KARL MARX

THE
INTERNATIONAL
9
support and despite the intrigues of the Proudhonists in Paris, Mazzini
in Italy and the ambitious Odger, Cremer and Potter in London, with
Schultz-Delitzsch and the Lassalleans in Germany. We can be very
content. 64
On the General Council, however, things were far from smooth. Marx
had once again to defend Eccarius against the English, who objected
strongly to the condescending tone of his reports in The Times on the
Lausanne Congress. Difficulties with Odger persisted, until Marx eliminated
his influence by abolishing the office of President. The French
section in London caused so much disturbance that Marx for a while
seriously considered transferring the seat of the General Council to
Geneva until he was dissuaded by Engels who reminded him of the
disastrous results of transferring the Communist League's headquarters
to Cologne in 1851.
In England the progress of the International lost momentum and, after
1867, was almost non-existent: there were few new trade union affiliations
and no breakthrough into the workers in heavy industry. The General
Council was even evicted from its premises for debt, and Marx's enthusiasm
over the Reform League turned to disillusion when he realised that
it merely distracted the English working-class leaders from the tasks of
the International. Ireland was one question, however, which did engage
the attention both of the English working-class leaders and also of Marx.
It had captured the imagination of Marx's whole family. The Fenian
terrorists had been active in the autumn of 1867 and had been dealt with
in what appeared to be an arbitrary manner. On their behalf Marx drafted
a resolution to the Home Secretary; he also delivered a speech in the
(Jeneral Council which went into the history of the destruction of
Ireland's infant industries and the sacrifice of its agriculture to English
interests. What the English members of the General Council failed to
realise, Marx explained to Engels, was that since 1846 the English no
longer wished to colonise Ireland in the Roman sense - as they had done
since Elizabeth and Cromwell - but to replace the Irish by pigs, sheep
and cows. The following year he described how his views had changed
on this point:
I believed for a long time that it would be possible that the rise of the
English working class would be able to overthrow the Irish regime. I
always argued this point of view in the New York Tribune. More profound
study has convinced me of the contrary. The English proletariat
will never achieve anything until they have got rid of Ireland. The lever
must be applied in Ireland. That is why the Irish question is so important
for the social movement as a whole. 65