Marx-Engels - Collected Works Vol. 50
Marx-Engels - Collected Works Vol. 50
Marx-Engels - Collected Works Vol. 50
COLLECTED WORKS
VOLUME 50
Letters 1892-95
KARL MARX
FREDERICK ENGELS
Volume
50
Letters 1892-1895
2010
Lawrence & Wishart
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Contents
Preface xv
1892
v
30. Engels to Karl Kautsky 4 December 53
31. Engels to Paul Lafargue 5 December 55
32. Engels to Laura Lafargue 5 December 58
33. Engels to Mrs Stepniak (Kravchinsky) 6 December 60
34. Engels to Wilhelm Ellenbogen 7 December 61
35. Engels to Pyotr Lavrov 14 December 62
36. Engels to Laura Lafargue 20 December 63
37. Engels to August Bebel 22 December 66
38. Engels to Karl Kautsky 24 December 71
39. Engels to Wilhelm Liebknecht 28 December 72
40. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge 31 December 73
41. Engels to Karl Henckell end of 1892 77
1893
vi
70. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge 18 March 124
71. Engels to Karl Kautsky 20 March 127
72. Engels to Laura Lafargue 21 March 129
73. Engels to August Radimsky 21 March 130
74. Engels to Julie Bebel 31 March 131
75. Engels to M. R. Cotar 8 April 132
76. Engels to George William Lamplugh 11 April 133
77. Engels to Franz Mehring 11 April 134
78. Engels to Jules Guesde 14 April 135
79. Engels to Laura Lafargue 25 April 136
80. Engels to Ludwig Schorlemmer 29 April 138
81. Engels to Pablo Iglesias April 139
82. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge 17 May 140
83. Engels to Pyotr Lavrov 21 May 143
84. Engels to Isaac A. Hourwich 27 May 144
85. Engels to Henry Demarest Lloyd 27 May 145
86. Engels to Karl Kautsky 1 June 146
87. Engels to Hermann Bahr [early] June 149
88. Engels to Filippo Turati 6 June 149
89. Engels to Giovanni Domanico 7 June 151
90. Engels to Stojan Nokoff 9 June 152
91. Engels to Pyotr Lavrov 13 June 153
92. Engels to Laura Lafargue 20 June 153
93. Engels to Paul Lafargue 27 June 156
94. Engels to Paul Lafargue 29 June 160
95. Engels to Filippo Turati 12 July 161
96. Engels to Franz Mehring 14 July 163
97. Engels to Rudolph Meyer 19 July 168
98. Engels to Laura Lafargue 20 July 171
99. Engels to Filippo Turati 20 July 173
100. Engels to Wilhelm Liebknecht 27 July 174
101. Engels to Natalie Liebknecht 27 July 175
102. Engels to Nicolas Petersen 31 July 177
103. Engels to Ludwig Schorlemmer 31 July 177
104. Engels to Hermann Engels 16 August 178
105. Engels to Laura Lafargue 21 August 180
106. Engels to Emma Engels 23 August 183
107. Engels to Laura Lafargue 31 August 184
108. Engels to Laura Lafargue 18 September 186
109. Engels to Karl Kautsky 25 September 188
110. Engels to Laura Lafargue 30 September 189
111. Engels to Engels to Julie Bebel 3 Oct 191
112. Engels to Hermann Blocher 3 October 194
Vil
113. Engels to John B. Shipley 3 October 195
114. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge 7 October 196
115. Engels to Victor Adler 11 October 199
116. Engels to August Bebel 12 October 203
117 Engels to Paul Lafargue 13 October 208
118. Engels to Laura Lafargue 14 October 211
119. Engels to Nikolai Danielson 17 October 212
120. Engels to Laura Lafargue 18 Ocober 215
121. Engels to August Bebel 18 October 217
122. Engels to Laura Lafargue 27 October 221
123. Engels to Ferdinand Wolff [end] October 222
124. Engels to Karl Kautsky 3 November 223
125. Engels to Victor Adler 10 November 227
126. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge 11 November 229
127 Engels to Florence Kelley-Wischnewetsky 11 November 230
128. Engels to Paul Lafargue 19 November 231
129. Engels to Natalie Liebknecht 1 December 233
130. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge 2 December 235
131. Engels to Hermann Schlüter 2 December 237
132. Engels to Hermann Schlüter 2 December 238
133. Engels to Karl Kautsky 4 December 239
134. Engels to Paul Arndt 5 December 242
135. Engels to Laura Lafargue 19 December 242
136. Engels to Ludwig Schorlemmer 19 December 245
137 Engels to Adelheid Dworak 21 December 247
138. Engels to Wilhelm Liebknecht 21 December 248
139. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge 30 December 248
1894
Vlll
153. Engels to Georg Von Gizycki 17 February 270
154. Engels to Eduard Bernstein 22 February 271
155. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge 23 February 271
156. Engels to Adelheid Dworak and Julius Popp [Feb.] 274
157. Engels to Paul Lafargue 6 March 274
158. Engels to August Momberger 9 March 277
159. Engels to Victor Adler 20 March 278
160. Engels to Nikolai Danielson 20 March 280
161. Engels To Panait Musoiu 20 March 281
162. Engels To Friedrich Adolph Sorge 21 March 282
163. Engels To Victor Adler 22 March 284
164. Engels To Pablo Iglesias 26 March 286
165. Engels To Benno Karpeles 29 March 288
166. Engels To Hunter Watts 3 April 289
167. Engels To Laura Lafargue 11 April 290
168. Engels to Filippo Turati 12 April 293
169. Engels to Henry William Lee 16 April 294
170. Engels to Editorial Board of a French Socialist Newspaper 24 April 295
171. Engels to Carl Eberle 24 April 296
172. Engels to Laura Lafargue 11 May 297
173. Engels to Filippo Turati 11 May 298
174. Engels to Adolph Sorge 12 May 299
175. Engels to Boris Krichevsky 20 May 302
176. Engels to Georgi Plekhanov 21 May 303
177. Engels to Stanislav Mendelson 22 May 305
178. Engels to Georgi Plekhanov 22 May 306.
179. Engels to Boris Krichevsky 31 May 307
180. Engels to Nikolai Danielson 1 June 308
181. Engels to Paul Lafargue 2 June 309
182. Engels to Witold Jodko-Narkevich 5 June 311
183. Engels to Stanislaw Zablocki 7 June 312
184. Engels to Karl Kautsky 19 June 313
185. Engels to Karl Kautsky 26 June 314
186. Engels to Otto Wachs end June-early July 316
187. Engels to Boris Krichevsky July 316
188. Engels to Laura Lafargue 4 July 317
189. Engels to Ludwig Schorlemmer 5 July 318
190. Engels to Editor of the Neue Zeit 9 July 319
191. Engels to Karl Kautsky 16 July 321
192. Engels to Victor Adler 17 July 322
193. Engels to Julius Motteler 21 July 328
194. Engels to Karl Kautsky 28 July 328
195. Engels to Laura Lafargue 28 July 330
IX
196. Engels to Filippo Turati 31 July 333
197 Engels to Victor Adler 4 August 334
198. Engels to Pablo Iglesias 9-14 August 335
199. Engels to Eduard Bernstein 14 August 336
200. Engels to Thomas Clarke 15 August 338
201. Engels to Filippo Turati 16 August 338
202. Engels to Paul Lafargue 22 August 342
203. Engels to Eduard Bernstein 6 September 345
204. Engels to Eduard Bernstein 18 September 346
205. Engels to Laura Lafargue 2nd half Sept. 347
206. Engels to Karl Kautsky 23 September 348
207. Engels to Emile Vandervelde 21 October 350
208. Engels to Maria Mendelson 26 October 352
209. Engels to Georgi Plekhanov 1 November 352
210. Engels to Carl Hirsch 8 November 353
211. Engels to Eleanor Marx-Aveling 10 November 354
212. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge 10 November 355
213. Engels to Laura Lafargue 12 November 359
214. Engels to August Bebel and Paul Singer 14 November 362
215. Engels to Eduard Bernstein 14 November 363
216. Engels to Laura Lafargue and Eleanor Marx-Aveling 14 November 364
217. Engels to Kaul Kautsky 15 November 365
218. Engels to Eduard Bernstein 20 November 366
219. Engels to Karl Kautsky 22 November 367
220. Engels to Paul Lafargue 22 November 368
221. Engels to Jossif Atabekjanz 23 November 371
222. Engels to Nikolai Danielson 24 November 372
223. Engels to Wilhelm Liebknecht 24 November 373
224. Engels to Mrs Karpeles 30 November 376
225. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge 4 December 377
226. Engels to Filippo Turati 4 December 380
227. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge 12 December 381
228. Engels to Victor Adler 14 December 382
229. Engels to Witold Jodko-Narkiewicz 14 December 385
230. Engels to Laura Lafargue 17 December 386
231. Engels to Pyotr Lavrov 18 December 388
232. Engels to Paul Lafargue 18 December 389
233. Engels to George William Lamplugh 21 December 391
234. Engels to Victor Adler 22 December 392
235. Engels to Paul Singer 26 to 29 December 393
236. Engels to Victor Adler 27 December 393
237. Engels to Laura Lafargue 29 December 394
1895
xi
279. Engels to Carl Hirsch 19 March 474
280. Engels to Ludwig Kugelman 19 March 477
281. Engels to Hermann Engels 20 March 478
282. Engels to Vera Zasulich 22 March 479
283. Engels to Karl Kautsky 25 March 480
284. Engels to Laura Lafargue 28 March 483
285. Engels to Karl Kautsky 1 April 486
286. Engels to Harry Quelch 2 April 487
287 Engels to Paul Lafargue 3 April 487
288. Engels to Richard Fischer 5 April 490
289. Engels to Conrad Schmidt 6 April 492
290. Engels to Stephan Bauer 10 April 493
291. Engels to Hermann Engels 12 April 494
292. Engels to Krystyu Rakovski 13 April 495
293. Engels to Richard Fischer 15 April 496
294. Engels to Laura Lafargue 17 April 498
295. Engels to Ludwig Kugelmann 18 April 500
296. Engels to Richard Fischer 18 April 501
297 Engels to Stanislaw Mendelson 23 April 502
298. Engels to Franz Mehring end April 503
299. Engels to Franz Mehring 9 May 505
300. Engels to Richard Fischer 9 May 506
301. Engels to Laura Lafargue 14 May 507
302. Engels to Ignaz Brand 20 May 508
303. Engels to Carl Hirsch 20 May 509
304. Engels to Karl Kautsky 21 May 510
305. Engels to Editors of Rheinische Zeitung 22 Msy 514
306. Engels to Richard Fischer 29 May 515
307 Engels to Nikolai Danielson 4 June 516
308. Engels to Eduard Bernstein 18 June 517
309. Engels to Bolesaw Antoni Jedrzejowski 28 June 518
310. Engels to Filippo Turai 28 June 518
311. Engels to Paul Lafargue 29 June 520
312. Engels to Richard Fischer 29 June 521
313. Engels to Louise Freyberger 1 July 521
314. Engels to Eduard Bernstein 4 July 522
315. Engels to Eleanor Marx-Aveling 4 July 523
316. Engels to Filippo Turati 4 July 524
317 Engels to Antonio Labriola 8 July 524
318. Engels to Eleanor Marx-Aveling 9 July 525
319. Engels to Laura Lafargue 23 July 526
xü
Supplementary Letters
Notes 543
Name Index 613
Periodicals 645
Subject Index 653
Illustrations
xüi
PREFACE
The fiftieth and concluding volume of the English edition of the works of
Marx and Engels contains letters written by Engels between October 1892
and July 1895.
In the last years of his life, Engels witnessed amazing changes in the
politics and economics of contemporary society. Processes which began in
the capitalist world in the 1870s had led, by the early 1890s, to major changes
affecting every aspect of life, thereby exerting a direct impact on the
working-class movement. The emergence of parliamentary government, the
expansion of voting rights, the complete legalisation of trade unions and
other worker organisations had created favourable conditions in which to
campaign for a real improvement in the position of working people, for an
increase of the influence of socialist parties and for the strengthening of their
role in political life. There had also been changes in certain aspects of
capitalist production, although these were not yet so obvious. As one might
expect, Engels increasingly directed his thoughts to the prospects for and
future of the struggle for working-class emancipation and to the ways and
means of achieving its short-term and long-term goals; this is reflected in his
numerous letters. His ideas on these issues were neither the result of abstract
argument, nor were they the merely theoretical calculations of an academic
isolated from the real world. To the end of his life, Engels maintained close
contacts with the leaders of socialist parties in various European countries,
with followers of Marx, with young scholars who showed an interest in his
theoretical works and in Marxism, willingly sharing with them his views and
ideas. A determined opponent of dogmatising, Engels revised many former
concepts regarding forms and methods of proletarian struggle for workers’
rights and a radical reformation of society in the light of history and the
major changes taking place in his own day. Himself an eye-witness of the
first steps taken by an independent working-class movement, and an active
participant in this movement for almost fifty years, he was well
xv
xvi Preface
noted that the creation of large joint-stock companies and trusts meant ‘an
end not only to private production but also to planlessness (present edition,
Vol. 27, p. 224). Further on he writes that ‘the material and cultural
conditions’ for the transformation of capitalist production into socialist
production ‘on behalf of society as a whole and according to a preconceived
plan’ are being created by capitalist society itself (ibid.).
Subsequent events confirmed that Engels had correctly identified the
trends appearing in the development of capitalist production. He believed,
however, that these trends were leading, moreover in a relatively short
historical period of time, to the collapse of the capitalist system. While
appreciating that ‘those economic consequences of the capitalist system,
which must bring it up to the critical point, are only just now developing’, he
nonetheless considered it quite possible that this crisis in the capitalist system
would occur quite soon as a result of events taking place in the major states
of Europe (see this volume, pp. 59, 75-6, 273). In articles, and particularly in
letters, Engels identified individual cases of corruption involving a number of
prominent politicians in France, Italy and elsewhere as symptoms revealing
the general inability of the bourgeois state to discharge its functions, as
indications that the existing social order was on the verge of collapse. ‘...
there is nothing stable about France ... a crisis of the first water in Italy...—he
wrote to F. A. Sorge on January 16, 1895, ‘in short, things are growing
critical throughout the whole of Europe’ (p. 424).
This crisis of bourgeois society, a crisis which Engels believed to be
imminent, would also be the result, in his opinion, of the intensifying
economic conflict among the major capitalist countries, caused in part by the
emergence of the USA onto the world market. Developing this idea in a
letter to N. F. Danielson, dated 24 February 1893, Engels wrote that
economic rivalry between the USA on the one hand, and England, France
and Germany on the other, could only mean that ‘the crisis must come, tout
ce qu’ il y a de plus fin de siècle’ (p. 111). Clearly Engels supposed that this
rivalry would provoke an acute economic crisis which would spread to the
political and social spheres, and that this might well create the prerequisite
conditions for the collapse of the capitalist system, a collapse which, so he
believed, would occur not automatically, but as a result of the energetic
actions of the working class. In December 1894, he wrote to P. Lavrov, ‘...
the whole of Europe is warming up, crises are brewing everywhere,
particularly in Russia’ (p. 389). Three months later, in a let-
xvüi Preface
itself and was at the time failing to stimulate the development of productive
forces were proved mistaken by the subsequent course of history.
However, those same facts upon which Engels based himself when as-
sessing the objective pre-conditions necessary for the victory of the new
social order, for a socialist revolution, facts which, so it seemed to him,
confirmed the inevitability of the emergence in the near future of the
possibility of a radical reformation of society, were also the facts which
prompted him to reassess concepts formulated in the wake of the revolutions
of the 19th century as regards the ways and means by which the proletariat
could achieve political power, a factor which he considered of major
importance and a necessary prerequisite of any transition to new social
relations
The letters published in this volume reveal the development of Engels’
thoughts on the strategy and tactics of the emancipation struggle. He realised
that the methods used in those revolutions in which he himself had been
actively involved were no longer applicable: ‘The era of barricades and street
fighting has gone for good; if the military fight, resistance becomes madness.
Hence the necessity to find new revolutionary tactics, (see this volume, p. 21)
he wrote to Lafargue in November 1892. At the same time—and most
importantly—by the 1890s the working class in the majority of European
countries had much greater opportunity to use legal methods thanks to the
emergence, albeit in differing forms, of parliamentary government. Here
Engels attributed the main role to parliamentary activity by the socialists, and
to universal suffrage. He did so basing himself on the experience of the
German Social-Democratic Party, whose practical activity deeply influenced
his thinking. A number of Engels’s letters (to Victor Adler on 11 October, to
August Bebel on 12 October, and on 18 October 1893) contain ideas which
received their final formulation in Engels’s last work, Introduction to Karl
Marx’s ‘The Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850’. Emphasising the
importance of the campaign for universal suffrage then being mounted in
Belgium and Austria, he wrote to August Bebel: ‘The suffrage movement
won its first victory in Belgium, and now Austria is about to follow suit. At
the outset this will ensure the survival of universal suffrage, but also
encourage us to make further demands—in Germany no less than in France
and Italy’ (p. 206). In another letter to Bebel he again emphasises the
importance of legal methods of proletarian struggle, arguing that
‘governments are again coming under the control of a living political
movement among the
XX Preface
people ... it is we who determine it’, its ‘conquests in the libertarian sense,
greater political power for the working man, the extension of his freedom of
movement’ (p. 219).
The letters published in this volume provide manifest evidence of the
pleasure which Engels felt at the successes of the socialists and their
increasing influence. This is clearly seen in a letter from Engels to Julia,
Bebel’s wife, about a meeting between Bebel, Lafargue and Burns at his flat:
‘That such a meeting should be possible, a meeting at which the three leading
parliaments of Europe, the three dominant nations of Europe, will be
represented by three Socialist Party leaders, is in itself proof of what
enormous advances we have made’ (p. 131). A year later he expressed his
confident belief that ‘before long there will be no European parliament
without labour representatives (ibid., p. 283). ‘Today’, he wrote to E.
Vandervelde in October 1894, ‘the socialist movement everywhere is more
powerful than the so-called public force’ (p. 357). These successes, achieved
by using exclusively ‘legal’ methods, strengthened his view that universal
suffrage and other legal methods now made it possible for the working class
to win political power by peaceful means. He anticipated, however,
preventive actions by reactionary forces. Such counter-measures must, in his
opinion, inevitably involve the violation of constitutional rights and the open
use of force. This, in its turn, might compel the masses to offer direct
resistance, that is, to attempt to seize power by force, by the use of arms. In
other words, Engels did not exclude the possibility of using such methods,
but only in response to coercive action by the ruling circles. ‘Where there is
no reactionary power to be overthrown’, he wrote to Bebel on 7 October
1892, ‘there can be no question whatever of revolutionary power (p. 8). He
developed this same idea further in a letter to Lafargue a month later: ‘It’s
even ten to one that universal suffrage, intelligently used by the workers, will
drive the rulers to overthrow legality, that is, to put us in the most favourable
position to make the revolution’ (p. 29). Nonetheless he continues to see any
attempt at armed uprising as foredoomed if the ruling circles still command
the armed forces. He did not, it is true, exclude the possibility that in
Germany, the army might become ‘ 1/3 — 2/5 socialist’ (p. 225) as a result of
the growing influence of the Social-Democratic Party in the countryside,
which provided the bulk of army recruits. However, as many of his letters
show, he hoped in the main that the current situation would enable the
socialists to become the parliamentary majority, and thus implement their
immediate goals.
Preface xxi
the new International, and relations among the socialist parties. In many
cases where misunderstandings clouded these relations, Engels acted as an
arbiter, seeking to mitigate the discord and to assist in finding a compromise
solution. The position he adopted helped, for example, in resolving the
conflict between the German Social-Democratic Party and socialists in a
number of other countries over whether May 1 should be marked by ceasing
work, or should be limited to demonstrations held in the evening (see volume
49, p. 115). On this issue Engels argued that every party must adhere to the
international commitments it had assumed or, if that were not possible, reach
agreement on its actions with the other parties to such commitments. Engels
believed that complete equality and independence in resolving problems
constituted the essential basis of relations among socialist parties, a belief he
set out most clearly in a letter to Lafargue dated 3 January 1894: ‘A certain
manner of proceeding may be excellent for one country, and utterly
impossible or even disastrous in another’ (p. 254).
Engels supported the widest possible participation in international socialist
congresses by working-class organisations, including those which did not
pursue socialist aims. ‘These groups’, he wrote to Turati on 16 August 1894,
‘by the very fact of attending our congresses, are unconsciously drawn into
the socialist lap’ (p. 341).
Not believing himself to have the right to interfere in the activities of
socialist parties, Engels limited himself to advice and recommendations, and
even these he sent only to those closest to him, to whom he was able to say
unpalatable things with perfect frankness. To Bebel, Liebknecht, Kautsky,
Paul and Laura Lafargue, Adler, Sorge and others with whom he regularly
corresponded, he gave his evaluations and expressed his criticisms,
occasionally in quite sharp, and in some cases perhaps not altogether
objective terms. However, this was not intended for the eyes of others, nor, of
course, was it seen by either writer or reader as some infallible truth. Indeed,
many optimistic prognostications and hopes were not intended for
publication at all, were often coloured with emotion, and in many cases
cannot be viewed as the result of any precise or detailed analysis.
The case is very different when it comes to letters written to people with
whom Engels was little acquainted, often in reply to direct theoretical
questions, or containing theoretical criticism of a particular economic,
philosophical or historical work, or outspoken polemics with
xxiv Preface
their authors. Here Engels is always precise, his evaluations restrained, his
conclusions argued and less categorical. Such, for example, are his letters to
Franz Mehring (14 July 1893) and to Borgius (25 January 1894). which are
de voted to clarifying a number of fundamental questions relating to the
materialist concept of history, and which conclude, as it were, a cycle of
letters dealing with this subject and published in Volume 49 of the present
edition. Here he returns yet again to a criticism of the vulgar interpretation of
historical materialism, which denies that ideological or other non-economic
factors have any influence whatsoever on the historical process. ‘An
historical moment, once it is ushered into the world by other, ultimately
economic, causes,’ he wrote to Mehring, ‘will react in its turn, and may exert
a reciprocal influence on its environment, and even upon its own causes’ (p.
165).
These letters may be grouped together with a number of others also
devoted to theoretical and historical questions: to Robert Meyer, 19 July
1893; to W. Sombart, 11 March, and to Conrad Schmidt, 12 March 1895; and
also to Hirsch, 19 March, to Paul Lafargue, 3 April, to Karl Kautsky, 21 May
1895, and a few others. Of particular interest here are comments of a
methodological nature, still pertinent today. Engels once again warns against
a dogmatic approach to Marxism. ‘But Marx’s whole way of thinking’, he
wrote to Sombart, ‘is not so much a doctrine as a method. It provides not so
much ready-made dogmas as aids to further investigation, and the method for
such investigation’ (p. 461). His thoughts on the objective nature of the
historical process are very profound: ‘As Marx sees it, the whole of past
history, so far as major events are concerned, is an unconscious process, i.e.,
those events and the consequences thereof are not deliberate; either the
supernumeraries of history have wanted something that was the diametrical
opposite of what was achieved, or else that achievement entailed
consequences quite other than those that had been foreseen’ (ibid). Engels
sets out his understanding of the dialectics of the necessary and the
fortuitous, the concept and the phenomenon (p. 466), ideologies (p. 164), the
role of the individual in history (p. 266), and also some ideas on the history
of the Peasant War in Germany in the 16th century (p. ???), the communal
form of ownership (pp. 214, 488) and other questions.
As in previous years, questions of foreign policy were often touched upon
in Engels’ correspondence, primarily in terms of ascertaining the position of
the socialist parties with respect to the threat of war. Engels
Preface xxv
was more certain than ever that ‘the next war, if it comes at all, will not
permit of being localised in any way’, that ‘given the enormous armies of
today and the appalling consequences for the vanquished, a localised war is
no longer possible’ (p. 100). He repeated again and again that the socialist
workers’ movement had no interest whatsoever in war. ‘At the moment a war
would be utterly useless to us; we have a sure means of making progress
which a war could only disrupt’, he wrote to Sorge, on 18 January 1893 (p.
84). In his letters there is a reference to a series of articles entitled ‘Can
Europe Disarm?’, written with the aim of helping the German Social-
Democratic Party determine its position on the draft new military law (p.
107). He also used these articles when the French socialists turned to him for
advice during the drafting of a law to replace a standing army with a militia
system (p. 253).
Right up to the end of 1894, Engels’ letters reveal the enormous work he
had to undertake in order to prepare for the press the manuscripts of the third
volume of Das Kapital. Having returned to this work in the autumn of 1892,
he continued it, with only brief interruptions, up to the publication of the
book at the beginning of December 1894. Almost every letter during these
years contains at least one brief reference to his work on the manuscript, and
then on the proofs. ‘I have been compelled to decline all outside work,
though ever so tempting, unless absolutely necessary’, he wrote in March
1893 (p. 123). More than a year later, having sent the last part of the
manuscript to the printers, he summed up the situation in a letter to Nikolai
Danielson: ‘Everything not absolutely necessary had to be put back in order
to finish Vol. 3rd’ (p. 309).
Following the publication of the book, Engels immediately began to carry
through his own plans. On 17 December 1894 he described to Laura
Lafargue a detailed plan for re-editions and new works, a plan amazing in its
scope. ‘That is my position’, he wrote, ‘74 years, which I am beginning to
feel, and work enough for two men of 40 ... But as it is, all I can do is to
work on with what is before me and get through it as far and as well as I can’
(p. 387). He did not abandon the idea of new editions of the earlier works of
Marx, which had become virtually unobtainable, and, as he wrote to R.
Fischer on 15 April 1895, ‘I have a scheme for again presenting Marx’s and
my lesser writings to the public in a complete edition’ (p. 497). However he
succeeded in carrying through only a small part of this project.
The contents of this volume reveal the attention which Engels gave,
xxvi Preface
***
Volume 50 contains 320 of Engels’s letters, of which 229 are here pub-
lished in English for the first time. Of the 89 letters already published, 38
were previously printed in abridged form. Previous publications are indicated
in the notes. This volume also includes the first publication in English of
Engels’s will and the supplements to it, and also five letters by Marx and
Engels written between 1842 and 1859 but not included in the corresponding
volumes of their correspondence.
Preface xxvü
Obvious slips of the pen in the texts of the letters have been corrected
without indication. Abbreviated proper names, geographical names and
individual words are given in full. Defects in the manuscript are indicated in
footnotes, while lost or illegible passages of the text are indicated by
omission points. If occasional reconstruction is possible it is given in square
brackets. Any passages deleted by the author are reproduced at the bottom of
the page in cases where there is a significant discrepancy. Rough drafts of
letters or fragments reproduced in some other documents, etc., are indicated
either in the text itself, or in the notes.
Foreign words and expressions in the text of the letters are left as given by
the author, with a translation where necessary; Russian (cyrillic) words are
noted but printed in English. English words and expressions used by Engels
in text written in German and French are printed in small caps; (large caps if
capitalized in original).
In the case of references to one and the same fact or event in the texts of
different letters, the endnote number is duplicated.
The texts of the letters and notes were prepared by Oksana Matkovskaya
(letters from October 1892 to August 1893), Yevgeniya Dakhina (letters
from September 1893 to December 1894), and Natalia Kalennikova (letters
from 1895 onwards and supplements). The Preface was written by Boris
Tartakovsky. The volume was edited by Irina Shikanyan, Valerija Kunina
and Boris Tartakovsky. The Name Index and the Index of Periodicals were
prepared Vera Popova; index of quoted and mentioned literature by
Alexander Panfilov (Russian Independent Institute of Social and National
Problems).
This volume, including the Subject Index, was prepared for the press by
International Publishers, New York, from the manuscript materials available.
To The Reader
Volume 50 completes the first and, as yet, the only edition of the works
and correspondence of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels in English known as
the Collected Works.
This edition of the works of Marx and Engels was undertaken on the
request of Marxist scholars in England and the USA by the Institute of
Marxism-Leninism (now the Russian Independent Institute of Social and
National Problems, and is published jointly by Lawrence and Wishart (Great
Britain), International Publishers (USA) and ‘Progress’
xxvüi Preface
Dear Kugelmann,
Very many thanks for the little bit of Leibnitz. 1
As regards Herr Vogt, please send one copy to Bebel and two to me, but if
you yourself don’t possess another, it goes without saying that you should
keep one and send only one to me. 2
As regards The Knight of the Noble Consciousness and Palmerston, What
Has He Done, I have unearthed one more copy of each and these are en-
closed herewith.
On the other hand I have only one copy of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung,
but no loose issues, and only a few volumes of the Revuec; if I want a
complete set I have to borrow it. You had better get Miquel to return you
yours. After all he is the only one who might now be endangered by its
possession and he’ll be grateful to you for taking it off his hands. However
Volume I as well as other individual volumes occasionally crop up in
second-hand booksellers’ catalogues.
For the rest, I am keeping tolerably well. But if you are expecting an
exhaustive pathological discourse on my somewhat complicated and no
doubt also somewhat obscure case, I’m afraid I cannot oblige you. I am in
correspondence with many doctors in 5 or 6 countries and all of them
a
K. Marx, Herr Vogt. — b K. Marx, Der Ritter vom edelmütigen Bewusstsein. - c Neue
Rheinische Zeitung Politische-ökonomische Revue.
3
4 Letters- 1892
Your
F. Engels
IN LONDON
Dear Sirs,
In reply to your favour of 2.X, I have in the past frequently complied with
requests of a similar nature from gentlemen who were quite unknown to me,
but my experience in these cases has been such that unfortunately I have had
to make up my mind to discontinue the practice. 4
As a result of an indisposition, moreover, I expect to be tied to my sofa for
a considerable time to come and hence am in no condition to go searching in
my library for old, seldom used periodicals.
a
of Capital - b Gertrud and Franziska Kugelmann
Letters-1892 5
In the circumstances I regret that I cannot oblige you in the way you wish
and remain,
Yours very truly, F.
Engels
IN BERLIN
a
J. Guesde, “Vive l’Internationale!” Le Socialiste, 16 October 1892.
Letters-1892 7
You need have no fear that Burns is keeping too much in the background.
The man’s vanity is on a par with Lassalle’s. But compared with the
precipitate way in which K. Hardie thrusted himself to the fore to secure
pride of place by resorting to little dodges, he was unquestionably right in
adopting a non-committal attitude.
At the moment I am reading Hans Müllera and have not yet finished. It is
all stale stuff and long familiar to us. The few bad speeches he quotes are not
even skilfully chosen. Had I wanted to make out a case against the petty-
bourgeois goings-on in the party or parliamentary group, I should have
provided quite different material. The Steamship Subvention alone provides
eight times as much as he does and of better quality. 13 He takes a speech
made by Liebknecht in 1881 14 during the period of general confusion that
followed the promulgation of the Anti-Socialist Law 15 instead of later ones
when the political situation makes the pacific, philistine overtones seem far
less excusable, and then goes so far as to assert that power is in all
circumstances revolutionary and never reactionary. The jackass fails to notice
that where there is no reactionary power to be overthrown there can be no
question whatever of revolutionary power. After all, you cannot start a
revolution against something that can be removed without the least effort.
If there is one thing that sends the self-opinionated students, the men of
letters and the would-be literati of the working class into a state of impotent
rage, it is the sight of our party calmly continuing along its victorious course
without needing the help from these petty panjandrums. If mistakes are made,
the party is strong enough to deal with them itself. Witness the undeniably
tame philistinism of the majority of the parliamentary group at the time of the
Steamship Subvention, wit-ness the traditional tendency of the Party
Executive, a tendency which continued to manifest itself for a short while
after the Anti-Socialist Law had been repealed, to intervene in a dictatorial
manner (and which, moreover, had its counterpart in an identical tendency
among the executives of the previous Berlin organisation), etc., etc. Our
Party is now so strong that it could, without risk of degeneration, digest not
only a goodly number of petty bourgeois but also the “heddicated” and even
the worthy Independents, 16 had not the latter given themselves their
marching orders.
a
H. Müller, Der Klassenkampf in der deutschen Sozial Demokratie
Letters- 1892 9
Time for the post. Regards to your wifea and yourself from Louiseb and
Your
F.E.
IN HANOVER
Your
F.E.
AT LE PERREUX
My dear Lohr,
Thanks from Louise and myself for your letters this morning. Had one from
Paul from Bordeaux last night. Business first. Enclosed you find
1. Manifest des sozial demokratischen Ausschusses (Executive)
Braunschweig 5. September 1870a with a letter from Mohr and myself 18 but
which Paul better quote as from Mohr, who, I believe, signed it. This is
referred to in the MS. extracts under No. II I (on page 2).
2. First and Second Addresses of the General Council of the
International on the War, July 23rd 1870 and Sept. 9th 1870.b With French
translation made, I believe, in Geneva; it very likely requires revision both as
to correctness and style.
3. A series of MS. extracts received from Bebel who with his wifec set to
work at once to supply us with what we wanted.
I think this will be sufficient for Paul’s speech, though I don’t envy you
the task of translating all these things, especially the rather lax style of our
Reichstag orators.
Anyhow, now Paul is armed and need not depend upon Liebknecht’s
promises which are sooner made than kept, as a rule.
I am glad Paul is going to take part again in the debates of the Chambre,d
and if he is wise, he will attend the Palais Bourbon 6 assiduously during this
last session of the present Parliament. I have some notion that electors want
to see and hear something of the parliamentary activity of their deputy, and if
they do not, there may be a risk not only of losing his seat, but also of not so
easily securing another. After all, as things are now, both in France and
Germany, electoral success in many places at least, depends on the votes of a
number of hangers-on of the party, men
a
Manifesto of the Brunswick (Executive) Committee of September 5, 1870. -b See present
edition, Vol. 22, pp. 3-8, 263-70.-c Julie Bebel-d Chamber-eThe Bourbon Palace (housing the
French Chamber of Deputies)
Letters- 1892 11
that are influenced by petty considerations, and whose simple abstention may
lose the seat. Then, too, Paul’s first speech 19 showed evident signs of
embarras, caused by his not being used to the new atmosphere where he had
to live, move and have his being; and the sooner and the more he gets used to
that and to the parliamentary forms, standing orders, and business habits of
the Chambre, the better. This time he will have to show them that their
howlings and interruptions will not intimidate him, and if he only tries, I am
sure he can do it. I don’t know French Chambers, but it seems to me, in a
similar case I should take no notice of interruptions, reply to none of them,
and in the last extremity call upon the president to ensure to me my right of
being heard. (Capital advice on the part of one who notoriously cannot keep
his own temper!)
Arndt you describe quite correctly. I see from Liebknecht’s report on his
journeya that he gives Arndt a mild slap but a slap anyhow, and probably he
will have been told, at Marseille, of the proceedings of Blanquists 20 and
Allemanists. 21 Liebknecht seems quite intoxicated with his triumph and, for
the moment, plus français que les français eux-mêmes}b Unfortunately he
always deals in extremes, and I can only hope that he will not be goaded, by
patriotic bullies in the Reichstag, into tumbling head over heels into the
opposite extreme. So far, his attitude in his speeches in Mannheim 22 etc. has
been all that could be desired.
I understand your news about Roubaix to this effect that the people there
will ask Paul to stand for the Chamber next autumn. That would be very
good, Roubaix would be a pretty safe seat, while Lille seems rather shaky, to
be carried at a period of extra local excitement, but very uncertain, so far, at
ordinary periods.
Anyhow, ca marche en Francec (everything but the Journal quotidien!)d
and Carmaux 10 shows not only the progress of our ideas among the working-
class, but also the fact of the bourgeois and the government knowing, it. The
self-contained attitude of the people there—et encore des méridiouaux, des
Gascons gasconnants!e—and the quiet but determined way in which the
socialist town-councils proceed without any possibil-ist weakness or
concessions, show an immense progress. The more the French are coming to
the front, the more I shall be glad. The Continental movement, to be
victorious, must be neither all French nor all German,
a
W. Liebknecht, ‘Agitations bericht. Nach Marseille und zurück,’ Vorwärts, 12 October 1892. -
b
more French than the French themselves —c everything is on the move - d daily paper - e And
Southerners into the Bargain, bragging braggarts!
12 Letters- 1892
but franco-allemand. If the Germans taught the French how to use the
suffrage and how to organise strongly, the French will have to penetrate the
Germans with that revolutionary spirit which the history of a century has
made traditional with them. The time has passed for ever where one nation
can claim to lead all the rest.
The Socialiste does not contain, in its report, the resolution of the Congrès
syndical of Marseille 23 with regard to the Glasgow affair, 24 nor any allusion to
it. How is it that this business is enveloped in such mystery?
Aveling’s article, of The Pall Mall Gazette,a is also published in the
Workman’s Times. Do you still receive that paper?
Love from Louise and Yours affectionately,
F. Engels
IN BENEVENTO
all you have to do is hand over the enclosed note. 25 I wish you success!
I presume that it is you that I again have to thank for the translation of the
last part of my German preface to the Lage, etc. a
I am working on Volume II I of Marx’s Capital, and have to devote every
available moment to it—hence must be brief while remaining
Yours,
F. Engels
IN DARMSTADT
My dear Schorlemmer,
I have your letters of 31 July and the 9th inst. It was my fault that Pumps
forgot her Schmollis.b After so long an interval she no longer trusted herself
to write in German off her own bat, and so I did it for her. Naturally I knew
nothing of her tippling exploits in Darmstadt and put “Sie”. Her husbandc is
not to blame, for he knows no German. Pumps is expecting a child any day,
her fourth. Her second, a boy, unfortunately died, while her youngest, also a
boy and really a very nice humorous little chap, is very delicate and at this
moment far from well.
Because of what you said about Anschütz 26 I delayed writing this
a F. Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England. -b A little ceremony in which the
participants drink to the adoption of Du (thou), the intimate mode of address, Sie (you) being the
formal term./Trans./ - c Percy Rosher
14 Letters- 1892
letter for several days in the hope of hearing from him. But up till now there
has been nothing. The position is that I must know first of all how exhaustive
the biography is to be, whether it is intended for a periodical and if so which,
etc., etc. If the man proposes to deal with our Carla merely qua chemist, all he
needs are a few particulars that could serve as a framework. If, however, he
intends to depict the man as he was, the question arises as to whether he is
the most suitable candidate and whether one ought, without further inquiry,
to place at his disposal the letters to and from Carl. Again, a chemist living in
Germany would necessarily be unfamiliar with the circumstances of a man
who had lived in England for 30 years and more, and this would involve me
in work of a much more comprehensive nature. That would not deter me. I
should gladly devote as much time to it as I could spare, once I had seen the
back of Volume II I of Capital to which I have now returned. But who will
provide me with a guarantee that my information is used in the spirit in
which it was given? When in our presence, and in fact he spent all his
vacations here in London except when he went to Germany in the summer,
Carl was first and foremost a Social Democrat and up till now Social
Democrats have been somewhat thinly represented in the ranks of the
chemists. It certainly wouldn’t do if, in his biography, the biographer were,
so to speak, to beg his readers’ pardon because the man whose life he was
depicting had had the misfortune to be a Social Democrat!
Anschutz was, if I’m not mistaken, for a time a pupil of Carl’s in
Manchester. As already mentioned; I shall be glad to be of service—in so far
as I have the time—but first of all I must know what is required and what
kind of biography it is to be.
The executors in Manchesterb are right in wanting to wind up whatever
can be wound up without going into the settlement of the copyright
questions. That will take time if only because the publishers stand to gain
from a certain delay and are therefore in no hurry. I have heard nothing from
Roscoe either; doubtless he won’t make a move until he can put forward and
accept or reject specific proposals.
I hope your daughter continues to improve and that she has been able to
leave her bed in the meantime.
Why the old manc didn’t come to Darmstadt I don’t know. Does his
a
Carl Schorlemmer - b Philipp Klepsch and Ludwig Siebold -c Wilhelm Liebknecht
Letters-1892 15
wifea still perhaps have relations there whom he would rather not see too often,
while feeling reluctant actually to steer clear of them? As to the business of
Müller’sb adultery and whether he committed it or whether he didn’t, not a
word has so far penetrated to London. Best compliments from Mrs Kautsky.
Yours,
F. Engels
IN OXFORD
[Draft]
My dear Bonnier,
I have received Prototc—thank you. First of all, however, a correction.
You say:
‘whereas the French socialists are protesting against the Russian alliance and do not wish
to hear about a war with Germany, Bebel in particular and you yourself are quite willing to
accept the idea of a defensive war against France and Russia in which the German socialists
would take part’, and that ‘these accusations, which are well received in France, irritate
Guesde’.
If the French socialists are not expressly discussing the case of a defensive
war in which they would be willing to repel an attack by the Emperor
William,d this is because it is well known, recognised and accepted that
a
Natalie Liebknecht b Hans Müller - c E. Protot, Chauvins et réacteurs. - d William II
16 Letters- 1892
there is no need to talk about it. There is not a single socialist in Germany
who doubts that in such a case the French socialists would only be doing
their duty in defending their national independence; there is not one who
would hold it against them; on the contrary, they would applaud them, That
is precisely the point of view in my articlea. If I were not proceeding from the
view that, should there be a foreign attack, the French socialists would take
up arms to defend their homes, the whole of my article would be absurd.
What I am requesting is the benefit of the same principle for the German
socialists in the case of a Russian attack, even if it is supported by official
France. The same holds true for Bebel’s speeches. The people in France who
use this as a basis for accusations against us belong to that kind who say:
quod licet Jovi gallici non licet bovi Germanicib; to make them see reason is,
it seems to me, the task of the French socialists, and presents no great
difficulty.c
I would also warn you that what M. Protot cites from my article is nothing
but gross falsehood.
You say that the brochure is well done. I find it very weak; the end, where
this joker poses as an economist is more than grotesque. If he has a strong
point, it is the royal disdain which he pours out on his readers. Indeed, one
must assume that one’s readers are incurable idiots in order to dare to offer
them such a collection of palpable falsehoods (in which you see only snippets)
and lies contradicting one another. Is it then sufficient to put on a masque of
Dérouléde in order to persuade those who create public opinion in Paris to
swallow anything one wishes. Has Boulangism 6 survived Boulanger to the
point of being more powerful than during Boulanger’s lifetime?
Such a collection of lies and falsehoods is, in fact, irrefutable. It would
require 3,200 pages to reassert the truth against these 32 pages. There is not a
single quotation of any significance which is not shamelessly distorted; it was
only after comparing several texts that I had the measure of M. Protot’s
affrontery.
As for the literary style, I find it lamentable, in striking contrast to the
assiduity with which he has collected his material. Clearly another
a
F. Engels, Socialism in Germany. — b what is acceptable for the French is not acceptable for
the German - c The following phrases are crossed out in the draft letter: ‘That such chauvinist
stupidities irritate Guesde I can well believe, but that is not my fault, nor that of Bebel. As for
the rest, when I sent my article to Paris, I warned my friends of the danger, expressing my fears
due to national susceptibilities; but I was told that, on the contrary, this was just what was
needed’.
Letters- 1892 17
a
the Independents - b H. Müller, Der Klassenkampf in der deutschen Sozialdemokratie. — c a gipsy
- d Alexander II I - e William II - f Francis Joseph I
18 Letters- 1892
IN VIENNA
please write to me again, then I’ll send him a reminder. It’s the only way you
can get anything out of a Russian.
I am now on Volume II I of Capital. If, just once during the past four
years, I had been able to see three clear months ahead of me, it would have
been finished long ago. But I never had any such luck. On this occasion I am
making time for it by forcibly suppressing and by totally neglecting all my
correspondence and other concerns. I found that I had made very good
headway with the most difficult passage the last time I tackled it and up till
now it’s been going pretty smoothly, though admittedly I have now come up
against the chief obstacle which has long been standing in my way. 33 But I
work with a will and, so far, with undiminished vigour and doubtless
something will come of it this time.
Herewith a document typical of anarchists of Czech nationality. The
gentlemen are beginning to bludgeon one another with the principle that
voting is a revolutionary act. I am prepared to excuse its deficiencies on the
grounds that, not being Germans, the louts were not altogether aware of the
full impact their rhetorical flourishes would have on a German.
We were all absolutely delighted by the good news about your wife.a We
hope the improvement will continue and that before long you will be able to
send us further glad tidings.
Warm regards from Louise.b to you, your wife and your children, and the
same also from
Your
F. Engels
a
Emma Adler - b Kautsky
20 Letters-1892
10
IN OXFORD
[Draft]
London, 24 October 1892
My dear Bonnier,
In Le Figaro Guesde says:
‘Just as Liebknecht stated that, in the case of aggression by France, he would be obliged
to remember that he is German, we would remind the workers’ party, in the case of German
aggression, that we are French’.
Thus Guesde and myself are in perfect agreement, and it is with him that
you should settle matters.
You speak of an unfortunate phrase by Bebel—which one? You reproach
him with so many! If it is the one in Figaro that he would fire at Guesde, it
belongs to M. Huret; Bebel writes that it existed only in this gentleman’s
fantasy.
You talk of preventing war, and you boast of having voted for Domela 34—
with his plan you would crush all the socialist parties in Europe.
It is all very fine to speak of preventing a war, from whichever side it
might come. But why allow yourself to believe in illusions. Do the French
socialists have some means of preventing the young Williama from declaring
war in a moment of madness? Can the German socialists forbid Carnot or
some patriotic ministry to commit a similar folly? Furthermore, if it were
William or the street-corner revanchists who were the real danger; it is the
Russian government which is pulling the strings of these puppets, these by
hopes, those by fears. So now prevent it from inciting war!
If war breaks out, those who are defeated will have the opportunity and
the duty to bring about a revolution—and that’s that.
a
William II
Letters- 1892 21
11
AT LE PERREUX
My dear Lafargue,
I am plunged up to the eyes in the 3rd Volume of Capital which must be
completed once and for all. I am working on the least edited and most
difficult part: banks, credit, etc. 33 I cannot interrupt the work for anything
whatsoever, otherwise I should have to start from the beginning all over
again. Hence all my correspondence is interrupted and I can write you only a
few words.
It is most unfortunate that you believed in Millevoye’s promises, who
flouted you like a good politician 36— in future you will know that in politics
such people pass for GENTLEMEN. I get letter after letter from Germany in
which they complain about your absence at the critical moment and I warn
you that it will be difficult to have our people undertake work for debates
from which the principal speaker for whom the work is done absents himself.
Publication in pamphlet form 9 will not have a hundredth part of the effect of
a parliamentary speech; that’s a matter on which our Berlin people are well
qualified by experience to pronounce.
The least you might do would be to send a delegate to Berlin on the 14th,
37
that would enable you to have it out with our people over there. So do try
to send someone; it’s an expedition that will pay.
You will have seen the reports in the papers of the ghastly effects, in
Dahomey, of the new projectiles. 38 A young Viennese doctora who has just
arrived here (ex-assistant to Nothnagel) saw the wounds made by the
Austrian projectiles in the Nurmitz strike, and he tells us the same thing.
There’s no doubt that people in danger of being shot to bits in this manner
will want to know why. It’s a capital thing for maintaining peace, but also for
curbing the so-called revolutionary inclinations, on whose outbursts our
governments count. The era of barricades and street fighting has gone for
good; if the military fight, resistance becomes madness.
a
Ludwig Freiberger
22 Letters-1892
Hence the necessity to find new revolutionary tactics. I have pondered over
this for some time and am not yet settled in my mind.
I am beginning to go out again a bit. I had nearly three months as a
prisoner at home; now I am starting to walk, but little and slowly; but at least
I realise that it will soon be over. And about time, as I feel that the lack of
exercise in the open air must come to an end. And when I am completely
restored, we can, I hope, arrange things so that you and Laura give us the
pleasure of spending a few weeks with us. We have so many things to
discuss, and it is time Laura saw London again.
Love from Mme Kautsky.
Ever yours,
F. Engels
12
AT LE PERREUX
a
of Marx’s Capital
Letters- 1892 23
13
IN HOBOKEN
a
of Capital
24 Letters- 1892
set all my correspondence aside. I have been at it for 3 weeks and can only
tell you that the work is going more smoothly than I could have hoped; the
last time I had to break off, I had made good headway and now it’s paying
dividends. But there still remains a mass of work to do, though I am far
enough advanced to be able to see the end of it. And nobody is more glad of
that than I; this piece of work has been a burden on my conscience. I have
forced myself to make time for it since it couldn’t be done in less than 4
months of complete freedom from all other jobs; I know that, unless I do it
now, it will never be done, for we are entering a period of rebellion and war.
But like everyone else you will have to suffer for it pro tem—so please
forgive me!
Your F.E.
14
IN LONDON
Yours faithfully F.
Engels
Letters- 1892 25
15
IN BERLIN
Dear August,
All this time I have been slaving away dutifully at Volume II P and not,
I’m glad to say, without success. Today I may already be said to be fairly
past the main obstacle, the credit system—upon which nothing remains to be
done but the technical editing—which, however, is of a complex and time-
consuming nature. 33 I have greatly enjoyed the work, firstly because I have
discovered so many brilliant new sides to it—ask Louise,b to whom I have
read quite a lot of it out loud—and secondly because it has also shown me
that, when all’s said and done, my old noddle is still up to the mark, even
where relatively difficult things are concerned. The worst havoc the years
have wrought is in the sphere of memory whose doors are no longer so easy
to find or to open, which means a general slowing down. This is something I
can very well put up with, however.
But though I may have broken the back of the work, it’s very far from
finished. Besides this section there still remain the two last ones (rather less
than 1/3 of the whole) which I haven’t so much as looked at yet, and then
comes the final, technical editing of the whole which, while not difficult, is
all the more tedious and wearisome for that. It will probably take me the
whole of the winter—and then there’ll be the proofs—coinciding with those
of the 2nd ed., Vol. II .a
I have made time for it by forcibly suppressing in all my correspon-
a
of Capital - b Kautsky
26 Letters-1892
a
Jocular name for Louise Kautsky - b See this volume, p. 8 - c ‘Bericht des Partei-Vorstandes an
den Parteitag, zu Berlin 1892’, Vorwärts, No. 259, 4 November 1892.
Letters- 1892 27
a
Daily Chronicle — b as regards
28 Letters- 1892
for its true meaning consists precisely in its not having any. It would have
been difficult to avoid examining this supposed concept in the Neue Zeit and
what K. Kautsky has to say about it is, in fact, very good (except that he too
supposes that the thing has absolutely got to have a true meaning). 45 But it is
doing Vollmar an immense and quite unnecessary favour to contend with him
in political debate about what state socialism is or is not—there’s no end to
such pointless political palaver. As I see it, what ought to be said at the Party
Congress is this: ‘My dear Vollmar, what you imagine state socialism to be is
all one to us, but on various occasions you have said such and such about the
government and our attitude towards it, and that’s where we have got you;
what you have said runs just as much counter to the tactics of the party as do
the pronouncements of the Independents, and it is for this you have got to
answer! Only on the score of his unashamed arse-crawling to Williama and
Caprivi is he vulnerable, indeed very much so, and it was to this particular
point I wished to draw your attention before the Party Congress.
Enclosure from the Witch.b
Cordial regards to your wife and yourself. We are glad to hear that there’s
an early prospect of your visiting us. Could be MOST BENEFICIAL politically
over here; we shall do the necessary spadework. We quite agree with you
about a weekly. 46 It would be tremendously effective abroad where we still
very much feel the loss of the Sozialdemokrat; a good weekly survey of party
events would be invaluable abroad.
a
William II - b Louise Kautsky
Letters- 1892 29
16
AT LE PERREUX
My dear Lafargue,
You do not tell me where I should address my reply, and so I am sending
it to Le Perreux.
Herewith I append a cheque for £20 which you have asked, but I must
warn you that in the future it will be absolutely impossible for me to make
good the shortages of funds, let alone the peculations that might occur within
the French party. Each national party ought to see to its own expenses, and
one should not hear—in France, above all—this constant complaint that ‘the
fees are not remitted’. Such kind of things would never take place if there is
just a bit of order; a cashier ought to be subject to some kind of control, and
when he falls ill, he is to be replaced, and he is accountable for receipts and
expenditures. If some inevitable misfortune assailed you—all right, let it be;
but paying for such negligence of responsible agents of the party, that’s
tough indeed!
But, after all, the fat is in the fire—so much for that!
I have explained to Bebel the entire affair of Millevoye’sa; it seems as if
they are calming down on this account; your success at Carmaux and
elsewhere must have contributed to that. The fruits of your peregrinations
through France begin to ripen, and all of us are pleased to see the progress
made in France. Do you realise now what a splendid weapon you in France
have had in your hands for forty years in universal suffrage; if only people
had known how to use it! It’s slower and more boring than the call to
revolution, but it’s ten times more sure, and what is even better, it indicates
with the most perfect accuracy the day when a call to armed revolution has to
be made; it’s even ten to one that universal suffrage, intelligently used by the
workers, will drive the rulers to overthrow legality, that is, to put us in the
most favourable position to make the revolution. We should reach a new
stage in the 1893 elections, and then there will
a
See this volume, p. 5
30 Letters- 1892
Ever yours,
F. Engels
17
IN BERLIN
a
‘Bericht des Partei-Vorstandes an den Parteitag zu Berlin 1892’, Vorwärts, No. 259, 4
November 1892.
Letters- 1892 31
appears in the next number of the Tribüne—it’s already too late for this
week’s. 49
Can you send me another copy of those collected articles on Bakunin?
Since my copy is regularly sent to Sorge, I no longer have them here, but it
might be necessary for me to refer to them. Instead of working, I have had to
look out the old stuff, but it was out of the question to let this tissue of lies go
unchallenged. Can you find out who its author was?
Regards to Victor.a Louise will today be sending an account of Trafalgar
Square to Vienna. 50
Cordial regards to Mrs Julie,
Your F. E.
Warm regards to Julie, Victor, Popp and the proper hunter before the Lord.b Have received the
Sozialist. Many thanks. Good luck with your work.
Love
Louise
a
Adler - b August Bebel
32 Letters- 1892
18
IN LONDON
My dear Stepniak,
Suppose you and Mrs Stepniak, Volkhovsky and his little girl all come on
Thursdaya and have dinner with us. If you come about 3.30 to 4, we can talk
matters over and have dinner at 5. You know it is a long way from your
place to this, and unless we arrange as above, you might easily miss your
own dinner at home.
Kind regards to Mrs Stepniak from Mrs Kautsky and
Yours faithfully,
F. Engels
First published in: Marx and Engels, Reproduced from the original
Works, Second Russian Edition, Vol. 38,
Moscow, 1965 Published in English for the first time
19
IN BERLIN
a
17 November
Letters- 1892 33
nasty taste in one’s mouth—not that I think the English or French would have
done any better in that respect—though Louise refuses to admit as much. As
I know from long experience, what we are up against here is one of the
limitations imposed upon the outlook of working men by the conditions
under which they have lived hitherto. The same people who think it perfectly
natural for their idol Lassalle to have a private income and live the life of a
consummate sybarite are denouncing Liebknecht for wanting, as their paid
editor, barely one-third of that sum, although the paper yields them five or six
times as much. 52 To be dependent, even on a labour party, is a hard lot. And,
quite aside from the question of money, it’s a most otiose position for anyone
with any initiative to be editor of a paper belonging to the party. Marx and I
were always agreed that we would never accept such a position and that the
only paper we could have was one that was not financially dependent even on
the party itself.
If taken too far, your ‘nationalisation’ of the press 53 would have very
material drawbacks. It’s absolutely essential for you to have a press in the
party which is not directly dependent on the Executive or even the Party
Congress, i.e. which is in a position unreservedly to oppose individual party
measures within the programme and accepted tactics, and freely to criticise
that programme and those tactics, within the limits of party decorum. As the
Party Executive, you people ought to encourage a press of this nature—
indeed initiate it, for you would then exert far more moral sway over it than if
it were to come into being partly against your will. The party is outstripping
the strict discipline of earlier days; with 2 or 3 millions and an influx of
‘heddicated’ elements, more latitude is needed than what has hitherto not
only sufficed but actually proved a useful restraint. The sooner you people
adapt yourselves and the party to this changed situation the better. And the
first step is a formally independent party press. It is bound to come about but
it would be better if you were to allow it to come about in such a way that it
remains under your moral sway from the outset and does not arise in
opposition to yourselves.
You people blundered badly—not in Berlin but at Brussels 54— over the
question of the May Day celebrations. You must have known at the time
what you could promise and perform, and yet you went and promised more
than you are now able to perform. I consider your own speech on the subject
no whit inferior to Victor’s and readily believe that a stoppage of work in
Germany would demand sacrifices out of all proportion to victories and
gains. 55 But when the strongest party in the world suddenly
34 Letters-1892
sounds a retreat in this way, the general impression this produces is very bad.
Noblesse oblige. You are the fighting force, the corps de bataille of the
modern labour movement and, what you promised in Brussels, you were
morally bound to do. Now, while it is undoubtedly better not to follow up
one stupidity with another, far greater one—granted the crucial importance
just now is not to interrupt the German party’s victorious progress—you
should nevertheless consider what kind of impression this Berlin resolution is
going to make on the world at large. The affair would also seem to have
aroused indignation in France and the chaps there will doubtless be giving
you a piece of their mind. You cannot afford to inflict such moral injury upon
yourselves again—so in Zurich you must have the courage of your
convictions and declare outright that you cannot commit yourselves to a
stoppage of work; then, though people may be angry with you, they will not
be able to reproach you with breaking your word and beating a retreat. 56 It is
nonsensical to try and organise the movement uniformly in each individual
country. The Austrians, to whom a stoppage of work on May Day is
necessary, and who are accordingly prepared to make those very sacrifices
which you rightly repudiated in your particular circumstances, are as justified
in acting as they do as you were; now, however, they can make reproaches to
which you can offer no answer. For by their very conduct they have proved
that the impossibility clause laid down at Brussels does not apply.
We over here have not yet had the state socialism debate.
I must congratulate you on your resolutions. They are really first-rate and
I know of only one person who could have improved on them, namely Marx.
The resolution on state socialism, like that on anti-Semitism, hits the nail on
the head. And it is precisely resolutions of this kind that have in the past been
the Achilles’ heel of the German movement; they have been sloppy,
indeterminate, nebulous and cliché-ridden—in short, for the most part a
disgrace. Fortunately they are so untranslatable that anyone translating them
into a foreign language is compelled to read into them a meaning which they
themselves do not possess.
Below is a theatre drawn by Louise or Aveling. For the past week the
page thus embellished has been repeatedly placed amongst my writing paper,
which is why it now has the honour of finding its way to you. 57
Enclosed you will finda the twaddle talked by the seven Swabians 58
a
The enclosed text is missing.
Letters- 1892 35
Your
F. E. (in the stage box)
Love from the Witch herself; my enthusiasm for May Day isn’t quite so extreme.
First published in: Marx and Engels, Printed according to the original
Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXIX,
Moscow, 1946 Published in English for the first time
20
AT LE PERREUX
a
Daily Chronicle — b Eduard Bernstein
36 Letters- 1892
box that Emile de Girardin’s file of dossiers, from which issued ‘a scandal a
day’, was for the July Monarchy. 61 As long as this goes on, I think your
place is in Paris, in the Chamber, at the centre of the news, to put yourself,
and keep yourself, in touch with what is happening and in particular with
what emerges from one day to the next. Every fresh piece of scandal which is
brought to light will be a weapon for us. It’s time I was done with the 3rd
volumea the close of the century is more and more charged with electricity.
I’m glad to say it’s going passably well (I mean the work on the 3rd volume)
and I hope to finish it during the winter. The greatest difficulty has been
overcome.
Sam Moore has just left us. He is going to spend the greater part of his
leave in the country with his parents and will be back in January. We shall
see him again next Sunday.b
If I am not mistaken I have already told you that Pumps had a little girl on
the 13th—both are doing well.
For the last few days I have been well enough again to go out for a quarter
of an hour; I hope this will help to restore me altogether.
The Germans have committed a fine blunder over May Day; not in Berlin,
but in Brussels. 34 They ought to have reserved the right, at the International
Congress, to celebrate the day in their own way and according to
circumstances. Their withdrawal creates a deplorable impression and should
you give them a good wigging, you’ll be doing no more than your duty. Any
other party could have allowed itself this retrogressive move; they, in their
position as the main body of the European army, could not make it without
great prejudice to the movement as a whole. I entirely approve the reasons
which decided them in Berlin: the harm, to them, of a stoppage of work
would have been out of all proportion to the advantages to them; but that
should have been foreseen, and they should have had the courage at Brussels
not to vote for a stoppage.
And what of Laura? When do we see her here? Kiss her for me.
Kindest regards from Louise.
Ever yours,
F.E.
Please keep me posted about the Panama affair with newspapers, it’s
a
of Marx’s Capital -b 27 November
Letters- 1892 37
so important. We shall find that Wilson was only a tiny bit of a swindler
compared with Reinach & Co.
21
IN BERLIN
a
27 November - b Inka Fischer
38 Letters- 1892
brew, anything better. Since one and all had laid a good foundation in the
shape of a cold meal, the said cup was valiantly attacked, not least by Your
Humble Servant, the Narrator and, strictly between ourselves, several of the
gentlemen, among them—I was about to say it but shall stop before it’s too
late—became somewhat the worse for wear. Juliusa was in great form; he
sang various songs and told funny stories though, with his customary
obstinacy, indulged in nothing but water or coffee. In short, we were all very
jolly until past midnight, which is saying a great deal, considering the
distances here in London and the fact that all railway and omnibus services
close down after 11 o’clock on Sunday night. And so I was able to retire to
bed secure in the knowledge that I had entered my 73rd year in a worthy
fashion. However I hope that my health will allow me to do even better next
year. Then my birthday falls on a Tuesday, and so we shall again be able to
make a start on Sunday, though in that case I should like to carry on
carousing until Tuesday night.
I should like to have attended that beanfeast in Berlin. Inka tells me that
she could not get through to you and Bebel because of the crush so there
must have been an enormous number present. 63 Still, I don’t doubt that I’ll
witness something of that kind again, if not this year then the next, provided
that is, you come over and fetch us. The little Fischer girl sees in you so great
a mental affinity with my dear good Lenchen that I can be doubly confident
in placing myself in your charge.
As August left only one measly page for your use, I shall reverse the
position and he will get only one from me.
With warm regards
Yours,
F. Engels
First published in: Marx and Engels, Printed according to the original
Works, First Russian Edition, Vol.XXIX,
Moscow, 1946 Published in English for the first time
a
Motteler
Letters-1892 39
22
IN BERLIN
Dear August,
Many thanks for your good wishes—I stood the whole thing very well and
without any evil after-effects whatever, nor should I be in any way averse to
celebrating yet another birthday tomorrow—but so strict a watch is kept on
me that I should never be allowed to indulge in such excesses! Your Prussian
police are as nothing by comparison with a medical Witcha like this. But I
always keep wondering what good it will do and what are the sins that have
earned me such conscientious surveillance. Being unable to rid myself of a
silly superstitious belief in ‘equalising justice’, I am drinking mineral water
and lemonade and doing penance for the aforesaid sins without knowing
whether I have actually committed them. More about politics in my next—in
a day or twob—but I must see to it that I finish Volume II I.C In France things
look remarkably tempestuous; c’est le commencement de la find! The time
will again come when the French will have an opportunity to show their good
qualities.
Warm regards.
Your F. E.
Thank you so much for the fine gluepot; it will be pressed into service
straight away for Volume II I.
First published in: Marx and Engels, Works, Printed according to the original
First Russian Edition, Vol. XXIX Moscow,
1946 Published in English for the first time
c
a
Louise Kautsky - b See this volume, p. 48 end of Capital — d it is the beginning of the
40 Letters- 1892
23
My dear Charlie,
Thank you very much for your nice letter and good wishes which I hope
may all be fulfilled and as you have done me the honour of being born on the
same day as myself, please accept my best congratulations on your birthday
and the wish that you may live to be twice as old as I am now. Then you are
sure to see something very grand and, worth seeing, and then perhaps you
will now and then think of me as one who tried his best to bring about such a
change.
With kind regards to your parents and brothers and sisters
Yours faithfully,
F. Engels
First published in: Marx and Engels, Reproduced from the original
Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXIX,
Moscow, 1946 Published in English for the first time
24
IN BERLIN
While you, my dear Auer, must submit to my insisting that you now adopt
in the personal sense the Du with which you, as the first half of the
Secretariat, have hitherto been addressing me solely in a collective sense, it
being understood that next year we shall make up for our failure to celebrate
the solemn rite of Schmollis.
As the Hyena has also been brought into this affair, I shall give her the
floor.
Your
F. Engels
It will be difficult, generally speaking, to give Bamberger the floor in London. Press
Hyena’s note. 67
25
IN MAINZ
gas-bags—born wine salesmen—but when it comes to the point you can also
buckle to and move mountains, and it will always be remembered in your
favour that Mainz was the only German city to play an honourable role
during the great revolution. 70 Nature gave you the gift of the gab which is
just what is wanted when it comes to working on the peasants, the more so in
that you have in the wine growers round about you a great quantity of
material to work on. If you address yourself energetically to the task, you
will be able to achieve something and show the Cologne people how it’s
done. From Mainz to Cologne and down to Cleve there’s still many a poor
soul to be snatched away from the priests and still many a constituency to be
won, and this is precisely the moment when the gentlemen of the Centre 71
are on the point either of thoroughly compromising themselves over the
military question or of leading the entire Centre up the garden path.
Apart from that, I should like to send you my best thanks and to say how
glad I am that you had been keeping well and have been feeling even ‘better’
since. I too am keeping well. We had the whole Brimstone Gang 72 here on
Sunday and a few more besides, all of whom vigorously addressed
themselves to the wine cup.a
If we have a few more of these scandals in Paris 60, we may soon be able
to re-enact the old comedy of autumn ‘47 in Brussels; the world is beginning
to look shaky.
Your old
F. Engels
First published in: Marx and Engels, Printed according to the original
Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXIX,
Moscow, 1946 Published in English for the first time
a
See this volume, pp. 37-38
Letters- 1892 43
26
IN BERLIN
a
See this volume, pp. 37-38 - b Wilhelm Liebknecht jun. - c Theodor K. Liebknecht - d Karl
Liebknecht
44 Letters- 1892
Pumps felt impelled to show the world that, despite her prematurely grey
hair, she is still a young woman and therefore presented her husband with a
baby girl a little more than a fortnight ago. Both are doing very well under
the circumstances. I too am keeping pretty well on the whole but am still not
yet mobile enough. However when one looks out of the window at the
persistent downpour, one is less inclined to make a fuss about it.
Take good care of yourself; with best wishes to you and all your family.
Yours,
F. Engels
Dear Liebknecht,
You will have to wait a little while for the sequel to this, as Volume II P
admits of no delay. In France it almost seems as though we are back in ‘47,
and Panama 60 could well put paid to all the bourgeois cochonnerie.b The
scandals of 1847 and of the Second Empire are trivial by comparison. Do
write and tell your Paris correspondents to keep you informed about it and to
send you the material in newspapers—these are matters you must pursue in
person.
Your old F. E.
First published in: Marx and Engels, Printed according to the original
Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXIX,
Moscow, 1946 Published in English for the first time
a
of Capital - b beastliness
Letters- 1892 45
27
IN DARMSTADT
a
See this volume, pp. 37-38 - b Carl Schorlemmer; see also this volume, p. 14
46 Letters- 1892
But it can’t be helped and so long as things keep moving ahead in the
outside world, one mustn’t complain.
With my best compliments to your family,
Yours,
F. Engels
First published in: Marx and Engels, Printed according to the original
Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXIX,
Moscow, 1946 Published in English for the first time
28
IN OXFORD
[Draft]
[London, 3 December 1892]
My dear Bonnier,
Es wird nichts so heiss gegessen, wie es gekocht wird.a You have the ad-
mirable habit of serving warm, very warm, but would I not sometimes risk
burning my lips? The newspaper, as you know, is not yet being published. 48
You ask me to convey to the Germans a kind of ultimatum from the
French. If I undertake to do so, will you guarantee that, in reply to a direct
query by Berlin to Paris, Paris without disavowing me entirely would not say
that I had exaggerated.
a
If you don’t cool it, you’ll not be able to drink it.
Letters-1892 47
First published in: Marx and Engels, Works, Printed according to the original
First Russian Edition, Vol. XXIX, Moscow, Translated from the French Published in
1946 English for the first time
a
The following sentence is crossed out in the draft: ‘The article by Bebel 80 has probably gone to
press already, if in Paris they wanted to prevent it.’ - b See next letter.
48 Letters- 1892
29
IN BERLIN
a
Our party would never agree (to the Sunday) and we are fully determined to stand firm. - b See
this volume, Letter 28
Letters-1892 49
that we didn’t expect and that, with 3 acute political crises in the offing
(Army in Germany, 76 Panama in France 60 Ireland in England 77) and a
general industrial crisis, we probably had better things to do than bicker
about how best to demonstrate on 1 May ‘94, when we might have work of a
very different nature to do; 4. how his proposal to allow the English, and
them only, to celebrate on the Sunday chimed in with French logic; 5. that I
knew of only one party—the Austrian 81—which had any right to reproach
the Germans, that the May Day celebrations in Berlin more than made
amends for those in Paris and 6. that I had passed on his ultimatum to you,
but purely as his own private opinion.
The man is consumed by an irrepressible urge to be up and doing but, such
being the case, he shouldn’t have gone to Oxford where he is all on his own
with red Wolffa who is completely out of everything. It’s a priceless idea,
wanting to direct the European labour movement from Oxford—the last
genuine remnant of the Middle Ages still to be found in Europe—but for us it
makes an infuriating amount of unnecessary work and I shall protest in no
mean terms to Paris about this go-between. The really unfortunate thing is
that he’s the only person who understands German save for Laura, and she
lives out of town.
For the rest, the Party Congress went off quite well, but subscribing to the
resolution 84 despite the sundry rubbish it contains, must have been a bitter
pill for Vollmar to swallow.
Ede came to see me, bringing with him a whole bunch of letters from K.
Kautsky—who had also written to me—all of them concerned with the Neue
Zeit, and wanting me to add my mite. My opinion is that, if you accept the
change proposed by Dietz, you should think it out and prepare for it properly,
and not go ahead till January, otherwise it will be altogether premature. 85 But
speaking generally, I should say that, since becoming a weekly, the Neue Zeit
has to some extent relinquished its old character in favour of a new one
which it has not been completely successful in assuming. The paper is now
being written for two sets of readers and cannot do full justice to either.
If it is to become a popular, part-political, part-literary and artistic and
part-learned journal, à la Nation, then it will have to move to Berlin. The
political section of a weekly must be written at the hub of things, on the eve
of publication, otherwise it will always be lagging behind. And,
a
Ferdinand Wolff
50 Letters- 1892
save for the correspondents, those working on the political section must
always be in the same place. The idea of editing a review in Berlin and
London and publishing it in Stuckert a doesn’t seem feasible to me. In any
case there would be a 20 or 30 per cent difference in subscriptions between a
Berlin and a Stuttgart weekly. I am regarding this simply from a bookselling
point of view, having no more than a nodding acquaintance with the other
aspects that need to be considered and about which you out there will be
better informed than I.
But if the Neue Zeit undergoes these changes, it will appeal to only one
section of its former public and will have to be organised solely for their
benefit. It would then no longer be open to those articles from which it has
hitherto derived its greatest and most enduring value—the longer, learned
papers which run on through 3 to 6 numbers. Hence, alongside the Neue Zeit
there would have to be a predominantly learned monthly— if necessary even
quarterly—journal with a correspondingly restricted circle of subscribers, and
this would have to be offset by raising the price if the paper was to be kept
going.
Indeed, it seems to me altogether necessary, if the party publishers wish
increasingly to secure a monopoly of party publications, including learned
ones, that they should not aim at bulk sales for everything, whether suitable
for that purpose or not. An original paper on political economy is bound to
be primarily a detailed treatise, nor can it be expected to sell in bulk.
Similarly, a genuine historical work, the outcome of independent research,
does not lend itself to publication by installments. In short, I think there
should be two separate departments, one for bulk sales, the other for
ordinary, slower-moving sales through booksellers, in smaller quantities and
at a correspondingly higher price.
What happens when an attempt is made to boost sales beyond the limits
called for by the nature of the case is something I have learned from my own
experience. Though written as popularly as possible, my Anti-Dühring is by
no means a book to suit every working man. But along comes Dietz, takes
over part of the Zurich edition and then tries to boost sales by remaindering
the thing at a reduced price with 11 assorted booksellers. This is not at all to
my liking and next time I shall be on my guard. It is the only longer work I
have written since 1845 and, whichever
a
Stuttgart
Letters-1892 51
way one looks at it, it is degrading to see it treated in that way. By the by,
there’s no need to say anything to Dietz about this—the thing is over and
done with and cannot be altered, nor would I have mentioned it to you had it
not provided an apt illustration of what I mean by the wrong way of selling
books.
For the rest, times are growing critical. Every morning when I read the
Daily News and such French papers as have arrived, it takes me right back to
‘47. At that time, too, one expected some further scandalous revelations each
morning and one was seldom disappointed. The Panama affair 60 beats
everything that went on in the way of corruption under Louis-Philippe and
under Bonaparte II I. The initial outlay, including bonifications to the press
and Parliament, amounted to 83 million francs. This will be the ruin of the
bourgeois republic, for the Radicals 86 are as deeply implicated as the
Opportunists. 87 On every side attempts are being made to hush things up, of
course, but the more they are hushed up the worse they get. Once the
revelations were under way and a few people had become irretrievably
implicated in the scandal, these had perforce to cover themselves by
betraying their accomplices and showing that they had only been swimming
with the stream. Already the committee is in possession of such enormously
compromising statements that there’s no holding back; a few may slip
through the net, but large numbers have already been named and, of course,
the fewer the names that are compromised the greater the odium that attaches
to the bourgeois republic. Though much may still happen in the meantime,
this is nevertheless the beginning of the end. Fortunately all the monarchist
parties are completely done for, nor will it be at all easy to find another
Boulanger. 6
Herewith an extract from Lafargue’s letter for the Vorwärts—but do
ensure that the paper gives no indication whatsoever that the letter emanated
from a deputy. 88
What Liebknecht entirely overlooked in the matter of Bismarck’s Ems
forgery was that that’s the sort of thing diplomats do in secret but never boast
about. 75 But if one of them does happen to boast about it, the breach of
etiquette is such as to render him persona non grata. After this it will never
again be possible to appoint Mr Bismarck Imperial Chancellor, otherwise any
foreign government could refuse to enter into negotiations with a man who
not only is not above using such methods, but actually boasts of having used
them. The Imperial Government would risk incur-
52 Letters- 1892
Dear August,
It seems to be my fate that my space should be rationed because I once over-stepped the
mark and wrote a leader, so rather than look at your last letter, I shall look instead at the
pretty inkstand that invites kind, happy thoughts and was inaugurated with the proofs of the
second volume of Capital. Thank you very much for it—how good you both are; now that
I’m equipped, I am, it seems, likely to run on and to be rapped over the knuckles for so
doing. Well, that isn’t what I was intending to write about—all I meant to say was that not
once this week have I been able to get round to writing, there having been, alas, so much to
prevent me—glass-workers, transport workers, Reumann, Victor,b meeting of the
unemployed and, last but not least, the Jews. They are not getting the Vorwärts, August, so
could you please make inquiries? Then, some time ago, I asked if you could let me have
another copy of the Vorwärts’ report on the Congress, but you probably forgot—I’d like two
if at all possible, otherwise one; it’s the report on the Party Conference I want, not the one
made by you people at the Conference. Victor enjoyed the time he spent with you and wrote
saying that to him it seemed as though the poor Austrians were standing guard in the wet and
the cold, whereas you people were sitting snug in your encampment, despite the struggle and
the fighting. Then there’s another thing—I still have two English reports on the International
Glassworkers’ Congress 89 to spare. Would you like one? It’s very interesting, but you would
have to write a few lines about it by way of justification and send a sample copy, and would
you please ask Fischer if he might perhaps write something for a Bavarian paper, in which
case I would send him the other copy. I would, of course, send them without any strings
attached but I feel responsible because it’s the English who have to pay for the whole thing,
so I’d be grateful if you’d let me know. I must close, so more anon; it’s time for the post and
I must close.
With loving kisses to you and Julie,
the Witch
Please convey my most sincere thanks to the parliamentary group for their kind telegram
last Sunday. 90
a
Julie Bebel - b Adler
Letters- 1892 53
30
IN STUTTGART
Dear Baron,
My best thanks for your good wishes in respect of a day that was spent
very happily. Alas, tippling still does not agree with me and I shall have to
atone for it by abstaining for the next few weeks.
Thank you, too, for sending the prospectus for the new journal—do you
know the chaps 91 ? I have never heard of any of them.
I haven’t yet been able so much as to look at Schmidt’s latest on the rate
of profita since, until Volume II Ib is finished, I shall have to fend off
everything that might entail extra work—there being far too many inter-
ruptions as it is.
As for the Neue Zeit, 85 Edec and I have discussed it at length, and
yesterday I wrote a long letterd to August on the subject.
It is my opinion that if, as proposed by Dietz and August, the Neue Zeit is
to be given a lighter, more popular tone and made ‘more interesting’ from a
literary point of view, it will have to move to Berlin. For only there can a
political review covering all events up to the eve of publication be catered for
on the spot and only there can a wealth of artistic and literary work, which
would otherwise come a week too late, be produced
a
C. Schmidt, ‘Die Durchschnittsprofitrate und das Marx’sche Wertgesetz,’ Die Neue Zeit,
1892/93, Vol. I, Nos. 3 and 4. - b of Capital -c Eduard Bernstein - d See this volume, Letter 29
54 Letters-1892
with speed and ‘immediacy’. This and other circumstances would mean that
a Berlin edition would have 20 or 30 per cent more subscribers than a
Stuttgart one.
But in that case the Neue Zeit would have to sacrifice the better part of its
contents—and the latter would call for a monthly or quarterly of a more
rigorously learned nature than hitherto and which, because intended for a
smaller public, would have to be sold at a higher price.
But what if neither is feasible? In that case—and this has only just oc-
curred to me—it might perhaps be better to turn the Neue Zeit back into a
monthly but with the same capacity as at present, i.e. 104 sheets a year and
8-9 a month. The longer articles could then appear in one, or at most 2,
numbers and would, in the second case, have to be subdivided into I, II or I,
II , II I, IV installments which would be conducive to their general
intelligibility. With 2 sheets a month it’s impossible to break off longer
articles at the point the sense requires, since this would almost invariably be
precluded by considerations of space and diversity. But in this way you could
train your contributors to divide up their things themselves into 2
installments. And then there could be ‘something for everyone’ in every
number. But here again, you would have to reckon on a reduced circulation,
and hence be obliged to raise the price—or so at least it seems to me.
At all events, before making any experiments you should consider the
matter carefully. Once made, a false step is difficult to reverse.
If the weekly Neue Zeit were to move to Berlin it would, in many respects,
replace the weekly central organ which might otherwise hold out for another
year. Between now and then a great deal may happen. Things are livening up.
It looks as though the Panama scandal 60 might mark a turning-point so far as
the development of France is concerned. You should pester Lafargue about
collecting material for a longish essay on the subject, or supplying you with
articles as each particular phase of the scandal reaches its climax. With that
sort of material the Neue Zeit would be able to outstrip the dailies even in the
matter of factual news.
As for the Vorwärts—the less said the better!
Your
F. Engels
Letters- 1892 55
Herewith a trifle for the Neue Zeit. If you think Sternberg’s report is too
long, condense it; having once got going I translated the whole thing. 92
31
AT LE PERREUX
My dear Lafargue,
Your remarks concerning Bebel compel me to refer back to your letter
from Lille. 93 What you say about him is unfair in the extreme. Far from
Liebknecht correcting Bebel on any matter whatsoever (an amusing idea to
anyone who understands the situation), it’s precisely the contrary that is
taking place. It is Liebknecht who is promising wonders, and if the whole
thing doesn’t collapse and dissolve, it’s thanks to the work Bebel is doing. If
Liebknecht said only agreeable things to you at Marseilles, don’t forget that
this is how he behaves with everyone; 5 that he always acts on the impulse of
the moment and that consequently he says white here today, but tomorrow
somewhere else he will say black, and he will maintain in all good faith that
he has not contradicted himself. You complain about the Berlin resolution
concerning May 1st, 54 well and good, according to our German press,
Liebknecht is reported to have said that at Marseilles he explained the
position to you, including the impossibility for the Germans to stop work on
May 1st; and that ‘the French’ had fully acknowledged the force of his
arguments. If that is true, by what right do you complain of the Berlin
resolution? If Liebknecht has erred (for he believes what he says), what have
56 Letters- 1892
a
Charles Bonnier - b See this volume, pp.46-47
Letters- 1892 57
Ever yours,
F. Engels
a
poetry-music - b instrumental and vocal poetry which is not music - c See next letter.
58 Letters- 1892
32
AT LE PERREUX
a
small rentier
Letters- 1892 59
a
panic - b this is the beginning of the end - c be that as it may - d free stage or free theatre
60 Letters- 1892
Mendelsons were here last night, spoke a good deal of their visit to Le
Perreux.
33
IN LONDON
First published in: Marx and Engels, Reproduced from the original
Works, Second Russian Edition, Vol. 38,
Moscow, 1965 Published in English for the first time
34
IN VIENNA
Esteemed Comrade,
Many thanks for kindly sending your Geschichte des Arbeiter-
Bildungsvereins.a I regard the publication of studies on the history of the
Austrian labour movement as a highly rewarding task, the more so since in
our fast-moving time some moments, important in themselves, are lost to
posterity as they only live on in the memory of the participants and have
never been recorded in writing. I, for my part, am again working diligently
on Volume 3,b a bit of news which will probably compensate you for my not
answering your kind letter in person.
Yours faithfullyc
F. Engels
Dear Comrade,
I enjoyed reading your correction in the latest issue of the Arbeiterzeitung. For that
devilish misprint had accused you of bigamy too, something you had completely overlooked
in your eagerness to exculpate yourself in the eyes of the female comrades. Also going off
today will be the report of the International Glass-Workers Congress, 89 which will surely be
of great interest to you. Many
a
by Wilhelm Ellenbogen - b of Marx’s Capital —c in Engels’ handwriting
62 Letters- 1892
Your
Louise Kautsky
35
IN PARIS
My dear Lavrov,
I do not see why I would oppose the publication of the letter from Lopatin
about a conversation that he had with me. 97 Therefore do as you like.
I was pleased to learn from Mendelson that you are well. As for me, I
have no reason to complain—quite the contrary. For three months now I
have been working on the 3rd volume of Capital, and although there is still a
great deal to do, this time I have grounds to hope that I will finish it.
As for the Berlin resolution, I am of the opinion that the Germans
committed at Brussels the mistake of promising—although indirectly— more
than they can fulfil. 54 The 1st May 1890 and ‘91 has shown that in Germany
a strike is impractical; the sacrifices were not worth the possible gains. At
Hamburg alone the attempt cost more than 100,000 marks. 98 The
coincidence that 1st May 1892 was a Sunday led them to forget in Brussels
that real world to which the crisis—more acute this time in Germany than
elsewhere—has sharply returned them.
The strike on 1st May ‘93 could cost us too dear—in Germany, and, by
reaction, elsewhere. A strike in Germany would dry up both funds and
Letters-1892 63
financial credit of the party for more than a year. And that at a time of
military crisis and the possible dissolution of the Reichstag, 76 with elections
in May or June.
It is the law of the development of parties that a party which has achieved
a certain degree of power finds that the very demonstrations which it could
not do without in its early days have become impractical.
For the rest, as for the forms, one could have shown a little more regard
for the susceptibilities of others. However, what will you—these are the
grobe Deutscht who do not know how to sugar the pill.
As regards the rest, it seems to me that Panama 60 is more important than
1st May, given the times. Panama puts me in mind of 1847, when every day
one could expect some new scandal. 61 1847 dug the grave of the July
Monarchy, and what will 1892 bring?
Yours,
F. Engels
36
AT LE PERREUX
My dear Löhr,
Yesterday we forwarded by Van Oppen and Co’s Express (they have an
office in Paris too, but I did unfortunately not note the address) the box with
pudding and cake, and hope it will arrive safe (directed to you, Le
a
unpolished Germans
64 Letters- 1892
Perreux). The pudding is not quite boiled out, our copper would not heat last
Saturday and so, instead of twelve hours’ boiling, the unfortunate pudding
only got about nine or ten, But if you give it two to three hours’ boiling
before serving, it will be all right.
Before crossing the Channel, the Oxford sagea gave us a call here. I hope I
quietened his anxiety about the first of Mayb to some extent, The attempt, in
1890, to chômerc at Hamburg alone cost the party above 100,000 marks 98,
and in my opinion it would never do to allow the bourgeois to bleed the
German party’s cash and credit ‘à blanc just at the moment when a
dissolution of the Reichstag 76 is in the air, and when every farthing would be
wanted.
Panama is delightful, 60 The papers you so kindly send me, and old Mother
Crawford’s letters—though awfully cut down by the respectable people of
the Daily News—form already a pretty comprehensive dossier which I intend
to complete up to the—I hope—bitter end. Respectability here, of course,
triumphs.
Wenn sich das französische Laster erbricht, setzt sich die englische Tugend
zu Tischd—and I’ll be damned if I do not prefer a thousand times that plain
open outright French vice to this hypocritical British virtue. Here corruption
has been brought into a system and has been endowed with a complete code
of étiquette which you have only to keep within, in order to be perfectly
bullet-proof against all charges of undue corruption. In France no man would
stand a chance in a popular constituency, a town especially, who openly
wanted to get into Parliament for the purpose of furthering his own interests;
here, anybody who wanted to get in for any other purpose would be
considered a fool and a Don Quixote. The English Panama is called Building
Society and has more than one head— the savings of the small people have
been eaten up in these societies by wholesale, and no great fuss about it.e One
M.P. is in here too, Spencer Balfour—he will take the Chiltern Hundreds and
retire into private life—while lots of M.P.’s make money by selling their
names as directors of all sorts of swindling companies, which is considered
perfectly fair so long as it is not pushed to excess.
On Fridayf we expect Pumps and her family here, as we have not room
a
Charles Bonnier - b See this volume, pp. 46-47 - c strike - d When French vice fails, British
virtue sits down to a meal - e See this volume, p. 75 - f 23 December
Letters- 1892 65
enough in the house we have taken lodgings next door but one—the old
Marquis’s house is now a lodging house! I think I wrote to you that on
November 13th Pumps had a little girl.
Shall write to Paul after the first rush of the holidays is over.
Ever yours,
F. Engels
My dear Laura,
Should I do penance, in sackcloth and ashes? But I’d rather not for I regret all my
misdeeds as it is. Because of my not writing I suffer more than you do. After my return the
Generalb was no longer his old self and I had hardly any time of my own, but when I did
have time I was in no mood for writing. Yet now and again everything turned out very well. I
look forward to the spring when we’ll be able to talk to our hearts content. My best regards to
the M.P.C
With love and kisses
Your
Louisa
a
written in German - b Engels’ nickname - c Paul Lafargue
66 Letters- 1892
37
IN BERLIN
Dear August,
We recently had the pleasure of seeing Cato Censorius Bonnier here while
in transit from Oxford to Paris. I think I made some impression on him by
pointing out that 1. his manner of giving ultimatumsa is hardly calculated to
promote mutual understanding and 2. that it really might be better if the
German party were to preserve its funds and its credit for the eventuality of a
dissolution and future elections rather than dissipate both on a stoppage of
work on May Day. It’s unfortunate for both French and Germans that this
chap should be an indispensable middleman between the two, since Guesde
seems reluctant to make use of any one else. But thwarted as it is by the
isolation and inactivity of Oxford, his enthusiasm plus his intense urge to be
up and doing serves to evoke discord rather than collaboration. And in the
present state of Europe what is called for above all else is precisely the
harmonious collaboration of Germans and French.
