Page:Ernest Belfort Bax - A Short History of the Paris Commune (1895).djvu/95

 Rh ordered a raid on the members of the Administrative Committees of the International Working-men's Association throughout France, at Paris, Lyons, Rouen, Marseilles, Brest, &c., on the pretext that the International was a secret society dabbling in a complot for his. assassination, a pretext soon after exposed in its full absurdity by his own judges. What was the real crime of the French branches of the International? They told the French people publicly and emphatically that voting the plebiscite was voting despotism at home and war abroad. It has been, in fact, their work that in all the great towns, in all the industrial centres of France, the working-class rose like one man to reject the plebiscite. Unfortunately the balance was turned by the heavy ignorance of the rural districts. The Stock Exchanges, the Cabinets, the ruling classes and the press of Europe celebrated the plebiscite as a signal victory of the French Emperor over the French working-class; and it was the signal for the assassination, not of an individual, but of nations.

The war plot of July, 1870, is but an amended edition of the coup d'état of December, 1851. At first view the thing seemed so absurd that France would not believe in its real good earnest. It rather believed the deputy denouncing the ministerial war talk as a mere stock-jobbing trick. When, on July 15th, war was at last officially announced to the Corps Legislatif, the whole Opposition refused to vote the preliminary subsidies—even Thiers branded it as "detestable"; all the independent journals of Paris condemned it, and, wonderful to relate, the provincial press joined in almost unanimously.

Meanwhile, the Paris members of the International had again set to work. In the Reveil of July 12th, they published their manifesto "to the Workmen of all Nations," from which we extract the following few passages:—

'Once more," they say, on the pretext of European equilibrium, of national honour, the peace of the world is menaced by political ambitions. French, German, Spanish Workmen! let our voices unite in one cry of reprobation against war! … War for a question of preponderance or a dynasty, can, in the eyes of workmen, be nothing but a criminal absurdity. In answer to the warlike proclamations of those who exempt themselves from the blood-tax, and find in public misfortunes a source of fresh speculations, we protest, we who want peace, labour, and liberty! Brothers of Germany! Our division would only result in the complete triumph of despotism on both sides of the Rhine. … Workmen of all countries! Whatever may for the present become of our common efforts, we, the members of the International Working-men's Association, who know of no frontiers, we send you, as a pledge of indissoluble solidarity, the good wishes and the salutations of the workmen of France."

This manifesto of our Paris section was followed by numerous