Letter to Friedrich Adolph Sorge, January 4, 1873

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 4 January 1873


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
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 44


ENGELS TO FRIEDRICH ADOLPH SORGE

IN HOBOKEN

London, 4 January 1873[1]

Dear Sorge,

1. Have received your letters of 3 and 6 December. Cannot understand why the papers, etc., should not have reached you. I wrote to you on 7 and 14 December[2] about the arrests in Lodi and sent: on 14 December Emancipaciôn and International Herald; on 22 December Emancipaciôn and International Herald; on the 23rd Emancipaciôn and Egalité (Cluseret against the Blanquists, which was good, though it was bad that his name appeared at the end[3] ) and on the 24th, 3 copies of the circular of the Manchester FOREIGN SECTION. There follow today: Emancipaciôn and a further copy of the circular as well as the circular of the minority within the British Federal Council.[4]

2. So the majority of the British Federal Council has seceded — under the leadership of Hales, Mottershead, Roach and—Jung.[5]

They have issued a circular and come out against the Hague Congress, etc. Up to now we have only a single copy, but as soon as we obtain another you shall have it. So it was not the BRITISH FEDERAL COUNCIL but this HOLE AND CORNER MEETING of the majority that called for an English congress on 5 January.[6] However, organising a coup d'état among the English workers is not such a simple matter. The minority continued to assemble in its old meeting-place at 7 Red Lion Court, it constituted itself the BRITISH FEDERAL COUNCIL and advised all sections not to make up their minds until they had heard from it. Immediately after this, as early as 23 December, the circular of the Manchester FOREIGN SECTION, which I had drafted, was despatched, and this was followed on 31 December by that of the minority of the FEDERAL COUNCIL. In the meantime, the West End SECTION here had declared its opposition to the majority, Nottingham followed suit, even before the circular of the minority had reached it, ditto Middlesborough, which immediately removed Jung from office and requested the minority to propose a new delegate for them, ditto the Manchester DISTRICT COUNCIL. All declared themselves to be in favour of the Hague resolutions, and according to private information of Riley's, we can be sure of all the provincial sections, with the exception of Liverpool. So that would put paid to this coup d'état. I am particularly pleased by the prompt justice meted out to Mr Jung. It serves him right for following in the wake of Hales and allowing himself to be used as the tool of his mortal enemy Guillaume. He is now as dead as a doornail.

2.[7] Belgium. The Belgian Congress s'est bien moqué du Conseil Général[8] . They have declared that they want nothing to do with you and that the Hague resolutions are null and void.[9] Shall see whether I cannot send you more precise information on Tuesday[10] ; I do not have the paper with me here.

3. The Spanish Congress will come to the same decision since our people did not send any delegates. Unfortunately, Mesa writes to me that many of our supporters are involved in the insurrection,[11] and are in prison or in the mountains with the guerillas, which is especially disastrous just at this moment.

4. So you now have 1. the Jurassians, 2. the Belgians, 3. the old Spanish Federation and 4. the present minority sections here who have gone into rebellion. We are now unanimously of the opinion here that there is no case for suspension here, but that the General Council should simply state that such-and-such federations and sections have declared the properly valid rules of the Association to be null and void, that they thereby place themselves outside the International and have ceased to belong to it. This will rule out any talk of a conference, which would still be a possibility in the event of a suspension.

It is obvious that you can only proceed to such measures when you have the official documents in your hands. We shall procure them for you.

5. In Portugal all is in perfect order; Lafargue received a letter yesterday saying that I could expect to receive a longer one.

6. Still no word from Denmark. I suspect that the Schweitzerians have used their Schleswig supporters there to kick up a stink. But there is no opening there for the Alliance.

