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Special pages :
Memorandum to Hermann Jung about the Conflict in the Paris Section
Written: by Karl Marx on March 16-18, 1865;
First published: in Russian, in Generalny Sovet Pervogo Internatsionala. 1864-1866, 1961.
Sub-Committee Sitting. 4 March. He [Victor Le Lubez] wanted already to move his resolution, according to which the Paris Administration was to be composed as follows: Fribourg, Vinçard, Limousin, 3 members to be designated by Lefort, Schily as a sort of umpire.
Sub-Committee Sitting. 6 March. He reproduces that motion.
Sitting of the Central Council. 7 March. He allowed the appointment of Schily to pass without division, that is, he accepted it, speaking in a parliamentary sense.
After this had taken place, he writes in hot-haste to Paris, even before he had the Resolutions in his hand. He expected, as he said (14 March), that the Paris Administration would protest against Schily. As by Resolution V (Resolution V. The Administration at Paris having expressed its readiness to acknowledge a direct delegation from the Central Council, the Council accordingly appoints Citizen Schily to be its delegate to the said Administration.) Schily was only accredited to that Administration, his appointment could only be protested against by them.
Having failed with them, Lubez conspires with the brothers of his lodge, to declare Schily’s appointment the cause of their Withdrawal.[1]
He puts himself in this awkward position: He protests against the Paris Administration in the name of Lefort, and he protests against Schily in the name of the Paris Administration which represents the French branch, etc.
On the remark of Mr. Fox (last sitting of Central Council) that this forgetfulness of Schily’s nationality on 4 and 6 March, and his vivid recollection of it on March 14 could only be accounted for by his wish to revenge himself because of the slight he thought Mr. Lefort was put to, he accepted this plain explanation.
His mean insinuations:
1-stly) As if the introductory words of Resolution V had been inserted as a catch-vote on false pretences. These words rest upon facts, Mr. Schily’s open letter, brought over by Lubez, read on March 7 in presence of Tolain, etc.; secondly Mr. Schily’s report, communicated to the Sub-Committee; lastly the resolutions passed by the meeting of 24th February at Paris.[2] The words were only inserted to avoid even the appearance of dictatorship on the part of the Central Council.
2-ndly) There had on March 7 time been killed by personal altercations in order to hurry the acceptance of the 3 last resolutions; carry them by surprise.
3-rdly) Mr. Schily was no ouvrier. Rejected as principle by Resolution II. [the concluding part of Resolution II reads: the Council “protests that it does not sanction the principle that none but air ouvrier is admissible as air official in our Society"] Schily had only to act privately with the Paris Administration; Lefort was to act upon the public stage before the world in the name of the Association. The cases not analogous.
As to Lefort.
He asks us to appoint him Defender General in the French press. We do so because we suppose him to act in understanding, and in concurrence with Tolain, etc. This nomination so obtained, he turns afterwards against us into a legal title. On Tolain’s letter, and before Lubez was sent to Paris, we cancel this appointment, as far as Mr. Lefort’s name and public position is concerned. (We reduce it to this: he is allowed to write articles not signed by himself, but by an ouvrier — a thing which he might have done without our consent.) That such is the case, results from an angry letter he then wrote to Lubez, but he yielded. The Paris meeting of February 24th committed only this blunder that it protested against a resolution that had ceased to exist. And upon this Mr. Lefort, or his friends at London, feign to forget that he had already given up the post he was named to. He even menaces us to warn all democrats against us, forgetting that we can warn against him, if necessary.
- ↑ The protest against the official appointment of Schily as the Central Council’s representative in Paris came from the French bourgeois-democratic refugees, members of a Masonic lodge in London. They also belonged to the French Section in London which had several representatives on the Central Council. The protest was read out at the Council meeting on March 14, but was waived on the insistence of Marx who informed all the present at the meeting of Schily’s intention to reject the appointment.
- ↑ On February 24, 1865, the Paris Section of the International called a meeting over the appointment of Lefort as the Association’s “Counsel for the literary defence” in Paris. The meeting protested strongly against this appointment, believing that Lefort would exploit this to seize leadership in the Paris Section. The meeting adopted a resolution drafted by Limousin which showed, the sectarian position of the French Proudhonists in relation to the intellectuals. It stressed that if the purely working-class character of the Association was to be preserved, only workers should hold leading positions in it. The resolution, signed by, 32 members of the Paris Section, was brought to London by Tolain and Fribourg.