THE RISE AND FALL OF THE INTERNATIONAL, 183 
congress is to fix the place where the next congress shall meet, 
and the federation there shall take charge of the correspon 
dence, serve as intermediary and prepare questions for 
discussion. No contribution shall be demanded. In short, 
no government, no budget. They almost attained the absolute 
perfection which consists in abolishing everything. 
Van den Abeele raised an objection. “ We Hollanders,” 
he said, “ are partisans of the experimental method. A central 
power is a bad thing. Let us try the formation of three 
committees. I admit the principle of anarchy; but are we 
strong enough to apply it forthwith ? ” “ What ! ” replied the 
French delegate. Brousse, “ you wish to destroy this authoritarian 
structure ? Anarchy is your programme, and yet you shrink 
before the consequences of your principles ! Another blow, 
and the whole pile will tumble.” They worked, in fact, to 
bury their association. Their principles were about to produce 
the natural results. From impotence they were going to pass 
to non-existence. 
Eccarius, the former lieutenant of Marx, from whom he had 
recently separated, and the only person of any weight among the 
“ autonomists ” present, summed up the history of the Inter 
national in a few words of his closing address. “ The old 
International, the first stone of which was laid at St. Martin’s 
Hall on the 28th of September, 1864, and the building of which 
was completed at the Congress of Geneva in 1866, has ceased 
to exist. That which we now establish is entirely distinct from 
it. The initiative came from the trades unions of London, who 
wished us to concern ourselves with politics, and the Proud- 
honians, who wished us to have nothing to do with them. 
The former desired to apply the principles of trades unionism, 
that is to say, the rising of wages by means of combinations and 
strikes ; whereas the latter sought to realize their theories of 
social reconstruction. At Bâle, the Proudhonians succumbed, 
but at the same time the unionist element was destroyed by 
personal rivalries among the members of the general council. 
At Paris, on the other hand, the unionists carried the day over 
the heads of the Proudhonians. In 1870 a reconciliation 
might perhaps have been brought about, but the outbreak of