Letter to Hermann Jung, February 1, 1872

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 1 February 1872


First published in Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXVI, Moscow, 1935
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 44
Reproduced from the original


MARX TO HERMANN JUNG[1]

IN LONDON

[London,] 1 February 1872

My dear Jung,

The letters we want for the project of the circular[2] are:

1) During the sitting of the Conference[3] you received a letter from one of the Bakuninists, I think from Joukowski, in which the formation of a new section of propaganda[4] was announced and the sanction of the General Council demanded. I knew from Outine that you had already sent a preliminary answer, and that that new section was nothing but a second edition of the Alliance de la démocratie socialiste.

This is the first letter we want.

2) The letter of Malon in which he calls upon the General Council to acknowledge a 'French Section', founded under his auspices, at Geneva.[5]

3) The letters received since the Conference from Switzerland, relating to the 'quarrel'[6] and which you told the General Council would be submitted to the Sub-Committee.[7]

Yours fraternally,

Karl Marx

In order to save time, please give all this to Regis who will call upon you to-morrow morning.

  1. ↑ The meeting Marx is writing about was called by the Labour Representation League (see Note 406) and trade union leaders on 13 September 1870 in honour of the French Republic. The resolution moved by George Howell was limited to the expression of sympathies with the French people. To oppose this, Robert Applegarth, a General Council member, moved a resolution that urged the British Government to use all its influence to bring an end to the war between France and Germany and to protest against any dismemberment of France. The resolution also demanded that a peace treaty be concluded on conditions that ensured a lasting peace in Europe. After a prolonged and heated discussion Applegarth's resolution was adopted by a majority of 7 votes.
    By instructions for Belgium, Marx probably meant his letter to César De Paepe of 14 September 1870 (see this volume, pp. 79-81). Instructions for Switzerland and the United States have not been found.
  2. ↑ In his letter of 18 July 1870, Eugen Oswald, a German refugee, asked Marx to sign an Address on the Franco-Prussian War drawn up by a group of French and German democratic refugees. The Address was published as a leaflet on 31 July 1870; the editions that followed were signed by Marx, Engels, Liebknecht, Bebel and other members of the International. Marx and his associates agreed to sign it on conditions outlined by Marx in his letter to Oswald of 3 August 1870 (see this volume, p. 34).
    Oswald enclosed with his letter an excerpt from Louis Blanc's letter in which he called for the Address on the Franco-Prussian War to be signed by as many people as possible.
  3. ↑ the London Conference of 1871
  4. ↑ The reference is to the French-Language Section in London, formed in November 1871 by the proletarian elements from among the Paris Commune refugees. On 18 November 1871 the Section adopted its Rules, which were approved by the General Council in February 1872. The French-Language Section in London included Marguerittes, Le Moussu, De Wolffers, etc., and supported the General Council in its campaign against the petty-bourgeois stand adopted by some of the French refugees (Vermersch, etc.).
  5. ↑ At the General Council meeting of 24 October 1871 Hermann Jung read out Benoît Malon's letter of 20 October to the Council, in which the latter repeated his request that the Section of Propaganda and Revolutionary Socialist Action be admitted to the International. Having obtained the opinion of the Romance Federal Committee, which strongly opposed recognition of this section, the General Council confirmed its earlier decision to refuse admittance.
  6. ↑ K. Marx and F. Engels, Fictitious Splits in the International
  7. ↑ The Sub-Committee (Standing Committee), or Executive Committee, grew out of the commission set up at the time of the International's inauguration in 1864 to draw up its rules and programme. It comprised corresponding secretaries for various countries, the General Council Secretary, and its treasurer. The Standing Committee, which had not been envisaged in the Rules of the International Working Men's Association, functioned as a working executive body. In the summer of 1872 the General Council decided to entrust all organisational matters to the Sub-Committee (which in June 1872 was renamed the Executive Committee).
    As Corresponding Secretary of the General Council for Switzerland, Jung received a large number of letters dealing with the campaign waged by the Romance Federation against the divisive Bakuninist sections; the letters were referred to the Sub-Committee for consideration.