1892
1892
163
ENGELS TO THE LIEBKNECHT FAMILY [3 8 5]
IN BERLIN
[London, 1 January 1892]
A Happy New Year. „ „ , r „ , ^-n t. Engels, L. Kautsky, Gine Bernstein,
Eug. Oswald, Tussy, Edward? Ede.
164. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge. 6 January[3 8 6]
Dear Sorge,
I hope you received our New Year's greetings card. Today I shall reply to your letters of 20 and 23 November and 9 December.
I have happily survived my 71st birthday and am, all in all, health-ier and stronger than 5 or 6 years since. If I go on till 1900 — though I don't know whether this would be a blessing or the reverse— I shall, I hope, still witness all manner of things. In America
Aveling you've got a movement which progresses by UPS AND DOWNS, frequently disappoints, and is therefore readily conducive to a mood of pessi-mism. If I incline to the opposite extreme, it is through having here, before my very eyes, a European movement which is on the whole making gigantic strides and has at its core the German movement, steadily forging ahead with the inexorability of a natural force. I have written something on the subjecta for the French almanac and shall send it you as soon as I get another copy.
War with Russia has fortunately been delayed by another 3 or 4 years, provided nothing idiotic is done anywhere. Since a peaceful course of development in Germany promises victory for us under the most favourable circumstances — somewhat later perhaps, but all the more surely for that — there is no reason for us to stake our all on a gamble, as we would have to do should there be such a war.
I do not believe there is as yet room for a third party in America. In that vast area the disparity of interests, even in the same section of one class, is so great that completely different sections and interests are represented according to locality in each of the two big parties and that, to a very great extent, virtually every separate stratum of the propertied class has its representatives in each of the two parties, although nowadays big industrialists constitute the bulk of the Republicans as do the big Southern landowners that of the Democrats. The apparent fortuitousness of this amalgam is a first-rate breeding-ground for corruption and the exploitation of the state which thrive so wonderfully over there. Only when the land — the public lands — is entirely in the hands of speculators, i. e. when settlement has become increasingly difficult and/or subject to fraud, only then, or so it seems to me, will the time have come for a third party, provided, that is, things develop peacefully. Speculation is based on the land and the mania as also opportunity for speculation in America are the chief means whereby the native-born workers are kept in thrall to the bourgeoisie. Only when there is a race of native-born workers with nothing more to expect from speculation, shall we have firm ground beneath our feet in America. But then, who can expect things to develop peacefully in America? There you have sudden economic advances like the political ones in France — where they admittedly also have the same momentary set-backs.
" F. Engels, 'Le Socialisme en Allemagne', Almanach du Parti ouvrier pour 1892, Lille,
1892.
6 1892
It seems improbable that the small farmers and the lower middle classes, consisting as these do of ail-too rapidly changing elements, will ever succeed in forming a strong party; furthermore the farmer is often a migrant who cultivates 2, 3 or 4 farms in succession in various states and territories[387]; in both cases immigration and bankruptcy promote a steady turn-over of individuals, while economic dependence on creditors is yet another impediment to independence. On the other hand, however, they provide a first-rate element for politicians who make capital out of their discontent and then proceed to sell them to one of the big parties.
The 'doggedness' of the YANKEES who are actually resurrecting GREENBACK HUMBUG again [3 8 8] is a consequence of their theoretical back-wardness and their Anglo-Saxon contempt for all theory. By way of retribution they are inflicted with a superstitious belief in any kind of philosophical and economic nonsense, and indulge in religious sectarianism and economically idiotic experiments, the benefit of which, however, is reaped by sundry bourgeois cliques.
Louise asks that you should send her nothing but the Woman's Journal (Boston) and this only up till 31 March unless otherwise advised by us. She needs it for the Vienna Arbeiterinnen-Leitung (of which she, Laura and Tussy are the mainstays) and says it wouldn't occur to her to impose the foolish chit-chat of the American SWELL MOB LADIES on her working women. Thanks to your kindness in sending her the things, she is once more au courant and able to see that the said ladies are still as snotty and narrow-minded as ever they were and only wants to give this one paper a month or two's trial. In the meantime she thanks you most sincerely for your good offices.
At his first appearance in the Chamber Lafargue allowed himself to be somewhat flummoxed by the interjections and general up-roar.[378] But he'll soon make up for it. The French always improve when engaged in hand-to-hand fighting.
The position as regards Gompers is this. He wrote, sending me detailed PAPERS concerning his association.[389] I was away a great deal at the time — during the summer[264]—besides being tremendously busy, nor had I any clear idea of what was afoot and supposed that Iliacos extra peccatur muros et intra.(1) Then I heard that Gompers was going to Brussels and might come here, so I thought things could be settled by word of mouth. Later, when he didn't turn up, I put offdo-ing anything. But I shall look out the papers and then reply to him; I thanked him for the list.
The other day I wrote to K. Kautsky[153] asking him to inquire from Dietz about the publication of your articles in book form[358]
and am still awaiting a reply. More haste less speed, as they say in Germany, especially in Stuckert" on the Neckar's banks.
Blatchford has left The Workman's Times, which is a great relief. For that matter the paper evinces the defects that will always be insepar-able from any such private undertaking in this country so long as it isn't backed by a party strong enough to control it.
I have now got to 1. read the proofs of the new edition of the CONDI-
TION OF THE WORKING-CLASS IN ENGLAND 1844, 2. go over Aveling's translation of the Entwicklung des Sozialismus^ 3. attend to a few other odd-ments [3 9 0] and then 4. get down to Volume III (2) again, having now the most difficult chapters ahead of me. However, I think I shall manage if I vigorously exclude everything extraneous. What will then remain to be done will not, I believe, present any but formal difficulties.
Warm regards to your wifec and yourself from L. Kautsky and
Your
F. Engels
u. A. an F.A. Sorge und Andere, Stuttgart,
1906 and in full in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXIX, Moscow, 1946
165. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 6 January
165
ENGELS T O LAURA LAFARGUE
AT LE PERREUX
London, 6 January 1892
My dear Laura,
The pears have arrived in very good condition, the few that were urgently in want of being devoured, have been at once attended to, and the rest is being gradually, thankfully and pleasurably con-sumed. That the old Fry's Cocoa box should return to us with such agreeable contents, and as they say of expired directors in joint-stock companies, 'offer itself for re-election' next Christmas, was a pleasant surprise indeed.
Paul wants to know about the constitution of the Board of Health.[391] I will try to find it out, but am afraid I shall have to ask Tussy or Edward to hunt it up at the British Museum. If I only knew the year when the Board of Health was instituted, I might get the original Act of Parliament — if Sam was here, we should have it in a jiffy.
Your intermittent husband seems to be indeed seized with the fever of the wandering Jew — perhaps he wants to supersede him by the wandering Nigger[392]? Anyhow the proposition about separation of Church and State in the sense of the Commune [378] was the best thing he could do, it stops their mouths at once. Especially now when the French Clergy begin to face the eventuality and try to make it out that they ought to be, in that case, disestablished as the Church of Ireland was,[393] that is to say not only keep all their property, but have the salaries capitalised and bought off in a lump sum — les milliards de l'Eglise! après ceux de M. Bismarckla [3 9 4] The priests are too much in a hurry for to pronounce this is to make it impossible. If the thing was kept quiet, and sprung upon the people all at once in the shape of a government proposition, the surprise might pass, and the Radicals [147] would only be too glad to swallow it — but to have it discussed in public beforehand, is to ensure its failure. The French Republic, with its revolutionary principles of civil law, cannot buy off the Church in the way the English semi-feudal monarchy did. Here the system developed by Lassalle in Vol. 1st of his System der erworbenen Rechte^[1]'[6] is alone applicable, as it was exclusively applied by the Great Revolution. See Bernstein's Introduction to Lassalle's Works,[11] B if you have not got it I'll try to get it. It is Lassalle's only juridical Leistung* and not a great one, but quite correct juridically. We ought to start it in France, and then set Longuet to work the Radicals in that sense.
I have to interrupt again. Old Harney is laid up with bronchitis in Richmond — same complaint which last spring brought him to the grave's edge. I must go and see him, but hope to be back in time to finish that letter. I am crushed with work, there are 1) proof-sheets and new preface of new English edition of Lage der arbeitenden Klassen in England'" 2) revision of Edward's translation of Entwicklung des So-cialisms— with another new preface, 3) German translation of my articlel in the Almanach before anybody else seizes upon it, 4) a lot of letters to answer. And then possibly I may return to Vol. III d where just the very difficultest chapters of all await me.
4.30 p. m. Just returned from Richmond where I found old Harney much better — hope it will last.
I suppose you have got Louise's Arbeiterinnen-Leitung with the Vienna Arbeiter-Leitung direct from Vienna. Your article reads uncom-monly well, Tussy's article will be in next number,[314] and as the paper is by its nature insatiable, I can only say that all further contributions will be thankfully received, in the meantime I send you Louise's thanks which like all thanks are double-edged, viz. 1) thanks for fa-vours received, 2) 'a sense of favours to come', as the bourgeois said.
Poor Adler is sadly overworked, and moreover, the momentary rest he gets, he only gets as the nurse of his wifel who is seriously ill — they are at Salô, Lago di Garda, for the present. And as Victor is responsible for the filling of the paper, you do an indirect kindness to him and the Austrian party by helping to fill the women's paper with good matter; the bourgeoises émancipées would only be too glad of an opportunity of deposing their crotchets and nostrums in the working women's organ.
Pumps has been out of sorts a bit, so that she could not come during the holidays, but we shall have her and the children here in the course of this month.
What in the world made Vaillant fight that fool Gégout— égout"? Love from Louise and myself to both of you. And do keep in mind the obligation you are under to come over here with Paul before long. It will do some of our working men good to see a live French député socialiste.
A vous de coeurh
F.E.
166. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 20 January
My dear Laura,
Last night I had a letter from Paul from Bordeaux in which he writes me to send you a cheque to pay the propriétaire.[1] Now I should only be too glad to help you over this mauvais quart d'heure? but the fact is, January and February are my worst months in the year, Christmas pumps one out almost completely, and I have next to nothing to come in before 1 -5th March. In fact I do not yet see my way how to get over this awkward time myself, as besides the usual Christmas expenses, I had some considerable extra advances to make. Old Harney I had to lend money when he was ill, and Tussy and Edward have mortgaged with me the proceeds of four agreements with Sonnenschein, on which I advanced them a pretty round sum which comes in from Sonnenschein only gradually and at rather uncertain times — certainly not now when I want it most. In fact I am hard up myself. But if you can manage to find some one who, on my giving him my cheque for the amount, dated say March 5th, so that it cannot be presented before that date, will advance you the needful, then you can have my cheque with pleasure. I should think Deville might do that, as my cheque is absolutely safe. In that case please let me know what the amount is, for Paul merely speaks of 'un chèque'.
My article[11] in the Almanack is appearing in Italian in the Critica Sociale and yesterday I was at last able to send to Bebel the German text of it — with a rather lengthy postscriptum on the Russian famine, which insures peace for a time and deprives my article of its most actual actualité.
The fight with Hyndman & Co. goes on here — at present the Kommunistischer Arbeiterverein[89] is the chief theatre, and there is a chance of Gilles being beaten and kicked out, and then Hyndman will have made with his German speculation (backing Gilles) even a worse fourh than in his French speculation on Brousse.[395]
Hyndman you know is candidate for Parliament in Chelsea. When his meetings in Sloane Square were stopped by the police he was fined Is. and paid it, and gave up Sloane Square. Now he makes the Federation [29] fight for a far worse place in Chelsea called the World's End (the name is enough to show it's no place for public meetings). Well they have had some 15-18 men summoned and sentenced, and now they tried to get the other bodies out to fight their battle, under the name of'the right of public meeting in danger'. For Hyndman said, if he could keep this going on till the dissolution, his seat was safe. But it won't come off. The Gas Workers said they would send speakers to be arrested and tried, if Hyndman on that occasion took the chair[396]; and at a meeting last week where Burns, Edward and Tussy were, Hyndman was terribly taunted with his cowardice, and finally the whole attempt to rescue Hyndman by the intervention of the other Societies and Trades Unions was practically dropped. Croesel, one of our best Germans here, told Hyndman to his face he was a liar, in public delegate meeting, and he pocketed it.
Now I must go and see Ede Bernstein who has had the influenza, so good-bye. Louise says as Paul is always away you might use your spare time to write something for the Arbeiterinnen-Leitung — you see she is awfully ambitious to make the Viennese paper beat the Stuttgart onea which however won't be difficult — that was first edited by Frau Ihrer, and damned badly, and now poor Clara Zetkin has it, and the first two Nos are certainly very poor and very slow. So if you have something to tell about ces charmantesfrançaisesh and their movements, all the better.
I hope your animal family is going on all right — we have the influenza all round us, but so far our two servants here have only got a touch of it, Louise suffers from what my poor wifec used to call 'pains all over' (general muscular rheumatism) and I am not yet caught.
Ever yours,
F. Engels
167. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 26 January
Dear Baron,
Proofs of the article d promptly returned yesterday. I cannot attend to those of the Anti-Proudhone as I have got to tackle Volume III r
without delay and look over the English translation of the Entwick-lungs, which I cannot refuse to do since it is I, after all, who will be held responsible for anything of that kind that appears in London; so I can take on absolutely nothing else whatever.
If the Berliners should object to anything in my article, I would ask you to substitute dots. There can be no question of toning things down because the French original is generally accessible and I might be accused offalsifying the text. I should be grateful if you would send me the proofs of the Poverty — for I've got to take another look at the prefacea in any case.
I have written and told Dietz,[153] by whom I've been saddled with a draft for an address to Bebel on the 25th anniversary of his entry into Parliament,[153] that in future all my fees are to be sent to Adler. As it is, the Berliners get the lion's share, since I can't deprive them of those accruing from what is published by the Vorwärts publishers. So it's only fair.
Well, the happy result of Julius'b underground activities was to get Gilles evicted from the Society[89] by 48 votes to 21, at 3 o'clock on Sunday morning.0 He (Julius) conducted the campaign most ably and called in here on Sunday evening; he was full of beans and gave us a delightfully humorous account of his negotiations with the Society members whom he conjured up to the life. It was the same old story. At first the dullards thought they were only 7 strong, a figure which, on further investigation, turned out to be more like 50 — good men, if sluggardly — but once they'd been got together and galvanised into action, Gilles was done for. It's a matter of some significance because, in the eyes of the English, it has knocked the ground from under his feet; Hyndman is the only one who now has him hanging at his coat-tails, nor will he be able to shake him off.
Hyndman has also suffered some severe defeats. See the account in last week's Workman's Times of the delegates' negotiations at the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION [29] HALL, Strand, concerning the FREE SPEECH MEETING at the World's End, Chelsea. On that occasion he was hard pressed by Shaw, Burns and Tussy. Burns said that, if it came to the point, he hoped it would not be necessary to go and look for speakers in the LAVATORIES (as for Hyndman in Trafalgar Square [3 9 7]), etc. Hyndman, he went on, could have saved the day if, instead of the un-tenable World's End (300 men constitute an OBSTRUCTION OF TRAFFIC, whereupon the police have got to intervene), he had stuck to Sloane Square which he had relinquished on being fined one SHILLING. The GASWORKERS said they would attend if there was any prospect of a fight, and would provide speakers if Hyndman would preside.[396] In short, his cowardice was at long last brought home to him. On Sunday he 28 1892
fared even worse at the delegates' meeting about the same subject. A SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERAITON man said that the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION was too weak to carry the thing off on its own and since it apparently was on its own, ought to drop it; someone else said that it wouldn't do for Hyndman to be arrested since the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC
FEDERATION was solely dependent on subsidies from MIDDLE- CLASS PEOPLE, ESPECIALLY H y n d m a n and Hunter Watts. T h e jackass has got so involved in his own intrigues that things may go badly for him. The real nub of the matter, as he himself had privately said, was this: if the squabbling over the World's End RIGHT or MEETING could be kept going until the dissolution of Parliament, it would ensure his being returned in Chelsea (for which he is standing).
Many regards and my congratulations on the birth of your second son.a But surely it is now time you slowed down the tempo a bit? We are glad to hear that mother b and child are doing well. Over here influenza is still on the rampage; Percy had it, and pneumonia immediately afterwards; I anxiously await news of Pumps. Louise also had a touch of it, likewise Aveling.
Well, once again warm regards from Louise and
Your
General
168. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 28 January
Dear Baron,
Your omission of Bebel and Liebknecht ALL RIGHT. [3 9 8] It makes no difference at all to the thing.
Six Centuries, etc.[399] would probably be worth translating, more so at any rate than the same author's Economic Interpretation of History, most of which he undoubtedly cribbed from Capital; it is somewhat pedantically written although it does contain individual insights. In Six Centuries there is much that is unknown in Germany — genuine material but a number of false interpretations, as is inevitable with a bourgeois. But I should have thought you'd have found writing works of your own pleasanter and more necessary than translating.
Kindest regards from
Your
General
169. Engels to Florence Kelley-Wischnewetzky. 28 January
Dear Mrs Wischnewetzky,
1 ) The following is an abstract of my agreement with Swan Sonnenschein and Co.
a) we (that is I in yours and Mrs Aveling's name) transfer to them the English copyright of the Condition* etc.;
b) that they produce it in one volume in their Social Science Series;
c) that they pay us (i. e. you through me) 12'/2% o n fun price (2s. 6d. per copy), 13 copies to be reckoned for 12;
d) the same for stereotype plates and copies sold for colonies;
e) the same on proceeds of copies sold by auction, or at reduced prices;
f) that we do not suffer from bad debts contracted by them; g) that accounts be made up as on 30th June each year and settled within 3 months;
h) that we get 12 free copies.
2) The book is now printed, out of the appendix.a I have made a new preface for the British reader.[1]' I have suppressed the preface of the American edition. On reading the proofs I have changed a few expressions, chiefly technical terms and evident misprints or slips of the press. As soon as I get our copies I shall send you six of them.
I had another tussle with Sonnenschein, but again had the best of him. On reading proof of title page, I found that he had struck out your name on the front and put it on the back in small print! Of course I at once protested, and asked Dr Aveling to see him about this, as I could not submit to have the translator, and the party whose simple agent I was in this matter, thus insulted. Of course the man gave in, but it seems impossible to do business with him without having to fight such little tricks. And all this on account of that unpronounceable Russian name which he fears might injure the sale of the book, as its bearer surely cannot be expected to know English!
3) I shall account and remit proceeds to you as soon as received every year.
4) Of course this arrangement with Swan Sonnenschein and Co. puts an end to the agency, for this book, of Reeves. I have, through the kindness of Dr Aveling who lives close to Reeves' shop, after a deal of trouble managed to get an account out of him, it amounts to about £5, and also part of the money; there are £4 to be paid yet, but the fellow has caught the influenza just in time to excuse delay, so that I do not expect to get it before next week—^ if then, for it is easier to get the truth out of a statesman than a farthing of cash
170. Engels to Hermann Engels. 28 January
out of Reeves. This settlement therefore must be delayed til my next.
5) Sonnenschein asked me, would it be right for him to send copies to America? I replied certainly not, for the American edition was still on sale, and then I doubted whether you could give him a valid permission to do so even if you liked. But I said I would submit the matter to you, and of course in the meantime he does not send any copies.
So, this is I believe the whole budget of news I have to send you today, and as I am obliged to write about half a dozen long letters today, I must conclude.
Yours faithfully,
F. Engels
170
ENGELS TO HERMANN ENGELS
IN BARMEN
London, 28 January 1892
Dear Hermann,
I think it's high time I let you have some news of myself again, the more so because gently impelled thereto by business. For in your last statement you credited me with 79.40 marks, being a reimbursement by F. Engels & Co. This is presumably the cost of the power of attor-ney, certified by notary and consul at Rudolfs request. Otherwise everything seems to tally.
Then I should also like you to tell me how much the Schaaffhau-sens you are holding for me are actually worth today, i. e. the price and nominal value of my shares. The holding was reduced at one time and so I no longer know exactly how many I've got; there is a possibility I might prefer to get rid of the lot.
For the rest, I can't complain. My health is pretty good; my eye trouble has more or less cleared up and can be disregarded apart from the fact of my not writing by lamplight which admittedly is awkward in wintertime. I still enjoy eating and drinking, can still walk pretty briskly and am generally considered to be one of the youngest old men in London. On the other hand I have to restrict my smoking very considerably because, like good wine and, alas, Pilsener beer also, it tends to upset the cardiac nerves which, in turn, makes me sleep badly. But this only lasts from the New Year to the spring, during which time I take sulphonal once a week, and that sees me through the bad months as well — the sulphonal all comes from Bayers in Elberfeld — and, as soon as the weather is good and I can get out into the open air, things begin to look up again, and then comes the summer with holidays beside or on the sea, when I shall once again be on top of my form. Last summer I spent 4 weeks in the Isle of Wight followed by a fortnight in Scotland and Ireland,[264]
mostly afloat; this is what always suits me best, now that riding is out of the question. If I could go riding here in winter and spend the summer at sea, then I should certainly be on top of my form again. But since this can't be done, I shall have to content myself with climbing London's Chimborazo, namely Hampstead Heath, which is about the same height above sea level as your house in Barmen, that is 150 metres. Fortunately this suffices at a pinch to keep one's spirits up.
So far I have fortunately missed having influenza which, however, is a veritable scourge over here; people in my street are going down like flies, though they most of them eventually recover; but it seems to be a wretched affliction, and makes everyone so terribly depressed that it quite takes one's appetite away.
But now it is your turn to tell me how things are with you, what you and Emma are doing and all the children and grandchildren, Rudolf, Hedwig and their not 'inconsiderable appurtenances, the Blanks, the Engelskirchen lot — indeed, all the innumerable hordes of whom one simply can't keep track over here. Since Rudolf Blank left this country I no longer get any news, particularly since marriages and christenings seem to have become fewer and further between; these used to provide as it were milestones which enabled one to keep tabs on what you were all of you up to.
171. Engels to Hermann Engels. 29 January
With love to Emma and all your family, the Rudolfs, Hedwig & Co. & Co.
Your old
Friedrich
171
ENGELS TO HERMANN ENGELS
IN BARMEN
London, 29 January 1892
Dear Hermann,
It is often said of women that what they really have to say never goes into the letter but into the postscript. But we old buffers are in even worse case — for hardly was yesterday's letter[3] in the post when I remembered the most important thing of all. Namely that, in strange contrast to the surplus of cash on the London money market, I am suffering from a slight shortage ofthat article and, since I can only expect small dividends up till 1 March, I should be grateful if, some time soon, you could send me some £30 of the balance you hold on my behalf. Then I shall make out quite well; between March and June money will again be coming in at a brisk pace.
Love from
Your
Friedrich
172. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 1 February
Dear Baron,
Herewith Labriola's letter to Tussy; I don't believe that you could pull off publishing it without creating bad blood amongst divers persons in Italy, and in the end it would be the German party that would have to suffer for it, in as much as the latter would be held responsible for taking sides with or against those people who felt affronted by the article. For in Italy things are in such a mess that all kinds of people are sure to feel affronted, whether rightly or wrongly, as indeed I have written and told Labriola. ' [5 3] And those people would then be driven into the arms of the Possibilists,[3] Hyndmanists, Fabians [87] and God knows what other dogs-in-the-manger.
I have written and told Labriola that I thought it better not to publish but would leave the matter entirely in your hands and that you two should sort it out between you. At all events, Tussy wants to have the letter back.
It recently occurred to me that an account of Luther based on his actions and writings is urgently called for. In the first place a rectifi-cation not only of the Protestant legend, but also of the blinkered Catholic attack upon it by Janssen (who is now doing so well in Germany) would certainly not come amiss just now, and there is a distinct need for a demonstration, from our standpoint, of the extent to which the Reformation was a bourgeois movement. Also of particular importance would be a parallel between Luther before and Luther after Karlstad, the Anabaptists and the Peasant War,[400] on the one hand and, on the other, the bourgeoisie before 1848 and after that year. Likewise a detailed demonstration of how this transformation came about in Luther's case. There's still something to be accom-plished in this field, and without any need for undue study; also it's something for which you are particularly fitted as a result of your Thomas Morus.* And again you have in Stuckert[11] a library on Protestantism that is second to none. Surely that would be better than translating Rogers[399] whom any child could translate. Greetings from one family to the other.
Your
F. E.
173. Engels to August Bebel. 2 February
Dear August,
Am glad you liked the article.[1] I fully approve of the omission of the two names on the second occasion.[398] So far as France was concerned the repetition was necessary; in Germany it might do some harm and is in any case wholly superfluous.
Why, you ask, are the Russians still acting in a warlike manner and concentrating troops in the West? Nothing could be simpler. In my very first letter,d in which I maintained that the famine would put paid to Russia's desire for war, I told you that their sabre-rattling, far from ceasing, would tend to grow louder. It's what they always do. But only for the benefit of the public at home and abroad; foreign diplomats are not expected to believe but merely to acquiesce in it. The public is intended to see Russia's retreat as the retreat of the others before Russia.— But this time another factor is involved. The south-east
' K. Kautsky, Thomas More uni seine Utopie.-*' Stuttgart-' F. Engels, 'Der Sozialismus in Deutschland'.-d See this volume, pp. 242-46.
and the east are in a state of famine and cannot provision an army. The area where the harvest has failed is roughly bounded by the line which runs through Odessa, Moscow, Vyatka and Perm up to the Urals, then along this range to the northern extremity of the Caspian, from there to the eastern extremity of the Sea of Azov and back again to Odessa. Proof that only easta of the Odessa-Moscow line can large numbers of troops be provisioned; anywhere further north will itself need to be constantly supplied with corn. Besides, the Russians are now disseminating information about the movements of troops to the west that is downright false.
A comment in Sunday's b Vorwärts in no way tallies with what you say about your correspondence with Frenchmen regarding Alsace-Lorraine [40] ' and would seem to have been made without reference to you. However you would do well to keep a weather eye on Figaro which is a thoroughly blackguardly paper.
Your conversation with Koller [402] tickled us greatly. That's a typical Prussian for you. Herknerc had already dinned into the chaps how short-sighted it was to suck up to the Frenchified and rabidly French notables while antagonising the workers who don't even understand French and who by nature and language are still con-summate Germans, thereby driving them into the arms of the Fran-cophils. It would have been a splendid opportunity to practise dema-gogy from above and with enormous success. The mere imposition of German factory legislation and laws on association, etc., and a toler-ant attitude towards the workers would have won them over within 10 years when, along with the Protestants and the wine and tobacco growers, they would have more than counterbalanced the Frenchi-fied middle and lower middle classes and aristocracy. But how could that have been countenanced by the self-same people who were responsible for the Anti-Socialist Law ' ' in Germany and who fought the workers at every turn? The German middle classes, you see, always arrive too late, and not even the Prussian government, which enjoys so much more elbow-room than they, would dare hazard that sort of Bonapartist policy. And as you say, your Prussian bureaucrat, soldier or Junker cannot, by his very nature, voluntarily surrender any position of power, however useless or, indeed, damaging to himself it may be — for would not the policy of petty oppression which is his be-all and end-all suffer in consequence?
As you know, Gilles has at last been well and truly kicked out. But it was silly of the Vorwärts to have suppressed the name in this of all cases.[403] One ought not, after all, to take the shine off one's own achievements by playing them down in a report. And after all the Society[89] and those who induced it to act did at least deserve that an accurate account of what they had done for the party should appear in the official party organ. However, I realise that you can't do anything for the present, but it almost seems to me as though someone was intent on stirring up trouble.
My advising Julius(1) to be less verbose would be about as effective as your advising Liebknecht not to write indiscreet letters. I shall certainly not meddle in Julius' affairs unless absolutely forced to do so. Nor have I any alternative, considering the way the couple has deliberately cut itself off from us. His aunt[1]' demands that visit be returned for visit, formal philistine etiquette, but among us communist bo-hemians that sort ofthing is, first, simply not done and, second, simply impossible. Such philistine intercourse — known here as the SOCIAL TREADMILL — is admissible only for people with too much time on their hands; no one who wishes to work either can or does indulge in that sort ofthing. I never conformed, even amongst the bourgeois in Manchester, and it is more than ever out of the question for me to do so now. Anyone wanting something of someone else goes and sees him, and that's that. But the fact that such is the case is what lies at the bottom of all the trouble in Hugo Road.b
I had suspected that Geiser was back at the Vorwärts from the unsur-passed dreariness, tedium and vacuity, for which he alone can be responsible, of certain articles. In other respects the Vorwärts has on occasion been noticeably better during the session of the Dresden Landtag.
Ah yes — the Condition of the Working-Class (2)! This is the umpteenth time the worthy Dietz has got someone to dun me, only to receive the same answer he has already had from me in writing, namely, that I'll be glad to oblige the moment Volume III of Capital is finished, but can take on absolutely nothing else before then. There are a lot of snags to your proposal that I should authorise him to negotiate with Wigand; hitherto I have always found that in such cases unnecessary and often irreparable mistakes tend to be made. Above all, I have got to know what my legal position is vis-à-vis Wigand. I enclose a ré-sumé of the facts; if, as once before, you could obtain some legal advice as to this, we might resume negotiations. Your previous advice made it perfectly clear to me that, thanks to the lousy Saxon legislation whereby the publisher is protected at the author's expense, I was still very much in Wigand's hands; but what it failed to make clear, since the case did not then arise as now it might, was what my position would be, should Wigand refuse to bring out a new edition on the old terms. If it transpires that I should be as much in his clutches as ever, we shall then certainly'have to see what can be done.[404]
The printers are reaping what they themselves have sown.[383] If it means they are driven to join the party, so much the better.
Yesterday, when I read Prince George of Saxony's Order of the Day,[405] I almost jumped onto the table for joy. How it will enrage the high and mighty! A thing like that, getting into the impious Social-Democratic press! Can it really be that those fellows are already in such close touch with 'my glorious army'? A telegram a column long has already appeared in today's Daily News about it — it will cause the dickens of a sensation all over the world. And they imagine that that kind of treatment will induce the troops to 'shoot down everything in sight', above all their own parents, brothers, etc.! Sont-ils bêtes, ces Prussiens!(3)
I am prepared to maintain, envers et contre tousb and despite anything that may be said to the contrary, that Louise is a very good house-wife and, moreover, an excellent cook. I'm not quite sure that this housewifeliness isn't due in part to the fact of our not being married and, should this prove to be the case, it would be lucky for me because of the circumstance that the difference in our ages precludes marital no less than extra-marital relations, so that nothing remains but that self-same housewifeliness.
Warm regards to your wife and yourself from Louise and
Your
F. E.
Postscript. Louise is indignant because you reply to the letters she writes with six-page letters to me. I told her to write and tell you so herself, to which she replied that she was far too indignant to do any such thing.
Herewith Gilles' latest masterpiece. The Society over here is dis-tributing it by the hundred in the hope that it will prove his own undoing.
time 174
174. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 3 February
My dear Laura,
Can you get me from the Intransigeant the London address of Rochefort? Wrôblewski all of a sudden sends me a letter for that distinguished foreigner and supposes I know his address, but I will be hanged if I know anybody who can procure it me here — everybody advises me to write to Paris as the shortest and safest way to get it — so I suppose I must follow their advice and submit the case to you, especially as I have a slight suspicion that the poor devil of Wrôblewski applies to Rochefort for cash, and would not have it said for the world that I was the cause of delaying even for one hour the — undoubtedly negative — answer he is sure (if any) to get from le grand boulevardier.
Here we have suffered from influenza right and left— I have been spared so far, but Louise and my servant have had a touch. Percy has had a pretty severe attack followed by pneumonia and is not yet on his legs again, Bernstein has been down, and E. Aveling is not quite himself. Our street and neighbourhood has suffered severely, cases right and left.
The latest scandal: all over London goes the rumour that the Duke of Clarence on his death had called his mother" and told her that 'May' b was in the family way by him. If true it is the only action for which I respect the boy. They say he was after her for a good time past, but the old queena did not approve of the match at first. And if they did take the law into their own hands, it's more than I should have expected from 'Cuffs and Collars' and show that after all he was good for something.
Paul's migrations are very interesting,[392] but won't he soon get tired of it? It's very useful and very good work, but if he carries it on till May 1st, he will lose a deal of weight and come back, may be, to his parliamentary duties with the 'lean and hungry look', which, as a Cassius,[406] might become him in the eyes of the épicier}^ At all events he has silenced the Brousses[3] and other NeidkämmeIe who came down upon him for a slip of the tongue or two in his first speech.[378]
The statistics about Notre Dame de la fabrique etc. are the best reply.
My article"[1] from the Almanack has come out in Italian in the Critica Sociale di Milano and will appear in German in the Neue %eit next No. with additions. Bebel has sent me some Alsatian papers with reports of his speech in Mülhausen,[407] one in French, I want to send it to you if I can find it (Louise says she forwarded it to you),[1]' to show you what horrid French these 'patriots' of the Industriel Alsacien do per-petrate.
An awful row will be caused by the publication of the order of Prince George of Saxony to the 12th German (Saxon) Army Corps in yesterday's Vorwärts.[405] That shows how far our connexions in the army reach, and Williamf will be awfully vexed. It is sure to cause a deal of sensation in France, and if you can forward me Paris papers with comments on it, to be forwarded to Bebel and to be used in the Reichstag, it will be very very useful.
In great haste — kind regards from Louise and
ever yours,
F. E.
175. Engels to Conrad Schmidt. 4 February[2 6 7]
Dear Schmidt,
On the strength of your letter of 12 December we drank a toast on the 19th of the same month to you and your young wife and on the following day, Sunday, after we had had a meal with the Avelings, this was solemnly affirmed by us all in a fine 1868 port. I trust you are now comfortably settled in Zurich and have found that living with another is preferable to living alone.
Very many thanks for your anti-Wolf article.[408] However it also compelled me to read Wolfs opusa which I had quietly laid aside in my bookcase against a rainy day. Since the chap takes the view that the sole purpose of the German language is to conceal the emptiness of his mind, the perusal of this rubbish has been something of a job, though one soon discovers the void that lies behind it. You have stated the main points quite correctly and lucidly and were perfectly right to ignore the unessentials, all of which were put in, of course, simply for the purpose of getting the reader so snarled up that he overlooks the chief flaw. That the man has an aptitude for economic folly amounting to genius I already knew, having read an article of his in the Neue Freie Presse in which he seeks to put the Viennese bourgeois into an even worse state of confusion that they are in already.' But this time he has exceeded even my expectations.
Let us reduce his argument to mathematical terms: C,, C[2], two aggregate capitals whose respective variable components = v1; v[2], and whose respective quantities of surplus value = s, and s[2]. Given an equal rate of profit for both (profit and surplus value being provisionally taken to be equal), it may therefore be said that
C [1]:C [2] = s [1]:s [2], therefore — = —.
surplus value, i. e. we multiply one side of the equation v. v[2] by — = 1 and the other by — = 1 ; thus
Vi v [2]
CjVj. = C2V2 = C\ Xi = S i î x ^
SlV, S2V2 \ 1 S1 V2 S 2'
If we bring the respective factors over to the other side of the equation, thereby inverting the fraction, we have
V^-1 S i v_-? Si V^i \~s-> Si ST — x—= — x — or —:— = — :—, \[1] v[2] v[2] vt \t v[2] Vi v[2]
or, in order to produce Wolfs equal rate of profit, the rates of surplus value must be in proportion to the respective aggregate capitals divided by their respective variable components. If they are not, Wolfs equal rate of profit falls to the ground. But that they 1. can be and 2. always must be — this was the economic fact that it was up to Mr Wolf to prove. Instead he gives us a deduction in which the point to be proved appears as an assumption. For the equation of the rate of surplus value as set forth is simply another form of the equation of the equal rate of profit.
Example: C, = 100, v, = 4 0 , s, = 10 C [2] = 100, v[2] = 10, s [2]
a= 10
Cj C 2 S[ s 2
100 100 10 10 , . , . . — • — = —:— which is correct. 40 10 40 10
Now it really seems to me that you go a bit too far when you claim absolute uniformity of rates of surplus value for large-scale production'as a whole. The economic levers which impose uniformity upon the rate of profit are, I think, much stronger and more rapid in their effect than those whose pressure equalises the rates of surplus value. However the tendency is there and the differences are negligible in practice. All economic laws are, in the end, merely the expression of mutually incompatible tendencies which gradually assert themselves.
Mr. J. Wolf is in for a pleasant surprise when the turn of the preface to Volume III h comes round.
I'm extraordinarily glad that you have made such an encouraging start as a lecturer and trust it will so continue. It will give particular pleasure to Mr Wolf — serve him right.
It's certainly a very good thing that some of those student gentlemen of yours who have looked askance at the transactions of the party should now be resuming their studies. The more they learn, the more tolerant they will be towards people who hold really responsible positions and try to fill them conscientiously, and in time they will also probably realise that, if an important goal is to be attained and the immense army necessary to its attainment kept together, they must concentrate on the main issue and not allow themselves to be led astray by irrelevant squabbles. They may also discover that the 'education', by which they set so much store vis-à-vis the working man, still leaves a great deal to be desired and that the working man already possesses instinctively, 'immediately' à la Hegel, what they could only din into themselves at the cost of much toil. But the shameful business of'Jungen' at Erfurt was truly deplorable[301] and their newspaper,[13] from what I have seen of it, is no more than a feeble imitation of the anarchist autonomy over here.
If you become 'bogged down' in Hegel, do not be discouraged; six months later you will discover firm stepping-stones in that self-same bog and be able to get across it without trouble. In Hegel the coher-ent sequence of stages in the development of a notion is part of the system, of what is transient, and I consider that this is where he is at his weakest — if also at his wittiest for at every difficult point he has recourse to a witticism: positive and negative fall to the ground and hence lead on to the category 'ground'[1]' (Encyklopädied). Obviously this would require a different rendering for each language. Try trans-
176. Engels to Hermann Engels. 4 February
lating the sequence in the Lehre vom Wesen into another language and you'll find the transitions for the most part impossible. Many regards from
Yours,
F. Engels
176
ENGELS TO HERMANN ENGELS
IN BARMEN
London, 4 February 1892
Dear Hermann,
On 1-2 February I received prompt payment of £ 30 ON DEMAND from Pferdmenges & Co., for which very many thanks; the money certainly came in most handy, for after the Christmas expenditure January and February are always a lean time for me and I have to economise. I take it the firm doesn't require an official receipt?
Many thanks too for your information about the Schaafïhausens.(1)
I don't intend to get rid of them for the time being, but there is always the possibility that other companies over here might make me an al-lotment of shares at par which would give me a higher return and I wanted to know how to set about things should that happen.
I was very glad to hear all the news from home and to know that on the whole everyone is getting on so well. I am delighted to learn that Hedwig b intends to write to me again some time. When you next see her please tell her that I have chalked that up on my slate and shall hold her to her word.
And now I must say how very grateful I am for the pictures. You all certainly look pretty sprightly still, especially Emma,c nor have you yourself become more saturnine than you were years ago. Heaven knows, you and I always look so terribly serious in our photographs. I am getting my own back by enclosing two of myself which admittedly were taken a year ago (February 1891) but I don't think I have changed much since then — if the others want any they are very welcome to them, provided they reciprocate.
I don't know whether your procedure regarding the declaration of income-for-taxation-purposesa (a 13-syllable word!) varies very much from ours, but over here it is what we have been used to for the past 40 years or more and, between ourselves, I have yet to come across a case in which a firm makes a true declaration of income; as a rule it is understated by 30%, 40%, 50% and more. All this is allowed to pass, for immediately the authorities start making trouble with a firm on account of underdeclaration and demand that it produce its books — which they are entitled to do — there is a general outcry from the mercantile world at such inquisitorial goings-on and the entire press is up in arms. The only thing the authorities can do in practice is increase the assessment at their own discretion. If the firm concerned then refuses to accept it, it must produce its books. As often as not that is allowed to pass, but should the authorities adopt this stratagem with the wrong firm, namely a firm whose earnings for the current year have, for once, actually been at a rate no higher than that declared in previous years — then the uproar breaks out again. Traders, therefore, have a measure of protection, but we poor rentiers are made to bleed, for 1. tax on our dividends, mortgage interest, etc., is actually deducted before we receive the money and 2.woe betide us if we have any other sources of income and do not voluntarily notify the taxation authorities of them, if, indeed, we don't literally ram this notification down their throats. The £18 or £24 which must be expressly notified each year in respect of my income over there cause me more trouble than all the rest put together — so far as tax is concerned. So I should be most grateful if you would send me my statement as early as possible. We get the forms on 1 May and have to return them completed on the 20th and, in the event of my being messed about, I shall have to produce that particular statement as evidence, so it has got to tally.
With love to you all in Upper and Lower Barmen.
Your old
Friedrich
177. Engels to Filippo Turati. 6 February
122 Regent's Park Road, N.W.
Dear Sir,
Se io lo conosco,* the illustrious Bovio?[409] Ma dopo molti anni, dopo la vecchia Internationale,(1) when I encountered his articles at every turn in Italian socialist literature. At the time, I used to read them, and the more I read the less clear they became — ho capi nagott.b To use his own words, non ricordo tempo più confusionario.d To make things worse, in the end I did not know which of the two of us, he or I, was the confusionario.e However, on the whole, he is a good fellow, a ped-ant, it is true, but a generous and amiable one (which is never the case with our German pedants) and, as you say, a Victor Hugo type, a grandiose character, a man of broad views, who reconciles you with his personality, even if you fight the party which he supports. I quite understand that he should be idolised by your youth. If I were young, I would be mad about him, I would worship him, but unfortunately I am 71, not 17.
This is my answer. Naturally it is slightly touched with irony — without which I would be unable to communicate with him — but, I hope, it is a civil answer. Would you be so kind as to translate it into Italian?
Sempre suo*
F. Engels
178. Engels to Stanislaw Mendelson. 11 February
Dear Citizen Mendelson,
Herewith the preface.(1) It isn't very much but unfortunately it's all I can let you have at the moment. By the time the new edition of the Manifesto is published, I hope to know enough of your language to have no difficulty in keeping up with the Polish working men's movement and shall then be able to speak more knowledgeably about it.
I am sending you by the same post two American papersb relating to S. Padlewski's suicide.
Kindly convey my compliments, as also those of Mrs Kautsky, to your wife.(2)
Yours sincerely,
F.E.
179. Engels to Filippo Turati. 13 February[4 1 0]
Splendid! Many thanks.[409]
Cheerio.
F.E.
180. Engels to Edward Aveling. First half of February
My dear Edward,
It was a perfectly understood thing that I was to revise your translation[3] in the ms. and that, having done so, I should give it the character of an authorized translation by writing a new preface to it.(1)
After the action taken by Messrs Swan Sonnenschein & Co. without consultation with either of us, and in direct contravention to the above understanding, I am bound to reconsider my position.
Your translation being made with the knowledge that I would revise it, is necessarily but a rough draft; moreover, you, as translator, would feel bound to stick to the letter of the original, when I, as the author, might deviate more or less from it and thus make the book read not as a translation but as an original work. To revise not the ms. but paged proofs in this spirit, would imply, more or less, the up-setting of the paging.
Now, as far as I can see at present, there are but two courses open to me:
Either I revise the proofs in full liberty, exactly as I would have revised your ms., regardless of the expense this may occasion. In that case our original understanding holds good, the translation is authorized by me, and I write a preface. In that case we must have four more copies of proofs at least, and revise afterwards.
Or, I am to respect the proof-sheets, as far as the paging is concerned, and merely to make verbal changes within the limits of each page. In that case I will do my best to make the translation as good as I can, but I must decline being in any way connected with it before the public, and reserve to me the right of publicly declining any responsibility for it if such would be imputed to me.
As a matter of course, the expense caused in either case would have
181. Engels to Hermann Engels. 17 February
to be borne by Messrs Swan Sonnenschein & Co. who alone have brought it about.a
And on all these points I must ask for their decision in writing before I stir in the matter.
181
ENGELS TO HERMANN ENGELS
IN BARMEN
[London,] 17 February 1892
Dear Hermann,
It will be perfectly all right if you send me the statement before 30 April, in which case perhaps you would be good enough to notify me by postcard when the relevant dividends have been paid in and how much they amount to. That is the best way of dealing with it.
Since yesterday we have been having glorious German winter weather, cold and snowy. I was in Richmond today, visiting an old friend b who is ill, and then in town. The weather has really toned up my nerves and the Pschorrbräu I drank afterwards tasted marvellous. Love to Emma' and all the others.
Your
Friedrich
19 1892
182. Engels to Victor Adler. 19 February
Dear Victor,
I was on the point of replying the other day to the letter you wrote me from Salo, when I was badly balked. Owing to the publisher's[3]
malice, stupidity, or both, Aveling's translation of my Entwicklung des Sozialismus,h which I was supposed to revise while still in manuscript form, had already been set up and came to me in complete, made-up, paginated proof. In view of the law in this country which delivers up the author to the publisher bound hand and foot, I ran the risk of the thing coming before the public as it stood and thus of incurring discredit, for the ms. was only a rough draft. So everything else had to be left undone until the thing had been revised and the publisher per-suaded by devious means to reconcile himself to the expenses for which he himself was to blame. Well, the worst is now over, and the first person to be sent a reply will be you.
We were overjoyed to learn that your wifec is better and that her recovery may be confidently anticipated. You have enough work, tri-als and tribulations as it is, and the Austrian movement is in far too great need of every ounce of your strength for us not to have given a sigh of relief on hearing that the worst of your worries was over, in this respect at any rate. But you will, I hope, permit us to rejoice, not only as party members but also as your personal friends, at the prospect that, having made a complete recovery, your wife will shortly be restored to you and that so fine a woman as your Emma is not to suffer the terrible fate which for a moment seemed to hang over her.
But if in the circumstances you succumbed to a mood which you yourself describe as dejected, it is only too understandable. Meanwhile circumstances have, it seems, helped you Austrians out of the deadlock which you had feared, and with good reason. The proposed haphazard reconstruction of Greater Vienna provided you with an opportunity upon which you, with your habitual flair, instantly seized and duly exploited in accordance with the model originally placed before the Paris Municipal Council by Vaillant and our chaps.[411] (The Possibilists[3] did no more than hasten its passage through the Municipal Council by selling themselves to the bourgeois Radicals[147] in return for services rendered in other spheres thus, in their low cunning, doing us a service and, what's more, pav-ing the way for their own destruction.) So in what direction I am supposed to give you the 'fillip' requested, if not actually demanded, of me in a letter to Louise, I fail to see. The French have a peculiar knack of giving the right political form to demands of this kind, and that is what happened in this case. In this country, too, some of the French demands have been adopted by the London GOUNTY COUNCIL, while others figure in the electoral manifestos of every Labour candidate.[4] ' [2] See The Workman's Times of the past three weeks. Since the elections to the COUNTY COUNCIL are to take place on 5 March, these manifestos are playing an important role just now, and The Workman's Times, which I hope you get regularly, will thus provide you with propaganda material of all kinds. And the business ought to be exploited to the utmost, first in the interests of agitation generally and of potential individual victories, and secondly and more particularly in order to eliminate the otherwise inevitable hostility between the workers of Vienna and the starveling coolie and sweated labour im-ported from abroad. This is a point you brought out particularly well.
You will eventually get your daily paper, but it must in the main be your own creation. Considering the nature of your press laws, the step from weekly to daily would seem to me a very big one for which long, robust legs are required, and one which would also make you more vulnerable than ever to a government intent on ruining you by means of fines and legal costs. This is fresh proof of your government's cunning — always greater in small matters. The Prussians are too stupid for that sort of thing, relying as they do on brute force, while your politicians are stupid only when it comes to doing anything big. Personally, I rather doubt whether, in view of the fines you would incur, you would be able to keep a daily going for as much as six months and, were it to collapse, the defeat would be hard to get over.
But in order to do my bit for the Austrians, and since all my fees from stuff issued by the Vorwärts Publishers find their way willy-nilly into German party funds, I have decided that all fees from the stuff published by Dietz should go to you people and have instructed him accordingly. ' 5 3 I feel sorry for Rudolf Meyer; to judge by your account and the news since received about his staying in Moravia instead of Palermo, he must be in a very poor way with his diabetes. For all his astonish-ing and often comical megalomania, he is the only Conservative to have risked anything for his social demagogic schemes and socialist sympathies and to have gone into exile because of them. And while in exile he has discovered that, though the Austrian and French aristocrats might be far more gentlemanly in social intercourse than the rotten Prussian Junkers, they are no less tenacious in the pursuit of their rents, ambitions, etc. Things have come to such a pass that he, the only remaining genuine Conservative, is now vainly searching for men with whom he might found a genuine Conservative party.
For the rest, affairs are taking a critical turn. In the German Reichstag a considerable crisis is brewing. Little Willie,[3] it seems, wishes for once to put his regis voluntas [4] ' [3] to the test and is actually driving the deplorable members of the National Liberal Party [4] ' [4] into the arms of the opposition; already there are signs of conflict. In addition, there is a ministerial crisis in France which is of great importance to us because Constans is rabidly anti-working class and his fall will bring about a number of changes in domestic affairs; also because the recurrence of instability in French government circles is very unwel-come to the Russian alliance which is in any case on its last legs.
The enclosed appeared in the Critica Sociale}[1]
Louise sends you the enclosed. She has spent the whole day disen-gaging oxygen — on paper; she is studying chemistry under circumstances aggravated by the English textbooks and the absence of experiments..."
" William I I - b F. Engels, 'Reply to the Honourable Giovanni Bovio'.-c The end of the letter is missing.
183. Engels to August Bebel. 19 February[415]
Dear August,
First of all, my heartfelt congratulations on your birthday and MANY HAPPY RETURNS OF THE DAY, as they say over here; likewise on your 25th anniversary in Parliament and/or your silver wedding with parlia-mentarianism, which falls due very shortly.[416] Well, you could hardly have chosen a better time to show the chaps what an asset you are to them, and it gave us over here a great deal of pleasure.
Things are really coming to a head in Germany, indeed must have gone pretty far if the National Liberals4 ! 4 repeatedly evince strong oppositional tendencies and Richter can dream of a German 'great Liberal Party'.[4] ' [7] A capitalist society which has not yet subordinated the state to itself formally which has left real government in the hands of an hereditary, monarchical-bureaucratic-junker caste and must rest content if, by and large, its own interests nevertheless ultimately prevail — such a society, as situated in Germany, fluctuates between two tendencies — firstly the alliance of all official and propertied social classes against the proletariat; this tendency ultimately leads to the formation of the 'one reactionary mass'[322] and, if things go smoothly, will ultimately retain the upper hand. Secondly there is a tendency which is for ever reviving the old conflict, cravenly left un-resolved, between the monarchy with its absolutist throw-backs, the landed aristocracy and the bureaucracy, which deems itself above all party, and, in opposition to all these, the industrial bourgeoisie whose material interests are impinged upon daily and hourly by the above outmoded elements. Which of these two tendencies will momentarily prevail will be determined by personal, local, etc., contingencies. Just now in Germany, the second would seem to be gaining the ascend-ancy, in which case the industrial magnates à la Stumm and the share-holders of industrial concerns will, of course, mainly side with outmoded reaction. However, this pale reflection of the old conflict of 1848, now resuscitated for the umpteenth time, can become serious only if the government and the landed aristocracy, presuming on their past successes, do something quite crazy. Not that I regard this as out of the question, since the curious personal aspirations up on high are lent support by the growing conviction of the Junkers that industry will not long be capable of sustaining the tariffs on raw materials and foodstuffs. But the lengths to which this conflict will be taken depends, as I have said, on personal contingencies.
One of its characteristic features is the time-honoured practice of belabouring the load in place of (or rather along with) the donkey. They belabour Social-Democracy but at the same time bring down a shower of blows on the bourgeoisie, politically at first, by attacking the liberal principles it has ostentatiously flaunted for the past 60 years and its direct if négligeable share in the administration; and later, if all goes well, also economically, by sacrificing its interests to those of landed property.
So a strong swing to the Right would now appear to be in progress, having for pretext the necessity of keeping back our advance. In what way can it affect us?
1. Anti-Socialist Law [1 1]? We overcame that and to do so now, when we are morally 100% and materially at least 50% stronger than on 1 October 1890,(1) would be child's play. Nor would it be very likely to secure a majority.
2. Reactionary amendments to the laws against the press, association and assembly? Would be unacceptable to the Centre + ' [8] and impossible without it. To form a majority with 93 Conservatives of both factions [4] ' [9] and 42 National Liberals would require 66 men of the Centre. If they went over, that would be the end of the Centre — a not unsatisfactory result. That and the colossal fury such retrograde measures would evoke in the people would more than compensate for the coercion we should have to endure.
3. Restriction of the suffrage and of the secret ballot? Completely out of the question so far as the Centre is concerned; the Clericals aren't so stupid as to cut their own throats. And without the Centre they would again be short of some 60 or 70 votes.
4. Coups d'état? No good because of the princes. Any infringement of the Constitution would threaten the Empire with dissolution, and release individual princes from all obligations thereto. And even if they could all be won over in such a case (which would never happen), the assent of their immediate heirs — most of them minors! — would be necessary to ensure the stability of the Empire. Out of the question, therefore.
5. Thus the only remaining possibility would seem to lie in increasingly rigorous administrative, police and legal measures, as foresha-dowed in the outrageous sentence passed on Peus.[420] But we shall survive them and will soon learn to organise ourselves accordingly. They might even go one better and declare an ordinary state of emer-gency, but this would constitute a hazard only in the first few weeks; later on it would automatically fall into desuetude, quite apart from the fact that it could only be proclaimed for this or that part of the Empire; moreover the bourgeois would also tire of it, and thus perhaps be driven still further into opposition.
So unless our Prussian masters hit on other inventions of quite a new and brilliant kind — as it were intellectual and moral machine guns and Maxims — they may be able to harass us, but will always do us more good than harm. A bit of undisguised Junker rule would do no harm! But I'm rather afraid our chaps may not have enough back-bone; ambitions and to spare but insufficient staying-power, for the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak. The sad thing about Germany is that both sides, Junkers no less than bourgeoisie, are so deplorably su-pine.
Last night I read with real delight the anti-Stumm speech you made on Friday 12 February[4] [2] ' ; it was a splendid piece of improvi-sation and one can see how successful it was. I also look forward im-mensely to reading the military speech which came today.[422]
We were very pleased by your announcement that you would be here round about the 10th or 11th of April — everything is ready for you and, should Schorlemmer turn up, we can accommodate him as well; that has been seen to. You are pretty sure to be given lobster mayonnaise again after the letter Louise got from you today; I had already hatched a little plan of my own to that end, though this will presumably no longer be needed. But /shall assume responsibility for the oysters and likewise for the choice of drinks. Luckily Louise revels in these two delicacies just as much as you and I do and, on such a basis, agreement can always be reached. That she is a witch she is herself aware and is not a little proud of the fact for, or so she says, in Vienna all witches are attractive. And, between you and me, I don't believe that, were she not a witch, you and I would get on so well with her.
Now as regards Otto Wigand, I can only repeat that, until the completion of Volume III of Capital, I cannot take on anything that might involve me in work. As it is, I am held back quite enough by the letters that daily come pouring in from all over the world and by other current business, so I do beg you to let me get this load off my shoulders at long last, thereby regaining some liberty of action. And I have just got to a section which, if I am to finish it, demands that I have a few months completely free of interruptions. If Dietz cares to discuss the matter personally with Wigand,(2) without in any way committing me, then let him, if he thinks anything is to be gained thereby. He can say he has reason to believe that I think he, Dietz, has better sales facilities for a new edition than Wigand, and that I am inclined to entrust publication to him, Dietz, provided he can come to an agreement with Wigand. Only I cannot 1. declare myself committed in advance by anything Dietz may say to Wigand, nor can 1, 2. send him to Wigand as my representative. Semi-officially but not officially! He should sound him out and, if the terms suit him (and are such as to leave me, i. e. for party purposes, a fee commensurate with the circumstances), should go ahead, in which case I should certainly not leave him in the lurch. But I don't want to find myself between two stools — i.e. an unwilling Wigand and a hamstrung Dietz!
It's a real joy to know that things are livening up again. Who can tell whether, with passions running so high, your Reichstag and the French Chamber won't both be dissolved? And what could be better for us? What I fail to understand, however, is that now, when really decisive battles are being fought in the Reichstag, Liebknecht should remain squatting in his Dresden froggery.b I myself would be willing to sacrifice ten Saxon mandates for the right to say a word in the Reichstag just now.
Anyway, who can tell whether we aren't both being accused in more timorous party circles of having spoken out of turn and con-jured up the threat of reactionary measures? That my article in the
Neue ^eitc found its mark is evident from the obstinate silence of the bourgeois and ministerial press which otherwise is so ready to attack anything like that. It has since appeared in Italian, Polish and Romanian and in Italy has involved me in a polemic with that benign old jackass Bovio.d
Unfortunately I shall not be able to reply to Mrs Julie'sc kind letter
184. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 5 March
today, having spent the whole of this morning in conference with Aveling, sorting out his translation of Entwicklung des Sozialismusa and, if this letter is to reach you on Monday, it will have to be sent off today, Saturday. However, I shall make good the omission at the first opportunity and in the meantime can only repeat how much we regret we shan't be seeing her here also. Well, it's something we can still look forward to. Warm regards,
Your
F.E.
184
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
AT LE PERREUX
London, 5 March 1892
My dear Laura,
Today I can do no more than fulfil my promise to Paul and send you the enclosed cheque for the rent — £15 — made out in your name, so that Paul's absence need not cause any delay. I have received your letter and shall reply in a few days — I am overwhelmed with work — Sonnenschein has by some blunder sent the rough draft of Edward's translation of my Entwicklung des Sozialismus* to press and now all the work of revising that rough draft falls upon me, and of course has to be done quick.— Then Percy was here all week, left yesterday, then other interferences with work — today Tussy has gone on Union [164] work to Plymouth and Edward will be all day with us, so I must get this letter closed and off before he comes.
I am glad of the news about the 'Daily'a and this time it may turn out a success, if our friends take the proper precautions not to be turned out again the very moment the paper begins to pay.[423] But things are better now, there is a power behind them now and that makes a difference — only they ought to take care to secure their position in the paper for all that.
I should be glad if Paul would let me know something of the position of the various socialist and ' Auch-Sozialisterib groups in the Chamber — the Blanquists, Possibilists,[3] Millerand lot,[336] and the ex-Boulangists. I see in yesterday's Intransigeant that Paul and Ferroul attended a meeting composed chiefly of the Blanquist Boulangists, and, if he works together with them, it's 100 to 1 that Hyndman will attack them in Justice, and anyhow the subject is sure to be discussed here and interpellations to come to me — so I ought to be prepared!
In my next you will also very probably receive a dunning letter from Louise for more contributions to the Arbeiterinnen-Leitung.
Love to all your numerous family
Ever yours,
F.E.
185. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 5 March
Dear Baron,
Your ms.[379] goes off by registered mail today. I have only been able to read the first 16 pages. If I were you I should omit the better part of this introduction. The reasons why a programme should have a commentary, etc., etc., in short, all those reflections of yours about why the pamphlet was written, only serve to weaken the impact and deter the reader from persevering. You must plunge straight into it — you could have no better justification. I cannot give an opinion of the way the rest, the major part, is arranged. So overwhelmed am I by work of all kinds that I don't know whether I'm coming or going. Nothing but trifles, but quite scandalously time-consuming. I long to have time for Volume III a and every day am invariably robbed of it. Well, we shall get round to it some time or other.
Ten copies of Neue Zjiit containing my article b received with thanks. Simply amend the name Hodgskin and the figure 1824 in the next edition, and include a note saying that in the original these read such and such, obviously a slip of the pen or printer's error.[42]*
Menger is a jackass and will so remain. His critique of bourgeois lawc is throughout nothing but a vindication of the 'police state' as opposed to the 'constitutional state'. True, the law, especially bourgeois law, is stricter and more rigorous than police despotism which may sometimes appear humane precisely because it is despotic. If I had the time, I should soon put paid to this empty talk which is possible only in backward countries such as Germany and Austria.
I am glad you are agreeable to the Luther idea.d There's no rush. Cunow's letter returned with thanks. I look forward to seeing the ideas he has worked out about class.[425] He has made some very nice discoveries about the Peruvian gens. He had sent me the stuff and I thanked him for it.
You will also be getting the Peruvian community system 22i — I have just looked at it.
I don't think you are in any danger for the time being. So change-able and multifarious are the cravings in Berlin that none could really be satisfied; now all at once it's the liberal bourgeois who's the bête noire. Liberalism is at the root of all socialism, so if one is to act radically one has got to smash liberalism, whereupon socialism will automatically wither away. For the present we may observe this exceptionally cunning manoeuvre with quiet amusement. Once the liberal philistines have been driven wild — and they are, it seems, really being whipped into a fury willy-nilly — then there'll be no more false alarms so far as we are concerned. Apart from the fact that in Germany there are also rulers to whom this wind from Berlin provides the not unwelcome opportunity of currying favour at little expense and thus extracting capital for particularism and reserved rights.[426]
When the street rioting began in Berlin[427] I was somewhat concerned lest it result in the ardently desired fusillade, but when the row-dies cheered young William,[3] thereby placating him, I knew that all was well — but just let the Kölner Leitung be locked u p [4 2 8] along with Peus,[420] and we may well see some fun.
So in my view, in so far as there is any danger, it is primarily confined to Prussia, and the greater it becomes there, the better off you people in the small states will be.
Now I have got to write to Sorge b—the American mail goes today— so FAREWELL. Aveling, who has just come in, sends his best wishes. Regards from one household to the other.
Your
F.E.
186. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge. 5 March[3 5 7]
Dear Sorge,
Have received your letters of 15, 22 and 29 January and postcards of 2, 4 and 13 February. Also the newspapers re Anna.0 The latter has evidently succumbed to that fashionable complaint, megalomania. It's strange; these sort of people, the Hartmanns et al, are fit for one deed — GOOD, BAD OR INDIFFERENT — and, once that's done, are good for nowt else,a as Schorlemmer would say.
Though I haven't alas had time to read your last article in the Neue Zeit* I must get round to doing so since it's only with your help that I can follow developments in America without going astray.
I am terribly overburdened with all kinds of tasks and tiresome odds and ends. You ought to see the mass of German, French, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Russian, Danish, American, English and, now and again, Romanian newspapers I get and must at any rate glance at if I am to keep au courant with the movement. Not to mention genuine tasks which swallow up the rest of my time. And the correspondence! I've got backlog enough to last me a week. And then I'm supposed to complete Volume 111.c It's appalling. But it will be managed somehow. Only you people must be patient if I sometimes allow my correspondence to lapse.
In France things are going very well. Lafargue is using his expense allowance and his free railway pass to travel all over the place, from Lille to Toulouse, agitating and this with brilliant success. All the other socialist factions have been pushed into the background by ours and even in Paris the Possibilists [3] are continuing to beat a retreat, thanks to their internal squabbles and to vigorous action on the part of our own people. They again have in mind a daily journal as party organ, and this would now stand a better chance.[423] It's capital that Constans should have been sacked from the Ministry of the Interior; the chap was determined to provoke fusillades, by violence, and we can do without them. Since our May Day demonstration coincides with the municipal elections throughout France,[429] shooting is a lux-ury no minister could permit himself unless, like Constans, he was banking on a nine days' wonder.
Here the bickering continues as before, but nevertheless the cause is making headway in true Anglo-Saxon fashion, slowly but surely. Everything always subsides into small individual battles which cannot be assessed until actually resolved. At the moment these concern the May Day celebrations. On the one side our people, on the other, in opposition to us, the TRADES COUNCIL ' [96] (the stuffier TRADES UNIONS) and the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION [29]; the two enemies of yesteryear have been forced to club together against us, which is in itself a victory. We are in possession of Hyde Park and POSSESSION is NINE POINTS OF THE LAW. How things will turn out remains to be seen. On our side we shall probably have the GASWORKERS, ' [6 4] a number of the smaller unions and the RADICAL CLUBS [43] ° (almost wholly working class)—what happens next must remain to be seen.
And now for Germany. Things are going so swimmingly there that we couldn't wish for anything better, although we shall no doubt experience some pretty hard knocks in the near future. From the outset Little Willie[3] has been a prime example of a 'last of the line' with a singular aptitude for ruining the dynasty and monarchy. But now his madness has taken on an acute form and his megalomania is such that he can neither sleep nor hold his tongue. As luck would have it, the regis voluntas which, at the drop of a hat, would become suprema lex,*[13] is directed against us one day and the Liberals the next, and now he has actually discovered that it's the Liberals, whose progeny we are, that are the source of all evil — he's been taught as much by his clerical friends. And now he's prosecuting the Kölnische Leitung for lèse-majesté[428] and will not rest content until he has hounded your tame German philistine into the opposition. What more could we ask? A month ago, when Stumm's speech was heard in the Reichstag,[42] ' it was still possible to envisage the re-introduction of the Anti-Socialist Law but that is no longer the case, for William is more in-censed by the opposition of the bourgeoisie to his bill for the clericali-sation of primary schools[43] ' than by all the Social-Democrats put together, and would sooner leave us alone than make any concessions to the other fellows. In both chambers it is, in fact, from the bourgeois parties that he encounters most opposition, not from our 35 members in the Reichstag; in the Prussian chamber we have no seats at all. Nevertheless, we, too, may run into some heavy weather — yet what could be better than for the Crown to place itself in an impossible position vis-à-vis the middle classes and the workers at one and the same time? The ministers are all second-rate or third-rate men, Caprivi is a staunch lout but unequal to his task, nor does Miquel grow any the wiser for his perpetual cheese-paring. In short, at this rate a crisis may be in the offing. In Prussia and in the Prusso-German Empire people cannot as in Bavaria afford to go on for years putting up with a demented monarch[13] and I shouldn't be surprised if, some time soon, they didn't erect a special madhouse for Little Willie. And then there'd be a Regency, which is exactly what we've been needing.
As regards Russia and la haute politique* I have nothing to add to my article (1) in the Neue %eit.
Warm regards from Aveling, who happens to be here just now — Tussy is off agitating in Plymouth. Louise will enclose a short note. Warm regards to your wife,b and look after yourselves.
Your
F.E.
1906 and in full in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXIX, Moscow, 1946
187. Engels to August Bebel. 8 March[432]
Dear August,
We were all very glad to hear that your parliamentary anniversary was such a jolly occasion.[4] ' [6] So far as the address is concerned, I did, as requested, certainly send offa draft ' [5 3] which — since I had to take account of the wishes, specific but unknown to me, of a parliamentary group most of whose 35 members were likewise personally unknown to me — seemed to me distinctly flat nor, till that moment, had I heard anything about either it or its fate. The French wrote one for you, published in today's Socialiste, in which they could let themselves go a bit more.[433]
So Liebknecht has been chucked out of the Dresden froggery.[434]
Considering how petty those philistines are, little else was to be expected. Pretexts are never wanting and, while the affair may have accorded their vindictiveness some small personal satisfaction, the jackasses have derived no advantage whatever therefrom. The Vorwärts, by the by, has shown a marked improvement of late.
I am glad that the rumpuses in Berlin are over and that our people have held themselves so strictly aloof.[427] There might very well have been a bit of shooting and that would have sufficed to make things awkward for us in all kinds of ways. Had there been shooting in Berlin, the National Liberals [4] ' [4] would have been quite capable of enthusiastically supporting the Elementary School Bill[431] while the hitherto indeterminate anger of certain people would finally have been directed against ourselves. The one reactionary mass,[322] which is looming larger every day, is not much use to us as yet; so long as we cannot actively make history ourselves, our interests demand that historical developments should not stand still, and to that end it is necessary that the bourgeois parties remain at loggerheads. And here the present regime is invaluable in that it provides that very situation for us. But if the shooting starts too soon, i. e. before the old parties have become more closely locked in combat, it might drive them to seek a reconciliation with each other and to form a united front against us. It will happen some time, as surely as eggs is eggs and, if it happens when we are, say, twice as strong as at present, it will no longer matter very much. Though even were it to happen now, the exercise of personal power would undoubtedly see to it that the opponents fell out with each other again. But it's better to be on the safe side. Things are going so famously now that we can only hope they'll be allowed to proceed without interruption.
However, unemployment might well get worse next year. For protectionism has had exactly the same effect as free trade — the flooding of individual national markets and this almost everywhere, though it's not so bad over here as where you are. But in this country where we have come through two or three insidious little crises since 1867, we would at last seem to be heading for another acute one. The enormous cotton crops of the past 2 or 3 years (up to 9 million or more bales a year) have depressed prices to the same extent as in the worst days of the 1846 crisis, and are thus exerting tremendous pressure on production which means that the manufacturers here are having to overproduce because of overproduction by the American planters! At the same time they are steadily losing money because the falling price of raw materials invariably means that their product, spun from expensive cotton, has already fallen in value by the time it reaches the market. Indeed, that is the reason for the cries of distress emanat-ing from the German and Alsatian cotton spinners, though no one has said anything about this in the Reichstag. Nor are other branches of industry faring much better over here. For the past 15 months there has been a marked decline in railway revenues and in the export of industrial goods so that in this country, too, the outlook for next winter is pretty bleak. No improvement can really be looked for in continental countries that have protective tariffs and, even though trade agreements might bring momentary relief, this will be offset before the year is out. And if next winter the same rumpus, but on a larger scale, recurs in Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Rome and Madrid and finds an echo in London and New York, a still more serious situation might arise. On the other hand, it's a blessing that Paris and London, at any rate, have municipal councils that are all too aware of their dependence on the Labour vote, and are the less inclined to put up any serious resistance to demands, realisable even today, such as employment on public works, shorter working hours, wages in accordance with trades union demands, etc., etc., in that these represent the best means of safeguarding the masses against worse socialist—genuinely socialist — heresies. It remains to be seen whether the municipal councillors of Berlin and Vienna, who owe their election to a suffrage that is based on class and property, are forced nolentes volentes* to flounder along in their wake.
Yesterday's Standard carried a telegram from St Petersburg according to which, after William's b speech in the Brandenburg Landtag, one of the gentlemen pointed out that the 'glory' to which he had alluded was opposed by, inter alia, Russia. Whereat William replied: 'I SHALL PULVERIZE RUSSIA', or words to that effect. Shuvalov, it seems, got to hear of this and, having assured himself of the authenticity of the report, passed it on to his Emperor. Whereupon Alexander promptly sought occasion to reprimand Schweinitz, instructing him to tell his Emperor that 'should he again feel the urge to pulverise Russia, I shall have the pleasure of sending half a million soldiers across his borders'.
On Saturday0 Russia won a victory here in London which, however, will no longer be of any use to it. In the County Council elections (in London what is known elsewhere as a municipal council is called County Council) the Liberals scored a resounding victory and there is no longer any doubt — if indeed there ever was — that, after the next parliamentary elections, Gladstone will come to power. But Gladstone is fanatically pro-Russian, anti-Turk and anti-Austrian, and his accession would provide Alexander with a further incentive for war since it would mean England's benevolent neutrality, not to mention English pressure on Italy to keep her neutral as well. The famine and the internal conflicts which we may hope it will evoke in Russia will redress the balance — provided, that is, nothing silly is done on either side of the Russian border, a possibility which can never entirely be excluded.
For the rest, and so far as this country is concerned, the Liberal victory is not a bad thing. The Conservatives aren't up to much unless they have at their head a chap like Disraeli capable of leading the whole party by the nose and getting it to do the opposite of what it actually intended. The present leaders are nothing but fools and coxcombs who allow the local party leaders, i. e. the stupidest men on earth, to dictate what their programme should be. Moreover 6 years in office have exhausted and staled them. So there has got to be a change and that is what the whole of this farce ultimately boils down to.
Ede tells me he has had a letter from Mehring saying that neither the Neue £eit nor the Vorwärts nor any other party newspaper has taken the slightest notice of his anti-Richter""; he considers this inexcus-able, feels inclined to give up politics altogether, etc. I can see that, to an author accustomed to literary pretentiousness — this is not to imply any blame, for in the bourgeois press, even at its most literary, that sort of thing is not only the rule but a sine qua non — I can see, then, that to a man like this, who has grown up in the non-Social-Democratic press, these Social-Democratic customs could be highly objectionable. But then we should all of us have to raise our voices in complaint, for the same thing is done to you and me and all the rest. None the less, and however unpleasant it may sometimes be for the individual, I consider this haughty indifference on the part of our press to be one of its greatest merits. Mehring's stuff will be bought and read even if the Vorwärts doesn't puff and it is better not to boost anything than to boost the masses of party trash which, worse luck, are also launched upon the world. And if any one thing were to be singled out, 'equal rights for all' would be demanded for everything else, in accordance with time-honoured democratic custom. That being so, I would rather put up with the equal right of being passed over in silence.
But there is one thing your chaps might do — come to an equitable arrangement with Mehring's publisher as regards regular and fre-quent advertising. That, however, is another example of the total lack of business sense which is congenital to our newspapermen.
I recently got hold of a copy of the 3rd edition of Mehring's Deutsche Socialdemokratie and took a look at the historical part. I should say that, in Kapital und Presse, he skates rather lightly over this inci-dent.[435] But it's all one to us and we've got nothing to reproach him with; whether he's got anything to reproach himself with is his own affair and no concern of ours. In his place / should have admitted my change of heart quite openly, since there's nothing whatever for him to be ashamed of and it would have saved him a great deal of time, vexation and strife. It would, by the by, be absurd for him seriously to consider withdrawing from politics since he would thereby only be doing the ruling powers and the bourgeoisie a service; his leaders in the Neue %eit are indeed really first-rate and we eagerly await the appearance of each one. Such verve should not be allowed to wither away or be wasted on rotten belletrists.
We all liked Siegel very much. He is yet another of those German working men whom one would be proud to be seen with in any company. The fact that he left in order to escape quite exceptionally rigorous and systematic persecution is in no way reprehensible. It's just because they are only now entering the movement that the miners are being persecuted with especial rigour, nor can the victims in any way rely on the support of their fellow workers — and for the same reason solidarity has not yet gained general recognition. Cunninghame-Graham and Keir Hardie have procured work for him in Scotland and his family is following him there. The company he is working for are advancing him the money and deducting it from his wages. Now, it's not going to be easy for him to repay this. I have given him five pounds for the journey to Scotland and to help him settle in, but cannot well do more. Would it not be appropriate for you people to grant him a subsidy of, say, 100 or 150 marks? I have read the letters Schro-der wrote him and there seems small likelihood of his getting anything from that quarter.[436] Think the matter over.
From the enclosed chit from the Witch's kitchen you will see that
188. Engels to Julie Bebel. 8 March
your lobster mayonnaise will, 'by virtue of the true elapse' of time (to use Arnold Ruge's words) put in an appearance only to disappear a moment later. Let us hope this dialectical process will then be crowned by a smoothly functioning negation of the negation. Cordial regards.
Your
F.E.
The 10th of April is Palm Sunday. You should leave no later than the 8th, in which case you would be here by the evening of Saturday the 9th at the latest. That would be the best and most convenient arrangement. You won't be needed for the Queen's Speech. So we shall expect you here on the 9th.
188
ENGELS TO JULIE BEBEL[231]
IN BERLIN
London, 8 March 1892
Dear Mrs Bebel,
Unfortunately I have only today got round to answering your kind letter of 18 February, though at the same time I am sad to note that you have definitely decided to give your daughter" at St Gallen rather than us the pleasure of your company. Well, we can't blame you for preferring to visit Mrs Simon and console ourselves with the hope and the firm expectation that we shall be all the more certain of seeing you here in the spring (or summer?) of 1893. For in summer our fireplaces are screened off, plum puddings strictly forbidden, fogs only occur very rarely and so you'll see England looking her best,
Frieda Simon even though a malicious Frenchman once said that the English summer amounts to nothing more than three very hot days and a thun-derstorm, after which it is all over. Next year I trust you will give us an opportunity to prove that this is a wilful exaggeration. You will also find that you can get on perfectly well over here, even though you speak no English.
But whether I come to Germany, as you surmise, will depend on all kinds of things over which, in view of these critical and changeable times, I have no control. Gone are the good old days of the new course's [437] calflove for anyone who aroused Bismarck's wrath, and there is no knowing what may not happen between now and the summer. So for the time being I shall leave everything in the lap of the gods and wait and see where fate may lead me this summer, whether to Germany, to Norway, to the Canary Islands, where they would also like to see me, or somewhere else. My one regret, should there be no real prospect of my making a pleasant summer visit to Germany, would be to miss yet another chance of making your personal acquaintance. I do so long to set eyes once again on a real, honest to goodness German proletarian woman, which is how people have always described you to me. My wife" was also of genuine Irish proletarian blood and her passionate feeling for her class, a feeling that was inborn, was of immeasurably greater value to me and has been a greater standby at all critical junctures than anything of which the priggishness and sophistry of the 'heddicated' and 'sensitive'b
daughters of the bourgeois might have been capable. But my wife has now been dead for twelve years and more, while August is fortunate enough to have you still at his side; that is the difference.
Louise has just written another quite outrageous letter to August. You have absolutely no conception of how cocky the little woman has become now that she is once again standing on her own feet. You ought to be here sometime when we take our morning glass of Pilsener beer, and listen to our laughter and the kind of nonsense we talk. I'm happy that I can still join in such youthful tomfoolery; after all, one ages in so many ways that it is a real joy to find one has not yet lost the ability to laugh. And I really cannot thank Louise enough for all she is doing to ensure that my old Rhinelander'sjoîV de vivre doesn't
189. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 14 March
wither and die. And now once again my warm regards and the sincere hope that you will continue in good health.
Yours sincerely,
F. Engels
189
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
AT LE PERREUX
London, 14 March 1892
My dear Laura,
I have a whole heap of your letters before me, such a heap that I hardly dare look at it without being ashamed of myself — but you have no idea how I have been worked, interrupted, tracassé, embêté* etc. etc. by all sorts of people. My best working time — January to April — has been frittered away and I have not had a moment to even look at the 3rd volumeb which I was determined to advance a good bit — and over the critical point — by Easter. All vanity of va-nities. Now, my time up to a week after Easter is already engaged (by 10 April I shall have Bebel here for a fortnight or so, before that time I must go to Ryde to see Pumps who has had a sore time of it, Percy had 1) influenza, 2) pneumonia and 3) and last is now laid up with pleurisy) and it will cost a damned effort of energy and a determina-tion to reply to no letters whatever and do no work for no matter whom if I want to use May and June for the 3rd volume.
But damn all this, you don't want to hear my grumbling. I am glad there are prospects of a daily paper for Paris,[423] that will make up for many a mishap in other parts of the world. Though mishaps to our party are getting few and far between, unless we provoke them ourselves. We have such capital allies. Young Williamc brags about his ally God who so arranged all things from the creatfion of the] a
world, that they must turn out to the greaftest] glory of the Prussian monarchy in general and young William in particular. But the poor boy does not see that all the time he is a better ally to us than God ever was or will be to him; and even if he was to see it, he could not help it, it's the nature of the beast!
My article b of the Almanachc and Neue Zjeit has now been translated into Italian (Critica Sociale — got me into a row with that confusionario l'illustreA Bovioc), Roumanian (Revista Socialä[438]) Polish (Przedswit) and English (New York People).
We have just come back (3.30 p. m.) from Highgate, the cemetery is in a disgusting state of soft clay, we had half a hundredweight stick-ing to each foot. On the gr[ave] Tussy (I suppose) had planted a small cypress, and one of the old crocus bulbs has come out in flow-er. The sprig of ivy which Motteler had brought from Ulrich von Hutten's grave on Ufnau Island in the Lake of Zürich, and which we planted after poor Nimmy's burial, having trained it on our balcony, had already been robbed of its best part last summer, but what is left, now grows well and is rooted deeply in the soil, so that no further de-secration is possible.
Here we are also busy about the 1st of May. It is a beautiful play of intrigues woven and cut to pieces and woven afresh, Penelopean fashion. The 8 Hours Committee[200] (Edward, Tussy and their friends) tried to be first in the field but the Trades Council,[196] that reactionary rel[ict of the] Old Trades Unions, was o[ut befor]e them. Now the Trades Council and the S. D. F.[29] are for the [nonce] friends, as against all the rest; at present they do not compete one with the other, and have common interests in putting down all 'outsiders'. So when the 8 Hours Committee proposed to act with the Trades Council, in the same way as last year, they got a complete rebuff. But then the 8 Hours Committee secured the Park ' for themselves, before the Trades Council had thought of it, and then again offered co-operation with the Trades Council which was again haughtily declined. Then both bodies addressed the Metropolitan Radical Federation (of Radical clubs [430]) to co-operate with them; and the M. R. F. decided to medi-ate, but under all circumstances to act with the'8 Hours Committee to whom the whole movement from the origin was due. So that the Trades Council and the Social-Democratic Federation, as usual over-estimating their strength, have put themselves in an awkward position: either they must knuckle under, or have a separate demonstration, and bear the responsibility of the split. At all events our demonstration is now an assured success, whatever the others may do.
Hyndman gets more foolish every day. His blind hatred of the Germans makes him support the Berlin ' Unabhängige'(1) [3 3 3] and keep as his German chief of staff that outrageous scamp Gilles who is evidently in the pay of the German Embassy and has been, with a lot of malcontents, turned out of the German Communist Club here (our old ' Verein' b [8 9] ). So that he has now lost even the little foreign support he had; in Germany they used to have some little regard to his position as leader of at least a section of English socialists, but he has forfeited that; in France his friends Brousse and Co. are so down, that even Hyndman himself had to protest against their 'hygienic' programme for their next congress.[439] One does long for a good strong breath of revolutionary air to sweep away all these pettifogging Jam-merkerle0— but it is coming, slowly, slowly as everything does come among these 'verdammten[6] Schleswig-Holsteiners' (as Marx called the English) but when it comes it is safe.
I intended to enclose a line to Pau[l. I ha]d a letter from him from Marseilles — but it's getting dinner-time, and I am afraid of being stopped in the midst of it. I am afraid their new alliance with Granger and Co. will not turn out to their satisfaction. First of all, these men have shown that they are absolutely un [reliable] when they passed over to Boulanger, and we can only expect being betrayed by them on the first occasion. Secondly, Paul says we must reap where Boulanger has sown. Exactly so, but reap the masses and discard the leaders, as the plan was with the Possibilists[3]; but these leaders have no masses behind them, and are themselves highly undesirable bedfellows. Thirdly, they have crept into the Chambre under false pretences and are sure to be kicked out next election, so that it seems to me our friends are leaning upon an already broken reed. And as to foreign policy, fourthly, these men are pledged Chauvinists — otherwise they could not have got elected — and if Paul and friends form a party with them, they may be outvoted, kicked out, or driven to a split on the first occasion. I hope I may be wrong, but I am afraid I am not. The passage to Boulanger of these fellows was an unpardonable trea-son, and I'd rather have Vaillant than the whole lot of them — indeed I thought it a blessing tjiat they had made themselves impossible. Louise will write to you as soon as possible. She has been rather out of sorts for the last 8 days and is only just coming round again. Tomorrow I must go to see old Harney at Richmond where he is ill with the windpipe and his rheumatic gout. And then you want me to say something to the Parisians about the 18 March.[440] I'll be hanged if I know what! Mais nous verrons!* Ever yours affectionately,
F.E.
[Ki]nd regards from Louise.
190. Engels to Nikolai Danielson. 15 March[4 4 1]
Dear Sir,
I am almost ashamed to reply to your kind and interesting letters of the 12 and 21 November last. But I have been so overwhelmed with work, and I find that writing by gaslight is still so hurtful to my eyes (which otherwise keep quite serviceable) that this extra work and the shortness of daylight during our winter must be my excuse.
You are passing indeed through a momentous period for your country, the full importance of which can hardly be overestimated. From your letters it seems to me that you look upon the present Hey-po>Kaft (1) not as an accident, but as the necessary result, as one of the unavoidable concomitants of the economic development entered upon by Russia since 1861.[442] And that is my opinion too, as far as one can judge from a distance. With the year 1861 Russia entered upon the development, on a scale worthy of a great nation, of Modern Industry. The conviction ripened that now-a-days no country can take a befitting rank among civilised nations without possessing steam-driven industrial machinery and providing, to a great extent at least, for its own wants of manufactured goods. And upon that conviction Russia has acted, and acted with great energy. That she sur-rounded herself with a rampart of protective duties, was but too natural, English competition forced that policy upon almost every great country, even Germany, where une grande industrie had successfully developed under almost absolute free trade, joined the chorus and turned protectionist, merely to accelerate the process of what Bismarck called die Züchtung von Millionären.[2]' And if Germany entered upon this course even without any necessity, who can blame Russia for doing what to her was a necessity, as soon as the new industrial course was once determined upon?
To some extent your present situation appears to me to find a parallel in that of France under Louis XIV. There, too, manufactures were placed in a condition of vitality by Colbert's protective system; and within 20 or 30 years, it was found out that a national manufac-turing industry, under the circumstances then existing, can be created only at the expense of the peasantry. The Naturalwirtschaft of the peasants was broken up and supplanted by the Geldwirtschaft,c
the home market was created and, at the same time, nearly destroyed again, at least for the time, by this process and the unprecedented violence with which economic necessity enforced itself, and by the increased taxation in money and in men, necessitated, then, by the introduction of standing armies by conscription, as it is now-a-days necessitated by the introduction of the Prussian military system of universal army service. And when at last a crop or two failed, then arose that universal state of discomfort all over the country which we find depicted in Boisguillebert and Marshal Vauban.d
But there is one immense difference: The difference between old 'Manufaktur' and modern 'grande industrie' which (in the action upon the peasant, the agricultural producer on a small scale and with his own means of production) is as the difference between the old smooth-bore flint-musket of 1680 and the modern repeating rifle, calibre 7.50 millimetres, of 1892. And moreover, whereas in 1680 agriculture on a small scale was still the normal mode of production, and large estate-farming could only be a rising exception, but always an exception, large farming with machinery is now the rule and becomes more and more the only possible mode of agricultural production. So that the peasant today appears to be doomed.
You remember what our author said in the letter on Joukow-skya — that if the line entered upon in 1861 was persevered in, the peasants' obUina b must go to ruin. That seems to me to be in course of fulfilment just now. The moment seems getting near, at least in some districts, where the whole of the old social institutions of Russian peasant life not only lose their value to the individual peasant but become a fetter, exactly as they have done in former times in Western Europe. I am afraid we shall have to treat the oounraab as a dream of the past, and reckon, in future, with a capitalist Russia. No doubt a great chance is thus being lost, but against economic facts there is no help. The only curious thing is that the very men in Russia who never tire of defending the invaluable superiority of Russian primitive institutions as compared with those of the rotten Occident, are doing their very best to destroy those primitive institutions and to replace them by those of the rotten Occident!
But if the Russian peasant is doomed to be transformed into a proletarian, industrial or agricultural, the noMturnKT.c does appear to be doomed too. From what I gather, this class is even more in debt than the peasants, and has to sell out gradually. And between the two seem to step in a new class of landowners, village KyAaKH or town-bourgeois— the fathers of, perhaps, a future Russian landed aristocracy??
The failure of last year's crop has brought all this out into glaring daylight. And I am quite of your opinion that the causes are entirely social. As to deforestation, that is as essentially, as is the ruin of the peasants, a vital condition of bourgeois society. No European 'civil-ised' country but has felt it, and America,(2) and no doubt Russia, too, feels it at this moment. Thus deforestation, in my eyes, is essentially a social factor as well as a social result. But it is also a very common pretext for interested parties, to devolve the blame for economic mishaps upon a cause which apparently nobody can be made responsible for.
The failure of the crop, in my opinion, has only made patent, what was there already latent. But it has terribly accelerated the velocity of the process going on. The peasant, at seed-time this spring, will be in-finitely weaker than he was at seed-time last autumn. And he will be called upon to recover strength under far more unfavourable circumstances. A pauper, over head and ears in debt, no cattle, what can he do — even in the places where he has got through the winter without having to leave his land? It therefore seems to me that it will take years before this calamity is completely overcome, and that when that point is reached, Russia will be a very different country from what she was even on 1 January 1891. And we will have to console ourselves with the idea that all this in the end must serve the cause of human progress.
I sent you last autumn a little book: Ursprung der Familie* 4th edition, it was registered and my address outside on the wrapper, as ;it did not come back I hope you have received it.
I thank you very much for the many papers and reviews sent — the one of MendelejefFsb was especially interesting. But I regret I cannot just now give to them all the attention they deserve, owing to hard work. How fast I was with extra work, you will conceive when I tell you that from New Year to now — generally my quietest time — I have not been able to give one minute to 3rd volume/
Your congratulations were duly forwarded to Paris.[444]
With kind regards ever yours
P.W. Rosherd
No news from our mutuale?
16 1892
191. Engels to August Bebel. 16 March
Dear August,
Today I have a request, namely that you send me the stenographic report of the session at which our chaps spoke about Alsace-Lorraine and Singer apparently made a statement on the same subject on behalf of the parliamentary group. [4 4 5] I'm sure to be questioned about it and should therefore like to be in possession of the precise facts.
Over here the usual struggle (1) has begun again in regard to May Day, but so far the outlook is favourable. What I am about to tell you must not appear in the ' Vorwärts', for Gilles will interpret and manipulate it in his own way for Hyndman's benefit — i.e. in order to sing the praises of the Independents [3 3 3] and malign the parliamentary group and, since the struggle has still to be decided, anything that might be published could be used against us.
Well, the original 'LEGAL 8 HOURS COMMITTEE', 2 0 0 presided over by Aveling, and the TRADES COUNCIL [1 9 6] under Shipton (presently allied with Hyndman and the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION [2 9]) tackled the matter almost simultaneously. T h e 8 HOURS COMMITTEE invited the
TRADES COUNCIL to act in concert with them, as happened last year, but was rejected with contumely. At the same time it approached the
METROPOLITAN RADICAL FEDERATION (comprising more than 50 radically 'labour' and partly socialist clubs), [4 3 0] whereupon the latter was approached by the TRADES COUNCIL. In the meantime Aveling had played the same trick on the TRADES COUNCIL as they had played on him 2 years before [4 4 6] and secured first right to the Park.b Having assured itself of the Park, the 8 HOURS COMMITTEE actually made a further approach to the TRADES COUNCIL but was again rejected with contumely. Immediately afterwards, however, the METROPOLITAN RAD-
ICAL FEDERATION, which on several occasions had also been treated by the TRADES COUNCIL in a high-handed way (last year the TRADES COUN-
CIL admitted only TRADES UNION people, not club speakers, to the platforms they had been allotted) resolved that, whatever happened, it should join forces with the 8 HOURS COMMITTEE, but that there should be one more attempt at reconciliation with the TRADES COUNCIL. The 8 HOURS COMMITTEE met on Sunday" when it was agreed with the METROPOLITAN RADICAL FEDERATION that the latter should make this attempt, after which a decision would be taken on further action. That is how matters stand. Up till now the 8 HOURS COMMITTEE has been in a vastly superior position. It has the Park, the GASWORKERS, a whole number of small EAST END UNIONS and the Radical Clubs — in short, a number at least twice as large as that which supports the TRADES COUNCIL and Hyndman's FEDERATION. For the moment the latter is keeping as quiet as a mouse and letting the TRADES COUNCIL do its work for it. Provided there are no blunders or indiscretions, the TRADES COUNCIL will either have to back down or, as was the case 2 years ago, play second fiddle at the demonstration, and an ill-tem-pered fiddle at that.
I have now read Mehring's 'Lessing-Legende' in the Neue Zjeit and derived much pleasure from it. It is a really excellent work. There is much that I should have accounted for differently or toned down a bit, but all in all he has hit the nail on the head. It is truly a pleasure to see that the materialist view of history, which for the past 20 years has — as a rule — had to pay the price of being used as vainglorious rhetoric in the writings of our younger party members, is at last beginning to be put to the use for which it was originally intended, i. e. as a guide for the student of history. Kautsky and Ede have produced some very nice stuff in this line but Mehring has made a much closer study of his special subject, namely Prussia's small segment of German history, and generally takes a less blinkered view; above all he expresses himself more positively and precisely. I hope the work will be published on its own as soon as it has finished appearing in the Neue Zjit. Never, to my knowledge, has the citadel of the Prussian legend been besieged so well and so forthrightly: for Lessing read old Fritz.b And it is vitally necessary to demolish the Prussian legend before Prussia is able to vanish into Germany. As regards the precondi-tions for Prussia east of the Elbe in German as well as in European and world history, I should sometimes have expressed myself differently but these are things which in fact Mehring merely touched upon.
But now I must go and eat so that the Witch can get on with her
" 13 March-b Frederick II Witch's Latin. As to the EAST END business,[447] you mustn't let it worry you too much; I don't think that anything dangerous is being planned.
Warm regards to Mrs Juliea and yourself.
Your
F.E.
N o . 2 2 , MOSCOW, 1 9 4 0 n i . i - i . j -r l- u r .u r . Published in English tor the hrst time
192. Engels to Filippo Turati. 18 March
Dear Citizen Turati,
Thank you for the two copies of the illustrious one's[4]*[8] reply which you were kind enough to send me. Needless to say, I have no intention of letting him have an answer, for if he didn't mean to discuss and didn't discuss the German Socialists, what were his reasons for quoting my article b and appending his comments to his quota-tions? It's more incoherent than ever, but to be charitable, one must suppose that he had totally forgotten what he had written in the Tri-bunal*[9]
Kind regards,
F.E.
Julie Bebel-b 'L'imminente trionfo del socialismo in Germania' 30 1892
193. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 30 March .[177]
Dear Baron,
Yesterday evening I sent back to you the preface duly corrected and I also added a couple of lines to the 2nd edition.[450] I think that should do. The old preface will still serve the purpose of preventing the resurrection of the Rodbertus nonsense which, like any article of fashion, has a tendency to keep recurring. It certainly acted remarkably quickly, though it is no credit to me if the great men pitted against us are the sort of chaps who can be done to death in two prefaces. Besides, the economic arguments set out therein will still do the Germans some good; the awkwardness of many of our people when engaged in economic polemics is curious though hardly edifying.
Congratulations on the birth after a difficult confinement of your pamphlet on the programme.[379] The child will get on in the world all right. A new popular digest is always most useful; people's speeches frequently make one realise how necessary such refresher courses are; and a fat tome is the last thing they are either willing or able to read.
Rather than complain about the carelessness of German writers, you should adopt the principle of marking with coloured ink such articles as you intend to accept and returning them to the authors for correction; then they would soon mend their ways. Obviously if the editors are so obliging as to place their own style at the author's disposal, he will become more and more slovenly.
I can understand your complaining about your correspondence, for you speak to a fellow sufferer. But then you are also an editor, which I am not, and are entitled to confine yourself exclusively to business matters — after all, anything more you do is for your own personal pleasure — and that is precisely what is denied me.
Apropos, I did not read Marx's article on Proudhon from the Berlin Social-Demokrat[4] [5] ' in proof; I had no time.
As regards Adler,[452] you learned rather more from Dietz than I did. I therefore passed on your comments to Louise and asked her to prepare a memorandum on the affair for your own use — this I enclose. From her discretion towards me I gather, as no doubt you will, too, that this is a case which calls for the utmost discretion on the part of us all and where any incautious revelation could have the most dire consequences. Unfortunately, in a case like this, there are so many people who sympathise that out of sheer sympathy they are incapable of keeping their mouths shut. It's already quite bad enough that the affair should have been bandied about so freely in Berlin.
The Condition of the Working-Class" has at last come out over here. Unfortunately I have no copies to send you but have arranged for the Neue £eit to be recommended to S. Sonnenschein & Co. Socialism: Utopian and Scientific is also finished, as far as it goes, but since the little book has turned out to be much too meagre for its price of 2s. 6d. (though the jackass of a publisher knew this from the beginning!), I am to swell it out with a long preface.b Well, we shall see. That, however, will be the last of my own jobs, after which I shall then get on with Volume III.' I have had word from Petersburg (this is between ourselves) that the Origin of the Family will probably be appearing in Russian shortly. The article on 'socialism in Germany' has now come out in Italian, Romanian {Critica Sociala), English [The People, New York) and Polish (Przedswit, here), the last two having been taken from the Neue %eit.
Kindest regards from one household to the other.
Your
General
'' The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 (1892) - b 'Introduction to the English Edition (1892) of Socialism: Utopian and Scientific' -' of Capital
194. Engels to Pasquale Martignetti. 30 March
Dear Friend,
I can no longer lay my hands on the issue of Lotta(1) you mentioned in your postcard of the 26th, but in any case it would in my view be a mistake and an offence against the best interests of the party were a socialist to give the first subaltern who came along the opportunity of killing him.[453] By employing what for them would be the perfectly safe method of duelling with a socialist, it would be an easy matter for young officers to gain not only a great reputation for dash, but also rapid promotion, and, what's more, make away with our best people. We ought not to let ourselves in for that kind of thing.
Circumstances might arise in which even our own people might find that a duel was unavoidable; a French or Italian deputy might be forced to engage in a political duel should the refusal of a challenge be more injurious to the party than its acceptance, especially if it was our own deputy who was responsible for the affront. But to agree to a duel or even provoke one except in cases of dire necessity is, to my mind, absurd.
I am sending you the English translation of my Die Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England which has just come out. I trust it will be of use to you in your English studies.
Yours ever,
F. Engels
195. Engels to Hermann Schlüter. 30 March[2 6 7]
Dear Schlüter,
First of all I must thank you for the letter you sent me last year,[454]
which provided me with so much valuable information. Unfortunately I cannot repay you in the same coin. By and large enough can be learned about the general political situation in Europe from a carefully selected reading of the newspapers and in order to allow time for my work it behoves me to keep myself out of the internal affairs of individual socialist parties as much as possible, otherwise I should never get anything done. I cannot therefore give you any information about the sequence of events inside the parties in the various countries in so far as these take the form of squabbles amongst the leaders, as is usually the case, for even the little that I do know about it has as often as not been told me only on condition that I keep my mouth shut.
Had I known that the Figaro article[4] [5 5] would have interested you people over there, I should have let you have it, for I was sent one by Lafargue. It has long since gone astray, departed into limbo, so I shall write to Paris but hardly imagine I shall be able to unearth another copy or get any real information out of Lafargue who has doubtless long since forgotten about it. Since his election he has been travelling indefatigably all over France on his free ticket, agitating and propagating (I don't mean the race) evidently with great success. May Day — since it coincides with the municipal elections[429] to be held throughout France except Paris — will on this occassion be a highly critical day for the French; they are spurred on by the ambi-tion to emulate the Germans.
It seems to me that in America your great stumbling-block consists in the exceptional position of the native-born working man. Before 1848 one cannot speak of an established, native-born working class except by way of an exception; the few who constituted its beginnings in the cities of the east could always hope to become farmers or bour-
30 1892
geois. Such a class has now come into being and has also largely organised itself along TRADES UNION lines. But it still adopts an aristocratic attitude and whenever possible leaves the ordinary, ill-paid occupa-tions to immigrants of whom only a small proportion enter the aristocratic TRADES. These immigrants, however, are split up into nationalities which understand neither each other nor, for the most part, the language of the country. And over there your bourgeoisie is far more adept than the Austrian government at playing off one nationality against another — Jews, Italians, Bohemians, etc., against Germans and Irishmen, and each against the other so that in New York the workers' living standards vary, or so I understand, to an extent unheard of elsewhere. And on top of that you have the complete indifference of a society, which has grown up without any of the easy-going background of feudalism and upon a purely capitalist basis, towards human beings who have fallen victim to the competitive struggle;
THERE WILL BE PLENTY MORE, AND MORE THAN WE WANT, OF THESE DAMNED DUTCH-
MEN,[3] IRISHMEN, ITALIANS, JEWS AND HUNGARIANS — and in addition, stand-
ing in the background, you have JOHN CHINAMAN who far outdoes them all in his ability to live on next to nothing.
In such a country repeated endeavours followed by no less certain set-backs are inevitable. Except that the endeavours grow more and more strenuous and the repulses less and less crippling, so that on the whole the cause nevertheless advances. But one thing I regard as certain, namely that the purely bourgeois basis without any pre-bourgeois humbug behind it, and the correspondingly colossal vigour of a development which manifests itself despite the insane lengths to which the present system of protective tariffs has been taken,[338]
will one day bring about a change that will astonish the whole world. Once the Americans get going it will be with a vigour and ferocity that will make us in Europe look like babes in arms by comparison.
With kindest regards.
Your
F. Engels
196. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 4 April
[From Louise Kautsky]
Dear Schlüter,
A woman does not usually lift a finger and hence only becomes affable when she wants something. What I should now like to have is some authentic information on the bourgeois women's movement in America, i.e. their relative privileges and voting rights in the various states as regards not only school or municipal elections but also political suffrage, etc. I, or rather the General on my behalf, gets through Sorge the 2 most prominent women's rights papers, Woman's Journal and Woman's Tribune. But I need more, I need a brief, concise but historically complete account of the struggle to attain women's civil rights, not the dreadful, dreary catchphrases of the female pio-neers of women's civil rights. The book which you...a
196
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
AT LE PERREUX
London, 4 April 1892
My dear Laura,
Today but two words to ask you to look after the Eclair.— On Friday b morning all of a sudden Emile Massard came down upon me with a demand for an interview for that iridescent paper. As he promised to submit the ms. to my correction, and as I thought to be thereby able to put a flea in the ear of the Parisian gogo,c I consented. Yesterday I looked over the ms. and almost entirely recast it. Would you be good enough to send me about 4-6 copies of the paper as soon as it appears? If correct I shall want them for various regions, if incor-rect, I shall at once protest against the breach of faith.[456] Anyhow this new experience with the eternal interviewing nui-sance will help me to refuse in future, as I always have to do the real work (from 11 to 3 yesterday, instead of being out this warm weather) and even then it's not what I want and does not bring out my ideas. Damn the lot of them.
I was in Ryde for a week,[457] has done me good. Pumps and the children are well, Percy has had influenza, pneumonia, pleurisy, inflamed throat, etc., one after the other and is only just recov-ering.
I am busy with an infernal preface" for the never-to-be-satisfied Swan Sonnenschein and Co. and that, as it will be long, will take me all week. As soon as finished you get a long letter.
Salut to the travelling parlamentarian b who is not only a peripa-tetic grass widower but also a grasshopper, and love from Louise and yours
everlasting old
General
Next week we expect Bebel here unless stopped by ill health — he seems a deal out of sorts by overwork and overexcitement.
197. Engels to Henri Brissac. After 7 April
Dear Citizen,
I have just received your letter of the 7th inst. (postmarked yesterday). I am still awaiting the pamphlet[3] you were good enough to send me. I shall read it with interest. But I greatly regret that it will be impossible for me to render you the service you ask of me.[458] In the first place, if I were to write on your behalf a criticism of your work for publication, courtesy might, perhaps, preclude my speaking freely. Moreover, whatever I might do for you I should also be obliged to do for every other bona fide socialist, be he French, German, English, Italian, Spanish, Danish, etc., etc., and what would that lead to? I shouldn't have a single moment to call my own. And more important than any other consideration is the fact that I have before me a very difficult task which has been weighing on my conscience for years, namely the editing of Volume III of Marx's Capital. Several months ago I made a resolution not to take on any additional work whatsoever until I had discharged this urgent duty.
Yours sincerely
198. Engels to August Bebel. 16 April
Dear August,
I must say it was a damnable disappointment when your telegram arrived. Well, illness is something that can't be helped, and I only hope you had so far recovered as to manage the journey all right and that you are now enjoying the benefits of the mountain air. On the other hand you're now duty-bound to bring Mrs Julie" with you in May — something towards which I have done my bit in the enclosed note which I beg you to endorse in the strongest terms.
As regards the Parisians, two men turned up here before your letter had arrived. I arranged for them to come again the next day, Wednesday,[13] for I felt sure your letter would have arrived by then. When it came, I went to see Juliusc and Louise went to see one of the men — somewhere at the back of beyond — but found no one and left a written message. At last, on Thursday evening, one of them turned up (the other having already departed on Wednesday morning), told me that, because of certain circumstances, the matter had been post-poned, and said they hoped to manage without the assistance of you people to whom they would have recourse only in case of extreme need. We'll discuss it further when you come over. It isn't urgent.[459]
Why, on leaving St Gallen, you should first want to return to the imperial sand box,d we cannot understand. Once there, you'll resume your drudgery, day after day will go by and your health will begin to suffer again, whereupon the doctor will come and you'll be uncere-moniously bundled off to Karlsbad[6] after all. I'm a passionate advocate of Karlsbad — for other people that is, not for myself — because I saw how it put Marx to rights again[460]; had he been able to take advantage of it eight years earlier, he might still be alive today. It is wonderfully effective for all disorders of the stomach and liver and I would strongly advise you to take these capital waters (capital because it yields physiological surplus value for you and economic surplus value for the landlords of Karlsbad) for 4 or 6 weeks in June, when Dr Fleckles, Marx's and Tussy's friend — she will tell you about him — will provide what other entertainment you need; he is one of the wittiest men in Europe.
I should have written to you before, but in order to avoid odious slander, I have had to write a most odious foreword." It's a typical English affair. Aveling translates my Entwicklung des Sozialismus for a SOCIAL SERIES of which each volume costs 2.50 marks. I say it's a swindle to sell the little thing at that price. No, says Aveling; the chap — the publisher — is quite aware of what he's doing — one booklet is too fat, the other too slim, and it ultimately averages out (particularly for anyone who happens to find nothing of interest except in the slim volumes). Moreover, the publisher, having seen the German original, knows all about it. Well and good. The thing's completed and, by dint of tremendous leading of type, they have managed to make some 117 pages of it. Now the publisher — he's called Sonnenschein (1) but at times seems unable to see, however bright the sunshine may be — discovers that it's insufficient after all and asks me to write a good, long foreword. Well, it's not as straightforward as all that. For the first time I have got, as it were, to put myself on show before the heddicatedb British public, and it requires some thought. Anyway, what emerged was a long dissertation about this, that and t'other, through which ran a consistent leitmotif— scathing mockery of the British bourgeoisie. I look forward to seeing what the British philistine will have to say about it. I shall let the Neue Zeit have it in German [4 6 1] and hope it will amuse you all.
Well, to avoid missing the post, Louise and I would ask you to give our regards to Friedad and Simon — perhaps they too will come to London some time? — while remaining
Yours, etc., or not etc., as the case may be,
F.E.
199. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 19 April
199
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
AT LE PERREUX
[London,] 19 April 1892
My dear Laura,
At last — ouf, je respire^. When Sonnenschein saw that Edward's translation of Socialisme Utopique etc. after all possible leading of type did look awfully meagre for a 2/6 book (what I told him from the beginning) he insisted on my writing a lengthy preface. And as I had promised to write a preface, and had various matters on my mind which I felt a liking to explain to the British philistine, I set to work, and at last, it is done. It's I dare say about half as long as the whole book, and had to be done carefully, for the British philistine hates being made fun of by foreigners, yet I could not help it.
By the bye, have you heard anything of Rave and his translation?[462] the thing ought to be out by this time.
Now to your last letter. I think that these two things ought to be kept separated: 1) our relations to the Blanquists' old school, and 2) those to the Boulanger-Blanquists.
First. I cannot help thinking that our differences with Vaillant began last April,b and that our people are not quite blameless. At that time Vaillant and we pulled together, the Allemanists [5 3] being third party, and wanting a full recognition by us. Then, our people, without consulting the Blanquists, started the plan of processions to the Mairies and Palais Bourbon0 with deputations to interview the élus.d
To that the Blanquists naturally objected as they would not meet their tra î t r e s . [6] But our people insisted, and thus, as far as I can see, drove the Blanquists into the alliance with the Allemanists. It strikes me our people in that case did a bit of rather sharp practice which after all availed them nothing, for the whole plan fell through.
What happened since, I know very little of, but no doubt, this final cause of mistrust between the Blanquists and our people once established, it would be easy for the tag-rag and bobtail of the Blanquists, the Allemanists helping, to widen the breach and to fortify the alliance between Blanquists and Allemanists, which again set us down in a hopeless minority in Paris. Now that would be no great misfortune provided we conquered in the provinces, and for that purpose Paul and Guesde have worked splendidly and we may expect, I hope, great successes on 1st May,[429] and let Blanquists and Allemanists cuire dans leur jus."
But then comes this alliance with the ex-Boulangists of the Chamber. As I said before,b when the masses have been led into such a glar-ing mistake as that was with Boulanger, the break-up of the delusion makes them all the fitter for listening to sense, and coming round to us. That inheritance of Boulangism we were entitled to. But it appears to me, that it is a very different thing to accept, at the same time, the leaders ofthat movement, and not as private individuals, but at their own valuation and with the rank they held in the Boulangist crew. I cannot help holding in considerable contempt the men that allowed themselves to fall into that trap — on no matter what pretext. There is nothing that has damaged the reputation of the French, abroad, so much as this infatuation for a new saviour of society, and such a one! And had it been the bourgeois alone — but the great mass of the working class too went down on their knees before this windbag! What reliance can anyone in his senses place on the men that cast in their lot with this jouisseurc who intrigued with extreme Republicans, Clericals, Monarchists all at once and must have been quite as much of a 'constitutional liar' as S. Sonnenschein said to Bax he, Sonnenschein, was! These men must be either deficient in character or in in-tellect or both, and certainly not worth having. What possible good can they be to us?
1) We cannot rely on them for a day. 2) If we form a party with them in the Chamber, they outnumber us and can pass the most absurd resolutions over our heads which we must either be bound by, or else secede again from them — which leaves us in a worse position than before. If I am to knuckle under a majority, after all I'd rather do so to one commanded by Vaillant, than to one led by Granger and Co.
3) As all these men got into Parliament on false pretences, they are almost sure to be kicked out next election — so was it worth while for us to identify ourselves with them?
And if Argyriades raves against the Germans, how about Rochefort and his papera which evidently receives Russian money (at least some of the rédacteurs) and Russian articles?
The breach with the Blanquists' old school may have been unavoidable, and may be swallowed; but I do fail to see the slightest real advantage that can accrue to us from an alliance with the ex-Boulangist Radicals in the Chamber. Have we not, for the mere show of a group of some 25 men in Parliament, sacrificed very serious future chances?
However the thing is done and cannot be helped. I only hope our friends will not place too much confidence in their new allies. And I believe our party in France is now strong enough to bear without serious damage the consequences of a mistake or two.
That our new allies do not bring us any real strength in Paris, is shown by the fact that Paul and Guesde both go to the North on May 1st, which seems tantamount to our leaving the 1st of May in Paris entirely to the Blanquists and Possibilists.[3] As I said before, there would be no great harm in that, if we can beat them in the provinces; but if our new allies are not strong in Paris, where in the name of dickens are they strong?
Your article on the religious interference in factories seems to have been too much for the Austrian press law practice. Your last one on night-work b has appeared — Louise requests you not to blame her for one or two blunders they have put in in Vienna.
We expected Bebel here for Easter, but he fell ill (catarrh of the stomach and intestine) and was stopped by the doctor. He expects to come about middle of May. This is the third attack within a year and he has received a serious warning from the doctor — a specialist. He wants him to go to Karlsbad,[1] which I think would set him up again. John Bull showed himself yesterday again in all his brutality at Hampstead Heath station, about 5 o'clock, rain threatening, a crowd rushed down the steps, and crushed eight people to death, mostly 20 1892
women and children, injuring a dozen more. Imagine a French crowd being guilty of that!
Ever yours,
F. Engels
Love from Louise. How about a delegate or two to May 1st here? The Possibilists will have two men here (see Chronicle we sent you with Adolph Smith's letter to Shipton [4 6 3]). Edward wrote to you about it, if you cannot send a man, try to delegate Bonnier from the Conseil National of the Party and to send a letter. Don't allow the Possibilists to walk over the course as the representatives of France. But let it be done officially.*[6]*
200. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 20 April
Dear Baron,
Needless to say you will be getting the introduction to the English version ofSozialismus* etc.— in German of course; it's got to come out and where else could I get anything as long as this published except in the Neue £eit? It went off yesterday and so, until the proofs arrive, I shall be hors de combat. It's so infernally long because I've made it the vehicle for all sorts of old grudges against the English bourgeoisie and look forward to seeing what the British philistine has to say about it.
We over here are at last clear about what is to happen on May 20 1892
that on this occasion matters should be placed completely in their hands and, above all, that the Eight Hours League [2 0 0] be totally excluded. For just now the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION is working hand in glove with the most reactionary elements — Shipton, etc.— in the TRADES COUNCIL, to which body it is wholly subordinating itself so far as the May Day demonstration is concerned; the TRADES COUNCIL is to conduct the campaign against the independent elements in the EAST END, while the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION hopes to reap the fruits thereof. Those elements they sought to get rid of have, of course, found a rallying point in the Avelings, the latter's mainstay being 1. the GASWORKERS U N I O N , 1 6 4 2. the METROPOLITAN RADICAL FEDERATION,[430] 3. a number of the smaller unions who would rather make their mark in the EIGHT HOURS LEAGUE that be forced to play second fiddle to the OLD, petty-bourgeois-minded UNIONS in the TRADES COUNCIL. There was a great deal of manoeuvring on both sides and, at a meeting of delegates from London's labour organisations — in which, of course, the majority was rigged—, the TRADES COUNCIL succeeded in assuming control of the demonstration. Nevertheless, although it had previously decided not to enter into any negotiations with the Eight Hours League, it had to climb down and admit into the Executive Committee first 1 and then 2 delegates from the Eight Hours League, besides placing two platforms in the Park (1) at the latter's disposal. In addition the METROPOLITAN RADICAL FEDERATION likewise has a couple, which are also ours, whereas the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC
FEDERATION only has two.
Now the eight-hour day advocated by the majority on the TRADES COUNCIL merely implies payment of the ordinary wage for 8 hours, any work over and above this being payable as overtime at one and a half times or twice the ordinary rate; thus the eight hour day advocated by these people is quite different from our own, which means that in the course of this year, after M a y Day, the conflict will flare up in real earnest and be fought out anew. Such is the issue that will at long last receive an airing over here. So don't allow yourself to be hoodwinked by anything anyone from the Vorwärts, etc., may say about M a y Day here; from our point of view the whole thing's a swindle; it's an eight hour day IN A PICKWICKIAN SENSE, as is bound to come out in the long run, whereupon the equivocal situation from which both the SOCIAL 21 1892
DEMOCRATIC FÉDÉRAI ION and the FABIANS87 are profiting will cease to exist.
You should make use of The Workman's Times only for its factual material. T h e editor" is a provincial who is relapsing into belletrism, is anxious to keep in with everyone and both talks and accepts a great deal of bosh. But the reports are all done by working men, STUPID though the 'ERRAND BOY' and his mother, the 'MARXIAN' (an out-and-out duffer), and the 'PROLETARIAN', etc., may be.(2)
Mother Wischnewetzky has had to suffer all manner of rough treatment at her husband's hands, has got divorced, calls herself Mrs Kelley again and lives in Chicago with her 3 children of whom she is the legal custodian.
I wonder very much what results our Frenchmen will obtain in the municipal elections on 1 May. [4 2 9] It will be the first time they have been really put to the test.
Regards from one household to the other.
Your
F.E.
201. Engels to Pasquale Martignetti: 21 April
Dear Friend,
I am sorry that I cannot send you a German copy of the Condition of the Working Class.b T h e book has not been in the book-shops for the past 16 years and even old, second-hand copies are offered only very rarely in dealers' catalogues and are extremely dear (30-40 marks!). I intend to bring out a new edition as soon as I have completed Volume III of Marx's Capital.
I am pleased to see from your translation of the English preface in the Critica Sociale*[66] that your English has progressed by leaps and bounds. However, I wouldn't advise you to translate the book from the English text; the translation is very clumsy and full of Ameri-canisms, not all of which I have been able to eliminate.
Once you have got to the stage of being able to translate English rapidly and without a dictionary, let's hope that Labriola, Turati or some other friend will succeed in finding literary work for you so that you may at last get away from the poverty and isolation of Benevento. If only you could leave it and go to Rome or Milan, you would undoubtedly find something fairly quickly.
My preface was not at all easy to translate, containing as it did a number of expressions for which no definition, at any rate in the sense used by me, is to be found in the dictionary.
I cannot thank you enough for the assiduity with which you translate my works, thereby rendering a great service, not only to myself, but also to international relations between Italian and German socialists. You will shortly be getting something else from me, namely the English edition of Die Entwicklung des Sozialismus[11] with a long new introduction which is to appear in German in the Neue Zeit/61
From the outset Fantuzzi seemed a sham to me. You would, I think, be well-advised to ask him to return the mss and corrected proofs,[467] for who knows whether he has any intention of printing anything else.
Very sincerely yours,
F. Engels
202. Engels to Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Dietz. 23 April[4 6 8]
Dear Mr Dietz,
Herewith a brief note in case you should wish to place the same before O. Wigand.(1)
Once the preliminaries have been settled, printing could begin, providing you agree that the book should appear, not only unal-tered, but also without any addition save for a new preface and at most an occasional note. In that case you could send me the proofs in galley form and I should insert the annotations (footnotes) that were required.
Since the English edition has just come out, I have been able to satisfy myself that nothing more than this is required. A series of notes or an appendix such as would bring the book up to date would double its size, demand a year's study (which I cannot afford) and thus delay publication indefinitely. Moreover, Capital, Volume I, does the job perfectly adequately. Today the book is an historical document describing a certain stage of development and that is enough, the more so since in Germany we have reached much the same sort of stage today. Anything that needs to be said about this will be said in the preface.
Have you got a copy from which it can be printed? The English edition (i. e. the one newly published over here, a reprint of the American edition) has now come out.
Awaiting your esteemed reply, I remain, yours most cordially
F. Engels
203. Engels to Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Dietz. 23 April
IN STUTTGART
London, 23 April 1892 122 Regent's Park Road, N.W.
Dear Mr Dietz,
I beg to acknowledge your esteemed favour of the 20th inst. I also agree that you should, with Mr Otto Wigand's consent, arrange for the publication of the Condition of the Working-Class in England in your Internationale Bibliothek[469] on terms which remain to be settled in detail- between ourselves.
I therefore look forward to seeing your proposals on the same and remain
Yours very sincerely,
F. Engels
204. Engels to Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Dietz. 27 April[4 7 0](1)
Dear Mr Dietz,
I agree to the terms proposed in your esteemed favour of yesterday's date and shall later be sending you instructions regarding the amount of the fee.
If I understand you aright, we are also agreed that, while the book is to be published as it stands, I am to write 1. a new preface and 2. a brief footnote here and there as required to make the book intelli-gible, not bring it up to date.
This does not require express confirmation, provided my assumption is correct.
I have kept a reserve copy for printing purposes and am sending you this by registered book post.
With cordial regards,
Yours faithfully,
F. Engels
time
205. Engels to Nikolai Petersen. 3 May
Dear Mr Petersen,
I understand that it is possible even in prison for you to receive letters, and so I could not refrain from expressing to you my genuine sympathy on your conviction and imprisonment. Things are now much the same in Denmark as in other countries: where others are acquitted, a socialist is found guilty, and where others are given a month in prison, a socialist gets a year or several years, and hard labour into the bargain. This is proof that they fear us more and more, but it makes it no less unfortunate for those who are the victims of reaction.
Many thanks also for sending me Arbejderen. As I only rarely see Social-Demokraten, your paper has been my sole source of information as far as the situation in Denmark is concerned, and that has made it even more welcome to me.
The May Day festival went off well. I wish that you had been able to see the 600,000 people who were in Hyde Park the day before yesterday.[471] Every year the May Day parade becomes more impressive, showing that the time is fast approaching when we shall be strong enough to let things come to a decisive battle.
And now farewell. I hope that you are no worse off than German comrades usually are on similar occasions, so that it is at least bear-able. It can scarcely be as bad as in England and America, or as good as in Paris in Sainte Pélagie. In any case we all hope that you will leave prison with your health unimpaired and that you will be fit enough to be with us on the next May Day.
With best wishes from Mrs Kautsky and me myself,
Yours, as ever,
F. Engels
206. Engels to Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Dietz. 5 May
Dear Mr Dietz,
In response to your favour of 28 April an unbound copy of the Condition of the Working-Class in England went off to you on the 2nd inst. by registered mail, done up in a strong wrapper; I trust you have received it.
From what you say, it is not clear how much of a free hand Wigand has given you as regards publication in the Internationale Bibliothek [469] —whether for one edition of a stipulated size or for as many, over as long a period, as you and I may agree. To judge by your afore-mentioned letter, the latter would appear to be the case. I would be much obliged if you could let me have further details; in matters of business it is important for me to know what my position is.
Cordial regards,
Yours,
F. Engels
207. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 5 May
207
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
AT LE PERREUX
London, 5 May 1892
My dear Laura,
A few lines in a hurry. What was intended as a defeat for us here, has ended in a veritable triumph.[47] ' We had only two platforms on Sunday," but they were the only ones that drew, both public and press. You will have seen our involuntary caricatures in the Daily Graphic I sent you.[472] Platform No. 14, the international platform, was the great success of the day. By a conspicuous piece of good luck, Roussel of the Bourse du travailh [57] was, it seems, sent out of the way of Prudent Dervillers and Argyriades by them and Adolphe Smith and came on our platform, so that we had two Frenchmen,' two Russians/ a German, Bernstein, an Austrian, Louise, a Pole, Mendelson and a Jew/ besides la Espanola Mrs C. Graham and the Britishers/
The demonstration itself was immense, even compared with the two previous ones, and showed that things are moving here, though they move in that peculiar roundabout way in which the English delight.
In the evening we had the Mendelsons, Bernsteins, Tussy and Edward of course, and Bonnier brought Roussel, we were very jolly, had a Maibowle, and fat Roussel was effusively delighted, while Argyriades and Co. owned next morning to him, they had been bored to death in the company where they had, or rather had been, moved (sans calembourg!)
I am very anxiously awaiting the Socialiste to learn something about our electoral successes on May 1st in France,[429] the papers you sent me do not contain anything to go by, and surely if we had not secured majorities, we must have got in at least some minorities.
Anyhow I am glad the thing passed off quietly everywhere. The idea that the 1st of May is to be a day of rows and riots is a mere trap set by the bourgeois and we have no interest whatever to fall into that trap. We want to show our strength, that's all, as to when we are to use that strength, that's our business, not that of our opponents, if we can help it.
Thanks for the papers — Dinner Bell! I have Pumps, Percy and family here, so cannot write much, must take them out to see some of the sights they have missed so long in the Isle of Wight. They send their kindest regards to you and Paul. Ditto from Louise.
Ever yours,
F. Engels
208. Engels to August Bebel. 7 May
Dear August,
So we can expect to see you here on Saturday/ a week today.[473]
Let's hope you instil so much confidence into Paulus b while afloat that he will regard the crossing via Ostend as a trial trip for the crossing to Chicago.[474] For if he plucks up enough courage, he could go straight on to Chicago by water all the way—from Liverpool to Montreal on the St Lawrence and thence through the Great Lakes, after which he would for ever be immune; for on the big, inland lakes even the most seasoned old salts are sea-sick and, when the four of us survived a storm on Lake Erie without being affected in that way,[443] we were regarded as prodigies by the entire company.
But if you imagine I now intend to reply to your three letters in detail and in writing, you are mistaken. Louise has just come back from town bringing with her a tremendous thirst, so that we have ventured on a second mid-morning glass of beer and are in exceedingly merry mood. For it is very warm outdoors and hence we must, to use a Prussian expression, bring about a change.
You will be meeting Mendelson and his wife(1) who were here last Sunday and will also be able to go and converse with them at their house.
The fact that we had good weather for May Day and you did not, serves you right. You should have been over here and then you'd have been able to see what it looks like when 600,000 people fore-gather in one place [47] '; it was really tremendous; and an impression like that leaves one in no state to sustain even such criticism as is called for by the deplorable scheming and squabbling before the event, and yet sustain it one must.
When you come over here, your doctor's orders will safeguard you against any sort of public speechifying, always assuming that you yourself abide by the said orders. You know how it is — anyone who lets himself be talked round on just one occasion, is lost for good and all.
Laura Lafargue writes to say that, while our chaps have so far been victorious in the French municipal elections[429] at a number of places, the real results, because of the second ballot, won't be known until next week. So far I haven't seen much about it in the press.
Well, mind you bring with you a pair of good horny hands; we have already written to the BOARD OF WORKS, instructing them to put at our disposal sufficient ancient trees in the parks of London to enable you to uproot at least one a day for your breakfast.[475]
Cordial regards from Louise.
Your
F.E.
209. Engels to Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Dietz. 12 May
Dear Mr Dietz,
I am in complete agreement with your proposal of the 9th inst.[476]
I for my part concede you the right, in so far as it is within my com-petence, to print 10,000 copies, in return for which you are to pay me the following fees:
for 2,500 copies M. 500 in the autumn of 1892, after printing; " 2,500 " " 500 in the New Year of 1893; 5,000 " " 1,000 after printing this second half, but not later than 6months after printing has begun.
In view of your agreement with Wigand which is, after all, still very vague, I think you have chosen the right procedure. Whether you now stipulate one edition or decide to do several is your own affair. I of course am much more concerned with placing the work before the public again than with the kudos of having numerous editions.
With cordial regards,
Yours,
F. Engels
210. Engels to Stanislaw Mendelson. 14 May
IN LONDON
[London,] 14 May 1892 122 Regent's Park Road, N.W.
Dear Citizen Mendelson,
Sorge has written from New York to say that, of the ten pounds (five of them from you) we sent him for Anna," he still has 19 dollars 64 cents left; he has returned me this sum, namely £ 4. 8s., by postal order. I am therefore sending you herewith a cheque for £ 2. 4s. for your half.
Our friends Bebel and Singer arrive tomorrow and Bebel in particular has expressed a desire to see you — you and Mrs Mendelson. Perhaps you might care to do us the pleasure of having supper with us here on Sunday evening. If, by chance, you are engaged for Sunday, would you be so good as to fix a day and time when we could come and see you at your house.
With many good wishes from both Mrs Kautsky and me to Mrs Mendelson and yourself.
F. Engels
211. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 17 May
Dear Kautsky,
You will have got the postcard about Werner-Weiler.[477] Meyer told me directly after the Edinburgh Congress [4 7 8] that he had spotted Weiler there.
To apply that epithet to me was really very silly.[479] You would be doing a kindness to me and certainly to others as well, if you pointed out to him, at any rate for his future guidance, that he must accustom himself to our less grandiose terminology, failing which you will have to correct his stuff accordingly.
Hirsch is in Frankfurt all right and Meyer is in his debt since at Meyer's request he used to shout out at appropriate moments the ad-monition: 'Mr Meyer, you ought not to drink so much.' It was the funniest bosom friendship between a Jew — and what an archetypal Jew! — and an anti-Semite I have ever known. It still makes me laugh, just writing about it.
Now as to the business of Louise, I should, if I were you, let the matter rest.[480] That she bears your name is the result of your own voluntary action. That you are no longer together is likewise the result of your own initiative. That there is a possibility of mistaken identity is again entirely your own doing. She is now using the only name she is entitled to bear under Austrian law and I can see absolutely no reason why she should evade that necessity.
Let me be perfectly frank with you. All of us here, not least myself, have grown very fond of Louise, as was already the case when you were over here together. When the business of the divorce began, she behaved from beginning to end with a magnanimity we could not ad-mire too greatly and, since arriving in this country, she has become so dear to me that I regard her just as I do Pumps, Tussy or Laura, just as though she were my own child. When you were here, she showed you that she bore you no grudge whatsoever. But enough is enough.
Nobody can expect her to bear whatever unpleasant consequences may arise from jour actions. Were you to put to her what you told me in your letter and were she to come and ask my advice, my answer would be an uncompromising 'No!'
Mistaken identity has also occurred on the other side, but she merely laughed about it. And supposing she did oblige you, what would be the result? Louise Kautsky and Lwise Kautsky would be joined on the stage by yet a third Louise Strasser-Kautsky whereupon the comedy of errors would degenerate into pure farce. It would be of no help to you, while she would have to go into long explanations with all and sundry about the how, the who, the when and the wherefore.
So as I have said, let sleeping dogs lie. Your having parted is really quite a good thing and Louise is perfectly content with this state of affairs. But no one will ever be able to undo what you have done and it is you, after all, who must bear the consequences. And this particular consequence is really not so trying as to warrant any sort of fuss being made about it.
Tussy is of the same opinion and August, to whom I have shown both your letter and the foregoing,[473] is fully in agreement with it.
So don't worry, the whole thing will automatically right itself.
Your old friend,
F. Engels
212. Engels to Ludwig Schorlemmer. 17 May
Dear Mr Schorlemmer,
Not long ago I received the same curious letter from Carl a as you did, whereupon I approached his physician, Dr Gumpert, an old friend of Marx's and mine. He said that over a period there had been considerable changes in Carl's physical condition — as we had all noticed, added to which he had had a bout of influenza in the spring followed by all kinds of unpleasant after-effects. What struck him most of all was the very considerable time his system was taking to recoup the strength it had lost. It was not yet possible, he said, to diagnose any specific illness, but something appeared to be wrong and he would write again as soon as he had something more definite to tell me. Meanwhile there was no necessity for me to come to Manchester, as I had offered to do, nor did he himself wish it.
I haven't seen Carl since last summer; he was unable to come for Christmas on account of tinnitus which bothers him a great deal during lectures and examinations and is, he says, always aggravated by a trip to London. At Easter he went down with influenza and once again everything fell through. Dr Gumpert now says that, as soon as his condition permits, he will send him away from the smoke of Manchester. We may perhaps go somewhere together where the air is better, although I can't say anything about that yet.
I believe it would be best if you didn't let Carl know that we correspond about his health, for he seems to be very touchy. It would, I think, be best if you were again to write to him every now and then, giving him news from home and asking for news of himself. I shall be hearing from Gumpert from time to time, as promised, and shall then pass the information on to you with or without prompting.
August is over here and is staying with us. Paul the Stout b is also here, staying with the Bernsteins.[4]'[3] August is not available at this
" Carl Schorlemmer-[1]' Paul Singer moment, otherwise he would certainly have sent you his greetings; Mrs Kautsky warmly reciprocates your good wishes and I, too, should like to send you mine and would ask you to pass on my kindest regards to the rest of your family.
Yours,
F. Engels
My niece Mrs Rosher, known as Pumps, is also here and sends her best wishes to you all.
213. Engels to Victor Adler. 19 May
Dear Victor,
I have reached an understanding with Dietz and he with Wigand in regard to a new edition of the Condition of the Working-Class in England, the initial benefit of which will be a fee of 1,000 marks. Dietz promises to pay lj[2] in the autumn and '/[2] in the New Year of 1893 but August, who is over here, believes we can get at least part of it out of him even sooner. Also an additional fee of some sort for .Neue £eit articles. Now I should like to pass this on to you Austrians but would take the liberty of making a few stipulations regarding its use; these I have discussed with August who agrees to them.
For even though I may be unfamiliar with the details, I know well enough for practical purposes that your activities on behalf of the Austrian party are being continually hampered by the inability of that self-same party to secure for you the material position that would permit you to devote all your time and energy to the cause. I also know that the misfortunes you have met with of late have involved you in expenditure and that the party is unable to offer you the means with which to meet it. So I regard it as one of the prime conditions for the continued growth of the Austrian movement that you should be given an opportunity firstly to weather the present period of exceptional expenditure and, secondly, to secure for yourself, if possible, the necessary increase in pay which cannot yet be provided over there. The former is the more essential, but the latter is bound up with it. I should now like to put a suggestion to you, namely that the above fees should be placed at your disposal for either the former or the latter purpose or both — how they are to be used will then depend entirely on circumstances which you alone will be competent to judge. I need hardly add that there would then be no grounds for ac-knowledging in public, say, receipt of these sums.
I trust you will do me the pleasure of accepting my proposal. I know from my own experience, even though that was long ago, how greatly one's ability to work, will to work and time for work is restricted by the economic struggle for existence and we threea here are all of the opinion that you can do the Austrian party no greater service than to fall in with this little scheme.
Your May Day celebrations made a very good impression over here, the more so since Paris did not in fact participate this year as a result of the squabbles going on there. However Lafargue writes to say that in 22 places (the biggest being Roubaix and Marseilles where we got everyone home) we gained a majority on the city council — four hundred seats in the first ballot and a further 200 in the second.[429]
The effect this has had can be gathered from the Orleanist Soleil which I am sending you.
Many regards, then, from
Your
F. Engels
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214. Engels to Paul Lafargue. 19 May[41]
My dear Lafargue,
What a rottenly organised statistical service you have over there! In Germany we should have had the results 3-4 days after the 2nd ballot, whereas such information as is to be found in the Socialiste of the 15th is barely accurate and largely incomplete.[481] But that will come in time. You'll discover that nothing fires the imagination of the masses more than a splendid, well set out array of figures announcing electoral victories. In particular this is of prime importance when it comes to making workmen realise the extent to which universal suffrage lends strength to their arm. Don't forget to complete your statistics for 1 May 1892 — for comparison with the figures for the '93 parliamentary elections when they come out. If things improve, and of that I am convinced, you will see how effective it can be when friends and enemies alike are able to ascertain what advances have been made, how much ground has been won, in a year.
After all, the winning of 22 councils and 600 seats is not to be sneezed at! [4 2 9] And the Soleil which you sent me and which, now that Bebel has finished with it here, is on its way to Adler in Vienna," confirms as much in distinctly peevish terms. Bravo!
Now what have the others gained, the Broussists,[3] Allemanists,[53]
Blanquists? The first must have had some success or lack of it at Cha-tellerault etc. etc., the second in the Ardennes, the Blanquists in Le Cher. Or did you include them in your list?
I congratulate you most of all on the fact that in France, too, Lassalle's 'single, compact, reactionary mass',[322] the all-party coalition opposed to the Socialists, is beginning to take shape. In Germany we have had this for years and in the big industrial centres the anti-Socialist mass is already mustering its forces for the 1st ballot so as to bar our way. The whole of Germany's official history, if we disregard the influence of young William's h entourage, a most heterogeneous camarilla which leads him a pretty dance, is shaped, on the one hand, by Socialist influence which is causing the bourgeois parties to combine into one large party of straightforward resistance and, on the other, by the interplay of divergent interests amongst those parties, which draws them apart from one another. The Reichstag's legislation is simply the product, the result, of the conflict between these two opposing currents, the second of which, the disintegrative current, is gradually dwindling to a trickle.
Well, the same old game is beginning in France. There is no better sign of progress, for it shows that they fear you, not as a riotous force liable to act on the spur of the moment, but as a regular, organised, political force.
I have had misgivings similar to those you express about the inex-perience of the new councillors. After the wholesale replacement of an administration there is a period of between 6 and 10 months when the seats of power are occupied by the council's permanent employees who are quite prepared to let their new masters burn their fingers in experiments of a more or less dangerous nature. This is particularly the case where the new incumbents are Socialists. They should be advised to bide their time until they feel they can stand on their own feet in their new surroundings. Otherwise the old reactionary officials will wreck everything, and the blame will fall on our people.
As for the daily newspaper,[423] a fresh start must be made. I hope you will succeed better ,v£.vr TIME. In any case, you will be able to set up your editorial headquarters. Are you going to have a 'political editor' — Guesde?
Have you really formed a group in the Chamber or is the matter still up in the air?
A thousand greetings from Louise and Bebel [473] to Laura and you. Give her a hug in my behalf and tell her that as soon as the telephone has been properly installed, I will use it to have a cask of Pilsner sent to her.
Yours,
F.E.
Singer too is here, he is staying with the Bernsteins. LOUISE SAYS SHE WISHES LAURA WOULD TELEPHONE HER AN ARTICLE FOR VIENNA. I have just received a letter from Gumpert on Schorlemmer. You will know that the latter has been physically and mentally sick for 4 years now. In the last two years he has been unable to come here either for Christmas or for Easter. Last year, when we were to go on a sea voyage round the British Isles, he was put out of action within the first 24 hours. Recently he wrote his brother" and me to tell us not to write him since he was unable to answer. In reply to my en-quiry Gumpert informed me that he found Schorlemmer extremely feeble after what was a rather light case of influenza. Today he has written to tell me that this feebleness, physical and intellectual, is growing worse daily, that it is, in fact, senility pure and simple, that he had made him draw up his will, that he fears that within a very short time Schorlemmer's mental powers will be gone, and that the end is approaching. Poor devil! A talent of the first order fading away. You would not have recognised him had you seen him during these last few years — all his vivacity and good spirits are gone, he no longer takes an interest in anything. I am writing to his brother — he will be desperate. Imagine Schorlemmer dying of senility while his mother lives on in good health!
Firsl published in: F. Engels, P. et Printed according to the original L. Lafargue, Correspondance, t. Ill, Paris,
inr;q Translated from the French
215. Engels to Ludwig Schorlemmer. 19 May
122 Regent's Park Road, N. W.
Dear Mr Schorlemmer,
I have just had a letter from Dr Gumpert who says that Carl's b
condition has unfortunately changed for the worse. He tells me that Carl has become weaker and also less mentally alert, while the symptoms of paralysis in the left arm have grown steadily more marked over the past week. He very much doubts whether he will improve
" Ludwig Schorlemmer-'' Carl Schorlemmer
216. Engels to Paul and Laura Lafargue. 27 May
sufficiently to be able to get away from Manchester to some place where he could build up his strength and breathe fresh air. Moreover his mental condition indicated so great a deterioration of his faculties that he (Gumpert) felt it essential to obtain from him the particulars required for a will; this was to have been drawn up by a solicitor yesterday and signed by Carl today. Apparently Carl is exceedingly apathetic and listless and expresses no desire whatever to receive any of his friends and Dr Gumpert has explicitly told me that, if I write to a member of his family in Germany, I am simply to say 'that no purpose would be served by any of the family's coming over'.
I hasten to inform you of this by the first post. I shall also write to Gumpert asking for further reports and, each time I get one, shall at once tell you what it says. Unfortunately the outlook is now very de-pressing and, since Gumpert is a highly skilled and, especially in diagnosis, highly experienced doctor, I fear we must be prepared for the worst. What will your poor old mother say, now that yet another of her sons is mortally ill?[482]
With warm regards,
Yours,
F. Engels
216
ENGELS TO PAUL AND LAURA LAFARGUE
AT LE PERREUX
London, 27 May 1892
My dear Lafargue,
I congratulate you on your success. With your daily now under way [4 2 3] (unless you get thrown out again, which would be jour fault entirely this time), and with the provinces TO BACK YOU, you will con-quer Paris under the noses of the Possibilo-Blanquists.
Bebel and Singer are here.[473] This morning I had a talk with Bebel on the subject of a German correspondent, lîyou haven't yet written to Berlin about this matter, we would ask you not to do so for the moment, but in the meantime to let us know what kind of information you require — reports on the situation in general and on that of the Party in particular?
As for me, I can only say that if you could get Bebel to act as your correspondent you would have reports of the utmost value. At the time of the Anti-Socialist Law ' ' Bebel wrote a weekly report for Adler's Arbeiter-Leitung in Vienna. Those reports were such that, before forming a definite opinion on an important fact or an important matter affecting Germany at that time, I would always try to read what Bebel had to say in his articles. It was clear, concise, TO THE POINT and always accurate.
Bebel would write in German and Laura would, I trust, translate. You would have facts, whereas all you would get out of Liebknecht would be hot air. And Liebknecht would pride himself on writing to you in French. You would correct his style and he would tell you that you had mangled his facts and ideas.
I shall write to Rave as soon as I have received and read Roy's translation. It's a ticklish matter and I shouldn't like Laura's work to be wasted. What I have read of it is decidedly better than Roy's translation.[483] And then there's the question of a publisher! Has he got one? As for Rave's promises, which he hasn't kept, he excuses himself on the grounds that he has been held up by the additions to the fourth edition. Anyway it's a pretty unpleasant business, which I can't really fathom at this moment. However we shall see.
*Now my dear Löhr a few words with you. In that new daily paper you are an absolutely necessary factor. If the thing is to be superior to the usual run of Parisian dailies, there must be somebody who follows closely from day to day, and reports on, from time to time, the English and German movement. And you are the only person in toute la belle France" who can do this. I have no doubt that you are perfectly ready to undertake this work, which fortunately can be done very comfortably at Le Perreux, as it will not matter a bit whether these news, generally, are published a day sooner or a day later. But what I want to drive into you, poking your ribs with both my forefing-ers, is that you must be a regular member of the rédactiona and paid accordingly. Paul is too much of an hidalgo to think of, or to press, such matters, but 'it mun be done' as they say in Lancashire, and I think it is my duty to call your and Paul's attention to it. The subject is too important to be neglected, and it will not be properly treated unless you are rédactrice du Socialiste quotidien b and charged with that special branch.
Bebel and Louise send their kindest regards.
Ever yours,*
F E .
iqsq Translated from the French
217. Engels to August Siegel. 28 May
122 Regent's Park Road, N. W.
Dear Comrade,
Mrs Aveling got back safe and sound on Saturday when we were glad to hear that the business had been settled so quickly and satisfac-torily. Naturally it was not your fault that the colliery MANAGER should have duped you, but let that serve as a warning never to reach a final settlement with the colliery management without having first consulted the Scottish miners and us down here. In this country the Germans are now reputed, not without some justification, to depress wages and provide blackleg labour more than any other nation and that is why Messrs Burt, Fenwick, etc., were determined not to find you work over here. Were the Germans in Muirkirk now to do anything at all that might serve to support this old anti-German prejudice, it would represent a most serious threat to international relations between Germans and Englishmen generally, and this applies not merely to the miners, but to the workers in all branches of industry. So if you wish to continue operating in the spirit of the labour cause, you must do your best to learn enough English to enable you to talk things over with the Scots without risk of misunderstandings and to keep in daily, and if possible hourly, touch with the Scottish workers. You will find the Scottish workers very honest, very stalwart and, provided only that you can talk things over properly with them, very reliable, so it behoves you to get on really friendly terms with them. The colliery managements, on the other hand, are much more artful and mendacious than in Germany and thrice as experienced when it comes to exploitation. But until you feel really confident about your English it would definitely be advisable for you to write in German to Mrs Aveling, 65 Chancery Lane, London, W. C. whenever you are in doubt about anything. She will be glad to place her experience of labour relations over here at your disposal.
It was fortunate that we had two Reichstag deputies and members of the Party Executive over here at that particular moment,[473] as they were able to intervence at once and advance the necessary funds. Otherwise the affair might have ended unpleasantly and brought great discredit on German workers throughout this country.
Mrs Aveling will also have told you that people in Germany are saying Schröder induced you to leave by citing all kinds of inaccurate reports and that as a result you threw away an excellent position, although the danger was not nearly so great as people would have you believe. I must say that I had suspected as much all along and should be very happy were a man like you not to be entirely lost to the German miners' movement. After all, you would be pretty sure of a Reichstag mandate and if, in course of time, you were to return and then, after a month or two in jug, do your best to keep the German miners on the right lines, it could only be to our advantage.
You will be getting some newspapers shortly.
Warm regards from Mrs Kautsky and myself to your wife, about whom Mrs Aveling has told us a great many nice things, and to you yourself.
Yours,
F. Engels
I don't mean, of course, that you should return to Germany this very instant; on the contrary it will be extremely useful if you acquire an intimate knowledge of labour relations over here and then, drawing on your own experience, point out to the Germans how much better off they would be, even in a capitalist economy, if only they stood up for themselves.
218. Engels to Sir Henry Enfield Roscoe. 28 May
Dear Sir Henry,
Many thanks for your note of yesterday.[484] Gumpert has in fact given me a full report of the consultation with Dreschfeld, whom already 3 or 4 weeks ago he had proposed to Schorlemmer to call in, but Schorlemmer would not hear of it. As both medical men agree perfectly in their diagnosis, I am afraid there is but little hope left to us.
I have my friend Bebel of the German Reichstag here staying with me until middle of next week,[473] and intend driving over to Manchester about Thursday [4 8 5] unless called before by Gumpert.
If I do not reciprocate the style of address employed in your note,[486] it is simply because that note is in the handwriting of a third party, and therefore an unintentional mistake not quite excluded.
Yours truly
Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXIX, Published in English for the first Moscow, 1946 time
219. Engels to Ludwig Schorlemmer. 28 May
Dear Mr Schorlemmer,
I am not, alas, in a position to give you any better news today. Not only has Carl's" debility, both physical and mental, not diminished; it has actually increased, for which reason Gumpert has called in another physician, Dr Julius Dreschfeld of Mannheim, who is professor of medicine at Owens College [487] and is a great personal friend of Carl's. Unfortunately the opinion of this distinguished medical man is exactly the same as Gumpert's, namely that Carl's strength is gradually failing and that there is probably very little hope of his recovery. Since last Saturday Gumpert has kept him wholly confined to bed and has engaged a hospital nurse for him with whose work he declares himself completely satisfied. I myself propose, unless called before by Gumpert, to travel down to Manchester next Wednesday or Thursday [4 8 5] when, having seen for myself how things are, I should have more to tell you. But if Gumpert sends for me before then, I shall, of course, go down at once.
Bebel is still here and will be returning home with Singer in the middle of next week.[473] While here he has rallied very well, as was indeed essential for he was in fact very much run down. However, the doctor has forbidden him to speak in public for the next few months.
And Bebel's strength has got to be spared — he's such a splendid chap and we shall never get another like him.
In about three weeks' time our chaps in Paris will have a big daily that will be able to bear comparison with the best newspapers; it is to be under the control of Guesde and Lafargue.[423]
Mrs Kautsky joins me in sending kind regards to your mother and to the rest of the family.
Yours,
F. Engels
Carl has made his will in which he leaves everything to his mother. Should you receive inquiries from England regarding Carl's manuscripts, I would most strongly advise you to make no promises of any kind before finding out what is involved from Dr Gumpert, myself or someone else whom you know well.
220. Engels to Ludwig Schorlemmer. 5 June
Dear Mr Schorlemmer,
I arrived back from Manchester yesterday evening[485] and am sorry to say that I cannot give you any better news of Carl.[3] He is in bed and very apathetic, wants peace and quiet, but otherwise suffers no pain at all; he is not quite clear in the head and his memory often fails him, besides which he frequently misunderstands what is being said to him. I visited him six times, never for longer than five or ten minutes which is about as much as he can stand.
I can now tell you something I have withheld from you hitherto, namely that in the past week or so he has been found beyond doubt to have developed a carcinogenic tumour of the right lung extending pretty much over the whole of the upper third of the organ. In consequence of the pressure of this tumour on the nerve ends and the larger blood vessels, the activity of the brain is impaired and the right arm paralysed and swollen. The existence of this tumour explains the earlier symptoms the intense debility following his influenza and the failure to overcome that debility. But unhappily the discovery of the cause deprives us of all hope that he may recover and now all we can wish is that the painless condition he is now in persists until the end. Gumpert says this could come at any moment, though again Carl might, in the absence of any complications, continue in his present state but growing steadily weaker for several more weeks and possibly even longer.
I have made sure that he is well looked after. The hospital nurse obtained for him by Gumpert appears to know her business properly and to be taking great care of him, quite unlike the London nurses, my experience of whom has not been exactly happy. Also the owners of the house where he has been living for the past fourteen years are doing everything that lies within their power. The landlord showed me his fairly voluminous mss and promised me faithfully that he would hand them over to Carl's executorsa and to no one else. I spoke to one of these two executors, a chemist and an old friend of ours, ' and told him what I thought should be done first — at the very outset to safeguard the manuscripts and the interests of the heirs thereto; he was in full accord with me, so that in that respect my mind is at rest. Since there are people about who would not be averse to pluming themselves with Carl's feathers and have, indeed, already made some attempt in that direction, I thought I ought to do all I could to frustrate them. More about this anon.
Should you or any other member of your family wish to set your minds at rest by coming over here and seeing with your own eyes how Carl is faring, Dr Gumpert would gladly do anything to make matters easier for you in Manchester, as I would here.
We have discovered that a niece of yours from Bordeaux is here in London, but have been unable to get her address out of Carl; would
221. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 9 June
you be so good as to let us have it? We might be able to be of some use to the young lady.
I would also ask you to be so kind as to write at once (in German) to Dr Gumpert, whose address I give below, to say whether a telegram addressed to Ludwig Schorlemmer, Darmstadt, would reach you or whether a more detailed address is necessary and, if so, what it is.
With kind regards to your mother and to your whole family, I remain,
Yours very sincerely,
F. Engels
Dr Gumpert, 203 High Street, Oxford Road, Manchester, England
Bebel and Singer went back to Germany on Wednesday.'[1]
Mrs Kautsky likewise sends her most cordial regards.
221
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
AT LE PERREUX
London, 9 June 1892
My dear Löhr,
Your silence and Paul's is ominous — no news of any agreement signed on June 1 st — are your intelligent capitalists after all recalcit-rant? In the meantime Bax who is editor of Justice for 2 months, heard of your paper [4 2 3] at Mottelers, where he met Bebel, Singer and our lot, and in spite of our precautions, cautions and remonstrances, has blabbed it out in last No.[488]
Well, I am likely to wait until I get news from you, fortunately the weather is so hot, that waiting is not so very difficult, and rather less so than any more active proceeding — in the meantime I am in the agreeable position to hand you a little cash viz. £2.18.4, one third of £8.15.- proceeds of 180 Marks sent by Dietz as share of honorarium, for Marx's heirs, of the German edition of the Misere de la Philosophie. The translators[3] have all at once come to the consciousness that, for the first edition of that work, Mohr's heirs were not paid anything, so I was called upon to say what they were to have for both editions now on the coming out of the 2nd edition. After some correspondence we agreed that of the 300 Marks paid for the second, the two translators were to have 2/5 =120 M. and the heirs 180 Marks = 3/5, which I believe is fair enough.b So herewith your cheque.
Tussy is in Plymouth for Gas Workers Annual Conference,[489] and Edward goes from there to Aberdeen, on an invitation to preach.[490]
I was in Manchester last week.[485] Poor Schorlemmer is dying. You know how changed he has been since that fall on boards the Flushing steamer which prevented his coming to Paris with Nimmy and Pumps. For the last two Christmases he could not come here. Even Easter he stopped at home and at last sent a letter: don't write, as I cannot reply! Then I wrote to Gumpert and learnt that he was getting weaker and that percussion brought out a dullness over the upper third of the right lung which, all other possibilities being excluded by the other symptoms, indicated the formation of a tumour. This diagnosis has turned out only too correct. Partial paralysis, oedema and low temperature of the right arm have set in in consequence of the pressure of the tumour on the vena cava and the plexus brachialis, while the left arm is relatively and the lower extremities perfectly free from these symptoms. His brain, too, is not quite clear, and sometimes very confused. At the same time he suffers no pain, hardly any uneasiness, and is gradually getting weaker. Gumpert thinks he may last some weeks yet, but may go off quite suddenly if any complication arises. It was impossible to converse with him more than 5-8 minutes, he wants rest, peace and quietness, and does not take any interest in anything. I hope he will be spared any sufferings. His mother is still alive, she is 81 years old.
Well, my dear girl, do give us news, even if they are not exactly what you would like them to be, we want to know what is going on.
Vaillant called here on Monday morning, but evaded all further invitations or occasions for meeting me, I whall try to find out what brought him here.
We had Bebel and Singer here for a fortnight, and were very jolly.[473] You will have received the Pall Mall interview we sent you.[491]
We also send you the Elend der Philosophie,'[1] 2nd edition. Love from Louise, who would be thankful for an article,
and yours affectionately
F. Engels
Ditto to M. le députée
222. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 11 June
Dear Baron,
I would have written to you about Schorlemmer before now had I not wished to go and see for myself first. This I did only last week[485], after August and Paul had left for home on Wednesday,0
I went down to Manchester that same day. I had already heard from Gumpert, who is treating him, that he was confined to bed, was quite apathetic and was probably suffering from a carcinogenic tumour of the righta lung. And so I found him, unresponsive, totally incurious, but entirely free from pain; at the same time his faculties were clouded and he often supposed himself to be somewhere else. More than 5 to 10 minutes' conversation (when for the most part he mechani-cally repeated what the other person said) was too much for him and rest was what he needed most. The tumour of the lung continuing to develop, there was a marked dullness on percussion, while pressure on the large blood vessels and on the plexus also produced, on the one hand, impaired activity of the brain and, on the other, paralysis and oedema of the right arm. While there is no oedema of the legs, they are exceedingly weak, the muscles being relaxed and wasted. He might last out for a few weeks in this condition, but again might be carried off any day by some complication or other. There is, of course, no hope. I have told his family as much as they need to know, and have made provisions for the safeguarding of his fairly extensive mss; this may give rise to some interesting arguments. Gumpert got him to make his will before it was too late.
So that's another of our best chaps on the way out. He had not been his old self for four years or more, and had increasingly lost interest in anything not immediately connected with his work, the mere pursuit of which cost him considerable labour. Moreover, he was often testy because of increasing deafness and a susceptibility to the draughts and chills by which that deafness was instantly aggravated. Last year I made one more attempt to induce him to take a sea trip to Scotland and Ireland, but before twenty-four hours were out he was laid low by relatively minor adversities and we had to abandon the project. The tumour of the lung, now plainly distinguishable, explains much of this, and likewise his debility after the bout of influenza last March, which marked the beginning of his final illness.
My translation of the introduction to the English version of SOCIALISM.- UTOPIA.*,' A.YD SCIENTIFIC is now finished; as soon as the book comes out (and why it isn't already out I cannot think), I shall send you the introduction for the Neue £eit.[462] In the meantime I am sending you the Italian translation of the same book in the second edition published in Milan.
This country is swarming with congresses. On Thursdayb Tussy and Aveling returned from the Gasworkers' Congress in Plymouth [489] where they couldn't have set a better example to the TRADE UNIONISTS of the old stamp. A Liberal candidate, having given £10 towards a gasworkers' strike, or rather towards that of one of their factory workers' sections, asked to be admitted to the congress as an un-official guest, a request ordinarily granted as a matter of course. The gasworkers, however, said quod non,* they wanted no truck with middle-class candidates, and the man had no locus standib at their congress.
We've also got the miners over here.[492] The day before yesterday the Germans, including a cesky towaryl,0 came to call on me. It was particularly unfortunate that Tussy shouldn't have been here to interpret and advise; I need tell you no more than that the chaps had fallen into the clutches of Julius/, who failed to understand anything that went on either in English or in French and, though unacquaint-ed with conditions and people over here, had to pretend he understood everything and was acquainted with everyone, thus isolating the chaps almost completely. On top of that, they had with them an Anglicised German who cannot speak either language and is hand in glove with the old TRADES UNIONS. Fortunately the Avelings were present on the last and most important day. The ignominy of the English is plain for all to see: The Continentals are demanding 8 hours for everyone employed in the mines, the English ask it only for those working underground! That has now been established and the vainglory of the English about their superior TRADES UNION ORGANISATION has been punctured by themselves.
Kindest regards from
Your
General
223. Engels to Ludwig Schorlemmer. 16 June
Dear Mr Schorlemmer,
I have received your letter of the 7th this month and have also heard from Gumpert who tells me he has had a line or two from you. Of Carl(1) he further says:
'As before, he suffers no pain at all, takes enough nourishment and sleeps well on the whole. During the past few days his faculties have been very clouded and he often forgets what has just happened.'
Otherwise there was no change. Not having heard from Gumpert since, I cannot be sure whether or not there has been any material change, but thought I would allay your anxiety by passing on the above note.
With cordial regards, in which I am joined by Mrs Kautsky, to you and all your family.
Yours,
F. Engels
224. Engels to Nikolai Danielson. 18 June[4 9 3]
My dear Sir,
I have to thank you for your very interesting letters of 24 March, 30 April and 18 May,[494] and to ask your pardon for not replying to them sooner. But I have been extremely busy, so much so that I have not been able to devote one moment to III volume"—next week however I hope to return to it.
I believe that in reality we both agree perfectly as to the facts, and the bearing of these facts, which constitute the present economic condition of your country. Only you seem to have taken sundry ironical expressions of my last letter[1]' as if they were seriously meant— especially what I said about sundry things serving in the end the cause of human progress. There is in reality no fact within history which does not serve human progress in one way or another, but it is after all an awfully round-about way. And so it may be with the present economic transformation of your country.
The fact I especially wanted to lay stress upon, is that the Heypo-jKaft,' to use the official expression, of last year, is not an isolated and accidental occurrence, but a necessary consequence of the whole development since the close of the Crimean War, that it is a result of the passage from communal agriculture and domestic patriarchal industry to modern industry; and that it seems to me that this transformation must in the long run endanger the existence of the agricultural o6tu,HHad and introduce the capitalist system in agriculture too.
I conclude from your letters that, as to these facts themselves, you are agreed with me; as to the question whether we like them or not, that is another thing, and whether we do like them or not, the facts will continue to exist all the same. The more we leave our likings and dislikings out of the question, the better we shall be able to judge of the facts themselves and of their consequences.
There can be no doubt, but that the present sudden growth of modern 'grosse Industrie' '' in Russia has been caused by artificial means, prohibitive duties, state subventions etc. The same has taken place in France, where the prohibitive system has existed ever since Colbert, in Spain, in Italy and, since 1878, even in Germany; although that country had almost completed its industrial transformation when, in 1878, the protective duties were introduced in order to enable the capitalists to compel their inland customers to pay them such high prices as would enable them to sell, abroad, for less than cost price. And America has done exactly the same, in order to shorten the period during which American manufacturers would not be in a position to compete on equal terms with England. That America, France, Germany and even Austria will be enabled to arrive at conditions where they can successfully fight English competition in the open market of the world at least in a number of important articles, of that I have no doubt. Already now France, America and Germany have broken the industrial monopoly of England to a certain extent, which is felt here very much. Will Russia be able to attain the same position? Ofthat I have my doubts, as Russia, like Italy, suffers from the absence of coal in industrially favourable localities, and moreover, as you develop so well in yours of 12 (24) March, has quite different historical conditions to contend with. But then we have the other question to answer: Could Russia, in the year 1890, have existed and held its own in the world, as a purely agricultural country, living upon the export of her corn and buying foreign industrial products with it? And there I believe we can safely reply: no. A nation of 100 millions that plays an important part in the history of the world, could not, under the present economic and industrial conditions, continue in the state in which Russia was up to the Crimean War. The introduction of steam engines and working machinery, the attempt to manufacture textile and metal products by modern means of production, at least for home consumption, must have been made sooner or later, but at all events at some period between 1856 and 1880. Had it not been made, your domestic patriarchal industry would have been destroyed all the same by English machine competition, and the end would have been — India, a country economically subject to the great central workshop, England. And even India has reacted by protective duties against English cotton goods; and all the rest of the British colonies, no sooner had they obtained self-government, than they protected their home manufactures against the overwhelming competition of the mother country. English interested writers cannot make it out, that their own free-trade example should be repudiated everywhere, and protective duties set up in return. Of course, they dare not see, that this, now almost universal, protective system is a— more or less intelligent and in some cases absolutely stupid — means of self-defence against this very English Free Trade, which brought the English manufacturing monopoly to its greatest height. (Stupid for instance in the case of Germany which had become a great industrial country under Free Trade and where protection is extended to agricultural produce and raw materials, thus raising cost of industrial production!) I do not consider this universal recurrence to protection as a mere accident, but as a reaction against the unbearable industrial monopoly of England; the form of this reaction, as I said, may be inadequate and even worse, but the historical necessity of such a reaction seems to me clear and evident.
All governments, be they ever so absolute, are en dernier lieua but the executors of the economic necessities of the national situation. They may do this in various ways, good, bad and indifferent; they may accelerate or retard the economic development and its political and juridical consequences, but in the long run they must follow it. Whether the means by which the industrial revolution has been carried out in Russia, have been the best for the purpose, is a question by itself which it would lead too far to discuss. For my purpose it is sufficient if I can prove that this industrial revolution, in itself, was unavoidable.
What you say about the necessary accompaniments of such tremendous economic changes, is quite correct, but it applies more or less to all countries that have gone or are going through the same process. Exhaustion of the soil—vide America; deforestation—vide England, France, and at the present moment Germany and America; change of climate, drying-up of rivers is probably greater in Russia than anywhere else on account of the level nature of the country that supplies these enormous rivers with water, and the absence of an Al-pine snow-reservoir such as feeds the Rhine, Danube, Rhône and Po. The destruction of the old conditions of agriculture, the gradual transition to capitalistic farming on large farms, are processes which are completed in England and East Germany and now proceeding everywhere else. And it seems to me evident that la grande industrie en Russie tuera la commune agricole^ unless other great changes occur
" in the end- b Russian big industry will do away with the agricultural commune which may preserve the ooiyiraa/ The question is, will there be time for such a change in public opinion in Russia, as will make it possible, to graft modern industry and modern agriculture upon the o6ujHHa and at the same time to modify the latter in such a way that it may become a fit and proper instrument for the organization of this modern production and for the transformation of such production from a capitalistic to a socialised form? You will admit that to even think of carrying out such a change, a tremendous progress has first to be made by the public opinion of your country. Will there be time to effect this, before capitalistic production, aided by the effects of the present crisis, undermines the oöujHHa too deeply? I have no doubt whatever that in a good many districts the o6njnHa has recovered from the blow it received in 1861 (as described by V. V. [4 9 5]). But will it be able to resist the incessant blows dealt to it by the industrial transformation, by rampant capitalism, by the destruction of domestic industry, by the absence of communal rights of pasture and woods, by the transformation of the peasants' Naturalwirtschaft into Geld-wirtschaft,[1] by the growing wealth and power of KyAaKHd and MHpoe-
I have to thank you too for the books you were kind enough to send me, especially Kablukov and Karyshev.' At the present moment I am so overworked that I have not been able, for 6 months, to read through one single book in any language; I keep your books for my time of rest in August. What you say about Kablukov seems to me perfectly correct,[496] as far as I can follow it without reading the book itself. The agricultural labourer who has no land of his own, no hired land, finds employment for only a portion of the year, and if he is paid for this work only, must starve the whole unemployed time, unless he has other kinds of work to do during that time, but modern capitalist production takes every chance of such work from him. This difficulty is got over, as far as possible, in the following way in Western and Central Europe: 1) the farming capitalist or landowner keeps a portion of the labourers, all the year round, on his farm and feeds them as much as possible with its products, so as to spend but little actual money. This is done to a great extent in North East Germany, in a lesser degree here in England, where however the climate admits of
'' commune (Russ.)-b subsistence economy-' money economy-'[1] kulaks (Russ.) -0 bloodsuckers (Russ.) -' H. [A.] KaÔAyKOB-b, Bonpocb opaôouuxb eb cejibCKOMb xo3HÜcmei>; H. [A.J KapbiiueBT,, KpecmbRHCKiA en^HaeinbHun apettàu.
a good deal of agricultural work being carried on in winter. Moreover, in capitalist farming, there is a good deal of work to be done on a farm even in winter.— 2) Whatever is still required to keep the agricultural labourers alive, and only just alive, during winter, is often enough procured by the work of the women and children in a fresh kind of domestic industry (see Capital, I vol., ch. 13, 8, d a). This is the case in the South and West of England, and for the small peasantry, in Ireland and Germany.— Of course, while the transformation is proceeding, the disastrous effects of the separation of agriculture from domestic patriarchal manufacture are most striking, and that is the case with you just now.
This letter is already getting too long for me to enter into the details of yours of 18th May, but it seems to me that there too your facts prove the ruin of the peasantry and with that, also, at least for a time, the exhaustion of the soil. I quite agree with you that both these things are now proceeding with increasing rapidity. If the present system continues the end must be the ruin of both noMeiijHKH b and My-
>KHKH,C and the rise of a new class of bourgeois landed proprietors. But there is another side to the question which I am afraid BecmnuKb ®uHaHC06bd does not engross upon. That is the state of the public finances. The last loan in Paris (1891) was to bring 20 millions £ st. They were oversubscribed several times, but the report goes here that in reality only 12 millions were paid up, and 8 millions never reached the Petersburg exchequer.[302] If that happened in France after Cron-stadt,[288] what is to happen when the next loan has to be negotiated? And can that new loan be long delayed after the tremendous sacri-fices that were forced on the treasury by the Heypoxaöe? Vyshnegradsky serait-il Calonne, et y aurait-il un Necker après lui?r
Very sincerely yours,
P.W. Rosherg
225. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge. 18 June
Dear Sorge,
I don't know whether I have already acknowledged receipt of your letter with money order postmarked 28 April and your card of 3 May; what with so much correspondence and other unforeseen events, I am somewhat at sea. The money arrived all right and I have repaid Mendelson the half that was due to him.[497]
During the second half of May we had Bebel here, likewise Singer who stayed with the Bernsteins.[474] We had a very jolly time and discussed everything there was to discuss relevant to the German movement. I am in complete accord with Bebel; we see eye to eye about almost everything and, if not, are quickly agreed, as indeed has been the case for years with this clear-sighted man who not only sees things as they really are but has also acquired a remarkable grasp of theory. Nor has he ever been any trouble to me. Singer possesses considerable practical vision and dexterity in his own sphere but if he departs from it, he's apt to blunder; however, in this respect he is perfectly willing to be guided by Bcbcl whose superiority he freely acknowledges. Both men have not only realised, but have learnt from practical experience, that Liebknecht is only fit for the scrapheap and has become a positive impediment to the party. He has been marking time for years, whereas the party has made tremendous strides — also in the field of theory, as all its literature (even the smaller newspapers, somewhat to my surprise) goes to show. This had been known to me for a long time, but what could I do? Upon the abolition of the Anti-Socialist Law,[1] ' Liebknecht was, quite ineluctably, editor of the Vorwärts which he now edits atrociously, and the worst of it is that they can't get rid of him without wreaking more havoc than he is doing already. I have advised them to pension him off as decently as they can but, aside from any other difficulties, he will dig his heels in. Well, we shall just have to let things take their course; luckily the party is now robust enough to withstand a good deal of stress, and in the end things will resolve themselves one way or the other.
The above is, of course, written in the strictest confidence and solely for your own consumption. You will realise to what lengths things have gone when I tell you that Liebknecht considers all the members of the Party Executive to be enemies who are intriguing against him — save, perhaps, for Singer who, however, sees just as plainly as anyone else what the position is. I feel sorry for Liebknecht, but I have seen this coming for years and he has only his own pig-headedness to blame. Any of our people would gladly make him a bridge of gold and we can only hope that he will eventually realise this.
The German and Austrian miners' delegates to the international congress here [4 9 2] have been to see me a couple of times- two West-phalians, a Rhinelander from the Saar, a Saxon and a Czech. For the most part good, sound men just as Siegel, who is now working in Scotland, was a good, sound chap. The miners make a splendid addition to our ranks — all sturdy chaps and most of them ex-soldiers and enfranchised. The only snag lies in the many Wasserpolacken [4] [9] [8]
and other Poles (Dortmund district 22,000, Essen district 16-18,000), Ultramontanes to a man and stupid as they come, but it's only a transitory ill; in the long run they too will become involved and will then constitute a disaffected element in Upper Silesia, Posena
and West Prussia.
I look forward to hearing more about the gerrymandering in your presidential elections.[499] Never before have I had such an opportunity to observe the modus operandi[1]' and this time I shall be on the qui vive. Having once thoroughly investigated the thing, one would know what was happening on subsequent occasions.
I have not yet written to Dietz about your business, firstly because your articles [500] are not yet ready, secondly because I have been having to correspond with him about his new edition, now shortly due, of the Condition of the Working-Class in England" and didn't want to get the two things mixed up, thirdly because Bebel told me that he, Dietz, had not done very well out of republishing stuff from the Neue £eit, and fourthly because I may very possibly be going to Stuttgart with Bebel in August, when I should see Dietz in person.d However, I feel sure that someone will be glad to publish your work, particularly if you include some new material and thus make it a third or half as long again. Should I fail to arrange things with Dietz (though I'm sure I won't), the Vorwärts book publishers in Berlin would take it. In my view, the additional bits should primarily aim at supplementing the factual material, while in the book you would be able to express yourself more freely about the follies of the German Socialist Labor Party 13;f than you might have deemed advisable in the Neue %eit.
I am glad that your wife" is getting better. Here too the winter has taken a heavy toll, notably as a result of influenza. Our friend Schorlemmer never recovered from his attack and now has cancer of the lung so that he's unlikely ever to get up again. A fortnight ago when I visited him,[485] the poor chap's physical and mental powers were failing him and he was confined to bed, but luckily he feels no pain and we can only hope that this will last up till the end which, alas, cannot be far off.
Warm regards to you and your wife from Louise and
Your
F. Engels
I have several times heard from Florence Kelley-Wischnewetzky.
226. Engels to August Bebel. 20 June[501]
Dear August,
Herewith the Judenßintenb02 under sealed cover, for if sent by book post they might well be confiscated.
Schorlemmer is still so-so. I found him weak, apathetic, his faculties slightly clouded, but not otherwise in pain. Gumpert writes to say that the lung tumour is growing slowly but surely, with (due to pressure on the big arteries which should carry back the blood from the upper part of the body to the heart) a concomitant disturbance of cerebral activity; also apathy and loss of memory. He is still taking sufficient nourishment, however, so that, barring accidents, things might go on as they are for some little while.
The fact that Warken is still holding his own in the Saar ought not to surprise you in view of the fact that Schröder is able to hold his own in the Ruhr. I wrote a line or two to Siegel telling him what Bunte had said to you about his flight.[3] Siegel sent that letter to Schröder along with a wholly guileless letter of his own saying that Bunte had been caught embezzling money, and Schröder gave me both of them — Siegel's and my own — to read. Whether it's true about Bunte I don't know. At all events you can see that Schröder is still firmly in the saddle. In the case of so young a movement as that of the miners, one ought always to consider carefully whether it wouldn't be better to give untried johnnies like Schröder and Warken enough rope to hang themselves, or at any rate enough to provide us with definite, tangible evidence against them. And there's really nothing new in that, for wherever the movement arises anew the first leaders to push their way to the fore are more often than not place-seekers and blackguards.
Bax is now editor of Justice and will remain so until the end of July; and it is now a decent paper; yesterday it gave a decent mention to Aveling's speeches in Aberdeen,[490] while internecine strife (i. e. indirectly Hyndman himself) was condemned.[503] Indeed, yesterday Bax came hurrying round here in order to get his pat on the back, as the Witch, with her keen nose for such things, had prophesied the moment she set eyes on the paper. What Hyndman actually has in view is not yet very clear to me. Most likely he realises that he's been com-promised by his previous policy and that a change of front is called for. His paper is running at a loss, his SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION [29]
isn't getting anything like its share in the general growth of the movement over here — a share which would entitle it to take over the leadership; nor is it succeeding in its rivalry with the FABIANS [8 7]—on the contrary, it has been left in the lurch, and will continue to be so left, by its foreign allies Brousse and Gilles. In short, he might well deem it advisable to turn elsewhere and seek a rapprochement with us. That would be very far from pleasant for, as I have told anybody who was prepared to listen, I would far sooner have Hyndman for an enemy (when he is virtually powerless) than for a friend (when one has to keep a constant and very time-consuming watch on him). Another thing that may have impelled him to adopt this course is the total loss of any electoral prospects in Chelsea from which he proposed to oust Sir Charles Dilke but where Quelch, the test candidate put forward by Hyndman in the COUNTY COUNCIL elections,[412] polled only 153 votes, since which time he has abandoned all hope. At all events Hyndman will find it difficult in August to resume the old attitude so publicly disavowed by Bax in the self-same paper, nor could or should he do so if he wishes to compete successfully with the FABIANS. Well, we shall see.
Over here we are already in the thick of the electoral fray [504] and the TORIES and Liberal Unionists [505] are proferring an abundance of money so as to provide Labour candidates with cash and thereby enable them to steal votes from the Liberals. Champion, one of the TORIES' chief agents in this respect, offered Aveling the means to contest Labouchère's seat in Northampton but needless to say Aveling refused. These financial blandishments have put the Labour leaders into a state of tremendous excitation and such of the good fellows as think they can get something out of it are tussling with their consciences in an attempt to convince the latter that there is after all some honest way of accepting TORY money without blushing, though admittedly the blushing is mainly due to the fear of eventually doing themselves more harm than good. Knowing the extent to which all political life over here is riddled with parliamentary corruption, one can only wonder that the chaps should feel even this modicum of shame.
True, the Horlacherliesla is closely related to the Witch; nevertheless, I still prefer the latter. Greatly though Anzengruber may on occasion idealise his Austrian peasant, and uncommonly restricted though the background may be against which his excellent dramas take place, nevertheless one is painfully aware of the separation of that splendid race from the rest of Germany and of the necessity for reunification which, however, only we are capable of bringing about.
Well, I wish I could drop Mrs Julie,b honorary bookkeeper,[506]
a couple of lines to thank her for her last letters which have, alas, not yet had an answer, but I am up to my eyes in work. I have two more long and somewhat ticklish letters to write after which I intend at long last to get down to Volume III. c Hence I have got to put on one side all the correspondence that merely gives me pleasure and devote myself solely to business matters. So be my advocate with your wife and don't let her be too angry with me. I shall make vp for it, if possible before I come to Berlin, but otherwise when I get there; I look forward so much to meeting her and know in advance that we shall get on very well. So warm regards to her and yourself from both of us.
Your old
General
227. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 25 June
Dear Baron,
As regards the business of the name,[480] you misunderstand me if you imagine that I looked upon Louise's acceptance of your proposal as a sacrifice she would be making on your behalf. What I wished to imply was that in my view a request ofthat kind ought not in the circumstances to have emanated fromjyo«. So far as you are concerned, Louise has unquestionably done more than anybody could have asked of her, on top of which she received you over here in a way that evidently came as a surprise to you yourself, and re-established you both on a footing that made social intercourse possible without embarrassment or constraint, both between the two of you and between us and yourselves. So why go and drag up the old business again for the sake of something so trivial? A divorced woman's social position is quite bad enough in any case, for if she is to rehabilitate herself, she must, in accordance with present-day ideas, show proof to all and sundry that she is not the 'guilty party'. And don't you see that a divorced woman must feel deeply hurt if the man from whom she is divorced demands that she bear in public, not her lawful name, but another which, furthermore, he presents to her cut and dried?
I know nothing about the practice of divorced women to which you refer. All I know is that Johanna, née Mockel, later wife of Matthieux (whom she divorced), and subsequently of Kinkel, used no other name than J. Matthieux from the time of her divorce up till her marriage to Kinkel and that all her published songs, etc., appeared under that name.
As to la Schack, she simply made use of the aristocratic privilege conferred on her by the Prussian Civil code. Part II, Title I, § 740 reads:
25 1892
'In general the woman may choose, especially in the case of § 740, whether she wishes to reassume her former maiden name or her deceased husband's name.'
Even should la Schack have become or remained a Swiss, she could assert this right in Prussia and invoke it outside Prussia.
La Wischnewetzky never dropped the name of Kelley; if she has now dropped the Wischnewetzky, she was able to do so because in America they base themselves on English common law, according to which A MAN'S NAME is WHAT HE is KNOWN BY, as Sam Moore would say, and may be changed at will.
So none of this applies to Louise who, as it happens, is committed to the Austrian police state which will not permit her to bear any name other than your own.
But why on earth should Louise now be expected to oblige you by bearing in public a name other than her lawful one? Does that mean that every female Kautsky who appears in public must necessarily be your wife? And since the world is in any case unfamiliar with your present wife's Christian name,a ought not your mother b also to indi-vidualise herself by using a different name to indicate that she is not your wife? The world is divided into two parts — those who know your wife and those who don't. The former know that the London Louise Kautsky, the Louise Kautsky of the Arbeiter- and the Arbeiterinnen-Leitung, is not your wife, while the latter will be in no way en-lightened as to this by the proposed change of name, since they cannot know what your wife was 'née'.
I have informed Louise that you have told me the matter is dead and buried so far as you are concerned. I fear that so far as she is concerned that is not the case. I fear that by dragging up this business you have awakened so many memories that it will not be so easy to bury them again. By demanding what you did you have wounded Louise deeply, so deeply, I fear, that you will be unable to make amends. She has constantly nursed that wound and now intends to write to you herself.
Sonnenschein doesn't want to do anything about the English Entwicklung'' until after the election.[504] But then comes the silly season over here, so nothing can really materialise until the end of September. I shall therefore again write to Sonnenschein asking for definite information and shall then send you the ms.[461] which you can have set provisionally but not publish before the date of which I shall also then inform you.
I have heard nothing further about poor Schorlemmer; whatever has happened, there has been no significant change.
Very many thanks for your information re Sorge-Dietz.[500] It was important to me because Sorge has not yet reported on the progress of the negotiations being conducted through you and I had to know about this before I myself could do anything. Dietz is much too pre-occupied with selling in bulk. If he wishes to be the publisher of the scientific socialists, he must set up a section where there is also room for books which sell more slowly, otherwise we must find someone else. Genuinely scientific literature cannot reach sales in the tens of thousands and the publisher must arrange things accordingly.
Much confusion still prevails in the elections here. Nevertheless the Liberals are being taught their first lesson by Labour.
Your
General
228. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 27 June
Our good Schorlemmer died peacefully this morning. I'm going down tomorrow.[507]
There will be an obituary in the Vorwärts.[3]
Your
F.E.
229. Engels to Ludwig Schorlemmer. 30 June
Dear Mr Schorlemmer,
The first news of Carl's death on the 27th of this month will already have reached you from Gumpert. I got here yesterday [507] and learnt that a post-mortem had been carried out at the request of the doctors and that the earlier diagnosis — cancer of the right lung — had been fully confirmed by the findings. In accordance with the wishes of the faculty who, along with the students, would like to attend but would be prevented from so doing by an important examination on Thursday, the funeral will not take place until Friday b at 11.30 a. m. Gumpert has already seen to the wreath you ordered by telegram and its
F. Engels, 'Carl Schorlemmer', Vorwärts, No. 153, 3 July 1892. - b 1 July ribbon will bear the words: 'To their dear Carl — his mother, brothers and sisters.'
I myself shall be laying a wreath on behalf of the Executive of the German Social-Democratic Party.
This afternoon I put his papers into some sort of order, in so far as they have to do with business matters, so that I shall be able to discuss the more important points with the executors/ I have also put his manuscripts in order so far as I could; there is a fair number of them, but I dare say a good many are already in print.
I did not see Carl again. By the time I got there this morning the coffin had already been screwed down.
There is one matter upon which you may all set your minds completely at rest — nowhere could he have received better care than the care that was given to him and no one could possibly have had a more painless illness or a more peaceful end. It only remains for us to keep his memory alive in our hearts and in the world at large. Tomorrow I shall send an obituary to the Vorwärts^ The excellent obituary in the Manchester Guardian which Gumpert sent you was by Dr Schuster, a former student of his and more recently a colleague as lecturer in physics.
So good-bye for today. You will be with us in spirit on Friday and I shall certainly be thinking of his mother, brothers and sisters. It is a grievous and bitter loss to us all, but was a foregone conclusion months ago. With that we must console ourselves.
With warm regards to your mother and all his brothers and sisters.
Yours,
F. Engels
I shall write again after the funeral.c
Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXIX, Moscow, 1946
230. Engels to Ludwig Schorlemmer. 1 July
IN DARMSTADT
[Manchester,] 1 July 1892 203 High Street, Oxford Road
Dear Mr Schorlemmer,
I am writing to you directly after Carl's(1) funeral which took place this morning. It was an imposing procession, first the carriages with personal friends, including the executors,[1]' Dr Gumpert and Carl's landlord, then the faculty of Owens College,[487] virtually all of whom were represented, also Roscoe, then a large number of his students past and present. The executors had asked Mr Steinthal, a Unitarian (akin to our Free Congregations •,0H) minister to conduct the burial service and say a few words at the graveside, which in fact he did most impressively — he was a good friend of Carl's. If the address doesn't appear in tomorrow's papers, Gumpert will send you a copy of it. Numerous very beautiful wreaths had been sent; apart from those from the family and the Party Executive in Berlin there was one huge and most beautiful wreath bearing the inscription: 'From the Germans in Manchester to their Illustrious Compatriot'; also one from his former students, one from the students of his last course, from his colleagues, etc.
I was asked on arrival whether I had any objections to the proposed arrangements for a funeral of this kind, maintaining as it did at least a semblance of Church practice. They felt that this was how they could best conform to the wishes of the family. I cannot say that I was particularly delighted with the plan, but circumstances being what they are here in Manchester, I had no alternative but to reply that it was up to the executors to decide and that if the ceremony was to be performed in a conventional setting, then Steinthal was undoubtedly by far the best man for it and he did, in fact, acquit himself quite admirably. Had I protested I might perhaps have been responsible for a wholly unecclesiastical funeral. But in the first place I did not know whether this would have been acceptable to all the members of your family. Secondly, the entire responsibility would in that case have devolved upon myself; / alone would have had to speak and the emphasis would not have been on Schorlemmer the chemist but on Schorlemmer the Social-Democrat and in the circumstances it was certainly preferable to play down the Social-Democrat in order that the chemist might be given his full due. The entire English bourgeois press would have said that I had exploited Carl's death for the purpose of a pointless and useless socialist demonstration in front of an audience that felt cool if not actually hostile towards me and towards socialism, yet was compelled to keep silent out of respect for the open grave. And since I dislike all demonstrations, however unavoidable, it would have been utterly repugnant to me to allow the funeral of a dear friend to degenerate into an intrusive demonstration. It would of course have been different had Carl himself made stipulations in his will. However the scarlet bows bearing the inscription 'From the Executive of the German Social-Democratic Party' were eloquent enough; they stood out in garish contrast to the white flowers and bows of the other wreaths and were in any case grossly at variance with British custom.
I have today shown Mr Philipp Klepsch, one of the executors (both are German), all the papers. We settled one or two further matters and discussed the more important points, which means that I can return to London tomorrow.
The will must now be registered at the Court of Probate and estate duty will have to be paid. Not until then can anything further be done.
I have arranged with Mr Klepsch that family letters should be returned to you. If you have any wishes regarding other mementoes, perhaps you would write to him,
Ph. Klepsch, c/o Stadelbauer & Co., Manchester. In case you might want them, I also suggested that he should keep for you the various writings Marx and I inscribed and presented to him.
As regards the manuscripts and publishers' contracts, more anon. Warm regards to your mother and the whole family.
Yours,
F. Engels
231. Engels to Stanislaw Mendelson. 4 July
122 Regent's Park Road, N. W.
Dear Citizen,
I have this minute received a letter from Bebel with a communication for you, which I am sending on at once.[509] I trust you will receive the money through the Deutsche Bank (which has, I believe, a branch here in London) and that you will be able to decipher Bebel's writing. If not, perhaps you might care to return me the letter so that I can transcribe it into characters of a more international nature.
My compliments, as also those of Mrs Kautsky, to Mrs Mendelson/
Yours ever,
F. Engels
Bebel was not immediately able to lay his hands on your address, which is why he sent the bank's statement of sale to me.
232. Engels to August Bebel. 5 July[501]
Dear August,
You forbid me to write to you,[5] ' ° i. e. I am to give up the only correspondence I always find enjoyable and, instead, hammer away at the letters which bore me. But I'm not going to do it simply to oblige you.
And even if I were so docile, the Vorwärts' colossal howlers [5] ' ' about the elections over here [5 0 4] would make me fly off the handle. To say nothing about it would be really too deplorable. For the
Vorwärts has now actually succeeded in transforming South Paddington into a rural district of London — South Paddington which is situated right in the middle of the town, slightly to the north of Hyde Park and west of Regent's Park, and in which the only rural districts are a couple of green SQUARES — about as rural as the Dönhoffplatza!
The England of the Vorwärts exists only in the imagination of the writer. The view that the TORIES of today are more favourable to the workers than are the Liberals is the reverse of the truth. On the contrary, all the Manchesterian prejudices [5] ' [2] of the Liberals of 1850 are today articles of faith only to the TORIES, while the Liberals know very well that if they are to survive as a party they must capture the Labour vote. Because they are jackasses, the TORIES can, from time to time, be induced by an outstanding man such as Disraeli to carry out a bold coup of which the Liberals would not be capable; but in the absence of an outstanding man it's the jackasses among them who rule the roost, as at present. The TORIES are no longer simply the tail of the big landowners, as they were up till 1850, for between 1855 and 1870 the sons of the Cobdens, Brights, etc., of the upper middle classes and the Anti-Corn LAW men,[5] ' [3] have one and all gone over to the TORY camp, and the strength of the Liberals now lies in the dis-senting middle and lower middle classes. And, since Gladstone's HOME RULE BILL of 1886,[514] the last remnants of the Whigs and the old Liberals (middle-class and university men) have gone over to the Tory camp (as dissident or UNIONIST LIBERALS[505]).
Hence the need the Liberals face of making apparent or real concessions— primarily the former — to the workers. And nevertheless they are too stupid to know where to begin, many of them being, after all, still too hidebound by their antecedents.
So far the elections have proceeded as if in response to our orders. The Liberals are obtaining a slender majority and in many places are actually losing votes by comparison with the last election; thus there has so far been no sign of the great Liberal wave that was to sweep across England. Today is a very important day and the results will probably be decisive; should the Liberals score a brilliant victory today, the vacillating philistine — by no means a rare animal — will be driven over onto their side and that will give them the upper hand. What we need is a moderate Liberal majority (including the Irish) so that Gladstone is dependent on the Irish over here — otherwise, if able to exist without them, he is sure to do the dirty on them.
But it's capital that Keir Hardie, the Labour candidate in West Ham in the East End of London,— one of the few who did not take any money from the Liberals and did not therefore place himself under an obligation to them — should so far be the only one to have turned a Conservative majority of over 300 in the last election into an anti-Conservative majority of 1,200. Excellent, too, that elsewhere — in Aberdeen, etc.— the Labour candidates who stood against Liberals and Conservatives should have obtained anything up to a thousand votes. The Independent Labour Party is casting its shadow before it.[515]
There are three kinds of Labour candidate here:
1. Those who were paid by the TORIES to filch Liberal votes. Nearly all of these will fail and know it.
2. Those who take Liberal money and are bound to serve the Liberals. These are mostly put up in places where there is no prospect of their getting in, and amongst their number there are also men who, like the miners' candidates, are Liberals by nature.
3. The genuine Labour candidates, who are acting off their own bat and do not ask themselves whether they are standing against Liberals or TORIES. Of these, the Liberals accept the ones they have to (Keir Hardie and Burns) and try to undermine the others. In Scotland there are many such candidates, though it's difficult to say what their chances are. Goodbye and warm regards to your wife."
Your old friend,
F.E.
time
233. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 5 July
Dear Baron,
I got back from Manchester on Saturday,b 507 Schorlemmer having been buried on Friday. Should you want an obituary for the Neue Zeit, the man to look out for would be a chemist who would be able to give a comprehensible account of his discoveries and his importance to science. This would certainly be excellent, but in addition the man would have to be familiar with the history of organic chemisry in the fifties and sixties.
I agree that I owe you an explanation as to how Louise found out about your intended proposal.[480] After getting your letter of 13 May, and although from the first I had taken the view that there was no reason why Louise should fall in with your idea, I nevertheless thought fit to sound her out. I asked her, as though, mind you, it was my idea, whether it mightn't be a good thing, so as to avoid confusion, to add her maiden name to her married one, as is often done in Western Germany and Switzerland, even by married persons of both sexes. She looked at me inquiringly before replying: 'You needn't
Julie Bebel - b 2 July bother; I know who's behind this — it's Karl and he's been egged on by his mother.' Nor could I persuade her otherwise. On the contrary, a little while later she told this to Gine(1) as an established fact, whereupon Gine told her quite innocently and naturally, as almost anyone would have done under the circumstances, that you had likewise written to Ede b about it, whereupon the two of them discussed the matter.
When Louise later remonstrated with me about this, I had really no alternative but to read out to her the relevant passage in your letter of 13 May which did at least put an end to any further conjectures and speculations and to that extent could only have a soothing effect. Besides, that particular passage looked to me as though it had been expressly written in such a way that it could, if necessary, be shown to Louise.
Such was the course of events. Not that I am in any way dissatisfied with it. For once you had suggested I consult Tussy and had at the same time written to Ede on the subject, one thing was plain, namely that if four people who, as it were, consorted daily with Louise were in the know, not many months would elapse before one of them let the cat out of the bag in her presence and that would have made matters ten times worse, for then she would have said: 'So that's how you people settle my affairs behind my back— affairs which concern only myself, etc'
To be sure, Louise read me the letter she wrote you, or rather the draft thereof after it had gone off. It has shown me yet again that a third party should never intervene in the private affairs of married or erstwhile married couples since he can never know enough about the antecedents. For instance, it was only from this I learnt that, when your divorce was first mooted, you two had already discussed and decided upon the name to be used by Louise. If this is true, and I have no reason to suppose anything else, then I am sorry not to have known about it before. For in that case I should have immediately, and without reference to anyone else, have urged you at all costs to let sleeping dogs lie.
So as you see, Louise alone was responsible for her letter, as your familiarity with her independence of mind would be enough to tell you without specific assurances on my part. As for giving you my opinion of that letter, I do not regard myself as either called upon or competent to do so, this being a private matter between two divorced people. All I can say is that what has happened affects neither my relations with Louise nor those with you.
I am today sending you the introduction in German [4 6] ' by REGISTERED book post. Sonnenschein doesn't want the book to come out before September, so please don't put the thing in the Neue Z^eit before 1 September, after that date it will be all one to me— the fool has kept me waiting long enough. Unfortunately the German is a pale reflection; the English is far livelier and you will like it better.
Many thanks for the information re Sorge.[500] I shall attend to this as soon as I have a moment to spare.
So far the elections over here have gone off capitally.[504] The Liberals are winning, but if things go on as they are today, they'll get only a slender majority, i. e. they will remain dependent on the Irish, which is a good thing, otherwise Gladstone would do the dirty on them again and the Irish question be perpetuated. While yesterday's polls showed a swing in favour of the Liberals, there was no trace of the powerful, all-engulfing Liberal wave that the Gladstonians were counting on. Indeed, the incipient LABOUR PARTY [5] ' [5] is already proving a thorn in the flesh of the Liberals. The only candidate to have achieved a striking swing in the latter's favour is Keir Hardie in South West Ham, one of the few Labour candidates not to have taken any money from the Liberals or to have submitted to Liberal discipline. On the other hand Labour candidates in other places, in so far as they were competing with Liberals, deprived the latter of a great many votes and likewise gave them a portent of things to come. This will, I hope, be the last election contested by the two official parties only; next time the workers will play a very different sort of role.
Your
General
234. Engels to August Bebel. 6" July
Dear August,
Here be I again,a as you can see. With my obituary of Schorlemmer,b I enclosed a note to the Vorwärts asking them to send me 12 copies ofthat edition — i. e. only the page the thing was in, not all the supplements and such. I need these copies for people in Manchester and for leading chemists over here who ought to know where, outside of chemistry, Schorlemmer's allegiance lay. Needless to say, I have not had a single copy. Would you tell the chaps the note may have been completely overlooked — that important party interests are at stake, and that they should send me what I asked before it is too late and the public over here has turned its attention elsewhere.
The elections here [504] have proved a disappointment for the Liberals. So far they have gained 9 votes, i. e. the government's majority has been reduced from 68 to 50 (68 — 9 = 59 TORIES; 0 + 9 Liberals = 9; 59 — 9 = 50 at the poll). Yesterday's elections didn't bring them a single gain, but with 25 more votes, the 50 — 25 would be cancelled out by the + 25, and it would be simply splendid if neither the Right nor the Left were to end up with a proper majority. However, the Liberals are likely to obtain a small majority and even that wouldn't be too bad.
Your Bismarck rumpus gets nicer every day [5] ' [6] — the fellow must be quite mad. According to today's telegram he's absolutely intent on getting Caprivi's scalp. Well, we may see some fun. If only our papers weren't always pointing out that it's really a case for the courts! Must we really play the bureaucrat, policeman and public prosecutor like our opponents? Couldn't we, just for once, allow that old, broken-winded jackass Bismarck to make a fool of himself to his heart's content? And wouldn't three days in jug turn him into a martyr? It is almost beyond belief how ultra-Prussian the chaps are!
The Vorwärts has gone quite insane. Today it says that England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, the colonies and India are all of them called Great Britain [517]! But that name comprises only England, Wales and Scotland — not even Ireland, let alone anything else (the official title is THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AXD IRELAND) . Are the fellows absolutely intent on making a universal laughing-stock of themselves and of us?
Downstairs the Witch is contemplating a baby belonging to our former housemaid, and so deeply has she been engrossed for the past two hours in this act of worship that I can't winkle her out to send you her greetings. So unless she turns up at the last minute before the post goes, I shall have to send you and Mrs Julie(1) my warmest regards all on my own.
Your old friend,
F.E.
[From Louise Kautsky]
The General is only testifying to his own inadequacy for if, as he maintains, the baby-worship went on for two hours, he must have spent a full two hours writing the letter; an interpretation more flattering to me would be that, even though it was you he was writing to, the time seemed so long to him. However that may be, the child has gone, as you see, so that I can myself send my love to Mrs Julie who, of you three, is certainly best able to understand the attraction exerted by children. Same to you.
The Witch
[From Engels]
How fanciful of the Witch to say (as she does) that I have spent two hours writing this letter. I was doing a very difficult legal task for Schorlemmer's executors b on the subject of his literary estate, while she was giving the baby her fingers to suck. So it must have sucked away all her wits!
[From Louise Kautsky]
I've never heard the likes of it — the baby's sucking from my finger the wisdom which enabled the General to write his legal piece — blessed is he who believes.
[From Engels |
She has to have the last word.
Written word.
Nichevo.*
[From Louise Kautsky]
[From Engels]
235
235. Engels to John Burns. 6 Julyb
122, Regent's Park Road, N. W.
Wish you success and victory Engels Kautsky Burns 108 Lavender Hill Battersea
236. Engels to August Bebel. 7 July
Dear August,
This is what comes of your forbidding me to write to you![5] ' ° Yet another letter. The obituary numbers of the Vorwärts turned up this morning,[3] so all is well in that quarter.
The elections are going swimmingly.[504]
1. The Liberal victories are such minor ones and so much offset by counter-victories and other unmistakable symptoms (diminished majorities, often to the extent of being virtually non-existent, etc.) that the next parliament is likely to show at most a narrow majority for Gladstone, and maybe none at all (i. e. practically none at all) either for him or for the TORIES. That would mean early dissolution and another election, but also preparations for the latter in the shape of legislation which would ensure extra votes for the Liberals, and those could only be new Labour votes. In fact even were the TORIES to remain at the helm — which hardly seems likely — they would have to try and strengthen their position by acquiring additional votes and these again they could only get from the workers. So there's a prospect of 1. a cessation of the harassment which has hitherto made it difficult for individual workers to assert their right to the universal suffrage they have been conceded " [9] and 2. social measures favourable to the workers.
The Liberals have won 16 of their opponents' seats: the last government majority was 68. If you take away the 16 seats lost and also the above 16 won from their opponents, you get 32. That still leaves a TORY majority of 36. So if another 18 seats are won, the parties will be all square. I believe that a few more will be won; the so-called country boroughs are those in which opposition to the feudal pressure exerted by the big country landowners is strongest and where the lower middle classes do not therefore, as here in London and in other large towns, vote Conservative out of opposition to the now enfran-chised workers and out of philistine habit. Gladstone might quite likely obtain a majority of 20, including, of course, the Irish, and he won't be able to govern with that. The Irish are bound to demand HOME RULE and a majority of 20 won't enable him to put that through in the teeth of the Upper House. And that will mean a rumpus.
2. The only startling victories are those of the new Labour Party. Keir Hardie has turned what was, in the last elections, a TORY majority of 300 into a majority of 1,200 for himself. John Burns — whose Liberal predecessor had a majority of 186 — has got one of 1,560. And in Middlesbrough (the iron-working district of Yorkshire) Wilson, Secretary of the UNION of Seamen and Coal Trimmers — a careerist but pledged neck and crop to the new unionism,[520] obtained 4,691 votes, thus beating the Liberals (4,062) and the TORY (3,333). The measly Liberal majorities look pitiful by comparison.
3. In three places where a Labour candidature, etc., was both ap-posite and had been properly prepared for in advance, the Labour candidates were in fact beaten, but they also caused the downfall of the Liberals.
In Salford, Hall, Labour, obtained 553 votes but the Liberal was beaten by only 37.
In Glasgow (Camlachie) Cunninghame-Graham was beaten (906 votes), but so was the Liberal who needed 371 votes to obtain a majority.
In Glasgow (Tradeston) the Labour candidate Burleigh (in other respects a ne'er-do-weel) got 783 votes while the Liberal got 169 fewer than the TORY.
What's more, in a number of other places (Aberdeen, Glasgow — College—, Bradford), though the Liberals did in fact win, they nevertheless forfeited anything from 990 to 2,749 votes to Labour candidates standing against both parties, which means that next time Labour will constitute a direct threat.
In short, the Labour Party has proclaimed itself clearly and unmistakably and that means that next time both the old parties will have to make it offers of alliance. The TORIES may be ruled out so long as they are led by the present jackasses. But the Liberals are bound to make an approach. And likewise the Irish. When Parnell was sent to Coventry over the absurd affair of the divorce,[52]' he suddenly turned pro-Labour, and so will the Irish gents in Parliament when they realise it is only Labour that can procure them HOME RULE. Then the compromising will begin, and then, too, the FABIANS[87] — in these
237. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 7 July
elections conspicuous by their absence — will again put in an appearance, but over here that sort of thing just can't be avoided. However, we're making progress, as you can see, and that's the main thing.
By a splendid quirk of history, both of the two old parties have now got to appeal to Labour and make concessions to Labour if they want to retain or take the helm, and at the same time each of them senses that by so doing they are giving a leg up to their own successors. And yet they can't help it! What is our little jest compared with the colossal jest now emerging from the turn history is taking?
Many regards from Louise and myself to Mrs Juliea and yourself.
Your
F.E.
If you write to Shaw you might recommend Conrad Schmidt's article in the Neue Z,eitb as a refutation of their 'AUSTRIAN THEORY OF VA-
237
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
AT LE PERREUX
London, 7 July 1892
My dear Laura,
I went at once to Manchester[507] on the telegram of Schorlemmer's death, on Friday last week 1st July we buried him and on Saturday I returned. The last weeks of his life he remained in the same half-conscious and very oblivious, but absolutely painless state in which I had found him when there in the beginning of June, [4 8 5] and on Monday morning 27th June 0 he expired quietly and without any struggle. A post mortem entirely confirmed the diagnosis of Gumpert: a carcinomatous tumour in the right lung, of the size of a small orange, sufficient, by its pressure on the vena cava and the plexus brachialis to account for the deficient action of the brain and the partial paralysis and oedema of the right arm. The large vein ofthat arm contained a considerable thrombus, there were distinct though small carcinomatous places in the brain, and the heart was beginning to show fatty degeneration. Under these circumstances we may congratulate ourselves that he was spared longer and perhaps acute sufferings.
Gumpert had got him in May already to make a will, he left everything to his mother. The manuscripts he left may cause some trouble. The most interesting one is on the history of chemistry, 1) Ancients, 2) Alchemy, 3)Jatrochemistry,[523] up to the 17th century; a fragment of the 3rd part not completed, but still full of new views and discoveries. Then a lot of work on organic chemistry. But as he has two works in the press at the same time: 1) his own organic chemistry, 2) his and Roscoe's big book'[1]; — it will be pretty hard to distinguish which belongs to which. One of his executors is a chemist (Siebold) but hardly knows enough about the theory of the science to distinguish. And Roscoe's red-hot after the ms., as he knows too well that he cannot finish the book. I have told the executors in my opinion they might let Roscoe have what belongs to the Roscoe-Schorlemmer book on binding himself to let the heirs participate in the profits of the pending volume (German and English) in the same way as Schorlemmer himself would have done. As Roscoe was elected yesterday for Manchester, he will no doubt pounce upon the executors at once, so I wrote them yesterday giving a full account of what I considered ought to be done in the matter.
A short notice I wrote in the Vorwärts*' I send you today. Here we are in the midst of the elections.[504] They go remarkably well for us — under the circumstances. First, the immense Liberal Wave which was to carry Gladstone triumphantly to power, is all bosh. He will probably get a small majority, and it is not even certain whether there will be a majority for anybody. This will make both official parties dependent, for the next election, which may come very soon, upon the working men. Secondly the new working-class movement enters Parliament triumphantly. On Monday[3] Keir Hardie was elected with 1,200 majority in the East-End (West Ham)—last member a Tory b with 300 majority! Yesterday John Burns at Battersea with 1,600 majority — last member a bourgeois Liberal' with only 186 majority. And then at Middlesborough in Yorkshire J. H. Wilson, secretary of the Sailors and Firemen's Union (a Streber[6]
but deeply engaged and mortgaged to new Unionism[520]) beat both a Liberal and a Tory! These are the only éclatant victories in the whole election and all gained by working men: in two cases the Liberals dared not oppose one of their own, and in the third when they did, they were battus à plate couture? And third: wherever a working man's candidature had been well selected and prepared, it either considerably diminished the Liberal majority, so as to warn them to be more careful and not to risk losing the seat next time, or it made the Liberals lose the seat. Thus in 2 divisions of Glasgow, Cunninghame-Graham was beaten, but so was his Liberal competitor. Thus in Salford, Hall, an S. D.F.[29] man, but said to be good, had only 554 votes, but these deprived the Liberal of his seat. And thus, 3 Liberal seats lost merely because they would thrust bourgeois members upon working-class constituencies.
The election has done already what I maintained was all we had a right to expect from it: give fair and unmistakable warning to the Liberals that the Independent Working Men's Party [5] ' [5] was approaching, that it cast its shadow before it, and that this was to be the last general election carried on between two parties only, the Ins and the Outs. And therefore I am quite satisfied, especially so, as we shall get a parliament with which no stable government is possible.
From your silence I conclude that Bonnier is right when he writes to Tussy [:] le journal pend toujours à unfile[23] Let us hope the filc
will not snap but on the contrary grow into a rope and even a hawser.
Love from Louise. Prosperity and eloquence to M. le député.h
Ever yours
F. Engels
238. Engels to Panayottis Argyriades. Beginning of July
Dear Citizen,
I have received the Almanack de la Question Sociale for 1891 and '92, for which I send you my thanks.
You hope to be able to number me amongst your contributors for 1893. However I see that, without my knowledge, you have already named me as a contributor for 1892.[524] If there is to be a contribution from me to the 1893 Almanack, it will, I fear, be an involuntary contribution as before. A month ago, when our friends in Austria asked me for an article for their yearbook,[11] I had to tell them
1. that I was unable to undertake any further work, whether large or small, until I had seen to the publication of Vol. Ill of Marx's Capital, which is now ten years overdue;
2. that a contribution to this or that Socialist yearbook would, in the interests of impartiality, necessitate my contributing to most of the remainder and that accordingly my time would no longer be my own.
True, I made an exception last year in the case of the French Almanack du Parti Ouvrier.^[25] But on that occasion it would have been dangerous to hold back. That was the time when at Kronstadt[288] the official French republic kow-towed to the Tsar,[1]' the hereditary leader of European reaction. War was imminent and in my view was prevented only by the famine in Russia. At that critical juncture it was up to me to do all in my power to remove any possibility of a mis-
239. Engels to Hermann Engels. 12 July
understanding between French and German working men." I took advantage of the occasion and spoke up; that is all.
239
ENGELS TO HERMANN ENGELS
IN BARMEN
London, 12 July 1892
Dear Hermann,
Thank you very much for your letter of 23 June. The Schaafhau-sen dividend has been debited to you — many thanks.(1) I hope you enjoy your Italian trip; I shall probably go there myself some time.
Todayl am just writing to ask which of you is going to be in Engelskirchen on or about the 10th or 12th August, and whether you could do with me there for a couple of days round about that time. I shall probably be paying another visit to the Continent then and, although unlikely to take in Barmen, should like for once to get another breath of Engelskirchen air. I'd be glad if you wouldn't mention this unless you have to or else certain people might expect me to go to Barmen as well, and that might not fit in with my other plans.
For the rest, all is well with me but I too am beginning to feel the need for relaxation. That's the trouble with London; in July it becomes sultry and unbearable and one longs to get right away from it.
But I still have heaps of urgent jobs to do.
Love to Emma" and your children and grandchildren.
Your
Friedrich
time
240. Engels to Eduard Bernstein. 14 July
Dear Ede,
Your and Gine's postcard of 24 June 1892 (I reproduce the post-mark for want of any other date) and letter of 2 July have reached me safely. I feel sure that the prospects for your harvest have in the meantime improved to such an extent that you are now worth, not 50 raps but 1 franc, and, since the value of money — whether paid or not — does after all represent + b physical labour, I am equally sure that your health can only benefit from your haymaking. But why you sweat physically in the heat of the afternoon and mentally in the cool of the morning is not very clear unless it's a slimming cure you are after and of that, after all, you have no need. However, you are now in Zurich, so that all these comments will arrive after the event and your haymaking will presumably have given way to nutrimentum Spiritus0
(to stick to old Fritz'sd Latin) in the museum or the Tonhalle or whatever the places are called there. But you should take spriritus in the form vini aut cerevisiae" rather than in that of more abstract spir-itous material, otherwise it won't be a real summer holiday. As for what's happening in the English elections,[504] the Vorwärts is in any case far better informed than the two of us put together/ 1892
Bax's editorship of Justice would seem to be over. After the one number, [5 0 3] in which he radically changed the paper's tone,[11] there was a hitch; the tone reverted — at any rate in the negative sense of ignoring the movement in France, Germany, etc.— to what it had been, even though the earlier onslaughts were not resumed. But the last number is again Hyndman ALL OVER; Keir Hardie is attacked, Burns ignored and all the leading articles are supplied by Hyndman. Over here it is said that Bax's attack on Stanley of Africa [5 2 6] (who suddenly turned up in North Lambeth b to oppose the Gladstonians as UNIONIST candidate) has brought about a breach between him and Hyndman and that Hyndman has led the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION[29] in a fervent pro-Stanley campaign in the latter's constituency. I am passing this on to you as related to me. No doubt you will be seeing Bax in Zurich in about a fortnight's time but whether, having re-signed from the editorship of justice, he will pay me a call before then, I cannot say.
Typical characteristics of the elections are: 1. A complete lack of enthusiasm for HOME RULE in England.
2. T h e granting of suffrage to working men has driven vast numbers of petty bourgeois into the Conservative camp, at any rate in the larger cities. Your petty bourgeois is beginning to be afraid of the workers, or at any rate does not want to be mistaken for one of them; CONSERVATIVE IS RESPECTABLE and hence he votes against Gladstone.
3. T h e strength of the Liberal Party lies in the middle and lower middle classes of the smaller towns and COUNTIES where the pressure exerted by the semi-feudal landowners and the High C h u r c h [5 2 7]
clergy is still a force to be reckoned with. In the larger cities even the DISSENTERS, traditional mainstay of the Liberal Party, are beginning to vacillate — cf. for instance Birmingham.
4. Now that the two bourgeois parties are on an almost exactly equal footing (today of 3,300,000 votes cast, the opposition's majority over the government amounts in all to no more than about 76,000), it is Labour which is beginning to call the tune. And only in the election of Labour candidates — Keir Hardie, Burns, Wilson and others— was there any show of enthusiasm. Even before the elections' I had said that these would be the last to be fought out between the two official parties, but that they would give the Liberals a foretaste of things to come. As has happened in full measure. Even at the next elections the Labour Party will put up quite a different show. The current elections must have filled it with confidence in its own strength.
5. The new Parliament is a provisional one. Gladstone will not get a majority without the support of the Irish and Labour members, which means an early dissolution. So much the better.
Apropos. Tussy intends to send the Neue £eit an article on the elections a in which, however, only such internal matters will be discussed as could be known to someone over here, and then not to all and sundry. So don't let it deter you from writing in the Neue Ze^ about the general results as you see them. Her information, on the other hand, consists of specific facts relating to the skulduggery of the various parties, something quite different to what you will be writing.
Warm regards from Louise and myself to both of you.
Your
F.E.
241. Engels to Paul Lafargue. 22 July[141]
My dear Lafargue,
Let's hope that this time the Battle of Eylau will not, like its predecessor, be a DRAWN BATTLE [5] [2 8] and that whatever Mr Weinschenk decants for you will be wine of a respectable sort.b I begin to understand French anti-Semitism when I see how these Jews of Polish origin with German names are insinuating themselves everywhere, claiming everything as their own, pushing themselves forward even to the extent of shaping public opinion in the City of Light," a city of which your Parisian simpleton is so proud that he believes it to be the supreme power in the universe.
At all events, it's not a symptom to be overlooked if these gentlemen are now of the opinion that a socialist newspaper is a sound in-vestment. We're quoted on the Stock Exchange! That really is a sign of progress.
I believe Millerand is right in advising you to deposit 25 or, better still, 50 thousand fr. in your name at a good bank. That is the only guarantee, but take care that the bank places it to your credit without any conditions. They should send you a formal letter, stating that the sum of... has been placed to your credit and that you are at liberty to dispose of it whenever you wish. Moreover, in the contract with you and Guesde, Weinschenk should authorise you to withdraw this sum in the event of his breaking the contract. For otherwise the private contract between him and the two of you would not be binding on the company to be floated — unless the latter had expressly accepted it. But these are legal niceties and Millerand will doubtless advise you properly.
As regards the cholera, it is virtually certain to arrive here. Meanwhile it is completing the work of peace begun in 1891 by the famine in Russia.b What is beyond my comprehension is the stupidity of your French bourgeois who evidently believes that Russia is a power capable of doing anything whatever for France. If he had only a modicum of common sense he would see that at this moment the alliance with France is absolutely indispensible to Russia and that whatever France wanted, Russia would have to concede. But in all western countries the attitude of our official politicians to Russia is stupid beyond belief. France, in the shape of her army, has all the safeguards she needs. I have been reading an article by an English officer, not one of your generals of the old school, who owe their promotion to their ignorance, but a colonel who knows his business and who speaks of the French army with an envy that is genuinely felt — he is envious because he knows that the advantages it enjoys are impracticable in England by reason of the fundamental difference between the two military institutions. But he says that the French army is truly democratic— in the regiments, namely its vital organisation—, that officers and men respect one another and work together towards the same end, that all ranks know their trade, that even the territorials[529]
have made better soldiers than might have been expected, that real discipline is excellent and based on the good will of all, that military training is confined to things which are really necessary in war, but that within those limits such training is perfectly adequate, and that all superfluous parades are rigidly eschewed. In short, if you except the better training received by the French, it is a description of the Prussian army as reorganised after 1807 under Scharnhorst and that's the greatest compliment one could pay the French army. I'm beginning to believe that battalion for battalion it's just as good as the German army, if not better. The Germans' superiority lies in the large number of officers on the reserve, the superiority of the French in the good relationship between the men and their officers. In our case the men are shamefully ill treated.
You are right. Next week I am off to Ryde.[530] Louise departs next Sunday for Vienna and I shall probably depart on Wednesday." So if you write after Tuesday, the address is: The Firs, Brading Road, Ryde.
I trust Laura is well; we haven't heard a word from her.[531] Since distance precludes my giving her a kiss, give her a kiss on my behalf.
My regards, Mr Wandering Jew, [3 9 2]
F. E.
into Translated from the French
242. Engels to August Bebel. 23 July
Dear August,
With your usual perspicacity you rightly guessed that I would be sending you this letter via the Witch. So to begin with let me thank you for the Imperial and Royal Railway Timetable and assure you that I shall set my 'new course' by the above right royal document. I have already fathomed a few of the mysterious signs and wonders to be found therein and within the next fortnight hope to get to the bottom of them all, thereby ensuring that I don't find myself stuck anywhere.
Well, my plans are as follows: Next Wednesdaya I go to Pumps in Ryde [53]° whither all letters will be forwarded. Shall stay there until about 10-15 August, depending on circumstances, for I am awaiting a letter from Barmen,b the contents of which will determine the day of departure. I shan't go to Barmen, as I have so many nephews and nieces there that duty visits alone would take more than a fortnight. But I want to spend a few days in Engelskirchen where my brothers go in turn for the summer holidays. Thence, on or about the 18th or 19th, to Zurich where I must pay a visit I have been promising for years to my cousin Mrs Beust and family. I shall let you know as soon as I arrive and shall then go on to St Gallen on the 24th or 25th. If you fetch me, so much the better. We would then set out for Stuckert0
on the Neckar's banks, pick up Uncle Georg and carry on to Munich and — via the Alps if possible — to Vienna, etc. She will be able to tell you the rest by word of mouth (I don't mean Mrs Beust who is the grammatical subject but the Witch who is in any case a most un-grammatical one).
According to Tussy, the elections [504] here in the East End of London have aroused wild enthusiasm. The workers have at last realised that they are capable of something if only they have the will. The Liberal spell has been broken and, what's more, correspondents from far and wide have been proclaiming in the Workman's Times that an INDEPENDENT LABOUR PARTY is all that is needed. Facts and facts alone are what impress hard-headed John Bull and these cannot fail to do so.
The Vollmariad provides further proof that the man has completely lost touch with the Party.[532] A break with him is bound to come, probably this year or next; he seems intent on ramming state socialist inanities down the Party's throat. But since he is an artful intriguer and since I have had wide experience of campaigning against people of this sort — Marx and I often made tactical blunders when confronted by this kind and had to pay dearly for it — I shall now take the liberty of offering you a few tips.
What these people are mainly after is to put us formally in the wrong and that we must prevent. Otherwise they'll keep harping on this side-issue in order to obscure the main issue of whose weakness they are aware. So be careful what you say both in public and in private. You will have noticed how cleverly the fellow made use of your remark about Liebknecht[533] so as to foment trouble between him (Liebknecht) and yourself — after all he is perfectly well aware of your attitude to one another! — and thus place you in a quandary.
Secondly, since it is important to them to obscure the main issue, you must avoid giving them any cause to do so; any side-issue they may raise should be dealt with as briefly and conclusively as possible so that it is disposed of once and for all. As for yourself] however, you must if at all possible ignore all side-issues or red herrings that may arise, whatever the temptations. Otherwise the debate will range ever wider and the original bone of contention will gradually disappear from view. In which case there will no longer be any chance of a decisive victory. So far as the intriguers are concerned, that might be success enough, but for us, at any rate, it would be a moral defeat.
Thirdly, it follows from 1. and 2. that, when confronted by such people, purely defensive tactics are best until such time as they land themselves in a real predicament — then you open up with short, devastating artillery bombardment before going in with the bayonet for the coup de grâce. Here, as nowhere else, it is a matter of husban-ding one's ammunition and reserves until the last moment.
Every time we departed from these rules when fighting the Bakuninists, Proudhonists, German academics and other such riff-raff, we
243. Engels to Regina Bernstein. 25 July
had to suffer for it and that is why I now submit them to you again for your consideration.
Well, warm regards to yourself and Mrs Juliea from
Your
General
Siegel's last letter is enclosed at his request.
243
ENGELS TO REGINA BERNSTEIN
IN ZURICH
London, 25 July 1892
Dear Gine,
We were delighted to get your and Ede's letter and showed it to Tussy yesterday. From the picture the château h has the appearance of a really splendid little castle; a garden restaurant for some 500 people and, next to a couple of giant poplars, a few mysterious trees that look like unassuming palms; on the slope below the vines whence comes the sour wine.[1] Still, one gets used to that too and in any case it's better than London ALE, while the air up there must be a lot better than in Highgate. I'm glad it's doing Ede good and that you can hope to' bring him back with his nerves functioning in such a way that he is no longer conscious of them.
Here too the summer holidays have started. Louise left for Cologne yesterday afternoon and by now — 5 p.m.— will doubtless be very close to Berlin. The day after tomorrow I set off for a fortnight's stay with Pumps,[530] after which I shall pay another visit to the dear fa-therland about the time you will be preparing to leave; indeed it is not
"Julie Bebel-[1]' In the original: Schlossli (Swiss dialect).-[1] In the original: sure Wi chiimml (Swiss dialect).
impossible that I may venture as far as Zurich shortly after you have gone — that, however, is entirely between ourselves. But why did you buy those confounded return tickets? They are the main obstacle that prevents us from sauntering along the lake together. I'm glad to hear that your mama is still such a doughty mountaineer. If I really do get to Berlin — alas, the dream is far too beautiful for one to believe it might come true — I shall in any case see her there.
Tell Ede that Louise was so overwhelmed on hearing that he had said Massel and Broche* three times on her behalf that I had to ad-minister a potent draught of cognac before she set off on her journey to help her recover from the shock.
What follows next is for Ede. Namely, in the first place, Tussy's and Edward's articleb was ready by Sunday (a week ago yesterday) and was sent off to Stuckert."
Secondly, our successes in the elections[504] have now been generally acknowledged over here. The present situation is that, in view of the marked preponderance of the Radical wing in his party, Gladstone must largely rejuvenate his cabinet if it is to survive;
further, that his HOME RULE BILL will at once be thrown out by the Upper House;
but that to be able to dissolve with any certainty of success, he must at the same time introduce ONE MAN ONE VOTE by drawing up a sensible electoral register which will ensure the workers do in fact get what was promised them on paper in general terms in 1867 and 1884 but was subsequently retracted in matters of detail,[519] i.e. a 1-ly million increase in the Labour electorate — and perhaps a SECOND BAL-
LOT;
and that not until this has gone through will he dissolve. So it is a splendid situation so far as we are concerned. Many regards to Ede and you yourself,
Yours
General
" good fortune and blessings-[1]' E. Aveling and E. Marx-Aveling, 'Die Wahlen in Großbritannien', Die Neue Zeil, 10. Jg. 1891/92, 2. Bd., Nr. 45.-' Stuttgart
244. Engels to Pasquale Martignetti. 25 July
Dear Friend,
I have not replied to your letter of 13 May sooner because I wished to include with my reply a material token of my sympathy. At the time, however, I myself was short of funds and it is only now that I find myself in a position to send you the enclosed money-order for three pounds sterling. I know only too well that your troubles all derive from the struggle for existence and I'm only sorry that I cannot do more to make that struggle easier for you.
Meanwhile I'm glad to learn from your letter of 1 July that your health is improving and that there is no longer any fear of the neurasthenia that was threatening to take hold. I hope the improvement will continue, so that you will soon be able to look round for remu-nerative employment again.
I shall ask Aveling tomorrow about the Students' Marx; he is unlikely to raise any objections.[534]
You will have heard that in the elections[504] here we scored positive triumphs over both the old parties and that even where we lost we gave the Liberals a taste of our power. The movement is gaining more and more ground, thanks in particular to the resolution regarding eight hours demonstrations adopted by the Paris Congress.[5] ' The First of May has 'fait merveille',* immeasurably more so than did the Chassepots at Mentana,[535] which have long since been consigned to the scrapheap.
With sincere regards,
Yours,
F. Engels
245. Engels to Ludwig Schorlemmer. 25 July
My dear Schorlemmer,
Do please let us drop the ceremonious 'Mr' in future. I'm glad you were satisfied with the obituary in the Vorwärts." I had to write it in great haste and without any external aids on the afternoon before the funeral. Had I been able to wait until I got back to London I could have gone into greater detail. But in cases like these one must work exactly like a journalist, i. e. quickly, making do with the material to hand.
Justice, the English Socialist paper, also published an excerpt from the obituary.[536] This paper is the organ of Mr Hyndman who is in personal control of the Social Democratic Federation,[29] a society that is Marxist in principle and anti-Marxist in practice. Hyndman is a petty-minded intriguer who looks down on the German party with indescribable envy because his little society is incapable of achieving what our own people can pull off without a second thought and who therefore allies himself with anyone who opposes the German party— over here with the noble Gilles, for example, with the French Possibilists of Broussian persuasion,[3] etc. Two months ago, however, he stepped down as editor in favour of Bax who is a talented and in other respects decent fellow with a complete mastery of German, and who often visits me and the Avelings. Hyndman hoped that he would thereby get him into his clutches, but apparently Bax has decided that there is nothing doing in that quarter so far as he is concerned — at all events it was he who published the notice in the last number he edited; he knew Carlb very well and often used to meet him at my house and elsewhere.— Shall try and send you the number.
But now I had better speak to you about one or two business matters connected with the estate, as will probably be some time before you hear from Manchester.
In accordance with the law over here, every will must be deposited with the Court of Probate where anyone may inspect it on payment of one shilling = 1 M. But before it gets as far as that, it must be ap-proved by the Court of Probate and estate duty must be deducted and paid, the amount in your case being 1% or 3% — I cannot say exactly which — of the gross assets. The executors must swear to the value of the estate they have declared, and all in all this is the kind of case that requires the attention of a solicitor from start to finish if one is not to be atrociously rooked. So you will doubtless have to be patient a little longer and will also have to reckon on expenses that are very high by German standards. That, however, is inevitable.
The books, etc, he left will fetch little when sold. The chief items in the estate consist in cash on deposit at the bank and the copyrights.
The former will amount to about £1,800 from which must be deducted the cost of the funeral, current petty debts, estate duty, court and solicitor's expenses, etc., which may amount in all to between £200 and £250; I am unable to assess it from here, but it's nevertheless my opinion that you can reckon on a net sum of at least £1,500 = 30,000 marks.
So far as works on chemistry are concerned, the value of the book rights is only of very limited duration. Science is making such rapid strides that things become outdated in a year or two unless they are constantly revised. And then again the death of an important chemist always provides younger men of varying quality with an opportunity to take upon themselves the preparation of new editions, which also means that they receive most of the profit. The same thing will happen here. The executors are consulting me in the course of their negotiations, likewise Gumpert, so we may be sure that nothing precipitate will be done. Moreover I have backed them up in their view that nothing final should be decided in this respect without the consent of the family. That is not only their duty but also an excellent way of bringing pressure to bear on the opposing side. The latter, publishers no less than collaborators such as Roscoe, is in a hurry to bring mat-
246. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 26 July
ters to a conclusion, while the executors, on the other hand, have plenty of time and can therefore wait for these people to approach them and contribute towards a quick settlement by making this or that further concession. So here too it would be in your own interest not to press for a quick settlement.
I hear from Gumpert that you have written and told him your mother is unwell and has taken to her bed. I hope for the best but she is very old and Carl's death will have hit her very very hard. But I hope that despite everything you will be able to send me better news before long.
Yours very sincerely,
F. Engels
246
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
AL LE PERREUX
London, 26 July 1892
My dear Laura,
I receive this minute, 9.45 evening — Sonnenschein's account which results in £5.9.2., 3/5-ths of which go to Mohr's heirs, that is £ 1.1.10 each, of which cheque enclosed.
I hear from Tussy that you are very much out of sorts just now, hope you will mend soon!
To-morrow I am off to Ryde for a fortnight,[530] address:
F.E.
The Firs, Brading Road, Ryde
Louise left on Sunday" for Austria.
Ever yours,
F. Engels
247. Engels to Ludwig Schorlemmer. 28 July
My dear Schorlemmer,
I had hardly expected that my forebodings about your mother would be realised so soon. But the blow she suffered from Carl's[1]' death must nevertheless have been too much for the old lady, ailing and debilitated as she was; on the other hand she was certainly still too mentally alert for the news to have been concealed from her. So one family misfortune has been followed by another and we can only hope that this will be the last. I can sympathise only too well with you in your loss, for eighteen years ago I too lost my mother,' who was then 77, and I know what a peculiar bond is formed among the members of a large family by the maternal home and how irreplaceable this is, however united the children may be. The maternal home keeps the whole of that same younger generation together as one large family. Once the mother dies, each of these younger families feels much more independent and involuntarily tends to draw apart from the others. That is in the natural course of things but it is a drastic change none the less and when, in my case as in yours, the mother outlives the father by many years, this makes the added loss of the mother doubly distressing.
Please convey my sincere condolences to your brothers and their families.
To you yourself I send my wishes for your daughter's speedy and complete recovery.
I arrived here yesterday to spend ten days or so with my niece.[530] She also knew your mother and would like to add a line or two.
Yours very sincerely,
F. Engels
[From Mary Ellen Rosher]
I cannot let this letter from my uncle go off without sending to you and all your family my condolences on the death of your dear mother. With warm regards to you all from
Yours,
Ellen Rosher
248. Engels to Hermann Engels. 28 July
248
ENGELS TO HERMANN ENGELS
IN BARMEN
Ryde, Isle of Wight, 28 July 1892 The Firs, Brading Road
Dear Hermann,
Very many thanks for your letters. I'm sorry that my plans should have clashed to some extent with yours, but because of other arrangements I was more or less tied to a fixed date and could not very well upset these so long as there was no positive word from you. Everything is now in order and, unless I advise you to the contrary, I shall arrive on the 12th (probably by the first train from Cologne) and shall in any case telegraph from there.
I have been here since yesterday and intend to stay until the 9th, or at any rate the 8th, of August.[530] The weather is magnificent, cloud-less sky, temperature 16-17 Reaumur, a fresh easterly wind, flowers and beautiful trees outside my window, wonderful air, barely a kilo-metre from the sea though nearly 200 ft above it, and with hills and coppices all around.
So here's to our meeting. Meanwhile my love to Emma [1] and the children.
Your old
Friedrich
ü Hermann Engels' wife
249. Engels to August Bebel. 8 August
IN BERLIN
Ryde, England, 8 August 1892 The Firs, Brading Road
Dear August,
Your card received this morning. My dear fellow, the whole thing has fallen through and I am the odd man out! My old trouble, which obliges me to wear a complicated bandage and about which I have told you various details, has reared its head again after five years of inactivity and all at once completely crippled me. I had already suspected something of the kind during your visit,[474] but it was so insignificant that I paid no attention to it, thinking that, as it had often done on previous occasions, it would finally clear up of its own accord here in the sea air. On Saturday " I walked about 1[3]/[4] kilometres, rested for half an hour or so and then came back — a mere 3 lj[2] km in all — and by the evening realised that the crisis was upon me and that instead of going to Germany I should have to spend a month here, resting and abstaining from alcohol, if I was to get myself up to the mark again. At this moment I should merely have to walk a thousand paces to be banished to a sofa for 8 or 10 days. Thus do the best laid plans come to nothing!
As to the cause, all I can say is that since last August I have been addressing myself to the bottle more liberally than for many years and that the accumulated effect eventually brought about this result. Anyhow, I can find no other explanation for the thing, especially since it is a condition of the cure that one must abstain from alcohol during such time as symptoms of localised inflammation are notice-able. How delighted your son-in-law b will be! — though the conclusion he'll doubtless draw will not be shared by me.
At any rate I am totally incapable of making the projected trip in this condition. At most I might get as far as my brothers in Engelskirchen, but certainly not Zurich and so, despite this rotten bit of luck, I cannot but congratulate myself that the attack did not happen on
" 6 August-[1]' Ferdinand Simon my travels, leaving me completely hors de combat in a foreign land. Now I can at least doctor myself here at Pumps' and in a month's time I shall, I imagine, be fairly mobile again. The thing is of no consequence, save for the tedium; I have weathered it three or four times already and am familiar with the treatment, the more so through having devised it myself as a result of my own experience, since the good doctors were, with one exception, and he is dead, all of them utterly mystified by the case.
I at once wrote to Louise yesterday, telling her that she should make no changes whatever in her plans and on no account hasten her return even by so much as a day.[153] However it is highly probable that you, like her, will now prefer to make other arrangements, in which case you will have to resume your correspondence about it.
Tell your wife and daughter" that I am doubly sorry that, as a result of what has happened, I shall be deprived of the pleasure of making their personal acquaintance as also that of your son-in-law. But to postpone is not to put off for ever, and the bitter experience of the present year will make me a wiser man in the next when, I trust, I shall still be alive and once again nimble on my pins. And then we shall make the same trip, if not an even better one.
My address up till the end of August will be as on the letterhead. Rosher's name is not necessary, but letters will be delayed unless addressed to The Firs, Brading Road.
So my warm regards to you all, and do please drink to my recovery. Since I am now abstaining in his stead, Dr Simon might even permit himself a sip for once!
Your old friend
F. Engels
Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXIX, Moscow, 1946
250. Engels to Hermann Engels. 8 August
250
ENGELS TO HERMANN ENGELS
IN ENGELSKIRCHEN
Ryde, 8 August 1892 The Firs, Brading Road
Dear Hermann,
After all the preparations and letter writing, my trip has finally fallen through. The old trouble with my groin, which originally began when I came down with my horse while out fox hunting and which became bothersome ten years ago but lay dormant during the latter five, has suddenly sprung to life again. The bandages are no longer of any use and after walking about 2 English miles = 3 kilometres last Saturday[2] I was pretty well incapable of going any further. I know what to do. For the next month I must take a complete rest and abstain from beer and wine, after which all will be well, but travelling is out of the question. I wrote yesterday to Rudolf[1] in Barmen,[153] but am sending this note to Engelskrichen today in case you are still there.
I'm terribly sorry that things should have turned out in this way. But it can't be helped and I must resign myself. So I shall be staying here (address overleaf) until the end of August.[530]
Time for the post. Much love to you all. In haste.
Your
Friedrich
251. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 12 August[5 0 1]
IN STUTTGART
Ryde, 12 August 1892 The Firs, Brading Road
Dear Baron,
Herewith the proofs, returned with thanks.[537]
August will already have told you that my trip to Germany has fallen through. The after-effects of the old trouble, which laid me up 9 years ago when you came to visit me on my birthday, have once more asserted themselves and at just the wrong time so that I have got to lie here on the sofa instead of tippling with you. Luckily I can breathe good sea air here — the house is right out in the country, high up, with a view of the sea — and this, together with rest and absti-nence from alcohol will no doubt set me on my legs again within 3 or 4 weeks. But it's a pity it should have happened just now. Well, to postpone isn't to put off" indefinitely.
Thank you for your book(1) — unfortunately I have so far been prevented from reading it by the upsets of the past few days.
A pity that the bits in Tussy's article about the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION[29] and the FABIANS,[87] and also about Taylor's candidature,[15]
didn't go in.[538] I saw these in ms. after the event and they are virtually indispensable if you are to have a complete picture of the elections. The total collapse of the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION the moment it was really put to the test was significant in view of the boast-ing which that 'one and only' Social-Democratic organisation and One True Church has for years indulged in. I don't know whether you saw Bax in Zurich, but he's a very indifferent authority on the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION. He edited Justice for 6 weeks and got rid of all its many vulgarisms but was wholly incapable (for otherwise he would surely have done so) of giving the paper a character that was anything but sectarian. For the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION is in fact a sect pure and simple. It has ossified Marxism into a hard and fast dogma and, by repudiating any labour movement that isn't 12 1892
orthodox Marxist (and, what's more, Marxist in a very wrong-headed way ) — i . e . pursuing a policy exactly the reverse ofthat recommended by the Manifesto,[7]" has put itself in such a position that it can never become anything other than a sect. There were many reasons why Bax should have got into touch with these people again, but if they go on as they are it won't be long before he discovers that they are trying to exploit him politically and financially and that he is unable to assume any responsibility for them. But that's something he will have to learn from personal experience; for the time being he has so far compromised himself as to be obliged in some measure to be their advocate. Come to that, Bax is completely out of touch with the workers as such.
The FABIANS have become a real stumbling-block, tailing along behind the big Liberal Party on the pretext, so they say, of imposing their candidates upon it. They may pull this off for a time in the case of the COUNTY COUNCIL, [4 1 2] where they can dabble in Possibilist pro-grammes of municipal reform, [5 3 9] but even there the pious sham will pass muster only until such time as it is rumbled by the middle classes. In the case of parliamentary elections none of this applies, for here the Liberals will give the FABIANS, like all other self-styled Labour candidates, only such constituencies as are hopeless. If one wants to impose Labour candidates upon the Liberals, it must be done after the manner of Burns and Keir Hardie, by holding a pistol to their heads, and not after the manner of the FABIANS, by sucking up to them under false pretences. Fortunately the call for an INDEPENDENT LABOUR PARTY is now already so loud and so general that even the bland inducements of Fabian cajolery and Fabian cash will eventually be overcome.
Burgess, the Workman's Times man, now proposes to found an INDE-
PENDENT LABOUR PARTY himself— yet another competitor for the other two (2)! Burgess is a vain, ambitious johnny, hitherto most unreliable. Whether and to what extent he will make out remains to be seen. At all events his present action is a straw in the wind.
A very good bit of news: So proud were the factory workers of the North of their old TEN HOURS BILL that it was largely they who opposed the eight hour day (cf. Newcastle TRADES UNION Congress [2 9 8] ) . This is now changing; the masses are gradually being converted to 8 hours while the leaders with their 10 hours are beginning to find themselves out on a limb. This will no doubt be more or less in evidence at this year's TRADES UNION congress.[540]
The Avelings have gone to Norway. Just before they left, Tussy got a letter from Greulich in which the latter requested her on behalf of the Zurich International Congress Committee [54] ' to oblige them with an English draft of the invitation to the English TRADES UNION Congress, and to translate all their other stuff into English. So Mr Seidel's machinations, aimed at getting the Confounded Marxists cold-shouldered on that occasion (which could only have led to the instal-lation of Mr Adolphe Smith Headingley), would seem to have been happily nipped in the bud.
Pumps and Percy send their kindest regards.
Your
F. E.
first time
252. Engels to August Bebel. 14 August
IN BERLIN
Ryde, 14 August 1892 The Firs, Brading Road
Dear August,
I share your hope that by the beginning of September I shall have so far recovered as to be able to travel at least as far as Berlin. Should this be the case, I shall without fail pay a flying visit to Berlin — my sole destination in fact, for by then the Engelskirchen folk will have dispersed to the four winds.
The only question is whether it is going to be possible. And ofthat I cannot as yet give you any idea. I know from experience that in such cases 3 or 4 weeks' rest is absolutely essential if I am to recover my mobility, and any premature exertion or excessive exercise, however slight, will set me back by a week or a fortnight. But unfortunately one cannot tell until it's too late whether the exertion is premature or the exercise excessive.
On top of that I am, after all, 5 or 6 years older than I was at the time of the last bout, and have undeniably allowed more alcohol to pass through the inner man this year than I normally do in three. So I shall have to resign myself to a somewhat longer cure, even if the inflammatory symptoms have not resulted in any organic changes in the shape of adhesions or lesions or scarring.
At all events it will not be until very late in the day that I shall be able to tell from observations what the position is. You must keep me properly informed of the addresses at which my letters and, if needs be, telegrams, can reach you, especially in the case of Vienna, and how long you propose to stay there, so that Louise doesn't leave for London at the same time as I for Berlin.
Last Monday * and Tuesday I was in London where I saw the Avelings and put my house in order. Thus the cure was interrupted until Wednesday. Now I am lying absolutely still and, of course, feel corre-spondingly better. I hope in a week's time to be able with impunity to allow myself at least a modicum of exercise. I shall let you have a bulletin as soon as there is anything to report.
Needless to say, I shall now have to observe 'sobriety and modera-tion' in regard to alcohol. I had indeed been surprised at my continued ability to tolerate the stuff so well, and had grown overconfi-dent as a result. Well, we must hope that the consequences do not persist too long. I must revert to my former principle of abstaining for a fortnight or a month every so often. Not that I regard abstaining from drink as any more of a hardship than refraining from smoking, provided there is good reason for it.
I have not had an answer from Louise to the letter I wrote to her a week ago today. ' [5 3] The Sunday postal arrangements over here are abominable.
One good piece of news: Mr Seidel's intrigues, aimed at preventing the accursed Marxists from having any say in the preparations for the Zurich Congress,[541] would seem definitely to have misfired.
Greulich wrote to Tussy on behalf of the Zurich Committee re-questing her to draft a letter of invitation to the English TRADES
UNION Congress[540] and also to do their English translations. The letter arrived when the Avelings were on the point of leaving for Norway and Tussy, of course, immediately drafted the invitation, and generally placed herself at the committee's disposal; she sent me Greulich's letter when she was actually on board the steamer.
And now for another: a period of slack trade and the manufacturers' threats to knock 10 per cent off wages has suddenly cured the Lancashire cotton operatives of their enthusiasm for 10 hours and opened their eyes to the advantages of the 8 hour day. Even the leaders are already said to have switched horses. Thus the 8 hour day has triumphed in England. The resistance of those factory hands who enjoyed the protection of the 10 hour day was the principal weapon in the bourgeois arsenal. They'll lose it, come the September congress.[540]
K. Kautsky did not make use of the enclosed passages from the Avelings' article in the Neue Zeit.[538] When he wrote, he said this had had to be done for technical reasons; may be, but again it may have had something to do with Ede's comical respect for the FABIANS [87] and Bax's (he's in Zurich) interest in the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION.[29]
At all events, you'll find the passages interesting and they form an essential part of the overall picture.
You might get the Vorwärts to print the following questions:
1. Is it true that the 'Independents' in London, i.e. those who were thrown out of the Communist Workers' Educational Society,[89]
have founded a club and rented Grafton Hall, a large building in Fitzroy Square, for the purpose?
2. That to help raise the considerable sum required for this, Mr Baginski, who earns at most £3 a week, made a contribution of £500 sterling = 10,000 marks?
3. That Mr Hochgürtel, likewise a working man, contributed another £500 and that, to the question as to where he had got the money, he returned the strange reply that he had divorced his wife, and thus obtained her money?
4. That the brewer who supplies beer to the club advanced another £1,200?
253. Engels to Regina Bernstein. 15 August
5. If all this be true, where did this money come from and who provided the brewer with the collateral without which no one would be so stupid as to advance so large a sum? Warm regards to your wife" and children,
Your
F.E.
The Roshers send their kindest regards.
253
ENGELS TO REGINA BERNSTEIN
IN ZURICH
The Firs, Brading Road, Ryde, England (that suffices) 15 August 1892
Dear Gine,
I and all the rest of us here are very sorry that your summer holiday should have been so sadly disrupted, but we all of us hope that all danger is now past, for otherwise I should certainly have heard from you. Unfortunately, my projected trip has also been completely ruined; just when I was about to get ready, I detected the unmistakable symptoms of an old disorder which I thought I had got the better of five years ago and which precluded all exercise for at least a fortnight if not a month. So I have got to remain stuck here in Ryde,[530] but first I had to spend a couple of days in London to put all my affairs in order there, and this, together with the many letters arising out of the 'catastrophe ordained by God', has so flummoxed me that I have not been able to write to you until today.
I can well believe that Ernstb is very down as a result of typhoid.
Do give him time to recover completely before letting him go back to the exertions of school. But you have so many doctors on both sides of the family that I really ought to keep my mouth shut.
Since I have been here, we have been having marvellous weather and I am able to spend nearly all day, usually until 6 or 7 o'clock, sit-ting out in the garden in an armchair; there have been only 2 wet days in almost three weeks. Let us hope it lasts, since fresh air, along with rest, is my best medicine.
I am glad to hear that Ede is to make, or is already making, one more excursion into the Alps. He undoubtedly needs it, although it was with great pleasure that I saw from the Neue Zeit that he was his old self again.[542] His critique of Proudhon is very nice indeed, and his sense of humour is also returning. But it's better to be safe than sorry, i. e. to get properly well while he's got the chance, and thoroughly shake off his vexation over the Lassalle business" which was, after all, at the root of the whole thing. And you, too, ought to have a spell in which to recover from the difficult days and nights which have wrought such havoc with the peace and quiet of your holiday.
In other respects all is well here — that is, Pumps is as well as 'circumstances' allow, the event being expected in October. The children are far healthier than they used to be in London. This is a very large family: 2 dogs, 3 cats, a canary, a rabbit, two guinea pigs, a cock and 14 hens.
Many regards from the Roshers and especially from myself to you and Ede and Ernst.
Your old friend,
The General
254. Engels to Victor Adler. 19 August[5 4 3]
IN LUNZ
Ryde, England, 19 August 1892 The Firs, Brading Road
Dear Victor,
That's what comes of exuberance. Instead of gallivanting round with you and yours in Lunz or Vienna, I have got to stay here in Ryde, miserably cossetting what Heine called 'my not altogether healthy body'; though walking and drinking are forbidden, boredom evidently is not. I had so very much looked forward to seeing Vienna at last, to being with you and all the others and, in particular, to becoming personally acquainted with your wife(1) and children, and now this confounded business crops up. Besides, I had also intended to obtain the opinion of a Viennese or — possibly also — a Berlin doctor on this somewhat obscure case and to ask you, after acquainting you with the facts, which specialist you would recommend. For over here there are as many medical faculties as there are hospitals, and the only men whom family doctors recommend are those from the hospital where they themselves did their training; this is not altogether a bad thing because they are the men they know best, but it narrows down the field of possible consultants very considerably and reduces the medical world of London to the dimensions of a small German university town. Accordingly, this sudden relapse is, in addition, positively detrimental to me.
Well, if there's one consolation — it is that to postpone is not to de-fer indefinitely, and what has misfired one year may perhaps come off the next. At all events this has taught me a lesson which I shall not soon forget. To be completely done out of my summer trip — and what a trip! — is bad enough and I shall have cause enough to rue it this winter, for I know all too well that the slight change of air from London to Ryde [5 3 0] does not have anything like the same effect on my old carcase as a trip to the Continent and to the Alps in particular. My health will not be as good this year as it was after the trips I made, first to America,[441] then to Norway[544] and, last year, to Scotland and Ireland.[264] But I hope we'll get over it, in which case we shall definitely fix things up next year. For I have got to go to Vienna and, if possible, also to the Austrian Alps; the Swiss Alps harbour too many Swiss and have already been turned into too much of a showplace, so I really would prefer Anzengruber's peasants. And, by then, or so I hope, I should find you and your wife in perfect health, while I myself would again be in case to go climbing about in the mountains. Until next year, then!
While here I've been dabbling in early Christianity and am reading Renan" and the Bible.[545] Though shockingly superficial, Renan is a man of the world and as such his outlook is wider than that of the German scholastic theologians. Otherwise his book is a novel and what he said of Philostratus is equally applicable to himself, namely that it could be used as an historical source in the same way as, say, the novels of Alexandre Dumas père could be used as a source on the period of the Fronde. [546] In matters of detail I have caught him making the most shocking howlers. Moreover, he plagiarises the Germans with unparalleled effrontery.
Louise will have passed on to you the information I sent her the day before yesterday about the cotton operatives in Lancashire and their sudden conversion to the eight hour day. (2) ' [5 3] The same sort of thing is happening daily. Yesterday meetings of delegates representing entire districts again voted unanimously in favour of the 48 hour week, while in other districts the motion was carried in all cases with a majority, usually of two thirds. This has finally broken the back of the opposition in the working class.
The Russians are unfortunate. First they have a famine which will recur again this year, if in more chronic form, and then the cholera. And now, when their friend Gladstone has come to the helm here, he has to appoint Rosebery, who refuses to have any truck with Gladstone's Russophilia, as his Foreign Secretary.
August wants me to go to Berlin if at all possible. Well, I should like to, but can it be done? For the past ten days I have hardly set foot outside the garden gate and don't yet know whether I am really on the mend. For the fact is that, if I bestir myself just a little too soon or a little too much, I may find myself back where I started. And I have got to make up my mind in ten days or a fortnight at the latest — well, we shall see.
So give my regards to all our friends and above all to your wife and children, and tell them how sorry I am not to have been able to come over this year. But next year I hope to make up for it. And warm regards to yourself from your crippled old
F.E.
I shall be staying here at least until the 31st of this month. [5 3 0]
first time
255. Engels to August Bebel. 20 August
IN ST GALLEN
Ryde, 20 August 1892
Dear August,
Your letter of the 17th arrived this morning. I am replying at once because, tomorrow being Sunday and this being England, there would otherwise be no certainty of my note reaching you while you are still in St. Gallen. For I wanted to ask you to observe caution vis-à-vis K. Kautsky in regard to Ede. The latter is definitely on the mend, as his article in the Neue %eit goes to show,[542] and we must do nothing that might interfere with this. Where his friendship with Ede is concerned, K. Kautsky isn't exactly the soul of discretion and should his letters suggest to Ede that we were secretly conspiring to counteract his enthusiasm for Fabianism,[8] [7] it might bring about a serious relapse. Neurasthenics are mistrustful, and in my view his vexation over the Lassalle business(1) was not only the first symptom of his illness but also quite definitely the cause of its onset. So we must see that there isn't a recurrence. I also suspect that his unduly high opinion of the FABIANS is partly attributable to his illness and that this will subside provided we don't keep harping on the subject.
Yesterday at long last a letter arrived from the Witch in which she grumbles about my not coming. But how could I help it? And what would she have said if I had been stricken down in Engelskirchen or Zurich, as I surely would have been had I set out? And far worse stricken than here, where I could deal with the thing in good time. She also tells me that, whatever happens, she will accompany you to Berlin.
I am very glad that I need not embark on the journey, if it comes off, before 7 September. That gives me a whole month's rest, by which time I hope I'll be fit to travel again. Since yesterday I have at last noted signs of improvement — very slight, but something at any rate. So we shall have to see.
Apropos — have we still got lawyers in Cologne who are members of the party? I still don't quite trust my Prussians and if I had the address of one such I should be armed against all eventualities.
I was very distressed by what you wrote and told me about Victor. [547] Let's hope you'll be able to find some solution. His wife's health also depends on this — worry about the future is said to have been largely responsible for her illness. I had no idea that things were so bad. But the Austrians are like the French and Irish, none of whom are capable of collecting contributions regularly. What is asserting itself here is the Celtic blood of their forebears, the Norici,54B who were first Romanised and then Germanised. If you want to get an idea of how the General Council of the International fared with the French and their contributions, you should read Paul's two Epis-tles— especially the second — to the Corinthians,d throughout which he complains that les cotisations ne rentrent pas. h
Couldn't you vote the Austrian party a regular subsidy on condition that it goes to Victor? He would, after all, soon be kicked out of Germany since, unlike K. Kautsky, he'd be obliged to work, not on a learned journalc but on a propagandist paper.
The Lancashire cotton operatives are almost literally falling over each other to vote for the 8-hour day (48-hour week). Today the delegates are meeting in Manchester. Yesterday in Preston, there were 3,600 for and 600 against. But this is a question that Lancashire will decide for the rest of England because last year it was still the seat of concerted opposition.
It was Mrs Croesel (she's even better than her husband) who told Tussy the stories about the London Independents' Club." But no harm will be done if we save the thing up until we are all back in London again. As regards the source of the money, there might still be some interest left over from the Guelph funds,23fs and the stupidity of the police is beyond all bounds. At all events, Gilles had and may still have a great deal of money at his disposal. The other chaps are his men of straw.
Today comes the pleasing news that William (2) refuses to have any truck with the proposal for a two-year period of military service.[549]
But since this carrot has already been dangled before the noses of the philistines, even the National Liberals [4] ' [4] will find it hard to relinquish it. And this means better chances for a dissolution of the Reichstag.
What pitiful creatures these German bourgeois are! With the government's financial requirements increasing year by year, they could no be better placed to purchase a concession of political power in return for each grant of supply, as the English have been doing in a small way from time immemorial. But they don't want to; they leave all the power in the hands of the government and are content to hag-gle over a few paltry pence.
Cordial regards to Mrs Julieb and to Mrs Frieda and husband. d
Your old friend,
F.E.
The Roshers send their kindest regards. I shall be staying here at any rate until the 31st.[530]
Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXIX, Moscow, 1946
256. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 22 August
AT LE PERREUX
Ryde, 22 August 1892 The Firs, Brading Road
My dear Laura,
I had hoped to hear from you how the preparations for the great event are progressing, as the day of October 1 is drawing near [5 5]°; and especially would it interest me to learn that the fr. 25,000 — the guarantee-fund that business is meant — have been paid in to the Credit Lyonnais. [551] But perhaps I shall now hear in a few days, the sacra-mental date of the 20 Août* with its 250,000 en espèces et tout l'outil-lage,h having passed.[552]
I have had an attack of my old complaint which from 1883 to 1887 laid me up lame from time to time, and had left me pretty well undis-turbed for five years. Unfortunately at the wrong time it returned. I was to have left about 10 days ago, gone to Zürich to see the Beusts, thence with Bebel who is at St Gallen, to Stuttgart, Munich, Vienna, where we were to take up Louise and go to Berlin, and thence return to London. All this ist ins Wasser gefallen. ' Bebel will have to do the Vienna trip alone, but wants me to come at least to Berlin if possible. Now as I am gradually mending, it is not quite impossible that I should be in a condition to undertake that bit of a journey. But so far I cannot tell, I want at the very least another fortnight's rest. Fortunately the fine weather allows me to spend all my lame time in the garden, and the splendid air here does me a deal of good.
Tussy, just before she was off for Norway, had a letter from Greulich, in the name of the Zürich Congress Committee,[54] ' asking her to send them a draft invitation, for the International Congress, to the Glasgow Trades Union Congress, [54]° and to do all their English translation work. I suppose you know that some months ago Seidel intrigued to have this job given to one who was not connected with the damned Marxists. Louise in Berlin on her road to Vienna told Bebel, and Bebel at once wrote to Zürich, and this is the result.
I have to shut up. It's dinner-time, and the cloth must be laid where I write. Immediately after dinner the mail-boxes are cleared (3 p. m.). So gehab dich wohlla When shall we see you again here in England? I hope this autumn even if you cannot bring the député-directeur politique^ with you.
Pumps, Percy and the little ones send their love.
Ever yours,
F. Engels
Hope you had my last with Louise Kautsky's Vienna address. [153]
257. Engels to Pasquale Martignetti. 22 August[5 5 3]
...I imagine there must be some error in regard to the Duchess,0
nataA Leffler. I have never heard Mrs E. Marx-Aveling mention that lady. At this moment Mrs Aveling is in Norway; on her return I shall ask her and then send you further news.
Yours,
F. Engels
(London address still holds good.)
258. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge. 23 August[3 5]
IN HOBOKEN
Ryde, Isle of Wight, 23 August 1892
Dear Sorge,
If I have not yet begun negotiations with Dietz regarding your book, [50]° it is because I was prevented by the following circumstances:
I had arranged with L. Kautsky, who is in Vienna, and with Bebel, who is staying with his son-in-law " in St Gallen, that at the end of this month Bebel and I should go to Stuttgart together and thence to Berlin via Vienna, where we were to collect Louise Kautsky and take her with us. While in Stuttgart I had intended to settle the matter ver-bally with Dietz.
Now during my stay here in Ryde with Pumps, [5 3 0] the old trouble in my groin, which had ceased to bother me for five years past, has suddenly made itself felt again and to such good purpose that for the past twelve days or so I have been crippled and unable to move. This put paid to my journey and now, although I am visibly better, I don't know whether I shall be in good enough shape to undertake a shorter tour. In any case I should not take in Stuttgart and hence shall shortly begin negotiations with Dietz by letter — as soon, that is, as I know that he hasn't gone off on a lightning tour with Bebel. The matter as such is already settled; all we are concerned with are the details, so you can go ahead with your addenda and the more compre-hensive you make them the better. Notably, should you propose to do a more detailed account of the post-1870 period, you might well include the vicissitudes of the professedly socialist (German) party [133]
and the blunders it has made. For you should remember that you are writing for a public that knows nothing whatever about transatlantic matters and has got to be told what's what. And even if this elicits a snarl from the worthy leaders in New York and Cincinnati, it needn't worry you, for after all you have long been used to that sort of thing.
Here is a piece of news which you must keep secret, above all from 23 1892
the gentlemen of the press, until I write and tell you more. Guesde and Lafargue have signed a contract with some capitalists whereby they are to bring out a daily in the grand manner and be its directeurs politiques. 500 000 fr. are to be expended on it and it is to appear on 1 October. [4 2 3] But being always somewhat sceptical in such matters and not having heard from Paris lately, I feel that something may yet intervene and that's why nothing whatever must get into the papers.
As you will have seen from the municipal elections in May [4 2 8] and the departmental elections in J u l y , [5 5 4] the French are increasingly following in the footsteps of the Germans and learning to make use of universal suffrage instead of inveighing against it. And the cause is proving a great draw. At the Marseilles Congress [5 5 5] the 'Marxists' will acquire a standing such as they have never had before.
Add to which the splendid progress made here in England. T h e elections were a great success. [5 0 4] You will have noticed how different the tone of the Workman's Times has been since the beginning of July, and how M r Burgess (Autolycus) is already attempting to found a se-
parate 'INDEPENDENT LABOUR RARTV under his own leadership, alongside
the one which the SOCIALIST DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION [2 9] claims to lead. You will have gleaned the essentials from Louise Kautsky's [5 5 6] and Tussy's [5 3 8] articles in the Vienna Arbeiter-Leitung and the Neue £eit and will find a certain amount more in the preface to the new edition of the Condition of the Working Class in England* which I shall be sending
you as soon as I get back to London. The TRADES UNION Congress to be held in Glasgow in a fortnight's t i m e [5 4 0] will mark a great step forward: 1. because of the impact of the elections which has been all the greater in that the PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE [5 5 7] elected last year in Newcastle, [2 9 8] and consisting oddly enough entirely of former o/.n
UNIONISTS, has treated with disdain all the political resolutions of the self-same Congress, and has implemented none of them; and 2. because of the conversion of the textile workers who, last year, went to make up the bulk of the opposition to the 8-hour day but have now, because of the poor state of trade, suddenly and en masse declared themselves in favour of 8 hours. Last week the whole of Lancashire voted in all districts for 8 hours instead of 10, usually by a very big majority. In short, here too the cause is going ahead quite famously and next year, not only Austria and France, but also England, will be marching behind Germany, which in turn cannot fail to have the desired effect on your Anglo-Americans, particularly if your militia does a bit more shooting, by finally purging the chaps of some of their republican and GREAT COUNTRY arrogance.
In Germany everything is going splendidly; if you follow the party news in the Vorwärts you will see that we are making tremendous headway amongst the rural population — even in the east where it is most necessary.
And now you want me to tell you whether I shall be coming over next year. It's not out of the question, though it certainly won't be in the heat of July and August — one August in New York was quite enough for me. [441] Bebel is thinking of visiting America after the Zurich Congress,[541] i.e. in September or October. If he does, I might accompany him. But these are castles in the air. For, as you can see, even the plan I made for this year fell through a fortnight after it had been definitely decided upon, so how can I be expected to make plans a whole year in advance?
I realised long ago that some time you'd find it necessary to break with that madman Hepner. The man's got a mass of bees in his bon-net and either learns nothing or else gets it all wrong.
Cordial regards to your wife.a
My regards to Schlüter also.
1906 and in full in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXIX, Moscow, 1946
Your
F.E.
259. Engels to August Bebel. 25 August
IN LUNZ
Ryde, 25 August 1892
Dear August,
Your letter dated 23, St Gallen, arrived this morning. I know perfectly well that the Prussians cannot do me any serious harm, but better safe than sorry and one never knows what chicanery those gents may not get up to. Some bright busybody of a policeman might at any time take it into his head to make things awkward for me under some bogus pretext or other and, perhaps, improve the shining hour by getting hold of certain letters from Miquel to Marx.a And, as you know, the Prussians make it a rule not to humiliate in public any official who commits a blunder, but at most quietly to haul him over the coals after having publicly whitewashed what he has done.
By the by, my projected journey is once more very much in the air. During the last day or two I have once or twice ambled along to the nearest post office some three hundred paces from the house and this trial of strength has again resulted in a total if temporary inability to walk more than a few steps, extraordinary sensitivity to pressure from the bandage in the inguinal region, etc.— which means that I'm laid up again. Today there is some improvement as a result of my having rested, but whether, in the 13 days between now and the 7 th, things will have improved enough for me to be able to undertake the trip is, I think, very questionable. Well, we shall see.
No further news from Louise. On the other hand, I was delighted to hear from Dietz that, at your request, he had paid the second instalment of the fee for the Condition, b namely 500 M., to Victor.c At the beginning of September there is going to be something else of mine in the Neue £eit,d the fee for which will be paid to Victor, and I have likewise instructed Dietz to pay him all balances accruing to me with his firm. I have got to finish the third volume of Capital this winter and then, having rid myself of that burden, I shall be able to earn some more money again.
You are perfectly right about it's being sheer madness for the government to make the military estimates an occasion for dissolving the Reichstag, should the two year period of military service be turned down.a Nevertheless we cannot exclude the possibility that something of the kind may happen —considering the nature of the 'determining' factors in the German Empire today.
That Russia cannot go to war in Europe is evident from her activities in Central Asia — the other horn of her dilemma.[558] And there she is being very foolish. It will not intimidate the British but arouse their wrath and make it impossible for Mr Gladstone to give free rein to his Russophilia. While Gladstone might be prepared to sacrifice Constantinople, he could in no circumstances tolerate a threat to India; that would never do.
To me, the Isle of Wight seems intolerably boring when I think of you setting out alone on the journey on which I should have accompanied you. And then Louise goes and imagines I'm only shamming sick! Instead of sending this letter to Lunz, I should a thousand times rather have come in person. Today is the 15th day I have been confined to this little house and garden as to a prison, having in the last four days only made three excursions of three hundred paces down the road — with the result that I am again under the most, strin-gent house and garden arrest. Today there is a flower show on the pier and tomorrow a regatta, and all the Pumpses will be going, while I shall have to stick at home — what a thrill! The only thing I am really glad about is that this trouble didn't come upon me while I was on my travels — that really would have been a pretty kettle of fish.
Well, give my regards to Victor and to his wife b and children; likewise to the Witch who will, I presume, have written to me in the meantime, and tell them all how very sorry I am not to be able to come out and join you. But next year, if I am still alive, I shall as-suredly come.
Your
F.E.
time 260
260. Engels to Victor Adler. 30 August
Dear Victor,
I was unable to reply yesterday to all the points in your letter, partly because there was no room on the page, partly because I had no time — our mid-day meal is at 2 and the post goes at 3. But now that sweet, impatient Oberdöbling(1) has sent me a postcard pestering me for a letter, I can write to you today about the rest.
What you say about tactics is only too true. [559] But there are all too many who, for convenience sake and to save themselves the trouble of racking their brains, would like to carry on indefinitely employing tactics that are appropriate only to the moment. We don't fashion our tactics out of nothing, but out of changing circumstances. In our present situation we must all too often allow our opponents to dictate them to us.
You are also right about the Independents. [560] I still recall the years — at the time I was still corresponding officially with Liebknecht— when I had to engage in a ceaseless struggle against the all-pervading, typically German petty bourgeois mentality. By and large we are safely over that in Imperial Germany, but as for the petty bourgeois in the parliamentary group, what a crew! — and more and more keep on arriving. In circumstances such as these a workers' party has no choice other than between the working man who is promptly made to suffer for it, in which case he readily deteriorates into a party pensioner, and the petty bourgeois who, though self-supporting, brings discredit on the party. And by comparison with them your Independent is a pearl beyond price.
What you say about the rapid industrial advance of Austria and Hungary has pleased me immensely. That is the only solid basis for the advancement of our movement. And it is also the only good aspect of protectionism — at any rate in the case of most of the continental countries and of America. Large-scale industry, big capitalists and large masses of the proletarians are being artificially nurtured, the centralisation of capital is being speeded up and the middle classes destroyed. In Germany protective tariffs were, in fact, unnecessary, having been introduced at the precise moment when Germany was establishing herself in the world market and it is that process which they have disrupted, though to make up for it they have filled a number of gaps in German industry which would otherwise have long remained unfilled and, were Germany to be compelled to sacrifice her protective tariffs to her position in the world market, she would be far better able to compete than hitherto. Both in Germany and in America protective tariffs are now simply a hindrance because they hinder those countries from taking their proper place in the world market. In America, therefore, they are bound to be abandoned before long and Germany is bound to follow suit.
By promoting your industry, however, you will be doing England a service; the more quickly her domination of the world market is utterly destroyed, the sooner will the workers over here come to power. Continental and American competition (and likewise Indian) has finally precipitated a crisis in Lancashire, the first of its consequences being the prompt conversion of the workers to the eight-hour day.a
Cooperation with the Czechs is necessary also from the political viewpoint. These people live in the middle of Germany, we are linked to them as they are to us, and it is in the interests of us all not to let them turn into a young Czech-cum-Russian-cum-pan-Slav preserve. True, there are means of coping even with that in the long run, but it is better to be safe than sorry. And since these people can get anything out of us they may need or want quoadb national autonomy on Czech territory, there is in fact no danger. (As you see, in none of this do I take any account of their temporary political separation from Germany.)
I return to London next week; although I'm better today, it is nevertheless unlikely that anything will come of my trip to Berlin.
Many regards to everyone on the editorial staff.[3]
Your
F.E.
261. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 4 September[4 3 9]
Dear Baron,
Ede wants to know when I shall be back in London, but instead of giving me his address he merely states that he has left Kilchberg and is en route to Zurich; moreover, all the times he gives are so vague as to make it quite impossible to correspond with him at this range. As I imagine that you are better informed than I am, perhaps you would tell him that I return to London the day after tomorrow, the 6th.[530]
My lameness still rules out any possibility of my travelling further than that. In London I shall probably have to spend another two weeks lying on the sofa, but otherwise the thing is of no significance.
Sorge's article on Homestead naturally takes precedence. Come to that, I am in no great hurry provided the German text appears at the same time as the English one or a little later.[561] Needless to say I have heard nothing about the latter for the past two months.
Had you been here during the last election,[504] you would have spoken differently about the FABIANS.[87] AS regards our tactics we have one firm rule for all modern countries and for all times and that is to prevail upon the workers to form their own independent party in opposition to all bourgeois parties. At the last election the English workers, impelled by the course of events, took, if still only instinctively, their first decisive step in this direction; that step proved surprisingly successful and contributed more towards the development of the workers' minds than any other event of the past 20 years. And what did the FABIANS do — not this or that individual but the FABIAN SOCIETY as a whole? It preached and practised the affiliation of the workers to the Liberals, the result being what one might expect. The Liberals assigned them four seats, none of which could possibly have been won and the Fabian candidates met with a resounding defeat. That paradoxi-cal man of letters, Shaw — extremely talented and witty as a writer but utterly useless as an economist and politician, though an honourable man nevertheless and no careerist — wrote to Bebel saying that if they didn't pursue this policy of imposing their candidates upon the Liberals, they would reap nothing but DEFEAT AND DISGRACE (as though defeat was not often more honourable than victory) — and now, having pursued this policy, they have reaped both.
That is the crux of the whole matter. Now that, for the first time, the workers are taking an independent stand, the FABIAN SOCIETY is urging them to remain an appendage of the Liberals. And this must be made abundantly clear to the continental Socialists; to hush it up would be to connive at it. And that is why I am sorry that the Avelings' postscript should have failed to appear.[538] It was not written postfestum* not as an afterthought, but was overlooked in the hurry to get the article off. The article is incomplete without the description of the attitude of the two Socialist organisationsh in regard to the elections— and the readers of the Neue £eit have a right to hear about this.
I believe that I myself told you in my last letter that both in the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION [29] and in the FABIAN SOCIETY the provincial members are better than the central body. But that won't do any good so long as the attitude of the central body determines that of the Society. As to the rest of those sterling fellows, I know none of them apart from Banner. Since joining the FABIAN SOCIETY Banner has not, oddly enough, put in an appearance at my house. I imagine he was impelled by disgust at the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION and the need for some kind of organisation — perhaps also by a few illusions. But this particular swallow doesn't make a summer.
You feel that there is something half-baked about the FABIAN SOCIETY. On the contrary, the chaps are only too well done, a clique of middle class 'socialists' of varying calibre from the careerist to the sen-timental socialist and the philanthropist, who are united only in their fear of impending Labour rule and are moving heaven and earth to avert this threat by consolidating their own leadership — the leadership of the 'heddicated'.a If they then admit a working man or two to their central executive, thereby enabling the latter to perform an Albert ouvrier^ of 1848 act in the shape of a constantly outvoted minority, that ought to deceive nobody.
The means employed by the FABIAN SOCIETY are indistinguishable from those employed in corrupt parliamentary politics: money, intrigue, careerism, i. e. after the English fashion where it is taken for granted that every political party (save only, it seems, in the case of Labour!) should pay its agents in one way or another or reward them with posts. These chaps are up to their eyes in the intrigues of the Liberal party and hold office in it, one such being Sydney Webb who is altogether a typical British POLITICIAN. There is nothing one can tell the workers to beware of that these chaps are not already practising.
This is not to suggest, of course, that you should treat these people as enemies. But in my view they should no more be shielded from criticism than anyone else. And that is what the omission from the Avelings' article of the passage relating to them certainly looked like. But if you would like the Avelings to supply you with an article on the history and attitude of the various socialist organisations in England, you have only to say so and I shall suggest it to them.
I was very taken with your article on Vollmar'; it will do him more harm than any amount of wrangling in the Vorwärts.[532] Moreover, the endless threats of expulsion ought no longer to remain uncensured. Today they are wholly uncalled for reminders of the dictatorial period of the Anti-Socialist Law.[1] ' One must now give the rotten elements time to become so rotten that they defect virtually of their own accord. The discipline of a party numbered in millions is quite different from that of a sect numbered in hundreds. What you might have gone into a bit further is the way in which 'state socialism as such' necessarily turns in practice into fiscality, and this in the only land where it is practicable, namely Prussia (which you expound very nicely).
Ede's critique of Proudhon [542] was also very nice. I was especially glad to see that he is his old self again.
Your
F.E.
time
262. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 5 September
Dear Baron,
I forgot to reply to you about Bonnier the day before yesterday.[562]
If you look at the reports on England and Germany over the signature 'B' or Bernard in the Socialiste, it will enable you to judge to what extent you can make use of him. Bonnier is a sterling fellow, but his German studies have somewhat spoiled the Frenchman in him, something I have observed more than once in his fellow countrymen. He lives in a world of books and will find it difficult accurately to weigh the facts of the living movement one against the other. Moreover he resides at Oxford, far removed from all the activity, besides which he has an unshakeable faith in Guesde. Guesde's illusions and optimism are in many respects of great value within the movement itself, in much the same way as are Liebknecht's; neither is prone to de-spair. But these qualities are hardly suited to the reporting of current activities. However Bonnier, with his native intelligence, is bound gradually to gain in refinement — not that I have seen much of him of late. If the others on the daily [4 2 3] are finding more than enough to do, you really haven't much alternative — provided that Bonnier, too, is not fully occupied in that quarter. Regards from Pumps and Percy.
Your
F.E.
I return to London tomorrow.[530]
263. Engels to Ludwig Kugelmann. 5 September
Dear Kugelmann,
There will be no trip to Germany for me this year. I have gone lame and must take it easy for the next fortnight at least before I can so much as begin to move about again. Meanwhile I shall be returning to London tomorrow.[530] However I still intend to make another tour of inspection of my native land next year, but whether I shall also manage to take in Hanover is impossible to say so far in advance, the more so as I have seen this summer how quickly all such plans can come to nothing, for this year I have been cheated out of a long and delightful trip and who can tell whether we shall still be alive next year. But you may rest assured that I shall leave the 'Pomeranian grandees'[563] to others. The last of them I saw was an alleged Baron Grumbkow, a seedy looking individual who in the role of professional
264. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 11 September
beggar tried to touch me for a loan some six months ago but was thrown out. Cela me suffit!" With many regards.
Your
F. Engels
Please let Singer have the enclosed.
time
264
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
AT LE PERREUX
London, 11 September 1892
My dear Laura,
I am here again since last Tuesday,[1]' still house-bound, but mend-ing. Louise I expect back on Wednesday, Bebel fetched her from Vienna to Berlin and there she is now.
Thanks for the news about the paper.[423] Then Luce being out of it, I take it that the old agreement has lost its binding power over the other signatories too, unless expressly renewed by them. With Luce, too, his friend Vignaud has, I suppose, also gone out (the man is unknown to me). Anyhow it looks as if a new combination was being tried — let us hope it will be successful and the last of its race.
Here we have had a very important event which will occupy all the Socialist parties of the Continent. As you will see from enclosed report, the Trades Union Congress [54]° deliberately rejected the invitation to the Zurich Congress 5 4 ! and resolved to call together limme-diateiy an Eight Hours Congress of its own — and an international one too! This requires action on our part, and if possible, concerted action of the whole Continent.
The English workmen are so deeply infected with the Parliamentary spirit of compromise that they cannot do a step in advance without at the same time taking [3]/[4] or [7]/[8] of a step backwards. Thus the sudden awakening of the Eight Hours' enthusiasm (3 years ago considered an impossibility, you know, by the very people who now clamour loudest after it) has almost succeeded in giving a reactionary character to that cry. It is to be the universal panacea, the one thing to be thought of. In their exultation at having secured so soon such a large and unexpected majority, the mass of the 8 hours' men now sacrifice everything that goes further, to the newly-converted 'Old' Unionists. This massacre of the Socialist Innocents is submitted to all the easier as the 'New' elements [52]° are divided, without general organisation, personally unknown to each other, and have not as yet had the time to develop men enjoying the confidence of all; as you know, this can only be obtained here in Britain by what Ruge called die Kraft der wiederholten Erscheinung^ the effect of hawking your own person constantly for years before the public, teste Shipton, Cremer, Howell, etc.
Anyhow the fact is there. The T. U. C. by a deliberate vote of 189 to 97, nearly 2 to 1, has placed itself outside the universal working men's movement and resolved to march apart. With every possible insult our invitation has been flung back in our faces. Not even an order to the Parliamentary Committee [557] to reply politely. Not even a formal motion based on the invitation; a counter-motion is brought in, and then the invitation has to slip in as an amendment, otherwise it would not have been noticed at all. You will see from the full report I shall send you what a trouble Will Thorne had to get it even brought before the Congressl In fact the insult is complete.
Now what's to be done? This has to be considered seriously, and first of all by the French as their Marseille Congress [555] is before the Berlin one (16 October [5 6 4]). If we reply to the insult in the way it deserves, the Possibilists [3] and Blanquists, who are sure to go to the Trades Union Congress, will make capital out of it. On the other hand, if the Possibilists and Blanquists go, and are alone of all Continental Socialists, then all the better for us. Therefore I consider it of the highest importance that our French friends at once agree upon a common line of action with Bebet and the German Executive. If Germany and France act together, Spain, Austria, Italy, Switzerland, probably Belgium, will follow, and Domela(1) may go if he likes.
At present — I have not yet had Edward's personal report on the affair (he was there)—my opinion is this:
1 ) France and Germany ought at Marseille and Berlin to proclaim their intention to ignore this pseudo-Congress altogether.
2) They ought to do this in a resolution of firm, but quiet and not hostile language, which, if possible, should be identical for both and a model for the other nationalities; leaving the door open to future T. U. Congresses, and to single Trades Unions even at present, to return to the fold. This they are sure to do, I am sure many will regret their vote before many days are over.
3) If mild counsels should prevail, and it should be resolved to be present at this British Congress, for the sake of peace, then one delegate from each country ought to go and no more. And he must, as a matter of form, be elected and mandaté by the Trades Union Congress, or Executive thereof ana be a bona fide workman or he will not be admitted. And this one delegate should depose a distinct protest.
I shall write to Bebel tomorrow on this matter.b In the meantime please let me know where your people are and what can be done to come to an understanding with the Germans.
I enclose you a specimen of the French correspondence the Vorwärts is now printing and Liebknecht will excuse it, no doubt, saying that if our people will not send reports he must take them where he can get them.
If I hear anything more from Edward before this letter goes, I shall put it in.
Ever yours,
F.E.
In a day or two I send you 2 books of mine.c
The Scotch paper goes by the same post as this.
265. Engels to August Bebel. 11 September
Dear August,
So you intend to keep the Witch with you for one more day. No doubt in order to instruct her how best to manage the General in regard to his drinking and other sins; meanwhile you carry on urging me to keep an eye on her — but you mustn't imagine that I don't see through you. You want to stir up trouble between us, though what your perfidious motives may be, heaven knows, but you wait, my lad, it isn't as simple as all that. By way of revenge I shall bombard you with more work than you want and shall start straight away.
The TRADES Congress in Glasgow [540] has declared war on us Continentals. Malice on the part of the leaders of the old unions and, on the part of the new,[520] stupidity combined with a want of confidence either in themselves or each other — hence, too, of organisation as a party at the Congress where for decades the old unions have constituted a tightly knit group. When the chaps realise what they have done, most of them will regret it.
Well, the Zurich Committee had sent to the Parliamentary Committee [5 5 7] a letter addressed to the Congress containing an invitation to Zurich in 1893 [541]; this had been composed by Tussy/' The Parliamentary Committee attempted to suppress the letter. Will Thorne vainly pressed for news of it and demanded that it be read out, but met with repeated refusals on the grounds that the Congress must leave it to the Parliamentary Committee to decide which documents it should produce!! In the end Matkin (Liverpool) moved that the
TRADES UNION Congress should convene an international congress for 1 May 1893 to adopt resolutions and pave the way for an international legal eight hour day.— Parnell, who had been in Paris,b was against it. They should, he said, send delegates to the Zurich Congress and settle the matter there. A big debate ensued in the course of which the 'old' unionists kept asking what point there was in going to Zurich, whether it was desirable to identify oneself with the continental socialists' WILD schemes, etc.— There was a further demand that the Zurich letter be read out and at last it was resolved that this should be done. And so, to save appearances, the Zurich letter was finally read out, whereupon a vote was taken and Matkin's resolution regarding the congress (which, however, is to be held IMMEDIATELY instead of on 1 May 1893) was adopted by 189 to 97. Thus, with hardly a second thought, the Zurich invitation was not so much rejected as consigned to the waste paper basket. In return, however, the 'ill-organised' continental proletariat was most graciously permitted to attend a congress in England, there to be lectured, indoctrinated and organised by the true leaders of the 8 hours movement — by those who only the day before had been engaging them in mortal combat. You will see from the detailed report in a Scottish paper, which I shall send you as soon as I get it, that the old unionists have insulted us for all they were worth while the young ones have acted like schoolboys.
Meanwhile I enclose the only report I have to hand. However one must not take it too hard. The new unions are so delighted with the old unions' conversion to the legal 8 hours that they have allowed themselves to be caught napping over this issue. Most of them are undoubtedly regretting it already, as will they all as soon as they realise what they have done. In my view it is up to the Continentals to bring this home to them, and provided the former act together, the affair will end badly for the 'old' unions.
1. France and Germany must act together. All the rest will then follow suit. Accordingly I am today proposing to the French through Laura that they should get in touch with you people in order that the aforesaid resolution should be followed by resolution couched, if possible in identical terms* at your congresses in Marseilles[555] and Berlin.[564] So far as I can judge at this moment (I haven't yet seen Aveling who was present at Glasgow, nor have I consulted anyone else), your best plan would be to point out in firm but calm and not unfriendly language that you utterly reject the newly-fledged eight hours congress, while, at the same time, renewing your invitation to the individual TRADES UNIONS to send delegates to the Zurich Congress.
11 1892
(The Zurich Committee would also have to do the same, that is to say in a circular — Tussy will be writing to them about it but a push from you people would also be a help.)
2. If, however, one wants to go further and heap coals of fire on the heads of infants who don't know what they are about, then it would be up to the French and Germans to send one man each to explain the position and register a protest against the Glasgow resolution. They will have to be delegated by the Central Trades Union Committee and be, or have been, bona fide working men, otherwise they won't be admitted.
If Marseilles and Berlin are at one, Austria, Spain and Italy will follow. Switzerland is a certainty, for she was the immediate recipient of the affront; Belgium will probably follow and likewise the Scandi-navians. In which case Mr Nieuwenhuis, the Possibilists 3 and the Blanquists are welcome to go and visit the TRADES UNIONS, whereupon they really will find themselves outside the great European movement.
That, provisionally, is my opinion just now. As soon as I hear anything further I shall write again. Meanwhile you people might think the matter over. At all events the arrogance of the 'old' unions and the spinelessness of the new afford you a splendid opportunity to explain your point of view to the English and to show them that the class-conscious continental proletariat has no intention of placing itself under the leadership of people who regard the wage system as an eternal and immutable universal institution.
It is a real blessing that the blinkered, biassed, exclusively trades union movement should now have exposed its reactionary nature in so merciless a light.
One more vignette: as a result of a formal resolution at the last conference of the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION,[565] Mr Hyndman was requested (unanimously so it is said) to keep himself more in the background and to discontinue his activities at the head of the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION.
The main concern of us all is that Marseilles and Berlin should act resolutely and in concert. All else is of secondary importance. If both of them pass identical resolutions, these will be adopted throughout Europe and that's the kind of thing that finds its way into all the papers over here. Your trades union congresses ought also to protest.
The Scottish paper with report is going off to you by this post. Warm regards to Mrs Julie,[3] the Witch, you yourself and all my friends.
Yours
F.E.
266. Engels to Conrad Schmidt. 12 September[1 7 7]
Dear Schmidt,
A few days ago I came back from Ryde where I had been paying an involuntary six-week visit to Pumps.[530] A tiresome but otherwise insignificant complaint ruined both my holiday and a continental tour in the course of which you might otherwise have very possibly seen me in Zurich.
I look forward to seeing your other papers on the rate of profit. Fireman didn't send me his article[15] — can one get hold ofthat particular number? If so, I shall order it, provided you can tell me exactly which number it was, and also the title of the article. To print the section on the rate of profit separately and in advance is quite out of the question, for you should know that in Marx everything is so interre-lated that nothing can be torn out of context. In any case — always provided my health holds out and / am left in peace—I shall be done with Volume III e this winter (but please don't breathe a word about this; I know how often something has intervened),
" Julie Bebel - b P. Fireman, 'Kritik der Marx'schen Werttheorie', Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik, 3. Folge, Bd. 3, Jena, 1892.-c of Capital whereupon the poor professorial soul will be set at rest upon that count, only to be plunged instantly into an even worse state of agitation.
As regards Marx's view of history, you will find an article of mine about it in the next number of the Neue £eit— it has already appeared over here in English.[462]
The Germans are utterly useless on the subject of money and credit. Many years ago Marx himself mercilessly ridiculed Knies.[566]
The most useful things in English are Tooke's An Inquiry into the Currency Principle, 1844 and Fullarton's On the Regulation of Currencies, 2nd ed., 1845, both of which are only to be had second-hand. Everything there is to be said about money qua money may be found in the first volume of Capital. In the third there will, of course, be a great deal about credit and credit money; it is that particular section that is giving me most trouble.
Roger's Economic Interpretation of History is in many respects a very instructive book, if exceedingly superficial theoretically speaking. There is, of course, no question of an interpretation à la Marx.
Your essay in the Neue £eit* gave me great pleasure. It's as if cut out for this country, since the FABIAN SOGIKTY[87] positively pullulates with Jevons-Mengerians [522] who look down with infinite contempt on a Marx they have long since outdistanced. If there were a review over here that would take it, I would, with your permission, get Aveling to translate it under my supervision. But just now nothing is likely to come of this, there being no such review.
As regards the worthy Independents,[333] their fate is of their own making. For years the party has endured their yapping with truly an-gelic patience and even at Erfurt[301] it gave them ample opportunity to substantiate their mendacious tittle-tattle, but a million people cannot go on forever putting up with the obstructionism of fifty young whippersnappers who reserve the right to cast aspersions without having to substantiate them. Now that they've been chucked out, now that they have the chance of showing what they are capable of, all we get is endless lies and vituperation. And what, may I ask, has been achieved by those who showed some promise — the Kampff-
J C. Schmidt, 'Die psychologische Richtung in der neueren National-Oekonomie', Die Neue Zeit, 10. Jg. 1891/92, 2. Bd., Nr. 40, 41.
meyers, Ernsts, Müllers et al.— now that they are no longer under the thumb of the party leadership? Their paper" is utterly without substance and apart from that they produce nothing. If these gentlemen believe they are capable of something, why don't they do it? Nor is the case in any way altered by the fact that, in polemicising against them, as in so much else, the Vorwärts is sometimes clumsy and all too often overshoots the mark. Did not these gentlemen, even before the split, treat the parliamentary group and the party leadership to language no less intemperate than that used by the Vorwärts against themselves? In addition they are by and large completely harmless. In Germany they are as moribund as anyone else who detaches himself from the big movement. Now that the movement has grown strong actually inside Germany and is directed from within that country, the societies abroad are the only favourable breeding-ground for the kind of wrangles I have had to endure for 45 years in the society over here.[89] Up till 1860 the best chaps were, as a rule, abroad; now the position is reversed. The societies abroad consist of very impermanent elements who very seldom attain the average level of those at home, stand outside the movement in Germany to which they are merely extraneous appendages, and, since they rarely have any genuine occupation, are bored and hence far more susceptible to petty squabbling.
I am aware that you have many childhood and university friends amongst the Jungen, but it's something you must come to terms with. Indeed it's perfectly possible to remain good friends despite political differences. But we've all had to go through the same thing, in my case, in my own pious ultra-reactionary family. And then there is always the possibility of exerting a beneficial influence on your old friends by guiding their footsteps towards study rather than rodo-montade. If the gentlemen would only go on with their studies, the more serviceable amongst them would soon come to their senses. But I'm afraid that the chronic megalomania so rampant among these people will prevent them from so doing. And as for provocation and embitterment, these are things that are unavoidable in the circumstances. T came not to send peace but a sword.'b In the next few days I shall let you have the Condition of the Working-Class?
With kind regards
Your
F. Engels
267. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 16 September
Dear Baron,
Ede has asked me to send you a copy of a passage from the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher.[5]'''' He gives only the opening words, but doesn't say how much is wanted, so you will find herewith a copy of the thing up to the end of the letter and you'll have to see how much of it is usable.
Kovalevsky, who is over here, says he would probably be prepared to let you have an article for the Neue 2jeit on Lavrov's great Russian work ^adaci istoriji mysli, The Functions oj the History of Thought; but he would have to write it in French. If you would like to have the article, please let me know.[568]
There was high old confusion at the TRADES UNION Congress [540] in Glasgow.b The 'old' unions did everything in their power to achieve victory and, being organised and known to one another and of old repute, they were largely successful vis-à-vis the 'new' ones,[520] which didn't yet know the ropes, fell foul of the rules of procedure, were known neither to one another nor to many of the more honest elements amongst the 'old' unions, and hence possessed few personalities 16 1892
who, aside from their particular standing in the party, were personally respected by all concerned.(1) So it came about that the majority of those elected to the PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE 5 5 7 consisted of'old' unionists, while Fenwick was re-elected secretary. T h e fact that the old unionists had given up as hopeless their opposition to the 8 hour day and continued to oppose the legal 8 hour day only pro forma, for the sake of appearances, quite delighted the majority of new unionists who, in their glee over the victory of the LEGAL 8 HOURS, were prepared to surrender everything else. So it came about that they not only demanded steps be taken to combat the immigration of 'PAUPERS', but turned down with contumely, and in a manner directly insulting to us, the invitation to the Zurich Congress [5 4 1] (amongst other things, because that Congress had not been convoked by the English TRADES UNION Congress!!); and at the same time resolved that an international eight hours congress be convoked immediately. What happened during this debate you will see from the Scottish paper Tussy has sent you.
It is now evident that our Continentals must take up the cudgels against this. It's a good opportunity for them to show the snooty TRADES UNIONS what their standpoint is. A start will doubtless be made by the French at Marseilles. [5 5 5]
Unfortunately I shall not be able to send you the Workman's Times for some little while, at any rate. For a time Burgess sent copies to Bebel and sundry other Continentals, but has suddenly ceased to do so — since the jackass doesn't want to have any truck with Continentals who 'do not even possess a TRADES ORGANISATION'. NOW I shall have to send Bebel the copy which in the past has been available for you, since the Executive has got to have one and I can't very well alter before November the number of copies on order; I have trouble enough as it is in getting the right number of copies ordered. In November I shall be renewing my subscription, on which occasion I shall be able to make other arrangements.
At the last conference of the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION [5] [6] [5] Hyndman was requested — unanimously, it is said — to resign from the leadership of the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION and to confine his activities to writing. We shall see whether it lasts. But it's hard on him.
268. Engels to Regina and Eduard Bernstein. 17 September
It's a pity that Ede should also have missed the Congress, but it couldn't be helped. So far as he himself is concerned, it's all to the good that his holiday should have been prolonged.
Though still housebound, I am slowly improving.
Your
F.E.
268
ENGELS TO REGINA AND EDUARD BERNSTEIN [3 5 7]
IN ZURICH
London, 17 September 1892
Dear Gine,
From Louise, who came back here on Wednesday,a I have learned that you are still in Zurich and that Käte b is already in this country, and yesterday the letter from you and Ede at last enabled me to con-nect up the broken telegraph wires again. We are most sorry that you should still be so unwell but that is something that will eventually pass, and in the meantime Ede can continue to recuperate in the open air for a while longer, which will be most beneficial for him and do the party no harm, now that he has in any case missed the TRADES UNION Congress.[540] The latter was the scene of considerable confusion. The most interesting session from our point of view was the one on Thursdayc on the question of the Congress.d If we had known your address, we'd have sent Ede a Scottish paper containing an account of it, but as it is, the few copies we had have been sent elsewhere.
When, despite continuous prodding from Thorne, the letter of invitation from Zurich 'to the TRADE UNION CONGRESS' in Glasgow had obstinate-ly been withheld for 4 whole days, Matkin tabled a motion, clearly concocted in conjunction with the 'old' unionists with a view to preventing attendance at Zurich, in which he called for the convocation of an international 8 hours congress of their own. Parnell, on the other hand, proposed an AMENDMENT to the effect that it would be better to go to Zurich. According to Ed. Aveling, Parnell and Quelch spoke very well. At that, all the old unionists went mad. The continental workers, they said, were weak and badly organised, but if the English took them under their wing all might go well; in any case the Zurich Congress had not been convoked by the English TRADES
UNIONS. Besides, who would want to associate himself with all the
WILD THEORIES and the kind of SOCIALISM that throve on the Continent, etc.? (This latter anxiety, in particular, being voiced in rasping tones by a Lancashire weaver,[3] one of the new converts to the 8 hour day.)
In short, in their delight that there should now be almost no opposition to the 8 HOURS DAY, and by way of a sop to the weak in spirit — the Lancashire cotton operatives — they unceremoniously consigned the Continentals' invitation to the waste paper basket, and by 189 votes to 97, no less!
Now this, although most of them were probably unaware of what they were doing, was in fact a disgusting insult and a slap in the face for the entire continental Labour movement. We instantly broadcast the news here, there and everywhere and no doubt the first riposte will come from the French in a few days' time at Marseilles.[555] It's a heaven-sent opportunity — without making too much of the matter— for putting a damper on the self-conceit of the old TRADES unionists who are proving ever more reactionary.
Herewith a Pall- Mall containing an article of Aveling's about the Hamburg socialists and the cholera.[1]'
In the Daily Chronicle there was a long review, which no doubt you will have seen, of SOCIALISM UTOPIAN, etc.c What a canny lot they are!
The French daily has not yet emerged from the embryonic stage; negotiations are still proceeding but this is better than if the chaps were again to rush headlong into some short-lived venture.[423]
Louise came back in a very cheerful mood, having found her mother and Ignaz very hale and hearty. She sends her warm regards.
Now for a note to Ede, so farewell for today. With warm regards,
Yours,
F. Engels
Dear Ede,
The relevant passage went off to K. Kautsky" yesterday — indeed the entire letter from the point at which you began to quote; I told K. Kautsky that he would know how much to use, whether the whole thing or only a part, and which part.
At the last conference of the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION [565] (BANK
HOLIDAY,[569] the first Monday in August), Taylor, the unsuccessful candidate for Hackney,b proposed that Hyndman be thrown out. This met with great acclaim, particularly among the provincial delegates; however, Taylor was persuaded to tone down his motion in order that as large a majority as possible might be obtained. And thus it was resolved (unanimously, according to Taylor) that Hyndman be requested to resign from the leadership of the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDE-
RATION and devote himself to written propaganda. How long this will continue remains to be seen. At all events it is a bitter blow for the megalomaniac. Cahan of New York, who called on him without knowing about this, found him in a very despondent, chastened frame of mind and remarkably conciliatory towards all those he had hitherto torn to shreds.
The Workman's Times, i. e. Burgess, now also wishes to become party leader. You will have seen that the £400, which he placed at the disposal of Burns, Keir Hardie, Taylor and Ben Ellis during the elections, emanated from Champion (or rather, through him, from Hudson's Soap).
In short, there have been a good many changes here during your absence and you will find the chaps engaged in a variety of interesting pursuits.
Many regards,
Your
F.E.
I haven't yet seen Käte.
269. Engels to Paul Lafargue. 17 September[141]
My dear Lafargue,
Your opinion that we should take advantage of the opportunity of teaching the old English TRADES UNIONS a lesson is also shared by Bebel. If Liebknecht goes to Marseilles,[555] you will have a good chance of coming to an understanding with him. At the same time you might ask him why the Vorwärts is packed with news about the doings and sayings of the Broussists,[3] Allemanists [53] and Blanquists, yet is virtually silent on the subject of our own people. However they are saying in Berlin that the cholera is rampant in Marseilles and that might put a stop to his trip.
Since the English TRADES UNIONS recognise only bona fide WORKING MEN and then only those who are organised in trade unions, it is of the utmost importance that not only the Workers' Party Congress, but also, and in particular, the French trade unions,[570] who will be holding their congress a few days before ours, should take a firm stand on the presumption of the English in seeking to ignore the existing movement on the Continent so as to start another one under their own leadership and based on their own views. French trade unionists will as-suredly protest against what was said in Glasgow [5 4 0] about themselves and other continental working men.
(Woods M.P.)
'that the organisations on the Continent OF EUROPE WERK VERY INEFFECTIVE, BUT HE FELT SURE THAT IF THE POWERFUL ORGANISATION [\ ENGLAND WOULD ONLY EXTEND THE HAND OV FELLOWSHIP AND SYMPATHY AND BROTHERHOOD' (what, nothing more?!) TO THEIR FRIENDS ON THE CONTINENT, THEY COULD MINIMISE THE DIFFICULTIES' ETC.!
Foster OF Durham, MINER:
'HE WAS STRUCK WITH THE REMARKS OF M R . WOODS, THAT THEIR EFFORTS IN THIS COUNTRY WERE TO A CERTAIN EXTENT NEUTRALISED BY THEIR FELLOW-WORKMEN IN OTHER COUNTRIES WHO WERE NOT ORGANISED SO WELL AS THOSE IN THIS COUNTRY; THEIR SOCIAL POSITION WAS NOT EQUAL TO OURS' (!!!) ...IF THEY COULD GET THEIR FELLOW-WORKMEN O N T H E C O N T I N E N T TO SHOW THE SAME CONSENSUS OF OPINION AS THOSE IN THIS COUNTRY WHEN THEY MADE UP THEIR MIND TO A PARTICULAR ACTION
(he is referring to the 8 Hours and you know how strongly the English opposed it when the Continent was already unanimous those selfsame Englishmen who, one after another, are now giving tongue!)
'THEY WOULD THEN KNOW THAT THE POWER OF LABOUR COULD ACHIEVE THE OBJECT' ETC.
Holmes, Burnley (cotton weaver, newly converted to the 8 Hours and anxious to prove that this change of front hasn't turned him into a socialist cannibal):
'WERE THERE SOME ADVANCED, OR AS THEY CALLED THEM, SOCIALIST MOVEMENTS ON THE CONTINENT, THA'I THEY WANTED TO DRAG THEM INTO (at Zurich).[541] HE ASKED THOSE GENTLEMEN IF THEY WANTED TO GO TO THAT CONGRESS IN THE NAME OF THIS BODY TO ADVOCATE MANY OF THE WILD SCHEMES WHICH THEY KNEW WERE GOING ON ON THE CONTINENT?'
Conner, London:
'THOUGH THERE WERE TWO INTERNATIONAL CONGRESSES ALREADY ARRANGED FOR (ZURICH AND CHICAGO [57] ' ) NEITHER OF THEM WERE ARRANGED BY, OR UNDER THE AUTHORITY OF, THE TRADES CONGRESS (!!)'
There. That ought to be enough in the way of insults to quicken the pulse of your French trade unionists.
I repeat: So far as the moral effect it would create here in England is concerned, a Trades Union Congress resolution rejecting the divisive tendency inherent in the Glasgow resolution would be far more important than one emanating from the Socialist Congress. So do the best you can. Tussy has sent a newspaper report to Delecluze.
Give the French comrades my kind regards and keep up the good work, as at Lille.[38] Tussy says that the Working Men's Congress there was the most BUSINESS LIKE one she has ever attended.
Yours ever,
F. Engels
1959 Translated from the French
270. Engels to Nikolai Danielson. 22 September[2 6 7]
My dear Sir,
So far, then, we agree upon this one point, that Russia, in 1892, could not exist as a purely agricultural country, that her agricultural production must be complemented by industrial production.
Now I maintain, that industrial production nowadays, means grande industrie, steam, electricity, selfacting-mules, power-looms, finally machines that produce machinery. From the day Russia introduced railways, the introduction of these modern means of production was a foregone conclusion. You must be able to repair your own locomotives, waggons, railways, and that can only be done cheaply if you are able to construct those things at home, that you intend to re-pair. From the moment, warfare became a branch of grande industrie
(ironclad ships, rifled artillery, quickfiring and repeating cannon, repeating rifles, steelcovered bullets, smokeless powder etc.) la grande industrie without which all these things cannot be made became a political necessity. All these things cannot be had without a highly developed metal manufacture. And that manufacture cannot be had without a corresponding development in all other branches of manufacture, especially textile.
I quite agree with you in fixing the beginning of the new industrial era of your country about 1861. It was the hopeless struggle of a nation, with primitive forms of production, against nations with modern production, which characterized the Crimean war. The Russian people understood this perfectly; hence their transition to modern forms, a transition rendered irrevocable by the emancipation act of 1861.[441]
This necessity of the transition from the primitive methods of production that prevailed in 1854, to the modern methods that are now beginning to prevail— this necessity once conceded, it becomes a secondary question whether the hot-house-process of fostering the industrial revolution by protective and prohibitive duties was advanta-geous or even necessary, or otherwise.
This industrial hot-house-atmosphere renders the process acute, which otherwise might have retained a more chronic form. It crams into twenty years a development, which otherwise might have taken sixty or more years. But it does not affect the nature of the process itself, which, as you say, dates from 1861.
One thing is certain: if Russia really required, and was determined to have, a grande industrie of her own, she could not have it at all, except under some degree of protection and this you admit. From this point of view too, then, the question of protection is one ofdegree only, not of principle; the principle was unavoidable.
Another thing is certain: if Russia required after the Crimean war a grande industrie of her own, she could have it in one form only: the capitalistic form. And along with that form, she was obliged to take over all the consequences which accompany capitalistic grande industrie in all other countries.
Now I cannot see that the results of the industrial revolution which is taking place in Russia under our eyes, are in any way different from what they are, or have been, in England, Germany, America. In America the conditions of agriculture and landed property are different, and this does make some difference.
You complain of the slow increase of hands employed in textile industry, when compared with the increase of quantity of product.— The same is taking place everywhere else. Otherwise, whence our re-dundant 'industrial reserve'? (Capital, c. 23, sect. 3 and 4a).
You prove the gradual replacing of men's work by that of women and children — Capital, c. 13 (sect. 3, a).h You complain that the machine-made goods supersede the products of domestic industry and thus destroy a supplementary production, without which the peasant cannot live. But we have here an absolutely necessary consequence of capitalistic grande industrie: the creation of the home-market {Capital, c. 24, sect. 5(1)) and which has taken place in Germany during my lifetime and under my eyes. Even what you say, that the introduction of cotton-goods destroys not only the domestic spinning and weaving of the peasants, but also their ßax culture has been seen in Germany between 1820 and now. And as far as this side of the question: the destruction of home-industry and the branches of agriculture subservient to it — as far as this is concerned, the real question for you seems to me this: that the Russians had to decide whether their own grande industrie was to destroy their domestic manufacture, or whether the import of English goods was to accomplish this. With protection, the Russians effected it, without protection, the English. That seems to me perfectly evident.
Your calculation that the sum of the textile products of grande industrie and of domestic industry does not increase, but remains the same and even diminishes, is not only quite correct, but would not be correct if it came to another result. So long as Russian manufacture is confined to the home market, its product can only cover home consumption. And that can only slowly increase, and, as it seems to me, ought even to decrease under present Russian conditions.
For it is one of the necessary corollaries of grande industrie, that it destroys its own home market by the very process by which it creates it. It creates it by destroying the basis of the domestic industry of the peasantry. But without domestic industry the peasantry cannot live. They are ruined, as peasants; their purchasing power is reduced to a minimum; and until they, as proletarians, have settled down into new conditions of existence, they will furnish a very poor market for the newly-arisen factories.
Capitalist production being a transitory economical phase, is full of internal contradictions which develop and become evident in proportion as it develops. This tendency to destroy its own market at the same time it creates it, is one of them. Another is the 6e3Bwxo^Hoe no-Aoaœmie b to which it leads, and which is developed sooner in a country without a foreign market, like Russia, than in countries which more or less are capable of competing on the open world-market. This situation without an apparent issue finds its issue, for the latter countries, in commercial revulsions, in the forcible opening of new markets. But even then the cul-de-sac stares one in the face. Look at England. The last new market which could bring on a temporary revival of prosperity by its being thrown open to English commerce, is China. Therefore English capital insists upon constructing Chinese railways. But Chinese railways mean the destruction of the whole basis of Chinese small agriculture and domestic industry, and, as there will not even be the counterpoise of a Chinese grande industrie, hundreds of millions of people will be placed in the impossibility of living. The consequence will be a wholesale emigration such as the world has not yet seen, a flooding of America, Asia and Europe by the hated Chinaman, a competition for work with the American, Aus-tralian and European workman on the basis of the Chinese standard of life, the lowest of all — and if the system of production has not been changed in Europe before that time, it wil have to be changed then. Capitalistic production works its own ruin, and you may be sure it will do so in Russia too. It may, and if it lasts long enough, it will surely produce a fundamental agrarian revolution — I mean a revolution in the condition of landed property, which will ruin both the no-MeiyHK-ba and the My>KHKT>,b and replace them by a new class of large landed proprietors drawn from the KyAaKHc of the villages and the bourgeois speculators of the towns. At all events, I am sure the conservative people who have introduced capitalism into Russia, will be one day terribly astonished at the consequences of their own doings.
Yours very truly,
P.W. Rosherd
271. Engels to Victor Adler. 25 September
Dear Victor,
Your business with Stepnyak [572] has been settled, as indeed it had been before your telegram and two letters got here. For Stepnyak * sent me your letter of the 15th with the comment that he had now obtained Sonnenschein's formal consent and would be coming tomorrow (i. e. last Thursday, the 22nd) to exchange this document for the £15 sterling credited to me. Although not previously advised by you, I am far too good a business man not to honour the signature of so reputable a firm as V. Adler, even if not as yet actually in receipt of a formal advice. For you had held a pistol, not only to Stepnyak's head, but also in some measure to my own; otherwise had there been any other way out, I should for your sake have tried to avoid making any payment just now. And this merely on the grounds that you have now paid Stepnyak all that he is entitled to; but, as it is, his interest in seeing your translation published will no longer be of a pecuniary but merely of a literary nature and, if I know my Russians, that is not, I should say, the right way to get the stuff for the second volume out of him. However, there was nothing further I could do. I might have asked him to give me a written undertaking to the effect that he would deliver the goods within a given period, but it would have been worse than useless since you already have enough from him in writing in any case, and another scrap of paper would not have induced him to work any faster.
So I must content myself with his promise, made in Louise's presence, to let you have the goods in question within 2 weeks at the outside (va-t-en voir s'ils viennent," Jean) and with having paid him, against the enclosed note and Sonnenschein's perfectly adequate declaration, the £15 sterling you had promised him and told him to claim from me. You wrote:
'YOU CAN ALSO HAND THE FORMAL PAPER TO MR ENGELS, AND YOU WILL RECEIVE IMMEDIATELY FROM HIM THE SUM OF 15 POUNDS.'
So you see, the categorical wording left me no other alternative.(1) I also took occasion to explain to Stepnyak that, by dawdling as he has done, he had cheated himself and that, had he behaved ration-ally, S. Sonnenschein & Co. might well have been content with £ 5
STERLING if not less, which would have meant more for him, Stepnyak, to pocket. (Aveling maintains that S. Sonnenschein & Co. would in fact have given their permission gratis, the translation being in any case a good advertisement for the book.) None of this had occurred to him and he will no doubt take note of it. But it's you who have come off worst.
Summa summarum: should such a case arise in future, you would do well to inform me beforehand, in which case I could either give you my humble opinion or else I could at once enter into negotiations over here on your behalf, whether direct or through Louise or the Avelings. In the literary business 'local knowledge' is absolutely essential if you don't want to get stung.
We are glad to hear how much better your wifea is and hope the improvement will continue. Our thoughts are always with you.
We have seen nothing of Andreas Scheu for years, heard nothing of him for months and had no converse about him here for ages and ages. We know absolutely nothing about him. There's no need for you to worry about Uncle Julius and Auntb—now that they syste-matically cut themselves off from us we scarcely ever see them, let alone tell them anything.
The story about Hyndman ought not to have been printed.[573] It was uncorroborated, confidential information and may, formally speaking, contain inaccuracies. In essence it is correct; Hyndman has been deposed, though in as considerate a fashion as possible. The mere threat of such a motion supported by a majority of the delegates may have sufficed. The worst of it is that we can't reply to the de-menti without placing him in a more favourable position. Indeed there's something of his in Justice expressing the expectation that the
Vorwärts won't publish his letter.[574] Now he has made an ass of himself.
You will be getting two copies of Soziales aus Rußland* Of The Bakuninists at Work I have so far been able to find only one copy (bound up with other stuff), namely my handwritten one. I have perforce had to desist from lending things for propaganda purposes, and would advise you to do the same. Never again shall I allow the tools of my trade to leave the house.
My health 'continues slowly to improve'. Louise says you had asked how long this business had been going on — it manifested itself some ten years ago as a result of over-indulgence. The trouble originated some 25 years since when I came down with my horse while riding to hounds. For your further information only a few years after the thing had declared itself, I was forced by disagreeable sensations in the inguinal canal to wear a bandage with hernial pads and there would also seem to be a slight varice b in that region, on the left hand side. During the past few days I believe I have taken a distinct turn for the better although there is still some sensitivity to pressure, particularly after any time spent standing or walking; at all events I shall have to be patient and go on resting for a while longer. Louise said you were going to do me the kindness of inquiring about a specialist over here; I should be most grateful, the more so since every...c
272. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 26 September
Dear Baron,
Herewith what I consider to be indispensable amendmentsa to the two passages.[575]
I. As regards the adoption on the last day of a resolution to attend the Zurich Congress[54] ' after all, I have neither read anything to that effect, nor have I heard anything from Aveling who was present. Something of the kind is said to have appeared in the Daily Telegraph but this cannot be ascertained today. Aveling, who was intending to come here, has not so far, 4.40, turned up, so I am unable to ask him. The report in the Daily News says nothing of the kind. Nor does that in the Workman's Times. Bebel may have seen something of the sort in the Frankfurter.b Consequently, I think it might be safest to qualify the passage as you have done.
II. It is true that a meeting of people describing themselves as the
INDEPENDENT LABOUR PARTY took place in Glasgow under the chairman-ship of Keir Hardie. It is, however, the INDEPENDENT LABOUR PARTY which Burgess (Autolycus) of the Workman's Times is attempting to constitute off his own bat, and in no sense a genuine, recognised party like, say, our own in Germany or Austria; rather it is a sect like the SOCIAL
DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION [29] with which it is in competition. Bebel was probably misled by Keir Hardie's name into taking the thing more seriously than it deserved. But Keir Hardie is a Scot and his diplo-macy is too canny by half; moreover he has an urge to make the most of his new position as M. P. (thereby occasionally making a fool of himself) but will probably turn out well once he's had a chance to sow his wild oats. To my mind he is better than he seems to be just now.
I shall write to Bebela about this, in fact shall do so now. More anon. Ede should be back tomorrow or on Wednesday. Your com-missions shall be carried out.
Your
F.E.
273. Engels to August Bebel. 26 September
Dear August,
Louise will already have told you something about Kugelmann. At first, during the 60s, he was on very friendly terms with Marx and did a great deal towards breaking the newspapers' conspiracy of silence over Capital, Volume I. It was also he who persuaded Marx to go to Karlsbad,b which did him a lot of good,[460] but after they had been there for a while there was a final parting of the ways. Since Marx's death he has written to me several times, but I have tried to keep my distance, not being convinced of his reliability. At all events he has more than one foot in more than one camp.
As regards the copies of Herr Vogt, I have written and told him ' [5 3]
that he must first let me know how many he has got. There are all sorts of people wanting it. I believe that not even Tussy or Laura have got a copy. You, too, will be given preference if at all possible.
Arndt is a student who used to be in Geneva, and then went to Spain where he frequented our people in Madrid before coming to this country. While here he was taken under Julius'c wing and he would occasionaly come and see us. Then he suddenly went to Paris. He never said a word to us about his intention to write for the Vorwärts— presumably this was arranged by Julius. I gave him a card for Laura but have never heard whether he presented himself; I shall ask her. Laura would have referred him to Vaillant and, since the latter was in Paris and Lafargue was nearly always away, this would account for the consideration currently being shown to the Blanquists and their allies, the Allemanists.[53] Can you get hold of Arndt's address for me? After the Congress,[555] and particularly when the daily [4 2 3] comes out, Lafargue will be spending more time in Paris and the man will have to be referred to him and Guesde direct.
I rather think I remember seeing Meyer" in St Louis, but there are so many people ofthat name. I trust that Kugelmann, who is forever bragging about his connections, will be able to find something out.
