Manchester, 29 January 1869 

Dear Moor, 

I at last have a chance to write to you at greater length. 

Herr, etc. Gimborn* has not presented himself. According to 
your description, the fellow obviously wants nothing but to indulge 
in spying industrially. 

The Bakunin group of both male and female sex (which 
difference Bakunin also wants to abolish, i.e., that of the sexes) has 
probably quietly passed away. The business was of Russian 
cunning, but still started stupidly; the fox tail showed too clearly 
and workers, in particular, cannot be caught in this way. Old 
Becker” simply cannot keep his fingers off ‘organising’, and was 
just the man to walk into the trap. I am quite ready to believe 
that he commits other idiocies, but I wish we had a better source 
than Wilhelm, who simply cannot see facts as they really are. 
Apropos, Wilhelm has not sent me his sheet’ any more since New 
Year; if he thinks I’m going to pay for it, he is making a big 
mistake. I am really glad not to be instructed every week that we 
may not make a revolution until the Federal Diet, the blind 
Guelph and the honorable Elector of Hesse‘ are restored, and 
terrible and legitimate revenge wreaked upon Bismarck the 
godless. 

The Basle story is very nice.” Altogether things are marching 
ahead well in Switzerland. Of course, the affair is significant only 
because everything which is more or less suppressed on the rest of 
the Continent appears there in the light of day. But that is in itself 
very good. And direct legislation by the people makes sense there, 
because the direct or indirect domination of the bourgeoisie 
should be countered on the legislative councils.” Since the Swiss 
workers virtually did not exist as a political party of their own 
until the Geneva strike, but were simply the tail of the radical 
bourgeoisie, they elected only radical bourgeois to the councils. On 
the other hand, the elected peasants could also be managed easily 

a See this volume, p. 201. - > Johann Philipp Becker - © Wilhelm Liebknecht - 
4 Demokratisches Wochenblatt - ¢ George V - § Ludwig III 

by the educated bourgeois. For small cantons, this may be quite 
satisfactory, but it naturally immediately becomes superfluous and 
a hindrance as soon as the proletariat enters the movement en 
masse and begins to dominate it. 

A nice feature of the Basle strike is the contributions from 
Austria as far as Temesvar. It is inexcusable how old Becker has 
squandered this business with his wild declarations.* 

Have only glanced at the Vogt pamphlet,” seen that he has the 
horse descended from the flea. If this is so, from whom is the 
jackass who wrote this pamphlet descended? 

Today I am sending you back the copies of Social-Demokrat, etc., 
together with some copies of Zukunft. 

It is very good that there are still 50 copies of Herr Vogt with 
Kugelmann. When Vogt lectures again in Berlin, Kugelmann must 
send some there, and advertise it in the newspapers. I bet that will 
drive him away. 

Sam Moore is now busily studying the first part of your 
Duncker,° and he understands it quite well. He has completely 
grasped the dialectical stuff on money theory, etc., and declares 
it the best thing in the whole book, THEORETICALLY SPEAKING. 

The business with good old Gottfried is dragging on and on.‘ 
If I can manage it somehow, I shall come to London next 
Thursday! evening and stay until Sunday evening. 

The photograph gave great pleasure. 

Gumpert has the Bichner"; I shall pick it up in the next few 
days; I fight shy of his wife, who is becoming increasingly 
philistine. 

You must give it to the Lassalleans that they understand 
agitation in quite a different way from our good old Wilhelm and 
his boors of the People’s Party.’”’ This is very disagreeable, since 
they appear to outflank Wilhelm and Bebel completely, and the 
masses are so enormously stupid, and the leaders a bunch of 
blackguards. 

Tomorrow Jones will be buried with an enormous procession in 
the same churchyard where Lupus lies. It is a real pity about the 
man. After all, his bourgeois phrases were simply hypocrisy, and 
here in Manchester there is nobody who can replace him with the 
workers. The people here will break up completely and trail more 

2 Engels is referring to the information on contributions for Basle workers,