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There have been numerous academic and scholarly studies of the many streams of Freemasonry and their various roles in political history. Unfortunately few political writers are as knowledgeable of the nuanced history of Freemasonry as they may be of their chosen topic of history.
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Boris I. Nicolaevsky
Secret Societies and the First International
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Secret societies, outwardly of masonic form, played a decisive role in the forming of the First International. The struggle between the members and allies of these societies on the one hand, and Karl Marx and his working class supporters on the other, constituted the inner life of the International in its early years, and in the end was responsible for its demise. Because of the importance and the complexity of the problem, and because it has been unexplored to date, I shall limit my essay to this rather narrow subject. Furthermore, I shall deal primarily with secret societies having their roots in France, a country of special interest to the historian of the First International. Therefore this essay should be regarded as a preliminary report, which aims not to exhaust the subject but to draw attention to it and to demonstrate its importance.
Official and Underground Masonry
Freemasonry was never a unified movement, even within a particular country. This is even truer if we speak of the political role of masonry, and particularly in France in the period that interests us—that is, the period in which the First International was formed. After the defeat of the revolutions of 1848 in all the countries of Western Europe, leadership of the official masonic organizations passed into rightist hands. Of course, there were various shades of rightist leadership, but they were merely shades. In France Napoleon III established an undisguised dictatorship over masonry, placing men he had personally selected at the head of its official organizations—first Prince Lucien Murat, later Marshal Magnan. These appointees carried out the policy laid down by the government; they maintained a strict surveillance of the lodges, suppressing the slightest hints of opposition to the regime. This kind of masonry, of course, played no part at all in the formation of the First International, and could not have played any.
True, after 1865, with the death of Marshal Magnan and the adoption of a new and more liberal masonic constitution, the situation changed. The lodges began to open their doors to free discussion of social and political questions, and were thus gradually transformed into recruiting centers for members of various revolutionary organizations, the sections of the International among them. It is precisely through these doors that many students entered the International—young people such as Charles Longuet and Paul Lafargue who later played a prominent part in the Socialist movement. But even for this period one cannot speak of official masonry as a factor in the formation of the International. Young people used the premises of the lodges for their political self-education, but they did not accept masonic ideology; their attitude toward masonry was critical, to say the least.1
Official masonry in France was never a factor in the formation and development of the First International. But in the France of the Second Empire there existed not only the official masonry recognized by the government, but also an underground masonic movement, persecuted by the government because it sought the revolutionary overthrow of the Empire. The role of these undercover, government-persecuted masons in the forming and developing of the First International was enormous. It has hardly been studied by historians, although quite a bit of relevant material has come to light. Some of the most interesting documents on the subject were preserved in the archives of Pierre Vésinier and published some sixty years ago by Max Nettlau.2 (Vésinier himself played only a minor role in the revolutionary masonry now under discussion, joining a lodge for the first time in 1865.) In recent years some very important material on these revolutionary masons has been published.3 We now know the names of approximately 100 members of their principal lodges; these lodges operated in England, and brought together primarily, but not exclusively, French émigres. These materials, together with the émigré publications of the period, make it possible for us to begin to understand the history of these masons, the political activities of their leaders, and their relation to the First International. It is important to determine the nature of these groups, which for the sake of brevity we are calling revolutionary masonry.
Outwardly, these groups had the form of a masonic organization and bore a masonic name, the Lodge of the Philadelphians (Loge des Philadelphes). Some of the members may in fact have considered themselves masons. But veteran masons, those, who headed the lodges, must have realized that their lodges had little in common with real masonry.
The Lodge of the Philadelphians was formally part of an association that, at the beginning of the 1850's, bore the name of the Order of Memphis.4 The history of this order is obscure. Historians of masonry do not accord it much attention or sympathy, and as a matter of fact, much of its history is contradictory and incomprehensible. An odd mixture of pseudo-Eastern mysticism and obvious leftist political sympathies on the part of the leaders of the order leaves a strange impression. As a rule, the left wing of Freemasonry tried to lead the movement away from mysticism in the name of rationalism and free thought, and insisted on simplification of the statutes. The Philadelphians had a completely different outlook. Not only did they trace their forebears to ancient Egyptian priests and to the legendary Chaldean magi who went to Bethlehem to pay tribute to the Christ child, but they preserved the 96 grades of initiation and the post of Le Grand Hiérophante at their head. At the same time, almost from the moment the Philadelphians appeared on the scene during the July Monarchy, they tended to draw support from left-wing, even extreme-left-wing, elements. The historian is faced with the paradox that whereas Jean-Etienne Marconi, founder and head of the order for many years, was utterly indifferent to politics, the Supreme Council of the order for 1855 was composed entirely of Republicans and Socialists who sat with the extreme left in the National Assembly of 1848-495
We are not concerned here with explaining these contradictions, but there is no doubt that after 1848, in any case, the Lodge of the Philadelphians and all organizations related to it, especially those in London, brought together exclusively leftist elements, and that all their activity was leftist in direction. They did not maintain organizational ties with official masonry either in France or in England. Among the English masons there was a small and uninfluential radical wing, but it was dedicated primarily to anti-religious propaganda. The organs of this group were The Free Thinker, The Reasoner, and National Reformer. With this group, the Philadelphians soon established intimate ties, but official English Freemasonry never recognized the Philadelphians, and its publications maintained that they were not masons but an ordinary secret society with revolutionary goals.6
The first Lodge of the Philadelphians in England was established at the end of 1850. Its constitution was ratified by the Supreme Council of the Order (Conseil Suprême de I'Ordre Maçonnique de Memphis) on January 31, 1851.7 It became the center of the Philadelphians' activity among the French émigrés, though in general anybody who spoke French was admitted. The Lodge's work was successful. In addition to the names of roughly 100 persons who at one time or another were members, Jean Bossu lists ten lodges that were connected with it;8 for some of them the Lodge of the Philadelphians was the "mother lodge." The Lodge was distinguished by its stability: it functioned at least until the end of the 1870's
Who precisely were the founders of the Lodge is unknown. Yet if we juxtapose the names on Bossu's list with those of known political activists among the French émigrés, we find a close connection between early members of the Lodge and a political grouping known as La Commune Révolutionnaire, which emerged soon afterward. All the outstanding leaders of the Commune were apparently members of the Lodge, whereas other groups were represented by few if any leaders, but only by minor figures. The connection, of course, was not fortuitous. There is no reason to assume that the Commune group founded the Lodge, since the Commune was organized a year and a half later.9 The relationship was no doubt the reverse: acting behind the scenes, the Philadelphians helped to found and organize the Commune.
