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,  knowing ­
  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  adventurers,” ­
  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.