Letter to Giuseppe Benedetti, February 18, 1872

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 18 February 1872


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


ENGELS TO GIUSEPPE BENEDETTI

IN PISA

[Draft]

[London, 18 February 1872]

Citizen G. Benedetti,

I received a few days ago your letter of 7 January and I am not too sure that it is meant for me, since neither of the two stamps it bears is that of our Association, whether 'Intern. Democr. Assoc' or 'Int. Assoc, among Working Men'. As however you mention the Basle Congress and the Jura circular,[1] it is probable that it has reached the correct address.

As for its contents, I must tell you that the Pisa section, as a section of the International Association of Working Men, is absolutely unknown to us. Resolution 4 of the Basle Congress says that any section or society wishing to become part of the International is obliged to give immediate notification thereof to the General Council, which (Resolution 5) has the right to admit or refuse the affiliation of any new society or group, except for an appeal to Congress,[2] and which admits genuine workers' and internationalist societies and sections as soon as it has obtained proof that their Rules contain nothing contrary to the General Rules (Resolution 14 of the Geneva Congress).[3]

I am sorry that these Congress resolutions weigh so heavily upon the sense of autonomy of the self-styled Pisa section, which despite being only recently formed and not yet admitted, naturally knows the 'temperament of the Association' much better than those who have belonged to it since its inception and who drafted its Rules. But although you are of the opinion that this temperament 'excludes any principle of authority', the General Council must unfortunately recognise the authority of the laws of the International, which oblige it to carry out the resolutions of Congresses (including that of Basle), and not to admit sections whose autonomy does not permit them to recognise the authority of the laws that are common to the Association as a whole.

As for the demand for an extraordinary Congress, I cannot submit it to the General Council unless your section is regularly admitted. Meanwhile I can tell you that you have the distinction of being the first section (real or self-styled) to call for this Congress since the publication of the Jura circular.

  1. ↑ The Congress of the Bakuninist Jura Federation held in Sonvillier on 12 November 1871 adopted the Sonvillier circular, 'Circulaire à toutes les fédérations de l'Association Internationale des Travailleurs'. It was directed against the General Council and the 1871 London Conference, and countered the Conference decisions with anarchist phrases about the sections' political indifferentism and complete autonomy. The Bakuninists proposed that all the federations demand the immediate convocation of a congress to revise the General Rules and to condemn the General Council's actions.
    The International's sections in Germany, Britain, France, Belgium, Holland, the USA, and also the Section in Milan, came out against the circular. Engels gave the Bakuninists a vigorous rebuff in his article 'The Congress of Sonvillier and the International' (present edition, Vol. 23).
  2. ↑ A reference to the Administrative Resolutions passed by the Basle Congress of 1869 (see Note 399).
  3. ↑ A reference to Article 14 of the Administrative Regulations adopted by the Geneva Congress of the International (1866), which states that the rules and bye-laws of individual sections must not contain anything contrary to the General Rules and Regulations of the International. This article corresponds to Article 12 of the English edition of the Regulations (see present edition, Vol. 20, p. 446).