e immediate
combination of the still disconnected movements."[23]

In this brief declaration we find the essence of Marxian socialism: that
the working classes must themselves work out their own salvation; that
their servitude is economic; and that all workers must join together in
a political movement, national and international, in order to achieve
their emancipation. Unfortunately, the Proudhonian anarchists were never
able to comprehend the position of Marx, and in the first congress at
Geneva, in 1866, the quarrels between the various elements gave Marx no
little concern. He did not attend that congress, and he afterward wrote
to his young friend, Dr. Kugelmann: "I was unable to go, and I did not
wish to do so, but it was I who wrote the program of the London
delegates. I limited it on purpose to points which admit of an immediate
understanding and common action by the workingmen, and which give
immediately strength and impetus to the needs of the class struggle and
to the organization of the workers as a class. The Parisian gentlemen
had their heads filled with the most empty Proudhonian phraseology. They
chatter of science, and know nothing of it. They scorn all revolutionary
action, that is to say, proceeding from the class struggle itself, every
social movement that is centralized and consequently obtainable by
legislation through political means (as, for example, the legal
shortening of the working day)."[24] These words indicate that Marx
considered the chief work of the International to be the building up of
a working-class political movement to obtain laws favorable to labor.
Furthermore, he was of the opinion that such work was of a revolutionary
nature.

The clearest statement, perhaps, of Marx's idea of the revolutionary
character of political activity is to be found in the address which he
prepared at the request of the public meeting that launched the
International. He traces there briefly the conditions of the working
class in England. After depicting the misery of the masses, he hastily
reviews the growth of the labor movement that ended with the Chartist
agitation. Although from 1848 to 1864 was a period when the English
working class seemed, he says, "thoroughly reconciled to a state of
political nullity,"[25] nevertheless two encouraging developments had
taken place. One was the victory won by the working classes in carrying
the Ten Hours Bill. It was "not only a great practical success; it was