ENGELS TO CARLO CAFIERO”™! 

London, 28 July 1871 
122, R.P.R. N.W. 

Dear Cafiero, 

I have received your letter of the 12th, and I hope you have 
received the one I sent to Naples a few days before,* containing 
the Rules of the Association, the deliberations of the Geneva and 
Brussels congresses, the second” edition of the address on the civil 
war in France, the addresses on the Franco-Prussian war, the 
Association’s Inaugural Address of 1864, etc., etc. These docu- 
ments will certainly suffice to explain to you what the rules and 
principles of our society are and the means which the General 
Council has available to act in the name and on behalf of the 
society. I have once again received the Plebe of Lodi, the bulletin 
on Caporusso and the issue of Roma del Popolo containing 
Mazzini’s attack on us.‘ 

As for the facts relating to Caporusso which have been 
published and subsequently quoted in your letter, they would 
seem to be sufficient to make him incapable of harming us in the 
future. If he were to dare to present himself again to the public as 
a representative of the working class, the story of the 300 lire? 
would be made public and that would erase the last traces of his 
influence. We are pleased to hear that there is no sign of the 
Bakuninist sect over there. We had been led to believe the reverse 
because the Swiss Bakuninists always asserted it to be the case. They 
repeated it constantly and since we received no reply from Naples 
to our letters we believed it. We had no address in Naples other 
than that of Caporusso, to whom at least 3 letters were written by 
our French secretary E. Dupont in Marx’s presence, but Caporus- 
so must have suppressed them. If you think it is worth the trouble, 
ask Caporusso about those letters. Besides, no replies from Naples 
were ever received, and if those letters which were sent were 
addressed, as you say, directly to the Council, it is only too evident 
that, between them, the Italian, French and British police would 
have prevented them from arriving. 

a See this volume, pp. 170-73. - > In the original mistakenly: ‘third’. - ¢ G. Mazzini, 
‘Agli operai italiani’, La Roma del Popolo, No. 20, 13 July 1871. 

You are right to dwell on the moment of reflexion (in which I 
recognise with pleasure the very voice of old Hegel, to whom we 
are all so indebted)* and to say that the Association cannot be 
satisfied in its work with the mere assertion of Article 1 of the 
Rules, a principle which, unless developed, will remain a mere 
negation, the negation of the right of the aristocratic and bourgeois 
classes to ‘exploit’ the proletariat. In fact we must go much 
further, we must develop the positive side of the question, how the 
emancipation of the proletariat is to take effect, and thus the 
discussion of different opinions becomes not just inevitable but 
necessary. As I say, this discussion is going ahead constantly not 
only within the Association but also in the General Council, where 
there are Communists, Proudhonists, Owenists, Chartists, Bakuninists, 
etc., etc. The most difficult thing is to get them all together and 
ensure that the differences of opinion on these matters do not 
disturb the solidity and stability of the Association. In this we have 
always been fortunate, with the sole exception of the Swiss 
Bakuninists, who with true sectarian fury always dared to impose 
their programme on the Association, both by direct means and 
indirectly, by forming a special international society with its own 
General Council, its own congress, and all this within the great 
International itself. When this was attempted in the form of the 
Alliance de la démocratie socialiste de Genéve’ the Council replied as 
follows (22 December 1868) °: 

‘According to these documents (the Programme and Regulations 
of the Alliance‘), the said Alliance is merged entirely in the 
International, at the same time as it is established entirely outside 
this Association. Besides the General Council of the International, 
elected at the Geneva, Lausanne and Brussels congresses, there is to 
be, in line with the initiatory rules (of the Alliance), another Central 
Council in Geneva, which is self-appointed. Besides the local groups 
of the International, there are to be the local groups of the Alliance, 
which through their national bureaus, operating outside the national 
bureaus of the International, shall ask the Central Bureau of the Alliance 
to admit them into the International. The Alliance Central Committee 
thereby takes upon itself the right of admittance to the International. 

a Hegel considered reflexion the motive force of the development of the World Spirit, 
the inner form of the historical self-consciousness and _ seli-development of 
culture. - > K. Marx, ‘The International Working Men’s Association and the 
International Alliance of Socialist Democracy’. - © The words in parentheses were 
inserted into the resolution by Engels. 

