284 THE CLASS STRUGGLE MARX AND THE INTERNATIONAL 285 difficult to understand their importance in view of the then existing state of affairs. On the European continent there were no unions after the pattern of the English trade unions. The Marxian resolution demanding the furtherance of the trade union movement on the continent, met with active opposition from the French and the Swiss delegates. They insisted that such unions would never develop on the European continent. But two years later, at the International Congress in Brussels, there were forty delegates representing continental labor union organizations.
In the General Council itself Marx more than once found active opposition on this question. As in the International, there were represented in the General Council the most widely diversified views became necessary to bring about an understanding and wherever possible, agreement between these various groups.
All who knew him tell with what almost superhuman patience Marx strove to accomplish this. Marx did not allow the most tiresome debates in the General Council to keep him from pursuing his work of education in these meetings. And though his time was scant he was finishing the first volume of his Capital, at that time he was always ready to give it for the sake of bringing clearness and understanding to the members of the Council.
The following is an example: One of the members of the General Council, John Weston, a disciple of Robert Owen, believed it to be useless to work for a general increase in wages, because the capitalist would cover the difference by increasing the price of his product, thus keeping the worker in his old condition.
Therefore, he argued, labor unions are dangerous.
Marx opposed this stand in the General Council and in order to make himself clear, delivered a long theoretical lecture in one of its sessions which was later published under the title Value, Price and Profit. In this lecture he showed, using the history of the labor union movement as an illustration, that the argument used by Weston, was not, in reality, based upon the actual facts, and he investigated, thoroughly, the laws that control wages in capitalist society. Through his splendid dissertation he won the General Council over to his side. Later the Council supported, almost unanimously, the proposals and resolutions on labor unions that were presented by Marx at the International Congresses.
Not only in the regular questions of politics and organization did the opinion of Marx prevail. His views also determined the position adopted by the General Council in questions of war, and particularly regarding the Franco Prussian war of 1870 71 and its after effects.
During this war the General Council published two addresses, both written by Karl Marx. The second of these was particularly important.
In the first, which was written a few days after war was declared, Marx was of the opinion that Germany was fighting a war of defense. The falsification of the Ems dispatch was then not yet known. In this address he says verbatim: Whatever may be the outcome of the war of Louis Bonaparte with Germany, in Paris the death knell of the second Empire has already rung. It will end, as it began, with a parody. But let us not forget that the governments and the ruling classes of Europe have made it possible for Louis Bonaparte for 18 years, to play the cruel joke of a restoration of the second Empire. On the part of Germany the war is a war of defense. But who has put Germany into a position that makes this defense necessary? Who made it possible for Louis Bonaparte to make war upon Germany? Prussia! It was Bismarck who conspired with that same Louis Bonaparte, in order to crush down popular opposition at home and to annex Germany to the Hohenzollern dynasty.
In the second message, that was published right after the capture of Napoleon at Sedan, Marx and the General Council protested against the continuation of the war by Germany. The war of defense had become a war of conquest, as was proven by the demand for the annexation of Alsace Lorraine. Certainly, the territory of these provinces at one time be