It is known that at the last sitting of the Hague Congress, the 
fourteen delegates of the minority tabled a declaration of protest 
against the resolutions adopted. This minority consisted of the 
following delegates: four Spanish, five Belgian, two Jurassian, two 
Dutch, and one American. 

After having agreed at Brussels with the Belgians on the 
principles for common action against the new General Council, the 
Jurassians and the Spaniards left for Saint-Imier in Switzerland to 
hold the anti-authoritarian Congress which the Alliance had 
arranged to have convoked by its acolytes in Rimini. 

This Congress was preceded by that of the Jura Federation, 

tion, No. 1243, December 19, 1871.— Ed. 

No. 20/21, November 10, 1872 (see also this volume, p. 300).— Ed. 

which rejected the resolutions of The Hague, notably the one 
expelling Bakunin and Guillaume. As a result, the Federation was 
suspended by the General Council.*” 

The Alliance was fully represented at the anti-authoritarian 
congress. Beside the Spaniards and the Jurassians, there were six 
Italian delegates, including Costa, Cafiero, Fanelli, and Bakunin in 
person; two delegates claimed to represent “several French 
sections”, and another delegate—two American ones. In_ all, 
fifteen “allies”. This Congress finally offered Bakunin “all the 
guarantees of an impartial and serious trial”*; and here, too, 
complete unanimity prevailed. These men, of whom at least half 
did not belong to the International, appointed themselves mem- 
bers of a supreme tribunal called upon to pronounce the final 
sentence upon the acts of a General Congress of our Association. 
They announced their absolute rejection of all resolutions passed 
by the Hague Congress and refused to recognise in any way the 
powers of the new General Council elected by it. Finally, they 
formed, on behalf of their federations and without any form of 
mandate to that effect, an offensive and defensive alliance, a “pact 
of friendship, of solidarity, and of mutual defence”, against the 
General Council and all those who recognised the resolutions of 
the Hague Congress. They defined their abstentionist anarchism 
in the following resolution, which was a direct condemnation of 
the Paris Commune: 

“The Congress declares 1) that the destruction of all political power is the first 
duty of the proletariat; 2) that any organisation of supposedly provisional and 
revolutionary political power aiming to bring about this destruction can only be yet another 
hoax and will be as dangerous to the proletariat as all governments in existence 

Finally, it was decided to invite the other autonomist federations 
to join the new pact and to hold a second anti-authoritarian 
Congress six months later. 

The split within the International was thus proclaimed. From 
that moment, the Jura Committee openly took over the manage- 
ment of the dissidents’ affairs. The part of the International which 
followed it was no more than the old public Alliance reconstituted 
and serving as a cover and tool for the secret Alliance. 

On returning to Spain, the four Aymon sons, members of the 

No. 17/18, September 15-October 1, 1872, p. 12.— Ed. 

Spanish Alliance,’ published a manifesto full of calumnies against 
the Congress at The Hague and flattery for the one at 
Saint-Imier.” The Federal Council supported this libel and, on the 
orders of the Swiss centre, convoked at Cordoba for December 25, 
1872 the regional Congress which was not to have taken place 
until April 1873. The Swiss centre, for its part, hastened to 
disclose to everybody the subordinate position which the Council 
had been occupying beside it. Over the head of the Spanish 
Council, the Jura Committee sent the Saint-Imier resolutions to all 
the local federations in Spain. 

At the Congress of Cordoba, there were only 36 federations 
represented out of 101 (the official number given by the Federal 
Council); and so this was a minority Congress if ever there was one. 
The newly formed federations were represented by numerous 
delegates; Alcoy had six, and yet this federation had never been 
represented before in a regional Congress. Even during the time of 
the Hague Congress, it had not yet existed, since it had not provided 
one vote or one centime to the Spanish delegation. The important 
and active federations, such as Gracia (500 members), Badalona 
(500), Sabadell (125), Sans (1,061), were conspicuous by their 
absence. In a list of forty-eight delegates, there were fourteen 
notorious Alliance members, of whom ten represented federations 
of which they were not members and which probably did not even 
know them. Sure of the majority which it had engineered, the 
Alliance gave itself a free hand. The regional federation’s statutes, 
drawn up at Valencia and sanctioned at Saragossa, were scrapped, 
the Spanish Federation decapitated, and its Federal Council replaced 
by a simple correspondence and statistical commission which did not 
even retain the function of sending in the Spanish subscriptions to 
the General Council. Finally, the Alliance broke with the 
International, rejecting the resolutions of the Hague Congress and 
adopting the Saint-Imier pact. It went so far in its anarchy as to 
repudiate in advance the next General Congress and to substitute for 
it a new anti-authoritarian Congress 

