1890
Dear Mrs Zadek,
We were both, Lenchen and I, as surprised as we were delighted when we received the beautiful pieces of handwork you so kindly sent us. It was surely too much for you to have sat down, your eyes being as troublesome as they are (and I know what that means from my own experience), and made such complicated things. And for that reason they will be all the more treasured. Lenchen is in absolute raptures over her fine warm skirt and, even though you may have flattered me a shade too much in regard to the smallness of my feet, I'm perfectly sure that the slippers and I will, on longer acquaintance, become most intimate friends. We both of us thank you from the bottom of our hearts.
I hope your health permitted you to spend a happy 70th birthday surrounded by your dear ones; may we please send you our belated congratulations? This distinction still lies ahead of Lenchen and myself — in my case it actually falls this year. It is a peculiar decade in which to enter it.
With my kindest regards to you and Dr Zadek.
Very respectfully, Yours,
F. E.
244. Engels to Sergey Stepniak 3 January
My dear Stepniak,
As I have no Geneva address, I must send you my article. Please have the German original returned to me as soon as possible so that I can then write the second article.[579]
How often will your Review be published? Happy New Year to you, Mrs Stepniak and all friends.
Ever yours
F. Engels
245. Engels to Laura Lafargue 8 January
My dear Laura,
Prosit Neujahr avant tout! Et puis après}[1] as I cannot bear the idea that you should translate Walther von der Vogelweide from a modernisation, I send you a copy of the original.[580] You are quite right, the metre and rhyme of the original ought to be preserved in every translation of poetry, or else go the whole hog like the French and turn it at once into prose.
Hope you got over your influenza by this. We have it here too and pretty thick, although of our nearer circle none has as yet been caught.
Percy is better, but Pumps is laid up with bronchitis and congested lungs, will however be up soon. Charley R.(1) is the only one I know who can boast of having the influenza.
Old Harney is laid up at Enfield with chronic bronchitis; I shall have to go some day this week and see him. Poor fellow, but he feels happy in one thing: being out of America[1]. It is most amusing to see how America makes all Englishmen patriotic, even Edward was not without a touch. And all on account of a quarrel about 'manners' and 'breeding'! The Yankees, too, have a rather provoking way of asking you how you like the country, what you think of it, and expect of course an outburst of admiration. And so poor old Harney has got so disgusted with the 'Land of the free' that his only wish is to be well back to the 'effete monarchy' and never to return to Yankeeland. I am afraid he will have his wish; bodily he is aging very much, no wonder after the eight years' torture with rheumatic gout he has had. But in spirit he is the old inveterate punster and full of humour.
I was glad, on receiving Paul's letter about the new paper,[581] that I had written to Bonnier my opinion that they ought formally to engage you on the rédaction for the German part. So he will see that I had no idea of the situation and at the same time considered it as self-understood that everybody got paid. He has not written again to me but to Tussy, saying the paper will come out 11th January, and wanting them to write and to get Burns, etc. to do the same.
I really think you are about the only person who can keep his or her head above water and clear in Paris; that place seems to make people cracked. Here is Bonnier who was sensible enough as long as he was here and now all at once he is as mad as Guesde can be over this impossible paper. A daily paper with unpaid rédaction, unpaid correspondents, unpaid everything — why it is ruination to begin with, and being kicked out of the paper you have made as soon as you demand the payment due for your work! He might well write to me que la partie internationale doit être écrasanteb—when the. partie parisienne is as good as non-existent from the beginning! And to expect people here to write àjourfixec regular letters, so that the fact may be announced la veille\ä for that he actually expected all of us, Burns and God knows whom besides, to do here, and all for the honour of having the honour of being allowed to speak to the inhabitants de la ville lumière qui se fichent pas mal de nous tousle It strikes me this affair will end in all sorts of muddles, if not in quarrels amongst our own people at the moment when everything seemed to promise well.
Anyhow I shall feel obliged and it will be useful to all of us if you or Paul will keep us well posted up with regard to this matter; for we shall surely be bombarded with all sorts of demands when once the paper is out, and experience shows that 'in the interest of the cause' one half of the facts are kept from us. Of course we shall be very shy in engaging ourselves, but at the same time it will be better if we have not in every case first to inquire from you how the matter really stands.
I don't understand how Guesde can act in that way upon his own hook and let his meridional imagination run away without the consent of Paul, Deville and others. Bonnier's letters sound as if these people thought the whole world was idle, had more time on their hands than they knew to employ, and was anxiously waiting for the chance of a French paper coming out to which they might contribute gratis! Such things would not be suffered in the German or any other party — that one man engages the responsibility of all without a special mandate; that he acts upon delusions, as to the chances of his getting foreign contributors, which you and Paul would have at once destroyed, or if you had a chance of refuting them, acts in spite of your better experience. Really if our friends will be guided by their delusion and fancies alone, nobody can prevent them from coming to grief.
I am called away suddenly and must conclude.
Ever yours
F. Engels
Richtig wäre: Under der linden an der heiden dâ unser zweier bette was, dâ mugent ir vinden muget schöne beide gebrochen bluomen unde gras vor dem walde in einem tal
tandaradei schöne sanc diu nahtegal.
Ich kam gegangen zuo der ouve: dô was nun friedet komen ê dô wart ich empfangen
vriedel emphangen here frouwe, vrouwe daz ich bin saelic iemer mê. kuster mich? wol tûsentstunt: kuste er tandaradei seht wie rôt ist mir der munt. Mir ist
Dô het er gemachet hete also rîche von bluomen eine bettestat: des wirt noch gelachet innecliche, kumt iemen an daz selbe pfat. phat bî den rosen er wol mac
tandaradei merken wâ mirz houbet lac. Da zer bî mir gelaege, laege wessez iemen (nu enwelle* got!) so schämt ich mich, schämte was er mit mir pflaege, phlaege niemer nîemen bevinde daz, wan er unt ich, unt ein kleinez vogellon -
tandaradei daz mac wol getriuwe sîn ;:"enwelle = wolle nicht.
Pronunciation: ie, iu, uo, the accent on first vowel: fe, hi, uo. ei = ei in Portuguese, Italian, Danish, Russian etc. e+i, not a+i as in
Neuhochdeutsch sch = s+ch same as in Dutch & Greek. H at end of syllable or before consonant = Swiss ch, nahtegal, sehr, nachte-gal, lacht. Z = ts, zz = ss. Vowels with circumflex long, all others short: tal, not tâl, schämt, not schämt. Dipthongs of course long.
246. Engels to Hermann Engels 9 January
Dear Hermann,
Many thanks for your good wishes which, and this goes for you all, I heartily reciprocate. I'm glad to hear that you're all getting on so well and I, too, cannot complain. I put on weight again last year and am now back to 168 English lbs, which is about as heavy as I've ever been, though all of it is firm muscular flesh without any loose adipose tissue. My eyes are also improving; as a rule the foggy season, when the days are shortest, used to be the critical time during which they invariably got worse, but I've come through the present season in better shape than I've known for years and so there's a fair prospect of my being able to return to full-time work before long. Even the doctors won't believe me when I tell them I'm in my seventieth year; they say I look ten or fifteen years younger. Of course all this is simply on the surface and even in my own case may prove deceptive, for all kinds of minor ailments may be lurking under-neath and over a period these many little things can add up to quite a lot, but all in all I can't complain and when I see how so many people make their lives an utter misery for nothing and less than nothing and to no purpose whatsoever, I can count myself lucky that I have retained my joie de vivre unimpaired and can laugh at such idiotic behaviour.
But by now you will doubtless have heard enough about my esteemed person to last you for a long time and I too believe that it's high time I stopped.
I duly got your circular about the boys and at once drank a hearty toast all on my own to the health of the new partners.[582] It is very wise of you to have brought the boys into the partnership; after all, most of the work fell to them, as did most of the responsibility whenever the two of you were away from Engelskirchen, and it will give them quite a different incentive if their status in the firm corresponds to the work they do. I now advise you and Rudolf[1] to devote as much as possible of your well-earned leisure to open air pursuits and, in summer, to travelling (you won't, I imagine, forget to go shooting in the autumn). Just you see how that sets you up.
I was notified by circular of Fritz Boelling's death (I was about to say August Boelling) and I think I heard about Fritz Osterroth in the same way. August Boelling may have been a pretty frail little chap, but he still managed to live to eighty, though no doubt he was careful not to overdo things towards the end. People like that can get away with it, while we, who enjoy better health, take on more and more work as we grow older, catch some beastly ailment and crack up as a result. That, however, is not altogether a bad thing, and also has its advantages. You at any rate will, in 2 or 3 years' time, reap the benefit of having reared your own doctor,[3]
to whose care you can consign your body, thereby relieving yourself of any further responsibility in that respect also.
I trust Emmab enjoyed the New Year's cake as much as I have the numerous German dainties I have been consuming during the past three weeks over and above the obligatory plum pudding, mince pies, etc. For we now have a gas stove, as our range has ceased to draw and the landlord hasn't installed a new one. This transition from difficult to easy cooking has put my old housekeeperc into a real culinary frenzy and I must now eat my way through the fruits thereof.
Influenza, so-called, which, however, is said to be actually quite different from our old, familiar grippe, has also begun to take hold over here and a number of my acquaintances have already got it. An Englishman who came here for a meal last Sunday is in a state of such trepidation that he always keeps a bottle of ammoniated quinine in his pocket to drink from at table. May it do him good, but I'd rather have influenza than guzzle the bitter, evil-smelling stuff between meat and vegetables and spoil my good wine!
So I trust that all of you will remain in good health and good spirits. My love to Emma, the children, Rudolf and family and yourself.
Ever yours,
Friedrich
247. Engels to Hermann Schlüter 11 January
Dear Schlüter,
Warmest thanks for your and your wife's good wishes, most cordially reciprocated by all of us over here. I also received your letter of 1 July,[584]
shortly after that date, likewise the Commonwealth with Marx as a gigantic tree and, all round it, the inhabitants of the new communist Jerusalem. Also the article about G. Weerth, but unfortunate only No. 1 and not the final part.
Now as for Reid, I have sent your letter to Tussy and asked her to make inquiries from Champion (Labour Elector), but haven't so far had an answer.[585] The chaps over here are frightfully dilatory about anything with which they are not immediately concerned and are, besides, exceedingly busy; Tussy may have something to tell me tomorrow, in which case I'll let you know by the next post.
As regards the matter of John Burns' trip to America, this would seem to me highly problematical; he cannot really leave this country without making way for his rivals and he also has to be present on the County Council,[451] since he is the only labour representative there.
The movement's headlong progress last summer has slackened off a bit. And, best of all, the bourgeois rabble's mindless sympathy for the labour movement as manifested during the dockers' strike has also abated and is starting to give way to a far more natural feeling of mistrust and anxiety. During the gas strike in South London,[577] which the Gas Company forcibly imposed on the workers, the latter have again been left completely in the lurch by the philistines. This is excellent, and I only hope that some day Burns will himself meet with a similar experience in a strike led by him, for in this respect he is subject to all manner of illusions.
On top of that there is, as was only to be expected, all manner of friction, e.g. between gas workers and dockers. But despite all this the masses are in spate and there's no restraining them. The longer the tide is dammed back, the more violent the irruption will be when it comes. And these unskilled men are a very different proposition from the stick-lers of the old Trades Unions; not a trace of the old formalist spirit, of the narrow guild outlook of, say, the engineers;[586] on the contrary, a general call for the organisation of all Trades Unions into one brotherhood and for an outright struggle with capital. During the dockers' strike, for instance, there were three engineers at the commercial docks who kept the steam-engine going. Burns and Mann — both are engineers themselves and Burns is on the Executive of the Amalgamated Engineers Trades Union — were asked to induce the men to leave, for in that case the cranes would be unable to work and the Dock Co. be forced to give way. The three engineers refused, nor did the engineers' Executive intervene — hence the long duration of the strike! Again, at the Silvertown Rubber Works — 12 weeks' strike[549]—the strike failed because of the engineers, who didn't join in, even doing labourers' work in contravention of their own union's rules! And why? In order to 'limit the supply of workers', these idiots have a rule whereby only those who have served a proper apprenticeship are admitted to their UNION. In this way they have created a host of competitors known as black-legs, who are no less skilled than themselves and who would like to join the union but are forced to remain black-legs because kept out by this pedantic regulation, which today has become quite meaningless. And because they knew that, both in the commercial docks and in Silvertown, they would immediately have been replaced by the said black-legs, they remained where they were, thus themselves becoming black-legs vis-à-vis the strikers. Therein you may see the difference: The new unions stick together — during the present gas strike, the sailors and (steamers') firemen, lightermen, coal carters, etc., are all standing shoulder to shoulder, but here again not the engineers, needless to say; they just carry on working!
However, the old Trades Unions, the big self-opinionated ones, will soon be cut down to size; their mainstay, the London Trades Council,[587]
is gradually being worsted by the new unions and, in 2 or 3 years at the most, the Trades Union Congress[269] will itself have been revolutionised. Even at the next one your Broadhursts are going to get the shock of their lives.
The main thing about your revolution in the American socialist tea-cup is that you have killed off Rosenberg & Co.[501] As such, the German party over there has got to go; it is proving the worst obstacle. The American workers will come along all right but, just like the English, they will go their own way. You can't drum theory into them before the event, but they will soon light upon it as a result of their own experience, their own blunders and the undesirable consequences thereof — and then it'll be all right. Independent peoples go their own way and the English and their offshoots are the most independent of all. Their insular, stubborn inflexibility may often be irritating but it also ensures that, once they have got going, they will finish what they have begun.
I am pretty well and my eyesight has improved at last, but I'm not allowed to write for more than 3 hours a day (by daylight). Nim is also well. In the Rosher household, first Percy and then Pumps have fallen ill. Aveling has got influenza. In Kentish Town(1) things are going on much as usual to the inevitable accompaniment of tirades from Germany.— The Edes have settled down very well. So have the Fischers.
Tell Sorge he'll be getting a letter one of these days but, having waited for so long, you were first on the list. Cordial regards to your wife and self from Nim and
Your
F. Engels
Vol. XXVIII, Moscow, 1940
248. Engels to Pasquale Martignetti 13 January
Dear Friend,
I have been deliberating the matter of the letter of introduction for Buenos Aires.* I cannot conceal what has happened from the comrades out there. In so far as I enjoy the workers' trust, this rests upon the assumption that what I tell them is the whole truth and nothing but the truth, no matter what the circumstances.
If I were you, I would prefer not to have any such letter of recom-mendation. The moment one person out there gets wind of your conviction, a hundred others will get wind of it too, and notably those who would neither read nor give a rap for my testimonial. And then you would be no better off there than you were at home; your conviction would pursue you everywhere. Better a new life under a new name. You are young and, to judge by your photograph, strong — just take courage!
But in order to take care of all eventualities, I enclose a document in which I say in your favour whatever can and may be said with a clear conscience. However, I would again advise you not to make use of it. This may render the struggle more arduous in the early days. But in the long run a complete break with the past cannot but make it easier.
Well, you must be the best judge of what you ought to do. But I hope that none of this will be necessary and that the Court of Appeal will pronounce you innocent.
Very sincerely yours,
F. Engels
Addresses
Vorwärts, Editorial Department; Calle Reconquista 650 nuevo (the streets have old and new numbers) Verein Vorwärts,[589] Calle Commercio 880.
Mr Pasquale Martignetti of Benevento (Italy) has corresponded with me regularly for some six years past. Under the most difficult circumstances and with great perseverance he has learned German so as to make German scientific socialism available to his compatriots in translation. He then proceeded to translate, first my Entwicklung des Sozialismus von der Utopia zur Wissenschaft* and later my Ursprung der Familie}' etc., into Italian and to publish the translations after they had been looked over by me. Unfavourable circumstances[232] prevented the publication of his translation of Marx's Kapital und Lohnarbeit?
Mr Martignetti was employed as clerk in the Royal Notary's Office— a legal agency — in Benevento. There he was accused of embezzlement and this, or so it seems to me, simply by way of retaliation for his activities as a socialist writer; and Mr Martignetti was eventually sentenced to imprisonment by the Italian stipendiary magistrates of two courts. I have read neither the documents of the case nor the reports of the proceedings, but only the accused man's defence. However, I believe that he was wrongly convicted, and this for the following reasons:
1. Because he was accused only as an accomplice of the chief defen-dant; the said chief defendant, however, was acquitted whereas Mr Martignetti, who was allegedly only his abettor, was convicted.
2. Because the sums alleged to have been embezzled were first stated to be over 10,000 francs but dwindled as the trial went on until finally only 500 fr. were said to have been embezzled.
3. Because the Prefect of Benevento, a highly placed civil servant, was so convinced of his innocence that he employed him in his office after his dismissal from the Notary's Office and even while the trial was in progress.
4. Again, because he was simply a clerk, no court funds passed through his hands, so that he could not very well have embezzled any.
Whatever the outcome of his trial may be, Mr Martignetti will probably choose to leave Italy and seek out a new home for himself. If such be the case, I hereby authorise him to make use of this, my testimonial, in any way he thinks fit. Should he anywhere encounter German comrades to whom my opinion is not a matter of complete indifference, I would ask them to rest assured that the above is strictly in accordance with the truth and that I have withheld nothing whatsoever. Should they be able to help him find a post in which he could earn an honest living and upon which he could found a new existence, they would be doing a kindness to a man who, in my opinion, has been prosecuted only because of his activities on behalf of the international labour movement.
122, Regent's Park Road, London, N . W. 13 January 1890
Friedrich Engels
249. Engels to Eleanor Marx-Aveling 14 January
Just received Tuesday 9.30 p.m. - 1 send it to you - do not think it requires a long reply, at all events I have not time to write one. Please return.[590]
Hope Edward is better. What does the doctor say?
Yours
F. E.
250. Engels to Hermann Schlüter 15 January
Burns has sent us word that he does not know the man concerned,[3] so the firm is at any rate an obscure one.b
A great deal of flu around - so far we've been spared. Otherwise nothing new.
Your
F. E.
251. Engels to Charles Rosher 19 January
Dear Charles,
Within two months of your engaging Percy you wrote to me asking for a loan, and in terms which hardly could leave any doubt of your intention to terminate that engagement unless I acceded to your wish.
And as soon as I had replied in the negative, you did terminate it. You can hardly deny, that if you intended to convey the idea that the engagement was a mere preliminary to the loan, you could not have done it better. But you now say there was no connection whatever between the two, and of course I am bound to believe you.
Yours sincerely RE.
252. Engels to August Bebel 23 January
Dear Bebel,
Congratulations on the Elberfeld acquittal[569] and no less on your brilliant handling of the case, which emerged quite clearly despite the bad reporting. It was no small thing to steer your way through it as you did, with a train of 90 accused, including a Röllinghof[593] and, no doubt, a number of other worthless elements: but I don't suppose that Mr Pinoff will ever want to see you confronting him from the dock again. So that chap is the ultimate of which the Prusso-German Public Prosecutor's Office is capable. He interprets the law just as Bismarck does the Constitution, i.e. as an undergraduate in a pub interprets the students' beer drinking ritual — the greater the uproar the better. It's enough to make a French — not to mention English — lawyer's hair stand on end.
Today, no doubt, the Anti-Socialist Law will again be debated in Berlin.[594] I think you are right when you say (in the Arbeiter-Zeitung[595])
that, if Bismarck doesn't cop it from this Reichstag, he'll cop it from the next one; the ever-mounting tide of our votes will break the back of any and every bourgeois opposition. In this I do not see eye to eye with Ede. He and Kautsky — they both have something of a bent for 'higher politics'—believe that what we should aim for in the next elections is a majority hostile to the government. As though anything of the sort still existed among the bourgeois parties in Germany! The men of Progress[45]
will disappear with the suspension of the Anti-Socialist Law; the bourgeois elements among them will go over to the National Liberals,[596] and the petty bourgeois and working men to us. That is why they will cry off every time it looks as though the Anti-Socialist Law might be thrown out. And in other respects also Bismarck will always obtain a majority; even though they may still show some tendency to bridle and jib in the first year, he'll talk them round in the second and they are, after all, safe from their constituents for the next 5 years! But if Bismarck goes off the rails or otherwise disqualifies himself, it doesn't really matter what sort of people (bourgeois, I mean, not Junkers) there are in the Reichstag; let the wind but shift and they are all equally capable of reviling their idols of yesterday. On this occasion, therefore, I can see absolutely no reason for not repaying the Progress people in kind for their infamous behaviour in 1887[597] and bringing it home to them that if they exist at all, it is only by courtesy of ourselves. It was ParnelPs decision in 1886 to get the Irish in England to vote everywhere against the Liberals and for the Tories, i.e. to abandon the role of a tame Liberal electorate for the first time since 1880, which, in the space of 6 weeks, turned Gladstone and the Liberal leaders into Home Rulers.[598] And if ever something is to be made of the men of Progress, this can only be done by showing them ad oculos*—in the second ballot — that they are dependent upon ourselves. I am looking forward enormously to the actual elections.[595] For then our German working men will again show the world what finely tempered steel they are made of. It's possible that you'll have a new element in the Reichstag — labour representatives who are not as yet socialists. The movement amongst the miners[435] will have given you an idea of the way in which the movement is progressing over here—a hitherto indifferent stratum of the working class, largely proof against agitation, is being galvanised out of its lethargy by having to fight for its immediate interests and is virtually impelled into the movement by the bourgeoisie and the government, which, in present circumstances and provided we don't insist on precipitating matters, means that they are impelled into our arms. It is much the same here, save that they have behind them, not a powerful socialist party, but only small cliques, at variance amongst themselves and for the most part led by ambitious men of letters or poetic dreamers. But here, too, things are proceeding inexorably and it is precisely these people, now coming over to us en masse, who will soon make short work of the cliques and create the unity that is needed.—In our case this new element lends added interest to the elections.
