Resolution of the General Council on the Rules of the French Section of 1871

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The Resolution on the Rules of the French Section of 1871 was written by Marx and adopted unanimously at the General Council meeting of October 17, 1871.

The French Section of 1871 was formed in London in September 1871 by French refugees, mostly petty-bourgeois intellectuals. It also included proletarians, among them former Communards Albert Félix Theisz, Augustin Avrial and Zéphyrin Camélinat. The spy Durand insinuated himself into the Section but was soon exposed by the General Council. The leaders of the Section established close contacts with Bakunin’s followers in Switzerland and joined them in attacking the organisational principles of the International. The Rules of the French Section of 1871 were submitted to the General Council at its special meeting on October 16 and referred to the Council’s commission for examination. At the General Council meeting of October 17 Marx made a report on the Rules and submitted this Resolution, which is extant as a manuscript in the hand of Auguste Serraillier, Secretary for France.

The Resolution was published in English for the first time in The General Council of the First International. 1870-1871. Minutes, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1967.

INTERNATIONAL WORKING MEN’S ASSOCIATION

256, High Holborn, London.—W.C.

RESOLUTION OF THE GENERAL COUNCIL

ADOPTED AT THE MEETING OF OCTOBER 17, 1871

TO CITIZEN MEMBERS OF THE FRENCH SECTION OF 1871

Citizens,

Considering the following articles of the administrative resolutions voted on by the Basle Congress: Article 4. “Every new section or society which comes into existence and wishes to join the International must immediately notify the General Council of its adherence.”

Article 5. “The General Council is entitled to accept or to refuse the affiliation of every new society or group, etc.”

The General Council confirms the Rules of the French Section of 1871 with the following modifications:

I. That in Article 2 the words “justify his means of existence” be erased and that it should simply be said: in order to be admitted as member of the section a person must present guarantees of morality, etc.

Article 9 of the General Rules states:

“Everybody who acknowledges and defends the principles of the International Working Men’s Association is eligible to become a member. Every branch is responsible for the integrity of the members it admits. “

In dubious cases a section may well take information about means of existence as “guarantee of morality”, while in other cases, like those of the refugees, workers on strike, etc., absence of means of existence may well be a guarantee of morality. But to ask candidates to justify their means of existence as a general condition to be admitted to the International, would be a bourgeois innovation contrary to the spirit and letter of the General Rules.

II. (1) Considering that Article 4 of the General Rules states:

“The Congress elects the members of the General Council with power to add to their numbers”  ; that consequently the General Rules only recognise two ways of election for General Council members: either their election by the Congress, or their co-option by the General Council; that the following passage of Article 11 of the Rules of the French Section of 1871: “One or several delegates shall be sent to the General Council” is therefore contrary to the General Rules which give no branch, section, group or federation the right to send delegates to the General Council.

That Article 12 of the Regulations prescribes: “Every section is at liberty to make Rules and Bye-Laws for its local administration, suitable to the peculiar circumstances and laws of the different countries. But these Bye-Laws must not contain anything contrary to the General Rules.”

For these reasons:

The General Council cannot admit the above-mentioned paragraph of the Rules of the “French Section of 1871”.

(2) It is quite true that the different sections existing in London had been invited to send delegates to the General Council which, so as not to violate the General Rules, has always proceeded in the following manner:

It has first determined the number of delegates to be sent to the General Council by each section, reserving itself the right to accept or refuse them depending on whether it considered them able to fulfil the general functions it has to perform. These delegates became members of the General Council not by virtue of the fact that they were delegated by their sections but by virtue of the right of co-opting new members accorded to the Council by the General Rules.

Having acted up to the decision taken by the last Conference both as the General Council of the International Working Men’s Association and as the Central Council for England, the Council in London thought it useful to admit, besides the members that it co-opted directly, members originally delegated by their respective sections.

It would have been a big mistake to identify the electoral procedure of the General Council of the International Working Men’s Association with that of the Paris Federal Council which was not even a national Council nominated by a national Congress like, for example, the Brussels Federal Council or that of Madrid. The Paris Federal Council being only a delegation of the Paris sections, the delegates of these sections could well be invested with an imperative mandate on a council where they had to defend the interests of their section. The General Council’s electoral procedure is, on the contrary, defined by the General Rules and its members would not accept any other imperative mandate than that of the General Rules and Regulations.

(3) The General Council is ready to admit two delegates from the “French Section of 1871” on the terms prescribed by the General Rules and never contested by the other sections existing in London.

III. In Article 11 of the Rules of the “French Section of 1871”, this paragraph appears:

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

Interpreted literally, this paragraph could be accepted since it says only that a member of the “French Section of 1871” should not present himself to the General Council as delegate from another section.

But if we take into consideration the paragraph that precedes it, Article 11 means nothing else but completely changing the General Council’s composition and making out of it, contrary to Article 3 of the General Rules, a delegation of London sections where the influence of local groups would be substituted for that of the whole International Working Men’s Association.

The meaning of the paragraph in Article 11 from the Rules of the “French Section of 1871” is clearly confirmed by the obligation which it imposes for opting between the title of member of the Section and the function of member of the General Council.

For these reasons the General Council cannot admit the above-mentioned paragraph since it is contrary to the General Rules and deprives it of its right to recruit forces everywhere in the general interest of the International Working Men’s Association.

IV. The General Council is sure that the “French Section of 1871” will understand the necessity for the proposed modifications and will not hesitate to bring its Rules into conformity with the letter and spirit of the General Rules and Regulations and that it will thereby forestall any discord which, in the present circumstances, could only hinder the progress of the International Working Men’s Association.

Greetings and equality.

In the name and by order of the General Council

Auguste Serraillier,

Corresponding Secretary for France