Statement Sent by the General Council to the Editors of the Frankfurter Zeitung und Handelsblatt

Author(s)	First International Karl Marx
Written	24 November 1871

First published in Frankfurter Zeitung und Handelsblatt, No. 333, November 28, 1871
Printed according to the newspaper checked with the manuscript.
Source : Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 23

Collection(s): Frankfurter Zeitung

The Statement was published in English for the first time in The General Council of the First International. 1871-1872. Minutes, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1968.

On page 2 of the Frankfurter Zeitung, No. 326, is a report, dated London, November 18, which runs as follows:

"At its last meeting the London section of the International passed the following resolution: 'The outstanding services of Sir Charles Dilke to the people's cause give him the right to recognition by the people; therefore he is invited to accept the title of honorary member of the international working men's union.' At an earlier meeting Kossuth was elected member."

The International does not recognise any honorary membership. In all probability the above-mentioned decision relates to a small London society, which first called itself "The International Democratic Association" and later changed its name to the "Universal Republican League".^[1] It has no connection whatsoever with the International.

In the name of the General Council of the International Working Men's Association

Corresponding Secretary for Germany,

Karl Marx

↑ The Universal Republican League—an international organisation founded in London in April 1871. Its leaders included bourgeois radical Charles Bradlaugh, trade-unionist. George Odger, petty-bourgeois journalists Victor Le Lubez, Pierre Vesinier and others. The League put forward a mixed programme in which democratic demands (the nationalisation of the land, universal suffrage) were placed side by side with a call for the establishment of a world federative republic. The League's activists claimed leadership in the international working-class movement and, together with other anti-Marxist elements, waged a struggle against the General Council of the International.

[1] The Universal Republican League—an international organisation founded in London in April 1871. Its leaders included bourgeois radical Charles Bradlaugh, trade-unionist. George Odger, petty-bourgeois journalists Victor Le Lubez, Pierre Vesinier and others. The League put forward a mixed programme in which democratic demands (the nationalisation of the land, universal suffrage) were placed side by side with a call for the establishment of a world federative republic. The League's activists claimed leadership in the international working-class movement and, together with other anti-Marxist elements, waged a struggle against the General Council of the International.

[1]