Letter to Wilhelm Liebknecht, May 27-28, 1872

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 27 May 1872


First published in Die Neue Zeit, Bd. 2, Nr. 28, Stuttgart, 1902-03
Published in English in full for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 44


ENGELS TO WILHELM LIEBKNECHT[1]

IN LEIPZIG

London, 27[-28] May 1872

Dear Liebknecht,

Mrs Marx has shown me Eccarius' letter to you[2] and the only possible construction it permits is the one you have put on it and which we have already arrived at from other evidence, namely that Eccarius is mad. How deeply we have intrigued against him you can infer most easily from the fact that I have never said a word to you about the whole clique. Now, however, it is essential to put you au fait

We have absolutely no idea what Eccarius can have in mind when he talks about intrigues directed against him ever since 1869 (!). I only know that up to September 1870, when I arrived here,[3] Marx, for the sake of their longstanding friendship, had always helped him out of the mess he had got into often enough with the English,[4] and whenever Marx himself had a row with the English it was on Eccarius' account, since the latter had always treated the International as his literary property and had been guilty of the gravest indiscretions in his Congress reports in The Times and in his reports to American papers. In short, he had always exploited the situation for his own literary ends. All this

could be tolerated up to a certain point and we confined ourselves to rebuking him in private, but the offences were always repeated.

All of a sudden Eccarius announced that he was resigning his office as General Secretary and would absolutely refuse to stand for re-election. We had therefore to choose a successor who, in the circumstances, could only be an Englishman. Hales and Motters- head stood as candidates and Hales was elected. What Eccarius' intentions had been was something we only discovered later when he told Mottershead that he had simply gone on strike so as to receive 30/- a week instead of 15/-. He had thought he was indispensable, and when this plan went wrong he twisted the facts to make it appear that Marx had intrigued with Hales to get him thrown out, and I am firmly convinced that he himself believes this now, although no-one could have been more surprised by his abdication than us.

Then came the Conference.[5] Both the General Council and the Conference itself had resolved that the meetings should be held in private. An explicit resolution, of which you are aware, charged the General Council with the task of deciding which resolutions should be made public and which not. WELL, a few days after the Conference an article appeared in The Scotsman[6] and The Manchester Guardian with a detailed report on a number of the Conference sessions together with the Conference resolutions. This report then went through the entire English and European press. You can imagine the uproar this provoked. Everyone cried treason and called for an example to be made of the traitor. In all the International papers a chorus of abuse fell on the General Council for allowing such matters to appear in the bourgeois press while our own papers were starved of news.

We knew at once who the traitor was. Reports had appeared only about those sessions where Eccarius had been present. On the others there was not a single word, except for a garbled account of some of the resolutions. Marx took the first opportunity when we had Eccarius on his own to accuse him to his face and to advise him in all friendliness TO MAKE A CLEAN BREAST OF IT, to accept his punishment and to be more discreet in future. He [Eccarius] did in fact go to see Jung, the president of the ad-hoc investigating commission, and told him that he had indeed given the local OFFICE of the New York World an article about the Conference,[7] but on the explicit condition that its content was not revealed to the English press. However, he was perfectly aware of the unprinci-

pled character of these people and of their connections with the English provincial press and must also have known that he had no right to sell the Conference transactions to the American press. In the process he made all sorts of lame excuses, saying that the English article contained statements not in the American article, so that someone else must have talked, and that someone was Hales in all likelihood (whose behaviour in all this business had been perfectly STRAIGHTFORWARD) and that he was the real traitor. In order to spare Eccarius, Jung delayed making a decision, but finally Eccarius was reprimanded, and since then this man, who would be ready any day to sell the entire International for a mess of pottage, has been all injured innocence.

Despite this we were foolish enough—and you can see from this how we have been intriguing against him—to propose and carry his nomination as American secretary.[8]

Since Hales' nomination a war to the knife has broken out between Eccarius and Mottershead, on the one hand, and Hales, on the other. The English have split into 3 parties, one anti-Hales, one pro-Hales, and a number of more or less neutral people in the middle. Hales also committed a host of follies—he is terribly vain and WANTS TO STAND FOR HACKNEY[9] NEXT ELECTION—but the attacks on him by the others were so ludicrously absurd that he was almost always in the right. In order to put an end to the commotion, which came to occupy the General Council almost to the exclusion of everything else, we were forced to appoint a sort of Comité de salut public[10] to which all personal matters are referred.[11] It is scarcely necessary to add that we did not hesitate to give Hales a good dressing-down when he deserved it, and that was often enough, just as we did to Eccarius or anyone else.

At all events, Hales still has the trust of the East End workers—our best people here—whereas Eccarius has associated with the most degenerate and suspect elements all of whom are hand in glove with the GREAT LIBERAL PARTY.

