Congrès socialiste international Paris 1900
International Socialist Congress, Paris 1900
Here we have the very text of the Fifth International Socialist Congress, held at Paris in September 1900. Messrs. Corcos brothers, the usual stenographers of the French Socialist Party (Parti socialiste français), had at our request established the stenography of it.
We publish this stenography just as the stenographers furnished it to us. Hubert Lagardelle has gone over the text. M. Sorel kindly went over the proofs and annotated them. But they have not proposed to do anything other than to remain faithful to the stenography, which we have wished to edit as true historians. For the same reason we have refrained from communicating to the speakers the stenography of their speeches.
Hubert Lagardelle was preparing an introduction to the proceedings, whose text he had reread. But this introduction will form a cahier of the third series.
M. Sorel has likewise reserved for the third series the few reflections that his work has suggested to him.
DECISION OF THE CONGRESS OF LONDON
The Congress of London, in 1896, in its last session had voted the following resolution:
The bureau of the Congress is charged with drawing up the invitation to the next Congress, appealing exclusively to:
1° The representatives of the groupings which pursue the substitution of socialist property and production for capitalist property and production, and which regard legislative and parliamentary action as one of the necessary means for arriving at this end;
2° Purely corporative organizations which, though they do not engage in militant politics, declare that they recognize the necessity of legislative and parliamentary action.
In consequence the anarchists are excluded.
The verification of the delegates’ mandates will be made by their respective nationalities, except for an appeal to a special Commission, elected by all the nationalities represented at the Congress. The mandates of all nationalities represented by fewer than five delegates will be submitted to the mandate-verification committee, as will doubtful mandates.
The Congress decides that the next Congress shall take place in Germany during the course of the year 1899. In case of an impediment to the holding of the Congress in Germany, it is resolved that the Congress shall assemble at Paris in 1900. (1)
To make this resolution well understood, it is not useless to reproduce two other texts which were not put to a vote. The first had been proposed by the Social-democratic Federation of England; it was worded thus:
The mandate for the next International Congress will be limited to social-democratic organizations (as well as to trade chambers) whose object is the socialization of the means and instruments of production, of transport, of distribution and of exchange; which strive to attain this object by parliamentary and other political means; which wish to establish in each country a parliamentary and political party, independent and isolated from every other bourgeois political party; and which submit themselves, finally, to the authority of the majority.
The other text, signed by Liebknecht, Singer, and many German, Austrian, Danish, Polish, Dutch, etc. delegates, was worded thus:
The next International Socialist Congress will take place in the year 1900.
There shall have access to it the representatives of the socialist parties and the workers’ organizations which stand on the ground of the class struggle, who recognize the conquest of political power by the working class as necessary for their liberation. To arrive at this end, they regard legislative and parliamentary action as one of the essential means. Those who do not possess universal suffrage must make every effort to conquer it.
The anarchists and their allies — even if they call themselves anti-parliamentary communists (1) — cannot take part in this Congress, to whatever organization they may belong.
According to Eugène Guérard, the German and English texts were even more rigorous and the last paragraph read: “The anarchists and their allies, even if they call themselves anti-parliamentary communists or by any other designation…”
[note: (1) The analytical official proceedings record that this resolution had been tabled by Liebknecht; this is an error. Eugène Guérard, who was a member of the bureau, informs us that it had been drafted by Vandervelde and amended by Millerand. — Eugène Guérard, The Congress of London, page 29.]
[note: (1) This formula was directed against the friends of Domela Nieuwenhuis and of Cornelissen in Holland.]
PREPARATION OF THE CONGRESS
The General Committee of the French Socialist Party (Parti socialiste français) addressed in May 1900 the following appeal to the workers’ and socialist organizations of the two worlds, in view of the International Congress of 1900:
Citizens and comrades,
The Committee of Socialist Understanding which, in the course of the year 1899, linked the five national organizations constituting the whole of the French Socialist Party, has already addressed to you a circular explaining the reasons for which it was taking the initiative of convoking a preparatory conference for the International Socialist Congress of 1900.
This conference, which was held at Brussels on the 27th and 28th of May 1899, took the decisions which we publish hereafter. These decisions were accepted by the five organizations then adhering to the Committee of Understanding. Since then, the Committee of Understanding has handed over its powers to the General Committee which issued from the Congress of socialist organizations of December 1899. It therefore falls to the General Committee to make known to you that the next International Socialist Congress will take place from the 23rd to the 28th of September inclusive.
This Congress, the fifth in date since the proletariat of the two worlds decided to hold again its great periodic assizes, will succeed the great Congress of Paris (1889), of Brussels (1891), of Zurich (1893), of London (1896), where each time there was affirmed, more united, more coherent, and more formidable, the power of the workers organized upon the ground of the class struggle.
Before separating, the Congress of London had entrusted its powers to a permanent bureau charged with convoking the next Congress under certain clearly determined conditions. This Congress was to be held either in Germany, in 1899, or in France, in 1900, if major obstacles — as in fact came to pass — should prevent our German comrades from carrying out their mandate.
Toward the end of the year 1898, we were warned by our friends in Germany that we should have to substitute ourselves for them in proceeding to the organization of the Congress. The Committee of Socialist Understanding had just then been constituted. It took this work upon itself; and at once it concerned itself with sparing the future Congress the difficulties which had appeared at previous international assemblies. Drawing its inspiration therefore above all from the special situation of the socialist and workers’ organization in France, the Committee of Understanding, while remaining faithful to the inner sense of the resolutions of the Congress of London, rallied, with complete unanimity, to the idea of a political socialist Congress — that is to say, of an assembly in which the adhesion of corporative groups would entail the recognition by these groups of the necessity of socialist political action.
It is in this spirit that there was drawn up the first circular which we addressed to our comrades of the two worlds. It is in this spirit also that there presented themselves to the Brussels conference, which we had convoked, the delegates of the five organizations adhering to the French Committee of Socialist Understanding.
But here a difficulty arose. The permanent bureau of London, likewise convoked to Brussels, was unwilling to give up its powers, into the hands of the Committee of Socialist Understanding, unless the latter accepted to the letter the conditions of invitation formulated by the preceding Congress. The Brussels conference had to judge this dispute, and finally settled it in a sense which permits the French organizations to prepare, in the best interests of the proletariat, the great workers’ and socialist assizes of 1900.
Here are the terms in which the permanent bureau handed over its powers to the Committee of Understanding, recalling first the decisions of the Congress of London and arriving then at the resolutions resulting from the compromise concluded at the Brussels conference between the French socialist organizations and the socialist organizations of the other countries:
The Congress of London gave mandate to its bureau to convoke the next Congress at Paris, in 1900, appealing exclusively to:
RESOLUTION OF LONDON
1° The representatives of the organizations which set as their aim the substitution of socialist property and production for capitalist property and production, and which regard legislative and parliamentary action as one of the necessary means for attaining this end;
2° Purely syndical associations (Trade-Unions) which, without taking part in militant political action, declare that they recognize the necessity of legislative and parliamentary action; consequently, the anarchists are excluded.
In execution of this mandate, we the undersigned, members of the bureau of London, have transmitted our powers to the members of the French Committee of Socialist Understanding, with the mission of inviting to the Congress:
RESOLUTION OF BRUSSELS
1° All associations which adhere to the essential principles of socialism: socialization of the means of production and of exchange; international union and action of workers; socialist conquest of public powers by the proletariat organized as a class party;
2° All corporative organizations which, placing themselves upon the ground of the class struggle and declaring that they recognize the necessity of political — and therefore legislative and parliamentary — action, do not, however, participate in a direct manner in the political movement.
This compromise solution was adopted unanimously by the eleven nations represented at Brussels, with the exception of France, which reserved its reply until after consultation of the five organizations adhering to the Committee of Understanding.
With the same unanimity, the preparatory conference decided that, after having heard the declarations of the bureau of London and taken cognizance of the circular of the French Committee of Socialist Understanding, it gave power to the latter, subject to its acceptance of the compromise solution arrived at, to convoke in the terms reproduced above the next International Congress at Paris in 1900.
The five organizations adhering to the Committee of Understanding having unanimously subscribed to the resolutions of the Brussels conference and accepted the mandate to convoke the Congress of 1900 under the conditions proposed, the General Committee, inheriting the rights and obligations of the Committee of Understanding, has become the Committee of Organization of the International Congress, and brings to your knowledge the series of questions which constitute the provisional order of the day of the Congress, and which are these:
1° Execution of the decisions of the Congress. Search for and application of practical means for the understanding, organization, and international action of workers and socialists;
2° International labor legislation by the limitation of the working day. Discussion on the possibility of a minimum wage in the various countries;
3° Of the necessary conditions for the emancipation of labor: a) Constitution and action of the proletariat organized as a class party; b) Political and economic expropriation of the bourgeoisie; c) Socialization of the means of production;
4° International peace, militarism, suppression of standing armies;
5° Colonial policy;
6° Organization of maritime workers;
7° The struggle for universal suffrage and direct legislation by the people;
8° Communal socialism;
9° The conquest of public powers and alliances with the bourgeois parties;
10° The First of May;
11° Trusts.
Since then, the Revolutionary Socialist Workers’ Party (Parti Ouvrier Socialiste Révolutionnaire) has proposed to the various nations the following amendment, the inscription of which on the order of the day is at this time accepted by six nations out of eleven:
Does not the growing movement of the concentration of capital, the economic disorder, irreducible by political means, resulting from their competition, and, in consequence, the unceasing aggravation of the situation of the workers, render inevitable a direct conflict between labor and capital, which shall take the form of a general strike?
Citizens and comrades,
We invite you therefore to come to the International Socialist Congress of Paris.
A subsequent circular will make known to you the arrangements taken by French socialism, united wholly in a single thought of understanding and of common action, in order to reserve to the delegates of all countries the most fraternal hospitality and to assure, in the face of the world, the brilliance and the grandeur of the fifth international manifestation of the working class and of the Socialist Party.
Please address your reply to the secretary of the General Committee of the Socialist Party, citizen Louis Dubreuilh, 7, rue Portefoin, Paris.
CONVOCATION OF THE CONGRESS
The Congress was convoked by the following circular:
The Congress will open on Sunday 23 September 1900, salle Wagram, avenue Wagram, at ten o’clock precisely in the morning.
The first session will be devoted to the verification of the mandates of the foreign nationalities; the afternoon session, beginning at two o’clock precisely, to the verification of the mandates of the French nationality.
It is well understood that the validation of mandates at the International Congress does not prejudge that which will take place for the second General Congress of socialist organizations, the conditions of admission not being the same for the one and the other Congress.
The secretary,
Louis DUBREUILH
FIRST DAY
Session of Sunday 23 September 1900 (morning)
MEETING OF THE FRENCH SECTION
Before the opening of the Congress, the French delegates meet beginning at a quarter past ten to elect their bureau. Citizen Dubreuilh (P.S.R.), secretary of the General Committee, mounts the tribune. He declares that it is by error that certain comrades believe that the French section is to meet this morning. He says that the French section was convoked only for two o’clock in the afternoon.
Citizen Briand (F.S.R.) mounts the tribune.
[note: The sessions of the first day not having been taken down in stenography, the text has been established by Hubert Lagardelle with the help of the proceedings in the Petite République, the German proceedings, the analytical official proceedings, and his own notes.
We recall the abbreviated formulas used to designate the different French parties: P.O.F., French Workers’ Party (Parti Ouvrier Français) or Guesdist party; — P.S.R., Revolutionary Socialist Party (Parti Socialiste Révolutionnaire) or Blanquist party (Vaillant, Sembat); — A.C., Communist Alliance (Alliance communiste; Dejeante, Groussier); — P.O.S.R., Revolutionary Socialist Workers’ Party (Parti Ouvrier Socialiste Révolutionnaire) or Allemanist party; — F.T.S.F., Federation of the Socialist Workers of France (Fédération des Travailleurs Socialistes de France) or Broussist party, which ordinarily adds to its title that of Revolutionary Socialist Workers’ Party; — F.S.R., Revolutionary Socialist Federation (Fédération Socialiste Révolutionnaire), instituted to give to the Independents a central organization. The Communist Alliance being regarded as an annex of the P.S.R., one always speaks of the five organizations.]
Citizen Briand. — The General Committee resolved that the first meeting of the International Congress would be held at ten o’clock, on 23 September, and that the French section would be held at ten o’clock in the morning. In conformity with its decision, we are all here. It is incomprehensible that one should propose to us an adjournment. (Uproar on the benches of the P.O.F. and the P.S.R. Applause from the other side.)
Citizen Allemane (P.O.S.R.). — I am the author of the proposal adopted unanimously by the General Committee. I can therefore recall its terms without fear of error. It is indeed at the hour which citizen Briand has just indicated that the meeting of the French section was fixed. No misunderstanding can therefore subsist. So I invite citizen Dubreuilh to proceed to the formation of the bureau. (Uproar.)
Citizen Dubreuilh does not reply.
Citizen Allemane. — Since it is so, I am going to put to a vote the constitution of the French section. Those who are of the opinion that the French section should be formed will kindly indicate it by raising their hands. (The right alone raises its hands. — Uproar on the side of the P.O.F. and the P.S.R. — Two names are pronounced for the presidency: those of citizens Jaurès (F.S.R.) and Vaillant (P.S.R.). — Indescribable uproar. — Cries on the side of the P.O.F. and the P.S.R. — The two parts of the section trade invectives. — Jaurès is elected and takes his place at the bureau. — The right acclaims him. — Uproar on the left.)
Citizen Jaurès urges the French delegates to name two assessors. Citizens Allemane and Vaillant are designated. Citizen Vaillant refuses to take his place at the bureau, the validity of this meeting being contested and the mandates not being verified. The uproar takes up again. Citizen Heppenheimer (F.T.S.F.) is elected assessor and citizen Briand secretary.
Citizen Frebourg (P.O.S.R.). — I propose that the bureau we have just elected remain in office throughout the day. (Uproar.)
Citizen Journoud (Federation of Saône-et-Loire). — I propose to the French section to decide, as a general rule, that the bureau which has presided over a session shall no longer be eligible for re-election. (Various movements. Uproar.)
Citizen Tanger (P.S.R.). — We cannot, citizens, constitute our bureau before the mandates of the delegates have been verified. Let us verify them first: we shall elect the bureau afterwards. (Applause from the P.O.F. and the P.S.R.)
Citizen Devernay (P.O.F.). — Citizens, I do not put in doubt the good faith of anyone. But we, in the North, where our Federation is so strong, have habits of organization. I am quite willing to believe that all the mandates are regular; that is possible. But it is none the less true that they must be examined before we can take a valid decision. (Approbations on the benches of the P.O.F. and P.S.R.)
Citizen Briand. — Citizens, the question which arises has been settled within the General Committee. I appeal to the loyalty of all here, and I challenge a single one of our comrades of the General Committee, belonging to the P.O.F. or the P.S.R., to bring here the least denial of my words. If the General Committee allowed itself to be more absorbed by the preparation of the national Congress than of the international Congress, to whom, citizens, does the fault belong? In the impossibility in which it found itself of verifying in good time the mandates of the delegates to the international Congress, the General Committee decided to give to each organization the task of supervising its own mandates. That is what was done. Each organization thus keeps its full moral responsibility. We respect therefore, scrupulously, the will of the General Committee: its decisions are our law. I repeat that no contradiction to what I affirm could be produced, and I request that the French section declare itself constituted. (Applause on the right. Protests on the left.)
Citizen Allemane. — Citizens, it must not be forgotten that for a long time now the foreign comrades have been awaiting impatiently the moment when the French delegates should kindly constitute their section. They press upon you that you no longer delay the opening of the International Congress.
I propose to you therefore to go immediately and bid welcome to the foreign delegates, and I request that the French section declare itself constituted. (Uproar. Applause on the right.)
Citizen Jaurès. — Citizens, I close the session, expressing the most profound hope that the French section will not give the socialists of all countries the distressing spectacle of its divisions. (Vigorous applause on the right. Uproar.)
The French section proceeds to the hall of the Congress.
INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS
It is a quarter past eleven. The bureau of the French section, composed of citizens Jaurès, Allemane, Heppenheimer, and Briand, takes its place upon the platform. The foreign congress-members applaud at length.
Citizen Jaurès. — In the name of the socialists of France, I salute the delegates of the socialist proletariat of the universe, gathered here for their fifth International Congress. And I invite immediately each nationality to delegate its representatives to the bureau of the Congress. (Applause.)
The bureau of the International Congress is thus constituted for the first session:
German section. — Paul Singer, president; David, secretary.
English section. — Pete Curran, president; Quelch, secretary.
Austrian section. — Doctor Adler, president; Skaret, secretary.
Belgian section. — Émile Vandervelde, president; Léon Furnémont, secretary.
Bohemian section. — Nemec, president.
Bulgarian section. — Ledenski and Mario Guesde.
Danish section. — Knudsen, president; Borgbjerg, secretary.
Spanish section. — Pablo Iglesias, president.
American section. — Lucien Sanial, president; Krellow, secretary.
French section. — Jean Jaurès, president; Allemane, Heppenheimer, assessors; Aristide Briand, secretary.
Dutch section. — Van Kol, president; Troelstra, secretary.
Italian section. — Andréa Costa, president; Enrico Ferri, secretary.
Polish section. — Lunanowski, president; Daszynski, secretary.
Argentine section. — Achille Cambier.
Russian section. — Kritchevsky, president; Plekhanoff, secretary.
Swedish section. — Menander and Andersson.
Swiss section. — Furholz, president; Rapin, secretary.
Citizeness Clara Zetkin is translator for German and citizen Smith translator for English. (1) Citizen Furnémont, member of the Chamber of Representatives of Belgium, fulfills the functions of secretary.
The members of the bureau take their places, and, as soon as calm is restored, citizen Jaurès, president of the first session, pronounces the following address:
Citizen Jaurès. — Citizens and comrades of all countries, it is with deep joy and emotion that, in the name of the whole Socialist Party — the organized workers of France — I bid welcome to the organized socialists, to the proletarians of all countries.
Certainly, never was this gathering of the socialist and proletarian representatives of all countries, of all continents, of all races, more necessary and more decisive than at the hour when, everywhere, among all peoples, capitalism is trying to rouse the chauvinist bestiality and the nationalist delirium; than at the moment when, everywhere, to serve the interests of invading capitalism, the bourgeoisie is trying to revive racial antagonisms and to hurl the peoples one against the other. It is a great and necessary manifestation that the proletariat affirms today its will to maintain universal peace.
Citizenesses and citizens, our order of the day, the order of the day of the International Socialist Congress, comprises, at the same time as this great question of peace, all the other questions on which, at this hour, controversies arise in the socialist parties of all countries. We shall discuss here, but we shall easily know how to find formulas of agreement; we are the Socialist Party, that is to say the party which, without disdaining the immediate and constant amelioration of those who labor, does not forget the final end, the complete abolition of capitalism and the establishment of collective property. And it is because we all have this same spirit that we shall give to the world the example of socialist peace.
Ah! citizens, allow me, in the name of our comrades of France who have not yet achieved among themselves complete unity, the organic unity of which all the other countries have given us the example, allow me to express the wish that the example of the strength which organic unity gives to the socialist parties of the other countries may know, by friendly propaganda, how to counsel us to complete unity, unity among socialists, in order to prepare unity among men by the social revolution. (Vigorous applause and unanimous acclamations.)
[note: (1) The Italians, the Dutch, and the Russians spoke in French.]
Citizen Singer, president of the German section. — I have been charged by the national Congress of the German socialist democracy, which has just been held at Mainz, to come here to bid you welcome and to bring you the cordial greeting of your brothers in arms of all races, of all nations.
The German democracy is unanimously convinced of the necessity of marching hand in hand with the socialist proletarians of all countries, in order to break the yoke of capitalism and arrive at the economic expropriation of the bourgeoisie. Just now the Congress of Mainz recalled the memory that twenty-five years ago there were within the German socialist democracy the same dissensions, the same differences of opinion, as there are currently in the French socialist party. The German socialist democracy triumphed over these dissensions by drawing inspiration from the idea that, in spite of apparent differences, all of us are in agreement as to the final end. That is what brought about German socialist unity, and that is what has caused the German democracy to be able to attain a strength and a vitality such as no socialist party of Europe can show the like of.
The whole history of the German socialist democracy proves that the more socialists of all shades are united, the more the will of the proletariat asserts itself.
We also, at the Congress of Mainz, concerned ourselves with a question which our international Congress will have to treat: the colonial policy organized everywhere with so much obstinacy by militarism and capitalism in order to increase still further the exploitation of the proletariat. Well, the Congress of Mainz declared that the proletariat would oppose to the war policy of militarism and capitalism the policy of universal peace and international solidarity.
I close by expressing the assurance that the same fraternal convictions which brought about unity among the German socialists will bring about unity among the French socialists; and it is for this that I invite you to cry out louder and higher than ever in the face of the capitalist world: Long live the Socialist International! (Vigorous applause.)
Citizen Pete Curran, president of the English section. (1) — The English section is unanimous in approving the words of Jaurès and of Singer on international solidarity and peace. The English deputation is absolutely opposed to the imperialist policy of the government. (Applause.) Trade-unionists and socialists are agreed in condemning the policy of armed pillage in South Africa. (Applause.) They are likewise opposed to that state of theft within capitalism. If you have no visible king, you have invisible uncrowned kings against whom you, French socialists, must fight. And to carry this combat to a good end, all your forces must be concentrated and united. (Applause.)
Citizen Hyndman, of the English section. (1) — May it be permitted me, before we listen to the fraternal greeting of our comrades from abroad, to address to the German delegates a word of sympathy and condolence for the loss they have suffered and which the international proletariat has suffered in the person of our regretted Liebknecht. (All the congress-members rise and approve by unanimous applause the words of our comrade.) … Liebknecht lives at this moment in this assembly. (Applause.) French, English, Belgian, Italian, etc. socialists, let us all send our greeting to the widow of Liebknecht and to the German comrades. (Long emotion. All the delegates are standing acclaiming the memory of Liebknecht.)
[note: (1) Of the Independent Labour Party (party of Keir Hardie).]
[note: (1) Of the Social-democratic Federation.]
Citizen Jaurès. — The whole International Socialist Congress associates itself with the sentiments expressed by Hyndman. (Applause.) Liebknecht had a sort of particular sympathy for France; he affirmed it before the tribunal of Leipzig, and so the French socialists join with all their hearts in the words of our comrade Hyndman.
The Congress likewise bears witness of all its sympathy to the Russian comrades for that other great militant of the Revolution who was called Pierre Lavroff. (The assembly standing applauds.) And it associates itself, finally, with the mourning which has struck our comrades by the loss of citizeness Eleanor Marx, daughter of Marx. (Applause.) All that strikes the family of one of the great founders of the Socialist International strikes the whole socialist family. (Enthusiastic applause on all the benches.)
Citizen Andréa Costa, president of the Italian section. — It is with joy that the Italian socialists have come to the fifth International Congress. We have conquered the bloody reaction of 1898, we have well deserved of liberty. The Italian monarchy ran up against our tireless obstruction: it appealed to the country, and the country answered it by increasing our votes, by increasing our mandates. (Applause.) Now, the monarchy tries to exploit against us the attempt at Monza, and in spite of that two new socialist deputies have been elected only a few days after the death of King Umberto. It is because we, Italian socialists, as our recent Congress showed, are united. With us there may be discussions among us, but thanks to the unity of the party, there can be no divisions. (Prolonged applause.)
It is therefore with the consciousness of having done their duty that the Italian socialists hold out their hand to you and prepare to fight with you. (Unanimous applause.)
Citizen Adler, president of the Austrian section. — I bring to all the foreign socialists the fraternal greeting of the Austrian socialists. We, who have had to constitute, in Austria, a little International, know better than anyone the difficulties to be overcome. We come here, as we came in 1889 when we said to the international proletariat that all the proletarians of Austria, of all languages, would be united in socialism, in the march forward. We have kept our word, and we may glory in it! In our unhappy country, where the working class is the only element which can struggle against the bestiality that reigns there, it is social-democracy which is the sole representative of the common interests of all the proletarians of Austria. It was not without difficulties that this unity was constituted. But it must be attained, everywhere there are devoted socialists, (Vigorous applause.) everywhere the representatives of socialism set the essential and lasting interests of the proletariat above small differences of opinion, of doctrine, and of theory (Prolonged applause.) … everywhere there are socialists resolved to give their blood, determined to sacrifice to the cause of socialism their caprices, their vanities, their prejudices. (Vigorous applause.) I speak from experience. These lessons we have paid for with our blood. The best of our work lies in this unification of the proletariat. I hope that this Congress, which will express the unity of the social-democracy of all countries, will also be the point of departure of a great and irresistible movement for the further unity of French socialism, which will assure the triumph of socialism. (Long ovation.)
Citizen Vandervelde, president of the Belgian section. — In the name of the Belgian Workers’ Party (Parti Ouvrier Belge), I thank you, citizens and comrades, for your kind welcome.
Since the last International Congress, doing in our little country our integral duty as socialists, we have fraternally practiced socialist union. (Applause.)
In the first times of Christianity, the pagans, seeing the spectacle of the union of the first Christians, said: “See how they love one another!” This love of the first Christians constituted the strength of their doctrine. In Belgium, currently, the bourgeois say of the socialists: “See how they love one another!” It is the recognition of our union and of our strength. Our example must serve you, French comrades. (Repeated applause.)
In 1889, there were in the same city two Congresses which seemed to be enemies. (1) Yet unity was achieved the following year. (Applause.) Comrades, we are united, and this union is our sole strength. May it be permitted me to hope that the unity of the French socialist party will soon be achieved. (Repeated applause.)
French socialists, unite. (Applause.) In spite of appearances, socialist union is on the march among you. The obscure militants who do not mix in the polemics between the schools want it. (Applause.) Those who carried in 1793 the flag of the Revolution were adversaries, but when the cannon thundered, they made common cause against the enemy. Socialists of 1900, will you do less than the bourgeois of 1793? (Enthusiastic applause.) The enemy is around you. He watches for you. Concentrate all your energy against the common enemy. French socialists, unite. (Long applause. Ovation. — Cries of: Long live Unity.)
[note: (1) There was on one side the Workers’ Party founded in 1885 by De Paepe and Volders, and on the other side the Republican Socialist Party, which attached itself above all to De Fuisseaux. — Jules Destrée and Émile Vandervelde, Socialism in Belgium, page 21, and pages 91-100.]
At this moment, citizen Jaurès reads to the assembly a letter from comrade Katayama, editor in Japan of The Socialist World. “Tell the Congress well,” writes our comrade, “that there is in the Far East a poor companion who works in the same cause as you, European socialists. He would have wished to come to the International Congress at Paris, but poverty prevents him from doing so.”
Citizen Jaurès, after having finished the reading of this letter, every passage of which was applauded with enthusiasm, adds: At the very hour when the Far East is the theater of war, it is consoling to see that even there, the internationalist spirit is awakening. (Applause.)
Citizen Troelstra, secretary of the Dutch section. — I am happy to salute, in the name of the Dutch socialists, the companions in struggle of the whole international proletariat.
At the Congress of London, a split occurred among the Dutch socialists. (1) But at the present hour, they have cured themselves of the malady of individuals and of the harmful influence of the sectarian spirit. (Vigorous applause.) They are united. (Applause.) You must be united, French comrades; the enemy is there and you quarrel with one another! It is a crime against the proletariat! (Enthusiastic applause.) If we were not the guests of the French socialists, we should have gone just now to the hall where they were gathered with the red flag and we should have shown them the inscription it bears: “Proletarians, unite!” (Repeated applause on all the benches.)
[note: (1) At the session of 30 July, Domela Nieuwenhuis left the Congress, declaring that he would not take part in idle discussions. (Cf. Mouvement Socialiste: 1 and 15 September and 15 December 1900, the articles by Vliegen and Cornelissen on socialism in Holland.)]
Citizen Plekhanoff, secretary of the Russian section. — It is in the full measure that they are conscious of their class interests and that they are united, that the Russian proletarians march hand in hand with the world proletariat. You remember Jacoby’s saying: The formation of the smallest trade union has, for historical evolution, more importance than the battle of Sadowa. For Russia that is truer than for any other country. It was at first the students, the cultivated people, who were the bearers of the Russian revolutionary movement in revolt against tsarism. Today it is the workers who lead, with all their energy, the struggle against despotism. They fight not only for the economic emancipation of their class, but also for the liberation of all peoples from the knout of Russia. (Vigorous applause.)
Citizen Kritchevsky, president of the Russian section. — I ask you to brand the odious monstrosities of tsarism and to adopt the two orders of the day that I am going to read to you:
“The Polish, Jewish, and Russian revolutionaries, deported as socialist militants by the government of the Russian tsar to one of the most distant places of Siberia, together with the inhabitants of that locality who sympathize with them, assembled on the first of May 1900, in friendly meeting, on the day of the First of May, the festival of the international solidarity of the proletariat, have decided, unanimously and with enthusiasm, to send their cordial greeting to the International Socialist Workers’ Congress of Paris and to wish it from the bottom of their heart the best success in its work. Long live democratic socialism! Long live the International Socialist Workers’ Congress!”
“The workers’ organization comprising workers of all professions, in all the quarters of Saint Petersburg, salutes the International Socialist Congress.”
Citizen Knudsen, president of the Danish section. — The socialists of Denmark bring you here their most fraternal greetings. When the revolution of 1848 swept its tempest over Europe, the swells of it were transmitted within the borders of our country, and already at that period a great part of the working class grasped the true character of that movement. Nevertheless, this comprehension was not lively enough to impose itself in a general manner. With us this movement ended, as in several other countries of Europe, in the collapse of absolute monarchy and the establishment of a bourgeois and liberal constitution.
It was the resounding of the heroic combats of the Paris Commune in 1871 which awakened the spirit of the Danish workers and caused there to be hoisted in their country the red flag of internationalism. The next civilizing flood of the great nations will find in Denmark an army of workers well organized and ready to cooperate in the accomplishment of the great revolutionary work, that is to say, in the definitive and irrevocable crushing of the capitalist Moloch and the founding of the new society of liberty, equality, and fraternity. (Repeated applause.)
Citizen Daszynski, secretary of the Polish section. — I bring the greeting of crushed and bruised Poland, where the class consciousness of the proletariat is beginning at last to assert itself. We want international peace. And we want it at the very moment when the capitalists illustrate their phrases in favor of peoples by erecting a rampart of bayonets! We want with all our forces the unity of the Polish proletarians, but we want it only under the flag of revolutionary socialism. (Vigorous applause.)
Citizen Nemec, president of the Bohemian section. — The last Czech socialist Congress gave me the mission of coming to salute the members of the International Socialist Congress. It is with profound joy that I acquit myself of this task. If we are only a small party, we are nevertheless good socialists, like all of you, comrades. And to world social-democracy, we address our best wishes! (Applause.)
Citizen Furholz, president of the Swiss section. — We do not have, precisely, in Switzerland, a very strong organization. Perhaps it would be otherwise, if we had been somewhat persecuted, instead of being in possession of all political liberties. Be that as it may, the Swiss Workers’ Party (Parti Ouvrier Suisse) gives the example of a perfect unity, in spite of the difference of languages, of customs, of the different cantons that compose our country. You can have confidence in us! We shall march, always and by common accord, with the foreign socialists! (Applause.)
Citizen Menander, of the Swedish section. — In the name of my comrades of Sweden, I associate myself with the words and the wishes that have been addressed from this tribune to the international socialist proletariat. We hope to arrive, in Sweden, at important results by the compact grouping of all the workers’ and socialist forces of our country. As Swedish industry progresses, socialism also grows, in parallel, and takes its place in the great international socialist movement! (Applause.)
Citizen Iglesias, president of the Spanish section. — I salute the International of the workers. We must oppose our unity to the unity of Capital. International capitalism seeks to set proletarians against proletarians and to throw them into conflicts as criminal as they are odious. You have not forgotten, comrades, the acts of Spanish capitalism in the Philippines and you see those of English capitalism in Africa. Let the internationally organized working class answer these monstrosities! (Vigorous applause.)
