SELECT CRITICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY 337
liirning to more political aspects, Marx noted the failure of working-
- hiss movements in Europe since 1848. This failure had, however, been
ii'lieved by two important events: the passing of the Ten Hours Bill ('the
lust time that in broad daylight the political economy of the middle class
succumbed to the political economy of the working class'),^22 and the co-
operative movement. But - and Marx had in mind here the French
disciples of Proudhon - this movement could only succeed against the
power of capital if developed 'to national dimensions'. Thus 'to conquer
political power has therefore become the great duty of the working
t lasses'.^21 Finally Marx sketched the achievements of the working classes
in the abolition of slavery, the support of Poland, and the opposition to
Russia - 'that barbarous power whose head is at St Petersburg and whose
hands are in every cabinet of Europe'.^24 He closed with the traditional
appeal: 'Proletarians of all countries, Unite!'
In the Preamble to the Rules Marx started from the principle that 'the
emancipation of the working classes must be achieved by the working
1 lasses themselves' and that this struggle would eventually involve 'the
abolition of all class rule'. Since economic subjection was at the bottom
of all social and political ills, it followed that 'the economical emanci-
pation of the working classes is therefore the great end to which every
political movement ought to be subordinate as a means'.^25 These state-
ments were interlarded with the various phrases - about 'truth, justice
.md morality', and so forth - that Marx could not avoid, and the document
closed with ten rules, dealing with such questions as annual Congresses
and the election of the General Council.
I he Address shows the extent to which Marx was prepared to take the
working-class movement as it was without imposing any blueprint. He
(arefully avoided anything that might jar on the susceptibilities of the
I' nglish or French. In particular the majority of English trade unionists
prevented Marx from alluding in any way to revolutionary aims. Indeed
Iteesly said of the audience in St Martin's Hall: 'only a few, perhaps not
one amongst them, belonged to any socialistic school. Most of them, I
think, would have hesitated to accept the name of Socialist.'^26 Equally, in
spire of his guarded criticism of the co-operative movement, Marx had
to avoid any mention of state centralisation, a policy anathema to the
French.
II. GROWTH OF THE INTERNATIONAL
The atmosphere of unrest which had characterised Europe in the early
1860 s and been responsible to some extent for the birth of the Inter-
