Workmen's advocate., 1889-06-15

reply to the invitation they wrote letters asking several very important questions. Those letters were never answered, and the Conference was held at once without their assistance.
 "S. This Conference was held without any representative being present from Great Britain, Italy, Spain and several other countries. The Social-Democratic Federation was not even informed that it was going to be called. Only those hostile to the Possibilists. Lafargue himself was the sole representative of France, though he had bitter personal feud with the Possibilists of many years standing The full proceedings of the Conference were not, and have never been, published.
 "9. Such a Congress was manifestly nothing but Caucus, summoned, we fear for no good purpose. Our noble comrade, Domela Nieuwenhuis, we deeply regret to say, states, in letter to the Social-Democratic Federation, that it was intended to be secret. As it was held at the office of the Recht Voor Allen, he can scarcely be misinformed on this point.
 "10. By this Caucus, thus sitting with closed doors, a set of resolutions were passed to which no serious objection can in principle be taken. Volders was, however, despatched to Paris to force these decisions on the Possibilists, as if they were the decrees of an Gcumeni- cal Council, and Bernstein in London wrote in the same strain. The letters of the German leaders, which we hope we shall not be obliged tospublish, are also written in very bitter and arbitrary tone, threatening rival Congress un- less their orders were compiled with i'm mediately.
 "11. The Possibilists, nevertheless, adopted in effect every one of the reso. lutions so passed and so presented to them.
 zig. In spite of this acceptance, and of the fact that the Congress summoned by the Possibilists will be, and always would have been, supreme over its own proceedings; in spite of the fact that all cases in dispute can be referred by either side to the whole Congress for decision and settlement, the adherents of the Hague Caucus have now called another Congress in Paris.
 '13. They have called this Congress for the very time appointed for the Congress called by the Possibilists; though at the Hague they unanimously passed resolution condemning the end of July as most inconvenient and i'm Workers at Paris at all; though also Anseele, in a letter to the s. D. F., stated that if a second Congress were held it would take place in September, and Liebknecht that it would be held either this year or next.
 "14. The chief promoters of the Hague Caucus and of the rival Congress in Paris are Lafargue, Guesde, Mrs. Ele- amor Marx Aveling (whose sister, a daughter of Karl Marx, Lafargue mar ried), Bernstein (editor of the Sozial- Demohrat, Bebel and Liebknecht. Friedrich Engels is in full accord with their proceedings.
 Comrades and fellow citizens, the facts are before you. It is for you to see to it that your cause, the cause of the workers of the world, is not deliber ately injured by those who should be the first to suppress their personal jeal- ousies for the sake of Socialism.
 "(Signed) INTERNATIONAL COMMITTEE OF
 THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC
 FEDERATION, May 20, 1889.
 "THE GENERAL COUNCIL OF
 THE SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC
 FEDERATION, May 21, 1889.
 "The above has been ordered to be translated into several European lan- guages, and distributed in all countries" " INTERNATIONAL SOCIALIST WORKING
 MEMS CONGRESS, 14TH TO 21sT
 JULY, PARIS, 1889.
 "Address of the French Organizations 10
 the W0rknlen and Socialists Cf Eu-
 rope and America:
 "In October. 1888, National Congress was held at Bordeaux, at which were represented upwards of two hundred trades unions and Socialist groups. This Congress resolved that during the exhibition an International Congress be held at Paris.
 "A like resolution was adopted by the National Congress held at Troyes in December, 1888, at which were repre- sented all the factions of the French Socialist Party,
 "The National Council appointed by the Bordeaux Congress and the Execu- tive Commission appointed by the Troyes Congress were charged .with the com mon organization of the International Congress, and with the invitation-with- out distinction of party-of all the workers and Socialists of Europe and America whose aim is the emancipation of labor. All this has been carried out.
 'On the 2Sth of February, 1889, an International Conference took place at the Hague, attended by delegates of the Socialist Parties of Germany, Switzer- land, Belgium, Holland and France.