The Daily Worker Newspaper, September 27, 1924, Page 8

By HARRISON GEORGE When the red flag of the Soviet Republic of Great Britain floats aloft from John O’ Groat’s to Land’s End, I am sure that on some ceremonial day a tremendous mass of the London proletariat will crowd by the hundreds of thousands around the corner of Long Acre and Endell street, for, on that corner stands St. Martin’s Hall, and in that hall on September 28th, 1864, was born the International Work- ingmen's Association—the First Inter- national. Previous ‘to that date the advance of capitalist domination had been un- challenged, It had smashed feudal forms.. It had seen its catch-words “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity” (meaning free trade, equality of bour- geois with the nobility, and the “fra- * ternity’, of stock holders) flowering at the foot of the guillotine which awaited alike the resistant feudalist and the nascent, deceived proletariat. It had overturned governments right and :left, and except for isolated and confused, resistances . such as _ the Chartist Movement, capitalist advance was .ne uninterrupted triumph. But with the birth of the I. W. M. A., was forged the first crude weapon which the international working class used in blocking the path of capital- 2st exploitation, Capitalism saw the birth of its implacable enemy, and foresaw with abject terror its histor- ical extinction. Beginnings It was upon the material, even though unstable and immature, found- ation of English trades unions that the First International was based. On the Continent, unions were for- bidden and only occasional, impotent groups or republicans led by Mazzini furtively existed. It was the hope, undoubtedly, of British unionists to extend unionism to the Continent, that led a group of them headed by George Odger to send, in 1863, an address “To the Workingnien of Fran- ce from the Workingmen of England.” This address was built upon the question then agitating all libertar- ians, the subjection of Poland and the recent suppression of the Polish in- surrection. But, evidently, this ad- dress was a reply to some unknow French manifesto, as it said: “We echo your call for a fraternity of peoples, highly necessary for the cause of labor.” Anyhow, from these beginnings came the meeting on Sept. 28th, 1864 at St. Martin’s Hall, Lon- don. Although, as mentioned, the Polish question was uppermost, and the meeting, under the chairmanship of a positivist professor, E. S. Beesley, had the formulation of a protest on be- half of Poland as its first order of business; after that had been finished, the problem of the international organ- ization of the working class was taken up. Le Lubez, a French refugee living in London, proposed that a Central Council, sitting in London, with bran- ches in all European capitals, should be formed. The proposal was accept- ed and upon the Central Council were appointed a number. of English union- ists, Major L. Wollf, who represented, as his secretary, the ideas of Mazzini, and the great economist and revolu- tionary, Karl Marx. There were four primary currents. Firstly, Odger and Howell, English trade unionists, wished merely to pro- vide the workers on the Continent with unions. Some French refugees hoped that the new organization would attempt the assassination of Napoleon Il. Thirdly, Mazzini, through his secretary, Major Wollf (later exposed as a police spy by the seizure of records in the Paris Co- mune) hoped to turn the I.W.M.A. into growps of secret republican so- cieties. But Marx, with his tireless energy and patience won the day with his famous “Address and Rules” to make the International a great propa- andist body, uniting and educating the workers, admitting both unions and political sections. In reality, it was Marx's first op- portunity to realize in action that amazing intellectual contribution, “The Communist Manifesto” which he and his brilliant co-worker Frederick Engels had written: in 1847 for the obscure and now forgotten “Feder- ation of the Just.” As indicative of the political direct- ion accepted by the First International the lines from Marx's Inaugural Ad- dress may be quoted: “Conquest of political power is the first task of the working class.” “The scales will turn in favor of the masses only if they are organized and if they are guided fy knowledge.” “The liberation of the working class must be accomplished by the working class itself.” This last quotation was aimed against the class collaboration theories of Proudhon and is not, as has veon ftmpoed by “tifantile léft- A —ncmnammamtt emo ists”, an argument for sectarian isola- tion. The closing pararaphs of the “Communist Manifesto” contradict such notions. As. an example of the queer kind of things the working class was asked to swallow, the following from Proud- hon also aptly illustrates how the anarchist theory, which makes its appeal as being “more revolutionary” than Marxism, leads straight to class collaboration: “The social question is there; you cannot escape from it. To solve it we must have: men who .com- bine extreme radicalism with extreme conservatism. Workers, hold out your hands to your employers; and you, employers, do not deliberately repulse the advances of those who were your wage earners.” And this from the “Father of Anarchy” who cried that the State is a “fiction” “No more parties, no politics, no more authority, absolute liberty!” . Among the English; German, Polish and Italian delegates.at the Inaugural Congress. were. numerous French workers led by Tolain, an ardent sup- porter of Proudhon’s “mutualism” especially as applied to people’s cre- dit banks.