Материал: Karl Marx_ A Biography ( PDFDrive )

an independent historical movement. . . . Here the history of the International has merely repeated the general lesson of history that the obsolete tries to reinstate and confirm itself inside the newly achieved form.'75

It is significant that Bakunin evolved his ideas against the background o! Russia and Italy, where no organised working-class movement was possible, whereas Marx was thinking primarily of Germany, Britain and I'Vance. At the beginning of the International, nevertheless, relations between Marx and Bakunin were amicable. Bakunin had visited Marx in I .oiulon in 1864 and Marx had found him 'very agreeable and better than before .. . one of the few people who, after sixteen years, have progressed

when it would not accept his ideas on the abolition of the right of inheritance; on leaving, he founded the Alliance of Social Democracy which then applied to join the International. When he first heard of the alliance Marx considered it 'stillborn'77 - though Engels was much more

banded and urged its individual sections to join the International. Although Marx was extremely scornful of the Alliance's programme as drawn up by Bakunin,79 the General Council approved the projected ulliliation on condition that the Alliance replace 'equalisation of classes' by 'abolition of classes' in its programme. Even so, there were constant

many questions the Belgian delegation to the Congress tended more to llakunin's position than to Marx's. It would, however, be quite untrue in suppose that Bakunin actually organised opposition within the International. The Alliance was not a close-knit party; it was much nearer to being merely a name that Bakunin applied to the totality of his friends, acquaintances and correspondents. Bakunin had no wish to challenge Marx despite vicious accusations that he was a Russian spy made by Marx's nsociates Liebknecht and Hess. When Herzen urged him to do this, he

twenty-five years with insight, energy and disinterestedness, in which he luis undoubtedly surpassed us all'.

I le went on:

Marx's influence in the International is undoubtedly very useful. He has exercised a wise influence on his party down to the present day and he is the strongest support of socialism and the firmest bulwark against the invasion of bourgeois ideas and intentions. I should never forgive myself if I had ever tried to destroy or even weaken his beneficial influence merely in order to revenge myself on him.80

Shortly afterwards he wrote to Marx himself that 'my fatherland is now the International of which you are one of the principal founders. You therefore see, dear friend, that I am your disciple and proud of being so.'81

Nevertheless, the Geneva paper Egalite, which was controlled by followers of Bakunin, began to attack the General Council and suggested its removal from London to Geneva. T h e General Council's reply, drafted by Marx, was addressed to the French-speaking Federal Councils, and emphasised how necessary it was for the General Council to be in charge of the revolutionary movement in England: this was vital for the success of the movement on the Continent, and the English movement would lack all momentum if left to its own resources. In the following March Marx (who always put more emphasis on Bakunin's alleged machinations than on his ideas) sent this same circular to the Brunswick Committee of the Eisenach party with a rider denouncing Bakunin as a downright intriguer and an obsequious sponger. But although this dispute was to dominate the later years of the International, it was not for the moment a major factor.

If 1869 was the year of the International's maximum power and influence, just how important was it and how vital was the part that Marx played?82 Many contemporaries considered the influence and resources of the International to be gigantic: The Times put the number of its adherents at two-and-a-half million and some even doubled that figure. T h e paper also stated that the financial resources of the International ran to millions

General Council did negotiate loans from the trade unions of one country to those of another, particularly to support strikes, but the Council was itself continually harassed for small debts.

As for membership figures, it is important to remember that (unlike its successors) the First International had an individual membership forming local sections which in their turn joined together in national federations. In Britain, the total number of individual members by the end of 1870 was no more than 254. In Germany, by the end of 1 8 71 there were 58 branches with a total membership of 385. In France in 1870 there were 36 local sections. In Italy, the International increased its

membership after the Paris Commune, but it had no formal organisation and its numbers cannot have exceeded a few thousand. T h e Spanish delegate at Basle claimed 20,000 members and there were said to be 30 sections in America with 500 members. However, anyone familiar with loose organisations of this kind knows how prone leaders are to exaggerate the number of their followers, and even the figures quoted cannot have been fee-paying members: otherwise the General Council would have been saved all financial embarrassment.

Some basis for the larger figures can be found in a different form of membership of the International - affiliation of trade union and political parties.83 In Britain the total affiliated membership of trade unions was

speak for almost a million workers, declared its adherence to the principles 11I the International. Nevertheless, in all these countries, this commitment was an emotional one unsupported by close organisational, doctrinal, or

except in Britain - financial links.