The close relationship between the Commune Révolutionnaire and the Lodge of the Philadelphians undoubtedly persisted through the years. We can therefore assess the political activities of the Lodge with reasonable accuracy by studying the publications of the Commune. It seems clear that the Lodge of the Philadelphians (soon after its formation, though we do not know when exactly, it began to call itself La Grande Loge des Philadelphes)10 was, by its very nature, one of those secret societies which outwardly imitated the masons but which were essentially conspiratorial political organizations. The Lodge itself did not openly engage in political activities, unless one regards the banquets it organized as such activities. For political occasions it created special organizations, which formally led an independent existence but in fact were under the complete control of the Lodge, which used them as political instruments.
Conspiratorial Organizations and Political Terrorism
Similar combinations of old forms of organizational structures and political activity were widespread in France during the Restoration and the July Monarchy, when revolutionaries generally belonged either to the Carbonari, Young Europe, and similar groups, or to groups of latter-day Babouvists; all these organizations were, to a greater or lesser extent, essentially conspiratorial in nature. It was only during the years immediately preceding the Revolution of 1848, principally under the influence of the English Chartist movement, that new forms of organizational structures as well as social and political activities began to emerge. The new organizations shifted their attention to the open propagation of Socialist and Communist ideas and to the building of mass organizations of laborers in the city and on the land. Throughout Western Europe the general trend was away from relatively small groups of active revolutionary conspirators who were isolated from their environment, and toward mass, political parties, political clubs, and labor unions. On the eve of the revolution of 1848, the new-style organizations increasingly tended to supplant the old, conspiratorial groups, which were under the influence of masonic principles of organization. The new-style organizations were thrown back two or three decades by the defeat of the 1848-49 revolution, and the old type of organization came once again to the fore. This trend was particularly marked among the French refugees from the Second Empire.
The Commune Révolutionnaire, organized, as we have seen, in 1852, is one of the best examples of the revival of these old conspiratorial organizations. In general works on the history of the period, it is all too frequently bracketed with the Blanquists. This is a mistake. True, a number of Blanquists took part in the Commune Révolutionnaire. Some of them such as Jean-Baptiste Rougé and Théophile Thoré, were close companions-in-arms of Blanqui; but none of them were prominent political leaders, and within the Commune Révolutionnaire they were indistinguishable from the mainstream. It was the so-called Montagnards (sometimes called Jacobins) who became the literary and political leaders of the years 1848-49 and almost all of them were veterans of conspiratorial organizations of the I830's.
It is necessary to point out that in the course of the great debates on Socialism that precipitated the first major split among the French émigrés in England, in the early 1850's, the members of the Commune Révolutionnaire were, without exception, Socialists. Not one of them would have joined the groups of open opponents of Socialism like Alexandre Ledru-Rollin and Giuseppe Mazzini. But the theoretician and political leader of these Socialists was Louis Blanc, whose theoretical views and political stands, especially, during the years of exile were not distinguished by their precision or consistency.
The role of Louis Blanc deserves special consideration. So far as I know, none of the numerous biographies of this man makes any special mention of his activities as a mason or as a member of secret societies in general.11 Nor are there any traces, of such activities in the Louis Blanc papers in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris.12 But in histories of masonry, Blanc long has figured as one of the leading resentatives of the Order of Memphis; although Blanc's name began to appear in such publications during his life time, he never protested its mention.13 The absence of evidence of masonic activitities in the Blanc papers means simply that the censorship to which they were subjected before being deposited in the Bibliothèque Nationale was thorough. Recent publications attest to Blanc's connections with revolutionary masonry. Bossu does not list him as a member of the Lodge of the Philadelphians, but he refers to Blanc's speeches at meetings organized by the Lodge (for example, at an 1870 banquet in honor of Paolo Tibaldi on his return from Cayenne). We learn from Bossu that in 1855 Louis Blanc was actually a member of the Supreme Council of thc Order of Memphis.14 This apparent discrepancy is explained easily. Blanc apparently had been connected with this order for a long time, and was indeed one of the organizers of its Supreme Council in London (after the Order had been banned by the Paris police in 1852-53) ; but he did not join the Lodge of the Philadelphians, which was organized to work among the French emigrés, because he considered the position of ordinary lodge member (even of a "Grand" Lodge) beneath him. When the Supreme Council was transferred to London, however, Blanc, as the Council's chief speechmaker, was able to direct its policy, and, at the same time, to influence the policy of the Lodge of the Philadelphians without officially becoming a member.
Two other points must be made about the Philadelphians in order to understand their role in the formation of the First International.
The first is the enormous interest of the Philadelphians in revolutionary movements in other countries, and their creation of a separate organization intended to maintain constant contact among revolutionaries in different countries. This organization was called the International Association, and it existed from 1855 to 1859. The statutes of this organization, the adoption of which was the only condition for membership, set forth as its principal tasks spreading to "the doctrine of solidarity" and preparing to implement "the ideal of our hearts, the Universal Democratic and Social Republic." Arthur Mueller-Lehning, who devoted an entire work to the Association and assembled a number of valuable documents relating to its activities, called it "the first form of a proletarian International of a revolutionary and Socialist character."15 It is difficult to accept this judgment.
Not only was the Association in fact composed exclusively of emigrés in England and America, it never tried to establish contact with workers' organizations; the words "workers" and "proletarian" never appeared in its statutes. In this respect the Association represented a definite step backward from the international organizations that the English Chartists had tried to create in the 1840's. Trying at first to use the disintegrating remnants of the Chartist organizations as a base, the Association soon lost all contact with them and its émigré character became increasingly pronounced. The lenders of the Association considered themselves Socialists and advocates of revolution, but in its basic structure the Association was clearly an organization of the conspiratorial type. It should be seen not as "the first form of a proletarian International," but rather as the last attempt to create an international organization of the Young Europe type.
That the International Association, the Commune Revolutionnaire, and the Philadelphians were all organizations of the old conspiratorial type is evident from their pronounced sympathy for individual acts of political terror. This is the second point I wish to stress here. Present-day historians, when studying revolutionary movements prior to the Franco-Prussian War, as a rule give very little attention to the question of terrorist activities, yet they are exceptionally important indicators both of the social and political attitudes of the day in general, and of the level of revolutionary tension in activist circles in particular. Tyrannicide was much more in the air during the Restoration and the July Monarchy than is now usually remembered; let us not forget that there were even attempts on the life of the young Queen Victoria. There is no need to stress the extent of terrorist activities in France. Very little was said about them openly, still less was written in the press, but many people thought about them. The literature of the day, police records, personal correspondence, and private archives force one to the conclusion that all the secret societies of the era were filled with people who were more or less sympathetic to terrorism. These sympathies outlived the Revolution of 1848. Indeed, sympathy toward terrorist attacks may be considered a reliable measure of the spread of revolutionary attitudes in Second Empire France. It is important to stress that the Philadelphians, too, and apparently all societies connected with them organizationally, must be regarded as sympathizing with individual acts of political terror. The attitudes of these groups toward the terrorist activities organized by Mazzini and his supporters leads us to this conclusion.
