Letter to Friedrich Adolph Sorge, October 5, 1872

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 5 October 1872


First published abridged in Briefe und Auszüge aus Briefen von Joh. Phil Becker, Jos. Dietzgen, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx u. A. an F. A. Sorge und Andere, Stuttgart, 1906, and in full in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXVI, Moscow, 1935
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 44


ENGELS TO FRIEDRICH ADOLPH SORGE

IN HOBOKEN

London, 5 October 1872

122 Regent's Park Road, N.W.

Dear Sorge,

On vous taille de la besogne.[1] Enclosed the French translation (because the wording can be done most literally in that language) of 2 articles from the Federation (Alerini's paper).[2] However, the Belgians are not really so terrifying. According to letters received subsequently they have already taken fright at their own boldness and do not know how to extricate themselves; in addition the disorganisation in the International in Belgium increases daily, which is very useful in view of the need to re-organise every- thing.

In contrast, you cannot simply ignore the resolutions of the Jurassians which, having been passed by a Federal Congress, amount to an open declaration of war.[3] Le Conseil général est tenu d'exécuter les résolutions du Congrès[4] (Geneva Resolution). We wrote off to Geneva at once for the latest Bulletin jurassien and shall send it to you as soon as it arrives. In addition, you could if you want write directly to the Comité Fédéral Jurassien (address: Adhémar Schwitzguébel, graveur, Sonvillier, Jura Bernois, Suisse) and ask for information.

It is a very good thing that these gentlemen have openly declared war and thus given us a sufficient reason to show them the door. After this open declaration it is impossible for a majority of the federations to demand that the matter be brought before a Congress[5] especially since at most 4 would vote in favour (they themselves, the Spaniards, Belgians and Dutch), while all the rest would be against. Swift, vigorous action against these eternal troublemakers is, in our view, very much in place as soon as you have the evidence in your hands, and will probably suffice to disperse the threatened Sonderbund.[6]

Yesterday I sent you Nos. 65, 66 and 67 of the Emancipation. The fact that Guillaume had told Wilmart in Brussels that the Spaniards would re-establish the Alliance since now, after the Hague Congress, it was more necessary than ever, was report- ed by Wilmart himself in a letter to Lafargue (which I have read).

I had intended to enclose the report on Spain, Portugal and Italy to the General Council[7] but will not have it ready in time for the post. However, I do enclose my report to Section 6,[8] which you can give to Bertrand.

Here Hales has launched a colossal slander campaign against Marx and myself, but it is rebounding on him without our having to lift a finger.[9] The pretext was Marx's statement about the corruptness of the English labour leaders. Some London sections and the whole of Manchester have protested most vigorously and Hales has lost his former majority in the FEDERAL COUNCIL, so that he will probably be thrown out entirely soon.

That damned Lucain has still not sent us the papers about the Alliance that he took with him, so we are still unable to make a start/ The documents subsequently received from Switzerland give a full account of the Nechayev trial[10] and include some Russian publications of Bakunin's. They are all highly interesting and will cause a fearful scandal. I have never seen such an infamous band of scoundrels in all my life.

[11] [12]

My wife[13] discovered after your departure that Emma had accepted money from you for your laundry and asks me to tell you that this was done behind her back, for otherwise she would never have permitted it.

Do not forget the minutes of the mandate debate,[14] since without them we cannot include that section in the minutes[15] ; no one here has anything on it.

With every post we are waiting for news from you and signs of life from the new General Council.

Best wishes to Cuno, I hope he will write soon. POOR Hepner has indeed been given 4 weeks gaol because the International is prohibited in Leipzig!

Your

F. Engels

  1. ↑ You'll have your work cut out for you.
  2. ↑ Presumably 'El Congreso de la Haya' and 'Congreso de la Federaciön del Jura', La Federation, Nos. 162 and 163, 21 and 28 September 1872.
  3. ↑ On 15 September 1872 an extraordinary congress of the Jura Federation was held in Saint-Imier, Switzerland, with 16 delegates attending. The congress voted down the resolutions of the Hague Congress; a report on it was printed by the Bulletin de la Federation jurassienne, Nos. 17 and 18, 15 September-1 October 1872.
    The Jura Federation congress was held immediately before an anarchist congress in Saint-Imier, which likewise opposed the decisions of the Hague Congress (see Note 599).
  4. ↑ The General Council is commissioned to carry the resolutions of the Congress into effect.
  5. ↑ In 1866 The Manchester Guardian published five articles by Engels on the Austro-Prussian war under the title Notes on the War in Germany (see present edition, Vol. 20).
  6. ↑ Engels ironically applied the name Sonderbund (a separate union) to the emerging bloc of anarchists and their supporters who opposed the decisions of the Hague Congress. The original Sonderbund was a separatist association of reactionary Swiss Catholic cantons that existed in the 1840s.
  7. ↑ F. Engels, 'Report to the General Council of the I.W.M.A. upon the Situation in Spain, Portugal and Italy'.
  8. ↑ On the decision of German Section No. 6 (New York), Engels represented it at the Hague Congress. The above-mentioned report he wrote has not been found.
  9. ↑ At the British Federal Council meeting of 12 September 1872, John Hales, the Council Chairman, who was supported by the reformist majority, managed to have Marx reprimanded for the speech he had made at the Hague Congress on 3 September in defence of the mandate of Maltman Barry, a member of the British Federation. In his speech, Marx accused those who called themselves the British workers' leaders of having more or less sold out to the bourgeoisie and the government. Many sections within the British Federation protested against this decision by the Federal Council.
  10. ↑ In 1869 Nechayev established contacts with Bakunin and began setting up a secret organisation called Narodnaya Rasprava (The People's Judgment) in a number of Russian cities. Having received from Bakunin the credentials of the 'Alliance révolutionnaire européenne', Nechayev passed himself off as a representative of the International. When members of Nechayev's organisation were arrested and put on trial in St Petersburg in the summer of 1871, the adventurist methods he had used—blackmail, intimidation, deception, etc.—were brought out into the open. The bourgeois press used the Nechayev case to discredit the International.
    On 22 September 1871 the London Conference charged the General Council to declare publicly that the International Working Men's Association had nothing to do with Nechayev's activities. On October 16 the General Council adopted an appropriate resolution drafted by Marx (see present edition, Vol. 23, p. 23).
  11. ↑ In the original: 'conference'.
  12. ↑ See this volume, p. 430.
  13. ↑ Lydia Burns
  14. ↑ The first sittings of the Hague Congress were devoted to discussing the delegates' mandates. The results of the discussion were incorporated into a number of resolutions passed by the Congress, notably into resolutions of Section IV (see present edition, Vol. 23, pp. 246-48).
    The official version of the Hague Congress resolutions was written and edited by Marx and Engels, who were on the committee (together with Eugène Dupont, Léo Frankel, Auguste Serraillier and Benjamin Le Moussu) appointed to prepare the Congress minutes and resolutions for publication. The official edition appeared in November 1872 in French as a separate pamphlet; on 14 December 1872, The International Herald, No. 37, carried the official English version.
  15. ↑ This refers to the minutes of the Hague Congress, which were to be published.