1888
Dear Citizen,
My friend Karl Kautsky, editor of the Neue Zeit, has sent me several consecutive numbers of La Revista Sociala and of Contemporanul containing, amongst other things, your translations of some of my works, in particular my Origin of the Family, etc.[207] Allow me to prof-fer my sincere thanks for the trouble you have been so good as to take in making these writings accessible to the Romanian public. In addition to the honour you have thus done me, you have also rendered me, personally, the service of enabling me at long last to learn something of your language. I say at long last because, almost fifty years ago, I tried to do this, if in vain, with the help of the Grammaire comparée des langues romanes* by Diez. Recently I succeeded in getting hold of Cionca's little grammar but, having no texts to read and no dictionary, I did not get on very well. But with your translation I have been able to make some progress, the original text and the Latin and Slav etymology having taken the place of the dictionary and now, thanks to you, I can say that Romanian is no longer, for me, a completely unknown language. However, if you could tell me of a passable dictionary, whether Romanian-German or Romanian-French or -Italian, you would be doing me another signal service; for it would help me the better to understand your original articles and the pamphlets Ce vor socialistii romîni? and Karl Marx si economistii nostri, which Kautsky likewise sent me.[208]
From these I have, with much pleasure, gained the conviction that the socialists of your country have adopted in their programme(1) the fundamental principles of the theory formulated by my late friend Karl Marx — a theory which has succeeded in welding together into a single fighting force the vast majority of European and American socialists. At the time of that great thinker's death, the social and political situation, and the progress being made by our Party in all civilised countries, enabled him to close his eyes in the conviction that his efforts to unite the proletarians of the two worlds into one big army and under the same flag would ultimately be crowned with success. But if only he had been able to catch a glimpse of the immense strides we have since made in America no less than in Europe!
So great have been those strides that, for the European party at any rate, a common international policy has become imperative. In this regard, I again have the satisfaction of seeing that you agree, in principle, with ourselves and with the large majority of western socialists. Your translation of my article 'The Political Situation in Europe', as also your letter to the Editor of the Neue Zeit, are proof enough of this.
Indeed we are all confronted by the same great obstacle that is hampering the free development of all the nations and of each individual nation; in the absence of that development we could not embark upon, still less accomplish, social revolution in the various countries merely by means of mutual cooperation. That obstacle is the old Holy Alliance[209]
between the three assassins of Poland, led since 1815 by Russian Tsarism and surviving until today despite occasional domestic squabbles. It was founded in 1815 to combat the revolutionary spirit of the French people; in 1871 it was ratified by the annexation of Alsace, which turned Germany into the slave of Tsarism and the Tsar into the arbiter of Europe; in 1888 it is maintained for the purpose of crushing the revolutionary spirit within the three empires — the national aspirations no less than the political and social movements of the working classes. Since Russia enjoys a virtually impregnable strategic position, Russian Tsarism forms the nub of that alliance, great repository of all European reaction. To topple Tsarism, to destroy that incubus which lies heavy on the whole of Europe, such, in my eyes, is the first condition for the emancipation of the nationalities of central and eastern Europe. Once Tsarism has been crushed, the nefarious power represented today by Bismarck will in turn crumbled Austria will fall to pieces, having lost its only raison d'être, that of preventing by its very existence the annexation by conquering Tsarism of the scattered nations in the Carpathians and the Balkans. Poland will be reborn, Little Russia will be free to choose its political position, the Romanians, the Magyars and the South Slavs will be able to settle their own affairs and their new boundaries amongst themselves, unhampered by any foreign meddling and, finally, the noble nation of Great Russia, no longer engaged in pursuing chimerical conquest for the benefit of Tsarism, will be free to carry out its true civil-ising mission in Asia and to develop its vast intellectual resources in exchanges with the West, instead of squandering the best of its blood on the scaffold or in the katorga.b
You in Romania must know what Tsarism is, having had more than enough experience of it through Kiselev's 'règlement organique', through the intervention of 1848, through the theft — perpetrated not once, but twice — of Bessarabia,[210] through the innumerable invasions of your country, a mere Russian staging-post, no more, on the way to the Bosphorus, and through the sure knowledge that your independent existence will cease on the day the Tsar fulfils his dream — the conquest of Constantinople^
At this moment the alliance appears to have disintegrated and war to be imminent. But even if war does come, it will be merely in order to make recalcitrant Prussia and Austria toe the line. I hope that peace will be maintained: in such a war it would be impossible to sympathise with any of the combatants; rather, were such a thing possible, one would wish that all should be beaten. It would be a terrible war — but, come what may, everything will eventually turn to the advantage of the socialist movement and bring nearer the accession of the working class.
Pray excuse these elucidations, but just now I could not well write to a Romanian without expressing an opinion on these burning questions. What it boils down to is this: revolution in Russia at this moment would save Europe from the horrors of a general war and would usher in universal social revolution.[3]
Since your relations with the German socialists, newspaper exchange, etc., leave something to be desired, I would gladly do for you whatever I can.
With fraternal greetings,
F. Engels
83. Engels to Nikolai Danielson 5 January
Dear Sir,
I have removed and my new address is: Mrs Rosher, Cottesloe, Burton Road, Kilburn, London N . W. There is no number, Cottesloe being the name of the house.
I have at once ordered from my bookseller here the work of Dr Keussler.b Even if the first volumes are based on imperfect materials I have seen enough of the work of your Zemstvos to know that the résumé of them must contain immensely valuable material and, being written in German, prove a perfect revelation to Occidentals.[212] I shall take good care that these materials are made use of.
I am afraid your land-bank for the nobility[213] will have about the same effect as the Prussian land-banks have had. There the nobility took up loans under pretext of improving their estates, but really spent most of the money in keeping up their habitual style of living, in gambling, trips to Berlin and the provincial chefs-lieux[3] etc. For the nobility considered it their first duty standesgemäss zu lebend and the first duty of the state seemed to them to enable them to do so. And so, in spite of all banks, of all the enormous direct and indirect money-presents made to them by the state, the Prussian nobles are over head and ears indebted to the Jews, and no raising of the import duties on agricultural produce will save them. And I remember one well-known half-German Russian, attached illegitimately to the Russian nobility, finding these Prussian nobles still too stingy. When, on arriving from one shore to another,c he saw them at home he exclaimed: why these people try to save money while with us a man would be considered the meanest of the mean unless he spent half as much again as his income! If this be really the principle of the Russian nobility,d then I wish them joy of their banks.
The peasants' bank[214] too seems similar to the Prussian peasants' banks, and it is almost inconceivable how difficult it is for some people to see that all fresh sources of credit opened up to landed proprietors (small or large) must result in enslaving them to the victorious capitalist.
My eyes still require des ménagements? but anyhow I hope in a short time, say next month, to be able to resume my work on the 3rd volumef; unfortunately I cannot as yet make any promises as to the time of finish-ing it.
The English translation? has sold and is selling very well, indeed surprisingly well for a book of that size and class; the publisher[11] is enchanted with his speculation. The critics are on the other hand very, very much below the average low level. Only one good article in the Athenaeum^[7]; the rest either merely give extracts from the preface or, if trying to tackle the book itself, are unutterably poor. The fashionable theory just now here is that of Stanley Jevons,[215] according to which value is determined by utility, i.e. Tauschwert-Gebrauchswert' and on the other hand by the limit of supply (i.e. the cost of production), which is merely a confused and circuitous way of saying that value is determined by supply and demand. Vulgar Economy everywhere! The second great literary organ here, the Academy, has not yet spoken.
The sale of the German edition of I and II volumes goes on very well. There are a great many articles written about the book and its theories, an extract, or rather independent reproduction in: Karl Marx's Ökonomische Lehren von(1) K. Kautsky, not bad, though not always quite correct, I will send it you. Then a miserable apostate Jew Georg Adler, Privatdozent in Breslau,b has written a big book, the title of which I forget, to prove Marx wrong,c but it is simply a scurrilous and ridiculous pamphlet by which the author wants to call attention — the attention of the ministry and bourgeoisie — on himself and his importance. I have asked all my friends not to notice it. Indeed if any miser-able impotent fellow wants to faire de la réclame^ for himself, he attacks our author.e
Friends in Paris have doubted the accuracy of your very sad news about Mr Mutual/ Could you give me in some way or other any particulars of this event?'[216]
I enclose a little thing published some years ago.
Yours sincerely, P. W. Rosher
84. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge 7 January[2 1 7]
Dear Sorge
First, let me wish you a Happy New Year and express the hope that you will soon settle down in your new locality[218] and that you have completely recovered from your accidents last summer.
We can only hope that the gathering war clouds will disperse— everything is already going as nicely as we could wish and we can very well dispense with the interruption through a general war and one, moreover, on a vaster scale than ever before, although this too must eventually redound in our favour. Bismarck's policy is driving the working and petty-bourgeois masses over to us in their thousands; the pitiable inadequacy of the social reforms, so pompously proclaimed, and which are a mere pretext for coercive measures against the workers (Puttkamer's anti-strike edict, the proposed re-introduction of employment books, the purloining of trades union and provident funds) is proving enormously effective.[219] The new Anti-Socialist Law will do little harm; this time, the expatriation clause is unlikely to go through and, if it does, it's questionable how long it will last.[220] For if — as would be best for us — old William* were shortly to kick the bucket and the Crown Princeb came to the helm, if only for six months, everything would probably be thrown into confusion. Bismarck has laboured so hard at getting rid of the Crown Prince altogether and bringing about the regency of that insolent guards' subaltern, the younger William,c
that he would, in such an event, probably be got rid of and replaced by a short-lived, head-in-clouds liberal regime. That would be enough to destroy your philistine's confidence in the stability of the Bismarckian system; and if, along with the young whippersnapper, Bismarck were subsequently to return to power, your philistine's faith would nonetheless be gone, the lad being after all no substitute for the old man. For the bogus Bonapartes of today are as naught unless people believe in them and in their invincibility. And if the boy and his mentor Bismarck were then to grow cocky and produce measures even more insolent than the present ones, things would be all set for a crisis.
On the other hand, a war would set us back by many years. Chauvinism would swamp all else since there would be a struggle for survival. Germany would place some 5 million men under arms, or 10 per cent of the population, the others, say, 4 or 5 per cent, Russia relatively less. But there would be some 10 to 15 million combatants in the field. And how they are to be fed beats me; it would mean devastation like that of the Thirty Years War.[221] And it wouldn't be over quickly, despite the colossal military forces engaged. For France is protected by very extensive fortifications along its frontiers in the northwest and southeast, and the new works at Paris are models of their kind. So it will take a long time, and Russia is not to be reduced by storm either. Even if everything goes in accordance with Bismarck's wishes, therefore, unprecedented demands will be made on the nation and it is quite possible that the postponement of a decisive victory and partial reverses would evoke revolution inside the country. But if the Germans were beaten from the start, or forced permanently onto the defensive, then the fun would surely begin. If the war were fought to a finish without internal disorder, the state of prostration would be unlike anything Europe has experienced in the past 200 years. Then American industry would triumph all along the line and we should all be faced with the alternative either of a complete reversion to agriculture for domestic consumption (any other kind being precluded by American grain) or — social transformation. Hence I suspect that they do not intend to go to extremes, to have recourse to anything more than a mock war. But once the first shot has been fired, control will have been lost and the horse can take the bit between its teeth.
So everything is tending inexorably towards a decision, war or peace, and I must hasten to complete the third volume.(1) But events demand that I remain au courant and this, particularly as regards the military side, requires a great deal of time, and yet I must still take care of my eyes. If only I could simply withdraw into my study! However, it's got to be done and I shall set to work next month at the latest.
Shorlemmer, who is here, sends his kindest regards. Our people were immediately responsible for resolving the presiden-tial crisis in Paris.[197] The Blanquists took the lead, Vaillant having carried the day in the office of the Municipal Council. If the fun begins soon, Vaillant will be the guiding light of the next provisional government. He's lucky — as a Blanquist he has no need to vindicate an economic theory and this enables him to keep out of many a squabble. The Possibilists[19] have discredited themselves completely and utterly; having advocated total abstention from action, they unsuccessfully sought, in company with the reactionaries, to bring a vote of censure in the Municipal Council on its office, which had behaved as well as might be expected of Radicals of that ilk.
You have, I trust, been getting Commonweal, Gleichheit and To-day regularly.
Your old friend,
F. E.
85. Engels to Wilhelm Liebknecht 10 January
Dear Liebknecht,
As regards expatriation, things are unlikely to move very rapidly. However contemptible the German bourgeoisie may be, such cowardice calls for a modicum of courage and in my view it will take Bismarck a year to knock that courage into them. But quite a lot can happen in a year. By intriguing against the Crown Prince,(1) Monsieur Bismarck has tripped up badly and if, after the old man[3] has pegged out, the Crown Prince's turn lasts only six months, it will be enough to throw everything into confusion and thoroughly undermine the philistine's confidence in the permanence of the Bismarckian system. After that the insolent lad Williamb is welcome to take his turn; he'll do far more good than he can do harm. So I trust that your visit to America next year will only be a temporary one[222] and that we shall see you here both on the way out and on the way home. You will find plenty of work to do in America for, as you say, the chaps over there have bungled things badly.[223] The Americans themselves are still too new to the movement as a whole and too unfamiliar with it not to perpetrate a series of stupendous blunders. But we can also come to their assistance and in such a case a man like you, who is familiar with the English movement and capable of handling an English audience, would be exceedingly useful.
There's nothing new to report here. The old Communist Society[106] is going steadily downhill, being now in the hands of the rascally Gilles; it is becoming increasingly chummy with the anarchists whose headquarters are now in London. The Trafalgar Square affair[224] is being celebrated afresh with the wholesale sentencing — both in the magistrates' and in the criminal courts — of those who took part in the demonstration. Graham and Burns are to appear shortly. If they too are sentenced, the London juryman will, by his action, have passed a vote of thanks to Warren and the police, which can only further the split between the classes. The workingmen have an enormous hatred of the police and at the next election the stupid Tories will have cause to be aware of it.
I wish you belatedly a Happy New Year and let's hope there will be peace both internally and externally. I have no wish either for war or for attempted coups. Everything is going much too famously for that.
Your
F. Engels
86. Engels to Hermann Schlüter 10 January
Dear Mr Schlüter,
I have no objection to Ede's printing the final part of the introduction to the Blood-and-Thunder Patriots.[226]
Kindly tell me when, approximately, you will be able to start printing the Theory of Force. For I am working on a fourth chapter to it in which I examine Bismarck's use of force and the reasons for its momentary success. I am writing it now, but shall have to revise it immediately before printing and make additions in accordance with the latest facts. Naturally I shall be happy to place this chapter too at Ede's disposal, once everything has got to that stage.[203]
I shall shortly be putting my books in order and it may be that another copy of the Holy Family will turn up; if so, the archives[227] shall have it. Meanwhile please continue to keep an eye open for the Revue der Neue Rheinischen Zeitung—isolated articles would be of use only in cases of direct necessity.[228]
Bruhn's distorted account is mentioned in Herr Vogt, p. 124. Note— Bangya, having represented himself as the agent of a chap called Eisenmann, or some such name, who was supposedly setting up as a bookseller in Berlin, had promised that the latter would print the ms.[229]
This was by Marx and myself and the original is here in my house. However, the actual purchaser of the copy was Stieber, who was silly enough to imagine that the Prussian police would find in a ms. intended by us for publication secret revelations and not merely a derisive portrayal of the great men of the emigration, for there was, of course, nothing more to it than that. We were done out of its publication, but the people who were really done were the Prussian police, who no doubt also took care never to boast about it and, along with them, Mr Kossuth who, until this episode, had been unaware of the unsavoury nature of his protégé, though subsequently he still sought to support him.
Your kind wishes for the New Year are heartily reciprocated.
Ever yours,
F. E.
87. Engels to Pasquale Martignetti 10 January
Dear Friend,
I would have written to you long ago, but could only suppose that you were no longer in Benevento, for one of the periodicals you very kindly sent me bore a different address with a domicile I didn't know. So I have been awaiting further word from you.
The ludicrous charge brought against you in connection with the embezzlement of LI5,000 is best refuted by the fact that you have been given employment by the government prefect himself. I trust that the whole intrigue will fizzle out before things get to the stage of public proceedings.
I don't know how the Hamburg business passed off; I have heard no further news on the subject from Wedde.[230] But it is just as well that nothing has come of it. The Prussian government has at last managed to bring the government of the Hamburg 'republic' to heel. Our newspaper there(1) has been banned; Wedde, the editor, though a citizen of Hamburg, has been banished from his native city, and some twenty socialists have been sentenced in Altona (the neighbouring Prussian town) and will, on release, be expelled from Hamburg. Under the circumstances you too would have been expelled from there and, as a foreigner, from the German Empire as a whole; and the cost of the double removal complete with family would have been ruinous.
I am grateful for the trouble you are taking over my biography and shall be happy to go over your translation.[231] But I doubt whether it would be worth your while getting it published as a pamphlet. After all, I'm as good as unknown in Italy and among those who do happen to know me there are many anarchists, by whom I am hated rather than loved. But I leave this to you.
I shall also be able to attend to your manuscript within the next few weeks, after which it will go off to you at once.[232] Unfortunately I still have to spare my eyes.
With sincere regards,
Yours ever,
F. Engels
Mefistofele I will be posted this evening.
88. Engels to Hermann Schlüter 23 January
Dear Mr Schlüter,
You should have the Theory of Force by 20 February; you would be getting it even sooner but for the intervention of the English translation of the Manifesto* which I must polish off quickly with Sam Moore, the translator of Capital, who is here with me, otherwise I shall be missing a splendid opportunity.
As soon as that is done — by the end of the week — I'll go back to the final part of the Theory of Force, which provides a rapid survey of historical events between 1848 and 1888 in so far as they are applicable to the subject. This time I shall annoy Bismarck even more than I did with my Schnaps.[233]
Kindest regards.
Yours,
F. E.
The only thing that might possibly intervene would by my eyesight, for which I'm receiving treatment so as to get the wretched business properly over and done with — but in that case I shall write.
89. Engels to Paul Lafargue 7 February
My dear Lafargue,
Herewith the cheque for LI5. I am overwhelmed with work. The business of the English Manifesto has at last been rushed through and I expect to have the proofs in a few days' time.[54] I am counting on Laura for improvements to the translation, my own revision having had to be done in something of a hurry, and this would be of the greatest help to me in the event of a reprint.
Then, I am writing a critique of Bismarck's policy generally. It is to appear as an appendix to the Anti-DUhring's Theory of Force, or rather, as its application to current practice. I promised to deliver the ms. on the 20th of this month and, as you can well imagine, the thing has got to be carefully considered and reconsidered. Now, that is something that would have done nicely for the Socialiste had you not killed it off just by this time.
The disappearance of the Socialiste spells your own disappearance qua party from the Paris scene.[234] After all, the Possibilists manage to keep the Prolétariat going and, if you cannot do as much, it means you are contracting instead of expanding; it is not the weekly organ that is to blame — the other's a weekly too. Meanwhile I refuse to believe that the Paris workingman has embarked irretrievably on a period of decadence. The French are unpredictable and capable of springing all manner of surprises. So I shall wait and see.
As for Bismarck he, no less than the Russian Panslavists[82] and French chauvinists, is playing with fire. The present situation suits him so long as a glimmer of life remains in old Lehmann (nickname for William,(1) as you doubtless know). Bismarck has every reason to make himself indispensable against the day the old man dies. He and young Williamb have hatched something of a plot against the Crown Princec in an attempt to induce him to have a laryngotomy, i.e. to have his throat slit.d Since the Crown Prince and his wifee are perfectly well aware of this, Bismarck has made himself all but impossible so far as they are concerned. And that's one of the reasons why the new Anti-Socialist Law has failed to get through the Reichstag.[235] A Catholic from Colognef declared in open session that, before 30 September (when the existing law expires) the ministry might well have changed hands.
That debate on the Anti-Socialist Law was, for us, a real masterpiece. It is the first time our men have scored an out-and-out victory in the Reichstag. The law will be extended for two years, probably for the last time. But not all the arguments nor all the facts in the world would have sufficed to bring about the rejection of the government's demands had there been any immediate prospect of young William's succession; he is your true Prussian, insolent and arrogant as the officers in Berlin in 1806, who would use the steps of the French embassy to whet their swords on only, vanquished, to surrender those swords to Napoleon's soldiers two months later.[236] The possibility of war led me to embark once again on the study of things military. If there isn't a war, so much the better. But if it does break out — and this depends on all manner of imponderable events — I hope that the Russians will be well and truly trounced and that nothing very decisive will happen on the French border — for then there might be a chance of reconciliation. With five million Germans under arms, called upon to fight for things of no concern to themselves, Bismarck would no longer have the upper hand.
In the meantime I am taking care of my eyesight which is improving under the treatment prescribed by my specialist, although he hasn't yet butchered my tear duct. But I have to spare my eyes.
My love to Laura.
Yours ever,
F. E.
90. Engels to Hermann Schlüter 12 February
Dear Mr Schlüter,
Unfortunately I shall not be able to send the ms.(1) I promised you by the 20th of this month, the reason being interruptions of all kinds, the arrival next week of the proofs of the Manifesto}' and the special care I am having to take of my eyes just now, while under treatment.
Would you let me know as exactly as possible when printing ought to begin? The 3 chapters of the original Theory of Force are ready for the press but the new section is not quite finished yet in the first draft; I am not at all satisfied with the latter and, as usual, it is turning out longer than I had intended. Moreover, the theme is such that it must be dealt with powerfully or not at all.
As soon as you give me a definite date I can let you know whether or not I shall be able to manage it by then. If not, it might be best if you could print something shorter in the meantime, for it will be a question or 3 or 4 weeks at most.
Whether the ms. is suitable for publication in the Sozialdemokrat is something that had better be decided on the spot when it arrives.
In any case, having regard to the present critical political situation, a certain amount of delay — to see how things turn out — would seem to me almost mandatory.
With kindest regards,
Yours,
F. Engels
91. Engels to Hermann Schlüter 19 February
Dear Mr Schlüter,
I cannot manage it. So you had better print something else in the meantime and if possible let me know a fortnight or 3 weeks in advance when you will be ready and can do with the ms.(1) Suddenly I seem to be snowed under. For instance, it will take me almost the whole of this week to deal with the correspondence which, as a matter of principle, I had laid on one side.
As soon as possible I shall send you the English Manifesto for the archives.[227]
Kindest regards to you all,
Yours,
F. Engels
92. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge 22 February
Dear Sorge,
I must in all honesty confess that, from the start, I hardly thought it possible you would be able to stick it out in that small provincial town.[218]1 can think of no greater misfortune for a civilised man who has come of age in a big movement than to be relegated to some such remote hole after living for years in a metropolis. Well, I'm glad you have made up your mind. It will make the remaining few months more tolerable for you.
I am undergoing treatment for my eyes — the eye specialist said 'there was nothing the matter with them', but that care would be necessary during treatment. More easily said than done — when I'm being badgered from all sides by dozens of people demanding German, English, Italian, etc., work of me — all of it urgent!—and at the same time urging me to edit Volume III of Capital. All very well, but it's the chaps themselves who prevent me from doing so.
At all events, a long-standing wish of yours is to be fulfilled in the next few days: the Manifesto is being brought out in English over here by Reeves. Translated by S. Moore,[54] revised by us both, preface by me." Have already read the first proofs. As soon as I get copies I shall let you have two, one of them for the Wischnewetzkys. For Reeves is paying S. Moore a royalty for author's rights, and since it was / who concluded the contract, I cannot be directly involved in getting it pirated in America. Otherwise Reeves could declare that this constituted a breach of contract, and poor Sam Moore wouldn't get anything. But obviously I neither could nor would prevent its being pirated. After all, did not Reeves pirate my preface to the Condition of the Working Classa[2]
Aveling is getting a couple of plays produced and, if all goes well, will extricate himself from his journalistic misère!b He and Tussy are due here shortly; they are dining with me as Aveling has a meeting not far from here. At Christmas the Lafargues moved to Le Perreux, beyond Vincennes, 20 minutes from Paris by train, and are amusing themselves doing rural tasks. The Socialiste has died yet again.[234] The workers of Paris don't want to read a weekly. Vaillant is acquitting himself famously in the Municipal Council; he was much in evidence during the presiden-tial crisis[197] when the menacing attitude of the workers prevented the election of Ferry. He will be the guiding light of the next provisional government provided it's not too long in coming.
Bebel and Singer have inflicted a formidable defeat on the Prussians over the Anti-Socialist Law.[235] For the first time the whole of Europe has had to pay attention to our people in the Reichstag. You will have read the text of Bebel's speech in the Gleichheit—a masterpiece in which he excelled himself.c
I hope it won't come to war, though this would mean that all the military studies which those very rumours of war have forced me to take up again will have been done in vain. The odds are as follows: Thanks to long years of universal military service and education, Germany can mobilise between 2Vi and 3 million trained men and provide them with officers and NCOs. France not more than VA to IV2 million. Russia barely 1 million. At worst Germany is a match for them both in terms of defence. Italy can raise and sustain 300,000 men. Austria roughly 1 million. Thus, as far as war on land is concerned, the odds are in favour of Germany, Austria and Italy, while the war at sea will be determined by Britain's attitude. It would be splendid if Bismarck were to be forced to cut away his own stay and support, Russian tsarism!
