1884
Dear Bernstein,
First a Happy New Year to you, Kautsky and the whole newspaper office.[3]
Then a request to send me last week's Sozialdemokrat. It should have arrived on Saturday, 29 December, but hasn't reached me yet.
A fortnight ago I was at last able to get up again, have improved steadily and hope to be fit for work in a week's time. And a damned good thing too!
I trust you were not too much infuriated by the number of amend-ments I made to your ms. ' ' [8] As I once said to Kautsky, while we cannot imitate Marx's style, our own ought to be such as not to be wholly out of keeping with Marx's. Provided you don't lose sight of this altogether, we may well produce a work that is presentable.
The note on American slavery a shall be done, and various others besides. I shall also be able to include a fair amount in the preface.b
How true the passage on slavery was is still evident today: capitalist production in the cotton states is not prospering — through not having any coolies, Chinese or Indian, i. e. slaves disguised as free labour; whereas in Cuba, Mauritius, Réunion, etc., it flourishes in so far as, and only in so far as, it has coolies at its disposal.
As regards your earlier inquiry about the passage from The Civil War in France in the preface to the Manifesto, ' [3] c you will, no doubt, concur with the answer that is given in the original [The Civil War, pp. 19 ff.).a I am sending you a copy in case you have not got one there. It is simply a question of showing that the victorious proletariat must first reshape the old, bureaucratic, administratively centralised state machine before they can use it for their own purposes; whereas, since 1848, all bourgeois republicans, so long as they were in opposition, have heaped abuse on that machine but, no sooner in office, have taken it over intact and made use of it, partly against reaction but to an even greater extent against the proletariat. That the Commune's unconscious tendencies should, in The Civil War, have been credited to it as more or less deliberate plans was justifiable and perhaps even necessary in the circumstances. The Russians have very properly appended the passage from The Civil War to their translation of the Manifesto.[1]*2, If there hadn't been such a great rush over getting it out, we could have done this and one or two other things.
Apropos. You once spoke of Guesde's disreputable past, or something of the sort. I know absolutely nothing about that. Undoubtedly just a pack of lies on Malon's part, but I should be glad if you would enable me to clear the matter up.
I shall shortly be sending you one pound sterling from Schorlemmer for his subscription, the balance for party purposes. It's too late to take out a money order today.
At last things have got moving again in Russia. The affair of the sledge and the Tsar is most suspect,'[34] that of Sudeikin, on the other hand, crystal clear.[135] We should like to send Alexanderc a telegram wishing him 'a happy holiday'.
Has Tussy Marx sent you To-Day and the last numbers of Progress? If not I shall attend to this. These two are completely divorced from the TRADES UNIONS movement and are in fact run by a very motley society. Bax is very honest but still somewhat green, Aveling is good but has little time in which to familiarise himself with economics, a subject utterly foreign to him. Joynes is an unreliable chap (once a schoolmaster at the big doss house at Eton, travelled to Ireland with Henry George, was arrested with him and lost his post; is therefore looking around to see what's doing) and Hyndman, an ambitious party leader in partibus infidelium,b provisionally in search of a party and meanwhile issuing orders into the blue,— come to that a pretty shrewd fellow.a One's best course is to do justice to the aspirations without identifying oneself with the persons. At all events, the publication of To-Day and the transformation of Progress into a socialist journal is of great significance at this particular juncture, now that the poor in the East End OF London are beginning to find their voice. On top of that, all over the country we have chronic overproduction which now seems to be hastening on the crisis. Circumstances are favourable, but whether the people who have taken the matter in hand are a match for those circumstances remains to be seen. This time it's hardly likely to remain without a sequel, as have so many previous curtain-raisers.
Now basta. I haven't written a letter as long as this for the past three months. Schorlemmer and I send our cordial regards to all our friends.
Yours,
F.E.
44. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 9 Januaryb
Dear Kautsky,
(Why must we continue to bore each other with 'Mr'?) The news about the coronation scenery is absolutely typical and has aroused much mirth; at the same time we have taken care that it does not leak out prematurely over here; i. e. before the scenery has been delivered and paid for. ' [3] [6] Not a soul knows about it apart from Schorlemmer, Lenchen and Tussy.
Many thanks for Frankel's address. So far as purely theoretical matters are concerned, Deville's sum-marya is the best that has yet appeared. He has understood everything aright, though his use of terminology has been very lax and this I have amended in the manuscript. On the other hand the descriptive part is treated far too cursorily, with the result that some of it is totally incomprehensible to anyone unfamiliar with the original. Again; what would make for much greater ease of comprehension, particularly in a popular account, namely the historical emergence of manufacture and large-scale industry as consecutive historical periods, is pushed much too much into the background. (We aren't even told that 'factory legislation' does not operate at all in France, but only in England!) And, finally, he gives a full summary of the entire contents, including stuff which Marx had had to bring in if his account of scientific developments was to be complete, but which is not necessary to an understanding of the theory of surplus value and its consequences (and this alone is what counts in the case of a popular summary). Similarly as regards the number of coins in circulation, etc.b
But then he also quotes verbatim from Marx's recapitulatory propositions, having given no more than an incomplete account of the as-sumptions upon which they were based. Consequently these propositions are frequently so distorted that in the course of my perusal I often found myself wanting to contest a proposition of Marx's, the limi-tations of which are made plain in the original by what goes before; in Deville, however, they are accorded absolutely universal, and hence false, validity. I can't change this without redoing the whole ms.
Now as to your translation of this,[137] my position vis-à-vis Meissner compels me to adopt an entirely neutral position. As soon as you write and tell me definitely that you will take the thing on, I propose, and I have already discussed this with Tussy who shares my view entirely, to act as follows: I shall write to Meissner saying that someone intends to publish Deville's piece (which I shall send Meissner) in German and that I can see nothing in this that might damage the sales of Capital—boost them, more likely; I shall then add that I cannot stop it but that, if he intends to take preventive action, he might let me know and I shall then pass this on.
Seen in the abstract (i.e. disregarding Meissner), a new popular and short account [half the size of Deville) of the theory of surplus value is much needed, and Deville's work is, so far as theory goes, far better than the rest. What should be dropped are 1) detailed refer-ences to the individual chapters and subsections of Capital and, 2) anything that is not necessary to an understanding of the theory of surplus value. This will involve rewriting the descriptive part from the beginning, and also considerable abridgement. It would allay the worst of Meissner's misgivings, especially if we changed the title to e. g. Unpaid Labour and Its Transformation into Capital or something of the kind.
At worst the thing could be printed by Dietz and published in Switzerland, like Bebel's Frau.[138]
So give the matter some thought and drop me a line. I enclose the two photographs[11] for you and Motteler. The business of the missing no. of the Sozialdemokrat has since been cleared up — the greatest success scored by Social Democracy to date is to have contrived to put 53 weeks into a year,[139] —a. real miracle. Just let them carry on like that and we'll all live two per cent longer.
Kindest regards to Bernstein and yourself from
Yours,
F.E.
I had intended to enclose a one pound money order from Schorlemmer but it is now too late; must do so in my next. When does Tussy's and my subscription expire? Up till yesterday she had not received her Sozialdemokrat either. Might it have been forgotten? Kindly look into it.
45. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 14 January
45
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
IN PARIS
London, 14 January 1884
My dear Laura,
Herewith cheque £15.- which I hope will stop the landlord's cravings. The same dearth of news of which you complain, reigns supreme here, and old Nim and I have the house much to ourselves, of which I at least do not much complain, being still rather shaky and progressing only slowly. Percy is very busy in his new concern, and has had very poor health lately, rheumatism, erysipelas of the nose, and to wind up, catarrh of the stomach. Tussy and Aveling called yesterday. 'Yesterday' reminds me of To-Day which I suppose you have got. A rather motley society[3] of most of which lot Heine said:
Viel dunklere Wolke war die Idee, die ihr im Herzen getragen!b Well, it's a beginning, and they will weed each other out in time.c
Do you receive the Sozialdemokrat? If not, let me know. There ought to be an exchange of publications between Zurich and Paris which you might organise, it will prevent such blunders and misunderstandings as were current some time ago. Kautsky wishes to translate Deville's Capital,[131] has a copy been sent to Zurich? If not please see to it (address Redaktion Sozialdemokrat, Volksbuchhandlung, Hottingen-Zurich, Suisse). If this translation be done, I shall require another copy to be sent to Meissner, to prevent unpleasantness hereafter. I shall let you know, as soon as it is settled.
Herewith 5 photos of Mohr and 4 of mine. Of Mohr's you can have as many as you like, large or small.
Paul's examples of victorious German 'goût' are mostly as old as the hills. ' [4 0] That German gravures pour enfants (Bilderbogen)d are generally good, is simple enough. For more than 50 years they have been made chiefly at Düsseldorf, Munich, etc., and the designs are by young and often rising artists who do this work to earn a little money. 40 years ago however I recollect that French gravures ofthat sort came to Germany, a good many by Adam the horse- and soldier-painter, and they were immensely superior to the German ones in chic and life. If that has not been continued by French artists, they must have found no market.
As to toys, the German superiority is 1 ) cheapness, domestic industry at starvation level (described lately by Dr Emanuel Sax, Die Hausindustrie in Thüringen, very good) and 2) in that they are invented by peasants; townspeople never will be fit to invent for children, least of all French townspeople who hate their own children.
For furniture Paul gives the reason himself: the stupid fiscal policy of the French government.
Flowers similar: division of labour and low wages: who can compete against the East End of London and Germany in cheapness? Generally speaking, bourgeois taste is getting so much out of taste that even the Germans may hope to be able to satisfy it. And if any trade has become broken down enough to make 'cheap and nasty' its market-rule, then you may be sure the Germans will step in and defeat all competition by starving their own workpeople. And as this is the rule generally now for all trades, it explains the appearance of German goods in all trades and all markets.
I sent Lavroff last Thursday's Standard containing a report of an interview of their correspondent with a Petersburg police chief and in which Lavroffis blamed for all — the whole thing of course got up for the benefit of the philistine, but so stupidly that the effect aimed at is visible plainly in every word.[135]
Jollymeier left here last Monday,a better a good deal, but not yet himself again. Sam Moore did not come at all, he had a bad catarrh of the stomach and is now busy at the court of chancery in Manchester and Liverpool. He is doing very well indeed in law-business, for a beginner.
Had a letter from Meyer b this morning informing me that he will not be here till March, and asking from me nothing less than to forward to him all the material I have for the history of German Socialism up to 1852! which of course I w,ant myself for Mohr's biography.[30] Of course I shall decline.
Nim sends her love to you and Paul, and to use the sacramental philistine British phrase, I 'join' her.
Very affectionately yours,
F.E.
46. Engels to August Bebel. 18 January[94][3 4]
Dear Bebel,
At last I have recovered sufficiently to spend at least a few hours a day at my desk and thus fulfil my obligations in regard to letter-writing. The thing was neither serious nor painful, but damned tedious and gênant* and I shall have to take great care of myself for some little while yet.
You will have received my letter about Miss Issleib written in bed in pencil. Since I have heard nothing more, I can only suppose the matter has been dropped. ' a ' — I dictated to Kautsky, who happened to be on the spot, ' [2 5] a letter to Liebknecht[39] which I hope he has received and shown to you as requested. From it you will have seen that I am under no illusions as to the American business,b nor was I in any way inclined to give you the impression that I regarded the thing as absolutely essential. But I still maintain that, if it is to succeed, you two must go and no one else. Whether you can do so, I have absolutely no idea — you will know best. But this much is certain — no amount of American money will make good the damage that will in-fallibly be done if, after the manner of Fritzsche and Viereck, the emissaries again water down the party's viewpoint into a semblance of vulgar democracy and homespun philistinism.[47] And your presence would certainly be the best guarantee that nothing of the sort would happen.
I was delighted by the good news you sent me about the movement's progress. The government could not, in fact, have hit on any better means of keeping the movement going and intensifying it than by everywhere involving our chaps in these violent local struggles with the police, particularly when the police in Germany is made up of such worthless characters that our lads can turn the enemy's own weapons against him and take the offensive. And if, on top ofthat,— as recently in Berlin — the police are confused by constantly changing instructions from above, so much the better.
Should there be any repetition of the attempt to bring 'the right to work' back into fashion,[142] I would write something about it in the Sozialdemokrat. I have discussed this with Kautskya; but first I should like Geiser and Co. to commit themselves a bit, to produce something tangible for us to go on, though Kautsky maintains that they won't. These ne'r-do-well students, shop assistants, etc., are the bane of the movement. They know less than nothing and are, for that very reason, reluctant to learn anything at all; their so-called socialism is npthing but philistine hot air.
Whether you will rid yourselves of the emergency article,[67] I cannot say; there will always be the pretext that only in this way is it possible to protect the person of old William,b a phrase before which all Philistia will grovel on their bellies.
Many thanks for your book Die Frau. ' [3 8] I read it with great interest and there is much in it that is very good. What you say about the development of industry in Germany is particularly good and clear. This is a matter to which I, too, have again been turning my attention of late and I would, given the time, write something about it for the Sozialdemokrat. Odd, how the philistines fail to realise that the 'plague of vagabonds' they so lament is, in the present state of agriculture and handicrafts in Germany, the inescapable consequence of the rise of large-scale industry, or that, because Germany is always the last to arrive on the scene, the development of this selfsame large-scale industry can only take place there under the constant pressure of poor business conditions. For the Germans are only able to compete by paying lower wages, depressed to starvation level, and by regularly exploiting to the utmost the cottage industry that forms the background to manufacturing industry. The transformation of handicrafts into cottage industry and the gradual transformation of cottage industry, in so far as this pays, into manufacturing and machinery— such is the present trend in Germany. So far, the only large-scale industry proper we have is iron; in the textile industry — thanks to starvation wages and the fact that weavers possess potato plots — the hand-loom still prevails.
In this country, too, industry has taken on a different character. The ten-year cycle would seem to have been disrupted since 1870, when American and German competition began to destroy England's monopoly of the world market. Since 1868 business has been slack in the main branches, while production has been gradually increasing; and now, here and in America, we appear to be on the eve of another crisis which has not, in England, been preceded by a period of prosperity. That is the secret behind the sudden emergence of the socialist movement over here — sudden, although it has been slowly maturing for the past 3 years. Organised labour — TRADE UNIONS — has, as yet, no sort of connection with it; the movement proceeds under 'educated' elements of bourgeois origin, some of whom seek to make contact with the masses and occasionally succeed in so doing. Morally and in-tellectually, these elements vary considerably and it will be some time before they sort themselves out and the position becomes clear. But the thing is hardly likely to fizzle out again altogether. Henry George and his nationalisation of land [143] may well play a meteoric role because this issue is of traditional significance over here — of real significance, too, owing to the vast dimensions of the big estates. But in the long run this by itself must cease to have any pull in what is the world's leading industrial country. Besides, George is a bourgeois born and bred, and his plan of meeting all state expenditure out of rent is merely a second edition of the Ricardian school's plan, i. e. purely bourgeois.
If you wish to study a model of state socialism, then take a look at Java. There the Dutch government has, on the basis of the old, com-munistic village communities, organised production as a whole along such nicely socialist lines, and so neatly assumed control of the sale of all produce that, apart from some 100 million marks for army and civil service pay, there remains each year a clear profit of some 70 million marks for payment of interest to the luckless creditors of the Dutch state.a Bismarck is a mere child by comparison!
One way or another, we shall have a Russian constitution in the course of this year, and then the fun will begin.
Your
F.E.
47. Engels to August Bebel. 23 January[3]*
Dear Bebel,
I forgot to say in Saturday's letterb that you and Liebknecht should on no account order copies of the third edition of Capital0
since we shall be sending one for each of you as soon as we get any. A third will go to the party archives in Zurich.[144]
Tussy will have written to you regarding a translation of Die Frau.[1]*[5] It's unlikely that you'll get any royalties from it, though there's no harm in trying — at most 3 PENCE = 0.25 mark per copy sold; that is the usual form here. The actual book could, I believe, only fetch, say, 2 à 2.50 marks here, of which 30% at least would go to the retail booksellers. Moreover, the kind of publishers who deal in such books are very few and far between and also pauvres.d We ourselves shall have to invest something like £200 in cash in the English edition oïCapital,i6 and may also have to advance the translator's fee, and then work on a fifty-fifty basis; it probably couldn't be done in any other way.
Kindest regards to Liebknecht and yourself from
Your
F.E.
48. Engels to Charles Fitzgerald. Between 26 and 28 January[146]
Enclosed I beg to hand you post office order 10[sh.] 10 for my year's subscription to Justice.
I am so overcharged with work, not only for the immediate future, but for a considerable period of time to come, that it would be folly on my part to promise contributions to your paper. I have been disabled from active work for the last six months and am only now slowly re-gaining the strength necessary to accomplish my most urgent task — to prepare for the press the manuscripts left by my late friend Marx. So that I am bound to devote all my time. I did promise an article to To-Day but that was in better days and I am afraid they too will have to wait.
49. Engels to Eduard Bernstein. 28 January[9 4]
Dear Bernstein,
You\will have got my letter of the 1st, as will Kautsky that of the 9th.a I am in some doubt about the latter, being unsure of the number of the house (38?); I also sent him the photographs he wanted.[15]
My inquiry today concerns the following: Various things among Marx's papers will be suitable for the party archives [144]; just now I am in process of sorting his books, etc., and am glad to be again in a condition to do so. Besides these, however, there is a good deal of superfluous stuff which would be very useful to an editorial library for the party organc and is superfluous here, as we have in duplo.d Firstly dictionaries: 1) the big French-German Mozin-Peschier, 5 volumes quarto, binding very dilapidated, 2) the old Italian Jagemann, also very good, 3) Spanish, Dutch, Danish, perhaps even more. I can't yet be sure whether Tussy might not want to keep one thing or another; if not shall I send them to Zurich with the remainder? Besides these, one thing or another will continue to turn up and could be offered to you, once I know that you are interested.
Further, as regards Justice. This paper has suddenly been launched upon the world by Hyndman with insufficient financial and absolutely no literary preparation. To-Day might survive and within 6 to 12 months pave the way for a weekly. But as it is the two of them are bound to sap each other's strength. Hyndman, however, cannot wait and will probably burn his fingers yet again. They have asked me to contribute, but I refused on the grounds of lack of time. One can send stuff to To-Day without hesitation; but this won't do in the case of a weekly purporting to be a party organ until one knows the whys and wherefores. It is apparent from the complete dearth of ideas in the first two numbers that the chaps are at their wits' end and are looking to new contributors for further material. In short it has mis-fired and only an unexpectedly favourable turn of events can put it on its feet.
In case Mr von der Mark or anyone else should again speak of our 'concessions' to the anarchists,a the following passages prove that we had proclaimed the cessation [Aufhören] of the state before the anarchists even existed: Misere de la philosophie, page 177:
'La classe laborieuse substituera, dans son développement, à l'ancienne société civile une association qui excluera les classes et leur antagonisme, et il • n'y aura plus de pouvoir politique proprement dit, puisque le pouvoir politique est précisément le résumé officiel de V antagonisme dans la société civile.''b'
Manifesto, end of Section II: 'When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared ... the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for op-pressing another.'' c
The last issue of the Sozialdemokrat" was again very good. Cheerful and plenty of meat in it. Admittedly this last does not always depend upon the editors. Your rendering of Lafargue is truly delightful; the German substitutions cheered me up enormously. ' [2 2]
Regards to Kautsky.
Yours,
F.E.
50. Engels to Ludwik Krzywicki. 28 January
IN BORSDORF NEAR L E I P Z I G "
[Draft]
London, 28 January 1884 122 Regent's Park Road, N.W.
Dear Comrade,
In reply to your kind note of the 23rd inst.,[147] we shall be only too happy to welcome the appearance of a Polish translation of Karl Marx's Capital and are perfectly willing to assist, in so far as this lies in our power, in the removal of any obstacles that stand in the way of its publication.
Accordingly, in our capacity as the author's literary executors, wea
hereby give you our express permission to publish this translationb
and we wish you every success.
time
51. Engels to Pyotr Lavrov. 28 January
My dear Lavrov,
Some three weeks ago I sent you a Standard containing an article I thought might be of interest to youc; I hope it reached you safely.
I am at present engaged — as my health at long last permits — in sorting out the books, etc., left by Marx. Amongst other things they comprise, thanks to the kindness of Danielson, an entire library of Russian books, with some very important material on present social conditions in Russia; it contains almost everything that has been brought out on the subject. At my age, and overburdened as I am with work, it would be impossible for me to resume a novo[2]' the thorough-going survey of Russia so unfortunately interrupted by the death of our friend.[57] So it seemed to me, and Tussy is of the same opinion, that it was our duty to place these books at your disposal. In your capacity as the acknowledged representative of the revolutionary Russian emigration and as an old friend of the deceased, you have clearly more right than anyone else to the collection of books so devot-edly provided by friends, both yours and ours, in Russia — either for your personal use or to form the nucleus of a library for the revolutionary Russian emigration. If you accept, I could send them either to your own address or to any other you might indicate this February. The only books I should keep here would be those from which Marx had made extracts, along with one or two others which I might need for the second volume of Capital'a; the remainder when all de-ductions have been made, would amount to a hundred or so volumes at the outside.[148]
As for the second volume, I am at last beginning to see daylight. For the most important parts — i. e. the beginning and the end of the second book, Circulation of Capital,— we have a version dating from 1875 and later. To this nothing needs to be added save quotations in accordance with the indications supplied. For the middle section there are no fewer than four versions dating from before 1870, and therein lies the only difficulty. ' b The third volume, Capitalist Production as a Whole, exists in two versions dating from before 1869; subsequent to that there is nothing but a few notes and a notebook full of equations, the purpose of which is to arrive at the many reasons why the Mehrwertsrate becomes the Prqfitrate.b149 But the extracts from books both on Russia and on the United States[80] contain a vast amount of material and copious notes on land rent, while others relate to money capital, to credit and to paper money as an instrument of credit, etc. As yet I do not know what use I shall be able to make of this for the third book; it might perhaps be better to combine them in a separate publication, and I shall certainly do so if the difficulty of incorporat-ing them into Capital proves too great. My chief concern is that the book should come out as soon as possible, and also and above all that the book I publish should be unmistakably a work by Marx.
Any day now we should receive copies of the 3rd edition of Volume I, a and one will be sent off to you as soon as they arrive.
The Russian publications from Geneva — the Manifesto, etc.[78] — gave me much pleasure.
I have just had a letter from two Poles, Krzywicki and Sosnowski, requesting ourb consent to a Polish translation of Capital which, of course, we gave.0 Sosnowski is in Paris; do you, by any chance, know these citizens? [150]
Yours ever,
F. Engels
52. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 4 February
Dear Kautsky,
A quick line before the post goes. Please write and tell me by return what sort of version you propose to do of Deville [1 3 7]—word for word, including all the titles, or abridged, as I suggested? d As soon as I know this, I can put the matter to Meissner; I must have something definite to tell him. A copy has been ordered for Meissner in Paris; by the time it arrives, your answer may have got here as well.
I shall be glad to look over the theoretical part, although I can hardly suppose it is necessary. There's no point in my looking over the descriptive part, as you won't have any difficulty in avoiding Deville's mistakes. Of these the chief is his presenting as absolute, Marxian propositions which, in Marx, hold good only with qualifications (omitted by Deville) and which therefore appear false.
All other matters in a day or two.
Yours,
F.E.
53. Engels to Eduard Bernstein. 5 February[6 1]
Dear Bernstein,
You can set your mind at rest about one thing: I could wish for no better translator than you yourself. ' ' [8] In attempting, in the first sheet, to give an accurate and precise rendering of the sense, you have paid rather too little attention to the syntax, voilà tout." Moreover I wanted to incorporate Marx's idiosyncratic syntax which is unfamiliar to you; hence the many emendations.
If, having once put the sense into German, you go through the ms. again with an eye to readable syntax, at the same time bearing in mind that you should wherever possible avoid the wearisome syntax of the schoolroom which always puts the verb of the subordinate clause right at the end — and which was drummed into all of us—, you will have little difficulty and be perfectly capable of putting everything right yourself.
You would do best to send me the ms. by sections, each of them ± a
a whole, 1, l'/[2] or 2 printed sheets at a time. In which case I shall also supply the notes for it straight away. I should also like to see the proofs; many things look quite different in print.
Please send me the article on Proudhon in the old Social-Demokrat.XiX I had overlooked it; the whole thing might have to go into the preface. You will get it back, of course.
As regards von der Mark and the Volkszeitung, I am entirely of your opinion.[130] When Marx died, Schewitschyà/^«^ my telegram to Sorge and printed it as though it had been sent to the Volkszeitung. I protested.b He glossed over the falsification with the lie that the first word had been illegible — though he copied it correctlyl while the other he had 'considered necessary in the interests of the paper'! Moreover he thought it 'petty' of me to have drawn his attention to it. Petty it certainly was not, magnanimous rather, considering the way those gentlemen took advantage of Marx's death to draw attention to themselves and proclaim their semi-alliance with Most. However, Schewitsch is the last Russian socialist aristocrat; such men must always 'go further than anyone else' and are accustomed to use the world at large as a means to serve their own ends. The article on to-lerance was downright silly. ' [5] [2] Russians have set about one another con amore,c as have the Irish.
I don't know whether you get the Travailleur, etc.; I receive a few copies from time to time and shall send them to you. Also two Sozial-demokrats with scorings by Marx which might interest you.
I shall keep Schorlemmer's pound here then; will you debit me with this, in return credit Schorlemmer with his annual subscription, and pay the balance (inserting an announcement to this effect in the Sozialdemokrat) into the election fund.d Similarly, will you debit me with Tussy's and my subscriptions, supposing that she doesn't decide to send you To-Day in exchange. Finally, will you alter Tussy's address and send items to Miss Marx, 32 Great Coram St., London, W. C. As to what is to be done with the money for Marx's memorial, I have absolutely no idea.e How much is there altogether? If you wish, I shall write an article for your issue of 14 March. Let me know roughly what it should be about so that it fits into your scheme.[153]
Meissner, then, will doubtless still have copies of the 18th Brumaire"a; his failure to push it is doubtless attributable to timidity. Marx sold him the entire edition, so there is nothing we can do.b
Tussy has taken the best of the dictionaries — French and Italian — but there are still plenty left and I have made certain that you get one particularly nice item — the editorial copy of the Neue Rheinische Leitung. The parcel will go off in the course of this month.
I don't know of any poems — König Dampf, perhaps, from my Condition of the Working-Classc? A search is being made here for the English original, but it seems to have fallen into oblivion, like the Serbian of Goethe's lament of Hassan Aga's noble wife, only still more so, since the latter does after all still exist in black and white.
What wouldn't Bismarck give to have the 'Viennese in Berlin', namely the anarchists! A perfect caricature of the Russians — though obviously bred by the policel I54
Yours,
F.E.
54. Engels to Pyotr Lavrov. 5 February
My dear Lavrov,
So I shall send you the books; that is agreed.d
The 2nd volumee — ah! If you only knew, my old friend, how it weighs on me! But then six months have gone to waste, thanks to my infernal illness. And, even so, I shan't be able to set about things seriously before the middle of March. It will take me up till then to get all the books, papers, periodicals, etc., in order, and I can't work on them for more than a few hours a day without becoming overtired. It weighs on me all the more heavily for the knowledge that there is not another living soul who can decipher that writing and those abbreviations of words and style. As to publication by instalments,[155] that will depend to some extent upon the editor and upon legislation in Germany; hitherto I have not thought such a method particularly useful for a book of this kind. I shall try and do what AonaTHHta wants in regard to the proofs. But then Btpa 3acyAmn>b wrote to me a couple of months ago asking whether I would allow her to do the translation. I told her that I regarded AonaTHirb as having first refusal and that it was still too soon to talk about the matter.d What could be discussed at once, however, would be the possibility of publishing the translation in Russia. Do you think that might be done? The 2nd book is purely scientific, dealing solely with questions as from bourgeois to bourgeois, but the 3rd will contain passages which make me doubt the very possibility of their being published in Germany under the Anti-Socialist Law.[37]
The same difficulty applies to the publication of Marx's complete works, and that is only one of the many difficulties to be overcome. I have some 60 sheets (each of 16 printed pages) of old manuscripts by Marx and myself dating from between 1845 and 1848. Of this material only extracts could be published, but I shan't be able to get down to it until I have finished with the manuscript of the 2nd volume of Capital. So all we can do is wait.
The article you speak of, ' [5] [6] and which we no longer have here, will amount to between 3 and 5 printed sheets; it is a detailed summary of the political development of France from 24 February 1848 up till 1851. It is summed up in the 18th Brumairee but all the same it is worth translating. I myself am on the lookout for a complete set of the Neue Rheinische ^eitung Revue,' only [2]/[5]ths of which are in my possession.
55. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 5 February
Deville sent me his manuscript[8] ' for revision. Being indisposed, I confined myself to the theoretical part where I found little that needed correcting. However the descriptive part has been done in too great haste. To begin with, it is at times unintelligible to anyone who has not read the original and, what is more, he frequently presents Marx's conclusions while passing over the conditions under which those conclusions alone hold good; at times that gives a somewhat false impression. I have drawn his attention to this, but they were much too eager to publish the book.
Yours ever,
F. Engels
55
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
IN PARIS
London, 5 February 1884
My dear Laura,
I knew he b would turn up again. Received the Travailleur. Much amused that Paul and Guesde had 'manqué train'.b 157 Hope soon to receive good news about the children,c Tussy is rather anxious about them; and hope you got over your cold. Nim has caught one just as bad as yours can be, I wanted her last night to take a hot whisky night-cap, but she declined, so you may think. Pumps is below, she called yesterday with Elsa, who looks as plain as ever (and quite as angular at the same time), they met Tussy and Aveling here, who called on business; Bradlaugh and Mrs Besant are furious at the new Socialist 'rage' in London which threatens to cut short their vittles, and so have opened an attack or two on Tussy and Aveling. Bradlaugh throws about the most mysterious innuendos about Mohr's having preached assassination and arson and having been in secret league with Continental governments,— but nothing tangible.[158]
I want to get him to come out a bit more, before I unmask my batteries.
Nim and I are now busy among the books at Maitland Park.[159]
There are a good many that would be uselessly heaped up in my place or at Tussy's, indeed there will be no room here for more than half. Now there is a lot of good French books and valuable, which we thought might be more useful in your and Paul's hands than anywhere else, for instance:
Mably, Oeuvres complètes. Adam Smith in French (capital edition bound).[3]
Malthus — ditto.[15]
Guizot, Histoire de la civilisation en France. All the books about the French Revolution (Loustalot,a deux amis de la liberté,[160] etc., etc.).
Now if you will have them we will send them to you free of charge. I cannot make out a complete list. Also if Paul wants any more American official publications, there are lots — I shall require but a few. There are some other books of yours here {Old England Dramatists etc.) which can be sent same time.
Please let me know soon, as time becomes pressing and we are in an awful embarras de richesses.b The Russian books we have promised to Lavroff, he is I think positively entitled to them, being Danielson's next friend outside Russia. Another lot of duplicates, etc., we intend sending to Zurich — part for the Partei-Archiv,[1][4].c part for a biblio-thèque de rédaction. The Blue Books •d ' mostly to Sam Moore for use with the translation.[6] And a few 'popular* things to the Arbeiterve-rein here.[162]
Now if you or Paul should wish for any particular books besides, please say so, and we will forward everything not absolutely required here.
Yesterday I received a letter from a certain Nonne,a Kandidat der Philologie, was here some time ago, now in Paris, resides 56 Boulevard de Port-Royal. He is a leading man amongst the German workmen in Paris who you recollect had a few years ago been coaxed round by Malon's soft sawder, and were further pushed in that direction by some stupid blunders of the Citoyen. They are now furious anti-Broussists since the 'international Conference' ' [1 5]; but still thick with Adhémar Leclère and his Cercle international.[1][63] I have asked Paul several times to get into connection with the Paris Germans. They are not worth much, but they influence the German party as to Parisian affairs. Since the Socialist Law,[37] these societies abroad have naturally recovered an influence much above their merits, as they are the only bodies remaining in possession of a public organisation. It will be difficult for the Sozialdemokrat to go direct against them in its judgment of Parisian internal quarrels. So they are worth coaxing a bit, which will not be difficult, and as the man is your neighbour, I thought best to send him my card 'pour introduire M. Nonné auprès de M. et M-me La/argue'.b Whether anything will come of it I don't know, anyhow I hope you will excuse the liberty I have taken.
Sorry I could not see much of citoyen Robelet — he came, was seen and vanished again.
Will Paul favour us with a few words about his mysterious adventures in la Province? ' c d
What has become of the citoyenne Paule Mink [164]? The last reports were 'qu'elle se multipliait dans le midi,c and, what after this is not so much to be wondered at, 'qu'elle développait son sujet'.c
The outcome??
Yours affectionately,
F. Engels
Would you please forward as soon as ever possible another copy of Deville's Capital? Kautsky is to translate it, but Meissner's permission is necessary and I cannot expect to get it unless I send him the original.[6] How about the new edition of the Misère de la philosophie? People keep bothering me about it. Has anything been done?[165]
56. Engels to Heinrich Nonne. Between 9 and 21 February[166]
I cannot say anything definite about the plan outlined by you, so long as I do not know what persons are involved and what your intentions are. All I can say is that I could, in certain circumstances and provided they were worth the trouble, enter into a cartel, but never form an/ alliance, with people who have not comlpetely and unre-servedly adopted the revolutionary communist standpoint. Besides my time is completely taken up with work that it is absolutely imperative I Should do, and my international correspondence is, in any case, already extensive enough. Clemenceau would certainly have to be in-duced to go considerably further before we could ally ourselves with him; whether, as the immediate ministerial candidate of the extreme Left, he would wish to be on more than ordinarily 'good terms' with us would seem to be debatable. One can remain thus on good terms with socialists of the most diverse shades of opinion until a difference of principle or tactics crops up, whereupon sympathy turns into anti-pathy. Accordingly, it is now for you to decide whether I am a man who would suit your book.
57. Engels to Johann Philipp Becker. 14 February[5 5]
IN GENEVA
London, 14 February 1884 122 Regent's Park Road, N. W.
Dear Old Man,
There is no reason for you to worry about my health; the thing was a long drawn-out but not at all dangerous, and is steadily abating.
I have sent Laura a copy of the note with the New Year's greetings.
I have also taken out a money order for five pounds to enable you, old chap, to cosset yourself and your wife a bit. I hope that the comparatively mild winter and the better time of year now approaching will put you both on your feet again.
I have found a few things that emanated from you but cannot yet say whether there are any more. There's a whole big hamper full of letters, etc., to be looked through. As soon as I've sorted it out, I shall send you everything that turns up. [1 2 6]
Now, as regards your plan, ' [6] [7] it is the circumstances presently prevailing in Germany that are the first consideration. From time to time I get information on the subject direct from Germany and, according to this, the despotism of the police is unrestrained and the government is determined to put a stop to any public agitation by our party, no matter what the pretext for that agitation or under what name it is conducted. The fact that Social Democrats are at the back of it is enough for any meeting to be dispersed, any attempt to have a say in the press smothered and any participant expelled from a locality subject to the state of emergency.[67] The experience of the past six years cannot leave us in any doubt as to that.
Now I am of the view that the appropriateness, timing and object of a renewed attempt at mass agitation are things we who live abroad are utterly incapable of deciding, and that this must be left entirely to those in Germany who have to endure the pressure there and who know best what is possible and what is impossible. So if you approach Bebel or Liebknecht, and they deliberate the matter there, it would, in my view, be for them to decide the pros and cons, and for us to abide by their decision.
Come to that, things aren't going too badly in Germany where agitation is concerned, although the bourgeois papers suppress most of it and only sometimes and despite themselves emit an anxious moan about the rapidity with which the party is gaining ground instead of losing it. The police have opened up for our men a quite splendid field — the omnipresent and unremitting struggle with the police themselves. It is being conducted everywhere and continuously with great success and, better still, with great humour. The police are defeated and — ridiculed into the bargain. And, in the circumstances, I consider this struggle to be more useful than any other. Above all, it keeps contempt for the enemy alive in our lads' minds. No worse troops could be sent into action than those of the German police; even when they have the upper hand they suffer moral defeat, and our lads' confidence in victory grows from day to day. The effect of this struggle will be such that, as soon as the pressure at last lets up (and that will happen on the day things get cracking in Russia) we shall not be numbered in our hundreds of thousands but in our millions. Among the so-called leaders there may be plenty of rotten stuff, but in our masses I have unmitigated faith, and what they lack in revolutionary tradition, they will increasingly be taught by their guerilla war with the police. And, say what you will, we have never yet seen a proletariat learn in so short a time to act collectively and march shoulder to shoulder. Hence, although nothing may appear on the surface, we can, I think, confidently look to the day when the alarm is sounded. Then just watch them stand~to+
Fraternal greetings from your old friend
F. Engels
58. Engels to Pyotr Lavrov. 14 February
My dear Lavrov,
I have noted what you say about the Russian translation of the 2nd volume of Capital. I shall revert to this at the appropriate moment.[168]
As to the German edition, you will be aware that over there we are under threat from absolute despotism and that anything is liable to be suppressed. Marx never allowed himself to be inhibited by the legislation of the day; he always spoke his mind and it would be truly mira-culous if the 2nd volume did not contain enough confiscable and sup-pressive material to fall foul of the law of 1878.[37] But that is a risk we must run and, as for myself, I certainly have no intention of watering anything down.
When TepMaHi) Aona-raH-Ba was hereb he told me that Nikolai Danielson wanted me to return him a book entitled Tpydu KoMUCciu djin u3CJihdoeamH XJIÜÖHOÜ npoMuiumuHocmu es Pocciu.c I have now found several books on the marketing and production of grain: the title most closely resembling the one he quotes is Tpydu atccneduuiu, cmpnuceHHOu uMnepamopcKUMu BojibHUMh sKOHOMunecKUMb u PyccKUMb zeozpacßmecKUMb o6yu,ecmeaMU, ÖMH u3CJit>doeaHW xmômû mopzoenu u npou3eodumem>HOcmu eh Pocciu,d Volume 2, 1870.
Might that be the book he is referring to? If so I shall return it to 27 MoHKa,e St Petersburg as soon as I have your confirmation.
I hope to send off your booksf next week; I have kept some of them.
If I find I don't need them for the 2nd volume, I shall despatch them to you later.
Xours ever,
F. Engels
59. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 16 February[8 8]
Dear Kautsky,
I happen to have an hour or two to spare today, hence my prompt reply.
Not only Deville's historical section, but also his descriptive one (working day, cooperation, manufacturing, large-scale industry, etc.) will require revision, of which you may assure yourself by going through a couple of chapters. All I shall do for the present, so far as Meissner is concerned, is to send him the French text and inform him that revision is under way ' [3] ' and that I shall let him have further details in due course.
The Poverty is also coming out in a new French edition in Paris. I am writing a preface to it [1 6 9]; in the one to the German edition, I shall dispose of the myth of Rodbertus.(1) This stemmed from Rudolf Meyer ' [7] ° and has been so widely hawked around in Germany, this country and even America, that the thing has got to be scotched once and for all. I shall show, 1) that in 1850 we had had no opportunity of learning anything whatsoever from Mr Rodbertus, 2) that he was quite unknown to us, 3) that his great discoveries had already been commonplaces in 1848, 4) that the remedies he specifies for use in socialist therapy had already been criticised in the Poverty, prior to Rodbertus' discovery of them.
So as you see, there's plenty left for you to do; but the above matters can only be attended to, because experienced, by me, while I am also the only person to possess the necessary material from the years 1840-50.
Rodbertus' theory of rent is nonsense; the first 1861-63 manuscript of Capital contains a detailed and somewhat ironical critique of it by Marx, in a very long section, Theories of Surplus Value, which I shall probably publish at the end of the 2nd volume or as a 3rd volume. ' [7] '
What I require for my preface, however, is Rodbertus' Offener Brief an das Comité des Deutschen Arbeitervereins, Leipzig, 1863. Could you or Ede get hold of the thing and let me have it for a few days? As soon as I have made extracts, you shall have it back.
I have not yet received the Proudhon article from the old Social-Demokrat ' [5 1] promised me by Ede — might arrive this evening. I shall probably translate it for the French edition.
If Ede were suddenly to turn up here it would please me no end; I could join him in a drink, being now once again able to indulge in a very modest way.
Let us now return to your last letter but one. ' [7] [2] Dietz asked for the Condition of the Working-Class long ago, and I virtually promised he should have it as soon as I had found out how I stood with Wigand, its former publisher. For the past 15 years Liebknecht has been promis-ing to ascertain this through Freytag (i. e. what my legal position is vis-à-vis Wigand), and still I'm in the dark.(2) At all events, Dietz has first refusal, and ultimately I shall myself take steps to find out what I am entitled to do.
