1885
1885
142
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
IN PARIS
London, 1 January 1885
My dear Laura,
In all haste a few lines. Moore and Jollymeyer are off to Tussy's and so I have profited of the occasion to shake off a lot of business letters— a few moments remain before 5.30.
I had paid for your Justice up to 31 December, but as I had no proper receipt, could not do much — besides every letter of mine to anybody at that office was followed by an application from them for an article of mine, so that I really could not write to them even on business. However Edward says he pays to the Modern Press and so I have sent the money today for both you and myself for 6 months' Justice and To-Day and hope you will get it. What we can get of back numbers you shall also have, but there is not much in it worth your notice, the leaning towards the Possibilists is of quite recent date and not at all pronounced, except last No. [with] a letter from Adolphe Smith. [3 4 8] Now however it's sure to bloom out.
Last night we were at Pumps', she is uncommonly well but over-does it a little — the baby all right.
I am sorry the crisis in the Social Democratic Federation(1) could not be retarded a little longer; Hyndman would have got deeper into the mud, and the personal element would have been thrown more into the background. However it could not be helped. The reason why the majority, instead of following up their victory, resigned, and starts a new organisation[346] was this chiefly, as Morris said to me:
that the old organisation was. not worth having. The London branches are about 300 strong in all and those they hope mostly to get, and as to the provinces, it's all bosh and bogus.
Well we'll see what they will make. There is this to be said in their favour: that three more unpractical men for a political organisation than Aveling, Bax and Morris are not to be found in all England. But they are sincere.
Again Happy New Year to both of you and to the poor little onesa
at Argenteuil when you see them, from Nim and myself.
Your
F.E.
time
143. Engels to Hermann Schlüter. / January
Dear Mr Schlüter,
I have received your esteemed note of the 10th as well as Mrs Kelley-Wischnewetzky's ms. [3 4 9]:1 have advised her of its receipt and told her I hope to be able to revise it next week.
The Condition of the Working-Class has not as yet been entirely prised out of Wigand's hands. From what Freytag the lawyer said, the old contract, which envisaged a second edition, was still in force about 10 years ago. [4 0] Since then I have on several occasions tried to find out from Freytag how I stood with Wigand under Saxon law but have never received an answer. So long as I remain in doubt on this point I shan't know what steps I can take. I have also told Dietz as much [3 9] but heard nothing further after that; he spoke of bringing out a new edition but I was not told anything definite.
However a new edition would not be possible without various notes by me, which in turn would involve consulting sundry works of reference and, in places, call for study and this I cannot take on at the moment as I have more than enough to do. I might consider it towards the middle of the year. So I think the best thing would be simply to let the matter rest till then.
Now, however, Ede tells me that my Anti-Dilhring ought to be reprinted.20B After considerable thought I have decided that it should be brought out unaltered. I owe this to my opponent and shall simply provide a new preface,a also appendices to some of the chapters, which can go together at the end. Then a new preface. This, too, I shall find time for. So if you want work for the press, I would suggest you start with that. Besides, the thing is not particularly urgent and can therefore be printed at your con-venience.
I hope to finish Marx's Capital, Book II, in January and then proceed at once to rewrite the Peasant War. [2] ' [3] That will take a good 6 weeks. But I must be quit of it so as to get on with Capital, Book III. To begin with, this will be a purely daytime occupation, leaving my evenings to some extent free, when I can attend to the Condition of the Working-Class — if, that is, the revision of sundry translations, attending to proofs, etc., leaves me time for it.
So think the matter over and let me know what you have decided. I shall gladly do all I can to help you.
Kindest regards and a Happy New Year to the colony at large.
Yours,
F. Engels
144. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 13 January
Dear Kautsky,
I trust this will still catch you in Vienna. It was only a day or two ago that I received the 1st number of the Neue £eit. Can you get hold of about 2 or 3 more copies for me? Having promised Rudolf Meyer my critique of Rodbertus,a I can hardly send him a copy — the poor conservative social muddle-head is on tenterhooks — without also doing Mme Lafargue and Tussy the same service.
I would also ask you to send me copies of the Poverty of Philosophy for the above. The thing is advertised as having 'appeared'.
Groß would appear to be a blockhead, though an honest one. I have nothing against the biography; if you intend to lambast him for his confusion over theory, I don't envy you your task.[350]
Give Frankel my kind regards. No doubt you will tell me what he is in fact up to.
The New Year's card he and the others sent me gave me much pleasure.
Well, that's all until you come over here.
Your
F.E.
With an editor like D b you wouldn't have stuck it even for a fortnight. Better to come over here, rather than make yourself yet another deadly enemy in the parliamentary group. [351]
145. Engels to Hermann Schlüter. 13 January
Dear Mr Schlüter,
By all means start with the Anti-Diihring as soon as convenient.[208]
I have not read the philistine's reply,f nor do I wish to do so. Reply he cannot and he's welcome to lay about him with as much insolent verbiage as he wishes.
I have long been searching in vain for the Rheinische Leitung Revue. I only have numbers 3, 5 and 6; 1, 2 and 4 are missing.a [5 2] There are virtually no articles in them worth reprinting. Numbers 1-4 contain Marx's history of the French Revolution from 1848 to 1850b
(comprised in the 18th Brumaire) and my account of events in May 1849 in the Rhineland and Baden-Palatinate.c Then the Peasant Ward
(5 and 6) and short critical essays, as also a review of daily events.c
The right to work is not touched on other than very briefly in, I think, Number Ir; Marx wasn't much interested in catchphrases.
It would be quite a good idea for you to inquire from Wigand in your own name about a new edition of the Condition etc., [40] but that won't get us very much further. I have got to know how I stand with him in law and shall inquire again from Freytag. N. B. I am assuming that, as soon as the matter is sufficiently advanced, you will come to an understanding with Dietz, as he does in fact have, or might assert, a prior claim.
Regards to Ede.
Yours faithfully,
F. Engels
146. Engels to Hermann Schlüter. 17 January
Dear Mr Schlüter,
As regards the Anti-Dühring, I would further advise you that 1) the old preface is followed by another to the 2nd edition which, however, I can't really do as yet; so doubtless you will, as usual, begin with the actual text and leave preface and title to the last; 2) such additions as there are will appear as an appendix.[3]
I have heard from Bonnb that the Origin of the Family etc. is not obtainable in the bookshops; according to the booksellers they have had word from Switzerland — from the publisher — that the book has been banned and various friends have been bombarding me with inquiries as to where the book may be obtained. Since there has, to my knowledge, been no public ban, while a secret ban would be nonsensical, and since the assumption that Zurich has been spreading rumours of a ban is even more nonsensical, I find the matter puzzling. Could it be that the government, to spare itself the ridicule that would come of a public ban, has persuaded Schabelitz's agents in Leipzig to spread such things about and thus make sales more difficult? Perhaps you would be good enough to start inquiries over there and let me know the result; I shall also try to find out whether the same tactics are being pursued elsewhere.
What is Ede doing? I have had neither sight nor sound of him.
Yours faithfully,
F. Engels
147. Engels to August Bebel. 19 January . .Ł
Dear Bebel,
I hope you have had my last registered letter concerning the matter of the Steamship Bill (of 30 or 31 December).[3] Today I must trouble you with an inquiry. Mr Franz Mehring has now written to me for the second time asking me to place at his disposal material for a biography, etc., of Marx and, amongst other things, has the nerve to presume that I send him 'on loan' to Berlin irreplaceable editions of ours which he is unable to procure over there! I shall not reply, but send a message via Hirsch. But if I am to strike the right note, I ought to know something more definite about his past and present and about his attitude towards the party. Generally speaking, all I know is that, some time before 1878, he was pretty roundly taken to task in the Volksstaat and the Vorwärts for being a reptilea [5 3] and a defector from the party and, from the few writings of his which have fallen into my hands, I have seen that he was making literary use of such intimate knowledge as he had of the movement to dole out liberal portions of 'truth and fiction'b about it to your philistine, and to pass himself off as an authority in such matters. If he has done anything especially underhand that might single him out from the rest of the literary rabble, it would be most helpful for me to know it.[354]
Then there's another thing. I am being strongly urged to bring out a new edition of my Condition of the Working-Class. I can do absolutely nothing about it before finding out what my legal position is in regard to Wigand, the previous publisher.[40] I have asked Liebknecht about this umpteen times, and on each occasion he has undertaken to obtain the information for me from Freytag, but none has ever been forthcoming. And who was the first to express surprise that nothing had been settled? Why, Liebknecht, of course. Now since it would be folly to entrust him with any further errands, I must once again bother you, and ask you to obtain for me from Freytag, or some other Saxon advocate, a reply to the enclosed questions. As soon as I have that reply I can, and intend to, proceed.
To return to Germany's industrial position, I readily concede that enormous progress has been made since 1866, and more especially since 1871. But the contrast with other countries still remains, nonetheless. England had had the monopoly of mass-produced articles and France that of the finer luxury and fashion goods, and in this respect there has not, after all, been any change worth mentioning. In iron, it is true, Germany is, together with America, second only to England; but she is very far from attaining the level of English mass-production and can only hope to compete by selling at a loss. In cotton, Germany manufactures only subsidiary articles for the world market. The massive quantities of yarn and other woven goods (SHIRT-INGS and other mass-produced articles) for the Indian and Chinese market are still an English monopoly, and such competition as there may be in this sphere comes, not from Germany but from America. In woollen goods, too, England still dominates the world market, ditto in linen (Ireland). Birmingham is still the centre for hardware for domestic use, etc., as Sheffield is for cutlery, and the greatest threat of competition is still posed by America, not Germany. Machinery (with the exception of locomotives), England and America.
In the matter of fashion goods, France has lost a lot of ground. Here, too, fashion has changed considerably, and this certainly ap--plies to Germany also. Both countries, however, and Germany in particular, produce in the main 2nd, 3rd and 4th class goods and still to a large extent depend on the Paris fashions. Meanwhile it is obvious that, in the case of buyers who consist almost exclusively of parvenus, 2nd and 3rd class articles play a considerable role and can be sold to these boors as "ist class goods.
One thing, however, is certain: the large bulk of German exports is composed of a mass of what, seen individually, are more or less insignificant articles, the manufacture of which, in so far as fashion comes into it, depends largely on the theft of Parisian patterns — e.g. the women's coat trade in Berlin — as is openly admitted in the Kölnische Reifung. Moreover, foreign cloth is largely used for the purpose.
148. Engels to Paul Lafargue. About 25 January
I believe the world market can be more accurately sized up from this country than from over there; but in doing so I have regularly followed the specialised German trade reports and hence see both sides of the picture. I wish I could sometime spare a moment to write something from this standpoint on the subject of protective tariffs in Germany. They are completely cock-eyed. German industry developed and became capable of exporting under a system of free trade more comprehensive than in any other industrial country save England— and it is being restricted by protective tariffs in the very sphere in which it is capable of exporting! That the exporters should be demanding protective tariffs is characteristic of Germany — we must have them so as to be able to sell to other countries at a loss and yet show a profit at the end of the year! What we give to other countries must be paid back to us at home, just as we present other countries with the surplus value and make our profits from deductions made on wages!
N. B. That worthy citizen Mehring is the author of the 'leading articles' in the Demokratische Blätter, which he sends me as an earnest of his principles.
Your
F.E.
148
ENGELS TO PAUL LAFARGUE 196;355
IN PARIS
[Excerpt]
[London, about 25 January 1885]
You know what efforts the Russian government has been making for years past to wrest from England and France — but from England in particular — their assent to the extradition of the heroic nihilists.[356] Once these two countries had been won over to such a cause, the rest of Europe was bound to follow suit. There was even reason to hope that America might also be moved to act in similar fashion.
Now, The Pall Mall Gazette of 15 January contained an article by Mme Novikov, devil's advocate of tsarism, appealing yet again to England to desist from giving asylum to the Gartmans, the Stepnyaks and all those who 'organise assassination in Russia'.(1) The English, she goes on, are now threatened with similar chemical attacks; the refuge they afford to the Russian dynamiters is likewise afforded by America to the Irish dynamiters. What England is asking of America is precisely what Russia is asking of England.
All this is plain enough. But there is better to come. On the morning of 24 January all the newspapers carried the text of an agreement, concluded through diplomatic channels, between St Petersburg and Berlin whereby the extradition of political offenders was to be extended to Germany and thence to the rest of Europe.[357]
And on the afternoon of that same day, the 24th of January, London was terrorised by a threefold explosion, one in the House of Commons, directed against the legislature, one in Westminster Hall directed against the judiciary, and one in the Tower, directed against the executive. This time it was no longer a matter of blow-ing up public lavatories or of frightening travellers on the under-ground railway.[358] Rather it was a concerted attack upon the three great powers of state, symbolised by the buildings in which they as-semble.
Is this no more than an act perpetrated by a handful of Fenian hotheads? Might it not rather be the great coup tsarism needed to bring off if it was to compel England to join the ranks of its anti-revolutionary league? If the dynamite was of Russian origin, and handled by Russian agents, could it, I ask, have exploded,at a time better calculated to prostrate a terrified and repentant John Bull at the feet of Alexander III?
149. Engels to Florence Kelley-Wischnewetzky. 4 February.
IN HEIDELBERG
London, 4 February 1885 122 Regent's Park Road, N.W.
Dear Madam,
I hope you have received the letter I wrote to you about the time of the New Year.[39]
I now forward to you, registered, the ms. you sent to me, and only regret that press of work prevented my returning it earlier.[349] I have looked it over carefully, and entered some corrections and suggestions in pencil, in order to show you how I should like it translated. Here and there you may find that my suggestions, taken together with the rest of the sentence, will not turn out to be correct English; in these cases I left it to you to set that right.
As for the technical terms, if you will be good enough to forward me from time to time a list of them with the pages on which they occur, I shall be glad to give you the English equivalents.
The German preface (as well as the English dedication) [359]
I would, in your place, leave out entirely. They contain nothing of interest now. The first part of the preface refers to a phase of intellec-tual development in Germany and elsewhere which is now almost forgotten, and the second part is in our days superfluous.
As to translations of my other writings you will understand as a matter of course that I cannot now take any positive engagements. There are people here who wish to translate one thing or another, and I have consented conditionally, that is to say if they find a publisher and really undertake the work.
The English preface I shall write [360] when things are a little more advanced.
In the meantime I remain
Yours very truly,
F. Engels
150. Engels to Wilhelm Liebknecht. 4 February
IN BORSDORF NEAR LEIPZIG [3 4]
London, 4 February 1885
Dear Liebknecht,
So you have sent me that literatus after all; I trust it is the last of its kind. Surely you can see for yourself how these impudent rascals are misusing you. The man is quite incorrigible, just like his friend Quarck — they're both Quark*—, and if they fall into line with you people and you accept them, I shall fall somewhat out of line. Won't you ever get it into your head that this semi-educated pack of literati can only spoil and adulterate the party? From what you say, Viereck ought never to get into the Reichstag either! The petty-bourgeois element in the party is increasingly gaining the upper hand. They want to suppress Marx's name as much as possible. If things go on like this, there will be a split in the party, on that you may depend. You blame it all on their worships the philistines having been affronted. But there are moments when that must be done or else they get above themselves. Is then the subsection on German, or true, socialismb to become applicable again 40 years later?
For the rest I am keeping well, though I have a hellish lot to do and cannot write long letters.
Your
F.E.
151. Engels to Florence Kelley-Wischnewetzky. 10 February
IN HEIDELBERG
London, 10 February 1885 122 Regent's Park Road, N.W.
Dear Madam,
I herewith return Mr Putnam's letter — of course it would be a splendid success if we could secure publication" by that firm — but I am afraid Mr Putnam will stick to his objections, the great strength of which, from a publisher's standpoint, I fully recognise. Perhaps the fact that a new German edition of my work is in actual preparation, may shake him a little. My friends in Germany say that the book is important to them just now because it describes a state of things which is almost exactly reproduced at the present moment in Germany; and, as the development of manufacturing industry, steam and machinery and their social outcrop in the creation of a proletari-ate, in America corresponds at the present moment as nearly as possible to the English status of 1844 (though your go-ahead people are sure to outstrip the old world in the next 15-20 years altogether) the comparison of industrial England of 1844 with industrial America of 1885 might have its interest too.
Of course in the new preface to the English translation[360] I shall refer as fully as space will permit to the changes in the condition of the British working class which have taken place in the interval; to the improved position of a more or less privileged minority, to the certainly not alleviated misery of the great body, and especially to the impending change for the worse which must necessarily follow from the break-down of the industrial monopoly of England in consequence of the increasing competition in the markets of the world, of Continental Europe and especially of America.
Very sincerely yours,
F. Engels
152. Engels to Nikolai Danielson. 11 February
My dear Sir,
I shall be glad to send you the proof-sheets of Volume II as soon as you let me know whether I shall send them 'sous bande' (per book-post) or in a closed envelope as a letter.[36] ' The fact is, that if one gets lost, it will be impossible to replace it until the work is completed. By the time your answer arrives I expect to have two or three for you.
I thank you very much for the offer you made me some time ago to place at my disposal the letters you have from Mr Williams.a At present the manuscripts claim all my time and attention, but the moment is sure to come when I shall take advantage of your kind offer.
Have you any news from our mutual friend b since the accident which happened to him some time ago?[362]
Be kind enough to address in future as stated at foot.
Yours very sincerely,
P. Rosher [363]
Mrs Rosher 6 Richmond Villas, Messina Avenue, West Hampstead, N.W. London
153. Engels to Pyotr Lavrov. 12 February
My dear Lavrov,
I hasten to reply to your questions.[364] The item about the Neue Rheinische Leitung. Revue, edited by Karl Marx, Hamburg and London, 1850, is absolutely correct. It appeared in Heft* I-VI and was published by Schuberth in Hamburg. You yourself asked me a few months ago for information about the articles by Marx which appeared in the Revue on the subject of the February revolution and the events that followed it. ' [5 6] I possess only 3 of the instalments and have tried in vain to get hold of the complete set. The other facts provided by Groß are also correct, if memory serves me aright (Tussy has got my copy, so I can't compare it). Needless to say, I in no way agree with his silly strictures on Marx's theories. He was recommended to me by the Viennese socialists and, in reply to some biographical questions he put to me, I gave him the facts.
The German translation of the Poverty contains just a few explanatory notes by me,[118] but also an article written by Marx in 1865 on Proudhon and his speech of 1847 on free trade.
The 2nd volume of Capital is now being printed; yesterday I corrected the 4th sheet. The rest of the manuscript goes off from here in a fortnight's time. The 3rd volume will be the most important one, and I shall get to work on it as soon as the 2nd has been well and truly launched.— The English edition is dragging its feet, the two translators'1 being too busy with other matters to work at it with the proper ardour. It will be finished, I hope, come the summer.[56]
I had already heard that you were having trouble with your eyes. Would it not be wise to give up working for a time so as not to tire your eyesight unduly? I find that, at our age, it is always best to tackle morbid symptoms when they first occur. Let's hope that you will be able to let me have better news before too long.
In the preface to the 2nd volume of Capital, I again revert to Rodbertus in order to show that the objections he raises against Marx result from his quite unbelievable ignorance of classical political economy."
Yours ever,
F. Engels
(CDe,zi,opT> Oe/i,opbian>b)
154. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 14 February[365]
Dear Kautsky,
I forgot to remind you day before yesterday that we are, as usual, expecting you and your wife to a meal this Sunday (tomorrow the 15th inst.), i. e. if you have nothing better to do, and you are hereby given a standing invitation to take potluck with me on Sundays.
Your
F. Engels
155. Engels to Hermann Schlüter. 22 February
Dear Mr Schlüter,
I look forward to seeing the proof-sheets of the Anti-Diihring.[209]
In Wigand's case *° matters stand thus: it had already been noted in Leipzig in 1875 or 1876 that no more copies of the Condition were available and I possess the original invoice marked 'last copies'. However no harm can be done if confirmation of this is once again provided by the other party. I have at long last been given a legal opinion from which I gather that the matter is by no means as simple as had appeared at first glance. Now that I know how I stand, I shall take further steps and advise you as soon as I receive a positive reply from Wigand.
I knew Schabelitz even before 1848 when he was here in London and belonged to the Communist Society.[162] Give him my kindest regards when you see him. Your explanation re the alleged 'ban' was just what I wanted[366]; it is quite typical of the German book trade. Obviously nothing can be done about it so long as not one agent can be found who is possessed of pluck. But the bulk of bourgeois readers don't buy our stuff, so in this case pluck is not a particularly paying proposition. It was a different matter when banned books were merely liberal or radical, or even when, prior to 1848, communism was still a cause with which the bourgeoisie flirted.
The last ms. of the 2nd book of Capital goes off tomorrow, and day after tomorrow I shall start on the 3rd book. So long as I have it on my conscience, I shall be unable to give serious thought to anything else.
Please tell Ede that I shall write to him as soon as I have a spare moment.
Kindest regards from
Yours,
F. Engels
156. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 8 March
156
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
IN PARIS
London, 8 March 1885
My dear Laura,
Somehow or other I have to-night a few free moments and so sjt down to write to you — hoping that nobody will drop in. For evening calls are getting rather frequent of late, more than is desirable sometimes, when there is work to do. And the dictated portions of the Capital" I am obliged to look over while the thing is fresh in my mind and the original at hand ready to correct mistakes. Moreover, there are still translations to revise (last week part of a Danish one of my
Ursprung" — very fair) and Russian pamphlets to decipher (Vera Zasoulitch has sent me one of Plechanoff, polemical against Lavroff and Tichomiroff,c and wants me to give her my opinion,d and besides these Russian quarrels are not uninteresting) and such like, so that besides the current small fry I have not had time to read a book for months.
The 3rd book [of] Capital is getting grander and grander the deeper I get into it, and I am only (having passed over entirely about 70 pages, more or less superseded by a later manuscript) at page 230 out of 525. It is almost inconceivable how a man who had such tremendous discoveries, such an entire and complete scientific revolution in his head, could keep it there for 20 years. For the ms. I am working at, has been written either before, or at the same time as the first volume; and the essential part of it is already in the old manuscript of 1860-1862. [171] The fact is, first the intricacies of the 2nd book (which he wrote last and which alone he touched after 1870) kept him fast, as he of course would have to publish his 3 books in regular order; and then, his Russian and American material for the theory of the rent of land [8 0] would have required working up into the old manuscript and would probably have nearly doubled its size.
Here the two socialist bodies[346] are so far jogging on alongside each other without collision, but the foreign department will very likely embroil them. You may have seen in No. 9 of the Sozialdemokrat a letter from Varenholz, dictated by Hyndman. This rather schnod-drige a effusion required a reply which we have concocted and which will come, if possible, in next Saturday's Sozialdemokrat. This time, of course, Aveling had to speak out, and that strong enough to stop Hyndman's game once for all.[367]
We have Kautsky here [3 6 5] whom I think you saw before, with a young Viennese wife, a nice little body.b They intend settling down here for the present — and live in Maitland Park; just out of the Crescent. So there is always some connection going on with the old place. [3 6 8]
Pumps and Percy are getting on as usual. On Sundays there is here now a great cardplaying company, some play whist if there are 4 to be got for that, the rest 'Mariage' and 'Nap', games introduced by the noble Percy. His firm had a law-suit which they lost but it is nothing serious, only I hope that it will damp poor Percy's ardent faith in English law. The little ones are getting on very well upon the whole; Lily is very amiable and jolly. She has an extremely sharp ear and re-tentive memory for des jurons,c and you may be sure, that she finds many an opportunity to catch them.
On Saturday"[1] Nim and Tussy as well as Pumps will go to Highgate. [369] I cannot go, I am still very changeable with respect to capacity for movement, and have just had a little bit of notice to keep quiet. Anyhow I shall continue working at the book which will be a monument to him, made by himself, grander than any that other people could set for Mohr. Two years already on Saturday! And yet I can truly say that while I work at this book, I am in living communion with him.
The 2nd book is getting on well. 13 sheets corrected. Will you please ask Paul to send me at once the address under which he writes to Danielson. I have had a letter from him and want to send the proof-sheets,d but am not certain as to address which may besides have been changed.
How is the Montceau Brenin Thévenin affair going on? [3 7] ° And has the Cri du Peuple cried his last?
Amitiés à Paul.
Yours affectionately,
F. Engels Nim's love!
157. Engels to Richard Stegemann. 26 March
Dear Sir,
I hardly imagine that I would be capable of acceding to your request.[371] You might, it is true, be able to produce a fairly clear portrait of Marx the man from all the activities, both literary and political, Marx engaged in; information on these activities is of course freely available to the world at large, with the single exception of Germany, most of the requisite material having appeared abroad. On the other hand, a character sketch by me would necessarily be brief, hence not only inadequate but + a dogmatic and likewise 'belletristic', hence worse than nothing at all. Besides I cannot presume that my assessment should be taken by you for gospel, and so could not tell what would ultimately become of my contribution, even having regard to your indisputable bona fides. If, however, you proceed on the assumption that Marx was the exact opposite of the German philistine in every conceivable respect, you can't go far wrong.
Whether this is now the precise moment for a critique of Marx, what with the 2nd book of Capital due to appear in a month or two and with work proceeding on the 3rd, is for you to decide. At all events you are right in saying that criticism and so-called 'scholarship' have disclosed nothing hitherto save a 'general lack of judgment', and no one was more amused by that than Marx himself. I can still see him laughing over the despairing sighs of Mr Schäme who had studied Capital for ten years and still hadn't understood it.(1)
158. Engels to Johann Philip p Becker. 2 April
Dear Old Man,
So that you shouldn't think you had been forgotten, I have taken out a money order for five pounds for you and trust you will get the money at once. So far I am pretty well, though not, it is true, as yet fit for active service, nor am I likely ever to be able to mount a horse again, but I am still perky enough for peacetime work. [2]/[3] of the second volume of Capital have been printed and the book will be appearing in some 2 months' time, while work on the third volume is well advanced. This last, which contains the final conclusions and, indeed, some quite brilliant stuff, will revolutionise economics once and for all and create a tremendous sensation.
In the meantime things are beginning to liven up again. Ferry's fall[372] opened the proceedings, now it's Gladstone's turn, and Bismarck's will follow as soon as that jackass William(1) kicks the bucket.
For us, the most favourable situation will arise when, at the moment of revolution, the most radical elements of the bourgeoisie are everywhere at the helm — Clemenceau in France, Dilke and Chamberlain in this country and Richter in Germany — so that when they have ruined themselves, the revolution will be carried out against them and not for their benefit. It looks as though this might come about, provided no premature action is taken in Paris.
As was inevitable in the circumstances of the Anti-Socialist Law,[37]
a number of thoroughgoing philistines have been returned to the Reichstag by our people and are beginning to give themselves airs because they constitute a majority in the parliamentary group. [3 7 3]
We shall now have to wait and see how far they go; they can be tolerated for a time if in tow, but not when in the lead. They know that they haven't got the masses behind them, but they also know that, at the moment, the hands of the masses are very much tied. Of one thing we may be certain. If they gain the upper hand, I shall continue to cooperate up to a certain point, but beyond that it will be bonjour, mes-sieurs. a Being overwhelmed with work, I cannot unfortunately go into the attack as I should like to do, but perhaps it is a good thing to allow these gentlemen a little latitude. The matter of the Steamship Subsidies[342] went off pretty smoothly on the whole, after several of them had made real fools of themselves. Now they are out for the blood of the Zurich Sozialdemokrat,[3] [7 4] which is rather more serious. For it's bad enough to be made to look a fool in the eyes of the gentlemen in the Reichstag, but in the eyes of the whole of Europe — that really is a bit thick! If Bebel were in good health, none of this would matter a great deal, but he is nervy and debilitated, on top of which he has to work himself to the bone on his family's account.
But everything will come right when old William pegs out. The Crown Princeb is a weak, irresolute fellow, as if destined for decapita-tion, his wifec ambitious, with a clique of her own — in short, there will be all manner of changes that will play havoc with the existing order of things and bemuse and unsettle the civil service, while the bourgeoisie will at last be compelled to clear away some of the old lumber and play a political role — as it damned well ought. Only let the political scene at home come to life again and we shall need nothing more. But the rotten bourgeoisie has so greatly deteriorated that what it should do voluntarily and in its own interests as a class, it will do only under compulsion — the compulsion of the historical circumstances imposed upon it. And so long as the old jackass lives, it will be under no compulsion to get moving, which is why I hope that he will kick the bucket and do so in the way of nature, thus leaving his suc-cessor free to choose what stupidity to indulge in first. And with this pious wish, it being almost time for the post, I shall now conclude. Borkheim was rather less well during the winter, but has now improved again, i. e. he's much as before. Fraternal greetings,
From your old friend
F.E.
first time
159. Engels to August Bebel. 4 April
Dear Bebel,
Since you happen to be at home now and I, too, am granting myself a bit of a holiday, I shall take advantage of the opportunity to remind you of my existence.
So those gentlemen who form the majority of the parliamentary group are intent on setting themselves up as a 'power' to judge by their statement in today's Sozialdemokrat.[374] The endeavour as such is feeble, and is basically an admission of their own ineptitude. 'We are,' they say, 'annoyed by the paper's attitude; it conflicts with ours, we are to be held responsible for an opinion that is the opposite of our own, and we really don't know what to do about it. Are we not to be pitied?' But it is their first step towards the establishment of the petty bourgeoisie as the dominant, official element in the party, and the re-legation of the proletariat to the status of one that is barely tolerated. How far along this road they will dare to travel remains to be seen. If they gain control of the Sozialdemokrat, it will no longer be possible for me to vindicate the party abroad through thick and thin as single-mindedly as I have always done. And their committee of inquiry would seem to betray a certain desire to take over the organ. Come to that, their main grievance would seem to lie in having been compelled in the end to vote against the Steamship Bill upon which they had set their hearts.