War or no war, everything is heading for a crisis. The state of affairs in Russia can't go on very much longer. The Hohenzollerns are done for, the Crown Prince[3] is mortally ill, his son,b a cripple and insolent young guardee.(1) In France the downfall of the exploiters' bourgeois republic looms ever closer; as in 1847, scandals threaten to bring about a révolution du mépris.[238] And in this country the masses are coming increasingly under the sway of an instinctive socialism which still, I am glad to say, resists definite formulation in accordance with the dogma of this or that socialist organisation, and hence will accept it all the more readily when something crucial happens. All that is needed is for the fun to begin somewhere or other, and the bourgeoisie will be dumbfounded by the hitherto latent socialism which will then vent itself and become manifest.
Your old friend,
F. Engels
1906 and, in full, in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition,
Vol. XXVIII, Moscow, 1940
93. Engels to Florence Kelley-Wischnewetsky 22 February[2 3 9]
Dear Mrs Wischnewetzky,
I have duly received your letters [of] 21 December and 8 January and return LovelPs letter with thanks.
I am astonished at Grönlund's proceedings, I was rather glad he did not call on me here. From all I hear he is full of vanity and self-conceit, to a degree unattainable even to a German, to be reached only by a Scandinavian, but also so naif in it as only a Scandinavian can be — in a German it would be offensive. Es muss auch solche Käuze geben.[3]- In America not less than in England all these self-announced grands hommes'b will find their own level as soon as the masses begin to stir— and will then find themselves shifted to that level of their own with a velocity that will astonish them. We have had all that in Germany and France, and in the International too.
I have since heard from poor old Sorge, in a way that fully confirms all you say. I fully expected from the beginning that he would not be able to live in that solitude and wilderness.[218] I hope his return to Hoboken may prove a success.
I sent you a No. of Bradlaugh's National Reformer with an article No. 1 on my book.c Copies were sent to: National Reformer, Weekly Dispatch, Reynold's Newspaper, Club Journal, Our Corner (Mrs Besant), To-day (H. Bland), Christian Socialist, Pall Mall Gazette. I have requested friends to look at these papers and magazines and let me know if anything appears, when you shall have it.
Reeves has also sent for the 1,000 pamphlets,d whether that is merely a ruse to keep competition out, remains to be seen. The thing seems to sell exceedingly well.
Justice had a copy of the book from you, the Commonweal did not require one as I sent one to Morris personally.
Justice brought out again the old American translation of the Communist Manifesto.[240] This set Reeves inquiring about an authorised translation. I had one by S. Moore, and Sam happened to be here. So we revised it and sold it to Reeves; he got the proofs last week and as soon as it is out you shall have a copy. Sam Moore is the best translator I know but not in a position to do work without getting something for it.
I do not quite understand your remark about the book being sold here 1 shilling dearer. $1.25 is equal as far as I know to 5s. and that is the selling price here.
Mrs Campbell has not yet called on me so far. Your remarks about my books being boycotted by the official German Socialists of New York[241] are quite correct, but I am used to that sort of thing, and so the efforts of these gentry amuse me. Better so than to have to undergo their patronage. With them the movement is a business, and 'business is business'. This kind of thing won't last very long, their efforts to boss the American movement as they have done with the German-American one, must fail miserably. The masses will set all that right when once they move.
Here things go slowly but well. The various little organisations have found their level and are willing to co-operate without bickerings. The police brutalities in Trafalgar Square[185] have done wonders in helping to widen the gap between the working men Radicals and the Middle Class Liberals and Radicals, the latter have behaved cowardly in and out of Parliament. The Law and Liberty League — a body gaining ground every day — is the first organisation in which Socialist delegates, as such, sit aside of Radical delegates.[242] The stupidity of the present Tory government is appalling — if old Disraeli was alive, he would box their ears right and left. But this stupidity helps on matters wonderfully. Home Rule[175]
for Ireland and for London is now the cry here; the latter a thing which the Liberals fear even more than the Tories do. The working-class element is getting more and more exasperated, through the stupid Tory provocations, is getting daily more conscious of its strength at the ballot-box, and more penetrated by the Socialist leaven. The American example has opened their eyes, and if next autumn there was to be a repeti-tion, in any large American town, of the New York election campaign of 1886,[7] the effect here would be instantaneous. The two great Anglo-Saxon nations are sure to set up competition in Socialism, as well as in other matters, and then it will be a race with ever accelerated velocity.
Can you get me the American Customs' Tariff and the list of internal taxes upon American industrial and other products? And if possible some information as to how the latter are balanced by the former with regard to cost of production? That is, for instance, if the inland duty on cigars is 20%, an import duty of 20% would balance it as far as foreign competition is concerned. That is what I should like to have some information about, before I write my preface to the 'Free Trade'.*
Reciprocating your kind wishes I remain
Yours very truly,
F. Engels
94. Engels to Wilhelm Liebknecht 23 February
Dear Liebknecht,
The debate on the Anti-Socialist Law[235] was the biggest triumph we have ever scored in the parliamentary sphere and I'm only sorry that you were unable to be there. However, that's unlikely to go on for much longer, since you will, after all, be taking Hasenclever's place shortly.[43] We also have a Puttkamer over here — Balfour, Secretary for Ireland. Just as Puttkamer is Bismarck's cousin, so Balfour is Salisbury's nephew. An arrogantly obstreperous stuck-up squire, exactly like Puttkamer. He too gets soundly thrashed and last week succumbed to a lambasting at the hands of O'Brien,[244] just as Puttkamer does at those of our own people. Moreover, he's as useful to the Irish as Puttkamer is to us. However, you'll glean absolutely nothing from the deplorable Saturday Review, supposing you still take it, about what's going on over here; so far as anything of importance is concerned, a conspiration du silence3,
prevails.
Bismarck's speech was addressed to Tsar Alexander in person in order that the Gatchina prisoner might at long last learn the truth.[245] Whether it will help is doubtful. The Russians, such is their irresolution, are becoming ever more deeply embroiled and in the end they may not be able to draw back with honour. Therein lies the danger. As a rule they behave like utter jack-asses when they embark on a war. It's a repeat of Croesus by crossing the Halys will ruin a mighty realm.*b They can place barely a million men on the border and haven't enough officers for more. France disposes of VA million very good troops, but no longer has sufficient seasoned men and still fewer officers to provide more. With 2 Vi million seasoned troops and an adequate supply of officers and NCOs, Bismarck has, however, still pitched Germany's strength too low. Nor is it a bad thing that this should be so. Until the revolution gets under way in Russia, Bismarck must not be brought down by an external defeat. That would only restore his popularity.
But it is impossible to foretell what will come of the affair if it really gets to the stage of a war. They'll certainly try to turn it into a mock war, but that is not so easy to do. If it is to be done in the way that suits us best, and the odds are strongly in favour of it, then let it be a static war with changing fortunes on the French border, an offensive war with the capture of the Polish fortresses on the Russian border, and a revolution in Petersburg which will all at once throw an entirely different light on everything, so far as the gentlemen prosecuting the war are concerned. This much is certain — there will be no rapid decisions, no triumphal marches either on Berlin or on Paris. France is very strong and very clev-erly fortified; so far as their disposition is concerned, the works round Paris are a masterly affair.
Last Monday, during the meeting held to welcome Cunninghame-Graham (Communist, Marxist, on the above occasion he called for nationalisation of all means of production) and Burns,[246] Mother Schack was running round selling Freedom, the most extreme and strident of the local anarchist papers. She inadvertently offered one to Lessner, among others. Her unsatisfied craving for action seems to have driven her quite dotty.
Reuss has instituted proceedings against the Commonweal (Morris) for denouncing him as a spy.[247] Obviously the Prussian embassy wishes to regain over here the ground lost in Berlin. It may, however, be making hellish blunder. Mr Reuss has to go into the witness box, and in this country perjury is not to be trifled with. There's no Puttkamer over here to help!
The Manifesto is coming out in English, edited by myself.[54] I shall send you one as soon as I get some.
Your
F. E.
Apropos, Pfänder's widow is living over here in the most wretched circumstances. I do what I can and have just sent her another couple of £s. The louts' society[106] put on a concert for her and collected about £5. She herself is ill, her daughter paints, and the pair of them do bits of needlework, but all is wretchedness. Might the party not set aside a trifling sum every quarter? The doctor says she'll barely get through the winter. See what you can do. We really ought to set aside pensions for our veterans' widows.
95. Engels to Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis 23 February
My dear Nieuwenhuis,
I informed Kautsky of the contents of your letter immediately it arrived and understand that he has since seen to everything you wanted.
The news from here is pretty good on the whole. The various socialist organisations have refrained from forcibly accelerating the natural, normal and hence somewhat slow process of development of the English working class; hence less fuss, less vainglory, but also less disap-pointment. Moreover they get on amongst themselves. As to setting the masses in motion, that has been taken care of by the incomprehensible stupidity of the government and the imperturbable cowardice of the Liberal opposition. The Trafalgar Square affair[185] did not simply breathe new life into the working men; the deplorable way in which the Liberal leaders behaved then and subsequently is driving more and more radical workers over to the socialists, the more so as the latter behaved very well on that particular occasion and were to be seen everywhere in the front rank. Cunninghame-Graham is a declared Marxist and at the meeting last Monday[246] demanded outright that the nation confiscate all the means of production. So here too we are represented in Parliament.
The best proof of how far the workers over here have advanced is provided by the radical working men's clubs[22] in the East End. What impressed them above all was the example set by the New York election campaign in November 1886;[7] for what America does makes a greater impression over here than anything the whole of the continent of Europe may do. The example set by New York made it clear to the chaps that in the end the workers would do best if they formed their own party. When the Avelings returned, they seized on this mood and since then their activities have proved most effective in these clubs[84]—the only political workingmen's organisations of any importance that exist here. Both Aveling and his wife give several lectures a week down there and exert a great deal of influence; there's no doubt that they are now the most popular speakers with the workers. The main thing, of course, is to wean the clubs from their dependence on the great Liberal Party, prepare the ground for their own labour party and gradually bring the chaps over to conscious socialism. For, as I have said, the cowardice of the Liberal leaders, as also of the majority of London Liberal and Radical Members of Parliament, has been of enormous help to us over here. The people who were elected 3 or 4 years ago as workingmen's representatives, the Cremers, Howells, Potters, etc., are already completely played out. Were a second ballot to be introduced here instead of the matter's being decided, as it now is, by a relative majority at the first ballot, we should be able to organise a labour party within six months; under the present electoral system the creation of a new, third party is made very difficult. But it will come, no question of that, and in the meantime we can content ourselves with the knowledge that we are advancing all along the line.
An English edition of the Communist Manifesto, revised by myself, will be coming out in the next week or two; I shall send you one — there's a big demand for it over here, which is also a good sign.
You too will have been delighted at our brilliant victory in the Reichstag in Berlin. Bebel surpassed himself.[235] He came to stay with me last autumn[173] and I only hope that gaol suits you[5] as well as it does him.[64] He says he always feels very much better afterwards (he suffers from nerves and in gaol his nervous excitation dies down).
Shall you be coming over here again next summer? With kindest regards.
Yours,
F. Engels
96. Engels to Laura Lafargue 25 February[4 0]
My dear Laura,
I have just half an hour before post-time to give you a sign of life after sending off the last proofs of the Manifesto.[3]' I hope you have better weather than we here: nothing but East winds, frost, snow showers, varying with a few hours' thaw. Very uncomfortable with the English system of fire-places, but then this winter cannot last for ever.
I have not sent the Pall Mall Gazette of late because there is literally nothing in it. It is strictly a London local paper, and consequently deadly dull when nothing is stirring in London.
Bebel and Singer had a glorious victory in the Reichstag, not only at the first but also at the third reading of the bill.[235] It was exactly like O'Brien's victory over Balfour[244] (who is a Scottish Puttkamer all over). Most of our people were at the meeting last Monday to welcome Cunninghame-Graham and Burns[246]; O'Brien spoke there again, and very well. Cunninghame-Graham who already before, at Glasgow, had publicly stated that he stood on the basis of Karl Marx 'absolutely and entirely', here again proclaimed the nationalisation of all means of production. So we are represented in the British Parliament too. Hyndman, who had not been asked to speak, had got some of his fellows to call for him, took possession of the platform, but only to attack violently and personally some Radical M.P.s present — invited guests— who by the way had been told before by others, quite sufficiently, about their shortcomings.b This attack of Hyndman's however was so uncalled for and out of place that he was hooted down.
You will have heard that Reuss has sued Morris for libel for calling him a spy in the Commonweal.[1]*[7] Evidently the work of the Bismarckian embassy. Morris was very funky at first, not having any evidence ready at hand, but I think we have since secured enough to make it a defeat for Puttkamer and Co. if they should persevere, which I doubt. I don't think Reuss will venture going into the witness box, perjury is only allowed to regular British police constables.
Nim wishes me to ask you again to give Longuet a hint that he better begin repaying a little of that money. She seems very sore on that point.
Shall we have war? If so, it will be the most foolish thing on the part of the Czar(1) and the French chauvins^ that they can be guilty of. I have lately studied the military chances. What Bismarck says, that Germany can send out 2Vi-}> million of drilled and well-officered men, is rather below than above the truth. Russia will never have as many as a million actually on the seat of war, and France can send out VA-IV2 million of drilled and well-officered men; beyond that, officers and sergeants will be either absent or unfit. Thus Germany alone will be quite capable of resist-ing, for a time at least, an attack on both sides at once. The great advantage of Germany is in the greater number of drilled men, and especially of sergeants and officers. As to quality, the French will be fully equal to the Germans, as far as the line is concerned; beyond that, the German Landwehr[2]** is far better than the French territorials. The Russians I consider worse than they used to be, they have adopted a system of universal liability to service[78] for which they are not civilised enough and certainly are very short of good officers. And corruption is there as rife as ever — and probably will also play a certain part on the French side, if we are to judge from the Wilsoniades[168] and other scandals.
Jollymeier is very melancholy that you have not written him a line yet with that gold pen. Have you no mercy with him? He will be here again in about 4 weeks for Easter, which this year falls on Bismarck's birthday, alias All fools; day.c Very proper too, after people have been foolish enough for 1,800 years to celebrate such a fantastical festival!
Methinks I hear a certain bell calling me to the consumption of — I dare say veal cutlets. Farewell for today, and may the breeches of Paul, with their excessive length, lose also their perfume of sour size — a perfume too well known, alas, to an old Manchesterian!
Yours ever,
F. Engels
97. Engels to Wilhelm Liebknecht 29 February[1 2 5]
Dear Liebknecht,
If you people will allocate 100 marks a quarter to Mrs Pfänder, I shall do the same, in which case she will have £40 a year and that will safeguard her against extreme indigence.
After Pfänder's death she had a little money, opened a lodging house, but was necessarily restricted to a very second-rate neighbourhood; she was also unfortunate in other respects (e.g. let rooms to several paed-erasts who were found out)—in short, it didn't work. Next she took a little shop, whereupon the daughter died who alone understood how to manage a small business of that sort — in short, the money melted away. Pfänder's brother, whom the former had at one time bought out of the army and supported for a long period, and who is in New Ulm, Minnesota, insisted upon her going over there with her other daughter. On arrival they found they were to be treated as 'poor relations' and do domestic service. Mrs Pfänder was not slow to decide; she returned forthwith, having been there barely a fortnight. That ate up what little resources she had left. Since then everything possible has been done for her over here, but I am the only person here who can provide for her in the long run, though not with a sufficiency in view of all the other calls upon me. But, as I say, if your proposal goes through, the worst will be taken care of. In any case, it won't be for very long.
I read the Daily News in the morning, the Evening Standard and Pall Mall Gazette in the evenings and the Weekly Dispatch on Sundays. At the moment, that is; I sometimes ring the changes. But if there is anything interesting in them, I send it to Paris for Laura and cannot very well depart from this. However, I shall see what I can send you. Provided you are looking for literary contributions rather than politics, the Weekly Dispatch is at all events better than the Saturday Review. Belongs to Mrs Ashton Dilke, editor Dr Al. Hunter, M. P. for Aberdeen. It's bigoted, middle class-radical, but comprehensive so far as English news is concerned, has much parliamentary gossip during session time, and first-rate correspondence from Paris (Mrs Crawford of the Daily News, who can speak her mind much more freely here). I'll send it to you sometimes.
I have never heard of the Irish tricolour you mention. The Irish flags in Ireland and over here are simply green, with a gold harp, but no crown (in the British Empire's coat-of-arms there's a crown above the harp). At the time of the Fenians, 1865-67,[249] many people wore green and orange to show the Orangemen of the North[250] that they didn't want to smash them but to accept them as brothers. But there's no question of that now.
I don't think Bismarck is so stupid as to believe that the Russians would be a party to his crushing France. Constant squabbling between France and Germany is, after all, their chief means of dominating Europe and this implies their holding the scales. That Bismarck desires nothing more ardently than to sink France, if possible, beneath the waves is, of course, undeniable. But it won't be so easy to do. The new French fortifications— the Mass and Moselle Lines, the two groups of fortresses in the north and southeast (Belfort, Besançon, Lyons, Dijon, Langres, Epinal) and, finally, the wonderful new groups of forts round Paris — have taken the wind out of his sails; as things are now, Germany cannot get the better of France or France the better of Germany. And that's a very good thing. If the worst comes to the worst, the frontier will probably be the scene of a static war with changing fortunes, which will instill respect for their opponents into both armies and make possible a reasonable peace. On the other hand, the Russians may suffer a formidable drubbing, and that would be best of all.
It's just begun to snow again — for the past 3 weeks nothing but snow, frost and east wind, with a bit of a thaw in between-whiles. You would also seem to be having really filthy weather where you are.
Many regards.
Your
F. E.
Do you know a workingman called Carl August Nitzer from Lindenau, who was allegedly expelled from Leipzig (after being held for 3 months on remand), but then allegedly spent another 3 months agitating on behalf of Viereck before fleeing (which is why, he says, he cannot produce an expulsion order)? The laddie has come to me two or three times asking for money, but he gives the impression of being a case-hard-ened layabout and sponger.
98. Engels to Hermann Schlüter 17 March
Dear Mr Schlüter,
Once again it's no go with the pamphlet[203] so far as the date you give is concerned. I am very sorry to have played fast and loose with you like this, but it's not my fault. I have to do exactly what my eye specialist tells me if I want to get back into proper shape again; I am not allowed to write for more than 2 hours, i.e. am forced to break off when I'm just getting into my stride, and frequently cannot even make a start because of the pressure of correspondence. So it would be better if I were to take my time over the thing and do it properly. Also, there's a mass of essential material which has only just turned up and requires perusal. In short, it would be best if you were to look to your own convenience and, when I have made enough progress, I shall write and tell you.
Lehmann the Younger[3] writes a hideously affected German. He has every reason to warn people against the dangers of an inadequate education, of which he himself, in his muddled, liberal-conservative Manchesterist proclamation,[251] presents such a terrifying example. However, it's hard to have to play the Emperor when you have one foot in the grave. Anyhow, if he holds out for another 6 months he will introduce a measure of instability and uncertainty into the economic system, and that's all we need. As soon as your philistine has any inkling that the system will not go on as it is for ever but is, on the contrary, tottering, it will be the beginning of the end. The building has lost its keystone, Lehmann I,b and it will soon become evident how rickety the whole contraption is. That may mean things will be momentarily better for us but also — in certain circumstances — momentarily worse; alternatively it may mean war. At all events, we are once more in for a lively time.
Kindest regards to Ede and Liebknecht if, as I suppose, he is there.
Yours,
F. E.
99. Engels to Paul Lafargue 19 March
My dear Lafargue,
I am sending you a Weekly Dispatch which sheds light on the reason why 'friend Fritz' is made to work so hard.[252] Bismarck would give two years of his life to reduce him — Fritz — to a state in which he would be obliged to acknowledge himself unfit to rule. That is why his nose is kept to the grindstone, and that is why Fritz is having to sweat. The intrigue is of long date, its original object being the total elimination of Fritz before the old man's[3] death; this having failed, they are trying to kill him by dint of hard work, state occasions, etc. All this can only lead to an open breach, provided Fritz does not succumb too soon; if he recovers a little in the course of the summer and then brings about a ministerial reshuffle, it will be greatly to our benefit. The main thing is that home affairs should become unstable, that the philistine should lose his faith in the perpetuity of Bismarck's régime and that he should find himself face to face with a situation in which he, the philistine, will have to decide and act instead of leaving it all to the government. Old William was the keystone and, now that it has fallen, the whole building is threatened with collapse. What we need is at least six months of Fritz to undermine it still further, to make philistines and functionaries uncertain of the future, and to conjure up the possibility of a change in home affairs. Fritz is spineless and, even when in good health, he agrees with his last interlocutor, almost always his wife.(1) The only things that will force his hand are the intrigues of Bismarck and of his own son.b Once he has brought about a change of front it matters little how long he lasts or does not last; whatever the case, William II will accede in circumstances that are favourable to ourselves.
On the other hand, if Fritz dies sooner, William II will not be the same as William I and we shall nonetheless experience a sudden volte-face on the part of the bourgeoisie. This young man is bound to perpetrate follies which will not be forgiven him as were the old man's. If the doctors slit his father's throatc he, the son, may well suffer a similar fate, but at the hands of others. He is not paralysed, by the way. His arm was fractured at birth, no one noticed this at the time, hence the atrophy of that limb.
In any case the ice has been broken. Continuity in home affairs has been disrupted, and movement will take the place of stagnation. That is all we require.
Boulanger is undoubtedly something of a charlatan, but he's not a cipher for all that. He has given proof of military gumption and his char-latanism may serve him well in the French army; Napoleon had his fair share of it, too. But he seems politically inept, perhaps because of his overweening ambition. There can be no doubt that, if the French want to throw away any chance they have of recovering the lost provinces, they need only ape Boulanger's friends — in particular Rochefort, who seems stupid to the point of folly. All that is needed to reconcile the numbskull Alsatians with Germany is an abortive war of revenge; the peasants are mercenaries who, given the choice, will always serve in the victor's army, while the bourgeois will find their profits assured by the German tariff no less than by that of the French. As for the Russians, they are sure to be defeated; I have just been studying their 1877-78 campaign in Turkey[253]—98 incompetent generals to 2 tolerable ones, an exceedingly ill-organised army with officers beneath all criticism, with brave soldiers inured to the utmost hardship (they waded through fords, in minus 10 degrees Reaumur, with water up to their chests), very obedi-ent, but also totally incapable of understanding the only kind of fighting possible today — fighting in extended order. Their strength lay in fighting in close order, a form which no longer exists, and anyone seeking to revive it would be swept by the fire of modern weapons.
But if Boulanger delivers you from plural lists,[254] we'll vote him a Vendôme column[255] without his having to go and earn it on the field of battle.
Tussy and Edward are leaving on Thursday for their 'castle' at Stratford-on-Avon and the Kautskys are to follow them. What a pleasant prospect — a labourer's cottage, with the cold and the wind and the flurries of snow we're now having! As for the rest of us, we have so far stood the winter very well until, a week ago, we had a brilliant, warm, spring day, followed by frost, nor'-easter and snow. It gave Nim the mumps, alias parotitis, and me a 'flu-like cold in the head — difficult things to get rid of in this weather. But nothing particularly irksome.
I enclose cheque for £15. My love to Laura. What are Longuet and the children[3] doing? Nim always asks me for news of them as soon as a letter arrives from Paris.
Yours ever, RE.
100. Engels to Margaret Harkness early April
Dear Miss Harkness,
I thank you very much for sending me through Messrs Vizetelly your City Girl. I have read it with the greatest pleasure and avidity. It is indeed, as my friend Eichhoff your translator calls it, ein kleines Kunstwerk*; to which he adds, what will be satisfactory to you, that consequently his translation must be all but literal, as any omission or attempted manipulation could only destroy part of the original's value.
What strikes me most in your tale besides its realistic truth is that it exhibits the courage of the true artist. Not only in the way you treat the Salvation Army,[205] in the teeth of supercilious respectability, which respectability will perhaps learn from your tale, for the first time, why the Salvation Army has such a hold on the popular masses. But chiefly in the plain unvarnished manner in which you make the old, old story, the proletarian girl seduced by a middle-class man, the pivot of the whole book. Mediocrity would have felt bound to hide the, to it, commonplace character of the plot under heaps of artificial complica-tions and adornments, and yet would not have got rid of the fate of being found out. You felt you could afford to tell an old story, because you could make it a new one by simply telling it truly.
Your Mr Arthur Grant is a masterpiece. If I have anything to criticise, it would be that perhaps, after all, the tale is not quite realistic enough. Realism, to my mind, implies, beside truth of detail, the truthful reproduction of typical characters under typical circumstances. Now your characters are typical enough, as far as they go; but the circumstances which surround them and make them act, are not perhaps equally so. In the City Girl the working class figures as a passive mass, unable to help itself and not even making any attempt at striving to help itself. All attempts to drag it out of its torpid misery come from without, from above. Now if this was a correct description about 1800 or 1810, in the days of Saint-Simon and Robert Owen, it cannot appear so in 1887 to a man who for nearly fifty years has had the honour of sharing in most of the fights of the militant proletariat. The rebellious reaction of the working class against the oppressive medium which surrounds them, their attempts — convulsive, half-conscious or conscious — at recovering their status as human beings, belong to history and must therefore lay claim to a place in the domain of realism.
