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CHAPTER VIII
THE CONSTITUTION OF THE FIRST
INTERNATIONAL.
THE LONDON CONFERENCE.
THE GENEVA CONGRESS.
MARX'S REPORT.
THE LAUSANNE AND BRUSSELS CONGRESSES.
BAKUNIN AND MARX.
THE BASLE CONGRESS.
THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR.
THE PARIS COMMUNE.
THE STRUGGLE BETWEEN MARX AND BAKUNIN.
THE HAGUE CONRESS.
We have covered in detail the history of the foundation of the International
and the writing of its Inaugural Address. We shall now proceed to study the
Constitution of the International. It, too, was written by Marx and was composed of
two parts; one a statement of principles, the other dealing with organisation
problems.
We have seen how skillfully Marx introduced the basic principles of
communism into the Inaugural Address of the International. But still more
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important and incomparably more difficult was the introduction of these principles
into the Constitution. The Inaugural Address pursued only
one aim -- the elucidation
of the motives which impelled the workers to assemble on September 28, 1864, and
to found the International. But this was not yet a programme, it was only an
introduction to it; it was merely a solemn pronunciamento before the whole world --
and this was particularly brought out in its very name that a new international
association, an association of workers, was being founded.
In not a less masterly fashion did Marx succeed in solving the second problem
-- the formulation of the general problems confronting the working class in different
countries.
"Considering,
"That the emancipation of the working
classes must be conquered by
the working classes themselves; that the struggle for the emancipation of the
working classes means not a struggle for class privileges and monopolies, but
for equal rights and duties, and the abolition of all class rule;
"That the economical subjection of the man of labour to the
monopoliser of the means of labour, that is, the sources of life, lies at the
bottom of servitude in all its for~ns, of all social misery, mental degradation,
and political dependence;
"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;
"That all efforts aiming at that great end have hitherto failed from the
want of solidarity between the manifold divisions of labour in each country,
and from the absence of a fraternal bond of union between the working classes
of different countries;
"That the emancipation of labour is neither a local nor a national, but a
social problem, embracing all countries in which modern society exists, and
depending for its solution
on the concurrence, practical and theoretical, of the
most advanced countries;
"That the present revival of the working classes in the most industrious
countries of Europe, while it raises a new hope, gives solemn warning against
a relapse into the old errors, and calls for the immediate combination of the
still disconnected movements."
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A careful perusal of these points reveals how closely the Communist
Party
of Russia had, in some planks of its programme, followed the
theses formulated by Marx. The same is true of the old programmes
of the English, French, and German parties. In the French and the
Erfurt programmes particularly, there are many points that are
actually a literal transcription of the basic premises of the Constitution
of the First International.
Of course, not all the members of the provisional committee of the
International understood these propositions in the same way.
For instance, the
English, French, and German members all agreed on the proposition that the
emancipation of the working class could be achieved only by the working class itself;
but this was interpreted differently by each group. The English trade unionists and
the ex-Chartists saw in this proposition a protest against the irksome solicitude
bestowed upon the workers by the benign members of the middle class. The
Frenchmen, who were strongly incensed against the intelligentsia, understood this
proposition in the sense of a warning against the treacherous intelligentsia and an
afflrmation of the ability of the working class to get on without it. Only the Germans,
the former members of the Communist League, really grasped all the implications of
this proposition. If the working class could emancipate itself only through its own
efforts, then any coalition
with the bourgeoisie, any hobnobbing with the capitalists
would be in sharp opposition to this principle. It was also emphasised that the aim
was not to emancipate this or that group of workers, but the working class as a
whole, and that the emancipation could be accomplished not by one or another
group of workers but by the entire working class, and that this would presuppose a
class organisation of the proletariat. From the proposition
that capitalist monopoly
of the means of production is the cause of the economic enslavement of the working
class, it followed that it would be necessary to destroy this monopoly. And this
deduction was further strengthened by the demand for the abolition of any class rule,
which, of course, could not be attained without the abolition of the division of society
into classes.
The proposition, stated in the Inaugural Address, was not
repeated in the Constitution. In it there was no direct assertion
that for the realisation of all the aims the proletariat had put
before itself, it was necessary for it to obtain political power.