Letter to Carmelo Palladino, November 23, 1871

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 23 November 1871


First published in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXVI, Moscow, 1935
Printed according to the original
Translated from the French
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 44


ENGELS TO CARMELO PALLADINO

IN NAPLES

[Draft] London, 23 November 1871

Citizen Palladino,

I have just received your letter of the 13th and thank you for the Report on the History of the Naples Section,863 which I shall submit to the General Council at its next meeting. Whatever decisions the Council may arrive at in regard to the publicity to be given to the contents of that memoir, the necessary discretion will always be observed.

I am sorry you think yourself duty-bound to tell me that you in no way accept the resolutions of the last Conference.[1] Since it is evident from your letter that an organised section of the International no longer exists in Naples, I can only assume that the above declaration expresses your individual opinion and not that of the Naples Section, now forcibly dissolved. Being anxious, however, to avoid misunderstandings, I am answering your objections in detail.

(1) You are not satisfied

'with the way in which the said Conference was convened, which certainly did not conform to the regulations laid down by our General Rules'.[2]

To that accusation there are two rejoinders:

(a) It is indeed true that our General Rules make no provision for Conferences, but only for Congresses; they were drafted in the somewhat naïve belief that governments would leave us to our own devices.[3] Since the governments made it impossible for us to convene a Congress in 1870, the sections, having been directly consulted, confirmed and extended the powers of the General Council, and empowered it to decide upon the time and place at which the next Congress should meet. In 1871 the governments made the meeting of a Congress even more impracticable.[4]

We have proof of this, should you doubt it. But you will not; 'the Naples Section of the International no longer being able to meet' after 20 August 1871,[5] it could not elect a delegate to the Congress. And the same goes for France, Germany and Austria; the Federal Council in Spain was forced to take refuge in Portugal! So what could we do? There remained the precedent of 1865 when, for various reasons, the semi-public Congress was replaced by a private Conference held in London, the convening and actions of which were ratified by the next Congress.[6] You might tell me that such precedents are authoritarian and bourgeois survivals unworthy of the true revolutionaries of the proletariat, to which I should reply that the General Rules, Administrative Regulations, resolutions passed by the Congresses, etc., etc., belong in the same category, but that unfortunately no association, however revolutionary, can do without such things. So, the General Council, on its own responsibility, suggested to the sections that the impracticable Congress be temporarily replaced by a practicable Conference, practicable because the delegates would not be known to governments. The sections gave their assent, none protested, and the Council is prepared to answer to the future Congress for its action.

(b) As for the actual convening of the Conference, it was completely in order. All the Federations, all the individual sections in regular communication with the General Council, were notified in good time.

(c) Furthermore, if any observations on the legality or the method of convening the Conference were to be made, this should have been done before or during the Conference. None were made.

(2) You complain of the 'small number of delegates'. For that, the General Council is not to blame. Nonetheless, Belgium, Spain, Holland, England, Germany, Switzerland and Russia were directly represented. As to France, it was represented by practically all the members of the Paris Commune then in London, and I hardly suppose you would dispute the validity of their mandate. If Italy did not send delegates, you must look to your government.

(3) You say that these delegates 'have arrogated to themselves the rights peculiar to a General Congress'. This runs completely counter to the facts. The resolutions of the Conference in no way affect the tenor of the Rules. Some merely reaffirm the resolutions of previous Congresses, hardly if at all familiar to sections and members of recent date. Others are of a purely administrative nature. Far from lying outside the competence of a Conference, neither the former nor the latter go beyond even that of the General Council.

(4) You then go on to object to the

'very tenor of such resolutions which appear to you to be in direct opposition to the principles of our Association as laid down in our General Rules'.

With this I totally disagree and look to you to provide the proof. The founders of the International, those who drafted the Rules and the resolutions of our Association's Congresses, were very well represented at the Conference, and you will forgive me if, in the first instance, I lend credence to their interpretation of those Rules and to the interpretation given by successive Congresses ever since. Pray do not forget that the International has its own history and that history—of which it has every reason to be proud—is the best commentary on the Rules; that the International in no way intends to renege that glorious history and that, at this moment, the spontaneous movement of the proletarian masses in favour of our Association—a movement that is more marked and more enthusiastic in Italy than anywhere else—is the most striking ratification, not only of the letter of the Rules, but also of the whole of that history. Whatever your fears in regard to

the great responsibility the General Council has taken upon itself, that Council will remain ever loyal to the flag entrusted to its care seven years ago by the faith of the working men of the civilised world. It will respect individual opinions, it is prepared to transfer its powers to the hands of its mandators, but as long as it is charged with the supreme direction of the Association, it will see to it that nothing is done to vitiate the character of the movement which has made the International what it now is, and will abide by the resolutions of the Conference until such time as a Congress has decided otherwise.

In accordance with Resolution X of the Conference[7] there can be no objection to the reconstitution of the disbanded Naples Section under the name of Federazione Operaia Napolitana, or under any other name whatsoever.

  1. ↑ This refers to the London Conference of the International Working Men's Association held between 17 and 23 September 1871 (see Note 254).
  2. ↑ Here and below Engels quotes in Italian.
  3. ↑ The following passage is crossed out in the original here: 'But you are a lawyer, as far as I know, and so you should know that in every society written laws coexist with rules laid down by practice.'
  4. ↑ Crossed out in the original: 'In France, the Association was disbanded; in Spain, Italy, Germany, Austria and Hungary it was harassed by persecutions which totally disorganised it. The only countries where the Internationals could at least gather openly were America, England, Belgium and Switzerland. And even in Belgium a law against the International was promulgated. The election of delegates to a Congress which, in keeping with the Rules, would be expected to hold public sessions alongside administrative sittings became impossible.'
  5. ↑ On 20 August 1871 the Naples Section was broken up by the police.
  6. ↑ On the London Conference of 1865, see Note 254. Engels probably has in mind the fact that the 1866 Geneva Congress of the International approved the agenda proposed by the London Conference of 1865 and worked out by the Central (General) Council.
  7. ↑ K. Marx and F. Engels, 'Resolutions of the Conference of Delegates of the International Working Men's Association Assembled at London from 17th to 23rd September 1871'. X: General Resolution as to the Countries where the Regular Organisation of the International is Interfered with by the Governments.