1st Proof.

Created on .

Karl Marx/Friedrich Engels

To the Committee of the Social-Democratic German Workers’ Party

[“Der Volksstaat” No. 51 of 26 June 1870]

86, Mornington Street,
Stockport Road, Manchester,
14 June 1870

Dear Friends!

I receive today a letter from Stumpf (Mainz), in which, among other things, it says:

“Liebknecht instructs me to write to you that, on account of the Reichstag elections which fall just at this time, it might be better to hold the congress here on 5 October. The Stuttgart congress also resolved last Monday to work for 5 October. Geib is said to be instructed to write to you to this effect.”

Liebknecht, as well as the other members of the International, should at least be acquainted with its Statutes, which expressly state:

“§ 3. The General Council may, if necessary, change the place of meeting, but is not empowered to postpone the date of meeting.”

When I supported your urgent invitation to transfer the congress to Germany in the General Council, I naturally assumed that you had taken all circumstances into consideration. According to the statutes, there can be no question of postponing the date.

Another passage in Stumpf’s letter is likewise by no means reassuring. It says:

“I have just come from the mayor. He demands a solvent citizen as guarantor that, should there be any Schweitzerian brawls, the town has recourse for any damage in the Elector’s Marble Hall, which has been promised us for the congress, etc.”

You proposed the towns of Mainz, Darmstadt or Mannheim, thereby in fact assuming, vis-à-vis the General Council, the responsibility that the congress can be held in any of these towns without scandalous scenes which would make the International and the German working class specifically ridiculous in the eyes of all the world. I hope that all necessary precautionary measures will be taken in this regard.

What is the numerical ratio of the Schweitzerians in Mainz and its environs to your people?

In the event that scandal cannot be avoided, care must be taken in advance that it recoils upon its authors. The plan of the Prussian police must be denounced in the “Volksstaat”, “Zukunft” and other accessible German papers: that of making the international congress in Mainz, whose assembly they cannot directly prevent, impossible through their tool, the Schweitzer organisation, or of hindering the peaceful holding of its sessions. As soon as this has been done in Germany, the General Council will then ensure that similar notices are published in London, Paris, etc. The International can well put up with a conflict with Herr Bismarck, but not with ostensibly spontaneous “German national workers’ brawls” under the label of “struggles of principle”.

Stumpf will probably – in conjunction with you – see to it that the delegates find cheap lodgings.

Salut et fraternité |Gruß und Brüderlichkeit|
Karl Marx

I take this opportunity to send the committee my best regards. Since the Schweitzerian gentlemen in Forst previously gave notice to the mayor of their intention to stir up a brawl, and he then allowed the matter to take its course, the connection of these gentlemen with the police is established. Perhaps Stumpf could, through the mayor of Mainz, have the Schweitzerian gentlemen asked whether they have orders “to beat up”. For the rest, it would be time for these people to be exposed everywhere in the press as pure police agents, and, where they try “to beat up” again, to be beaten back quite soundly. Naturally, that cannot happen at the congress, but by then they could already have beheld so many blows that they have had enough. How Herr Bismarck presents these matters in the English press is shown by the enclosed clipping, which is making the rounds through all the papers. The “North German Correspondence” is an organ of Bismarck founded with Guelph money.

With best regards
F. Engels