The Italian revolutionaries in Mazzini's organization were stubbornly preoccupied at the time with organizing attempts on the life of Napoleon III. Mazzini not only considered Napoleon III the most dangerous political opponent of Italian unification but personally regarded him as a traitor, and consequently sent to France group after group of terrorists whose mission was to assassinate Napoleon III.16 Most of the terrorists came from English territory, with the assistance of Englishmen. The French press, reflecting government opinion, accused the English government of aiding the terrorists.
The most important terrorist outbreak was the attempt of Felice Orsini to assassinate Napoleon II with a grenade on January 14, 1858. The explosion missed its target, but 156 people, including guards and innocent passers-by, were killed. The indignation of the press—and not only of the French press—prompted the English government to take an unprecedented step: Simon Bernard, a French émigré and a friend of Orsini's, who helped him prepare the grenades, was put on trial in London. The hearing turned into a trial of Napoleon III. The jury deliberated only 15 minutes before unanimously acquitting Bernard.17
This trial, of course, was preceded and accompanied by polemics in the press. The International Association's Bulletin de l'Association Internationale defended both Bernard's actions and tyrannicide in general.18 La Commune Révolutionnaire, The Reasoner (the organ of the Free Thinkers, who had connections with the Philadelphians), and similar publications carried articles in the same spirit. When Simon Bernard died several years later, only his friends and allies from the Philadelphians spoke at his funeral: Adolphe Talandier, Gustave Jourdain, Joseph Holyoake, and Félix Pyat.19 We might add that, as mentioned earlier, in 1870 the Philadelphians arranged a banquet in honor of Paolo Tibaldi, who was then returning from Cayenne, where he had served part of a term of life imprisonment at hard labor in connection with another attempt on the life of Napoleon III. The speakers at the banquet were Louis Blanc and Gustave Flourens, and the chairman was Talandier; all of them were Philadelphians.20
The Philadelphians, Mazzini, and Garibaldi
Between 1850 and 1855, the Philadelphians were active as a group that welcomed all proponents of revolutionary Socialism among both French and foreign émigrés. Their sharpest blows were then directed against Mazzini, who had become the militant spokesman for all the anti-Socialist émigrés. This isolated the Philadelphians and their organizations from the Italian émigrés, who were under Mazzini's influence. Personal friendships between Philadelphians and Italian émigrés, and the active assistance the Philadelphians gave Mazzini's terrorist enterprises did not lessen the gulf. This is why we do not find Italian names among the members of the International Association, and why the Association had no publications in Italian.
The situation began to change in 1858-59, when political preparation for Piedmont's war against Austria began. The war brought substantial changes both in the international situation and in the émigrés state of mind. The question of Italy's unification became one of general interest. Mazzini's speeches, which called for the relegating of social problems to a second place behind the unification of Italy, brought forth the opposition of Socialist émigré circles. The International Association responded immediately (December 1858) with a special manifesto criticizing Mazzini's position. Characteristically, among the manifesto's signatories one finds neither the leaders of the Commune Révolutionnaire, nor of the Philadelphians, nor even the old leaders of the International Association itself.21 The explanation for this, confirmed by police reports in the Vienna Staatsarchiv, is that a struggle was raging in the Association around the anti-Mazzini manifesto.* It looks very much as if the rank and file tried to save the Association, while the leaders, who were Philadelphians, were burying it. The reason is clear: the leaders were moving toward a new policy, the core of which was rapprochement with Mazzini.
The Napoleon III's assistance to Piedmont and Austria's military defeat called forth lively pro-Napoleonic sentiments, even in genuinely leftist émigré circles. Hopes that Napoleon III had decided to "ally himself with the revolution" and become the "executor of the will of the late republic"22 were to be cruelly disappointed, yet it was the defeat of Austria that made possible Garibaldi's victories, which were hailed by democrats throughout the world. Garibaldi's extraordinary popularity enabled him, on October 5, 1860, to come forth with a plan to organize a special International Legion to be made up of volunteer divisions of French, Polish, Swiss, German, and other nationalities. The Legion's primary task, of course, was to aid in Italy's struggle for liberation. Later, Garibaldi promised, the divisions would aid in the liberation of their homelands. Ludwig Mieroslawski was placed at the head of the Legion. This plan set in motion widespread agitation and activity, which persisted even after the plan itself was abandoned.23
The movement to support Garibaldi became the center of the Philadelphians' activities during the second phase of their history, 1859 to 1864. Bossu cites a quotation from Le Monde Maçonninque for 1874, which states that in 1859 Garibaldi, Mazzini, Charles Bradlaugh, and Louis Blanc were members of the London Lodge of the "United Philadelphians.24 Bradlaugh, as is evident from his biography, actually did join this lodge in March 1859,25 but it is unlikely that Mazzini or Garibaldi, who occupied prominent posts in the Italian masonic movement, would join a lodge of French émigrés. What seems to be true, however, is that around that time they reached some sort of agreement with the Philadelphians on joint activities. The existence of such an agreement is beyond dispute; only the form of the agreement is open to speculation. In the 1860's, then, Mazzini, Garibaldi, and the Philadelphians formed a bloc that replaced the International Association of 1855-59.26
A number of other countries joined in the bloc's undertakings, notably Belgium and Switzerland. The major project of these men became the convocation of an international democratic congress and the creation of an international association. After considerable preparatory work, an official decision to hold the congress was made on the basis of a report given by Johann-Philipp Becker at a conference in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland, on July 20, 1863. All the preparatory work for the congress was carried out in the name of Garibaldi, who signed the official invitation, which was dated Geneva, September 7, 1863. Together with proposed Statutes for the new association, the invitation was sent out to leaders of democratic and republican movements, in all the countries of Western Europe. The congress was held in Brussels, September 26-28, 1863. Its president was Pierre Coullery, from La Chaux-de-Fonds.** The vice-chairman was Becker.27 The other executive officers are not known. The congress adopted a resolution to create an Association Fédérative Universelle de la Démocratic, but it issued no documents, and the report of its activities went unpublished.28
The Brussels Congress passed almost unnoticed by the outside world. The reason for this was the concentration of the congress on Garibaldi and his movement at a time when that movement was obsolescent [sic]. The congress adopted a resolution on Garibaldi's trip to London, planned for the spring of 1864, which emphasized the importance of agitation among workers' groups and democratic organizations.29 No doubt the leaders of the congress argued among themselves about the trip. Some of them shifted their attention to negotiation with the English government for its support in further struggles against Austria.
