{London,] 7{-8] May 1872 

Dear Cuno, 

It is very good that you are writing to Bismarck about your 
case—this should be done, if only to induce him to compromise 
himself and thus afford Bebel an occasion to address the 
Reichstag.—-By now you will have received The Eastern Post with 
the report on the General Council meeting at which I talked about 
your case‘; I sent that issue off on the 2nd inst. You have 
probably also received the newspapers sent you on 24 and 
27 April. I also reported on the arson plot, but this is very badly 

a Natalie Liebknecht - > See this volume, pp. 356-57. - ¢ F. Engels, ‘On the Police 
Persecution of the Member of the International Theodore Cuno’. 

stated in the report, which I am sending you tomorrow, as is 
usually the case when I don’t write these things myself.°° 

I have written off to a friend in Manchester* on your behalf, a 
cotton-spinner who will certainly do his best for you. Unfortunate- 
ly, he only spends 2 days a week in Manchester now as, for the 
next 4 weeks or so, he has to spend the rest of his time in his 
father’s factory in the country. He will therefore not be able to do 
very much for you until he has returned for good. And as 
misfortune would have it, another friend, a CONSULTING ENGINEER who 
has a lot of connections, happens to have just left for a two-month 
trip to Germany. So if I have nothing positive to tell you at the 
moment, you must put it down to these circumstances. 

The secret society of the Bakuninists in Spain is a fully 
established fact; you will be able to read the details in the report 
(the second one) on the Saragossa Congress in the Brussels Liberté, 
which you will probably find in the Volksstaat in the next few 
days.” Luckily enough, the best of the people in it soon realised 
that the interests of this secret enterprise and the interests of the 
International were not at all identical, and as the International was 
dearer to them than everything else, they immediately shifted 
their stand and remained in the secret society solely in order to 
check on it and to paralyse its activity. One of them was here as a 
delegate to the Conference? and saw for himself that everything 
they had told him down there about the intrigues, dictatorship, 
etc., of the General Council was empty twaddle. A short time later 
one of our best men—half Frenchman, half Spaniard ‘—came to 
Madrid, and this settled the matter. The Spaniards have an 
excellent organisation, of which they are rightly proud, and, as it 
happens, it has shown itself in the best light during the past 6 
months. And now along come these jackasses from Bakunin’s 
Alliance to the Saragossa Congress*” and demand that they 
should kill off the entire organisation and render it impotent 
simply for the sake of the ‘autonomy of the sections’! All the 
criticism the Jura camels made of the General Council, all the 
demands which they put to the General Council—the cancellation 
of all the powers transferred to it, the demotion of the General 
Council to the level of a mere correspondence bureau—all this 
was applied in Spain to the Spanish Federal Council. Of course, 
the Spanish workers simply laughed these doctrinaires out of court 
and in one voice bid them to be silent. This is the severest blow 

a Anselmo Lorenzo - » the London Conference of 1871 - © Paul Lafargue 

Bakunin has received up to now—he was undoubtedly counting 
on Spain—and there cannot fail to be repercussions in Italy. 

I do not doubt for an instant that the same secret society exists 
in Italy, though, perhaps, not in as rigid a form as in formalistic 
Spain. The best proof of this for me is the almost military 
precision with which the very same slogan, issued from above, was 
simultaneously proclaimed in every corner of the country. (Note 
that these are the very same persons who always preach the 
principle dal basso all’ alto* to the people, and to the International!) 
It is only too easy to understand that you were not initiated, for 
even among the Bakuninists only the leaders are admitted to this 
esoteric society. Meanwhile, some individual symptoms of improve- 
ment can be observed in Italy. The Ferrarese have acquiesced; 
they have recognised the Rules and Administrative Regulations 
and have sent their own Rules here for our approval,” something 
which explicitly goes against the Bakuninist slogan.” The damned 
difficulty in Italy is simply getting into direct contact with the 
workers. These damned Bakuninist doctrinaire lawyers, doctors, 
etc., have penetrated everywhere and behave as if they were the 
hereditary representatives of the workers. Wherever we have been 
able to break through this line of skirmishers and get in touch 
with the masses themselves, everything is all right and soon 
mended, but it is almost impossible to do this anywhere due to a 
lack of addresses. That is why it would have been of great value 
for you to have remained in Milan and to have been able to visit 
various cities from time to time—if not now, then at any rate later 
on. With one or two able comrades at the key points we should 
have managed to deal with all this rabble in 6 months or so. 

As for the Spanish police, all I can tell you is that apparently 
they are frightfully stupid and that there is no unity at all among 
them. For instance, one of our best men in Madrid‘ was ordered 
to be deported by the Minister of the Interior,’ but the Governor 
of Madrid said quod non,” and he remained there undisturbed. 