Citizen Cambier, of the Argentine Republic. — I shall content myself with associating myself, in two words, with the words of all the speakers who have preceded me at this tribune. In the name of my comrades of the Argentine Republic, I cry with them: Long live the Socialist Union! Long live the Social Revolution! (Applause.)
Citizen Sanial, president of the American section. — The American socialists have taken a modest role in the international socialist movement; but they are called today to play one of the most important roles. In the West there begins to shine the great capitalist sun which will modify economic conditions and hasten the advent of socialism. American capitalist concentration, which is going to seek to struggle against European capitalism and is going to set the proletarians of one country against the proletarians of another country, necessitates the international socialist organization which will remind the workers of their duties and prevent murderous struggles from which the capitalists alone would profit. (Applause.)
The socialist idea has already made progress in our country. At the elections of 1896 we had obtained only 46,000 socialist votes; two years later, at the elections of 1898, we obtained 80,000. These figures show you that before long several hundreds of thousands of workers will be ranged under the flags of international socialism. (Applause.)
Citizen Sanial translates his speech for the English and American delegates, when citizen Lafargue (P.O.F.) rushes to the tribune, which is immediately invaded. A violent exchange takes place with the president. Citizen Lafargue claims the floor. It is granted him. Indescribable uproar on the tribune. Calm is restored little by little. Citizen Lafargue is able to speak.
Citizen Lafargue. — Citizens, I have a protest to read to you. Here it is:
Whereas the verification of powers for the French section had been, by decision of the General Committee and through the press, fixed at two o’clock in the afternoon; whereas without awaiting the fixed hour, beginning this morning and without any verification of powers, taking advantage of the absence of a great number of delegates, there was proceeded to the constitution of a bureau having no qualification to speak in the name of the French delegation:
The French Workers’ Party, the Revolutionary Socialist Party, the Communist Alliance, the Federation of Syndicates of Saône-et-Loire, the Autonomous Federation of Saône-et-Loire, the Autonomous Federations of Haute-Saône, Doubs, and Haut-Rhin protest before all the socialist parties represented at the International Congress.
For the P.S.R.: the secretary, Landrin. For the P.O.F.: the secretary, Guesde. For the Communist Alliance: the secretary, Marchand. For the Federation of Workers’ Syndicates of Saône-et-Loire: the general secretary, Chalot. For the Autonomous Federation of Saône-et-Loire: the general secretary, Journoud. For the Federations of Doubs, Haute-Saône, and Haut-Rhin: the general secretary, Perrin.
The session is closed. It is half past two. The delegates leave the hall to the singing of The Internationale.
SECOND DAY
Session of Monday 24 September 1900 (morning)
The session is opened at quarter past ten, under the presidency of citizen Singer (Germany).
The president. — In the name of the bureau, I declare that we are all in agreement in considering that the bureau which presided over yesterday’s session was essentially provisional, that it is therefore important that all the nationalities constitute immediately the definitive bureau; and, addressing myself specially to all the French comrades of the five organizations present, I invite them to remain in this hall and to designate immediately their delegates to the bureau of the Congress. I invite them after this session of pure form, which will last only a few minutes at most, to assemble in this hall, while the other nationalities will likewise assemble in their respective locations, to designate likewise their delegates to the commissions.
At the close of this plenary session, each nationality is invited to designate two delegates per commission. The commissions will meet immediately, from ten o’clock until noon, and from two to six. All members of the Congress have the right to attend, with consultative voice, the sessions of the commissions.
I recall that at the preceding Congress, the plenary assembly met only when one of the reports had already been presented.
Citizen Furnémont (Belgium). — Given that we have twelve questions on the order of the day, and that we have only three days before us, I propose to sit in the morning from ten o’clock to noon and in the evening from two to six.
Despite the protests of the English delegates, who wished that the sessions last only until five, Furnémont’s proposal is adopted.
The president. — Here are two telegrams which the bureau of the Congress has received:
The first is from Nîmes:
Citizens assembled in number five hundred to celebrate Socialist People’s House of Nîmes send fraternal greeting witness sympathy to the representatives of the socialist world gathered International Congress.
The second telegram from Carmaux:
Socialist militants Carmaux send to representatives of international proletariat their fraternal greetings. Make vows for international socialist unity, for emancipation of humanity and fall of capitalist society, so that at last justice and equality reign through communist society. (Applause.)
I propose that the Congress admit the provisional order of the day en bloc and that the questions be discussed and put to a vote as and when the different commissions have finished their work.
Citizen Fribourg (P.O.S.R.). — I protest against the working method proposed by the bureau: it is inadmissible that a commission bring us here an opinion of a few men, which we shall then have to discuss, when the Congress must, during the general discussion, indicate to the commissions in what sense the resolutions are to be presented. It is not acceptable that the Congress tell us that it does not have time to proceed thus; the method I propose is not any longer: when a question has been discussed, one will name the commission which will have to present to you its report in the form of a resolution, and one may then discuss the other questions. Then, we shall indeed have the opinion of the Congress, and not only the opinion of a commission. (Applause.)
The president. — I propose to reject Fribourg’s proposal, although in principle it is excellent; but it would be necessary, for it to be applicable, that the Congress sit for three months. (Laughter.) I put to a vote the proposal of the bureau. — Adopted unanimously.
The president. — I propose that the plenary session be adjourned to two o’clock, so that the different nationalities may constitute the commissions and designate the delegates to the definitive bureau. At two o’clock we shall begin the regular work of the Congress; I hope that at that hour, the French comrades will have come to an understanding. (Laughter and applause.)
The secretary. — At the session it held at Brussels, the commission charged with preparing the order of the day of the International Congress stopped at the first eleven points. The French General Committee, after having taken the opinion of the various nationalities, added a twelfth point, the general strike. In order to avoid all discussion concerning the irregularity of this decision, I ask that the Congress decide that the twelfth point be inscribed on the order of the day. (Approbations.)
The president. — It is understood that this question is inscribed on the order of the day, subject to its being discussed. — Adopted.
The president. — There is nothing further on the order of the day of this session and we may close it.
Citizen Furnémont. — I must indicate what is happening from the point of view of the hall: the delegates have to assemble in a room of which the proprietor of the establishment has refused me the key, on the order, it appears, of citizen Dubreuilh. (Exclamations on certain benches. — Numerous voices: Dubreuilh to the tribune.)
Citizen Dubreuilh (P.S.R.). — I have not had to concern myself, for my part, with the material part of the organization of the Congress; it is citizen Boutié, treasurer of the General Committee, who rented the hall, and he is going to furnish you explanations in this regard.
Citizen Boutié (P.O.F.). — When we came to negotiate, in the name of the organization commission, for the rental of the hall, the proprietor agreed to rent us this one and the small adjoining room. Yesterday morning, I had asked as a favor of the proprietor of the hall that he kindly agree to rent us the large hall, so that, when we are gathered with the foreign comrades, we should all be more at ease. But when we saw that the French section, which had as its duty to meet here, was going into the large adjoining hall and in sum was usurping a right which it did not have… (Violent protests on a great number of benches. Uproar.) we thought we should hold to the contract and not ask the proprietor for anything other than what had been agreed.
The plenary session is closed at eleven o’clock.
MEETING OF THE FRENCH SECTION
The session is opened by citizen Allemane (P.O.S.R.).
The president. — I give the floor to citizen Delory.
Citizen Delory (P.O.F.). — Our friends of the other nationalities have urged us to accomplish two acts: in order to take part in a regular manner in the International Congress, we have to designate a definitive bureau and to elect members for the different commissions.
A few comrades and I — who think that if we had explanations to exchange, they should be exchanged only when we have finished the work that we have to accomplish with the foreign comrades — make to our French comrades the following proposal: Since we have the right to have two delegates to the bureau, each fraction could put forward one name for each commission and the two comrades who would have the most votes would be those who would be our delegates in the commissions and at the bureau. I make this proposal because we think, my friends and I, that we must find a system which permits us to arrive at a result — without prejudging in any way the ideas of anyone — for the moment when we must present ourselves before our foreign comrades, in order not to give them the spectacle of our small divisions. (Vigorous approbation.) If we continued to discuss beyond the fixed limit, our foreign comrades could tell us that it is to their detriment that we did it, because we prevented them from accomplishing a useful task.
The president. — We are going to proceed to the vote under these conditions. Are you of the opinion that one place thirteen hats, twelve for the commissions and one for the bureau, and that each of the fractions place a name? … (Hesitation of a great number of delegates.)
Citizen Jaurès (F.S.R.). — It seems to me that Delory’s proposal is acceptable; and the objections that a certain number of comrades seem to make to it come from the fact that it has not been well understood. Citizen Delory proposes, given that we have the right to designate two members for each of the commissions, that each of us vote only for one name. That gives, consequently, the certainty, to each of the two tendencies which divide the Congress, of having a representative. (Applause.) Under these conditions and to avoid all prolongation of struggle, I rally very willingly, for my part, to Delory’s proposal.
Citizen Guesde. — Here is the motion that I am charged to make to you in the name of the P.O.F., of the P.S.R., and of a certain number of revolutionary-socialist departmental federations:
Resolved to fulfill to the end our international duty, we propose to the French delegation to suspend all conflict during the duration of the International Congress, and, since there exist two manners of conceiving socialist action and policy, to attribute to each of these fractions, without seeking where the majority or the minority lies, a president at the general bureau and a delegate to each of the twelve commissions. (Noise.)
If you wish the struggle to take up again, you have only to reject this proposal, which we make to fulfill our duty toward the foreign socialists. (Applause.) It is, in sum, the Delory proposal, but explained by a statement of motives.
Citizen Gérault-Richard (F.S.R.). — We are as penetrated as our comrades on the other side of the hall with our duty of hospitality toward international social-democracy; we even alone proved it yesterday. (Vigorous interruptions from the side of the P.O.F.) I propose that, if the Delory proposal is accepted, each of the two fractions in presence designate on its side its delegates to the bureau and to the commissions; and we shall thus avoid every sort of conflict and every sort of confusion. (Numerous approbations.)
Citizen Delory. — For my part, I see no inconvenience in proceeding as Gérault-Richard requests; if I had proposed another procedure, it was so that nothing of our divisions should appear outwardly; we admit the two manners of proceeding, provided that we do not waste the time of our foreign comrades. (Applause.) Once one has accepted the principle, let the comrades who constituted the provisional bureau of yesterday organize the ballot, in order to show that we raise no suspicion in their regard.
Citizen Jaurès. — It is not surprising that a proposal relative to a voting mechanism, which is produced without its having been able to be examined by the various organizations here present, should arouse some confusion and some hesitation. For my part, I insist on repeating that I adhere to the Delory proposal, because it permits each of the two tendencies here represented to have the certain guarantee of being, in fact, represented in the commissions and at the bureau. But it seems to me that it would be very dangerous to give to this vote the form of a classification, of a tearing of the Congress. (Applause on certain benches.) I find, in this sense, that it is very dangerous, as Gérault-Richard seems to propose, as the considerations of Guesde seem to propose, to attribute to what one calls each of the two fractions the direct and explicit choice of its representatives. I prefer the Delory system, which permits each of the tendencies to have guarantees, without there being an official rupture. (Applause.) It is for this that I rally to this latter proposal.
Citizen Gérault-Richard. — I am of the opinion that we all accept the Delory motion; but it is on the mode of voting that I differ with Jaurès and that my proposal does not seem to have been understood: I ask that each of the two fractions name its delegate for the presidency, and its delegates for the commissions. I shall ask also, in order to efface every trace of dissension, that the general list be submitted to the ratification of the whole assembly.
A voice. — It should not be said before the vote that there exist fractions of socialism: there exist no fractions of French socialism.
The president. — I put to a vote the Delory proposal, without modification.
Citizen Delory. — We rally very willingly, in order to be done with it, to the Gérault-Richard proposal. — Adopted.
Citizen Camélinat (F.S.R.). — We all want to go quickly. I am a partisan of the Delory proposal, but I judge that, in order to go quickly, we must not vote as citizen Delory indicated, but vote by show of hands. We have only to designate our candidates on both sides. — Adopted unanimously.
A part of the assembly acclaims the name of citizen Renou (P.O.S.R.) as president; the other that of citizen Vaillant (P.S.R.). These two names, put to a vote, are accepted unanimously. The vote is hailed by the cries of: Long live the Commune!
The session is suspended and resumed at noon.
Citizens Delory and Jean Longuet (F.S.R.) read successively the names of the delegates chosen to form part of the commissions. Here are these names:
First commission. — Execution of the decisions of the Congress. Search for and application of practical means for the understanding, organization, and international action of workers and socialists. — Marcel Sembat and Hubert Lagardelle (1).
Second commission. — International legislation of labor for the limitation of the working day. Discussion on the possibility of a minimum wage in the various countries. — Groussier and Moreau (of the Omnibus).
Third commission. — Of the necessary conditions for the emancipation of labor: a) constitution and action of the proletariat organized as a class party; b) political and economic expropriation of the bourgeoisie; c) socialization of the means of production. — Lafargue and Ponard.
Fourth commission. — International peace, militarism, suppression of standing armies. — Vaillant and Allemane.
Fifth commission. — Colonial policy. — Roldes and Lagrosillière.
Sixth commission. — Organization of maritime workers. — Lavigne and Brunellière.
Seventh commission. — The struggle for universal suffrage and direct legislation by the people. — Lepage and Dalle.
Eighth commission. — Communal socialism. — Delory and Flaissières.
Ninth commission. — The conquest of public powers and alliances with the bourgeois parties. — Guesde and Jaurès.
Tenth commission. — The First of May. — Journoud and Cadenat.
Eleventh commission. — Trusts. — Argyriadès and Willm.
Twelfth commission. — The general strike. — Zévaès and Briand.
[note: (1) In this list, the first name is that of a representative of the left of the Congress (Guesdists, Blanquists, and allied groups).]
The results are adopted unanimously, by show of hands, and hailed by acclamations.
The session is closed at a quarter past noon. The members part to the singing of The Internationale.
AFTERNOON SESSION
The session is opened at twenty to three, under the presidency of citizen Singer (Germany).
The president. — We have learned with great satisfaction that the French comrades have come to an agreement for the choice of the presidents and of the delegates to the commissions; and we are particularly happy that citizens Vaillant and Renou have been elected presidents. (Vigorous applause.) Here is the list of the members of the bureau elected by the foreign sections:
(This list is the same as for the first session.)
The bureau was unanimous in deciding that each day there should be two presidents of different nationalities; for today, it has decided that citizen Vaillant should preside with me; for tomorrow it will be citizens Andréa Costa and Hyndman.
We have the pleasure of announcing that the Congress will sit beginning tomorrow in the large hall, where we shall be much more at our ease.
(Citizen Vaillant takes his place at the presidency, hailed by long applause and repeated cries of: Long live the Commune!)
Citizen Vaillant (P.S.R.). — In my turn, I come, in the name of the French socialists who have elected us, citizen Renou and myself, as French presidents of this assembly, to speak of the profound solidarity which unites us with international socialism and with all the friends come from abroad, in order to make with us this new pact, stronger still, which must develop the progress and bring about the triumph of socialism. Citizens, we are happy to find here again many of those who in 1889 had come to reconstitute, after the long interruption that the reaction had provoked, these congresses of the reconstituted International, congresses which have so great an importance for the fraternity among socialists of different nations.
If we are happy to see here many citizens who are the veterans of international socialism, allow me to make, as the German socialists did recently at the Congress of Mainz, a backward glance upon those who are no more, and to say with what profound sadness the French socialists no longer see in the ranks of international socialism the one who has so worked for it, our dean, the one who has always been for all of us a model and an example: our friend Liebknecht. (Vigorous approbation.) Citizens, in carrying our memories toward the man who so struggled for the common cause, it is not only a man whom we honor, but all those who have struggled for international socialism, for the emancipation of the proletariat, personified by the one who has done so much for this great cause.
Whatever may be the divisions, whatever may be the particular nuances that may separate us, when we see the great end which is before us, the work of emancipation which is to be performed, all discords cease in order to attain it, for we wish that the French battalions struggle alongside the others, in the international socialist army. (Unanimous applause.)
We are gathered today in entirely characteristic circumstances: never, since there have been International Congresses, have we seen the bourgeoisie so low, and never have the circumstances better characterized its political and economic impotence, its decay, while on the contrary never has the international socialist party been so powerful, so full of courage as at the present hour. We must therefore be certain, in acclaiming international socialism, that in the struggles which are joined, socialism will triumph! (Unanimous applause. — Repeated cries of: Long live the Commune! on the left, and Long live unity! on the right.)
The president. — We are going to proceed, first of all, to the verification of mandates: the rules for this verification have been fixed by the Congress of London; the verifications are done by the respective nationalities; there are discussions in plenary session only for contested mandates.
Citizen Delory, rapporteur of the mandate-verification commission for France, has the floor.
Citizen Delory (P.O.F.). — I beg the French comrades not to find, in the few explanations that I shall be obliged to furnish, any idea of criticism.
We met yesterday, in the afternoon (1), and the organizations present accepted the following proposal: since it was difficult in the actual state of the French delegation to have exactly the mandates deposited by all, we decided to refer them to the verification commission for the National Congress and to take the mandates deposited, minus those reserved; the mandates accepted by this first commission were considered by us as valid. Here are the results for the organizations present yesterday:
[note: (1) In a particular meeting of the French left. Delory’s speech is to be understood only with respect to this particular meeting.]
| Mandates | |
|---|---|
| P.S.R. | 273 |
| P.O.F. | 765 |
| Communist Alliance | 12 |
| Autonomous Federation of Saône-et-Loire | 22 |
| Federation of Workers’ Syndicates of Saône-et-Loire | 12 |
| Federation of Doubs | 17 |
| Yonne | 14 |
Making a total of 1,065 mandates represented by 473 delegates.
We even consent not to discuss the 107 reserved mandates.
We have done the same work for the organizations not represented yesterday, with the figures of the General Committee; but we could name a commission composed of two delegates per association to examine the reserved mandates; or else, in order to go more quickly, since we have no interest, before our foreign comrades, in presenting ourselves with an enormous quantity of mandates, we would accept to present ourselves at the International Congress only with the mandates accepted by the first commission, and all the rest would be reserved for our general Congress. If this manner of proceeding were admitted, according to all the information we have obtained, there would actually be for France 2,268 accepted mandates.
Citizen Briand (F.S.R.). — I am not like our comrade Delory: I do not present myself in the name of the French section as a whole; we did not expect our comrade Delory to make an overall report, in which he would seem, after having formulated a declaration of conciliation, to which we adhere fully, to make before the Congress certain reservations.
Our comrades of the French section, of the P.O.S.R., of the Federation of Socialist Workers, of a certain number of autonomous Federations, of syndicates, and of cooperatives, have understood that in the French section the agreement was made this morning, complete and without reservation, in conformity with a decision of the General Committee on which it is impossible to quibble. Given the conditions under which the International Congress was organized, the General Committee judged that it was impossible to proceed to a validation, to a detailed examination of the mandates; the conditions of admission for the International Congress not being the same as for the National Congress, it was decided within the General Committee that each organization would validate its mandates in a global manner; and this morning, in the French section, we were unanimous in choosing our delegates in common, without reservation. We are simply astonished that our comrade Delory should come to formulate them at this tribune: we abide by the decision of the General Committee, and we say: All our mandates without exception are carried to the International Congress; they have been accepted by anticipation, by a decision of the General Committee. (Vigorous applause on the right.)
The president. — After deliberation with my comrades of the bureau, I declare that all the French mandates have been recognized as valid by the Congress. (Applause.)
The president. — The political organizations of Germany are represented here by forty-five delegates, including among others two women. The German socialist women are represented by two other women delegates. The parliamentary fraction of the socialist party is represented by two delegates; the workers’ syndicates by eight. In sum, the German delegation comprises fifty-seven delegates, whose mandates have been recognized as valid, verification having been made.
The delegate of England, Lee. (1) — I observe that the socialist federations of England, as well as the Trade-Unions, have delegated ninety-five comrades to the International Congress. I declare that their mandates are valid and accepted by all. (Applause.)
Citizen Pete Curran. (2) — I took part in the verification of the mandates of the English delegation and I am desirous of pointing out to the Congress that the English delegation would have been much more numerous if the government had not recently dissolved the House of Commons, and if we were not, at this moment, in the period of general elections. Those who could have been delegates to this Congress are candidates who are making war against the war. (Vigorous applause.)
[note: (1) Of the Social-democratic Federation (party of Hyndman).]
[note: (2) Of the Independent Labour Party (party of Keir Hardie).]
The delegate of Austria, Karpeles. — I indicate that for Austria, it is the same thing as for England: Parliament has just been dissolved; the Socialist Party must prepare for the electoral campaign which is soon going to open, and it has been under the necessity of holding back a certain part of its forces in the country. The Austrian delegation is composed of ten delegates: the political organizations count five of them, the workers’ syndicates two, the workers’ groups of the different industries count three. There have been no contestations concerning their mandates, which have all been accepted. (Applause.)
The delegate of Italy, Enrico Ferri. — As regards Italy, the Socialist Party finds itself under the necessity of reorganizing itself throughout the country, after two years of bloody reaction, reactionary, and then Jesuitical. (Applause.) It is for this reason that the Italian Socialist Party has been able to send only ten delegates from the political groups; the economic groups, the syndicates, in Italy, do not have the freedom to adhere to the socialist party, although they adhere to it in soul and faith. (Renewed applause.) We have in the delegation: five deputies in Parliament, five other delegates for the political groups; one for the Socialist Union of the Italians in Switzerland, and three others for the other Italian socialist groups of Paris, of Nogent, and of Ivry; in all, fourteen delegates for the Italian Socialist Party, which, itself, is unified.
The delegate of Belgium, Furnémont. — The Belgian Workers’ Party (Parti Ouvrier Belge) is represented at the Congress by thirty-seven delegates representing the whole of the political, economic, cooperative organizations and circles of social study. Among these delegates, one finds several citizenesses and five members of Parliament.
The delegate of Russia, Danevitch. — You all know the enormous difficulties that bar the road to the Russian socialist movement; you understand consequently that Russia could not send a numerous delegation. Nevertheless, we have managed to send twenty-nine mandates, and twenty-three delegates, (Applause.) nine for the Social-Democratic Revolutionary Party, twelve for the Union of Jewish Workers, five for the Revolutionaries, and three for the Socialist-Revolutionaries. All the mandates have been validated.
The delegate of Poland, Daszynski. — You also know the great difficulties which socialism in Poland encounters, to organize itself, to give valid mandates, and to fulfill all the formalities.
In conformity with the decisions of the Congress of London, I shall make known the contested mandates, which alone must come up for discussion. There are in all twenty delegates with twenty-four mandates. The section has validated the mandates entrusted to seventeen delegates; five mandates entrusted to three delegates have been contested. There is no doubt to be cast upon the honesty and sincerity of the socialist sentiments of these delegates, but their mandates have not been made according to the prescribed forms…
A voice in the galleries. — You have lied! (Noise.)
Citizen Daszynski. — One citizeness having two mandates, having at the same time mandates for Germany, has contented herself with having them verified by the German section; in order to avoid a loss of time for the Congress, I propose to refer these two mandates, as well as the three other contested ones, to the examination of the Congress, which will decide.
The mandates accepted are ratified.
Citizeness Rosa Luxemburg. (1) — It is with the most profound pain that I see myself obliged to submit to you again the complaints of my comrades against the majority of the Polish delegates. It is moreover not the first time that an International Socialist Congress is going to be scandalized by the spectacle of the discords and animosities that exist within the Polish delegation. You all certainly, citizens, retain the memory of the quarrels that arose over the Polish mandates at the International Congress of Zurich in 1893, of those of the Congress of London in 1896; and today again, the majority of the Polish delegates wishes to abuse its monopolized rights and tries to degrade socialist Poland before the whole world.
[note: (1) Citizeness Rosa Luxemburg spoke in French.]
It is not a question here of formalities, nor of irregularities, nor even of doubt upon the validity of the contested mandates; it is a question at bottom of socialist controversies of program, of tactics, of policy.
You all know that there are in the Polish socialist movement two currents. (1) On the one hand, the purely internationalist socialists, who accept the annexation, and who wish to march hand in hand with their brothers of all countries, without concerning themselves with the unfortunate partition which has been effected between Russia, Germany, and Austria; it is my friends and I who have the honor of representing this fraction. On the other hand, the more or less nationalist socialists, who follow above all the utopian and fanciful plan of the reconstitution of Poland. It is precisely against this harmful utopia, against this nationalist tendency that we struggle energetically, convinced that the proletariat is not in a position to change political and capitalist geography, nor to reconstruct bourgeois States, but that it is constrained to organize itself upon the existing political bases, historically created, in order to realize the socialist conquest of power and the social Republic, (Applause.) which alone can deliver the proletariat of the whole world.
[note: (1) In the International Congresses one votes by nations; but one admits the existence of nations that political geography does not know; thus it is that Bohemia constitutes a nation. But how must one interpret the existence of these units? Should one see in it the recognition of latent historical rights of States that could be reborn? Or should one see in it only the recognition of different languages? For Poland the two solutions are very far one from another. — At the Congress of London, in 1896, Adler had affirmed the second solution and said that there are in Austria four languages, forming four units having a right to representation. (Hamon, Socialism and the Congress of London, page 134.)]
In all our encounters on the field of principles and theories, it is always they, the nationalist socialists, who are obliged to capitulate; it is they themselves who take to flight; beaten, they no longer dare to meet us in full daylight, and there remains to them as a means of struggle against us only intrigue and calumny. Faithful to the principle of Jesuitical politics, that the end consecrates and legitimates the means, they seek to strike us in the back; they seek to calumniate us, saying that we are in the service of the police, the spokesmen of the Germanizing policy of the government; they seek to come to the socialist Congresses in numbers great enough to form the majority and put out the door, in the simplest and most convenient manner, their political adversaries.
Moreover, citizens, it is not a question here of giving the possibility to my two friends and me, whose mandates were contested, of attending the deliberations of the Congress. I, faithful to my principles of international socialism, also belong to the German delegation; I am there and I remain there! (Applause.) But it is a question of the Polish proletarians dispossessed of delegates from Upper Silesia and from Warsaw, who wish to participate in the deliberations of their brothers of the whole world and who have the right to do so; it is a question, further, of the principles of socialist justice and honor. Believe me, citizens, my throat is full of tears at being obliged to denounce here the shameful proceedings of my Polish comrades. What! we have gathered here to deliberate on the ways and means of struggle; what! we have gathered to deliver humanity from bourgeois morality and dogmatic lies, and we have recourse among ourselves to the same proceedings! Let them be ashamed, let them blush, those who come to deliberations on the purest and noblest questions of humanity, with the morality of the bourgeoisie and with the bad faith of the Jesuits! (Vigorous applause.) I give them the assurance of my most profound contempt, and I denounce them to the whole socialist world as unworthy of the honorable name of Pole and of socialist! As for you, citizens, I beg you to validate unanimously all five contested mandates, which find themselves in the hands of sincere socialists. (Renewed applause.) You will thus show to those socialists that the ideal of our cause is not only economic equality and political liberty, but that it is also made of the essential principles of good faith, of justice, and of fraternity! (Prolonged applause.)
The president. — I give the floor to citizen Adler; then I shall give it to comrade Daszynski.
Citizen Adler (Austria). (1) — There is no reason to examine in public session of the Congress the question of mandates which divides the two Polish fractions; it is for the bureau to settle the question, by virtue of a previous decision; and it will do so in the broadest spirit of conciliation.
[note: (1) Exceptionally this speech was translated by citizen Vandervelde.]
If I have asked for the floor, it is because, on the subject of a verification of mandates, citizeness Rosa Luxemburg has pronounced words that I consider as absolutely calumnious with regard to Daszynski and the other Polish comrades. In the name of the Austrian delegation, I declare that it is always heart and soul that I have fought on the terrain of internationalism with the so-called nationalists of whom she has spoken, who are faithful companions. The differences which exist between our Polish comrades are differences of an essentially metaphysical nature, to which, as a theorist, I attach a real importance, but to which, as men of action, we ought to attach only a very secondary importance. Without engaging in any attack against citizeness Rosa Luxemburg, I take with all my energy the defense of the Polish comrades, to whom one has just addressed the epithet of nationalists, which, in an assembly of French socialists, is the most damning accusation that one can imagine. (Vigorous applause.)
I ask you therefore to leave to the bureau the task of settling this question of procedure and to acknowledge that, in spite of the differences which exist between our brothers of Poland, they are all internationalist socialists, profoundly devoted to the common cause. (Prolonged applause.)
(Daszynski wishing to take the floor, the English delegate Hyndman protests against this discussion of mandates; other English delegates join him.)
Citizen Daszynski. — I make the observation that when I treated this question of mandates, I dispensed myself from attacking or insulting the adverse fraction of the Polish socialist party. I did my duty in acting thus and in declaring objectively that these mandates for serious reasons had not been validated. I have no phrases to make to prove that we are good internationalists who have been calumniated: our work of fifteen years, unceasing and pacific, with the socialists of all countries, proves it. I am a member of the Austrian socialist parliamentary group, and I have had the honor of being elected president of that fraction by socialists of several nationalities.
(The English delegates rise and protest anew energetically against this discussion.)
Citizen Hyndman (England). — We request that all contestations of this kind be settled by the bureau.
Citizen Vandervelde (Belgium). — The Congress of London, observing that these questions of verification of mandates were causing it to lose precious time — and you yourselves observe it — formally decided that in the future they would be settled in the last resort by the bureau. From then on, it seems to me that there is no reason to put to a vote the proposal of comrade Hyndman. We must put into execution the decisions of the Congress of London.
Citizeness Rosa Luxemburg makes known that she accepts the referral to the bureau.
The president. — The question will therefore be regulated by the bureau.
The delegate of Bohemia. — The socialists of Bohemia are represented here by two delegates, in the name of the political and syndical organizations. The mandates have been verified and found in order. If there are no more delegates for Bohemia, it is because the Socialist Party there has need of all its forces to organize the struggle, in view of the new elections.
The delegate of Switzerland. — The Swiss Socialist Party and other cantonal and local organizations are represented by eleven mandates and ten delegates; all the mandates are in order, and there has been no contestation.
The delegate of Denmark, Knudsen. — The Danish Socialist Party is represented at this Congress by nineteen delegates: three represent the sections of the political socialist organization; three represent the syndical organizations; three represent two other organizations; there is one delegate of the cooperatives of the bakers and butchers, two delegates for the auxiliary workers; the other mandates are for the molders and stokers, the navy, the workers of the port. Whereas we had sent only nine delegates to the Congress of London, we have been able to send this time nineteen; you see that despite the recent lock-out we have made progress in international socialism.
The delegate of Holland, Van Kol. — The Social-Democratic Party of Holland is represented by nine delegates, representing nine mandates, which have all been validated, and we are happy to be able to say that the Dutch mandates have no story to tell. (Applause.)
The delegate of Spain, Pablo Iglesias. — The Spanish delegation is composed of four delegates: three from the Socialist Workers’ Party and one from the General Union of Workers, which comprises one hundred and twenty-six syndicates.
The delegate of Sweden, Menander. — The socialist party has three delegates: two for the Socialist Party and one for the Federation of Transport Workers; these three mandates have been validated.
The delegate of the United States, Sanial. — The Socialist Workers’ Party of the United States is represented by six delegates: one general delegate elected by the Party as a whole, four delegates of the different States, one delegate for the Trade and Labor Alliance. The American Socialist Workers’ Party and the Trade and Labor Alliance have just reconstituted, from top to bottom, the economic and syndical movement upon truly socialist bases, in order to be able to struggle against the capitalist power which is rising in America. The American Socialist Party therefore sends six delegates. But it appears that there is another organization which has taken the honored name of Social-Democracy and which wishes to be represented here by men who have been expelled from the Socialist Workers’ Party. The importance of unity, in America, is today very great… (The English give signs of impatience.) The American Socialist Party is a strong, disciplined party, but one in which discipline starts from below and imposes itself of itself. (Applause.)