I am far from finding fault with your not having written a point-blank socialist novel, a 'Tendenz-roman' as we Germans call it, to glorify the social and political views of the author. That is not at all what I mean. The more the opinions of the author remain hidden, the better for the work of art. The realism I allude to may crop out even in spite of the author's opinions. Let me refer to an example. Balzac whom I consider a far greater master of realism than all the Zolas passées, présents et à venir,[1]
in La Comédie humaine gives us a most wonderfully realistic history of French 'Society', especially of le monde parisien^ describing, chronicle-fashion, almost year by year from 1816 to 1848 the progressive inroads of the rising bourgeosie upon the society of nobles, that reconstituted itself after 1815 and set up again, as far as it could, the standard of la vieille politesse française? He describes how the last remnants of this, to him, model society gradually succumbed before the intrusion of the vulgar moneyed upstart, or were corrupted by him; how the grande dame, whose conjugal infidelities were but a mode of asserting herself in perfect accordance with the way she had been disposed of in marriage, gave way to the bourgeois, who horned her husband for cash or cashmere; and around this central picture he groups a complete history of French Society from which, even in economical details (for instance the re-arrangement of real and personal property after the Revolution) I have learned more than from all the professed historians, economists and statisticians of the period together. Well, Balzac was politically a Legitimist[257]; his great work is a constant elegy on the irretrievable decay of good society; his sympathies are all with the class doomed to extinc-tion. But for all that his satire is never keener, his irony never bitterer, than when he sets in motion the very men and women with whom he sympathises most deeply — the nobles. And the only men of whom he always speaks with undisguised admiration, are his bitterest political antagonists, the republican heroes of the Cloîtred Saint-Méry,[258] the men, who at that time (1830-36) were indeed the representatives of the popular masses. That Balzac thus was compelled to go against his own class sympathies and political prejudices, that he saw the necessity of the downfall of his favourite nobles, and described them as people deserving no better fate; and that he saw the real men of the future where, for the time being, they alone were to be found — that I consider one of the greatest triumphs of Realism, and one of the grandest features in old Balzac.
I must own, in your defence, that nowhere in the civilised world are the working people less actively resistant, more passively submitting to fate, more hébétése than in the East End of London. And how do I know whether you have not had very good reasons for contenting yourself, for once, with a picture of the passive side of working-class life, reserving the active side for another work?
101. Engels to Laura Lafargue 10- 11 April
My dear Laura,
Schorlemmer returned to Manchester yesterday and so I can sit down today and write a few lines, that is to say if Edward and Tussy, who are returning from their 'Castle' and will be here about 5, do not drop in too soon.
First of all I must congratulate Paul on his splendid discoveries in etymology, which are truly astonishing.[259] That a great many French words which we used to derive from the Latin bos ox, are descended from the Greek bous ox, is already something. But that bouillon comes from bous and not from bullire to boil, is a great discovery and only pity that Paul did not follow it up a little further. Thus 5o«-strapa[260] is evidently of the same derivation, and 5«o-naparte (for 2?o«-naparte) also, and Bonapartism being thus connected with ox, Bou-lznger must be derived from bous; and then also its English equivalent Baker, which throws a completely new light on the adventure of Colonel Baker in the railway-carriage: how could he help rushing on Europa-Robinson, being descended from bous Jupiter?[261] Moreover there can be no doubt that in mou-tarde the m stands for an original b, and that thus its derivation from bous is assured — what a flood of light this throws on the fact that mustard is eaten to beef only and not to mutton!
Another great progress is to treat Sanskrit on the same level as cran-iology, and to have discovered des linguistes d'Allemagne et d'Angleterre[3]- who say that le finnois offre plus d'analogie avec les idiomes aryens que le sanscrit.^ I have only heard of some who, ascribing to the Aryan nations a European origin instead of an Asiatic one, find themselves placed before the awkward predicament of having to accept a Finnic origin of the Aryan language without being able, so far, to show the least trace of connection between the two. If Paul had tried to derive French from Japanese instead of from Greek, he would have done what he maintains these poor devils of Germans and English have done. They are badly off enough, as it is. They are second-rate and third-rate epigones—the Germans that is — some are even Bohemians — who for sensational purposes have started — or rather (by a series of mistakes) been conducted to — a paradox theory which has landed them in face of a dead wall; the Englishmen have taken the thing up as a fashion, as was to be expected from beginners who want to show off as masters — they have ventilated their rubbish at the last British Association[262] Meeting quite en-famille—but that which Paul ascribes to them — the discovery of the connection between Aryan and Finnish, a connection closer even than that of the other Aryan languages with Sanskrit their sister-tongue — that they are still panting for, and it is to be hoped they do not read the Nouvelle Revue or else they would indeed want to know who is this Fergus who holds the magic wand which transforms Aryan into Finnic and vice versa. But in case they come, Fergus can point to his Irish name in justification of his Irish Bulls or bous.
But joke à part the articles are very good, and what does it matter to the Parisians qui s'en fichent* whether Fergus tells them a few bulls about etymology. It is far more important that they should learn a little about their own language, and that they find here. Only I don't think it is necessary to the amusement of the Parisians that an author should commit himself by such assertions. But then we all of us have the incli-nation to brag most of what we know least; at all events I know I am.b
11th April. Exactly as I expected. The two hungry soulsc dropped in just as I finished the preceding page, bringing eggs, butter, pork pie, sausages from their truly rural retreat, and two good appetites. Today I had my American mail-day and now try to finish this.
In France things seems to me to go very well. Boulangism is the just and deserved punishment for the cowardice of all parties in the face of that bourgeois chauvinism which thinks it can make the clock of universal history stand still until France has reconquered Alsace. Fortunately Boulanger proves himself more and more a political ass, more dangerous, in my opinion, to himself than to anybody else. Un homme qui a son plan comme Trochu kann sich begraben lasssen?
For the rest, the Opportunists[199] are getting more and more worn out, verschlissen^ and have to fall back upon the alliance with the Monarchists, that is to say upon political suicide. The great progress in French public opinion is this: that the Republic is recognised as the only possible government, that Monarchy is equivalent to civil war and foreign war. The action of the Opportunists (besides their flagrant corruption) drives public opinion more and more towards the Left, and compels the nomination of more and more radical governments. All this in strict harmony with the regular development since 1875. We can wish for no more than that this should continue, and if Boulanger assists this move unintentionally all the better. The sense which the French have unbeknown to themselves — the necessary logical inheritance of a great, unconsciously logical history — will I hope prove more powerful than all the nonsense they set to work consciously and intentionally.
The German philistine convinces himself more and more that with old Williamc the clef de voûteà of the present system has gone, and that the whole voûte[11] will gradually follow. I only hope Bismarck will not be sent to the right-about merely in order to re-enter in triumph. Otherwise he had better stop.
What a fool that Rochefort is. Quotes Catholic Munich papers to prove that the Germans are only awaiting the French again invading Germany in order to join them, upset Bismarck and restore French domination in Germany! Cannot that idiot see that nothing would more fortify Bismarck than such a French attempt to 'free' Germany, and that we intend to settle our internal concerns ourselves!
Ever yours,
F. Engels called by Dinner Bell
102. Engels to Florence Kelley-Wischnewetsky 11 April
102
ENGELS TO FLORENCE KELLY-WISCHNEWETZKY239
IN NEW YORK
London, 11 April 1888
Dear Mrs Wischnewetzky,
Your call for the ms.(1) comes upon me very suddenly and I am afraid I shall not be able to oblige you. I am allowed to write two hours a day, no more; have a large correspondence to attend to; find that at the end of the two hours, am only just getting warm in harness, and then, just then, must stop. Under these circumstances I am quite unable to do articles de saison to order, especially for a distant market, and do not see my way to having the pamphlet ready in ms. by 15th May, much less have it ready printed in New York by that time. Still I will set about it at once, after clearing off urgent letters, and do my best. I interrupt an important piece of business[13] on purpose, to clear this matter off.
Still in my opinion you need not fear of losing your opportunity. The Free Trade question will not disappear from the American horizon until settled. I am sure that Protection has done its duty for the United States and is now an obstacle, and whatever may be the fate of the Mills bill,[263]
the struggle will not end until either Free Trade enables the United States manufacturers to take the leading part in the world market to which they are entitled in many branches of trade, or until both Protectionists and Free Traders are shoved aside by those behind them. Economic facts are stronger than politics, especially if the politics are so much mixed up with corruption as in America. I should not wonder if during the next few years one set of American manufacturers after the other passed over to the Free Traders — if they understand their interests they must.
Thanks for the official publicationsc—I think they will be just what I want.
I am glad of your success against the Executive as far as it goes — from Volkszeitung weekly 31 Marchd I see they won't give in yet — there you see what an advantage it is to be on the spot. The non-resisting weakness which went straight against the Avelings because they were absent[3]— that weakness you could work round to your favour because you were not absent; and thus the hostility to you is reduced to mere local Klatsch* which with perseverance you are sure to overcome and to live down.[264]
I was very much rejoiced to read that the Sorges feel happier again in their old quarters,[218] I hope they will continue so. Old Sorge could no more live in a hole like Rochester than I could in Krähwinker or its Lancashire equivalents, Chowbent or Bullocksmithy.
I return herewith the letters of the Board of Supervision. In haste
Yours faithfully,
F. Engels
Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXVIII, Moscow 1940
103. Engels to August Bebel 12 April
Dear Bebel,
Since you wrote on 8 March, I have been taking a bit of a look at events; things now seem to be settling down sufficiently for one to size them up. Your policy of saying that nothing has changed is, when applied to the masses, tactically quite correct; but in my view it by no means does justice to the historical situation.
Fritz's proclamations[251] show him to be of exceedingly mediocre intellect. Anyone who, after so many years as Crown Prince, can find nothing better to put forward than the elimination of this or that petty tax and, on the military side, the abolition of the third rank, which is quite pointless because long since abolished in a fighting formation, is unlikely to change the face of the world. The plaint about the evils of an inadequate education is apt to be the monopoly of the inadequately educated — as in this instance. So much for his intellect.
In assessing his character one must — because of the state of his health — proceed with the utmost caution. If a man is in constant danger of having his throat slit by his doctors," he may be excused from bestir-ring himself unduly; this would only be appropriate were his health to improve. Hence it is understandable that in internal affairs Bismarck and Puttkamer should have a freer hand than ever before.
But that is not to imply that nothing has changed. In William1, the building has lost its keystone and the fact that it is tottering is plainly manifest. Their internal policy betrays how desperately Bismarck and Co. are clinging to their positions. Nor is yours unchanged; it has dete-riorated precisely because Bismarck wishes to demonstrate that nothing has changed. The ostentatious exclusion of the Social Democrats from the amnesty, the mass scale of house searches and persecution, the desperate efforts to kill off the Sozialdemokrat in Switzerland[81]—all this proves that Bismarck & Co. feel the ground quaking under their feet, as do the efforts of the supporters of the Kartell[265] to make Fritz realise what a monarch is.
In true monarchical fashion they give way over all political questions, yet it's a court intrigue which brings the conflict to light. The thing's absolutely farcical — according to Bismarck, the Tsarc has the right to forbid Battenberg's marriage, while according to Fritz and Victoria, in their particular case, all the profound and inscrutable political axioms whereby they have been guided throughout their lives are suddenly to be abolished![266]
Being in such a parlous state, Fritz will doubtless be forced to give way here again — unless he gets better and can really weather a ministerial crisis. It is not at all in our interests that Bismarck should sulkily withdraw, only to return in triumph 4 weeks later, the idol of your coalitionist philistine. We should be more than satisfied if the said coalitionist philistine were to lose all faith in the stability of Bismarck's regime. Nor will that stability be restored in Fritz's lifetime.
Since absolutely nothing more is being divulged about the nature of the disease — not even Waldeyer's report which, if favourable, would certainly have been made public — there can be no doubt that it's a case of cancer. And here again our men of Progress[45] are showing what stuff they are made of. Virchow who, if only in his capacity as a medical man, and one who has already been consulted, ought now to be on the spot, is digging for antiquities in Egypt! No doubt he wishes to be called in officially!
There can be no empire without an empereur, no Bonapartism without a Bonaparte. The system is tailored to the man, stands or falls with him. Like the old Slav idol of Pomerania, Triglav, our Bonaparte had three heads; the middle one has been cut off and, of the other two, Moltke is already past his prime and Bismarck tottering. He won't get the better of Victoria, she having learnt from her mother[3] how to deal with ministers, even all-powerful ones. The old security is gone. The insecurity of the foundations will also become apparent in their policy; blunders abroad, at home recurrent coups de main. And it will become apparent in your philistine's loss of faith in his own idol, in the dwin-dling energy and zeal of civil servants, their minds bent on the possibility of change and consequently of a changed future for themselves. All this if, as seems probable, Bismarck stays where he is. But should Fritz get better and Bismarck's position become seriously endangered, then, so Lenchen maintains, they'll take a pot shot at Fritz. This might in fact actually happen, should Puttkamer and his Ihrings and Naporras be endangered.
So whatever happens there'll be an interregnum, with Bismarck yearning for the exit of Fritz and the entry of the other William.b In that case, however, things won't be at all the same as they used to be. In that case there'll be bedlam. Our Bonapartism has now just about reached its Mexican period. When that comes, so will our 1866, followed shortly by 1870; i.e. it will come from within, a domestic Sedan.[267] Well, let it!
In France things are taking a perfectly logical course — the right-wing Republicans are being forced into an alliance with the Monarchists and are foundering as a result, and possible governments have to be formed ever further to the left. Boulanger is obviously a political nitwit and will probably soon come to grief in the Chamber. Your French provincial philistine has but one article of faith — the indispensability of the Republic, since Monarchy spells civil war and war abroad.
Shall send receipt for Mrs Pf ander 's 100 marks in my next; I forgot to get it from her. Meanwhile many thanks for the donation. I shall do what I can to support the woman, but shall take the liberty of approaching you people again.
Kindest regards to your wife and daughter, and to Singer.
Your
EE.
104. Engels to Wilhelm Liebknecht 16 April
Dear Liebknecht,
I was on the point of answering your letter of the 4th when your second one arrived with an enclosure for Karl Kautsky and giving me to understand that my answers no less than your questions were already things of the past.
All I want to do now is point out how this is connected with the Social Democratic Federation's circular.[268]
1. The Social Democratic Federation still poses as the only socialist organisation in England and the only one entitled to act and speak on behalf of the movement over here as a whole. This was why it was necessary, having regard to the preparations for the congress, to emphasise that position, the more so as the Socialist League[21] in its present form will probably fizzle out before long and the Social Democratic Federation would like to absorb the disjecta membra.[3]- Fortunately, however, that won't come off, for if it did the same old personal squabbles would at once begin all over again.
2. The Social Democratic Federation is closely in league with the Possibilists in Paris and, since these in their turn are in league with Broadhurst & Co.,[269] the Social Democratic Federation must manoeu-vre. This second reason is the crucial one. Hyndman & Co. have become so deeply embroiled with the Possibilists that they can no longer draw back, even if they wanted to.
My opinion of all this congress business? I'm barely capable of expressing one, since I haven't the faintest idea of what has been discussed and anyway views change, kaleidoscope-fashion, even in your own case. By and large I regard all such congresses as exceedingly risky unless one is absolutely sure of success from the outset and, unless something definite and attainable is to be discussed, as somewhat unnecessary. The small fry, in particular the Belgians, have the chief say and, since the foreign department in Belgium is run, not by the Flemings, but by the old Brussels clique — the Brismée family — the same old dish is served up every time. But to want to hold your congress over here,[270] one week after the Trades Unions have held theirs, would spell utter ruin. Your funds would be used up, your people would run off and you'd be irre-deemably delivered up into the arms of London's wirepullers—ad majorem gloriam Hyndmanni.^
That Geneva is the place where the French — never mind what sort— ought to hold a congress to celebrate the French Revolution of 1789 and à propos of the Paris Exhibition0 is something you'll certainly never get them to believe.
So even if your congress doesn't materialise, it will, in my view, be no great disaster. In any case the agenda is needlessly restricted. A congress convoked by our Reichstag group would, after all, be attended exclusively by socialists and anarchists, not by Trade Unionists pure and simple. A social-democratic congress could throw the anarchists out, a general workingmen's congress cannot, and they are capable of being thoroughly obstreperous.
Fritz had better make haste and perk up — from the point of view of his health; otherwise Bismarck will prove too much for him. I hope that Bismarck goes too far and gets sacked, the dissolution to be followed by fresh elections under some sort of interim administration. That would provide a nice dose of désillusionnement for the philistines. But obviously when you may be condemned any day to have your throat slit by the doctors/ you're unlikely to have much zest for a serious fight. And on his own showing Bismarck is already defending himself tooth and claw.
Kindest regards.
Your
RE.
Was the stuff we sent you on Saturday what you wanted? If not, there has been a misunderstanding. The German is by Eccarius.[271]
105. Engels to Pasquale Martignetti 20 April
Dear Friend
I'm glad to hear that a fresh prospect appears to be opening up for you and hope you'll manage to prepare for the exam.[272]
I cannot, unfortunately, suggest any books that might assist your studies in this direction. For an Italian examination German books would cover too much ground on the one hand and too little on the other; moreover, I am not familiar with the more recent short compendiums. Still less do I know of any Italian books that would suit your purpose; the most I could recommend would be Carlo Botta, Storia dei Popoli d'ltalia which begins with Constantinus Magnus, circa AD 300. Perhaps also Pietro Colletta, Storia del Reame diNapoli, covering the years 1735-1825, a classic. But probably most helpful of all would be the textbooks currently in use in your grammar schools (corresponding to the French lycées and collèges and our Gymnasien), since most of the candidates for archivist's appointments will have attended these establishments and the examiners will therefore have to conform to the syllabus laid down in those schools.
But since it is impossible for you in your present straitened circumstances to purchase these books I deem it my duty to offer you my assistance. I have therefore permitted myself the liberty of taking out the enclosed money order in your name for the sum of four pounds sterling or fr. 10080 centesimi and trust you won't be angry with me for sending you this small amount without first obtaining your consent. I only hope that it will be enough, and that you will be able to procure what you need and pass your exam.
You will have read about our Zurich friends' expulsion from Switzerland.[81]
I shall look over and return the translation shortly[231]—as soon as I have finished an important piece for America.(1) Going through a whole lot of numbers at the same time cuts down the work.
With most cordial regards.
Yours
F. Engels
For postal purposes my first name has been given in its English form: 'Frederick'.
106. Engels to Gabriel Deville 27 April
Dear Citizen Deville,
Thank you for your book on Balzac,a which I will read with pleasure. After Cervantes Balzac is, or so I think, the greatest novelist of all time, as well as the most faithful recorder of French society between 1815 and 1848. I am fond of Balzac in whatever form.
Your interpretation of Marx's formula is faultless. In manuscript it read: M — c ^C MP an<^ ll w a s o n l y f ° r his own convenience and delecta-tion that the printer put the symbol <, which has given rise to endless misunderstandings.
Hence the complete formula on p. 18b
M — CCT P . . . C ' - M ' or -MP
M — C ^ P . . . (C + c) - (M + m) "-MP
means:
M, money, converted into C (commodity), which commodity is made up of L (labour power) and of MP (means of production); the said commodity C is subjected to a process of production P, this last resulting in a new commodity C (of different quality, but this does not concern us here where we have to do only with values), of greater value than and hence equal to C plus an increment c (C + c); this C is once more exchanged for money, that is to say for an amount M ' greater than M, or equal to M plus an increment m (M + m).
The symbol — serves to mark the conclusion of an exchange; the . . . .
indicates that the value in question undergoes a change of form which is not an exchange — in this case the process of production.
Should you wish to have anything else explained, I shall always be at your service. This second volume will, I am afraid, prove something of a headache for you, while failing to reward you with brilliant new solu-tions. It is concerned with transactions between bourgeois and the results are very nice theoretically but do not have any practical application. That is why I am in no hurry to see it translated into French or English; it needs to be complemented by Volume III.
I am Sir, etc.,
Your
F. Engels
107. Engels to Wilhelm Liebknecht 29 April
Dear Liebknecht,
Enclosed received this morning.[273]
It's just as well that Fritz(1) is a bit better. If young Williamb comes to the throne at this particular juncture, he and Bismarck — unless all the indications are deceptive — will compound with Russia so as to secure her permission for a war with France. It would seem that certain contingent agreements have already been concluded. In this way, and only in this way, would Boulanger constitute a danger, to France no less than to Germany. The French would be beaten, but because their fortifications are so strong, the war would be a protracted one and other people would join in. Probably Austria and Italy against Germany, since Russia's permission for something like this could not be obtained without both being sacrificed to the Russians. So that means that Bismarck will help the Russians to take Constantinople, and that means a world war on terms that will quite certainly ensure our eventual defeat — in alliance with Russia against the world! I trust this danger will pass.
Your
F.E.
108. Engels to Florence Kelley-Wischnewetsky 2 May
Dear Mrs Wischnewetzky,
By this mail I send you registered the ms.(1) that is to say the copy Mrs Aveling made of it when she found that with your close handwriting and absence of margin it was impossible to insert in pencil legibly the suggested alterations. There were many, arising from the fact that you translated from a German translation and we had the original to work upon. Many alterations have therefore no other purpose than to bring the English text nearer to the French original. In others, I have for the sake of clearness taken more liberties.
The prefaceb is nearly done in the rough, but as you will require a German translation, I shall have to keep it a little longer on that account.
Anyhow I will hurry on as much as the two hours a day will allow me to do — my doctor has again last week bound me strictly to that limit.
Will you please tell Sorge that according to present arrangements the Sozialdemokrat^[1] is going to be removed to London. But it will be well to keep this quiet for the present, when our friends intend this to be talked about and to get into the news-hunting press, they will no doubt arrange that themselves.
I am boycotted here almost as much as you are in New York — the various socialist cliques here are dissatisfied at my absolute neutrality with regard to them, and being all of them agreed as to that point, try to pay me out by not mentioning any of my writings. Neither Our Corner (Mrs Beasant) nor To-day nor the Christian Socialist (of this latter monthly, however, I am not quite certain) have mentioned the Condition of the Working-Class though I sent them copies myself. I fully expected this but did not like to say so to you until the proof was there. I don't blame them, because I have seriously offended them by saying that so far there is no real working-class movement here,(2) and that, as soon as that comes, all the great men and women who now make themselves busy as officers of an army without soldiers, will soon find their level, and a rather lower one than they expect. But if they think their needle pinks can pierce my old well-tanned and pachydermatous skin, they are mistaken.
Yours very truly,
F. Engels
and, in full, in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXVIII, Moscow, 1940
109. Engels to Laura Lafargue 9 May
My dear Laura,
I have just finished, after many interruptions, a lengthy preface to the English edition of Mohr's discourse on Free Trade (Brussels 1848)(1)
which is to come out in New York, and as this is the last piece of work which had to be done within a certain time I make use of my recovered liberty in order to write to you at once. And I have a rather important object too to write about, viz. that we want you here in London. You have planted, as I hear from Schorlemmer, some Waldmeister^ in your garden, and as it will be utterly impossible for us to come over and use it there, there is nothing left but that you should come over and bring it here, when the other ingredients shall be duly and quickly found. The weather is beautiful, on Saturday,0 Mohr's birthday, Nim and I went to Highgate, and today we have been on Hampstead Heath, I am writing with both windows open, and by the time you come which I hope will be next week we shall have lilacs and laburnums ready to receive you. If you only say by return that you are willing to come, je me charge du rested Moreover you will by this time have brought your country-house and garden to such a state of perfection that you can leave it in charge of Paul who must be by now an accomplished gardener. Nim has been sighing for Löhr for some time past, and surely you ought to be present at Edward's great dramatic triumph on the 5 of June when his dramati-sation of N. Hawthorne's Scarlet Letter is to be brought out at a matinée. And I need not add that I want you here as much as anybody else. There are moreover so many other reasons for your coming that I must refrain from stating them here for fear of missing the post and killing you with ennui. So make up your mind at once, and say you will.
Of Edward's remarkable preliminary successes in the dramatic line you will have heard. He has sold about half a dozen or more pieces which he had quietly manufactured; some have been played in the provinces with success, some he has brought here himself with Tussy at small entertainments, and they have taken very much with the people that are most interested in them, viz. with such actors and impresarios as will bring them out. If he has now one marked success in London, he is a made man in this line and will soon be out of all difficulties. And I don't see why he should not, he seems to have a remarkable knack of giving to London what London requires.
Paul's letter in the Intransigeant* was very good indeed. He managed to hit the Radicals[200] without the slightest concession to Boulangism[137]
and with the demand for general armament, put a spoke in both their wheels. It was done with great tact.
Have you heard that Fritz Beust is engaged — to an Italian-Swiss girl from Castasegna, hard on the border of Lombardy. I don't know who she is, we shall soon hear from our Zurich friends,b who are expected here in less than a fortnight. Maybe you will see Bernstein in Paris on his journey; he may be there any day. How they are going to manage here with regard to the paper01 am curious to see.[81] For many reasons London is not the best place for it, though perhaps the only one now. However we shall see, and generally things do settle down at their natural level.
Paul's 'Victor Hugo' in the Neue Zeit is very good. I wonder what they would say in France if they could read it.
The great Stead is off to Petersburg to interview the Czar'[1] and to make him tell the truth about peace or war. I sent you his Paris inter-views,[6] profound man left Paris exactly as wise as when he came there. The Russians will soft-sawder him to his heart's content, I am afraid he will return from Petersburg a greater ass than what he is now. Perhaps in tonight's paper we may read that he has fathomed Bismarck.
