Amendments to the General Rules and Administrative Regulations of the International Working Men's Association Adopted by the General Council in the Summer of 1872

Author(s) First International
Karl Marx
Written August 1872


Drawn up in June-August 1872
First published, in Russian, in Problemy mira i sotsializma, No. 4, 1964
Reproduced from the 1871 English edition of the General Rules and Administrative Regulations. The amendments made in Marx's hand in the French copy of the Rules and Regulations are translated from the French
Source: Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 23

The draft General Rules and Administrative Regulations, revised, on Marx's proposal, by the General Council in June-August 1872, were supposed to be confirmed by the Hague Congress of the International (September 2-7, 1872). Lack of time and the general situation at the Congress, compelled Marx, Engels and their associates to propose only a few major amendments and additions to the Rules.

The original document is a copy of the official 1871 French edition of the General Rules and Administrative Regulations with the amendments and additions approved by the General Council, inserted by Marx himself.

Only articles with Marx's amendments are published in this volume. Changes approved by the General Council are set in italics.

GENERAL RULES

OF THE INTERNATIONAL WORKING MEN'S ASSOCIATION

Art 1. This Association is founded to organise common action by the workers of different countries[1] aiming at the same end; viz., the protection, advancement, and complete emancipation of the working classes.

Art. 4. Each Congress appoints the time and place of meeting for the next Congress. The delegates assemble at the appointed time and place without any special invitation. The General Council may, in case of need, change the place and the date of the Congress and, with the sanction of the majority of the federations, may replace it with a private Conference which shall have the same powers. However, the Congress or the Conference which may replace it must meet within three months after the date fixed by the previous Congress.

The Congress appoints the seat and elects the members of the General Council annually, three from each nationality. The Council thus elected has the power to replace members who have resigned or who are unable, for one reason or another, to carry out their duties, and to co-opt members when the Congress elects fewer members than stipulated by the Rules.

On its annual meetings, the General Congress shall receive a public account of the annual transactions of the General Council. The latter may, in cases of emergency, convoke the General Congress before the regular yearly term.

Art. 7. Since the success of the working men's movement in each country cannot be secured but by the power of union and combination, while, on the other hand, the usefulness of the International General Council must greatly depend on the circumstance whether it has to deal with a few national centres of working men's associations, or with a great number of small and disconnected local societies; the members of the International Association shall use their utmost efforts to combine the disconnected working men's societies of their respective countries into national bodies, represented by central national organs which, as far as possible, should be international in their composition. It is self-understood, however, that the appliance of this rule will depend upon the peculiar laws of each country, and that, apart from legal obstacles, no independent local society shall be precluded from directly corresponding with the General Council.

Art. 8.[2] In its struggle against the collective power of the propertied classes, the working class cannot act as a class except by constituting itself into a political party, distinct from, and opposed to, all old parties formed by the propertied classes.

This constitution of the working class into a political party is indispensable in order to insure the triumph of the social revolution, and of its ultimate end, the abolition of classes.

The combination of forces which the working class has already effected by its economical struggles ought, at the same time, to serve as a lever for its struggles against the political power of its exploiters.

The lords of land and the lords of capital will always use their political privileges for the defence and perpetuation of their economical monopolies, and for the enslavement of labour. The conquest of political power has therefore become the great duty of the working class.

Art. 9. Everybody who acknowledges and defends the principles of the International Working Men's Association is eligible to become a member.

However, in order to guarantee the proletarian character of the Association, no less than two-thirds of the members of each branch must consist of wage-workers)[3]

Every branch is responsible for the integrity of the members it admits.

Art. 11. The working men's resistance societies joining the International Association may preserve their existent organisations intact.[4]

ADMINISTRATIVE REGULATIONS,

REVISED IN ACCORDANCE

WITH THE RESOLUTIONS PASSED

BY THE CONGRESSES (1866 TO 1869),

AND BY THE LONDON CONFERENCE (1871)

I

The General Congress

1. Every member of a branch of the International Working Men's Association has the right to vote at elections for the General Congress, and every member of the Association is eligible as a delegate.

2. Every branch or group of branches consisting of not less than 50 members may send a delegate to the Congress.

3.[5] Every branch or group of branches numbering more than 50 members may send an additional delegate for every additional 10 members.

7. The sittings of the Congress will be twofold—administrative sittings, which will be private, and public sittings, reserved for the discussion of, and the vote upon, the questions of principle of the Congress programme.

8. The Congress official programme, consisting of questions placed on the order of the day by the preceding Congress, questions added by the General Council, and questions submitted to the acceptance of that Council by the different sections, groups, or their committees, and which it will accept, shall be drawn up by the General Council.