For the rest, things in general are going very well. The year 1885 has got off to an excellent start. In France, Ferry topples, colonial policy, dictated by stock-market speculators, collapses,[372] new elections in the offing consequent upon new electoral legislation.[375] In Paris, what's more, a state of ferment, provoked by the rapacity and ineffi-ciency of the ruling middle class and exacerbated by the infamies of the police (everything they do, however base, is condoned, provided they keep the masses at bay); we can only hope that things won't come to a head there in the form of attempted coups. If they take a peaceful course, radicalism — i. e. Clemenceau — is bound to come to the helm before very long. Should he come to power peacefully and not as the result of rioting, and thus be compelled to keep his promises and put his radical panacée into practice, the Parisian workers will quickly be cured of their belief in radicalism. In addition, there will be the new elections consequent upon the new electoral legislation, and thus stagnation will again give way to activity.
In England, with her thoroughly effete government, [376] there will also be new elections consequent upon the new electoral legislation. [2] " And in Germany, a change of monarch that may occur any day now and which, in a country as chockful of traditions as Prussia-Germany, always ushers in a new period of activity; in short, things will begin to liven up everywhere, and this on the economic basis of universal and incurable overproduction, a state of affairs that is gradually leading up to an acute crisis.
Kautsky has just arrived with a long letter from Ede about his conflict with the parliamentary group. I have told Kautsky that in my view it was in fact Ede's duty to let the party at large have their say in the paper, and that the parliamentary group has no right to prevent this. If he adopts this standpoint, the group won't be able to touch him. Secondly, he mustn't let the group press him into posing the cardinal question; to be rid of him is exactly what the chaps are after, and he could do them no greater service. In the third place, he should not take upon himself responsibility for other people's articles unless he reserves the right to name them. You know whom I mean and who it was that wrote most of the articles about the steamship affair — the ones that so enraged the majority and for which Ede appears to have assumed responsibility.[377] After all, he has long had to do battle with the petty-bourgeois lot; now the struggle has simply assumed a different form, but the cause is still the same and, like you, I think it im-probable that these gentlemen will take things to extremes, much though they would like to exploit the position the Anti-Socialist Law [3] [7] affords them, namely immunity to official and genuine opposition or criticism on the part of their voters.
The matter would, in my view, take a smoother course were the Sozialdemokrat to discard the official character that has been attached to it. Though not undesirable at one time, this no longer serves any purpose. Whether and how such a thing can be done, you will know better than I.
25 sheets (out of 38) of Capital, Book II have been printed. Book III is in hand. It is quite extraordinarily brilliant. This complete reversal of all previous economics is truly astounding. Our theory is thereby provided for the first time with an unassailable basis while we ourselves are enabled to hold our own successfully against all comers. Directly it appears, the philistines in the party will again be dealt a blow that will give them something to think about. For it will again bring general economic questions to the forefront of the controversy.
Time for the post. Unless I send this off, it won't leave till Monday(1)
and, perhaps, no longer find you at home. My warm regards, then, and mind you keep well and look after yourself; we don't just need a Bebel, but a Bebel sound in wind and limb.
Your
F.E.
160. Engels to Pasquale Martignetti. 11 April
IN BENEVENTO
London, 11 April 1885 122 Regent's Park Road, N.W.
Dear Sir,
I am writing these few lines just to tell you that I have received the translation(1) and am dealing with it. I hope to be able to return it with my comments and suggestions in ten to fifteen days' time. What I have managed to read so far seems very well done.
Thanking you cordially, I remain your devoted
F. Engels
1964 Translated from the Italian
161. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 16 April
Dear Kautsky,
Lenchen has a touch of bronchitis and has been ordered to bed by the doctor, so our usual Sunday dinner must, alas, be given a miss.
162. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 16- 17 April
I trust your wife is at last rid of her headache. Kind regards.
Your
F. Engels
162
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
IN PARIS
London, 16-17 April 1885
My dear Laura,
It has struck me, since I wrote last,a that something might be done in the matter of Lawroff s Russian friends, if they are willing to risk some money on preliminary expenses. 1) If the man died in London and the date of his death, locality, etc., is approximately known, these particulars might enable some one to trace the authentic record of the death. 2) Having that, it will be easy to ascertain at the Court of Probate whether there was a will proved, or whether some one, and who, took out letters of administration and appropriated the gold the man is supposed to have left.
These two steps will in any case be the first two steps that have to be taken, and will put the inquiring parties in a position where they can better judge whether it is worth while proceeding any further. I think Percy might be entrusted with this preliminary part of the matter, and I would see that his charges are no more than what is usual. They would depend, of course, upon the amount of trouble he would be put to.
How is poor old Lawroff getting on with his eyesight? It must be terrible for him to be debarred from the use of his books.
Here is another patient: old Harney has been hovering about all parts of England and Scotland ever since July last and everywhere persecuted by articular rheumatism and bad weather — and now at last turned up in London. He has gone through all sorts of semi-quack treatments — Turkish baths, brine-baths, magnetic belts, etc., and all of course no use, and now has put himself again in the hands of an advertising 'specialist' who exploits the uric-acid-gout theory (which in itself is quite correct) in what looks to me an extremely quackish way. However I'll hope the best, and the poor old fellow is much in want of it. He is shaky enough in arms, hands, legs and feet, and of course much reduced by the treatment he has undergone. I saw him this afternoon (he stays somewhere near the Brecknock) and he speaks of nothing but his sufferings, though here and there with a dash of his old dry humour. His treatment has of course cost him an awful lot of money and he seems to dread the necessity of returning to America. From all this you see how much eight months of continuous pains and gradually sinking hopes of relief have brought the old chap down. I hope the spring weather which anyhow must come sometime, will bring him at least some relief.
It's nothing but patients today. Tussy may have informed you that Edward fell ill about 10 days ago and that Donkin says it is a calculus in the kidney — he is at Ventnor at present and rest, we hope, will al-lay the irritation. Of course, there are a good many people loafing about with such a thing in their kidney but it is not pleasant certainly.
The next patient is not so bad, but it is Nim, she had a severe cold, and as one could not keep her out of the kitchen, it turned into a — so far slight — attack of bronchitis. Anyhow I got her to consult the doctor today who told her the shortest way to get over it at once was to go to bed, so there we got her with a fire in the room and 64 degrees Fahrenheit and hope she will be able to get up about Monday.
So now I have come to an end of my sick-list, it is the longest I have had for some time and a mighty pleasant subject to write about, and more pleasant still for the reader!
Paul's article for Kautsky goes in German into the Neue ^eif and in English into next Commonweal.* I do not know whether you get this regularly. The business arrangements are as usual awfully defective, everything is put upon Edward's shoulders and as he cannot super-vise every detail, nobody knows whether the paper is really forwarded to all those people abroad who ought to have it. The whole Socialist League[346] is now in an awful excitement about the Afghan scare — they see not only war, but England defeated, India in revolt and last, revolution at home, Socialism triumphant — hooray! Poor Bax was going to write in this style but Tussy told him he had better see me about it, and I have done my best to cool him down a bit.[3] [7] [8]
Whenever an Englishman does get free of Jingoism thoroughly, he seems to get a positive hatred of his own nationality. This is not such a bad quality, only rather misplaced in the case of a war with the Russian Tsar.a The Socialist League will not as yet set England in a blaze, but the Russian Nihilists[356] may Russia — with the help of an unsuccessful war.
You will have seen the stupid proclamation of the German deputies in the Sozialdemokrat.[3] [7] [4] The petit-bourgeois element has decidedly got the majority among the deputies, as I feared from the beginning. This is owing to the Socialist Law [3 7] which gives them exceptional fa-cilities in pushing their candidatures. But they will soon find out their mistake, if they have not already done so. I am rather glad they have come out so soon and so stupidly. The separation from this element which has been pushed and cajoled principally by friend Liebknecht— with the usual best intentions, of course — will come, but I do not want to provoke it while the Socialist Law is in force, because that prevents us from fighting it out. It gives these people a certain advantage but that we must put up with for the time being. And I do not think they will push things to a crisis.
Now a word for Paul. [3 7 9] No doubt lexb is derived from legerec
and v6(j.03d from vÉ\i(û,r and so a certain connection can be established between agricultural and political terms. And this cannot be otherwise. The first social regulations which were put in force, necessarily referred to production and the means of getting the livelihood. That this is confirmed by the development of the language, rien de plus naturel.g But now to go further, and to work the derivation of
legere and veuco into a complete system, cannot lead but to fanciful results — if only for the reason that we do not know at what time each particular derivate was formed and still less at what time it received the meaning at which it was handed down to us. And moreover, old etymologists like Vico are bad guide, ilex has the root il, and nothing to do with lex. Etymology like physiology and any other -ology must be learned, cannot be invented. And this leads me to the Roshers. You recollect Charley went in for a new railway carriage by which in case of a collision you could get smashed in a new way. Well, that is exploded. But Charley's younger brothers (one 20, the other 18) have invented a new carriage, have patented it, and old Rosher does not seem much disinclined to go in for this thing! What a family of geniuses!
Sur ce,a I shut up. Kind regards to Paul.— Hope 'better news next time'.
Affectionately yours,
F.E.
17th April. The'doctor has been. Nim is better, and can get up in a couple of days.
163. Engels to Eduard Bernstein. After 16 April
Dear Ede,
Thanks. Letter from Augustb: the parliamentary group, whose authority August contested, resolved unanimously after a 3 days' debate that the personal controversy be dropped and the non-personal be postponed until after the Reichstag sitting, and with this August con-curred. [380] So the news of a defeat was false; we have won all along the line.
Your
F.E.
164. Engels to Nikolai Danielson. 23 April
Dear Sir,
I have received your kind letter of the 9/21 last month and am very much obliged for the very interesting information it contains.[381]
That the law of wages being in inverse proportion to the length of working time should also be verified in Russia is a very interesting fact indeed. So also is the rapid disintegration of the Mipi>a by the progress of modern industry and financing, as shown in the increasing number of the 6e3xo3HÖCTBeHHbie xo3aeBa. b All such facts are of the highest importance to me, and I shall feel very much obliged if you will communicate to me, from time to time, what you may know about the economical condition and development of your great country. Unfortunately at present all my time is taken up with the publication of the manuscripts,c so much so that I have to interrupt not only independent work but even my studies, and can scarcely find time for correspondence; so you see I cannot take advantage just now of your kind offer to send me original Russian works on economical subjects, I should really not have the time to make use of them. But I hope you will not blame me, if hereafter at the first opportunity I take the liberty of reminding you of your kind promise. In the meantime these inestimable manuscripts are to me a source of the highest scientific Genuss,[3] and no doubt so will the proofs be to you. [3 6 1] Of these I forwarded to you Nos. 5-9 about 3 weeks ago 27th March and yesterday Nos. 10-14. I shall again forward a set shortly, always registered. The whole of No. II will be about 37 sheets and will be out by end of May. I am now busy with No. Ill which is the concluding and crowning part, and will eclipse even No. I. I dictate from the original, which is positively illegible to any living man except myself, and shall have no rest until it is all transferred to a manuscript which at all events will be legible to others. Then I can take my time with the final redaction, which will be no easy task, seeing the imperfect state of the original. But anyhow, even if I should not be spared to finish that, it would be saved from being utterly lost, and could be published as it is in case of need. This No. Ill is the most astounding thing I ever read, and it is a thousand pities that the author did not live to work it out and publish it himself and see the effect it is destined to create. After this lucid exposition, no candid opposition is any longer possible. The most difficult points are cleared up and disentangled as if they were a mere child's play, and the whole system acquires a new and simple aspect. I am afraid this No. Ill will fill two volumes. Besides that I have an old manuscript which treats the history of the theory and will also require a good deal of work. ' [7] ' So you see I have my hands full.
Very sincerely yours,
P.W.Rosher [3 6 3]
165. Engels to Vera Zasulich. 23 April
165
ENGELS TO VERA ZASULICH 316; 382
IN GENEVA
London, 23 April 1885
Dear Citizen,
I still owe you an answer to your letter of 14 February. Below you will find the reasons for my tardiness, which can certainly not be at-tributed to idleness on my part.
You ask me to give you my opinion of Plekhanov's book Hauiu pa.3-Hoejiacin.a To do this I should have to have read it. I find little difficulty in reading Russian when I have spent a week devoting myself to it, but six months or more may go by without my having any opportunity to do so; then, having lost the habit of it, I am compelled to learn the language all over again, as it were. And that is what has happened with the Pamozjiacin,. Marx's manuscripts, which I dictate to a secretary,b take up the whole of my day; in the evening people come to call who cannot, after all, simply be shown the door. Also there are proofs to be read, a great deal of correspondence and, finally, translations (into the Italian, Danish, etc.) of my Origin etc.,c
which I am asked to look over and whose revision sometimes turns out to be neither easy nor superfluous. Well, all these interruptions have prevented my progressing further than page 60 of the Pa,3Hozjia-cin. If only I could have three days to myself, the job would be done and, what is more, I should have brushed up my Russian.
However, the little I have read is, I think, enough to put me more or less au fait with the disputed in question.
To begin with, let me repeat how proud I am to know that there exists among the younger generation in Russia a party which frankly and unreservedly accepts the great economic and historical theories evolved by Marx, and which has broken for good with all the anar-chic and to some extent Slavophil traditions of its predecessors.[383]
And Marx himself, had he lived a little longer, would have been no less proud than I. It marks a step forward which will be of the utmost importance to the revolutionary development of Russia. In my eyes, Marx's historical theory is fundamentally essential to revolutionary tactics, if these are to be consistent and logical; to discover what those tactics ought to be, all one has to do is to apply the theory to economic and political conditions in the country concerned.
But to do so demands familiarity with those conditions, and I, for my part, am too ignorant of the present situation in Russia to suppose myself competent to assess in detail the tactics that might be required at any given moment. Again, the internal and intimate history of the Russian revolutionary party, in particular that of the last few years, is to me a closed book. My friends among the Narodnaya Volya members have never discussed it with me. Yet this is an element which, if one is to form an opinion, cannot be ignored.
What I know, or believe I know, of the situation in Russia leads me to think that that country is nearing its 1789. Revolution is bound to break out some time or other; it may break out any day. In conditions such as these the country is like a charged mine, all that is needed is to apply the match. Especially after what happened on 13 March. [188] It is one of those special cases where it is possible for a handful of men to effect a revolution, that is, to bring about at one stroke the collapse of an entire system whose equilibrium is more than labile (to use Plekhanov's metaphora),[384] and to release, by a single and intrinsically insignificant act, explosive forces which later become uncontrollable. Well, if ever Blanquism, the fantasy of subverting the whole of a society through action by a small group of conspirators, had any rational foundation, it would assuredly be in St Petersburg. b Once the match has been applied to the powder, once the forces have been un-leashed and the national energy has been converted from potential to kinetic (another of Plekhanov's favourite and, indeed, excellent met-aphors) [385] — the men who have sprung the mine will be swept off their feet by an explosion a thousand times more powerful than they themselves, one which will seek whatever outlet it may find in accordance with the prevailing economic forces and resistances.
Suppose that these men imagine they will be able to seize power, what of it? Providing they make the hole which causes the dam to collapse, the resulting torrent of water will soon put paid to their illusions. But what if those illusions succeeded in endowing them with an exceptional strength of will? Would that be any cause for complaint? Men who have boasted of having effected a revolution have always found on the morrow that they didn't know what they were doing; that once effected, the revolution has borne no resemblance at all to what they had intended. That is what Hegel calls the irony of history,[3 8 6] an irony which few historical 4Ï.HTCAH a can escape. b You have only to look at Bismarck, a revolutionary in spite of himself, and Gladstone, who ended up by falling out with his beloved Tsar.c
What, in my view, is important in Russia is that the impulse should be given, that revolution should break out. Whether it is this or that group that gives the signal, whether it be under this flag or that, is of little concern to me. Even if it wered a palace plot, its instigators would be swept away on the morrow. In a place where the situation is so tense, where revolutionary elements have accumulated to such a degree, where the economic situation of the vast mass of the people becomes daily more impossible, where every degree of social development is represented, from the primitive commune to modern big industry and high finance, and where all these contradictions are forcibly pent up by an unheard-of despotism — a despotism increasingly unacceptable to a younger generation in which are combined the nation's intelligence and dignity — in such a place 1789, once launched, will before long be followed by 1793.
I say 'good-bye', dear Citizen. It is half past two in the morning. Tomorrow before the departure of the courier I will hardly have time to add anything. If you prefer, do write to me in Russian, but please bear in mind that Russian handwriting is something I do not read every day.
Your devoted
F. Engels
166. Engels to Richard Stegemann. 5 May
Dear Sir,
Mature reflection has shown that I cannot possibly comply with your request.[387]
Either the work you want must be short, in which case it could contain nothing but asseverations on my part, and thus merely be assertive and belletristic.
Or I should have to supply documentary evidence, in which case it would turn into a book, and that would not suit your purpose; moreover, I could not write it in so off-hand and casual a manner, for which my material is far too abundant.
A further consideration is that I should be more or less committing myself to co-editing a work about which I know nothing save the brief account provided by you.
In addition, the thing would — within the limits prescribed — be utterly useless. However vigorous my protestations, they would utterly fail to move the semi-educated vulgarian whose prejudices you wish to combat. People who say that Marx 'died friendless' must, presumably, harbour the belief that I do not exist at all. In which case, what magical effect could asseverations on my part be expected to have?
The old fairy-tales invented by the vulgar democratic emigration of 1850-59, and further elaborated by Bonaparte's paid agent, Karl Vogt,— il lui a été remis en 1859a 40,000 frs, according to the Tuileries papers,[388] may perhaps be more in vogue in your district than elsewhere because the Swabian People's Party [2 0 3] is the direct descendant of that same democratic emigration, certain of its leaders having been on intimate terms with the afore-mentioned Vogt. Since all this was dealt with by Marx in Herr Vogt, there would seem to be no reason for me to hark back to it at this particular juncture. Vast numbers of lies were told about Marx to which he never saw fit to reply. The time may, perhaps, come when it will behove me to do so on his behalf, but the choice of time, place and modus operandi will be my affair. Which will, of course, only serve to revive my reputation for 'callousness'.
In any case, I haven't got time just now to do anything along these lines that would either be to the purpose or satisfy my own require-ments in regard to such a work. My entire time is taken up with editing Marx's manuscripts, and I shall be acting wholly in his spirit if, in view of this obligation, I treat all this philistine carping with contempt.
I remain, Sir, very sincerely
167. Engels to Eduard Bernstein. 15 May
Dear Ede,
I think it's about time to drop you a line or two again, otherwise you will grow far too melancholy. You and Kautsky seem to evoke from one another so many doleful laments that a complete concert in the minor key could be produced therefrom; it's like the trombone in Wagner that always sounds forth whenever something dire is going to happen. Each time you get bad news, the pair of you always forget the old adage about a dog's back being worse than its bite.
The general and inescapable impression left by the whole shindy between 'parliamentary group and editors' is that the parliamentary group have made fools of themselves. And should the parliamentary group insist on doing it again, they ought not to be prevented. Had you immediately published the first written communication,[389] as they demanded, they would have made complete and utter fools of themselves, and a 'storm of indignation' would have broken out on all sides. Not, of course, that this could very well have been asked of you at the start, but there can be no doubt at all that it is not in our interests to prevent the parliamentary group from showing themselves in their true colours. As things are, 'parliamentary group and editors' confront each other as equals — in the eyes of the public—, this being the result of the last, lengthy middle-of-the-road statement,[390] and what happens next, we shall have to see.
I had Singer here on Sunday,a and cut short all his speechifying. The parliamentary group's first statement, he said, was directed not so much against the articles in the paper,[377] as against the (alleged) attempt to try and arouse a storm of indignation against the parliamentary group. That, I said, was something the public couldn't have known; if you make a public statement, it can only refer to publicly available facts. But if you hit out at the paper on account of things that have never appeared in it, the public may justifiably ask: 'What are these gentlemen after, if not the suppression of free speech?' This he had to admit. Next I said that, to judge by what was to me a very familiar style, most of the objectionable articles had been by Liebknecht.— Singer: 'Quite right, and we gave Liebknecht a proper dressing-down for it in the parliamentary group.' I: 'But to censure the paper in public for printing things that actually emanated from the parliamentary group simply won't do. You ought to have settled the matter amongst yourselves. Instead, you publicly attack the editors for matters that are solely the private concern of the parliamentary group. To whom, then, are the editors to look?' Here again he could raise no objection. 'In short, you have, by your ill-considered action, made fools of yourselves, and if anyone has come off best in the eyes of the public, it is the editors.' This, too, he had to concede indirectly. Since I stuck to the main points and disregarded all his personal tittle-tattle, of which he had ample store, we concluded our business in ten minutes.
That's not the end of the matter, of course. But we now know what the gentlemen's weak side is. If I were editor of the Sozialdemokrat, I should, from the editorial point of view, let the parliamentary group
10 May stew in its own juice, i. e. in the Reichstag, entrust any criticism thereof to the members of the party, on the strength of the oft-cited 'free expression of opinion', and tell Liebknecht once and for all that he must himself be answerable to the parliamentary group for his articles, thus putting an end to his double-dealing, in this respect at any rate. Then, provided the paper continues to be edited along the lines already laid down, that is enough for us. It is far more important for us to maintain our theoretical standpoint in the face of the rubbish that is printed in Germany than to criticise the parliamentary group's mode of action. For after all, those who have been elected are themselves doing everything in their power to enlighten the electorate as to the character of the elected. And for that matter, day to day events provide opportunity enough to make clear what our standpoint is, even if we leave it to the parliamentary group and party members to take care of the parliamentary group. It is, however, that very standpoint that vexes them most of all, and it is something they dare not publicly attack.
The Reichstag will soon be going home. In the meantime the gentlemen— although almost all of them are secret protectionists — will have seen what havoc is wrought by a policy of protective tariffs.[391]
That is but the first of many disappointments that lie in store for them. Not that it will change their philistine character, but it will probably shake their confidence and cause them to fall out over philistine questions that necessitate their declaring themselves for or against. Only give such types a little rope, and they'll hang themselves.
In short, our policy is, I believe, to temporise. The Anti-Socialist Law [3 7] is working in their favour and if, while it remains in force, they can only find an opportunity to show themselves in their true colours, that is really all we need for the present. In the meantime we must defend every position to the utmost, particularly in the press, and.this will not always call for active resistance. To outflank an enemy is also a defensive manoeuvre but one that has offensive con-notations. At the moment we have much against us. Bebel is ill and has, so it seems, lost heart. Nor shall I be able to help as much as I would like until I have finished with Marx's manuscripts. So you and Kautsky must bear the brunt of the battle. But don't forget the old rule — never to allow the actualities of the movement and of the struggle to make you forget the movement's future. And that belongs to us. The third volume of Capital will do in all these chaps at one blow.
Your
F. E.
168. Engels to Hermann Schlüter. 15 May[3 9 2]
Dear Mr Schlüter,
As regards the poems[393]: The Marseillaise of the Peasants' War was Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott[39]* and, vainglorious though its words and tune may be, it neither should nor need be taken in the same spirit today. Other songs of that time are to be found in anthologies of folk songs, Des Knaben
Wunderhorn* etc. You might perhaps find something there. But even at that time the Landsknecht^ exercised a virtual monopoly over our popular poetry.
Of foreign songs, the only one I know is the beautiful old Danish song about Herr Tidmann, which I translated for the Berlin Social-Demokrat in 1865.c
There were all kinds of Chartist songs, but they are now no longer to be had. One began:
I don't know how it goes on. All that stuff has been forgotten and in any case wasn't up to much as poetry.
In 1848 two popular songs were current and were sung to the same tune.
1) Schleswig-Holstein. 2) The Hecker song[395]:
Hecker, may thy name resound Up and down the German Rhine, Thy generous heart nay, e'en thy look Inspired confidence in mind. Hecker, a German man and free Who'd give his life for liberty.
That, I think, suffices. Then there's another version:
Hecker, Struve, Blenker, Zitz and Blum Slay the German princes.
In general, the poetry of past revolutions (always excepting the Marseillaise[396]) seldom has much revolutionary impact later on because, if it is to influence the masses, it must reflect the mass prejudices of the day — hence the religious nonsense found even in the Chartists.
Now as to Marx's shorter pieces, this is a matter upon which others beside myself have to decide, while I for my own part must make quite sure that nothing is done that might interfere with the proposed edition of the Complete Works. The things appertaining to the International, the Inaugural Address, Civil War, Hague Report,a etc., like the Manifesto^b I do not regard as forming part of these, though I should like to reserve the right to provide a few words of introduction. As regards the articles from the Neue Rheinische Reifung, you must first find out which were written by Marx. For instance, only one, an out-standing article on the June insurrection was by Marx,c while the account of the struggle, etc., was entirely mine.d Likewise the anti-Bakunin and anti-Pan-Slavism articles.c The things Marx and I wrote at that time are on the whole almost indistinguishable owing to our systematic division of labour.
169. Engels to Paul Lafargue. 19 May
As I have said, I shall certainly not place unnecessary obstacles in your way, but I should be glad all the same if you could let me have a rather more detailed idea of your plan before I say anything definite about it. At all events, it would hardly do to publish stuff from the Neue Rheinische Leitung and on the International side by side, i. e. in one volume; there was an interval of some 15 or 20 years in between.— The Cologne Trial* would run to a goodly volume on its own, and I would write you an introduction to it.b But please note that in that case I must know when it is really needed and, what with the luckless Diihring,c you have after all enough to print just now. You will have received the two sheets, 4 and 5.
Apropos, my intention is that the chapter 'Theoretical' from the section Socialism should be printed according to the revised text of Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. When it has got to that stage I shall send you what is necessary. This is merely to notify you in advance.
For the rest, warm regards from
169
ENGELS TO PAUL LAFARGUE
IN PARIS
London, 19 May 1885
My dear Lafargue,
The Lissagaray affair pleased me greatly and I trust he will be chucked out of the Bataille.[39]"' The irony of history is without mercy, even to revolutionary stink-bugs.
I must repent, must repent me, Where my sins were most committed*
as good king Don Rodrigo said while snakes devoured his vital parts. Brousse at the head of a daily paper would be too comical, he would never last. It would be all he needed to cut his own throat.
The idea that life is simply the normal mode of existence of albu-minous bodies and that as a result the protein of the future, if the chemists ever contrive to manufacture it, must display signs of life, appears in my anti-Dühring book where it is developed to some extent on page 60, etc.b By assuming responsibility for it Schorlemmer did a bold thing, for if it falls flat, the blame will be his, whereas if it catches on, he will be the first to give me the credit.[398] Moreover your Grimaux must be an imbecile if he really said that
'we have nothing to show us how this initial movement is acquired whereby an al-buminoid is organised into a living cell' .c
So the good man appears to be unaware that there is a whole army of living things which are still very far removed from the organisation of a cell, being no more than 'plasson', as Haeckel has it,c albumi-noids that have no trace of organisation, yet are alive — for example protamoebas, siphonales, etc. The poor albuminoid has probably worked for millions of years in order to organise itself into a cell. But your Grimaux doesn't even see the point at issue. Moreover he betrays his ignorance of physiology still further by comparing with a primitive protoplasm, the source of all life on earth, a product as specialised as the egg of a vertebrate.
We have had poor Harney here for the past 10 days. He suffers badly from chronic rheumatoid arthritis of a + f gouty nature. Nim has had her work cut out looking after him. If the weather improves he hopes to set off for Macclesfield on Saturday/On that same Saturday we are expecting Sam Moore with his translation g— alas, as yet uncompleted.
The 2nd volume has been printed with the exception of my preface, the proofs of which should arrive any day. The consignments sent to Danielson have so far all arrived and 7 sheets have been translated.[361] I have dictated more than half of the 3rd volume, but two sections [3] " are going to give me a fine old time. The one on bank capital and credit is in such disorder as to strike terror into the heart of a better man than me, but that is how it is. I am now at land rent. It is quite superbly done. But this will entail even more work, for the manuscript dates from 1865 and I shall have to consult his extracts made between 1870 and 1878 both for the banks and for landed property in America and Russia. And there are not a few of them. This means that the 3rd volume will have to wait another year at least.
The storm in a teacup that has disrupted our ranks in Germany [374]
will doubtless calm down for the time being. Now that the Reichstag has been sent about its business, the gents of the 'socialist group' have dispersed. The Social Democrats have won a moral victory over the 'group'. But that is not the end of the matter and there may be a re-currence. Were it not for the Anti-Socialist Law,[37] I should have been in favour of an outright split. But so long as it is in force, it de-prives us of all our weapons while enabling the party's petit-bourgeois section to reap all the benefit. And, in any case, it is not our business to provoke it. The thing was inevitable; it was bound to come sooner or later. But it would have come either later or under circumstances more favourable to ourselves had it not been for the incredible stupid-ities of Liebknecht, who has not only wavered between the two sections and invariably protected the petit bourgeois, but has also been prepared on more than one occasion to sacrifice the proletarian nature of the party for a simulacrum of unity that is credible to no one. It would appear that his own protégés, the representatives of the petit-bourgeois side, have now had enough of his double dealing. Liebknecht always believes what he says when he is saying it, but believes something quite different whenever he speaks to someone else. Over here he is all for revolution, over there all for circumspection. That won't prevent his being on our side on the crucial day and telling us: Didn't I always tell you so! This is between ourselves. A kiss for Laura.
Yours ever,
F. E.
170. Engels to Pasquale Martignetti. 19 May[4 0 0]
Dear Citizen,
...on the etc. I sent you, by registered mail, the translationa with my comments. I am very sorry that my limited practice of Italian has not enabled me to do them better, but I hope they will be intelligible nonetheless. I am amazed that, without having lived in Germany and learned the language there, you have been able to render my thoughts so well. I only found a few abbreviated, idiomatic and proverbial expressions where there was an error; and even these are impossible to understand properly for someone who has not spoken the everyday language and even the dialects of the country--things which are not to be found in grammars and dictionaries. And in several cases when you have understood the meaning well, I think you could be a little freer and more adventurous.
I fear that the note about 'Mark' is not very clear. It is the only note which I think should be printed. The others are for your information only. If therefore you have any doubts about that note, please let me know and I shall try and rewrite it.[401]
Please excuse the long time it has taken me to do the revision. But my days are taken up with dictating Marx's manuscripts, and my evenings are not always free. In addition, I have had a Danish translation b to check at the same time, not to mention the English translation of Capital.[56]
Thanking you again for the considerable work you have done on my behalf, I remain
Your devoted
171. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 29 May
171
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
IN PARIS
London, 29 May 1885
My dear Laura,
So then at least one thing is settled, and that is poor Paul in his Kittchen* in Ste Pélagie. [4 0 2] Hope it will not be for four months — the four best of the year too! Anyhow, what a consolation it is for him, to be no longer crucified between the braconnier b on one side and the vol avec effraction (de puanteur)c on the other! And to consider it a hard-fought victory that he can have his old Kittchen again in company with a spouting anarchist. Well let us hope Révillon and a few more deputies will make it hot for the Liberal ministry and procure his release.