I have just received your Hamburg speech[600] but shall not be able to read it till after luncheon.
The French are making a collection for your election fund, though I doubt that very much will come of it; the point is that it's an international gesture.
Unless something unforeseen happens, peace would seem assured so far as this year is concerned — thanks to the tremendous advances in technology whereby every new gun, every new type of gunpowder, etc., is already obsolete even before it can be introduced into so much as one army, and thanks to the universal fear of unleashing these vast masses of men and powers of destruction, of which no one can say what their effect would be in practice. Thanks also to the French and the way they have dropped Boulanger, who was in the pay of Russia (they'd put 15 million francs at his disposal), thereby eliminating all prospects of a restoration of the monarchy (that being the only purpose Boulanger was supposed to serve). But neither the Tsar(1) nor Russia's diplomats care to embark on anything they are not sure of attaining; an alliance with the Republic is to them too dubious — the Orléans would better suit their book.[601] Nor does the anti-Turkish campaign launched by Gladstone for the benefit of his Russian friends[602] cut any ice here and, since Gladstone is not yet in office and the Tory government is decidedly pro-German, pro-Austrian and anti-Russian, the Little Father will have to bide his time. But we are indeed sitting upon a live mine and a spark would be enough to set it off.
Our people's Paris daily, already advertised by Liebknecht in German newspapers,[603] has not yet been born — the birth pangs still continue. The matter will probably be decided within the next 2 or 3 weeks. At all events, now that we have a group in the Chamber, the outlook is far more promising and in due course the Possibilists and Boulangists will again be vanquished in Paris. In the provinces, we alone of all the socialists reign supreme.
You people will be unlikely to get much money from America too. Au fond,[3]- not a bad thing. A genuinely American party is of far greater use to you and the world generally than the few pence you used to get, precisely because the so-called party over there was not a party but a sect, and a purely German sect at that, a branch on foreign soil of the German party and of its specifically Lassallean and outmoded elements in particular. But now the Rosenberg clique has been thrown out[501] and, with it, the greatest obstacle to the development and rise of a genuinely American party.
Cordial regards to yourself and your wife,
Your
RE.
253. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge 8 February[6 0 4]
Dear Sorge,
Have got your letter of the 14th and 2 postcards re H. Schlüter. What we shall lose as a result of the official socialists in America going over to the Nationalists[503] is, to my mind, scarcely worth considering. If it meant the disintegration of the entire German Socialist Labor Party,[3]
it would be a gain, but we're unlikely to be so fortunate. For, after all, the really useful elements will eventually come together again, doing so all the sooner for the rapid self-separation of the dross, and will be sufficient, by reason of their superior theoretical insight and experience, to assume the leading role the moment events themselves set the American proletariat in motion. And then you will find that all your years of toil have not been in vain.
The movement over there, just like the one in this country and now, too, in the mining districts of Germany, cannot be produced by exhor-tation alone. It's the facts themselves that will have to bring all this home to the chaps, after which, however, things will move fast — fastest, of course, where an organised and theoretically educated section of the proletariat already exists, as in Germany. Today the coal miners belong to us, potentially and of necessity; in the Ruhr, the process is well under way, the Aachen and Saar Basins will follow, then Saxony, then Lower Silesia and, finally, the Wasserpolaken of Upper Silesia.[605] Considering our party's position in Germany, all that was needed to call forth an irresistible movement was the impulse arising out of the miners' own living conditions.
Over here the same thing is happening. The movement, which I now regard as irrepressible, arose out of the dock strike,[489] out of the sheer necessity of their standing up for themselves. But here again the ground had been so well prepared by the various propaganda campaigns of the past eight years that the men, though not themselves socialists, refused to have any but socialists for their leaders. Now, without themselves being aware of it, they are adopting a theoretically correct course, they drift into it, and the movement is so vigorous that I believe it will survive, without undue damage, the inevitable blunders and the friction between the various trades unions and the leaders resulting therefrom. More about this below.
And that, I think, is what will also happen in America. For now we know that it's not lectures that will convert the Schlewswig-Holsteiners and their successors in England and America;[606] that stubborn and presumptuous breed have got to learn by bitter experience. They are doing so increasingly from year to year; but they are ultra-conservative precisely because America is so utterly bourgeois, has absolutely no feudal past and is therefore proud of its purely bourgeois system — and that is why only practice can ride them of their old, traditional, ragbag of ideas. So if it's to be a mass movement it will have to begin with trades unions, etc., and each successive step will have to be forced on them by defeat. But once the first step beyond the bourgeois outlook has been made, then things will go ahead rapidly like everything else in America, where the natural momentum of the movement, as it gathers speed, will startle the Schleswig-Holstein Anglo-Saxons, normally so sluggish, into a semblance of life whereupon, by reason of its greater mobility, the foreign element in the nation will also prove its worth. The decay of the specifically German party, with its absurdly muddled theoretical notions, its corresponding arrogance and its Lassalleanism is, to my mind, a real blessing. Only when these separatist conspirators have been got out of the way can the fruits of your labours again become manifest. The Anti-Socialist Law[52] was a misfortune, not for Germany, but for America, whither it sent the last of the louts. While in that country, I was often surprised at encountering so many genuine examples of your lout, who flourishes out there but is extinct in Germany.
Here we are having yet another storm in a tea cup. You will have seen the outcry in the Labour Elector on the subject of Parke,[607] the assistant editor of the Star, who, in a local paper, and à propos the buggery scandals among the aristocracy here, actually accused Lord Euston of paed-erasty. It was a scurrilous article, but only in a personal sense, the matter being hardly a political one. But it caused a great scandal, the Star took it up and challenged Burns outright and Burns, instead of consulting the committee, disavowed Champion outright in the Star. There was a great rumpus on the committee of the Labour Elector, all of whose members were opposed to Champion but each of whom wishes to get into parliament and must look to his own particular interests; nothing, therefore, was decided, which may also have been because they had no power (last autumn Champion told Tussy that the paper belonged to the committee, he being merely a temporary editor, but I doubt whether that was really the entire truth)—in short, Burns and Bateman resigned from the committee on account of this affair (Burns also on account of the chauvinistic article on the Portuguese rumpus),[608] and this week the entire committee absented itself from the paper. Tussy, too, has now written off Champion, whom she used to provide with international items on France, Germany, Belgium, Holland and Scandinavia—(the crazy stuff about Spain, Portugal, Mexico, etc., is by Cunninghame-Graham, a very honest, very brave but very muddle-headed ex-ranchman).
All that the case has proved, so far as I'm concerned, is that Champion did in fact accept Tory money and then, with the opening of Parliament, found himself under an obligation to do something for the value received. The actual author of the articles is alleged to be our some-time friend of The Hague, Maltman Barry, who is regarded over here as a Tory agent and of whom Jung, Hyndman, etc., tell marvellous if untrue stories of a cock-and-bull nature. But all these gentlemen are behaving stupidly, for Champion has utterly ruined himself in the process and, at a meeting of his own Labour Electoral Association,[448] was shouted down and had to leave the platform under the protection of 2 policemen. Wonderful grist to Hyndman's mill, of course, but I believe both these gentlemen are finished for good. What happens next remains to be seen. But it will no more wreck the movement than did the defeat of the gas stokers in South London.[577] The chaps were too cocky, everything had been made too easy for them, and at this juncture a few checks will do no harm.
In Paris our people are still trying to bring a daily into being. The Possibilist Parti Ouvrier, a daily financed by the government, has perished; on n'a plus besoin de ces messieurs?
Bax's Time is quite an ordinary, middle-class affair and he's terrified of making it socialist. Well, it can't carry on just as it is, but there is still no room here for a purely socialist monthly, especially at 1/- a copy. As soon as there's anything interesting in it, I shall send it to you.
Here too we have our Nationalists, the Fabians,[176] a well-meaning gang of eddicated middle-class folk who have refuted Marx with Jevons' worthless vulgar economics[215]—so vulgar that you can make anything of it, including socialism. As in America, its chief object is to convert your bourgeois to socialism and so introduce the thing peacefully and consti-tutionally. They have brought out a bulky tome on the subject, written by 7 authors.[15]
I trust you are keeping well and the work is becoming easier as you grow accustomed to it.
I am having the same trouble with Percy Rosher as you are with your Adolph,c only more so. The laddie has got into such a hole with his mania for speculation that his family and I have had to compromise with his creditors, and now all he can do is try and find some position or other for himself. But it would be better not to mention this to the Schlüters, lest word of it gets back here.
My eyes seem to be improving and I have put on 10 pounds; on the other hand, I have virtually had to give up smoking on account of insomnia, and now find that alcohol sometimes has a similarly disagree-able effect. What bitter irony it would be if I had to become a teetotaller in my old age!
Cordial regards to your wife.(1)
Your
F. E.
Schorlemmer isn't allowed to drink either.
1906 and, in full, in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition,
Vol. XXVIII, Moscow, 1940
254. Engels to August Bebel 17 February
Dear Bebel,
Karl Kautsky says you are proposing to telegraph to me on the evening of the 20th such results as are known to you, and it occurred to me that I had better let you have some information about the night deliv-ery service here so that you might not err through ignorance and we not get the telegram until the following morning after all. Ede, Fischer and Kautsky all take the view that it would be best to telegraph me, as they will all be here on Thursday evening and, I hope, also Julius.b Details below, as I am still awaiting the information. For the rest I cannot congratulate your people enough. Yourself, first of all, on the perspicacity with which, in your last-but-one Viennese letter, you smelt out William the Younger's edicts before they had been promulgated,[609] and the whole lot of you not only on the splendid situation in which you have been placed by our opponents — never have things been so favourable on the eve of an election — but also on the new situation which is apparently about to arise in Germany.
From the start I have thought that, because of his thirst for action qua efficient new broom, and because of his imperiousness that was bound sooner or later to clash with Bismarck's, William the Younger[3] was better suited to the task of undermining the ostensibly stable system in Germany, destroying the philistines' faith in the government and stability and causing a general state of confusion and uncertainty, than was even the 'noble' Frederickb (of whom, by the way, I have here seen a photograph in which he has exactly the same shifty, hereditary, Hohenzollern expression as his half-uncle Willich, son of Prince August, Frederick William IFs brother). But I couldn't have expected that he would attend to this with such promptitude and brilliance as he has done. The man is worth more than his weight in gold to us; he need fear no attempts on his life, for shooting him would not only be a crime but a colossal blunder. If the worst comes to the worst, we ought to provide him with a bodyguard against anarchist assininities.
As I see it, the position is as follows: The Christian Social Conservatives have got the whip hand with young William and, since Bismarck can do nothing to prevent this, he is giving the laddie a free rein in the hope that he will get himself into a thorough fix, at which time he, Bismarck, will step into the breach as guardian angel and thereafter be safe from any relapse. Hence Bismarck hopes for the worst possible Reichstag, which would soon be ripe for dissolution, thus enabling him once again to invoke the philistines' fear of the threat posed by the labour movement.
But here there is one thing Bismarck has forgotten, namely that, from the moment the philistine becomes aware of the discord between old Bismarck and young William, the aforesaid philistine will become an unknown quantity so far as Bismarck is concerned. The philistine will still be afraid, more so even than now, if only because he won't know whom to look to for support. For now their own fear will drive the cowardly herd, not together, but apart. Confidence will have been lost, never to return in the same form as before.
From now on all Bismarck's expedients will avail him less and less. He wants to avenge himself on the National Liberals for having thrown out his expulsion clause.[610] In so doing he will kick away his last, feeble prop. He wants to bring the Centre[44] over onto his side, and in so doing will dissolve the Centre. The Catholic Junkers ardently desire to ally themselves with the Prussian Junkers, but the day that alliance is sealed the Catholic peasants and workers (on the Rhine the bourgeoisie is predominantly Protestant) will cease to be of any use. This breakup of the Centre will benefit no one so much as ourselves; for Germany it is, on a small scale, what the agreement over nationalities was for Austria on a large one — the elimination of the last party structure not resting upon a purely economic basis, in other words, an important factor in the process of clarification, a setting free of labour elements hitherto ideo-logically enslaved.
The philistine can no longer put his faith in little Willie because he is doing things which the philistine necessarily regards as foolish pranks; he can no longer put his faith in Bismarck because he sees that it's all up with his (B's) omnipotence.
What will come of this confusion, seeing how craven our bourgeoisie is, we cannot possibly say. At all events the old order has been smashed for good and can no more be resuscitated than an extinct species. Things are livening up again, and that's all we require. At first you will be better off, but it's worth considering whether Puttkamer's prediction of a greater state of emergency[611] might not eventually be realised. That too would be a step forward — the last, the very last panacea — pretty frightful for you while it lasted, but beyond all doubt heralding our victory. Before then, however, a great deal of water will have flowed down the Rhine.
Since conditions for the elections are favourable to a degree we could never have hoped for, my only fear is that we shall obtain too many seats. Every other party in the Reichstag can have as many jackasses and allow them to perpetrate as many blunders as it can afford to pay for, and nobody gives a damn, whereas we, if we are not to be held cheap, must have nothing but heroes and men of genius. Well, the fact is that we are becoming a great party and must learn to take the consequences.
In Paris the Boulangists have scored yet another victory.[137] It's all to the good. Paris has been greatly spoiled by the sybaritism of the many novices in this sphere and by a chauvinism (not only the general French variety, but the specifically Parisian) that is based on the city's great past; the workers are either Possibilists[19] or Boulangists or Radicals — and the more the provinces thrive, as they are doing by comparison with Paris, the better we shall progress. The provinces have spoiled many a movement set in train by Paris; Paris will never spoil a movement emanating from the provinces.
Well, as regards telegraphing, I shall write to the head office here to say that, this week, telegrams should be delivered to me at any hour of the night. But if your telegrams are to be of any use, they must arrive here before 1 o'clock in the morning. So if, on Thursday night, you telegraph before 11.30, that will leave 2Vi hours for transmission, allowing for the time difference; but not any later, as it wouldn't be much use. So 11.30 p.m. on Thursday at the latest. Ede is going to arrange for telegrams to be sent to us direct from Berlin, Hamburg, and Elberfeld.
But if you have no results to telegraph before 11.30 on Thursday, then it would be better to wait until about midday or 1 o'clock on Friday, when you are bound to know something, and perhaps again on Friday night at about 10 or 11; the latter would be desirable whatever happens.
Further, only the names of towns where we have won or got into the second ballot. Where there are several constituencies in one town, I suggest the following: For Hamburg write Hbg, all 3 seats; for Hamburg one two, write Hbg I and II constituency. Again: All victories first, then all second ballots that we are in; e.g. thus,—victory Berlin four, five, six, Hamburg, Breslau one, Chemnitz, Leipzig Province, etc., second ballot Berlin three, Breslau two, Dresden one, Leipzig city, etc. If that's too long, then: Fifteen victories, seventeen second ballots, etc. And in the second telegram: So many victories all told and so, etc. second ballots.
This will save money and time. Cordial regards and 1,200,000 votes.
Your
F. E.
255. Engels to Laura Lafargue 26 February
My dear Laura,
Since last Thursday evening when the telegrams announcing victory came raining in here thick and fast, we are in a constant intoxication of triumph, brought, provisionally at least, to a climax this morning by the news that we had obtained 1,341,500 votes, 587,000 more than 3 years ago. And yet — next Saturday[612] the orgy may begin again, for the stupe-faction of all Germany at our success is so enormous, the hatred against the Kartell[265] swindlers so intense, and the time for consideration so short that fresh successes, as unexpected as those of last Thursday, are quite possible, though I for one do not expect many of them.
The 20th February 1890 is the opening day of the German revolution. It may be a couple of years yet until we see a decisive crisis, and it is not impossible that we have to pass through a temporary and severe defeat. But the old stability is gone for ever. That stability rested on the super-stition that the triumvirate Bismarck, Moltke, William, was invincible and all-wise. Now William is gone and replaced by a conceited Gardelieutenant? Moltke is pensioned off, and Bismarck is very shaky in his saddle. At the very eve of this election, he and young William had a squabble over the latter's itching to play the working men's friend; Bismarck had to give way and took care to let the philistine know he had done so; he himself evidently wished for 'bad' elections, in order to give his master a lesson. Well, he has got more than he bargained for, and the two have made it up again for once. But that cannot last. The 'Second old Fritzb only greater', cannot and will not stand leading by the chancellor's hand, 'in Preussen muss der König regieren'0—this he takes au sérieux,^ and the more critical the time, the more divergent will be the views of these two rivals. One thing is certain to the philistine: the man he can trust is losing his power, and the man who holds the power, he cannot trust. Confidence is gone even among the bourgeoisie.
Now look at the state of parties. The Kartell[265] has lost a million votes, has had 2Vi milliions for, AV2 against itself. That ministry of Bismarck's parliamentary power has gone to smash, and all the King's horses and all the King's men cannot put Humpty Dumpty together again. To form a government majority, there are but two parties: the Catholics (centre[44]) and the Freisinnigen.[613] The latter, although already burning with the desire to form a fresh cartel, cannot do so — as yet at least — with the Conservatives, but only with the National Liberals,[596] and that gives no majority. The Centre? Bismarck reckons upon it, and the Catholic Junkers of that party are eager enough to unite with the old Prussian Junkers. But the sole raison d'être of the Centre is hatred of Prussia, and just you try and make a Prussian government party out of that! As soon as the Centre becomes anything like that, the Catholic peasantry — its force — break loose, while the 100,000 votes the Centre had less (against 1887) have been taken away by us in the Catholic towns, see Munich, Cologne, Mainz, etc.
So this Reichstag is unmanageable. But Bismarck's last resource, a dissolution, will hardly help him. The confidence in the stability of things being gone, the supreme factor now is the discontent with the oppressive taxes and increasing dearness of living. That is the direct consequence of the fiscal and economic policy of the last 11 years, and by this Bismarck has driven the people right away into our arms. And Michel is rising against that policy. So the next Reichstag might even be worse.
Unless — Bismarck and his master — on this point they will always agree — provoke riot and fighting and crush us before we are too strong, and then alter the constitution. That is evidently what we are drifting to, and the chief danger to be avoided. Our people, you have seen, keep excellent, wonderful discipline; but we may be forced to fight before we are fully prepared — and there is the danger. But when that comes on, there will be other chances in our favour.
Nim's dinner bell — so good-bye for to-day — more about your dogs in more peaceable times — also about Paul's articles.
En attendant, vive la révolution allemande^
Ever yours
F. E.
256. Engels to Paul Lafargue 7 March[8 7]
My dear Lafargue,
Election time(1) is over at last. Impossible to do anything amidst such a commotion, such comings and goings and perpetual running of errands. But never mind, for once it's all been worth while. Our working men have made the German Emperorb travailler pour le roi de Prussec and have sent the Gaulois reporter out to Le Perreux.[614]
The worthy William is first and foremost an emperor. One cannot, as you seem to suppose, send a Bismarck packing as simply as all that. Only give the quarrel time to come to a head. William can no more part company so abruptly from the man who compelled the younger man's grandfather^ to turn himself into a panjandrum, than can Bismarck from the same William whom he, Bismarck, has accustomed to seeing himself as a Frederick II[2]. But there is one thing, and one thing only, upon which both will be agreed, and that is to open fire on the Socialists at the earli-est opportunity. On all other matters, divergence, and later on, an open breach.
