Letter to Theodor Cuno, October 29, 1872

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 29 October 1872


First published in Die Gesellschaft, No. 11, Berlin, 1925
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 44


ENGELS TO THEODOR CUNO

IN NEW YORK

London, 29 October 1872 122 Regent's Park Road, N.W.

Dear Cuno,

Received your letter of the 8th and the minutes[1] ; many thanks for both.

The Bulletin jurassien, which you will have received,[2] and the Internationale of Brussels, which is going off today, will prove to you that we must really get down to it and that it is absolutely essential for Sorge at least to shake off his reservations and agree to an election[3] so that not just unity of action but above all action itself can be ensured. If we do not, without further ado, take energetic steps to suspend the Jurassians because of their Congress resolutions, which ride roughshod over the Rules and the Hague resolutions,[4] and to expel the members of the anti-authoritarian Congress,[5] in so far as they belong to the International at all, and to proclaim and justify such actions, then these people really will become altogether too cocksure. Time is still on our side: the Belgians are frightened by their own initial courage and are vacillating, in Spain the opposition to the Alliance people is growing stronger by the day, they are already calling for an extraordinary Spanish congress to examine the behaviour of the Federal Council and the delegates in The Hague—but all of this will go cold if the impertinent behaviour of the Jurassians is tolerated. And you can see from Hales' letter in the Internationale[6] that these men will do their utmost.[7] Hales is the Jurassians' correspondent and distributes their Bulletin with its filthy articles here gratis to anyone who will take it and he sends it to all the sections.

I must close now to catch the post. Marx and I are overloaded as never before with work on the Congress, preparing things for print, and with correspondence.[8] Sorge will have received the Emancipación, you can translate it for him. The next steamer will bring another few issues. Along with the Volksstaat it is our best paper.

The business with West amused us greatly. We all send our best regards to Sorge and yourself.

Your

F. Engels

Lafargue and wife[9] arrived here the day before yesterday.[10]

  1. ↑ See this volume, p. 430.
  2. ↑ Bulletin de la Fédération jurassienne, Nos. 17 and 18, 15 September-1 October 1872.
  3. ↑ to the post of General Secretary of the General Council
  4. ↑ 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 Fédération 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).
  5. ↑ On 15-16 September an extraordinary congress of organisations comprising the Bakuninist Alliance was held in Saint-Imier, Switzerland. The congress decided not to recognise the resolutions of the Hague Congress and the powers of the General Council. It concluded the 'Pacte d'amitié de solidarité et de défense mutuelle' for the purpose of campaigning against the federations and sections of the International Working Men's Association which supported the decisions of the Fifth Congress at The Hague. The anarchist congress also adopted a special resolution rejecting political struggle on the part of the working class and denying the need to establish an independent proletarian political party. The congress issued an address to the sections of the International urging them to convene, six months later, an 'anti-authoritarian' congress.
  6. ↑ J. Hales, 'Conseil Fédéral Anglais, Londres, 21 octobre 1872', L'Internationale, No. 198, 27 October 1872.
  7. ↑ In his letter, John Hales proposed the establishment of direct contacts between the British and the Belgian federation and accused the old General Council of 'authoritarianism'. This was in fact a declaration of support for the anarchists' campaign against the General Council.
  8. ↑ 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.
  9. ↑ Laura Lafargue
  10. ↑ The Lafargues arrived in London from The Hague, where they had gone from Spain to attend the International's congress.