Harney is gone to Macclesfield yesterday, and arrived safely. He is a good deal better, intrinsically, but of course the pains do not go all at once, and as soon as he is a bit better, he begins stirring about in cabs; he did so for two days before he left, then the journey, and of course arrived worse. I am afraid he will never get quite over it, partly because the complaint is too inveterate and partly on account of his inconsistency and listening to everybody who has a remedy to propose. It has been a hard time for poor Nim, and I am glad for her sake it has come to an end. Sam Moore had to go to Pumps', I think he rather liked it this time as he was bent on exhibitions, picture galleries, Royal Academies and the like, and so he and Pumps have a fine time of it. Today they are gone to see a cricket match at Lords.d
I had this morning the last proof-sheet of my preface to Second Volume," so from that you see that the report of its being out is another canard. You may be sure that as soon as it is out and we get copies, you have one sent the same day. The 3rd edition of the 18th Brumaire1
is in the press, two sheets printed.
The Italian translation of the Ursprung is also in the press. But you will at once see that it will be hardly possible to translate from that into French. [4 0 3] If Paul uses it merely to facilitate to him the comprehension of the original, well and good; otherwise it would only enable him to give a very enfeebled Abklatsch* and poor rechauffé,b and I have no ambition to appear before the French public in that shape. The man c has done his best and some passages are really good. But it is not to be expected from him, who learnt German without assistance in Bénevento, that he should put idiomatic German into equally idiomatic Italian. And that defect I could not remedy, as my idiomatic Italian is not Italian but only Milanese, and that, too, nearly forgotten.
I hope there will not be much more ofthat fighting about red flags, etc., in Paris — the police want a few barricades, and if they get them, there will be a jolly massacre — the people have not a ghost of a chance of victory.[404] Even if the government should show hesita-tion, the reactionary military chiefs will take care to be ready for action and to act.
There is one consolation for Paul — that he will be virtually 'out of Paris' on the day of the French Grand Old Man's d funeral.
What with proof-sheet, and writing to Harney [3 9] and making parcels up for him and writing to a confectioner from Colmare [3 9] who asked my advice as to his finding work in London (answer: certainly not) and one thing and another, it has become 5.20, and so I must close if I want to catch this post. So with hopes that Paul will not be too unhappy, nor too long where he is, and that you will keep up, in spite of all, your state of, in Paris, abnormal health, here is the conclusion.
Love from Nim.
Yours affectionately,
F. Engels
172. Engels to Nikolai Danielson. 3 June[4 0 5]
Dear Sir,
I have received your letter of the 24 [April]/6 May and hope you will have received the sheets 21/26 forwarded to you 13th May. [3 6 1]
To-day I forward 27/33, the conclusion. In a few days I hope to be able to send you the preface, etc. From that preface you will see that the ms. of Volume III has been written as early as 1864/66, and thus before the period when the author, thanks to your kindness, became so intimately acquainted with the agricultural system of your country: I am at present working at the chapter on the rent of land, and have so far not found any allusion to Russian conditions.[406] As soon as the whole manuscript shall have been transcribed into a legible handwriting, I shall have to work it out by comparison with what other materials have been left by the author, and there are, for the chapter on rent, very voluminous extracts from the various statistical works he owed to you — but whether these will contain any critical notes that can be made use of for this volume, I cannot as yet tell. Whatever there is, shall be used most conscientiously. At all events the mere work of transcription will occupy me far into autumn, and as the manuscript is nearly 600 pages in folio, it may again have to be divided into two volumes.
The analysis of rent is theoretically so complete that you will necessarily find therein a good deal of interest for the special conditions of your country. Still this ms. excludes the treatment of the pre-capitalistic forms of landed property; they are merely alluded to here and there for the sake of comparison.
Yours very sincerely,
P.W. Rosher[363]
173. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge. 3 June[4 0 7]
Dear Sorge,
I was sorry to hear that you have been incapable of writing and trust that the thing has subsided. The Gronlunds and Elys,a as also the newspapers, gratefully received. Ely is a well-meaning philistine and does at least take more trouble than his German fellow-sufferers and fellow-blockheads which, after all, deserves recognition. Gronlund, on the other hand, strikes me as being speculative: his boosting of our stuff, in so far as he does or does not understand it, is clearly aimed at palming off his own Utopian fiddle-faddle as REAL LIVE GERMAN SOCIALISM. A symptom at any rate.
As regards To-Days and Commonweals, I am sending you the former from March onwards and the latter from the beginning.b
However their administrative side is not particularly efficient; should the paper [The Commonweal) fail to reach the Sozialist regularly, I should be very grateful if you would advise me so that I can provide proof of inefficiency, this being invariably denied by the secretary, though it undoubtedly exists.
You would do best to ignore Fabian completely; the man feels a need to get himself talked about and there is no necessity to en-courage that.c His chief grievance against me is that I maliciously defamed V — 1 in the Anti-Diihring, a point on which he complained to Marx by letter. [209]
You have had the same correct presentiment about the Reichstag laddies as I have — the case of the Steamship Subsidies[342] has re-vealed the immensity of their philistine aspirations. It almost came to a split, which would not be desirable at present, so long as the Anti-Socialist Law [37] remains in force. As soon as we get a bit more ELBOW-ROOM in Germany, the split will doubtless come and can then only do good. A petty-bourgeois-socialist parliamentary group is inevitable in a country like Germany where philistinism, even more than historical right, 'doesn't have no date'. [4 0 8] It will also be useful once it has constituted itself a body separate from the proletarian party. However such a split could only do harm just now if it were provoked by us. But if they do in fact renounce the programme, so much the better; we shall then be able to let fly.
You in America also suffer from various great savants of the kind possessed by Germany's philistine socialists in the persons of Geiser, Frohme, Bios, etc. The historical digressions in the Sozialist by your Stiebelings, Douais, etc., on the subject of Völkerwanderunga
amused me greatly, for these people have studied the whole thing far better and far more thoroughly than I have. Douai, in particular, gives himself colossal airs. For instance in No. 13 of the Sozialist, apropos the German conquests in Italy, etc., he tells us that the King acquired '/[3] of the land and the officers and soldiers [2]/[3], of which [2]/[3] passed in turn to the former slaves, etc. ' This we learn from Jornandes and Cassiodorus.' 40Q When I read that I was completely bowled over. 'Precisely similar accounts,' he goes on, 'are provided about the Visigoths. Nor was it otherwise in France.' Well, the whole thing is an invention from start to finish and you won't find a word of it either in Jornandes or in Cassiodorus or in any other contemporary source. It reveals at once colossal ignorance and impudence to confront me with such utter rubbish and to say that I am 'demonstrably in the wrong'. The sources, and I know practically all of them, state precisely the opposite. I have let it pass this time, as it was written in America where one can hardly make an issue of that kind of thing. But Monsieur Douai had better watch out in future; I might well lose patience some day.
The 2nd volume of Capital will be out shortly; all I am awaiting is the last half proof-sheet of the preface where Rodbertus receives a further broadside. The 3rd book is going ahead merrily, but will take a long time. Not that that matters, as the 2nd volume must be digested first. The 2nd volume will cause great disappointment, being a purely scientific work with little in the way of agitation. By contrast the third volume will again have the effect of a thunderbolt, since the whole of capitalist production is dealt with in context for the first time and all official bourgeois economics rejected out of hand. But it will be quite a task. Since the New Year I have dictated more than half of the final version and expect to finish this preliminary work in about 4 months. But after that there will be the actual job of editing, which won't be easy as the most important chapters are in some disorder — so far as form is concerned. However everything will work out all right, though it will take time. As you can imagine, I shall have to leave everything else on one side until I have finished, and hence neglect my correspondence; nor can there be any question of writing articles. But you would oblige me if you would see to it that nothing of what I have said about the 3rd volume gets into the Sozialist. That would inevitably give rise to unpleasantnesses in Zurich and elsewhere. Whatever the readers need to know will appear in my preface to the 2nd volume.
All is well with Tussy so far. The two of thema are very happy together, though unfortunately they are not always in good health. Lafargue must now do another 4 months on account of the same old fine and costs.[402] The police were intent on fomenting a riot in Paris on 24 May, but nothing came of it and the ministers took fright.[404] So the Victor Hugo business went off quietly after all, and that is just as well. As there is no Garde Nationale, no weapons are to be had and any attempted coup would inevitably be crushed. One just has to adapt one's tactics to the circumstances. Regards to Dietzgen and Adolf.b
Your
F. E.
174. Engels to John Lincoln Mahon. Between 10 and 12 June . . .[4 1 0]
Postage - - 6d. Stamps enclosed - 3.2
P\enseforward me the 2nd copy at once Nos. 1 to 5,a they are for a friend in America.b
If the above be not correct please let me know what else there may be to pay.
Yours truly,
F. Engels
175. Engels to Pasquale Martignetti. 13 June
Dear Sir,
Kindly send me six copies of your translation.c These will be enough.
I hope you have received the letter I sent about ten days after the translation.a
Your devoted
F. Engels
I am also sending you a copy of the Manifesto of the Communist Party of 1847 (by Marx and Engels).b Old as it is, I believe it still deserves to be read.
176. Engels to Johann Philipp Becker. 15 June[2 6 3]
My Dear Old Fellow,
I was delighted to get your letter; it is indeed a damned shame that we should be so far apart. However the time will doubtless come when the likes of us will again be able to travel about untroubled by too great a pressure of work or the harassments of the continental police. Then I shall pack my bags and pay you a visit.
Meanwhile the world goes very gently on its way, though it may well speed up a bit shortly. Old Williamc would long since have kicked the bucket had he not been informed from on high that the angels' drill still left something to be desired and, in particular, that when ordered to goose-step they were still failing to throw their legs in the air as prescribed in the regulations. Accordingly he could not yet be received with the appropriate honours. That is why he has now despatched Frederick Charles to carry out an inspection.[411] It is hoped he will be able to report that Field-Marshal Michael Archangel has succeeded in training the heavenly host to the standard of perfection sought by the Prussians, in which case old William will doubtless make haste to take the heavenly guard-mounting parade in person.
You are quite right, radicalism in France is rapidly becoming more and more threadbare. There is only one man left who has yet to become so and that is Clemenceau. If he gets in he'll shed a whole mass of illusions, above all the illusion that nowadays a bourgeois republic can govern in France without thieving and causing others to thieve. It is just possible that he will then go further. But that is not necessary. All that is necessary is that this last sheet-anchor of the bourgeoisie should show what he is capable of— which, given his present point of view, is nothing.
Here in England the cause is progressing pretty well, even if not in the form that is customary at home. Since 1848 the English parliament has unquestionably been the most revolutionary body in the world and the next elections will mark the beginning of a new epoch, even though it may not necessarily manifest itself as quickly as all that.(1) Workers will appear in Parliament in growing numbers, each one worse than the last. But that is necessary over here. All the scoun-drels who at the time of the International played at being bourgeois-radical philistines must appear in Parliament for what they are. Whereupon the masses will become socialist here too. Industrial overproduction will do the rest.
The rumpus in the German party came as no surprise to me. [3 7 4] In a philistine country like Germany the party must also have a philistine 'educated' right wing[3] [7] [3] which it will shed when the time comes. In Germany philistine socialism dates back to 1844 and was criticised in the Communist Manifesto. It is as immortal as your German philistine himself. So long as the Anti-Socialist Law [3 7] remains in force, I am not in favour of our provoking a split, since there is no parity of weapons. Should these gentlemen, however, themselves bring about a split by attempting to suppress the proletarian nature of the party and replace it with a crudely aesthetic form of sentimental philanthropy without guts or substance, then we shall just have to take it as it comes.
I am still engaged in dictating the third volume of Capital. It is a magnificent book and as a work of science puts even the first one in the shade. As soon as I have it in a ms. other people can also read, I shall be able to devote some time to sorting the papers. I shall then look out your things. [126] Until that time — round about the autumn — I shall have absolutely no chance to turn my hand to anything else. The second volume has been printed and I shall probably be able to send you a copy in a fortnight or so.
Marx's daughters have been keeping well so far. Mme Lafargue's husband is back in jail for another 4 months (for non-payment of a fine),[402] while Mrs Aveling is working hard at propaganda over here, though it may be some time before there is any great success.
I have taken out another five pound money order for you, of which you have doubtless already been advised. I trust it will prove welcome. Well then, take care of your health so that you can join in the litüe bit of fun that is bound to come pretty soon. I have been keeping well so far, though the doctors say I'm unlikely to be able to mount a horse again — hence unfit for active service, dammit!
For the rest I remain
Ever your old friend
F. Engels
177. Engels to Eduard Bernstein. 16 June
Dear Ede,
Last week I returned to you by registered mail Rodbertus' two pamphlets from the archives, which I trust you have received.a Yesterday
178. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 16 June
Karl Kautsky received the complete set of Frankfurter .^eitungs containing the various statements.[412] Most amusing. But I'm prepared to bet that even so they will let all this fuss die down again, and that the majority in the parliamentary group will reassure themselves by pointing out that there were mistakes on both sides. The whole thing is primarily just another flash in the pan, but that, too, is a symptom.
Today Frederick Charles inspected the heavenly host and grum-bled about the slovenliness of their goose-step.[4] ' '
Your
F. E.
178
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
IN PARIS
London, 16 June 1885
My dear Laura,
Well, you have the same troubles as I have myself! Visitors, on the whole agreeable in themselves, but damned in the way when you have more work to do than they. Here I have been settling down every evening for the last week to write to you, and either visitors or urgent business correspondence steps in. And even now, at half past one in the morning, I have to snatch a few moments to write to you a few lines which will cut a sorry figure alongside of your amiable and lively letters! Well it cannot be helped and you must put up with my scrimmage.
The particulars about Lawroff s dead man might be found out, I think, without much difficulty. But what am I to do in the matter?
Percy is as good as anybody to find that out, but of course he must be paid for his work at the common London price.a
Tussy was not here last Sundayb — theyc went on the river somewhere with a chap who has a boat and a tent and they both want as much fresh air as they can get. The British Museum is a nice place enough but not to live opposite to. So I shall not see them before next Sunday.
Kautsky has received and translated Paul's article about le coeur du coeur du monde, qui vient de cesser de battre {coeur No. 1 I mean).d
Very glad the Germans send some money for the French elections. Though I am sorry that it is the Hamburgers who have done it; because this is intended as a bribe for Liebknecht, to induce him to take their side (the kleinbürgerliche Seite*) in the present storm in a — pot now going on amongst the German parliamentarians.[413] I believe this storm will blow over, for the present at least, but it's a symptom. If the Socialist Law [37] was abolished and we had elbow-room, and if the 3rd book of the Kapital was finished I should not care a bit to have it out at once. As it is, I am for a temporising policy. But the split will come some day, and then we shall give the Spiessbürgerf the necessary kick. By the bye I see also from the New York Sozialist that there too money has been collected for the French elections.
Poor Paul! I am afraid he will have to pass la belle saisons in quod. Once nailed,[402] I do not see how anything but an acte de grâce of old Grévy could get him out. At all events he has now had about one month of it and his elasticity must carry him over the rest.
From Petersburg I hear that the whole of the proof-sheets have arrived and that 18 sheets out of 33 are already translated.[361] This work is almost too quick to be good.
You have no idea how comfortable John Bull feels under his ministerial crisis.[414] Not a bit of excitement. Evening papers, special editions, etc., do not sell at all. The Grand Old Man, as they call Gladstone, disappears from the political foreground quite unnoticed. The ingratitude of this world is shocking indeed. The fact is, Whigs and Radicals have found out, just before the new elections by a revolutionised constituency,[299] that they cannot get on together any longer. [4]' [5] So there is hope that after the autumn elections Tories and Whigs will coalesce.[3] And then we have all landed property on one side, all industrial capital on the opposite side, and the working class compelled to face them both — the basis of a revolutionary situation.
Today there is a grand review in heaven. Frederick Charles is in-specting the hosts of the Lord of hosts.[41] ' I am afraid he will find very great fault with their Parademarsch^ and send word to old William0
that they are not yet fit to parade before him. If the Archangel Michael could only have been sent to do duty for a few years with the Prussian Guards!
Nim complains of rheumatism and threatened to drop beer but I told her that was rubbish, and I think she will believe me. Pumps and her children are very well. Percy has the usual rows with his par-ents. The cheque £10.- is enclosed. And herewith — sur ce—I remain your old affectionate
F. Engels
time
179. Engels to Hermann Schlüter. 16 June
Dear Mr Schlüter,
1 ) The two trials at Assizes — that of the Neue Rheinische Leitung and that of the democratic committee — of 1849 both appeared at the time as %wei politische Prozesse and were based on the newspaper report. If you wish to republish one or both, it could be quite effective, and I should write you a foreword to it.[416] 2) It might also be a good thing to republish the Communist Trial*; for one thing, it will once again show the old Lassalleans that something was already afoot in Germany before the great Ferdinand'sb
time and, for another, the proceedings of the Prussians did, in fact, even then set the pattern for what the Anti-Socialist Law [37] has now made the norm. A prefacec will be available for this as well, the moment printing is actually in progress; unfortunately my time does not permit me to work in advance and Qn spec. Again, I haven't got a copy of the Leipzig edition with Marx's later notes.d It is typical of the way they used then to conduct their affairs that neither Marx nor I should ever have been sent a copy!
Do you have in your archives Stieber and Wermuth, Die Communisten-Ver schwörungen des 19. Jahrhunderts1" (Berlin, Hayn, 1853, 2 parts) — the so-called 'black book'? It contains two addresses from the Central Committee to the Leaguef which you might print as an appendix.
3) If I understand you aright, you are thinking of publishing the series of articles from the Neue Rheinische Leitung on the Paris battle in June 1848.g 41 ' It's not a bad idea. I could arrange the relevant passages for you, interspersed with a few notes to provide a context, and also whatever is needed from Marx's article in the Revue der Neuen Rheinischen Zeitung^ etc. Being the only contemporary account of the Paris proletariat's battle to take the side of the June fighters, the thing has a certain importance. Nor can the masses be reminded too often of the event. But it's a task that would take at least a week, and I cannot embark on it until the autumn.
4) Various other things from the Neue Rheinische Zeitung might follow, but just now I simply haven't got the time to look them out; if you could make some suggestions, we might be able to see. The same applies to other, lesser works of that period by Marx and myself. As soon as the rough ms. of the 3rd volume of Capital has been trans-posed into a legible one — in the autumn, that is — I shall have to put
180. Engels to Augusb Bebel. 22- 24 June
the papersa in order. Only then shall I once more obtain a general idea of what is in fact available and be able to look out some suitable stuff. Up till then I shall be more or less working in the dark. So long as the dictation of Capital, Book III remains incomplete, my days will be taken up from 10-5, while in the evenings, apart from visitors, I not only have to deal with an ever-increasing volume of correspondence, but also to read over what I have dictated, in addition to revising the French, Italian, Danish and English translations of our things (including the English one of Capital[56]), and how, I should like to know, am I to find time for anything else? Hence — as you must realise — I cannot let myself in for anything, unless it is of the utmost urgency.
Besides the afore-mentioned edition of the Communist Trial, I would ask you to send me:
3 copies of Marx's Wage Labour and Capital. 6 Communist Manifestos, Zurich edition, and charge them up to me. I should also be grateful to have a statement of account so that I may know how we stand. We still have copies of Marx's photograph here in both sizes.
Kindly give the enclosed to Ede.
Most cordially yours,
F. Engels
180
ENGELS TO AUGUST BEBEL '
IN PLAUEN NEAR DRESDEN
London, 22-24 June 1885
122 Regent's Park Road, N. W.
Dear Bebel,
I hasten to answer your letter of the 19th, received this morning, so that my reply may reach you before you set off on your long journey.
Generally speaking I have been kept informed about recent events, at least so far as public pronouncements are concerned, and have thus been able to read the various effronteries of Geiser and Frohme, as also your short, trenchant replies.[412]
All this mud-slinging is largely attributable to Liebknecht, with his predilection for educated know-alls and for men in bourgeois occupa-tions who can be used to impress your philistine. Nor can he resist a literary or business man who flirts with socialism. But in Germany these are the very people of whom one should most beware, and it is they whom Marx and I have ceaselessly combatted since 1845. Once you've let them into the party, in which they everywhere push themselves, to the fore, dissimulation becomes the rule, either because their petty-bourgeois standpoint is in perpetual conflict with that of the proletarian masses, or because they try to vitiate this latter standpoint. Nevertheless, I am convinced that, if things ever really come to a head, Liebknecht will be on our side,— asserting, what's more, that he had never said anything else and that it was we who had stopped him from letting fly any sooner. However, a little object-lesson will have done him no harm.
The split will come as sure as eggs is eggs, but I still maintain that we must not provoke it while the Anti-Socialist Law [3] [7] -is in operation. If it is forced upon us, then there'll be nothing for it. But we must be prepared. And that, I think, means hanging on for all we're worth to three positions: 1) the Zurich press and bookshop, 2) the management of the Sozialdemokrat and 3) that of the Neue 2jeit. These are the only positions still in our hands and, notwithstanding the Anti-Socialist Law, they suffice to keep us in touch with the party. All the other positions in the press, though held by philistines, count for very little by comparison with these three. You should be able to foil many of the plots against us. In my opinion, you ought to do everything you can to ensure that, by hook or by crook, these 3 positions remain in our hands. How to set about it you will know better than I. Not surprisingly Ede and Kautsky feel very insecure in their editorial seats and are in need of encouragement. That people are busily intriguing against them is obvious. And they're a couple of com-petent.and really first-rate chaps. In matters of theory, Ede is a very clear-sighted man and, what's more, is witty and has a gift for repar-tee, but he is still somewhat lacking in self-confidence — nowadays a most unusual trait and, if you consider the megalomania common to even the most insignificant lettered nitwits, a very fortunate one, relatively speaking. Kautsky has picked up a frightful lot of rubbish at university but is doing his utmost to unlearn it again, and both men are reliable, able to tolerate honest criticism and have a correct grasp of essentials. In view of the appalling new generation of literati that has attached itself to the party, two such people are pearls beyond price.
I entirely agree with what you say about our parliamentary representation generally and about the impossibility — in time of peace, as at present — of creating any really proletarian representation. The necessarily more or less bourgeois parliamentarians are an evil no less unavoidable than the professional agitators foisted upon the party from amongst those workers boycotted by the bourgeoisie and hence unemployed. This was a phenomenon already strongly in evidence among the Chartists during the 1839-48 period, and was apparent to me even at that time. If remuneration for deputies is introduced, these fellows will range themselves alongside the predominantly bourgeois and petty-bourgeois, i. e. the 'educated', representatives. But all this will be overcome. My confidence in our proletariat is as absolute as my mistrust of the utterly abject German philistines is un-limited. And when things liven up a bit, the struggle will similarly become keen enough to be conducted con amore? while the irritation caused by the pettiness and philistinism with which you now have to contend en détail and with which I am familiar from long experience, will evaporate in the wider dimensions of the struggle and then, too, we shall get the right sort of men in parliament. But it's all very well for me to talk — I'm over here, while you are having to do the dirty work, and that is certainly no joke. Anyhow, I am glad that you are physically fit again. Spare your nerves for better times; we shall need them.
The greater part of Capital, Book III, has now been dictated from the manuscripts and set out in a legible hand. This preliminary work will be pretty well complete in 5 or 6 weeks' time. Then there will be the very difficult final editing which will require a considerable amount of work. But the thing's brilliant and will have all the impact of a thunderbolt. I daily await the first copies of Book II,b one of which will instantly be forwarded to you.
Your old friend
F. E.
Here: with enthusiasm. - b of Capital 23 June. Too late to register this today, so won't go off till tomorrow.
24 June. Berlin papers received with thanks.
181. Engels to Hermann Schlüter. 1 July
Dear Mr Schlüter,
Herewith the preface to the Trial.* I have made a note of the other items. It is unlikely that I can do a preface b and notes for the Communist Trialc before the beginning of September. In July I shall not have a moment to spare and in August I must relax at the seaside for a while.
After which I shall also be able to tackle the June Insurrection.*[17]
I should be delighted to see the Schlesische Milliarde republished. In addition, you should reprint my biographical note on Wolff from the Neue Welt (about 1873 I think), to which I should also do an introduction.[418]
I am still waiting for Volume II of Capital. I can't really do anything for you where Meissner is concerned; I have no right to meddle in these matters, and the chap is meticulous.[419]
There are still several hundred portraits of Marx available, in both sizes.
On the whole, everything is going quite well in Germany; our working men will see to it that everything turns out all right.
Yours sincerely,
F. E.
182. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 4 July
Please let me have clean sheets of the Diihring[208] so that I can draw up a list of printer's errors. I would also ask that in future you let me have 2 clean proofs, as is customary and, indeed, essential.
If you wish to call the things 'From the Neue Rheinische Leitung', Vols. I, II, etc., I am quite agreeable, of course.
182
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
IN PARIS
London, 4 July 1885
My dear Laura,
Herewith the cheque £ 15.- as desired by Paul who I hope does not suffer too much from the heat which ought to be rather trying in Ste Pélagie[402] by this time.
Your adventure with the Russians vividly recalled to me the times when one was never sure that Dupont would not drop in about half past one in the morning with one or two citoyensa (something in a lightly elevated state) whom he then and there deposited for the night.
Justice announces, as you may have seen, that Reeves (a rather im-pecunious small man of Fleet St.) is going to publish a translation of Deville's extract of the Capital in 'numbers'. This is a dodge against our translation.[420] If it comes out I shall have to declare that Deville's extract is anything but faithful or rather too faithful in the second half, giving all the conclusions and leaving out most of the premises and all the qualifications.
Fortin of Beauvais sends me the beginning of his translation of The 18th Brumaire} I have not yet had time to look at it.
I have nearly done dictating of the 3rd volume0—what can be dictated. Then, after my return from the seaside (end of August)[421]
comes first the sorting of the letters, etc. (and also of the books), and then the real work with the 3rd volume. Of the 2nd volume no news. If it does not come next week I shall write. These publishers always have some business pretext why a thing should not be brought out at once.
Mohr's trial at Colognea is being reprinted in Zurich. Of the Russian translation [of] 2nd volume 18 sheets out of 33 are already done.[361]
Now I must go to town on urgent private affairs (cash), so no more today from
Yours ever affectionately,
F. Engels
time
183. Engels to Gertrud Guillaume-Schack. About 5 July[184]
Dear Madam,
In reply to your inquiry, I can only say that I am not entitled to provide any information ultimately intended for publication with regard to Marx's and my collaboration on those political writings which we were asked to do in confidence. Nor can I accept any responsibility, either in my own or Marx's name, for the French programme as a whole b the very nature of which meant thatc we were at most acting in an advisory capacity. I can, however, tell you in confidence, that the Preamble of the programme of the Parti ouvrier, of the Roanne trend, originated with Marx.[422]
If the French are less inclined than the Germans to demand the limitation of female labour, this is because in French industry, more especially in Paris, female labour plays a comparatively subordinate role. Equal wages for equal work regardless of sex are, so far as I know, demanded by all socialists until such time as wages are totally abolished. That the working woman, because of her particular phys-iological functions, requires special protection against capitalist exploitation seems clear to me. Those Englishwomen who championed a women's formal right to allow themselves to be as thoroughly exploited by capitalists as men are, have, for the most part, a direct or indirect interest in the capitalist exploitation of both sexes." As for myself, I must confess that I am more interested in the health of the coming generation than in absolute, formal equality between the sexes during the final years of the capitalist mode of production. True equality between men and women can, or so I am convinced, become a reality only when b the exploitation of both by capital has been abolished, and private work in the home been transformed into a public industry.
184. Engels to John Lincoln Mahon. Not earlier than 11 July . . .[4 2 3]
6d. stamps enclosed. Will feel obliged if you send the one copy to America as per address herewith:
F. A. Sorge 1 copy 'Commonweal' Hoboken, N. J. from July lst.c
U. S. America
Published for the first time Reproduced from a copy of the draft
185. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 23 July
185
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
IN PARIS
London, 23 July 1885
My dear Laura,
Very glad to learn that our prisonerb is going soon again to breathe l'air pur de la liberté (sans égalité et fraternité) c and [...]d
Of course Deville is quite innocent of the trick of Hyndman and Co.[420] — for it is said that the 'John Broadhouse' who figure-heads as translator, is the immortal Hyndman himself— and I hope the thing may blow over. Perhaps it was merely concocted between Hyndman and Kegan Paul to set us on, for Kegan Paul has not heard from me for a long time, considering that I cannot as yet fix a date when we shall be ready. At all events we cannot have anything about this pre-tended publication. Of course it would be best if it turned out a mere Schreckschüsse But if not, I am bound to declare publicly that the latter half of the résumé does not render the original correctly. I told Deville so, before it was printed,c and yet it was printed in the old shape, 'because the publisher would not wait'. That could be allowed to pass unnoticed in France, where the French edition is in the market. But it will never do here, so long as there is no English translation out,[56] or so long as it is brought out in competition to that.
The little squabble amongst the German deputies has on the whole had excellent effects. The workingmen have everywhere shown such an energetic front against these ridiculous pretensions that the big men in Parliament are not likely to repeat their attempt at domineer-ing.[374] This our men have done in the most unmistakable way and in spite of all the trammels of the Socialist Law.[37] In the meantime poor Liebknecht is hurrying from one end of Germany to the other preach-ing concord and telling everybody that there are no differences of principle, that it's all personal squabbles, that both sides have cotn-
23
mitted faults, etc.— the hen that has hatched ducklings. He has been hatching 'heducated' socialists for the last twenty years and now ob-stinately refuses to see that the chickens are ducklings, the socialists are philanthropic Spiessburger.*
Most happy am I to see that the scrutin de liste[31][5] invented to per-petuate Opportunist government, is likely to smash up Opportunism altogether.[236] If Clemenceau keeps only one half of what he promises, if he merely initiates the break-up of the vast French bureaucracy, it will be an immense progress. On the other hand, even supposing him to really intend being sincere and a man of his word, he will find so many real obstacles, he will so soon be brought to a standstill, that to the Paris electors he will always appear as a traitor. It is a delusion to think that in France Anglo-Saxon, especially American local self-government can be introduced without upsetting the whole bourgeois régime. So, very soon he will have to choose: either drop his reforms and remain bourgeois avec les bourgeois^ or go on and revolutionise himself. I think he will remain bourgeois, and then our time may come.
