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workers' delegation. They demanded that the delegation instead of being appointed
from above, should be elected in the workshops. They proposed to utilise these
elections for propaganda purposes and for the pressing of their own candidates.
The second group was finally victorious. Elections were permitted, and the
delegation was chosen almost entirely from among the members of this group. The
Blanquists boycotted the elections. The followers of Armand Levi were completely
swamped. Thus was the workingmen's delegation from Paris organised. It is
significant that the German delegation to London was connected with that group of
workers who were active with Lassalle in the organisation of a labour congress.
In this manner the world exposition at London created an opportunity for the
French, English and German workers to come together. Some historians of the
International trace its beginning to this meeting. Here is what Steklov writes of it:
"The occasion for the rapprochement and the agreement between the
English and the Continental workers was the world's exposition of 1862 in
London. On August 5, 1862, the English workers staged a reception in honour
of the seventy French delegates. The dominant note in the speeches was the
necessity of establishing international ties among the proletarians who as
men, as citizens and as toilers had identical interests and aspirations."
Unfortunately, this is mere legend. As a matter of fact this meeting bore an
entirely different character. It took place with the participation and approval of the
representatives of the bourgeoisie and the ruling classes. The speeches delivered
there offended not even one employer, disturbed not even one policeman. Those of
the English capitalists who had been at the head of the contractors during the strikes
in the building trades were the very ones who took an active part in this meeting.
Suffice it to say that the English trade unionists demonstratively refused to take part
in this affair. This meeting can under no circumstances be regarded as the origin of
the International.
Only one thing was true: In London, the French and German delegations were
likely to meet French and German workers who had emigrated after 1848. The place
where workers of various nationalities would meet in the fifties and the sixties was
the well-known Workers' Educational Society, which had been founded by Schapper
and his friends in 1840. The tea-room and the dining-room of this society were
situated on a street where foreigners settled; it served as such a centre up to the late
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war. The English government hastened to close this club immediately upon the
declaration of war in 1914.
It was there, no doubt, that some members of the French delegation became
acquainted with the old French emigrants, and that the German workers from
Leipzig and Berlin met their old comrades. But these were of course only accidental
ties which were as unlikely to lead to the forming of the International as was the
meeting of August 5, to which Steklov, together with other historians, attaches such
great importance.
But now two very important events happened, the first of which was the
American Civil War (1860-1865). We have already seen that the abolition of slavery
was the most important problem of the day. It became so acute and it had led to such
an acrid conflict between the southern and the northern States, that the South, in
order to preserve slavery, determined to secede and to organise an independent
republic. The result was a war which brought in its train unexpected and unpleasant
consequences to the whole of the capitalistic world. The southern States were then
the sole growers of the cotton which was used in all the cotton industries of the
world. Egyptian cotton was still of very little importance; East India and Turkestan
were not producing any cotton at all. Europe thus found itself without any cotton
supply. The textile industries of the world were experiencing a crisis. The shortage of
cotton caused a rise in the prices of all the other raw materials in the textile industry.
Of course, the big capitalists suffered, least of all; the petty capitalists hastened to
shut down their factories. Tens, nay hundreds of thousands of workers were doomed
to perish of hunger.
The governments confined themselves to handing out pitiful pittances. The
English workers who had not long before, during the strike in the building trades,
shown an example of solidarity, now too, took up the cause of organising help. The
initiative belonged to the London Trades Council, which appointed a special
committee. In France also there was organised a special committee for this purpose.
The two committees were in frequent communication with one another. It was this
that suggested to the French and English workers how closely allied were the
interests of labour of different countries. The Civil War in the United States gave a
terrific shock to the entire economic life of Europe; its malignant effects were equally
felt by the English, French, German, and even Russian workers. This was why Marx
wrote in his introduction to Capital, that the American Civil War in the nineteenth
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century, played the same role with regard to the working class, as the American War
for Independence in the eighteenth century had played with regard to the French
bourgeoisie and the French Revolution.
Another event then occurred which also was of equal interest to the workers
of the different countries. Serfdom was abolished in Russia (1861). Reforms in other
branches of the political and economic life of Russia were imminent. The
revolutionary movement became more animated; it advocated more radical changes.
Russia's outlying possessions, chiefly Poland, were in a state of commotion. The
Tsar's government grasped at this as the best pretext for getting rid of external as
well internal sedition. It provoked the Polish revolt, while at the same time, aided by
Katkov and other venal scribes, it incited Russian chauvinism at home. The notorious
hangman, Muraviev, and other brutes like him, were commandeered to stifle the
Polish revolt.
In western Europe, where hatred for Russian Czarism was prevalent, the
rebellious Poles evoked the warmest sympathy. The English and French governments
allowed the sympathisers of the Polish insurgents complete freedom of action,
regarding this as a convenient outlet for the stored-up feelings of resentment. In
France a number of meetings were held, and a committee, headed by Henri Tolain
(18281897), and Perruchon, was organised. In England the pro-Polish movement
was headed by the workers, Odger and Cremer, and by the radical intellectual,
Professor Beesly.
In April, 1863, a monster mass meeting was called in London. Professor E. S.
Beesly (1831-1915), presided; Cremer delivered a speech in defence of the Poles. The
meeting passed a resolution which urged the English and the French workers to
bring simultaneous pressure to bear upon their respective governments and to force
their intervention in favour of the Poles. It was decided to provide for an
International meeting. This took place in London on July 22, 1863. The chairman
was again Beesly. Odger and Cremer spoke in the name of the English workers;
Tolain, in the name of the French. Nothing but the Polish affair was discussed, and
they all insisted on the necessity of restoring independence to Poland. On the next
day, another meeting took place to which the historians of the International have not
paid much attention. It was arranged on the initiative of the London Trades Council,
this time without the participation of the bourgeoisie. Odger had been advocating
closer ties between English and Continental labour. The problem presented itself on
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