"Whereas, it is incumbent upon the International Socialist Congresses, destined as they are to become the parliament of the proletarian class, to adopt resolutions for the guidance of that class in its struggle for emancipation; and whereas these resolutions constitute an international agreement, which must be carried out; the Congress decides …. Art. 4.—The International Socialist Committee[1] shall exact [sic, in the French text, exigera] from the national socialist parliamentary groups, that they organize an International Socialist Commission, composed of such of their own members as they may select, for the purpose of facilitating the common action of socialist representatives in the various parliaments on all the great political and international questions. This commission shall be adjoined to the International Socialist Committee."
Here, then, was a Congress asserting itself as the world's labor parliament, whose powers were such, in its own declared opinion, that it could not only institute an executive to carry out its decisions and those of its predecessors, but order the socialist representatives elected to the parliaments of various countries to come together under the supervision of that executive and in coöperation with it determine the policy—the tactics—which all must adopt concerning matters that may in any way affect the laboring class. Yet, two days later, this same Congress, by adopting the Kautsky resolution, declared itself impotent to take action upon a matter that was causing a deeper agitation in the world's proletariat than had been produced by any other event since the Paris Commune.
Let us, indeed, thank Longuet for his suggestive audacity; by all means let us compare Marx's manifesto on the fall of the Commune with the Kautsky resolution.
- ↑ A permanent representative body, created by Art. 1, Sec. 2, of this resolution, and composed of two delegates from each nationality.