The Romanians are queer people. I wrote to Nadejde in Jassy a letterf
in which I tried to work them up in the anti-Russian line. Now the Jassy Marxists are quarrelling with the Bucharest Anarchists on account of the peasant revolt[275] stirred up by Russia, and so they translate and print my letter at once!g This time I am not sorry, but it shows what indiscreet fellows they are.
Not only the paper is at an end, but time too — 5.20 p.m. and Nim will ring directly, and in ten minutes the post closes. So farewell for today and do say you come!
Affectionately yours,
F. Engels
110. Engels to Eleanor Marx-Aveling 10 May[1 3 0]
My dear Tussy,
Best thanks, but we can't come. Nim has to do her marketing or else you won't get any dinner on Sunday, and I have to get off ms.(1) by the American mail on Saturday, which is anything but ready (the ms. not the mail).
Tell Mahon that on Sunday I receive my private friends and that there is no chance of talking business on Sundays here. If he wants to see me he is welcome any evening in the week and if he wants Edward to be present they might arrange to come together one night — perhaps you would come too?
Love from Nim.
Ever yours, F.E.
111. Engels to Hermann Schlüter 10 May
Dear Mr Schlüter,
What's the position as regards your coming over here? All we have heard from Ede(1) is that he is travelling via Paris and will be hanging about there for a bit. He says nothing definite about the others.[81] So here we are, in a state of suspense and unable to do anything.
So would you be good enough to get in touch with the others and let us know when you are all arriving — yourself, Motteler and Tauscher, we presume — and whether we can do anything for you here in the meantime. Let us also know at which station you will be arriving and by what route, so that you can be met. Otherwise there could be a glorious muddle, in the course of which quite a lot of money might go down the drain.
With kindest regards to you all
Yours,
F. Engels
112. Engels to Florence Kelley-Wischnewetsky 16 May
112
ENGELS TO FLORENCE KELLY-WISCHNEWETZKY
IN NEW YORK
London, 16 May 1888
Dear Mrs Wischnewetzky,
Per today's mail the rest of the preface(1) goes registered. Reeves is willing to take the agency for the pamphletb at the same percentage as before, and wishes to have his name on the title page under that of the New York publisher, viz.
London William Reeves, 185 Fleet Street, E. C.
This is at least some guarantee against piracy on his part, and he is the most dangerous man in this respect. If you will forward the copies intended for him to me I will get them delivered against receipt, 300-500 will do to begin with.
The German translation will follow as soon as Mrs Kautsky has done copying it. That may be delayed some days as we expect the Züricher Ausgewiesener0^ here every day and they will keep us rather busy at first.
Yours faithfully,
F. Engels
113. Engels to Amand Goegg 2 June
Dear Goegg,
The lectures at universities here, in all branches of the natural sciences and literature, are open to ladies too. Fees the same as for men. The only lectures not open to ladies are those given by Ray Lankester. The fees vary — details in the prospectus which has been promised me and which I shall send on to you as soon as it arrives.
If what is wanted are medical lectures, I would recommend the college for ladies in Henrietta Street about which, if you so wish, I can let you have further details.
With kind regards,
Yours, RE.
114. Engels to Laura Lafargue 3 June
My dear Laura,
I am very sorry you do not see your way to come just now; the woodruff having failed in your garden would not have mattered, because Nim has got some and we are going to have it tonight; it would be so nice if you were here to take your share. We have 6 bottles of Moselle to sacrifice tonight.
Our Zurich friends[3] are getting used to London ways a little, and it is time, for their notions of the possibilities of a settlement here were uncom-monly kleinstädtisch.(1) Next week I hope the principal questions as to locality etc. will be settled and then there will be less difficulties and discussions.
Paul's arguments about Boulanger are rather derogatory to the French character. First he says, c'est un mouvement populaire ', but not dangerous because Boulanger is an ass. But what to think of a peuple capable d'un mouvement populaire in favour of an ass? This he explains thus: En France on patauge pendant un temps donné dans un semblant de parlementarisme, puis on réclame un sauveur, un gouvernement personnel... en ce moment on réclame un sauveur et Boulanger se présente.c That is to say: the French are such that their real wants require a Bonapartist régime, while their idealistic illusions are republican and do not go beyond parliamentarism. Why, if the French see no other issue than either personal government, or parliamentary government, they may as well give it up. What I want our people to do, is to show that there is a real third issue besides this pretended dilemma, which is a dilemma but for the vulgar philistines, and not to take the muddling philistine and au fond chauvinistic Boulangist movement for a really popular one.[277] The chauvinistic claim, that all the history of the world is to resolve itself into the recovery of Alsace by France, and that until then nothing shall be allowed to happen — this claim has been far too much bowed to by our friends in France, by every one in fact, and this is the upshot. Because Boulanger incorporates this claim, which has been silently admitted by all parties, he is powerful. His opponents— the Clémenceaux and Co.—do not, dare not contradict that claim but are too cowardly to proclaim it openly, and therefore they are weak. And because the movement is at bottom chauvinistic and nothing else, therefore it plays into Bismarck's hands who would be only too glad to entangle that poor devil Fritz(2) into a war. And all this at a time when even among the German philistines the consciousness is dawning that the sooner they get rid of Alsace the better, and when Bismarck's crazy passport regulations[278] are an open confession that Alsace is more French than ever!
The revolution in our household which I have been trying to set about for more than a year has at last been accomplished. Last night Annie left under notice from me, and we have another girl. Nim will at last be able to do no more work than she really likes and to have her sleep out in the morning.
Enclosed the cheque that Paul wrote about. Being Sunday, I must close, before the people come.
Ever yours affectionately,
F. Engels
Keep in mind that you must come this summer or autumn at latest!
115. Engels to Hermann Schlüter 15 June
Dear Schlüter,
Will you and Tauscher do me the pleasure of taking luncheon with me on Sunday afternoon at half past two?
Your
F. Engels
116. Engels to Paul Lafargue 30 June
My dear Lafargue,
Little MacDonnell of the General Council,[3] who is editor of a working-class paper at Paterson, New Jersey,b has sent me a young man named R. Block, son of an old New York Socialist — his father is editor of a German bakers' newspaper0 and secretary of their trades union. As the young man will be spending some days in Paris, I have given him a card addressed to you — his only other introduction in Paris is to Delahaye — also telling him that, since you live in the country, you can be of little use to him, save perhaps as a source of information. He is not involved in politics or socialism, and all he wants is to see Europe 'in the most approved fashion'. If, then, he should find his way to Le Perreux, I would be obliged if you could give him some good advice of the kind one might provide for a traveller desirous of seeing as much as possible in as short a time as possible. He is perfectly aware that you are in no position to show him the sights of Paris.
Aveling is back in London for a play that is to be performed tonight— his fifth, while his sixth will probably be performed next week. There can be no doubt that, by devoting himself to drama, 'He has struck oil', as the Yankees say.
Yours ever, F.E.
117. Engels to Karl Kautsky before 6 July
Dear Baron,
Now that I've smelt you out Stieber-fashion,(1) and having noted from its longitude and latitude that it must be a very lovely district, let me reply briefly re Shelley.[280] I will gladly do the thing but ought, for the sake of the context, to have a copy of Shelley which, however, I have not got, nor do I know where to obtain one in a hurry. E. Aveling, when he was here yesterday, said he would go and fetch his for me, but has left London without keeping his word. If I had the passages, I should be able to get hold of a Shelley all right.
I trust that the taenia mediocanellatah will by now have been happily reduced ad absurdum. Pumps' son has got the measles which so far has taken an altogether favourable course; Lilic is therefore staying with us. Mrs Schlüter and Mrs Eded are here and we are still expecting the Aunte—when, we don't know. On Sunday they were all of them here. The muddle has not yet been [...]* out. E. Aveling has been extraordi-narily lucky with his [.. .]f—unanimously [. . .]
f Louise? if, as I hope, she is there.
[• • -]
f
General [.. .f all right again, I hope.
tape worm - c Lilian Rosher - d Regina Bernstein - e Emilie Motteier - f Ms. damaged - g Louise Kautsky
118. Engels to Laura Lafargue 6 July[4 0]
My dear Laura,
Today I write on business and therefore short and, I hope, sweet. Jollymeier1, came last night and leaves next week, probably Wednesday, for Germany. He will not have time to return by way of Paris, but the present plan is that Nim is going with him as far as Coblenz, and then to St Wendel to see her friends, and she does intend to come back by way of Paris provided you and the children0 are there. Will you therefore be good enough to let us know if possible by a letter written on Sunday, but on Monday at latest, whether 1) you will be at home and 2) whether the children will be in Asnières, about the 26th or 28th July?
It is almost certain that you would have had a visit from Pumps at the same time, as she hoped to go with Jollymeier too, but last Sunday she came with the news that her boy has got the measles and that will keep her here.
Tussy and Edward are still at their 'Castle'd and expect to sail some-time in August to America where Edward is to superintend the mise en-scène of three of his pieces, to be played simultaneously in New York, Chicago and God knows where besides. I don't think they will be away more than 8-10 weeks altogether. If his dramatic success goes on at this rate, maybe he will have to go next year to Australia, at the expense of some theatrical impresario.
Our Zurich friendse are not settled yet — but on the way towards it. It is most astonishing, the bother, delay and kicking about of heels that is caused by the London system of monopolist landlords who prescribe their own terms to their leaseholders so that when you want to take a business-place from one of these latter — and that you have to do — you have to wait the great landlord's pleasure in giving you leave to set up the necessary machinery. French or Prussian bureaucratic interference are nothing compared to it. And the Londoners have stood this for centuries, and even now scarcely dare rebel against it! Kind regards to Paul.
Yours affectionately,
F. Engels
119. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge 11 July
Dear Sorge,
In great haste a piece of news which, however, you must keep absolutely secret. Don't be surprised to see me suddenly turn up about the middle of August or a few days after that — I may be taking a quick trip across the ocean.[281] Could you please let me know by return where you lie, so that I can look you up or, should you happen not to be at home at the time, where you are to be found? Also whether the Wischnewetzkys will be in New York at the time. I shall not see anyone else when I come over, for I have no wish to fall into the hands of the worthy German Socialists — which is why the thing has got to be kept secret. If I do come, I shall not come alone but with the Avelings, who have business over there. More anon.
Your
R E .
120. Engels to Laura Lafargue 15 July
My dear Laura,
You ask why Schorlemmer cannot come too, and you hope to see Pumps over at Le Perreux. Well, I am afraid you will have your wish fulfilled and your question answered with a vengeance.
Pumps' boy having improved extra-rapidly, sudden resolutions were come to last Monday, and on Wednesday the lot — Jollymeier, Nim and Pumps, all three set off for Germany. Pumps to Paulis', Nim to St Wendel. And then, according to what was arranged here, Pumps and Schorlemmer are to take up Nim at St Wendel and all three start for Paris, where they will arrive somewhere about the 29th or 30th July— but they will let you know. Nim and Schorlemmer must be here again on Saturday, 4th August; Pumps talked of going from Paris to St Malo and Jersey where Percy intends taking the children.
How you will manage to quarter the lot of them is more than I know. But Nim thought you would get over that difficulty right enough. Anyhow you will be wanting some little cash for the occasion which I shall not omit sending you in time.
Last night your letter with Longuet's document came to hand — at the same time as Edward who is again brought to London by his dramatic industry. He is going to read two plays today to speculative actors (Alma Murray is one) who intend to invest in a bit of novelty. Of course Longuet is again counting without his host, as Edward and Tussy will be going to America for at least two months and I shall take my holiday as soon as Nim comes back — if he likes to leave Jean with Nim at my place, all right, and Nim would be glad of his company; but is that what Longuet contemplates? Anyhow Tussy will return the plaidoyer* to you and write, and you and Nim can settle the remainder.
What a nice mess that was which Boulanger and Floquet cooked betwixt the two of them the other day — Boulanger's coup de théâtre, pre-arranged in every detail and yet miscarried because he could not keep up his part to the end — Floquet's rage and invective where a cool reply would have been required — the insults, the duel, and le beau, le brave général worsted by an avocaû12,2 Decidedly, if the Second Empire was the caricature of the First, the Third Republic is getting a caricature not of the First, but even the Second. Anyhow, let's hope this is the end of Boulanger, for if the popularity of that fool continued, it would drive the Czar(1) into the arms of Bismarck, and we don't want that any more than the Russo-French war of revanche. If the popular masses in France absolutely require a personal god, they had better look out for a different man, this one makes them ridiculous. But moreover it is clear that this desire for a sauveur de la société}' if really existing in the masses, is but another form of Bonapartism and therefore I really cannot bring myself to believe that it is as deeply rooted and vraiment populaire0 as some people say. That our people fight the Radicals, well and good, that is their proper business, but let them fight them under their own flag. And as a journée^ is only possible — so long as the people are unarmed — with the help of the Radicals[200] as on Carnot's election[197]), our people have only the ballot-box to rely on for the present, and I do not see the advantage of having the voters' minds muddled by this plebiscitary Boulangism.[283]
Our business is not to complicate but to simplify and make clear the issues between the Radicals and ourselves. What little good Boulanger could do, he has done, and the chief good he did is to bring the Radicals to power. A dissolution would be a good thing — while a Radical government is in, upon whom we can exercise pressure; but Boulanger seems to me the least likely person to bring that dissolution about.
Here, after two fine days, it rains again cats and dogs since this morning. This is really a solution — summer dissolved in rain water — which makes one dissolute and drives one to drink. In fact I shall go and open a bottle of Pilsener and drink your health. Sur ce, je vous embrasse.^
Bien a vous} F. E.
121. Engels to Laura Lafargue 23 July
My dear Laura,
Tussy returns me Longuet 's letter, instead of direct to you, so I send it herewith. She said she would write to him. Edward told me last week they would be here again yesterday, but he has a capacity of neglecting facts, when they are contrary to his wishes, that is worthy of a more juvenile age. So they won't be here before end of week.
Of course Pumps and Nim can sleep in your room and if you can find a bed for Schorlemmer somewhere in Le Perreux, he will be all right. I enclose a cheque for £15 — so as to set you at ease with regard to the ways and means.
Our Zürichers[3] are at last in a fair way of settlement. Their wives have arrived, they have got a business-place — that is, the agreement for an empty and not quite finished house — and private houses for themselves, so that in a week or 14 days they will all be unter Dach und Fach.h The female part of the Sozialdemokrat is not over charming. Ede Bernstein's wife seems the pleasantest, a sharp little Jewess, but she squints awfully; Schlüter's is an exceedingly good-natured and retiring little Dresden article, but uncommon soft; and as to the Tante,c id est Mrs Motteler, let Nim give you a description of this dignified juvenile of fifty (so they say), this Swabian Kleinstädter^ affecting the dame du mondee—I am told she is a very worthy woman after all, but I don't think she feels at home among our undignified lot, and I anticipate some pleasant little sparrings when Tussy and she do meet. But Nim and Pumps will give you a description of her to your heart's content. I had them all here yesterday for supper, as our new girl (I think I told you that I sent Annie away) cooks quite passably and rather prides in cooking for company, and Mrs Motteler lost no time in telling me that the custard was burnt (just as she told Pumps: Sie sind aber mal fettlf —imagine Pumps's horror!) When they are once settled in their own establishments — all about Junction Road and the Boston — I hope distance will lend enchantment to the view — of considerably reduced visits from the lot — I don't quite intend to have the German element swamping everything at No. 122.(1)
I have got myself photographed before I shall be quite grey — and enclose the one they all say is the best.
Post-time and dinner-time, so here I shut up.
Love from your old
F. Engels
122. Engels to Hermann Schlüter Saturday 21 or 28 July
Dear Schlüter,
Grover has been to see me about the house in Kentish Town; I explained the whole matter to him and, unless he changes his mind, the house is yours.
Your
F.E.
Be careful in the meantime not to call again at Salto Rex & Co. (unless perhaps invited to do so by Grover or S. Rex & Co.; for I don't know of course whether Grover will be letting direct or through the above).
123. Engels to Laura Lafargue 30 July
My dear Laura,
Hope by this time you have got the travellers(1) with you. This morning letter from Schorlemmer. When he arrived at Bonn, his friends advised him to have his wound cured there and so he went to the University Klinik from which he was on Saturday discharged cured, but he still suffers from a Magenkatarrh^ or, as his brother0 who is with him and serves him as amanuensis, more properly spells it, Magenkater;A and is ordered to keep quiet for some time — he is even afraid that ulterior plans we had about a sea-trip[281] of some duration may fall to the bottom as far as he is concerned. That however we shall see by and by. Anyhow, he intended to go to Darmstadt yesterday and will write again from there.
For Nim's information: yesterday we had roast beef and peas, very well cooked; there were only Edward and Tussy, as Percy and the children dined at Sandhurst Lodge, it being his mother's birthday. After dinner they came over (and Charley,e whose wife had called for supper the Sunday before, and I was only sorry she did not drop in then) and later on the four Zürichers^ with Mrs Bernstein and Mrs Schlüter — the Tante% was out of sorts fortunately — and we were very jolly. I am getting on right enough with the girl, only her sweets are not what they exactly should be; she makes a beautifully leathery paste and makes up for other defects in her custard by putting in about as much essence of bitter almonds as sugar — that however I have stopped. The girl is right enough, only she wants a bit more breaking-in by Nim; longer than three weeks' more or less independent management she is not yet fit for, as she imports a lot of superior notions from the East End lodging-house where she was attending upon 'Ladyships'. But as these are confined to cooking chiefly, Nim will soon break her of them, and on the whole I have no reason to complain, though sometimes to laugh.
I hope you have better weather. I went to town about 2, it began rain-ing before 3, and is still at it.
Love to all of you.
Ever yours, RE.
124. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge 4 August[2 9]
Dear Sorge,
Your two letters* received with thanks. I am most grateful for the hospitality you offer me, but whether I shall be able to take advantage of it is somewhat problematical, as you will see from what follows.
For if all goes well, Schorlemmer will be coming too — he is in Germany and not particularly well but has telegraphed saying he'll be here on Monday. Since we shall have to remain together — Schorlemmer and I, at any rate — Aveling has already booked rooms for all of us at an hotel, which means that I shall have to go there — to begin with, at least. What happens after that remains to be seen. At all events Schorlemmer and I shall stay in town for a few days only and set off as soon as possible on a tour of the country, for at the beginning of October he has got to start lecturing again and we are anxious to see as much as we can.
That I shall find little Cuno lying in wait for me is to be expected. But I think I've got a magic formula that will make him tractable. If I go back there just before I leave for home, I suppose I shall have to see one or two of the Volkszeitung people; it would be unavoidable and wouldn't do any harm. It's just that I'd rather they left me alone at the start.
We are sailing on the City of Berlin on the 8th of this month. Aveling has made a successful début in the field of drama and is to help stage 4 plays (of which 3V2 are by him) in 4 cities over there.
Since Monday is a Bank Holiday,[144] when nothing can be done because all the shops are closed, and we have got to leave here on Tuesday/ there's a lot of shopping to be done — besides which I have got to be at Charing Cross at 5.40 to meet Lenchen and Pumps (who has been married for 7 years and has 2 children) on their return from Germany resp. Paris, and hence must close. I, too, look forward tremendously to seeing you again. So no more till we meet.
Your
RE.
125. Engels to Laura Lafargue 6 August[4 0]
My dear Laura,
When you receive this letter I shall be floating away on the City of Berlin, with Tussy, Edward, and Schorlemmer towards the shores of the New World.[281] The plan has been of pretty long standing, only it was constantly being crossed by all sorts of obstacles, last not least Schorlemmer's misadventure — but he will be here tonight (fresh acci-dents excepted) and tomorrow we expect to be off, leaving Liverpool landing-stage at five p.m. on Wednesday.[3] The affair had to be kept secret, firstly because indeed of the series of obstacles which threatened to wreck it, and secondly in order to save me as much as possible from the interviewers of the New York Volkszeitung and others (among whom, Sorge writes, little Cuno is now one of the most formidable) and from the delicate attention of the German Socialist Executive, etc. of New York,[223] on arrival, as that would spoil all the pleasure of the trip and undo all its purpose. I want to see and not to preach, and principally to have a complete change of air, etc., in order to get finally over the weakness of the eyes, and chronic conjunctivitis which Dr Reeves, Edward's friend, says is due entirely to want of tone and will most likely give way to a long sea voyage, etc. When I proposed the job to Schorlemmer, he fell in at once, but of course must be back by beginning of October, so that his Flushing accident came at a very awkward time. But that seems all right now and he is due tonight.
Edward and Tussy will not come back with us, as far as we can see; they are sure to be kept there at least a fortnight longer.
Our travellers arrived here all right, though half an hour behind time, on Saturday and as our post-card will have informed you, your currants — both raw and in the juice extracted by Helen — I mean Nim — found the fullest and most general appreciation; the enthusiasm as to your garden is almost wild in its manifestations and I think both Pumps and Nim dream of it. In spite of their partly rough passage neither was sick, they were wise enough to lay down at once.
I enclose a cheque for £25 — to go on with during my absence. Shall let you hear again on arrival and report on adventures, sea-monsters, icebergs and the other wonders of the sea, unless captured by the Irish fleet which has succeeded in breaking the blockade of the English on Saturday night and is now destroying British commerce, capturing Scotch coast towns, etc.b—a capital augury of the real political victory of the Irish over the British philistine which the next general election is sure to bring.
So farewell until then. I was very proud to hear from Nim that you look very well and younger than ever. Hope you will keep so till our next merry meeting
Ever yours affectionately
F. Engels and kindest regards to Paul.
126. Engels to Eduard Bernstein 9 August
Dear Ede,
Never has Berlin seemed to be so beautiful as on board this City of Berlin. If the young guard lieutenantsb knew how good and plentiful the food is here, they'd instantly exchange the Berlin on land (or sand0) for that on water. In 2Vi hours we should be at Queenstown and thence head for the open sea. Cordial regards to your wife,d the Schlüters, the Mottelers and Tauscher.
Your old friend,
The
General
127
ENGELS TO HERMANN ENGELS
127. Engels to Hermann Engels 9 August
I set sail yesterday on a quick trip to America[281] and just wanted to tell you as much before we leave the last European port. We are a merry party of four — myself, Prof. Schorlemmer of Manchester, Dr Aveling of London and his wife, Marx's youngest daughter. Schorlemmer and I shall be returning towards the end of September and expect to be back in England on 2/3 October. My being able to realise this long-standing plan this summer was most propitious and I had also been strongly advised on medical grounds to make the two longish voyages and get a complete change of air.
Our ship is much more beautiful than the Berlin ashore; she is nearly 6,000 tons and the Avelings came back from New York on her eighteen months ago. They know the captain, purser and crew, which is very nice. We have charming cabins, the fare is excellent and on top of that there is American lager beer, which is by no means bad, a long deck to rove about on and not too many passengers, provided a large number don't join us at Queenstown — in short, it all promises to be very pleasant. I am most eager to see the world on the other side; we shall be staying for 3 or 4 weeks, which is just long enough, I think.
We are nearing Queenstown, so I had better close. Mind you all keep well. I shall write to you again from the other side of the ocean. Regards to your wife and children[3] and all other relatives.
With much love from Your old Friedrich
128. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge 28 August
Dear Old Man,
Arrived here yesterday morning; your letters[3] reached Schorlemmer and myself this morning — very many thanks. I left my cough behind in Hoboken and Schorlemmer has also got over his trouble. We have just been with Mrs Harney, who says Harney will be coming to London in October, so I shall see him there. I have not yet been able to get hold of my nephew,b but expect to see him tomorrow, either here in the hotel or in Roxbury. Boston is an awful sprawl but more human than New York City, and Cambridge is actually very pretty and looks quite European and continental. Warm regards to you and your wife.c But for the two of you we should still be ailing. We are staying until Saturday.[11] Letters are sure to find us here till Friday night.
Your
P.E.
Stuttgart, 1906
129. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge 31 August
Dear Sorge,
The paper[1] arrived the day before yesterday and your letterb today. Thanks. But I'm sorry that your throat should still be troubling you and it would seem that you have actually appropriated my cough. If our staying with you gets us well and makes you ill, that is really rather dreadful.
Were in Concord yesterday, in the Reformatory and the town. Both pleased us greatly. A prison where the prisoners can read novels and scientific works, form clubs, congregate and talk without warders being present, eat meat and fish twice a day with bread ad lib., iced water in every workroom, running water in every cell, the cells decorated with pictures, etc., where the chaps, dressed as ordinary workingmen, look you straight in the eye with none of the hang-dog look of the usual criminal in gaol — this is something you will see nowhere in Europe. The Europeans, as I told the superintendent, are not bold enough for that. To which he replied in true American fashion: well, we try to make it pay, and it does pay. I acquired a great respect for the Americans in that place.
Concord is really beautiful, elegant in a way one wouldn't have expected after New York or even Boston, but a splendid little place in which to be buried, though not alive! four weeks there would either kill me or drive me crazy.
My nephew Willie Burns is a wonderful fellow, bright, energetic and with his heart and soul in the movement. He is doing well, works for the Boston and Providence Railroad (now the Old Colony0), gets $12 a week, has a nice wife (whom he brought with him from Manchester) and three children. Nothing would induce him to return to England; he's just the lad for a country like America.
