Karl Marx_ A Biography ( PDFDrive )

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SELECT CRITICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY

contrast to the more working-class and immigrant groups led by Frederick Sorge and Richard Bolte. Section 12 was supported on the General Council by followers of O'Brien, whom Marx nevertheless wished to see on the Council as they were 'an often necessary counterweight to the trade unions on the Council. They are more revolutionary, firmer on the land question, less nationalistic and not susceptible to bourgeois bribery in one form or another. Otherwise they would have been kicked out long ago.'147

I lowever, Marx's position was further undermined by defections in his own ranks. There had been tension before between Marx and Eccarius who, in his reporting to The Times, seems to have tried to claim for himself the credit of some of Marx's ideas. Eccarius, as corresponding secretary for America, had been communicating with Section 12 and Marx ( barged him with abusing his position. Both Eccarius and Hermann Jung disliked the presence of Blanquists on the Council and favoured cooperation with working-class radicals: they considered that Marx's tactics could only result in splitting the International irretrievably. In spite of Marx's plea to Eccarius that 'the day after tomorrow is my birthday and

I should not like to start it conscious that I was deprived of one of my oldest friends and adherents',148 the breach this time was final. A second blow to Marx's position was the opposition of Hales, who had up till then been a staunch supporter of Marx, except on the question of Ireland and an independent English Federal Council. In July he had attacked the (Jeneral Council in private correspondence and had been suspended from bis post as secretary. At the Nottingham Conference of the English Federal Council, he had proposed that the English branch correspond with foreign sections. The dispute was taken to the General Council, where Hales was with great difficulty persuaded to return its documents.

Thus disintegration in England was already apparent on the eve of the Congress which opened at the Hague in early September 1872. It was to be the last full meeting of the International and also its most representative one: only the Italian sections refused to participate. Jung and Eccarius did not come from England as they objected to what they considered to be Marx's moves to pack the Congress and also to his vindictiveness against the Bakuninists and his attacks on the British trade unionists. The II ague was the only Congress ever attended by Marx. According to Maltman Barry, who was reporting the Congress for the Standard, children had been warned 'not to go into the streets with articles of value upon them' as 'the International is coming and will steal them' 14'' Vast crowds followed the delegates from their station to the hotel, 'the figure of Karl Marx attracting special attention, his name on every lip'.150 In the sessions, too, Marx was a prominent figure: his black broadcloth suit

contrasted with his white hair and beard and he would screw a monocle into his eye when he wanted to scrutinise his audience. T h e Congress opened with a three-day examination of credentials behind closed doors. All that the public could hear was the tinkling of the President's bell, rising now and again above a storm of angry voices. Marx himself was so tense that he scarcely slept at all throughout the Congress. After the acceptance of the General Council's report, there was a debate on a motion to increase the powers of the General Council. Some wished the powers of the General Council to be drastically curtailed. In reply, Marx said that it would be more sensible to abolish the General Council than

After the vote, reported Barry, 'there was a slight pause. It was the lull before the storm. Knowing what was coming, and whom it would most effect, I stood up and watched the operation. Up got Engels, Marx's right hand, and said he would make a communication to the Congress. It was a recommendation from a number of members of the General Council respecting the seat of the Council for next year.'151 Engels proposed that the seat of the General Council be transferred to New York. 'Consternation and discomfiture stood plainly written on the faces of the party of dissension as he uttered the last w o r d s . . . . It was some time before anyone rose to speak. It was a coup d'etat and each one looked to his neighbour to break the spell.'152 T h e Blanquists who on other issues had, together with the Germans, ensured a substantial majority for Marx, opposed the proposal; and when the vote on whether the General Council should move its seat at all was taken, the result was very narrow: 26 for, 2 3 against, and 9 abstentions. Finally there came the report of the five man-commission of inquiry which had been set up following Marx's motion at the beginning of the Congress to expel the Alliance from the International. The commission found that Bakunin had tried to establish a secret society within the International and was also guilty of fraud. On the motion of the commission he was expelled from the International. This marked the end of the Congress and Marx retired to Scheveningen where he celebrated by entertaining the delegates to a seaside dinner.

