Karl Marx 
Programmvorschlag des Generalrats für den 

fünften Kongreß der Internationalen Arbeiterassoziation 

Der Volksstaat. 
Nr. 65, 13. August 1870 

Das vom Generalrath in seiner Sitzung vom 12. Juli beschlossene Pro- 
gramm für den nächsten Kongreß ist folgendes: 

1) Über die Nothwendigkeit, die Staatsschulden abzuschaffen. Diskussion- 
on über Entschädigungsrecht. 

2) Ueber den Zusammenhang zwischen der politischen Aktion und der 5 
socialen Bewegung der Arbeiterklasse. (Unter dieser Rubrik fällt auch die 
Diskussionon über „direkte Gesetzgebung", welche der Basler Congreß auf 
die Tagesordnung gesetzt hat.) 

3) Praktische Mittel zur Verwandlung des Grundeigenthums in Gemein- 
eigenthum. (Unter diese Rubrik fällt die Diskussionon der vom belgischen 10 
Generalkomitee vorgeschlagenen Frage: „Praktische Mittel zur Stiftung 
internationaler Sektionen unter den Landarbeitern und zur Herstellung 
der Solidarität zwischen dem ländlichen und dem industriellen Proletari- 
at.") 

4) Verwandlung der Zettelbanken in Nationalbanken. 15 

5) Die Bedingungen der genossenschaftlichen Produktion auf natio- 
nalem Maßstab. 

6) Ueber die Pflicht der Arbeiterklassen aller Länder, zur Verfertigung 
einer allgemeinen Arbeiterstatistik zusammenzuwirken gemäß dem Be- 
schlüsse des Genfer Kongresses von 1866. 20 

7) Wiederaufnahme der Frage über die Mittel zur Unterdrückung des 
Kriegs. 

London, 16. Juli 1870. 

Im Namen des Generalraths der Internationalen Arbeiter-Association: 
Karl Marx, Secretair für Deutschland. 25 

Karl Marx 
The General Council of the International Working 

Men's Association on the War 

The General Council 
ofthe 
International Workingmen's Association 
ON THE WAR. 

5 To the Members of the International Workingmen's 
Association 
in Europe and the United States. 

In the inaugural Address of the International Workingmen's As- 
sociation, of November, 1864, we said:—"If the emancipation of the 

10 working classes requires their fraternal concurrence, how are they to 
fulfil that great mission with a foreign policy in pursuit of criminal de- 
signs, playing upon national prejudices and squandering in piratical wars 
the people's blood and treasure?" We defined the foreign policy aimed at 
by the International in these words:—"Vindicate the simple laws of mor- 

15 als and justice, which ought to govern the relations of private individuals, 
as the laws paramount of the intercourse of nations." 

No wonder that Louis Bonaparte, who usurped his power by exploi- 
ting the war of classes in France, and perpetuated it by periodical wars 
abroad, should from the first have treated the International as a danger- 

20 ous foe. On the eve of the plebiscite he ordered a raid on the members of 
the Administrative Committees of the International Workingmen's As- 
sociation throughout France, at Paris, Lyons, Rouen, Marseilles, Brest, 
&c, on the pretext that the International was a secret society dabbling in 
a complot for his assassination, a pretext soon after exposed in its full 

25 absurdity by his own judges. What was the real crime of the French 

Karl Marx 

branches of the International? They told the French people publicly and 
emphatically that voting the plebiscite was voting despotism at home and 
war abroad. It has been, in fact, their work that in all the great towns, in 
all the industrial centres of France, the working class rose like one man 
to reject the plebiscite. Unfortunately, the balance was turned by the 5 
heavy ignorance of the rural districts. The Stock Exchanges, the Cabi- 
nets, the ruling classes and the press of Europe celebrated the plebiscite 
as a signal victory ofthe French Emperor over the French working class; 
and it was the signal for the assassination, not of an individual, but of 
nations. 10 

The war plot of July, 1870, is but an amended edition of the coup d'état 
of December, 1851. At first view the thing seemed so absurd that France 
would not believe in its real good earnest. It rather believed the deputy 
denouncing the ministerial war talk as a mere stock jobbing trick. When, 
on July 15", war was at last officially announced to the Corps Legislatif, 15 
the whole opposition refused to vote the preliminary subsidies, even 
Thiers branded it as "detestable"; all the independent journals of Paris 
condemned it, and, wonderful to relate, the provincial press joined in 
almost unanimously. 

