| Category | Template | Form |
|---|---|---|
| Text | Text | Text |
| Author | Author | Author |
| Collection | Collection | Collection |
| Keywords | Keywords | Keywords |
| Subpage | Subpage | Subpage |
| Template | Form |
|---|---|
| BrowseTexts | BrowseTexts |
| BrowseAuthors | BrowseAuthors |
| BrowseLetters | BrowseLetters |
Template:GalleryAuthorsPreviewSmall
Special pages :
Letter of the Central Commission of the Workers’ Associations in Switzerland to the Association in Vivis
First published: in Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Arbeiterbewegung,1960.
To the Association in Vivis[edit source]
Friends, Brothers,
We, the Central Commission set up by the Congress, have before us for reply your letter of December 7.[1] Since the Congress has now established the foundations for the unification of the various associations, we shall not deal with your reproaches to the Zurich Association[2] but go straight on to answer the different points of your letter which concern the proposed centralisation.
You demand, first, that at the Congress the votes of associations given only by letter should be included in the count, justifying this by reference to the democratic principle. The Congress discussed this matter and also the reasons you give, but it believed that it could not accept them. It took the view that in that case no congress would be necessary and the associations would only need to send letters to the Central Commission, which could then add up the votes and proclaim the result. This is more or less the manner in which the associations have been in communication up to now and which yielded no results, while the Congress was easily able to put matters to rights in a few days. And this was because more can be achieved, and understanding can more easily be reached, in a few hours of oral consultation than by years of correspondence. Associations which send no delegates cannot, of course, take part in the debates of the Congress, they cannot hear what reasons for and against are being put forward, and since in the end these reasons decide the voting, they cannot, of course, vote either. Otherwise it would not be possible ever to reach a majority decision. If you think this is not democratic, we take the view that no democratic state in the world has ever accepted your opinion in this respect, but invariably taken ours: in America, in Switzerland, in France, as in all former democracies, the principle has always held good that those who send no delegates cannot vote either. Incidentally, the Congress has seen to it that in future every association can be represented by the Congress taking over the entire costs of the delegates. At this Congress, too, you could perhaps have been represented; Lausanne, which lacked the means to send a delegate, arranged for a citizen in Berne [Engels] to represent them and sent him his instructions.[3]
It is certainly to be regretted that up to now there has been so little unity among the associations in Switzerland, and also that so many contradictory proposals for the Central Association were put forward. For this very reason it was an excellent idea of the Zurich Association to suggest a Congress. The provisional regulations which it drafted were, of course, only a suggestion on which the Congress had to vote, and which it altered considerably, as you will see from the enclosed printed copy of the minutes. But now, when a beginning at least has been made through the debates of the delegates of ten different associations, it is most desirable that the unrepresented associations should adhere to the centralisation which has at last been started and that they should yield in the same way that almost every other represented association has yielded on one point or another of its opinion and submitted to the decisions of the majority. Without mutual concessions we can never achieve anything.
Your suggestion that the Executive of the “Hilf Dir” military association be proclaimed the Central Association was very seriously considered, but was rejected. The Hilf Dir military association is a banned association under the local laws (the law on volunteers) and thus all associations joining it as associations would likewise be in danger of being dissolved and deprived of their funds. Moreover, the military association will only take over the military organisation, but does not see it as its task to represent the associations also with respect to social-democratic propaganda and correspondence with Germany. The Berlin Central Committee and the Workers’ Committee in Leipzig[4] would not be able to risk entering into correspondence with the military association, even on innocent matters, without exposing themselves to dissolution and arrest; and the other way round, the military association would likewise not be able to conduct a regular correspondence with these committees without exposing itself to the most persistent persecution by the Swiss authorities. Above all, however, we want a centralisation which does not give the governments any pretext for new persecutions of refugees, a centralisation which cannot be harmed and which is therefore ‘ in a position to perform its functions. The deputy from Biel [Julius Standau] himself was of this opinion and spoke against transferring the duties of the Central Association to the Executive of the military association. But all are, of course, free to join the military association; they are only asked not to join it as associations, so that the association can never be harmed as such, but only individual persons, if perchance new persecutions should take place.
Having thus replied to each of the points mentioned in your letter, we refer you to the enclosed minutes for the further decisions of the Congress and ask you on behalf of the Congress to join the Union of German Associations founded hereby and to advise us as soon as possible of your having done so.