Schorlemmer is here, has as yet no definite projects for Continental tours, but keeps his mind's eye on Paris. He is out at present, may return before I close this.
Here too we shall have a peaceable revolution in November. The new electorate is sure to change the whole basis of old parties.[299] The Whigs have already declared through their great mouthpiece The Edinburgh Review that there must be now 'a parting of the waters': the Radicals are to shift for themselves and the Whigs intend joining the Tories who, they find, are not so bad after all.[424] Whether the Tories will accept them, and on what terms, remains to be seen. The fact is that this alliance has been on the tapis for the last 10 years, but always broke down on the question of the division of the spoil. Another progress: we shall very likely get all the rotten 'representative working men' into Parliament. That is just the place where we want them.
Pumps wants us to go Jersey this year; if we do, and Paul is out, will you come and join us there, and then come over to London? Steamers from St Malo — or will you wait in Paris till Jollymeier comes and brings you over? You might ruminate that a bit and let me know. We
a philistines - b with the bourgeois cannot leave before 8th or 10th August on account of Percy's business.[42] '
Love from Nim and Jollymeier.
Yours affectionately,
F. Engels
time
186. Engels to August Bebel. 24 July[2 6 3]
Dear Bebel,
I shall try and see whether this letter finds you in Zurich on the 26th, as you lead me to suppose.
So far as I can see from here, the row in the party is taking just the course we wanted. Frohme has got his comrades into as nasty a fix as possible, which cannot but please us, but luckily Liebknecht is there to save their bacon; he has notified the Society over here that he will now go to Frankfurt and put everything to rights [425] but that should this fail, Frohme will have to be thrown out. The part being played by Liebknecht in all this business is the entertaining one of the hen that has hatched out ducklings: he had thought he was rearing 'eddicated' socialists and lo! what emerged from the eggs but a clutch of cits and philistines! And now the worthy hen would have us believe that it's chickens after all, and not ducks, swimming about out there in bourgeois waters. Not that there's anything we can do except take him for what he is, illusions and all, but at Offenbach, if one is to believe the newspaper account, he really has gone a bit too far.[426] Well, little will come of the whole affair save the party's awareness that it harbours two tendencies, one of which determines the course taken by the masses, the other that taken by the majority of the self-styled leaders, and that these two courses must increasingly diverge. This will pave the way for an eventual split, and that is no bad thing. Our friends of the Right will think twice before promulgating another ukase.
You have put your finger unerringly on Kautsky's principal weakness. His youthful tendency to make hasty pronouncements has been further reinforced by the lousy methods of teaching history at universities— particularly those in Austria. There, students are systemati-cally taught to produce historical papers with material which they know to be inadequate but are expected to treat as adequate, i. e. to write things they themselves must be aware are wrong but yet are supposed to regard as right. Kautsky, of course, began by doing this with considerable brashness. Then came literary life — writing for money, and copiously at that. So that he had absolutely no idea what is meant by really learned work. He thus burnt his fingers badly on a couple of occasions, first with his demographic thing and later with his articles on marriage in primitive times. Indeed in the friendliest possible manner and without mincing my words, I told him as much, nor do I spare him in this regard, mercilessly criticising all his stuff from that point of view.[427] Luckily I am able to add by way of consolation that in my callow youth I did exactly the same thing, and that it was only from Marx that I learnt how one ought to work. In fact, it would already seem to have helped quite a lot.
The articles in the Berlin Leitung are undoubtedly by Mehring; I, for one, don't know of anyone else in Berlin who writes so well.[428]
The chap has a great deal of talent and a lucid brain, but he's a cal-culating scoundrel and a born traitor. I hope you will bear this in mind should he return to our midst, as he surely will the moment times have changed.[354]
Walther and his wife came to see me, bringing with them papers with news of the row in the party. They are coming again on Sunday."
I sent off Capital II to you in Dresden as soon as it arrived. I have finished dictating the manuscript of III in so far as this was possible, and in the autumn, as soon as I have had a bit of a holiday and attended to all manner of other urgent work, I shall embark on the final editing. However, my mind is at rest, the ms. is now available in a legible hand and can, if the worst comes to the worst, be printed as it stands, even if I were to kick the bucket in the meantime. Until this
26 July had been done I was constantly on tenterhooks. Not that the editing of 3 very important parts, i. e. [2]/(1) of the whole, won't involve a hell of a lot of work. But it will all come right in the end, and I look forward to the hullaballoo it will create when it appears. In the autumn we shall see two peaceful revolutions — the elections in France and over here.
In France, the scrutin de liste[375] invented by the out-and-out Republicans and introduced by the Gambettists so as to make sure of remaining perpetually in power by means of the enforced election of lawyers and journalists, especially Parisians, will probably lead to the wholesale ejection of the Gambettists and will almost certainly bring Clemenceau and the Radicals[429] to power, if not immediately, then in the near future. Of the bourgeois parties that now exist, they are the only remaining possibility. Clemenceau's panacea is departmental and communal self-government, i. e. decentralisation of the administration and abolition of bureaucracy. The very fact of embarking on this would, in France, be a revolution greater than any that has happened since 1800. But government by the Radicals in France means above all the emancipation of the proletariat from the old revolutionary tradition and a direct struggle between proletariat and bourgeoisie, i.e. the establishment of an ultimate, unequivocal state of hostilities.
In this country the new suffrage [2] " will completely upset the old state of the parties. The alliance between Whigs and Tories[430] to form one big Conservative party, having for its basis landed property as a single whole rather than divided into two camps as hitherto, and comprising all the conservative elements of the bourgeoisie — banks, high finance, trade and some of the industries; alongside this, on the other hand, the radical bourgeoisie, i. e. the bulk of large-scale industry, the petty bourgeoisie and the proletariat as a tail for the time being, awakening once more to political life — that is a revolutionary starting-point such as England has not seen since 1689.[431]
And on top of all that, old William,[3] now on his last legs. It promises great things. You'll see.
Your
F. E.
187. Engels to Eduard Bernstein. 24 July
Dear Ede,
Bebel has written to say he will be in Zurich on or about the 26th inst.— the enclosed lines are for hima; if he doesn't turn up, you will know how to deal with it.
Schorlemmer sends his regards. The coming autumn elections in France[15] and England [2] " will be the beginning of the end, and I trust we shall also see the end of old William.b Now that the Russians seem to have come to a standstill, we shall doubtless have to make a start ourselves. And, if the three great Western nations begin to move, that will also do.
Your
F. E.
188. Engels to Nikolai Danielson. 8 August[4 3 2]
Dear Sir,
I have considered your proposal to write a special preface for the Russian edition, but I do not see how I could do so in a satisfactory way. [4 3 3]
189. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 8 August
If you consider that it will be better not to refer to Rodbertus at all, then I would propose that you leave out the whole of the second part of the preface. As an exposition of the author'sa place in the history of economical science, it is far too incomplete, unless justified by the special circumstances under which it was written, viz. the attacks of the Rodbertus clique. This clique is extremely influential in Germany, makes a deal of noise, and will no doubt soon also be heard of in Russia. It is such a very cheap and convenient way of settling the whole question, to say that our author merely copied Rodbertus,[225] that it is sure to be repeated everywhere where our author is read and discussed. But of all these matters you are the best judge, and so I leave the matter entirely in your own hands, the more so as I have not the remotest idea what your censorship would allow to pass and what not.
There are some favourable rumours spread here about our mutual friend[302]; can you give me any news?
Yours faithfully,
P.W. Rosher [3 6 3]
first time
189
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
IN PARIS
London, 8 August 1885
My dear Laura,
To my astonishment I find that in all copiesb I can lay my hands on, the index has been omitted in the binding. I have at once written to Meissner for explanations and shall send you a copy as soon as received.
It is quite right that you should go to see Mother Vaillant at Viller-ville but that is no reason why you should not see us. We intend leaving here on Tuesday 11th, and shall be back September 11th at latest. [421] Schorlemmer will leave about same time for Germany and return via Paris about middle of September, and we cannot see any reason why you should not then come over with him. If Paul cannot go to Bordeaux now, he may manage to go then and so everything would be for the best.[434]
Your letter reminds me that indeed Deville's publisher can stop the translation for one year after publication of the original. [435] But that year has passed, as it is now two years since I had the manuscript at Eastbourne,a after which time it was brought out almost immediately. The man who is to bring out the translation is William Reeves, 185 Fleet St., but we cannot either procure a copy or hear anything more about it.
Tussy and Edward were to leave yesterday for Deal, but I have not yet had a note from them with their address. They intend staying from 10-14 days. The Kautskys have gone to Eastbourne. The mother Kautsky is a singularly unaffected woman for a German au-thoress. I have read one of her novels,b it is not at all bad. However I advised her to study Balzac and she has taken a few volumes, but will her French be up to that sort of reading?
The scrutin de liste[3] [7] [5] is no doubt at first against our people, but that does not matter so long as our people are not more numerous. If they succeed in making a decent show in Paris and some great provincial centres, there will be a necessity for the Radicals next time to make a combined list with them in some places, and then some may get in; besides by that time, they will be a good deal stronger, and a good many of the outside sects, Possibilists,[237] etc., will be broken up. If this next electionc brings Clemenceau into office, I shall be quite satisfied. He is the last man, as far as I can see, that the bourgeoisie has to put forward. After him le déluge. [4 3 6] And at the same time the elections here with an entirely new electorate [2] " which must be the beginning of the end; and old Williamd on his last legs (he fell upstairs again yesterday at Gastein) —we shall see what we shall see.
After the elections here — which will, I hope, carry all the Potters, Cremers and other faux frèrese into Parliament — the basis for a socialist movement here will become broader and firmer. And therefore I am glad to see that Hyndmanite movement will not take serious roots anywhere and that the simple, clumsy, wonderfully blundering, but sincere movement of the Socialist League [346] is slowly and apparently surely gaining ground. Justice is of an increasing vacuousness, and To-Day is dying, if not dead.
Good-bye — I have to write a heap of letters yet — love from all of us.
Yours affectionately,
F. Engels
x , , n c . Published in English tor the hrst Moscow, 1964 . &
time
190. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 16 August[4 3 7]
Dear Kautsky,
After sundry vagaries we landed here the day before yesterday morning and, after some difficulty, found accommodation;[421] The little place has not changed much in 10 years and is still quite pleasant when the weather is fine. We had a very good passage, though towards morning Nim, Pumps and Lily were somewhat overcome, or rather only the last two; Nim lay down and felt better. In Guernsey we unloaded some 10 calves and 20 sheep, a pitiful sight, for all of them were sea-sick. A supply of Pilsener beer has been discovered and is being rapidly consumed; there is also very good red wine at lOd. a bottle. I shall now leave the party to its own devices, but if you have anything of interest to tell me I shall be glad to hear about it. Address 2 Royal Crescent, Jersey. Kind regards from us all to you, your wife and your mother.a
Your
F.E.
191. Engels to Nikolai Danielson. 25 August
Dear Sir,
I have received your letters 6/18 and 9/21 August to which I shall reply on my return to London. [421] In the meantime herewith the letter for the Editor of the CteepHuu ebcmnuKb. [438] The reply you have, I suppose. If not, please write as before to London, when on my return in 14 days hence I will send a fresh copy.
Yours truly,
P.W. Rosher[363]
192. Engels to Hermann Schlüter. 26 August[4 3 9]
Dear Mr Schlüter,
Sheets 16 and 17b arrived in London after I had left — the Kautskys and Avelings were also away so there was no one there capable of sending on the large quantity of incoming printed matter in some semblance of order. It was not until Monday that Mrs Aveling arrived at my house and posted me the sheets. These went back to you corrected yesterday, Wednesday. A lot of words had been inserted that do not appear in the original and they completely distort the sense. And on sheet 17 in particular the pages are in a complete muddle: 257, 262, 263, 258, 259, 264, etc., which is totally inadmissible in this, the most important chapter of the book, and that is why I have taken the precaution of writing to you.
I shall be staying here for another fortnight.[421] After Saturday, 3 September everything had best be sent to London again.— We' are literally stifling here during the present spell of fine weather, for the lack of rain has led to a serious water shortage on this pretty little island. I neither see nor hear anything of the party, which, if the latest storm in the parliamentary tea cup [374] is anything to go by, is no calamity. Kindest regards to Ede.
Yours,
F.E.
193. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 6 September
Dear Kautsky,
We leave herea on Thursday b and therefore hope to see you both at our house on Sunday as usual. The Volks-^eitung and • c received with thanks. The chap wants to ingratiate himself with his papa. [440]
The latter, however, has better things to do. Not content with having created a French republic in 1870, [92] he must now do his utmost to create a Spanish one. [4 4 1] I hope he succeeds. What jackasses these great men are!
Kindest regards to your wife and yourself from all of us.
Your
F.E.
194. Engels to Hermann Schlüter. 9 September[4 3 9]
Final Duhring proof received yesterday.[2] °[8] I shall be going home tomorrow[421] and hence can do nothing with it here, especially as sheet 18 is in London, still to be corrected. The re-direction to this address of stuff sent to London has been handled very badly this year, hence the delay. My first task will be to see to these corrections as well as the preface.(1) The rest has been taken note of and will follow. Please send the Wolff biography from the Neue Welt to London straight away; it, too, will then be promptly dealt with. [4 1 8] Kindest regards.
Yours,
F. Engels
196. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 22 September
195. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 10 September
Dear Kautsky,
We are still here thanks to a violent storm and while it lasts I cannot be responsible for allowing the children to sail. Nor is it likely that we shall be able to leave tomorrow. [42] ' So that puts paid to the prospect of seeing you both again at my home on Sunday.a Kindest regards to your wife.
Your
F.E.
196
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
IN PARIS
London, 22 September 1885
My dear Laura,
Yesterday when I was going to write to you, people came in and made one miss the post. So I can only today send you the cheque £ 10. - which is all I can spare until I get some more money in which I hope won't be long. I have not heard from Schorlemmer but suppose you must as you expect him, and this being the case I naturally pass a step further and give expression to the expectation that he will bring you over with him which will be some time next week. We are quite ready for you.
While you had a fine row in Paris last Sunday,[4] [4 2] Tussy and Aveling had one here in the East End, I will forward you The Daily News which has the best report and a leading article.[443] They were here this morning, my opinion is that unless they can. get the Radicals [4] ' a who are very eager, apparently, on their side, to take the matter up, le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle.* The Socialists are nowhere, the Radicals are a power. If the question can be made one for which a dozen Radicals will have themselves arrested, the government will give way — if only in view of the elections.b If only Socialists are the victims, they will go to prison without any effect.
I like the systematic and theoretically correct way in which the French go about working the scrutin de liste.[3] [7 5] Each party makes a complete list of its own. The consequence will be that everywhere the relatively strongest party will get all their own men in, the rest none. But at the same time each party will count itself and know its strength. And at the next elections, the necessary result will come out: that the parties nearest to each other will combine for a joint list according to their relative strength — unless indeed this is not already done now on the eve of the voting. Scrutin de liste compels Radicals[429] and Socialists to have a joint list, as it will gradually compel Opportunists and Monarchists to join in a common list, at least in sundry departments. But it is characteristic of the génie françaisc
that this can only come out as the result of actual experience. It is this ideological, absolute character which gives to French political history its classical form, as compared to the muddled politics of other nations.
I am overwhelmed with proof-sheets, revisions, prefaces to write, etc., etc., so that I have not had the time yet to look seriously at your translation of the Manifest. [4 4 4] As soon as the most urgent business is off, end of this week I hope, I shall go at it and then we can discuss the matter here. I am glad you are at last taking the bushel off your light and helping us to get some good things translated into French, our own native Frenchmen being apparently unable to understand German. When you are once at it, you will continue by the law of the force of inertia, and gradually begin to like the treadmill.
Now the post-time is up and so good-bye until we see you here when I hope you will bring the rest of your translation.
Nim sends her love.
Yours affectionately,
F. Engels
197. Engels to Hermann Schlüter. 23 September
Dear Mr Schlüter,
I. You will have received all the proofs of the Diihring.20S They were sent off from here on the 13 th and 14th. If anything is missing kindly let me know; the type-setting was such that there could be absolutely no question of its being printed unless corrected by me.
The last clean proof to arrive here was No. 14. I await the remainder for the list of printing errors. Enclosed a provisional list which corrects a great deal of nonsense, much of which I myself had doubtless allowed to stand. However I shall go through the whole thing once again.
Herewith also and at long last the preface(1) which caused me much toil and sweat. In the first place there were numerous interruptions. But then again my knowledge of natural science was very rusty and there was much I had to look up.
II. Please send me if possible (along with the preface) proofs (in duplicate) of Marx vor den Geschwornen,r or at any rate clean proofs for the list of printing errors. The original edition is not devoid of bad errors; indeed, the worthy compositors sometimes exercise their minds more than the author would wish.
III. 'Preface',[15] etc., to the Communist Trial" will follow this week provided there are no interruptions.
IV. Immediately after that I shall put Lupus'a biography to rights for the Schlesische Milliarde as well as anything else appertaining to it. [4] ' b This will follow in a few days.
Please send me clean proofs of everything as well as proofs of my prefaces, etc. Also 12 copies of each of the above.
I am also seeing to Marx's photograph. Then I shall get on with re-writing the Peasant War[2] ' c as soon as I have got the revision of the French [4 4 4] and English translationsd off my back.
Now that I am back home[421] the correction of proofs will be attended to speedily and punctually.
I have had a good few bones to pick with Mr Meissner about the get-up of the 2nd volume of Capital. In the preface and text the type is all jumbled up, although I had already gone a long way towards sorting this out in the proofs, so far as it was possible to do so. No excuse for that. Moreover, there are 500 copies with no index at all. I enclose one copy for the archives. [144]
D f is incorrigible.g His appeal to his papa is touching[440]; the old man will take a stick to him.
With best wishes,
Yours,
F. Engels
198. Engels to Eduard Bernstein. 8 October
Dear Ede,
I enclose herewith the introductiona to the Revelations Concerning the Trial in Cologne.b If you want to print it initially as a feuilleton in the Sozialdemokrat, I should have no objection. Only you must come to some arrangement with Schlüter, who is probably awaiting it anx-iously. Tell him he will be getting the notes and the proofs of Marx's text tomorrow, as also instructions about what to print of the enclo-sures c from Stieber.d
Karl Kautsky will be sending you a few Kölnische ^eitungs containing the first rational report on events in Bulgaria.[445] The correspondent is in Belgrade and is well-informed, and since as yet Bismarck's interests have not provoked a hushing-up order, the report can, in fact, be regarded as an honest one. So the Russians have fallen into their own trap. They forgot that, as a lieutenant in the Prussian Guards, Alexander Battenberg is rightly relying on his 'comrade' William.c
You worry too much about someone 'succeeding' you on the Sozialdemokrat. But the best of it is that they couldn't really put anyone in your place; any attempt on the part of those gentry to put one of their milksops would fail because 1 ) no one ofthat ilk would voluntar-ily go into exile, 2) the party would soon put a stop to it, nor would they continue to support such a paper. If you go, the Sozialdemokrat goes with you, and this coincidence is all to the good. Augustf is likewise of the opinion that the Zurich establishmentsg should in all circumstances remain in our hands, as indeed they probably will, since they would only be a burden to others. It is up to you, I believe, to ensure that we retain the press and bookshop, in which case the matter of the Sozialdemokrat will resolve itself— if the worst comes to the worst — through the issue of a new paper after the demise of the present one. But you rate these gentlemen's offensive power too high.
The acquittal in Chemnitz is splendid.[446] So it was too much of a good thing even for a Saxon judiciary.
The French elections mark a great advance. As I had previously said," the scrutin de liste[315] has eliminated the Opportunists. [447] But that it would eliminate them so thoroughly, that the upper, middle and part of the lower middle classes would take refuge with the Monarchists, and do so en masse, was something that could not have been foreseen — not, at any rate, outside France. The Opportunists played at being a 'Directory' and such was their corruption that it far out-stripped even that of the Second Empire. But they didn't guarantee your bourgeois the peace and quiet that would be guaranteed him by a monarchy. The relapse into monarchism, here dubbed Orleanism, was all the more natural in that the entire Centre gauchea (Ribot, Journal des Débats, etc.) are simply Orleanists disguised as Republicans; so that people prefer genuine Orleanists, and are even content, if there is no other alternative, with Bonapartists and Legitimists. The second ballots may already witness a setback, the bourgeois having taken fright at his own electoral victory, and hence a swing to radicalism. If not there will soon be a set-to.[448]
This much, at any rate, has been won— the ousting of the parties of the Centre, Monarchists versus Radicals, the few Centre Party deputies compelled to choose between joining one or the other. The situation is thus a revolutionary one. No one in France seriously believes in the monarchy as such, if only because of the vast number of Pretend-ers. But there is some possibility of the Orleanists attempting a coup, in which case there would be a show-down. At all events, this is how the question is presented: either la république en danger,b or the setting up of a 'radical' republic. There would seem to be every probability that the latter will prevail. But then the Radicals[429] will not only have to abide by their promisesc and replace Napoleon's centralised administration with the kind of self-government exercised by the departments and communes between 1792 and 1798; they will also have to rely on the support of the Socialists. We could wish for no more favourable situation. France remains faithful to her own logico-dialectical course of development. Contradictions are never suppressed for very long, but are constantly being fought out. And we can wish for nothing better.
That the Socialists have so few votes (a source of considerable chagrin to Lafargue) is perfectly natural. [449] The French working man does not chuck away his ballot paper. And since in France there are still living parties and not, as in Germany, only dead or dying ones, it is far from politic to vote for a Socialist who has no prospects, if by so doing one puts a Radical in the minority and an Opportunist in the majority. The fact is that there are considerable drawbacks to the practice of nominating candidates as a measure of strength in France, as there may be in some parts of Germany as soon as life re-turns to the political scene there. When once the course of things in France enables the Socialists to become a political opposition, i. e. when Clemenceau finally comes to the helm, we shall instantly gain millions of votes. But one shouldn't try and insist upon the French developing along German lines, although that is what many of our best men in Germany are doing.
A final verdict will not, of course, be possible until the second ballot is over.
Your
F.E.
199. Engels to Hermann Schlüter. 9 October
Dear Mr Schlüter,
Yesterday I sent the introductiona to the Cologne Trialb to Ede in case he wished to print it beforehand in the Sozialdemokrat, in which case he would have to arrange matters with you.r Herewith now the list of contents to show you how it has been arranged; also printing errors in, and notes on, the Leipzig edition of 1875.[450] I have included only the London Central Authority's two Addresses of March and June a; the Cologne Address of December 1850b offers nothing new in the way of theory, being a detailed account of the party's break-up which today would be of importance only in a circumstantial history of the movement of those days.
The thing has got badly behindhand — through no fault of my own. La bravoure, c'est dans le ventre,c as Marshal Davout once said to his host, Marx's father-in-law,d when the latter congratulated him on his appetite. L'esprit, c'est dans le ventree is what I say, after discover-ing to what depths of stupidity and incapacity one can be reduced by catarrh of the stomach. To sweat away for five hours at one page and then furiously consign what one has written to the flames — WELL, it's all over now, not to return for a very long time, or so I hope.
Tomorrow I shall tackle the introduction to the Schlesische Milliarde.''[18]
As regards the June battle, however, there's nothing doing yet. I have become convinced that the things from the Neue Rheinische Leitung can't be printed on their own without a real history of events. [4] ' r But this would call for specialised studies which can't be done until I have sorted out the piles of Marx's pamphlets, because only then shall I know what stuff I have yet to procure for the purpose. And only then could I embark on my studies. So for the time being this will have to be shelved.
With kindest regards,
Yours,
F. Engels
200. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 13 October
200
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
IN PARIS
London, 13 October 1885
My dear Laura,
I return you by this post the first ten leaflets of the Manifest[4]*[4] — I was compelled to break off, firstly because it is 5 o'clock and secondly because there is a lacune of considerable extent which I cannot fill up. Paul I hope will send me what is wanting at once, and I will return it if possible same day. For I see now that it will not take me long. To tell you the truth, a translation of the Manifest always frightens me — it reminds me of weary hours spent in vain on that most untranslat-able of documents. But you have hit the nail on the head. There are only two passages where you evidently were interrupted and did'not catch the exact meaning. Otherwise the work is excellently done, and for the first time the pamphlet will appear in French in a form that we can be proud of and that will give the reader an idea of what the original is. As you go on towards the end, practice will make you still more perfect, and you will more and more, not translate, but reproduce in the other language. You will therefore take my notes — where the meaning is not in question — as mere suggestions on the value of which you will have to decide. I am so out of practice in speaking and writing French that positively an hour's chat with Johnny a acts upon me as a refresher upon a German Counsel, and really revives my capacity of thinking in French more than ever I should have dreamt.
I am glad indeed that you have taken this job in hand; that you would succeed if you once put your shoulder to the wheel, I never doubted, but I am glad to read the thing done. Now we have got you in harness and will do our best to keep you in it. It will be of infinite use to the movement in France,'for you may be sure the learning of German will not make much progress for some time amongst them, and even those that do learn it, learn it like schoolboys and without perhaps ever speaking to a native. Poor Fortin's translation b do give me trouble enough — the German words are mere skeletons to him, no flesh and blood — how can he reproduce them in French! And Mohr's vigorous German too!
Well here's to your health and success, after the Manifest anything you may tackle will appear child's play!
Dinner bell — so good-bye,
Yours ever,
F.E.
time
201. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 14 October
The latest act is called: * 'The Factory and Workshops Act, 1878, 41. Victoria, Chapter 16'* — and is obtainable from
* P. S. King & Son Canada Building King St., Westminster. * Published with commentary in: * 'The Factory & Workshops Act 1878'—by Alex Redgrave, Her Majesty's Inspector of Factories. 2nd ed., London, Shaw & Sons, Fet-ter Lane and Crane Court, Law Printers and Publishers. * 1879. 238 pages small octavo. 5 shillings.
The act itself costs a shilling at most.
Your
F.E.
Das Kapital.
Kritik der politischen Oekonomie.
Von
K a r l M a r x .
Zweiter Band.
Buch II: Der Cirkulationsprocess des Kapitals.
Herausgegeben von Friedrich Engels,
halten. Das Recht der Uebersetzunj ist vorbehalten
Hamburg Verlag von Otto Meissner.
1885.
< W . 6 ? f xr^. fr,. *uo«rrutf> 9 ^ * . C^&^t^
>/>+>.<*—
203. Engels to Salo Faerber. 22 October
202. Engels to Pyotr Lavrov. 20 October-[4 5 1]
My dear Lavrov,
Greatly to my annoyance I am unable to help you with sources for a history of Chartism. [452] All my papers, books, journals, etc., which date back to that period went astray during the upheavals of 1848-49. The chief source, The Northern Star, is nowhere to be found, even in the north of England (Harney, its former editor-in-chief, is seeking in vain to get hold of a set). What the bourgeois have written on the subject is for the most part false; nor have I ever concerned myself with such literature. It's unfortunate, for if Harney doesn't write his memoirs, the history of the first great workers' party will be lost for ever. [4 5] [3]
Yours ever and with regret,
F.E.
203
ENGELS TO SALO FAERBER
IN BRESLAU
London, 22 October 1885
Dear Sir,
I have received your esteemed note of the 15th,[454] though the seal was badly damaged; this I enclose herewith to the greater glory of Mr Stephan. [455] Since 1848 I, too, have frequently maintained that Russian tsar-dom is the last refuge and chief military reserve of European reaction. However there have been many changes in Russia over the past 20 years. The so-called emancipation of the peasants has created a thoroughly revolutionary situation in that it has placed the peasants in a situation in which they can neither live nor die. The rapid development of large-scale industry and its means of communication, the banks, etc., have merely aggravated this situation. Russia is faced with its own 1789. The Nihilists,[356] on the one hand, and a financial crisis on the other are symptomatic of this situation. Prior to the last loan, things had got to such a pitch that the Russian government was unable to raise money even in Berlin unless the loan was guaranteed by a representative assembly. Even Mendelssohn imposed this condition. At this point, when tsardom was in dire straits, Bismarck stepped in and authorised a loan, admittedly of a paltry 15 million pounds, a drop in the ocean, but enough to provide a few years' respite. ' [8 2] By doing so, Bismarck subjugated Russia, which even today cannot get money without him, but by the same token he also put off the Russian revolution and that certainly did not suit his book either. It is the first time Bismarck has done something that has not indirectly and contrary to his will turned out to our advantage and if he carries on in the same way we may no longer have any use for him.
So whether the Russians are to get any more money depends primarily on Bismarck and, if he consents, the financial philistines of Germany will be only too delighted to fall into the trap set for them. The fact that they will lose their money in the process concerns me not at all; on the contrary, it will serve them right, nor will the so-called German national capital suffer much in the process, since the portion we are interested in consists of ironworks, factories and other instruments of production, which can hardly be loaned to the Russians. The so-called money capital that is being lent is to a great extent bogus capital, lines of credit, and this is of little consequence. What would be of far greater consequence would be to make it difficult, if not impossible, for the Russians to obtain credit, but on this score your typical German punter has more faith in Bismarck than in us. At the moment it's quite impossible for me to spend time on an attempt to reduce the question of Russian state credits to the size it deserves; a work ofthat kind, however timely and worthwhile, would nevertheless call for a study of Russian conditions from Russian sources. As regards the actual financial side, a table showing the Russian national debt for the past few years together with lists of stock market prices would suffice, but in the case of economic conditions within the country itself a great deal of study would be necessary if one was to form an accurate opinion. One of the main works is a survey carried out by the Russian War Ministry under the title Boenno-cmamucmimecKiü cöopnuKb IV. Poccin,* St Petersburg, 1871.
Also: A. CKpeOHLjKift, KpecmbRHCKoe dbiio eh u,apcmeoeauie MMnepamopa AjieKctmdpa II,b Bonn, 1862-68, 4 volumes, about 5,000 pages in all.
Also the cöopHHKH CTaTHCTH^ecKHXi. CBT>,zi,T>Hiäc of the individual gouvernements,d in particular Moscow and Tver, and ÜHCOHI>, Cpaeuu-
menbHaR cmamucmuKa Pocciu u sanadm-eeponeücKuxb eocydapcmeb,e St Petersburg, 1880, several volumes.
The Russian budgets aren't worth the paper they are written on. Sheer lies and invention, more so even than those presented in Prussia prior to 1848.
As to an evaluation of the armies now reorganised along Prussian lines, this is a sheer impossibility. We do know, however, that Austria and, to an even greater extent, Russia, lack the large educated class which alone can supply an adequate number of officers suitable for employment in armies of this size, and that, according to the account of their own General Kuropatkin,r the Russians' conduct of opera-tions in 1878 in Turkey was inferior to that of the Prussians in 1806.[456]
Liebknecht's letter returned herewith.[457]
I am, Sir,
Your obedient servant,
F. Engels
time ° Military Statistical Miscellany IV. Russia - b A. Skrebitsky, Peasants' Question during the Reign of Emperor Alexander II.-' statistical miscellanies -d gubernias-'' Yanson, Russia and West European States: Comparative Statistics. - ' [Kuropatkin] A. KyponaTKHHb, Jloena, Ilneena u llleüuoeo. [Mu ucmopiu pyccKo-mypeu/coü eoünu 1877—1878 il.) (Lovech, Pleven and Sheinovo. (From the History of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78)); idem, /Jbùcmein ompndoeb leuepajia Cxoôeneea 6b pyccKo-mypeufiym eoituy 1877—1878 lodoeb. Jloeua u lljieena (Actions of General Skobelev's Detachments during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78. Lovech and Pleven).
204. Engels to August Bebel. 28 Ottober[2 6 3]
IN PLAUEN NEAR DRESDEN
London, 28 October 1885
Dear Bebel,
Liebknecht's defeat in Saxony makes me feel sorry for him as a man, but in other respects it can do him no harm. He sets far too much store by popularity, to which he is prepared to sacrifice more than is proper, and it will therefore do him good to see for once that no amount of concessions to the Right will be of any avail, particularly when suffrage is qualified by age and property, in which case they won't even earn him the vote of the petty bourgeoisie. [458]
Your news about the independent spirit of the masses gave me much pleasure. However, the gentlemen of the right wing will refuse to credit it until some of them have been made an example of; they live within the orbit of small cliques and what they hear they assume to be the voice of the people. The scales will soon fall from their eyes.
Chronic pressure on all the crucial branches of industry continues without remission, not only in this country, but also in France and America. Particularly in iron and cotton. It is an unprecedented state of affairs, for all that it is the inevitable consequence of the capitalist system: overproduction on such an enormous scale that it can't even manage to produce a crisis! The overproduction of disposable capital seeking investment is so great that the discount rate here actually fluctuates between 1 and l'/2% P e r annum, while for money invested in short-term loans which can be paid off or called in any day (MONEY AT CALL) barely ll[2]% per annum is obtainable. But the very fact that the financial capitalist prefers to invest his money thus rather than in new industrial enterprises amounts to an admission that the economy is, in his eyes, rotten to the core. And this fear of new investment and any kind of speculation, already a feature of the 1867 crisis, is the main reason for the inability to bring about an acute crisis. But sooner or later it is bound to come and then, with any luck, it will put paid to the old trades unions over here. These cheerfully retain the same old guild character which has attached to them from the start and becomes daily more unbearable. You might suppose that any worker would be admitted without more ado by the engineers, car-penters, masons, etc., if he practised the relevant trade. Not a bit of it. Anyone seeking admission must have been bound apprentice for a number of years (usually 7) to a workman belonging to the trades union. This was supposed to restrict the number of workers, but served no other purpose, unless to bring in money to the master, in return for which he in fact did nothing at all. This may have been all right up till 1848. But since that time the tremendous growth of industry has created a class of workers as, if not more, numerous than their 'skilled' counterparts in the TRADES UNIONS, and who do as much, if not more, work than they, yet can never be admitted as members. These people have been virtually brought into being by the guild regulations of the TRADES UNIONS. But do you suppose the UNIONS have ever thought of doing away with this antiquated rubbish? Not on your life! I cannot remember ever reading about a proposal of that kind at a TRADES UNIONS Congress. The idiots want to reform society in accordance with their own set-up, not their own set-up in accordance with society's process of development. They cleave to their traditional superstitions, which harm only themselves, instead of getting rid of the lumber and thus doubling their numbers and strength to become in fact what they daily resemble less and less, namely anti-capitalist associations of all the workers of a particular trade. This will, I think, help you to understand much in the behaviour of these privileged working men.
What is really essential here is for the official labour leaders to get into Parliament en masse. That would speed things up all right; they'd quickly show themselves for what they were. The elections in November should prove a great help since 10 or 12 of them are sure to get in, provided their Liberal friends don't play some trick on them at the last moment. (1) The first elections under a new system [2] " are always a kind of lottery and reveal only the least part of the revolution they usher in. But universal suffrage — and its recent introduction here will, in view of Britain's industrial lead and the absence of a peasant class, lend the workers as much power as it did in Germany — is today the best lever a proletarian movement can have, and so it will prove in this country also. That's why it is so important to smash the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION[300] at the earliest opportunity, for its leaders are nothing but adventurers, literati and political careerists.
Hyndman, their boss, is doing all he can to further this end; he can hardly wait for the little bell to strike twelve, as the folk song has it,(2)
and makes more of an ass of himself every day, so frantically does he pursue success. He's a wretched caricature of Lassalle.
I don't believe your opinion of the French is altogether fair. The masses in Paris are 'socialist' in the sense of a neutral middle-of-the-road socialism distilled over the course of years from Proudhon, Louis Blanc, Pierre Leroux, etc. The only experience they have had of communism was that of Cabet's Utopia, which culminated in a model colony in America, i. e. in flight from France and discord and semi-bankruptcy in America. 45Q Anything over and above that they derive from Germany, nor is it surprising that France which, from 1789 to 1850, was in every case the first country, not only to give clear expression to political ideas, but also to put them into practice, should be somewhat reluctant to endorse her own abdication as leader in matters of revolutionary theory; particularly after the glorious Commune and, what is more, vis-à-vis a Germany that was, to all intents and purposes, defeated by the Paris workers in 1870, seeing that the German army did not dare occupy Paris — a case, be it noted, unprecedented in the history of warfare. Then again, you should ask yourself how the French workers are to increase their discernment. Even the French edition of Capital is to them a sealed book; and not to them alone, but to a large part of the educated class as well. The only thing they are familiar with is my Socialism: Utopian and Scientific*[60]
which, in fact, has proved surprisingly influential. None of the leaders know German, except Vaillant whom I don't count because being a Blanquist, his tactics are totally different from our own. Mme Lafargue is now at last translating the Manifesto into good French. *[44]
Even the leaders' knowledge of theory still leaves something to be desired and, if you knew Paris, you would realise how easy it is to live and agitate, as opposed to doing any serious work there. So whence is discernment to come to the French workers?
And now a further word about the elections. In Germany it is easy to vote for a Social Democrat because we are the only real opposition party and because the Reichstag has no say in things, so that ultimately it doesn't matter whether one votes at all, or for which of the 'dogs that we all are' [4 6] ' one does vote. The only other party to have a policy of its own is, perhaps, the Centre.[229] But in France, things are altogether different. There, the Chamber is the effective power in the land and there can be no question of chucking away one's ballot paper. Besides which it must be remembered that every time the Gambettists pit themselves against the Monarchists, and the Radicals [429] against the Gambettists, a step forward is made. And indeed practice proves this to be the case. In Germany Junker-style reaction has flourished since 1870 and everything is retrogressing. In France, they have the best schools in the world with compulsory education to match, and whereas Bismarck cannot get rid of the clergy,[462] the French have already ousted them completely from their schools. Our German army, apart from the growing Social Democratic element, is a more infamous tool of reaction than ever before. In France, general conscription has brought the army infinitely closer to the people, and it is primarily the army that makes monarchy impossible (cf. 1878).[463]
And if the Radicals come to the helm and are compelled to implement their programme, there will be decentralisation of the administration, self-government for departments and communes, as in America and in the France of 1792-98, and separation of Church and State, every man to pay his own parson. We are not yet in a position to direct historical developments either in Germany or in France. This does not mean that those developments are standing still, however, but only that in the German Empire they are temporarily retro-gressing, while in France they are for all that advancing. But our turn will not come — such is the slow but sure course of history — until the bourgeois and petty-bourgeois parties, having demonstrated, publicly and in practice, their inability to govern the country, find themselves up a gum tree. (After a French revolution we might, somewhat anticipando,a come to power in Germany but only if carried there by a European tidal wave.) That is why the instinct of the Paris workers in always supporting the most radical party possible is right from one point of view. As soon as the Radicals come to the helm, the same instinct will drive the workers into the arms of the Communists, for the Radicals are pledged to their old, muddled, socialist (not communist) programme and this will be their undoing. And then instinct and reason will coincide; the most radical party possible will then be the party of the proletariat as such, and things will happen fast. But the
205. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 7 November
fact is that the English and the French have long since forgotten their pre-revolutionary state of virginity, whereas we Germans, not having had a revolution of our own, are still trailing around with this sometimes very awkward encumbrance. Both conditions have their advantages and disadvantages; but it would be most unjust to use the same one-sided standard in assessing the varying attitudes of the workers in those three countries.
Kautsky has given me Adler's very superficial booka which is largely based on Stieber. b I shall help him write the review.0
Won't you come over here some time? Should business take you to the Rhine, you could be here in no time.
Your
F.E.
205
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
IN PARIS
London, 7 November 1885 My dear Laura,
I have no objection whatever to write a short introduction to the Manifesto. But in order to enable me to do so, I ought to know what passages in the old preface d would appear objectionable to the deli-cate ears of your Parisian public. I confess I cannot find them out, unless it is one about the Commune which was put in by Mohr himself and on which he particularly insisted. [464] Although in my opinion our Paris friends give way by far too much to these susceptibilities, which ought to be put down as much as possible, I am quite willing um des lieben Friedens willen* to please them as much as I can, without thereby falsifying history or strengthening the belief that all light necessarily comes from Paris. It is in my opinion utterly impossible for the Manifesto to go out in any language without stating how it origi-nated. The conclusion of II, and the whole of III and IV are utterly incomprehensible without that.
'Mr Broadhouse' has actually had the impudence of having Aveling asked — through Reeves, the publisher — whether I would not collaborate with him in the translation of the Capital'.a I suppose you have received the last No. of the Commonweal? If you will let me know what Nos. you are short of, I'll see that you get them.
Nim is as jolly as ever, we have just had a bottle of Pilsener together. She was last night at the Lyceum with Pumps to see 'Olivia',[465] says it is a regular Rührstück,b Irving no great shakes, Ellen Terry very good.
Lavigne says he sent his translation of the 18 Brumaire to Paul but nothing came of it, what was the reason? I have the thing here, but as I am under an engagement with Fortin,c dare not look at it, otherwise I might be accused of having made undue use of it, so I cannot form a judgment as to its merits. [4 6 6]
Next week the grand political spree begins. On the 10th the French Chambers, on the 19th or thereabouts the German Reichstag, and a week later the elections here.d Whatever they may turn out in the shape of a Parliament,, two things are certain: the Irish will command the whole by their 80-90 votes, and the Great Liberal Party will come, at last, to an end by the separation of the Whigs from the Radicals and the preparation if not the completion, of the Union between Whigs and Tories. [4] ' e
Kind regards to Paul (11,500 votes)[467] which I hope have not quite crushed him. He'll have better luck next year.
Yours affectionately,
F. Engels
Works, Second Russian Edition, Vol. 36, Moscow, 1964
206. Engels to Hermann Schlüter. 11 November
Dear Mr Schlüter,
Have received clean sheets oîDùhring up to 20 inch [208]; ending and prefaces are still to come. As soon as these arrive you will be sent the list of printing errors.
The introduction to the Schlesische Milliarde[418] is in hand and would have been finished long ago but for a series of interruptions of all kinds. It has been lying heavily on my conscience, so you may be sure that it will not be held up for a moment longer than is absolutely necessary.
You will have received the corrected proofs of the Communist League.a
You might be good enough to tell Ede that I had already received via Kautsky the book by a sparrow calling itself'Adler',b and had de-liberately not mentioned it because it, too, draws on Stieberc as the final authority. The passage about Buttermilch-Born was worded in that way precisely because the book left me in no doubt that Born had surreptitiously poured out some buttermilkd for Adler but had refused (see preface) to allow his name to appear. [4 6 8] Hence he had to be given a kick or two in the pants.
Dietz has written to Kautsky saying he wants to take over publication of my Origin' now and asking whether I would have any objection. I have told him I have no objection provided he comes to an agreement with you and Schabelitz. So you should act in whatever way you think best. All being well, Dietz promises to place the work in the bookshops, which would of course be most acceptable to us, but then, too, Zuriche is also entitled to a say now that it has been circulating for a year without being banned. On the other hand it was his shilly-shallying which caused the printing to drag on for months; it's all very well for him to talk after arriving belatedly on the scene when others have already taken the risks. Moreover I'm not acquainted with the actual details of what was discussed at the time and hence have no alternative but to refer him to you. So please settle the affair in any way you think fit.
I have found another whole mass of printing errors in the Diihring — all of which I myself had allowed to stand. I have become so accustomed to correcting two proofs — one for the meaning, the other for individual errors — that when there isn't an opportunity of doing so I allow utter nonsense to stand. Hence most of them were in the first 11 sheets which were, moreover, corrected in difficult circumstances.
Kindest regards.
Yours,
F.E.
207. Engels to Nikolai Danielson. 13 November
Dear Sir,
I received your two letters 6/18 and 9/21 August while I was in Jersey[2] and immediately sent you the letter you desired for the CbeepHuü encmHUKb. [438] Since then I have been prevented by press of work from replying more fully to these letters as well as that of the 25 August/5 September.
I had no doubt that the 2nd volumea would afford you the same pleasure as it has done to me. The developments it contains are indeed of such a superior order that the vulgar reader will not take the trouble to fathom them and to follow them out. This is actually the case in Germany where all historical science, including political economy, has fallen so low that it can scarcely fall any lower. Our Katheder-Sozialisten[54] have never been much more, theoretically, than slightly philanthropic Vulgärökonomen, b and now they have sunk to the level of simple apologists of Bismarck's Staats-Sozialismus.c To them, the 2nd volume will always remain a sealed book. It is a fine piece of what Hegel calls die Ironie der Weltgeschichte,d [3 8 6] that German historical science, by the fact of the elevation of Germany to the position of the first European power, should be again reduced to the same vile state to which it was reduced by the deepest political degra-dation of Germany, after the Thirty Years' War. [469] But such is the fact. And thus, German 'Science' stares at this new volume without being able to understand it; only, a wholesome fear of the consequences prevents them from criticising it in public, and so, official economic literature observes a cautious silence with regard to it. The 3rd volume[6] will however compel them to speak out.
Of that 3rd volume, I have completed the first transcript from the original into a legible manuscript. Three-fourths of it are almost fit for publication as they are; but the last fourth, or perhaps third, will require a great deal of work: the first section (relation ofMehrwertsrate to Profitratee) and then the subsequent sections on credit and partly also on Grundrente^; besides certain portions of almost all the other sections. For the last two months I have been compelled to attend to a good deal of other work which had been neglected by my exclusive attention to the 2nd and 3rd volumes.g This will continue for some time yet, and then, maybe, the revision of the English translation of Volume I [56] which is nearly completed, will occupy me for a month longer, but then I shall start with the 3rd volume and carry it out to the end. Maybe it will be published in 2 sections, as it will contain about 1,000 pages.
I thank you very much for your extracts from the author's letters from 1879 to 1881. [4 7 0] I could not read them without a sorrowful smile. Alas, we are so used to these excuses for the non-completion of the work! Whenever the state of his health made it impossible for him to go on with it, this impossibility preyed heavily upon his mind, and he was only too glad if he could only find out some theoretical excuse why the work should not then be completed. All these arguments he has at the time made use of vis-à-vis de moi"; they seemed to ease his conscience.
After completing the 3rd volume and selecting from the other ms. the portions fit for publication, I shall very likely try to collect such of the author's correspondence as is scientifically important, and there his letters to you rank amongst the first. When that time comes, I shall therefore avail myself of your kind offer of placing at my disposal copies of these letters.
I am often in the case of forwarding to you pamphlets, etc.— republications of the author's and my own writings, etc., but do not know whether it would be safe to send them direct to you. I should be much obliged if you would tell me what to do.
I hope our mutual friend's[15] health is improving, notwithstanding the bad prognosis of his doctors.[362] Any news with regard to him will always be welcome.
That crisis of which the author speaks in his letter, was indeed an exceptional one. a b ' The fact is it continues still, all Europe and America suffer under it to this day. The absence of the financial crash is one cause of it. But the principal cause is undoubtedly the totally changed state of the Weltmarkt.c Since 1870, Germany and especially America have become England's rivals in modern industry, while most other European countries have so far developed their own manufactures as to cease to be dependent on England. The consequence has been the spreading of the process of overproduction over a far larger area than when it was mainly confined to England, and has taken — up to now — a chronic instead of an acute character. By thus delaying the thunderstorm which formerly cleared the atmosphere every ten years, this continued chronic depression must prepare a crash of a violence and extent such as we have never known before. And the more so as the agricultural crisis of which the author speaks, has also continued up to now, has been extended to almost all
208. Engels to Paul Lafargue. 14 November
European countries; and must continue while the virgin qepH03eMi»a
of the Western American prairies remains unexhausted.
Very faithfully yours,
P.W. Rosher[363]
208
ENGELS TO PAUL LAFARGUE [4 7 2]
IN PARIS
London, 14 November 1885
My dear Lafargue,
Thanks for the portrait — what a surly face they make me pull in France, a country where they nevertheless laugh from time to time, or so it is said. Perhaps they will laugh at me too. Nim says it makes me look ten years older, out of flattery no doubt.
The insurrections of May 1849 were provoked by the refusal of most of the German governments to accept the constitution for Germany as a whole approved by the National Assembly at Frankfurt. [473] This assembly, which never had any real power and neglected any steps to acquire some, also contrived to lose the last vestige of its moral power just at the moment when it had realised on paper its somewhat romantic 'constitution'. Nevertheless that constitution was then the sole banner under which it was still possible to try to launch a new movement — if they were not to deprive themselves of one after victory had been achieved. In the smaller states, therefore, they sought to compel the governments to recognise it. There followed the insurrections in Dresden (3 May) and, a few days later, in the Ba-varian Palatinate and the Grand Duchy of Baden where the Grand Dukeb took flight, the army having declared itself for the people.
The Dresden insurrection was put down after a heroic resistance — the fighting went on for four days — with the help of Prussian troops.
(In Prussia reaction had gained the upper hand as a result of the coup d'état of November 1848; Berlin was disarmed and placed under a state of siege.) But to subdue the Palatinate and Baden an army was needed. So in Prussia they made a start by calling the Landwehr [4 7 4] to arms. At Iserlohn (Westphalia) and Elberfeld (Rhenish Prussia) men refused to march. Troops were sent, who found the towns barricaded and were repulsed. About a fortnight later Iserlohn was taken after two days' resistance. Elberfeld offered relatively few opportunities for defence and so, with troops bearing down on them from every side, the defenders, about a thousand in number, resolved to fight their way through to the states that had risen in the south. They were cut to pieces en route, but a fair number managed to get down there with the help of the population. I was aide-de-camp to Mirbach, the com-mandant at Elberfeld. Before carrying out his plan he sent me on a mission to Cologne, in other words into the enemy's camp, where I hid in Daniels' house. The truth is that he did not want to have a known communist in his corps for fear of alarming the bourgeoisie of the regions through which he was to pass. He made a rendezvous with me in the Palatinate but failed to turn up, having been taken prisoner (acquitted by the Elberfeld jury a year later). Mirbach had gone through the campaigns in Greece from 1825 to 1829 and Poland from 1830 to 1831; he later again returned to Greece where he died.
Meanwhile the insurrection in the south was gathering strength, but it made the fatal blunder of not attacking. The troops of the small adjacent states were only looking for a pretext to join the insurrection, at that time they were determined not to fight against the people. A pretext was then provided, namely that they should advance on Frankfurt in order to protect the assembly against the Prussian and Austrian soldiers who were surrounding the place. After the suppression of the Neue Rheinische Reifung Marx and I had gone to Mann-heim to recommend this move to the leaders. But they produced all manner of excuses — that the army was disorganised by the flight of their former officers, that they were short of everything, etc., etc.
About the beginning of June the Prussians on the one hand and the Bavarians on the other, reinforced by those same troops from the smaller states whom we could have won over with greater daring, but who saw themselves drowned in an ocean of reactionary armies, advanced on the insurgent areas. It took them no more than a week to clear the Palatinate — there were 36,000 Prussians against 8-9,000 in-surgents, and the two fortresses of the country were in reactionary hands. We withdrew to the troops in Baden, some 8,000 men of the line and 12,000 irregulars, themselves beset by 30,000 reactionary troops. There were four general engagements in which numerical superiority and the violation of Württemberg territory, a move that enabled them to outflank us at the decisive moment, gave the reactionaries the advantage. After six weeks of fighting the remains of the rebel army had to cross over into Switzerland.
During this war I was aide-de-camp to Colonel Willich who com-manded a corps of irregulars of marked proletarian character. I took part in three minor engagements and also in the last decisive battle of the Murg.
That, I trust, will enable you to sum the whole thing up in a few lines if you absolutely insist on writing a commentary on Citizen Clarus' fine work.
I trust your interesting furuncle will discharge its purulent contents before long. Wash the sore with 2% carbolic acid in 98% water; it's a capital way of killing suppurating cells.
A kiss for Laura.
Yours ever,
F.E.
209. Engels to August Bebel. 17 November
Dear Bebel,
Just another word or two before you take your seat in the Reichstag. [475] In answer to Schumacher's long letter defending his attitude to the Steamship Subsidies, [476] I have written to him at equal length [39] to say that I adhere to my old standpoint, namely, that if in order to respect the alleged prejudices of certain voters, you do not want to vote unconditionally against state aid paid to the bourgeoisie out of the workers' and peasants' pockets, you may, in my view, vote in favour only if a like amount of state aid is directly allocated for the benefit of the workers, both urban and rural — primarily for agricultural workers' cooperatives on state-owned land.
To avoid misunderstandings I have asked him, in the event of his discussing this letter with other comrades, always to show them the whole letter.
Liebknecht has certainly come most bravely to the fore all of a sudden. His 'collection' written in jail, [477] his study of the all but forgotten Capital, and the prospect, suggested to him by the Right, offal-ling between two stools, seem to have proved extremely beneficial. I shall be very happy if only it lasts. He will certainly be in the right place when the crucial moment comes, but until then he will cause the rest of us an appalling amount of trouble with that habit he has of hushing things up, which he regards as diplomacy and at which he is, it is true, far more adept than the rest of us.
War in Europe is beginning to pose a serious threat to us. So those miserable remnants of what once were nations, the Serbs, Bulgarians, Greeks and other rapacious riff-raff on whose behalf your liberal philistine enthuses in the interests of Russia, are begrudging one another the very air they breathe and must inevitably slit each other's greedy throats. That would be marvellous and would serve the philistine na-tionality-mongers right, were it not for the fact that each of these pigmy tribes holds the key to peace or war in Europe. The first shot has been fired at Dragoman, [478] but when and where the last will be fired, no one can say.
Our movement is getting on so splendidly, everywhere and without exception circumstances are turning out so much in our favour and our need for another few years of undisturbed development and con-solidation is so great, that the last thing we want is a big political row. It would consign our movement to the background for years on end, after which we should doubtless have to start belatedly all over again, as after 1850.
On the other hand, a war might bring about a revolution in Paris which in turn would indirectly provide fuel for the movement in the rest of Europe, and in that case the French — no doubt violently chauvinist in the circumstances — would assume the leadership, a role for which their level of theoretical development qualifies them least of all. A few peaceful years of Radical rule [4 2 9] would be the very thing for the French who, since 1871, have made very good progress politically thanks to the instinctive, logical consistency that is peculiar to them. For these Radicals have adopted in its entirety the current middle-of-the-road, jumbled-up socialism deriving from Louis Blanc, Proudhon, etc., and it would be of inestimable value to us were they to be given the opportunity to demolish such empty verbiage in practice.
On the other hand, should a major war break out, it will place six million men in the field and cost an unprecedented amount of money. There will be bloodshed, devastation and, finally, a state of prostra-tion such as has never been known before. That's why all these gentlemen are so afraid of it. One may further predict that if this war comes, it will be the last one; it will mark the end of the class state politically, militarily, economically (as also financially) and morally. It could lead to a situation in which the war machine turns rebellious and refuses to engage in prolonged mutual slaughter for the sake of the lousy Balkan nations. The watchword of the class state is après nous le déluge[436]; but after the deluge it's we who shall come and only we.
So everything remains as it was: whatever happens, it will ultimately provide a means for bringing our party to power and putting paid to all the old nonsense. But I must say I hope it will happen without this massacre; there's no need for it. If it's got to be, however, I only hope that when the moment arrives my old disability won't prevent me mounting a horse.
Your old friend
F.E.
210. Engels to Minna Kautsky. 26 November
210
ENGELS TO MINNA KAUTSKY [4 7 9]
IN VIENNA
London, 26 November 1885
Dear Mrs Kautsky,
(You will, I hope, permit me to use this simple form of address, for why should two people like ourselves continue to stand on ceremo-ny?) First of all, very many thanks for your kind references to myself. [480] I was very sorry not to have been able to spend more time with you while you were here; it gave me infinite pleasure, I do assure you, to meet for once a German authoress who had also remained a simple woman — in this respect it has been my misfortune to meet only affected, 'eddicated'(1) Berlin ladies of the kind one would not urge to take up the kitchen spoon again, if only because they would eventually wreak more havoc with it than with the pen. So I hope that it won't be too long before you cross the Narrow Seas again, when you and I shall be able to ramble gently round London and its purlieus, exchanging light-hearted banter lest our conversation should become altogether too serious.
That London didn't please you, I can readily believe. Some years ago I used to feel much the same. It is difficult to accustom oneself to the gloomy atmosphere and, for the most part, gloomy people, to the reserve, the class distinctions in social life, to living shut up indoors as the climate demands. One has to temper somewhat the animal spirits imported from the Continent and let the barometer of joie de vivre fall from, say, 760 to 750 millimetres, until one finally becomes acclima-tised. Then one gradually reconciles oneself to the whole thing, dis-covering that the place has its good points, that people are on the whole more straightforward and reliable than elsewhere, that no city is better suited to the writing of learned works than London, and that the absence of harassment by the police makes up for a great deal. I know and love Paris but, given the choice, I would rather settle perma-nently in London than there. Paris can only be enjoyed properly if you become a Parisian yourself, with all the prejudices of a Parisian, if you confine your interests primarily to things Parisian and accustom yourself to believing that Paris is the centre of the world, the be-all and end-all. London is uglier yet more grandiose than Paris, and is the true centre of world trade; it also offers a far greater variety. But London also permits one to maintain a completely neutral attitude towards one's surroundings as a whole, as is essential to scientific and, indeed, artistic impartiality. One adores Paris and Vienna, detests Berlin, but towards London one's feelings are those of neutral indifference and objectivity. And that also counts for something.
Apropos Berlin. I am glad to hear that that wretched place is at last succeeding in becoming a metropolis. But as Rahel Varnhagen said as much as 70 years ago: In Berlin everything becomes shabby, so that Berlin would seem to be trying to show the rest of the world just how shabby a metropolis can be. Only poison all eddicated Berliners, conjure up at least tolerable surroundings there, and rebuild the whole place from the foundations up, and something decent might be made of it. But not, I think, so long as that dialect continues to be spoken there.
I have now also read Die Alten und die Neuen* for which many thanks. The descriptions of the life of the salt miners are as masterly as were those of the peasants in Stefan. b Again, your descriptions of life in Viennese society are also very good on the whole. Vienna is, after all, the only German city that has a society, whereas Berlin has only 'certain circles' and even more uncertain ones, which is why it is productive only of novels about literati, civil servants and actors. Whether the action in this part of your book does not move rather too rapidly in places you are better able to judge than I; much that appears to do so to the likes of us, may seem perfectly natural to you in Vienna because ofthat city's peculiarly international character with its admixture of southern and east European elements. In both spheres, too, I find your customary clear-cut individualisation; each character is a type but at the same time a definite individual, a 'This One' as old Hegel puts it, and that is how it ought to be. But now, if only for the sake of impartiality, I really must find something to criticise, and this brings me to Arnold. The latter is indeed altogether too well-behaved and, when he is finally killed in a landslide, one can only reconcile it with poetic justice by telling oneself, for instance, that he was too good for this world. It is always a bad thing, however, for an author to dote on his own hero, and you would seem to me to have erred somewhat in this direction. With Eisa, individualisation is still in evidence, if not altogether devoid of idealisation, but with Arnold the man tends rather to be absorbed into the principle.
