Engels and the two Internationals

Engels and the two Internationals Engels was away in Manchester when the First International was formed. It was Marx who was present alongwith British, French, German, Polish and Italian workers' representatives who launched the International Working Men's Association at a public meeting in St. Martin's Hall, London on September 28, 1864. Marx was elected a member of the General Council and entrusted with the task of drafting the Inaugural Address and Provisional Rules. Engels noted the great significance of the moment. In a letter to Marx he wrote, "It is good that we are again joining hands with people who at least represent their class." "That in the end, is the most important thing." Yes, that was the importance of the IWMA which brought together French Proudhonists, English Chartists, trade-unionists, followers of Mazzini and all sorts of workers' sects. But then, as Marx said "real powers" were involved. With sects of such divergent ideological persuasions it was indeed a herculean task for Marx and Engels to fight for the hegemony of ideas set forth in the 'Communist Manifesto'. It meant a ruthless struggle against alien ideas in the working class movement. Marx was physically there at the centre of action of the International but Engels contributed to its organisational work by working for membership drives, financing the IWMA press in England and campaigning for financial help to striking workers. The last was an important part of the activity of the International. As Marx pointed out, it was an important way "to make the workmen of different countries not only feel but act as brethren and comrades in the army of emancipation." Above all, with so many sects there in the International, the ideological struggle was very important and Engels joined in with all his intellectual might. The work of Marx and Engels is almost inseparable and through their daily correspondence Engels reacted to the developments in the International and helped Marx. In many ways the ideological struggles of the International have almost a contemporary ring for us. At the very outset Marx scored a victory with the acceptance of the Inaugural address by the International wherein the ideas of conquest of political power, the political rule of the working class, of scientific socialism was laid down. It pointed out to the need of political organisation of the working class and the importance of revolutionary theory. Marx worded it thus – "One element of success they possess – numbers; but numbers weigh only in the balance, if united by combination and led by knowledge". "It was very difficult to frame the thing, so that our view should appear in a form acceptable from the present standpoint of the workers movement" as Marx wrote. So he said "it had to be fortiter in re, suaviter in modo" (hard in essence but soft in form). This was only the beginning and greater and bigger fights lay ahead. Engels made worthy contributions and in fact he had to shoulder great responsibility. As he himself admitted, "As a consequence of the division of labour that existed between Marx and myself, it fell to me to present our opinions in the periodical press, and, therefore, particularly in the fight against opposing views, in order that Marx should have time for the elaboration of his great basic work. This made it necessary for me to present our views for the most part in a polemical form ---." ('The Housing Question') Marx wrote that, "The International was founded in order to replace the socialist or semi-socialist sects by a real organisation of the working class for struggle." To ensure the success of this task it was essential to enlist the workers sects functioning in different countries. Marx and Engels' activity in the International showed their great creativity in organisational questions. While enlisting the different workers societies in the International they did not give up the ideological fight but carried it with full vigour. One of the most active and large workers organisation was active in Germany. The General Association of German workers had to carry on a fight against Lassalleanism.

Against Lassalleanism Of particular importance in this struggle was Engels' article "The Prussian Military Question and the German Workers' Party" (1865) This article substantiates some of the most important tactics of the class struggle of the working class: it emphasizes the need to create an independent workers party – a party which "will not play the part of a mere appendage to the bourgeoisie but of an independent party quite distinct from it." It defined the political relationship of the proletariat with the bourgeoisie thus – "It is --- in the interests of the workers to support the bourgeoisie in its struggle against all reactionary elements, as long as it remains true to iself." But if "the bourgeoisie was to scrurry under the skirts of reaction for fear of the workers then the workers party would have to continue its campaign for bourgeois freedoms. In any case, the workers party must always maintain its independence. "