It would be a good thing if someone were to take the trouble to throw light on the proliferation of state socialism, drawing for the purpose on an exceedingly flourishing example of the practice in Java. All the material is to be found in Java, How to Manage a Colony, BY J. W. B. Money, BARRISTER AT LAW, London, 1861, 2 VOLS Here one sees how the Dutch have, on the basis of the communities' age-old communism, organised production for the benefit of the state and ensured that the people enjoy what is, in their own estimation, a quite com-fortable existence; the consequence is that the people are kept in a state of primitive stupidity and the Dutch exchequer rakes in 70 million marks a year (now probably more). It's a most interesting case, and conclusions as to its practical application are easy to draw. It also shows how there, as in India and Russia today, primitive communism (provided no modern communist element comes to stir it up) supplies the best and also the broadest basis for exploitation and despotism, and survives in the midst of modern society as an anachro-nism (to be eliminated or, one might almost say, turned back on its course) no less glaring than the Mark communities of the original cantons. ' [7 3]
There is a definitive book — as definitive as Darwin's was in the case of biology — on the primitive state of society; once again, of course, Marx was the one to discover it. It is Morgan's Ancient Society, 1877. Marx mentioned it, but my head was full of other things at the time and he never referred to it again which was, no doubt, agreeable to him, wishing as he did to introduce the book to the Germans himself11*; I can see this from his very exhaustive extracts. Within the limits set by his subject, Morgan rediscovers for himself Marx's materialist view of history, and concludes with what are, for modern society, downright communist postulates. The Roman and Greek gens is, for the first time, fully elucidated in the light of that of savages, in particular the American Indians, thus providing a firm basis for the history of primitive times. If I had the time to spare, I would work up the material, together with Marx's notes, for the feuilleton of the Sozialdemokrat or for the Neue £eit, but it's out of the question. All the impostures — endogamy, exogamy and whatever else the balderdash is called — of Tylor, Lubbock and Co. have been demolished once and for all. ' [7] [5] These gentry are doing all they can to suppress the book in this country; it is printed in America and I ordered it 5 weeks since but cannot get hold of it, although the name of a London firm figures as co-publisher on the title-page!
Kindest regards.
Yours,
F.E.
60. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 16 February
60
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
IN PARIS
London, 16 February 1884
My dear Laura,
To-morrow is Sunday and on Monday we shall have to rummage in Maitland Park again,[159] so if I don't write to-day to you there is no telling how long it may be delayed. We have got the old 'Speicher'* at last cleared out, found a whole lot of things that have to be kept, but about half a ton of old newspapers that it is impossible to sort. I think next week we can begin to clear out and the week after sell up the remainder for what it will fetch. I was afraid at one time I should have to give it up again, but fortunately I am getting better every day, I can walk again for half an hour as fast as ever and with Nim's help get through two bottles of Pilsener and a fair allowance of claret every 24 hours.
Amongst the manuscripts there is the first version of the Kapital (1861-63) and there I find several hundred pages: Theorien über den Mehrwert ' (1) ' partly worked up into the text of the later versions, ' [7 6]
but there will be quite enough left to swell the 2nd volume into a 2nd and a 3rd.
Bernstein is sending me an article of Mohr's on Proudhon, published in the Berlin Social-Demokrat of 1865. Very likely the whole of it will have to be translated for the French edition of the Misère.'[65]
By the bye Bernstein will be in Lyons to-morrow and may come to Paris while once on the road, and even extend his trip to London. If he does come to Paris, pray engage him to come here too, I want to see him about a good many things; he knows he finds a bed here ready to receive him and if he is a little short of cash, that should not stop him, we can arrange about that.[177]
Paul tells me I can take my time about the preface to the Misère '[69]
but I don't believe in that sort ofthing, I have too much experience of publishers. I want to know by what time Oriol will require it, though I won't undertake that I shall deliver it to the day or even the week; but I ought to have some idea. The house in Maitland Park has to be delivered up on the 25th March, and I have plenty of other things to do besides; I must be able to arrange my plans beforehand to some extent at least.
What Paul thinks is an article of Mohr's on Proudhon's la propriété c'est le vol* is in the Heilige Familie which I have got.b
I cannot much share Paul's enthusiasm about the London Justice, I find the paper awfully dull. But what can you expect of a set of people who take in hand the task of instructing the world about matters of which they themselves are ignorant? There is not a single burning question which they know how to tackle; Hyndman combines internationalist phraseology and jingo aspirations, Joynes is a muddled ig-noramus (I saw him a fortnight ago), Morris is all very well as far as he goes, but it is not far, poor Bax gets himself fast in German philosophy of a rather antiquated character — all that might do for a monthly where they have time to get themselves into harness, but for a weekly, with all sorts of questions d'actualité to be tackled, it is blamable.
Anyhow the new 'respectable' Socialist stir here does go on very nicely, the thing is becoming fashionable, but the working classes do not respond yet. Upon that everything depends. And this is why it was so stupid to hurry on the bringing out of Justice. Articles like these will never stir up the masses. Six months' intercourse with working people would have prepared a public and taught the writers how to write for it. But what's the use of grumbling? Les petits grands hommes veulent absolument faire leur petit bonhomme de chemin!"
I hope the children0 are better. Nim is rather anxious about them. Do please let us know how they are going on.
Best love from Nim and from
Your affectionate
F. Engels
61. Engels to John Darbyshire. Not earlier than 17 February[8]
Cannot do anything myself in that line, shall I hand their principles to the Democratic Federation," to Justice or To-Day?
time
62. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 21 February
My dear Laura,
Your news about the children'sa health is more or less reassuring — except poor Wolfb who, however, seems the strongest of the lot and, we hope, will have got over the worst when you next give us some news.
As to what is to be done in case anything happens to Longuet, well, that will have to be considered if that event should occur; I do not see what much should be gained if we 'speculated' on that now — I mean speculating in the philosophical sense — at any rate I do not see either what we can do under present circumstances with such a pa-ternal father as Longuet, but if you do, I shall be most happy to hear from you on the subject.
We have arranged with Gittens about packing and forwarding the books, etc., for you and Lavroff0 and as they have not come for them for two days, Nim has gone to stir them up.
Herewith the preface to the Misere by — Mohr himself! ' a ' Bernstein has re-discovered this old article which I have at once translated. Please, you and Paul, to turn my translation into proper French and return it along with the original which belongs to the Partei-Archiv [144] at Zurich. There will only a few more words be required. But what will the French public say to the rather unceremonious manner in which Mohr speaks of them? And will it be wise to have this true and impartial judgment at the risk that the Brousses say: voilà le Prussienb? Anyhow, I should be very loth to soften the article down to suit le gout parisien c but it is worth considering. There is no denying that the bas empire" has been there for 18 years.
Paul's bon dieue is charming, so is the introduction to his confér-ence. ' [7] f The exposé too is quite taking for his public and I am not astonished at his success. But he might now and then give them a new il-lustration from the Kapital besides the old quotation of Liebig about the size of recruitsg; and not treat 1) la concurrence and 2) l'offre et la demande? which is but la concurrence over again. If I am strict with him, it's because I see it does him good and he improves considerably by hammering a bit now and then; his last performances certainly show great progress, and if he would only be a little more attentive to certain theoretical points (mostly of detail) he would be a great light in Paris, ville-lumière h as it is.
Now I must conclude. Nim has come back and we must make up book-packets for Russia and America, in time for registering. She says Gittens cannot come before Tuesday or Wednesday[11]—so she sends you a kiss, I the same, and une bonne poignée de main ' to Paul
From your affectionate
F. Engels
63. Engels to Heinrich Nonne. About 26 February
What I wrote and told you about Malon [39] are the simple facts of which I have been given proof and which are in no way altered by Paris gossip. Malon did indeed quit the Peace Congress [180] in company with Bakunin and 15 others, and he was a co-founder of the secret Alliance.[20] The document of March 1870 has actually been in my possession ' [8] ' ; what the lies are that Malon has recently been concocting about the International are of no interest to me; I am unlikely so much as to look at them. In my view the fact that he is self-taught does not give him the right to falsify history. If he is fit to play a leading role among the French, I am sorry for the French proletariat.
As regards your propagation of international relations,[3]
1 ) the aims are so vague that I really cannot give up any time on the strength of your general prospects;
2) virtually all the people you mention are unknown to me (the only one I know at all well is precisely the one you fail to name). But one cannot be active in the international movement for 40 years without having everywhere old friends and allies to whom one is politically and morally committed. I should therefore first have to obtain information from them about many of your people and about the attitude of one side to the other. I cannot very well do that, however, without giving some inkling of your scheme;
3) but I cannot possibly embark on an alliance without having the least idea of where and into what further associations it will lead me. Some kind of central committee would presumably be set up in Paris, which would decide on the admission of new members and on possible action, and it might so happen that I found myself in the same association as people whom I should be compelled to oppose outright or that I became responsible for an action I disapproved of. That is an eventuality I cannot expose myself to at all.
Do not, however, let this deter you. If you are able to achieve something worthwhile, it will please me nonetheless. I am grateful to you for your confidence and remain, etc.
64. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 3 March . . .'
Dear Kautsky,
Ede Bernstein has assumed the responsibility of drinking a fraternal pledge(1) with me in your name and on your behalf. I hereby take the liberty of putting this into immediate effect in the hope that you will not disavow his action.
Apart from that, he left this evening for Paris ' ' [7] where he will spend tomorrow, departing the same night; no doubt he will reach Zurich at the same time as this letter.
Enclosed the sale of Russia to Bismarck for Bismarck to invest with Bleichröder with a view to a new Russian loan.[182] Ferry and Gladstone were the first to be taken in but, if Bleichröder supplies the money, the same thing may happen to Bismarck and, once the fun begins in Russia, it will be all up with the lot of them.
Your
F. Engels
65. Engels to Pyotr Lavrov. 3 March[1 8 3]
My dear Lavrov,
Last Friday" I sent you through the agency of Messrs Flageollet frères, 27 rue Paul Lelong, Paris a case containing the books you know about.b Carriage has been paid over here; if they charge you for it, let me know. In case of non-arrival you should make enquiries at the above address.
It was despatched from here per Messrs Gittens & Co.
Yours ever,
F. Engels
Published in English for the first time 66
ENGELS TO VERA ZASULICH [184]
IN GENEVA
London, 6 March 1884^ 122 Regent's Park Road, N.W.
Dear Citizen,
For me, as also for Marx's daughters, it will be a great day when the Russian translation of The Poverty of Philosophy appears.[185] I need hardly say that I shall be glad to place at your disposal any material that might be useful to you. This is what I propose to do.
In addition to the German translation, a new French edition is at present being printed in Paris.[165] For these two editions I am preparing a few explanatory notes, the text of which I shall send you.
For the preface there is in existence an article by Marx on Proudhon in the Berlin Social-Demokrat (1865), which contains virtually all that is necessary. It will be printed at the beginning of the two new French and German editions. The only copy in existence is in our party archives at Zurich [144]; if a second one doesn't turn up amongst my own or Marx's papers (I shall know about this in a few weeks), you will easily be able to get hold of a copy of it through Bernstein.
For the German edition I shall have to do a separate preface(1) re-butting the absurd contention by reactionary socialists [186] that in Capital Marx plagiarised Rodbertus, and proving that, on the contrary, Marx had produced his critique of Rodbertus in the Poverty before Rodbertus wrote his Social Letters. ' [8] ' To my mind this is of no interest to a Russian public as yet unpenetrated by our pseudo-socialists. But you are the best judge; the thing is at your disposal should you think it suitable.
What you tell me about the increase in the study of books on socialist theory in Russia gives me much pleasure. The theoretical and critical spirit, which has virtually disappeared from our German schools, would indeed appear to have taken refuge in Russia. You ask me to suggest some books for translation. But you have already translated, or promised to translate, almost all of Marx's works and you have taken the best of mine. The remainder of our German books are either weak on theory or concerned with matters more or less restricted to Germany. The French have latterly produced some pretty good stuff, but this is still in its infancy. Deville's summary of Capitalab is good as regards the theoretical part, but the descriptive part was done in too great haste and is virtually unintelligible to anyone not familiar with the original; moreover it is too long for a summary. However I believe something worthwhile might be made of it if it were rewritten, and a summary of Capital would always be of use in a country where the book itself can only be obtained with difficulty.
It is true that, when I spoke of the situation in Russia," I was also thinking, inter alia, specifically of her finances — but not exclusively. For a government at bay, like the one in Petersburg, and a captive Tsar, like the hermit of Gatchina,c the situation cannot continue without becoming ever more tense.[188] Nobility and peasantry both ruined, the army ruffled in its chauvinism and shocked by the daily spectacle of a rocy4api>.d who hides himself away; the necessity for an external war as a safety-valve for 'evil passions' and for general discon-tent— at the same time the impossibility of embarking upon one for lack of money and of favourable political conjunctures; a powerful national intelligentsia impatient to break the fetters that bind it and^ on top of all this, a total absence of money and an authority with the knives of the AT>flTeAHr at its throat [1 8 9]—it seems to me that with every month the situation must become more impossible and that, were a bold and constitutionally minded grand duke to turn up, Russian 'society' itself must see that a palace coup would be the best way out of this impasse. Will Bismarck and Bleichröder now come to the rescue of their new friends? ' [8 2] I doubt it. Rather, I wonder which of the two contracting parties will be cheated by the other.
Enclosed a manuscript of Marx's (copy) for you to use as you think fit. I no longer know whether it was in Cjioeo' or in OmeuecmeeHHun 3anucKUg that he found the article 'Karl Marx Before the Tribunal of Mr Zhukovsky'.[8] This is the reply he wrote; it bears the stamp of a piece done for publication in Russia, but he never sent it to Petersburg for fear that the mere mention of his name might compromise the existence of the review which published his reply.[190]
Yours very sincerely,
F. Engels
Your translation of my pamphleta strikes me as excellent — what a beautiful language Russian is. All the advantages of German but without its ghastly coarseness.
67
66. Engels to Vera Zasulich. 6 March Ill 67. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge. 7 March[91]
Dear Sorge,
After suffering continuously throughout the whole autumn and winter from a minor if very tiresome disorder, and spending 2 months resting in bed, I am at last sufficiently recovered to be able to work regularly and to pay off the letters I owe. I trust that you and your wife will also gradually get over the after-effects of your far more serious illness and then gradually resume your old way of life.
Since I am not yet completely mobile and my excursions are limited to the immediate neighbourhood, and not having anyone to send out on errands, I carried out your commission in rather a different way. Your copy of Capital, 3rd edition,b and likewise one of Deville's Le Capital, were despatched to you in 2 parcels per BOOK POST; I shall send the photographs in the same manner, having now found out how to pack them. No doubt you will be able to obtain the other 2 copies of Capital easily enough over there.
7 1884
I have taken out a year's subscription to To-Day for you and you will, no doubt, be getting it regularly. The chaps are very well-intentioned but damnably ignorant; which may be all right for To-Day, but now the DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION " i s bringing out a weekly journal, Justice, which is conspicuous for the exceeding boredom of its invariably repetitive contents and for its total inability to get hold of the right end of the stick even when dealing with a question of the day. I shall send you a couple of issues; it's not worth taking. All in all, the DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION cannot simply be taken on trust; it harbours all manner of dubious elements. Hyndman, who sets himself up as a party leader in partibus infidelium,[2]' is a pretty unscrupulous career-ist, and only a few years ago stood unsuccessfully as a Conservative candidate for Parliament[192]; moreover, he treated Marx very shab-bily. ' 0 0 I will have nothing whatever to do with the DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION, a handy excuse being want of time, and am on closer terms only with To-Day, more notably Bax. The latter is a very good chap, save only that he is most unseasonably swotting up on Kant. If you have no objection, I shall publish in To-Day an English version of the letter Marx wrote to you about Henry George.[31] Then you will be able to make further use of it over there.
I shall hardly have time to enter into a debate with Stiebeling.[193]
Such little tin gods can safely be left to their own devices. In any case, it will be years before anything can be done to inhibit sectarianism in America. Thus the great Most will, no doubt, eventually end up as Karl Heinzen II. I get the Wochen-Volkszeitung,(1) but there's not much in it.
What the position is as regards Bebel's, Liebknecht's or anyone else's going to America, I don't know.[29] When they asked me, I told the chaps that it probably wouldn't do to go tapping America for election funds every third year. In Germany, by the way, the position is very good. Our lads are conducting themselves really splendidly. Everywhere the Anti-Socialist Law [3 7] is involving them in local struggles with the police, to the accompaniment of all manner of jokes and dirty tricks, struggles which usually turn out in our favour and are a source of the best propaganda in the world. Every now and again one or other of the bourgeois papers vents a sigh about the enormous progress made by our people, and they all of them dread the coming elections.[194] A fortnight ago one of my nephews from Barmen was over here — a liberal conservative. 'In Germany,' I told him, 'we have got to the stage when we can sit with our hands in our laps and let our opponents do the work for us. No matter whether you repeal, renew, tighten up or moderate the Anti-Socialist Law, whatever you do plays into our hands.' 'Yes,' said he, 'it is remarkable how circumstances are working for you.' 'To be sure they are,' I said, 'but they wouldn't be if we hadn't diagnosed them aright forty years ago, and acted accordingly.' No reply.
In France, too, things have been going better since Lafargue, Guesde and Dormoy were released from prison.[9] They are very active, spend much time in the provinces where, luckily, their chief strength lies, possess little news-sheets in Rheims and St Pierre-les-Calais,b and will be holding a congress at Roubaix in a month's time.[195] Every Sunday, what is more, they give a very well-attended lecture in Paris, when Lafargue speaks on the materialist view of history, and Deville on Capital.[1][7] [9] I shall write and ask them to send you the things, all of which are printed. It's fortunate that they haven't got a daily in Paris just now, since it's much too early for that. A new edition of The Poverty of Philosophy is coming out in Paris.[165]
Likewise a German one in Zurich and a Russian in Geneva. I don't believe I have yet sent you a copy of my Entwicklung^ never having received more than one or two myself. (The oafs!) Now the thing has come out in a 3rd edition, as well as in French, Italian, Russian and Polish. Aveling wishes to translate it into English.c He, too, is an ad-mirable young man, but he has TOO MANY IRONS IN THE FIRE and is currently engaged in time-consuming strife with his former friend Bradlaugh; the socialist movement here is cutting the ground from under the latter's feet — and with it his livelihood. That means he must fight for it, but it isn't easy for that narrow-minded and rascally fellow.
So far, all is well with Tussy who generally comes here on Sundays. Lenchen is, as you know, keeping house for me. In a fortnight's time I shall be able to settle down in real earnest to Volume II of Capital— another huge task, but I look forward to it.
You should read Morgan (Lewis H.), Ancient Society, published in America in 1877. A masterly exposé of primitive times and their com-
68. Engels to Paul Lafargue. // and 15 March
munism. Rediscovered Marx's theory of history all on his own, and con-cludes by drawing communist inferences in regard to the present day.
Kindest regards to Adolf.a
Your
F. E.
68
ENGELS TO PAUL LAFARGUE [196]
IN PARIS
[London,] 11 and 15 March 1884
My dear Lafargue,
In complete agreement with almost all your alterations, [197] except for the following:
p. 6, wrong ideas about ... exchange value — you can't continue with an 'and'; what follows, his Utopian interpretation, is caused by those wrong ideas; that causation must be shown.
p. 6, bottom: he deafens us, etc., has been unduly shortened; what is lacking is the false or spurious science. You must try to stick closer to the original.
p. 7, same objections; and also: 'but who, having to forego some of his pretensions to originality' — this corrupts the text. Marx says: 'There is in addition the clumsy repugnant show of erudition of the self-taught, whose natural pride in his original reasoning has already been broken' b; he has, in fact, been an original thinker and is proud so to have been, but is so no longer, having discovered that what he believed to be original and new had already been said by others before him; then he goes on to spurious science, etc. Your text denies the originality of Proudhon.
ibid. Cabet. You have no right to make Marx say more than he actually said: 'Cabet — worthy of respect for his practical attitude towards the French proletariat'.a Marx says nothing of devotion, a word he abhorred, as you must know,— it might run: worthy of respect for the rôle he played amongst the French proletariat (or in the political movement of the French proletariat), etc., or something of the sort.
ibid. Can you say: to preach throughout all 3 volumes? Ibid, bottom, Thiers: if you abridge in the way you do, you ought to add what the original says: 'Thiers, by his reply opposing Proudhon's proposals, which was then issued as a special booklet'.b This is, I think, the famous book De la propriété, but I am not sure.
p. 8, credit ... might accelerate — not credit, but the application thereof; you should therefore say: might serve to accelerate, or some such turn of phrase.
p. 9, displays the cynicism of a moron to the greater glory of the Tsar? 'For the greater glory of the tsar he expresses moronic cynicism'. c The extreme cynicism with which Proudhon addresses himself to the misfortunes of Poland pays court to the policy of the Tsar. [198]
This is what needs to be brought out.
ibid, bottom. On the one hand, etc.— the two contradicting tendencies which govern the interests of the petty bourgeois, should not be omitted; your text appears to do away with them.
p. 10, rowdy would be better than scandalous.
15 March
Well, now! Try to be more faithful to the original; Marx isn't a man with whom one can afford to take liberties. I hope that Laura will insist upon the text's being well and faithfully rendered.
Herewith the £ 10. We have all the books and BOOKCASESd here and, for the past 3 days, have been busy amalgamating the two libraries and setting them in 24 1884
order. It's the very devil of a task and Nim and I are both tired, so WITH LOVE TO Laura FROM Nim AND MYSELF NO MORE AT PRESENT
FROM YOURS TRULY,
F.E.
69. Engels to Eduard Bernstein. 24 March[9 4]
Dear Ede,
In great haste, a bit of gossip. We have at last wound things up today at Maitland Park [159] and handed back the old house to its owner. a I, on the other hand, am still in the throes of sorting out the books and papers nor, until this has been done, shall I be able to embark on any regular work.
The demonstration of the 16th ' " caused two people to make fools of themselves — Hyndman and Frohme.
Hyndman, without having actually given his assent, had been proposed as speaker — by, it is said, Rackow. Not being convinced of success, he declared in Justice that 'a working man' must speak and that as for him, he would merely listen.b The same issue of Justice contained an extremely impertinent notice on the last number of To-Day— amounting to a veiled declaration of war. [20]° Hyndman next proceeded to intrigue against the despatch of delegates to the Roubaix congress, [195] alleging that those responsible were in a minority and that one ought not to go meddling in internal French dis-putes.[201] But at a committee meeting of the DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION " the following Tuesday,c he was well and truly defeated; his most trusty followers took the floor against him, nor could he confess the real motives for his intervention; it was enthusiastically resolved to participate in both demonstration and congress, and Hyndman, who would now have gladly spoken in Highgate, had cut off his own line of retreat, the invitation to speak having passed to Aveling and been gladly accepted. That's what invariably befalls these clever-clever cliquists — they are hoist with their own petard.
Frohme apparently spoke very well in Highgate and, by contrast, quite atrociously at the Society. [162] I am sending you the Deutsche Londoner Reifung in which the philistine reporter naively betrays his delight at the way Frohme had, with his atrocious platitudes, voiced his inmost thoughts for him.a This, apparently, was altogether too much of a good thing and gave rise to a tremendous row in the Society; Frohme was given a dressing-down and is said to have declared that he hadn't met a single socialist, let alone a human being, in London. He's unlikely to reappear for some time to come. He has left me alone, I'm glad to say.
Many thanks for the Deutsches Tageblatt which I return herewith. To reply to Bernhard Becker's balderdash would be doing him too great an honour. What the ex-president of mankind [2] °[2] writes and the Tageblatt prints is a matter of complete indifference, and even in Berlin it has long been forgotten. This kind of impotent malice chokes on its own bile. But what sort of press must it be to print such stuff? Even the Parisian Figaristes were more adept liars, albeit only during the period of general alarm immediately after the Commune.
All things considered, the March article was very good, with the right emphasis on essential points. So, too, was the one in the next issue, about the People's Party [203] man preaching to the peasants, its only fault being to invoke the 'concept' of democracy. b That concept changes according to the demos and hence does not get us one step fufther. What in my view should have been said is this: For the sei-zure of political power, democratic forms are also necessary to the proletariat for whom, however, like all political forms, they are only a means. But if, today, you want democracy as an end, you have to look for support to the peasants and petty bourgeoisie, i. e. to classes which are in decline and which, from the moment they try to preserve their existence by factitious means, are reactionary in their relations with the proletariat. Another thing that should not be forgotten is that the logical form of bourgeois rule is, precisely, a democratic republic which, however, has become too much of a risk only because of the progress already made by the proletariat, but which, as France and America go to show, is still feasible simply as bourgeois rule. Regarded, therefore, as 'definite, historically evolved', the 'principle' of liberalism is really just an illogicality; a liberal constitutional monarchy is an adequate form of bourgeois rule 1 ) at the beginning, when the bourgeoisie has not yet quite done with absolute monarchy, and 2) at the end, when the proletariat has already rendered a democratic republic too much of a risk. And yet a democratic republic is still the final form assumed by bourgeois rule, the form in which it comes to grief. And here I conclude this rigmarole.
Nim sends her regards. I didn't see Tussy yesterday.
Your
F.E.
70. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 24 March
Dear Kautsky,
You'd do best to order Morgan's book in America; the few copies printed for England in association with the firm of MacMillan appear to be sold out or unavailable — I got mine second-hand and then only with difficulty. I don't know the American publisher. Mine cost me 13/4d.
When I can find time I shall get out something on it for you for the
71. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 31 March
Neue £eit, provided you are willing to print a separate copy in pamphlet form (it would be approx. 3 sheets); actually I am indebted to Marx for it and can incorporate his notes. I 7 4
I have now agreed with Meissner that the 2nd book of Capital should appear separately at first; the 3rd,[4] and the Theories of Surplus Value, [171] will then follow on as the second half of Volume II. This will get the thing moving more quickly. Time for the post.
Your
F.E.
The Morris affair is of no significance; they are a muddle-headed lot.[204]
71
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
IN PARIS
London, 31 March 1884
My dear Laura,
Even if it had not been for Paul's letter this morning, this afternoon was set apart for a letter to you. I am so bothered and pestered just now that not only my time, but also my room and my desk are not my own. On Monday lasta we got clear of 41 Maitland Park Road, paid Willis and gave him the key. ' [5] [9] What furniture there was left, is in Gittens' hands, they offered £ 12.10.- but advised a sale — we are trying to get £ 15.- out of them to have done with it; this will be attended to this week. Then I have been busy with the books, and was getting clear — two more days would have settled the heavy work — when lo! the landlord sends the painters to do the house outside, and
24 March here we are, three dawdling fellows in the house, all windows open, every room invaded at the most unexpected hours, and to crown all, a bleak east-wind blowing inside as well as outside. That I got as fine a specimen of rheumatism as could be wished for, was only natural. Fortunately, if the dawdlers keep possession of the house even now, the east-wind has left us and so has, more or less, the rheumatism; and I am promised possession of my room for to-day,— on condition of giving it up to-morrow. So let us enjoy the present while it lasts.
Nim says there is such a weight off her mind now since the old house is done with that she at last can sleep again, it was a nightmare for her which even an occasional nightcap of 'Irish' could not drive away. Our place has much changed, two of my book-cases have gone below, the piano is in the corner between the fire-place and folding door (in the front room), the other corner filled up by one of Mohr's book-cases, while his large book-case (that behind his sofa) now takes the place where the piano stood in the back room. As soon as the painters will have cleared out, I shall finish the sorting of the last heap of books, and then try and get off the last box of books, for you, there is a nice little lot of things relating to the French Revolution, Lousta-lot, Feuille Villageoise, Prisons de Paris pendant la Révolution,[20]* etc., etc.
I have settled with Meissner that the 2nd book {^irkulationsprozess des Kapitals*) is to be published first separately; as soon as the gross work is finished, I can begin. The 3rd book will follow, along with
Theorien über den Mehrwert, b a long critical work forming part of the first ms. of the Kapital (1862) which I have discovered. [171] The English translation is going on slowly, Sam has too much law-work to attend to, and is too conscientious to hurry on with it, 'regardless of quality'. [56]
The movement here is showing more and more of its emptiness every week. Justice drives me to despair by its utter incapacity of tack-ling even one single question. To-Day will live this next month entirely by Davitt and Paul who you will have been glad to learn from Justice is the first living authority on French peasant property. [206]
These fellows cannot even give a man his due without trying to make him look ridiculous. Bax and Aveling are the only two, as far as I can see at present, of whom something can be made; but Bax has Kant on the brain and Aveling in order to live, has to keep a good many irons in the fire and is a perfect novice in everything relating to political economy. Paul will no doubt see Bax at Roubaix [195]; he and a work-ingmana have been delegated by the Democratic Federation," much against Hyndman's will who has lately made several attempts at forcing his personal plans and dodges upon them, but was ignomin-iously defeated: so he opposed sending delegates to Roubaix as he wanted to keep open the chance of a connexion with Brousse and Co. That fellow will not go far: he cannot bide his time.
I am afraid Paul will be disappointed with regard to a German delegate to Roubaix; unless Liebknecht does comeb; but as he has promised to do so, it is not likely. The others do not speak French, except perhaps Bernstein, and him the deputies are sure not to send, as they mostly hate him, and would replace him in Zurich if they could and dared. Thanks to the great accession of petit bourgeois — gebildete Schafsköpfe^ our 'leaders' in Germany have become a sorry lot. Anyhow I hope Roubaix will be a great success devant le public,d
it will help on enormously; in the meantime I enclose the cheque £ 10.- and send you plenty of kisses from Nim and your affectionate old cripple
F. Engels
72. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 11 April
Dear Kautsky,
Have got yours and Ede's letter. I hope to be done with Morgan next week [174]; cannot do much at the moment as Schorlemmer and Moore are here. This will be my last job for some time; it is no joke making a résumé of so meaty and ill-written a book. If Tussy can find the letter, I shall also include an assessment of Richard Wagner by Marx [2 0 7]; what the connection is you must find out for yourselves.
Thereafter work will proceed uninterruptedly on Volume II a as well as on revisions of: 1) your Poverty, ' [1 8] 2) notes and preface [169] to the French ditto, [165] 3) revision of the English translation[56] which ought now to forge ahead. Besides that, 4), more Diihring20B and whatever else may be sent me from France for revision.
Fabian has been going for me with a persistence he would be quick to drop if he knew how much entertainment we over here derive from it. Some years ago he had suggested that we should write for a periodical to be founded by him and another great thinker, b and this on the basis of a philosophical programme they had laid down ready cut and dried and consisting in a crabbed and misconstrued fourth generation Kantianism. After that he went for my dialectical approach to mathematics and complained to Marx that I had defamed -J —1.[209] And now the fun is beginning all over again. Let him roam the world arm in arm with von der Mark; he will not be read by me.
The Condition of the Working-Class. The last news / had about it from Liebknecht was that Freytag had told him that I was still bound by my contract with Wigand. You can't go by what Liebknecht says, and what he has done in this matter amounts to nil.c I shall write to Frey tag myself; it is the only thing to do. [3 9]
However much Geiser may abuse the atheists, Bismarck certainly won't do him the favour of repealing the Anti-Socialist Law. [3 7]
Whoever may have harboured any illusions on this point hitherto will doubtless now be rid of them, Bismarck having thrown in his last reserve, that old jackass Lehmann, in order to preserve it. [2] ' °
How delicious that the parliamentary group should have forbidden Liebknecht to write for a paper. d2 ' ' That beats the old Prussian censorship. Well, if Liebknecht stands for that, things have come to a pretty pass.
Rodbertus,e etc., received, many thanks; will be returned next week. The relevant note in Capital is in the 2nd edition, p. 552f and will, in the 3rd edition, be considerably qualified by me in an ad-dendum; kindly attend to this.
You must now excuse me, as I still have to write to Ede.
Your
F.E.
73. Engels to Eduard Bernstein. 11 April
Dear Ede,
Like you, I think it would be better to allow Frohme's massive tomea to die a natural death.
A delegation to Roubaix would have done a great deal of harm at a moment when the Anti-Socialist Law [3]'was under discussion. The wailers ' [2] [3] would have apportioned the blame for its renewal — in any case inevitable — to that delegation alone; this had to be avoided. Congresses are demonstrations and an occasion for useful personal encounters, and as such are of secondary importance, nor should more weighty considerations be sacrificed to them. I shall try to make this clear to the Parisians. In the circumstances, the address was the only thing possible and quite adequate. ' [9] [5] The very thought of an international congress in London [2] ' h appals me. I should go away.
As regards the Rodbertus stuff, you would do best to wait until you have my preface to the Poverty^; you can't possibly be aware of the most important works, namely those concerning England (alluded to 11 1884
in Poverty, p. [...]") from which it is plain that the socialist application of Ricardo's theory of value — Rodbertus' great hobby-horse— had been an economic commonplace in England since 1820 and one universally known to socialists since 1830. As I have, I believe, already written and told you,c I shall show, on the same occasion, that, far from purloining the least thing from Rodbertus, Marx had, in the Poverty, unwittingly criticised in advance all the said Rodbertus' works, both written and unwritten. I think we had best with-hold our attack until the Poverty has come out in German, and then go it hot and strong (i. e. the main attack I mean; no harm at all in skirmishes to draw Rodbertus' fire).
I look forward to seeing the ms. ' ' a Notabene, should you have difficulty over the Hegelian expressions in the 2nd chapter, simply leave blanks in the ms. and I will fill them in; the German version must contain the terminology proper to that school, otherwise it will be incomprehensible.
There were three copies of the 3rd edition.b I racked my brains a bit over the Diihring that came with them and then simply laid it on one side, imagining it had got in by accident. That it might be a hint about a 2nd edition never occurred to me. I am delighted to find that this is so, more especially since I have learnt from various sources that the thing has been more influential — particularly in Russia — than 1 would ever have expected. So after all the tedium of a polemic with an inconsiderable opponent has not prevented the attempt to present an encyclopaedic survey of our view of the problems pertaining to philosophy, natural science and history from taking effect. I shall make virtually no changes but stylistic ones and, perhaps, add something to the section on natural science.— Its earlier publication in 2 parts was due to the way the thing came out (as a separate edition), otherwise there would have been absolutely no sense in it. [208]
The cards for Nim you ask about have not yet turned up.
Your
F.E.
74. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 18 April
74
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
IN PARIS
London, 18 April 1884
My dear Laura,
Best thanks for your news about the children" which were very grateful to all of us. Will hope the new arrangement may work at least for some time and without too much friction, though sheb looks, from what you say, a rough subject enough to create any amount of that.
As to our 'Socialist' group here, I too am of opinion and said so, that Bax and Aveling are the only ones worth having, they at least study with a will, though not always a well directed one. But the worst is, this little clique of public 'mutual admirators' and at least partially secret 'mutual detractors' (especially Hyndman) are getting a regular nuisance through their mischievous gossip. First we hear from Sam Moore that he has heard in Manchester that Hyndman was busy translating the Kapital. This mystery we have as yet not been able to sift thoroughly but it will probably turn out a canard. Now, before we are well over that, those two busybodies in Paris0
spread the report that Aveling was at it! The long and the short of this is as follows. Aveling, who studies the German text, has translated a few pages for his own benefit. When Hyndman was named as a possible competitor in the field, Sam at the same time declared that his own translation was getting on very slow, and he would be glad of some help. So Aveling was mentioned; I looked over his work and found it utterly useless. He was however very eager, and so, on his meeting Sam Moore here last week, it was arranged that he should try his hand at the chapter 'Der Arbeitstag',d this being chiefly descriptive and free, comparatively, from difficult theoretical passages for which Aveling is totally unfit as jet, that is to say until he has worked himself through the whole book and understands it. But at the same time I said to Sam that I made it a condition that you should be asked also to take a share in the work, of which Sam was very glad, and now I come to ask you to choose one. The matter stands at present as follows:
Sam is now doing the 1st Abschnitt11 from the beginning, we have gone over part of his 1st chapter and it is very good, though we shall revise it again. He intends going on to the end, page 127 (2nd edition) and the most difficult parts (p. 22-44) we shall each do independ-ently and then compare.— From p. 128 to 221 (2nd Abschnitt and 3rd Abschnitt, chapters 5, 6 and 7) all is completed. Chapter 8th we will let Aveling try. All the rest is open to you to choose from. I do not think you will like to take the next 4th Abschnitt, Kooperation, Teilung der Arbeit..., Maschinerie etc.h p. 318-529, this being rather technical, and so is the 6th Abschnitt: der Arbeitslohn? The 7th: die Akkumula-tion? I should suppose, would suit you best. But choose for yourself. Any technical terms for which it might be difficult to find the English equivalent in Paris, you might leave room for, we could hunt them up here or in Manchester and fill them in. As all parts of the translation pass through my hands, I can easily restore the unity of expression (the application of the same technical terms throughout the book). If you accept our proposal, as I hope you will, and choose a section for yourself, we shall have fulfilled at least partially Mohr's wish and have your name and your work associated with this translation which I am convinced more and more every day is an absolute necessity, if the present movement here is not to collapse like a pricked ball by its own inanity; and we shall also be able to hasten the publication. Tussy has undertaken to hunt up all the quotations from Blue Books ' 6 ' and to transcribe the original passages so as to avoid re-translation and errors unavoidably connected with it. She will also see Kegan Paul as soon as possible, may be to-day (the Easter holidays stopped action in that direction), and arrange an interview for me with him when we hope we may be able to settle business matters; we shall then also know whether there is any truth in the Hyndman report.
So if you do say yes, at least something good will have to be connect-
75. Engels to Paul Lafargue. 18 April
ed with the gossiping reports of Bax and Joynes; for to tell you the truth I have no great faith in Aveling's present attempts.
Of Mohr's photographs there are about 450 small ones {cartes*) 24/-per 100 and 250 large ones (cabinets) 50/-per 100 cost price. I shall send you a good parcel of them if you like as soon as I shall have time to pack them. At present I have still heaps of books to stow away. Sam left on Wednesday, Schorlemmer is still here till Monday.[11] He sends kindest regards by the million.
The copy [of the] 3rd editiona I sent to Danielson direct on 5th April, registered, and should be glad if Paul would mention this in his next letter to him. Lopatine had asked me to send it and given me the address.
Now I shall have to write to Paul. So until next time I remain
Your very affectionate
F. Engels
75
ENGELS TO PAUL LAFARGUE [196]
IN PARIS
London, 18 April 1884
My dear Paul,
A quarter to 5 — so must hurry! My congratulations on the success of your Congress, ' b c a success that is evident from the different way in which the earlier and later meetings are reported in the Journal de Roubaix. The Germans did right in not sending a delegate, for had they done so it would have unduly facilitated the further retention of the Exceptional Law [3 7] by the government and the bourgeoisie; the moderates in our party (very numerous among the leaders, very few among the masses, who are first-rate) would have exploited this; such a mistake would have been impermissible. In cases of this kind, demonstrations, even international ones, must be foregone.
When shall I get back the ms. of the translationa? This time you really must try harder, I beg of you. It is essential that the thing should either be done well or not at all. And when will it be possible to begin printing? I ask this so that I can make arrangements to write a few notes and a short preface b—if you like you can do a preface and send it to me here. You asked that you be given precedence over the German edition; but I have got a complete ms. of the first part of the latter and the Zurich people will begin printing the moment a manuscript reaches them.
What with this German text and the English Capital to revise,[56]
my hands are full, and accordingly I wish ho know how to arrange things so as to avoid unnecessary loss of time. For it's essential that I get down to the 2nd volumec— and now Zurich has to inform me of the need for a 2nd edition of my Anti-Diihring[206] and a 4th of the Peasant War,[2] ' d which means further revisions and further prefaces to be done! And that's what I — and Mr Bismarck — have gained from the banning of my books in Germany!
Old William e is more or less in extremist He no longer recognises those who come to see him, nor can he repeat the phrases he has been taught to say by rote in reply to deputations.
Nim has just come back from shopping, she sends you her 'amours' (LOVES) and as much as you want of them.
Yours ever,
F.E.
Twenty minutes past five.
76. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 22 April
77. Engels to- Karl Kautsky. 26 April
Dear Kautsky,
Letters and ms. ' ' [8] received, similarly cards for Nim. More anon. Hard at work on Morgan,[17 4] having been able to return to it only today.
The purpose of this is the following: Please inform the printers that I have very major revisions to make right at the beginning both of Anti-Diihring[2] °[8] and the Peasant War[2] ' [3] and so must insist that no new edition is tackled before receipt of my manuscript. I shall write at further length to Ede as soon as he can get back,(1) i. e. in about a week, for he, after all, is the one who has to take care of these things.
So please see that not one line is set under any circumstances. I wouldn't be able to acknowledge it.
In haste,
Your
F. Engels
77
ENGELS TO KARL KAUTSKY [8 8]
IN ZURICH
London, 26 April 1884
Dear Kautsky,
I had made up my mind and told everyone here that I would play a trick on Bismarck and write something (Morgan) ' [7 4] that he would positively be unable to ban. But with the best will in the world I found it impossible. The chapter on monogamy and the final chapter on private ownership as the source of class antagonisms and also as the detonator that exploded the old communal system I find absolutely impossible to couch in such a way as to comply with the Anti-Socialist Law.[37] As Luther said: Let the devil come and fetch me, I cannot do otherwise.[214]
Nor would there be any point in the thing if I intended to write merely an 'objective' review and not deal with Morgan critically, if I did not try to evaluate the results recently achieved or present them in the light of our views and of what has already been achieved. Our workers would get nothing out of it. So — good and necessarily banned, or — permitted and execrable. The latter I cannot do.
I shall probably (Schorlemmer is here again until Monday") be finished next week. It will amount to a full 4 sheets or more. If you are then willing to risk publishing it in the Neue £eit (after you have read it) may any blood that is spilt as a result be on your own heads and don't blame me afterwards. If you are sensible, however, and do not wish to jeopardise the whole periodical for the sake of one article, you will do better to print it as a pamphlet either in Zurich or in the same way as Frau.[138] But that is your own look-out.
I think the thing will have a particularly important bearing on our general view. Morgan enables us to present entirely new aspects by providing us, in the shape of prehistory, with a factual basis we have hitherto lacked. Whatever doubts you may still entertain about individual primitives and 'savages', with the gens the case has been largely resolved and prehistory elucidated. And that is why the thing should be thoroughly worked on, properly weighediip and presented as a coherent whole — but also dealt with without regard for the Anti-Socialist Law.
