London, 12 January 1889 

Dear Sorge, 

A very Happy New Year and my most cordial greetings to you and 
your wife.‘ 

Have got your letter of 29 December. I am sorry to hear that you as 
well as your wife are beginning to find the work a strain. But I hope this 
is only a passing phase and that you will gradually get used to it. I am 
well, but during the ghastly December fogs my eyes got rather worse 
again. I have pretty well sorted that out by taking more exercise and 
spending more time out of doors. 

The chief characteristic of European socialism just now is 
contentiousness. In France the Possibilists have sold themselves to the 
government and are using the secret funds to keep their unsaleable news 

4 willy-nilly — > That’s London life for you - © Katharina Sorge 

papers afloat; at the elections on the 27th they will vote for the bourgeois 
Jacques, while our people and the Blanquists have put up Boulé, of 
whom Lafargue believes that he will get no more than 16 to 20 thousand 
votes, and this they regard as a defeat. In the provinces, on the other 
hand, things are healthier. The Possibilists had convoked their congress 
at Troyes, but cancelled it when the local organisers issued an invitation 
to all Socialists??? So only our lot went, proving there that, if Paris was 
dominated by the Possibilists, the provinces were theirs. Now there are 
going to be 2 congresses (international ones) in Paris this year—ours and 
the Possibilists’. The Germans probably won’t go to either. 

Here in London the tuck? of an army of officers sans soldiers still goes 
on. It’s like Robert Blum’s column of 184934°—one colonel, 11 officers, 
1 trumpeter-and 1 private. Outwardly and before the public they appear 
to hit it off all right but the cliquishness behind the scenes is all the 
greater. Every now and again the bickering comes out into the open. 
Thus Champion, having been thrown out of the Social Democratic 
Federation, has founded a paper> (of which one No. goes off to you 
this week) and is now attacking Hyndman, but more especially his ally, 
Adolphe Smith Headingley, who is half French, swears by the 
Possibilists and is chief mediator in the Hyndman-Possibilist alliance. In 
the days after the Commune, the fellow was co-loafer of the London 
Branche francaise’ by whom we were abused and misrepresented, then 
ditto of the pseudo-General Council consisting of Jung, Hales & Co. I 
have evidence that he is still telling lies about us. This lout-interpreter at 
the international Trades Congress over here had the effrontery to come 
to my house one Sunday under the aegis of Anseele and Van Beveren4; 
when Schliiter arrives, he will tell you how I sent the fellow packing. 

As soon as the working class, as yet only just stirring, really gets 
under way here, every one of these gentry will be relegated to his level 
and station—some inside, some outside the movement. It’s now at the 
tooth-cutting stage. 

Contentiousness also prevails in the office of the Sozialdemokrat. 
Schliiter will be able to tell you about it. By the way, he is also to some 
extent party to it and capable of concealing what doesn’t suit his book. 
When I see how badly mismanaged the paper is here at headquarters, I 
can only admire our workingmen the more for the way in which they 
counterbalance and neutralise it all. 

* here meaning ‘farce’ ~> The Labour Elector —‘ In the German text Mitloafer, 
a play on the word Mitlaufer — a political hanger-on — 4 See this volume, p.239 

Mother Wischnewetzky is much offended because, instead of paying 
her a visit at Long Branch, I stayed with you so as to recuperate from my 
indisposition and get back into shape for the voyage. She seems to have 
been pained by the breach of etiquette and the want of gallantry towards 
ladies. However, I refuse to allow these little madams, who clamour for 
women’s rights, to demand gallantry into the bargain—if they want the 
same rights as men they should submit to being treated as such. She will 
probably simmer down however. 

We spent New Year’s Eve with Pumps and, because of the fog, had to 
stay the whole night tippling there. Tussy only Jeft at 5 a.m. by the first 
train. She is now staying in Cornwall for a week or two. 

Bismarck has been nicely cuffed over the ears by Geffcken and 
Morier.*4” If the Supreme Court has not yet gone so far as to accept his 
undergraduate-bully boy’s version of the penal code, this is thanks to the 
singular contempt with which young William? lately favoured those 
gentlemen at Leipzig. 

Diplomatic intrigue is at its height. The Russians have received 20 
million pounds,*48 in April the Prussians will get their new 8 mm maga- 
zine rifle (the 11 mm one—a new version of the Mauser—was utterly 
unsuitable for war), the Austrians are boasting like mad, claiming to be 
préts et archipréts,” which proves that they’re ready for another drub- 
bing, and in France Boulanger might come to the helm. Bismarck’s 
machinations with Salisbury in East Africa**? have only one purpose, 
namely to involve Britain so deeply in a joint operation with Germany 
that, even under Gladstone, it wouldn’t be able to draw back. Thus it 
was definitely against his will that William staged the Morier affair, but 
it’s he who has to carry the can. In short, the situation is becoming crit- 
ical and could lead to war in the spring. 

Your 
FE. 

Section I of Vol. III* is finished, I] and If in hand. Seven sections in all.