| Author(s) | Karl Marx |
|---|---|
| Written | 2 August 1870 |
MARX TO JOHANN PHILIPP BECKER[1]
IN GENEVA
[London,] 2 August 1870
1 Maitland Park Road
Dear Becker,
My long silence is to be explained exclusively by lack of time. I hope we know each other sufficiently well for us both to have the conviction that our friendship is steadfast.
I sent the Manifesto of the General Council on the war[2] to the Egalité in the first instance, because I knew that it came too late for the Vorbote. I expect to receive copies today which I can send on to you.
In the translation of the programme for the congress (as it appears in the Vorbote), Jung made a number of mistakes:
1: this must read: 'On the need to abolish the public debt. Discussion of the right to compensation.'
2: 'On the relationship between the political action and the social movement of the working class.'
4: 'Conversion of banks of issue into national banks.' 5: 'Conditions of cooperative production on a national scale.' But all this you will find in the Volksstaat[3]
Furthermore, as far as the congress is concerned, it is perfectly obvious that it cannot be held in Mainz under present cir- cumstances. The Belgians have proposed Amsterdam. We are convinced that the congress must be postponed until conditions are more favourable.
In the first place, our support in Amsterdam rests on very feeble foundations and it is important to hold the congress in countries where the International has already sprung strong roots.
Secondly, the Germans cannot send anyone—or no more than one person at best—thanks to the present lack of money occasioned by the war. The French cannot leave their country without passports, that is to say, without permission from the authorities. Our French sections have been dispersed, the most tried and tested members have either fled or been captured. In these circumstances we might easily see a repeat of the farce enacted in Switzerland.[4] Certain intriguers might possibly stage-manage a majorité factice[5] in Amsterdam. They always manage to find the money necessary for such manoeuvres. Where from? C'est leur secret?[6]
On the other hand, the General Council is prevented by § 3 of the Rules from postponing the date of the congress. Nevertheless, in view of the present extraordinary circumstances, it would take the responsibility for such a step upon itself, if it could be sure of the necessary support from the sections.[7] It would be desirable, therefore, if a reasoned motion to this effect could be proposed officially by the German-Swiss group and the French-Swiss in Geneva.
Bakunin, as you know, has in that blatherer Hins a fanatical instrument at his disposal in the Belgian General Council. As the Belgian secretariat was momentarily out of action, I added a denunciation and characterisation of Bakunin in my own name to the circular[8] which the General Council had issued on the Egalité, etc., at the beginning of January. Hins then wrote a highly impertinent letter to the General Council against me personally (he spoke of my manière indigne d'attaquer Bakunin'[9] ), so I replied to him in the manner he deserved.[10] It is doubtless thanks to his influence that, yesterday, we received an official communica- tion full of accusations from the Belgian General Council, saying i.a.: 'The Belgian General Council has resolved to instruct its delegation to the next congress to call us to account for our resolution concerning the Conseil Federal Romand'[11] They say we had absolutely no right to interfere in these local Swiss affairs! Curiously enough, the Brussels people themselves, like the Paris Fédération', had directly requested us to interfere! Memories are short!
At all events, we shall now have to justify our decision in greater detail in our own circular. I would be greatly obliged to you, therefore, if you could give us a precise account of the intrigues of the ALLIANCE, the congress at La Chaux-de-Fonds and the Swiss squabble in general.
I have received the letter from our Russian friends in Geneva.[12]
Please convey my thanks to them.
In actual fact, the best thing would be for them to write a pamphlet on Bakunin, but it must be done soon. In that case they need not send me any further documents on Bakunin's machina- tions.
They ask me what Bakunin did in 1848. During his stay in Paris in 1843-48 he acted the determined socialist. After the revolution he went to Breslau,[13] teamed up with the bourgeois democrats there and agitated among them for the election of Arnold Ruge (to the Frankfurt Parliament), at that time a decided enemy of socialists and communists. Later—in 1848—he organised the Pan-Slavic Congress in Prague.[14] He was charged by the Pan-Slavists themselves with having played a double game there. But I do not believe this. If he did make mistakes there (from the viewpoint of his Pan-Slavist friends), they were in my opinion 'involuntary ones'. In early 1849 Bakunin issued an Address (pamphlet)—sentimental Pan-Slavism![15] The only praiseworthy thing that can be reported about his activity during the revolution is his participa- tion in the Dresden insurrection in May 1849.[16]
Very important in any analysis of him are his utterances immediately after his return from Siberia.[17] Ample material on this in the Kolokol and in Borkheim's 'Russian Letters' in the Zukunft,[18] which I suppose you have. Tell our Russian friends that the person exposed by them[19] has not made his appearance here, that I have passed on their message to Borkheim, and that I shall be very pleased to have one of them come over here. Lastly, I should be greatly obliged to them if they would send me the fourth volume of Chernyshevsky just published. I shall send them the money for it through the post.
Your article on the war in the last Vorbote[20] was very good, applauded by my whole FAMILY, who send you their most cordial greetings.
Adio.
Your
Karl Marx
The enclosed copy has been corrected in a number of places where there were printers' errors. So it is better to translate from this than from the copy sent to the Egalité.