Letter to Adolf Hepner, August 4, 1872

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 4 August 1872


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


ENGELS TO ADOLF HEPNER[1]

IN LEIPZIG

London, 4 August 1872

Dear Hepner,

I was about to write a brief article for you on the latest Bakuninist affairs, when it developed that the General Council would have to make a statement on the matter itself. Thus the article has turned into an address,[2] the German translation of which you will receive on Wednesday.[3]

The latest Spanish documents may well serve as a supplement shortly.[4] Bakunin retained the Alliance de la démocratie socialiste,'10 which you know of from the Scissions,'[5] as a secret society in order to obtain control of the International. But we learned of this, and now we have the proof. Thus, the charge will now be made publicly, as otherwise the elections to the Congress in Spain[6] would be run by the Alliance and their outcome would be in its favour. Bakunin will break his neck in this affair.

You will have received the reply to the Concordia.[7] So that is what the armchair socialists amount to! I had not thought that they could be as stupid as that, I had thought that the paper must be edited by someone like Beta-Bettziech.

The factum of Verdy was something I knew from the Kölnische Zeitung, but I did not know that the man was also a trickster.[8] Very fine. That wretched Sonnemann, incidentally, regards every great historical event merely as an opportunity to change his lousy Frankfurt back into a free city of the Empire. And for this reason the Prussians must always serve as whipping-boy. According to our information, the preparations are being made on such a colossal scale that the Prussians can be defeated only if they are opposed by Austria, as well as France and Russia. But Austria will be on Prussia's side, unless some sudden change occurs, which is not to be expected in the circumstances. Moreover, we shall soon witness the diverting spectacle of William[9] issuing an appeal to the Poles and re-establishing some sort of Poland. And with this he, and the whole Prussian regime, will break their necks. The Prusso-German Empire is far from having reached its culminating point; this war (if it ends well, which is to be expected) will swiftly raise it to its climax, and then it will come tumbling down from the dizzy heights of Napoleonic glory. It is quite possible that this time the movement will start in Berlin; the contradictions are growing very acute there, and all that is required to bring things to a head is a change in the political situation. A Berlin revolution of that kind will certainly be pretty rough, but still it is better for it to come from within than after a Sedan, which only brings harm everywhere.[10]

Hirsch must send to Switzerland for the following writings of Bakunin:

Lettres à un français (anonymous), Geneva 1871. L'Empire knouto-germanique by M. Bakounine, Geneva 1871. This is not obtainable from booksellers, I have tried it, but Boruttau will certainly get it for him since he is in raptures about it.

Pass on my greetings to Liebknecht and Bebel when you next visit them.

Best regards.

Yours,

F. E.

  1. ↑ After a certain decline, the movement for recognition of the French Republic (see Note 108) gained fresh momentum in Britain at the end of December 1870.
  2. ↑ The reference is to the address entitled 'The General Council to All the Members of the International Working Men's Association' (see present edition, Vol. 23, pp. 205-10), drafted by Engels on the instructions of the Sub-Committee (see Note 435). At the General Council meeting of 6 August 1872 the draft provoked a lively discussion, with some of the Council's members opposing publication of the address pending an investigation into the Alliance's activities. The draft proposed by Engels was accepted by a majority vote. The document has survived in Engels' handwriting in English and in French. It did not appear in Der Volksstaat.
  3. ↑ 7 August
  4. ↑ Following the exposure by Paul Lafargue in April-early May 1872 of the existence of the secret Alliance in Spain, Engels requested Lafargue, José Mesa, Francisco Mora and the other editors of La Emancipaciôn to let him have documentary proof of the Alliance's activities. By early August 1872 Engels received from Spain a copy of Bakunin's letter to Mora of 5 April 1872, the statutes of the Alliance in Spain, and other documents. These materials were used by Engels when drafting the above-mentioned address of the General Council.
  5. ↑ K. Marx and F. Engels, Fictitious Splits in the International c K. Marx, 'Reply to Brentano's Second Article'.
  6. ↑ On 11 June 1872, on Marx's suggestion, the General Council resolved to convene a regular Congress in Holland on 2 September 1872 and decided on the principal item on the agenda, the consolidation of the International's organisation (revision of the General Rules and Administrative Regulations). At its next meeting on 18 June the Council decided on The Hague as the venue for the Congress and appointed a special commission (Engels, Edouard Vaillant, Joseph MacDonnel) to prepare an official announcement of the forthcoming Congress. The announcement was written by Engels and despatched to The International Herald, which published it on 29 June 1872 (see present edition, Vol. 23, pp. 170-73).
  7. ↑ Responding to the slanderous article, 'Wie Karl Marx citirt', written by the German bourgeois economist Lujo Brentano and published in the Concordia magazine, No. 10, 7 March 1872, Marx wrote a letter to Der Volksstaat on 23 May, which the newspaper carried on 1 June 1872 (see present edition, Vol. 23, pp. 164-67). Following the publication of Marx's reply in Der Volksstaat, Concordia, No. 27, 4 July 1872, featured another anonymous article (also written by Brentano), 'Wie Karl Marx sich vertheidigt'. Marx's reply to the second article was published in Der Volksstaat, No. 63, 7 August 1872 (see present edition, Vol. 23, pp. 190-97).
  8. ↑ Marx is referring to the open letter sent to La Liberté by a group of Russian émigrés in Switzerland who were closely associated with Bakunin (Woldemar Holstein, Barthélémy Zaizev, Alexander Oelsnitz, Nikolai Ogarev, Vladimir Ozerov, Zemphiri Ralli, A. Ross, Valerian Smirnov). The letter, written on 4 October 1872, protested against Bakunin's expulsion from the International. It was printed by La Liberté, No. 41, on 13 October 1872.
  9. ↑ William I
  10. ↑ When discussing the possible consequences of a new European war inspired by the militarists, Engels surmised that in the course of such a conflict the German Empire could collapse in a manner similar to the Bonapartist Second Empire in France, which fell two days after the defeat at Sedan on 1-2 September 1870.