Many thanks for the Reichstag stenographic reports. I shall not be able to
read your big speech about the Army until tonight, but I was delighted by
what you said about Heinze’s law. 99 So long as prostitution cannot be wholly
eradicated, our first bid ought, I think, to be the girls’ total exemption from
any kind of extraordinary legislation. Here in England this is more or less the
case; there are no ‘morality police’, and no controls or medical examinations,
but the police still have tremendous power because it is a punishable offence
to keep a disorderly house, and every house in which a girl lives and
receives visitors can be treated as such. But although this law is enforced
only on rare occasions, the girls are none the less exposed to frightful
extortion on the part of policemen. This relative freedom from degrading
police restrictions enables the girls to preserve an independent and self-
respecting character in a way that
a
See this volume, pp. 46-47
Letters-1892 67
would hardly be possible on the Continent. They look upon their situation as
an unavoidable evil to which, since it has befallen them, they must resign
themselves, but which otherwise need in no way affect their character or self-
esteem and, given the chance to get out of their profession, they seize upon it,
as a rule, successfully. In Manchester there were whole colonies of young
men—bourgeois or clerks—who lived with girls of this kind, being in many
cases legally married to them and treating them at least as well as a bourgeois
would a woman of his own class. The fact that now and then one of these
girls might take to the bottle in no way distinguished them from their middle-
class counterparts over here, themselves no strangers to the habit. Indeed,
some of these married girls, having moved to another town where there was
no fear of their running into ‘old acquaintances’, have been introduced into
respectable middle-class society and even into the squirarchy—squires being
the English equivalent of country Junkers—without anyone’s noticing
anything in the least objectionable about them.
It is my belief that, in dealing with this matter, we should above all
consider the interests of the girls themselves as victims of the present social
order, and protect them as far as possible against ending up in the gutter—or
at least not actually force them into the gutter by means of legislation and
police skulduggery as happens throughout the Continent. In this country the
same thing was attempted in a number of garrison towns where controls and
medical examinations were introduced, but it didn’t last long; the only good
thing the social purity people have done has been to agitate against this.
Medical examinations are absolutely worthless. Wherever they were
introduced here, syphilis and gonorrhoea increased. I am convinced that a
police surgeon’s instruments are exceedingly effective in transmitting vene-
real disease, since he would be unlikely to spend time or trouble on disin-
fecting them. Free courses on venereal disease should be made available to
the girls, then most of them would probably take precautions themselves.
Blaschko has sent us an article on medical controlsa in which he is forced to
admit that these are absolutely useless; if he were to draw the logical
conclusion from his own assumptions, he would be bound to conclude that
prostitution must be freed from all restrictions and the girls be protected
a
A. Blaschko, ‘Die moderne Prostitution’, Die Neue Zeit, Stuttgart, 1891-1892, Vol. II , Nos. 27,
32.
68 Letters- 1892
a
Leonhard Tauscher
Letters- 1892 69
What wouldn’t that jackass Boulanger give for that now if he hadn’t shot
himself! He’d be in clover; indeed, I shouldn’t be surprised if an attempt
were made to find another Boulanger. Fortunately this would not be at all
easy. The monarchy, too, is down on its luck—the Right voted as one man
for the Panama lottery 100 and, what is worse, made propaganda for it in the
rural areas, thus landing philistines and peasants in the cart. The 1,700
million francs that were swallowed up consisted to a very large extent of the
savings of little men (over 800,000 are said to be involved!), hence the wave
of indignation, while the Right (Clerical Monarchists) who at first rejoiced
over the Panama scandal, are now turning coy.
How it will all end is obvious—ultimately in our favour. But in a country
as incalculable as France it is difficult to predict what intermediate stages
there will be. Several, at any rate, before our people really take possession of
the stage. Only if there were to be revolution in Paris would the Socialists
come to power; for in Paris—cf. the Commune—every revolution is
automatically socialist. But Paris is less turbulent than the provinces and that
is a good thing, Paris is blasé, not least because the workers, disunited,
confused and patriotic (in so far as they sense that Paris is—wrongly, or so
they feel—no longer the political hub of the world), can see no way out.
Should the scandals continue, there might be a presidential crisis—Carnot
has at least connived at a lot of dirty work—and whatever happens there will
be parliamentary elections next year. Also a good many municipal elections
in Paris. All this will provide more than enough legal loopholes. On the other
hand, uncertainty as to the reliability of the army (which is new to general
military service and not so hardened to it as Prussia) is a safeguard against
coups d’ état, as is the unarmed state of the masses (who this time could not,
as always before, turn to the National Guard for guns and ammunition)
against attempted uprisings. It therefore seems very probable that the crisis
will take a peaceful course. It’s just what we need, however, if we are to have
time to reap the benefits of Panama—no violent upheavals and time for the
ferment to take effect throughout the country. In the provinces the Marxists
have virtually no rivals; in Paris it is, for the time being, quite
70 Letters- 1892
a
of Capital- b Julie Bebel
Letters-1892 71
38
IN STUTTGART
Dear Baron,
I have been trying to persuade August to cross the Channel this winter, if
only for a few days, and am not without hope of his concurring. Should he do
so, and since he will in any case have to travel via Stuckert,a Ishould be
obliged if you could give him Marx’s old Ms., together with such parts of the
Ms. as you may have already completed. 102 The rest we shall settle at some
future date. For now that there is every prospect of Volume Ill’s long
gestation period at last drawing to its close, it’s important that I should have
the material for Volume IV at my disposal.
You shall have a more detailed reply to your letter shortly—in the
meantime a Happy Christmas and cordial regards from
Your
F. Engels
a
Stuttgart
72 Letters- 1892
39
IN BERLIN
Dear Liebknecht,
A Happy New Year to you, your wifea and your children.
As regards the French, I pointed out to Lafargue more than a week ago
that now’s the time.b However, it’s quite possible that the chaps don’t want
to expend their powder too soon. To begin with, the Panama affair 60 is still in
its early stages, the more important revelations won’t come till after the New
Year, and so far nothing serious has been proven, legally speaking, against
any living parliamentarian; in January, both Radicals 86 and Monarchists may
find themselves well and truly in the soup and then it will be possible to
speak up far more effectually. Secondly, there are, in the Chamber, not only
Marxists but also Blanquists, 20 Allemanists 21 and free lances à la Cluseret—
not to mention complete reprobates such as Lachize and Thivrier who have
latched on to our coat-tails—and, with the socialist groups in Parliament
differing as they do, it would be easy for the others to give them as good as
they got, so to speak. Now an attempt is being made to find a common basis
for action. If this succeeds, as seems probable, it will be easier to get
something done.
I tender this merely as a possible explanation for the chaps’ silence.
In this country we have long had to contend with Bonnier’s enthusiasm.
He fairly peppered us with shot over the May Day business. 54 I drew his
attention to your statement in the Vorwärts in which you said that at
Marseilles you had given the chaps advance notice of what the Germans’
attitude would be on 1 May ‘93, and that they had declared themselves
satisfied.c
So they have no right to complain. I then went on to tell him that, what
with Panama in Paris, the military business in Berlin 76 and a general
industrial crisis into the bargain, there might be something better for us
a
Natalie Liebknecht -b See this volume, pp. 58-59 -c W. Liebknecht, ‘Agitationsbericht Nach
Marseille und zurück’, Vorwärts, No. 239, 12 October 1892.
Letters- 1892 73
Sincerely yours,
Louise Kautsky
40
IN HOBOKEN
Dear Sorge,
Just a line or two before the year ends. Your letters of 18 November and 16
December received—many thanks. Did you get the parcel of books I posted
to you in September, containing the Condition of the Working
a
See this volume, p. 47 - b F. Engels’ nickname
74 Letters- 1892
a
Both works were written by F. Engels. See vols. 4 and 25 of this edition.
Letters- 1892 75
run the dirigeantsa increasingly onto the rocks, but also to allow time for the
scandal and the revelations to do their work in the remotest parts of the
country before the inevitable dissolution of the Chamber and the general
elections which, however, ought not to come too soon.
That things have very nearly got to the point at which our chaps in France
will be the only possible rulers of the state is evident. But it mustn’t happen
too quickly, our people in France being by no means ripe for leadership. As
things are now, it is absolutely impossible to say what intermediate stages
there will be in the meantime. The old Republican parties are compromised
down to the last man, while the Royalists and Clericals, having sold Panama
lottery tickets 100 on a vast scale, have identified themselves with that affair—
if that idiot Boulanger hadn’t shot himself, he would now be cock of the
walk. I should be curious to know whether the old unconscious logic of
French history will again assert itself on this occasion. There are going to be
a great many surprises. If only during the interval in which the air is being
cleared, some general or other doesn’t seize power and foment a war; that is
the only danger.
In Germany the party’s undeviating, irresistible advance proceeds at a
steady pace. Everywhere small successes provide proof of progress. If the
Army Bill 76 is adopted more or less as it stands, there’ll be a new floodtide
of malcontents coming to join our ranks. If the bill is thrown out, there’ll be a
dissolution, a general election, and we shall get at least fifty seats in the
Reichstag which, in a conflict, might often give us the deciding vote. At all
events the struggle, while it may, perhaps, also break out in France, can only
be fought to a finish in Germany. But it’s a good thing that Volume II Ib is
now at last to be completed—not that I can say when that will be. Times are
growing unsettled and the wind is rising.
A very Happy New Year from myself and Mrs Kautsky to you and your
wife,c
Your
F. Engels
First published in: Briefe und Auszüge Printed according to the original
aus Briefen von Joh. Phil. Becker, Jos.
Dietzgen, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx u. Published in English in full for the first time
A. an F. A. Sorge und Andere, Stuttgart,
1906
a
leaders -b of Capital —c Katharina Sorge
Letters-1892 77
41
IN ZURICH
First published in: Buch der Freiheit. Printed according to the original
Gesammelt und herausgegeben von
Karl Henckell, Berlin, 1893 Published in English for the first time
78 Letters- 1893
1893
42
IN MILAN
a
A. Labriola, In memoria del Manifesto dei comunisti - b accept also our Happy New Year
greetings and best wishes - c Ever yours
Letters- 1893 79
43
IN LONDON
44
IN FRANKFURT AM MAIN
means that I should decide upon the sum without any prior agreement or
knowledge of the actual circumstances. What we should offer depends on
altogether too many circumstances of which I am completely ignorant. The
comité in Manchester will surely be sending, or have sent out, some sort of
appeal indicating roughly the amount to be raised, and an initial list of the
first subscriptions, etc., etc. After all, one has got to know all this if one is to
have any idea how high or low one should, or alternately should not, go.
Would you therefore be so good as to inquire from Perkin what has been
done in this respect and, if you think fit, ask him to inform me of it so that
we have some kind of yardstick to go by.
It’s a disgrace that these university chaps should be such jackasses! I even
had to put pressure on Roscoe to get him to write the article for Nature.a And
the Germans—how proud they could be of Schorlemmer! But he didn’t
belong to the you-scratch-my-back-I-scratch-yours clique and that’s why,
now he’s dead, he has to suffer for the fact that he was no Panamite of
academic learning. Panama left, right and centre, nothing but Panama, 60
even in academic chemistry!
Cordial regards to your wife and children, and likewise to yourself, from
Your old friend, F.
Engels
Pumps and her family came to stay over Christmas and the New Year; the
new baby is a very delicate little thing yet, despite the cold, they all got back
safe and sound to Ryde.
45
IN LONDON
F. Engels
46
IN HOBOKEN
a
‘Russische Polizei-Allmacht in Frankreich’, Vorwärts, No. 10, 12 January 1893 (in the running
headline ‘Politische Uebersicht’).
82 Letters- 1893
find them I shall send them on to you. The reason for my failure to put them
in the post was the Bakunin article which in the end I felt bound to answer,
and that meant keeping the numbers here in case of possible controversy. In
the last (13th)a article, which has unfortunately been mislaid—we have just
realised that it has meanwhile been sent to you by Mrs Kautskyb—there is
yet another batch of rubbishy anarchist lies. The author, who gives his
name—one Héritier (a young Genevese, nurtured in the bosom of old J. Ph.
Becker) tries to justify himself even after my answer—mendaciously. Since
he has written to me, I shall reply,c notifying him that, if be does the same
sort of thing in his proposed opus, I shall rap him severely over the knuckles
for it. 49
Over here the Independent Labour Party, 114 about which you will have
read in the Workman’s Times, has held a conference in Bradford. Owing to
their sectarian attitude the Social Democratic Federation, 44 on the one hand,
and the Fabians, 43 on the other, have been unable to absorb the socialist
accretions in the provinces, so that the setting up of a third party was no bad
thing. But now, such is the extent of those accretions—especially in the
industrial districts of the North—that even at this, the first congress, the new
party was more strongly represented than either the Social Democratic
Federation or the Fabians, if not more strongly than both put together. And
since the bulk of its members are undoubtedly first class, since its centre of
gravity lies in the provinces rather than in that hive of intrigue, London, and
its programme is substantially the same as our own, Aveling did right in
joining it and in accepting a position on the Executive. If the petty private
ambitions and intrigues of the London panjandrums can be kept under some
control, and its tactics are not too misguided, the Independent Labour Party
may succeed in enticing away the masses, not only from the Social
Democratic Federation but, in the provinces, also from the Fabians, and thus
enforcing unity.
The Social Democratic Federation has pushed Hyndman completely into
the background. It did so badly as a result of his policy of intrigue that—
thanks to the provincial delegates—Hyndman has been utterly discredited in
the eyes of his own people. An attempt to regain his popularity on the
Unemployed Committee—on which other people sat too—by means of
revolutionary ranting (his personal cowardice being
a
12th in the Ms. — b Engels inserted this afterwards, in the margin. — c See this volume, pp. 85-
86
Letters-1893 83
you on Saturday, though unfortunately too late to catch the post, also sends
her regards.
Your F.E.
47
IN GENEVA
[Draft]
[London,] 20 January 1893
Dear citizen,
It is with sincere satisfaction that I see from your letter of 25 December
that the passage taken from your article on Beckera was distorted in trans-
lation. 49 Indeed, I was amazed when I saw your name at the end of the
article. I had heard you spoken of with truly paternal affection, and the
expressions used in your article on Becker constituted a far too painful
contrast. Unfortunately, you still let the public believe them to be yours, as
the rest of the article also.
As for what you have to say in the Volks-Tribüne concerning my obser-
vations, this in no way changes my opinion. You must know that MM. the
anarchists invented the slander about the conference held in Marx’s house 118
with the sole purpose of proving that Marx wished to secure his own
preponderance by any means, fair or foul. You say that this is his domination
over the delegates. For you this alleged fact is worth being
a
Johann Philipp Becker
86 Letters- 1893
told. However, when I prove that it is false, you say that is a mere detail of
no importance whatsoever.
I have proved the falsehood of your assertion. You said that the London
conference placed the Jurassians under the command of the Geneva Federal
Council. I find that to be the opposite of the truth. You reply: ‘What I said
seems to me today to be the absolute truth. ‘You remind me of good man-
ners, though I do not know in what respect: do you wish me to remind you of
sincerity?
Your No. XII a proves once again that you know almost nothing about
what happened outside the anarchist milieu. Judging by your observations
concerning the Geneva internationals, it would seem to me impossible that
you have seen a complete collection of the Egalité de Genève. If the Geneva
internationals were to some extent infected by petty-bourgeois ideas, they
shared this defect with their adversaries, the anarchists, whom you prefer, yet
who offer only the reverse of the petty-bourgeois coin, and with almost all
the French and Belgian internationals—Proudhonists with few exceptions. Of
all the groups of the Romance languages, only those among the Spanish
supporters of the General Council were Social-Democrats in the present
sense of that term. As for the rest, have those of Geneva proved today that
they are worth more than their predecessors?
In the same No. XII ,a you reproduce a large number of anarchist errors
and lies, and you accord them a faith which, after my warning, should have
lost some of its original naivety. You promise a second work on this same
topic. I hope that, before engaging upon the matter, you will obtain some
documents which shed light on the assertions and machinations of the
anarchists, and which will certainly enable you to judge impartially.
Otherwise you will oblige me to reply again. It is of little importance what
the bourgeois newspapers have to say about the old International, but when
its history is distorted even in party organs this is quite a different matter. All
that I ask of you is that you should not write about a subject without having
studied both sides, the documents on this side and on that. Our worker public
has to snatch from its meals and its sleep the few hours that it can devote to
reading: it therefore has the right to ask that everything we present should be
the result of conscientious work, and not lead to futile controversies that it is
impossible to follow.
a
A mistake in the original. Should read ‘XII I’. The reference is to article XII I.
Letters- 1893 87
48
IN BERLIN
Dear August,
I continue. Aveling’s verbal accounts have reinforced a suspicion pre-
viously entertained by me, namely that Keir Hardie nurtures the secret wish
to lead the new party 114 in the same dictatorial fashion as Parnell led the
Irish, and that his sympathies incline more towards the Conservative than
towards the Liberal opposition party. He has said openly that, come the next
elections, there should be a repetition of Parnell’s experiment whereby he
forced Gladstone to toe the line and that where no Labour candidate can be
put up, people should vote Conservative by way of giving the Liberals a taste
of their power. 120 Now this is a policy which, in certain circumstances, I
myself have demanded of the English, but to proclaim something of this sort
in advance, not as a possible tactical measure, but as tactics to be pursued no
matter what the circumstances smacks strongly of Champion. Especially
when, at the same time, Keir Hardie refers disparagingly to the extension of
the suffrage and other reforms, which alone might be expected to give reality
to working-class suffrage over here, as purely political matters which must
take second place after social demands—eight hours, industrial safety, etc.
Though, renouncing as he does their enforcementhy Labour M.P.s, he fails to
explain how these social demands are to be implemented unless by grace of
the middle classes, or else by means of indirect pressure exerted by Labour’s
casting vote in the elections. I draw your attention to this knotty point in
order that you may be informed should occasion arise. For the time being I
do not attach any particular importance to the matter since at the very
88 Letters- 1893
worst Keir Hardie is likely to err gravely in his estimate of the workers in the
industrial districts of the North of England, who are not a flock of sheep, and
since he will, in any case, encounter opposition enough in the Executive. But
a tendency of this kind ought not to be completely ignored.
I look forward very much to seeing the stenographic report of Singer’s
speech about the Stock Exchange; in the Vorwärts it read quite excellently.a
But in dealing with this subject there is one point which all our chaps tend to
overlook. The Stock Exchange is an institution in which the bourgeois
exploit, not the workers, but one another; the surplus value that changes
hands on the Stock Exchange is already extant surplus value, the product of
past exploitation of labour. Only when that process is complete can it serve
the hanky-panky on the Stock Exchange. To begin with, the Stock Exchange
is merely of indirect interest to us, in the same way as its influence and its
repercussions on the capitalist exploitation of labour are merely indirect and
exerted in a devious way. To suggest that the workers should take a direct
interest in, and wax indignant over, the fleecing on the ‘Change of the
Junkers, manufacturers and petty bourgeois is to suggest that the workers
should resort to arms to protect the possession by their own immediate
exploiters of the surplus value they have filched from those self-same
workers. What an idea! But as the finest fruit of bourgeois society, as the
breeding ground of extreme corruption, as the forcing house of the Panama 60
and other scandals—and hence, too, as a first-class means for the
concentration of capitals, for the disintegration and dissolution of the last
remnants of natural cohesion in bourgeois society and, at the same time, for
the destruction of all obligatory moral concepts and their inversion into their
opposite—as an incomparable element of destruction, as the most powerful
accelerator of impending revolution—in this historical sense the Stock
Exchange is indeed of immediate interest to us.
I see the Centre 71 has moved that there be a stay of prescription for the
period in which the Reichstag suspends prosecutions. Since the Centre is the
dominant party the motion seems likely to be carried. 121 Should this happen,
it would seem to me inappropriate to make the government a gratuitous
present of the above limitation of parliamentary rights without any quid pro
quo. The quid pro quo should consist in the express acknowl-
a
Vorwärts, No. 17, 20 January 1893
Letters- 1893 89
a
Modern name: Trento.
90 Letters- 1893
49
IN LONDON
50
IN STUTTGART
Dear Baron,
Gine has just told me that you are awaiting an answer from me about
Marx’s biography. 130 It had in fact escaped my mind that this was urgent.
Please accept my apologies.
I wouldn’t know what to add to the material you mentioned—unless
perhaps one or two bits from the sketcha in the Handwörterbuch der
Staatswissenschaften that was sent to you. Elster—a cousin of Conrad
Schmidt’s who referred him to me—asked me to write something for him,
which I did, wholly from our own standpoint, all unsuspecting that be would
print it—after he had deleted a few excessively unbourgeois passages. Well,
it’s all one to me.
The matter of the Neue Zeit has, of course, been shelved for the time being
on account of Dietz’s treatment, apart from the fact of your having spoken to
August.b He says it is impossible to revert to a monthly. In which case the
external arrangements will doubtless remain pretty well unaltered—and it is
up to the editors to make the paper more meaty and more amusing for its
readers. At all events it seems to me that any drastic change will have to be
put off until Dietz is fit for work again. And you yourself will in any case be
swamped with a superfluity of good and well-
a
F. Engels, Marx, Heinrich Karl. - b See this volume, pp 49-50, 53-54
92 Letters- 1893
meaning advice regarding your own department, so I shall spare you that.
Tussy is tremendously busy agitating; she has been in the Midlands,
Edinburgh and Aberdeen and is supposed to be coming here today. When I
see her, I shall ask her for some personal reminiscences about Moor. 131
I gave Ede the Brazilian paper, 132 though I told him that the importance of
these South American parties is always in inverse proportion to the
grandiosity of their programmes.
Ede is gradually recovering from his neurasthenia; he has likewise re-
gained his old sprightliness, as is evident from his personal behaviour and
also from his article on Wolf to whom he does too much honour.a I believe
that what he now needs most of all is something to liven and cheer him up in
order that his soundness of judgement may once more gain complete control
over his still somewhat excessive aspirations after justice.
Nothing fresh to report otherwise.—Also and, belatedly, a Happy New
Year to you.
Your F.E.
51
IN BARMEN
-a E. Bernstein, ‘Der neueste Vernichter des Sozialismus’, Die Neue Zeit, Vol. I, Nos. 16, 17,
Stuttgart, 1892/93.
Letters - 1893 93
after my health. Well, I haven’t felt better for a long time, I can again walk
an English mile, I over- rather than under-indulged in good things at
Christmastime, am game for anything and perfectly fit for work and now all
of a sudden I’m supposed to be seriously ill!
I telegraphed back to you immediately. 133 saying I was perfectly hale and
hearty, and this I hereby confirm. Next summer I hope I shall be able to give
all of you visual proof of the fact.
My love to all the relatives, also to Emmaa and your children and
grandchildren and, finally, to you yourself from
Your old
Friedrich
52
IN BERLIN
a
Emma Engels - b See this volume, p. 107 -c F. Engels, ‘Vom italienischen Panama - d of the
Vorwärts — e Antonio Labriola
94 Letters- 1893
Your F.E.
First published in: Printed according to the original
“Marx and Engels, Works,
First Russian Edition, Published in English for the first time
Vol. XXIX, Moscow, 1946
53
IN MILAN
a
‘Das italienische Panama’, Vorwärts, No. 22, 25 January 1893. - b F. Engels, ‘To the Italian
Reader’.
Letters- 1893 95
54
IN MILAN
a
unique of its kind - b F. Engels, ‘To the Italian Reader’, see also Note 108.
% Letters- 1893
of being outdated the very next day. This should explain why what I have
written is not particularly topical.
But where on earth were the socialist, deputies during these decisive
days? Ours in Germany would never be forgiven if they had not been present
at the Colajanni meeting—it would have cost them their mandates!
Yours,
F.E.
55
LONDON
56
IN DRESDEN
[Copy]
London, 7 February 1893
122 Regent’s Park Road, N. W. Dear Comrade,
My best thanks for your kind hope that I should attain my nineties. If I
remained as I am now, I should have no objection but were I, like so many,
to degenerate physically and mentally as well, I would really rather not.
Were that the case, I should prefer to be counted out.
As to your requests regarding Marx’s biography, 140 I am afraid that there
is little I can do to meet them. Moreover I lack the time, being engaged on
the 3rd volume of Capital and unable to take time off from it.
Ada I. There is nothing I can recommend over and above the biographical
material already in your possession. Nothing reliable, at any rate.
Ad II . Marx’s practical activities between 1844 and 1849 were in part
devoted to the working men’s associations, especially the Brussels associa-
tion between 1846 and 1848, and to the League. 141 It is only on these last that
you will find anything in print, namely in our prefaces to the Manifesto
(LATEST Berlin edition, 1892) and in the Revelations Concerning the
Communist Trial along with my introductiona thereto, Zurich edition,
a
as to
98 Letters- 1893
a
F. Engels, On the History of the Communist League. — b W. Eichhoff, Die Internationale
Arbeiterassociation. Ihre Gründung, Organization, politisch-sociale Thätigkeit und Aus
breitung. —c E. E. Fribourg, LAssociation internationale des travailleurs. — d E. de Laveleye, Le
Socialisme contemporain. - e [J.] Zacher, Die Rothe Internationale. - f K. Marx and F. Engels,
Fictitious Splits in the International’and The Alliance of Socialist Democracy and the
International Working Men’s Association.
Letters- 1893 99
Ever yours,
F. Engels
First published in: Marx and Printed according to the copy written by Shmuilov
Engels, Works, First Russian
Edition, Vol. XXIX, Published in English in full for the first time
Moscow, 1946
57
IN BERLIN
a
No. 30 of 4 February 1893 — b A. Bebel, Zukunftsstaat und Sozialdemokratie. Eine Rede des
Reichstagsabgeordneten August Bebel in der Sitzung des deutschen Reichstags vom 3. Februar
1893. — c ‘Der sozialdemokratische ‘Zukunftsstaat’. Verhandlungen des deutschen Reichstags
am 31. Januar, 3., 4., 6. und 7. Februar 1893, veröffentlicht nach dem offiziellen
stenographischen Bericht.
100 Letters- 1893
self for five days on end to social reorganisation in our own sense of the term
and if, on top of that, the said parliament is the German Reichstag, this is a
milestone symbolising yet another victory for the workers’ party. This latter
circumstance has given proof to the whole world, friend and foe alike, of the
triumphant position won by the German party. If things go on like this, we
shall soon be able to exist at no cost of effort to ourselves, on the stupidity of
our opponents alone.
It was obvious that you would have to bear the brunt of the debate. So far
as I can judge, Frohme’s speech did indeed provide some pretext for the
victorious hullabaloo from Richter and Bachern and Hitze, and the business
of Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle ought to be carefully investigated. If what
Hitze asserted is correct, Frohme lacked the competence to quote from them,
but if not, he ought to have made a personal statement in self-vindication. 144
Otherwise everything went off beautifully and Liebknecht ‘s concluding
speech, though indifferent in content, was nevertheless ‘trenchant’ and good
polemically. In short, it has been a triumph. The Witcha was so overjoyed
that yesterday she called me Agnes Pinchpenny, whereupon I drew her
attention to the fact that she was a proper Fidgety Ann, as anyone who knows
her will confirm. She is even worse than the latter, for its not so much her
legs that are fidgety but her brain. 145
There is much to be said for your suggestions as to what the best plan for
the Russians would be in case of war. 146 But don’t forget that if the
overthrow of France would be intolerable to Russia, the suppression of
Germany would be no less so to Italy and England. Every localised war is
more or less subject to control by the neutrals. The next war, if it comes at
all, will not permit of being localised in any way. They—the Continentals at
any rate—would all be drawn in during the first months, it would au-
tomatically begin in the Balkans and England at most might be able to
remain neutral for a time. Your Russian plan, however, presupposes a
localised war and that, given the enormous armies of today and the appalling
consequences for the vanquished, I no longer regard as possible.
In Egypt it is simply a case of the Russians (the French are mere puppets
on strings) making things difficult for the English, and thereby tying up their
troops and fleet as much as possible. If war broke out, Russia would then
have something to offer the English in return for an alliance
a
jocular name for Louise Kautsky
Letters-1893 101
a
Der deutsch-französische Krieg 1870-71. Redigirt von der Kriegsgeschichtlichen Abteilung
des Großen Generalstabes. Part 1, Vol. 1, p. 341, Berlin, 1874.
102 Letters- 1893
so the dancing cannot have started before 1 o’clock. She herself always
speaks of dancing with a condescension more appropriate to someone many
years her senior, and if she is to dance a waltz you yourself will doubtless
have to lead her onto the floor. In which case I’m by no means so certain that
her Viennese blood might not reassert its rights.
In the next (February) No., now at the printers, the Polish Przedswit,
which comes out here, will contain the following item: 150 At Grajewo, on the
East Prussian border, there is a junior Russian official by the name of
Spatzek, a Bohemian by birth, who is employed on translating way-bills.
Despite his wretched wage he makes long journeys, some of them as far as
Constantinople, leads a fast life, frequently enters Prussian territory on the
pretext of hunting and is very friendly with Landrat von der Gröbben of Lyck
who provides him with a vast quantity of hunting and other travel permits.
When the frontier was closed on account of cholera, nobody was allowed
across, but Mr Spatzek along with his wife and H-n, another Russian official
suspected of spying, were able to travel to Königsberg without hindrance. In
the opinion of people on the far side of the border this gadding about on
German territory is purely and simply for the purpose of spying out the outer
forts sited between the East Prussian lakes, on which occasions our overwise
Prussian Landrat is only too pleased to be made use of by his Russo-
Bohemian friend. The arrogant Prussian bureaucrats are everywhere easily
taken in.
Moreover the Russian troops on the border were not long ago the recip-
ients of a whole load of literature, to wit numerous copies of a pamphlet by
Alexandrov, a lieutenant in the artillery in Tashkent, On the causes and
necessity of the impending war.a One copy has been issued to each company
in order that the officers may duly enlighten their men.
Perhaps you might be able to make use of this information in your private
conversations with the people on the Military Committee.
Over here Keir Hardie has moved an amendment on the subject of
unemployment 151 to the Address (Reply to the Speech from the Throneb) in
Parliament. In itself this was quite a good thing. But Keir Hardie committed
two colossal blunders. 1. The amendment was formulated quite unnecessarily
as a direct vote of censure on the government, so that its acceptance would
have forced the government to resign and thus the whole thing was
tantamount to a Tory manoeuvre, 2. he chose to be seconded by
a
A. H. Aleksandrov, [original text in Russian]. - b by Queen Victoria
Letters- 1893 103
- a See this volume, p. 87 - b John Lister -c William Rawson Shaw - d Alfred Arnold - e Joseph
Woodhead — f Joseph Crosland
104 Letters-1893
making things hotter each day for the Liberals. Up till now progress has been
splendid and Gladstone will have to capitulate to the workers. Most
important of all are the political measures, namely the extension of the
franchise for working men by implementing what is presently on paper and
which would increase the Labour vote by 50 per cent, the curtailment of the
duration of Parliament (now seven years!) and the payment of electoral
expenses and M.P.’s salaries out of public funds.
Meanwhile these fresh successes scored by an independent policy are
bound to increase the working man’s self-esteem and tell him that virtually
everywhere the fate of the elections, and hence of each government, lies in
his hands. That is the most important part: self-confidence and self-reliance
on the part of the class. It will also tide them over all the miserable little
intrigues which are simply the result of the masses’ lack of confidence in
themselves. Once we have a body of working men that really moves en
masse, the crafty manoeuvrings of those worthies the leaders will cease, for
they will do them more harm than good.
Louise’s letter went off at 5.30 p.m. by the night boat. This is going off at
9 p.m., i.e. by the first day boat. Perhaps you would tell us at what time each
of them arrives so that we know which post is the best.
Once again warm regards to your wife and yourself from Louise and
Your F.E.
58
AT LE PERREUX
a
Kautsky - b medicinal herbs
106 Letters- 1893
trollable by them, but from our point of view that is the very reason why he
should speak. Are the Socialists, just before the elections. 156 by their silence
to create the suspicion that they are no better than the Panamitards and have
reasons of their own to screen them and to hush the whole thing up? In Italy
that is the case, the couple of men elected in the Romagna (as Socialists) are
in the hands of the government through the subventions paid by the latter to
the so-called cooperative societies directed by the former, and which
subventions as likely as not come out of the coffers of the Banca Romana.
That accounts for their silence. 106 But in France!?! I can assure you, this
unaccountable silence has not raised the respect in which the French
Socialists are held abroad. Of course, Brousse and Co. have had their share
out of the secret funds furnished by Panama—but is not that a reason more
for our people to speak out? Formerly à la guerre comme à la guerre was a
French proverb, is it still so?
According to Mother Crawford, the severe sentences on the Lesseps and
Co. are mere dust thrown into the eyes of the gogosa—the Court of Cassation
will quench them, 157 on the ground that the Prinet instruction did not
interrupt prescription, and that therefore the délits en question sont prescrits.b
If that turns out to be the case, then it means that the ‘knowing ones’, ceux
qui ont touchéc are bold enough to tell all France that she is a gogo all over.
That would be se moquer du mondé with a vengeance.
Well, I hope the popular wrath will be roused at last, and vengeance taken.
It’s getting time.
Bebel shall send you his speech of the 3rd February in the Stenogramm. It
is really splendid, and you may find it very useful for the Socialiste. 158 Our
people have had the Reichstag all to themselves for a fortnight. First the
Notstandsdebatte,e 3 days, and all parties, from the government downwards,
imploring our men to use their power to smooth matters down with the
striking colliers, etc. 159 Then the colossal blunder of the bourgeois to
provoke our people to a debate on the future organisation of society—this
lasted five days! 143 —the first time the subject as been discussed in any
parliament. And only three speakers on our side at all—Bebel spoke twice,
Frohme and Liebknecht—and the bourgeois had to leave us the last word
and give it up in despair (for we could stop the clôturef by a simple count
out, there never being the quorum of 201 present).
a
simpletons -b misdemeanours in question are prescribed -c those who made something out of it
- d to cock a snock at public opinion - c emergency debate - f closure
Letters- 1893 107
59
IN BERLIN
a
See this volume, pp. 92-93 - b in such an extreme state of failing strength that my demise was
hourly awaited — c Out taenia go!
108 Letters- 1893
business. Come to that, it has been published in Polish in the February issue
of Przedswit.a
If Wachs is tall, he’s not the right chap. He was, so far as I can remember,
about the same size as yourself, with brown hair. But where all these waxen
majors come from, I cannot conceive.b
The Witchc has just finished, so I must fall in and await orders—warm
regards to your wife and yourself,
Your F. E.
60
IN ST. PETERSBURG
a
See this volume, p. 102 - b A play of words in the original: the name Wachs is derived from the
word ‘wächsern’ meaning ‘waxen’. See this volume, p. 101 - c jocular name for Louise Kautsky
- a of Marx’s Capital -c editing
110 Letters- 1893
upon a very difficult subject too, but as far as I recollect the Ms.a is far more
finished than that of Section V. So that I still hope to be able to complete my
task in the allotted time. The great difficulty was, to get 3-5 months absolute
freedom from all interruption, so as to devote the whole time to Section V,
and that is now fortunately done. In working, I have often thought of the
immense pleasure this volume will give to you when it appears. I shall send
you advance-sheets as I did for Vol. II .
Maintenant revenons à nos moutons.b
We seem to be agreed upon all points except one, which you tackle in
both your letters of 3d October and 27 January, though in each from a
different point of view.
In the first you ask: was the economic change, which after 1854 had
become unavoidable, 166 of such a nature that it must, instead of developing
the historical institutions of Russia, on the contrary attack them in their root?
In other words, could not the rural commune be taken for the basis of the
new economic development?
And, January 27th, you express the same idea in this form: the grande
industriec had become a necessity for Russia, but was it unavoidable that it
was developed in a capitalistic form?
Well, in, or about, 1854 Russia started with the commune on the one hand,
and the necessity of the grande industrie on the other. Now, if you take the
whole state of your country into account, as it was at that date, do you see
any possibility of the grande industrie being grafted on the peasants’
commune in a form which would, on the one hand, make the development
ofthat grande industrie possible, and on the other hand raise the primitive
commune to the rank of a social institution superior to anything the world
has yet seen? And that while the whole Occidentd was still living under the
capitalist régime?. It strikes me that such an evolution, which would have
surpassed anything known in history, required other economical, political
and intellectual conditions than were present at that time in Russia.
No doubt the commune and to a certain extent the artel, contained germs
which under certain conditions might have developed and saved Russia the
necessity of passing through the torments of the capitalistic ré-
a
of Section VI (see present edition, Vol. 37) - b Literally: let’s return to our muttons; an
expression from the French medieval farce, meaning: let’s return to the subject of our
conversation. - c large-scale industry - d West
Letters- 1893 111
gime. I fully subscribe to our author’s letter about Zhukovsky.a But in his, as
well as in my opinion, the first condition required to bring this about, was the
impulse from without, the change of economic system in the Occident of
Europe, the destruction of the capitalist system in the countries where it had
originated. Our author said in a certain preface to a certain old manifesto, in
January 1882, replying to the question whether the Russian commune might
not be the starting-point of a higher social developmentb: if the change of
economic system in Russia coincides with a change of economic system in
the West—so that the two complement each other, the present Russian
common ownership of land may serve as the starting-point for communist
development.c
If we in the West had been quicker in our own economic development, if
we had been able to upset the capitalistic regime some ten or twenty years
ago, there might have been time yet for Russia to cut short the tendency of
her own evolution towards capitalism. Unfortunately we are too slow, and
those economic consequences of the capitalistic system which must bring it
up to the critical point, are only just now developing in the various countries
about us: while England is fast losing her industrial monopoly, France and
Germany are approaching the industrial level of England, and America bids
fair to drive them all out of the world’s market both for industrial and for
agricultural produce. The introduction of an, at least relative, free trade policy
in America is sure to complete the ruin of England’s industrial monopoly,
and to destroy, at the same time, the industrial export trade of Germany and
France; then the crisis must come, tout ce qu’il y a de plus fin de siècle.d But
in the meantime, with you, the commune fades away, and we can only hope
that the change to a better system, with us, may come soon enough to save, at
least in some of the remoter portions of your country, institutions which may,
under these circumstances, be called upon to fulfil a great future, But facts
are facts, and we must not forget that these chances are getting less and less
every year.
For the rest I grant you that the circumstance of Russia being the last
country seized upon by the grande capitalist grande industrie, and at the
a
The reference is to the letter Marx wrote to the editors of the Otechestvenniye Zapiski (see
present edition, Vol. 24, pp. 196-201). - b K. Marx and F. Engels, ‘Preface to the Second Russian
Edition of the Manifesto of the Communist Party (see present edition, Vol. 24, p. 426). - c Phrase
in Russian in the original. - a which signifies better than anything else the end of the world
112 Letters- 1893
same time the country with by far the largest peasant population, are such as
must render the bouleversement 3 caused by this economic change, more
acute than it has been anywhere else. The process of replacing some 500,000
landowners,b and some 80 million peasants by a new class of bourgeois
landed proprietors cannot be carried out but under fearful sufferings and
convulsions. But history is about the most cruel of all goddesses,b and she
leads her triumphal car over heaps of corpses, not only in war, but also in
‘peaceful’ economic development. And we men and women are
unfortunately so stupid that we never can pluck up courage to a real progress
unless urged to it by sufferings that seem almost out of proportion.
Always yours
P. W. R. 167
61
AT LE PERREUX
thusiasm for the republic—with a small r; since it has been written with a
capital R, it seems worthless, save as an almost obsolete historical stage.
Your speech was very good and I regret only one thing: that it was not
delivered two months ago. 168 But better late than never.a It doesn’t surprise
me that the Chamber and the press found it ill-timed; if we were to wait upon
their placetb we should never open our mouths. As for the Millerand & Co.
Radical Socialists, it is absolutely essential that the alliance with them should
be based on the fact that our Party is a separate Party, and that they recognise
that. 169 Which in no way rules out joint action in the forthcoming elections,
provided that the distribution of seats to be jointly contested is made in
accordance with the actual state of the respective forces; those gentlemen are
in the habit of claiming the lion’s share.
Do not let the fact that your speeches in the Chamber do not create as
much stir as formerly discourage you. Look at our people in Germany: they
were booed for years on end, and now the 36 dominate the Reichstag. Bebel
writes saying: if we were eighty or a hundred (out of 400 members), the
Reichstag would become an impossibility. There is not a debate, no matter
what the subject, in which we do not intervene and we are listened to by all
the parties. The debate on the socialist organisation of the future lasted five
days, 143 and Bebel’s speechc was wanted in three and a half million copies.
Now they are having the whole debate published in pamphlets’ 1 at five sous,
and the effect, already tremendous, will be doubled!
You are absolutely right to prepare for the elections. We ought to conquer
at least 20 seats. You have the immense advantage of knowing, from the
municipal elections, the minimum extent of your strength in each locality; for
I am sure that, since last May, you have appreciably increased it. 170 That will
help you greatly in distributing candidatures between yourselves and the
Radical Socialists. But possibly you would prefer to put up your candidates
wherever you stand a chance, with the proviso to withdraw them, if
necessary, in favour of the Radicals, for the second ballot, in the event of the
latter having polled more votes.
The most important thing in the elections is to establish once and for
a
See this volume, pp.105-06 - b invitation - c A. Bebel, Zukunftsstaad und Sozialdemokratie.
Eine Rede des Reichstagsabgeordneten August Bebel in der Sitzung des deutschen Reichstags
vom 3. Februar, 1893. - d Der sozialdemokratische ‘Zukunftsstaat’ Verhandlungen des
Deutschen Reichstags am 31. Januar, 3., 4., 6. und 7. Februar 1893 Veröffentlicht nach dem
offiziellen stenographischen bericht.
114 Letters- 1893
all that it is our Party which represents socialism in France, and that all the
other more or less socialist fractions—Broussists, 30 Allemanists, 21 and pure
or impure Blanquists 20—have been able to play a part beside us only by
virtue of the dissensions incidental to the more or less infantile phase of the
proletarian movement; but that now the stage of infantile disorders is over,
and the French proletariat has reached full consciousness of its historic
position. Should we win 20 seats, all the others combined will not have as
many, since they are more likely to lose some than to gain any. In which case
things will go forward. In the meantime, nurse your re-election: I have a
feeling that your absences from the Chamber have not contributed any too
much to ensure it.
Panama 60 is not finished, not by a long chalk. And it is a disgrace that the
trouble and honour of making disclosures should be left to the Royalists and
their dubious allies. They could not have a better battle cry than: Down with
the robbers, and if the great mass of the stupid countryside takes their part
against the Republicans, it is to the cowardice of the Radical Republicans 86
that they will owe this triumph. You say that the republic is not in danger,
that the deputies have returned from the recess with this certainty; well, then,
they should strike for all they are worth and not let themselves be confused
with the robbers by their silence. You are quite right: the political ineptitude
of the whole bourgeoisie defies the imagination.
The only country where the bourgeoisie still has a little common sense is
England. Here the formation of the Independent Labour Party 114(though still
in embryo) and its conduct in the Lancashire and Yorkshire electionsa have
put a match to the government’s backside; it is stirring itself, doing things
unheard-of for a Liberal Government. The Registration Bill 162 unifies the
suffrage for all parliamentary, municipal, etc., elections, 2) adds at least 20 to
30 per cent to the working-class vote, 3) removes the cost of election
expenses from the candidates’ shoulders and places it on those of the
government. The payment of an honorarium to M.P.s is promised for the next
session; and there are also a whole number of juridical and economic
measures for the benefit of workers. In short, the Liberals recognise that, to
make sure of governing at the present time, they can do nothing but increase
the political power of the working class who will naturally kick them out
afterwards.
a
See this volume, pp.82-3, 87
Letters- 1893 115
The Tories, on the other hand, are behaving at the moment with un-
bounded stupidity. But once Home Rule 171 is on the Statute Book, they will
realise that there is nothing for it but to enter the lists to gain power, and to
that end there remains but one means: to win the working-class vote by
political or economic concessions; thus Liberals and Conservatives cannot
help extending the power of the working class, and hastening the time which
will eliminate both the one and the other.
Amongst the workers here, things are going well. They begin to realise
their strength more and more, and that there is only one way of using it,
namely, by forming an independent party.
At the same time international feeling gains ground. In short, things are
going well everywhere.
In Germany the dissolution of the Reichstag is always a possibility 76 ;
however, it lacks probability; everyone, apart from us, is afraid of it. We
should win 50 to 60 seats.
On March 26th there will be an international conference at Brussels for the
Zurich Congress. 172 Shall you go to it?
GOOD RIDDANCE TO YOUR TAENIA, and look after your bowels; I was go-
ing to make AN IRISH BULL by saying: they are the sinews of war!
Ever Yours,
F. Engels
62
AT LE PERREUX
prove it. In my last letter I not only did not put the principal subject in the
body of the letter, but not even in the postscript, and have now to send it in a
separate note.
And this is, about your silver wedding here on the 2nd of April. You know
you have promised, and I keep you to your word. Now as it is as likely as
not, or rather more likely, that Paul will have to go to the Brussels
Conference, March 26th, 172 would it not be the best if you came direct from
Paris about the same time he goes to Brussels and left him to come over from
thence? Unless you prefer going with him and having a look at your native
place which I am told has much improved in order to show itself worthy of
the honour you conferred on it.
Anyhow it seems to me that it is getting time to make some preparations
for the happy event, and so, not being able, or rather having forgotten to add
this postscript to my last letter to you, I now tack it to the letter for Paul and
hope you will take it into your most serious consideration and let us know
your pleasure as soon as may be convenient.
Love from Louise and
Your ancient admirer F.
Engels
63
IN LONDON
64
IN CHARLOTTENBURG—BERLIN
a
Engelbert Pernerstorfer - b F. Engels, ‘Can Europe Disarm?
118 Letters- 1893
65
IN MILAN
a
K. Marx, ‘General Rules and Administrative Regulations of the International Working Men’s
Association’. - b K. Marx, ‘Inaugural Address of the Working Men’s International Association’.
Letters- 1893 119
66
IN BAIRD (TEXAS)
67
AT LE PERREUX
My dear Laura,
Well, that was a pleasant letter of yours. So we expect you as early as
possiblea in the course of next week, and once here, we shall not let you
cross the Channel again under, at least, a fortnight or three weeks; even if
the ‘honourable member’b could not be spared from his agitating tour for so
long.
We shall return on Fridayc to London. On Saturday Louise and I have both
promised to speak at the joint Commune Celebration of the Verein 62 and
Bloomsbury Society 181—a joint festival, though I’d rather have a good
butcher’s joint. The Sunday following is the Brussels Conference 172—that is
to say the second Sunday following, viz. the 26th; you do not say whether
Paul will be there though it would be very important, on account of certain
intrigues carried on by the old clique Hyndman-Brousse-Allemane,
supported, for the time being, by Seidel, the secretary of the Zurich
Committee 182 ; evidently a last attempt is going to be made by this bro-
kendown lot to prepare for themselves a more favourable position at the
Congress. From Brussels, Bebel 183 is almost certain to come to London for a
few days and maybe Liebknecht too.
Now I should be uncommonly glad to have Paul and Bebel here together
for a few days in order to do away once for all with certain French prejudices
against Bebel who is by far the best man we have in Germany, in spite of
what the French may consider his Teutonic rudeness. So you see I have a
special interest of a political character, besides the personal one, in your
showing up here early in the week.
I do not at all object to a tour de France made by Paul in an organised
electoral campaign; on the contrary I consider it a capital move. But a
a
See this volume, p. 116 - b Paul Lafargue - c 17 March - d journey in France -
Letters- 1893 121
deputy after all has certain duties in the Chamber, especially in this Panama 60
time, and as every election depends, after all, on the votes of a goodly
number of plus ou moins indifferent philistines, it struck me that his re-
election might be put in jeopardy by his neglect of his parliamentary
functions. Indeed I have heard something to that effect hinted at. And when I
saw his continued absence during some very important moments of the
Panama crisis, I could not help thinking that he was losing some very
important chances, and that all this could be brought up against him. Apres
tout,b it would be too much generosity on his part to prepare seats for others
and lose his own. If you were as strong in France as our people in Germany,
where above twenty seats belong to us almost et par droit de conquête et par
droit de naissance,c then it would be different, but then such violent
campaigns would not be required either.
To-day is Mohr’s dying day, and just the tenth anniversary. Well, in strict
confidence I can tell you, that the 3rd volumed is as good as ready. The most
difficult section, Banks and Credit, 33 is finished; only two more sections
remain, of which only one (Rent of Land)e may offer some formal difficulties.
But all that remains to be done is mere child’s play to what I had to do. Now
I need no longer fear interruptions. What I had not been able to get before
this last winter, was 4-5 months clear of such interruptions; now I’ve had
them and the thing is as good as done. Only don’t tell anyone, as I cannot yet
fix the time, within a couple of months, when the Manuscript can go to the
printer’s.
As to what you say of Jaurès, that fills me with terror. Normalien et ami,
sinon protégé, de Malonf—which of the two is worse? And yet, neither of
them is a qualification equal to the superiority of a man who can write in
Latin on the origin of German Socialism.g
Now then I must close. The sooner we hear from you in London about the
day of your arrival and the earlier you fix that date, the better. Ainsi donc, au
revoir,h from Louise and
your old
F. Engels
a
more or less apathetic - b after all - c both by right of conquest and by birthright - d of Capital-e
Section VI (see present edition, Vol. 37) -f Malon’s fellow-student and friend, if not protégé - g J.
Jaurès, De primis socialismi germanici lineamentis apud Lutherum, Kant, Fichte et Hegel. —h
Thus, till we meet.
122 Letters- 1893
68
IN LONDON
183
We are expecting Bebel on Monday or Tuesday, and M. and Mme
Lafargue a few days later.
First Published in: Printed according to the original
Marx and Engels, Works,
First Russian Edition Translated from the French
Vol. XXIX, Moscow, 1946 Published in English for the first time
a
Stanislaw Mendelson - b 18 March
Letters- 1893 123
69
IN CHICAGO
[Draft]
Eastbourne, middle of March 1893
Dear Sir,
I have duly received your two favors of 3/2 and 9/3 with enclosures. I
very much regret that I shall not be able either to assist personally at your
Congresses 185 or to supply the papers you ask me for. I should send them to
you with the greatest pleasure, were it not that all my time is at present taken
up with the manuscript of the third book of my late friend Karl Marx’s great
work on Capital, which I am preparing for publication. This third book ought
to have been out years ago; but never until now could I secure that continued
freedom from interruption which alone will enable me to finish my task. I
have been compelled to decline all outside work, though ever so tempting,
unless absolutely necessary. By the time your congress meets, the MS ought
to go to press, but this could not be, were I to accede to your request. For the
work you ask me to do ought not to be journalistic commonplace; it ought to
be the very best I can furnish, it would require mature study and thought; and
that means a considerable amount of time, which for the reasons given, I am
not in a position to sacrifice.
I have, however, forwarded you per bookpost a copy of the English edi-
tion of the Communist Manifesto of 1848 (by K. Marx and myself) and
another of my Socialism: Utopian and Scientifica published a few months
ago, as a small tribute which I hope may prove of interest to some members
of your Labor Congress.
a
translated by E. Aveling and published in London in 1892
124 Letters- 1893
70
IN HOBOKEN
a
of Capital
Letters- 1893 125
is the fact that the old sects are losing ground and having to fall into line, The
Social Democratic Federation 44 has actually deposed Mr Hyndman; every so
often he is allowed to do a little grumbling and grousing about international
politics in Justice, but he is finished, HIS OWN PEOPLE HAVE FOUND HIM OUT.
For the space of ten years the man lost no opportunity of provoking me
personally and politically, and I never did him the honour of replying, in the
conviction that he himself was man enough to effect his own ruin; eventually
I was proved right. After a whole decade of carping they recently invited
Tussy to write reports on the international movement for Justice, an
invitation she naturally declined pending the public retraction of the infamous
calumnies of herself and Aveling which Justice has for years been the
vehicle.
The same thing is happening where the Fabians 43 are concerned. As in the
case of the Social Democratic Federation, their own branches in the
provinces have outgrown them; in this, as in the Chartist movement,
Lancashire and Yorkshire are again taking the lead. Men like Sidney Webb,
Bernard Shaw, etc., who WANTED TO PERMEATE THE LIBERALS WITH
SOCIALISM, must now submit to being permeated BY THE SPIRIT OF THE
WORKINGMEN MEMBERS OF THEIR OWN SOCIETY. They fret and fume but IT’S
NO USE—either they remain on their own, officers without soldiers, or they
conform. The first seems more likely and is also more desirable.
The Independent Labour Party 114—as the latest arrival—has brought with
it fewer ingrained prejudices, contains good elements, the working men of
the North being the arbiters, and to that extent is the most genuine expression
of the present movement, True, there are amongst the leaders all kinds of odd
individuals and even many of the best, as in America where you are, have
acquired the parliamentary system’s deplorable habit of cliquism, but they
have the support of the masses who will either teach them how to behave or
throw them overboard. They still make blunders and plenty of them, but the
worst perils are over and I now look for rapid progress which will not be
without its repercussions in America.
In Germany the situation has almost reached crisis point. According to the
last reports on the sessions of the Military Committee a compromise would
hardly seem possible. 76 The government is making it impossible for the
gentlemen of the Centre 71 and the Free Thinkers 149 to change sides,a and a
majority cannot be obtained without 40 or 50 of their number. So
a
See this volume, p. 101
126 Letters- 1893
there’ll be a dissolution and new elections. If all goes well, I reckon that we
shall get 2 1/2 million votes, for our numbers have grown like mad. Bebel’s
estimate is 50 or 60 seats, for the geography of the constituencies is not in
our favour and all the others band together against us so that, in the second
ballot, we cannot convert even substantial minorities into majorities. I would
rather that things carried on as they are until 1895 when we should be able to
make an impact of a very different order, but no matter what happens
everything, from Richter to Little Willy,a must needs help us on our way.
A young man from Texas, F. Wiesen of Baird, wanted me to make a
statement deploring the nomination of candidates ‘for President’ as a denial
of the revolutionary principle, since the intention was to abolish the
Presidency, I sent him the enclosed answer.b Should a garbled Version be
made public, be so good as to get the Volkszeitung to print this.
I trust you and your wife are now enjoying better health. Warm regards to
you both from Mrs Kautsky and
Your
F. Engels
We have sent you the debate on the future organization of society. 143
Newspapers may have been somewhat irregular while we were away, but
should be complete.
First published, slightly abridged, in: Stuttgart, 1906 and, in full, in English,
Briefe und Auszüge aus Briefen von Joh. in Science and Society, Vol. II ,
Phil. Becker, Jos. Dietzgen, Friedrich Engels, No. 3, New York, 1938
Karl Marx u. A. an F. A. Sorge und Andere,
Printed according to the original
a
William II - b See this volume, p. 119
Letters- 1893 127
71
IN STUTTGART
a
F. Leßner, ‘Erinnerungen eines Arbeiters an Karl Marx. Zu dessen zehnjährigem Todestage, 14.
März 1893’, Die Neue Zeit, No, 24, Stuttgart, 1892/93. - b of Capital - c C. Schmidt, ‘Die
Durchschnittsprofitrate und das Marx’sche Werthgesetz’, Die Neue Zeit, Nos. 3, 4, Stuttgart,
1892/93. - d H. Lande, ‘Mehrwerth und Profit. Ein ökonomischer Versuch’, Die Neue Zeit, Nos.
19, 20, Stuttgart, 1892/93. -e G. Stiebeling, Das Problem der Durchschnitts=Profitrate. Kritik
einer Kritik mit einem Nachtrag. — f See this volume, pp. 92-93, 107
128 Letters- 1893
been overcome. I am now on renta which may take up yet more time, so I
still can’t say when. This is between ourselves.
Had I known that you were still prepared to continue working on the
Theories of Surplus Valued, 102 I should have let you keep it, but having
heard nothing for years and as I need the Ms. occasionally for purposes of
comparison in connection with Vol. II I, I wrote asking you for it. In view of
your other activities there would, after all, have probably been considerable
uncertainty about when you might be done with this and subsequent
instalments.b We shall settle this account shortly.
The manifold plans regarding the Neue Zeit would seem to have been
consigned to oblivion—let us hope it will carry on, even without such violent
revolutions, But it still seems to me that the fundamental shortcoming lies in
the fact that the contents are aimed at one kind of reader, while the price is
based on another.c
Over here the movement is making excellent progress. The danger of
sectarianism—presented both by the Social Democratic Federation 44 and by
the Fabians 43—has been largely averted; the Independent Labour Party 114
will either absorb them or spur them on and get rid of their useless leaders.
The masses, especially in the North, in the industrial areas, are finally and
indubitably on the move. Blunders and dirty tricks there will still be in
plenty, but that can be dealt with. The day before yesterday Aveling was in
Manchester where the Executive of the Independent Labour Party were
holding their first meeting. The resolutions were quite satisfactory. Aveling
was chosen to represent it in Brussels 172 and later also in Zurich, 56 along
with Keir Hardie and Shaw Maxwell. No doubt you will be hearing more
from Ede. (This is in confidence, of course; I don’t know what the chaps
intend to publish.)
Kindest regards.
Your F.E.
a
Section VI, Capital, Vol. II I (see present edition, Vol. 37) - b See Engels, letter to K. Kautsky
of 24 December 1892 (present edition, Vol. 49) and this volume, p. 71 - c See this volume, p. 50
Letters- 1893 129
72
AT LE PERREUX
a
See this volume, pp. 117-123 - b in German Silbermannssohn (Silvermanson) - c nothing less
— d unique number - e Organising Commission of the May Day Demonstration—this silvery
Argyriades is not like Cadet Rousselle, a man with three hairs, but a man with three addresses. - f
friendships, enmities and neutralities
130 Letters- 1893
73
IN VIENNA
Yours truly, F.
Engels
First published, slightly abridged, in: Friedrich Engels, Wien, 1922 Printed
Karel Marx a Bedrich Engels,
Komunisticky manifest, Vidén, 1893 and, according to the text of the book
in full, in the book: Victor Adlers
Aufsätze Reden und Briefe. Erstes Heft: Published in English the first time
Victor Adler und
Letters - 1893 131
74
IN BERLIN
a
Paul Lafargue
132 Letters- 1893
And now for yet another matter. August had taken it into his head to return
on Monday.a But over the past ten years or so Easter Monday has become a
proper holiday over here—one of the four so-called Bank Holidays. 190 It is a
real popular festival. That being the case, all the railways are busy with extra
trains and excursion parties, all the stations are filled to overflowing and all
the regular trains are neglected by the management, since what matters is the
extra profit. These Bank Holidays are the only days in the year when it is
somewhat dangerous to travel on English trains, and consequently no one
travels on those days unless he has to. We therefore implored August to
abandon his plan and not leave until Tuesday, which he has promised to do. I
am positive you will agree that he shouldn’t travel on a day when arrivals
and departures are never punctual and when all the accidents that didn’t
occur during the previous three months have a habit of occurring all on one
day.
And now I shall take a hearty swig in honour of your coming visit—for
we are at this moment enjoying our morning glass of ale.
With warm regards,
Yours,
F. Engels
75
IN PARIS
[Draft]
[London,] 8 April 1893b
Dear Comrade,
I have kept your letter of 21/3 on one side for some time. Lafargue and
Mrs Lafargue were on the point of coming over here and I therefore
a
3 April - b 1892 in the Ms.
Letters- 1893 133
76
I am glad your life as a surveyor suits you so very well. It must be a great
relief to you after the boring work in the office and in the corn exchange of
East Riding. I would like it for a short time too, but only for a short time. In
the long run, I couldn’t live without the hum of a big town. I have always
lived in big cities. Nature is wonderful. I have always liked going back to her
as a change from the movement of history, but History, after all, seems even
more wonderful than Nature to me. It took Nature millions of years to
produce conscious beings and now it takes these conscious beings thousands
of years to act together consciously; conscious not only of their actions as
individuals, but also of their actions as a mass; acting together, and effecting
in common a common purpose, willed by them in advance. That end we are
now on the point of attaining. And to watch this process, this approaching
accomplishment of a thing never before attained in the history of our earth,
seems to me a spectacle worth looking at, and for the whole of my past life I
have been unable to turn my eyes away from it. However, it is tiring,
especially if you believe you are called upon to co-operate in the process;
and then the study of Nature comes in as a grand relief and remedy. For after
all, Nature and History are the two components in which we live, move and
have our being.
Kind remembrance from all friends here.
Ever yours F.
Engels
77
IN BERLIN
78
IN PARIS
a
F. Engels - b Le Socialiste
136 Letters- 1893
succeed in getting a small, compact column 156 into the Palais Bourbon which
will establish once and for all, and without any possibility of mis-
understanding, the nature of French socialism, so that all the disparate
elements are obliged to rally around it.
Only then will the French socialists be able to recover throughout the
world the standing that is theirs by right, and the important position that they
must occupy in the general interest.
Yours sincerely,
F. Engels
79
AT LE PERREUX
a
negative
Letters- 1893 137
2. The title I have no objection to, not knowing what you may have
proposed or might prefer. I leave that, like the rest, entirely in your hands.
3. The proof-sheets are no use to me. I write to him 25 that I sent his letter
to you, to settle all points, and that I shall be quite satisfied if he sends the
proofs to you.
I returned last night from Manchester, where I assisted at the funeral of
poor Gumpert (he was cremated). He fell ill, as you heard while here, last
December of angina pectoris, which, brought on embolism of the brain with
partial paralysis, and succumbed last Thursdaya to a fresh attack, after fearful
sufferings.
May Day here is as confused as in Paris. The Eight Hours Committee and
the Trades Council 197 are sure to have a separate demonstration each. And in
this critical period Aveling falls ill, the Hull Dock Strike 198 intervenes and
may lead to a general Dock and Shipping Strike all over the kingdom, giving
Tussy more to do than she can manage—so that nobody knows how matters
will go.
I hope you received Louise’sb letter sent on Saturday,c and I hope more-
over soon to learn that you have got over your fit of influenza.
Salut au citoyen Représentant,d if he is about.
Love from Louise and from
Yours affectionately F.
Engels
a
20 April - b Kautsky - c 22 April - d Greetings to the citizen deputy (Paul Lafargue)
138 Letters- 1893
80
IN DARMSTADT
a
24 April
Letters- 1893 139
men of the Centre 71 and the Free Thinkers 149—who are bent on com-
promise—could consent to without imperilling the existence of their parties.
I would rather that the dissolution were postponed until 1895; by that time
we shall occupy a very different position and may become the crucial party
in the Reichstag. One way or the other, we’re bound to benefit by it.
At Easter, or rather on Good Friday,a a German member of the
Reichstag—Bebel—a French deputy—Lafargue—and an English member of
parliament—Burns—Socialists all three—met for the first time at my house.
A historical milestone too.
With sincere regards from Mrs Kautsky and myself
Yours,
F. Engels
81
IN MADRID
[Draft]
London, April 1893
Dear friend Iglesias,
I cannot answer your letter without first complaining of your addressing
me formally with usted. I don’t think I have deserved this. We are old
members of the International and have been fighting side by side, for over
twenty years in the same battles. When I was your Secretary for Spain, your
people did me the honour of addressing me informally with tu,b and so I ask
you to go on in the same way.
Enclosed herewith are a few linesc for your May issue,d I have written
a
31 March -b an equivalent of French vous and tu -c F. Engels, ‘To the Spanish Workers —on the
First of May 1893’. -d El Socialism
140 Letters- 1893
82
IN HOBOKEN
In short, all I can say is that such material as I have on the International
a
W. Eichhoff, Die Internationale Arbeiterassociation... (see present edition, Vol. 21, pp. 361-
62).
Letters- 1893 141
a
Johann Philipp Becker - b of Capital- c Sections VI and VII (see present edition, Vol. 37) - d
Interview of Frederick Engels to the correspondent of Le Figaro on 11 May 1893
142 Letters- 1893
supposing our opponents’ candidate sticks to his guns over the military
question. 76 Bebel hopes for 50 or 60 seats in all. 204
The atmosphere in Germany has changed a lot and, though the bourgeois
press may still vociferate as loudly as ever, the respect our people now
command in the Reichstag has gained for them a position very different from
before. Nor is it possible for anyone to turn a blind eye to the ever-growing
might of the party. If, at the next elections, we again show a marked increase,
respect may grow on the one hand but so, on the other, will fear. And the
latter will drive the worthy philistines of one accord into the government
camp.
The May Day celebrations over here were very nice, but although they
only happen once a year, they are already becoming almost a routine affair;
they have lost their first bloom. Once again the narrow outlook of the Trades
Council 197 and of the socialist sects—Fabians 43 and Social Democratic
Federation 44—has led to our having two demonstrations. But everything
went according to plan and we—the Eight Hour Day Committee—drew a far
bigger crowd than the combined opposition. Our international platform, 205 in
particular, was very well attended. I would estimate that there were in all
240,000 people in the park, of whom we had 140,000 and the opposition
100,000 at the outside.
Champion, with his TORY and LIBERAL UNIONIST funds 206 (allegedly £100
for each of the 100 working-class candidates agreeing to stand in hopeless
constituencies merely in order to deprive the Liberals of votes), has been
made a thorough fool of by our old friend Maltman Barry. This blockhead, if
Scottish speculator, has joined the Tories of whom, by his own admission,a
he is the paid agent, and would seem to have been planted alongside
Champion, whom the fund-dispensing Tories do not altogether trust, as a
sleeping partner and watchdog—what the Jesuits call a socius. Thus, during
Champion’s illness, he was sole editor of the Labour Elector, and told such
improbable tales out of school that he quite spoiled his own little game, thus
temporarily saving the Independent Labour Party 114 from becoming the
pawn of the aforesaid gentry. Unfortunately Aveling has been seriously ill
for a month now; in view of the constant caballing that goes on here, he
cannot well be spared. He has gone to Hastings 207 to recuperate for a while.
If we should poll a considerably larger number of votes in Germany, this
a
See this Volume, p. 84
Letters- 1893 143
will have a favourable effect on the elections this autumn in France. 208 If our
people there get a dozen men into the Chamber (they are counting on getting
four seats in the Département du Nord alone), it will mean they’ll have a
nucleus there that will be strong enough to compel the Blanquists 20 and
Allemanists 21 to join forces with them.
I am glad that your wife and you are better again. Warm regards to her
and to yourself from L. Kautsky and
Your
F. Engels
83
IN PARIS
a
The title of the book, Outlines of Our Post-Reform Economy, is written by Engels in Russian.
144 Letters- 1893
84
IN CHICAGO
a
I. A. Hourwich, The Economics of the Russian Village.
Letters- 1893 145
85
IN CHICAGO
original brutal energy and moves onwards with a moderated step; even in
France and Germany, this is to a certain degree the case also; it is only in
industrially young countries like America and Russia, that capital gives full
fling to the recklessness of its greed. The consolation, however, lies in this:
that by this very recklessness it hurries on the development of the immense
resources of these young countries, and thereby prepares the period when a
better system of production will be able to take the place of the old.
In America, at least, I am strongly inclined to believe that the fatal hour of
capitalism will have struck as soon as a native American working class will
have replaced a working class composed in its majority by foreign
immigrants.
Yours very faithfully
Fred. Engels
86
IN STUTTGART
a
E. Westermarck, The History of Human Marriage. — b É. Reclus, Les primitifs....
148 Letters- 1893
a
Long live the end of the century! -b Franz Mehring
Letters- 1893 149
87
IN LONDON
[Draft]
[London, beginning of June 1893]
Dear Sir,
I regret that I am unable to comply with your request. 216
In the first place, it so happens that my party comrades in Germany are
conducting an election campaign against, among others, anti-Semitic
candidates, 217 which means that at this juncture party interests preclude my
expressing an impartial opinion about anti-Semitism.
In the second place, I believe that my party comrades in Vienna and in
Austria generally would never forgive me were I to allow myself to be
interviewed for the Deutsche Zeitung.
I remain, Sir, etc.
88
IN MILAN
a
‘Kiss me, my sweetheart’—’tomorrow’. A play on words: ‘domani’ means ‘tomorrow’ and
Domanico is a surname. - b See next letter.
Letters-1893 151
89
IN PRATO (TOSCANA)
[Draft]
[London,] 7 June 1893
Dear citizen,a
In reply to your kind letter of the 2nd of this month, I wish to thank you for
letting me know of your intention to publish an Italian edition of Marx’s
Capital. 218
But before answering your various questions, I have to know who is going
to make translation and how, as this work is very difficult and demands of
the translator both a profound knowledge of the German and of political
economy.
The translation from the French edition alone wouldn’t be perfect as the
Italian suits more the philosophic style of the author.
I believe that the necessary means will be found to complete the work of
such great importance and to publish a new edition that would be up to the
contents of the book.
Sincerely
Yours,
F. E.
First published in: Marx and Translated from the Italian Published in
Engels, Works, First Russian
Edition, Vol. XXIX, English for the first time
Moscow, 1946
a
In Engels’ draft this phrase is missing. He inserted it in the copy of this letter intended for
Turati (see previous letter).
152 Letters-1893
90
IN GENEVA
Yours sincerely,
F. Engels
a
F. Engels, ‘To the Editorial Board of the Bulgarian Social-Demokrat’. - b Sevlievo is written by
Engels in Bulgarian.
Letters- 1893 153
91
IN PARIS
92
AT LE PERREUX
as you approve of. 195 That was one of the reasons why I did not lay great
weight on having the proofs here: once the matter mise en page,a it is
difficult to insert alterations which necessitate either the cutting out, or the
putting in, of a line or a few lines; at least in Germany I have had many a
hard fight about the extra expence arising therefrom, and Mister
Sonnenschein is careful to insert, in the agreement, a precise limit of what
such alterations may cost extra. As to your two objects: to have a faithful
translation, and one that should read as an original work, you have certainly
attained them both and I am longing to read myself—without keeping one
eye constantly on misprints and formal matters—again in your French: when
I read it I said to Louise there is only one man in and about Paris that knows
French, and that one is neither French nor a man but Laura.
As to the Alsatian Rave I’ll forgive him his Alsatianism in consideration
of his working-class countrymen; the 12,000 Muhausenb votes for Bueb, the
6,200 Strasburg ones for Bebel (who is almost sure to get in there) and the
3,200 Metz ones for Liebknecht, besides odds and ends all over the country.
Bebel who has been there several times lately is quite in love with the
Alsatian working men and with the country altogether, although at Strasburg
last Sunday fortnight they nearly smothered him bodily with their
enthusiasm in Hammerle’s beer-garden.
Our elections went off glorious. 204 In 1890—20 seats, now 24 carried at
the first assault; in 1890—about 60 ballottages, this time 85. Of seats we lost
two and gained six new ones; of the 85 ballots, there are 38 in which, in
1890, we did not get into the ballot (only the two candidates with the highest
number of votes are admitted to ballot); and of the 85, there are also 38 in
which we have chances (in the remaining 47 we are in a hopeless minority,
unless miracles happen) and out of these 38 we may reasonably expect 25
successful elections. But the gap caused by the complete break-up of the
Radical (Freisinnige) Partei 223 has created such a state of confusion that we
must be prepared for a series of surprises; amongst the Radicals, party
discipline has ceased to exist and the people in each locality will just act as
they think fit. By bringing up our full strength at second ballot by the
assistance of the bourgeois democrats in South Germany and of the mutual
jealousies and bickerings of the other parties, we shall be able to come up
again to the old complement of 36,
a
is set up - b French name: Mulhouse
Letters- 1893 155
so that only for an increase above that number we shall be dependent on the
active assistance of Radicals, Anti-Semites 217 and Catholics, 71 that is to say
upon the strong anti-military current which pervades the peasantry and petty-
bourgeois class.
But the number of seats is a very secondary consideration. The principal
one is the increase of votes, and that is sure to be considerable. Only we shall
not know it until the full official returns are placed before the Reichstag; the
most important part of that increase will consist in the— relatively small—
number of votes cast in entirely new, remote country places, showing the
hold we are beginning to take of those rural districts which were hitherto
inaccessible to us and without which we cannot expect to be victorious.
When they are all counted up, I still believe we shall have something like 2
1/4 million votes, more than has ever been cast for any other party in
Germany.
Altogether, the effect has been stunning upon the whole of the German
and English bourgeois press. And well it may be. Such a steady, unbroken,
resistless progress of a party has never been seen in any country. And the
best of it is that our increase of 1893 involves—by the extent and variety of
the newly broken ground it shows—the certain promise of a far greater
increase at the next general election.
The new departure of the parti ouvriera with regard to ‘patriotism’ is very
rational in itself 1’; international union can exist only between nations, whose
existence, autonomy and independence as to internal matters is therefore
included in the very term of internationality. And the pressure of the pseudo-
patriots, sooner or later, was certain to provoke an utterance of this kind,
even without the alliance with Millerand and Jaurès 169 who no doubt have
also urged the necessity of such an act. Guesde’s interview in the Figaro 224
is excellent, not a word to be said against it. The address of the Conseil—
here I am interrupted. I shall have to go to the railway station. Mrs. Gumpert
(you know Dr. Gumpert died a short time ago) is going to Germany and on
the way going to stay a few days with us, and I must fetch her from the train.
So I must say good-bye for a day or two, my observations on the address
being of no great importance and no hurry whatever about them. Good luck
to the everlasting traveller.c What a change has come over poor Clemenceau
that even a Déroulède
a
workers’ party; reference to the French Workers’ Party - b See next letter — c Paul Lafargue
156 Letters- 1893
can bull-bait him! 225 Sic transit gloria mundi.a The anti-Semite patriotic
bullies seem to have it all their own way both in France and Germany as far
as the bourgeois are concerned! Love from Louise and your old
Generalb
93
AT LE PERREUX
a
A phrase from the ceremonial speech during the election of the Pope - b jocular name for
Engels
Letters- 1893 157
equal fervour that it will go unnoticed in Germany. This is why: they are not
grave matters, but I believe I should draw your attention to them to make
sure you avoid them next time.
I don’t want to speak of your use of the word patriot, of what you define
as the only ‘true’ patriots.
That word has a limited meaning-or else such a vague one, depending on
circumstances-that for my part I should never dare to apply that title to
myself. I have spoken to non-Germans as a German, in the same way as I
speak to Germans as a pure Internationalist; I think you could have achieved
a greater effect if you had simply called yourself French—which is a
statement of fact, a fact including the logical consequences which flow from
it. But no matter, it’s a question of style.
You are again perfectly right in extolling France’s revolutionary past, and
to believe that its revolutionary past will find response in its socialist future.
But it seems to me that, having reached that point, you incline a little too far
towards Blanquism, i.e., towards the theory that France is destined to play the
same role in the proletarian revolution (not merely that of initiator but also
that of leader) as it played in the bourgeois revolution of 1789-98. This is
contrary to the economic and political facts of today. The industrial
development of France has lagged behind that of England; at this juncture it
is behind that of Germany which has made giant strides since 1860; the
working-class movement in France today cannot be compared to that of
Germany. But it is not the French, nor the Germans, nor the British who, by
themselves, will win the glory of having crushed capitalism; if France—
PERHAPS—gives the signal, it will be in Germany, the country most
profoundly influenced by socialism and where the theory has the most deeply
penetrated the masses—where the fight will be settled, and even then neither
France nor Germany will ensure final victory so long as England remains in
the hands of the bourgeoisie. Proletarian emancipation can be only an
international deed; if you try to turn it into a purely French deed you are
making it impossible. The exclusively French leadership of the bourgeois
revolution—albeit inevitable, thanks to the stupidity and cowardice of the
other nations—led to—do you know what?—to Napoleon, to conquest, to the
invasion of the Holy Alliance. To try and assign the same role to France in
the future is to distort the international proletarian movement, as, indeed, the
Blanquists do, and make France look ridiculous, for beyond your frontiers
such pretensions are made fun of.
158 Letters- 1893
How you in Paris would laugh if the Belgians spoke of Belgium at ITS
immortal Brussels Congress of 1891, 228 or Switzerland at ITS immortal
Zurich Congress! 229 Furthermore, the actions of these congresses are actions
neither French, Belgian nor yet Swiss, but international.
Then you say:
the French Workers’ Party 11 is at one with German Social-Democracy against the
German Empire, with the Belgian Workers’ Party 230 against the Cobourg monarchy, with the
Italians against the Savoy monarchy, etc., etc.
There would be nothing against all that if you had added: and all these
parties are at one with us against the bourgeois Republic which oppresses us,
Panamises us and ties us to the Russian tsar. After all, your Republic was
made by old Williama and Bismarck; it is quite as bourgeois as any of our
monarchist governments, and you mustn’t suppose that with the cry of ‘Long
live the Republic’ on the day after Panama, 60 you will find a single supporter
in the whole of Europe. The republican form is no more than the simple
negation of monarchy—and the overthrow of the monarchy will be
accomplished simply as a corollary to revolution; in Germany the bourgeois
parties are so bankrupt that we shall pass at once from monarchy to the social
republic. Hence you cannot go on opposing your bourgeois republic to the
monarchies as something to which other nations should aspire. Your republic
and our monarchies are all one in relation to the proletariatb; if you help us
against our monarchist bourgeois, we shall help you against your republican
bourgeois. It’s a case of reciprocity and by no means the deliverance of the
downtrodden Monarchists by the great-hearted French Republicans; this
doesn’t tally with the international outlook and even less with the historical
situation which has brought your republic to the feet of the tsar. Don’t forget
that, if France makes war on Germany in the interests and with the help of the
tsar, it is Germany which will be the revolutionary centre.
But there is another very regrettable affair. You are
‘at one with German Social-Democracy against the German Empire’.
a
William I — b The following phrase is crossed out in the manuscript: ‘and if one is to speak
about alliance and international unity, it is necessary for this...’
Letters-1893 159
This has been translated in the bourgeois press as gegen das deutsche
Reich’.a And that is what everybody will see in it. For Empire means ‘Reich’
as well as ‘Kaisertum’ (imperial regime); but in ‘Reich’ the emphasis is laid
on the central power as representing national unity, and for this, the political
condition of their existence, the German Socialists would fight to the end.
Never would we wish to reduce Germany to the pre-1866 state of division
and impotence. Had you said against the emperor, or against the imperial
regime, no one could have said much, although poor Williamb is hardly of a
stature to deserve being honoured in this way; it is the owning class,
landlords and capitalists, which is the enemy; and that is so clearly
understood in Germany that our workmen will not understand the meaning of
your offer to help them to defeat the crackpot of Berlin.
So I have asked Liebknecht not to mention your declaration insofar as the
bourgeois papers do not do so; but if, based upon this unfortunate expression,
there were attacks on our people as traitors, it would give rise to a rather
painful argument.
To sum up: a little more reciprocity could do no harm—equality between
nations is as necessary as that between individuals.
On the other hand, your manner of speaking of the republic as a desirable
thing in itself for the proletariat, and of France as the chosen people, prevents
you mentioning the—unpleasant but undeniable—fact of the Russian
alliance, or rather the Russian vassalage.
Well, that’s enough, I think. I hope I have convinced you that in the first
flush of your renascent patriotism you have overshot the mark a little. Not
that it is very important and I hope the thing will go by without raising a
dust, but should it recur it might lead to unpleasant controversies. Your
published documents, though intended for France, must also PASS MUSTER
abroad. If it comes to that, our worthy Germans have not always been correct
either, in all their expressions.
As for the German elections, I am prouder of the defeats than of the
successes. We have lost Stuttgart by a minority of 128 votes out of 31,000
electors, Lübeck by 154 out of 20,000, and so on. On this occasion all the
parties formed a coalition against us; even the democrats of the South, who
left us in the lurch at Stuttgart, at Mannheim, at Pforzheim, at Speyer and
voted for us only in Frankfurt. What we won we owe—for the first time—
entirely to our own strength. Consequently the 44 seats are worth ten times
a
against the German Reich - b William II
160 Letters- 1893
more than 100 won with the help of the liberals and democrats.
Liberalism has completely abdicated in Germany. There is no real
opposition outside our Party. William will have his soldiers, his taxes and—
his Socialists in the army and outside the army, in ever-growing numbers.
The final figure of the socialist votes will not be known for 10-15 days;
Bebel thinks it will not be above 2 million; the season was against us, many
workers are scattered in the countryside during the summer and omitted from
the register, he estimates the resulting deficit for us at more than 100,000
votes.
The Amiens, amende honorable is splendid! There’s no one like the
French for these strokes of genius against obsolete laws. 231
Love to Laura and to you from Louise. Kiss Laura for me.
Ever yours,
F. E.
94
AT LE PERREUX
ter if all the French socialist fractions unanimously made this request. See
what can be done in this regard, but do it quickly, for
3. The Swiss will have to submit your request to the others and take their
advice—at any rate they will plead that necessity, seeing that Seidel, the
secretary of the committee, 27 is a fanatical anti-Marxist and intrigues with all
our opponents here and in France.
You will have some difficulty in persuading the Blanquists 20 and the two
kinds of Possibilists 30 to support your motion, but it is very important. If the
others are satisfied with the dates 6-12 August, you are hardly likely to
succeed on your own.
Ever yours, in haste,
F. Engels
95
IN MILAN
a
8 July -b See this volume, pp. 149-151
162 Letters- 1893
I noticed that the reverse of the title page carries the legend: proprietà
letteraria,a which will prevent Domanico from using this translation as it
stands. 218 I still have not received any reply from him, perhaps he is begin-
ning to realise the difficulties involved in his undertaking.
The ‘last part’ of which I spoke in my letterb is, of course, from the 2nd
volume, 2nd edition, which will appear closer to September. The 3rd volume is
still giving me trouble, but happily the end is in sight. However, I have not
achieved my goal of finishing this work before my summer holidays. And
that may cause a further delay of several months.
As for the French edition of the 2nd and 3rd volumes, it would be rather
difficult to find the translator they require. It’s a job which a few people
would be willing and capable and persevering to bring to completion. The 2nd
has 500 pages, and the 3rd will have 1,100-1,200.
Poor Martignetti! Is there no way of rescuing him from this benedettoc
hole of Benevento, and finding him some occupation in a place where he
could also learn the literary language of his country? He displays extraor-
dinary assiduity and willingness. He translates for me with a fanaticism
worthy of a better cause; but it seems he has little success in business affairs,
and an unlucky star has followed him everywhere.
Will we see each other in Zurich? 189 Good Lord, if all goes well I might
be able to be in Zurich at least for the last day of the Congress; that is my
plan; however, as it does not entirely depend on me but on a combination of
more or less fortuitous circumstances, it is very uncertain, and we would
both probably do well not to speak of it. If there is something which frightens
me, it is your threat to speak to me en Meneghino.d In 1841 I spoke it
passably well, and understood it perfectly. 219 However, when, about thirty
years later, I found myself at Como 233 for a day or two, I did not understand
a single word; my ear had completely lost the habit. Thus I can say in all
truth that I still speak a few words of your so very expressive dialect, but I
understand nothing at all. As for your French, it is still better than mine, and
in any case nothing prevents you from writing to me in Italian.
Do you read English? If you do, I could send you a newspaper from time
to time.
Salut cordiale
Yours,
F. Engels
a
copyright -b See this volume, p. 151 -c damn -d Milan dialect -e Heartfelt greetings
Letters- 1893 163
96
IN BERLIN
a
‘On Historical Materialism’ - b insight
164 Letters- 1893
Otherwise only one point has been omitted, a point which, however, was
never given sufficient weight by Marx and myself in our work, and in regard
to which we are all equally at fault. For we all of us began, as we were bound
to do, by placing the main emphasis on the derivation of political, legal and
other ideological conceptions, as of the actions induced by those conceptions,
from economic fundamentals. In so doing we neglected the formal in favour
of the substantial aspect, i.e. the manner in which the said conceptions, etc.,
arise. This provided our opponents with a welcome pretext for
misinterpretation, not to say distortion, Paul Barth being a notable case in
point.a
Ideology is a process which is, it is true, carried out consciously by what
we call a thinker, but with a consciousness that is spurious. The actual
motives by which he is impelled remain hidden from him, for otherwise it
would not be an ideological process. Hence the motives he supposes himself
to have are either spurious or illusory. Because it is a mental process, he sees
both its substance and its form as deriving solely from thought—either his
own or that of his predecessors. He works solely with conceptual material
which he automatically assumes to have been engendered by thought without
inquiring whether it might not have some more remote origin unconnected
therewith; indeed, he takes this for granted since, to him, all action is induced
by thought, and therefore appears in the final analysis, to be motivated, by
thought.
The historical ideologist (here historical is used as an omnibus term for
political, legal, philosophical, theological, in short, for all spheres ap-
pertaining to society and not merely to nature)—the historical ideologist,
then, possesses in every sphere of science a material which has originated
independently in the thought of previous generations and has undergone an
independent course of development of its own in the brains of these
successive generations. True, external facts appertaining to one sphere or
another may also have helped to determine that development but according
to what has been tacitly assumed, those facts, themselves are merely the
fruits of a mental process, and thus we still find ourselves in the realm of
pure thought which would appear to have succeeded in assimilating even the
most recalcitrant facts.
What has above all deluded the majority of people is this semblance of
a
P. Barth, Die Geschichtsphilosphie Hegel’s und der Hegelianer bis auf Marx und Hartmann.
Ein Kritischer Versuch.
Letters- 1893 165
For the rest I can only remark of this book what I said more than once
about the articles when they appeared in the Neue Zeit, namely that it is by
far the best account of the genesis of the Prussian state that exists, indeed I
might even say the only good one, being in most cases an accurate and
minutely detailed exposition of correlations. One can only regret that, while
you were about it, you did not feel able to include the whole course of events
up till Bismarck; nor can one help hoping that you may some day do so and
present the whole picture, from the Elector Frederick William to old
William,a in context. You have, after all, already done the preliminary studies
which you have all but completed at any rate so far as the essentials are
concerned. And, after all, it has got to be done some time, before the rickety
contraption collapses. The exploding of the monarchist-patriotic myths, if not
exactly a necessary prerequisite for the elimination of that bulwark of class
rule, the monarchy (a purely bourgeois republic in Germany having already
become an anachronism before it has ever existed) is nevertheless one of the
most effective means to that end.
You would then also be better off as regards space and opportunity when
you come to depict local Prussian history as part of the whole German
misère. This is a matter upon which my views differ here and there from your
own, notably as regards the conditions responsible for the dismemberment of
Germany and the failure of the German bourgeois revolution in the 16th
century. If I get round to revising the introduction to my Peasant War, as I
hope to do next winter, I shall be able to enlarge on the points in question. 235
Not that I consider those you adduce to be incorrect, but I should include
some others and marshal them rather differently.
I have always found, when studying German history—which is one long,
continuous misère—that a true perspective can only be obtained by
comparing it with the same periods in France, because what happens there is
the exact opposite of what happens in Germany. There we have the
establishment of the national state from the disjecta of the feudal state at the
very time of our worst decline. There, a rare kind of objective logic
permeates the whole course of events; in our case, a barren and ever more
barren haphazardness. There, the English conqueror of the Middle Ages, who
intervenes in favour of the Provençal nationality as opposed to North French
nationality, represents foreign intervention; the English wars are, as it were,
the equivalent of the Thirty Years’ War
a
William I - b scattered members
Letters- 1893 167
which, however, ended with the ejection of foreign intervention and the
subjection of the South by the North. Next comes the struggle between the
central power and its Burgundian vassal,a supported by his foreign
possessions and playing the part of Brandenburg-Prussia, a struggle which,
however, ends in victory for the central power and puts the seal on the
establishment of the national state. 236 And at the selfsame time in Germany,
the national state (in so far as the ‘German Kingdom’ within the Holy Roman
Empire can be called a national state) collapses completely, and the
wholesale plundering of German territory begins. It is a comparison that is
exceedingly humiliating to Germans, but all the more instructive for that, and
now that our working men have again placed Germany in the van of the
historical movement, it may be somewhat easier for us to swallow the
ignominy of the past.
But what is of particular significance so far as developments in Germany
are concerned is the fact that the two member states, which eventually
partitioned the whole of the country between them, were neither of them
purely German but were colonies on captured Slav territory—Austria a
Bavarian, and Brandenburg a Saxon, colony; also the fact that they acquired
power in Germany only with the support of foreign, non-German
possessions—Austria with that of Hungary (not to mention Bohemia),
Brandenburg with that of Prussia. Nothing of the kind happened on the
western frontier, more at risk than anywhere else; on the northern frontier it
was left to the Danes to protect Germany against the Danes, while in the
South there was so little to protect that the frontier guards, the Swiss, were
actually able to detach themselves from Germany!
But I am divagating—my loquacity can, at any rate, serve you as proof of
the extent to which your book has stimulated me.