Rosenberg's departure and the curious debate on the Sozialist in the Volkszeitung would seem to be symptoms of collapse.[287]
Such news from Europe as reaches us over here is sparse and infre-quent and is supplied exclusively by the New York World and the Herald?
The last of the jobs Aveling has to do in America will be polished off today and thereafter his time will be his own. It is still uncertain whether we shall go to Chicago. We have ample time for the remainder of the programme.
Warm regards to your wifeb and yourself from us all, but especially from
Your
F. Engels
130. Engels to Wilhelm Liebknecht 31 August
Dear Liebknecht,
A moment ago, at 9.30 a.m., that is, we saw in the Boston Herald that you had been elected in Berlin with an absolute majority of more than 10,000 votes[43] and we — myself, Schorlemmer and both the Avelings— send you our heartiest congratulations.
Boston Herald - b Katharina Sorge We spent a week in New York resp. Hoboken (with Sorge) and have been here since Monday.(1) Tomorrow we go to Niagara and if possible from there to Chicago, otherwise to the Oil Regions, and then, after Toronto, Montreal, Lake Champlain, the Adirondacks and Albandy, down the Hudson back to New York, whence we sail for Liverpool by the City of New York on 18/19 September. Very nice trip, have learned a great deal and have been sweating good and proper at last — something that never happened to us back home this summer. Regards to your wife,b Bebel and Singer.
Your
F.E.
131. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge 4 September
Dear Sorge,
We have been here since Sundayc morning and are enjoying ourselves greatly. The nature is beautiful here, the air is superb, the food is excellent and the nigger waiters are amusing — what more could one want, given this fine weather. As yet there have been no mosquitoes either, despite all the water. Our tour of the Oil Regions has been abandoned— whether we go to Chicago will be decided today — I think not. If we don't go we shall have adhered rigidly to your itinerary.
The fact that Jonas has found me out is yet another reason for delay-ing my return to New York for as long as possible. However, even if he sends me his Cuno now, it will be of no consequence. My trip is pretty well over and a half hour's grilling is the most that he'll be able to inflict on me.
Warm regards from us all to your wife(1) and yourself.
Your
F. E.
132. Engels to Laura Lafargue 5 September
My dear Laura,
Here we are since last Sundayb morning, after having spent a week in New York and another in Boston. Don't you believe that America is a new country — it is the most old-fashioned place in the world; vis-à-vis de nous autres Européens c'est tout simplement la province, et nous nous sommes tous Parisiens comparés aux Américains.' The American girls on the Steamer already struck me as having all the manners of the Unschuld vom Landed the furniture is in the style of country house furniture of the ancien régime^ in Boston the cabs are of a shape which I saw last in London in 1838,[290] and upon this primitive state of things they have grafted a lot of supra-modern novelties many of which are no improve-ments and none of which are beautiful. They say they are the most go-ahead nation and that is true in this sense, that an American cannot bear the idea of anyone walking in front of him in the street, he must push and brush past him — roughly too, even in Boston which is their Athens — and women as well as men shove you about in that way, and sure when we poor benighted Europeans cannot see the slightest occasion either for the hurry or the rudeness.
But for all that they have very very grand features and the making of a very great nation in them, such as are only to be found in a people which never knew feudalism. They are long-suffering as to grievances of their own making, like all Anglo-Saxons, but when they do a thing they do it thoroughly. The way in which the State of New York bought up all the grounds (on the American side) about the falls," turned out all the touts, hucksters and extortionists, and transformed the whole into a public park where you go about freely and unmolested, not a policeman or park-keeper to be seen, on good footpaths and safe stairs quite up to the edge of the falls — that is a thing you do not find anywhere in such places in Europe. And the simple fact of the Americans having done this compelled the Canadian government to do the same on their side, in order to attract the visitors who ran away from Canadian exploitation.
New York is the grandest site for the capital of Capitalist Production you can see. But everything there, made by man, is horrid — save Bartholdy's Statue of Liberty which is not only fine but in exact proportion — as to size — to the surroundings. We got into New York after dark and I thought I got into a chapter of Dante's Inferno. London is a fool to it as to noise, crowd, pushing — a pavement worse than in the sunken-est European village — elevated railways thundering over your head, tram-cars by the hundred with rattling bells, awful noises on all sides, the most horrible of which are the unearthly fog-horns which give the signals from all the steamers on the river (the whistle is unknown here)— naked electric arc-lights over every ship, not to light you but to attract you as an advertisement, and consequently blinding you and confusing everything before you — in short a town worthy to be inhabited by the most vile-looking crowd in the world, they all look like discharged croupiers from Monte Carlo.
Niagara is very fine. The falls are only the crowning feature. I like the rapids above and below, the beautiful little islands crowded with trees above the falls, and the fine winding gorge below, even better than the 'grand' feature.
We go from here into Canada, down the St Lawrence to Montréal, thence back to the States, via Lake Champlain and Lake George, then per Steamer down the Hudson to New York and sail per City of New York any time about 18th, hoping to be back in London about 28 or 29th at latest.
The little Steamer on the photo is the Maid of the Mist and goes quite close up to the falls (they lend you waterproof coats and helmets for the occasion) and yesterday we went quite into the mouth of the Horseshoe falls (the one facing you).
We are all very well and jolly, Edward conducts and commands, and we have appointed him General Boulanger of the port, which post he fills most creditably. As to European politics we are quite out of reach of everything. So now I close. Kind regards to Paul.
Ever yours
F. Engels
Postscripts by Engels' companions My dear Laura, the General leaves the rest of us only room to send our loves. And it's a poor thing too. For what with Niagara Falls and Niagara Beer we are most of us beyond the writing stage. When I pull myself together I'll write.
Yours
Tussy
Dearest Laura, I shall not forget the 26th and send you your birthday letter with best love. C. S.(1)
133. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge 10 September
Arrived here yesterday, having had to turn back because of a storm between Toronto and Kingston (it really blew pretty hard) and put into Port Hope. So the two-day trip from Toronto to here turned into three. The St Lawrence and the rapids were very fine. Canada is richer in ruined houses than any country save Ireland. We are doing what we can to understand Canadian French; that language beats Yankee English hollow. Tonight we go to Plattsburg and from there to the Adirondacks and if possible the Catskills as well, so we're unlikely to be back in New York before Sunday.[3] As we have to embark on Tuesday eveningb and there are still various things we must see in New York, and as during these last few days we shall all have to keep together more than would otherwise be necessary, Schorlemmer and I shan't be able to stay with you in Hoboken this time, much though we regret it, but must go to the St Nicholas with the Avelings. However we shall come and see you as soon as we get there. The transition from the States to Canada is a curious one. First of all you imagine yourself back in Europe and then you feel you're in a land that is positively retrogressing and going to rack and ruin. Here you can see how essential the Americans' feverish spirit of speculation is to the rapid development of a new country (given capitalist production as its basis). In ten years this sleepy Canada will be ripe for annexation — by which time the farmers in Manitoba, etc., will be demanding it themselves. In any case this country has already been half annexed from the social point of view — hotels, newspapers, advertisements, etc., all conform to the American pattern. And however much they may struggle and resist, the economic need for an infusion of Yankee blood will assert itself and abolish this ludicrous boundary line — to which, when that time comes, John Bull will say Yea and Amen.
Your
F. E.
134. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge 11 September[2 9 2]
Dear Sorge,
Arrived here safely. We leave for the Adirondacks at 1 p.m. sharp, shall return tomorrow evening and then cross the lakes to the Hudson. Back in New York by Saturday* evening, I hope.
Should any letters have arrived for me, would you please forward them to the Narragansatt Hotel, Albany, but they must get there not later than Friday evening.
I hope you received my letter from Montreal.[13] Is your throat all right again?
Shall we see your sonc in New York before we leave? All of us well and cheerful. Kindest regards from us all to you and your wife.d
Your
F. Engels
135. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge 12 September
Dear Sorge,
Got back from Lake Placid this evening; tomorrow we go down Lake Champlain.
I think I forgot to ask you in my last to get us another 150 cigars of the usual brand. We're right cleaned out. Kindest regards.
Your
F. Engels
136. Engels to Florence Kelley-Wischnewetsky 18 September
Dear Mrs Wischnewetzky,
We returned on Saturday(1) evening from our trip to Boston, Niagara, the St Lawrence, Adirondacks, Lakes Champlain and George, down the Hudson to New York City, we enjoyed ourselves very much and, all of us, brought home a stock of invigorated health which I hope will see us well through the winter. To-morrow afternoon we are leaving per the City of New York and look forward to a little excitement, breakdowns of machinery and such like things, but hope to arrive, in spite of all, in 8-9 days in London. I cannot leave America without again expressing my regret that unfortunate circumstances prevented me from seeing you more than once and but for a few moments. There are so many things that we should have talked over together, but it cannot be helped and I shall have to go on board without taking leave of you personally. Anyhow I do hope that the troubles you have gone through lately[149] will be the last, that your own health and that of Dr Wischnewetzky and the children will be all you can wish for. I shall be glad to hear soon again from you, and all your wishes shall have my best attention.
I have some copies of the pamphlet[3] from Mrs Sorge, it is very cred-itably got up and so far I have discovered only two misprints. Please let me know how many copies you are sending me to England and how many I may distribute to the press; I believe it ought to be sent to all the chief dailies and weeklies in London and some in the provinces, also the monthlies. Of course, unless instructed to the contrary, I shall entrust the sale to Reeves. As he has accepted the agency for your American publication generally, his name might have been put on the title page; he will have to print a new title page and send in a bill for that.
Hoping to see Dr Wischnewetzky in London on his return, I remain, dear Mrs Wischnewetzky,
ever yours faithfully
F. Engels
137. Engels to The Editor Of The New Yorker Volkszeitung 18 September[294]
For your private information To the Editor of the New Yorker Volkszeitung (Der Sozialist)
At the end of my brief visit to America I intended to call in at your office in person. However, my stay in New York prior to sailing by the City of New York has been so short that, to my regret, it has not been possible to do as I had intended. I hope, therefore, that you will be so kind as to excuse me.
Yours faithfully,
F. E.
138. Engels to The Editor Of The Chicagoer Arbeiter-Zeitung 18 September
Chicagoer Arbeiter-Zeitung
In the course of a short visit to America it has not, unfortunately, proved possible for me to come to Chicago and call on you in person at your office. I should like to say how much I regret this, and remain
Yours very faithfully
139. Engels to Hermann Engels Thursday, 27- 28 September
I am writing to you under difficult circumstances as our ship is rolling abominably and half the people on board are still sea-sick. We have had a very agreeable, interesting and instructive trip. After a good crossing— only one really nice storm — we arrived in New York on 17 August, stayed there about 8 days, then spent 7 days in Boston, 5 days at the Niagara Falls, then, via the Lake of Ontario to the St Lawrence River, down which a steamboat took us to Montreal, thence back to the States and Plattsburg, whence we diverted to the Adirondacks, which are very lovely, then on by steamer via Lake Champlain and Lake George (like parts of Lake Como, but smaller and quite untamed) to Albany and, finally, down the Hudson and back to New York by steamboat. As ill-luck would have it, we had booked a passage aboard the new vessel City of New York, the largest passenger ship afloat, 10,500 tons and said to be capable of 500 sea miles a day. But this is only her fourth voyage, the engines tend to fail, one is ailing and is operating at barely half power, while the other is put to considerable strain and is constantly having to be tinkered with. Luckily we have reached this spot, latitude 51 degrees north, longitude roughly 21 degrees west of Greenwich, without any particular mishap to the engines, and hope to be at Queenstowna tomorrow afternoon, and in London on Saturdaya evening. The crossing has been pretty rough, two whopping great storms and high seas all the time except for the first two days. No one in our small company has been in the least affected by sea-sickness, we have eaten, drunk and smoked incessantly and I have just this moment — 11 o'clock in the morning— been summoned to take my morning Tipple.
The voyage has done me a tremendous amount of good; I feel at least 5 years younger, all my little infirmities have faded into the background, even my eyes have improved, and I would advise anyone who is feeling decrepit and under the weather to cross the Atlantic and spend a fortnight or 3 weeks at Niagara and a similar period in the Adirondacks 2,000 feet above sea level. The air there is quite excellent, while the August sunshine of Lombardy is combined with the fresh breeze of our Rhenish October. I already feel an urge to go out there again next year, if I can get someone to go with me. You ought to consider it; you and Rudolfc could, I am sure, do with a tonic of this kind. The tour isn't at all fatiguing; everywhere, in the better hotels, the food is first-rate and the German beer, i.e. brewed after the German fashion, quite excellent, only wine being dear, though a good bottle of Rhine wine is to be had anywhere for 1 dollar or 1 dollar and 50 cents, nor is American wine at all bad, though unfortunately not as a rule obtainable in the hotels. We have got 24 bottles on board, which we are drinking with gusto — Ohio wine (Reisling and sparkling wine) and Californian Riesling with a very good flavour but no bouquet.
Much love to Emmab and the children,c ditto to all our relations.
Your old brother
Friedrich
Friday morning 10 o'clock
Have been off the Irish coast since early morning, due in Queenstown at 12 — where I shall post this letter — in Liverpool tomorrow morning and in London that same evening.
Again much love.
140. Engels to Conrad Schmidt 8 October
Dear Dr Schmidt,
I should have answered your letter of 2 February long since had I known where to write to. I had been daily expecting news of your successful Habilitation* in Switzerland and hence of your removal to Zurich or Berne. Finally I took it with me to America, which I visited last August and September in company with Dr Aveling and his wife and Schorlemmer, but once again did not get round to answering it during the trip and now, on my return, I find a further message from you dated 23 August (on which day I was battling with mosquitoes in New York, much more dangerous adversaries than all your German professors of political economy put together).
Your account of the adventures attending your Habilitation bring back vivid recollections of the wretchedness of the German universities. That's what passes as freedom of scholarship. It's the old story of Bruno Bauer in the forties,[295] except that we have come on a bit and now have not only theological and political heretics but economic ones also. Still, I trust that Thucydides[296] is in a humane mood and won't place any serious difficulties in your way in Leipzig.
I was most interested to learn that a 'confessional' university still actually exists in Germany.[297] What odd things the 'reborn' fatherland continues to harbour!
I am very anxious to hear about your work. Apart from yourself, Lexis also tried to solve the problem to which I am obliged to revert in my preface to Volume III of Capital.™ That you should finally have arrived at Marx's viewpoint in the course of your studies doesn't surprise me at all; I believe that this would happen in the case of anyone who tackled the matter painstakingly and with an open mind. After all, many professors nowadays, exploiting Marx as they do, have trouble enough in maintaining a more or less seemly distance between themselves and conclusions that are necessarily bound up with what they have annexed, while others, as the passage you extracted from our Thucydides goes to show,[299] must needs relapse into utter puerility to provide any sort of answer at all!
If, as I hope, my eyesight lasts out — my American jaunt did me a power of good — Volume IIP will be ready for the press this winter and in a year's time will hit that company like a bombshell. I have broken off or postponed all my other jobs so as finally to be done with it and am exceedingly hard pressed. The greater part is almost ready for the printers, but two or three of the seven sections need a great deal of revision, especially the first, of which there are two versions.
I found America most interesting. It is a place one really must have seen with one's own eyes, this country whose history goes back no further than commodity production and which is the promised land of capitalist production. People's usual conceptions of it are as false as those a German schoolboy has of France. There was also much natural beauty to be enjoyed at Niagara, on the St Lawrence, in the Adirondacks and on the smaller lakes.
I have read Platter's critique of G. Cohn.b The beginning is very good and witty, but further on the good Platter runs out of steam.
Over here all is much as it was, save that the four people expelled from Zurichc have arrived, and Aveling is now writing plays which have been very well received by the impresarios. He was sent to America to rehearse 3 of his plays over there.
I still have a whole pile of letters to answer and if I miss this post I fear I shall be interrupted, so I had better close straight away. Goodbye and let me have further news of you very soon, by which time I trust you will have been duly installed as a lecturer.
Yours very sincerely,
F. Engels
1886 - c Eduard Bernstein, Julius Motteier, Leonard Tauscher and Hermann Schlüter
141. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge 10 October
Dear Sorge,
We finally got back here last Saturday week[3] and since then I have sent off to you 2 To-Days and a pile of Commonweals and today a pile of Gleichheits as well as 2 more Commonweals. One Gleichheit is missing. Ede Bernstein took it and I haven't got it back yet.
Little has changed over here; the next No. of the Sozialdemokrat will be printed in this country.[81] Otherwise nothing at all seems to have happened.
The City of New York is a humbug; in a calm sea she is steady, of course, but once she starts rolling, no one can do anything to stop her. Moreover, her engines are in a deplorable state; one of them was operating at barely half power, while the other threatened to break down at any moment because of the excessive strain. We never did more than 370 sea miles in a day and once it was only 313.
In so far as the political situation makes a survey possible, the estimate we formed of it over there was quite right. Bismarck has gone on for so long spinning silly young Williamb the yarn that he's a greater version of old Fritzc that the lad is now taking it seriously and wants to be 'Emperor and Chancellor in one person'. Bismarck is presently letting him have his way in order that he may make a thorough ass of himself, whereupon Bismarck will step into the breach as his guardian angel. Meanwhile he has assigned his Herbert^ to the insolent lad as spy and custodian. A row between the two will not be long in coming and then the fun will begin.
In France the Radicals[200] in the government are making bigger asses of themselves than one could have hoped for. They have renounced the whole of their old programme vis-à-vis the workers and are behaving like out and out Opportunists[199]; they are pulling the chestnuts out of the fire for the Opportunists and doing their dirty work for them. That would be quite splendid but for Boulanger and provided they weren't virtually forcing the masses into his arms.[137] As a person the man is not particularly dangerous but his popularity among the masses is driving the entire army over to the his side and that constitutes a grave danger— the temporary ascendancy of the said adventurer and, by way of an escape from his predicament, war.
So Jonas has wriggled quite cleverly out of it after all and faked an interview I can't very well disclaim.[300]
Mother Wischnewetzky is furious because I 'spent 10 days in New York and didn't find the time to make the two hours easy railway journey to her home. There was really so much she wanted to talk to me about'. All very well if I hadn't caught a cold and been plagued with indigestion and if I had had 10 consecutive days in New York in the first place.
Warm regards to your wife.(1)
Your old friend,
F. Engels
142. Engels to Louise Kautsky 11 October
My Dear, Dear Louise,
Immediately after our return, your letter got into Tussy's hands and then went to Schorlemmer, from whom I have only just retrieved it. Hence the lateness of my reply.
The news, which Ede had already passed on to Nimmie, left us all thunderstruck. But when I read your letter, my mind positively reeled. You must know that, ever since we first met, my regard for you has constantly augmented and you have grown ever dearer to me. But all that is as nothing by comparison with the admiration aroused by your heroic and ineffably magnanimous letter — not only in myself but in all those who have read it — Nim, Tussy and Schorlemmer. Having just been dealt the most terrible blow a woman can possibly receive — at that very moment you muster sufficient aplomb to release the man whose hand was, after all, responsible for dealing the blow. And to relinquish such a noble-minded woman after five years — one's mind reels!
You say there can be no question of guilt on KarlV part. Very well, you are the best judge of that, but it does not entitle the rest of us to do you an injustice. You speak of a divorce as the only possible solution, your characters being what they are. But if your characters had really been incompatible, this must needs have been apparent to us too and we should have long anticipated a divorce as something both natural and unavoidable. But let us suppose it to have been a case of true incompat-ibility. Karl had wooed and won you in defiance of his family and yours, he knew what you had given up for his sake and, so far as we could tell, lived with you happily for five years. That being so, he should not have allowed himself to be flummoxed by what, to use your own expression, was a momentary unpleasantness. And if he was driven to take so extreme a step by a new and sudden onset of passion, he ought not to have taken that step impetuously, and should above all have avoided the remotest semblance of doing so under the influence of those who had objected to his union with you and who, perhaps, have not altogether forgiven you for becoming his wife.
Of Karl you say that, in the absence of love or passion, his personality would go to pieces. If one of the traits of that personality is to require a new love every few years, he would surely be the first to admit that, in present-day circumstances, a personality of this kind has got to be kept in check if it is not to involve him and others in one long series of tragic conflicts.
So much, dear Louise, I feel it behoves me to say. Apart from anything else, our social conditions are such as to make it positively easy for a man to do a woman a gross injustice, and how many men are there who can absolve themselves from all guilt in this respect? 'Go! You are not worthy of women!' as one of our greatest men once said, with a knowledge born of experience. And in reading your letter I could only re-echo his words.
We cannot get the business out of our minds. Nim and I constantly revert to it as to something incomprehensible, impossible. One of these mornings, I told her, Karl will wake up as if out of a dream to find that he has committed the greatest folly of his life. And this is what seems to be actually happening if, as he wrote and told Ede, his new love has left him after having, within the first five days, fallen in love with his brother Hans and become engaged to him.
We had all of us so much looked forward to seeing you here again and had been correspondingly cast down when we heard through Percy while in New York that you and Karl would be staying in Vienna for the winter. But neither Nim nor I can really take in the fact that we shall never see your dear face in this house again. Yet who knows what may not happen? Who knows whether, one of these days, you may not be sitting in the same old chair where you have so often sat before? Whatever happens, of one thing I can be sure — your courage will help you to overcome all difficulties and to emerge victorious from every struggle. My own and Nim's most cordial good wishes go with you. What we can do for you, we shall gladly do — we are at your beck and call and, should fate ever bring you here again, you must in all circumstances regard this house as your own.
Yours, from all our hearts
143. Engels to Laura Lafargue 13 October
My dear Laura,
At last. The heap of letters which Paul foresaw would meet me here and which was indeed frightful, is mostly brushed away and I can sit down to write to you a few lines.
And to begin with, a bit of gossip. When we arrived, the first news Nim told us, was that Kautsky and his wife were going to be divorced, that Kautsky had fallen in love with a girl in the Salzburg Alps, informed his wife of the fact, and Louise had set him free as far as she was concerned. We were all thunderstruck. However, a letter from Louise to me — a really heroic letter — confirmed the news, and with a generosity beyond all praise even acquitted Kautsky of all blame. We all of us here were very fond of Louise and could not make it out how Kautsky could be such a fool — and such a mean one; except that an intrigue was at the bottom, planned by his mother[3] and sisterb (who both hated Louise) and that he had fallen into the trap. This seems indeed to have been the case, from all we can learn. The girl is a BezirksrichterY daughter, longing evidently for a husband and especially for one who will take her to Vienna. Kautsky flirted with her while his wife was in Vienna nursing her sick mother; and one fine morning the discovery was made that neither could live without the other — the sister, of course, working both puppets behind the scenes, while the mother pretended not to see anything. Well, Kautsky came here, told Bernstein, sold his furniture, took his books with him and returned, with his younger brother Hans, to St Gilgen near Salzburg, the scene of the above drama. When the youthful Bella (such is her name) saw the equally youthful Hans, a flot-ter strammer Bursch,A she at once discovered that she had, in Karl, really loved Hans alone, and Hans reciprocated with the alacrity becoming to a young Viennese; within five days they were engaged and Karl found himself between two stools of his own setting. Karl in his generosity has forgiven both, but the old mother fumes and threatens to forbid the young woman her house — and this throws a peculiar light, or rather shade, on her pretended innocence of the affair.
Of course, now Kautsky discovers at once that he has lived unhappily with Louise for the last 12 months (that is since his mother and sister were here and spent a month with them at the Isle of Wight) and Ede Bernstein will also have noted some disharmony when he came from Switzerland. This is all the more curious that during this time when he could not agree with her, we all here liked her all the better, the longer we knew her; which proves that she is not only a heroic woman, for that she is undoubtedly (and such are certainly not always the best for domestic use), but a woman with whom reasonable people can get on. Well I think and said to Nim: this is the greatest Dummheit Kautsky ever committed in his life and I do not envy him the moralischen Kater* which will be the upshot (sans calembourg\h) of it all.
The matter is up to the present kept quiet. Here only Ede Bernstein and his wife, Nim, and Schorlemmer know about it, also Tussy and Edward, and probably one or two of Louise's and Tussy's common lady friends. How it will all end, I do not know, but I guess Kautsky wishes it was all a dream.
Now to business. Enclosed account of Capital, for the last 12 months, according to which I owe you £2.8s.9d, and as you must be by this time pretty short of cash I add £15 — making the cheque £17.8s.9d in all.
Nim informs me dinner is getting ready and so I stop short, using the rest of the page for the account. Love from Nim and your old General.
Received from S. Sonnenschein and Co. for Royalties July 1887-June 88
£12.3.9 1/5 Longuet 's children 1/5 Laura Lafargue 1/5 Tussy
£ 2.8.9 £ 2.8.9 £ 2.8.9
£ 7.6.3
Remainder 2/5 for the Translators -£ 4.17.6 of which Sam Moore 3/5 E. Aveling 2/5
£ 2.18.6 £ 1.19.-£ 4. 7.6' Meissner's account I have not yet received.
144. Engels to Nikolai Danielson 15 October[2 1 1]
Dear Sir,
I was prevented from replying to your kind letters of 8/20 January and 3/15 June — as also to a great many other letters — first by a weakness of my eyes which made it impossible for me to write at my desk for more than two hours a day, and thus necessitated an almost complete neglect of work and correspondence, and second by a journey to America during August and September from which I am only just returned. My eyes are better but as I now shall take in hand Volume IIP and finish it, I must still be careful not to overwork them, and consequently my friends must excuse me if my letters are not too long and not too frequent.
