Draft Resolution of the General Council on the "French Federal Section in London"

From Marxists-en
Jump to navigation Jump to search
Author(s) First International
Karl Marx
Written 10 May 1870


First published in The Penny Bee-Hive, No. 418, May 14, 1870
Reproduced from Marx's manuscript pasted into the Minute Book of the General Council
Source: Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 21
Collection(s): The Bee-Hive
Keywords : France

This resolution was introduced at the General Council meeting of May 10, 1870 by Hermann Jung on behalf of Marx who was absent because of illness. A group of French petty-bourgeois emigrants in London, followers of FĂ©lix Pyat, who had lost contact with the International after the General Council’s resolution of July 7, 1868 (see this volume, p. 7), continued to call themselves the French Section in London and to issue documents in the name of the International Working Men’s Association. Throughout 1869 the question of officially severing relations with this group was repeatedly raised in the General Council. In the spring of 1870, when a third trial against members of the International was in preparation in France, the break became all the more necessary, since the incriminatory material included documents of the so-called French Section in London, in particular an address adopted at a meeting on October 20, 1868, in which the International was identified with a secret republican society, the Revolutionary Commune, headed by FĂ©lix Pyat.

The text of the resolution in English has been preserved’ in the form of Marx’s own manuscript pasted into the minutes of May 10, 1870 (with minor corrections in Eccarius’ hand), and was published in The Penny Bee-Hive, No. 418, May 14; The Times, No. 26748, May 12; The Echo, No. 443, May 12, and in Reynolds’s Newspaper, May 15, 1870.

The French text of the resolution, copied by Auguste Serraillier, is also extant; it was published in La Marseillaise, No. 145, May 14; L’Internationale, No. 70, May 15; L’ÉgalitĂ©, No. 21, May 21, and Le Mirabeau, No. 45, May 29, 1870. In German it was printed in Der Volksstaat, No. 41, May 21 and Volkswille, No. 18, May 28, 1870.

Considering,

that addresses, resolutions and manifestoes emanating from a French society in London which stylesXitself: “International Working Men’s Association, French Federal Branch”, have recently been published by continental papers and ascribed to the “International Working Men’s Association”[1]

; that the “International Working Men’s Association” is at present undergoing severe persecutions on the part of the Austrian and French Governments which eagerly catch at the most flimsy pretexts for justifying such persecutions;

that under these circumstances the General Council would incur a serious responsibility in allowing any society not belonging to the “International” to use and act in its name;

the General Council hereby declares that the so-called London French Federal Branch has since two years ceased to form part of the “International” and to have any connection whatever with the General Council in London or any Branch[2] of that Association on the continent.

London, 10 May 1870

  1. ↑ Marx refers, in particular, to a report about a banquet given by the so-called French branch in London on May 3, 1870 in honour of Gustave Flourens, a French revolutionary, follower of Blanqui, an organiser of the Paris rising of 1870. The report was forwarded to France, Germany and other countries by the Havas and Reuters agencies and was published in the Journal des DĂ©bats on May 5. It stated that the banquet was chaired by "M. Le Lubez, President of the International Association", whereas Le Lubez had been expelled from the International for slander as far back as 1866.
  2. ↑ The words "in London or any Branch" and "on the continent" were inserted by Eccarius when the resolution was being discussed by the General Council.— Ed.
Retrieved from "https://wikirouge.net/texts/en/w/index.php?title=Draft_Resolution_of_the_General_Council_on_the_%22French_Federal_Section_in_London%22&oldid=92115"