Once again, many thanks and warm regards from
Yours,
F. Engels
First published abridged in: F. Mehring, First Russian Edition Vol. XXIX, Moscow,
Geschichte der Deutschen 1946
Sozialdemokratie, Bd. II I, Th. II ,
Stuttgart, 1898 and in full in: Marx and Printed according to the original
Engels, Works,
97
Dear Mr Meyer,
It is, I agree, quite interesting that those worthies the Conservatives should
believe (desire) that Caprivi might destroy Social-Democracy. 238 Just let him
try. A new Anti-Socialist Law 15 can only strengthen the party in proportion
to the individual existences it destroys. Anyone who has got the better of
Bismarck need have no fear of his successor. Any attempt to abolish or
tamper with universal suffrage will revive the old oracle: ‘If you cross the
Halys, Croesus, you will destroy a great empire.’ If Caprivi does away with
universal suffrage he will destroy a great empire, namely that of the
Hohenzollerns.
So you have found violations of the theory and practice of agriculture in
Bebel’s Fraua? Well, it is scarcely possible to provide a critique of today’s
wasteful and generally uneconomic management of agriculture and industry,
along with tips as to how, given the social order that automatically arises out
of economic conditions, this could be done differently and better, and at the
same time as to how, given shorter working-hours for each individual,
production could be significantly increased—all this, I say, is scarcely
possible without exposing oneself to attack by people with a practical
knowledge of one branch or another. Hence Bebel is obviously either
expressing himself badly or has failed to understand his authority when he
says that the yield of a cornfield can be increased threefold or more by fully
exploiting the protein content of gluten. There can be no question of that. I
could point to a dozen or more minor inaccuracies of a like nature, but they
don’t affect the main issue.
Similarly in the case of the transport of meat from regions overseas.
Hitherto enough has been available for shipment in one form or another to
Europe. But with growing demand and a growing tendency to change over
from pasture-land to arable—in those regions too—this is bound to
a
A . Bebel, Die Frau und der Sozialismus, Chapter 22.
Letters-1893 169
reach a peak before long and then decline. Whether it comes about a few
decades sooner or later is largely immaterial.
However, the main objection you raise is that work on the land cannot be
done by industrial labour and that in agriculture the reduction of the working-
day to a uniform period throughout the year is impossible. Here you have
misunderstood Bebel the turner.
So far as hours of work are concerned, there is nothing to prevent us from
taking on at seed or harvest time, or whenever a quick supply of extra labour
is needed, as many workers as may be required. Assuming an eight-hour day,
we can put on two, even three, shifts a day, Even if each man were to work
only two hours a day—in this special employment—eight, nine or ten shifts
could be put on in succession, once we had a sufficiency of people trained in
the work. And that and nothing else is what Bebel is saying. Similarly, in
industry one wouldn’t be so thick-headed, assuming a two-hour shift
engaged, say, in spinning, as to keep increasing the number of spindles until
each spindle produced what was required of it when run for two hours.
Rather, one would keep the spindles running for between ten and twelve
hours, while the operatives would only work for two, a new shift being put on
every two hours.
Now as to your objection about the poor town dwellers who are spoiled for
agricultural work for life, you may very well be right. I readily admit my
inability to plough, sow, reap, or even lift potatoes, but luckily we have in
Germany so huge a rural population that by intelligent management we could
without more ado drastically reduce each man’s working hours and still
retain supernumeraries. Supposing we turned the whole of Germany over to
farms of between 2,000 and 3,000 morgensa—more or less, depending upon
natural conditions—and introduced machinery and every modern
improvement, would we not then have more than enough skilled labour
amongst the agricultural population? But obviously there is not enough work
on the land to keep that population busy throughout the year. Large numbers
would idle away much of their time if we didn’t employ them in industry,
just as Our industrial workers would waste away physically if they were
denied the opportunity of working in the open air and particularly on the
land. I agree that the present grown-up generation may not be up to it. But we
can train young people to that end. If, for several successive years, the lads
and lasses were to go into the
a
0,25 ha
170 Letters- 1893
country in summer when there is something for them to do, how many terms
would they have to spend cramming before being awarded their doctorates in
ploughing, harvesting, etc.? You are surely not suggesting that a man should
spend his whole life doing nothing else, that, like our peasants, he should
work himself silly before he acquires some useful knowledge of agriculture?
And that and that alone is what I infer from Bebel’s book when he says
that production itself, as also a person’s training, both physical and mental, can be
brought to its highest level only when the old division of labour between town and country,
between agriculture and industry, has been done away with.
a
vicious circle
Letters- 1893 171
Yours,
Friedrich Engels
98
AT LE PERREUX
a
First of all - b L’Ere nouvelle
172 Letters- 1893
a
off-print - b Lafargue, Le matérialisme économique de Karl Marx. - c unpredictable - d Labour
Exchange 29 - e Hermann Engels
Letters- 1893 173
99
IN MILAN
of infringement of copyright against this book, then there is even less chance
of anyone trying something of the kind.
Thus it is ridiculous, unless the legislation in Italy is wholly out of line.
However, as the Code Napoléon has served as the basis for civil legislation
in almost the whole of Western Europe, I do not think I am mistaken to see
the case from this point of view.
What is amusing is the affrontery of these gentlemen: ‘we purchased from
the heirs to this property, etc’ Clearly they have succeeded in this on other
occasions.
As for Zurich, the situation is still as it was when I last wrote to youa; let
us all hope for the best!
Greetings to Mme Anna and yourself from Mme Kautsky and from yours
truly,
F. Engels
100
IN BERLIN
a
See this volume, p. 162
Letters- 1893 175
comrades in arms, it takes our thoughts back to the old days, to the old
battles and assaults, to the defeats at the beginning and the eventual victories
we have experienced together, and we rejoice that in our advancing years we
have not been destined to remain in the self-same breach—after all, we have
long since gone over from the defence to a general attack— but rather to
advance together in the same line of battle. Yes, old man, many are the
assaults we have been in together and I hope we’ll be in more of them to
come including, if all goes well, the one which, if it does not bring the final
victory, will nevertheless make that victory a foregone conclusion.
Fortunately both of us can keep our spirit up and both of us are spry for our
age, so why shouldn’t we manage to do so?
Bebel will be giving you and your wife on our behalf—Louise Kautsky’s
and mine—a small memento of your celebration, which I trust you will
kindly accept and remember us by.
With cordial regards and good wishes from
Your
F. Engels
101
IN BERLIN
Yours ever, F.
Engels
In company with the Avelings and other friends we shall drink a toast to you both with a
‘68 port next Sunday.b Your very good health!!
From your
Louise Kautsky
a
Karl and Theodor -b 23 July
Letters- 1893 177
102
IN COPENHAGEN
Your
F. Engels
First published, in the language of the
original (German), in: Meddelelser om Printed according to the original Published in English
Forskning i Arbejderbevaegelsens
Historie, No. 11, Copenhagen, October for the first time
1973
103
IN DARMSTADT
That is all. I must close, for there were visitors between 10 and 4 and I
didn’t have a minute to myself.
Many regards to you and your family.
Yours,
F. Engels
104
a
Elsbeth Engels
Letters - 1893 179
ery third house used to be an ‘inn’; here, however, there are three inns to
every two houses. The Beusts live in very pleasing style with a wonderful
view from a gigantic balcony big enough to hold a ball on. Anna Beust is
very well preserved and one of the most beautiful old women in existence,
besides being witty and vivacious, clever, energetic and resolute; it is a
pleasure to be with her. Her son Fritz is in charge of the school, while the
other, Adolf, has a very good medical practice; both have nice wives and two
noisy, lively boys apiece. Adolf lives at home and Fritz close by in a house
he has built.
Next week I shall probably go into the mountains for a while with Bebel.
However I shall be back in about a week or so, and round about the 3rd, 4th or
5th of September we are leaving for Munich and Vienna.
At the Congress 56 there were three or four Russian women with really
lovely eyes, somewhat reminiscent of your sister-in-law Berta’sa when I saw
her in Altenahr years ago. But my real sweetheart was a truly delightful
Viennese factory girl,b charming of countenance and engaging of manner,
such as one rarely comes across. I shall never forgive Bismarck for having
excluded Austria from Germany, if only because of the Viennese women.
From what they tell me here, the Hotel Bellevue is not one of the best. I
hope it nevertheless suited you all right. Let me know sometime how you got
on. With much love to Emma,c Elsbeth, Walterd and you yourself from your
old ‘weed that never dies’.
Friedrich
By the way, you might also pay a call on Anna Beust. She has not set eyes
on or heard from you for ages.
a
Berta Croon - b Adelheid Dworak -c Emma Engels - d Walter Engels
180 Letters- 1893
105
AT LE PERREUX
Merkurstr. 6, Zürich-Höttingen
21 August 1893
My dear Löhr,
I have been in Switzerland for some weeks. 189 Louise, Dr. Freyberger and
I left August 1st via Hook of Holland, met Bebel and his wife at Cologne,
passed one night at Mainz, the next at Strasburg, the third at Zürich. Thence I
went to Thusis in Graubünden where I met my brother 11and family and
stayed a week, returned to Zürich just in time for the closing of the congress
and am now staying with my cousin Mrs. Beust.
As to the elections of yesterday, 208 we are in complete uncertainty and
shall be so until this afternoon—no papers being published in Zürich on
Monday mornings. So anything to be said on that subject must be delayed
until end of this letter.
I found Germany completely metamorphosed. Steam chimneys all over
the country, but where I passed, not numerous enough over a small district,
to create a nuisance by their smoke. Cologne and Mainz are transformed.
The old town is there still where it was, but around or aside of it has arisen a
larger and newer town with splendid buildings disposed according to a well-
arranged plan, and with large industrial establishments occupying distinct
quarters so as not to interfere with the aspect or the comfort of the rest.
Cologne has made most progress, having nearly trebled its inhabitants—the
Ring is a splendid street, there is nothing equal to it in all England. Mainz is
growing, but at a slower rate. In Strasburg you see too distinctly the
separation between the old town and the new district formed by university
and government buildings, an external addition, not a natural growth.
Paul naturally will be most curious to hear about Alsace. Well, the French
may rest satisfied. In Strasburg, to my astonishment, I heard nothing but
German spoken. Only once, two girls, Jewesses, who passed me,
a
Hermann Engels
Letters-1893 181
spoke French. But this is very deceptive. A very intelligent young Socialist,
who lives there, told me that as soon as you go outside the city gates, the
people speak, and purposely, nothing but French. In Mülhausen 3 too, he said,
4/5ths of the population, working men and all, speak French. Now this was
not the case before the annexation. 247 Since the railways were opened, the
French language began to spread in the country districts, but even now the
French they speak is to a great extent of their own manufacture. But anyhow
it is French, and shows what the people want. When the annexation took
place, I once said to Mohr: the consequence of all these attempts at
regermanisation will be that more French will be spoken in Alsace than ever
before. And so it has turned out. The peasant and workman stuck to their
German dialect as long as they were Frenchmen; now they do their utmost to
shake it off and speak French instead.
Such arrant fools as these Prussians you never saw. They flattered the
nobility and bourgeois who, they ought to have known, were hopelessly
frenchified, and bullied the peasants and workmen, who, at least in language,
had retained some remnant of German nationality. The country is under the
thumb of maires,** gendarmes, tax-gatherers, appointed by the central
government and mostly imported from abroad, who do as they like and live
among themselves, separated from and detested by the people.
All the old oppressive laws of the French Second Empire 248 are scrupu-
lously maintained and enforced, and sometimes even improved upon by old
ordinances dating from the ancien régime and unearthed by learned
functionaries who have discovered that the revolution has forgotten to state
expressly that they are repealed! Moreover, all the chicanery innate to
Prussian officials, is imported and improved upon. The consequences are
natural. When I asked my friend: then, evidently, if the French by some
chance or other were to return, nine-tenths of the people would receive them
with open arms, he said that was so.
In Strasburg the old bourgeoisie keep quite to themselves and do not mix
in any way with the intruders. With the rest of the people, Bebel is very
popular, wherever he was recognised, they came to the shop doors and
saluted him. You may be sure he will bring the state of things in Alsace
before the Reichstag in a fashion different from that of those asses of
protestataires who seem to rejoice in every fresh measure of oppression,
a
Modern name: Mulhouse. ** Chief executives, Mayors
182 Letters- 1893
for fear the people might get reconciled with the new régime, and who
consequently have lost the best part of their hold on the population. In this
case as in every other, it will turn out that our party is the only one that can
and will do what is really wanted.
(This moment a telegram from Roubaix to Greulich’s house that Guesde
is elected. Hurrah! Hope to hear this afternoon about Paul’s victory. 249
As to the Congress 229 it was a pity that our people had not at least 5-6 men
here. 250 The one effect has been obtained: Blanquists 20 and Allemanists 21
have made themselves eternally ridiculous and contemptible devant le monde
socialiste.a But now this falls on French socialism generally; now the others
speak simply of ‘the French’, and that is very unlucky indeed. Had there been
even a small minority of Marxists, that would not be the case. But if you find
in English and continental socialist papers the French Socialists treated as a
set of chaps who do not know their own minds for two minutes together, and
who will vote by acclamation the greatest piece of nonsense if thereby they
think they can aggravate ‘les allemands’,b You need not be astonished. I have
heard Swiss Socialists (and the German Swiss have very strong French
sympathies) declare that now it was evident that chauvinism was ineradicable
in the French mind, and I had to tell them what things—gall and wormwood
to every chauvinc- had been able to say in French in your Almanac,d without
any bad results anywhere. So you see the fiasco of these spouters falls upon
all France, our people included. And Jaclard with his peevish articles in
Justice makes it worse still. Well, I hope the elections will put us in a
position to show to all Europe that Jaclard and Allemane ne sont pas la
France.e And yet I believe Jaclard voted in very many cases with Bonnier and
the small vanishing minority.
The women were splendidly represented. Besides Louise, Austria sent
little Dworzak, a charming little girl in every respect; I fell quite in love with
her and whenever Labriolaf gave me a chance, eloped with her from the
entanglements of his ponderous conversation. These Viennoises sont des
Parisiennesnées, mais des Parisiennes d’il y a cinquante ans.g Regular
grisettes. Then the Russian women, there were four or five with wonderfully
beautiful leuchtende Augend and there were besides Vera Zasulich and Anna
Kulischoff. Then Clara Zetkin with her enormous capacity for
a
in the eyes of the socialist world - b the Germans -c chauvinist - d F. Engels, ‘Socialism in
Germany’. - e are not France - f Antonio Labriola — g Viennese women are born Parisians, but
the Parisians of 50 years ago - h shining eyes
Letters- 1893 183
work and her slightly hysterical enthusiasm, but I like her very much. She
has ascended the Glärnisch, a mountain full of glaciers, a very severe effort
for a woman of her constitution. Altogether I had the happy lot to fall from
the arms of one into those of the next and so on; Bebel got quite jealous—
he, the man of the ‘Frau’,a thought he alone was entitled to their kisses!
Now I leave a bit of room for this afternoon’s news. The Beust boys wish
to be remembered. Louise is in Austria, Bebel and Bernstein are still here.
By 4th September Bebel and I are off to Vienna, up to then the above address
holds good.
Good luck to Paul!
Ever your old
Generalb
4 p.m. News that Paul is en ballottagec—please say how the chances stand—
and that Ferroul is beaten, and Jourde in ballot. A few lines on the results gen-
erally will be gladly received as bourgeois papers are not to be trusted.
106
IN ST. MORITZ
a
‘Woman’; an allusion to A. Bebel’s work Die Frau und der Sozialismus —b jocular name for
Engels - c is to stand second ballot
184 Letters-1893
107
AT LE PERREUX
we have 8-10 men there, they will form a nucleus strong enough to force the
Blanquists, 20 Possibilists 30 and Independent Socialists to group themselves
around it and thus to prepare a united party. But if we are only 3 or 4, the
other fractions will each be about as strong, and unification will not only be
more difficult, but also have more of the character of a compromise. Therefore
I hope we may enter the Palais Bourbon in full force.
I hope the Socialiste will not bring Guesde’s letter to his electors.a
Whatever may be thought of it in France, outside the border it would sound
simply grotesque. To declare his election a revolution, by which socialism
fait son entrée au Palais Bourbon,b and from which a new era dates for the
world in general, is coming it rather too strong for ordinary mortals.
I enclose a German five mark note, to enable you to telegraph to us the
result of the poll next Sunday. 208 August and I are leaving here on Monday
morningc for Munich and shall stay there over Tuesday. Now by Monday
evening or Tuesday morning at latest we suppose you will have all the results
as far as they interest us. As soon as you can, but not later than Tuesday
afternoon, please telegraph the names of our men and the places for which
they have been returned, and if the money goes so far, any further
information of interest. The telegram to be addressed in German:
Bebel, Hotel Deutscher Kaisert Munich: but the rest had perhaps better be
in French, so as to secure correct sending off.
On Tuesday evening or Wednesday we shall go on to Salzburg, thence to
Vienna where we stay for a few days, and then to Berlin. If you will be good
enough to send some further information by letter to Vienna (where it can be
used for the Arbeiterzeitung) please address to Frau L. Kautsky,
Hirschengasse 46, Oberöbling, Vienna, Austria. (An inner cover is un-
necessary as she will know it is for me.)
And now good luck to all our candidates and to Paul especially! I put little
trust in the promises of opportunists, 87 but I hope that in his case they may
turn out true for once . 252
What benefit has the Millerand-Jaurès alliance 169 brought to us in this
campaign? I am utterly unable here to form a judgment.
Love from yours ever,
F.E.
a
J. Guesde, Letter to the Electors of the 7th Electoral District, Le Socialiste, 26 August 1893. -b
makes its entry into the Palais Bourbon -c 4 September
186 Letters- 1893
108
AT LE PERREUX
My dear Lohr,
Enfin!a Arrived here Saturday night, after 6 days in Vienna and 1 in
Prague 189 (where we met your old adorer Rudolf Meyer). Vienna is an
extremely beautiful town, with glorious boulevards (Ringstrasse), and the
immense square between Rathhaus and—vis-à-vis—new Burgtheater, with
Parliament to the right and University to the left, is unequalled in the world.
But Vienna is too big for its people, they are only beginning to learn the use
of these boulevards; in about 10 years everything will be ten times finer,
because 10 times more alive with people.
Altogether the Continent has undergone a complete revolution since I last
saw it. 254 Everywhere life, activity, development, compared to which
England appears stationary. Of Berlin I have not seen much (not a square
foot as yet of the Berlin I left in 1842, 255 as what I have seen so far, is all
new addition) but it is indeed externally splendid, though, I fear, internally
full of discomfort. Bebel (where Louise and I are staying) has a very pretty
and comfortable floor, but Libraryb where we spent last evening lives in a set
of apartments so awfully arranged by the builder that it horrified me. Here in
Berlin they have invented the ‘Berliner Zimmer’, a room with hardly a trace
of a window, and that is where the Berliners
a
At last! - b jocular name for W. Liebknecht given to him by Marx’s daughters
Letters- 1893 187
spend almost all their time, To the front is the dining-room (best, reserved for
swell occasions) and the salon (even more select and reserved), then the
‘Berliner’ Spelunkea; next a dark corridor, a few bedrooms donnant sur la
cour,b and a kitchen. A sprawling unhomely arrangement, specifically
Berlinerisch (that is bourgeois-berlinerisch): show and even splendour in
front, darkness, discomfort and bad arrangement behind, the front for show
only, the discomfort to be lived in. At all events that is my impression at
present; let us hope it may get mended.
Yesterday we were in the Freie Volksbühne 256—the Lessing Theater, one
of the nicest and best of Berlin had been hired for the occasion. The seats are
drawn for as in a lottery by the subscribers and you see working men and
girls in the stalls and boxes, while bourgeois may be relegated to the gods.
The public is of an attention, a devotion, I might say, an enthusiasm sans
égale.c Not a sign of applause until the curtain falls—then a veritable storm.
But in pathetic scenes—torrents of tears. No wonder the actors prefer this
public to any other. The piece was rather good and the acting far superior to
what I had expected. The Kleinburgereid of old has disappeared from the
German stage, both in the acting and in the character of the pieces. I will
send you a short review of the latter.
In Vienna I had to appear twice before the ‘party’. 257 I am quite enchanted
with them. As lively and as sanguine as the French, but slightly more solid.
The women especially are charming and enthusiastic; they work very hard,
thanks, to a very great extent, to Louise. Adler has done wonders; the tact,
the constant vigilance and activity, with which he holds the party together
(not an easy thing with such lively people as the Viennese), are beyond
praise, and if you consider moreover the difficulties of his private position—
a wife ill with nervous ailments, three children and interminable pecuniary
difficulties arising therefrom—it is almost inconceivable how he can keep his
head above water. And these Austrians—a mixture of all races, Celtic,
Teutonic, Slavonic—are far less manageable than our North Germans.
Library looks very well, collecting the elements of a paunch; his wife
made a Bowie for us with wine and fruit; there was a rather numerous com-
pany. He lives au quatrième and outside Berlin proper, in Charlottenburg,
but his apartment costs him some 1,800 Marks = 2,250 fr.
a
squalid hole - b overlooking the courtyard - c without its equal - d provincialism - e on the fourth
floor
188 Letters- 1893
Louise, Bebel und Frau grüssen euch beide herzlichst.e Your copy of Paul’s
article and Paul’s letter we gave to Adler who used them for his very good
article in the Arbeiter Zeitung. 259
109
IN STUTTGART
a
E. Vaillant, Unité socialiste’ in La Petite République Française, 10 September 1893. - b state of
siege — c That’s Austria all over: despotism mitigated by slovenliness. — d Regards to - e and
his wife send you both warmest greetings
Letters- 1893 189
set about both writera and recipientb and it’s going to cause enough of a
scandal as it is. But not having the letter here, I cannot write an introduction.
You people ought to have seen to this beforehand; I shall not be able to do
anything about it before the 30th or the 1st of October. Regards,
Your F.E.
110
AT LE PERREUX
a
Heinrich Heine - b Karl Marx
190 Letters- 1893
a
inexhaustible humour arising from the confidence in victory - b jocular name for Engels - c
cordial regards from Louise
Letters- 1893 191
111
IN BERLIN
a
Franziska Kugelmann
192 Letters- 1893
understood his article.a He never said that one should compromise, according
to circumstances, with Conservatives, 202 National Liberals, 203
Ultramontanes, 68 etc.; all he had in mind was the Freethinking People’s
Party. 223 I told him that I for one could not have deduced that from his
article; at all events, the latter possibility is one he has also left open.
But now, dear Julie, I must thank you and August once again for all the
kindness and friendship you showed me, not only in Berlin but also in
Zurich—and which August showed me throughout our trip; I can but remind
you of your promise to pay us a visit here in the spring so that we for our part
can show you London. Cordial regards to you both and to all our friends,
Your
F. Engels
a
E. Bernstein, ‘Die preussischen Landtagswahlen und die Sozial-demokratie. Ein Vorschlag zur
Diskussion’. In: Die Neue Zeit. No. 52, 1892-93, Vol. IL - b jocular name for Engels
194 Leiters- 1893
112
IN BASLE
Dear Sir,
Not until today, immediately after my return to this country, 189 have I
been able to reply to your letter of 11 August. 266
There are several copies of The Holy Family 1 in Berlin, while in
Switzerland Dr Conrad Schmidt, lecturer at Zurich University, Klus-
Hegibachstrasse, Hirslanden, might be able to help you get hold of one.
As regards Bruno Bauer’s career up till 1843, his fortunes and opinions,
you might find some information in Ruge’s Hallische, subsequently
Deutsche Jahrbücher; likewise in Bruno’s own writings. Also, in regard to
the years 1844-46, in his works and his Allgemeine Literatur-Zeitung. After
1843 both Marx and I completely lost touch with the Bauers who didn’t
come to London until some time towards the end of the 50s— Edgar for a
prolonged stay, Bruno for a visit, at which time Marx saw them again.
However, so far as I know, Bruno never had anything to do with either the
materialist view of history or scientific socialism, but if he ever had, this
could only be discovered from Bruno’s later writings, those of the ‘50s and
‘60s. It could hardly be denied that Marx’s views exerted a certain amount of
influence upon Bruno’s subsequent works on early Christianity, but on the
whole Bruno’s conception of historical causation remained primarily
idealistic.
It is my opinion that no one could successfully write a book about Bruno
without spending a long time in Berlin where all the material has
accumulated.
a
K. Marx and F. Engels, The Holy Family, or Critique of Critical Criticism. Against Bruno
Bauer and Company.
Letters- 1893 195
113
IN LONDON
[Draft]
[London], 3 October 1893
Dear Sir,
On my return from abroad 189 I find your letter of Aug. 10th. I am afraid I
cannot be of any use to you in your dispute with your family. Even were your
legal right to the money a good deal clearer to me than it is, I could only say
that you, as a poor man, would hardly have the ghost of a chance, in English
law courts, against wealthy people who moreover could fight you with your
own money. But supposing you had the money to fight, my advice would
still be: keep it rather than waste it on law.
As to a lawyer such as you describe and who would be willing to under-
take your lawsuit, you will not be astonished if I tell you I do not know such
a one.
Regretting I cannot give you a more comforting reply
I remain etc.
114
IN HOBOKEN
a
Hermann Engels senior — b willy-nilly
Letters- 1893 197
and hence our movement making capital progress. Such little freedom as our
people possess, they have had to win for themselves—wresting it more
especially from the police and the Landräte after the relevant laws had
already been promulgated in writing. And hence you find an assured,
confident demeanour such as has never been evinced by the German
bourgeoisie. Needless to say, they are also open to criticism on a number of
individual counts—for instance, the party press, notably in Berlin, is not
abreast of the party—but the masses are first-rate and better as a rule than the
leaders, or at any rate than many who have come to occupy leading roles.
With such chaps, nothing is impossible—they are really happy only in the
midst of the struggle, they live for the struggle alone and are bored if their
opponents do not provide them with work to do. It is an actual fact that
another Anti-Socialist Law 15 would be greeted by most of them with
sardonic laughter if not with positive glee—it would, after all, again give
them something new to do each day!
But alongside the Germans of Germany we should not forget the
Austrians. By and large, they are not as advanced as these Germans, but they
are more vivacious, more French, more easily carried away into performing
great deeds, but also into perpetrating blunders. Seen individually, I prefer
the average Austrian to the average German, the average Viennese working
man to his fellow in Berlin and, so far as the women are concerned, I
infinitely prefer the Viennese working woman; she possesses a naïve
spontaneity beside which the studied precocity of her Berlin counterpart
appears insufferable. If messieurs les Français don’t look out and make haste
to resume their erstwhile tradition of revolutionary initiative, then it might
happen that the Austrians will take the wind out of their sails and seize on the
first opportunity to get things going.
Incidentally, Berlin and Vienna, together with Paris, are now the most
beautiful cities in the world, London and New York being filthy holes by
comparison, especially London which has seemed quite strange to us since
our return.
In November messieurs les Français will have to show what they are ca-
pable of. 268 Twelve Marxists and four Blanquists, 20 five Allemanists 21 and
two Broussists, 30 along with a few Independents and some twenty-four
socialistes radicaux86 à la Millerand in the Chamber constitute a goodish
lump of leaven and should produce a nice state of fermentation provided they
stick together. But will they? The 12 Marxists are, by and large, completely
unknown quantities; Lafargue is missing, while Guesde, who
198 Letters- 1893
Your
F. Engels
Dear Mr Sorge,
May I pester you again by asking whether it would be possible for you to send me two
copies of the Woman’s Journal, or do you think I should do better to order it direct on behalf
of a woman friend of mine in Vienna? If so, what is the best way of paying the Americans
and to whom do I address myself? But that’s not all. Please could I have a three cent
Columbus stamp, if this isn’t asking too much of you. I am besieged by so many stamp
collectors who want it. Many thanks in advance and my most cordial regards to you and your
wife,
Yours,
L. Kautsky
115
IN VIENNA
Dear Victor,
We arrived back here on 29 September 189 with mounting recklessness,
attacked the pile of work we found waiting for us.
Though I was unable to discover Comrade Höger’s ‘whole series of
boulevards’ in Berlin, there can be no doubt that, so far as appearances go, it
is a very fine city; even in working-class districts all one sees are palatial
façades. But what lies behind those façades is better passed over in silence.
The poverty of working-class districts is, of course, universal, but what I
found particularly overwhelming was the ‘Berlin living-room’,a a place
unimaginable anywhere else in the world, a refuge of darkness and stale air
as also of your Berlin philistine who feels perfectly at home there. Golly!
There was nothing of the kind in August’s apartment, which was the only one
I liked, but in any of the others I’d go off my head.
However in writing this letter it was not my object to send you the above
cri de cœur, but rather to congratulate you and the Viennese.
First, your Schwender speech 269 which shows once again how sure is your
grasp of the difficult and complex conditions in Austria, and how firm a hold
you keep on the clue in the labyrinth. And at this particular juncture that is of
the utmost importance.
In the second place I must especially congratulate you and the Austrians
generally on the resounding victory won as a result of your agitation for
suffrage, namely Taaffe’s Electoral Reform Bill. 270 And here I must enlarge
somewhat.
Having taken a look at your country, people and government I have come
to realise ever more clearly that really outstanding victories are within our
grasp there. An industry that is growing rapidly but which, because of years
of high protective tariffs, still largely continues to operate
a
See this volume, p. 187
200 Letters- 1893
a
high financiers
Letters- 1893 201
Austria that of Italy, and Germany that of France. The struggle for suffrage
began in Belgium 276 and is being taken up on an impressive scale in Austria.
And there can be no question of a settlement being reached on the basis of
some sort of half-baked electoral reform. Once the ball is rolling, the
impulsion will communicate itself to all around it, and thus one country will
immediately affect its neighbour, So besides the possibility of your scoring
great victories there is the opportunity, i.e. hence also the likelihood, of your
doing so.
Such, more or less, is the tenor of what I expounded to Louise yesterday
afternoon as my view of Austria’s immediate mission. And at 8 p.m. the
Evening Standard brought the news—still in rather indefinite terms—of
Taaffe’s capitulation,a while today we are given the Bill, at any rate in very
general outline. Well, now the ball really has got rolling, and you people will
see to it that it doesn’t stop. I don’t want to say anything about the Bill until I
am rather better informed, but of one thing I feel sure, namely that Taaffe
would like, à la Bismarck, to split the now undivided urban Liberal vote and
play off the workers against the bourgeoisie. Not that we have any objection;
the Liberal and other bourgeois parties will try and restrict enfranchisement
still further, and you might thus find yourselves in the pleasant position of
supporting the worthy Taaffe against his parliament. At all events, it’s a
bonus that is not to be sneezed at and, before I come back, you will doubtless
be duly installed as a deputy in the Diet. The Daily Chronicle’is already
talking of 20 safe seats for Labour. With 20, or even less than 20, the Diet
will be a very different kind of body from what it has been hitherto, and the
gentlemen will be amazed at the life that this will inject into the ramshackle
old place. And if a few Czechs should happen to get in alongside our German
chaps, it will put something of a damper on the squabbling over nationalities,
and enable Young Czechs and Old Czechs 277 and German Nationals to see
each other in an altogether new light. And here one might say that the entry
of the first social-Democrats into the Diet, will mark the beginning of a new
era in Austria.
And it is you people who have brought this about and, because of the
dawning of this new era, we all of us rejoice that we shall have in the Diet a
man with so incisive an intellect as yourself.
Warm regards from Louise and
Your
a
10 October 1893
Letters- 1893 203
116
IN BERLIN
a
Adams Walther
204 Letters- 1893
to one that it was tacitly assigned to the publisher and that consequently she
too no longer has any claim.
3. So far as I know, the latter, one Foulger, had long since had to wind up
his business and was no doubt glad to come to any sort of agreement with
Reeves.
Accordingly it is almost certain that you cannot do anything in the legal
line, nor is it at all likely that Mrs Adams Walther can do anything either, but
this should be ascertained. If you could procure me a copy of the agreement
between Mrs Walther and the Modern Press I could, if necessary, consult a
lawyer. But unless everything is absolutely cut-and-dried there’s nothing to
be done with a laddie like Reeves; in his speculative enterprises he is as
unscrupulous as they come, and getting money out of him is a virtual
impossibility; I, too, have unfortunately had dealings with him, and not even
the threat of a lawsuit is of any real avail. In cases such as these, laddies of
his stamp generally make over everything to their wives or concoct a BILL OF
SALE (assigning their stock, etc., to a fictitious or genuine creditor).
Yesterday we got two splendid bits of news.
First, the beginning of the end of the pit strike. After the lock-out of the
workers, engineered by the big colliery owners on 28 July: 1. in order to raise
prices and curtail production, 2. so that ruinous contracts, carelessly entered
into, for a year’s supply of coal to gasworks and other municipal
undertakings could be broken with impunity because, in all such contracts,
strikes provide indemnity against breach of contract, 3. to depress wages and
4. to ruin the small mining companies and buy them up at knock-down
prices—this is coming increasingly to be the permanent motive behind all big
LOCK-OUTS—well then, after the said lock-out had been going on for over
two months and public opinion among the middle classes, who had been hit
by the coal shortage, had also begun to turn—against the mine owners, things
came to a head. During the first week of October the agreement expired
whereby the mine owners had undertaken, on pain of a £1,000 fine, to re-
open their pits, but only if wages were reduced by a full 25 per cent (of the
former wage plus the 40 per cent increase gained after 1889, i.e. at the 1889
wage plus 15 per cent), and on condition of the strike’s being called off by
the miners’ committee. A number of the smaller collieries immediately
defected and resumed work at the pre-]uly wage (i.e. at the 1889 wage, plus
the 40 per cent increase). The mayors of the larger towns in the Yorkshire
and Midlands mining districts then
Letters- 1893 205
a
See previous letter.
206 Letters- 1893
the general prostration of all the parties, the general perplexity, the feuding
over nationalities, what with a government that never knows what it wants
and lives only from hand to mouth, what with laws that exist for the most
part only on paper and the general sloppiness of the administration—of
which I have, from my own observation, only recently got any real idea—
what with all these things, a party which knows what it wants and how to get
it, which genuinely wants it and is possessed of the required tenacity, is
bound in the long run to prove invincible especially when, as in this instance,
all its demands follow the same trend as the economic development of the
country as such and are no more than the political expression of that
development. Our party in Austria 272 is the only living force in the field of
politics; otherwise there is nothing but passive resistance or new ventures
that never come to anything, and this places us in an exceptionally
favourable position in Austria. Furthermore, the changes that occur in the
grouping of the bourgeois parties sometimes make it impossible for the
government to be Conservative and, when it ceases to be Conservative, it
simply becomes unpredictable, if only by reason of the fact that the party
groupings of which it has to take account are likewise unpredictable. And
again, the Austrian government is that of a great power which, though in
decline, is nevertheless still a great power and, as compared with Prussia, a
small power in the ascendant, is still capable of remarkable initiatives at such
times as conservatism, sheer clinging to the status quo, ceases to be possible.
That is my explanation for Mr Taaffe’s ‘leap in the dark’.
Another fact to be considered is that the growth of the proletarian
movement in all countries is about to precipitate a crisis and that in conse-
quence any successes one country may achieve will react powerfully upon
all the others. The suffrage movement won its first victory in Belgium 276 and
now Austria is about to follow suit. At the outset this will ensure the survival
of universal suffrage, but also encourage us to make further demands—in
Germany no less than in France and Italy. The way was paved for the
February Revolutiona by Switzerland’s internal struggles and the
constitutional upheavals in Italy. Again, the Sonderbund War 273 and the
bombardment of Messinab by the Neapolitans 275 (Feb. 1848) were the
immediate signal for the outbreak of revolution in Paris. Maybe the crisis
will not be upon us for some five or six years yet, but I should say that the
a
of 1848 in France - b a slip of the pen in the original; it should read Palermo
Letters- 1893 207
preparatory role will this time fall to Belgium and, in particular, Austria,
while the dénouement will take place in Germany.
There is no fear that the cause will ever again be dropped in Austria; our
people in that country will see to that. The Austrian Diet is an infinitely more
stagnant froggery than the German Reichstag or even the Saxon or the
Bavarian Chamber. The presence of a dozen Socialist deputies will have a far
more galvanic effect there than it would in our case, and we are exceptionally
lucky in having in Victor a chap who has so clear a conception of the
complexities of conditions in Austria and is able to subject them to so
incisive an analysis. His speech in the last Arbeiter-Zeitung is a real tour de
force.a
Ede and Gina were here this morning. He isn’t yet at all as he should be,
has a mania for splitting hairs and increasingly recalls the sagacity of his
Volks-Zeitung uncle; I often get the impression that old Aaronb in person is
standing before me. It was he who spoilt things for himself in Switzerland.
Having been told in Berne that one of them but not both at once would be
admitted, he should have realised that the best policy would be to give
precedence to Julius, as an invalid and, banking on this, to return six months
later, when they could hardly refuse him admittance, at least for any length of
time. But this his impatience would not brook. The best of it is that he now
sometimes avers he would prefer to stay here and that it’s Gina who wants to
go to Switzerland. His dream is, as it always will be, to go back to Berlin. He
really imagines this to be possible and is always consulting lawyers about it.
Remains to be seen!
If Schlüter has any sense he will do himself and his wife the kindness of
starting divorce proceedings. A suit of this kind against an absent wife for
deliberate desertion has few disadvantages for either party, and after all he
too must wish for complete freedom. This is not, of course, to say that he
hasn’t in any case been accustomed to enjoying that freedom whenever op-
portunity arose. It is always satisfactory, by the way, to hear that a woman
one knows is plucking up the courage to make herself independent. The
decision to part from her Hermann for good may have cost her many a
mental struggle and she may thus at one time have given the impression of
being by nature irresolute. What an expenditure of energy bourgeois marriage
demands—first until one has got to that stage, then for so long as the
nonsense lasts and then until one is finally done with it.
a
fine specimen - b Aaron Bernstein
208 Letters- 1893
Yours,
F. Engels
117
AT LE PERREUX
should soon have been able to compel the Blanquists, 20 Allemanists, 21 etc.
to fall in with us. But if we can look to only half-a-dozen reliable people, we
shall have to treat with these gentlemen on a more or less equal footing, in
which case the old divisions may continue, or else, if there is unity, it will be
achieved at the price of sacrifices in matters of principle.
Certainly Vaillant seems very much more sensible since his election than
he was six months ago, but will he always be sure of a majority on his
Central Committee? Or else, to make sure of it, may he not have to sacrifice
his personal opinion on matters of substance to the prejudices of those silly
conspirators?
It is sad that you were beaten at Lille. 252 You sacrificed yourself for the
party: instead of nursing your constituents by assiduous parliamentary
activity, you travelled about and collected votes for others. But the fact
remains we need you in the Chamber too; and I hope you will get the first
vacant seat.
The new paper will not—like the last one—be advertised ‘to appear in
October’, I hope? 280 Will not La Petite République Française bar the way?
This is another outcome of the Millerand-Goblet alliance; 169 you gave them
far more help than they gave you in return. It’s one thing for Millerand, but
Goblet! an ex-Minister and candidate for the premiership!
Tomorrow I shall write a few words to Laura on business—I cannot
manage it today, I have been interrupted all the afternoon and it is now past 5
o’clock. In the meantime, kiss her for me.
Greetings from Louise.
Ever yours,
F.E.
118
AT LE PERREUX
My dear Löhr,
I have received 3 copies of the French Origine de la famille etc. To my
surprise the words ‘entièrement revue par M-me Laura Lafargue’’a which
were on the proof of the title, do not appear there now. Is this, as I suppose, a
little treachery of Rave? If so I shall protest.
Voilà Fortin of Beauvais who informs me that he intends translating.
1. The Kritik der Hegclsehen Rechtsphilosophie in the Deutsch-
Französische Jahrbücher (by Mohr, 1844) and
2. the 3 Chapters Gewaltstheorièb of my Anti-Dühring.
I have absolutely no time to revise his work—and No. 1 is immensely
difficult. And rather than revise Fortin’s work (which you know from
experience) maybe you’d rather do the whole thing yourself. The first—
Mohrs epigrammatic style—I consider him uncommonly unfit to render.
Nobody but you could do that.
He intends publishing them in the Ere Nouvelle.
What do you think I had better say to him?
Glorious victory in Austria. Taaffe proposes an electoral law 270 which is
tantamount to universal suffrage at least in towns and industrial districts—so
says Adler. Taaffe’s policy is to break the power of the German Liberal Party
(representing the German and Jewish bourgeoisie) and probably, too, to let as
many Socialists replace Liberal Bourgeois as may be necessary to drive the
other parties to a closer union and thus to give to him a working majority.
The Lower House in Austria is composed of 85 representatives of the large
landed proprietors, 21 of the Chamber of Commerce (these 106 are not
affected by the new bill), 97 of the towns and 150 of the country districts
(both of these will be elected according to the new bill).
For the present the country districts will send about the same Catholic
a
‘completely revised by Mme Laura Lafargue’ - b Theory of Force.
212 Letters- 1893
119
IN ST. PETERSBURG
a
Outlines of Our Post-Reform Economy (1893). [Written in Russian in original.]
Letters- 1893 213
a
Josif Goldenberg - b [phrase in Russian], II I. Jobrgang, No. 1, Oct. 2, 1893. [Note by Engels,
in the original, Oct. 1, which is a misprint.] - c P. Struve, ‘Zur Beurtheilung der Kapitalistischen
Entwickelung Russlands’, Sozialpolitisches Centralblatt, No. 1, 2 October, 1893. - d gentile
society - c money economy - f natural economy
214 Letters- 1893
we have seen—on a smaller scale—in Western Europe. But from that to the
complete ruin of a great and highly I gifted nation there is still a long way.
The rapid increase of population to which you have been accustomed, may
be checked; the reckless deforestation combined with the expropriation of
the old landlordsa as well as the peasants, may cause a colossal waste of
productive forces; but after all, a population of more than a hundred million
will finally furnish a very considerable home market for a very respectable
grande industrie, and with you, as elsewhere, things will end by finding their
own level—if capitalism lasts long enough in Western Europe.
You yourself admit that
‘the social conditions in Russia after the Crimean War were not favorable to the
development of the form of production inherited by us from our past history’.
I would go further, and say, that no more in Russia than anywhere else
would it have been possible to develop a higher social form out of primitive
agrarian communism unless that higher form was already in existence in
another country, so as to serve as a model. That higher form being, wherever
it is historically possible, the necessary consequence of the capitalistic form
of production and of the social dualistic antagonism created by it, it could not
be developed directly out of the agrarian commune, unless in imitation of an
example already in existence somewhere else. Had the West of Europe been
ripe, 1860-70, for such a transformation, had that transformation then been
taken in hand in England, France etc., then the Russians would have been
called upon to show what could have been made out of their Commune,
which was then more or less intact. But the West remained stagnant, no such
transformation was attempted, and capitalism was more and more rapidly
developed. And as Russia had no choice but this: either to develop the
Commune into a form of Production, from which it was separated by a
number of historical stages, and for which not even in the West the
conditions were then ripe—evidently an impossible task—or else to develop
into Capitalism, what remained to her but the latter chance?
As to the Commune, it is only possible so long as the differences of wealth
among its members are but trifling. As soon as these differences become
great, as soon as some of its members become the debt-slaves of the richer
members, it can no longer live. The big peasants and village exploiters’ 3
a
[In Russian] — b [In Russian]
Letters- 1893 215
of Athens, before Solon, have destroyed the Athenian gens with the same
implacability with which those of your country destroy the Commune. I am
afraid that institution is doomed. But on the other hand, Capitalism opens out
new views and new hopes. Look at what it has done and is doing in the West.
A great nation like yours outlives every crisis. There is no great historical
evil without a compensating historical progress. Only the modus operandi is
changed. Que les destinées s’accomplissent!a
Yours ever
When Vol. II Ib in the press, will take care to send you advance sheets.
120
AT LE PERREUX
a
May destiny take its course! - b of Capital -c Party Executive Committee
216 Letters- 1893
Talking of the Parteitag,a at Cologne, Bonnier writes to say il est possible que
nous n’irons pas à Cologne, n’ayant pas reçu d’adresse du parti allemand}’ The
address is everyday in the Vorwärts: ‘Das Zentral-Empfangsbureau befindet sich:
Hotel Durst (nomen est omen!), früher Gasthof zur Post. Marzellenstr. 5, in der
Nähe des Zentralbahnhofs und des Dornst’.c The address of the paper Rheinische
Zeitung is Grosser Griechenmarkt 115.
To Fortin I write25 saying that he has to keep his hands off Dühring, and that
the article of Mohr’s is almost impossible to be translated, and moreover that I
cannot undertake to revise his work.d I told him you were ‘in possession’ of
Dühring and that you had revised Rave! I further told him you did not know the
article of Mohr, perhaps he might let you have his copy to look it over; but
nothing more; no hopes that you would or might do the work of revision for him.
I am very sorry you deleted your name from that title-page.f It would be a
capital handle to work in connection with getting publishers, and paying ones, for
your other translations. You have no business to be ashamed of your own good
work, or to allow Rave to adorn himself with other bird’s feathers. There is no
reason whatever for you to ‘keep in the background’. And this kind of work
nowadays ought to bring in money to you—surely Rave is paid, and paid
handsomely for his bad work which has to be licked into decent shape by you—
and I do not see why you should not reap where you have sown.
a
Party Congress — b we may not go to Cologne, not having received the address of the German Party -
c
The Central Reception Office is at: Hotel Durst (thirst—the name is an omen!)—formerly Gasthof
zur Post, Marzellenstrasse 5, near the central railway station and the Cathedral. - d See this volume, p.
221 -e F. Engels, Anti-Dühring-fSee this volume, p. 211
217 Letters- 1893
121
IN COLOGNE
Dear August,
I have just received notification from the publishers of the Vorwärts, etc.,
that they ‘plan’ to re-issue the Anti-Dühring and that all they require of me is
to append a few brief remarks to the new edition. What I myself might
perhaps ‘plan’ no one bothered to ask.
Now you will recall that during our trip 189 we agreed to give the Anti-
Dühring to Dietz and, in lieu thereof, the shorter, more popular stuff to the
Vorwärts. I shall therefore provisionally acquaint the gentlemen in Berlin of
that fact, lest they should delude themselves further. I am sending this
straight to Cologne, as I understand from Louise that you will be going from
there to Stuttgart and will thus be able to discuss the matter with Dietz. The
following are my terms for an edition of a size he can determine himself but
of which he must also notify me:
1. A fee of 15% of the retail price, i.e. 15 Pfg. per mark. That is what we
get here in England for translations of my stuff. Since the book does not,
after all, lend itself to bulk sales except in a limited degree, he can fix the
price accordingly.
2. The fee to be paid to Dr Victor Adler of Vienna. 282
3. Dietz to undertake not to reduce the price either of the whole or of part
without my written consent. This is to prevent the book from being used, as
has happened before, to help shift certain slow-moving stock.
That is all.
As you know, Liebknecht (on that Sunday in Grunewald) tackled me with
a view to my reminding Lafargue about regular work as a correspondent.
This I promised to do as soon as he let me know that the Executive had
approved Lafargue’s fee. A report of the Paris Marxist Congress 283 from a
Paris correspondent then appeared in the Vorwärts. I inquired of Lafarguea
(having heard nothing from Liebknecht) whether it was by
a
See this volume, pp. 208-09
218 Letters- 1893
So it seems that you are once again to be held responsible for the
omissions of others. Now admittedly the Executive has of late been ab-
solutely overwhelmed with work, but I would venture to point out that the
engagement of a newspaper correspondent could be attended to in a matter of
minutes. It almost seems to me as though Liebknecht, with his growing
predilection for Vaillant, had no particular desire to fix things up with
Lafargue, otherwise he would no doubt have settled the matter before the
Paris Congress and in that case would also have received the authentic report
of it (the French did not admit reporters or members of the public).
Over here all is bustle. The day before yesterday we had Lehmann and
Mrs Adams Walther and today we have Shmuilov, who proposes to marry
here. I asked Mrs. Adams Walther about her arrangements with Foulger. She
knew nothing definite, but will make inquiries from the friend who saw to
the matter and will let me know the result. From what she was able to say, it
seems highly probable that the copyright has been tacitly assigned to
Foulger, and in that case absolutely no action whatever can be taken against
Reeves other than by inserting an announcement in the papers to the effect
that the said text has long been out of date. 265
I intended to send you the 20 marks I borrowed on the last day but have
not got round to going into town and collecting German notes. You shall
have it next time. Should there be a further amount owing to you, as is quite
possible, perhaps you would remind me in your next.
Tussy has got Lassalle’s letters and will copy them out on her typewriter.
284
She will charge you the usual rate and I shall pay her. But what are you
giving the heirs in the way of a fee? The handwriting is such that I still can’t
tell how much it will be.
21 Oct. Yesterday this letter was laid aside yet again, as I had to take
Shmuilov to the registry office and help him deal with the preliminary
formalities, he being unfamiliar with English and I being unable to find
anyone else. It will be a month before the actual joining together in mat-
rimony can take place.
In Austria the cause is doing splendidly. The general disorientation of
Letters- 1893 219
the parties, the Emperor’sa vacillation and the virtual certainty of a dis-
solution and new elections will provide occasion for the most splendid
agitation on the part of our chaps and for creating a thorough commotion in
the old morass. The various aristocratic and bourgeois parties are scuttling
about in all directions like ants in the ruins of an antheap. The old order,
shaky as it was, has now gone for good and all we have to do is see to it that
things don’t calm down again. And that won’t be difficult.
Obviously there will be repercussions in Germany. Just as in 1848 when
Vienna kicked off on 13 March, thereby compelling Berlin to follow suit on
the 18th. Brussels 276 Vienna 270—Berlin—is now the natural ‘alphabetical
order’. Prussian and other forms of local suffrage, the Constitution of
Hamburg, etc., will doubtless each in turn have to swallow it. The period of
stagnation and reaction in the legislative field that began in 1870 is over.
Governments are again coming under the control of a living political
movement among the people and it is we who are at the back of that
movement, it is we who determine it, now negatively, now positively. We are
now what the Liberals were before 1848, and our victories in the Belgian and
Austrian elections have shown that the ferment we provide is strong enough
to complete the process of fermentation now begun. But the process will be
neither smooth nor rapid until we have also won direct or indirect victories in
Germany—conquests in the libertarian sense, greater political power for the
working man, the extension of his freedom of movement. And that too will
come.
If you make use of the passages from Miquel’s letters, don’t expend all
your powder at one go. Remember that hardly have the things come out than
the effect is lost and cannot be repeated—unless, that is, we still have some
ammunition in reserve.
There was a very real risk of a general strike in Austria and one cannot yet
rule out the possibility of its being set in train for the benefit of Taaffe’s
ministry and his electoral reforms, 270 which would certainly be the height of
historical irony. When the English miners were locked out,b it was clear how
bemusing such a muddle-headed notion could be. The basic idea is to force
the hand of the bourgeoisie by means of a general shortage of coal. This has
its points if the workers take the offensive, i.e. do so when business is good.
When business is depressed, on the other hand, industrialists find themselves
with excessive stocks and collieries
with more coal than they can sell. It is then that the capitalists seize the
initiative, the aim being to cut down production by means of lock-outs, and
to depress wages at the same time—in such a case a general strike is grist to
the capitalists’ mill, since it is in their interest that the production of coal be
curtailed. What the English ought to have done was to advise the Continental
miners not to strike on any account, so that if possible coal might be brought
from the Continent to England. But everywhere people’s heads were turned
by the catchword ‘general strike’, the lockout in England was followed by
the Belgian and French strikes 285 and such effect as these had in England
could only have been of benefit to the capitalists.
Whereas the big colliery owners are still putting up a fight, more and more
of the smaller ones are knuckling under. Some 80,000 men are back at work
but about 200,000 are still out. The big ones are threatening the workers with
the ultimate sanction, namely eviction from colliery-owned dwellings. If
there were strike breakers ready and willing to move into these houses, the
collieries would unquestionably see to it that this was done and would
receive military aid to that end. Such, however, is not the case, and for the
sake of a purely arbitrary act, the sole purpose of which would be to deposit
the workers without shelter outside houses that would remain empty, the
government will be unlikely to expose itself once again to the unpopularity it
would attract as a result of a fusillade, as recently at Featherstone. 286 If it
happens nevertheless, much blood will be spilt. This is an ultimate sanction
the workers won’t submit to.
The Avelings will be coming shortly, having just announced themselves
for a meal. This house is like a dovecote. So good-bye and my regards to
everyone, including Dietz and K. Kautsky and wifea when you get to
Stuttgart.
Yours,
F.E.
a
Luise Kautsky
Letters- 1893 221
122
AT LE PERREUX
My dear Löhr,
Though Fortin is a business-man, yet with the help of a Roumanian (with
business habits partly of a Polish Jew, partly of a spendthrift boyar) he
succeeds in creating a very fair muddle.
I wrote to Fortin 25 that you did not know the Kritik der Rechtsphilosophiea
but if he thought proper, he might send you his copy of the Deutsch-
Französische Jahrbücher so that you might read it and form an idea as to the
advisability—both an to contents and to form—of its being submitted to the
French working people. Diamandy, in his eagerness to get stuff for his
review,b rushes at you and transforms, moreover, the one article into
plusieursc (business principles of the Polish Jew, to ask much so as to be able
to rebate) as for instance:
— Was kostet die Elle von dem Stoff?
— Fünfzehn Groschen.
— Fünfzehn sagt er, zwölfeinenhalben meint er, zehn wird er nehmen,
sieben und einen halben ist die Sache werth, fünf macht ich ihm geben, werd’
ich ihm bieten zwei und einen halben Groschen!d
Voilà ce que c’est.e Let Fortin first send you his copy and then you will
see what you will see.
As to the Gewalttheorief not a line in Fortin’s letter led me to conclude
that the thing had been already done and I don’t believe it either. To make
you believe that you are en face d’un fait accompli, is another of these
Oriental tricks which they consider perfectly justifiable in the service of the
a
See this volume, p. 211 — b L’Ere nouvelle— c several
d
- ‘How much is a yard of that stuff?’
‘Fifteen pence.’
‘He says fifteen, he means twelve-and-a-half, he would take ten, the thing’s worth
seven-and-a-half, I’d be prepared to give him five, so I’ll offer him tuppence ha’
penny!’
- e This is the thing. - f ‘Theory of Force’ (see F. Engels, Anti-Dühring, present edition,
Vol. 25, pp. 146-71).
222 Letters- 1893
cause. You will never arrive at the facts, much less at any practical conclu-
sion, until you have eliminated Diamandy and deal direct with Fortin.
Diamandy served me exactly the same with regard to the translation of the
Ursprung for the Ère Nouvelle.
I had a few lines from Bebel to-day about Paul’s affair.b The delay was
caused by 1. the Saxon elections; 2. the Cologne Congress 279 which
prevented full meetings of the Executives, and overwhelmed them with
business. As soon as both Bebel and Liebknecht shall have returned to
Berlins, the matter will be settled. But Bebel says at the same time, there is a
great distrust of Paris correspondents of French nationality, as hitherto
everyone of them has ceased to write reports at the very moment when
French affairs became highly interesting—they then looked after their own
business and left the Vorwärts to shift for themselves. I shall do my best to
persuade them that now Paul has no longer a free pass an the railways, this
will cease as far as he is concerned, but I do hope that our Paris friends will
at last learn to treat business as business and engagements as things to be
fulfilled—at least as a rule.
Kind regards from Louise.
Ever yours,
F. Engels
123
IN OXFORD
[Draft]
[London,] end of October 1893
You write to say that ‘I have disclosed...’. I do not know what hoary piece
of gossip you are referring to and indeed this is a matter of the
a
Origin, see this volume, pp. 211 - b See this volume, pp. 208-9, 215
Letters- 1893 223
utmost indifference to me. But when you start talking pompously about your
‘silence’, it evidently implies the threat that you might now break that
silence. In which case you have met your match. If it really is your intention
to threaten me, I have only one answer and that is: ‘do your worst’. I don’t
care two hoots whether you speak or hold your tongue.
But what I cannot understand at all in how you came to write me such an
inane letter.
I can find me explanation for it other than the state of nervous tension you
are in. Otherwise you would realise that such conduct would debar me
absolutely from having any further contact with you until you have
rehabilitated yourself in my eyes.a
124
IN STUTTGART
Dear Baron,
1. Howell. His book Conflicts, etc., is a fat compendium of 536 pages and
would in my opinion find few buyers in Germany, especially since all the
earlier history and some of the later stuff is cribbed from Brentano.b Howell’s
Trades Unionism New and Old, 235 pp., is a shorter excerpt which appeared
it 1891 and is also a year more up to date in regard to facts. If it was checked,
provided with notes and translated in abbreviated form, it might possibly find
buyers.
But Dietz must not allow himself to be cheated again as he was by
a
See this volume, p. 243 — b L. Brentano, Die Arbeitergilden den Gegenwart. Bd. 1-2, Leipzig,
1871-72.
224 Letters- 1893
Sonnenschein through Stepniak 288 over the £25, which was just money
thrown down the drain and which, besides, gives English publishers a false
impression of their German colleagues business acumen. One ought not to
make oneself an object of derision to such people. The only way to impress
Englishmen is to insist on one’s rights.
Well then, if one is to protect one’s translation rights, the first part of the
translation must, in accordance with international law, be published one year
after the appearance of the original. In that case one is protected for three
years in the country and language concerned, Otherwise not. According to
this, neither Howell nor his publishera have a claim to anything, legally
speaking. Only considerations of decency could come into it. If Dietz is
willing to conduct negotiations with Howell via Aveling (who is well
acquainted with such matters) on a verbal basis and authorise him to offer,
say, £2.10 = 50 marks, if pushed. Howell would probably consent to the
translation absolutely gratis. I don’t see why one should needlessly stuff
money down the throats of the supercilious English so that they can brag to
us Continentals about the commercial value of their books not only here but
over there, while we poor devils are expected to be grateful when they do us
the honour of translating us, even though we haven’t been asked. And that
blackguard Howell, to boot!
2. I can understand that you should wish to go to Vienna. 289 Austria is
now the most important country in Europe, at any rate for the moment. It is
here that the initiative lies, which in a year or two will have its repercussions
in Germany and other countries. The good Taafe has set the ball rolling and
it won’t come to a halt so very soon. 270 Such being the case, it is only natural
that every Austrian should wish to co-operate, for there’s going to be enough
to do. I was delighted with the Viennese; they are splendid fellows if
sanguine, sanguine to a degree, no Frenchman could do better, and that
means that they should not be spurred on but rather reined in, lest the fruits
of long years of work be dissipated in a single day. Last night Ede read out to
me what you had written to him about an article on the strike as a political
weapon. I firmly advised him against writing the article. 290 To my mind the
affair of the three-class electorate 291 has already earned him quite enough of
a reputation as a man who has lost touch with the masses and who, from
without, from his writing-desk, discourses in doctrinaire fashion on questions
of immediate practical
a
Frederick Orridge Macmillan
Letters- 1893 225
moment.a But I am also generally of the opinion that the effect of such an
article could not be other than extremely harmful at this particular juncture.
However cautious it might be, and however impartial and considered the
language in which it was couched, the Vienna Volkstribüne would pick out
the passages that suited its own book, reprint them in bold type and use them
to scare off those who have enough trouble as it is in restraining the Viennese
from embarking on hare-brained escapades. You say yourself that barricades
are out of date (though they might come in handy again as soon as a third or
two-fifths of the army had turned socialist and it was imperative that they be
given an opportunity of changing sides), but a political strike must either
score an immediate victory—simply by means of a threat (as in Belgium 276
where the army was very shaky)—or else end in a colossal fiasco or, finally,
lead direct to barricades. And this in Vienna where you could be shot down
without more ado by Czechs, Croats, Ruthenians, 292 etc. Once this business
in Vienna has been settled one way or the other, either with or without a
political general strike, the question will still be topical enough for the Neue
Zeit. But just now a public discussion of the general theoretical pros and cons
of this weapon could only be grist to the mill of the FIREBRANDS in Vienna. I
know how difficult it is for Victor to counteract the magic power exerted on
the Viennese masses by the catchword ‘general strike’ and how happy he will
be if only he can put off the day of reckoning. That being so we ought, in my
opinion, to take the utmost care not to do or say anything that might
encourage the impetuous elements.
The Viennese working men should wait until the suffrage has given them
the means to take stock of themselves and of their friends in the provinces;
they will then be appraised of their strength and of how it compares with that
of their opponents.
Incidentally, things might get to the stage when a general strike would be
carried out under the aegis and more or less for the benefit of Electoral
Reform Minister Taaffe. That would be the height of irony.
3. Once again my thanks for the Parlamentärismusb which you presented
to me personally in Zurich.
4. As regards Heine’s letter, 260 Tussy tells me she will give you her per-
a
E. Bernstein, ‘Die preussischen Landtagswahlen und die Sozial-demokratie. Ein Vorschlag zur
Diskussion’, Die Neue Zeit, No. 52, 1892-93. - b K. Kautsky, Der Parlamentarismus, die
Volksgesetzgebung und die Sozialdemokratie, Stuttgart, 1893.
226 Letters- 1893
mission provided that Laura also agrees. I have hardly seen anything of
Tussy lately—since I got back 189—and then only for an odd moment or so.
Both of them are tremendously busy and, because of meetings, they hardly
ever put in an appearance on Sundays. However I should like to take another
look at the letter before I say anything definite. The matter is open to
considerable misinterpretation and must be given much thought.
5. Volume II I.a Fair sheets. When the time comes I shall see to it that
these sheets are placed at your or Ede’s disposal section by section, pro
vided, that is, I can get them out of Meissner. For I already need another
copy for the Russian translation and Meissner is growing old and is no
longer so accommodating as in the past. However I shall do my best.
There are six sections in all, each of which I shall send you separately after
it has come off the press.
Since returning I haven’t done a stroke of work on the above but next
week I hope finally to buckle to again.
6. The thing by Guillaumin and V. Pareto has just been sent to me by
Lafargue—extracts were made by Lafargue; the introduction was evi
dently written by a bogus vulgar economist. 293
To come back to the general strike, you ought not to forget that nobody
was more delighted than the Belgian leaders that the affair should have
turned out so well. They have had an anxious enough time and might have
been forced to implement their threat; they themselves knew only too well
how little they could accomplish. And this in a primarily industrial country
with a thoroughly shaky and ill-disciplined militia-style army. But if, in such
a country, there was nevertheless a chance of achieving something with this
weapon, 276 what hope could there be in Austria where the peasant
predominates, industry is sparse and relatively weak, the big towns are few
and far between, the nationalities have been set at odds with one another and
the socialists make up less than ten per cent of the total population (of adult
males, naturally)! So for heaven’s sake let us avoid taking any step that might
tempt the working men, who are in any case impatient and thirsting for
action, to stake their all on one card—and, what’s more, at a time when the
government wants this and could use provocation to bring it about.
The Vorwärts will always remain the same old Vorwärts. Of that I was
left in no doubt while in Berlin. So I’m glad that the weeklyb is to come
a
of Capital- b Der Sozialdemokrat
Letters- 1893 227
out, for it will give the party an opportunity of appearing, at least in foreign
eyes, in a form it need not be ashamed of. The Vorwärts comes out in Berlin,
is read almost exclusively in Berlin (nine-tenths of sales) and, as a product of
Berlin, is always viewed with indulgence. The weekly will also act as a
counterweight to the Vorwärts influence on the rest of the party press. How
things will work out as regards the mutual relationship of the two organs
remains to be seen. I don’t imagine that they will come to blows. The
Vorwärts’ subsidiary title of ‘Central Organ’ is of no importance whatever.
They are welcome to the catchword.
At any rate, all kinds of changes are taking place in our party press, I am
curious to know what will become of the Neue Zeit; 85 its reversion to a
monthly was at all events a bold move. I don’t believe that in the long run
the weekly will prove a serious competitor.
So the best of luck when you visit Vienna. When you get there you might
pay my respects to the Lowenbräu next to the Burgtheater; it used to be our
midday headquarters.
With regards from household to household.
Your, F.E.
125
IN VIENNA
Dear Victor,
I am sending you herewith part of a letter from August. I do not share his
misgivings, for it seems to me that such possibilities are too remote
228 Letters- 1893
and by now may to some extent be excluded. Make sure that the letter is
destroyed as requested.
My letter of 11 Octobera crossed with yours of the same date. You will
have seen that we are fully in agreement as regards our general view of the
situation in Austria, a situation that seems to me rather more favourable now
than it was then. Electoral reform, taking Taaffe’s Bill as the minimum, will
no longer be relegated to the background in Vienna. The Emperorb has
approved it and the Emperor cannot back down. He, however, is far more
representative of Austria than the Diet. It would seem that the new-born
coalition goverment is already expiring, but even if this is not the case, it will
come to grief at the first sign of positive action. Even if, as August supposes,
it were to marshall the forces of Baernreitherism, 294 that would be no more
than a very temporary expedient and would not prevent a collapse, should the
question of action arise in some other quarter. This much is certain; Austria is
now in the van of the European political movement, while we others limp
along behind—even those countries that already have universal suffrage will
not be able to elude the impulse provided by Austria. At Ronacher they
wanteds set-to. 295 If you succeed it keeping the chaps on a tight rein, you
can’t go wrong. The one thing that might bring Windischgrätz, Plener and
Jaworski together would be a set-to in Vienna and a victory combined with a
fusillade.
Over here we’re doing very nicely, In matters of serious reform the Liberal
government is proving an abject failure. Even the Fabian society 43 has
foresworn its allegiance and disavowed its whole policy of permeation. See
the article by Autolycus (Burgess) on page one of the Workman’s Timesc on
the Fabian manifesto which appeared in the Fortnightly Review.d If the
Liberals can’t do any better, there’ll be a mass of Labour candidates come the
next elections, and between thirty and forty will probably get in. In the
municipal elections on 1 November the working men of the North began to
take stock of themselves and scored a good many successes.
Regards from Louise and yours,
F. E.
a
10 Oct. in the original, which is a misprint, see this volume, p. 199 - b Francis Joseph I -c [J.
Burgess] Autolycus, ‘In a White Sheet’, Workman’s Times, 11 November 1893. - d ‘To Your
Tents, oh Israel!’, The Fortnightly Review, No. 323, New Series, 1 November 1893.
Letters- 1893 229
126
IN HOBOKEN
Dear Sorge,
Herewith a letter to Mrs Kelley (ex-Wischnewetzky) which I would ask
you kindly to forward to her.a As soon as you know her present correct
address, perhaps you would also be so good as to forward her the enclosed
cheque for £l.12.11 of the Union Bank of London.
You should read the article by Autolycusb (Burgess) 43 on page 1 of today’s
Workman’s Times on the Fabians’ manifesto.c These gentlemen, who for
years have declared that the emancipation of the working class can only be
accomplished through the Great Liberal Party, who have loudly proclaimed
that during elections any independent action by the workers vis-à-vis other
candidates, Liberals included, is covert Toryism, who have let it be known
that the permeation of the liberal party by socialist principles is the sole
object in life for a Socialist, 59 now declare that the Liberals are traitors, that it
is impossible to deal with them and that in the next elections the workers
should, without regard for Liberals or Tories, put up their own candidates
with the help of £30,000 which are meanwhile to be found by the Trades
Unions—assuming that the latter do the Fabians this favour, which they
assuredly won’t. It is an outright paterpeccatid by these supercilious
bourgeois who would graciously condescend to liberate the proletariat from
above, provided only that the latter were sensible enough to realise that such
a raw, uneducated mass could
a
See this volume, p. 230 - b [J. Burgess] Autolycus, ‘In a White Sheet’, Workman’s Times, 11
November 1893. -c ‘To Your Tents, oh Israel!’, The Fortnightly Review, No. 323, New Series, 1
November 1893. - d confession of guilt
230 Letters- 1893
not liberate itself and would come to nothing save by the grace of these
canny advocates, literati and sentimental old women. And now the first
attempt by these gentlemen, an attempt heralded by drums and trumpets as a
worldshaking event, has gone so splendidly awry that they themselves must
admit as much. That is what’s so funny about the affair.
Warm regards to you and your wife. I hope you will both get through this
winter better than the last. Over here it is already starting to turn wintry.
Yours,
F.E.
127
IN CHICAGO
a
of the 2nd English edition of Engels’ The Condition of the Working Class in England
Letters- 1893 231
to our friend Mr Sorge of Hoboken who will forward it to you as soon as you
let him know that you have received this note.
We now and then see short reports of your activity in the papers, among
others your speech in the Labor Congress, and are glad to find that you have
found congenial work. With kind regards from Mrs Kautsky and myself
I remain Yours very truly
F. Engels
128
AT LE PERREUX
My dear Lafargue,
Liebknecht will have written telling you that they want to take you on as
correspondent for Vorwärts and the Hamburg Echo, one letter a week,
identical and sent simultaneously to the two journals, but they want it in
German and suggest that Laura should translate it.
Herein the reason why they want it in German, and it is a very important
one. The two papers could publish the identical report on the same day, so
that it would be an original article in each of them. If publication is not
simultaneous, if one of the two papers prints it a day later, it will be
suspected of having taken the article from the previous day’s issue of the
other, like so many other news items taken from that issue.
Now there might be someone in Hamburg who would translate you—
don’t ask me how!—but in Berlin! There Liebknecht has established the
custom of all translations being done by Mme Liebknecht or by one of his
sons. The manuscript goes to Charlottenburg and into Liebknecht ‘s house
and God alone knows when the translation reaches the newspaper
232 Letters- 1893
a
A play on words: adamantin—adamant, diamanti—a diamond, Diamandy—a surname (see
this volume, pp. 221-22)
Letters- 1893 233
129
IN BERLIN
a
Karl and Theodor Liebknecht
234 Letters-1893
Reichstag, for they are reluctant to figure personally in the debates there,
no matter what the Minister of Wara may say. And if in addition your
sons, as used to be demanded of us volunteers 255 by my erstwhile captain,
set ‘an example to the company’ then, their father notwithstanding, they
cannot fail to gain promotion to non-commissioned rank. And that
would be only right and proper. If Bebel is the son of an N.C.O., why
should not Liebknecht be the father of one or more N.C.O.s? You’ve no
idea how much nicer a uniform looks, with lace on, and, it would seem,
that in Berlin the fair sex is far more susceptible to Moloch thus adorned.
Nor is that by any means all, for as Heine says:
But still more charming than all else Are
Caesar’s golden epaulettesb
Ever yours,
F. Engels
a b
Walter Bronsart von Schellendorff - Heinrich Heine, Himmelsbräute (from
‘Romanzero’)
Letters- 1893 235
130
IN HOBOKEN
Dear Sorge,
Many thanks to you and your wife for your good wishes and for your
letter of 19 November.
I am very sorry to hear that you are suffering from gout and hope that it
will recede as time goes on; it’s an insidious complaint.
The repeal of the silver purchase law 187 has saved America from a serious
financial crisis and will help to promote an industrial recovery. But I am not
sure whether it might not have been better had there really been a crash. The
phrase ‘cheap money’ seems to be deeply engraved in the minds of your
Western farmers. In the first place, when they suppose that, if there be ample
means of circulation in a country, the rate of interest must fall, they are
confusing means of circulation with disposable money capital, a matter upon
which considerable light will be shed in Volume II I.a And, secondly, all
debtors find it convenient to incur debts in good currency and subsequently
pay them off in depreciated currency. Hence every indebted Prussian Junker
clamours for bimetallism 299 that would rid him of his debts in disguised,
Solonic fashion. 300 Had it been possible to postpone silver reform in the
United States until there had been time for the consequences of this
foolishness to redound on the farmers also, it would have dinned some sense
into many a thick skull.
Tariff reform, 301 however slowly it may be put into operation, would
already seem to have given rise to a kind of panic among the manufacturers
of New England. I have learnt—both from private sources and the
newspapers—that large numbers of workers are being laid off. But all this
will die down the moment the Bill goes through and puts an end to the
uncertainty. I am convinced that, in all the larger branches of industry,
America can boldly go into competition with England.
As regards the German Socialists in America, things are pretty dire.
a
K. Marx, Capital, Vol. II I, Chapters XXIX-XXXIV.
236 Letters- 1893
The chaps you get from Germany are not as a rule the best—these stay over
here—and are not in any case a fair sample of the German party. And, like
everywhere else, every new arrival at once feels impelled to destroy and
refashion everything that already exists so that a new era may be seen as
having started with him. Moreover, the majority of these greenhorns remain
stuck in New York for a long time if not for life, they are constantly being
reinforced by new importations and are thus relieved of the necessity of
learning the language of the country or acquiring a proper knowledge of
American conditions. All this does a great deal of harm no doubt, but on the
other hand there is no denying that conditions in America present
considerable and peculiar difficulties to the steady growth of a labour party.
In the first place the constitution, based as in England on party gov-
ernment, whereby any vote not given to a candidate put up by one of the two
government parties is regarded as lost. And neither an American nor an
Englishman, since he wishes to influence the body politic, will throw away
his vote.
Then, and more especially, immigration, which splits the workers into two
groups, native-born and foreign, and the latter again into 1. Irish, 2.
Germans, 3. a number of smaller groups, each speaking only its own lan-
guage—Czechs, Poles, Italians, Scandinavians, etc. And, in addition, the
negroes. To form a party of one’s own out of all these calls for exceptionally
strong incentives. Every now and again a powerful élan may suddenly make
itself felt, but all the bourgeoisie has to do is to stick it out passively,
whereupon the dissimilar working-class elements will disintegrate again.
3. Finally, the protective tariff system and the steady growth of the
domestic market must have exposed the workers to a prosperity unlike
anything that has been experienced for many years in Europe, (with the
exception of Russia where, however, it is not the workers who reap the
benefit but the middle classes).
A country like America, when really ripe for a socialist labour party, is
certainly not going to be deterred by a handful of German socialist
doctrinaires.
Part I of Vol. II I (246 ms. pages out of approx. 1855) is ready for press.a
This is between ourselves. Progress will, I hope, now be rapid.
a
K. Marx, Capital, Vol. II I, Book II I, Chapters I-VII .
Letters- 1893 237
Cordial regards to you and your wife, and best wishes for your recovery
from L. Kautsky and
Yours,
F. Engels
L. Kautsky, who will reply shortly, thanks you for your kindness, and has
already written re the Arbeiter-Zeitung (Vienna); the Pionierkalender has not
arrived.
First published, abridged in Briefe und Works, First Russian Edition, Vol.
Auszüge aus Briefen von Job. Phil. XXIX, Moscow, 1946
Becker, Jos. Dietzgen, Friedrich Engels,
Karl Marx u. A. an F. A. Sorge und Printed according to the original
Andere, Stuttgart 1906 and in full, in
Russian, in: Marx and Engels, Published in English in full for the
first time
131
IN HOBOKEN
No. 1
[London], 2 December 1893
Dear Schlüter,
Many thanks for your good wishes and for Census Compendium I which
was most welcome and of which No. II will be more welcome still.a So the
Americans are no longer as liberal as they used to be, and even a big journal
does not get such things merely for the asking! All is well over here; I am
once more at work on Vol. II Ib and it is with pleasure that I look back on the
trip I made this summer. 189 You people are now at last about to rid
yourselves of bimetallism 299 and the McKinley tariff and this should give a
considerable boost to progress over there. Although a thorough-going
collapse of silver 187 might have gone a long way towards
a
Department of the Interior, Census Office. Compendium of the Eleventh Census: 1890, Parts I-II
, Washington, 1892-1894. - b of Capital
238 Letters- 1893
Yours,
F.E.
132
IN HOBOKEN
No. 2!!
[London,] 2 December 1893
Dear Schlüter
As regards Census I,a I first got a letter from the General Post Office,
Washington, saying that, because of the way it was packed, the book must be
paid for as a letter. I must either send $10.36c. for this purpose or let them
have the sender’s address (I didn’t know either what was in it or who had
sent it), or else say whether I wanted it sent per express. I asked for further
details, at the same time saying they were at liberty to send it per express,
which they did, and I got it ON PAYMENT OF 6/-. When sending me things
in future, would you be so good as to put your address
a
Department of the Interior, Census Office. Compendium of the Eleventh Census: 1890, Parts I-
II , Washington, 1892-1894
Letters- 1893 239
on the outside in order that delays of this kind may be avoided or dealt with
direct over there. I could not quite gather from the Washington General Post
Office’s letter why they didn’t send the thing—whether because of the way it
was packed or perhaps because it was inadequately stamped for book-post.
Thanks again.
Yours,
F. E.
133
IN STUTTGART
Dear Baron,
First of all my warmest thanks for your good wishes on my 73rd birthday
which has left me fit and well.
Either you misinterpreted my remarks about the ‘publisher’ or I expressed
myself badly.a It never occurred to me to lay the blame on Dietz or, indeed,
any one individual, in as much as I was not sufficiently au fait with what had
happened over there in regard to the Stepniak business 288 before this had
come to my notice. I merely adduced it as an awful example that ought not to
be followed. And in view of the position occupied by publishers in this
country, there could be no doubt that the German publisher had gratuitously
presented Sonnenschein (or so it must seem to him) with £25, which could
not but give him, Sonnenschein, a somewhat indifferent idea of the business
efficiency of German publishers. Nor can
a
See this volume, pp. 223-24
240 Letters- 1893
you Stuttgarters contest this. And as the surest way of obviating anything of
that kind, I drew your attention to the fact that, in this country, the consent of
the author is not in itself, a safeguard since, in nine cases out of ten, the
English publisher has the final say, for as a rule he has been assigned the
copyright, including right of translation (this is actually stated in print in, for
instance, every one of Sonnenschein’s contract forms, or else he stipulates
that he should have some say in the matter. So please tell Dietz that it never
even crossed my mind to cast any aspersion whatsoever on his efficiency as
a business man.
As regards international contracts, Sam Moore [originally] looked this up
in PARLIAMENTARY PUBLICATIONS from which he made extracts, and
the information about one year and three years was certainly correct at that
time. I know nothing about the Berne Convention 303 and its ten-year term of
copyright for translations and I should be grateful if you would let me know
the date of the said Convention, in which case I could procure the copy made
for Parliament.
Victor writes to say that the general strike in Austria is dead as a door nail;
so a discussion of it would not be likely to do any harm.a But at the same
time we have had inquiries from the Austrian provinces as to what we in this
country think of a general strike.
I still believe that electoral reform, at least in the form hatched up by
Taaffe and Franz Joseph, is a foregone conclusion in Austria. 270 Even if the
coalition ministry succeeds in tabling and gaining acceptance for a Bill for
the extension of the parliamentary franchise without, as it must, foundering in
consequence, or in consequence of something else in the meantime, the
matter will by no means be settled. In a country as artificially equilibrated as
Austria, a stable balance, once destroyed, can be restored only with difficulty,
maybe by force alone, and the government is only too well aware that even
this will be effective only for a while and will leave the state weaker than it
was before. And the fact that Franz Joseph has given his blessing to this
particular piece of electoral reform which he has, indeed, declared to be his
very own work, rules out once and for all the possibility of Austria
continuing as before. Now it’s
a
See this volume, p. 257
Letters- 1893 241
Or:
Yours,
F. E.
a
of Capital
242 Letters- 1893
134
IN LOUDON
[Draft]
[London,] 5 December 1893
Dear Mr Arndt,
I, too, can understand that you should have preferred not to call on me on
a Sunday since, in view of various things that have happened in the
meantime, I cannot possibly consort with you on the same easy footing as
hitherto.
However, if you wish to speak to me, I shall be at home the day after
tomorrow, Thursday, from 8 pm. onwards.
Yours faithfully,
F.E.
135
AT LE PERREUX
My dear Löhr,
If I have not before replied to your letter of just a month ago, there were
2 causes for it:
1) because I was bound to finish, before Christmas, the final redactiona
a
editing
Letters- 1893 243
noticed by the bourgeois press abroad; contrasted with the part played by the
French delegation at Zürich, 250 they might have served as groundwork for a
lot of bad jokes. But le bon sens français quel quefois n’a pas le sens
commun,a and that is just the beauty of it. Look at the parti socialiste in the
Chamber. How long ago is it that Clara Zetkin in the Neue Zeith made out 24
élusc ± socialistes, and that of the 12 elected on the Marxist program Paul did
not know how many would turn up all right; and now, lo and behold, a
parliamentary party of 54 socialist deputies which dashes into the majority
like a brigade of cavalry, upsets one ministry and nearly dislocates another,
308
until this victorious career is all of a sudden, by Vaillant’s bomb, 309
changed into a concentration to the rear, and the new members of the
majority deprived of all the idealistic delusions they had brought with them
from the provinces and turned into docile panamitard opportunists. 60
Upon the whole I think it is rather useful to us. I cannot help imagining
that amongst these 54 who have been many of them suddenly converted to
what they call socialism, there cannot be that cohesion which is wanted for a
serious fight. Let alone the old dissensions between the real old socialists ‘de
la veille’ d within the group, dissensions which it will take some time to
overcome once for all. If this heterogeneous lot of 54 had been kept in the
front rank of the chambre for any length of time, it must, either have split up,
or else the old Radical wing—Millerand and Co.—must have become the
determining element. As it is, time will be given to the various components
of the group to make closer acquaintance with each other, to consolidate the
group, and to eliminate, if necessary, one after another those elements which
really have joined the group only by mistake. At all events, in the Dupuy—
Casimir Périer campaign Millerand and Jaurès took the lead entirely, and that
will never do in the long run, though I fully approve of Guesde and Vaillant
having, so far, and under the present circumstances, kept in the background.
Paul’s letters to the Vorwärts so far are very good, we look for them every
week. And they are not quite so badly germanised as I have seen others
done.
That Feuerbach must have given you a deal of trouble. 310 But from what I
have seen of your work, I feel certain you have ‘taken’ all obstacles ‘fly-
a
sometimes French good sense has no common sense - b C. Zetkin , ‘Die Wahlen in
Frankreich’, Die Neue Zeit, No. 52, 1892-93, Vol. II - c elected - d of yesterday
Letters- 1893 245
ing’, to use a bit of hunting language. Have you got a publisher for it?
Will you accept the enclosed cheque £5.- for a Christmas box?
Louise is out shopping in a steady rain—that Christmas will cost her dear
in colds and toothache.
Love from her and yours ever
F.E.
136
IN STUTTGART
London, 19 December 1893
122 Regent’s Park Road, N. W.
My dear Schorlemmer,
If I have not written before now to thank you for your good wishes on my
seventy-third birthday, you can blame it on Volume II I of Capital. This must
now be finished once and for all and consequently I have had to put the
whole of my correspondence on one side without compunction or remorse. I
have now one section left to be done and shall be able to use the few days
remaining before the festive season to catch up.
I only passed through Darmstadt 189—Mrs Kautsky, Bebel and wife, a
Viennese doctor 1 resident over here and I were unable to ascertain the train
in advance, which in any case only stopped for ten minutes or so, otherwise I
should have telegraphed you. Otherwise the trip was very pleasant—apart
from the tub-thumping I had to do, having once let my-
a
Ludwig Freyberger
246 Letters- 1893
a
Lehrbuch der Kohlenst of fverbindungen oder der organischen Chemie — b Rise and
Development of Organic Chemistry - c Arthur Smithells
Letters- 1893 247
137
IN VIENNA
Dear Adelheid,
I still owe you my thanks for your kind congratulations on my 73rd
birthday 314 and am sending them today in order to use the occasion for
wishing you a very nice holiday. I hope that the vacation from oratory ar-
ranged for you during our stay in Vienna 257 has done you good and you are
again as fit and full of fighting spirit as we all wish you to be. Unless I
misread all the signs, you are in for eventful times and lengthy battles in
Austria. May the workers there prove that, along with the necessary audacity,
they possess the patience, calm, judgement and discipline which alone can
lead to victory.
Cordial greetings to you and all comrades, Your old
F. Engels
Take it from me, I will still claim that ‘kiss some day.
138
IN BERLIN
Dear Liebknecht,
Yesterday evening I sent you an article on Italy. I would ask you NOT to
print it until further notice. I fear I have misinterpreted the permission given me
to publish it, which, apparently, does NOT extend to the stuff about the privy
purse. Since the matters in question could land my sourcea in a most serious
predicament and might deprive me of the source itself, I am also sending you a
telegram. If you receive no further word from me, you can bring the ms. back
with you in January and we shall then re-edit it.
Once again my kindest regards to you all.
Yours,
F.E.
139
IN HOBOKEN
Dear Sorge,
Your postcards of 29 November and 17 December received with
a
Antonio Labriola
Letters- 1893 249
thanks. First of all a Happy New Year to you and your wife from Louise
Kautsky and myself.
You will have noticed, not without some surprise, that a Socialist group of
between fifty-four and sixty men (they themselves don’t seem to know
exactly how many) has established itself in the French Chamber. Immediately
after the elections 208 they numbered, at a generous count, twenty-four, twelve
of whom had been elected on the strength of the Marxist platform. However,
of these only six presented themselves at the Paris Party Congress and
hitherto only four have agreed, in accordance with the congress resolution, to
pay a part of their parliamentary salary into the party treasury. 283 (Which is
not yet the same thing as actually paying it in—in France it was being said as
early as 1870 that les cotisations ne rentrent pas!a) Well, thanks to the
adhesion of the radicaux socialistesb of the Millerand-Jaurès group, there are
now all of a sudden nearly sixty who have resolved to include the
socialisation of the means of production as one of the aims—more immediate
for some, for others, however, very remote—of their programme.
Concentration is now the battle-cry in France. If in the past this meant a
concentration républicaine (i.e. the subordination of all Republicans to the
right wing, the Opportunists 87), it now means a concentration socialiste and I
only hope this does not mean the subordination of all Socialists to the
Millerandists whose practical programme is assuredly more radical than
socialist.
The first result of this alliance is that our people have as good as lost the
chance of acquiring a daily of their own. Millerand’s Petite République
Française already occupies that position, so it will be difficult to produce an
organ to compete with it—finance is more difficult to obtain and the others
would complain that it would mean splitting the party! The more so as the
Petite République Française is crafty enough to open its columns to any
socialist group.
The second is that in the group’s meetings the Millerandists command an
absolute majority (ca. 30 against 24 at the most—Marxists (12), Allemanists
21
(3-5), Broussists 30 (2) and Blanquists 20 (4-6)).
Nevertheless messieurs les Français, intoxicated once again by victory,
are crowing away for the benefit of all and sundry and would like to resume
their place at the forefront of the movement. They have tabled a motion
demanding that the standing army be changed into an army of
a
contributions are not paid - b Radical Socialists
250 Letters- 1893
a
See next letter. b of Capital- c Antonio Labriola - d Börsenblatt für den Deutschen
Buchhandel und die mit ihm verwandten Geschäftszweige —c Paul Ernst
Letters-1893 251
Hence I cannot, on any account, let this one and only copy out of my hands.
Now, a few years back, I sent you my spare copy. Would you be so good as
to lend it to me for the above purpose for five or six weeks? You could send
it to me as a BOOK-PACKET by registered post or, if you prefer, through an
express agency insured for any sum you choose, and I should return it by
whichever medium you may direct. I would, if that could somehow be
arranged, send it to Rome through an agency, heavily insured (for 410 say)
or, if that is not possible, by registered post. It should be stipulated that
Labriola might have the use of it for a maximum of four weeks. I need hardly
tell you that without a knowledge of this book he will be unable to hold the
proposed course of lectures, still less realise his intention of publishing them
at a later date. There are fewer than six copies in the whole of the German
party and who has them I don’t know. So please think the matter over.
My Feuerbach is being translated into French by Laura Lafargue and will
shortly be coming out in Paris. 310
Warm regards to your wife and you from Louise Kautsky and yours,
F.E.
I hope your health has improved. Louise Kautsky asks me to say that the
papera you send to Vienna arrives regularly. Thank you for the greetings
card.
a
Woman’s Journal
252 Letters- 1894
140
AT LE PERREUX
My dear Lafargue,
First, seasonal greetings to Laura and you from Louise and myself.
And now for your disarmament plan. I saw the Vaillant motion in Le Parti
Socialiste, I did not have it from Laura. 317 Neither this paper nor your letter
tells me whether it has already been tabled or if that is still to come.
The Germans have been demanding for years that the standing army
should be turned into a militia, this is repeated in all their Reichstag speeches
on militarism, the war budget, etc., repeated ad nauseam. I fail to see that the
formal tabling of a Bill could add anything to it. Nevertheless, they will look
into it.
