Mark and Lincoln: And Unfinished Revolution

Dr. M.: I demand fi rstly the proof that there was any plot at all—
that anything happened that was not the legitimate eff ect of the 
circumstances of the moment; or, the plot granted, I demand the 
proofs of the participation in it of the International Association.
R. L.: Th
  e presence in the communal body of so many members of 
the association.
Dr. M.: Th
  en it was a plot of the Freemasons too, for their share 
in the work as individuals was by no means a slight one. I should 
not be surprised, indeed, to fi nd the Pope setting down the whole 
insurrection to their account. But try another explanation. Th
 e 
insurrection in Paris was made by the workmen of Paris. Th
 e ablest 
of the workmen must necessarily have been its leaders and admin-
istrators, but the ablest of the workmen happen also to be members 
of the International Association. Yet the association, as such, may 
be in no way responsible for their action.
R. L.: It will seem otherwise to the world. People talk of secret 
instructions from London, and even grants of money. Can it be 
affi
  rmed that the alleged openness of the association’s proceedings 
precludes all secrecy of communication?
Dr. M.: What association ever formed carried on its work without 
private as well as public agencies? But to talk of secret instruc-
tion from London, as of decrees in the matter of faith and morals 
from some center of Papal domination and intrigue, is wholly to 
misconceive the nature of the International. Th
  is would imply a 
centralized form of government for the International, whereas the 
real form is designedly that which gives the greatest play to local 
energy and independence. In fact, the International is not properly 
a government for the working class at all. It is a bond of union 
rather than a controlling force.
R. L.: And of union to what end?
Dr. M.: Th
  e economical emancipation of the working class by the 
conquest of political power. Th
  e use of that political power to the 
attainment of social ends. It is necessary that our aims should be 
thus comprehensive to include every form of working-class activ-
ity. To have made them of a special character would have been to 
adapt them to the needs of one section—one nation of workmen 
alone. But how could all men be asked to unite to further the 
objects of a few? To have done that, the association must have 
228 
WOODHULL
 & 
CLAF IN
’
S
 
WEEKLY

---

forfeited its title of International. Th
  e association does not dictate 
the form of political movements; it only requires a pledge as to 
their end. It is a network of affi
  liated societies spreading all over 
the world of labor. In each part of the world some special aspect of 
the problem presents itself, and the workmen there address them-
selves to its consideration in their own way. Combinations among 
workmen cannot be absolutely identical in detail in Newcastle and 
in Barcelona, in London and in Berlin. In England, for instance, 
the way to show political power lies open to the working class. 
Insurrection would be madness where peaceful agitation would 
more swiftly and surely do the work. In France, a hundred laws 
of repression and a mortal antagonism between classes seem to 
necessitate the violent solution of social war. Th
  e choice of that 
solution is the aff air of the working classes of that country. Th
 e 
International does not presume to dictate in the matter, and hardly 
to advise. But to every movement it accords its sympathy and its aid 
within the limits assigned by its own laws.
R. L.: And what is the nature of that aid?
Dr. M.: To give an example, one of the commonest forms of the 
movement for emancipation is that of strikes. Formerly, when a 
strike took place in one country, it was defeated by the importation 
of workmen from another. Th
  e International has nearly stopped all 
that. It receives information of the intended strike; it spreads that 
information among its members, who at once see that for them 
the seat of the struggle must be forbidden ground. Th
  e masters are 
thus left alone to reckon with their men. In most cases the men 
require no other aid than that. Th
  eir own subscriptions or those of 
the societies to which they are more immediately affi
  liated supply 
them with funds, but should the pressure upon them become too 
heavy and the strike be one of which the association approves, their 
necessities are supplied out of the common purse. By these means 
a strike of the cigar makers of Barcelona was brought to a victori-
ous issue the other day. But the society has no interest in strikes, 
though it supports them under certain conditions. It cannot pos-
sibly gain by them in a pecuniary point of view, but it may easily 
lose. Let us sum it all up in a word. Th
  e working classes remain 
poor amid the increase of wealth, wretched amid the increase of 
luxury. Th
  eir material privation dwarfs their moral as well as their 
physical stature. Th
  ey cannot rely on others for a remedy. It has 
become then with them an imperative necessity to take their own 
interview with karl marx  229

---

case in hand. Th
  ey must revise the relations between themselves 
and the capitalists and landlords, and that means they must trans-
form society. Th
  is is the general end of every known workmen’s 
organization—land and labor leagues, trade and friendly socie-
ties, cooperative stores and cooperative production are but means 
toward it. To establish a perfect solidarity between these organiza-
tions is the business of the International Association. Its infl uence 
is beginning to be felt everywhere. Two papers spread its views 
in Spain, three in Germany, the same number in Austria and in 
Holland, six in Belgium, and six in Switzerland. And now that I 
have told you what the International is, you may, perhaps, be in a 
position to form your own opinion as to its pretended plots.
R. L.: And Mazzini, is he member of your body?
Dr. M. (laughing): Ah, no. We should have made but little progress 
if we had not got beyond the range of his ideas.
R. L.: You surprise me. I should certainly have thought that he 
represented most advanced views.
Dr. M.: He represents nothing better than the old idea of a middle-
class republic. We seek no part with the middle class. He has fallen 
as far to the rear of the modern movement as the German pro-
fessors, who, nevertheless, are still considered in Europe as the 
apostles of the cultured democratism of the future. Th
 ey were so 
at one time—before ’48, perhaps, when the German middle class, 
in the English sense, had scarcely attained its proper development. 
But now they have gone over bodily to the reaction, and the prole-
tariat knows them no more.
R. L.: Some people have thought they saw signs of a positivist 
element in your organization.
Dr. M.: No such thing. We have positivists among us, and others 
not of our body who work as well. But this is not by virtue of their 
philosophy, which will have nothing to do with popular govern-
ment as we understand it, and which seeks only to put a new 
hierarchy in place of the old one.
R. L.: It seems to me, then, that the leaders of the new international 
movement have had to form a philosophy as well as an association 
for themselves.
230 
WOODHULL
 & 
CLAF IN
’
S
 
WEEKLY

---