KARL MARX

THE INTERNATIONAL 339
Conference of Trades Delegates recommended that its members join the
International. By the time the first Congress was held in Geneva in
September 1866, it could be reported that seventeen unions had joined
the International and thirteen were negotiating. In November the
National Reform League, the sole surviving Chartist organisation, applied
to join. If only the London Trades Council could be persuaded to affiliate,
Marx felt, 'the control of the working class here will in a certain sense
be transferred to us and we will really be able to push the movement
forward'. 31 Engels, however, did not allow himself to be influenced by
Marx's enthusiasm and for several years was distinctly reticent about the
achievements of the International. He failed to form a six-member section
111 Manchester and refused even to become a correspondent.
During this period there was occasional friction on the General Council
between Marx and the English - over, for example, admiration for
Mazzini or their dislike of Eccarius, a staunch but tactless supporter of
Marx. But Marx had no difficulty in establishing his ascendancy. This was
111 part due to the role of mediator between England and the Continent
that he was able to play. As he explained to Engels concerning Mazzini's
opposition: 'Le Lubez had tried to make them [the English] believe that
I dominated other continental groups thanks to my position as leader of
the English group; the English gentlemen have now understood that,
on the contrary, it is themselves whom I control completely, thanks to
the continental groups, as soon as they begin to be stupid.' 32 Marx also
attributed his dominance to German ideological superiority and the fact
that the rest of the General Council felt 'German science' to be 'very
useful and even indispensable'. 33
Marx's interventions when the General Council discussed Poland in
lanuary 1865 provoked an unusually enthusiastic response: the normally
matter-of-fact minutes record that 'the address of Dr Marx was pregnant
with important historical facts which would be very valuable in a published
form'. 34 In the summer of 1865 the General Council discussed the views
of John Weston (which he had already set out in the Beehive) that wage
increases would only result in higher prices and that producers' cooperatives
were therefore the only method of raising the workers' standard
ol living. Marx considered this view extremely superficial and, despite his
opinion that 'you can't compress a course of Political Economy into one
hour', 35 adopted the model of his previous addresses to working-class
audiences and lectured the General Council through two long sessions.
I le attempted to show that rises in wages did not, in general, affect the
prices of commodities and, since the tendency of capitalist production
was to lower the average standard of wages, trade union pressure was
necessary to resist these encroachments; of course, trade unions should