Written: by Francesco Saverio Merlino
Translator: Fred Charles, 1889
First Published: La Révolte, 27th July 1889, No. 45
Source: Commonweal, August 17th 1889, No. 188 p. 259;
Note: This is the resolution Merlino presented to the Possibilist Congress and which he said he also wished to present at the Marxist Congress.
Merlino also published an (anonymous) pamphlet Les Deux Congrès.... impossibilistes
Transcribed: by Graham Seaman for M.I.A., August 2021.
The following is the full text of comrade Merlino's resolution, which he wished to put before the Paris Congress :
Considering that international or even national labour legislation would not only be, if accepted by the workers, the confirmation of thair slavery and the negation of the great principles of revolutionary Socialism, but is also an economic impossibility, that it is therefore deplorable that such a false hope should be dangled before the eyes of the workers.
That the workmen in different trades, the domestic servant and the workshop slave, the artisan and the peasant, the hands of the great manufacturers and the almost independent producers in the home industries, would never submit to one and the same regime, and even less so would the workmen of different countries, races, and continents.
Seeing the differences which exist between manufacturing, agricultural, and commercial countries, and the different degrees of economical development at which they have arrived, it would be unjust to attempt to equalise their conditions otherwise than by the spontaneous evolution of economical relations; as this attempt would only result in the sacrifice of the weaker to the stronger; which is inevitable in a social organisation so essentially antagonistic to every principle of Justice and Reason as is the present form of society.
Considering, in addition to these economical impossibilities, that there are also political impossibilities in the way of this gigantic illusion of international labour legislation; the governments being always armed to the teeth against each other, and continually engaged in fomenting national hatreds.
When they fail even in reconciling the interests of the capitalistic classes, which they represent, how could they succeed in agreeing together for the benefit of the workman, whose natural and irreconcilable enemies they are? The State being an enormous engine of destruction and violence, how can it be an instrument of concord and peace, not only amongst workmen who fraternise without its interference, but between the workmen and their masters ; the latter being at the same time the masters of politics, diplomacy, and finance, nay, of the State itself?
Considering that even apart from all these economical and political impossibilities which render perfectly Utopian the idea of international labour legislation, the great moral principle of Freedom is incompatible with any regulations and measures which interfere with the free development of society, and would instead mould it to a procrustean bed. Freedom has become for civilised man not only a want but one of the most important.
Further considering that it is dangerous to foster amongst the masses the great superstition of the century, which consists in pretending to solve the great social problems by the ballot box and Acts of Parliament; that it is on the contrary necessary to undermine and destroy the fetishes of legislation and legislators; and that the offer of labour legislation officially made by the governments has only one aim, that of rehabilitating in the eyes of the masses the Parliamentarism which is now becoming utterly discredited, and to prolong its agonising life.
Considering that at the present state of development of socialistic principles, and. after the conquest and defeats of the International Workingmen's Association, we should not retrace our steps to old expedients, but march onwards and push forward the great claims of the proletariat and attack the last ramparts of the bourgeoisie, monarchical and republican parliamentarism.
Considering that the bodies of thousands of victims, and the whole race of the oppressed stand between us and our enemies, and that this abyss must be deepened more and more, and not bridged over by compromises which amount in fact to treason to the Cause.
That together with private property, government, this monstrous centralised engine of fraud, corruption, oppression, and social discord, must be suppressed, and in its place must be substituted a society composed of free associations of workers settling their own affairs and organising their own work.
In accordance with these considerations the congress: