Report to the General Council of the IWMA upon the Situation in Spain, Portugal and Italy

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Engels’ letter of October 5, 1872, to Friedrich Sorge (on October 11 Sorge was co-opted into the General Council in New York and elected its General Secretary), shows that he wanted to send to America his report on the position of the International in Spain, Portugal and Italy. On November 2, however, Engels wrote that he enclosed only the report on Spain. That Engels intended to send reports on Italy and Portugal later is seen from the extant manuscript in which the material on Spain is marked “1” . There is no information whether the reports were sent or not.

1. SPAIN

In Spain the International was originally founded as a mere appendix to Bakounine’s secret society, the Alliance, to which it was to serve as a kind of recruiting ground and at the same time as the lever by which to control the whole proletarian movement. You will see by and by that their Alliance intends openly to restore the Spanish International, at the present time, to this same subordinate position.

In consequence of this dépendance, the special doctrines of the Alliance: immediate abolition of the state, anarchy, antiauthoritarism, abstention from all political action etc. were preached in Spain as the doctrines of the International. At the same time, every prominent member of the International was at once received into the secret organization and made to believe that this system of controlling the public association by the secret society existed everywhere and was a matter of course.

This took place in 1869 and the first man who introduced the International into Spain, along with the Alliance, was the Italian Fanelli who now, in spite of his abstentional convictions, is a member of the Italian parliament. In June 1870 took place the first Congress of the Spanish International at Barcelona and here the plan of organization was adopted which, afterwards fully developed by the Conference of Valencia (September 1871), is now in force and has given the most excellent results.

As everywhere else, the part taken by (and also that ascribed to) our Association in the revolution of the Paris Commune, brought the International into prominence in Spain also. This prominence and the first attempted Government prosecutions following immediately afterwards, swelled our ranks in Spain very much. Still, at the time of the Valencia Conference there existed only 13 local federations in Spain, besides single isolated Sections in various places.

The Conference of Valencia had left the Federal Council in Madrid where it had been placed by the Barcelona Congress, and had left its composition much the same as before; one important individual however, Tomas Gonzalez Moràgo (delegate at the Hague) had not been reelected. When, during the first Government prosecutions in June 1871, the Federal Council had for a time to seek a refuge in Lisbon, Moràgo abandoned his post at the moment of danger and this was the cause of his exclusion from the new Federal Council. From that moment began the secret war, which ended in an open split.

Immediately after the Valencia Conference, the Conference of London (September 1871) took place. The Spaniards sent a delegate, Anselmo Lorenzo, who for the first time brought the news back to Spain that the secret “Alliance” was not an understood thing throughout our Association and that on the contrary the General Council and the majority of the Federations were directly opposed to the Alliance, as far as its existence was then known.

Shortly afterwards Sagasta began his prosecutions against the International which he declared was outside the law. Moràgo, then still member of the Local Council of Madrid, again deserted his post and resigned. But the government threats were not followed up by any serious action; the right of public meeting was indeed denied to the International, but the sections and councils continued to hold their meetings undisturbed. The only effect of this government interference was an immense increase in the number of adherents to the International. At the Congress of Saragossa, April 1872, the Association numbered 70 local federations regularly constituted, while in 100 other localities the work of organization and propaganda was actively pursued. There were moreover 8 Trades organized in Unions all over the country and under the control of the International, and the great union of all the mill-hands in Spain (mechanics, spinners and weavers) was upon the point of being constituted.

In the interval the secret war within the International had been carried on and it now commenced to take another and more important turn. The personal spite of Moràgo (who exercised great local influence in Madrid, his repeated desertions notwithstanding) against the members of the new Federal Council appointed at Valencia, was no longer the sole motive power of this war. The resolutions of the London Conference on the public branch of the Alliance and on the political action of the working class had aroused the fury of the leaders of the secret Alliance, and especially of the men in the higher degrees of secret initiation who received their instructions direct from Bakounine, and of whom Moràgo was one. This fury was expressed in the Sonvillier circular of the Jura Federation demanding the immediate convocation of an extraordinary Congress. In this question, the Federal Council of Spain, in accordance with many of the sections, hesitated to take part against the General Council and the London Conference, and this constituted a new crime. Moreover in January 1872 Paul Lafargue came to Madrid, and having entered into friendly relations with the members of the Federal Council, soon convinced them, by numerous facts, that the whole Jurassian affair was an intrigue, based upon calumny, to disorganize the International. From that moment their fate was doomed. The members of the Federal Council being at the same time editors of the Emancipacion, the Local Council picked a quarrel with that paper and then had them expelled from the Local Federation of Madrid. This expulsion was annulled by the Congress of Saragossa, but the immediate end was attained: to render the continuance of the Federal Council at Madrid impossible by personal squabbles. The Federal Council was indeed removed to Valencia and its composition entirely changed. Of the members of the previous Council, who were reelected, Mora declined at once and Lorenzo resigned very soon on the account of differences which ensued. The members who remained, were mostly members of the secret Alliance.

