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resolution proposed by the Frenchmen. Thus the result was that it would be best to
prohibit woman labour, but since it was still in use, it was necessary to keep it within
the limits suggested by Marx.
Marx's propositions pertaining to child and adolescent labour were adopted
in toto without any Proudhonist additions or modifications. Here it was suggested
that the tendency of modern industry to attract children and adolescents of both
sexes into a participation in the great tasks of social production was progressive,
wholesome, and legitimate, despite the fact that under capitalism it degenerated into
a horrible evil. In a rationally organised society, Marx thought, every child from the
age of nine upward must engage in productive labour, just as no physically able adult
can be released from a submission to the law of nature which demands physical and
mental work from those who want to live. In connection with this question Marx
proposed an elaborate programme to combine physical and mental labour. Spiritual
and physical development plus a technical education which would give the children a
grasp of the scientific principles involved in modern production -- all this entered
into his plan.
In his report Marx also touched upon the problem of cooperatives. He here
took occasion not merely to destroy the illusions concerning pure co-operatives, but
to point out the conditions antecedent to a successful co-operative movement. As in
the Inaugural Address, here too he preferred producers' to consumers' co-operatives.
"Restricted, however, to the dwarfish forms into which
individual wage slaves can elaborate it by their private efforts,
the co-operative system will never transform capitalistic society.
To convert social production into one large and harmonious
system of free and co-operative labour, general social changes
are wanted, changes of the general conditions of society, never
to be realised save by the transfer of the organised forces of
society, viz: the state power from capitalists and landlords to the
producers themselves."
We see that here too Marx was emphasising the necessity for the working class
to win political power for itself. The project of the Constitution, with which we have
already become acquainted, was accepted without any modifications. The efforts of
the French delegates, who had already raised this question at the London conference,
to interpret the word "work" to mean only physical work and thus to exclude the
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representatives of intellectual labour, met with a strong opposition. The English
delegates declared that should such a proposition be adopted, Marx, who had done
so much for the International, would be among the first ones to be shut out.
The Geneva Congress effected a colossal propaganda weapon. All the
resolutions passed by this Congress which formulated the basic demands of the
proletariat and which were almost exclusively written by Marx, entered into the
practical minimum programmes of all working-class parties. The Congress met with
warm response from all countries, including Russia. It was immediately after the
Geneva Congress, which had given such a powerful stimulus to the development of
the international labour movement, that the International won great popularity for
itself. Some bourgeois-democratic organisations directed their attention to the
International, intending to utilise it for their own purposes.
At the next Congress, in Lausanne (1867), a struggle broke out as to whether
the new international society, the League for Peace and Freedom, should be
permitted to participate in the next Congress. Those who were for participation won.
Only at the following Congress, at Brussels (1868), did the point of view of the
General Council triumph. It was decided to suggest to the League that it join the
International, and that its members enter as a section of the International.
Marx was not present at these two Congresses either. Before the Lausanne
Congress completed its work, the first volume of Capital was published. The Brussels
Congress, at the suggestion of the German delegation, passed a resolution which
urged the workers of the different countries to study Capital. The resolution pointed
out that to Marx belonged the honour of being "the first economist who subjected
capital to a scientific analysis and who reduced it to its basic elements."
The Brussels Congress also took up the question dealing with the influence of
machinery on the conditions of the working class, strikes, and private ownership of
land. Resolutions were adopted in a spirit of compromise. Nevertheless it was here
that the point of view of socialism, or collectivism as it was then called, won over the
French delegates. The necessity for a transition to collective ownership of the means
of transportation and communication as well as of land was now clearly recognised.
In its final form this resolution was adopted by the Congress at Basle (1869).
Since the Lausanne Congress the central political question in the
International was war and its prevention. After the war of 1866, after Prussia's
victory over Austria, the opinion was current that the inevitable consequence would
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be an armed conflict between France and Prussia. In 1867 the relations between
these two countries reached a crucial stage. Napoleon's position became very
insecure as a result of the unsuccessful colonial adventures into which he plunged in
the hope of raising his prestige. At the instigation of several powerful financiers he
contrived an expedition into Mexico. This provoked great irritation in the United
States, which guarded most jealously against any infringement of the Monroe
Doctrine. Napoleon's project came to a disgraceful end. Things had to be patched up
in Europe. But there, too, failure haunted him. Having been compelled to make
concessions in internal politics, he was hoping that a successful annexation in
Europe which would round out the dominions of France would doubtless strengthen
his position. Thus in 1867 there arose the Luxembourg Affair. After various
unsuccessful attempts to lay hands on some territory on the left bank of the Rhine,
Napoleon tried to buy from Holland the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. Up to 1866 it
had belonged to the German Union, but it was ruled by the King of Holland. A
Prussian garrison which had formerly been stationed there was forced to leave. News
of the bargain between Napoleon and Holland created great commotion among the
German patriots. There were rumours of war. Napoleon, calculating that he was not
yet fully ready for it, turned back. His prestige suffered a crucial blow. He again had
to recede before the rising wave of opposition.
Toward the time of the Brussels Congress the situation in Europe became so
acute that war seemed imminent. The feeling prevailed that it would break out as
soon as France and Prussia completed their preparations and found a convenient
pretext. The perplexing problem of how to prevent the war, which, it was well
understood, would seriously injure the interests of the French and the German
workers, was uppermost in the minds of the proletariat. The proletarian movement
was growing rapidly, particularly on the continent. Therefore the International,
which by 1868 had developed into a redoubtable force at the head of the
international workers' movement, could not help becoming greatly involved in the
question. After a series of heated debates in which some insisted that in case of war,
it would be necessary to call a general strike, while others maintained that only
socialism could bring an end to all war, the Brussels Congress adopted a rather
absurd resolution which was the result of a compromise.
But since, toward the summer of 1869, the phantom of war had temporarily
disappeared, economic and social problems rose to the top at the Basle Congress. The
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