Meanwhile, the Paris members of the International had again set to 20 
work. In the Réveil of July 12", they published their manifesto "to the 
workmen of all nations," from which we extract the following few pas- 
sages: — 

"Once more," they say, "on the pretext of European equilibrium, of 
national honour, the peace of the world is menaced by political ambi- 25 
tions. French, German, Spanish workmen! let our voices unite in one cry 
of reprobation against war! ... War for a question of preponderance or a 
dynasty, can, in the eyes of workmen, be nothing but a criminal absurd- 
ity. In answer to the warlike proclamations of those who exempt them- 
selves from the impost of blood, and find in public misfortunes a source 30 
of fresh speculations, we protest, we who want peace, labour, and liber- 
ty! ... Brothers in Germany! Our division would only result in the com- 
plete triumph of despotism on both sides of the Rhine. ... Workmen of 
all countries! whatever may for the present become of our common ef- 
forts, we, the members of the International Workingmen's Association, 35 
who know of no frontiers, we send you as a pledge of indissoluble soli- 
darity the good wishes and the salutations of the workmen of France." 

This manifesto of our Paris section was followed by numerous similar 
French addresses, of which we can here only quote the declaration of 
Neuilly-sur-Seine, published in the Marseillaise of July 22:::—"The war, 40 
is it just? — No! The war, is it national? — No! It is merely dynastic. In the 

The General Council of the International Working Men's Association on the War 

name of humanity, of democracy, and the true interests of France, we 
adhere completely and energetically to the protestation of the Interna- 
tional against the war." 
These protestations expressed the true sentiments of the French work- 
5 ing people, as was soon shown by a curious incident. The Band of the 
10" oj December, first organized under the presidency of Louis Bona- 
parte, having been masqueraded into blouses and let loose on the streets 
of Paris, there to perform the contortions of war fever, the real workmen 
of the Faubourgs came forward with public peace demonstrations so 
10 overwhelming that Pietri, the Prefect of Paris, thought it prudent to at 
once stop all further street politics, on the plea that the real Paris people 
had given sufficient vent to their pent up patriotism and exuberant war 
enthusiasm. 
Whatever may be the incidents of Louis Bonaparte's war with Prussia, 
15 the death knell of the Second Empire has already sounded at Paris. It will 
end as it began, by a parody. But let us not forget that it is the Govern- 
ments and the ruling classes of Europe who enabled Louis Bonaparte to 
play during eighteen years the ferocious farce of the Restored Empire. 
On the German side, the war is a war of defence, but who put Ger- 
20 many to the necessity of defending herself? Who enabled Louis Bona- 
parte to wage war upon her? Prussia! It was Bismarck who conspired 
with that very same Louis Bonaparte for the purpose of crushing popular 
opposition at home, and annexing Germany to the Hohenzollern dynas- 
ty. If the battle of Sadowa had been lost instead of being won, French 
25 battalions would have overrun Germany as the allies of Prussia. After 
her victory did Prussia dream one moment of opposing a free Germany 
to an enslaved France? Just the contrary. While carefully preserving all 
the native beauties of her old system, she superadded all the tricks of the 
Second Empire, its real despotism and its mock democratism, its political 
30 shams and its financial jobs, its high-flown talk and its low legerdemains. 
The Bonapartist regime, which till then only flourished on one side of the 
Rhine, had now got its counterfeit on the other. From such a state of 
things, what else could result but war? 
If the German working class allow the present war to lose its strictly 
35 defensive character and to degenerate into a war against the French peo- 
ple, victory or defeat will prove alike disastrous. All the miseries that 
befell Germany after her war of independence will revive with accumulat- 
ed intensity. 
The principles of the International are, however, too widely spread and 
40 too firmly rooted amongst the German working class to apprehend such 
a sad consummation. The voices of the French workmen have re-echoed 