After the Congress of Saragossa the split between the men of the Alliance and those who preferred the International to the Alliance became more and more apparent. At last, on June 2d 1872, the members of the previous Federal Council (Mesa, Mora, Pauly, Pages and others), who formed at the same time the majority of the Madrid section of the Alliance, issued a circular to all the sections of the same secret Society, announcing their dissolution as such section and inviting them to follow their example. The next day, they were under a false pretence, and by an open breach of the rules, expelled from the Local Federation of the Madrid International. Out of 130 members only 15 had been present at this vote. They then formed a new Federation, but the Federal Council refused to recognise them; the General Council, upon application, recognised them without consulting the Spanish Federal Council, and this act was sanctioned by the Congress at the Hague.

The reason why the late General Council did not consult the Spanish Council on this occasion, was this. The General Council, having at last received sufficient evidence of the existence and action of the Alliance in Spain and of the fact that a majority, if not all, of the members of the Spanish Council belonged to it, had written to that council, demanding explications and informations regarding the secret society. In its reply, dated 3d August 1872, the Spanish Council openly took sides with the Alliance, stating moreover that the Alliance was dissolved. To refer to a Council which, in a collision between the International and a secret society within its ranks, had already taken the part of that secret society, would have evidently been more than superfluous, and the Hague Congress has fully sanctioned the action of the General Council.

To insure the election of men of the Alliance as delegates to the Hague, the Federal Council, by a private circular, never communicated by them to the General Council, resorted to manoeuvres, exposed at the Congress, manoeuvres which, had it not been for the uncommon leniency of the majority at the Hague, might have sufficed to invalidate the credentials of the four delegates sent by the Spanish Federation.

Thus, the state of things in Spain now is as follows:

There exist in Spain only two local federations which openly and thoroughly acknowledge the resolutions of the Hague Congress and the new General Council: the new federation of Madrid and the federation of Alcalâ de Henares. Unless they can succeed in drawing over to their side the bulk of the Spanish International, they will form the nucleus of a new Spanish Federation.

The great bulk of the Spanish International are still under the leadership of the Alliance which predominates in the Federal Council as well as in the most important Local Councils. But there are plenty of symptoms to show that the Congress resolutions have not been without great effect upon the masses in Spain. There the name of the International has a great weight, and its official expression, the Congress, a great moral influence. Thus, the men of the Alliance have a hard struggle to convince the masses that they are in the right. The opposition begins to become serious. The factory workers of Catalonia, with a Trades Union, counting 40 000 members, are taking the lead and demand the convocation of an extraordinary Spanish Congress to hear the reports of the delegates to the Hague and to examine into the conduct of the Federal Council. The organ of the New Madrid Federation, La Emancipacion, perhaps the best paper the International now possesses anywhere, exposes the Alliance every week, and from the numbers I have sent over to cit. Sorge, the General Council can convince themselves, with what energy, good sense, and theoretical insight into the principles of our Association it carries on the struggle. Its present editor, José Mesa, is without doubt by far the most superior man we have in Spain, both as to character and talent and indeed one of the best men we have anywhere.

I have taken upon myself to advise our Spanish friends not to be in too great a hurry to force on the extraordinary Congress, but to prepare for it as much as possible. In the meantime I have contributed to the Emancipacion both Congress reports and other articlesa and continue to do so, because Mesa, the only one now at Madrid who can use the pen with effect, cannot do everything, in spite of the wonderful energy, he displays. And I have no doubt that, if our friends in Spain are seconded well by the action of the General Council, we shall there overcome every obstacle and rescue from the influence of the Alliance humbugs one of the finest organizations within the International.

Fred. Engels,

Ex-Secretary for Spain

London, October 31, 1872