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The Dialectic of the First International and Nationalism

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

David Felix
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Extract

Karl Marx's master plan, as originally laid down in the Communist Manifesto, saw the world, led by Europe, moving away from feudal particularism through bourgeois nationalism toward proletarian internationalism. The failure of the Revolution of 1848 meant a flaw in practice, not theory, and Marx saw no need to change the plan. He was waiting for the world to continue in its materially determined direction when events made possible the founding of the First International in 1864. Three years later he wrote Friedrich Engels: “In the next revolution, which is perhaps nearer than it seems, we (i.e., you and I), have this powerful machinery in our hands.”

Type
Research Article
Information
The Review of Politics , Volume 45 , Issue 1 , January 1983 , pp. 20 - 44
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1983

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References

1 Letter, Sept. 11, 1867, Marx, Karl and Engels, Friedrich, Werke ([East] Berlin, 1959–1968), 31:342–343Google Scholar; Selected Correspondence (Moscow, 1965), p. 194Google Scholar. The italics (i.e., underlinings) are Marx's, as in all other quotations here; he frequently recurred to such emphases, expressions of his will to command belief.

I shall also refer to an English translation, whenever possible to the Collected Works (hereafter Works: New York, 1975-), deriving from the same Russian edition as the Werke. The Works, however, has only recently reached the mid-1850's. Other convenient translations are Marx, and Engels, , Political Writings, 4 vols, ed. Fernbach, David (New York, 1974–1975)Google Scholar; and The Marx-Engels Reader, ed. Tucker, Robert C. (New York, 1978: 2nd ed.)Google Scholar.

2 Die Heilige Familie, Werke, 2:127; Works, 4:120.

3 Werke, 4:479; Works, 6:502.

4 Issue of 12 July 1848, Werke, 5:202; Works, 7:212.

5 Werke, 4:479; Works, 6:502–503.

6 Issue of 3 November 1848, Werke, 5:450; Works, 7:495.

7 13 January 1849, Werke, 6:168; Works, 8:230. A year before Marx died, Engels, trying to assuage the distress of two leading Social Democrats, twice explained the Marx-Engels policy in more detail. He wrote Karl Kautsky: “Whether I really have absolutely no feelings for your little Slavic peoples and rubble of peoples? … Verdammt little in fact.” The principle remained: “Above all, an international movement is possible only on the basis of self-sufficient nations. …” Two weeks later Engels told Eduard Bernstein: “Our objective, subordinating everything else, is to help in the emancipation of the Western proletariat.” Letters of 7, 22 February 1882, Werke, 35:273, 270; 279–80.

8 Werke, 4:416; Works, 6:388.

9 See Marx, , Secret Diplomatic History of the 18th Century, ed. Hutchinson, Lester (New York, 1969)Google Scholar. Marx's more fantastic articles were not published in the Tribune but in the Free Press, a small London newspaper published by the M. P., David Urquhart. Actually, Engels wrote most of the Crimean War articles appearing in the Tribune, but as the military expert of the two, he kept to the more technical aspects. His military judgments were frequently as absurd as Marx's conspiratorial-political view of the war. Marx, however, also communicated a sense of the underlying verities of power politics, while the articles of Engels lay drowned in the shallows of his mind.

10 The logic of Marx's Russian policy led to other twists as he fitted other countries to it. Thus he became a great Turkophile, and despite his detestation of peasants in general, found much to praise in the Turk, who was “one of the ablest and most moral representatives of the peasantry in Europe …,” letter to Wilhelm Liebknecht, 4 February 1878, Werke, 34:317. It followed, thus, that those Greeks still under Turkish rule were counterrevolutionary by definition. Marx took occasion to express his satisfaction when the Turks put down the Greek rebellion of 1854. The Greeks, he explained offhandedly, were a treacherous lot, and their Christian neighbors “despised them thoroughly…” (Tribune, 29 March 1854, Werke, 10:132). Marx's paranoia never got quite out of touch with the practical politics of his revolution, however, whatever twists within twists were required. The point here and in all cases was to frustrate Russia and use her for the cause.