When the BRITISH FEDERAL COUNCIL[12] was formed, Mottershead, Eccarius & Co. were not invited since they did not represent any working men's associations. The way in which this was done was irregular and was criticised in the General Council, but it was very necessary if a repetition of the same business were to be avoided.

This means, according to Eccarius, that we had chosen the DAMNABLE SIDE.

As for America, the split took place immediately after the Con- ference[13] ; the sub-committee (the secretaries)[14] were supposed to report on the matter and since it was Marx who had largely conducted the American correspondence up to then, he took over the mess and all the letters went to him. It goes without saying that Eccarius' position as secretary was virtually suspended until the General Council could reach a decision on the whole business. There was in fact no writing to be done. He seems to have regarded this as yet another insult. When it came to a decision, Eccarius took the part of Sorge's enemies. These consist of 1) a few Frenchmen who, like Malon & Co. in Geneva, want to be in command simply because they are Frenchmen and in part refugees of the Commune; 2) supporters of Schweitzer (Grosse & Co.); 3) the Yankee bourgeois friends of Mesdames Woodhull and Claflin, people who have got a bad name for themselves through their practice of FREE LOVE and who print anything and everything— A UNIVERSAL GOVERNMENT, SPIRITISM (à la Home) and so forth— anything but our stuff. The latter have now declared in reply to the resolutions of the General Council[15] that the International will only make progress in America if we throw out as many 'WAGE-SLAVES' as possible, since they were certain to be the first to sell themselves to the BOGUS REFORMERS AND TRADING POLITICIANS.[16]

Sorge and Co. have also made a number of formal blunders, but if the International in America is not to degenerate into a bourgeois tricksters' society pure and simple, they must have our full support. The good Germans (almost all the Germans), the best Frenchmen and all the Irish are on their side.

Our friend Eccarius, however, had foreseen that the organ of Section 12, Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly, might provide him with a new literary refuge and so we are ON THE DAMNABLE SIDE.

In short, Eccarius has become thoroughly demoralised in his relations with the English agitators and TRADING POLITICIANS AND TRADES-UNIONS PAID SECRETARIES, all of whom either have been bought by the middle class or are begging them to make them an offer. His personal situation, which was truly wretched, though partly through his own fault, and finally his literary ambitions have been contributing factors. He has gone so far that I have abandoned all hope for him. I am very sorry for him, both as an old friend and collaborator as well as an intelligent person, but I cannot conjure the facts out of existence. Moreover, in his cynicism he admits it all quite openly. But if he imagines that we conspired against him and wished to expel him from the General Council, he is somewhat exaggerating his own importance. The opposite is the case: we let him go his own way despite countless opportunities to throw the book at him and we have not done so. We have confronted him with the truth only where it was quite unavoidable. But it was simply out of the question for us to stand aside while he turned the International into his own milch cow, riding roughshod over all other considerations.

Incidentally, Lochner, Lessner, Pfänder and Frankel are all completely in the picture about Eccarius, and if you write to any one of them, you will be unlikely to receive such a cool and dispassionate reply as from me.

28 May. News has come from America today. The separatist Federal Council is now in process of complete dissolution. Madame Woodhull and her Yankee friends from Sections 9 and 12 have held a meeting to push her candidature as President of the United States[17] on the basis of a programme which contains everything under the sun except capital and labour, and have made complete fools of themselves into the bargain.[18] It was all just too much. The Lassallean Section 6 has deposed its delegate, Grosse, accepted the resolutions of the General Council and has sent a delegate to Sorge's Federal Council. Ditto Section 2, the worst of the French sections, which has also parted company with the separatist Council. Another 6 sections are about to follow suit. More details in the next Eastern Post.[19] You can see what sort of people Eccarius cultivated over there; all his private correspon- dents, Maddock, West, Elliott, etc., were present and spoke at the Woodhull meeting.

All these matters are between ourselves, the deliberations of the General Council are not my property and I am telling you of them here simply for your and Bebel's own private information.

The Belgians have debated a revision of the Rules but have not reached any conclusions.[20] Hins has tabled a draft proposing abolition of the General Council.[21] I would be quite contented with that personally; Marx and I will not re-enter it anyway and as matters stand at present we have scarcely any time to work and that is something that has to stop.

A letter to you from Marx has gone off today. It contains the declaration of the General Council against the petty intriguers here who have acquired a certain importance thanks to the bourgeois press on the Continent.[22]

Regards to your wife[23] and children, ditto Bebel.

