Karl Marx_ A Biography ( PDFDrive )

an independent historical movement. . . . Here the history of the International has merely repeated the general lesson of history that the obsolete tries to reinstate and confirm itself inside the newly achieved form.'75

It is significant that Bakunin evolved his ideas against the background o! Russia and Italy, where no organised working-class movement was possible, whereas Marx was thinking primarily of Germany, Britain and I'Vance. At the beginning of the International, nevertheless, relations between Marx and Bakunin were amicable. Bakunin had visited Marx in I .oiulon in 1864 and Marx had found him 'very agreeable and better than before .. . one of the few people who, after sixteen years, have progressed

when it would not accept his ideas on the abolition of the right of inheritance; on leaving, he founded the Alliance of Social Democracy which then applied to join the International. When he first heard of the alliance Marx considered it 'stillborn'77 - though Engels was much more

banded and urged its individual sections to join the International. Although Marx was extremely scornful of the Alliance's programme as drawn up by Bakunin,79 the General Council approved the projected ulliliation on condition that the Alliance replace 'equalisation of classes' by 'abolition of classes' in its programme. Even so, there were constant

many questions the Belgian delegation to the Congress tended more to llakunin's position than to Marx's. It would, however, be quite untrue in suppose that Bakunin actually organised opposition within the International. The Alliance was not a close-knit party; it was much nearer to being merely a name that Bakunin applied to the totality of his friends, acquaintances and correspondents. Bakunin had no wish to challenge Marx despite vicious accusations that he was a Russian spy made by Marx's nsociates Liebknecht and Hess. When Herzen urged him to do this, he

twenty-five years with insight, energy and disinterestedness, in which he luis undoubtedly surpassed us all'.

I le went on:

Marx's influence in the International is undoubtedly very useful. He has exercised a wise influence on his party down to the present day and he is the strongest support of socialism and the firmest bulwark against the invasion of bourgeois ideas and intentions. I should never forgive myself if I had ever tried to destroy or even weaken his beneficial influence merely in order to revenge myself on him.80

Shortly afterwards he wrote to Marx himself that 'my fatherland is now the International of which you are one of the principal founders. You therefore see, dear friend, that I am your disciple and proud of being so.'81

Nevertheless, the Geneva paper Egalite, which was controlled by followers of Bakunin, began to attack the General Council and suggested its removal from London to Geneva. T h e General Council's reply, drafted by Marx, was addressed to the French-speaking Federal Councils, and emphasised how necessary it was for the General Council to be in charge of the revolutionary movement in England: this was vital for the success of the movement on the Continent, and the English movement would lack all momentum if left to its own resources. In the following March Marx (who always put more emphasis on Bakunin's alleged machinations than on his ideas) sent this same circular to the Brunswick Committee of the Eisenach party with a rider denouncing Bakunin as a downright intriguer and an obsequious sponger. But although this dispute was to dominate the later years of the International, it was not for the moment a major factor.

If 1869 was the year of the International's maximum power and influence, just how important was it and how vital was the part that Marx played?82 Many contemporaries considered the influence and resources of the International to be gigantic: The Times put the number of its adherents at two-and-a-half million and some even doubled that figure. T h e paper also stated that the financial resources of the International ran to millions

General Council did negotiate loans from the trade unions of one country to those of another, particularly to support strikes, but the Council was itself continually harassed for small debts.

As for membership figures, it is important to remember that (unlike its successors) the First International had an individual membership forming local sections which in their turn joined together in national federations. In Britain, the total number of individual members by the end of 1870 was no more than 254. In Germany, by the end of 1 8 71 there were 58 branches with a total membership of 385. In France in 1870 there were 36 local sections. In Italy, the International increased its

membership after the Paris Commune, but it had no formal organisation and its numbers cannot have exceeded a few thousand. T h e Spanish delegate at Basle claimed 20,000 members and there were said to be 30 sections in America with 500 members. However, anyone familiar with loose organisations of this kind knows how prone leaders are to exaggerate the number of their followers, and even the figures quoted cannot have been fee-paying members: otherwise the General Council would have been saved all financial embarrassment.

Some basis for the larger figures can be found in a different form of membership of the International - affiliation of trade union and political parties.83 In Britain the total affiliated membership of trade unions was

speak for almost a million workers, declared its adherence to the principles 11I the International. Nevertheless, in all these countries, this commitment was an emotional one unsupported by close organisational, doctrinal, or

except in Britain - financial links.