The trip took place as planned. The enthusiasm with which Garibaldi was met by thousands of people indicated the magnitude of his personal popularity and that of the cause for which he stood. But in government circles he did not receive the support on which the behind-the-scenes organizers of the trip had reckoned. The game of extending nationalist liberation movements no longer had a place in the policy of the English government or the government of Napoleon III.
The Philadelphians in London played an active role in organizing the reception there for Garibaldi. In the French colony they organized a special society called La France Libre and published a small pamphlet entitled "La France Libre et Garibaldi,"30 but their behind-the-scenes role in various English democratic and workers societies was far more important. They organized welcoming committees for Garibaldi and planned welcoming speeches. But the significance of their work was slight in view of the collapse of important political negotiations, to which I now turn.
The Philadelphians' Second Phase, 1859-1864
The second period of the Philadelphians' activity (1859-64) differed from the first (1851-59) on essential points. The slogan "République Démocratique et Sociale Universelle" was dropped, even from publications addressed to a French audience. It does not appear, for example, in the pamphlet "La France Libre et Garibaldi." The pamphlet's presumably subtle account of the disputes of 1848-49 completely overshadowed any thought of political influence on the masses in 1864. True, revolutionary aims were expressed openly by the revolutionary leaders whose documents are included in the brochure, that is, by Garibaldi, Mazzini, and Blanc, as well as by the official delegates of the Philadelphians whose names are not mentioned in the pamphlet. However, now the major concern was not that of the previous period, Socialist agitation, but the day-to-day relationship between Italian democrats on the one hand and French democrats on the other. The Philadelphians openly disassociated themselves from the aggressive aims of Napoleon III. They stressed the importance of peace and international solidarity, but cast overboard not only the Universal Republic, but also the entire non-Italian part of the program of national liberation. No mention was made of Garibaldi's 1860 promise that the divisions of his International Legion would carry the struggle to their own countries once Italy had been liberated. Though perhaps reluctantly, Garibaldi did agree to subordinate his own plans for the London trip to the diplomatic calculations of those who hoped to secure the support of the "great powers" of the West. These powers, however, regarded their recent wager on the national liberation movement as a card already played. They were now willing to pay a small part of the expenses for wrapping up Garibaldi's movement, but nothing at all for extending it to other countries. Although the general trend was a retreat from revolution, it is important to note here that, largely under the leadership of the Philadelphians, quite different notes began to be sounded—notes of attempts to escape from great-power diplomacy, of attempts to appeal to the masses. These new notes were sounded with special clarity in the work of the Belgian and Swiss allies of the Philadelphians. It was these two countries that bore the main burden of preparations for the international democratic congress in Brussels, preparations that, in contrast to the Philadelphians' tradition, they linked with organizational efforts to broaden their own mass organizations. It was not at all accidental that these pioneer builders of the earliest organizations that formed the First International dated its birth not from the London meeting of September 24, 1864, at which neither the Belgians nor the Swiss were present, but from the Brussels Congress, of September 20-28, 1863.31
Yet in its structure the Brussels Congress itself and the Alliance Fédérative Universelle de la Démocratic it organized were still too intimately tied to the old traditions of secret societies of a conspiratorial character. (These traditions were as persistent in Belgium as in France.) The congress was held in complete secrecy, without a single line about it in the newspapers. Not only was the Alliance built on the principle of individual membership; it had, in general, nothing to do with workers' organizations (the term did not even appear in its statutes, as it had not appeared in the statutes of the International Association), and its national sections were organized whenever as few as three members of the Alliance of the same nationality got together. All the members undertook to keep secret the names of the other members and of the congress participants. Neither the program nor any other document concerning the Alliance has ever been published.32
In this second period in the development of the London Philadelphians, then, what progressive element there was came not from London, not from the Philadelphians themselves, but from their Swiss and Belgian allies.33 We do not know what the attitude of these allies was toward the Philadelphians' organization and political ideology. There is reason to suppose that some kind of tie linked London with both Brussels34 and Geneva35 along the lines of the Order of Memphis, but there is no reliable evidence of this. During the period that the policy of the London Philadelphians was being made by the Mazzini-Blanc-Bradlaugh bloc, the Philadelphians took a step backward rather than forward.
In 1862-64 the Philadelphians' path crossed that of a group of Paris workers, who had come to England to acquaint themselves with the English labor movement. In outlook and composition, the two groups could hardly have been more different. The legal English labor movement was of little interest to the exiled conspirators who were the Philadelphians. Indeed, they were inclined to regard it with a measure of suspicion, if only because it was a legal movement, which attempted to create legal workers' organizations. Such a movement was beginning to revive in France, where it was more or less tolerated by the police. As members of old underground societies, the Philadelphians had learned to distrust anything the police tolerated.
The leaders of the Paris workers' groups were men of a different generation. They had not taken part in any secret organizations and had no inclination whatever in that direction. They had risen to the top with a new surge of a labor movement which, for all its peculiarities and defects, had strong, organic ties with the proletarian masses and was responsive to their changing needs and attitudes. They came to England for short stays which always had a specific purpose. Their basic purpose, however, was always the same: to acquaint themselves with the life of the English workers, with their working conditions, and with the organizations they had built. These workers came to England with the expectation of returning to France. In order not to become exiles themselves, they had to be very circumspect in their public pronouncements. They did not give speeches about the Universal Democratic and Socialist Republic, the favorite rallying cry of the Philadelphians, but constantly stressed their ties with the workers' organizations of France and their desire to establish permanent ties with similar organizations in other countries, particularly those in England.
The Philadelphians and the Paris workers represented two radically different approaches to the problem of international organization. In this early period, when Europe was beginning to emerge from the reaction that followed the defeat of the 1848 revolution, it was possible for these profound differences to go unnoticed. Yet they existed, and would assert themselves, as soon as concrete social and political issues were raised.
The First International grew out of the second of these two approaches, out of the contacts established by leaders of the French labor movement with representatives of the English workers' organizations. But a great role in the creation of the First International was played also by representatives of the Philadelphians. All the attempts of the Philadelphians over a decade and a half to create an international organization based on conspiracy had ended in failure, yet the outward masonic form the Philadelphians had adopted helped preserve their old cadres. The organizational traditions which the Philadelphians preserved, and which were lacking among the legal workers' organizations, enabled the Philadelphians to be of technical service to the representatives of the French and English workers' organizations in 1862-64.