8 May. After writing this much I have now received your letter 
from Seraing. I cannot understand the business with the Prussian 
police.** The police could not do anything at all to you unless you 
had given them an excuse for legal proceedings, something you 
will doubtless have taken good care not to do. Could your Papa 
have staged such a comedy in order to rid himself of an 
inconvenient son? 

a from the bottom to the top - > Cf. F. Engels, ‘To the Society of Ferrarese 
Workers’. - © Paul Lafargue - 4 Mateo Sagasta - © No 

At all events, I enclose 50 francs in banknotes, serial numbers 
below. I have no addresses in Seraing, but shall write at once to 
César De Paepe, Hopital St Jean, Brussels (he is a member of the 
Belgian Federal Council) and ask him to send you some. I shall 
also write to Alfred Herman, 57 Mont St Martin, Liége (though 
whether he is still in Liege I do not know). If you do not hear 
soon from De Paepe, write to him, mentioning my name. If you 
go to Liége, look Herman up. I enclose a few lines to him,” he 
will be able to give you everything—it is better than my writing to 
him through the post, he may no longer be there—you are quite 
close to Liége after all. An unrequested letter opened by the post 
might betray you. 

As for Becker,* I shall clear up the somewhat comic mystery in 
my next letter. Until then, 

Sincerely yours, 

The letter to Herman should only be given to him personally! He 
also lives with reactionary parents and brothers and sisters. 

8 May, evening. As I had to go into town to get the enclosed 
Banque de France fifty-franc note (dated 11 October 1871, 
No. 2 648 626, in the upper left corner—626, in the upper right 
corner—Z 106), and it was too late to send this letter off by 
registered mail, which had to be done because of the money, I still 
have time to tell you the story about Becker, which is another 
instance of what petty intrigues go to make up world history. For 
a long time old man Becker has retained his own ideas of 
organisation, dating from the epoch before 1848: little groups, 
whose leaders keep in touch in a more or less organised way to 
give the whole movement a common thrust, a little conspiratorial 
activity on occasion, and the like; and then another idea, likewise 
dating from that period, is that the central executive organ of the 
German organisation must be located outside Germany. When the 
International was founded, and Becker took over the organisation 
of the Germans in Switzerland and other countries, he established 
a section in Geneva, which was gradually converted into the 
‘Mother Section of the Group of German-Language Sections’ by 
organising new sections in Switzerland, Germany, etc. It then 
began to claim the top leadership, not only of the Germans living 
in Switzerland, America, France, etc., but also of the Germans in 

a Johann Philipp Becker 

Germany and Austria. This was all the old method of revolution- 
ary agitation employed up to °48, and as long as it was based 
upon the voluntary subordination of the sections, there could be 
no objection to it. But there was one thing the good soul Becker’ 
forgot: that the entire organisation of the International was too 
big for such methods and purposes. Becker and his friends, 
however, accomplished something and always remained direct and 
avowed sections of the International. 

In the meantime the labour movement in Germany was 
growing, freeing itself from the fetters of Lassalleanism, and, 
under the leadership of Bebel and Liebknecht, it came out for the 
International in principle. The movement became too powerful 
and acquired too much independent significance for it to be able 
to acknowledge the leadership of the Geneva Mother Section; the 
German workers held their own congresses and elected their own 
executive organs. The relationship of the German workers’ party 
to the International never was made clear, however. This 
relationship remained a purely platonic one; there was no actual 
membership for individuals (with some exceptions), while the 
formation of sections was forbidden by law. As a result, the 
following situation developed in Germany: They claimed the rights 
of membership, while they brushed aside its obligations, and only 
after the London Conference did we insist that henceforth they 
would have to comply with their obligations as well. 

Now you will understand that there not only had to arise a 
certain rivalry between the leaders in Germany, on the one hand, 
and the Geneva Mother Section, on the other, but that individual 
conflicts also became unavoidable, especially over the payment of 
dues. The extent to which the General Council has been 
authoritarian in this affair, as in every other, you can see from the 
fact that it has been completely uninterested in the matter and has 
left both sides entirely to themselves. Each is right in some 
respects and wrong in others. From the very start Becker has 
attached great importance to the International, but has wanted to 
cast it in the long-obsolete mould. Liebknecht,etc., are in the right 
insofar as the German workers want to rule themselves, and not 
be controlled by an obscure council in Geneva; but in the last 
analysis they have sought to subordinate the International to their 
own, specifically German, aims and to make it serve them. The 
General Council would intervene solely at the request of both sides 
or in the event of a serious conflict. 

Liebknecht evidently took you to be an agent of Becker’s, 
travelling on behalf of the Geneva Mother Section, and _ this 

explains all the mistrust with which it seems he received you. He is 
also a man of °48 and attaches more importance to such trifles 
than they deserve. You may be glad that you did not live through 
this period—I have in mind not the first revolutionary wave from 
February to the June battle (that was splendid), but the 
democratic bourgeois intrigues, beginning with June 1848, and the 
ensuing emigration of 1849-51. At the present time the movement 
is infinitely greater. 

This, I trust, will explain the reception you got in Leipzig. No 
special importance should be attached to such trifles—they are all 
things that are overcome by themselves in time. When you meet the 
Belgian members of the International, you will, perhaps, again 
be disappointed. Above all, don’t entertain too great illusions 
about these people. They are very good elements, but the cause 
has, by and large, run along in a worn-out rut, and phrases are 
more important to them than the cause itself. The big words 
autonomie and autoritarisme can attract a large audience in 
Belgium as well. Eh bien, vous verrez pour vous-méme.* 

Yours very truly,