As for the proposal to be made concerning a disarmament congress, that
would be—like Vaillant’s motion also—a matter to be settled by a
conference of delegates from the three parliaments: French, German and
Italian. One delegate from each nation would be enough. Any international
action must have as a necessary premise a previous agreement both as to the
basis and as to the form. It strikes me as inadmissible that one nationality
should take the initiative publicly and then invite the others to fall in. The
French, themselves pretty punctilious at times on matters of etiquette, should
for their part observe democratic considerations. I shall not call the Germans’
attention to this point, but I should not be surprised if this rather naïve
invitation, to follow in the footsteps of the
Letters- 1894 253
French party, which has only just got into Parliament and is made up of such
diverse and in some respects such little known elements, is not immediately
accepted.
Now for the substance.
The Vaillant motion will be opposed by the military on the ground that
militias on the Swiss model, possibly good enough for a mountainous
country, lack the stability needed for a large army that has to operate on every
kind of terrain. And there they will be right. To build a good militia army the
foundation must be laid by the athletic and military training of the young; so
it’s a thing which would take from five to eight years; you would not have
this militia until about the end of the century. Therefore if there is to be a Bill
against which the bourgeois and the military cannot raise valid objections,
this fact must be taken into account.
That is what I tried to do in the articles which appeared last year in
Vorwärts and which I sent you.a I am sending you a further copy today. Here
I am proposing an international agreement for the reduction—simultaneous
and agreed jointly in advance—of the period of military service. To meet the
usual prejudices as far as possible, I am proposing for a start a period of two
years’ enlistment, to be reduced as soon as possible to 18 months (two
summers and the winter between), and then to one year and so on, until a
class of young men have reached military age who shall have been through
that athletic and military instruction which shall have fitted them to bear
arms without further training. And then there would be a militia that would
require no more than large-scale manoeuvres every 2 or 3 years to find its
feet and to learn how to operate in large formations.
Now that the two-year period is already generally recognised one could
demand 18 months at once, and reduction to 1 year in 2 or 3 years; during
that time, the athletic and military training of young men between 15 and 18
could be set going, not forgetting that of boys between 10 and 15.
Vaillant’s Bill has great need for revision by someone who knows what’s
what in military affairs, it contains things written in haste on which we could
not stand up to serious argument. According to art. 9 {all the children of the
country), the girls, too, are to be put through “all the evolu-
a
F. Engels, “Can Europe Disarm?”
254 Letters- 1894
Ever yours,
F. Engels
First published in: Printed according to the original
F. Engels, P. et L. Lafargue,
Correspondance, t. II I, Paris, 1959 Translated from the French
141
IN PARIS
My dear Lavrov,
Thank you for your card—please accept my best wishes for the New
Letters- 1894 255
Year.
It would seem that, despite the harmony between Carnot and the tsar,a it
will be the French, and not the outlawed Russians who will suffer perse-
cutions and tribulations, the inevitable effect of anarcho-police bombs. 319 So
much the better. After all, there are signs that even the Parisian philis-tine
would seem to be feeling just a little shame for his hysterical actions of last
October.
Could you let me have the address of Mr. Rapoport, who has just returned
to Switzerland?
There is finally some hope that you will receive the 3rd volume of Capital
before the end of the year. The Russian translation will be done as for the 2nd
volume. I will send the proofs to Danielson.
142
IN DIANO MARINA
[Draft]
[London, 9 January 1894]
Dear citizen,
Please excuse me for writing to you in French. Over the last twenty years I
have lost whatever little ability I had in the use of Italian.
I have tried to find a short epigraph of the kind you wish 320 from the
a
Alexander II I
256 Letters- 1894
works of Marx, whom alone of the modern socialists, it would seem, is able
to stand on a par with the great Florentine.a However, I have found nothing
except the following passage taken from the Communist Manifesto (Italian
edition of Critica Sociale, p. 35): “Al posto della vecehia società borghese
divisa in class; cozzanti fra loro, subenta un’associazione, nella quale il
libero sviluppo di ciascumo è la condizione per il libero sviluppo di tutti”.b
It is almost impossible to sum up the spirit of the new age of the future in
just a few words without lapsing into either utopianism or empty words.
Please accept my apologies if the quotation I offer is not wholly satis-
factory. However, as you must be ready for the 21 (a date that augurs well,
the execution of citizen Louis Capet), there is no time to lose.
E con distinti saluti
Suoc
a
Dante - b “In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall
have an association, in which the free development of each is the condition for the free
development of all” (K. Marx and F. Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party, this edition,
Vol. 6, p. 506). - c Respectfully yours
Letters- 1894 257
143
IN STUTTGART
Dear Baron,
Ede has doubtless already told you of the despatch of part of the ms. of
Volume II I (approx. 1/3 of a cubic foot). Now that it has safely arrived in
Hamburg, I am able to give you a short review of it for the Neue Zeit and this
I enclose.a Please send a copy with the article side-lined to Otto Meissner’s
Verlag, Hamburg.
Work is continuing on the second third which I hope will soon be ready.
Your good wishes for Xmas as well as for the New Year were gratefully
reciprocated in thought if not in words.
I shall now probably be able to get hold of the Berne Convention.b 303
I am anxious to see Cunow’s book.c The man has done a great deal of
swotting in his field and keeps his eyes open.
Dietz will be interested to hear that Laura Lafargue is translating my
Feuerbach into French for the Ère nouvelle 310 and subsequent publication as
an off-print. I have already looked over the first part. She translates deftly
and conscientiously.
Rave, who is less deserving of such praise, has again written to me; he has
had a go at your Thomas Morus,d mais c’est bien indigeste!e For the man
does not, in fact, possess an adequate knowledge of German, although he is
an Alsatian and by rights should probably be called Rawe.
I’m glad that Victor should have promptly extracted the best bits from
your latest article and made them available to the Viennese. 321 They were
quite admirably suited to the situation there. According to Victor’s last letter,
all danger of anything silly being done is now past. In fact both the Czech
and the trades union congresses have shelved the question of a GENERAL
STRIKE 322 until the Party Conference 323 and Victor will
a
On the Contents of the Third Volume of Capital’. - b See this volume, p. 240 - c H. Cunow, Die
Verwandtschafts-Organisationen der Australneger, Stuttgart, 1894 - d K. Kautsky, Thomas
More und seine Utopie, Stuttgart, 1888 - e but it’s pretty heavy!
258 Letters- 1894
144
IN PARIS
My dear Lavrov,
Thank you for your card of the 6th. The enclosed letter 25 contains a
personal communication which I believe to be important, and therefore
would not like to go astray. Would you be so kind as to send it to Mr.
Rapoport as soon as you know his address. There is no particular urgency, a
week will make no difference.
The first third of the manuscript of the 3rd volumea is at the printer’s (20
chapters). I am busy with the final editing of the rest. If all goes well, we will
appear in September,
If, as I hope, your health is no worse than mine, we shall neither of us
have anything to complain of.
Your devoted friend, F.
Engels
145
IN LONDON
My dear Lamplugh,
Your parcel was an agreeable surprise indeed. Many thanks! I am almost
ashamed to confess that in my ignorance I had fancied the Anatomy of
Melancholy to be one of the serious psychological disquisitions of the 18th
century, which I hold in horror. Now I find that it, too, is a product of the
grandest epoch of English literature, the beginning of the 17th century. I turn
to it with pleasure, and have already seen enough to assure me that it will
prove a constant source of enjoyment.
This reminds me that I have forgotten to let you have the only two works
of mine that have been published in Englisha—I have made free to send
them, to you by post and hope you will do me the favour of accepting them.
Dakyns told me on Sunday you were afraid of your little boy getting the
influenza. Although there is more about of this beastly complaint than is
desirable, I hope the danger has blown over.
Reciprocating your kind wishes for the New Year and with kind regards to
Mrs Lamplugh.
a
F. Engels, The Condition of the Working-Class in England; Socialism: Utopian and Scientific
260 Letters- 1894
146
IN POITIERS
[Draft]
[London], 10 January 1894
Dear citizen,
A thousand thanks for your good wishes for the New Year, which, I hope,
will bring you good fortune also!
The translation of my book, 195 as it is at present, seems to me to be very
good. As for the rest, since I edited the proofs, I also bear my share of the
responsibility.
The style of Thomas Morusa will really seem rather heavy to the French
public, but there are some good points, and the historical estimates have a
more than transitory value.
At the moment I have no book I can offer you for translation, but if I find
something, I shall let you know.
Yours respectfully.
147
IN VIENNA
Dear Victor,
First, my thanks to you all, and especially to yourself, your wife and
family, for your good wishes which I heartily reciprocate, and thanks also for
the League tie-pin which I shall sport as soon as I have a suitable necktie to
wear it with—I intend to buy one specially for the purpose.
That there is a great deal to be done over there I can readily believe and
none of us can imagine how you are able to manage it all, and under the most
difficult circumstances at that. We admire and envy you your tenacity. What
particularly pleased me, however, was your assurance that an end has been
put to the foolishness you had been fearing over there. I have since received
reports on the two Congresses 323 and have been able to discover at least
some of the particulars therefrom. Things couldn’t in fact have gone off
better in regard to this crucial matter.
So far as the healthy development of the movement is concerned, it was a
real blessing that the perspicacious Höger should have declared suffrage to
be a bourgeois racket and not something to go on strike for, 327 and that the
miners should, after their own fashion, have declared themselves opposed to
any strike that did not also support the eight-hour day. And at Budweis the
Czechs have also helped us by making admission conditional on recognition
of the programme and tactics (à la Zurich 229) and by shelving the general
strike, which seemed more pervasive there than anywhere else, until the
Party Conference, 323 when it will probably be shelved again.
K. Kautsky’s article which you reprinted 321 will be of great help to your
people. But it’s indicative of the extent to which its author has lost touch
with the living party movement. A few months ago he showed an
inconceivable want of tact in proposing to sling a purely academic discussion
of the general strike in abstracto, and of its pros and cons generally, into the
midst of a movement engaged in a life and death struggle against slogans
advocating such a strike. 290 And now comes this article which, at any rate in
the passages you cite, hits the nail on the head quite admirably.
Anyhow, come next month and the Electoral Reform Bill, and you people
will (be able to) start agitating again with a will. It was quite a good thing that
the first high fever should have had a chance to run its course, for now the
chaps will take a rather calmer view of things. Whichever way it goes, the
government and the Diet are bound to place new weapons in your hands and
next year there will be several score if
a
See this volume, p. 257
262 Letters- 1894
a
the fourth estate - b See this volume, p. 249 - c Socialists of yesterday - d Socialists of tomorrow
- e of Capital
Letters- 1894 263
148
IN LONDON
My dear Lamplugh,
I had a dim recollection of having given you the Socialismb before, but
was not sure. My memory for this sort of thing is getting awfully senile.
Please dispose of the odd copy to your friend, as you propose, and I only
hope he will find it digestible.
Compliments to Mrs Lamplugh.
Yours faithfully
F. Engels
The weather may now by and by permit of your visit to the Zoo, so when
it comes off please drop us a postcard and say about what time after having
seen the wild beasts you will be likely to look in here with your family.
a
all the rest - b F. Engels, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific
264 Letters- 1894
149
IN NIMES
[Note]
London, about 21 January 1894
Should first read the second volume and then refer back. To go by his
letter to Diamandi, his German still isn’t perfect but he’s still working at it,
in particular the terminology of political economy.
150
IN BRESLAUa
Dear Sir,
Herewith the answers to your questions.
1. By economic relations, considered by us to be the determinant upon
which the history of society is based, we understand the manner in which
men of a certain society produce the necessities of life, and exchange
a
Now Wroclaw
Letters- 1894 265
those products among themselves (in so far as division of labour exists). Thus
they comprise the entire technology of production and transport. As we see it,
that technology also determines the manner of exchange, likewise the
distribution of products and hence, following the dissolution of gentile
society, also the division into classes, hence the relations of rulers and
subjects, and hence the state, politics, the law, etc. Economic relations further
comprise the geographical basis on which these are enacted, and, indeed, the
inherited remnants of earlier stages of economic development, remnants
which often owe their survival only to tradition or vis inertiaea they also, of
course, comprise the external environment by which this form of society is
encompassed.
If, as you say, technology is indeed largely dependent on the state of sci-
ence, then how much more is not the latter dependent on the state and the
requirements of technology? If society has a technological requirement, the
latter will do more to promote science than ten universities. Hydrostatics
(Torricelli, etc.) owes its existence solely to the need to regulate mountain
streams in Italy in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Only since the
discovery of its technological uses have we known anything rational about
electricity. Unfortunately historiographers in Germany have got into the
habit of writing about the sciences as though they had appeared out of the
blue.
2. We see economic conditions as that which, in the final analysis,
determines historical development. But the human race is itself an economic
factor. Here, however, there are two points which should not be overlooked:
a) Political, juridical, philosophical, religious, literary, artistic, etc.,
development is based on economic development. But each of these also
reacts upon the others and upon the economic basis. This is not to say that
the economic situation is the cause and that it alone is active while
everything else is mere passive effect, but rather that there is reciprocal
action based, in the final analysis, on economic necessity which invariably
prevails. The state, for instance, exerts its influence through protective tariffs,
free trade, good or bad fiscal systems, and even your German philistine’s
mortal weariness and impotence, consequent upon Germany’s impoverished
economic condition between 1648 and 1830, and expressing itself first in
Pietism and then in sentimentality and cringing servility
a
the force of inertia
266 Letters- 1894
to princes and nobles, even this was not without economic effect. It was one
of the greatest obstacles to recovery and was not removed until chronic
poverty became acute as a result of the revolutionary and Napoleonic wars.
Thus the effect of the economic situation is not, as is sometimes
conveniently supposed, automatic; rather, men make their own history, but in
a given environment by which they are conditioned, and on the basis of
extant and actual relations of which economic relations, no matter how much
they may be influenced by others of a political and ideological nature, are
ultimately the determining factor and represent the unbroken clue which
alone can lead to comprehension.
b) While men may make their own history, they have not hitherto done so
with a concerted will in accordance with a concerted plan, not even in a given
and clearly delimited society. Their aspirations are at variance, which is why
all such societies are governed by necessity of which the counterpart and
manifestation is chance. The necessity which here invariably prevails over
chance is again ultimately economic. This brings us to the question of what
are known as great men. The fact that such and such a man, and he alone,
should arise at a particular time in any given country, is, of course, purely
fortuitous. But if we eliminate him, a replacement will be called for and such
a replacement will be found—tant bien que mal,a but found he will ultimately
be. That Napoleon, this particular Corsican, was the military dictator
rendered necessary by a French Republic bled white by her own wars, was
fortuitous; but that, in the absence of a Napoleon, someone else would have
taken his place is proved by the fact that the moment someone becomes
necessary—Caesar, Augustus, Cromwell, etc.—he invariably turns up. If it
was Marx who discovered the materialist view of history, the work of
Thierry, Mignett Guizot and every English historiographer prior to 1850 goes
to show that efforts were being made in that direction, while the discovery of
the same view by Morgan shows that the time was ripe for it and that it was
bound to be discovered.
The same thing applies to all fortuitous and seemingly fortuitous events in
history. The further removed is the sphere we happen to be investigating
from the economic sphere and the closer to the purely abstract, ideological
sphere, the more likely shall we be to find evidence of the fortuitous in its
development, and the more irregular will be the curve
a
for better or for worse
Letters- 1894 267
it describes. But if you draw the mean axis of the curve, you will find that the
longer the period under consideration and the larger the area thus surveyed,
the more approximately parallel will this axis be to the axis of economic
development.
In Germany the greatest obstacle to accurate interpretation is the ir-
responsible neglect of economic history in literature. It is so difficult, not
only to rid oneself of the historical ideas drummed into one at school, but
actually to get together the material necessary for the purpose. Who, for
instance, has so much as read old G. von Gülich whose dry catalogue of
material nevertheless contains so much that throws light on innumerable
political facts!
Come to that, I believe that the fine example provided by Marx in the 18.
Brumaire0 should, precisely because it is a practical example, go a long way
towards answering your questions. I also think that I touched on most of
these points in the Anti-Dühring Chapters 9-11 and II , 2-4, also II I, and in
the introduction, and again in the final section of the Feuerbach.d
Please do not take every word I have said above for gospel, but rather
consider them in their general context; I am sorry not to have had the time to
write to you in such careful detail as I should have had to do for publication.
Would you kindly convey my compliments to Mr ...e and thank him for
sending me the ...e which greatly amused me.
a
G. von Gülich, Geschichtliche Darstellung des Handels, der Gewerbe und des Ackerbaus
handeltreibenden Staaten unsrer Zeit, Bd. 1-5, Jena, 1830-1845 - b K. Marx, The Eighteenth
Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. - c F. Engels, Anti-Dühring. Herr Eugen Dühring’s Revolution in
Science. — d F. Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy- e
omitted in MS.
268 Letters- 1894
151
IN BERLIN
Dear Fischer,
Discussed the matter with Aveling yesterday. 330 After the Erfurt Party
Conference, 331 and armed with the documents provided by you, Aveling
again went to the Daily Chronicle and notified them of the facts (he had
already been there once before and denounced Reuss as a spy, whereupon
they had said they would get rid of him). But now all of a sudden the story
was that the proprietor of the paper wished to keep Reuss on and so there
was nothing they could do about it. But if Reuss nevertheless asserts that he
gave notice himself on 9. Nov. 1891, i.e. immediately afterwards, it shows
that, as a result of what Aveling had told them, they treated him in such a
manner as to force him to give notice—the fact remains that he was made to
go.
However you cannot publicly ventilate any of these matters because you
would risk a public denial by the Chronicle people, since etiquette in this
country strictly precludes publication of a newspaper’s internal affairs and
the chaps can thus tell any lies they choose and do so with complete
impunity. If I were you I should drop the matter altogether since it is no
longer of any importance whatever. The very most you could say would be
that the Erfurt Conference took place in October 1891, immediately after
which the information about Reuss was sent to London and that, as early as 9
November Reuss had, by his own admission, found it necessary to give
notice—and let the reader draw his own conclusions. Should you venture one
step further, the Chronicle will state that, so far as it is concerned, the thing
simply is not true, and neither it nor any other London paper will print a line
of rectification from you. Such is the etiquette of the press over here.
We know nothing about Reuss being pilloried for the second time in the
Vorwärts; you will have to look for it yourselves.
Would you pay my fee 332 to the party treasurer who can receipt it in the
monthly account with the initials F. E. in L.
Letters- 1894 269
152
IN STUTTGART
Dear Baron,
Am back in Eastbourne 333 again because of my usual lame leg, but it’s
already on the mend. Shall remain here until at least the 23rd of this month; if
you should write, the address will be 28, Marine Parade, Eastbourne. Victor
has snatched the Critica Sociale article away from under your nose and is
translating it. 334 At the moment I’ve got no time at all since I am having to
proof correct the whole of the rest of Volume II I,a and page proofs rain
down on me as inexorably as blows in the Cameroons. 335
Ask Dietz to send the 8 marks with the next larger consignment to Vienna.
282
I do not consider the term ‘communism’ suitable for general use today;
rather it should be reserved for cases in which a more exact description is
required, and even then it would call for an explanatory note, having virtually
fallen out of use for the past thirty years. 336
At the moment I consider Burns to be better and Jaurès to be less im-
portant than commonly made out to be.
Warm regards from one household to the other.
Yours,
F.E.
a
of Capital
270 Letters- 1894
153
IN BERLIN
[Draft]
Eastbourne 333, 17 February 1894
28, Marine Parade
Dear Sir,
In thanking you for your esteemed note of the 14th of this month, I can
only say that for a long time to come I shall be so overwhelmed with work as
to be unable to undertake any work even for the periodical press of my own
party. It would be all the less admissible if I were to contribute to journals
which, however genuine and honourable the views they represent, are none
the less further removed from my own immediate standpoint.
For this and other reasons I must regretfully refuse your kind invitation,
while remaining
a
Deleted in the draft: If I were to let you have an article on the subject you propose (which, I
must confess, I do not know very much about) or on some other subject, this would in all
likelihood involve me in a debate concerning my materialist point of departure.
Letters- 1894 271
154
IN LONDON
Dear Ede,
Thank you for your letter and for the offer of G. Bruno. 339 But just now I
am busy with Chapter 4la (ground rent) and hope to polish off a few more
chapters before my return on Thursday, a week today. So I should like to
save up the book until I come back, when I should certainly be glad to read it.
We have been sent the Frankfurter Zeitung feuilleton, ‘Bebel und VoUmar’.b
The weather here is unfortunately too cold for me to be able to sit out of
doors very much and I am not yet really in a condition to do any walking.
Until next week, then.
Kindest regards to Gine, Kätec and yourself.
Yours F.E.
155
IN HOBOKEN
Dear Sorge,
Because of temporary lameness I am again spending a few weeks
a
Of the third volume of Capital (see Vol. 25 of this edition, pp. 698-705). - b G. Brandes, ‘Bebel
und Vollmar’, Frankfurter Zeitung, 4 February 1894 - c Regina Bernstein and Käte Schattner
272 Letters- 1894
a
See this volume, pp. 250, 282, 299
Letters- 1894 273
In Italy something violent might happen any day now. The middle classes
have retained all the abominations of a feudalism in decay and used them as
an excuse for their own infamies and tyrannies. The country is at the end of
its tether, there has got to be a change there, but the Socialist Party 340 is still
very weak and very muddle-headed, although among its number it can boast
some really capable Marxists.
In Austria, too, something is to be anticipated. The funny part of it is that
Socialists there are looking for support to the Emperor 1 who, by giving his
blessing to Taaffe’s proposal for electoral reform, 270 has declared himself in
favour of something that comes close to universal suffrage, in the genuine
belief that this is a necessary counterpart to general conscription. The
coalition government won’t succeed in doing anything or, if it does succeed
in enacting an electoral Bill, this will be regarded simply as a bonus, while
the movement, with the Emperor’s tacit consent, will proceed on its way at
any rate until such time as Taaffe’s reform is put through. And then our
chaps will see to the rest.
In short things are proceeding very merrily everywhere, and prospects for
the fin de siècle look better every day.
To judge by appearances, the Workman’s Times is at the point of death.
Nor is the INDEPENDENT LABOUR PARTY 114 very much more lively;
it’s strange how slow and circuitously everything proceeds over here.
Many regards to you and your wife from the two Freybergers and
Yours,
F. Engels
a
Franz Joseph I — b end of the century
274 Letters- 1894
156
IN VIENNA
Cordial congratulations 341 from me too, dear Adelheid and Popp. Good
examples are, as it were, raining round us thick and fast, and were I not so
old and lame a horse, who knows—I might still decide to go into harness
again.
Your old
F. Engels
157
AT LE PERREUX
My dear Lafargue,
I have just read Jaurès’ and Guesde’s speeches on the corn tariffs. I must
say Jaurès’ speech is astounding, and it seems to me regrettable that he was
allowed to put forward his amendment in the name of the Party. 342 I don’t
wish to speak of his proposal that the State should hold the price of corn at a
minimum of 25 francs, which is out and out protectionism, and purely to the
advantage of the big landowners into the bargain, since the small ones have
no corn to sell, their produce not even sufficing for their own consumption.
Guesde certainly said that, but after Léon Say, whereas we should have been
the first to proclaim it loudly, instead of fol-
Letters- 1894 275
a
See this volume, pp. 249, 262
276 Letters- 1894
them that Laura was good enough to do. 195 I hope she approved of the few
small alterations I suggested, and that you have told her how charmed I was
by the translation of that 3rd and 4th part. I kiss her by your proxy.
158
IN WIESBADEN
Dear Sir,
My reply to your esteemed letter of 26.2 has been somewhat delayed 344 by
my absence from London. 333
Things do not look very bright so far as English socialist literature is
concerned. The leading publisher of books of this nature is Sonnenschein
(W. Swan Sonnenschein & Co., Paternoster Square). While there is a lot of
inferior stuff amongst his SOCIAL SCIENCE SERIES, it also contains the
following:
W. Morris and E. B. Bax, Socialism, its Growth and Outcome;
E. B. Bax, The Religion of Socialism; do.,
The Ethics of Socialism;
Aveling, E. AND E. M[arx-Aveling], The Working Class Movement in
America;
Lafargue, The Evolution of Property;
E. B. Bax, Outlooks from the New Standpoint;
Hyndman, Commercial Panics of the 19th Century;
278 Letters-1894
159
IN VIENNA
Dear Victor,
A short while ago you asked me about translating the article in the Critica
Sociale on the position, etc., of Italy. 334 Louise at once wrote a postcard on
my behalf saying THAT YOU WERE WELCOME TO IT and I confirmed
this a day or two later in a letter to you. 25 Soon afterwards an inquiry arrived
from K. Kautsky who wanted to know if I
Letters- 1894 279
would let him have the thing for the Neue Zeit. In my reply I told him that
you had already snaffled it.a
But the article has not, in the meantime, appeared in the Arbeiter-Zeitung,
and that puts me in an awkward position vis-à-vis K. Kautsky. So could you
please let me know what is happening about it? I must say this makes me feel
like the English landlady who, having on the one hand a nubile daughter and,
on the other, a susceptible German lodger, demanded of the latter at the first
sign of a flirtation: “WHAT ARE YOUR INTENTIONS WITH REGARD
TO MY DAUGHTER?” But the fact that K. Kautsky has entered into
competition with you will doubtless exonerate me.
Over here things are tending towards a general election 345 and everything
that happens is done by way of preparation for it. The Liberals are as craven
as ever. They must know that they can only retain their position by
increasing the political power of the workers and yet they hesitate and
flounder about nervously. Neither a cut-and-dried extension of the suffrage,
nor the elimination of a property qualification which consists in burdening
the candidate with all the election expenses while failing to give him a
salary, nor any provision in the shape of a second ballot for the putting up of
a third candidate (alongside those of the two official parties). At the same
time they want to abolish the house of lords but don’t lift a finger to produce
a Lower House with the courage and ability to do this. The Tories for their
part are making mistake after mistake. For two years they have been turning
Parliament into a complete farce on the pretext of smashing HOME RULE;
171
with the Liberals, who took this lying down, they have played, and
continue to play, Old Harry, as Randy Churchill demonstrated last night, 346
although, with elections in the offing, this is a risky business and might
seriously shake the peace-loving [?]b British philistine’s faith in the
Conservatives. Furthermore, Salisbury attempted to make the PARISH
COUNCILS BILL 163 an occasion for playing a dirty trick on his Liberal
Unionist allies, 206 Devonshire and Chamberlain, and exploiting them for
purely TORY ends, so that the said alliance is no longer as steadfast as
heretofore. In short, things are getting into a frightful tangle, and at the
moment it is difficult to guess what the outcome will be.
My congratulations on the way you lulled the general strike to sleep
a
See this volume, p. 269 — b sic in printed text
280 Letters- 1894
160
IN ST. PETERSBURG
My dear Sir,
Today I forwarded to you, registered, sheets No. 1-6 (up to page 96) of
Vol. II P containing the greater part of Section 1. The continuation will
follow as it reaches me.
Your letters of 4th and 23rd XI and 24/II to hand, I shall reply as soon as
possible.
Yours very faithfully
L. K.b
First published, in Russian, Reproduced from the original
in Minuvshiye gody, No. 2, 1908
Published in English for the first time
a
of Capital- b Engels’ pen name derived from Louise Kautsky’s initials
Letters- 1894 281
161
IN BUCHAREST
Dear Comrade,
Owing to my absence from London 333 I have been prevented from an-
swering your letter of 24 February any earlier. This I duly received as well as
the Manifestul comunist and Socialism utopic si socialism stüntifica for which
very many thanks. Unfortunately I am not yet sufficiently versed in
Romanian to be able to give an opinion on the merits of your translation. But
I would caution you against taking the French translation as a basis when
working on a German book.
Unfortunately time does not permit me to comply with your request that I
write a preface to the new edition. I am busy putting the finishing touches to
Volume II I of Marx’s Capital and, since printing is going rapidly ahead, I
must devote all my time to the completion of the rest of the manuscript in
order that no hold-ups should occur.
With kindest regards,
F. Engels
a
K. Marx and F. Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party; F. Engels, Socialism: Utopian and
Scientific
282 Letters- 1894
162
IN HOBOKEN
Dear Sorge,
I have today sent back to you with many thanks The Holy Family by
BOOK POST, REGISTERED, following its safe return from the trip to
Rome.a
Immediately after Easter I shall send you a parcel containing the Bax-
Morris bookb and Bernstein’s Berlin Complete Edition of Lassalle Works.c
Auntie Motteler has just been here in company with Gertrud Liebknecht.
Apparently the latter wants to move in temporarily with the former. What
Liebknecht intends to do about her (she says he wants her to go back)
remains a secret—doubtless also to himself. His eldest daughter, Mrs Geiser,
is living in the worst possible circumstances and his wife and Gertrud are at
daggers drawn. I don’t in fact believe he has actually insisted that she return.
Have you seen the novel Helena by old Mother Kautsky in the Vorwärts?
She has peopled her stage with a crowd of living party members, including
Motteler and his wife. It is a poor imitation of the popular novels of Gregor
Samarowd (Spy Meding). I shall be interested to see whether it is passed over
in silence and am somewhat surprised that the Vorwärts should have taken it.
The paper’s feuilleton is censored by Mother Natalie Liebknecht.
The Pionierkalender received with thanks.
Over here the dissolution of Parliament draws on apace. At the new elec-
tions 345 more Labour candidates will be put up than ever before, though not
nearly enough, and I’m not sure whether a whole crowd of them won’t
a
See this volume, p. 272 - b W. Morris and E. B. Bax, Socialism, its Growth and Outcome,
London, New York, 1893 - C F. Lassalle, Reden und Schriften, Berlin, 1892-1893-dSamarinin the
MS
Letters- 1894 283
again be put up with the help of TORY money. The Liberals, like the
TORIES, are both of them firm supporters of the indirect property quali-
fication which consists in the candidate’s being burdened with the entire costs
of the election—ranging from 4100 minimum up to between £400 and £600
and even more for the official expenses alone, e.g. POLLING PLACES, etc.
So if the working men fall into the clutches of Champion, who is offering
4100 per constituency (he got the money from Hudson, the soap
manufacturer), the Liberals will have no cause for complaint. All in all their
approach to the elections is characterised by a curiously obstinate refusal to
face the facts. They act as though they wish to abolish the Upper House but
refuse to remodel the Lower House (by increasing the power of the workers)
in such a way that it would be capable of tackling something of the kind on
its own. The TORIES, on the other hand, are more stupid than they ever were
and that is saying a good deal. For the past couple of years they have been
playing Old Harry with the Liberal government in the Upper and the Lower
House. To this the Liberals have calmly submitted, while the philistines, who
have been turning Conservative in droves, have rejoiced, since it was done on
the pretext of removing the treasonable, anti-Empire HOME RULE BILL 171
HOME RULE Government. Now, however, that serious domestic legislation
is on the agenda, they are continuing to play the same game, and that might
be rather too much of a good thing for your peace-loving philistine. So things
remain very uncertain and the new elections will at all events produce some
surprising results. Whatever happens, Labour will be strengthened and the
Liberals will be compelled to make further concessions to the working man.
In Austria, Belgium and Holland electoral reform has also been the order
of the day. Before long there will be no European parliament without labour
representatives. In Austria the cause is progressing very well. Adler is
leading the movement with quite outstanding address and the Party
Conference on Sunday 323 will also help.
Once the tariff business 301 has to some extent been sorted out on your side
of the Atlantic and the duty on raw materials been abolished, the crisis will
probably recede and the superiority of American industry over that of Europe
will undoubtedly make itself felt. Only then will matters take a serious turn
here in England, but then they will go with a bang.
I finished the first two thirds of Volume II P sooner than I had expected
a
of Capital
284 Letters- 1894
and, since printing was rapidly forging ahead (twelve proof-sheets have
already come back), I was compelled to make a brief announcement.a The
final editing of the final third is not yet quite done, but next week I shall be
getting down to it again.
Louise Kautsky has told you of her marriage to Dr L. Freyberger from
Vienna. He is a young physician who in my opinion has a major scientific
career ahead of him. He is practising in hospitals here and has since moved
in with us. Apart from the name, therefore, Louise’s address is unchanged.
Yours,
F. Engels
Warm regards to you and your wife from Louise and myself. I
trust your health has improved.
163
IN VIENNA
Dear Victor,
I wrote to you the day before yesterday, 13 and yesterday Louise wrote to
you at the Kopernikusgasse by ‘registered’ mail.
Your report on the state of affairs over there gave us great pleasure. Less
so the prospect of your spending your summer holidays in ‘durance vile’, 349
concerning which we had already seen something in the Arbeiter-
a
F. Engels, The Third Volume of Karl Marx’s ‘Capital’, On the Contents of the Third Volume
of ‘Capital’. — b See Letter 159
Letters- 1894 285
a
[L. Freyberger,] ‘Weibliche Fabriks-Inspektoren,’ Arbeiterinnen-Zeitung, Nos. 1 and 2, 5 and
19 January 1894 b [L. Freyberger] ‘Zum 13 März’, Arbeiter-Zeitung, No. 21, 13 March 1894 -c
F. Engels, To the Fourth Austrian Party Congress.
286 Letters- 1894
Yours,
F.E.
164
IN MADRID
[Draft]
[London, 26 March, 1894]
a
The following words are crossed out by Engels: ‘French, German, Austrian, Swiss and others’.
— b This part of the letter is written in Spanish, then follows the French text. -c The meeting-
place of the Congress.
Letters- 1894 287
the meeting: I asked almost all of them to go and find the Spanish delegation,
and to tell you that I was waiting for you; however, no one came. After the
congress ended, I was told that I would certainly see you in the afternoon, on
the steamboat. However, I looked for you in vain, and now I know what had
happened. On the Sunday, no one was able to tell me where you were
staying. I was told time and again that you had left, and I lost all hope of
meeting you. I was extremely sorry, since one of the reasons, and not the
least, why I came to Zurich was the hope of seeing my old friend Iglesias
face to face and shaking his hand.
Thank you for sending me regularly El Socialistae, which I read with great
pleasure every Saturday evening, and from which I have the satisfaction of
seeing that you are gradually spreading across the whole of Spain, that
socialism is being established on the ruins of Carlism 352 in the Basque
countries, and that far away provinces of Galicia and Asturia are beginning to
join the movement. Good luck!
As for the anarchists, they are perhaps on the verge of killing themselves.
This fever of violence, this volley of assassinations, senseless and, in the
final analysis, paid for and incited by the police, cannot but open the eyes of
the bourgeoisie to the nature of this propaganda of madmen and agents
provocateurs. 353 Even the bourgeoisie will realise in the end that it is absurd
to pay the police, and through the police the anarchists, to blow up the very
bourgeois who pay them. And if now we also risk suffering from the
bourgeois reaction, we shall benefit in the long run because this time we shall
succeed in proving to everyone that there is a world of difference between
ourselves and the anarchists.
Over here the movement is progressing quite slowly. There is certainly a
strong tendency towards socialism among the working masses. However, the
historical conditions in England are such that this tendency in the masses
produces, among the leaders, a host of different cross-currents which even
fight against each other. Here, as in France, there will only be unity when
there are some socialists in parliament. Today there are only two—which is
one too many, or at least, too few.
In Italy the situation is becoming critical and revolutionary. I am sending
you the Critica Sociale with an article which I have written on the request of
my friends from Milan. 334
almost calculate the day whena state power will fall into our hands.
In the meantime, I draw your attention to Austria. There a great battle is in
the making. The ruling classes, the feudal nobility and the bourgeoisie, have
exhausted their resources. An electoral reform is now inevitable. They are
trying to arrange things so that the working class will not have too many
representatives in parliament. But the workers are determined, they are
forcing the bourgeois to retreat step by step, until they concede universal
suffrage. After Zurich I visited Vienna; judging by what I saw there, the
Austrian socialists have a great future.b
When I had reached this point, I received your letter dated 22 March.
Unfortunately I am unable to send you a few lines for 1st May, since I have
to finish the final editing of the third volume of Das Kapital, and am obliged
to refuse any kind of collaboration, be it in connection with 18th March, or
with 1st May. And what I have refused to the French, the Germans, the
Austrians and others, I also cannot do for you.
Affectionately yours.
165
IN VIENNA
Dear Sir,
I am in receipt of your esteemed note of the 19th inst. (postmarked Rome)
and have also just received the first half volume of your book 354
a
The following phrase “we are the only party capable...” is crossed out by Engels. -b The text
that follows is in Spanish.
Letters - 1894 289
I am Sir,
Yours faithfully,
F. Engels
166
IN LONDON
[Draft]
[London,] 3 April 1894
Dear Comrade,
I am very much obliged to you and the comrades of the S.D.F. 44 whose
feelings you express for the honour you do me by asking me to lecture at
your hall. But I am afraid I must decline. My work for our common cause
lies in another branch of activity, where I believe I can be more useful,
a
F. Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England
290 Letters- 1894
and where I find full occupation for all the time at my command. Were I
once to begin lecturing, at which trade moreover I am but a poor hand, I
should no longer have a valid plea for resisting other invitations, and then I
should have entirely to give up my present class of work. For this reason I
have regularly declined all similar calls from the Fabian Society, 43 the I.L.P.,
114
and other bodies, with the exception made this year of the old Communist
Verein,a where they claimed a fifty years’ hold upon me. 62
But then, as far as the S.D.F. is concerned, there is another question to
consider. You cannot but be aware that for years, up to a comparatively
recent period, Justice, the official organ of the S.D.F., has been in the habit
of charging me with all sorts of offences. These charges, mostly vague
insinuations of mysterious crimes, Justice has never specified, never
attempted to provide, and yet never withdrew.b
167
AT LE PERREUX
My dear Löhr,
Your agreeable letter comes just in time. I was on the point of writing to
Paul this morning, and so I have a good pretext of changing the address of
my letter. I had just read your translation in the Ere Nouvelle and was quite
charmed by it. 310 It reads better than the original, there are only
a
Society - b Then there follows a number of unfinished and crossed out phrases which amount to
the following: ‘I am therefore compelled to consider whether under these circumstances I do not
owe it to myself for the present to refrain from presenting myself as a speaker in the hall of the
S.D.F., And further, whether my appearance in that capacity would not be unwelcome to a large
portion, perhaps even a majority, of those to whom the hall belongs.’
Letters - 1894 291
a
you have proved yourself! - b be it understood -c oxen by birth or oxen on principle - d See this
volume, p. 275 - e Ibid., p. 276
292 Letters- 1894
Of the Discours sur le libre échangea there exists but one copy which I by
some accident got hold of through a second-hand catalogue. If that were to
get lost, the whole thing, in the French original at least, would be lost for
ever, I cannot send it unless there are strong guarantees against loss. I expect
to-night a new Postal guide containing the latest information as to the
international postal insurance arrangements; if these are satisfactory I will
forward the thing to you at once, otherwise try some other means. Anyhow a
reprint would be in every respect highly desirable. 357 In the meantime I will
send you another copy of the English translation published in Boston. 358
Sorel’s Métaphysiqueb I really have not had time to read. I am awfully
busy; deep in the Rent of Land (Vol. II Ic) which causes me a deal of trouble
by Mohr’s tables being almost without exception miscalculated—you know
what a genius he was for figures!—and having to be recast. And 15 sheets
are already printed so that there is no time to be lost with the remainder of
the Manuscript. And then the hot weather—just as you have it at Le Perreux.
In there anything in that Sorel’s study?
Louise thanks you for your letter and will soon write to you; sends her
kindest regards. Her husband is getting quite a reputation here as an
anatomical preparator; he works a good deal for the anatomical Museum at
Middlesex Hospital; the clumsy people here cannot come up to the Vienna
standard in these delicate matters.
We have Gertrud Liebknecht here, back from America, but hardly much
improved there.
Just read Paul’s letter in the Vorwärts—capital.d So good that even Berlin
translations cannot spoil it.
Ever your old
F. Engels
a
Speech on Free Trade—b G. Sorel, ‘L’ancienne et la nouvelle métaphysique’, L’Ère nouvelle,
None 3, 4, 5 and 6, March, April, May and June 1894 - c of Capital -d [P. Lafargue] Gallus, ‘Die
Heldenthaten der französischen Polizei’, Vorwärts, No. 82, 10 April 1894
Letters-1894 293
168
IN MILAN
Dear Turati,
I am sending you by post the Anglo-American edition {Discourse on Free
Trade. 358 K. Marx) of your discourse, and the German translation of The
Poverty of Philosophy, where you will find this speech in the appendix.a As for
the French text, this is to be reprinted in the Paris L’Ère Nouvelle. 357 There is
only one copy of the French text, namely mine, and if it is lost there will be
no way to replace it. I therefore still do not know how to send it to Paris, for
if I have a copy made here, this will mean loss of time, and I have too much
experience of the post to entrust the original to it.
The 2nd volume of Capital came but in Hamburg, published by Otto
Meissner, as the 1st was, in 1893 (2nd edition). If I am not mistaken, the price
is 6 marks. The same publishers are to issue the 3rd volume in September, to
the great pleasure of the illustrious Achille Loria, a charlatan who warned
everyone that Marx had never written this 3rd volume, but was always
referring the reader to it simply to make a fool of him. 360
Kindest regards from myself and Mme Freyberger (ex Kautsky, she has
just married a young Austrian doctor living here) to Mme Kulishov.
Yours,
F. Engels
a
K. Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy.
294 Letters- 1894
169
IN LONDON
Dear Comrade,
Both you and the party who suggested to you the idea of my lecturing for
you, 361 must have been aware that I have so far made it a rule not to lecture
anywhere. But apart from that, I find myself in a peculiar position with
regard to you, that is, if I rightly understand your letter, the Social
Democratic Federation. 44
You cannot ignore that for a long series of years and up to a comparatively
recent period, Justice, the organ of the S.D.F., has constantly attacked me and
brought all sorts of charges against me. While no attempt has ever been made
to prove these charges, they have never been withdrawn. Nor has the S.D.F.
ever disclaimed any responsibility for what Justice wrote. In consequence I
have been compelled to keep entirely aloof from the S.D.F. and do not see
how I can change my attitude unless that difficulty is entirely removed.
Yours faithfully,
F. E.
170
[Draft]
London, 24 April 1894
122 Regent’s Park Road, N. W.
Dear citizen,
I have received your letter dated 20th of this month, but unfortunately I am
quite unable to provide an article for the 1st May issue of your newspaper.
To begin with, I am unwell at the moment. However, even if I were in the
best of health, the urgent work that I am presently engaged in (the
publication of the 3rd volume of Capital by Marx) and that I cannot lay aside
makes it impossible for me to undertake any other literary work. I have
already warned those of our friends with whom I corresponded, and asked
them to excuse me. You can well understand that I cannot now do for you
that which I have officially refused to do for our friends in Spain, Austria and
other countries.
I wish your newspaper every success, and send my fraternal greetings to
the editorial committee.
Yours sincerely,
F.E.
171
IN BARREN
Dear Comrade,
Your letter of 21 March arrived a day or two ago as did the album of
Barmen you so very kindly sent me, and I should like to say how very
grateful I am to the Social Democratic Club in Barmen and, in particular, to
the compiler of the album, for this kind and for me both flattering and
agreeable gift. Indeed it was an unexpected pleasure to be able to see the
enormous changes that have taken place in Barmen during the twenty years
that I have been away. I feel completely lost. Other than by the station and on
one, the older, side of the Werther Bollwerk, I can no longer tell where I am
from the pictures. Even the view taken on the Neuenweg, which surely
cannot be more than a few minutes walk from the Bruch, is utterly strange to
me. Only our old house remains unaltered.
Though it is cheering to see these signs of an upheaval that has changed
the Barmen of my youth from a small philistine backwater into a large
industrial town, what nevertheless pleases me most is the fact that people
there have also experienced a significant change for the better. Had that not
been the case, Barmen would even now be represented in the Reichstag by
an out-and-out Conservative, some thoroughly sanctimonious ‘swell’, nor
could there be any question of a Social Democratic Club in Barmen, while
the last thing that would have occurred to Barmen’s working men would
have been to honour me with an album. Fortunately, however, the revolution
in the appearance of the town is attended by a revolution in the minds of its
working men and for us that is a guarantee of a far mightier and more
comprehensive revolution in the world as presently constituted. With sincere
regards,
Yours,
F. Engels
Letters- 1894 297
172
AT LE PERREUX
My dear Laura,
Just two lines.
Have the proofs of the Discours sur le libre échange 363 gone to Milan? If
not, do please see that they are sent at once. Turati has published in the
Critica Sociale a text which is a traductiona from the Russian of something
made out of something in German, 364 and moreover so abbreviated that it is
anything but Mohr. Now they threaten to publish this en brochure. And
unless they get the French text soon, I shall not even be able to haul them
over the coals for it, as they are doing ‘their text’ !
Surely it will be possible to make our French friends to treat business as
business for once!
Just come back from town where we sent off the last of the Manuscript of
Vol. II I,b
If you get the Neue Welt with the Vorwärts or some other German paper,
look at Aus finsteren Zeiten’c in No. 18. You will find there your grand-
parents and Mohr transmogrified into a romance and I wish you may relish
it.
Kind regards from Louise. Monsieur Guesde neither turned up nor wrote a
line of excuse, Les français sont si polis!d
Ever yours
F. E.
a
translation -b of Capital-c ‘Aus finsteren Zeiten’, Die Neue Welt, Nos. 18 and 19, 1894 — a The
French are so polite.
298 Letters- 1894
The lazy womana says she is just writing 30 letters to Trades Unions and
others anent an Austrian strike, and says she should be very glad of your
assistance if she could have it.
Avvocato F. Turati
Portíci Galleria, V. E. 23
Milano, Italia
173
IN MILAN
My dear Turati,
I am returning to you, registered Post, the proofs of Libero Scambio, etc.,
together with the English edition, 358 which I would ask you to keep. The
translation of my introduction is very good, except for a few points that are
technically difficult—you will find the appropriate indications. However,
Marx’s speech, which is published in the Critica Sociale, is not a translation
but a summary 364 that I despair of setting in order. I have written again to
Paris 25 to ask them to send you the French original. In the meantime please
compare with the English text. If you publish the text according to Critica
Sociale, you will receive complaints that this is not the author’s text, that this
is to take liberties which are tantamount to forgery, etc., and unfortunately I
will find it impossible to come to your aid, It would be better to rewrite it—it
is not very long—than to expose oneself to such complaints.
a
Louise Freyberger
Letters- 1894 299
Yours,
Engels
174
IN HOBOKEN
Dear Sorge,
Yesterday we sent to you through G.W. Wheatley & Co (New York AD-
DRESS, U.S. Express Co., 49, Broadway) a parcel containing Morris-Bax and
the Berlin Lassalle in fifty parts, which I trust will reach you before long.
b
CARRIAGE PAID. On the same day the remainder of the ms. of Volume II I
went off to Hamburg, thereby removing a heavy load from my mind. The
two final sections made me ‘sweat good and proper’.c There will be sixty
sheets of which twenty have already been set up in type.
I was greatly relieved to hear that the Holy Family had safely returned into
your keeping after its strange Odyssey.d On the other hand the news about
your eyes is most distressing. I hope you will consult a good specialist, for a
lot can be done if steps are taken in good time. For the past fifteen years I too
have had trouble with my eyes off and on. Having taken medical
a
W. Morris and E. B. Bax, Socialism, its Growth and Outcome, London, New York, 1893; F.
Lassalle, Reden und Schriften, Bd. 1-3, Berlin, 1892-1893 - b of Capital- c See K. Marx, Capital,
Vol. II I, Ch. 37-42 and 48-52 - d See this volume, pp. 250, 272, 282
300 Letters- 1894
advice I have again reached the stage at which the thing no longer bothers
me at all, provided only that I don’t write too much by lamplight.
Not long ago I caught a cold, which left me in no doubt that I am now an
old man at last. On this occasion, what I had previously been able to treat as a
minor annoyance, pretty well laid me low for a week and kept me under
draconian medical supervision for a whole fortnight after that. Even now, I
am expected to take care of myself for another fortnight, no less. It was a
mild form of bronchitis which is not to be taken lightly in the case of the
elderly, especially when, like myself, they have continued to tipple away
merrily. Needless to say, I find this business of taking care of myself
thoroughly distasteful, but Freyberger was, after all, quite right to prescribe it
for me and, as to seeing that I carry it out, that is the province of Argus-eyed
Louise who has doubled and tripled her vigilance. I think I have already
written and told you a that we left our domestic arrangements as little
changed as possible when we took in the young husband as a boards and
lodger. All very nice and jolly, it is true, but only, alas, so long as one is in
good health. Never in my born days have I been so plagued with medical
attention as during this past month and I can only console myself with the
thought that it was all done for my own good.
Dietzgen and wife were here for an hour or two on Sunday afternoon but
unfortunately missed Tussy. I have given him recommendations to Bebel
and Kautsky. They were very nice people.
I hope that your sonb has since found a situation. With his knowledge of
business, and having by now doubtless rid himself of a good many illusions
as a result of practical experience, a bright young man like that should
always fall on his feet in America.
Things are little changed over here. There is no chance of achieving any
kind of unity amongst the labour leaders. But the masses are nevertheless
moving ahead, Slowly it is true, and only now striving to acquire
consciousness, yet the process is unmistakeable. It will be the same here as
in France and, before that, in Germany: Unification will be forced upon them
as soon as a number of independent working men (especially those who have
been elected without the help of the Liberals) secure seats in Parliament.
This the Liberals are doing their utmost to prevent. They are not 1. extending
the franchise to the people who—on paper—already have it, but are, on the
contrary, 2. ensuring that the registers of electors
a
See this volume, p. 284 — b Adolph Sorge
Letters- 1894 301
will involve the candidates in greater expense than hitherto, since they are
now to be compiled twice a year, the cost of compiling a correct register
being borne by the candidates or the representatives of the political parties
and not by the state. They have categorically rejected the principle of 3.
electoral expenses being borne by the state or the municipality, also 4. of
parliamentary salaries and 5. of second ballots. The retention of all these old
abuses amounts to the outright disqualification of the labour candidates in at
least three-quarters of the constituencies. Parliament is to remain a rich man’s
club. And this at a time when the rich, because content with the status quo,
are all turning Conservative, while the Liberal Party is slowly dying, and
becoming ever more dependent on the Labour vote. The Liberals, however,
insist that the working man should only vote for a bourgeois and not for a
working man, let alone an independent working man.
This will be the undoing of the Liberals. Their lack of courage is
alienating the country’s Labour voters, dissipating their small majority in
Parliament, and, unless they make some very bold moves at the eleventh
hour, they will probably be done for. Thereupon the Tories will take the helm
and carry out what the Liberals intended—not merely to promise—actually
to do. And in that case an independent Labour party is pretty well assured.
The Social Democratic Federation 44 over here and your German-
American Socialists 367 share the distinction of being the only parties that
have contrived to reduce Marx’s theory of development to a rigid orthodoxy
which the working man is not expected to arrive at by virtue of his own class
consciousness; rather it is to be promptly and without preparation rammed
down his throat as an article of faith. Hence they have both remained mere
sects, having come, as Hegel puts it, from nothing by way of nothing to
nothing.a I have not yet had time to read Schlüter’s controversy with your
Germans, but shall tackle it tomorrow. Judging by the Volkszeitung’s earlier
articles, it would seem that the right note has been struck.
Give my warm regards to your wife and let us have some better news
from you soon. Warm regards.
Yours,
F. E.
a
G. W. F. Hegel, Wissenschaß der Logik
302 Letters- 1894
175
IN WEGGIS
[Draft]
[London,] 20 May 1894
Dear Sir,
I note from your letter of the 10th inst. that you have made and already
sent to the printers a Russian translation of my works on Russia which
recently appeared in Berlin, just as you did previously in the case of other
writings by Marx and myself. 368
I must needs draw your attention to the fact that, in accordance with the
Berne Convention 303 Introduction to Wage Labour and Capital by Marx
(1891) as well as the above-mentioned works are my literary property and
that translations of them into foreign languages may not be published in the
countries of the Union without my permission. Even though the matter of
fees may play only a subordinate or no role at all in cases such as these, or
where genuine party undertakings are concerned, I am nevertheless obliged
to assert my rights in the interests of the cause, for otherwise it would mean
my assuming joint responsibility for the publication of translations by
unqualified or otherwise incompetent persons. And since I have already
committed myself to a third party, I am under a twofold obligation.
So far as I am aware, it has hitherto been customary in the party, even in
the case of translations of works unprotected by the Berne Convention, to
show consideration for the writer by applying to him for authorisation.
Letters- 1894 303
When, however, a work falls within the terms of the Berne Convention, this
is not simply a polite formality but the translator’s bounden duty. You have
chosen to ignore this. I hereby protest against your conduct and reserve all
my rights.
My objection to the publication of an unauthorised Russian translation of
my works on Russia from Internationales aus dem ‘Volksstaat’ is all the
greater in that I have already made over the translation rights in the Russian
language for these and other works, namely to Mrs Vera Zasulich.
This disposes once and for all with your inquiry regarding my preface.
Yours very truly
176
IN MORNEX (France)
My dear Plekhanov,
First of all, please spare me ‘mentor’—my name is simply Engels.
Next, thank you for your information. I have sent a registered letter to M.
Krichevsky to say that the introduction to Wage Labour and Capital,a and
also the articles on Russia in Articles on International Themes from the
Newspaper ‘Volksstaat’ 370 are, according to the Berne Convention, 303 my
literary property, and that any translation requires my consent; that I am
obliged, in the interests of the cause, to stand upon my rights in order to
prevent translations by incapable or otherwise incompetentb (or
a
These words are written by Engels in Russian. See previous letter. - b A German word as given
in parenthesis ‘unbefungt’ (meaning unauthorised).
304 Letters- 1894
a
phrase in Russian - b G. W. Plekhanov, N. G. Tschernyschewski. Eine literar-historische Studie,
Stuttgart, 1894.
Letters- 1894 305
One can only despair at these English workers with their sense of imag-
inary national superiority, their essentially bourgeois ideas and opinions,
their narrow ‘practical’ viewpoint, and the rampant parliamentary corruption
which has infected their leaders. Yet things are moving nonetheless. Only the
‘practical’ English will arrive the last, but when they arrive, they will put a
very heavy weight on the scales.
My greetings to Axelrod and his family,
Yours,
F. Engels
177
IN LONDON
My dear Mendelson,
I have received a long letter from Georgi Plekhanov which contains many
things with regard to you and the Polish movement. I intended to read it to
you last Sunday, but I have learned that Mme Mendelson was taken ill and
that therefore you had to stay at home. If this be convenient to you, I shall
come to see you the day after tomorrow, Thursday, from 2 to 2.30 in the
afternoon, together with Mme Freyberger, who would like to see how Mme
Mendelson is feeling.
Yours truly,
F. Engels
178
IN MORNEX (France)
My dear Plekhanov,
Yesterday, shortly after my letter to you had left, Bernstein and Kautsky
arrived at my house. That has inevitably changed my plans. I thought that I
ought—even without waiting for your express permission—to read them
your letter, and put them both in a position to judge for themselves of the
Krichevsky business. The impression this created on them will, I believe, be
everything you could have desired. Indeed, however much one might wish to
remain neutral in issues and disputes within the Russian emigre community,
one cannot excuse the behaviour of Krichevsky as regards the translation of
the Soziales aus Russland 368 after learning about the translation undertaken
by Vera Zasulich.a As for the rest, these gentlemen knew Karl Kautsky had
given his consent to the translation of his Erfurt Programmeb; however, he
thought that it was to be printed in Russia, or at least, he had not the slightest
idea that it would be published in Switzerland.
Ignatievc is, so Kautsky told me, the pseudonym of Helfond (or some
name similar to that), who is in Stuttgart. You probably know him. However,
as I do not have Kautsky’s authorisation to use this information, I would ask
you to treat it as strictly confidential. According to Kautsky and Bernstein, it
would seem that Helfond is an honourable fellow who has fallen into
Jogiches’ trap by accident rather than malicious intent.
a
See this volume, p. 303 - b in Russian -c in Russian in the original.
Letters- 1894 307
Yours,
F.E.
179
IN WEGGIS
[Draft]
London, 31 May 1894
Dr B. Krichevsky, Weggisa
You have my permission to sell off the copies already in print of your
Russian edition of Wage Labour and Capital along with my introduction,
and I note with satisfaction that you will refrain from publishing my other
works. 368
Apart from that, I thank you for your letter of the 25th which I look upon as
a most valuable contribution to the characterisation of certain trends amongst
the Russian émigrés. Any inclination I might have to discuss its contents is
tempered by the consideration that you yourself probably do not expect to
impress anybody with these time-worn catchphrases à la Nechayev, since
you yourself are doubtless aware how ludicrous it is to seek to act the Social
Democrat while behaving like an anarchist.
But when you say ‘that we could have had no inkling that you had already
made over the translation rights to someone else’, you might really have
spared yourself that downright falsehood. You knew long before you wrote
your letter of the 10th of May that V. Zasulich and Plekhanov were preparing
a Russian translation of ‘On Social Relations in Russia’. In view of the
character of these people and the friendly relationship I have enjoyed with
them for many years, it goes without saying that they would
a
See also this volume, p. 302
308 Letters- 1894
not have done so without my consent, and of this you quite definitely had
more than an ‘inkling’.
First published, in Russian, Printed according to the original
in: Marx and Engels, Works,
First Russian Edition, Published in English for the first time
Vol. XXIX, Moscow, 1946
180
IN ST. PETERSBURG
My dear Sir,
Last week I forwarded to you sheets 7 to 16 incl. of Vol. II P and hope
you have received them. They were registered, and my name as sender at the
back (L. K.b). 371
I am glad to learn of the success of the ‘Essays’.c I hope a new edition is in the
press. I should be very glad if I could find a German translator for the book,
unfortunately most of the translation work from Russian into German is done
by ladies, generally not well prepared for economic work.
With many thanks I received the Russian ‘Origin’ etc., 372 the translation,
as far as I have read, seems to me very well done, and on the whole the
censorship seems to have dealt leniently with the book.
The sheets were sent rather late, but it was the fault of the publisher who
delayed them a long time. It is very hard work reading the proofsheets of a
book like this. You will find in the sheets sent the solution of the question
how the different rates of surplus value are equalised into one and the same
average rate of profits, the law of the tendency of that rate of profits
constantly to fall, and the mode in which commercial capital participates in
the distribution of surplus value. This comes to a conclusion in Sheet
a
of Capital- b Louise Kautsky - c Nikolai-on. [Danielson], Outlines of our Post-Reform National
Economy, 1893 [title in Russian]
Letters- 1894 309
21, in which the 5th Section opens: the splitting up of profits into interest and
‘profits of enterprise’ (Zins und Unternehmergewinn), moneyed capital
generally, banking and credit. This section fills up a whole third of the book;
it has cost me more trouble than all the rest. — The last third consists of
section VI: Rent of Land, and VII : the three kinds of revenue: Rent, profits
(interest), wages.
The last of the Manuscript is in the printer’s hands. But I only now find
what an enormous amount of arrears of work I have on my hands, as
everything not absolutely necessary had to be put back in order to finish Vol.
3rd. This must be my excuse if I do not now recur to some of the economic
questions previously discussed between us. As it is, I think we both have
plenty of work on our hands and better leave that discussion for another time.
Yours very sincerely
L. K.
181
AT LE PERREUX
My dear Lafargue,
Herewith the cheque for £20. Please acknowledge receipt.
The last bit of the manuscript of Vol. II P is at the printer’s. What a
a
K. Marx, Capital
310 Letters- 1894
relief! But the proof-sheets are giving me a rough time; they need close,
unremitting attention, it’s wearisome! And Meissner employs a rather
careless printer, which makes my job twice as hard. Add to this that Dietz is
printing the 3rd edition of my Anti-Dühring and you can take my word for it
when I say that I am literally overwhelmed by proof-sheets.
Your description of fashionable socialism in France gave me a good
laugh. But it could turn out to be a serious matter. If you had a strong, steady
army like the two million German voters, well and good; that would control
the heterogeneous mass of newcomers. But with a Party split into Marxists,
Blanquists, 20 Allemanists, 21 Broussists 30, and several other ists, not to
mention the ex-Radicals 86 of the Millerand stamp who boss all the others in
the Chamber, it is very hard to say where this new fashion is going to lead
you. You compare it to Boulangism 6: Boulangism, after a few months’
spree, ended in the mire and in ignominy. In a movement of this kind it is
pretty well certain that phrase-mongers like Jaurès, who already arrogate to
themselves the sole right to speak for you all in the Chamber, will boss
things.
Today they have the ear of the House where they silence our people,
tomorrow they will have the ear of the nation.
It is always on the cards that the whole thing will not turn out too badly,
and even well; but, in the meantime, you will go through some curious
experiences, and I am glad for us all that there is a solid combat corps in
Germany whose actions will decide the battle. This socialist mania which is
emerging in your country may lead to a decisive struggle in which you will
win the first victories; the revolutionary traditions of the country and of the
capital, the character of your army, reorganised since 1870 on a far more
popular basis—all this makes such an eventuality possible. But to ensure
victory, to destroy the foundations of capitalist society, you will need the
active support of a much stronger, more numerous, more tried and more
conscious socialist party than you have at your command. It would mean the
achievement of what we have foreseen and predicted for many years. The
French give the signal, open fire, and the Germans decide the battle.
In the meantime, we are nowhere near that and I am very curious to see
how the confused enthusiasm surrounding you will resolve itself.
Even Carl Hirsch noted in the Rheinische Zeitung that behind all this noise
over Turpin 374 there are but bourse speculators. It is only the English press
that is forbidden to say this and consequently, it pretends to see in that an
affair of high and low politics. Here one is sure that behind
Letters- 1894 311
any great political affair there must be the bourse and the smart operators,
and this is why it is strictly forbidden to speak of that. Protestant bourgeois
hypocrisy! Look at Jabez Balfour and at Mundella who has just resigned
from his ministry and for good reason; look at Sir J. Ferguson and Sir J.
Gorst, who are also implicated and who probably have made themselves
ineligible for any future Tory ministry. 375
The other day Kautsky came to us—he has been four times to us. Louise
and her husband received him in the most amiable manner; if someone was
embarrassed, it was not they.
As to your medallion (that is to say, mine), this will make difficulties.
Once I was foolish enough to have myself photographed in profile, but this
will never happen to me again. I have such a foolish look that I would rather
not have my portrait in profile go down to posterity. However, I would be
pleased to see the medallion of Marx (send it also for Tussy, please!), and I
am quite curious if your artist has succeeded in reproducing the nose which,
in profile, has really impossible lines.
Kiss Laura on my behalf!
Greetings from Louise and Ludwig. The latter continues trying to get
English physicians to see how much their colleagues on the continent are
superior in real science, anatomy, physiology, pathology, etc.
Cordially yours,
F. Engels
182
IN LONDON
My dear Jodko,
I cannot recall exactly whether you have translated and published
312 Letters- 1894
183
IN VIENNA
[Draft]
[London,] 7 June 1894
Dear Sir,
As you will see from the enclosed, the article in question 376 has already
been published in Polish here, first in the London journal Przedswit, nos. 1-3.
March 1894; it is now about to appear in pamphlet form also, together with
two other pieces of mine, ‘The Bakuninists at Work’ and ‘On Social
Relations in Russia’. Since this pamphlet will soon be coming out—in an
easily smuggled pocket edition—it would hardly seem worthwhile your
making a new translation.
The editors of the Przedswit (Al. Debski), 7 Beaumont Square, Mile End,
London, E., will be very glad to furnish you with any further particulars.
Yours very truly
a
See next letter. - b See previous letter
Letters- 1894 313
184
IN STUTTGART
Dear Baron,
If you would like to have two chapters from Volume II P for the Neue
Zeit:
1. Interest and Profit of Enterprise (Chap. XXII I)
2. Externalisation of the Relations of Capital in the Form of Interest-
Bearing Capital (Chap. XXIV),
I shall gladly place them at your disposal. Their content lends itself very
well to this type of publication, while at the same time they do not contain
any of the major solutions which should only appear in context and, for that
very reason, should be reserved for publication in toto. No. 2 contains
amongst other things the story of Dr Price, Mr Pitt, and the compound
interest hocus-pocusb. If you would like to have them, I shall delete such
notes, etc., as are not required from the first proof-sheets and send them to
you as soon as I have got the revises, in about eight or sixteen days’ time.
I have also routed out the old article von den letzten Dingenc which I am at
last licking into shape for you (I resume after having been interrupted for two
and a half hours by Liebknecht and Julius,d who have just left), but am
changing it and giving it a different titlee; since the time I began it I have
been able to study many new things, some of them in the field of early
Christianity.
a
of Capital-b A reference to Richard Price’s pamphlet, Appeal to the Public on the Subject of the
National Debt (1771) and its supposed influence on Pitt’s policy. - c of Last Things. — d Motteler
- e On the History of Early Christianity.
314 Letters- 1894
Yours,
F. Engels
185
IN STUTTGART
Dear Baron,
Marx’s two chapters’ 5 despatched by registered mail at the same time as
this. You might entitle them: ‘From Book II I of Capital by K. Marx’—I and
II , and indicate in a note that these are Chapters XXII I and XXIV, taken
from Part V, ‘Division of Profit into Interest and Profit of Enterprise.
Interest-bearing Capital’. The titles of the chapters must be retained in each
case. In order to simplify things I have deleted the Greek, also all the notes
save one important one.
The article ‘On the History of Early Christianity’—that is what I shall
probably call the thing—is in hand and, WELL ADVANCED. But yesterday
there was a Händel festival at the Crystal Palace and Louise, I and the
Avelings went to hear The Messiah. Today I have got to deal with my let-
a
A play of words in the original: Neue Zeit (New Times) and ‘alte Zeit’—old time. - b See
previous letter.
Letters- 1894 315
ters and tomorrow I shall probably buckle to again, but Liebknecht is here
and we are having a heat-wave.
Thank you for the bit of the Volksanwalt. As regards the thing from the
Critica Sociale, 334 Victor has really been leading me up the garden path.
After I had agreed to let him have it, he simply dropped the thing altogether
and now proposes to await the moment when it ‘becomes topical’ again.
Next time I shall be more wary; he treats his contributors in a very odd way.
Well, I look forward keenly to seeing what the fate of your daily will be. 377
Not, I hope, that of Guesde’s and Lafargue’s Socialiste quotidien ‘pour
paraître en octobre’ ; 280 only yesterday we were chaffing poor Bonnier
about it when he passed this way.
So Carnot has been stabbed to death. A poor, stupid, boring fellow—the
first Frenchman to rise to the top through being a bore—and in France too!
But now Alexander II I will repudiate the French alliance. ‘Merci,’ he will
say, ‘there’s plenty of that sort of thing to be had at home and at less
expense!’ Incidentally, there might be a certain element of vengeance for
Aiguesmortes in this. 378 I shall be curious to see how the sixty self-styled
‘Socialists’ in the Chamber will now behave.a That the affair will be
exploited à la Hödel there can be no doubt, but on the other hand the sixty
will weigh heavily in the scales at the presidential elections next
Wednesday.b
Kindest regards from one household to the other.
Yours,
F.E.
a
See this volume, p. 262 - b 27 June
316 Letters- 1894
186
IN BERLIN
[Draft]
[London, end of June-beginning of July 1894]
To Major Wachs
Unfortunately, as things are in the Party today, I was obliged to maintain a
certain reserve in view of the fact that hea contributes to Das Volk. Not
because of the paper’s standpoint which would have counted for little in a
purely personal relationship, but until very recently its editor-in-chief, Mr
Oberwinder, played a role in, and on the periphery of, the Social Democratic
Party such as to make it absolutely imperative that we also observe a certain
reticence vis-à-vis his colleagues. 380 Needless to say, it would never occur to
me to ask of these, Mr Oberwinder’s colleagues—as to whose good faith I
am not in doubt—that they should believe what we know about him. As you
are aware, every social group has its own point d’honneurb and that is what is
at stake in this instance amongst us Social Democrats.
187
IN WEGGIS
[Draft]
[London, July 1894]
Dr Krichevsky—Weggis
1. You say: ‘V. Zasulich’s and Plekhanov’s intention was, it is true,
a
Hellmut von Gerlach - b sense of honour
Letters- 1894 317
known to us long before the 10th of May, but only at third hand’. The said
third hand was that of Mr J. Blumenfeld, whose address, 3 Ch. de la
Roseraie, Genève, is the only one supplied on the jacket of your edition of
[K. Marx, Wage Labour and Capital]a. According to the self-same advice,
even subscriptions to Kautsky’s work,b are to be sent to the same address (no
other being supplied). If, therefore, V. Zasulich and Plekhanov sent the
information in question to what was your Library’s sole official address, this
was perfectly adequate and it is puerile, anarchistic casuistry to describe it as
information at third hand.
2. The moment you were in receipt of that information you were more
than ever bounden to address yourself to me as the only person having the
right to decide between the two claimants in this case. You did not do so
because you already knew what my answer would be, because you wished to
steal a march on V. Zasulich and Plekhanov in a dishonourable manner, and
were counting on my bowing to a fait accompli. You were totally mistaken,
because generally mistaken, in regard to the times, imagining that, at the
present state of development both of the European and of the Russian
socialist movement, it would be possible to revert to the old prevarications
and impertinencies of a Bakunin or a Nechayev and this time, what’s more,
with success.
188
AT LE PERREUX
My dear Löhr,
Tussy writes to say that the heat in Paris interferes with the free action of
her intellect and in proof encloses 4 stamps 25 centimes each—I could
a
Title in Russian - b Erfurt Programme [title in Russian]
318 Letters- 1894
have believed it without that! Anyhow I return the stamps to you as she may
be leaving before they arrive.
I told Liebknecht Paul’s letters were das beste im ganzen ‘Vorwärts’a but he
won’t believe it—it’s true all the same; his letter today about Carnotb is very
good again, calm and clear judgment, none of the spasmodic paragraphs
which the Vorwärts is so fond of launching on English and French politics.
Cannot you send me a few Petite Républiques? Just now the Jaures and
Millerands are on their trial, and I am very much interested in seeing how
they behave.c My confidence in their political and economical intellect does
not exactly increase; but I shall only be too glad if they could prove me in
the wrong.
Liebknecht left on Monday evening, had to speak at Aix la Chapelle on
Tuesday.
Yesterday 10 sheets 3rd Vol. Capital which we had forwarded to
Petersburg for translation were returned: ‘Défendu’!d
I must close—another proof-sheet to be got ready and then I have to go to
town.
Love to you all
Ever yours F.
Engels
First published, in the language
of the original (English), in: F. t. II I, 1891-1895. Paris, 1959 Reproduced from the
Engels, P. et L. Lafargue,
Correspondance, original
189
IN DARMSTADT
Dear Schorlemmer,
Now that the final manuscript of Volume II I of Capital is in the print-
a
the best thing in the whole of Vorwärts - b [P. Lafargue,] Gallus, ‘Präsident Carnot’, Vorwärts,
No. 151, 3 July 1894 - c See this volume, p. 262 - d Prohibited
Letters- 1894 319
ers’ hands, I am once again able to turn my attention to your affairs, 199 and
can let you have the much delayed reply to your note of 25.4.
There are certain snags about the continuation of Carl’s major work,
brought out by the Vieweg Verlag, and this also applies to all the rest of his
other stuff held by that firm. When I went down to Manchester I took a look
at the contracts which stipulate that if, for instance, Carl were to die before
completion of the whole, Vieweg might have the work completed by a person
of his own choosing. This is the reason for his silence and also for his failure
to publish the work left behind by Carl; he obviously wishes to retain a
completely free hand. Nor can he be expected to pay any further royalties.
For 1. by the terms of the contract, he will pay only for mos. that are ready
for press, i.e. no unfinished stuff, and 2. will pay no royalties in respect of
new editions to which no changes have been made.
In short, Vieweg can do exactly as he likes and will, if he is to bring out
Vol. V, in any case have to find another author for the German edition. 311
As regards Carl’s work on the history of chemistry, Siebold has written to
tell me that, because of constant illness, he has not yet been able to prepare
the ms. for press, nor has he yet completed his English translation. 313 The
poor devil has had rotten luck with his health, his nerves being again in a very
poor state, and will need a long rest and plenty of fresh air if he is to recover.
As far as money matters are concerned there is no need for you to worry; they
are in good hands and, as things are now, Roscoe is also in control of this
aspect so that ultimately one must content oneself with the particulars he
supplies in respect of payments made for work such as revision, etc. It is
possible that Roscoe’s task has been made somewhat easier by his having
dealt with Siebold direct instead of with myself as promised, but it won’t
make much difference since I should in any case have had to refer him to
Siebold and Klepsch in respect of all settlements and should, in the end, have
had to make do with his assurances. A vital factor here is that, with the rapid
advances made in chemistry, any textbook becomes out of date within a year
unless constantly revised and thus, where this sort of literature is concerned,
only a living author can keep his end up vis-à-vis either publishers or readers.
I had hoped I might again visit Germany this summer but shall not be able
to, the reason being that precisely during the summer months and because of
matters connected with my lease I must remain in the vicinity of London so
as to be able to return there at any moment should need
320 Letters- 1894
arise; indeed, I don’t even know when, if at all, I shall be able to repair to the
seaside. I really ought to have got all this settled last year but I missed the
opportunity while on the Continent 189 and, by the time I got back, it was too
late.
You will shortly be able to read two chapters from Vol. II I of Capitala in
the Neue Zeit, and possibly something of mine as well.b
Liebknecht left on Monday, having been here for over a week.
It is tremendously hot as it is no doubt where you are. In Paris the heat is
said to be intolerable.
Many regards from
Yours,
F. Engels
190
IN STUTTGART
a
See this volume, p. 314 - b F. Engels, On the History of Early Christianity.
Letters- 1894 321
Teil desselben, vorhanden ist’ [‘which make up the total capital outside of a
relatively small portion of it, existing in money’], as this brings out the
meaning better. 381
I am very pleased about the discovery of the printing error on P. 359,
namely fungierendem in place of fungierendes, for which kindly convey my
best thanks to K. Kautsky,
191
IN STUTTGART
Dear Baron,
My article on early Christianity 1 goes off by registered mail today to the
Editor, Neue Zeit, Furthbachatr. 12, as does this letter, since I have not got
your exact address in Hirsau and do not know how long you will be staying
there.
Since the ms. is barely legible and contains many corrections, I should be
glad if you could send me the galley proofs. No doubt minor amendments
and additions would be admissible in the case of such comprehensive
material.
There was indeed a slip of the pen in the passage from Das Kapital,
Chapter 23, and you did me a real service in pointing it out.b
Because of sundry business matters I cannot go away at the moment. At
the beginning of August I hope to be able to go to the seaside. Nothing
a
F. Engels, On the History of Early Christianity. — b See previous letter.
322 Letters- 1894
will come of a trip to the Continent this year. At this precise moment it is
raining cats and dog.
Kindest regards from one household to the other.
Yours,
F.E.
192
IN VIENNA
Dear Victor,
I am glad that those few marks should have arrived so opportunely and
trust you will use them to treat yourself to the rest and recuperation out in the
country which are so absolutely essential to you. You simply must go away;
what you need more than anything else is to recover from the wear and tear
of your time in prison. 349 You yourself say you feel done in and that, if truth
be told, is not surprising, so the moment you are released, out into the
country with you! This would also be the best way of ensuring your wife’s
complete recovery.
The additional chapter (it is only the enlargement of an already extant
one) in Anti-Dühring is by Marx, so the only work I had to do on it consisted
in copying and editing. 382
About 36 sheets of Volume II P have been set up and there will probably
be more than 50 all told. Since it is wholly in Meissner’s interest to get the
thing out by September, it will doubtless be ready by then.
I wish your daily paper well and am already looking forward to seeing it.
377
It is really essential to set the insufferable Vorwärts an example of
of Capital
Letters- 1894 323
‘how things are done’. The chaps can hardly fail to follow it. However, when
you are in jug, one sometimes becomes aware that the Arbeiter Zeitung, too,
has men who are unsuitable and who push themselves to the fore where they
have no business to be. But once the daily is in existence, your activities as a
speaker will automatically be confined to a few occasions of crucial
importance, and this will mean your spending less time in jug, while a
dummy editor is in any case indispensable to the paper as such, if only as the
sacrificial lamb who takes upon himself the sins of the editorial department.
And again, in Vienna, you have just now a soil more favourable to a daily
than that proffered by Berlin. The political movement to which you belong is
in the ascendant; you are assured of getting electoral reform 270 and the very
fact of fighting for a goal such as this, for an immediate political advance is
of tremendous advantage to your paper. Electoral reform, however, is no
more than the impulse that will set the ball rolling and will necessarily entail
other concessions relating to the press, association, assembly, legal practices,
etc. In short, you are engaged in an offensive and one, which, to begin with at
any rate, is assured of victory. In France, Germany and Italy, on the other
hand, our people are engaged in what is a by no means always promising
defensive action and have to withstand the onslaught of a reaction constantly
reinforced by the adherence of the most disparate parties. It is proof that—in
Germany, at least,—our people have really become a power in the land,
while in France, a country riddled with revolution, it is proof that our people
are at least looked upon as a power. But none the less you are, at the moment,
in a better position to fight—you are attacking, gaining ground step by step,
and every fresh bit of ground you seize and occupy not only strengthens your
position but brings you vast numbers of fresh reinforcements. Your primitive
constitutionalism is such that there are still at least a few positions for the
workers to capture, and by lawful means at that, i.e. means whereby they
themselves will be politically educated—positions which ought to have been
captured by the bourgeoisie. In our country, too, there are still positions of
this kind to be taken, but these we shall only get if the impulse comes from
without, from a country where the amalgamation of the old forms—
feudalism, bureaucracy and police—with more or less modern, civil
institutions, has given such preponderance to the first as to produce a
situation of impossible complexity. And that is the happy state in which you
find yourselves, not to mention the even hap-
324 Letters- 1894
pier one of having a workers’ movement big enough and strong enough to
bring things to a head and thus, I hope, provide the impulse required by
Germany, France and Italy if they are temporarily to disrupt the far too
premature formation of the ‘one reactionary mass’, 214 and replace chronic
reactionary oppression with a number of civil reforms such as freedom of
movement for the masses. Not until you have fought for and won electoral
reform—of no matter what kind—not until then will the agitation against the
three-class electoral system in Prussia 291 have any significance. And even
now the fact that there is going to be some sort of electoral reform in Austria
has already averted the threat that hung over universal suffrage in Germany.
So at this moment you people have a very important historical mission. It is
you who will constitute the vanguard of the European proletariat, and initiate
the general offensive which we can only hope will not falter again before we
achieve victory all along the line—and it is you yourself who will be leading
that vanguard; so unless you go out into the country forthwith and thoroughly
recoup your strength, you will be neglecting what is your foremost duty.
And how serious that duty is becomes all the more apparent when you
reflect that the only rivals whom you might have as a vanguard are the
French. You wrote and told Louise that you would like me to report on the
latter. I have put it off until today because 1. last week Tussy returned from
the Glassworkers’ Congress in Paris and 2. Bonnier came to see us the day
before yesterday and I wanted to hear their side of the story first. WELL, SO
far as I can see, the position is this:
The last elections 208 brought some twenty-five ‘Socialists’—Marxists,
Broussists, 30 Allemanists, 21 Blanquists 20 and Independents—into the
Chamber. At the same time they eliminated what had hitherto been the
‘Radical group’, also describing itself as républicains socialistes, 86 notably
by excluding all its former leaders. Thereupon some thirty members of that
group, who had been re-elected, combined under the leadership of Millerand
and Jaures and suggested that they and the ‘Socialists’, should join forces. 169
It was a very safe move on their part for not only were they more numerous
then the old Socialists, they were also united whereas the latter were
fragmented into umpteen groups. In this way they once more formed in the
Chamber a respectable group some fifty or sixty strong without having to
offer the old Socialists anything more than a highly platonic socialist
programme, the politically radical articles of which had already formed part
of their earlier programme as had their general pro-
Letters- 1894 325
working class attitude, while the socialisation des moyens de productiona still
remained an innocent chimera which might perhaps acquire practical
significance three or four generations hence, but certainly not any sooner.
Our twenty-five old Socialists seized on the opportunity with both hands.
They were not in a position to lay down conditions, being far too disunited
for that. The intention was, it is true, that they should act in concert in the
Chamber, as during the elections, but that, for the rest, all the separate
organisations should continue to exist alongside one another; indeed, an
attempt on the part of any one group to lay down specific conditions for the
new Socialists would have brought it into conflict with the others. For that
matter, they would not have been Frenchmen, had not the immediate
prospect of swelling their numbers in the Chamber from twenty-five to fifty-
five or sixty filled them with enthusiasm, and had not present victory, or a
semblance thereof, blinded them to the dangers that lay ahead. Damn it all,
aren’t the Germans for ever crowing about their forty-four deputies? And at
one fell swoop we’ve got fifty-five if not sixty! La France reprend sa place à
la tête du mouvement!c
The thirty or thirty-five new Socialists have entered into a marriage of
convenience with Socialism. They would just as soon not have done so, but
taking the plunge was the shrewdest thing for them to do. Having realised
that they would not, after all, be able to carry on without the workers, they
have had to ally themselves with the latter for better or for worse. But for no-
one was that alliance an altogether voluntary affair at first, as it certainly still
is not for many today.
Of its leading representatives, Millerand is the shrewdest and, I believe,
the most sincere, but I fear that some of his bourgeois-legal prejudices are
more deep-seated than he himself realises. Politically he is the most capable
of the whole bunch. Jaurès is an academic and doctrinaire who enjoys the
sound of his own voice and whose voice the Chamber enjoys listening to
more than to that of Guesde or Vaillant because he is more closely akin to
the gentlemen of the majority. I believe it is his sincere intention to turn
himself into a decent Socialist but, as you know, the zeal of such neophytes
is in direct relation to their lack of practical knowledge which, in the case of
Jaurès, is very great. Which explains how it was that
a
the socialisation of the means of production - b France will once more resume her place at the
head of the movement.
326 Letters- 1894
in Paris Jaures tabled as socialist the self-same motion as that put forward in
Berlin by Count Kanitz in the interest of the Junkers—the nationalisation of
the import of grain with a view to raising the price of corn. 356 And since the
old Socialists in the Chamber evince a lack of practical knowledge in
oeconomicisa hardly less extreme—Lafargue’s defeat at Lille means there is
no one on the spot who knows anything about the subject—Guesde could not
abstain from supporting at least part of the motion as ‘socialist’ and directed
against ‘speculation’. To propose to do away with ‘speculation’ by handing
over the grain trade to a government and a government party consisting of
Panamite confidence tricksters 60 is indeed a splendidly socialist idea. I have,
through Bonnier and Lafargue, conveyed to the gentlemen concerned my
unvarnished opinion of this colossal blunder.
I further told them that, though fusion rather than a mere alliance with the
new Socialists might be their inevitable fate, they should bear in mind the
possibility of there being bourgeois elements amongst the latter and that this
might involve them in a conflict over principles, in which case a split might
become inevitable. They must, I went on, prepare for this so that in the event
the transition to a simple alliance could proceed smoothly and not surprise
them into making blunders. Above all, should the chaps in the joint group
put forward anything they felt unable to endorse and they be outvoted, they
should repudiate any obligation to take the floor in the Chamber in support
of such measures, but rather reserve the right to justify their adverse opinion
in their press even if, for the sake of unity, they had had to vote in favour of
the said measures.
Well, we shall have to see if it does any good.
Thus, on the one hand there are the new Socialists who are imposing a
certain unity on the most disparate groups of old Socialists. On the other, our
chaps abroad, who find it puzzling that a group of some sixty men should
suddenly have appeared ‘out of thin air’ and that its chief spokesmen,
Millerand and Jaurès, should not hitherto have been known to be Socialists;
hence the very natural doubts as to the authenticity of the aforementioned
sixty, particularly after the brilliant impression left behind in Zurich by the
French delegates. 250
Beneath the surface, the intrigues and mutual recriminations of the various
sects continue unchecked. In particular the Marxists complain about Vaillant
who is constantly touring the provinces for propaganda
a
economic matters
Letters- 1894 327
Yours,
F. E.
193
IN LONDON
Dear Julius,
Herewith a letter from Siegel which I have been asked to pass on to you.
384
I have written to the Executive Committee about the 300 marks. 25 Should
you be able to do something in the Club 62 here, or anything else for the
chaps, it would be a good deed; in the meantime I have sent them a pound.
Kindest regards to your wife. Our house is in mourning, the canary hen
having died while sitting on her four eggs—from a stroke, it would seem.
Yours,
F.E.
194
IN STUTTGART
Dear Baron,
There is no hurry about printing the article.a Once I have seen to the
proofs you can print it when you wish, in September, say, or even October. I
have been mulling the thing ever ever since 1841 when I read a lecture
a
F. Engels, On the History of Early Christianity.
Letters- 1894 329
a
As can be judged from Kautsky’s letter of 23 July 1894, to which Engels is replying, there is
apparently a slip of the pen here: Kleinbauern. Kleinbürger (petty bourgeois) in the ms. - b of
Capital
330 Letters- 1894
the distribution of price can only be given its due in the book itself.
Save for Sorge and Schlüter there are no intelligent correspondents to be
found anywhere in America, because the Germans there stick obstinately to
the same sectarian attitude towards the workers as is stubbornly adhered to
by the Social Democratic Federation 44 over here. Instead of seeing in the
movements of the Americans the propulsive element which, even though it
may take wrong or circuitous paths, is bound in the end to lead to the same
goal as the one they themselves brought with them from Europe, they see
only the wrong paths, treat the blind, foolish Americans with arrogant
condescension, boast of their own orthodox superiority, repel the Americans
instead of attracting them and, as a result, have themselves remained a small,
impotent sect. Hence it has come about that their writers have also relapsed
into pure ideology and place a false and narrow interpretation on conditions
as a whole. Little Hepner, for one, could always be said to have lived in a
world of fantasy and when he gets sentimental his stuff beggars description. I
once read a comedy of his—though the funny bits were pretty good, the
serious love scenes contained so much gush that one became convulsed with
laughter.
Kindest regards from one household to another.
Yours,
F.E.
195
AT LE PERREUX
My dear Löhr,
This morning I had a letter from Paul, but much obliged as I am to
Letters- 1894 331
him for it, yours is older and claims attention first; and indeed I have been
trying to find time to write, all the week, and have been stopped day after day
by interruptions endless in number and variety. The fact is I am not sure of
remaining much longer in 122; I ought to have settled that business last year,
but was enjoying myself on the continent, 189 and now have to face the
dilemma: either to get the whole house thoroughly overhauled or to look out
for another. I have attended to both eventualities, and maybe in a few weeks
may know where I am, or at least where I am to be in future.
You ask about Pumps. I have hardly heard from them for months past.
Percy had lost, or given up, the agency for his brothers in the Isle of Wight;
he had spent a lot of money (not his own) but induced me to become surety
for him for a loan to enable him to look out for other agencies in the same
line of business, where he said he could make it pay. All at once, in June, I
am informed by him that, in consequence of some arrangement with his
family, he is going to sell up his furniture and come back to London; on my
remonstrating, I am told it is now too late and the plan must be carried out.
Then I heard that they were at a school in Kent where their little boy is, and
at last, last Monday, they turned up here. As far as I can learn, the family
arrangement is all moonshine, at least it leaves him in the same shiftless
position as before, After all I have done for them, I am not going to quietly
submit to such treatment, and did not receive them very heartily. What Percy
is going to do and how this is to end, is more than I know. The children are at
schools. Lily at Herne Bay and is said to be getting on well; the boy is near
Sittingbourne, very delicate, and ailing again while Pumps was there last
week. The youngest girl is with them.
Thanks to you for the article of Jaurès in the Revue Socialiste;a it seems
awfully shallow as far as I can see, but the man looks after all as if he was
learning a bit, so we will not give up all hopes. The Petite République is
indeed awful reading—the discursive matter as well as the soi-disantb reports
of facts, and you will not be astonished to learn that I do no longer long for it,
unless it given real news, real reports, or articles from Jaurès (whose
evolution I should like to follow) and Millerand. Les élucubrations de MM.
Rouanet, Fournière, Viviani etc. ne me laissent que tro froid.c
a
J. Jaurès, ‘Introduction à la Morale Sociale de Benoît Malon,’ La Revue Socialiste, t. XIX,
June 1894. - b so-called — c Disquisitions of Messieurs Rouanet, Fournière, Viviani etc. leave
me indifferent.
332 Letters- 1894
I am really obliged to the Ere Nouvelle for giving you a chance to restore
in the French Manifeste,a as published by the Socialiste, those passages
where the Parisian text revisers, dans l’intérêt et de la langue française et des
auteurs du ‘Manifeste’,b had considerably narrowed the horizon of certain
expressions. Of course I shall be very glad to see it reprinted as often as you
can get it done.
My congratulations to Paul on the Delagrave acquisition. 386 May this lead
to further business!
Where do I go this summer? alas all hope of going to Le Perreux is
knocked on the head by that beautiful new law! 383 And the worst of it is that
this time the old English lawyer’s saying becomes applicable to France: the
law is there, and what the courts will make of it, is more than we know. My
impression is that the government will not lose much time before it sees that
a precedent is established of the application of that law to Socialism, and to
the inclusion of Socialism under the heading of anarchism. The Cour de
cassationc is quite capable of that. The German Socialist law 15 kept me from
Germany thirteen years, let us hope this new law will not last long enough to
prevent me from coming to France once more in my life.
Paul is not quite so enthusiastic about the situation in in France as ce cher
Bonnier who considers the whole debate—result and all—an unmitigated
triumph for French Socialism; but still his way of looking at the subject
seems to me rather couleur de rose. The main advantage I consider indeed to
be the irrefutable proof that our party is the only real and serious opposition
party in France as well as in Germany; and that the French Radicals 86 are no
more serious in their pretended opposition than the German Richters & Co.
From that, as Paul says, a real union of all Socialist elements must grow; and
the persecution now initiated will hasten it; and if this unification, under the
auspices of Jaurès, Millerand & Co, and their lot,d means a lowering of the
standard of the official expression of the party, un abaissement de niveau
intellectuel et politique,e this comes from the previous indulging in
revolutionary phraseology, as Paul also sees very clearly, and is but the
necessary consequence of it.
Love from Louise. Freyberger who sends his kind regards has just been re-
a
K. Marx and F. Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party - b in the interests of the French
language and the authors of the Manifesto - c Court of appeal - d See this volume, p. 318 - c a
lowering of theoretical and political level
Letters - 1894 333
196
IN MILAN
My dear Turati,
A certain Mr Pasquali has arrived here a couple of days ago saying that he
has been banished for the Sicily business 388 and was obliged to leave Paris,
where he was a correspondent for Punto Nero (and in possession of
authorisation from the editorial board), but had been threatened by the police.
In Turin he was a preacher or missionary of the English sect of Baptists,
and showed me the letter from his ecclesiastical superior in which he was
removed from this post because of his socialism.
He will need assistance since, even if he seriously looked for work, he
does not speak a word of English.
As in other countries we have had some curious experiences with ex-ec-
clesiastics of Christian, Jewish and other religions. I and my other friends
here would be obliged to you if you could give us some information on this
man, who claims to know you.
Has he indeed been banished from Italy?
Has he indeed been obliged to leave Paris to escape pursuit?
Has he indeed played a role, and if so, what, in the events in Sicily and in
the socialist movement in Italy in general?
334 Letters- 1894
197
IN VIENNA
Dear Victor,
The encl. letter and also a parcel were handed in here along with the
anonymous note 389 overleaf, addressed to me. Probably from the anarchist
philologist Nettlau (...)a No doubt you will give instructions in due course as
to what is to be done with the parcel.
I have asked Cerny to pass on to you people a renewed request from the
Spanish National Council that you send them a brief congratulatory message
in Spanish or French on the occasion of the congress they are holding on 29
August. 390 I am repeating this in order to be on the safe side. Address:
Pablo Iglesias, Hernán Cortès 8, pral. Madrid.
Warm regards to your wife and yourself.
Yours,
F.E.
a
At this point there is a break in the text.
Letters- 1894 335
198
IN MADRID
[Draft]
[London, between 9 and 14 August 1894]
Dear Iglesias,
I have received your letters of 8 June and 27 July. With regard to your
congress 390 I have written to Berlin (the answer is affirmative) and to Vienna
(no answer so far); also to the Social Democratic Federation 44 here (H. W.
Lee, Secretary), the Independent Labor Party 114 (Tom Mann, Secretary) and
the gas workers 391 (W. Thorne, Secretary; Comrade Avelinga is a member of
the Executive Council)—they will all drop you a line. Further, to the
Standing Parliamentary Committee of the Trades-Unions Congress 28
(Fenwick, Secretary, M. P.), the League for Eight Hours 197 (Sheridan,
Secretary; they are certain to write to you) and the Fabian Society 43 (E. R.
Pease, Secretary), from which I have received no reply.
The above list will give you an idea of the personal divisions, jealousies
and quarrels adorning the labour movement here. Look: on Monday, the 6th
instant, the S. D. F. held a conference. There it was proposed that in the
coming parliamentary elections the S. D. F. should support the candidates of
the Independent Party provided that they declared themselves socialists. The
proposal was rejected. But if the ‘independents’ refuse to vote for the
Federation’s candidates and to support them, they will be seen as traitors!
Further, the S. D. F. Conference resolved that because the London
international congress in 1896 392 is not to be exclusively socialist, the
Federation will convene an exclusively socialist international
a
Eleanor Marx-Aveling
336 Letters- 1894
199
IN BROADSTAIRS
Dear Ede,
We are safely installed here and up till now, i.e. since 2.30, have been
very pleased also with the way they have looked after us. Let’s hope it will
so continue. 393
I shall be interested to hear whether and how Liebknecht has reacted to
your promptings on the subject of Arndt. The matter ought not to be passed
over in silence like this. We had better wait and see what transpires. A man
who behaved as he did at Zurich has no place on the Vorwärts. 394
Letters- 1894 337
a
Der Textil-Arbeiter - b See previous letter. - c Ernst and Käte Schattner, Bernstein’s adopted
children.
338 Letters- 1894
Ludwig and
Yours,
F.E.
200
IN LONDON
[Draft]
[London, not earlier than 15 August 1894]
201
IN MILAN
a
See this volume, p. 333 - b The bore of the first degree has ceased to pester our circle. - c He
went to Varés. - d “together with my wife and my little Marx Guglielmo” - e the devil is not so
black as he is painted - f See this volume, p. 337
340 Letters- 1894
a
Henry Mayers Hyndman
Letters- 1894 341
Yours,
F.E.
202
AT LE PERREUX
My dear Lafargue,
Here we are at Eastbourne since the past week, 393 Louise, her husband
and I. I needed it badly and the ozonised sea air is already taking effect.
Unfortunately it has been raining more than necessary since yesterday.
Your cheque will arrive during the first days of next month as soon as I
shall have had some payments.
I am very curious to see how they are going to administer the new law
against suspects. 383 I am by no means sure that they will not use it against the
Socialists as much as against the anarchists at a given moment. But though a
few individuals may suffer by it, this law will certainly do for you what the
‘78 law did for the Germans; 15 you will defeat it and you will emerge from
the struggle infinitely stronger than you went into it.
Here the Social Democratic Federation, 44 which for a time seemed to try
to adopt a reasonable and tolerable line of conduct, has suddenly fallen back
on the Hyndmanniads of yore. At the Congress which they held in London a
fortnight or three weeks ago, 404 the Liverpool delegate moved that at the next
general elections they should support the Independent Labour Party 114
candidates provided they publicly declared themselves Socialists. This,
against all the rules of English procedure, was turned down in favour of a
motion adopted by 42 to 12, that the duty of every Socialist was to belong to
an openly revolutionary socialist organisation, such as the Social Democratic
Federation (and as the S.D.F. claims that apart from itself there is no other,
this meant: belong to the S.D.F.). As for electoral tactics, this was delegated
to a committee which will report to the Executive Committee. You know of
course that the nationalisation of the means of production is an integral part
of the I.L.P. programme. Thus, the reciprocity which hitherto has existed in
the North (particularly in Lancashire and Yorkshire) between the two groups,
is to all intents and purposes rejected by the S.D.F. which proclaims the
policy of
Letters- 1894 343
the Caliph Omar in burning the Alexandria library: either these books are
contrary to the Koran, in which case they are bad; or they contain the same
thing, in which case they are superfluous—into the flames with them! And
these people claim the leadership of the socialist movement in Britain!
But there is worse to come. Hyndman has stated that it was time for
socialism to detach itself outright from trade unionism, and that instead of
joint congresses of the two, there should be an out and out socialist congress.
And, as it was realised at the same time that it is still too early to strike a
direct blow against the 1896 Congress, 392 they resolved that the S.D.F.
should convene an exclusively socialist Congress to be held in London three
days before the general Congress of 1896.
What will the continentals say to that? Will they go to such a congress in
order later to attend the large, our congress, tied hand and foot by the
resolutions passed two or three days earlier 1 in a small committee? Will they
provoke a split between the delegates who are thoroughgoing Socialists and
those who are not yet that but are on the point of becoming so? Will they
administer this slap in the face to the British trade unionists, who have made
such progress since the New Unionism 405 has set them on the road towards
socialism, who at Belfast in 1893 402 voted for the nationalisation of the
means of production (adopted a few weeks ago in the political programme of
even the recalcitrant London Trades Council 197) and which, in a fortnight’s
time, at Norwich 396 will be stating its position in relation to us once again?
But do you know how the S.D.F. in its annual report and the speeches at a
conference depicted the strength of that organisation which claims to change
the Zurich resolutions 229 (for this is a palpable emendation which contradicts
the Zurich resolution)? It has—4,500 members. Last year 7,000 names
passed through its membership list, so it has lost 2,500! But what of it? asks
Hyndman. In the 14 years of its existence the S.D.F. has seen a million
people pass through its ranks. What organisation! Out of one million,
995,500 have hopped it, but—4,500 have stayed!
Now for the key to all these idiocies, inconceivable without that key. The
1896 Congress will not leave untouched any of the sects, fractions, groups,
etc. which compose what one calls here Organised Labour. The
Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Congress 28 would very much like
a
A mistake in the manuscript: after [après].
344 Letters- 1894
TO BOSS THE Congress. There are already motions tabled on the agenda for
the Trades Congress at Norwich (September) to confine admission of British
delegates to the ‘96 Congress only to those qualified for the Trades
Congress: bona fide workingmen, working or having worked at the trade
they represent. And it is said that they are not a little desirous of extending
this system to the continental delegates as well, which would cause
explosions of laughter violent enough to shake all London to its foundations.
Very well, the S.D.F., which, in its turn, thinks the opportunity has come for
it to boss the Congress and, through Congress, the British movement, appears
to have taken these rumours as an excuse to launch its little counter-plan.
So far it is only a feeler. But as soon as the S. D. F. issues an invitation
circular or something of that kind, the matter will take on substance, and the
continental parties will be called upon to come to a decision.
One question: Le Socialiste lebt or noch, oder aber ist er tot?a Since April
we haven’t seen a trace of it. If you have succeeded in killing it, do you
count this as one of the Party’s victories in France?
Whatever the case, the two months of September and October will be
interesting. Towards the 5, the Trades Congress, at Norwich 396 (after the
Spanish congress 390 next Sunday), then your congress at Nantes, 406 then the
Germans at Frankfurt on 21 October. 418 The last two will be dealing with the
question of peasants and farm workers. Overall, the views of the two national
groups are the same, only that you intransigent revolutionaries of the bygone
days are now inclining a little more towards opportunism than the Germans,
who probably will not support any measure which might serve to maintain or
conserve small property against the corrosive action of capitalism. On the
other hand, they will agree with you that it is not our task to accelerate or
intensify this corrosive action, and that a most important thing is to organise
small property-holders into agricultural associations to cultivate land in
common and on a large scale. I am curious to see which of the two
congresses will show itself to be the more advanced in economic theory and
propose the more effective practical measures.
Give my greetings to Laura and remind her that she owes me a letter.
Greetings from the Freybergers.
Yours,
F.E.
a
Is Le Socialiste still alive or is it dead?
Letters- 1894 345
In a couple of weeks the Neue Zeit will have an article from me on the
origins of Christianity.a The 3rd volumeb is underway, 43 sheets are written; I
am writing the Preface.
203
IN LONDON
Dear Ede,
I shall write and tell Schlüter 25 that you haven’t the time and that he can
reprint the piece from the Neue Zeit.
The errata can wait until I return on 18 September. 393 The prefacec won’t
be finished until later, but you can come and see it at my house before it goes
off. You will find the part on the rate of profit in the book proper. There is
nothing new on the subject in the preface, merely a critique of the attempts at
solving it. 4° 7
As to Edwards, I would in your place first inquire from the Avelings as to
why they refused and what they know about the man. In English the
expression ‘DON’T KNOW HIM’ is not wholly unequivocal. If you are
prepared to sacrifice the time, it would certainly be quite a good idea, if you
prevent an Arndt, say, or a Hyndman, from writing the article. On the other
hand contributing to an annual of this sort which has suddenly been brought
into being by someone you don’t know can involve you in some unpleasant
experiences. The chap can’t take it amiss if you ask him
a
F. Engels, On the History of Early Christianity. - b K. Marx, Capital.-c Preface to Vol. II I of
Capital
346 Letters- 1894
for the names of the contributors he has already secured. After all, that would
enable you to form a more definite opinion. 408
Pinkau is welcome to a photo as soon as I myself have got another one.
As you know, Inka’s attempts miscarried and since then I have not been
anywhere near a lens.
Many regards to Gine and the childrena from Louise and
Yours,
F.E.
204
IN LONDON
We got back this evening. 393 The Baron wants me to let him have some
‘unpublished stuff on the International. I have now searched through my old
papers and found something that might possibly do. Could you pick it up
here so that it can be translated? Time is pressing, to judge by the Baron’s
letter. I shall be in town tomorrow between 10 and about 11 and shall then
come back here, but Louise knows where the things are.
Regards to Gine and the childrena from us all.
Yours,
F.E.
a
Bernstein’s wife and adopted children
Letters- 1894 347
205
AT LE PERREUX
[Fragment]
[London, second half of September 1894
Now to something else. The Trades Union Congress 396 marks a distinct
progress against last year, and combined with the Leicester election and other
symptoms, shows that things are on the move in England. Of course there is
no progress here without a drawback: take the resolution against foreign
working men immigration passed at Norwich; but such contradictions and
inconsistencies one will have to put up with for some time yet ‘in this free
country’. The moment will come after all, when the masses, having attained a
sufficient degree of consciousness, will break through the tangled web of the
intrigues and sectarian squabbles of the ‘leaders’.
The war between China and Japan 409 seems to me instigated by the
Russian government, who use Japan as their tool. But whatever may be the
proximate consequences of this war, it must lead to one thing: the total
break-up of the whole traditional system in old China. There, an old-
fashioned system of agriculture and domestic industry combined has been
artificially kept going by rigid exclusion of all disturbing elements. That
exclusion of everything foreign has been partially broken through by the
wars with the English and French; this war with Asiatics, rivals living next
door to the Chinese, must put a complete stop to it.
The Chinese, licked on land and on sea, will have to Europeanise
themselves, open their ports generally to trade, establish railways and fac-
tories, and thus completely smash up that old system which made it possible
to feed so many millions. There will be all of a sudden a constantly
increasing surplus population, superseded peasants, who will flock to the
coast to search for a living in foreign lands. Where up to now thousands
emigrated, millions will want to go then. And then the Chinese Coolies will
be everywhere, in Europe as well as America and Australia, and will try to
reduce wages and the standard of living of our working men to the Chinese
level. And then the time will come for our European workmen.
348 Letters- 1894
And the English will be the first to suffer from this invasion and to fight. I
fully expect that this Japan-Chinese War will hasten our victory in Europe by
five years at least, and facilitate it immensely, as it will drive all non-
capitalist classes over to our side. Only the large landed proprietors and
manufacturers will be pro-Chinese.
Paul’s articles in the Neue Zeit- are on the whole very good.a There are
some historical views in them that do him great credit. The exposition of the
causation and course of French history since 1871 is the best I have yet seen.
I have learned a good deal from them.
But the considérant of the Nantes agricultural programme, 406 which
declares it the duty of the Socialists to maintain and defend the peasants’
property, and even the fermiers and métayers who employ labourers, is more
than most people outside France will be able to swallow.
Kind remembrances from the Freybergers. Ever yours
F. Engels
206
IN STUTTGART
Dear Baron,
Your appeal for documents on the Internationalb reached me while I was
still in Eastbourne. Unfortunately I couldn’t ask Ede to look out something
for you, as I had brought the keys to my cupboards with me and he would
have had to search through several of them—I myself
a
P. Lafargue, ‘Der Klassenkampf in Frankreich’, Die Neue Zeit, Nos. 46, 479 48, 49, 1893-94,
Vol. II - b See this volume, p. 346
Letters- 1894 349
hardly know where I am amidst the disorder of my old papers. Then, on our
return the following day (Tuesday), I looked out something for Ede and we
asked him to call that evening but he had to finish the article for the Neue
Zeit.a On Wednesday morning the things were collected by Ernst,b but were
brought back that same evening by Ede who said that it was now too late and
that in any case you already had something. What I had found was in any
case nothing out of the ordinary. It is difficult to find an unknown document
of the Internationals that will, of itself, still have a telling effect today.
Many thanks for the Entwicklung in Armenian. Luckily I can’t read it.
As regards the fee for Marx’s chapters, kindly deduct this from, or
alternatively charge it against, the fee for my own article and remit it to me
for the heirs. Should mine be insufficient, kindly set off the difference
against future contributions. 411
Needless to say copies of the complete issue will do just as well as off-
prints of the article. I only need them for one or two quite specific incidental
purposes.
The payment of fees to the Austrians remains in force until further notice.
The Italians are beginning to fill me with dread. Yesterday that blath-erer
Enrico Ferri sent me all his recent writings along with an over-cordial letter
which only served to make me feel less cordial towards him than ever. And
yet one is expected to send the chap a courteous reply! His book on Darwin-
Spencer-Marxd is an atrocious hotchpotch of insipid rubbish. The Italians
will long continue to suffer from this their younger generation of heddicated
bourgeois. I shall doubtless soon have to do something to put an end to the
ominous increase in my popularity (which the chaps are not fostering
WITHOUT A CONSIDERABLE EYE TO BUSINESS). Meanwhile I shall make a bit
of an example of Achille Loria in the preface to the 3rd volume.e
The war between China and Japan 409 signifies the end of the old China
and with it the total if gradual revolution of the entire economic base until the
old ties between agriculture and rural industry have been dissolved
a
E. Bernstein, ‘Der dritte Band des Kapital’, Die Neue Zeit, Nos, 11-14, 16, 17, 209 1894-95,
Vol. I - b Schattner - c F. Engels, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific -d E. Ferri, Socialismo e
scienza positiva (Darwin, Spencer, Marx), Roma, 1894 - e P. Engels, Preface [to K. Marx’s
Capital, Vol. II I]
350 Letters- 1894
by big industry, railways, etc., the result being a mass exodus of Chinese
Coolies, to Europe included and hence, for ourselves, an acceleration of the
debaclea and an intensification of the conflict to the point of crisis. Here we
have another splendid quirk of history—China is all that is left for capitalist
production to conquer, yet the latter, by the very fact of having finally
conquered her, will itself be hopelessly compromised in its place of origin.
Many regards from one household to the other.
Yours,
F.E.
207
IN BRUSSELS
[Draft]
[London, after 21 October 1894]
a
ruin - b The following phrase is crossed out by Engels: “If a small country like yours is not
destined to resolve the great problems of our epoch on its own...”
Letters- 1894 351
where experiments are carried out which can be later applied to the large
states. It is often from these small countries that there comes the first impulse
of a movement destined to overturn Europe. Thus, before the February
revolution,a there was the Swiss war of the Sonderbund. 273
At the moment we are, it seems to me, in a period of high tide, a period
which dates from the suffrage victory of the Belgian workers. 276 After
Belgium, Austria joined the suffrage movement; following Austria, pro-
letarian Germany has just requested that universal suffrage be extended from
the Reichstag to the parliaments of the federal states. The repressive laws
launched against the worker parties in France 383 and Italy, 401 similar laws
being prepared in Germany, will have no more success than the violent
measures of the Austrian government. Today the socialist movement
everywhere is more powerful than the so-called public force.b
As for the Belgian workers, 14th October assures them an even stronger
position. For the first time they have learned to know precisely their own
forces and those of the enemy; thus henceforth they will be able to base their
tactical decisions on knowledge of the situation; and you and the other
socialist representatives will be able to raise your heads still higher, and will
be listened to with considerably more attention following official recognition
of the fact that you are the mouthpiece of 350,000 Belgian citizens. It is with
you that the Belgian proletariat is making its ‘joyous entry’ into parliament,
an entry that is joyous not only for you, but for the proletarians of the whole
of Europe!
a
of 1848 in France - b the following words are crossed out by Engels “This splendid victory of the
Belgian socialists marks a new stage...”
352 Letters- 1894
208
IN LONDON
Yours sincerely,
F. Engels
209
IN LONDON
My dear Plekhanov,
It goes without saying that I will do all I can to assist the examination of
the Neue Rheinisehe Zeitung, etc., 413 and I do not exactly see why you
should be embarrassed to speak to me frankly on the subject. At the moment
my books are still not in order; this work was interrupted by a
a
28 October - b Freyberger
Letters- 1894 353
number of other matters to be dealt with, trips into town, legal consultations,
and other nuisances caused by the legal formalities and material difficulties
without which it is impossible to rent a house in England, and particularly in
London. Nor is it yet finished.
As my books are not organised, I can hardly begin, and therefore I must
ask you to continue to have patience. However, rest assured that you will
have all the books, newspapers, etc., that I am able to find on the subject that
interests you. We shall discuss it on the first occasion that I have the pleasure
to see you.
Yours,
F. Engels
I have just learned that a new oven range is being fitted in our kitchen, and
that this will prevent us from cooking until after Sunday. We will not
therefore be able to entertain you on Sunday evening,a since we will not be
able to give you anything to eat. However, if you would like to call on any
evening after eight o’clock, we can talk about the question of the books.
210
IN COLOGNE
Dear Hirsch,
While thanking you very much for your regular despatch of the Rheinische
Zeitung, I would ask you to be so kind as to change the address from 122 to
No. 41, Regent’s Park Road, London, N. W. It is on the
a
4 November
354 Letters- 1894
other side of the road, but at the bottom of Primrose Hill and closer to the
entrance to the Park. All well in other respects.
Yours,
F.E.
First published in:
Marx/Engels, Werke, Printed according to the original Published in English for the first time
Bd. 39, Berlin, 1973
211
IN LONDON
My dear Tussy,
Of course we expect you to-morrow to dinner—the hour is unchanged,
2.30 or a little later, as the capabilities of the new kitchen-range are not yet
quite known.
Here everything goes on well.
Shall be glad to see Edward, 11 especially if he is a good deal better as I
hope.
Look at to-day’s Vorwärts re Hyndman. 416
Ever yours F.
E.
a
Aveling
Letters- 1894 355
212
IN HOBOKEN
Dear Sorge,
From the above address you will see that I have moved house. After
Louise’s marriage our old home had become rather too cramped and, since
the consequences of that marriage soon manifested themselves, we could no
longer make do. We therefore took a larger house which became available a
little further down the road, close by the gates into Regent’s Park and, after a
great bother, moved in four weeks ago—bother with house agents, solicitors,
contractors, furniture salesmen, etc., and it’s not yet over, my books being
still in great disarray. Downstairs we have our communal living-rooms, on
the first floor my study and bedroom, on the second Louise, her husband, the
baby daughter, born on Tuesday the 6th of this month, and nursery maid, on
the third floor the two housemaids, lumber-room and visitor’s room. My
study is at the front, has three windows and is so big that I can accommodate
nearly all my books (eight cases full) in it and yet, despite its size, very nice
and easy to heat. In short, we are a lot better off. In the circumstances Louise
and her baby are very well, and everything went off swimmingly.
Today, you will get two fat parcels, 3 copies of the (Berlin)
Sozialdemokrat, 3 of the Pest Volksstimme, the rest of the proceedings of the
Party Conference in the Vorwärts 418 and a Critica Sociale containing a letter
by me. 1 Because of the removal, we have not been able to send things quite
so regularly. The Workman’s Times no longer exists, more’s the pity. Tussy’s
articles in it were the only ones in which the truth about the Continental
movement was neither withheld from the English workers nor falsified.
The movement in this country continues to resemble the American one
except in being a little more advanced than yours, The instinct of the
a
F. Engels, ‘International Socialism and Italian Socialism’
356 Letters- 1894
masses which tells them that Labour must form a party of its own in op-
position to the two official parties is growing ever stronger and was more
than ever in evidence at the municipal elections on 1 November. But old
traditional memories of various kinds, combined with a lack of people who
might be capable of translating that instinct into conscious action and
crystallising it throughout the land, are conducive to the prolongation of this
preliminary stage—a stage at which thinking is ill-defined and action isolated
and localised. Anglo-Saxon sectarianism is also rife in the Labour
movement. The Social Democratic Federation. 44 just like your German
Socialist Labor Party, 367 has succeeded in turning our theory into the rigid
dogma of an orthodox sect and is not only narrowly exclusive but, thanks to
Hyndman, has a thoroughly rotten tradition where international politics is
concerned, a tradition which, although shaken from time to time, has
nevertheless remained intact. The Independent Labor Party 114 is excessively
vague in the matter of tactics, while its leader, Keir Hardie, is an over-canny
Scot whose demagogic tricks one cannot trust for a moment. Although a poor
devil of a Scottish miner, he has started a big weekly, The Labour Leader,
something that could not have been effected without a great deal of money,
and this money he obtains from a Tory or at any rate Liberal-Unionist, 206 i.e.
anti-Gladstonian and anti-Home Rule quarter 171—of that there can be no
doubt, as is confirmed not only by first-hand information and his own
political attitude, but also by the literary connections he is known to possess
in London. Consequently he might—through the defection of the Irish and
Radical voters—very easily lose his parliamentary seat in the General
Election of 1895 345 and this would be fortunate, for at the moment the man is
the greatest stumbling-block of all. He appears in Parliament only on
demagogic occasions, so as to draw attention to himself by spouting hot air
about the UNEMPLOYED to no effect whatever, or else to address inanities to
the Queena on the birth of some princeb which, in this country, is cheap and
trivial to the utmost, etc. Otherwise, and particularly in the provinces, there
are some very good elements, both in the Social Democratic Federation and
in the Independent Labor Party —elements which, though scattered, have at
least succeeded in frustrating every attempt made by the leaders to set the
two organisations at each other’s throats. John Burns is something of a lone
wolf politically; he is furiously attacked by both Hyndman and
a
Queen Victoria - b Edward Albert, Prince of York
Letters- 1894 357
a
In German peasant-catching {Bauernfängerei) also means confidence trick. - b See this volume,
p. 348
358 Letters- 1894
a
Lumea noua. - b Modern name: Tartu
Letters- 1894 359
Yours,
F.E.
First published abridged in: Briefe und First Russian Edition, Vol. XXIX, Moscow, 1946
Auszüge aus Briefen von Joh. Phil.
Becker, Jos. Dietzgen, Friedrich Printed according to the original
Engels, Karl Marx u.A. an F.A. Sorge
und Andere, Stuttgart, 1906 and in full, Published in English in full for the first time
in Russian, in: Marx and Engels,
Works,
213
AT LE PERREUX
My dear Lö hr,
Qui s’excuse s’accuse,a you began your letter of 24th October, and your
a
one who offers excuses accuses oneself
360 Letters- 1894
last note of Saturday, received this morning, shows how little time it has
taken you to pass from ‘excusing’ to ‘decusing’. However you will have to
come it considerably stronger before you upset my good humour, and so I
will only just state that since 9th October we are in No. 41, that I have had no
end of trouble with lawyers, house-agents, contractors etc, before I got the
house put into tenantable condition, so much so that I only got yesterday the
last heap of books from my study-floor into the book-cases, where they await
sorting; that no sooner was the place something like ship-shape when last
Tuesday Louise became the mother of a little girl (both doing very well); that
to crown all, London is becoming flooded with proscrits:a Russian, Italian,
Armenian etc. etc. who duly honour me with their visits; that at the same
time I had to hurry off the very badly printed proofs of the last 5 or 6 sheets
Capital (proofs and revision); and that in consequence of all this not only my
correspondence but also your French Manifestob in the Ere Nouvelle got
sadly neglected.
However this morning I hunted up the October and September Nos. of
that revue from my higgledy-piggledy books and compared them with the
original. Je vous en fais mes complimentsc—this is better then even the
Feuerbach! 310 It is the first French translation of the old Manifest I read with
real and unbroken pleasure. Unfortunately the November No. which contains
the Conclusion has not yet come to hand, so I cannot look them over. A few
suggestions follow, they are very unimportant.
You may well say trois déménagements valent un incendiéd more than
once I felt inclined to throw all my books into the fire, and house and all,
such a bother it was. But now I expect the worst is over—that is to say the
only little evil to contend with now is a flooded coal cellar and a sweating
wine cellar! But that, too, must at last be vanquished.
The Czare is dead, vive lé Czar,f and indeed the poor beggar does require
all the encouragement the French bourgeoisie and press can give him by
their shouts. He is next door to an idiot, weakly in mind and body, and
promises just that vacillating reign of a man a mere playball of other
people’s cross-purpose-intrigues which is wanted to break up finally the
Russian despotic system. Financial difficulties will help. Mother Crawford
let it out the other day that France now holds not less than eight milliards of
Russian Rentesg which accounts for the failure of the
a
exiles -b K. Marx and F. Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party. -c My compliments to you
- d three removals amount to one fire - e Alexander II I - f Nicholas II - g loans
Letters- 1894 361
last Russian loan 123 and makes very improbable the success, in France, of the
impending one. Out of France Nicholas will get no cash. When 6 or 7 years
ago an attempt was made to raise the wind in Berlin, the bankers replied
unanimously: With the guarantee of a National Assembly, any amount;
without it, not a farthing; could not that cry be raised now, when the
opportunity offers, in the Petite République? To tell the French gogosa that a
constitution must come in Russia and that therefore it will not be safe to
entrust their money to a moribund absolutism? Or does le patriotisme render
such a proceeding too dangerous?
Many thanks for your offer to translate my Urchristentum; 420 but do you
really think that theological subject—especially II and II I—attractive
enough for French readers? I have my very strong misgivings. The I article
might perhaps pass: les Internationaux sous l’empire des Césarsb or
something like it—however that I leave entirely to you.
Bebel confirms in a letter today that Vollmar had said in Frankfurt, 418 had
expressly approved the new programme agricole of Nantes; 406 now the only
thing I wrote to anybody about it was to youc: that I was afraid the French
would stand alone with their appeal to support, in this present condition, the
petits propriétaires and even les fermiers qui sont obligés d’exploiter des
ouvriers.d So Vollmar’s assertion is an invention of his own. Unfortunately it
will compel me to reply in public 421 and in order to avoid provoking fresh
misunderstandings, I shall be obliged to speak of the peasant question more
fully, and then I cannot pass by the Nantes debates. I shall send it to the Neue
Zeit,e perhaps you will find that more interesting than Christianity.f
This is how one gets always interrupted! This confounded peasant
question will take me another week. And yet I have my hands full with work
urgently needed, even before I come to start what I ought to do: the history of
Mohr’s part in the International. And that leads me to something: in the
Berlin (anarchist) Sozialist they publish from the Société Nouvelle a letter of
Bakounine—very long—in which he gives his version of the Hague affair 115
etc.g Is that to be had in Paris? Or does it appear in Brussels? The German
text I have only received in fragments, possibly in
a
simpletons - b the Internationals during the Caesars’ empire - c See this volume, p. 348 - d small
proprietors and even farmers who are obliged to exploit labourers — e F. Engels, The Peasant
Question in France and Germany —f F. Engels, On the History of Early Christianity -g M.
Bakunin, ‘Ein unbekanntes Schreiben’, Der Sozialist, Nos. 40, 41, 44, 45, 46, 48, 49, September
29, October 6, 27, November 3, 10, 24, December l, 1894—
362 Letters- 1894
September No.
Page 4 - alinéa 2, Verkehrsmittel is given moyens de communication.c
Verkehr we used in the Manifesto generally in the sense of Handelsverkehr,d
and later on it is always translated correctly échange. In this passage
échange would be better, though it is of no importance.
Page 7 alinéa 1: La Bourgeoisie, the e left out in the text.
Page 10: alinéa 2: der Hausbesitzer,e der Krämer,f is rendered: le petit
propriétaireg; would it not be more textual to say: le propriétaire,g le
boutiquier,f le prêteur sur gagesh?
Page 12, line 5: misprint: garantie locale for: légale.
Page 15, “ 3: Courgeoisie instead of Bourgeoisie:.
You see I must take refuge in common misprints in order to find fault!
with the text in the October No. I cannot even manage to do that.
First published, in Russian, Reproduced from the original
in Istoriya SSSR, No. 5, 1965
Published in English for the first time
214
IN BERLIN
215
IN LONDON
Dear Ede,
Herewith two sheets,a nos. 21/22.
Meissner wants to know whether there are any more errata. If you have any
to hand, please let me have them; 407 otherwise don’t bother; for in that case I
shall write to Meissner tomorrow, telling him to close the list. Should you be
writing to the Baron today, please let him know that I am sending him Ferri’s
Socialismo e scienza positiva with Labriola’s notes and at Labriola’s request.
No hurry about this if your letter has already gone off. Many regards; all well
here.
Yours
F. E.
First published, in Russian, Printed according to the original
in Marx-Engels Archives,
Vol. 1, 1924 Published in English for the first time
a
K. Marx, Capital, Vol. II I
364 Letters- 1894
216
My dear girls,
I have to address to you a few words with regard to my will.
First you will find that I have taken the liberty of disposing of all my
books, including those received from you after Mohr’s death, in favour of
the German party. The whole of these books constitute a library so unique,
and so complete at the same time, for the history and the study of Modern
Socialism and all the sciences on which it is dependent, that it would be a
pity to disperse it again. To keep it together, and to place it at the same time
at the disposal of those desirous to use it, has been a wish expressed to me
long ago by Bebel and other leaders of the German Socialist Party, and as
they do indeed seem to be the best people for that purpose, I have consented.
I hope that under the circumstances you will pardon my action and give your
consent too.
Second. I have had many a discussion with Sam Moore as to the possi-
bility of providing, in my will, in some way for our dear Jenny’s children.
Unfortunately, English law stands in the way. It could only be done under
almost impossible conditions, where the expense would more than eat up the
funds to be taken care of. I therefore had to give it up. Instead, I have left
each of you three-eighths of the residue of my estate after defraying legacies
etc. Of these, two -eighths are intended for yourselves, and the third eighth is
meant to be held by each of you in trust for Jenny’s children, to be used as
you and the children’s guardian, Paul Lafargue, may think best. In this way
you are freed from all responsibility with regard to English law and can act
as your own moral sense and love for the children may dictate.
The money I owe to the children for shares of profits on Mohr’s writings
are put down in my ledger, and will be paid by my Executors to the party
who, according to English law, will be the children’s legal representative.
And now good bye,
My dear, dear girls. May you live long and healthily
Letters- 1894 365
Frederick Engels
F. E.
217
IN STUTTGART
Dear Baron,
I have just been going through Tussy’s articlec with her—at one point
there is an amendment by which she rightly, or so it seems to me, sets store
but which, because it was written on a sheet of paper, she failed to include. It
belongs at the end of the preface, which should read: ‘in general Mr
Brentano’s manner of writing history is distinguished by three
characteristics: 1.’ etc.
Will you still be able to add this?
By the time this arrives you may already have seen from the Vorwärts 421
a
book-shop - b about English translation of Vol. I - c E. Marx-Aveling, ‘Wie Lujo Brentano
zitirt,’ Die Neue Zeit, No, 9, 1894-95, Vol. I
366 Letters- 1894
Yours,
F.E.
218
IN LONDON
Dear Ede,
The Sozialdemokrat (Berlin) contained a translation of Lafargue’s report
on the programme agraire. 419 Lafargue has drawn my attention to it since he
has no copy of the original to hand. Now I cannot find my copy of the
Sozialdemokrat (it was in the issue of 18 November and possibly an earlier
one as well). Can you lend them to me for a day?
I have a bad cold but am getting better.
Yours,
F.E.
Many regards.
a
F. Engels, ‘The Peasant Question in France and Germany’
Letters- 1894 367
219
IN STUTTGART
Dear Baron,
The agrarian articlea goes off to you today by registered book post. Since
the handwriting is rotten, may I have the proofs? They will be promptly
attended to.
Am just reading Ledebour’s reply to you. 424 The chap’s trying to be too
clever by half. As though, two years ago, you could have foreseen what
Vollmar would be like today. And it really is a bit much to conclude, merely
because the small peasant has been told there is no intention of forcibly
evicting him, that the intention is to provide economic conditions such as will
enable him to continue farming on his own account. Obviously, as things are
today, you would have worded this or that passage differently. But nobody is
proof against verbal hair-splitting and my article might suffer exactly the
same fate.
I look forward to seeing how the polemic initiated by Bebel is going to
develop. 425 It was long overdue.
I simply have not got the time just now to go into the matter of the
International’s attitude to the question of land ownership. Besides, it has
been a ticklish point so far as the International is concerned. Firstly because
of the Proudhonists in France, Belgium, etc., and their enthusiasm for parcels
of land, and secondly because of Bakunin’s hobby-horse, the abolition of
inheritance, which tended to obscure the issue. 426
Needless to say, the Vorwärts has come down in favour of unity, i.e. of
hushing things up. Nothing can be done about this for the present. But
anyone who hushes things up can now only be of assistance to Vollmar and
will have to bear the consequences. The only correct thing for me to do is, I
think, to intervene in an absolutely objective way and leave personalities
completely out of it. Otherwise it will again be said that I am
a
F. Engels, ‘The Peasant Question in France and Germany’
368 Letters- 1894
Yours,
F.E.
220
AT LE PERREUX
My dear Lafargue,
I have found your report in the Sozialdemokrat. 419 That was lucky, for it
has allowed me to put the responsibility for quite a few things on a somewhat
careless editorship and to conclude that, although I did not agree with what
the Nantes resolution 406 said, I think I agree with what it tried to say. At the
same time I have tried to be as friendly as possible; but in view of the way
this resolution is being abused in Germany, it is no good remaining silent
about it.
The fact is you allowed yourself to lean a bit too much towards the
opportunist tendency. At Nantes you came near to sacrificing the future of
the Party to a momentary triumph. There is still time to call a halt: if my
articlea can contribute towards this, I shall be happy. In Germany—
a
F. Engels, ‘The Peasant Question in France and Germany’
Letters- 1894 369
where Vollmar went so far as to suggest that the large peasants in Bavaria,
each with the 10-30 hectares, should enjoy all the benefits that you had
promised to the small French peasants 418—in Germany Bebel took up the
challenge, and the matter will be exhaustively discussed; it will not come off
the agenda until it has been thrashed out. You will have seen in Vorwärts
Bebel’s speech in the 2nd electoral constituency of Berlin. 425 He complains
with reason that the party is going bourgeois. That is the misfortune of all
extreme parties when the time approaches for them to become ‘possible’. But
our Party cannot go beyond a certain limit in this respect without betraying
itself, and it seems to me that in France as in Germany we have now reached
that point. Fortunately there is still time to call a halt.
For some while I have not seen your letters in Vorwärts, and I thought
there was some misunderstanding; last Wednesday I was happy to receive a
number of ‘Gallus’.a If there are difficulties with the editorial board, let me
know, perhaps I could be of some use to you.
If the Russian Government is spending money to strengthen its currency,
that is an infallible sign that a new loan is in the air; the French are the only
ones who might be tempted; let’s hope they aren’t. But when Russia needs
gold, she must naturally try to get it!
Loria will be even more pleased when he reads the preface,b he is treated
there as he deserves and without the least regard for ‘il primo economista
dell’ Italia’.c
Young Williamd is behaving admirably. He gets it into his head to combat
‘subversive tendencies’ 428 ‘and starts by subverting his own government. 429
Ministers fall like lead soldiers. The poor young man had to keep quiet and
lie low for over eight months; he can’t stand it any longer, he blows up—and
there you are! At a time when we are winning a quarter of Belgium, 412 when
electoral reform in Austria is about to send our people into Parliament, when
in Russia everything is in a state of uncertainty about the future—the young
man gets it into his head to outdo Crispi and Casimir Périer! You can tell the
effect this will have in Germany from the fact that at the Frankfurt Congress
418
the delegates, or at least many of them, called for a new repressive law as
the best means for the Party to gain ground!
a
[P. Lafargue] Gallus, ‘Der landwirtschaftliche Kredit in Frankreich’, Vorwärts, No. 259, 6
November 1894. -b F. Engels, - c Preface [to K. Marx’s Capital, Vol. II I] -d ‘the foremost Italian
economist’ — e William II
370 Letters- 1894
The situation in Austria is interesting. Since the death of his son,a the
Emperorb has been afraid of the fall of his dynasty in the near future. His heir
presumptivec is an arrogant imbecile of the utmost unpopularity. The
Hungarians are not likely to tolerate him, they are demanding personal union
pure and simple to start with, to be followed by total separation and complete
independence. To tie his successor’s hands in advance, Francis Joseph is
trying to strengthen Parliament and make it more genuinely representative.
That is why he has agreed with his friend Taaffe on a fairly extensive
electoral reform. 270 But Parliament, an assembly of privileged persons, a real
States General of 1789d (elected by categories: large landowners, commerce,
towns, rural areas), turns it down, and Taaffe goes out. Thereupon the
Emperor, like a true constitutional monarch, appoints a Minister from the
majority,e a coalition of Liberals, Poles, etc., all arch-reactionaries. But he
makes them promise that in return they will introduce an electoral reform of
their own kind and that within a year. The year runs out with all kinds of
abortive attempts. Thereupon the Emperor puts them in a position to keep
their word—and that is why for the last 3 weeks Vienna has been talking of
nothing but electoral reform. But the coalition is incapable of producing
anything; at the first positive proposition they start fighting among
themselves. So that probably Taaffe will shortly replace them and re-table his
Bill, and if Parliament turns it down he will dissolve it and grant the reform,
which the Constitution allows him to do. So here you have ‘fellow traveller’
Francis Joseph pushing from one side and Victor Adler from the other! But
what an irony of history that this Emperor, created in December 1848
deliberately to crush the Revolution, should be called upon to inaugurate a
fresh one AG years later!
Kiss Laura for me.
Ever yours,
F. E
Louise and the child are well, she and Freyberger send their greetings.
221
IN STUTTGART
Dear Comrade,
Many thanks for having translated my Entwicklung des Sozialismus and,
recently, the Communist Manifestoa into your Armenian mother tongue.
Unfortunately I am not in a position to comply with your request that I send
you a short introduction to the latter translation. I cannot very well write
anything that is to be published in a language which I do not understand.
Were I to do so as a favour to yourself, I could not refuse to oblige others, in
which case it might happen that my words were ushered into the world in
unintentionally, if not deliberately, garbled form, while I might not learn
about it for years, if ever.
Then there is another reason—grateful though I am to you for your
interesting exposé of the Armenian situation—namely, that I do not regard it
as right or fair to try and express an opinion on matters of which I have not
acquired a knowledge from personal study. Particularly in this instance when
the people concerned belong to an oppressed nationality unfortunate enough
to be trapped between the Scylla of Turkish and the Charybdis of Russian
despotism, a situation in which Russian Tsarism speculates on playing the
role of liberator and the servile Russian press never fails to make the most of
every word uttered in favour of Armenian liberation by turning it to the
advantage of a Tsarism bent on conquest.
If, however, I am to tell you honestly what I think, it is this—that
Armenia’s liberation from the Turks and Russians will become a possibility
only on the day when Russian Tsarism is overthrown.
With best wishes for the welfare of your people,
Yours,
F. Engels
a
F. Engels, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific; K. Marx and F. Engels, Manifesto of the
Communist Party
372 Letters - 1894
222
IN ST. PETERSBURG
My dear Sir,
I am in possession of your kind letters 7 and 11 June, 15 October and 12
November.
Of Mr. Struve’s works I have only seen the article in Braun’s
Centralblatt,a and cannot therefore speak as to what assertions he may have
made. If in my letters you find any facts that may be useful to you in your
reply, you are welcome to make use of them. 430 But as to any opinions of
mine, I am afraid, your opponents—not perhaps Mr. Struve but the Russian
press generally—would use them in a way they do not warrant. I am daily
and weekly assailed by Russian friends to reply to Russian reviews and
books in which the words of our authorb are not only misinterpreted but
misquoted and where they say my interference would suffice to set the
matter right. I have constantly declined doing so, because I cannot, without
giving up real and serious work, be dragged into controversies going on in a
faraway country, in a language which I do not yet read with as much ease as
the better known western languages, and in a literature whereof at best I but
see occasional fragments and where it is utterly impossible for me to follow
the debate closely and in all its phases and passages. There are people
everywhere who, in order to defend a position once taken up by them, do not
shrink from any distortion or unfair manoeuvre; and if this is the case with
the writings of our author, I am afraid I should get no better treatment and be
compelled, finally, to interfere in the debate, both for other people’s sake and
my own. In fact, if my
a
P. Struve, ‘Zur Beurtheilung der kapitalistischen Entwickelung Russlands’,
Sozialpolitisches Centralblatt, No. 1, 2 October 1893 - b Karl Marx
Letters- 1894 373
opinions as stated in private letters, did appear in the Russian press with my
sanction, I should then have no defence via-à-vis my Russian friends here
and on the Continent, who urge me actively to interfere in Russian debates
and to set this or that man right on this and that point; I should not have any
valid reason to decline, as they would be able to tell me: you have already
once interfered in Russian debates; you must own that our present case is
quite as important as that of Mr. D., so if you please, treat us as you have
treated him. And then, my time would be no longer my own, and my
interference in Russian debates would after all be extremely inefficacious
and incomplete.
These are the reasons which compel me, to my very great regret, to request
you, not to insist on quoting opinions of mine, at least not as mine.
I will try to forward to you some continuation of what you have already
received.a
Yours very truly
L. K.b
223
IN BERLIN
Dear Liebknecht,
I have written to Bebel, 25 suggesting that, in political debate, one should
always consider things calmly and do nothing in haste or in the heat of the
moment. I myself having often come a cropper in consequence. On the other
hand, however, I also have a small bone to pick with yourself.
a
proof-sheets of Capital, Vol. II I - b Louise Kautsky’s initials are used as Engels’ pen-name in
correspondence with Danielson.
374 Letters- 1894
Whether Bebel’s conduct in the assembly was inept is open to question. 425
But in point of fact he was absolutely right. As to editor of the central organ
you are, of course, bound to cast oil on troubled waters, to argue away even
what are very real differences, TO MAKE THINGS PLEASANT ALL ROUND, and to
promote unity in the party until the day the breach comes. Thus as editor you
may have deplored Bebel’s conduct. But what was displeasing to the editor
should have been welcome to the party leader, namely the fact that there
should be men who do not always have to sport an obligatory pair of editor’s
spectacles upon their noses, and who also remind the editor that, in his
capacity as party leader, he would do well now and again to view the world
with the naked eye rather than through rose-tinted spectacles.
On the very eve of the Frankfurt Party Conference the Bavarians formed
what was tantamount to a Sonderbund at Nuremberg. 431 They arrived in
Frankfurt with what was manifestly an ultimatum. To add insult to injury,
Vollmar spoke of marching separately, while Grilloa declared: ‘Resolve any
thing you like; we shall not conform.’ They claimed special rights for the
Bavarians and dubbed their opponents in the party ‘Prussians’ and
‘Berliners’. They demanded that the grant of supplies be approved, as also an
agrarian policy which is actually further to the right than that of the petty
bourgeoisie. Instead of promptly putting a spoke in their wheels, as had
always been done before, the Party Conference did not venture to pass a
resolution. So if that wasn’t the time for Bebel to speak of the penetration of
the party by petty-bourgeois elements then I’m at a loss to know when he
should have done.
And what did the Vorwärts do? Fasten upon the form of Bebel’s attack,
say things weren’t so bad after all and place itself in such ‘diametrical
opposition’ to him that only the—in the event inevitable—’misunder-
standing’ of Bebel’s opponents forced you to declare that your diametrical
opposition referred simply to the form taken by Bebel’s attack, but that, so
far as its substance was concerned—the matter of supplies and the agrarian
question—he had been right and you were on his side. 432 I should have
thought that the mere fact of your having been forced to make this statement
after the event would have proved to you that you had strayed much further
to the right than Bebel could have strayed to the left.
And after all, the whole debate hinged solely upon the two points in which
the action of the Bavarians culminated, namely, the opportunism
a
Karl Grillenberger
Letters- 1894 375
of granting supplies in order to catch the petty bourgeoisie, and the op-
portunism of Vollmar’s agrarian propaganda intended to catch the middle
and big peasants. These, and the sectarian attitude of the Bavarians were the
only practical questions under consideration, and if Bebel took them up at the
point at which the Party Conference had left the Party in the lurch, you ought
to be grateful to him. If he described the impossible position created by the
Party Conference as attributable to the growing influence of philistinism in
the party, he was merely placing a particular question in the general context
in which it belongs, and that is also worthy of recognition. And if he forced a
debate on all this, he was only doing what absolutely had to be done and
ensuring that, when confronted by urgent questions, the next Party
Conference should act in full knowledge of the facts instead of being left
gaping, as at Frankfurt.
The danger of a split cannot be laid at the door of Bebel who called a
spade a spade. It must be laid at the door of the Bavarians who presumed to
act in a way hitherto unprecedented in the party, much to the glee of the
vulgar democrats on the Frankfurter Zeitung who recognise in Vollmar and
the Bavarians men of their own stamp, while the latter rejoice and become
ever more audacious,
You say Vollmar is not a traitor. Maybe. Nor do I think he regards himself
as such. But what would you call a man who asks of a proletarian party that it
should oblige the Upper Bavarian big and middle peasants, owners of
anything between ten and thirty hectares, by perpetuating a state of affairs
based on the exploitation of farm servants and day labourers? A proletarian
party, expressly founded for the perpetuation of wage slavery! The man may
be an anti-Semite, a bourgeois democrat, a Bavarian particularist and
anything else you care to name, but a Social Democrat? Come to that, in a
growing workers’ party, the accretion of petty-bourgeois elements is
inevitable, nor does it do any harm. Any more than the accretion of
‘academics’,a failed students, etc. A few years ago they still constituted a
danger. Now we are able to digest them. But the process of digestion must be
allowed to run its course. And for this, hydrochloric acid is needed; if there is
not enough of it (as Frankfurt went to show), we ought to be thankful to
Bebel for giving us an extra dose, thereby enabling us properly to digest the
non-proletarian elements.
For it is in this that the restoration of true harmony in the party con-
a
persons with higher education
376 Letters- 1894
224
IN VIENNA
Dear Madam,
May I tender my warmest thanks for the delightful present you were so
kind as to send me for my birthday? I value it all the more highly, not only
for being your own handiwork, but also and above all for your having found
leisure to do it at a time when you already had enough and more than enough
to do for the little one that is on its way. For during that self-same time I was
again afforded an opportunity of seeing, here in my own house, what a
multitude of cares and preoccupations the expectation of motherhood
involves.b I have all the more reason to pride myself in a present made for
me at such a time.
I put it to use at once, on my birthday, when I took a short siesta. One
sleeps upon it as sweetly as the proverbial ‘quiet conscience’ upon a ‘good
pillow’. In fact I feel pretty sure that it would be able to cope without dif-
ficulty even with a pretty uneasy conscience.
a
the end of this letter is not extant - b Engels is referring to Louise Freyberger’s expectant child
Letters- 1894 377
I was glad to hear from Ludwig that you and your little one are still
keeping well and trust that you will continue to do so.
Again, many thanks and kindest regards to you and to Dr Karpeles from
Yours very sincerely,
F. Engels
225
IN HOBOKEN
Dear Sorge,
Thank you and your wife for your good wishes. Between ourselves, my
75th year doesn’t hold out quite so much promise as previous ones. True I am
still nimble enough on my pins, besides having an appetite for work and a
reasonable capacity for it, but nevertheless I find that stomach upsets and
colds, which I could once afford to treat with supreme contempt, now
demand the most respectful treatment. But that is nothing so long as it
amounts to nothing more.
Yesterday I sent you three copies of the Preface to Volume II I.a One for
the luckless Stiebeling who has sent me several specimens of his stuff.b One
for P. Fireman, D. Phil., if you know or can discover his address. Please give
the third, after you have done with it, to Schlüter who might be able to put it
to good use. In about a week’s time at the most I hope to be able to send you
a copy of the actual book, having been notified that this is on its way. In
addition today, rolled up and sent Book Post;
1. Sozialdemokrat
2. Justice, which I shall again be sending you regularly because of the
a
of Capital- b G. C. Stiebeling, Das Werthgesetz und die Profit-Rate, New York, [1890]
378 Letters- 1894
wrangling with the Germans, from which they can’t desist. 433 Nearly
everything the paper says about the triumphs of the Social Democratic
Federation 44 is a lie; compared with other organisations, especially the
Independent Labour Party, 114 the Social Democratic Federation is dwindling
and, if things go on like this, it will soon dwindle into nothingness.
Unfortunately the Independent Labour Party no longer has a proper paper.
3. Glühlichter from Vienna and Wahrer Jakob from Stuttgart, so that you
may acquaint yourself with the ‘wit’ the party has at its disposal.
4. Bebel’s speech in Berlin and his four articles attacking Grillenberger
and Vollmar. 434
The latter is the most interesting of the lot. The Bavarians, who have
become very, very opportunistic and are already almost an ordinary People’s
Party (i.e. most of the leaders and many of the party’s more recent recruits),
had voted in favour of the general estimates in the Bavarian Landtag, while
Vollmar, in particular, had begun to agitate on behalf of the peasants so as to
catch the big peasants of Upper Bavaria—men with 25-80 ACRES of land
(10-30 hectares) and thus quite unable to manage without wage labour—but
not their labourers. Having no high hopes of the Frankfurt Party Conference
418
they organised, a week before the latter, a Bavarian Party Conference of
their own in the course of which they constituted what amounted to a
Sonderbund, 431 in as much as they agreed that at Frankfurt the Bavarian
delegation should, on all questions relating to Bavaria, vote as a body and in
accordance with the Bavarian resolutions previously settled upon. So, having
arrived there, they declared that they had had to grant the general estimates
in Bavaria, there having been no other alternative and that it was,
furthermore a purely Bavarian question in which no one else had any
business to poke his nose. In other words, if you resolve anything we
Bavarians do not like, if you reject our ultimatum, then it will be your fault if
there’s a split!
Such was the claim, unprecedented in the annals of the party, with which
they confronted the other delegates who were utterly unprepared for it. And
to such extremes has the clamour for unity been taken in recent years that,
having regard to the influx of as yet insufficiently trained elements during
the same period, it is small wonder that this attitude, incompatible as it is
with the party’s continued existence, should have got by without the
peremptory rebuff it deserved, and that no resolution should have been taken
on the question of supplies.
Letters- 1894 379
Now let us suppose the Prussians, who are in the majority at the Party
Conference, were also to hold a preliminary congress and were to pass
resolutions there on, say, the attitude of the Bavarians—resolutions binding
upon all the Prussian delegates so that the whole lot, both the majority and
the minority, voted as a body for those resolutions at the General Party
Conference, what would be the good of holding General Party Conferences
at all? And what would the Bavarians say if the Prussians were to do exactly
what they themselves have just done?
In short, the matter could not be allowed to rest at that, and it was now that
Bebel stepped into the breach. He simply put the question back on the agenda
and it is now being debated. Bebel is by far the most lucid and far-sighted
man of the lot.
I have been corresponding with him regularly for some fifteen years and
we see eye to eye about almost everything. Liebknecht, on the other hand, is
very hidebound in his outlook and the old democrat of South German-
federalist, particularist complexion in him is forever coming to the surface.
Worse still, he cannot tolerate the fact that Bebel, who has long since out-
grown him, refuses to submit to his guidance although he puts up willingly
with his presence at his side. Furthermore, so badly has he managed the
central organ, the Vorwärts—mainly because of the jealousy with which he
guards his LEADERSHIP, wanting to direct everything and in fact directing
nothing, i.e. placing obstacles everywhere—that the paper, which could be
the best in Berlin, serves only to provide the party with profits amounting to
50,000 marks but no political influence whatsoever. Needless to say,
Liebknecht is now intent on acting as mediator and pours scorn on Bebel, but
in my view, it’s the latter who will turn out to be right. In Berlin the
Executive and the best of our chaps are already taking his side and I am
convinced that, if he appeals to the party at large, he will get a big majority.
Meanwhile we must wait and see. I would also send you the Vollmariad, etc.,
but have only got one copy of the same for my own use.
Louise and the baby both well.
Warm regards to you and your wife. I trust your eyes will soon be better
again, as also your other infirmities.
226
IN MILAN
My dear Turati,
Where the deuce do you find the patience to keep writing to this dear
Monsieur E.? But let’s leave aside the bourgeois titles. As to your students, I
regret infinitely that I am unable to come to their aid other than by giving
them my best wishes. 435 My time is so occupied that I cannot get down even
to the most urgent matters at hand. The same day as I receive your card, one
addresses the same request to me on behalf of Berlin students; I am obliged
to send them the same refusal as I do to your friends. These little things are
but trifles if taken separately, yet when all this happens day after day with a
desperate regularity, it all adds up to a considerable loss of time. Be so kind
as to make my excuses to your young friends to whom, nevertheless, I wish
complete success.
I enclose my preface to the 3d volume of Capital for the benefit of
citizeness Anna—there are several lines in which one might become in-
terested in Italy.
It was good of you to cite Bebel in the Critica Sociale. 425 Bebel has said
bitter, but quite necessary truths. This was more opportune than the op-
portunism of his adversaries.
Yours truly,
F. E.
227
IN HOBOKEN
Dear Sorge,
Today one copy of Marx’s Capital, Vol. II I, has gone off to you by reg-
istered Book Post. I trust you will get it.
‘What has earned us such an undeserved stroke of luck as the ‘lese-
majestie’ suit brought at little Willie’sa behest against our chaps for having
remained seated in the Reichstag, is beyond my comprehension. 436 No one
could have done us a greater service. Little Willie and ‘Mr von Kö ller,
Whatever they do there’s worse to foller’ are a fine pair and as if cut out to
get everything into a mess and us—out of it.
Bebel has emerged victorious. In the first place, after Bebel’s articles
Vollmar broke off the controversy, 434 in the second, his appeal to the
Executive was most resolutely rejected and, in the third, he appealed to the
parliamentary group but the latter, having been declared incompetent by
Bebel, admitted its incompetence, which means that the matter will come up
before the next Party Conference, when Bebel can be certain of a majority of
two-thirds or three-quarters.
It is the third campaign Vollmar has fought for a leading position in the
party outside of Bavaria. On the first occasion he demanded that we should
actively support Caprivi and become government socialists. 437 On the
second, that we should go in for state socialism and assist the present
German Empire in its socialist experiments. 438 On both he got a flea in his
ear. And now he has got another.
a
William II
382 Letters- 1894
The act of staying seated in the Reichstag has impressed the French more
than all the work the party has done over the past thirty years. Between
ourselves, the Parisians—and I mean the Parisians, not the French—have
gone very much to seed. Their love of fine phrases and their respect for the
melodramatic are gradually becoming intolerable. I hope you and your wife
are well. Warm regards to you both.
Yours,
F. E.
First published abridged in: Briefe und Russian Edition, Vol. XXIX,
Auszüge aus Briefen von Joh. Phil. Moscow, 1946
Becker, Jos. Dietzgen, Friedrich
Engels, Karl Marx u. A, an F. A. Sorge Printed according to the original
und Andere, Stuttgart, 1906 and In full,
in Russian, in: Marx and Engels, Published in English for the first time
Works, First
228
IN VIENNA
Dear Victor,
Your letters of 12 and 26 safely received. So the K. Kautsky business has
been settled. Best thanks for your good wishes for my birthday. I can assure
you that it has been brought home to me and impressed upon my
a
Department of the Interior, Census Office. Compendium of the Eleventh Census: 1890, Parts I-
II , Washington, 1892-1894 - b of Capital
Letters- 1894 383
a
F. Engels, The Peasant Question in France and Germany —b See this volume, pp. 373 -75 ;
the editors do not possess the second letter. - c William II - d lacking awareness, dull, stupid,
uncomprehending - e let the worst happen
384 Letters - 1894
But now for the most important thing. You express surprise at not having
heard from Louise. In which case, might I suggest that you be so good as to
answer the extremely urgent letters she has written to you, not only those
about her acting as correspondent for you over here and whether you would
also like articles from anyone else and, if so, who—but also and above all
those about the offer of money.
Months ago, in September or early October, she wrote to you saying:
‘There is now a group of people who, though not members of the party,
nevertheless have confidence in you and in particular believe that you are the
man to help the daily Arbeiter-Zeitung 377 along the road to financial success
as well, always providing that you are given the leading position.’ They are
therefore prepared to assign to you a considerable sum for the daily Arbeiter-
Zeitung—amounting, I understand, to some 5,000 fl., on condition that:
1. You accept the senior position on the paper.
2. The thing is treated purely as a business investment and interest is
regularly paid.
3. All negotiations, payments, etc., are dealt with by you in Vienna and by
Louise over here.
These, to the best of my recollection, were the conditions upon which the
offer was made. ‘Well, there has been no response of any kind from you,
either to the above or to any of Louise’s subsequent letters. Last week she
wrote again, asking for an immediate reply which had to be here by Tuesday,
the 11th, at the latest. In vain. Now this can only mean one of two things:
Either you in your correspondence are so enmeshed in a web of postal and
other kinds of intrigue that it is virtually impossible to get a letter to you, or
your disinclination to answer letters is such that you would rather forego the
money that has been offered you than write to Louise.
Either way we have got to know where we stand. The chaps are pressing
for a decision for, if you refuse the money, they will invest it elsewhere. We
have therefore been compelled to send this letter to Mrs Anna Pernerstorfer,
with the request that she deliver it to you in person and to no one else. We
would now ask you—-for the very last time—if you would kindly let us know
whether or not you wish to negotiate with us and or Louise regarding the
money. If you do, you must tell her how letters are to be addressed to you,
whereupon we shall send a reply by ‘registered’ mail.
Letters- 1894 385
Louise and her baby are both very well. The baby grows, flourishes and
screams; she is suckling it herself and has plenty and to spare. She and
Ludwig send their love, likewise
Yours,
F.E.
229
IN LONDON
Dear Jodko,
I certainly would not have the least objection to your translating my article
on the peasant question and should be glad if it could also prove helpful to
your compatriots. 441
Yours,
F. Engels
230
AT LE PERREUX
My dear Löhr,
You say, after finishing the 3rd volumea and before beginning with the 4th,
I must long for a little rest. Now I will just tell you what my position is.
I have to follow the movement in five large and a lot of small European
countries and the U. S. America. For that purpose I receive 3 German,
2 English, 1 Italian dailies and from January 1 the Vienna daily, 7 in all.
Of weeklies I receive 2 from Germany, 7 Austria, 1 France, 3 America (2
English, 1 German), 2 Italian, and 1 each in Polish, Bulgarian, Spanish
and Bohemian, three of which in languages I am still gradually acquiring.
Besides that, calls of the most varied sorts of people (just now, a few min
utes ago, Polak from Amsterdam sent me a German sculptor penniless
and in want of employment) and an ever increasing crowd of correspon
dents, more than at the time of the International! many of whom expect
long explanations and all of them taking away time. With all this and the
3rd volume, I have not, even during the proof-sheet-time, that is the whole
of 1894, been able to read more than one book.
Now the next thing is the publication of Lassalle’s letters to Mohr. 284
Tussy has typed them, they are in my desk, but—thanks to the removal—I
have not been able to touch them. That means notes, references to facts long
gone by as well as to my own old correspondence with Mohr— and a
preface to be written diplomatically.
Then the heaps of arrears of my own. First the complete rewriting of the
Bauernkrieg 235 which has been out of sale for years, and has been promised
as my first work after Vol. II I. That requires a considerable study; I hoped to
do that along with the proof-sheets, But impossible. Anyhow I shall have to
look myself up how to do it.
Then—not to speak of other little jobs hanging over me—I want to write
at least the chief chapters out of Mohr’s political life: 1842-1852,
a
of Capital
Letters- 1894 387
and the International. The latter is the most important and urgent, I intend to
do it first. But that requires freedom from interruption, and when shall I get
that? 316
All these things are wanted from me, and moreover a re-edition of Mohr’s
and my own earlier smaller writings. For that I have been collecting; but have
not succeeded in much—. Some more bits are in the Parteiarchiv in Berlin.
442
But a good deal is short yet, for instance a copy of the first Rheinische
Zeitung. If I could get, say 2/3 of the old 1842-50 articles collected, I should
start, as I am sure then that for a 2nd edition a lot more would come to light.
But we are not so far advanced as yet.
And then Vol. 4. 443 Now of that there is a very rough manuscript, of which
up to now it in impossible to say how much can be used. I myself cannot
again undertake to unravel it and dictate the whole as I did Vol. 2 and 3. My
eyesight would break down completely before I was half through. I found
that out years ago and tried another dodge. I considered it would be useful to
have one or two intelligent men of the younger generation broken in to read
Mohr’s handwriting. I thought of Kautsky and Bernstein. Kautsky was then
still in London (some 6 or 7 years ago). I asked him and he assented; I said I
would pay one hundred pounds for the complete ‘fair copy’ of what there is,
and assist him where he could not decipher. He began. Then he left London,
took one Hefta with him, and for years I heard no more, He was too busy with
the Neue Zeit, so I had Manuscript and copy returned, as far as the latter
went—perhaps 1/8 to 1/6 of the whole.b Bernstein too is not only very busy,
but suffers from overwork, has not yet completely overcome his
neurasthenia, and I hardly dare ask him. I shall see whether Tussy will; if he
volunteers, all well; if not I do not intend to run the risk of having it said that
I brought on a relapse of his illness by overloading him with work.
That is my position: 74 years the which I am beginning to feel, and work
enough for two men of 40. Yes, if I could divide myself into the F. E. of 40
and the F. E. of 34, which would just be 74, then we should soon be all right.
But as it is, all I can do is to work on with what is before me and get through
it as far and as well as I can.
Now you know my position, and if you have now and then to wait for a
letter from me, you will know the reason why.
Last night Bonnier came from Edinbro’ and left to-day for Oxford. He
a
notebook - b See this volume, p. 71
388 Letters- 1894
has cooled down considerably from his first anger over my Bauernfragea—
vous nous traitez d’imbéciles,b he wrote to me. Anyhow he was very pleasant
and I think he is convinced that they have made a blunder at Nantes. 406 He
really believed that it was not only possible but necessary to gain over the
mass of the French peasants to Socialism between now and next general
elections.
Post time. Must close. I owe you for your share of the
Sonnenschein account for Capital (English).......................... £1.31.-
1/3 Share of £5.—received from Neue Zeit for the 2 chapters
from Vol. II Ic ........................................................................ £1.13.4
And allow me to add as a remembrance that
Christmas is coming ............................................................... £ 5. -. -
Covered by cheque herewith ................................................. £7.16.5.
Puddings could not be made this year, the little girl of Louise’s (which is
prosperous and gaining nearly a pound a week in weight) has stopped that.
But Paul will have his cake.
Ever yours
F. Engels
First published abridged, the original (English) in: F. Engels, P.
in German, in: Die Neue Zeit, et L. Lafargue, Correspondance, t. II
No. 11, 1905-069 Bd. I I, 1959
and in full, in Russian, in:
Voprosi istorü KPSS, No. 1,1957; Reproduced from the original
first published in the language of
231
IN PARIS
My dear Lavrov,
Mme Lafargue has sent me your letter, and I hasten to assure you that
a
F. Engels, The Peasant Question in France and Germany - you call us imbeciles - c of
Capital
Letters- 1894 389
Yours
F. Engels
232
AT LE PERREUX
that he shall have the two booksa as soon as I myself shall have copies.b
Meissner supplied me, and still supplies me, after he has supplied everyone
else. I am also sending you a copy for Deville.
As I said: the (Nantes) programme 406 itself has only one pointless clause:
the reduction of LEGAL rates of interest, i.e., the revival of the ancient laws
against usury whose total uselessness was demonstrated 2,000 years ago.
You cannot effectively reduce the rates of interest paid by mortgaged
peasants without turning all mortgages on property into debts against the
State, in which case you are free to reduce the interest—except that you lose
money yourself, when it falls due. And also the clause on hunting, as it is
drafted, is self-contradictory.
Not only is young Williamc cracked, but this time he is pushing things to a
crisis. The new chancellord is simply a man of straw, the moving spirit in the
new government is Köller (der macht as immer döller,e as Kladderadatsch
said of him years ago). They are provoking a conflict with the Reichstag.
They are going to prosecute Liebknecht for lese-majesty after the closure. 436
They are pressing for a dissolution which will mean a recalcitrant Reichstag
in Berlin and then—a little coup d’état. We may look forward to some nice
happenings in Germany if everything turns out as these gentlemen visualise.
In Italy, too, the monarchy is hard pressed. The Crown Princef is involved
in the Banca Romana to the tune of 300,000 francs, the Kingg in the name of
various nominees, for very much larger amounts. All that is well known.
Crispi is mortally wounded by Giolitti’s sensational move 445—the whole of
Parliament as well as all the higher officials are compromised by it, and in
simple-minded Italy they are still so Catholic, that is to say, pagan, that all
this is done in broad daylight and there is no means of concealing the
corruption, of which, on the contrary, they boast—until there is a crisis.
And then, Russia—the unknown, where only one thing is certain: that the
present regime will not be able to stand a change of tsar, and there will be a
crisis there too.
What you say about the effect produced by the little scene in the
Reichstag goes for England as well. All the years of work, all the electoral
and real victories count for nothing; a little melodramatic scene—that is
a
K. Marx, Capital, Vol. II I. -b See previous letter. -c William II - d Prince zu Hohenlohe - e
Who lets himself go more and more. - f Vittorio Emmanuele - g Umberto I
Letters- 1894 391
233
IN LONDON
Yours truly
F. Engels
234
IN VIENNA
Dear Victor,
So the offer of moneya has at last reached the stage at which we can get
down to business. Louise will be letting you have further details.
As regards correspondents over here, please give M. Beer a pseudonym
that will so distinguish him from all the other correspondents as to obviate
any possibility of confusion. The man is very green so far as England is
concerned and sees things through Galician-Talmudic spectacles.—I hardly
imagine that E. Bernstein will be able to send you a great deal; as it is, he
seldom has much time to spare for articles for the Vorwärts and prefers to
work for the Neue Zeit.
Lafargue has asked whether you could make use of him as a contributor. I
told him that in the first instance you would have to consider Frankel but that
I was unaware of all the circumstances and would write.b He—Lafargue—is
a lively and interesting writer but his stuff, like the Gallus reports he sends to
the Vorwärts, is all in French. His wife does not write German either and
speaks it only on fairly rare occasions. Nor is she as fluent as Tussy. I don’t
know whether it would be convenient for you to do the translating over there
yourselves. Lafargue would naturally have a fee in mind, since he has lost his
deputy’s salary. I couldn’t tell him anything about that either.
Things are getting complicated on the Continent. In your country electoral
reform is assured—and nowadays, when something like that gets under way,
it is not so easy to stop—while Russia is seeing the beginning of the end of
Tsarist omnipotence, for it is improbable that autocracy will survive this
latest change of monarch; in Italy they are heading straight for a revolution
that may cost the monarchy its head, and in the German Empire Little Williec
seems intent on crossing the Halys and destroying a great empire. You could
hardly wish for a better moment at which to found a daily newspaper—
material in plenty and what’s more, of a kind
a
See this volume, p. 384 - b See this volume, p. 391 -c William II
Letters- 1894 393
that the other parties are bound to distort and misconstrue, whereas our party
is the only one that will construe it aright from the very start.
And now a Merry Christmas to you, your wife (to whom please convey
my warm regards) and your children.
Yours,
F.E.
First published in: Victor Adlers Printed according to the book
Aufsätze, Reden und Briefe.
Erstes Heft: Victor Adler und Published in English for the first time
Friedrich Engels, Vienna, 1922
235
236
IN VIENNA
[Draft]
[London, 27 December 1894]
Dear Victor,
I would ask you to convey my congratulations to the Austrian workers on
their daily paper. 377 Its first daily paper invariably signifies a tremen-
394 Letters- 1894
Yours
First published abridged in the Printed according to the original collated with the
Arbeiter-Zeitung. No. 1, 1 January newspaper
1895 and in full, in Russian, in: Marx
and Engels, Works, First Russian Published in English for the first time
Edition, Vol. XXIX, Moscow, 1946
237
AT LE PERREUX
My dear Löhr,
Thanks for your news of the 23rd about the Allemanists 21 and their
dissensions—this sets me up again as far as the personalia of the Parisian
movement are concerned. I hope the whole set of Allemanists will soon be
smashed up and whatever is decent among them joining our people who, if
they wait patiently, seem to stand the best chance of absorbing gradually all
the rest.
May the new dailies flourish 449 and soon bring forth a Parisian daily!
As to the preface to the French Manifest,a my proposal would be that
a
K. Marx and F. Engels, Manifesto of the Communist Party
Letters- 1894 395
you work out some sort of preface out of the four German ones, giving such
information about the fates of the work as may interest your readers, then
send me the Manuscript for additions to be proposed by me (I have just
received an Armenian translationa) to which I might add a few words in my
own name. 450 Don’t you think that would solve the difficulty?
Last Sunday Tussy being in Manchester sent me your letter to her about
Vol. IV. 443 I am quite willing and shall be glad to assist her if she will
undertake the work of writing out the original Manuscript.
As to what you say about Mohr’s papers and their treatment in case of my
death, the matter is simple enough. All these things I hold in trust for you,
that you know; and consequently on my death they revert to you. In the last
will I made (when Sam Moore was here last time but one) there is no special
provision, but in the instructions to my executors accompanying it, there is a
distinct direction to them, to hand over to Tussy, as the administrator of the
will, the whole of Mohr’s Manuscripts that are in his own handwriting, also
all letters addressed to him with the sole exception of my own
correspondence with him.b And as Tussy seems to have some doubt about the
matter, I shall as soon as Sam Moore comes back in Summer ask him to draw
up a new will in which this is distinctly and unmistakably declared. If you
have any other wish please let me know.
Adler writes about Paul’s correspondence for the daily Arbeiter Zeitung:
‘was Lafargue anlangt so habe ich nichts gegen französische
Korrespondenzen, ich werde viel übersetzen müssen. Natürlich wird Frankel
regelmässig schreiben—Lafargue ist ein Korrespondent wie ich es für den
Vorwärts bin, selten, aber dann lang. Nun wäre mir ja mit seinen
geistsprühenden Artikeln sehr gedient, wenn ich nicht fürchtete dass er mir
dieselben schickt wie an Vorwärts und Echo.c Kannst Du arrangieren dass er
mir etwa zweimal im Monat oder bei besondern Anlässen schreibt, so wäre es
mir ein grosser Gefallen, wir können nur nicht viel zahlen, 20 fr. für den
Artikel müsste ihm genügen.’d
a
See this volume, p. 371 - b See this volume, pp. 364 - c Hamburger Echo — d ‘As regards
Lafargue, I have nothing against French correspondence, I shall have a lot to translate. Naturally
Frankel will write regularly—Lafargue is a correspondent of the kind that I am for Vorwärts,
infrequent, but then long-writing. Of course his scintillating articles would be very welcome if I
were not afraid that he would send me the same as those for Vorwärts and Echo. Can you
arrange for him to write for me, say twice a month or on special occasions; that would be a great
help to me, only we cannot pay much, he would have to make do with 20 francs an article.’
396 Letters- 1894
There. Paul might write to Vienna during the odd week when he does not
write to Berlin, and on some other general subject.
We have not been able to see anything in the English papers about G.
Richard’s election. 451 Is he en ballottage? Your figures 1,802 votes do not
look very encouraging.
In Germany we shall have a busy year. We drank the Umsturz-Kaisers
428
jolly good health on Christmas day so he will now perhaps be satisfied.
A very happy and pleasant New Year to you and Paul from all of us here!
Ever yours
F. Engels
First published, in the language Reproduced from the original
of the original (English), in: F.
Engels, P. et L. Lafargue,
Correspondance, t. II I (1891-95),
Paris, 1959
1895
IN VIENNA
First published in: Victor Adlers Printed according to the book Published
Aufsätze, Reden und Briefe Erstes
Heft: Victor Adler und Friedrich in English for the first time
Engels, Vienna, 1922
a
See this volume, pp. 408-11
398 Letters- 1895
239
IN HANOVER
Dear Kugelmann,
I am most grateful to you, your wife and your daughter for your kind good
wishes which I sincerely reciprocate. But now we had better get down to
business straight away, as I am overwhelmed with correspondence, etc. 453
If I understood you aright, the collection in America was mainly to do
with Marx’s articles in the Tribune. I have two collections of these over here,
of which one at any rate is incomplete and probably both, since the Tribune
also published Marx’s articles as unsigned leaders. A third collection could
therefore only be of use to me for the purpose of completing the set and that
was why I suggested at the time that it should be temporarily housed in the
archives where I could always have access to it when necessary.
But you now speak of earlier things, i.e. stuff from the period up till 1851,
and that, of course, is quite a different matter and not what I had understood
you to say in Berlin. 454 These things are in fact of the utmost value and it is
only the lack of them that has prevented me from bringing out a complete
edition of these lesser works as well as of the articles by Marx and myself
that appeared between 1842 and 1852. It has long been my wish to publish
these things, once I am in some sort of a position to do so and if, therefore,
you can place as many of them as possible at my disposal, you will be
making your own contribution towards that end. In which case I shall resume
my search for a copy of the Rheinische Zeitung of 1842, chiefly with regard
to Marx’s articles.
Please tell me again where the collection originated and, if you cannot at
once get hold of the things themselves, kindly procure for me, if possible, a
list of the books, periodicals, etc., contained therein, but excluding the
Tribune articles. 455
Since the beginning of last year Mrs Kautsky has not been Mrs Kautsky
Letters- 1895 399
240
IN HOBOKEN
Dear Schlüter,
Your letter of 11 August still remains unanswered, nor have I yet thanked
you for the Census Compendiuma which arrived safely. I have, however,
been overwhelmed with all manner of work, while urgent party
a
Department of the Interior. Census Office. Compendium of the Eleventh Census: 1890.
400 Letters- 1895
First published in: Marx and Engels, Printed according to the original
Works, First Russian Edition,
Vol. XXIX, 1946
241
IN STUTTGART
Dear Baron,
Firstly, a very Happy New Year from one household to the other, and,
secondly, my thanks for the amusing report of the MARE’S NEST discovered
by Liebknecht. Hardly had I read the first couple of lines of your account
than I realised that it could only refer to the old business with Schweitzer and
for me that gave twice the savour to the humour of the situation. 459
Incidentally it will be sufficient if you make a note in your own copy of the
variations of the original from the printed text and let me have them some
time or other for insertion in mine. I would rather not enter into
correspondence with Liebknecht about the copyright of the original ms., for it
is improbable that it would get us anywhere.
Parts of Fireman’s articlea are, I agree, rendered so complex by his mis-
a
P. Fireman, Kritik der Marx’schen Werttheorie. In Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und
Statistik. 3. Folge, Bd. 3, 1892
402 Letters- 1895
guided incursions into other aspects of Marx’s theory and by all manner of
metaphysical, i.e. anti-dialectical divagations, as virtually to conceal the fact
that, by a happy chance, he has been able to get closer than anyone else to
the crux of the problem. Hence the total ineffectuality of the article. Only
someone who gives his undivided attention to the specific problem under
discussion will make the discovery that here is something which, if pursued,
will lead to the solution of the whole problem.
It would seem that you will be having a thoroughly lively year in
Germany. If Mr von Köller carries on in this way, 460 no thing is impos-
sible—conflict, dissolution, granting concessions, coup d’état. Obviously he
would also be content with less. The Junkers would be happy enough with
more generous douceurs, but to obtain these he will have to appeal to certain
cravings for personal domination and pander to them to the point at which
elements of resistance are also brought into play, and it is here that chance—
i.e. what is involuntary, incalculable—comes into play. And to secure those
douceurs he will have to raise the spectre of conflict—if he goes a step
further, the original aim, the douceur, will become of secondary importance
and then it will be a case of Crown versus Reichstag, of bend or break, and
that’s when the fun may begin. At the moment I am reading Gardiner’s
Personal Government of Charlesa in which the parallels with present-day
Germany are so close as to be almost absurd. As, for instance, the arguments
over immunity from the consequences of actions performed in Parliament.
Were Germany a Latin country, a revolutionary conflict would be inevitable,
but as it is, you can’t be certain about nowt, as Jollymeiera used to say.
Meanwhile the business of the peasants has quietly fizzled out, though
August’s attack was most meritorious nevertheless and made good much of
which had been omitted at Frankfurt. 425
The worthy Bavarian socialists who favour reserved rights will be in no
hurry to burn their fingers again.
Amongst the various small factions over here things are, for the moment,
jogging along in the usual dilatory way. Though their mutual squabbles are
no longer so heated, the intrigues behind the scenes are being conducted with
proportionately greater zeal. The masses, on the other hand, who are being
instinctively drawn towards socialism, are experiencing a growing urge for
conscious and unified action. Though less
a
Carl Schorlemmer
Letters- 1895 403
clear-sighted than individual leaders, the masses are certainly far better than
the leaders as a whole, yet the process of acquiring consciousness is slower
than elsewhere, since pretty well all the old leaders also have an interest in
diverting this burgeoning consciousness into one specific channel or another,
or, to put it crudely, in vitiating it. Well, one must just be patient.
So once again a Happy New Year and many regards.
Yours,
F. Engels
242
IN DARMSTADT
Dear Schorlemmer,
I have not yet thanked you for your kind good wishes on my birthday and
for your New Year’s card, my response in each case being a resounding
Happy New Year.
Here, too, all manner of changes have since taken place. At the beginning
of last year Mrs Kautsky married Dr Freyberger, a young Viennese physician
resident in this country, and we decided that, as we all wanted to remain
together, we should take a larger house, one such being available close by.
Hardly had we moved in and got things in order than Mrs Freyberger was
delivered of a baby girl; mother and child are fit and well. Last summer
Pumps and family also returned to London. Her husband’sa
a
Perry White Roscher
404 Letters-1895
business in the Isle of Wight was not doing particularly well and he therefore
wants to try his luck again here.
Carl’s book Rise and Progress 313 was also sent to me not long ago.
Volume I (re-edited by two young chemistsa) of the big text-book published
in collaboration with Roscoe has come out. 311 In view of the usual terms
governing payment for such works, it is unlikely that Carl’s heirs will
receive much, if anything at all.
Even though the Party Conference in Frankfurt 418 proved a somewhat
feeble affair by comparison with its predecessors, mainly because Vollmar
and the Bavarians literally caught the other deputies napping with their
Bavarian ultimatum,b while the latter, fearing the possibility of a split, failed
to reach a decision on the most important issues, the stupidity of our
opponents will nevertheless help us overcome all these little tribulations. Not
content with the Subversion Bill, 428 those men of genius must needs institute
proceedings against Liebknecht on account of a spot of bother in the
Reichstag, 436 i.e. actually make us the champions of the constitutional rights
of the Reichstag! And it was precisely this new conflict that provided us with
the opportunity of bringing the Berlin beer boycott to a victorious conclusion,
458
a victory which has made a great impression abroad and especially here in
England, For despite their seventy years of publicly organised trade clubs and
considerable freedom of association, the workers over here are very far from
securing the kind of court of arbitration that was successfully fought for in
Berlin. In the words of one paper:
‘Kaiser William would do well to reflect on the fact that the men who
have got the better of a beer barrel will also get the better of a sceptre.’
And that was our doing. In Germany there are now only two people whose
speeches command general attention—the Kaiser William and August Bebel.
His last speech was brilliant, but it must be read in the original transcript. 461
Though I am again in good health, I realise, of course, that 74 isn’t 47 and
that I can no longer make so free with food, drink, etc. Nor am I as hardy as
in the past. But I am nevertheless still perfectly robust for my age and trust I
shall live to see this and that, especially if, as seems distinctly probable, the
gentlemen in Berlin decide to engage in a slight tussle with the Constitution.
462
The Prussian Junkers are quite capable of bringing
a
Edvard Hjelt and Ossian Aschan - b See this volume, pp. 357, 374-75
Leuers- 1895 405
First published in: Marx and Engels, Printed according to the original
Works, First Russian Edition,
Vol. XXIX, 1946 Published in English for the first time
243
IN MAINZ
the petty bourgeois and such independent craftsmen as still own or rent a
parcel of land, and now, into the bargain, the small peasant proper. And since
our party is in fact the only really progressive party and, what is more, the
only one strong enough to ensure that advances are made, it is obviously
tempting to bring a little socialism to bear on the debt-ridden and near-
rebellious middle and big peasants as well, particularly in districts where
such people predominate on the land. That might well involve going beyond
the limits of what is allowed on principle by our party, in which case there
will be a bit of a fracas, but so sound is our party’s constitution that no harm
will have been done. No one is so stupid as seriously to envisage a break
with the great majority of the party, nor is anyone so conceited as to believe
himself able to set up, alongside our big party, a small private one, like the
Swabian People’s Party 464 which has actually succeeded in swelling its
numbers from seven to eleven Swabians. All this quarrelling has served only
to disappoint the bourgeois who, for twenty years now, have been regularly
counting on there being a split, while at the same time ensuring that there
should not be the slightest risk of one. Take, for instance, the present
Subversion Bill 428 and Liebknecht’s elevation to the status of representative
of the rights of the Reichstag and of the Imperial Constitution, 436 likewise
the threatened coup d’état and infringement of the law by the powers that be.
Of course stupidities are committed on our side also, but to render it possible
for opponents such as these to get the better of us, we should have to be of a
stupidity so abysmal as to be without rival anywhere else in the world today.
Otherwise your idea of giving the younger generation a chance to take the
helm in the party and thus get itself into a fix would not be at all bad; but I
believe that they will acquire experience and common sense even without an
experiment of that kind.
As you can see from my address, I have, as we used to say, moved a few
doors along. This house is much better and more convenient and is very
close to the park entrance.
I hope that the ‘Heilig Geist’ where we downed a good few glasses in our
time, is still flourishing. 465 I should like to cool off on some hot summer’s
day in its Gothic vaults. But who knows what may not happen? One should
never say die.
Well, once again a Happy New Year and warm regards from
Yours
F. Engels
Letters- 1895 407
244
IN BENEVENTO
Dear Friend,
I have had your various letters of 6 Sep., 16 Dec. and the 1st of this month
and have passed on your message to Aveling. 466
Many thanks for the trouble you have been to over the preface to the third
volume of Capital. It in quite a good thing that it should come out in the
Rassegna 467 since it will enable people in Italy to see that abroad Loria’s
spurious greatness is viewed in a very different light from what it is at home.
On the other hand I can understand that at present Turati should consider it
better tactics not to attack the man as vehemently as I do.a When we had the
exceptional laws 15 to contend with in Germany, our tactics were different in
many respects, and individual opponents whom we have since mercilessly
attacked were temporarily spared for one reason or another. In cases such as
these I must rely to a very large extent on the judgement of men who, like
Turati, are in the thick of the fray; those men may not always do what I, from
my standpoint over here, would consider best or most important, but
nevertheless they are doing something, are doing their duty to the best of
their knowledge, and are prepared to take the consequences. If the
government didn’t find Turati and his Milan friends exceedingly
objectionable, it would not have put them under domicilio coattob for three
months or five.
a
See present edition, Vol. 37, pp. 876-82 - b house arrest
408 Letters- 1895
245
IN VIENNA
Dear Victor,
My only real reason for writing to you today is to advise you that on
Sunday eveninga Louise sent off in a wrapper a ms. containing three items
addressed to the Editor, Arbeiter-Zeitung, 10 Schwarzspanierstrasse; these
contain:
1. Something about the cotton industry.
a
6 January 1895
Letters- 1895 409
a
[name in Russian], Vol. VI, Book 12, December 1894, section [in Russian] (Internal Review). - b
Emma Adler - c Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Organ der Demokratie.
410 Letters- 1895
more important, All in all, the paper has turned out very well considering this
is its first week; such shortcomings as it has will all be overcome in the end.
We gave your message to Vandervelde on 1.1., when he called in here for
a moment. 470
I have passed on to Laura as much as was necessary of your lettera but
have heard nothing about this since. Perhaps Lafargue has written to you
direct.