There can be little doubt that Marx realised the impracticability of New York as a seat for the General Council. T h e arguments advanced by Engels for the transfer were remarkably unconvincing. Before the Congress Marx had written to Kugelmann: 'It will be a matter of life and death for the International; and, before I retire, I want at least to protect it from disintegrating elements.'153 He wished at all costs to ensure that

the Bakuninists would not get a majority at the next congress and that the (General Council (on which an uncomfortable number of Blanquists were sitting) would still be subject to his influence; and neither of these was certain if the Council continued to sit in London. Marx felt increasingly frustrated by his inability to spend time on Capital and seemed to have seriously considered retiring as early as September 1 8 7 1, a decision which be had made definite by May 1872.1 5 4

The International did not die immediately. Marx and Engels were very busy broadcasting the resolutions of the Hague Congress and for some time kept up a regular correspondence with New York. In the International as a whole the anti-Marxian forces were now much stronger, and only in Germany did Marx retain substantial personal following. The anarchists held a rival congress immediately following the Hague: the Italians, Spaniards and Swiss alone were represented, but they soon contacted the Belgians and the Dutch, all of whom were represented at a congress in 1873. There was also a strong contingent from England present. After the Hague the English branches of the International continued functioning very effectively, but the Federal Council split, with a majority of its members (led by Hales) seceding. Both branches of the Federal Council then declined rapidly and by 1874 Marx wrote to Sorge: 'In England the International is for the time being as good as dead and the Federal Council in London still exists as such only in name, although some of its members are active individually.'155 The General Council in New York attempted to organise a congress in Geneva in 1873, but it was a fiasco: the Council could not send even one representative and Marx discouraged his supporters from attending. A congress was held in 1874, with Eccarius as the only delegate from England. Sorge resigned from the General Council in the same year. In Philadelphia in 1876 the International was formally dissolved. The rival International of the anarchists struggled on for longer: functioning as a federation of autonomous national branches with no General Council it held its last Congress in 1877, after which it split into its anarchist and social-democratic elements.

N O T E S

1. Marx to Schweitzer, MEW XXXII 568 f.

2.It is obviously impossible to give anything but a very sketchy history of the International here. Two good general books are, G. D. H. Cole, History of Socialist Thought, 11 (London, 1954) 88 ff., and J. Braunthal, History of the International, 1 75 ff. The British side of the International, and Marx's part

in it, are exhaustively covered in H. Collins and C. Abramsky, Karl Marx and the British Labour Movement (London, 1965). For details on the early history of the International, see D. Rjazanoff, 'Zur Geschichte der Ersten Internationale', Marx-Engels Archiv, 1 (1925), and the documentary record in L. E. Mins (ed.), The Founding of the First International (New York, 1937).

3.See further, A. Ciolkosz, 'Karl Marx and the Polish Insurrection of 1863',

The Polish Review, x (1966).

4.Marx to Engels, MEW xxvm 88.

5.Ibid, xxx 324.

6.K. Marx, Manuskripte tiber die Polnische Frage (1863-1864), ed. W. Conze and D. Hertz-Eichenrode (The Hague, 1961).

7.K. Marx, op. cit., p. 93.

8.There is a rather fanciful account in Lapinski's memoirs, published in 1878, in which Marx is said to have shared a cab with Lapinski back to his flat

after an international meeting in Herzen's rooms. According to Lapinski, Marx himself suggested raising a legion of 1,000 men and promised, through a friend, to interest Prince Charles of Brunswick in providing the money to equip them (see L. Wasilewski, 'Karl Marx und der polnische Aufstand von 1863', Polen XXVII (1915).