The disquisitions in your first letter on the relation between rate of surplus value and rate of profits are highly interesting and no doubt of great value for grouping statistics; but it is not in this way that our authorb attacks the problem. You suppose, in your formula, that every manufacturer keeps all the surplus value, which he, in the first hand appropriates. Now upon that supposition, merchant's capital and banker's capital would be impossible, because they would not make any profit. The profit of a manufacturer therefore cannot represent all the surplus value he has extracted from his workmen.
On the other hand, your formula may serve to calculate, approximately, the composition of different capitals in different industries, under the rule of a common and equal rate of profit. I say may, because I have not at this moment materials at hand from which to verify the theoretical formula established by you.
You wonder why in England political economy is in such a pitiful state. It is the same everywhere; even classical economy, nay, even the most vulgar Free Trade Hausierburschen[3]- are looked upon with contempt by the still more vulgar 'superior' beings who fill the university chairs of economy. That is the fault of our author, to a great extent; he has taught people to see the dangerous consequences of classical economy; they find that no science at all, on this field at least, is the safe side of the question. And they have so well succeeded in blinding the ordinary philistine, that there are at the present moment four people in London, calling themselves 'Socialist'[302] who claim to have refuted our author completely by opposing to his theory that of — Stanley Jevons![215]
Paris friends insist upon saying that Mr Mutualb is not dead;[216] I have no means of testing their information.
I have read with great interest your physiological observations upon exhaustion by prolonged labour time and the quantity of potential energy in the shape of food required to replace the exhaustion. To the statement of Ranke quoted by youc I have to make a slight exception: if the 1,000,000 kgmetres in food merely replaced the amount of heat and mechanical work done, it will still be insufficient, for it does not then replace the wear and tear of muscle and nerve; for that not only heat-producing food is required but albumen and this cannot be measured in kgmetres alone, as the animal body is incapable of building it up from the elements.
I do not know the two books of Ed. Young and Phil. Bevan,d but there must be some mistake in the statement that spinners and weavers in the Cotton Industry in America receive $90-120 a year. That represents $2- a week,—8/- sterling, but in reality equals, in purchasing power, less than 5/- in England. From all I have heard, the wages of spinners and weavers in America are nominally higher but in reality only fully equal to those in England; that would make them about $5-6 a week, corresponding to 12/- to 16/- in England. Remember that spinners and weavers now are all women or boys of 15-18 years. As to Kautsky's statement, he made the mistake of treating dollars as if they were pounds sterling; in order to reduce them to marks, he multiplied by 20 instead of by 5, thus obtaining fourfold the correct amount. The figures from the Census {Compendium of the 10th census of the United States, 1880, Washington, 1883;(1) p.1125, specific Cotton Manufacture) are:
Operatives and officers 174,659 Deduct clerks, managers etc. 2.115 172.544 operatives (Men 59,685 (over 16 years) boys 16,107 (under 16 years) women 84,539 (over 15 years) girls 13,213 (under 15 years))
172,544. total wages $42,040,510 or $243.06 per head per annum, which agrees with my estimate given above, as what the men get more will be made up by what girls and boys get less.
To prove to you to what depths of degradation economical science has fallen, Lujo Brentano has published a lecture on Die Klassische Nationalökonomie (Leipzig, 1888), in which he proclaims: general or theoretical economy is worth noting, but special or practical economy is everything. Like natural science (!), we must limit ourselves to the description of facts; such descriptions are of infinitely higher value than all apriori deduc-tions. 'Like natural science'! That is impayable in the century of Darwin, of Mayer, Joule and Clausius, of evolution and the transformation of energy!
Thanks for the N o . of Russkiye Vedomosti with the interesting article on the interference with the statistical work of the Zemstvos. It is a great pity that this valuable work should be interrupted.
Very sincerely yours P. W. Rosher[39]
145. Engels to Karl Kautsky 17 October
Dear Kautsky,
In reply to your letter, I can only begin by repeating what I have already written and told Louise,(1) that my mind reels at the thought of what has happened between you two. If there had been any serious discord, this must have been apparent, however slightly, to us over here, particularly when you were at Dodwell with the Avelings. But no one noticed a thing — except Ede.
You yourself say that Louise likewise refused to admit as much and, in view of the remarkable magnanimity of which she has given proof throughout, I can only assume that she feels and believes what she says. However, it could be that you are both right. According to you, your dissatisfaction began over a year ago. That takes you back more or less to your time in Ventnor. Your relations never approved of your marriage. From my experience of my own family I know how difficult and, for a time, impossible, it is for parents to do justice to a daughter-or son-in-law who has come into the family against their wishes. For all that, the parents are conscious of having the best of intentions, the only result of which is, as a rule, to pave the streets of hell for their son- or daughter-in-law and, indirectly, for their own child. Every husband has something to criticise in his wife, and vice versa; that is as it should be. But as a result of well-meaning Ingerentzk by third parties, this critical attitude may be exacerbated to the point of resentment if not lasting discord. If this is what has happened in your case, you are both of you right: Louise in saying that there is no cause for discord between you, you in saying that your relationship is, in fact, discordant.
But if the discord — no matter what the reason for it — was so grave that you seriously contemplated divorce, what you should have borne in mind above all was, I should say, the differing status of husband and wife in present-day conditions. No social stigma whatever attaches to the husband as a result of divorce; his position in life remains intact and he simply reverts to bacherlorhood. The wife loses her status altogether; she has got to begin all over again and do so under more difficult circumstances. Hence, if a wife speaks of a divorce, the husband may beg or implore or do anything else he likes without demeaning himself, whereas if the husband so much as hints at a divorce, the wife, if she has any self-respect, is all but compelled to take him instantly at his word. It follows that only in an extreme case, only after mature reflection and when he is absolutely clear in his mind as to its necessity, should the husband take this extreme step, and then only in the most considerate manner possible.
Again, profound discord cannot occur without both parties being aware of it. And you know Louise well enough to realise that in such an event she would have been the first to release both herself and you. If, however, you were intent on making the first move, then surely you owed it to Louise to do so while in full command of your faculties and not in a state of euphoria such as you were in at St Gilgen, and which was destined to evaporate so soon.
Enough. As I have said, the thing's utterly inconceivable to all of us except Ede. While you were becoming dissatisfied with Louise, she was acquiring one friend after another here, and we were growing fonder of her every day, and envying you for being married to her. And I still maintain that this is the silliest thing you have ever done.
You say you think that you'll have to stay in Vienna. Of that you are, of course, the best judge. In your place I should feel impelled to withdraw for the time being into relative solitude, away from all the interested parties, in order to get a clear idea of the nature and implications of what has happened.
And that's enough of that. Your news about the state of the party in Austria is not particularly edifying, although hardly unexpected. Strife between nationalities is still too deeply engrained, even in the mass of the workers, to permit of a general surge forward, and that will take time. Of the 3 groups you mention, the Alpine provinces hardly come into it— except for Vienna, which I do not count. The chaps in Brno have the great advantage of being an international group. Finally, the bickering about leadership only goes to show — just as it does over here — that the masses as a whole are not yet in process of going over to the party, that everything's proceeding too slowly, which is why everyone tries to put the blame on someone else, while hoping that this or that panacea will produce better results.[303] Your only course is to be patient, and I'm glad that I needn't have anything to do with the business.
I must now get down seriously to Volume III.(2) Otherwise I'd do you something for the Neue Zeit about my experiences in America[304]; but I am unlikely to find the time — I have already spent more than a fortnight over correspondence, going through what has come in, etc. My sight has temporarily improved, but what it will be like when I have to go back into harness remains to be seen. I shall be seeing the eye specialist again tomorrow.
Your
F.E.
Fist published in: Aus der Frühzeit des Printed according to the original Marxismus. Engels Briefwechsel mit Kautsky, Prag, 1935 Published in England in full for the first time
146. Engels to August Bebel 25 October
Dear Bebel,
I have sent you through Schlüter Der Hülferuf der deutschen Jugend together with its sequel, Die Junge Generation, Weitling's periodical of the forties. Schlüter had got the other stuff and has sent it to you; the Garantien, Das Evangelium des armen Sünders, etc.[305]
In my view, it would be better to distinguish between the 3 trends in the German movement during the forties. There is very little connection between them, Weitlingian communism[306] in particular having remained aloof until it fizzled out or its members came over to us — a phase which does not figure in the literature on the subject. As regards the history of 'true socialism'[307] (Hess up to a point, Grün and a number of other belletrists), the material in the archives[227] is far from complete, and use would have to be made besides of Marx's and my old mss.(1) Which, however, I can in no circumstances allow out of my possession. Again, a great deal of what went on behind the scenes — notably the estrangement between Hess and ourselves — and what cannot be dismissed in a couple of lines, would be indispensable here, and this would mean that I myself would have to go through all the old stuff again. Finally, as regards the third trend — our own — the course of its development can be studied nowhere save in the old mss., while its outward history was recorded by me in the introduction[13] to the Communist Trial.[307] Weitlingian communism, on the other hand, is a subject all on its own and accounts of it are available in print.
Here it occurs to me that you ought also, perhaps, to have Kuhlmann's book — the prophetic religion that succeeded Weitling in Switzerland and to which many of his followers were converted.[308] I completely forgot to give it to Schlüter.
I enclose a letter from Weitling to Hess (from the archives). It was at a meeting of a small band of close associates that the breach between Weitling and ourselves took place. (An account of the said meeting, written by Annenkov, a Russian who was present, also appeared in the Neue Zeit a few years ago.)[309] What happened was as follows: Hess had been to Westphalia (Bielefeld, etc.); the chaps there — Lüning, Rempel et al— wished, he said, to put up the money for the publication of our writings.[310] Then Weitling came up with the proposal that his disquisitions re his Utopian system be placed with them forthwith, as also his other great works (including a new grammar in which the dative was abolished as the invention of aristocrats)[311]—things we would have had to criticise and combat the moment the plan came off. The letter shows the distorted form in which our arguments were reflected in Weitling's mind. Everywhere he saw nothing but professional jealousy, nothing but an attempt to suppress his genius, to 'come between him and the sources of money'. But in points 5 and 6 of his resume the fundamental differ-ence between him and ourselves emerges plainly enough, and that's the main thing.[312]
P. 3, lines 10-12: This refers to our intention of bringing out the great Utopians in German translation with critical introductions and notes—as opposed to the piffling accounts by Lorenz Stein, Grün[313] et al. In this poor Weitling sees only unfair competition with his system.
P. 3, bottom: E. is Ewerbeck in Paris. N.B. It finally transpired that Moses(2) had omitted to tell us the essentials, namely that all the Westphalians had offered was to guarantee other publishers against the losses they might make on our stuff. Moses had led us to believe that they, the Westphalians, would themselves undertake publication. As soon as we learnt what the position was, we naturally washed our hands of the whole business; to be writers guaranteed by the Westphalians was something that would never have occurred to us.
The affair of the Kautskys has astonished us all. Louise has conducted herself throughout with exceptional heroism. Kautsky was in a state of complete euphoria but was sadly sobered down when jilted within 5 days by his new beloved, who thereupon got engaged to his brother Hans. Now they both intend to wait and see how things go; the strangest part of it is that Louise is now complaining how unfair we are all being to Karl! I have written and told Kautsky that it's the silliest thing he has ever done and, if Louise thinks this too unkind, I suppose I shall have to return my sword to its scabbard.
I am now working on Volume III of Capital. I am still supposed to take great care of my eyes and not write for more than 2 hours daily and that only by daylight. So my correspondence will have to be severely curtailed.
Regards to Singer.
Your
EE.
147. Engels to Laura Lafargue 24 November
My dear Laura,
I was going to write two lines to Paul just when your letter[3] arrived. I have been busy with a very important chapter in Book IIIb which I have had to re-write entirely, the materials left by Mohr being all in the rought, and as it is a mathematical one, it required much attention.[314]
And when one has only two daily fragments of IV2 hours each allowed for work by the doctor, a thing which otherwise could be settled in 14 days takes more than 6 weeks — and so I determined to do it all before I allowed myself any interruption for correspondence. Well, the main portion is finished to-day and so I can just send a line to ask Paul to let me know as usual when he wants any money and I will do what I can.
As soon as my chapter is definitely got rid of, I shall write again — I have such a lot of letter-debts!—in the meantime hope to get the Figaro to-night, so far it has not come. The position in France seems indeed very curious — our friends have allowed themselves by their hatred of the Radicals[200] to take Boulanger too little au sérieux and find now that he is a real danger[137]—anyhow he has the lower ranks of the army on his side and that is a power not to be disdained. And anyhow the way the fellow not only accepts but courts the support of the monarchists makes him more contemptible in my eyes than even the Radicals. Let us hope that the conscious breaches of logic committed by all parties — but then one must not forget that the form of all unconscious development is the Negation der Negation,[200] the movement by contrasts, and that this in France means Republicanism (or respectively Socialism) and Bonapartism (or Boulangism). And Boulanger 's avènement^ would be a European war — the very thing most to be feared.
Ever yours
F. Engels Pumps' boy has had to be transformed into a Jew last Wednesday— let Paul pronounce his blessing on his favourite operation![315] He is getting better. Nim had a severe cold, home-bound nearly 3 weeks.
148. Engels to Paul Lafargue 4 December
My dear Lafargue,
I have just finished editing a very important chapter in Volume III," a chapter Marx left uncompleted — and a mathematical chapter at that,[314]
in order to cope with it I have had to set aside all other occupations, notably letter-writing. Hence my silence.
Bernstein has sent your article to Bebel to find out what he thinks of it. As for me, my advice to you would be to withdraw it. The things you say in your historical introduction are common knowledge and we are all of one mind about them. But when you come to the Possibilists,[19] all you do is to say they've sold themselves to the government, and this without the slightest proof or even circumstantial evidence. If you haven't anything else to say about them, it would be better to say nothing at all.[316] Had you given an account of all the dirty tricks they allegedly played on the Municipal Council and on the Bourse du Travail[317] affairs, and had then gone on to provide facts and reasons in support of your assertion of their venality, it might have amounted to something. But the bald assertion that they sold themselves cuts no ice whatsoever.
Don't forget that, in reply, these gentry will say that you have sold yourselves to the Boulangists. There is no denying the fact that your attitude to Boulangism has done you tremendous harm in the eyes of Socialists outside France.[277] You have coquetted and flirted with the Boulangists out of hatred of the Radicals[200] when you might easily have attacked both, thus leaving no room for ambiguity regarding the independence of your position vis-à-vis the two parties. Nothing forced you to choose between these two sets of nincompoops. You could have cocked a snook at one no less than at the other. But instead, you made much of the Boulangists, you even mentioned the possibility of sharing an electoral roll with them at the next elections — with people allied to the Bonapartists and Royalists, who are certainly no better than Mr Brousse's Radical allies! If you have been seduced by the attitude of the Blanquists[318] who, idealists though they be, are also circumspect in their dealings with Boulanger because of the money received from Rochefort, you ought to have known 'those idealists', since we used to have some in London too.
You say it is necessary for the people to personify their aspirations— if that were true, the French would be Bonapartists from birth, in which case we might as well shut up shop in Paris. But even if you did so believe, would it be reason enough to take the said Bonapartists under your wing?
Boulanger, you say, doesn't want war. What the poor fellow wants is neither here nor there! He has to do what the situation demands, whether he likes it or not. Once in power, he'll be a slave to his chauvinist programme, the only programme he's got, aside from his accession to power. Within less than six weeks Bismarck will have enmeshed him in a web of complications, provocations and frontier incidents, etc. Then Boulanger will either have to declare war or else abdicate; have you any doubt what his choice will be? Boulanger spells war, nothing could be more certain. And what war? France allied to Russia, and hence no possibility of revolution; the least movement in Paris, and the Tsar(1)
would so arrange things with Bismarck as to stifle revolutionary ardour for good and all; worse still, once war had been embarked upon, the Tsar would be absolute master of France and would impose on you what government he chose. Hence to throw yourselves into Boulanger's arms out of hatred for the Radicals is one and the same thing as throwing yourselves, out of hatred for Bismarck, into the arms of the Tsar. Is it really so difficult to make yourself say that they both of them stink, as Queen Blanka says in Heine(2)?
I don't know what Liebknecht may have done about the Possibilists. Whatever the case, I feel sure that our party in Germany could hardly bring itself to attend the Possibilist congress[319] and, if it did, this could only be as the result of grave mistakes on your part. But do not forget that the Possibilists have succeeded in posing as the official representatives of French socialism, that they are recognised as such by the English,[269] the Americans and the Belgians, that they fraternised at the London Congress[320] with the Dutch and the Danes because you, having abdicated, were not represented there. If you do nothing in the way of advertising and preparing for your 1889 congress,[321] everybody will attend that of the Broussists, there being no following for those who abdicate. So advertise your congress, make a bit of to-do in the socialist press of all countries, so that others may realise that the little chap's still alive and kicking. And if your Troyes[322] Congress is successful — and succeed it must, for otherwise your party will be done for — beat the big drum, have a central committee that bestirs itself and to which people may refer and, if possible, have a little weekly paper which will give the world proof of your existence. And make a clean break with the Boulangists, otherwise no one will come.
Circumstances permitting, Liebknecht will have his congress — any old congress — provided he himself is there. And if your congress seems to him to offer little chance of success, he'll go to the Possibilist one. I'll do what I can to see that others are informed; Bebel already has been, by Bernstein, who will himself write about the Possibilists in the Sozialdemokrat!b But he hasn't the power to bind the Party.
Has Liebknecht been in touch with you, and what did you reply? That's what I must know if I am to act in accordance with the facts.
Last Sunday Anseele and Van Beveren came to see me, and who do you think was with them? Adolphe Smith-Headingly! Needless to say, I lost no time in showing him the door. Can you imagine such impudence!
Percy's affairs are going rather badly here; I shall not be able to see how it will all turn out until the end of the year, but 1889 is likely to be pretty revolutinary so far as my finances are concerned. In the meantime I am sending you a cheque for £15 to keep your heads above water.
My love to Laura. Nim has had a bronchial cold which she has at last shaken off, after three weeks.
Yours ever,
F. E.
149. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge 15 December[4 9]
In haste: You might tell Speyer that Lessner has found his sister-in-law. His people are still living in the old house and the woman has promised to write to the Speyers straight away. However, I did not wish to delay sending you this information.
Volume IIP is proving more of a handful than I had imagined. I have had to recast the whole of one chapter from the existing material and there's another, of which only the title exists, which I am having to produce myself.[323] However it's going ahead and will cause much surprise among their worships the political economists. My eyes are better and I still feel five years younger than I did last July. Regards to your wife.b
Your
F. E.
150. Engels to F. Walter 21 December
Mr F. Walter 47 Marshall Street, Golden Sq., W
Dear Mr Walter,
The first time you wrote to me I knew nothing about you and hence could take no more account of your letter than of the many others on a similar subject which I receive from strangers.
You now refer to Most from which I must conclude that you belong to the anarchists. But as long as the weight of the anarchists' attack is directed at our embattled party in Germany rather than at the common enemy, my resources will be devoted to the victims of persecution at the hands of the German governments, and it cannot be expected of me that I should support people who maintain a hostile stance towards my friends and party comrades in Germany and elsewhere.
In no circumstances would I be capable of getting the broker out of your house.
If, however, I should be mistaken about your political affiliations, you will have no difficulty in establishing your bona fides with my old friend Lessner, 12 Fitzroy St, in which case I shall be happy to do something for a genuine member of the party, although the settlement of a debt such as yours would be far beyond my means.
