muscovite optimists 
are accustomed to attack Western civilisation—to palliate their own 
barbarism. He proposed a number of resolutions, which, absurd in 
themselves, were intended to instil fear into the bourgeois cretins and 
allow Monsieur Bakunin to leave the Peace League and enter the 
International with éclat. It suffices to note that the pro- 
gramme proposed by Bakunin to the Berne‘ Congress '”° contains 

* On November 3, 1864.— Ed. 

such absurdities as the “equality of classes”, “abolition of the right of 
inheritance as the first step of the social revolution”, -etc.— empty 
babblings,* a garland of ostensibly horrifying hollow fancies, in short 
an insipid improvisation, calculated purely to make a certain 
short-lived effect. Bakunin’s friends in Paris (where a Russian” has a 
seat on the editorial board of the Revue Positiviste) and in London 
proclaim to the world Bakunin’s resignation from the Peace League 
as un événement and declare his grotesque programme—that olla 
podrida of outworn  platitudes—wonderfully awe-inspiring and 
original. 

Bakunin meanwhile had joined the Branche Romande of the 
International (in Geneva). It took him years to decide upon this 
step. But it did not take days for Monsieur Bakunin to decide to 
transform the International and turn it into an instrument of his 
own. 

Behind the back of the London General Council—which was 
informed only when everything was apparently already arranged— 
he founded the so-called Alliance des Démocrates Socialistes.'°' The 
programme of this society was none other than that proposed by 
Bakunin at the Berne Peace Congress. The society thereby 
proclaimed itself from the outset as a propaganda society of the 
specifically Bakuninist cult, and Bakunin himself, one of the most 
ignorant men in the field of social theory, suddenly appeared here as 
the founder of a sect. The theoretical programme of this Alliance 
was however pure farce. The serious aspect of the affair lay in its 
practical organisation. This society was to be international, with its 
Central Committee in Geneva, that is, under Bakunin’s personal 
direction. At the same time it was to be an “integral” part of the 
International Working Men’s Association. Its prancues were to be 
represented at the “next congress” of the International (in Basle) 
and were at the same time to hold their own congress in separate 
sittings, side by side with the other, etc., etc. 

The human material which at first stood at Bakunin’s disposal 
consisted of the majority at that time of the Comité Fédéral 

Romand of the International in Geneva. J. Ph. Becker, whose 
propagandist zeal at times runs away with his head, was pushed 
forward to the front of the stage. In Italy and Spain Bakunin had 
a few allies. 

The General Council in London was fully informed. However, 
it let Bakunin proceed undisturbed up to the moment when he 
found it necessary to send the General Council, through 
J. Ph. Becker, the Rules (and programme) of the Alliance des 
Démocrates Socialistes for approval. The General Council answered 
with a thoroughly reasoned resolution—wholly “judicial” and 
“objective” in tone, but full of irony in its “considerations” — 
which concluded as follows: 

1. The General Council does not admit the Alliance as a branch 
of the International. 

2. All the paragraphs of the Rules of the Alliance referring to 
its relations with the International are declared null and void. 

The considerations for this resolution demonstrated clearly 

and forcefully that the Alliance was nothing but an instrument to 
disorganise the International. 
_ The blow was unexpected. Bakunin had already turned the 
Fgalité, central organ of the French-speaking members of the 
International in Switzerland, into his own organ, and had, in 
addition, started at Locle a little private journal of his own, the 
Progres. The Progrés is playing this role up to the present day 
under the editorship of a fanatical adherent of Bakunin, a certain 
Guillaume. 

After several weeks’ reflection the Central Committee of the 
Alliance finally sent its answer to the General Council, over the 
signature of Perron, a Genevese. In its eagerness to serve the good 
cause, the Alliance was ready to sacrifice its independent organisation, 
but on one condition—namely, that the General Council declare 
its recognition of the Alliance’s “radical” principles. 

The ‘General Council replied: It was not its function to sit in 
judgment on the theoretic value of the programmes of its various 
sections. It had only to see that those programmes contained 
nothing directly contradictory to the letter and spirit of the Rules. It must 
therefore insist upon the absurd phrase about the égalité des classes 
being struck from the programme of the Alliance and replaced 
by the abolition des classes (which was done). For the rest, the 
Alliance could enter the International after dissolving its own 
independent international organisation, and supplying the General 

Council with a list of all its prancues* (which, nota bene, was not 
done). 

The incident was therewith closed. Nominally, the Alliance 
dissolved itself; actually, it remained in existence, under the 
leadership of Bakunin, who at the same time controlled the 
Genevese Comité Romand Fédéral of the International. 

To its former press organs were added the Federacion of 
Barcelona and, after the Basle Congress, the Naples Eguaglianza. 

Bakunin now attempted to reach his goal—the transformation 
of the International into his personal instrument—by other means. 
Through our Romance Committee at Geneva he proposed to the 
General Council the inclusion of the “inheritance question” in the 
agenda of the Basle Congress.” The General Council agreed, in 
order to be able to deal a direct blow to Bakunin. Bakunin’s plan 
_was this: the Basle Congress, in accepting the “principles” (?) put 
forward by Bakunin at Berne, will show the world that it is not 
Bakunin who has come over to the International, but the 
International that has gone over to Bakunin. Obvious result, the 
London General Council (of whose hostility to the warming up of 
the vieillerie Saint-Simoniste’ Bakunin was fully aware) would have 
to resign and the Basle Congress would transfer the General Council 
to Geneva, that is, the International would come under the 
dictatorship of Bakunin. 

Bakunin set a complete conspiracy going to secure a majority at 
the Basle Congress. Even false mandates were not lacking, such as 
Monsieur Guillaume’s mandate for Locle, etc. Bakunin himself 
begged mandates from Naples and Lyons. Every kind of slander 
against the General Council was spread abroad. Some were told 
that élément bourgeois dominated the Council, others that it was the 
seat of communisme autoritaire, etc. 

The results of the Basle Congress are well known. Bakunin’s 
proposals were not accepted and the General Council remained in 
London. 

The annoyance which followed this failure—perhaps Bakunin 
had based all kinds of private speculations on the assumption of 
success—found expression in the irritable comments of the Egalité 
and Progreés. These papers meanwhile were assuming more and 
more the posture of official oracles. Now one, now another Swiss 
section of the International was excommunicated because, contrary 

April 13 [1869]”, The Bee-Hive, No. 392, April 17, 1869.— Ed. 

to Bakunin’s explicit instructions, it had taken part in the political 
movement, etc. Finally the rage against the General Council, so 
long restrained, broke out openly. The Progrés and Egalité 
derided, attacked, and declared that the General Council was not 
fulfilling its duties, for example in regard to the quarterly bulletin; 
that the General Council must give up its direct control over 
England and have an English Central Committee established 
alongside it, to deal with English affairs only; that the resolutions 
of the General Council on the imprisoned Fenians went beyond its 
functions, since it should not deal with questions of local politics. 
Moreover, the Progrés and Egalité took up the cudgels for 
Schweitzer and categorically demanded that the General Council 
declare itself officially and publiquement* on the Liebknecht- 
Schweitzer question. The newspaper Le Travail (in Paris), into 
which Schweitzer’s Paris friends smuggled articles in his favour, 
was praised on that account by the Progrés and Egalité, the latter 
calling upon the Travail to make common cause against the 
General Council.” 

The time had now come for action to be taken. What follows is 
an exact copy of the circular sent by the General Council to the 
Central Committee of the Romance Federation in Geneva. The 
document is too long for me to translate into German [original in 
French]. 

The General Council to the Federal Council of Romance Switzerland 
in Geneva. 

At its extraordinary meeting on January 1, 1870, the General 
Council resolved: ; 

1) We read in the Egalite of December 11, 1869: 

“Tt is certain that the General Council is neglecting extremely important 
matters... We remind the General Council of its obligations with Article 1 of the 
Regulations: “The General Council is commissioned to carry the resolutions of 
the Congress into effect’... We could put enough questions to the General Council 

for its replies to make up quite a long report. They will come later. Meanwhile, 
etc.” 

The General Council does not know of any article, either in the 
Rules or in the Regulations, which would oblige it to enter into 
correspondence or into polemic with the Egalité or to provide 

“replies” to “questions” of any newspaper whatsoever. 

The Federal Council of Romance Switzerland alone represents the 

P L’Egalité, Nos. 42, 43 and 47, November 6, 13 and December 11, 1869; Le 
Progres, No. 25, December 4, 1869.— Ed. 

branches of Romance Switzerland at the General Council. When 
the Federal Council addresses requests or reprimands to us 
through the only legitimate channel, that is to say through its 
secretary, the General Council will always be ready to reply. But 
the Romance Federal Council has no right either to abdicate its 
functions in favour of the Egalité and the Progrés, or to let these 
newspapers usurp its functions. Generally speaking, the General 
Council’s correspondence with the national and local committees 
cannot be published without greatly prejudicing the Association’s 
general interests. 

Consequently, if other organs of the International were to follow 
the example of the Progrés and the Egalité, the General Council 
would be faced with the alternative of either discrediting itself 
publicly by its silence or violating its obligations by replying 
publicly. The Egalité joins the’ Progres in inviting Le Travail to 
demand an explanation from the General Council. That is almost 
a League of Public Welfare.’ 