I cannot supply you with very much material on ‘Marx in Vienna in 1848’.
Some time I shall search through the Neue Rheinische Zeitung for facts and
also see if I can find anything more about Becher. 471 Our Vienna
correspondent was one Müller-Tellering from Koblenz, like all Koblenzers,
fanatical and an inveterate trouble-maker. After returning to Germany at the
end of 1849, he first came to Cologne and picked a quarrel with red Becker.b
His next port of call was London where he promptly fell out with us over a
trifling personal matter (which, with a little less contrariness on his part,
could have been settled in a few minutes’ conversation) and instantly
produced a pamphlet, Vergeschmack der Diktatur von Marx und Engels.c
Next he went to America and tried to stir up trouble against us, but very soon
disappeared from the scene. His reports from Vienna before the advent of
Windischgrätz showed an undue bias towards violent revolution which, at a
time when reaction was everywhere gathering strength, was not unwelcome
to us. In those days we could not, from a distance, assess the value of his
pronouncements on personalities, but he was doubtless strongly influenced
by personal inclination. In such turbulent times we had to allow our
correspondents a great deal of responsibility and a corresponding amount of
latitude.
And now for another piece of political news which might be of use to you
should such matters crop up again: On the evening before last we heard
political rumours of a ministerial crisis here, according to which Harcourt,
the Chancellor of the Exchequer, was proposing to resign. At the same time,
however, he denied this, saying that the allegation, AS MADE, was completely
unfounded. It was improbable that the Chancellor of the Exchequer alone
should resign at a moment when he had a surplus of three million pounds and
was thus in a position to present a first class
a
See this volume, p. 395 - b Hermann Becker - c A Foretaste of the Dictatorship of Marx and
Engels.
Letters- 1895 411
budget. But the real facts of the case are as follows: Harcourt favours the
introduction of salaries for M.P.s before the dissolution and is encountering
strong opposition in the Cabinet—and probably also from the Queen.a He
had apparently threatened to resign, thus obtaining concessions in regard to
the afore-said question. At all events everything has returned to normal for
the time being. You can see how unstable things are in official circles over
here.
All the necessary steps have been taken as regards the money. You will, I
think, be hearing more about this in a few days’ time when, I trust, you will
also get the cash.b
Louise wishes to append a line or two. She and Ludwig send their regards,
as do I, to you and your wife
Yours
F. Engels
On the 5th of this month we sent you three copies of the English Socialist
papers, Clarion, Justice and Labour Leader (Keir Hardie) and shall be
sending sundry other issues thereof from time to time to enable you to decide
which you like best. Please take a look at them.
Dear Victor,
Now that the matter of finance is all but settled, the money should shortly arrive in
Vienna. I have one further request to make, namely that you get a certificate of identification
made out for Ludwig and myself. Ludwig is applying for temporary membership of the
National Liberal Club, the leading club of its kind over here, close to the Houses of
Parliament, and frequented by all the Liberal and Radical M.P.s and by journalists of all
shades of political opinion. In this country, credentials have to be produced for everything,
and it couldn’t do you any harm. Much love from the three L.L.L.s.c
Queen Victoria - b See this volume, p. 384 - c Louise, Ludwig and Lulu.
412 Letters- 1895
246
IN ST. PETERSBURG
My dear Sir,
I have duly received yours of the 1st December. What Mr. von Struve
means by saying that Marx, completes but not disproves Malthus’ theory of
population I do not understand.a I think the note on Malthus in Vol. I, Note
75, to Chapter XXII I, Ib ought to have been explicit enough for anybody.
Moreover, I do not see, how anybody can speak of completing Malthus’
theory today, when that theory rests upon the assumption, that population
presses on the means of subsistence, while corn in London is at 20/- the
quarter, or less than half the average price from 1848 to 1870, and when it is
universally acknowledged that the means of subsistence now press upon the
population which is not large enough to consume them! As to Russia, if the
peasant is compelled to sell the corn which he ought to eat, surely it is not
pressure of [excess] population which compels him to do so, but pressure
from the tax-gatherer, the landlord, the kulak* etc. etc. As far as I know, the
low price of Argentinian wheat has more to do with agrarian distress all ever
Europe, Russia included, than anything else.
We have just learned that a savant of your city has been informed that he
can have Vol. II P passed free to him on applying specially for it at the office
of the Censorship. I think it as well to communicate this fact to you because
it may lead you to give me instructions how to forward to you the remaining
sheets which I hold at your disposal,
Yours very truly
L. K.d
a
P. von Struve, Critical Notes on the Development of Capitalism in Russia, St. Petersburg, [in
Russian], 1894(footnote 1 to p. 183). - b See present edition, Vol. 35, Chapter XXV, Section 1,
pp. 611-13 c of Capital-d Engels’ pen-name consisting of Louise Kautsky’s initials — * word in
Russian
Letters- 1895 413
247
IN HANOVER
Dear Kugelmann,
Please write at once to Livingston in Pittsburg and ask him for Meyer’s list
of earlier stuff; 435 to judge by your last letter there’s unlikely to be very
much, but there are also sundry items, some of them anonymous, in old
newspapers and compendiums of the 1843-47 period. Ask him, too, if the
collection of Tribunea articles is still in existence. At the same time I shall get
other friends in America to search for such ancient tomes as may still be in
existence there, so that the matter can be put in hand.
Many regards to your wife and daughter,
Yours
F.E.
Could you possibly supply me with a few of your red brass locks?
First published in: Marx and Engels, Printed according to the original
Works, First Russian Edition,
Vol. XXIX, 1946 Published in English for the first time
248
IN VIENNA
Dear Victor,
My last letter was sent to you at Schwarzspaniera on the 9th of this month.
Today, simply as a precaution, I am again notifying you that yesterday
Louise addressed a registered letter to you at Ferstelgasse 6,b containing a
CHEQUE for 3,500 gulden drawn on the tenth of this month by the Anglo-
Foreign Banking Company Ltd. on the Union Bank of Vienna to the order of
Dr Victor Adler, payable dans les huit jours.c
If you have received this safely, would you please drop a line to Louise
informing her of the fact so that she may pass on the information to the
chaps over here and thus set their minds at rest. Then the formal document
with its various signatures can follow.d
But if you have not received the CHEQUE, then hasten at once to the Union
Bank and STOP PAYMENT. Unfortunately the international postal services do
not admit of a declaration of value or insurance, hence a certain amount of
anxiety prevails over here.
As regards Marx, I have searched through the Neue Rheinische Zeitung
and all I have found is this: The issue of 25 Aug. 1848 states that ‘yesterday
K. M. left for Vienna where he will be spending a few days’. (Not from
Cologne, mind you; he had already gone away and it was, I think, from
Hamburg that he arranged for the insertion of this notice.) And then there is a
later piece of news, 31 August from Vienna, to the effect that Marx gave a
lecture yesterday at the Vienna Workers’ Association in Josefstadt on social
conditions in Western Europe {Stifft spoke after him, at the same
Association) {Neue Rheinische Zeitung, 6 Sept.) and, according to the issue
of 8 Sept., Marx spoke on 2 Sept. ‘at a meeting of the first Vienna Workers’
Association on the subject of socio-economic conditions’.—That is all.
Meanwhile in Berlin, on 7 September, a crucial vote
a
See this volume, pp. 408-11 - b residence of the Arbeiter-Zeitung Editorial Office - c payable
within eight days - d See this volume, p. 411 — e Ibid., p. 410
Letters- 1895 415
had been taken on Stein’s motion, 474 Hansemann’s Ministry had fallen and,
conflict being inevitable, Marx returned hot-foot. On 12 Sept. he wrote
another leading articlea for the issue, which came out that same afternoon, of
12 Sept. 1848.
Yesterday evening Louise sent you two more items in a wrapper.
Yours,
F. E.
Clarion and Labour Leader have today gone off as before to the editorial
office.
Very many thanks to you and your wife for the magnificent calendar.
249
IN STUTTGART
Dear Baron,
Just now I received a registered letter from Mr Stiebeling containing a
curious reply to my prefaceb and the even more curious request that I should
arrange for it to be published in the Neue Zeit. 475 All I can tell the man is that
the columns of the Neue Zeit are not at my disposal, but that I should be very
glad if the editors were to disseminate this, his reply, as widely as possible.
And with that I bid Mr Stiebeling a fond farewell and leave him to his fate.
a
K. Marx, The Crisis and the Counter-revolution. — b to the third volume of Capital
416 Letters- 1895
As regards the subversion debate, Nazia appears to have done a very good
job. 476 Incidentally, we can thank our lucky stars that there should still be
jackasses in Berlin!
Yours
F.E.
First published in: Aus der Frühzeit Printed according to the original
des Marxismus. Engels Briefwechsel
mit Kautsky, Prag, 1935 Published in English for the first time
250
IN BARMEN
Dear Hermann,
At long last! But I haven’t got the time to make excuses. First of all, my
thanks for your news which has put me pretty well au fait again. I shall now
repay the debt by telling you all manner of things in return. To begin with,
you will see above a change of address. This came about as follows:
About a year ago Mrs Kautsky, my fellow-lodger, became engaged to a
compatriot of hers, Dr Freyberger, a young and extremely able Viennese
physician who settled in this country two years ago. Before long a desire
manifested itself to clinch the engagement with a marriage but, since I had
no desire to put myself at the mercy of strangers in my old age, it was
arranged that we should all three set up house together, and thus the need
arose for a larger place. In the meantime the young couple had got married
early in February while we were still living at 122, but we soon found and
took a very nice, large and exceptionally cheap house in a far better part of
the same road. We moved in at the beginning of October and, at
a
Ignaz Auer
Letters- 1895 417
a
His niece, Elsbeth Engels - b His nephew, Walter Engels - c Though the days follow one another,
they are not alike.
418 Letters- 1895
sherry is beyond our powers, What I had been waiting for was a visit from
Brett, my supplier, but he came much later than usual. I have now asked him
to let me have three sample bottles of sherry, as similar as possible to the
first that was sent to you, and of three qualities. The little case has just
arrived. On Monday I shall take it to the CONTINENTAL PARCELS EXPRESS
and it will probably come to you by carrier; the weight exceeds the 7 lb. limit
laid down by international postal regulations, Now, when you try them out, I
would advise you to decant half a bottle of the variety you prefer and keep it
there. The bottles are numbered 1, 2, 3 and, when you order, only the number
need be given. The price of all three is 42/- a dozen, or 3/6d a bottle, carriage
paid from London. Unless otherwise instructed, I shall arrange for them to be
brought by steamer direct to Cologne or Düsseldorf.
One more thing. Since fewer payments now have to be debited to my
account over there, the balance you hold for me is continually mounting. The
removal has involved other expenses, aside from the advance to my
LANDLORD, and I should be glad if, in the course of this month, you could let
me have, say, £40.
Finally, I have a pleasant piece of news to impart, namely that I have at
last become an old man. Last spring I had an attack of bronchitis which,
though not at all severe, refused to budge for six weeks or more; and on top
of that I suffered a great deal last year from stomach-ache, constipation, etc.
So in the end I had perforce to believe Freyberger when he said I must no
longer indulge in my former Sparjitzen.a And when the looking glass reflects
an ever more abject image of encroaching baldness, I can no longer conceal
from myself the realisation that there is very little in common between 74
and 47. Eating and drinking have both been considerably curtailed and I also
have to submit to all kinds of unwonted protective measures against catching
cold. Well, I shall have to put up with it, and at least it hasn’t cost me my
sense of humour.
So that’s that, and my debt, I trust, is now repaid. My best love to Emmab
and your children and grandchildren, also to Rudolphc and Hedwigd and their
families.
Now, as always, your old
Friedrich
a
antics - b His sister-in-law, Emma Engels - c His younger brother Rudolph Engels -d His sister,
Hedwig Boelling
Letters- 1895 419
251
AT LE PERREUX
My dear Lafargue,
I am glad to see that you have already arranged matters with Adler and
have at last found a translator who does you justice. 477
Things are going well. If the year ‘95 finishes as it has begun we may see
some strange happenings. In Germany, young Williama has fallen into the
hands of the ‘agrarians’ (the big aristocratic landowners of the Eastern
provinces, the Junkern)b who want to make sure of their control over this
young ninny and who can only do so by compromising William to the point
of no return. Thus they are hinting at a dissolution of the Reichstag, which
will emerge from fresh elections more refractory than ever and then, his
throne and his honour being at stake, there will be nothing for it but a coup d’
état to give William the means of obtaining new soldiers and ships, and the
Junkers new import duties on agricultural produce and subsidies on the
export of sugar, spirits, etc. That seems to be these gentlemen’s idea;
impossible to say how far it will materialise. In the meantime, they are
playing with fire—the War Ministerc openly inviting our people in the
Reichstag to come out on to the streets by jeering at them—they are
absolutely determined to create an opportunity for firing on the people. 478
And in your country there are the scandals of bourgeois corruption which
go beyond anything and are driving towards a crisis: certainly if the Ministry
threatens to bring the majority to court unless it votes against Gérault-
Richard, matters cannot go on much longer. 479 The
a
William II — b Junkers - c Bronsart von Schellendorf
420 Letters- 1895
a
Gean Casimir-Périer - b Happy New Year! -c See this volume, pp. 453-5
Letters- 1895 421
252
IN HOBOKEN
Dear Sorge,
Have received card of 6th and letters of 19th and 31st Dec. Many thanks.
And may I again heartily reciprocate your and your wife’s good wishes for
the New Year.
By way of a New Year’s greeting Stiebeling sent me his grotesque riposte
475
together with the suggestion that I should get the Neue Zeit to print it!! I
replied 25 to the effect that its columns were not at my disposal
a
These last three paragraphs are written in the margin of this letter.
422 Letters- 1895
but that I had told K. Kautsky (which is true) he would be doing me a special
favour were he to ensure that the thing was disseminated as widely as
possible.a The man is a blockhead.
I cannot understand how it was that you should have failed to receive
Volume II Ib until five days after Schlüter had got his. I posted both at the
same time on 12 Dec. and the receipts for both are still joined together. I
enclose them herewith in case you should wish to lodge a complaint,
I have for some time been aware of the temporary decline of the move-
ment in America and it is not the German socialists who will stem it. Though
America is the youngest it is also the oldest country in the world. In the same
way as you have, over there, the most antiquated furniture designs alongside
your own vernacular ones or, in Boston, cabs such as I last saw in London in
1838 and, in the mountains, seventeenth century STAGE COACHES, alongside
PULLMAN CARS, so too you continue to sport all the old mental trappings
which Europe has already discarded. Everything that is outmoded here may
persist in America for another generation or two. Karl Heinzen, for instance,
not to mention religious and spiritualist superstition. Thus you still have old
Lassalleans amongst you, while a man like Sanial, who would now seem
passé in France, is still able to play a role over there. This may be attributed
on the one hand to the fact that, over and above its concern for material
production and the accumulation of wealth, America is only now beginning
to find time for untramelled intellectual work and the preliminary training
this demands; on the other hand, it may also be attributed to the dual nature
of America’s development, still engaged as it is on the one hand in the
primary task of reclaiming the vast area of untamed country, while being
already compelled on the other to compete for first place in industrial
production. Hence the UPS AND DOWNS of the movement, according to which
point of view takes precedence in the average person’s mind—that of the
urban working man or that of the peasant engaged in reclamation. In a couple
of years’ time all this will change and then we shall witness a great step
forward. The evolution of the Anglo-Saxon RACE with its ancient Teutonic
freedom happens to be quite exceptionally slow, pursuing as it does a zig-zag
course (small zig-zags here in England, colossal ones on your side of the
Atlantic) and tacking against the wind, but making headway none the less.
a
See this volume, p. 415 - b Capital
Letters- 1895 423
Here in Europe the New Year will bring with it a very complex state of
affairs. In Germany the peasant question has been pushed into the
background by the Subversion Bill 428 and the latter—by young William (his
Song to Aegir, 483 the lord of the waves, owes its inspiration solely to the
seasickness from which he invariably suffers, which is why he and his Fleet
always make for the calm waters of the Norwegian fjords). The young man
has thrown Germany into complete disorder, no one knows where he stands
or what the morrow will bring, the confusion in governmental circles, as in
the ruling classes generally, grows worse from day to day and, during the
debate on the Subversion Bill, the only people with cheerful expressions
were our chaps. But it really is too marvellous! At the head of the anti-
subversionists stands a man who is unable to desist from subversion for five
minutes on end. And the aforementioned young William has now fallen into
the clutches of the Junkers who, in order to keep him in a frame of mind in
which he is prepared to give them extra help with their bankrupt estates, are
presently dangling before him the carrot of more taxation and more troops
and warships by their ostentatious advocacy of regis voluntas suprema lex,a
and are egging him on to dissolve the Reichstag and stage a coup d’état. At
the same time, however, these gentlemen, Köller & Co., despite their
ostentatious catchwords, are so poorly endowed with courage that they are
already prey to all manner of forebodings, and it may well be asked whether
they will not take fright when the moment for action comes.
And as for France! There, as in Italy, the bourgeoisie precipitated itself
head first into corruption in a manner that would put America to shame. For
the past three years all efforts in both countries have been directed towards
finding a bourgeois government—admittedly not free from corruption—but
whose immediate involvement in public scandal is nevertheless so slight that
a parliament could support it without unduly violating the commonest
decencies. In Italy Crispi will hang on for a little while longer only because
the Kingb and the Crown Princec are as deeply implicated in the banking
scandals as he is himself.d In France, our forty-five or fifty socialist deputies
have just toppled their third Ministry on the count of actual corruption, and
Casimir-Périer has gone tumbling after. 484 Presumably his intention is to
pose as the one and only saviour of
a
the King’s will is supreme law. - b Umberto I —c Victor Emmanuel — d See this volume, p. 390
424 Letters- 1895
society, get himself re-elected with an immense majority, and thus con-
solidate his position, But it’s a risky game. At all events there is nothing
stable about France either, and this year may see new elections, not only in
England, but also in Germany and France, which will be of crucial im-
portance this time. On top of that a crisis of the first water in Italy and, in
Austria, the certainty of electoral reform 270—in short, things are growing
critical throughout the whole of Europe.
I was very pleased to hear that you and your wife are feeling better. Let us
hope the improvement continues.
Many regards to you and your wife from the Freybergers and
Yours
F. Engels
First published abridged in: Briefe First Russian Edition, Vol. XXIX,
und Auszüge aus Briefen von ]oh. 1946
Phil. Becker, Jos. Dietzgen, Friedrich
Engels, Karl Marx u. A. an F. A. Printed according to the original
Sorge und Andere, Stuttgart, 1906
and, in full, in: Marx and Engels, Published in English in full
Works, for the first time
253
AT LE PERREUX
My dear Löhr,
Your last letter has indeed startled me. 485 I have tried, not very success-
fully, to recollect the terms used in my letter to you of December 29tha; still,
in what I do remember there is not a word which ought to offend you. And
indeed, if there is anything in the tone of that letter which you think strange,
it is there entirely against my will and intention.
It never could occur, nor has it ever occurred to me for a moment to
a
See this volume, pp. 394-96
Letters- 1895 425
doubt the right or the propriety, on your part, of inquiring at any time what
steps I had taken or intended to take in order to secure the return, at the time
of my death, to you, the rightful owners, of those papers of Mohr’s which you
have entrusted to me. Nor have I ever found anything to object to in the terms
in which you spoke of that subject to Tussy. It seems, therefore, so
exceedingly strange to me that I should have written to you in a tone that
ought to give you reason to complain.
I did indeed feel nettled at the way Tussy caused the question to be
submitted to me, and, under the circumstances, thought I was bound to speak
to her about it. When I did, I told her, not once, but three or four times over,
that I had not one word to say against your letter, neither as to the subject
matter, nor as to the terms used. Anyhow, Tussy and I had an explanation,
which as far as I know, settled everything connected with that subject, and
left us as good friends as before; and I should regret very much if, through
any unguarded words of mine, or through some other circumstance, that little
incident had thrown its shadow as far as Le Perreux.
In the meantime things have come to a crisis in your neighbourhood. I
intended to write at some length about that, but Bebel all at once asked me
for historical materials as to the various and pretty frequent riots here in
England which are settled without ever attempting to encumber the Statute
Book with increased penal laws or exceptional legislation. He is in the
Committee on the Umsturzvorlage 428 and wants it for them, so I had to leave
everything else alone and get it off by this day’s post before the usual
Sunday delays in postal communication retard it.
Anyhow our 50 French Socialist members are in luck. In less than 18
months they have upset three ministries and one president. 484 That shows
what a Socialist minority can do in a parliament which, like the French or
English, is the really supreme power in the country. A similar power our men
in Germany can get by a revolution only; still, the break-up of the Centre
party 71 would make them the arbiters of the house and give them the balance
of power.
What a miserable retreat is that of Casimir’sa! After the brag with which
he came in, to skedaddle at the first serious difficulty! 486 It looks as if our
bourgeois heroes had individually degenerated quite as much as their class
has done collectively.
a
Casimir-Périer
426 Letters- 1895
254
AT LE PERREUX
My dear Lafargue,
How lucky you are, you French! You bring down a Ministerd; then the
whole Cabinet follows him and by way of aftereffect the President of
a
Reference to Pierre-Jean de Béranger’s Le vieux Célibataire - b It’s getting hot! -c William II -d
Charles Dupuy
Letters-\895 427
the Republic is involved in the general collapse.a Three Cabinets and one
President finished off 484—that’s not doing too badly. The socialist group
seems to have succeeded to the role of the late Clemenceau 488—and will play
it better, I hope. It is now established that no ministry can exist without at
least the help of the extreme Left. That will lead to the dissolution, to which
the growing stench of the opportunists’ corruption is also leading. 87 In which
case you will be returned in greater strength, both numerically and morally;
that can lead to the formation of Lassalle’s ‘great reactionary mass’, 214 the
coalition of all the bourgeois parties against socialism, a mass which is
always formed at a time of danger, afterwards to be dissolved again into its
various and mutually opposed groups of interests; large landowners, large
manufacturers, high finance, small and middling bourgeoisie, peasants, etc.
But, each time it is reformed, it gains solidity until the day of crisis, when we
shall have a compact mass confronting us. We have had this process of
continual concentration and dissolution in Germany ever since our Party
numbered more than 20 members in the Reichstag; but in your case, it will
go faster because decisive power is in the hands of your Chamber of
Deputies.
Mr Faure may do what he likes, he cannot halt this process of forming into
two opposing camps, nor the confusion which is necessarily born of this
interplay of opposing forces, attraction and repulsion, within the milieu of
the bourgeois parties. That is precisely the milieu we need, and which the
existence of a socialist group creates everywhere, however little power it
may have in Parliament. You will race ahead; it is the Party’s progress itself
that will first subdue and then eliminate the intestine and traditional quarrels.
The addition of 30 Radicals has brought you luck, without them the group
would not have had cohesion. Without Millerand you would not have been
able to take advantage of the political situations as you have done. And
Jaurès, indeed, seems full of goodwill—if he develops rather slowly it is
perhaps a good thing for him and for us. Though frankly, in economic
matters he needs further schooling. His Bills for immediate reforms in the
Petite République 489 article are not quite as wild as his Bill for a corn
monopoly, 13 but they are calling on the bourgeois for sacrifices incompatible
with the advance of capitalist industry, so that in their eyes they are
tantamount to immediate expropriation; whereas, on the other
a
Gean Casimir-Périer - b See this volume, p. 275
428 Letters- 1895
hand, he proposes improvement of the soil at the nation’s expense, of the soil
which would remain private property, and under conditions perpetuating the
small peasant and which would create a new Panama 60 for the big
landowners who would laugh at the ‘obligation’ etc. with which the Bill
saddled them. This is to see as a complete abstraction the environment in
which one lives and in which these reforms would be carried out. So long as
the air is not cleansed by the removal of all the parliamentary and financial
rogues, this improvement of individual landed property at everyone’s
expense would end as a colossal theft; and when we have got rid of these
gentlemen, we shall be strong enough to do better than that.
The presidential crisis furthermore will have a capital effect on European
politics. The Franco-Russian alliance is becoming more and more lenitive,
insofar as the Russian hope of seeing the restoration of the monarchy emerge
from the presidential crisis suffers repeated disillusionment. At the same time
the Triple Alliance 126 has ceased to exist except on paper; bankrupt Italy
slips through its fingers, Austria is only retained: by fear of war with Russia,
for which she would foot the bill; this danger vanishes as Russia loses the
chance of using the French army when she sees fit; young Williama has made
himself far more disagreeable to his friends than to his enemies. So that, with
the complete revolution in weapons since 1870 and, in consequence, of
tactics, there is a total uncertainty about the outcome of a war where so many
imponderables are involved and regarding which all the calculations made in
advance are based on fictitious quantities. In these circumstances we seem to
be assured of peace and even the most frenzied bourgeois chauvinists of the
Déroulède type can keep calm: the Prussians have taken over responsibility
in Alsace for maintaining and nourishing French patriotism.
Herewith cheque for twenty pounds; if that can do you until the beginning
of April, I should be glad; at that time I shall have certain payments coming
in which will allow me to be more liberal. But, if needs be, I could perhaps,
after all, send you ten pounds in March—we’ll see.
Greetings from the Freybergers. Kiss Laura very warmly for me.
Ever yours,
F. E.
a
William II
Letters-\895 429
255
IN KIEL
Dear Sir,
I still have to thank you for your kindness in sending me your critique of
Barth ‘s book and your interesting article on Pestalozzi. 490 I would beg you
to excuse the delay which was occasioned by an excess of work, the latter
being aggravated by my having moved house (please note the change of
address).
I should say that you have let Mr Barth off rather lightly; he would, at any
rate, have fared far worse at my hands. However, in literary debate one has to
get used to the fact that, lawyer-fashion, one’s opponent suppresses what
doesn’t suit his book and introduces extraneous matter if he thinks this will
enable him to pull the wool over his reader’s eyes. But in Mr Barth’s case
this is done in a manner and to an extent that cannot but lead one to ask
whether what we have here is simple ignorance and boneheadedness or
deliberate, wilful distortion. To take only his chapter on Marx—how does
one explain the horrendous misinterpretations, nearly all of which are
incomprehensible in a man who does, after all, claim to have read my Anti-
Dühring and Feuerbacha which should have constituted a perfectly adequate
antidote? And what can one say about the absurd causal nexus attributed to
me on p. 135.
‘In France Calvinism had been conquered, which is why in the eighteenth
century, Christianity had become incapable of serving as an ideo-
a
F. Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy.
430 Letters- 1895
logical cloak for any sort of progressive class’? When I compare it with the
original, Feuerbach, p. 65,a find it virtually impossible to believe that this is
not deliberate distortion.
I am interested by what you have to say about August Comte. So far as
this ‘philosopher’ is concerned, there still remains, in my opinion, a fair
amount of work to be done. For five years Comte was secretary and con-
fidant of Saint-Simon. The latter positively suffered from an over-fertile
intellect; he was at once a genius and a mystic. Lucid analysis, classification,
systematisation, none of this was his cup of tea. Thus in Comte he got hold of
a man intended, perhaps, to present this proliferation of ideas to the world in
orderly fashion after the Master’s death; Comte’s mathematical training and
mode of thought may have made him seem peculiarly suited to the purpose
as compared with the other, visionary disciples. But then Comte suddenly
broke with the ‘Master’ and withdrew from the school. After quite a while he
re-emerged with his ‘positive philosophy’.b In this system there are three
characteristic elements; 1. A series of brilliant ideas nearly all of which,
however, suffer to a greater or lesser extent from inadequate development; 2.
A correspondingly narrow, philistine outlook in stark contrast to that
brilliance; 3. A religious system of undoubtedly Saint-Simonian origin but
stripped of all mysticism, hierarchically organised and utterly flat—with, at
its head, a pope, no less. Thus Huxley was able to say of Comtism 491 that it
was Catholicism without Christianity.c
Now I am willing to bet that No. 3 supplies the key to the otherwise
incomprehensible inconsistency of Nos 1 and 2; namely, that Comte derived
all his brilliant ideas from Saint-Simon but he assembled them in a manner
peculiar to himself and by so doing bowdlerised them. By stripping them of
the mysticism with which they were imbued, he simultaneously degraded
them to a lower level, giving them a philistine slant in accordance with his
own lights. A great many of them can be easily traced back to their Saint-
Simonian source and I feel sure that certain others would admit of the same
treatment if only someone could be found who would seriously apply himself
to the task. This fact would assuredly have been discovered long since had
not Saint-Simon’s own writings been
a
F. Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy.a See present
edition, Vol. 26, p. 396 - b A. Comte, Cours de philosophie Positive — c See Th. Henry Huxley,
On the Physical Basis of Life. In The Fortnightly Review, No. XXVI, Vol. V, 1 February 1869
Letters-1895 431
IN HANOVER
Dear Kugelmann,
I cannot yet give you an indication of the compendiums, 495 etc., in which
the articles in question may be found, for 1. I shall first have to
a
Saint-Simonian school and religion. - b producers
432 Letters- 1895
know what we have already got (some being in Germany, about which I
shall shortly be hearing, and some in America, which I am waiting for), aside
from my own things; 2. Because I myself cannot say exactly, though all sorts
of things recur to me whenever any new stuff arrives; 3. Because, as soon as
No, 1 has been attended to, we must so arrange matters that neither of us
competes with the other, and thus puts the price up. In the meantime it would
be a good thing if you were to keep an eye open for specifically Westphalian
literature of 1845-47: Dampfboota and compen-diums as well as other stuff
written by those people at that time.
I believe I have got Meyer’s collection of Tribune articles here; it will be
the more comprehensive of the two collections, Marx having obtained
various things from over there shortly after Meyer’s death. 455
Kindest regards to all,
Yours
F. E.
257
IN VIENNA
Dear Victor,
Many congratulations from myself and everyone else here on the rapid
success achieved by the Arbeiter-Zeitung 496 It was no more than I expected,
but to see it confirmed in actual fact is, of course, also worth a great deal.
a
Das Westphälische Dampfboot
Letters- 1895 433
There is no need at all for you to worry about the editorial side. During the
early weeks you, as organiser, are infinitely more important than you would
be as actual editor. Once everything is going smoothly, you should have no
difficulty in striking the right note in the paper. You are quite right about it’s
being a mite too serious. A bit more humour, particularly on the front page,
which used always to be very funny in the twiceweekly edition, would do no
harm at all. However, that will come.
A direct telegraph service from foreign capitals would be of absolutely no
use to you, That would mean your having a properly organised office in every
city with a chief correspondent to run it professionally, and solely on your
account; here in London this would cost between six hundred and a thousand
pounds a year, and even so you wouldn’t be getting the best news from
ministerial or opposition circles, for the simple reason that you are only
accorded priority and given news of this sort ahead of everyone else and
before it has become common property if you are able to reciprocate by
giving your informants your support and publishing the ready-made puffs
they send you. But that is just what our press cannot do. So, where news from
official circles is concerned, you will never be able to compete with the big
bourgeois papers who not only monopolise the sources but can also organise
news-gathering services on a footing similar to that of big industry.
It’s hard luck, your having to content yourselves during the first few
weeks with the little provincial assemblies, but the Diet will soon be meeting
again and then you will have plenty of material, whereupon your personal
intervention will again become necessary,
The differences in the Ministry here are of no great account so far as their
practical consequences are concerned. The Liberal government contains as
many shades of opinion as it has members. Now that the big bourgeoisie
together with Whig aristocrats 497 and the university ideologues have gone
over to the Conservative camp (a process which began after 1848, gained
impetus after the Reform Bill of 1867 498 and became very marked after the
171
HOME RULE BILL ). Liberalism has been largely an omnium gatherum of all
the sects and sectarian crotchets in this sect-ridden country. And since each
individual sect considers its own particular crotchet to be the one and only
panacea, the result is constant strife.
But of greater moment than that strife is the certain knowledge that only
cohesion vis-à-vis the outside world can keep them in power for a
434 Letters- 1895
a
of the Arbeiter-Zeitung
Letters-1895 435
Love from Louise and Ludwig and the baby who always yells with glee
whenever the Arbeiter-Zeitung arrives, and from
Yours,
F.E.
258
IN VIENNA
Esteemed Comrade,
Unfortunately for somewhat over a year I have been forced to make it my
duty politely but firmly to decline all invitations to contribute to festive
messages, etc., in particular periodically recurring ones, or to send messages
of greetings on holidays (18 March, May Day, etc.), the only deviation from
this rule being certain exceptional occasions, which promise an immediate
specific effect. When you were bringing out the first issue of the daily in
Vienna, I believed congratulations to be indicated.a If I sent you two lines for
the May Day address, I would be compelled to do the same for the Czechs,
Hungarians, Italians, Germans, Romanians and who knows what other
nations and, moreover, probably send in addresses for the various May Day
meetings, leave alone anniversaries like the 13thb and 18th of March.
a
F. Engels, ‘Message of Greetings to the Austrian Workers on the Daily Publication of the
Arbeiter-Zeitung’. - b Probably a slip of the pen. Should be 14 March, the day of Karl Marx’s
death.
436 Letters- 1895
First published in: Marx and Engels, Printed according to the original
Works, Second Russian Edition, Vol. 50,
Moscow, 1981 Published in English for the first time
259
IN LONDON
a
1 February - b [name in Russian] The Development of the Monist View of History, put out in St.
Petersburg under the pen-name of N. Beltov [name in Russian]. -c Alexander II I - d [word in
Russian] -e [phrase in Russian]
Leuers- 1895 437
260
IN LONDON
Dear Comrade,
Unfortunately I can give you absolutely no hint as to how the German
comrades might view the proposal regarding the addition to the name of the
next congress. 506 So far as I myself am concerned, I think that on this
occasion one might oblige the Trades Unions, since the congress will be held
on English soil where the Trades Unions have, after all, always got the bulk
of organised labour behind them, so that a congress in which they played no
part would create a bad impression. At the same time it cannot but be of
importance to us to encourage the trend that is driving Trades Unions more
and more into the socialist camp. Kindest regards.
Yours,
F. Engels
261
IN BERLIN
Dear Fischer,
You and the others have an odd way of holding a pistol to a fellow’s
438 Letters- 1895
head. Having made your plans for Marx’s articles, you really might have told
me about them a bit sooner rather then at the very last moment. 507 In a case
such as this, where I am the administrator of other people’s property, I
cannot rush things in the same way as I could if the matter simply concerned
myself. Added to that, I am at this moment getting Lassalle’s letters 284 ready
for you and these are far more likely to fall foul of the Subversion Bill 428
than Marx’s articles—the latter, then, is the work I ought to put on one side!
So tell me first of all what format and type you are using and how large
the edition is to be, also the selling price, for on this occasion I shall, for
various reasons, only sell you the right to one edition of a specific size.
Meanwhile I shall have a word with Tussy; as soon as I get your reply, I
shall let you know for certain.
If you cannot advise me of the exact selling price, it will be sufficient if
you say how much you propose to charge per printed sheet.
I assume that you have a copy of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung—Revue
from which to reprint. For I myself do not possess one of my own and if I did
I couldn’t let it out of my hands.
Now for another matter. When the Vorwärts set up its bookselling side,
Augusta wrote to say that I would be sent two copies of all your publications.
Of late, however, that has been very far from the case. For instance, I have
not received your latest edition of the Manifesto, or indeed either of the
Berlin editions. 508 I am still short of sundry lesser pieces and am listing those
that immediately spring to mind. You would greatly oblige me by sending
them to me, namely your reprint of the Subversion Debate in two parts’b and
a couple of copies of the most recent edition of the Communist Manifesto.—
As regards the other things I am short of, I have just seen from your list that
you are not to blame, since you were not the publisher. Apart from the above
I am still short of
Minutes of the Wydenc Congress, 1880 343
“ “ Brusselsd “ 1891228
and one on Zurich if it was you who published it. 509
229
a
Bebel - b Umsturz und Sozialdemokratie. Verhandlungen des Deutschen Reichstags am 17.
Dezember 1894 und 8-12. Januar 1895 nach dem offiziellen stenographischen Bericht. - c
Protokoll des Kongresses zu Wyden 1880. Berlin, 1893. -d Verhandlungen und Beschlüsse des
Internationalen Arbeiter-Kongresses zu Brüssel (16-22. August 1891). Berlin, 1893 — e
Protokoll des Internationalen Sozialistischen Arbeiterkongresses in der Tornhalle Zürich vom.
6. bis 12. August 1893.
Letters- 1895 439
The list I used for comparison was issued in 1893 and it is therefore
possible that one thing or another may still be missing.
So please let me have the information by return and I shall send you a
definite answer as promptly as possible.
Give my kindest regards to your wife and children and all my friends.
Yours
F.E.
First published in: Marx and Engels, Printed according to the original
Works, First Russian Edition,
Vol. XXIX, 1946 Published in English for the first time
262
IN ZURICH
My dear Plekhanov,
Freyberger will happily undertake to give Veraa an examination, but how
shall we make it seem plausible to her? Naturally, Freyberger cannot go to
her and say: George Plekhanov has asked me to take a look at you. You will
have to speak to her about it first, and obtain her consent, and then the best
would be for her to talk to me, and I will take care of the rest. Or else she can
talk to Louise Freyberger if she prefers, and Louise will see to everything.
That is my suggestion, but if you think you have another idea on how to
achieve your aim, tell me about it, and we can discuss it.
Vera has given me your book,b for which my thanks. I have begun to read
it, but it will take time. However, it is a great success to have managed to
have it published in your country. That is a step forward, and even if we
cannot retain the new position we have just gained, a precedent has
a
Vera Zasulich - b The reference is to G. V. Plekhanov [name in Russian], The Development of
the Monist View of History [in Russian], published in St. Petersburg under the pen-name of N.
Beltov [name in Russian]
440 Letters- 1895
been established, the ice is broken. The suppression of the Russkaya Zhizn
(Russian Life)a would seem to mark the beginning of reaction. Nikolai would
seem to want to prepare his moujiksb for liberty by compulsory education, so
that only the next generation will be ripe for the constitution; it is still just
another formula for the old: après nous le déluge! 510 However the deluge is
like the devil in Faust! den Teufel spürt das Völkchen nie, und wenn er sie
beim Kragen hätte—c
And when the Devil of the revolution has someone at his collar, then he
has Nicholas II .
As for my health, it is better than it has been for a long time. My digestion
is good, my respiratory system working perfectly, I sleep my seven hours per
night, and work with pleasure—happy to be able, at last! to recommence my
own work after an interruption of almost a year: proofs of the 3rd volume,
correspondence, moving house, intestinal trouble, etc., etc.
Greetings to Mme Plekhanov and to Axelrod from myself, and also from
Ludwig and Louise Freyberger.
Yours,
F. Engels
You did not give me any special address, and therefore I am using the old
one.
a
[the name of the newspaper is written in Russian] - b This Russian word meaning “peasants” is
written by Engels in Latin letters - c Goethe, Faust, Part I, Scene 5; this quotation and the
following paragraph are written in German.
Letters- 1895 441
263
IN BARMEN
Dear Hermann,
The arrival of your letter of the 23rd coincided with a spell of fine, frosty
weather which has been playing Old Harry with consignments of wine. I
have nevertheless ordered your sherry from Dublin but with the proviso that I
shall not give instructions for it to be despatched until such time as the Rhine
is open again and there is no longer any danger of the wine freezing en route.
Indeed, I myself had a mild fright when five cases!—fifteen dozen of port
and claret en route to me from Dublin were exposed for about forty-eight
hours to an unexpected frost. It would seem, however, that everything has
turned out all right, for the stuff I have sampled so far has not suffered, while
a period of repose in my splendid wine cellar—an even temperature and
space for nearly one hundred dozen in eight brick-walled bins—will see to
the rest.
For the first time in many years we are again having a real Continental
winter over here. Warm, almost spring-like up till the New Year with the
shrubs all coming into bud, then cold and, for the past three weeks, constant
sharp frost (80-100 Centigrade—60-80 Réamur of frost at night) and snow.
When the north-easter blows it is bitterly cold but when, like yesterday and
today, there is little wind, it is glorious. Fortunately there is always enough
wind to disperse the fog, the result being a marvellous blue sky.
I can well imagine your tribulations as a result of wining, dining and
dancing to the accompaniment of serenades from a cavalry band. Over here
we call it THE SOCIAL TREADMILL which, however diverting it may often
have been in one’s younger days, is a pretty ghastly business when one gets
older. I fight tooth and nail to keep out of it, but in this country, too, the likes
of us cannot escape it entirely at Christmastime.
The £40 from Wilhelm Pf. duly and gratefully received.
Incidentally, on this occasion I survived the treadmill of the festive season
in better shape than usual because I took proper care of myself and
442 Letters- 1895
just now, what with icy weather so similar to that at home, I feel better than I
have done for a long time. I have also been able to put the heating properties
of my new study to the supreme test, for not only is there the extraordinary
cold to contend with, but, added to that, the two neighbouring houses are
both empty, i.e. unheated, and my room abuts on the two party walls. And I
have nevertheless managed to keep it warm. It was not until yesterday that I
felt a bit chilly, but whenever one’s need is greatest, help is always close at
hand. On this occasion Rudolf’sa nightshirt stepped into the breech,
whereupon I smartly stepped into it.
You can learn about my fellow occupantsb from Oscar Jaeger who met
them both at my house when he last visited us here. Freyberger was courting
at that particular time and spent the evening with us.
I have just received a deputation from the local rating authority. The
gentlemen wished to satisfy themselves that I was not in fact paying more
than, £85 for the house, the reason being that the last tenant had paid £130,
while the rates for the house are based on an annual rental of £110. Needless
to say I protested. I showed the gentlemen all the documents and shall now
see what they do. Out of the eight houses close by, four are empty and so I
hope they will deal mercifully with me.
Well then, I have ordered 11/2 dozen No. 1 and 11/2 dozen No. 2 sherry
as per samples.
As you have said nothing further about it, I assume that Walterc has
passed his exam and I send him my congratulations. Even heartier con-
gratulations to Elsbethd on her forthcoming marriage. But she must also tell
me the day, so that we over here can also indulge ourselves in her and her
bridegroom’se honour.
Much love, then, to Emmaf and all your children, your sons and
daughters-in-law and your children’s children.
Your old
Friedrich
a
Rudolf Engels, Engels’ brother - b Louise and Ludwig Freyberger - c Walter Engels— Engels’
nephew - d Elsbeth Engels—Engels’ niece - e Arthur Schuchard - f Emma Engels— Engels’
sister-in-law
Letters-1895 443
264
IN BERLIN
Dear Fischer,
If you yourself are of the opinion that the difference in price as between 60
Pfennigs and 1 Mark will make little difference so far as sales are concerned,
I am, of course, in favour of selling the edition for 1 Mark. In return for a fee
of 400 Marks I therefore assign you the right to bring out an edition of up to
3,000 copies and you may start printing straight away. 507 I shall get down to
the Introduction forthwith and let you have it very shortly. The copy I have
of the Neue Rheinische Zeitungs-Revue came into my possession on the strict
understanding that it would not leave this house, besides which it is most
necessary to me for the correction of proofs, since the relevant text was
corrected in Hamburg and contains a mass of misprints—it was copied from
Marx’s manuscript. It is equally necessary to me for purposes of comparison
in respect of the Introduction. So please send me the first proofs in galley
form and I can then insert the necessary explanatory notes. 511
N. B., thirty-six free copies should be reserved for myself; a considerable
number of them have to be passed on to the heirs.
So for the time being I shall leave Lassalle’s letters 284 on one side. The
explanatory introduction and notes call for a good deal of rummaging about
amongst my papers and I cannot therefore say in advance when it will be
done.
When printing Marx’s articles, please note that, in the original,
Konstitution, Klasse, Kollision, etc. are generally spelt with a ‘C but also
probably with a ‘K’. Please put ‘K’ throughout; that will save a great deal of
Korrigiererei.a
Congratulations on your maiden speech; 512 it will have made the bour-
geois pretty furious!
a
correction
444 Letters- 1895
First published in: Marx and Engels, Printed according to the original
Works, First Russian Edition,
Vol. XXIX, 1946 Published in English for the first time
265
IN BERLIN
Dear Fischer,
I enclose the titles for the pamphleta as well as for the chapters. In order to
complete the three articles it will be necessary to add the passages on France
from the 5th and 6th (double) issue as a 4th chapter. 513 Arranged, that is, as set
out on the encl. sheet; first (in square brackets) my few introductory words,
then the passage on pp. 150/153b as shown, then a line of dots indicating the
omission and, by way of conclusion, the main passage on pp. 160-171.c That
will provide a perfectly respectable chapter and, with the abolition of
universal suffrage which served Bonaparte as a pretext in Dec. 1851, round
off the whole with a pertinent conclusion without which it would remain a
fragment.
Tomorrow I shall get on with the introduction to the whole.d In Germany
matters are really coming to a head quite nicely. I can hardly imagine that the
Centre 71 would deliberately saw off the branch it was sitting on. But the
foolishness of our opponents increases from day
a
K. Marx, The Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850. - b See present edition, Vol. 10, pp.
507-10, 132-35. - c See present edition, Vol. 10, pp. 516-25, 135-45. - d F. Engels, Introduction
to Karl Marx’s ‘The Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850’, 1895 - See present edition,
Vol.27, pp. 506-524.
Letters- 1895 445
(The title should include: Reprinted from the Neue Rheinische Zeitung.
Politisch-ökonomische Revue, Hamburg, 1850)
First published in: Marx and Engels, Printed according to the original
Works, First Russian Edition,
Vol. XXIX, 1946 Published in English for the first time
266
IN LONDON
Dear Julius,
One Theodor Barlen,a the bearer of a card from the Dortmund club, has
called on me seeking assistance. He is a deserter, having decamped from
Spandau, and alleges that he was previously a very active party member in
Hörde, Dortmund, etc. I referred him to the Society. 62 He came back today to
say that the Society refused to recommend him to me, since they did not
know whether the papers he produced were his own. As I should like to have
some information on the man so as to know whether I ought not to send him
packing once and for all, I would ask you to tell me whether this accords
with the facts and, once his case has been investigated, what view they take
of him at the Society. 516
Many regards to your wife and yourself from
a
Hermann Barlen in the ms.
446 Letters- 1895
Yours,
F. Engels
First published in: Marx and Engels, Printed according to the original
Works, First Russian Edition,
Vol. XXIX, 1946 Published in English for the first time
267
AT LE PERREUX
My dear Lafargue,
I am sending the Manuscript to you by registered post with a few
comments—as always the translation is excellent. 517 There has been a delay
of a few days, and this is why; in Berlin they want to reprint the three articles
by Marx on the events in France in 1848-49 (published in 1850 in the Revue
de la Nouvelle Gazette Rhénanea and this cannot be done without an
introduction; 507 this introduction has become quite long, since besides a
general review of the events since that date, it would be necessary to explain
why we were right to expect the imminent and definitive victory of the
proletariat, why that has not come about, and to what point events have
modified the way we saw things then. This is important because of the new
laws which are threatening us in Germany. 428 A Reichstag Commission is
attempting to transform all the articles of the penal code into rubber articles
which are applicable or not, depending on the political party to which the
defendant belongs. Arguments in favour of an act declared criminal, etc. will
be punished if they are made in circumstances which could justify the
opinion that the accused wished to provoke or incite imitation! etc., etc. that
is, you who are socialist will be punished for having said something which
any conservative, liberal or
a
Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Politisch-ökonomische Revue.
Letters- 1895 447
clerical may say with impunity. The clericals in the commission are worse
than the government itself. Just imagine, they are requesting two years in
prison for anyone who denies in public or in the press the existence of god or
the immortality of the soul.
This is a fury of reaction wholly without purpose, and absolutely inex-
plicable except on the supposition that all these gentlemen are threatened by a
coup d’état. This coup d’état is openly preached by top-ranking officials.
Constantin Rössler, ministerial counsellor, has called for it in a brochure.a
Boguslawski, a retired general, has just done the same thing.b The liberals and
clericals know that, faced with such determination on the part of the
government, there is nothing left for them but to submit. In the presence of 2
million socialist electors, these gentlemen do not have the courage to resist a
coup d’état openly—the government uses this threat to disarm them, and they
will vote just to ‘save’ the constitution and domestic peace! Wait and see,
they will vote for all the taxes, all the battleships, all the new regiments
requested by Williamc—if the electors do not become involved. For our
bourgeois deputies are so cowardly that even the courage of cowardice may
prove lacking.
In any case, we are striding towards a crisis, if there can be a crisis in this
Germany of the Bourgeoisie, where everything is blunted. What is certain is
that there will be a new age of persecution for our friends. As for us, our
policy should be not to let ourselves be provoked at this point; we would be
fighting without the least chance of success, and we would be bled like Paris
in 1871, whereas in two or three years our forces may have doubled, as under
the exceptional law. 15 Today our Party would be fighting alone against all
the others, rallied around the government under the banner of social order; in
two or three years we will have on our side the peasants and the petty-
bourgeois crushed by taxation. The battle corps does not engage in frontline
battles but reserves itself for the critical moment.
Anyway, we shall see how it ends.
How ironical that you, one of the most French writers of our age, should
be doomed to be published almost always in German! And what German!
The translators of Berlin and Stuttgart display a truly Germanic heaviness.
There is only Adler who does you justice, and he will not al-
a
C. Rößler, Die Sozialdemokratie. — b A. Boguslawski, Vollkampf-—nicht Scheinkampf. Ein
Wort zur politischen Lage imlnnern. - c William II
448 Letters- 1895
ways have the time to translate you himself. The only consolation I can offer
is to tell you that I myself always breathe a little of the French spirit when I
retranslate mentally your translator; sometimes I succeed.
We have been without water for 15 days, the pipe beneath our road is
frozen; otherwise everything at home is going well. For one week we had
almost no gas, as paraffins containing C4, C5 and C6, and more of carbon are
precipitated in the pipes by the cold. It was one of those periods when
London relapses into barbarity. And the Standard tells you that, this is the
proof that England has reached the summit of civilisation!
Thank Laura for her fine translation; I still have not received the letter you
promised I would receive from her, but I hope that she has received the copy
of the 3rd volumea for Deville that I sent to her on 1st January.
Greetings from the Freybergers.
Yours,
F.E.
The preface to the 3rd volume has been published in Italian in La Rassegna
467
translated by Martignetti, and reviewed by Labriola, who has rendered the
passages on Loria with a voluptuousness which bursts through each line. On
the other hand, Loria has written a critique of the 3rd volume in the Nuova
Antologia which is of unequalled superficiality. 15 1st volume: Napoleon I,
2nd: the king of Rome, tubercular, 3rd: Louis Bonaparte II I. In Germany,
Werner Sombart, a Berlin professor and a rather eclectic Marxist, has written
a good article on the 3rd volume.c How are things progressing for 1st May?
People are talking only of the Allemanists. 21 And how is the unity, or
disunity, of the groups progressing, particularly as regards your own?
Vaillant has written to me again, he wants my opinion on his draft laws.d I
have still not found the time to read Jaurès on materio-idealism. 518
a
of Capital- b A. Loria, ‘L’opera postuma di Carlo Marx’. In: Nuova Antologia, Anno XXX,
fascicolo II I - 1 febbraio 1895. - c W. Sombart, Zur Kritik des ökonomischen Systems von Karl
Marx’. In: Archiv für Soziale Gesetzgebung und Statistik. Bd. 7, H. 4, [1894] - d See this volume,
pp. 420, 453
Letters- 1895 449
same page, last word conception—doesn’t this word lend itself too well to
a play on words here?
First published, abridged, in Printed according to the original
Voprosy philosopha No. 5,
Moscow, 1965 and in full in: Marx Translated from the French Published in
and Engels, Works, Second Russian
Edition, Vol. 39, Moscow, 1966 English for the first time
268
IN GENEVA
My dear Plekhanov,
Everything was arranged eight days ago, Veraa wrote to me and said that
she would be delighted to be treated by Freyberger. He went to see her eight
days ago yesterday, and has since been twice. He discovered that she had a
severe case of bronchitis, and has prescribed the necessary medicines.
However, he says that what she needs most is a different diet.
She should eat meat instead of fruit jellies and other vegetable foods.
Freyberger is out at the moment, so I will return to the question of her health
before finishing this letter.
Now, since you have made me more or less responsible for the state of her
health, you must tell me if she has need of money. If she has, I would ask you
to permit me to offer you some for her, however little, at least during her
illness, I will send you, say, five pounds to begin with, that you can persuade
her to accept as coming from you, so that I do not come into it at all. You
could tell her that you have sent her this money to remove any excuse for
refusing to change her diet, and that Freyberger has said that she must do so.
Or perhaps you can find another excuse.
I will not have the time to read the critical review of my booka in Russian
Heritage.b I have already seen enough on this subject in the issue for January
1894. 520 As for Danielson, I fear that there is nothing to be done with him. I
sent him by letter post 25 the Russian material from Internationales aus dem
Volketaat, and in particular the 1894 appendix, which was written, in part,
directly with him in view. 522 He has received it but, as you see, it is useless.
There is no way of discussing with this generation of Russians to which he
belongs, and which still believes in the spontaneous-communist mission
which distinguishes Russia, the true Holy Russ,c from other profane peoples.
As for the rest, in a country such as yours, where largescale modern
industry is grafted onto the primitive peasant commune, and where all the
intermediary stages of civilisation are represented simultaneously, in a
country which, in addition, is surrounded more or less effectively by an
intellectual wall of China erected by despotism, it is scarcely surprising if the
most bizarre and impossible combinations of ideas are produced. Take the
poor devil Flerovsky, who imagines that tables and beds think, but have no
memory. It is a phase the country must pass through. Little by little, with the
growth of the towns, the isolation of men of talent will disappear, and with it
these mental aberrations caused by loneliness, the inconsistency of the
patchy knowledge of these curious thinkers, and also a little, in the
Narodniki,d by the despair of seeing their hopes evaporate. Indeed, one ex-
terrorist Narodnikd would end quite appropriately by becoming a tsarist.
a
F. Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State. -b The magazine title is
written by Engels in Russian. - c [in Russian] - d [in Russian]
Letters- 1895 451
269
IN LONDON
First published in: Marx and Engels, Printed according to the original
Works, First Russian Edition,
Vol. XXIX, 1946 Published in English for the first time
a
See this volume, p. 445 - b Alexander Cohen
Letters- 1895 453
270
IN PARIS
a
See this volume, p. 420
Letters- 1895 455
rivalries that keep them powerless. It is a matter for despair for those who do
not know the English character; in any case the European continent would
seem about to give the English the impetus it so needs. That band of
swindlers who govern and exploit France shamelessly will not retain support
much longer. The same is true for Italy, where bribery and corruption is even
more shameless. In Germany, everything is leading to a crisis, generals and
high-ranking officials are openly calling for a coup d’état. The end of the
century is taking a decidedly revolutionary turn. In France, the socialists are
the only serious and honourable party, in Germany they are the only real
opposition party; if a crisis comes, there will be no other party to turn to
except this. In Austria, everyone agrees that the socialists will enter
parliament, and it only remains to decide through which door. And in Russia,
little Nicholas 11 has done us the service of making revolution absolutely
inevitable.
Yours sincerely,
F. Engels
271
IN ST. PETERSBURG
My dear Sir,
I am very sorry, in reply to your kind letter of Jan. 29th, to inform you that
our authorb has not left any manuscripts relating to his views upon, and
deductions from the state of landed property in Russia such as might be
useful to the Russian translator. 527 All I have been able to find
a
Nicholas II - b Karl Marx
456 Letters- 1895
are simple and very voluminous extracts from Russian sources statistical and
generally economical, but, and this more or less against his habit, not
interspersed with observations of his own.
I enclose you a letter received from Berlin for you, and am requested by
the Mr. Engels mentioned in it to complete it by the following bits of
information. Mr. Engels received some time ago an inquiry from a Dr. Lux
who writes on economic subjects: whether the Essaysa were worth
translating, and if so, would he do something to assist the publication of a
German translation? to which he replied, that he was very desirous of seeing
a German translation brought out, and that not only would he recommend the
same for publication to Dietz, but also very gladly write an article upon it,
when brought out, in the Neue Zeit, pointing out the importance of the results
of your inquiries, but at the same time also stating that he differed from some
of the conclusions arrived at by you. At the same time he stated, that he,
Engels, had no right whatever to authorise a translation, but that the
translator, a friend of Dr. Lux, had better apply to you direct for your
permission. To avoid indiscretion, he insisted that the letter to you should be
sent through him.
The translator, a young Russianb in Berlin, was said to be capable of
undertaking the work (Dr. Lux’s wife is a Russian lady), and Dr. Lux has
promised to revise the German text in order to insure correctness. The
translator is also said to have occupied himself with economical subjects, so
as to be no stranger to the contents of your book.
The letter enclosed seems to assume that your consent has already been
given, at least I cannot find in it any trace of a formal request to you to that
effect. I know that some young Russians abroadc are of opinion that such is
an unnecessary formality, but such is not my opinion, and if you feel
inclined to entertain at all Mr. Konov’s proposal, I think a hint in that
direction might do the young man good.
As to myself I know nothing at all of the intended translation.
If you will kindly send me your reply to Mr Konov, I will see that it is
forwarded at once. 528
Yours very sincerely
L. K.d
a
Nikolai-on. [Danielson N. Fr.], Essays (see FN p. 308) - b Andrei Konov - c [word in Russian] -
d
Engels used Louise Kautsky’s initials for his pen-name.
Letters- 1895 457
272
IN BERLIN
Dear Fischer,
I have taken as much account as possible of your grave objections al-
though I cannot for the life of me see what is objectionable about, say, half of
the instances you cite. 529 For I cannot after all assume that you intend to
subscribe heart and soul to absolute legality, legality under any
circumstances, legality even vis-à-vis laws infringed by their promulgators,
in short, to the policy of turning the left cheek to him, who has struck you on
the right. True, the Vorwärts sometimes expends almost as much energy on
repudiating revolution as once it did—and may soon do again—on
advocating the same. But I cannot regard that as a criterion.
My view is that you have nothing to gain by advocating complete ab-
stention from force. Nobody would believe you, nor would any party in any
country go so far as to forfeit the right to resist illegality by force of arms.
I also have to take account of the fact that my stuff is read by foreigners as
well—Frenchmen, Englishmen, Swiss, Austrians, Italians, etc.—and I
simply cannot compromise myself to that extent in their eyes.
I have therefore accepted your amendments with the following exceptions:
1. Slip 9, re the masses, now reads: ‘they must have realised what they are
coming out for’.a—2. next paragraph: the whole sentence about going into
battle deleted; your suggestion contained an outright mistake. The slogan
‘going into battle’ is used daily by the French, Italians, etc., if
with less serious intent.—3. Slip 10: ‘Social Democratic subversion which
presently owes its existence to’; you wish to remove the ‘presently, thus
changing present into permanent, and relatively into absolutely valid, tactics.
This I will not and cannot do without making an eternal ass of myself. I shall
therefore avoid the contradiction of terms and say: ‘Social Democratic
subversion to which it is of very great benefit just now to abide by the law.’a
Why you should see anything dangerous in the allusion to Bismarck’s
procedure in 1866, when the constitution was infringed, I find utterly in-
comprehensible. If ever there was an argumentum ad hominem,b I should say
that this was it. However, I bow to your wishes.
Well, I can go so far and no further. I have done everything in my power
to spare you embarrassment in debate. But you would be better advised to
adhere to the standpoint that the obligation to abide by the law is a legal, not
a moral one, as indeed, has been so nicely demonstrated to you by
Boguslawskic (who has got the pip); and that it ceases absolutely when those
in power break the law. But you people—one or two of you at any rate—
have been weak enough not to oppose your adversaries’ pretensions as you
ought to have done, and to accept the obligation to abide by the law as being
also a moral one and binding under all circumstances, instead of telling
them: ‘You are in power, it is you who make the laws; if we infringe them,
you can deal with us in accordance with those laws and we must put up with
it, that and nothing more—we have no further obligations, and you no further
rights.’ That’s how the Catholics behaved in the face of the May Laws, 530
likewise the Old Lutherans in Meissen and likewise that Mennonite 531
soldier who figures in all the newspapers, and it’s a standpoint you people
must not betray. The Subversion Bill 428 is in any case doomed; a thing of
that sort cannot even be formulated, let alone put into practice and, given the
power to do so, the chaps will manage to muzzle you and harass you in any
case.
If, however, your intention is to make the chaps in the government see
that we only want to bide our time because we are not yet strong enough to
help ourselves and because the army is not yet thoroughly disaffected—if
such is your intention,
My dear fellows, then why the eternal bragging in your press about the
party’s victories and the enormous strides it is
a
Cf. present edition, Vol. 27, p. 523 - b a biased argument - c A. Boguslawski, Vollkampf-—
nicht Scheinkampf. Ein Wort zur politischen Lage in Innern.
Letters- 1895 459
making? Those chaps know as well as we do that victory is almost within our
grasp and that in a few years’ time there will be no stopping us, and that is
why they are already anxious to get us by the scruff, though unfortunately
they don’t know how. Nothing we say can alter that fact, and they know all
this as well as we do; they likewise know that, once power is ours, we shall
use it for our own purposes, not theirs.
So when next there’s a general debate in plenary session, mind you uphold
the right of resistance to as good effect as did Boguslawski on our behalf, and
do not forget that your audience also comprises old revolutionaries—French,
Italian, Spanish, Hungarian, and English—and that the time may again
come—how soon, no one can tell—when the deletion of the word ‘legal’,
effected donkey’s years ago at Wyden, 343 will really be consummated. Take
a look at the Austrians whose threat to use force, should suffrage not soon be
forthcoming, could hardly be plainer! 523 Think of your own unlawful actions
at the time of the Anti-Socialist Law, 15 a law they would like to foist upon
you again. Legality for so long as and to the extent that it suits your book, but
not legality at any price, not even as a manner of speech!
Yours,
F.E.
Too late now to put quotations into German (most already have been in
the texta) already made up into pages.
The proofs are being sent to Hamburg from here.
273
IN BRESLAU
Dear Sir,
In replying to your note of the 14th of last month, I should like to thank
you for so kindly sending me your book on Marxa; I had already read it with
great interest in the volume of the Archivb which Dr H. Braun was good
enough to send me and was glad at long last to find such appreciation of
Capitalc at a German university. Needless to say, I cannot identify myself
with all the expressions into which you have transposed Marx’s exposition.
In particular, it seems to me that the definitions of the concept of value, given
by you on pp. 576 and [5] 77, are rather too generalised; for one thing, I
should delimit them historically by expressly confining them to the economic
phase in which alone there has and could have been any question of value
hitherto—to the social forms in which exchange of commodities and
production of commodities exist; primitive communism was innocent of
value. And in the second place the proposition would also seem to me to be
susceptible of a conceptually narrower formulation. But this would take us
too far afield and on the whole you are certainly right in what you say.
On p. 586, however, you appeal directly to me and I could not but laugh at
the unconcerned way in which you hold a pistol to my head. But you need
not worry—I am not going to ‘contradict you flat’. The conceptual
transitions whereby Marx arrives at the general and equal rate of profit from
the various values produced in individual capitalist concerns, namely s/c =
s/(c+v), are wholly foreign to the consciousness of the individual capitalist.
In so far as they have any historical parallel or any reality outside our own
heads, this consists in, say the fact that the individual constituents of the
amount of surplus value produced by capitalist
a
W. Sombart, ‘Zur Kritik des ökonomischen Systems von Karl Marx’ — b Archiv für soziale
Gesetzgebung und Statistik. - c Volume II I
Letters-1895 461
A., over and above the rate of profit or his share of the total surplus value,
pass into the pocket of capitalist B. whose own output of surplus value is
normally less than the dividend accruing to him. But this process takes place
objectively and unconsciously, in the nature of things, and only now, when
we have attained to a proper consciousness of that process, can we judge how
much labour it has cost. Had the creation of the average rate of profit
demanded the conscious collaboration of the individual capitalists, and had
the individual capitalist known that he was producing surplus value and how
much, and that in many cases he would have to surrender part of his surplus
value, the connection between surplus value and profit would, of course,
have been more or less clear from the start, and would certainly be found in
Adam Smith if not already in Petty.
As Marx sees it, the whole of past history, so far as major events are
concerned, is an unconscious process, i.e. those events and the consequences
thereof are not deliberate; either the supernumeraries of history have wanted
something that was the diametrical opposite of what was achieved, or else
that achievement entailed consequences quite other than those that had been
foreseen. If we apply this to political economy, we find that each individual
capitalist is in pursuit of bigger profits for himself. Bourgeois economics
reveals that this pursuit of bigger profits on the part of each individual
capitalist results in a general and equal rate of profit, an approximately equal
rate of profit for all. But neither capitalists nor bourgeois economists are
aware that the real purpose of that pursuit is the equal percentual distribution
of the total surplus value over capital as a whole.
But how did this process of equalisation really come about? That is a very
interesting point about which Marx himself has little to say. But Marx’s
whole way of thinking [Auffassungsweise] is not so much a doctrine as a
method. It provides, not so much ready-made dogmas, as aids to further
investigation and the method for such investigation. Here, then, is a piece of
work to be done which Marx himself did not attempt in his first draft. Here,
for a start, we have the statements on pp. 153-156, II I, Ia which also have
some bearing on your rendering of the concept of value and prove that that
concept has, or had, more reality than you ascribe to it. In the early days of
exchange when products gradually changed into commodities, exchanges
were made in proportion to value. For the labour
a
See present edition, Vol. 37, pp.174-76; see also, pp. 882-84
462 Letters- 1895
274
IN ZURICH
Dear Schmidt,
I have before me your two letters of the 13th of November last and of the
1st of this month. Let me begin with the most recent, No. 2.
Letters- 1895 463
So far as Fireman is concerned, you had better leave well alone. 535 Lexis
had simply posed the question 536 as you did in Σs/Σ(c+v). He is the only one
to have gone a step further along the right road in as much as he classified
the progression s/(c’+v’) + s”/(c”+v”) + s’”/(c”‘+v’”) ... etc., set out by you
and divided it, according to the varying composition of capital, into groups of
the branches of production between which equalisation only comes about as
a result of competition. The fact that this was the next important step will be
evident to you from Marx’s own text in which, up to that point, the process is
exactly the same. Fireman’s mistake was to break off here and rest on his
laurels, which is why he necessarily remained unnoticed until the booka itself
came out.—But there’s no need for you to worry. You have every reason to
be content. After all, you discovered for yourself why it is that the rate of
profit tends to fall and how commercial profit is created—and discovered,
not just two thirds as did Fireman the rate of profit, but the whole bally thing.
Your letter, I think, sheds some light on why you allowed yourself to be
side-tracked when it came to the rate of profit. In it I find you lapsing into
detail in just the same way, and for this I blame the eclectic method of
philosophising endemic at German universities since 1848, a method which
loses sight of the whole, and all too often goes astray by indulging in almost
endless and unprofitable speculation on minutiae. Now it so happens that
your earlier studies of classical philosophy revolved primarily around Kant,
and Kant was more or less compelled by the then state of philosophising in
Germany and by his own antipathy to Wolf’s pedantic Leibnizianism to
make what appeared to be formal concessions to Wolfian speculation. It is
thus I explain your tendency, also apparent from your epistolatory digression
on the law of value, to become engrossed in minutiae; hence your occasional
failure, or so it seems to me, to see the wood for the trees, which is why you
reduce the law of value to a fiction, a necessary fiction, in much the same
way as Kant reduced the existence of God to a postulate of practical reason.
Your objections to the law of value apply to all concepts regarded from
the standpoint of reality. The identity of thinking and being, to use a
Hegelian expression, corresponds in all respects to your example of the circle
and the polygon. In other words, the concept of an object and its reality run
side by side like two asymptotes which, though constantly
a
Vol. II I of Capital
464 Letters- 1895
converging, will never meet. The difference between the two is the selfsame
difference which is responsible for the fact that the concept is not
immediately and ipso facto reality and reality is not immediately its own
concept. Because a concept is by its nature essentially a concept, hence does
not ipso facto and prima faciea correspond to the reality from which it has
had first to be abstracted, that concept is always something more than a
fiction, unless you declare all reasoned conclusions to be fictive on the
grounds that they correspond to reality only in a very circuitous way and
even then only approximately, like converging asymptotes.
Is it otherwise with the general rate of profit? At no time is it more than an
approximation. Should it ever prove to be absolutely identical in two
separate undertakings and should both achieve exactly the same rate of profit
in a given year, it would be purely fortuitous; in reality rates of profit vary
from business to business and year to year, according to circumstances, while
the general rate exists only as the average achieved by a large number of
businesses over a succession of years. If, however, we were to insist that the
rate of profit—say, 14.876934... be exactly the same down to the last decimal
point in every business every year, on pain of being reduced to a fiction, we
should be grossly mistaking the nature of the rate of profit and of economic
laws generally—they none of them have any reality save as an
approximation, a tendency, an average, but not as immediate reality. This is
due partly to the fact that their action is frustrated by the simultaneous action
of other laws, but also to some extent by their nature as concepts.
Or take the law of wages, the realisation of the value of the power of
labour, a value which is only, and even then not always, realised as an av-
erage and varies from locality to locality, indeed from branch to branch,
according to the standard of living customary in each. Or ground rent, which
represents the surplus profit, in excess of the general rate, arising from a
monopolisation of a natural force. Here, too, real surplus profit and real rent
do not by any means automatically correspond, but do so only approximately
and on an average.
Exactly the same thing applies to the law of value and the distribution of
surplus value through the rate of profit.
1. Both come closest to full realisation only in as much as capitalist
production has everywhere been fully implemented, i.e. society has been
a
self-evidently
Letters-1895 465
a
W. Sombart, ‘Zur Kritik der ökonomischen Systems von Karl Marx’. In: Archiv für soziale
Gesetzgebung und Statistik, Bd. 7, H. 4. -b See this volume, p. 461 -c C. Schmidt, ‘Der dritte
Band des Kapital’. In: Sozialpolitisches Centralblatt, 25. Februar 1895 - d A. Loria, ‘L’opera
postuma di Carlo Marx.’ In: Nuova Antologia, Anno XXX, fascicolo II I, 1 febbraio 1895
Letters-1895 467
latter the support he needs; he would also mention your name. I have written
to both of them about this, 540 saying that your article supplies a ready-made
answer on the main issue. Please let me know if you are unable to supply the
copies.
With this, however, I must close, for otherwise I shall never be done.
Kindest regards,
Yours,
F. Engels
275
IN STUTTGART
Dear Baron,
Just to inform you in all haste that Plekhanov has misread or misun-
derstood my letter. I have no intention whatsoever of concerning myself with
Loria, and have written to tell Plekhanov 25 that he should not allow himself
to be put off. Loria has written a reply to the prefacea and only if absolutely
necessary shall I write a few words in return, but that is all. Everything the
chap has published has been sent me from Rome.
I should be grateful if you were to send me Platter’s thing 541—I have
already got W. Sombart’s—it is good.b I’m glad you should have used it as
an excuse to stave off Enrico Ferri since the man’s quite incapable of writing
about Volume II I.
a
Loria, ‘L’ opera postuma di Carlo Marx’. In: Nuova Antologia, Anno XXX, fascicolo II I —1
febbraio 1895 - b W. Sombart, ‘Zur Kritik des ökonomischen Systems von Karl Marx’. In:
Archiv für soziale Gesetzgebung und Statistik. Bd. 7, H. 4
468 Letters- 1895
My preface has come out in Italian and is said to have made quite an
impact. 467
Yours,
F.E.
276
IN VIENNA
Dear Victor,
Herewith by return the information you request. Sombart’s article is very
good,a except that his view of the law of value is impaired by some
disappointment over the solution to the rate of profit question. He clearly
expected a miracle, instead of which he merely found what was rational and
that is anything but miraculous. Hence his reduction of the significance of the
law of value to the domination of the productive force of labour as the
determining economic power. This is all much too generalised and
imprecise.—Little Conrad Schmidt’s article in the Sozial politisches
Centralblatt is very good.b Eduard Bernstein’s articles were very muddle-
headedc; the man is still neurasthenic and, what is more, scandalously over-
worked. Having too many other things on hand, he left the article on one side
and then was suddenly dunned for it by K. Kautsky.
Since you want to swot away at Capital II and II I while you’re in quod,
542
let me give you a few hints to lighten your task.
a
W. Sombart, ‘Zur Kritik des ökonomischen Systeme von Karl Marx,’ In: Archiv für soziale
Gesetzgebung und Statistik, Bd. 7, Heft 4 - b C. Schmidt, ‘Der dritte Band des Kapital’. In:
Sozialpolitisches Centralblatt, 25 Februar 1895 - c E. Bernstein, ‘Der dritte Band des Kapital’.
In: Neue Zeit, 1 Bd., Nr. 11-149 16, 17 und 20, 13 Jg. 1894/95
Letters-1895 469
Book II . Part I. Read Chap. I carefully, after which you can more or less
skim through Chaps 2 and 3; pay closer attention to Chap. 4, it being a
resume; 5 and 6 are easy, 6 in particular being concerned with incidental
matters.
Part II . Chaps 7-9 are important. 10 and 11 exceptionally so. Likewise 12,
13 and 14. On the other hand 15, 16 and 17 need only be read cursorily to
begin with.
Part II I. Is an absolutely first-rate exposé of a subject which has not been
dealt with since the days of the physiocrats, namely the entire circulation of
commodities and money in capitalist society—brilliant as to content, but
terribly ponderous as to form, firstly because put together from two versions
using two different methods and, secondly, because version 2 was completed
under duress, namely an illness involving chronic insomnia. If I were you, I
should keep that to the very last, after an initial reading of Volume II I. Also,
it is the one you can most easily dispense with so far as your work is
concerned.
Now for Volume II I.
Important in Part I are Chaps 1-4; on the other hand, Chaps 5, 6 and 7 are
less important so far as the general context is concerned, so not very much
time should be spent on them to start off with.
Part II . Most important are Chaps 8, 9, 10. 11 and 12 to be treated
cursorily.
Part II I. Most important, the whole of it, 13-15.
Part IV. Likewise most important, though 16-20 also easy to read.
Part V. Most important, Chaps 21-27. Less so, Chap 28. Chap. 29
important. Chaps 30-32 not, on the whole, important for your purposes, but
Chaps 22 and 34 important as soon as they turn to paper money, etc., 35
important as regards international rates of exchanges; 36 of great interest to
you, and also easy to read.
Part VI. Ground Rent. 37 and 38 important. 39 and 40 less so, but
nevertheless not to be skipped. 41-43 demand rather less attention.
(Differential rent II , individual cases.) 44-47 are again important and also,
on the whole, easy to read.
Part VII very fine; unfortunately truncated and, moreover, strongly
symptomatic of insomnia.
So if you make a thorough study of the essentials by following the above,
and devote less attention initially to what is of lesser importance (preferably
having first reread the essential bits of Vol. I), you will get a
470 Letters-1895
general view of the whole and will afterwards find it easier to digest the
passages to which you have devoted less attention.
Your news about the papera pleased us very much. The main thing is
political efficacity; financial efficacity is bound to follow, and will be
achieved far more easily and quickly once the former is assured. It is with
pleasure I detect your hand in the notes on electoral reform on the front page
532
—there you have the FULCRUM for the efficacity you need.
As a result of the old trouble which comes to plague me periodically, es-
pecially in springtime, I am again somewhat lame but less so than usual, the
attack being milder and, in about a fortnight I should, I think, be rid of it
without any need for sea air as in 1893 and 1894.
The movement over here may be summed up as follows: Amongst the
masses, progress is steady if instinctive, and the tendency is adhered to; the
moment it comes to giving conscious expression to that instinct and to that
impulsive tendency, however, their sectarian leaders set about it in so stupid
and narrow-minded a way as to make one feel like hitting out left, right and
centre. But I suppose it’s just the typical Anglo-Saxon way of going about
things.
Many regards,
Yours,
F.E.
277
IN BARMEN
Dear Sir,
Following are my brief answers to your questions:
a
Arbeiter-Zeitung
Letters- 1895 471
1) Beckera was in Cologne when we came there in May 1848; 544 I had
heard nothing of him previously.
2) 1 know-nothing about this. 545
3) ditto. 546
4) We got to know Becker as belonging to the more moderate trend in the
democratic party.
5) I believe Becker also gave talks in the Democratic Association 547 (the
Eiser Hall) from time to time, but I hardly ever went there. W. Wolff, F.
Wolff and Dronke attended more frequently on behalf of our editorial boardb
than did Marx or I.
6) I do not know what associations you mean. On the whole, the Workers’
Union 548 and the Democratic Association worked hand in hand in Cologne,
although the former was more radical than the latter. As for what had been
going on before our arrival, at the time when the Workers’ Union had been
led by Dr. Gottschalk, I can say nothing definite about it.
7) If by the Central Association 549 you mean the central section of
democratic associations, led by the Frankfurt Left, I must say the Rhenish
democrats soon lost trust in it and made themselves independent.
8) We were on the same good terms with Becker as with the other
bourgeois democratic leaders in Cologne, without making a secret of the fact
that we were going considerably further than they and without expecting
them to unconditionally support the stance taken by the Neue Rheinische
Zeitung. The majority of them, Becker included, were not contributors to the
paper, except, at the most, for publishing short, usually signed, articles from
time to time in the local news section (then printed ‘under the line’). You will
often come across the initials H. B. 550 there. After the onset of reaction, in the
autumn of 1848, democracy became more radical and Becker also drew
closer to us. But he did not work more for the paper then either.
9) I’ve no knowledge of this at all. 551 I was already gone by then, we left
Cologne in May.
10) After we had gone, Becker and Heinrich Burgers founded the
Westdeutsche Zeitung, one might say on the inheritance of the Neue
Rheinische Zeitung? 552
11) I have no further material on the Communist trial 553 concerning
a
Hermann Heinrich Becker - b of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung
472 Letters- 1895
Becker specifically. Becker had joined the Communist League, which was
set up anew on the Continent at the end of 1849 or the beginning of 1850,
and sat on the Cologne district authority, which was entrusted with the
functions of central authority after the split in London.
12) I know of no attempts to free Becker while he was on remand. If
anything of the kind was contemplated, certainly good care was taken not to
mention it in letters to London, for it would hardly have escaped the notice of
the Prussian postal service.
For the rest, I regret to be unable to give you any further information. I
hope you have the latest edition (Zurich 1885) of Marx’s revelations con-
cerning the Cologne trial,a with my introduction.b If not, you may obtain a
copy from the bookshop of Vorwärts, 2 Beuthstrasse, Berlin; the earlier
editions are incomplete.
Incidentally, Becker’s involvement with the League was only an episode
in his life, caused by the then rampant reaction. With the return of calmer
times he again became what he had been previously, a bourgeois democrat,
and, as you will know, went through all the changes undergone by German,
and particularly Prussian, bourgeois democracy. This attitude stemmed from
his whole nature, so I am far removed from seeing any sort of careerism in it;
on the contrary, if he had tried to remain more radical and carry the
communist episode on, he would have missed his calling. In this he differed,
very favourably, from Miquel.
I hope these notes will be of use to you.
F. Engels
a
K. Marx, Revelations Concerning the Communist Trial in Cologne - b F. Engels, On the
History of the Communist League
Letters- 1895 473
278
IN MADRID
[Draft]
London, 16 March 1895
a
See this volume, p. 444
474 Letters-1895
279
IN COLOGNE
Dear Hirsch,
I am willing to oblige you, 555 but only on two conditions: 1. that the
Letters- 1895 475
matter remains strictly between ourselves, for otherwise I shall get a hundred
such requests for advance criticism; and what I do for one person I cannot
refuse to do for others—in which case I might as well throw up the sponge.
2. That this is the last time you ask me to do anything of this kind. I get more
things sent to me in a week than I can read in a month, but if I am to criticise
them into the bargain, I shall be in even worse case.
P. 4. Onesided}. This is far less the case in big industry than in manu-
facture. On the contrary, big industry does to a large extent eliminate the
disabling effect of manufacture, although it produces a similar effect of its
own, which last may be exacerbated by the intensification of labour. From
what I know of big industry, I should say that in your case this point is given
more emphasis than is justified by the circumstances. The division of labour
is, and will continue to be, the chief cause of the disablement of labour.
P. 6. - ‘in every case overproduction, crises’. May, has a tendency to—
realisation by no means inevitable. ‘Spiral movement’—seems to me too
general a term. What mode of production have you in mind here? ‘The
minimum of socially necessary labour time’—if this is supposed to be the
time needed to produce the gross social product, it is meaningless so far as
capitalist society is concerned, since in its apportionment among individual
workers, the industrial reserve army is wholly left out of account.
P. 15. ‘Everywhere’ (etc., up till the end of the sentence)—this is ex-
pressed very obscurely, to say the least and, as it stands, is a contradiction.
First, the increase in the products of labour is said to give rise to ‘a gain as
such’ and then to a ‘loss of value, which is at least a possibility’. This will
not do unless explanatory and delimiting intermediate links are provided.
P. 18. ‘The capital of the working man is his own person.’ That sounds
very nice, but in this context the word capital loses every vestige of meaning.
Why the devil must you go and translate things that are sensible into
nonsensical philistine cliches? What you say here is quite beyond my
comprehension. Similarly on p. 18, no. 2. The concentration of labour re-
sulting from improvements in machinery is all of a sudden supposed to be
unhealthy. It may be so, and very often is, in the capitalist system but of itself
it is no more unhealthy than is eating and digesting on the following page.
Not only will it not cease, but we shall be able to augment it considerably
because, with it, we shall get compensation for the workers. Other
476 Letters- 1895
280
IN HANOVER
Dear Kugelmann,
The eachets cramponsa have arrived here safely and have already been put
to use. The machine presents no difficulty to the doer-up of letters—whether
it does to the opener thereof is something that could be elucidated for us by
the German and Austrian postal authorities to whom we have already most
humbly submitted several samples. Many thanks. Köller will, I hope, be
obliged to introduce a Subversion Bill 428 for the subversion of these staples
in the face of which the best intentions of the cabinets noirsb fail so
ignominiously.
Thanks for your endeavours in the Bielefeld district. If there is anything of
mine or, indeed of Marx’s in the Dampfboot, it is likely to be anonymous. 558
No news from Livingston. 559
The cold suited me very well; it acted on me like a powerful tonic while it
lasted, and I felt twenty years younger. On the other hand, it precipitated
London as always back into an age of barbarism. The water pipes froze; we
went on having water until the Company shut off supplies, whereupon the
water froze in the mains. Ours was about four and a half to five feet down
and when uncovered a fortnight after the thaw, was still completely frozen
up. Then we had to wait another two days until our connecting pipe thawed
out. At eight o’clock in the evening, a week ago today, the water at last came
on again. We then discovered that the drains were blocked because of the
inadequate flow of water. By the end of last week everything was back to
normal again, after four weeks during which we had to have forty buckets of
water a day carried up to the attic on the
a
A type of staple for closing letters — b The name given in France to the office where letters of
suspect persons were opened and examined before being forwarded to the addressees. (Trans.)
478 Letters-1895
fourth floor in order to keep the house supplied with water and prevent the
boiler exploding every time the range was lit in the kitchen.
There was no need for you to worry and take so much trouble over the duty
on the staples; in this country all industrial products are duty-free. Many
regards to you and your family from Louise and
Yours,
F. Engels
281
IN BARMEN
Dear Hermann,
Many thanks for the kind wedding invitation which I am unfortunately
unable to accept. Apart from other obstacles, I have again fallen prey to the
springtime complaint which, for the past four or five years, has regularly
crippled me for some weeks at this season. A little rest will no doubt suffice
to put paid to the thing, thus enabling me, a week tomorrow, to drink a glass
of the best to ElsbethV and her bridegroom’sb health, as will be
conscientiously done.
Otherwise I am well and have grown more or less accustomed to the
domestic and dietary regulations befitting an elderly gentleman—so much
so, in fact, that any deviation therefrom becomes instantly apparent to me
from all manner of little upsets and I get given the well-meant but earnest
advice to desist from the same in future. I had never imagined
a
Elsbeth Engels, F. Engels’ niece - b Arthur Schuchard
Letters- 1895 479
that pedantry could again be imposed upon me as a rule of life and a moral
duty.
Well, I hope that, even in my absence, you will all have a very happy day,
and wish Elsbeth the best of luck in her new status as a married woman; also
offspring more distinguished by their health than by their numbers.
Much love to Emma 1 and all the children,
Your old
Friedrich
282
IN LONDON
a
Emma Engels, F. Engels’ sister-in-law.
480 Letters- 1895
283
IN STUTTGART
Dear Baron,
No difficulty about a reply to your telegramm—’with pleasure’. The text
will follow by book-post. It is in proof form and is entitled Introduction to
Karl Marx’s ‘The Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850’ by F. Engels.
The text explains that the contents are a reprint of the old articles from the
Neue Rheinische Zeitung, Revue. My text has suffered to some extent from
the apprehensive objections, inspired by the Subversion Bill, 428 of our
friends in Berlin—objections of which, in the circumstances, I could not but
take account. 529
I at once wrote to Plekhanov to clear up the misunderstanding.a It was
very right of you to stave off Ferri; the chap is a belletrist and sensation-
monger in no matter what field and, like most Italians, holds Loria to be a
giant in the field of economics, an opinion the illustrious one has implanted
in them by dint of ‘reiterated appearances’ (to use Ruge’s expression) and by
a refined system of camaraderie.
I have not read the stenographic version of Liebknecht’s militia speech 360
and one cannot go by the newspaper reports. A long dissertation might be
written on the subject of militia and the standing army. If France and
Germany were to agree gradually to turn their armies into militias, each with
the same period of training, that would be that; Russia could be left to her
own devices and Austria and Italy would be delighted to follow suit. But
because of domestic circumstances France and Germany cannot afford to do
this and, even if they could, it would not be feasible because of Alsace-
Lorraine. And that will prove the undoing of the whole of the militia
business.
Unfortunately your Early History of Socialism 561 hasn’t reached me yet; I
look forward keenly to seeing it, and specially, if not exclusively, to your
a
See also this volume, pp. 439-40, 449-50, 467
Letters- 1895 481
account of the Anabaptists; 562 in the earlier movements, too, there is still a
good deal to be elucidated. It is a great pity that you have not been able to
have recourse to Czech sources on the Taborites, 563 but that would have been
quite out of the question unless you had spent a long time in Bohemia and
been given special access to mss. No doubt you could find someone on the
spot, a young Czech, who would be able to help you.
What I have seen of Ede’sa work has pleased me very much, particularly
as regards the material and the perspectives it opens out. On the other hand, I
should say that he planned it in rather too much of a hurry, but that is
something one can only judge when one has the whole thing in front of one.
So far as you people are concerned, there would be considerable snags to a
history of the International. First of all, you would have to collect the
material from the individual countries. So far as Spain is concerned, Mora is
now bringing it out—very much by dribs and drabs—in the feuilleton of the
Socialista. I myself possess quite a lot on Italy up till the time of the Hague
Congress, 115 where, however, a great deal went on behind the scenes.
Frankel and Lafargue could probably lay hands on a fair amount of stuff on
France up till 1870 and, so far as Switzerland is concerned, you would have
the Tagwacht, the Vorbote, the Egalité and the Bulletin jurassien.b (Héritier’s
articles in the Berliner Volks- Tribüne should be treated with the greatest
circumspection; they are all written in unconscious extenuation of the
Bakuninists; 49 so unaware was the man of what he was doing that he didn’t
realise, until told by me, after the event, what a slap in the face they had been
to his spiritual foster-father, Beckerc). The other countries don’t really
matter.
For years past I have been intending to make use of the material in my
possession for a biography of Marx and, in fact, it is this, as it happens to be
quite the most important part, that I shall do first. A number of cir-
cumstances make this necessary. Firstly, I was personally involved during
the crucial period, 1870-72, and can fill out the material from my own
experience. Secondly, it is at one and the same time the most important
episode in Marx’s public life and that least amenable to accurate portrayal
from printed sources. Thirdly, the calumnies to be disposed of belong for the
most part to this period. Fourthly, I am seventy-four years old
a
Eduard Bernstein - b Bulletin de la Fédération jurassienne de l’Association internationale des
travailleurs. - c Johann Philipp Becker (See this volume, pp. 82, 85, 141)
482 Letters-1895
and shall have to make haste. And, fifthly, the other period during which
Marx was publicly active (1842-62) can perfectly well wait until later and
even, if necessary, be depicted by someone other than myself, since public
controversy up to the time of Herr Vogt throws light on most of it and Marx
had so emphatically lived down the calumnies of the then vulgar democrats
that these no longer call for individual refutation.
