Letter to Wilhelm Liebknecht, November 4, 1871

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 4 November 1871


First published, in Russian, in Marx- Engels Archives, Vol. I (VI), Moscow, 1932
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 44


ENGELS TO WILHELM LIEBKNECHT

IN LEIPZIG

[London,] 4 November 1871

Dear Liebknecht,

I could not use your credentials at the Conference. 3 2 6 It had been resolved that countries without representatives be rep- resented by their secretaries. So I sat as the member for Italy and h a d I used your credentials, I would have deprived Marx of his seat and his vote; so I simply left the papers in my pocket.

T o come back to your unfortunate Goegg, b his case is to be distinguished from that of Odger in two crucial respects. First, Odger is a n d always has been a worker, whereas Goegg is by

a of the resolutions of the 1871 London Conference; see this volume, pp. 227 and 231. - b See this volume, p. 215.

nature a petty bourgeois, and will always be so. If you count yourself as belonging to the same party as Goegg, we certainly do not. Second, we have thrown Odger out,[1] while you are hanging on to your Goegg and won't let him go. Or are you reproaching us with not having clung to Odger as you have to Goegg?

You explicitly excused your readmission of Bernhard Becker by saying that you badly lacked 'men of ability'.[2] You must therefore have considered him to be one.

I do not know to whom I should address my 'rude comments', if not to you. I am beginning, it is true, gradually to accustom myself to the fact that you make all sorts of demands on us without it ever occurring to you to perform even the most self-evident services in return. I shall soon find it quite natural to send you the manuscript of an entire pamphlet, and then have to order my own copies from the bookseller, while at the same time reading in your letters that sales are going fantastically. In other countries, when the General Council sends a pamphlet ready for the press, it is not only sent, as a matter of course, the copies due to it, but also a share of the profits. In Germany, it is even asked to pay for the copies. You can bet your last penny, however, that we shall refuse to do so. Since I have no desire to figure in your books as your debtor, I am sending the invoice back with the request for a new one. The other things that I ordered for myself or for Marx and the German Workers' Society[3] we shall, of course, pay for as soon as the invoice has been corrected.

I have been sending you The Eastern Post regularly every week. One went off as recently as yesterday, along with The Times of 27 October, which has a (well-informed) article on the Internation- al.[4] If you have not received these things, announce it at once in the Volksstaat. This Stieber must be made to see that we are keeping an eye on him.

In the accompanying report[5] you will find a reply to Schwitz - guébel. The man is. one of the leading intriguers in the Bakunin clique in the Neuchâtel Canton. They have been striving to break up the International in Switzerland for the past two years, ever since the spectacular failure of their attempt to take it over. It is the continuation of the Alliance de la démocratie socialiste'10 in the Jura.

They have usurped the title of Comité Fédéral Romand and retained it despite the General Council's having forbidden them to do so.[6] Now the Conference has settled the matter once and for all.[7] Should Elpidin send you anything for publication (which I scarcely think possible), the best thing would be for you to send it straight back to him, giving him my address and telling him that he should get in touch with me directly for further clarification. I shall then oblige him in such a manner that he will not bother you again. The story is too long for me to tell it here.

You will receive the Conference resolutions[8] in German and ready for the press in a day or two. The translation is in progress now.

Sorge is taken care of.[9]

For the rest, matters are proceeding excellently, in Italy we now have a whole mass of organs at our disposal (I enclose a list for publication),[10] and the correspondence is so lively that it involves a hell of a lot of work for me. You will have seen from the copy of The Eastern Post[11] we sent yesterday that we have established an ENGLISH FEDERAL COUNCIL here3S0 and so have relieved the GENERAL COUNCIL of all the details of purely English importance—a matter that had become highly necessary. An Irish COUNCIL will follow shortly.

The English version of the revised Rules[12] is in the press, French, German and Italian translations are in progress. All these things have meant an enormous amount of work for us, since Marx and I had to do almost all the editing and attend to all the details ourselves. Moreover, Marx has been unwell again, with an abscess under his arm, and must still stay at home because of a cold.

Johannard has arrived here from the Commune and has taken up his old seat in the General Council again. Jules Vallès is also here, Ranvier arrived during the Conference, Sicard in the last few days. You will have heard that Jaclard—one of the best of men—escaped from prison with Okolowicz and has arrived safely in Berne. They really are splendid people for the most part; of course, among such a mass of refugees there are inevitably a few out-and-out riff-raff, as always, including Vermersch, the editor of Père Duchêne; an arch-scoundrel.

Best regards to you and yours,

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ General Council members Odger and Lucraft expressed their disapproval of the Address of the General Council The Civil War in France, virtually joining in the campaign of slander against the International started by the bourgeois press when this Address was published. At its meetings on 20 and 27 June 1871 the General Council unanimously condemned Odger and Lucraft and accepted their resignations.
  2. ↑ Referring to Engels' doubts about the wisdom of inviting Bernhard Becker to contribute to Der Volksstaat (see this volume, p. 199), Liebknecht wrote on 8 September 1871 that the editorial board 'needed men of ability', but that they intended to keep him 'on a string'.
  3. ↑ On 26 November 1870, when the North German Reichstag discussed the question of granting credits for the continuation of the war against France, Bebel and Liebknecht spoke against credits and for a speedy peace treaty with the French Republic without annexations. On 17 December, after the Reichstag session had drawn to a close, Bebel, Liebknecht and Hepner were arrested and charged with high treason.
  4. ↑ On 27 October 1871 The Times published an unsigned article 'The International Working Men's Association'. It described the origins of the International since 1848. Its closing lines stated that the Association's aim remained as it was at its foundation, 'the complete emancipation of the working class'.
  5. ↑ F. Engels, 'On the Company Swindle in England'.
  6. ↑ See K. Marx, 'General Council Resolution on the Federal Committee of Romance Switzerland'.
  7. ↑ The reference is to a number of sections organised by Bakuninists in the Swiss Jura. Relying on these sections, the Bakuninists managed to obtain a formal majority at the Romance Federation Congress held in La Chaux-de-Fonds on 4-6 April 1870. The Bakuninists attempted to seize leadership of the whole federation, which caused a split (see Note 9). This conflict was discussed at the 1871 London Conference, and was resolved in favour of the genuine Romance Federal Committee. It was suggested that the Bakuninist Council should call itself the Council of the Jura Federation (see K. Marx, 'Resolution of the London Conference relating to the Split in Romance Switzerland', present edition, Vol. 22,pp. 419-22).
  8. ↑ K. Marx and F. Engels, 'Resolutions of the Conference of Delegates of the International Working Men's Association Assembled at London from 17th to 23rd September 1871'.
  9. ↑ In the original: 'Sorge ist besorgt'. Engels puns on Sorge's name, which means 'care'.
  10. ↑ The list sent in by Engels appeared in Der Volksstaat, No. 92, 15 November 1871. It included II Proletario Italiano, Turin; Gazzettino Rosa, Milan; La Plebe, Lodi; II Libero Pensiero, Florence; II Romagnolo, Parma; II Tribuno (Ciceruacchio), Rome; L'Eguaglianza, Girgenti, Sicily, and L'Operaio Italiano, Catania, Si cily.
  11. ↑ This refers to a report on the General Council meeting of 21 October 1871 published in The Eastern Post, No. 161, 28 October 1871, under the title 'International Working-Men's Association'.
  12. ↑ K. Marx, General Rules and Administrative Regulations of the International Working Men's Association. Official edition, revised by the General Council, London, 1871.