Before admitting anyone into the Socialist Party, we make sure that he has honest intentions and that he is truly a socialist. Then, if he commits some offense or other against socialism, by a general vote of the Party, and not by the action of certain men, by the referendum, by a vote which takes place from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from the great northern lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, he can be definitively excluded. (Renewed applause.) There is not a man imbued with sincere socialist ideas who has the least pretext for seeking to form a party outside of this great party. (Marks of vivid impatience from the English delegates.) But, as I was indicating, we have been under the obligation of repudiating certain persons who had principles opposed to socialism…
Citizen Hyndman. — This discussion concerns the bureau. We cannot allow it to last any longer.
The president. — I declare this discussion closed.
The delegate of the Argentine Republic. — The young Argentine Party is represented for the first time in an International Congress; its resources are too modest for it to have several delegates; but although young and poor, the Argentine socialist party can be given as an example to our comrades the French socialists, for the Argentine socialist syndicates and groups, composed of citizens belonging to all the nationalities of the world, march closely united hand in hand toward the common ideal: the transformation of individual property into collective property.
A voice from the P.O.F. — That does not suffice!
The Delegate. — And we pursue this transformation by every means, even the most revolutionary.
The delegate of Bulgaria. — The Bulgarian Socialist Party held this year its first national socialist Congress. It counts sixty-one committees; during the year just elapsed the Party organized two hundred and eighty-one socialist conferences and public meetings.
Citizen Jaurès makes known that three mandates have been entrusted to him for Portugal.
The delegate of Ireland. (1) — Ireland has sent three delegates, and it is the indication of a great progress to see that in a country as unhappy, as backward, an agricultural country, deprived of resources like Ireland, socialist associations have been able to develop and form themselves.
[note: (1) At London, Ireland did not yet form a nation distinct from England. The humorist B. Shaw represented a Dublin group (he was one of the founders of the Fabian Society); when France was divided into two sections, he asked laughingly “to form the national section of Ireland.” (Hamon. Op. cit., page 142.) The separation of Ireland is not founded upon the same reasons as those of Bohemia and Poland.]
The delegate of Norway. — In the name of the extreme north of Europe, I come to express to you our sentiments of solidarity. At the general elections, a few days ago, we were able to obtain a high number of votes, and the socialist idea spreads everywhere. We hope to acquire something of the practical and organizational spirit that one finds in England and something of the lively and brilliant spirit that one finds in France!
The president. — We have received the following telegram:
The Romanian socialists, regretting that they cannot participate in the International Socialist Congress, send to the comrade congress-members fraternal salutations. — Long live the International of the proletariat! (Applause.) (1)
We have likewise received telegrams of congratulation and adhesion from the Council of Social-Democracy of Scotland and from the General Union of Spanish Workers. The General Council of the Young Belgian Socialist Guards asks me to announce to the delegates of the Youth groups who are here that the International Congress of Socialist Youth will open, this evening, at the People’s House, rue Ramey. (Applause.) The commissions are going to meet to settle their working method.
The session is closed. At the exit, a collection is taken for the strikers of Giromagny.
[note: (1) At London, Romania was represented; but since that time there have been many divisions in the Romanian party.]
THIRD DAY
Session of Tuesday 25 September 1900 (morning)
The session is opened at a quarter past ten under the presidency of citizen Andréa Costa (Italy), assisted by citizen Hyndman (England). (1)
The secretary. — We have received a telegram from the Dutch and Spanish socialists greeting the universal proletariat and crying: Long live the International!
The president. — The bureau met this morning and, after having heard a delegate of each of the two opinions, resolved to admit all the mandates of the American section. (Approbation.) It has likewise admitted all the mandates of Poland. (Vigorous applause.) Tomorrow’s session will be presided over by citizens Vandervelde (Belgium) and Adler (Austria).
The first question on the order of the day is the putting into execution of the decisions of previous Congresses. In the first rank of these decisions figures the search for and application of practical means for the understanding, organization, and international action of workers and socialists. I give the floor to the rapporteur, citizen Van Kol.
[note: (1) Of the Social-democratic Federation.]
Citizen Van Kol (Holland). (2) — In our commission, where the delegates of all the countries represented at this Congress were present, there was unanimity on the principle of the inevitable utility of having a permanent international body, in order to translate into acts the resolutions which have been taken at the different Congresses. As the struggle becomes more and more bitter on the part of the International of the capitalists, it is urgent to organize the International of the proletariat. If we wish to stir the deep masses which still remain far from socialism, if we wish to make a gigantic propaganda in every country, in order to succeed in making the will of the proletariat dominant, this permanent body must be created.
[note: (2) Citizen Van Kol has written in French and in German under the pseudonym of Rienzi; he was obliged to use a pseudonym at a time when he was an official of the Dutch government in the Indies. (See by him Socialism and Liberty, published in 1898 with Giard et Brière.)]
We have, as a first obligation, to create a committee which will do its utmost to arrive at a better organization of the Congresses in order to do good work and to give more facility to the numerous members who come from all parts of the world to work for the cause of socialism. To execute the resolutions taken at the Congresses, a permanent international committee will be needed, which will be a central link uniting all the tendencies toward the same end, wishing to pass by various paths, composed of delegates of all countries; this committee will formulate the order of the day of the Congresses and will request reports, for each question on the order of the day, from each nationality adhering to the Congresses.
With the creation of the committee (1) there will impose itself the charge of a salaried general secretary, having as his mission to procure to each one the necessary information, to draft an explanatory code of the resolutions taken at the Congresses, to distribute reports bearing on the socialist movement of all countries, to publish a general overview of the questions on the order of the day. In this way, we can be certain that we shall no longer speak into the void, but that we shall truly do useful work. The same general secretary will have to publish a manifesto on the important political questions for the international movement and shall have to take all measures of action and international organization of the proletariat.
[note: (1) The principle of a permanent committee had been voted at London. (Hamon. Op. cit., page 164 and page 267.)]
On the theoretical question, there has not been diversity of opinion; but on the manner of choosing the delegates, on the place where the international committee will meet, on the financial question, we have discussed much. As regards the expenses, it was decided that they would be paid by the different nations in a manner whose detail will be given further on.
A few arguments will suffice to convince you of the absolute urgency of creating this central body. We need not fear that the permanent committee will have the fate of the General Council of the old International; we live in very different times. The General Council of the International expressed the dream of a few thinkers and not at all a living reality. They had given too ample a form to too young an idea; but at present socialism grows every day, and it is no longer the sickly child it was then, sinking under garments too heavy; it is the robust woman, with powerful breasts, who needs a double elastic corset to contain the ever-growing forms of the international movement. (Applause.)
This creation will be only the embryo of a more powerful organization that we shall try to create, if you are willing to accept to take the following resolution, which has been formulated by the unanimity of the members of the first commission:
The International Socialist Congress of Paris, considering that it is important for the International Congresses, destined to become the Parliament of the proletariat, to take the resolutions that will guide the proletariat of the whole world in its struggle for deliverance; that these resolutions, results of international understanding, must be translated into acts; decides to take the following measures:
1° An organization committee will be named, as quickly as possible, by the socialist organizations of the country where the next Congress will be held;
2° A permanent international committee, having a delegate for each country, will be formed and will have at its disposal the necessary funds. It will set the order of the day of the following Congress and will request reports on the questions of the order of the day from each nationality adhering to the Congress;
3° This committee will choose a salaried general secretary, charged: a) with procuring the necessary information; b) with drafting an explanatory account of the resolutions taken at previous Congresses; c) with distributing reports on the socialist movement of each country, two months before the new Congress; d) with establishing a general overview of the reports on the questions to be discussed at the Congress; e) with publishing from time to time pamphlets, manifestoes on questions of actuality and of general interest as well as on important reforms, and studies on grave political and economic questions; f) with taking the measures necessary to favor the action and international organization of the proletariat in all countries.
There, citizens, is the resolution that the first commission proposes to you; I hope, with all my heart, that you will accept it; you will be creating there the germ of a strong organization which is called to a great future; you will thus be planting the sapling which will grow and become a great and robust oak, in whose shade the militants of all countries will meet and where they will come to draw a new impetus, a new strength for the new combats, destined to result in the conquest of the capitalist world. At the top of this tree, you will see floating the red flag of the International, the oriflamme of the world proletariat, for which so many of ours have already fought and fallen! … (Vigorous applause.)
As a good socialist and a poor financier, I was about to forget the principal thing; I have spoken of the theoretical question, but I have not treated the practical question: the question of money. In this regard, we have had long discussions. Finally, we have thought that to create this permanent committee, it would suffice us, to begin with, with a sum of ten thousand francs to have a salaried secretary and meet the other expenses: expenses of premises, of correspondence, of translation, etc. We have estimated that this sum could be gathered; we have made a list of the ten countries that would contribute the greatest part, because by reason of their number of adherents, their financial effort can be more substantial; these are: France, Germany, England, Austria, Belgium, Italy, Holland, Denmark, Switzerland, the United States, who could give eight hundred francs each, which makes eight thousand francs. It was decided, in addition, that the other countries, whose organizations are not yet developed, would be charged with providing each two hundred francs, that is the two thousand francs remaining to be covered.
Citizen Smith (England). (1) — I judge that the ten thousand francs will serve only to demonstrate that they are absolutely insufficient; for the expenses of publications, of travel, and others would require much more than that. It is not ten thousand francs that we would need, but a hundred thousand or even five hundred thousand francs. Well, we can easily arrive at gathering this sum: all the persons who are socialists call themselves internationalists; well, it would suffice to ask each person wishing to adhere to any socialist organization to pay before any subscription that of ten centimes for the international committee. Since the organizations already comprise in France several hundreds of thousands of adherents and since there are millions of socialists in Europe, with ten centimes per year per person, we would arrive at gathering considerable sums.
[note: (1) Of the Social-democratic Federation. Let us recall that he was official translator at the Congress.]
Citizen Anseele (Belgium). — I believe it would be good not to lose too much time discussing this question and, to achieve it, I make the following proposal: that we vote first immediately without discussion on the question of principle. Does the Congress want the international secretariat, yes or no? Second vote: Does the Congress accept the sum of ten thousand francs to be gathered by the different countries? Third vote: What will be the country where the secretariat must sit?
We shall thus be able to pass more rapidly to another question.
Citizen Wagner (France). — I support the comrade who has just proposed to you to divide the work in order to go faster; I judge that we must first arrive at a rapid solution on the principle. On the other hand, it seems to me that the sum of ten thousand francs of which we have spoken is too small, but that also the sum of one hundred thousand or five hundred thousand francs is exaggerated; I would propose as a compromise fifty thousand francs. To find this sum, I propose that each organization admitted to the International Congress (syndicates, cooperatives, and political groups) commit itself to paying a sum of such-and-such, which would be indicated for each of the nationalities, according to the strength of its organizations.
Citizen Van Kol. — Citizen Smith has proposed a larger sum than mine; but I believe we must take into account that the organizations of each country have charges of propaganda and action, for which they appeal to their members, and that one can hardly ask for an additional subscription from all the members adhering to the economic and political organizations. I believe that in asking too much one will obtain nothing. We have amply discussed the financial question; we have admitted a reasonable sum which can suffice for the remuneration of the secretary, for the expenses of premises which will be very small, of translation and of correspondence, as well as for the printed matter, which may also be paid by the organizations. I believe therefore that I can maintain that ten or twelve thousand francs will be sufficient for the beginning of this organization.
Citizen Quelch (England). (1) — We must agree on the principle of the creation of the international committee, and then we shall discuss the sum.
The president. — Citizen Anseele asks that we decide first on the question of principle; I do not believe there are objections in this regard. (Numerous voices: To the vote!) I put to a vote the adoption of the principle of the creation of the International Committee. — Adopted unanimously. (Long applause.)
The president. — I have received the following proposal, signed by citizen Smith: “I propose that we adopt the sum of ten thousand francs, in order to arrive as soon as possible at one hundred thousand francs, by organizing regular subscriptions in the syndical and political socialist organizations of each country.”
Citizen Hyndman. — I propose to adopt the figure of the commission; it will always be open to increase the expenses if the resources exceed the provisions.
Citizeness Bonnevial (F.T.S.F.). — I am of the opinion that we would arrive at gathering the sums proposed by citizen Smith. It is objected that we already have much trouble finding three francs a year; I know it, even in my syndicate; but I judge that the same person will very willingly give ten centimes every week, even though fifty-two times two sous makes more than three francs; it is therefore a matter of organization.
The Congress must decide that within a determined period a sum must be furnished by all the socialist organizations; it will be for the secretary of each syndicate, cooperative, political organization, to collect at each meeting of the group the ten centimes per head from each member. People give at the door of all meetings; there is no one who does not put his hand in his pocket to take out at least ten centimes; well, people will take them out for this purpose, and it would be a shame to observe that in the whole socialist world, one cannot find one hundred thousand francs; it would be a painful avowal to make. The creation of this committee will be the link which will affirm precisely that international solidarity which we have all acclaimed. I support very warmly the proposal of citizen Smith; and I believe that the practical means of realizing it, I have just indicated to you. (Applause.)
[note: (1) Of the Social-democratic Federation.]
A Delegate. — I find the proposal of ten thousand francs insufficient; and I am a partisan of fixing from today the annual subscription of ten centimes. I judge that there is a very simple means of collecting this sum of ten centimes: when a comrade adheres to any grouping, he pays ten centimes for the card; well, it is certain that he would make no objection to paying ten centimes for his Congress subscription. (Cries of: Closure!)
The closure, put to a vote, is decided.
Citizen Enrico Ferri (Italy). — As president of the first commission, I should like to say a few words: Van Kol has indicated to you the figure that after long discussion we decided to propose to the Congress. We have seen that one must distinguish between platonic flights and practical realizations. On the other hand, since we are in an international Congress, since we have the happiness of observing that there are at least ten countries in which the Socialist Party is solidly organized, with a central treasury, and since there are other nationalities which are in the process of organizing, we have thought that the best means of arriving at the financial realization of this international secretariat was to ask the central treasury of each nation for its contribution; each national treasury will have as its mission to apply the Smith proposal: it will ask of the syndicates and the political organizations ten or fifteen centimes, and the ten thousand francs requested will thus become five hundred thousand francs. (Laughter and applause.)
Citizen Wurm (Germany). — It is the German delegates who put forward this question of the pecuniary means necessary for the functioning of the international secretariat, and they declared that on the solution that was going to be taken would depend their decision regarding the resolution as a whole.
It is understood that for the beginning, for the first year, the ten thousand francs requested by the first commission will be sufficient; but later one may leave to the nationalities represented the task of increasing as and when they can the contribution to be furnished. But one cannot oblige the different nationalities to commit themselves to furnishing a subscription foreseen in a certain manner. One cannot commit oneself in particular on behalf of the syndicates, especially for Germany where the syndicates cannot act jointly with the political party. We must vote the principle of a certain sum to be furnished by the various nationalities; and then let them be free to demand from their adherents the necessary subscription as they see fit, and in the manner suiting the country.
Citizen Van Kol. — All the objections indicated here, we have treated, in particular that bearing on the syndicates. It is certain that each nation will be free to find the means most suitable for procuring the offering to which it will have committed itself; and the sum of ten thousand francs which we have proposed commits only the political organizations.
The president. — I put to a vote the proposal of the commission, which has fixed unanimously the sum of ten thousand francs. — Adopted unanimously.
The president. — We pass to the third question: Where will the International Committee sit?
Citizen Hyndman. — I have the honor of proposing the People’s House of Brussels; Belgium is a neutral country and easily accessible to all; and the People’s House, with its excellent organization, its printing press in particular, which will allow certain expenses to be avoided, presents great advantages. I would be happy that we should give this testimony of sympathy to the valiant Belgian comrades.
The president. — Although several speakers are inscribed on this question, I ask the assembly to vote this proposal by acclamation. — Adopted by acclamation.
Citizen Vandervelde. — In the name of the socialist delegation, in the name of the Belgian Workers’ Party, I thank our comrades of all nationalities for the great testimony of esteem and confidence that they have just accorded to their companions in struggle of Belgium.
The International had existed for a long time already in our hearts; for the first time, since the Paris Congress of 1889, we enter resolutely into the path of practical realizations. We shall come out of this Congress with the profound conviction that the links of sympathy that already existed among us have now become links of organization; and, since the secretariat of the new International is founded, I affirm, in the name of the whole Belgian Workers’ Party, that, happy and proud to have to constitute this organization, it will bring before the next Congress considerable results worthy of the grandeur of your resolution. (Prolonged applause.) It was said just now: the decision taken this morning is a decision of great importance; I propose to you to underline it by crying all together: Long live the International of the workers! (Unanimous and prolonged acclamations.)
Citizen Barrât (P.O.S.R.). — In the name of my friends of the P.O.S.R., I make the following proposal:
Considering that the permanent international committee, named by the International Congress of 1900, should not only concern itself with the organization of future International Congresses, but should have extended powers concerning international revolutionary socialist propaganda;
Proposes, in case of an international militarist conflict produced by the ruling class of any country whatsoever, that the committee shall have as its mission to make an active anti-military propaganda, in order to provoke an international strike of bayonets (1), in order to avoid the effusion of proletarian blood, for the profit of international capitalism. (Applause.)
[note: (1) The idea of a military strike had been submitted to the Congress of 1890 by citizen Lavaud, in the name of the P.O.S.R. (Hamon. Op. cit., page 164.) The Barrât proposal gave rise to no discussion.]
Citizen Furnémont (Belgium). — From the practical point of view, the resolution we have taken is excellent; if we could leave here with this committee constituted, we would have rendered a great service to international organization; but I have a scruple of conscience and I submit it to the Congress: I ask whether the delegates have the firm mandate to name, in the name of their country, the one who will represent them in the international organization. The delegations at Congresses are sometimes composed by the chance of circumstances, and the delegates do not always represent the exact and precise thought of the different nationalities that send them. I believe that it would perhaps be better to name this bureau provisionally and to have it ratified by the different parties organized in each of the countries. (Applause.)
The president. — This amendment to the proposal of the commission is accepted by the latter. I put to a vote the proposal as thus modified, that is to say tending toward the nomination of two delegates per nationality to the international committee, with subsequent ratification. — Adopted unanimously.
Citizen Van Kol. — We see that our hearts beat in unison with one another. Comrades, you must complete your work: after having created a commission of international understanding, we must create an interparliamentary commission to facilitate common action on the great international economic and political questions.
We must, in effect, struggle on the parliamentary terrain against the imperialism that is at this moment at its full, when we see in China all the civilized nations dissimulating the most unbridled appetites under the mask of humanity. (Vigorous approbation.) All Parliaments should at the same time make heard a protest against militarism. In the Reichstag, when millions are asked to create a new fleet and the socialist deputies refuse these credits, they are told: “You are without a country; you refuse the millions necessary for the grandeur of Germany; the French socialist deputies would vote them! …” Well! it is necessary that, in every country, there be an interparliamentary understanding, so that, always and everywhere, the conduct of the socialist deputies be the same and that they reply: Not a penny, not a soldier! (Prolonged and unanimous applause.)
As regards the duration of labor, while overproduction increases the number of those without work in proportions never before seen in history, while energetic reforms must be demanded which can ameliorate the condition of the proletariat, it will be necessary that at the same moment all the Parliaments make heard the same complaints and the same demands on the subject of workers’ legislation.
The mission of this commission will therefore be as much economic as political. With the aid of this commission, no grievance of the proletariat will be stifled, for an appeal will be made to public opinion in every country; and the voice of the proletariat will make itself heard and will be repeated in all the countries of the universe where socialism has penetrated.
There is the resolution which must complete the first one you have voted; this one presents no great difficulties; it has the advantage of costing nothing, and its results will be most precious. Here is the proposal I lay before you:
The international socialist committee shall require of the national socialist parliamentary groups the organization of a special interparliamentary commission to facilitate common action on the great international political and economic questions.
This commission shall be adjoined to the international socialist committee.
Adopted.
Citizen Vandervelde. — With several members of the different delegations, I have the honor to propose to the Congress a resolution which our friend Vinck had already taken the initiative on at the International Congress of Socialist Students and which seems to me to be the necessary complement of the resolutions which have just been voted.
We propose, in effect, to give mandate to the workers’ secretariat sitting at Brussels to establish a library of socialism, an international archive which would centralize the books, the pamphlets, the reports, and other documents which relate to the proletarian movement in the two worlds.
In agreement with citizens Ferri and Costa for Italy, Hyndman for England, Singer for Germany, and, I am convinced, numerous friends among the French comrades, I propose the following resolution:
The international secretariat sitting at Brussels shall be charged with constituting the international archive of socialism by centralizing the books, documents, reports concerning the workers’ movement of the different nations.
Adopted.
The session is closed at twenty past noon.
AFTERNOON SESSION
The session is opened at a quarter past two under the presidency of citizen Andréa Costa (Italy), assisted by citizen Hyndman (England). (1)
The president announces that the third, fourth, fifth, and tenth commissions are meeting; the third will meet at three o’clock.
The delegate of Hungary, Tessart. — Hungary is represented only by a single delegate; it is certainly not for lack of solidarity spirit, but because the socialist workers are as poor and persecuted as in any country. I have deposited a printed report on the Hungarian socialist movement. You will be able to see there that hundreds of militants have been shot or are still in prison; and our party
has had to pay heavy fines; so that it finds itself in a very difficult situation. Despite this, it has made every effort to send here a delegate, who comes to work in common with his socialist brothers of the other countries. Comrades, I indicate to you with pain that poverty is nowhere more crushing than in our country and nowhere does socialism encounter more difficulties in its development.
I approve the resolution that the Congress voted this morning, that of the constitution of an international committee; but we cannot commit ourselves at the moment to contribute to the expenses; for the future, we hope that it will be possible; but for the present, we cannot do so. As we indicated in our report, the Hungarian socialist party has not only to combat one of the most reactionary governments, but it has to deplore conflicts within the proletariat itself. The government has succeeded in finding agents of division among us, who even discredit the movement abroad.
We hope nevertheless to overcome all these difficulties; but we make an appeal to the socialists of the different countries to support their brothers of Hungary; I address myself more particularly to the Austrian socialists, who know our unfortunate situation; let them help us to march hand in hand with the universal proletariat! (Applause.)
The president. — In conformity with the decisions taken this morning, the Americans have named their delegates to the permanent bureau: they are citizens Sanial, for the Socialist Workers’ Party, and Jacob Rombro, for the Social-Democracy.
The secretary. — We have received the following letter, addressed to citizen Gérault-Richard:
The internationalist club of Sydney (1), in the colony of New South Wales, sends its wishes to the international Congress meeting at Paris. We hope that this Congress will serve the unity and interests of the proletariat of all countries.
We are too few to be represented at this Congress, but we hope to be able to be at the next, even if there were only a single delegate for all of Australia.
It is not possible to describe the methods practiced by capitalist exploitation in our country, for agriculture and mining exploitation. We must nevertheless mention as a particular trait of proprietary oppression the control exercised by the banks and the mortgage companies over industries and especially over stock-raising, except over the capitalist syndicates. The greatest part of the territory of pastures, the cattle and the sheep of the colony are at present in the possession of the banks, of the mortgage companies which pay with derisory wages the farmers and the laborers.
All powers belong to the English capitalists; the directors and shareholders reside in England. Vexations and lock-outs are frequent in all the industries, and it is not without violence on the part of the officials who, as elsewhere, are the creatures of the proprietary classes.
The question of those without work is relatively as acute in our society as in those of other countries and has forced the government to establish assistance factories in which three to four thousand workers of all categories are temporarily employed by it.
The trade-unionists, although they have a good parliamentary representation in the colony — in effect, at the present hour, they are twenty-two out of one hundred and twenty-five members of the Chamber and thus hold the balance of power between the two bourgeois parties, the free-traders and the protectionists — the trade-unionists do not profess socialist doctrines and do not conscientiously work to establish a social-democratic society by attacking the economic causes of the vexations to which the proletariat is subjected. They content themselves with seeking simple palliatives to the iniquities of the capitalist system.
The trade-unionists are nevertheless here, as in all the other English countries, slightly penetrated with the socialist idea.
We confirm our adhesion to the principles of Karl Marx and to international socialism, and we send to the Congress our fraternal salutations. (Applause.)
[note: (1) This translation, by force of being literal, is little intelligible on a few points. To understand the too-brief presentation of the situation, read: P. Leroy-Beaulieu, The New Anglo-Saxon Societies.]
The president. — A new Italian delegate has arrived from Reggio; his mandate has been validated by the Italian section, which is currently composed of fifteen members.
Citizen Furnémont (Belgium). — The Congress has taken a practical resolution of the highest importance, in instituting an international commission charged with directing the propaganda of the Socialist Party and being its organ in all great circumstances. This demonstrates that international socialism intends to concern itself with the questions which are posed each day before the opinion of the whole world. But we must not, in entering upon this practical terrain, which must lead us to new realizations, forget our revolutionary ideal nor forget the commemorations that are sacred to us.
It is in this order of ideas that I propose to you to decide that next Friday, after the closing of the Congress, we shall go to Père-Lachaise, before the wall of the Fédérés… (Enthusiastic applause.) and that we shall deposit a wreath of red everlasting flowers, whose expenses an international subscription will cover — to the memory of the heroic martyrs of the Commune, who fought for human emancipation and the future of socialism. (New and long applause. Repeated cries of: Long live the Commune!)
The president. — The enthusiasm with which you have accepted this proposal of our friend Furnémont relieves me from having to put it to a vote. I take it that you accept it by acclamation. (Numerous cries of: Yes! Long acclamations.) As regards the hour of this ceremony, we shall take a later decision. Since the English delegation returns to England on Friday, this gathering could perhaps take place on Thursday; the Congress will have to take a decision in this regard.
As we do not at present have a finished report, we propose a suspension of the session for a few minutes. — Adopted.
The session is suspended until half past three.
When the session resumes, citizen Wurm (Germany) has the floor to read a report on the first question of the order of the day examined by the second commission: International labor legislation by the limitation of the working day.
Citizen Wurm. — The commission associates itself with the resolution taken at preceding Congresses; but it must be declared that if the Congress pronounces itself today in favor of the legal day of eight hours, that does not mean that the representatives of the proletariat in the Parliaments can legislate only on this basis of eight hours; if they cannot succeed in legislation on this basis of eight hours, they may legislate on a longer day.
On the other hand, the commission declares that the triumph of this legal day of eight hours is not and cannot be the work either of political action alone, or of isolated economic action, but that it is by political and syndical struggles united that one can arrive at the triumph of this legal day of eight hours. Here is the text of the resolution at which the commission has arrived:
The Congress, in conformity with the decisions of previous international Congresses, considers that the limitation of the working day must continue to be the object of the unceasing efforts of all workers, and declares that the daily working day must be fixed by law at the provisional maximum of eight hours, for the workers of all countries and of all categories;
Pledges the workers’ organizations to pursue the obtaining of this reform by acting in a progressive manner and by uniting syndical action and political action.
Citizeness Sitz (Germany). — In the name of the German citizenesses, I declare myself in favor of the principle of the legal limitation of the working day. People speak now of free labor; there is no such thing if there is no economic liberty of the proletariat. German socialist women are partisans of the legal regulation of labor, because from their point of view it is the basis of all intellectuality, of all progress of the working class, and they are certain that the day when, in the whole world, labor would be legally fixed at eight hours, all political and economic liberties would not be slow to follow this first triumph of the proletariat over European capitalism. (Applause.)
In spite of the principle of the equality of the sexes, or rather because of the principle of this social equality, we must ask a larger, more effective protection for woman than for man; because woman finds herself with regard to man in an inferior situation, as to her legal position, she is more than man subject to capitalist exploitation. By industrial labor, in conquering her economic liberty, she has only changed master: instead of the husband’s rod, she has fallen under the shameful yoke of capitalism, which exploits her still more harshly, in her modesty and her maternal love. (Applause.) By an effective legislative protection, woman would be rendered conscious of herself, of her duties, and of her human rights. The greater the protection, the greater will be the consciousness of woman and the strength to fulfill all her duties.
In asking the protection of woman, one acts not only in the interest of woman, but in the interest of the working class as a whole, because one prevents woman from entering into disloyal competition with man.
There is yet another, more important question; it must be feared that we shall need another generation for the proletariat to reap the fruits of the movement it has begun against capitalist exploitation. In order that it may fulfill the great historical role of the emancipation of the working class and of all humanity, there is need of a proletariat sound in body and in spirit and beautiful in character. Now, the woman bent under the economic and capitalist yoke cannot give birth to children who are strong and ready for this noble struggle. (Vigorous applause.) It is for this that we ask not only legislative protection from the point of view of the hours of work, but an effective protection from the point of view of syndical liberty; we ask that the law do not remain a dead letter in this regard. These desiderata have already been enounced and voted at several national and international Congresses; we ask their putting into force, for they will contribute to the definitive victory of the proletariat as a whole, by ensuring the protection of the working woman! (Prolonged applause.)
Citizen Champy (P.O.S.R.). — I see with pleasure that the question of the eight-hour day, advocated since the Paris Congress of 1889 (1), has gone around the world; it has been discussed and appreciated everywhere. I should like to say a few words on it. It seems to me, given the development of machinery applied to industry and the contribution of science, that one can arrive at producing as much in eight hours as in ten hours. Today one could make the same reform that was made formerly: the day was reduced from twelve hours to ten hours, which is fairly generalized in France. Well, given the new progress, the necessity of defending one’s personal dignity, of educating oneself, of raising oneself by education, in order that we may profit from the progress realized by modern and democratic progress, it is useful and would be possible to reduce this working day to eight hours. Great examples have already been given in Australia, in England, in America, in Belgium, and in other countries; contractors, capitalists themselves have admitted that with a little good will, in improving their equipment, or in making use of their capital to relieve labor, one could arrive at producing as much in eight hours as in ten hours.
[note: (1) There is here a small error; the question is older. (Cf. Gabriel Deville, History of the First of May, Devenir Social, April 1896.)]
And then, even if one produced less, one should only rejoice in it, since there are too many workers and overproduction; in diminishing the number of hours of work, one would therefore realize a progress, since one would avoid unemployment for a great number of us.
Urgent reforms in this direction must be realized. There are industries, in the provinces, where men and women work thirteen, fourteen, and even fifteen hours. There is a means of remedying this state of things by the syndicate: there are syndicates which, gathering nearly all the members of their corporation, themselves fix the duration of labor. In Austria, in Belgium, in Holland, and elsewhere, there are syndicates which have decided that the workers should work only nine hours, others eight hours. It is therefore only a question of understanding. People have unfortunately in France a little too much forgotten the spirit of solidarity.
We must make propaganda, as formerly, in 1870, we made it to overthrow the Empire and establish the Republic; the French spirit and character must be raised up a little, and the sentiment of solidarity developed.
A recent bourgeois congress (1), for the international regulation of labor, declared that the workers of certain industries had been able to emancipate themselves by working only eight or nine hours. It is a precious admission to retain… (These last observations are produced amid noise, a great number of delegates no longer giving their attention to the speaker.)
[note: (1) The speaker alludes here to a Congress held at Paris from 25 to 28 July 1900 (Circulaire du Musée Social, August 1900). The congress-members were almost all social Catholics; the Belgian, English, German socialists who had participated in a meeting of the same kind at Zurich in 1897 (Circulaire du Musée Social, 15 October 1897) abstained in 1900; a few French socialists attended, in particular citizen Champy, who rose with violence against the resolution, which was adopted, of asking the pope to send a delegate to the permanent committee founded after the Congress.]