9.MEW XXXI 12 f. The letter incidentally shows how out of touch Marx was with the British trade union movement: Odger was Secretary, not President, of the London Trades Council and Cremer was a carpenter, not a mason. F. Lessner's account ('Vor und nach 1848. Erinnerungen eines alten Kommunisten', Deutsche Worte, 1898) differs from Marx's in that Lessner says that it was he who was deputed by the German Workers' Educational Association to invite Marx. But Lessner's account was written thirty years after the event.

12.Ibid., 1 376.

13.Marx to Engels, MEW xxxi 14.

14.Ibid., xxi 14.

15.Ibid.

16.Ibid., xxxi 16.

17.MESW 1 377.

18.Ibid., 381.

19.Ibid.

20.Ibid., 381.

21. Marx's statement of relative pauperisation here is largely accurate, though not the whole story: during the 1850s, real wages remained fairly steady, though they increased rapidly just before the Address was written and in general maintained this increase thereafter. The situation of the mass of working people did improve slightly in an absolute sense, although the gap

separating them from the labour aristocracy grew. For reference to the sources of these statistics, see R. Harrison, Before the Socialists (London, 1965) pp. 3 ff.; on the 'labour aristocracy' see E. Hobsbawm, Labouring Men (London, 1964) pp. 272 ff.

22.MESW 1 383.

23.Ibid., 384.

24.Ibid.

25.Ibid., 386.

26.Quoted in D. Rjazanov, 'Zur Geschichte der Ersten Internationale', MarxEngels Archiv, 1 (1925) p. 192.

27. Marx to Engels, MEW xxxi n o .

28.Cf. Ibid., 100.

29.Marx to Engels, MEW 162.

32.Marx to Engels, MEW xxxi 195.

33.Marx to Bolte, MEW xxxi 330. One of the later members of the General Council, Townshend, said that Marx always behaved as a 'gendeman', Engels as a 'domineering German'. Cf. M. Beer, Fifty Years of International Socialism

(London, 1937) p. 134.

34. The General Council of the First International, Minutes, 161.

35.Marx to Engels, MEW xxxi 123.

36.MESW 1 447.

37.The lecture was found among Marx's papers and published by his daughter Eleanor under the tide Value, Price and Profit. It occupies fifty pages in

MESW i.

38.Marx to Antoinette Philips, MEW xxxi 504 f.

destructive intelligence, imperious, jealous of the influence of others, without any strong philosophical or religious convictions and, I fear, with a heart more full of hate, albeit justified, than of love': (La Roma del Popolo, no. xx,

13July 1871).

40.Marx to Kugelmann, MEW xxxi 455.

41. Marx to Engels, MEW xxxi 48.

42.Marx to Schweitzer, MEW xxxi 446.

43.Engels to Marx, MEW xxxi 138.

44.Marx to Engels, MEW xxxi 136.

45.Marx to Klings, MEW xxxi 417.

46.Marx to Siebel, MEW xxxi 437.

47.MESW i 397.

48.How much out of touch he was is shown by his certainty that Prussia could

52.Marx to Engels, MEW xxxi 85.

53.Ibid., 101.

54.George Howell alleged in 1878 that Marx himself was responsible for 'sowing the seed of discord' by introducing the religious idea at this meeting. Marx just as vehemendy denied that he had anything to do with it. Although Marx's reply to Howell is not quite accurate in some details, the Minutes contain no mention of Marx in connection with the motion: support for it was exclusively French. For reference to sources and discussion of this point, see H. Collins and C. Abramsky, Karl Marx and the British Labour Movement, pp. 110 ff.

55.Marx to Engels, MEW xxxi 229.

56.Ibid.

57.Marx to Kugelmann, MEW xxxi 529.

58.The General Council of the First International, Minutes, 1 349.

59.Op. cit., 1 343 f.

60.Op. cit., 1 351.

61.J. Freymond (ed.), La Premiere Internationale (Geneva, 1962) 1 107.