I'.ven in Britain, where many of the important trade union leaders sat on the General Council and were in close contact with Marx, they evolved working-class policies without reference to the International. T h e trade union leaders were immensely impressed by Marx's intellectual qualities and their backing gave Marx and the General Council great prestige in dr.ding with the continent of Europe, in which the British had only a marginal interest. But when it came to home affairs, the influence of the International was peripheral. This was particularly so after 1867 when, with the disappearance of the Fenian menace, any hope of altering the 1 i,mi\ 1juo in Ireland seemed lost and the success of the Reform movement made the trade union leaders less revolutionary in their demands. Marx was still convinced, as he had been since 1849, that no revolution in I'itrope could succeed without a similar movement in England. However, in Ins growing inability to infuse the affiliated British trade unionists with •ot'ialist theory and a revolutionary temper' was added the lack of success 11I the International in even recruiting trade unions. After 1867 only three limn trade unions affiliated to the International. This loss of momentum by the International was due to its inability to attract the workers in heavy industry - this being true of all countries with the exception of llelgium. In Britain it was at a disadvantage since its seat was in London, whricas most of the heavy industry was concentrated in the North; and

the industrial workers, secure in their technical superiority, did not feel as threatened by the Continent as did the craft workers. And in general the membership of the International tended to be composed more of artisans than of the industrial proletariat.

In Germany, in spite of the adherence of the Eisenach party to the principles of the International, the German political situation prevented any serious co-operation with the General Council. T h e Combination Laws began to be more strictly applied and in any case both the party's Executive Committee in Brunswick and Liebknecht in Leipzig were more concerned to build up the Eisenach party in opposition to the Lassalleans. Marx sent several hundred membership cards to Germany for free distribution, but that was about as far as it went. Moreover, Becker, who had been in many ways the International's most reliable contact in Germany, had ceased to have much influence on the formation of the Eisenach party. Summing up the situation later, Engels explained: 'The German labour movement's attitude to the International never became clear. It remained a purely platonic relationship; there was no real membership of individuals (with isolated exceptions) and the founding of sections was illegal. In fact, Liebknecht and c o m p a n y . . . wanted to subordinate the International to their specifically German aims.'84 Marx's correspondence shows how completely incapable he was of influencing Liebknecht, and a fortiori the other Social Democratic leaders, in favour of the International. Certainly his advice on tactics was valued and his approval sought (particularly when his prestige increased following the publication of Capital and the demand for a second edition of some of his earlier works) but his specific ideas made very little impact in Germany until well after his death.85

Although the French were among the founding members of the International and were by far the strongest national group, they were almost impervious to the influence of Marx and the General Council; they never paid any regular subscriptions and their instinctive reaction to London was one of mistrust. Marx could not oppose the Proudhonism of men

too many anarchist elements in Varlin's thought for easy co-operation with the General Council.

Nevertheless, although the International had proved to be a very loose federation of national groups, each of whose policies were dictated much more by local interests than by reference to the General Council, Marx could be reasonably pleased with the work of the first five years; most importantly, Proudhonism had been decisively defeated with the resolution on land nationalisation; the challenge of the League of Peace and

.inkers; in Germany, the Social Democrats had at last declared their adherence to the principles of the International; and finally, the General ( uuncil had had its authority over local sections enhanced, at least in piiiiciple, by the Basle Congress. Even so the International was too fragile i 11 instruction to be able to withstand the storm of the Franco-Prussian Wur.

I V T H E F R A N C O - P R U S S I A N W A R A N D T H E D E C L I N E

O F T H E I N T E R N A T I O N A L

I lie General Council decided to hold the 1870 Congress in Paris, but growing persecution of the International by the French Government pcisuaded them to change the meeting-place to Mainz. But two weeks belore the Congress was due to meet, Napoleon III (outmanoeuvred by hismarck's deliberate editing of the Ems telegram into a calculated insult) 1 lei hired war on Germany. T h e Paris section of the International immediately denounced the war; in Germany opinion was divided but the great majority of socialists considered the war to be a defensive one: the Lassalli ans in the Reichstag voted for war credits and Liebknecht and Bebel writisolated in their decision to abstain. Marx seemed at first to have

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Germany. T h e Address warned: 'if the German working class allow the present war to lose its strictly defensive character and degenerate into a war against the French people, victory or defeat will prove alike disastrous'.88 However, Marx continued optimistically, 'the principles of the International are too widely spread and too firmly rooted amongst the German working class to apprehend such a sad consummation'. There was the inevitable reference to the 'dark figure of Russia' and the Address concluded with the assertion that the exchange of good-will messages between the French and German workers proved that 'in contrast to the old society, with its economic miseries and political delirium, a new

the Address was very well received in Britain: J o hn Stuart Mill sent a message of congratulation to the General Council, even Morley expressed his approval, and the Peace Society financed a print order of 30,000 copies.

