International Workingmen’s Association 1865
Source: MECW, Volume 20, p. 330;
Written: by Karl Marx on March 4, 1865;
First published: in Marx and Engels, Works, 2nd Russian Edition, Vol. 16, Moscow, 1960.
I propose the following resolutions to the Sub-Committee.
1) The present Paris branch Administration, consisting of Citizens Tolain, Fribourg, and Limousin, is confirmed in its functions by the London Central Council, which also expresses them its thanks for their zeal and activity;
2) The adjunction of Citizen Pierre Vinçard to the Paris branch Administration is thought desirable [236] ;
3) While thanking Citizen Lefort for the part he took in the foundation of the International Society, and earnestly wishing for his collaboration, as homme de conseil, with the Paris branch Administration, the London Central Council at the same time consider themselves not entitled to impose Citizen Lefort in any official capacity upon the Paris branch Administration.
4) Citizen Victor Schily is appointed the Paris delegate of the London Central Council.
In this character he has to act only with the Paris branch Administration. He will exercise that droit de surveillance which the Paris branch themselves have thought proper to acknowledge as a necessary attribute of the Central Council under the present political conjuncture. [237]
235 This document has survived in Marx’s Notebook and is the Central Council’s draft resolutions submitted by Marx to the Standing Committee (Sub-Committee). The latter discussed the conflict in the Paris Section at its meetings of March 4 and 6, 1865, at which the French delegates Tolain and Limousin were also present. The draft formed the basis of the final text of the resolution on the split in the Paris Section. The resolution itself was adopted, on the Standing Committee’s proposal, by the Central Council on March 7, 1865.
This document was published in English for the first time in The General Council of the First International. 1864-1866, 1962.
236 The coopting of Pierre Vinçard, working-class journalist and veteran of the 1848 Revolution, to the Paris Administration was meant to make the French members of the International familiar with the revolutionary and socialist traditions of the French working class of the 1840s. However, Vinçard did not accept the appointment for personal reasons.
237 In a letter of March 20, 1865 Schily informed Marx that he had refused to accept his appointment as the Central Council representative on the Paris Administration. However, he continued informally, to help Marx and the Council in consolidating the International’s organisation in Paris.