[London,] 21 June 1872 

Dear Citizen, 

Many thanks for your letter.“* Everywhere the same thing is 
going on. Everywhere it is non-working men who hamper the 
advance of the International and who intrigue against the General 
Council precisely because it represents the general interest and 
stands in the way of their petty personal ambitions. 

According to the General Regulations, we have the right to ask 
the Belgian Federal Council for a copy of its printed regulations, 
and for information regarding the financial position of the 
sections and the number of members. We shall make these 
requests in such a manner as not to arouse suspicion. 

As for the Paris correspondent, I now have his name.’ 

According to the General Regulations, II, Art. 5°: ‘The General 
Council has the right to admit or to refuse the affiliation of any new 
society or group, subject to appeal to the Congress. Nevertheless, 
where there exist Federal Councils or Committees, the General 
Council is bound to consult them before admitting or rejecting the 
affiliation of a new branch or society, without prejudice, however, to 
its right of provisional decision’. 

Thus, the new section now forming in Brussels has only to write 
to the General Council (and it may use my address, the Belgian 
secretary being away) and state that it wishes to form ‘an 
independent society’, in direct relation with the General Council. It 
must explain (without holding anything back) the reasons why it 
wants to constitute itself independently of the Belgian Federal 
Council. Whereupon, the General Council must consult the Belgian 
Council, however, ‘without prejudice to its right of decision’. 

The Federation of Working Men’s Societies of which you speak 
would be well-advised, when nominally constituting several sec- 
tions (say 3 or 4), to request the Council to admit them all at the 
same time. Their very number would make it easier for the 
General Council to act. For the fact that several societies in 
Brussels desired to constitute themselves independently of the 
Belgian Federal Council would of itself provide serious presump- 
tive evidence against the latter. Once admitted by the General 
Council, the said societies will have the right to send delegates to 
the next Congress—either a common delegate or one delegate per 
society. The next Congress will take place at The Hague,*”’ on the 
first Monday of September 1872. I shall be sending an official 
communication to that effect to the Brussels Internationale in a few 
days’ time.“ 

As for the Hins draft** (Hins and his wife are correspondents 
and agents of Bakunin), this has had a very bad reception in all the 
countries from which we have heard so far, France, Germany, 
England, etc. 

In L’Egalité (organ of the Romance Federal Council), which I 
am sending you, you will find resolutions against the Hins draft. 

L’Emancipacién (of Madrid), organ of the Spanish Federal 
Council, has published two articles against the Hins draft.*”’ 

a Léon Adrien Massenet - > K. Marx, General Rules and Administrative Regulations of 
the International Working Men’s Association. - © See F. Engels, ‘Announcement of the 
General Council on the Convocation and the Agenda of the Congress at The Hague’, 
L’Internationale, No. 182, 7 July 1872. 

The first article is in the issue of 8 June and is entitled “The 
Belgian Draft of the General Rules’. 
It says, among other things: 

‘If the draft stood the slightest chance of being accepted, this would of itself 
suffice to disorganise the International... The Congresses, which take place only 
once a year, cannot serve as a true link uniting the various federations. The 
immediate effect of the suppression of the General Council would be to disrupt the 
unity of the Association and the strength deriving therefrom... Consistency would 
further demand the suppression of the federal and local Councils, etc. ... The 
suppression of the General Council would spell death to the International.’ 

The Volksfreund (‘Friend of the People’), the organ of the 
International sections of Brunswick, gave the Hins draft a thorough 
trouncing.*? Among other things it says that, if the working men of 
other countries were to imitate those of Belgium, the International 
would be transformed from a society organised for struggle into 
an incoherent mass of pietistic™’ socialist conventicles. In its issue 
of 16 June it returns to the charge.” 

It refers to the police Conference (consisting of Prussian, 
Austrian, Hungarian, etc., functionaries) which is to be held in 
Berlin in August and is to discuss measures to be taken by 
governments against the International. One of the first measures 
adumbrated by these gentlemen is to confine the proletarian 
movement within the national boundaries of each country. The 
Volksfreund concludes its article by saying: Thus it is the despotic 
governments on the Continent which, in order to destroy the 
International, propose to break the ties which bind the various 
national proletarian movements to the centre in London. 

‘Let our friends, the Belgians, ponder this: If we are reduced to the national 
level, as proposed by Bismarck’s agents in Berlin, we shall be killed off in all the 
Continental countries, one after the other, by the reactionary forces. If, on the 
other hand, we retain our centre in London and thus remain Europeans, we shall 
be invulnerable. Our General Council and headquarters in London is not accessible 
to the blows struck by reaction: it would succumb in one situation only: if 
government agents were able to stir up successful rebellions against the common 
centre of the Association among the ranks of continental Internationalists.’ 

Letters from the French sections express contempt for the Hins 
draft and say, for example, that according to this fine draft, 
France, Spain, Germany, .Austria, Poland, Hungary—in a word, 
all those countries where the International is prevented by the 

a B. Becker, ‘Der Kongreß der belgischen Internationale’, Braunschweiger 
Volksfreund, No. 129, 5 June 1872. - » ‘Die anti-sozialistische Konferenz in Berlin’, 
Braunschweiger Volksfreund, No. 139, 16 June 1872. - © Italics by Marx. 

governments from forming official federations, will be virtually 
excluded from the International 1) because it is intended to 
deprive them of their right to vote at Congresses, and 2) because, 
circumstances being what they are, the different sections in those 
countries would, without the General Council, lose all unified 
organisation and all reciprocal ties. 

So, as you can see, the Hins draft will prove a fiasco. But there 
is one thing you must not forget! If the Federal Council sends 
deputies to the Hague Congress, insist that they be given precise 
written mandates signed by all the members of the Federal Council, That 
is the only way to prevent the trickery to which the friends of the 
Alliance’ never hesitate to stoop in furtherance of their own 
particular little plans. 

It goes without saying that you need fear no indiscretion, 
however slight, on my part. 

Fraternal greetings, 
Karl Marx