11 Werke, 16:13; Political Writings, 3:81.

12 14June 1853, Werke, 9:95–102; quotation, p. 96. Works, 12:93–100, quotation, p. 94.

13 25 June 1853, Werke, 9:127–33; quotations, pp. 128, 133. Works, 12:125–33; quotations, pp. 126, 132.

14 “Sir … The Committee who have organized the meeting as announced in the enclosed Bill, respectfully request the favor of your attendance. The production of this will admit you to the committee room where the Committee will meet at half 7 … I am, Sir, your very Respectfully … W. R. Cremer … To Dr. Marx,” quoted in The Founding of the First International: A Documentary Record, ed. Mins, Leonard E. (New York, 1937), pp. 57–58Google Scholar.

15 Letter of 4 November 1864, Werke, 31:13; the full letter, pp. 9–16. Selected Correspondence, p. 146; letter (without passages on other subjects), pp., 146–49.

16 Inaugural Address, Werke, 16:5–13; Political Writings, 3:73–81. Marx wrote it originally in English and later translated it into German.

17 Werke, 31:16; Selected Correspondence, p. 149. Marx expressed the principle of action in the original Latin phrase: “Fortiter in re, suaviter in modo.”

18 Werke, 16:5; Political Writings, 3:73.

19 Werke, 16:9; Political Writings, 3:77.

20 Speech in full, London Times, 17 April 1863. The question of falsification engaged Marx, his daughter Eleanor, and Engels in a series of debates from 1872, Eleanor Marx and Engels relieving Marx after his death in 1883. Engels's last word was a long pamphlet in 1891. The German academic socialist Lujo Brentano identified the monetary crank, G. Henry Roy, as the creator of the quotation by way of misleading ellipses in Roy's book, Theory of Exchanges. The documentation is collected in two pamphlets: Brentano, , Meine Polemik mit Karl Marx (Berlin, 1890)Google Scholar; and Engels, , In Sachen contra Marx wegen angeblicher Zitatsfàlschung, Werke, 22:90–185Google Scholar.

21 Werke, 16:7; Political Writings, 3:75.

22 Werke, 16:13; Political Writings, 3:81.

23 Meeting of 25 September 1866, The General Council of the First International: Minutes (Moscow, 1963–1968)Google Scholar. Marx's demurrer was that he was a “head worker and not a hand worker.”

24 Marx to Engels, 4 October 1867, Werke, 31:354.

25 The General Council, vols. 1–5: passim.

26 The General Council, 2: passim.

27 Braunthal, Julius, History of the International (New York-Washington, 1967), 1:114–115Google Scholar.

28 Letter to Friedrich Bolte, 23 November 1871, Werke, 33:332–33; Selected Correspondence, p. 271.

29 Werke, 16:197; the instructions in full, pp. 190–99.

30 Braunthal, , History of the International, 1:136–141Google Scholar.

31 At a meeting of the General Council on 20 July 1869, Marx explained his theoretical position at length: “The working class who had nothing to inherit had no interest in the question. … Besides, if the working class had sufficient power to abolish the right to inheritance, it would be powerful enough to proceed to expropriation, which would be a much simpler and efficient process” (The General Council, 3:130).

32 Letter of 20 July 1870, Werke, 33:5. Marx then wrote a letter dated 22–30 August with similar sentiments to the executive committee of the German socialist party adhering to his ideas, Werke, 17:268–70; Selected Correspondence, pp. 245–47. The committee published it, and the French members of the International were outraged.

33 Werke, 17:3–7; Political Writings, 3:172–76. The address was also published as a flyer a few days later. Marx's addresses plus other writings on the Commune are also conveniently collected in one English-language volume, Marx, and Engels, , On the Paris Commune (Moscow, 1971)Google Scholar. This also includes earlier drafts of the third and most important of the addresses (see below), but it leaves out other valuable material.

