Marx-Engels Correspondence 1866
Source: MECW Volume 42, p. 314;
First published: in Marx and Engels, Works, Moscow, 1934.
Dear Becker,
It is absolutely imperative that Jung be made President of the congress,
1. because he speaks the 3 languages, English, French, and German.
2. Jung truly represents the Central Council, Odger (who furthermore only knows his mother-tongue) was not elected by the Central Council; we elected 4 delegates, with Jung at the head; Odger was only to go if he could raise the money himself (guaranteed by us, of course). He has done nothing for the Association.
3. Cremer and Odger have hatched a very mean plot to prevent Jung and Eccarius leaving on the very last day.
4. Odger wishes to be elected President of the congress as a means of impressing the English and imposing himself as President of the Central Council for next year, against the wish of the great majority of the Council.
5. Cremer and Odger have both betrayed us in the Reform League, where they came to a compromise with the bourgeoisie against our wishes.
6. Mr Cremer has morally debased himself completely. All his efforts are now aimed at securing a ‘paid’ post for himself, so that he need not work. In no circumstances must he therefore be elected as General Secretary by the congress. (The only paid post.) They must elect Fox, on the pretext, which is incidentally true, that the General Secretary must know more than one language.
9. The President of the Central Council must not be elected by the congress but here in London, as a figure of merely local importance.
10. At the election of the President for the congress, you must say at the outset that an international congress can only be presided over by a man who can speak the various languages, simply to save time, etc.
11. Convey this to Dupleix.
12. I should be glad if you would get Eccarius to translate the instructions which I wrote in the name of the Central Committee for the London delegates into German beforehand.
Regards and handshake.
Your
Karl Marx