SELECT CRITICAL BIBLIOGRAPHY^201contrast to the more working-class and immigrant groups led by Frederick
Sorge and Richard Bolte. Section 12 was supported on the General
Council by followers of O'Brien, whom Marx nevertheless wished to see
on the Council as they were 'an often necessary counterweight to the
trade unions on the Council. They are more revolutionary, firmer on
the land question, less nationalistic and not susceptible to bourgeois
bribery in one form or another. Otherwise they would have been kicked
out long ago.'^147
I lowever, Marx's position was further undermined by defections in his
own ranks. There had been tension before between Marx and Eccarius
who, in his reporting to The Times, seems to have tried to claim for
himself the credit of some of Marx's ideas. Eccarius, as corresponding
secretary for America, had been communicating with Section 12 and Marx
( barged him with abusing his position. Both Eccarius and Hermann Jung
disliked the presence of Blanquists on the Council and favoured co-
operation with working-class radicals: they considered that Marx's tactics
could only result in splitting the International irretrievably. In spite of
Marx's plea to Eccarius that 'the day after tomorrow is my birthday and
I should not like to start it conscious that I was deprived of one of my
oldest friends and adherents',^148 the breach this time was final. A second
blow to Marx's position was the opposition of Hales, who had up till then
been a staunch supporter of Marx, except on the question of Ireland and
an independent English Federal Council. In July he had attacked the
(Jeneral Council in private correspondence and had been suspended from
bis post as secretary. At the Nottingham Conference of the English
Federal Council, he had proposed that the English branch correspond
with foreign sections. The dispute was taken to the General Council,
where Hales was with great difficulty persuaded to return its documents.
Thus disintegration in England was already apparent on the eve of the
Congress which opened at the Hague in early September 1872. It was to
be the last full meeting of the International and also its most representa-
tive one: only the Italian sections refused to participate. Jung and Eccarius
did not come from England as they objected to what they considered to
be Marx's moves to pack the Congress and also to his vindictiveness
against the Bakuninists and his attacks on the British trade unionists. The
II ague was the only Congress ever attended by Marx. According to
Maltman Barry, who was reporting the Congress for the Standard,
children had been warned 'not to go into the streets with articles of value
upon them' as 'the International is coming and will steal them'^14 '' Vast
crowds followed the delegates from their station to the hotel, 'the figure
of Karl Marx attracting special attention, his name on every lip'.^150 In the
sessions, too, Marx was a prominent figure: his black broadcloth suit