2) Now, assuming that the questions put by the Egalité come from 
the Romance Federal Council, we shall reply to them, but only on 
condition that such questions shall not in the future be communi- 
cated to us in the same way. 

3) Question of a Bulletin. 

In the resolutions of the Geneva* Congress, which are inserted 
in the Regulations, it is laid down that the national committees 
shall send the General Council documents dealing with the 
proletarian movement” and that the General Council shall 
thereupon publish a bulletin in the different languages “as often as 
tts means permit” (“As often as its means permit, the General Council 
shall publish a report, etc.”).° 

The General Council’s obligation was thus made dependent on 
conditions that have never been fulfilled. Even the statistical inquiry 
prescribed by the Rules, ordered by consecutive General 
Congresses, and demanded yearly by the General Council, has never 
been made. As far as the means are concerned, the General Council 
would have Jong since ceased to exist had it not been for local 
contributions from England and the personal sacrifices of its 
members. _ 

Thus, the Regulations passed at the Geneva* Congress have 
remained a dead letter. 

As regards the Basle Congress, it did not discuss the fulfilment 
of an existing regulation. It discussed the possibility of issuing a 
bulletin in good time and it did not pass any resolution. 

For the rest, the General Council believes that the original 
purpose of such a bulletin is at the moment perfectly fulfilled by 
the different organs of the International published in the different 
languages and exchanged among them. It would be absurd to do 
by costly bulletins what is being done already without any expense. 
On the other hand, a bulletin which would print what is not 
contained in the organs of the International would only help our 
enemies to see behind the scenes. 

4) Question of separating the General Council from the Federal 
Council for England. ; 

Long before the foundation of the FEgalité, this proposition 
was periodically made inside the General Council by one or two 
of its English members.'*? It was always rejected almost unani- 
mously. 

Although revolutionary initiative will probably come from 
France, England alone can serve as the lever for a_ serious 
economic Revolution. It is the only country where there are no 
more peasants and where landed property is concentrated in a few 
hands. It is the only country where the capitalist form, that is to 
say, combined labour on a large scale under capitalist masters, now 
embraces virtually the whole of production. It is the only country 
where the great majority of the population consists of wages-LABOURERS. 
It is the only country where the class struggle and the organisation of 
the working class by the Trapes Unions have acquired a certain 
degree of maturity and universality. It is the only country where, 
because of its domination on the world market, every revolution in 
economic matters must immediately affect the whole world. If 
landlordism and capitalism are classical features in England, on the 
other hand, the material conditions for their destruction are the most 
mature here. The General Council now being in the happy position 
of having its hand directly on this great lever of the proletarian revolution, 
what folly, we might say even what a crime, to let this lever fall into 
purely English hands! 

The English have all the material necessary for the social 
revolution. What they lack is the spirit of generalisation and 
revolutionary ardour. It is only the General Council that can provide 

them with this, that can thus accelerate the truly revolutionary 
movement in this country, and consequently everywhere. The great 
results we have already achieved in this respect are attested to by the 
most intelligent and influential of the newspapers of the ruling 
classes, as for example, The Pall Mall Gazette, Saturday Review, The 
Spectator and The Fortnightly Review, to say nothing of the so-called 
radicals in the Commons and the Lorps who, a little while ago, still 
exerted a great influence on the leaders of the English workers. 
They accuse us publicly of having poisoned and almost exting- 
uished the English spirit of the working class and of having pushed 
it into revolutionary socialism. 

The only way to bring about this change is to act like the General 
Council of the International Association. As the General Council we 
can initiate measures (for example, the founding of the Land and 
Labour League'’*) which later, in the process of their execution, 
will appear to the public as spontaneous movements of the English 
working class. 

If a Federal Council were formed apart from the General 
Council, what would be the immediate results? Placed between the 
General Council of the International and the General Council of Trapes 
Unions,'”? the Federal Council would have no authority whatever. 
On the other hand, the General Council of the International would 
lose control of the great lever. If we had preferred the showman’s 
chatter to serious and unostentatious work, we would perhaps 
have committed the mistake of replying publicly the Egalité’s 
question as to why “the General Council permits such a 
burdensome combination of functions”. * 

England cannot be treated simply as a country along with other 
countries. It must be treated as the metropolis of capital. 

5) Question of the General Council Resolutions on the Irish Amnesty. 

If England is the sutwarx of landlordism and European 
capitalism, the only point where official England can be struck a 
great blow is Ireland. 

