ENGELS TO CESARE BERT *” 

{Draft] 
London, 21 March 1872 

Citizen Carlo Bert, 

I have received your address from Citizen Et. Péchard, who was 
passing through Turin at the end of February, and also the 
information that you are now the secretary of our section 
Emancipation of the Proletarian, instead of C. Terzaghi, who was 
expelled for embezzlement, etc. It will therefore now be my pleasant 
duty to correspond with you. 

I have just received a long letter from Terzaghi* saying that he 
resigned as secretary and member of the Emancipation of the 
Proletarian because this society is made up in part of government 
agents and Mazzinians, and that this society wanted to pass a vote 
of no confidence in him because he was preaching war on capital. 

Naturally, we here are much more inclined to believe what you 
and the other members of your Council told Péchard than what I 
hear from Terzaghi, who has always played all sorts of tricks on 
us. But in order to be able to act confidently and decisively and to 
fulfil our responsibility at the next Congress, we should like you to 
send us an official letter from your Council, setting out the 
charges against Terzaghi and letting us know the resolutions 
passed by your society concerning him. In no way can we have two 
rival, warring sections in the same town. Fortunately, the 
Administrative Regulations (Resolutions of the Basle Congress) 
give the General Council the right to admit or reject any new 
section.*”° You yourself see how necessary it is for our organisation 
to possess a right which Terzaghi’s Jurassian friends wanted you to 
believe was authoritarian and unjustifiable. 

Please reply as quickly as possible. A fraternal handshake. 

Yours