Letter to Friedrich Engels, August 29, 1873

Author(s) Karl Marx
Written 29 August 1873


First published in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. IV, Stuttgart, 1913
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 44


MARX TO ENGELS

IN RAMSGATE

[London,] 29 August 1873

Dear FRED,

Serraillier was here this evening. He was full of complaints and very much in two minds about his going to Geneva.[1] Quite apart from personal reasons, he says he had only agreed in the first place because he thought we were going. In addition, however, he has now read the mandate, which had been promised him two weeks before the Congress, so he says. He finds that it contains things, such as increasing the POWERS of the COUNCIL, that he could not defend either personally or in the name of the FEDERAL COUNCIL.

But none of that is the essential point. The FEDERAL COUNCIL has received a letter from Perret which makes it clear

1. that the Fédération Romande wishes to annul the plenary powers granted to the GENERAL COUNCIL by the Hague Congress;

2. that not a single member of the Romance gang in Geneva will accept a mandate from an English section, apart from Duval, and even he will only do so on the condition stated under 1;

3. that, as Perret writes, none of the oafs there is prepared to spend as much as a week at the Congress, which would be essential if the mandate is to go through.

Under these circumstances I am definitely of the opinion that it would be better for Serraillier not to go. The scandal rebounds back on us, not him, if he goes—under these circumstances, which could not have been foreseen. In my view he should send a letter enclosing the American papers and go on to say that ill health prevents him from taking up the mandates he has received from New York, London, etc. Finally, he should say that the letters he has received in London from the main continental countries have convinced him that in the light of circumstances currently prevailing in France, Germany, Austria, Denmark, Portugal, etc., no bona fide congress is possible.

Telegraph YES right away, if you agree; No, if opposed. I did not wish to commit myself to anything definite without consulting you first.

In view of the circumstances in Switzerland, which have been carefully concealed from us up to the last moment, I think it would be absolutely crazy to send Serraillier. Our complete abstention, which even at this stage both can and will make an impression on the governments and the bourgeoisie—despite the hullabaloo the papers will create to start with—va au diable,[2] if Serraillier turns up under these circumstances. Salut

Your

K. M.

Sorge also writes (perhaps you know already) that the Dutch have informed them that they will also attend the Jura Congress,[3] and he insists that the Dutch should not be admitted to our (!) Congress, a point which Serraillier, as their mandated representative, is expressly asked to support.

MY COMPLIMENTS TO MRS.[4]

  1. ↑ A reference to Auguste Serraillier's planned trip to the Geneva Congress of the International (see Note 672) as the General Council representative. As a member of the British Federal Council, he was also to hold credentials from the British sections. However, by the end of August, drawing on the reports from the International's local branches, Marx and Engels had already realised that under the conditions obtaining at the time the Congress had no chance of becoming a truly international forum. They were gravely concerned about the conciliatory tendencies being displayed by some of the International's activists in Romance Switzerland, and their readiness to go back on a number of the Hague Congress resolutions in order to work out a compromise with the anarchists. Marx and Engels thus considered it inexpedient to send a representative to the Congress and persuaded Serraillier not to go to Switzerland.
  2. ↑ will go to the devil
  3. ↑ A congress of anarchist and reformist organisations within the International, which had refused to abide by the resolutions of the Hague Congress, was held in Geneva on 1-6 September 1873. Its organiser was the Bakuninist Geneva Section of Propaganda and Revolutionary Socialist Action (see Note 339). Having declared rejection of all authority as the basic principle of the international anarchist association, the congress abolished the General Council, revoked the right of congresses to pass any definite decisions on issues of principle, and removed from the General Rules Article 7a on the political action by the working class.
  4. ↑ Lydia Burns