I'.ven in Britain, where many of the important trade union leaders sat on the General Council and were in close contact with Marx, they evolved working-class policies without reference to the International. T h e trade union leaders were immensely impressed by Marx's intellectual qualities and their backing gave Marx and the General Council great prestige in dr.ding with the continent of Europe, in which the British had only a marginal interest. But when it came to home affairs, the influence of the International was peripheral. This was particularly so after 1867 when, with the disappearance of the Fenian menace, any hope of altering the 1 i,mi\ 1juo in Ireland seemed lost and the success of the Reform movement made the trade union leaders less revolutionary in their demands. Marx was still convinced, as he had been since 1849, that no revolution in I'itrope could succeed without a similar movement in England. However, in Ins growing inability to infuse the affiliated British trade unionists with •ot'ialist theory and a revolutionary temper' was added the lack of success 11I the International in even recruiting trade unions. After 1867 only three limn trade unions affiliated to the International. This loss of momentum by the International was due to its inability to attract the workers in heavy industry - this being true of all countries with the exception of llelgium. In Britain it was at a disadvantage since its seat was in London, whricas most of the heavy industry was concentrated in the North; and

the industrial workers, secure in their technical superiority, did not feel as threatened by the Continent as did the craft workers. And in general the membership of the International tended to be composed more of artisans than of the industrial proletariat.

In Germany, in spite of the adherence of the Eisenach party to the principles of the International, the German political situation prevented any serious co-operation with the General Council. T h e Combination Laws began to be more strictly applied and in any case both the party's Executive Committee in Brunswick and Liebknecht in Leipzig were more concerned to build up the Eisenach party in opposition to the Lassalleans. Marx sent several hundred membership cards to Germany for free distribution, but that was about as far as it went. Moreover, Becker, who had been in many ways the International's most reliable contact in Germany, had ceased to have much influence on the formation of the Eisenach party. Summing up the situation later, Engels explained: 'The German labour movement's attitude to the International never became clear. It remained a purely platonic relationship; there was no real membership of individuals (with isolated exceptions) and the founding of sections was illegal. In fact, Liebknecht and c o m p a n y . . . wanted to subordinate the International to their specifically German aims.'84 Marx's correspondence shows how completely incapable he was of influencing Liebknecht, and a fortiori the other Social Democratic leaders, in favour of the International. Certainly his advice on tactics was valued and his approval sought (particularly when his prestige increased following the publication of Capital and the demand for a second edition of some of his earlier works) but his specific ideas made very little impact in Germany until well after his death.85

Although the French were among the founding members of the International and were by far the strongest national group, they were almost impervious to the influence of Marx and the General Council; they never paid any regular subscriptions and their instinctive reaction to London was one of mistrust. Marx could not oppose the Proudhonism of men

too many anarchist elements in Varlin's thought for easy co-operation with the General Council.

Nevertheless, although the International had proved to be a very loose federation of national groups, each of whose policies were dictated much more by local interests than by reference to the General Council, Marx could be reasonably pleased with the work of the first five years; most importantly, Proudhonism had been decisively defeated with the resolution on land nationalisation; the challenge of the League of Peace and

.inkers; in Germany, the Social Democrats had at last declared their adherence to the principles of the International; and finally, the General ( uuncil had had its authority over local sections enhanced, at least in piiiiciple, by the Basle Congress. Even so the International was too fragile i 11 instruction to be able to withstand the storm of the Franco-Prussian Wur.

I V T H E F R A N C O - P R U S S I A N W A R A N D T H E D E C L I N E

O F T H E I N T E R N A T I O N A L

I lie General Council decided to hold the 1870 Congress in Paris, but growing persecution of the International by the French Government pcisuaded them to change the meeting-place to Mainz. But two weeks belore the Congress was due to meet, Napoleon III (outmanoeuvred by hismarck's deliberate editing of the Ems telegram into a calculated insult) 1 lei hired war on Germany. T h e Paris section of the International immediately denounced the war; in Germany opinion was divided but the great majority of socialists considered the war to be a defensive one: the Lassalli ans in the Reichstag voted for war credits and Liebknecht and Bebel writisolated in their decision to abstain. Marx seemed at first to have