Материал: Karl Marx_ A Biography ( PDFDrive )

HI attitude towards the International until J. B. von Schweitzer, a gifted

who had wanted to sell the working class to Bismarck.41 'It is beyond all doubt', he wrote to Schweitzer, 'that there will be a disappointment over I assalle's unholy illusions about a socialist initiative on the part of the Prussian Government. T h e logic of things will tell. But the honour of the workers' party demands that it reject such phantasms itself before it

I icbknecht in Berlin as 'the only reliable contact that we have in Ger - many'.41 Although he got the Inaugural Address printed in the Sozial- Drmokrat, Liebknecht was able to do little more, for he had difficulty supporting his family and was put in an ambiguous position by having agreed to write a life of Lassalle (commissioned by the Countess von

•.1 ingested that Marx stand for the presidency of the A D A V . He at first 1 rinsed, then agreed to stand, though he had decided to decline the office publicly if and when elected. This would be 'a good party demonstration, both against the Prussian Government and against the bourgeoisie'.45 I lowever, Lassalle's will, which nominated for President Bernhard Becker (who was already acting in that capacity), was made public a few days before the election and Marx's attempt failed completely: even in Solingen he got no votes at all. Marx nevertheless urged the few contacts he had

i|;.imst our opponents here. Later the whole institution of this Union, which rests on a false basis, must be destroyed.'46

In November Liebknecht passed on Schweitzer's invitation to Marx uul Kngels to write for the Sozial-Demokrat, and Marx's first contribution apart from the Inaugural Address - was a long ambivalent obituary of I'roudhon, in which he repeated the views of Poverty and Philosophy and,

relations between Marx and Schweitzer soon became strained: the SozialDemokrat was faithful to Lassalle's doctrines and it seemed to be directly attacking the International when it printed an article from Hess in Paris which repeated a rumour that Tolain and his friends were Bonapartist agents. Marx was furious and, although Schweitzer agreed to make Liebknecht responsible for all material concerning the International, Marx eventually withdrew his collaboration and vigorously criticised Schweitzer for his appeasement of Bismarck's Government. It would have been surprising if Marx's designs on the A D A V had come to anything: it was more than fifteen years since he had been active in Germany48 and his close friends and supporters there could be counted on the fingers of one hand.

At first, the International met with no greater success in South Ger - many. When Liebknecht arrived in Saxony, he could do no more for the

(Association of German Workers' Unions) - a loose federation of liberal People's Parties, united mainly by opposition to Prussia, with no centralised leadership and very little socialism. Moreover, the political atmosphere was dominated by the approaching Austro-Prussian War. Liebknecht - to whom both Marx and Engels referred in their letters with the most scathing epithets - was willing to help the International (and, indeed, was obviously intimidated by Marx's personality), but the political situation just would not permit it. Marx, embarrassed by the lack of enthusiasm in the very area for which he was responsible, made greatly exaggerated, if not outright false, statements to the General Council on progress in Germany. By far the most effective person working for the International in Germany was the veteran socialist Johann Philipp Becker.49 On the foundation of the International Becker had been very active in recruiting members in Switzerland from his base in Geneva. In late 1866 Becker, encouraged by Marx, founded active sections of the International in at least a dozen German cities and formed them, in 1867, into a well-organised 'Group of German-speaking Sections' centred on Geneva.

Even during these relatively lean years Marx retained his early faith in the vocation of the German proletariat to constitute the vanguard of the proletarian revolution owing, in particular, to its ability to curtail the

he is reported as attributing the Germans' revolutionary superiority to three factors: 'The Germans had achieved most freedom from religious

nonsense; they did not need to undergo a lengthy bourgeois movement like the workers of other lands; their geographical situation would compel them to declare war on eastern barbarism since all reaction against the West had come from Asia.'50

In France, still the centre of European socialism, the International made fair progress, but was hampered by ideological disputes, both internal and with the General Council. There were two separate groups which had been represented at the International's foundation meeting: the followers of Proudhon led by Tolain, and the Radical Republicans led by Lefort and Le Lubez. T h e Proudhonists wished to build up a purely t rade union movement overwhelmingly working class, whereas the Radical Republicans were mainly middle class and had political objectives. Since the followers of the Proudhonists were mainly shopkeepers, peasants and artisans they attached most importance to the institution of co-operatives, credit facilities and protective tariffs and were extremely suspicious of all centralising tendencies and strike action. Dissensions began with the very translation of the Rules by the Proudhonists who, in the key sentence declaring that 'the economical emancipation of the working classes is therefore the great end to which every political movement ought to be subordinate as a means',51 cut out the words 'as a means', thus giving the impression that political activity was something of quite secondary importance. T h e Republicans regarded this as tantamount to compromise with Bonapartism. T h e Proudhonists replied that only workers should hold positions of responsibility in workers' organisations and that Lefort, who was the International's Press agent in Paris, should resign. Le Lubez, as Secretary for France and prominent among the French workers in London who never accepted very easily the authority of the General (Council, was sent to investigate and naturally produced a report favourable to Lefort. But Tolain came to London to put his case in person.

workers'.52 However, when Tolain forced the issue the General Council was compelled to come down on the side of the workers after a long and stormy discussion which, according to Marx, 'created, particularly on the I' nglish, the impression that the Frenchmen really do stand in need of a Bonaparte'.53 Lefort was removed from his post, Le Lubez resigned and Ma/.zini's followers, who were sympathetic to the French Republicans, also eventually withdrew.

