London, 22[-23] April 1872 

Dear Cuno, 

This morning I received your letter,* which I had awaited with 
anxiety. Gandolfi wrote me some time ago” saying it was believed 
that the Italian government had handed you over to the 
Prussians.—I found out about your arrest, etc., from the papers, 
which indicated that you were being deported for ‘lack of visible 
means of support’. A police statement to that effect appeared in a 
Milan newspaper. This affair is not without significance. It is the 
first exploit of the international police conspiracy organised by 
Prussia, Austria, and Italy, and if you haven’t been transported by 
the police from the Bavarian frontier to Düsseldorf, you owe this 
solely to the stupidity of the Bavarians. Tomorrow evening I shall 
report the matter to the General Council, after which the whole 
story will be included in the official report, which will be printed 
in The Eastern Post and sent out to every part in the world.° In the 
meantime, write an article about this in your own name and send 
it to the Volksstaat, the Geneva Egalité, and the Gazzettino Rosa. We 
shall take care of here, America, and Spain, as well as of France, 
over here.*” The rascals will finally have to realise that they 
cannot keep on doing this with impunity and that the Inter- 
national’s arms are longer than those of the King of Italy.“ As 
soon as the story is printed I shall send you a copy, together with 
all the newspapers I can collect for you—they won’t be too 
numerous. 

The advice Liebknecht gave you—to write to Bismarck—is very 
good, but for altogether different reasons. First, instead of 
assisting you to obtain redress, Bismarck will be very glad it 
happened and will merely be irritated that the Bavarians released 
you, instead of realising that this gave them a splendid opportuni- 
ty for having a member of the International transported all over 
Germany by the police. But you should write to Bismarck simply 

a Cuno’s letter of 17 April 1872 -& on 14 March -¢ F. Engels, ‘On the Police 
Persecution of the Member of the International Theodore Cuno’.- 4 Victor 
Emmanuel II 

in order to be able to send his reply—which will be nothing but a 
lame excuse, of course—at a later date to Bebel, who will use it to 
raise a row in the Reichstag. But it is out of the question, of course, 
that Bismarck will do as much as lift a finger to punish Italy for 
having fulfilled his orders so well. 

You must not be surprised that you have received so little 
support from the party comrades. From one of your previous 
letters I had already realised that you laboured under youthful 
illusions concerning the aid people receive when in _ need. 
Unfortunately, my answer to this letter was confiscated by the 
Mordecaians*” and never reached you. I should add _ that, 
although our German workers have far outstripped all the others 
as concerns theory, in practice they have by no means shaken off 
their artisan-type mentality, and owing to the dreadfully petty- 
bourgeois character of life in Germany, they are tremendously 
narrow-minded, especially in money matters. That is why I wasn’t 
at all surprised at what you experienced in this respect. If I had 
money, I should send you some, but we here are really on the 
rocks just now. We have more than a hundred helpless refugees 
of the Paris Commune, literally helpless, for no people ever feel as 
helpless abroad as do the French; and what they didn’t eat up, we 
sent to a fine chap* in Cork, Ireland, who founded the 
International there and was rewarded by being excommunicated 
by the priests and the bourgeoisie and completely ruined. We are 
in a tight spot at the moment. If we get some money from 
somewhere or other, I shall see to it that you are not forgot- 
ten. 

Let me know in what branches of your profession you have had 
practical experience and in general what you can do. I shail look 
around immediately to see if anything can be found for you here. 
England is overrun by foreign engineers, it is true, but perhaps 
something can still be done. I have some very good contacts. 

During your imprisonment all sorts of things have happened. In 
Turin Terzaghi was sacked from the Emancipazione del Proletario 
for embezzlement and suspicious dealings with the Questore.” He 
still managed to publish 2-3 issues of the Proletario in which he 
attacks them as canaglia, borghesi, vigliacchi,° etc.— just as he earlier 
attacked the Federazione Operaia—but the paper now appears to be 
dead, just like almost all the little new papers in Italy— Martello, 
Campana, etc. I wrote to Terzaghi,* asking him about these 

a John De Morgan - » police superintendent - © canaille, bourgeois, cowards - 4 See 
this volume, pp. 352-53. 

accusations, and he sent me a copy of the Proletario full of abuse, 
saying that I could see from that what a lot of scoundrels they 
were! I had had my suspicions about the man for months. Regis 
(who visited you under the name of Péchard, and who is in 
Geneva at present) found out that he was constantly going to 
Locarno to see Bakunin, and it is a good thing that he now stands 
exposed as a plain rascal. 

In Bologna the Fascio Operaio of the Romagna has held a 
congress in the course of which they threw off their masks and 
emerged as outright Bakuninists.*’ The Romagnese are joining 
the International, but won’t hear a word about the need to 
recognise the Rules, etc. They have not yet written to us, although 
the congress took place on 18 March; we shall give them a jolly 
reception!—-The Ravenna section has written to us announcing 
that they intend to join but salva la propria autonomia.* I shave 
simply asked them whether they accept our Rules or not.* 

I have just been looking at a heap of papers that has been sent 
to me and see that Pezza and Testini have also been arrested in 
Milan (around 30 March). 

The circular of the General Council on Bakunin and Co.” is in 
the press and will probably be ready by the end of next week. I 
shall send you a copy without delay. It sets forth everything quite 
bluntly, and it will produce a terrific row. 

I believe I'll be able to send you newspapers tomorrow— 
Gazzettino Rosa and some other Italian items, in general, anything 
I can lay my hands upon. 

A congress of the Spanish members of the International was 
held in Saragossa on 8- ll April, at which our people won a victory 
over the Bakuninists.“? It now turns out that the Alliance de la 
démocratie socialiste' continued to exist in Spain within the 
International as a secret society under the leadership of Bakunin—a 
secret society aimed, not against the government, but against the 
mass of the workers! I have every reason to suspect that the same 
thing is going on in Italy. What information do you have on this 
subject? 

If anything comes of the job in Spain that Becker‘ had in mind 
for you, let me know at once so that I can give you letters of 
introduction to our people there. That job will probably be in 
Catalonia, the only industrial province of Spain, and you will be 
able to do very useful work, since the mass of workers there are 

86 

a reserving their autonomy - > K. Marx and F. Engels, Fictitious Splits in the 
International. - © Johann Philipp Becker 

admittedly good but leave their newspaper (La Federacién in 
Barcelona) and the key positions in the hands of the Bakuninists. 

There is only one newspaper appearing in Turin now— 
L’Anticristo, something of the order of a weekly Gazzettino Rosa. 
Then there are La Plebe in Lodi, I! Fascio Operaio in Bologna, and 
L’Eguaglianza in Girgenti*—all the other Italian newspapers are 
dead. Experience in other countries made it obvious to me long 
ago that this was bound to happen. It is not enough to have a few 
people at the top; the masses in Italy are still too backward to be 
able to support so many newspapers. Prolonged and dogged work, 
with more theoretical content than the Bakuninists possess, is 
required to free the masses from the influence of the Mazzinist 
nonsense. 

Many thanks for the Milan address. Would it not be a good idea 
for you to write first and ask the man” to send you a report on the 
present position of the International in Milan? You could then 
send it to me and I would reply to him. The present 
corresponding secretary is Mauro Gandolfi, i.e. one of Bakunin’s 
supporters. 

Write to me very soon—especially on what you are able to do in 
your profession, so that I can take the necessary steps. 

Cordially yours, 

The address you have been using to write to me (that of your 
Düsseldorf letter) is by far the best. 

23 April 1872