 With August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht, Lange continued to try to push the VDAV to the left: from the initial liberal position of Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch to a position that took the interests of the working class itself more seriously (Bebel 1958, 103; Hundt 1965; Na’aman 1980, xxv). He also joined the International Working Men’s Association, the First International, in 1866 (Weikart 1999, 84). As the political repression increased, newspapers were no longer willing to publish Lange’s articles. Lange set up his own newspaper, Der Bote vom Niederrhein, that ran from October 1865 to June 1866. Marx and Engels had turned down his initial request for support for such a newspaper (Lange 1968b, 78–79; Irmer 1975,  14).[5]  Lange had intended the newspaper to help maintain unity within the workers’ movement, but he failed in these efforts (Hundt 1965, 694–96; Offermann 2002, 42, 147–148; Lange [1866] 1968a, 23 May 1866, 3 June 1866). By the end of this period Lange was politically isolated, having broken with the liberals, and being unwilling to fully join the socialists. (He did not attend the VDAV in Nuremberg in 1868, despite Bebel’s encouragement to do so; see Ridolfi 2015, 23). He was also losing hope in the working class, and felt that the left was being outmaneuvered by Bismarck, in part because of the international military successes of Bismarckian politics (Ellissen 1905, 7; Nipperdey 1985, 790–803). Discouraged, he left for Switzerland.