“in case the first one does not restore the dignity and independence of the International 
by repudiating the Hague Congress” .< 

At The Hague, the Alliance wanted to impose, by means of the 
Spanish imperative mandate, the manner of voting which best 
suited it at the time. At Cordoba, it went so far as to prescribe, 

nine months in advance, the resolutions which must be adopted by 
the next General Congress. It must be admitted that the autonomy 
of sections and federations could not be pushed any further. 

In expelling the Alliance and its leaders from the International, 
the Hague Congress gave fresh impetus to the anti-Alliance 
movement in Spain. The New Madrid Federation was supported 
in its newly launched campaign by the federations of Saragossa, 
Vitoria, Alcala de Henares, Gracia, Lerida, Denia, Pont de 
Vilumara, Toledo, Valencia, the new federation of Cadiz, etc. The 
Federal Council’s circular convoking the Congress of Cordoba 
asked it to set itself up in judgment on the resolutions passed at 
the Hague General Congress.* This was in flagrant violation not 
only of the General Rules, but also of the Spanish regional 
statutes, which stated in Article 13: 

“The Federal Council will implement, and will cause to be implemented, the 
resolutions of the regional and international Congresses.” 

The New Madrid Federation reacted with a circular to the other 
local federations” in which it declared that by this act the Federal 
Council had put itself outside the International, and asked them to 
replace it with a new provisional council whose mission would be 
strict observance of the Rules and not passive obedience to the 
Alliance’s orders. This proposal was accepted; a new Federal 
Council was appointed with its seat at Valencia. In its first circular 
(February 2, 1873), it declared itself to be “the faithful guardian 
of the International’s Rules as drawn up and sanctioned at the 
international and regional Congresses”, and protested vigorously 
against those who wished to sow 

“anarchy within the International, anarchy before revolution, disarmament 
before triumph! What a joy to the bourgeoisie!” 

The Belgians held their Congress at the same time as the 
Spaniards and likewise rejected the Hague resolutions. The 
General Council replied to them, as to the Spanish secessionists, 

noviembre de 1872”, La Emancipacion, No. 73, November 9, 1872.— Ed. 

No. 85, February 8, 1873.— Ed. 

with the resolution of January 26, 1873, which declared that “all 
societies or individuals refusing to acknowledge the Congress 
resolutions, or wilfully neglecting to perform the duties imposed 
by the rules and administrative regulations—place themselves 
outside of, and cease to belong to the International Working 
Men’s Association.” On May 30, it finalised this declaration with 
the following resolution: 

“Whereas the Congress of the Belgian federation, held at 
Brussels on the 25th & 26th day of December 1872, resolved to 
declare null & void the resolutions of the 5th General Congress; 

“Whereas the Congress of a part of the Spanish federation, held 
at Cordoba from December 25th [1872] to January 2nd 1873, 
resolved: to repudiate the resolutions of the 5th General Congress 
& to adopt the resolutions of an anti-international meeting; 

“Whereas a meeting, held at London January 26th 1873, 
resolved: to repudiate the action taken by the 5th General 
Congress; 

“The General Council of the International Workingmen’s 
Association in obedience to the statutes & administrative regula- 
tions & in accordance with its resolution of January 26th 1873, 
hereby declares: 

‘All regional & local federations, sections & individuals having 
participated in & recognising the resolutions of the above 
mentioned meetings & Congresses at Brussels, Cordoba & 
London,— have placed themselves outside of & are no longer members of 
the International Workingmen’s Association.” 

At the same time, it declared once more that no regional Italian 
federation of the International exists, since no organisation calling 
itself by this name has fulfilled the minimal conditions for 
admission and affiliation as imposed by the Rules and Administra- 
tive Regulations. In different parts of Italy, however, there are 
sections which are in order as far as the General Council is 
concerned and are in communication with it. 