34 Letter of 15 August 1870, Werke, 33:39–41; Selected Correspondence, pp. 241–43.

35 Engels's article of 7 January 1871, three weeks before a thoroughly defeated France agreed to an armistice, said: “The forces on either side are nearly balancing off each other” (Werke, 17:227). Engels's series of articles on the war, Werke, 17:11–264.

36 Werke, 17:176–77; Political Writings, 3:184–85.

37 Werke, 33:54.

38 Georges Clemenceau, the future premier and then mayor of the 18th Arrondissement (Montmartre), later recalled the scene: The mob was “in the grip of some kind of frenzy. Amongst them were chasseurs, soldiers of the line, National Guardsmen, women and children. All were shrieking like wild beasts. … I observed then that pathological phenomenon which might be called blood-lust. … Children brandished indescribable trophies; women, disheveled and emaciated, flung their arms about while uttering raucous cries. … Men were dancing about and jostling each other in a kind of savage fury” (Quoted in Williams, Roger L., The French Revolution of 1870–1871 ([New York, 1969], p. 113–114)Google Scholar.

39 On 19 April the Commune published the “Declaration to the French People,” written by a Proudhonian journalist, which called for a federal union of completely autonomous, somewhat socialist communes, but the majority of the Communal Assembly was completely opposed to Proudhon's ideas of local autonomy and did not take the “Declaration” seriously. “Declaration” quoted in Edwards, Stewart, The Paris Commune 1871 (London, 1971), p. 218Google Scholar. See also Williams, French Revolution of 1870–1871, pp. 134–140.

40 The General Council, 4:57–208, passim.

41 Some French members of the International disowned the Paris rising. Among them was Henri-Louis Tolain, a leader of the French worker delegation that had founded the International in 1864. He was elected to the National Assembly in February, and stood by it — against the Commune.

42 Comprising the chapter “The Commune: Social Reform,” in Edwards, Paris Commune of 1871, pp. 249–76, from which most of these details are taken. See also Williams, French Revolution of 1870–1871, pp. 113–52.

43 Edwards, Paris Commune of 1871, p. 245.

44 Paris suffered as well. The leaders of the Commune ordered the firing of the palace of the Tuileries (its existence is now marked by the gardens), the City Hall, the Prefecture of Police, and the Palace of Justice. These latter buildings survived, as did the Ministry of Finance, which was set afire by the regulars' artillery. Before the fighting, on 16 May, the Commune festively and clumsily pulled down the Vendome column, with its statue of Napoleon.

45 Details of Bloody Week in Edwards, Paris Commune of 1871, pp. 313–50; Williams, French Revolution of 1870–1871, pp. 145–52.

46 Roberts, John, “The Myth of the Commune,” History Today, 7 (05 1957), 290Google Scholar.

47 Werke, 33:200; Selected Correspondence, p. 262.

48 The “Declaration to the French People” of 19 April 1871; see n. 39.

49 Letter to Ludwig Kugelmann, 12 April 1871, Werke, 33:205–206; Selected Correspondence, pp. 262–63.

50 Discussion and vote, The General Council, 4:200–204; the Address: Der Bürgerkrieg in Frankreich, Werke, 17:313–62; The Civil War in France, Political Writings, 3:187–268. The earlier drafts were reprinted in Werke, 17:493–610; also, in English, On the Paris Commune, pp. 102–221. Each successive writing showed great improvement, the greatest following upon the fall of the Commune.

51 Werke, 17:339; Political Writings, 3:209. The social composition of the Commune has been carelessly studied. Of the total of 81 members who actually served in the Communal Assembly, one historian, for example, classified 18 as middle class, 30 from the professions or arts, and some 35 who were either artisans or revolutionaries. These classifications are misleading and confusing, since professionals are also bourgeois. Furthermore, nearly all the revolutionaries, like Marx and Engels, were middle class in origin. As for the artisans, they could have been apprentices or master craftsmen who were employers at the same time. There were few, if any, individual workers. The evidence is clear that the Commune was preponderantly bourgeois in composition and leadership, as was to be expected. See Edwards, Commune of 1871, pp. 205–10.