The Philadelphians and the Founding of the First International
The part played by individual Philadelphians in 1864 was enormous; Victor Le Lubez, to name only the most important, personally undertook the tremendous work of organizing the meeting of September 28, 1864, at which the General Council of the First International was elected. But even while giving Le Lubez and other Philadelphians their due, we must not forget that they never for a minute abandoned their conspiratorial traditions, and from the very beginning planned to use the new International, an alliance of workers' organizations, for the purpose of strengthening their own organization. Whenever possible, they tried to place their own people, who shared their views on tactics, in leading positions in the new International. The General Council of the International was selected by Le Lubez, and included a large and influential group of Philadelphians.36
We do not know enough about the members of the General Council to establish precisely how many of them were Philadelphians or their allies,37 but we do know that of eight non-Englishmen elected to the first General Council, Six were Philadelphians or Mazzinists, who, as we have seen, were then allied with the Philadelphians. And the influence of the non-English members of the General Council was much greater than their number would suggest. By November 29, the membership of the General Council had increased to 58, and the new members were primarily candidates proposed by Le Lubez. The French group in the General Council grew from three to nine, eight of whom were Philadelphians; and the number of non-English members who were definitely allies of Le Lubez—among whom I count all the Italians and Poles of Emile Holtorp's group—grew from six to 18 at the meeting of November 29, an increase, that is, from 19 per cent of the total membership of the General Council to 31 per cent.38 Given the more regular attendance of the non-English members at the meetings of the General Council, it is clear how great the influence of the Philadelphians and their allies must have been, the more so since the Philadelphians had allies not only among the Poles and the Italians but also among the English and other national groups.39
This grouping, which counted no less than one-third the membership of the General Council, naturally had a decisive voice in all questions raised in the Council. There is no need to assume, of course, that this grouping acted as a disciplined bloc. Even the known members of the Philadelphians' lodge in the General Council disagreed on a number of issues, and no one even thought of invoking discipline. But the grouping's general agreement on basic questions was inevitably reflected in the course of its overall behavior. The struggles inside the General Council, at least in its initial period, cannot be correctly understood without reference to the existence within the General Council of the bloc of Philadelphians and Mazzinists.
The principal enemy of the Philadelphians, the man who prevented the First International from becoming a front for their activities, was Karl Marx. After Marx's bitter experience with the attempted revival of the Communist League in 1850-51, he refused to take part in any league or society created abroad. He made his first exception to this rule in the case of the First International, for reasons made clear in his correspondence: this International was being built by "real forces" that represented the open labor movements of France and England.40 The impression he carried away from the meeting of September 28, 1864, was a good one. "Very nice fellow," he wrote about Henri Louis Tolain; he was favorably impressed, too, by George Odger and William Randal Cremer, who headed the International as representatives of the English trade unions. The good impression made on him by the leaders of the new organization, and above all his general evalution of the importance of a workers' international, decided Marx: he joined in the work of the International.
From the very first, Marx was confronted with the Philadelphians. Scattered remarks in his letters indicate that he had been aware of their existence before, and had been informed, for example, of the Brussels Congress of 1863. But he did not attach much significance to them; he had long since written off all secret, cospiratorial organizations. But in 1864, when the Philadelphians helped to launch the International, he did not regard them as harmful. He could not help but evaluate their work in the International favorably, and Le Lubez personally made a rather good impression on him. In the realm of theory and over-all policy he doubtless considered them great confusionists, but the harmful effects of their daily work in the International became clear to him only as time wore on.
Marx's attitude during the drafting of the programmatic documents for the International indicates that at first he wished to avoid a direct clash with the Philadelphians, which would have deprived the International of a large number of valuable members. The Programmatic document drafted by Le Lubez was clearly out of the question, but it was easy to reject his draft on purely literary grounds. Marx was thus forced to write his own program, which was enthusiastically received by the Philadelphians ("worthy of enthusiasm," wrote Le Lubez).41 But Marx had to compromise on the Statutes. The important concession was not the inclusion, in modified form, of a number of organizational proposals put forth by the Italians. It was especially important that Marx agreed to include, as he wrote to Engels on November 4, 1864, "two sentences about 'obligations' and 'rights,' ditto about 'truth, morality, and justice.'"
This passage in Marx's letter is often quoted by historians, but no one seems to have explained why Marx felt it necessary to add in writing to Engels that these words were "put in such a way that they cannot bring any harm." This remark makes strange reading, as do the notes of the Moscow editors of the works of Marx and Engels to the effect that the two sentences in question were introduced into the Statutes "upon the insistence of the other members of the commission," and that therefore Marx was not responsible for them.42 Yet it is hard to imagine Marx's including in a document written by him important statements with which he seriously disagreed. As a matter of fact, the phrases in question did not violate any basic precepts of Marx's: they stated that there are are "no rights without obligations" and "no obligations without rights,"and that all members of the International "would recognize truth, justice and morality As the basis of relations with each other and with all people, irrespective of the color of their skin, their faith, or their nationality." Today these words sound a bit pompous, but in substance they are unexceptionable, and one wonders why Marx felt he had to justify including them in the Statutes. The reason is simple: these phrases were something in the nature of slogans for the Philadelphians, which defined their position on basic social and political questions and which seem to date from the early years of the July Monarchy. Our evidence is still fragmentary and indirect, but this is the only hypothesis that explains why Marx hastened to explain to Engels his reasons for including these words in the Statutes of the International, and why he added that in the context, these words "could not do any harm." Harm would have been done if these words had been taken to indicate general agreement with the Philadelphians' social and political ideas. It was this danger that Marx took measures to forestall in his general presentation of the Statutes. Obviously he agreed to include the two statements because the Philadelphians on the editorial commission insisted, and because Marx then considered their participation essential to the success of the International.
The desire to preserve the cooperation of all those who helped organize the September 28 meeting guided all Marx's actions in the struggle between the Parisian workers and the Philadelphians that broke out in the International in 1865. All the documents the International issued in 1864-65 were written by Marx, and they naturally reflected his views. But when he opposed the Philadelphians, he did so in such a way that they could continue to work for the International. The conflict inside the International was not provoked by him, but by the Philadelphians, whose actions jeopardized the entire work of the International in France. Although it is not possible here to go into the history of the Paris conflict of 1865 at length, it is clear, first, that the aggressors were the Philadelphians and their allies, and second, that the basis of the struggle was the opposition of the old conspiratorial societies to the new workers' organizations. Not all those who sided with the Philadelphians were aware of these two facts, but they were what basically characterized the Philadelphians' behavior. At first Marx tried to find a compromise, and only when it became clear that the Philadelphians would settle for nothing less than total victory, and that this victory would mean the end of the International as a working-men's association, only then did Marx throw his weight behind the Parisians.