Engels was more firmly on the German side than Marx and wrote to him in mid-August:

If Germany wins, then French Bonapartism has had it in any case, the eternal squabbling about the establishment of German unity will be ended at last, the German workers will be able to organise themselves on a far broader national basis than previously, and the French workers will also have much greater freedom of movement than under Bonapartism, no matter what sort of a government may follow there.90

Marx, too, had the impression that 'the definitive defeat of Bonaparte will probably provoke a revolution in France, whereas the definitive defeat of Germany would only perpetuate the present situation for another twenty years'.91 Events followed quickly: the French Emperor was completely outmanoeuvred and forced to surrender at Sedan. On the night of 4 September a republic had been proclaimed in Paris. T h e Brunswick Com - mittee issued an appeal for an honourable peace, and against the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine, but were immediately arrested and put in chains.

With Germany's adopting a less 'defensive' military posture, the G e n - eral Council issued a Second Address, also drafted by Marx. After noting that the prophecy of the First Address about the end of the Second Empire had been fulfilled, Marx protested that the defensive war had now

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IMM ome a war of aggression as envisaged by the demand for the annexation 11I Alsace and Lorraine. Borrowing from Engels' military expertise, Marx (minted out that there were no good military reasons for supposing that tinpossession of Alsace and Lorraine would enhance the safety of a united Germany and that such an annexation would only sow the seed of Iti'sh wars. With great prescience Marx continued:

If the fortune of her arms, the arrogance of success, and dynastic intrigue lead Germany to a dismemberment of France, there will then only remain two courses open to her. She must at all risks become the avowed tool of Russian aggrandisement, or, after some short respite, make again ready for another 'defensive' war, not one of those newfangled 'localised' wars, but a war of races - a war with the combined Slavonian and Roman races.92

specific characteristics of Prussianism have never existed and can never exist other than in alliance with and submission to Russia. Moreover, this second war will bring to birth the inevitable social revolution in Russia.'9' Somewhat more realistically than in the First Address, Marx admitted the impotence of the working class. 'If the French workmen amid peace failed to stop the aggressor, are German workmen more likely to stop the victor amidst the clangour of arms?'94 In spite of the dubious alliance of Orleanists and professed Republicans in the provisional Government, he continued, 'any attempt to upset the new government in the present crisis, when the army is almost knocking at the doors of Paris, would be a desperate folly'.95

Following Sedan and the declaration of the Republic in France, Marx decided that the International had two immediate aims: to campaign for the recognition of the Republican Government by Britain and to prevent any revolutionary outbreak by the French working class. T h e first aim had widespread support among the workers in England, though Marx totally misjudged the situation when he talked of 'a powerful movement among the working class over here against Gladstone . . . which will probably bring about his downfall'.96 T h e General Council sent an emissary to Paris to prevent the London French committing 'stupidities there in the name of the International';97 and a government newspaper in Paris went as far as publishing, on the day of the proclamation of the C o m - mune, a letter (purporting to have come from Marx but in fact a complete forgery) which urged the Parisians to abstain from all political activity and confine themselves to the social aims of the International. Marx was exceedingly scornful of Bakunin's short-lived coup in Lyons when he seized

J 5 8 K A RL M A R X : A B I O G R A P H Y

the town hall and immediately proclaimed the abolition of the state. Engels wrote to Marx in September 1870 that if the workers attempted a revolutionary rising they 'would be needlessly crushed by the German armies and set back another 20 years'.''8 Nevertheless, as the Provisional Government grew more reactionary Marx began to modify his views as to the advisability of revolt. In any case the General Council was once again reduced to the role of helpless spectator. Marx considered the outbreak of the Commune to be largely the result of the 'accident' that the Prussians were at the gates of Paris. 'History', he wrote to Kugelmann, 'would be of a very mystifying nature if "accidents" played no part in it.' But he was optimistic enough to think that 'with the struggle in Paris the struggle of the working class with the capitalist class and its state has entered a new phase. Whatever the immediate result of the affair, a new starting point of world-historical importance has been achieved.'99

