Works Frederick Engels 1872

Announcement of the General Council on the Convocation and the Agenda of the Congress at The Hague


Source: The International Herald, June 29, 1872;
Transcribed: by Tony Brown.


1. Considering the resolution of the Basel Congress fixing the seat of the next Congress at Paris, also the resolution of the General Council dated July 12th, 1870, by which, it being then impossible to hold a Congress at Paris, and conformably with Art. 4 of the General Rules, the Congress was convoked to meet at Mayence.

Considering further that up to this day the government persecutions directed against the International in France, as well as in Germany, render impossible the meeting of a Congress either in Paris or in Mayence.

Conformably with Art. 4 of the General Rules which confers upon the General Council the rights of changing, in case of need, the place of meeting of the Congress, the General Council convokes the next Congress of the I.W.M.A. for Monday, September 2nd, at The Hague, Holland.

2. Considering that the questions contained in the programme of the Congress which was to be held at Mayence on the 5th September 1870c do not correspond with the present wants of the International, these wants having been profoundly affected by the great historic events which have taken place since then.

That numerous sections and federations belonging to various countries have proposed that the next Congress should occupy itself with the revision of the General Rules and Regulations.

That the persecutions to which the International finds itself exposed at this moment in almost all European countries, impose upon it the duty of strengthening its organization:

The General Council, while reserving to itself the faculty of drawing up hereafter a more extensive programme, to be completed by the propositions of the sections and federations, places on the order of the day, as the most important questions to be discussed by the Congress of The Hague, the revision of the General Rules and Regulations.