Dear Eccarius and Lessner!

First my thanks to Lessner for his long and interesting letter. You must not allow the Congress to last longer than this week. Up to now – as far as England is concerned – no disgrace has occurred. If the Belgians and French once again put masses of new stuff on the agenda, then give them to understand that this will not do, since 1. the Germans are very weakly represented, because their congresses are taking place at about the same time in Germany; 2. that England is almost not represented at all because of the suffrage movement; 3. that the German Swiss are not yet represented at all, because they have only just affiliated and the long-established branches have exhausted their means in the Geneva strike; 4. that the discussion is now being carried on one-sidedly in the French language; 5. that one must therefore avoid adopting resolutions on general theoretical questions, since this can only later provoke protests from the non-Belgian and non-French side.

The war story naturally interests the public most. Thick declamations and inflated phrases do no harm here. The resolution to be adopted on this seems simply this: that the working class is not yet sufficiently organised to throw any decisive weight into the scales; that the Congress, however, protests in the name of the working class and denounces the authors of the war; that a war between France and Germany is a civil war, ruinous for both countries, and ruinous for Europe in general. The remark that the war can only benefit the Russian government will probably be impossible to push through with the French and Belgian gentlemen.

Greetings to friend Becker,

K. Marx

If the crédit mutuel comes up, Eccarius must simply declare that the workers in England, Germany and the United States have nothing to do with Proudhonist dogmas and treat the credit question as secondary. The resolutions of the Congress are to be communicated telegraphically to the London newspapers. So nothing disgraceful!

K. M.