The source of this failing, however, may be discovered in the novel itself. In this book you obviously felt impelled to take sides openly, to testify to your convictions before the whole world. Now that you have done so, it is something you can put behind you and have no need to repeat again in the same form. I am not at all opposed to tendentious poetry as such. The father of tragedy, Aeschylus, and the father of comedy, Aristophanes, were both strongly tendentious poets, as were Dante and Cervantes, and the best thing about Schiller's Kabale und Liebe is that it was the first politically tendentious drama in Germany. The Russians and Norwegians of today, who are producing first-rate novels, are all tendentious writers. But I believe that the tendency should spring from the situation and action as such, without its being expressly alluded to, nor is there any need for the writer to present the reader with the future historical solution to the social conflicts he de-scribes. Furthermore, in present circumstances, the novel is mainly directed at readers in bourgeois — i.e. not our own immediate — circles and, such being the case, it is my belief that the novel of socialist tendency wholly fulfils its mission if, by providing a faithful account of actual conditions, it destroys the prevailing conventional illusions on the subject, shakes the optimism of the bourgeois world and inexorably calls in question the permanent validity of things as they are, even though it may not proffer a solution or, indeed, in certain circumstances, appear to take sides. Your detailed knowledge and your wonderfully true-to-life descriptions, both of the Austrian peasantry and of Viennese 'society', provide ample material for this, and you have already shown in Stefan that you are also capable of handling your protagonists with a nice irony which testifies to the command an author has over his creatures.
But now I must desist, otherwise you'll think me altogether too pro-lix. Over here everything goes on much as usual; Karl and his wife a are learning physiology at Aveling's evening classes and are also busily engaged in other respects; I, too, am up to my eyes in work; Lenchen, Pumps and her husbandb are going to the theatre tonight to see a melodrama and meanwhile old Europe is beginning to bestir herself again, and high time too. I only hope I shall have time to complete the third volume of Capital and then the fun can begin.
Assuring you of my cordial feelings and sincere regard, I remain, Madam,
Yours,
F. Engels
211. Engels to Paul Lavigne. 1 December[4 8 1]
Citizen,
When I received your letter of 8 August,[466] together with your manuscript, I was on the point of leaving for Jersey, whence I did not return until 14 September. [42] ' Since then I have had so much urgent work to deal with that I was unable to revert to the French translation of the 18th Brumaire. Now, having at last had time to come back to it, I find myself placed between two rival mss. [482]
To begin with, it is impossible for me to set myself up as judge in a dispute when I am unable to make a careful investigation either of its causes or of its substance. All I know is that Fortin had been in correspondence with Marx for a number of years prior to the death of the latter, [4 8 3] that he asked me to revise his translation, that I promised him I would do so and that I have already attended to the revision of part of his ms. Accordingly I feel I am committed to him. Such being the position, I do not consider that I have the right to use your work in any way. I shall take good care not to read a single page, for were it to prove better than Fortin's, I should be unable to prevent myself from introducing some of your turns of speech into his ms. And that would be unfair to you and also, perhaps, to Fortin, since the two of you no longer get on with one another. Much to my regret, the need for me to be impartial prevents my familiarising myself with your work.
I am holding the ms. at your disposal. The translation of the 2nd volume of Capital is an extremely difficult business. Moreover it will be absolutely impossible for me to undertake any revision at all next year. And then there are still many other things to consider. At the moment I cannot commit myself to anyone; that must lie in the future.
Yours sincerely
212. Engels to Wilhelm Liebknecht. / December[4 8 4]
Dear Liebknecht,
As regards Russia's finances,[485] see Kolb's Statistik, 1875 ed.,(1)
p. 499 et seq. The last loan shown therein is that of November 1873 for 15 million pounds. After that a further loan of 15 million pounds was raised with great difficulty in 1875, but the Russians were also advised by the bankers that this would be the last time, failing a guarantee by a representative assembly. For after provisional arrangements had been made in 1869 in respect of the funds appropriated for railway purposes, there were further borrowings:
1870 — 12 million pounds 1871 — 12 " 1872 — 15 " 1873 — 15 " 1875 — 15 "
i. e between 1870 and 1875, six years, 69 million pounds = 1,380 million marks. They now had to think up some new dodges. Hence, 1 ) an internal loan. Though this was in fact a forced loan, it proved an almost complete flop. For there was little capital available in the country and the government was therefore compelled to lend its own money (paper money) to itself so as to give the impression that the loan had nevertheless been over-subscribed. 2) The Transcaucasian Railway Loan of £8,904,200. This was raised (1880 or 1881?) abroad on the security of the Poti to Baku line, but most of it had to be expended on the construction of the line itself; hence the financial straits persisted. Throughout this time repeated approaches were made to the bankers, all of them in vain. Finally the Minister for Finance(2) set off for the West in person — Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam; London was omitted from the itinerary as being quite hopeless. Everywhere he met with a rebuff; even Mendelssohn, the court banker in Berlin, is said to have asked for a parliamentary guarantee point-blank; in any case he, too, turned him away. The only remaining question was whether the Russian Duma ought to be convoked a year sooner or a year later; there was no other way out. Giers then visited Friedrichsruh and abased himself, whereupon Bismarck got hold of 15 million pounds for him in Germany, thereby postponing the evil day a little longer. [182]
(One of the conclusions we may draw from the above is that Russia won't be able to start a war without Bismarck's permission, for it can only raise money under his protection and the 15 million have long since been frittered away. So if it starts a war after all, or seriously threatens to do so, Bismarck will be directly responsible.)
I don't read The Economist, nor do I know where a run of them is to be found, for the many clubs have been the ruin of nearly all the reading-rooms here. I shall ask Kautsky to try and see if he can lay his hands on the Economist, Statist, Bullionist and Money Market Review and make extracts for you.
Although your letter of 26 November was posted between 11 and 12 in the morning, it didn't reach me until the morning of 28 November; moreover the gum had been tampered with, as you will see from the envelope which I return herewith. It ought to have arrived here on the evening of 27 November. A bible is surely placed on the altar for the sole purpose of being opened. [4] [5] [5]
Your speech at the first budget reading was sent to me by Bebel from Dresden. It was very good; I'm only surprised that you had so few interruptions. After all, you did elicit the obligatory call to order. [486]
Your
F.E.
The seal on this letter is a count's coronet and the monogram JC intertwined.
The elections here are going very nicely. [487] For the first time the Irish in England have voted en masse for one side, to wit the Tories. In doing so they have shown the Liberals to what extent they can tip the scales, even in England. The 80 or 85 HOME RULERS over here — one of them has actually been elected in Liverpool! — correspond to the Centre [229] in the Reichstag and are capable of rendering any government powerless. Parnell must now show what he is worth.
Incidentally, the new 'Manchesterism' is also proving victorious, in other words the theory of retaliatory tariffs, which is, of course, even more senseless in this country than in Germany, but has been taken up by the new generation of manufacturers after eight years of rotten trade. [488] Next there is Gladstone's opportunist weakness and then, too, Chamberlain's inept manner, first aggressive, then ingratiating, which evoked the cry THE CHURCH IN DANGER! [4 8 9] Lastly Gladstone's de-plorable foreign policy. The Liberals would have us believe that the new COUNTY VOTERS will vote liberal. These are of course an unknown quantity but, if the Liberals are to obtain an absolute majority, they will have to win more than 180 of the 300 seats still to be decided and there's no likelihood ofthat. Parnell will almost certainly become dic-tator of Great Britain and Ireland.
213. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 2 December[4 9 0]
Dear Kautsky,
Ad vocem* Adler:
1) Re the pistol business, don't forget to point out that the NCOs were wearing their sabres. They complained of an affront to the NCO caste. [4 9 1]
2) Hess. It is not of course possible to confirm — for I never saw him again after May 1848, when he disappeared for good — whether or not he spent a few days in Baden or the Palatinate. But he didn't 'take part'; he was neither orator, nor journalist, nor official, nor soldier, so it's inconceivable that some government or other — Adler certainly ought to have said which one — should have condemned him to death. [4 9 2]
Ad vocem Liebknecht. Before you post the letter, give me a chance to enclose a word or two of explanation; there was something I forgot to tell him yesterday.b
Your
F.E.
214. Engels to Johann Philipp Becker. 5 December[4 8 4]
Dear Old Man,
As it's so long since I heard from you, I am reminding you of my existence by advising you of the despatch of a £5 money order which I hope will arrive at the same time as this letter and perhaps help to lighten the transition from the old year to the new. I trust you are still in the best of health and that you will send me a line or two before long acknowledging receipt.
I have been slogging away hard of late, as no doubt you will learn from the Zurich booksellers' publishing side, and in particular have seized the opportunity of reviving various pieces from the golden days of our youth in 1848-49. [4 9 3] This is damned important, for the younger generation, which has forgotten all about it, if indeed it ever knew, is beginning to want to find out what went on at that time and, in view of the many inaccurate sources and accounts, it's important to provide them with as much accurate information as possible. What is absolutely vital is that you should finish your memoirs; years ago the Neue
Welt published some really charming pieces.(1) You're a wonderfully skilful narrator and on top ofthat your memory goes back at least 10 or 15 years further than mine and embraces the period 1830-40, which is also very important where later developments are concerned. Some money might also be made out of it, and that's not to be sneezed at.
I still have to revise the Peasant War[2] ' [3] which is badly in need of it and shall then go on to Volume III of Capital, this having now been dictated in the rough from the original draft and set down in a legible hand. It will be the devil of a task, but a splendid one. Unfortunately a mass of translations into French, English, Italian and Danish keep intervening, which I have to go over — all too necessary in most cases. [4 9 4] Fortunately my knowledge of Russian, let alone Polish, doesn't extend to this sort of job, otherwise it would never end. But from that you will see how extensive is the international field our communism has now conquered and it is always a pleasure when one can do one's bit towards extending that field still further.
I hope the wretched business in the Balkans[445] will pass off peacefully. We are making such splendid progress everywhere that a world war would be inopportune just now — too late or too early. But ultimately it would also work in our favour by putting an end to milita-rism once and for all — at the cost of the massacre of l'/s million men and the squandering of 1,000 billion francs. After that there could be no more war.
The elections in France have provided the Radicals with the immediate prospect of coming to power and have thus been of considerable help to us, too. [447] The elections over here have temporarily made the Irish masters of England and Scotland; without them neither party can govern.[487] There are still about 100 results to come in, but they'll make little difference to the outcome. Thus the Irish question will at last be settled — if not at once, at any rate in the immediate future and then the decks will be cleared over here as well. Some 8 or 10 working men have likewise been elected — some of them bought by the bourgeoisie, others trade unionists pure and simple — who will doubtless make thorough fools of themselves and be of enormous assistance in the creation of an independent labour party by banishing the inherited self-deceit of the workers. History moves slowly over here, but move it does.
Warm regards.
Your old friend
F. Engels
215. Engels to Wilhelm Liebknecht. 5 December[4 8 5]
Dear Liebknecht,
Herewith excerpts from the Economist and Bullionist.(1)
The amounts shown in my letter of the 1st inst. are those of the Russian loans quoted on the London STOCK EXCHANGE. The 1884 (Bismarck) loan ' [8] [2] is not dealt in over here at all and is excluded from the list of securities negotiable on the STOCK EXCHANGE. Likewise the smaller hand-to-mouth loans which have been raised off and on since 1878; most of these were taken up internally and are quoted on the Berlin stock exchange. I have found the following in the latter's list of prices:
Orient Loan 5% I, II and III
Loan 1880 4%
Bonds 1883 6%
as well as other stuff about which I'm not clear. You'll have to get more information on the subject from someone on the Berlin stock exchange. Several also appear in the enclosed excerpts, but only with the net amount the government claims to have received. The Russian paper rouble, which ought to be worth 39d. at par, is now standing at 23d., i.e. 16d. or 4 1 % below the full value in g°ld-
If the Russian government is still managing to place its paper at home, this is simply because the colossal slowdown in trade makes it more advantageous for Russian manufacturers to invest their surplus cash in paper yielding 6-7% rather than in such currently ruinous activities as extensions to factories or speculative trading. The interest coupons are circulating as currency, especially for the payment of wages. Thus coupons, which are not payable until 1891-92, are now passing from hand to hand, and these the Russian worker must accept at face value in payment of his wages, though they can only be disposed of for half this amount (much the same thing happened in Germany not long ago). I have this direct from Russia.
Your
F.E.
216. Engels to Eduard Bernstein. 7 December[4 9 5]
Dear Ede,
Here too we've had a storm in our socialist tea-cup. Kautsky will already have written and told you something about it; 2 Echoes (Liberal) enclosed herewith. Also some other stuff, and a document (letter from Bland, based on the minutes of the Executive of the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION, sent you by Aveling), which will give you the substance. [496]
This time Hyndman has given himself the coup de grâce. He took money from the Tories for socialist candidatures in order to filch votes from the Liberals. He has admitted to taking £340, but since the official expenses of the 3 candidatures amounted to about £600, it must have been something in the region of £1,000, if not more.
Taking money from another party may, in certain circumstances and by way of an exception, be admissible if, 1) the money is given unconditionally and 2) the transaction does not do more harm than good. In this instance the very opposite was the case. 1) The condition was that socialist candidates be put up in districts where they could only be made to look ridiculous — as, indeed, happened: Wil-
Hams, 27 votes out of 4,722, Fielding, 32 out of 6,374; only Burns got 598 votes out of 11,055 in Nottingham. 2) Hyndman, however, knew that to take money from the Tories would spell nothing less than irrep-arable moral ruin for the socialists in the eyes of the one and only class from which they could draw recruits, namely the great, radical working masses. It's almost a replica of the Stoecker alliance against the Party of Progress once proposed in Berlin.[497]
Well, not content with this heroic deed, Hyndman already saw himself as a second Parnell holding the scales between the two parties, though forgetting that, unlike Parnell, he does not command 80 votes in Parliament and 200,000 Irish votes in the elections in England and Scotland.[487] He got the Executive of the Federation to empower him to go to Birmingham with Champion and call on Chamberlain, the leader of the Radicals.[4] ' [5] With Tory money in his pocket, he offered the latter his support if he, Chamberlain, would cede him a seat in Birmingham, assure him of Liberal votes and agree to introduce an Eight Hours' Bill. Not being such a mug as the Tories, Chamberlain showed him the door.
In the meantime the affair, arranged on the qt by the Federation's Executive, became known in the branches and caused a great furore. Of which more in Bland's letter; it was written for publication, but you should not mention the fact that it is based on the minutes. A general meeting is to be called and whether the Federation will survive it seems doubtful; not, at any rate, as a viable organisation.
Herewith Hunter Watts' statement in The Pall Mall Gazette.[498]
It was written with Hyndman's connivance, yet he had to let the expression 'ILL-ADVISED', used of himself, stand. By contrast, Williams' statement in The Echo [496] is nothing less than a slap in the face, its attitude being, and not without reason, one of outright hostility to all socialist MIDDLE-CLASS MEN. SO that's what Mr Hyndman has brought about with his pushfulness. The man is nothing but a caricature of Lassalle, totally indifferent to the nature of the means even when not conducive to the end, provided Hyndman himself gets something out of it; add to that his perpetual craving for instantaneous success, so that he kills the goose that lays the golden egg; and finally, the way he considers himself the centre of the universe, being utterly incapable of seeing the facts in any light other than that which is gratifying to him.
217. Engels to Paul Lafargue. 7 December
And, for good measure, a political adventurer comme il faut.a All Lassalle's bad points magnified, and not a single one of his good ones.
What do things look like in your parliamentary tea-cup?
Your
F.E.
217
ENGELS TO PAUL LAFARGUE [4 9 9]
IN PARIS
London, 7 December 1885
My dear Lafargue,
I shall speak to Tussy about Davitt. She may be able to get you what you want.
In opposition to your Social Studies Group [179] the good Malon and the no less celebrated Elie May have just set up a Republican Social Economy Society with ready-made rules.[500] Let's hope this 'research group' will be confined to Malon who will do his research in May's bosom, and to May who will do his research in Malon's heart. They are petty panjandrums whom you_ would be well advised to ignore completely; that would infuriate them most of all. It's Karl Blind to the life.
Why are you making such a splash in the Socialiste with Williams and the Social Democratic Federation? [501] You ought to know what attitude to take with respect to Hyndman, and this time you have fallen into a fine old trap. In the first place, Hyndman has contrived to make his party a laughing-stock second to none. Williams collected 27 votes out of 10,000, Fielding in North Kensington 32 out of 10,000,
proper Burns in Nottingham 598 out of 11,000.(1) Whereupon the liberal press kicked up an almighty fuss, alleging that the money needed for these foolish candidatures had been provided by the TORIES, and that the socialists had so lowered themselves as to do that party's dirty work for it. Williams then wrote to The Echo on 5 December[496] saying that all this had been arranged while he was in Liverpool, that they had recalled him by telegram without giving details, that he had been treated by the leaders as a mere tool and that he now saw
* 'that we cannot trust the middle class men of our movement any longer. I am not prepared to be made the tool of middle class men. I call upon my fellow wage-slaves to meet me as soon as possible and to say good-bye to the middle class men and to shut them out from what must be a real working men's organisation', * etc.
— in short he has now adopted a stance directly opposed to Hyndman, Champion, etc.
Now for what has been happening in the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION (by the same post you will be getting a lettter via Aveling from Bland, one of its members). Hyndman was given money by the TORIES to put up candidates against the Liberals — £340 has been admitted. But it must have been in the region of £1,000, since the official expenses of the 3 candidates amounted to more than £600.— With the exception of Burrows, the Executive Committee sanctioned Hyndman's action. However opposition arose within the main body of the federation. But before this could make itself felt, Hyndman, already seeing himself in the role of political arbitrator à la Parnell, left with Champion for Liverpool to offer his services to — Chamberlain, the Radical leader[415]! The proposal they made the latter was that they would support the Liberals if Chamberlain was prepared to withdraw a Liberal candidate in Birmingham in favour of Hyndman and thus secure him the Liberal vote. Chamberlain showed them the door.
Opposition within the federation is increasing. At the last Committee meeting, at which many other members of the federation were present, the correspondence relating to the Tory money was read out, despite opposition from Hyndman who wished to suppress it. Great rumpus. Why had the sections not been consulted on so vital a matter? In short there is to be a general meeting and we shall have to see whether the federation survives it.
Obviously one may accept money from another party if that money is given unconditionally and if it does not do more harm than good. But Hyndman has acted like an idiot. In the first place he ought to have known that his candidatures couldn't help but manifest the ridiculous weakness of socialism in England. Again, he ought to have known that, by accepting money from the TORIES, he has damned himself once and for all in the eyes of the radical working men who form the vast majority and to whom alone socialism can look for support. In short, if one does such things, one advertises them, one boasts about them, but one doesn't make a secret of them. Hyndman, however, is a caricature of Lassalle; to him all means are good, even if not conducive to an end. He is in such a hurry to play the political panjandrum that he has no time to consider his real position. He combines all the bad qualities of your English PROFESSIONAL POLITICIAN— your ADVENTURER — with a quality common enough in France but rare over here, of seeing facts not as they are but as he would like them to be.
All this has come so soon after his infamous behaviour towards Aveling[502] that he has not yet been forgiven — even within his own party — and he is bound to have a pretty hard time of it if he is to survive the affair. In any case, if the Social Democratic Federation continues, it will no longer have any substance.
A kiss for Laura.
Yours ever,
F.E.
218. Engels to Hermann Schlüter. 7 December
Dear Mr Schlüter,
My best thanks for the 2 copies of Diihring. [208] If I can have 20 copies all told, that will do for the time being. Please also send me 4 copies of the Peasant War, 3rd edition. I haven't a single copy left and so cannot get to work on the new edition. [213]
I have no connections whatever with Eccarius and neither can nor wish to renew them. I shall see if the address is obtainable through Lessner. But I would at most advise you simply to reprint without alterations, etc.— for, having gone completely to the dogs, Eccarius is in fact unlikely to make any; moreover, in view of his bad conscience, any such addenda would most likely be used by him to introduce ex-tenuating circumstances for the many ill-deeds he has perpetrated since 1873, and thus materially impair the book which was written with much prompting by and help from Marx (towards the end, entire pages were literally written by Marx), if not render it completely useless for our propaganda. I would even advise you to insist on printing it as it stands.[503]
You will have had the bill for the photographs.a
In my Dühring I continue to suffer at the printer's hands even in the list of misprints where I find hopeless 'error' [Verirrung] for 'confusion' [Verwirrung].
Kind regards.
Yours,
F.E.
" of Marx (see this volume, p. 309)
19 1885
219. Engels to Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis. 19 December . . .
Dear Comrade,
I have despatched per PARCELS CONTINENTAL EXPRESS a package addressed to you containing the three Parliamentary Reports for which you asked. As you will see from the enclosed intimation, the first HOUSE OF LORDS report on prostitution is no longer to be had.
You are perfectly right in refraining from any kind of violent rebellion over there. This would only entail unnecessary sacrifice and set the movement back by decades. Next year it will be a hundred years since the Prussians first plundered Holland,[504] and nothing would please Bismarck more than to celebrate the centenary by a repetition ofthat 'epic deed'. The thirst for annexation, as yet no more than a harmless and impotent desire, might in that case assume more tangible form.
I shall send you by post the second edition of my Anti-Diihring which has just come out. [208]
Always at you service in the common cause, I remain
Yours very sincerely,
F.E.
220. Engels to Pasquale Martignetti. 21 December
Dear Citizen,
I should be very pleased if you would undertake the translation of Marx's work Wage Labour and Capital. The information in the Socialiste [5] ° [5] will barely suffice for the biography and I have therefore asked our friends in Zurich to send you a copy of the Brunswick Kalender, a which contains a more complete biography written by myself.b
Yours truly,
F. Engels
I shall of course be happy to carry out the revision, should you so desire.
221. Engels to Hermann Schlüter. 21 December
Dear M r Schlüter,
20 Dührings (in all) and 4 of the Peasant War received with thanks. c
Kindly tell Mrs Wischnewetzky that, as agreed, I shall be prepared to go over the ms. of her translation [34 9] and write the preface d as soon
a See this volume, p. 374. - b F. Engels, 'Karl Marx', Volks-Kalender, Brunswick, 1878. - c See this volume, p. 371. - d F. Engels, 'The Labor Movement in America. Preface to the American Edition of The Condition of the Working Class in England.
Published in English for the first time as she has made a firm arrangement with a publisher. I'm so snowed under with work that it's downright impossible to take on anything else unless it's urgently required.
I shan't be able to turn my mind to a new German edition[3] until I have shed considerable part of my present load of work. In January I have to revise the English translation of Capital, negotiate with the publishers, etc. After that there's the Peasant War [2] ' [3] and numerous other incidental jobs. Then comes the very urgent matter of the Capital, Volume III. Once I've cleared the decks to that extent, I'll be able to turn my mind to the old book."
I cannot recall the pamphlet mentioned by Bucher. [506] Peel died in 1850. Marx's PAMPHLETS a appeared in 1855. Nor is it likely that Palmerston would have given some writer or other 100 guineas and a cask of sherry to provide proof that Palmerston was a Russian agent. It is possible that Tucker, when alluding to the earlier piece, suggested the same title for one of Marx's PAMPHLETS; that would explain everything. Nor were there any woodcuts in Marx's PAMPHLETS.
Kindest regards.
Yours,
F. Engels
Martignetti wants to translate Wage Labour and Capital' into Italian along with a biography of Marx which he hasn't got, as the few scrappy items in the Socialiste[505] are inadequate. Could you send him Bracke's Volks-Kalender containing my biography of Marxb? I think it's in the 1878 volume, but you'll find it easily enough. The address is
Paolod Martignetti Benevento, Italia.
222. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 22 December
222
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
IN PARIS
London, 22 December 1885
My dear Laura,
Herewith I hand you the cheque Paul wrote about [5 0 7] to which I have added a trifling étrenne* for yourself. The box with the plum-pudding and cake was forwarded last Saturday b but would not leave here before Monday so that you will at best have received it today.
When Jollymeier came from Paris he told me you were sorely in want of dictionaries for your translating work. Among Mohr's books the only one that could have suited you was Mozin's French and German, but it was so dilapidated that it will be no use to any one for regular work; Tussy took it at the time. English and German there were none. So I tried to find out what were the best and ordered Williams and Norgate to have them delivered to you, bound. They are
Flügel's English-German and German-English Mozin-Peschier French-German and German-French. They will be delivered I expect before Christmas. Now as I had no opportunity to look at them, I want you to examine and report upon them. Flügel is the best to be had, though it might be better; so if it is both English-German and German-English, it will be all right. But about the Mozin-Peschier I am not so sure that it is not an abbrevia-tion of what I intended to send you, namely: Dictionnaire complet des langues française et allemande, 2 volumes French-German and 2 volumes German-French. If it should not be the latter work, please let me know and I will have it exchanged, as not being sent to order.
On Saturday night Jollymeier arrived here, his holidays last till 12th January; and this morning who should jump in but the inevitable Meyer, fresh from Winnipeg where his first crop of wheat was frozen to death last August. He left again and will be in Paris tomorrow morning — but, he says, ich sehe die Lafargue's nicht—warum nicht?—Weil Lafargue einen nie besucht" — which he seems to have taken very much to heart, and which I told him was rather foolish for him to do. I merely state this to you as it was said, so that you may console you in case the illustrious stranger does not call upon you.
I will try and get a copy of Justice for Paul, [5 0 8] it is not so easy just now, as Tussy and Edward are at Kingston on Thames for a few days and will not be back before Friday. Johnny a is with us in the meantime, he has picked up his English again rather quickly, especially since he goes to school. He is a very good boy and reads an awful deal of, to him, unintelligible books.
I hope Paul is all right again, sound at the core and solid at the base, plus solide que le Pont JVeufh which seems also subject to pim-ples and boils.[509] By the bye, his last letter does not say a word about the final solution of the Labruyère-Séverine-Lissagaray affair, the last was the assertion of Labruyère that Lissagaray a mentis Has it all ended in smoke, as most scandals are apt to do now-a-days?
There is no doubt Hyndman has done for himself this time. If he manages to keep together a show of the Social Democratic Federation, [300] it will be only a shadow. The provincial branches are sure to fall off and here in London his own people have remembered how at the time of the Morris-Aveling separation,d he packed the general meeting by showing in a lot of new members, created for the occasion. They have therefore resolved that only those are to vote who were members at the time of the general election and of his exploits.[496]
Nim, Pumps and Jollymeier are gone to the West End, Christmas shopping as they pretend, but in reality for a dinner at the Vienna Beer Hall. As I am still a little under restraint, I have stopped at home and use the time to write to you. But now the dinner bell rings — for me and Johnny — and so good-bye. Health and spirits and a sound foundation for Paul!
Yours affectionately,
F. Engels
223. Engels to Wilhelm Liebknecht. 28 December
[IN BORSDORF NEAR LEIPZIG[34]]
London, 28 December 1885
Dear Liebknecht,
Borkheim died in Hastings on Wednesday, 16 December, and was buried on the following Monday. An attack of pneumonia on the previous Sunday swiftly brought about his end. He had had tuberculosis for 12 years and during the final ten years, after the whole of his left side had become paralysed, he never left his bed save for a few brief intervals each day. He bore his sufferings with exceptional resilience and indomitable cheerfulness, always kept up with the political and social movement, and was a subscriber to the Sozialdemokrat until the very end. Up till a year ago he received a pension, first from two, then from one, of the houses for whom he had previously worked as sales-man and/or buyer. Last year we collected amongst his friends here a subscription big enough to ensure that he had what he needed. You might perhaps put a short obituary in the Sozialdemokrat[5] ' ° ; I prefer not to thrust myself to the fore on an occasion like this. There is no objection to your doing it and, besides, you are better acquainted with his activities in Baden.
As regards Russia's finances,[485] herewith a further word on the latest critical turn the affair has taken:
A fortnight ago the Russian government obtained through Bleichröder and the Russian Bank a further loan, but only of 20 million roubles, which was, according to reports, heavily over-subscribed in Berlin. Depending on whether this is taken to mean roubles in specie or in paper, and that's something you can ascertain over there, it rep-resents roughly either 60 million marks or else a mere 40 million. The loan was intended to secure the advances made by the Russian Bank to the government. As usual, the same old hollow excuse. How hollow became evident a few days later! About a week ago it was reported in the English papers that the Russian government had ordered the Russian Bank to sell the Russian aristocracy's (doubtless the Credit Bank's) mortgage bonds for 100 million roubles. The German press, enlarging on this, stated that in return the Bank was to advance the government 75 million of the proceeds. Thus the government is paying the Bank at best 20 million roubles in gold and is borrowing in return 75 million roubles extra. But since the realisation of 100 million mortgage notes is a highly tedious operation, especially in Russia, this means, in other words, that 75 millions in new paper money are to be created and loaned to the government. Before the holidays the rouble was standing at 23'jgd. (instead of 39d.) over here and is bound to go even lower — as it will also do internally; in their present financial predicament the device they have to use to give some support to their ruined currency (the 20 millions in gold, when the Bank gets it) serves only to bedevil their paper currency even further. 1789 is on its way — even without the Nihilists[356] — expedited by the government itself.
One may further conclude from the above that Bismarck is holding his Russians on a short rein and will not authorise the release of German funds other than on a hand-to-mouth basis lest the Russians should get too uppish and do the dirty on him in the Balkans.[445]
I can only suggest the main points for you to work on, but you will have little difficulty in finding out further details in Berlin.
This Christmas we — the Avelings, the Kautskys, Pumps and her husband,(1) Schorlemmer, Lenchen and I — sat up drinking to our hearts' content and making merry until four in the morning.
A Happy New Year to you.
Your
F.E.
Schorlemmer sends his best wishes.
224. Engels to Johann Philipp Becker. 28 December
Dear Old Man,
This is to notify you that our friend Borkheim died of pneu-monia at Hastings on the 16th of this month after a three days' illness. He had had tuberculosis for twelve years and for the last ten years the whole of his left side had been paralysed. According to the doctor he had enough ailments to kill three other men. All this he bore with indomitable cheerfulness and, so far as he was able, kept up with the movement to the end. I have asked Liebknecht to publish a short obituary in the Sozialdemokrat.[5] ' °
At the beginning of this month I sent you a money order which I trust you have received.
For the rest — as the post is about to go and I get little time for writing in what is for me a period of turbulence — I wish you a Happy New Year and continuing good health; our movement is in no particular need of good wishes, since it is forging ahead everywhere— at a pace which varies according to place and people—, but everywhere splendidly, while the dirty business in the Balkans [4 4 5] actually seems to be petering out without a world war.
With my very kindest regards,
Your old friend
F. Engels
Published in English for the first time 1886
225
Endnotes
[348] The reference is to the rapprochement between the leadership of the Social Democratic Federation and the French Possibilists (see notes 300 and 237). On 27 December 1884 the newspaper Justice, No. 50 published a letter from Adolphe Smith under the heading 'France and the International Congress'. The author considered it essential that the Social Democratic Federation, having proposed the convocation of an international socialist congress, should recognise the Possibilists as the main organisation of the French socialists and not maintain relations with the French Workers' Party.— 247
[350] Engels is referring to the review of the pamphlet G. Groß, Karl Marx, Leipzig, 1885 being prepared by Karl Kautsky. The review was published in Die Neue ^eit, No. 6, 1885.—250
[351] On 9 January 1885 Kautsky wrote to Engels to say that the German Social Democrat Louis Viereck had offered him a temporary or permanent post with one of the newspapers he published.— 250
[52] This letter by Engels is his reply to the Italian economist Achille Loria whose article 'Karl Marx' had been carried by the journal Nuova antologia di scienze, lettere ed arti, ser. 2, Vol. 38, fas. 7, Rome, 1883, pp. 509-42. Engels' letter was published in German by Der Sozialdemokrat, No. 21,17 May 1883 in the article 'On the Death of Karl Marx' (see present edition, Vol. 24). For a critique of Loria's article, see also Engels' Preface to Volume III oîCapital (present edition, Vol. 37).— 24
[53] Engels is referring to Loria's quotation in his article 'Karl Marx' of the expression Alphonse de Lamartine used with regard to Proudhon in his work Histoire de la revolution de 1848, Brussels, 1849, Vol. 1, Book VII, Ch. 5 . - 2 4
[357] (People's Will).—256, 275, 279, 338, 378, 484, 486, 505, 513, 520, 525 3 5' On 13 (1) January 1885 Russia and Prussia exchanged notes on the extradition of persons accused of criminal offences against the monarchs of the contracting parties or members of their families, as well as of persons found guilty of manufacturing or storing explosives. This was the subject of a report in The Times, 24 January 1885 (No. 31352) entitled 'Extradition by Russia and Prussia. Berlin, Jan. 23'.—
[358] The series of explosions which Engels is writing about took place on Saturday, 24 January 1885. The investigation showed that the man responsible for the explosion in the Tower was the same one who had organised the explosion on the under-ground railway two years previously, when bombs had been placed at Charing Cross and Praed Street stations. He was sentenced to 14 years' imprisonment and hard labour. See also Note 251.— 256
[359] The reference is to Engels' preface to the first edition of his work The Condition of the Working-Class in England (see present edition, Vol. 4, pp. 302-04) and his dedication of this book 'to the Working-Classes of Great-Britain' (ibid., pp. 297-301). The preface and dedication were not included in the edition of this work which appeared in the United States (see Note 349).— 257, 420
[36] On 17 March 1883, August Bebel informed Engels that at the forthcoming congress of the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany in Copenhagen (see Note 15) he intended to put up for discussion the question of the party erecting a monument to Marx. It seems that the stance taken by Marx's family, about which Engels informed Bebel in this letter, long remained an obstacle to the erection of a monument in Highgate Cemetery where Marx was buried. In 1954 the Marx grave was moved to a better place in the cemetery. Lawrence Bradshaw was commissioned by the Communist Party of Great Britain to sculpt a bronze head of Marx, and the monument which incorporated it was unveiled in 1956 by Harry Pollit, then General Secretary of the British Communist Party.— 17
[364] Pyotr Lavrov enquired as to whether the information about Marx contained in Groß' pamphlet was correct (see Note 350) and whether Engels had made any additions or changes to the 1885 German edition of Marx's The Poverty of Philosophy.— 261
[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,
[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
[366] To Engels' enquiry about the rumours regarding the prohibition in Germany of his work The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (see this volume, p. 252), Hermann Schlüter replied that, according to his information, the work had not been officially banned, but there had been a case of a large number of copies being confiscated in Leipzig. Although they had all been returned, booksellers refused to stock the book any longer and from that time it was being distributed directly from Zurich on advance order only.— 263
[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
[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
[367] In a letter published in Der Sozialdemokrat, No. 9, 26 February 1885, Karl Varenholz, a member of the Social Democratic Federation, came out in defence of Henry Hyndman's policy and attempted to disprove the reasons for the split in the Social Democratic Federation reported by the same newspaper, No. 3, 15 January 1885; the report reflected Engels' views (see this volume, pp. 236-38). Bernstein's letter to Engels of 15 January gives reason to believe that the report was written by Eleanor Marx-Aveling. Edward Aveling's reply to Varenholz was carried by Der Sozialdemokrat, No. 13, 26 March 1885. Aveling exposed Hyndman's activities in trying to take over the presidency of the Federation, his intrigues against Andreas Scheu and other members of the Federation and the authoritarian practices employed by the editors of Justice, which carried material for the most part reflecting the position of Hyndman and his supporters.— 265
[368] The reference is to Maitland Park Crescent, which led into Maitland Park Road. In the 1870s, this street, together with Modena Villas, Maitland Park Villas and Maitland Park Road was given the single name Maitland Park Road (see also Note 159). Eleanor Marx-Aveling lived at 67, Maitland Park Road.— 265
[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,
[369] Jenny and Karl Marx were buried at Highgate Cemetery in London (see also Note 36). 14 March 1885 was the second anniversary of Marx's death.— 265
[371] On 21 March 1885 Richard Stegemann asked Engels to let him know where he could obtain personal information about Marx for inclusion in a work he was preparing for the press about the latter's economic doctrine. Stegemann requested Engels, in the absence of printed sources for a biography of Marx, to send him his own thoughts about Marx as a man.— 266
[373] Following the elections in 1884 (see Note 306), the Social-Democratic group in the Reichstag was made up of a right-wing majority led by Wilhelm Bios, Bruno Geiser, Karl Frohme, Wilhelm Hasenclever and others, and a left-wing minority led by August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht.— 268, 300
[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
[376] Engels is referring to Gladstone's Liberal administration which had formed the government in Britain from 1880 (see Note 414).— 270
[379] In his letter to Engels of 27 March 1885 Paul Lafargue asked what the former thought of his hypothesis about the origin of certain legal terms.— 275
[380] With regard to the conflict between the Social-Democratic group in the Reichstag (see Note 49) and the editors of Der Sozialdemokrat (see Note 374) August Bebel sent the parliamentary group a note of protest on 5 April 1885 in which he reserved the right to appeal to the party should the parliamentary group continue to suppress the freedom of opinion. The parliamentary group completed three days of debates on 15 April 1885.—277
[381] Nikolai Danielson provided Engels with some figures about the length of the working day and the wages paid to workers in Russia as well as about the extent to which peasants had joined the ranks of the proletariat. He also was ready to send Engels the following books by Russian economists: H. H. 3n6ep, /Jaeud Putcapdo u KapA Mapuc e ux o6iu,ecmeeHHO-3KOHOMUuecKux uccjiedoeauuHX (2nd edition, St Petersburg, 1885), H.H. RmnyA, <J>a6puuuuü 6um MocKoecKoü eyôepuuu (Moscow, 1882) and n . A. necKOB, Canumapuoe uccnedoeanue (ßaipuK no o6pa6omice soROKHUcmux eewpcme ez.Mocnee (Moscow, 1882).—277
[383] The reference is to the first Russian Marxist organisation, the Emancipation of Labour group (see Note 124).— 279
[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
[384] In his book Hauiu pamozjiacin (Our Differences), Geneva, 1884, Plekhanov repeatedly used the expression 'unstable balance' to describe relations in the Russian village commune.— 280
[385] The reference is to the following passage in Plekhanov's letter to Pyotr Lavrov of 22 July 1884, which appeared in place of a preface in Plekhanov's book Our Differences: 'I think that the Russian revolution has an enormous, invincible potential energy, and that reaction is raising its head only because we are unable to transform that energy from potential into kinetic'—280
[387] This letter is Engels' reply to Richard Stegemann's second request (see Note 371) that he write a short personal description of Marx for a work Stegemann was preparing on the latter's economic doctrine. Stegemann justified his request with a need to reply to the efforts being made by bourgeois authors in various countries to distort Marx's personality.— 282
[388] Tuileries documents is the name Engels gives to the lists of agents in the pay of Napoleon III found in the Tuileries in 1870 and published by the government of the Third Republic in September 1871. Under the letter ' V was the note 'Vogt — in August 1859 has been sent a remittance of 40,000 francs.' This bore out Marx's assumption that Karl Vogt was a Bonapartist agent (see K. Marx, Herr Vogt; present edition, Vol. 17, pp. 190, 212). Engels wrote about this document in the article 'Once Again "Herr Vogt"' published in May 1871 (see present edition, Vol. 22, p. 303).—282
[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
[389] On the conflict between the parliamentary group and the editorial board, see Note 374. The original text of the parliamentary group's decision of 20 March 1885 carried by Der Sozialdemokrat contained a clause saying that the parliamentary group bore 'moral responsibility' for the newspaper's contents. This met with objections on the part of members of the editorial board, including Eduard Bernstein. The parliamentary group had sent Wilhelm Liebknecht to Zurich, the place of publication, to settle the conflict. The text published by Der Sozialdemokrat on 2 April 1885 contained, among other things, the following remark: 'the party organ must under no circumstances become opposed to the parliamentary group, which bears the moral responsibility for the contents of the same', and continued, 'It is not the paper which has to determine the stance of the parliamentary group, but the parliamentary group which has to monitor the stance of the paper.' — 284
[390] The reference is to the statement by the Social-Democratic group in the Reichstag and the editors of the paper carried by Der Sozialdemokrat, No. 17, 23 April 1885, in which it was stated that any attempt to limit criticism in the party would be a violation of party principles and would shake it to the foundations. As for the relations between the parliamentary group and the editorial board, the statement represented a compromise. It pointed out, on the one hand, that Der Sozialdemokrat was the organ of the party as a whole but that, on the other hand, the parliamentary group was the party's representative body and had a right to monitor the work of the editorial board. On the parliamentary group's first statement, see Note 374.-284
[391] The protective tariffs system was introduced by Bismarck in 1879 in the interest of the landowners and large industrialists and remained in force throughout the 1880s (in 1885 and 1887 it was supplemented by further rises in the duties payable on imported agricultural produce). To a certain extent it promoted the growth of German industry, but brought a major deterioration in the situation of the masses. This led to major discontent, not only among the proletariat, but also the middle and petty bourgeoisie.— 285
[392] Th;s letter was first published in English in an abridged form in Science and Society, New York, 1938, Vol. 2, No. 3 . - 2 8 6
[393] In a letter of 13 May 1885 Hermann Schlüter asked Engels to help him select revolutionary poems and songs for inclusion in a collection from a series of poems for workers which he was preparing for the press. Among other things, Schlüter was interested in songs and poems originating from the period of peasant uprisings in the 15th and 16th centuries, the revolution of 1848 in Germany and the time of the English Chartists which had been in general circulation. (The collection appeared in Zurich in 1886 under the title Vorwärts! Eine Sammlung von Gedich-tenfür das arbeitende Volk.) In the same letter Schlüter informed Engels of his intention to publish a number of minor works and articles by Marx, including some documents from the International, within the framework of the Sozialdemokrati-sche Bibliothek series (see also Note 352).— 286
[395] The reference is to a song written in 1844 by Matthäus Friedrich Chemnitz and beginning with the words 'Schleswig-Holstein, meerumschlungen' (Schleswig-Holstein, surrounded by the sea). It was particularly popular in 1848-50, during the struggle for Schleswig-Holstein's liberation from Danish rule. The Heckerlied is a revolutionary song about the Baden-Palatinate uprising of 1848 led, among others, by Friedrich Hecker, a prominent figure among the South German petty bourgeoisie. Engels gave the version of the chorus cited below in his work The Campaign for the German Imperial Constitution (present edition, Vol. 10, p. 149).—287
[396] The Marseillaise—a French, revolutionary song. The words and music were written in Strasbourg in 1792 by Claude Joseph Rouget de Lisle. Its original title was 'Chant du guerre pour l'armée du Rhin' ('War chant for the Rhine army'). Having become widespread in the Republican army, it made its way to Marseilles, thus receiving the name 'Marseilles March' or 'Marseillaise', and later became popular in Paris.— 287
[398] The article by Louis-Edouard Grimaux referred to below ('Les substances colloï-dales et la coagulation', Revue scientific, Vol. XXXV, 1885) contains the following quote from Carl Schorlemmer, 'If chemists ever succeed in artificially obtaining proteins, they will be in the form of living protoplasm.' And later on, 'The enigma of life can only be resolved by protein synthesis.' — 289
[400] An incomplete copy of this letter signed by Engels is to be found at the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam. The copy carries the address of the sender and the date of writing ('London, 19 May 1885, 122, Regent's Park Road, N. W.'), the first paragraph of the draft and the following note by Engels: 'The original of this letter was sent to Nitti in Naples on 26.5.92.' — 291
[401] Engels wrote the note on Mark (see present edition, Vol. 26, p. 236) for Chapter VII ('The Gens Among the Celts and Germans') of the Italian translation of his work The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.— 291
[4 0 3] Paul Lafargue intended to translate Engels' The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State into French, but failed to carry out this plan. The French translation was done by Henri Rave from the fourth German edition edited by Laura Lafargue and looked through by Engels; it appeared in Paris in 1893.— 293, 394
[405] This letter was first published in English in: K. Marx and F. Engels, Letters on 'Capital', New Park Publications, London, 1983.— 294
[406] Between 1869 and 1873 Marx maintained regular correspondence with Nikolai Danielson, who systematically sent him Russian books and articles in journals dealing with the agrarian question in Russia. In his letter of 24 April (6 May) 1885, Danielson enquired of Engels whether the statistics on the Russian economy had been included in the third volume of Capital. The chapter on ground rent to which Engels refers forms part of Section 6 of Volume III of Capital (see present edition, Vol. 37).— 294
[407] A fragment from this letter was first published in English in: K. Marx and F. Engels, Letters to Americans. 1848-1895. A Selection, International Publishers, New York, 1953.—295
[408] Here, Engels uses an expression from the speech made by the Prussian officer Prince Lichnowski in the Frankfurt Assembly on 31 August 1848. Lichnowski used a double negative ('With regard to historical right there does not exist no date'). See also present edition, Vol. 7, p. 369.— 296
[410] This letter has survived in the form of an excerpt (the beginning of the letter and name of the addressee are missing). According to the International Institute of Social History in Amsterdam, where the original is kept, it was written on the letter which A. N. Davisson sent to Engels on 10 June 1885. The note 'Soc. League' on Engels' letter suggests that the addressee was John Lincoln Mahon, the secretary of the said organisation (see Note 346).— 298
[411] 41 ' Frederick Charles, Prince of Prussia and inspector-general of the cavalry, died on 15 June 1885.—300, 302, 304
[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
[413] The Hamburg party organisation, which supported the Social-Democratic group in the Reichstag in its conflict with the editorial board of Der Sozialdemokrat (see Note 374), donated 1,000 francs to the French socialists' election fund.— 303
[414] Engels is referring to the resignation in June 1885 of the Liberal cabinet under Gladstone due to the refusal of the majority in parliament (Conservatives and Irish members) to vote for the government proposal to increase taxes on spirits. The real reasons for the resignation were the failures in colonial policy — the concessions to Russia when it came to dividing up spheres of influence in Central Asia (see Note 378) and the major defeats inflicted on the British forces by rebels in the Sudan— as well as the government's refusal to grant Irish self-administration in the framework of the British Empire.— 303
[41] 4 ' A short quote from this letter was first published in English in: R. H. Dominick III, Wilhelm Liebknecht and the Founding of the German Social Democratic Party, The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1982.—20
[416] The trials of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung and the Rhenish district committee of Democrats took place in Cologne on 7 and 8 February 1849. The accused at the first trial were Karl Marx as editor-in-chief, Frederick Engels as co-editor and Hermann Korff as responsible publisher. Those indicted at the second trial were Marx, Karl Schapper and the lawyer Schneider II. The trials ended with the accused being acquitted. They were reported in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung— the first on 14 February and the second on 19, 25, 27 and 28 February 1849. In October 1885 the report on the trial of the Rhenish district committee of Democrats was published as a separate pamphlet in the Sozialdemokratische Bibliothek series in Hottingen-Zurich. Entitled Karl Marx vor den Kölner Geschwornen. Prozeß gegen den Ausschuß der rheinischen Demokraten wegen Aufrufs zum bewaffneten Widerstand, it included a preface by Engels (see present edition, Vol. 26, p. 304).— 304
[17] Eight of Marx's draft manuscripts for Volume II (Book II, as he originally intended) of Capital have survived. The longest of them, consisting of three lengthy chapters, is Manuscript I. It was completed in the spring of 1865, and Engels subsequently turned it into parts of Volume II. Since he did not regard the said manuscript as the final version of Book II, as he was preparing Volume I of Capital for the press Marx wrote Manuscript III (in which he gave a conspectus of works apparently intended for quotation in Volume II) and Manuscript IV, which Engels later described as 'an elaboration, ready for the press, of Part I and the first chapters of Part II of Book IF (see present edition, Vol. 36, Preface). In 1868-70 Marx wrote a completely new version of the second book, i.e. Manuscript II. The reason why manuscripts III and IV appeared earlier than Manuscript II is that, when he was numbering the drafts of Volume II in the late seventies, Marx started with the two complete versions and followed them with the outlines of individual parts. In the latter half of the 1870s Marx resumed work on Book II, having realised that it was not complete; although he had examined the simple reproduction of capital in great detail in Manuscript II, he had not analysed its extended reproduction. Manuscripts V, VI and VII appeared between April 1877 and July 1878 and were an attempt to turn the text into a suitable form for printing. The final version of the second book of Capital was Manuscript VIII on which Marx seems to have worked between the autumn of 1879 and early 1880. Later it was used in full by Engels when preparing Part III of Volume IL — 8, 14, 18, 26, 33, 43, 53, 58, 88, 154, 160,
[419] In his letter of 24 June 1885 Hermann Schlüter informed Engels that Meissner, whose publishing house had issued Capital, was offering Der Sozialdemokrat publishers in Zurich copies of the second volume of Capital to distribute on terms he considered unfavourable.— 309
[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
[422] The German socialist Gertrud Guillaume-Schack, who was preparing an article on the limitation of female labour, wrote to Engels on 1 July 1885 to ask whether it was true that he and Marx had been involved in drawing up the programme of the French Workers' Party, which contained the demand that equal pay be given for equal work. Following the establishment of the French Workers' Party at a congress in Marseilles in October 1879, the French socialist Jules Guesde began work on the party programme and, through Paul Lafargue, requested Marx and Engels to help draw up a draft election manifesto for the French Workers' Party. The theoretical introduction was formulated by Marx and dictated to Guesde (see K. Marx, 'Preamble to the Programme of the French Workers' Party', present edition, Vol. 24, p. 340). The practical part of the programme (minimum programme, see Vol. 24, Note 384) was compiled by Guesde and Lafargue. The programme was endorsed at the party congress held in Le Havre in 1880. On the Rouen tendency, or the Guesdists, see Note 201.— 311
[4 2 3] The whereabouts of the original of this letter are not known. The draft of the letter was written by Engels on a letter which John Lincoln Mahon had written to him (on paper used by the editorial board of The Commonweal) on 11 July 1885.— 312
[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
[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
[424] Under the heading 'The Parting of the Waters', The Edinburgh Review, No. 331, July 1885, contained a summary of the parliamentary debates for 1884-85. It sharply criticised the policies pursued by the Radical wing of the Liberal Party (see Note 415). The author of the summary called on the Whigs to split with the Radical wing, describing this act as a 'watershed'.— 314
[425] In a letter of 10 July 1885 to the German Workers' Educational Society in London (see Note 162) Wilhelm Liebknecht objected to the Society's proposal that an extraordinary party congress be held due to the conflict between the reformist majority in the Social-Democratic group in the Reichstag and the editorial board of Der Sozialdemokrat. He supposed that the disagreements, including that between the Frankfurt organisation and Karl Frohme (see Note 412), were not of a major nature and could thus quickly be settled with his mediation.— 315
[4 2 6] On 14 July 1885 Wilhelm Liebknecht spoke to a meeting of Social Democrats in Offenbach and criticised the letter by the group of Frankfurt Social Democrats which had been published in Der Sozialdemokrat (see Note 412). His words appeared in the Berliner Volksblatt, 18 July 1885. The dissatisfaction his speech created in the Frankfurt Social-Democratic organisation led to Liebknecht publishing a statement in Der Sozialdemokrat, No. 32, 6 August 1885, claiming that his criticism only related to the tone of the letter and that he rated highly the fight waged against the Anti-Socialist Law by the Social Democrats in Frankfurt.— 315
[427] Engels is evidently referring to Karl Kautsky's book Der Einfluss der Volksvermehrung auf den Fortschritt der Gesellschaft, Vienna, 1880, which he sharply criticised for its Malthusian errors in a letter to Kautsky of 1 February 1881 (see present edition, Vol. 46) and also to a series of articles about marriage in primitive society with the general heading 'Die Entstehung der Ehe und Familie' published in Kosmos, Jg. VI, Stuttgart, 1882-83 (see Engels' letters to Laura Lafargue of 16-17 February and to August Bebel of 7 March 1883; present edition, Vol. 46, and also this volume, p. 56).— 316
[4 2 8] Maybe this refers to Franz Mehring's articles on Rodbertus in Demokratische Blätter, Nos. 19, 20 and 21, 13, 20 and 28 May 1885, or his article 'Der soziale Beruf des Adels' in Volks-Zeitung, Nos. 155 and 156, 7 and 8 July 1885.— 316
[430] Engels is referring to the disagreements within the Liberal Party (see Note 415) and the noticeable rapprochement between its right wing — the Whigs — and the Conservatives. In 1886 this wing, which opposed the granting of Irish self-administration, split off and a Liberal-Unionist bloc headed by Joseph Chamberlain was formed of supporters of the 1801 Union of Ireland with Great Britain; the Liberal-Unionists backed the Conservatives on most issues. They constituted a political expression of a major regrouping among the British ruling classes and signi-fied a shift to the right.— 317, 391
[431] In 1688-89, as a result of the coup d'état which brought William III (of Orange) to power in England, absolutism was abolished as the form of government and replaced by a constitutional monarchy. Parliament became the supreme organ of state power, carrying out the will of the bourgeoisie and the new nobility.— 317
[4 3 2] The envelope has survived and carries in Engels' handwriting 'N. F. Danielson Esq., Moika 27, St. Petersburg, Russia'. The name of the street and of the addressee have been written by an unknown hand in Cyrillic script.— 318
[4 3 3] Engels did not write a special preface for the Russian translation of the second volume of Capital. The Russian edition contained an abbreviated version of his preface to the first German edition of the second volume. The second half of the preface, including the criticism of Rodbertus, was omitted.— 318
[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
[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
[434] Paul Lafargue was planning to visit his mother in Bordeaux.— 320
[4 3 5] In connection with Engels' fears about the planned publication in England of Deville's book Le Capital de Karl Marx. Résumé... (see Note 420), Laura Lafargue wrote to Engels on 7 August 1885 saying that the French publisher Henri Oriol had said he could prevent the book being translated into English.— 320
[237] Possibilists—followers of a reformist trend in the French socialist movement between the 1880s and the beginning of the 20th century. It was led by Paul Louis Marie Brousse and Benoît Malon who caused a split in the French Workers' Party in 1882 by forming their own party called the Workers' Social-Revolutionary Party (see Note 201). Its ideological basis was the theory of municipal socialism. The Possibilists proclaimed the 'policy of possibilities' to be their principle; at the beginning of the 20th century they became part of the French Socialist Party.—141, 320, 425, 442
[437] Engels wrote this letter on a postcard. It carries the following address in his handwriting: 'K. Kautsky Esq., care of Mrs Huggetts' Dew House, Camden Road, Eastbourne.'— 321
[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
[441] Engels is referring to the conflict which emerged between Germany and Spain in August-September 1885 as a result of Germany's attempts to seize the Caroline islands to which Spain laid claim. The German government sent a gunboat to one of the islands, where the German flag was raised. This led to tension in the relations between the two states. Pope Leo XIII, who acted as arbitrator, supported the Spanish claims.— 324
[4 4 3] The reference is to the English socialists' free speech struggles against the police suppression of outdoor meetings. Between July and September 1885 the London police on several occasions arrested socialist speakers at meetings in the East End. One of them, John E. Williams, a member of the Social Democratic Federation, was sentenced to a month's hard labour. This prompted the Social Democratic Federation, the Socialist League, the Labour Emancipation League and the London Radical Clubs (see Note 659) to organise a joint meeting on 20 September in the area of Dod Street, which was attended by several thousand people. The police tried to arrest the speakers, but met with resistance. Several people were detained, but released the next day. This was reported in The Daily News of 21 and 22 September.— 326
[7 5] The reference is to Marx's surviving personal copy of the first volume of the second German edition of Capital (Hamburg, 1872). All the changes and additions which Marx made to the text are given in Marx/Engels Gesammtausgabe (MEGA 2), Abt. II, Bd. 8, Berlin, 1988.— 41, 42
[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
[446] The reference is to the trial of a group of German Social Democrats at the Saxon provincial court in Chemnitz between 28 and 30 September 1885. Auer, Bebel, Dietz, Müller, Ulrich, Viereck, Vollmar, Frohme and Heinzel were charged with belonging to a secret society seeking by illegal means to hinder the implementation of laws and regulations issued by the authorities. The reason for the indictment was their participation in the 1883 congress of the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany in Copenhagen (see Note 15). In the, absence of proof of their guilt, the court acquitted them. The government appealed to the imperial court which passed on the case for re-examination at the provincial court in Freiberg, Saxony (see Note 602).—330
[315] On the back of this letter Engels wrote: 'London 11. Novbr. 1884 Friedrich beantw. 13 Novbr. wie immer' (London 11. Novbr. 1884 Friedrich repl. 13 Novbr. as always).— 218
[448] The views about the elections in France which Engels sets out in this letter were reflected in the leading article in Der Sozialdemokrat, No. 42, 15 October 1885.— 330
[449] The results of the first ballot gave rise to'particular disappointment among the French socialists. This prompted Engels to explain to Paul Lafargue the essence of the situation in France. An excerpt from his letter was printed in Le Socialiste with the title 'The Situation' (see present edition, Vol. 26, pp. 331-32). The whereabouts of the full text of the letter are not known.— 331
[450] Apart from the works mentioned in the text, Engels also included in the new edition of Marx's pamphlet Revelations Concerning the Communist Trial in Cologne a fourth appendix — 'The Communist Trial in Cologne' — to Marx's work Herr Vogt (see present edition, Vol. 17, pp. 305-11 ) and his afterword to the second German edition of the pamphlet (see present edition, Vol. 24, pp. 51-54).— 332
[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
[451] This letter was written on a postcard and carries the following address in Engels' handwriting: 'Monsieur P. Lavroff, 328 rue St. Jacques, Paris, France.'—337
[452] In a letter of 19 October 1885 Pyotr Lavrov asked Engels to let him know what materials he might use for a work he was planning to write on Chartism.— 337
[45] When the question of the merger of the Social-Democratic Workers' Party (Eisenachers) and the Lassallean General Association of German Workers was being discussed in the early 1870s, Marx and Engels considered this step to be premature. They believed that joint political activity 'against the common foe' should precede the establishment of a united party and the elaboration of its programme (see K. Marx, Critique of the Gotha Programme, F. Engels to A. Bebel, 18-28 March 1875, present edition, Vol. 24, p. 78). At the Gotha Unity Congress (22-27 May 1875) the Lassallean Wilhelm Hasenclever was elected a co-chairman of the party Executive Committee, and in June 1875 Wilhelm Hasselmann joined the board of the party-formed by decision of the Congress.— 21
[454] The Social Democrat Salo Faerber from Breslau suggested that Engels write an article on the financial position of Russia in the Volks-Leitung, Berlin, with a view to hindering subscriptions to Russian loan bonds in Germany.— 337
[4 5 5] Here, Engels is alluding to the following statement in the Reichstag by Heinrich von Stephan, head of the postal and telegraph service: 'The secrecy of the mail rests just as firmly on the conscience of the German Empire's postal officials as the Bible does on the altar.'—337, 361
[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
[456] The reference is to the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78 which was caused by a growth in the activities of the national liberation movement in the Balkans and the exacerbation of international conflicts in the Middle East. The war ended in victory for Russia. In 1806, Prussia joined the fourth anti-French coalition, and its army was soon routed by the Napoleonic forces at the battles of Jena and Auerstedt.— 339
[457] The reference is to Wilhelm Liebknecht's reply to Salo Faerber's letter requesting him to shed light on the state of Russian finances in his Reichstag speech during the third reading of the budget. In the letter Liebknecht explained the reasons why he had not made any speech.— 339
[458] At the elections to the Saxon Provincial Diet on 15 September 1885 Liebknecht, who was standing for the rural district around Leipzig, lost at the hands of a candidate jointly nominated by the Conservatives (see Note 230) and the National Liberals (see Note 243). The poll was held in line with the electoral qualifications set out in the law of 1868; the vote extended to persons of 25 and over who had paid at least three marks in direct taxes, whilst to stand as a candidate it was necessary to be not less than 30 years of age, to have paid at least 30 marks in direct taxes and have been a Saxon citizen for a minimum of three years.— 340
[60] The reference is to Marx's and Engels' joint work on the manuscript of The German Ideology and to Engels' work The True Socialists (see present edition, Vol. 5) between 1845 and 1847. Not long before his death Engels dictated to Eduard Bernstein a list of manuscripts from his own and Marx's literary legacy and of other materials stored in his archives. The list contained the following note, '... manuscript of The German Ideology' ('Stirner, 1845/46, Moor and I', 'Feuerbach and Bauer, 1846/47, Moor and I', 'True Socialism, 1847, Moor and I').— 31
[44] The half-and-halfs — representatives of the Right wing of the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany grouped at that time around Wilhelm Bios and Bruno Geiser. The decision of the Copenhagen Congress (see Note 15) of Social-Democratic candidates nominated for the elections to the Reichstag was directed against them. It stated that the candidates should fully endorse the party programme, observe party discipline and help implement party decisions (see Der Sozialdemokrat, No. 17, 19 April 1883).—21