I know well that you know these questions as well as I, but we must be able to say a few words on what we hold dear… I say therefore, citizens, that we must ask for the legal regulation of labor, but that must not prevent us from trying to arrive at it by means of the syndicates…
Several voices. — Conclude!
Citizen Champy. — We insist on the limitation of the duration of labor to eight hours. (Several delegates ask for the limitation of the duration of speeches. Vigorous approbation.)
The president. — We have considered this question, in the bureau, and we have thought that it was useless, and that the speakers themselves would know how to preside over themselves and sum up. (Laughter and applause.) Nevertheless, I receive a motion asking that the duration of speeches be limited to ten minutes. I put it to a vote. — Adopted unanimously.
The president. — No one further asking for the floor on this first question of the order of the day, I put to a vote the resolution of the commission. — Adopted unanimously.
The president. — I give the floor to comrade Gheude, rapporteur of the second commission, which has studied the question of the possibility of a minimum wage.
Citizen Gheude (Belgium). (1) — The second commission has examined the question of the minimum wage. The order of the day was fixed thus: Examination of the possibility of a minimum wage in the various countries.
The discussion that took place among the members of the commission was rather animated and — I must declare it — a little muddled. It was characterized above all by this essential fact that we saw two very distinct currents take shape concerning the possibility of arriving at this minimum wage: on the one hand the Germans and on the other hand the English. Whereas our English comrades would like to see the law fix the minimum wage, our German comrades maintained this idea that on the one hand, one could not admit, from the socialist point of view, that the law itself should order the minimum wage; and that on the other hand, there is, according to them, a practical impossibility which they consider as insurmountable. (1)
[note: (1) The official analytical proceedings wrongly list citizen Gheude as being German.]
[note: (1) This opposition deserves to fix the attention; it relates above all to economic differences of the two peoples: England, after having governed industry, is on the slope of economic decadence; Germany concerns itself only with conquering external markets.
It must be added that according to Malon, Marx in 1880 was opposed to the inscription of the minimum wage in the French socialist program (Revue Socialiste, January 1887, page 54.)]
We came to an agreement, comrades, on a special formula concerning the indispensable conditions for obtaining the minimum wage. We all found ourselves in agreement to think that what was most essential was the existence in all countries of strongly organized syndicates. We considered that it was materially and practically impossible to arrive at having a serious minimum wage fixed in a lasting manner without there being in the different countries syndicates or workers’ associations powerfully organized and capable of maintaining what would once have been acquired thanks to them.
We further determined what we understood by minimum wage and we found ourselves more or less in agreement — although there was divergence between the majority of the members of the commission and the German delegates — to say that the minimum wage was to be fixed according to the indispensable conditions of life, the necessities of existence envisaged in the broadest manner. (1)
[note: (1) It would be a question rather of the living wage of the English (de Rousiers, The Workers’ Question in England, pages 280-281) than of a true minimum. The difference is great; for it seems that sometimes by fixing a minimum of wages in the specifications of enterprises, one wanted above all to make a vague philanthropic demonstration.]
As to the special means for arriving at obtaining the minimum wage, we added that these means must logically differ according to nations and that it is for these, even for the different regions of one country, to determine which is the surest and most rapid path to follow to arrive at this result.
Finally, we added — and you will find all these points in the order of the day of which I shall give you reading and whose vote we propose to the assembly — that we considered as the most practical means of arriving at obtaining the minimum wage, pressure on the public powers, both those of the State and of the province, of the department, of the Commune, and that one must try that these public powers establish the minimum wage, either by paying it directly to the workers employed on public works, or by imposing it in the specifications of works awarded to contractors. (Applause.) In consequence, we have the honor of proposing to you the vote of the following resolution:
The Congress declares that the minimum wage is only possible where it can be fixed by strongly organized syndicates, that this minimum, whose rate cannot be fixed in a general and unique manner for all countries, must in any case be in relation to the necessities of existence in the broadest manner;
Pledges the workers to pursue the execution of this reform in seeking the most practical means of arriving at it, which will be appropriate as much to the economic and industrial situation as to the political and administrative situation of each region;
Recommends in the first line, to obtain this result, pressure on the public powers and administrations which can establish the minimum wage, either by paying it directly for public works, or by imposing it on contractors awarded the works.
Citizen Molkenbuhr (Germany). — If I rose in the commission against the fixing of the minimum wage, it is not because I do not wish a high wage for the workers; it is because I have the conviction that the State cannot regulate this question and that we can no more have the realization of this question by the international path. I remind you that there was an attempt made in this sense in Paris a century ago: people wanted to fix a maximum price for what served as food; they wanted to arrive at the suppression of misery; but they did not succeed; and at this moment, we are even less in a situation to succeed, because we would not even have the power to fix any prices. We cannot arrive at fixing everywhere at once a minimum wage, since we cannot exercise pressure on the price of necessary things. The only thing we can do is to arrive at having the syndical organizations become everywhere stronger and stronger, and that the syndicates seek to conquer better conditions of life and labor, and also the highest possible wage.
Our English comrades resisted and proposed to fix a minimum wage anyway. We replied that such a sum as could be considered enormous by certain countries, such as Russia, or by another, could be found modest by other countries where wages are already high.
I conclude from this that one cannot fix a uniform minimum wage. We must simply create powerful syndical organizations; we shall thus be able to exercise pressure on all administrations, whether of the State, of the cities, or elsewhere, and we shall then be able to demand that a minimum wage be fixed.
I have said also that this demand for the minimum wage had no socialist character, and the thing may appear paradoxical, but I explain myself. It has been requested that the State assure everywhere a minimum wage to those who work… But we, we say: We must not only assure a minimum wage to those who work, but also a minimum of resources to those who are without work, by reason of unemployment, of illness or of accidents, that is to say to all men without distinction.
I therefore say, as a conclusion, that we cannot regulate this question in an international manner; it can be regulated at most nationally, or by region; I say further that we can, in certain cases, by syndical action, impose conditions of labor upon States and individuals.
I indicate that the German delegates voted against the resolution of the commission, but it is because we had been given an inexact translation of it. Now that we know the true text, we all rally to it; it is therefore unanimously that this text is proposed to the Congress.
The president. — I put this resolution to a vote. — Adopted unanimously.
The president. — The Russian delegation has received a new mandate, which it has validated. This mandate is entrusted to comrade Rubanovitch. We have received two telegrams. The first is sent by the socialists of Hungary, worded thus:
The Social-Democracy of Hungary wishes the different nations to try to obtain emancipation as much in economic as in political relations and the greatest success at the Congress.
The second, from the workers’ associations of Saône-et-Loire, Gueugnon, le Creusot:
The Action Committee calls the attention of the International Socialist Congress of Paris to the comrades of Gueugnon and le Creusot, who have been struggling for fourteen months to shake off the capitalist yoke. To conquer their independence, they need the support and concurrence of the socialists of the whole world. The Committee hopes that the members of the Congress will come by their offering to the aid of their claims; it asks that a collection be made at each session and addresses its socialist greeting to all the comrades!
Signed: Chazel
In conformity with the wish expressed by our comrades, citizens placed at the door of the Congress will collect the offerings of the congress-members. (Applause.)
I give the floor to the rapporteur of the tenth commission, on the question of the First of May.
Citizen Boemelburg (Germany). — The question of the First of May has occupied all the international Congresses since that of 1889. The commission has been unanimous in thinking that the decisions taken by these different international Congresses of Zurich, Brussels, London must be maintained. We propose the following resolution: (1)
The international Congress of Paris adheres, as regards the demonstration of the First of May, to the decisions of previous international Congresses; it considers that the demonstration of the First of May is an effective demonstration for the eight-hour day; it is of the opinion that the cessation of work is the most effective form of this demonstration.
There was unanimity in recommending this resolution within the commission; but there were nevertheless two different opinions. The representatives of two nationalities asked to go further and to make it obligatory for the workers of all countries to celebrate the First of May. But the majority was of the opinion that this was impossible, because for the First of May to be a general demonstration by cessation of work, two preliminary conditions are needed which are lacking in most countries: 1° strong and well-constituted workers’ syndical organizations; 2° a good conception of this demonstration. It would be necessary, however, for the nationalities to strive to make a more energetic, more effective, and more general demonstration in all the countries.
[note: (1) On the origins of this demonstration read the article already mentioned by citizen Gabriel Deville (Devenir social, April 1896). — At London it had been decided that this day would also be devoted to demonstrating against militarism. (Hamon. Op. cit., page 167.)]
It is for this that we must make a very active propaganda to persuade workers first that the reduction of hours of work is an absolute necessity. So that the workers no longer do supplementary hours, they themselves must recognize all the value and all the importance of a reduction of hours of work.
Citizen Journoud (Federation of Saône-et-Loire). — The French section was one of the two nations which asked that on the tenth question, that of the First of May, one should ask all the nationalities to commit themselves in a firmer manner and above all more obligatory to make the demonstration. It was understood that we were to give this demonstration the character of the claim of the registers of grievances of a people to its government; it was understood that it was to be the festival of labor, the festival of workers, and that in this sense each nationality could ask, in each nation, for the claims that seemed to it most legitimate and most urgent, such as for example the eight-hour day, universal suffrage in the nations which do not yet have it.
There is unanimity on this point. But when we asked our comrades to commit themselves to making an active propaganda and to render the demonstration of the First of May more or less obligatory, they recused themselves, for in certain nations the general cessation of work, the first of May, is forbidden and entails certain penalties. The French section therefore rallied to the general proposal; but we still make, in the name of all the members of the commission, a vibrant appeal to all the delegates of the nations represented here to make the most active propaganda in favor of the demonstration of the First of May, day of the claims of the proletariat. (Applause.)
The president. — I put to a vote the proposal of the commission. — Adopted unanimously.
Citizen Ellenbogen (Austria). — The third commission (1) was astonished to have still to treat a question that has been resolved at all the other international Congresses. Formerly, in the time of the anarchists and the old trade-unionists, it was necessary to pronounce on certain points which today are no longer in discussion. The commission has therefore been unanimous in thinking that the theory on these points could not be subject to discussion, that in an international Congress one should restrict oneself to posing some fundamental principles. As a first fundamental principle we agree that the principal task consists in rendering the proletariat conscious of its class claims by slow, patient, and painful work.
[note: (1) The third question was thus posed: “Of the necessary conditions for the emancipation of labor: a) constitution and action of the proletariat organized as a class party; b) political and economic expropriation of the bourgeoisie; c) socialization of the means of production.”]
This great result cannot be obtained by appealing to sentimentalism; it is, I repeat, slow and patient work. This work, according to the commission, would even have another effect: it would cause personal quarrels to cease, and it would show the necessity of unity of thought among the proletarians.
If the commission was unanimous on the principle, it was not so on the form. It is evident that the procedure must be different according to countries; we cannot propose a rule adapting itself to all nationalities; our resolution must therefore leave all liberty. The commission thinks that it is the political and economic organizations that must fulfill this task, which will further accentuate the already important role of the cooperatives. But what is above all needed is that the different groupings of the proletariat march hand in hand.
The commission further calls the attention of the Congress to an important point: we must not await the emancipation of the proletariat from any unforeseen event whatsoever; this emancipation will be only the result of a process of development; and, on the other hand, capitalist society, which profits from the existing state of things, is called to slow down the task of socialism and to mislead the proletariat. But we, we must enlighten the proletariat in order to bring it to realize its historical role, which is to crush capitalist society.
Here is the resolution of the commission:
The modern proletariat is the necessary product of the capitalist regime of production, which requires the political and economic exploitation of Labor by Capital.
Its raising up and its emancipation can be realized only by entering into antagonism with the interested defenders of capitalism, which by its very constitution must result inevitably in the socialization of the means of production. Before the capitalist class the proletariat must, consequently, stand up as a class of combat.
Socialism, which has set itself the task of constituting the proletariat as the army of this class struggle, has as its duty, above all, to initiate it by methodical, reflective, and unceasing work to the consciousness of its interests and of its strength and to use to this effect all the weapons which the present political and social situation puts in its hands and which its higher conception of justice suggests to it.
Among these means the Congress indicates political action, universal suffrage, and the organization of the working class in political groups, syndicates, cooperatives, mutual aid funds, art and education circles, etc. It pledges the socialist militants to propagate as much as possible these means of culture and education which augment the strength of the working class and render it capable of politically and economically expropriating the bourgeoisie and of socializing the means of production.
This first proposal was voted unanimously by the commission; and the one I am going to read to you was voted by the majority:
The socialists of every country commit themselves to intervening so that foreigners, in their respective countries, enjoy the same right of coalition as nationals, and to making use to this effect of all the means at their disposal. (Applause.)
Citizen Harriman (United States). — This question touches America closely, and it is precisely in this regard that the American socialists have divided themselves. There are in America socialists (1) who believe that one should not associate with the American syndical movement because this syndical movement is the theater of political intrigues on the part of individuals gone astray in the syndicates. Other socialists (2) recognize that the syndicates are corrupt, that the leaders are sold; but they think that one must go to these corrupt syndicate leaders to bring them around. They think that these syndicates do not act in the socialist sense or act with capitalism, and that the proletariat does not act entirely in the socialist sense and sometimes acts against the workers’ movement because it is not syndicated. But, in spite of everything, they think that the American socialist workers must place themselves in these syndicates, whatever their corruption may be. These syndicates are autonomous, so there is a means of reforming them; as long as one has not reformed them, one cannot count on a possible uprising of the mass. The syndicates must march in agreement with the socialist movement. I therefore approve the resolution proposed; but I point out exactly how things stand. We are of the opinion of acting, in America, with the syndicates, even with all the corruption they contain. (Approbation.) (1)
[note: (1) Socialist Workers’ Party, which comprises in particular Sanial and Daniel de Léon.]
[note: (2) Social-Democratic Party to which the speaker belongs.]
[note: (1) On the violent quarrels which exist between the socialist parties and the American Federation of Labor (in which Samuel Gompers plays so great a role) see: Vigouroux, The Concentration of Workers’ Forces in North America, pages 318-320.]
Citizen Jean Bertrand (P.O.F.). — I ask for the floor for a point of order. I have a proposal to make to the Congress on the subject of this question. I am astonished to see that the third commission brings us such anodyne resolutions. I am astonished that the creation of social studies, of popular universities is advocated… But it is a long time ago… (Various interruptions.)
The president. — You asked for the floor for a point of order.
Citizen Jean Bertrand. — I propose therefore that the resolutions of the third commission be printed and distributed, for I find that it is inadmissible that the Congress vote presently on these resolutions.
A voice. — I ask that there be a vote… (Cries of: To the vote the Bertrand proposal!)
The secretary. — We are asked to print the resolutions; we ask that the General Committee of the French socialists kindly hand over to us all the documents and the treasury of the Congress so that we can see what it is possible to do…
A voice. — It is scandalous to present so weak a resolution.
The president. — The printing of the motion would be reasonable, and precisely since this morning the bureau has asked that it be furnished the means to have the resolutions printed, but it has not a penny. (Various exclamations.)
A voice. — I ask for a collection at the door… (Vigorous protests. Citizen Delory tries to take the floor in the noise, but his voice is covered by prolonged interruptions.)
The president. — Citizen Jean Bertrand has proposed that the proposals be printed, so that all the delegates may take cognizance of them. The bureau has replied that it would ask nothing better, but that the General Committee of the French socialists has not made an act of presence and that we do not know with what resources we could satisfy citizen Bertrand’s request. We addressed ourselves to the General Committee; if there is here someone who can reply for the General Committee, we very willingly transmit to him citizen Bertrand’s proposal; the bureau would be very happy to have all its proposals printed; not only those at issue, but the others.
Citizen Delory (P.O.F.). — One could appeal to the press… (Interruptions.)
The president. — Citizen Delory has said this: that instead of having printed, we officially, these proposals, we should appeal to the press, so that it may publish them. Well, as for me, I do not accept this proposal. If an international socialist Congress does not have the means to have its resolutions published, I ask you who will do it? (Vigorous approbation.)
Citizen Vandervelde (Belgium). — The only objection to the printing of the reports is the question of money. One of our French comrades, whose tireless devotion is known to all, declares to me that as the matter stands he places himself at the disposal of the Congress to print the resolutions by tomorrow. But I believe I interpret the feelings of the bureau as a whole in expressing the regret that, whereas in all the other countries the expenses of organization had been provided for by the National Party, we found ourselves, in France, in the presence of a General Committee that foreign preoccupations have prevented from acting. (Vigorous applause and various exclamations.)
A voice. — I protest against the words of citizen Vandervelde. (Prolonged interruptions.)
The president. — I am going to make a proposal that will reconcile everything.
Citizen Delory. — In the region of the North we have thought of it. Under these conditions, I am ready to place in the hands of the bureau, in the name of the Federation of the North, the sum necessary to print the resolutions. (Vigorous protests.)
The president. — Citizen Ebers has the floor.
Citizen Ebers (P.S.R.). — Citizens, I have no mandate from the General Committee of the French Socialist Party, but I am a member of it. It is evident that my right and my duty… (Cries of: No, no… Yes, yes.) are to come and tell here our comrade Vandervelde that his criticisms are a little too severe… (Approbation and protests.) … that his criticisms are a little too severe with regard to the comrades members of the General Committee belonging to all the organizations, to all the fractions of French socialism. It is evident, citizens, that the General Committee has acted according to the measure of its means… (Laughter and protests.) We have not here to bring accusations nor criticisms against the General Committee which is the emanation of the whole of French socialism… (Long protests.) The question of the publication of the resolutions is without importance, you know it well. (New protests.)
The president. — The bureau will come to an agreement with the French comrade of whom we have spoken, so that the archives may be given to the secretary. Tomorrow morning, we must discuss the resolutions relative to tactics, to communal socialism, etc. If we are not ready at the beginning of the session for the resolution of which we have spoken, we shall be ready later. But the proposals will be published, the bureau will come to an agreement on this point. The question is therefore deferred to tomorrow.
Citizen Ebers. — The General Committee meets this evening and will speak of this question.
The session is closed at three quarters past six.
FOURTH DAY
Session of Wednesday 26 September 1900 (morning)
The session is opened at ten o’clock, under the presidency of citizen Vandervelde (Belgium), assisted by citizen Adler (Austria).
The president. — Comrades, the order of the day has been fixed thus: We shall finish the discussion begun yesterday, that is to say the discussion on the report of the third commission; then, immediately afterwards, we shall undertake the discussion of the report of the ninth commission on political alliances and the eventual participation of a socialist in a bourgeois ministry. (Movement.) On the subject of the mode of voting on the different reports, the bureau has found itself unanimous in proposing the following measures: to accord to each of the nationalities two votes, and when, unhappily, one of the nationalities finds itself irreducibly divided into two fractions, to give to each of these fractions one vote. The sanction of these divisions will therefore be to neutralize in the vote the opinion of such countries. (1)
[note: (1) This mode of voting constitutes a generalization of what had been done in 1896: France had then been divided into two groups; the Guesdists were then the allies of Jaurès against the Blanquists, the Allemanists, and the syndicate delegates, who formed the majority of the delegation; the two currents were regarded as equivalent and France was neutralized, as it is going to be again at the Congress of 1900.]
I have the pleasure of announcing to the Congress that the General Committee of the French Socialist Party met yesterday evening and took the organizational measures necessary for the good progress of the Congress. Under these conditions, the misunderstanding that had arisen between the Organizing Committee and the bureau, a misunderstanding to which one would be very wrong to attribute exaggerated importance, finds itself completely smoothed over, and I insist on saying, in the name of all of us, that we have never dreamed of reproaching our French comrades for a lack of fraternity, but rather for a lack of organization, which finds its excuse in the difficulty of organizing almost simultaneously two important Congresses. (Applause.)
Finally, it was settled yesterday that the demonstration which has been decided to affirm the communion of our revolutionary sentiments, before the wall of the Fédérés, would take place next Friday, at half past eight; this rendezvous will certainly group the militants of all the fractions and of all the nationalities. (Vigorous applause.)
The secretary. — The secretary of the Belgian Federation of Socialist Workers holds himself at the disposal of the delegates of the other nationalities to furnish them information on the textile industry, leather and skins, on the glass industry, etc., in order to establish international relations in this regard. He apologizes by warning that the information he can furnish will be less interesting and less complete than that which he can obtain in exchange. The Belgian glass workers are sustaining at this moment a formidable strike in favor of the right to organize freely. They have exhausted a great part of their resources and they ask that the universal proletariat come to their aid in this struggle.
We have received the following telegram:
The Armenian socialists residing at Geneva send their cordial greeting to the Congress of the working class of the two worlds, which alone, by destroying the capitalist system and abolishing private property, will be able to establish in the world equality, liberty, and fraternity.
Another, from the socialist groupings and syndicates of Saint-Quentin, who send to the congress-members their fraternal greeting. (Applause.)
The president. — I give the floor to the rapporteur of the third commission.
Citizen Ellenbogen (Austria). — I believe that the objections made by the French delegates against the resolution proposed have been provoked by a misunderstanding caused by a poor translation of the German text of the resolution. In the resolution it was not said, as the text of the resolution published seemed to indicate, that propaganda should be made by such or such a means, but rather that the different means should be combined: “Political action, universal suffrage, and the organization of the working class in political groups, syndicates, cooperatives, mutual aid funds, art and education circles, etc.” We pledge the socialist militants to propagate as much as possible these means of struggle and education, which augment the strength of the working class. I point out that the resolution was voted by the commission unanimously, the French citizens included, and that it is citizen Lafargue who brought out that we should take a resolution in which there would be no difference of opinion as to means.
I believe that we should not for the moment discuss the different means of political education, given that the discussion of the ninth question will give ample occasion to the different countries represented to indicate their manner of seeing on the effective means. We therefore pledge the French likewise to vote the resolution proposed by the commission as a whole. (Applause.)
Citizen Lafargue (P.O.F.). — You must not rely on what has been printed in the newspaper concerning the resolution taken yesterday by the commission; it is only on the text that is presented to you here in the name of the commission that you have to decide.
But before entering into the detail, I shall tell you that the spirit which has animated this commission has been unanimously shared. We have all been in agreement to recognize that an international congress was not a congress where principles were discussed, as the first International had done. Today, there are organized parties throughout Europe and the whole world; these parties gather here to put in common the principles they have resolved among themselves, the acquired points, in order to make a general international doctrine. Consequently, we thought we should set aside all the questions which could divide us, which were not yet resolved in the various nationalities, and bring here only the questions which were resolved by all, so that there might be a unanimous vote in our Congresses. And it is a unanimous vote, on this question, which is presented to you by the third commission, because all the points have been examined, and it is after a long discussion that we set aside many points which were not yet resolved. I am obliged to come back to what took place within the commission: people wished to recall the disagreement which had arisen in Germany on a question of doctrine of the Socialist Party, with Bernstein. We set that aside, we have not to discuss it.
On the subject of cooperation, there is a member who said that it was a means of capitalist expropriation. Well, the Belgian delegate replied to him: We, who have practiced cooperation for so long with such success, we reject this theory; it is not a means of expropriation of the capitalist class; it is simply a means of socialist recruitment; it is the means of having a socialist budget in the service of the cause.
When this question of cooperation came up, we said: There are two forms of cooperatives: cooperatives of consumption and cooperatives of production. The cooperatives of consumption are those that we should adopt, if we had to pronounce ourselves; we must leave all nationalities free on the subject of cooperatives of production, because these present enormous dangers. (1) I cited in the commission what took place at le Creusot, where it was thought that one could raise up a cooperative workshop opposite the great workshops of Schneider, which are worth millions. To this effect a magnificent plan was drawn up, and with six hundred and some thousand francs, people thought they could hold in check the hundreds of millions of le Creusot… (Protests by citizen Jaurès and several others.) Citizen Jaurès protests, and it is he who was one of the promoters of it… (New protests and noise.)
We are opposed to cooperatives of production; and I was obliged to say why the word cooperation figured in our motion. That may raise certain irritations on one side of the assembly, but I declare that I do not wish to bring anything irritating into this debate… (Noise and exclamations.)
[note: (1) Cf. what Bernstein has reported of the opinions of Marx relative to cooperation (Theoretical Socialism and Practical Social-Democracy, French translation, pages 103-167). It seems according to the facts cited by Bernstein that Marx attached a great importance to the cooperative of production as “the most direct antithesis of the capitalist enterprise.”]
I report to you what took place in the commission so that our friends shall not fear to vote the proposed resolution, despite the word “cooperation,” which they reject as a deception, as a trap laid for the workers! (Violent protests on the right and on the benches of the English delegation.)
Citizen Hyndman (England). — I gave up my turn to speak to citizen Lafargue, but it was not for him to say that. We protest against this speech, which has nothing to do here.
The president. — We can count only on your good will and your tolerance, so that the presidency may have its moral authority respected by the speakers; I beg you kindly not to interrupt them. I adjure, on the other hand, citizen Lafargue, in order to give a sanction to the words of union he pronounced just now, not to bring into the debate questions which can only irritate it. (Applause.)
Citizen Lafargue. — I insisted simply on saying that one must not give to the word “cooperatives,” which was found in the motion, an importance it did not have, because we said that cooperatives were simply an instrument in the hands of the Socialist Party, that it was not a means of emancipation of the proletarian class; we even added that workers’ cooperatives, in order to succeed, were obliged to follow the principles of capitalist society, and not to apply the principles of the socialist society of the future. I ask you to adopt the resolution of the commission unanimously.
The president. — The Congress seems unanimous in voting the resolution; I pledge the speakers to present only very brief observations. (Numerous voices: Closure!)
The closure, put to a vote, is pronounced.
I give the floor to Kritchevsky, who was inscribed before the closure.
Citizen Kritchevsky. — Citizen Lafargue said that the commission should set aside the cooperatives of production as a danger. The commission did not stop at this proposal. There was moreover not a word said which could make us think that the cooperatives of production are a danger. (Applause.) We have examples of cooperatives of production living and strong which increase the strength of the proletariat and of the socialist party.
The second objection is a question of wording: I insisted in the commission that we should not confine ourselves merely to acknowledging the objective tendency of the capitalist movement, but that we should specify also that the socialization of the means of production is the final end of the conscious socialist party. That is why I propose that we introduce into this proposal, in one form or another, the indication of the final end, and I shall propose to add after the sentence: “It pledges the socialist militants to propagate these means of struggle and education which augment the strength of the working class” the following words: “and render it capable of realizing its final end, which is”; the rest as in the text of the commission.
Citizen Fribourg (P.O.S.R.). — It is not permitted, citizens, to support an argumentation by throwing into the debate things that are not strictly true. What citizen Lafargue came to say here about le Creusot is inexact, absolutely inexact: that we wished to raise up opposite Schneider another factory to manufacture cannons. It is all the more forbidden to citizen Lafargue to affirm this, in that in the action committee which was charged with raising this factory, there were representatives of the French Workers’ Party; so that if there was deception as Lafargue said, the French Workers’ Party must take its share. (Various interruptions.)
The president. — I am going to put to a vote the proposal made, with the Kritchevsky amendment joined to it, which can give rise to no discussion.
Citizen Ellenbogen. — I protest that an amendment should be added by a member of the commission to a proposal which has already been discussed and accepted; it is not admissible to act thus.
The amendment is rejected.
The president. — We now vote on the text of the resolution. — Adopted unanimously minus three votes.
Citizen Adler. (1) — The majority of the ninth commission (2) has designated citizen Vandervelde to make the report of the majority and citizen Enrico Ferri for the report of the minority. Certain members of the commission had asked for an additional session. The president of the commission judged that there was no reason to suspend the plenary session of this morning; but as soon as the report of the majority and the report of the minority have been made, this morning’s session will be closed and the commission will meet before any discussion.
[note: (1) From this moment it is he who presides over the session.]
[note: (2) The ninth question was conceived thus: “The conquest of public powers and alliances with the bourgeois parties.”]
Citizen Vandervelde. — I wish first to give to the Congress as objectively as possible a summary of the debate and the resolutions which have been taken within the commission.
From the start, a certain number of projects and resolutions were deposited, in particular by our comrades Jules Guesde, Enrico Ferri, Karl Kautsky. This last was charged with depositing a draft resolution which served as the basis of the debate. The commission decided that it had to settle two distinct questions: first, the question of alliances and coalitions, then the question of the eventual participation of a socialist in a bourgeois government.
On the first question, the question of alliances, the debate was extremely brief and had to be so, for it was only the continuation and confirmation of the discussions that had already taken place in the previous international Congresses. On this point, I take pleasure in underlining it (for it was a fundamental question), all the members of the commission, to whatever fraction, to whatever nationality they belonged, found themselves unanimous, and the resolution which was finally adopted reproduces textually the one that was adopted a few days ago by our comrades of the French Workers’ Party in the Congress they held at Ivry. (Applause.) Given that unfortunately the printed text of the resolutions has not yet been handed over to the members of the Congress, I draw the assembly’s attention to the text which I am going to read to it:
The Congress recalls that the class struggle forbids every sort of alliance with any fraction of the capitalist class.
It being admitted even that exceptional circumstances render necessary in certain places coalitions (without, of course, confusion of program and tactics), these coalitions, which the Party must seek to reduce to their minimum, until complete elimination, can be tolerated only insofar as their necessity will have been recognized by the regional or national organization on which the groups engaged depend.
Such, then, comrades, is the summary of the decision taken: of cooperation, of alliance with the bourgeois parties, there can be no question of making such in a lasting and permanent manner, for that would be to go against the fundamental principle of our Party, which is to place ourselves on the terrain of the class struggle. At most, there can be a question, in exceptional circumstances, in cases of urgent necessity, of temporary, accidental coalitions for a determined end: and our comrade Ferri indicated in a striking manner the import of such a resolution by saying this: Suppose that in a country where the roads are dangerous, three travelers of different nationality, of different race, of different philosophical and religious convictions, are attacked at the turn of a road by thieves or assassins; they then forget all that divides them and they defend themselves against the aggression. In the same way, the workers’ parties must have recourse to contacts with other parties only when it is a case of legitimate defense: for the defense of liberty, as in Italy; for the defense of the rights of the human person, as formerly in France… (Vigorous applause on the right.) to snatch universal suffrage, as in Belgium… (New applause on the same benches.) or as in Austria. In a word, there can be question of accidental contact with fractions of the capitalist class only in necessarily exceptional and temporary circumstances.
Such is the first resolution which, I repeat, was unanimously adopted.
On the second question — which, for my part, I consider as being of local and secondary interest — the question of knowing whether an isolated socialist can, in certain circumstances, enter a bourgeois government, the same unanimity did not occur again: two resolutions found themselves in presence, one by Karl Kautsky, the other by citizens Ferri and Jules Guesde. The resolution proposed by Ferri and Jules Guesde concluded for the formal and absolute prohibition of all participation in a bourgeois government. As for the Kautsky resolution, of which I have the text under my eyes — I cannot unfortunately make known to you the resolution of the minority, which I do not have present in memory and which has not yet been printed — as for the Kautsky resolution, it is conceived thus, and I ask you to listen with the greatest attention to what I shall allow myself to call the learned theoretical consultation of one of the men whom social-democracy most honors itself to count in its ranks. (Applause on a great number of benches.)
In a modern democratic State, the conquest of political power by the proletariat cannot be the result of a coup, but indeed of long and painful work of proletarian organization on the economic and political terrain, of the physical and moral regeneration of the working class, and of the gradual conquest of municipalities and legislative assemblies.
But in countries where governmental power is centralized, it cannot be conquered fragmentarily.
The entry of an isolated socialist into a bourgeois government cannot be considered as the normal beginning of the conquest of political power, but only as a forced, transitory, and exceptional expedient.
If in a particular case, the political situation necessitates this dangerous experiment, that is a question of tactics and not of principle: the international Congress need not pronounce on this point.
(Vigorous applause on a great number of benches. Violent protests on the left.)
I do not understand that, when the rapporteur confines himself to reading a resolution without even giving his personal sentiment, you should give proof of this excitement, which is truly out of place!