The 20th February marks the beginning of the revolution in Germany,e and that is why it is our duty not to let ourselves be prematurely crushed. As yet only one soldier out of four or five is ours — on a war footing, maybe one in three. We are making headway in rural areas, witness the elections in Schleswig-Holstein and, more especially, in Mecklenburg, not to mention the eastern provinces of Prussia.[615] In three or four years' time we shall have won over the farm labourers and hired hands, in other words the staunchest supporters of the status quo, and then Prussia will cease to exist. That is why we must, for the time being, advocate lawful action, and not respond to the provocations they will lavish upon us. For short of a blood-letting, and a pretty rigorous one at that, there will be no saving either for William or Bismarck.
These two stalwarts, it is said, are in a blue funk and have no settled plan, while Bismarck is kept pretty busy combatting the innumerable court intrigues of which he is the object.
The petit bourgeois parties will muster on common ground, namely fear of Socialists. But they are no longer the parties they were. The ice is cracking and will soon begin to break up.
As for Russia, she will yet need many millions from France before she is fit to go to war. Her army is equipped with weapons that are completely out of date, and there is still some doubt as to whether Russian soldiers should or should not be issued with repeating rifles; the Russians are extremely steady when fighting in massed formations— which, however, is no longer done; as sharp-shooters they are useless and totally lacking in personal initiative. Besides, where find the officers for all these men in a country without a bourgeoisie?
The April and May numbers of Die Neue Zeit and Time will carry articles of mine on Russian foreign policy.(2) We over here are trying to wean the English Liberals from Gladstone's Russophilia; the time is ripe, for the unheard-of cruelties perpetrated on political prisoners in Siberia[616] have made it almost impossible for the Liberals to continue in this strain. Aren't they talking of it in France? But your bourgeoisie has grown almost as stupid and rotten as in Germany.
As for Time, it is not a Socialist review, quite the contrary; Bax quails at the very thought of the word 'socialism' appearing in its pages. By not replying to his 'reply paid' telegram you have drawn down upon youself his sovereign displeasure. But it would be a mistake for you to take offence as he has done. Time could not carry an article signed Lafargue too often. Nor could it possibly take one that had appeared in the Nouvelle Revue}' just as Mme Adam would not take it if it had already appeared in Time. And as for an arrangement that would ensure simul-taneous publication, would Mme Adam really lend herself to that? Do try and be reasonable. The article has been placed with her and in her company it will make a world tour.
Aveling and Tussy intend to publish one article a month by a foreigner. The English public would stomach no more and, since you had had an article in the February number,c this gave Bax an excuse to reject a second one, the more so since, a few months from now, nobody will be talking about Huxley's attack on Rousseau. And all this, just because you failed to send the 'reply paid'! It's piffling, but that's Bax all over!
Poor Laura! Let's hope she has no further dealings with Castelar. He's a man I find as repellent as I did the handsome Simon von Trier in 1848 whose conversation was wholly made up of SCRAPS taken from Schiller and of whom the Frankfurt Jewesses, young and old, were all enamoured. Thank you for Iglesias's letter which I shall return in my next. The man Back is a German Russian from the Baltic provinces who, some ten years ago in Geneva, used to bring out a Baltic review[3]
(in German) and whom old Becker, for want of anyone better, attempted to convert to Socialism. He has also sent an article to Kautsky on the Spanish party he himself invented, but Kautsky gave me the MS without having printed it. What cheek — a Balto-pseudo-Russian, putting himself at the head of a Spanish party consisting of three officers and no men!
I had wanted to add something about Laura's dogs, but it's already five o'clock and the new G O N G (a present from Aveling) is summon-ing us to dinner. Between Laura and Nim, duty pulls in two directions, but my stomach joins in the fray and settles the matter. Nim might scold me, and Laura is far away.
Good wishes to you both,
F. E.
257. Engels to Wilhelm Liebknecht 9 March
Dear Liebknecht,
My congratulations on the 42,000 votes that have made you the premier élu de l'Allemagne.*[617] When, in future, you are interrupted by
a Kar-, Hell- or any other Junkerdorfb, your retort can be: 'It would take a dozen of the likes of you to muster as many constituents as I've got. So draw in your horns — if you can!'c
After the prolonged intoxication of victory, we over here are sobering down by degrees, but without any unpleasant after-effects. I had hoped for 1,200,000 votes and everyone said I was unduly sanguine; now we see that my figure was too modest.[618] Our lads have behaved quite magnifi-cently, but it's no more than a beginning and they've got a hard fight ahead of them. Our successes in Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg and Pomeraniad mean that we shall now be making tremendous headway amongst the agricultural labourers of the East. Now that the towns are ours and word of our victories has penetrated to the remotest baronial estates, we shall be able to kindle, in rural areas, a blaze of quite a different order from the flash in the pan of 12 years ago. In three years the agricultural labourers will be ours and with them the crack regiments of the Prussian army. Nor can this be prevented save by one means, the ruthless application of which is now the only point upon which little Williee and Bismarck are still agreed, namely a hail of shot to the inevitable accom-paniment of an acute reign of terror. To this end, they will seize upon any pretext and, once Puttkamer's 'cannons'[611] have sprayed the streets of a few big towns with shrapnel, there will be a state of siege throughout Germany, the philistine will return to his right mind again and vote blindly as directed, and we shall be crippled for years to come.
This is something we must prevent. We must not, in our triumphal progress, allow ourselves to be diverted from our purpose, we must not spoil our own game or prevent our enemies from doing our work for us. So I agree with you to the extent of saying that, for the present, we should conduct ourselves as peacefully and constitutionally as possible and avoid every pretext for a clash. True, your philippics against the use of force in any form and under any circumstances seem to me inoppor-tune, firstly because none of your opponents would believe you, they are not as stupid as all that, and secondly because your theory would make anarchists even of Marx and myself, since we were never inclined, like good Quakers, to turn the other cheek. This time you have definitely overshot the mark somewhat.
Nieuwenhuis is, to my mind, more or less innocent of the article to which you are replying;[619] according to what we have heard over here, Croll is the crib-biter who refuses to leave you in peace — he's said to be a trouble-maker par excellence. These people from little countries are our bane in the international field — they are excessively demanding, expect always to be handled with kid gloves while themselves being as rude as they please, and constantly feel themselves slighted because they cannot always play first fiddle; all the trouble and strife at the last congress, both before and during it, was caused by them alone — first the Swiss with their deluded idea that they could get the Possibilists to defect, then the Brussels people, and after them the Dutch. Well, no doubt our German victory will put them more or less on the right track and enable us to be magnanimous.
Will you please let me know in advance when you intend to cross the Channel. We've only got one spare room, and in the spring it is often occupied — as at Easter, for instance, by Schorlemmer, while the Lafargues or Louise Kautsky might also be coming; so a bit of management may be necessary to keep it free for you.
Since you specifically give a Dresden address, I can only take it as an indication that I should write to you there.
The Nineteenth Century is, after The Contemporary Review, the most highly thought-of journal in this country — but since I am always confus-ing the two, I shall not be able to provide details until later today when the Avelings have arrived. Meanwhile, I would simply say: 1. Get them to pay you well, 2. Under English law the article belongs to the journal and the editor can make what alterations he likes unless you have a prior agreement to the contrary. In such a case I stipulate, 1. that the copyright remains vested in me, 2. that no alterations are made without my express consent.
Evening. The Nineteenth Century belongs to Mr Knowles: Gladstone sometimes writes for it and for the Contemporary, which belongs to Percy Bunting, whom you were taken to see by la Schack. Otherwise I have nothing to add to the above. Knowles is every inch a businessman, so beware.
Regards from Nim, the Avelings, the Edes, Dr Zadek and Mrs Romm-Zadek, likewise Pumps and Percy, all of whom are here.
Your
F. E.
258. Engels to Laura Lafargue 14 March(1)
My dear Laura,
Last night Bernstein called. We think it best you should write to Bebel asking him for some information. He has the Parliamentsalmanach which we have not and a Secretary who might copy out a few extracts. You might say Bernstein and I had suggested this to you.
If you like you might write also direct to Carl Grillenberger, Weizenstrasse 14, Nürnberg G. von Vollmar, Schwabing bei München, J. H. W Dietz, Furthbachstrasse 12, Stuttgart,
F. Kunert, Red. Der 'Breslauer Nachrichten', Breslaub and ask them for personal details which no doubt they would be glad to give you. Other addresses we have not got.
I will ask Tussy about that niece of Mohr's Paul has written about. I have not heard anything about her. Would be curious if you should turn out to be connected with little Abraham, vulgo Alexander, Weill!
Things are getting serious in Germany. The Kreuz-Zeitung, ultra-conservative, declares the Socialist law useless and bad! Well, we shall probably get rid of it, but Puttkamer's word will then become true: we shall have the major state of siège instead of the minor one, and cannons instead of expulsions.[611] Things go so well for us, we never dared to hope half so much, but, but, it will be stirring times and everything depends upon our men not allowing themselves to be provoked into riots. In three years we may have the agricultural labourer, the mainstay of Prussia, and then—feu(2)!
Ever yours
F. E.
We went to-day up to Highgate. Tussy had been already in the morning, planted Mohr's and your Mama's grave with crocus, primroses, hyacinths, etc. very beautifully. If Mohr had lived to see this!
259. Engels to Antonio Labriola 30 March[3]
I am also indebted to you for your kind endeavours on behalf of P. Martignetti, which have, I am glad to say, met with their first big success. I have been in correspondence with Mr Martignetti since 1884 and am morally convinced that he is innocent of the actions imputed to him and has fallen victim to a shabby intrigue. Perhaps, when you have occasion, you would convey to Mr Aw. c Lollini my most sincere thanks for his willing, able and successful defence of Martignetti. I trust that this magnanimous intervention on the part of you both will succeed in protecting him from undeserved vilification and ruin.
You must forgive me for writing to you in German. Over the last few years, however, my Italian, such as it is, has, alas, grown exceedingly rusty and I dare not mangle the Italian language in front of a master of that beautiful tongue.
Very respectfully yours,
F. E.
260. Engels to Pasquale Martignetti 30 March[620]
Dear Friend,
Herewith the letter to Labriola you asked for.(1)
As to his terra libera,[621] it is in fact altogether too much to expect of the present Italian government that it will allocate property in the colonies to small farmers for themselves to cultivate and not to monopolists, whether companies or individuals. Small-scale farming is the natural and best system for the colonies presently being founded by bourgeois governments, on which point cf Marx, Capital, Volume I, last chapter, 'The Modern Theory of Colonisation'.b So we socialists can, with a good conscience, support the introduction of the system of small farms into colonies that have already been founded. But whether this will be done is another question. All governments today are so much the creatures and hirelings of financiers and the stock exchange that there's nothing to stop the speculators themselves from gaining control of the colonies in order to exploit them, and no doubt that will also apply in Eritrea. But one can, after all, hit back, even if it's in the shape of a demand that the government should give the emigrant Italian farmers an assurance that they will enjoy the same advantages there as they seek and generally find in Buenos Aires.
I can't discover from the Messaggero's article[622] whether Labriola combines his demand with still further requirements, namely government loans for emigrants to Eritrea, co-operatively run settlements, etc.
Unfortunately I have absolutely no time to spare for revising the translation of Wage Labour and Capital.[232] I have had some urgent jobs to do, and must now get back at once to Volume III of Capital before events in Germany take a revolutionary turn, as is very possible.
Yours sincerely,
F. Engels
261. Engels to Karl Kautsky 1 April
Dear Kautsky,
I have just received the Russian Sotsial-Demokrat and have compared my article* with the Neue Zeit.62i I now find that Mr Dietz has had the impudence to alter without reference to ourselves various passages which he had not even scored in red. Not one of these passages infringes the penal code or contravenes the Anti-Socialist Law;[52] they were, however, too strong for philistine tastes.
Yet I have behaved as decently as possible and have done all I could to make the elimination of harmful matter easier for him. But censorship of this kind, carried out behind my back, is something I won't stand for from any publisher. I shall therefore write to Dietz expressly forbidding him to print the remainder of the article in any form other than that in which it appears in the proof corrected by me, and by that I mean word for word. What else I shall do remains to be seen. At all events, Mr Dietz has made it impossible for me to send further contributions to a periodical in which one is exposed to this kind of treatment.
Your
F. Engels
262. Engels to Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Dietz 1 April
To Mr J. H. W. Dietz, Stuttgart.
I have just noticed that you have taken the liberty of making various alterations to my article on Russian policy* without the consent of myself or of the editors,b alterations which are wholly uncalled for, whether from the viewpoint of the penal code or of the Anti-Socialist Law.
I have behaved as decently as possible towards you over this matter. I asked Kautsky to get you to score any passages that struck you as objectionable when you read the proofs. I in turn altered many of the scored passages and sent a request that if you felt further alterations to be advisable, you should write to us, stating your reasons. Since no more objections were forthcoming, I could only assume that the article would appear unaltered.
Instead of that you have altered passages which you had not even scored.
As it is not my habit to put up with this sort of thing from publishers, / hereby forbid you to print the remainder of the article unless it agrees word for word with the proofs corrected by myself and I reserve the right to take any other steps I think fit.
I need hardly say that in future I shall be careful not to write again for a periodical in which one is exposed to things of this nature.
Yours very faithfully,
F. Engels
263. Engels to Vera Zasulich 3 April
My dear Citizen,
As soon as I got your letter,[624] I let Stepniak have the rest of the article (in proof) and, since part of it was slightly damaged, I added the corresponding MS for you to use as a check. I hope that by now it will already have reached you.
Stepniak also gave me a copy of the Review, for which I thank you; I look forward keenly to reading your article and those of Plekhanov.[625]
You are perfectly right; in a publication of this kind all the articles in any given number should be complete in themselves and quite independent of any sequel in the ensuing number. Indeed, I should have acted on that principle had I not been pressed for time.
That it is imperative to combat Narodisma, no matter where— whether German, French, English or Russian — I entirely agree. Nevertheless, I believe it would have been more fitting if what I felt impelled to say had been said by a Russian. Admittedly, the partition of Poland, for example, necessarily looks very different when seen from the Russian rather than the Polish standpoint, which last has become that of the West. But I must, after all, take equal account of Polish sentiment. If the Poles lay claim to territory which most Russians regard as inalienably theirs and as being Russian by nationality, it is not for me to decide between them. All I can say is that — or so it seems to me — it is for the populations concerned to decide their fate themselves, just as the Alsatians will have to choose for themselves between Germany and France. Unfortunately, in writing about Russian foreign policy and its effect on Europe, I found it impossible not to mention things which the present generation in Russia regards as 'internal affairs'a and the impropriety, or apparent impropriety, consists in its being a foreigner rather than a Russian who was thus holding forth. But that was unavoidable.
If you think it might be of help to write a short note along these lines and to put my name to it, I should be glad if you would insert it wherever you think fit.
I hope that the publication of my article in English will make some impact. The faith of the Liberals in the CzarV liberating zeal has been severely shaken just now by the news from Siberia, by Kennan's book[616] and by the recent unrest at Russian universities.[626] That is why I hastened into print, so as to strike while the iron was hot. The diplomats in St. Petersburg were counting on the advent of Gladstone, Czarophil and admirer of the 'DIVINE FIGURE OF THE NORTH', as he called Alexander III, to enable them to embark on their next campaign in the East. After the Cretans and Armenians had been unleashed, a diversion in Macedonia might have followed; with France in thrall to the Czar and a benevolent England, they might perhaps have risked yet another step forward, and even the seizure of Czaregrad,b
without Germany's hazarding a war in such unfavourable circumstances. And, Czaregrad once captured, there would be hope of a long spell of chauvinist intoxication of the kind we experienced in Germany after 1866 and 1870.[267] That is why the resurgence of anti-Czarist sentiment among the English Liberals seems to me so important to our cause; it is most fortunate that Stepniak should be here and thus able to fan the flames.[627]
Now that a revolutionary movement is under way actually inside Russia, her foreign policy, once invincible, is suffering one setback after another. And that is highly desirable, for the said foreign policy is our most dangerous enemy, and not only ours, but yours. It is the only force to have remained unshaken up till now in Russia where the Czar is losing his hold even over the army, as evidenced by the numerous arrests of officers which prove that Russian officers in the matter of general intelligence and character, are infinitely superior to the Prussians. And as soon as you have partisans and loyal agents in the ranks of the foreign service — you or, come to that, the Constitutionals[457]—will have won hands down.
Kind regards to Plekhanov,
Yours very sincerely,
F. Engels
264. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge 4 April
In great haste. Am sending you Time containing my article. Beware of the German version in the Neue Zeit, which has been shamefully mangled. Will reappear in its correct form in the May issue.(1) Kindly inform Schlüter so as to ensure that the mangled version is not made use of over there in the Volkszeitung, say, or elsewhere. In Germany things are going ahead merrily; the débâcle has begun and little Willieb will doubtless make certain that it doesn't come to a standstill again, Schorlemmer is here and sends cordial greetings to you and your wife, as do I.
XXVIII, Moscow, 1940
265. Engels to Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis 9 April
Dear Comrade,
I fear that there is no chance of your son being taken on as an appren-tice in an engineering workshop over here. Thirty or forty years ago, engineering firms used to engage apprentices of this kind and my brother[3] worked as such in Bury near Manchester for a year. He had to pay a premium of one hundred pounds sterling, was enrolled as an apprentice in the Engineers' Trades Union and in due course received 15 shillings a week. But now that the continentals and especially the Germans are competing with the British in the engineering field, they have ceased by and large to accept any more foreigners as apprentices. I shall make further inquiries in Manchester and, if anything more hope-ful comes to light, shall get in touch with you straight away.
I'm glad to hear that things are also moving ahead briskly where you are; after the excitements of last summer a certain torpor has set in over here, while at the same time the personal, local and other forms of friction inevitable in England are proliferating again to a greater extent than is desirable. However a practical people like the English and, for that very reason, one that is very terre à terrè° in its way of going about things, must eventually learn from its own mistakes; it's the only way here, and then again the movement has already penetrated far too wide sections of the working class for it to be held up more than temporarily by all these squabbles.
The third volume of Capital weighs heavily on my conscience; certain parts are in such a state that they won't be fit for publication until they have been carefully revised and to some extent rearranged and, as you may imagine when so imposing a work is at stake, I shan't do anything of the kind without the most mature reflection. Once the 5th section is polished off, the two that follow will involve less work; the first four have to be read over, but apart from that are ready for the press. If I could spend a year right away from the day-to-day affairs of the international movement, a year without newspapers to read, without letters to write, without involvement in anything else, I should polish it off easily. With kind regards.
Yours,
F. Engels
266. Engels to Karl Kautsky 11 April
Dear Kautsky,
A line or two in great haste before the post goes. First of all my hearti-est congratulations on your engagement. You have been through a difficult time and to me this news is a sign that you've got over it, that you've put it behind you. May you find the happiness you expect.
Schorlemmer and Nim also send you their sincerest congratulations. Thank you for your letter from Stuckart;(1) yesterday I also got one from Dietz, which I answered straight away, saying that I was entirely satisfied and also confirming that, as I had previously told you, I agree to a new edition of the Origin, etc.,b as part of the Internationale Bibliothek and shall make some additions.
Now as to Dietz's plan to bring you to Stuckart, that is really a matter you must settle between the two of you. Schorlemmer and I were in Kentish Town[628] today, but Ede was out and so I doubt whether I shall be able to consult with him before Sunday. As for myself, all I can say is that I should much prefer to have you here, but if your presence in Stuttgart[629] is really necessary and you are nevertheless able to visit this country for a month or two each year, I must, for better or for worse, content myself with that. The Neue Zeit has become a stronghold which is worth defending to the utmost. And having an influence over Dietz's publishing business generally, which henceforth will be a more important lever in party life than was the case during the period of oppression, is also à considération.* To some extent, naturalisation and a secure berth in Germany can cut both ways, since it means that you would be liable to be thrown out of Austria. And you are also familiar with dear Stuckart and its delights. I shall give the matter further thought to see whether there may not be some other, not immediately apparent, snags and talk it over with Ede on Sunday.
However I wanted to get this line off to you straight away and it's now 5.25, ergo time for the post.
Your
F. E.
267. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge 12 April
Dear Sorge,
Letter of 3-6 March received with thanks. The business of Miquel's letters[630] is not without considerable snags. 'Wilhelm'[3] would also like to have them, only to spring them on the world just at the wrong moment and thus deprive us for good of the hold we have over Miquel. For once the scandal had blown over, Miquel wouldn't give a fig for us. To me it seems far more important to keep some control over the chap by this means than to raise an unnecessary clamour as a result of which he would elude us and, what's more, have the pleasure of getting away unscathed. In any case everyone knows he was a member of the League.[531]
Again, my experience of the American press[300] has been altogether too startling for me to fall for the bait. If someone on the Volkszeitung were to get wind of the fact that the afore mentioned letters were in America, none of those sensation-mongers would have a moment's rest or repose until they had got hold of them — nor would I willingly subject anyone to such torment and temptation. Besides, how am I to know how long Schlüter will remain with the Volkszeitung and whether they mightn't make the publication of the said letters a condition of his remaining?