The struggle was essentially a struggle for power in the General Council of the International. The key to understanding power relations within the Council lies in the composition of its major, policy-making subcommittee, which was appointed at the very first session of the General Council, October 5, 1864. The subcommittee was then composed of five Englishmen, including the Chairman and the Secretary of the General Council, William Randal Cremer, and four non-Englishmen: Marx, Le Lubez, the Italian Luigi Wolff, and the Pole Emile Holtorp. Apart from Marx, all the non-Englishmen were in the Philadelphian-Mazzinist bloc, which apparently also had support of at least one, and perhaps two, of the Englishmen; the bloc was thus able to steer the work of the subcommittee. After reviewing the dispute provoked by the Parisian section on September 19, 1865, the General Council selected a new subcommittee, made up of six Englishmen and five non-Englishmen.43 Three Englishmen from the old subcommittee stayed on, including the Chairman of the General Council and the Secretary, and only one non-Englishman, namely Marx. Three Englishmen and four non-Englishmen joined the subcommittee for the first time, and not one of them belonged to the Philadelphian-Mazzinist bloc. Thus the formation of the new subcommittee meant a complete defeat of the bloc and was in particular a cruel blow to the Philadelphians, who had considered themselves the masters of the General Council.
To make the political significance of the altered composition of the subcommittee even clearer, it should be pointed out that it was at precisely this time that the leaders of the old-style conspiratorial societies attempted to launch their own new international organization. I refer to the International Republican Committee, which was then conjured up by Mazzini. We seem to have no information about this committee, but from the letters of Marx to Engels we know that besides Mazzini, its membership included Alexandre Ledru-Rollin, Gottfried Kinkel, Karl Blind, Heinrich Bolleter, and the Poles Emile Holtorp and Marian Langewicz.44 These names make the political complexion of the organization clear.
Mazzini who had abandoned the terrorist campaign against Napoleon III during the Franco-Austrian war, returned to it in 1863-64 and even tried to extend it.45 Ledru-Rollin had been a loyal ally of Mazzini in such activities as far back as the i850's. Blind wrote articles for Karl Heinzen's German-American newspaper, Der Pionier, that at once expressed anti-Socialist views and advocated terrorism. Blind's stepson, moreover, had been arrested shortly before for trying to kill Bismarck, and there is no doubt that he acted under his stepfather's influence. Langewicz and Holtorp, too, had strong sympathies for individual acts of terror.46
Thus it is obvious that Mazzini's International Republican Committee was an alliance of proponents of individual acts of terror. When it became clear that the plans to seize control of the First International through the Philadelphians had collapsed, Mazzini took steps to form his own International, the International of extreme terrorist groups. This was one of the last cards played by the epigoni of the old conspiratorial societies.
The Legacy of the Philadelphians
The role of the Philadelphians in the formation of the First International, as it has been described in the foregoing pages, was enormous. The International, as history knows it, was born out of the struggle against the old methods of political conspiracy and secret organizations. Only against the background of this struggle can we understand the creation of the First International and its subsequent history.
The struggle at this stage formally ended in the autumn of 1865, when the known supporters of the Philadelphians were removed from leading posts, in the International. But not only did the traditions of the Philadelphians survive in individual sections of the International, their supporters continued their work on an international scale. Although I do not wish to go beyond the chronological framework of this paper, the years in which the International was founded, I cannot refrain from indicating that not only was Mikhail Bakunin connected with the Philadelphians, but there were strong bonds between the Philadelphians and the Blanquists. And it was, after all, the Blanquists who dealt the death blow to the First International, when they forced Marx to move the General Council to the United States. 47
Secret Societies and the First International endnotes
1. Typical examples of their attitudes toward masonry are cited by Gustave Lefrançais, in his Souvenirs d'un révolutionnaire (Brussels, 1902). Several examples of how revolutionaries (especially the Blanquists) manipulated masonic lodges toward the end of the 1860's are given by Maurice Dommanget in Blanqui et l'opposition révolutionnaire à la fin du Second Empire (Paris, 1960), pp. 141-43.
2.See Nettlau's article "Zur Vorgeschichte der Internationale" in Dokumente des Sozialismus (Berlin, 1905), Vol. V.
3.The most important recent publication on the subject is the article by Professor Jean Bossu, "Une loge de proscrits 'a Londres sous le Second Empire et aprés la Commune" in the January-October 1958 issues of L'dée libre., a now-defunct monthly magazine published in Herblay (Seine-et-Oise), distributed only to members of French masonic lodges. I am deeply grateful to Professor Bossu for having graciously provided me with photocopies of his article.
4.The name was altered several times. In 1857 the documents of the Lodge of the Philadelphians bore the heading "L'Ordre Maçonnique: Réformé de Memphis." Toward the end of the 1860's the documents speak of "le rite universel."
5.Bossu, pp. 22, 301. A number of general works on masonry provide information on Marconi and the early history of the Philadelphians. See, for example, Albert Lantoine, Histoire de la Franc-maçonnerie française: La Francmaçonnerie chez-elle (Paris, 192-5), pp. 294-97 and passim.
6.See Freemasons' Magazine and Masonic Mirror (London), August 27, 1859, pp. 150-51
7.These data were supplied by the Lodge itself in its polemic with England's conservative Masons. Ibid., pp. 103-34.
8.His list is far from exhaustive.
9.We must consider the meeting it organized on June 13, 1852, as the first appearance of the Commune; see Edouard Renard's Louis Blanc (Paris, 1922), P. 186. The first leaflets of La Commune Révolutionnaire were dated August 1852; see reports on the Paris trial of La Commune Révolutionnaire in July 1853, in Charles de Bussy, Les Conspirateurs en Angleterre, 1848-1858 (Paris, 1858), p. 341.
10.The name "La Grande Loge des Philadelphes" appeared on the letterhead of the certificate the Lodge issued on September 9, 1857, to its member Melchior Volksmuth. I am citing a photocopy of the original.
11.Louis Blanc's Histoire de dix ans indicates that he was weIl informed about the affairs of the secret societies of the 1830's, and that his information could not have stemmed solely from knowledge of published sources. In particular, it indicates that he was familiar with the relations between these societies and "regular" masonry. The appropriate passages in Louls Blanc's work have been used more than once against the masons in the literature on the subject; see Paul Fesch and Joseph Denais, Bibliographle de la Franc maçonnerie et des sociéte's secrètes (Paris, 1912), I, p. 153.
