184

THE  SOCIALISM  OF  TO-DAY.

the  war  put  obstacles  in  the  way.  Already,  before  the  Congress
of  the  Hague,  the  council  was  divided  into  two  hostile  parties,
and  when  it  obtained  the  right  of  exclusion,  it  gave  the  deathblow ­
  to  the  old  Association.”
The  International  of  the  Marxists  held  its  session  from
the  8th  to  the  13th  of  September.  Marx  himself  took  no  part
in  it.  There  were  only  about  thirty  delegates,  representing
Germany,  France,  England,  Switzerland,  and  Holland.  The
fact  that  Germany,  where  Socialism  was  making  such  prodigious
strides,  was  represented  by  only  one  delegate,  Burckhart,  proves
what  little  influence  the  association  exercised.  Two  principal
questions  were  debated  :  first,  ought  the  working  classes  to
take  part  in  political  contests,  or  to  abstain  and  silently
prepare  the  way  for  the  social  revolution?  It  was  decided,
as  had  been  done  before,  that  they  ought  to  engage  in  politics,
and,  if  need  be,  unite  with  the  middle  classes  to  obtain  any
reforms  useful  to  the  workers.  Secondly,  it  was  resolved  that
working  men  ought  to  associate  everywhere  in  trade  corporations, ­
  which  should  form  national  federations,  these  federations ­
  themselves  uniting  so  as  to  keep  up  a  universal  league
in  each  trade.  It  would  be  the  part  of  this  league  to  give
constant  information  as  to  the  state  of  labour,  and  to  defend
the  interests  of  labour  in  the  different  countries.  This,  as  may
be  seen,  is  the  parent  idea  of  the  International,  reappearing
in  a  specialized  form  and  applied  to  each  trade.  This  congress
was  the  last  organized  by  the  Marxists.  Their  leader,  the
author  of  the  famous  book.  Das  Kapital.,  seems  since  then
to  have  retired  completely  from  active  life,  in  order  to  prepare,
in  his  retreat  in  London,  the  second  volume  of  his  work.”  *
The  Autonomists  convened  a  general  assembly  at  Brussels
on  the  7th  of  November,  1874.  From  the  official  report  it
appears  that  the  assembly  was  international  in  name  alone.
There  were  only  about  twenty  delegates,  all  Belgians,  except
Gomez  for  Spain,  Switzguebel  for  the  Federation  of  the  Jura,
*  [This  had  not  l)een  published  at  the  time  of  Marx’s  death  (14th  of  March,
1883)  ;  but  it  IS  believed  that  he  had  practically  completed  the  second
volume  and  had  commenced  the  third.  These  two  volumes  will,  it  is  said,
be  brought  out  by  Friedrich  Engels.—TV.]