Lassalle's flirting with Bismarck had previously been criticised by Marx and Engels. In this work, Engels warned against the compact with Junkerdom the reactionary landed aristocracy. The Lassallean alliance of the "proletariat" with the "government" against the "liberal bourgeoisie" was severely condemned by Marx and Engels. They showed that such an alliance of the working class with the landed aristocracy under the pretence of protecting the workers, the grant of universal franchise and other such gains would only consolidate the Bonapartist regime of Bismarck and help reaction. Such manoeuvering between classes by the reactionary state only aimed at suppression of all resistance to reaction. This type of Lassallean 'tactics' was not emancipatory but only helped rivet the chains of slavery. State patronage only served to deceive the masses. In his 'On the Dissolution of the Lassallean Workers Association' (1868) Engels showed that universal suffrage granted by Bismarck was a snare and had failed to bring the workers the promised millennium. It may be noted in passing that the politics of patronage is resorted to by the reactionary states all over the world. Any section or class which allows itself to be taken in under the tutelage of the state necessarily suffers and rivets its chains. In this we find a historical lesson for the fight of all the oppressed peoples for their emancipation. While condemning the alliance with Junkerdom against the liberal bourgeoisie Engels called attention to the peasant question. "In a predominantly agricultural country, Engels wrote in 1865, "it is dastardly to make an exclusive attack on the bourgeoisie in the name of the industrial proletariat but never to devote a word to the patriarchal exploitation of the rural proletariat under the lash of the great feudal aristocracy." These attacks led to the dissolution of the Lassallean party and the founding of the first mass socialist party, the Social Democratic Workers Party in Germany in 1869 which was considered a victory for the ideas of the International in the German Working Class movement. In all this and in other instances the tactics and principles elaborated and substantiated by Marx and Engels show that it is the duty of the proletariat to give unstinted support to the movements of the exploited and the oppressed, to rally these masses around the working class party. A working class which opportunistically gives quarter to any oppression forges its own chains.

The working class must fight against all oppression to make way for its own emancipation. This was succinctly put by Marx when he wrote in his magnum opus, Capital that the " working class cannot emancipate itself in the white if it is branded in the black." And indeed glorious was the record of the First International during the American Civil War. The General Council of the IWMA participated actively in mobilizing anti-slavery sentiment and in thwarting the pro-South (pro-slavery) manoeuvres of the British and French govenments by mass working class actions.

The founding of the IWMA had coincided with the Polish national liberation movement of 1863- 64. The First International expressed solidarity with the Polish insurrectionists. At Marx's request Engels wrote a number of articles in 1866 in order clear the position of the General Council on the national question. These articles go under the title : "What have the working classes to do with Poland?'

Criticising the Proudhonists views on the Polish Question Engels showed that the working class must resolutely oppose all national oppression and be in the van for the fight for the national liberation of enslaved peoples. It at the same time exposed the Bonapartist manoeuvres to use national movements, showed the danger of the use of national movements by the forces of reaction, for counter-revolutionary ends.

With the upsurge of the national liberation movement in Ireland, the Irish question became prominent in the activity of the General Council of the IWMA in 1867. Despite disapproving of the conspiratorial activities of the Sinn Feiners (the Irish revolutionary democrats) who started this insurrection Engels took a sympathetic view of their movement. The General Council of the International was persuaded to demand Ireland's secession from Britain. The British trade-union leaders and some British members of the general council took a chauvinist stand but the majority was with Marx. Through mass meetings and demonstrations demands were made for grant of amnesty to the Irish insurrectionists. Engels on his part undertook a study of Ireland and helped to expose the predatory British policy there. Following all this Marx in his letter to Engels held that the "The English working class will never accomplish anything before it has got rid of Ireland. The lever must be applied in Ireland. That is why the Irish question is so important for the social movement in general." Engels showed that how the British historians painted the national liberation struggles as either barbaric or religious and sought to justify British rule over the subject nations.

It is interesting that the anarchists, those who swore by freedom, attacked this support to the national liberation movements. They called it diversionary and held that it led to the neglect of the interests of the working class. This was in line with their negation of the political struggle and as such a fight againts the Proudhonists and Bakuninists had to be taken up.

In keeping with the view taken by Marx in the 'Inaugural Address of the First International' the London Conference (1871) later passed resolutions on the need for independent working class parties and the need for the working class to win political power. This was countered by the Bakuninists who held a parallel Congress in Sonvillier which repudiated the need for the political struggle of the working class and the need for a centralised party putting forward the principle of complete autonomy. They were against the winning of state power and proposed beginning the revolution by destroying all state apparatus. This was countered by Engels in "The Congress of Sonvillier and the International'.

The Bakuninists carried on a tirade against the General Council. They were for an organisation of the working class "without any directing authority, even if set up by voluntary agreement". This was, in fact, against a centralised working class political party. Since the 'ideal' of a future society decreed freedom, the working class organisation was to be a prototype of the future society. Engels retorted – "the proletariat is told to organise not in accordance with requirements of the struggle it is daily and hourly compelled to wage, but according to the vague notions of a future sociey entertained by some dreams." and "Indeed, no party discipline, no centralisation of forces at a particular point, no weapons of struggle?" Marx and Engels drafted the private circular of the General Council of the International 'Fictitious splits in the International' which further dealt with it.