I shall apply myself to this task, to which I have long been looking for-
ward, as soon as I possibly can,—indeed I only have one or two small jobs to
do in the mean time, in effect merely the revision of the introduction to the
new edition of the Peasant War 235 (for which I need your book too). Then I
shall turn my back on all my correspondence (which is enormously time-
consuming) and on all incidental work (no doubt with the help of the
Subversion Bill 428 ?!), when I should be able to manage it all right.
Your news about the Arbeiter-Zeitung is indeed very gloomy; however, I
believe it will come through all right. Maybe the chaps planned things on
rather too lavish a scale at the start 377 and will now have to cut down a bit.
But its political success seems assured and, that being so, it would be very
strange if it didn’t eventually prove a financial success also. Electoral
reforms 270 that would enable us to get into parliament are, I consider, a
virtual certainty in Austria, unless a period of general reaction were suddenly
to set in. In Berlin they would seem to be making determined efforts in that
direction, but unfortunately no one there knows his own mind from one day
to the next. So they may find themselves in the same boat as the recruit from
Lancashire who, while training, was ordered by his N.C.O. to ‘slope arms—
order arms—slope arms—order—slope—order’. ‘I WINNOT,’ cried the
recruit. ‘YOU WON’T?’ ‘NO, I WINNOT’, ‘YOU REFUSE TO OBEY
YOUR SUPERIOR OFFICER?’ ‘I WINNOT!’ AND WHY NOT?’
‘BECAUSE YOU DUNNOT KNOW YOUR OWN MIND FOR TWO
MINUTES TOGETHER!’
Many regards from one household to the other.
Yours,
F. E.
Please keep to yourself what I have said above about my plans; there are
so many indiscreet men of letters in the party!
First published abridged Printed according to the original
in: Neue Zeit, Bd. II , Nr. 47,
Letters- 1895 483
1894-95 and in full in: Published in English for the first time
Aus der Frühzeit des Marxismus.
Engels Briefwechsel mit Kautsky,
Prag, 1935
284
AT LE PERREUX
My dear Löhr,
If you were in danger of being flooded, it was just the reverse with us—
four weeks without water, and at the end of the frost the canalisation blocked
up as the result. A fine mess it was. London was thrown back into barbarism
by this month of hard frost, and the Standard with truly British Conservatism
congratulated us on the fact that the non-supply of water was a proof of the
high civilisation attained here, while it pitied the uncivilised cities of the
Continent where the water-pipes had not frozen. Well, thank goodness, it’s
over.
You grumble at the mythical union and real squabbles of the French
Socialists—they are babies at that game, compared to the English. They are
especially interesting—the English Socialists I mean—since Social
Democratic Federation 44 and Independent Labour Party 114 fight each other
under the cloak of a pretended harmony. This harmony goes exactly as far as
their common hatred of John Burns, and allows the Social Democratic
Federation to invite Keir Hardie to speak at their Commune meeting; at
which meeting Keir Hardie (read his speech in the Labour Leadera) directs
hidden attacks against the Social Democratic Federation to which that body
replies in Justice.b The Social Democratic Federation says the Independent
Labour Party has no right to exist, the Social Democratic Federation being
the
a
No. 51, 23 March 1895 -b No. 584, 23 March 1895: Topical Tattle
484 Letters- 1895
only true orthodox church; and the Independent Labour Party says the Social
Democratic Federation ought to allow itself to be absorbed in the
Independent Labour Party. Their latest exploit was at the County Council
Election where both of these organisations put up candidates, and only
against ‘Progressives’; 526 the result was: 1,300 votes in all out of 486,000,
and the election of 4 Moderates (Conservatives) for seats held formerly by
Progressives, and the cry of triumph in both Justicea and Labour Leaderb that
they had beaten the Progressives. Imagine the Paris Socialists voting with
Clericals, Monarchists and Opportunists 87 against the parties claiming
municipal autonomy for Paris, and you have the exact counterpart of the
Socialist vote in London. But—to support the Progressives would have been
to acknowledge that John Burns had behaved well in the County Council, and
to endorse the policy of Sidney Webb and the Fabians 43 who, muffs though
they be as Socialists, are really doing very good work municipally, and
fighting energetically and cleverly for an autonomous London. And so the
‘Socialists’ prefer to support the party which refuses to allow London its self-
government and fights hard to keep the County Council powerless. Now the
County Council is the next and best and easiest-to-be-conquered piece of
governmental machinery—the working class could have it tomorrow if they
were united. And what would Parliament be with a Socialist autonomous
Council for London!
The Berlin people are republishing Mohr’s articles in the Revue der Neuen
Rheinischen Zeitung on France 1848-50 and I have written an introduction
which will probably first appear in the Neue Zeit. It has suffered somewhat
from the, as I think, exaggerated desires of our Berlin friends not to say
anything which might be used as a means to assist in the passing of the
Umsturzvorlage in the Reichstag. 428 Under the circumstances I had to give
way. 529 But this Umsturzvorlage and the absolutely uncertain state of things
in Germany—splendid though it be for the general progress of our party—
upsets a good deal of my calculations. I was, I believe you know, getting
ready the Lassalle correspondence; 284 for that I have to compare a lot of old
papers, letters, etc. But if the new bill passes, neither the letters nor my notes
and introduction will be printable in Germany. And a reprint of our old
articles of 1843-52 will be equally impossible. So I am compelled to neglect
all this until we can see somewhat clearer wie
a
Justice, No 582, 9 March 1895: ‘A Pill for Palmer’ and H. W. Lee, ‘A Much-Needed Lesson
for Progressives and Social-Democrats’ - b The Labour Leader, No. 49, 9 March 1895: ‘The
L.C.C. Elections’ and ‘The L.C.C. and the I.L.P.’
Letters- 1895 485
der Hase läuft.a In the meantime I am taking up Vol. IV of the Capital, 101
reading and correcting the parts already copied out by Karl Kautsky and shall
then arrange with Tussy about her continuing the work.
Things in Germany are decidedly becoming critical. The latest escapade of
young Williamb—his tiefste Entrüstung at the Reichstag’s anti-Bismarck
vote 564 is big with serious eventualities. First as a symptom; it shows that he
has now not only ‘a slate off but that the whole of his slate roof is getting out
of order. Then as a défi.d I have no doubt our party will reply to that in the
Reichstag, and although the thing may appear to be buried for the moment,
the conflict is there and will crop up again. There is no doubt, we are facing
in Germany a modern Charles I, a man possessed by Cäsarenwahnsinn.e
Then look at the confusion the fellow creates in the ranks of the bourgeois
parties. The Conservative Junker he in turns cajoles and repels; their clamour
for state-secured rents he cannot satisfy; the alliance between landed
aristocracy and large manufacturers, founded by Bismarck [in] 1878 by
means of his protective tariff, 565 has gone to pot over conflicting economic
interests; the Catholic party, 566 who hold the balance of power in the
Reichstag with their 100 members, was on the best way of being bribed into
voting for the Umsturzvorlage, when the Bismarck vote and the
Entrüstunskaiserf throw them at once back into opposition—and that means
furthering the splitting up of the Catholic Centre into an aristocratic-
bourgeois wing and a democratic, peasant and working men’s wing.
Everywhere confusion and disunion, pushing William to a coup d’ état to
assert his divine right to absolute power and to get rid of universal suffrage,
and on the other side the silent and resistless advance of our party
manifesting itself at every election for any post accessible to working men’s
votes. This does look critical—qui vivra verrag!
In a day or two I shall write to Paul about his half of his double-bedded
book.h He has got a strange bed-fellow! 567
Ever yours
F. Engels
First published, in the t. II I, Paris, 1959
language of the original
(English), in: F. Engels, P. et Reproduced from the original
L. Lafargue, Correspondance,
a
how the cat jumps - b William II - c profound indignation - d challenge - e Caesaristic mania - f
the indignation of the Kaiser - g time will show - h See this volume, pp. 487-90
486 Letters- 1895
285
IN STUTTGART
Dear Baron,
Postcard received. I was amazed to see today in the Vorwärts an excerpt
from my ‘Introduction’ that had been printed without my prior knowledge
and tricked out in such a way as to present me as a peace-loving proponent of
legality quand même.a 569 Which is all the more reason why I should like it to
appear in its entirety in the Neue Zeit in order that this disgraceful impression
may be erased. I shall leave Liebknecht in no doubt as to what I think about it
and the same applies to those who, irrespective of who they may be, gave
him this opportunity of perverting my views and, what’s more, without so
much as a word to me about it.
Platter received with thanks. 541 Of very minor importance, though the
man is coming increasingly into line. If things go on like this, we soon shan’t
be able to stir for all these professors. It is absolutely capital that J. Wolf
should also have replied. 570 I shall lay him alongside the others, together
with Stiebeling and Loria. Sic transit gloria mundi.b
Kindest regards from one household to the other.
Yours
F. E.
We get two copies of Deutsche Worte, one for Freyberger and one for
myself.
a
come what may - b Thus passes away the glory of the world (words from the ritual of the
Pope’s inauguration.)
Letters- 1895 487
286
IN LONDON
[Draft]
[London,] 2 April 1895
Dear Comrade,
I have been compelled to decline, at least for this year, all demands for
contributions to extra numbers of periodicals both for 18 March and 1st May,
and am therefore unable to make an exception in the shape of an
‘winterview’ for Justice. This, however, does not mean that I should not be
quite willing, if you should wish it, to discuss with you privately and in a
friendly way the progress and the present position of the movement, in
England and out of England.
If this should meet your views and you will be good enough to propose a
day and hour when you could call, I will try to arrange to be at home.
Yours faithfully
287
AT LE PERREUX
My dear Lafargue,
I had not yet finished reading your half-book 567 when I received Vol. I of
the History of Socialism by Kautsky, 561 various Italian reviews concern-
488 Letters- 1895
ing Loria (from Labriola) and a heap of Russian journals (from Nikolai
Danielson). I am overwhelmed with post. Well, I read yours to the end
nevertheless. It has a brilliant style, some very striking flashes of historical
insight, there is truth in it and originality and, what is more important, it is
not like the German professor’s book where what was true was not original
and what was original was not true. Its principal fault is that apparently you
were in too great a hurry to be done with it; the arrangement, in particular of
the sections on feudal and capitalist property, could have been more careful,
especially for a Paris public, accustomed to easy reading and, moreover,
adapted for lazy readers; the Parisian, too, asserts his right to be lazy. 573
Many very good passages may possibly lose some of their effect because they
are written as though in parentheses, or because you have left the trouble of
drawing conclusions and results too much to the reader.
As for the material itself, the main point of criticism is in the chapter on
tribal communism. 574 There you lay too much emphasis, I think, on the form
in which that phase has been maintained up to our own times, in France, and
on the form of its dissolution in that country. The form of coparcenary under
which the consanguineous community has gone on so long in France is
already in itself a subdivision of the large family community, continued to
our day in the zádruga of the Serbians and Bulgarians. This form, it appears
certain, preceded the peasant commune in Russia, in Germany, etc.; in
breaking up, the Slav zádruga, the German Hausgenossenschaft (genealogy
of lex Alamannorum 575 ) passed over to the commune of separate families
(or, quite often at first, and still today in Russia, to coparcenaries), with
separately cultivated fields though subject to periodic redistribution—that is
to say, what emerged from it was the Russian mira and the German
Markgenossenschaft. The more restricted community of several families
which was kept up in France was no more, as I see it, than an integral part of
the Markgenossenschaft, at any rate in the North (the Frankish region); in the
South (former Aquitaine) it may perhaps have formed a unity holding its land
under the superior ownership of the lord of the manor alone, without being
subject to the control of the village commune. It is only this special French
form which, on breaking up, could pass in one leap to the individual
ownership of the land.b
This is a point on which there are still many things to study. It is from
a
This Russian word meaning ‘peace’, ‘world’ and ‘community’ is written by Engels in Latin
letters. - b Cf. F. Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State, present
edition, Vol. 26, pp. 250-55
Letters-1895 489
you that I learn of this special character of tribal communism in France, and
since you are already in it heart and soul, you could not do better than to
pursue this study, which holds out great promise.*
Small errata:
p. 338, you make the water of the Peruvian aqueducts flow upwards; as
there is scarcely any natural water in Peru save in ‘the heart of the moun-
tains’, and as your aqueducts are expressly built to carry water to them, it
must, I suppose, be sea-water?
p. 354. Terra salica.a Guérard is making a huge mistake with his derivation
of Sala house.b So the Salian Franks were Franks living in houses? They
were called Salians, Salio, after the small region of Holland, Salland, where
the group which conquered Belgium and France between Ardennes and Loire
was formed for the conquest; the name still exists today. At the time when
the Salic Law was drafted (about 400), 576 the Sala was still, as you have
observed yourself, a personal estate among the Germans.
p. 386 ‘another likes to set the snares or prepare grass-hoppers [saute-
relles]. Did they eat grasshoppers in Berry in 1787? I look in my dictionary
and I find sauterolle, bird-trap.
p. 393. Black redistribution—in Russia tchornoi,c black, is used for dirty,
and in a secondary sense popular, common, vulgar. Tchornoi narod,c the
black people—the common people, the people as a whole. Tchornoi
perediel,c black redistribution, means rather therefore the general, universal
distribution, where everyone has his share, including the poorest. And in this
sense a Narodnik (friend of the peasants) journal in Switzerland was called
Tchornoi perediel,c which was meant to signify the distribution of
aristocratic estates amongst the peasants.
That is all that I have noted and you will have had enough. As for Yves
Guyot, I wash my hands of it.
Liebknecht has just played me a fine trick. 569 He has taken from my
introduction to Marx’s articles on France 1848-50 everything that could
serve his purpose in support of peaceful and anti-violent tactics at any
* You must note the tripartition of France: France proper, to the Loire, strong Germanic
influence; Burgundian area, to the East of Saône and Rhône, less Germanic; Aquitaine, between
sea, Loire and Rhône, minimal Germanic influence. (Note by F. Engels.) — a Salian land — b B.
E. Guérard, La terre salique. Bibliotèque de l’Ecole des chartes, November-December 1841. - c
These Russian words meaning black redistribution are written in Latin letters.
490 Letters-1895
price, which he has chosen to preach for some time now, particularly at this
juncture when coercive laws are being drawn up in Berlin. 428 But I preach
those-tactics only for the Germany of today and even then with many
reservations. For France, Belgium, Italy, Austria, such tactics could not be
followed as a whole and, for Germany, they could become inapplicable
tomorrow. So please wait for the complete article before judging it—it will
probably appear in Neue Zeit, and I expect copies of the pamphlet any day
now. It’s a pity that Liebknecht can see only black and white. Shades don’t
exist for him.
However, things are warming up in Germany, it promises a splendid end
to the century. Young William’sa ‘indignation’ 564 is highly amusing. You
may be sure our people will answer him in the Reichstag where there is no
lese-majesty.
I intended to say a lot of other things to you as well, but I cannot bring
them to mind at the moment when I need them. I am gradually aging. So, as I
must write a few lines still to Laura before the post goes, goodbye! Greetings
from the Freybergers (whose little girl gets on wonderfully well) and from
your
F. Engels
288
IN BERLIN
Dear Fischer,
You will have got my letter of the 3rd. 25 Your postcard arrived this
morning. So another snag has cropped up. 577 I would ask you to seek legal
a
William II
Letters- 1895 491
advice straight away as to the extent to which the copyright owned by Marx’s
heirs still applies to his articles in the ‘Rheinische Zeitung of 1842. The ar-
ticles appeared anonymously. As anonymous articles, however, they are of
no value to Mr Baake. So far as he is concerned they only acquire value
through Marx’s name. And if he publishes them under Marx’s name, is he
not thereby acknowledging that we have the copyright in so far as this might
perhaps have been compromised by the fact of their having first appeared
anonymously?
If there is no recourse to law—which would first have to be established so
that we can act accordingly—it would be best if you were to get copies made
of all the articles—three—in the library and send me duplicates, so that I
could look through them quickly and write an introduction. There are three
articles.
1. On the proceedings of the Rhine Province Assembly,
2. On thefts of wood,
3. On the condition of the wine growers on the Mosel. 578
You would then have to issue an announcement straight away to the effect
that they would be brought out by you and edited by me, along with an
introduction and notes (if any).
So far as the Russians are concerned, it is normal practice to encroach
upon an author’s rights without so much as your leave ‘in the interests of
propaganda’, not to speak of the interests, as is frequently the case, of their
own private printing-shop and publishing house, as opposed to those of
others. 579 Up till now, however, I have not been accustomed to that kind of
thing when dealing with Germans.
Had I only known what I had merely suspected, namely that the old
Rheinische Zeitung is in the Berlin Library, I should have gone there back in
1893 580 and looked it out, in which case we should have made a good deal
more progress in regard to other matters too.
Is Baake a brother of Kurt Baake’s?
Regards to everyone.
Yours,
F.E.
289
IN ZURICH
Dear Schmidt,
I am most indebted to you for your tenacity over the ‘fiction’.a (There is in
fact a difficulty here which I only mastered as a result of your insistence
upon the ‘fiction’. The solution may be found in II I, 1, pp. 154-157b though
it has not been elaborated or emphasised with sufficient exactitude, a cir-
cumstance that has persuaded me to enlarge briefly on the above point in the
Neue Zeit with reference to Sombart’sc and your objections. In any case there
is a further point regarding which I should like to make an addition to
Volume II I and bring it into line with the situation today by taking account
of certain changes in economic conditions since 1865. 534
But if I am to develop that point concerning the effectiveness and validity
of the law of value, it would make thing easier for me if you would permit
me to make mention, not only of the ‘hypothesis’ of your Centralblatt
article,d but also of the ‘fiction’ you discuss in your two letters and to quote
one or two passages from them for the purpose of defining more precisely
what you mean by the hypothesis of the article. So would you kindly reread
the passage alluded to above and then tell me whether I may say that the
aforesaid quotations were extracted from letters by Dr C. Schmidt to myself.
Should you be convinced by Marx’ passage that, where the production of
commodities is concerned, the law of value is, after all, rather more than a
necessary fiction, we should then see eye to eye, and in that case I should of
course be glad to dispense with this.
Mrs Freyberger, formerly Louise Kautsky I, along with her little girl,
sends you her best compliments in the same way as I would ask you to
remember me very kindly to your wife.
a
See this volume, pp. 462-66 - b See present edition, Vol. 37 — c Sombart, ‘Zur Kritik des
Ukonomischen Systems von Karl Marx’. In: Archiv für soziale Gesetzgebung und Statistik,
Bd.7, H. 4 - d C. Schmidt, ‘Der dritte Band des Kapital’. In: Sozialpolitisches Centralblatt, 25
Februar 1895
Letters-1895 493
Yours,
F. Engels
290
IN BRNO
Dear Sir,
May I say how very grateful I am to you for so kindly sending me the
facsimile of Quesnay’s Tableau as well as your monograph on ita which I am
just reading with much interest. You are right to stress the point that, after
Baudeau, no one understood this important piece of work on political
economy 582 until Marx who was, in fact, the first to raise the physiocrats
from the obscurity whither they had been consigned by the subsequent
successes of the English school. Should it be granted me to edit Book IV of
Capital as well, you will find there a further, more exhaustive tribute to the
services rendered by Quesnay and his pupils.b
I am, Sir,
Yours very truly,
F. Engels
First published in: Printed according to the original
Marx and Engels, Works, First
Russian Edition, Vol. XXIX,
1946
a
S. Bauer, ‘Zur Entstehung der Physiokratie. Auf Grund ungedruckter Schriften François
Quesnays’, In: Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik. 21 Bd., 1890, S. 113-158 - b See
present edition, Vol. 31, pp. 204-40 and Vol. 34, pp. 195-96, 289-90.
494 Letters- 1895
291
IN BARMEN
Dear Hermann,
I have heard nothing further about the sherry since it was despatched.a All
I know is that immediately after the hard weather the two Cologne steamers
Energie and Industrie were reported as having arrived here—departures are
difficult to keep track of in the newspapers and I don’t therefore know
whether both have sailed—and if so when. If the wine doesn’t turn up in the
course of next week, please send me a postcard and I shall then make
inquiries.
The news that the wedding had gone off so merrily and that the loving
coupleb had enjoyed their honeymoon pleased me enormously. It is all right
about the 80 marks. I hope that by now you have quite shaken off your
influenza. Luckily I have recovered from mine and am gradually beginning
to get out and about again.
Very many thanks for the information re the Schaaffhausens. I shall be
glad to take up the allotment of 1000 marks—à 120%. The initial payment of
700 marks will be amply covered by my balance as at 30.4.94, even after
deduction of the £40 (...)c per P.P. & Co., while accrued interest and the last
Schaaffhausen dividend ought to be just about enough for the remaining
payment of 500 marks. Should a few more marks be needed, you might be so
good as to advance them to me pending the next dividend—i.e. assuming
that I have not overlooked anything in the above calculation, in which case
kindly advise me.
The conversion into bonds à 1,000 marks would also be perfectly ac-
ceptable to me if it could be done without leaving a tiresome or unproductive
balance, something that can’t be managed just now when all bonds must be
in denominations of 1,000 or 450. So if the thing is impossible it
a
See this volume, pp. 416, 441, 478 - b Arthur Schuchard and Elsbeth Schuchard (née Engels) -c
Ms. damaged
Letters- 1895 495
would best be forgotten. But there might after all be some solution.
Well, you now have the prompt answer you wanted. For the past four days
we have been having wonderful spring weather; overnight everything began
sprouting and burgeoning and the warm sun in the day time is quite untypical
of a normal English April with its grey skies and biting north-easters.
For the first time in my life I paid a dentist 10/6d last Mondaya for pulling
out a couple of old stumps. Now I only have seventeen teeth left, all of them
in front and all of them so far complete, but nothing at the back, so I may
have to be fitted with a set of false teeth!
Love to you all.
Yours,
Friedrich
292
IN NANCY
Dear citizen,
I am answering at once your request to drop a line to the Bulgarian
comrades. Being overburdened with work, I answered in the negative the
requests directed to me by the comrades both on the occasion of 18 March
and on that of May Day. I also sent a negative reply last weekb to the British
Social-Democratic Federation. 44 You will see that if I were to comply with
your request, I should have to comply with the requests of roughly forty
groups from ten to twenty different countries, which is
more than I can do. Please be so kind as to give the Bulgarian comrades my
excuses and to tell them that I regret not being able to render them the
service they are asking for and that in a different situation I should have been
glad to write something specially for the Bulgarians as the youngest
followers of socialism. Sincerely yours,
F. Engels
293
139
IN BERLIN
Dear Fischer,
The 400 marks received with thanks. I shall change them tomorrow and
distribute them to the heirs. 583
So the position as regards the essays in the old Rheinische Zeitung is as I
feared.a The copyright has lapsed and only by acting swiftly can we restore
our title to it. It will therefore be perfectly in order if you at once announce
that the articles will be published by you and edited and annotated by me.
Possibly under the title:
Karl Marx’s Early Writings. Three Essays from the (First) ‘Rheinische
Zeitung’ of 1842. I. The Rhine Province Assembly on Freedom of the Press. II .
The Same on the Law relating to Thefts of Wood. II I. The Condition of the
Wine-Growers on the Mosel. Edited and with an Introduction by F. Engels. 578
a
See this volume, pp. 490-91
Letters- 1895 497
I am not quite happy about the title and should like you if possible to
refrain from giving it a definite title until we have found one that is more
suitable. As to the Mosel article, 584 I am sure of the facts in as much as Marx
always used to tell me that it was precisely his preoccupation with the law on
thefts of wood and the condition of the Mosel wine-growers that led him
from politics pure and simple to economic conditions and thus to socialism.
And during our conversations we always treated the Mosel article as having
emanated from him. I didn’t read it, as I was already in England at the time.
It is so long ago since we spoke of the matter that I cannot entirely rule out
the eventuality of a misunderstanding. Once I have the article in front of me,
I cannot possibly go wrong.
Now as to your great scheme, 585 I think you would do best to shelve it
until the fate of the Subversion Bill 428 has been decided. A library which re-
issues historical documents and writings from earlier periods cannot tolerate
any kind of censorship—quite literally or not at all. Still less could I consent
to Marx’s and my own early works being subjected to a process of
emasculation, however wild, in order to conform to the conditions
temporarily obtaining in the press. But in view of the fact that we used to
write in a very unrestrained way and were forever justifying things which, in
the territories of the German Empire, are regarded either as a crime or an
offence, a re-issue in Berlin after the passing of that exemplary Bill would be
quite impossible without numerous deletions.
Secondly, however, I have a scheme for again presenting Marx’s and my
lesser writings to the public in a complete edition—not, that is to say, by
instalments but all at one go, in whole volumes. I have already been in
correspondence with Augusta on the subject and we are still discussing it. So
you might have a word with him when he gets back. I am by no means
certain that an enterprise like this is really your cup of tea, nor do I know
whether you, i.e. the publishing side of the Vorwärts, are the best people for
the job—quite aside from the harassment of the press which has already
inclined me to believe that we may be forced to have recourse to a publisher
outside the German Empire.
Marx would never have consented to the issue of a work by instalments. In
the case of the 2nd Ed. of Capital I he once allowed Meissner to bring out
seven big instalments, each of some seven sheets, but that was as much as he
could stomach. 586 To chop up books such as The Holy Family, Herr
a
Bebel
498 Letters-1895
Vogt, etc., into instalments of two sheets or so would certainly not do. In
such cases people derive absolutely nothing from their reading and to read a
work in this way, piecemeal, is conducive only to incomprehension.
The Tribune articles exist only in English. 587
We survived the holiday without too many mishaps and the weather was
really beautiful. Otherwise no news. As soon as you have a copy of one of
the three articles from the Rheinische Zeitung, please send it to me straight
away so that I can set to work. By registered book post or, if not, in some
other manner with adequate regard for safety precautions.
Many regards to everyone.
Yours
F.E.
First published abridged in: Printed according to the original
Marx and Engels, Works, First
Russian Edition, Vol. I, Published in English in full for
Preface, 1928 and in full: ibid., the first time
Vol. XXIX, 1946
294
AT LE PERREUX
My dear Löhr,
Yesterday I sent you cheque for £6.9.9., your share of honorarium for the
Klassenkämpfe.b To-day I return registered, book post, your translation with
thanks and suggestions. 517 In one passage I had to make an alteration, you
yourself had marked it as unintelligible, which indeed it was owing to
omission of a word in the German text. The alteration is at the back of the
page and requires a little frenchifying at your hands. I hope all your trouble
will be rewarded by the French reading public!
a
See this volume, p. 491 - b See this volume, pp. n421, 517
Letters- 1895 499
a
Hans Baake - b authorised person - c See this volume, p. 497 - d wait and see - e in camera - f he
is so chauvinist - g news is not interesting enough, he invents it himself - h enlightenment of my
mind
500 Letters- 1895
295
IN HANOVER
Dear Kugelmann,
I apologise for having overlooked your request that I should at once write
to you about Livingston, though his letter as such hardly seemed to call for
any special reply. 559 I don’t imagine that Jacobi or M. Becker will have
anything useful. If Livingston writes to them, we shall find that out. We have
been regularly corresponding with Sorge for many many years.
Apart from that I am most grateful to you for your information. I, too, am
at a loss to know how to trace anything that may have appeared
anonymously in the Westphälisches Dampfboot. 558 It is possible that when I
get down to work one thing or another will refresh my memory. Besides,
should there be anything in it, it would be of little consequence and serve at
most as proof of our lack of agreement with the Bielefeld sentimental
socialism of the day. 590
Lastly, I shall doubtless have to do as you say. 591I, too, having long been
of the opinion that this was how we should proceed if the worst came to
Letters- 1895 501
the worst. Meanwhile one thing and another continues to turn up as, recently,
the old Rheinische Zeitung in the Berlin Library. What might badly upset our
calculations, however, is the Subversion Bill. 428 Until that has been decided
there can be no thought of devising a plan of action. Many regards from the
Freybergers and myself to you and yours.
Yours
F.E.
First published in: Marx and Engels, Printed according to the original
Works, First Russian Edition,
Vol. XXIX, 1946 Published in English for the first time
296
IN BERLIN
Dear Fischer,
One further matter: Would you please take another look at the old
Rheinische Zeitung with regard to the Mosel articles 584 to find out whether
some sort of polemic may not have arisen over the things and if so whether
there are also articles under Marx’s usual pseudonym and written in his own
style—short, antithetically expressed sentences—as well as any other shorter
articles under the same pseudonym and stylistically the same. If there are, let
me know.
I can no longer remember my own articles—the best of them fell foul of
the censor—or even my pseudonym; most of the longer ones, i.e. those that
are not merely day to day reports, are in the supplement or the feuilleton.
In addition to the articles in the Rheinische Zeitung, 578 I have discovered
502 Letters- 1895
another one by Marx dating from the same period and also dealing with the
machinations of the censor.a This can be printed with the remainder but no
one must get wind of it since it, too, appeared anonymously. It will run to
between 11/2 and 2 sheets. I may possibly discover some other shorter
pieces, in which case we shall have collected all the main items from Marx’s
pre-socialist period. Meanwhile see to it that a copy is sent off to me quickly
and we can then agree upon our next move.
Yours
F.E.
First published in: Marx and Engels, Printed according to the original
Works, First Russian Edition,
Vol. XXIX, 1946 Published in English for the first time
297
IN LONDON
My dear Mendelson,
If it is convenient, I will call to see you tomorrow, on Wednesday, between 3
and 4 in the afternoon—weather permitting. My best wishes to Mme M. and
yourself,
From yours
F. Engels
First published in: Marx and Printed according to the original
Engels, Works, Second
Russian Edition, Vol. 39, Translated from the French
Moscow, 1966
Published in English for the first time
a
K. Marx Comments on the Latest Prussian Censorship Instruction.
Letters- 1895 503
298
IN BERLIN
Dear Mr Mehring,
May I say how very grateful I am for your offer, which is gladly accepted,
to help me hunt out Marx’s early writings for republication. The first
difficulty to confront me was the Rheinische Zeitung of 1842, which I had
imagined to be in the Berlin Library. Despite numerous inquiries, I was
unable to ascertain whether it was actually there, but now that that point has
been cleared up, we can make a start.
Marx was in Bonn up till October 1842. When I passed through at the end
of September or the beginning of October on my return from Berlin, the
editorial board consisted, so far as I recall, only of M. Hess and Dr Rave, a
former editor of the Elberfelder Zeitung (which was, I believe, known by
another name at the time). Rutenberg had, I believe, already been expelled,
though I am not sure about that. When I dropped in again towards the end of
November on my way to England, I ran into Marx there and that was the
occasion of our first, distinctly chilly meeting. Marx had meanwhile taken a
stand against the Bauers, i.e. he had said he was opposed not only to the
Rheinische Zeitung becoming predominantly a vehicle for theological
propaganda, atheism, etc., rather than for political discussion and action, but
also to Edgar Bauer’s hot air brand of communism, which was based on a
sheer love of ‘going to extremes’ and was soon after replaced by Edgar with
other kinds of extremist hot air. Since I corresponded with the Bauers, I was
regarded as their ally, whereas they caused me to view Marx with suspicion.
To the best of my recollection Marx resigned—at any rate officially—
from the post of editor en chef on I January 1843. That, however, did not
prevent him from surreptitiously contributing to the paper up to and
including February. I think I am equally right in saying that the ukase
requiring the paper to close down on 31 March 1843 was served on it no later
than 31 December. Negotiations then began, the result of
504 Letters- 1895
which proved negative, hence the delay in publishing the ukase until 28
January and likewise in appointing the chief censor who had, in fact, already
been functioning for some time. At one period there were no less than three
censors: 1. the usual censor, 2. assessor von Saint-Paul who had been sent
from Berlin, 3. the District President. Saint-Paul was still there at the time of
the paper’s funeral feast. The vacillations between 12 and 18 February would
pretty well coincide with Marx’s departure from Cologne. 593
If, by comparing these data with the paper itself, you could discover more
details or rectify inaccuracies, it would be of great benefit both to your work
and to mine.
As regards the Mosel articles, 584 it will doubtless turn out to be as you
say. Marx was tied to Cologne at the time and could not possibly have
collected material of that kind in person.
The article I mentioned to Fischer 1 is in fact the one about the censorship
instruction which appeared in Ruge’s Anekdota.b
One of the best pieces in the Rheinische Zeitung, again in the feuilleton, is
a long critique of Leo’s History of the French Revolution. It is my Marx’s
friend C. F. Köppenc (who also wrote about old Fritzd and Norse
mythologye) and (for the first time in any language) gives a correct expla-
nation for the reign of terror.
Certain quotations and retrospective insights in your articles in the Neue
Zeit have already shown me that you have made a thorough study of the
period previous to 1848. 1 am glad that it has fallen to you to deal with this,
as well as with the later period in respect of Germany.
There might possibly be one or two more things of Marx’s in the sup-
plement for the period prior to October 1842; it would hardly be worth your
while to search out smaller items from Bonn in the main part of the paper.
My heartfelt condolences on the destruction of the Freie Volksbühne.
594
Subversion from above could not possibly have passed that institution by.
Once again my best thanks.
Yours faithfully
F. Engels
a
See this volume, p. 502 - b K. Marx, Comments on the Latest Prussian Censorship Instruction.
- c C. F. Köppen, Leo’s Geschichte der Revolution. In: Rheinische Zeitung, 1921, 22 May 1842 -
d
Frederick II — e C. F. Köppen, Friedrich der Grosse und seine Widersacher and Literarische
Einleitung in die Nordische Mythologie.
Letters- 1895 505
First published in: Marx and Engels, Printed according to the original
Works, First Russian Edition,
Vol. XXIX, 1946 Published in English for the first time
299
IN BERLIN
Dear Mr Mehring,
Very many thanks for your long and informative letter plus enclosures,
which I shall reply to at length as soon as my cranium permits. Unfortunately
for the past week a rheumatic condition of the scalp has been encircling and
compressing it as though with a band of iron. I hope to have got over it by
next week along with the attendant insomnia. Meanwhile I agree to your
proposal that the only articles from the Rheinische Zeitung that should be
published in their entirety are the two long ones and those on Communisma
(as also the article from the Anekdotab). It would only be necessary to copy
from the remainder such passages as you might be so good as to indicate as
being the most pregnant (along with particulars of the context). As regards
the Mosel articles, 584 it would be desirable if my introduction included a
brief outline both of the course of the debate and of the contents.
Would you be kind enough to acquaint Fischer with the foregoing? Once again my
best thanks and until my next, which has to do with one minor detail,
I remain
Yours sincerely
F. Engels
a
K. Marx, Proceedings of the Sixth Rhine Province Assembly. First Article. Debates on
Freedom of the Press and Publication of the Proceedings of the Assembly of the Estates;
Proceedings of the Sixth Rhine Province Assembly. Third Article. Debates on the Law on Thefts
of Wood and Communismus and the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung’. — b K. Marx, Comments on
the Latest Prussian Censorship Instruction.
506 Letters- 1895
First published in: Marx and Engels, Printed according to the original
Works, First Russian Edition,
Vol. XXIX, 1946 Published in English for the first time
300
IN BERLIN
Dear Fischer,
At the moment I feel so run down as a result of rheumatic pains in the
scalp and the insomnia associated therewith that I am incapable of any kind
of work. I hope to be all right again by next week. In the meantime, however,
seeing that you and Mehring can both take a look at the copy of the
Rheinische Zeitung, I think it would be best if you yourselves were to arrange
what should be done with the shorter and Mosel 584 articles and to provide me
with a copy just of the most important bits. I am also sending Mehring a line
or two about it.a
Ms. just arrived. 595
Yours,
F. E.
a
See previous letter
Letters-1895 507
301
IN LE PERREUX
My dear Löhr
I was extremely glad, and indeed so were Louise and Ludwig to learn that
both you and Paul were ready and willing to come over here for a bit, and I
should have written at once in reply, had it not been for those confounded
pains which for a week nearly drove me mad and even now have not left me,
anything but painless, but extremely stupid and unfit for anything. The fact is
this. Some time ago I got a swelling on the right side of the neck, which after
some time resolved itself into a bunch of deep-seated glands infiltrated by
some cause or other. The pains arose from direct pressure of that lump on the
nerve and will of course only give way when that pressure disappears. At
present a process of resorption is going on very satisfactorily, but a couple of
these glands are suppurating and will have to be cut; and as they are so deep-
seated and slow in coming to the surface, and we old people being such slow
coaches, the time for the operation cannot be exactly fixed, but it is hoped
will come off this week. That once performed I am ordered to the sea-side;
but the uncertainty is still about the time.
Now as things are situated, would it not be the best thing for you to come
over say in the course of next week, and then as soon as possible you and I
could bundle off to Eastbourne 596 and settle down in comfortable quarters
and prepare for visitors from London. I say you and I, because I intend to
keep you here a good bit longer than very likely Paul would care to separate
himself from his studies and your animals and the garden work; so he
perhaps would prefer to do as you say and come tumbling after.
When I shall have cleared out from here, Louise intends giving my two
rooms a good cleaning down and after that she might come and join us with
her baby for a week or so; after that Tussy and Edward might come, and then
Paul who by that time is sure to be tired of his solitude, and then
508 Letters- 1895
302
IN VIENNA
Esteemed Comrade, many thanks for kindly sending the two copies of
Námezdni Prace a Kapital,a a one of which I have given to Mrs Eleanor
Marx Aveling. If she does not learn Czech now, I am not to blame. Please
give my thanks to the translatorb with the assurance that my progress in
Czech, though slow, is, I hope, none the less steady for it.
Yours,
F. Engels
a
K. Marx, Wage Labour and Capital- b J. K. Náchodsky
Letters-1895 509
303
IN COLOGNE
Dear (...)a
You have set us a difficult task. We are to seek out ‘the journalist Tollittb
England’ as also those ‘English papers’ containing the relevant details about
Brauweiler. 598 In the first place, the English daily press does not even
mention the name Braunweiler in its accounts of the case. The report of a
Parliamentary Committee is not, however, published until its work has been
completed. So the item must doubtless have emanated from some obscure
trade paper and will therefore be impossible to trace in this country. In the
second place, no one here knows the journalist Tollitt, who according to
some is called Pollitt. Dr Freyberger tried in vain to track him down at the
NATIONAL LIBERAL CLUB which has a vast number of journalists
amongst its members. We have now taken further steps in order to discover
the man if possible—it seems quite clear that he does not live in London or
work for the political press; more likely he is in some trade branch—though
that will take time. But it is very naive of you to expect that he would appear
over there as witness on your behalf. After all, he himself says that he got
into the prisons by stealth, and consequently be would at once be thrown into
jug in Cologne for bribery of officials or something of the kind, and put on
trial. Hofrichter’s
a
Ms. damaged — b reference is to James Pollitt
510 Letters- 1895
First published in: Marx and Engels, Printed according to the original
Works, First Russian Edition,
Vol. XXIX, 1946 Published in English for the first time
304
IN STUTTGART
Dear Baron,
I should have replied at once to your letter of the 6th had not a nasty
inflammation of the glands in my neck, accompanied by much pain and
inevitable loss of sleep, rendered me almost wholly incapable of work during
the past two weeks. But now you are to be kept waiting no longer.
At the time in question you took it upon yourselves to produce a
a
See this volume, p. 514
Letters- 1895 511
History of Socialism. 561 Of all the people then living there was only one, I
think I may say, whose collaboration was absolutely necessary, and that
person was myself. I might even say that, without my help, a work of this
nature cannot today be anything but incomplete and inadequate. And this you
knew as well as I did. But of all those who might have been of use to you, I
and I alone was the only one who was not invited to collaborate. So you must
have had very pertinent reasons for choosing to exclude me. I am not
complaining—far from it. You had a perfect right to act as you did. I merely
remark on the fact.
What did pique me, however, if only for a moment, was the strange se-
cretiveness with which you withheld from me a matter about which all the
rest of the world was talking. It was only from third persons that I learned of
the whole enterprise, and it was only from the printed prospectus that I
learned of the general outline of the scheme, Not a word either from you or
from Ede; it was as though you had a guilty conscience. At the same time all
manner of people kept surreptitiously inquiring what connection I had with
the thing, whether I had refused to collaborate, etc. And then at length, when
silence could no longer be maintained, the good Ede got round to mentioning
the subject with a sheepishness and embarrassment that would have been
worthy of a worse cause—though nothing wrong had been done save for this
absurd play-acting which, in the meantime, as Louise can testify, has
enlivened many a dull hour for me.
Well and good. You have presented me with a fait accompli; a History of
Socialism on which I have not collaborated. I have accepted the fact without
complaint from the very start. But that fact is of your own making, nor can
you do away with or ignore it, should this ever happen to suit your purpose.
And neither can I do away with it. If, on mature reflection, you chose to slam
the front door in my face at a time when my advice and help might have been
of material use to you, please do not expect of me that I should now slink in
through some little back door in order to help you out of a quandary. I must
admit that, had the roles been reversed, I should have reflected for a very,
very long time before coming to you with a request such as this one. 600 Is it
really so terribly difficult to see that everyone must bear the consequences of
his own actions? As YOU MADE YOUR BED so YOU MUST LIE IN IT. If there is
no room for me here, it is only because you wanted it so.
Well, that settles that. And now you would oblige me by considering this
reply as irrevocable. Let us both regard the whole incident as finished
512 Letters- 1895
and done with. 601 Nor shall I mention it to Ede again unless he is the first to
broach it.
Meanwhile I am engaged in producing another piece for the Neue Zeit
which should gladden your heart—Ergänzungen und Nachtäge zum
‘Kapital’, Buch II I, No. 1: Law of Value and Rate of Profit. Reply to the
Objections of Sombart and C. Schmidt. No. 2—the role of the Stock
Exchange which has changed very considerably since Marx wrote about it in
1865—will follow later. 534 A sequel will follow if required and should time
permit. The first article would have been finished had I had nothing else on
my mind.
Of your book,a I can say that it improves the further into it one gets. To
judge by the original plan, your treatment of Plato and early Christianity still
leaves something to be desired. You do very much better on the medieval
sects, after which you go from strength to strength; and are at your beat on
the Taborites, 563 Münzer and then the Anabaptists. 562 Alongside a great
many more important economic analyses of political events there are also
some commonplaces which would seem to indicate a gap in your studies. I
have learnt a great deal from your book which is indispensible preliminary
reading for my new edition of The Peasant War. 235 It would seem to me to
have two main faults—1. Very inadequate research into the development and
role of the déclassé, almost pariah-like elements who had no place whatever
in the feudal system and who were the inevitable outcome of urban
development,, It is they who in all cases formed the lowest stratum of urban
population in the Middle Ages—devoid of rights and set apart from village
communities, craft guilds and feudal dependence. Though difficult, this
should serve as your main basis, for by degrees, with the dissolution of the
feudal bonds, these elements became the pre-proletariat which, in 1789, was
responsible for the revolution in the faubourgs’ 3 of Paris and absorbed all the
outcasts of feudal and guild society. You talk of proletarians—a term which
is inapt—amongst whom you comprise weavers whose importance you quite
rightly stress—but you can count them among your ‘proletariat’ only after,
and in so far as, déclassé journeymen weavers came into existence outside of
the guilds. There is still much room for improvement here.
2. You have not fully grasped the position of Germany—her international
economic position in so far as it is possible to speak of any such
a
Kautsky, Von Plato bis zu den Wiedertäufern —b suburbs
Letters- 1895 513
thing—in the world market at the end of the fifteenth century. That position
alone explains why the bourgeois-plebeian movement, disguised as religion,
which failed in England, the Netherlands and Bohemia should, in sixteenth
century Germany, have enjoyed a certain success—the success of its
religious trappings—whereas the success of its bourgeois substance was
reserved for the next century and for the countries, Holland and England,
which had meanwhile evinced a new tendency in international trade. It is a
lengthy subject which I hope to deal with in extenso in The Peasant War—
would I had got to that stage!
In an attempt to remain popular your style is now that of the leader writer,
now that of the dominie. This you should be able to avoid. Again, is it for
Janssen’s sake that you still refuse to see the pun in which Ulrich von Hütten
is indulging with his obscuri viri? The joke lies in the fact of its meaning
both—obscure or obscurantist—and that is what Hutten was trying to say. 602
But that is all by the way. You and Ede have both been working on a
completely new subject, and you cannot expect to attain perfection straight
away. You should be glad to have produced a book that is presentable, even
at this stages when it is, as it were, in its initial draft form. Now, however,
you are both honour-bound not to allow the ground you have broken to lie
fallow but to continue with your researches so that, in a few years’ time, you
will be able to bring out a new edition capable of meeting every requirement.
Someone in St Petersburg has sent me a Russian translation of your old
piece on marriage and the familya (Kosmos) .b I don’t know who did it. I
shall send it to you.
Many regards from one household to the other,
Yours,
F. Engels
One more thing. I have suggested to Sorge that, when he has finished his
articles on the American movement, these should be published as an off-
print. 603 He is agreeable but says there will have to be a great deal of revision
and many corrections and additions, for which he is unlikely
a
K. Kautsky, Die Entstehung der Ehe und der Familie. In Kosmos, 6. Jg. 12 Bd. - b [Kautsky—
title of work in Russan]
514 Letters- 1895
to have time until his summer holidays. He accepted my proposal that the
thing be suggested to Dietz. Perhaps you would be so good as to ask Dietz if
he would care to take it on and, if so, on what terms. The articles are the
best, and the only authentic, stuff we have got on the American movement,
and I think it most desirable that they should be preserved for readers as a
consecutive whole in an off-print.
305
IN COLOGNE
Dear Editors,
The man has been found, is called James Pollitt, and is ready to do any-
thing within reason. Has already supplied us with all the material to be had.
The articles are in The Hardwareman, 11 and 18 May—stenographic reports
of the sessions of the BOARD OF TRADE COMMITTEE on convict labour
abroad, at which his statements were made. These are being sent to you in
the original with translations of the passages relating to Braunweiler. He will
further supply us with samples of the commodities produced in Braunweiler
and sold over here, and also an affidavit as to the accuracy both of his
statements before the Committee and of the excerpts quoted by you.
But since the material is very ample and would not lend itself to being
paraphrased in a letter in such a way as to put you in a position to make full
use of it in court, a personal discussion is urgently called for. This morning I
therefore telegraphed Hirsch, 37 Hämergasse, Cologne: ‘Most important that
Hirsch, Hofrichter or lawyer come over here forthwith Engels’. 133
Letters- 1895 515
It is to be hoped that someone has set off at once and will, on arrival,
present himself at
41 Regent’s Park Road, where he will find accommodation and thus be able
to get down to work forthwith. The whole thing should be settled in twelve
hours, after which he could, if necessary, leave for home.
I enclose a note of the expenses that have arisen so far and shall later let
you have a full account of them.
The man who gets his London agent, S. A. Rothschild, to sell the
Braunweiler products for him in this country is called Christian Abner and
lives in Cologne. He would be your most important witness. He would have
to be asked to declare on oath what commodities he obtains from
Braunweiler and exports to England. Pollitt followed the fully laden waggons
from the institution in Braunweiler to his place of business in Cologne.
Abner has, in fact, had statements printed in English to the effect that he does
not sell the products of convict labour, for he maintains that Braunweiler is
not a prison but merely a house of correction. But such distinctions cut no ice
over here.
More tomorrow, if no one has turned up by then.
Kindest regards from
Yours,
F. Engels
306
IN BERLIN
Dear Fischer,
Thanks for the package. Am not yet in a fit state to deal with it. In the
meantime I would ask you to send me in addition a copy of all the articles on
the Mosel wine-growers. 584 For Hofrichter of Cologne has been here
516 Letters- 1895
and would like to have them so as to make use of them at home. 605 He and I
have therefore agreed that I should send for them and that, if unable to use
all or any of them, I should let him have them, in which case he will repay
you, at the Rheinische Zeitung, the cost of having them copied. So you are
covered either way. Kindest regards.
Yours,
F.E.
First published in: Marx and Engels, Printed according to the original
Works, First Russian Edition,
Vol. XXIX, 1946 Published in English for the first time
307
IN ST. PETERSBURG
My dear Sir,
I am rather unwell at present (though not seriously) and must confine
myself to what is absolutely necessary.
I have sent to Mr. Konow the additions and alterations 606 forwarded by
you and requested him to correspond direct with you, giving him your
address. His address is
Andrej Konow
Augsburgerstr. 37
Berlin
Yours faithfully
L. K.a
a
Engels’ pen-name made up of Louise Kautsky’s initials
Letters- 1895 517
308
IN LONDON
Dear Ede,
Thank you for your letter—there is some improvement but, in accordance
with the principles of dialectics, the positive and the negative aspects are
both showing a cumulative tendency. I am stronger, eat more and with a
better appetite and look very well, or so I am told; thus my general condition
has improved. On the other hand, the disease as such has also shown a
cumulative tendency—more tumours and hence more pain and greater
difficulty in getting to sleep, etc. The thing is taking a course that is normal,
if more critical and not quite so sluggish as in London. Consequently my
duly acquired pathological stupidity has tended to grow worse, as has my
inability to work. Today I have had another particularly bad day but now, at
5 p.m., my mind is just beginning to grow a little more lucid.
Louise, Ludwig and their little girl came down on Saturday.a Ludwig has
to be back on duty at his London hospital on Sunday but will probably return
here on the Friday or Saturday.
The Avelings are coming down on Saturday or Sunday and, perhaps, Sam
Moore also. Unfortunately they will have to provide their own entertainment
since, subjectively and objectively, I am a bore.
Love to Gine and the children.b My visitors have all gone out and I have
been trying to get a little sleep.
Yours,
F.E.
a
15 June - b Bernstein’s wife and her children
518 Letters- 1895
309
IN LONDON
Dear Comrade,
In reply to your inquiry of the 25th of this month, which has been for-
warded to me here, I beg to inform you that I should have no objection at all
to your translating my article in the Commonwealth and publishing it in the
way you suggest. 607
Yours faithfully,
F. Engels B. A. Jedrzejowski, Editor, Przedswit
310
IN MILAN 608
[Draft]
Eastbourne, 28 June 1895
4 Royal Parade
Dear citizen Turati,
To write a summary of the three volumes of Capital is one of the most
Letters-1895 519
difficult tasks a writer could set himself. 609 In the whole of Europe there are,
in my opinion, no more than half a dozen men capable of undertaking it.
Among other prerequisites one must have a profound knowledge of
bourgeois political economy, and also complete mastery of the German
language. Now you say that your Labriolinoa is not very strong in the second,
while his articles in Critica Socialeb prove to me that he would do better to
begin by understanding the 1st volume before wishing to produce his own
work on all three volumes. I do not have the legal right to prevent him from
doing this, but I must wash my hands of the affair completely.
As for the other Labriola,c the malicious tongue which you attribute to him
may have a certain justification in a country such as Italy, where the socialist
party, 340 like all the other parties, has been invaded, like a plague of locusts,
by that ‘declassed bourgeois youth’, of which Bakunin was so proud.
Result: rampant literary dilettantism which only too often lapses into
sensationalism and is inevitably followed by a spirit of camaraderie domi-
nating the press. It is not our fault that this is the state of affairs, but you are
subjected to this environment, as is everyone else. I would speak at greater
length about Labriola but when I find that bits and pieces from my private
letters have been reproduced in the Critica Sociale without my knowledge,
610
you must agree that it is better if I remain silent. For the rest, after all the
quarrels and controversies, the party would seem to have behaved in general
at the last elections as the situation required: independent confirmation at the
1st round when that did not help the Crispinis, support for the radicals and
republicans at elections where our candidates had no chance of winning. 611
Warmest greetings from Dr and Mme Aveling, who are here with me, and
also from myself, to you and citizen Anna Kulishov.
Yours,
F.
a
Arturo Labriola - b Arturo Labriola, La teoria marxista del valore e il saggio medio del profitto
and La conclusioni postume di Marx sulla teoria del valore, in: Critica Sociale, Nos. 3 and 5,
February I and March 1, 1895 - c Antonio Labriola
520 Letters- 1895
311
AT LE PERREUX
F. Engels
Tussy
Edward
Laura
First published in: Marx
and Engels, Works, Second Printed according to the original
Russian Edition, Vol. 39,
Moscow, 1966 Translated from the French
Published in English for the first time
Letters- 1895 521
312
IN BERLIN
Dear Fischer,
The Mosel articles 584 have arrived safely in London.a Thank you.
Unfortunately I can say nothing definite about completing the ms. or about
the introduction which can only be done in London, since I am in no
condition to do any work, nor do I know how long I shall continue to be held
up by these processes which, while they may be normal at my age, are
hideously slow.
The weather has been finer here than the farmers would like; at this place, in
particular, there’s a positive drought. Regards to your wife and children.
Yours,
F. E.
313
IN LONDON
Dear Louise,
Will you also please bring me a small bottleful of the carbolic acid
solution in my bedroom? My nose is again suffering from hallucinations.
a
See this volume, p. 515
522 Letters- 1895
You would also be well-advised to rig yourself and the baby out for rather
chilly weather. Yesterday it was certainly not above 12 or 13 degrees
Centigrade here.
With regard to E. Aveling’s article 614 on the Independet Labour Party, 114
which I left in your keeping on my departure, would you please forward it to
him at Green Street, Green NEAR Chislehurst, Kent. Edward and Tussy left
this morning. Laura, too, intends to take the day boat from Newhaven on
Wednesday morning so as to be home that same evening. So you won’t be
seeing her again. She sends her love. This morning it was fine, then wet, and
now it’s sunny again. I slept very well last night, but on Saturday evening the
powders didn’t have much effect, whereas yesterday they acted all the more
effectively—in consequence am somewhat muzzy today, Regards to Ludwig.
Love and a kiss to the little one and to yourself from
Yours
F.E.
314
IN LONDON
Dear Ede,
Letter received. Thanks. So far the same as always, i.e. my mood changes
constantly, according to my physical condition. No question of being able to
work or even deal with the most urgent correspondence. Laura left yesterday
and Louise is back. Like me, she sends her love to you, the children and
Gine.a
a
Bernstein’s wife and her children
Letters- 1895 523
Yours,
F.E.
315
IN LONDON
My dear Tussy,
The Glasgow affair 617 might be a trap—maybe something else, as the
people hardly will be in a position to follow the offerings seriously.
As for your translation, 618 there indeed I do pity you. Where is the poor
girl to have picked up the necessary knowledge for such work!
Here everything ‘as you were’, as the military command says. Louise and
baby and nurse came yesterday. I am much as usual, that is to say subject to
all sorts of variations of temper and spirits. That will last for some time yet to
come. Either Louise or myself will keep you informed of how I go on. Love
to you both.
F. E.
316
IN MILAN
Letter received.
All the best.
Goodbye.
F. Engels
317
IN ROME
It’s all of it very good, just a few small factual errors and, at the begin-
ning, a somewhat too erudite style. I look forward keenly to seeing the rest
of it. 620
318
IN LONDON
My dear Tussy,
Thanks for Johnnie’sa letter returned herewith. Of course the boy is right
in sticking to the house. Edgarb seems a downright Normand, looking after
momentary advantage. More’s the pity.
Edward’s reply to Glasgow is all right. 617 The solution is to be found
Labor Leader, 6 July page 2, Keir Hardie against Edward Aveling in the
Jeunesse Socialiste. 614 Now the noble nature of Keir Hardie shines out bril-
liant. While E. Aveling attacks him, Keir Hardie generously finds him a
candidature, which if E. Aveling accepted, Keir Hardie could on general
grounds get cancelled by the Executive Council.
I was pretty fairly going on till Sunday night, since then had two bad
nights and days, maybe partly from the acceleration, by the sea air, of the
processus of elimination going on in my neck, but chiefly from the
decreasing effects of the anaesthetics which I now have been using daily and
in increasing quantities for about eight weeks. On the other hand I have
found out several weak sides of my capricious appetite and take lait de poulec
with brandy, custards with stewed fruits, oysters up to nine a day etc.
Love to you both F.E.
a
Jean Longuet - b Longuet - c milk egg-flip
526 Letters-1895
319
AT LE PERREUX
My dear Löhr,
To-morrow we return to London. There seems to be at last a crisis ap-
proaching in my potato field on my neck, so that the swellings may be
opened and relief secured. At last! so there is hope of this long lane coming
to a turning. And high time it is for with my deficient appetite, etc. I have
been pulled down considerably.
The elections here have come off as I said: a large Tory majority, the
Liberals hopelessly beaten and I hope in full dissolution. 345 The brag of
Independent Labour Party 114 and Social Democratic Federation 44 face to
face with a reality of some 82,000 votes for Labour Candidates up to now
(hardly any yet to come) and the loss of K. Hardie’s seat. Still that was more
than they had a right to expect.
Victor Adler is here. Have you or Paul any questions to ask him about
Paul’s arrangement with the Arbeiter-Zeitung or can I be of any use in any
way to you with him?
I am not in strength to write long letters, so good bye. Here’s your good
health in a bumper of lait de pouleb fortified by a dose of cognac vieux.c
Amitiés à Pauld
Ever yours
F. Engels
a
See this volume, pp. 419 - b milk egg-flip -c old brandy - d Regards to Paul
SUPPLEMENT
LETTERS
Supplementary Letters
IN DRESDEN
Dear Sir,
When, during your stay in Berlin, I had the honour of making your
personal acquaintance at the Wallmüller Inn, I believe to have mentioned, in
the course of our conversation about Schelling, a pamphlet on him written by
me,a which was then being printed. I am taking leave to enclose a copy of this
little work, just off the press, with the request of kindly contributing to its
circulation by mentioning it in the Jahrbücher 622 When an occasion offers
itself. I need hardly say that it is calculated for a public with roughly the
educational level of a student.
Perhaps I will take the liberty of soon sending you an article for the
Jahrbücher which, without reference to any particular recently published
work, deals with the Christian poetry of the Middle Ages, notably with its
central figure, Dante. This is done in the context of the perspectives opened
up by Feuerbach. 623 Meanwhile I am sending you my regards and best
wishes for the success of the Jahrbücher.
Yours faithfully,
F. Oswaldb
a
F. Engels, Schelling and Revelation -b Engels’ pen-name
530 Supplementary Letters
IN COLOGNE
Your Honour,
I am sending you this pamphlet 624 with the request to grant permission for
its publication as a supplement to our newspaper.a
Yours faithfully,
Dr. Marx
IN PARIS 626
My dear Kapp,
I have exhausted all means of making the wretched dispatch office pay up.
Now I would advise you to draw, in common with Dronke, and perhaps in
his name, a bill for 35 thaler on the dispatch office of the Neue Rheinische
Zeitung here. It will be forced to pay then. I would have sent you money long
ago had I not been bled white by the shareholders lately—they knew I would
pay, up to the last penny, under the present circumstances. You have no idea
of the meanness of these bourgeois. Tell Dronke I appeared at the editorial
office for the first time, and only for a
a
Rheinische Zeitung für Politik, Handel und Gewerbe
Supplementary Letters 531
few minutes, in three or four days today, for a serious indisposition had kept
me at home. But for this, I would already have written to him. Give him and
Rosanis my warm regards.
Yours,
K. Marx
IN LONDON
Dear Sir,
I am sorry you did not find me at home. I would have sought you out one
of these days, had my brother-in-law from the Cape of Good Hope not been
visiting with me.a
You will oblige me greatly by coming to have lunch with us the day after
tomorrow (Sunday, 6 March) at 1 p. m. This will give us the best opportunity
to talk without disturbance.
With friendly greetings,
Karl Marx
a
Johann Carl Juta
532 Supplementary Letters
IN LONDON
Dear Sir,
Hail to eighteen
ninety three!
Hope and joy dawn
with it newly.
Bright and happy
may it be To the
end, prays
yours most truly
F.E.
First published in: Reproduced from the original
Marx and Engels, Works,
Second Russian Edition,
Vol. 38, Moscow, 1965
IN BERLIN
a
Wilhelm Liebknecht
534 Supplement
IN CHICAGO
[Draft]
Eastbourne, 2 July 1895
Mr. I. A. Hourwich. Chicago
Sir,
In reply to your letter dated May 18, 634 addressed to Mr. Frederick
Engels, I beg to inform you that Mr. Engels has been out of health and is still
at the present moment abstaining from literary work.
I am commissioned by Frederick Engels to say that he does not consider
himself authorised to hand over for publication to third partner any MSS. or
fragments of MSS. left by my father, Karl Marx. I am, Sir,
Yours truly
Laura Lafargue
a
Julius Motteler
Supplement 535
IN LONDON
My dear Tussy,
I felt very anxious to know how the General was getting on, so went down
to Victoria to meet the 7:15 p.m. from Eastbourne this evening by what train
Dr. Freyberger generally returns.
I met him and I am sorry to say that his report is anything but cheering; he
says that the disease has attained such a hold that, considering the General’s
age, his state is precarious. Apart from the diseased glands of the neck there
is danger either from weakness of the heart or from pneumonia—and in
either of these two cases the end would be sudden. He may go on for some
weeks if pneumonia does not intervene, but if it does then it will be a
question of a few hours. In spite of all, however, the General is quite hopeful
and is certain that he will recover—he intends, and has arranged with the 2
doctors, to return to London on Wednesday eveningb so that if you want to
see him you had better go to 41 R.P.R. on Thursday.
This is sad news and I trust the doctors may be mistaken. There is so much
work to be done which the General alone is capable of doing, that his loss
will be irreparable from a public point of view—to his friends it will be a
calamity.
I have just time to write this in haste.
Yours very sincerely
S. Moore
First published in: Marx
and Engels, Works, Second Reproduced from the original Published in English for the first time
Russian Edition, Vol. 39,
Moscow, 1966
a
the original erroneously has: ‘1891’ -b 24 July
536 Supplement
IN SALE (CHESHIRE)
[Draft]
[London, 28 July 1895]
To L. Siebold, Esq.,
Sale, Cheshire
Dear Sir,
At the request of Mr F. Engels who is at present prevented by illness from
writing in person, I am returning the enclosed letter to you. 636
These fragments will certainly not pass muster as a History of Chemistry,
312
according to Mr Engels. But were you to entitle them Researches in
Magnetism (or Contributions to the History of Early Chemistry, Fragments by
the late C. Schorlemmer, or something of that kind) you would not have to
get anyone to edit or finish off the work. If the worst comes to the worst, you
will have to have recourse to a journal which specialises in the history of
chemistry.
In sending you these views of Mr Engels at the latter’s behest, I remain,
etc.
ENGELS’ WILL
29 JULY 1893
I Frederick Engels of 122 Regent’s Park Road, London, hereby revoke all
former Wills 629 made by me and declare this to be my last Will. I appoint my
friends Samuel Moore of Lincolns Inn, 630 Barrister at Law, Edward
Bernstein of 50 Highgate Road, London, journalist, and Louise Kautsky who
now resides with me at 122 Regent’s Park Road Executors of this my Will
and I bequeath to each of them the sum of £250=(two hundred and fifty
pounds) for his or her trouble. I bequeath to my brother Hermann the oil
portrait of my Fathera now in my possession and in case my said brother
should predecease me I bequeath the same to his son Hermann. I bequeath all
the furniture and other effects in or about or appropriated for my dwelling-
house at the time of my death other than money or securities for money and
except what I otherwise dispose of by this my Will or by any Codicil thereto
to the said Louise Kautsky. I bequeath to August Bebel of Berlin in the
German Empire, Member of the German Reichstag, and Paul Singer of
Berlin, aforesaid Member of the German Reichstag, jointly the sum of £1000
upon trust to be applied by them and the survivor of them in furthering the
election to the German Reichstag of such persons at such time or times and
in such place or places as the said August Bebel and Paul Singer or the
survivor of them shall in their or his absolute discretion think fit. I bequeath
to my Niece Mary Ellen Rosher, Wife of Percy White Rosher of The Firs
Brading Road, Ryde, Agent and Accountant, the sum of £3000. I direct that
all manuscripts of a literary nature in the handwriting of my deceased friend
Karl Marx and all family letters written by or addressed to him which shall
be in my possession or control at the time of my death shall be given
a
Friedrich Engels
538 Supplement
Signed by the said Testator as his last Will in the presence of us present at
the same time who in his presence and in the presence of each other have
hereunto subscribed our names as witnesses.
NOTES
1. Probably another part of a Gobelin tapestry from the study of Gottfried Wilhelm von
Leibniz. Ludwig Kugelmann had sent two parts of this tapestry to Karl Marx on his birthday,
8 May 1870.
2. In his letter of 28 September 1892 Ludwig Kugelmann informed Engels he had three copies
of Herr Vogt which had been sent to him for custody on a commission from Karl Marx.
Kugelmann expressed the desire to have them sent to Engels so that the latter could dispose
of them at his discretion.
3. The rough copy of this letter written in Engels’ own hand is still available. Louise Kautsky
copied the rough notes of the letter. Engels wrote in the word ‘hochachtungsvoll’ (with kind
respects) and added his signature. The texts of the original letter and of the rough notes are
identical.
4. Working on the book Handbuch des socialismus, Hugo Lindemann and Carl Stegmann
requested Engels in their letter to clarify ‘certain moot points’ and, if possible, grant them
some journals not available in the British Museum.
5. Addressing the 10th Congress of the French Workers’ Party on 25 September 1892 in
Marseille (see Note 11) as a representative of German Social-Democracy, Wilhelm
Liebknecht said the following, partly on the outcome of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71
and partly on the seizure of Alsace-Lorraine by Germany: ‘... the matter would be settled
without any trouble once the social and democratic Republic was established on both sides
of the Rhine.’ This statement triggered rabid attacks in the French bourgeois press against
the Socialists. Thus, in its editorial note of September 28 titled ‘Herr Liebknecht’, the
newspaper La France urged his immediate expulsion from France. Meanwhile, Lucien
Millevoye, deputy for the Nord in the Chamber of Deputies, asked the Minister of the
Interior: ‘Following the example of Mr. Liebknecht, does the government of the Republic
intend to tolerate that foreigners should come to France in order to arouse hatred and con-
tempt for the French nation?’
6. Boulangism—a movement that emerged in France in the mid-1880s; named so after its
leader, General Georges Boulanger, the War Minister in 1886-87. This movement
544 Notes
expressed the views of reactionary chauvinism. Appealing to the injured national pride of the
French in connection with the loss of Alsace-Lorraine in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-
71, the Boulangists succeeded for some time in enlisting significant popular support in their
cause and in influencing the army rank and file. Capitalising on popular discontent with the
domestic policies of the bourgeois Republicans, the Boulangists were preparing a coup
d’etat to restore the monarchy in France. Yet the Boulangist movement suffered a fiasco due
to steps taken by the Republican government with the backing of progressive forces, and its
leaders fled from France.
7. On 9 September 1870 the Prussian authorities arrested members of the Brunswick-based
Committee of the Social-Democratic Workers’ Party of Germany which was its steering
body (Wilhelm Bracke, Leonhard von Bonhorst, Samuel Spier, Hermann August Kühn and
Heinrich Gralle). These men were deported to the fortress of Boyen (Lötzen) in East Prussia.
The arrest came as a result of the promulgation of the Party’s Manifesto on 5 September
1870 {Manifest des Ausschusses der Sozial-demokratischen Arbeiterpartei. An alle deutschen
Arbeiter !—Brunswick, den 5. September 1870) calling for protest meetings against the
plans of the Prussian ruling circles to annex Alsace-Lorraine. Included in the text of the
Manifesto were excerpts from the letter by Marx and Engels to the Committee in reply to its
request to clarify their opinion on the attitude of the German proletariat to the Franco-
Prussian War that had just begun (see present edition, Vol. 22, pp. 260-262). However, the
names of the authors were not indicated therein—it was said in the Manifesto that the text
was written by ‘one of our oldest and most respected comrades in London’. On 23
November 1871 the Committee members appeared before the district court on charges of
breaking the public order laws and affiliation with the International Working Men’s
Association. The court sentenced the accused to prison terms ranging from 5 to 16 months.
The sentence was commuted on appeal to 3 months, including the period of preliminary
detention; it meant that they were virtually acquitted.
8. Addressing a Reichstag session on 27 July 1870, August Bebel supported the Reichstag’s
refusal to vote for credits to finance the war against France. On 26 November 1870, when
the German Reichstag took up this issue again, Bebel and Liebknecht demanded that credits
be refused and peace with the French Republic promptly concluded without annexations. On
28 November the entire Social-Democratic group in the Reichstag, together with Bebel and
Liebknecht, voted against the granting of war credits. After the Reichstag session closed on
17 December Bebel, Liebknecht and Hepner were arrested and charged with high treason.
9. All the required materials mentioned in the letter were handed over to Paul Lafargue through
Engels. But since Lafargue’s planned statement in the Chamber of Deputies never took
place, Lafargue used them subsequently in his pamphlet La Démocratie Socialiste
Allemande devant l’histoire which came from the press in Lille in 1893. It bore the follow-
ing imprint (after the Preface and the Afterword): Conseil national du Parti ouvrier. J.
Guesde, P. Lafargue.
10. The miners’ strike at Carmaux (Southern France) which continued from mid-August to early
November 1892. The strike action was caused by the dismissal of one of the miners,
Calvignac, the head of the local union, who had been elected to the post of town mayor. The
workers demanded that the managers of the mine revoke their decision and, this demand
having been refused, went on strike. This stoppage became political in character. The
governments arbitration actually sanctioned the decision of the mine management. The
French Workers’ Party came out in support of the strike action; a country-wide fund-
Notes 545
raising campaign was launched. Eventually the strikers succeeded in getting Calvignac and other
participants in the action reinstated.
11. Marseille was the venue of the 10th Congress of the French Workers’ Party which contin
ued in session from 24 to 28 September 1892. The Congress considered the party’s situa
tion and its activities, its work in country districts, the celebration of May Day, its partici
pation in the International Socialist Congress of 1893 at Zurich, its participation in the
forthcoming parliamentary election, among other issues. The Congress worked out an
agrarian programme—its critical analysis is contained in Engels’ work The Peasant Question
in France and Germany (see present edition, Vol. 27, pp. 481-502). The Congress also
passed a decision not to participate in the International Congress on an Eight-Hour
Working Day convened by the British Trades-Unions but to invite their representatives to
the International Socialist Working Men’s Congress at Zurich.
The French Workers’ Party {Le Parti ouvrier français) was set up by Marx’s followers— Jules
Guesde and his supporters—by the decision of the Workers’ Congress held in Marseille in 1879; this
Congress endorsed the Party Rules. In 1880 Jules Guesde and Paul Lafargue drew up the Workers’ Party
Programme, with Karl Marx taking part in framing its theoretical chapter. In November 1880 a Workers’
Congress in Le Havre adopted the Party Programme by a majority vote whereby the French Workers’
Party took shape.
12. A reference to August Bebel’s article ‘Ein internationaler Kongress für den Achtstundentag’ carried by
Die Neue Zeit, Bd. 1, Nr. 2, Stuttgart, 1892-93. In his letter to A. Bebel of 26 September 1892, Engels
requested 12 copies of the article for circulation in British newspapers (see present edition, Vol. 49, pp.
485-89).
13. Late in 1884 Bismarck, in a bid to intensify Germany’s colonial policies, urged the Reichstag to approve
annual subsidies for steamship companies with the aim of organising regular voyages to East Asia,
Australia and Africa. This demand caused a split within the Social-Democratic faction in the Reichstag.
The Left wing with August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht at the head spoke out against support for the
government’s demand. The Right-wing majority in the faction (J.H.W Dietz, P. Frohme, G.
Grillenberger) intended to vote for the subsidies on the pretext of furthering international ties.
The Right-wing stand was condemned by the party’s rank and file and its central organ, the newspaper
Der Sozialdemokrat. As a result, the majority of the faction was compelled to modify their attitude to the
government motion during Reichstag debates in March 1885 by making its ‘yes’ votes conditional on
passage by the Reichstag of some of the proposals of the faction (in particular, the demand that ships for
these lines be built only at German yards). Only after these demands had been turned down by the
Reichstag did all the members of the Social-Democratic faction vote against.
14. In his book Der Klassenkampf in der deutschen Sozialdemokratie (Zurich, 1892, p. 48), Hans
Müller, representing Die Jungen (see Note 129) cited W. Liebknecht’s speech in the
Reichstag on 31 May 1881.
15- The Anti-Socialist Law (The Exceptional Law Against the Socialists) was introduced by the Bismarck
government on a majority vote cast in the Reichstag, on 21 October 1878 to combat the socialist and
workers’ movement. It banned all party and mass workers’ organisations, and the socialist and workers’
press, and sanctioned confiscation of socialist literature and persecution of Social-Democrats.
Nevertheless, the Social-Democratic Party, in accordance with Constitution preserved its group in the
Reichstag. Assisted by Marx and Engels, the Party was able to overcome both the reformist and anarchist
tendencies within its ranks and expand its base among the popular masses by a skilful combination of
legal and illegal methods of work. Under pressure from the mass workers’ movement, the Anti-
546 Notes
Socialist Law was abrogated on 1 October 1890. For Engels’ assessment of the Law, see his
article ‘Bismarck and the German Working Men’s Party’ (Vol. 24, pp. 407-09).
16. The Independent Socialists Union was founded in Berlin on 8 November 1891 by repre-
sentatives of a semi-anarchist opposition group better known as The Young {Die Jungen)
that was formed within the Social-Democratic Party of Germany in 1890 (see Note 129).
Separate groups of ‘Independent Socialists’ sprung up also in other towns—in Magdeburg,
Wiesbaden, Fürth, and Freiburg (Baden-Würtemberg). The newspaper Der Sozialist, pub-
lished from 1891 to 1899, was the Union’s mouthpiece. The ‘Independents’ opposed any
participation of Socialists in the parliament (Reichstag) and other institutions of the bour-
geois state; they scoffed at the political struggle of the working class and overrated the sig-
nificance of direct action so-called, or ‘revolutionary mass action’. By the latter they meant
work stoppages, boycotts and sabotage, as well as work at the grass-roots level in trade
union locals. There was a good deal of infighting between the ‘Independent Socialists’ and
the Anarchists—mainly for the newspaper Der Sozialist. The controversy between the two
factions concerned above all the model of a society of the future and ways of achieving it.
Eventually the anarchists got the upper hand in the summer of 1893, a victory that caused
the Union’s disintegration and demise in the spring of 1894.
17. Engels wrote this letter on a postcard. It also has the address in Engels’ handwriting: Herrn
Dr. L. Kugelmann, Warmbüchenstr. 20.I. Hannover, Germany.
18. The letter of Karl Marx and Frederick Engels to the Committee of the German Social-
Democratic Workers’ Party. Only a fragment of it is preserved, one included in the text of
the Brunswick Committee Manifesto (see Note 7).
19. In his first speech in the Chamber of Deputies on 8 December 1891 P. Lafargue validated
the substance of his motion to grant a general pardon for political prisoners. His speech was
repeatedly interrupted by hecklers from among the bourgeois deputies. The Chamber
defeated Lafargue’s motion.
20. Blanquists (les blanquistes)—supporters of Louis A. Blanqui who, after leaving the Workers’
Party {Le Parti français ouvrier, see Note 11), set up an organisation of their own, the
Central Revolutionary Committee (Comité Révolutionnaire Central) in 1880. After
Blanqui’s death in 1881, E. Vaillant, E. Eudes and E. Granger came into the Committee’s
leadership. The Blanquists upheld the slogan of a general strike and advocated the inde-
pendence of labour unions from the party. They opted for political struggle at the expense of
economic struggle. During Boulangism (see Note 6) the Blanquists broke into two factions;
one with Edouard Vaillant at the head came out against General Boulanger and thus made
common cause with the Workers’ Party, while the other (E. Granger, E. Roche), having
cooperated with the Boulangists, walked out of the Central Revolutionary Committee and
fell apart soon after.
21. Allemanists {les allemanistes)—supporters of the French socialist Jean Allemane. After a split
in the Possibilist Party (see Note 30), the Allemanists formed a Revolutionary-Socialist
Workers’ Party {Le Parti ouvrier socialiste-révolutionnaire) in October 1890; this party
existed up to 1905. Considering economic struggle above the political one and opposing
excessive parliamentarism, the Allemanists concentrated their efforts on propaganda work in
labour unions {les syndicats) and assigned the political party of the proletariat but a
secondary role. A significant part of their activity was devoted to campaigns to win seats at
municipal councils.
22. Engels alludes to W Liebknechts speeches at rallies in Mannheim, Karlsruhe, Frankfurt a.M.
and Offenbach on 2-4 October 1892 in which he reported on his trip as a represen-
Notes 547
tative of the German Social-Democracy to the Congress of the French Workers’ Party in
Marseille (see Note 11).
23. The Congress of the National Federation of Labour Unions (Congrès national des syndicats)
was held in Marseille on 19-23 September 1892. Besides other issues (the organisational
set-up of the labour-union movement, a general strike, May Day celebrations, female and
child labour in industry), it discussed the decision of the Glasgow-held congress of the
British trades-unions to convene an international congress on 1 May 1893 on the issue of
an eight-hour working day (see Note 24).
The French syndicats, meeting in Marseille, decided not to take part in the congress
convened by the British trades-unions; instead, it was decided to invite their representatives
to the International Socialist Congress in Zurich.
24. Engels means British Trades-Union Congress which was in session in Glasgow on 5-10
September 1892. The Congress considered worker representation in Parliament, cooperation,
factory inspection, among other issues, and came out for an eight-hour working day. The
British trades-unions refused to accept the invitation to the International Socialist Congress
which was to be convened in Zurich in the summer of 1893 but decided to hold a parallel
international congress in London on the struggle for an eight-hour working day. Qualifying
this decision as an attempt to split the international working-class movement, Engels sent
letters to German and French socialists and asked them to speak out against the plan of the
British trades-unions. Engels also addressed the socialist parties of Spain and Austria.
25. This letter has never been found.
26. Engels refers to Ludwig Schorlemmer’s letter of 9 October 1892 in which he told Engels
about the intention of Richard Anschütz to write Carl Schorlemmer’s biography and asked
what Engels thought of that.
27. In keeping with the decision of the Second International Socialist Working Men’s Congress
held in Brussels on 16-22 August 1891 (see Note 228), the worker and socialist organisa-
tions of Switzerland, beginning January 1892, launched preparations for the next congress
due in Zurich in the summer of 1893. They set up an Organising Committee which included
representatives of the Social-Democratic Party, of the Grütli Union (founded in 1838 as an
enlightenment alliance of artisans and workmen, it adhered to reformist positions) and of the
trade-union amalgamation. In February 1892, the Organising Committee issued an appeal to
the working men of all lands saying that it began its activities and urging them to send in
suggestions concerning the congress agenda.
28. The Parliamentary Committee—the executive body of the Trades Union Congress of Great
Britain that met in Manchester in 1868 and united the country’s unions. As of 1871 the
Parliamentary Committee was elected at annual congresses of the British trades-unions and,
in fact, was their steering body in between the congresses. It nominated candidates to
Parliament, supported draft bills tabled in the interests of the trades unions and worked to
prepare regular trades-union congresses.
29. Labour bourses {bourses du travail) was the name given in France to worker associations set
up beginning with the latter half of the 1880s largely at the municipal councils of major
towns and comprising representatives of various syndicats (labour unions). Such bourses du
travail were initially supported by government bodies and subsidised by them; thereby the
government hoped to use these bourses as a ‘tool of social appeasement’. Yet the activity of
the labour bourses (labour exchanges) engaged in job placement of the unemployed (each
bourse had a special department in charge of that), in the organising of new syndicats in the
548 Notes
professional training of workers, and in strike action soon caused apprehension among the
government, and it started combatting their further proliferation. The Saint-Etienne
Congress of 1892 formed a federation of bourses du travail in which the Possibilists soon
came to play a leading part (see Note 30). The Paris Bourse du travail was opened on 3
February 1887. Using armed force, the French government seized the Paris Bourse on 7 July
1892 and expelled labour union representatives. It closed the Bourse on the pretext that this
body had ostensibly been prohibited by the law. The Bourse remained closed until 1896.
30. Possibilists, or Broussists—a reformist trend in the French Socialist movement which, in the
1880s through the early 20th century, was headed by P. Brousse and B. Malon who caused a
split in the French Workers’ Party (1882) and formed an independent party, The Workers’
Party of Socialist-Revolutionaries (Le Parti ouvrier socialiste-révolutionnaire). It abided by
the theory of municipal socialism as the mainstream idea. The Possibilists proclaimed a
‘policy of possibilities’ (la politique des possibilitées) as their principle. At the turn of the
20th century they joined the French Socialist Party.
31. In his letter of 10 October 1892 Victor Adler told Engels that the Austrian trades unions
would ‘undoubtedly’ adopt a decision to stay away from the International Congress con-
vened by the British trades unions. The text of the resolution, he said, ‘had already been
prepared’. In this connection he asked Engels to give him the address of the Parliamentary
Committee to which he intended to send the text of the resolution.
32. Engels refers to V. Adler’s German translation of the first volume of the book by Sergei
Kravchinsky (alias Stepniak) The Russian Peasantry. Their Agrarian Condition, Social Life
and Religion that was published in English in 1888 by Swan Sonnenschein & Co. In his let-
ter of 22 September 1892 Adler asked Engels to approach Stepniak so as to obtain formal
permission from S. Sonnenschein to publish the German translation of the book, and pay the
royalties due to the author and the publisher. Stepniak read the German edition and wrote a
brief preface. The book appeared in Stuttgart in 1893 under the title Der Russische Bauer
(Dietz Publishers).
33. In his preface to Volume II I of Das Kapital (written in October 1894), Engels noted that
Part V presented ‘the chief obstacle in preparing it for the press’ (Division of profit into
interest and entrepreneural income. Capital yielding interest). Engels completed the bulk of
this work in the spring of 1893 (see present edition, Vol. 37. pp. 8-9).
34. Engels alludes to the issue of militarism discussed at the Second International Socialist
Working Men’s Congress in Brussels in 1891 (see Note 228).
35. The full text of this letter was first published in English in: F. Engels and Paul and Laura
Lafargue, Correspondence, Vol. 3, 1891-1895. Moscow, 1963.
36. Engels refers to L. Millevoye’s statement in the Chamber of Deputies on 29 October 1892
with a question concerning W. Liebknechts speech of 25 September 1892 in Marseille (see
Note 5). P. Lafargue did not attend that session. Millevoye thus broke his promise to
Lafargue not to speak up before his (Lafargue’s) return from Carmaux.
37. The French Workers’ Party (see Note 11) was not in a position to send its delegate to the
Berlin congress of the German Social-Democratic Party (see Note 51). Instead, it sent a
message of greetings signed by Guesde and Lafargue.
38. Engels means the colonial war unleashed by France against the West African state of
Dahomey in 1890. In the latter half of November 1892 French troops captured the country’s
capital. In 1893 Dahomey became a French colony ruled by a governor-general. In the
Notes 549
course of this colonial expedition the French forces were the first to use artillery shells
containing the powerful explosive, melinite.
39. On 2 November 1892 the newspaper Le Figaro (No. 307) carried an interview with John
Burns, an activist in the British working-class movement and an MP. His interviewer was
Jules Huret, a French journalist who, from 1 August 1892, had published a series of articles
under the general heading ‘La question sociale—théoriciens et chefs de sectes’. J. Burns was
reported as saying that as an adherent of gradual reforms, he could not agree with the
continental Socialists in their idea of a violent revolution; in his opinion, Britain had less of
the antagonism between working men and capitalists than France.
40. Engels wrote this letter on a postcard which likewise bears the address inscribed with his
own hand: F.A. Sorge, Esq., Hoboken, N.J., U.S. America.
41. In that letter Sergei Kravchinsky (alias, Stepniak) said he had sent to V. Adler the materials
for the German edition of his book The Russian Peasantry. Their Agrarian Condition, Social
Life and Religion (see Note 32).
42. Engels probably means the proposal of the Solingen party organisation to the Berlin congress
of the Social-Democratic Party of Germany (see Note 51) to limit the mandates of Social-
Democratic deputies to the Reichstag to 2 or 3 years in order to secure a rotation of elected
deputies. Besides, the party local proposed to expel Georg Schumacher from the Reichstag’s
Social-Democratic parliamentary group. These proposals, together with amendments to the
agenda tabled by other party locals, were published by the Berliner Volksblatt Vorwärts (No.
259) on 4 November 1892.
43. Fabians—members of the Fabian Society founded in 1884 by democratic-minded intellec-
tuals. It was named after the Roman general of 3d century B.C., Quintus Fabias Maximus,
surnamed Cunctator (‘the delayer’) because of his cautious tactics in the war against
Hannibal. The Fabian Society included such prominent members as Sidney and Beatrice
Webb, Bernard Shaw, H. Bland, among others. Its local organisations drew support from
industrial workers who were attracted by a sharp critique of the capitalist order contained in
Fabian publications. However, except in 1892, when it attracted a number of otherwise
‘homeless’ working-class socialists, the number of actual ‘practising’ workers (i.e., non-
official trade-union members) never exceeded 10 per cent of the identifiable membership,
and perhaps even less if the total numbers were counted. Rejecting the possibility of a
revolutionary transformation of bourgeois society, the Fabians thought it was possible to
shift from capitalism to socialism by implementing reforms within the framework of so-
called municipal socialism. In 1900 the Fabian Society joined the Labour Party.
44. Social Democratic Federation—a British socialist organisation set up in August 1884 on the
basis of the bourgeois-radical Democratic Federation; it united heterogeneous socialist ele-
ments, predominantly intellectuals and a section of politically active workers. The
Federation stated in its programme that the entire wealth of the nation should belong to
Labour, its only source. It also set as its aim a socialisation of the means of production, dis-
tribution and exchange, and came out for a society of ‘emancipated labour’. That was
Britain’s first socialist programme based mainly on Marxist ideas. The leadership of the
Federation was in the hands of Henry Hyndman, prone to authoritarian methods of guidance,
and his supporters who did not deem it necessary to conduct work in the trades unions, a
stance that inevitably led to isolation of the organisation from the working-class masses. A
group of Socialists within the Federation (Eleanor Marx-Aveling, Edward Aveling, William
Morris, Tom Mann and others) opposed Hyndman and championed closer ties with the
working-class movement. The differences on tactical issues and interna-
550 Notes
tional cooperation resulted in a split and the formation of an independent organisation— The
Socialist League (see Note 136).
45. Apparently a reference to K. Kautsky’s article ‘Der Parteitag und der Staatssozialismus’ pub-
lished by the journal Die Neue Zeit, Bd. I, No. 7, 1892-93, S. 210-221, immediately after G.
Vollmar’s article ‘Zur Streitfrage über den Staatssozialismus’.
46. In his letter dated 18 October 1892, A. Bebel told Engels about his suggestion of having a
new central Party weekly, Der Sozialdemokrat, instead of the unprofitable Die Berliner Volks-
Tribüne. This issue was resolved in 1893 at a party congress in Cologne. The weekly was
being published from 3 February 1894 to December 1895 under the name Der
Sozialdemokrat. Wochenblatt der Sozialdemokratischen Partei Deutschlands; its editor was
M. Schippel.
47. Engels paraphrases the epigram C’est magnifique, mais ce n’est pas la guerre (‘It’s magnificent,
but it’s not warfare’) ascribed to the French general (subsequently, marshal) Pierre Bosquet.
He was said to have uttered this phrase during the Crimean War of 1853-56. The words
applied to the reckless bravery of the English ‘Charge of Light Brigade’ at the Battle of
Balaklava.
48. Le Socialiste. Organe Central du Parti Ouvrier—it was planned to make this French Workers’
weekly a daily publication. Engels was watching closely the course of negotiations of which
he had learned from Laura and Paul Lafargue. Yet this plan did not come off.