7. France. You will have received Serraillier's report. There have been numerous arrests in the South—37 people, 27 have been released again, some of our people are still imprisoned. In Toulouse, incidentally, a conference of our people was in progress at the very time of the arrests.[12]

8. Italy. The families of the 3 arrested men and of the 6 who fled in Lodi[13] are in the gravest need, and Bignami is bombarding me with letters asking for help, since the section has naturally been outlawed by the other Italian sections (of the Alliance). We have sent some money and have used our influence in Spain and Germany. The fact is, however, that not much can be obtained from there; people there have enough such expenses of their own. But something should be done in America. It is of the greatest importance that Lodi should be supported from outside, it is our strongest base in Italy, and the only reliable one, now that nothing more has been heard from Turin. As soon as these people can see that the International is something more than words, it will mean a serious blow for the Alliance, which uses all its money for printing, etc., and never helps people out. Lodi is much more important, and more can be done with less money there than with the Geneva jewellers' strike,[14] on which Outine once again, as usual, makes the existence of the International there depend. In this respect, the Genevans resemble the Belgians: they never do anything and always demand everything. What we here and you there can do for the jewellers is a drop in the ocean and will not advance their cause—the days of the great Genevan strike[15] are past and will never come back; until the internal affairs of the International have been put in order, we shall not have the means to carry out any strike. On the other hand, a colossal success can be obtained in Italy with half the effort or even less. Just picture the fury of the Alliancists when they suddenly read in the Plebe: Soscrizione per le famiglie, etc., etc. Ricevuto dal Consiglio Generale dell' Internationale, Nuovo Jork[16] —so-and-so-many lire, and the General Council suddenly provides the Italians with proofs of its existence in this form! So do what you can. The people have been put in gaol because of your circular[17] and so you owe it to them. You ought to be able to raise some $30-50, but however much or little it is, send them something and soon, if you like with assurances of possible further remittances. If we lose Lodi and the Plebe, we shall no longer have a pied-à-terre in Italy, of that you may be sure.

9. We receive here at best 1 copy of most of the papers of the International and the Alliance, etc., and even then only with difficulty. However, we shall see to it that we procure them for you regularly.

10. Your proclamations are very much TO THE POINT,[18] but as long as you correspond in French with people like the Jurassians and the Belgians, and in English with Hales, you will risk having them print your things with all the linguistic errors and Germanisms, which would certainly not be pleasant. You must surely have some people whose mother-tongue is French or English and who would be in a position to look through these things. Our Frenchmen here would have raised hell if we had put their names to Marx's or my French. None of us can be so secure in a foreign language that he can produce a text for publication without having it knocked into shape by a native. Apropos, Mesa says that in your Address to the Spanish Congress you had in a sense acknowledged their right to sit in judgment on the Hague resolutions and had thereby compromised yourselves—since I have not seen the document (it will not come until the next Emancipacion)) I do not know what truth there is in this.

11. Serraillier does not know this Argaing either to whom you have sent a letter of authority.[19] If he was recommended by Walter, then something is rotten. Walter is an agent of the Blanquists, and is involved in intrigues in Toulouse, Bordeaux, etc. The Blanquists, by the way, have slipped up badly with their manifesto; one by one they are all trying to worm their way back into the International. Moreover, Ranvier has dissociated himself from the whole business.[20]

12. In Portugal they have a right of coalition, but not the right of association. So the International is not officially constituted there, but, since everything is shipshape, an authorised representative is not needed for the moment, and could only give rise to jealousy and dissension.— It would also be best to leave the Danes to themselves until we find out what is WRONG there.

13. It serves Cuno right. Practical life in America will soon teach him some manners.[21]

Best wishes from Marx and me.

Your

F. E.

According to the last Spring-Street session[22] in The World— received from you this week—there can, I suppose, be no doubt that there are agents provocateurs among them.