- Marx fought against this digression for years. But it was the rising tide of trade unionism, together with a revolutionary political. move- ment, which left no basis for such petty-bourgeois nostrums, and Proud- honism died a natural death among strikes and rising revolution. Though the International was ter- ribly handicapped, unable to pay rent for its offices and chronically remiss in paying its secr y even the small sum of $5 per week, its influence OF THE INTE Delivered to the Public Hall, Long Acre, London, on association was founded: numbers. But the mass can only an organization has gathered them gent lead. national Associati6n.” FROM THE INAUGURAL ADDRESS ber 1868, the Council opposed giving a dinner to the American ambassador “because he does not represent the workers.” And when Mazzini died that year, a motion to make an address on the event was opposed because “Maz- zini was opposed to the class strug- gle.” Strikes swept Europe, But Marx’s work was not to go on. peacefully. One of the most able and prccerws masters of intrigue was seeking admission to the Internation- al, Michael Bakunin led an anarchist organization called the “Alliance of Socialist Democracy.” Able as he was in intrigue, Bakunin was theoretically impossible. To the folly of Proud- honist “absolute liberty® he added “absolute equality”, embracing both abstractions and the problem of re- conciling these two absolutes. But six years before he had addressed Alex- ander II, pledging his loyalty if Alex- ander would only become “Czar of the Moujiks.” Bakunin’s “Alliance” applied for admission en masse to the International, Bakunin’s “Alliance” wanted ad- mission upon its own, Bakunin’s prin- ciples; “The Alliance declares itself atheist,” “There shall be no state,” and, after Bakunin had been disap- pointed in political alliance with Swiss liberals—‘Political action is forbid- den.” But it was his “economic and social equalization of classes” which drew the fire of the General Council in its reply denying the Alliance ad- mission as an organization. The reply, said in part: | “The equalization of classes literal- ly interpreted comes to the harmony of capital and labor, so pertinaciously RNATIONAL WORKINGMEN’S ASSOCIATION By KARL MARX. Meeting in the St. Martin's Sept. 28, 1864, at which the “Therefore to capture political power is now the great duty of the working class. This appears to have been understood for simul- taneously in England, France, Germany and Italy indications of a revival are to be seen and in all these countries attempts at the political reorganization of the workers’ party are now being made.” “One element of success is possessed by the workers—their great bring their pressure to bear when together and given them an intelli- Former experience has shown how neglect of the bonds of brotherhood, which can unify and encourage the workers of the various lands in all their struggles for freedom to steadfastly stand by one another, leads to the punishment of the workers through the frustration of their uncommected attempts. of this need workers of various countries have on September 28th, 1864, at a public meeting in the St. Martin’s Hall, founded the Inter- Urged by the knowledge eer RR eh spread like wildfire across Europe. Unions sprang up in Spain, Denmark, | France, Austria-Hugary and _ Ger- many, and fierce conflicts broke out with the capitalists. The English Trades Union Congress of 1863 in- structed all unions to join the inter- national, which held its congress that year at Geneva. A delegate from Geneva crossing the French frontier was searched and documents of the International seized. The French authorities offered to let them through, however, “if you will insert some expressions of gratitude to the Emperor who has done so much for the working class.” The Interna- tional, however, thought it better to raise $5,000 relief funds in England for locked-out Paris bronze workers, an act which gave it tremendous pres- tige throughout France. A strike leader on trial declared, when asked if he were a member of the Interna- tional—‘No, but I hope to be allowed to be.” It was the role of Marx in all this up-sweep of working class organiz- ation to weed out the freak philosphies and utopian systems and replace them with stientific socialist, that is to say, Communist/ clarification. But he was terribly handicapped. He was deep in poverty and his family suffered fear- fully from disease and hunger. And the International was fair game for all the fantastic social remedies of an awakening class seeking prematurely | to throw off its chains. Merely by his wonderful logic without intrigue did he hold mastery over the General Council. Like our great leader Lenin, he did the work of two men, beset by bitter difficulties though he was, and living the life of a half-starved refugee. In 1868 he brought forth the first edition of his great work— Capital. Marxism wus at work. In Decem- Ce een advocated by bourgeois socialists, It is not the equalization of classes, lo- gically a> contradiction, impossible to realize, but on the contrary, the abo- lition of classes, the real secret of the proletarian movement, which is the great aim of the International Workingmen’s Association.” But Marx’s work was not to go on dissolving its central bureau, affiliated branch by branch following Marx’s proposal that they be admitted, Baku- nin was, as Postgate says, “inside the fort.” While he did very constructive work in establishing branches throughout Spain, his very ‘nature reveled in interminable quarrels, and although the whole International was becoming a nightmare to the