Resolution of the General Council on the French Section of 1871

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The French Section rejected the General Council’s Resolution on the Rules of the French Section of 1871 (see Note 11). It attacked the General Council and demanded that all the principles of the General Rules concerning the Council’s rights and functions should be completely revised. The Section’s reply signed by Augustin Avrial was discussed by the General Council on November 7, 1871. Auguste Serraillier, Corresponding Secretary for France, made a report on this matter and also submitted a resolution written by Marx which was adopted unanimously. The stand taken by the General Council prompted such working-class leaders as Albert Félix Theisz, Avrial, Zéphyrin Camélinat and other former Communards to dissociate themselves from the Section. By the beginning of 1872 the French Section split up into several hostile groups. A new section of French émigrés supporting the General Council was set up in London.

This resolution is extant in two manuscripts, one in Marx’s hand, the other in Pierre Louis Delahaye’s and signed by Serraillier (this being presumably the final version of the resolution). The second manuscript has a note pencilled on it by Engels: “Conseil Général 7 nov. 71. Section française de Londres.”

It was published in English for the first time in The General Council of the First International. 1871-1872. Minutes, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1968.

International Working Men’s Association

RESOLUTIONS OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL

ADOPTED AT ITS MEETING

OF NOVEMBER 7, 1871

I. Preliminary remarks

The General Council considers that the ideas expressed by the “French Section of 1871” about a radical change to be made in the articles of the General Rules concerning the constitution of the General Council have no bearing on the question which it ought to discuss.

With regard to the insulting references to the General Council made by that section, these will be judged for what they are worth by the councils and federal committees of the various countries.

The Council merely wishes to note:

That three years have not yet elapsed since the Basle Congress (which met on September 6-11, 1869), as the above-mentioned section deliberately asserts;

That in 1870, on the eve of the Franco-Prussian war, the Council addressed a general circular to all the federations, including the Paris Federal Council, proposing that the seat of the General Council be transferred from London;

That the replies received were unanimously in favour of retaining the present seat of the Council and of prolonging its term of office;

That in 1871, as soon as the situation permitted, the General Council summoned a Conference of Delegates, this being the only action possible in the given circumstances;

That at this Conference delegates from the Continent gave voice to the misgivings in their respective countries that the co-option of too large a number of French refugees would destroy the international character of the General Council;

That the Conference (see its “Resolutions, etc.” XV ) “leaves it to the discretion of the General Council to fix, according to events, the day and place of meeting of the next Congress or Conference which might replace it”.

With regard to the said section’s claim to exclusive representation of “the French revolutionary element”, because its members include ex-presidents of Paris workers’ societies, the Council remarks:

The fact that this or that person has in the past been president of a workers’ society may well be taken into account by the General Council, but does not in itself constitute the “right” to a seat on the Council or to represent the “revolutionary element” on that body. If this were so, the Council would be obliged to grant membership to M. Gustave Durand, former President of the Paris Jewellers’ Society and secretary of the French section in London. Moreover, members of the General Council are bound to represent the principles of the International Working Men’s Association, rather than the opinions and interests of this or that corporation.

II. Objections presented by the “French Section

of 1871” at the General Council meeting

of October 31 to the resolutions of October 17

1) With respect to the following passage from Article 2 of the section’s Rules:

“In order to be admitted as member of the section, a person must justify his means of existence, present guarantees of morality, etc.”

the section remarks:

“The General Rules make the sections responsible for the morality of their members and, as a consequence, recognise the right of sections to demand the guarantees they think necessary.”

On this argument, a section of the International founded by TEETOTALLERS could include in its own rules this type of article: “To be admitted as member of the section, a person must swear to abstain from all alcoholic drinks.” In short, it would be always possible for individual sections to impose in their local rules the most absurd and incongruous conditions of admittance into the International, under the pretext that they “think it necessary in this way” to discharge their responsibility for the integrity of their members.

In its Resolution I of October 17, the General Council stated that there may be “cases in which the absence of means of existence may well be a guarantee of morality”. It is of the opinion that the section repeated this point unnecessarily when it said that “refugees” are “above suspicion by virtue of the eloquent proof of their poverty”.

As to the phrase that strikers’ “means of existence” consist of “the strike fund” this might be answered by saying, first, that this “fund” is often fictitious.