Lastly, the General Congress of the International Working Men’s 
Association will have its parallel (doublure) in the General Congress 
of the Alliance, for, as the initiatory rules say, 

‘“At the Annual Working Men’s Congress the delegation of the Alliance of 
Socialist Democracy, as a branch of the International Working Men’s Association, shall 
hold public meetings in a separate building.” 

‘Considering: 

‘That the presence of a second international body operating 
within and outside the International Working Men’s Association 
would be the infallible means of its disorganisation; 

‘That every other group of individuals, residing anywhere at all, 
would have the right to imitate the Geneva initiatory group (of the 
Alliance) and, under more or less plausible excuses, to bring into the 
International Working Men’s Association other international associa- 
tions with special missions; 

‘That the International Working Men’s Association would 
thereby soon become a plaything for intriguers of any nationality 
and any party; 

‘That, moreover, the Rules of the International Working Men’s 
Association admit only local and national branches into its ranks 
(see Art. 1 and Art. 6 of the Rules); 

‘That sections of the International Working Men’s Association 
are forbidden to adopt rules or administrative regulations contrary 
to the General Rules and Administrative Regulations of the 
International Working Men’s Association (see Art. 12 of the 
Administrative Regulations); 

‘That the matter has been prejudged by the resolutions against 
the Ligue de ta Paix, adopted unanimously at the Brussels 
Congress. (This league had invited the International to join it, and 
this was our answer to these bourgeois) an 

‘That in these resolutions, the Congress declares that the Ligue 
de la Paix had no raison d’étre, because after its recent declarations 
its aim and its principles were identical with those of the 
International Working Men’s Association; that numerous members 
of the initiatory group of the Alliance, in their capacity as 
delegates to the Brussels Congress, voted for these resolutions; 

‘the General Council of the International Working Men’s 
Association unanimously agreed: 

‘1) All articles of the Rules of the International Alliance 
of Socialist Democracy defining its relations with the 
International Working Men’s Association are declared null and 
void; 

‘2) the International Alliance of Socialist Democracy may not 

be admitted as a branch of the International Working Men’s 
Association.’ 

I do not think there can be any disagreement on this point, 
namely that the International cannot permit another, sectarian 
International to exist within its own organisation. There is not the 
slightest doubt that all future Congresses and General Councils 
will energetically oppose the organisation of such intrigues within 
our own ranks and it would be good if our friends in Naples, at 
least those of them that have links with Geneva, understood this: 
The Bakuninists are a tiny minority within the Association and 
they are the only ones who have at all times brought about 
dissension. I am referring mainly to the Swiss, because we had little 
or nothing to do with the others. We have always allowed them to 
have their principles and to promote them as they thought best, so 
long as they renounced all attempts at undermining the Associa- 
tion or imposing their programme on us. In this way they will see 
that the workers of Europe will not be made the playthings of a 
little sect. As for their theoretical views, the General Council wrote 
to the Alliance on 9 March 1869% citing Article 1 of the Rules: 

‘Since the sections of the working class in different countries 
find themselves in different conditions of development, it neces- 
sarily follows that their theoretical notions, which reflect the real 
movement, should also diverge. The community of action, however, 
called into life by the International Working Men’s Association, the 
exchange of ideas facilitated by the public organs of the different 
national sections, and the direct debates at the General Congresses, 
are sure by and by to engender a common theoretical programme. 
Consequently, it belongs not to the functions of the General Council 
to subject the programme of the Alliance to a critical examination. It 
is not our task to find out whether it is or is not an adequate 
expression of the proletarian movement. All we have to know is 
whether its general tendency does not run against the general 
tendency of our Association, viz., the complete emancipation of the 
working class.’ 

I have given you these extensive quotations in order to prove 
the unfoundedness of any accusation that the General Council 
would be overstepping the limits of Article 1 of the Rules. In its 
official powers regarding the admission or refusal of divisions, it 
certainly cannot act in this way. But as regards discussions of 

a K. Marx, ‘The General Council of the International Working Men’s 
Association to the Central Bureau of the International Alliance of Socialist 
Democracy’. 

theoretical points, the Council desires nothing more ardently than 
this. From discussions of this sort the Council hopes to arrive at a 
general theoretical programme acceptable to the European pro- 
letariat. At all our theoretical congresses, the discussions have 
taken up by far the largest part of the time, but it should be noted 
that in these discussions Bakunin and his friends have played a 
very small role. In its official papers too the General Council has 
gone much further than Article 1. Read all the addresses that 
have been sent to you,’ and in particular number 5, the one on 
the civil war in France, where we declare ourselves in favour of 
communism, a fact which will no doubt have displeased the many 
Proudhonists in the Assembly. We were able to do this because we 
were led to it by the capitalist slanderers of the Paris Commune. 