bourge- oisie, the mendacious factionalism- of Bakunin had split it in two before the death blow given it by the crushing of the Paris Comune. War’ broke out in July, 1870, be- tween France and Prussia. The Ger- man members of the International vigorously opposed the war, but with- out effect. previously been subjected to bitter persecution by the Bonaparte govern- ment. It was powerless. In six weeks the French armies were smasned or captured by Bismark and the empire had fallen, A republic was proclaimed on September 4th. The new govern- ment went from incontinent retreat to incompetent and disastrous attack: On January 18th, 1871, more afraid of the Paris workmen it had been compelled to arm in the “National Guard”,.than of the Prussian troops, it signed an armistice. Paris wag en- raged. Thiers, commander of the re- gular troops and soon to become one of the most infamous butchers of working people, ordered his soldiers on March 18th, to seize the cannon of the Patis National Guard. The troops fraternized, shot their officers The F ounding of the First hitorinidionel death. The French section had}|i ‘ OS SSS shssereseneet seen snstnaneen asus and the government fled to Versail- les. The Paris Commune had begun. It is not the purpose of this article to give a history of this glorious ef- fort of the Paris workers to establish proletarian rule. Sufficient to say that on the Central Committee of the Commune sat 17 members of the Inter- national. For detailed incident of the struggle in which 100,000 Paris work- ers “disappeared”—as ‘Postgate puts it, and 30,000 are acknowledged to ‘have been massacred by the Versaillese, I refer the reader to “The Civil War in France,” written by Marx and. issued by the First International while Thiers’ human bloodhounds Were still dumping cadavers into the Seine, The members of the: International fought besidé.the other Paris workers day after day, only once did the mem- bers on the Central Committee resign as a protest. against action of the majority. They were ordered back by the General Council and like’ good revolutionists they obeyed « Interna- - tional discipline. On May «21st: the Versaillese entered by a spy's betrayal. A week. of barricade fighting followed. .. The promise of May 15th was kept. It had said: “Paris has treated with Behind her forts are her walls; behind her walls\are her bar- ricades; behind her barricades are her houses wrenched from her one by one.” And when the fighting was over the Ver- saillese under Thiers and ° Gallifet began the most gory and sickening butchery of the century. Marx says that in order to find comparison for the conduct of Thiers “we must go back to the times of Sulla and the two Triumvirates of Rome.... There is but this difference, that the Romans had no machine guns for the dispatch, in the lump, of the proscribed, and that they had not ‘the law in thier hands’ nor on their lips the cry of ‘civilization’ ” Between the ghastly wound of the crushed Commune and the unceasing intrigues of Bakunin the Internationai was bleeding to death. The Unions had been first to succumb to perse- cution and then the political sections, the organs of combat, were wiped out by the terrific reaction following the Commune. Though many sections were left in Europe, especially in England, and nearly thirty in America, the whole energy of the movement was taken up in factional fighting. Baku- nin railed against the “dictatorship” of Marx and Engels; they, in turn, would not surrender one inch to anarchist theory. “Anarchy, “says Marx, “is the great charger of Bakunin. All socialists hold anarchy to mean this: the aim of the proletarian movement, the aboli- tion of classes, once attained, the Dower of the state which serves to keep the great majority of producers beneath the yoke of a small exploit- ing minority, will disappear and go- vernmental functions become mere administrative functions. The Allian- ce (Speaking of Bakuninists) reverses this. It proclaims anarchy in the ranks of the proletariat as the most infallible means of defeating the powerful concentration of social and political forcés in the hands of the exploiters. On this pretext it requires the International at the moment when the old world seeks to crush it, to replace its organization (Bakunin had demanded abolition ‘of powers of the General Council) with anarchy. The international police asks no more”, But capitalism again triumphant and still ascendant was creating na- tional interests even among the soc- sts. The anarchists were sowing the seeds of decentralization which were to furnish the poison for the Second International and its collapse forty years later. Marxians, embitter- ed by Bakunin, controlled the Hague Congress meeting on September 2, 1872. It voted to move. the General Council to New York. Marx was ill, suf- fering severely and dangerously from overwork. Engels continued to fight the anarchists. Bakunin failed to build a rival international. On the 15th of July, 1876, the First International held ts last conference at Philadelphia. The outlook was black and the meet- ing accepted facts and declared the General Council abolished. Bakunin, it seems, had won. But Leninism was to come, And that, of course, ig another story. — Food Prices Climb. WASHINGTON, Sept. 26.—Cost of the principal articles of food (weight- ed average) retailed in towns thruout the country shows an increase of seven-tenths of 1 per cent for July this year, compared with June says the bureau of labor statistics. The cost of these items is 2.6 per cent lower than in July, 1923. Coffee is 12 per cent higher than a year ago, . which will have to be’