The resolution continues in these terms:
But in every case, the entry of a socialist into a bourgeois government allows one to hope for good results for the militant proletariat only if the Socialist Party, in its great majority, approves such an act and if the socialist minister remains the mandatary of his Party. In the case, on the contrary, where the minister becomes independent of this Party, or represents only a portion of it, his intervention in a bourgeois ministry threatens to bring about disorganization and confusion for the militant proletariat. (Applause on the left and on a few benches on the right.) It threatens to weaken it, instead of strengthening it, and to hinder the proletarian conquest of public powers, instead of favoring it. (New applause on the left.)
Finally, citizens, to complete this hitherto objective and impersonal exposition, I add that citizen Plekhanoff, in agreement with citizen Jaurès, had voted the following amendment:
In every case, the Congress is of the opinion that, even in these extreme cases, a socialist must leave the ministry when the organized Party recognizes that the latter gives evident proofs of partiality in the struggle between Capital and Labor.
The Kautsky resolution, thus amended, was voted by the majority of twenty-four votes against four.
And now, citizens, without having the pretension and the temerity to wish to reflect the unanimous sentiment of a commission in which there were great nuances of opinion, I should like to give you my personal sentiment, with the conviction that it is the sentiment of the greatest number of the members of the majority, on the two resolutions which are presented to the Congress.
As regards alliances and coalitions, I can be extremely brief, since we are unanimous; and I declare that our sentiment, all of us, is this: In whatever circumstance, even if coalitions have an exceptional and temporary character, they are an evil; for they may, in a certain measure, weaken the class consciousness of the proletariat. (Applause on the left.) It is therefore a means which must be used with extreme prudence; but circumstances may require such coalition: to defend liberties as in Italy; to conquer the right to universal suffrage, as in Austria or in Belgium; to safeguard the general interests of civilization, as recently in France; and then between two evils, one must choose the lesser. Coalitions can be an evil; they are always an evil; but they are sometimes a necessary evil.
I come now to the resolution which excites passion above all in one of the nationalities represented at this Congress. And I insist first on saying it, comrades, the resolution we have voted can be considered neither as a tacit condemnation nor as a tacit approbation of the tactics that have been followed in France by certain of our French comrades. And to say all my thought, to show to what point the majority of the commission wished to give proof of tolerance and conciliation, I add that a great number of us, perhaps the greatest number of us, if we had in a national Congress to pronounce on the question of knowing whether, in a country like France, it is good that a socialist should enter a bourgeois government, would say: Whatever may be the intellectual and moral value of this minister, to which we render the most complete homage, whatever may be the powerful arguments that can be advanced in favor of his entry into the government, we consider that the inconveniences of such a situation are infinitely greater than its advantages. And if we had to pronounce ourselves, we would say that Millerand and his friends committed a fault… (Enthusiastic applause on the left.) in accepting under their personal responsibility entry into the government of Republican Defense and that they commit a fault, which we deplore still more, in remaining there against the wish of an important fraction of socialism. (New applause on the left.)
But, you will tell me — and I beg you not to applaud me, for there will be some among you perhaps to regret it presently — (Laughter.) you rallied to a resolution too vague and too general. Why did we do it? Because we have the profound conviction that the International Congress is not a Court of justice and arbitration, destined to pronounce condemnations, brandings, and to launch decrees of excommunication! (Vigorous applause on the right.)
Our role is, on the contrary, a role of pacification, of conciliation, and of tolerance; we have to pronounce ourselves, with an unshakable firmness, on questions of principle; we have, on the contrary, to leave a complete liberty of action to each of the nationalities, when it is a question of tactical questions.
But what differentiates most of us from our friends of the P.O.F. and from the fractions which think as it does, is that we consider that this question — according to us, accessory and secondary — (Protests on the left.) of participation in ministerial power is a question of tactics and not a question of principle. (Vigorous applause on the right; interruptions on the left.)
You see well (addressing himself to the left part of the assembly) you already regret your applause of just now! (Noise on the left. — Laughter on the right.)
Without passion, without useless anger, and with the sentiment of a man who thinks — like most of his friends of international socialist democracy — that this ministerial question, except in France, is a question of academic and platonic interest, I should like to indicate to our friends of the P.O.F. on what point we are in disagreement. Their theory is the following: When it is a question of elective functions, which the proletariat can conquer by its own forces alone, participation in local powers is a legitimate thing; it is even a duty. When it is a question of appointive functions, of designations by the central power, it is abstention, on the contrary, which is a duty. In other terms, is it a question of a mayor in Lille, the socialists have the obligation to put him at the head of the municipal council; is it a question, on the contrary, of a minister in Paris, the socialists have the mission and the duty of closing the door of the government to him. (Applause on the right. — Exclamations on the left.)
Now, without claiming to assimilate two situations whose difference leaps to the eye, we maintain that these two situations are not fundamentally and essentially distinct; for in a country of democratic and parliamentary regime, the ministers in the government are as much the delegates of the Party they represent as the mayors at the head of the municipalities. (Applause on the right.) Only, for this thesis to be true, for its practical application not to present the gravest inconveniences, the minister must not be a parliamentarian without mandate, but indeed the mandatary, the representative of an organized Party, which submits him to its control and which imposes upon him its jurisdiction. (Vigorous applause on a great number of benches.) Yesterday, our comrade Auer used a phrase that I wish to repeat to the Congress, because it went straight to all our hearts; he said: In a country like ours, in Germany, anyone who would be stupid enough to enter a ministry without the approval of his Party would be immediately excluded from that party. (Applause on the left)
Consequently, we can admit the entry of a socialist minister into a bourgeois government only as an expedient whose dangers our resolution fully sets forth — only on the formal condition that he be authorized to do so by the great majority of his Party; on the no less formal condition that his presence in the government not be a source of discord rather than a pledge of appeasement. And we add that the mandate given to such a minister is a mandate always revocable: he enters today with the permission of his Party; — but if he is to suffer compromising company there, if he must accept unacceptable solidarities, if he must commit his partisans to parliamentary entanglements which throw confusion into the minds of the proletariat, then the place of such a minister is no longer in the government, and the Party must have the right to say to him: You have left our ranks — return to them! (Prolonged applause on most of the benches)
It is under these conditions that, alongside a certain number of us who would perhaps adopt the tactic inaugurated in France by some of our comrades, the great majority found itself in agreement, in a spirit of conciliation, to vote the Kautsky order of the day.
And now, to conclude, dear comrades, allow me to say to you that, however much we consider the question of coalitions as fundamental — because it concerns all the countries represented here, because it arises in all the circumstances into which the life of our party enters — to that same extent we are obliged to consider that the question of burning topicality which at this moment stirs our comrades of France is, in reality, as Jaurès himself was saying yesterday, only an accident, an episode in the socialist evolution of France, in the socialist evolution of the proletariat… (Applause on the right) For whatever shades of opinion and even divergences may exist among us, there is not a single conscious socialist who can believe, for one moment, that, despite the interest presented by certain immediate reforms which can be realized by a socialist minister, his portfolio ever weighs heavily in the balance between the working class and the capitalist class. And consequently, the thought of all of us is that the day on which such a question disappears from the order of the day of French socialist Congresses will be a relief for the universal proletariat! (Applause on a great number of benches)
The class struggle is something quite different from corridor battles or the conquest of portfolios; it is a struggle of every instant, by every means peaceful or revolutionary, for the final goal that all of us pursue, and that by integral union we shall one day know how to achieve!
Frenchmen, in this rough combat for justice, on this painful road which for so many of ours has been a calvary, there are some who will perhaps fall, succumbing to the exhaustion of fatigue or under the bullets of our enemies; but the victorious proletariat, which will one day have known how to conquer integrally the public powers, must be composed of men strong physically and morally, conscious of their class interest, having received a complete education in every domain of intellectual activity, united by an economic organization which will bind them to one another, as those great Barbarians of long ago were bound together in combat by iron chains which they had themselves knotted around their belts. When the proletariat shall have arrived physically, morally, politically, economically, at the full consciousness of itself, it will be ripe for the definitive conquest of the world, and it will be able to stand before the bourgeoisie and say:
Now:
The house is mine: it is for you to leave it! (1)
(Prolonged and unanimous applause. Acclamations)
The session is adjourned at half past noon.
(1) The official analytical record replaced this verse with the following sentence: “Leave the house. It is ours! We are worthy to enter it.” There is in Molière, Tartuffe or the Impostor, act IV, scene 7, Tartuffe:
It is for you to leave it, you who speak as master; The house belongs to me, I will make it known.
AFTERNOON SESSION
The session is opened at two o’clock, under the presidency of citizen Vandervelde (Belgium), assisted by citizen Adler (Austria).
Citizen President. — The floor goes to comrade Ferri.
Citizen Enrico Ferri (Italy). — Officially, I am the reporter of the minority; but I must begin with a confession, which is that if, yesterday evening, after the vote that was taken in our ninth commission, I returned home with the conviction that I was the reporter of the minority, this morning, upon waking, like a man condemned to death — for we shall be killed under the Kautsky motion — (Laughter), I asked myself what I really was, and I persuaded myself that on the contrary I was the reporter of the majority. (Renewed laughter and applause on certain benches) The speech of my friend Vandervelde redoubled my conviction that we have weighted this Kautsky motion, because in fact the question of the ninth commission is twofold: question of participation in power by a socialist, alliance of the socialist party with fractions of the bourgeoisie.
Now, here is what happened, from the historical point of view, in our commission: yesterday we began by discussing and then voting on the question of participation in power, by a minister in a government, or by a mayor in a communal council. After twenty-two votes against four accepted this Kautsky motion for participation in power, which is altogether forbidden in principle, but which is altogether permitted as tactics; (Renewed applause from the benches of the French Workers’ Party [P.O.F.] and the Revolutionary Socialist Party [P.S.R.]) after that, citizen Kautsky withdrew the half of his motion which concerned alliances and coalitions; and then the commission, which had by a majority voted participation in power, voted unanimously the almost absolute prohibition of alliances.
For my part I supported, in the ninth commission, the resolution that I have always supported in Italy, that I proposed at our national Congress of Rome, on which I was beaten, as I shall be today in this Congress. (Laughter)
A voice on the left. — We shall see! (Noise)
Citizen Ferri. — In any case, whether I am beaten or not, may the majority begin by declaring in advance that here we are all socialists and brothers… (Lively applause on a great number of benches) and that at the conclusion of our vote, if there are majorities and minorities, may there at least not be victors and vanquished! (Renewed applause on most of the benches)
Since the second resolution was voted unanimously, I am truly the reporter of unanimity. (Laughter)
However, this balancing which has taken place is the product, not of ambitions, deceits, or personal cleverness; it is the symptom and manifestation of a socialist state of soul, not only in France, but in every country.
We socialists, we are crossing a decisive phase of the development and evolution of the great international socialist party. Every country has in its entrails the same state of soul, which reveals itself in the midst of a crisis… In France, this is called the Millerand case; in Italy, autonomous tactics; in Germany, the Bebel resolution, the question of participation in the Landtag elections. Well, I think it would be useless to have traveled thousands of kilometers to come to Paris to the international assizes of socialism in order to take there a Pontius Pilate resolution that goes off to wash its hands… (Applause on the left)
When one says that the Millerand case does not interest international socialism, one says what is true and what is inexact; one says what is true when one speaks of the individual, personal case; and one says what is inexact when one envisages the general case, of which the Millerand case is only the symptom and the effect.
We socialists, we have no right to brand this or that French socialist; but we have the right to judge, to fix the conduct of the socialist party; for, let us say it, we are the branches and the foliage of the great international tree, but the deep roots of that tree are constituted by the proletarian mass of workers in the factories and the countryside. (Lively applause) We, the branches and leaves of the socialist tree, sovereignly gathered in this international assembly, we have the right and the duty to decide; but in our decisions we must not forget that the sap, which gives vigor and life to the branches, is found in the roots; we must not forget the interests, the sentiments, the needs of the present and future proletariat! (Renewed applause) How then, under these conditions, could the international Congress take a Pontius Pilate resolution toward the proletariat, which asks of us a rule, a compass to orient its class consciousness?
Let us set aside personal cases and observe that the same situation exists everywhere. In Italy it is less resounding than in France; but Turati and I are like Jaurès and Jules Guesde, with this difference however that in Italy we have already passed beyond what I will call the personalistic phase of socialism. (Lively applause on a great number of benches)
An assembly of international socialism will never be able to forget the difficult and fruitful work that the French Workers’ Party (Parti Ouvrier Français) has accomplished in that noble country of the Revolution which is France; the French Workers’ Party for some twenty years did nothing but apply the precise, crystalline ideas of Karl Marx… (Protests on certain benches) But, in recent times, the most authorized representatives of the Workers’ Party have remained somewhat immobile in a certain schematic formula which was, not theoretical Marxism, but above all a dogmatic interpretation of the disciples of Karl Marx.
On the other hand, in France, there is another current, just as socialist as the French Workers’ Party, which wishes to occupy itself with the economic organization of the proletariat with the aid of its political and electoral organization. This current may be qualified as right, for a topographical reason… (Murmurs on certain benches) I may be mistaken, but I am sincere; no one has a monopoly on truth; but to do something useful, everyone here must speak his thought openly! (Lively approval on a great number of benches)
Well, this socialist current was nourished in France by an extraordinary occasion — all those who listen to me understand that I wish to speak of the Dreyfus affair. Well, the attitude of this part of French socialism — we have judged it abroad objectively, being what has been called contemporary posterity. We have envisaged without bitterness, without envy, without personal jealousy, the bearing of the socialist acts that have taken place.
We have thus seen on one side the French Workers’ Party struggling against this spirit of maionism, sometimes accomplishing a useful work by sharpening class consciousness, by guiding the proletariat through revolutionary confusionism; and on the other side the independent socialist current acting in the Dreyfus affair, seeing in it a symptom and manifestation of the struggle of modern republican France against militarism and clericalism, which existed before bourgeois capitalist society, which are forces that now ally themselves with bourgeois capitalism but which have an autonomous development, which draw their roots from the centuries of capitalism’s prehistory. Militarism, clericalism, and capitalism were therefore allied, with much money — which socialism does not have, despite the resolution it took yesterday morning on the subject of the ten thousand francs — (Laughter). Whoever says much money says many newspapers and consequently great influence on public opinion. To overturn, or at least to counterbalance, this influence, Jaurès came forward and threw himself into the fray. La Petite République held an international consultation in this regard… (1)
A voice. — Some now wish to wash their hands of it.
Citizen Ferri. — …and in this international consultation, the majority of the most authorized men of international socialism approved, praised, and admired the attitude of Jaurès in the Dreyfus affair. (Lively applause. Long acclamations to Jaurès on the right. Protests on certain benches on the left)
But, comrades, it is for union that I plead, and I say that in no question, in no fact of life, is reason all on one side and wrong all on the other; there are merits and faults on both sides and in both parties, for, while being socialists, we are not infallible: we are men. (Approval on certain benches)
I say, in favor of this socialist unity which is the desire, the ideal, and the moral necessity of these great international assizes, that this attitude of a part of French socialism cannot be misrecognized in its merit, for it was only the result of an extreme defense of the elementary conditions of contemporary civilization against the spirit of the militarist and clerical Middle Ages, which tried to suffocate France, which is, or which was, at the head of the nations! (Bravos and applause)
And under these conditions, is agreement not possible? Is it not natural? Is it not inevitable? Evidently yes, it will come about in France as in the other countries. Two weeks ago I was in Rome, at our national Congress; I presented the same resolution that I present here, and I was defeated by the current represented by my friend Turati; but we were brothers and friends the next day as on the eve.
At present one could say, could one not, looking at the left side and the right side: See how united they are!… Yes, during the international Congress! (Laughter) like the clericals and the nationalists during the Exposition! Well, we socialists, we say to you: Forget questions of personalities to remember the proletarian roots of the universal mass of workers; and let this attitude of peace and conciliation not be like the oil one spreads on the sea to have a moment of fleeting calm, only afterwards to see the storm unleashed with greater violence — at the National Congress. You must, French comrades, forget, I repeat, questions of personalities, and take a bath of health and regeneration in the deep, collective mass of the French proletariat. (Renewed applause)
That is why the ninth commission wanted to do the inverse of Solomon’s judgment, and instead of cutting in two the French Socialist Party, it wanted to gather it together and unite it.
My love for France is so deep that I know the French socialist movement perhaps better than I do the Italian socialist movement. (1) But, as I have indicated, this state of soul through which international socialism is passing manifests itself in different forms in every country. The fact is that the socialist party in France as elsewhere has arrived at a phase of its development in which the bourgeoisie has changed the superficial forms of its tactics of defense.
When the Socialist Party is still only a newborn, the bourgeoisie defends itself against it with mockery, with calumny. But when socialism, from the newborn it was, becomes a sufficiently vigorous child, the bourgeoisie changes its tactic of defense: it persecutes it; it has the reactionary hope and utopia of stifling the life of this promising child; and it hopes to achieve this with persecutions, states of siege, shootings, and judgments by courts-martial or ordinary tribunals, which are only a different form of the same bourgeois penal justice, which is nothing but a machine for crushing the human personality…
When this child crosses these persecutions alive and comes to be a valiant and robust young man, the bourgeoisie changes its tactic and says: Come, no more mockery, no more calumnies, no more persecutions: he must be hypnotized! One must act like the mothers of families who, in this bourgeois society, have daughters to marry off; when it is a question of hunting for a husband, the daughter promenades, very elegant; she has smiles, sweet eyes for the young man who passes; and the latter, very ardent and at the same time very idealistic, believes that all the smiles of the daughter and of the probable mother-in-law translate a sincere affection; and so, falling into this trap, the valiant and bold young man will become a tamed and predestined husband. (Laughter and applause)
Citizen Jules Guesde (P.O.F.). — Or a minister à la Millerand!
Citizen Enrico Ferri. — Comrade Guesde, I am speaking in general terms.
Citizen President. — I beg the comrades not to underline the words of the speaker; they seem to me sufficiently energetic.
Citizen Jules Guesde. — I withdraw what I have said.
Citizen Enrico Ferri. — Well, that is the general state of soul: in France, a socialist minister is called to the government; in Germany, that cradle of rigid, absolute, steel-clad Marxism, the country of Liebknecht, last year there was discussion about Bernstein… I think it is wrong to call that the Bernstein case, for, I repeat, it is a crisis of growth of the international socialist party… Last year Bernstein said: Everything is in the movement, nothing is in the final goal. Another German comrade, Rosa Luxemburg, said: Nothing is in the movement, everything is in the final goal; Liebknecht finally said: The essential is the final goal; but the movement is needed to approach it. (Applause on the right)
Concerning the Landtag — our comrade Volmar knows something about this — there was a refusal to participate in the Landtag elections; two or three years ago it was forbidden; and two weeks ago, at Mayence, Bebel, the brother in arms of Liebknecht, proposed a resolution which was approved by the majority, which not only permits but renders obligatory participation in the Landtag. (Renewed applause on the right) And so it is not Jaurès’s fault if he personifies this current of the movement to attain the final goal; it is not the fault of Turati in Italy, or of Bebel in Germany: it is the conditions of the political and economic development of contemporary Europe vis-à-vis socialism, which has become a young man and toward which one changes tactics and employs what I shall call the tactic of political phagocytism.
We know what happens in physiology: when a foreign body is introduced into the organism, it risks infecting it, provoking fever. Then there are the phagocytes, which envelop this little foreign body, which prevent it from having communications with the rest of the blood and the organism, which enclose and atrophy it, and thus defend the organism against possible infection… Well, when the bourgeoisie sees this foreign body of socialism growing and threatening the tissue of its organism, and when, on the other hand, it sees, in the Dreyfus affair, that it — liberal bourgeoisie which during some twenty years had allowed the militarist and clerical forces to grow without defending itself against them — it risks letting the Republic which it had won in 1870 disappear, this liberal bourgeoisie feels the necessity of the support of socialism, of that young sap which has come to give victory to civilization against the Middle Ages! (Applause)
The bourgeois class then saw the socialist party with a less severe eye than formerly; it saw a new means of avoiding the danger of socialist infection, by practicing phagocytism: it took the symbol of that foreign force; it placed it within the bourgeois organism; but it enveloped it; it prevented it from accomplishing its function of organic regeneration; it atrophies from day to day; it cannot give what popular sentiment could have hoped for from the entry of a socialist into the bourgeois government of a country like France.
Certain people respond: That does not concern us; it is a question of tactics; it is not a question of principle: the principles are safe; we are going, in the Kautsky motion, to make the most absolute affirmations of socialist principles: yes, class struggle, integral conquest of the public powers, proletariat against bourgeoisie; but the principles must be distinguished from the tactics: the international Congress can dictate a resolution of principle; it cannot occupy itself with the details of tactics…
I, on the contrary, say that one cannot make a distinction between principles and tactics… (Applause on the left)… It is an old scholastic distinction to separate theory from practice; but, for us, positivist and experienced minds, we say that theory is only practice generalized, and practice is only theory in action! (Renewed applause)
When you are going to permit the entry of a socialist minister into a bourgeois government, are you going to post on the minister’s back the general principles of his party, leaving him free to practice from the front a contrary tactic?… (Laughter) I believe that he must personify at once the tactic which moves and the principle which applies. And that is why we have maintained that one must not open the window after having closed the door…
One must act with much prudence, says the Kautsky motion; one must practice prudential tactics; one must apply them in very exceptional cases… Yes, that is fine, but those are rubber leading-strings; for who shall judge the cases in which prudence requires such or such a tactic, while the placard of principles must hover above the real world and daily practice?…
I travel a great deal in Italy for propaganda; well, it happens that in all the villages, in all the small towns where the Socialist Party is at its beginnings, the work is more difficult; there are comrades there who always say that there is a very exceptional occasion for which one must have a tactic of alliance and union with the bourgeois parties, because, they say, one finds oneself in an exceptional case… That amounts, in short, to saying that it is prudent to reserve principles for heaven and to apply tactics on earth… (Laughter) That is what we cannot approve in the Kautsky motion.
The ninth commission has taken a double resolution which it proposes to you; and the second, as Vandervelde was very rightly remarking, is the first from the logical point of view, although it is the second from the point of view of the practical vote; the latter is the resolution voted by the Congress of Ivry — that is, the prohibition, the interdiction of any alliance of the Socialist Party with a bourgeois fraction. At the same time that it took this resolution unanimously, the ninth commission approved, in its majority, the Kautsky resolution, which says that in a particular case, when the political situation requires it, this “dangerous” experiment may be made… The adjective is there, but the adjective does not erase the noun… Everyone will agree to say that it is dangerous, but that one has socialist courage and faith to protect oneself! (Laughter and applause on the left) That is a question of tactics and not of principle, says the Kautsky motion, whereas I say that, for us, tactics and principles are only the obverse and reverse of the same medal, and that one cannot have a bourgeois tactic with socialist principles. (Long applause on the left) The minority of the commission therefore admits the rule of the Kautsky motion; but does not admit its rubber exceptions, which will never be an obstacle to the tactic being in contradiction with the principles.
The majority of the commission, finding itself in that state of soul which is reflected in the international world, voted the Kautsky motion; but, as if it had voted the use of a poison for the socialist organism, it immediately voted the counter-poison with the Guesde resolution, which forbids alliances. Yet, is the participation of a minister in a bourgeois government possible without there being a coalition with a bourgeois fraction? Evidently not. A socialist can become mayor of a commune when there is a socialist majority in the communal council; it may happen that he is mayor of a commune and standard-bearer of the socialist party without there being any alliance; but for the minister, can that happen?…
I believe that once one admits the possibility, even transitory and exceptional, of the entry of a socialist minister into a government, or of a socialist mayor into a municipality where the majority is not socialist, one comes to contradict the principle of the prohibition of alliances with a fraction of the bourgeoisie.
That is why I had proposed, myself, a motion before the National Congress of Rome, forbidding in an absolute manner participation in political power or in municipal power without there being a socialist majority… As our friend Vandervelde said, it would be the proletariat that would take possession of the house and would say to the bourgeoisie: Get out!
I believe that the word betrayed the thought of our friend, who knows so well the spirit of our socialist party: when the proletariat has taken possession of human society, it will not chase out the bourgeoisie and it will not put anyone outside; socialism pursues the class struggle in the name of the workers but for the redemption of all humanity! (Lively applause)
Citizen Vandervelde. — I did not speak of exclusion from society, but from the government.
Citizen Enrico Ferri. — We believe that the Kautsky motion contains in itself a danger of application of tactics against the socialists more serious than its author thinks; for, when one places oneself on terrain whose plane is inclined, one knows where one starts from, but one does not know where one will stop. I have already spoken of the phenomenon of participation in the Landtag; it is the same inclined plane. In Italy, autonomy had the result that there were some socialists who went to the official funeral of King Umberto. (Exclamations) As for us, we branded regicide; for it is an antihumanitarian act; but we said in Parliament, in the socialist group, that we could not associate ourselves with the official and orthodox obsequies that the monarchist party gave to its assassinated king. In France, we still have another example of the danger of this tactic; it is that at the moment of the China expedition, not a single socialist in the French Parliament protested against the credits… (Applause on certain benches. Protests on others)
Citizen Sembat (P.S.R.). — That is an error.
Citizen Enrico Ferri. — If I am mistaken, you will rectify; but if it is exact, I maintain what I said against this enterprise of international pillage.
I come to the second resolution. I find that the Guesde resolution is not as precise as I would have wished; the principle is the same as my resolution; but the formula of the Ivry resolution is rather elastic, for one does not say: no coalition, no alliance, but exceptional coalitions; it is asked that they be reduced to their possible minimum…
Citizen Jules Guesde. — Up to complete elimination.
Citizen Enrico Ferri. — There is a dike to that, it is true; it is the approval, the prior consent of the organized Party and its direction; and I believe precisely that all the misfortunes happening to our French friends come from not having an organized party, which ought to have authorized or refused the entry of Millerand into the ministry. That is why we adjure our French friends to make socialist unity. (Applause on the right)
My resolution with regard to coalitions was conceived in the following terms:
The international Congress, observing that — despite the changes of parliamentary, governmental, and legislative tactics, in the countries where the Socialist Party is growing in a manner alarming for the bourgeois governments — the principles of contemporary society are not changed as regards the fundamental division between the capitalist class and the class of industrial and agricultural proletarians;
And recalling that the composition and the progress of the Socialist Party have been realized only by class consciousness, clearly and completely awakened in the workers;
Declares that one must change neither the program nor the methods of propaganda and of political and economic struggle adopted by the Socialist Party for the conquest of the public powers and for imposing on the dominant class the partial reforms which are useful gradual conquests in the march toward the physical and moral elevation of the proletariat.
Only in the countries where the organization of the proletariat into a class-conscious party is sufficiently developed and certain, and is under the control of the direction of the Socialist Party in each country, may transitory and exceptional alliances be made with fractions of the bourgeoisie for the extreme defense of the public liberties or of the elementary principles of contemporary civilization.
As for the participation of socialists in political or administrative power, it will be admitted only when it is the effect of the majority acquired by the Socialist Party in the political and communal assemblies.
There are only two cases in which this coalition can be made: the case which arose for France, and the one which arose for Italy: extreme defense of public liberties, when a coup d’état had been projected to suppress the constitutional liberties — of the press, of assembly, of association, of trade unions. Then the Socialist Party took the initiative of making a coalition with the radicals and the republicans… For, French citizens, do not forget that many of your comrades who are here do not have the Republic at home; and the Republic is the free atmosphere which allows our socialist lungs to breathe. (Lively applause on the right)
Thus, in Italy, the Kautsky motion has no occasion to be applied, neither as principle nor as tactics; and so long as there is the monarchy, my conscience as a militant socialist is perfectly tranquil: the king of Italy will never think of calling on a socialist minister, even for the defense of civilization against the reactionary forces. (1)
I come to the conclusion, and I beg pardon for the length of my observations from the bureau of the Congress and from the Congress itself. We then, the representatives of the minority, are in agreement with the majority for the prohibition of alliances, with exceptional and transitory permission of a coalition for extreme defense. We remain, on the contrary, in a state of minority as regards the Kautsky motion, which will certainly have the majority in our Congress, for it translates a state of soul which has imposed itself even on a man whose socialist conscience is, one may say, of steel — on Kautsky himself, whom we all love and admire.
At the next international Congress, we shall make the balance of the advantages and inconveniences which experience in every country will have produced from the use of this tactic which leaves the principles in the attic and applies something quite different on the first floor. I believe that we shall arrive at the next international Congress with a spontaneous majority which will return to the life-sources of socialist doctrine, which must not mummify itself in certain schematic formulas, but must remain firm on the terrain of the principles of struggle for the proletariat and for humanity.
But whatever the vote of this grandiose assembly may be, I hope that the practical result for international socialism will be that the French socialists on both sides will come to an understanding, because of the need for unity with which they are penetrated, in order to march together to the conquest of the future, with that joyous pride which is the property of the socialist soul.
It is in this hope that the Italian proletariat — bloodied and grieving, under the yoke of monarchic, clerical, and capitalist tyranny — cries: Long live national and international socialist unity! (Prolonged applause on most of the benches. Enthusiastic acclamations)
Citizen Hyndman (England). — We have heard magnificent speeches, but they have cost us long hours for the speeches themselves and for the translations. We think we are not here in a public meeting, that is, having come to hear fine rhetoric, but to resolve, in the name of the proletariat, a certain number of determined questions. Now, if we give such development to each of them, we shall not arrive at our end. I propose therefore that the orators shall have only ten minutes and the reporters twenty minutes.
The proposition put to the vote is adopted.
Citizen Jaurès (P.S.R.). — Comrades, a few minutes will be enough for me to characterize my position with regard to the various motions submitted to you. The observations I am going to make engage only myself, that is, the groups that I directly represent at the Congress.
On the question of electoral alliances with the bourgeois parties, it is useless to insist: at bottom, and whatever may be the more or less ingenious formulas proposed on both sides, everyone is in agreement. And there is a fact which dominates all the declarations, which is that at the present hour, whether to defend the liberties, or to win universal suffrage, or even to win some urgent labor reform, all the socialist parties of the world practice alliances; nearly all of international socialism has proclaimed that, in the Dreyfus affair, the proletariat would have followed disastrous counsels if, on the pretext of not confusing its action with that of the bourgeoisie, it had left precisely to a bourgeois fraction the monopoly and exclusive honor of the battle against falsehood. (Applause)
Likewise for the Heinze law, in Germany, the socialists did not refuse to defend the freedom of art, of science, of thought, in agreement with the scholars and the intellectuals of Germany; and it is an honor for the German proletariat that, thanks to it, the German fatherland has not become the fatherland of Attila, but remains the fatherland of Goethe! (Lively applause on the right) For the Landtag elections, after many hesitations and contradictions, German social democracy finally adopted direct and obligatory participation. Ferri reminded us of the electoral coalition of the Italian socialists with the republicans and the radicals. In Belgium, against the bill which threatened, not even universal suffrage, but plural suffrage, there was a coalition of resistance between the proletariat and the Belgian liberal bourgeoisie.
Consequently, we exhaust ourselves in vain discussions when we look for ingenious formulas to half-conceal a universal practice of the proletariat. (Renewed applause on the right) And for my part, I say that one of the causes that contribute at the present hour throughout the entire world to the apparent confusion of minds is that socialism, instead of avowing aloud — since it has only the most disinterested and noblest motives — the tactic it has adopted, seems embarrassed by its action. We ask you to say aloud what you do. And now, whether one calls it alliance or coalition — these subtleties of vocabulary in which the spirit of intransigence takes refuge do not shock me unduly… When men can no longer change things, they change the words. (Laughter and applause) And in truth, humanity has so few innocent joys that I would have scruple to take that one from it!
On the other question, more controverted, of the participation of a socialist in a bourgeois government, I for my part adhere to the Kautsky motion, because it realizes or expresses an equilibrium of opinion, a little unstable perhaps, but which is the only one possible at the present hour.