For their part, the Jurassians held another Congress on April 27 
and 28 at Neuchatel. There were nineteen delegates present from 
ten Swiss sections, and a so-called section from Alsace; two Swiss 
sections and one French section sent no delegates. The Jura 
Federation thus claimed to count twelve sections in Switzerland. 
But the delegate for Moutier* declared that he had only come to 
speak in favour of reconciliation with the International, and had 
an imperative mandate not to take part in the work of the 

Congress. Moutier had, in fact, broken away from the Jura 
Federation after the Congress of Saint-Imier. This left eleven 
sections. The fact that the report from the Committee* scrupul- 
ously abstained from giving the slightest indication about their 
internal position and their strength gives us the right to assume 
that they had no more vitality than at the time of the Congress of 
Sonvillier. In compensation, the report draws up in battle order 
the external forces of the Jurassians, the allies whom the Alliance 
gained after the Hague Congress. According to this report, they 
were nearly all federations of the International: 

“Italy” —But we have seen that there is no Italian federation. 

“Spain”— Although the majority of the Spanish International 
members have moved across into the secessionist camp, we have 
just seen that the Spanish Federation stil] exists and is in regular 
communication with the General Council. 

“France, in what is seriously organised there”, that is, the 
“section of France”, which apologised to the Congress of 
Neuchatel for not having sent a delegate. We are taking good care 
not to disclose to the Jurassians what is still “seriously organised” 
in France, despite the latest persecutions, which have demon- 
strated well enough on whose side this serious organisation was 
and which, as always, have solicitously spared the few Alliance 
members in France. 

“The whole of Belgium”—is the dupe of the Alliance, whose 
principles she is far from sharing. 

“Holland, except for one section”—that is to say, two Dutch 
sections supported not the Saint-Imier pact, but the anti-separatist 
declaration of the minority at The Hague. 

“England, except for a few dissidents”!—The “dissidents”, that 
is to say, the vast majority of the English sections of the 
International, held their Congress on June | and 2 at Manchester, 
where twenty-six delegates were present representing twenty- 

three sections **; whereas the “England” of the Jurassians had no 
sections or Federal Council, much less a Congress. 
“America, apart from a few dissidents’!—The American 

Federation of the International exists and functions regularly in 
complete harmony with the General Council. It has its Federal 
Council and its Congresses. The “America” of the Jura Commit- 
tee consists purely of those bourgeois dealers in free love, paper 
money, public appointments and bribes, who were represented so 

No. 9, May 1, 1873.— Ed. 

magnificently at the Hague Congress by Mr. West that even the 
Jura delegates dared not speak or vote in his favour. 

“The Slavs” —that is to say, the “Slav section of Zurich”, which, 
as always, figures as a whole race. The Poles, the Russians, and the 
Austrian and Hungarian Slavs of the International, as open 
enemies of the secessionists, do not count. 

This is what the allies of the Alhance amounted to. If the eleven 
Jura sections were no more real than the majority of these allies, 
their committee had good reason to keep silent about them. 

In this battle order of the Alliance, Switzerland was conspicuous 
by her absence. There were very good reasons for this. A month 
later, on June 1 and 2, a general Swiss Working Men’s Congress 
was held in Olten to organise resistance and _ strikes.* Five 
Jurassians* there preached the gospel of absolute autonomy of the 
sections; they made the Congress waste over half its time. Finally, 
the matter had to be put to vote. The result was that of eighty 
delegates, seventy-five voted against the five Jurassians who had 
no alternative but to leave the hall. 

At its secret gatherings, however, the Alliance apparently did 
not subscribe, where its real forces were concerned, to the illusions 
which it wanted to impose on the public. At that same Congress of 
Neuchatel, it had the following resolution adopted: 

“Considering that, in accordance with the General Rules, the General Congress 
of the International meets every year without need of convocation by the General 
Council, the Jura Federation proposes to all the federations of the International 
that they should meet for a General Congress on Monday, September 1, in a Swiss 
town.” 

And to prevent this congress from repeating the “fatal errors of 
The Hague”, it was requested that the Alliance delegates and their 
allies should meet, on August 28, for an  anti-authoritarian 
Congress. From the debate on this proposition, it emerges that 

“for us, the only General Congress of the International will be the one 
convoked directly by the federations themselves, and not the one which the so-called 
General Council of New York might attempt to convoke”’.b 

Here, then, is the split carried to extremes with all the attendant 
consequences. The members of the International will go to the 
congress which the preceding Congress has instructed the General 
Council to convoke in a Swiss town of its own choosing. The 

Alliance members and their suite of dupes will go to a congress 
convoked by themselves on the strength of their autonomy. We 
wish them a pleasant journey. 

Vill