(London,] 4 November 1871 

Dear Liebknecht, 

I could not use your credentials at the Conference.*” It had 
been resolved that countries without representatives be rep- 
resented by their secretaries. So I sat as the member for Italy 
and had I used your credentials, I would have deprived Marx 
of his seat and his vote; so I simply left the papers in my 
pocket. 

To come back to your unfortunate Goegg,” his case is to be 
distinguished from that of Odger in two crucial respects. First, 
Odger is and always has been a worker, whereas Goegg is by 

a of the resolutions of the 1871 London Conference; see this volume, pp. 227 and 
231. - > See this volume, p. 215. 

nature a petty bourgeois, and will always be so. If you count 
yourself as belonging to the same party as Goegg, we certainly do 
not. Second, we have thrown Odger out,”* while you are hanging 
on to your Goegg and won’t let him go. Or are you reproaching 
us with not having clung to Odger as you have to Goegg? 

You explicitly excused your readmission of Bernhard Becker by 
saying that you badly lacked ‘men of ability.°° You must 
therefore have considered him to be one. 

I do not know to whom I should address my ‘rude comments’, if 
not to you. | am beginning, it is true, gradually to accustom myself 
to the fact that you make all sorts of demands on us without it 
ever occurring to you to perform even the most self-evident 
services in return. I shall soon find it quite natural to send you the 
manuscript of an entire pamphlet, and then have to order my own 
copies from the bookseller, while at the same time reading in your 
letters that sales are going fantastically. In other countries, when 
the General Council sends a pamphlet ready for the press, it is not 
only sent, as a matter of course, the copies due to it, but also a 
share of the profits. In Germany, it is even asked to pay for the 
copies. You can bet your Jast penny, however, that we shall refuse 
to do so. Since I have no desire to figure in your books as your 
debtor, I am sending the invoice back with the request for a new 
one. The other things that I ordered for myself or for Marx and 
the German Workers’ Society 185 We shall, of course, pay for as 
soon as the invoice has been corrected. 

I have been sending you The Eastern Post regularly every week. 
One went off as recently as yesterday, along with The Times of 27 
October, which has a (well-informed) article on the Internation- 
al.**” If you have not received these things, announce it at once in 
the Volksstaat. This Stieber must be made to see that we are 
keeping an eye on him. 

In the accompanying report* you will find a reply to Schwitz- 
guébel. The man is, one of the leading intriguers in the Bakunin 
clique in the Neuchatel Canton. They have been striving to break 
up the International in Switzerland for the past two years, ever 
since the spectacular failure of their attempt to take it over. It is 
the continuation of the Alliance de la démocratie socialiste' in the 
Jura. 

They have usurped the title of Comité Fédéral Romand and 
retained it despite the General Council’s having forbidden them to 

a F. Engels, ‘On the Company Swindle in England’. 

do so.* Now the Conference has settled the matter once and for 
all.°?? Should Elpidin send you anything for publication (which I 
scarcely think possible), the best thing would be for you to send it 
straight back to him, giving him my address and telling him that 
he should get in touch with me directly for further clarification. I 
shall then oblige him in such a manner that he will not bother you 
again. The story is too long for me to tell it here. 

You will receive the Conference resolutions” in German and 
ready for the press in a day or two. The translation is in progress 
now. 

Sorge is taken care of.‘ 

For the rest, matters are proceeding excellently, in Italy we now 
have a whole mass of organs at our disposal (I enclose a list for 
publication),”? and the correspondence is so lively that it involves 
a hell of a lot of work for me. You will have seen from the copy of 
The Eastern Post’ we sent yesterday that we have established an 
Encush Feperat Counc. here**? and so have relieved the Genera 
Counci. of all the details of purely English importance—a matter 
that had become highly necessary. An Irish Counci will follow 
shortly. 

The English version of the revised Rules is in the press, 
French, German and Italian translations are in progress. All these 
things have meant an enormous amount of work for us, since 
Marx and I had to do almost all the editing and attend to all the 
details ourselves. Moreover, Marx has been unwell again, with an 
abscess under his arm, and must still stay at home because of a 
cold. 

Johannard has arrived here from the Commune and has taken 
up his old seat in the General Council again. Jules Vallés is also 
here, Ranvier arrived during the Conference, Sicard in the last 
few days. You will have heard that Jaclard—one of the best of 
men—escaped from prison with Okolowicz and has arrived safely 
in Berne. They really are splendid people for the most part; of 
course, among such a mass of refugees there are inevitably a few 

a See K. Marx, ‘General Council Resolution on the Federal Committee of Romance 
Switzerland’. - > K. Marx and F. Engels, ‘Resolutions of the Conference of Delegates 
of the International Working Men’s Association Assembled at London from 17th to 
23rd September 1871’. - © In the original: ‘Sorge ist besorgt’. Engels puns on Sorge’s 
name, which means ‘care’. - 4 This refers to a report on the General Council meeting 
of 21 October 1871 published in The Eastern Post, No. 161, 28 October 1871, under 
the title ‘International Working-Men’s Association’. - © K. Marx, General Rules and 
Administrative Regulations of the International Working Men’s Association. Official edition, 
revised by the General Council, London, 1871. 

out-and-out riff-raff, as always, including Vermersch, the editor of 
Pére Duchéne; an arch-scoundre]l. 
Best regards to you and yours, 

Your 
F. E.