No document has been issued by the General Council which 
does not go beyond Article 1. But the Council can go beyond the 
official programme of the Association only insofar as circumstances 
are able to justify it. It cannot give any section the right to say: 
you have broken our statutes; you are officially proclaiming things 
which are not in the Rules of the Association. You say that our 
friends in Naples are not content with mere abstraction, that they 
want something concrete, that they are not satisfied with anything 
except equality, social order instead of disorder. Good; we are 
willing to go further. There is not a single man in the General 
Council who does not support the total abolition of social classes 
and there is not a single document of the General Council which is 
not in accordance with this aim. We must free ourselves from 
landowners and capitalists, and for this end promote the 
development of the associated classes of agricultural and industrial 
workers and all the means of production, land, tools, machines, 
raw materials and whatever means exist to support life during the 
time necessary for production. In this way inequality must cease. 
And to bring this about we need the political supremacy of the 
proletariat. I think that is concrete enough for our friends in 
Naples. At the same time, since others are performing our role in 
working the bad soil, the General Council cannot be expected to 
send out incendiary statements at every other moment, statements 
which would please a good many of our members while certainly 
displeasing the rest. If however a real conjuncture arises, then we 
show our strength, as in the case of the address on the civil war in 
France. As for the religious question, we cannot speak about it 
officially, except when the priests provoke us, but you will detect 

a See this volume, p. 170. 

the spirit of atheism in all our publications. Moreover, we do not 
admit any society which has the slightest hint of religious allusion 
in its statutes. Many wanted to apply, but they were all invariably 
rejected. If our friends in Naples were to form a society of atheists 
and admitted only atheists, whatever would happen to their 
propaganda in a city where, as you yourself say, it is not only God 
that is omnipotent but also St Januarius, who needs to be handled 
with kid gloves. 

I am enclosing a letter for C. Palladino* containing expressions 
of solidarity with the Naples Section, as you requested. Please pass 
it on to him. 

Now for Mazzini. I communicated his article in Roma del Popolo 
to the Council last Tuesday.* I shall send you the report published 
on the discussion in a few days.”* For Italy, however, it is 
desirable that the following be published ”*: 

‘Mazzini says: 

“This Association, founded in London some years ago and with which I 
refused to collaborate from the start ... a nucleus of individuals which takes it upon 
itself directly to govern a broad multitude of men of different nations, tendencies, 
political conditions, economic interests and methods of action will always end up by 
not functioning, or it will have to function tyrannically. For this reason I withdrew 
and shortly afterwards the Italian workers’ section withdrew.””’ 

Now for the facts. After the foundation meeting of our 
association on 28 September 1864, as soon as the Provisional 
Council was elected in public assembly, Major L. Wolff presented a 
manifesto and a number of rules drawn up by Mazzini himself. 
Not only was there no objection in these drafts to governing a 
multitude directly, etc., not only did he not say that this effort ‘if it 
is to work at all, will have to function tyrannically’, but on the 
contrary, the rules were conceived in the spirit of a centralised 
conspiracy, giving tyrannical powers to the central body. The 
manifesto was in Mazzini’s usual style: la démocratie vulgaire, 
offering the workers political rights in order to preserve intact the 
social privileges of the middle and upper classes. This manifesto 
and draft statutes were subsequently thrown out. But the Italians 
(their names are listed at the end of our Inaugural Address) 
remained members until the said question was reopened with 
respect to certain French bourgeois democrats who wanted to 
manipulate the International. When they were refused admission, 
first Wolff’ and then the others withdrew and we finished once 
and for all with Mazzini.?° Some time afterwards, the Central 

a 25 July 1871 - > See this volume, p. 173. 

Council, replying to an article by Vésinier, stated in the Liége 
newspaper that Mazzini had never been a member of the 
Association and the drafts of his manifesto and statutes had been 
rejected.’ You will have seen that Mazzini has made a frenzied 
attack on the Paris Commune in the British press too, which is just 
what he always does when the proletarians rise up; after their 
defeat he denounces them to the bourgeoisie. After the insurrection 
of June 1848 he did the same thing, denouncing the insurgent 
proletarians in such offensive terms that even Louis Blanc wrote a 
pamphlet against him. And Louis Blanc has since told us several 
times that the June insurrection was the work of Bonapartist 
agents.?°? 

