THE RISE AND FALL OF THE INTERNATIONAL. 189 
Working Men’s Societies and of individual Socialists declared 
their adhesion, and that was all. Thus, as we have seen, 
Cameron, delegate of the United States at the Congress of 
Bâle, brought the adhesion, in a body, of 800,000 working 
men, but these adhesions were absolutely platonic. They 
brought to the Association neither authority nor money. 
It is generally supposed that the International played an 
important part in the strikes which became so numerous for 
some years. This is a mistake. Very often, no doubt, those 
on strike belonged nominally to the International. But, in the 
first place, the leaders of the International looked upon a strike 
only as a makeshift ; secondly, they feared to advise it, know 
ing that a defeat would greatly injure their credit ; and lastly, 
they were absolutely deficient in resources.* It was not the 
International which fomented the strikes; it was the strikes 
that developed the International. 
The causes of the rapid decline of the famous Association 
are easy to discover, and they are instructive. First of all, as 
the organizer of strikes, its principal and most practical end, it 
proved itself timid and impotent. The various bodies of 
working men were not slow to perceive this, and gave it up. 
Next, it had taken for motto, “ Emancipation of the workers 
by the workers themselves.” It was intended, then, to do 
without the bourgeois-radicals, “ the palaverers,” “ the adven 
turers,” who, when the revolution was made, would step into 
power and leave the working men as they were before. The 
majority of the delegates were nevertheless bourgeois ; but, in 
reality, the sentiment of revolt against the aristocratic direction 
of the more intelligent members always persisted, and it fastened 
principally on Karl Marx, the true founder of the International, 
and the only political brain that it contained. But to keep in 
existence a vast association embracing very numerous groups 
* Some curious details on this subject may be fouud in thefworks of M. 
Oscar Testut : V Internationale au ban de ! Europe and II Internationale 
(Paris, Lachaud, 1873). On every occasion the general council either 
avowed that it had no money, or sent altogether insignificant sums. The 
poorest English trades union has a better filled treasury. In every congress, 
means of collecting the subscriptions, which were only ten centimes a year, 
were sought in vain.