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But this circumstance had another side to it. Engels moved to London after
the struggle with the Bakuninists had begun and had already made itself felt in the
General Council. Moreover, as we have seen, at this time there was serious discord
even among the Englishmen themselves. In brief, this was a time of sharp conflict on
the ground of principles and tactics.
It is a matter of common knowledge that struggles along purely doctrinal and
tactical lines are invariably complicated by a strong admixture of the personal
element -- likes and dislikes, sympathies and prejudices, etc. If such a conflict breaks
out within the boundaries of one region, one effective way to stop it is a temporary
change of quarters. Although this method is efficacious within the limits of a district,
a state, or even an entire country, it was utterly inapplicable within the International.
Altogether this method of resolving contradiction has only a limited significance. It is
much better to settle such contradictions either by way of agreement or by way of
separation.
We have already spoken of the objective causes which brought on the
disturbance within the English section of the International. What some historians of
the International, and especially historians dealing with the English labour
movement, do not or cannot understand is that the General Council which from 1864
to 1872 was directing the international labour movement, was at the same time also
the directing organ of the English labour movement. And if international affairs
affected the English movement, then the converse was also true, that is, every change
in the English labour movement was bound to be reflected in the international
functions of the General Council. We have pointed out in the last chapter how, as a
result of the concessions made to the English workers in the years 1867-1871 -- the
right to vote for the city workers and the legalisation of trade unions -- the trade-
union members of the General Council began to tend toward moderation. Eccarius,
too, began to incline in that direction; he now was a prosperous man and, as it not
infrequently happens with workers, became much more tolerant with the
bourgeoisie. But besides Eccarius, there were a number of other members of the
General Council who disagreed with Marx.
The appearance of Engels as a member of the General Council, who was often
forced to take the place of Marx added one more personal element to aggravate the
already strained conditions. During the twenty years of his life in Manchester, Engels
had lost almost all contact with the labour movement.
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During all that time Marx had stayed in London, had kept up his relations
with the Chartists, had written for their publications, and had taken part in the
German labour circles and in emigrant life. He had been meeting the comrades, had
delivered lectures, had often had serious altercations with them, but on the whole the
relations with "father" Marx, as we see by the reminiscences written even by those
who had parted with him politically, were warm, comradely, and full of love.
Particularly warm relations had been established between the workers and Marx
during the period of the International. The members of the General Council who had
been observing Marx in his dingy apartment, who had seen him in need -- he had not
lived any better than any English worker -- who had known him in the Council, who
had always found him ready to throw up his studies, his beloved scientific work, in
order to devote his time and his energy to the working class, regarded him with the
profoundest respect. Without compensation, rejecting all ostentatious advantages,
declining all honorary titles, he had laboured without stint.
With Engels it was quite different. The English members of the General
Council did not know him at all. The other members knew him just as little. Only
among the German comrades were there some who remembered him, but even there
he had to work hard to win a position for himself. For to most members he was a rich
man, a Manchester manufacturer, who, it was said, had twenty-five years previous
written a good book in German about the English workers. Having mingled for about
twenty years in an almost exclusively bourgeois environment, among stockmarket
wolves and industrial hawks, Engels, who was always noted for his decorous
behaviour, acquired even more fastidious manners. Always spick and span, always
even, of cold exterior, invariably polite, with military mannerisms, he would not utter
a strong word. He was hopelessly dry and cold.
This was the description of Engels given by people who had known him in the
forties. We know that in the editorial offices of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung,
whenever Marx would be on leave of absence, Engels would provoke serious
objections by his haughty air of intellectual superiority. Less impulsive than Marx, he
was much more unendurable in his personal relations, and in contradistinction to
Wilhelm Wolff and Marx who were ideal comrades and guides, repelled many
workers.
Only gradually did Engels adjust himself to his new setting, and lose his
former habits. In the meantime, and these were difficult years to boot, Engels, having
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to substitute for Marx more and more often, aggravated the already strained
relations in the General Council. This may serve as an explanation why not only
Eccarius but even Hermann Jung, an old collaborator of Marx, who for a long time
had been the General Secretary of the International, had very close personal bonds
with Marx and who had very willingly and most delicately been helping Marx to carry
his onerous obligations, now abandoned the organisation.
The whole affair was, alas, not without fairy tales and gossip customary in
such cases. As we have already stated, many people, just because they did not know
Engels, could not understand why Marx loved and lauded his friend 80 much. It is
enough to read the disgusting and vile reminiscences of Henry Mayers Hyndman
(1842-1923), the founder of the English social-democracy, to see how base were their
explanations. According to them, it appeared that Marx valued Engels' friendship so
highly because the latter was rich and was providing for him. The conduct of several
Englishmen was particularly contemptible; among them was a certain Smith, who
later became the interpreter at the congresses of the Second International. During
the recent war he was like Hyndman, a notorious social-patriot. Engels could never
forgive either him or the others their vilifying campaign against Marx. Shortly before
his death Engels threw down the stairs the same Mr. Smith who now came to visit
him.
But then, in the beginning of the seventies, this calumny in its most malignant
forms, was spreading also among the German workers of the Lassallean persuasion,
who were coming to London. But Engels' participation sharpened the schism not
only in London. We know that outside of Russia Bakunin and his adherents
concentrated their work in the Latin countries -- Italy, Spain, Southern France,
Portugal, the French and Italian parts of Switzerland. Italy was especially valued by
Bakunin, for there was a predominance of the Iumpenproletariat, the hobo-
proletariat, in whom he discerned the cardinal revolutionary force. There was also
the youth, which had no hope of making a career in bourgeois society. There, too,
flourished banditry and robbery as forms in which the protest of the poor peasantry
expressed itself. In other words, there the elements to which he was attaching such
great importance in Russia -- the peasantry, the hobo-proletariat, the robbers -- were
all greatly developed.
The main correspondence with these countries was carried on by Engels. This
correspondence, as may be judged by a few preserved copies (the efficient Engels
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