On the Articles in the Neuer Social-Demokrat (From a Letter to A. Hepner)

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This article is part of Engels’ letter to Adolf Hepner, editor of Der Volksstaat, written in late April 1873 in connection with the libellous article about the International Working Men’s Association in the Neuer Social-Demokrat, No. 49, April 27, 1873. The letter was not meant for the press, but the newspaper editors published a part of it without mentioning the author in Der Volksstaat, No. 37, May 7, 1873. On May 2, Engels wrote “The International and the Neuer”, specially for the Volksstaat, which appeared in No. 38 on May 10, 1873 (see this volume, pp. 442-45).

For your further information about the Neuer’s notorious article, we wish to draw your attention—and, in part, not for the first time—to the following: a) to the absurdity of maintaining that Bakunin is against conspiracies, when he has instigated a general conspiracy—the Alliance—within the International, admittedly not against the government, but against the International; b) the notion that the International in France could lead any kind of existence other than a “secret” one after the Dufaure Law; that, however, a secret propaganda society and a conspiracy are two different things; c) the fact that the Hague Congress came out so energetically against the Blanquists, who wanted to make the International a vehicle for conspiracies, that they withdrew from the International and openly declared that they were against it because it lacked “revolutionary energy”; d) the fact that Heddeghem (Walter), the tall quiet man in The Hague with red hair—accompanied by a small woman dressed in mourning with a Mary Magdalene face, allegedly his “wife”—who has now been unmasked as an old police agent, was only put forward to the old General Council by Serraillier for admittance, along with his branch, after he [Heddeghem] had referred to the Blanquist Ranvier, a member of the General Council, and was acknowledged by the latter as thoroughly reliable; e) the fact that both Heddeghem and Dentraygues had the mandates of their sections as laid down in the Rules, and thus had to be admitted to the Congress, so long as no charge was brought against them, which did not occur to any member of the minority; f) the fact that the Neuer cannot be considered anything but a police organ as it reiterates the catchphrase, disseminated by police agents and Bonapartists such as Vogt & Co., that Marx is attempting to act as an “international leader of conspirators” and has already had “a dozen Communist trials”, when the very actions of the Hague Congress, with whose majority Marx is identified, against the Blanquists prove the opposite, and the police lies about the one Communist trial of 1852 were exposed long ago by Marx’s Revelations Concerning the Communist Trial in Cologne; g) the fact that if anyone from the Neuer Social-Demokrat is now, for once, sentenced to imprisonment, we know what we are to think, since the Neuer has itself drawn attention to the police manoeuvre of having police agents sentenced along with the others, but allowing them to lead a more comfortable life in prison. “May the workers always keep their eyes open!,,

Incidentally, Dentraygues was no spy, but a down-at-heel character, who only became an informer in cachot and then soon became an out-and-out creature of the police. On the other hand, Heddeghem was already a mouchard under Bonaparte; we have only the Blanquists to thank for him. The “grand old freedom fighter” Bakunin, however, has always had mouchards in his ranks—for example, Albert Richard, who has been his right-handman for France since 1868, since the foundation of the Alliance. And as the Jurassians claim that they also have secret sections in France (the trials prove the converse), where then is the difference affected by the Neuer?

As far as the article in No. 45 is concerned, a few things still need to be said about the claims made in it. Opposition to the Hague Congress has been voiced by: 1. The so-called Italian Federation, which has never belonged to the International because it refuses to recognise the General Rules, and for this reason can never belong to the International until it falls in line.— On the other hand, a number of genuine Italian sections have recognised them, and are in regular contact with the General Council. 2. The Jura Federation, 150 men, as against 4,000-5,000 in French Switzerland alone; it has, therefore, been suspended. 3. The Belgians. 4. Some of the Spaniards, while others have set up the Federal Council in Valencia, which is in regular contact with the General Council in New York. 5. In England all of ten men, who have not got a single real section behind them, while the English Federal Council, supported by numerous sections, several of which are 500 or more strong, and which are increasing week by week, makes recognition of the Hague resolutions a basic condition for admission. 6. The fact that, in France, “insofar as any organisation survives there”, it has remained loyal to The Hague and the General Council is demonstrated precisely by the trials that are the pretext for the article in No. 49. The “refugees of the Commune”, neither as such nor in their “majority”, have ever had occasion for “turning energetically against, etc.” since the faction never existed. The Blanquists, all five of them, including four members of the Commune, have withdrawn because the International would not allow itself to become the tool of their conspiracy. Otherwise nothing whatsoever has occurred to provide the remotest pretext for this lie.