International:  Interview with Gao Fang: Organizational Principle of First International Was Democracy Not Democratic Centralism; International Practiced Collectivism

Prof. Gao Fang is former Vice-President of the Association for the History of International Communist Movement in China

Published in October 2014

Lin Yilan, Special Correspondent of the Journal of Shanghai Party History and Party Building

Reporter: Good morning, Prof. Gao! This year marks the 150th anniversary of the founding of the First International, the first international organization of the working class. Could you tell us about the history of the founding of the First International?

 Gao Fang: Yes. The full name of the First International is the International Workingmen’s Association. It was founded in London on September 28, 1864 and dissolved in Philadelphia, USA on July 15, 1876, and existed for nearly 12 years. In its literature, it used to be called simply “the International” or “the Association”, but never called itself or was never called as the First International. It was only after the establishment of the Second International of the international working class in 1889 that, as far as I have been able to verify, it was from 1892 that Engels referred to the historical International Workingmen’s Association as the “First International”.

The First International was mainly an international workers’ federation of the working class in Europe and America.

Its activities can be divided into the early, middle and late stages, with the center of its activities in the early and middle stages mainly in Europe. The most significant event in the period of the First International was the success of the Paris workers’ revolution in 1871 under the cultivation of the spirit of the First International, which led to the establishment of the Paris Commune, the first working class regime in the world. After the failure of the Paris Commune, the revolutions in Europe were at a low ebb again, and the persecution of the First International was intensified in various European countries. In addition, the division caused by the anarchist faction of the First International made it difficult for International to continue to gain a foothold in Europe. In 1872, the First International wanted to avoid some risks arising from its opponents and moved its core leading organ, the General Council, from London to New York to continue to promote the international workers’ movement. Its prestige was beginning to weaken in European countries. However, it was difficult for the General Council to do much when it was separated from Europe, which was the center of the international workers’ movement. So by 1872 the First International entered the latter part of its activities, that is, the period of decline, and was finally forced to dissolve itself in 1876.

Reporter: We know that the program and constitution of the First International were written by Marx. How did Marx draft the program and constitution of the First International?

 Gao Fang: The first and foremost task of the First International after its establishment was to formulate its program and articles and rules of association in order to unify the guiding ideology and organizational action of all its members. On October 5, 1864, the General Council elected 9 members out of its 55 members to form a special commission, or sub-commission, responsible for drafting the program and articles of association. Five of them were Englishmen, including Odger, Creamer and Weston, as well as the Frenchman Victor Le Lubez, the German Marx, the Italy contact man Major Wolff and the Polish Holtrop. What was submitted to the sub-commission on October 8, 1864, was a declaration of principles drafted by the Englishman Weston and the Rules of the Italian Workingmen’s Association translated into English by Major Wolff. Later Italian Working Men’s Association was admitted as member of the International Association on December 13, 184.

The former was extremely confusing and long-winded, while the latter turned the IWA into a loose association of mutual aid societies, instead of defining the International as a tightly knit organization with a revolutionary fighting mandate. The majority of the sub-commision was not satisfied with either of these documents. The Frenchman Victor Le Lubez  then consolidated them into a draft document and submitted it to the Sub-Commission on October 15 for re-discussion and endorsement, and then sent it to the General Council for approval at its meeting on October 18, after which it was submitted to the General Council for approval. Previously, Marx had not attended the meeting of the sub-commission to take part in the discussion, either because of illness or because Marx was not informed of the meeting. It was only on this occasion, when he participated for the first time in the deliberations of the General Council, that Marx saw the draft submitted by Victor Le Lubez. The plenary session of the General Council on October 18 was quite lively, with many comments on the draft document, and Marx’s skillful and tactful remarks were praised by all others. It was decided to send the document back to the sub-commision for revision. On October 20, the sub-commision met at Marx’s home, and it was agreed that Marx would be asked to write the revisions. During the week from October 21 to 27, Marx wrote the Declaration of the International Workingmen’s Association as the program document of the First International, replacing the “Declaration of Principles” that had preceded the original draft constitution. At the same time, the draft statutes were substantially revised as the Provisional Statutes of the Association.

On November 1, Marx read out in English the Declaration of the Establishment of the International Workingmen’s Association and the Provisional Statutes of the Association, which Marx had carefully written, and the meeting unanimously adopted these two documents.

Reporter: How to understand and grasp the spirit and essence of the program and constitution of the First International?

 Gao Fang: Let’s look at the Declaration of the Establishment of the International Workingmen’s Association (hereinafter referred to as the Declaration of the Inauguration of the Association), which is less than 7,000 words in length and is the program of the First International. A program is a concise document in which an organization analyzes the situation and sets out its goals and specific tasks. Program’s spirit and essence can be understood from the following three aspects:

Firstly, it appeared in the form of a message to the workers, sending out the strongest voice to the workers of the whole of Europe, revealing the catastrophe of the dark age of Europe after the failure of the 1848 revolution, and pointing out that the working class had made new progress in this era through tenacious struggles.

Secondly, it begins with an incisive summary and analysis of the characteristics of the era of 1848-1864 in Europe, the adversities faced by the workers of Europe at that time and mentions the two major achievements of the workers’ movement. In today’s language, the Manifesto of the Association is a classic document of Marx’s efforts to innovate, nationalize and popularize Marxism.

Thirdly, the program put forward the fundamental tasks of the international workers’ movement.

The program comprises six main points: the seizure of power has become the great mission of the working class; the seizure of power requires the support of the workers; and the seizure of power requires the support of the workers. The seizure of power requires the correct leadership of the workers’ parties.  The correct leadership of the workers’ parties must be accompanied by the conscious action of the masses of workers. Workers of all countries cannot fight alone, but must have international unity and mutual support in order to win. After seizing power, the working class must follow scientific theories and adopt correct domestic policies. From this, we can realize that Marx aimed to build the IWA into an international workers’ union as a political party.

Let us look at the Common Statute of the IWA: The Common Statute of the IWA, as finalized by Marx, consists of an introduction of nearly 400 words and thirteen articles.The introduction begins by stating that the great goal of the struggle for the emancipation of the working class is “not the struggle for class privileges and monopolies, but for equal rights and duties, and for the destruction of all class domination”; the struggle for freedom from “economic and social exclusion”; and the struggle for freedom from “economic and social exclusion”.  The struggle for liberation from “economic domination by the monopolists of the means of labor, the source of life” means the realization of the working class’s own domination of the means of labor.Here Marx actually made the realization of the social appropriation of the means of production, as advocated by the theories of communism and socialism, as the great goal of the First International.

It can be seen from the provisions of the statute that: the General Assembly of the workers of the association is the center of power and the highest authority of the association, and it holds annual meetings; the General Council is the leading body and executive organ of the association. The General Council is the leading and executive body of the Association, elected by the All-Association Workers’ Congress and reporting on its work to the Congress; the basic branches and affiliated workers’ groups have relative autonomy. The grass-roots branches and affiliated workers’ organizations which have a relatively independent autonomy.

From this we can see that the organizing principle of the First International was democracy, not democratic centralism. We can’t project the democratic centralism system practiced by the Soviet Communist Party later to the historical First International.

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