Karl Marx_ A Biography ( PDFDrive )

HI attitude towards the International until J. B. von Schweitzer, a gifted

who had wanted to sell the working class to Bismarck.41 'It is beyond all doubt', he wrote to Schweitzer, 'that there will be a disappointment over I assalle's unholy illusions about a socialist initiative on the part of the Prussian Government. T h e logic of things will tell. But the honour of the workers' party demands that it reject such phantasms itself before it

I icbknecht in Berlin as 'the only reliable contact that we have in Ger - many'.41 Although he got the Inaugural Address printed in the Sozial- Drmokrat, Liebknecht was able to do little more, for he had difficulty supporting his family and was put in an ambiguous position by having agreed to write a life of Lassalle (commissioned by the Countess von

•.1 ingested that Marx stand for the presidency of the A D A V . He at first 1 rinsed, then agreed to stand, though he had decided to decline the office publicly if and when elected. This would be 'a good party demonstration, both against the Prussian Government and against the bourgeoisie'.45 I lowever, Lassalle's will, which nominated for President Bernhard Becker (who was already acting in that capacity), was made public a few days before the election and Marx's attempt failed completely: even in Solingen he got no votes at all. Marx nevertheless urged the few contacts he had

i|;.imst our opponents here. Later the whole institution of this Union, which rests on a false basis, must be destroyed.'46

In November Liebknecht passed on Schweitzer's invitation to Marx uul Kngels to write for the Sozial-Demokrat, and Marx's first contribution apart from the Inaugural Address - was a long ambivalent obituary of I'roudhon, in which he repeated the views of Poverty and Philosophy and,

relations between Marx and Schweitzer soon became strained: the SozialDemokrat was faithful to Lassalle's doctrines and it seemed to be directly attacking the International when it printed an article from Hess in Paris which repeated a rumour that Tolain and his friends were Bonapartist agents. Marx was furious and, although Schweitzer agreed to make Liebknecht responsible for all material concerning the International, Marx eventually withdrew his collaboration and vigorously criticised Schweitzer for his appeasement of Bismarck's Government. It would have been surprising if Marx's designs on the A D A V had come to anything: it was more than fifteen years since he had been active in Germany48 and his close friends and supporters there could be counted on the fingers of one hand.

At first, the International met with no greater success in South Ger - many. When Liebknecht arrived in Saxony, he could do no more for the

(Association of German Workers' Unions) - a loose federation of liberal People's Parties, united mainly by opposition to Prussia, with no centralised leadership and very little socialism. Moreover, the political atmosphere was dominated by the approaching Austro-Prussian War. Liebknecht - to whom both Marx and Engels referred in their letters with the most scathing epithets - was willing to help the International (and, indeed, was obviously intimidated by Marx's personality), but the political situation just would not permit it. Marx, embarrassed by the lack of enthusiasm in the very area for which he was responsible, made greatly exaggerated, if not outright false, statements to the General Council on progress in Germany. By far the most effective person working for the International in Germany was the veteran socialist Johann Philipp Becker.49 On the foundation of the International Becker had been very active in recruiting members in Switzerland from his base in Geneva. In late 1866 Becker, encouraged by Marx, founded active sections of the International in at least a dozen German cities and formed them, in 1867, into a well-organised 'Group of German-speaking Sections' centred on Geneva.

Even during these relatively lean years Marx retained his early faith in the vocation of the German proletariat to constitute the vanguard of the proletarian revolution owing, in particular, to its ability to curtail the

he is reported as attributing the Germans' revolutionary superiority to three factors: 'The Germans had achieved most freedom from religious

nonsense; they did not need to undergo a lengthy bourgeois movement like the workers of other lands; their geographical situation would compel them to declare war on eastern barbarism since all reaction against the West had come from Asia.'50