62.J. Freymond, op. cit., 1 56.

63.Marx to Kugelmann, MEW 529.

64.Marx to Engels, ME W xxxi 342 f.

65.Marx to Engels, MEW xxxii 414 f.

66.Ibid., 463.

67.Cf. R. Morgan, The German Social Democrats, pp. 63 ff.

68.Marx to Engels, MEW xxxi 342.

69.Marx to Eccarius and Lessner, MEW xxxii 558.

70. Cf. General Council of the First International, Minutes, 11 232 ff. 71. J. Freymond (ed.), La Premiere Internationale, 1 430.

72.Marx to Meyer, MEW xxxii 560.

73.Marx to Engels, MEW xxxii 169.

74.See in particular Marx's letter in Kugelmann in MEW xxxii 638. Also to Meyer and Vogt, MESC pp. 236 ff.

75.Marx to Bolte, MEW XXXIII 328.

76.Marx to Engels, MEW xxxi 16.

77.Ibid, xxxii 234.

78.Engels to Marx, MEW xxxii 235.

79.See Marx's marginal notes reproduced in Documents of the First International

140. Speech at London Conference, MEW cvu 651. Marx expressed very similar sentiments in his speech in Amsterdam after the Hague Congress in 1872; also in his interview with the New York World in July 1871.

1 4 1 . MEW XVII 6 5 2 .

142. Ibid.

145. Marx to Jenny Marx, MEW xxxm 286.

144.As late as March 1872 Marx could talk of'the excellent progress made since the London Conference' (Marx to Lafargue, MEW xxxm 436).

145.Marx to Kwasniewski, MEW XXXIII 287.

146.The Alleged Splits in the International', La Premiere Internationale, ed. J. Freymond, 11 284.

147.Marx to Bolte, MEW xxxm 328.

148.Marx to Eccarius, MEW xxxm 454.

149.The First International: Minutes of the Hague Congress with Related Documents, ed. H. Gerth (Madison, 1958) p. 529.

150.Ibid., p. 260.

151. Op. cit., pp. 279 ff.

152.Ibid.

153.Marx to Kugelmann, MEW xxxm 565.

154.Cf. Marx to de Paepe, MEW xxxm 338.

155.Marx to Sorge, MEW XXXIII 635.

E I G H T

The Last Decade

The more one lives, as I do, cut off from the outside world, the more one is involved in the emotions of one's closest circle.

Marx to Kugelmann, 1874

I . M A R X A T H O M E

During the 1870s Marx's life became much calmer. His house was no longer the venue for refugees from the Commune or British trade union officials. Although he was increasingly wary of strangers - and any German had to produce written evidence of legitimate business before being let through the door by Helene Demuth - Marx was still interested to receive visits from foreigners sympathetic to socialism. Regular visits, however, were limited to those made by his family and by the small circle of what Marx liked to call his 'scientific friends'. He steadfasdy refused the numerous invitations to give public lectures.1 His temper, too, was much more equable and his appetite for public controversy considerably dampened.

Even in London [he wrote in 1881] I have not taken the slightest notice of such literary yelping. If I didn't adopt this position, I would have to waste most of my time putting people right from California to Moscow. When I was younger, I often waded violendy in but old age brings wisdom at least in so far as one avoids useless dissipation of energy.2

Marx's routine was fairly regular now: he liked to work during the morning, walk after lunch, have his dinner at six and receive friends at nine.5 His most frequent visitor was Engels who had moved to London in 1 8 70 and lived in a fine house in Regent's Park Road less than ten minutes' walk away. He would come regularly to Marx at 1.00 p.m., and the two friends would either pace up and down in Marx's study, both wearing a beaten track in the carpet diagonally from corner to corner, or, if the weather was fine, go for a walk on Hampstead Heath. Jenny, however, could not face the last ten years of her life with much optimism: ' N o w I am too old', she wrote to Liebknecht in 1 8 7 2, 'to have much hope any