{Draft] London, 23 November 1871 

Citizen Palladino, 

I have just received your letter of the 13th and thank you for 
the Report on the History of the Naples Section,*” which I shall 
submit to the General Council at its next meeting. Whatever 
decisions the Council may arrive at in regard to the publicity to be 
given to the contents of that memoir, the necessary discretion will 
always be observed. 

I am sorry you think yourself duty-bound to tell me that you in 
no way accept the resolutions of the last Conference.” Since it is 
evident from your letter that an organised section of the 
International no longer exists in Naples, I can only assume that 
the above declaration expresses your individual opinion and not 
that of the Naples Section, now forcibly dissolved. Being anxious, 
however, to avoid misunderstandings, I am answering your 
objections in detail. 

(1) You are not satisfied 

‘with the way in which the said Conference was convened, which certainly did 
not conform to the regulations laid down by our General Rules’? 

To that accusation there are two rejoinders: 

a Here and below Engels quotes in Italian. 

(a) It is indeed true that our General Rules make no provision 
for Conferences, but only for Congresses; they were drafted in the 
somewhat naive belief that governments would leave us to our 
own devices? Since the governments made it impossible for us to 
convene a Congress in 1870, the sections, having been directly 
consulted, confirmed and extended the powers of the General 
Council, and empowered it to decide upon the time and place at 
which the next Congress should meet.** In 1871 the governments 
made the meeting of a Congress even more impracticable.” 

We have proof of this, should you doubt it. But you will not; 
‘the Naples Section of the International no longer being able to 
meet’ after 20 August 1871,°% it could not elect a delegate to the 
Congress. And the same goes for France, Germany and Austria; 
the Federal Council in Spain was forced to take refuge in 
Portugal! So what could we do? There remained the precedent of 
1865 when, for various reasons, the semi-public Congress was 
replaced by a private Conference held in London, the convening 
and actions of which were ratified by the next Congress. You 
might tell me that such precedents are authoritarian and 
bourgeois survivals unworthy of the true revolutionaries of the 
proletariat, to which I should reply that the General Rules, 
Administrative Regulations, resolutions passed by the Congresses, 
etc., etc., belong in the same category, but that unfortunately no 
association, however revolutionary, can do without such things. So, 
the General Council, on its own responsibility, suggested to the 
sections that the impracticable Congress be temporarily replaced 
by a practicable Conference, practicable because the delegates 
would not be known to governments. The sections gave their 
assent, none protested, and the Council is prepared to answer to 
the future Congress for its action. 

(b) As for the actual convening of the Conference, it was 
completely in order. All the Federations, all the individual sections 
in regular communication with the General Council, were notified 
in good time. 

a The following passage is crossed out in the original here: ‘But you are a lawyer, as 
far as I know, and so you should know that in every society written laws coexist with 
rules laid down by practice.’ - & Crossed out in the original: ‘In France, the 
Association was disbanded; in Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria and Hungary it was 
harassed by persecutions which totally disorganised it. The only countries where 
the Internationals could at least gather openly were America, England, Belgium 
and Switzerland. And even in Belgium a law against the International was 
promulgated. The election of delegates to a Congress which, in keeping with the 
Rules, would be expected to hold public sessions alongside administrative sittings 
became impossible.’ 

(c) Furthermore, if any observations on the legality or the 
method of convening the Conference were to be made, this should 
have been done before or during the Conference. None were 
made. 

(2) You complain of the ‘small number of delegates’. For that, 
the General Council is not to blame. Nonetheless, Belgium, Spain, 
Holland, England, Germany, Switzerland and Russia were directly 
represented. As to France, it was represented by practically all the 
members of the Paris Commune then in London, and I hardly 
suppose you would dispute the validity of their mandate. If Italy 
did not send delegates, you must look to your government.’ 

(3) You say that these delegates ‘have arrogated to themselves 
the rights peculiar to a General Congress’. This runs completely 
counter to the facts. The resolutions of the Conference in no way 
affect the tenor of the Rules.” Some merely reaffirm the 
resolutions of previous Congresses, hardly if at all familiar to 
sections and members of recent date. Others are of a purely 
administrative nature. Far from lying outside the competence of a 
Conference, neither the former nor the latter go beyond even that 
of the General Council. 

(4) You then go on to object to the 

‘very tenor of such resolutions which appear to you to be in direct opposition to 
the principles of our Association as laid down in our General Rules’. 

With this I totally disagree and look to you to provide the proof. 
The founders of the International, those who drafted the Rules 
and the resolutions of our Association’s Congresses, were very well 
represented at the Conference, and you will forgive me if, in the 
first instance, I lend credence to their interpretation of those 
Rules and to the interpretation given by successive Congresses 
ever since. Pray do not forget that the International has its own 
history and that history—of which it has every reason to be 
proud—is the best commentary on the Rules; that the Interna- 
tional in no way intends to renege that glorious history and that, 
at this moment, the spontaneous movement of the proletarian 
masses in favour of our Association—-a movement that is more 
marked and more enthusiastic in Italy than anywhere else—is the 
most striking ratification, not only of the letter of the Rules, but 
also of the whole of that history. Whatever your fears in regard to 

4 Crossed out in the original: ‘and it is high time you offered effective opposition 
to it.’ - > Crossed out in the original: ‘They are of a purely administrative na- 
ture; the General Council had the right to adopt them itself had it wished to 
do so.’