In France, still the centre of European socialism, the International made fair progress, but was hampered by ideological disputes, both internal and with the General Council. There were two separate groups which had been represented at the International's foundation meeting: the followers of Proudhon led by Tolain, and the Radical Republicans led by Lefort and Le Lubez. T h e Proudhonists wished to build up a purely t rade union movement overwhelmingly working class, whereas the Radical Republicans were mainly middle class and had political objectives. Since the followers of the Proudhonists were mainly shopkeepers, peasants and artisans they attached most importance to the institution of co-operatives, credit facilities and protective tariffs and were extremely suspicious of all centralising tendencies and strike action. Dissensions began with the very translation of the Rules by the Proudhonists who, in the key sentence declaring that 'the economical emancipation of the working classes is therefore the great end to which every political movement ought to be subordinate as a means',51 cut out the words 'as a means', thus giving the impression that political activity was something of quite secondary importance. T h e Republicans regarded this as tantamount to compromise with Bonapartism. T h e Proudhonists replied that only workers should hold positions of responsibility in workers' organisations and that Lefort, who was the International's Press agent in Paris, should resign. Le Lubez, as Secretary for France and prominent among the French workers in London who never accepted very easily the authority of the General (Council, was sent to investigate and naturally produced a report favourable to Lefort. But Tolain came to London to put his case in person.

workers'.52 However, when Tolain forced the issue the General Council was compelled to come down on the side of the workers after a long and stormy discussion which, according to Marx, 'created, particularly on the I' nglish, the impression that the Frenchmen really do stand in need of a Bonaparte'.53 Lefort was removed from his post, Le Lubez resigned and Ma/.zini's followers, who were sympathetic to the French Republicans, also eventually withdrew.

3 5 2 K A RL M A R X : A B I O G R A P H Y

It was these same French followers of Proudhon who were to be the main opponents of Marx and the General Council at the London Conference of 1865 and the Geneva and Lausanne Conferences of 1866 and 1867. It had been planned to hold the first congress of the International in Brussels in the autumn of 1865. But Marx was anxious about the prevailing doctrinal confusion and persuaded the General Council to call a private conference in London to prepare the agenda carefully for a full congress at Geneva the following year. At this conference the only two countries represented - other than England and France - were Belgium and Switzerland. T h e questions discussed were mainly organisational and here the French delegation proposed what they called 'universal suffrage' - that all members should have the right to attend and vote at conferences. This ultra-democratic proposal was vigorously opposed by the English and heavily defeated. T h e rest of the meeting was taken up with drafting the agenda for the future congress: here the most important debate was on the Polish question - which had been instrumental in starting the International and figured on the agenda of all the early congresses. Most of the French, led by the young Belgian delegate de Paepe, opposed the introduction of a resolution for Polish independence and against Russian tyranny on the grounds that it would only benefit the Polish working classes and that tyranny needed to be condemned in general. This objection was overruled by a considerable majority. T h e French, however, did manage to ensure that the agenda included resolutions on the formation

1866 and an effort was made, aided by the recent establishment of a French section of the International in London, to get the decision of the London Conference reversed. Marx outmanoeuvred the attempt, and was supported by Engels (making his first appearance in connection with the International), who wrote three articles for the Commonwealth (the successor to the Beehive as the mouthpiece of the General Council) entitled 'What have the working classes to do with Poland?' T h e Austro-Prussian War also caused an outbreak of what Marx termed 'Proudhonised Stirnerism'55 when Lafargue (soon to become Marx's son-in-law but then under the influence of Proudhon) suggested that all nationalities and even nations were 'antiquated prejudices'. In the view of the Proudhonists - and here they were in direct opposition to Napoleon's encouragement of national revival - all states were by nature centralised and therefore despotic and productive of wars as well as being contrary to the small-scale economic interests typical of Proudhon's followers. Marx had nothing but ridicule for such views and, as he informed Engels, 'the English laughed very much when I began my speech by saying that our friend Lafargue

and others, who had done away with nationalities, had spoken "French" to us, i.e. a language which nine-tenths of the audience did not understand.'56 At the Geneva Congress the majority of delegates were Franco-Swiss thirty-three out of about sixty - and there was a large French contingent also. To meet the inevitable challenge from the French, Marx - who