And there's another most important point: I must show how bril-liantly Fourier has anticipated Morgan in so many things. It is thanks to Morgan that for the first time the brilliance of Fourier's critique of civilisation really comes across. And that will mean a lot of work.b
I hope you got the letter I wrote on Monday on the subject of the new editions.[3] Will you make sure that absolutely nothing is set up in type before my ms. arrives. The Peasant War is being completely re-written.[213] In the case of Dilhring, the alterations, etc., made to the Socialism: Utopian and Scientific have to be inserted right at the beginning, there's a great deal-to be corrected and some more stuff to be put in.
Apropos. I have here approx. 50 copies of Diihring. If you can use them I shall send them off at once, but you must tell me by what route, so that they don't go via Germany and get seized. They will certainly know about that over there. Let me have as full details as possible.
Your
F.E.
78. Engels to Ludwig Kugelmann. 4 May
122 Regent's Park Road, N. W.
Dear Kugelmann,
My health is ALL RIGHT; it was a tedious and inconvenient affair though in no way serious, but to describe it to you would take pages. I received your card and also send my thanks for the Leibnitziad [2] ' [5]; unfortunately I cannot embark on incidental studies of this kind, as I have my hands full attending to Volume II b and revising translations of Marx's things into German,[118] English [56] and French.[165] On top ofthat there are new editions of two of my works.c The 2nd book
79. Engels to Paul Lafargue. 10 May
will probably appear separately, but, having lost so much time during the autumn and winter, I am very behindhand with everything and, as I am being solicited from so many quarters, I have resolved to make no more promises.
Your
F. Engels
' time
79
ENGELS TO PAUL LAFARGUE [196]
IN PARIS
London, 10 May 1884
My dear Lafargue,
Herewith cheque for £14. Since I do not see any of the Paris papers, it is only from The Standard and from yourself that I know what is going on; your electoral tactics are just what I myself would have recommended [2] ' [6] — these people will do themselves in if left to their own devices; GIVE THEM
PLENTY OF ROPE AND THEY ARE SURE TO HANG THEMSELVES. H o w e v e r , B e m S t e i n wrote and told me that you had put up a candidate" in opposition to Joffrin, and that he thought this ill-advised; let me know what the circumstances are so that I can answer him.
Thank you for the article — it is only the first one and I cannot now remember if I wrote the sequel.[217]
I have only seen the first number of Vaillant's translation. It is good and accurate, save that he does not always appear to be con-versant with military terminology.
Your lectures and those of Deville are excellent ' [7 9] but, at least for the published version, you should develop more exhaustively the con-elusions of your second one on Darwinism. That part seems overwhelmed by the mass of premisses leading up to the conclusion, nor is the latter self-evident enough, while its detail is inadequately developed. I have not yet read the third one. As soon as the translation of The Poverty of Philosophy has been completed in Zurich, ' ' [8] I shall suggest that they bring out the lectures in German.
I shall now withdraw, having a rather important piece of work to complete: The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State,[11]* which I hope to have rid myself of by the end of next week. Until then I must soldier on.
Give Laura a kiss from me and from Nim, who also sends one to you.
Yours ever,
F.E.
80. Engels to Eduard Bernstein. 17 May
Dear Ede,
The ms.a will be finished today; there remains the checking and the polishing, which will take a day or two. Then you shall have it. I think that Kautsky is arranging for the Neue ^eit to print the chapter on the family (minus monogamyb) as a sample and that the whole will be printed separately. You can let me have your suggestions about ways and means when you get it.
A word on the Paris electionsc and other matters as soon as I have time. At the moment I am impatient to be done with the ms. and have left everything else, however urgent, on one side. It will be long — approx. 130 closely written octavo pages and is called Die Entstehung der Familie, des Privateigentums und des Staats."
Time for the post and a meal. Regards to Kautsky.
Your
F.E.
Amongst other vicissitudes, Pumps' little boy is very dangerously ill; I am very anxious about him.
81. Engels to Eduard Bernstein and Karl Kautsky. 22 May
My Dear Fellows,
Herewith the ms.(1) with the exception of the final chapter which still needs revising. You will find that it is not suitable for the open market in Germany, so consider whether it ought to be printed in Stuttgart under a false style or then and there in Zurich, and let me know in writing. Since the Prussian schnapps affair,[218] everything bearing my name has been banned. If it goes to Stuttgart I shouldn't want it to be re-vealed beforehand to the Wise Men who hold sway there.[219] In any case I must read the proof myself and would ask you for the sheets in duplicate, on good paper with a wide margin, otherwise one cannot make proper corrections. Perhaps you would be good enough to send a postcard acknowledging receipt. I shall answer your letters tonight or tomorrow; I have put everything on one side in order to get the enclosed finished and must presently set off for the funeral of Pumps' little boy who died on Sunday.[11]
Your old friend
F.E.
82. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 23 May
Dear Kautsky,
I trust you will have received the ms. of chapters 1-8 a; it went off to you yesterday by registered mail. As I have already suggested, I think the best thing to do, if you want to use some of it for the Neue £eit, would be to take the chapter on the family with the exception of mo-nogamy.b It anticipates the latter to the extent necessary to produce a fairly well rounded whole.
As to the ban, I have already written and told you that everything by me is banned on principled; 'Prussian Schnapps' was a personal in-sult to Bismarck and, now that Richter has used it to concoct a policy of his own for schnapps,[220] the schnapps and wrapping-paper man will henceforward give me no rope at all. Anyhow all your arguments [2 2] ' fall to the ground with the successful endorsement of the Anti-Socialist Law [2 2 2] and with the banning of the Süddeutsche Post that immediately ensued.[223] And the government can afford to be harsh when letting fly with its bans; proof of this is provided by the liberal press which is literally clamouring for vigorous action against us. You, as an Austrian, cannot possibly follow the reasoning that goes on in the minds of people like Bismarck, Puttkamer & Co.; for that you would have to be familiar with the Prussian police regime before 1848; to restore this to full bloom by means of the Anti-Socialist Law is the prime motive of these Junker bureaucrats. Everything else — at home — is secondary.
I have not yet heard anything further about the Diihrings that are stored here.a
I have Rodbertus' Kapital. Seems to be nothing in it. A repository of the most meagre material, endlessly repeated.
The things from the archives are being carefully looked after at my house and I shall be punctilious about returning them.[224] As soon as I have polished off the final chapter and put various other things — books, etc.— in the house in order, I shall tackle the 2nd volume of Capital—in the daytime; in the evenings I shall first of all revise your Poverty of Philosophy [1][18] and do the notes and preface for it.b This ap-portionment is not only useful but absolutely essential, since one does not study Marx's handwriting by lamplight for any length of time unless one is intent on going blind. Moreover my critique of Rodbertus will be confined in the main simply to the accusation of plagiarism [225]
and all the rest — his social Salvationist Utopias, rent, mortgage relief for the landed aristocracy, etc., only mentioned in passing. So you will have sufficient material to administer a sound thrashing to this little Pomeranian exploiter of cottagers,[2] [2 6] who might have become a second-rate economist had he not been a Pomeranian. Now that the milksops, who cling to us on the one hand and to the armchair socialists [54] on the other with the intention of protecting both their flanks, have, à la Freiarsch Thüringer,0 played off the 'greatd Rodbertus' against Marx, and now that Adolph Wagner and other Bismarckians have actually elevated the same to the rank of prophet of careerist socialism,[227] we have absolutely no cause to spare this prodigy invented by Rodbertus himself and loudly extolled by Meyer (who knows nothing about economics and, in the former, possessed his own secret oracle). The man achieved absolutely nothing in the field of economics; he had much talent, but always remained a dilettante and, above all, an ignorant Pomeranian and arrogant Prussian. The most he ever achieved was to present a number of neat and correct points of view, but he was never able to turn them to good account. How can a decent chap actually come to be regarded as the apostle of the careerists of Bismarckian socialism? It is history's revenge upon this artificially inflated 'prodigy'.
Your news from Germany about internal matters is always very welcome.
But now I must write to Ede.
Your
F.E.
83. Engels to Eduard Bernstein. 23 May[8 8]
Dear Ede,
I trust your business trip was eventually crowned with success. All that is necessary to begin with, I think, is for the gentry to be thrown off the scent; once you have managed to do that, the old route, or parts of it, can again be made use of. The stupidity of the police will see to the rest.[228]
I ordered Rodbertus' Normal-Arbeitstag, but it was out of print. I should be grateful if you could let me have the thing — on loan, of course,— since it contains the only authentic version of his proposed labour reforms.— I am now returning the issues of the old Social-Demokrat by REGISTERED MAIL, [224] having discovered that Lessner possesses them. The translation to be agreed with Lafargue is still pen-ding, a which is why I had to have the original here; now, of course, it can be returned.
Singer has been over here and I informed him, amongst other things, of my views regarding the tactics to be adopted in the case of final ballots. For I consider it nonsensical to try and set up universally applicable rules for these which, when it actually comes to the point, are never adhered to. We have great potential power of which no use at all will be made if abstention from the polls is prescribed in all cases where none of our people are involved in the final ballot. As it happens, in all such cases electoral pacts — e.g. with the Centre [2 2 9] — invariably come into being automatically: We shall vote for you here if you vote for us there, and many a seat have we acquired thus. Blunders may result of course, but blunders will always be made, nor is this any reason for committing an even greater one. I therefore told him that, in places like Berlin, for instance, where the electoral campaign is virtually confined to ourselves and the men of Progress,[9 3]
pacts before the general election were not out of the question — you cede us that constituency and in return we cede you this one — but only, of course, if one can count on their being observed. What I consider inept is, in effect, the attempt by congresses to formulate in advance universally valid rules for as yet non-existent tactical cases.
Au fond,a I am glad that the Anti-Socialist Law has been renewed and not repealed forthwith.[222] The liberal philistine would have secured a tremendous electoral victory for the Conservatives[230]; in order to preserve the Anti-Socialist Law he would not only go through fire and water, but wade through the deepest of cess-pits. And it would only have resulted in another, more draconian law. As it now stands, it has probably been renewed for the last time and will, once old Wilm b succumbs to his nephritis, soon cease to exist in practice. And the thorough discrediting of the German Free Thinkers [2] [31]
and of the Centre Party in the course of the division [232] is also of some value, though not as much as Bismarck's right to work. [233] Now that that addle-pate has taken this up there's a chance of our ridding ourselves of the wailersI23 à la Geiser. Come to that, no one but a Bismarck could perpetrate such a blunder in the face of a workers' movement that cannot be kept down even by means of emergency laws. For the present our people are right to press for implementation and thus implicate him as deeply as possible; the moment the man has committed himself a bit more (though he is not likely to do so very soon), the whole imposture will resolve itself — into Prussian police chicanery. Qua electoral programme, the slogan by itself will do him damn' all good.
The right to work was Fourier's idea but realised in his case only in the phalanstère,[2] [3 4] and thus presupposes the adoption of the latter. The Fourierists — peace-loving philistines of Démocratie pacifique, as their paper was called — disseminated the slogan precisely because it sounded safe. The Parisian workers of 1848 swallowed it whole — it being something theoretically utterly unclear — because it seemed so practical, so non-utopian, so readily realisable. The government realised it — in the only way it could be realised in a capitalist society — in the form of preposterous national workshops.[235]
Similarly in this country, during the 1861-64 cotton crisis, the right to work was realised in Lancashire in the form of municipal workshops. And in Germany it is likewise being realised in those hunger and cudgel workers' colonies about which your philistine is now enthusing. Advanced as a separate demand, the right to work cannot be realised in any other form. The demand for its realisation by capitalist society can only be met by the latter within the terms of its own existence, but if the demand for the right to work be made of that society, then it is made on these specific terms and hence is a demand for national workshops, workhouses and [workers'] colonies. But if the demand for the right to work is to comprise indirectly the demand for the subversion of the capitalist mode of production, it is, in regard to the present state of the movement, a dastardly piece of tergiversa-tion, a concession to the Anti-Socialist Law, a slogan whose only purpose can be to bemuse and befuddle the workers as to the aims they ought to pursue and the only terms upon which they can attain them.
In the Paris municipal elections, our people have in fact pursued the tactics recommended by you, only putting up Dereure against Joffrin because there was at first no Opportunist[236] standing against him, so that in this instance opposition was pretty well obligatory. Simoneau did not come upon the scene until later, whereupon Guesde immediately demanded that Dereure withdraw; but at this point Dereure's courage failed him and thus he suffered a resounding defeat. Vaillant, on the other hand, triumphed over the Possibilists[2] [3 7]
in his arrondissement, for Retiès was a tosspot [poivrard) of the worst repute and was deservedly defeated. And if Joffrin was defeated in the final ballot, it was not our people but his who were to blame. It will, by the way, be necessary to go on opposing the Possibilists until they
84. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 26 May
deign to come to an agreement with our chaps at election time; so long as they simply go on making themselves out to be the parti ouvrier par excellence,a they will force our chaps into direct opposition. So either — or; it's for those gentlemen to decide.
As regards Joffrin in particular, his programme was so lousy and lukewarm that even the Radicals refrained from putting up a rival candidate, Joffrin's programme being, in essence, their own\
Over here Justice gets more wretched by the week.
Your
F.E.
I shall also set to work on the Diihring. [208] When roughly do you want to start printing? Once I have begun, I shall be able to knock off some 6 to 8 sheets straight away, although it is precisely at the beginning that there is much revision to be done.
The Peasant War will be completely rewritten save for the account of military events.[2] ' [3] I have learned a great deal about the subject in recent years and shall be including quite a lot of German history. This as soon as Diihring is ready!
84
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
IN PARIS
London, 26 May 1884
My dear Laura,
Since the receipt of your letter of the 15 th we have had sorrowful times. On the 18th Pumps' little boy died and was buried on the 22nd.
The child suffered from whooping-cough, bronchitis, convulsions and croup, there was but little hope a week before he died. I was under the impression Pumps or Percy had written to you, and they it seems relied on me for letting you know; well, I was busy finishing my pamphleta to which I postponed even the most pressing letters — and finishing it, as you may conceive, under difficulties of every sort. Well, it's done, the last sheets go off tomorrow. How long they will be over the printing of it, I don't know.
I am sorry you won't go in for the 'Akkumulationsprozess des Kapitals'. b Think it over again. I am afraid we cannot do without help from without, and to tell you the truth I have deuced little confidence in what assistance I may get here. Aveling has den besten Willen" but he is to translate strange matter aus einem ihm unbekannten Deutsch in ein ihm unbekanntes Englischd; if it was natural science it would be easy enough, but political economy and industrial facts where he is not acquainted even with the commonest terms. And Sam[6] who is doing the first chapter far better than I expected, takes such a time over it. And yet it is daily becoming a greater necessity to have it out, and Kegan Paul and Co. with whom I expect to come to terms soon, are pressing, but unless I can promise the ms. by say November, complete, I cannot well conclude anything. You might try a few pages and see how you get on. A German-English dictionary would be useless; the words you would have to look for, you would not find there; you could leave space for them, and I could fill them in, they will mostly be technical or philosophical terms.
Paul's conferences'" are a great success, [179] the New Yorker Volkszeitung brings them regular, their own translation, I believe. If the French had two or three people who could and would assimilate German publications in the same manner, it would help them on immensely. I foresee that when my Ursprung der Familie etc. g comes out, Paul will be mad after translating it, there are things in it just in his line,h but if he begins he will have to take the German words in their own sense and not in the sense he pleases to impart to them, because I shall have no time whatever to work at it. I shall now start with the 2nd volume [of] Kapital and work at it during daylight, the evenings will be for the revision of the various translations in hand and threatened. This pamphlet I just finished will be the last independent work for some time to come. Will you please tell Deville that I have not as yet had the time to read his last conférence, but shall do so before the week is out and hope it is as good as its predecessors.
Now I must conclude, it is past eleven and Nim is moving for bed, she has got 'pains all over', id est slight muscular rheumatism in consequence of cold, and she must stand at the door while I post this letter, as Annie is in bed, so in order to keep Nim no longer from her much needed rest (she has slept a bit in her arm-chair already) I hope you will excuse the blank space at the foot of this.
By the way, it appears Liebknecht has been in Paris, the German papers tell the most extraordinary things about his mysterious proceedings, [238] also that he spoke at a banquet together with that muff Lecler.(1)
Kisses from Nim and
From yours affectionately,
F. Engels^
85. Engels to Eduard Bernstein. 5 June
Dear Ede,
Have spent a week at the seaside.[239] While there I got a nasty cut on my right index finger and hence can only write briefly and badly. So Kautsky will have to wait, the Sozialdemokrat being* more important 5 1884
than the Neue ^eit and, in the latter's case, the circumstances are such that it makes no difference anyway whether I stick my oar in or not. Besides I consider that all Kautsky's moves, in so far as he has told me about them and in so far as I am able to judge the situation, have been absolutely correct.[240]
As regards the Sozialdemokrat, it is a rather different matter. Now that their worships, the wailers, ' [2] [3] have formally combined into a party and constitute a majority in the parliamentary group, [49] now that they have recognised, and are exploiting, the power they have acquired thanks to the Anti-Socialist Law, [3] ' I consider it to be more than ever our duty to defend all our own vantage points to the utmost, especially our vantage point on the Sozialdemokrat, which is the most important of all.
These people live off the Anti-Socialist Law. Were there to be free discussion tomorrow, I should be all for letting fly at once, in which case they would soon come to grief. But so long as there is no free discussion, so long as they control all the papers printed in Germany and their numbers (as the majority of the 'leaders') enable them to make the very most of gossip, intrigue, whispering campaigns, we, I believe, must steer clear of anything that might lead to a breach, or rather might lay the blame for that breach at our door. That is the universal rule when there is a struggle within one's own party, and now it applies more than ever. The breach must be so contrived that we continue to lead the old party while they either resign or are chucked out.
Then the timing. Just now everything is in their favour. We cannot, after the breach, stop them from slandering and reviling us in Germany, from posing as the representatives of the masses (for the masses do elect them after all!). We have only the Sozialdemokrat and the foreign press. They can gain a hearing, we can only do so with difficulty. So if we precipitate a breach at this moment, the great mass of the party will claim not without justification that we have sown discord, have disorganised the party at the very time when, beset by dangers, it is laboriously reorganising itself. If we can avoid it, the breach ought to be postponed, and this is still my view, until some change in Germany gives us rather more elbow room.
If a breach becomes inevitable nevertheless, it must not be of the personal kind, it must not involve any rows (or what could be represented as such) between e. g. you and the Stuttgarters [2] ' [9]; rather the occasion for it must be a quite specific point of principle, i. e. in this case of an infringement of the programme. Rotten though the programme may be, a cursory perusal of it will enable you to find enough in it to support your argument.[241] The programme, however, is not subject to the jurisdiction of the parliamentary group. The breach must be prepared in advance to the extent that Bebel, for one, agrees to it and at once goes along with you. And, thirdly, you must know what you want and are able to do once the breach has been made. To allow the Sozialdemokrat to pass into the hands of these people would be to make the German party the laughing-stock of the entire world.
The worst thing of all in such a case is impatience; decisions made on the spur of the moment and dictated by passion always seem to oneself tremendously noble and heroic, but they regularly lead to blunders, as I know only too well from a hundred examples from my own practical experience.
So: 1) postpone the breach for as long as possible, 2) if it becomes inevitable, make sure that it emanates from them, 3) get everything ready in the meantime, 4) do nothing without Bebel, for one, and possibly also Liebknecht, who will again be good for something (possibly too good) once he sees that the thing is inevitable and, 5) defend your vantage point on the Sozialdemokrat envers et contre tous,a down to your last cartridge. That is my view.
You could certainly repay the 'condescension' of these gentlemen a thousand times over. You're certainly never at a loss for a ready answer in other respects and can certainly confront those jackasses with enough irony as well as disdain to make them rue this behaviour. There can be no serious discussion with ignoramuses like these who glory in their own ignorance; rather, they must be derided, hoist with their own petard, etc.
Don't forget either that, should things come to a head, my hands are very much tied by the vast amount of work ahead of me and I shan't be able to join in the fray to the extent I might wish to do.
I should also be grateful if, instead of general complaints about the philistines, you could give me a few details of what they object to and what they demand. Nota bene, the longer you negotiate with them, the greater the amount of self-incriminating material they must inevitably supply you with!
Write and tell me how far I ought to go into these matters when
against all-comers corresponding with Bebel; I shall have to write to him shortly and intend to put off doing so until Monday the 9th inst., by which time I may have had a reply from you. Regards to Kautsky.
Your
F.E.
86. Engels to August Bebel. 6 June[88]
Dear Bebel,
Have received your letter of the 4th inst. and shall attend to the en-closure. You do not say whether you got my registered letter of 21 April,[3] [9] in which I returned the envelope, its seal broken, of your letter of the 18th ofthat month. If it has been intercepted, then the Stiebe-rising of letters has been doubly proven.[242]
If everything were to go according to the wishes of the Conservatives [2 3] ° and Liberals,[2] [4 3] and likewise accord to the secret yearnings of the progressist philistines,[93] there can be no doubt that the Anti-Socialist Law [3 7] would long since have been perpetuated as an institution in Germany and that it would so remain. But that can only happen if nothing happens elsewhere in the world, and everything remains as it is now. Despite all these philistine desires, the Law was on the very brink of disaster when friend Bismarck applied his two last and most powerful levers — Lehmann's direct intervention[210] and the threat of dissolution. [244] Hence it would not even require a particularly violent convulsion of the present status quo, peaceful as it is, to put an end to the whole caboodle. And in my opinion this will surely happen before two years are out.
True, Bismarck has, for the first time, played a really nasty trick on us by procuring 300 million marks for the Russians. [182] That will give the Tsara a couple of years' respite from an acute financial emergency and thus temporarily eliminate the danger that looms larg-est— the necessity of having to convene the Estates for the voting of subsidies, as in France in 1789 and Prussia in 1846. If the revolution in Russia is not to be put back by several years, there must either be some unforeseen complications or else a couple of nihilistic thun-derbolts. b Neither of these can be counted on to happen. All we may be sure of is that the recent borrowing operation cannot be repeated.
At home, on the other hand — as you yourself say — a change of monarch is imminent and is bound to make everything totter. Here again it is as it was in 1840, before the death of old Frederick William III. So many interests are bound up with the old familiar state of political stagnation that there is nothing the heart of Philistia as a whole desires more fervently than its perpetuation. But with the old monarchc the keystone disappears and the whole artificial structure collapses. The afore-mentioned interests, faced with an entirely new situation, suddenly discover that the world of today looks completely different from that of yesterday, and that they will have to look round for new mainstays. The new monarch d and his new entourage have plans that have long been suppressed; the whole body of those who govern or are capable of governing expands and changes; officials are perplexed by the new conditions, and the insecurity of the future, the uncertainty about who will be at the helm tomorrow or the day after, causes the action of the entire government machine to falter. That, however, is all we require. But we shall get more. For in the first place we may be sure that while, at the start, the new government may have liberalising aspirations, it will soon become frightened at its own daring, will vacillate hither and thither and eventually grope its way hither and thither, living from hand to mouth, from instance to instance, each decision conflicting with the next. Aside from the general effect of this vacillation, what will become of the Anti-Socialist Law if it is administered under these conditions? The slightest attempt to ad-minister it 'fairly' would be enough to render it ineffective. Either it has to be operated as at present, purely at the whim of the police, or it will everywhere be broken.— That is one aspect. But there is another, namely that then, at last, some animation will return to the bourgeois political scene, the official parties will cease to be the one reactionary mass they now are (which is no gain to us, but rather a dead loss), and again begin seriously combatting one another and likewise strug-gling for political supremacy. It will make a tremendous difference to us whether, on the one hand, both National Liberals and Crown Prince Free Thinkers [2 3]' have a chance of coming to the helm, or whether, as now, the ability to govern is confined to the liberal Conservatives. We shall never be able to lure the masses away from die liberal parties so long as the latter are not given an opportunity of dis-crediting themselves in practice, of taking the helm and demonstrating their ineptitude. As in 1848, we are still the opposition of the future and must, therefore, have the most extreme among the existing parties at the helm before being able to confront it as the opposition of the present. Political stagnation, i. e. aimless and purposeless struggle between the official parties, as at present, can be of no service to us in the long run. What could, however, is a progressive struggle between those parties, with the centre of gravity gradually shifting to the Left. That's what is currently happening in France where, as always, the course of the political struggle has assumed a classical form. The successive governments are moving ever further to the Left, and a Clemenceau government is already in sight; it will not be the most extreme bourgeois government. With every shift to the Left, concessions accrue to the workers (cf. the recent strike at Denain in which, for the first time, the military did not intervene [245]) and, more important still, the field is being increasingly cleared for the decisive battle, while the position of the parties becomes more distinct and well-defined. This slow but inexorable progress of the French Republic towards its logical conclusion — the confrontation between radical would-be socialist bourgeois and genuinely revolutionary workers — I consider to be a manifestation of the utmost importance, and I hope that nothing will happen to stop it. And I am glad that our people are not yet strong enough in Paris (but all the stronger for that in the provinces) to be misled by the force of revolutionary phrases into attempting a putsch.— In muddle-headed Germany, needless to say, progress is not being made along the same purely classical lines as in France; we have lagged much too far behind for that, and everything we experience has already had its day elsewhere. But despite the rottenness of our official parties, political life of some description would be of far greater advantage to us than the present political death in which action is confined to the secret intrigues of foreign policy.
Sooner than I expected, friend Bismarck has lowered his trousers and shown the assembled people the posterior of his right to work [233] — an amalgam of the Poor Act of the 43rd year of the reign of Elizabeth and the Bastille amendment of 1834.[246] What bliss for Bios, Geiser and Co. who have, after all, been riding the hobby-horse of the right to work for some time now (1) and who already seem to imagine that it was they who had roped in Bismarck! And, having once embarked on this topic, I feel impelled to tell you that the performance of these gentry, both in the Reichstag — in so far as one can judge from the inadequate newspaper reports — and in their own press, has increasingly convinced me that /, at least, do not even re-motely share their standpoint or have anything at all in common with them. These allegedly 'educated' but in fact utterly ignorant and ob-stinately ineducable philanthropists, who were not only admitted in the face of Marx's and my long and oft reiterated warnings, but were actually shepherded into the Reichstag, would seem to me to be becoming increasingly aware that they are in a majority in the parliamentary group and that it is precisely they who, with their time-serving attitude towards every crumb of state socialism tossed to them by Bismarck, more than any one else, are concerned that the Anti-Socialist Law should remain in force and that it should be applied le-niently, if at all, to well-meaning persons like themselves — again something which only people like you and I prevent the government from doing, for if these, the afore-mentioned philanthropists, were rid of us it would be easy for them to prove that there was no call for an Anti-Socialist Law where they were concerned. Their abstention as well as their general performance in connection with the Dynamite Bill was likewise typical.[247] But what's going to happen at the next election ' [9 4] if, as seems probable, the safest constituencies fall to these chaps?
It is a great pity that, during the next few critical months, you will be so far away; now, with the elections upon us, we should certainly have had occasion to tell each other a great deal. Could you not let me have an address from which my letters could be forwarded to you? I also hope you may sometimes be able to send me some interesting information about your trip.
Apart from what seems to me steady progress and increasing cohe-sion on the part of the eddicated bourgeois elements of the party, I am not at all anxious about the course things are taking. I would, if possible, rather see a split avoided so long as we have no freedom of action. But if it has to be — and it is for you people to decide, then so be it!
A work of mine on the origin of the family, property and the state is about to appear. As soon as it comes out I shall send it to you.
Your old friend
F. Engels
87. Engels to Johann Philipp Becker. 20 June
Dear Old Man,
I hereby notify you that I have today taken out a £5 money order on your behalf and hope the post office will have advised you of its receipt by the time this letter arrives — it goes off by the next post. I have long looked forward to being able to make the above available and am glad that the moment has now come.
However, I cannot, alas, write you a long letter since, in my particular condition, prolonged sitting at my desk is bad for me and consequently prohibited. Unfortunately I have again knocked myself up a bit by doing so, for I have had a great deal of work to get through; but resting in a prone position, as I have again been doing most assid-uously for the past few days, will soon put me to rights again. I am now dictating the 2nd volume of Capital,* and so far it has been going quite quickly, but it's the devil of a job and will demand a great deal of time and, in parts, much brain-racking. Luckily my brain is in pretty good shape and quite up to the mark where work is concerned as you will, I hope, be able to see from a little book on the origin of the family, private property and the state soon to be published. The second book of Capital will also, I think, come out before the end of the year, and the third next year.
At Whitsuntide I spent a week with Borkheim [239]; he is still laid up, with one side half paralysed, gets up three times a day for meals and to do some writing, is writing his biography,[248] and is in good spirits and surprisingly cheerful for one in his condition, but sometimes suffers terribly from boredom. Moreover, he cannot read anything that demands much effort — not that he ever really has done. I send him books and the like every so often. He asked fondly after you and, in fact, we talked a great deal about you and about the old days.
Amongst Marx's papers I have found a few military campaign journals and the like relating to German columns in Switzerland which, no doubt, form part of the papers you mention. ' [2 6] Some more may turn up. Everything is safely here, but is still in a state of complete disorder. For the time being I shall have to lock away all correspondence, etc., in a large trunk until I have time to sort the stuff out and put it in order. But now it is absolutely essential that a text, both printable and written in a legible hand, be produced of the final volumes of Capital. Neither of these things can be done by any one now alive save for myself. If I were to kick the bucket first, no one else could possibly decipher the things which Marx himself was often unable to read, although his wife and I could do so. The letters, on the other hand, are written in such a way that others can read them.
In three or four months' time we shall be having elections in Germany. [194] I am extremely optimistic. There are many milksops amongst the leaders, but my faith in the masses is unshakable.
Your old friend
F. Engels
88. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 21- 22 June[2 4 9]
Dear Kautsky,
I hope you are now back from your trip to Salzburg [2] ä ° and will soon be able to tell me something about the outcome of the Stuckerta-on-the-Neckar affair over the Neue £eit.[240] According to what I hear from Ede and also from August,b something of a damper has since been put on the passions of the Wise Men.[219] It is high time, too, that I heard something definite concerning the fate of my ms.c Ede dropped me a pencilled note and promised something more, but did = 0.
Your ms. ' ' [8] still reposes here and has not yet been attended to for the following reason. After having completed the ms.c I was like a cat on hot bricks until I could begin work on Volume II of Capital. I did so. Next, I proposed to set about revising your work, as also the English translation (of the 1st volume of Capital) ,[5 6] in the evenings. But I had reckoned without my host. I had been hard at it since Easter, often spending 8 or 10 hours at my desk and, as a result of the posture this involved, my former indisposition partially reappeared — this time in chronic, not in its previous sub-acute, form. So desk work was again forbidden, sauf quelques exceptions.d I therefore took the heroic step of engaging Eisengarten so that I might dictate the ms. to him and, since the beginning of the week, he and I have been slogging away from 10 to 5 every day, during which time I lie on the sofa, re-covering visibly (idiotic word — nothing to be seen, only felt) but, of course, slowly. The thing's going far better than expected. Eisengarten is intelligent and hard-working and puts his heart into the thing, the more so since he is just working his way through the 3rd edition of the 1st volume. But most of the mss. are such that I have to spend every evening going through what I have dictated if I am to produce a text that is even provisionally valid. At the moment this takes up all my available time. But I believe that things will improve, as we are now coming to the original gospel written before 1870, which means that there will be less re-editing. ' [7] Anyway, I couldn't very well have revised your ms. lying down. But if you are in a hurry, I shall find the time and do it all at one go. There could be no question of this, however, nor for that matter, any necessity for it, unless you had got almost all of it done. I shall then — if not before — also let you have the preface about Rodbertus.a
For the rest, I shall not discuss in detail your complaints about the eddicated chaps; I have known these worthies in this guise or that for 40 years now and have already given Ede my opinion of them at some length.b The main thing is not to let oneself be browbeaten and, at the same time, retain one's composure.
The dynamiters have at long last discovered just what to do. They are concerned with striking at the root of the old social order, and now it transpires that the root in question is in fact the tail. This pro-found truth with which they are imbued eventually enabled them to discover how best to set about it, and they went and blew up a pis-soir.[2] [5] '
Which reminds me that the man behind the Geneva-Carouge Explosion is none other than the Italian mouchard,c Carlo Terzaghi, who had already been unmasked by us in The Alliance of Socialist Democracy.[252]
The expelled Austrian anarchists[253] purport to be connected with the regular German charities which have long existed over here. One of them touched me for alms but was unmasked and, upon his returning today, was chucked out at top speed.
The 2nd book of Capital will give us even more headaches, at least to start off with, than the first one. But it contains quite admirable analyses that will, for the first time, show people what is money and what capital and much else.
But now it is time to lie down again. All things considered, and apart from the localised trouble, I'm as fit as a fiddle, and my brain is in first-class condition.
Regards to Ede.
Your
F. E.
Sunday 22nd.
Postscript. Hyndman intends to buy up the whole of the little movement here. He has done everything he can think of to ruin To-Day. Bax, who advanced the money for the purpose, got his sums wrong and was soon cleaned out. Hyndman, who is rich and also has access to the resources of Morris, a very rich but politically inept art lover, will either take To-Day under his wing or let it perish. Either way, he believes, he will reign supreme. I am glad that I have remained aloof from the whole caboodle. Hyndman is shrewd and a good business man, but superficial and STOCK-JOHN-BULL; moreover his ambition far outruns his talents and achievements. Bax and Aveling have the best of intentions and are, besides, learning by degrees, but everything's at sixes and sevens, nor can these literati do anything on their own. The fact is that the masses are not yet going along with them. Once the chaps have sorted themselves out a bit it will be better.
89. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 26 June[184]
Dear Kautsky,
The anti-Rodbertus ms.[254] goes back tomorrow by registered mail. I found little that called for comment and have made a few pencilled notes. Apart from these I would add the following:
1) Roman Law is the consummation of the law of simple, i.e. of precapitalist, commodity production, though the latter also embodies much of the legal system of the capitalist period. Exactly, that is, what our burghers needed at the time of their rise and, in accordance with local common law, did not get.
On p. 10 there are several things I object to: 1. Surplus value is the exception only in the case of production by slaves and serfs. It ought to read surplus product, most of which is directly consumed but not valorised.
2) As regards the means of production, the matter is not quite as you say. In all societies based on a division of labour that has evolved naturally, the product, and hence also to some extent the means of production, dominates the producer — on occasion at any rate — as did, in the Middle Ages, the soil the peasant who was simply an ap-purtenance of the land and the tool the guild handicraftsman. Division of labour is the direct domination of the instruments of labour over the worker, although not in the capitalist sense.
Much the same applies to the concluding bit on the means of production.
1) You should not separate agriculture any more than technology from political economy, as you do on pp. 21 and 22. Rotation of crops, artificial fertilisers, the steam engine, the power loom, cannot be separated from capitalist production any more than the tools of the savage and the barbarian from his production. The tools of the savage condition his society just as much as do more modern ones capitalist society. What your view boils down to is that, while production does indeed determine the social institution today, it did not do so before capitalist production existed, because tools had not as yet been guilty of original sin.
The moment you say means of production, you say society and a society determined by, amongst other things, those means of production. Means of production as such, extraneous to society and without influence over it, exist no more than does capital as such.
But how the means of production, which, at earlier periods, including that of simple commodity production, exercised only a very mild domination compared with now, came to exercise their present de-spotic domination, is something that calls for proof and yours strikes me as inadequate, since it fails to mention one pole, namely the creation of a class which no longer had any means of production of its own, or, therefore, any means of subsistence, and hence was compelled to sell itself piecemeal.
In the case of Rodbertus' positive proposals, emphasis ought to be laid on his Proudhonism — after all he proclaimed himself Proudhon I, the forerunner of the French Proudhon. Constituted value, invented by Rodbertus as early as 1842,[255] is to be established. His proposals here are lamentably retrograde by comparison with Bray
90. Engels to Evgenia Papritz. 26 June
and with Proudhon's exchange bank. The worker is to get only '/4 of the product, but that is assured! We can discuss this later.
Repose (physical) is suiting me splendidly; I get better every day and this time the cure will be complete. The dictation of the 2nd book of Capital is going ahead splendidly. We a have already reached Part II — but there are big gaps. The editing is only provisional, of course, but that too will get done. I can see my way ahead, cela suffit}
Ede's letter received with thanks. You will have to be patient with my letter-writing; I mustn't get run down again and a frightful amount of work and correspondence is piling up.
My regards to you both,
Your
F.E.
Wage Labour and Capital^ will go off as soon as the comparison is done, perhaps tomorrow/
90
ENGELS T O EVGENIA PAPRITZ
IN LONDON
[London,] 26 June 1884 122 Regent's Park Road, N.W.
Dear Madam,
The lithographed journal to which you have been so good as to draw my attention is already known to me by repute, although I have not yet been fortunate enough to see a copy of it.[256]
Are you not, perhaps, being a trifle unjust towards your compat-riots? Marx and I have not, for our part, found any cause for complaint in them. While certain schools may have been more noted for their revolutionary zeal than for their scientific studies, and while, here and there, some degree of trial and error may have been and may still be in evidence, we have, on the other hand, witnessed a critical spirit and a devotion to research, even in the field of pure theory, wholly worthy of a nation capable of producing a Dobrolyubov and a Chernyshevsky. And here I speak, not only of the active revolutionary socialists, but of the historical and critical school in Russian literature, which is infinitely superior to anything of the kind produced in Germany and France by way of official history. And even among active revolutionaries our ideas, and the science of economics as re-modelled by Marx, have always met with an intelligent and sym-pathetic response. As you are doubtless aware, a number of our works have quite recently appeared in Russian translation, and are to be followed by others, notably Marx's Poverty of Philosophy. His short work dating from before 1848, Wage Labour and Capital (HaeMHMÖ Tpy4i. H KariHTaAt), has also appeared under that title in this series.[257]
I am exceedingly flattered by your suggestion that a translation of my Outlines etc. might prove useful. Although still a little proud of this, my first work on social science, I am all too aware that it is now completely out of date and replete, not only with mistakes, but also with 'howlers'. The misapprehensions it could hardly fail to engender would, I fear, quite outbalance such good as it might do.
I shall be sending you by post a copy of Diihring's Revolution etc? As for our old newspaper articles, it would be difficult to lay hands on them just now. Most of them have little relevance today; as soon as the publication of the manuscripts left by Marx allows me sufficient leisure, I intend to bring them out as a collection with explanatory notes, etc. But that will not be for some time to come.
I am not quite sure what you mean by the manifesto addressed to English working men. Might it be THE CIVIL WAR IN FRANCE, the International's manifesto on the Paris Commune b? That I could send you.
If my health permitted, I should ask your permission to come and call on you; unfortunately I am not allowed to go out and about, though I feel reasonably well when at home.— Should you be willing to do me the honour of dropping in on me here, you would always find me at your service round about seven or eight o'clock in the evening.
I am, Madam,
Yours very truly,
F. Engels
91. Engels to Eduard Bernstein. 29 June[6 1]
Dear Ede,
1. I return Wage Labour and Capital* herewith. The Silesian edition has certainly required a great deal of revision.[258] I did not, it is true, have time to compare it with the original throughout, but only those passages that worried me most. However, you chaps have got it there and will be able to attend to that when correcting the proofs.
2. I shall get another portrait of Marx done by the same man who did mine, and let you have it. It is not a chalk drawing but an enlarged photograph. But how will a colour-print turn out if the chap has never seen Moor and his singularly dark complexion? [2 5] 9
3. A parcel of 40 Revolutions* went off from here yesterday addressed to Volksbuchhandlung, 3 Kasinostraße, Hottingen-Zurich, Switzerland, 'BOOKS, VALUE £3 CARRIAGE FORWARD' (i. e. not prepaid) per CONTINENTAL PARCELS Express, which is the correspondent of the German Imperial Post Office and of the Swiss Post Office, and likewise of the French parcels offices. The association stuff [Vereinssachen] from Zurich also comes here by the same route. There is no parcel post between England and the Continent, hence no 'postal packages à 5 ki-los', or not, at any rate, for this country; splitting them up would mean doubling the cost over here. Not splitting them up into 2 parcels surely wouldn't raise the cost of consignment there as much as would splitting them up over here.
4. Schorlemmer writes to say that his brother Ludwig in Darmstadt has not yet received a single number of the Sozialdemokrat despite the fact that receipt of his subscription was acknowledged in the paper. Is this an isolated misfortune or general one? Please look into it.
5. I can't get hold of any socialist poems specifically by Weerth. There are some in Moses Hess' old Gesellschaftsspiegel of 1845, but I believe you have already seen those. I once heard something about a collection of his verse but have never set eyes on it.[260] In any case, he never published such a thing any more than we did.
6. The archivist will have to wait; I haven't the time to get my own things in order. If I do get round to it, you may be sure he won't be overlooked.[261] But now the prime consideration is the completion of the 2nd volume of Capital. The thing's going swimmingly, the preliminary edition of about [1]/[3] having been done, and is progressing by something like a/[2] a printed sheet a day, or a little under. As soon as we get to the last part ('The Circulation of the Aggregate Social Capital'),[3] Eisengarten can, with my help, copy out the existing ms. of 1878, " while I can get on with the final editing of what has already been done. In this way we shall finish before so very long, and then go on to the 3rd, most important book.
Only then will it be possible to consider putting the old pre-'48 mss. in order and preparing extracts thereof for the press. It's not that I am unwilling, but this requires work, i. e. time.