Moreover, official English inquiries have shown that the majority of English workers who, generally speaking, enjoy better conditions than their brothers on the Continent, are forced as a result of strikes and unemployment, or because of insufficient wages or terms of payment and many other causes, to resort incessantly to pawnshops or to borrowing, that is, to “means of existence” about which one cannot demand information without interfering in an unqualified manner in a person’s private life.

There are two alternatives.

Either the section sees “means of existence” purely as “guarantees of morality”, in which case the General Council’s proposal that “to be admitted as member of the section a person must present guarantees of morality” serves the purpose since it assumes (see Resolution I of October 17) that “in dubious cases a section may well take information about means of existence as guarantee of morality”.

Or in Article 2 of its Rules the section deliberately refers to the furnishing of information about “means of existence” as a condition for admission, over and above the “guarantees of morality” which it is empowered to require, in which case the General Council affirms that “it is a bourgeois innovation contrary to the letter and spirit of the General Rules”.

2) With respect to the General Council’s rejection of the following clause of Article 11 of the section’s Rules:

“One or several delegates shall be sent to the General Council”

the section states:

“We are not unaware ... that the literal sense of the General Rules confers on it” (the General Council) “the right to accept or reject delegates.”

This is a patent demonstration of the fact that the section is not familiar with the literal sense of the General Rules.

In actual fact, the General Rules, which recognise only two ways of election to the General Council, namely, election by the Congress or co-option by the Council itself, nowhere state that the Council has the right to accept or reject delegates from the sections or groups.

The admission of delegates initially proposed by the London sections has always been a purely administrative measure on the part of the General Council, which in this case only made use of its power of co-option (see Resolution II, 2, of the General Council of October 17). The exceptional circumstances which led the General Council to have recourse to co-option of this kind were explained at sufficient length in its resolutions of October 17.

In the same resolution (II, 3) the Council declared that it would admit delegates from the “French Section of 1871” on the same conditions as those from the London sections. It cannot, however, be expected to give serious consideration to a demand that would grant this section a privileged position contrary to the General Rules.

By the inclusion of the following paragraph in Article 11 of its Rules:

“One or several delegates shall be sent to the General Council”,

the “French Section of 1871” is claiming the right to send delegates to the General Council allegedly basing itself on the General Rules. It acted as though fully convinced that it possessed this imaginary right, and even before the section had been recognised by the General Council (see Article VI of the Administrative Resolutions of the Basle Congress ), it did not hesitate to send “by right” to the General Council meeting of October 17 two delegates, armed with “imperative mandates” in the name of the 20 full members of the section. Finally, in its latest communication it again insists on “the duty and right to send delegates to the General Council”.

The section attempts to justify its claims by seeking a precedent in the position of Citizen Herman on the General Council. It pretends to be unaware of the fact that Citizen Herman was co-opted into the General Council at the recommendation of the Belgian Congress, and in no way represents a Liège section.

3) With respect to the General Council’s refusal to recognise the following passage in the section’s Rules:

“Each member of the section should not accept any delegation to the General Council other than that of his section”,

the section states:

“In response to this, we shall limit ourselves to the observation that our Rules pertain to our section alone; our agreements are of no concern or relevance to anyone but ourselves, and this claim in no way contradicts the General Rules which include no provision on this subject.”

It is difficult to comprehend how the Rules which include no provision on the right of delegation to the General Council, should suddenly specify the conditions of this delegation. On the other hand, it is not so difficult to see that the section’s own Rules do not apply outside its field of competence. Nevertheless, it cannot be admitted that the specific rules of any section “are of no concern or relevance to anyone but that section alone”. For were the General Council to approve Article 11 of the Rules of the “French Section of 1871”, for example, it would be obliged to insert it into the rules of all the other sections, and this article, once it began to apply generally, would completely nullify the right of co-option conferred on the Council by the General Rules.

For these reasons:

I) The General Council reaffirms in their entirety its resolutions of October 17, 1871;

II) In the event of these resolutions not being accepted by the section before the Council’s meeting on November 21, the corresponding secretaries should bring the following documents to the notice of the Federal Councils or Committees of the various countries or, where these do not exist, to the notice of the local groups: the Rules of the “French Section of 1871”, the mandate of that section’s delegates presented to the General Council at its meeting on October 17, the General Council’s resolutions of October 17, the reply of the “French Section of 1871” presented to the General Council at its meeting on October 31, and the Council’s final resolutions of November 7.

London, November 7, 1871

In the name and by order of the General Council