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Special pages :
Notes for the General Council, February 8, 1873
| Author(s) | First International Frederick Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 8 February 1873 |
Printed according to the manuscript
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 23
The Notes for the General Council, and Engels’ letters to the General Council of the International Working Men’s Association of April 15 and June 14, 1873 (see this volume, pp. 437-38 and 447), show that Engels as well as Marx rendered immediate support to the leading body of the International in New York, supplied it with the necessary information and assisted in taking the correct decisions. The Notes have survived as a manuscript by Engels. This text does not fully coincide with the one first published in part in Briefe und Auszüge aus Briefen von Joh. Phil. Becker, Jos. Dietzgen, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx u. A. an F. A. Sorge und Andere, Stuttgart, 1906.
1. The International Herald and the Emancipation sent regularly, hope they have arrived.
2. The Hales gang actually did hold their congress on January 26, all 10 of them; they dare not even say which sections they claim to represent. A wretched fiasco. Naturally decided not to recognise the Hague decisions or the General Council. Report—first half—in The Eastern Post, February 1; today’s contains no continuation ![1] The Federal Council will send you the things officially. These people have lost almost all their support, apart from Hales’ personal following in the East End of London. One of the signatories of Hales’ first circular,[2] Bennett, has returned to our people with strict orders from his section (Halifax) to stand by them and the LAWFUL Association. He was only re-admitted after much EATING OF HUMBLE PIE. (See today’s International Herald[3])
3. In Lodi, the Plebe is remaining loyal, though not breaking openly with the others, which they would not be able to do for the time being anyway. But the others themselves are carrying things to the limit. They are convening an Italian congress for March 15, but only intend to admit sections that have recognised the Rimini resolutions[4] or recognise them by the deadline! So much for autonomy and free federations. It is all right to trample the Rules of the International underfoot, but the Rimini resolutions are sacrosanct.
4. We greatly regret that the G.C., instead of simply stating that the Jurassians have resigned by rejecting the Hague resolutions and forming a separate league [Sonderbund], has merely suspended them.[5] First, it is always possible that a conference will be demanded. Second, the issue now comes before Congress in a quite different form: their delegates must be admitted provisionally, until their mandate has been put to the vote. Third, the G.C. must take the same steps against the Belgians and the Spaniards, ditto against the Hales gang, and these successive suspensions make a much worse impression than if the G.C. had waited a few more weeks, until it knew the results of the Belgian and Spanish congresses, and then issued one general proclamation setting out the formal reasons and also explaining in simple terms that one cannot be both inside and outside the International, cannot claim to belong to it and simultaneously declare its rules invalid, and then purement et simplement stating that those in question had placed themselves outside the International.
5. I hope the relevant resolution has been sent to Sonvillier and Geneva from there, as I have received no instruction to this effect. As far as Serraillier is concerned, he cannot send anything there at the moment, with arrests raining down and all correspondence with France cut.
6. Your authorised representative Larroque has collected his authorisation here himself—as a refugee. From here he went to San Sebastian, where he will get the thing moving again.
7. In Portugal all is well, as the Emancipacion sent today shows. We also have private letters from there; the people are working very hard on the TRADE UNIONS.
8. In Lodi only Bignami is left. The party[6] committee in Hamburg has sent them 20 thalers and Oberwinder 50 guldens from Vienna, which has not failed to have an effect.
9. Cuno’s manoeuvre, to disguise himself as Capestro, has already been exposed in the Brussels Internationale.[7]
10. If the G.C. is not already receiving the secessionist sheets, some unknown name will have to take out a subscription to them. Here, with the greatest difficulty and by roundabout ways, we obtain one copy of each, and not always that—we still have not received the last three issues of the Bulletin jurassien. So, with the best will in the world, we cannot procure them for you. Anyway, they are only L’Internationale (Brussels), the Bulletin de la Federation jurassienne. (Sonvillier) and La Federacion (Barcelona).
11. I have spoken to Le Moussu about the STAMPS; he will procure them, just as last year.[8] Yet it is odd that this could not be done in New York.
12. What has become of MacDonnell? He must have arrived long since. I have neither seen nor heard anything of him. Must catch the post
F. Engels
London, February 8, 1873[9]
- ↑ The first part of the report on the secessionist London Congress of the British Federation—"Congress of the International Working Men's Association"—was published in The Eastern Post, No. 227, February 1, 1873. The second and concluding part of the report appeared in the second edition of No. 228 of February 9, 1873, on the next day after the Notes were written
- ↑ To the Branches, Sections and Members of the British Federation of the International Working Men's Association, [London,] December 10, 1872.— Ed.
- ↑ J. Mitchell, S. Vickery, "International Working Men's Association. British Federal Council", The International Herald, No. 45, February 8, 1873.— Ed.
- ↑ The Second Congress of the Italian anarchists who had formed their federation at the Rimini Conference (see Note 161) was set for March 15 in Mirandola; later, however, it was transferred to Bologna. It took place on March 15-17, 1873.
- ↑ By its decision of January 5, 1873, the International General Council in New York suspended the anarchist Jura Federation from the Association until the next Congress. The critical remarks made by Marx and Engels in their letters to Sorge and Engels’ statement here concerning the unsatisfactory character of this decision, made the General Council in New York revise it. On January 26, 1873, the Council adopted a resolution which stated that all the societies and individuals refusing to recognise the Hague Congress decisions and comply with the demands of the International’s Rules and Administrative Regulations, thereby put themselves outside its ranks. Another resolution of the Council of May 30, 1873 confirmed and elaborated on this decision. On Sonderbund see Note 202.
- ↑ Social-Democratic Workers' Party.— Ed.
- ↑ After the Hague Congress Theodor Cuno emigrated to America. He signed an appeal of Section 29 of the International Working Men's Association to the New Madrid Federation of January 10, 1873 with the assumed name of Capestro. The Brussels Internationale, No. 212, February 2, 1873 reported on this fact, stating that Cuno and Capestro were one and the same person.
- ↑ Membership stamps were issued by decision of the London Conference of 1871 and were affixed to the membership card to indicate payment of the annual subscription. By decision of the General Council of December 22, 1872 these stamps continued to be issued in London. The French émigré Le Moussu, an engraver, undertook to manufacture a cliché and print them.
- ↑ In the manuscript mistakenly: "1872".— Ed.