In short, I cannot possibly agree to this deal. In Germany everything's going better than we could have hoped in our wildest dreams. Young Williamb is positively mad—as if cut out, that is, for the task of thoroughly disrupting the old order, shattering what little confidence remains among the propertied classes as a whole— whether Junkers or bourgeois — and preparing the ground for us in a way even the liberal Frederick III could not have done. His sudden urge to be amiable to the workers — purely Bonapartist and demagogic but adulterated with muddled dreams of a divinely inspired princely mission — makes no impression whatsoever on our chaps, something for which we have the Anti-Socialist Law to thank.[52] Even in 1878 it might still have served some purpose, have created some confusion in our ranks; it could not possibly do so now. Our people have been all too keenly aware of the iron hand of Prussia. A few weaklings — as, for example, Mr Bios and, perhaps, some of the 700,000 who have come to us as new recruits during the past three years — might waver a bit in this respect, but they'll quickly be voted down and, before the year is out, we shall see William wondrously disappointed as regards his power over the workers, whereupon love will turn to rage, and cajolery to persecution. Hence our policy should be to avoid creating any disturbance until the expiry of the Anti-Socialist Law on 30 September; for by then the Reichstag will have dispersed completely, and to declare another state of emergency would scarcely be feasible. But once we have regained our ordinary rights as citi-zens, you should witness renewed expansion on a scale such as will put in the shade even that which took place on 20 February.[599]
Since Little Willie's amiability towards the workers has as its counterpart an urge for military dictatorship (this shows how the present gang of princes are all turning Bonapartist, nolens volens) and he is all set to shoot people down at the first sign of resistance, it's up to us to see that he doesn't get the chance. As we found during the elections, we have made truly enormous headway in the country, particularly where, besides the big estates, there were, at most, big farmers, i.e. in the East. Three second ballots in Mecklenburg, 2 in Pomerania! The 85,000 votes that accrued between the first official count (1,342,000) and the second (1,427,000) all came from country districts where we were not expected to get any at all. Thus there is a prospect of our soon being able to capture the rural proletariat of the eastern provinces and, with it,—the soldiers of the 'crack' Prussian regiments. That will bring down the old order with a vengeance, and we shall govern. But the Prussian generals would have to be greater fools than I suppose for them not to be just as much aware of this as we are, and so they must be dying to stage a ceremonial massacre and thus put us out of harm's way for a while. That, therefore, is our second reason for proceeding in an ostensibly peaceable manner.
A third reason is that the electoral victory has gone to the heads of the masses — particularly in the case of new recruits — and they now believe themselves able to take everything by storm. Unless something is done to check this, all sorts of silly things will happen. And the bourgeois— vide the colliery owners — are doing all they can to encourage and provoke such silliness. For this they not only have their former reasons, but also the additional one of hoping they may thus put paid to little Willie's 'amiability towards the workers'.
I would ask you not to let Schlüter see the passages side-lined above. He tends to act impulsively and then, I know my Volkszeitung people— as journalists they ruthlessly seize upon anything that may be of use. But these matters must not get into the press, either out there or here, at least not into the German papers, and least of all as emanating from myself.
If, in the immediate future, therefore, our party in Germany should seem a trifle placatory — even as regards May Day — you will know the reason why. We are aware that the generals would gladly take advantage of May Day to do some shooting. In Vienna and Paris there is a similar intention.
In the Arbeiter-Zeitung (Vienna), Bebel's contributions from Germany are of particular importance. I never make up my mind about any point relating to German party tactics before having read Bebel's views on the subject, either in the Arbeiter-Zeitung or in one of his letters. He is wonderfully perspicacious. It's a pity that only Germany is known to him from his own observation. This week's article, 'Deutschland ohne Bismarck', is also by him.
You will have had Time (sent a week ago today)[3] containing my first article on Russian policy.b
My nerves are settling down a bit now that I have turned almost teetotal; in fact, I shall have to go on restricting myself until the autumn. Schorlemmer is still a total abstainer. He and I send our cordial regards to you and your wife. He is staying here over Easter and will go back to Manchester on Monday. Sam Moore is getting on well in Africa;c in a year's time he will be coming home on 6 months' leave.
Your
F. E.
268. Engels to Conrad Schmidt 12 April
Dear Schmidt,
I am precluded today by lack of time from replying save very briefly to your letters of 25.2 and 1.4, but as the second requires an early answer,[631] I must get on with it today.
I realised as much as a year ago that I should require help with Marx's mss. I therefore proposed that Ede — i.e. Bernstein — and Kautsky should assist me with these, needless to say not without remu-neration, and both accepted. Well, so far I have had from Kautsky a copy of part of the ms. of Book IV, mentioned in the preface to Volume II[632]; he has got quite adept at reading the handwriting and still devotes some of his spare time to this. Now there is, in fact, a possibility that he will be leaving London for good, i.e. at any rate for a few years, but in that case, as has already been agreed, his place will probably be taken by Ede, particularly in view of the fact that, though his position might change should the Anti-Socialist Law[52] expire and not be renewed, he might still not be able to return to Germany there and then. As things stand at present, therefore, I could not offer you any real prospect of work in this sphere; but in six months things can change a lot, and I shall be all the happier to bear your kind offer in mind in that I am anxious to familiarise as many properly qualified people as possible with Marx's handwriting — something that can't be done without teach-ers, of whom I am the only one. For if I were to kick the bucket, as might happen any day, these mss. would otherwise be a book sealed with seven seals and would be subject to guesswork rather than a correct reading. So if a situation should arise in which I lost my present collaborators or otherwise obtained a free hand in this respect, I should at once apply to you and can only hope that you would then still feel inclined to accept; perhaps you will succeed in coming over here notwithstanding and, once you were in this country, much might easily be arranged which, from a distance, appears difficult.
Our electoral victory[3] was indeed astonishing and the success it scored in the outside world was no less glorious. Bismarck's victories may have earned us — i.e. the Germans generally — respect as soldiers, but have tended rather to diminish the respect for our personal characters qua Germans; the boot-licking of the bourgeois has seen to the rest: Germans fight well if well commanded, but commanded they must be— never any question of independence, of character, of ability to resist tyranny. Since the elections this has changed. People have seen that the German bourgeoisie and the Junkers do not constitute the German nation; the brilliant victory of the workers after 10 years of oppression, and while subject to that oppression, has impressed people more than Königgrätz and Sedan.[633] The world knows that it was we who over-threw Bismarck, and the socialists of all countries are now aware that, like it or not, the movement's centre of gravity has shifted to Germany. Nor, after all I have experienced, am I at all afraid that our workers will not show themselves equal to this new position. The more recently recruited elements may not yet be sufficiently versed in the correct tactics, but that is something they will soon learn and, whatever is left undone by their older comrades-in-arms, the government will, in its wisdom, surely make good. The attitude adopted by the whole of our press towards the famous edicts[609] shows how much spade-work the Anti-Socialist Law had done in this particular. Once bitten twice shy— and something which, in 1878, might for a time have had a somewhat disruptive effect, now cuts absolutely no ice whatever. I know that there are people, even within the new group,b who would gladly go half way to meet the amiability manifested towards the workers from on high, but they would be voted down as soon as they opened their mouths. Puttkamer was quite right — the Anti-Socialist Law has had an enormous 'educative effect', but not in the way he supposed.
Have you seen a review of your book by Achille Loria of Siena,(1) in Conrad's Jahrbücher} It was sent me from Italy — maybe indirectly by Loria himself. I know the said Loria; he was over here and he also corresponded with Marx. He speaks German and writes it as in his article— that is to say, badly — and he is the most consummate careerist I have ever met. At one time he believed that world redemption lay in small-scale peasant landownership, but whether he still does, I cannot say. He writes one book after another and plagiarises with an effrontery that would not be possible outside Italy — even in Germany. For instance, a few years ago he wrote a little book(2) in which he proclaimed Marx's materialist conception of history as bis most recent discovery, and sent the thing to me\ When Marx died, he wrote and sent me an article[1]* in which he maintained that, 1. Marx had based his theory of value on a sophism which he himself had recognised as such (un sofisma consa-putoc) and 2. Marx had never written Book III of Capital, nor had he ever intended to write it, but had merely referred to it in order to pull everyone's legs, and knowing full well that the solutions he had promised were quite impossible! Despite all rebuffs and incivilities'[1] I can never be quite sure that he will not again pester me with letters or packages; the chap's impertinence knows no bounds. Kind regards,
Yours,
F. Engels
269. Engels to Laura Lafargue 16 April
My dear Laura,
At last! a free hour to write a line to you. I am pestered almost to death with letters, verbal and other applications of all sorts, and wish I could shut myself off for a month or so — for I find it impossible to reply to all my letters, much less to do any serious work.
Many thanks for the kind wishes in your poem but I am afraid the Lord on high and the lord below will settle my hash for me some day and find me a place somewhere. But that need not trouble us now.
And now a little business:
1) Will you give me Longuet 's address? 2) Will Paul procure me the title, publisher's name, etc. of a pocket edition (cheap) of the Code Napoléon[634] as at present in force, for Sam Moore? (les cinq codes suffiront, civil, procédure civile, pénal, procédure criminelle, de commerce[1]) and price.
3) Enclosed a bill found in last lot of French newspapers.
The Parisian workmen are acting indeed as if they had but one purpose to live for, and that is to prove how utterly undeserved was their revolutionary reputation. It's all very well for Paul to repeat over and over again that they are Boulangists out of pure opposition against the bourgeoisie — but so were those who voted for Louis Bonaparte, and what would our Parisians say if the German workmen, to spite Bismarck and the bourgeoisie, threw themselves blindfold in the arms of young William? It is plainly cutting off your nose to spite your face, and the Parisians have still so much left of their former esprit that they can still back up the worst of all possible causes by the best of all possible reasons.
No, the cause of this surfeit of Boulangism lies deeper. It is Chauvinism. The French Chauvins, after 1871, resolved that history should stand still until Alsace was reconquered. Everything was made subordinate to that. And our friends never had the courage to stand up against this absurdity. There were fellows at the Citoyen and Qr'f who howled with the masses against everything German, no matter what, and our friends submitted to that. The consequences are there. The only excuse for Boulangism is la revanche, Alsace reconquered. What not one party in Paris ever dared to oppose, is it a wonder that the Parisian workmen now cling to as a gospel?
But in spite of French patriots, history did not stand still — only France did, after the fall of McMahon.[198] And the necessary consequence of this French patriotic aberration is that the French workmen are now the allies of the Czarb against not only Germany, but against the Russian workmen and revolutionists too! In order to preserve to Paris the position of revolutionary centre, the revolution must be crushed in Russia, for how to reconquer, without the help of the Czar, the leading position belonging to Paris by right?
If the desertion en masse to Boulanger of the French or rather Parisian workmen should cause socialists abroad to consider them as completely déchus? there would be no cause to be astonished. What else can they expect?
Of course, I should not be so hasty in my judgment. This momentary aberration should not lead me to such a conclusion. But it is the third time that such an aberration recurs since 1789 — the first time Napoleon No. I, the second time Napoleon No. 3 was carried to the top by that wave of aberration, and now it's a worse creature than either — but fortunately the force of the wave, too, is broken. Anyhow, we must apparently come to the conclusion that the negative side of the Parisian revolutionary character — chauvinistic Bonapartism — is as essential to it as the positive side, and that after every great revolutionary effort, we may have a recrudescence of Bonapartism, of an appeal to a saviour who is to destroy the vile bourgeois qui ont escamoté la révolution et la république^ and in whose traps the naïfs ouvrierf have fallen — because, being Parisians, they know everything from birth and by birth, and need not learn like vulgar mortals.
So I shall welcome any revolutionary spurt the Parisians may favour us with, but shall expect them to be again volés[1] afterwards and then fly to a miracle-performing saviour. For action I hope and trust the Parisians to be as fit as ever, but if they claim to lead with regard to ideas, I shall say thank you.
«1
By the bye Boulanger is so deep down now that the other day Frank Rosher who was in Jersey on business — a boy of 22, and the most conceited snob in London — called on him and was received courteously
wmmmmmttmmÈi
c the 1st ot May i i t disappoint the expectations of our
French friends, I it turns ont a success in Ms, it fill k a heavy h of
i to tue M b i t s and may mark tie beginning of an awakening from
Boukngism. Tie 1st May resolution was tie test our congress took.
473
It prows our power all over tie world, is a letter revival of tie
rnational than I formal attempts at reorganization, and slows agi
270. Engels to Vera Zasulich 17 April
482 Letters-1890
'. et L.
Pine
mm
i&t) Uli Ft Ëfl|Çl?i Reproduced from the orieinal
and in Russian in:
lte 1 By the bye Boulanger is so deep down now that the other day Frank Rosher who was in Jersey on business — a boy of 22, and the most conceited snob in London — called on him and was received courteously and both assured each other of their mutual bienveillance et protection*]
I hope the 1st of May will not disappoint the expectations of our French friends. If it turns out a success in Paris, it will be a heavy blow to the Possibilists and may mark the beginning of an awakening from Boulangism. The 1st May resolution was the best our congress took.[473]
It proves our power all over the world, is a better revival of the International than all formal attempts at reorganization, and shows again which of the two congresses[478] was representative.
I am afraid I shall not be able to take one of your two dogs. The one is a bitch and Nim objects firmly to have again to do the massacre of the innocents, and the other is a pointer, id est a sporting dog, and there are most absurd laws here with regard to them — I could not take him out to Hampstead without being stopped by the police as a potential poacher; that is the reason why pointers, fox-hounds, setters, etc. are kept only for real sporting purposes and never, as with us on the continent, for private amusement. Voilà ce que c'est que de vivre dans un pays aristocratique}'
In Germany we shall have to keep the 1st May as quiet as possible. The military has strict orders to interfere at once and not to wait for requisi-tion from the civil authorities, and the secret police — on the point of being discharged — are straining every nerve to provoke a collision. In fact if the telegrams just to hand by Reuter are worth anything, they are beginning already and have found a few anarchists to provoke some 'outrages'.
Nim says she can't come, her gardening days are over. She has rheumatism in the hip-joint — not much, but there it sticks.
By the bye our Paris friends seem to go all to pieces. There is the Parti socialiste—a paper to work the Municipal elections, that I can conceive as a rational purpose. But then there is Okecki's Autonomie, and then a daily paper, the Combat in Boyer's hands, and now Guesde wants to organize a lithographic correspondence — why this looks like an attempt at gaspillagec—they all cry after a daily paper and now they have one they don't seem to use it — or are they all at sixes and sevens? I cannot make it out.
Ever yours,
F. Engels
270
ENGELS TO VERA ZASULICH635
IN MORNEX (FRANCE)
London, 17 April 1890 122 Regent's Park Road, N. W.
My dear Citizen,
When I read Beck's article, I had a feeling it might anger you and your friends, and I told Bernstein that, in his place, I would not have published such twaddle. To this, his answer was that he felt he had no right to suppress an article which did, after all, express the views of a fair number of young Russians, people who had no other organ in which to reply, for the benefit of Sozialdemokrat readers, to the article which had preceded it, and that what he had chiefly in mind was to give you an opportunity to answer those criticisms; he added that he would naturally, and with the greatest pleasure, print any reply you cared to send him.[636]
The position of the Sozialdemokrat vis-à-vis the Russians in the West is somewhat delicate. Needless to say, the paper looks upon you as the allies and particular friends of the German movement, but other socialist groups can also lay claim to some measure of consideration. If they are to communicate with German working men, they are more or less obliged to write to the Sozialdemokrat; should that paper refuse them its hospitality? To do so would be to meddle in the internal affairs of the Russians — something to be avoided at all costs. Consider the internal struggles of the French and Danish Socialists; for as long as it was able, i.e. so long as it was not itself called in question, the
271. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge 19 April
Sozialdemokrat maintained its neutrality vis-à-vis the Possibilitsts,[19] as it has continued to do vis-à-vis the two Danish parties, although its sympathies lie entirely with the 'revolutionary' side.[418] And the same thing applies to the Russians; Bernstein has never harboured any ill-will whatsoever towards you, of that you may be assured, but he has an exaggerated sense of justice and equity; and rather than perpetrate one injustice against an enemy or a man he finds uncongenial, he will sooner perpetrate ten against his friends and allies; all his friends criticise him for an impartiality so excessive that it ends up as bias against his allies. This is why he always tends to give the enemy the benefit of the doubt.
Add to that the fact that we are all very much in the dark as regards the various, and far from immutable, groupings which occur among the Russians in the West, so that we are liable at any given moment to drop a brick. Bernstein is much better informed than I am, having had at least some first-hand experience of this kind of thing in Zurich, whereas I, on the contrary, did not know so much as the names, or even suspect the existence of the journals you cite.[637] Bernstein tells me that, in Beck's letter, he detects the accents of Lavrov's followers — whether rightly or wrongly, I do not know — but this was one of the reasons which induced him to publish the letter.
He also told me that he had arranged for a translation of Plekhanov's preface to be sent him from Paris so that he might print it in its entirety; it had arrived, he said, and would appear as soon as possible. He arranged this as soon as he got Beck's letter, which can only mean that he intended to take advantage of its publication to give Plekhanov another say. I would now suggest that you write a reply to Beck — in French, if you so wish — and send it to me or else direct to the Sozialdemokrat (address 4 Corinne Road, Tufnell Park, London N.). While you, for your part, may know the said Mr Beck who, outside Russian circles, is quite unknown, and while you may regard entering into debate with him as a somewhat demeaning occupation, this is, after all, the sort of unpleasantness to which one is all too often compelled to submit, as I am only too well aware.
I know from experience what an upheaval is like when it takes place, as now, in the bosom of a small community of the Russians in the West. Everyone knows everyone else, having had with them personal relations of a friendly or hostile nature and, as a result, any development — accompanied as it inevitably is by divisions, schisms and controversies — will assume a wholly personal character. Such things are inherent in any political emigration, and we had our fill of them between 1849 and 1860. But what I also learned is that the first party to have the moral fibre to rise above that atmosphere of personalities, to refuse to let itself be dominated by the influence of such squabbles, will find itself in consequence at a considerable advantage as compared with the rest. The less vulnerable you are to pinpricks of this kind, the better will you be able to preserve your strength and husband your time for the great struggle. Come to that, what harm can it do you if an article by Beck or by someone else appears in the Sozialdemokrat, provided you can be sure of being able to reply to it fairly and squarely? It would, after all, be impossible to close the columns of the entire Socialist press in the West to your Russian adversaries; and it would surely be to the advantage of the Russian movement itself if it ran its course somewhat more openly before the wider public in the West, rather than covertly, in small, isolated circles which, for that very reason, become hotbeds of intrigue and conspiracy. To inveigle his adversaries out into the open, into the light of day, and to attack them in full view of the public, was one of Marx's most powerful and most frequently used ploys when confronted by clandestine intrigue.
If you wish to rob your enemies of all desire to swagger in front of the German Socialists, your best way would be to contribute regularly to the Sozialdemokrat and the Neue Zeit. Once the identity of your views with those of the Germans has been thoroughly established and recognised, let the others say what they will — no one will heed them. I am sure that contributions from you would be welcomed with open arms, and was delighted to hear that Plekhanov's article on Chernyshevsky was to appear in the Neue Zeit.
My cordial regards to Plekhanov, as also to yourself.
Yours very sincerely,
F. Engels
Bernstein is an excellent chap as regards both intelligence and character, but it is typical of him that the measure of the esteem in which he holds you should be the number of attacks he permits others to make upon you in the Sozialdemokrat; the greater his respect for you, the more anxious he is to appear impartial where you are concerned.
271
ENGELS TO FRIEDRICH ADOLPH SORGE237
IN HOBOKEN
London, 19 April 1890
Dear Sorge,
I get the Nationalist regularly but unfortunately there's not much in it. Just feeble reflections of our Fabians[176] over here. Dreary and shallow as Dismal Swamp,[63]* but pleased as Punch about the magnanimous magnanimity with which they, eddicated middle-class folk, condescend to emancipate the workers who, however, are expected in return to be sweetly submissive and kowtow obediently to the eddicated cranks and their isms. Let them enjoy their little pleasure while they may; one fine day the movement will efface all this. Indeed, we continentals are at an advantage in that this sort of thing would not be possible in our case because of the very different effect the French Revolution has had on us.