So you, too, have finally come round to the view that we shall end up by coping quite successfully with the 'Wise Men'.[219] I sent for a few numbers of the Neue Welt, so as to meet the gentlemen chez eux b
for once. So far have only read the correspondence column. German schoolboy cheek which presupposes a very tame readership.
You should not, by the way, allow yourself to get worked up about pin-pricks; that is the golden rule in this struggle. And remember that
92. Engels to Sarah Allen. About 6 July
Nothing gives one more delight Than one's antagonists to bite, Than making scurvy jokes about This uncouth clod, that clumsy lout.a
Regards to Kautsky.
Your
F.E.
Works, Second Russian Edition, Vol. 36, Moscow, 1964
Yours, etc.
92
ENGELS T O SARAH ALLEN [2 6 2]
IN LONDON
[Draft]
[London, about 6 July 1884]
Madam,
In reply to your note of the 5th arrived to hand yesterday and an answer to which was retarded by my absence from town, I beg to say that I consider Mr E. Aveling quite a desirable tenant and have no doubt that you will not regret having let your premises to him.
93. Engels to Gabriel Deville. 8 July
My dear Citizen Deville,
Thank you for sending me your lectures ' [7 9] — the last one reached me yesterday and I have not yet had time to read it. I have no doubt that it is no less excellent than its predecessors. I shall suggest to our friends that they translate them into German and publish them in the same way as you are doing in Paris; it's precisely what we need for propaganda just now.
Would you be so kind as to pass on the enclosed note to Lafargue without Mme Lafargue's knowledge? He'll tell you the reason for this — perfectly innocent, by the way.
94. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 11 July
Dear Kautsky,
I trust Ede will get over his feverish attack; give him my regards and tell him that I, too, shall be drinking to his health.
To have let Auer have the Hamburg stuff is perfectly all right so far as I'm concerned. I suggested Bebel and Dietz merely because I had
Yours ever,
F. Engels
Published in English for the first time to tell the man to whom I intended to mention his name; needless to say this does not in any way restrict your freedom of action.
The matter of Dietz is becoming a bore. If he won't say either yes or no, then we can't go on waiting for him. My chief concern is that the thing" should come out and, secondly, that it should not be instantly confiscated en masse. I. e. two things that are to be had simulta-neously only in Switzerland. Printing in Austria should be considered only in case of need; 1) it would mean fresh delays and negotiations and 2) the thing would be banned all the same, you need be under no illusions as to thatb; and 3) not only could it be banned in Austria, but also seized (remember the Viennese affair you told me about last autumn). So do get something positive done at last.
There must still be something peculiar going on in the Neue £eit, otherwise that wise man Schippel would certainly not have been allowed to talk of a 'Rodbertusian-Marxian theory', or of things that 'one has come to recognise since Rodbertus'; and without editorial comment at that.0 The Germans must have fallen low indeed if they have still not discovered that what Marx has in common with Rodbertus is nothing more than the application égalitaire de la théorie ricardienned
mentioned by Marx on p. 49 of the Poverty0 and which has been a commonplace among English socialists since 1827! But that is very far from being surplus value as defined by Marx and applied by him to every aspect of the science of economics. Which is why the good English, and likewise Rodbertus, for all their borrowings from Ricardo, have made no headway at all in the matter of economics; the first advance in this field was made by Marx, who demolished all previous political economy.
Incidentally, if I am to tackle Rodbertus properly, I must have his piece of 1842,f Zur Erkenntniss unsrer Zustände, or whatever it is called. You quoted from it.g Could you let me have it for a day or two or, better still, buy it for me? To judge by some of the quotations, it would seem to be the best, because the first thing that he wrote, his later stuff being a mere rehash, hence increasingly flimsy.
Your
F.E.
95. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 19 July[2 6 3]
Dear Kautsky,
Did not get the letter from you and Ede until this morning, although postmarked Zurich 17/7.
I agree to your proposals, provided the thing now goes ahead. If our workers can read Roman just as easily as German characters, I would myself, of course, prefer Roman. Format about the same as Entwicklung" — Bebel's Frau 13B was too large. If you believe you can sell 5,000,1 am quite agreeable. So just get on with it and let me have the proofs soon. The arrangement with Schabelitz is also quite satisfactory.[264]
So the only reward we get for the consideration we have shown Dietz is his regarding us all as his enemies!
That the Neue £eit is to cease publication [2 6 5] is no misfortune for the party. It is becoming increasingly clear that the great majority of literary party men in Germany belong to the ranks of those opportunists and pussy-footers whom the Anti-Socialist Law,[37] adversely though it may affect their pockets, has placed in exactly the right literary atmosphere; they can express themselves uninhibitedly, whereas we are prevented from giving them a piece of our mind. Thus the very fact of having to fill up such a review every month demands considerable forbearance, and entails the gradual encroachment of philanthropy, humanism, sentimentality — in short all the anti-revolutionary vices of your Freiwalds,a Quarcks, Schippels, Rosusesb et al. People who refuse on principle to learn anything and who turn out nothing but literature about literature and à propos of literature ([9]/[10] of all German writing today consists of writing about other writing) will, needless to say, produce more sheets per year than those who mug up a subject and attempt to write about other books only when 1 ) they have mas-tered those other books, 2) the latter contain anything that is worthwhile. The preponderance of these gentlemen in literature published in Germany, a preponderance created by the Anti-Socialist Law, is unavoidable so long as that Law endures. On the other hand, we have a weapon of altogether different calibre in the shape of the literature appearing abroad.
It would be delightful if you were to come to this country. But I don't know whether you ought to count with such certainty on the New Yorkers. Over 3 months ago Aveling was taken on as London correspondent0 and, though he has written regularly, he has not yet had a penny. Here on the spot there's nothing to be earned. Neither Justice nor To-Day pay, and if there's anything to be picked up elsewhere in the press, everyone is on to it like a pack of wolves.
The clairvoyance in the Neue Welt[2] [6 6] is the best thing that could have happened. That sort of 'erudition' regularly degenerates into such-like nonsense. The cruder the better — it will be over all the sooner. I did so laugh when I got your postcard. A few more such au-dacious Geiseriads and the chap will have to pack his bags.
Hyndman's book,d like the man himself, is a pretentious, impertinent jumble in which he, too, continually tries to pick holes in Marx (for not being an Englishman; Hyndman is the most jingoistic John Bull imaginable) and yet is so ignorant of English history that it's all wrong except for what he has learnt from the Germans. But Hyndman is about to come a cropper here; true he has, with his own and Morris' money, now bought up the entire movement, financially speaking (likewise To-Day which Bax is unable to carry on for want of resources, and which has now been transferred lock, stock and barrel to Hyndman), but his eagerness to play the dictator, his envy of all potential rivals and his persistent self-promotion, have rendered him suspect to even his surest friends, and his position in the DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION" is growing shaky. Cet homme n'ira pas loin, il ne sait pas
96. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 22 July
attendre.*On top of that, Justice is becoming ever sillier, and I hope that this initial phase of the movement here will very soon be overb; it is becoming dreadfully unedifying.
With your bacillum, you have given Geiser an opening [267] which, however, he may with any luck be too stupid to exploit. Both forms, baculus and baculum, are current, hence either gender so far as the derivation is concerned. But bacillus has long since been exclusively adopted in biology.
As I shall probably be going to the seaside for a bit at the end of this or the beginning of next month, I should be grateful if I could have Rodbertus' %ur Erkenntniss now.c I shall return it immediately, along with the Normal-Arbeitstag, etc., but it is necessary for me to have seen the thing because he himself maintained in 1879 that Marx had made use of it without due acknowledgment.[187] No such accusation could ever be brought against Marx save by people without any idea of the hair-raising ignorance it requires so much as to assert anything of the kind. Anyone who has read Ricardo — and even in Adam Smith there are passages enough to this effect — must after all know what is the 'source' of surplus value without having to read the greatd Rodbertus first.
Your
F.E.
96
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
IN PARIS
London, 22 July 1884
My dear Laura,
'Za suite à demain.1,... mais je l'attends encore, cette suitee which was to explain to me the many otherwise inexplicable things in your last letter. Why, I thought you lived in one of the finest, airiest, healthiest, etc., quarter of Paris, at an elevation sufficient to raise you above all earthly things, and now all at once you are going to move, and that at this blessed hot time of the year, and Paul is going to Bordeaux, and the whole world is all sixes and sevens and the long and the short of it is that you are not coming[268] but must spend the hot season in Paris, and will only leave Paris at that season when Heine admired it most:
die Sterne sind am schönsten in Paris Wenn sie eines Winterabends Dort im Strassenkot sich spiegeln.[8]
Well, Nim and Jollymeier who came on Friday,b and myself have given this matter our most serious consideration and we have come to the unanimous, but so far not very satisfactory conclusion: that something must be wrong somewhere.
Anyhow: As La Suite" won't come, I hope you will after all come yourself and let all these considerations go to the wind. If you wait for Paul's going to Bordeaux to start a paper, that may or may not come off these next 100 years. If he does not go, and it is absolutely necessary that you should move from 66 Boulevard de Port-Royal, well, then let him hunt for apartments and do the moving. So I do not see what should stop you from coming over — if only for 3 weeks say — and as soon as you tell me that you are coming, we will make the road as smooth for you as we can.
Tussy and Edward are off on honeymoon No. I, if not back already again — the grand honeymoon is to come off next Thursday.d Of course, Nim, Jollymeier and I have been fully aware of what was going on for a considerable time and had a good laugh at these poor in-nocents who thought all the time we had no eyes, and who did not approach the quart d'heure de Rabelais[269] without a certain funk. However we soon got them over that. In fact had Tussy asked my advice before she leaped, I might have considered it my duty to expati-
' The stars ate upon the various possible and unavoidable consequences of their step — but when it was all settled, the best thing was for them to have it out at once before other people could take advantage of its being kept in the dark. And that was one of the reasons why I was glad that we knew all about it — if any wise people had found it out and come up to us with the grand news, we should have been prepared. I hope they will continue as happy as they seem now, I like Edward very much, and think it will be a good thing for him to come more into contact with other people besides the literary and lecturing circle in which he moved, he has a good foundation of solid studies, and felt himself out of place amongst that extremely superficial lot amongst whom fate had thrown him.
Jollymeier is very well and lively now — while I work he takes long walks — he is off now on one of them. Pumps has at last got over her bronchitis, etc., and will move to-day into her new house in Kil-burn — beg pardon, 'West Hampstead' (I never knew Hampstead to reach as far as Edgware Road, but so it seems).
Nim is very well and lively — next week I suppose we shall have to move towards the sea, but where to? that grand question remains still to be solved. As to myself I am right enough on condition of keeping — for the present — within very narrow bounds both as to exercise, work and enjoyment — I hope the change of air will finally set me right.
And now for 7<z suite', and let it be a good one, a suite that brings you over!
Paul's Blé has arrived this morning. What a pity he does not follow the wise counsels of la rédaction du" Journal des économistes! [2] ' °
Very affectionately yours,
F.E
97. Engels to Eduard Bernstein. Mot earlier than 25 July
Dear Ede,
You may send the enclosed to Auer if you wish; I have contrived it with that in view.
As regards the apportionment of constituencies,[271] I assure you that I, too, have often been annoyed about it, but it is due to the desire to proceed, in purely tactical matters, in accordance with general principles and this always happens at congresses where everything is made to look so nice and simple. Dual candidatures are, of course, useless as a rule; but if you reckon that in the doubtful constituencies the best people are more likely to get in than the others and you therefore put them up there, you must either tolerate dual candidatures in their case or run the risk of their not being elected at all. So if you're totally opposed to dual candidatures, you must put up the best people in the safest constituencies. But then it is odd that this relega-tion to doubtful constituencies never happens to Liebknecht but only to Bebel, and that e. g. at the last election Liebknecht had, if I am not mistaken, two quite good constituencies.[3] Enfinh such things cannot be avoided. Nor must one forget that a battle always has its ups and downs and hence not be put out if the downs sometimes tend to pre-dominate.
At all events, this much is certain: so long as we have the Sozialdemokrat, their worships the opportunists may do as they wish; and even if they gained control of the parliamentary group (which is after all only possible if Bebel is not re-elected), they wouldn't have won, not by a long chalk. What are their intentions towards the masses? The latter keep pressing these same people onwards whether they like it or not. And if the Wise Men [2] ' [9] also succeeded in gaining command of the Sozialdemokrat, this would be of shorter duration than the Sozial-demokrafs first weak-kneed period which at the outset also met with
a See Engels' letter to Bernstein of 30 November 1881 (present edition, Vol. 46).-b Well
98. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 26 July
support, even among the better of the 'leaders', but was utterly rejected by the masses.
As to the Vast Erudition of the celebrated non-atheist,[272] I shall be highly delighted if it takes every possible, opportunity to parade itself. An equally mysterious savanta crops up in Paul de Kock's Amant de la lune; when, having gone to the utmost trouble, people finally get the measure of his erudition, they discover that it consists in a couple of conjuring tricks with corks. Think of all the trouble we went to before this celebrated man finally consented to provide us with just a. few samples of his erudition! And how pretty they are! And he has actually got as far as clairvoyance.[266] What more could we want? — cela marche!c
Regards to Karl Kautsky, also from Schorlemmer.
Your
F.E.
Tell Manz, who has written to me, that a portrait just like mine is now being done for him and that he shall have it as soon as it is readyd; in a sprawling city like London, however, I can't chase after things personally and must therefore depend on other people.
98
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
IN PARIS
London, 26 July 1884
My dear Laura,
La suite, la suite de la suite et la conclusion pare Paul Lafargue to hand. I have just sent my amanuensis" home and have a few minutes left to say that I shall be very glad not only to revise Paul's article but also to offer suggestions as to points of attack.[273] But for that I must have the book" and to get it I must know the exact title — please let me have that at once so that I can order it.
It appears, then, that after all we shall have to do without you at the seaside.[268] Well, I don't know — if this weather continues, whether France is not preferable. We have now, 5 p.m., hardly 17° Centigrade and plenty of rain so that poor Jollymeier has not been able to take his walk.
Pumps and Percy are just coming in for dinner so I must conclude. Love from all.
Yours affectionately,
F.E.
99. Engels to Hermann Schlüter. 28 July
Dear Mr Schlüter,
Proofsb returned herewith. Shall continue to return them promptly. But I would ask you to be rather more indulgent with my spelling; I have no cause in my advancing years to let myself be either civilised or centralised, let alone cited.0 Supposedly 'consistent' spelling is usually far less consistent and far less historical than the good old casualness.
I am in full agreement with your suggestions. However these are things you know more about than I do.
I would now ask you to be good enough to let me have the final proofs and, when the book is ready, 25 copies of the deluxe edition and 5 of the other; I shall not be able to manage with less.[264]
To save postage, the ms. can be sent with the proofs in a stiff, strong wrapper; over here mss. and proofs are both charged as book post. They must, however, carry the full amount of stamps, otherwise they won't arrive here.
Yours faithfully,
F. Engels
100. Engels to James Leigh Joynes. 30 July
Dear Sir,
I am sorry I cannot at present give you my consent to a translation of my Entwicklung etc.* for To-Day, as I am bound by a previous engagement to another gentleman.b
As to my promise of an article for To-Day, that promise was given to Mr Bax and as far as I know Mr Bax is no longer one of the Editors of To-Day.c
Yours faithfully,
F. E.
101. Engels to Eduard Bernstein. July[274]
[...]a By way of self-sacrifice I looked through a few numbers of the Neue Welt. It was so deadly dull that it couldn't be done for long. As regards Mr Geiser, his 'erudition' is unassailable there. The very fact of a person's parading his erudition in a penny paper of this kind is proof enough that he has failed to take in anything at all. Even had he not invariably written cholera bamllus for bacillus, as though the word stemmed from bacca and not baculus. Besides, it's to be found in any Latin dictionary. The assertion that both materialism and ideal-ism are one-sided and must be synthesised in a higher entityb is a hoary one and ought not to worry you; again, that atheism merely expresses a negation is an argument we ourselves had already advanced against the philosophers 40 years ago, only with the co-rollary that atheism, as the mere negation of, and referring only to, religion, would itself be nothing without it and is thus itself another religion. Typical of the-remaining erudition is an article by Bios on the Greek and German godsc in which alone I noted the following serious bloomers:
1. The Epistolae obscurorum virorum are said to be by Reuchlin. While they did originate from his entourage, he had less of a hand in them than Ulrich von Hütten.[275]
2. The Greek gods 'feast on nectar and quaff ambrosia'! 3^ 'Mead', alias 'Meed',d he explains in brackets, is 'beer', when every child knows that it is, and always has been, made, not with malt, but with honey.
4. Bios does not even know the names of the German gods; [he]e
gives them now in early Nordic, now in German. Alongside the early Nordic Odin whose German name (early Saxon Wodan, Old High German Wuotan) he doesn't know, we find the Old High German Ziu. Odin is also said to have a wife called Freia; but in early Nordic
102. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 1 August
she is called Frigg, Old High German Fricka, something even Richard Wagner could have told him. There you have a little nosegay culled rapidly in the space of 10 minutes! Not even the meanest cur could be frightened by erudition of that sort. Just let them strut like peacocks in their penny paper; you only have to look behind their fans to see where the droppings come from!
Your
F. E.
Regards to Karl Kautsky.
102
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE [2 7 6]
IN PARIS
London, 1 August 1884
My dear Laura,
Leroy-Beaulieu duly arrived." Thanks. Have not had much time yet to look at it, but shall do now,b Schorlemmer has gone to Germany yesterday.
We shall probably start on Mondayc for Worthing near Brighton— it's Percy's choice, and from all other people's reports a hor-ridly dull place.[277] All the same to me, but if Pumps does not like it, she will have to settle that with the husband of her bosom. Shall let you have exact address as soon as possible.
Have had a bad cold in consequence of the heat and exposure to drafts — have not smoked or tasted beer for nearly a week, but am on the right side of both again since yesterday.
As Paul's article on the blé* is not complete yet and they are almost sure to have a month between that and the attack on Leroy-Beaulieu, [2 7 3] so that this latter article will only appear in the October No., there will be a bit of breathing time — at least I hope so. I do want a bit of rest, and shall have, besides this affair, plenty of translations to revise while at the seaside. The great thing for Paul will have to be — conciseness, limitation of the question strictly to Leroy-Beaulieu's criticisms on Mohr, leaving entirely out Lassalle, etc.— except perhaps when Leroy-Beaulieu gives occasion to show his glaring ignorance. However as soon as I have looked the book over I shall be able to judge better. Anyhow as the book is big and the place for reply small, the limitation to what is strictly necessary will be unavoidable.
Now I must conclude — it's blazing hot, I have written already five letters and have still to write to 'Mrs Aveling' and to Zurich.
Nim too has a bit of the cough and what I almost feel inclined to call a whooping-cough sometimes — but it is not bad. You know that Tussy caught a regular whooping-cough from little Lilian Rosher! It's positively true.
Tell Paul to give you a kiss each for Nim and me.
Very affectionately yours,
F. E.
103. Engels to Karl Kautsky. / August
Dear Kautsky,
Have today returned Rodbertus' Zur Erkenntniss by registered mail, and trust it will arrive safely. After receipt of this, don't send any
a wheat; Engels is referring to Paul Lafargue's article 'Le blé en Amérique; production et commerce'.
more letters here. I shall be going to the seaside [277] on Monday" and might even be able to send you my new address pro tempore tomorrow.
Rodbertus' book is indeed by far the best thing he ever wrote — youthful work in both the good and the bad sense — the original version of subsequent flimsier ones — shows how close he came to the thing, if he had only followed it up instead of setting his sights on Utopias. I am very glad indeed to have seen it. Time for the post and lunch.
Your
F.E.
Regards to Ede, the ex-epididymitician.
104. Engels to Eduard Bernstein. 6 August[2 6 3]
Dear Ede,
After all manner of vagaries I have at last landed up here, on the South coast, where I hope to stay for a good 3 weeks.[277] At our door we have the whole expanse of the Channel, though at low tide it re-cedes a good 300 paces; on the whole a quiet, boring little spot where, between bouts of idleness, I shall probably find enough time to look through your and Kautsky's translation of the Poverty. ' ' a
Perhaps you would be so kind as to arrange for the proof-sheets b to be sent me here until further notice. Eisengarten will arrange for the Sozialdemokrat to be forwarded from London.
The weather here is fine and hot and I still have to notify umpteen people of my new address. So no further news (in any case damned scarce) save that Hyndman has now succeeded in buying To-Day as well. Bax, who invested in it what little money he had — I warned him as early as October that it wouldn't be enough — was au bout de ses finances* at which juncture Hyndman interposed his attendant page, Champion, through whom he offered additional funds if he, Champion, became editor in place of Bax. Thus seized by the throat, Bax accordingly resigned, the result being that Hyndman now con-trols the whole of the so-called socialist press. But as in the case of all such little fellows whose ambition is disproportionate to their character and talents the moment of victory was also the moment of defeat. Outward success is matched by failure within his own faction. To an increasing extent Hyndman's following is coming to consist only of those he has bought outright, and/or people who are financially dependent on him. He is daily losing ground in the DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION. The day before yesterday there was a conference of delegates[278]; what transpired there I cannot say since Aveling, though he attended it, is at present in Derbyshire. For he and Tussy have got married without benefit of registrar, etc., and are now revelling in each other's company amidst the Derbyshire hills. Nota bene: No publicity should be given to this; it will be time enough when, perhaps, some reactionary puts something into the papers about it. The fact is that Aveling has a lawful wife whom he cannot get rid of de jure although he has for years been rid of her de facto. The matter is fairly common knowledge over here, and has, on the whole, been taken well, even by literary philistines. My London is almost a Paris in mi-niature and it educates its people.
But enough for now. Regards to Karl Kautsky.
Your
F. E.
105. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 6 August
105
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
IN PARIS
Worthing, 6 August 1884 48 Marine Parade
My dear Laura,
Here we are and here is our address in as primitive a place as the British sea-side will admit of277 — the first lodgings we took we had to leave because the old Madam objected to smoking!!
No Lager Beer as yet, but Percy is hunting some up at Brighton — as soon as that is to hand I will try whether I can digest Leroy-Beaulieu[273]; it is blazing hot but fine continental heat and sea-breeze, the Channel is right before our noses but at ebbtide about lji mile away. Pumps and Nim just come in for beer, they say it is so hot they cannot stand it outside any longer and the house is indeed cooler.
Why, after all ces pauvres parisiens* will be done out of their share of cholera! What a shame after all their preparations.
Nim just says she hopes she has come into a fortune on July 31st in that grand drawing in Paris., If so, you are to telegraph at once to the Baroness de Demuth at the above address, as she wants to come out with a grand treat.
I am lazy and have so many letters to write! So I hope I shall have good news from Paul, that is to say that the great Leroy-Beaulieu is not in such a hurry to pocket his thrashing.[11]
Anyhow, I must take beneficium caloris0 and conclude. The whole lot send any amount of loves, ditto
Yours affectionately,
F. E.
106. Engels to Paul Lafargue. About 11 August
106
ENGELS TO PAUL LAFARGUE [196]
IN PARIS
[Worthing, about 11 August 1884] [279]
p. 1. Beaulieu always writes Schoeffle: the gentleman's name is Schqffle.
p. 3, nascent capitalist system — ? about 1780-1800? The birth of that system dates back to the 15th century, whereas nascent big industry merely led to its apogee.
pp.1 and 4. Maine does not in any way deserve to be cited in the same breath as Maurer; he discovered nothing and is merely a dis-ciple of the disciples of Maurer; long before his day, the communal ownership of land in India had been known about and described by Campbell, etc.; that in Java by Money, that in Russia by Haxthausen.a His only merit is to have been the first Englishman to have accepted and vulgarised Maurer's discoveries.
p. 5, must be entirely recast. The examples you give do not apply to the point under discussion. The peasant's plot which turns into capital would be land as capital, a very complex matter not discussed by Marx until the 3rd book!b Your slave-owner producing for the New Orleans market is no more a capitalist than the Romanian boyar who exploits forced peasant labour. No one can be a capitalist unless he owns the means of labour and exploits the free working man!
Rather you should say: the loom of the small peasant of pre-revolutionary times, which was used to weave clothing for his family, was not capital, nor yet is it capital when the peasant sells to the merchant the cloth he has been able to make during the long winter evenings; but if he employs a paid hand to weave those commodities for the merchant, and if he pockets the difference between the cost of production and the price of the sale of the cloth, then the loom is transformed into capital.— The object of production — to produce commodities — does not impart to the instrument the character of capital. The production of commodities is one of the preconditions for the existence of capital; but so long as the producer sells only what he himself produces, he is not a capitalist; he becomes so only from the moment he makes use of his instrument to exploit the wage labour of others. This also applies to p. 6. How can you possibly have failed to draw that distinction?
In place of your impossible slave-owner (don't be so Réachel), you might say: a feudal lord whose fields are cultivated by tenants subject to labour-rent, and who, moreover, collects tribute from them in the form of eggs, poultry, fruit, cattle, etc., is not a capitalist. He lives on the surplus labour of others, but he does not transform the product of that surplus labour into surplus value; he does not sell, but consumes, spends and dissipates it. But if the said lord, as he so frequently did in the 18th century, rids himself of some of those tenants, if he combines their plots into one big farm and rents it out to one big industrial farmer of the kind so beloved of the Physiocrats; if, in the cultivation of his farm, the said big farmer employs as wage labour those formerly subject to labour-rent, then agriculture is transformed from feudal into capitalist agriculture, and the farmer becomes a capitalist.
p. 6. The direct form taken by the circulation of commodities is, of course, its primitive form[280]; this clearly has to exist before the 2nd form can come into being. Compared with simple barter it is not primitive; but the circulation of commodities presupposes the existence of money; barter creates only fortuitous exchanges, not the circulation of commodities.
p. 7. Capitalist production is not some form or other, whether direct or indirect, of the circulation of commodities. Production and circulation are two different things. All capitalist production presupposes the circulation of commodities, this being the element in which it moves, but it is not itself circulation, any more than digestion is the circulation of the blood. You can delete the whole of that sentence, which contributes nothing whatever to the sense.
p. 11. The passage you underline, I find incomprehensible as well as wrong on all counts. Your average capitalist does sell and can sell for more than 10 frs what is produced at a cost of 10 frs.— Where you go wrong is over 'the costs of production'. But the costs of production, in the sense used by economists," include profit; they consist 1) of the amount the product has cost the capitalist and 2) of the profit; in other words: 1) of the amount which replaces the constant capital spent, 2) of the amount which replaces the wages paid, 3) of the surplus value, either as a whole or in part, created by the surplus labour of the wage earners. You should therefore take Beaulieu's sentence, his definition of value (p. 9, bottom), and compare the two expressions of value one with the other: either the cost price includes the profit, in which case the commodities are paid for 'in accordance with the social labour they contain'. In which case the price (or value) in-cludes a surplus value created by living labour, over and above the wages paid, and appropriated by the capital. Or else the cost price does not cover the profit; in which case the value is determined, not by the social labour comprised in the object, but by the wages, whether high or low, paid for that labour — an outworn concept refuted at some length by Ricardo.
pp. 12 and 13. The whole value of the machine and of the cotton, and even that of the waste, is transmitted to the product; and therein lies the true nub of your argument. If the 115 lbs of cotton yield only 100 lbs of yarn, the pricea of the 115 lbs of raw cotton is added to the value of those 100 lbs of yarn. Perhaps it is this, the value of the 15 lbs which have disappeared qua material but have reappeared qua value, that Mr Beaulieu calls surplus value?
p. 13. If the capitalist were to lend his machinery, etc., to the work-man, the product would belong to the latter — which is never the case.
pp. 13 and 14, 'engenders a gain called profit': cf. para. 1, p. 270, where Mr Beaulieu demonstrates that it is not the capitalist but rather the consumer who is the beneficiary of technical progress. He criticises Marx for forgetting competition; yet all through the chapter on manufacture and big industry, Marx demonstrates that machinery merely helps to lower the price of the products, and that it is competition which accentuates that effectb; in other words, the gain consists in manufacturing a greater number of products in the same length of time, so that the amount of work involved in each is corres-pondingly less and the value of each proportionately lower. Mr Beaulieu forgets to tell us in what respect the wage earner benefits from seeing his productivity increase when the product of that increased productivity does not belong to him, and when his wage is not determined by the productivity of the instrument.
pp. 14 and 15. The justification of profit here proffered by Beaulieu contains what is the quintessence of vulgar economics, namely its justification of the exploitation of the working man by the capitalist. The creator of capital demands his 'due' return for that creation (that is to say, the 'wages of abstinence' — see Marxa), and that return has to be paid by the exploited working man in the form of unpaid labour. This you commend on the grounds that 'profit is the legitimate offspring of living labour'! 'The managerial salary' is represented and assessed in terms of the salary paid to a salaried manager, a salary with which no capitalist would rest content. Cf. Capital, 3rd German edition, pp. 171 and 172 (the French edition is not to hand), where you will find all these statements refuted in a few words.b The insurance premium against 'risk' is indeed taken out of surplus value, but it is reckoned over and above the profit; every year the capitalist sets aside a sum amounting to ... as a reserve for what he calls the 'ducroire'c (from the Italian del credere, that is, to cover himself against bad faith or bad debts). Finally, rewards for greater efficiency, for inventions not yet generally exploited, occur only in exceptional cases and may then yield an extra profit; but here we are concerned with ordinary, average profit such as is common to all industrialists. Come to that, you will find this type of profit discussed in Capital, 3rd German edition, pp. 314-17.d
By taking these statements of Beaulieu's in earnest, by declaring that profit thereby becomes 'the legitimate offspring of living labour' (not of the working man, but of the labour of the capitalist^, you endorse, on Marx's behalf and in Marx's name, those doctrines of vulgar economics which he combatted always and everywhere. You must, therefore, completely change your mode of expression so as to exclude even the semblance of such a meaning. Otherwise it will be you who falls into the trap.
Your assertion on p. 16 that 'when the products ... capitalist profit is nil or all but nil', runs completely contrary to the facts. For in that case, where is the exploitation of the workers? What are you com-plaining about? And what do the capitalists live and grow fat on, or dissipate? Where the deuce did you light on such an idea, never expounded even by vulgar economists and which, furthermore, is not even to be found in Beaulieu? And you call it a general law! What is true is that, with machines making 100 metres of cloth with the same expenditure of labour as manual labour on its own would require for 1 metre, the capitalist can spread his profit over 100 metres instead of concentrating it on only one; the result being that, while every metre carries only '/IOO of the profit, the profit on the sum total of labour expended may stay the same, if not actually increase.
p. 16. Marx would protest against 'the political and social ideal' at-tributed to him by you. When one is an economist, 'a man of science', one does not have an ideal, one elaborates scientific results, and when one is, to boot, a party man, one struggles to put them into practice. But when one has an ideal, one cannot be a man of science, having, as one then does, preconceived ideas.
In short, the article will have an effect if you eliminate the chief errors I have indicated. But for the purpose of your riposte,[281] which must be of a far more serious nature, I am firmly of the opinion that you must seriously re-read Capital, from cover to cover, with Beaulieu's book beside you; and that you should mark all the passages relating to vulgar economics. I say Capital rather than Deville's book(1)
which would be wholly inadequate because of grave defects in the descriptive section.
Again, you must not forget that these gentry, Beaulieu and others, are far better versed than you are in the ordinary literature of economics, and that this is a field in which you will not be able to combat them on equal terms; it is their business to know such things, not yours. So do not venture too far into that field.
I have spoken frankly and hope you will not take it amiss. It is too serious a matter and, if you were to put a foot wrong, the whole party would suffer as a result.
We are dying of heat here, but are pretty well, nonetheless. Everyone sends a thousand greetings to Laura and yourself. Unfortunately our stock of Pilsener is nearly exhausted and takes two days to be re-plenished from Brighton! We are right out in the wilds here.
Yours ever,
F. E.
' Translated from the French
107. Engels to Georg Heinrich von Vollmar. 13 August
IN MUNICH
Worthing, England, 13 August 1884 48 Marine Parade
Dear Comrade,
It was not till yesterday that your esteemed letter was sent on to me from London, hence my delay in replying.
The question you put to me [282] is difficult, or rather only to be answered in the negative. No science is so botched today as economics, and this at every university in the world. Not only is there no one anywhere who expounds the old classical economics along the lines of Ricardo and his school; it would actually be difficult to find any one who expounded common-or-garden free trade, i. e. so-called Manchesterism à la Bastiat,[283] in unadulterated form. In England and America, as in France and Germany, the pressure of the proletarian movement caused bourgeois economists, almost without exception, to acquire an armchair-socialist cum philanthropic complexion,[54] while an uncritical, benevolent eclecticism is everywhere in evidence — a soft, elastic, gelatinous substance that can be compressed into any desired shape and, for that very reason, exudes an excellent nutrient fluid for the culture of careerists just as does real gelatine for the culture of bacteria. The effect of this insubstantial, enervating, intellec-tual pap has made itself felt in Germany, at any rate, as also here and there among German Americans, even within the very confines of our party, while on the periphery it luxuriates unchecked.
Such being the case, I would find it difficult to discover any appre-ciable difference between the various universities. Independent and thoroughgoing study of classical economics, from the Physiocrats and Smith to Ricardo and his school, as also of the Utopians Saint-Simon, Fourier and Owen and, finally, of Marx, combined with the constant use of one's own judgment, would probably yield the best results. I am assuming that your friend would study the actual sources and not let herself be led astray by text-books and other secondary sources. In Capital Marx has indicated the most important sources of information on actual economic conditions. How the official statistics of the various countries should be evaluated, and to what extent they are or are not useful, can best be learnt from an actual study and comparison of them. And in just the same way, one's individual studies, the more advanced they become, provide the best guidance as to the ways and means of learning more, always supposing one has started off with genuinely classical texts and not with the most worthless of all — German economic text-books and/or the lectures of their authors.
That is about all I can say on the subject. And I shall be delighted if Miss Kjellberg finds anything here that can be of use to her.
I look forward, by the way, to the general elections ' [9 4] and remain
Very sincerely yours,
F. Engels
Engels, Works, Second Russian Edition, Vol. 36, Moscow, 1964
108. Engels to Marya Jankowska (S. Leonowicz). Mid-August[284]
Yes. The only condition I must impose on you — and this categorically— is that you should publish nothing in Polish before the German edition has been completed. The work would be instantly banned in Germany and the least indiscretion or premature allusion could only result in alerting the German police and in hampering the circulation of the original, if not in causing a large part of the edition to be confiscated. Perhaps you would be so kind, then, as to acknowledge receipt of this letter and to give me your assurance that you will abide by a condition which, unfortunately, cannot be dispensed with.
109. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 22 August
Dear Kautsky,
Have just received your letters which were somewhat delayed, as you did not put the number of the house; also the mental faculties of our postal drudges over here are of the very lowest order.
Poverty. ' ' (1) The manuscript I have here has now been revised. Apart from slight misinterpretations of those niceties of French that can only be properly learnt in France itself, there was not much to alter. For rapports* I usually put Verhältnis rather than 'Beziehungen* because the latter is too indefinite and also because Marx always rendered the German Verhältnis as rapport and vice versa. Moreover in rapport de proportionnalité, for instance, rapport, being quantitative, can only be rendered as Verhältnis, since Beziehung has primarily a qualitative meaning. I must make a few more notes on this subject. I await your next manuscript. The passages relating to Hegel and things Hegelian can only be gone through in London, as I shall need my Hegel for the purpose. I shall do all I can to finish it as quickly as possible. But Capital, Book II, ought also to be finished at the same
First published in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXIX, Moscow, 1946 time and there is a hell of a lot still to be done to it; and in this particular clash of interests the latter must, after all, take precedence! However I shall do my utmost. But when must you have the preface? I shall reply twice to Rodbertus, once in the preface to Capital, Book II,a and again in that to the Poverty} There is no other way, since both works will be appearing more or less simultaneously and Rodbertus' accusation was couched in such formal terms.[187] In Capital I must assume an air of dignity, whereas in the preface to the Poverty I shall be more at liberty to speak my mind.
If you leave Zurich, you would certainly do better to come here rather than go anywhere else, with the possible exception of Paris. Obviously the material aspect enters into it since you, having.been duly installed as a married man, can no longer afford to take the risks a bachelor would. Besides, Paris is said to be just as expensive a place to live in as here. And for study the BRITISH MUSEUM is, after all, in-comparably better; the Paris library cannot hold a candle to it so far as people like us are concerned, partly because of the difficulty of using the place, shortage of catalogues, etc., etc. I trust the matter can be arranged.
As to what you want to do in regard to my pamphlet, you are bound to be a better judge than I; so do what you think appropriate.[285] However I'm prepared to bet that the thing will be banned.
Like Ede, I believe that in regard to Bebel you have allowed yourself to be much too much influenced by first impressions. True, his last letter also evinced a certain lassitude and a desire to rest. If there is no other way he ought to be allowed to do so for a time; but would he be able to, even if he were temporarily to absent himself from the Reichstag? This much is certain: he is irreplaceable in Germany and must be kept going, must, if necessary, spare himself, so as to be fit for action at the crucial moment.
It also seems to me that you are too censorious about the people in Germany — i.e. the masses. Since time immemorial, progress has been damned slow in the case of the new blood; most of them were à la Geiser and Viereck. That the Anti-Socialist Law [3 7] does more harm than good in this case in certainly not in doubt. However so long as so much forbidden literature gets into the country, the ground will be prepared nevertheless and, when the air has cleared again, it should be possible to speed things up in this respect also, and to do so more quickly than would have been the case had there been no inter-ruption.
But now I must write to Ede. It is one o'clock and the post goes at two!
Your
F. E.
110. Engels to Eduard Bernstein. 22 August
[...]a index for Capital would be highly desirable.[286] But why not all at one go when the whole thing is done? That will be next year for sure, provided I don't collapse, of which there is no prospect at present. For your own information, The History of Theory has also been largely completed. The ms. of A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy of 1860-62 contains, as I think I showed you when you were here, approx. 500 quarto pages on Theories of Surplus Value, a great deal of which must, it is true, be deleted because it has since been re-written, but there will still be enough of it. ' [7] '
In his Schulze-Bastiat, Lassalle cited Rodbertus in a connection that might in anyone else's case have earned him intense hostility, i. e. as the authority for and/or discoverer of a trifle. The Briefeh may, it is true, have contributed to the Rodbertus cult. But what has done so more than anything else is, firstly, the desire among non-communists to set alongside Marx a rival who is himself a non-communist and, secondly, those people's unscientific confusion. To all those who loiter on the state socialist fringes of our party, make sympathetic speeches but nevertheless want to avoid the hostility of the police, His Excel-lency Rodbertus is a godsend.
The move of the Neue £eit to Hamburg may after all be only the prelude to its end.[265] Of course I know nothing about those presently in charge of the Hamburg office.
Last Tuesday[2] we had a revolution here in Worthing. A shop belonging to a Salvation Army fanatic was attacked and broken up; the man fired his revolver, wounding three people. Next day windows were smashed in the lock-up; that same evening 40 dragoons and 50 police moved in (the little place has about 10,000 inhabitants) to clear the streets, whereupon the good citizens, knowing themselves to be innocuous, refused to budge and in several instances received a merciless beating; now all is calm. Really, the tomfoolery one wit-nesses. Both sides, SALVATIONISTS and ANTI-SALVATIONISTS, are secretly in the pay of the bourgeoisie.
Your
F. E.
111. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 30 August[2 8 7]
Letters received. Have ordered G. Adler's little pamphlet: will doubtless be able to get hold of it in London.[288] Thank you for the particulars. The man shall be dealt with. Am busy with the Poverty ' ' [8]
and hope to finish it while still here. A good deal of the philosophical part needs to be translated into the appropriate Hegelian jargon.
There is no hurry about Bachofen's Antiquarische Briefe. Meleager
112. Engels to Eduard Bernstein. 13- 15 September
has already figured in his Mutterrecht; this aspect is of importance to me in the present instance only in conjunction with the view I have put forward.a
Over here 4 musicians, with the help of misleading music, are making propaganda for Bismarck by informing the English in a brand of Rhenish-Franconian totally incomprehensible, even to me, that they pledge their souls and bodies to live for thee alone, etc., and that Strasbourg is a city wondrous fair.b Regards to Ede.
Your
F. E.
Send things to London from now on. We go back on Tuesday.[2] [7] [7]
112
E N Ö E L S T O E D U A R D B E R N S T E I N
IN ZURICH
London, 13-15 September 1884
Dear Ede,
I have been back here a fortnight (all but). [2 7 7] During my absence Eisengarten was supposed to be making a fair copy ofthat part of the ms. of Part II e that was ready. The great heat, however, led him, now to dawdle, now to write so beautifully, if so slowly and so little, that I dare not send what has been done to Meissner because I would not be able to follow it up quickly enough. So that puts paid for the present to early publication; what Meissner will do now, I don't know. In some respects I'm not sorry, for in this way I can be
a See present edition, Vol. 26, p. 238.- b An allusion to two traditional German airs. -c the second volume of Capital all the more certain that nothing will have to be done in too much of a hurry.
What you say about the translation of my pamphlet" is all very well. But how does Lafargue translate? He consults neither his wife nor the dictionary; he does everything on his own, decrees that such and such a German word is so and so in French, and then, proud of his masterpiece, sends me the ms. I could do it just as well myself. He, of course, wants to set to at once — however, nous verrons ce que nous verrons^ As for an English version, Aveling has enough on his hands for the time being,a and also proposes to translate my Entwicklung.^ But what publisher will pay for it? And in his position he can't do more unpaid work than he already does. Nor is there any particular hurry about this. Our prime concern must be to put Capital into English, and that will give us work and to spare.