gates which were confined 'to such points as permit the immediate agree-

instructions stressed the necessity of trade unions in the battle against capital and their future role as 'organising centres of the working class in the broad interest of its complete emancipation';58 these proposals were modified by a French amendment on justice and 'reciprocity' as the final aim. T h e French also opposed unsuccessfully the General Council's resolution on the legal enactment of the eight-hour working day as they did not believe in using the state as a reforming agency. Marx's statements on child labour as a 'progressive, sound and legitimate tendency' although under capital it was 'distorted into an abomination'59 met with no opposition; but the Proudhonists got an amendment passed which prohibited female labour.

Marx's view that standing armies should eventually be replaced by 'the general arming of the people and their general instruction in the use of arms'60 was also endorsed without opposition. He had instructed that the problems of international credit and religious ideas should 'be left to the initiative of the French'. Inevitably the Polish question figured again and Marx's views met with strong opposition as the French produced a remarkable counter-resolution which read: 'We, partisans of freedom, protest against all despotisms; we emphatically condemn and denounce the organisation and social tendencies of Russian despotism, as leading inevitably to the most brutalising form of communism; but, being delegates at an economic congress, we consider that we have nothing to say concerning the political reconstruction of Poland.'6 ' T h e Proudhonists did not share what they considered to be Marx's 'Russophobia' and did not see why Russian despotism should be more specifically condemned than any other. T h e Congress eventually adopted a compromise resolution, proposed by Becker, which was nearer to the French proposal and implied a defeat for Marx. In the debate on organisation, Tolain again proposed that only workers should be admitted as delegates to congresses. Cremer, in reply, said that in Britain much was owed to middle-class members. 'Among those members', he added, 'I will mention only one,

Citizen Marx, who has devoted all his life to the triumph of the working class.'62 Marx had entertained great fears for the Geneva Congress: but, as he wrote to Kugelmann, 'on the whole, its outcome has been better than my expectations'.6'

I I I . T H E I N T E R N A T I O N A L A T I T S Z E N I T H

During the years 1867-69, with its three Congresses at Lausanne,

gathering. Marx was too absorbed in finishing Capital (Volume One) to give much time to the preparations and the large French delegation made a considerable impact: they succeeded in forcing a compromise resolution on state responsibility for education, and would only agree to the words 'social ownership' in connection with the Belgian resolution urging nationalisation of railways and other monopolies. T h e Proudhonists supported peasant ownership, and the discussion on the nationalisation of land had to be adjourned until the following year. Resolutions on cooperatives and credit schemes were also French-inspired. T h e one question that united Marx and the French was how to reply to an invitation from the League of Peace and Freedom - an international semi-pacifist organisation supported by such varied people as John Stuart Mill, Victor Hugo, Bright, Herzen, Garibaldi and Bakunin. T h e League was holding a conference in Switzerland at the same time as the International and had invited the attendance of representatives. In the General Council Marx had strongly opposed having anything to do with this group of 'impotent bourgeois ideologists'. T he majority of delegates at Lausanne were in favour of co-operating with the League but Tolain managed to have included in the statement of acceptance the view that war could only be stopped by a new social system created by a just redistribution of wealth. So far from finding this unpalatable, the League accepted the statement with enthusiasm, but did not pursue co-operation with the International any further.

T h e current industrial unrest and the passage of the 1867 Reform Bill in Britain focused public attention on working-class movements, and the Lausanne Congress was widely reported in the British Press. Marx wrote optimistically to Engels:

Things are moving forward, and in the next revolution, which is perhaps nearer than it seems, we (i.e. you and I) have this powerful machine in our hands. Compare this with the results of the activities of Mazzini and others over the past 30 years. All accomplished without financial

support and despite the intrigues of the Proudhonists in Paris, Mazzini in Italy and the ambitious Odger, Cremer and Potter in London, with Schultz-Delitzsch and the Lassalleans in Germany. We can be very content.64

On the General Council, however, things were far from smooth. Marx had once again to defend Eccarius against the English, who objected strongly to the condescending tone of his reports in The Times on the Lausanne Congress. Difficulties with Odger persisted, until Marx eliminated his influence by abolishing the office of President. T h e French section in London caused so much disturbance that Marx for a while seriously considered transferring the seat of the General Council to Geneva until he was dissuaded by Engels who reminded him of the disastrous results of transferring the Communist League's headquarters to Cologne in 1 8 5 1 .

