MARX TO NIKOLAI UTIN
IN GENEVA
[Draft]
[London,] 27 July 1871
Dear Citizen,
Last Tuesday[1] the General Council resolved that there would not be a Congress this year (in view of extraordinary circumstances) but that, as in 1865, there should be a private Conference in London[2] to which different sections would be invited to send their delegates. The convocation of this Conference must not be published in the press. Its meetings will not be public ones. The Conference will be required to concern itself, not with theoretical questions, but exclusively with questions of organisation. It will also deal with disputes between the different sections of a particular country. The Conference will open in London on 17 September (third Sunday in September). Jung will advise Becker and Perret of these resolutions.
At last Tuesday's meeting two questions were put to the General Council by Guillaume[3] : 1) He sent copies of two letters, one, dated 28 July 1869, from Eccarius, whereby the Alliance was recognised as a section of the International, the other, dated 25 August 1869, from Jung. This was a receipt for the Alliance's contribution (year 1868-69). Now Guillaume is asking if these letters were authentic.
We replied saying that there could be no doubt on that score. 2nd question: 'Has the General Council passed a resolution excluding the Alliance from the International?' We replied, saying, as was the case, that there had been no resolution of this kind
Up till then, there had been nothing but facts to ascertain, but when Robin, on behalf of his mandatories, sought to interpret these facts in a light that would have prejudged the Swiss dispute, the Council cut things short!
First it was pointed out that, in a letter preceding the one from Eccarius, the conditions of the Alliance's admission had been specified, that they had been accepted by the Alliance and that it was a question of knowing whether the Alliance had fulfilled those conditions—a question to be dealt with by the Conference.
As to the contribution for 1868-69, it was pointed out that this payment was made by the Alliance to buy its admission to the Basle Congress of 1869 and that thereafter the Alliance had paid nothing further.
As to the second question, it was pointed out that if the General Council had not passed a resolution excluding the Alliance, this certainly was no proof that the Alliance had not excluded itself by its own conduct and actions.
The Council then resolved that, while it might reply to the factual questions raised by Guillaume, it reserved for the Conference the right to pronounce on the essential aspects of the affair.
L'Egalité arrives here at very irregular intervals. You would oblige me by acknowledging receipt of this letter.
Fraternal greetings,
K. M.
P. S. I do not sign myself Secretary for Russia in the Council's manifestoes for fear of compromising our friends in Russia.
- ↑ 25 July
- ↑ An allusion to the preliminary conference held in London on 25-29 September 1865 instead of the congress of the International Working Men's Association planned for Brussels.
In line with a resolution of the Basle Congress (1869), the next congress of the International Working Men's Association was to be held in Paris. However, the persecution of the International's sections by the police in France compelled the General Council to move the next congress to Mainz (see Note 40). The outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War made the congress impossible; nor was it possible to hold it in the atmosphere of severe reprisals against the members of the International during the civil war in France, especially after the suppression of the Paris Commune. In these circumstances, the majority of national federations agreed that the congress be postponed and the General Council be empowered to fix the date of its convocation. At the same time the urgent tasks to be undertaken in the struggle against the Bakuninists and other sectarian elements, as well as other pressing problems, demanded the adoption of collective decisions. At its meeting on 25 July 1871 the General Council, at Engels' suggestion, resolved to convene a private conference of the International in London on the third Sunday of September. The majority of the federations agreed to the proposal.
The London Conference was held from 17 to 23 September 1871. Twenty-two voting, and ten non-voting, delegates took part in its work. The countries unable to send delegates were represented by the corresponding secretaries. Marx represented Germany, Engels—Italy. In all, nine sessions were held. The most important decision of the Conference was formulated in Resolution IX, 'Political Action of the Working Class', which declared the need to found, in each country, an independent proletarian party whose ultimate goal was the conquest of political power by the working class.
- ↑ At the meeting of the General Council on 25 July 1871 the Bakuninist Robin, Guillaume's associate, raised the question about relations between the Bakuninist Alliance (see Note 10) and the International in connection with a speech made in Geneva by Utin, representative of the Russian Section of the International Working Men's Association, declaring that the Alliance had never been admitted into the International.
In its resolutions of 22 December 1868 and 9 March 1869 (see present edition, Vol. 21, pp. 34-36, 45-46), the General Council did refuse to admit the Alliance as an international organisation; should the Alliance dissolve itself, however, its separate groups were to be allowed to affiliate to the International Association as sections. Following the Alliance's declaration that it had dissolved itself, the General Council admitted into the International the Geneva Section, which called itself the Alliance of Socialist Democracy. During the discussion of this question at its meeting of 25 July 1871, the General Council confirmed that the Geneva Section of the Alliance had been admitted into the International. However, at Marx's and Engels' suggestion the General Council resolved to examine at the forthcoming conference the question of whether the leaders of the Alliance complied with the terms on which its sections had been admitted into the International; any violation of those terms placed the organisations of the Alliance outside the International Working Men's Association.