[46] On 2 May 1883, Bebel wrote to Engels that 'Liebknecht, instead of showing the toughness [against Right-wing and the half-and-half members of the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany] he ought, is doing his utmost to blur and hush up the conflicts. He has the half-and-halfs for protection.' On the half-and-halfs, see Note 44.— 21
[462] Engels is referring to the Kulturkampf, a word which has come to describe the measures taken by the Bismarck government in the 1870s against the Catholic Church and the Party of the Centre, which was closely associated with it (see Note 229). Between 1871 and 1875 a number of laws were passed which were designed to weaken the Party of the Centre and the Catholic clergy who supported it. However, the Church refused to submit. In the latter half of the 1870s and the early 1880s, given the growth of the labour movement, Bismarck sought to rally all reactionary forces and steered a course of reconciliation with the Catholic Church, as a result of which most of these laws were repealed.— 343, 434, 511
[4 6 3] The reference is to an attempted coup aimed at restoring the monarchy in France and staged in 1877 by Marshal Mac-Mahon, President of the Third Republic. However, Mac-Mahon failed to gain support not only from large sections of the general public but also from a section of the officers and rank-and-file soldiers, who reflected the republican sentiments among the French peasantry. The parliamentary elections of October 1877 brought victory for the republicans and the formation of a government made up of bourgeois republicans; Mac-Mahon resigned in January 1879.—343, 430
[464] The reference is to the following passage contained in the preface to the 1872 German edition of the Manifesto of the Communist Party: '... in view of the practical experience gained ... in the Paris Commune, where the proletariat for the first time held political power for two whole months, this programme has in some details become antiquated. One thing especially was proved by the Commune, ... that "the working class cannot simply lay hold of the ready-made state machinery, and wield it for its own purposes"' (see present edition, Vol. 23, p. 175).— 344
[4 6 5] Olivia, written by the English playwright W. G. Wills, is an adaptation of Oliver Goldsmith's The Vicar of Wakefield.— 345
[467] This is the number of votes Paul Lafargue received at the election to the French Chamber of Deputies in October 1885 (see Note 447).— 345
[468] Engels is referring to the passage in his work On the History of the Communist League where he deals with the activities of Stephan Born, a member of the League; at this point he also indicates that Born's real surname was Buttermilch (see present edition, Vol. 26, pp. 325-26). Born does not figure among the list of names Georg Adler thanks for their assistance in the preface to the said book by Adler.— 346
[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
[469] The Thirty Years' War (1618-48) — a general European war in which the Pope, the Spanish and Austrian Habsburgs and the Catholic German princes fought against the Protestant countries: Bohemia, Denmark, Sweden, the Republic of the Netherlands, and a number of German states. The Treaty of Westphalia (1648) sealed political dismemberment of Germany.— 348
[470] Nikolai Danielson attached to his letter of 25 August 1885 several excerpts from letters which Marx had written to him on 12 December 1872, 15 and 28 November 1878, 10 April 1879, 12 September 1880 and 19 February and 13 December 1881 (see present edition, Vols. 44, 45 and 46). Danielson believed that these excerpts — which contained a description of the economic, notably the financial and agrarian, crisis in Britain and several other countries, as well as advice on translating the first volume of Capital into Russian— might be of use to Engels in his work on the third volume of'Capital and the preface to the second volume. In his letter of 10 April 1879 Marx also explained why he had not yet completed the second and third volumes of Capital.— 348
[4 7 2] This letter is Engels' reply to Paul Lafargue's request (voiced in his letter of 13 November 1885) for information on his involvement in the May 1849 uprising in Dresden and the Rhine Province. Lafargue intended to include the information in a biography of Engels he was preparing for publication between 14 November 1885 and 28 August 1886 in the 'Galerie socialiste internationale' column of Le Socialiste. Engels' letter formed the basis for the second part of the biography which appeared unsigned in No. 13 of the newspaper, 21 November 1885. The same issue carried a portrait of Engels by the artist Clarus; Lafargue sent Engels a copy of this portrait together with the letter mentioned.— 350
[473] Engels gives a detailed analysis of the reasons behind the movement in support of the Imperial Constitution and the course of armed hostilities in Rhenish Prussia, Baden and the Palatinate in The Campaign for the German Imperial Constitution (see present edition, Vol. 10).— 350
[474] Landwehr—the army reserve formed in Prussia during the struggle against Napoleon. In the 1840s it consisted of men under forty who had done three years active service and not less than two years in the reserve. In contrast to the regular army, conscription to the army reserve took place in cases of extreme necessity (war, or threat of war).— 351, 485
[4 7 5] The sitting of the Reichstag opened on 19 November 1885.— 352
[476] The German Social Democrat and Reichstag deputy Georg Schumacher wrote to Engels on 14 August 1885 in an attempt to justify the position taken by those who had voted in favour of state subsidies for steamship companies in the Reichstag (see Note 342). On Engels' attitude to this issue, see this volume, pp. 240-42.— 353
[477] Wilhelm Liebknecht served a four-week prison sentence in Leipzig beginning on 29 September 1885. It is roughly during this period that Der Sozialdemokrat carried a series of his articles headed 'Ueber den Normalarbeitstag' (22 and 29 October, 5, 12 and 19 November 1885).—353
[478] The reference is to the first battle of the Serbian-Bulgarian war, which took place on 16 November 1885. The war was caused by the so-called Bulgarian crisis (see notes 445 and 634). Under the influence of Austria-Hungary, Serbia declared war on Bulgaria on 14 November 1885, demanding territorial compensation for the growth in Bulgarian territory. The Bulgarian forces inflicted a crushing defeat on the Serbian army in the very first month and entered Serbia. Bulgaria ceased its advance under pressure from Austria-Hungary and, on 3 March 1886, a peace treaty was concluded in Bucharest under which Serbia recognised the borders of the reunited Bulgaria.— 353, 515
[479] An excerpt from this letter was published in English for the first time in: K. Marx and F. Engels, Literature and Art, International Publishers, New York, 1947.— 355
[480] This letter is the reply to that of 15 October 1885 from Minna Kautsky, Karl Kautsky's mother, who had got to know Engels during her stay in London in the summer of 1885. She described her impressions of London and Berlin to Engels and asked his opinion of her book Die Alten und die Neuen.— 355
[481] It follows from Paul Lafargue's letter to Engels of 4 November 1885 that Engels asked Lafargue for information on Paul Lavigne. Lafargue wrote: 'The question you ask concerning Lavigne is difficult to answer. One fine day he appeared in our midst saying that he had translated Marx's 18th Brumaire and The Holy Family, that Fortin did not know the ABC of German.... Believing him to be a giant re-freshed in German we commissioned him to translate the Manifesto. But after going over the translation for the first number, we decided it had to be thrown into the waste-paper basket. ...Lavigne seems to me slightly mad....' Lavigne wrote to Engels on 8 August 1885 saying, among other things, that he intended to translate the second volume of Marx's Capital.— 358
[482] Apart from Paul Lavigne's manuscript, this refers to the translation of Marx's The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (present edition, Vol. 11 ) done by Edouard Fortin (see this volume, p. 345). This translation, edited by Engels, was published in Le Socialiste, January-November 1891 and appeared as a separate volume during the same year in Lille.— 358, 528
[4 8 3] Edouard Fortin repeatedly wrote to Marx in 1881 in connection with his study of the first volume of Capital (see K. Marx to Charles Longuet of 4 January 1881; present edition, Vol. 46).— 358
[182] In April 1884 Russia obtained a loan of 300 million marks from Germany.— 109,
[486] The speech by Wilhelm Liebknecht to which Engels refers was made in the Reichstag on 24 November 1885. In it, Liebknecht sharply criticised Bismarck's home and foreign policy, for which he was called to order.— 361
[488] At the beginning of the 1880s, the English bourgeoisie started to call for protective tariffs due to growing competition on the world market from the United States and Germany, thus departing from the principles of free trade as advocated by the Manchester school (see Note 283).— 361
[489] The slogan The Church in danger\ was advanced by the Conservatives during the British election campaign in the autumn of 1885. It was prompted by the fact that the Liberals supported the demand raised by bourgeois-radical elements and Irish Catholics for the separation of the Anglican Church from the state. When the Conservative propaganda attracted a favourable response among a large number of voters, the Liberals to all intents and purposes ceased to support this demand.—
[490] This letter was written in connection with the preparatory work Karl Kautsky was doing — at Engels' initiative and on his instructions (see this volume, p. 344) — on a résumé of Die Geschichte der ersten Sozialpolitischen Arbeiterbewegung in Deutschland by the German Journalist Georg Adler. The book depicted the history of the Communist League and Marx's revolutionary activities in a distorted manner. The résumé was published in Die Neue Zeit, No. 2, February 1886.— 362
[491] In his book Georg Adler wrote that, as editor of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, Marx had allegedly been constantly subjected to insults and physical attacks which posed a serious threat to his life. In his résumé of the book, Karl Kautsky ridiculed this allegation as instructed by Engels. By way of proof he cited an episode recalled to him by Engels. Two armed non-commissioned officers had appeared at Marx's home demanding retribution for his alleged derision of the title of non-commissioned officer. Marx had greeted them in a dressing gown with the butt of an unloaded pistol protruding from the pocket. At the sight of this, the NCOs had quickly taken their leave (see present edition, Vol. 38, pp. 192-93).— 362
[492] Georg Adler claimed in his book (see Note 490) that Moses Hess had taken part in the South German uprising of May 1849, for which he had been sentenced to death. In his résumé, Karl Kautsky refuted this unsubstantiated claim on Engels' instructions.— 362
[4 9 3] The reference is to the works by Marx which were prepared for republication and issued with Engels' prefaces by the German Social-Democratic publishing house in Hottingen-Zurich in 1885-86: 'The Preface to the Pamphlet Karl Marx Before the Cologne Jury'; On the History of the Communist League (see present edition, Vol. 26), and also Engels' work 'On the History of the Prussian Peasants. The Introduction to Wilhelm Wolffs Pamphlet The Silesian Milliard' (see present edition, Vol. 26) .— 363
[494] In the course of 1884 and 1885 Engels edited the German translation of The Poverty of Philosophy (present edition, Vol. 5), the English translation of The Condition of the Working-Class in England (Vol. 2), the Italian and Danish translations of The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (Vol. 26) as well as the translations of The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (Vol. 11 ) and the Manifesto of the Communist Party (Vol. 6) into French and other languages.— 364
[495] This letter was first published in English in an abridged form in The Labour Monthly, London, 1933, Vol. 15, No. 11, XI.—366
[497] The reference is to the attempt made by the leaders of the German Conservative Party (see Note 230) and the Christian-Social Party, Adolph Wagner and Adolf Stoecker, to conclude an electoral alliance with the Social Democrats against the candidates of the Party of Progress (see Note 93) during the Berlin elections of November 1881. They agreed to support Social-Democratic candidates (August Bebel and Wilhelm Hasenclever) in two Berlin constituencies on condition that the Socialist Workers' Party acknowledged the 'social reforms' being carried out by Bismarck's government and backed the implementation of these 'reforms' with a view to warding off a revolution. On behalf of the party, Bebel and Liebknecht sharply rebuffed these manoeuvres on the part of the reactionaries. Their statement was published in the Volks-^eitung, 19 November 1881.— 367
[498] In a statement headed 'The Socialists and the General Election' and carried by The Pall Mall Gazette, 4 December 1885, John Hunter Watts, the treasurer of the Social Democratic Federation (see Note 300), tried to justify the actions of'an ill-advised few London Socialists' by claiming that they intended 'to take ammuni-tion from the enemy in order to blaze it in their faces'.— 367
[499] The substance of this letter formed the basis for the editorial 'Angleterre' published in Le Socialiste, No. 16, 12 December 1885.—368
[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
[500] The Republican Social Economy Society (Société Républicaine d'Économie sociale) was founded on 7 November 1885 at the initiative of the Possibilist (see Note 237) leader Benoît Malon. The society set itself the aim of studying the social question and putting forward plans for imminent reforms.— 368
[501] In its leading article 'En Angleterre', dealing with the results of the elections to the House of Commons, Le Socialiste, No. 15, 5 December 1885 quoted from the election platform put forward by John Edward Williams, a candidate for the Social Democratic Federation (see Note 300), and also mentioned other candidates from this party.— 368
[415] Tories—traditional name of the Conservative Party. The Whigs were the right wing of the Liberal Party, and the Radicals its left wing. The Whigs expressed the interests of the landed, and in part, financial aristocracy, of the big and medium capitalist farmers, whilst the Radicals were thé representatives of large sections of the trading and industrial bourgeoisie, the bourgeois intelligentsia and the rich trade unions. The Liberal Party exerted an influence on the trade unions through the Radicals, who recognised the need for democratic social reforms. The differences between the Whigs and the Radicals became particularly clear during the preparations for the electoral reform of 1884, when the Whigs opposed the extension of the suffrage to Irish peasants and the establishment of constituencies of equal size, thus backing the Conservatives. Most of the Radicals favoured Home Rule and improvements in the agrarian law. However some of them, headed by J. Chamberlain, wanted to keep the Union of 1801 intact. The rivalry between the Whigs and the Radicals became aggravated on the eve of the 1885 general election which the Radicals expected would bring them victory in the party and the country as a whole (see notes 299 and 487). It was at this time that the political outlook of the Radical movement took its final shape, as expressed in 'The Radical Programme with a Preface of J. Chamberlain', London, 1885 (see also Note 430).—304, 326, 345, 367, 369, 389
[502] The reference is to two notes by Henry Mayers Hyndman published in Justice, No. 90, 3 October and No. 92, 17 October 1885 where he accuses Edward Aveling of offending against an agreement concluded between various socialist organisations about speeches to be made by socialists at the Dod Street demonstration of 27 September 1885. Hyndman's accusation was refuted in a statement signed by 31 members of socialist organisations. The statement together with both notes from Justice was carried by The Commonweal, No. 10, November 1885 in an article entitled 'Free Speech and the Police'.—370, 394
[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,
[503] On 16 November 1885 Hermann Schlüter wrote to Engels asking for the address of Johann Georg Eccarius, the former secretary of the General Council of the First International. He intended to reissue the latter's book Eines Arbeiters Widerlegung der national-ökonomischen Lehren John Stuart Mill's in the Social-Democratic publishing house in Zurich; Schlüter believed that Eccarius would revise his book. It appeared in 1888, without any changes on Engels' advice.— 371
[504] Engels is referring to the Prussian armed intervention of 1787 in the Netherlands, which was aimed at crushing the uprising by the opposition party of'patriots'. The party had used the defeat of the Dutch in the war with Britain (1784) to seize power and expel Stadtholder William V. The Prussian forces invaded the country and restored him to power.— 372
[506] Hermann Schlüter wrote to Engels on 19 December 1885 that Lothar Bucher, in his pamphlet Der Parlamentarismus wie er ist claimed a Journalist in the pay of Palmerston had written a pamphlet entitled Palmerston, What Has He Done? at the latter's bidding. Schlüter asked Engels whether Bucher was not perhaps alluding to Marx's pamphlet Lord Palmerston (present edition, Vol. 12).— 374
[505] The reference is to the short biography of Marx carried by Le Socialiste, No. 12, 14 November 1885 and probably written by Paul Lafargue.— 373, 374
[507] The reference is to Paul Lafargue's letter to Engels of 21 January 1885 in which he asked Engels to send him a cheque for £12 (see F. Engels, Paul and Laura Lafargue, Correspondence, Vol. 1, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1959, p. 322).—375
[508] In his letter of 21 December 1885 Paul Lafargue asked Engels to send him Justice, No. 100, 12 December 1885 containing a statement by Henry Mayers Hyndman and other leaders of the Social Democratic Federation in which they sought to re-fute the accusations levelled at Hyndman for his having received money from the Conservatives to finance the election campaign (see this volume, pp. 366-68).—376
[509] Engels is playing on the fact — of which Paul Lafargue informed him — that the oldest of all bridges in Paris, the Pont Neuf, which became proverbial for its strength, was partly destroyed when the Seine burst its banks. It is an allusion to Lafargue's illnesses.— 376
[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,
[349] The reference is to the manuscript of the English translation of Engels' book The Condition of the Working-Class in England (present edition, Vol. 4) prepared by the American socialist Florence Keliey-Wischnewetzky for publication in the United States (see also Note 360).—248, 257, 373, 382, 419
[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
[39] The letter mentioned has not been found.— 18, 23, 62, 80, 108, 124, 147, 201, 204,
[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
[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
[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,
[354] Engels' negative attitude to Franz Mehring which he expresses in this letter had to do with the fact that from the mid-1870s Mehring started to criticise Social-Democratic theory and tactics in the bourgeois-democratic press. His position was summarised in the pamphlet Die deutsche Sozialdemokratie, ihre Geschichte und ihre Lehre; eine historisch-kritische Darstellung, three editions of which were issued in 1877, 1878 and 1879, respectively, by the publishing house belonging to the Weser-£eitung, a National-Liberal (see Note 243) newspaper based in Barmen. Captivated by the Kantian philosophy, Mehring believed that the history was made by the 'strong personalities', while the workers' movement and, consequently, Social Democracy were not the natural result of the social development. In the early 1880s Mehring had been revising his views on the socialist movement. Having joined the Socialist Party of Germany in 1891 he became one of its left-wing leaders. Engels' attitude to Mehring changed accordingly; right up to his death in 1895 Engels repeatedly praised Mehring's journalistic and academic endeavours.— 253, 316
[356] Nihilists — a term used in the 1860s to describe the progressive-minded Russian intellectuals of different social estates. The Nihilists refused to recognise the dominant ideology and morality, rejected religion and demanded freedom of the per-sonality. They advocated equality between the sexes and called for the study of the natural and exact sciences. Towards the end of the 1860s the term almost completely disappeared from polemic writing, although it was used later on occasions by reactionary political commentators as a label for revolutionaries. In West European writing, the term was applied to participants in the Russian revolutionary movement of the 1870s and 1880s, notably the members of the Narodnaya Volya
[360] In February 1886 Engels wrote an article as a preface or epilogue to the American edition of The Condition of the Working-Class in England (see present edition, Vol. 26). When publication was delayed, Engels considered it essential to write another preface in January 1887 (ibid.). The first article was included as an appendix in the American edition.— 257, 259, 415
[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,
[362] Hermann Lopa tin was arrested in St Petersburg on 6 October 1884 and was under investigation up to May 1887; on 4 June 1887 he was sentenced to death, later commuted to life imprisonment in Schlisselburg fortress. Lopatin was released on 28 October 1905.—260, 319, 349, 401, 525
[363] Engels' pseudonym in his correspondence with Nikolai Danielson; Engels used the name of the husband of his wife's niece — Percy White Rosher.— 260, 278, 294,
[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
[365] Karl Kautsky lived in London from early 1885 to June 1888.—262, 265
[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
[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,
[372] The French government under the leader of the moderate Republicans Jules Ferry, who had held the post since 1883, resigned on 30 March 1885 due to an unsuccessful colonial adventure in Indochina.— 267, 270
[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
[374] The majority of the Social-Democratic group in the German Reichstag, consisting of reformists, tried to dispute the right of the party newspaper — Der Sozialdemokrat— to criticise the action of the parliamentary group and its attitude towards the bill envisaging the payment of subsidies to steamship companies (see Note 342). They published a statement to this effect in Der Sozialdemokrat, No. 14, 2 April 1885. However, the majority of the local Social-Democratic organisations resolutely supported the editors. The reformists were virtually forced to renounce their objections and, in a joint statement with the editors of Der Sozialdemokrat published on 23 April, they recognised the newspaper's status as the 'organ of the whole party' (see also notes 380 and 390).—268, 269, 275, 290, 300, 313, 323
[3 7 5] Until 1885, France was divided into 'small constituencies', each sending one representative to the Chamber of Deputies. In June 1885, on the initiative of the moderate bourgeois republicans, a system of voting by department lists was introduced. Under this system, which operated until 1889, small constituencies were combined to form larger ones each corresponding to a department. Now a voter received a ballot paper with names of candidates from different parties, but he was obliged to vote for the total number of candidates to be elected, with one deputy for every 70,000 people. A deputy was considered elected in the first ballot provided he had received an absolute majority of votes; a relative majority was sufficient in the second ballot.—270, 314, 317, 320, 326, 330, 489, 508
[377] Der Sozialdemokrat, Nos. 2, 3, 5 and 7 of 8, 15 and 29 January and 12 February 1885 published articles and editorial comments criticising the attitude taken by the majority of the parliamentary group to the bill on subsidies to steamship companies (see Note 342). The first article was signed 'W. L.', the second was without a signature, the third carried the initials J. A.' and the fourth, 'H.R.'.— 271, 284
[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
[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
[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
[361] To speed up the Russian translation of the second volume of Capital Engels sent Nikolai Danielson the proofs of the German edition as they were printed. The volume appeared in January 1886.—260, 265, 278, 289, 294, 303, 311
[386] Here, Engels quotes Hegel from the second volume of his work Vorlesungen über die Geschichte der Philosophie (see Werke, Bd. XIV, Berlin, 1833, S. 62). Explaining the expression 'Socratic irony', Hegel wrote: 'All dialectics regard as valid what should be valid, as if it were valid, have the inner destruction develop of its own accord on this account — general irony of the world.' — 281, 348
[402] On 21 May 1885 Paul Lafargue was sent to Ste Pélagie prison, Paris, for two months for failing to pay a fine of 100 francs imposed on him in April 1883 by a jury in Moulins as punishment for his public speeches (see Note 9). To begin with, Lafargue was kept in the cell reserved for criminals, but later transferred to the part of the prison where the political detainees were kept.— 292, 297, 301, 303,
[404] On 24 May 1885 a demonstration was organised in Paris in memory of the members of the Paris Commune. Carrying red flags, the demonstrators made their way to the Mur des Fédérés in Père-Lachaise cemetery where 200 members of the Commune had been shot on 27 May 1871. The police attacked the demonstrators on the pretext that it was forbidden to carry red flags on demonstrations in Paris. A clash ensued in which a number of people were killed and injured. Engels expected that the police would try to organise a similar act of provocation on 1 June during the funeral of Victor Hugo who had died on 22 May 1885.—
[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,
[412] Der Sozialdemokrat, No. 17, 23 April 1885 published a statement adopted by a meeting of Social Democrats in Frankfurt-am-Main and sharply criticising the position of the majority of the Social-Democratic group in the Reichstag and its attempts to impose this position on the party as a whole (see Note 374). On 7 May 1885 Karl Frohme, one of the leaders of the parliamentary group, published a letter attacking this statement in response to this in the bourgeois Frankfurter Journal. The editorial board of Der Sozialdemokrat reprinted Frohme's letter (No. 20, 14 May 1885) and in the next issue, 21 May 1885 published August Bebel's article in reply called 'Auch "ein Protest" ' in which he criticised Frohme's position.—
[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,
[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
[418] The reference is to a separate edition of Wilhelm Wolffs series of articles on the situation of the Silesian peasants called Die schlesische Milliarde and printed in a number of issues of the Neue Rheinische Leitung between 22 March and 22 April 1849. Engels included a preface in this edition, which came out in 1886. Its first section was a biography of Wolff which he had written back in 1876 (see F. Engels, 'Wilhelm Wolff, present edition, Vol. 24) but in a much abbreviated form, whilst the second section was the article 'On the History of the Prussian Peasants. Introduction to Wilhelm Wolffs pamphlet The Silesian Milliard (Vol. 26) specially for that edition.-^ 309, 324, 328, 332, 346
[420] Engels is referring to the report in Justice, No. 73, 6 June 1885 that the publisher William Reeves intended to put out Gabriel Deville's book Le Capital de Karl Marx. Resume... (see Note 81) in an English translation by John Broadhouse (Hyndman's pseudonym). At that time Engels was negotiating with the publishers Kegan Paul and Co. about publishing the English translation of the first volume of Capital (see Note 56). These negotiations ended without success. Marx's work was put out by another publishing house and Deville's book did not appear in English.—310, 313
[421] Engels spent his holidays on the island of Jersey from 14 August to 14 September 1885.—310, 315, 321-25, 328, 358
[42] On 6June 1879 Wilhelm Bracke wrote to Engels, T admire Bebel; he is the only one among us with the skills for life in parliament.'—20
[429] The Radicals — in the 1880s and 1890s a parliamentary group which had split away from the party of moderate republicans in France ('Opportunists', see Note 236). The Radicals had their main base in the petty and, to some extent, the middle bourgeoisie and continued to press for a number of bourgeois-democratic demands: a single-chamber parliamentary system, the separation of the Church from the State, the introduction of a system of progressive income taxes, the limitation of the working day and settlement of a number of other social issues. The leader of the Radicals was Clemenceau. The group formed officially as the Republican Party of Radicals and Radical Socialists [Parti républicain radical et radical-socialiste) in 1901.—317, 326, 330, 343, 354, 409-10, 414, 418, 424, 428, 430, 438, 441, 445, 470, 489, 493, 497, 508
[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
[4 3 6] 'Après moi (or nous) le délugeV — words uttered to Louis XV and attributed to Mme Du Barry or to Mmle Pompadour.— 320, 354
[438] In this letter (see present edition, Vol. 26) written on the advice of Nikolai Danielson, Engels suggested to the editors of Severny vestnik that they print Marx's unpublished letter to the editorial board of Otechestvenniye zapiski which he had written in response to Nikolai Mikhailovsky's article 'KapAS MapKct nepe/ti. cyAOMt r. K). >KyKOBCKaro' (see Note 190).— 322, 347
[439] Engels wrote this letter on a postcard carrying the following address in his handwriting: 'Herrn H. Schlüter, Volksbuchhandlung, Kasinostr. 3, Hottingen-Zürich, Switzerland.'—322, 324
[440] A hint that Louis Viereck was the illegitimate son of Emperor William I of Germany. Engels is referring to Viereck's speech on 8 August at a workers' meeting in Munich in which he said that the emperor would give the workers much more if he knew how poorly they lived. The Munich Social Democrats protested at Viereck's speech (see Der Sozialdemokrat, No. 34, 20 August 1885). In his reply, published in the Munich-based Deutsches Wochenblatt, No. 30, 30 August and Der Sozialdemokrat, No. 36, 3 September 1885, Viereck, to all intents and purposes, supported Bismarck's social reform (see Note 312).— 324, 328
[444] Laura Lafargue's French translation of the Manifesto of the Communist Party was published in Le Socialiste, Nos. 1-11, from late August to early November 1885. It was published with Engels' changes as an appendix to Mermeix (pseudonym), La France Socialiste, Paris, 1886.—326, 328, 333, 342
[4 4 5] The reference is to the so-called Bulgarian crisis which began in September 1885. In the night of 5-6 September an uprising of Bulgarian patriots occurred in Plovdiv, the capital of Eastern Roumelia (Southern Bulgaria), which, according to the 1878 Treaty of Berlin, was under the control of Turkey (see present edition, Vol. 45, Note 430). The Turkish governor was overthrown. Roumelia was reunited with Bulgaria and Grand Duke (formerly Prince) Alexander Battenberg of Bulgaria proclaimed himself ruler of the united Bulgaria on 8 September. Russia, showing its displeasure at the rapprochement between Battenberg and Austria-Hungary which had begun some time previously, recalled its officers from the Bulgarian army. Reports on this were carried by the Kölnische Leitung, Nos. 276, 277, 278 and 279, 5, 6, 7 and 8 October 1885. On the subsequent course of the Bulgarian crisis, see Engels' article 'The Political Situation in Europe' (present edition, Vol. 26, and also this volume, pp. 512-20 and notes 478 and 634).—329, 364, 378-79, 417, 485, 488
[447] At the elections held on 4 October 1885 to the French Chamber of Deputies, numerous candidates failed to receive the number of votes required for election, so that a second ballot was scheduled for 18 October. This ballot brought a republican majority, comprising representatives of the party of moderate republicans ('Opportunists') and the party of Radicals (see notes 236 and 429). The Chamber of Deputies was made up of 382 republicans (including 180 Radicals) and 202 monarchists.—330, 364, 430
[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
[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,
[466] In a letter of 8 August 1885 the French socialists Paul Lavigne asked Engels to look through the manuscript of his translation of Marx's The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.— 345, 358
[6] On 24 February 1883 Hermann Lopatin fled from exile in Vologda to Paris, whence he proceeded to London in September 1883.— 4
[484] An excerpt from this letter was first published in English in: K. Marx and F. Engels, Ireland and the Irish Question, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1971.— 359, 363,
[485] Liebknecht wrote to Engels on 26 November 1885 asking his assistance in obtaining material in English on the financial situation of Russia for a'speech he was to make in the Reichstag about the granting of a German loan to Russia. Liebknecht made use of Engels' recommendations during his Reichstag speech of 8 February 1886 (see also Note 551).—359, 365, 377
[487] The British general election took place from 23 November to 19 December 1885. The Liberals obtained 335 seats of which 4 belonged to the 'independents', the Conservatives 249 and the supporters of Irish Home Rule, 86 seats. These were the first elections held after the parliamentary reform of 1884 (see Note 299).— 361,
[496] Henry Mayers Hyndman and Henry Hyde Champion, the leaders of the Social Democratic Federation (see Note 300) received money from the Conservative Party to put up their candidates at the 1885 general election (see Note 487). The Federation fielded candidates in London constituencies — Hampstead and Ken-sington— where they had no prospects of winning but could capture a proportion of the Liberal vote to the benefit of the Conservatives. The Federation's leadership attempted to justify their agreement to these conditions by claiming that the election campaign merely served as propaganda for the future revolution. This created displeasure among many of the Federation's members, as a result of which a number of them resigned and several local organisations split from the Federation. The Echo, Nos. 5285 and 5287, 5 and 7 December 1885 carried a statement from John Edward Williams, one of the Federation's candidates, claiming he was not aware of the receipt of any money from the Tories, an editorial giving details of how the money had been received and a note by Federation member Charles L. Fitzgerald criticising the leadership. Der Sozialdemokrat, No. 51, 17 December 1885, published an editorial based on this letter by Engels, material from The Echo and a letter by Hubert Bland, one of the Federation officials, dealing with the meetings of the Executive Committee on 9 and 12 November at which Hyndman and Champion had been censured for their actions.— 366-67, 369, 376, 394, 404, 406