Today I am also sending you The People's Press, which, so far as reports on the new Trades Unions are concerned, has now taken the place of the Labour Elector. The latter, as you will have seen, no longer carries any factual news because the workers flatly refuse to have anything further to do with it. Not that this prevents Burns, Mann and others (particularly some of the dockers) from consorting a great deal with Champion on the sly and allowing themselves to be influenced by him. The People's Press is edited by a very youthful Fabian named Dell, the second in command being the parson Morris; both, from what I have heard so far, are decent people and most obliging to the gas workers. The
272. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge 30 April
(secret) leader of the gas workers is Tussy and the union is, to all appear-ances at any rate, far and away the best of the lot.[565] The dockers have been spoiled by the philistines' subventions and are anxious not to blot their copybook with the bourgeois public. Moreover, their secretary, Tillett, is the mortal enemy of the gas workers, whose secretary he vainly strove to become. The dockers and gas workers, large numbers of whom are dockers in the summer and gas workers in winter, really belong together; hence the latter proposed an agreement whereby anyone who was a member of one of the two Unions should not, on changing his job, be forced to join the other. So far this has been rejected by the dockers, who demand that a gas worker who turns docker in the spring should pay his joining fee and membership dues. Hence a lot of unpleasantness. Altogether the dockers are putting up with the hell of a lot from their Executive. The Gas Workers and General Labourers take in all the unskilled workers, and in Ireland the agricultural day labourers are also flocking to join it — to the annoyance of Davitt, who has progressed no further than Henry George and considers, though quite without reason, his domestic Irish policy to be threatened.[639] Here in London, the gas workers south of the Thames have been thoroughly trounced by the South Metropolitan Gas Co.,[577] that was all to the good, as they were getting altogether much too cocky and thought they could carry everything before them; in Manchester they suffered a like fate and now they are calming down and starting to consolidate the organisation and fill its coffers. In the Union Tussy represents the girls and women of Silvertown (India Rubber, etc., Works) whose strike she led,[549] and will probably soon take her seat on the London Trades Council.[587]
In a country such as this, with an old political and labour movement, there will always be a vast accumulation of traditionally received rubbish to be gradually got rid of. There are the prejudices, all of which need to be broken down, of the skilled Unions — Engineers, Bricklayers, Carpenters, Joiners, Type Compositors, etc., the petty jealousies between individual trades which, fomented in word and deed by the leaders, are surreptitiously exacerbated to the point of outright enmity and strife; there are the incompatible ambitions and the intrigues of the leaders — this one wants to get into Parliament, so does that, the other wants to get on to the County Council[451] or the School Board, yet another to establish the universal centralisation of all workers, and another still to found a newspaper, a club, etc., etc.,—in short, there are endless causes of friction; and, in the midst of it all, the Socialist League,[21] contemptuous of everything that is not downright revolutionary (which means here in England as with you in America, everything that's not confined to spouting hot air to the exclusion of everything else), and the Federation,[62] which continues to behave as if, except for itself, there were nothing but fools and bunglers, even though the modicum of support it is regaining is due solely to the vigour of the new movement. In short, anyone who merely considered the surface of things would say that all was confusion and personal quarrels. But beneath the surface the movement continues, spreading to ever wider strata, for the most part precisely those at the very base of the hitherto inert masses, nor is the day far off when those masses will suddenly discover their identity, when it will dawn on them that it is they who are these vast dynamic masses and, on that day, short work will be made of all the shabby tricks and petty quarrels.
Needless to say, the above details as to persons and momentary differences are solely for your own information and must not on any account be allowed to get into the Volkszeitung. Let this be understood once and for all—for when Schlüter was over here, he more than once demon-strated a tendency to take this sort of thing rather too lightly.
I much look forward to the First of May. In Germany the group in the Reichstag was duty-bound to restrain any excess of zeal. The bourgeois, the political police, whose 'bread and butter' is at stake, the worthy officers — all are itching for mayhem and slaughter and are seeking any pretext to persuade young William[3] that it's never too soon to shoot. But this would completely ruin our game. First we have to get rid of the Anti-Socialist Law,[52] i.e. survive the 30th of September. And after that our prospects in Germany will be much too brilliant for us to wreck them merely for the sake of blowing our own trumpet. Come to that, the parliamentary group's proclamation[640] is bad; it stems from Liebknecht and the nonsense about a 'general strike' was wholly unnecessary. But either way, our people have been so elated by the 20th of February[599] that a certain amount of restraint is necessary if blunders are to be avoided.
In France the First of May might be a turning-point, for Paris at any rate, provided it helps to restore to their right minds the large numbers of working men who have gone over to Boulangism there. For this, our people have only themselves to blame. They have never had the courage to oppose the outcry against the Germans, qua Germans, and now in Paris they are falling victim to chauvinism. Luckily the position is better in the provinces. But abroad people look only to Paris.
If the French sent me their stuff, I would send it on to you. But I think they themselves are ashamed of the things. Well, it's in the French nature—defeat is more than they can stomach. The moment they again have a taste of success, all will suddenly change.
Cordial regards to your wifea and yourself. Likewise to the Schlüters. Schorlemmer returned to Manchester last Monday. We are both of necessity strict abstainers. Quelle horreur^b
272
ENGELS TO FRIEDRICH ADOLPH SORGE
IN HOBOKEN[641]
London, 30 April 1890
Dear Sorge
If, next Sunday, a gigantic demonstration for the eight hour day takes place here in London, this will be thanks only to Tussy and Aveling. Tussy represents her Silvertown working women on the council of the Gasworkers' and General Labourers' Union and enjoys so much popularity on that Council that no one calls her anything but our mother. The gas workers — the best of the new Unions — were greatly in favour of the 8 hours demonstration for, besides having fought for and secured an 8 hour day for themselves, they had also learnt how insecure in practice is such an achievement, liable as it is to being reversed by the capitalists
"Katharina Sorge - b How awful!
at the first opportunity; for the gas workers as for the Miners, the main thing is that it should be legally established.
Thus it was the gasworkers and the Bloomsbury Socialist Society[642]
(the best section, which seceded from the Socialist League 2 years ago and of which Lessner, Tussy and Aveling are members) who initiated the thing, and obtained a strong following among the smaller Trades Unions and the Radical Clubs,[22] which are increasingly splitting up into socialist working men's clubs and middle-class Gladstonian clubs. In all sincerity, they approached the London Trades Council[587] and suggested they take part in the proposed demonstration in Hyde Park. That body (next year it, too, will be in our hands), consisting mainly of representatives of the old skilled Trades Unions, realised that there was no avoid-ing the thing and attempted to gain control of it by a coup de main.
In collusion with the Social Democratic Federation[62] (Hyndman), they applied to the Commissioner of Works and reserved Hyde Park for the 4th of May, something the others had as yet failed to do. For whenever a large meeting is to be held in the park, prior notice must be given to the Commissioner of Works, who then stipulates how many platforms may be erected, etc. Since the regulations also prohibit the holding of any other meeting at the same time on the same day, these gentlemen imagined they now had the upper hand and, having monopolised the park, would be able to order the original committee about.[643] They had applied for 7 platforms, intending to allow the Social Democratic Federation to have two of them — thus, or so they thought, preserving a semblance of impartiality towards the socialists while at the same time gaining a socialist ally.
Hence they decided that only Trades Societies, not political associations (thus excluding the clubs), were to parade with banners and provide speakers. They edited the resolution, omitting all mention of the legal 8 hours day and referring only to the 8 hours to be striven for by means of Trades Union action. Not till they had arranged the procession, the routes to be taken, etc., did they call a meeting of delegates — of Trades Societies only. When this took place, 1. Tussy was not admitted on the grounds that she was not herself employed in the calling she represented! (and yet Mr Shipton, the secretary of the Trades Council, hasn't done a hand's turn in his trade for 15 or 16 years!!) 2. An amend-ment calling for the re-introduction of the legal 8 hours day into the resolution was not allowed to be put to the vote or debated—this matter having already been settledl 3. The delegates were given plainly to understand that the Trades Council was the man in possession, that the
273. Engels to August Bebel 9 May
Park was his for the 4th of May, and if they did not like it they could leave it alone.
Much wrath and consternation among the delegates of the original committee. The following day the tables were turned, however. Aveling went to the commissioner of Works and told him that, unless the original committee were simultaneously awarded a sufficient number of platforms, there would be a set-to; luckily the Tories are in power (the Liberals would have prevaricated and conceded nothing) and cannot afford to make any more enemies amongst the workers — Aveling was awarded seven platforms, and now it was the turn of the gentlemen on the Trades Council to eat humble pie, for a clash at this juncture would really have shown how weak they were.
Our committee then buckled to, settling the details of its plans and of the routes to be taken by the procession — these it published forthwith— and thus was first to be ready. Yesterday Aveling and Shipton met and so arranged matters as to preclude all possibility of a clash, which means that Sunday's meeting will be one of the biggest there has ever been.
You may get this published in the Volkszeitung and also in the Workmen's Advocate; I should be only too pleased if it were to come back to the gentlemen in English from America.
I am now sending you a few Stars, which will be comprehensible to you in the light of the above (NB each article as a rule contains news emanating both from our side and from the other lot, in addition to that obtained by the reporters themselves, all of it lumped together indis-criminately).
Further, the May number of Time. Also a bundle of Combats (belongs to us, Guesde editor-in-chief) and with them the Vienna Arbeiter-Zeitung. The object of the threats of expulsion in Bebel's article[644] is Schippel — one of the chief intriguers and a great adept in sharp practice, whom Liebknecht discovered several years ago and introduced into the party but now mortally detests. Luckily Schippel is a coward, like Hyndman.
This is our first major victory in London and it shows that we now have the masses behind us in this country too. Four strong branches of the Social Democratic Federation, which is to have two platforms of its own, will be marching with us and are represented on our committee. The same applies to many of the skilled trades — the old, traditional leaders side with Shipton and the Trades Council — the majority with us. The whole of the East End is on our side. The masses over here, though not yet socialist, are well on the way there and have already got to the stage of wanting to have only socialist leaders. The Trades Council is the only labour organisation of note to be still anti-socialist but already includes a socialist minority and, the moment the gas workers — who so far have been kept at arm's length by all manner of little ruses — get into it, things will begin to move fast. I feel convinced that, after the 4th of May, the movement here will take on an altogether different character, and then you will hear more about Tussy's public activities. We have shown the intriguers of the Trades Council and the Social Democratic Federation that we are a match for their wiles and ruses and, much though the chaps hate us, they cannot deny the facts. The English proletariat would now at long last appear to be entering the movement en masse and, should this be the case, all the petty intrigues, swindlers and would-be bigwigs will, by this time next year, either have been relegated to the modest position that is their due or else swept away.
Another edition of the Manifesto* is now printing; we want to bombard Germany with another 5,000 copies before the demise of the Anti-Socialist Law.[52]
A superb spring day. In a week's time the gilliflowers, white and pink may, laburnum and apple blossom will be out — the cherry trees have already been in flower for 5 days.
I trust you and your wife will keep well — cordial regards to you both.
Your
F. E.
Did you know that the Labour Elector had gone bust? It sold 23,000 copies during the dockers' strike,[429] but was spoilt by Tory money.b
273
ENGELS TO AUGUST BEBEL
IN PLAUEN NEAR DRESDEN
London, 9 May 1890
Dear Bebel,
Thank you for your news from Zurich — I am glad that we should have arrived at the same opinion in regard to this point too.[645] Your corroboration was of particular importance to me, the likes of us being so dependent in matters of this sort upon conclusions that are inade-quately founded as to feel reluctant to use those unreliable conclusions as a basis for further inferences, let alone actions, without corroboration from an authoritative quarter.
My hearty congratulations to you and your wife on your daughter's engagement.* The fact that it will eventually mean her emigrating to America is certainly most unpleasant for you, though for me it might have the agreeable consequence of our some day making a trip together across the Atlantic. What do you feel about it? I am firmly convinced that you would get over your sea-sickness within 2 or 3 days and quite possibly for good and all. And a sea voyage of that kind is an invaluable antidote to wear and tear — even now, almost two years later, I can still feel the beneficial effects of my jaunt. Moreover, Zadek claims to have discovered a sure remedy for sea-sickness (anti-pyrin is said to be excellent) and, according to medical opinion, only 2 or 3 per cent of all human beings are unable to get used to the motion within 2 or 3 days. So consider the matter.
If you find my articleb wanting in logic, the fault lies probably more with me than with Bios. To compress such a lengthy and complex matter into less than 2 printed sheets is a difficult feat and I am aware that there are all too many passages in which the thread gets lost and the reasoning is inadequate. In the event of my going into the subject — which is of the greatest importance to us — in rather more detail, some critical notes from you would be very welcome indeed just brief indications as to where you lost the thread and bow you think it got snarled up.
274. Engels to Laura Lafargue 10 May
Well, no doubt the bourgeoisie will everywhere have had time enough to sweat out the fear inspired in them by the First of May and to wash the linen they dirtied in consequence. The Daily News correspondent in Berlin, one of the most vociferous Jeremiahs, complained on the First of May that the workers had made April fools of all and sundry, nor, until 4 days later, did the truth dawn on him that, despite the workers having insistently declared beforehand that all they wanted was a peaceable demonstration, no one had believed them.
You did perfectly right in so arranging things as to preclude the possibility of clashes. After 20 February[599] there is no longer any need for the German workers merely to kick up a row. Under the circumstances Germany was bound to make a more modest showing on the First of May than the others did, and no one thought the worse of you for that, either here or in France. But there is, I think, one lesson to be drawn from the Schippel business,[646] namely the need to ensure that, next time there's an interregnum between the general elections and the convocation of the Reichstag, the leadership of the parliamentary group is either empowered to continue functioning as before, or is expressly reinstated in office by the newly elected representatives for the period of the interregnum. It could then confidently intervene and also act, if necessary, while the gentlemen in Berlin, who would like to behave Paris-fashion, as though they were natural party leaders, would not be given the opportunity of throwing their weight about prematurely. Always providing that, after 1 October,[52] the organisation stays as it is.
Over here the demonstration on 4 May[647] was quite overwhelming, as the entire bourgeois press actually had to admit. I was on platform 4 (a heavy goods waggon) and could only see part — a fifth, say, or an eighth — of the crowd, but it was one vast sea of faces, as far as the eye could reach. Between 250,000 and 300,000 people, about 3/4 of them demonstrating workers. Aveling, Lafargue and Stepniak spoke from my platform — I was just an onlooker. Lafargue, with his mixture of south-ern vivacity and excellent English — if spoken with a strong French accent — elicited a storm of applause. So did Stepniak, while Ede, who was on the same platform as Tussy, was accorded a stunning reception. Each of the 7 platforms was 150 metres away from the next, the last ones being 150 metres from the edge of the park,(1) so that our meeting (the one in favour of international legal enforcement of an 8 hours working day)
occupied an area more than 1,200 metres in length and at least 400-500 metres in breadth, the whole being absolutely jam-packed, while beyond it were the 6 platforms of the Trades Council[587] and the 2 of the Social Democratic Federation,[62] but with audiences barely half the size of ours. All in all, the biggest meeting that has ever been held here.
And, what's more, a stunning victory, particularly for us. You will have read the details in Ede's report in the Volksblatt.MS The Trades Council and the Social Democratic Federation had, or so they thought, done us out of the park for that day, but they were bilked. Aveling persuaded the Commissioner of Public Works to allow us to have 7 platforms in the park as well, though this was, in effect, contrary to regulations. But luckily the Tories were in power and he succeeded in intimi-dating them by saying that our people would otherwise storm the other lot's platforms. And our meeting was the biggest, the best organised and the most enthusiastic. The vast majority here are already in favour of an eight hours law. Aveling and, even more so, Tussy organised the whole thing, and their position in the movement is now altogether different from what it was. The Union of Gasworkers and General Labourers[565]—by far the best of the new trade societies — supported them manfully nor, without them, would the thing have been possible. Now it behoves us to keep together the committee that organised our meeting — delegates of Trades Unions, and of radical and socialist clubs — and to make it the centre of the movement over here.[643] The first moves towards this end will probably be made tonight. Of one thing we may be certain: the workers, the bourgeoisie, the heads of the old, rotten Trades Unions and of the many political and social sects and sub-sects, and the careerists, place-seekers and men of letters intent on exploiting the movement, are well aware that the real socialist mass movement began on the fourth of May. Now the masses are at last on the move and, after a few battles and a certain amount of wavering to and fro, will, just as it happened in Germany, put an end to the personal ambitions and attempts at exploitation of the careerists and to the rivalries of the sects, and will relegate every man to his proper place. And since an international mentality will evolve very strongly in the process, you will soon discover what stuff your new allies are made of. All that the English do in the way of action, agitation or organisation shows that they are much more akin to us than the French, and once everything has got going along the right lines here and the internal friction, unavoidable at the start, has been overcome, you will be able to march alongside these people in truly fine style. What wouldn't I give for Marx to have witnessed this awakening, he who, on this self-same English soil, was alive to the minutest symptom! You people can have no conception of the pleasure I have experienced during the past fortnight. And things are coming thick and fast. First Germany in February, then the First of May there and in America, and now this Sunday when, for the first time in 40 years, the voice of the English proletariat rang out once again. I carried my head a couple of inches higher as I climbed down from the old goods waggon.
Regards to your wife* and Singer,
Your
F.E.
274
275. Engels to Paul Lafargue 21 May
My dear Laura,
Only a few lines this busy Saturday — I am awfully behindhand with my correspondence — to thank you for your card and to enclose the £20 cheque I promised Paul. I also send you the People's Press with report of Sunday last.[650] It was tremendous. England at last is stirring, and no mistake. And it was a great victory for us specially, for Tussy and Aveling THAN ONCE TO PUBLISH THE ARTICLE OF MR LAFARGUE BUT IN VAIN; OUR CENSORS ARE TOO SEVERE ... EXCUSE ME THAT I SEND YOU PER NEXT POST THE MS.; I DO NOT SEND IT DIRECT TO THE AUTHOR SINCE I AM NOT SURE THAT HE RECEIVES MY LETTERS. I HAVE WRITTEN TO HIM TWICE, IN MARCH AND IN APRIL, IN ANSWER TO HIS KIND SENDING.'[652]
Have you had his letters ? I shall send you the MS as soon as I get it. You would be well-advised to let him have another, non-suspect, address in Paris where he could send his letters for you, and also not to put your name to your own letters. That is what I do myself, and our correspondence has never been interrupted by such mishaps.
It's good that your Eight Hours Committee should continue to function — we are doing the same thing here, the Legal Eight Hour Day League is in process of formation, the Committee,[643] in particular, will continue to function, and new societies (among them branches of the DOCKERS Union) are affiliating themselves. Since the question is a completely practical and straightforward one, it might, perhaps, bring back those of your adherents who defected to Boulanger's camp two years ago. By a strange quirk of history the Parisians, after having upset their digestions with grandiloquent phrases dubbed ideas, have now been reduced to a diet of 'DR RIDGE'S FOOD FOR INFANTS', the eight hour day, and suchlike easily digested stuff.
The end of the Boulange(1) is comic indeed. Having been given a kick by universal suffrage, the gallant general passes it on to his 'committee'[653] so that there may be no intermediary between himself and universal suffrage!
Rumour has it that Frank Rosher's visit gave him the coup de grâce.b
After that, he could sink no lower.
Is Laura making preparations to come over here? The month is nearly over.
Give her a kiss from Nim and myself.
Yours,
F. E.
Martignetti has been acquitted.
276. Engels to Pasquale Martignetti 24 May
[Dear friend,]
[Many] congratulations on your [acquit] tal! What joy for you and your [family, who] must have suffered no less [than yo]u did yourself! I immediately wrote a [note o]f thanks to A.L [abriola] and also asked him to thank Lollini.
Now you will be embarking on a new existence, and doing so better and more hopefully than you would have been able to do on the other side of the Atlantic.
Yours sincerely yours, E E.
277. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge 29 May
Dear Sorge,
Have received letters of 30 April and 15 May, likewise Volkszeitung containing passage from my letter.[3] Your statement will be appearing in the Sozialdemokrat^^ but, when I arrived at the office with your statement yesterday, I found that they already had it there, in print in the Berliner Volksblatt. So Schlüter had sent it off before. That's what I call Schlüter's excess of zeal and what tends to be a bit embarrass-ing to a chap like me when he turns up at a newspaper office with an allegedly brand new ms. only to find the thing has already appeared in another paper. Not that I've had any other indiscretions to complain of since he's been in America, but I know him from days of yore.
I must now burden you with another piece of gossip about Schlüter which I would not otherwise have thought worth mentioning. But Motteler, a mortal enemy of Schlüter's, who was also responsible for Schlüter's leaving here, has recounted his version of the affair to Jonas and so it is necessary for you, at any rate, to know the true story.