Yours very truly
Endnotes
[207] plan of the concluding part of this chapter (this plan delineated the contents
[208] of the unfinished part of the work) are published in the present edition, Vol. 26. 204. Engels replies to Paul Lafargue's inquiry in the letter of 25 December 1887,
[209] concerning Heinrich Oberwinder, formerly active in the First International,
[210] and exposed as an agent of the Prussian police. The exposure was made by Swiss socialists in the newspaper Der Sozialdemokrat on 24 December 1887; they had found one of the German émigrés, Christian Haupt, to be Bismarck's agent. Subsequently they uncovered other spies as well, including Heinrich Nonne and Heinrich Oberwinder. 205. The Salvation Army was a religious-philanthropic organisation founded by William Booth of the Church of England in 1865. Subsequently it extended its activities to other countries as well (it adopted the present name in 1878 upon being reorganised after a military model). 206. On 25 December 1887, Paul Lafargue told Engels in jest about Laura's 'new-found talent' as an artist. 207. The following works of Engels were translated into Romanian: The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (the journal Contemporanul Nos. 17-21, 1885, and Nos. 22-24, 1886) (present edition, Vol. 26) and the article The Political Situation in Europe (the journal Revista Socialista No. 2, December 1886) (present edition, Vol. 26, pp410-17). 208. The author of both pamphlets, published anonymously, was Constantin Dobrogenau-Gherea. 209. The Holy Alliance was an association of European monarchs founded on 26 September 1815, on the initiative of the Russian Tsar Alexander I and the Austrian Chancellor Metternich, to suppress revolutionary movements and preserve feudal monarchies in European countries. 210. Règlement organique (1831-32) constitutional acts laying down the socio-political system of the Danubian Principalities (Wallachia and Moldavia) after the Russo-Turkish war of 1828-29. The Règlement, based on a draft framed by P.D. Kiselev, head of the Russian administration, was adopted by an assembly of boyars and clergymen. Legislative power in each of the Principalities was vested in an assembly elected by the big landowners. Executive power was wielded by hospodars, the titled rulers elected for life by representative of the landowners, the clergy and the towns. The Règlement envisaged a number of bourgeois reforms: abolition of internal customs duties, introduction of free trade, and the right of peasants to move from one owner to another. However, in view of the preservation of serfdom and concentration of political power in the hands of the big landowners and boyars, the progressive forces in the Principalities regarded the
[212] occupation of Moldavia and Wallachia by Russia and Turkey, the Règlement
[213] became invalid with the setting up of an independent Romanian state in the
[214] 1860s. To suppress the revolutionary movement in Wallachia and Moldavia, Russia and Turkey sent in their troops in the summer of 1848. By the Balta-Liman Treaty of 19 April (1 May) 1849, the occupationist regime was to be in force till after the revolutionary threat had been eliminated in full (the foreign troops were withdrawn only in 1851); as a provisional measure, the hospodars were to be appointed by the Turkish Sultan with the consent of the Russian Tsar. Also, Turkey and Russia were to take steps, not excluding another military intervention, in case of repeated revolutionary unrest. In keeping with the Bucharest Peace Treaty of 12 May 1812, virtually all of Bessarabia up to the River Pruth was ceded to Russia. By the Paris Treaty of 1856 Turkey annexed a portion of this territory. However, in accordance with the Berlin treaty of 1878, this part of Bessarabia was ceded back to Russia. 211. An excerpt of this letter was first published in the language of the original (English) in the book: K. Marx, F. Engels, Letters on 'Capital', London, 1983. 212. In his letter of 11 (23) December 1887, Nikolai Danielson told Engels that Volume IV of Johannes v. Keussler's work Zur Geschichte und Kritik des bäuerlichen Gemeinbesitzes in Rußland had come off the press. These four volumes, he pointed out, were the only reliable source of data based on the relevant statistical and economic studies of the Russian zemstvos. Danielson regretted that Keussler undertook his work after only 20 volumes of the total 100-volume edition of the extensive statistical study of the zemstvos had seen print. 213. In the same letter Danielson wrote to Engels about the institution of a State Land Bank for the Nobility in Russia. The State Land Bank for the Nobility was set up in 1885 with the aim of helping the Russian landed proprietors from among the nobility in the maintenance of their estates. The landowners could get loans from this bank on fairly easy terms by mortgaging their land. The tsarist government provided substantial financial assistance to this bank. Loans were issued on a long-term basis and at a lower interest rate than in other Russian banks. 214. The Peasant Land Bank was a state mortgage bank instituted in Russia in 1882 for providing long-term loans to peasant farmers for land purchases. Catering to the interests of the big landowners, the bank charged high interest rates. Its activity resulted in soaring land prices. The land of insolvent real estate owners who failed to pay off the loans on time was auctioned off by the bank or sequestered into its land pool. The Peasant Land Bank was operating in close contact with the State Land Bank for the Nobility set up
[217] of the land found itself in the hands of the rich gentry and the rural bour-
[219] antry. 215. The reference is to 'marginal utility theory', the counter of vulgar political
[220] economics to the labour theory of value, whereby the value of commodities
[221] is deduced from the calculation of their utility and value. The marginal utility theory evolved into a major theoretical system in the 1870s. Its main advocates in the late 19th and early 20th century were Karl Menger, Eugen Böhm-Bawerk (of the Austrian School), William Stanley Jevons, and others. See also Engels' Preface to Volume III of Capital (present edition, Vol. 37). 216. In August 1887, Nikolai Danielson informed Engels of Lopatin's death in the Schlüsselburg Fortress. Engels immediately applied to Lavrov with the request to verify this report. It proved to be wrong. 217. An excerpt from this letter was first published in English in the book: K. Marx and F. Engels, Correspondence, 1846-1895, London, Lawrence 1934. 218. From September 1887 to March 1888, Friedrich A. Sorge lived in Rochester, N.Y., i.e., where his son did. 219. The Bismarck government followed a dual policy with regard to the workers: along with the continued repression (see note 96) it tabled, on 17 November 1881, a new programme of social legislation to be considered in the Reichstag. Although adopted by the Reichstag, this programme was implemented very slowly and inconsistently. In 1883 the Reichstag passed a law on a mandatory sickness insurance, in 1884 a law on old age and disabil-ity insurance. The entrepreneurs contributed only a 1/3 to the social insurance fund, with the other 2/3 being drawn from the employees. The issue of a shorter workday and of restrictions on female and child labour was not considered. 220. In view of the expiration of the Anti-Socialist Law (see note 52), the Bismarck government tabled a motion (November 1887) to prolong it for another five years and supplement it with some new clauses with stiffer penalties for the promulgation of socialist literature and for membership in Social Democratic unions, to the extent of banishment and deprivation of citizenship (expatriation). 221. The Thirty Years War (1618-1648) was a European war in which the Pope, the Spanish and Austrian Habsburgs and the Catholic German princes rallied under the banner of Catholicism and fought the Protestant countries: Bohemia, Denmark, Sweden, the Republic of the Netherlands and a number of Protestant German states. The rulers of Catholic France - rivals of the Habsburgs - supported the Protestant camp. Germany was the main battle arena or the object of plunder and territorial claims. The Treaty of Westphalia (1648) sealed the political dismemberment of Germany. 222. Probably Wilhelm Liebknecht wrote in his letter to Engels that in case of a
[222] prolongation of the Anti-Socialist Law (see note 52) he and his family
[224] envisaged banishment and deprivation of citizenship (expatriation) for
[226] (see note 3). 224. An allusion to the events of 'Bloody Sunday' in London's Trafalgar Square
[228] prominent figures in the socialist and trade union movement Robert
[229] Cunninghame-Graham and John Burns. On 18 January 1888, the two men were sentenced to 6 weeks' imprisonment. However, they were soon set free under public pressure (see note 246). 225. An excerpt from this letter was first published in the preface to Marx-Engels Gesamtausgabe. Dritte Abteilung, Bd. 1, 1929. 226. On 30 December 1887, Hermann Schlüter told Engels about Eduard Bernstein's request to allow Der Sozialdemokrat to publish the final part of the Engels-written introduction to S. Borkheim's pamphlet Zur Erinnerung für die deutschen Mordspatrioten 1806-1807 pending the publication of the pamphlet itself. On 15 January 1888, Der Sozialdemokrat carried the second part of the Engels introduction under the title Was Europa bevorsteht. The booklet was printed in June 1888. 227. The German Social Democratic archives were set up at the Zurich Conference of the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany held on 19-21 August 1882. Their purpose was to preserve the manuscripts of prominent figures in the German labour movement (including the works of Marx and Engels), and documents pertaining to the history of Germany and the international working-class movement, and the labour press. The initial site of the archives was Zurich. The first materials were collected by Eduard Bernstein. From April 1883 the archives were in the custody of Hermann Schlüter. In June 1888, following the expulsion of some members of the Sozialdemokrat editorial staff and co-workers from Switzerland (see note 81), the archives were moved to London and, after the abrogation of the Anti-Socialist law (see note 52), to Berlin. 228. In his letter of 30 December 1887, Schlüter wrote to Engels that the book dealers had cut the journal Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Politisch-ökonomische Revue into separate pieces and sold these articles separately as independent works. Meanwhile, longer works of Marx and Engels were printed in instalments in different numbers of the journal. 229. The reference is to the manuscript of The Great Men of the Exile written by Marx and Engels (see present edition, Vol. 11, pp227-326). At the end of June 1852, Marx passed on the manuscript to the Hungarian emigre, Kossuth's emissary abroad Janos Bangya, who offered to have it published
[230] in Germany. Later, it turned out that Bangya was a police spy who had
[232] who managed to win Marx's confidence for a time, were unmasked by Marx
[233] in his article 'Hirsch's Confessions' written in April 1853 and published in
[82] Labor Party, which she had approached for support, set up a special
[236] which was planting spies in the labour unions. On 17 February 1888, the
[238] years, as the government had suggested - the action of the law was extended
[239] for two years only (until 30 September 1890). The new clauses suggested by
[240] the government for the law were not adopted (see note 220). 236. An allusion to the entry of Napoleon's troops into Berlin in 1806 following
[241] the defeat of the Prussian forces, at Jena and Auerstedt. 237. An excerpt from this letter was first published in English in the journal The
[242] Socialist Review, London 1908, III-VIII. 238. The reference is to a scandal over the criminal actions of Louis Charles
[175] report of the Reichstag faction of the party, the activity of Social
[245] Secretary of State for Ireland and nephew of the Prime Minister, Mr Robert
[247] providing for reorganisation of the German armed forces, Bismarck lauded
[22] took an active part in the working-class movement. However, in 1887 the
[84] book was published in May 1887, independently of the Executive. 81. At the insistence of the German authorities the Swiss Federal Council on 18
[173] from the 2nd to the 6th October 1887, at St. Gallen (Switzerland). It was
[5] publisher. However he died, in 1869, and the matter remained unsettled. The English version of Volume I, edited by Engels, was published by Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey & Co. in January 1887, after Marx's death. The translation was done by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling, between mid-1883 and March 1886. Eleanor Marx-Aveling helped prepare the edition. The translation was based on the third German edition of Das Kapital, due account being taken of the French edition and Marx's directions for the English translation, which failed to materialise, planned for late 1877. 3. Between September and December 1886 Wilhelm Liebknecht, Eleanor Marx-Aveling and Edward Aveling toured the United States at the invitation of Executive of the Socialist Labor Party of North America. They gave talks and lectures in a number of cities on the theory and history of socialism, on the working-class movement in Europe and on other themes. After the tour the Executive, which had financed it, accused Aveling of over-expenditure. This charge was taken up by the bourgeois press and used for anti-socialist agitation. The conflict between Aveling and the Executive lasted for several months. Engels took part in settling it. The Socialist Labor Party of the United States (originally called the Workingmen's Party) was set up at the Philadelphia union congress, 19-22 June 1876, through the merger of the US sections of the First International, led by F. A. Sorge and Otto Weydemeyer, with the Lassallean-type Labor Party of Illinois and the Social Democratic Party, led by A. Strasser, A. Gabriel and Peter J. McGuire. It was the first Marxist party in America. However, it failed to win a mass following because of the sectarian policy of its leaders, who wanted no links with the mass organisations of the indigenous US workers, and because of the Lassalleans' prevalence in a number of local branches. 4. An excerpt from this letter was first published in English in: K. Marx and F. Engels, On the United States, Moscow, Progress Publishers, 1979. 5. In June 1886, a Hague court sentenced F. D. Nieuwenhuis to one year in
[64] American Federation of Labor (AFL), set up in December 1886. 62. The Social Democratic Federation was a British socialist organisation, the
[78] Crown, I am prepared to return it into the hands of her sovereign.' 74. Engels is replying to Trier's letter of 22 March 1887 in which Trier informed
[168] Committee. Likewise, the Congress adopted a decision on convening, in
[125] Puritans. Consisting of members of the commercial and fledgling industrial
[249] pronouncements of some organs of the Russian press. Still, he spoke in
[250] favour of a stronger military might for the German Reich in view of a possible anti-German alliance between France and Russia. By calling Alexander III a 'Gatchina prisoner', Engels referred to the fact that, ascending the throne after the assassination of Tsar Alexander II by members of the radical organisation Narodnaya Volya ('People's will') on 1 March 1881, Alexander III feared revolutionary action and fresh acts of terrorism, so used to seclude himself in his palace at Gatchina. 246. On 19 February 1888, a big rally was held in London on the occasion of liberation of the socialists Robert Cunninghame-Graham and John Burns, convicted for taking part in the Trafalgar Square demonstration of 13 November 1887 (see note 185). 247. The Commonweal, the organ of the Socialist League, reprinted a list of police agents promulgated in Der Sozialdemokrat under the heading Polizeiagent - Dynamitagenten with 12 police agents in it (see note 204). The newspaper augmented this list without giving cogent proof of the culpability of the persons mentioned, including Theodor Reuß. 248. Landwehr was the army second reserve formed in Prussia during the struggle against Napoleon. In the 1840s it consisted of men under forty who had done three years of active service and had been in the reserve not less than two years. In contrast to the regular army, the Landwehr was called up only in case of extreme necessity (war, or threat of war). 249. The Fenians were Irish revolutionaries who named themselves after the 'Féne', a name for the ancient population of Ireland. Their first organisations appeared in the 1850s in the USA among the Irish immigrants and later in Ireland itself. The secret Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood, as the organisation was known in the early 1860s, aimed at establishing an independent Irish republic by means of an armed uprising. The Fenians, who expressed the interests of the Irish peasantry, came chiefly from the urban petty bourgeoisie and intellectuals, and believed in conspiracy tactics. The British Government attempted to suppress the Fenian movement by severe police reprisals. 250. The Orange Order, named after William III, Prince of Orange, was an organisation set up in Ireland in 1795. The English authorities, the landlords and the Protestant clergy used this organisation to fight the Irish national liberation movement. The Order united English and Irish elements from all strata of society and systematically incited the Protestants against the Irish Catholics. The Orangemen had a particularly great influence in Northern Ireland, where the majority of the population were Protestants. 251. The reference is to the manifesto of Frederick III on the occasion of his
[252] Volk (To my people) - was marked by the same date as his message to
[253] Chancellor Bismarck. 252. On 18 March 1888, the newspaper Weekly Dispatch published the mani-
[254] festos of Frederick III ('Letter to Prince Bismarck', 'Proclamation of the
[255] Emperor') (see note 251). 253. Engels alludes to the Russo-Turkish war of 1877-78. 254. In his letter to Engels of 18 March 1888, Paul Lafargue expressed his convic-
[205] Engels must have never resumed it. This unfinished work of his, an outline
[257] elected to the Chamber of Deputies would be to abrogate the balloting
[258] procedure 'according to the lists', introduced in June 1885 instead of the former procedure providing for voting 'in small arrondissements'. The new system of balloting, effected in keeping with departmental lists, envisaged integration of small constituencies into larger ones, each corresponding to a department in size. A voter would be offered a list of candidates from various parties, and was supposed to cast his ballot for the overall number of candidates due to be elected as deputies in a given department (proceeding from the ratio: 1 deputy to 700,000 of the population). An absolute majority of votes was needed in the first round for a candidate to be elected, but he could do with a relative majority in the runoff. 255. The Vendôme Column was erected in Parts between 1806 and 1810 in tribute to the military victories of Napoleon I. It was made of bronze from captured enemy guns and crowned by a statue of Napoleon; the statue was removed during the Restoration but re-erected in 1833. In the spring of 1871, by order of the Paris Commune, the Vendôme Column was destroyed as a symbol of militarism. 256. An abridged version of this letter was first published in English (in facsimile) in the book Literary Heritage 1932, No.2; and in full it was published in: Marx K., Engels F. Literature and Art, New York, Intern. Publ., 1947. 257. Legitimists were the party who supported the French Bourbon dynasty (overthrown in 1792); they represented the interests of the big landed aristocracy and the top clergy; they took shape as a party and assumed this name in 1830, after the second overthrow of the Bourbon dynasty. During the Second Republic, the Legitimists, together with the other monarchist parties, formed the Party of Order. Failing to win support from the people under the Second Empire, they confined themselves to marking time and issuing critical pamphlets and were galvanised into action only in 1871, when they joined the general counter-revolutionary onslaught against the Paris Commune. 258. Engels refers to the uprising in Paris of 5-6 June 1832, prepared by the Left Wing of the Republican Party and secret revolutionary societies. The immediate cause of this uprising was the funeral of General Lamarque, who had
[259] been in opposition to the government of Louis Philippe. The revolutionary
[260] workmen raised barricades and fought back with great courage and tenac-
[261] ity. One of the barricades, put up in rue Saint-Martin (formerly the site of
[262] the Saint-Méri cloister) was among the last to fall. In his novel Illusions
[263] perdues and story Les secrets de la Princesse de Cardignan, Balzac depicted
[264] a republican Michel Chrestien who 'died at the walls of the cloister Saint-
[265] Méri ('mourut au cloître Saint-Mérri'). Balzac called him a 'great statesman who could have changed the face of the world' ('ce grand homme d'Etat, qui peut être eût changé la face du monde'). 259. The reference is to Paul Lafargue's article 'La langue française avant et après la Révolution' published in the journal Nouvelle Revue, t. 51, 1888, under the nom de plume Fergus. As is apparent from Lafargue's letter to Engels on 27 November 1887, this article was conceived as part of a larger work in which he intended to look into changes that had occurred in matters of property, philosophy, art, etc., after the French Revolution. 260. Boustrapa - nickname of Louis Bonaparte, composed of the first syllables of the names of the places where he and his supporters staged Bonapartist putsches, or coups: Boulogne (August 1840), Strasbourg (October 1846) and Paris (coup d'état of 2 December 1851). 261. An allusion to a scandalous incident involving the British colonel Valentine Baker who had seduced a young girl in a railway carriage and was brought to trial. Engels compared this incident in jest to the rape of Europa when Jupiter, in love with the young Phoenician princess Europa, assumed the form of a white bull to carry her off. 262. For British Association for the Advancement of Science see note 124; for the materials of the discussion mentioned by Engels, see Report of the Fifty-Seventh Meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science held at Manchester in August and September 1887, London, 1888, pp885-95. Engels usually familiarised himself with the materials of the Association's annual meetings by means of publications in the journal Nature. 263. The reference is to a bill tabled by Roger Quarks Mills at US Congress in April 1888 on rescinding taxes on raw materials used in industry and on reducing duties on many import items. The bill was not adopted. 264. Florence Kelley-Wischnewetzky and her husband, Dr Lazar Wischnewetzky, both expelled from the New York section of the Socialist Labour Party of North America in July 1887 (see note 149), did not agree with the decision of the Executive and pressed for reinstatement of their membership in the party. On 31 March 1888, the newspaper Wochenblatt der N. Y. Volkszeitung carried a report on the Executive sittings of 2, 9 and 16 March 1888, which decided first to study the additional evidence before discussing the Wischnewetzkys' appeal. 265. The Kartell was a coalition of conservative parties - die Deutsch-
[266] Konservative Partei, die Deutsche Reichspartei (Freikonservative) und die
[45] any other candidate, at the 1885 parliamentary election and was called 'le
[267] Nationalliberale Partei - which was formed after Bismarck had dissolved the
[268] Reichstag in January 1887 (see note 15). Supporting the Bismarck govern-
[21] had arisen between Caroline-Rémy Séverine-Guebhard, publisher of the newspaper Le Cri du Peuple, on the one hand, and the associate editors of this paper - Jules Guesde, Gabriel Deville, Albert Goullé - on the other. The latter emphatically objected to Séverine's public pronouncements in defence of the anarchist Duval, convicted on charges of burglary, and to the publication in the paper, as a leader, of an anti-German article by one Bienvenu. They also demanded the dismissal of the journalist Georges de Labruyère, notorious for his Boulangist views (see note 137). As a result of the conflict, almost all leading members of the editorial board withdrew from the Cri du Peuple. They started a new paper, the Voie du peuple, the first issue of which appeared on 2 February 1887. The paper lasted only a few weeks, the last issue appearing on 17 March. 19. The Possibilists (Broussists) were a reformist trend in the French socialist movement between the 1880s and the early 20th century. Its leaders - Paul Brousse and Benoit Malon -caused a split in the French Workers' Party (see note 33) in 1882 and formed the Federation of Socialist Workers. Its ideological basis was the theory of municipal socialism. The Possibilists pursued a 'policy of the possible' ('la politique des possibilités'). At the beginning of the 20th century the Possibilists merged with the French Socialist Party. 20. Presumably Engels means the newspaper Le Citoyen, of which Jules Guesde was a co-founder. It appeared from 1 October 1881 to 8 March 1884. In October 1882 it merged with the newspaper La Bataille, edited by Prosper-Olivier Lissagaray. As a result, the French Workers' Party (see note 33) lost its influence on the paper. 21. The Socialist League was founded in December 1884 by a group of English socialists who had withdrawn from the Social Democratic Federation (see note 62). The League's organisers included Eleanor Marx Aveling, Ernest Belfort Bax and William Morris. 'The Manifesto of the Socialist League' (see The Commonweal No.l, February 1885) stated that its members advocated 'the principles of Revolutionary International Socialism' and sought 'a change in the basis of Society ... which would destroy the distinctions of classes and nationalities'. The tasks of the League included the formation of a national socialist party, the conquest of political power through the election of socialists to local government bodies, and the promotion of the trade union and co-operative movement. In the League's early years its leaders
[270] a broad campaign in support of the Possibilists; it recognised them as the
[271] principal organisation of French Socialists and maintained no relations with
[272] the French Workers' Party (see note 33). The Social Democratic Federation
[273] was the only socialist organisation to support the Possibilist International
[6] prison and a fine of 50 guldens on charges of 'lese majesté' and 'denigration
[275] Committee, an executive body of The Trades Union Congress of Great Britain formed in 1868 and uniting the British trade unions. As of 1871 the Parliamentary Committee was annually elected by Trades Union Congresses as a steering body of the trade unions in between the congresses. It was designed to nominate trade union MPs, support draft bills tabled in the interests of the trade unions, and prepare regular union congresses. Henry Broadhurst was the parliamentary Committee's Secretary from 1875 to 1890. In 1921 the Parliamentary Committee was replaced with the Trades Union Congress General Council. 270. The Congress of the German Social Democratic Party at St Gallen (see note 174) passed a decision to convene an international labour congress in 1888. However, the party's Executive stated its readiness to refrain from the convocation of that congress and to participate in a congress being convened in London by the Parliamentary Committee of the British Trades Unions (see note 165). Following its unsuccessful negotiations with the Parliamentary Committee which had stipulated unacceptable conditions for representation of German Social Democracy at the London congress, the party's Executive reverted to the resolution of its congress. 271. Probably the reference is to the work of Johann Georg Eccarius Eines Arbeiters Widerlegung der national-ökonomischen Lehren John Stuart Mill's republished by the Social Democratic Publishers of Zurich in 1888. Originally written in English for the journal The Commonweal (10.11.1866, 27.3.1867), it first appeared in German in 1869 as a pamphlet in Eccarius' translation. 272. In this letter to Engels on 11 April 1888, P. Martignetti said he was offered a job in the archives of the Italian town of Benevento, but had to pass competitive examination to be able to qualify. 273. Engels sent Lafargue's letter on 27 April 1888, addressed to Wilhelm Liebknecht, pertaining to the preparation of an international labour congress. P. Lafargue believed that in this way his letter would reach the addressee the sooner. 274. A brief excerpt from this letter was first published in French by the journal La Pensée, No. 61, 1955. For the first publication of this letter in English, see note 40. 275. In March-April 1888 a peasant uprising broke out in Romania's central districts. The rebels burned landlords' estates, destroyed promissory notes, and divided bread, cattle and land amongst themselves. The revolts were crushed brutally by the government. 276. This letter was first published in English by the journal Istoricheskv Arkhiv
[130] present edition, Vol. 46). The letter contained a critique of George's book,
[278] 1956. 277. The French Socialists differed in their attitude to Boulangism (see note 137).
[280] Boulangism as a 'popular movement' with little regard for the aims of this
[283] Vaillant adhered to a policy of non-interference with respect to Boulangism by regarding this movement only as a bourgeois party; they said they were loath to intervene in partisan strife among the bourgeois parties. Yet the sectarian stance of non-interference isolated the party from the popular masses and gravely prejudiced its influence in the home country. 278. The decree adopted by the German Ministry of the Interior on 22 May 1888, prohibited free passage of the French into Alsace and Lorraine. All foreigners crossing into Germany from France were supposed to have pass-ports with a visa from the German embassy in Paris. 279. This letter was first published in English in: Frederick Engels, Paul and Laura Lafargue, Correspondence, Vol. 3 (1891-95), Supplement Letters, Moscow, 1963. 280. Engels, at the request or Karl Kautsky, and Eleanor and Edward Aveling, was translating poems by Shelley into German for the Avelings's article 'Shelley als Sozialist', published in the December issue of Neue Zeit in 1888. 281. Refers to the voyage of Engels, Eleanor Marx-Aveling, Edward Aveling and their friend Carl Schorlemmer to the United States where they spent over a month - from 17 August to 19 September 1888. They journeyed from New York to Boston and nearby towns, then on to the Niagara Falls and across Lake Ontario to Canada. Engels made this tour incognito, without meeting German Socialists or representatives of the press. 282. On 12 June 1888, Georges Boulanger addressed the Chamber of Deputies demanding its dissolution and a revision of the Constitution. The head of the government, Charles Floquet, proposed that Boulanger's demand be turned down and pointed out to the general's unseemly activities. Accusing Floquet of slander, Boulanger presented the Chairman of the Chamber with a waiver, framed in advance, whereby he relinquished his mandate as a deputy; the matter culminated in a duel in which Boulanger was wounded. 283. Plebiscitary Boulangism was a description that Engels gave to Boulanger's attempt to obtain a deputy's mandate from many departments of France. Making use of the voting 'according to the lists' (see note 254), Boulanger nominated his candidacy in any department where a deputy's seat happened to be vacant. As soon as a new vacancy was open, Boulanger relinquished his mandate so as to run for Parliament in another department. Boulanger
[29] Chicago Labor Union - Albert K. Parsons, August Spies, Adolph Fischer
[144] facsimile of which he wanted to give under Engels' portrait in the annual
[287] draft bill on restoring the old system of balloting in electoral constituencies.
[290] deputy other than in one constituency only. 284. Engels wrote this letter on a post card. On the back was the address: E.
[292] F. A. Sorge, Hoboken, New Jersey. For the first publication of the letter in
[149] English banks: Easter and Whit Monday, the first Monday of August and 26
[294] 3, 1938. It was written on hotel notepaper with the address: Adams House,
[295] No. 553, Washington Street, Boston. 287. The reference is to the dissent in the Socialist Labour Party of North America (see note 3). Speaking of the resignation of the Executive Secretary Wilhelm Rosenberg, Engels proceeded from a report made by Friedrich Sorge in his letter of 30 August 1888. The official decision on Rosenberg's resignation was adopted in September 1889 (see note 501). 288. The letter was written on hotel notepaper with the address: Adams House, No.553. Washington Street, Boston. 289. The letter was written on hotel notepaper with a picture of the Niagara Falls and the address: Spencer House, Niagara Falls, N.Y. 290. Engels stayed in London in July-August 1838 when he accompanied his father on a business trip to Britain. That was the first trip of the young Frederick Engels abroad (see present edition, Vol. 2, pp99-100) 291. This letter was written on hotel notepaper with the address: Richelieu Hotel, Montreal. For the first English publication, see note 286. 292. This letter was written on a hotel notepaper with the address: Paul Smith's Fouquet House, Phelps Smith, Manager, Plattsburgh, N.Y. About the first English publication of the letter, see note 29. 293. This letter was written on hotel notepaper with the address: Broadway, opposite Bond Street, Julius A. Robinson Prop'r, New York. For the first English publication of the letter, see note 29. 294. The available rough copy of this and the next letter was written on a single sheet. 295. In the autumn of 1841 Bruno Bauer, one of the leaders of the Young Hegelians, was suspended from teaching at Bonn University by Eichhorn, the Prussian Minister of Religious Worship, Education and Medicine. In March 1842, he was dismissed from his post as lecturer in theology on account of his atheistic views and opposition speeches. Bauer's dismissal evoked sharp protests from radical and liberal intellectuals. 296. Telling Engels about his intention to obtain the post of senior lecturer at
[296] Leipzig University, Conrad Schmidt wrote: 'Whether I will succeed in
[297] getting a position in Leipzig is doubtful to me in view of the personal atti-
[299] Engels called Professor Roscher by the name of the great historian of the
[300] ancient Greece, Thucydides, for, as Marx wrote, Herr Professor Roscher
[211] Règlement as a symbol of feudal stagnation. Reimposed in 1849 during the
[302] present edition, Vol. 32, p570). See Roscher's preface to the first edition of
[39] tunity for self-advertising. He therefore decided to answer him either in an
[303] his work Die Grundlagen der Nationalökonomie 1854. 297. On 23 August 1888 Conrad Schmidt wrote to Engels that he was not eligible as lecturer at Halle University on account of his atheist views. 298. In his preface to Volume II of Capital that appeared in 1885 Engels suggested that economists clarify the question 'in which way an equal average rate of profit can and must come about, not only without a violation of the law of value, but on the basis of it' (see present edition, Vol. 36). Marx had offered a solution to this problem in Volume III of Capital on which Engels was working at the time. Having taken an interest in the problem raised by Engels, C. Schmidt was working on the book Die Durchschnittsprofitrate auf Grundlage des Marx'schen Werthgesetzes which came out in 1889. In the review of Volume II of Capital - Die Marx'sche Kapitaltheorie - published by the journal Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik, new series, Vol. XI, 1885, Wilhelm Lexis likewise raised this problem, though he could offer no solution. Engels made a circumstantial appraisal of these works in his preface to Volume III of Capital (see present edition, Vol. 37). 299. W. Roscher, Geschichte der Nationalökonomie in Deutschland München, 1874, S. 1021-1022. In it Roscher gave an evaluation of the Marxian economic theory. 300. On 20 September 1888 the newspaper New-Yorker Volkszeitung carried Engels' interview with Theodor Cuno (see present edition, Vol. 26, pp626-27), formerly a member of the First International. Acting on the assignment of the editor-in-chief Alexander Jonas who had learned about Engels' sojourn in New York (see note 281), Cuno had the interview published without prior consultations with Engels. In October 1888 this interview was reprinted by Der Sozialdemokrat. 301. A fragment of this latter was first published in English in K Marx, F. Engels, V. I. Lenin, The Communist View on Morality, Moscow, Novosti Publishers, 1974. 302. Engels probably meant the leaders of the Fabian Society - Sidney and Beatrice Webb, George Bernard Shaw, Edward Pease (see note 176). 303. Following their abortive attempts in the 1870s to form a party of their own, the Austrian Socialists remained split into several groups for many years. There were also anarchist and moderate radical groups besides the adherents of scientific socialism among them. The above groups were divided on
[304] such issues as the significance and nature of workers' political activity
[305] (specifically, the parliamentary struggle), the makeup of the party, ethnic
[306] problems, and so on. A reunification attempt was undertaken in Vienna in
[308] Geistes auf Erden Verkündigung, Geft, 1845. For a critique of this book, see
[309] present edition, Vol. 5. 309. This refers to Weitling's letter to Moses Hess on 31 March 1846, in which
[310] he describes the sitting of the Brussels Communist Correspondence Committee held on 30 March 1846, culminating in its breaking of relations with Marx and Engels. The controversy flared up over the best way of carrying on propaganda in Germany. Marx wanted to prove that calling on the workers to rise up without a proper programme was to deceive them and could result in dire consequences for the entire movement. Pavel Annenkov's reminiscences of this meeting were originally published in Russian. An excerpt from these reminiscences (one about Annenkov's meetings with Marx) was reproduced by the journal Neue Zeit, No. 5, 1883, under the heading 'Eine russische Stimme über Karl Marx'. 310. A reference to the two volumes of a quarterly journal the publication of which was negotiated in 1845 and 1846 by a number of Westphalian socialists, the publishers Julius Meyer and Rudolph Rempel among others. Marx and Engels intended to publish in it their criticism of the German ideology which they started to write in the autumn of 1845. It was also planned to publish a number of polemical works to their colleagues, in the first place those containing criticism of German philosophical literature and the works of the 'true socialists'. In November 1845 Moses Hess reached agreement with Meyer and Rempel on financing the publication of two volumes of the quarterly. Further negotiations were conducted by Weydemeyer, who visited the Brussels Communist Correspondence Committee. In a letter to the Committee of 30 April 1846 from Schildesche (Westphalia) he wrote that no headway was being made and proposed that Meyer should form a joint-stock company in Limburg (Holland), as manuscripts of less than 20 printed sheets were subject to preliminary censorship in Germany. He also recommended that Marx should sign a contract with the Brussels publisher and bookseller C G . Vogler for the distribution of the quarterly and other publications. The contract was not drawn because Vogler could not assume even part of the expenses. Weydemeyer continued his efforts, but succeeded in getting from Meyer only a guarantee for the publication of one volume. However as early as July 1846 Meyer and Rempel refused their promised assistance on the pretext of financial difficulties, the actual reason being differences in principle between Marx and Engels, on the one hand and the champions of 'true socialism', on the other, whose views both publishers shared. Marx and Engels did not abandon their hopes of publishing the works, if only by instalments, but their attempts failed. The only chapter of The German Ideology known to be published during their lifetime was Chapter IV of Volume II, which appeared in the journal Das Westphälische Dampfboot in August and September 1847 (publisher of this journal was O.