To comrade Vandervelde, I wish simply to oppose one remark; he said that the Millerand question was purely local, purely French; and he was right in the sense that in fact today the question does not arise and cannot arise except in France. But, in whatever way you resolve it, allow me, comrades of all countries, to regret that it does not arise among the socialists of all countries. (Applause on the right)
Yes, it is local; yes, it is French, in the sense that the surplus of liberty and democracy which the republican institution brings to the people has ripened the question among us before it has ripened among the others. I beg our comrades from outside, when they pass judgment on French matters — when they are told, for example, that the socialists must not in France accept ministerial posts which are offered to them not directly by the proletariat, but by the head of the bourgeois State — I beg them not to forget that, with us, the head of the bourgeois State is elective, and that, consequently, the socialists in Parliament participate in the nomination of the head of the State… (Noisy and lively protests on the left)
Citizen Lafargue (P.O.F.). — Be quiet! (1) (Prolonged agitation)
Citizen Jaurès. — I hear hoots, as if we were already at the National Congress… (New and violent protests on the left. — Laughter on the right)
A voice on the left. — It is a provocation!
Citizen Jaurès. — Comrades from abroad, my words will be translated for you presently; you will find them in the authentic minutes of the Congress, and you will be astonished that at the moment when I observe this acquired truth that the French socialists, members of the French Parliament, contribute for their part to the election of the head of the republican State, there are French socialists who cry out to me: It is a provocation! (New and violent interruptions on the left. — Most of the foreign delegates rise and, turning toward the left of the assembly, protest energetically against this attitude)
Citizen President. — I ask the members of the Congress, which here represents international socialism, to respect the great orator who honors it at this tribune. (Noise on the left. — Applause and acclamations on a great number of benches.) We all have the same solidary interest that the two opinions present should be presented with all the breadth this debate deserves. I beg the Congress therefore to ensure speech for the orator presently inscribed.
Citizen Jaurès. — I believed I had applied myself to provoking no combat emotion, in summing up as simply as possible the substantial reasons for my opinion.
I was saying for what reasons, at the present hour, the ministerial question is a French question; but it is not true that it is not destined to extend to other countries; it may be born in all the countries where there is at once a politically powerful socialist party and an effective parliamentary regime. The question may arise in Switzerland, in Belgium, as in France; it may even arise in England the day when the bankruptcy of the old liberal party, fallen into imperialism, obliges a new, more democratic liberal party to come into action, and when, as yesterday in the commission a comrade of the Social-Democratic Federation made the hypothesis, the English proletarians shall be called, to fight against imperialism, to join their force of resistance to that liberal party and to lend it thereby to a government otherwise condemned to impotence. I say even that it could have arisen in the last elections in Belgium, if the Belgian liberals and socialists had defeated the clerical majority, which they merely reduced. (1)
Ah, there shall not be in Italy a Ferri question, there shall not be in Belgium a Vandervelde question, because the organized Italian Socialist Party, because the organized Belgian Socialist Party will not allow individuals to take the initiative and the responsibility of similar decisions; but the question under its impersonal form will arise in Belgium as it arose in France. (Applause)
Well, I do not mean — this is not the place — to treat it here in depth; I confine myself to saying that if I adhere to the Kautsky motion, it is because, in declaring that this is not a question of principle but a question of tactics, it leaves the Socialist Party in the world to be the judge of cutting the question by taking account each time of the positive interests of the proletariat, in a determined political and social situation.
That, for me, is the sense of the motion, and that is why I adhere to it. Too long, too often, the socialist party has committed the fault of transforming into questions of principle, into fundamental and principled questions, questions which were in fact only questions of tactics. And then what happens? It is that after having, in the name of the class struggle, forbidden participation in Landtag elections, one is obliged then to permit it; then one is obliged to command it; and one thus gives oneself the appearance of being unfaithful to the class struggle, uniquely because one has made it intervene where it had nothing to do.
The class struggle obliges us to affirm that, since it is a matter of substituting communist property for capitalist property, it is the class that has a collective interest in this substitution which can sincerely work to realize it; the class struggle obliges us to say that the proletariat will no longer wait, as in the times of utopian socialism, for its salvation from today’s powerful, as when Robert Owen asked the Congress of sovereigns assembled at Aix-la-Chapelle to save the working class (1): the class struggle obliges us to say that the proletariat is of age to conduct its own affairs itself. But it is precisely because it is of age that one must not, for its action in the future, bind its hands with formulas of universal tactics.
Now, there is another reason for which I adhere to the Kautsky motion: it is that it foresees that in no case shall the entry of a socialist into a ministry be able to be an act of individual will, and that the organized Party alone will give the signal of entry, of departure, and between these two dates shall exercise its sovereign control.
I add that therein lies the true guarantee against personal ambitions, with regard to the dangerous practice indeed of the governmental collaboration of socialism and the bourgeoisie.
The bourgeoisie was able, in an hour of crisis, to call upon a socialist, an individual socialist; it will hesitate much more to call upon a socialist when that socialist is the delegate of the entire Socialist Party, when that will then be a beginning of political expropriation… (Lively applause on the right. — Noise on the left) It will resign itself to this only when there is a crisis so serious of the nation or of liberty that the liberal bourgeoisie itself will recognize its impotence to save itself without the concurrence of the organized proletarians, or when the strength of the proletariat is such that its governmental abstention would create such a great void that in that void, as in an abyss, the political life of the country would disappear.
That is why I adhere to the Kautsky motion. (Prolonged applause on a great number of benches. — Acclamations)
Citizen Sembat. — I asked for the floor concerning an affirmation by citizen Enrico Ferri because I did not wish to allow it to be supposed that on an occasion as serious as that of the credits for the China expedition, the French socialist deputies could have misrecognized their duty enough not to intervene.
It is my duty to underline before the foreign comrades that we have always considered it as our strict and rigorous obligation to accomplish at the tribune of the French Parliament all the necessary demonstrations to affirm our internationalist opinions. Notably, when the credits were requested for the China expedition, I was delegated by the unanimity of the socialist group to bring at the tribune, in its name, our protest against any colonial expedition and against that one in particular. (1)
It was the same during the discussion of the credits for the fleet; and I insist all the more on saying so, because our dissensions and divisions have been underlined often enough here, that we should affirm before the comrades of all countries that there is one point on which we have never been disunited: it is in the struggle against chauvinism, and in the affirmation of our internationalist principles. (Lively applause on most of the benches)
We have always all done our duty, and you can have, foreign citizens, the conviction that each time we shall be called to protest against any act whatever of international capitalism, against one of those piracies that the governments commit each day in a more shameless fashion, we shall recommence this protest; and so that it not be said to us that we do not defend our country, while the foreign socialists defend theirs, we ask this international committee that you have decided to create and organize, this interparliamentary commission that you have adjoined to it, to make it an obligation for all the socialist deputies of all countries to take up for themselves the watchword of our German comrades: Not a penny, not a man for the warlike follies! (Lively applause)
Such was the point on which I had to say a few words.
As to the substance of the question under discussion, citizen Jules Guesde, who will bring the word in the name of the P.O.F. and the P.S.R., will develop the arguments we have to put forward on the question on which you are going to vote. I confine myself to telling you a thing which it is still useful to make known to the foreigners who lament over the painful spectacle of our deep divisions. We can tell them that there is a point on which we are not divided, in France: it is that, whatever the clashes of opinion may be, each time that international socialism shall have pronounced, we shall bow; and whatever the decision of the international socialist Congress may be, when you have spoken on any point whatever, you shall find in France only socialists respectful of your decisions. (Applause on a great number of benches)
But, if such is our duty and if we swear to fulfill it, this very docility imposes on you, citizens, another duty: yes, we are ready to obey you and to respect your sentences; but at least render clear sentences and not obscure oracles! (Applause on the left) Speak to us plainly and do not oblige us to discuss further among ourselves about the meaning of what you intended to say… What, are we going to leave this Congress with some doubtful resolution of which one does not know whether one must comment on the text or comment on the considerants?… We shall be told: Here, here is the Kautsky motion which says such or such a thing. — Yes, will be answered, but Vandervelde precisely said such another thing…
What we want are clear-cut affirmations in which you take the responsibility you cannot avoid. (Applause on the left) When you come to tell us, comrades: these are questions of tactics in which the international socialist party must not interfere, I say that you go against the reality of the facts; because you do not ignore that what exists in one country has repercussions in the others, and that you know well that at the tribune of the Reichstag, precisely on the occasion of these fleet credits, which our friends in Germany were fighting with that never-slackened activity which we all admire and which we would like to imitate, they were told: in France, a socialist minister presents them and the French socialist deputies do not refuse them!…
Well, we socialist deputies, we protested; and as for the French socialist minister, the German socialists, Bebel and Liebknecht, replied: The French socialist minister is not supported by the Socialist Party… What will it be when one can tell you that not only is this minister supported by the French Socialist Party, but that he is authorized by you, by the international socialist Congress!…
Do not say that these are questions of tactics and that you wash your hands of them; you will bear the responsibility, and it will be just because what takes place in one country cannot be without repercussions on the conditions of social struggle in the other countries. Citizens, once again, we shall obey you, but speak high, clear, and plain! (Prolonged applause on the left)
(Citizen Joindy (P.O.S.R.) mounts the tribune. Cries on the benches of the P.O.F.: Long live Liebknecht!)
Citizen President. — Since the beginning of this Congress, the French delegates of all the organizations have given the example of a great tolerance toward the orators who took the floor in one sense or the other. I do not doubt that the cause they defend on both sides cannot but gain by listening to each other with tolerance. The floor goes to citizen Joindy. (Applause)
Citizen Joindy. — I shall simply ask, French comrades, that you allow me to exercise the mandate that brings me here. Just as everyone has the duty to express his opinion freely, I expressed mine at another time, but I insist before the international proletariat gathered here on affirming my absolute internationalist sentiments. (Applause. A violent interruption does not reach citizen Joindy) I do not hear what you are saying, citizens; no one hears it here; and I do not think, moreover, that one can today reopen the debate that motivated the interruption of yesteryear. (1)
What we have to explain, comrades, are the reasons that brought us to follow the tactic that ended in the Millerand ministry. That is what we have to say, on which we have to come to an understanding before all the foreign comrades.
The question must be taken under the different forms in which it has presented itself; one must know why the French proletariat rose up to support for a moment the ministry that presently motivates so many passionate discussions. And this examination is worth undertaking, citizens; one must represent to oneself the state of mind in which France and Paris found themselves at the time of the formation of this ministry. Citizen Auer was saying: It would not be possible in our country for a socialist to enter a ministry without having the moral and material support of all of socialism. But can one compare that situation with the situation of Millerand at the moment when he entered the ministry? Was the Socialist Party truly an organized party, was the Socialist Party one and could it be consulted? There was an individual opinion of a man going to a post of combat. That is how the question must be envisaged. (Applause on the right)
You said to the revolutionaries: This minister is shameful, this ministry is monstrous (and for the most part you were right); you added: You shall see the factories empty, you shall see the people rush into the streets demanding that this ministry be driven out… On the contrary, the people felt that the action was so revolutionary in this intervention that they came down into the street to defend it and to defend the Republic. (Applause on the right. Prolonged tumult on the left)
I conclude, I did not wish to inflame the assembly. The presence of a revolutionary was necessary to affirm, in a clear-cut fashion, the reasons for which we rally to the Kautsky resolution. I affirm that the proletariat was with us and that if you had abandoned this conduct, you would no longer have had it with you.
Ah, certainly, when one wishes to make it a purely doctrinal question, the difficulty is great: one wishes to compare situations that are not alike; one wishes to compare the situation of countries that are not in the same state of mind; and one ends up wanting to oblige the international proletariat to enclose itself in absolute, rigid formulas which despite everything cannot stand up, so contradictory are they. (Protests and applause) And the proof is that you end up with these rubber cords which permit you alliances and which do not permit them, which permit you a certain attitude and which do not permit it.
Well, we, we say to you that each time human feeling is attacked, that each time, as in the Dreyfus affair to which allusion was made, an entire nation rushes upon an individual for a question of race, the proletariat must be standing! (Lively applause and protests)
Citizen Hyndman. — The English section proposes the closure of the discussion.
A voice. — After the inscribed orators.
Citizen President. — Citizen Jules Guesde is the first inscribed orator, but there remain only five minutes before the end of the session. I think we owe it to our comrade Guesde not to oblige him to speak under such conditions, and that we shall all be in agreement to give him the floor tomorrow morning. (Approval)
The session is adjourned at six o’clock.
FIFTH DAY
Session of Thursday, September 21, 1900 (morning)
The session is opened at ten o’clock, under the presidency of citizen Van Kol (Holland), assisted by citizens Fürholz (Switzerland) and Plekhanoff (Russia).
Citizen President. — It has been decided by the bureau that the work of the Congress shall be terminated, as the final limit, at seven thirty this evening.
I must make known a declaration that has been made by the German delegation; the German comrades have declared unanimously that, if they continued not to be able to hear distinctly and completely the translation made for them of the speeches, they would risk voting against their conscience, by giving a vote that would not be sufficiently enlightened; they refuse therefore to take part in the vote if the translation of the speeches is not made in the most absolute silence. The English have made the same declaration. (Approval)
The first question submitted to this morning’s session is that of the date of the next Congress; the Germans propose 1903, the English 1902. It will be necessary then to know whether the next Congress will be held in Amsterdam or in Vienna.
I also indicate, in the name of the president of the federated trade unions of Germany, that a report has been made on the social movement in Germany and that he places this report at the disposal of all the secretaries of organizations who shall request it.
Because of the difficulty we shall have in finishing all the discussions today, I indicate that I shall hold strictly to the rule that the orators shall not speak more than ten minutes and the reporters twenty minutes, as has been decided.
Citizen Smith (England). — The English delegation, which has just met, has decided unanimously that it had heard sufficient speeches concerning the ninth question; that it had formed an opinion and would no longer participate in the discussion; it has therefore asked me not to translate any longer for it the speeches that would relate to this question. (Protests on certain benches on the left)
A voice. — That is wrong!
Citizen Quelch (England) (1). — I propose, as an amendment to the English proposition, that the next Congress take place in three years. It is objected that it is difficult to organize these international Congresses; well, it is because we do not organize them often enough; with habit, they will be done better. I think three years is quite enough.
Citizen Vandervelde (Belgium). — I have not had occasion to discuss the question with my Belgian friends, in order to support the proposition of our English comrades.
In 1889, it had been agreed that we should meet every two years; (2) we did so until the Congress of London; but, at London, it was requested to establish a longer interval: three years. We resisted, but the majority nevertheless pronounced itself for this long interval. This time, it is no longer a matter of three years, but of five years; if the progression continues, the Congresses shall meet every ten years or even every twenty years… (Laughter) I think, for my part, that meetings such as those that have taken place at Zurich, at London, and at Paris, having for result to draw closer the bonds between militants of all countries, it would be a true disaster for socialist democracy to see postponed by five years the fraternal assizes that take place at this moment. (Applause)
Citizen Singer (Germany). — I insist on the proposition that the German delegation has made, and here is why: I do not think that the roots of the solidarity of the world proletariat are only in international Congresses; these roots are much stronger, they are in class solidarity, in the class consciousness of the entire proletariat. On the other hand, the situation as regards the work of an international Congress has changed greatly by the very resolution that has been voted at this Congress: the constitution of an international secretariat and the creation of an interparliamentary commission. These two organs of proletarian internationalism are going to take charge of much work which, until now, was the object of the periodic sessions of the international proletariat. Given this situation, there is a diminution of the work and it is no longer necessary that the international Congresses sit as often as formerly.
Then, I think that it cannot enter into the task of an international Congress to interfere with the small details of the socialist movement of the different nationalities: an international socialist Congress can only establish the broad lines of the march of the universal proletariat; for these broad lines that are to be traced, it does not seem necessary to meet very frequently. I observe that until now most of the international Congresses have only renewed the resolutions that had already been voted in the preceding Congresses; and this very repetition diminishes the value of these resolutions. It is much better to widen the space of time existing between Congresses and to take lasting resolutions, which shall be fruitful for the labors of the proletariat.
I protest with energy against the thought that the German delegation is not sufficiently penetrated with the feeling of international solidarity: all the history of the German party testifies to the internationalist sentiments it professes and to the influence they exercise. By rallying to the German proposition, the Congress will not neglect the bonds of solidarity of the world proletariat; but on the contrary, in establishing them on the solid bases of serious work, they shall only be more strongly drawn closer.
Citizen Andrea Costa (Italy). — I support the English proposition, all the more because, given the constitution of the international committee, we are sure that in two years, as Vandervelde said, there will be all the time needed to organize the Congress.
Until now, complaint could be made that the international Congresses did not give the results that the proletariat expected of them; but why? Because there was no bureau that could organize them, because the resolutions were not taken sufficiently in advance and one did not have time to discuss the questions in time. This is unfortunately what has again happened for this Congress.
Our friend Singer said that German democracy has always given proof of internationalism: that is understood; but that does not mean it cannot still do much better… (Laughter) He added that international Congresses must not intervene in national questions… I hope they shall; and I believe, for example, that the citizens of other nations, in this Congress, will have perhaps exercised a happy influence on our French friends. Without wishing to interfere in the detail of national questions, we come to bring the tribute of our intelligence and our experience to our friends of all nationalities. (Applause) From the point of view of solidarity and the international relations of the proletariat, we think that the English proposition must be accepted.
Numerous voices: To the vote!
Citizen President. — I propose to close the discussion. Each nation has two votes, as has been decided: there are three propositions in contention, one of two years, English; one of five years, German; and one of three years, Austrian and Dutch.
The proposition of two years, put to the vote, is rejected by twenty-one votes against nineteen. The proposition of three years is adopted by thirty-two votes against eight.
Citizen Polak (Holland). — On the subject of the place of the next Congress, I wish to declare, in the name of the Dutch section, that we shall be very happy if the Congress decides to do us the honor of meeting in 1903 at Amsterdam. We shall do all our possible to organize it well, with the help of the central bureau of Brussels, and all our possible also to welcome you all fraternally and in the best fashion. (Applause)
Citizen Pernerstorfer (Austria). — We very cordially invite the international Congress to meet, next time, at Vienna. Vienna is a beautiful and joyous city; and the brothers of Austria shall do their possible to render the stay as agreeable and as joyous as possible. It is true that Austria is a police state; but the Austrian socialists are convinced that they shall succeed in keeping away from the Congress all the police harassments that one would wish to place there.
Be certain also that we shall do our best to prepare the international Congress in a perfect manner, so that the work of the Congress shall be carried out in a satisfactory fashion. We would be very happy if you would do our city the honor to choose it and would thus demonstrate your solidarity toward the proletariat of that distant country, by coming to fraternize with it. (Applause)
Citizen Kritchevsky (Russia). — I indicate that if the Congress is held at Vienna, Russia cannot be represented by any delegate, because of the police relations existing between Russia and Austria. That is why I ask that if the Congress does not wish to prevent the Russian socialists from being represented at the next Congress, it must vote for Amsterdam.
Citizen Adler (Austria). — It is true that the police are quite vicious in Austria, but they are not as much so as citizen Kritchevsky supposes. Reason is beginning to develop a very tiny bit even in the police world in Austria; and I believe that the Austrians can give the engagement and promise that there shall be no harassments, expulsions, or dangers for the Russian delegates who shall come to the international Congress.
Moreover, from the point of view of police difficulties, Austria does not have the privilege of them; and even under the Republic, with a government that has a socialist minister, serious difficulties were created for Plekhanoff and Bebel to permit them to attend this Congress. I must recognize that Austria is still more of a police state than France. (1)
Numerous voices: To the vote!
Citizen President. — I put the Dutch proposition to the vote. — Adopted. (Applause)
Citizen Polak. — I thank you, in the name of the Dutch delegation, cordially for the vote you have just cast; Holland is a small country; the socialist party there is very young, it will strive all the more to do honor to the mandate and the confidence with which you have invested it. (Lively applause)
Citizen President. — We shall now resume the order of the day, the discussion of the ninth question; the floor goes to citizen Jules Guesde.
(Citizen Jules Guesde, presenting himself at the tribune, is greeted by applause, acclamations from the left of the assembly, and cries of: Long live the Commune! On the right, they cry: Long live the Republic!)
Citizen Jules Guesde (P.O.F.). — I have only a few words to say relative to the resolution on alliances, which I approve all the more because it forbids, in the name of the class struggle, any alliance with any fraction whatever of the capitalist class, and because, if it still tolerates coalitions without confusion of program or tactics, it intends immediately to reduce them to their minimum, up to their complete elimination; and because, on the other hand, while reducing these coalitions, it submits them to the examination and approval of the regional or national organizations to which the engaged group belongs. On that side — for the P.S.R., the P.O.F., the Communist Alliance, and the revolutionary socialist Federations that are with us — we have full satisfaction.
I pass now to the Kautsky resolution and I declare, first of all, that we are with Kautsky, that we are with the majority of the ninth commission, when it recalls that the entry of an isolated socialist into a bourgeois government cannot be considered as the beginning of the conquest of the public powers by the organized proletariat. This declaration is considered by us as being of extreme importance, because from the international point of view, it shall separate what must be separated: the seizure of central power by the proletariat acting as enemy, and the alms of a portfolio accepted by a socialist. The seizure of power must not be confused with ministerial mendicancy… (Lively applause on the left)
We are still with Kautsky and the majority of the commission when it recalls — for all this belongs to the revolutionary international socialist past, all this is not novelty, it is the very principle of the struggle engaged for more than thirty years by the conscious proletariat against the old world that is crumbling — when it recalls that what the proletariat needs in order to enfranchise itself is, not governmental power conquered fragmentarily, but the totality of central power; because outside of this totality there are only impotent reforms, incapable of profoundly modifying the condition of the classes in struggle; and because the enfranchisement of labor, as of society, is subordinated to a question of expropriation, to a question of transformation of capitalist property into collectivist, communist, or social property, and for that, the totality of political power is indispensable. And I go further: nothing says that total legal power will suffice for a work so gigantic; nothing says that one shall not have to go as far as class dictatorship… (Lively applause on the left. — Interruptions on the right) before which the great revolutionary bourgeois of 1793 did not recoil.
We are still with Kautsky when in his resolution he denounces the disorganization, the confusion introduced into the militant proletariat by socialist collaboration given to a government of an enemy class, and when he adds: that far from drawing us closer to the goal, this collaboration takes us away from it; that the more we have the appearance of power in socialist hands, the less we have the reality of that power; and that instead of being a cause of strength for those below who struggle, it is a cause of weakening.
I consider that these declarations, these reminders, this clarification are extremely important in the midst of the failings that are not only national but that occur everywhere, at a moment when (no one can contest it, Ferri came to affirm it, he too from his side) there is everywhere a slackening, and the movement, in extending itself, has lost in depth and in consciousness what it has gained in extent. That is why, when this Kautsky resolution was put to the vote in the ninth commission, after ours had been set aside, at least by a vote of priority, I nearly voted for it, because it constituted already a first indispensable rectification for the international tactic of the proletariat. (Applause on the left)
But where the organizations in whose name I speak here are no longer, can no longer be with Kautsky and the resolution of the majority, is when, after having theoretically and experimentally condemned what I shall call, so as to wound no one, the new fact, the fact of yesterday and today, a few lines further on one admits the resurrection, in conditions somewhat different it is true, of this new fact considered as an accident…
Well, no! the class struggle cannot end in the collaboration of classes; or else this accident would risk being mortal for the working class, for the Socialist Party, dupe of such a reconciliation, even momentary.
A socialist — it is Liebknecht who speaks — who enters a bourgeois government, ceases, by that very fact, to be a socialist; he may still believe himself a socialist, Liebknecht added; he is no longer one, because if one cannot serve two masters, one can still less serve two classes whose interests are as antagonistic as the proletariat on one side, the capitalist bourgeoisie on the other; and one cannot, in a word, be at once the agent of social conservation and the agent of transformation or of social Revolution. There is here an incompatibility, a contradiction that will not be made to disappear by the authorization given by a Socialist Party to one of its members to enter a ministry.
The same contradiction, the same incompatibility will subsist; only there will be something, I do not say more, but worse: there will be the responsibility of a bourgeois government which, with a socialist or without a socialist, is condemned to do the affairs of its class, cannot manage modern societies otherwise than they wish to be managed, given the texture, the terrain, the economic bases of these societies. And then, there will be the responsibility of all the class acts, of all the class crimes of this bourgeois government, taken on no longer only individually by a socialist gone astray on the ministerial benches; there will be the responsibility taken on by the Socialist Party itself — that is to say, the failure, the bankruptcy, decreed by itself, of the Socialist Party with respect to the proletariat, which had confidence in it, which marched behind it, and which, once more, its eyes opened by the lightning of the rifles, as by storm-lightning, seeing that the worker’s flesh is equally bruised, that the proletariat is equally bloodied, whether there is socialist collaboration or whether there is a class government exclusively bourgeois, would be appalled, sickened. And who is to say it would still believe us tomorrow!…
Such are the reasons which, from the national point of view, exclude, in our view, absolutely all socialist participation in a bourgeois government. But there is another side, the international side; and since we are here as international brothers gathered in Congress, allow me to bring this absolutely decisive argument.
Do you picture this socialist participation, this socialist entered into a bourgeois government and bearing the responsibility not only of bourgeois domestic policy but of capitalist policy abroad, obliged to file requests for military, naval, colonial credits, obliged to defend them, while in the countries where this promiscuity has not yet occurred, when the German imperial bourgeoisie, the Italian royal bourgeoisie, the English constitutional monarchy file these same credits, the socialists reply: You shall not have one kilo of powder, not a single shell, not a single soldier!…
There is in that the destruction of the International you are in the process of creating here: with a Prussian Millerand, with an Italian Millerand, with a French Millerand, with an English Millerand, there is no longer a workers’ International possible!… (Enthusiastic applause and bravos on the benches of the P.O.F. and the P.S.R.)
That is why, if the Kautsky motion is not referred back to a commission called upon to make disappear what we consider as a flagrant contradiction and as a new danger raised on the already encumbered road of today’s proletariat, I could not respond, in the name of the organizations for which I speak, and despite our spirit of national and international union, that the Kautsky motion would be respected. And I am obliged to defend the proposition of the minority, which consists in this: to trace an impassable frontier, so that the exceptions, as Ferri was saying the other day, do not arrive, by dint of being numerous, at eating up the rule itself. Here is this resolution:
The fifth international Congress, meeting in Paris, recalls that, by conquest of the public powers, one must understand the political expropriation of the capitalist class, whether this expropriation takes place peacefully or violently.
It consequently leaves no place, under the bourgeois regime, except for the occupation of the elective positions of which the Party can take hold by means of its own forces — that is, of workers organized into a class party — and necessarily forbids any socialist participation in bourgeois governments, against which the socialists must remain in a state of irreducible opposition.
There is the field open to the proletariat; there is how far the proletariat can go, with its forces, as an enemy class; there is the other field into which it cannot penetrate, because the enemy class, which has the key to it, which can introduce it there, will introduce it there only in the measure of its own interests, and because this introduction will turn against the working class.
Against the establishment of this frontier, Vandervelde said: It is factitious; it is in any case a little arbitrary; what difference, he added, do you make between a mayor named by socialist worker suffrage and sent to a Town Hall, and on the contrary a minister who, designated by the Party, would enter a bourgeois government? But the difference is colossal! It is that when a Socialist Party sends one of its own to the mayoralty of a great Commune or of a small Commune, that elected one, that mayor is its own; if he does not do his socialist duty, he shall be broken at the renewal of the mandate; he shall be guillotined electorally, for lack of a more personal and sufficient chastisement — whereas as regards this delegate of the Socialist Party in the central government of the bourgeoisie, the more he fails in his socialist duty, the more he betrays his own party, and the longer he remains in the government of the enemy class. It is a premium on treason that you will have given! (Applause)
There is yet another thing: it is that by indicating the possibility of becoming a minister in exceptional circumstances with the consent of the Party, you are going to create in the party a new state of mind, a very new one, the bad new spirit. From the moment that one is accidentally eligible for ministry, in extraordinary circumstances, the idea of becoming a minister introduces itself into the brain of the vanguard militants, of those one calls the General Staff. They are eligible; they wish to become ministers; and they say: It is the Party that imposes this new tactic on us; (Applause) whereas formerly one was devoted to one’s party even to the wall, even to summary executions, today one must be devoted to one’s Party to the point of accepting a portfolio; one must have the heroism to retemper modern socialism in hopes of portfolios!
I stop, I think I have exceeded the limit…
Voices on the left: Speak!
I have only one more word to add: it is that our resolution seems to us to present every kind of practicability, even from the point of view of countries that find themselves subject to political elections different from ours. Thus a Swiss comrade was asking me yesterday whether, with our motion, one would have the right to become deputy in Switzerland, and minister in Switzerland, where ministerial functions are given by election… But, naturally, we answered, all elective functions are by right for the socialists; and they even have the duty to obtain them, because then it is the expropriation of the bourgeois government that begins. When you delegate a minister directly, you begin the true work that will have to be ended by the Revolution. On the contrary, the day you accept what you ought to take, it is you who uncover your class, create for it responsibilities before which it has the right to recoil.
In any case, for us, our conviction is absolute: one cannot in a bourgeois society go beyond, as a conquest of public powers by legal means, the elective positions; and that is why I shall ask, in any case, the Congress to be willing to accept that our motion, on which we insist that one should be able to count heads, be put to the vote first, so that we may know who are those who have remained with us on the original terrain on which we have been struggling for twenty years and more…
Ah! I know well that it has been said that this was the old method, the old game, that we had formerly done useful work in separating the classes, in pointing out to the proletariat the mission incumbent upon it of enfranchising itself, because from its enfranchisement would result the general enfranchisement, that this had been useful in the past, but that one could sew back together what we had unsewn, blend what we had separated… (Noise, numerous protests)
Outside of the class struggle, outside of this terrain, there is place only for duping, only for social conservation! (Prolonged applause and acclamations on the left)
Citizen Anseele (Belgium) (1). — I am one of those who by telegram congratulated Millerand on having accepted a post in the French ministry. When I did so, I was not preoccupied with the particular questions in which France found itself; some said: The Republic is in danger; others said: That is inexact… For me, the question was secondary; if I sent my telegram of congratulations, it is because I believed sincerely that my class and my cause could have profits and new interests in this new means of struggle of which the working class in France could take hold. I think I posed the question very clearly then, as regards myself. And now, let us see the Kautsky resolution.
It has been said at the Congress that it is vague; that is true; I would have liked it sharper; but after reflection I must agree that it can only be what it is; first because the situation it treats is vague in itself, and on the other hand because on a question of tactics, there is no fixed rule.
Comrade Guesde found in the Kautsky resolution admirable things; I also found some there. I am notably happy that international socialism has dared to say before the world that the triumph of the working class will be a slow, long, and painful work! (Applause on the right)
The characteristic side of the resolution is not, in my view, all that Guesde found in it: it is this one phrase, in my opinion. It is the working class daring to avow to itself that it will take a long time and that every day and every minute, it will be necessary to be on the breach for the definitive triumph. (Renewed applause on the right) From this point of view, today’s Congress breaks with the past. One could believe that we were like the Church, which says: Believe in God, and the rest will be given to you in heaven; — one could believe that we were like the bourgeoisie, which says: Believe in liberty, and the rest will be given to you besides; — and that we were saying: Believe in the Revolution, and the rest shall be given to you afterwards…
Well, from today, international socialism says: Prepare yourselves for the great final day; but enter into action every day and every minute; and leave no means of propaganda unused. (Lively applause on the right)
And whence does this come, I do not say this new tactic, but this courage (1) and this frankness? It is that we are sufficiently strong by number, by the crowd that comes to us; it is that this crisis of growth from which we are suffering — instead of the failings of which Guesde spoke a moment ago — gives us new duties before the proletariat, which has confidence in us.