Motteler is a crib-biter of the first water and is very difficult to get on with; he's a faux bonhomme," a Swabian and an unrecognised genius who feels he has been downgraded because, though he was at one time solely responsible for managing the Sozialdemokrat and for party affairs abroad, others had to be appointed alongside himself, things having expanded. Not only is he absolutely reliable in money matters, however, but, more important still, he is generally recognised to be so by the whole of the party, and no one would venture to doubt him. In the post of party treasurer abroad, therefore, he is a most valuable man, and the others can only be glad to have been relieved of that responsibility for so long. Well, should anyone he dislikes happen to join the business, the results will be perpetual squabbling and never-ending persecution. That's what happened, first with Derossi and then with Schlüter, both of whom were hounded out by him. He now brings two charges against Schlüter — first, that he embezzled money. There is absolutely no proof of this save that, in accounts that were over a year old at the time and had already been passed by the auditors, Motteler discovered a sum of 150 marks in respect of which Schlüter had failed to provide either proof of payment or a signed receipt. No one in Germany or over here, save for Motteler, cares a rap about this, for the sums paid out by Motteler himself are said frequently to have been certified only by the entries he made, and the way the chaps run the business, while egregiously pedan-tic like everything Motteler does, is far from businesslike and accurate. That Schlüter was careless and guilty of small oversights — which he glossed over in such a way as not himself to be the loser — may well be. But nothing more could be alleged against him.—Again, Schlüter is much given to the pursuit of the Eternal Feminine, and likes variety at that, and it would seem to be a fact that he had flirtations with one or two of the book-binding girls they employed in Zurich and even seduced them. But since there aren't any girls in the business over here, that no longer applied and the only grounds for quarrelling with Schlüter was Motteler's ineradicable dislike of him. That's the whole story and, if Schlüter had only stood up to Motteler a bit more, things might have gradually settled down. We others didn't make anything of it because the affair of the girls had long been a thing of the past, because Motteler himself had refused to have the matter out with Schlüter in the presence of the party's auditors, and because the same thing could not have recurred over here.
So if Jonas should start spreading gossip, you will be in possession of the true facts.
Jonas did indeed come to see me, somewhat embarrassed, but found Tussy and Edward Aveling here (it was just after the Hyde Park meeting)[647] who gave him a very cool reception (on applying to the Central Committee[643] for a journalist's pass for the meeting, Jonas had already been told by Aveling that he hoped the Volkszeitung would be more truthful in its report than heretofore)[3]. So he very soon went away again when the Bernsteins had to leave on account of their children. The more elegantly the man tries to dress, the commoner he looks.
One more thing. For the new edition of the Origin etc.(1) I have got to have Morgan's last work,b but cannot go to the British Museum early enough in the morning to compete for a seat in the Reading Room with the novel-readers. I am therefore sending you the enclosed letter for the department concerned, and two copies of the book. The question now is how these things — the letter and 1 copy — should be conveyed, whether direct to the department or through an intermediary who would vouch for me? Aveling believes that Ely in Baltimore would be glad to oblige. You are better acquainted with the chap, and I shall therefore leave it to you to decide what the best procedure would be. In case you should decide on an intermediary, I have included a second copy for him. I also include a note for Ely in case you think fit to use him as an intermediary.
I am very glad that the Volkszeitung and the Workman's Advocate put in the piece about the preliminaries to the Hyde Park meeting; through doing so they have made possible a rapprochement between the Avelings and the Americans. Even Mr Jonas cannot fail to have realised while here what a blunder he had made when he contented himself with simply parroting the Executive's accusations against Aveling.
The meeting, by the by, did not mark the end of the matter over here. You will have seen from the last People's Press that the Central Committee is remaining in existence and is founding a Legal Eight Hours and International Labour League.[657] The constitution has been drafted and will be submitted on 22 June to a delegates' meeting to which all London labour organisations, radical clubs, etc., have been invited. The constitution demands 1. the implementation of the resolutions of the Paris Congress[473] in so far as these are not yet law in England, 2. such further measures for bringing about the full emancipation of the workers as may be decided upon by the Association, 3. the founding of an independent labour party with its own candidates for all constituencies in which they would stand some chance of getting in. You may publish this.
In the Vienna Arbeiter-Zeitung (by the next post) there is a longish article of mine(2) about the happenings over here.
Cordial regards to your wife,b
Your
F. Engels
1906 and in full in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol.
XXVIII, Moscow, 1940
278. Engels to Paul Ernst 5 June
Dear Sir,
Unfortunately I cannot do as you ask and write a letter to you for use against Mr Bahr.[659] This would involve me in a public polemic with the same, and for that I should literally have to rob myself of my own time. What I am writing to say, therefore, is solely for your private information.
Moreover, what you describe as the northern women's movement is totally unknown to me; all I know is a few of Ibsen's plays, nor could I possibly say whether, or how far, Ibsen can be held responsible for the more or less hysterical lucubrations of middle class and lower middle class female careerists.
Again, the field which we have accustomed ourselves to describe as the woman question is so extensive that nothing of an exhaustive or even moderately satisfactory kind can be said about it within the confines of a letter. But of one thing you may be sure — Marx could never have 'made such a fuss' as Bahr asserts he did. He was not as crazy as that.
As regards your attempt to handle the matter in a materialist way, I should say first of all that the materialist method turns into its opposite if, in an historical study, it is used not as a guide but rather as a ready-made pattern in accordance with which one tailors the historical facts. And if Mr Bahr believes he has caught you out in this respect, it seems to me that he may not be altogether unjustified.
You subsume the whole of Norway and everything that happens there under one category, philistinism, and then unhesitatingly and erro-neously apply to that Norwegian philistinism your opinion of German philistinism. But here there are two facts which present an insuperable obstacle.
Firstly: When, throughout Europe, the victory over Napoleon turned out to be the victory of reaction over the Revolution, the fear inspired by the latter sufficing only in its cradle, France, to wrest a bourgeois-liberal constitution[660] from the returning legitimists, Norway took occasion to give itself a constitution[661] that was far more democratic than any of its coevals in Europe.
And, secondly, Norway has, during the past 20 years, experienced a literary revival unparallelled in any other country during that period save Russia. Philistine or not, this people has been far more creative than all the rest and is, indeed, putting its stamp on other literature, not least the German.
These facts, in my view, render it necessary to examine Norwegian philistinism in the light of its particular characteristics.
And in so doing you will probably find that a very important distinc-tion emerges. In Germany philistinism was born of a failed revolution, a development that was interrupted and repressed. Its idiosyncratic, abnormally pronounced character made up of cowardice, bigotry, inep-titude, and a total lack of initiative, resulted from the Thirty Years War[221]
and the period that ensued — the very time in which practically all the other great nations were experiencing a rapid rise. That character persisted, even after Germany had again been gripped by the historical movement, and was strong enough to imprint itself, more or less as a generalised German type, on all the other social classes in Germany until such time as our working class broke out of these narrow confines. If the German workers are flagrantly 'unpatriotic',[662] it is precisely because they have completely shaken off German philistine bigotry.
Hence German philistinism is not a normal historical phase but a caricature taken to extremes, a form of degeneration, just as your Polish Jew is a caricature of the Jews. The English, French, etc., lower middle class is not at all on the same level as your German lower middle class.
In Norway, on the other hand, the class of small peasants and the lower middle class with a slight admixture of middle class elements — as it existed, say, in England and France in the 17th century — have, for several centuries, constituted the normal state of society. Here there is no question of an archaic state of affairs having been forcibly imposed upon them by the failure of a great movement or by a Thirty Years War. The country has been retarded by its isolation and by its natural circumstances, but its state was commensurate with the conditions of its production, and hence normal. It is only quite recently that large-scale industry has, sporadically and on a very small scale, begun to come into the country, where, however, there is no place for the most powerful lever for the concentration of capital — the stock exchange; and even the tremendous expansion of maritime trade has proved to be a conservative factor. For whereas everywhere else steam is superseding sail, Norway is enormously increasing the number of its sailing vessels and possesses, if not the largest, then certainly the second largest, fleet of windjammers in the world, most of them owned by small and medium-sized shipping firms, as in England in, say, 1720. But nevertheless this has brought some animation into the old, sluggish existence — animation which finds expression in, among other things, the literary revival.
The Norwegian peasant was never a serf, so that the whole process takes place against an entirely different background as in Castile. The lower middle class Norwegian is the son of a free peasant and, such being the case, is a man compared with the degenerate German philistine. And in the same way the Norwegian lower middle class woman is infinitely superior to the German lower middle class wife. And whatever the failings of, for example, Ibsen's plays, these reflect a world which is, it is true, lower middle and middle class, but utterly different from the German world — a world in which people still have character and initiative and act independently if, by the standards of other countries, often eccentrically. Personally, I would prefer to get to know all I could about things of this sort before passing judgment.
But in return to the above-mentioned sheep, namely Mr Bahr, I can only marvel at the fact that people in Germany take each other so terri-bly seriously. Wit and humour seem to be more than ever taboo there, and boredom to be a civic duty. Otherwise you would surely have taken a closer look at Mr Bahr's 'woman' from whom all that is 'historically evolved' has been removed. Her skin is historically evolved, for it must perforce be either white or black, yellow, brown or red — hence she cannot have a human skin. Her hair, whether crinkled or woolly, whether straight or curly, whether black, red or blond, is historically evolved. Hence human hair is forbidden her. What, then, remains after you have removed what is historically evolved along with skin and hair, and 'the woman as such appears'? What is revealed? Simply a female ape, anthropopitheca, and may Mr Bahr take her to bed with him, 'purely tangible and perceptible', together with her 'natural instincts'.
279. Engels to Nikolai Danielson (Nicolai-on) 10 June
My dear sir,
I am in possession of your kind letters of 18th December, 22 January, 24th February and 17th May, as also of Mr. Lafargue's article returned which was sent back to him. I wrote to him(1) that you had written to him twice in March and April but have not had any positive reply as to whether he received these two letters. His wife who is here at present, cannot from memory tell positively. She regrets very much the change of ownership in the Northern Review and desires me to convey to you her and her husband's thanks for your kind efforts in their interest.
Of the 4th edition Capital I am now reading proof-sheets 39-42, there will be less than 50 in all, as the print, though larger, is closer. As soon as out, it will be forwarded to you.
I have had the letters of our authorb you kindly lent me, copied by type-writer (the author's youngest daughter0 did them) and shall now return them to you in a registered letter, unless you instruct me to the contrary.
I thank you very much for your continued and interesting information respecting the economic condition of your great country. Under the smooth surface of political quietude there is as great and as important an economical change going on as in any other European country, to watch which is of the highest interest. The consequences of this economic change must sooner or later develop themselves in other directions too.
We had heard here of the death of N.G.C.d, and with much sorrow and sympathy. But perhaps it is better so.
Many thanks for your congratulations of 24th February — they have rejoiced more than one.[663]
I have been so exceedingly busy, and my eyes, though improving, are still so much affected by reading Russian printing, that I have not as yet been able to read the article in the Statistical Yearbook but shall do so as soon as I find a free moment.[664] The misuse of economic terms, you point out, is a very usual defect of all literatures. Here in England, Rent is applied as well to the payment of the English capitalist farmer to his landlord, as to that of the Irish pauper farmer, who pays a complete tribute composed chiefly of a deduction from his fund of maintenance, earned by his own labour, and only in the smallest consisting of true rent. So the English in India transformed the land-tax paid by the ryot (peasant) to the State into 'rent', and consequently have, in Bengal at least, actually transformed the zamindar (tax-gatherer of the former Indian prince) into a landlord holding a nominal feudal tenure from the Crown exactly as in England, where the Crown is nominal proprietor of all the land, and the great nobles, the real owners, are by juridical fiction supposed to be feudal tenants of the Crown. Similarly when in the beginning of the 17th century the North of Ireland was subjected to direct English dominion, and the English lawyer Sir John Davies found there a rural community with common possession of the land, which was peri-odically divided amongst the members of the clan who paid a tribute to the chief, Davies declared that tribute at once to be 'rent'.[664] Thus the Scotch lairds — chiefs of clans — profited, since the insurrection of 1745, of this juridical confusion, of the tribute paid to them by the clansmen, with a 'rent' for the lands held by them, in order to transform the whole of the clan-land, the common property of the clan, into their, the lairds', private property; for — said the lawyers, if they were not the landlords, how could they receive rent for that land? And thus this confusion of tribute and rent was the basis of the confiscation of all the lands of the Scottish Highlands for the benefit of a few chiefs of clan who very soon after drove out the old clansmen and replaced them by sheep as described in Capital, chapter 24, 2 (p. 754, 3rd edition).b
With kind regards
Yours very faithfully P. W. Rosher.[39]
280. Engels to Hermann Schlüter 14 June
Dear Schlüter,
This is to advise you in much haste that you are welcome to reprint Marx's biography — but I have no time to finish it.[666] You will find material in, inter alia, Marx's obituary in the Sozialdemokrat of March 1883.[666]
Congratulations on becoming 'chief. So far everything is going well over here, as also in Germany, where little Wïllieb is threatening to abolish universal suffrage — what better could befall us! In any case we're heading quite fast enough either for a world war or for a world revolution — or both.
Kind regards to your wife — I'm glad to hear she's in better health than she was over here.
Your
F. E.
281. Engels to Wilhelm Liebknecht 19 June
Dear Liebknecht,
Hardly a minute goes by without a changement de décoration* Schorlemmer has asked me to join him on a cruise in July — a variety of plans have been submitted for my kind consideration. My doctor tells me I must get away as soon as possible and devote this summer to the betterment of my health so as to be up to the mark again when winter comes. I myself have noticed that my bad nights have also been conducive to bad work and that I shall have to break off as soon as possible. So I can't very well reject the plan out of hand.
On the other hand Laura is pressing Lenchen to accompany her on a fortnight's trip to Paris, which would be perfectly feasible during my absence and would do the old lady a power of good.
A further consideration is that your Reichstag is still in session and there's no knowing a fortnight in advance when or whether it will adjourn.
So it could be that in about 10 days' time I shall take myself off for 3 weeks. I shall in any case be back here by 25-26 July and Lenchen probably a few days before that. So if you could arrange your trip in such a way as to arrive after, say, 21 or 22 July, you would find everything ready for you, and a few days later I myself should also be back.
All this is, of course, provisional for the moment, and I shan't be able to tell you anything more definite for a day or two, but I thought it as well to inform you immediately of this circumstance; that I shall go is pretty certain, but there's still some doubt about the details. All that is certain is that I shall be back in London before the end of July and Lenchen before me. None of these plans would keep me away later than the 26th.
So Heligoland is to become German.[667] I really look forward to the outcry of the good Heligolanders, who will fight tooth and nail to prevent their incorporation into the vast barracks of the fatherland. And they have every reason to do so; no sooner has it been annexed than their island will be converted into a large fortress commanding the anchorage to the north-east, and they, poor devils, will be subject to eviction, as though they were so many Irish tenant farmers or, perhaps, Scottish sheep who must make room for deer.
O nay, O nay, enlarge his fatherland they say,(1) yet not one German from without, therein would make his way. A sea-girt Alsace à la Schleswig-Holstein! That was the only prop still lacking in the German imperial force.
Your
F. E.
282. Engels to Natalie Liebknecht 19 June
Dear Mrs Liebknecht,
If I made a reference to your remarks about your being isolated and virtually ostracised in Leipzig, this was perfectly natural. From what you said I was bound to conclude that you found Leipzig insufferable and am glad to learn that such was by no means the case.
As to any other comparison between the merits of Leipzig and the drawbacks of Berlin, this is something I am really unable to discuss, as I don't know the former at all, while the latter are no more than a distant memory and since those days Berlin is said to have improved quite mirac-ulously, or so the Berliners maintain. However I'm perfectly willing to believe you when you say that, from the point of view of family life, Leipzig has immeasurably more to offer than the metropolis of the Brandenburgian Sahara.[668]
All these, I have written to tell Singer and Liebknecht, are matters which everybody must thrash out with himself, his family and the party and in which we outsiders must acquiesce. However I can only say that I am also firmly of the opinion that Liebknecht's place is in Berlin if the party leadership and the party organ are transferred there. Whether or not that happens is not for me to say; I can only express an unauthorita-tive opinion. But should it happen and Liebknecht remain in Leipzig, he would, by so doing, lower himself to the status of a second-class party leader, pension himself off, so to speak, and find himself in a situation in which he could be neither consulted nor heard when an important problem arose — in short, it would be the first step towards resignation and you wouldn't want that.
People like us are tossed around by politics in a quite singular way. When in 1858 Lassalle wanted to bring out a paper with Marx and myself in Berlin, we couldn't actually say no and were prepared to move to the sandy metropolis — fortunately negotiations broke down.[669] And for me that would have meant terminating my contracts with the firm(1) and for us both a removal with much more far-reaching consequences than those of a transition from Leipzig to Berlin. If, therefore, circumstances arise which make your removal to the imperial sand-box unavoidable, you can certainly draw comfort, not only from the belated discovery that life there is bearable after all, but also from the certain knowledge that Liebknecht is thereby assuming the position in the party that is his by right and that he has come to the place where he can do full justice to his position.
At all events this business will be decided before very long and it is my hope that, whatever that decision may be, you will in the long run become reconciled to it.
Kindest regards from Nim, Mme Lafargue, the Roshers and
Yours very sincerely,
F. Engels
283. Engels to Ludwig Kugelmann 30 June
Thank you very much for the many and various items you sent me; I tried to get hold of the no. of the Daily Telegraph[670] but did not succeed, having been unable to tell the chaps on which day the article had appeared; they also said the number had probably been sold out. You never get any information out of clerks over here when it's a question of a transaction to the value of one penny!
Your
F. E.
284. Engels to Wilhelm Liebknecht 30 June
A reply in your own name[672] issued by me would only provoke Mr Hyndman into retorting: it's not Mr Engels' opinion we want, but Liebknecht's own testimony — and, besides, that sort of approach is quite contrary to local custom. As you know, Mr F. Gilles seized on the affair so as to make capital out of it. If you don't wish to write direct to Justice, you should send your reply to The People's Press (editor Robert[1]
Dell), 1 Hare Place, Fleet Street, London, E.C.; I am sending you its latest number.
Searching for lodgings in Berlin must certainly be a pleasant occupation!
Your
R E .
285. Engels to Laura Lafargue 4 July[4 0]
My dear Laura,
I hope you got as safe to Paris as we did to Norway. We had a very quiet passage, though lots of people sick, sighted the coast of Norway yesterday afternoon, and by 6 were between the islands and rocks. Went up the Harvanger Fiord which leads right into the heart of the country, and are now at the farthest point, Odde, where we remain until tomorrow. Had a drive up the valley this morning and only just back; it rained a little, but not enough to spoil the scenery which is grand. The sun set yesterday at 10 and there was no real night, only a rather deep dusk, and red sky in the north. The people are very primitive, but a sound strong handsome race; they understand my Danish but I cannot make much of their Norwegian. Here at this place the invaders coming by this one ship have cleared the place of Norwegian money in change for English, and the post-office of postage stamps.
We sail from here to-morrow and shall on Monday be at Trondheim, a good way farther up north. If the scenery does not get worse than what we saw to-day, I shall be quite satisfied. It is in some respects like Switzerland, in others very different. So far the beer is not what one might expect, but I shall reserve judgment until I have seen the towns. This Odde is about twenty houses, including church, hotel, post-office and skolehus.(1) Everything built of timber, although they have about 1.000.000 times more stone than wood.
Well, I hope Nim is well; enjoying herself, and you and Paul are the same. If Méméb was here, she would have plenty to say about my nase,c
the sun has burnt it so that it cracks at every corner.
So now love to the lot of you and enjoy yourselves.
Ever yours
F. Engels
286. Engels to Hermann Engels 8 July
We're about to sail for North Cape and I don't want to miss sending you a line from Trondheim. Have just eaten the best lobster I've had in my life and there was some very passable beer to go with it; have also seen a big waterfall. We sail at 9 o'clock, calling first at Tromsö and then at North Cape, after which we return via various Norwegian fjords and arrive back in the Thames on the 26th of this month. The weather has been pretty good up till now, though yesterday was wet, but it's fine again today. I like the people pretty well; the girls wear a kerchief on their heads just as at home, and one feels one must have already run into them at some time or another in the Siebengebirge or the Eifel. But my pen is atrocious and it is only with difficulty that I have scrawled my way as far as this.
Much love to Emma and your children, Rudolf, Mathilde, Hedwig, etc.(1)
Your
Friedrich
287. Engels to Wilhelm Liebknecht 22 July
Dear Liebknecht,
Having safely returned to civilised latitudes after our trip to North Cape — Schorlemmer and I left London in the above vessel on the 1st of this month — I hasten to inform you that we shall be back in London on Saturday the 26th inst. And look forward to seeing you as soon as may be. Come straight away if that suits you, since we shall probably be setting off for the seaside shortly afterwards and intend to inveigle you into joining us;[673] that will still leave you some time to do what you have to do in London.