In England the progress of the International lost momentum and, after 1867, was almost non-existent: there were few new trade union affiliations and no breakthrough into the workers in heavy industry. T h e General Council was even evicted from its premises for debt, and Marx's enthusiasm over the Reform League turned to disillusion when he realised that it merely distracted the English working-class leaders from the tasks of the International. Ireland was one question, however, which did engage the attention both of the English working-class leaders and also of Marx. It had captured the imagination of Marx's whole family. T h e Fenian terrorists had been active in the autumn of 1867 and had been dealt with in what appeared to be an arbitrary manner. On their behalf Marx drafted a resolution to the Home Secretary; he also delivered a speech in the (Jeneral Council which went into the history of the destruction of Ireland's infant industries and the sacrifice of its agriculture to English interests. What the English members of the General Council failed to realise, Marx explained to Engels, was that since 1846 the English no longer wished to colonise Ireland in the Roman sense - as they had done since Elizabeth and Cromwell - but to replace the Irish by pigs, sheep and cows. T h e following year he described how his views had changed on this point:

I believed for a long time that it would be possible that the rise of the English working class would be able to overthrow the Irish regime. I always argued this point of view in the New York Tribune. More profound study has convinced me of the contrary. The English proletariat will never achieve anything until they have got rid of Ireland. The lever must be applied in Ireland. That is why the Irish question is so important for the social movement as a whole.65

protective tariffs. Marx also delivered the same speech in the German Workers' Education Association: he was happy to make it as long as possible, he wrote to Engels, for his carbuncles made standing the only tolerable position.

In contrast to its stagnation in England, the International made rapid progress on the Continent, particularly in its capacity as a liaison committee between the unions of the various countries to support each

Paris bronze workers led to their victory and a great increase in the prestige of the International in France: a little later a Parisian group calling themselves 'positivist proletarians' applied for affiliation and were admitted on the condition, proposed by Marx to the General Council, that they call themselves simply 'proletarian' 'for the principles of positivism are directly opposed to our Statutes'.66 T h e International was also instrumental in arranging help for the Geneva builders and the Basle silkweavers; and since this was a period of great strike activity, it gained publicity far beyond its actual effectiveness. In Germany Liebknecht was still unable to further the International's aims until the end of 1867: for apart from his lack of organisational ability, the Verband was not ready to accept socialist ideas, and anti-Prussianism was still its (and Liebknecht's) main concern. But by the beginning of 1868, things were already moving in the International's favour: Bebel, the Verband's President and a gifted organiser, felt the need of a more solid programme; and Liebknecht saw himself threatened by Schweitzer's renewed overtures to Marx, made easier by the fact that the Lassallean A D A V was moving leftwards in the

International was steadily gaining in size, success and prestige throughout

had to be a showdown with the Proudhonists at Brussels. He wrote to Engels: 'I will personally make hay out of the asses of Proudhonists at the next Congress. I have managed the whole thing diplomatically and did not want to come out personally until my book was published and our society had struck roots.'68 T h e Brussels Congress - the longest and bestattended Congress held by the International - did indeed mark the eclipse

of 'Belgian stupidity' as 'the working class is not sufficiently organised to throw any decisive weight into the scales'.69 To a further approach by the

