Quiz: Inaugural Address of the International Working Men’s Association

All 34 questions. A perfect score earns the gold medal; 80% earns silver.

1. 1. Which principle do the Rules state about rights and duties?

   No rights without duties, no duties without rights Duties are owed only to the state Rights come before duties, and are inborn Workers have duties but no rights
2. 2. What does the Address credit the English working classes with preventing?

   British intervention on Russia’s side against the Polish national rising of 1863 A war with France over Napoleon III’s designs on Belgium and the Rhine An infamous crusade for slavery across the Atlantic (intervention for the Confederacy) The repeal of the Factory Acts sought by the cotton masters in the famine
3. 3. What office is Karl Marx listed as holding on the Provisional Central Council?

   Treasurer and Secretary for Holland General Secretary of the Council President Corresponding Secretary for Germany
4. 4. According to the Provisional Rules, by whom must the emancipation of the working classes be conquered?

   By a revolutionary party leadership By enlightened legislators By the working classes themselves By the middle classes
5. 5. What did a British middle-class paper predict in 1850?

   That if English trade rose 50 per cent, pauperism would sink to zero That the Chartists would soon win the vote for every working man in England That wages would fall by half if the Ten Hours’ Bill passed That free trade would ruin English agriculture within a single decade
6. 6. What does the Address say hired labour is, like slave and serf labour?

   A transitory and inferior form, destined to disappear before associated labour A passing form found only in England, where the land was taken from the peasants The natural and permanent form of labour in every advanced industrial society The highest form of labour yet reached, since it rests on a free contract
7. 7. What happened to working-class organisations on the continent after the failure of 1848?

   They merged with the liberal parties in the struggle for constitutions They were crushed, and many advanced workers fled to America They were legalised and grew rapidly under the new constitutions They took power in several states and set up national workshops
8. 8. Which power does the Address describe as “barbarous”, with its head in St. Petersburg and its hands in every Cabinet of Europe?

   Russia Austria Turkey Prussia
9. 9. Where was the Central Council to sit?

   London Bern Liège Paris
10. 10. What element of success do the workers possess, according to the Address, and on what condition does it count?

    Education, if properly directed by their own leaders Numbers, if united by combination and led by knowledge Wealth, if invested in co-operative stores Arms, if well used
11. 11. How does the Address end?

    “Proletarians of all countries, Unite!” “Long live the Republic” “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity” “Long live the Revolution!”
12. 12. What “great fact” opens the Address?

    English industry declined from 1848 to 1864, while foreign competitors overtook it in every market Wages in England doubled from 1848 to 1864, keeping pace with the growth of trade and industry Working-class misery did not diminish from 1848 to 1864, despite unrivalled industrial growth Pauperism in England vanished from 1848 to 1864, just as the free-traders had foretold
13. 13. What does the Address say the Ten Hours’ Bill was a victory of?

    Working-class political economy over that of the middle class Free trade over protection, completing the repeal of the duties on corn The landed aristocracy over the manufacturers, out of mere revenge Christian philanthropy over the cold and heartless doctrines of the economists
14. 14. What does the Address call “a still greater victory of the political economy of labour over the political economy of property”?

    The Chartist petitions The trade unions and the strikes of the London builders Universal suffrage, won in the Swiss and American republics The co-operative movement, above all co-operative factories
15. 15. What duty in foreign policy does the Address lay on the working classes?

    To leave foreign affairs to the diplomats and concentrate on wages and hours at home To support their own governments in every war, so as to win concessions in return To master international politics, watch their governments’ diplomacy, counteract it To avoid all international entanglements, since foreign quarrels serve only the rich
16. 16. What, according to the Rules, lies at the bottom of servitude in all its forms?

    The economic subjection of the man of labour to the monopoliser of its means The lack of political rights, and above all the exclusion of workers from the suffrage The rule of hereditary monarchs and the privileges of the landed aristocracy The ignorance of the masses, kept from education by the churches and the state
17. 17. According to the official report quoted, in which three counties was insufficient nitrogenous food the average local diet of agricultural labourers?

    Devon, Cornwall and Dorset Kent, Sussex and Surrey Lancashire, Yorkshire and Cheshire Berkshire, Oxfordshire and Somersetshire
18. 18. Who, according to the Address, sowed the seeds of the co-operative system in England?

    Feargus O’Connor William Cobbett Robert Owen John Stuart Mill
19. 19. Whose sneer that “the House of Commons is a house of landed proprietors” does the Address recall?

    Gladstone’s Lord Palmerston’s Lord John Russell’s The Duke of Wellington’s
20. 20. Where and when was the International Association founded?

    In Brussels in 1847 At St. Martin’s Hall, London, on 28 September 1864 At a banquet in Paris during the revolution of 1848 At the Geneva congress of working men, in September 1866
21. 21. What kind of problem do the Rules say the emancipation of labour is?

    A purely English problem, arising from the early growth of the factory system A national question, to be solved by each country separately through its own laws Neither local nor national, but social, embracing all countries of modern society A moral and religious problem, to be solved by the reform of individual character
22. 22. Which group does the Children’s Employment Commission of 1863 call “a much degenerated population, both physically and mentally”?

    The dyers The potters The smiths The miners
23. 23. If there had been no solidarity of action between British and continental workers, what was there, according to the Address?

    Complete indifference A solidarity of hope A solidarity of defeat Open hostility
24. 24. How many “great facts” does the Address point to as compensating features of the period since 1848?

    Three Two One Ten
25. 25. Which Chancellor of the Exchequer said that the “intoxicating augmentation of wealth and power” was “entirely confined to classes of property”?

    Sir Robert Peel Mr. Gladstone Lord Palmerston Disraeli
26. 26. What does the Address say about conditions on the continent?

    There is as yet no modern industry on the continent, so the English case is unique The English facts recur, with local colours changed, in all industrial countries Continental workers are far better off, since their countries have escaped the factory system Continental workers have won the vote and use it to shield themselves from the worst misery
27. 27. What limitation of co-operative labour does the Address point out?

    It works only in agriculture, where small groups of labourers can farm in common Left to the casual efforts of private workmen, it can never stop monopoly It is less productive than capitalist industry and cannot compete without state subsidies It is forbidden by law in most countries, so it can survive only in secret societies
28. 28. Without regard to what will the Association act on truth, justice and morality?

    Colour, creed or nationality Party membership Trade, profession or political party Wealth, poverty or social rank
29. 29. What does the Address call “the great duty of the working classes”?

    To conquer political power To form co-operative societies To emigrate to the colonies To avoid politics
30. 30. How does the Address ironically describe the period when these reports were published?

    The golden age of English labour The age of revolution The dark age of modern industry The millennium of free trade
31. 31. What did some formerly active British workers become, caught by the temporary bribe of more work and wages?

    Factory overseers Capitalists Chartist leaders “Political blacks”
32. 32. What do the Income and Property Tax returns show when the Address “reverses the medal”?

    The number of persons with very large incomes fell from year to year after the year 1853 The rich paid the greater part of the taxes, sparing the labourers any burden About 3,000 persons share more income than all England’s agricultural labourers Incomes grew more equal, as labourers’ earnings rose faster than those of the rich
33. 33. Which English law does the Address hail as a victory after a thirty years’ struggle?

    The Reform Act The Ten Hours’ Bill The Combination Acts The repeal of the Corn Laws
34. 34. Where was the first General Working Men’s Congress to meet in 1865, according to the Rules?

    England Switzerland France Belgium