If Mazzini calls our friend Marx a ‘man of corrosive ... intellect, of 
domineering temper’, etc., etc., I can only say that Marx’s corrosive. 
domination and his jealous nature have kept our Association 
together for seven years, and that he has done more than anyone 
else to bring it to its present proud position. As for the break up 
of the Association, which is said to have begun already here in 
England, the fact is that two English members of the Council,* who 
had been getting on too close terms with the bourgeoisie, found 
our address on the civil war too strong and they withdrew. ”* In 
their place we have four new English members” and one 
Irishman,° and we reckon ourselves to be much stronger here in 
England than we were before the two renegades left. Instead of 
being in a state of dissolution, we are now for the first time being 
publicly recognised by the entire English press as a great European 
power, and never has a greater sensation been caused by a little 
pamphlet than that produced here in London by the address on 
the civil war, the third edition of which is about to appear. 

I repeat that it is highly desirable that this reply to Mazzini 
should be published in Italian and that the Italian workers are 
shown that the great agitator and conspirator Mazzini has no other 
advice for them than this: educate yourselves, teach yourselves as 
best you can (as if this were just up to them), strive to create more 
consumer cooperatives (not just producer ones) and trust in the 
future!! 

At last Tuesday’s* meetinc the Council resolved that a private 
conference of delegates from the various nations of workers of the 
International Association should be held on the third Sunday in 
September (17 September). 

a G. Odger and B. Lucraft - > A. Taylor, J. Roach, Ch. Mills, G. Lochner - ¢ J. P. 
MacDonnell - 4 25 July 1871 

This resolution was passed because a public congress is now 
impossible, in view of the government persecutions now taking 
place in Spain, France, Germany and perhaps also in Italy. If we 
held a public congress, in the majority of these countries our 
delegates would not be publicly elected and they would probably 
be arrested on their return. Given this state of affairs we are 
compelled to resort to a private conference, of which neither the 
convocation, the meeting time nor the proceedings will be made 
public. A conference of this type took place in 1865 instead of a 
congress.”** This conference can naturally meet only in London, 
since this is the only capital in Europe where foreigners are not 
condemned to expulsion by the police. The number of delegates 
and the norms for elections are left entirely to the various national 
divisions. The conference will only have a few days at its disposal 
and it will thus limit its discussions mainly to practical questions 
concerning the internal Administration of the general organisation 
of the society. Since its sessions will not be public, and the 
discussions will not subsequently be published, the discussion of 
theoretical points will be of little importance; nevertheless the 
delegates’ meeting will be a propitious occasion for an exchange of 
ideas. The General Council will place before the conference a 
report on its work over the last two years and the conference will 
pronounce upon it. There will thus be several important questions 
to deal with before proceeding. 

I beg you however to press for the reorganisation of our 
sections in Italy as far as possible so that they can be represented 
in this conference. Since Gambuzzi will be coming to London at 
about this time, he could perhaps rearrange his trip to suit and 
receive a mandate as one of your delegates. I must however draw 
your attention at the same time to paragraph 8 of the Administra- 
tive Regulations, which says: 

‘Only those delegates of divisions and sections that have paid 
their contributions to the General Council can take part in the 
work of the Congress.’*” 

The contribution is one soldo or 10 cents a year for each 
member; it would be a good idea to send it in advance of the 
conference, otherwise difficulties may arise regarding the powers 
of delegates. 

I would be grateful if you could send me at least six copies of 
the Italian translation of The Civil War in France as soon as it is 
published, for the use of the Council. 

It would be advisable if, in addressing your letter, instead of my 
name you used that of Miss Burns, as follows: Miss Burns, 122 

Regent’s Park, and rien de plus,* with no other envelope or address 
inside. She is my niece, a girl who does not speak Italian, so there 
are no mistakes to fear. 

I also enclose our address to the American Council denouncing 
the conduct of their ambassador in Paris, Mr Washburne.” 

2) and 3) Published reports of the 2 meetings of the Council 
(these reports contain nothing but what we want published, having 
taken out all the internal administrative matters). 

F. Engels