The relation of the International to the rising of the Commune at Paris in 1871 is often misunderstood. It is clear that the International, as such, had no part either in originating or conducting the Commune; some of the French members joined it, but only on their individual responsibility. Its complicity after the event is equally clear. After the fall of the Commune, Karl Marx, in the name of the General Council, wrote a long and trenchant manifesto commending it as substantially a government of the working class, whose measures tended really to advance the interests of the working class. ‘The Paris of the workers, with its Commune, will ever be celebrated as the glorious herald of a new society. Its martyrs will be enshrined in the great heart of the working class. History has already nailed its destroyers on the pillory, from which all the prayers of their priests are impotent to deliver them.’[[6]]
The Commune was undoubtedly a rising for the autonomy of Paris, supported chiefly by the lower classes. It was a protest against excessive centralisation raised by the democracy of Paris, which has always been far in advance of the provinces, and which found itself in possession of arms after the siege of the city by the Germans. But while it was prominently an assertion of local self-government, it was also a revolt against the economic oppression of the moneyed classes. Many of its measures were what we should call social-radical.
In two important points, therefore, the communal rising at Paris had a very close affinity with socialism. In the first place, it was a revolutionary assertion of the Commune or local unit of self-government as the cardinal and dominating principle of society over against the State or central government. That is to say, the Commune was a vindication of the political form which is necessary for the development of socialism, the self-governing group of workers. And in the second place, the Commune was a rising chiefly of the proletariat, the class of which socialism claims to be the special champion, which in Paris only partially saw the way of deliverance, but was weary of oppression, and full of indignation against the middle-class adventurers that had on the fall of the Empire seized the central government of France.
It would, however, be a mistake to assume for the Commune a clearness and comprehensiveness of aim which it did not really possess. We should not be justified in saying that the Commune had any definite consciousness of such an historical mission as has been claimed for it. The fearful shock caused by the overwhelming events of the Franco-German war had naturally led to wide-spread confusion and uncertainty in the French mind; and those who undertook to direct it, whether in Paris or elsewhere, had painfully to grope their way towards the renovation of the country. At a time when it could hardly be said that France had a regular government, the Commune seized the opportunity to make a new political departure. The true history of its doings will, we hope, be written after passion and prejudice have sufficiently subsided to admit of it. The story of its rise and fall was only one phase of a sad series of troubles and disasters, which happily do not often overtake nations in so terrible a form.
From this point the decline and fall of the Association must be dated. The English trades unions, intent on more practical concerns at home, never took a deep interest in its proceedings; the German socialists were disunited among themselves, lacking in funds, and hampered by the police.
It found its worst enemies perhaps in its own household. In 1869, Bakunin, with a following of anarchists, had joined the International, and from the first found themselves at variance with the majority led by Marx. It can hardly be maintained that Marx favoured a very strongly centralising authority, yet, as his views and methods were naturally entirely repugnant to the anarchists, a breach was inevitable.
The breach came at the Hague Congress in September 1872. Sixty-five delegates were present, including Marx himself, who with his followers, after animated discussion, expelled the anarchist party, and then removed the seat of the General Council to New York. The congress concluded with a meeting at Amsterdam, of which the chief feature was a remarkable speech from Marx. ‘In the eighteenth century,’ he said, ‘kings and potentates used to assemble at the Hague to discuss the interests of their dynasties. At the same place we resolved to hold the assize of labour’—a contrast which with world-historic force did undoubtedly mark the march of time. ‘He could not deny that there were countries, like America, England—and, as far as he knew its institutions, Holland also—where the workmen could attain their goal by peaceful means; but in most European countries force must be the lever of revolution, and to force they must appeal when the time came.’ Thus it was a principle of Marx to prefer peaceful methods where peaceful methods are permitted, but resort to force must be made when necessary. Force also is an economic power. He concluded by expressing his resolve that in the future, as in the past, his life would be consecrated to the triumph of the social cause.
The transfer of the General Council of the Marx International from London to New York was the beginning of the end. It survived just long enough to hold another congress at Geneva in 1873, and then quietly expired. The party of destruction, styling themselves autonomists and led by Bakunin, had a bloodier history. The programme of this party, as we shall see in our chapter on Anarchism, was to overturn all existing institutions, with the view to reconstructing them on a communal basis. This it endeavoured to realise by the great communal risings in Southern Spain in 1873, when its adherents set up their special form of government at Barcelona, Seville, Cadiz, and Cartagena—at the last-mentioned place also seizing on part of the iron-clad fleet of Spain. The risings were suppressed, not without difficulty, by the national troops. The autonomists had a lingering existence till 1879.
In its main practical aim, to serve as a common centre for the combined efforts of working men of all nations towards their universal emancipation, the International had only a moderate and transitory success. It was a great idea, for which the times were not ripe. How effectually organise so many millions of working men, of different countries, at different stages of social development—men ignorant of each other’s language, with little leisure, without funds for travelling and purposes of propaganda? It was inevitable that some such effort should be made; for we need not repeat that labour has international interests of vital and supreme importance. And men might have expected that the attempt would be renewed. But on the vast scale contemplated by the International it was at least premature, and inasmuch as it drew the attention of the workmen from practical measures to far-distant and perhaps utopian aims, and engaged them in revolutionary schemes for which the times were not ready, even if they were otherwise desirable, its influence was not salutary.
In a movement so momentous, however, it is important to have taken the first step, and the International took more than the first step. It proclaimed a great cause in the face of the world—the cause of the poor man, the cause of the suffering and oppressed millions of labour. As an instrument of propaganda, as a proclamation of a great cause with possibilities of vast and continual growth, it has had a world-historic significance, and teaches lessons from which all governments and all men may learn. Its great mission was propaganda, and in that it has succeeded marvellously. Largely by means of it, the ideas of Marx and his associates are making the tour of the world. The governments most menaced by the social revolution, and most antagonistic to its principles, must perforce have regard to the questions raised by the International. It is a movement that will not rest, but will in many ways, and for many a year, claim the attention of the world.