League of Peace and Freedom, the Congress replied that its members would do better to disband their association and join the International. I he Congress accepted strikes as a legitimate weapon of working-class pressure and also adopted a resolution - concerning the impact of machinery - proposed on behalf of the General Council by Eccarius with the help of a long quotation from Capital. T h e proposal was drafted by Marx and summarised the views on the ambivalent nature of machinery that he had already published in Capital. Marx had previously defended these views at length in the General Council when the Brussels agenda was being drawn up.70 Proudhonist resolutions on free credit and exchange banks were referred back to individual sections for study. Most importantly the Congress adopted a resolution calling for the collective ownership of land, railways, mines and forests. Marx was especially pleased with the results of the Congress: a resolution had been passed paying particular tribute to Capital, saying that 'Karl Marx has the inestimable merit of being the first economist to have subjected capital to a scientific analysis'.71 I he instructions that Marx had given both before and during the Congress to the General Council delegates, Eccarius and Lessner, had set the tone - heightened by considerable support from the massive Belgian delegation. T h e two main points for which Marx had been striving - the common ownership of the means of production and the necessity for political action by the working class - had both become part of the programme of the International. The Times published two lengthy reports from Eccarius, and Marx (in spite of his annoyance that Eccarius had omitted the references to Capital in the debate on machinery) wrote enthusiastically to Meyer in America that 'it's the first time that the paper has abandoned its mocking tone concerning the working class and now takes it very seriously'.72

The Basle Congress of 1869 saw the International at its zenith: it confirmed the defeat of the Proudhonists, and that the influence of Bakunin's anarchism was not yet dangerous; it was also the most representative (>1 t he congresses. For the first time there was a delegation from Germany. Schweitzer had renewed his correspondence with Marx, and the International and Marx had been warmly praised at the A D A V ' s Congress in

I lamburg in the autumn of 1868. Thus forced to declare himself, Liebknecht persuaded the Verband at its Congress in September 1868 to adopt the first four paragraphs of the Preamble to the International's statutes, liasing himself on this, Liebknecht then tried to get Marx to declare in Ins favour and condemn Schweitzer. Marx refused - still regarding Liebknecht as unenthusiastic about the International. In fact, Becker's group 1 >1 (Jerman-speaking sections was much more active on the International's behalf. Marx summed up his attitude to both Liebknecht and Schweitzer

3 6 2 K A RL M A R X : A B I O G R A P H Y

as follows: 'The role of the General Council is to act impartially. Would it not therefore be better to wait until (i) the nullity of the results of Schweitzer's game have become apparent; and (2) Liebknecht and Co. have really organised something?'73 This ambiguous situation was brought to an end when Schweitzer found himself compelled, in order to safeguard his leadership, to reunite with the Hatzfeld faction - a move which provoked the exodus of the more liberal-minded members of the A D A V . These members joined with the Verband at a Congress at Eisenach in August 1869 to found the Social Democratic Workers' Party and sent a twelve-man delegation, including Liebknecht, to the Basle Congress.

ported by Bakunin, making his first appearance at a congress, who also supported a proposal of the General Council, soon to be used against himself, that the General Council should have power, pending a decision by the next congress, to suspend any section which acted against the interests of the International. He also tried to persuade the General Council to abolish the right of inheritance. Marx's view, as expressed in the General Council, was that the first task was to change the economic organisation of society of which the inheritance laws were a product and not the cause. A measure of the general support for Bakunin's ideas was the majority which he had on his side against the General Council on this specific question (although this did not amount to the necessary twothirds).

T h e right of inheritance was only one of the many views for which Bakunin had been agitating in Italy and Switzerland, where he had been working for the last few years following his romantic escape from Siberia in 1 8 6 1 . Bakunin did not have a very orderly mind, but when he did formulate his ideas, they were usually the opposite of Marx's: he was opposed to any and all manifestations of state power (Marx's views he referred to as 'authoritarian communism'); he was against any centralisation of the International, and he opposed all co-operation with bourgeois political parties. Whereas Marx believed that the new society was being nurtured in the womb of the old and that there was thus a certain continuity between them, Bakunin believed in the thorough destruction of every facet of contemporary society. Marx saw the history of the International as 'a continual struggle against sects' - the chief of these being the Proudhonists, the Lassalleans and eventually the followers of Bakunin. 'The development of socialist sects', he declared, 'and that of the real workers' movement are in inverse relationship. As long as the sects