We appeal to you again: give way in secondary matters as others have given way and will give way in future, so as to save the main object; join the nucleus of the Union which has already been founded by several associations with much sacrifice in money and time, and which can only succeed if we all stand together, forget the past and no longer allow ourselves to be divided by minor differences of opinion!
Greetings and fraternal good wishes.
On behalf of the Congress,
The Central Commission
Berne, about December 25, 1848
Address: Herr N. Berger,
Käfichgässlein No. 109, Bern
- ↑ In its letter of December 7 to the forthcoming First Congress of the German Workers’ Associations in Berne. 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. , the Association in Vivis objected to a number of proposals advanced by the democratic German National Association in Zurich, suggesting in particular that the new Union should he headed by the “Hilf Dir” military association in Biel. The reference is to the attempt by Gustav Struve and other political refugees to organise an uprising in Baden in September 1848. The reference is to the invasion of Baden from Swiss territory by detachments of German republican refugees led by Gustav Struve on September 21, 1848, following the news of the ratification by the Frankfurt National Assembly of the armistice in Malmö and the popular uprising in Frankfurt in reply to it. Supported by the local republicans, Struve proclaimed a German Republic in the frontier town of Lörrach and formed a provisional government. However, the insurgent detachments were shortly afterwards scattered by the troops, and Struve, Blind and other leaders of the uprising were imprisoned by decision of a court martial (they were released during another republican uprising in Baden in May 1849). The reference is to the attempt by Gustav Struve and other political refugees to organise an uprising in Baden in September 1848. The “Hilf Dir” military association was founded in the autumn of 1848 by Johann Philipp Becker, a leader of the democratic and working-class movement. With its Central Committee in Biel (canton of Berne), it united societies consisting mainly of artisans formed in various towns in Switzerland. The “Hilf Dir” military association pursued a democratic policy and aimed at uniting all German volunteer units in Switzerland for the purpose of establishing a republic in Germany. It was organised as a secret conspiratorial society, on the lines of those in France and Italy. The Swiss authorities, under pressure from German counter-revolutionary circles and the Imperial Government in particular, instituted proceedings against Becker and other initiators of the military association. Becker was sentenced to expulsion from the Berne canton for twelve months. . The letter was discussed at the Congress sitting of December 10, 1848. The Congress directed the Central Commission, formed to exercise current leadership of the Union of Workers’ Associations in Switzerland (with Engels as its secretary), to answer the letter and persuade the Vivis Association to renounce its demands and join the Union
- ↑ The reference is to the German National Association in Zurich founded in April 1848, a democratic organisation of German intellectuals and workers living in Switzerland. It was influenced by petty-bourgeois democrats: Fröbel, Ruge and others. In the summer of 1848 the National Association joined the Union of Democratic German Associations founded by the First Democratic Congress in Frankfurt am Main. In August 1848 the National Association appealed to all the German associations in Switzerland to convene a congress and unite. Its representatives took an active part in the First Congress of German Associations in Switzerland held from December 9 to 11, 1848
- ↑ On December 8, 1848, the Lausanne Workers’ Association sent Engels a mandate, delegating him to the Congress (see this mandate in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 8, pp. 505-06). The leaders of this Association, G. Schneeberger, Chr. Haaf and Bangert, wrote in this connection to the Berne Workers’ Association on December 8, 1848: “We cannot send a delegate because of the inactivity of the Vivis Association (which recognises only the Association in Biel as the central body). Therefore we have decided to authorise our friend Engels. If, however, he cannot attend, our friend Frost will act as our delegate".
- ↑ The Central Committee of German Democrats (d'Ester, Reichenbach, Hexamer) was elected at the Second Democratic Congress held in Berlin from October 26 to 30, 1848. The Central Committee of German Workers in Leipzig, headed by Stephan Born, was elected at the Workers’ Congress held in Berlin from August 23 to September 3, 1848. At this Congress the Workers’ Fraternity, a union of workers’ associations, was founded. Its programme was drawn up under the influence of Born and was concerned only with narrow craft-union demands, thereby diverting the workers from the revolutionary struggle. A number of its points bore the stamp of Louis Blanc’s and Proudhon’s utopian ideas. Marx and Engels did not approve of the general stand taken by Born, but they refrained from publicly criticising his views, bearing in mind his endeavour to unite the workers’ associations