The abstention from politics preached by the Bakuninists and their anarchist tactics was to cost the working class dear in the Spanish Revolt of 1873. In his 'The Bakuninists at work' Engels sharply criticised the anarchist abstention from politics. The anarchists preached that anything short of the "immediate and complete emancipation of the working class, that political action of any kind implied recongnition of the state, which was the root of all evil and that therefore participation in any form of elections was a crime worthy of death" He showed that faced with a serious revolutionary situation, the Bakuninists had to throw the whole of their old program overboard. "--- the ultra-revolutionary rantings of the Bakuninists either turned into appeasement or into uprisings that were doomed to failure, or, led to their joining a bourgeois party which exploited the workers politically ---." The so-called free federation of independent groups led to the boundless and senseless fragmentation of the revolutionary resources, which enabled the government to conquer one city after another with a handful of soldiers. Thus the bankruptcy of the anarchists' principles of autonomy, decentralisation, abstention from politics and 'objection' of the state was proved in practice." Engels considered this experience to be "an unparalleled example of how a revolution should not be made."

Engels' essay 'On Authority' deserves special mention . He showed that the anarchists repudiation of authority, of any kind of guiding or organising principle, is in deep contradiction to real life, to the actual conditions of material production. Organisation of modern industry, transport and agriculture was impossible without authority, Engels noted. There is also an obvious necessity for authority in future socialist society, which must be based on highly developed scientifically organised production requiring strict regulation and control. Ridiculing the anarchist idea of the necessity of the abolition of the state, Engels wrote of the necessity of the state; of the necessity of political authority of the proletariat. To quote him : " A revolution is certainly the most authoritarian thing there is; it is the act whereby one part of the population imposes its will upon the other part by means of rifles, bayonets and cannon – authoritarian means, if such there be at all ---. Would the Paris Commune have lasted a single day if it had not made use of this authority of the armed people against the bourgeois? Should we not on the contrary, reproach it for not having used it freely enough?" Thus, Engels was affirming the use of force as the lever of revolution and the necessity of the armed struggle.

The Paris Commune was warmly welcomed by the IWMA. After all, as Engels put it in his letter to Friedrich Sorge the Paris Commune "was undoubtedly the child of the International intellectually". Engels had moved to London in September, 1870 and was subsequently elected as a member of the General Council of the IWMA. Henceforth he could take a very active part in the International. His vast knowledge of different lands and their peoples served him well in this. The International worked out proletarian tactics during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 and helped hammer out internationalist tactics of the working class against bourgeois chauvinism. Marx and Engels could sense that the Paris workers would be driven to an ill-timed uprising due to the actions of the French government. They advised restraint until the peace was concluded otherwise German armies would crush them. But that was not to be. The Commune came into being on March 18, 1871 and was crushed in May. Throughout this period the First International carried on its campaign of solidarity with the Commune. Marx and Engels established contacts with the Paris Commune in order to help them work out a correct policy. Engels gave expert military advice. After the defeat of the Commune the Communards were helped by the International and the bourgeois slander answered. The ideas of Marx and Engels and their summing up of the experience of the Commune were elaborated and elucidated in Marx's famous 'Civil War in France', which was propagated as the Address of the General Council. The theory of the state, the revolution and the dictatorship of the proletariat is developed here on the basis of this experience. To Engels this address was special as it meant a very important ideological victory. Of special interest is Engels' 1891 Preface to Marx's 'Civil War in France'. It brought up the fundamental ideas of the dictatorship of the proletariat. He wrote – "--- it (the state) is an evil inherited by the proletariat after its victorious struggle for class supremacy, whose worst sides the victorious proletariat will have to lop off as speedily as possible, ---, until a generation reared in new, free, social conditions is able to discard the entire lumber of the state." Here Engels is pointing out that the state can only wither away if the material conditions make way for it. The important conclusion that Marx and Engels drew from the Paris Commune also found its mention in the subsequent prefaces to the Communist Manifesto. The very important conclusion was that "the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery and wield it for its own purposes." Engels further dealt with the state and the economic basis of its withering away in his work "The Housing Question". He also fought the incorrect anarchist ideas of the 'abolition of the state'. Engels' writings of this period find special mention in Lenin's masterpiece, 'The State and Revolution'. In his 'Housing Question' Engels joined issue with the anarchists - the Proudhonists and the Bakuninists and also the Lassalleans regarding the replacement of capitalism by producers associations and cooperatives.