In the first place, Ireland is the sutwarx of English landlordism. 
If it fell in Ireland, it would fall in England. In Ireland this is a 
hundred times easier because the economic struggle there is concen- 
trated exclusively on landed property, because this struggle is at the 
same time national, and because the people there are more 
revolutionary and more exasperated than in England. Landlord- 
ism in Ireland is maintained solely by the English army. The 
moment the forced Union’ between the two countries ends, a 

social revolution will immediately break out in Ireland, though in 
outmoded forms. English landlordism would not only lose a great 
source of its wealth, but also its greatest moral force, i. e., that of 
representing the domination of England over Ireland. On the other 
hand, by maintaining the power of its landlords in Ireland, 
the English proletariat makes them invulnerable in England 
itself. 

In the second place, the English bourgeoisie has not only 
exploited Irish poverty to keep down the working class in England 
by forced immigration of poor Irishmen, but it has also divided the 
proletariat into two hostile camps. The revolutionary fire of the 
Celtic worker does not go well with the solid but slow nature of 
the Anglo-Saxon worker. On the contrary, in all the big industrial 
cenires in England there is profound antagonism between the Irish 
proletarian and the English proletarian. The average English 
worker hates the Irish worker as a competitor who lowers wages 
and the sranparp or ure. He feels national and religious antipathies 
-for him. He regards him somewhat like the poor wurres of the 
Southern States of North America regarded black slaves. This 
antagonism among the proletarians of England is artificially 
nourished and kept up by the bourgeoisie. It knows that this 
scission is the true secret of maintaining its power. 

Moreover, this antagonism is reproduced on the other side of 
the Atlantic. The Irish, chased from their native soil by the bulls 
and the sheep, reassemble in the United States where they 
constitute a huge, ever-growing section of the population. Their 
only thought, their only passion, is hatred for England. The 
English and American governments—that is to say, the classes 
they represent—play on these feelings in order to perpetuate the 
international struggle which prevents any serious and _ sincere 
alliance between the working classes on both sides of the Atlantic, 
and, consequently, their common emancipation. 

Ireland is the only pretext the English Government has for 
retaining a big standing army, which, if need be, as has happened 
before, can be used against the English workers after having done 
its military training in Ireland. 

Lastly, England today is seeing a repetition of what happened 
on a monstrous scale in ancient Rome. Any people that oppresses - 
another people forges its own chains. 

Thus, the position of the International Association with regard 
to the Irish question is very clear. Its first concern is to advance 
the social revolution in England. To this end a great blow must be 
struck in Ireland. 

The General Council’s resolutions on the Irish amnesty* serve 
only as an introduction to other resolutions '°’ which will affirm 
that, quite apart from international justice, it is a precondition to the 
emancipation of the English working class to transform the present 
forced Union—1i. e., the enslavement of Ireland—=into equal and free 
confederation if possible, into complete separation if need be. 

For the rest, the doctrines of the Egalité and the Progrés 
on the connexion, or rather, the Non-connexion, between the social 
movement and the political movement have never, as far as we 
know, been recognised by any of our Congresses. They run counter 
to our Rules. The Rules say: 

“That the economical emancipation of the working classes is [...] 
the great end to which every political movement ought to be subordinate 
as a means.”’” 

The words “as a means’ were omitted in the French translation 
made in 1864 by the Paris Committee.4 When questioned by the 
General Council, the Paris Committee excused itself by the 
difficulties of its political situation. 

There are other mutilations of the authentic text of the Rules. 
Thus, the first clause of the preamble to the Rules reads: 

“The struggle for the emancipation of the working classes 
means ... a struggle ... for equal rights and duties, and the abolition of 
all class rule.” 

The Paris translation has “equal rights and duties”, that is it 
reproduced the general phrase which may be found virtually in all 
democratic manifestoes of the last hundred years and which means 
different things in the mouth of different classes, but leaves out 
the concrete demand: “the abolition of classes”’. 

Further, in the second clause of.the preamble to the Rules we 
read: “That the economical subjection of the man of labour to 
the monopoliser of the means of labour, that is, the sources of life, 
etc.” 

The Paris translation substitutes the word “capital” for “the 
means of labour, that is, the sources of life’, an expression which 
includes the land as well as the other means of labour. 

The original authentic text was restored in the French 
translation published in Brussels in 1866.’ 

6) Liebknecht-Schweitzer Question. 

The Egalité writes: 

“Both these groups belong to the International”. That is incorrect. 
The Eisenachers’ group (which the Progrés and the Egalité would 
like to turn into Citizen Liebknecht’s group) belongs to the 
International. Schwettzer’s group does not belong to it. 