The first news to reach us from the outside world is today pinned up in our vessel and reads: The German Social Democracy will reorganize on October 1st and is preparing a plan of organization to be discussed and adopted at a congress in October.[67]* Otherwise nothing of any importance — but it's enjoyable to be promptly presented with that news.
As young William[3] was favouring Norway with his presence at the same time,[675] I kept as quiet as possible about my itinerary, lest there should be any police chicanery. On our way home we met the fleet in Molde; 'young Hopeful', however, was not present, having gone off gallivanting in a torpedo boat; he sneaked past us in the Geiranger Fjord, much to the annoyance of the middle-class English gang on board our ship, who would have liked to give three cheers for a real live emperor.
While the sailors in the fleet were splendid chaps, the junior officers and midshipmen differed little from the ensigns of the Prussian guards, their every turn of phrase being of the kind we've known from time immemorial; the senior officers we met in the hotel dressed in mufti were quite different and were in no way distinguishable from ordinary civilians. The predominant accents were those of old Prussia. We nearly died of laughter at the sight of two fat admirals sitting squashed together in a minute Norwegian cab (there was barely room in it for one) as they went to pay their calls (Primrose Hill would accommodate the whole of Molde twice over); all one could see from behind were apaulettes and tricorns.
It was a very pleasant and very interesting trip and I liked the Norwegians a great deal. Up in Tromsö we visited the Lapps and their reindeer and in Hammerfest saw piles of dried cod — at first I took it to be firewood — and, at North Cape, the famous midnight sun. But there's nothing one gets sick of more quickly than perpetual daylight when for a solid week there's literally no night at all and it's always quite light when one goes to bed.
We sampled the beer conscientiously right up to 71 degrees of latitude; it was good but not so good as the German stuff, and invariably bottled. Only in Trondheim could one actually get draught beer. Here too, by the way, the legislators are much concerned with temperance and it would seem that sales of Bismarck's spirits have been steadily drop-ping. We shall probably carry out a reconnaissance today to see whether there is a beer hall in Bergen where draught ale may be had.
The train from Gossevangen to Bergen covers 108 kilometres in 4 1/2 hours — 24 kilometres per hour! But it passes through rock of all kinds out of which pretty well the whole line had to be blasted.
Up north on the Svartisen, which is one enormous ice field, we walked on a glacier separated from the sea only by the low moraine, i.e. it drops to approximately 100 feet above sea level.
But now it's time for breakfast and I shall close so as to be able to hand this letter in for posting immediately it is over.
Warm regards to your wife and children and to yourself from Schorlemmer and
Your
F. Engels
288. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge 30 July[676]
Schorlemmer and I are home again after our very delightful and very interesting trip to North Cape and Norway generally and, as from Sunday, I shall be able to start sending stuff to you again and make up for arrears. Morgan* received with many thanks, the more so as Ely's intervention was avoided. It is always disagreeable to be beholden to an intermediary. The relevant lettersb have likewise come back and been destroyed.
The People's Press is also likely to go under in a fortnight's time. It was an attempt by the Fabians[176] to insinuate themselves into the leadership of the movement — at the same time there was much good will but to an even greater extent a lack of journalistic and business experience on the part of the 2 men actually running it,(1) with the result that the whole thing has got into a muddle. There'll be an unpleasant hiatus but it will, I trust, lead to the founding of an organ representative of the new unions.
Those two battles in Leeds were magnificent.[677] It was splendid news to be greeted with on our return.
There is also a social democratic organisation in Bergen, but we had neither the time nor the occasion to look it up; I merely saw in the newspapers that it had its own premises and had applied for a licence to sell beer.
Our trip has done us a power of good. Tussy and Edward are themselves off to Norway next week. Regards from Schorlemmer and
Your
F. E.
Also and especially to your wife.
289. Engels to Laura Lafargue 30 July
My dear Laura,
Here we are again from the icy regions of the North — temperature mostly 10° in cloudy weather, very hot when the sun shone, two flannels and a topcoat not too much on an average! The journey has done us both a world of good, and with a Nachkur* at the seaside I hope to be completely set up again. I found Nim quite enthusiastic about her stay in Paris, she never enjoyed herself so much, and if I am not mistaken and you do not take care, you will have her an annual customer.
We met the German fleet at Molde but young Williamb was not there — he sneaked past our steamer later on in the Sunelvsfjord in a torpedo boat — so that with the impossibility of getting papers we were out altogether of la grande politique. Fortunately nothing happened worth knowing — the first news at Bergen were about the reorganisation of the German Party after Oct. 1st,[52] and on arriving here, the splendid news about the two fights in Leeds[677] where young Will Thorne proved himself a leader in battle of both courage and ability. This mode of lawful resistance is very much to be approved of, especially here in England — and it succeeded.
Enclosed I found on my return and opened, but it is for Même. Cannot anyone in Paris give us any information about that de Lavigerie who here gives as references Baudin, Ferroul, Guesde, the whole of the party in the Chamber and those in the Conseil Municipal} Of course, if none of all these gentlemen will either disavow or acknow-ledge this man, or give any information about him, what must the people here do? So long as none of his references repudiate him, the people here cannot but take him for genuine. And if afterwards he turns out a black sheep, or does harm to our French friends (for to the people here he can do none), they must blame themselves.
Now I must conclude. You will not want telling that I found an immense heap of correspondence, papers, etc. here and that I have my
" after-cure - b William II hands full for some days — so excuse this short note. Have you seen Paul's Portrait in the Neue Welt Kalender—it is very good, so are the other Frenchmen.
Love from Nim, Schorlemmer,
and Yours ever
F. Engels
290. Appendix , Paul Lafargue to Nikolai Danielson (Nicolaion) 14 December
IN ST. PETERSBURG
Le Perreux, 14 December 1889
Dear Sir,
Thank you for your letter and for the news it contains about my articles: I have still not received anything from the directress of the Review.3-
Engels' eyes are still ailing: however I think that, thanks to the precautions he is taking, they are better rather than worse. Engels does not like to talk about himself; it is only from third parties that I learn about his state of health which, fortunately, is satisfactory.
He is working at the moment on the 3rd volume;b Kautsky is helping him.678 You are familiar with Williams'0 cramped handwriting; on the manuscripts it is even worse; since they contain abbreviations which have to be guessed at, crossings-out and innumerable corrections which have to be deciphered; it is as difficult to read as a Greek palimpsest with ligatures. Kautsky reads the manuscript through and makes a copy which Engels then verifies with the other manuscripts. In one of his recent letters, Engels wrote that he was satisfied with this way of working, and that Kautsky was very good at making out Williams' writing.
Engels has just passed his sixty-ninth birthday and, as he wrote to me, even if one turns the figures upside down, they still read 69; I replied that he had only to wait until he was 99 to become 66 by inversion. It is extraordinary that he is able to work on the publication of Williams' works, and keep up his vast correspondence with almost all the countries of Europe and America. I do not know if he writes to you in Russian, which he reads fluently, but he insists on corresponding in the language of the
1 A. M. Yevreinova - b of Capital - c Marx's pen-name person he is writing to. He is a veritable polyglot and knows not only literary languages, but even dialects such as Icelandic, and ancient languages such as Provençal and Catalan. His knowledge of these languages is not superficial; in Spain and Portugal I read letters to friends there who found that they were written in perfect Spanish and Portuguese, and I know that he writes in Italian. There is nothing more difficult than to write in these three sister-languages full of similarities, and not become confused. Engels, however, is a marvellous man, I have never come across such a mind, so young and alert and an erudition so encyclopedic. When one thinks that for more than 20 years he worked as a legal consultant with a Manchester trading establishment, one wonders when he found the time to amass all the knowledge contained inside a head which, be it said, is not very large, in spite of the fact that he is very tall.
I shall pass on to Kautsky what you say about him, and he will be happy, as I am, to learn that his work is appreciated in Russia as it is in Germany and France.
My articles will contain tables to illustrate, it is impossible to engage in comparative and philosophical statistics without illustration. I am sending you one of the tables. If the Review so wishes, I can send the cliches for the tables; but I would prefer it if they had them remade, since I shall extend my research up to 1888, and not 1886. I shall have the engravings made, it will not be very expensive; because they will be reproduced using the photo-engraving method, as was the one which I am sending you.
My best regards P. Farguale3
Endnotes
[579] organisation, which included some of the members of the former
[580] Communist League (see note 531), contributed to the subsequent progress
[581] of the German labour movement and its emancipation from the ideological
[582] sway of the liberal bourgeoisie. Lassalle and his followers were agitating for
[584] week I sent you a number of the Commonweal with the image of a tree that
[585] had been baptised after our Marx'. 585. In his letter to Engels on 20 December 1889, F. Schlüter asked him to make
[586] inquiries about a George Reid, who had come to New York City from
[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
[589] about three months there has been a certain George G. Reid here who says
[590] that he has been sent from London to organise longshoremen and seamen
[569] place from 18 November to 30 December 1889. Brought to trial were 87
[593] Newton and W. Allen in 1851 and known as the first trade union of a 'new type'. 587. The London Trades Council was elected at a conference of trade union delegates held in London in May 1860. The Council headed the London trade unions, numbering many thousands and was fairly influential among the British workers. In the first half of the 1860s it led the British workers' campaign against intervention in the Civil War in the United States, in defence of Poland and Italy, and later for the legislation of the trade unions. The leaders of the large trade unions played a major role in the Council. 588. Appended to this was a letter of recommendation from Engels; the rough draft of this letter is extant. 589. Refers to the socialist club Vorwärts, founded in Buenos Aires in January 1882 by German socialist emigres - H. Lalman, A. Kuhn and F. Weber. In 1886 this club launched the newspaper Vorwärts which advocated socialist ideas and called for strike action to secure better working and living conditions. 590. Engels sent the present note to Eleanor Marx-Aveling., together with Bonnier's letter to Engels of 14 January 1890. Engels sent this letter to Eleanor Aveling at Bonnier's request. It was a continuation of Bonnier's talk with Engels about the French Workers' Party preparing to start a newspaper of its own (see also note 33). This plan only materialised in September 1890, as the party resumed the publication of its weekly newspaper Le Socialiste, which became its central organ. In his letter Bonnier asked Eleanor Marx-Aveling for her comments on the Gas Workers' strike (see note 577) for the French newspaper Le Cri du travailleur. 591. These lines were on a post card, with the following address at the back: H. Schlüter Esq., 73, First Avenue, New York City, US America. 592. The English version of a fragment from this letter was published in the collection Marx K., Engels F., Ireland and the Irish Question, Progress Publishers, Moscow 1971. 593. Engels hints at acute differences - which came into the open during the
[594] Elberfeld trial of 1889 - between A. Bebel, the state prosecutor and the
[45] any other candidate, at the 1885 parliamentary election and was called 'le
[597] ing the then effective Anti-Socialist Law (see note 52). The suggested
[598] amendments aimed above all at converting the provisional legislation
[435] yet to persuade Vaillant and others to send letters to the newspaper The Star; she expressed her doubts about the expedience of such a mode of procedure. Engels replied on 14 May (see the next letter). 430. On 14 May 1889, the newspaper The Star, in the section The People's Post Box carried An Invitation, signed by P. Lafargue, and containing a précis of the circular in connection with the convocation of an International Working Men's Congress in Paris (see note 414). 431. The whereabouts of this letter of Engels is not known. 432. The circular about the convocation of an International Working Men's Congress, written by P. Lafargue and J. Guesde, was sent by the authors to Engels on 14 May, 1889. In June 1889 it was printed in the form of a leaflet in French in Paris and in English in London, and also published in German by the newspapers Der Sozialdemokrat on 1 June and Berliner Volksblatt on 2 June. The newspaper The Star had also printed it on 14 May 1889 in the Feature The People's Post Box (in English); the circular likewise appeared in the weekly Commonweal on 8 June and also as an appendix to the pamphlet The International Working Men's Congress of 1889, II, A Reply to the 'Manifesto of the Social Democratic Federation' (see note 444). 433. The reference is to Bonnier's letter published by The Star on 15 May 1889, under the heading The Paris Congress; it exposed the collusion of the Possibilists with the reactionary wing in the Paris Municipal Council. 434. Engels is referring to E. Aveling's play Dregs, staged by the Vaudeville Theatre on 16 May 1889. 435. The German coal miners' strike in the Ruhr was a major event in the German working-class movement of the late 19th century. It began on 3 May 1889 in the Essen and on 4 May in the Helsenkirch coal mining districts; then it spread to the entire Dortmund area. At its height the strike action involved as many as eighty thousand miners. The main demands were: higher wages, an eight-hour working day and recognition of the worker committees. Frightened by the scope of the strike action, government bodies had the entrepreneurs make a promise to fulfil some of the miners' demands. As a result, some of the miners resumed their work in mid May. However, the mine-owners broke their promises, and a meeting of
[600] regulations with respect to periodicals, etc. The draft law also envisaged
[601] banishing, for up to a year, all those whose activity might pose 'a threat to public tranquillity and order'. The draft law, discussed at Reichstag sessions on 5 and 6 November 1889, and then again on 22, 23 and 25 January 1890, was turned down by 169 votes versus 98. 595. A reference to A. Bebel's report carried by Die Arbeiter-Zeitung (No. 3) on 17 January 1890, in the feature 'Ausland, Deutschland'; this report was marked: Berlin, 14 January. 596. The National-Liberal Party, the party of the German and, above all, the Prussian bourgeoisie, formed in the autumn of 1866 as a result of the split of the Party of Progress. The policies of the National-Liberals reflected the capitulation of a significant part of the liberal bourgeoisie to Bismarck's Junker government, after Prussia's victory in the Austro-Prussian war of 1866 and its subsequent pre-eminence in Germany. 597. During the second balloting of February 1887 at the Reichstag election the supporters of the Party of Progress voted for candidates of the 'Kartell' (see note 265) and thus promoted the victory of a bloc backing the Bismarck government. 598. In April 1886 the Liberal government of W. Gladstone tabled a draft Home Rule Bill in the Commons (see note 175) providing for reinstitution of the bicameral Irish parliament after the late 18th century model; the British government was to retain its control over the country's economy and have a free hand in exercising all foreign policy, military and police functions. 599. Another regular election to the German Reichstag was scheduled for 20 February 1890 (see note 612). Eventually the Social Democratic candidates polled 1,427,298 votes or nearly 20 per cent of the total ballots cast. The Social Democrats could thus claim 35 seats in the Reichstag, which meant an astounding victory for the party. 600. On 20 January 1890 the Socialist leader August Bebel addressed an election rally, many thousand strong. Concluding his speech, he called on all those present to execute their duty on 20 February by electing representatives of the Social Democratic Party to the Reichstag. Bebel's speech was published by the newspaper Hamburger Echo (No. 18) on 22 January under the headline 'Reichstagsabgeordneter August Bebel vor seinen Wählern'. 601. The Franco-Russian alliance - a military and political alliance between France and Russia; it took shape against a background of the growing might
[602] of the German Reich and dramatic exacerbation of the Franco-German and
[603] Russo-German contradictions. As a first step, France and Russia signed a
[604] political agreement on 15 August 1891. The two countries concluded a
[503] retain their position. Yet ultimately Engels' prediction concerning a victory
[605] secret military convention on 15 August 1892. 602. Engels must have meant Gladstone's speech at a Liberal meeting in Chester
[489] lated into bloody clashes between the Muslim and Christian populations of
[606] on 22 January 1890; in it the British statesman censured the actions of the
[607] Turkish government in Crete and Armenia (see The Times, 23 January, No.
[608] 32, 916, plO, 'Mr Gladstone at Chester'). 603. W. Liebknecht 's communication was published in Der Sozialdemokrat, No.
[448] the vote. 445. Pertaining to the collection of signatures to the circular for the convocation
[215] in 1885 (see note 213) and became a vehicle of the reactionary agrarian poli-
[15] 1844' should be omitted from the title. In reply to her request Engels wrote the article 'The Labor Movement in America', which was to open the book. 12. Engels' article 'The Labor Movement in America' opened the American edition of his The Condition of the Working Class in England, published in New York in 1887. That same year the article appeared, in Engels' German translation, under the heading 'Die Arbeiterbewegung in Amerika', in the Sozialdemokrat (10 and 17 June). In July separate prints, in German and English, were distributed in New York. The article was also published as a pamphlet in London (see present edition, Vol. 26) and, in French, in Le Socialiste (9, 16 and 23 July). Even before the publication of the book the article was, without Engels' knowledge, translated into German by Alexander Jonas, editor of the New Yorker Volkszeitung, and published in this paper in April 1887. Engels, displeased with the quality of the translation, lodged an official protest. 13. This letter was first published in English, abridged, in: Frederick Engels, Paul and Laura Lafargue, Correspondence. 1887-1890,Vo\. 2, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1960. 14. Russo-German rapprochement appeared to be on the cards in early 1887. In the course of negotiations between the two countries, the Russian ambassador, P. Shuvalov, proposed to Bismarck that the 'alliance of three emper-ors', which was expiring in the summer of 1887, should be resumed, but without Austrian participation. Shuvalov's proposal also envisaged Russia's neutrality in the event of another Franco-German war and a free hand for Russia in the Balkans. Addressing the Reichstag on 11 January 1887, Bismarck urged the need for friendly relations with Russia. An anti-French press campaign, the mobilisation of reservists and other steps on the part of the German government gave rise to fears of an imminent military clash with France (the 'war alarm' in January 1887). However, the Russian government refused to back up Shuvalov's proposals and Bismarck's actions. 15. On 14 January 1887, Bismarck dissolved the Reichstag in view of its refusal to endorse the proposed seven-year military budget (the bill on the septen-nate). The elections to the new Reichstag, held on 21 February, were attended by a brutal campaign of terror, directed above all against the Socialist Party. Nevertheless, the Social Democrats polled 763,128 votes (10.1 per cent of the total), 213,038 more than in the 1884 elections. However, owing to the undemocratic additional ballots law the number of Social Democratic deputies declined to 11, as against 24 in the previous Reichstag. 16. In January 1887 the Daily News reported that the Bismarck government
[610] conference was indeed held in Berlin in March 1890.) In his second edict,
[137] reject the wretched slanders concerning the Avelings which the Executive of
[612] expressed the desire to revise the existing labour legislation with the aim of
[613] improving the condition of workers employed at government-run and
[87] authorities and the like without a jury. On 11 April 1887 several mass meet-
[614] private enterprises. 610. As the new draft legislation against the Socialists was put to a vote in the
[2] while working on the manuscript in 1865 (see his letter to Engels of 31 July
[615] Reichstag (see note 52), the deputies from the National Liberal Party voted against the additional clause providing for the banishment from Germany of 'undesirable persons' involved in the revolutionary movement. 611. The reference is to R. Puttkamer's election speech at Stolpe on 31 January 1890, against a repeal of the Anti-Socialist law (see note 52). In it he expressed the hope that the army and the Civil Service, loyal to the government, would be guarantors of order (Ordnung) in Germany. However Puttkamer did not rule out the government having to impose a major state of siege (instead of a 'minor' one). The minor state of 'siege' was envisaged by Clause 28 of the Anti-Socialist Law; the governments of German states, with the consent of the Federal Council, could impose a stage of siege for one year in certain districts and localities. In this case no meeting or assembly could take place without permission of the police; it was forbidden to circulate printed matter in public places; politically unreliable persons were to be deported from a given locality; the right to have or hold arms, their import and sale were prohibited or restricted. 612. 1 March 1890 was the date of the second round of an election to the German Reichstag; the first round was held on 20 February 1890. As many as 20 socialist deputies were elected in the first round, and 15 in the runoff (see also note 599). 613. The reference is to the German Party of Free Thinkers (Freisinnigen) formed in 1884 with the unification of the Party of Progress and the left-wing National-Liberals (see note 45). One of the leaders of the party thus formed was Richter, a Reichstag deputy. Reflecting the interests of the middle and petty bourgeoisie, this party was in opposition to the Bismarck government. The National-Liberals - a right-wing bourgeois political party between 1867 and 1918, first on the Prussian scale and, as of 1871, as an all-German party; one of the bulwarks of the bloc of the Junkers and the bourgeoisie. 614. Engels means the interview by a correspondent of the newspaper Gaulois with P. Lafargue and P. Roche about the attitude of the Socialists to the proposal made by Emperor William II to convene an international conference on unified labour legislation (see note 609). This interview was published on 3 March 1890, in the regular feature 'En Allemagne'. 615. In the course of the election to the German Reichstag, the Social Democrats gained votes in 6 constituencies of Brandenburg, Pomerania (Stettin) and East Prussia; in 3 constituencies of Mecklenburg, and in 4 constituencies of Schleswig-Holstein. 616. The horrible conditions of political exiles in Siberia were described by
[617] the Exile System', which he wrote after his journey thither in 1885-86 and
[618] which were published by the New York-based journal The Century
[619] Illustrated Monthly Magazine (Vol. XXXVII, November 1888, No. 1; Vol.