Karl Marx 

from Germany. A mass meeting of workmen, held at Brunswick on July 
16, expressed its full concurrence with the Paris manifesto, spurned the 
idea of national antagonism to France, and wound up its resolutions 
with these words:—"We are enemies of all wars, but above all of dynastic 
wars. ... With deep sorrow and grief we are forced to undergo a defensive 5 
war as an unavoidable evil; but we call, at the same time, upon the whole 
German working class to render the recurrence of such an immense social 
misfortune impossible by vindicating for the peoples themselves the pow- 
er to decide on peace and war, and making them masters of their own 
destinies." 10 

At Chemnitz, a meeting of delegates, representing 50,000 Saxon work- 
men, adopted unanimously a resolution to this effect:—"In the name of 
the German democracy, and especially of the workmen forming the 
Democratic Socialist party, we declare the present war to be exclusively 
dynastic. ... We are happy to grasp the fraternal hand stretched out to us 15 
by the workmen of France. ... Mindful of the watchword of the Interna- 
tional Workingmen's Association: Proletarians of all countries, unite, we 
shall never forget that the workmen of all countries are our friends and 
the despots of all countries our enemies." 

The Berlin branch of the International has also replied to the Paris 20 
manifesto:— "We," they say, "join with heart and hand your protesta- 
tion. ... Solemnly we promise that neither the sound of the trumpet, nor 
the roar of the cannon, neither victory nor defeat shall divert us from our 
common work for the union of the children of toil of all countries." 

Be it so! 25 

In the background of this suicidal strife looms the dark figure of Rus- 
sia. It is an ominous sign that the signal for the present war should have 
been given at the moment when the Moscovite Government had just 
finished its strategic lines of railway and was already massing troops in 
the direction of the Pruth. Whatever sympathy the Germans may justly 30 
claim in a war of defence against Bonapartist aggression, they would 
forfeit at once by allowing the Prussian government to call for, or accept, 
the help of the Cossack. Let them remember that, after their war of 
independence against the first Napoleon, Germany lay for generations 
prostrate at the feet of the Czar. 35 

The English working class stretch the hand of fellowship to the French 
and German working people. They feel deeply convinced that whatever 
turn the impending horrid war may take, the alliance of the working 
classes of all countries will ultimately kill war. The very fact that while 
official France and Germany are rushing into a fratricidal feud, the 40 
workmen of France and Germany send each other messages of peace and 

The General Council of the International Working Men's Association on the War 

goodwill; this great fact, unparalleled in the history of the past, opens the 
vista of a brighter future. It proves that in contrast to old society with its 
economical miseries and its political delirium, a new society is springing 

up whose International rule will be Peace, because its national ruler will 
be every where the same — Labour! The Pioneer of that new society is the 
International Workingmen's Association. 

Applegarth, Robert 
Boon, Martin J. 
Bradnick, Fred. 
Stepney, Cowell. 
Hales, John. 
Hales, William. 
Harris, George. 
Lessner, Fred. 
Lintern, W. 
Lullier. 

Maurice Zevy. 

THE GENERAL COUNCIL. 

Milner, George. 
Mottershead, Thomas. 
Murray, Charles. 
Odger, George. 
Parnell, James. 
Pfander. 

Ruhl. 

Shepherd, Joseph. 
Stoll. 

Schmitz. 
Townshend, W. 

CORRESPONDING SECRETARIES: 

Eugene Dupont for 
Karl Marx, for 

A. Serraillier for 
Hermann Jung, for 
Giovanni Bora, for 
Anton Zabicki, for 
James Cohen, for 
J.G. Eccarius, for 

France. 

Germany 

Belgium, Holland and Spain. 
Switzerland. 

Italy. 

Poland. 

Denmark. 

United States. 

BENJAMIN LUCRAFT, Chairman. 
JOHN WESTON, Treasurer. 
J. GEORGE ECCARIUS, General Sec. 
Office: 256, High Holborn, W.C. 
Juli 23, 1870.