I was greatly tickled by the way you took Bahr and Fabian, not to mention friend Gumbel, to task over the stock exchange taxes[289] (I always know my Gumbel, whether he's vindicating his respectable toping companions, the Heilbronn philistines, or whatever). In Bahr and Fabian you have two fine examples of German 'erudition', something I am always glad to see harshly taken to task. One aims at Bahr the blow intended for Geiser. What particularly pleased me, however, was the way you struck home, putting emphasis on essential points, and also your verve.
Now I must break off; I can only spend a short time sitting at my desk. I took some cold sea-baths that did me more harm than good. Till tomorrow then.
14 September. I returned the ms. of Poverty ' ' b to you last week, 4 September, by registered post, together with my comments. I presume you received it. When you [and Kautsky] compare my amend-ments with the original you will find that certain turns of speech had not, in fact, been correctly understood (in some cases I have made comments), but that is inevitable unless one has spent a good deal of time in the country concerned.
I have at last been able to get hold of a copy of my enlarged photograph for the artistd—I forget his name and have mislaid his letter — who wishes to make a colour-print of Marx.a I shall send it to you tomorrow or the day after.
Since the present elections will have a major impact [1 9 4] we must all make an effort and so I am sending you herewith a money order for £25 for the election fund.
Sorge has sent me Gronlund's The Cooperative Commonwealth; his exposé of theory rather flat after Marx's, but comprehensible to philistines; the main object is, apparently, to present his model of the future as true GERMAN SOCIALISM, but I found it too boring to read. Marx is not quoted, the only reference to him being SUCH NOBLE JEWS AS MARX AND LASSALLEI Crikey!
Under Hyndman's direction To-Day gets worse and worse. To make it more interesting they accept anything and everything. The editor has written to me saying that the October issue will contain a critique of Capital\\,b and invites me to reply — which I refused with thanks.[290] Thus a socialist organ has turned into an organ in which the pros and cons of socialism are discussed by every Tom, Dick and Harry.
I am sending you a Kölnische from which you may see what methods are used in Africa even by Stanley-Leopold of Belgium's humane, civilising Association Internationale.[291] Then what may we not expect of the Portuguese and French,— not to speak of our flog 'em-and-shoot 'em Prussians — when they get going? Come to that, Bismarck has pulled off a thundering good electoral coup with that colonial racket of his.[2] [9 2] Not a philistine will be spared, they'll fall for it en masse. No doubt he will again succeed in obtaining a double majority of his own choosing — Conservatives[230] + National liberals [243], or should the latter again prove peevish, Conservatives + the Centre.[229] It's all one to us.
If I have the time, I shall enclose a line or two for Karl Kautsky.
Your
F. E.
15 September. No time, K. K. will have to wait a bit.
113. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 20 September
Dear Kautsky,
I return the mss.[293] herewith by registered post. Your article on Rodbertus was very good in regard to economics; what I would take issue with here again are your apodictic assertions in fields where, as you yourself know, you are not on firm ground, and in which you also lay yourself open to attack by Schramm who has been astute enough to seize on that opportunity.
This applies particularly to 'abstraction' which you undoubtedly come down on far too heavily in a general way. The distinction here is as follows:
Marx reduces the common content shared by things and circumstances to the most general conceptual expression, hence his abstrac-tion merely reproduces in conceptual form the content already inhe-rent in things.
Rodbertus, on the other hand, concocts what is a more or less imperfect conceptual expression and measures things against that concept to which they must conform. He is looking for the true, eternal content of things and of social conditions of which, however, the content is essentially transient. Hence true capital. This is not capital as it is today, which is only an imperfect realisation of the concept. Instead of deducing the concept of capital from capital as it is today — the only sort, after all, that really does exist — he seeks to arrive at true capital from present-day capital by the device of taking an isolated individual, and asking what might figure as capital in that individual's production. Namely, the simple means of production. In this way true capital is simply lumped together with the means of production which, depending on circumstances, is or is not capital. In this way all the bad properties of capital, namely all the real properties, are eliminated therefrom. He can now demand that real capital should conform to this concept, i. e. merely continue to function as a simple, social means of production, discard everything that makes it capital, and yet remain capital, indeed become true capital precisely as a result of this.
You do the same kind of thing in the case of value. Present value is that of the production of commodities, but with the suppression of the production of commodities, value 'changes' or rather, value as such remains and merely changes its form. But in fact economic value is a category that appertains to the production of commodities, disappearing with it (cf. Dühring, pp. 252-62a), just as it did not exist before it. The relation of labour to product prior to and after production of commodities no longer expresses itself in the form of value.
Fortunately Schramm is also a bit shaky in the matter of philosophy, and lays himself open to attack, as you have perfectly well ap-prehended and demonstrated.
Further:
1) Schramm recognises material interests that do not derive — either directly or indirectly — from the mode of production. On this, cf. Marx, A Contribution to the Critique, preface,b where the matter is presented concisely and cogently in 20 lines.
2) Long before Rodbertus, the English and French Utopians had criticised existing society just as well as, if not better than, he, as had the post-Ricardian school of socialist economists on the basis of Ricardo's theory of value; Marx cites some of these in the Poverty, pp. 49 and 50.c
3) The Robinson mentioned by Marxd is Daniel Defoe's genuine, original Robinson Crusoe, whence the attendant circumstances — the objects salvaged from the shipwreck, etc.— are also taken. Later on he, too, has his Freitag (FRIDAY); he was also a shipwrecked merchant who, unless I am mistaken, likewise engaged from time to time in the slave trade. A proper 'bourgeois], therefore.
4) To talk of the Marxian school of history was certainly most premature. I should curtail that part of your reply and refer primarily to Marx himself,— the above-mentioned passage from A Contribution to the Critique, and also Capital itself, in particular primitive accumulation,a in which Schramm can find out for himself about the chicken and the egg.
In other respects it's really fortunate that all the bourgeois elements should now be rallying to Rodbertus. We could ask for nothing better.
You will have got your Poverty ms.[118] As will Ede my letter of last Sunday containing the contribution to the election fund.b
Tussy asks that in future the Sozialdemokrat, etc., be sent to her at the following address:
Mrs Aveling 55 Great Russell Street, London, W. C.
Your
F. E.
I return Bebel's letter herewith. So we can expect you here in January or February.
To-Day has simply become a 'symposium', i. e. a review in which anybody can write for or against socialism. In the next number there's to be a critique of Capital[1].c The idea was that I should answer this anonymous piece but I politely refused.[290] Dr Drysdale has also written for the paper, invoking you.[294] There's a reply from Burrows asking about you. I attended to this, but somewhat cautiously, not knowing whether Drysdale mightn't have your book.
114. Engels to Hermann Schlüter. 1 October[2 9 5]
115. Engels to Hermann Schlüter. 3 October
Dear Mr Schlüter,
Proofs[3] received with thanks and returned. I now only await clean proofs 8-9. Should they contain no mistakes to speak of, a list of printing errors will not be necessary.
Rodbertus' Erkenntniss etc.a is advertised by Fock of Leipzig à 4.20 marks. I should be glad to buy a copy at this price, if not less.
There does exist a French speech by Marx on the subject of free tradeb but none, so far as I am aware, on protective tariffs. It would hardly be suitable for translation as a book on its own, but if Ede wishes to use it as an appendix to the German Poverty,[1][18] it wouldn't be a bad idea and I could send my copy.
Yours sincerely,
F. E.
time
115
ENGELS TO HERMANN SCHLÜTER [2 9 6]
IN HOTTINGEN-ZURICH
[London,] 3 October 1884
Dear Mr Schlüter,
Everything gratefully received." Just the following misprints:
p. 134, line 8 from top Gesellschaff' for Lesellschaft
line 9 " " Lebensbedingungen for Gebensbedingungen p. 144, line 2 " " platte0 for glatte. You will have had my postcard.d
In haste,
Yours ever,
F. E.
116. Engels to August Bebel. 11 October[2 6 3]
Dear Bebel,
I really must apologise for not having got round to answering your two letters of 8 June and the 3rd inst. until today. But since the beginning of June I have been able to sit at my desk and write only at the cost of some pain and in defiance of doctor's orders. For almost 18 months now, my movements have been hampered by a peculiar ailment which somewhat mystifies the doctors; I have had to abandon completely my old way of life, which entailed much movement, and have, in particular, been prevented from writing. Only for the past 10 days or so have I been enabled by mechanical appliances to move about with a certain amount of freedom and I believe that, once these appliances have been properly adjusted, I shall be more or less my old self again; apart from the discomfort I have suffered, the thing is of no great significance and will, I hope, gradually disappear altogether.
However, if I could not write, I could at least dictate — I dictated the whole of the 2nd book of Capital from the ms., and practically got it ready for the press, as well as revised the first [3]/a of the English translation[3] and have, besides, perused all kinds of other things, so that I have got through quite a fair amount of work.
At the same time as this, you will be getting a copy of my newly published workb; I shall make sure it goes off.
All day my head has been full of electoral agitation.[194] Our great triennial trial is an event of European significance by comparison with which the anxious journeyings of no matter how many emperors [297] are as nothing. I well remember how thunderstruck Europe was in 1875 by our people's electoral victories[298] and how Bakuninist anarchism was banished from the scene in Italy, France, Switzerland and Spain. And just now another such result is urgently required. In Europe, at any rate, those caricatures of anarchists à la Most, who have already sunk from the level of a Rinaldo Rinaldini to and below that of a Schinderhannesc if not lower, would in their turn — at least so far as Europe was concerned — succumb to a similar knock-out blow, and thus save us a deal of toil and trouble. In America, where sects continue to proliferate, these could then simply be allowed to die off gradually; after all, did not Karl Heinzen manage to remain alive there for 25 years after he was dead and buried in Europe?d The French in the provinces, who are forging ahead most manfully, would be considerably encouraged and the Parisian masses be given a further impulse towards emancipating themselves from their position as appendage of the extreme Left. Here in England, where the Reform Bill has given new power to the workers,[299] the impulse would come just in time for the next elections in 1885 and might provide the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION [3] ° °—which merely consists on the one hand of literati, on the other of the remnants of old sects and, thirdly, of a sentimental public — with the opportunity of becoming a real party. In America, it only requires an event of this kind to make the English-speaking workers at last realise what power is theirs if they choose to make use of it. And in Italy and Spain it would deal a fresh blow to the doctrinaire anarchist rhetoric which still continues to flourish there. In short, the victories you achieve will take effect, from Siberia to California, and from Sicily to Sweden.
But how will the new 'parliamentary group' turn out? Many of the new prospective candidates are quite unknown to me and what I know of the majority of 'educated' ones is not altogether to their credit. The Anti-Socialist Law [3] ' makes it all too easy for bourgeois and bourgeois-inspired socialists to satisfy the electorate and to indulge their own urge for self-advancement. Not that it isn't perfectly in order for such men to be put up and elected in comparatively backward constituencies. But they are likewise invading the old constituencies, which deserve better representatives, and in this they are supported by people who ought to know better. I am not at all sure how the new parliamentary group will turn out, and still less what it will do. The division into proletarian and bourgeois camps is becoming ever more pronounced and, once the bourgeois elements have plucked up the courage to outvote the proletarian, a breach might be provoked. This is a possibility which should, I think, be kept in view. If they provoke the breach — something that will call for a bit more Dutch courage — it won't be too bad. I am still of the opinion that, so long as the Anti-Socialist Law continues in force, the breach should not be provoked by us; but if it does come, then you should go to with a will, in which case I shall also put my shoulder to the wheel.
I am glad to hear that the colonial racket is not proving attrac-tive.[292] It is the best card Bismarck has played, nicely calculated to appeal to the philistine and replete, not only with illusory hopes but also with horrendously heavy costs, which will be recovered only by degrees. Bismarck and his colonies remind me of the crazy (really idiotic) last Duke of Bernburg" who remarked in the early forties: I am going to have a railway, even if it costs me a thousand talers. What 1,000 talers are to the cost of a railway, so the colonial budget adumbrated by Bismarck and his fellow-philistines is to the actual costs involved. For in this case I consider Bismarck fool enough to believe that Lüderitz and Woermann would bear the costs.
Apropos Bismarck. At a conference of engineers, a friend of ours met Bismarck's partner in the Varziner Paper Mill (Behrens), and from him learned a good deal about Bismarck's uncouth behaviour. A true Prussian Junker, on rare occasions and by a painful effort capable of good manners at most in the drawing-room, but who otherwise allows his brutality free rein. You know all about that, however. Having asked a factory inspector what his salary was and learned that it was 1,000 talers, he remarked: 'In that case you are dependent on bribes.' But the really interesting thing was Bismarck's telling the afore-mentioned Behrens that the only speaker in the Reichstag
117. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 13 October
worthy of the name, and one to whom everyone always listened, was August Bebel.
The more often you write and tell me about the situation in Germany, and in particular about industrial developments, the better pleased I am. If I do not always reply in detail it is because, in this instance, I am merely your pupil — the more gladly in that the only information I can regard as wholly reliable is that provided by you. On the whole, German industry remains what it has always been: it manufactures those articles which the British consider too insignificant, and the French too common, but does so on a very large scale; German industry still depends for its subsistence on 1 ) the theft of pat-terns from abroad and 2) the free gift of ordinary surplus value to the purchasers, whereby it is alone enabled to compete, and the exaction of inordinate surplus value by forcing down wages, which alone enables it to exist. This means, however, that while the struggle between worker and capitalist may stagnate in some places (where abnormal wages have already become the norm), in most it is growing more acute by reason of ever-rising pressure. At all events, 1848 marked the beginning of an industrial revolution in Germany which will yet give the worthy bourgeois pause for thought. Goodbye for now.
Your old friend
F. E.
117
ENGELS TO KARL KAUTSKY [2 8 7] Dietz [3 9] that both of youa had protested and that I had concurred and had made the above-mentioned reinstatements in agreement with you. I would, I said, no more have spelling imposed upon me than I would a woman and hence if the proofs were not corrected in accordance with my demands, I should 1) call for the deletion of all my notes and 2) not provide a preface,b as I couldn't possibly have two kinds of spelling for my stuff.
Do you really not wish to put your names on the title page as translators? The title should in any case be so worded that I simply appear as the author of the notes and preface unless you expressly insist on the revision mentioned, though I consider this quite unnecessary.
Another whole day has been wasted thanks to these asininities. Right in the middle of election time,[194] what's more.
Your
F. E.
118. Engels to Johann Philipp Becker. 15 October
Dear Old Man,
I sent off to you yesterday my little book on the origin of the family, etc.,c and have today taken out a money order for five pounds. I trust you will get both very shortly.
I was glad to hear from you that Bebel had visited you during the summer. Your opinion of him is exactly the same as mine. There is no more lucid mind in the whole of the German party, besides which he is utterly dependable and firm of purpose. What is unusual is that his great oratorical talents — all the philistines recognise these and do so readily, while Bismarck told Behrens, a partner in his paper mill, that Bebel was the only orator in the whole of the Reichstag — have not trivialised him in any way." Nothing of the kind has happened since Demosthenes. All other orators have been shallow-pated.
Don't worry about my health; it is a localised and sometimes troublesome complaint but there are no general after-effects whatever and it is not even necessarily incurable; at worst it renders me unfit for active service though I may be able to mount a horse again in a few years' time. Having been incapable of writing for the past 4 months I have dictated instead, and am now pretty well done with the 2nd book of Capital; have also gone through the English translation (as far as it has got — about [3]/bths of the whole) of the 1st book.[56]
Moreover I have now discovered a device which is helping me to get more or less back on my feet again and I hope to make still further progress before long. Rather, my misfortune is that since we lost Marx I have been supposed to represent him. I have spent a lifetime doing what I was fitted for, namely playing second fiddle, and indeed I believe I acquitted myself reasonably well. And I was happy to have so splendid a first fiddle as Marx. But now that I am suddenly expected to take Marx's place in matters of theory and play first fiddle, there will inevitably be blunders and no one is more aware ofthat than I. And not until the times get somewhat more turbulent shall we really be aware of what we have lost in Marx. Not one of us possesses the breadth of vision that enabled him, at the very moment when rapid action was called for, invariably to hit upon the right solution and at once get to the heart of the matter. In more peaceful times it could happen that events proved me right and him wrong, but at a revolutionary juncture his judgment was virtually infallible.
Marx's youngest daughterc has married a really excellent Irish-man, Dr Aveling; they come here every Sunday. The other daughter/ whom you know, is also with me just now and sends you her kindest regards. She still talks a lot and fondly about the day she spent with you in Geneva.
I trust your health is still progressing satisfactorily. But if anything should happen to you again, you must let me know at once, on the last occasion a great deal of time elapsed before I knew the least thing about it and you must not err in that way again.
I shall hunt out your letters, etc.,[126] as soon as I can really get at the papers. Since May I have been physically incapable of doing so and just now there is so much urgent work to be attended to that I can't even consider it. There are over 6 large boxfuls to be sorted out and not even the books are arranged in such a way as to enable me to make full use of them.
Well, take care of your health (there's no need to tell you to keep your chin up) and be assured of the good wishes
Of your old friend
F. Engels
Borkheim sends his regards. He wrote to me a week ago — it's always the same old story with him. No change.
119. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 15 October
Dear Kautsky,
You will have got my postcard.b If possible I shall set to work on the preface0 tomorrow; there are interruptions every day; today, for example, the whole of my time will be spent on correspondence and I'm still not allowed to sit for too long at my desk. Once I settle down to it I shall be done in a day or two.
So Geiser is the inventor of this marvellous spelling! Another feather in his cap. I must confess that my aversion to this procrustean bed was to some extent responsible for my failing to get a move on with contributions to the Neue Zeit. But do tell me whether this splendid system was obligatory in the case of other books published by Dietz — in that of Bebel's Frau'[38] it was not; it is important that I should know this in the event of my replying to Dietz.
Having protested to Dietz [39] about Geiserianism so categorically, I cannot now submit to it in the Neue Ze^—nor y e t where the printing of the preface is concerned. Elsewhere I have no objections, of course.
For Ede: Wehner writes to say that the person did not demand the money on behalf of our people, he having sent it of his own free will; however the said person says that they had accepted it. This amounts to the same thing.
I have not read Rodbertus' Creditnotha either; however it can only contain what we know already, namely that mortgages are not re-deemable, not repayable in capital, but merely intended to establish a claim to 'rent', i. e. regular payments of interest; if these payments are not forthcoming, an order may be made for the sale of the property; the mortgagee has no further claim. This is Rodbertus' 'principle of rent', intended to enable the Junkers to produce, bourgeois-fashion, 5,000 talers per annum and expend, aristo-fashion, 10,000 talers and still not ruin themselves. How it's done remains a mystery. I had to laugh when I saw Schramm trying to find something significant in it.b
Marx's photograph went off to Manz today.c I understand he wants to know about the colour. You will be able to help him there of course. As swarthy as any southern European might be, not much red about the cheeks (when you saw Marx he was already a very sickly yellow; that wasn't normal), moustache jet black, streaked with white but without a trace of brown; save for grizzled hairs, hair and beard snow white. The picture — a retouched photographic en-largement— is a speaking likeness, and he will get it per the Swiss post office.
Apart from the Polish translation of the Origin, Vera Zasulich has applied to do the Russian and Anderfuhren (from Meiringen), a law student in Berne, the Italian.[302] Do you know anything about this man? Dr Cerioli, his teacher, an Italian and socialist, will go over the translation.
I sent copiesa to you and Ede yesterday. Over 30 have already gone off to all parts of the world. I have sent it to To-Day and Justice and no doubt you will attend to the other review copies. My sincerest thanks to you and Ede for all the trouble you've taken over the thing.
Your
F. E.
What news of your coming here b? I am speaking not oîorigoc but of adventus.d
120. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 17 October[2 8 7]
Dietz tells me that the spelling has been changed.[301]
'Had Kautsky,' he writes, 'added a brief comment when sending the ms., you and I would have been spared the task of alteration.'
Not a word about the thing being kept quiet until 3 whole sheets had been printed (though this may not have been Dietz's fault).
Is old Bachofen still alive and is he still in Basle? I should like to in-scribe a copy to him.
121. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 20 October
The prefacea is in course of preparation, i. e. I am first of all ploughing through the whole of Zur Erkenntnissb again. It will repay the trouble; only by a really close investigation does one properly appreciate the stupendousness of the nonsense preached here, nonsense that literally overwhelms the few flashes of insight which, though admittedly not new, are nevertheless accurate and, for Germany, com-mendable. Capital, Book II, will be very illuminating on this point. Regards to Ede.
Your
F. E.
121
ENGELS TO KARL KAUTSKY [2 6 3]
IN ZURICH
London, 20 OctpJber 1884
Dear Kautsky,
Have sent you by registered mail proofs and pp. 49-96 of the Poverty ms.[301] I did no more than skim through them, nor was I able to compare them with the ms. Please get this done at once. I am asking Dietz to send the remainder to you and only the proofs oî the preface* to me; I should have begun this today had I not again been robbed of my best working time by the afore-mentioned proof-correcting. But tomorrow I shall get down to it; my preface will, I think, come first, then Marx's article from the old Social-Demokrat as locum tenens for his preface. ' [5] '
I was on the point of asking you about Nonne, Mme Lafargue being anxious to know something about this neighbour whom they regarded with suspicion. Then came the 'Execution' in the Paris press.[303]
Everyone is astonished that the Prussians should have appointed and paid (?) such a clumsy brute.
Joynes of To-Day has just been to see me. They have been wanting for some time to publish an English version of the Entwicklung,[3] the rights to translate which I had long since conceded to Aveling.a They don't want him, however, he and Hyndman being + c rivals, and tried to insist upon my accepting Shaw, who does not know German and proposes to translate from the French. This I took the liberty of declining and referred him to Aveling whom, in any case, I like better every day. These little literary intrigues make up the greater part of the internal history of the movement in this country. Nor is this their only trouble. A week ago last Tuesdayd Mme Lafargue attended a meeting of the COUNCIL of the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION r during which they were bickering about some trifle or other to such good purpose that the air was buzzing with cries of DAMNED LIAR. Great fun, it seems. The only men in whom I have any confidence are Bax and Aveling, both thoroughly good chaps, intelligent and sincere, but in need of a great deal of help. I don't give much for the others, in so far as I have had the opportunity to judge them.
I have now also got Mr Mommsen just where I want him. In his Römische Forschungen he wrote a lot of nonsense about enuptio gentisg; I went into the matter and have now extracted all the relevant passages/ If anyone of the Mommsen school should try to fault me in regard to Roman history (quite possible in regard to form, but not substance), I shall be able to oblige.
Hirsch has sent me the Frankfurter Leitung with a feuilleton on Lippert's Geschichte der Familie? The book is obviously barefaced plagiarism from Morgan and Bachofen, with a few trimmings from other easily discoverable sources.
Warmest regards to Ede.
Your
F. E.
Another thing I haven't yet seen is your feuilleton in the Frankfurter Leitung.* Have you still got it? I will send it back.
122. Engels to Eduard Bernstein. 22 October
Dear Ede,
I am laying aside my preface13 to inform you:
1. That I am sending you herewith, by registered mail, Marx's 'Speech on the Question of Free Trade'. This irreplaceable copy, acquired with much difficulty at second-hand, must be returned to me after use.
2. That I consider it necessary to print in the form of an appendix at the end of the Poverty the passage from A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy concerning John Gray, the first precursor of Proudhon and Rodbertus, from p. 61, 'the theory that labour time', etc., up to the end of the section on p. 64.[301] Would you be so kind as to send it to Stuttgart forthwith? I refer to this appendix in the preface. Between us we shall have completely demolished the whole of this aspect of petty-bourgeois socialism and disposed at the same time of the reply to Rodbertus' Utopia, for I shall use the preface to make good any other deficiencies.
Whether or not you use the 'libre échange'c as an appendix is for you to decide; I can't think where else to put it, and can hardly imagine it would be effective simply as a pamphlet — as to which you are better judges than I.
If Dietz should raise any difficulties regarding the Gray appendix, it might be included after the preface and the article on Proudhon from the Social-Demokrat (the old one). But included it must be, as you yourselves will find.
Your
F. E.
123. Engels to Eduard Bernstein. 23 October
Dear Ede,
Herewith the preface.3 If you are going to add the 'libre échange'b
to it, include what I have appended on the last page, otherwise alter it.c
I have also taken out a money order for £ 1 in your favour, this being Schorlemmer's contribution to the election fund. You are probably already aware that Schorlemmer was charged in Darmstadt. When the arrest was made at Haug's house in Freiburg, they also found a copy of the Sozialdemokrat addressed to his brotherd—ergo domiciliary search, resulting in the discovery of letters from Schorlemmer which contained indifferent jokes about Bismarck — resulting in further inquiries about him at his mother's house and at Höchst where he then happened to be. To spare his mother unpleasantness he took his departure. Caused a great furore in Darmstadt.[304]
At Bebel's suggestion I have sent Schumacher some information about Rittinghausen in 1848.
What has by now, alas, become a very lengthy preface does not see. the end of Mr Rodbertus; in the preface to the 2nd book of Capital'' I shall mount another attack on his 'discoveries' about surplus value. Odd that Ricardo should be so completely forgotten in Germany! Regards to Karl Kautsky.
Your
F. E.
Should Dietz send the manuscript and proofs of the preface to Zurich, kindly send them on here.
124. Engels to August Bebel. 29 October[3 0 5]
Dear Bebel,
Your telegram arrived here a minute or two after six and was hailed with cries of delight.[306] I at once sent off postcards to people here and in the provinces to make its contents known and also advised Paris[39] where the first news they hear of anything is invariably garbled and contradictory. Very many thanks for sparing me a thought in the midst of the electoral hurly-burly. I have also informed [3 9] the Society. ' [6] [2]
It is more than I expected. I am less concerned just now with the number of seats that will eventually be won; the obligatory fifteen are assured[307] and the main thing is the proof that the movement is marching ahead at a pace that is as rapid as it is sure, that constituency after constituency has been carried away by it and has ceased to be a safe seat for the other parties. But what is also splendid is the way our workers have run the affair, the tenacity, determination and, above all, humour with which they have captured position after position and set at naught all the dodges, threats and bullying on the part of government and bourgeoisie. What Germany could damned well do with is reinstatement in the world's esteem; Bismarck and Moltke can make her feared; respect, genuine esteem, such as is only accorded to free, self-disciplined men — that respect will only be exacted by our proletarians.
The effect on Europe and America will be enormous. I have hopes that in France it will provide fresh impetus for our party. Over there people are still suffering from the aftermath of the Commune. Great though its influence on Europe may have been, it has also seriously set back the French proletariat. To have been in power for three months — and in Paris at that — and not to have radically altered the world but rather have come to grief through their own incompetence (such being the biassed fashion in which the matter is understood today) — is proof that the party is not viable. That is the specious argument usually advanced by people who fail to realise that, while the Commune was the grave of early specifically French socialism, it was, for France, also and at the same time the cradle of a new international communism. And this last will be duly set on its feet by the German victories. Mme Lafargue, who is here and sends you her warm regards, is also of this opinion.
Similarly the news will make a strong impact on the English-speaking proletariat in America.
You will have received my registered letter[39] as also my postcard ' " o f the day before yesterday.
My main worry just now is whether you yourself have pulled it off in your doubtful constituencies.[308] In view of the many new elements who are in any case joining the parliamentary group, it is precisely at the beginning that you are so urgently needed, lest you find yourself subsequently presented with, faits accomplis in which you had no part. I also know you are not in the best of health and you must at all costs conserve yourself for the party and the more critical times that lie ahead of it. But no doubt everything will work out satisfactorily.
I wanted to tell you more about the Rodbertus business, but it's no longer possible this evening. As for Schramm himself, he will already have had an adequate dressing-down from Karl Kautsky.a In the preface to the Poverty"h1 have already clarified Rodbertus' attitude towards us and this will, I think, suffice until I am able to deal with him more thoroughly in the preface to Capital, Book II.c Should it prove necessary to do so in the interim, I can step in again. More about this anon.
Your
F. E.
125. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 8 November[2 6 3]
Dear Kautsky,
Between the time your letter arrived and today the elections — i. e. five years — have supervened.[309] So I shall revert to it only briefly.
Herewith Liebknecht's letter — typical. Why you should not be able to edit the Neue £eit just as well from London as from Zurich is inconceivable. Equally so, why your being in London should mean that you'll be lost to the German party. However, this letter provides no proof that Liebknecht — under the influence of different surround-ings and a different frame of mind — might not very soon think and write quite differently. The fact that he was only partially successful at Offenbach — we over here don't yet know the results of the second ballot — may have given him reason to pause.[310] The bit about the 'impregnable' position in Stukkert" is killing. Like the NCO in the French revolutionary army telling his bare-footed squad about the speech made by the people's representative: Le représentant a dit: Avec du fer et du pain on va jusqu'en Chine. Il n'a pas parlé de chaussures} Impregnable — if there were no police!
I am writing to Dietz [39] telling him to send me the proofs of the prefacec in galley form since a number of alterations will be necessary. With this sort of thing, one cannot be too careful about one's mode of expression if one is not to find oneself pinned down to some ill-chosen or ambiguous word.
The elections will elicit an echo throughout Europe and America. And what a triumphant day it was! The Kölnische concedes us [3]/[4] of a million votes and, in the hope of obtaining their support in the second ballot, is grovelling before the 4,000 who voted for Bebel in Cologne.[3] ' ' To me the Kölnische is more important than any other paper because the Rhenish bourgeois are still the most advanced bourgeois in Germany and the Kölnische is their mirror. And hence this complete volte-face, this sudden respect for a new power, is all the more significant.
But how truly splendid it is! For the first time in history a strong, coherent workers' party exists as a real political power, evolved and come of age amidst the harshest persecution, irresistibly capturing one position after another, free of all philistinism in the most philistine, free of all chauvinism in the most cock-a-hoop country in Europe. A power the existence and rise of which is as incomprehensible and mysterious to governments and the old ruling classes as was the rising tide of Christianity to the authorities of the declining Roman Empire, but which is working its way to the fore as certainly and inexorably as once Christianity — so certainly that the rate at which its velocity will increase, and hence the actual time of its ultimate victory, already permits of mathematical calculation. Helped on its way rather than suppressed by the Anti-Socialist Law,[37] it deigns only to spurn Bismarck's social reform [3] ' [2] and the last desperate measure to suppress it momentarily — by fomenting a premature coup — would elicit nothing but immortal laughter.
It's strange. The best aid to our progress is precisely the backward-ness of Germany's industrial position. In England and France the transition to large-scale industry is pretty well complete. The conditions in which the proletariat now finds itself have already become stable; agricultural districts and industrial districts, large-scale industry and cottage industries have become separated and, as far as is in fact possible in modern industry, firmly established. Even the fluctua-tions inseparable from the ten-year cycle of crises have become habi-tual conditions of existence. The political, if not actually socialist, movements that arose during the period of industrial revolution — immature as they were — have failed, leaving behind them discourage-ment rather than encouragement. Bourgeois capitalist development has proved stronger than revolutionary counter-pressure; if there is to be another revolt against capitalist production there must be another, more powerful impulse, such as the ousting of England from the dominant position she has hitherto occupied in the world market, or some special revolutionary opportunity in France.
In Germany, on the other hand, large-scale industry goes back no further than 1848 and is the greatest legacy ofthat year. The industrial revolution is still going on, and doing so under the most unfavourable conditions. Cottage industries, based on small-, free- or lease-holdings, still continue to struggle against machinery and steam; the foundering smallholder looks to a cottage industry as his last sheet anchor, but no sooner is he industrialised than he is again subjected to pressure from machinery and steam. Subsidiary income from the land, the domestic potato plot, provides the capitalist with the most powerful pretext for depressing wages; he can now present his foreign customers with the entire normal surplus value — the only way he can compete in the world market — the whole of his profits being derived from what he deducts from the normal wages. Alongside this there is the complete subversion of all living conditions in the industrial centres as a result of the enormous strides made by large-scale industry. Thus the whole of Germany, with perhaps the exception of the Junker-dominated North-East, is becoming swept into the social revolution, the smallholder drawn into industry, and patriarchal circles being precipitated into the movement, and thus is far more fundamentally revolutionised than England or France. This social revolution of which the eventual outcome is the expro-priation of the smallholder and handicraftsman is, however, taking place at the very time when a German, Marx, was destined to make a theoretical analysis of the results of historical developments, both theoretical and practical, in England and France, to elucidate the whole nature of capitalist production and hence its ultimate historical fate, and thus provide the German proletariat with a programme such as the English and the French, its precursors, have never possessed. A more fundamental revolutionising of society on the one hand, greater lucidity of intellect on the other — that is the secret of the irresistible progress made by the German workers' movement.
I had meant to write to Ede as well, but it has grown too late — moreover Pumps has arrived with her little girl with whom I shall have to play. Aveling and Tussy are arriving at 5 and at 7. Morris wants to hold a grand consultation with me. So for the time being Ede will have to content himself with my good wishes.
Your
F. E.
126. Engels to Pasquale Martignetti. 8 November
Dear Sir,
On receiving your kind letter of 27th last[3] ' [3] I sent you a copy of my pamphlet The Origin etc.,[3]" and I would have sent it sooner had I known for certain that your last address was still valid.
I congratulate you on the splendid progress you have made in your study of the German language. I entrust you with the Italian translation of The Origin with pleasure and confidence. I have received in the meantime an earlier and similar offer from another quarter,b which I have not yet accepted. In order to reject it definitively, it would be useful for me to know whether you have at your disposal a publisher who will print and publish your translation without delay.[314]
I remain with respect your devoted
F. Engels
127. Engels to Eduard Bernstein. 11 November
Dear Ede,
The inquiry in your letter about Marx's article on Proudhona has been dealt with in my prefaceb where I made direct reference to it. You must now let me know how you propose to arrange the wholec ° ' ; I may receive the proofs of the preface any day and shall proceed accordingly in regard to the above article, the excerpt from A Contribution to the Critiqued and possibly the 'Speech'.e
You did right to stress in the Sozialdemokrat'' that we are the only serious opponents of the Centre.[229] Only by penetrating the strong-holds of the Centre — Munich, Mainz, Cologne, Aachen, Düssel-dorf, Essen, etc.— shall we be able to disperse this artificially united omnium-gatherum of opposing views and compel every one of them to show their true colours. And then it will transpire that the genuinely Catholic group is simply the Catholic wing of reaction, just as in Belgium and France it constitutes the whole of reaction. And no one would suffer more from this dispersal of the Centre than Mr Bismarck, who can darned well do with a hotchpotch of a party like that.
I get little news of how the second ballots are going and then only belatedly.[306] I hope that at this juncture a good many will turn out well, for the more new elements there are in the parliamentary group just now the better. The worst of them (the eddicated) have already been elected; those still to come are most of them working men and they can only improve the company.
Judgment has been passed on the Anti-Socialist Law.[37] State and bourgeoisie have been made to look fearful asses vis-à-vis ourselves. But they are nevertheless going merrily on their way and anyone who thinks that the Law will necessarily receive its quietus as a result of this could be badly mistaken. Over here old John Russell carried on as Prime Minister for 20 years after his political demise. To abolish the Law does, after all, require a decision, and they are unlikely to make the necessary effort. At best there would be penal clauses which would cause us heavier casualties than would the Anti-Socialist Law.
We must now put forward positive proposals in regard to legislation.[307] If they are couched emphatically, i.e. without regard for petty-bourgeois prejudices, then they will be very good. But if they are Geisered and Vierecked, then they will be bad. Normal working day (10 hours gradually reducing to perhaps 8), domestic and international factory legislation (in which the domestic could go further than the international), radical revision of the legislation affecting employers' liability, accident, sickness, disabled workmen, etc.— these will provide enough and more to go on with. Nous verrons*
The 1884 elections are for us what those of 1866 were for the German philistine. Then, all of a sudden, he became a 'great nation' without having had anything to do with it and, indeed, against his will.a Now we have become a 'great party', but by our own hard work and at the cost of heavy sacrifices. Noblesse oblige. We cannot bring the mass of the nation over to our side unless that mass under-goes a gradual process of development. Frankfurt, Munich, Königs-berg, cannot suddenly become as pronouncedly proletarian as Saxony, Berlin, the industrial Ruhr. Just now the petty-bourgeois elements among the leaders may find here and there among the masses the backing they have hitherto lacked. What has hitherto been a reactionary tendency in the case of individuals may now reproduce itself as a necessary developmental element — localised — in the case of the masses. That would call for a change of tactics if the masses are to be helped on their way without, at the same time, allowing the bad leaders to gain the ascendant. Here again we shall have to wait and see.
Tomorrow I shall attend to the very tricky final editing of Part III of the 2nd book of Capital.b As soon as I have finished I hope to find time to rewrite the Peasant War[2] ' c which this time will appear as a turning-point for the whole of the history of Germany and hence calls for important historical additions both at the beginning and the end. Only the account of the actual war will remain more or less as it stands. I feel that it is more important to print the Peasant War first rather than the Dilhring which I shall alter little, simply adding notes
128. Engels to Hermann Engels. // November
or appendices. What arrangements do you propose to make about the printing?
Whatever becomes of the Anti-Socialist Law, the papera and the press in Zurich must, in my view, continue to operate. They will never restore freedom to us, even of the pre-1878 variety. Your Geisers and Vierecks will be allowed complete freedom and they in turn will trot out the pretty excuse that they went as far as they could. But in our case, the requisite freedom of the press is only to be had abroad. Come to that, it is even possible that attempts will be made to curtail universal suffrage; cowardliness makes people stupid and the philistine is capable de tout}[1] Admittedly we shall receive compliments from left, right and centre and they won't in every case fall on stony ground. For friend Singer might feel inclined to show proof that, despite or because of his paunch, he is no ogre.
Karl Kautsky will have received my letter of yesterday.0
Your
F. E.
128
ENGELS TO HERMANN ENGELS 3 '5
IN BARMEN
London, 11 November 1884
Dear Hermann,
The sad news of Emil's d illness brought to me by your letter of 25 September did not come as a complete surprise. He himself had written to me from time to time about the state of his health and about the necessity he was in of spending the winter in the south; moreover your earlier letters also contained a number of allusions that gave me cause for anxiety. If tubercles have now finally appeared— not exactly common at our age — it is certainly a very bad sign, but I trust he will still be able to remain among us for a time and in a condition that does not make life too much of a burden to him. Nevertheless one pleasure he has still been able to experience, as I saw not long ago in the paper, is the opening of the Aggertal railwaya to which he devoted so many years of incessant toil. Even though this little branch line may be far from what he had in mind, it is nevertheless better than nothing and will bring quite a different kind of life into the valley and Engelskirchen than has been the case hitherto.
I should have written to you sooner had not Hermann'sb wedding intervened, at which time I wasn't absolutely sure where you were; since then there have been numerous interruptions and, on top of that, I have been up to my eyes in work. Moreover, for the past 18 months I, in my own person, have been sharply reminded of the frailty of the human body. What was actually wrong I shall probably never discover, but suffice it to say that the thing now seems to be righting itself and developing into some kind of hernial trouble (what is involved is not the prolapse of a piece of gut, but water in the abdo-men). Besides, I have found a very efficient bandage-maker who has treated many cases of this kind, which are pretty rare as a rule, and has constructed a highly practical but in no way uncomfortable ap-pliance for it. After lengthy experiments I can now manage it pretty well and am at last able to move about again and, what had hitherto proved a virtual impossibility, work at my desk. If things carry on like this, I shall be content; apart from relaxed muscles and ligaments, which is only natural after one has lain motionless on a sofa for so long, I no longer feel anything and am gradually becoming my old self again.
I trust you are all keeping well otherwise. Rudolf0 would also seem to be on the mend again. He seems to have inherited father's constitution in many respects, for he too had constant trouble with his stomach until his forties but was then perfectly all right and would doubtless still be alive had not typhoid reft him away.
Please let me know soon how Emil and the rest of you are getting on and what Hedwiga is doing. No doubt Hermann will soon be returning from his honeymoon.
Fondest regards to all of you, brothers, sisters, Emma,b your children and you yourself.
Your
Friedrich
129. Engels to August Bebel. 18 November[3 1 6]
Dear Bebel,
I had meant to write to you about the Rodbertus business but, now that my preface to The Poverty of Philosophyc is to appear in the Neue Zeit, you will find the essentials set forth better there than could be done in a letter. The rest will follow later, in the preface to Capital, Book IL d
There is, however, another point about which I should like to give you my opinion, and which seems to me more urgent.
Such is the respect we have inspired in liberal philistines generally that they all exclaim with one voice: 'All right, only let the Social Democrats place themselves on a legal footing and abjure revolution— then we shall support the immediate repeal of the Anti-Socialist Law. [3 7]' Hence there can be no doubt that this insolent proposal will be put to you forthwith in the Reichstag. The reply you make is of importance, not so much to Germany where our stalwart lads have already given it at the polling booths, as to other countries.
A tame reply would immediately destroy the tremendous impression created by the elections.[306]
As I see it, the case is as follows: The political situation now obtaining throughout Europe is the result of revolutions. Everywhere the fundamental laws, historical laws, legitimacy, have been infringed a thousand times over, if not actually subverted. It is, however, in the nature of all parties and/or classes that have come to power by revolutionary means to demand that the fundamental laws newly created by the revolution be unconditionally recognised and held sacrosanct. The right to revolution has existed — otherwise those who now rule would, after all, not be entitled to do so — but from now on it is to cease to exist.
