London, 16 November 1872 

Dear Sorge, 

Your letter of the 25th crossed with mine of 2 November. Marx 
will have written to you since then. 

I gave a copy of the Address” to Serraillier in French and first 
of all to MacDonnel in English for the Irish. I next copied one out 
myself for The International Herald and lastly sent one to the 
Feperat Councit. The fact is that I was very uncertain whether the 
Fepera. Counci. might not suppress it or, alternatively, that they 
might not print it word for word with various mistakes in the 
English and strong Germanisms, so as to expose it to ridicule. I 
have, of course, changed the latter since the Address was, as it 
stood, quite unprintable either in English or French. We have 
always had such things corrected by some educated native. You 
will have to do the same as in official documents it is often not 
possible to make even grammatical alterations, and it is always 
fatal. For Hales and the Jurassians, etc., any mistake of that sort is 
in any case a source of amusement. 

Up to now the Belgians have not printed anything. 

You will have to send the Address to Australia yourselves; you 
will have had a visit from Harcourt in the meantime; I do not 
have any addresses in Australia."! 

Jones and Le Moussu have been warned. I shall see Serraillier 

tomorrow and shall tell him to send you a report which, on 
account of Dereure, will have to dispense with both names and 
addresses—the latter he can send you privatim. More on Dereure 
below. 

The stamps *” cost about £1—Le Moussu did the design gratis. 
To print the Rules in English cost around £12. 

I have already told you of the formation of two new Italian 
sections.” The official letter now enclosed. 

I am sending you today: 

1 Emancipacién and the manifesto of the Nueva Federacién 
Madrilefia” 

1 Egalité 

1 International Herald—report of the Fepera. Counci.‘ 

7 Résolutions du Congrés de la Haye. 

The following matters to report in addition: 

1. Blanquists. They have issued a pamphlet: Internationale et 
révolution of which several copies per Next steamer. They 
announce their resignation from the International on the grounds 
that with the transfer of the General Council to New York it has 
committed suicide. They will found their own association and are 
already intriguing actively in France. It is therefore absolutely 
essential, firstly, that Dereure should not get hold of any addresses 
in France, and secondly, that he should say where he stands. Of 
course, this second point is only urgent if you consider it desirable. 
Serraillier will reply to this concoction in the Liberté and the 
Egalité. Ranvier has told Lafargue that the first draft was so full of 
personalities that he declared he would never put his name to it. 
He had never seen the second, published, version and his name 
appeared under it without his authorisation. He has quarrelled 
with them: they have had the audacity to put him on trial because 
he continues to belong to a refugee club called the Cercle d’Etudes 
Sociales without permission, and he refused to submit to a 
schoolmasterly examination in the court set up by the purs (which 
is the name the Blanquists give themselves). As you can see, they 
are playing at Commune révolutionnaire in the same old way. You 
will be amused by their littke pamphlet in which Vaillant in all 
seriousness presents all our economic and _ political ideas as 
Blanquist discoveries. They have already started to cause trouble 

aK. Marx, General Rules and Administrative Regulations of the Internatio- 
nal Working Men’s Association. -% See this volume, pp. 444-45. - © Presumably 
J. Hales’ article ‘Federal Council’, The International Herald, No. 33, 16 November 
1872. 

16* 

in various places in France, apart from Paris where that tall man, 
Walter, is their agent. Although they are not a threat, they must 
not be given the means to stir up even more trouble, which is why 
Dereure must not have any addresses and why we must keep an 
eye on him. 

2. Spain. Matters are going splendidly here. The Feperat Councit 
has had a long thing printed and circulated on the quiet.°% It 
contains 

a) a report on the Congress by the 4 Spaniards which is full of 
lies,” 

b) the resolutions of the anti-authoritarians of Saint-Imier,°” 

c) a motion from the Barcelona Federation to convoke a 
Spanish Congress on 25 December which would decide between 
the resolutions of The Hague and Saint-Imier, 

d) a request to all local federations to give their views on this by 
10 November. 

The Nueva Federacién Madrileta replied to this with the 
manifesto being sent to you today. It objects to the submission of 
the Hague resolutions to any International assembly except for the 
purposes of consideration and implementation. (We have already 
sent the materials necessary to counter the lies of the 4 Spaniards to 
Madrid.) 

However, in order that the Spaniards should realise who actually 
rules them, the Jura Committee has already sent the Saint-Imier 
resolutions direct to all local federations in Spain with the request 
for their views on them; they have completely by-passed the 
Spanish Fepera, Councn. 

In the meantime, things have been happening in Spain. The 
federations of Gracia (industrial suburb of Barcelona) with 
500 members, of Toledo (200 members) and those of Badalona 
and Denia near Barcelona, have come out in our favour and 
against the Spanish Congress. In Valencia a large part of the local 
federation is on our side, as well as part of the one in Cadiz, which 
has already broken away from the old federation there. The sale 
of the Emancipacién, which had been moribund and kept alive by 
money we had sent from here, is greatly on the increase once 
more (150 copies in Cadiz, Valencia and Gracia alone). In Gracia 
there was a large general assembly on 4 November.” The 
Barcelonese, with Alerini at their head, put their proposal forward, 
but as Mora (who is there) writes: 

a ‘E] Congreso de la Haya’, La Federacién, No. 162, 21 September 1872. 

‘Despite all his shouting and gesticulating with his arms and his stick, Alerini 
was unable to convince these atheists that the Society of Jesus* had been acting 
well. So it was resolved to approve all the Hague resolutions and to censure the 
attitude of the Spanish delegates.’ 616 

Things are going well; if the worst comes to the worst we shall 
keep a very respectable minority in Spain which will part company 
with the rest and be of greater value than all the vague nonsense 
hitherto. However, it is quite possible that we shall smash the 
whole thing to pieces and throw the Alliance out. For all of this we 
have Mesa to thank, who has had to bear the brunt ail on his own. 
Mora is feeble and at one point vacillated for a moment. Read the 
article ‘Los medios de la Alianza’, in Emancipacién No. 71, to see 
how the Spanish Frnrrar Councit attempted to win over Mora by 
INTIMIDATION.©” 

3. London Feprra, Counc. Thanks to the slackness of the better 
people among the English, Hales and Mottershead have succeeded 
in gaining complete control of the Frpera, Councn. A mass of 
delegates from imaginary sections have momentarily provided 
Hales with a majority; he is secretary and treasurer all in one, and 
you can see from the report in today’s International Herald"™ that 
he is doing as he pleases. The only thing we can do is to hold the 
better elements together until those crooks clash with each other, 
which will happen soon enough. Give THEM ROPE ENOUGH AND THEY WILL 
HANG THEMSELVES. YOu will now be receiving The International Herald 
regularly so that you can see for yourselves how Hales is giving 
himself airs and acting as if he were the Generat Councit. As soon 
as an opportunity presents itselfi—a breach of the Rules or 
something of the sort—and, as an intimate and correspondent of 
the Jurassians, Hales will provoke one soon enough, our people 
will split off and form a federation of their own, perhaps one 
together with the Irish. Unfortunately MacDonnel is leaving for 
America, but even so we have a very good successor to him in De 
Morgan, one, moreover, who travels all over England as a Lecturer. 
He is completely in the picture about the situation. 

In order to ensure here the desired publicity for your 
proclamations, etc., it would be good if the General Council could 
officially put me in charge of these matters for England. The 
Feperat Counci. undoubtedly suppresses as much as it can, and 
although Riley of The International Herald is an honest fellow and 
has left the FreperaL Councu. in piscust, he is weak and somewhat 
dependent on the Feprrat Councn. for the sale of his paper. So if I 

a i.e. the Alliance of Socialist Democracy 

can show him a resolution to that effect he will be covered and will 
do everything. 

I leave it to you to decide whether you wish to send me plenary 
powers for Italy.° In view of the struggle there, in which our 
people are in a tiny minority, swift intervention would be very 
desirable. I do indeed maintain my private correspondence with 
them and also write for the Plebe, but without plenary powers I 
cannot exert any influence on the sections, which, like the one in 
Turin, appear to be going to seed entirely and do not 
communicate at all, something which happens all too often in 
Italy. 

Marx is on a visit to Longuet and his wife in Oxford for a few 
days”° so as to go through a part of the French translation of 
Capital with Longuet. He will probably not be back before 
Monday.* 

In my opinion you should in any case delegate plenary powers 
for France to Serraillier.’ This sort of correspondence can- 
not possibly be conducted from over there; only, you should 
require him to send you monthly reports. You will not find anyone 
better; Dupont is too negligent unless he is spurred on daily 
and we frequently do not see him here for a fortnight at a 
time. 

As to the Jurassians, it is our view that the best way to proceed 
is simply to declare that they had disqualified themselves from 
membership of the International by the resolutions of their 
congress in Saint-Imier,” which contravene such-and-such articles 
of the Rules and Administrative Regulations, and then simply to 
notify the other federations of this fact. Incidentally, things are 
going badly for them. In Biel, where they no longer had a single 
member (see Scissions”), a new section has been formed but it has 
affiliated itself to Geneva, and their model section in Moutier (see 
Scissions) has repudiated the resolutions of Saint-Imier. As you 
see, the Hague resolutions are already bearing fruit every- 
where. 

As for Germany, it would be good if Marx were to have plenary 
powers—just in case of emergencies with the Schweitzerians. 

All these are matters that you must consider. 

I am up to my eyes in work here. The fact that Mesa has started 
to translate the Manifesto has forced me to send him a revised 

version of the French translation from the Socialiste? The version 

a 18 November - > K. Marx and F. Engels, Fictitious Splits in the International. 

you brought with you in manuscript turned out to be very useful 
in this, as it is much better, although still based on Woodhull’s 
English.” I am taking the opportunity this .provides to put the 
French translation in order altogether. In addition I have articles 
to do for Volksstaat, Emancipacién and Plebe; and as soon as 
Lafargue, who is now here, has found somewhere to live, we shall 
make a start on the Alliance business.”* Lucain still has a lot of 
papers in Brussels and now writes that he will send them at the end 
of next week, because he wants to copy them!* 
What is that scamp Cuno up to? 

Your 
F. Engels