Schweitzer himself explained at length in his newspaper, the 
Social-Demokrat, why the Lassallean organisation could not join the 
International without destroying itself.” Without realising it, he was 
speaking the truth: His artificial sectartan organisation is opposed 
to the real organisation of the working class. 

The Progrés and the Egalité have summoned the General 
Council to state publicly its “opinion” on the personal differences 
between Liebknecht and Schweitzer. Since Citizen J. Ph. Becker 
(who is slandered as much as Liebknecht in Schweitzer’s paper‘) 1s 
a member of the Egalité’s editorial board, it seems most strange that 
its editors are not better informed about the facts. They should 
have known that Liebknecht, in the Demokratisches Wochenblatt, 
publicly invited Schweitzer to accept the General Council as arbiter 
of their differences,’ and that Schweitzer no less publicly refused to 
acknowledge the authority of the General Council. 

The General Council has employed all possible means to put an 
end to this scandal. It instructed its Secretary for Germany‘ to 
correspond with Schweitzer; this has been done, but all attempts 
by the Council have broken down in the face of Schweitzer’s firm 
resolution to preserve at all cost his autocratic power together with 
the sectarian organisation. 

It is up to the General Council to determine the favourable 
moment when its public intervention in this quarrel will be more 
useful than damaging.* 

By order of the General Council etc.” 

¢ Der Social-Demokrat, No. 24, February 24, 1869.— Ed. 

4 °W. Liebknecht, “Erklarung. Leipzig, 18. Februar 1869”, Demokratisches 
Wochenblatt, No. 8, February 20, 1869.— Ed. 

© Der Social-Demokrat, No. 24, February 24, 1869.— Ed. 

the “Herzen heritage” sine beneficio inventarit. 

The French Committees (although Bakunin had been actively 
intriguing in Lyons and Marseilles and had won over a few young 
hotheads), as well as the Conseil Général Belge* (Brussels), have fully 
endorsed this circular of the General Council. 

The copy for Geneva was delayed somewhat (because Jung, 
Secretary for Switzerland, was very busy). It therefore crossed with 
an official letter from Perret, Secretary of the Central Committee 
of the Romance Federation in Geneva, to the General Council.! 

The crisis had broken out in Geneva before the arrival of our 
letter. Some members of the editorial board of the Egalité had 
opposed the policy dictated by Bakunin. Bakunin and his followers 
(including six editors of the Egalité) wanted to force the Geneva 
Central Committee to dismiss the unruly members. The Geneva 
Committee, however, had long grown tired of Bakunin’s despot- 
ism and saw itself with great displeasure being forced by him into 
opposition to the other German-Swiss Committees, the General 
Council, etc. It therefore endorsed the attitude of those members 
of the Egalité editorial board who opposed Bakunin. Thereupon 
Bakunin’s six followers resigned from the editorial board, hoping 
thereby to put an end to the publication of the paper.” 

In answer to our letter the Geneva Central Committee declared 
that the attacks in the Egalité had been made without its approval, 
that it had never endorsed the policy preached therein and that in 
future the paper would be edited under the strict supervision of 
the Committee, etc.’ 

Bakunin thereupon retired from Geneva to Ticino. As far as 
Switzerland is concerned, he now has a say only in the Progrés (Locle). 

Shortly afterwards Herzen died. Bakunin, who from the time 
that he decided to set himself up as director of the European workers’ 
movement had denied his old friend and patron Herzen, hastened 
to sing his praises immediately after his death.“ Why? Herzen, 
though personally wealthy, allowed the pseudo-socialist, Pan-Slavist 
party in Russia, which was friendly towards him, to pay him 
25,000 francs annually for propaganda. By his paean of praise 
Bakunin directed this stream of money to himself and— malgré sa 

haine de Vhéritage’—thereby entered financially and morally upon 
»e 160 

i) 

At the same time a coLtony of young Russian rerucees settled in 
Geneva, students whose intentions are really honest and whose 
sincerity is proved by the adoption of the fight against Pan-Slavism as 
the chief point of their programme.* 

They publish a paper in Geneva called La Cause du Peuple.? 
Asout two weeks ago they applied to London, sending in their 
Programme and Statutes,” and requesting. permission to form a 
Russian branch.'°' Permission was given. 

In a separate letter to Marx they asked him to represent them 
provisionally on the General Council. That too was done. At the 
same time they indicated—and apparently wished to excuse them- 
selves to Marx on this account—that in the immediate future they 
would have to expose Bakunin publicly, since the man spoke in 
two entirely different tongues, one in Russia, another in Europe.'” 

The game of this very dangerous intriguer—at least in the 
domain of the International—will soon be played out.