THE SOCIALISM OF TO-DAY. 
178 
credit, free, secular, and compulsory education, the right of 
public meeting, freedom of association, liberty of the press, 
and the organization of public services by municipal authority. 
The general council, in its proclamation of the pth of Sep 
tember, 1870, urgently advised the labourers to respect the 
government which had been established, in order to save at 
least the republic and liberty. “ The situation of the French 
labourers,” it is there stated, “ is most difficult ; any attempt 
to overthrow the present government, in the middle of this 
terrible crisis, and while the enemy is at the gates of Paris, 
would be a detestable piece of folly.” Marx did not believe 
in the triumph of the Commune, and he said as much in his 
letters to his French friends. On account of this, the more 
violent roundly accused the “German Jew” of having sold 
himself to Bismarck. About this time, Becker, a friend of 
Marx, wrote the following “ The organization of the prole 
tariat' is not sufficiently complete, and the principles of the 
Socialist democracy are not sufficiently spread and understood 
to enable a red republic to be firmly established. The radical 
transformation of the old society and the inauguration of a new 
historic epoch require time; it will be the work of successive 
generations.” 
After the fall of the Commune several branches of the 
International, and even the general council in London, sent 
forth manifestoes attesting their sympathy and admiration for 
“the glorious vanquished.” The address of the general 
council, published on the 30th of May, under the title U 
Guerre civile en France, is a long statement of the facts which 
brought about the revolution of the i8th of March. It is n 
curious apology. What the Commune wanted, it said, vs as 
to establish a government founded on truly democratic and 
above all economic principles, by restoring to municipal 
authority the too numerous functions exercised to-day by 
the State. We are, then, asked to believe that it was simply 
a question of imitating the system at work in the United 
States and in Switzerland. If public monuments were burned, 
it was as a means of defence, just as is done in all wars. The 
absolute incapacity of the Commune in the matter of socia