London, 20 July 1889 

Dear Sorge, 

In my last letter I forgot to ask you if possible to question Hartmann 
about the article in the Evening News and Post. If you could get him to 
write a brief note in his own hand to the effect that the story is false and 
that he has not been to Europe, it would be important for us over 
here.*”6 Because, 

1. Bismarck is trying to make the Tsar* beholden to him by revealing 
alleged plots against his (the Tsar’s) life. 

2. Hitherto these have been going on in Switzerland, but now that the 
Swiss have expelled all potential plotters, operations must be transferred 
to London. 

3. This end is being served by the mouchard Carl Theodor Reuss, 
who had already, on a previous occasion, used the Evening News as a 
repository for his lying allegations with regard to dynamite. 

4, This latest Reussiad was telegraphed from Berlin to all German 
newspapers. 

If we can expose this business outright, there’ll be a nice rumpus over 
here. 

Yours of the 7th inst. received yesterday evening.*”” I don’t demand 
any particular satisfaction of Wischnewetzky for his failure to visit me.— 
It didn’t grieve me. So if he eats bumble pie vis-a-vis yourself, that will 
suit me. I did not call on his wife,“ whereat she took umbrage, which was 
why he failed to visit me, so that makes us quits. If these people view the 
matter in a similar light, I shall be content. Obviously if they demand 
more, I shan’t be able to oblige them. But as I have business matters to 
settle with his wife, it’s always best to be at least on speaking terms; ll be 
in no hurry to let them revert to anything more intimate, now that I 
know as much about them as you do. They’re a couple of conceited fools. 

Pop! The bubble of reconciliation has burst in Paris. How fortunate 

4 Alexander III - © police spy —¢ See this volume, p.223 

356 Letters ~ 1889 

that the Possibilists and the Social Democratic Federation, having rightly 
understood their position, should have preferred to deal our people a kick, 
thereby bringing the silly business to an end. That the thing had been 
prepared de longue main’ is evident from the whole series of now compre- 
hensible manoeuvres and utterances on the part of these gentry over the 
past 2 months. It is the old Bakuninist libel against the Hague Congress,** 
etc., to the effect that we had always operated with false credentials.*” 
This libel, which Brousse has been raking up off and on ever since 1883, 
was bound to come to the fore again on the present occasion, once they 
saw that they had been abandoned by all the socialists and that they could 
only save themselves with the help of the Trades Unions. The nature of 
their credentials will doubtless be revealed in the course of the furious 
polemic that is now flaring up. Unfortunately this old rubbish cuts no 
more ice today than it did back in 187345°; but something had to be found 
to cover up the fact that they have been utterly disgraced. However it’s 
just as well that our sentimental brethren, the advocates of reconciliation, 
received a savage kick on the backside in return for all their assurances of 
friendship. That will doubtless cure them for some time to come. 

I shan’t be able to send you any more papers until the next post (week- 
lies which Aveling writes for but which won’t come out until this evening 
and tomorrow); I have not had a single letter from Paris since Tuesday. 

As regards Lingenau,*”? congratulations on the sum extracted. 
Liebknecht alone was at fault here; Bebel is methodical and precise in 
such matters. No doubt Mount Desert will do you good; I too shall 
make for the water before long. 

Warm regards to your wife and the Schliiters. 

Your 
EE. 

Schorlemmer has been here since the day before yesterday and sends 
you both his best wishes.