London, 3 May 73

Dear Sorge,

Your letter of the 9th and that of the General Council of the 11th received.

1. Serraillier. What D[ereure] says is pure nonsense.¹ The priest story is confined to the following: Pottier, delegate of the Commune in the 2nd arrondissement, to whom Serraillier was attached, rented the churches to the priests (le dit délégué loue la boutique nommée Église etc. etc. au nommé ... pour y exercer le métier de curé! was the formula) and Pottier collected all the money and used it for Commune or arrondissement purposes and accounted for it to the Commune. Serraillier never had a sou of it in his hands. Le Moussu, who bites at the word “priest” like a hungry fish, once intended to arrest P[ottier] and S[erraillier] for this, because, as he puts it, c’était un commerce immoral². If it were a question of bad jokes, I don’t know who made the better one, Le M[oussu] or P[ottier] and S[erraillier]. But to base serious accusations on such childishness is more than childish. However, the French of today are children. What the demonstration of the 22 is supposed to be, I don’t know; I presume it was the attempted walkout of the minority[3], and the quarrel between majority and minority of the Commune still continues, and for all that is tinged with Blanquism it is still today a crime, and a capital one, to have belonged to the minority. For us here all this is ancient history; we have heard it in every key and ad nauseam and wouldn’t give a farthing for the whole gossip.

2. “Arbeiter-Zeitung” – certainly in a style that leaves nothing to be desired in the way of crudeness. However, that is American – all German-American literature writes like that. For the time being, neither M[arx] nor I have the slightest time for correspondence; I am up to my eyes in the Congress work[4], which is being edited in French, and M[arx] in his French translation.

3. Vienna. We know the affair only from the public sphere, as neither O[berwinder] nor Sch[eu] have written about it.[5] However, to us Scheu is suspect: 1. he is in communication with Vaillant, and 2. there are indications that, like his friend and predecessor the mad Neumayr, he is also in communication with Bakunin. The big phrases of the latter echo somewhat in Scheu’s articles and speeches, and you will recall how his brother⁸ bolted at The Hague[7] when the affair with B[akunin] came to a head. As far as the public polemic goes, nothing serious has so far been imputed to Oberwinder. His collaboration in bourgeois papers took place with the knowledge and approval of the party and directly for party purposes. If the “Times” were put at my disposal tomorrow, to write in it as I please and for payment, I would accept without hesitation. No one held this against Ecc[arius] until he turned the thing round, exploited the International in his own monetary interest and wrote no longer in its interest but in his and that of the “Times”. That O[berwinder] in Austria, where feudalism has been only partly overcome, the masses are still unbelievably stupid, and conditions are still roughly those of Germany before ’48, that he there does not instantly demand the most extreme things with the most radically far-reaching bluster, but pursues the policy which we recommended for the Germany of that time at the end of the “Communist Manifesto”, we shall certainly not hold against him. He may be at times too petty-bourgeoisly cautious, but firstly that is not proved and secondly no reason for such colossal bluster. And O[berwinder] is not an Austrian, hence liable to expulsion at any time. However, as said, we do not know the details and therefore still reserve our judgment.

4. Admissions demands.* – Assuming you are formally in the right to demand all this from individual sections, which is always questionable, certainly no Federal Council has ever made such bureaucratically precise demands, and had it made them, they would never have been complied with. What an enormous blunder it was to demand such things even in France is proved by the article in No. 49 of the “N[euer] Soc[ial]-Dem[okrat]”[8] which I am sending you today. I immediately instructed Hepner³ and yesterday, after having obtained precise information about Dentr[aygues] and Hedd[eghem], wrote the necessary piece to the “Volksst[aat]”.

5. We expect more news about France before taking any steps.† I do not see that you can take any steps at all. All our sections are gone. Heddeghem was already a spy at The Hague; Dentr[aygues] is not one, but out of personal motives and weakness denounced a few individuals who had previously beaten him up. One member, in order to raise money for the party, had given his watch to D[entraygues] to pawn it. D[entraygues]’s wife pawns it and afterwards refuses to redeem it or even hand over the pawn ticket. This causes a scandal. Some – mostly bourgeois – gang up, give D[entraygues] a thorough thrashing, and then denounce the matter to the public prosecutor, to whose pressing they confess that the money was for purposes of the International!!! This is the real beginning of the story – but since Heddeghem had already informed the Paris police of everything, this could at most have been new to the Toulouse police. It is these fellows that D[entraygues] denounced, no one else. How the police found out other things you will see from the “Volksstaat”. In any case, the organisation in France is momentarily bust up and will only gradually recover, as all connections are lacking. Larroque is in San Sebastian in Spain, his address: Monsieur Latraque, Calle de la Aduana, No. 21 – he lives there under that name. For pity’s sake send no new credentials to France. Larroque has got 3 years in contumaciam‡.

6. Stamps.[13] – I hardly ever see Le M[oussu], have had him asked by M[arx], but no answer. One can’t get any business done with these Frenchmen, unless one wastes whole weeks running after them, and that I cannot do.

7. Congress venue.[14] – I hope you have only asked the Swiss for advice, as we did the Dutch last year. There is only one possible place in Switzerland, and that is Geneva. There we have the mass of the workers behind us, and also a premises belonging to the International, the Temple Unique, where we can simply throw the gentlemen of the Alliance[15] out if they show up. Apart from Geneva, only Zurich would be possible; but there we have hardly more than the few German workers and not even all of them (vide “Felleisen”), and your enquiry could even have the effect that the centrally located Olten – main railway junction of Switzerland – might be proposed by some sides, where we would be in a real fix. The Allianceists are making every effort to turn up in masses at the Congress

¹ the said delegate rents the shop, called church etc. etc. to the said ..., to carry on his trade as priest there
² that this was an immoral trade
⁸ Heinrich Scheu
* see present volume, p. 574
³ “On the Articles in the ‘Neuer Social-Demokrat’”
 “The International and the ‘Neue’”
† We are waiting for further news about France before taking any steps.
‡ in absentia