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ Part of this letter was published in English for the first time in Marx and Engels on the United States, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1979.
  2. ↑ A reference to Johann Georg Eccarius' letter to Liebknecht of 20 May 1872 dealing with the discussion in the General Council of the stand adopted by John Hales and himself on the split in the Central Committee of the International Working Men's Association for North America. See this volume, pp. 363 and 579-81.
  3. ↑ This letter was first published in English in full in: Karl Marx, Letters to Dr. Kugelmann, Co-operative Publishing Society of Foreign Workers in the USSR, Moscow-Leningrad [1934].
  4. ↑ In early February 1866 on Marx's insistence and contrary to the wishes of trade union leaders, Eccarius was appointed editor-in-chief of The Commonwealth, the official organ of the International Working Men's Association.
    In September-October 1867, the General Council discussed the clash between Peter Fox and Eccarius. Fox had accused Eccarius of insulting some of the delegates to the Lausanne Congress in his reports published in The Times on 6, 9, 10 and 11 September.
  5. ↑ the 1871 London Conference of the International
  6. ↑ [J. G. Eccarius,] 'The International Conference', The Scotsman, No. 8789, 2 October 1871.
  7. ↑ A reference to Eccarius' article on the 1871 London Conference in the American newspaper The World, which quoted some of its resolutions despite the Conference's decision not to make them public without special instructions from the General Council. Following investigation of this fact by the commission appointed by the Council on 10 October (with Hermann Jung as chairman, George Milner and George Harris), Eccarius was reprimanded at the General Council meeting of 30 January 1872.
  8. ↑ Eccarius was appointed the General Council's Corresponding Secretary for the USA (French sections excluded) at the Council's meeting of 2 October 1871.
  9. ↑ a constituency in London's East End, a working class district
  10. ↑ Committee of Public Salvation
  11. ↑ A reference to the Judicial Committee elected at the General Council meeting of 13 February 1872, which consisted of Armand Arnaud, Gabriel Ranvier, Frederick Bradnick, George Milner, Karl Pfänder, Hermann Jung and Walery Wrôblewski, with the latter as chairman.
  12. ↑ The 1871 London Conference, on Marx's initiative, instructed the General Council to establish a Federal Council for England. The General Council itself had acted as such from the International's foundation to the autumn of 1871. In October 1871 a provisional London Federal Council was formed from representatives of the International's London Section and some of the trade unions. From the outset it was dominated by a group of reformists headed by John Hales, Secretary of the General Council. They attempted to set the Federal Council against the General Council. Following the Hague Congress of 1872 the left wing of the Federal Council, supported by Marx and Engels, constituted itself the British Federal Council.
  13. ↑ A reference to the split in the Central Committee of the International Working Men's Association for North America, which occurred in December 1871.
    After the London Conference of 1871 strife flared up within the Committee between the proletarian and the bourgeois-reformist elements. As a result of the split two committees were formed, the Provisional Federal Council (Committee No. I), which comprised representatives of the 14 sections adhering to the proletarian stand (Friedrich Adolph Sorge, Friedrich Boite, etc.), and the separatist council (Committee No. II), headed by Victoria Woodhull and other bourgeois reformists belonging to Section No. 12. At its meetings of 5 and 12 March the General Council voiced its support for the proletarian wing of the North American Federation; Section No. 12 was suspended from the International pending the next Congress. On 28 May 1872 the General Council declared the Provisional Federal Council the sole leading body of the North American sections. The congress of the North American Federation held in July 1872 elected the standing Federal Council which included all members of the provisional body (see Engels' 'The International in America' and Marx's 'American Split', present edition, Vol. 23, pp. 177-83, 636-43).
  14. ↑ 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.
  15. ↑ K. Marx, 'Resolutions on the Split in the United States' Federation Passed by the General Council of the I.W.A. in Its Sittings of 5th and 12th March, 1872'.
  16. ↑ A reference to the appeal of the separatist Federal Council (Committee No. II) in New York, which was published in the Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly, No. 25/103, 4 May 1872. A detailed analysis of this appeal was made by Engels in his article 'The International in America' (present edition, Vol. 23, pp. 177-83).
  17. ↑ At the meeting held in Apollo Hall, New York, on 9-11 May 1872, the followers of Victoria Woodhull nominated her for the post of US President.
  18. ↑ V. Woodhull, 'The party of the people to secure and maintain human rights, to be inaugurated in the U.S., in May, 1872', Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly, No. 26/104, 11 May 1872.
  19. ↑ The Eastern Post, No. 192, 2 June 1872.
  20. ↑ 'Congrès ouvrier belge', L'Internationale, No. 176, 26 May 1872.
  21. ↑ The congress of the Belgian Federation held in Brussels on 19-20 May 1872 considered the draft Rules which had been drawn up by the Belgian Federal Council on the instructions of the Federation's congress held on 24- 25 December 1871 (see Note 404). Under this draft, which was written by Eugène Hins, the powers of the General Council to all intents and purposes were to be annulled and the Council turned into a mere correspondence and statistical bureau. After heated debates the congress decided to submit the draft for discussion by the sections, and then for approval by the Federation's extraordinary congress scheduled for July 1872 (see Note 568).
  22. ↑ K. Marx, 'Declaration of the General Council Concerning the Universal Federalist Council'.
  23. ↑ Natalie Liebknecht