12.These papers were used extensively in Edouard Renard's Louis Blanc (Paris, 1922).
13.See, for example, Emmanuel Rebold, Histoire des trois Grandes Loges (Paris, 1864), p. 597.
14.Bossu, pp. 180, 301. The official name of this Supreme Council was "Le Conseil des Sublimes Ma”ltres du Grand Oeuvre," according to Albert Lantoine, p. 297; in England it became "Le Grand Conseil de l'Ordre Maçonnique Reformé de Memphis" (according to the certificate of the Philadelphians cited in Note 10 above).
15.Arthur Mueller-Lehning, "The International Association (1855-59)" in the International Review for Social History, (Leiden, 1938), III, 185-286 The citation is from p. 285.
16.A. Luzio, Carlo Alberto e Giuseppe Mazzini (Turin, 1923), p. 246. Luzio gives special attention to Mazzini's terrorist activities.
17.Procés et Biographie du Dr. S. Bernard avec la défense complète de son avocat, Mr. Edwin James, Q.C., ed. Henry Bender (London,
1858), 30 pp.
18."L'Attentat du 14 janvier," in Bulletin de I'Association Internationale, No. 10 (March 1, 1958), p. 1. A facsimile of this page is given in the appendices to the Mueller-Lehning article cited in Note 15 above.
19.Hypathie Bradlaugh-Bronner, Biography of Bradlaugh, 7th ed. (London, 1908), I, 204. This biography also reveals that Bernard was a prominent member of the Lodge of the Philadelphians, and that it was under his sponsorship that Bradlaugh was admitted to the Lodge. Bernard's obituary can also be found in Natonal Reformer, December 6 and 13 1862
20.Bossu, p. 180.
21.Mueller-Lehning, p. 280.
*.The Wochenberichte (weekly reports) of the Berlin police explain the struggle and the subsequent crisis in the Association by the discovery that John Mackay, the Association's new Secretary-General was an agent of the French police. (Report of February 15, 1859, in the Vienna Staatsarchiv, Informationsbureau.) Since Mackay remained at his post, there can be no doubt that the majority of the active members of the Association put little stock in the accusation. Furthermore, it is unlikely that the discovery of a police informer (and there were a number of them among the French 'émigrés) would have been sufficient in itself to shake the Association. The crisis reflected in the police documents was undoubtedly precipitated by deep political divisions within the Association. [footnote p. 45.]
22.Edmund Silberner, Moses Hess Briefwechsel (The Hague, 1959), p. 363.
23.Data on the Legion are taken from the article by Johann-Philipp Becker, "Polen, die Diplomatie und die Revolution" in Nordstern (Hamburg, Nos. 219-23, July 1863). Becker himself took part in Garibaldi's movement, made trips to Italy, etc. He, too, was undoubtedly a mason: how else can one explain the fact that Mazzini addressed him as "Dear Brother"? See letter of June 1861, published by Rheingold Ruegg in Neue Zeit, VI (1888), 458.
24.Bossu, p. 181.
25.Bradlaugh-Bronner, I, 204.
26.At that time, personal relations between Garibaldi and Mazzini were far from good, but of course I cannot go into this here.
27.This information is found in the editorial note commenting on Pierre Coullery's letter in La Rive Gauche, November 26, 1865. The note is signed "L. F.," which undoubtedly stands for Léon Fontaine, who was directly involved in the organization of the Brussels Congress; Garibaldi's letter gave Fontaine's home address to arriving delegates.
**.For a more detailed account of Coullery's political activities and the role of the section in La Chaux-de-Fonds, see pp. 15-16 above.—Editor. [footnote p. 47.]
28.Data on the congress are taken primarily from documents in the Vienna Staatsarchiv, Informationsbureau 9191/B.M.
29.See Marx's letter to Engels of April 19, 1864. Marx was informed about this congress by Joseph Valentin Weber, who was there as a delegate of the Deutscher Arbeiter Bildungs Verein of London.
30.La France Libre et Garibaldi (London, 1864), 18 pp.
31.At the September 25, 1865, conference of the International in London, César De Paepe said, "Two years ago an International Association was formed, but it had too much of the middle-class element in it. It broke up." The General Council of the First International (Moscow, 1961), p. 238. Even more explicit was Johann-Philipp Becker, who May 30, 1867, wrote to Friedrich Albert Sorge: "In 1862 I was among the initiators of the international democratic congress, from which in 1864 emerged the International Workingmen's Association." Pis'ma K. Marksa, Fr. Engel' sa i dr. k' F. Zorge i dr. (St. Petersburg, 1908), p 5.
32.I must note here that I have at my disposal only the draft of the Alliance's Statutes, which accompanied Garibaldi's letter of invitation to the congress of September 7, 1863, in the copy in the Vienna Staatsarchiv. The actual text of the statutes adopted by the congress is unknown, and I have not chanced on it in any archival deposit.
33.Brussels, so far as I know, was the only city where a Belgian section of the Alliance was organized, in the winter of 1863-64. On April 6, 1864, it sent an address to Garibaldi; a note on this appeared in the Brussels Tribune du Peuple of April 17, 1864, p. 2.
34.We know that Joseph Goffin, author of Histoire populaire de la Franc-maçonnerie (Spa, 1862), in 1857 founded in Vervier, Belgium, the lodge "Les Libres Penseurs," which was under the supervision of the Lodge of the Philadelphians in London (letters of Georges de Froidcourt of Liège, historian of Belgian Freemasonry, to the present author). Subsequently Goffin lived for some time in London, and was secretary of the Grand Lodge of the Philadelphians.
35.In the Circular Letter "Rundschreiben der deutschen Abteilung des Zentralkommitees der Internationalen Arbeiter Association fŸr die Schweiz an die Arbeiter" (Geneva, November 1865, printed in Nordstern, Hamburg, January 13, 1866), Johann-Philipp Becker defined the International Workingmen's Association as "in its form and its effect, an up-to-date, rejuvenated, vigorous Freemasonry of the working class."
36.Sometime later Pierre Vésinier wrote that Le Lubez "selected and proposed" to the meeting September 28, 1864, a list of members of the General Council, which was approved. (See the article "Congrès de Genève," in the Brussels newspaper L'Espiègle, January 13, 1867.) A confederate and personal friend of Le Lubez, Vèsinier undoubtedly based this assertion on what Le Lubez himself had told him.
