3. F. Engels. To Enrico Bignami, Editor of La Plebe
3. F. Engels. To Enrico Bignami, Editor of La Plebe[9]
London, October 13 [1871]
Citizen Editor of La Plebe,
The General Council has entrusted me with sending you the enclosed resolution[3] and requesting that you publish it in the columns of your esteemed newspaper.
I remain yours sincerely,
Frederick Engels, Secretary for Italy
a F. Engels, "Resolution of the General Council Expelling Gustave Durand from the International Working Men's Association" (see this volume, p. 21).— Ed.
Endnotes
[9] This letter was published in English for the first time in The General Council of the First International. 1870-1871. Minutes, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1967.
[3] Jules Gottraux, a Swiss-born subject of Great Britain and a member of the International, was detained by the French police on the French-Swiss frontier on September 30, 1866, when he was returning to London from Switzerland. The police confiscated letters, printed matter, and other material entrusted to him by the International's leaders in Geneva for delivery to the General Council. The seized documents included the preliminary report on the work of the Geneva Congress which had been drawn up by Council member Joseph Card and published in French in Geneva as a pamphlet. (Later, this gave rise to rumours that the French authorities had confiscated the Congress minutes, which in fact had bv that time been brought to London by Hermann Jung.) The General Council decided to lodge a complaint about this wanton act and to use the fact publicly to expose the regime of the Second Empire. At the beginning of December, the Council addressed the British Foreign Secretary, requesting him to make a corresponding démarche to the French government, which forced the French authorities to return, on December 21, the materials taken from Gottraux.