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Special pages :
Record of Marx's and Engels' Speeches on the Republican Movement in England
| Author(s) | Frederick Engels Karl Marx |
|---|---|
| Written | 28 March 1871 |
First published, in Russian, in the book The First International during the Paris Commune, 1941
Reproduced from the General Council's Minute Book
In their speeches on the republican movement in England, Marx and Engels summed up the discussion of this issue at the General Council meeting on March 28, 1871 in connection with the report of the General Council deputation to the republican meetings. The deputation included Hales, Weston, Jung and Serraillier; its report said that Serraillier’s speech at the meeting in the Wellington Music Hall on March 22 (see Note 352) was well received and that a resolution expressing support for the Paris workers was passed unanimously. It was also noted that the meeting adopted a very moderate, bourgeois republican resolution moved by Odger.
During the discussion, the General Council members criticised the position taken by Odger and other trade union leaders, confining the programme of the republican movement to the slogan of a bourgeois republic in France.
First published in English in The General Council of the First International. 1870-1871. Minutes, Moscow, 1967, pp. 165-66.
[FROM THE MINUTES OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL MEETING
OF MARCH 28, 1871]
Cit. Engels said the question was not whether we support a republican movement but whether under present circumstances it would drive into our path. There were men like Peter Taylor and others who were simply for the Republic but it must be considered that the abolition of monarchy would involve the abolition of the State Church, the House of Lords and many other things. No republican movement could go on here without expanding into a working class movement and if such a movement was to take place it would be as well to know how it went on. Before our ideas could be carried into practice we must have the Republic. We must watch it and [it] was right for our members to take part in it and try to shape it. If it turned into a middle class affair it would become a clique. The working [class] could not but break with all established forms.
Cit. Engels said there was as much oppression in America as here, but the republic gave a fair field for the working classes to agitate. In the densely populated states the labor movement was organised but the extent of unoccupied land prevented [it from] getting stronger than it was.
Cit. Marx was convinced that no Republican movement could become serious without becoming social. The wire pullers of the present move of course intended no such thing.