London, 27 September 1890 

Dear Sorge, 

Both your letters of the 10th of this month have arrived. 

Today I am enclosing some copies of the last issue of the Sozialde- 
mokrat with the usual newspapers. You might care to have some extra 
copies of this historic issue. 

Your information about Schewitsch is probably correct.* When he 
passed through London, he ran into Tussy at a meeting and told her 
he had heard that I had expressed myself in very malicious terms 
about him, which was why he preferred not to call on me. I lay this at 
the door of the noble Jonas— though it may also have been due to 
the prickings of an uneasy conscience. It’s the same old story as with 
so many Russians— une jeunesse orageuse et une vieillesse blasée,” as 
one of them has put it. 

Grunzig is a belletrist. And the rebellious little undergraduates in 
Germany are also belletrists (more ¢riste than belle“) who are out to 
revolutionise the whole of literature. This explains the whole business 
of the Volkszeitung article,*> for the mutual assurance Co. run by these 
gents also comprises Grunzig. Come to that, if a chap’s called Grun- 
zig or Greulich he’d do best to vanish without trace. 

* In two letters of 10 September 1890 Sorge informed Engels that Schewitsch had 
moved to Riga after the pardon by the Tsar. -° a stormy youth and a blasé old age -° 
more sad than beautiful-’ Grunzig resembles grunzen (grunt), Greulich— greuel 
(horrid, dreadful). 

I spent halfof August and September in Folkestone near Dover, and 
this extra recuperation after the trip to North Cape has done me a pow- 
er of good. I am refreshed and once more game for anything and, 
indeed, have an enormous amount to do— everybody looks to me 
now. 

Much will now be clarified by the congresses — Lille, 9 October, 
French parti ouvrier*? (ours); Calais, 13 October, ditto trades un- 
ions °°; Halle, 12 October will be the most important.'? I shall now 
tell you what is going on (for your own information— nothing what- 
ever must get into the press about it): 

The Brussels chaps, entrusted by the Possibilists with the convoca- 
tion of their congress in Belgium,? invited the Liverpool rrapgs UNION 
congress,?” who accepted with alacrity. In this way the English are 
committed and we have been placed in something of a predicament. 
After consulting the people over here, therefore, I asked first the 
French and then the Germans” to pave the way for the amalgama- 
tion of both the 1891 congresses, always supposing it is possible to ob- 
tain acceptable terms, namely, sovereign powers for the congress — 
which the Possibilists refused to concede to us last time —, the convo- 
cation to be the responsibility of both mandatories of both the 1889 
congresses, the procedure for the sending of delegates to be deter- 
mined beforehand, and a few other details. The French and Germans 
have agreed. Since a number of representatives of foreign parties will 
in any case be going to Halle, I proposed that a preparatory confer- 
ence be held there with a view to settling the preliminaries. This, 
too, is well in hand. Well, I suppose that every kind of asininity will 
nevertheless be perpetrated there; Tussy will probably be present and 
put a stop to some of them but the chaps are so gushing in interna- 
tional affairs, just when this attitude is least called for, that things 
may take a different course from the one I have set them on. At any 
rate I don’t rule that out. But nevertheless I think it will turn out all 
right. 

For a start, by holding our own congress in 1889,>! we showed the 
smaller nations (the Belgians, Dutch, etc.) that we were not prepared 
to let them have it all their own way, and next time they’! mind their 
p’s and q’s. 

Secondly, the Possibilists would appear to be in a state of complete 
disintegration.** Brousse, who controls the clique of Possibilist mu- 

* Workers’ Party-> See this volume, pp. 28-29 and 40. 

nicipal councillors and, through them, the Labour Exchanges,°*’ is 
openly at war with Allemane who controls the Paris trades unions 
and, more significantly still, is for peace with our people. Allemene 
wants to get into the Chamber in place of Joffrin, now defunct; 
Brousse wants Lavy or Gély to get in. They are so much at daggers 
drawn that Brousse did not dare to appear at Joffrin’s funeral where 
Allemane acted as master of ceremonies. They have also had a row 
with their few supporters in the provinces. And finally their coming 
out in opposition to the May Day demonstration did them 
enormous harm in the eyes of the Belgians and Dutch. Brousse and 
Allemane are also warring quite publicly in their papers.* 

So favourable are the circumstances—aside from the enormous 
moral invigoration derived by the Germans from their electoral vic- 
tory” and its consequences, namely the overthrow of Bismarck and of 
the Anti-Socialist Law,!! and which is directly responsible for mak- 
ing them the paramount party in Europe— that even with faulty 
tactics we can hope for victory. Either we shall succeed in obtaining 
fusion on a rational basis, in which case the congress will be dominat- 
ed by the German and French Marxists, or the Possibilists and the 
few who support them will be so manifestly put in the wrong that the 
English (the new rraves unions) will desert them; for in that case we 
should again be able to conduct in this country a campaign as in the 
spring of 1889, and with even better success. 

I am very glad that you intend to write for the Neue Zeit. If you find 
the conditions of payment unsatisfactory — needless to say, you must 
be paid at American rates—- don’t hesitate to tell them what you 
want, and refer the chaps to me. The Newe Zeit could become an organ 
of great importance. Bernstein will write from this country, Lafargue 
from Paris, and Bebel will do the weekly survey on Germany; that he 
can make a brilliant job of it has already been demonstrated in the 
Vienna Arbeiter-Zeitung. | never formed a definite opinion about 
events in Germany until I read Bebel’s articles on them. The lucid, 
objective way in which he presented the facts without allowing him- 
self to be swayed by his own preferences was unsurpassed. 

The Sozialdemokrat leaves a very big gap. However, before two 
years are out we shall be quarrelling openly with little Willie‘ and 
then we may see some fun. 

b 

* Le Prolétariat and Le Parti ouvrier-" to the German Reichstag on 20 February 1890 - 

© William IT 

Regards from Schorlemmer who is here, and from myself to you 
and your wife. 

Your 
F.E. 

I expect to get the 4th edition of Capital, Vol. I shortly, whereupon 
you shall instantly have a copy. The preface* might provide matter 
for the Volkszeitung.