Contrary to widespread public opinion after the fall of the Commune, the International had very little influence either on its origins or on its policies; and when Marx referred to the Commune as 'the greatest achievement of our party since the June revolt',100 he was using the word 'party' very loosely; and Engels was speaking even more loosely when he

of the void left in Paris when Thiers withdrew all government officials, local and central, to Versailles. This left the Central Committee of the

assumed the title Commune de Paris after the title of the Council set up

the Commune; it had been crushed by Napoleon's police shortly before the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War and was only just beginning to reorganise itself. Of the ninety-two members on the Council of the Commune only seventeen were members of the International. Contact between Paris and the General Council was difficult, though Marx received letters from some of the leaders of the Commune. Lafargue even suggested that Engels go over to help.104 N o r was the social and political structure of the Commune of a nature to favour the policies of the

actual measures passed by the Commune were reformist rather than revolutionary, with no attack on private property: employers were forbid-

den on the penalty of fines to reduce wages; there was to be no more night-working in bakeries, rents were suspended, and all abandoned businesses were transferred to co-operative associations. These measures were lar from being socialist. In fact the Commune had such a short life, was composed of such disparate elements and operated under such exceptional circumstances that it is difficult to ascribe any coherent policy to it.

Virtually from the outset Marx was pessimistic about the success of the Commune. According to the Austrian socialist Oberwinder, 'two days after the beginning of the insurrection, Marx wrote to Vienna that it had no chance of success'.105 'It looks as though the Parisians are succumbing', he wrote to Liebknecht on 6 April. 'It is their own fault, that in fact

he considered that they had allowed Thiers to regain the initiative and concentrate his forces. A few days later Marx expressed to Kugelmann his admiration for the boldness of the Communards:

What resilience, what historic initiative and what self-sacrifice these Parisians are showing! After six months of starvation and ruin brought about more by internal treachery than by external enemies, they rise in revolt under Prussian bayonets as though there had never been a war between France and Germany, as though the enemy were not still at the gates. History can show no similar example of such magnificence.107

But he repeated his views that they should have marched on Versailles immediately and that the Central Committee of the National Guard gave up its power too soon. And in 1881 he declared that 'with a modicum of common sense the Commune could have reached a compromise with Versailles useful to the whole mass of the people - the only thing that could have been reached at the time'.108 There are only two surviving letters from Marx to the leaders of the Commune. He had been asked for specific advice by Frankel who was in charge of labour and commerce, but his reply has been lost; in the letters that survive Marx offered no specific advice, confining himself to the observation that 'the Commune seems to me to waste too much of its time with trivialities and personal nvalries'.109

Marx's personal ambivalence to the Commune goes a long way to explaining the otherwise curious fact that, throughout the two months of the Commune's existence, the General Council remained absolutely silent. On 28 March, the day after the establishment of the Commune, Marx himself had proposed that an Address to the People of Paris be drawn up and the Council had charged him with the drafting. A week later he stated in the Council that an Address 'would now be out of place'.110 On

18 April he declared that an Address to the International about the struggle in France might be appropriate; but the members of the General Council agreed that since the only information to date was based on false newspaper reports, no detailed comment was possible. Marx was very assiduous in collating different press reports, though it is a pity that he does not seem to have used The Times correspondent who was, in fact, the best placed. Marx wrote to Frankel at the end of April: 'The General Council will publish shortly an address on the Commune. It has till now postponed the publication of this because it counted from day to day on receiving more precise information from the Paris Section.'"1 Marx had to apologise to the three subsequent meetings for not having completed the Address; at the last two sessions Engels explained Marx's absence on the grounds of ill health. However, this did not prevent Marx from telling Frankel in mid-May that he had written 'several hundred letters . ..

to every corner of the world'.1 1 2 Subsequent deadlines were again broken and the Address was not presented to the Council until 30 May, three days after the collapse of the Commune.

T h e Address, subtitled 'The Civil War in France', that Marx did eventually present to the General Council was some forty pages long and had been preceded by at least two full-length drafts that were noticeably different. These drafts, among other things, show how little sympathy Marx had for the Jacobin violence of some of the Communards. In the first of the four sections of the final and published version, Marx analysed the Republican Government under Thiers and concluded that it was more concerned to suppress working-class activities than to defeat the Prussians, since 'Paris armed was the revolution armed', and the first priority of the so-called Government of National Defence was capitulation. Marx characterised the leading members of the Government in a series of vicious sketches. Of Jules Favre, the Foreign Minister, for example, Marx wrote:

Living in concubinage with the wife of a drunkard resident in Algiers, he had, by a most daring concoction of forgeries, spread over many years, contrived to grasp, in the name of the children of his adultery, a large succession, which made him a rich man. In a lawsuit undertaken by the legitimate heirs, he only escaped exposure by the connivance of the Bonapartist tribunals.11'

And of Thiers, the President:

A master in small state roguery, a virtuoso in perjury and treason, a craftsman in all the petty stratagems, cunning devices, and base perfidies of parliamentary party-warfare; never scrupling, when out of office, to fan a revolution, and to stifle it in blood when at the helm of the state;