London, 20 April 1871 
122 Regent’s Park Road, N.W. 

Dear Liebknecht, 

I must tell you today in all haste about the so-called 
INTERNATIONAL Democratic Association,'*? which you may well never 
have heard of and which, therefore, might be confused with us. 

138 _ 79, Engels to Liebknecht. 20 April 1871 

The association is a caricature of the IWMA. It has vegetated in 
obscurity here for a number of years, but expresses its desire, 
from time to time, to present itself to a wider public, i.e. to make 
itself ridiculous, exhibiting at the same time a certain secondary 
tendency to let itself quietly be mistaken for the IWMA. Since 
these people again held a meeting on the Paris Commune in Hyde 
Park last Sunday*—-a meeting which under their auspices was 
inevitably doomed to failure (they even let it be known that we had 
sent delegates, even though, when they sent a deputation to us, we 
roundly refused to do so)—-and since they now also intend to 
establish branches on the Continent and will presumably send 
deputations to you as well, it has become necessary to make you 
acquainted with them. In the first place, there is Weber, that old 
trouble-maker from the Palatinate, whom you know; and secondly, 
Le Lubez, whom you have also come across. I enclose a cutting in 
which they present their muddled programme to the world in 
muddled language. Insofar as it is comprehensible, it is purely 
bourgeois; what they have to say on the subject of providing work 
and, alternatively, of making provision for those unable to work, is 
already fulfilled by the English Poor Law.’” They take good care 
not to say a word about capital and labour. The Nationalisation OF 
LAND is SO universally accepted here that they cannot evade it, and 
in itself is so little in conflict with bourgeois interests that only the 
day before yesterday a Tory who has his million thalers in safe 
keeping told me that he was in favour of it. Weber is also, as you 
know, a supporter of Heinzen and a pure ‘democrat’. 

As long as these fellows pursued their activities in obscurity 
here, we left them to themselves, but if they choose to expand, 
conflicts will be unavoidable and we shall then have to hit them 
where it hurts. 

So the Volksstaat was confiscated again yesterday for lése majesté, 
as we hear on the telegraph.” I am astonished that it did not 
happen earlier. You are extremely impudent. But ‘after all, this is 
only right and proper’, as Frederick II used to say. 

The Vogt story” should be kept alive for a while. It is evident 
from the context that Karl Vogt is the only Vogt who can be 
meant. In the first place, no other Vogt is so well known as to be 
referred to as Vogt, tout court, without first name and address. In 
the second place, what other Vogt performed such valuable 
services at that time for the Bonaparte family that he should have 
been given 40,000 frs in August, 1.e. immediately after the 

a 16 April - > See this volume, p. 130. 

80. Engels to Mora. Around 20 April 1871 139 

conclusion of the Italian campaign? Moreover, the formula, ‘il lui 
a été remis en Aoiit 1859’,* indicates that he had received other 
remittances. The more frequently you return to the point, the 
more the bourgeois press, which suppresses all this, will find itself 
forced to take note of it. You might also bring it to the attention 
of the Proletarier and the Volkswille. 

Since experience has taught me that Stieber’s agents are as 
clumsy at opening letters as they are at fabricating conspiracies, I 
hereby inform you once and for all that all my letters to you are 
securely sealed with my seal and the initials F. E. in Gothic script. 
The Prussians cannot yet in all decency break open sealing-wax on 
rubber, and certainly not so that it cannot be noticed. Mostly they 
just tear open the side of the envelope with their oafish fists. So if 
my seal is not clear and legible you will know what has happened. 
It will at any rate infuriate the fellows to have to let a letter 
addressed to you and with F. E. on the seal pass through their 
hands unbroken. 

It is time for the post and [ still have all sorts of things to tell 
you, but I must end now. 

Your 
F. E.