Every section, group, or committee which intends to propose, for the discussion of the impending Congress, a question not proposed by the previous Congress, shall give notice thereof to the General Council before the 31st of March.

II

The General Council

2. The General Council is bound to execute the Congress resolutions and to take care that in every country the basic principles of the International are strictly observed.

3. The General Council shall publish a report of its proceedings every week.

4. Every group which is outside federal associations intending to join the Internationa l is bound immediately to announce its adhesion to the General Council.

6.[6] The general Council has also the right to suspend branches, sections, Federal Councils or committees, and federations of the International, till the meeting of the next Congress.

Nevertheless, in the case of sections belonging to a federation, the General Council will exercise this right only after having consulted the respective Federal Council.

In the case of the dissolution of a Federal Council, the General Council shall, at the same time, call upon the sections of the respective Federation to elect a new Federal Council within 30 days at most.

In the case of the suspension of an entire federation, the General Council shall immediately inform thereof the whole of the federations. If the majority of them demand it, the General Council shall convoke an extraordinary conference, composed of one delegate for each nationality, which shall meet within one month and finally decide upon the question.

Nevertheless, it is well understood that the countries where the International is prohibited shall exercise the same rights as the regular federations.

8. All delegates appointed by the General Council to distinct missions shall have the right to attend, and be heard at, all federal or local meetings of the organisations of the International, without, however, being entitled to vote thereat.

V

Local Societies, Branches, and Groups

2. Conformity of the local rules and regulations with the General Rules and Regulations shall be established by the Federal Councils and, for branches outside the federal associations, by the General Council[7] 9. The addresses of the Federal Committees and of the General Council are to be published every three months in all the organs of the Association.

VI

General Statistics of Labour


General scheme of inquiry, which may of course

be modified by each locality

1. Industry, which?

5. (a) Hours of work in factories, (b) The hours of work with small employers and in home work, (c) Nightwork and daywork.

(d) Hours of rest.

6. Regulations in workshops.

12. Habitation and nourishment.

  1. ↑ The former General Rules had: "to afford a central medium of communication and co-operation between Working Men's Societies existing in different countries" (see this volume, p. 4). Marx proved the expediency of the alteration at the General Council meeting on July 16, 1872, and this was recorded in the Minute Book: "Upon Rule I Citizen Marx proposes to strike out the words relative 'to a central medium' upon the ground that the development of the Association has changed the conditions and he moves the insertion of the following words instead: 'To organise common action between the working classes of different countries.' He says the alteration was rendered necessary to prevent misinterpretations."
  2. ↑ Article 8 of the former Rules read: "Every section has the right to appoint its own secretary corresponding with the General Council." The new draft of the article was a version of Resolution IX "Political Action of the Working Class" adopted by the London Conference of 1871 (see present edition, Vol. 22, pp. 426-27). The draft was approved by the Hague Congress that included it in the Rules as Article 7a (see this volume, p. 243). According to the Minutes of the General Council meeting on July 23, 1872, Marx and Engels substantiated the inclusion of the article in the Rules as follows: "Citizen Engels seconds it—the same reasons that made us adopt it at the Conference still exist and we shall have to fight it out at the Congress. "Citizen Marx says there is another view; we have two classes of enemies: the abstentionists, and they have attacked the resolution more than any other; the working class of England and America let the middle classes use them for political purposes; we must put an end to it by exposing it."
  3. ↑ Marx proposed this addition to Article 9 of the Rules at the General Council meeting of July 23, 1872, drawing on the experience of the North American sections which successfully employed this principle in the struggle against bourgeois reformists.
  4. ↑ Article 12 on the terms for the revision of the Rules and Article 13 on the additions to the Administrative Regulations remained unchanged (cf. this volume, p. 8).
  5. ↑ With the introduction of this new article the subsequent articles of this section have been renumbered.— Ed.
  6. ↑ A separate sheet of paper has survived in the Minute Book of the General Council with the text of this article written in English by Engels: "6. The General Council has also the right of suspending, till the meeting of next Congress, any branch, section, Federal Council, or Federation of the International. "Nevertheless, with regard to branches belonging to a federation, it will exercise this right only after having consulted the respective Federal Council. "In case of the dissolution of a Federal Council, the General Council shall, at the same time, call upon the branches composing such federation to elect a new Federal Council within thirty days. "In the case of the suspension of a whole federation, the General Council is bound to inform thereof immediately all the remaining federations. If the majority of the federations should demand it, the General Council shall convoke an extraordinary Conference composed of the delegate for each federation, which Conference shall meet within a month and decide finally on the matter. It is well understood that the countries where the International may be prohibited, shall have the same rights as the regular federations."
  7. ↑ With the introduction of this new article the subsequent articles of this section have been renumbered.— Ed.