Letter to Friedrich Engels, January 5, 1866

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To Engels in Manchester

[London,] 5 January 1866

Dear Fred,

In the greatest of haste.

Best thanks for the £10.

The bill of exchange falls due on 18 February, and is for £48. I wanted the landlord to draw it only for the 2 terms that were due and not for the third one as well, which is not due until the end of January. But he insisted.

A plot has been hatched against the International Association in which connection I need your co-operation. Further details later. For the moment, suffice to say: Mr Le Lubez and Vesinier (the latter well aware that an Inquiry into his past is in progress; he is in Brussels again) have a French branch here (in fact an opposition branch); Longuet, the editor of Rive gauche, also belongs to it, and it is tied up with all that pack of Proudhonists in Brussels. Vesinier began by publishing a long screed against us in the Echo de Verviers, of course anonymously. Then, in the same paper which is putting out the slanders against our Association (among other things, falsely calls Tolain and Fribourg Bonapartists, too), the London Branch published a programme, a draft of future statutes, which they, the Faithful, are going to put to the Congress.

The real crux of the controversy is the Polish question. The fellows have all attached themselves to the Muscovitist line pursued by Proudhon and Herzen. I shall therefore send you the earlier articles by the oracles in the Tribune du Peuple against Poland and you must do a refutation, either for our papers in Geneva (the ‘German’ one) or for The Workman’s Advocate. The Russian gentlemen have acquired some bran-new allies in the Proudhonised section of ‘Jeune France’.

Your
K. M.