Pieper was at one time tutor to the Rothschilds in this country and is now a grammar school teacher in Hanover. Marx once — in 1867, I think — ran into him in the street, by which time he had become a bloated philistine.
I completely agree that you should go on with the annual party conference. If only for constitutional reasons you, as an Executive, should adhere to it, otherwise what a fine pretext it would provide for malcontents. And it's also important that once a year the party itself should be able to express itself as a body; this is generally applicable but doubly so just now — vis-à-vis both the 'Independents'[333]
and Vollmar.
It is a great pity that you people should have been in such a hurry to put what I told you about Hyndman b into the paper.[573] Let me therefore expressly point out once and for all that in future anything I pass on to you in private letters is intended solely for your information and, where necessary — subject to the usual reservations — for the correction and prevention of inaccuracies or misconceptions in the Vorwärts; not for immediate publication, however, except when this is expressly stated. Otherwise I should have to keep my mouth shut about everything I could not actually substantiate, or else, in most cases, run the risk of having to betray my sources, thus causing these to dry up for the future.
Basically the information as such is quite definitely correct, as every number of Justice goes to show; gone are the attacks on individuals in this country or on the Continent, nor is anything left of the Hyndmanian spirit. But it's very possible that my information may have contained formal errors and that the mere threat of a resolution was enough to make Hyndman resign, etc. The only cause for regret is first, that this business will mean this and other sources on the doings of the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION [29] will be closed to us, secondly, that Hyndman's position has been improved thereby and, thirdly, that any further attempt to put a stop to this can only improve it still more.
In Justice there's a piece by Hyndman expressing the expectation that you people would not print his letter, and to that extent he has made an ass of himself.[5] [7] [4] I shall try and get hold of a copy for you.
I have written and told Kugelmann that, so far as /was competent to say, you were authorised to read the letters from Marx to him. ' [5 3]
Also that he would be getting The Knight of the Noble Consciousness.*
I have today received proofs of your article from K. Kautsky with queries about two passages.[575]
I. There was nothing in the Daily News about the adoption in Glasgow of a resolution that delegates should after all be sent to Zurich, nor had Aveling heard anything of the kind, otherwise he's have said so. He was intending to come here today but hasn't turned up. Louise say that on her way here she had seen something of that nature in the Daily Telegraph. In the circumstances I advised K. Kautsky to insert the words: if the relevant newspaper report is true. That covers you completely.
II. 'The Independent Labour Party now coming into being — whose supporters assembled for the first time after the end of the Glasgow Congress to constitute themselves—', etc., etc.
I advised K. Kautsky at all costs to delete the words between dashes: '—whose ... constitute themselves—'. The Independent Labour Party now coming into being over here is still very far from con-stituting itself, nor is it desirable that it should yet attempt to do so. It is not yet mature enough. The INDEPENDENT LABOUR PARTY, whose ad-herents more or less constituted themselves a party in Glasgow under Keir Hardie's chairmanship, is the sect founded by Autolycus (Joseph Burgess) of the Workman's Times, a sect which so far boasts 2,000 members and competes with the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION in re-
26 1892
cruiting socialistically minded workers. At present it is no more the Independent Labour Party than is the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION, nor is it either better or worse than the latter. What will come of it remains to be seen, but on no account should we proclaim it as a matter of course to be the one and only genuine Independent Labour Party, otherwise we might burn our fingers badly.
Since his election Keir Hardie has been pushing himself to the fore and putting on airs in a way that is both ludicrous and discreditable. Success has gone to his head and he will have to sow his wild oats for a while. He is evidently intent on pushing Burns into the background; the latter is behaving with great fortitude and restraint (he asked leave to call on me in order to consult me about the attitude he should adopt). I think it will all even itself out in the end — Keir Hardie is better than he makes himself out to be, but you should by no means conclude as a matter of course that someting is commendable because he happens to be taking part in it.
Otherwise I find your article quite unexceptionable — composed, dignified and emphatic.
At Marseilles the TRADES UNIONS Congress {Congrès des syndicats) [57]° passed a resolution which I had put to Lafargue,a namely that they should not take part in the international congress convoked by the TRADES UX-ro.vs but should invite the latter to attend the Zurich Congress.[5]*[1] This isn't the exact wording which I have yet to receive. Liebknecht will probably send it you as he had just turned up when Lafargue was in the act of writing. The Congress of the Workers' Party [5 5 5] will adopt a similar resolution. I drew Lafargue's attention to the fact that the
TRADES UNIONS do not recognise the validity of Labour Party congresses and resolutions while according respect of a very different order to those of the trades unions. If you in Germany could get the trades unions to adopt resolutions along the same lines, this could not fail to make an impact over here; it's something that should certainly not be neglected.
You might send about 12 copies of your article to us for distribution to the papers over here. For their people very seldom understand foreign languages, and whether they would so much as look at it is a complete toss-up. To get anything into the press over here one must employ different methods. If, for instance, Aveling were to take the finished article to the Pall Mall,b he would probably get it in [5 7 6];
that same evening we should send copies to the other papers so that they would all be served at the same time and there might still be a possibility of its getting a mention in one paper or another. But once one paper has discussed any such subject, none of the others will subsequently take it up — such is the rule over here. That is why we, who are here on the spot, must be able to determine the moment of distribution. On the other hand you could certainly send copies, specially designated as coming from you, to the French press; it might possibly have some pull over there, particularly since in France we haven't got a single daily in which we are able to publish anything. You could send it to L'Eclair (the paper most likely to take it), Le Figaro, Le
Temps, Le Matin, La Justice, L'Intransigeant, Le Parti Ouvrier (Possibilist) and Le Parti Socialiste (49, rue de Rivoli, Blanquist — weekly).
Please let me know whether or not the Workman's Times is still being sent you by the editorial department. Here it is being said that all complimentary copies for countries abroad have been cancelled. If this is true, I shall send it to you instead of to Fischer who can read it at your house or after you have done with it.
Well, I should have liked to write a word or two to your wife," but it is already past 9 p. m. and, contrary to doctor's orders, I have already spent over-long writing by lamplight. I have also had to write to Victorb and to Karl Kautsky which has taken me all day,c so please ask her to excuse me. But she will be getting a letter all to herself from me. Till then, please give her my warm regards.
Your
General
I have just heard from Louise that you have not been getting an official copy of the Workman's Times for some while past. So that is one thing settled.
274. Engels to Victor Adler. 27 September
Dear Victor,
Barely had my (registered) letter gone off yesterdaya than a mes-senger arrived from the Crédit Lyonnais [55] ' and handed me the £15 in question in settlement of my loan. Receipt of this is hereby grate-fully acknowledged.
The Marseilles Trades Unions (syndicats) Congress,[570] which pre-ceded the one held by the Workers' Party,[555] resolved not to send delegates to the Eight Hoursb Congress in Glasgow [540] convoked by the TRADES UNIONS, but instead to invite the TRADES UNIONS to Zurich. Lafargue writes to say that the party congress will pass a similar resolution. Were your trades unions to make a pronouncement along the same lines, it would create an impression over here. In the eyes of the bump-tious gentlemen of the old TRADES UNIONS, resolutions adopted by political working men's congresses don't count!
Regards from Louise to your wife ' and children and yourself, and likewise from
Your
F.E.
275. Engels to Franz Mehring. 28 September[5 7 7]
Dear Mr Mehring,
Kautsky has sent me part of one of your letters with an inquiry addressed to me.[578] If you feel somewhat hesitant about writing to me because of my failure many years ago to answer two of your letters, I have no right to complain. At the time we were, of course, in different camps and the Anti-Socialist Law ' ' was in force, imposing upon us the rule that 'he who is not for us is against us'. Moreover, if I remember rightly you yourself said in one of the letters that you could hardly venture to expect a reply.[579] However that was a long time ago and since then we have found ourselves in the same camp. You have also done excellent work for the Neue Zeit, a subject on which I have been far from parsimonious in my tributes when writing to e. g. Bebel.(1) Accordingly I shall be glad to take this opportunity of replying to you direct.
The claim that the discovery of the materialist view of history should be ascribed to the Prussian Romantics of the historical school is certainly new to me. I myself have Marwitz's Nachlass and I read the book a few years ago but found nothing in it other than some splendid stuff about cavalry and an unshakeable belief in the magic powers of five cuts of the whip when administered to the plebs by the nobility. Otherwise I have been a complete stranger to such literature since 1841-42 — I only applied myself to it very superficially — and am certainly in no way indebted to it so far as the present discussion is concerned. Marx became acquainted during his Bonn and Berlin days [5 8 0] with Adam Müller and Mr von Haller's Restauration, etc., and was always somewhat scornful ofthat vapid, cliché-ridden cari-cature of the French Romantics, Joseph de Maistre and Cardinal Bo-nald. But even had he come upon passages such as the one you cite from Lavergne-Peguilhen,[581] they could at that time have made absolutely no impression on him, always assuming he understood what the chaps were trying to say in the first place. Marx was then a Hegelian to whom that passage would have been downright heresy; he knew absolutely nothing about political economy and thus could not have made anything at all of a term such as 'economic system'. Hence the passage in question, even if he had known of it, would have gone in at one ear and out of the other without leaving any noticeable trace in his memory. But I very much doubt whether any such allu-sions were to be found in the historico-Romantic works read by Marx between 1837 and 1842.
It is indeed a highly remarkable passage and I should like to see the quotation verified. I am not familiar with the book, though the author is, of course, known to me as an adherent of the 'historical school'. The passage diverges from the modern view on two counts, 1. in that it derives production and distribution of production from the economic system instead of vice-versa, i.e. the economic system from production, and, 2. in the role it assigns to the 'proper administration' of the economic system, this being open to any number of interpretations, so long as one is unable oneself to see from the book what the author means.
But the strangest thing of all is that the correct concept of history in abstracto should be found among the very people who have most abused history in concreto —-both theoretically and practically. In the case of feudalism the chaps may have seen that here the political system evolved out of the economic system because here it is, so to speak, plain as a pikestaff. I say may because apart from the above-mentioned unverified passage — you told me yourself that someone gave it to you — all I have ever been able to discover about it is that the theoreticians of feudalism are, needless to say, less abstract than the bourgeois liberals. So if, from this concept of the connection between the political system and the spread of civilisation on the one hand and the economic system within feudal society on the other, one of them proceeds to the generalisation that this applies to all economic and political systems, how then explain the total myopia of this self-same Romantic, the moment he is faced with other economic systems, with the bourgeois economic system and the political systems corresponding to its various stages of development — medieval craft fraternities, absolute monarchy, constitutional monarchy, republic? That is certainly difficult to fathom. And the same chap who regards the economic system as the basis of social and political organisation as a whole, also adheres to the school to whom the absolute monarchy of the 17 th and 18th centuries already signifies the fall of man and a be-trayal of true political doctrine!
Admittedly he also says that the political system emanates from the economic system and its proper administration as inevitably as does a child from the coupling of man and woman. Having regard to the widely known teaching of the author's school, I can only explain this as follows: The true economic system is the feudal one. But since human malice conspires against that system, it must be properly administered in such a way that its existence is protected against these attacks and perpetuated, and that the political system, etc., continues to correspond to it, i. e. is kept, so far as possible, as it was in the 13th and 14th centuries. Then the best of all possible worlds and the finest of historical theories would each be realised, while the Lavergne-Peguilhenian generalisation to the effect that feudal society engenders a feudal polity would be reduced to its true essentials.[582]
For the time being I can only assume that Lavergne-Peguilhen didn't know what he was saying. According to the proverb, certain animals occasionally discover pearls and among the Prussian Romantics such creatures are strongly represented. Incidentally, it might nevertheless be advisable to compare them with their French prototypes — to see whether this has not also been borrowed.
I can only say how grateful I am to you for drawing my attention to this point which I cannot unfortunately pursue further at this moment.
Yours very sincerely,
F. Engels
276. Engels to Karl Kautsky. 29 September
Dear Baron,
Ede and Gine are the most surprising people I have ever met. This morning a postcard dated Berne 27.9.92 with a view of the Schänzli arrived from them and at 1.30 this afternoon they burst in on me in person; both looked very well, especially Gine, despite the fact that she is still receiving treatment for her throat and, most important of all, Ede gives the impression of having got over his neurasthenia. Considering that they have of late been so extraordinarily efficient in the matter of supplying addresses, I shall steal a march on them by informing you that for the time being they are living at 23 Compton Terrace, Highbury, N., quite close to Highbury and Islington Station, NORTH LONDON RAILWAY.
Mehring's letter, which I return herewith, made it necessary for me to reply to him direct if I did not wish to give offence, which would, of course, never occur to me. I did so on the enclosed sheet, which kindly forward to him.[3]
I told Kovalevsky on Friday that he should send you the article.b
We see the Centralblattc here at home and also at the Avelings. Evidently the Brauns of the male sex cannot help keeping one foot in the armchair socialist camp. RESPECTABILITY!
Since you have written to me about the article on the history of socialist organisations in England, I would commend Tussy to you, she being the only person capable of doing the thing with E. Aveling. The relevant literature is all very inadequate albeit voluminous, nor does it contain anything about what has actually happened and concerning which the public was supposed to be kept in ignorance. No one who was not a participant can express an opinion about it, i. e. be knowledgeable about individual events and record them objectively. Ede, for example, would have to go through all the numbers of Justice, To-Day, Labour Elector, Commonweal, etc. which appeared before his arrival in London, and even so he would have to ask Tussy to ex-
" See this volume, pp. 549-51.-b See this volume, p. 528. -c Sozialpolitisches Centralblatt plain to him the significance of what had happened and in that case the whole thing would, after all, be at second hand. However it will be a ticklish job explaining this to Ede who has only just got over his neurasthenia and, since the matter is not urgent, I shall let it rest for the time being. You have seen more of Ede than I have and if you believe that the business would not upset him unduly, it might perhaps be best if the suggestion were to come from you. At all events I leave it in your hands.
Bebel's article,[3] on which I made the necessary comments in yesterday's letter,b is very good.
I fully agree that my article0 should not have appeared until now. I don't even know whether the book has come out yet. Mendelson tells me he ordered it but received the reply that it was not yet available. There was a curious FABIAN review in the Daily Chronicle, mostly excerpts, running to 2y columns.
From what C. Schmidt tells me, he has not succeeded in solving the puzzle. Nevertheless I shall wait and see what he says in the article.[11] His article on the Menger-Jevonsiade was very nice. Unfortunately there's nobody one can place it with over here/
Mehring's contributions, both the leaders[583] and the Lessing, strike me as quite excellent and I derive much enjoyment from them.
Your
F.E.
" A. Bebel, 'Ein internationaler Kongreß für den Achtstundentag', Die Neue £eit, 11. Jg. 1892/93, 1. Bd., Nr. 2.- b See this volume, 542-43.-c 'Introduction to the English Edition (1892) of Socialism: Utopian and Scientific'. -d C. Schmidt, 'Die Durchschnittsprofitrate und das Marx'sche Werthgesetz', Die Neue Zeit, 11. Jg. 1892/93, 1. Bd., Nr. 3, 4.- c C. Schmidt, 'Die psychologische Richtung in der neueren Nationalökonomie', Die Neue Z">, 10. Jg. 1891/92, 2. Bd., Nr. 40, 41. - ' See this volume, p. 526.
APPENDICES
1
Endnotes
[385] a substantiation of his bill on a full amnesty for persons charged with political of-
[386] fences. The speech was repeatedly interrupted by noise and heckling from bour-
[387] geois deputies. It was published verbatim in Le Socialiste, No. 65, 19 December
[388] 1891.—320, 328, 330, 348 9 This refers to Kautsky's brochure, Das Erfurter Programm in seinem grundsätzlichen Theil erläutert, published in Stuttgart in 1892.—322, 367, 389 10 Peter Fireman had sent Kautsky the manuscript of his article 'Kritik der Marx'schen Werttheorie'. In his letter of 7 December 1891 Kautsky informed Engels of its contents. The article was published in Jahrbücher der Nationalökonomie und Statistik, Dritte Folge, 3. Bd., 1892. Engels analysed it in the Preface to Vol. Ill of Capital (see present edition, Vol. 37).— 322 ' This refers to Conrad Schmidt's work Die Durchschnitlsprofilrate auf Grundlage des Marx'schen Wertgesetzes (Stuttgart, 1889), which Engels analyses in his preface to Volume III ot Capital (see present edition, Vol. 37).— 323 2 In his letter to Engels of 3 December 1891 Kautsky said in its next issue Neue %eil would carry an article by Rudolf Meyer ('Anbaupolitik und Nahrungsmittel', Die New Zeit, 10. Jg., 1891/92, l.Bd.,Nr. 11, 12. He also wrote that Meyer was ill and being boycotted by the conservative press.— 323 3 The compositors' strike in Germany began on 8 November 1891 and involved 10,000 printers. The strikers demanded a 12.5 per cent pay rise and a nine-hour working day. The strike continued until 14 January 1892 but, despite support from workers of other industries in Germany and abroad, ended in failure.— 323, 346 4 This message of greetings was written by Louise Kautsky on a postcard. The address is in Engels' hand: Mr. und Mrs. Schlüter 382 Washington St. Hoboken N. Y. U.S. America.— 325 5 This message of greetings was written by Engels on a postcard. The address — Familie Liebknecht, 160 Kantstr., Charlottenburg, Berlin, Germany — is also in his hand.—326 6 Part of this letter was published in English for the first time in The Labour Monthly, London, 1934, No. 10. The letter appeared in English in full for the first time in Science and Society, New York, 1938, Vol. 2, No. 3.-326 ' Territories was the designation of newly developed areas in the USA, mostly in the West, which did not form part of any of the states and were governed by the President or the Senate. As a rule, they were admitted to the Union as states upon at-taining a certain population number.— 328 8 An allusion to the Greenback Party. Formed in the West of the USA in 1874, it consisted mostly of farmers. The party opposed the withdrawal of the paper money (popularly called greenbacks) emitted during the 1861-65 Civil War and, being devalued, no longer convertible into gold. The Greenbackers laboured under the illusion that keeping a large amount of paper money in circulation would lead to a rise in the price of farming produce. The party obtained over a million votes at the 1878 elections. It virtually disintegrated following a defeat at the polls in 1884.—328
[389] On 9 January 1891 Samuel Gompers, President of the American Federation of Labor (see Note 84), wrote to Engels asking him what he thought of the conflict between the Federation and the Socialist Labor Party of North America (see Note 133). Engels' reply to Gompers is not extant.— 328
[358] Between 1890 and 1895 Sorge published a series of articles on the US working-class movement over the period 1830-94 in JVeue £eit. They were to be put out in book form. This edition never materialised.^—299, 329
[390] Presumably Engels means the editing and translation into German of his article 'Socialism in Germany' (see present edition, Vol. 27) and his work on 'Preface to the 1892 English Edition of The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844' (see present edition, Vol. 27, pp. 257-69).— 329
[391] The Boards of Health were municipal bodies in Britain concerned with health, san-itation and social security. In his letter of 31 December 1891 Paul Lafargue asked Engels to tell him about the Board of Health in London because he intended to submit to the Chamber of Deputies a proposal for the establishment of similar bodies in France.— 330
[393] The bill on the disestablishment of the Church in Ireland (1869) applied solely to the Church of England, which had an insignificant following in Ireland. The bill put an end to the privileges of the Anglican Church and placed it, legally and fi-nancially, on an equal footing with the Catholic and the Presbyterian Church. It abolished tithes and various ecclesiastical offices. The Church of England also had to relinquish a small part of its land holdings, whose revenue was now to be used for charity and assistance to Ireland's other Churches and also to raise the salaries of the remaining Anglican priests. The bill on the disestablishment of the Church in Ireland was passed by the Gladstone government, alongside other measures, to pacify the Irish national movement.— 330
[394] This refers to the 5,000 million francs which France paid in indemnities to Germany under the peace treaty after the 1870-71 Franco-Prussian war.— 330
[314] translated it into German for Neue ^eit, adding a brief introduction and a concluding section. The article was published in Die Neue .£«7, 10. Jg. 1891/92, 1. Bd., Nr. 19 under the heading 'Der Sozialismus in Deutschland' (see present edition, Vol. 27, pp. 235-50).—252, 259, 260, 263, 267, 270, 276, 282 3 ' 4 This refers to the Viennese Arbeiterinnen-Leitung. Engels' phrase 'Hyaena-paper' is based on Schiller's Song of the Bell, which compares women revolutionaries to hyaenas. The first issue of the newspaper, which appeared on 1 January 1892, carried contributions by Laura Lafargue, 'Ein Gruß aus Frankreich', and Louise Kautsky, 'Aus England'. On 5 February an article by Eleanor Marx-Aveling, 'Wie sollen wir organisieren?', was published.— 252, 331
[395] Henry Mayers Hyndman supported Paul Brousse when the French Possibilists split up in October 1890. See Broussists (Note 3) and Allemanists (Note 53).— 333
[397] On 13 November 1887 the British socialists organised a demonstration in London. About 10,000 workers marched to Trafalgar Square, where a rally was to be held. Arriving there, they found the square occupied by 4,000 police. In the ensuing clashes several hundred demonstrators were injured (three fatally), some of the organisers of the rally were arrested. These events went down in the history of the British labour movement as Bloody Sunday.— 335
[400] Engels means the evolution of Martin Luther's views. In his early, radical period Luther formulated his teaching, in which the masses of the people saw a reflection of their revolutionary sentiments. In late 1521 the Reformation led by Luther began to distance itself from the plebeian and peasant elements, with Luther himself gravitating to the side of the German princes who supported the Reformation. This split in the Reformation camp was reflected, among other things, in Luther's critique, in December 1521, of the radical Church reforms carried out by the theologian Andreas Rudolf Karlstadt in Wittenberg, the centre of the Reformation. During the Peasant War in Germany (1524-26) Luther openly sided with the enemies of the insurgent peasants, his attitude reflecting that of the majority of German burghers, who had gone over to the side of the feudal lords for fear of revolutionary action by the masses.— 342
[40] This letter was first published in English in full in: S. Hook, Towards the Understand-
[402] asked Bebel to state the terms that would make possible a Franco-German agreement on Alsace and Lorraine, both annexed by Germany in 1871. In a letter to Engels of 27 January Bebel summarised his reply to Figaro as follows: 'The public, I said, knew what I and our party thought about the annexation; it also knew that we favoured a reconciliation with France, and certainly also that we considered one possible; but our party still lacked the strength to bring about a decision, and outside the party there might be individuals who likewise wanted a reconciliation, but none of these were people of influence; hence any real action promising success was out of the question.' A note headlined 'Ueber den Rückkauf Elsaß-Lothringes' published in the 'Parteinachrichten' column of the supplement to Vorwärts, No. 25, 30 January 1892, said Bebel had declared that the Social-Democratic Party would accept a Franco-German agreement on Alsace and Lorraine on any terms.— 344 403 In his letter of 27 January 1892 Bebel told Engels about a conversation he had just had with Ernst Matthias von Koller, deputy state secretary for Alsace-Lorraine at the Prussian Ministry of the Interior, on the position in that province. Koller said Bebel had only him to thank for having been able to address a meeting in Mul-house on 6 January (see Note 407). In the course of the conversation Bebel sharply criticised the German government's police reprisals.— 344
[4 0 3] A report headlined 'Aus London', in Vorwärts, No. 25, 30 January 1892, said elements hostile to German Social-Democracy had been expelled from the German Workers' Educational Society (see this volume, pp. 333 and 335). It did not say, however, that the person expelled was Ferdinand Gilles.— 345
[4 0 4] This refers to a legal statement, sent by Bebel to Engels on 7 February 1885, concerning the possibility of bringing out another printing of Engels' The Condition of the Working-Class in England, published by Otto Wigand in Leipzig in 1845. This possibility was first discussed by Engels in his letters to Liebknecht of 15-22 May 1872 and 12 February 1873 (see present edition, Vol. 44, pp. 373-77 and 477-78). Under statement, a second edition could only be issued by a publishing house in a country which had no copyright convention with Germany. However, Wigand ceded his rights in regard of Engels' book to Dietz of his own accord (see this volume, pp. 406, 410, 414 and Notes 468, 470 and 476).— 346
[383] December 1891.
[406] An allusion to a passage in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, Act I, Scene 2: 'Yond'
[407] Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much: such men are dangerous!'— 348 4 0' On 6 January 1892 Bebel addressed a workers' meeting in the Alsatian town of Mulhouse. He spoke mostly about the economic condition of Alsace. His attempts to proceed to political questions were cut short by the police commissioner, who threatened to close the meeting. A report on the meeting was published in Vorwärts on 9 January 1892.—348
[408] Engels means Conrad Schmidt's article 'Noch einmal das Rätsel der Durchschnittsprofitrate' in Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik, 3. Folge, 2. Bd., Jena 1891. Schmidt had enclosed a copy of the article in his letter to Engels of 12 December 1891. Engels gives a critical analysis of Julius Wolfs article in his preface to Vol. Ill of Capital (see present edition, Vol. 37, Part I).— 349
[410] the title 'Federico Engels — Giovanni Bovio' and was reprinted by several Italian newspapers.— 354, 356 4 , 0 Engels wrote these words on a postcard which bears — in his hand — the address: Sigr. avvo, Filippo Turati, Portici, Galleria V. E., Milano, Italy.— 356
[411] In connection with the Greater Vienna reconstruction project Arbeiter-Leitung cam-
[415] German— existed from 1866 to 1918. It was based on the Right wing of the Party
[416] of Progress (see Note 296), which split off in the autumn of 1866. The National
[422] On 15 February 1892 Bebel spoke in the Reichstag debate on the military budget. He concentrated on the appropriations for the military legal department and on the cruel treatment of soldiers in the German army. An extract from the speech was published in Vorwärts on 16 February.— 364
[164] The Union of Gas Workers and General Labourers, Britain's first trades union of unskilled workers, was set up in late March-early April 1889, against the background of the rising strike movement of the 1880s and 90s. Eleanor Marx-Aveling and Edward Aveling played an important role in organising and leading the union. It put forward the demand for an eight-hour working day and within a short time became very influential among large sections of the working class. About 100,000 gas workers joined it during the first year. The union gave great help in organising the famous London dock strike in 1889 (see Note 198). The strike and the Gas Union's activities gave rise to the Dockers' Union, another large organisation of unskilled workers, which in its turn contributed significantly to the establishment of more mass trades unions, to the fight for the eight-hour day and to the organisation of May Day demonstrations of British workers in the 1890s. The gas workers readily responded to socialist and internationalist ideas, preached to them above all by Eleanor Marx-Aveling, and exerted an important influence on the labour movement in Ireland, where they initiated mass trades unions embracing, among others, farm labourers. The National Union of Gas Workers and General Labourers of Great Britain and Ireland (the union's full name) maintained links with workers' organisations in other countries. Eleanor Marx-Aveling and William Thome represented it as delegates at the International Socialist Workers' Congress in Brussels (see Note 135).— 128, 138, 167, 197, 219, 225, 300, 313, 367, 371, 403, 557, 560
[336] Engels means the 'Independent Socialists' in the Chamber of Deputies. Led by Etienne-Alexandre Millerand, the group consisted mostly of bourgeois radicals
[4 2 5] In his letter of 19 February 1892 Kautsky told Engels that Heinrich Cunow was going to write a work on the 'class organisation' of the Australoids. It appeared under the title Die Verwandtschaftsorganisation der Australneger (1894).— 368
[426] This refers to the special rights (independent administration of the postal service, telegraphy and railways, a degree of autonomy in military matters, and other rights) of the south German states, mainly Bavaria, Württemberg and Saxony, in-corporated in their treaties of accession to the North German Confederation (November 1870) and in the Constitution of the German Empire (April 1871). Representatives of Bavaria, Württemberg and Saxony on the Council of the Confederation formed a special foreign policy committee vested with the right of veto.— 369
[96] In his preface to the fourth German edition of Volume I of Capital in June 1890 (see present edition, Vol. 35) Engels described in detail Marx's 1872 polemic with the German economist Lujo Brentano, who had accused Marx of misquoting a passage from Gladstone's parliamentary speech of 16 April 1863 in reproducing it in the Inaugural Address of the Working Men's International Association and in Volume I of Capital. Brentano's reaction to Engels' presentation of the case was the pamphlet Meine Polemik mit Karl Marx, Berlin, 1890, the introduction to which was published in Deutsches Wochenblatt, No. 45, 6 November 1890. On 4 December this journal carried a note containing two passages from Gladstone's letters to Brentano of 22 and 28 November 1890 in which Gladstone asserted that Brentano was right. Engels replied in a brief article, 'In the Case of Brentano Versus Marx' (Die Neue Zeit, 9. Jg., 1890/91, 1. Bd., Nr. 13) and, at greater length, in a pamphlet of the same title, published in April 1891, which contained a large number of documents, including the above-mentioned article (see present edition, Vol. 27).— 85, 90, 93, 95, 103, 132, 146, 148, 158, 163, 172
[64] This refers to the refusal of the Possibilists (see Note 3) to participate in the socialist congress in Troyes (23-30 December 1888), which originally had been called as a congress of the Possibilist party. The refusal was due to the fact that the convocation of the congress had been entrusted to the Troyes socialist organisations, consisting mostly of supporters of the Workers' Party (Guesdists), so that both parties had been invited.— 54
[432] Part of this letter was published in English for the first time in: K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Correspondence, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965.— 372
[4 3 3] The message of greetings of the French Workers' Party (see Note 146), and the Editorial Board of Le Socialiste on the occasion of Bebel's twenty-fifth anniversary in parliament was published in Le Socialiste, No. 76, 6 March 1892. It noted Bebel's outstanding contribution to the struggle for the triumph of socialist ideas and pointed out that his activities did honour not only to the German Social-Democratic Party, but the whole international socialist movement.— 372
[434] On 2 March 1892 the Saxon Landtag deprived Liebknecht of his seat on the
[431] At the end of January 1892 the Prussian government submitted a bill on the primary schools to the Landtag. All primary schools providing general education were to be turned into religious schools, all newly opened schools were to be religious ones, and the entire system of primary education was to be supervised by the clergy. The bill, reflecting the interests of the Centre (see Note 418), encountered strong criticism from the Liberals which, in March 1892, forced the Prussian Cabinet to resign. The new Cabinet withdrew the bill.— 371, 373
[435] grounds that he permanently lived in Berlin and not in Saxony.— 372 433 In Kapital und Presse. Ein Nachspiel zum Fall Lindau, Berlin, 1891, Franz Mehring explained why he had gone over to anti-Social-Democratic positions after 1876. His change of heart was especially evident in the third, revised edition (1879) of his Die Deutsche Socialdemokratie. Ihre Geschickte und ihre Lehre.— 376
[436] In his letter of 20 March 1892 August Siegel told Engels that the Executive of the German Miners' Association had provided 120 marks to his wife to cover travelling expenses. In addition, he had received £16 from the British miners.— 376
[231] Part of this letter was first published in English in: K. Marx, F. Engels, V. I. Le-nin, The Communist View on Morality, Novosti, Moscow, 1974.— 175, 377
[437] The new course in Germany's foreign and home policy, proclaimed by Emperor William II in March 1890 after the resignation of Bismarck, was associated with Chancellor Leo von Caprivi (1890-94). In regard of the working-class movement it brought a policy of reform, notably in labour legislation (the introduction of free Sundays and holidays in industry, a ban on work by children under thirteen, and other measures). However, this did not mean a total renunciation of reprisals against workers' organisations. In Germany's foreign policy the new course brought imperialist tendencies.— 378
[438] "phis ;s a n inaccuracy. The Revista Socialdappeared from 1884 to 1887. Engels' article was published in the Romanian Social-Democratic journal Critica Sociald, Nos 2 and 3, 1892, under the headline 'Socialismul in Germania'.— 380
[440] For 18 March 1892 Engels wrote 'Greetings to the French Workers on the Occasion of the 21st Anniversary of the Paris Commune' (see present edition, Vol. 27, pp. 275-76), published in Le Socialiste, No. 79, 26 March 1892.—382
[442] Engels means the Peasant Reform of 19 February 1861 (Statute on Peasants Emerging from Serfhood), which abolished serfdom in Russia. As a result of the reform about 22.5 million peasants were liberated, part of whom, however, were obliged to do corvée service or pay quit-rent for the use of land (so-called temporarily liable peasants). It was not until 28 December 1881 that a law decreeing the obligatory re-demption by the peasants (as of 1 January 1881) of the plots they used was promul-gated. Corvée and quit-rent were formally abolished but in effect continued to exist in the form of the labour service system until the 1900s.— 382
[444] In his letter of 12 (24) November 1891 Danielson requested Engels to congratulate Paul Lafargue on his election to the Chamber of Deputies.— 385
[445] During the Reichstag debate on a bill concerning martial law in Alsace-Lorraine on 3 March 1892, the Conservative deputy Karl Alwin Hartmann alleged that there existed differences on the Alsace-Lorraine issue within the German Social-Democratic Party between Wilhelm Liebknecht and Georg von Vollmar. In his reply Paul Singer, speaking on behalf of the Social-Democratic deputies rejected this assertion and declared that, as far as the Social-Democratic Party was concerned, the Alsace-Lorraine issue did not exist at all. The charge that Liebknecht advocated the return of Alsace and Lorraine to France, he said, was a lie.— 386
[446] The London Trades Council and Social-Democratic Federation (see notes 196
[447] and 29) had attempted to bar the Marxist-led working-class organisations from participation in the 1890 May Day demonstration in London. For details see Engels' article 'May 4 in London' (present edition, Vol. 27, pp. 61-66).— 386 4 4' Bebel was to address a workers' meeting in the East End at Eleanor Marx-Aveling's request during his planned visit to London (see Note 473).— 388
[450] This refers to Engels' work 'Marx and Rodbertus. Preface to the First German Edition of The Poverty of Philosophy by Karl Marx' (see present edition, Vol. 26), which was included in the second German edition of Marx's book (1892), and to Engels' special 'Preface to the Second German Edition of Karl Marx's The Poverty of Philosophy' (see present edition, Vol. 27, p. 277 and this volume, Note 424).— 389
[452] On 27 March 1892 Kautsky wrote to tell Engels that Victor Adler was in financial straits, and his wife, Emma, was seriously ill.— 389
[4 5 3] In a postcard of 26 March 1892 Martignetti asked Engels to state his views on duelling in connection with a report in the Lotto di classe that a young Italian socialist, Arturo Zambianchi, had challenged an officer for an affront.— 391
[454] Engels probably means Schlüter's letter of 11 May 1891, which contained a great deal of information on the US working-class movement and Schlüter's own activities.—392
[338] Mackinley was one of the leaders of the US Republican Party. The protectionist tariff initiated by him was introduced in 1890. An instrument of the monopolies, it sharply raised the import duties on manufactures, the results being a rise in the price of consumer goods and a deterioration of the condition of the working class. Engels discussed the Mackinley tariff in his article 'The American Presidential Election' (see present edition, Vol. 27, pp. 329-31).—278, 393
[456] Engels granted the interview to Emile Massard on 1 April 1892 (see present edition, Vol. 27, pp. 533-38). On 3 April he almost completely rewrote Massard's manuscript. The interview appeared in Eclair on 6 April. Judging by the fact that it was reprinted, even if abridged, in Le Socialiste (No. 82, 16 April), the newspaper of the French Workers' Party, it may be assumed that Engels regarded the Eclair text as satisfactory.— 394
[457] Engels holidayed in Ryde (Isle of Wight) from 20 to 26 March 1892.—395 456 On 7 April 1892 Henri Brissac asked Engels to review his pamphlet La Société col-
[458] lectiviste (Paris, 1892), which was a collection of his articles published in Revue Socialiste.— 396
[459] This refers to a plan for the merger of two groups of Russian revolutionary émigrés— the Emancipation of Labour Group and the Circle of People's Will Veterans. The plan had the support of the German Social-Democratic Party, which was willing to provide the necessary funds. The talks between the two groups were to take place in London in the spring of 1892, with Frederick Engels, August Bebel and Georgi Plekhanov participating. The plan failed to materialise.— 397
[4 6 3] In his letter to George Shipton, published in Daily Chronicle of 11 April 1892 in the column 'The Eight Hour Demonstration', Adolph Smith wrote about his talks with the leaders of the Possibilists (see Note 3) in Paris on sending delegates to the May Day demonstrations being organised by the London Trades Council (see Note 196). The idea was to give the demonstration an international character and deal a blow to the prestige of the Marxist-led Legal Eight Hours and International Labour League (see Note 200).—402, 562
[66] This refers to the opposition group of the Jungen (see Note 13).— 54
[467] This refers to the second Italian edition of Engels' Socialism: Utopian and Scientific in Martignetti's translation (the first edition appeared in 1883). The issue of a second edition had been proposed by Romualdo Fantuzzi and Martignetti in March 1891, to which Engels gave his consent (see this volume, pp. 159 and 160). In the summer of 1891 the type was set, and the proofs read by Pasquale Martignetti and Antonio Labriola. But then the publisher delayed the printing without any explanation, which made Engels contemplate abrogating his contract with Fantuzzi. Despite the delay, the brochure did appear in 1892.— 405
[468] In his letter of 20 April 1892 J. H. W. Dietz informed Engels of his intention to bring out a second edition of The Condition of the Working-Class in England (see Note 404) and of Otto Wigand's willingness to cede the copyright to him. Dietz asked Engels to advise him of his consent by a special letter. Engels agreed to Dietz's proposal. The latter's letter bears Engels' inscription: 'Tes, reprint with the most essential notes and a new preface. Begin at once. Corrections to be made in the proofs so that I can insert the notes.' — 406
[4 7 0] In his letter of 26 April 1892 Dietz informed Engels that the matter with Otto Wigand had been settled (see this volume, pp. 406-07) and the printing of the second edition of The Condition of the Working-Class in England could be proceeded with at once. The letter bears Engels' note: 'Accepted. Unless the answer is No, I shall write 1. the preface, 2. brief notes.'—408
[471] The powerful May Day demonstration of 1892, in which Engels took part, had been staged jointly by London's working-class and socialist organisations. The festival lasted for two and a half hours and was attended by workers' and socialist representatives from several European countries.— 409, 411, 413
[472] The Daily Graphic of 2 May 1892 carried a drawing representing platform 14 at the 1892 May Day demonstration in London's Hyde Park.— 411
[4 4 3] Engels toured the United States and Canada with Eleanor Marx-Aveling, Edward Aveling and Carl Schorlemmer in August-September 1888. For Engels' impressions of the journey see present edition, Vol. 26, pp. 581-86.— 384, 412
[475] In his letter of 5 May 1892 Bebel told Engels that he was well again and could, if necessary, 'uproot a few oaks'.— 413
[476] Answering Engels' question of 5 May 1892 (see this volume, p. 410) Dietz, in his letter of 9 May, wrote that Wigand had conceded him the right to publish The Condition of the Working-Class in England without any limitation of the number of copies. Dietz also informed Engels that he was going to print 10,000 copies and stated the terms concerning the fees, which Engels accepts in the present letter. Written on Dietz's letter in Engels' hand is the following note: 'Accepted. '1/4 of the fee by autumn '92, after printing '1/4 " " 1 Jan. 93 '1/2 " after printing the second 5,000, but not later than 6 months after printing has begun.'—414
[477] Rudolf Hermann Meyer, in his article 'Der große Generalstab und die nörgelnden Zeitungsschreiber' intended for Neue ^eit (see Note 479), mentioned a carpenter by the name of Werner as one of the German representatives at the 1879 Edinburgh Congress of the British Trades Unions (see Note 478). According to Meyer, Werner set forth Marx's ideas at the congress. In his letter to Engels of 13 May 1892 Kautsky suggested that in reality it may have been Adam Weiler and asked Engels whether this was so. The Editors do not have Engels' postcard mentioned here at their disposal.— 416
[478] The Edinburgh Congress of British Trades Unions (14-20 September 1879) con-
[479] cerned itself mostly with workers' participation in parliamentary elections. Its resolutions demanded longer voting time, a redistribution of constituencies and the abolition of distinctions between rural and urban constituencies. The congress also pronounced itself in favour of putting up working-class candidates at parliamentary elections.— 416 4 " In his letter of 13 May 1892 Kautsky wrote that Rudolf Meyer had described Engels as the 'oldest and greatest of the living political economists' in his article (see Note 477). Despite Engels' objections, the phrase was kept. The article appeared in Die Neue Çeit, \0. Jg., 1891/92, 2. Bd., Nr. 35, 36.—416
[41] ing of Karl Marx. A Revolutionary Interpretation. The John Day Company, New York, 1933.—33 4 ' In his letter of 3 September 1890 Joseph Bloch put two questions to Engels. The first concerned the interpretation of Roman historian Cornelius Nepos' statements on consanguine marriage in Ancient Greece. The second was formulated thus: 'Are economic relations the only determining moment or do they merely form, in a certain sense, a solid basis for all other relations, which can then become factors in their own right?' — 33
[481] On 15 May 1892, Le Socialiste (No. 86), the newspaper of the French Workers' Party, published an official report of the Party's National Council on the showing of the party's candidates in the first round of the municipal elections held on 1 May 1892 (see Note 429).—423
[482] The scientist Friedrich Schorlemmer, elder brother of Carl and Ludwig Schorlemmer, died young.— 426
[483] This refers to the French edition of Engels' The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (see Note 199). Joseph Roy's French translation of the book was not published in full. Part of it — Chapter IX, 'Barbarism and Civilisation', and Chapter V, 'The Emergence of the Athenian State' — appeared in the July and August issues of L'Ere Nouvelle in 1893. In the same year Chapter IX was published by L'Ère Nouvelle as a separate edition.— 427
[484] On 27 May 1892 Henry Enfield Roscoe informed Engels of the doctors' pessimistic assessment of Carl Schorlemmer's condition and expressed his regret at being unable to go to Manchester.— 430
[486] In his note of 27 May 1892 H. E. Roscoe uses the phrase 'Dear Engels'.— 431 48 ' Owens College was founded in 1851 with money bequeathed for the purpose by
[488] Q n 4 J u n e 1892, Justice (No. 438), reported that a socialist daily was due to be published in France under the editorship of Jules Guesde and Paul Lafargue.— 435
[491] On 28 May 1892 the Pall Mall Gazette (No. 8482) carried an interview with August Bebel and Paul Singer headlined 'The Prospects of Socialism'. In the interview, granted during their stay in London earlier in May (see Note 473), Bebel and Singer briefly characterised the working-class movement in Germany and emphasised the significance of the success scored by the French Workers' Party at the May 1892 municipal elections (see Note 429).— 436
[493] p a r t 0f this letter was first published, in the language of the original (English), in: K. Marx, F. Engels, Ausgewählte Briefe, Dietz Verlag, Berlin, 1953.— 440
[494] In these letters Danielson continues his discussion of the paths of Russia's economic development (see this volume, pp. 278-80 and 382-85) and gives his opinion of two books he sent Engels on 30 April and 18 May 1892: N. Kablukov, Vopros o rabochikh v selskom khoziaistve (Concerning Agricultural Labourers), Moscow, 1884, and N. Karyshev, Krestianskie vnenadelniye arendy (Rent of Land by Peasants Holding Communal Plots), Derpt, 1892.—440
[495] Engels means the book Kreslianskaya obshchina, Moscow, 1892, by the Russian Na-rodist economist V. V. (V. P. Vorontsov), a copy of which Danielson sent him in March 1892.— 443
[4 9 6] In his letter to Engels of 30 April 1892 Danielson pointed out that N. Kablukov, in his book Vopros o rabochikh v selskom khoziaistve (Concerning Agricultural Labourers) failed to take into account that the agricultural labourers were, in effect, day labourers employed only at periods when the big landowners needed labour and that their work did not provide them the necessary means of subsistence.— 443
[302] In this letter — written in reply to Bebel's letter of 12 September 1891 — Engels analyses Bebel's article 'Die russische Anleihe' published in Vorwärts, No. 226, 27 September. The article dealt with Russia's 3 per cent loan in France, agreement on which had been reached in September 1891. Bebel characterised it as a military loan. The sum stipulated was 500 million francs (125 million gold roubles). Initially a great success, the loan was only realised to the amount of about 96 million roubles owing to the sharp decline of Russian securities at the European stock exchanges caused by the aggravation of Russia's economic situation in connection with the 1891 famine.—242, 295, 303, 308, 444
[497] In March 1891 Engels, on his own behalf and Mendelson's, sent Sorge some money for Stanislaw Padlewski. After Padlewski's suicide the remainder of this money was returned to Engels and Mendelson (see also this volume, p. 415).— 445
[499] Engels means the US presidential election which was due on 8 November 1892. At the polls, the Republican Benjamin Harrison lost the Presidency to the Democrat Grover Cleveland. Engels displayed a great interest in the contest and in November 1892 wrote the article 'The American Presidential Election' (see present edition, Vol. 27, pp. 329-31).—446
[506] Bebel had called his wife 'honorary bookkeeper' in his letter to Engels of 4 June 1892. Julia Bebel helped her husband in the performance of his duties as treasurer of the Executive of the German Social-Democratic Party.— 450
[509] In his letter of 1 July 1892 Bebel asked Engels to forward to Stanislaw Mendelson
[514] Under the Home Rule Bill, submitted by the Gladstone government in April
[515] 1886 with a view to winning the support of the Irish M. P.s and putting an end to the Irish national liberation movement, Ireland was to be turned into a self-governing colony with its own parliament and government, the latter to be ac-countable to the British Cabinet, which was to retain control of foreign, military and customs matters. The Bill was opposed by the Right-wing Liberals, known as the Liberal Unionists (see Note 505), and caused a split in the Liberal Party. On 7 June 1886, Parliament rejected Home Rule by the votes of the Conservatives and Liberal Unionists.— 460 5 ' 5 The Independent Labour Party was founded by the leaders of the New Trades Unions (see Note 520) in 1893 against the background of spreading strikes and a growing movement for an independent policy of the British working class vis-à-vis the bourgeois parties. Led by James Keir Hardie, the party included members of new and old trades unions and Fabian-influenced intellectuals and petty bourgeois. Its programme called for collective ownership of all means of production, distribution and exchange, an eight-hour working day, a ban on child labour, introduction of social insurance and unemployment benefits, and other measures. Engels greeted the establishment of the Independent Labour Party, hoping that it would avoid repeating the sectarian mistakes of the Social Democratic Federation (see Note 29) and become a genuinely mass working-class party. But the Independent Labour leaders took a bourgeois reformist stand from the very beginning, placing the emphasis on parliamentary forms of struggle and readily compromising with the Liberal Party. In 1900 the Independent Labour Party joined the Labour Party.—460, 463, 471
[46] The Danish Social-Democratic Party, formed in 1876, had a reformist and a revolutionary wing. The latter, led by Gerson Trier and Nikolai Petersen, was grouped round the newspaper Arbejderen. In 1889 the revolutionary minority was expelled from the party and formed an organisation of its own. However, due to the sectarian mistakes of its leaders, it failed to develop into a mass proletarian party.— 42
[517] Engels means the note 'Die englischen Wahlen', published in Vorwärts, No. 154, 5 July 1892.—465 5 ' e This telegram was sent in connection with Burns' election to Parliament from Bat-
[523] Jatrochemistry (iatrochemistry) was a school in natural science and medicine which saw the main cause of diseases in the obstruction of chemical processes in the organ-ism and looked for chemical means of treatment. Its rise (16th century) and development are associated with the names of Paracelsus, J. B. van Helmont and F. de la Boë Sylvius. The Jatrochemists studied many processes in the human organism and discovered and introduced into medical practice a large number of chemical compounds. Jatrochemistry played an important part in overcoming the dogmas of medieval medicine. It ceased to exist as an independent medical school in the second half of the 18th century.— 470
[23] On 20 August 1890 Le Figaro launched a series of articles under the title 'Les Cou-lisses du boulangisme', signed x. The author was the ex-Boulangist journalist Mer-meix.— 22
[524] In its issue for 1892 Almanack de la Question Sociale, published by Panayottis Argyriades, listed Engels on the title page as one of its principal contributors. Printed in French in that issue, without Engels' knowledge and considerably abridged, was his 'Introduction to Karl Marx's Wage Labour and Capital (1891 Edition)' (see present edition, Vol. 27, pp. 194-201).—472
[25] This letter was first published in English in: Frederick Engels, Paul and Laura Lafargue, Correspondence, Vol. 2, 1887-1890, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, I960.—23, 42, 65, 82
[526] Two editorial notes in Justice, No. 443, 9 July 1892—'Stanley Goes Under' and 'Stanley Must Be Kept Under'—urged voters to oppose Henry Morton Stanley as a reactionary and colonialist.— 475
[527] The High Church — a group in the Anglican Church (mostly members of the aristocracy) that emphasised the doctrine of apostolic succession and attached great importance to ritual and symbols.— 475
[28] The International Socialist Conference in Halle was held on 16 and 17 October 1890, while the Congress of German Social-Democracy was meeting there (see Note 12). The conference was attended by German Social-Democrats and the representatives of nine socialist parties who took part in the congress as guests. In keeping with Engels' recommendation, the conference decided to hold a united socialist congress in Brussels in 1891 (see Note 135) which was to be attended, among others, by the Possibilists and their supporters. The Possibilists' participation was made contingent on their recognising the complete sovereignty of the congress — none of the decisions of the earlier congresses, the 1889 Possibilist congress included, was to be binding on it. For details see Engels' article 'The International Workers' Congress of 1891' (present edition, Vol. 27, pp. 72-75).—24, 29, 40, 46, 49, 52, 54, 57, 74, 98
[529] The territorial army came into being during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71. From 1872 it was a component of France's armed forces formed for rear, garrison and guard service in wartime. Men were enlisted in the territorial army for six (until 1892 nine) years, after active service and seven years in the reserve. Upon expiry of this period, they were transferred for another nine years to the territorial army reserve.— 478
[531] Engels' letter bears this addition in Laura Lafargue's hand: T replied to Engels this evening. The ear is getting better. L. L. I have received the money.'—478
[533] To disprove Vollmar's assertions that Bebel was interfering in the affairs of Vorwärts, Bebel stated in a private letter to Vollmar that he had not seen Liebknecht, the editor of Vorwärts, for a whole fortnight. However, Vollmar, in his article 'In ei-gener Sache' published in Münchener Post, No. 161, on 19 July 1892, distorted this in a way suggesting that Bebel was accusing Liebknecht of neglecting his duties. Bebel denied Vollmar's allegations in Vorwärts, No. 168, on 21 July 1892.— 480
[519] Under the reform of 1867 the suffrage in urban areas was granted to all house-owners and house tenants, and also to apartment tenants who had resided at the place in question for no less than a year and paid no less than £10 rent. The property qualification for voters in the counties was reduced to £\2 rent a year. As a result of the reform a section of the industrial workers obtained the vote. In 1872 bal-loting was introduced. The 1884 reform extended the provisions of the 1867 reform to the rural constituencies, thus making part of the rural population eligible to vote. However, even after these reforms the voters made up only 13 per cent of the country's population. The urban and rural poor and all women still had no access to the ballot box.—467, 482