In Germany the present situation is based on the revolution that began in 1848 and ended in 1866. 1866 saw a complete revolution. Just as Prussia became what it is only by betraying and making war on the German Empire in alliance with other countries (1740, 1756, 1795 [3 1 7]), so, too, it was only by the forcible subversion of the German Confederation and by civil war that it brought into being the Prusso-German Empire. [3 1 8] Its assertion that it was the others who broke the federal treaty in no way alters the fact. The others maintain the contrary. No revolution has ever yet lacked a pretext of legality— vide France in 1830 when Kinga and bourgeoisie each claimed to be in the right. In short, Prussia fomented civil war and, with it, revolution. After its victory, it overthrew three thrones 'by the grace of God' and annexed their territories, together with the once free city of Frankfurt.[319] If that was not revolutionary, then I don't know what the word means. Not content with that, it confiscated the private property of the princes it had driven out. That this was not legal, hence revolutionary, it admitted when it induced an assembly — the Reichstag — to approve the deed in retrospect, though the said assembly had no more right than the government to dispose of those funds.[320]
The Prusso-German Empire, as the consummation of the North German Confederation forcibly created by the events of 1867, b 3 b ' is a wholly revolutionary creation. I am not complaining about that. What I do reproach the chaps for — the ones responsible for it — is for having been no more than pusillanimous revolutionaries, for not having gone much further and annexed the whole of Germany to Prussia straight away. But anyone whose instruments are blood and iron, who overthrows monarchies, engulfs entire states and confiscates private property, should not damn other people as revolutionaries. Should the party merely retain the right to be neither more nor less revolutionary than the imperial government has shown itself, it will have obtained all it requires.
Not long since, it was officially stated that the imperial constitution was not a compact between the princes and the people, but only a compact between the princes and the free cities for which a new one could at any time be substituted. Thus, the government organs that expounded this were demanding for the governments the right to sub-vert the imperial constitution. They were not subjected to an emergency law, nor were they prosecuted. Very well — neither do we demand for ourselves, in the most extreme case, more than is demanded for the governments in this one.
The Duke of Cumberland is the rightful, undisputed heir to the throne of Brunswick. The King of Prussia has no more right to reign in Berlin than is claimed by Cumberland in Brunswick. Anything else that is wanted of him can only be laid claim to after Cumberland has taken possession of his rightful, legitimate throne. This the revolutionary German imperial government is forcibly preventing him from doing. Yet another revolutionary act.
And what is the position as regards the parties? In November 1848 the Conservative Party did not hesitate to in-fringe the legality constituted in March of that year.[322] In any case, it accords only provisional recognition to the present constitutional state of affairs and would joyfully acclaim any feudal and absolutist coup d'état.
The Liberal Party of all shades participated in the revolution from 1848 to 1866, nor would it today allow anyone to deny it the right to counter the forcible subversion of the constitution with force.
The Centre [2 2 9] recognises the Church as the supreme power trans-cending the state; a power, that is, which might, in certain circumstances, make revolution a duty.
And these are the parties which demand of us that we and we alone out of all the rest should declare that we would in no circumstances resort to force, would submit to any pressure, any outrage, not only when these have a veneer of legality — are legal in our opponents' view — but also when they are downright illegal.
No party, unless it was lying, has ever denied the right to armed resistance in certain circumstances. None has ever been able to renounce that ultimate right.
But once the debate begins to turn on the circumstances in which a party may reserve that right, the game is already won. The whole thing becomes progressively more nonsensical. Particularly in the case of a party that has been declared illegal and is thus actually reduced by higher authority to resorting to revolution. And such a declaration of illegality, having been made once already, might recur any day. To demand an unconditional statement of this kind from such a party is utterly preposterous.
Nor, for that matter, have the gentlemen anything to worry about. The military position being what it now is, we shall not go into action so long as we have a military power against us. We can bide our time until that military power ceases to be a power against us. Any revolution prior to that, even a victorious one, would bring to power, not ourselves, but the most radical elements of the bourgeoisie and/or petty bourgeoisie.
In any case, the elections have shown that we can expect to gain nothing by submissiveness, i. e. concessions to our opponents. It is only defiant resistance that has gained us their respect and turned us into a power. Only power is respected and only so long as we remain a power will your philistine respect us. Anyone who makes concessions and is therefore no longer a power, he will despise. You can let them feel the iron fist in the velvet glove, indeed you must. The German proletariat has become a powerful party — may its représenta tives be worthy of it!
Your
F. E.
(Time for the post.)
130. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 23 November
130
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
IN PARIS
London, 23 November 1884
My dear Laura,
Glad you arrived safe and well[2] [6 8] and Paul liked his cake — but Nim can't get over his insisting to eat cheese along with it. Nim has suffered much from tooth-ache — a sound tooth, but loose. Yesterday she took an old pair of small tongs which she brought from Maitland Park and wrenched it out with it, rewarding her courage with a drop of brandy, and is now quite lively again.
Friday lasta the Social Democratic Federationb had a benefit. Tussy and Edward played in a piece— I did not go, as I do not as yet see my way to sitting three hours consecutively in a stiff chair. Nim says they played very well — the piece was more or less, she says, their own history. Mother Wright read — very well — Bax played the piano— rather long — Morris who was here the other night and quite delighted to find the Old Norse Edda [3] [2 3] on my table — he is an Ice-landic enthusiast — Morris read a piece of his poetry c (a 'refonte'd of the Eddaic Helreid BrynhildarA—the description of Brynhild burning herself with Sigurd's corpse), etc., etc.; it went off very well — their art seems to be rather better than their literature and their poetry better than their prose.
Paul's reply to Block is excellent, not only in style but in subject-matter. [281] People have different ways of learning things, and if he learns political economy by fighting, it's all right so that he does learn it. He was quite right in bearing out the question of the equal price of corn which costs different amounts of labour — that is too complicated and is solved only in Book III, Kapital. But what he may return to, when he has an opportunity, is the stupid calumny of Block, page 131, note: that Mohr insiste surtout sur le capital employé dans le commerce, tant sous la forme argent (espèces) que sous la forme mar-ckandises.* This is a direct lie or a proof that he does not know what he is writing about. Mohr mentions interest-bearing capital and mer-chants' capital only as historical facts, but expressly excludes them from all economical discussion in Book I, where capital is only considered in its simplest form as industrial capital.
A slip of the pen of Paul's p. 285: la grandeur de la plus-value est en rapport direct avec la longueur -de la journée de travail, mais en rapport inverse avec le taux du salaire. b
Du reste,c you know that my only objection to Paul's replying to Block was the fear that it might 'block' his ultimate reply to Leroy-Beaulieu.d—If he has eingeseift' Molinari to that extent, that he allows Paul to reply anything to anybody, all the better.
The report of the meeting in favour of the Germans in the Sozialdemokrat as well as the extracts from Lyon-Socialiste3 [2 4] given there will have a capital effect in Germany and everywhere. Nothing can strike the philistine and also the workmen of other countries more than this cordiality and working hand in hand of the proletarians of the two 'erbfeindliche Nationen^. It ought to be mis en avants as much and as often as possible.
As to poor Brousse, the man without a programme, being in doubt about the programme on which our people have been elected, the proclamation of Müller in Darmstadt which I was glad Guesde worked up in the Cri du Peuple will have answered him. Better still is the Hanoverian programme in this week's Sozialdemokrat No. 47. [3 2 5]
I wish Guesde would make use ofthat. These two proclamations, and the fact that they were issued in new districts — Darmstadt and Hanover, where our people might be expected to coax votes, have given me quite as much pleasure as the elections themselves. They show how thoroughly the revolutionary spirit has been evoked by Bismarck's persecutions. I was almost expecting that the new districts might send 'moderate' men, but no fear of that now. Also Sabor the Jewish schoolmaster from Frankfort belongs to the Bebel wing of the party.
Bernstein's letter to Paul about Lassalle [326] finds its explanation in this, that in Paris, as in London and New York, the old Lassalle set is still strongly represented among the Germans. They have mostly emigrated, Germany is too hot for them and won't listen to them. But as they are comparatively harmless abroad, and form a useful international cement, besides finding funds for the Germans at home, on les ménage un peu.b
Loria takes good care not to send me his expectorations. c As a true 'Kathedersociaüstischer[54] Streber'd he robs us right and left. By the bye, what Paul intends doing if he should reply to him, donne de côté.e Loria knows that as well as ourselves, why capitalists go as well into one branch of industry as another. But the real question is as I stated it, and one which is not so easy, in fact, it broke down classical economy which could not solve it. The déroute, as Mohr's manuscript calls it,r
of the Ricardian school on this very questiong opened the door to vulgar economy.
My walks with you have done me a deal of good — I extend them every day, and my muscles are hardening again.
Kind regards to Paul. Love from Nim.
Yours affectionately,
F. E. Poor old Mother Hess!
'Wir waben, wir waben.rs
Hope she is suited at last. Now before concluding I want to ask you a favour. Paul has from me: 1 ) Darwin's Origin of Species, 2) Thierry, Histoire du tiers état, 3) Paquet, Institutions provinciales et communales de la France, 4) Buonarotti, Conspiracy of Babeuf . Now, Jenny had from me: 1) Die 'Edda'', poetische und prosaische, and 2) Beowulf, both in Simrock's New High German translation. The latter two books and Darwin I am in especial want of. Could you get them together if they can be found (Thierry and Paquet I also have use for and Buonarroti is not to be had now) and send them in a parcel to me? The agents of the Continental Parcels Express (agence Continentale), are
E. d'Odiardi, 18 rue Bergère and P. Bigeault, 23 rue Dunkerque, opposite the station du Nord. The carriage not to be paid, as the delivery will be all the safer; and mind, I am not in such a hurry that you should rush off post haste to Argenteuil to look the books up.
Clemenceau seems to be going down morally while going up politically— this appears unavoidable in French bourgeois politics. His visit to Gladstone and the rubbish he talked there is one symptom, the other is his silence in the chamber with regard to the Socialistenhetze(1)
and the atrocious judgments of Lyon, Montluçon, etc.
As to Paul's wish to have an Irish paper, there is none that can be recommended. Besides if the Egalité writes up every murder, be it ever so stupid, as une exécution, Havas' telegrams are quite sufficient. For other things the Daily News Irish correspondence will be found sufficient.
If Paul sees that the Egalité is regularly forwarded to the Sozialdemokrat at Zurich, that paper will be duly sent in return, but I shall write to Bernstein to send it to your address, so that you get it, and not those that do not understand it.
Kind regards to Paul.
Yours very affectionately,
F. E.
131. Engels to John Lincoln Mahon. 28 November[3 2 7]
Dear Sir,
I received your note only this morning owing to the No. being stated wrong on the address (132 instead of 122).
132. Engels to Charlotte Engels. 1 December
If you will be good enough to call on me to-morrow Friday night from 7 to 8, I shall be glad to hear what you have to communicate to me. [3 2 8]
Yours truly,
F. Engels
132
ENGELS TO CHARLOTTE ENGELS
IN ENGELSKIRCHEN
London, 1 December 1884
Dear Lottchen,
Your telegram arrived this morning shortly before ten. I had been prepared for this news for some time, ever since Hermann wrote to me in some detail about Emil's condition(1) and especially since the week before last when your brother-in-law Colsman visited me. We talked a great deal about Emil, Colsman being fully conversant with the medical circumstances of the case. There was, I gathered, no more hope, the verdict had been given and the consummation could only be a matter of weeks. And yet I had not expected that it would be so quick. It has happened, and we must resign ourselves to it.
It has been a period of your life, dear Lottchen, such as you will never.again experience; a line has been drawn through a whole chapter of happiness, now irrevocably brought to an end. I know how bleak and empty the world must seem to you at this moment, and I know that in your heart of hearts you wish that chance may enable you presently to be laid to rest beside your Emil. That is natural and is what anyone who stands beside the bier of a beloved spouse would wish. But remember that my mother had to endure this too. She had 41 years of happiness and then was widowed. And there are few women who loved their husbands more ardently than she my father. And yet with her children and among their children and children's children she acquired a new lease of life and lived among us, at any rate not unhappily, for the next 14 years. And she was older than you are and all her children were grown-up and provided for, whereas you still have several for whom there are duties to fulfil of a kind only a mother can fulfil and which weigh all the more heavily for their now being fatherless.
I always had a particularly intimate relationship with Emil and, however far our views may have diverged, one thing we still had in common was our preoccupation with scientific matters, irrespective of whether or not they had any immediate practical application. One episode I shall never forget. When, after father's death, I had to cope with a most difficult state of affairs while physically so indisposed that I was incapable of making one single urgent decision in a sound frame of mind and with faculties unimpaired, there was Emil, clear of eye, firm of resolve and in full command of the situation, to extri-cate me and bring the negotiations in Manchester, upon which my whole future depended, to a successful conclusion.[329] If I now live here in London, a man of independent means, this is thanks not least to Emil.
Nor would my uncertain state of health deter me from leaving tonight to pay my dear brother my last respects. But there is the possibility, indeed probability, that my presence would lead to harassment by the police and nothing in the world would induce me to expose you and the others to such a thing at this particular moment. After all, was not a universally renowned chemist,a naturalised Englishman and member of the British Royal Society, harassed in Darmstadt, his native city, a few months ago simply because he had attended Marx's funeral, harassed to the extent that he at once departed? b
What might I not expect? Once again I shall doubtless have to regard myself as a political refugee for the time being.
Well, dear Lottchen, one thing I do know and that is that you women are stronger and pluckier than we men. Whatever you endure, if endure it you must, you do so better than we do. You, yourself, with the marvellous self-control that I have often envied, will be able to overcome even this most grievous blow, the grief we all of us share with you and of which you must bear the brunt. A kiss from me for the children. With all my love.
Your trusty old
Friedrich
time
133. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 9 December[3 3 0]
Dear Kautsky,
It goes without saying that you can have your letters addressed to 122 Regent's Park Road as often and for as long as you wish. I hope this will still catch you in Vienna; in my haste I had overlooked your inquiry and for the past week I have had many interruptions.
Why you and the others do not settle the matter of the 'Speech'a
when you yourselves are certainly better able to decide such matters than I am, is more than I can understand. I am writing to Dietz to tell him to attend to it himself.
Your
F. E.
134. Engels to August Bebel. 11- 12 December .
Dear Bebel,
The point of my last letter[3] was as follows: Among the newly elected members some were known to me, who, by education and temperament, would throw in their weight with the right, bourgeois wing of the parliamentary group. In view of the tremendous blandishments suddenly extended to us after our victories by all the other parties, it seemed to me not impossible that the said gentlemen might fall for the bait and be prepared to make a statement such as that demanded of us by, for instance, the Kölnische Reifung as a condition of the repeal of the Anti-Socialist Law (1) ' ' — a statement would only have to go a hair's breadth further to the right in surrendering the party's revolutionary character than did, for instance, Geiser's speech during the Anti-Socialist Law debate, which Grillenberger printed alongside yours.[332] The gentlemen of the Liberal Party are soft and would be content with very little; a small concession on our part would have satisfied them, and it was that small concession I feared since it would have discredited us beyond all measure abroad. I knew, of course, that it would not be made by you. But you, i. e. we, might have been outvoted. Indeed, the least sign of a split — in speeches — would have done enormous harm. That is the reason — and the only reason — I thought it my duty to provide you with support against such an occasion by supplying you with a few handy historical arguments which, perhaps, might not be so fresh in your mind as in mine. And so that you might show the letter to others if you thought fit, I omitted all allusions to those for whom it was, ultimately, intended.
Nobody is gladder than I that my fears have proved unfounded and that the power of the movement should have been such as to carry away even the bourgeois elements of the party and that the parliamentary group had kept abreast of the electorate. And I must confess that I find Singer, who spent a short while here this Sundaya and will be coming to see me again next Sunday, a completely changed man. He is beginning to believe (quite literally) that he might yet experience something in the nature of a social transformation. I trust that it will last and that our 'eddicated' chaps will ultimately resist the temptation of showing the other parties that they're not ogres.
I have never been mistaken about our proletarian masses. The progress of their movement — assured, confident of victory and, for that very reason, cheerful and good-humoured — is exemplary and beyond compare. No European proletariat could have stood the test of the Anti-Socialist Law so splendidly nor, after six years of oppres-sion, have responded by demonstrating how greatly its power had increased and its organisation been consolidated. None could have brought that organisation into being, as was done here, without any pretence at conspiracy. And, now that I have seen the electoral mani-festos of Darmstadt and Hanover,[325] I have ceased to worry about the possibility of having to make concessions in the new districts (constituencies). If, in both those towns, they could speak in such revolutionary and proletarian terms, then all is won.
It is greatly to our advantage that in Germany the industrial revolution should not really have got going until now, whereas in France and England it is for the most part complete. In those countries, the division into town and country, industrial districts and agricultural districts, is complete to the extent that such further change as there is will be very gradual. The bulk of the people grow up in the conditions in which they will subsequently have to live; they are so used to them that even fluctuations and crises come to be regarded almost as a matter of course. Added to which is the memory of earlier, unsuccessful movements. In Germany, by contrast, everything is still in a state of flux. What remains of the old, self-sufficient rural industrial production is being superseded by capitalist cottage industries, while elsewhere capitalist cottage industries are in their turn making way for the machine. And it is the very nature of our industry, lagging as it does far behind all the rest, that makes the revolution b such a fundamental one. Since large mass-produced articles, for the popular as well as the luxury trades, are already monopolised by the British and French, pretty well all that is left for our export industry is the insignificant stuff which, however, also runs into very large quantities, and is first manufactured by cottage industries, not being machine-made until later when it is produced in bulk. In this way cottage industries (capitalist) are introduced into far wider fields and make an even cleaner sweep. If I except the Prussia of the Eastern Elbe area, i. e. East and West Prussia, Pomerania, Posen and the larger part of Brandenburg, as well as Old Bavaria,a there are now few districts where the farmer is not being increasingly caught up in cottage industries. The area thusb revolutionised will,c in Germany, be larger than anywhere else.
Furthermore, the fact that the worker in a cottage industry usually goes in for a bit of agriculture makes it possible to depress wages to an extent unknown elsewhere. What used to b.e the small man's good fortune — the combination of agriculture and industry — has now become the most effective means of capitalist exploitation. The potato plot, the cow, the little bit of husbandry, makes feasible the sale of labour power below its proper price, indeed necessitates this because it binds the worker to the soil which, after all, provides part of his nourishment. Hence, in Germany, industry becomes capable of exporting because the customer, more often than not, is presented with the entire surplus value, while the capitalist's profits derive from deduc-tions made from the normal working wage. This applies to pretty well all rural cottage industries, more so in Germany than anywhere else.
Moreover, our industrial revolution, set in train by the revolution of 1848 and its bourgeois advances (puny though these were), was enormously speeded up 1) by the removal, between 1866 and 1870, of internal obstaclesd and 2) by the French milliards, destined as these were for capitalist investment.[333] In this way we have achieved an industrial revolution that is more thoroughgoing and fundamental, more extensive and comprehensive than in any other country; we have done so with a completely fresh, intact proletariat, undemoral-ised by defeat and, finally — thanks to Marx — with an insight into the causes of economic and political developments and into the prere-quisites for the impending revolution such as none of our predecessors possessed. But for that very reason we are under an obligation to win.
As regards pure democracy and its future role, I am not of your opinion. That it plays a far more subordinate role in Germany than in countries long since industrialised, goes without saying. But that will not prevent it qua extreme bourgeois party — which, after all, it had already made itself out to be at Frankfurt — from acquiring, at the moment of revolution, a temporary significance as the last sheet-anchor of the bourgeois and, indeed, feudal economy generally.[334] At such a moment the entire reactionary mass will align itself behind it and swell its ranks, whereupon all erstwhile reactionaries will act as though they were democrats. It was thus that, from March to September 1848, the entire feudal-bureaucratic mass swelled the ranks of the Liberals in order to keep down the revolutionary masses and, having done so, kick out the Liberals as a matter of course. It was thus that in France in 1848, from May until Bonaparte's(2) election in December, the purely Republican party of Le National,[335] the very weakest of them all, was able to hold sway thanks only to the forces of reaction, all of which rallied to its defences. It has always been thus in every revolution: The tamest party still capable of governing takes its turn at the helm precisely because the vanquished look to it as their last hope of salvation. Now we cannot expect to have the majority of the electorate, i. e. of the nation, already at our backs when the crucial moment comes. The whole of the middle and the residue of the feudal, land-owning class, and the better part of the petty bourgeoisie as of the rural population, will then rally round the most extreme bourgeois — in word by now the most extreme revolutionary — party which will, I think, most probably be represented in the provisional government, indeed might actually form its majority for a time. How, as a minority, one ought not to act in such a case was demonstrated in Paris in 1848 by the Social Democratic minority in the February government.[336] However, for the moment this question remains an academic one.
Now in Germany matters might take a different course, and this for military reasons. As things are at present, an impulse from without would be unlikely to come from anywhere but Russia. Should it fail to come, and the impulse emanate from Germany, the revolution could only emanate from the army. An unarmed population confronted by a modern army is militarily an altogether infinitesimal quantity. In that event — when our reserves of 20- or 25-year-olds, who do not vote, but train, would go into action — pure democracy might be given a miss. But here again the question is, at present, still academic although I, as representative, so to speak, of the party's Great General Staff, am obliged to bear it in mind. At all events, on the crucial day and the day after that, our only adversary will be collective reaction centred round pure democracy and this, I think, ought never to be lost from view.
135. Engels to Paul Lafargue. Mid-December
If you people table motions in the Reichstag, there is one thing you should not forget. State-owned land is for the most part rented out to big farmers, only very little being sold to smallholders whose plots, however, are so diminutive that these new smallholders are reduced to hiring themselves out by the day to the large farms. What should be demanded is the leasing of large, undivided estates to cooperatives of agricultural workers to be farmed communally. The Empire possesses no estates and this will presumably provide a pretext for throwing out any such motion. But I believe that this firebrand ought to be cast among the agricultural day labourers, which is quite possible in view of the many debates about state socialism. This and this alone will enable you to rope in the agricultural workers. It is the best way of showing them that they are ultimately destined to run the big estates of those who are now their lords and masters, and to run them for the common weal. And with this friend Bismarck and his demand that you make positive proposals ought to be satisfied for a while.
Warmest regards.
Your
F.E.
12 December 1884
135
ENGELS TO PAUL LAFARGUE [3 3 7]
IN PARIS [Excerpt] [London, mid-December 1884] In Germany there are far too many soldiers and non-commissioned officers belonging to the party for one to be able to preach a riot with the slightest chance of success. They know that it is in the ranks of the army itself that the demoralisation (from the bourgeois point of view) must take place; given modern military conditions (rapid-firing arms, etc.), the revolution is bound to begin in the army. At any rate it will begin there in our country. No one knows better than the government how the number of socialist conscripts is growing year after year. Our universal suffrage does not begin until the age of twenty-five; if the great reserve of the 21- to 25-year-olds does not figure in the voting, it is present in the army.
136. Engels to Eduard Bernstein. 29 December[3 3 8]
Dear Ede,
From Kautsky I learn that you have lost not only your sister but also your father. Let me assure you of my warmest sympathy. It is one of the more sombre aspects of exile which I, too, have come to know. The fatherland as such is something one can easily dispense with, but —
Now for events over here. On Saturday the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION[300] happily disintegrated. The bubble burst somewhat sooner than I had expected, but it was bound to come.
Hyndman, a political adventurer with aspirations to a carrière in Parliament, had long since gained control of the whole business. When, a year ago, Bax launched To-Day, there was not enough literary talent to keep the little affair going, let alone a weekly, but a weekly Hyndman must needs have. Hence Justice was founded — with money given by two enthusiasts, Morris and Carpenter; it was edited by Hyndman with the aid of a few young literati who were on the look-out for some new movement capable of paying them (Fitzgerald and Champion) and one Joynes, a teacher dismissed from Eton 29 1884
for agitation conducted in company with Henry George,[3] and hence a socialist, willy-nilly. These men were paid, directly or indirectly — Hyndman is rich but tight-fisted—, the rest had to contribute gratis. All the FEDERATION'S papers went to Hyndman, Fitzgerald and Champion, who placed before the Council only what they thought fit, and corresponded off their own bat in the FEDERATION'S name; in short, Hyndman treated the Council as Bismarck treats the Reichstag. Loud complaints; they even reached me. I said: 'Give the man his head. He's a petty-minded chap and won't last long, for he cannot wait.'b And he has come a cropper sooner than I thought he would.
Morris, who was in Scotland a fortnight ago, uncovered there such intrigues on Hyndman's part that he said he could no longer continue to work with the fellow. He had long had his suspicions. An interview with Andreas Scheu in Edinburgh brought matters to a head.[339]
Hyndman had defamed Scheu by calling him an anarchist and dyna-miter— Scheu was able to provide Morris not only with proof to the contrary, but also of the fact that Hyndman knew this. Similar machinations of Hyndman's in Glasgow, where the branch had received letters from the secretary, Fitzgerald, bearing the FEDERATION'S stamp but which had not only not been written at the behest of the Council, but actually in defiance of its resolutions. Furthermore, Hyndman had told several people that a somewhat mysterious letter to the Council in Paris was a forgery concocted by Mme Lafargue and Tussy with a view to laying a trap for him. However, he had withheld the actual letter from the Council. Finally, in addition to having repeatedly stirred up strife between members of the Council, he was shown to have fabricated a provincial branch which did not exist at all.
In short, last Tuesday0 things came to a head. Hyndman was attacked from every side, Scheu himself was there, documents in hand. Tussy had a letter from her sister about the alleged forgery. There was a row. Meeting adjourned till Saturday. Morris and Aveling came to see me beforehand, when I was able to give them some further advice. Big debate on the Saturday. None of the facts could be denied, either by Hyndman or by the supporters he had drummed up. Motion of censure on Hyndman adopted. Whereupon the majority resigned from the FEDERATION. The grounds for this were, 1 ) that
" See this volume, pp. 74-75.-b Ibid., pp. 165-66.-c 23 December 29 1884
at a congress, Hyndman might fabricate a majority with the aid of his BOGUS branch, while they would be unable to prove the non-existence of that branch, or at any rate not until it was too late, 2) —and this was the main reason — because the entire FEDERATION was, after all, no better than a racket.[3]*0
Those who resigned were Aveling, Bax and Morris, the only honest ones amongst the literati, but also three as unpractical men — two poets and a philosopher — as it is possible to find. Also, the cream of the better-known working men. They intend to do the rounds of the London branches in the hope of winning over the majority, whereupon they will let Hyndman and his non-existent provincial branches go whistle. Their organ is to be a little monthly." At last they are going to operate modestly and in accordance with their powers, and not go on pretending that the English proletariat must instantly jump to it the moment the trumpet is sounded by a few literary converts to socialism. (In London, according to Morris' admission, they were 400 strong at the outside and barely 100 in the provinces.) The circulation of Justice is about 3,500.
Hyndman is retaining Justice and To-Day, together with his speculative literati Fitzgerald, Champion, Burrows, Shaw and possibly also Sketchley who, as a former Chartist, presumably considers himself entitled to a pension. Add to that what remains of the old democratic or socialist sects. Whose prize the other remnants of the FEDERATION will be, remains to be seen. But since Hyndman will no longer be getting any money either from Morris or from Carpenter for his unprofitable organs, he will either have to pay up himself, or sell himself, his organs and the remnants of his faction to the CHRISTIAN SOCIALISTS or — to Lord Randolph Churchill and Tory DEMOCRACY. He'll have to look sharp if he wants to stand for Parliament in the elections next autumn. I have the satisfaction of having seen through the whole racket from the outset, correctly sized up all the people concerned and fore-told what the end would be, and similarly that the said racket would eventually do more harm than good.
Your
F.E.
a The Commonweal
137. Engels to Wilhelm Liebknecht. 29 December[3 4 1]
Should the parliamentary group not wish to adopt a merely negative attitude, they can, or so it seems to me, only give their consent to state aid for the bourgeoisie,[342] from which the workers might conceiv-ably derive some indirect advantage (something that still remains to be proved, however) if the workers are assured of similar state aid.* 'If you give us 4 to 5 millions a year for workers' cooperatives (not a loan but a gift, as for the shipowners), then we're prepared to discuss the matter. If you give us guarantees to the effect that in Prussia state-owned land will be leased, not to big farmers or to peasants who cannot exist without hiring day labourers, but to workers' cooperatives, and that public works will be put out to workers' cooperatives instead of to capitalists, very well, we'll see what we can do. But not otherwise.'
Provided the parliamentary group makes proposals of this sort for which, of course, the right wording must first be found, no one will be able to reproach the Social Democratic deputies with neglecting the present needs of the workers for the sake of the future.
138. Engels to August Bebel. 30 December
IN PLAUEN NEAR DRESDEN
London, 30 December 1884
Dear Bebel,
I hasten to reply to your letter. Friend Singer would seem to have digested only such of my remarks as accorded with his own views: one soon learns how to do this in business where it may sometimes help, but in politics as in science one should, after all, learn to take an objective view of things.
To begin with, I told Singer that I had not yet by any means given the matter adequate thought (my attention having been drawn to it only the evening before by the Sozialdemokrat),[3]'[12] and that what I was saying could by no means be regarded as my final verdict.
Next, I went on to say that, under certain circumstances and on certain conditions, it might be admissible to vote for it, i.e. if the government were to undertake to accord to the workers the same state aid it was now prepared to accord to the bourgeoisie. In particular, that is, the leasing of state-owned land to workers' cooperatives, etc. Since I know very well that the government will not do so, this is another way of saying that those who would like to vote for it should be shown how they can vote against it with a semblance of decency and without doing violence to themselves.
I further told Singer — and this seemed news to him — that in parliamentary life one may often find oneself in the position of having to vote against something which one would privately like to see carried.
Well, yesterday I wrote to Liebknecht about other matters and took the opportunity of giving him what was now, after long reflec-tion, a considered view of the case.(1) In many respects it tallies almost word for word — get him to read you that bit of my letter some time — with what you say, although your letter did not arrive until this morning. Where I diverge from you is, briefly, as follows:
1. You are above ali a party versed in economics. You, or some of you, have at various times made a great show of the party's superiority in this field, yet as soon as you were confronted in practice with your first economic question, you fell out — over protective tariffs.[343]
But if the same thing is going to happen each time an economic question crops up, what is the point of having a parliamentary group at all?
2. On principle, you ought to vote against it. I told Liebknecht so plainly enough. But suppose the majority want to vote for it? In that case, the only thing to do is to persuade them to attach such conditions to their vote as will excuse it, at any rate to the extent that no odium attaches to them in the eyes of Europe, as would otherwise inevitably happen. Those conditions, however, are, and can only be, such that the government cannot agree to them, i. e. that the majority of the parliamentary group, should they attach those conditions to their vote, will not be able to vote for it.
Needless to say, I could never have considered an unconditional vote in favour of presenting the bourgeoisie with working men's pennies. But neither, for that matter, could the cardinal question — the dis-ruption of the parliamentary group — have been envisaged in this context.
To my mind, your best way of dealing with all such questions, if you want to take account of the voters' petty-bourgeois prejudices, is to say: 'On principle we're against it. But since you wish us to make positive proposals and since you maintain that these things would also be of benefit to the workers, which we contest in so far as anything more than a microscopic advantage is concerned — well and good. You must place workers and bourgeoisie on an equal footing. For every million you take from the worker's pocket and give to the bourgeoisie, directly or indirectly, you must give the workers a million; the same applies to loans made by the state.' I. e. more or less as follows (only by way of an example and without regard for the particular form it would have to assume for Germany, since I am too little acquainted with the details of existing legislation):
1) The granting of subventions and advances to workers' cooperatives, not for the purpose, or not so much for the purpose, of starting up new businesses (which would be no better than Lassalle's proposal, with all its deficiencies) as, in particular, in order to
a) take on lease and farm cooperatively state-owned land (or other types of landed property);
b) purchase for their own or the government account and operate as cooperatives factories, etc., which, at a time of crisis or, perhaps, due to bankruptcy, have been shut down by their owners or have otherwise come on the market, and thus pave the way for the gradual transition of all production to cooperative production.
2) Preference to be given to cooperatives over capitalists and the latters' associations in all public contracts, and on the same terms; i. e. as a general principle, contracts for public works to be accorded wherever possible to cooperatives.
3) The removal of all legal obstacles and difficulties that still stand in the way of free cooperatives, i. e. above all the reinstatement of the working class within the common law — pitiful though this may be — by the repeal of the Anti-Socialist Law [37] which, after all, is the ruin of all trade associations and cooperatives.
4) Complete freedom for trade associations (TRADE UNIONS) and their recognition as legal persons with all the latters' rights.
By demanding this, all you demand is that equal consideration be accorded to workers and bourgeois alike; and if gifts to the bourgeois will allegedly boost industry, will not gifts to the workers boost it far more? Without any such quid pro quo, I fail to see how a Social Democratic parliamentary group could vote for anything of the sort. If you confront the people with such demands, the electorate, too, would soon stop pestering you about state aid for industry in the shape of gifts to the bourgeoisie. All these are matters which could be initiated here and now and actually set in train within the year, being obstruct-ed only by the bourgeoisie and the government. And yet, as things now are, these are important measures whose impact upon the workers would be a very different affair from that made by steamship subsidies,[342] protective tariffs, etc. And the French are demanding essentially the same.
But now for something else which has only just come to light. The outcome of the division will, as likely as not, be determined by the Social Democrats. And what utter asses you would look in the eyes of the whole world if this business of donations to the bourgeoisie were to be the work of your votes] And without any quid pro quo! I really do not know what, in that case, I should tell the French and the people over here. And what a triumph for the anarchists, who would say exultantly: 'There you are — they're out-and-out philistines!'
I shall go into the other matters another time, since I am anxious that you should not for a moment be in doubt as to my views on this
139. Engels to Pasquale Martignetti. 30 December
point. I trust that the change in your business affairs[344] will above all be beneficial to your health. With all good wishes to you and your family for the New Year.
Your
F.E.
That there won't be enough money is clear as day. And another thing I told Singer was that anyone who votes for it must, if he is to be consistent, also vote for colonies. As regards the point about money, see my letter to Liebknecht.a
r, • r TJ i. mon A • e n • D • Published in English in lull for the Uriejen, Berlin, 19/U and in full, in Russian, . a
in Marx-Engels Archives, Vol. I (VI), Moscow, 1932
first time
139
ENGELS TO PASQJJALE MARTIGNETTI
IN BENEVENTO
London, 30 December 1884
Dear Sir,
Unfortunately it is not till now that your latest letter dated 18 November has received a reply from me. [3 4 5] Please excuse me; I am overwhelmed with work and things to be done.
My Peasant War is a pamphlet which is only of interest to Germany. Besides, I must prepare a completely reworked edition,[2] ' [3] and I cannot begin before February or March. The book would be published around July (I know what to expect from our party press). Finally, what it deals with has nothing to do with the subject of The Origin etc. b
I think therefore that it will be better to publish the latter separately; as for the way in which it is published, I leave the decision entirely in your hands.
As soon as The Peasant War is published, I shall be honoured to send you a copy. You can then judge whether it is worth the trouble of translating. I doubt it.
I remain with respect your devoted
F. Engels
140. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge. 31 December[2 6 3]
Dear Sorge,
I trust that your health has improved, as mine has, although I am not yet quite my old self again^—very nearly, however.
Capital, Book II (some 600 pages of print) will go to press in January. The editing will have been completed in about 10 days' time, after which all that will remain to be done is the revision of the fair copy. It's been quite a task — there were 2 complete and 6 partial texts! [1][7]
Then, as soon as I have attended to a few urgent intermediate jobs, it will be the turn of Book III. a There are 2 complete texts and a notebook of calculations b; this, too, will run to some 600 or 700 pages.
Finally, Book IV, Theories of Surplus Value, from the earliest manuscript of 1856-61. ' [7] ' It is still in limbo and cannot be taken in hand until everything else has been completed. There are about 1,000 closely written quarto sheets.
I am completely revising my Peasant War[2] ' [3] and making it the pivot for my whole history of Germany. It will be some task. But the preliminary studies are as good as finished.
The English translation of Capital is coming along slowly, more than half having been finished. Tussy's husband, Aveling, is helping with it, but doesn't do it as thoroughly as Sam Moore, who is doing the main part . [5 6]
This summer Schorlemmer was subjected to a domiciliary search in Darmstadt for suspected distribution of the Sozialdemokrat.[304]
Great uproar amongst the philistines has earned us some 500 votes.
O n Saturday the DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION here was disrupted. [3 0]° Hyndman, an adventurer who had gained control of the whole affair, was unmasked as a fomenter of strife between the members, a with-holder of correspondence intended for the COUNCIL and a founder of BOGUS BRANCHES in the provinces so that meetings and congresses might be packed with his own creatures. Though a vote of censure was passed on him, the majority resigned, mainly on the grounds that the whole organisation was simply a racket. And it's true. They haven't got 400 paid-up members, and their readers consist of sentimental bourgeois. They now intend to start a new organisation (Morris, Bax, Aveling, etc.) [3 4 6] and leave Justice and To-Day to H y n d m a n and his lot (Fitzgerald, Champion, Burrows, etc.), while they themselves, having at last recognised the weakness of their own effectives, will start off with a little MONTHLY. a As the capitalists who provided the money have also resigned (they, more than anyone else, were sensible of their exploitation by Hyndman) he, Hyndman, will either have to pay for his own unprofitable papers himself or else sell the entire party, in so far as it adheres to him (this will transpire in a week's time), to the highest bidder. And, being intent on getting into Parliament at the next elections, he will have to hurry.
Petty-bourgeois prejudice of every kind is to be found among the German deputies, as, for instance, the desire of the majority to vote for the steamship subsidies 'in the interests of industry'. [3 4 2] Which provides me with correspondence and to spare. Luckily we have Bebel there who invariably gets hold of the right end of the stick, and I therefore hope that the whole thing will go off without our being discredited. Ever since I have conducted the 'official' correspondence with Bebel instead of with Liebknecht, not only does all go smoothly, but something actually comes of it, and my views are presented to the chaps in their entirety. Bebel is a really splendid fellow and I hope he won't ruin his health which is none too good.
But now here's to a Happy New Year and an improvement in your own health — regards to Adolf.a
Your
F.E.
Thank you for the Volkszeitung in which the wise man expresses his reservations about the abolition of the state. If I were to try and reply to such doubts, I would simply have to shelve my other work. Apropos, the Volkszeitung is no longer sending me its weekly edition.b So if there's anything interesting in it, I should be obliged if you could possibly let me have it.
E • . • . r i t- i » / A Published in English in full for the bnedncn Engels, Karl Marx u. A. an ° F.A.Sorge und Andere, Stuttgart, 1906
141. Engels to Joseph Dietzgen. 31 December[3 4 7]
So for the time being I can hold out no prospect of being able to contribute to your paper. But should I happen to take a holiday, and should something then turn up, or if events were to take place which would render my assistance of real use, it goes without saying that I should at once make myself available.