Of great importance was this fight against anarcho-syndicalism. Marx and Engels had to substantiate the basis for scientific socialism. In September, 1867, Marx's magnum opus, Capital was published. It laid bare the laws of motion of the capitalist mode of production and showed its historically transient nature and laid the basis for scientific socialism. In 1868, the First International officially praised it and urged all members to study it. Marx highly valued Engels' opinion and much of their correspondence dealt with the contents of Capital. It helped combat anarcho-syndicalism. The Brussels Congress (1868) of the IWMA despite the resistance of the Proudhonists, adopted the socialist principles of making the means of production public property. The failure of the Paris Commune to confiscate the Bank of France, partly contributing to its downfall also put paid to the erroneous Proudhonist economic doctrine. Engels helped in delineating the tasks of the state in this regard. In "The Housing Question' he pointed out that "the 'actual seizure' of all the instruments of labour, the taking possession of industry as a whole by the working people, is the exact opposite of Proudhonist 'redemption'. In the latter case, the individual workers becomes the owner of --- the instruments of labour." Anarcho-syndicalism shared the petit-bourgeois nature of Proudonism, which wanted to fight bourgeoisdom with the weapons of the bourgeoisie. The idea of free credit, producers associations with state help would not go beyond the bounds of the relations of production of commodity production and would always lead to the establishment of wage slavery. "The proletariat seizes state power and turns the means of production into state property to begin with", wrote Engels. He delineated the tasks of the dictatorship of the proletariat, the state in relation to the tasks of building socialism. The process of withering away of the state still leaves the economic tasks to be performed by a central body. "The government of persons is replaced by the administration of things, and by the conduct of the processes of production" wrote Engels. Much is being said today against the need for a centralised socialist economy and it is pejoratively called 'statism'. Engels' writings in this regard effectively refute such contentions.

The ideological struggles in the International had been won by Marx and Engels. The IWMA practically ceased to exist by 1874. Engels wrote with much confidence – "the next International – after Marx's writings have produced their effect for some years – will be directly Communist and will proclaim precisely our principles."

The period that followed was as Lenin wrote a period "of the formation, growth and maturing of mass socialist parties with a proletarian class composition." These parties felt the need for the formation of an International. On July 14, 1889, on the 100th anniversary of the fall of the Bastille in the great French revolution the foundation for the Second International was laid in Paris.

The 'Second or the Socialist International' "adopted the Marxist standpoint in all its essentials" (Lenin) as Engels had predicted. This was a time of growth of the working class movement everywhere and in the 1890s new socialist parties were formed. Maex was no more and all the responsibility had to be shouldered by Engels. He acted as a guide to the different sections of the Second International – in various coordinated international activities like May Day celebrations, in the propagation of Marxist literature and myriad other activities. He also coordinated the activities of the different sections of the International. Lenin in his 'The Third International and its place in history' appraised the 'Second International' thus – "The Second International was an international organisation of the proletarian movement whose growth proceeded in breadth, at the cost of a temporary strengthening of opportunism, which in the end led to the disgraceful collapse of this International." It is this opportunism against which Engels had to put up a stiff fight.

In this context Engels' criticism of the draft of the Erfurt Programme (1891) of the German Social Democratic Party is of particular importance. Lenin wrote about this programme that "it became a model for the whole Second International" and he wrote, "we may without exaggeration that Engels thereby criticised the opportunism of the whole Second International." It should be noted that this criticism was sent to Kautsky in June, 1891 but was pigeon-holed and published only ten years later. Engels wrote – "The forgetting of the great, the principal considerations for the momentary interests of the day, this struggling and striving for the success of the moment regardless of later consequences, this sacrifice of the future of the movement for its present may be 'honestly' meant, but it is and remains opportunism ---" Engels found the scaling down of demands for the fear of a renewal of the 'Anti-Socialist Law' and the dreams of a peaceful path to socialism to be particularly reprehensible. On the question of state-capitalism Engels criticised the efforts of the reformists to portray it as socialism and their efforts to repudiate the need for a revolution.

Surprisingly in the final draft of the Erfurt programme the Lassallean formula of all the other classes being only "one reactionary mass" relatively to the working class reappeared. This had already been criticised by Marx in his "Critique of the Gotha Programme". Engels wrote that it was "wrong because it enunciates an historical tendency, which is correct as such, as an accomplished fact." It deprives the proletariat of allies in the coming revolution reducing it to an "impotent minority". It showed the importance of the peasantry as an ally of the proletariat. Engels later helped the French and German parties with the formulation of their agrarian programmes. At the end of November, 1894 his article "The Peasant Question in France and Germany" appeared in the Neue Zeit.

Engels kept up his coordination of the efforts of different social-democratic parties and corresponded extensively with them and guiding them. His efforts bore fruit in combating reformism and opportunism in the parties of the Second International. When Engels died the parties of the Second International had come of age. Marx and Engels' ideological battles against various non-proletarian, non- socialist trends in the International should be studied as old ideas appear in new forms and must be combated. As we said many of the ideological struggles that took place in the International bodies have an almost contemporary ring about them.

(This was read out on the day of the establishment of the First International, i.e., September 28, to acquaint newcomers in the movement on the various aspects of Engels' life as part of the bicentennial celebrations of Frederick Engels' birth)