Address of the Central Commission of the Workers’ Associations of Switzerland to the Executive of the March association in Frankfurt Am Main

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This address was written by Engels, as a member of the Central Commission, on the instructions of the First Congress of the German Workers’ Associations in Switzerland which took place in Berne between December 9 and 11, 1848. The Congress was attended by representatives from democratic and workers’ associations in a number of Swiss towns. It adopted the rules of the Union of German Associations of Switzerland. In accordance with these rules, a Central Association (the Berne Workers’ Association was elected as such) was to he at the head of the Union, and current leadership was to be exercised by a Central Commission consisting of five members. Engels was a member of the Commission elected on December 14.

Differences arose at the sitting on December 10 when the Congress discussed the question of the attitude towards the March Association. A delegate of the Berne Association spoke against establishing contacts with this non-republican organisation. Nevertheless, the majority of delegates were in favour of an address proposing to the March Association to keep up correspondence. The text of the address was approved by the Congress on December 11. When Engels compiled it he had to take into account the Congress decision. However, in the text of the address written in the name of the Central Commission he managed to reflect the views of the proletarian revolutionaries who regarded this Association only as a fellow traveller in the German revolution and thought that co-operation with it was possible only within strict limits.

The March Association, which had branches in various towns of Germany, was founded in Frankfurt am Main at the end of November 1848 by the Left-wing deputies of the Frankfurt National Assembly. Fröbel, Simon, Ruge, Vogt and other petty-bourgeois democratic leaders of the March associations, thus named after the March 1848 revolution in Germany, confined themselves to revolutionary phrase-mongering and showed indecision and inconsistency in the struggle against the counter-revolutionaries, for which Marx and Engels sharply criticised them.

To the Executive of the March Association in Frankfurt am Main

Citizens,

The German associations of Switzerland held a Congress here in Berne on the 9th, 10th and 11th of this month; they have joined together in a permanent union and appointed the Berne Association as the District Union.

The undersigned Central Commission herewith informs you of the founding of the Union.

It also informs you that the Congress has decided to enter into correspondence with the March Association. A closer union with the latter is excluded by Article 1 of our common Rules, in which the Swiss associations explicitly declare themselves for a democratic social republic.

The Congress has also instructed us to make known to you its decided disapproval of the measures taken by the German imperial authority against Switzerland. These measures, as unjust as they are ridiculous, not only serve to compromise Germany in the eyes of all Europe; for us German workers in Switzerland they have the particular disadvantage that they jeopardise our position materially and put us German democrats in a false position in relation to our friends, the democrats of Switzerland.

We hope that one of the delegates of the March Association will take the earliest opportunity to inform the so-called National Assembly of this official expression of opinion of the German workers in Switzerland.

In the meantime we look forward to your communications and letters.

Greetings and fraternal good wishes.
The Central Commission of the German Workers’ Associations of Switzerland.

Berne, December 1848