Letter to Friedrich Adolph Sorge, December 14, 1872

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 14 December 1872


First published 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
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, 14 December 1872

Dear Sorge,

I confirm my letter of the 7th inst.[1] and am sending today 1 copy of the Emancipaciôn with the article on Bakunin[2] containing information you too will not have had, and The International Herald with the Congress resolutions.[3] That jackass Riley has left out the voting figures.

In Lodi, No. 118 of the Plebe, which contained your Address, has been confiscated and Bignami, the editor, has been arrested.[4]

It looks as though the Leipzig high treason trial[5] may be about to repeat itself there. We shall, of course, make as much capital as possible from the affair; it will appear at once in the Volksstaat and the Emancipaciôn[6] as proof of whom the governments regard as the greater threat: the General Council and its adherents or the Alliancists. It is the best thing that could have happened to us in Italy.

You should have some brief reports on the meetings of the General Council printed in the Oestliche Post and in the American press, and send the relevant issues to the Volksstaat, Egalité and The International Herald, as well as one or two copies here, so that we can use them for Spain and Italy as well as for the French sections; the Danes and Dutch would also print them.

The letter of authority for Serraillier becomes more urgent every day.[7] The Jurassians on one side and the Blanquists on the other, are burrowing away all over France and are making progress while Serraillier is already starting not to receive replies from various quarters anymore because he can only write as a private individual. If you continue to delay out of consideration for Dereure, who has been more than suspect since the resignation of the Blanquists,[8] or for any other reason, we shall lose the greater part of France and the tables will be turned on us at the next Congress. In haste.

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ See this volume, p. 453.
  2. ↑ [G. Mesa y Leompart,] 'El Manifesto del Partido comunista ante los sabios de la Alianza', La Emancipaciôn, No. 77, 7 December 1872.
  3. ↑ K. Marx and F. Engels, 'Resolutions of the General Congress Held at The Hague from the 2nd to the 7th September, 1872'.
  4. ↑ On 21 November 1872 the Royal prosecutor in Lodi announced that issue No. 118 of La Plebe of 17 November 1872 had been sequestrated for publishing the General Council's Address of 20 October (see Note 610). Prosecutor Gerli simultaneously announced that proceedings had been instituted against Enrico Bignami, the paper's editor. In December 1872 Bignami and three of his friends were arrested and charged with high treason and propagating the ideas of the International Working Men's Association.
  5. ↑ Following the arrest of Bebel, Liebknecht and Hepner (17 December 1870), Bismarck's government started preparations for a trial of the leaders of the Social-Democratic Workers' Party, who were charged with 'high treason' (see Note 134). The trial was held in Leipzig between 11 and 26 March 1872.
    Though the charges brought against them had not been proved, Bebel and Liebknecht were condemned to two-year imprisonment in a fortress (with the deduction of the two months they had spent in prison before the trial); Hepner was acquitted. Following the trial in Leipzig, early in July 1872 Bebel was again brought before the court 'for insulting His Majesty', which he had allegedly done when addressing workers in Leipzig. Bebel was sentenced to additional 9 months in prison and deprived of his seat in the Reichstag.
  6. ↑ Bignami's arrest and the sequestration of issue No. 118 of La Plebe were reported in Der Volksstaat, No. 101, 18 December 1872. The paper probably used the information supplied by Engels.
    La Emancipacion did not carry the report.
  7. ↑ By a decision of 22 December 1872, Auguste Serraillier, who in 1871 and 1872 was Corresponding Secretary of the London Council for France, was appointed temporary representative of the General Council for France, and received his mandate and instructions.
  8. ↑ A reference to the various groups of French refugees in London.
    The 'purs are the Blanquists headed by Edouard Marie Vaillant. In November 1872 the Blanquists issued a pamphlet Internationale et révolution aimed against the decision of the Hague Congress to transfer the seat of the General Council to New York, in which they accused the leaders of the International of having renounced the idea of revolution. The pamphlet was signed by Armand Arnaud, Frederic Cournet, Edouard Margueritte, Constant Martin, Gabriel Ranvier and Edouard Vaillant, who simultaneously stated that they were withdrawing from the International. However, as Eugène Dupont informed Marx on 6 November 1872, Ranvier was unaware that his name had been used.
    The     'impurs     are probably a group of French refugees headed by Pierre Vésinier and Bernard Landeck.