ENGELS TO E. GLASER DE WILLEBRORD°*” 

(Excerpt from a letter] 

[London,] 19 August 1872 

As you will already know, victory is now ours. The Italians, 
self-styled Internationalists, have held a Conference at Rimini*” at 
which the representatives of 21 sections resolved that: The 
Conference, etc., etc. 

It would be advisable to publish this immediately, in the 
Internationale and the Liberté. Bakunin, whose style is detectable 
throughout the document, realising that the game was up, has 
beaten a retreat all along the line and, with his followers, is leaving 
the International. Bon voyage to Neuchatel. 

But what is even more absurd is that, of the 21 sections which 
claim the right to convene an International Congress, only one, 
that of Naples, actually belongs to the International. The 
remaining 20, in order to safeguard their autonomy, have 
repeatedly abstained from taking any of the steps prescribed by 
our General Regulations as conditions of admission. Their 
principle is ‘L’Italia fara da sé’*, they constitute an International 
outside the International. The three other sections which maintain 
relations with the General Council— Milan, Turin and Ferrara— 
did not send delegates to Rimini. 

Thus, in addition to the Conseil fédéraliste universel*™ constituted 
by societies which do not belong to the International and, for that 
very reason, claim to control it, we now have an anti-authoritarian 
Congress convened by societies outside the International and 
claiming to make laws for it. 

For the rest, this has happened just at the right moment to open 
the Spaniards’ eyes; in that country we have succeeded in enticing 
the fox from his lair. We have forced the Alliancists themselves to 
publish the Rules of the ‘eminently secret’ Alliance.'° The present 
(Spanish) Federal Council, with 5 Alliancists out of 8 members, 
has been unmasked and publicly denounced as perfidious to the 
International. Everywhere the struggle has broken out between 

a ‘Ttaly will cope on her own’ (the device of the Italian independence fighters in 
1848-49). 

Alliancists and Internationalists. The oldest Trade union in the 
world, that of machine- -spinners and weavers in Catalonia, 40,000 
strong,’ has come out in support of us and sent Mora, who is one 
of us, to the Congress 45° because, according to his mandate, he 
knows better than anyone else what the Alliance is like.” The 
Rimini resolution will put paid to the Alliance in Spain. 

The Danes are sending two delegates; the Germans 5 or 6 at 
least. Sorge and Dereure are on their way from America; the 
schismatics there want to send three. 

Lafargue is coming with a mandate from the Portuguese. 

Another advantage is that the Congress will henceforth be free 
of public rumpuses. Everything will go off decorously in front of 
the bourgeois public. 

As for the Neuchatel Congress, it will turn out to be nothing 
more than a meeting of the Jura Federation, in company with a 
few Italian sections, and hence an utter fiasco. 

At last all is going well, but we must not allow this to lull us to 
sleep. If the Internationalists do their duty, the Hague Congress 
will be a great success; it will establish the organisation on a sound 
basis and will once again enable the Association to develop 
internally in a peaceful manner while confronting its external 
enemies with renewed vigour.