International Workingmen’s Association 1869
Record of Speech by Karl Marx

On the Significance of the Irish Question


Source: MECW Volume 21, p. 413;
First published: in Russian, in Generalny Sovet Pervogo Internatsionala. 1868-1870. Moscow, 1964.


From the Minutes of the General Council Meeting of December 14, 1869

Cit. Marx proposed that the Council at its rising should adjourn to January 4th. He said it would not be advisable to discuss the Irish during the holiday weeks when the attendance of members might be small. [487] He considered the solution of the Irish question as the solution of the English, and the English as the solution of the European.

The proposition was agreed to ...


487 Marx meant the second item in his draft for the debate on the Irish question — the attitude of the English working class. Marx explained the General Council’s stand on this question in “Confidential Communication” and in his letters to Ludwig Kugelmann on November 29, to Engels on December 10, 1869, to Paul and Laura Lafargue on March 5, and to Sigfrid Meyer and August Vogt on April 9, 1870.