I am certain that the reading of this phrase of Kautsky will have been a terrible disillusion for some of our friends, who, ready to die for the cause, will have asked themselves: Must I then, I who am ready for sacrifices and abnegation, resign myself to becoming a member of a cooperative or of a socialist mutual aid society?… Yes, my friends! For if the struggle on the barricades is heroic, the everyday struggle, that which maintains faith and confidence in the heart of the proletariat, is also beautiful! (Lively applause on a great number of benches)
Citizen Delesalle (P.O.F.). — That is what the French Workers’ Party does every day! (1)
Citizen Anseele. — Certain of our friends will say: I have suffered all one can suffer, and all that so that one of ours should become minister and a few others should hope to become so… so that these arrivistes should corrupt themselves and corrupt the crowd with them!…
Well, on the contrary, we do not think your work has been useless; honor to those revolutionaries of the past, whose living representative, Cipriani, is in our midst! (Applause) But, dear Ciprianis of past and future, do not be afraid; the rifle-shot shall yet have to be fired… Do you then believe that when the working class shall be solidly organized in the entire world, when capitalism shall feel itself undermined, it will not defend itself against the rising tide of socialism and will not oblige us to do battle!… The more numerous our trade unions and our cooperatives, the more numerous our electors, the closer shall approach the supreme battle, which shall be murderous, because the exploiter world shall feel that it is the last!… (Applause)
But here we separate ourselves from the minority. Kautsky says: A socialist can become minister in certain given circumstances and as mandatary of his Party, and Guesde says: He can never become minister. These are the two theses clearly determined.
And first, I ask Guesde: Bourgeois society rests on two forces: political force (it is mistress of the government) and economic force (it is mistress of commerce and industry) and this last force is perhaps more gigantic than the first. If, one day, the great industry of Le Creusot, the mines of Anzin, the Cockerill establishments in Belgium, oil works in America, or any large English industry whatever, feeling itself too weak to direct its own enterprise itself, were to address itself to an intelligent man of the trade unions, a socialist belonging to the same industry — who then would dare to say to that man: Do not enter into this sort of ministry; in entering it, you betray the worker cause? And who would dare to say further that all the responsibility for the acts of this ministry should fall upon the representative of the working class, even if, in strikes, injustices were committed by the industrialist?…
Guesde has just said: There are in the entire socialist world failings… I protest, in the name of the Congress, against this word “failing” which is inexact! (Applause) The socialist movement is growing; and if there are failings in France, I assure you there are none in Belgium, where we employ all means of struggle, even those that some of you do not wish to employ… (Interruptions on certain benches)
Citizen President. — I ask the orator to conclude.
Numerous voices. — Speak!
Citizen Anseele. — From the point of view of theory, I am as rigorous as Guesde, of whom I am the pupil; but one must think of the practical manner of making it penetrate the brain of the proletariat. It is not enough to write a fine brochure; for it to be useful, the worker must be able to read it; and for him to read it, he needs money and time, at the same time as the intellectual capacity to study it. Now, we find ourselves before a socialist of talent like Guesde, who believes he can tell us: The movement has extended, but it has lost in depth what it has gained in extent… Well, what is the reason for this? It is that misery is too great, it is that the hours of work are too long. And so, the man who works to diminish the hours of work, to increase wages, to increase the well-being of the working class, does useful and meritorious work! (Prolonged applause on a great number of benches)
Citizen President. — I propose to close the discussion at three o’clock on this question. Here is another proposition that does not come from the bureau but from a great part of the assembly: it is to suspend the session at one o’clock and to resume it at two o’clock. (The Belgian and Dutch delegates propose that the discussion be closed at one o’clock. — The English likewise.)
Numerous voices: To the vote!
I put to the vote the proposition tending to close the discussions on this question at one o’clock, while leaving the possibility for a delegate of one of the foreign nationalities who has not spoken to explain himself, for citizen Costa. — Adopted.
Citizen Vaillant (P.S.R.). — I shall have very few things to say, after the speech of our excellent friend Guesde; all his words are the direct expression of our thought. We wish only to affirm that in the present struggle engaged between the working class and the capitalist class, we consider that it is necessary that the socialist party should show itself distinct, that it remain a party of opposition and of revolution, and that from the capitalist class it should obtain only what it can obtain by combat. That is why we absolutely reject compromises, pacts, every alliance, every introduction of a socialist into the central power, into ministries.
Citizen Anseele was saying a moment ago that we do not have only a political combat to wage, but also an economic combat. And what would you say, he added, if the boss of Le Creusot, for example, drew from a trade union a socialist to place him at the head of his factory?… We shall reply that if he does so, it is to support his interest; that he makes of this unionist an agent of the bossdom and that the day he sees that the latter, instead of serving his interests, betrays them, he will dismiss him from his wages.
Well, it is the same with a socialist in a ministry; he must with his colleagues do bourgeois governmental work, or else he would disappear. That is how this fact occurs which you have witnessed, which we declare to be a misfortune for the proletariat: that a socialist minister could be rendered responsible for shootings of workers in Martinique and at Chalon. Well, if, as is requested, the socialist minister were delegated by his party, it would be the Socialist Party as a whole that would be rendered solidary and complicit in these shootings.
That is what we do not want, because of that great battle of which Anseele spoke, which must end the great struggle which shall be the triumph of the Revolution. Well, since we have to wage this great battle, do you believe that we can win it if we do not have the proletariat behind us? We must have it, and we shall not have it if we have discouraged it, if we have shown it that the Socialist Party no longer represents its interests, no longer represents the war of the working class against the capitalist class. What then shall it think when it shall have seen us collaborate with the bourgeoisie, defend capitalism, through the intermediary of our delegate? That is why we say that participation in the central power of the bourgeoisie, even of a delegate of the proletariat, in any circumstance whatever, is an impossibility.
We conceive that citizen Kautsky, whose depth of thought we all admire, could have drafted on this subject an article and that to that article he should have given the form of a resolution; but we ask ourselves how he, who has fought so victoriously in Germany against the tactics of Bernstein, comes today so to speak to capitulate before the opinion of Bernstein (1)… (Violent protests on a great number of benches) I do not say that this is in Kautsky’s thought, but it is the fact that would dominate and that would result from the vote of his proposition.
We took at the last French national Congress on this question a clear and firm resolution; but by the very fact that there was the examination of particular circumstances, this permitted discussions to develop, and quibbling to know which were these particular circumstances.
Well, the international Congress must speak frankly. The French shall submit to its decisions; but, as Sembat requested, they must be clear. Discord will continue by the vote of the Kautsky proposition, although in Kautsky’s thought his resolution is clear and favorable to our thesis.
Therefore, we ask you to say clearly what you want and to vote first of all on the proposition of the minority. We ask you to express a clear opinion before the proletariat that listens to you. (Applause on the left) — (Protests are made on the benches of the P.O.F. and the P.S.R. because the translation in English and German of Vaillant’s speech is not made)
Citizen President. — It is in agreement with citizen Vaillant that, at the request of the Germans and the English, and to save time, it had been agreed that this speech should not be translated.
Citizen Auer (Germany). — I have too much confidence in French politeness and hospitality to have been able to think for a single moment that the French alone would discuss, and that the foreign delegates would not have the floor. I thank the French comrades for the wholly cordial manner in which they finally leave the floor to the foreigners.
There has been much discussion, but despite the admiration I have felt for the beautiful and just things that have been said from the different sides, it seems to me that no new argument has been brought. All these questions which trouble the French comrades, which divide them, were examined with the same conscience, with the same detail, but perhaps with less passion, by the Germans some years ago.
Among the Germans, in fact, we asked ourselves whether there could be coalitions with fractions of the bourgeois party, whether the proletariat could venture on the slippery floor of bourgeois parliamentarism, whether the socialist party could participate in communal elections and send representatives into municipalities. But these questions were settled by the very force of things, and I am convinced that it will be the same for the French, and that they will find themselves led to act as the Germans did, because they cannot renounce taking part in all these manifestations of social life without harming the interests of the working class.
The particular Millerand case has been discussed. But this case cannot preoccupy the Germans, for there is no fear that it should occur among us, for the moment! We are not yet there! But I hope nevertheless that soon the same necessity shall impose itself on us also! There has been astonishment that this question has clothed itself in Germany only in the character of an academic and doctrinal discussion: but it is because, among us, the situation is such that those who perhaps would have to decide whether or not they could enter a bourgeois cabinet are all, for the moment, much closer to prison than to a ministerial armchair… (Laughter)
I saw myself, during all this discussion, in the place of Reuter’s day-laborer, before whom one discussed to know which dish should be preferred. And the simple peasant of Lower Germany said to himself: Cooked prunes, roasted meats, those are famous dishes; but one never sees any! (Prolonged laughter) That is the situation in which we find ourselves.
But the question presents itself to us still from another side. What circumstances brought it about in France that a socialist could become minister? It was a question of knowing who was going to triumph, the Republic or reaction, and whether that immense movement of human liberation, for which you French have shed so much blood, was going to retreat by several years. It is the traditions of our party which I simply follow when I say to you: At such moments, when reaction’s menace had to be repulsed, ready to attack liberty, when all economic or political retreat had to be prevented, we did not hesitate for a minute to do our duty. And if ever such a question came to arise for us, we would say to the parties that came to us: Be reassured. It is our tradition, it is our existence which demand that we wage with you the same combat for Liberty, Right, and Progress. Perhaps, out of regard for our leaders, whom we love, we would have added: We do not want a ministerial armchair, but you can count on us.
But, on the other hand, if there had presented itself in Germany a Dreyfus affair, I believe I can affirm that one would not have said: It is a quarrel of the bourgeoisie that does not concern us! (Applause) And if we had had to ask ourselves whether we should be for or against Loubet, after a moment of reflection we would have replied: We are for Loubet!
As I said in the commission, among us Germans, the Millerand question could not have presented itself from another point of view; it is that he could not have entered the bourgeois cabinet without first having agreed with his Party; but the case is not the same for France, and in the presence of this confusion, of this Tower of Babel that occurs in France and of which we are witnesses, one really asks oneself to whom Millerand could have addressed himself to know what attitude to take! (Laughter and applause)
That is why it is of great interest that your quarrels cease and that you become a strong and unified party. Then you will be able to settle all questions in a manner profitable to the interests of the proletariat. This case may recur, and it will be necessary that French socialism have a generation which is at the height of the historical task that will be incumbent upon it.
As regards the Kautsky resolution, I do not adhere to each phrase in particular, but I approve its general tendency in that it does not bind our hands for the future, in that it declares that the Socialist Party is strong enough, sufficiently conscious of itself to find, in difficult situations, the true road it must take; I think that we, socialists, must not be fanatics, dogmatists, for we do not possess all truth, but we aspire to truth; that is why we must have our freedom of action in coming circumstances.
I hope that in the future the French comrades shall succeed in settling their family questions within the family, and that they shall think that one should leave to international congresses only the solution of general questions. Then, future international congresses shall be truly a demonstration of the organized and conscious proletariat.
I hope also that whatever the decision of the Congress may be, the French brothers shall not consider themselves as victors or vanquished, but as struggling brothers united among themselves, who must march hand in hand with their brothers of all countries. (Lively applause on a great number of benches)
Citizen President. — The discussion of this question is closed; but I shall still give the floor this afternoon to citizen Andrea Costa for a declaration.
The session is adjourned at one o’clock.
AFTERNOON SESSION
The session is opened at half past two, under the presidency of citizen Van Kol (Holland), assisted by citizens Fürholz (Switzerland) and Plekhanoff (Russia).
Citizen President. — We ask the sections of the different countries who have not yet done so to send us the names of the delegates to the permanent international Committee.
I give, as I announced, the floor to citizen Andrea Costa for a declaration.
Citizen Andrea Costa (Italy). — Our friend Ferri, with whom we are in disagreement of opinion, but whom we love as he loves us, because, as has been said to you, there may be discussions in Italy but there are no divisions (Applause)… Ferri, with loyalty, declared, after the vote of our recent Congress of Rome, that he would loyally accept the experiment we were going to make of autonomy.
Likewise, I declare to you and I declare to him that if, at the next Italian Congress, it were proved that the tactic of autonomy had done us harm, I will say to citizen Ferri: You were right, as, in the contrary case, he will say to us: I was wrong.
Citizen Ferri thought he could express the opinion of the Italian delegation. I am not in the habit of abusing the floor, or the patience of Congresses, but I insisted this morning with the bureau that the floor be reserved for me. I wished, in fact, to indicate, since our friend Ferri presented to the Paris Congress more or less the same resolution he had presented at the Congress of Rome, that the latter was rejected by the Congress of Rome by one hundred and six votes against sixty-nine. You will understand that we could not let socialists of the different countries believe that it was our friend Ferri who represented the opinion of the Italian delegates or of the majority…
Citizen Enrico Ferri (Italy). — I was reporter of the international commission, and not of Italy.
Citizen Andrea Costa. — It is a declaration I am making; let us not squabble at the international Congress! (Laughter and applause) The great majority of the delegates at the Congress of Rome adopted, from the electoral point of view, the tactic of autonomy; they said that the conditions of political, industrial, intellectual, and moral development of Italy being different, it was appropriate to apply to the different regions of Italy — and we think it is appropriate to apply also to the different nations — a different tactic. So that we ought to leave to the good sense, to the intelligence, to the equity, to the morality — yes, let us say it — of our friends of all the international socialist parties the question of knowing whether in electoral tactics one ought or ought not to accept certain alliances or certain coalitions. Here is the resolution we took:
The Congress, from the point of view of electoral tactics, in confirming its faith in the fundamental principles of the party: class struggle, socialization of the means of production, of labor, and of exchange, declares the full autonomy of the organizations…
(Noise. Numerous protests)
Citizen President. — The discussion being closed, citizen Costa asked permission to make a declaration and he gives a speech! (Approval)
Citizen Andrea Costa. — I represent here the majority of the Italian delegation! Besides, I have not been speaking for ten minutes! (Noisy interruptions)
Citizen Manuel Roldes (A.C.). — And discipline, and the decision of the Congress! (Tumult. — Numerous voices: Speak! — Other voices: No! no speech; the discussion is closed!)
Citizen Andrea Costa. — The international Congress is not a guillotine! (Agitation)
(The president and citizen Costa exchange lively observations, after which the president grants him the floor.)
Citizen President. — Comrades, I ask you to listen for a few more minutes to citizen Costa, in view of his lively insistence and his particular situation.
Citizen Andrea Costa. — The Congress of Rome therefore affirmed the autonomy of regional organizations, as we affirm here the autonomy of national organizations in matters of tactics. We accept consequently the Kautsky resolution as the one most closely approaching the one we took at the Congress of Rome.
But, since our friend Ferri thought he should indicate yesterday that there were certain socialists who had attended the funeral of Umberto, king of Italy, I must reply, so that there be no equivocation, that these socialists were branded, and not only is this not part of the tactic of autonomy, it is in contradiction with this autonomy of the different regions admitted by the Congress of Rome (1). Besides, this attitude, which was blamed by the Congress, had been followed before the Congress of Rome adopted the electoral tactic of autonomy.
(Renewed noise. — A part of the assembly, notably the English delegation and the members of the P.O.F., protest violently against the length of citizen Andrea Costa’s speech.)
Citizen President approves this protest and begs citizen Costa to halt his observations there.
Citizen President. — The bureau has tried to resolve the difficulties we had to overcome. It finds itself confronted with two resolutions that conflict, and the general rule, in all Congresses, is that priority is given to the proposition of the majority of the commission. Citizen Vaillant, who had proposed to put to the vote the resolution of the minority, has acquiesced in this way of doing. But he said that the Guesde resolution would then constitute an amendment to the Kautsky resolution. I believe one need only read the two resolutions to see that one is not an amendment of the other, that on the contrary they are like the goat and the cabbage. But the bureau, giving proof of an effort of conciliation, found and accepted this intermediate solution: that instead of voting for the Guesde resolution and the Kautsky resolution, we would vote simply for the majority, or for the minority.
Those who vote for the proposition of the majority of the commission will vote: “majority”; those who are for the minority will vote: “minority” — that is, the Guesde proposition.
Citizen Vandervelde (Belgium). — In the name of the commission, I rally to the mode of voting proposed by the president. We would have the right to claim, in virtue of the regulations, priority for the resolution of the commission; but in a spirit of conciliation we do not do so.
I think there can be no misunderstanding about the manner of voting: we are first in the presence of resolution no. 1, which is proposed by the unanimity of the commission, and which will doubtless meet with the unanimity of the Congress; it is the resolution relative to the question of alliances. I propose to reserve the vote on that question until after the vote on the question that divides us — that is, the participation of a socialist in a bourgeois government. We find ourselves here in the presence of two resolutions: the resolution of the majority of the commission and the resolution of the minority. The president will proceed to the vote by nationalities, and instead of voting yes or no, as usual, one will vote, according to one’s preferences, saying: majority or minority.
Citizen President. — We shall proceed to the vote, under these conditions:
By twenty-nine votes against nine, the Kautsky motion, called the motion of the majority, is adopted.
Here is how these votes are distributed:
| Proposition Kautsky | Proposition Guesde-Ferri | |
|---|---|---|
| Germany | 2 | — |
| England | 2 | — |
| Austria | 2 | — |
| Bohemia | 2 | — |
| Bulgaria | — | 2 |
| Denmark | 2 | — |
| Spain | 2 | — |
| France | 1 | 1 |
| Sweden | 2 | — |
| Ireland | — | 2 |
| Belgium | 2 | — |
| Norway | — | — |
| Holland | 2 | — |
| Poland | 1 | 1 |
| United States | 1 | 1 |
| Argentine Republic | 2 | — |
| Russia | 1 | 1 |
| Portugal | 2 | — |
| Switzerland | 2 | — |
| Italy | 1 | 1 |
(The vote is received with lively applause on a great number of benches, and with violent protests on the benches of the P.O.F., where cries rise of: To Chalon!)
Citizen President. — We shall now proceed by show of hands to the vote on the resolution relating to alliances.
The motion of the commission is voted unanimously, by acclamation.
Citizen Secretary. — The delegate of the trade union commission of the Belgian Workers’ Party requests that at the next international Congress each nation furnish respectively a report on the trade union situation, as well as the comparative figures of the progression or regression of members and of dues and advantages obtained.
We have received from the Avant-Garde of the Social Democracy of Australia a delegation so that our comrade Hyndman should represent it at this Congress.
We have received a telegram of sympathy from the trade union of commercial employees of Toulouse; a telegram of sympathy from the National Executive Committee of the Workers’ Party of Canada; (Applause) a telegram from the Association of tanners and skin-dressers of Hungary; a telegram from the Central Committee of the Social Democracy of Hungary; and a telegram from the trade union of mechanics of Lyon.
Citizen Vinck proposes that the Congress send to the English and Austrian comrades its warmest wishes, on the occasion of the electoral struggle in which they are presently engaged.
Citizen Vandervelde. — I support this proposition of our comrade Vinck. (Lively approval) — Adopted.
Citizen President. — We pass to the following question, and I shall take the floor, in my capacity as a member of the fifth commission, on colonial policy.
Citizen Van Kol. — Comrades, I am happy that for the first time, in the Parliament of the proletariat, the question primordial for the history of the world and humanity is being treated, colonial policy. It is not a speech I mean to make; I want only to sound the bugle, to issue the cry of alarm, in the name of the proletariat, against capitalist colonial policy.
Your commission proposes a few practical measures: we express the ardent wish that in all national congresses the colonial question be treated, which solicits the attention of all those who are interested in the proletariat.
We asked, as a second measure, that the proletariat that is found in the colonies be organized, created as it is by colonial capitalism; that everywhere, in the entire world, from the Equator to the North, the proletarians be organized to make of them socialists, and to wage the class struggle still more vigorously. Such are the practical measures we have to submit to you. I place myself now from the theoretical point of view:
The development of capitalism and of machinism leads to colonial expansion; one needs new markets for the evolution of capitalism and of commerce; that is inevitable and fatal, for without that the world would be driven to a coming revolution. This was declared in the American Senate: we produce double, it was said there, of what we can sell; we must therefore have new markets, conquer new countries, in order to spread and sell our products; we have no other path than imperialism or socialism… And America has chosen, to avoid socialism, to avoid the threatening Revolution, imperialism, and, inevitable consequence, militarism. As soon as one wants to extend oneself, to seize new countries, one needs a powerful fleet, as Germany has understood, new armies, and one spends millions more per year; thus act all the European nations, which want to take their share of the booty of distant countries…
Europe is only a gigantic spider which, in order to conquer and vanquish new peoples, casts on all sides its powerful and murderous tentacles. From this spirit of conquests are born international conflicts which shall cause blood to be shed.
And to whose benefit is the colonial policy so full of horrors, which has cost us millions of human beings? To the capitalists! The present colonial policy profits only the great concessionaires. As regards you French, who have a part of the Congo, and concessions of gold mines: all that is now monopolized by a few rapacious bankers and a few capitalists. There are only profits for the capitalists and only sorrow for the proletariat; the proletariat sheds its blood for those distant conquests, where it gives its sweat and its labor for crushing taxes. But there is to be feared from this policy a more serious and still more disastrous consequence.
At this moment the wall of China is being broken down with cannon shots; one is going to attack four hundred million Chinese, producers in the majority, who have almost no needs, who do not know socialism, who are content with meager wages, and who will throw themselves en masse onto the European markets, coming to wage a disastrous competition with the European workers. Such will be the consequence for the proletariat of this barbaric struggle against the yellow race. That is what awaits the proletariat if socialism does not intervene in time, if it does not put its veto on the present capitalist colonial policy.
And as for the fate of our comrades among the distant conquered populations, who are of another race and of another color, what is it then, under our domination?
I who have traveled in those countries, I have been able to see their miserable lot. Do I need to recall to you the crimes without number that have been committed in the colonies? Do I need to recall to the Belgians the lot of the Negroes of the Congo, the hideous heaped corpses, the unfortunate victims that accuse the colonial policy of Belgium? Do I need to recall to the English the victims they have made and that they still make in the four corners of the world? Shall I recall to the French the cruelties that occurred in Madagascar and elsewhere? To the Germans, the murder of women who would not submit to the outrages of their officers? And we Hollanders, can we forget the twenty-eight years of war, of exterminations and massacres of women, children, and old people, while we burned the villages and we sowed ruin and misery among a people until then happy? (1) Each European nation has, one can say, a black register of crimes and colonial cruelties!
So we must raise a voice of protest on hearing the cries of pain that come from the deserts of Africa, from the plains of Australia, that come from everywhere the hideous hand of capitalism has come down!
The proletariat must make heard the voice of human solidarity, it that knows no differences of colors, religions, or nations, that knows that all beings, whatever the color of their skin, have hearts like ours, and know how to love and to hate! The Commission therefore proposes to you to make heard a protest against colonial expansion, imperialism, and militarism! Here is its resolution:
The international socialist Congress, held in Paris in 1900, considering that the development of capitalism leads fatally to colonial expansion, that cause of conflicts between governments; that the imperialism which is the consequence of it excites chauvinism in every country and forces ever-increasing expenditures for the profit of militarism; that the colonial policy of the bourgeoisie has no other goal than to enlarge the profits of the capitalist class and the maintenance of the capitalist system, while draining the blood and the money of the producer proletariat, and committing crimes and cruelties without number toward the indigenous races of the colonies conquered by force of arms.
Declares that the organized proletariat must use all the means in its power to combat capitalist colonial expansion and to have the colonial policy of the bourgeoisie condemned, and to brand, in every circumstance and with all its strength, the injustices and the cruelties which necessarily result from it in all parts of the world delivered up to the covetousness of a capitalism without shame and without remorse.
To this end, the Congress more particularly recommends the following measures:
1° That the various socialist parties undertake the study of the colonial question wherever the economic conditions permit;
2° Encourage in a special manner the formation of colonial socialist parties affiliated with the metropolitan organizations;
3° Establish relations among the socialist parties of the different colonies.
Citizen Hyndman (England) (1). — We wish to say here very loudly that, as English socialists, we are not partisans of this war that our nation is pursuing in Africa; that we hate it, and that we offer our sympathy and we express our shame to our Dutch comrades for what is happening in South Africa. (Lively applause)
We are the greatest colonial power in the world; about three hundred fifty million human beings are oppressed under our yoke. I declare that I repudiate, as an English socialist, this politics of hatred, of which I shall say here a few words:
The three hundred or three hundred fifty million human beings who are under our domination are so by the force of our sword; it is the triumph of force. A few figures on this subject will be less interesting than rhetoric, but are useful to know. In India, that country which would nevertheless be rich, the population is the most miserable in the world: an entire family receives, for a whole year, less than fifty francs, for five persons: can one imagine a misery so frightful! Well, nevertheless, from this miserable population we draw each year thirty million pounds sterling — that is, seven hundred fifty million francs, without return. There are at this moment, in that country, sixty million beings who suffer from hunger, because we English take from them their food, their well-being, their riches! That is colonial policy: to have new markets and to bleed the colony white! (Applause)
I hate this politics. For twenty years I have done my possible to crush it; unfortunately, we are, in England, only a small group. As a result of this misery, of this distress, millions of beings die of hunger, and also — a thing more horrible than death — there occurs in this race a degeneration, and three, four, or five persons are needed to do the work of one normal and well-fed man. Thus in sixty years we have destroyed the prosperity of the natives; and we shall do the same thing in China, with the Germans, the French, and the Russians: it will be the same politics of domination and of bleeding white.
As regards India, I ask you to vote a resolution condemning the English government, which has ruined a civilization perhaps superior to ours. I also ask you, like Van Kol, to vote a resolution tending not to permit the European nations to destroy the wealth and the prosperity of a colonial population. (Applause)
Citizen Quelch (England) (1). — It is Holland that colonized the most, and she was followed by England. I wish to say, as English delegate, that there is no quarrel between English workers and Dutch workers; on the contrary, this war that took place in South Africa is in opposition to the opinion and the desire of the great majority of the English working class; and I appeal to this congress to support us in our protest against the war.
It is said that abroad England is not loved; well, I am convinced that the working class of the continent has no quarrel with the English working class (Applause) and that it remembers that in times of trouble and revolution on the continent, it is in England that the political refugees of Europe come; for it is there that they find the best asylum. So therefore, as English socialists, we do not fear to meet with the socialists of the continent; we know that they are brothers, despite the language of the English capitalist press.
As Englishman, I am all ashamed of the abominable crimes that have been committed in South Africa; and I must declare that there is not a labor organization that has taken a resolution in favor of this war; on the contrary, not only the socialists, but a large number of English workers who are simply members of trade union chambers, have been unanimous in condemning the war of South Africa.
The most practical thing we have to do to prevent colonial wars is to create a powerful press in England. English opinion has been abused, deceived, blinded by a press that belongs to the proprietors of the gold mines of the Transvaal. You, comrades, who want justice, will recognize that the press is a precious means of educating the people, and that an independent one must be created free of the capitalist yoke. (Applause)
Citizen Pete Curran (England) (1). — Since there have not been many English orators who have spoken at this congress, I think it is an occasion for us to make our presence known before all Europe and the civilized world.
I feel a deep humiliation at finding myself here in Paris and at being a member of a nation which, by its politics, has covered itself with shame before the civilized world. I am the representative of fifty thousand unionized factory workers; I have the same socialist opinion as comrades Hyndman and Quelch; but these fifty thousand workers are not all socialists; they are however all opposed to the war in South Africa, as has already been said. (Applause)
Our adversaries, the imperialists, told us: But you will earn better wages, since there will be more work, because of the new markets opened… We who have children going to school without having the clothes necessary to them, who see old people dying for lack of care, replied: Well, if you want to make the working class work, let them work at home! (Lively applause)
Colonial expansion means: the worker killed on the battlefields, or taxed and burdened with formidable taxes, in order that the capitalists who have shares in the gold mines should have the biggest dividends. You have made in France the sad experiment of this expansion; you had an emperor, a Napoleon, who imagined he was going to conquer the world… He went so far that he had to retreat. Well, in England, we are passing through the same phase: we are going too far and we shall have to retreat. (Renewed applause)
If you attended electoral meetings in England, you would hear almost all the chauvinist speakers repeat this famous cliché: The sun never sets on the possessions of Great Britain! Well, I say: There are many places, under the flag of Great Britain, where the sun never shines! (Enthusiastic applause on most of the benches)
Citizen Louis Maurice (P.O.F.). — Before broaching the colonial question, I wish to say to the English comrades that in the Antilles, socialist thought is developing; and that is so true that if, from the point of view of collectivist conceptions, there is not yet unanimity on the part of the Antillean proletariat, as regards the misery and the acts of piracy that are accomplished in the Transvaal, there is in the French islands, as in the English islands, unanimity of reprobation.
As regards the relations that can exist between the colonial proletarians of the various countries, on this side one can say that they have tendencies to extend themselves more and more.
As regards the protest of which we have already spoken, I want to be a bit more positive: it is not a matter for us — and I speak here in the name of the proletarians of Guadeloupe — of bringing a reprobation, however energetic it may be, against the colonial policy, which consists in making of the colonies places where the overproduction comes to be concentrated, making of the colonies outlets for metropolitan overproduction. There is another question that it is the duty of the international socialist party to study, and to study at once: it is the creation, it is the methodical class organization of the colonial proletariat; it is the creation of a colonial program, first with international considerants, and of a program of minimum demands which can be fixed by each of the nations. There are demands there that cannot escape us, all the more because the colonial problem is more and more imminent in its solution, and because it will arise not only from the economic point of view, but from the point of view of the class action of the colonial proletariat.
Citizen President. — Since the resolution of the commission has not been attacked, I do not have to defend it; I have only to make a precious observation: it is that in this world congress, where the proletariat of all parts of the world is represented, in an outburst of indignation and with a cry of horror — one can say it — there has been branded on the forehead of the bourgeoisie a stigma of shame for its colonial policy; and nothing can henceforth efface it! I propose to you to vote the resolution by acclamation. — Adopted unanimously by acclamation.
Citizen Secretary. — We have just received two new telegrams: one from citizen Popovitch, delegate of Serbia at the Congress, who, held in Switzerland by circumstances independent of his will, excuses himself for not attending the Congress; a second from the secretary of the Federation of the Gironde, who points out to the Congress that the workers of the port of Bordeaux have just gone on strike, and he asks the fraternal and material support of all the militants. (Applause)
He reads the following protest:
The delegates of the Russian Revolutionary Socialist Union to the international Congress of 1900 declare that after the Russian delegation refused to give to the revolutionary socialists and to the representative of the group “The Will of the People” (Narodnaja Volia), gathered ad hoc, a delegate, the delegates of the Revolutionary Socialist Union did not take part in the vote of this delegation and ask the Congress to take note of this.
We declare at the same time that of the organizations existing in Russia and represented at the Congress, only the social democrats will be represented at the international secretariat.
Signed: Doctor Ch. Schidlovsky, Charles Rappoport, Mandelstam
Citizeness Rosa Luxemburg (Germany). — The members of the fourth and the fifth commissions have agreed to merge the two commissions into a single one: militarism and the colonial policy of imperialism being the same reactionary current of the bourgeois world.
Socialist militants have always had as an essential principle to combat militarism, which is above all the great enemy of the working class, which tends to crush us, to starve us, to demoralize us. The old International made its voice heard, a cry of indignation against capitalist and militarist power; every international and national socialist Congress has protested and branded militarism as the most powerful instrument of the bourgeois and capitalist class. In this sense, citizens, our Congress would not have done new work in voting a resolution analogous to those that have been taken against militarism by all the preceding congresses.
But it is not a repetition of this opinion that I wish to express and that we have thought we should vote in our resolution; on the contrary, I am happy to be able to observe that, in the two commissions, we have been unanimous in desiring to go further, to do something new and above all practical. Such was the program we were all decided to accept, in broaching our resolution.