37.Biographical data are especially sparse for the English members, who were a majority (75 per cent) of the General Council. We have almost no information on the connections of these members with the so-called Freethinkers, who formed the radical wing of English Freemasonry and were connected with the French Philadelphians. Victor Le Lubez was himself active in the Freethinkers, and undoubtedly induced some of them to take part in the International.
38.The list is derived from an address to President Abraham Lincoln signed by all the members of the General Council on November 29, 1864. (At that time nearly all the Italians were Mazzinists.) For more detail on Holtorp, see Note 46 below.
39.For example, the German Heinrich Bolleter was among them.
40.Marx to Engels, November 4, 1864.
41.Le Lubez's note is quoted by Nettlau, in Dokumente des Sozialismus, V, 326.
42.Marx and Engels, Sochinyeniya, 2d ed., Vol. XVI (Moscow, 1960), p. 644, Note 14.
43.The protocols state that nine were elected, but several lines later they mention the supplementary inclusion in the subcommittee of Constantin Bobczy«nsky as a representative of the Poles. Moreover, the list does not mention the Council's Secretary-General, William Randal Cremer, who was a member of the subcommittee by virtue of his secretarial office.
44.Marx informed Engels about this committee in a letter dated May 17, 1866. On Holtorp and Langewicz, see Note 46 below.
45.See, for example, the account of the trial of Trabucco, Greco, and others in Complot des Italiens: Attentat contre la vie de I'Empereur (Paris, 1864), 137 pp.
46.The question of the participation of Polish groups in the International in its first phase, i.e. before the September 1865 London conference, is one of the most important unstudied questions in the history of the International. Emile Holtorp, who throughout this period was the Corresponding Secretary of the General Council for Poland, remains a mysterious figure. Apart from Marx's report of Holtorp's adherence to Mazzini's International Republican Committee (see Note 44), the only other place his name appears is in the minutes of the General Council. It is not even known precisely which group he represented in the International. His name was not mentioned in the press, not even in the Polish Glos Wolny (published in London from 1863 to 1866), which devoted much space to the Polish émigré colony in London. But Glos Wolny does enable us to establish which group Holtorp representcd in the General Council.
Garibaldi's arrival in London in April 1864 set off intense struggle within the Polish colony. The two main older groups of Polish émigrés—the "aristocrats," supporters of Count Czartoryski, and the "democrats," headed by Ludwig Oborski, Antoni Zabicki, and others#151;drafted a joint address to Garibaldi, which was approved by a large majority at a meeting on April 7 and presented to Garibaldi at the April 18 meeting in the Crystal Palace. This address, of course, spoke of support for the Polish uprising, but passed over in complete silence the question of the slogans for the uprising; at this moment the conflict between the "white" and the "red" insurrectionaries, principally over their relationship to the peasantry, was particularly acute.
This struggle found its reflection in London, where a small group, identified by Glos Wolny (No. 39, April 21, 1864) as "the self-appointed delegation from Vistula," demanded the adoption of its text of the address to Garibaldi. This address was rejected (only five of the 125-130 participants voted for it) on the ground that it was then necessary "not to write international manifestos" and not "to create small international committees," but to organize a movement supporting "the fight that Poland is leading." Nevertheless, the authors of the second address went ahead on their own, and were received separately by Garibaldi.
I have been unable to find the text of this second address. In 1962, however, the "Manifesto of the Polish Revolutionary Center in London" was published in Moscow (Slavianskii Arkhlv, pp. 244-46). This "Manifesto" undoubtedly reflects the disputes around the reception of Garibaldi and originated with the group that formulated the second address. Dated April 19, 1864, it sets down the conditions under which the "Center" will cooperate with other Polish émigré groups, and names Stanislaw Frankowski and Ludwig Bulewski as the persons authorized by it to carry on negotiations with these groups. These names make it clear that the "Center" was actually connected with the Warsaw Revolutionary Government (Frankowski was a delegate of that government), and that at the same time this "Center" was the erstwhile Polish nucleus of the "Alliance Républicaine Universelle," which Bulewski formed later. Holtorp entered the International through the "Center," and his joining Mazzini's International Republican Committee followed from his connection with that group.
The question of Marian Langewicz is more complicated. The Institute of Marxism-Leninism in Moscow describes him as "one of the leaders of the conservative landowner wing" in the Polish 1863 insurrection, which makes his joining Mazzini's committee seem completely absurd. But, though we know very little about Langewicz, we do know that he was never a conservative or a representative of the landowners. Langewicz, who was a prominent figure in the military school founded by Garibaldi in Genoa in 1860 for the training of military cadres to lead revolutionary national uprisings, gave every indication of being a "technician," who judged this kind of movement by its chances of success, and for whom the program was only secondary. Furthermore, he had been incorrectly informed that the Warsaw Government would welcome him as a dictator. Langewicz spent only eight days as dictator; having learned the truth about Warsaw's attitude toward him, he left the country and almost deserted the Revolutionary Governnment. Once abroad, however, he joined the "reds," in whose camp he had previously enlisted, rather than the "whites, " and established contact with Garibaldi and closc ties with Bulewski's organizations. His joining Mazzini's International Republican Committee was thus a completely natural step.
47. At the time, the Blanquists spoke about this openly. The first Russian group of Blanquists plainly wrote that the real reason for transferring the General Council to New York was the concern of the Marxists "that the Blanquists should not achieve a dominating influence, that they should not turn the International from that legal ground on which they were trying to keep it." [From the introduction to the Russian edition of the brochure Internatsional i revolutsiya (Geneva, 1876).] This brochure (Internationale et révolution: A propos du Congrès de la Haye par des réfugiés de la Commune, ex-membres du Conseil général de Internationale, London, 1872) is a protest by the London group of Blanquists, adopted September 15, 1872, of the decision of the Hague Congress of the International. This group included Antoine Arnaud, F. Cournet, Margueritte, Constant Martin, Gabriel Ranvier, and Edouard Vaillant; its author, so far as we were able to determine, was Ranvier. At the time, this group actually headed the French section of the International in London, the same one that was organized in 1865 and was headed by Le Lubez. Ranvier was not only a member of that group, he was also connected with the Philadelphians (Pierre Vésinier was married to his daughter).
The revolutionary internationals, 1864-1943. Edited by Milorad M. Drachovitch. Contributors: Milorad M. Drachkovitch [and others]. Stanford, Calif., Published for Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace by Stanford University Press, 1966. xv, 256 p. 24 cm. Hoover Institution publication; "Papers and comments offered on the first day of ... a conference ... organized by the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, and held on October 5, 6, and 7, 1964, at Stanford University."
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