ENGELS TO FRIEDRICH ADOLPH SORGE |*° 

London, 17 May 1893 

Dear Sorge, 

The Lincoln affair happened while I was still in Manchester—at the 
end of 1864—but I have no more than a hazy recollection of it, nor, 
amongst Marx’s and my papers, have I ever set eyes on Lincoln’s reply. ~”! 
Maybe I shall come upon it tucked away somewhere, if ever I get round to 
sorting out and classifying the chaotic mass of stuff, but of that there can 
be no question unless I have three or four weeks to devote to it. All I can 
find is in Eichhoff’s pamphlet on the International, Berlin, 1868 (based 
on notes and material of Marx’s); p. 53 reads: 

‘Lincoln’s re-election on 8 November 1864 was an occasion for the General Council to 
send him an address with its best wishes. At the same time, it called mass meetings in 
support of the Union’s cause. That was why Lincoln, in his message of reply, expressly 
acknowledged the services of the International Working Men’s Association for the good 
cause.”* 

In short, all I can say is that such material as I have on the International 

“W. Eichhoff, Die Internationale Arbeiterassociation... (see present edition, Vol. 21, pp. 361- 
62). 

Working Men’s Association before 1870 is very incomplete—some of the 
General Council’s minutes, Marx’s and Lessner’s, and also partly Becker’s* 
collections of newspaper cuttings and, finally, Marx’s letters to myself. I 
haven’t even got a complete set of the General Council’s official documents, 
proclamations, etc., let alone the correspondence of the secretaries who 
retained virtually all of it. There are no official Congress minutes at all. 
Nevertheless, it’s far better than anything anyone else has got, and I shall 
classify it as soon as I can. But when? 

Volume II I” is progressing steadily. I have reached the two final sec-tions‘ 
and here too, I think, the worst is now behind me. But there’s still several 
weeks’ work to be done on them, after which I shall proceed to the final 
editing. I should like to send part of it to press before the summer holidays 
but don’t know whether I shall manage this. The final editing can be done 
while printing is actually in progress. And the matter is becoming urgent, for 
it looks as though we in Germany are about to enter a period of great turmoil 
and struggle which means that the thing has got to be finished before then. 

What my views are concerning German affairs you can see from the 
interview in Le Figaro’ which I am sending you by the same post as this. As 
in all interviews, the text has in parts become somewhat insipid and the 
thread sometimes gets lost, but otherwise it has been correctly reported. The 
morale of our people in Germany is altogether excellent; so far as they are 
concerned, the election campaign is a real boon and they revel in it, despite 
all the trouble and effort it costs them. Bebel, who spent a week here at 
Eastertime '*’—after the Brussels Conference '’”’—is a new man and writes to 
say that; in addition to Hamburg, he has been asked to stand for Strasbourg in 
Alsace where in 1890 we had 4,800 votes as against 8,200, and where a lot of 
the Francophils will vote for him. There are between a hundred and a 
hundred and ten constituencies in which we shall be kicking off with more 
than one third of the total poll (to go by the 1890 results) and in some eighty 
of the constituencies we shall, I think, either get in straight away or else in 
the second ballot. How many will fall by the wayside in the latter depends on 
the opposition candidate. Against Conservatives °° or National Liberals *°° 
our chances are very good, less so against Freisinnige '” and still less so 
against the Centre 

* Johann Philipp Becker - ° of Capital- ° Sections VI and VII (see present edition, Vol. 37) - 
Interview of Frederick Engels to the correspondent of Le Figaro on 11 May 1893 

supposing our opponents’ candidate sticks to his guns over the military 
question. ’° Bebel hopes for 50 or 60 seats in all. *”* 

The atmosphere in Germany has changed a lot and, though the bourgeois 
press may still vociferate as loudly as ever, the respect our people now 
command in the Reichstag has gained for them a position very different from 
before. Nor is it possible for anyone to turn a blind eye to the ever-growing 
might of the party. If, at the next elections, we again show a marked increase, 
respect may grow on the one hand but so, on the other, will fear. And the 
latter will drive the worthy philistines of one accord into the government 
camp. 

The May Day celebrations over here were very nice, but although they 
only happen once a year, they are already becoming almost a routine affair; 
they have lost their first bloom. Once again the narrow outlook of the Trades 
Council '*’ and of the socialist sects—Fabians ** and Social Democratic 
Federation “‘“—has led to our having two demonstrations. But everything 
went according to plan and we—the Eight Hour Day Committee—drew a far 
bigger crowd than the combined opposition. Our international platform, *”° in 
particular, was very well attended. I would estimate that there were in all 
240,000 people in the park, of whom we had 140,000 and the opposition 
100,000 at the outside. 

Champion, with his TORY and LIBERAL UNIONIST funds *”° (allegedly £100 
for each of the 100 working-class candidates agreeing to stand in hopeless 
constituencies merely in order to deprive the Liberals of votes), has been 
made a thorough fool of by our old friend Maltman Barry. This blockhead, if 
Scottish speculator, has joined the Tories of whom, by his own admission,” 
he is the paid agent, and would seem to have been planted alongside 
Champion, whom the fund-dispensing Tories do not altogether trust, as a 
sleeping partner and watchdog—what the Jesuits call a socius. Thus, during 
Champion’s illness, he was sole editor of the Labour Elector, and told such 
improbable tales out of school that he quite spoiled his own little game, thus 
temporarily saving the Independent Labour Party ''* from becoming the 
pawn of the aforesaid gentry. Unfortunately Aveling has been seriously ill 
for a month now; in view of the constant caballing that goes on here, he 
cannot well be spared. He has gone to Hastings ~”’ to recuperate for a while. 

If we should poll a considerably larger number of votes in Germany, this 

“See this Volume, p. 84 

will have a favourable effect on the elections this autumn in France. *”* If our 
people there get a dozen men into the Chamber (they are counting on getting 
four seats in the Département du Nord alone), it will mean they’ll have a 
nucleus there that will be strong enough to compel the Blanquists ~’ and 
Allemanists ~' to join forces with them. 

I am glad that your wife and you are better again. Warm regards to her 
and to yourself from L. Kautsky and 

Your 
F. Engels