New? — Is militarism not one of the wounds, one of the oldest crimes of the bourgeois world? What then has happened that is new? It is that this politics of militarism has generalized and accentuated itself in the form of the world politics of imperialism. It is no longer only that formidable armament which constitutes the preparation for a possible war between two or three neighboring States; it is a militarism that constantly drives all the great nations of the world to new colonial conquests; that transforms the United States of America into an exclusively militarist State, that does the same for England; and whereas until now Germany, nearly alone, saw its army and its fleet ceaselessly increased, this politics has become the watchword of the entire world. This politics was inaugurated by the Sino-Japanese war; then followed the Spanish-American, the Transvaal wars, and finally that of united Europe against China. Never, citizens, have events of greater historical importance succeeded one another with such rapidity: never has the march of capitalist development been so furious!
Truly, bourgeois society has entered a new phase of its evolution; the capitalist world takes a new leap in its development; but it exhausts there its last effort and it precipitates the fatal moment of its collapse!
This colonial politics beginning to dominate all the interior and exterior politics of the capitalist world, it is necessary that the defense be organized, in socialist politics. It is time that through its representatives, the socialist party officially take note of world politics; and it is precisely that which we have wished to mark by our resolution.
I come to the practical side of our resolution; it consists in proposing to undertake a permanent international action to combat militarism. Until now, citizens, international socialist solidarity has consisted especially in declarations of principles and in periodic deliberations of socialist representatives at Congresses; as for action proper, it was confined until now especially to the economic terrain, to the trade-union terrain. And it is not without reason that international solidarity until now presented only this character: while the economic conditions of the proletariat are in every country almost the same, the political conditions vary greatly there. But it is again this same world politics that is going to change the political conditions of every country.
Since the beginning of this new era, everywhere we see, in the French Republic as under the absolute regime of Russia, in old England as in the young German empire, everywhere the same domination of militarism, the same colonial politics, the same reaction, and in every country a permanent state of war. Now, it is precisely this uniformity of reaction which is going to create in every country a new basis and a uniformity of socialist action and propaganda; it is this permanent state of war which is going to engender a permanent union of the proletarians, for the maintenance of peace! (Applause)
But it is not only to give a new impetus to our daily struggle, but also from the point of view of our final goal, that a closer union of the proletarians of all countries in political matters imposes itself at the present hour. Citizens, at the beginning of the socialist movement, it was generally supposed that it would be a vast economic crisis that would mark the beginning of the end, the great capitalist debacle. Now, this supposition has lost much of its probability (1); but it becomes more and more probable that on the contrary it shall be a vast world political crisis that shall sound the hour of capitalism’s death.
Therefore, citizens, if the capitalist Marlborough goes off to war, from which perhaps he will not return, if world politics engenders unexpected, incalculable conflicts and events, it is indeed necessary that we prepare ourselves for the great role we shall sooner or later have to play…
Ah! I know well that it is not today or tomorrow that the great debacle will come; perhaps our slavery shall be still longer and more painful than we think (1); but the hour shall come nevertheless, and let our Congress sound the tocsin, calling all the proletarians to union, to alliance for political action!
Proletarians of all countries, the hour of common action has come; let us march together hand in hand, let us form an army that is ready to fight the common enemy! (Prolonged applause. — Acclamations)
(At this moment, citizeness Bonnevial, accompanied by two other citizenesses, arrives at the tribune and presents to Clara Zetkin a sheaf of flowers, tied with a red ribbon, bearing this inscription: “To Clara Zetkin! The French socialist women.” — Enthusiastic applause breaks out on all sides.)
Citizeness Bonnevial (F.T.S.F.). — In offering to citizeness Clara Zetkin flowers in testimony of admiration and gratitude, we do not mean to discharge ourselves toward her of all the pains she has taken. When one defends one’s cause, one expects gratitude from no one. (Applause)
Moreover, we would like also to thank citizen Smith, our translator of the English language.
But if we have thought we could give a testimony to citizeness Zetkin and ought to do so, it is by way of socialist feminine solidarity. We, the old socialists of the first hour, observe with true happiness that each year, at our socialist Congresses, the number of women delegates grows, which is an honor for them and for the men who delegate them.
This bouquet is therefore an international link between all socialist women, between all socialists; and it is not only as a token of gratitude, it is a symbol of hope in socialist propaganda among women! (Lively applause)
Citizeness Clara Zetkin (Germany). — I consider that this bouquet is not only for my person, but for my sex; it is a token of the action and the energy of socialist women; we have the conviction that the integral emancipation of humanity will be the work of the proletariat; and it is for this that we struggle with the universal proletariat wherever it engages in struggle.
The international proletariat can be sure that the socialist women of Germany shall always be faithful to their convictions and their promises! (Renewed and lively applause. The Assembly then strikes an enthusiastic ovation in honor of comrade Smith)
Citizen President. — I give the floor again to citizeness Rosa Luxemburg, to read the resolution of the fourth commission.
Citizeness Rosa Luxemburg. — Here is this resolution:
The Congress declares that there is occasion to redouble, in every country, zeal, energy, vigor in the daily struggle against militarism; that there is occasion above all to oppose, to the alliance of the bourgeoisie and the imperial governments, the alliance of the proletarians of all countries.
The Congress indicates as means of action:
1° The various socialist parties are engaged to pursue with care the education and organization of youth, in view of combating militarism;
2° The socialist deputies, in every country, pledge themselves to vote against any military expenditure and any expenditure for the fleet and for colonial military expeditions;
3° The permanent international socialist commission shall be charged with initiating and regulating, in all cases of international importance, a uniform and common movement of antimilitarist protest and agitation in every country.
The Congress protests against the so-called peace conferences such as that of The Hague, which, in present-day society, can only result in unfortunate disappointments, as the Transvaal war recently demonstrated. (1)
Citizen Volkaert (Belgium). — For the first time, an international socialist Congress is going to take practical resolutions to combat militarism. The first resolution is the organization of youth in view of antimilitarist propaganda where it does not exist. In Belgium, we take the young people at the age of sixteen, we make of them conscious socialists, who combat militarism. Every year, all the young people who go off to the barracks receive antimilitarist newspapers, and certain conscripts make a demonstration preceded by the red flag; they make around them and among their fellow citizens a great socialist propaganda, in order to win to our ideas as many young people as possible, and on returning from the barracks, they enter the trade unions, in the
political groups, where they bring all their devotion… Sometimes in certain countries there is fear that the political groups of young socialists will not march in agreement with the workers’ groups. I can assure that the Belgian Young Guards have always marched in agreement with the Workers’ Party.
I conclude by saying: if you wish to combat militarism, form Youth groups and you shall render service to socialism!
Citizen President. — We shall proceed to the vote. The resolution of the commission was just read to you.
There has been added a second part which I read to you:
I. — The Paris international socialist Congress brands with indignation the savage policy of oppression of Russian Tsarism toward the Polish and Finnish peoples and engages the proletarians of all nationalities, suffering under the yoke of the absolute regime, to gather for the common struggle against this common enemy of democracy and socialism.
II. — The Congress condemns the atrocities of the English government toward the Boers of South Africa.
III. — The Paris international socialist Congress, affirming once more the sentiments of fraternal sympathy that must unite all peoples, rises with indignation against the violences, cruelties, massacres committed in Armenia; denounces to the workers of both worlds the criminal complicity of the various capitalist governments; engages the socialist parliamentary groups to intervene on every occasion in favor of the Armenian people, odiously oppressed, to whom the Congress addresses the assurance of its close and ardent solidarity.
Adopted by acclamation.
Citizen President. — As regards the sixth question, the floor goes to citizen Stoermer, reporter of the commission.
Citizen Stoermer (Germany). — The members of this commission have considered the organization of maritime workers in the broadest sense, and have included in their report not only navigating sailors, but also the workers of the transport industry. As these two sections of workers, by the nature of their employment, are placed more directly in contact with those of other countries, with the wage earners employed in other sections or branches of industry, the commission is of the opinion that the organization of this section, the remedy for their immediate grievances by legislative means, must receive the attention of the internationally united socialist parties.
The bad conditions in which these two sections of workers exercise their employment do not need to be recalled, they are known to all. At the same time, it is necessary to show that the bourgeois parties of every country have manifestly failed to do anything whatever in view of bringing remedy to the evils that have just been mentioned.
The commission considers therefore — since there are special laws in every country on the merchant marine — that it is the wholly special duty of the organized socialist parties, as long as the capitalist regime shall last, to see to it that all the laws regulating employment and work in this industry are as perfect and as well administered as possible.
At the same time, the commission is of the opinion that the navigating sailors must organize themselves into trade unions and political groups, recognize the class struggle, and employ their votes to obtain a socialist representation that shall not cease to struggle for their interests.
Recognizing the special difficulties of arriving at a complete organization of the sailors, the Congress ought to urge all the workers’ trade unions and the socialist parties to help the sailors organize themselves in the countries where, up to now, there is no separate organization of sailors; the trade unions of transport workers should try to decide the sailors to join them.
Citizen Octors (Belgium). — I should have wished to present a few observations relative to the drafting of the resolution; only, respectful of the decision taken, I shall not discuss it.
As regards what one ought to understand by maritime workers, the great majority decided that one must understand the sailors, the dockers, and the carters — all those who work at the wharves. So we have taken the floor to ask that all the Workers’ Parties, all the organizations occupy themselves with organizing the sailors, the dockers, and the carters. It is not only from the trade union point of view that one must place oneself; it is from the point of view of the interest of the workers’ party, because when the dockers and the sailors are with us, we shall dispose of an immense force. Indeed, we can compare transports to the third column that supports all society, all production. So when the dockers are with us, when we also have the sailors and when a war becomes necessary, we shall be able to dispose of them to do battle more victoriously against capitalism.
I ask all those who are orators, all those who are propagandists, to study specially the program of demands of the sailors and the dockers and to go bear the good word on the different wharves, so that one may, in all the ports of the entire world, create trade union organizations. Then, as a supreme result, one must arrive at gathering all these organizations into a regional federation, so that the workers’ party may dispose of well-disciplined regiments. As to the demands, the program itself, distribution has been made of it, and I believe it is useless to indicate it. (Applause)
RESOLUTIONS OF THE COMMISSION
The immediate demands of the sailors, on which the various parliaments should be pressed to bring to result, are the following:
1° Abolition of maritime placement agents and establishment of free hiring bureaus in all sea ports, under the control of the workers’ organizations;
2° Establishment of sailors’ hotels and houses under the combined direction of the workers’ organizations and the municipal authorities, in which sailors shall not be influenced in any way;
3° Establishment of special tribunals comprising workers as judges, in view of regulating the disputes that may have arisen during the voyage;
The power of the marine officers to inflict punishments and fines shall be reduced;
4° Fixing of a maximum of hours for the workday, involving overtime hours at special rates of wages;
Only indispensable work shall be done on Sundays and holidays;
5° There shall be assured an indemnity proportionate to the prejudice of the sailors who shall be injured and placed in the impossibility of working as a result of their employment; in case of accidental death, there shall be complete provision for the existence of those who depend on the victim;
6° Fixing of a minimum wage for all navigating sailors;
7° Vote of legislation that shall ensure a complete and impartial inspection in view of preventing accidents specially; that a suitable set of specifications shall be adopted for all navigating vessels; that these shall be sufficiently equipped both from the point of view of the number and capacity of the men embarked and from that of the knowledge of languages, so that the sailors may understand the commands;
8° Legislation ensuring suitable treatment of sailors, as regards food, arrangements for lodging and specially so that all desirable sanitary and hygienic precautions be taken;
9° No sailor shall be able to contract engagement outside of these laws, under any contracts or special conventions whatever;
10° There shall be named a sufficient number of visiting inspectors in view of completely visiting each ship leaving the port, having the necessary powers to detain any ship where these conditions would not be satisfactory and where the law would be transgressed in any fashion whatever.
For the transport workers, we add:
1° An indemnity proportionate to the prejudice; in case of accidents, no part of the insurance premium shall be paid by the workers; no distinction shall be made as to the responsibility of the employers, whether the ship is in a dock or in a river — the indemnity shall be paid for all accidents;
2° Complete inspection of all rigging and tooling in view of preventing accidents;
3° Wages shall never be paid in cafés, hotels, or at the maritime placement agents;
4° Establishment of labor bureaus in all ports, of labor bureaus for the hiring of workers of this section;
5° Fixing of a maximum of hours in the workday and of a minimum of wages. Increase of wages during the night hours and on Sundays.
With the aim of making the present wishes pass into facts, the Congress recommends that all the trade unions of sailors, fishermen, and port workers adhere to the International Federation of Transport Workers, by which means they shall be in continual and close relations, and shall impose their various demands by collective action on the different public authorities.
Citizen President. — I put to the vote the resolution of the sixth commission. — Adopted unanimously.
As regards the seventh question, the struggle for universal suffrage, the reporters have agreed to read only the resolution of the commission. I give the floor to citizen Pernerstorfer.
Citizen Pernerstorfer (Austria). — Here is this resolution:
I. — Universal direct equal and secret suffrage in the choice of the holders of public power constitutes for the workers’ democracy one of the essential means and the primary condition of political and social emancipation.
II. — The Congress invites the peoples deprived of parliamentary representation, or in whom this representation still rests on the foundations of any principles whatever, to undertake the struggle for the conquest of universal suffrage organized up to its complete realization.
The Congress considers the combat for the introduction of universal suffrage as well as the exercise of this right of the people as powerful means of education of the proletariat for public life.
III. — Considering that, on the terrain of socialist politics, woman and man have equal rights, the Congress proclaims the necessity of universal suffrage for both sexes.
IV. — The Congress declares that in countries of universal suffrage, the duty of the socialists is to regulate its exercise by the application of the system of proportional representation.
V. — Considering that the people is sovereign and that direct legislation by the people is an attribute of this sovereignty, the Congress proclaims the necessity of guaranteeing the exercise of this sovereignty by the preservation of the popular rights of initiative and of referendum.
VI. — The Congress declares that the combat for the perfection of universal suffrage is one of the best means for preparing intellectually and morally the masses for the conquest of political and economic sovereignty, for penetrating them with the sentiment of class struggle and for accustoming them to the government of the coming socialist State.
The commission unanimously proposes to you the adoption of all these resolutions (1).
Citizen President. — If there is one thing on which we are in agreement, it is the all-out struggle for universal suffrage. I put the resolution to the vote. — Adopted.
I give the floor to citizen Vinck, reporter on the question of municipal socialism. I ask him to give the example by showing that in few words one can say many things. (Laughter)
Citizen Vinck (Belgium). — I shall give you only two or three explanations, to make you grasp the bearing of the discussions we had in the commission: we first had to determine the doctrinal sense of the term municipal socialism. You know that in fact some comrades had proclaimed that municipal socialism does not exist, and we wished to know whether we were in disagreement with them. We have on the contrary observed that the greatest agreement existed among us. Indeed, by municipal socialism (we declare it in our resolution) “one cannot understand a special socialism, but only the application of the general principles of socialism to a determined domain of political activity.” We had next to ask ourselves, as to application, whether one ought to expect from municipal socialism a complete realization of the collectivist society, and we responded in this regard in our resolution in the following terms:
Whereas the reforms connected with it are not and cannot be presented as having to realize the collectivist society, but are presented as being exercised in a domain that the socialists can and must use to prepare and facilitate the advent of this society;
After having said what it is not, we believed we should determine what it is and what may be, in present-day society, its utility. We saw that municipal activity is exercised in two domains: the economic domain and the political domain. The resolution continues in the following way:
Considering that the commune may become an excellent laboratory of decentralized economic life and, at the same time, a formidable political fortress for the use of local socialist majorities against the bourgeois majority of central power, once a serious autonomy shall be realized;
The international Congress of 1900 declares:
That all socialists have for duty, without misrecognizing the importance of general politics, to make municipal activity understood and appreciated, to grant to communal reforms the importance that their role as “embryos of the collectivist society” gives them, and to apply themselves to making of the communal services — urban transports, lighting, water, distribution of motive force, baths, washhouses, communal stores, municipal bakeries, food service, education, medical service, hospitals, heating, workers’ lodgings, clothing, police, communal works, etc. — to make of these services model institutions, both from the point of view of the interests of the public and of the situation of the citizens who serve them;
that the communes too weak to proceed alone with the realization of these applications must devote themselves to forming communal federations;
that in the countries where the political organization does not permit the communes to enter into this path, all socialist elected officials have for duty to use all their powers in view of furnishing to the communal organisms sufficient liberty and independence to realize these desiderata.
The Paris international socialist Congress decides that there is occasion to convene an international Congress of socialist municipal councilors. This Congress would have a double goal:
a) Make known all the reforms realized on the municipal terrain and the moral and financial advantages obtained;
b) Constitute a national bureau in each country and an international bureau charged with centralizing all the information and documents relative to municipal life, in such a way as to facilitate the study of questions of communal interest, by the communication of the documents and information.
The task of convening this Congress is left to the permanent international bureau. (Applause)
Citizen Terwagne (Belgium). — I should like to make a simple rectification: I believe that the comrades who served on the Commission with me will be in agreement to make the suppression I am requesting. It is said, in the order of the day proposed to you: “This Congress would have a double goal: b) Constitute a national bureau in each country and an international bureau charged with centralizing all the information and documents,” etc. I do not at all see the utility of this international bureau, all the more because you have already decided that there shall be a secretariat and an international bureau that shall occupy itself with all the questions that interest us. I therefore ask my comrades of the Commission who, certainly, no more than I, paid attention to this superfetation, kindly to accede to this wish, to suppress this part of the order of the day of the Commission.
Citizen Vinck. — As reporter, I indicate that we are in agreement with citizen Terwagne. Our thought was to refer this secretariat to the already existing permanent secretariat.
The resolution, thus amended, is adopted unanimously.
Citizen President. — I give the floor to the reporter of the eleventh commission on the question of trusts.
Citizen Wibaut (Holland). — Here is the text of the report presented by the commission:
Partial trusts are the coalitions of the exploiters of industry and of commerce in the interest of their individual profit.
These coalitions are the inevitable consequence of competition in a system of production and distribution whose goal is not at all to produce but exclusively the profit for the masters of production. The extension of the means of production creating the means of obtaining a mass of products far greater than it was possible for the holders of the means of production to sell, had to render competition the enemy of profit, had therefore in the present system to eliminate competition, to replace it with understanding and cooperation of the masters of production. Thus trusts are inevitable. They are in part a higher form of production insofar as they render production having profit as goal and distribution more rational, more economic; avoid the wastage of overproduction; lead to a reduction of production costs; realize a diminution of transport costs, of advertising and selling costs, in general of intermediary costs.
But, on the other hand, the trusts have the tendency in the long run to raise prices everywhere and always when the interest of the coalesced capitalists demands it, to prevent the lowering of prices that would come from improved production. They have, moreover, if not as goal, often as effect, to increase the oppression of the workers, by opposing to their unions and their attempts at organization the compact power of the united bosses.
The pools and the coalitions absolutely do not have the character of an imperious organization of the trusts and cartels, but uniquely operate the elevation of prices of the necessities of life, are quite specially disastrous for the general interest of the population, and merit being rigorously denounced.
Nevertheless, in demonstrating to the workers the pressure to which the trusts subject them, the international socialist Congress does not recommend trying to prevent the formation of these coalitions, their formation being the logical result of the production system; a repressive legislation being able at most to modify their form, but not being able to seriously hinder the action. The socialist parties, nevertheless, do not oppose the laws rendering obligatory for the trusts the publicity of their manner of operating and of their financial results.
The only real exit from the present oppression of these coali-
tions must be the nationalization and in a successive stage the international regularization of production in those branches where international trusts shall have attained their highest development.
The practical action of the proletariat must therefore be to improve a class organization politically and economically, these two actions being reinforced by the cooperative action, in order to prepare and bring closer the moment at which the public expropriation of the great branches of production, completely organized by the trusts, shall have become possible.
Thus will be gradually transformed private production having profit as its goal into social production which shall have the product as its object.
One of the members of the commission, after the session was closed, handed me an amendment from a Belgian section to propose to the Congress a conclusion; I had this amendment turned over to the bureau; unfortunately it cannot be found again; I cannot therefore read it. The only thing I can say is that in principle there was no difference between the opinion of this delegate and that of the majority of the commission. Only, he placed in a shorter conclusion what we have indicated in our exposition.
The resolution, put to the vote, is adopted unanimously.
Citizen President. — We have, as the last item on the order of the day, a very serious question, that of the general strike, and we do not have much time left.
Citizen Legien, reporter of the majority of the twelfth commission, will have the floor for ten minutes, and we shall then give the floor for ten minutes to citizen Briand, member of the commission, who wishes to combat the resolution of the majority.
Citizen Legien (Germany). — The discussion on the general strike was not long, and for a very simple reason: most of the members of this commission were representatives of trade unions, who already had their opinion formed; so that it was only a matter of exchanging our views respectively.
The Austrian and German representatives proposed to take up again the resolution that the international Congress of London had already voted concerning the general strike. It is true that the form of this resolution is not perfect; but the majority of the commission rallied to it nevertheless, because it expresses very well the manner in which most of us still envisage this question today. We have not changed our goal; there is therefore no reason to change the resolution.
This resolution was combated by a minority formed of French, Italian delegates, and a few delegates who do not represent trade unions; the Congress will have occasion to hear the opinion of this minority. For the majority, the question of the general strike is not discussable at this moment, for this very simple reason that when one wants the battle, one must first begin by forming the battalions that can go to it. As long as the proletariat does not dispose of strongly organized and numerous trade unions, it will be desirable only in the interest of the bourgeoisie that the general strike be declared, because this general strike would have only one consequence — that of delivering the proletariat to the bourgeoisie, which would shoot or starve it.
On the other hand, the resolution of the London Congress gives me satisfaction, as well as the majority of the commission, because it does not exclude the idea of a general strike; only, it insists on the necessary and inevitable conditions of this general strike — that is, on trade-union organization. In sum, you French and Italians who want the general strike, you have only to begin by forming your battalions, and the other nationalities will be with you.
Here is the resolution adopted by the majority of the commission:
The Paris international socialist Congress recalls, in taking account of the international Congresses of Paris and Zurich, the resolution voted at the international Congress of London in 1896, which treats of the general strike.
This resolution is conceived as follows:
“The Congress is of the opinion that strikes and boycotts are necessary means to realize the task of the working class, but it does not see the present possibility of an international general strike. (1)
“What is immediately necessary is the trade-union organization of the working masses, since on the extension of the organization depends the extension of the strikes of entire industries or of entire countries.”
Citizen Briand (F.S.R.). — Comrades, I recognize, with the reporter of the twelfth commission, that I represent at this tribune only a tiny minority; the only concession that the commission was willing to make to me on this question of the general strike was a purely honorific concession (2); it consisted in entrusting me with the presidency. On the substance of the question itself, I remained as it were alone; and I must declare very loyally, so that there be no confusion in minds, that even the French section is not unanimous on the question, and that my comrade Zévaès made, within the commission, strong reservations.
Citizens, we partisans of the general strike profoundly regret that the discussion on a question which holds perhaps at the present hour, whatever may be said, first place in the preoccupations of the proletariat… (Applause on the right) was not given the honor of an ampler discussion. What in the name of the minority I am charged with reproaching to the motion of the majority of the commission is its imprecise and nebulous character: it is not admissible that on a question of this gravity, the international Congress, through the organ of its representatives, should not take the responsibility of clear and precise counsel. (Applause on the same benches) The motion of the majority does not reject the idea of the general strike, but it presents its opinion in such a way that one can say it supports, defends the principle of the general strike in the manner in which the rope supports the hanged man… We want to know whether the representatives of the proletariat are for or against the organization of the general strike! (Renewed applause)
Our comrade was saying a moment ago: We do not discourage the proletariat from taking interest in it, but the general strike implies a preliminary trade-union organization; and when this organization shall have been done, then only will it be possible to envisage the eventuality of a general strike.
Well, citizens, allow me to tell you that within the commission, without having a decisive mandate, I had morally the right to consider that I represented the unionized proletariat of this entire country… (Lively applause on several benches. — Protests on the benches of the P.O.F.), for in all its Congresses, national and international, the organization of the general strike was voted at quasi-unanimity. (Lively approval on the right) And you are all the less justified in ignoring it, you comrades of the P.O.F., as in 1892 — and I do not think, citizens, that in expressing myself thus there is anything acrimonious in my words — at the national Congress of French workers’ corporations, most of your delegates voted the general strike. Since then, they have had politically (1) the occasion to change tactics; but as trade unionists, they had formulated on this question their sentiment in an affirmative manner. (Lively applause on the right)
Comrades, how could you reject the principle of the general strike, without rejecting at the same time the entire trade-union organization! What! you admit the partial strike at the base of the trade-union edifice, and at the summit you would reject the general strike! What! you admit that a trade union organizes itself to engage, by the partial strike, the struggle against one or several bosses; and when the entire working class shall have formed its collective demands, you do not admit that it should have recourse to the general strike against the coalesced employer class! (New and lively applause on a great number of benches) The general strike, in my view, citizens, is the premium for trade-union organization, just as the partial strike is the premium for the organization of the simple trade union.
But I do not wish to confine myself to this narrow terrain of the strike from the economic point of view; and we, whom one has represented as the moderates, I believe we are going to become the revolutionaries of this assembly. We say here loudly that we consider the general strike as the best-indicated mode of revolution…
A voice: As one of the means!
Citizen Briand. — We say it frankly: for us, the general strike would be the Revolution, but a revolution that gives the workers more guarantees than those of the past; a revolution made by those who are systematically organized to frame the society of the future; a revolution that does not leave to a few men the task of taking advantage of victory: (Applause) a revolution which permits the proletariat, organized for it, to itself lay hands on the instruments of production and keep them. It is no longer a revolution in words, it is a revolution in things; it is no longer a revolution in formulas, it is a revolution in facts.
Comrades, we are in agreement with you in believing that at a given moment there will be battle — the final battle, said comrade Guesde — and that afterward there shall be the impersonal dictatorship of the working class; we believe it also, on the condition that this dictatorship remain impersonal! (New and lively applause) Today, comrades, in the state of concentration of organizations, of centralization, the dictatorship would perhaps not be as impersonal as one is willing to say. (Protests on the left. — Enthusiastic applause on the right) We have had an experiment of one year which permits us to affirm that if, for example, the General Committee of the French socialist party had been invested with the dictatorial action, it is not perhaps from the ranks of the bourgeoisie that it would have chosen its first victims. (Lively agitation and various interruptions on the left. — Enthusiastic applause on the right)
Citizen President. — I protest against this attack which may have a personal character. (Agitation)
Citizen Briand. — I finish by reading our resolution, in which you will see that we repudiate no means of action; we accept all of them. (Noise)
Citizen President. — I ask the orator to finish his speech; the time allotted to him has elapsed.
Citizen Briand. — I shall show myself respectful of the decision of the bureau. I regret simply that the discussion was not ampler. The resolution that I submit to the Congress, in the name of the minority, is signed by citizens: Jean Allemane, in the name of the P.O.S.R.; Jaurès, for the Revolutionary Socialist Federation; Heppenheimer, for the Federation of Socialist Workers of France; Brunellière; by thirty-four autonomous federations and a great number of trade unions and cooperatives.
We ask that, as for the question of participation in power, the Congress take the responsibility of its decision, and that each nation be consulted on this motion. Here it is:
Considering that the general strike appears as the revolutionary mode of action best adapted to the conditions of struggle imposed by capitalist society,
The Congress,
While adjuring the proletariat to desert no terrain of action, to neglect the use of none of the means of emancipation that are within its reach,
Invites the workers of the entire world to organize themselves for the general strike, whether this organization should be in their hands a simple means of pressure, a lever destined to bring upon capitalist society the indispensable weights to obtain successive improvements of political or economic order, or whether, circumstances becoming propitious, it should be put at the service of the social Revolution.
The motion of the majority, put to the vote, is adopted by twenty-seven votes against five. The minority is composed thus: one vote for France, one for Italy, two for the Argentine Republic, one for Russia.
Citizen Jaurès declares he cannot vote for Portugal (1), not having had a mandate on this point.
Citizen President. — Our order of the day is exhausted. The fifth Congress of international socialist democracy is going to end. We have passed numerous hours together; lively discussions have taken place among us, which could have made one fear divisions, but which have only proved the strength and the ardor of our convictions. We have fought with open face, because we are accustomed to loyal struggle; we have expressed ourselves with force, because one must do so when one has strong and noble convictions.
As for the small divergences of opinion that separate us, let us forget them; besides, they shall disappear, for the more economic evolution proceeds, the more appeasement will come of itself, and the stronger we shall be to march to victory!
In three years, we shall be happy to welcome you in our city of Amsterdam. From now until then, each of us shall have continued his work of propaganda in his respective country: you, in beautiful France, French comrades; we others, in sad and misty Holland, we shall cross the meadows, the arid heaths to go bear the good word, which shall at a given moment deliver humanity. In three years then, we shall meet again more strongly and more intimately united and more decided than ever to wage energetically the struggle against the enemy forces of bourgeois society.
Despite our small dissensions, which are already forgotten — I am convinced of it — let one single cry rise, in leaving this Congress, at the cradle of the International which it has created: Long live the International! (Acclamations, repeated cries of: Long live the International!)
Citizen Beausoleil, French delegate, mounts the tribune and sings the verses of the Internationale. The congress members take up the refrain in chorus.
The session is adjourned.
Finished printing sixteen hundred copies on Saturday, August 17, 1901, at the Suresnes Printing House (G. Richard, administrator), 9, rue du Pont.
In their first series the Cahiers de la Quinzaine published:
a dossier of the Liebknecht affair — Liebknecht’s attitude and intervention in the Dreyfus affair out of print
a dossier of the preparation of the first national socialist congress, held in Paris in December 1899 out of print
discussion at the Chamber of the bill, adopted by the Senate, bearing modification of the law of November 2, 1892, on the labor of children, of minor girls, and of women in industrial establishments; official stenographic record out of print
several articles, addresses, and speeches by Anatole France out of print
international consultation opened at La Petite République on the Dreyfus affair and the Millerand case
in cahiers 5, 6, 8, together 3 francs
and in cahier 11 out of print
socialism and the intellectuals — lecture given by M. Paul Lafargue at the Hôtel des Sociétés Savantes on Friday, March 23, 1900, unrevised stenographic record not put on sale
socialism and collectivism — lecture given by M. Émile Vandervelde at the Hôtel des Sociétés Savantes on Tuesday, March 6, 1900, revised stenographic record 1 franc
In their second series the Cahiers de la Quinzaine have published:
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the speech read by M. Boutroux and the address pronounced by M. Duclaux on Monday, November 12, 1900, for the inauguration of the École des Hautes Études Sociales out of print
René Salomé — verses for an action 2 francs
the social theater — lecture given by Jaurès on Sunday, July 22, 1900, at the theater of the Republic, before the performance of “Mais quelqu’un troubla la fête” out of print
Hubert Lagardelle — the Intellectuals before Socialism 1 franc
Lionel Landry — Letters from China out of print
Romain Rolland — Danton 3 francs
Lionel Landry — Bacchus 3 francs
the intellectuals before socialism — replies of MM. Paul Mantoux and Charles Guieysse to the cahier by Lagardelle 1 franc
André Bourgeois — four days at Montceau 1 franc
cahier of announcements: the newspapers for all; the society of visitors; the Mouvement Socialiste; the Revue d’Art Dramatique; the new society of bookshop and publishing
program of the socialist school for the school year 1900-1901 1 franc
some elements of a dossier of the recent movement for liberty in Russia 1 franc
the program of the free college of social sciences for the school year 1900-1901 1 franc
memoranda and dossiers for the liberties of the teaching personnel in France 1 franc
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The Manager: Charles Péguy This cahier was composed and printed at the rate of unionized workers Suresnes Printing House (G. Richard, administrator), 9, rue du Pont. — 474.