[620] XXXIX, April 1890, No. 6, London). In 1889-91 this work vas published in
[621] separate editions in English, German and Russian. 617. At the election of 20 February 1890, W. Liebknecht polled 42, 274 votes in
[622] the 6th constituency, while the 'Free Thinkers' (see note 613) got 14,195
[624] Russia and Prussia, representatives of the Hohenzollern dynasty, among
[625] other things. Engels discovered this editorial tampering as he compared the
[626] Russian translation with the German text (see also his letter to J. Dietz of 1
[267] Nationalliberale Partei - which was formed after Bismarck had dissolved the
[627] April 1890). The May issue of Die Neue Zeit carried these two parts with-
[457] latter half of the 19th century and the early 20th century, particularly, the
[628] out amendments, together with the third part. Indicated at the end of this
[629] publication was the date Engels had completed the article: London, end of
[630] February 1890. 624. In her letter to Engels late in March 1890, Vera Zasulich asked him for the
[531] the French Revolution of the late 18th century. The Assembly issued an
[300] ancient Greece, Thucydides, for, as Marx wrote, Herr Professor Roscher
[631] text of the last, third, chapter of the article 'The Foreign Policy of Russian Tsardom' (present edition, Vol. 26) so as to have it published together with the second chapter in Book II of the Social Democrat. 625. The February issue of Social Democrat (1890), which S.M. Stepniak-Kravchinsky passed to Engels, carried V. Zasulich's article 'Revolutionaries from the Bourgeois Midst' and G. Plekhanov's article 'N.G. Chernyshevsky'; the second part appeared in the August number of the journal. 626. There was considerable unrest among Moscow University students in November 1867 over the activity of inspectors in conformity with the new university regulations of 1884 (which abolished the university self-rule introduced by the 1863 regulations as well as authorised the Education Minister to appoint or dismiss at his discretion professors and other members of the teaching staff, fix scholarships, grants and other allowances for students, decide on curricula, etc.). At the beginning of December 1887 the student unrest spread to the universities and colleges of Kharkov, Odessa, Kazan and St Petersburg. Police and army units were thrown against the students. Many were expelled from college or university and exiled, and the most active were drafted into penal battalions. 627. Thanks to the active engagement of S.M. Kravchinsky-Stepniak, a 'Russian Freedom Friends' Society' was organised in Britain in 1890; its aim was to enlist support for the Russian revolutionary movement. Between 1891-1900 the Society published the newspaper Free Russia. 628. The district in London where the editorial board of the newspaper Der Sozialdemokrat had its office. 629. Stuttgart - the seat of the Dietz Publishers in charge of the journal Die Neue Zeit. 630. In his letter dated 3-6 March 1890, F. Sorge communicated F. Schlüter's request to Engels to send - for publication in Die New Yorker Volkszeitung - the letters from the National-Liberal J. Miquel, a Reichstag deputy, which he had written to Engels during his membership in the Communist League (see note 531). 631. Engels must have made a mistake by dating C. Schmidt's letter 25 February. Actually, C. Schmidt wrote to Engels on 26 February and 1 April; in these letters he told him about his possible visit to London and about his plans for
[632] literary work. Schmidt also offered his assistance in the work on Marx's
[633] manuscripts. 632. Engels refers to his Preface to volume II of Capital (see present edition, Vol.
[634] 36). About the publication of Volume IV of Capital - Theories of Surplus
[198] abetting the theft of a casket with documents with intent to present them to the court. Lassalle was held in custody till 11 August 1848, when acquitted by the jury. 194. On 22 November 1887, Conrad Schmidt wrote to Engels that he had read with much interest Volume II of Das Kapital; he said if some economic newspaper could accept his article on the Marxian system, he would like to send it to Engels. It must have been Schmidt's work Die Durchschnittsprofitrate auf Grundlage des Marx'schen Werthgesetzes, Stuttgart, 1889. 195. On 3 December 1887, The Commonweal (No. 99) carried an article by Henry Ambrose Barker, 'The Condition of the Working Classes. I', which was a précis of the first chapters of Engels' book The Condition of the Working Class in England; this abstract contained extensive quotations from those chapters. There was no continuation of the article. 196. Engels means Kelley-Wischnewetzky's translation into English of Marx's speech on free trade (see note 162). Asking Engels to write a preface to the American edition of the Marxian speech, Kelley-Wischnewetzky, in her letter of 24 October 1887, wished the preface to contain a critical evaluation of pronouncements made by the American protectionists. 197. The reference is to the resolution of a presidential crisis in France over the exposure of speculatory machinations committed by Daniel Wilson, son-in-law of President Jules Grévy (see note 168). Under public pressure J. P. Grévy had to tender his resignation on 1 December 1887. Nominated as candidates for the presidency were the moderate republicans M. F. Sadi Carnot, Jules EC. Ferry, Charles Louis de Freycinet, among others; the ultra Right nominated Félix Gustave Saussier. Ferry's candidacy elicited sharp protests from left-wing organisations and Paris workers. The Blanquists, headed by Emile Eudes, a former general of the Paris Commune, and Edouard Vaillant, a member of the municipal council, joined hands with the Guesdists (see note 33) and organised several meetings and demonstrations against Ferry's candidature. After the first round of the election Ferry and Freycinet withdrew their candidacies in Marie François Carnot's favour, who was then elected president. 198. Pertaining to the coup attempt of 1877 by Marshall Macmahon, President of the Republic, with the aim of restoring a monarchy in France. Yet
[478] establish contacts with him. 478. A reference to a campaign by the Possibilists in France, and their support-
[636] Köninggrätz (Hradec-Kralove), near Sadova. The Austrian troops were
[418] was Trier) of the Executive Committee of the Danish Socialist Party,
[637] defeated. About the battle of Sedan, see note 267. 634. The Napoleonic Code - the code of French civil law, promulgated in 1804,
[63] The first was formed in New York in 1882. Many of these centres joined the
[639] Latin American European countries. 635. The present letter is in reply to V. Zasulich's letter written around 10 April
[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
[640] 1890. 636. Grigori Beck's article 'Erwiderung' ran a sharp critique of G. Plekhanov for his preface to the pamphlet Pytr Alexeyev's Speech; in it Plekhanov cautioned workers against 'the false friends' from among the liberal intelli-gentsia. Published by Der Sozialdemokrat (No. 14, 5 April 1890), this article was written in reply to the report 'Aus der russischen Bewegung', carried by the same newspaper (No. 12) on 22 March and signed ZKW. On 26 April 1890, Der Sozialdemokrat (No. 17) published a letter to the editors from Ossipowitch (probably, V. Zasulich's pseudonym) with a prefatory editor's note 'Über die Propaganda unter den russischen Arbeitern'. 637. In her letter Vera Zasulich listed a number of Russian newspapers and magazines published in Switzerland in 1888-89: Svoboda (Freedom), Borba ( Struggle), Samoupravlenie (Self-Government) and Svobodnaya Rossia. 638. Dismal Swamp - boggy terrain in Virginia, USA. 639. Michael Davitt - an eminent activist in the Irish national movement and a champion of a union between the working classes of Ireland and England. He supported the struggle of the new trade unions (see note 489) for a law on an eight-hour working day. However, he also suggested setting up independent unions of English and Irish workers at every enterprise; this applied, in particular, to the Gas Workers' and General Labourers' Union in London and Ulster (see note 565). 640. The appeal of the Social Democratic parliamentary group in the Reichstag 'An die Arbeiter und Arbeiterinnen Deutschland!' was adopted at its meeting in Halle on 13 April 1890 and published in the newspaper Berliner Volksblatt on 15 April 1890. The appeal contained the party leadership's reply to the demand by the opposition of 'Die Jungen' ('The Young', see note 646) to stage a general strike on May 1. The appeal pointed to the danger of such a demand under the conditions of the still operating Anti-Socialist law, after the Reichstag election of 20 February 1890, when all kinds of provocations were possible on the part of the ruling quarters. It appealed instead to German workers to give no support to the idea of a
[641] general strike and to resort to work stoppages only whenever a serious
[642] conflict could be avoided; otherwise it advised the workers not to go
[22] took an active part in the working-class movement. However, in 1887 the
[644] German towns involved about ten per cent of the labour force. 641. Part of this letter, in the language of the original, was first published in Die
[429] Reply to the 'Manifesto of the Social Democratic Federation' (see note 444). 428. After General Boulanger's flight abroad (see note 391J, which actually
[645] New Yorker Volksezeitung on 10 May 1890. A fragment of the letter was
[646] published in English for the first time in Labour Monthly, 1934, No. 5, pp309-ll. 642. The Bloomsbury Socialist Society, which had the local branch of the Socialist League (see note 21) as a nucleus, took form as an independent organisation in August 1888, after breaking with the Socialist League where anarchist elements had gained the upper hand. The Society was led by E. Marx-Aveling and E. Aveling; one of its members was F. Lessner, a friend and associate of Marx and Engels. In subsequent years the Bloomsbury Socialist Society carried on active propaganda and agitation work in London's East End. It was one of the organisers of the May Day demonstration of 1890. Its representatives were among the Central Committee that organised a meeting in London's Hyde Park on 4 May 1890 (see note 643). 643. The reference is to the 'Central Committee of representatives of ' new trade unions' and of radical and socialist clubs (about the radical clubs, see note 22) set up for organising the 4 May demonstration in London. The Committee continued its activities in subsequent months in pursuit of the struggle for a law on a eight-hour working day and for implementing the decisions of the socialist International Working Men's Congress of 1889; it came out for setting up a workingmen's party. The leader of the Central Committee was E. Aveling, who maintained close contacts with Engels. In July 1890 the Committee gave rise to an organisation which came to be known as 'The Legal Eight Hours and International Labour League'. 644. A. Bebel's report was published in Die Arbeiter-Zeitung, No. 17, on 25 April 1890 in the regular feature: 'Ausland. Deutschland' and marked: 'Berlin 22 April'. 645. Replying to Engels on 9 April 1890 Bebel said he subscribed to Engels' opinion about the psychological condition of Emperor William II. 646. Late in March 1890 a group of Berlin Social Democrats, Max Schippel among them, promulgated an appeal under the heading 'Was soil am 1 Mai geschehen?' in which it urged workmen to stage a general strike on that day. This appeal epitomised the position of the 'Young' - petty bourgeois, semi-anarchist oppositional group within German Social Democracy that took shape in 1890. This group was led by college students and raw litterati (hence the name of the opposition, the 'Young') who would arrogate to themselves the role of the party's theoreticians and leaders - such men as Paul Ernst, Paul Kampfmeyer, Hans Müller, Prune Wille among others. Ignoring the changed situation for the party's activity after the repeal of the
[650] demagogically accuse the party and its Executive of promoting the interests
[652] the party ranks. In October 1891 the Erfurt Congress of the Social
[653] Democratic Party of Germany expelled some of the opposition leaders
[657] book Der moderne Sozialismus in den Vereinigten Staaten von Amerika,
[659] founded in 1890 by a group of British Socialists with E. Aveling and Eleanor
[660] Marx-Aveling at the head and with Engels' participation. The League
[661] sprang from the Central Committee that organised the first May Day
[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
[662] demonstration in Britain in 1890. 658. In view of the publication by the newspaper Volksstimme on 16 September
[663] 1890 of P. Ernst's article distorting Engels' pronouncements and claiming
[39] tunity for self-advertising. He therefore decided to answer him either in an
[667] published by the New Yorker Volkszeitung. Schlüter asked Engels for
[668] permission to publish in it the Marx biography which Engels wrote in 1877
[669] (see present edition, Vol. 24) and to supplement this biography by describ-
[670] ing the last years of Marx's life. 667. On 1 July 1890, an agreement was signed providing for the transfer of the
[672] Germany in exchange for Zanzibar and other German colonies in Africa. 668. Die Streusandbüchse (the sandbox) of the German Reich was the name
[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
[673] given to the Brandenburger Mark with Berlin as the capital city. 669. A reference to F Lassalle's proposal to Marx in January 1861 to publish a
[67] published by the paper on 2 March, Issue 52,1887, alongside another attack
[675] having this Draft Programme published three months before the congress
[676] for discussion at local party organisations and in the press. The Halle
[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
[3] 1865; present edition, Vol. 42, pl72). The English journalist Peter Fox, a
[451] Conference (see note 385) but had announced in advance that they agreed with all of its decisions, unexpectedly refused to send delegates to both congresses. Concerning the two trends in the Danish socialist movement, see note 418. 446. P. Lafargue asked Engels to write to Nikolai Danielson (see Lafargue P., F. Engels, 14 May 1889, Correspondence, Vol. 2, Moscow 1960) and request him to get in touch with the publishers of the Northern Review. In 1889, in its issue No. 4, this journal published the Russian translation of Lafargue's article 'The Machine as a Factor of Progress' (see note 468), the final chapter of his major work Das Proletariat der Handarbeit und Kopfarbeit published by Die Neue Zeit, No. 3, 1888. 447. The reference is to the difficulties in getting the signatures of Russian Socialists to the circular about the convocation of the Paris Congress (see note 432). Lafargue had approached Pyotr Lavrov, with whom he was acquainted, on the matter. Lavrov declined at first by saying that, not being a representative of any particular revolutionary organisation in Russia, he was not entitled to sign. Subsequently he was authorised to do this. However, by that time Sergei Stepniak-Kravchinsky, Vera Zasulich, Pavel Axelrod and Georgy Plekhanov had given their consent. 448. The National Labour Electoral Association - a trade union organisation that succeeded, in 1887, to the Labour Electoral Committee; its aim was to have workmen being elected to Parliament and municipal councils. 449. The expression 'music of the future' gained popularity with the publication, in 1861, of Richard Wagner's letter to Frédéric Villot, the custodian of French museums, under the title: 'Zukunftsmusik. An einen französischen Freund' ('Music of the Future. To a French Friend'). 450. A reference to the pamphlet The International Working Men's Congress of 1889, II, A Reply to the 'Manifesto of the Social Democratic Federation', London 1889. Its original version was written by Eduard Bernstein on Engels' initiative in connection with the campaign waged by the leadership of the Social Democratic Federation (see note 62) in support of a Congress convened by the Possibilists in Paris, with the aim of preventing the success of an International Socialist Workingmen's Congress which the Marxists were to hold. This work was edited by Engels and published as a pamphlet in English. 451. The reference is to the elected council of the London County in charge of taxes, local budget, etc. All persons entitled to take part in parliamentary
[577] movement and against its subordination to the bourgeois radicals. 576. The General Association of German Workers was set up on 23 May 1863 at
[549] appearing in the Chamber of Deputies in working clothes among the other
[587] London and who was agitating among stevedores and seamen. In Schlüter's
[501] all results. The demand for a law on an 8-hour working day was turned
[232] who managed to win Marx's confidence for a time, were unmasked by Marx
[595] defence, as testified by Bebel's speech of 27 December, published in the
[596] Freie Presse (Nos. 302 and 303) on 28 and 29 December. 594. Refers to the discussion in the German Reichstag of a draft bill for amend-
[52] International Publishers, 1953. 50. The second ballot, in eighteen constituencies, brought the Social Democrats another five seats in the Reichstag (Breslau-West, Elberfeld, Frankfurt am Main, Hanover and Solingen). 51. At the end of 1884, Bismarck, seeking to activate Germany's colonial policy, demanded that the Reichstag should vote an annual subsidy to shipping companies to enable them to operate regular lines to East Asia, Australia and Africa. The left wing of the Social Democratic parliamentary group, led by August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht, came out against the government scheme. The right wing, which made up the majority (Dietz, Frohme, Grillenberger and others), intended to vote for the subsidy, on the pretext that it would help promote international communications. Under pressure from the majority the group decided that the issue was of a non-fundamental nature and every deputy should be free to vote as he chose (see Der Sozialdemokrat, No. 50, 11 December 1884). The sharp critique of the proposed subsidies in Der Sozialdemokrat and in resolutions of the party leadership forced the majority of the Social Democratic group to somewhat modify its stand during the discussion of the matter in the Reichstag in March 1855. The group made its support for the subsidies conditional on the adoption of a number of its own proposals. Since the Reichstag rejected these, all Social Democratic deputies voted against the subsidies. 52. The Anti-Socialist law {Gesetz gegen die gemeingefährlichen Bestrebungen der Sozialdemokratie) was introduced by the Bismarck government, with the support of the majority of the Reichstag, on 21 October 1878, as a means of combating the socialist and working-class movement. It imposed a ban on all Social Democratic and working-class organisations and on the socialist and workers' press; socialist literature was subject to confiscation, and Social Democrats to reprisals. However, under the Constitution, the Social Democratic Party retained its group in parliament. By combining underground activities with the use of legal possibilities, in particular by working to overcome reformist and anarchist tendencies in its own ranks, the party was able to consolidate and expand its influence among the masses. Marx and Engels gave the party leaders considerable help. Under the pressure of the mass working-class movement the Anti-Socialist Law was repealed (1 October 1890). For Engels' characterisation of the law see his article 'Bismarck and the German Workers Party' (present edition, Vol. 24, pp407-09). 53. This letter was first published in English, abridged, in The Labour Monthly,
[176] Democratic deputies in the Reichstag and the Landtags, the party's attitude
[609] 1, 4 January 1890, in the regular feature 'Aus Frankreich'. In his letter to Engels of 24 December 1889, P. Lafargue laid down a detailed plan for launching the newspaper. 604. A fragment of this letter was first published in English by The Communist, N-Y 1929, Vol. VIII, No. 5, May, pp263-64. 605. Water-Polacks (Wasserpolacken) - original name of ferrymen on the Oder who were mainly natives of Upper Silesia. Subsequently it became widespread in Germany as a nickname for Silesian Poles. 606. Speaking of the Schleswig-Holsteiners, Engels means the tribes of Angles, Jutes and Saxons who, in the early centuries A.D., used to populate the southern part of Jutland, a peninsula which, since the l4th century, has come to be known as Schleswig-Holstein. 607. Engels refers to the editorial comments in The Labour Elector (Vol. Ill, No. 57, 1 February 1890 and Vol. Ill, No. 56, 25 January 1890), which condemned E. Parke's attacks on Lord Euston. The 1 February issue carried protests from T. Mann, G. Bateman and others. The editors do not have at their disposal the numbers of The Star with the below mentioned materials. 608. In April 1889 a conflict flared up between Portugal and Britain over the latter's influence in some of the East African territories which Portugal regarded as a sphere of its interests. In November 1890 and in May 1891 both countries signed agreements on settling the border disputes. Portugal allowed free passage and ship navigation for the British in their African possessions. The Labour Elector (Vol. Ill, No. 56, 25 January 1890, p51) carried an article entitled 'True Patriots All'; it justified the policy of the British government. 609. Engels means A. Bebel's report which Die Arbeiter-Zeitung (No. 6) of 7 February 1890, carried in its regular feature 'Ausland: Deutschland'. The report was marked: Berlin, 4 February. The two edicts, promulgated by Emperor William II on 4 February 1890, on the eve of an election to the German Reichstag, actually amounted to a government pre-election programme. In his first edict, the Emperor instructed the Reichskanzler to appeal to the governments of a number of European countries with the proposal to convene an international conference on a unified labour legislation. (Such a
[44] French Radical Edouard Lockroy, who obtained 272,680 votes, more than
[611] addressed to the Ministers of Public Works, Trade and Industry, William II
[19] inal (English), in K. Marx and F. Engels, On Literature and Art, Progress
[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-
[616] George Kennan, an American journalist, in his series of articles 'Siberia and
[599] against the Socialists into a permanent law; they provided for more rigorous
[473] trial and about the persecutions he had been subjected to from 1885 for the
[565] General Napoleon Bonaparte. 559. K.F. Keppen's article 'Leo's Geschichte der Revolution' was published in
[62] workers, both white and black, in a number of American cities in the 1880s.
[643] beyond holding demonstration and rallies. The May 1 strikes held in some
[647] Anti-Socialist Law (see note 52), the 'Young' denied the legal forms of
[664] him to have made common cause with the 'Young' (see note 646), Engels
[666] been appointed editor of the annual Pionier, Illustrierter Volks-Kalender
[677] Congress likewise considered the issue of the party press and the party's