  1. ↑ 1872 in the original.
  2. ↑ See this volume, pp. 453-55, 458-59.
  3. ↑ A reference to Gustave Cluseret's article 'L'Internationale et la Dictature' spearheaded against the Blanquist pamphlet Internationale et révolution (see Note 604). The article was printed by LÉgalité, Nos. 22 and 23, 18 December 1872.—464.
  4. ↑ K. Marx, 'Address of the British Federal Council to the Sections, Branches, Affiliated Societies and Members of the International Working Men's Association'.
  5. ↑ After the Hague Congress the reformist wing of the British Federal Council refused to recognise the Congress resolutions. To counter the reformists' actions, the revolutionary wing of the Council (Samuel Vickery, William Riley, George Milner, Frederick Lessner, Eugène Dupont and others) vigorously supported Marx and Engels. In early December 1872 a split occurred; the wing of the Council that remained loyal to the Hague Congress resolutions was established as the British Federal Council in late December 1872.
    The British Federal Council existed until early 1874.
  6. ↑ The congress, which was convened by the reformist wing of the British Federal Council, took place in London on 26 January 1873. Attended by 12 delegates only, it refused to recognise the resolutions of the Hague Congress. The Federal Council set up by the secessionists ceased to meet as early as the spring of 1873; the sections that had supported it either fell apart or rejoined the British Federation.
  7. ↑ Thus in the original.
  8. ↑ has cocked a snook at the General Council.
  9. ↑ On 25-26 December 1872 a regular congress of the Belgian Federation was held in Brussels, with the anarchists in the majority. The congress refused to recognise the resolutions of the Hague Congress or to maintain contacts with the General Council in New York, and voiced support for the resolutions of the anarchist congress in Saint-Imier (see Note 599).
  10. ↑ 7 January
  11. ↑ In a letter to Engels of 29 December 1872, José Mesa informed him of the putsch launched by extremist groups of republican federalists in Madrid towards the end of 1872. He wrote that the participation in the putsch of many of the Internationals, who had joined in at the anarchists' instigation, had serious repercussions for the organisation in Spain.
  12. ↑ On 25 December 1872 a private conference of the International Working Men's Association's branches in Southern France was held in Toulouse and attended by delegates from Toulouse, Montpellier, Bordeaux, Béziers, Sète, Agen, Narbonne, Bayonne, Avignon, Castelnaudary, Lavardac, Perpignan, etc. The conference was to endorse the resolutions of the Hague Congress and put up a fight against the Bakuninists. These plans, however, were foiled by arrests of the International's members, which began at that time in Southern France.
  13. ↑ 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.
  14. ↑ The strike that affected jewellers' workshops in Geneva began in late November 1872 and lasted late into April 1873. The strikers demanded a nine-hour working day. At the request of the Romance Federal Council, the General Council appealed to the International's sections and federations to extend support to the striking jewellers. The latter received 49,000 francs from different countries, which enabled them to hold on. The strike ended in victory for the workers.
  15. ↑ Engels is referring to the strike by 3,000 Geneva building workers in March and April 1868. The workers were demanding a reduction in the working day to ten hours, a pay rise, and payment by the hour instead of by the day. The victory of workers in Geneva was made possible by the solidarity campaign organised by the General Council and involving their British, French and German counterparts.
  16. ↑ Subscription for the families, etc., etc. Received from the General Council of the International in New York
  17. ↑ 'II Consiglio Generale alle Federazioni, alle Società affigliate, alle Sezioni ed a tutti i membri dell'Associazione Internazionale dei lavoratori'.
  18. ↑ A reference to the address of the General Council to the Jura Federation issued on 8 November 1872, warning it that if it refused to revoke the resolutions of its congress in Saint-Imier (see Note 593) it would be suspended from the International pending the next General Congress. Implied also is the General Council address to the forthcoming Belgian congress issued on 1 December 1872, which urged the Belgian workers to consolidate the unity of the International Working Men's Association.
  19. ↑ In a letter of 6 December 1872 Sorge wrote to Engels that the General Council had decided to grant temporary powers for Paris to Walter (L. Van Heddeghem), and for Toulouse to Ferdinand Argaing.
  20. ↑ 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.
  21. ↑ In a letter to Engels of 6 December 1872 Sorge wrote that against his advice, Theodor Cuno had turned down a job paying $75 a month, considering this to be too little. As a result, he had been forced to content himself with a job at a machine-building factory at less than half that wage.
  22. ↑ of the separatist Federal Council in New York