MARX TO JOHANN PHILIPP BECKER” 

{[London,] 2 August 1870 
1 Maitland Park Road 

Dear Becker, 

My long silence is to be explained exclusively by lack of time. I 
hope we know each other sufficiently well for us both to have the 
conviction that our friendship is steadfast. 

a See this volume, p. 8. 

_1 sent the Manifesto of the General Council on the war* to the 
Egalité in the first instance, because I knew that it came too late 
for the Vorbote. I expect to receive copies today which I can send 
on to you. 

In the translation of the programme for the congress (as it 
appears in the Vorbote), Jung made a number of mistakes: 

1: this must read: ‘On the need to abolish the public debt. Discussion 
of the right to compensation.’ 

2: ‘On the relationship between the political action and. the 
social movement of the working class.’ 

4: ‘Conversion of banks of issue into national banks.’ 

5: ‘Conditions of cooperative production on a national scale.’ 

But all this you will find in the Volksstaat.* 

Furthermore, as far as the congress is concerned, it is perfectly 
obvious that it cannot be held in Mainz under present cir- 
cumstances. The Belgians have proposed Amsterdam. We are 
convinced that the congress must be postponed until conditions are 
more favourable. 

In the first place, our support in Amsterdam rests on. very 
feeble foundations and it is important to hold the congress 
in countries where the International has already sprung strong 
roots. 

Secondly, the Germans cannot send anyone—or no more than 
one person at best—thanks to the present lack of money 
occasioned by the war. The French cannot leave their country 
without passports, that is to say, without permission from the 
authorities. Our French sections have been dispersed, the most 
tried and tested members have either fled or been captured. In 
these circumstances we might easily see a repeat of the farce enacted 
in Switzerland.** Certain intriguers might possibly stage-manage a 
majorité factice? in Amsterdam. They always manage to find the 
money necessary for such manoeuvres. Where from? C'est leur 
Secret. 

On the other hand, the General Council is prevented by § 3 of 
the Rules from postponing the date of the congress. Nevertheless, in 
view of the present extraordinary circumstances, it would take the 
responsibility for such a step upon itself, if it could be sure of the 
necessary support from the sections.” It would be desirable, 
therefore, if a reasoned motion to this effect could be proposed 

a K. Marx, ‘First Address of the General Council of the International Working Men’s 
Association on the Franco-Prussian War’. - > artificial majority - © That is their 
secret. 

officially by the German-Swiss group and the French-Swiss in 
Geneva. 

Bakunin, as you know, has in that blatherer Hins a fanatical 
instrument at his disposal in the Belgian General Council. As the 
Belgian secretariat was momentarily out of action, I added a 
denunciation and characterisation of Bakunin in my own name to 
the circular* which the General Council had issued on the Egalité, 
etc., at the beginning of January. Hins then wrote a highly 
impertinent letter to the General Council against me personally 
(he spoke of my ‘maniére indigne d'attaquer Bakunin’’), so I 
replied to him in the manner he deserved.”’ It is doubtless thanks 
to his influence that, yesterday, we received an official communica- 
tion full of accusations from the Belgian General Council, saying 
ia: “The Belgian General Council has resolved to instruct its 
delegation to the next congress to call us to account for our 
resolution concerning the Conseil Fédéral Romand.’‘ They say we 
had absolutely no right to interfere in these local Swiss affairs! 
Curiously enough, the Brussels people themselves, like the Paris 
‘Fédération’, had directly requested us to interfere! Memories are 
short! 

At all events, we shall now have to justify our decision in greater 
detail in our own circular. I would be greatly obliged to you, 
therefore, if you could give us a precise account of the intrigues of 
the Auuiance,”° the congress at La Chaux-de-Fonds” and the Swiss 
squabble in general. 

I have received the letter from our Russian friends in Geneva.” 
Please convey my thanks to them. 

In actual fact, the best thing would be for them to write a 
pamphlet on Bakunin, but it must be done soon. In that case they 
need not send me any further documents on Bakunin’s machina- 
tions. 

They ask me what Bakunin did in 1848. During his stay in Paris 
in 1843-48 he acted the determined socialist. After the revolution 
he went to Breslau,’ teamed up with the bourgeois democrats there 
and agitated among them for the election of Arnold Ruge (to the 
Frankfurt Parliament), at that time-a decided enemy of socialists 
and communists. Later—in 1848—he organised the Pan-Slavic 
Congress in Prague.*' He was charged by the Pan-Slavists 

a K. Marx, “The General Council to the Federal Council of Romance 
Switzerland’. - > unworthy manner of attacking Bakunin -¢ K. Marx, ‘General 
Council Resolution on the Federal Committee of Romance Switzerland’. - 4 Polish 
name: Wroclaw. 

themselves with having played a double game there. But I do not 
believe this. If he did make mistakes there (from the viewpoint of 
his Pan-Slavist friends), they were in my opinion ‘involuntary 
ones’. In early 1849 Bakunin issued an Address (pamphlet)— 
sentimental Pan-Slavism!* The only praiseworthy thing that can be 
reported about his activity during the revolution is his participa- 
tion in the Dresden insurrection in May 1849. 

Very important in any analysis of him are his utterances 
immediately after his return from Siberia.” Ample material on this 
in the Kolokol and in Borkheim’s ‘Russian Letters’ in the Zukunft,” 
which I suppose you have. Tell our Russian friends that the 
person exposed by them‘ has not made his appearance here, that 
I have passed on their message to Borkheim, * and that I shall be 
very pleased to have one of them come over here. Lastly, I should 
be greatly obliged to them if they would send me the fourth volume 
of Chernyshevsky just published. I shall send them the money for it 
through the post. 

Your article on the war in the last Vorbote’ was very good, 
applauded by my whole ramiy, who send you their most cordial 
greetings. 

Adio. 

Your 
Karl Marx 

The enclosed copy has been corrected in a number of places where 
there were printers’ errors. So it is better to translate from this than 
from the copy sent to the Egalité.