Endnotes
[139] Der Sozialdemokrat, No. 1, 1883 did not appear on Thursday, as usual, but on Monday, 1 January, whilst No. 2 was published the following Thursday, 4 January. The last issue for that year, No. 52, appeared on Thursday, 20 December, whilst on 27 December the newspaper was not published at all. The following issue, No. 1, did not appear until 3 January 1884.— 77
[131] Engels is referring to Johann Karl Rodbertus' letter to Rudolf Hermann Meyer of 20 September 1871. It was published in the book Briefe und socialpolitische Aufsaetze von Dr Rodbertus-Jagetzow. Published by Dr R. Meyer, Vol. 1, Berlin, [1882], p. 111.—72
[40] The reference is to Engels' The Condition of the Working-Class in England. From Personal Observation and Authentic Sources (see present edition, Vol. 4) which was put out in early 1845 by Otto Wigand's publishing house in Leipzig. In 1872-73 Engels discussed with Liebknecht the plan for a second edition of his book since the latter was planning to publish it in a socio-political literature series with the participation of the editorial board of Der Volksstaat (see present edition, Vol. 44, pp. 375, 477). It is clear from the letters which Wilhelm Liebknecht and Adolf Hepner wrote to Engels in early 1873 that they helped to sort out Engels' legal relations with the Leipzig publishing house. However, this matter was not clarified for the next 12 years (see Engels' letter of 19 January 1885 to August Bebel, this volume, p. 253). The second authorised edition of The Condition of the Working-Class in England was not published until 1892 by Dietz.—19, 248, 251, 253, 263
[47] The reference is to Friedrich Wilhelm Fritzsche's and Louis Viereck's journey around the USA from February to May 1881 on an assignment for the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany. The purpose of the journey was to engage in propaganda work and collect money for the election campaign to the Reichstag. The elections were due to take place that autumn. On Wilhelm Liebknecht's and August Bebel's trip to the USA planned for 1884, see Note 2 9 . - 2 2 , 80
[142] Engels is referring to the propaganda in favour of the introduction of the right to work carried on by the Right wing of the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany (see also Note 104).—81
[143] During trips to England and Ireland in 1882 and 1884 the American economist Henry George gave lectures in which he attempted to prove that the nationalisation of land was a means of settling social contradictions under the capitalist system (see also Note 31).— 82
[146] Engels made a draft of his reply on Charles L. Fitzgerald's letter to him of 25 January in which the latter asked Engels to write for the recently founded newspaper Justice. Fitzgerald's letter was written on paper belonging to the editorial board and carrying the address, 'The Editorial Office of Justice, Palace Chambers, 9, Bridge Street, Westminster, S.W.'.— 84
[147] In his letter of 23 January 1884 Ludwik Krzywicki requested Engels' permission to publish the first volume of Marx's Capital in Polish translation. The translation was the work of Stanislaw Krusihski, Kazimierz Plawinski, Mieczyslaw Brzezinski, Jôsef Siemaszko, Kazimierz Sosnowski, representatives of Polish revolutionary youth, as well as Krzywicki himself, who edited the entire translation. The first in-stalment appeared in 1884, the second in 1886 and the third in 1889. The book was published in full in 1890 in Leipzig, and one copy of this edition was sent to Engels.— 87
[57] Engels is referring to the extracts from statistical reports and specialised studies of the various forms of land ownership and the history of the village commune in Russia which Marx wrote down in the 1870s. He intended to use this material for the section on ground rent in Book III of Capital. However, this plan did not materialise (see Engels' Preface to Volume III of Capital, present edition, Vol. 37).— 29,
[148] Russian books from Marx's library were sent to Pyotr Lavrov on 3 March 1884. On 7 March he acknowledged their receipt from Engels. It is not known what happened to Lavrov's library, including these volumes.— 88
[80] From the late 1860s Marx studied agrarian relations in the United States, Belgium and Russia in the intention of using this material in the third book (Volume II) of Capital when examining the emergence of ground rent. It is clear from Marx's correspondence that he obtained some of the materials he used on agrarian relations in the United States from his friends there (see Marx's letters to Sigfrid Meyer of 4 July and 14 September 1868, and to George Julian Harney of 21 January 1871; present edition, Vols. 43 and 44). On Marx's notes from Russian sources see Note 57.— 43, 88, 264
[78] The Manifesto of the Communist Party appeared twice in Russian in Geneva: in 1869, it was published by the Volnaya russkaya tipografiya publishing house and issued for a second time in 1882. It is not quite certain whether the first translation was by Mikhail Bakunin or Nikolai Lyubavin. The second Russian edition, supplied with a preface specially written by Marx and Engels (see present edition, Vol. 24, pp. 425-26), was prepared by Georgi Plekhanov and appeared in the Russian Social-Revolutionary Library series.— 42, 89
[150] In his letter of reply, written on 30 January 1884, Pyotr Lavrov recommended Kazimierz Sosnowski to Engels as 'a sincere and devout socialist and an excellent young man'. Lavrov also expressed his doubts 'as to where this pretty poor group will find enough money to publish something as large as the first volume of Capital in Polish'. On the translation of the first volume of Capital into Polish, see Note 147.—89
[130] On 2 December 1883 Wilhelm Ludwig Rosenberg, editor of the Mew Yorker Volks-Zeitung, organ of the Socialist Labor Party of the USA, published an article signed 'von der Mark'. It alleged that the state was an abstract concept, a 'union of individuals'. Responding to this, Eduard Bernstein used the pseudonym 'Leo' when publishing in Der Sozialdemokrat, No. 52, 20 December 1883 an article entitled 'Der Sozialismus und der Staat' in which he quoted verbatim Statements Engels had made in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific about the historical role of the state and his assessment of Lassalle's term 'free state' (see present edition, Vol. 24, pp. 320-21). Bernstein also stressed that, in contrast to the anarchists, the Marxists suggested beginning not with the abolition of the state, but with the transfer of power to the proletariat. On 3 January 1884 Rosenberg continued the polemic by publishing another article in the Mew Yorker Volkszeitung with the title 'Herr Leo'. In it he tried to prove that Engels and Bebel were making a concession to the anarchists and alleged the Marxists believed that, following the withering away of the state, there would ensue a situation marked by an absence of authorities.— 72, 86, 91
[153] It is clear from Eduard Bernstein's letter to Engels of 2 February 1884 that the editorial board of Der Sozialdemokrat intended to devote one of the March issues to the memory of Marx. The article 'Marx and the Neue Rheinische Leitung (1848-49)', which Engels wrote for this issue, was included in Der Sozialdemokrat, No. 11, 13 March 1884 (see present edition, Vol. 26).—92
[155] In his letter of 30 January 1884 Pyotr Lavrov suggested to Engels the idea of publishing the second volume of Capital in Russia in instalments parallel to it being prepared for the press in Germany. He drew Engels' attention to the great Russian public interest in this edition. He also wrote that Hermann Lopatin had come to Paris for a few days and, intending to publish a Russian edition of this volume in St Petersburg, had expressed the hope that Engels would send the proofs of the German edition in preparation to Nikolai Danielson (see also Note 168).— 93
[158] Engels is referring to a series of articles carried on 23 December 1883, 13 January and 3 February 1884 by the London weekly The National Reformer published by Charles Bradlaugh and Annie Besant. The author of the first and third articles, which appeared in the 'Daybreak' column was Annie Besant, whilst the second was unsigned and published in the 'Crowded Table' column.— 95
[160] Using the pseudonym 'Deux amis de la liberté' (Two friends of freedom), F. M. Kerverseau and G. Clavelin published a work in several volumes entitled Histoire de la révolution de 1789... in Paris between 1790 and 1803.— 95
[63] On 7 June Der Sozialdemokrat, No. 24 carried a biographical outline of Georg Weerth written by Engels and accompanied by Weerth's poem 'Song of the Ap-prentices' (see present edition, Vol. 26, pp. 108-11). Weerth's poem referred to in this letter, namely 'Die rheinischen Weinba-uern', was published in Der Sozialdemokrat, No. 29, 12 July 1883.— 34
[164] It seems likely that the French journalist Paule Mink (Pauline A. Mçkarska) went on a trip to the South of France, where she engaged in propaganda work. It is clear from Paul Lafargue's letter to Engels of 10 April 1884 that she later joined Lafargue and Jules Guesde (see Note 157) and visited a number of northern French cities together with them where Lafargue gave a report on the significance of the International Working Men's Association.— 96
[166] This letter was written by Engels in reply to Nonne's letter of 7 February 1884. Heinrich Nonne, an emigre from Hanover who was living in Paris and taught foreign languages, informed Engels of his plan to set up a kind of international centre in Paris with a view to bringing about a rapprochement between socialists in different countries. Nonne asked Engels to send him statistical notes and information about events in other countries. Later, in September 1884, it turned out that Nonne was in the pay of the Prussian police (see Note 303).— 97
[55] A fragment from this letter was first published in English in: K. Marx and F. Engels, Correspondence. 1846-1895, Martin Lawrence, London, 1934.— 25, 98
[168] Replying on 9 February to Engels' enquiry about the possibility of publishing a Russian translation of the second volume of Capital in Russia (see Note 155), Pyotr Lavrov wrote that the Russian revolutionaries had decided to bring out this translation 'by all means' and that, should it be confiscated, the book would be put out abroad. The first Russian edition of the second volume of Capital appeared in St Petersburg on 11 January 1886 with a preface by Nikolai Danielson and in his translation. The year of publication printed on the title page was 1885.—
[51] On 2 May 1883 Bebel wrote to Engels that symptoms were apparent in various branches of the German economy which suggested the approach of a crisis.—
[73] In his article 'On the Death of Karl Marx' carried by Der Sozialdemokrat in May 1883 (see present edition, Vol. 24, p. 476) Engels announced that Marx's works would be published by his literary executors, Marx's youngest daughter Eleanor and Engels himself.— 39
[76] This letter was first published in English with minor abridgements in Science and Society, Vol. 2, New York, 1938, No. 2 . - 4 2
[65] In the 1870s and 1880s the French government pursued an active colonialist policy: in 1876 Franco-British financial control had been established in Egypt, and interference in the country's internal affairs continued until 1882, in 1881-83 a French protectorate was established in Tunisia. In 1882 came the provocation of an armed conflict in Madagascar and the beginning of a colonial war in North Vietnam (Tongking) which grew to become a war with China and led to the setting up of a French protectorate in Vietnam in June 1884.— 34, 57
[177] In his capacity as a representative of the German Social Democrats, Eduard Bernstein visited Lyons and Rouen in February 1884; he gave a speech at the German Workers' Club in Paris. From 25 February to 2 March Bernstein stayed with Engels in London, whereupon he returned to Zurich.— 104, 109
[69] Engels is referring to Volume II of The German Ideology (present edition, Vol. 5; see also Note 60).—37, 38
[180] The reference is to the second congress of the League of Peace and Freedom — a bourgeois pacifist organisation formed in Switzerland in 1867 with the active involvement of Victor Hugo, Giuseppe Garibaldi and other democrats. Mikhail Bakunin took part in its work in 1867 and 1868. At the League's second congress, which took place in Berne on 21-25 September 1868, he proposed a resolution proclaiming the need for the economic and social equalisation of classes. Having failed to win the support of the congress, which voted by a majority against his resolution, Bakunin and his supporters left the League.—108
[183] Engels wrote the following on a postcard which he addressed: Monsieur Paul Lavroff, 328 rue St. Jacques, Paris, France.— 110
[185] In her letter of 2 March 1884, Vera Zasulich, writing on behalf of the Russian revolutionary émigrés in Switzerland, requested permission from Engels to put out a Russian edition of Marx's The Poverty of Philosophy (see present edition, Vol. 6). She also asked Engels to send her the text of the preface which he intended to write for the first German edition then in preparation (see Note 118) and expressed the hope that he would look through the proofs of the Russian edition and, if need be, make his remarks. The Russian edition of The Poverty of Philosophy appeared in Geneva in 1886 in the fifth issue of the Library of Contemporary Socialism series.—Ill, 432
[186] The 'reactionary socialists' was the name Engels gave to the armchair socialists (see Note 54) who spread the 'myth about Rodbertus' in their works. For a critique of them see Engels' preface to the second volume of Capital (present edition, Vol. 36).—Ill
[188] After the assassination of Emperor Alexander II on 1 March 1881, Alexander III, his successor, was staying in Gatchina (the Russian tsars' country residence), fearing that new terrorist acts would be staged by the Narodnaya Volya (People's Will).—112, 280
[189] Engels is probably referring to the terrorist activities of the members of the Narodnaya Volya (People's Will), a secret revolutionary Narodnik organisation, which continued even after 1 March 1881 (see previous note).—112
[82] Between 17 August and 14 September 1883 Engels was on holiday in Eastbourne on the south coast of England.— 44, 45, 47, 50, 58
[190] Engels is referring to the letter Marx wrote in the autumn of 1877 to the editorial board of the St Petersburg magazine Otechestvenniye zapiski (see present edition, Vol. 24, p. 196). In an effort to have it published in the Russian press after Marx's death, Engels made three handwritten copies of the letter. The first he gave in September 1883 to Hermann Lopatin, who was in London at the time (see this volume, p. 59), and the second he sent to Vera Zasulich, that being the subject of this letter. He seems to have made the third copy in connection with Nikolai Danielson's unsuccessful attempt in the autumn of 1885 to have Marx's letter published in the journal Severny vestnik (see this volume, pp. 322 and 347). A Russian translation of Marx's letter was first published in Russia in 1885 in the form of a lithograph; the translation was most likely the work of Vera Zasulich. A large part of the edition was confiscated by the police, a fate it shared with another illegal hectographic version of the letter which appeared that December in St Petersburg. Marx's letter was first published in Russian abroad in Geneva in BumnuKb Ha-podHoü Bojiu, No. 5, 1886. The following year it appeared in German in the American newspaper New-Yorker Volkszeitung (3 May) and Der Sozialdemokrat (Zurich, 3 June).—113
[91] The question of a republic in France was raised in Der Sozialdemokrat, No. 27, 28 June 1883, which carried an article entitled 'Louise Michel vor Gericht' containing excerpts from her speech for the defence (see Note 74), and in No. 28, 5 July 1883, in an article on the same subject under the title 'Republik oder Monarchie? Zum Jahrestag des Bastillesturmes'.— 51
[192] In the 1880 general election Henry Mayers Hyndman stood as an independent candidate for Marylebone constituency. However, his extremely moderate programme (he did not support the demand for the nationalisation of land and opposed universal suffrage) lost him votes among the workers and provided Gladstone, who was registered as a voter in the said constituency, with the occasion to de-nounce him as a Tory. Hyndman's attempt to be elected to Parliament failed.—
[193] On 10 February 1884 Friedrich Adolph Sorge informed Engels that George Stiebeling was about to criticise Marx's concept of history.— 114
[29] The trip was planned for the spring of 1884 with the aim of collecting funds from the workers to finance the election campaign for the Reichstag in the autumn of that year. However, Wilhelm Liebknecht was not able to go to the United States until the autumn of 1886, and with a different aim in mind (see Note 600).—14,
[197] In his letter to Laura and Paul Lafargue of 21 February 1884 (see this volume, p. 107), Engels asked them to look through his French translation of Marx's 'On Proudhon' (see present edition, Vol. 20). In this letter Engels examines the corrections they sent him to the translation. Marx's article was included in the appendix to the second French edition of his work The Poverty of Philosophy (see Note 165).—
[198] The reference is to Proudhon's bopk Si les traités de 1815 ont cessé d'exister? Actes du futur congrès, Paris, 1863, in which he opposed a revision of the decisions on Poland taken by the 1815 Vienna Congress. He also spoke out against support for the Polish national liberation movement by European democrats and, in so doing, actually backed up the foreign policy of Russian tsarism.— 117
[201] Following the adoption of a programme based on Marxist positions at the 1880 Congress of the French Workers' Party in Le Havre (see K. Marx, 'Preamble to the Programme of the French Workers' Party', present edition, Vol. 24), the struggle between the Possibilists (see Note 237) and the Guesdists was aggravated; the latter represented the party's revolutionary wing and favoured the revolutionary transformation of society. The struggle led to a split in the party at its 1882 Congress in St Etienne. The Guesdists, who were in a minority, gathered together their representatives in Roanne and formed their own party, retaining the previous name.— 118, 444, 445
[203] The German People's Party (Deutsche Volkspartei) appeared in Stuttgart in 1868. It consisted of democratic elements from the petty and middle bourgeoisie, mainly from the South German states, and thus was also called South German and Swabian. Opposing the establishment of Prussian hegemony in Germany and advancing general democratic slogans, the German People's Party at the same time expressed the particularist aspirations of the bourgeoisie in a number of German states. This was manifested in its campaign against the unification of Germany to become a single centralised democratic republic, in favour of a federal German state and a republican form of government. From the late 1870s the party took a negative stance on the Anti-Socialist Law (see Note 37). In an effort to gain control of the workers' movement, the party repeatedly came out in favour of joint action with the German Social Democrats during the election campaigns to the Reichstag. The party's permanent leader and the chairman of its parliamentary group from its foundation up to the 1890s was Leopold Sonnemann. The party ceased to exist in 1910 when it merged with the People's Party of Progress (Fort-schrittliche Volkspartei).—119, 282, 502
[204] Engels is probably referring to the part of Karl Kautsky's letter of 12 March 1884 dealing with the English socialist William Morris. Kautsky wrote that he had in-correctly understood Eleanor Marx's remark about William Morris and, in one of his articles, had therefore called him a 'Gefühlssozialist' (socialist by feeling). The offended Morris categorically rejected this opinion.— 121
[207] The letter referred to by Marx was probably written in the spring of 1882 and has not been found. Engels quotes Marx's opinion of Richard Wagner in Chapter II of his work The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (see present edition, Vol. 26, p. 147).—124
[209] On 11 October 1880 Heinrich Wilhelm Fabian, a German émigré living in the United States, wrote to Marx and Engels asking them to contribute to a weekly journal called Einheit which he planned to start publishing in an American city on 1 January 1881. The journal's programme was compiled by Fabian together with Wilhelm Ludwig Rosenberg and sent together with the letter. On 6 November 1880 Fabian wrote to Marx about V— 1 (on this, see Ch. XII of the first part of Anti-Dilhring; present edition, Vol. 25, p. 112). In April 1884 Fabian published in the Freidenker newspaper an article directed against Marx's and Engels' doctrine of the state.—124, 295
[74] Louise Michel, a French revolutionary and participant in the Paris Commune, was sentenced in June 1883 to six years' imprisonment and ten years' stringent police surveillance for taking part in a Paris unemployed demonstration in March 1883. She was amnestied in January 1886.— 41, 404
[214] Legend has it that Martin Luther, speaking in the Diet of Worms on 18 April 1521, answered the question as to whether he stood by his works or rejected them as heresy by saying: 'Here stand I — I can do no other'.—132
[213] The reference is to Engels' plans to revise The Peasant War in Germany (see present edition, Vol. 10), which he failed to carry out. For the fragments which have survived and plans of the book see present edition, Vol. 26, pp. 554-55.—130, 131, 133,
[217] Paul Lafargue's letter to Engels of 9 May 1884 gives reason to believe that the reference is to Engels' article on Marx's Capital which he (Lafargue) found at home ('Review of Volume One of Capital for The Fortnightly Review', present edition, Vol. 20). It is clear from Marx's correspondence with Engels that they intended to publish this review in Lafargue's French translation in Le Courier français, the newspaper of the Left-wing republicans (see Marx to Engels, 1 February 1868, present edition, Vol. 42, p. 532). However, the article was not published in Marx's and Engels' lifetimes.—134
[218] Engels' work 'Prussian Schnapps in the German Reichstag' (see present edition, Vol. 24) was written in February 1876. The publication of this work, which exposed the Prussian Junkers, in Der Volksstaat and as a separate offprint caused consternation in government quarters.— 136
[220] Eugen Richter, one of the leaders of the German Party of Free Thinkers (see Note 231) opposed the schnapps monopoly as lucrative for the Junkers.—137
[223] The Social-Democratic newspaper Süddeutsche Post was banned on 19 May 1884 because of its 'general tendency' and, in particular, for publishing a leader in No. 57 entitled 'Recht auf Arbeit' ('The Right to Work'). Under Paragraph 11 of the Anti-Socialist Law the newspaper was accused of attempting to overthrow the state and social system.— 137
[225] Engels is referring to the accusation made by Rodbertus-Jagetzow that in Capital Marx plagiarised his work %ur Erkenntniss unsrer staatswirtschaftlichen Zustände, Neubrandenburg and Friedland, 1842 (see also Note 187 and Engels' Preface to Volume II of Capital, present edition, Vol. 36).—138, 319
[227] The reference is to a group of persons who took part in publishing Rodbertus-Jagetzow's literary legacy, notably his work Das Kapital. Vierler socialer Brief an von Kirchmann, Berlin, 1884. This work was published by Theophil Kozak who also wrote an introduction, a preface was written by the German economist Adolph Wagner.— 138
[228] Given the fact that tighter controls on the Swiss-German border were causing difficulties in transporting the printed edition of Der Sozialdemokrat from Zurich to Germany, Eduard Bernstein went to Belgium with a view to organising the rerouting of the newspaper via the Belgian-German border.— 139
[232] During the ballot on the prolongation of the Anti-Socialist Law held in the Reichstag on 10 May 1884 (see Note 222) the majority of deputies — including 27 members of the German Party of Free Thinkers and 39 deputies of the Centre (see Note 229) —voted in favour of its prolongation. The total vote in favour was 189, with 157 against. Fearing a possible dissolution of the Reichstag (see Note 244) and the calling of new elections, the leaderships of the German Party of Free Thinkers and the Centre, by supporting Bismarck's domestic policy, weakened the liberal opposition to the government.— 140
[235] The national workshops (ateliers) were instituted by the Provisional Government immediately after the February revolution of 1848. By this means the government sought to discredit Louis Blanc's ideas on 'the organisations of labour' in the eyes of the workers and, at the same time, to utilise those employed in the national workshops, organised on military lines, against the revolutionary proletariat. For an assessment of the national workshops, see K. Marx, The Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850 (present edition, Vol. 10, p. 63).— 141
[236] Opportunists was the name given in France to the party of moderate bourgeois republicans after its split in 1881 and the formation of a radical party based on the Left wing and headed by Georges Clemenceau. The reason for this name, introduced in 1877 by the journalist Henri Rochefort, was the statement by Léon Gambetta, the party's leader, that reforms should be carried out 'at an opportune time'.— 141, 314, 413, 444
[17 9] The reference is to the cycle of lectures Paul Lafargue and Gabriel Deville gave ('Cours d'économie sociale') on Marx's doctrine which were organised on Sundays from 23 January 1884 by a circle at the Socialist Library of the French Workers' Party. The cycle of lectures given by Lafargue was called 'Le Matérialisme économique de Karl Marx'. He entitled his second lecture 'Le Milieu naturel. Théorie darwinienne'. Deville called his cycle of lectures 'L'Évolution du capital'. There were five in all, entitled 'Genèse du capital', 'Formation du prolétariat', 'Coopéra-tion et manufacture', 'Machinisme et grande industrie' and 'Fin du capital'. Th' lectures were published in the press and also as separate pamphlets in 1884. Referring to 'bon dieu', Engels means the disproof of the idealist world view as developed by Lafargue in his first lecture 'Idéalisme et matérialisme dans l'histoire'.—107, 115, 134, 143, 162, 368, 465
[238] In connection with Wilhelm Liebknecht's trip to Paris in mid-May 1884 German newspapers reported that preparations were underway there for a conference of socialists from several European countries.—144
[49] The reference is to the Social-Democratic group in the Reichstag which in 1880 was officially recognised as the party centre at the illegal congress in Wyden, Switzerland, against the background of the Anti-Socialist Law (see Note 37). Prior to that the party centre was in fact the Relief Committee for the repressed Social Democrats set up in 1878.—22, 145, 381
[241] The reference is to the 'Programm der sozialistischen Arbeiterpartei Deutschlands' adopted at the unification congress in Gotha in May 1875. On this document see K. Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme (present edition, Vol. 24).— 146
[242] Engels is referring to the system of provocation, espionage, false evidence and for-geries employed by the Prussian police officer Wilhelm Stieber, who organised the Cologne trial of members of the Communist League in 1852.— 147
[43] August Bebel failed to obtain election to the Reichstag at the 1881 poll. In April 1883 Social Democrats in Hamburg nominated Bebel as a candidate at the addi-tional elections being held then. On 2 May 1883 Bebel wrote to Engels that, given the relatively poor effect of campaigning and particularly parliamentary work against the background of the Anti-Socialist Law, he had requested the voters in Hamburg not to nominate him as a candidate. However, this letter did not arrive until after he had been elected to the Reichstag on 29 June.— 20
[210] On 22 March 1884, during a reception on the occasion of his birthday for a delegation made up of representatives from the Federal Council, the German Reichstag and Prussian Landtag, Emperor William I (nicknamed Lehmann) of Germany expressed his displeasure at the Reichstag's decision at the first reading to reject the prolongation of the Anti-Socialist Law. The Emperor made it plain that he regarded opposition to this law as opposition to him personally.—124, 147
[244] On 9 May 1884, during the discussion on the prolongation of the Anti-Socialist Law (see Note 37) Bismarck read out to the Reichstag a letter written by William I in March 1884 following the assassination of Tsar Alexander II of Russia (see Note 188). The author referred to the need for joint action by the great powers to combat 'the threat of assassination attempts hanging over the whole of Europe'. Bismarck then announced his intention to dissolve the Reichstag immediately in the event of the bill being defeated.— 147
[245] In late February 1884 a major strike began at the coal mines in Anzin, Denain district, department Nord, France. Involving more than 10,000 workers, the strike was in protest at the prohibition of trade unions and lasted until mid-April when the employers reversed their decision to introduce harder working conditions.—
[246] Under the English Act for the Reliefs of the Poor (43rd Elizabeth) (1601) a special tax was levied in each parish to help the poor. Those residents who were unable to provide for themselves and their families received help from the poor fund. An Act for the Amendment and Better Administration of the Laws Relating to the Poor in England and Wales (1834) provided for only one form of assistance to the poor, namely their accommodation in workhouses, otherwise known as 'bastilles for the poor'. The aim of the act was to force the poor to agree to harder working conditions and, in this way, to provide the industrial bourgeoisie with a more plentiful supply of cheap labour.— 150
[247] The reference is to the Act against the Criminal Use of Explosives. It was introduced in response to the unsuccessful assassination attempt organised by a provocateur in Niederwald on 27-28 September 1883. During the discussion of the bill in May 1884 the Social-Democratic deputies announced their refusal to discuss or vote on it. The act was passed by the Reichstag on 15 May 1884 and subjected to police surveillance the production, use, storage and import of explosive substances. Violations of the act were punished by long terms of imprisonment or even the death sentence.— 150
[248] Sigismund Ludwig Borkheim's autobiography was published posthumously in Die Neue %eil, Nos. 3, 5, 6 and 7 for 1890 under the heading 'Erinnerungen eines deutschen Achtungvierzigers'.— 152, 381
[249] This letter was published in English for the first time in The Labour Monthly, London, 1933, Vol. 15, No. 10, X.—153
[252] An anarchist newspaper called L'Explosion began to appear in Carouge near Geneva in April 1884. One of the men behind it was the former Bakuninist Carlo Terzaghi (see also K. Marx and F. Engels, The Alliance of Socialist Democracy and the International Working Men's Association, present edition, Vol. 23).— 154
[253] The reference is to the anarchists who were expelled from Vienna and its surround-ings due to the introduction of a state of siege there on 30 January 1884 (see Note 154). Some of them emigrated to Britain.—154
[254] On 23 June 1884 Karl Kautsky sent Engels the beginning of his article 'Das "Kapital" von Rodbertus' (see also this volume, p. 138) so that the latter might familiarise himself with its contents. The article was published in Die Neue £eit, Nos. 8 and 9 for 1884. It marked the start of Kautsky's polemic with Carl August Schramm (see Engels to Bebel, 20-23 January 1886, this volume, pp. 386-87).—155
[255] The reference is to the work: J. K. Rodbertus-Jagetzow, Zur Erkennlniss unsrer staats-wirtschaftlichen Zustände, Neubrandenburg and Friedland, 1842. Rodbertus' treatment of the constituted value as referred to in this letter is examined by Engels in the article 'Marx and Rodbertus' which he wrote by way of a preface to the first German edition of Marx's The Poverty of Philosophy (see present edition, Vol. 26).—156
[256] Engels is replying to Evgenia Papritz's letter of 26 June 1884 in which she wrote that, with a view to spreading the ideas of scientific socialism in Russian society, a start had been made in Moscow on publishing the lithographed journal Cou,iajiuc-muuecKoe manie. The journal was to publish translations of works by West European authors and articles on socio-political issues. Informing Engels that she was translating his work Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy (see present edition, Vol. 3), Papritz enquired where she could obtain little-known works by Marx and himself for translation and asked where she might find 'the last manifesto to the English workers' as well as Engels' work Anti-Dühring. Herr Eugen Dühring's Revolution in Science (see present edition, Vol. 25).— 157
[257] In the 1880s a number of works by Marx and Engels were published in Russian in Geneva: in 1882, the Manifesto of the Communist Party (see present edition, Vol. 6 and this volume, Note 120), and also the Provisional Rules of the Association, written by Marx (Vol. 20); in 1883, Marx's Wage Labour and Capital (Vol. 9), and in 1884, Engels' Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. Marx's The Poverty of Philosophy (see Note 185) appeared in 1886. The second volume of Capital by Marx was published in St Petersburg in 1885 (see Note 155).—158
[258] Marx's work Wage Labour and Capital (see present edition, Vol. 9) was first published in 1849 as a series of leading articles in the Neue Rheinische Leitung. The first separate edition of the work appeared in Breslau (Wroclaw),. Silesia in 1880 without Marx's involvement. The second edition was published in the same place in 1881. In 1884, with Engels' participation and a short Introductory Note written by him on the history of its publication (see present edition, Vol. 26), the work was published in Hottingen-Zurich.— 159
[260] On 20June 1884 Eduard Bernstein wrote to Engels saying that the Zurich publishing house Die Volksbuchhandlung was planning to publish a collection of socialist poetry. Bernstein enquired in this conjunction about previous editions of verse by Georg Weerth. Engels is probably referring to the collection of Weerth's poems selected from two previous editions, Jahrbuch für Kunst und Poesie, Barmen, 1843, and Album. Originalpoesien von Georg Weerth, Borna, 1847. Moreover, Weerth completed another collection of poems in 1848, which was not, however, published in his own lifetime. It was included in Georg Weerth's Sämtliche Werke published in Berlin in 1956-57.—160
[261] Hermann Schlüter, the keeper of the Archives of German Social Democracy (see Note 144) asked Bernstein to remind Engels that he had agreed to send him a number of materials for the archives. Bernstein did this in his letter to Engels of 20 June 1884, remarking that Schlüter had 'a real mania for collecting things'.—
[262] A draft of this letter was written by Engels on the back of Sarah Allen's letter to him of 5 July 1884.—161
[1 °] No information is available on the French edition of the Manifesto mentioned by Engels. In all probability it never materialised.— 5
[66] Here Engels quotes a thesis from the Programme of the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany adopted at the Gotha Congress in 1875 (sec Note 45). It read, 'The emancipation of labour must be the work of the working class, in relation to which all other classes are only one reactionary mass.' For comment of this thesis see Marx's Critique of the Gotha Programme (present edition, Vol. 24, p. 88).— 35
[267] The 'Sozialpolitische Rundschau' column of Der Sozialdemokrat, No. 28, 10 July 1884, carried a report about the spread of cholera among the poor in Europe. In a note on the report the author severely criticised 'the scholars from the Volkszeitung and other German papers' for using the word 'bacillum'. Among others, this note was directed against Bruno Geiser. Die Neue Well, of which he was the editor, had used the word in its report on the cholera epidemic.— 166
[269] Le quart d'heure de Rabelais — the moment of settling accounts, an unpleasant inter-lude. This expression originates from an episode which allegedly happened to the French author Rabelais and was retold by Voltaire. On his way from Rome to Paris, Rabelais stopped off at a hotel in Lyons and, not having any money to live on, thought up an original way of solving his problem. With the assistance of the son of the hotel's owner, he made some labels on which he wrote 'Poison to kill the King' and 'Poison to kill the Queen' to be attached to bottles. After that Rabelais, having now eaten his fill for free, was taken to Paris in the company of two policemen.—167
[271] On 16 July 1884 Eduard Bernstein wrote to Engels that the voters' mood did not favour the Social Democrats in the constituencies where August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht were standing at the forthcoming elections (see Note 194) and that the Right-wing Social Democrats Bruno Geiser and Louis Viereck had the better constituencies.— 169
[272] Engels is referring to Bruno Geiser's attacks on atheism in his article 'Das Innere der Erde. Eine Auseinandersetzung über den gegenwärtigen Stand einiger Fragen der Wissenschaft' which was published in Die Neue Welt, Nos. 14 and 15, 1884.—
[266] Nos. 20, 21 and 22 of Die Neue Welt for 1884, the editor being Bruno Geiser, published an article by Karl du Prel called 'Der Somnambulismus'.— 165, 170
[274] In Eduard Bernstein's correspondence published by the International Institute of Social History, Amsterdam, this excerpt from Engels' letter is dated: [Hastings, c. 5 July 1884?] (see Eduard Bernsteins Briefwechsel mit Friedrich Engels, herausgegeben von H. Hirsch, Assen, Van Gorcum, 1970, pp. 282-83). However, since the date and place of writing are doubted by the publishers themselves, the present edition has retained the traditional dating.—173
[275] Epistolae ohscurorum virorum (Letters of obscure men) — a collection of satirical letters in two parts (Part I — 1515, Part II — 1517), probably written by members of a humanists' club in Erfurt who supported Reichlin. A major role in the second (and perhaps also the first) part of the Letters was played by Ulrich von Hütten. The letters were directed against Cologne-based theologians.— 173
[276] This letter was first published in the language of the original (English) in: Friedrich Engels, Paul et Laura Lafargue, Correspondance, t. I, 1868-86, Paris, Editions sociales, 1956.—174
[278] The annual conference of the Democratic Federation (see Note 99) was held in London in early August 1884; the conference resolved to rename the Democratic Federation and call it the Social Democratic Federation (see Note 300).— 177
[279] The beginning of the letter has not been found. In this letter Engels sets out his remarks on the manuscript of Paul Lafargue's résumé of the book Le Collectivisme. Examen critique du nouveau socialisme by the French economist and sociologist Paul Leroy-Beaulieu. Part of the book was devoted to a denial of Marx's economic doctrine, particularly his theory of surplus value. Taking account of Engels' remarks, Lafargue's article was published in the Journal des Economistes, No. 9, 1884 under the heading 'La théorie de la plus-value de Karl Marx et la critique de M. Paul Leroy-Beaulieu'.— 179
[280] i0 Here, the direct form of the circulation of commodities means the form: commodity — money — commodity, and the second form: money — commodity— money.—180
[282] 5 Ina letter of 18 August, 1884 Karl Kautsky suggested to Engels that he should ad-
[283] vertise the forthcoming publication of his work The Origin of the Family, Private
[284] Property and the State and include its preface in Die Neue £eit with a view to prevent-
[285] ing the book being banned in Germany. The September issue of the journal carried an announcement that this work was to appear shortly together with excerpts from Engels' preface (see present edition, Vol. 26, pp. 129-276).—187
[286] On 18 August 1884 Eduard Bernstein wrote to inform Engels that translation work had been completed on Marx's The Poverty of Philosophy (see Note 118). He also offered to compile an index to Capital together with Karl Kautsky.— 188
[288] In his letter of 26 August 1884 Karl Kautsky drew Engels' attention to the fact that, in his work Rodbertus, der Begründer des wissenschatftlichen Sozialismus, Georg Adler described as mistaken Engels' claim that Rodbertus had borrowed his doctrine of crises from Sismondi (see present edition, Vol. 25, p. 273, Engels' foot-note).—189
[289] The reference is to a number of polemical articles in Der Sozialdemokrat. In No. 36, 3 September 1884 there was a leading article called 'Höheres Blech' directed against an article praising Rodbertus by the Austrian journalist Hermann Bahr which had appeared in the Viennese Deutsche Wochenschrift in August. In the same issue of Der Sozialdemokrat, Eduard Bernstein, using his pseudonym Leo, published an article ('Ein Ketzerriecher') against Heinrich Wilhelm Fabian, a German socialist living in the United States who had published articles against Marx's and Engels' doctrine of the state in the April issue of Der Freidenker and the New Yorker Volkszeitung. Der Sozialdemokrat, No. 37, 11 September 1884 carried an article called 'Wie stellen wir uns zur Börsensteuer?' evidently written by Abraham Gumbel. The article said that the German Social Democrats should support the bill on the stock exchange tax proposed by Bismarck. Taking up the polemics on this issue, the editorial board of Der Sozialdemokrat declared that, in its opinion, the bill accorded merely with the interests of the big landowners' party (see 'In Sachen der Börsenstcuer', Der Sozialdemokrat, No. 39, 25 September 1884).—191
[291] The Kölnische Leitung, No. 241, 30 August 1884 (first edition) carried an article headed 'Professor Schweifurth über den Congo' on the activities of the Association Internationale Africaine which had been founded in Brussels in 1876 by King Leopold II of Belgium. The organisation was renamed the Comité d'Etudes du Haut-Congo in 1878. Among those taking part in its work was the famous explorer Henry Morton Stanley. The actual aim of the association was to seize and exploit the Congo basin. The article reported that, alongside their philanthropic and scientific work, the Belgian settlers were buying slaves in the Congo, employing the slave labour of the indigenous population, buying ivory, palm oil and other local commodities for export.— 192
[92] On 4 September 1870 in Paris, following the routing of the French army by Prussian forces at Sedan, a mass revolutionary uprising took place which led to the fall of the Second Empire and the proclamation of the Third Republic headed by a bourgeois government (see K. Marx, The Civil War in France, present edition, Vol. 22, p. 307).—51, 324
[243] The reference is to the National Liberals, a Prussian, and from 1871 all-German, Right-wing bourgeois party which existed from 1867 to 1918. It was one of the pil-lars of the Junker-bourgeois bloc. The party's programme called for civil equality and bourgeois-democratic freedoms, but as the workers' movement in Germany strengthened it abandoned these demands and contented itself with Bismarck's half-hearted reforms. Following the unification of Germany it definitively took shape as a party of the big, mainly industrial, bourgeoisie and for all practical purposes disavowed the demands it had made earlier.— 147, 192, 428, 439
[293] The reference is to the manuscripts of Carl Schramm's and Karl Kautsky's articles. Engels goes on in the letter to examine the latter's article against Schramm. The German Social Democrat and reformist Carl Schramm sent the editors of Die Neue £eit his manuscript 'K. Kautsky und Rodbertus' for publication in which he sharply attacked Kautsky's article 'Das "Kapital" von Rodbertus' which the journal had published previously. Schramm's article and Kautsky's reply, entitled 'Eine Replik', were carried by Die Neue J^eit, No. 11, 1884.— 193
[294] The neo-Malthusian Charles Robert Drysdale published an article entitled 'The State Remedy for Poverty' in the September issue of To-Day. Referring to Karl Kautsky's book Der Einfluss der Volksvermehrung auf den Fortschritt der Gesellschaft (Vienna, 1880), he wrote that the 'ardent Socialist' Kautsky 'fully admits the truth of the generalisation of Malthus and Darwin'.— 195
[295] This letter was written by Engels on a postcard. On it he wrote the following address: 'Herrn H. Schlüter, Volksbuchhandlung, Hottingen-Zürich, Switzerland.'—196
[296] This letter was written by Engels on a postcard. He provided it with the following address: 'Herrn H. Schlüter, Volksbuchhandlung, Kasinostr. Hottingen-Zürich, Switzerland.'—196
[297] On 15-17 September 1884, a meeting took place in Skierniewice, Poland, between the emperors of Germany, Austria and Russia and their foreign ministers. The result was the prolongation for three years of the agreement reached between Russia and Germany in June 1881 on the maintenance of benevolent neutrality should the other country be attacked.— 198
[298] Engels seems to be referring to the impression the results of the German Reichstag elections of 10 January 1874 had in Europe, when the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany scored a considerable victory: nine of its candidates (including August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht) were elected and the party won over six per cent of the poll.— 198
[299] In 1884 the third parliamentary reform was carried out in England, as a result of which the suffrage was extended to include small farmers and the farm workers who were homeowners or householders. Suffrage was not extended to the poorer rural and urban sections of the population (tenants and domestic servants), nor to women. The first elections under the new electoral law took place in November-December 1885, with the electorate having a numerical strength of two million higher than at the previous poll (see Note 487).— 198, 270, 304, 314, 317, 318,
[292] German colonial policy became much more active in 1884. The first congress of the German Colonial Union took place on 5 January in Frankfurt-am-Main. The same year saw the organisation of the first German trading station on the South-West coast of Africa, which served as a base for expanding the role played by German capital in Africa.— 192, 199
[302] The Italian translation of Engels' work The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State was done by Pasquale Martignetti and edited by Engels himself (see this volume, p. 215). The Polish edition appeared in Paris in 1885, and the Russian translation was published in St Petersburg in 1894.— 205, 421
[303] In a note headed 'Exécution d'un agent provocateur' the Paris newspaper Le Cri du Peuple, No. 356, 18 October 1884 reported that Heinrich Nonne, a Hanoverian living in Paris, had been exposed as a provocateur and police spy and expelled from the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany (see also Note 166).— 207
[305] An excerpt from this letter was first published in English in: K. Marx, F. Engels, On the Paris Commune, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1971.— 210
[308] Bebel was elected to the Reichstag in Hamburg I (12,282 votes) and Dresden I (8,620 votes at the first ballot and 11,106 at the second) constituencies. He did not receive the required number of votes in Leipzig and Cologne.— 211
[309] The Reichstag elections of 28 October 1884 brought fresh success to the German Social Democrats when compared with the 1878 elections held before the Anti-Socialist Law came into force; their vote increased from 493,000 to 549,900.— 212
[310] Wilhelm Liebknecht failed to obtain the required number of votes at the first ballot in Offenbach-Dieburg, but he was elected at the second ballot with 10,505 votes.—212
[314] In his reply to Engels of 18 November, Pasquale Martignetti informed him that he had conducted talks with the publisher Gennaro, who had issued the Italian translation of Engels' Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, and that the latter had agreed to publish The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.— 215
[316] This letter was first published in English in an abridged form in: K. Marx and F. Engels, Correspondence. 1846-1895, Martin Lawrence, London, 1934.—220, 231, 279
[317] As a result of the War of the Austrian Succession ( 1740-48) Frederick II of Prussia seized Silesia from Austria. Frederick II waged the war against Austria in alliance with France and Bavaria and twice during its course betrayed his allies by concluding a separate peace treaty with Austria (1742 and 1745). Prussia was among the participants in the Seven Years' War from 1756 to 1763. On 5 April 1795 Prussia concluded the separate Peace of Basle with the French Republic, thus betraying its allies in the first anti-French coalition.— 221