3 5 2 K A RL M A R X : A B I O G R A P H Y

It was these same French followers of Proudhon who were to be the main opponents of Marx and the General Council at the London Conference of 1865 and the Geneva and Lausanne Conferences of 1866 and 1867. It had been planned to hold the first congress of the International in Brussels in the autumn of 1865. But Marx was anxious about the prevailing doctrinal confusion and persuaded the General Council to call a private conference in London to prepare the agenda carefully for a full congress at Geneva the following year. At this conference the only two countries represented - other than England and France - were Belgium and Switzerland. T h e questions discussed were mainly organisational and here the French delegation proposed what they called 'universal suffrage' - that all members should have the right to attend and vote at conferences. This ultra-democratic proposal was vigorously opposed by the English and heavily defeated. T h e rest of the meeting was taken up with drafting the agenda for the future congress: here the most important debate was on the Polish question - which had been instrumental in starting the International and figured on the agenda of all the early congresses. Most of the French, led by the young Belgian delegate de Paepe, opposed the introduction of a resolution for Polish independence and against Russian tyranny on the grounds that it would only benefit the Polish working classes and that tyranny needed to be condemned in general. This objection was overruled by a considerable majority. T h e French, however, did manage to ensure that the agenda included resolutions on the formation

1866 and an effort was made, aided by the recent establishment of a French section of the International in London, to get the decision of the London Conference reversed. Marx outmanoeuvred the attempt, and was supported by Engels (making his first appearance in connection with the International), who wrote three articles for the Commonwealth (the successor to the Beehive as the mouthpiece of the General Council) entitled 'What have the working classes to do with Poland?' T h e Austro-Prussian War also caused an outbreak of what Marx termed 'Proudhonised Stirnerism'55 when Lafargue (soon to become Marx's son-in-law but then under the influence of Proudhon) suggested that all nationalities and even nations were 'antiquated prejudices'. In the view of the Proudhonists - and here they were in direct opposition to Napoleon's encouragement of national revival - all states were by nature centralised and therefore despotic and productive of wars as well as being contrary to the small-scale economic interests typical of Proudhon's followers. Marx had nothing but ridicule for such views and, as he informed Engels, 'the English laughed very much when I began my speech by saying that our friend Lafargue

and others, who had done away with nationalities, had spoken "French" to us, i.e. a language which nine-tenths of the audience did not understand.'56 At the Geneva Congress the majority of delegates were Franco-Swiss thirty-three out of about sixty - and there was a large French contingent also. To meet the inevitable challenge from the French, Marx - who

gates which were confined 'to such points as permit the immediate agree-

instructions stressed the necessity of trade unions in the battle against capital and their future role as 'organising centres of the working class in the broad interest of its complete emancipation';58 these proposals were modified by a French amendment on justice and 'reciprocity' as the final aim. T h e French also opposed unsuccessfully the General Council's resolution on the legal enactment of the eight-hour working day as they did not believe in using the state as a reforming agency. Marx's statements on child labour as a 'progressive, sound and legitimate tendency' although under capital it was 'distorted into an abomination'59 met with no opposition; but the Proudhonists got an amendment passed which prohibited female labour.

Marx's view that standing armies should eventually be replaced by 'the general arming of the people and their general instruction in the use of arms'60 was also endorsed without opposition. He had instructed that the problems of international credit and religious ideas should 'be left to the initiative of the French'. Inevitably the Polish question figured again and Marx's views met with strong opposition as the French produced a remarkable counter-resolution which read: 'We, partisans of freedom, protest against all despotisms; we emphatically condemn and denounce the organisation and social tendencies of Russian despotism, as leading inevitably to the most brutalising form of communism; but, being delegates at an economic congress, we consider that we have nothing to say concerning the political reconstruction of Poland.'6 ' T h e Proudhonists did not share what they considered to be Marx's 'Russophobia' and did not see why Russian despotism should be more specifically condemned than any other. T h e Congress eventually adopted a compromise resolution, proposed by Becker, which was nearer to the French proposal and implied a defeat for Marx. In the debate on organisation, Tolain again proposed that only workers should be admitted as delegates to congresses. Cremer, in reply, said that in Britain much was owed to middle-class members. 'Among those members', he added, 'I will mention only one,