[311] Lüning). The rest of the existing German Ideology was first published in the
[312] Soviet Union in 1932. 311. Engels means Weitling's non-extant work Allgemeine Denk-und
[313] Sprachlehre nebst Grundzügen einer Universalsprache der Menschheit
[315] '5. It is necessary to combat "artisan communism" and "philosophical
[316] communism" and to criticise the idea that everything is a fantasy. There
[317] should be no propaganda by word, no secret propaganda. The very word
[318] propaganda should no longer be used. The realisation of communism is now out of the question. First the bourgeoisie must take the helm'. 313. A reference to L. Stein, Der Socialismus and Communismus des heutigen Frankreichs, Leipzig, 1842; K. Grün, Die soziale Bewegung in Frankreich und Belgien, Darmstadt, 1845. Marx and Engels made a critique of like publications in The German Ideology (see present edition, Vol. 5, pp484-530). At the beginning of 1845 Engels and Marx had formed the plan to publish in Germany a 'Library of the Best Foreign Socialist Writers' with a general introduction and commentaries to each issue (see Engels' letters to Marx of 22-26 February, 7 and 17 March 1845). The draft plan of this publication, drawn up by Marx (see present edition, Vol. 4, p667), shows that it was conceived as a representative series of works of French and English authors. The plan was not carried out because of publishing difficulties, apart from the translation of a few chapters of Fourier's Des trois unités externes (see present edition Vol. 4, pp613-44). 314. Engels was working on Chapter III of Volume III of Capital at the time. For more detail, see Engels' preface to Volume III of Capital (present edition, Vol. 37). 315. An allusion to P. Lafargue's article 'Die Beschneidung, ihre soziale und religiöse Bedeutung', published by the journal Neue Zeit, No. 11, 1888. 316. A reference to P. Lafargue's article intended for the newspaper Der Sozialdemokrat and containing a critique of the views of the Possibilists (see note 19). On Engels' advice Lafargue abandoned his plan to have it published. 317. Bourses du travail, Labour Exchanges - institutions set up in France largely as local government bodies in major cities, consisting of representatives of various trade unions. Originally they were assisted by state bodies in a bid to divert the workers from the class struggle - not infrequently, in the form of financial aid. The labour exchanges provided jobs for the unemployed and led to the founding of new trade unions. 318. There was a marked trend in the late 1880s toward a rapprochement between part of the Blanquists and the Boulangists. Victor Henri Rochefort, a prominent figure in the Boulangist movement, described Blanquists as 'our friends' in pronouncements made for his newspaper Intransigeant;
[319] they were nominated with the Boulangists in common electoral lists. A
[320] group led by Ernest Roche and Ernest Granger separated itself from the rest
[321] of the Blanquists and gave open and vigorous support to General
[322] Boulanger. 319. The reference is to the proposed calling of an International Working Men's
[49] levelled at Aveling by the party's Executive on 7 January 1887 (see note 32). 48. On 8 February 1887 the Voie du peuple began serialising Guy de
[323] Congress in Paris in 1889. The Possibilists (see note 19) received powers to
[3] 1865; present edition, Vol. 42, pl72). The English journalist Peter Fox, a
[11] the candidate of the United Labor Party, got 68,110 votes, 31 per cent of the total cast. During the preparation for the municipal election in New York in August 1886, the United Labor Party was founded to rally the workers for joint political action. The initiative came from the New York Central Workers' Union, an association of New York trade unions formed in 1882. Similar parties were set up in many other cities. 7. In November 1886 elections were held to the US Congress and the State legislatures. Led by its parties, the working class achieved substantial success in the elections in New York (see note 6), Chicago and Milwaukee. In Chicago, ten Labor Party candidates were elected to the State Legislative Assembly (one to the Senate and nine to the Lower Chamber). The party's candidate to the US Congress was short of only 64 votes. In Milwaukee, the Labor Party candidate was elected Mayor, one of its men got into the State Senate, six into the Lower Chamber, and one into the US Congress. 8. In his letter of 9 January 1887 Martignetti informed Engels that he was being persecuted for his socialist views and was, as an official of the government notary archives, in danger of dismissal. He asked Engels to help him find employment outside Italy. 9. From November 1850 Engels supervised the Manchester branch of the Ermen and Engels German textile firm. The German side of the enterprise was run by Fr. Engels Sr., with the assistance of Anthony Ermen. The firm's office was in Barmen. In 1860, after his father's death, Engels received £10,000 from his brothers in compensation for his share in the family concern in Engelskirchen, which consolidated his financial and legal standing in the Manchester firm. From June 1864 to June 1869 Engels was a co-owner of the Ermen and Engels firm. After five years in this capacity he withdrew from the firm and devoted himself entirely to party work, schol-arship and journalism. 10. This letter was first published abridged, in the language of the original (English), in Briefe und Auszuge aus Briefen von Job. Phil. Becker, Jos. Dietzgen, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx, u. A. an F. A. Sorge und Andere, Stuttgart, 1906, and in full in: Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Letters to Americans. 1848-1895. A Selection, International Publishers, New York, 1953. 11. In a letter dated 10 December 1886 Kelley-Wischnewetzky asked Engels to write a preface to the American edition of The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844, which she had translated into English. She argued
[7] of officials' in the press. Early in January 1887 the conviction was upheld by
[215] in 1885 (see note 213) and became a vehicle of the reactionary agrarian poli-
[216] cies pursued by the tsarist government. As a consequence, a significant part
[218] geoisie. One sequel to this process was the further stratification of the peas-
[197] proceedings in 1846-54. In February 1848, he was arrested on a charge of
[19] inal (English), in K. Marx and F. Engels, On Literature and Art, Progress
[223] would have to emigrate to America. One of the additional clauses to the law
[106] German propaganda. However, the governments of Russia, Great Britain and Austria-Hungary refused to support Bismarck. Germany was forced to beat a retreat. On 30 April Schnaebelé was released and the conflict thus settled. 100. This letter was first published in English, abridged, in Labour Monthly, No. 2, London, 1934, and, without the first paragraph, in: Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Letters to Americans. 1848-1895. A Selection, International Publishers, New York, 1953. 101. In the letter in question Sorge, replying to remarks contained in Engels' letter of 10 March 1887, pointed out that the leaders of the Socialist Labor Party of North America had, by their mistaken tactics, to a considerable extent nullified the successes achieved in the US labour movement by Marx's adherents at the time of the First International. 102. This refers to the English translation of the Manifesto of the Communist Party made by Samuel Moore (published in 1888). The three manuscripts mentioned are those of a French translation of Marx's The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte (see note 23), an Italian translation of Marx's Wage Labour and Capital and a Danish translation of Engels's The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (see note 74). 103. An item headlined 'A Costly Apostle', published in Justice No. 172, 30 April 1887, reproduced the contents of the circulars of the Executive of the Socialist Labor Party of North America attacking Edward Aveling (see notes 32 and 98). Aveling answered in a Letter to the Editor, published in Justice, No. 174. 14 May 1887. 104. An American exhibition opened in London in May 1887, the programme including the show Buffalo Bill's Wild West. 105. In his letter of 29 April 1887 Eduard Bernstein asked Engels and Kautsky to find out, confidentially, whether the Austrian anarchist Joseph Peukert, resident in London, was not, as he, Bernstein, assumed, a police agent. In late 1887 Peukert was exposed. 106. This refers to the London German Workers' Educational Society. It was founded by members of the League of the Just Karl Schapper, Joseph Moll and Heinrich Bauer in London in 1840. In 1847 and in 1849-50 Marx and Engels took part in its activities. The Society changed its name in subsequent years. From the 1870s it was called the Communist Workers'
[203] with a bourgeois republican government being formed; in January 1879 Macmahon resigned. 199. Opportunists was the name given in France to the party of moderate bourgeois republicans upon its split in 1881 and the formation of a left-wing party of radicals under Georges Clemenceau. The name was first used in 1877 by Henri Rochefort, a journalist, after the leader of the party, L. Gambetta, had said that reforms were to be implemented at 'an opportune time' ('un temps opportun'). 200. The Radicals were a parliamentary group in France in the 1880s and 1890s that emerged from the party of moderate republicans ('Opportunists', see note 199). The Radicals relied chiefly on the petty bourgeoisie and to some extent on the middle bourgeoisie; they upheld the bourgeois-democratic demands: a unicameral system of parliament, separation of the church from the state, a progressive income tax, limitation of the workday, among other social issues. The Radicals were led by George Clemenceau. This group transformed itself into the Republican Party of Radicals and Radical-Socialists (parti républicain radical et radical-socialiste) in 1901. 201. On 4 December 1887, London was the scene of several meetings of the unemployed, organised by the Social Democratic Federation (see note 62). Although significant police reinforcements were moved in, no clashes were reported. For an account of the meetings, see Justice Vol. IV, No. 204, 10 December 1887: The Unemployed Agitation. 202. Such a collection was not published at the time; in 1894 the Social Democratic Publishers Vorwärts released a collection of Engels' works under the title Internationales aus dem 'Volksstaat' (1871-75) which comprised all the articles mentioned in the letter with the exception of Refugee Literature IV. Friedrich Hermann Schlüter also suggested that Engels include in the collection some of his articles from Die Neue Rheinische Zeitung, Die Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Politisch-Ökonomische Revue, as well as excerpts from his pamphlet The Prussian Military Question and the German Workers' Party. 203. Engels replies to F. Schlüter's suggestion to revise three chapters from the second part of Anti-Duhring and have them published as a separate pamphlet. These chapters, under the single title The Theory of Force contained an explanation of materialist views on economics and politics. Engels subsequently changed his plan and decided also to add a fourth chapter on Germany history from 1848 to 1888 and a critique of Bismarck. The proposed title of the pamphlet was The Role of Force in History. Engels wrote this (fourth) chapter somewhat later, at the close of 1887 and in the
[227] on 13 November 1887 (see note 185). Among those arrested were the
[231] handed over the manuscript to the Prussian police. The actions of Bangya,
[54] to Americans. 1848-1895. A selection, International Publishers, New York,
[234] American newspapers (see present edition, Vol. 12, pp40-43). The reference
[235] is to the following part of the pamphlet Herr Vogt (see present edition, Vol. 17, pp219-20): Karl Bruhn made slanderous accusations against Marx and Engels by claiming they had allegedly sold the MS of the pamphlet to the Prussian police (see present edition, Vol. 42, pp 117-118). 230. Early in 1887 Pasquale Martignetti, an Italian socialist, approached Engels with the request to help him find work outside Italy as he was being perse-cuted for his views (see note 8). Engels, through the mediation of Johannes Wedde, editor of the Hamburg-based Social Democratic newspaper Bürger-Zeitung, tried to find a job for Martignetti, but failed in his attempt. 231. Martignetti's letter to Engels (dated 3 January 1888) was accompanied by the issue of the journal Mefistofele, carrying the first instalment of the Italian translation of Engels' biography written by Karl Kautsky. Martignetti intended to continue the publication in this journal of excerpts from Kautsky's work and then have it published in full as a separate pamphlet. For this reason he asked Engels to look through the translations in the Mefistofele and send him comments on the translation. The Engels biography was published in the journal between 1 January and 30 November 1888. 232. In February 1886 P. Martignetti sent his Italian translation of Marx's Wage Labour and Capital for Engels to peruse. However, because of his work on the English edition of Volume I of Capital, and his eye disease, Engels was unable to read the Italian translation immediately. It was published in Milan only in 1893. 233. The reference is to Engels' article Prussian Schnapps in the German Reichstag (see present edition, Vol. 24, ppl09-27). The publication of this work, exposing the Prussian Junkers, in the newspaper Volksstaat and in the form of a reprint, caused exasperation in government quarters. Therefore the promulgation of Engels' works in Germany was banned. 234. In his letter of 5 February 1888, Paul Lafargue informed Engels about the cessation of the publication of the newspaper Socialiste, an organ of the French Workers Party (Guesdists), on 4 February of the same year (see note 33). 235. The debates in the Reichstag about the motion to prolong the Anti-Socialist law (see note 52) in January-February 1888 ended in a defeat for the government. This outcome was largely predetermined by the speeches of August Bebel (30 January and 17 February) and Paul Singer (27 January and 17 February) during the first and the third reading of the draft bill, respectively. Both speakers exposed the provocative activities of the government
[2] while working on the manuscript in 1865 (see his letter to Engels of 31 July
[185] connection Engels recalls the exposures made by the French journalist
[43] note 15). 42. Engels compares Paul Singer's success at the Reichstag election to that of the
[244] Revolution of 1848, there were many scandalous exposures of cases of corruption involving French statesmen (see note 169). For Révolution du mépris (a revolution of contempt) see note 170. 239. An excerpt from this letter was first published in the language of the original (English) in the book Briefe und Auszüge aus Briefen von Joh. Phil. Becker, Jos. Dietzgen, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx u. A. an F. A. Sorge und Andere. Stuttgart, 1906. 240. The first American edition of The Manifesto of the Communist Party (reprint of the English translation from the Red Republican) under the title Manifesto of the German Communist Party (without the names of the authors being mentioned) was published by Woodhull & Claflin's Weekly, New York, 30 December 1871. 241. As Florence Kelley-Wischnewetzky wrote to Engels, the attitude of the German socialists in New York to his book The Condition of the Working Class in England was tantamount to a boycott. Engels described the Executive of the Socialist Labour Party of North America, with Lassalle's supporters in it, as 'the official German socialists of New York'. (See note 3). 242. The Law and Liberty League was set up on 18 November 1887, after the Trafalgar Square demonstration (see note 185). The League united representatives of labour radical clubs, socialist organisations, trade unions affiliated with the Fabian Society, etc. Active in the League were: Eleanor Marx-Aveling, Edward Aveling, William Morris, John Burns, Sidney Webb, and others. The League championed freedom of speech and assembly, and came out for independent representation of working men in Parliament. The League ceased its activities in February 1888 because of the differences among its members. 243. An excerpt from this letter was first published in the language of the original by the journal Die Kommunistische Internationale No. 24, 1931; in Russian it appeared in the journal Kommunisticheski Internatsional, Nos. 19-20, 1931. 244. An allusion to William O'Brien's speech in the House of Commons on 16 February 1888, with scathing criticism of the policy of Arthur Balfour,
[246] Salisbury. 245. Speaking in the Reichstag on 6 February 1888, in debates on a draft bill
[40] editorial in Die Neue Zeit or in a review signed by the journal's editor, Karl Kautsky. Poor health prevented Engels from writing the bulk of the text as intended. The article was completed, with his help, by Kautsky. It appeared unsigned, under the title 'Juristen-Sozialismus', in Die Neue Zeit, Vol. 2, 1887 (see present edition, Vol. 2). 35. Engels means diplomatic preparations for the 1866 Austro-Prussian war. Early in March of that year he had secured, through Robert Goltz, the Russian Ambassador to Paris, an undertaking by Napoleon III that France would maintain positive neutrality towards Russia in the event of an Austro-Prussian war. At about the same time, Bismarck conducted talks with the Italian general Giuseppe Govone in Berlin on forming a Prusso-Italian coalition against Austria. On 8 April 1866 Prussia and Italy signed a treaty establishing a defensive and offensive alliance. It provided for the transfer of Veneto to Italy in the event of victory over Austria. 36. On 14 January 1887 the German Reichstag, by 186 votes to 154, adopted a bill limiting the army contingent to 441,000 persons, with a three-year term of service (the government had insisted on 468,000 for seven years). As a result, the Reichstag was disbanded and new elections held (see note 15). On 11 March 1887 the new Reichstag passed the bill on the septennate despite opposition from the Social Democratic group. 37. This refers to the festival of international brotherhood which was to be held in Paris on 19 February 1887 on the initiative of a number of socialist émigré organisations. German, Scandinavian, Polish and Russian socialists took part. The festival was to protest against the arms drive and war preparations in Europe. At the request of one of the organisers, the Russian socialist émigré Ossip Zetkin, Engels addressed a message to the Organising committee of the festival (see present edition, Vol. 26). It was read out at the festive meeting and published in Le Socialiste on 26 February and, in German translation, in the Sozialdemocrat on 11 March and the New York Sozialist on 19 March. 38. Danielson's letter to Engels was dated 22 January (3 February new style) 1887. 39. This is the pseudonym Engels used in his correspondence with Nikolai Danielson. Percy White Rosher was the name of the husband of the niece of Engels's wife. 40. This letter was first published, in the language of the original (English), in F. Engels, P. et L. Lafargue, Correspondance, t. 2 (1887-1890), Paris, Ed. sociales, 1956. 41. On 24 February 1887 the Voie du peuple, under the general headline 'La
[1] back, reads: F. A. Sorge Esq., Hoboken N.J., U.S. America. 2. Marx first thought of the need for an English translation of Das Kapital
[251] ascension to the throne on 12 March 1888. This proclamation - An mein
[199] Macmahon found no support among the broad popular masses or in the
[13] of date (see present edition, Vol. 26), and suggested that the new preface
[81] the book in America. On 8 February 1886 the Executive of the Socialist
[269] ment, Kartell won the election of February 1887 by obtaining the largest number of seats in the Reichstag (220). Assisted by the coalition, Bismarck was able to secure the passage of reactionary laws in the interests of the Junkers and the big bourgeoisie (imposition of protectionist tariffs, higher taxes, etc.) (see note 152). However, he could not get the Reichstag to prolong the Anti-Socialist Law. The exacerbation of differences among the parties affiliated with the Kartell and the electoral defeat of 1890, with only 135 seats secured in the Reichstag, resulted in the disintegration of the coalition. 266. A reference to the intended marriage of Victoria, the daughter of Frederick III, to Prince Alexander Battenberg of Bulgaria, who occupied the Bulgarian throne in 1879-86 and steered a policy hostile to Russia. Fearing a worsening of Russo-German relations, Bismarck opposed the marriage. 267. Believing that the Bismarck regime was in for a political crisis, Engels considers, by way of comparison, the landmark stages of the political crisis of the Second Empire in France: The Mexican period of Bonapartism - the abortive armed intervention of France in Mexico (1862-67) with the aim of suppressing the Mexican revolution. The military expedition incurred huge expenses and caused grave damage to the empire of Napoleon III. 1866 - the defeat of Austria in her war against Prussia deprived Napoleon III of an essential ally in the confrontation with Prussia. 1870 - the routing, on 1-2 September, of French troops at Sedan during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. The Sedan debacle speeded up the collapse of the Second Empire and led to the proclamation of a republic in France on 4 September 1870. 268. Engels means Die Erklärung der Sozialdemokratischen Föderation Englands in Sachen des nach London einberufenen internationalen Gewerkschaftskongresses which was published by the newspaper Sozialdemokrat on 14 April 1888. The Declaration came in view of the intended convocation by the British trade unions of an international congress of labour unions in November 1888 (see note 165). The Declaration was a response to the protest of the German Social Democrats against the decision of the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Unions Congress of Great Britain (see note 269) on conditions for representation at the Congress: only delegates officially elected by trade unions were to attend. Thereby the German Social Democrats were unable to take part on account of the enforcement of the Anti-Socialist law in Germany. In its Declaration the Social Democratic Federation voiced its discontent at the protest of the German Social Democrats. 269. The reference is to the rapprochement of the leadership of the Social Democratic Federation (see note 62) and the Possibilists (see note 19). Starting in 1884, the Federation, acting through its organ Justice, conducted
[200] army (among the soldiers and the greater part of commissioned officers),
[137] reject the wretched slanders concerning the Avelings which the Executive of
[277] in: F. Engels, P. and L. Lafargue, Correspondance, T. 2 (1887-1890), Paris,
[281] movement and Boulanger's personality. The Workers' Party majority with
[307] the first half of 1887. Of much significance in this respect was a party congress of the Czechoslovak Socialists late in 1887 which passed a decision on forming a single Social Democratic Party. The Austrian Social Democrats held their unity congress from 31 December 1888 to 1 January 1889 at Hainfeld. They put an end to the party's division into organisations representing separate lands and separate ethnic groups. The party programme adopted by the congress relied on Marxist postulates. 304. Engels intended to write travel notes of his tour of the United states, as shown by an excerpt from Notes on My Journey Through America and Canada (see present edition Vol. 26), as well as by rough notes which Engels wrote in the latter half of September 1888, evidently, aboard the steamship City of New York. In them Engels planned to give his assessment of the country's social and political life. This intention was not realised. 305. August Bebel intended to write a large work on Wilhelm Weitling in which he also wanted to take up the subject of 'the social movement of the 1840s'. He applied to Engels with the request to help in the collection of material. 306. Weitlingian communists held to a doctrine of egalitarian Utopian communism that gained wide currency among German artisans, especially among tailors in Paris. Being a progressive movement in the early 1840s, before the development of modern Socialist ideas, the Weitling doctrine (with its negation of the need for an active political struggle of the proletariat and its emphasis on sectarian, conspiratorial methods of struggle) became to some extent a hindrance to the growing class consciousness of the German workers The reactionary characteristics of the Weitling doctrine, gradually taking on a religious-Christian colouring, became increasingly manifest. Weitling's supporters, always suspicious of 'scholars' (i.e. revolutionary intellectuals), would in their practical activities confine themselves to projects involving communes, partially borrowed from Fourier and his followers, and to small-scale experiments like establishing collective canteens, etc. In May 1846 Marx and Engels, with their adherents, broke from Weitling. Engels, living in Paris in 1846-47, had regular and stubborn discussions with workers to explain the backward nature of Weitling's views. 307. The reference is to German, or 'true socialism' which became widespread in Germany in the 1840s, mostly among intellectuals. The 'true socialists' -Karl Grün, Moses Hess and Hermann Kriege - substituted the sentimental preaching of love and brotherhood for the ideas of socialism and denied the need for a bourgeois-democratic revolution in Germany. Marx and Engels criticised this trend in the following works: The German Ideology (see present edition, Vol. 5), Circular Against Kriege, German Socialism in Verse and Prose and Manifesto of the Communist Party (Vol. 6). 308. A reference to Georg Kuhlmann's book Die Neue Welt oder das Reich des
[314] which was written in the first half of the 1840s. 312. The fifth and sixth points at the résumé in Weitling's letter were as follows: