| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 20 January 1893 |
ENGELS TO LOUIS HÉRITIER
IN GENEVA
[Draft]
[London,] 20 January 1893
Dear citizen,
It is with sincere satisfaction that I see from your letter of 25 December that the passage taken from your article on Becker[1] was distorted in translation.[2] Indeed, I was amazed when I saw your name at the end of the article. I had heard you spoken of with truly paternal affection, and the expressions used in your article on Becker constituted a far too painful contrast. Unfortunately, you still let the public believe them to be yours, as the rest of the article also.
As for what you have to say in the Volks-Tribüne concerning my observations, this in no way changes my opinion. You must know that MM. the anarchists invented the slander about the conference held in Marx's house with the sole purpose of proving that Marx wished to secure his own preponderance by any means, fair or foul. You say that this is his domination over the delegates. For you this alleged fact is worth being told. However, when I prove that it is false, you say that is a mere detail of no importance whatsoever.
I have proved the falsehood of your assertion. You said that the London conference placed the Jurassians under the command of the Geneva Federal Council. I find that to be the opposite of the truth. You reply: 'What I said seems to me today to be the absolute truth. 'You remind me of good manners, though I do not know in what respect: do you wish me to remind you of sincerity?
Your No. XII[3] proves once again that you know almost nothing about what happened outside the anarchist milieu. Judging by your observations concerning the Geneva internationals, it would seem to me impossible that you have seen a complete collection of the Egalité de Genève. If the Geneva internationals were to some extent infected by petty-bourgeois ideas, they shared this defect with their adversaries, the anarchists, whom you prefer, yet who offer only the reverse of the petty-bourgeois coin, and with almost all the French and Belgian internationals—Proudhonists with few exceptions. Of all the groups of the Romance languages, only those among the Spanish supporters of the General Council were Social-Democrats in the present sense of that term. As for the rest, have those of Geneva proved today that they are worth more than their predecessors?
In the same No. XII,[4] you reproduce a large number of anarchist errors and lies, and you accord them a faith which, after my warning, should have lost some of its original naivety. You promise a second work on this same topic. I hope that, before engaging upon the matter, you will obtain some documents which shed light on the assertions and machinations of the anarchists, and which will certainly enable you to judge impartially. Otherwise you will oblige me to reply again. It is of little importance what the bourgeois newspapers have to say about the old International, but when its history is distorted even in party organs this is quite a different matter. All that I ask of you is that you should not write about a subject without having studied both sides, the documents on this side and on that. Our worker public has to snatch from its meals and its sleep the few hours that it can devote to reading: it therefore has the right to ask that everything we present should be the result of conscientious work, and not lead to futile controversies that it is impossible to follow.