[318] German Confederation (der Deutsche Bund) was an ephemeral union of German states formed by decision of the Congress of Vienna in June 1815 and originally comprising 35 absolutist feudal states and four free cities. The central body of the German Confederation was the Federal Diet, which consisted of representatives of the German states. The Confederation sealed Germany's political and economic fragmentation and retarded her development. After the defeat of the revolution of 1848-49 and the failure of the attempts to establish a more stable political union, the German Confederation was restored in its old decentralised and amorphous form. The German Confederation finally ceased to exist during the Austro-Prussian war of 1866. This war ended the long-standing rivalry for supremacy in Germany between Austria and Prussia in favour of the latter and marked an important stage in the unification of Germany from above under the hegemony of Junker-bourgeois Prussia.— 221
[319] Engels is referring to the annexation and incorporation into Prussia of the Kingdom of Hanover, the Electorate of Hessc-Kassel, the Duchy of Nassau and the free city of Frankfurt-am-Main. This occurred after Prussia's victory in the war with Austria, in which they had supported the latter, and were the subject of legislation adopted on 20 September 1866.—221
[320] Engels is apparently referring to the confiscation of the property and lands belonging to George V, the King of Hanover, who had fought on the Austrian side. This decision was adopted by the Prussian government on 2 March 1868.— 221
[322] The reference is to the November coup d'état in Prussia which ended on 5 December 1848 in the dispersal of the Prussian National Assembly and the publication of the so-called imposed constitution (see also present edition, Vol. 11, pp. 66-70).—222
[68] Engels is referring to the English Revolution in the 17 th century and the French Revolution of 1789. Between 1642 and 1646 England witnessed its first civil war which ended in the defeat of the monarchy and the victory of Parliament relying on the support of the big, middle and petty bourgeoisie and the new nobility. The years 1789 to 1793 cover the three periods of the French revolution when power was transferred from the hands of the big bourgeoisie and the liberal nobility (Feuillants) to the commercial, industrial and landowning bourgeoisie (Girondists) and finally to the Jacobins who expressed the interests of the revolutionary-democratic petty bourgeoisie that had allied themselves with the peasantry and the lower urban strata.— 35
[24] Engels wrote this letter on a postcard. The address, also in his hand, reads: Herrn Ed. Bernstein, 137, alte Landstraße, Riesbach-Zürich, Switzerland.— 12, 72
[326] With regard to the preparations for a meeting of solidarity with the German Social Democrats scheduled to take place in Redoute (France) on 15 November 1884 (see Note 324) Eduard Bernstein wrote to Paul Lafargue asking him to refrain from sharp criticism of Lassalle. Lafargue informed Engels of the same on 18 November 1884.—225
[327] This letter was first published in the language of the original (English) in: Thomp-son E. P., William Morris. Romantic to Revolutionary, Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1955, p. 861.—227
[328] The English worker and socialist John L. Mahon wrote to Engels on 26 November 1884 requesting that he receive him to discuss a number of issues concerning the English workers' movement, in particular, an opportunity of setting up a workers' party.—228
[329] The reference is to the events of May 1860; see Engels' letter to Emile Engels of 11 April and Engels' letters to Marx of 7 and 10 May 1860 (present edition, Vol. 41, pp. 120-21, 134 and 137; see also this volume, Note 23).—229
[330] Engels wrote this letter on a postcard which he addressed 'Herrn Karl Kautsky, Hungelbrunngasse, 14, Wien IV, Austria'. In a letter of 2 December 1884, Karl Kautsky, who was preparing to move from Zurich to London and was to stop off in Vienna and Berlin, gave Engels his Vienna address and also asked him to receive his correspondence at his (Engels') London address for a start. Kautsky further inquired whether Engels thought it better to publish Marx's 'Speech on the Question of Free Trade' as a separate pamphlet or as an appendix to the German edition of The Poverty of Philosophy (see Note 301) being printed by Dietz's publishing house in Stuttgart at the time.— 230
[3 3 2] Speaking on 10 May 1884 in the Reichstag debate on the prolongation of the An ti-Socialist Law (see Note 37), Bruno Geiser stated that the Social Democrats did not seek to use violence to overthrow the existing state and society. He described Bismarck's statement in the Reichstag of 9 May 1884 in which the latter acknowledged the right to work (see Note 233) as evidence of a social revolution in progress. Speaking in the debate on 12 May 1884, August Bebel declared, in contrast to Geiser, that the law's prolongation would not effect the development and implementation of socialist ideas and that 'sooner or later they will quite certainly come to play the dominant role in state and society'. Geiser's and Bebel's speeches were published in a pamphlet entitled Aus den Verhandlungen über die Verlängerung des Sozialistengesetzes which appeared in Nu-remberg in 1884.—231
[333] The reference is to the five thousand millions of golden francs which France paid under the peace treaty it concluded with Germany on 10 May 1871 in Frankfurt-am-Main after losing the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71.— 233
[334] The reference is to the representatives of the radical bourgeoisie in the Prussian National Assembly which met in Frankfurt-am-Main from 1848 to 1849 (see also Note 322).—234
[3 3 5] The reference is to the party of moderate Republicans headed by Armand Marrast which formed around the newspaper Le National in the 1840s; it was supported by the industrial bourgeoisie and a section of the liberal intellectuals connected with it.—234
[336] The interim government formed on 24 February 1848 during the bourgeois-democratic revolution in France was a coalition of three political groupings: the bourgeois republicans, the petty bourgeois democrats and the petty bourgeois socialists. The representatives of the two latter groupings made up the 'Social-Democratic minority' — accounting for four of the 11 members of the government— and were unable to exert any influence in their own right on government decisions.— 234
[337] This excerpt from the letter was reproduced by Paul Lafargue in the article 'De-scendre dans la rue' published in the Lyon-Socialiste, No. 15, 21 December 1884. The original has not been found. The surviving fragment of the letter is published in English for the first time in the present edition, Vol. 26.— 235
[338] This letter was first published in an abridged form in The Labour Monthly, London, 1933, Vol. 15, No. 10, X.—236
[300] Social Democratic Federation — an English socialist organisation founded in August 1884 and based on the Democratic Federation (see Note 99); it united different socialist elements, mainly drawn from the intelligentsia and part of the politically active workers. The Federation's programme stated that all the wealth should belong to labour — its only source, it called for the socialisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange, for the set-up of society of'complete emancipation of labour'. It was the first socialist programme in England, which was on the main based on Marx's ideas. The leadership of the Federation was in the hands of Henry Mayers Hyndman, who was prone to use authoritarian methods, and his supporters, who denied the need to work in the trade unions. This doomed the organisation to isolation from the working masses. As a counter to Hyndman's line, a group of socialists within the Federation (Eleanor Marx-Aveling, Edward Aveling, Tom Mann, William Morris and others) campaigned for the establishment of close links with the mass workers' movement. The disagreements in the Federation over questions of tactics and international cooperation (attitude to the split in the French Workers' Party; see notes 201 and 348) led in December 1884 to a split and the foundation of an independent organisation called the Socialist League (see Note 346). In 1885-86 the local branches of the Federation took an active part in the unemployed movement, supported the strike campaign and the fight for an eight-hour working day.—198, 207, 224, 236, 245, 341,^376, 384, 394, 403, 471, 492, 526, 529, 533
[339] This evidently refers to the trips to Scotland undertaken by Andreas Scheu (in November 1884) and Henry Mayers Hyndman (in early December 1884). In Edinburgh Scheu took part in the founding of the Scottish Land and Labour League from among the local socialists. In an effort to extend the organisation's influence to other Scottish cities, Scheu contacted socialists in Glasgow and called on them to form a branch of this League. However, a gathering of socialists took place in Glasgow on 1 December at which Hyndman was present and which proclaimed the formation of the Glasgow branch of the Social Democratic Federation. This was reported in Justice, No. 47, 6 December 1884.— 237
[341] The fragment below from Engels' letter was reproduced by Liebknecht in his article 'Zur Dampfersubvention' published in Der Sozialdemokrat, No. 2, 8 January 1885. The whereabouts of the original is unknown.— 239
[12] Engels is referring to the Social-Democratic Association of the Netherlands which was formed in 1881 and united in a single party the Social-Democratic associations of Amsterdam, The Hague, Haarlem and Rotterdam. The associations had been formed in 1878-81 with the active involvement of former members of the Dutch section of the First International. Nieuwenhuis was among the founders of the new organisation.— 6
[343] The reference is to the speech made by Max Kayser on 17 May 1879 with the agreement of the entire Social-Democratic group in the Reichstag in support of the government plan to introduce protective customs tariffs. Marx and Engels sharply condemned Kayser's action in defending a proposal put before the Reichstag in the interest of large industrialists and big farmers and to the detriment of the masses. They further criticised the lax attitude shown to Kayser by a number of German Social-Democratic leaders (see present edition, Vol. 24, pp. 259-61).—241
[344] In a letter written on 28 December 1884 Bebel informed Engels that on 31 December he intended to surrender his shares in the workshop producing door and window handles which had been formed in Berka a. W. in 1876.— 243
[345] In a letter of 18 November 1884 Pasquale Martignetti requested Engels' permission to publish in one volume two works, namely The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State and The Peasant War in Germany, the former of which he was translating into Italian at the time.— 243
[346] The reference is to the Social Democratic Federation (see Note 300) and the Socialist League. The Socialist League was formed in December 1884 by a group of English socialists who had left the Social Democratic Federation. Its organisers included Eleanor Marx, Ernest Belfort Bax, William Morris and others. 'The Manifesto of the Socialist League' (see The Commonweal, No. 1, February 1885) proclaimed that its members advocate 'the principles of Revolutionary International Socialism' and '...seek a change in the basis of Society ... which would destroy the distinctions of classes and nationalities'. The League set itself the task of establishing a national workers' party adhering to international stand, assisting the trade union and cooperative movements. In its initial years the League and its officials took an active part in the workers' movement. However, in 1887 the League's leadership split into three factions (anarchist elements, the 'parliamentarians' and the 'antiparlia-mentarians'); its links with the day-to-day struggles of the English workers were gradually weakened and there was a growth in sectarianism. In 1889-90 the League fell apart.—245, 247, 265, 275, 321, 394, 431, 434, 443, 446, 451, 471, 492,
[347] The fragment below from Engels' letter to the editor of Der Sozialist Joseph Dietzgen was first published in the same, No. 4, 24 January 1885 (New York) in the column 'Sozial-politische Nachrichten der letzten Tage'. An editorial note placed before the fragment read as follows: 'In a communication from London of 31 December 1884, Fred. Engels tells us that Volume II of Marx's Capital, so long and eagerly awaited, is now ready to go to press, and likewise gives us the glad tidings that, exceeding all our expectations, the third and fourth volumes are also to be bestowed upon us.' The whereabouts of the original letter is not known.— 246
[94] An excerpt from this letter was first published in English in The Labour Monthly, London, 1933, Vol. 15, No. 9, IX.—52, 73, 80, 85, 118
[3] On 31 March 1883 Pyotr Lavrov informed Engels from Paris that he was sending him a postal order which he had received from the students of Technological Institute and Russian women students with the request that it be used to buy a wreath to be laid on Marx's grave. Engels had an announcement printed in Der Sozialdemokrat of 3 May 1883 to the effect that the request had been carried out (see F. Engels, 'On the Death of Karl Marx', present edition, Vol. 24, p. 473).— 3
[8] The family of Jenny, Marx's eldest daughter who died in January 1883 — her husband Charles Longuet and their four children — lived, in Argenteuil near Paris.— 4
[1] This letter was first published in English in an abridged form in: K. Marx.and F. Engels, Letters on 'Capital', New Park Publications, London, 1983.— 3, 6, 87, 92,
[34] Following the introduction of a local state of siege in Leipzig in 1881 (see Note 67), Wilhelm Liebknecht, August Bebel and other German socialists had been forced to leave the city. They settled in the village of Borsdorf near Leipzig.— 16, 19, 20, 47,
[135] On 16 December 1883 his chief and secret police inspector Lieutenant-Colonel Georgi Sudeikin was murdered in St Petersburg in the flat of Sergei Degayev (Yablonsky). The terrorist act was carried out on the decision of the Executive Committee of the Narodnaya Volya (People's Will) party which, on pain of his own death, had forced the exposed provocateur Degayev organise the murder. The Standard, No. 18561, 11 January 1884, reported that the St Petersburg chief of police supposed the murderers were led from Paris by Lavrov and Tikho-mirov.— 74, 79
[6] On 24 February 1883 Hermann Lopatin fled from exile in Vologda to Paris, whence he proceeded to London in September 1883.— 4
[137] On 29 December 1883 Karl Kautsky informed Engels that he was planning to publish in Germany Gabriel Deville's Le Capital de Karl Marx. Résumé et accom-pagné d'un aperçu sur le socialisme scientifique (see Note 81) which had just appeared in Paris. On Engels' advice, Kautsky decided not simply to publish a translation but wrote a work of his own in accordance with the instructions Engels gave him in this and subsequent letters (see this volume, pp. 101 and 462); Kautsky's work appeared under the title Karl Marx's Oekonomische Lehren. Gemeinverständlich dargestellt und erläutert von Karl Kautsky, Stuttgart, 1887.—76, 78, 89, 101, 386, 481, 482
[138] The second, illegal, edition of August Bebel's book Die Frau und der Sozialismus was printed in Dietz's works in Stuttgart but appeared under the auspices of the Zurich publisher Schabelitz with the title Die Frau in der Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft in 1883. The first editon was issued in Zurich-Hottingen in 1879.— 77, 81, 132,
[11] In his letter of 17 March 1883, Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis, on behalf of the Dutch Socialist Workers' Party, asked Engels to 'pass on our homage and grateful acknowledgement, to the Marx family and to all those who join us in mourning at the grave of the master'. Nieuwenhuis also informed Engels that he planned to translate his work Socialism: Utopian and Scientific into Dutch, which he actually did in 1886. Nieuwenhuis further enquired about Engels' plan with regard to Volume II of Marx's Capital, further study of the English labour movement after 1845 and the reissue of Engels' The Condition of the Working-Class in England.— 6
[30] Engels attached a great deal of importance to publicising Marx's theoretical and practical revolutionary activity. With this aim in mind, he wrote three biographies of Marx at different times — in 1869, 1877 and 1892 — and for different publications (see present edition, Vol. 21, pp. 59-64, Vol. 24, pp. 183-95 and Vol. 27, pp. 332-43). The new biography which Engels planned, taking account of the extensive correspondence and other materials which had survived, and to which he refers in this letter, was not written.—14, 17, 26, 40, 79
[25] The reference is to Engels' Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (see present edition, Vol. 24) which in 1883 was published in three German editions running to a total of 10,000 copies. The work was composed of three revised chapters by Engels from his work Herr Eugen Dühring's Revolution in Science (Anti-Diihring) (see present edition, Vol. 25).—12, 15, 37, 60
[39] The letter mentioned has not been found.— 18, 23, 62, 80, 108, 124, 147, 201, 204,
[67] The reference is to the 'local (lesser) state of siege' envisaged by paragraph 28 of the Anti-Socialist Law (see Note 37); in certain districts and places, usually centres of the labour movement, a state of siege was introduced, as a rule, for a year. During this period meetings were allowed only with police permission, the distribution of printed material in public places was prohibited and persons considered politically unreliable were expelled from the places concerned. However, the implementation of these measures led to a growth in the influence of the Socialist Workers' Party and increased activity on the part of the workers' and Social-Democratic movement in parts of Germany that were well awav from its traditional centres.— 35,
[38] The materials used by the prosecution in the trial of Wilhelm Liebknecht, August Bebel and Adolf Hepner for high treason in Leipzig in March 1872 included the Manifesto of the Communist Party by Marx and Engels. It was carried by the book Leipziger Hochverrathsprozess. Ausführlicher Bericht über die Verhandlungen des Schwurge-richts zu Leipzig in dem Prozeß gegen Liebknecht, Bebet und Hepner wegen Vorbereitung zum Hochverrath vom 11-26. März 1872, Leipzig, 1872, pp. 97-119.— 18
[144] The Archives of German Social Democracy were established by a decision of the Conference of the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany held in Zurich from 19 to 21 August 1882. They contained manuscripts by figures from the German workers' movement, including Marx and Engels, literature on the history of Germany and the international workers' movement as well as the workers' press. The archives were originally based in Zurich and the initial documents were collected by Eduard Bernstein. From April 1883 the archives were run by Hermann Schlüter. In June 1888, following its move from Switzerland to London, the editorial board of Der Sozialdemokrat also transferred the archives of German Social Democracy to the same place. They were moved to Berlin following the repeal of the Anti-Socialist L a w . ^ 8 3 , 85, 95, 107, 111, 328
[5] The idea of writing a study of dialectics came to Marx in late 1857 or early 1858 when Ferdinand Freiligrath gave him — most probably after 22 October 1857 — an incomplete set of Hegel's Works. On 16 January 1858, Marx wrote to Engels: Tf ever the time comes when such work is again possible, I should very much like to write 2 or 3 sheets making accessible to the common reader the rational aspect of the method which Hegel not only discovered but also mystified' (see present edition, Vol. 40, p. 249). Marx was going to call the study 'Dialectic' (see his letter to Joseph Dietzgen of 9 May 1868, present edition, Vol. 43, p. 31), but this plan failed to materialise.— 3
[15] The reference is to the third congress of the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany which was held illegally in Copenhagen from 29 March to 2 April 1883, with 60 delegates taking part. The congress was to work out the German Social Democrats' political line on the social reforms being carried out by the bourgeois government, to decide on the party's tactics and the position to be taken by Der Sozialdemokrat, its printed organ, given the Anti-Socialist Law in Germany (see Note 37). The congress unanimously called on the party to expose the demagogy of Bismarck's domestic policy, endorsed the stance of the main printed organ and the general line of conduct of the parliamentary group (see Note 49). It further made it incumbent on every party member, including the Social-Democratic representatives in the Reichstag, to observe party discipline and help carry out party decisions (see also Note 16).—7, 14, 21
[22] In his reply of 18 April 1883 to Engels' letter of 17 April (see this volume, pp. 8-9), Thomas James Knowles wrote that he was intending to include in the journal The Nineteenth Century the English translation of Engels' Synopsis of Volume One of 'Capital' by Karl Marx (see present edition, Vol. 20, pp. 263-308) complete with the author's name. Knowles intended to publish in the same issue an article about Marx written by Maltman Barry, who had been a member of the International.—12
[2] Engels was busy sorting out Marx's library and archives. Apart from extensive economic manuscripts (including the manuscripts of the second and third books of Capital; see Note 4), he found a large number of diverse conspectuses, excerpts, letters and documents on the working-class movement (see notes 57, 72, 174). It took Engels until late March 1884 to put the archives in order, whereupon he moved all the manuscripts which had survived and the correspondence to his own house. He was faced with tasks of enormous dimensions, namely preparing for the press Marx's unfinished works, notably volumes II and III of Capital.— 3, 6, 33
[61] An excerpt from this letter was first published in English in: K. Marx, F. Engels, On Literature and Art, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1976.— 32, 90, 159, 498
[37] The Exceptional Law Against the Socialists (Gesetz gegen die gemeingefährlichen Bestrebungen der Sozialdemokratie — the Law against the Harmful and Dangerous Aspirations of Social Democracy) was introduced by the Bismarck government, supported by the majority in the Reichstag, on 21 October 1878 to counter the socialist and workers' movement. This law, better known as the Anti-Socialist Law, made the Social-Democratic Party of Germany illegal, banned all party and mass workers' organisations, and the socialist and workers' press; on the basis of this law socialist literature was confiscated and Social Democrats subjected to reprisals. However, during its operation the Social-Democratic Party, assisted by Marx and Engels, uprooted both reformist and anarchist elements and managed to substan-tially strengthen and widen its influence among the people by skilfully combining illegal and legal methods of work. Under pressure from the mass workers' movement, the Anti-Socialist Law was abrogated on 1 October 1890. For Engels' assessment of this law, see his article 'Bismarck and the German Working Men's Party' (present edition, Vol. 24, pp. 407-09).—17, 21, 26, 32, 50, 93, 100, 114, 124, 125,
[159] From March 1864 to his death Marx lived with his family in North West London, first at 1 Modena Villas (renamed 1 Maitland Park Road in 1868), then in March 1875 they moved to 41 Maitland Park Road.—95, 104, 118, 121
[4] Engels is referring to the manuscripts of the second and third books of Capital, written by Marx. As he studied Marx's manuscripts, Engels was able to establish within certain limits the time span in which they must have been written (see Engels' prefaces to volumes II and III of Capital, present edition, vols 36 and 37). By the spring of 1884 Engels became convinced of the need to change Marx's original plan according to which the second volume of Capital was to consist of two books and decided to publish the manuscripts of these books as volumes II and III oi Capital (see this volume, pp. 121, 122). When preparing Volume II for the press, Engels used the later versions of the drafts (see Note 17) which came to his notice afterwards (see Engels' letters to Johann Philipp Becker of 22 May, to Friedrich Adolph Sorge of 29 June and to Karl Kautsky of 18 September 1883). The second volume of Capital, edited by Engels, appeared in 1885, and the third in 1894 — 3 , 6, 26, 29, 88, 121, 348, 522
[162] The reference is probably to the German Workers' Educational Society formed in London in 1840 by Karl Schapper, Johann Moll, Heinrich Bauer, and other members of the League of the Just. Marx and Engels took part in its activities in 1847 and 1849-50. The name of the society was changed in the following years, and from the 1870s it was called Communist Workers' Educational Society (Kommu-nistischer Arbeiterbildungsverein). Soon after the introduction of the Anti-Socialist Law (see Note 37), a group of extremist-minded members gained the upper hand in the society. They opposed the tactics employed by the German Social Democrats against the background of the Anti-Socialist Law, came out against a combination of legal and illegal methods of struggle, against the Social Democrats working in Parliament and for individual acts of terrorism. In March 1880 a considerable number of members left the society and formed their own organisation retaining the previous name. The refounded society announced that it intended to act in accord with the principles and tactics of the German Social Democrats. The remaining members, including the supporters of Most, continued to ad-here to Leftist views and were active under the same name.— 95, 119, 210, 263
[165] The reference is to the second French edition of Marx's The Poverty of Philosophy which was being prepared at that time by Laura Lafargue (see also Note 169). The preparatory work on this edition was protracted and it did not appear until 1896 (in Paris), after Engels' death.—97, 104, 111, 115, 124, 133
[126] In his letter of 26 November 1883 Johann Philipp Becker asked Engels to remind Laura Lafargue that she had promised, in the presence and with the agreement of Marx, to send him the letters of 1848 and 1849 which Becker had let Marx have for his work on the pamphlet Herr Vogt — 69, 98, 152, 203, 301
[7] Engels is referring to the sister of Paul Lafargue's mother. It is clear from Laura's letter to Engels of 4 May 1883 that Lafargue's mother lived together with her sister and the latter's children in Bordeaux.— 4
[88] This letter was first published in English in an abridged form in: K. Marx, F. Engels, Selected Correspondence, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1955.—49, 101, 131, 139, 147
[169] Engels did not write a special preface to the second French edition of The Poverty of Philosophy. This led Laura Lafargue to include in the edition Engels' preface to the first German edition of the work ('Marx and Rodbertus') which had appeared in Stuttgart in 1885 (see present edition, Vol. 26).—101, 104, 124
[20] The reference is to the disruptive activities in the International of Mikhail Bakunin and his supporters. In the autumn of 1868 in Geneva they founded the International Alliance of Socialist Democracy, an organisation with its own programme and rules that contradicted those of the International (see present edition, Vol. 21, pp. 207-11). Following the refusal by the General Council of the International Working Men's Association to admit the Alliance to the International, in 1869 Bakunin, in violation of the promise he had given to disband his organisation, secretly introduced the Alliance into the International with the aim of seizing its leadership. Posing as sections of the International, sections of the Alliance publicised their anarchist programme, claiming it was the programme of the International. In November 1871, the Bakuninists' congress in Sonvillier, Switzerland, called for a revision of the International's Rules, notably the articles on the importance of the political struggle by the working class and its party.— 10, 108
[182] In April 1884 Russia obtained a loan of 300 million marks from Germany.— 109,
[184] This letter was first published in English in: K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Correspondence, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1955.— 111, 155, 311
[31] On 19 March 1883 Friedrich Adolph Sorge informed Engels that Henry George's propaganda in America was leading the labour movement astray and suggested the publication of the letter Marx had written to him on 20 June 1881 (see present edition, Vol. 46). This letter contained a critique of Henry George's book Progress and Poverty which had been published in New York in 1880. However, Engels considered that it would be rather premature to publish Marx's letter in the American press (see this volume, p. 42, and Engels' letter to Sorge of 18 June 1887, present edition, Vol. 48). Engels gave a critical exposé of George's views of the nationalisation of land in the Preface to the American edition of his book The Condition of the Working-Class in England (see present edition, Vol. 26, pp. 437-39).— 14, 114
[194] The reference is to the regular elections to the German Reichstag which took place on 28 October 1884.—114, 150, 152, 185, 192, 198, 201
[9] Paul Lafargue, Jules Guesde and Jean Dormoy were tried by a jury in Moulins in late April 1883 for their actions in the province of Montluçon and elsewhere in the autumn of 1882; the charges brought against them were conspiracy and incitement to civil war. The court sentenced each of them to six months' imprisonment as well as imposing fines. Guesde and Lafargue served their sentences in Ste Pélagie prison, Paris, from 21 May to 21 November 1883 (see Note 402).—5, 20, 28, 30, 41, 46, 48,
[195] The congress of the French Workers' Party met in Roubaix from 29 March to 7 April 1884. It was attended by 26 delegates representing about 60 groups, circles and trade unions. The delegates unanimously endorsed the programme adopted at Le Havre in 1880 (see also Note 201). Also present at the congress were Ernest Belfort Bax and Harry Quelch, representatives of the Democratic Federation (see Note 99). An address was read out from the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany, proclaiming solidarity between the workers of all countries. The reply to this address adopted at the congress expressed regret that no German delegation was present and stated that no government measures could destroy the solidarity between the French and German proletariat.—115, 118, 123, 125, 129
[196] This letter was first published in English in: F. Engels, Paul and Laura Lafargue, Correspondence, Vol. 1, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1959.— 116,
[171] The reference is to Marx's manuscript A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (1861-63). Its central part is called Theories of Surplus Value (see present edition, vols 30-34). Marx planned to revise it and then publish as a separate book of Capital entitled 'The History of the Theory' (see Marx's preface to the first volume of Capital, present edition, Vol. 35). However, neither Marx nor Engels carried out this plan. Engels gave a detailed description of this manuscript in the preface to the second volume of Capital (see present edition, Vol. 36). Marx gives a critique of Rodbertus' theory of rent in Notebooks X-XI of the Theories (present edition, Vol. 31).—102, 104, 121, 122, 188, 244, 264, 278
[56] The idea of translating Capital into English occurred to Marx as early as 1865, when he was working on the manuscript (see Marx's letter to Engels of 31 July 1865, present edition, Vol. 42). The British journalist and member of the International's General Council, Peter Fox, was to help Marx find a publisher. However, this matter was not settled due to Fox's death in 1869. The English translation of the first volume of Capital, edited by Engels, did not appear until after Marx's death, in January 1887, and was published by Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey & Co., London. The translation was done by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling between mid-1883 and March 1886. Eleanor Marx-Aveling took part in the preparatory work for the edition (see also this volume, pp. 33 and 127-28).—29, 31, 33, 52, 83, 419, 421, 423, 426, 434, 436, 447, 449-50, 453, 456, 460-63, 468, 471, 474, 480, 482, 493-94, 506, 509, 522, 527-28
[206] The magazine To-Day, No. 4, April 1884, carried the articles by M. Davitt, 'The Irish Social Problem' and P. Lafargue, 'Peasant Proprietary in France'. The newspaper Justice, No. 11, 29 March 1884, reported that To-Day was about to publish Lafargue's article 'On Peasant Proprietary in France' and described the author as 'perhaps the greatest living authority on the French peasantry'.—
[174] When sorting through Marx's manuscripts after his death, Engels discovered a detailed conspectus of Ancient Society or Researches in the Line of Human Progress from Savagery, through Barbarism to Civilization, London, 1877, written by the American scientist Lewis H. Morgan. The conspectus had.been drawn up by Marx in 1880-81 and contained his critical remarks, conclusions of his own and some information from other sources (the conspectus is not included in the present edition). Believing that Marx had intended to write a work specifically devoted to the initial period in the history of human society, basing himself on Morgan as he did so, Engels, who had familiarised himself with Marx's conspectus and Morgan's book, thought it necessary to carry out Marx's plan. The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, on which Engels worked from early April to 26 May 1884, appeared in Zurich at the end of the same year.—103, 121, 123, 131, 132, 135
[18] This letter is the reply to the letter by the editor of The Nineteenth Century, Thomas James Knowles, of 7 April 1883 in which the latter requested Engels to send him a short resume in English of Volume I of Marx's Capital for an article his journal was planning to publish on the subject.— 8
[208] On 7 April 1884 Eduard Bernstein informed Engels that the second and third parts of his work Anti-Diihring ('Political Economy' and 'Socialism', see present edition, Vol. 25) were almost sold out and that 300 copies remained of the first part ('Philosophy'). He therefore suggested that a new edition of the work be prepared, but this time as a single volume and not in separate parts. The second German edition of Anti-Dühring appeared in Zurich at the beginning of December 1885 with additions made by Engels to the second chapter of the third part. The title page gave the year of publication as 1886.— 124, 126, 130, 131, 142, 249, 251, 263, 310,
[118] 1 'B The reference is to the German translation of Marx's The Poverty of Philosophy. Answer to the 'Philosophy of Poverty' by M. Proudhon which was written in French and appeared in Brussels and Paris in 1847. The translation into German was begun by Eduard Bernstein who was later joined by Karl Kautsky. Engels edited the translation, wrote a special preface for it and a number of notes, using the amendments made by Marx on a copy of the French edition of 1847. The book was published by Dietz in Stuttgart in January 1885.—66, 67, 73, 90, 124, 126, 131, 133, 135, 138,
[7 9] This apparently refers to Marx's mathematical manuscripts which he sent to Engels in 1881 ('Über den Begriff der Abgeleiteten Funktion' and 'Über das Differential') (see Engels' letters to Marx of 18 August 1881 and 21 November 1882, present edition, Vol. 46; see also Note 72).— 43
[219] Here Engels is apparently referring to several representatives of the Right wing in the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany such as Bruno Geiser, editor of the Stuttgart-based Die Neue Welt, and to journalists who were close to this trend, like Karl Frohme, Wilhelm Bios, Louis Viereck, etc.—136, 145, 153, 160, 169
[222] On 12 May 1884 the Reichstag voted by a majority of 189 to 157 at the third reading to prolong the Anti-Socialist Law (see Note 37) until 1886.—137, 140
[224] At Engels' request (see this volume, pp. 85 and 95) he was sent the following materials from the Archives of the German Socialist Workers' Party (see Note 144): 1 ) Rodbertus, Offener Brief an das Comité des Deutschen Arbeitervereins zu Läpzig, Leipzig, 1863, and 2) Der Social-Demokrat, Nos. 16, 17 and 18 of 1, 3 and 5 February 1865 containing Marx's article 'On Proudhon' (see Note 151).—138, 139
[26] The article by Engels which is referred to in this letter was published in Der Sozialdemokrat, Nos. 19 and 21, 3 and 17 May 1883, under the heading 'On the Death of Karl Marx' (see present edition, Vol. 24). It was written in reply to the articles about Marx and Engels by Brousse, a Possibilist leader (see Note 237), which had been carried by Le Prolétaire, Nos. 234 and 237, 24 March and 14 April 1883.—12
[54] economy which emerged in the last third of the 19th century in response to the growth of the workers' movement and the spread within it of the ideas of scientific socialism. They preached bourgeois reformism at universities, passing it off as socialism. They alleged that the state, specifically the German Empire, was above all classes and could help achieve improvements in the condition of the working class by way of social reforms.—24, 138, 184, 226, 348, 385, 390, 417
[229] The Centre — a political party of German Catholics formed in June 1870; it expressed the separatist and anti-Prussian tendencies that were widespread in West and South-West Germany (the deputies representing this party had their seats in the centre of the chamber). The Centre Party united different social sections of the Catholic clergy, landowners, bourgeoisie, sections of the peasantry and, as a rule, occupied an intermediate position, manoeuvring between the parties which supported the government and the Left opposition groups in the Reichstag. The Centre was in opposition to the Bismarck government from the mid-1870s to the early 1880s but still voted for the measures it took against the workers' and socialist movement. Engels described the Centre in detail in The Role of Force in History and in 'What Now?' (see present edition, Vol. 26).— 140, 192, 216, 222, 343,
[93] The Party of Progress {Fortschrittspartei) — a bourgeois-liberal party formed in Prussia in 1861. It represented the interests of the petty bourgeoisie and the section of the middle bourgeoisie that was involved in foreign trade. The party supported the idea of German unification under Prussian supremacy but demanded the establishment of a parliamentary system. In 1866 its Right wing split away to form the National Liberal Party. In 1884 the men of Progress merged with the Left wing which had broken away from the National Liberals to form the German Party of Free Thinkers (Deutsche Freisinnige Partei).— 51, 140, 147, 533
[230] The Conservatives expressed the interests of the German Junkers, the aristocracy, the generals, the Lutheran clergy and senior officials. In the Reichstag they were represented by the German Conservative Party and the Free Conservative Party.—140, 147, 192
[233] When the bill to prolong the Anti-Socialist Law was being discussed in the Reichstag on 9 May 1884 Bismarck declared that he recognised the 'right to work'. On 17 May, the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Leitung, the mouthpiece of the government, declared in its evening edition by way of explanation that Bismarck had meant the use of unemployed labour in workhouses (like those in Britain) or in places of de-tention. It was planned to use the unemployed in Germany to carry out.physically arduous work — repairing the roads, breaking up stones, chopping wood, etc.— and to pay them in money or food.— 140, 150
[239] From 29 May to 4 June 1884 Engels stayed in Hastings with Sigismund Borkheim, a participant in the revolution of 1848-49 in Germany.— 144, 152, 381
[240] On 29 May 1884 Kautsky informed Engels of the differences of opinion which had arisen on the editorial board of Die Neue Zeit between himself and the publisher Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Dietz. The latter thought it essential to make the journal more up to date by introducing a new column headed 'Politische Rundschau' which, he intended, should be run by Wilhelm Bios in Stuttgart. Then Dietz insisted on Bios being appointed editor of Die Neue £eit. This situation prompted Eduard Bernstein, in a letter to Engels of 29 May 1884, to suggest that for the time being no chapters should appear there from Engels' work The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.— 145, 153
[23] In mid-November 1850 Engels joined the Manchester branch of the German tex-tiles firm Ermen & Engels. The German side of the enterprise was run by Fr. Engels (Senior) with the assistance of Anthony Ermen. The firm's office was in Barmen. Following the death of his father in 1860, Engels received £ 10,000 from his brothers as compensation for renouncing his rights to the factory in Engelskirchen, which bolstered his financial and legal status in the Manchester firm. Engels was a co-owner of the Manchester firm of Ermen & Engels for five years between June 1864 and June 1869. At the end of this period he left the firm to con-centrate on party, academic and journalistic work.— 12
[263] An excerpt from this letter was published in English for the first time in The Labour Monthly, London, 1933, Vol. 15, No. 10, X.— 164, 176, 197, 206, 212, 244, 299,
[264] Following prolonged and unsuccessful talks with the publisher Dietz on printing Engels' work The Origin of the Family, Private Properly and the State in Stuttgart, Karl Kautsky wrote to Engels on 16 July 1884 that this work could be issued by the Social Democratic publishing house Die Volksbuchhandlung in Hottingen-Zurich where Hermann Schlüter was a member of staff. Of the total edition of 5,000 copies, 1,000 would be passed on to the publisher Jakob Schabelitz for distribution in Germany.— 164, 172
[265] In their letters to Engels of 16 July 1884 Karl Kautsky and Eduard Bernstein informed him that the Stuttgart publisher Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Dietz was planning to cease issuing Die Neue %eil because of financial difficulties. However, a month later, on 18 August, Kautsky wrote to tell Engels that he and Dietz had discussed plans for moving the journal's place of publication to Hamburg. This plan was not carried out and Die Neue ^eit continued to appear in Stuttgart up to 1923.—164, 189
[187] This false accusation against Marx is contained in Johann Karl Rodbertus' letters to Rudolf Meyer of 29 November 1871 (in Briefe und socialpolitische Aufsaetze von Dr Rodbertus-Jagetzow. Published by Dr R.Meyer, Vol. 1, Berlin, [1882], p. 134), and to J.Zeller of 14 March 1875 (in Zeitschrift für die gesammle Staatswissenschaft, Vol. 35, Tübingen, 1879, p. 219). Engels rebuffed Rodbertus' accusation in the preface to the first German edition of Marx's The Poverty of Philosophy ('Marx and Rodbertus', present edition, Vol. 26) and also in the preface to the second volume of Marx's Capital (present edition, Vol. 36).— 111, 166, 187
[268] Given the fact that a cholera epidemic was expected in Paris in the summer of 1884, Engels and Paul Lafarguc agreed to persuade Laura Lafargue to move to England for some time. However, Laura did not arrive at Engels' home until the autumn of 1884.—167, 171, 224
[273] In a letter of 25 July 1884 Paul Lafargue asked Engels to look through his résumé of P.P. Leroy-Beaulieu's book Le Collectivisme... in which the author set out to disprove some of the propositions of Marx's economic theory. For Engels' remarks on Lafargue's work 'La théorie de la plus-value de Karl Marx et la critique de M. Paul Leroy-Beaulieu' see this volume, pp. 179-83.— 171, 175, 178
[277] Engels vacationed in Worthing on the South coast of England from about 5 August to 1 September 1884.—174, 176, 178, 190
[281] The editor-in-chief of the Journal des Economistes, Gustave Molinari, assured Paul Lafargue that he would be given the opportunity to make a reply should Paul Leroy-Beaulieu raise objections to his résumé (see Note 279), whereupon the discussion would be considered finished. However, the one to raise objections was not Beaulieu, but Maurice Block, who published an article in the Journal des Economistes entitled 'Le Capital, de Karl Marx, à propos d'une anticritique'. Lafargue replied to him in the Journal des Economistes, No. 11, 1884, with an article called 'Le "Capital" de Karl Marx et la critique de M. Block'.— 183, 224 285 In a letter of 6 August 1884 Georg Heinrich von Vollmar asked Engels to advise him of a suitable higher educational establishment for Miss Kjellberg who was planning to embark on a thorough study of the social sciences.—184 283 Manchesterism — the Manchester School — a trend in economic thought which refr lected the interests of the industrial bourgeoisie. Its supporters, known as Free Traders, advocated freedom of trade and non-interference by government in economic life. The centre of the Free Traders' agitation was Manchester. Marx dealt in detail with Frédéric Bastiat's views in the Economic Manuscripts of 1857-58 (see present edition, Vol. 28, pp. 5-16).—184 284 On 12 August 1884, Marya Jankowska (pseudonym Stefan Leonowicz), the representative of a Polish Social-Democratic group in Geneva, wrote to Engels requesting permission to publish a Polish edition of his work The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. Engels wrote a draft of his reply on the back of the letter from Jankowska.—185
[287] Engels wrote this letter on a postcard. The address it bears is also in his handwriting and reads: 'Herrn K. Kautsky, 38, Berglistr.; Riesbach-Zürich, Switzerland.'— 189, 200, 205
[290] Engels' reply to the editors of To-Day has not been found.— 192, 195
[301] The reference is to the German edition of Marx's The Poverty of Philosophy, which appeared in Stuttgart in January 1885 (see Note 118). The book included, in place of Marx's preface, his article 'On Proudhon' (see present edition, Vol. 20) and two appendices: an excerpt from Marx's work A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy on the theory of the English socialist John Gray (see present edition, Vol. 29, pp. 320-23), and a translation of the 'Speech on the Question of Free Trade' (Vol. 6). At one time Die Neue £eit was printed in a distinctive orthography proposed by Bruno Geiser.—200, 205, 206, 208, 216
[304] When he visited his relatives in Darmstadt in the summer of 1884, Carl Schorlemmer was detained by the authorities on suspicion of bringing illegal literature into Germany. Being a British subject, however, he succeeded in avoiding punishment (see also F. Engels, 'Carl Schorlemmer', present edition, Vol. 27).— 209, 245
[306] At the Reichstag elections on 28 October 1884 — the outcome of which August Bebel telegraphed to Engels — and at the second ballots held in early November, the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany was able to increase its number of seats to 24 as against 13 at the previous elections. It received 549, 990 votes, or 238,029 more than at the 1881 elections.—210, 216, 221
[307] The election result meant that the Social-Democratic group was able to initiate legislation for the first time, since the Reichstag's rules accorded this right only to parliamentary groups with 15 or more seats.— 210, 217
[325] During the second ballot to the Reichstag, Philipp Heinrich Müller, the Social-Democratic candidate in Darmstadt constituency, issued a leaflet in response to one put out by the National Liberals (see Note 243). Müller declared that he and millions more Germans supported the Republic and resolutely defended the Paris Commune. The text of the leaflet was reprinted in Der Sozialdemokrat, No. 46, 14 November 1884. Jules Guesde quoted Müller in the leading article carried by Le Cri du Peuple, No. 387, 18 November 1884, which was headed 'Nouvelle victoire'. What Engels meant by the Hanoverian programme was the election leaflet issued in Hanover stating that the growth in reaction in Germany could be explained by the cowardice of the National Liberals and their grovelling to Bismarck. The text of the leaflet was carried by Der Sozialdemokrat, No. 47, 21 November 1884.—
[342] In late 1884, Bismarck, seeking to step up German colonial policy (see Note 292) demanded that the Reichstag approve annual subsidies for steamship companies to organise regular services to Eastern Asia, Australia and Africa. This demand led to disagreements within the Social-Democratic group in the Reichstag. The Left wing headed by August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht came out against supporting the government's policy. The Right-wing majority in the group (Dietz, Frohme, Grillenberger, etc.) intended to vote for the subsidies under the pretext that they promoted international links. Under pressure from the majority, the parliamentary group decided to declare the subsidies issue to be of no major importance and give each member the right to vote as they thought fit (see Der Sozialdemokrat, No. 50, 11 December 1884). The sharp criticism expressed in Der Sozialdemokrat and the resolutions adopted by the party leadership led the majority of the parliamentary group to somewhat mo-dify their attitude to the government's project when it was discussed in the Reichstag in March 1885 and to make their support conditional on the Reichstag accepting a number of the group's proposals. It was not until after the Reichstag declined to endorse the proposals made by the Social-Democratic group that they voted against the subsidies.—239, 240, 242, 245, 268, 295, 388