London, 7 December’ 1872 

Dear Sorge, 

Today I am sending you the Emancipacién 76, The International 
Herald 36 and the Blanquist pamphlet,” which is quite unobtainable 
here and which I was only able to acquire this morning in a 
roundabout way. Serraillier has written off in answer to the Liberté 
in Brussels and the Egalité in Geneva, but those jackasses from 
the Egalité say it is too personal and refuse to print it! 

On 3.12. I sent you the Emancipacién 74/75, the Plebe 117 and 
The International Herald 33-35. 

MacDonnel sailed for New York on Wednesday, I gave him a 
few lines for you.” If the Fenians there” should still mistrust 
him, you would be doing a service if you could reassure them; he 
helped us here very ably and quite selflessly. 

1. Holland. Van der Hout arrived here the day before yester- 
day; the Dutch bourgeois will give him no more work, so he wants 
to look for some here. He says that the Jurassians had invited the 
Dutch Federation to a new separatist congress.” Whereupon they 
held a Dutch congress *° at which they resolved: 1. to stand by the 
General Council, 2. to send a delegate to the separatist congress, 
but only to report, not to vote, 3. not to recognise any congress 
but the legitimate one of September 1873 and only to put their 
complaints, etc., to it. So this amounts to the divorce of the Dutch 
and the separatists. 

2. Spain. You will have seen from the Emancipacion that all is 
going well there. Apart from those known to you, Lérida, the new 
federation of Cadiz, a large proportion of the Valencians and Pont 
de Vilumara have come out against the Federal Council. After the 
Spanish Federal Council directly contravened both the General 
and the special Spanish Rules by convening a congress in Cordoba 
on 25 December* to choose between the resolutions of The Hague 
and Saint-Imier, the New Madrid Federation announced that the 
Federal Council had forfeited its mandate, and is calling for the 

a In the original: ‘September’. - > Internationale et révolution 

election of a new provisional Federal Council.” This decisive step 
will soon clarify the position. In the meantime, a section of our 
people in Spain, above all the Catalan factory workers, think that 
the issue should be fought out at the congress in Cérdoba, and so 
will not join in for the present. The Alliance people are hurrying 
matters along so as to have a majority in Cordoba and they will 
most probably succeed in their aim, after which the Catalans will 
formally come over to us. 

3. France. Despite the intrigues of the Jurassians and the 
Blanquists things are going well in the South, where there will be a 
congress in the next few days which will endorse the Hague 
resolutions and will probably issue an address to the General 
Council.* However, they demand that there should be someone 
here with plenary powers who can also delegate temporary powers 
for France. There is a whole pile of money to be raised which can 
only be collected by a fully authorised agent on the spot. 
Larroque, our best man in Bordeaux, is now asking Serraillier and 
myself to grant him such authority to collect monies there, and I 
think I am justified in doing so by virtue of the money-raising 
powers conferred on me, until such a time as this is confirmed or 
cancelled by the General Council. Since it is vital that there should be 
somebody at the congress I have just referred to who does have 
some sort of authority emanating from the General Council, I am 
taking it upon myself to issue it to him,” and if you disapprove you 
should inform me at once so that it can be withdrawn without 
delay.—Lyons is the only place where the Jurassians have some 
support, thanks to the indolence of the Genevans, but otherwise 
they have only individuals on their side. You will have seen that 
the Bulletin jurassien has taken the side of that policeman, 
Bousquet, and has declared him to be a man of honour.? 

4. England. The opposition to Hales is growing. Murray, Milner 
and Dupont have come onto the Feperat Counci and will be joined 
by others. Riley has declared that he no longer wishes to have The 
International Herald as the official organ of this Federal Covunci. 
and, as you will see, the relevant part of the title has disappeared. 
However, it will probably be a while before the swindle finally 
collapses. The Hague resolutions” will appear in the next 
International Herald, as will also some reports by us on the course 
of events in the International. 

We do not even have a complete set of the minutes. Hales still 

a F. Engels. ‘Mandate to E. Larroque’. - > K. Marx and F. Engels, ‘Resolutions of the 
General Congress Held at The Hague from the 2nd to the 7th September, 
1872’. - © of the London General Council 

has some. It would be a very good thing therefore if you could 
authorise Marx to take possession of all the papers belonging to 
the International and/or the old General Council, and particularly 
the minutes.? 

A letter of authority for Serraillier for France is absolutely 
indispensable,”' unless you want everything to fall apart once 
more. Serraillier is continuing to conduct his correspondence 
energetically and we are finding the money for him to do so, but 
he is nothing but a private individual as long as he has not received 
proper authorisation; and for all their autonomy, the French do 
want to be directed by someone who has been duly authorised by 
the General Council. We have nobody else but Serraillier for the 
job here; Dupont is much too unreliable for such an extensive 
correspondence and is too busy with his patent. 

Greetings from Marx together with his family and from my 
wife.* Lafargue and Longuet are both here now so that pére Marx 
is surrounded by his entire family. 

Your 
F. E. 

Greetings to Cuno. Why does the scamp not write?