[534] This refers to Edward Aveling's book, The Students' Marx. An Introduction to the Study of Karl Marx' 'Capital' (London, 1892), a popular summary of Volume I of Capital. In his letter to Engels of 1 July 1892 Martignetti said he intended to translate the book into Italian, and asked for a copy. At Engels' request one was sent him in August.— 483
[535] At Mentana, on 3 November 1867, French troops in co-operation with the Pope's mercenary guards defeated Garibaldi's forces, which were on their second march on Rome to reunite the papal domain with Italy. Engels ironically quotes General Pierre Louis Charles de Failly, the French commander, who, referring to the efficacy of his soldiers' Chassepots (guns of a new system), reported: 'Nos fusils Chassepots ont fait merveille' ('Our Chassepots have worked a miracle').— 483
[536] Excerpts from the obituary 'Carl Schorlemmer' by Engels were published under the heading 'A Socialist F.R.S.' in Justice, No. 445, on 23 July 1892.— 484
[537] This refers to the proofs of the German translation of Engels' 'Introduction to the English Edition (1892) of Socialism: Utopian and Scientific' (see present edition, Vol. 27, pp. 278-302), which was being published in Neue Zjit (see also Note 461). Kautsky had sent the proofs to Engels on 8 August 1892.— 493
[539] Engels refers to one of the basic propositions of the Possibilists (see Note 3) — the gradual solution of the social problem through the take-over of the municipalities by workers' representatives. The Possibilists' municipal programme was worked out at their regional congress in Paris in 1885. It provided, among other things, for public works to end unemployment, and special municipal controlled shops. The national Possibilist congress held in Paris in July 1892 also discussed the municipalities' tasks in public health and the provisioning of workers.— 494
[543] Part of this letter was published in English for the first time in: Karl Marx, Frederick Engels, On Literature and Art, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1976.— 500
[544] Engels made a trip to Norway with Carl Schorlemmer in July 1890.— 500
[545] Engels summarised the results of his many years' research into the origin and essence of Christianity in 1894 in his work On the History of Early Christianity (see present edition, Vol. 27). It was published in Die Neue 2j>it, 13. Jg., 1894/95, 1. Bd., Nr. 1-2.—501
[546] The Fronde (1648-53) was an anti-absolutist movement in France involving different social sections — from radical peasant and plebeian elements to aristocrats — which in many cases pursued opposite aims. The defeat of the Fronde resulted in the consolidation of the absolutist regime.— 501
[547] In his letter of 17 August 1892 Bebel told Engels that Victor Adler and his family were in grave financial straits.— 503
[549] In a speech before the senior officers of the German army on 18 August 1892 William II condemned the government's plan for reducing the term of active military service in the infantry to two years. The emperor's speech caused a political crisis in Germany and gave rise to rumours about the imminent resignation of Chancellor Leo von Caprivi, who advocated a shorter term of service. Nevertheless, the proposed two-year term was retained in the draft of the new military law, which was passed on 15 July 1893 by the new Reichstag, elected in June 1893 (after the dissolution of the old Reichstag, which had rejected the draft in May 1893).— 504
[551] Crédit Lyonnais — one of France's biggest depositary banks (founded 1863).— 505, 548
[552] By 20 August 1892, the financiers with whose money the daily newspaper of the French Workers' Party was being founded were to make available part of their contributions — fr. 250,000 — and deliver the equipment for the printing-house.— 505
[553] This letter is written on a postcard part of which, including the stamp, is torn off. The beginning of the letter is not extant.— 506
[35] This refers to the leading article, 'The Death of a Hero', in Justice, No. 349, 20 September 1890.—30
[50] Engels means the London International Trades Union Congress held in November 1888. Representatives of Belgian, British, Danish, Dutch, Italian and pro-Possibilist French trades unions attended. The organisers of the congress had made participation conditional on the official election of delegates by trades unions and thereby denied access to the German and Austrian Social-Democrats and French Marxists. However, the reformist leaders of the British Trades Unions failed to impose their line. Despite their resistance, the congress appealed to the working people to fight for labour protection legislation and a legal eight-hour working day. The congress decided to call an international workers' congress in Paris in 1889, entrusting the Possibilists with its organisation.— 43
[133] The Socialist Labor Party of North America was formed at the union congress in Philadelphia in 1876 through the merger of the American sections of the First International and other US socialist organisations. The majority of the party members were immigrants (mostly Germans) who had only loose ties with America's native-born workers. Within the party a struggle was going on between the reformist leadership, consisting mostly of Lassalleans, and the Marxist wing, led by Friedrich Adolph Sorge, an associate of Marx and Engels. The party's proclaimed goal was socialism. However, owing to the sectarian policy of its leaders, who ignored America's mass workers' organisations, above all the trade unions, it failed to become a truly revolutionary mass Marxist party.— 113, 167, 186, 447, 507
[554] Departmental elections were held in France on 31 July and 7 August 1892. The Workers' Party (see Note 146) polled more than 100,000 votes on election day and in the runoffs and won 27 seats on the district councils and the general councils of the departments.— 508
[556] Louise Kautsky's article on the parliamentary election in Britain was published untitled in Arbeiter-Leitung, No. 32, 5 August 1892.— 508
[558] In the summer of 1891 and 1892 small Russian army detachments, commanded by Colonel Ionov, undertook two expeditions to the Pamir. Under the 1872-73 Anglo-Russian agreements, this region, highly important strategically, had been recognised as lying within Russia's sphere of influence. The two expeditions were to consolidate Russia's hold on the region. They caused diplomatic friction between Russia and Britain, which was apprehensive of Russia's advance towards India. Negotiations in the subsequent years and the delineation of borders resulted in the Russo-British agreement of 27 February (11 March) 1895, which recognised the greater part of Pamir to be the possession of Russia.— 511
[559] In his letter of 25 August 1892, to which Engels is replying, Adler said that he intended to write a pamphlet on party tactics in which he would take issue with Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis and Georg von Vollmar. In this connection he pointed out that the critics of Social-Democracy's tactics regarded them as immutable, while actually they should change depending on the circumstances.— 512
[560] In his letter of 25 August 1892 Adler wrote, referring to the 'Independent' Socialists in Austria (for the 'Independents' in Germany see Note 333), that philistinism held the 'greatest danger' to them and therefore 'if there were no Left opposition, it would have to be invented'.— 512
[561] In his letter to Engels of 31 August 1892 Kautsky wrote that in the next issue of Neue Z_eit he intended to start printing F. A. Sorge's article 'Homestead und Coeur d'Alêne', which dealt with the steel workers' strike in Homestead (USA). He was therefore postponing the printing of Engels' 'Introduction to the English Edition (1892) of Socialism: Utopian and Scientific' (see Note 461). Sorge's article appeared in Die Heue Zeit, 10. Jg., 1891/92, 2. Bd., Nr. 50, 51. The workers of the Carnegie Steel Company in Homestead went on strike at the end of June 1892 in protest against the lockout announced by the administration to force the workers to disband their trade union and accept lower pay rates. Armed strikebreakers and troops were brought in against the strikers, who had the backing of workers at neighbouring plants and of other trade unions. After a series of clashes involving many casualties on both sides, government troops took over the plants and legal proceedings were instituted against the strike leaders. The strike ended in late November. The workers were compelled to accept the company's terms after the administration had succeeded in starting production with the help of strikebreakers. At the time of the Homestead strike, the silver and lead miners of the Coeur d'Alêne area staged a walkout in protest against wage cuts. In July 1892 clashes occurred between the strikers and armed strikebreakers, with the former carrying the day. Eventually the strike was crushed with the help of government troops. Its leaders were arrested and the miners' union prosecuted.— 514
[562] In his letter of 31 August 1892 Kautsky asked what Engels thought of inviting Bonnier to write reviews of current events in France for Neue ^eit.— 517
[563] Pomeranian grandees was the phrase Ludwig Kugelmann, then at the Baltic resort of Ahlbeck, in Pomerania, used in his letter to Engels of 21 August 1892 to refer to the Prussian Junkers.— 518
[566] Marx commented on Carl Knies' book, Geld und Credit. Erste Abtheilung. Das Geld. Darlegung der Grundlehren von dem Gelde (Berlin, 1873), in his letter to Engels of 25 July 1877 (see present edition, Vol. 45, pp. 250-53).—526
[522] Xhis refers to the theory of marginal utility, a school of thought in vulgar political economy which rejected the labour theory of value in favour of the view that the value of commodities is determined by their utility, which is assessed subjectively. The theory of maximum utility took shape in the 1870s. In the last third of the 19th century and at the beginning of the 20th, its leading proponents included Karl Menger and 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).— 469, 562
[568] On 19 September 1892 Kautsky accepted Engels' proposal. However, Kovalevsky's article did not appear in Neue £eit.— 528
[569] Bank holidays, in the United Kingdom, are those days which by the Bank Holidays
[38] The Eighth Congress of the French Workers' Party met in Lille on 11 and 12 October 1890. It was attended by about 70 delegates, representing more than 200 party groups and trades unions from 97 towns and localities. The congress revised the party Rules and finally determined the composition and functions of the National Council. The following persons were elected to the Council for the period 1890-91: Jules Guesde, Louis Simon Dereure, Leon Camescasse, Quesnel, Georges Edouard Crépin, Paul Lafargue and Joseph Ferroul. Le Socialiste was made the party's official organ. The congress called for a peaceful demonstration to be held on 1 May 1891. It rejected the proposal for a general strike put forward by the 1888 Bordeaux trade union congress and pronounced for an international strike of miners as the vanguard of the working class capable of representing the interests of all workers. On the Workers' Party see Note 146.—32, 46, 52, 54, 459
[572] The reference is to Adler's German translation ofVolume I of S. M. Kravchinsky's (Stepnyak's) book, The Russian Peasantry. Their Agrarian Condition, Social Life and Religion, published by Swan Sonnenschein & Co. in London in 1888. In a letter of 22 September 1892 Adler asked Engels to obtain through Stepnyak Sonnenschein's formal permission to the publication of the German translation and pay the author and publisher the fees due to them. Stepnyak read Adler's translation and wrote a brief preface to the German edition. The book appeared under the title Der russische Bauer at the Dietz publishing house in Stuttgart in 1893.— 539
[574] This refers to Hyndman's protest against the report published in Vorwärts (see Note 573). The protest appeared in Vorwärts, No. 220, 20 September 1892. Hyndman's letter in Justice was published in its No. 454, on 24 September 1892.— 541, 545
[5 7 6] Edward Aveling quoted a considerable part of Bebel's article in his article 'Discord in "The International". Continental Opinion on the British Trades Unionists', published in Pall Mall Gazette, No. 8598, 11 October 1892.—546
[577] Part of this letter was first published by Mehring, with Engels' permission (see Engels' letter to him of 11 April 1893; present edition, Vol. 50), in Mehring's essay 'Ucber den historischen Materialismus'. The essay was appended to the first separate edition of his book Die Lessing-Legende (Stuttgart, 1893). For the first English publication of the letter see Note 441.— 549
[578] Mehring, who was working on an essay about historical materialism (see Note 577), had directed a relevant question to Engels via Kautsky. The latter forwarded it to Engels on 24 September 1892.— 549
[579] Engels means Mehring's letters to him of 3 June 1884 and 16 January 1885, in which Mehring asked for material for a biography of Marx. These letters opened the Mehring-Engels correspondence.— 549
[580] This refers to Marx's years of study at Bonn (October 1835-October 1836) and Berlin (October 1836-March 1841) universities.— 549
[581] Engels refers to the book by the German historian Moritz von Lavergnc-Peguilhen, Grundzüge der Gesellschaßswissenschaß. Erster Theil. Die Bewegungs- und Productionsgesetze, Königsberg, 1838. It contains a passage, on p. 225, about the effect of the form of economy on the form of the state. This passage, referred to by Engels, is quoted in Mehring's essay 'Ueber den historischen Materialismus', appended to the separate edition of his Lessing-Legende.— 549
[582] In his letter to Mehring of 11 April 1893 (see present edition, Vol. 50) Engels asked him to alter this passage, when quoting it in the appendix to the Lessing-Legende (see Note 577), as follows: '... while the Lavergne-Peguilhenian generalisation would be reduced to its true content, namely that feudal society engenders a feudal world order'.— 551
[583] frorn ] June 1891 Franz Mehring had contributed weekly editorials to Neue £eit, providing a Marxist analysis of current political events. These articles formed an important stage in Mehring's development as a Marxist historian and journalist.— 553
[378] On 17 December 1891 Paul Lafargue, on behalf of the French Workers' Party, submitted to the Chamber of Deputies a bill on the separation of the Church from
[264] In the summer and autumn of 1891 Engels repeatedly interrupted his work and left London owing to overstrain. From 26 June to 24 August (with intervals) he rested with Carl Schorlemmer and George Julian Harney in Ryde (Isle of Wight) at the home of Mary Ellen Rosher (Pumps), the niece of his wife, and roughly between 8 and 23 September he toured Ireland and Scotland with Mary Ellen Rosher and Louise Kautsky.—207, 209, 212, 224, 230, 232, 237, 250, 278, 313, 328, 340, 501
[15 3] The Editors are not in possession of the original of this letter.— 118, 129, 171, 289, 301, 303, 304, 305, 323, 329, 335, 342, 360, 372, 491, 492, 496, 501, 506, 543, 544
[392] Between December 1891 and early February 1892 Paul Lafargue made several canvassing tours in France, addressing rallies and workers' meetings in Lille, Lyons, Boulogne, Bordeaux, Nantes, Toulouse and other cities. As he told Engels in his letter of 26 December, these tours were, above all, part of the campaign for the municipal elections due on 1 May 1892. Referring to the tours in a letter to Engels on 28 December, Laura Lafargue jok-ingly called her husband the wandering Jew. Engels, in his reply, alludes to Lafargue's black origin.—330, 348, 478
[147] The radicals were a parliamentary group in France in the 1880s and 90s which had split away from the bourgeois party of moderate republicans (the 'opportunists' or 'Gambettists'). They continued to uphold a number of bourgeois-democratic demands virtually dropped by the republicans: abolition of the Senate, separation of the Church from the State, introduction of a progressive income tax, and others. They also demanded a limitation of the working day, pensions for the disabled, and other socio-economic measures. In 1901 the radicals set up a party of their own. It spoke, above all, for the middle and petty bourgeoisie.— 116, 289, 291, 297, 320, 330, 360
[1] The letter is written on a postcard. The address is on the back: Herrn W. Liebknecht, Südplatz 11, Leipzig, Germany.— 3, 17
[6] An extract from this letter was published in Berliner Volks- Tribüne, No. 39, 27 September 1890. Part of the letter first appeared in English in: Karl Marx and Frederick Engels. Correspondence. 1846-1895, Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1934, pp. 472-74.-6
[11] headlined 'Jedem der volle Ertrag seiner Arbeit', published articles by Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis, Paul Ernst, Paul Fischer, and also an article signed Von einem Arbeiter. On 12 July the paper summed up the discussion in an item headlined 'Schlußwort zur Debatte'.— 7 1 ' The Anti-Socialist Law, initiated by the Bismarck government and passed by the Reichstag on 21 October 1878, was directed against the socialist and working-class movement. The Social-Democratic Party of Germany was virtually driven into the underground. All party and mass working-class organisations and their press were banned, socialist literature was subject to confiscation, Social-Democrats made the object of reprisals. However, with the active help of Marx and Engels, the Social-Democratic Party succeeded in overcoming both the opportunist (Eduard Bernstein et al.) and 'ultra-Left' (J. Most et al.) tendencies within its ranks and was able, by combining underground activities with an efficient utilisation of legal means, to use the period of the operation of the law for considerably strengthening and ex-panding its influence among the masses. Prolonged in 1881, 1884, 1886 and 1888, the Anti-Socialist Law was repealed on 1 October 1890. For Engels' assessment of it see his article 'Bismarck and the German Working Men's Party' (present edition, Vol. 24, pp. 407-09).—8, 11, 14, 19, 47, 130, 134, 174, 180, 197, 200, 235, 254, 305, 318, 344, 363, 427, 516, 549
[89] Engels means the German Workers' Educational Society in London, which was founded by Karl Schapper, Joseph Moll, Heinrich Bauer and other members of the League of thejust in 1840. After the establishment of the Communist League, its local branches played the leading role in the Society. In 1847 and 1849-50, Marx and Engels took an active part in its work. On 17 September 1850, they and a number of their followers retired from the Society because most of its members had sided with the adventurist sectarian minority (the Willich-Schapper faction) which was challenging the Marx- and Engels-led majority in the Central Authority of the Communist League. Marx and Engels resumed their work in the Society in the late 1850s. When the First International Working Men's Association was founded, the Society — then led, among others, by Friedrich Lessner — became its member. The London Educational Society was closed by the British government in 1918.— 76, 237, 269, 294, 310, 313, 333, 335, 345, 381, 497, 527
[29] The Social Democratic Federation, set up in August 1884, consisted of English socialists of different orientations, mostly intellectuals. For a long time the leadership of the Federation was in the hands of reformists led by Hyndman, an opportunist sectarian. In opposition to them, the revolutionary Marxists within the Federation (Eleanor Marx-Aveling, Edward Aveling, Tom Mann and others) worked for close ties with the revolutionary labour movement. In the autumn of 1884 — following a split and the establishment by the Left wing of an independent organisation, the Socialist League (see Note 49) — the opportunists' influence in the Federation increased. However, revolutionary elements, discontented with the opportunist leadership, continued to form within the Federation, under the impact of the masses.— 24, 43, 57, 123, 126, 131, 140, 155, 185, 190, 219, 333, 335, 370, 380, 386, 402, 449, 471, 475, 484, 493, 497, 508, 515, 542, 545, 563
[396] At a joint session of the freedom of speech committee and representatives of socialist and workers' organisations on 24 January 1890, the delegates of the Union of Gas Workers and General Labourers (see Note 164) declared that they were not going officially to participate in meetings at the World's End.— 333, 335
[398] In reprinting, in German, Engels' article 'Socialism in Germany' in Die Neue £eit, 10. Jg., 1891/92, 1. Bd., Nr. 19 (see present edition, Vol. 27, pp. 235-50), the Editors omitted the names of Bebel and Liebknecht in the following passage: 'More than once entire groups of Lassalleans went over en masse, drums beating and banners flying, to Bebel's and Liebknecht's new party, called the Eisenach party.'—336, 343
[399] On 26 January 1892 Kautsky informed Engels that J.H.W. Dietz had requested him to translate James E. Thorold Rogers' Six Centuries of Work and Wages. The History of English Labour (London, 1886). In this connection Kautsky asked for Engels' opinion of the book.— 337, 343
[3] The Possibilists (or Broussists) were a trend in the French socialist movement. Their leaders — Paul Brousse, Benoît Malon and others — advocated the gradual transformation of the capitalist system into a socialist one by means of reform, through a 'policy of pursuing the possible'. In 1882 they caused a split in the French Workers' Party (see Note 146) and formed a new party named Fédéracion des Travailleurs socialistes. In the 1890s the Possibilists lost a great deal of their influence; in 1902 the majority of them joined the reformist French Socialist Party, founded by Jean Léon Jaurès.^3, 24, 126, 140, 155, 162, 164, 167, 183, 186, 190, 193, 208, 211, 224, 229, 238, 241, 260, 291, 292, 342, 348, 360, 367, 370, 381, 401, 423, 484, 520, 524, 533, 561, 562
[53] Engels means the signs of a forthcoming dissociation within the Possibilist Workers' Party (see Note 3). At their congress in Châtellerault, 9 to 15 October 1890, the Possibilists split into two groups — the Broussists and the Allemanists. The latter formed an organisation of their own, the Socialist Revolutionary Workers' Party. The Allemanists retained the Possibilists' ideological and tactical principles but, in contrast to them, attached great importance to propaganda within the trades unions, which they regarded as the workers' principal form of organisation. The Allemanists' ultimate weapon was the call for a general strike. Like the Possibilists, they denied the need for a united, centralised party and advocated autonomy and the struggle to win seats on the municipal councils.— 43, 46, 49, 52, 53, 74, 98, 117, 139, 155, 164, 167, 183, 189, 190, 224, 260, 399, 430, 533, 544
[87] The Fabian Society was a British reformist organisation set up by a group of intellectuals in 1884 and led by Sidney and Beatrice Webb. The Society's name derives from Fabius Maximus, a Roman general of the 3rd century B. C. nicknamed Cunc-tator (Delayer) for his tactic of evading a set battle in the war against Hannibal.— 75, 113, 342, 404, 449, 468, 493, 497, 502, 515, 526, 563
[405] This Order of the Day by Prince George of Saxony, commander-in-chief of the Saxon army, dated 8 June 1891, was published in Vorwärts, No. 26, 31 January 1892, under the title 'Zu den bevorstehenden Reichstags-Verhandlungen über den Mili-tär-Etat'. It summed up the findings of a court martial investigation into complaints about the brutal treatment of soldiers.— 346, 348
[267] Part of this letter was first published in: Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, Correspondence. 1846-1895. Lawrence & Wishart, London, 1934.—209, 212, 237, 242, 264, 267, 285, 349, 392, 535
[2] Presumably Liebknecht had asked Engels (see Engels' letter to him of 30 June 1890; present edition, Vol. 48) to write a refutation to Justice in connection with an item headlined 'Make a Note of This!' published in its issue 336 on 21 June 1890. Citing Paul Brousse, a Possibilist leader, as his source, the author had attributed to Liebknecht the statement 'We are no revolutionists', which, he alleged, had been made on behalf of the German Social-Democratic Party. Social-Democracy in Germany, the Justice writer claimed, was pinning its hopes on propaganda rather than revolutionary action. The next issue of Justice (No. 337, 28 June) carried a letter to the Editor from Ferdinand Gilles headlined 'German Social-Democrats Still Revolution-ists'. It declared that if Liebknecht had in fact made this statement, he was not speaking for the whole party, which at its every congress had confirmed its loyalty to revolutionary principles. Liebknecht's reply to these items was published in People's Press, No. 22, 2 August 1890.—3
[301] The Erfurt Congress of the Social-Democratic Party of Germany met from 14 to 21 October 1891. It was attended by 258 delegates. The congress was preceded by a sharp ideological struggle between the party's revolutionary hard core and the Right- and Left-wing opportunists, who had stepped up their activities and created the atmosphere of a party crisis in German Social-Democracy. There had been sharp debates at meetings and in the press on the party's programme and tactics, set off by the public pronouncements of Georg von Vollmar, leader of the Bavarian Social-Democrats, who sought to impose an opportunist reformist tactics and lead the party away from class proletarian positions (see Note 270). Vollmar's campaign provided a pretext for fresh attacks on the party (summer and autumn 1891) by the Jungen, a petty-bourgeois semi-anarchist opposition group within German Social-Democracy formed in 1890. Their stronghold being the Social-Democratic organisation of Berlin, they were also known as the Berlin opposition. The group's specific character was determined by students and young literati claiming the role of the party's theoreticians and leaders. Foremost among them were Paul Ernst, Hans Müller, Paul Kampflfmeyer, Bruno Wille, Karl Wilderberger and Wilhelm Werner. The Jungen ignored the fact that the repeal of the Anti-Socialist Law had changed the conditions the party was operating in. They denied the need to employ legal forms of struggle, opposed Social-Democracy's participation in parliamentary elections and use of the parliamentary platform and demagogically accused the party and its Executive of protecting the interests of the petty bourgeoisie, of opportunism and of violating party democracy. The leaders of the Berlin opposition levelled especially fierce attacks at the party's leaders— Bebel and Liebknecht. The sectarian anarchist activities of the Jungen held a grave danger to the party's unity. The paramount task facing the Erfurt Congress was to overcome the crisis in the party and consolidate its ranks. The congress discussed the report of the party Executive, the activities of Social-Democratic deputies in the Reichstag, the party's tactics, the draft of its new programme, and various organisational questions. The ideological struggle continued at the congress too, especially over party tactics. A report on this issue was presented by Bebel. He — in his report and speeches — as well as other speakers (above all Singer, Liebknecht and Fischer) gave a resolute rebuff both to the Left and to the Right opportunist elements. By a majority vote the congress endorsed Bebel's draft resolution on tactics. It pointed out that the main objective of the working-class movement was the conquest of political power by the proletariat and that this end would be attained not through a chance concatenation of circumstances but through persevering work with the masses and skillful employment of every form and method of proletarian class struggle. The resolution emphasised that the German Social-Democratic Party was a fighting party employing the traditional revolutionary tactics. Vollmar and his supporters, finding themselves in isolation, were forced to retreat. The congress expelled two leaders of the Jungen — Werner and Wilderberger — from the party for their splitting activities and slander; a number of other Jungen leaders announced their resignation from the party and walked out of the congress. The main achievement of the congress was the adoption of a new programme for German Social-Democracy. A report on it was presented by Liebknecht. The Erfurt Programme being essentially Marxist, was an important step forward compared with the Gotha Programme. The Lassallean reformist dogmas had been dropped. The new programme scientifically substantiated the inevitability of the collapse of capitalism and its replacement with socialism, and pointed out that, in order to be able to restructure society along socialist lines, the proletariat must win political power. At the same time, the programme had serious shortcomings, the principal one being its failure to state that the dictatorship of the proletariat was the instrument of the socialist transformation of society. Also missing were propositions concerning the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of a democratic republic, the remoulding of Germany's political system and other important matters. In this respect, the criticisms made by Engels in A Critique of the Draft Social-Democratic Programme of 1891 (see present edition, Vol. 27, pp. 217-34) also apply to the version of the programme adopted in Erfurt. The resolutions of the Erfurt congress showed that Marxism had firmly taken root in Germany's working-class movement.— 241, 255, 259, 263, 265, 267, 273, 276, 277, 282, 287, 298, 310, 315, 351, 526
[13] In late March 1890 the Jungen, a group of Berlin Social-Democrats, including Max Schippel, published an appeal under the title 'Was soil am 1. Mai geschehen?', urging the workers to hold a strike on the 1st of May. The appeal reflected the specific attitude of the Jungen, crystallised in 1890, as a petty-bourgeois semi-anarchist opposition group within the German Social-Democracy. The hard core of the group was made up of students and young literati (hence the group's name) who claimed the role of the party's theoreticians and leaders. Paul Ernst, Paul Kampffmeyer, Hans Müller, Bruno Wille and others were the group's ideologues. The Jungen ignored the change in the conditions for the party's activity after the repeal of the Anti-Socialist Law. They denied the need for using legal forms of struggle, opposed participation in parliamentary elections and the use of the parliamentary platform by the Social-Democrats and demagogically accused the party and its Executive of opportunism, violation of party democracy and promotion of the interests of the petty bourgeoisie. In October 1891 the Erfurt Congress expelled some of the opposition leaders from the party. A reply to the above-mentioned appeal of the Jungen was given on the party's behalf by the Social-Democratic parliamentary group in a statement entitled, 'An die Arbeiter und Arbeiterinnen Deutschlands!' (adopted in Halle on 13 April 1890).—11, 20, 21, 25
[409] On 2 February 1892 Filippo Turati sent Engels an article by the Italian philosopher and political leader Giovanni Bovio published in La Tribuna. The article contained a critique of the first instalment of Engels' 'Socialism in Germany' (see present edition, Vol. 27, pp. 235-50) as printed by Turati in the socialist journal Critica Sociale, No. 2, 16 January 1892. Turati, editor of the journal, reproduced Engels' work in translation from its French version published in Almanack du Parti Ouvrier. Turati requested Engels to reply to Bovio's article. Engels wrote his counterblast in French (see 'Reply to the Honourable Giovanni Bovio', present edition, Vol. 27, pp. 270-72) and sent it with a covering letter to Turati. Turati's Italian translation of Engels' reply, endorsed by the latter in a letter to Turati of 13 February (see this volume, p. 356), was published in Critica Sociale, No. 4, 16 February 1892 under
[4] This refers to preparations to make the journal Neue £eit a weekly. It began appearing on a weekly basis in October 1890.— 5
[7] This refers to Conrad Schmidt's letter to Engels of 25 June 1890, in which Schmidt spoke of his literary plans. He mentioned in particular having promised to Kautsky a review of G. F. Knapp's book Die Bauern-Befreiung und der Ursprung der Landarbeiter in den älteren Theilen Preußens, published in Leipzig in 1887. However, the review never materialised. Schmidt also described his impressions of P. Barth's book Die Geschichtsphilosophie Hegel's und der Hegelianer bis auf Marx und Hartmann, Leipzig, 1890.— 6
[322] In connection with the forthcoming Erfurt Congress of the German Social-Democratic Party its Executive reprinted — in Supplement I to Vorwärts, No. 233, 6 October 1891 — its own draft of the party programme and that put forward by the Editorial Board oîNeue %eil (see Note 299), and published, in the same supplement, a number of other drafts and proposals submitted by party organisations and individuals in the course of the debate on the programme. The proposition concerning 'one reactionary mass', criticised here by Engels, figured in the programme of German Social-Democracy adopted at the union congress in Gotha in 1875 (see Note 63). It was not included into the programme adopted in Erfurt.—261, 362, 373, 423
[8] Blue Books (so called after the traditional blue cover) is the general title of the col-lections of proceedings of the British Parliament and documents of the Foreign Office. They have been published since the 17th century and are the main official source on Great Britain's economic and diplomatic history. Marx used the Blue Books in particular for his work on Capital.— 6
[9] Engels obviously means his letter to Eduard Bernstein of 2-3 November 1882 (see present edition, Vol. 46) in which he mentions a conversation Marx had with Paul Lafargue. In discussing the state of scientific socialist thought in France, Marx told Lafargue ironically: 'If anything is certain it is that I myself am not a Marxist.'—7, 22
[420] On 15 February 1892 the Social-Democrat Wilhelm Peus was sentenced to 26 months' imprisonment and 5 years of suspension of civil rights for l'ese-majesté. Speaking in Magdeburg on 26 October 1891, he had declared that the monarchy served no useful purpose and its abolition was no crime.— 364, 369
[423] This concerns the plan for turning Le Socialiste, the weekly newspaper of the French Workers' Party (see Note 146), into a daily. Engels had asked Laura and Paul Lafargue to keep him informed of the progress of the negotiations. The plan failed to materialise.—367, 370, 379, 424, 426, 432, 434, 471, 518, 519, 532, 544
[379] the State, which was, by and large, based on the decree of the Paris Commune of 2 April 1871. It envisaged the cancellation of the cults budget, the confiscation of
[42] In a letter to Engels of 19 September 1890 Jules Guesde pointed out an inaccuracy in Engels' letter of 2 September to the leaders of the French Workers' Party (see present edition, Vol. 27, pp. 233-34) concerning the resolution of the 1889 Paris International Socialist Workers' Congress on the procedure for the convocation of the next congress. Engels considered that authorisation to call it had been given to both the Swiss and the Belgian socialists. Formally it was the executive committee, to be set up by the Swiss socialists, that had to decide where to call the congress, in Switzerland or in Belgium. In essence, however, Engels was right since the executive could not function without agreeing its steps with the Belgians (see also Note 26).—40
[427] Demonstrations and rallies of unemployed took place in central Berlin, particularly in front of the royal palace, on 25, 26 and 27 February 1892. Accompanied by serious lumpen-proletarian violence, they were broken up by the police. The German Social-Democratic Party emphatically condemned the outrages and urged the workers to stay away from these demonstrations.— 369, 373
[428] On 2 March 1892, it was announced in Berlin that proceedings had been instituted against Kölnische Leitung on charges of lèse-majesté. An article published in the newspaper contained critical remarks in regard of William IPs speech at the annual banquet of the Brandenburg Landtag on 24 February 1892, in which the emperor sharply attacked the 'criticasters' and opponents of the government policy. The prosecution of Kölnische Leitung, followed by charges against and the confiscation of other newspapers, was seen by the German and European public as marking the imperial authorities' transition to a policy of open police reprisals.— 369, 371
[357] This letter was published in English for the first time in The Labour Monthly, London, 1934, No. 10, pp. 629-32.-299, 507, 530
[429] At the municipal elections held in France between 1 and 8 May 1892 the Workers' Party scored a considerable success, polling over 100,000 votes and getting 635 socialists elected. In 26 towns the socialists obtained more seats than any other party and in Roubaix, Marseille, Narbonne and Toulon they headed the municipal councils.—370, 392, 400, 404, 411, 413, 420, 423
[43] This refers to the International Socialist Conference held in The Hague on 28 February 1889. Attended by representatives of the socialist movement in Germany, France, Belgium, Holland and Switzerland, it had been called, on Engels' initiative, by the Social-Democratic group in the German Reichstag with a view to formulating the terms for the convocation of the International Socialist Workers' Congress in Paris. The Possibilists stayed away from the conference and refused to recognise its decisions. The conference determined the powers, the date and the agenda of the congress.— 40
[200] •pjjg l^ggoi Eight Hours and International Labour League was founded in 1890, with Engels' participation, by a group of British socialists led by Edward and Eleanor Aveling. Based on the committee which had organised the first May Day demonstration in England (1890), the League saw its task in obtaining the eight-hour working day and other legislative measures tending towards the ultimate emancipation of the working classes and in implementing the resolutions of the Paris Congress of the Second International (see Note 51). It organised the British workers' May Day demonstrations in 1891 and 1892, which were also held under the slogan of the eight-hour day. League representatives took part in organising (1893) the Independent Labour Party of Britain (see Note 515).—155, 167, 380, 386, 403
[196] The London Trades Council (the Council of all London Trades Unions) was formed in May 1860 at a conference of various London trades unions. The Council was composed of the leaders of the biggest ones. In the earlier half of the 1860s it headed the workers' campaigns against British intervention in the USA and in support of Poland and Italy. Later it fought for the legalisation of the unions. In the early 1890s the Council, which embraced mostly old-established unions, opposed the movement for the formation of new ones and for the eight-hour working day, but popular pressure compelled it to take part in the May Day demonstrations.— 150, 155, 167, 185, 323, 370, 380, 386, 402, 559, 560
[430] -p n e ra(facai ciui)s were democratic associations in Britain in the second half of the nineteenth century. They consisted mostly of workers and were formally connected with the Liberal Party. The clubs exerted a certain influence on the British working class. In the late 1880s, in connection with the rise of the labour movement in the country, their number increased and socialist ideas won wide currency among their members. In 1885, the Metropolitan Radical Federation was set up, which united the Radical Clubs of London.—371, 380, 386, 403
[333] On 20 October 1891 Karl Wilderberger and Wilhelm Werner — leaders of the Jungen expelled from the party at the Erfurt Congress (see Note 301) — called a meeting in Berlin. Since the Berlin party leaders refusing to co-operate with this opposition group were at the congress, the two considered this an opportune moment for an attempt to win the support of the Berlin party organisation and have it condemn the decision of the congress. When news of their activities reached Erfurt (a telegram had been sent from Berlin and read out at the congress), the Berlin delegates sent a letter to Berlin protesting against the decisions of the congress being discussed before its conclusion. The letter, signed by Theodor Metzner, was published under the heading 'An die Parteigenossen Berlins!' in Vorwärts, No. 246, 21 October 1891. On 8 November the Berlin opposition called another meeting at which it constituted itself the Union of Independent Socialists (1891-94). Its organ was Der Sozialist, which appeared from 1891 to 1899. In the summer of 1893 the newspaper was taken over by the anarchists.— 269, 300, 324, 381, 386, 526, 544
[4 3 9] Engels means the congress of the Possibilists (see Note 3) which was to meet in Paris in July 1892. It was to deal mostly with municipal organisation and social hygiene.— 381
[4 4 1] This letter was published in English for the first time in: K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Correspondence, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1955.— 382
[177] The bulk of it is made up of the section 'Saint Max', which is a critique of Stirner's work Der Einzige und sein Eigenthum, published in 1844. The German Ideology was first published, in German, in MEGA, Erste Abtei-lung, Band 5, Moscow-Leningrad, 1933 (present edition, Vol. 5, pp. 19-539).—136 '7 7 An excerpt from this letter was first published in English in: K. Marx and F. Engels, Letters on 'Capital', New Park, London, 1983.—137, 314, 322, 389, 525
[5] In a letter of 3 July 1890 Karl Kautsky, discussing his plans for Neue £eit, had asked Engels to write something for the journal: 'Of course I should very much like to promise something by you, indeed to begin with a contribution from you straight away.' Engels fulfilled his promise much later. His work On the History of Early Christianity was completed in July 1894 and published in Die Neue ^eit, 13. Jg., 1894/95, l.Bd.,Nr. 1,2 (see present edition, Vol. 27, pp. 445-69). In the same letter Kautsky asked Engels to send him the address of Friedrich Adolph Sorge, whom he wanted to contribute to the journal.— 5
[55] A reference to an article by Julius Grunzig headlined 'Die Vorgänge im Lager der deutschen Socialdemokratie', in New Yorker Volkszeitung, No. 217, 10 September 1890. It stated views in the spirit of the Jungen.— 45
[4 6 0] Marx went for treatment to the Karlsbad (now Karlovy Vary) spa in August-September 1874, August-September 1875 and August-September 1876.— 397, 543
[461] Engels wrote the 'Introduction to the English Edition (1892) of Socialism: Utopian and Scientific' (see present edition, Vol. 27, pp. 278-302) in April 1892. In June he translated it into German and in July sent it to Neue %eit, which reprinted it, slightly abridged, under the heading 'Ueber historischen Materialismus', l. Bd., Nr. 1, 2, 1892-1893.—398, 405, 452, 463
[462] This refers to the French edition of Engels' The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (see also Note 199).—399
[469] The Internationale Bibliothek (International Library) was published by J.H.W. Dietz, in Stuttgart and later in Berlin, from 1887 to 1923. A total of 67 instalments appeared, including the most important works of Marx, Engels, Bebel, Bernstein, Kautsky, Mehring, Aveling, Plekhanov, Lissagaray and other socialists. The 14th instalment, published in 1892, contained the second edition of Engels' Condition of the Working-Class in England.— 407, 410
[47] The Parliamentary Committee was the Executive of the British Trades Union Congress (formed in 1868). From 1871, the Committee was elected annually by the Trades Union Congresses and acted as the unions' centre between congresses. It nominated union candidates for Parliament, organised support for pro-union bills and prepared the regular congresses. The Committee was dominated by reformists devoted to the old, conservative trade unionism and drawing their support from the working-class aristocracy. From 1875 to 1890 the secretaryship of the Committee was held by Broadhurst. In 1921 the Parliamentary Committee was replaced by the General Council of the T U C — 43
[57] 1890, supported the resolutions of the Lille Congress (see Note 38) calling for a demonstration on 1 May and a miners' strike.— 46, 52 5 ' The labour exchanges in France, manned by representatives of various trades unions, were mostly operated by the municipalities in large cities. The government gave them support and, not infrequently, financial aid, seeking to exploit them for di-verting the workers from the class struggle. The labour exchanges created jobs for the unemployed, founded trades unions, trained union activists and organised strikes.—47, 224, 411
[4 7 3] August Bebel and Paul Singer visited Engels in London approximately between 14 May and 1 June 1892.—412, 417, 418, 424, 427, 429, 430, 436, 490
[474] Paul Singer intended to visit Chicago as a member of a Berlin deputation in the summer of 1893.—412
[480] In his letter of 13 May 1892 Karl Kautsky expressed the desire that Louise Kautsky, his former wife, should use the double name Strasser-Kautsky (Strasser was her maiden name) in her public activities.— 416, 451, 461
[4 8 5] Engels visited Manchester on 2 to 4 June 1892 (see also this volume, pp. 435 and 436-37).—430, 432, 435, 436, 447, 469
[487] the Manchester merchant John Owens. It is part of Manchester's Victoria University, founded in 1880.—431, 456
[489] The annual congress of the National Union of Gas Workers and General Labourers of Great Britain and Ireland (see Note 164) was held in Plymouth at the beginning of June 1892. It decided that the Union should put up independent working-class candidates at parliamentary and municipal elections and take part in the 1893 International Socialist Workers' Congress in Zurich. The congress also discussed the Union's structure and finances.— 435, 437
[490] According to Justice of 18 June 1892 ('Socialism in Aberdeen'), Edward Aveling addressed socialist meetings in Aberdeen on 10 and 12 June.— 435, 448
[492] Engels means the third International Miners' Congress, held in London from 7 to 10 June 1892. Attended by representatives of over 900,000 British, German, Austrian, Belgian and French workers, the congress discussed, above all, the establishment of an international miners' association and the struggle for an eight-hour working day for all miners.— 438, 446
[288] ^ French naval squadron visiting Kronstadt in July and early August 1891 was accorded an elaborately solemn welcome — a demonstration of a rapprochement between Tsarist Russia and France. At the same time, diplomatic negotiations were in progress which culminated in the signing, in August 1892, of a treaty under which France and Russia undertook to consult each other on international matters and co-operate in the event of a threat of an attack on either of them. This agreement was a landmark on the way to the final formalisation, in 1893, of the Franco-Russian alliance, set up in opposition to the Triple Alliance (see Note 303).—228, 246, 266, 308, 444, 472
[500] This refers to the projected publication of a collection of Sorge's articles on the US labour movement which had appeared in Neue £eit from October 1890 (see Note 358). On 20 June Kautsky informed Engels about his negotiations with J. H.W. Dietz on this matter. He said Dietz objected in principle to the separate edition of articles from Neue ^eit because of their bad sales. Dietz was, however, prepared to consider Sorge's proposal, provided that the articles were revised and expanded. The project did not materialise.— 446, 453, 463, 507
[501] Part of this letter was first published in: Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, On Britain, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1953.— 448, 459, 493
[503] Engels refers to Bax's editorial, 'Internecine Divisions in the Socialist Party', published in Justice, No. 440, 18 June 1892. It urged co-operation between Britain's different socialist groups.— 448, 475
[412] paigned in January and February 1892 for due consideration to be given to the
[504] 50* The summer 1892 parliamentary election in Britain was won by the Liberals. The campaign brought success to the workers' and socialist organisations, which had put up a considerable number of independent candidates. Three of them — James Keir Hardie, John Burns and John Havelock Wilson — were elected.— 449, 459, 463, 464, 467, 470, 474, 479, 482, 483, 508, 514
[5 0 5] The Liberal Unionists were a group of anti-Home Rule Liberals led by Joseph Chamberlain who in 1886 broke away from the Liberal Party because of differences over Ireland. They virtually merged with the Conservative Party, formalis-ing their accession a few years later.— 449, 460
[507] Engels visited Manchester for Carl Schorlemmer's funeral between 29 June and 2 July 1892.—454, 461, 469
[520] This refers to the New Trades Unions, which were called into being by the rise of
[52] This refers to the campaign launched by the Possibilists in France and their supporters within the Social Democratic Federation (see notes 3 and 29) to discredit the International Socialist Workers' Congress (see Note 51). Another congress, called on the Possibilists' initiative, was being held in Paris at the time. It was only attended by 13 foreign delegations, most of them representing fictitious organisations. The attempt to bring the two congresses together failed because the Possibilist congress made merger conditional on a revision of the credentials of the delegates at-tending the Marxist congress. The Possibilist congress declared for the restoration of the International. It decided to hold the next congress in Brussels in 1891 and instructed the Belgian Workers' Party to convoke it.— 43, 234
[141] the Working Class', made in 1846 by Joseph Weydemeyer, a friend and associate of Marx and Engels. The speech was first published in the Belgian newspaper Ate-lier démocratique on 29 September 1847. In reply to Engels' questions, Schlüter wrote, on 10 March 1891, that Weydemeyer's translation had appeared, alongside that of Marx's 'Speech on the Question of Free Trade' (see present edition, Vol. 6, pp. 450-65) in Hamm in 1848, as a pamphlet entitled £wei Reden über die Freihandels- und Schutzzollfrage von Karl Marx. Schlüter also gave a detailed description of the pamphlet.— 114, 150 i4o -pjjg German Workers' Society in Brussels was founded by Marx and Engels at the end of August 1847, its aim being to provide a political education for German workers living in Belgium and to spread the ideas of scientific socialism among them. Led by Marx, Engels and their followers, the Society became a legal centre rallying German revolutionary proletarian forces in Belgium and maintaining direct contact with Flemish and Walloon workers' clubs. Its most active members belonged to the Brussels community of the Communist League. The Society played an important part in founding the Brussels Democratic Association. Its activities ceased soon after the February 1848 revolution in France, when its members were arrested and deported by the Belgian police.—144 ' 4 ' This letter was first published in English in: Frederick Engels, Paul and Laura Lafargue, Correspondence. Vol. 3. 1891-1895, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1963.—115, 121, 122, 140, 161, 190, 193, 255, 317, 423, 476, 533
[530] Engels came to Ryde for a holiday on 27 July 1892. Illness made him stay on until 6 September.—478, 481, 487, 488, 489, 492, 498, 500, 502, 504, 507, 514, 518, 525
[532] Engels means the polemic between Vorwärts and Georg von Vollmar provoked by his article 'Le socialisme de M. Bismarck et le socialisme de l'empereur Guillaume', published in the June 1892 issue of the French Revue bleu. Revue politique el littéraire. Vollmar maintained in this article that some propositions of the Erfurt programme approximated to the state socialism of Bismarck and William II. The article caused a broad polemic in the Social-Democratic press. Vorwärts rebuffed Vollmar in a series of editorials, headlined 'Staatssozialismus', in its Nos 155, 160, 168 and 169; 6, 12, 21 and 22 July 1892.—480, 516
[15] This refers to the item 'Tell Tale Straws' in Justice, No. 337, 28 June 1890.—12
[538] Engels means the article 'Die Wahlen in Großbritannien' by Edward Aveling and Eleanor Marx-Aveling, published in Die Neue Zeit, 10. Jg., 1891/92, 2. Bd., Nr. 45. In editing it, Karl Kautsky had omitted the passages in which the authors criticised the sectarianism and opportunism of the Social Democratic Federation and the Fabian Society (see this volume, pp. 497 and 515). On 8 August 1892 Kautsky wrote to tell Engels that the article had remained unread for some time owing to his absence, with the result that publication had been delayed by a week and the article had had to be abridged for lack of space.— 493, 497, 508, 515
[298] Xhis refers to the twenty-fourth annual Congress of British Trades Unions, held in Newcastle from 7 to 12 September 1891. It was attended by 552 delegates, representing about 1,300,000 (according to other sources, about 2,000,000) organised workers. The majority of the delegates came from new unions. The delegates speaking for the old, conservative unions made an attempt to secure the cancellation of the resolution on the eight-hour working day adopted by the previous, Liverpool Congress (see Note 27), but were defeated by 232 votes against 163. The congress voted for the unions' participation in the forthcoming parliamentary elections.— 238, 250, 494, 508
[540] The 1892 annual Trades Union Congress, held in Glasgow from 5 to 10 September, discussed labour representation in Parliament, co-operation, factory inspection and other questions and pronounced itself in favour of introducing the eight-hour working day. At the same time it turned down an invitation to the third International Socialist Workers' Congress in Zurich (1893) received from its preparatory committee, and decided to call another international congress — on the eight-hour day issue. This could interfere with the congress of the Second International being prepared by the Marxists and split the international working-class movement. Engels emphatically opposed these actions of the British union leaders. He sent letters to Germany, Austria, Spain and France recommending the socialist parties to publicly condemn them (see present edition, Vol. 27, and this volume, pp. 522-24, 528-29, 530-31, 533-35).—495, 497, 505, 508, 519, 522, 528, 530, 534, 548
[54] This probably refers to Edward Aveling's article 'The New Era in German Socialism' in The Daily Chronicle and Clerkenwell Mews, No. 8903, 25 September 1890, which contained excerpts from Engels' article 'What Now?', published in the last issue of the Sozialdemokrat (see present edition, Vol. 27, pp. 7-10). Avcling's interview with Eduard Bernstein was published in The Star, No. 832, 29 September 1890, under the heading 'Germany Flooded with Papers from Kentish Town.— A Talk with the Editor'.— 44
[541] This refers to the third International Socialist Workers' Congress, held in Zurich, 6 to 12 August 1893.—495, 496, 505, 509, 519, 522, 529, 534, 542, 546
[542] In 1892, after a long interval caused by Eduard Bernstein's nervous disease, Neue Zeit resumed the publication of a series of articles of his entitled Die soziale Doktrin des Anarchismus. The third instalment of the series, headlined 'Proudhon und der Mutualismus', appeared between late July and the first half of August in Die Neue Zeit, 10. Jg., 1891/92, 2. Bd., Nr. 45-47.-499, 502, 517
[555] The tenth congress of the French Workers' Party was held in Marseilles from 24 to 28 September 1892. It discussed the party's position and activities, in particular its work in the countryside, the celebration of May Day, the party's participation in the International Socialist Workers' Congress in Zurich in 1893 (see Note 541) and in the forthcoming parliamentary elections, and other matters. The congress adopted an agrarian programme which contained a number of specific demands reflecting the interests of the farm labourers and small peasants. The congress decided against the party's participation in the international congress called by the British trades unions to discuss the eight-hour working day (see Note 540) and for inviting British trade unionists to the Zurich Congress.—508, 520, 523, 529, 531, 533, 544, 548
[557] The Parliamentary Committee was the executive body of the 1868-formed Trades Union Congress of Great Britain. From 1871 it was elected by the annual trades union congresses, and was regarded as the unions' guiding centre in the intervals between congresses. Its functions included the nomination of trades union candidates for Parliament, the backing of Bills submitted in the interests of the trades unions, and the preparation of the annual congresses. In 1921 the Parliamentary Committee was replaced by the General Council of the Trades Union Congress.— 508, 520, 522, 529
[564] The Berlin Congress of the German Social-Democratic Party (14-21 November 1892) discussed the reports of the party's Executive and the Reichstag group, the preparations for and celebration of May Day in 1893, the forthcoming International Socialist Workers' Congress in Zurich (1893), the use of boycott, and the Social-Democrats' attitude to so-called state socialism. After a long debate the congress pronounced against state socialism. It turned down the invitation to send delegates to the international congress called by the Trades Union Congress in Glasgow (see Note 540) and resolved to take part in the Zurich Congress. It also urged the German working class to fight against militarism and the build-up of ar-maments, which it described in its resolution as the main threat to international peace.—520, 523
[565] This refers to the twelfth annual conference of the Social Democratic Federation (see Note 29), held in London on 1 August 1892. It heard the reports on the Federation's activities and finances and discussed addenda to its programme, the Federation's attitude to the Independent Labour Party, then being formed (see Note 515), its participation in the 1893 International Socialist Workers' Congress in Zurich (see Note 541) and other matters.— 524, 529, 532
[570] Act, 1871, and the Holidays Extension Act, 1875, are kept as close holidays in all
[573] An article headlined 'Aus England' in Vorwärts, No. 216, 15 September 1892, cited a report to the effect that the twelfth conference of the Social Democratic Federation (see Note 565) had resolved to remove Henry Mayers Hyndman from the Federation's leadership. See also this volume, pp. 524, 529, 532.— 540, 544
[575] In his letter of 24 September 1892 Kautsky asked Engels to elucidate several passages in an article on the Glasgow Trades Union Congress (see Note 540), written by Bebel for Neue £eit. The article was published under the headline 'Ein internationa-1er Kongreß Tür den Achtstundentag' in Die Neue £eit, 11. Jg., 1892/93, 1. Bd., Nr. 2. Engels' remarks had been taken into account.— 542, 545