THE  SOCIALISM  OF  TO-DAY.

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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  September, ­
  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  proletariat' ­
  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