The confusions about the social character of the Commune were matched by those about the character of its political representation. The Commune was more radical than the city it claimed to speak for. Thus, 21 persons elected on 26 March refused to serve in a body that was revolutionary by definition. A supplementary election on 16 April returned 17 new members; 81 members actually took their seats, and maximum attendance at the sessions was estimated at about 60.

52 Werke, 17:347; Political Writings, 3:217.

53 Letter to Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis, a Dutch socialist (later anarchist), 22 February 1881, Werke, 35:160.

54 Werke, 17:342; Political Writings, 3:213.

55 Werke, 17:362; Political Writings, 3:233.

56 Pipes, Richard, ed., Revolutionary Russia: A Symposium (Cambridge, Mass., 1968), p. 72CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

57 Werke, 17:322, 326; Political Writings, 3:191, 195.

58 Werke, 17:320; Political Writings, 3:188–89.

59 Werke, 17:321; Political Writings, 3:190.

60 Letter to Kugelmann, 28 June 1871, Werke, 33:238.

61 The London correspondent of the New York World published an interview with Marx on 18 July. To the question, “Just what is the International?” Marx replied: “You have only to look at the people who make it up — they are workers.” Marx denied any conspiratorial activities, but, like a revolutionary statesman, admitted to “confidential … relations.” The aim of the International, he said, was “the economic emancipation of the working class through the conquest of political power.” The effect of the interview was to make the International seem as important as possible, without being so dangerous to the established order that it should be suppressed. But the suggestion of a threat — the shadow of power — was there. Werke, 17:639–43; quotations, pp. 634, 640.

62 Quoted in Braunthal, History of the International, 1:158. Bismarck, going beyond Favre, tried to interest the European powers in taking action against the International, but Great Britain saw no danger in it, and nothing was done. The International's notoriety, however, inspired the British Home Office to inquire courteously of the International just what it was about. Marx accepted the responsibility for replying for the International and on 12 July 1871 sent the Home Office 13 items, including his Inaugural Address, the statutes, etc. (covering letter, Werke, 33:246–47). The Home Office continued to neglect the International.

63 Braunthal, History of the International, 1:173.

64 Werke, 17:418–26.

65 At a committee meeting on the second day of the conference, according to notes of his remarks as written down by an unidentified person, ibid., p. 411.

66 In the circular, Les prétendues scissions dans l'Internationale, original in French; German translation entitled Die angeblichen Spaltungen in der Internationale, Werke, 18:7–51.

67 Quoted in full in Payne, Robert, Karl Marx (New York, 1968), pp. 436–437Google Scholar.

68 On the congress see especially Gerth, Hans, ed., The First International: Minutes of The Hague Congress of 1872 with Related Documents (Madison, Wis., 1958)Google Scholar. Some of this material on the congress, Werke, 18:127–207.

69 Gerth, The First International, p. 207.

70 Ibid., p. 212.

71 Ibid., pp. 213–14.

72 Ibid., p. 215.

73 Ibid., pp. 225–31.

74 Braunthal, History of the International, 1:191.

75 Ibid., pp. 190–91.

76 In September 1873, writing to his representative in the New York area, Marx advised him to let the “official organization of the International to move into the background for the while. …” The point was to keep the General Council out of the hands of “idiots … who would compromise its character.” Future events would provide for its resurrection. Letter to Friedrich Sorge, 27 September 1873, Werke, 33:606; Selected Correspondence, p. 286. Giving personal reasons, Marx had written of his approximate intentions more than three months before the congress to a Russian friend: “I am so overworked … that, after September, I shall withdraw from the commercial concern. … I can no longer afford … to combine two sorts of business of so different a character” (Werke, 33:477).