49. From 6 August to 24 December 1892 the German Social-Democratic newspaper Die
Berliner Volks- Tribüne was publishing (in its supplement) a series of articles by the Swiss
Socialist Louis Héritier under the general title ‘Die Juraföderation und Michael Bakunin; the
author’s name was indicated only in the final article. Proceeding from Bakuninist principles,
the author gave a slanted picture of the history of the First International in Switzerland and
vindicated the divisive activities of the Bakuninists in particular, of the anarchist Jura
Federation which, at its congress in La Chaux-de-Fonds held between 4 and 6 April 1870,
had broken away from the International sections in Roman Switzerland. In addition, the
articles contained numerous innuendoes about the activity of the General Council, Marx and
his associates, specifically, about Johann Philipp Becker. Thus, it was claimed without any
ground whatever that the London Conference of the First International (1871) had been held
in Marx’s house. The tenth article, published on 12 November 1892, contained particularly
numerous distortions. Engels therefore decided to speak out and refute the insinuations
without waiting for the end of the series. He sent his statement, together with the present
letter, to August Bebel for delivery to the editorial board of Die Berliner Volks-Tribüne. The
newspaper published Engels’ statement on 19 November 1892 (see present edition, Vol. 27,
pp. 344-46). On 24 December 1892 L. Héritier offered his reply, which was published
together with his final article. As in his letter to Engels of 15 December 1892, Héritier tried
to rebut the accusations. See also Engels’ letters: to Héritier of 20 January 1893 and to
Kautsky of 25 March 1895 (see this volume, pp. 85-6, 481).
50. On 14 November 1892 British Socialists held a rally in London’s Trafalgar Square to com-
memorate the fifth anniversary of the ‘Bloody Sunday’ of 13 November 1887, when a
socialist meeting culminated in clashes with the police. Several hundred demonstrators
received injuries (three, fatal injuries), and some organisers were arrested.
Louise Kautsky’s account, which Engels mentions in his letter, was published without
any title by Die Arbeiter Zeitung {no. 49) on 2 December 1892.
Notes 551
51. The Berlin Congress of the Social-Democratic Party of Germany took place on 14-21 November 1892. It
heard the reports of the Party’s Executive and of its Reichstag group, and discussed issues related to May
Day celebrations in 1893, as well as the economic crisis and its consequences, the boycott tactics, the
attitude to anti-Semitism, etc. After lengthy debates the Congress adopted a resolution that contained a
negative attitude to state socialism (see Note 84). The delegates also rejected the invitation to an
International Congress that was to be convened in Glasgow by decision of the British Trades-Union con-
gress (see Note 24) and came out for participation in the International Socialist Working-Men’s Congress
in Zurich in 1893.
52. The Berlin Congress of the German Social-Democratic Party (see Note 51) also discussed the issue of the
newspaper Vorwärts, the Party’s central organ, whose editor was Wilhelm Liebknecht. He became the
target of sharp criticism by Party members who objected to the allegedly high salary he was receiving for
editing the Vorwärts and for his nonchalance, as it was claimed, in discharging that responsibility.
53. Engels refers to the proposal of the Executive of the German Social-Democratic Party and of the Party’s
parliamentary group in the Reichstag to the Berlin Party Congress (see Note 51) to purchase all the newly
established Social-Democratic newspapers and turn them into official organs of the Party. The Congress
turned down this proposal.
54. The International Socialist Working-Men’s Congress held in Brussels in 1891 (see Note 228) adopted a
resolution which recommended, wherever it was possible, to combine May Day celebrations with work
stoppages. All the delegates, including those from Germany, voted for this resolution, even though during
the discussion on this issue the British and the German delegations had insisted on this action being held
on the first Sunday of May. The Berlin Congress of the German Social-Democratic Party (see Note 51)
passed a decision to celebrate May Day 1893 on the evening of May 1 and refrain from general work
stoppages owing to the bad economic situation in the country.
55. In his address to the Berlin congress of the German Social-Democratic Party on 17 November 1892, A.
Bebel vindicated the proposal to hold 1893 May Day celebrations in Germany without staging work
stoppages on May 1. V. Adler, who was attending the Congress as a representative of the Austrian
socialists, opposed this proposal in a speech he made the same day.
56. Engels means the Third International Socialist Working-Men’s Congress due at Zurich in 1893 (see Note
229).
57. At the bottom of this letter was a hand-drawn picture of a theatre stage. Engels signed his name just
where the proscenium was depicted.
58. Engels refers to the characters of the Grimm brothers’ fairy-tale Sieben Schwaben.
59. An allusion to George Bernard Shaw’s letter to A. Bebel of 29 May 1892 which Engels had copied. This
letter was published in a supplement to Volume 49 of the present edition, p. 563; in it Shaw pointed to the
need of an alliance between the Socialists and the Liberals in the election campaign. The only chance for
the Socialists to win the election, he wrote to Bebel, was ‘to force the Liberals to accept our men as their
party candidates’. According to Shaw, the Fabians were ‘compelled’ to force their candidates on the
Liberals, or otherwise ‘at every election’ they would ‘suffer defeat and disgrace’.
In his letter to Kautsky on 4 September 1892, Engels analysed the Fabian electoral tactics and the
causes of the defeat of the Fabian candidates on the Liberal list during the 1892 elections, (see present
edition, Vol. 49, p. 514).
552 Notes
60. The Panama affair—a shady transaction connected with the bribery of French statesmen,
government officials and the press by the Panama Canal joint-stock company set up in
France in 1880 at the at the initiative of Ferdinand de Lesseps for building a canal across of
the isthmus of Panama. In December 1888 the company declared its insolvency which
caused the ruin of small-time shareholders and numerous bankruptcies. This scandal
compelled the French authorities to start an investigation. On 19 November 1892 the
Monarchists tabled three questions on the Panama crash in the Chamber of Deputies which
on 21 November elected a Commission of Inquiry of 33 with M. Henri Brisson, a Radical, as
chairman. The Commission obtained irrefutable evidence implicating a number of high-
ranking officials, e.g., the former French premier CL. de Freycinet and others who had been
bribed by the Lesseps company which wanted to conceal its true financial situation and
embezzlements. French justice hushed up the affair by going no further than condemning F.
Lesseps and a number of his cat’s-paws (see Note 157). ‘Panama’ became a byword for
major dealings in which government officials were implicated.
61. Engels means the pronouncements of Emile de Girardin, a French bourgeois journalist and
editor of the newspaper La Presse, in 1846-47 with sensational charges levelled at some
figures of the July monarchy and the Guizot ministry whom he accused of corruption (the
selling of peerage, bribery of the press, etc.); these statements fomented a crisis which
culminated in the Revolution of 1848. For details, see Engels’ article The Decline and
Approaching Fall of Guizot.—Position of the French Bourgeoisie (see present edition, Vol. 6,
pp. 213-19).
62. This refers to the London German Workers’ Educational Society. Founded in 1840 by Karl
Schapper, Joseph Moll, Heinrich Bauer and other activists of the League of the Just. In 1847
and 1849-50 Marx and Engels took part in the work of the Society. With the foundation of
the First International it joined the International Working-Men’s Association. The London
Educational Society continued in existence under different names until 1918 when it was
closed by the British government.
63. A reference to the soirée arranged on 17 November 1892 by the Social-Democrats of Berlin
for delegates of the Party Congress (see Note 51).
64. Engels wrote this letter in two languages, English and Spanish.
65. The envelope of this letter exists on which Engels wrote the address: An das
sozialdemokratische Parteisekretariat, Katzbachstr. 9, Berlin S. W, Germany.
66. Engels wrote this facetious letter in reply to the birthday greetings sent to him on behalf of
the Secretariat of the Social-Democratic Party of Germany by Ignaz Auer and Richard
Fischer on 27 November 1892. Jakob Bamberger made a postscript to the message and
joined in the greetings on Engels’ 72nd birthday.
67. Apparently an allusion to Louise Kautsky’s cooperation with the Vienna-published news-
paper Arbeiterinnen-Zeitung.
In his letter to Laura Lafargue of 2 October 1891 (see present edition, Vol. 49, p. 251) on
the forthcoming release of the newspaper’s first number, Engels described it ‘a hyaena
paper’. The epithet ‘hyaena is from Schiller’s poem The Song of the Bell m which the poet
compares revolutionary women to hyenas.
68. Ultramontanes—the Italian party of the Roman Catholic Church favouring the doctrine of
papal supremacy and the Pope’s right to interfere in the secular affairs of any state.
69. On 21 November 1892 Paul Stumpf greeted Engels on his 72nd birthday and three days
later, on 24 November, sent him as a birthday gift a special issue of the newspaper Mainzer
Notes 553
Journal which came from the press on 23 November 1892; it had the following dedication:
‘Unserem Papa zum 72sten Geburtstage’ (‘To our Papa on his 72nd birthday’). The number
dealt with the returns of an election to the municipal council of Mainz which brought a
significant victory for the Social-Democrats.
70. Engels refers to events in Mainz during its occupation by the French revolutionary army in
October 1792 - July 1793 when the French military authorities set up a provisional admin-
istration there. The Mainz democrats formed a Society of Equality and Freedom Friends ( The
Mainz Club). The Rhineland-German National Convent elected in February 1793 deposed
the Kurfürst (Elector) and proclaimed Mainz and adjacent districts a republic which joined
France in March 1793. The decree of the French National Convent of 15 December 1792
abolished feudal dependence privileges of the nobility and clergy; also, the Mainz Republic
was to pay an indemnity to France. In July 1793, after a siege of many months, Mainz was
overrun by Prussian troops which restored the Kurfürst back in power and the old body
politic.
71. Centre—a political party of German Roman Catholics formed in 1870-71 as a result of uni-
fication between the Catholic factions in the Prussian Landtag and the German Reichstag
(the seats of their deputies used to be in the centre of the assembly hall). The Centre Party
would take an intermediate stand, as a rule, by manoeuvering between the parties that
backed the government and the Left-wing opposition groups of the Reichstag. It rallied
under the banner of Catholicism the socially heterogenous strata of the clergy, the landed
aristocracy, the bourgeoisie, that part of the peasantry predominantly in small and medium-
sized states, as well as Roman Catholic working men in Western and South-Western
Germany. The Centrists, while being in opposition to the Bismarck government, voted
nonetheless for its anti-labour and anti-Socialist enactments. Engels gave a detailed analysis
of the Centre in his work The Role of Force in History (see present edition, Vol. 26, pp. 453-
511) and in the article What’s Next? (see present edition, Vol. 27, pp. 7-11). Since in 1893
the Centre Party had 196 seats in the Reichstag out of 397, it could play a decisive role in the
event of differences among other parties.
72. The Brimstone Gang (Die Schwefelbande)—the name of a student’s association at Jena
University in the 1770s; its members were notorious for their brawls. In his work Mein
Prozess gegen die Allgemeine Zeitung. Stenographischer Bericht, Dokumente und
Erläunterungen, Geneva, 1859, K. Vogt, a German petty-bourgeois democrat, called Marx
and his supporters “The Brimstone Gang”. Marx responded with the lampoon Herr Vogt
which came out in London in December 1860 (see present edition, Vol. 17).
73. In October 1890 Karl Liebknecht began a course in law at Berlin University. He completed
this course in March 1893 and, after passing an examination in October 1893, obtained the
rank of a Referender (a low-rank official in Germany, usually a lawyer, on probation at court
of law or government office).
74. ‘In Geldfragen hört die Gemütlichkeit auf (literally, ‘In money matters there is no room for
sentiments’—’Where money begins, benevolence ends’). Engels cites the phrase from a
statement from one of the leaders of the Rhineland liberal bourgeoisie and Prussian Finance
Minister David Hansemann at a session of the first United Landtag of Prussia on 8 June
1847.
75. The Ems dispatch—a report on the results of negotiations held between the Prussian King
William I and the French Ambassador M. Benedetti in the town of Ems concerning the
candidacy of Prince Leopold Hohenzollern to the Spanish throne; this dispatch was sent to
Bismarck on 13 July 1870. William I declined the demand of the French side that Prussia
554 Notes
desist from Hohenzollern’s claim to the Spanish throne. Being in receipt of this epistle, Bismarck
abridged the text in such a way that it acquired a stridently insulting connotation for France and, then and
there, passed it on for publication in all German news agencies. The promulgation of the Ems dispatch in
that form was a public insult to France and served as an immediate pretext for the Franco-Prussian War.
The fraud came to light only many years after the event.
In the summer of 1891 W. Liebknecht published the pamphlet Die Emser Depesche oder wie Kriege
gemacht werden in Nuremberg, in which he collected sundry documents on this episode and exposed
Bismarck’s bellicose policies. In October 1892 Bismarck actually admitted the deception. ‘It is so easy...
completely to alter the meaning of a speech, without forgery, but by simple omission’, he said in an
interview. ‘I once tried this myself, as editor of the Ems telegram... The King sent it to me with the order
to publish it either in whole or in part, and after I had edited it to my taste, by cancelling and
condensation, Moltke, who was with me, exclaimed, “A few minutes ago it was a charade; now it is a
fanfare.”‘
76. An allusion to the draft law tabled in the Reichstag on 23 November 1892 by the War Minister Werd and
the General Staff Chief Waldersee providing for an increase in the numerical strength of the German
armed forces within the next seven years. The mean annual strength of this army was fixed at 492,068; it
was proposed to introduce a two-year term of service in the Infantry, which could increase the war
machine’s throughput by 30 per cent. The planned increase in the strength of the land forces exceeded all
the previous increments, as of 1874, combined. It was planned to compensate the significant growth in
the war expenditures by raising taxes on consumer goods. This elicited widespread discontent among the
popular masses and with some bourgeois political parties as well. On 6 May 1893 the Reichstag majority
rejected the draft bill of the government. The same day the Kaiser dissolved the Reichstag two years
ahead of time. After a new election, in June 1893, a similar draft law was endorsed by the Reichstag.
77. Engels probably means the intention of W. Gladstone’s Liberal Government in Britain to grant Home
Rule for Ireland (see Note 171). The decision to table a draft bill to this effect was largely due to
conditions attending the formation of the Gladstone cabinet after parliamentary elections in the summer
of 1892 when the Liberals could form the government only with the the backing of the Irish deputies. The
Home Rule Bill was introduced in February 1893 and, after heated debates and agitation throughout the
spring and summer, was adopted by the Commons but turned down by the House of Lords, as had been
the case in 1886.
78. This is in reply to Charles Bonnier’s letter to Engels of 2 December 1892 in which he protested against
the decision of the Berlin Congress of the German Social-Democratic Party (see Note 51) to refrain from
work stoppages on 1 May 1893 and have May Day celebrations on the evening of the same day.
79. In a letter addressed to Engels on 2 December 1892 Charles Bonnier agreed that in Britain May Day
celebrations were to be held on the first Sunday of May, as it had been in 1890 and 1891 (see also
Engels’ article May 4 in London; present edition. Vol. 27, pp. 61-67).
80. A. Bebel’s article ‘Die Maifeier und ihre Bedeutung’ published by the journal Die Neue Zeit, Bd. 1, No.
14, Stuttgart, 1892-93.
81. The attitude to the Austrian Social-Democrats which Engels expressed in this letter was further
elaborated in his message of greetings to Austrian working men on May Day 1893 (see present edition,
Vol. 27).
Notes 555
82. In his letter of 22 November 1892 A. Bebel wrote the following about what Engels had thought of the
Social-Democratic party press: ‘If you mean the nationalisation (Verstaatlichung) of our press, you must
be utterly misinformed. All the newspapers without exception are independent, including those that are
getting money from us. We never sought to exert pressure even in cases when it was absolutely necessary
in the Party’s interests.’
83. A. Bebel’s article ‘Der Parteitag der deutschen Sozialdemokratie’ published by the journal Die Neue Zeit,
Bd. 1, No. 10, Stuttgart, 1892-93. It dealt with the work of the Berlin Congress (see Note 51) and stressed,
in particular, the significance of the decision to hold 1893 May Day celebrations in Germany on the
evening of May 1.
84. The reference is to the resolution of the Berlin Congress of the German Social-Democratic Party (see
Note 51) condemning state socialism. Proposed by W. Liebknect and G. Vollmar, the resolution was
adopted by the Congress on 18 November 1892.
85. Because of the drop in circulation of the journal Die Neue Zeit, J.H.W. Dietz suggested certain changes in
its content and periodicity. Thus, the arts and current politics sections were to be expanded at the expense
of the theoretical part.
86. Radicals—in the 1880s-1890s, a parliamentary group in France that used to belong to the party of
moderate Republicans (the ‘Opportunists’). The Radicals relied chiefly on the petty bourgeoisie and, to
some extent, on the middle bourgeoisie; they supported certain bourgeois-democratic demands like a
unicameral parliament, separation of the Church from the state, a progressive income tax, limitation of the
working day and other social issues. The Radicals were led by G. Clemenceau. Officially the group
became known as the Republican Radical and Radical-Socialist Party (Parti républicain radical et radical-
socialiste), formed in 1901.
87. Opportunists—a party of moderate bourgeois Republicans which emerged after the 1881 split in the
Republican Party and the formation of the left-wing Radical Party with Georges Clemenceau as its head
(see Note 86). This name was introduced in 1877 by the journalist Henri Rochefort who coined it from the
words of L. Gambetta, the leader of the ‘Moderates’, that reforms should be implemented ‘at an opportune
time’ (‘en temps opportun).
88. An extract from P. Lafargue’s letter to Engels was published by the newspaper Vorwärts (No. 286) on 6
December 1892 without the author’s name being indicated. Appended to the text was an editor’s note:
‘Man schreibt uns aus Paris über den Panama-Skandal’.
89. The Fourth International Glass Workers’ Congress took place in London on 5-9 July 1892. An account of
its proceedings was released in a separate edition the same year: The Fourth Report of the International
Union of Glass Workers and Report of the Third International Congress, London, 1892.
90. On 27 November 1892 the Social-Democratic group in the Reichstag cabled a message of greetings to
Engels on the occasion of his birthday. On behalf of the group the telegram was signed by August Bebel,
Heinrich Meister and Paul Singer.
91. A reference to a journal on the issues of social and economic history—Die Zeitschrift fur Sozial- und
Wirtschaftsgeschichte published by S. Bauer, C. Grünberg, L.M. Hartmann and E. Szanto. The journal
appeared from 1893 to 1900 in Leipzig, Freiburg and Weimar.
92. Engels sent Kautsky his article A Newly-Discovered Case of Group Marriage’ (see present edition, Vol.
27) for publication in the journal Die Neue Zeit. Its subject-matter drew on a
556 Notes
publication in the Russian-language newspaper Pycckue Begomocmu (No. 284, 14 October 1892) dealing
with findings of the Russian ethnographer L. Sternberg who had been studying the life and society of the
Sakhalin Gilyaki, a small ethnic group otherwise known as the Nivkhi (Nivkhs). In his article Engels cited
the text of the original almost verbatim, with only a few deviations.
93. On 24 November 1892 P. Lafargue wrote to Engels: ‘From the international standpoint Bebel behaves
himself but very poorly by permitting Liebknecht, to put himself right. Their alliance is impossible for the
German party’.
94. An allusion to the ‘Free Theatres’ trend in the fin-de-siècle West European art. The ‘Free Theatres’
expressed the protest of progressive actors and playwrights against the conservatism of the state-run
stage, its isolation from life and the contemporary art, against censorship, etc. Such theatres appeared in
major European cities in the late 1880s and early 1890s.
95. This letter, written by Louise Kautsky at the request of Engels, was in reply to Ellenbogens letter of 2
December 1892 in which he said he had sent Engels his pamphlet on the history of the Workers’
Educational Society in one of Vienna’s districts. Ellenbogen added he was sending a copy from the first
edition that had been confiscated by the Austrian police.
The envelope of the former letter has the address inscribed on it: ‘Dr. W. Ellenbogen. IX Bergstrasse
18. Vienna. Austria’ ....
96. The envelope of this letter has likewise been preserved, with the inscription written by Engels: ‘Monsieur
Pierre Lavroff, 328, rue St. Jacques, Paris, France’.
97. In his letter of 12 December 1892 P. Lavrov asked for permission to publish H. Lopatin’s letter of 20
September 1883 to M. Oshanina, member of the Executive of the illegal Russian Revolutionary
organisation (‘People’s Freedom’). In it Lopatin gave the gist of his talk with Engels in London on 19
September 1883 concerning the prospects of a revolution in Russia.
An excerpt from this letter was published in Geneva in March 1893 in the book Foundations of
Theoretical Socialism as Applied to Russia; see also present edition, Vol. 26, pp. 591-93.
98. Engels described these events in his letters to P. Lafargue of 31 January and 6 February 1891, and to F.
Sorge of 11 February 1891 and 4 March 1891; see present edition, Vol. 49, pp. 115, 121, 125, 137.
99. On 13 December 1892 A. Bebel made a long speech in the Reichstag criticising the draft military law
tabled by the government (see Note 76).
The Heinze Law—a package of laws against prostitution, drafted in the wake of the 1891-92 trial of a
Heinze, a pimp, accused of murder and burglary. The Heinze Law, tabled in the Reichstag in 1891 and
envisaging heavier penalties for pandering, pimping and propagation of pornographic literature, was
adopted after long debates only in 1900.
Speaking during the Heinze Law debates in the Reichstag on 15 December 1892, A. Bebel attacked
the bigotry and hypocrisy of the then acting German laws on prostitution. The Bebel speech was
published in a supplement to Vorwärts (No. 295) on 16 December 1892.
100. In 1888 the Panama Canal Company (see Note 60), assisted by the bribed Chamber deputies and acting in
circumvention of the French laws forbidding lotteries, gained permission to issue lottery-loan bonds.
Notes 557
101. Engels sent this letter to A. Bebel (together with a letter addressed to Bebel personally, not
available today) who, at Engels’ request, sent it to K. Kautsky.
102. Engels refers to The Theories of Surplus Value which were a component part of the 1861-63
manuscript of the second preliminary variant of Das Kapital (see present edition, Vols. 30-
34). In 1889-90 Engels gave a part of The Theories of Surplus Value to Kautsky for deci-
phering. He thus hoped to get assistance in preparing the MS for the press and in coaching
expert editors and publishers of the Marxian manuscripts. Engels did not live to see the
publication of The Theories of Surplus Value as Volume IV of Das Kapital. It was K. Kautsky
who published them in 1905-10. The Theories of Surplus Value were also published in The
Complete Works of Marx and Engels in the languages of the original (MEGA, Abteilung II ,
Bd. 3, Teile 2-4, Berlin).
103. A fragment of this letter was first published in English in: The Labour Monthly, L., 1934,
No. 10.
104. Engels refers to a scandal that broke out in 1892 over the bankruptcy of the building society
‘Liberator’ and its affiliated banks and building societies. It was stated that upwards of seven
million sterling had been invested in these undertakings, chiefly by the working and poorer
trades classes.
105. L. Baare, a German industrialist and director of the Bochum Steel Company, was taken to
court for tax evasion and other machinations. The issue of rifles (nearly half a million) sup-
plied to the German army by the Jewish firm Löwe & Co. was on the Reichstag agenda in
1892. That same year Hermann Ahlwardt’s anti-Semitic pamphlet Neue Enthüllungen.
Judenflingen came off the press in Dresden. It accused Isidor Löwe, an arms manufacturer,
of supplying faulty rifles to the German army. The owners of the firm sued the author for
libel. In December 1892 Ahlwardt was found guilty on libel charges and sentenced to five
months in prison.
106. Engels means flagrant abuses in the activity of the Banca Romana which came to light dur-
ing debates held in the Italian Parliament in December 1892-January 1893. Implicated in
these shady dealings were statesmen, MPs, lawyers, journalists and private individuals. The
scandalous affair came to be known as Panamino, a hint at the Panama Company fraud. The
debates were sparked off by a statement of one of the deputies, Napoleone Colajanni. Engels
responded by the article ‘The Italian Panama’ (see present edition, Vol. 27, pp. 356-60)
published in the newspaper Vorwärts in February 1893. For more detail about the Panama
sobriquet, see Note 60.
107. The editors of the present edition do not have at their disposal the original of Engels’ letter
to Karl Henckell. The phrase quoted here came from the notes on the poem ‘The Steam-
King’ by E.P Mead, an English workman and poet; these verses were published in a
collection of revolutionary poetry, Das Buch der Freiheit, published in Berlin in December
1893. This edition was sponsored by the Social-Democratic group in the Reichstag. In the
course of his work K. Henckell asked Engels on 2 November 1892 for verses and songs that
could be included into the collection and also for the texts of his letters to be sent to the
English poets Swinburne and W. Morris. Engels must have responded favourably to
Henckell’s request. Besides the verses of Swinburne, Morris, Goethe, Heine, Schiller, Byron,
Mickiewicz and the Russian poets Pushkin, Ryleyev and Nekrasov, the anthology included
the poem ‘The Steam-King’ which Engels had translated into German (see present edition,
Vol. 6, pp. 474-77) and the old Danish folk song ‘Herr Tidman’, also translated by Engels
(see present edition, Vol. 20 pp. 34-35).
558 Notes
108. A. Labriola’s translation of The Manifesto of the Communist Party into Italian was not pub-
lished at that time; the Italian edition of this work in Pompeo Bettini’s translation was
released in Milan in 1893 by the journal Critica Sociale Publishers. Engels wrote a special
preface to that edition—’To the Italian Reader’, translated by Turati (see present edition,
Vol. 27). The booklet also included the prefaces published in the fourth German edition of
The Manifesto that came out in London in 1890—the publication that Engels mentions in his
letter. AtTurati’s request, Engels sent it to him in January 1893.
109. August Bebel was visiting Engels in London as guest on 3-10 January 1893.
110. Engels wrote the following lines on a postcard. He also wrote the address: Mrs. Mendelson
27, Stonor Road, West Kensington, W.
111. Maria Mendelson, a Polish socialist, told Engels about the arrest in France on 7 January
1893 of Polish emigres accused of plotting to assassinate the Russian Czar Alexander II I.
Engels’ article exposing the collaboration of the French and Russian police ‘On the Latest
Caper of the Paris Police’ (see present edition, Vol. 27), was published anonymously by the
newspaper Vorwärts (No. 11) on 13 January 1893 in the section Politische II bersicht. The
following editorial note was attached to the article: ‘We are getting word from most com-
petent quarters about the escapade of the Paris police that we reported yesterday’.
112. After Carl Schorlemmer’s death on 27 June 1892 his friends and associates intended to set
up a Schorlemmer laboratory at Victoria University in Manchester. Their plans were
realised.
113. An abridged version of this letter in English was first published in: The Labour Monthly, L.,
1934, No. 12.
114. The Independent Labour Party was founded by leaders of the new trades unions at the
Bradford Conference on 13-14 January 1893 in a situation characterised by the mounting
strike action and the movement for a greater say of the British working class in politics. This
party was headed by Keir Hardie. In its programme the Independent Labour Party cham-
pioned collective ownership of the means of production, an eight-hour day, prohibition of
child labour, social insurance, unemployment allowances, among other demands. The party
leadership focused on parliamentary forms of struggle in its practical activities. In 1900 the
Independent Labour Party joined the Labour Party.
115. The Hague (Fifth) Congress of the First International held on 2-7 September 1872. It was in
fact the last congress of the First International. Its work was directed by Marx and Engels.
116. Engels means the Left Wing of the British Conservative Party in which the industrial bour-
geoisie and intellectuals (men-of-letters, lawyers, etc.) were represented. The Conservative
Left-Wingers came forward with a demagogic programme of social reforms in a bid to win
working men’s votes during election campaigns.
117. In this letter Sorge wrote to Engels that a few days before, the editor of Die New Yorker
Volkszeitung, Friedrich Schlüter, had been visited by a group of Polish emigres who wished
to learn about the newspaper’s stand on an uprising which allegedly was to take place in
Poland.
There was a welcome ceremony at Kronstadt in July 1891 for a French naval squadron to
demonstrate a rapprochement between tsarist Russia and France. The two countries,
meanwhile, were holding diplomatic negotiations which, in August 1891, terminated in the
signing of an agreement whereby France and Russia undertook the commitment to consult
each other on foreign policy issues and to come to terms on steps which both governments
were to take in case of the threat of an attack on either. Further talks led to the signing of
Notes 559
a Franco-Russian military convention in August 1892 which envisaged joint military oper-
ations if either side was attacked. This convention was an important landmark toward a
Franco-Riussian alliance which was sealed with the ratification of the convention by both
governments on 27 December 1893—4 January 1894. Seeking to enlist Poland’s support in
the event of a war with Russia, the German ruling quarters took steps in the early 1890s to
soften the German policies in the western Polish lands under German jurisdiction,
specifically by relaxing the police surveillance over Polish national societies, by making
concessions in teaching the Polish language at school, and so on.
118. A reference to the London Conference of the First International on 17-23 September 1871.
Convened under the conditions of vicious reprisals on the International and its members
after the defeat of the Paris Commune of 1871, this forum had a relatively narrow repre-
sentation; taking part were 22 delegates with casting votes and 10 with consultative voices.
Countries that were unable to send their delegates were represented by correspondent sec-
retaries. Marx represented Germany, and Engels Italy. Nine closed sessions were held all in
all. No communiqués were released on the proceedings. The resolutions of the Conference
were published only in November and December 1871. One of the resolutions, ‘On the
Political Action of the Working Class’, outlined the fundamental principle of the interna-
tional working-class movement—the need for setting up an independent proletarian party.
The keynote of the Conference was the struggle of Marx, Engels and their followers against
the Bakunin trend as epitomised by the Jura Federation (see present edition, Vol. 22, pp.
423-31).
119. An excerpt from this letter was first published in English in: Marx, K., Engels, F. Selected
Correspondence. M., F.L.P.H., 1955.
120. In the 1885 parliamentary debates on the budget, the Irish MPs headed by Ch. S. Parnell,
who were dissatisfied with the policy of the Gladstone cabinet toward Ireland, joined hands
with the Conservatives and forced the Gladstone government to resign. The Salisbury
Conservative Cabinet that came to power lasted only six months. The parliamentary election
of December 1885 gave no decisive margin to any of the contesting parties. With the
Liberals gaining a few more seats in Parliament, Gladstone was able to form a new cabinet,
this time with the backing of the Irish deputies. As the new cabinet head, Gladstone tabled
two bills in 1886—on the Irish agrarian legislation and on Home Rule (see Note 171), both
favourable to Ireland. In the 1892 election Gladstone formed an alliance with the Irish MPs
again and, in 1893, tabled a second draft of the Home Rule; but neither the first nor the
second bill succeeded.
121. This addendum to Article 69 of the Criminal Code was suggested by Victor Rintelen, a
centrist deputy, in Reichstag debates (15 December 1892) on its amendment.
122. Reptiles, the reptilian press—an expression that gained wide currency after Bismarck’s
speech in the Prussian Chamber of Deputies on 30 January 1869, when he used the word
‘reptiles’ to denigrate opponents of the government. The Left-Wing press, taking up this
epithet, applied it to the semi-official press bribed by the Bismarck government and to jour-
nalists working for it.
123. Engels alludes to a three percent interest loan which France agreed to grant Russia in
September 1891 to a sum of 125 million gold roubles (or 500 million francs). The loan was
a great success initially, with the sum of 125 million being surpassed seven-and-a-half-fold
during the subscription. But then, because of the dramatic fall in the rate of Russian secu-
rities at European exchanges as a result of the 1891 famine in Russia and the country’s wors-
ening economic situation, subscribers refused to accept the bonds. In a bid to prevent a
560 Notes
total crash, the Russian government was compelled to buy up a portion of the bonds. As a
consequence, bonds worth only 96 million roubles were sold.
124. Engels uttered this idea in his article ‘The Foreign Policy of Russian Tsardom’ (see present
edition, Vol. 27, pp. 11-49).
125. After the death in January 1892 of the Turkish Viceroy (Khedive) of Egypt, Tewfik, his suc-
cessor Khedive Abbas Hilmi II made an attempt to steer a policy independent of Great
Britain. However, in January 1893 the British Consul General in Egypt, Lord Cromer,
intervened after Abbas Hilmi II had replaced his prime-minister and, though the French
government demanded the Khedive’s independence, forced the viceroy to discard the first
candidate and appoint another person in his stead. This move strengthened British dominion
over Egypt.
126. The Triple Alliance—a military and political bloc of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy
against France and Russia. This alliance took its final shape in 1882 after Italy had acceded
to the Austro-German military alliance concluded in 1879. The Triple Alliance Treaty was
signed for a term of five years; it was prolonged in 1887 and 1891 and then automatically
extended (in 1902 and in 1912). The Triple Alliance set the stage for division of Europe into
two major groups of states hostile to one another and ultimately led to the World War of
1914-18.
127. Engels refers to the outcome of the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78 sealed by the decisions
of the Berlin International Congress (13 June - 13 July 1878) which involved representatives
of Russia, Britain, Austria-Hungary, Turkey, Germany as well as France and Italy. The
Congress made significant changes in the terms of the preliminary San Stefano Peace Treaty
(of 3 March 1878) between Russia and Turkey which fortified Russia’s positions in the
Balkans.
128. Engels means the speech of Franz Tutzauer, a Social-Democrat, in the Reichstag on 21
January 1893 during the first reading of the draft law on enterprises selling their merchan-
dise on an instalment plan (the text of the speech was published by the newspaper Vorwärts
on 22 January 1893). The speaker, who owned a small furniture-dealing shop, defended the
rights of shop owners; in particular, their right to recover debts from defaulters, the working
people as a rule.
129. Die Jungen (The Young Ones)—a semi-anarchist opposition group in German Social-
Democracy formed in the spring and summer of 1890. It was led by former university
students: young literati and editors of party newspapers (hence the name), as well as trade-
union and party leaders from local organisations. The opposition drew support from Social-
Democratic Party members among industrial workers and craftsmen. The leaders of the
Young Ones were Paul Ernst, Paul Kampffmeyer, Hans Müller, Bruno Wille, Wilhelm
Werner, Carl Wildberger and others. Ignoring the new realities obtained for the Party’s
activity with the abrogation of the Anti-Socialist Law (see Note 15), the Young Ones
opposed the Party’s parliamentary activities as not radical enough and were making dema-
gogic attacks on the Party and its Executive Board {der Vorstand); thus, they accused it of
political corruption, opportunism and violation of the Party democracy. In October 1891 the
leaders of the Young Ones were expelled from the Party.
130. In his letter to Engels on 5 January 1893 K. Kautsky said he was going to write a detailed
biography of Karl Marx for the forthcoming tenth anniversary of Marx’s death. He was to
proceed from the materials at his disposal—the article of Engels ‘Karl Marx’ (see present
edition, Vol. 24, pp. 183-95; pp. 463-81), W Liebknechts article about Karl Marx and G.
Notes 561
Gross’ book Karl Marx (Liepzig, 1885); Kautsky asked Engels for advice about additonal
materials for the biography. Evidently Kautsky was unable to carry out the work.
131. In this letter, dated 5 January 1893, Kautsky approached Eleanor Marx-Aveling through
Engels with a request to write reminiscences about Marx for the journal Die Neue Zeit. This
request was apparently not granted.
132. In his letter to Engels on 5 January 1893 K. Kautsky enclosed a Rio de Janeiro-published
newspaper with an article on the Brazilian Workers’ Party and its programme; the name of
this newspaper has not been determined.
133. The whereabouts of the cable is unkown.
134. Applying the German word ‘Gründungen to Menotti Garibaldi, Engels hints at his entre-
preneurial activities in the early 1870s. Grundertum, a period of ‘prosperity’ in Germany in
1871-73. It was made possible to a large extent by the war reparations of five thousand mil-
lion francs and the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine under the terms of the Frankfurt Peace
Treaty (1871) which concluded the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71.
135. Engels wrote this letter on a postcard to the following address penned with his own hand:
Sig. Filippo Turati, Portici Galleria V.E. 23, Milano, Italy.
136. Engels means The Socialist League’s programme document—The Manifesto of the Socialist
League (see The Commonweal No. 1, February 1885). This organisation was founded in
Britain in December 1885 by a group of Socialists who had left the Social Democratic
Federation (see Note 44). The Manifesto proclaimed in part that its members ‘... seek a
change in the basis of Society... which would destroy the distinction of classes and nation-
alities’. The Socialist League pursued the following objectives: setting up a national and
international socialist party; gaining political power by electing Socialists to local govern-
ment bodies; assisting the trade-union and cooperative movements. In the inital years of its
existence the League was actively involved in the working-class movement, However, after
1887 its leadership split into several factions, and there surfaced strong sectarian tendencies,
with many members leaving the ranks. In 1895 the Socialist League actually ceased to exist.
137. The Gazeta Robotnicza, which Maria Mendelson sent to Engels, carried a statement of
Polish Social-Democrats about Marcin Kasprzak’s expulsion from the Party for the embez-
zlement of Party funds, abuse of trust and suspicious links with the police. Besides, the
newspaper published a statement of Berlin Socialists who urged breaking off ties with
Kasprzak. Subsequently Marcin Kasprzak proved the slanderous nature of such accusations
and took an active part in the revolutionary movement. In 1905 the Central Committee of the
Polish Social-Democratic Party adopted an official decision clearing him from imputation.
138. In her letter to Engels on 5 February 1893 Maria Mendelson spoke about the anti-Semitic
and anti-Polish sentiments among Russian university students and army officers in Moscow
and St. Petersburg.
139. An abridged version of this letter was first published in English in the book: Marx, K.,
Engels, F., Letters on ‘Capital’. London: New Park Publications, 1983.
140. Vladimir Shmuilov, a Russian émigré and Socialist, told Engels in his letter of 4 February
1893 that acting on the request of Pavlenkov, the St. Petersburg publisher of the series
Biographies of Illustrious Men, he intended to write a detailed biography of K. Marx, from 6
to 8 signatures large. Shmuilov asked Engels for assitance in collecting materials on three
562 Notes
147. The reference is to the annexation by Prussia after its victory in the war against Austria
(1866), of the Hesse-Cassel (Kurhesse) Kurfürstentum which had sided with Austria. In that
war, Prussia annexed other lands as well.
148. In the Battle of Spichern (Lorraine), one of the first major engagements in the Franco-
Prussian War of 1870-71, Prussian troops defeated French forces. This battle was fought on
6 August 1870.
149. The German Party of Free Thinkers (Die Deutsche Freisinnige Partei) was formed in 1884
with the merger of the progressist Fortschrittspartei and the National-Liberal Left Wing.
One of the Freisinniges leaders was Eugen Richter, a Reichstag deputy. Expressing the
interests of the petty and middle bourgeoisie, the Party was in opposition to the Bismarck
government. In 1893 the Party split into two factions (see Note 223).
150. Below Engels cites the (German) translation of the article ‘Lomza janvier 1893’ (from the
French) which appeared in the February issue of the newspaper Przedswit of the Polish
Socialist Party, in its feature Z Kraju i o Kraju; the original heading of the article was ‘Z
Lomzynskiego w Styczniu 1893, Russo-Boruska przujazn’.
151. The amendment that censured the government for taking no steps to alleviate the plight of
the jobless was rejected by 276 votes against 109. A detailed analysis of the programme of
the Gladstone cabinet in the context of this amendment was published by Eduard Bernstein
in the newspaper Vorwärts, No. 35, on 10 February 1893.
152. In a reference to Liberal Radicals, Engels meant the Radicals within the Left Wing of the
Liberal Party who represented broad strata of the industrial and commercial bourgeoisie,
bourgeois intellectuals and the trades-union leadership. In Britain the Radicals did not make
up an organisation in its own right.
153. The constituent conference of the Independent Labour Party held in Bradford on 13-14
January 1893. Keir Hardie, who chaired at this conference, played the chief role in founding
the Party and in its leadership (see note 114).
154. About the origin of the sobriquet Panamites, see Note 60.
155. Engels intimates that since the beginning of the debates in the French Chamber of Deputies
on the Panama scandal (see Note 60) the Socialists have not spoken on the issue.
156. The forthcoming elections in August and September 1893 to the French Chamber of
Deputies (see Note 208) housed in the Bourbon Palace in Quai d’Orsay in Paris.
157. On 11 February 1893 the British newspaper The Daily News published the article of its Paris
correspondent Emily Crawford: ‘The Sentence on the Panama Directors. Sympathy for Mr.
de Lesseps’.
The French government had to bring to trial some of the men implicated in the Panama
scandal (see Note 60). On 9 February 1893, the court found Ferdinand-Marie Lesseps, the
88-year-old head of the company, guilty, and his son Charles Lesseps, together with the
other defendants, Fontacem Cottu and Fiffel. F. Lesseps and Ch. Lesseps were sentenced to
5 years in prison and a fine of 3,000 francs each, while the other defendants received 2 years
in jail and fines. However, on 15 June 1893 the Court of Cassation reversed the sentence and
acquitted the defendants of all the charges. Yet Ch. Lesseps had to remain in custody
pending the payment of the fine imposed on him.
158. A. Bebel’s speech in the Reichstag on 3 February 1893 (abridged) as well as excerpts from
W. Liebknechts speech on 7 February 1893 (see Note 143) were published by the newspa
per Le Socialiste (No. 126) on 19 February 1893.
564 Notes
169. In his letter to Engels on 23 February 1893 Lafargue wrote in part that the French Workers’
Party (see Note 11) and the Radical Socialists (the Radical Left Wing, see Note 86), who
were led by Etienne Millerand and Jean Jaurés, had agreed on cooperation in the August-
September 1893 elections to the Chamber of Deputies and that they planned to launch an
agitation campaign in Northern France on 5 March.
170. At the municipal elections of 1 and 8 May 1892 the French Workers’ Party polled over
100,000 votes, with 635 Socialists being elected to municipal bodies. They gained a majority
in the local councils of 26 cities.
171. Home Rule—the demand for Irish self-government within the British Empire, as put forward
by the Irish liberal bourgeoisie in the 1870s. Home Rule provided for an independent Irish
parliament and national bodies of government. However, the British government was to
retain the key positions in Ireland.
172. The conference held by representatives of European socialist parties in preparation for the
forthcoming Third International Socialist Working-Men’s Congress in Zurich (see Note
229). At the initiative of the Organizing Committee (see Note 27) this conference met in
Brussels on 26 March 1893; it involved representatives of 6 European countries. Its deci-
sions urged the delegates of the forthcoming Congress to recognise the need of the political
struggle of the working class. One of the aims of this demand was to keep the Anarchists from
taking part in the Congress.
173- This letter was first published in English in F. Engels—P. et L. Lafargue. Correspondence.
T.3. (1891-1895), Paris, Ed. Sociales, 1959.
174. The full text of this letter is in reply to the inquiry of the London firm Thomas Cook & Son
which asked Engels for a letter of recommendation for L. Freyberger who wanted to open an
account with this firm.
175. Engels was taking a rest at Eastbourne from March 1 to March 17 1893 or thereabouts.
176. This letter was written on a postcard with the following address penned by Engels: W.
Liebknecht Esq., 160, Kantstrasse, Charlottenburg-Berlin, Germany.
177. This letter was written on a postcard, with the address inscribed by Engels: Sigr. avv. Filippo
Turati, Portici Galleria V.E. 23, Milano, Italy.
178. On 7 March 1893 F. Turati sent the proofs of the Italian translation of The Manifesto of the
Communist Party (see Note 108) and asked Engels to return them as soon as possible, for it
was to be published the following week. Turati did not succeed in his plans to include the
programme documents of the International in the supplement, as had been done in the 1882
Russian edition of the Manifesto.
Of the two brochures mentioned in the text, the name of only one has been determined:
Pasquale di Fratta, La socializzazione della terra, Milano, 1893.
179. This letter was first published in English in full in: Science and Society, N.Y., 1938. Vol. 11,
No. 3.
180. The rough notes of this letter jotted down by Engels are extant, together with the copy he
made for F. Sorge; Engels sent it to Sorge with his letter of 18 March 1893 (see this volume,
pp. 124-126). The different reading of the copy compared with the original is marked in the
footnotes. As is clear from these three documents, the letter is indicated to have been written
in London, though at that time Engels was recuperating in Eastbourne (see Note 175).
566 Notes
Engels wrote the following address on the envelope: Mr. F. Wiesen, Baird, Texas, U.S.
America.
181. The Bloomsbury Socialist Society, which sprung from the Bloomsbury Branch of the Socialist
League (see Notes 44, 136), became an independent organisation in August 1888, soon
after the Bloomsbury branch had left the League. In its activities the Society was guided by
E. Marx-Aveling, E. Aveling, John L. Mahon, James Macdonald, among others.Taking an
active part in its work were such veterans of the working-class movement as F. Lessner and
A. Weiler. The Society received significant support from F. Engels.
The Bloomsbury Socialist society proclaimed as its aim the propaganda of socialist ideas
amongst the working class and the struggle for a worker political organisation. In subse-
quent years it often organised meetings to commemorate the epic days of the Paris
Commune of 1871; it also arranged lectures on various topics related to acute social and
political issues. Its members were doing active propaganda work in other Socialist and
Radical clubs and societies, as well as in ‘new trades unions’.
182. The International Socialist Working-Men’s Congress, in session in Brussels in August 1891
(see Note 228), entrusted the convocation of the next congress to Swiss Social-Democrats
who set up an Organising Committee in Zurich (see Note 27), with Robert Seidel as
secretary.
183. Bebel was visiting Engels in London from 28 March to 4 April 1893 or thereabouts.
184. The full text of this letter in English was first published in Marx K., Engels F., Letters to
Americans. 1848-1895- A Selection. New York, International Publishers, 1953.
185. In his letters to Engels on 3 February and 9 March 1893 H.D. Lloyd, an American journalist
and the author of books on social issues, asked him to take part in worker congresses
scheduled for late August-early September 1893 in Chicago during an international exhi-
bition that was to be held to commemorate the four hundredth anniversary of America’s
discovery. Lloyd requested that Engels read lectures on the following two subjects: ‘The
Working-Class Movement in Britain from a Socialist Standpoint’ and ‘International Labour
Congresses’, and also speak on other related topics at his discretion.
186. An excerpt from this letter was first published in English in: The Labour Monthly, L., 1934,
No. 12; the full text in English appeared in: Science and Society, N.Y., 1938, Vol. 11, No. 3.
187. A reference to the tug of war in the United States between the advocates of bimetallism and
those of a single gold standard. In 1890, under the Sherman Silver Purchase Act, the West’s
demands for more and more coinage of the metal were heeded. But as predicted, gold was
hoarded and driven out of circulation, and the silver-to-gold ration became 26.5 : 1 in 1893.
In the summer of that year, under President Cleveland’s Administration, Congress had to
repeal the Sherman Act to keep gold from vanishing altogether. By the end of the 19th
century gold was fully restored as a single currency standard in the United States. Engels
gave his assessment of these developments in his letter to Sorge of 2 December 1893 (see this
volume, pp. 235-36).
188. In a letter sent to Engels on 18 March 1893 August Radimsky said that the editor of the
Delnické Listy, the organ of the Czech Workers’ Party, which appeared in Austria, intended
to publish The Manifesto of the Communist Party, translated into Czech, in a separate
edition. Yet fearing a possible confiscation of the booklet by the authorities, the editor pub-
lished the Manifesto (in instalments), as a series of articles in the above newspaper. Radimsky
had sent the initial numbers of the newspaper and asked if Engels wanted the rest.
Notes 567
189. From 1 August to 29 September 1893 Engels made a tour of Germany, Switzerland and
Austria-Hungary; he visited Cologne and then, together with A. Bebel, went to Zurich via
Mainz and Strassburg; thence he went to the Canton of Graubünden for several days to meet
his brother Hermann. Upon his return to Zurich on 12 August, Engels attended the final
session of the International Socialist Working-Men’s Congress in Zurich (see Note 229),
where he made a short speech in English, French and German (see present edi-tion,Vol. 27,
pp. 404-05) and, on behalf of the Bureau, closed the session. After a fortnight’s sojourn in
Switzerland, Engels left for Vienna through Munich and Salzburg; in Vienna, on 14
September, he addressed a meeting of Social-Democrats (see present edition, Vol. 27,
pp.406-07). Then, via Prague and Karlsbad (Karlovy Vary), he went to Berlin and stayed
there from 16 September to 28 September; on 22 September he spoke at a Social-Democratic
meeting (see present edition, Vol. 27, pp. 409-10). Thereupon Engels returned to London by
way of Rotterdam.
190. Bank holiday—in Great Britain, any of six legal holidays on which banks are closed.
Introduced in 1871, bank holiday is celebrated on Monday as a rule: after Easter Sunday,
after Whitsunday, and on the first Monday in August; also all banks are closed on 26
December.
191. Engels wrote the draft of his reply on an empty page of M.R. Cotar’s letter of 21 March
1893. Cotar asked for permission to translate Volume II of Das Kapital into French and
requested assistance in this undertaking.
192. On the envelope of this letter Engels wrote the following address: G.W. Lamplugh Esq.,
Ballafurt, Port Erin, Isle of Man.
The full text of this letter was first published in English in Marx, Engels, Lenin, Stalin.
Facsimiles. M., 1939.
193. An excerpt from this letter was first published in English in: Marx K., Engels F., On
Literature and Art, Moscow, Progress Publishers, 1976.
194. This part of Engels’ letter of 28 September 1892 to Franz Mehring (see present edition, Vol.
49) was published in Mehring’s article ‘II ber den historischen Materialismus’ appended to
the first separate edition of his work: Die Lessing-Legende. Eine Rettung von Franz Mehring,
Stuttgart, 1893. Engels also mentions the book by Lavergne-Peguilhen: Grundzüge der
Gesellschaftswissenschaft. Erster Theil. Die Bewegungs-und Productionsgesetze, First Part.
Königsberg, 1838.
195. A reference to the publication of Engels’ work The Origin of the Family, Private Property and
the State translated into French by Henri Ravé; this translation was edited by Laura Lafargue
who did a stupendous amount of work to correct the numerous deficiencies contained in it.
Having read the thus revised translation, Engels had a high opinion of the work done. The
book was published in October 1893 under the title L’Origine de la famille, de la propriété
privée et de l’état.
196. On 30 April 1892, L’Illustration published two pages of the portraits of personalities promi-
nent in the international socialist movement.
197. Engels means The Legal Eight Hours and International Labour League founded in 1890 by a
group of English Socialists with Engels’ participation on the basis of a Committee which
had organised Britain’s first ever May Day demonstration in London in 1890. The League
set as its aim the struggle for the liberation of the working class and action on the decisions
of the Paris Congress of the Second International (see Note 227). In 1893 League repre-
sentatives took part in setting up The Independent Labour Party (see Note 114).
568 Notes
icy steered by Bismarck and by subsequent reactionary governments of the German Empire.
In the early 1890s the National Liberals came forward with the idea of ‘suspending’ any
kind of social legislation and mounted a crusade for unrestricted entrepreneurial powers.
204. At the Reichstag election of 15 June 1893 the German Social-Democrats gained a major
victory: they polled 1,787,000 votes. All in all, 44 Social-Democratic deputies were elected
to the Reichstag, among them, W. Liebknecht, A. Bebel and P. Singer. Of the six deputies
elected in Berlin, five were Social-Democrats. Engels commented on these election returns
in his interview for a correspondent of Daily Chronicle (see present edition, Vol. 27, p. 549).
205. During the May Day demonstration held in London’s Hyde Park on 7 May 1893, the Legal
Eight Hours and International Labour League (see Note 197) organised an international
rostrum from which socialists of many countries spoke, among them, Alfred Delcluze,
Louise Kautsky, Friedrich Lessner, Eleanor Marx-Aveling, S.M. Kravchinsky (Stepniak).
206. Liberal Unionists—a group led by Joseph Chamberlain which, in 1886, broke away from the
Liberal Party because of the differences over Home Rule for Ireland (see Note 171). The
Liberal Unionists were advocating continued Union with Ireland (1801). They leagued
themselves with the Conservative Party and, a few years later, joined its ranks.
207. Hastings—a resort on the English Channel.
208. At the elections to the French Chamber of Deputies on 20 August and 3 September 1893 the
Socialists of various trends gained 700,000 votes and 30 seats (among the elected deputies
12 were from the Workers’ Party—J. Guesde, J. Juarés, E. Vaillant and others).
The deputies representing the Workers’ Party agreed to form a united socialist group in
the new Chamber; this group comprised 20 deputies who belonged to the bourgeois Left
Wing, Radicals for the most part (also known as ‘independent socialists’) and other social-
ists. All in all the Socialist group in the Chamber of Deputies numbered 50 deputies.
Engels more than once criticised the leadership of the Workers’ Party for concessions it
had made to the Radicals in the matter of Programme and organisational principles for the
sake of forming a joint Socialist parliamentary group. See, e.g., Engels’ letters to V. Adler of
17 July 1894 and to F. Sorge of 30 December 1893 (see this volume, pp. 249, 324-25).
209. Hermann Lopatin was imprisoned in the Schlüsselburg fortress at the time.
210. Together with this book Isaak Hourwich had sent a number of articles on the revolutionary
movement in Russia and asked Engels what he thought of them. Hourwich intended to have
these articles published in The Progress along with Engels’ commentary.
211. The second edition of Henry Lloyd’s book A Strike of Millionaires against Miners saw print
in Chicago in 1891 (the first edition being published there in 1890).
This book looks into the history of a major lockout staged by the owners of Illinois coal
mines. At the end of 1888 and in early 1889 the company fired a third of its coal miners and
declared a general lockout; it closed stores selling foodstuffs on credit. For nearly six
months about five thousand miners were involved in a struggle to defend their rights. Yet
this standoff ended in a victory of the entrepreneurs who succeeded in imposing the lowest
pay rates for miners in the United States by slashing the old ones 1/3. The author had twice
visited the scene and published a number of articles in the press, urging assistance to the
jobless coal miners and their families. H. Lloyd’s book became very popular in the United
States.
212. K. Kautsky wrote to Engels in his letter of 19 May 1893 that the journal Die Zeitschrift fur
Social- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, Bd.L, Ausgabe I, Freiburg in Breisgau Leipzig, 1893) had
published the article by Lujo Brentano, a Katheder Socialist: ‘Die Volksvirtschaft und ihre
570 Notes
konkreten Grundbedingungen’ which permitted attacks on Engels’ work The Origin of the Family, Private
Property and the State (see present edition, Vol. 26).
213. By the old Concordia business Engels means L. Brentanos articles published anonymously
by the journal Concordia in 1872 in which he attempted to discredit Marx as a scientist.
Thus, Brentano accused Marx of incompetence and falsifications; Marx responded by two
articles in the newspaper Volksstaat. ‘A Reply to the Brentano Article’ and A Reply to
the Second Brentano Article’ (see present edition, Vol. 23, pp. 164-67, 190-97). In 1890,
continuing his campaign of slander against Marx, L. Brentano published the pamphlet
Meine Polemik mit Karl Marx which elicited a response from Engels, the pamphlet Marx
contra Brentano (see present edition, Vol. 27, pp. 97-154).
Engels criticised the views of A. Mülberger, a German Proudhonist, in his work The Housing
Question which he wrote in 1872-73, in Parts I and II I (see present edition, Vol. 23, p. 317-391).
214. Engels hints at the thesis of ‘one reactionary mass’ which entered into the Programme of the German
Social-Democratic Party adopted at its Gotha Congress in 1875. Thus, the Programme said this in part:
‘Emancipation of labour ought to be the cause of the working class in relation to which all the other
classes consititute but one reactionary mass’. Marx censured this tenet in his Critique of the Gotha
Programme (see present edition, Vol. 24, pp.75-99).
215. An allusion to E.B. Bax’s articles ‘Der Fluch der Zivilisation’ and ‘Menschenthum und Klasseninstinkt’
published by the journal Die Neue Zeit, 11 Jg. 1892/93, Bd. 2, Nos. 45 & 47; this worked was translated
from English by V Adler.
216. In his letter of 31 May 1899 Hermann Bahr, an Austrian journalist, asked Engels to explain his stand on
anti-Semitism and the Jewish problem; he intended to have this material, along with the pronouncements
of other persons on this subject, published in the Vienna newspaper Die Deutsche Zeitung.
217. By anti-Semitic candidates, Engels means representatives of Die Christlich-soziale Arbeiterpartei (The
Christian Social Worker Party) founded in 1878 by Adolf Stoecker, a reactionary German political figure
and advocate of anti-Semitism. This party saw its aim in combatting the socialist movement; subsequently
it used the slogan of anti-Semitism to mount a demagogic campaign against financial capital. Its members
succeeded in winning support among the backward strata of the peasantry and artisans in some districts of
Germany; this success had a part to play in the setup of the poll. In 1895 A. Stoecker transformed his
organisation into Die Christlich-soziale Partei.
About the election to the German Reichstag, see Note 204.
218. In his letter of June 1893 F. Turati told Engels about the plans of G. Domanico, an Italian anarchist, to
publish the Italian translation of Das Kapital, beginning with Vol. 1, in 50 installments at low price;
writing to Engels on 2 June 1893, G. Domanico expressed his confidence that Engels would approve of
this initiative and asked for a letter that might be used as a preface. G. Domanico also asked Engels to
him know about corrections in the text, remarks and amendments. This undertaking never came off.
219. About the middle of May 1841 Engels, in his father’s company, made a tour of southern Germany,
Switzerland and Northern Italy (Lombardy). See also his travel notes in Wanderings in Lombardy
(present edition, Vol. 2, p. 170).
Notes 571
220. As F. Turati wrote to Engels, the Italian Socialist E. Guindani was undertaking the Italian
edition of G. Déville’s book Le Capital de Karl Marx. Résumé et accompagné d’un aperçu
sur
le socialisme scientifique. The book was published in Cremona in 1893.
Engels commented on G. Déville’s work in his letters to K. Kautsky of 9 January and to
P. Lavrov of 5 February 1884 (see present edition, Vol. 47).
221. On the envelope of this letter Engels inscribed the following address: Monsieur Stojan
Nokoff, Chemin de la Roseraie 8, Genève, Switzerland.
222. Engels made a mistake by identifying two different towns. Philippopolis was the Greek
name of the present Bulgarian city Plovdiv.
223. On 6 May 1893 there was a split within Die Deutsche Freisinnige Partei (see Note 149) due
to the differences over the draft military legislation tabled by the Bismarck government (see
Note 76). The pro-government faction of this party in the Reichstag formed an Alliance of
Free-Thinkers (Die Freisinnige Vereinigung) led by Ludwig Bamberger; the other faction,
opposing the higher war budget, starting calling itself a Free-Thinking People’s Party {Die
Freisinnige Volkspartei), with Eugen Richter as its leader.
224. In his Interview]. Guesde elucidated the principle of internationalism in the working-class
and socialist movement. It was published by the newspaper Le Figaro on 17 June 1893
under the heading ‘Les Socialistes et la Patrie’, and also by Le Socialiste (No. 144) on 17
June 1894.
225. The reactionary French politicians P. Déroulède and L. Millevoye mounted a campaign
against G. Clemenceau, the leader of the Radical Party (see Note 86) in June 1893; they
accused him of links with one of those implicated in the Panama affair (see Note 60) and of
his being in the pay of the British government. The monarchist press started printing
documents stolen from the British embassy which indicated breach of allegiance on
Clemenceau’s part. Yet these documents proved false upon their promulgation in the
Chamber of Deputies.
226. In the spring of 1893 the monarchist quarters of France, backed by the anarchists, launched a
slanderous campaign against the Socialists; they branded as anti-patriotic the Socialist
principle of internationalism. In this connection J. Geusde and P. Lafargue organised meet-
ings in towns of northern France on June 17 and 18 at which they read out an appeal to the
working people of France (‘Le Conseil national du Parti ouvrier aux travailleurs de France’).
The appeal was published inthe newspaper Le Socialiste (No. 144) on 17 June 1893 on
behalf of the National Council of the French Workers’ Party. Its full text reads as follows:
TO THE WORKING PEOPLE OF FRANCE
Comrades!
In their impotent fury over the onward march of the Workers’ Party our class enemies
have resorted to the only weapon left in their arsenal, slander. They are distorting our inter-
nationalism the way they have tried to distort our socialism. And albeit those who seek to
present us as having no Motherland are the selfsame people who, all through this century,
have been but abetting incursions into Motherland’s territory and dismemberment, a
Motherland whom their class gave up to sack and plunder by the banditry of cosmopolitan
financiers and whom it had been exploiting without stopping at bloodshed at Ricamari and
Fourmi, we, far from permitting them to confuse a collectivist solution to the question with
anarchy, this mockery of bourgeois individualism, shall never allow them to translate our
glorious motto ‘Long Live the International!’ as the preposterous ventriloquy ‘Down with
France!’
Notes
No, internationalism means no humiliation of our Motherland, nor does it mean its immolation. When
patries came into being, they were the first and essential stage toward the unity of humankind, a goal that
we are pursuing; and internationalism, begotten by the entire course of the new civilisation, is likewise an
essential stage along this path. Just as the French Patrie was taking form not in opposition to various
provinces which she wrested from the state of defunct antagonism with the aim of bringing them
together, but in the interests of their freedom and prosperity, so the Patrie of humankind—which requires
social organisation of production, exchanges and science—is not and cannot be formed to the detriment
of the now extant nations, it is formed for their good and consummate progress.
He who embarks upon the path of internationalism leading to an absolute flourishing of humanity does
not cease to be a patriot just as we, becoming French at the end of the last century, continued to remain
Provençals, Flemish or Bretons.
Contrariwise, internationalists may well call themselves the only patriots because they are only ones
to be aware to what extent conditions must improve under which the future and the grandeur of their
Patrie can and should be secure—in fact, of all the patries who will have turned from antagonistic to
solid ones.
By proclaiming ‘Long Live the International!’ they proclaim: ‘Long live the France of labour! Long
live the historic mission of the French proletariat that will be able to liberate itself only by assisting in the
liberation of the proletariat of all countries!’
French Socialists are patriots also from another standpoint and from other considerations: because
France was in the past, and she is destined already now to evolve into one of the most significant factors
of social advancement, as we understand it.
So, we want—and we cannot but want—to have a great and strong France capable of defending the
republic against united monarchies, and also of protecting her new year of 1789 which is to come against
the coalition, at least against a possible coalition, of the capitalist states of Europe.
It is France who by the works of Babeuf, Fourier and Saint-Simon has made a beginning in the
development of the socialist ideas to which Marx and Engels have imparted scientific consummation.
It is France, the country of the first bourgeois revolution, which is the inevitable precursor of a
proletarian revolution, who became an epic battlefield of the classes and who sacrificed to the cause of
emancipated labour a countless number of her heroic rebels in Lyon in 1832 and Paris in 1848 and 1871.
It is France who, in spite of her sons having been butchered in the Versailles massacre, raised in 1889,
at her immortal Congress in Paris, the banner of the International—a banner crimson with her own
blood—and made a beginning in the celebration of May Day; she is the first to have hoisted the red
banner of the proletariat, marching on toward winning political power, on the town halls seized by means
of ballots.
And since her revolutionary past is the earnest of her socialist future, 23 years ago, as she faced
danger, the internationalists of Italy, Spain and other countries rushed under the tricolor to her rescue,
while the nascent German Social-Democracy, risking its freedom, did everything to prevent her
dismemberment, just as absurd as criminal.
But this is why we, patriots, do not want a war which, be it victorious or not, would equally result in
unspeakable calamities, leaving in the battlefield millions of people and the engines of death they will
have been armed with.
We do not want a war which, whatever its outcome, would be but a game of Asiatic cruelty in the
person of the Russian czar for the exhausted West.
We want peace, a lasting peace, because it is to our benefit but, is against the domination of the
capitalists and governments, a domination we are out to destroy—for they can
Notes 573
prolong their despicable and pernicious existence only by dividing and exterminating the nations.
We want peace because the bourgeois order is foredoomed.
And now that we know that patriotism and internationalism, far from excluding one another, are the
two mutually complimentary forms of human amity, we repeat it loud and clear to the face of our
calumniators:
Yes, the French Workers’ Party constitutes one whole with the German Social-Democracy against the
German Empire.
Yes, the French Workers’ Party constitutes one whole with the Belgian Workers’ Party against the
bourgeois Koburg monarchy.
Yes, the French Workers’ Party constitutes one whole with the toilers and Socialists of Italy against
the Savoy monarchy.
Yes, the French Workers’ Party constitutes one whole with the young but already so strong Labour
Party on the other side of the Channel against the oligarchic and capitalist constitutionalism of Britain.
Yes, we do and shall constitute one whole with the proletariat of both hemispheres against the ruling
and propertied classes everywhere.
And we hope that our French comrades, the people of the workshops and fields, will join their voices
to the Party National Council in a double call which, in substance, constitutes but one whole:
Long Live the International!
Long Live France!
National Council:
Joseph Crepin, Simon Dereure, Ferroul, deputy;
Jules Geusde, Paul Lafargue, deputy;
Prévost, Kennel.
227. The International Socialist Working-Men’s Congress in Paris, which was actually the constituent
congress of the Second International, opened on 14 July 1889, the centennial of the storming of the
Bastille. About 400 delegates from 20 countries of Europe and America attended. The Congress heard the
reports of Socialist representatives on the condition of the working-class movement in their respective
countries, outlined fundamental principles of the international labour legislation by approving demands
for the legal eight hours, prohibition of child labour and for labour protection of working women and
adolescents. The Congress stressed the need of a political organisation of the proletariat and of a struggle
for the implementation of workers’ democratic demands; it spoke out for a dissolution of regular armies
which were to be replaced by a people’s militia. The most significant decision of the Congress was its
resolution on holding demonstrations and meetings in all countries on 1 May 1890 in support of an eight-
hour working day and of a fair-labour code. The anarchists, who opposed the congress resolutions, failed
to enlist support from the absolute majority of the delegates.
228. The International Socialist Working-Men’s Congress in Brussels was held on 16-22 August 1891. It was
attended by 370 delegates from 16 European countries and the United States who represented, by and
large, the Marxist trend in the working-class movement. Most of the delegates voted against anarchists
participating in the Congress (who had sent their delegates). Attending the Congress were also
representatives of the British trades unions, a rather positive factor according to Engels. Such issues were
on its agenda as the labour code, work stoppage and boycott, and militarism. In its resolution on labour
legislation the Congress called on workers of the world to join forces in the struggle against the capitalist
rule; it urged workers, wherever they had political rights, to use these rights for their eman-
574 Notes
cipation from wage servitude. The resolution on work stoppage and boycott recommended
that workmen use both forms of the struggle. It emphasised the absolute need of trade
unions for the workers.
The attitude of the working class to militarism was the central issue on the agenda. The
reports delivered by W. Liebknecht and E. Vaillant, as well as the resolution proposed by
Liebknecht characterized militarism as an inevitable follow-up of the capitalist system; they
stressed that a socialist system alone would be able to put an end to militarism and establish
peace among the nations; that Socialists were a genuine party of peace. Yet these documents
did not define specific tasks and ways of the struggle against the war threat.
The resolution proposed by Liebknecht was attacked by the leader of the Dutch Socialists
D. Nieuwenhuis, a man of anarchist leanings. He tabled a resolution urging the Socialists of
all countries to appeal in the event of a war to their peoples to stage a general strike, but it
failed to win support among the delegates. The overwhelming majority of votes was cast for
the W. Liebknecht resolution (see also F. Engels ‘The Brussels Congress. The Situation in
Europe’; present edition, vol. 27).
229. The Third International Socialist Working-Men’s Congress was held in Zurich on 6-12 August
1893. Attending were over 400 delegates from 18 countries. The British delegation had a
much broader representation than at the previous two congresses. The following issues were
on the agenda: the legal eight hours, May Day celebration, the political tactics of Social-
Democrats and the position of Social-Democracy in the event of a war. Since participation
in the Congress was conditional on one’s recognition of political activity (something that
the anarchists denied), the Congress began its work by considering the legitimacy of the
mandates of the anarchist delegates. Following a heated debate a resolution was carried by
a majority of votes. It interpreted the notion of political activity as the use of political rights
and law-making institutions by working-class parties in the interests of the proletariat and
for gaining political power. Upon the adoption of this amendment the anarchists, includ
ing the representatives of The Young (see Note 129), had to leave the Congress.
On the issue of May Day festivities the Congress rejected by a majority of votes the pro-
posal of the German Social-Democrats to have the celebrations as late as the first Sunday of
the month; it stressed the major political significance of a demonstration on May 1 as the
day of proletarian solidarity. On the third issue of the agenda (the political tactics of Social-
Democrats) the Congress adopted a resolution which recognised the need of combining the
parliamentary and non-parliamentary forms of struggle depending on specific conditions in
this or that country.
Concerning the attitude of Social-Democrats to war, the Congress turned down the
Nieuwenhuis proposal for a general strike to be declared in case of a war and reaffirmed the
basic provisions of the Brussels Congress resolution on this issue (see Note 228); it added a
clause urging workers to wage a disarmament struggle and obliging the Socialist MPs to
vote against war credits.
230. The Belgian Workers’ Party was founded in Brussels on 5 April 1885 on the basis of the
Belgian Socialist Party formed in 1879. The Workers’ Party likewise comprised other work-
ers’ organisations—trade unions, cooperatives, etc. The Party crusaded for economic
demands of the working class and for universal suffrage; it led the strike action of the
proletariat.
231. Charles Verecque, a French Socialist, was sentenced to a term in prison and public penance
according to Article 226 of the French Criminal Code which had been in abeyance for about
100 years. With the consent of a group of Socialists of the town of Amiens, Verecque
(accused of saying to the prosecuting attorney, ‘One ought to stick Mr. Viviani s plea onto
the prosecutor’s back’) wrote a letter to the prosecuting attorney which concluded by
Notes 575
saying: ‘I plead guilty and declare it in a written deposition, as it ensues from Article 226,
that I am guilty of momentarily mistaking the back of a magistrate for one of the machines
on which, in a few weeks’ time, we shall have the honour of sticking the programme—a
victorious programme—of Socialism’; Verecque’s statement contained a pun: magistrate
(‘magistrat’) as a justice and as a municipal officer.
232. in his letter of 28 June 1893 P. Lafargue told Engels that the National Council of the French
Workers’ Party had appealed to the Organising Committee of the Zurich International
Congress (see Note 182) with a request to adjourn the convocation of the Congress from
August to November in view of the election to the Chamber of Deputies due on 20 August
1893. Lafargue asked Engels to write to Bebel to get the Germans to second this request.
233. Engels visited Como during his tour of Germany, Switzerland and Italy in August-
September 1865.
234. This letter was first published in English with deletions in: K. Marx and F. Engels,
Correspondence 1846-1895. A Selection with Commentary and Notes. London, Martin
Lawrence, 1934; and in full in: K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Correspondence, F.L.P.H.
Moscow, 1955.
235. Engels never realised this intention. For the available fragments and outlines, see present
edition, Vol. 26, pp. 554-56.
236. The Duchy of Burgundy, formed in eastern France in the 9th century, became an inde-
pendent feudal state in the 14th and 15th centuries; it attained maximum might under Duke
Charles the Bold in the latter half of the 15th century. In a bid to expand its dominions the
Duchy of Burgundy worked against the centralist policy of the French King Louis XI and
waged a war of conquest against the Swiss and Lorraine. Finally Louis XI succeeded in
having the Swiss and Lorrainians form a coalition against Burgundy. In a war against this
coalition (1474-77) the troops of Charles the Bold were defeated, and the Duke was killed in
the Battle of Nancy (1477). His dominion was divided between Louis XI and Maximilian
Habsburg, the German Emperor’s son.
237. R. Meyer gave a ‘truncated version’ of this letter for publication; the end of the letter is
missing.
238. In his letter of F. Engels of 22 June 1893 R. Meyer recapitulated a conversation he had with
a lawyer who, in his political views, was close to the Conservatives (see Note 202). The
lawyer had told Meyer about the opinion current among the Conservatives to the effect that
Reichskanzler Caprivi ‘would use all his powers as Chancellor for suppressing Social-
Democracy which had won “too great a victory” in the last election’.
239. The reference is to Engels’ interview to a correspondent of the British newspaper Daily
Chronicle, published on 1 July 1893. The interview was granted on the occasion of the June-
held elections to the German Reichstag and the good returns for German Social-Democrats
(see Note 204). The text of this interview was carried in an abridged form by Le Socialiste
(No. 148), 15 July 1893, in P. Lafargue’s translation and under the heading ‘F. Engels et las
élections allemandes’ (see present edition, Vol. 27, pp. 549-53).
240. The first issue of L’Ere nouvelle on 1 July 1893 carried the final chapter of Engels’ book The
Origin of Family, Private Property and the State. In light of the Researches by Lewis H.
Morgan (see present edition, Vol. 26), ‘Barbarism and Civilisation’. The second issue of the
journal, which came out on 2 August, had chapter V of the above work—’The Emergence of
the Athenian State’.
576 Notes
241. In 1882-83 France, pushing ahead with the colonialist thrust in Southeast Asia, ran into
stiff resistance in the Kingdom of Siam. Several military clashes occurred as a result. In July
1883 French naval ships invested Siam’s capital city, Bangkok. The Siamese government
had to yield and it signed a treaty with France, ceding the vassal Siamese territories on the
left bank of the Mekong to France.
In 1882 the French government began a colonial war in North Vietnam (Tongking) which
developed into a war with China. Although France established its protectorate over Vietnam,
the hostilities continued with French troops suffering setbacks in 1885; this caused the fall
of the Ferry government.
242. On the envelope of this letter Engels wrote the following address: ‘Sigr. Filippo Turati,
Portici Galleria VE. 23, Milano, Italy’. Turati made this note on the envelope; ‘Engels,
Proprietà. opere Marx’: the few words that followed are illegible.
243. The Printing-and-Publishing Union (la Unione tipografica-editrice) of Turin filed a decla-
ration of protest against the intention of E. Guindani, an Italian Socialist from Cremona, to
publish the Italian edition of G. DéVille’s work Le Capital de Karl Marx, Résumé et accom-
pagné d’un aperçu sur le socialisme scientifique (see note 220); the Union claimed it allegedly
purchased the copyright on all the works of Marx from his heirs.
244. On 24 July 1893 Natalie Liebknecht sent Engels a photograph of the house where he was
born, in Bruch, a suburb of Barmen. The photograph had been ordered by W. Liebknecht
during one of his propaganda tours of Germany.
245. On 21-28 July 1893 Engels was on holiday in Eastbourne.
246. In her letter of 24 July 1893 Natalie Liebknecht told Engels that her son Karl had not been
accepted into military service in Berlin because of his being a Saxon subject.
247. A reference to the annexation of the larger part of Alsace and East Lorraine by Germany in
1871 as a result of the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71. France
regained this territory in 1919.
248. Engels means the rule of the French Emperor Napoleon II I (2 December 1852— 4
September 1870). The Second Empire collapsed in the wake of the September Revolution of
1870.
249. In the first round J. Guesde won a victory by polling 6,887 votes: Deschamps, a moderate
Republican, got 2,138 votes and Vienne, a Roman Catholic Worker—4,403. Paul Lafargue,
who had been running in Lisle’s second electoral district, polled 4,745 votes.
250. Since the International Socialist Working-Men’s Congress in Zurich was being held on the
eve of the election to the French Chamber of Deputies, the leaders of the French Workers’
Party were unable to attend. The French delegation comprised 41 men of whom only two
(Bonnet and Bonnier) represented the Party. The other delegates were from non-Marxist
parties and political groups: the Possibilists (see Note 30), the Independent Socialists
(Jaclard), the Blanquists (see Note 20) [Degay and Rémy], etc. The French delegation
distinguished itself by its inconsistent voting and its opposition to Bebel’s theses and to the
majority at the Congress.
251. The text of this letter was written on a post card. Engels indicated his whereabouts: Frau
Hermann Engels aus Barmen (Engelskirchen), Hotel Bellevue, St. Moritz Bad Engadin.
252. The hope that Paul Lafargue would be elected to the French Chamber of Deputies did not
materialise. In order to defeat his opponent, Lafargue (as well as Gustave Dron, an oppor-
tunist candidate) had to receive 3,000 votes in his constituency. During the election cam-
Notes 577
paign Lafargue and Dron reached an agreement whereby Socialists in Dron’s constituency were to cast
their votes for him, Gustave Dron, while pro-opportunist candidates in Lafargue’s constituency were to
vote for his candidacy. While the Socialists secured a victory for Dron, the opportunist electorate cast
their votes for Lafargue’s opponent.
253. Engels wrote this letter on a form that had A. Bebel’s address printed on it.
254. Prior to his trip to Europe in 1893 (see Note 189) Engels had last visited Germany in the latter half of
June 1876 as he went to Heidelberg for domestic reasons.
255. Engels was in Berlin from September 1841 to October 1842 after he had joined as a volunteer to do his
tour of military duty.
256. Die Freie Volksbühne (‘Free Popular Stage’)—a theatrical society founded in Berlin in 1890. It staged
theater shows for the populace and championed classical authors like Goethe, Schiller, Hauptmann, Ibsen
as well as Gogol and Tolstoy. It was not a commercial enterprise; it put on performances in circumvention
of official censorship.
257. Returning together with A. Bebel from the Zurich Working-Men’s Congress (see Note 229), Engels
stayed for a few days in Vienna. On 11 September 1893 Austrian Social-Democrats organised a reception
which, according to the Vienna newspaper Die Arbeiter-Zeitung of 15 September 1893, was attended by
about 600 people. There was another rally on 14 September, at which about 2,000 took part, on the results
of the Zurich Congress. The speakers included V Adler, A. Bebel and other delegates to the Congress.
Engels spoke at the end of the meeting (see present edition, Vol. 27, pp. 406-07).
258. After the stormy anti-Austrian demonstrations of the summer of 1893 at which the protesters demanded
universal suffrage, the Taafe government imposed a state of emergency in the Prague district on 12
September 1893. It banned all Radical-Progressist and Social-Democratic publications.
259. P. Lafargue’s article ‘Die politischen Parteien in Frankreich und die letzten Wahlen’ published by Die
Neue Zeit (12. Jg., 1893/1894, Nos. 3, 4 and 5), and also his letter to Engels on 5 September 1893 about
the results of the election to the French Chamber of Deputies. V Adler’s article ‘Die Wahlen in
Frankreich’, published in Die Arbeiter-Zeitung (No. 37) on 15 September 1893, was based on this
information.
260. Engels is answering Karl Kautsky’s letter of 20 September 1893 asking permission to publish Heinrich
Heine’s letter to Marx of 21 September 1844 in Die Neue Zeit. This letter was in the possession of
Eleanor Marx-Aveling. Kautsky asked Engels to write an introduction to the intended publication, but
Engels did not do so. The Heine letter was published in Die Neue Zeit (No. 1, 1895-96, Vol. 1) only after
Engels’ death; Kautsky supplied a commentary and a facsimile of Engels’ letter.
261. A reference to the royalties paid by the publishers of Das Kapital to Marx’s heirs.
262. On his way back from the International Socialist Working-Men’s Congress in Zurich (he was
accompanied by A. Bebel, see Note 229), Engels stopped in Berlin, staying from 16 to 28 September
1893, where he received a warm reception. A rally was held in the Concordia Hall on 22 September in
which about 4,000 took part. Wilhelm Liebknecht made a speech on the role of Engels in the German
working-class movement. Engels spoke in reply (see present edition, Vol. 27, pp. 409-10).
263. Norici—a group of Illyrian-Celtic tribes that used to live in the ancient Roman Province of Noricum
situated south of the Danube in what is now Austria.
578 Notes
265. In 1893 William Reeves, a London publisher, printed the English translation of A. Bebel’s book Die Frau
und der Sozialismus (‘Woman and Socialism), without any prior consultations either with the author or
with the translator, Mrs. Adams Walter, who had prepared the first English edition, published in London
in 1885 by The Modern Press. The book’s title (Die Frau in der Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft)
was Bebel’s own and was retained in the German editions, from the Second to the Eighth (1883-90). The
same name—Women in the Past, Present and Future—was used in all the English translations.
266. Hermann Blocher, a Swiss Social-Democrat, approached Engels with a request to help him in selecting
the literature in connection with a work on Bruno Bauer he was going to write.
267. An allusion to the warm reception given to Engels at the concluding session of the International Socialist
Working-Men’s Congress in Zurich (see Note 229).
268. The French Chamber of Deputies, elected in August-September 1893 (see Note 208) was to open its
sessions in November 1893.
269. Victor Adler made his speech at a rally in one of Vienna’s largest halls, the Schwender Colisuem, on 2
October 1893; more than 4,000 were in attendance. He spoke against the state of emergency declared in
the Prague district on 12 September (see Note 258). Adler’s speech was published by Die Arbeiter-
Zeitung (No. 40) on 6 October 1893.
270. A reference to the draft electoral reform tabled in the Austrian Reichskrat on 10 October 1893 by
Ministerpräsident (Premier) Eduard Taaffe whose government represented the conservative bloc of the big
landed proprietors and top bureaucracy. He was supported by the Polish, Czech and Slovenian feudal-
clerical interests, A broad campaign for a reform of the country’s electoral system began in the early
1890s. On 9 July 1893 Social-Democrats organised a mammoth demonstration of Vienna’s workers for
universal suffrage. Similar demonstrations and rallies were held countrywide. Under the circumstances the
Taaffe government proposed a draft electoral reform which provided for a considerably wider range of
prospective voters, but preserved the old curial system and the privileges for the landlords and the
bourgeoisie. The reactionary political parties, however, opposed the draft law, and the Taaffe cabinet had
to resign in October 1893. The country’s electoral system was reformed as late as 1896.
271. Phoenicians—a tribe of seafarers described by Homer in The Odyssey. According to Homer, they
inhabited the island of Scheria north of Ithaca, the island of Odysseus.
272. The Social-Democratic Workers’ Party of Austria was founded at a unification congress that was in
session at Heinfeld (Low Austria) on 30 December 1888—1 January 1889. This congress adopted a
programme (‘Declaration of Principles’) which was based on the fundamental tenets of Marxism. In its
Declaration the Party defined as its objective a political organisation of the proletariat; it pledged to
promote the class-consciousness of the proletariat. Its other targets included socialisation of the means of
production, emancipation of Labour, political rights for working people and their education.
273. Der Sonderbund-—a separatist union of the seven economicallly backward Catholic cantons formed in
1843 to resist progressive bourgeois reforms and to defend the privileges of the Church and the Jesuits.
The decree of the Swiss Diet of 1847 dissolving the Sonderbund served as a pretext for the latter to start
hostilities against other cantons early in November. On 23 November 1847, the Sonderbund forces,
consisting largely of milita detachments, were defeated by the federalist army.
Notes 579
274. Pius IX, who succeeded to the Holy See in 1846 under the conditions of an imminent rev-
olution in Italy, announced a restricted political amnesty and embarked on moderate
reforms, thus gaining popularity as a ‘liberal Pope’. The demonstrations of 1846, 1847 and
early 1848 held under the motto ‘Long Live Pius IX’, turned into a powerful revolutionary
catalyst. But with the outbreak of the 1848 Revolution, the Pope appealed to the Catholic
powers to intervene against the Italian Republic and, after the defeat of the Revolution,
followed overtly reactionary policies.
275. In January 1848, the Neapolitan troops of King Ferdinand II , subsequently named King
Bomba for his savage bombardment of Messina in the autumn of that year, ordered a
shelling of Palermo in an effort to suppress a popular uprising, a move that sparked off the
bourgeois revolution of 1848-49 in the Italian states.
276. The years 1890-93 saw a mass campaign for universal suffrage in Belgium. In April 1893
the General Council of the Belgian Workers’ Party (see Note 230) declared a general polit-
ical strike for a revision of the acting electoral law. Under the pressure of mass actions and
work stoppages the Chamber of Deputies was compelled, on 18 April 1893, to adopt a law
on universal suffrage (with certain reservations, however); the franchise was granted to men
over 25 on the condition they had been resident in the country for no less than a year (res-
idential qualification). On the other hand, this law introduced a system of multiple voting
whereby some categories of voters were eligible for an additional 1-2 ballots depending on
their property status, education and government service record.
277. The Young Czechs—a bourgeois-liberal party which championed the interests of the Czech
bourgeoisie.
The Old Czechs—the Right Wing of the national movement in Bohemia, Moravia And
Silesia; they expressed the interests of the nobility.
278. In view of the Socialists’ success at the elections to the French Chamber of Deputies in
August-September 1893 (see Note 208), the reactionary press mounted a campaign of slan-
der accusing them of being German agents on the pretext that German Social-Democrats had
donated 2,500 francs to the election fund. In this connection P. Lafargue wrote to Engels on
5 September 1893 that French Socialists had better not receive money from Germany in the
future.
279. Engels means a congress held by the Social-Democratic Party of Germany in Cologne on
22-28 October 1893. The congress heard the reports of the Party Executive of the Social-
Democratic group in the Reichstag, and discussed the Party press, the labour union move-
ment and its support by the Social-Democrats, May Day celebrations in 1894, as well as
August Bebel’s report Antisemitismus und Sozialdemokratie’. The delegates came out
against Social-Democrats taking part in the election to the Prussian Landtag and against any
compromises with the bourgeois parties.
280. On 10 October 1893 P. Lafargue wrote to Engels about the plan to start a newspaper that
could enable the Workers’ Party to rise to a leading position in the French Socialist press.
Here Engels recalls that in 1892 Le Socialiste had announced that it would be a daily news-
paper as of October 1892; the announcement began with the words ‘pour paraître en
Octobre’ (‘to appear in October’). In actual fact, Le Socialiste continued as a weekly.
281. The present letter was first published in English in K. Marx and F. Engels, Correspondence
1846-1895. A Selection with Commentary and Notes. London, Martin Lawrence, 1934.
282. Engels had the fee for his works printed by the Dietz Publishers in Stuttgart sent to V. Adler
for the needs of Austrian Social-Democracy.
580 Notes
283. The Second Congress of the French Workers’ Party that took place in Paris on 7-9 October
1893. The Congress was attended by 92 delegates representing 499 trade-union and Party
organisations. Already at its first meeting the Congress adopted a Declaration urging inter
nationalist actions of the proletariat; the Party voiced solidarity with the striking miners of
France, Britain and Belgium and with militant Socialists in other countries. On the domes
tic scene, the Declaration warned against the mounting wave of chauvinism.
The Congress also considered the returns of the elections to the French Chamber of Deputies (see Note
208), the tasks of Socialist deputies, Socialist propaganda, etc. The Party Congress stressed the need of
unity among all Socialists and spoke out for the Socialist deputies forming a parliamentary group in the
Chamber of Deputies; it also recommended that, whenever it was possible, they donate their deputy’s fees
for propaganda.
A report on the Congress was published by the newspaper Vorwärts (no. 240) on 12 October 1893
under the headline ‘Der Kongress der Französischen Arbeiterpartei’.
284. The letter of Ferdinand Lassalle to Marx and Engels which Engels wanted published with his notes and a
preface; this was done by Franz Mehring in 1902.
285. In the latter half of September 1893 French miners in the departments of Nord and Pas de Calais went on
strike; the strikers demanded higher wages and a ban on dismissing workers older than forty. The
stoppage lasted some two months and ended in a defeat.
At about the same time there was a strike of Belgian miners who demanded a 10 per cent wage rise.
This strike, which ended in mid-October, also fell short of its objectives.
286. In the summer of 1893, after the announcement of a lockout in the British mining industry (see this
volume, pp. 204-05), the employers tried to use strikebreakers. On 7 September 1893, as there was unrest
among the miners of Featherstone (Yorkshire), the mine owners called in troops who opened fire,
wounding several people. Thereupon nearly all the coal districts were overrun by government troops, a
move that caused outrage countrywide. As a result, the employers had to refrain from introducing lower
pay rates for the time being.
287. Engels sketched the draft of his reply to Ferdinand Wolff on the reverse side of Wolff’s letter received
late in October 1893 and containing innuendoes and threats against Engels. Ignorant as he was of Wolff’s
mental illness, Engels wrote a letter of reply, but it is not known whether it was ever sent. Visiting Wolff
shortly afterwards, Engels could see at first hand his grave condition. See this volume, pp.222-23, 243.
288. Victor Adler made a German translation of the first volume of Stepniak-Kravchinsky’s book The Russian
Peasantry. Their Agrarian Condition, Social Life, and Religion; it was published in English by
Sonnenschein in 1888. In his letter of 22 September 1892 Adler asked Engels to secure, through
Stepniak’s mediation, W Sonnenscheins formal permission for the publication of the German translation
and for paying the royalties due to the author and the publisher. Stepniak read Adler’s translation and
wrote a brief preface to it. The book was published by J.H.W Dietz in Stuttgart in 1893 under the title Der
russische Bauer.
289. Karl Kautsky, then in Stuttgart, told Engels in his letter of 1 November 1893 about his plans to move to
Austria. In his letter of 25 November 1893, Kautsky explained that, while living in Stuttgart, he felt
isolated from the Austrian working-class movement.
290. Karl Kautsky asked Eduard Bernstein to write an article on the general strike for publication in Die Neue
Zeit, he hoped this would start a discussion on the subject. Engels’ advice to Bernstein was apparently not
taken into account, for in February 1894 Die Neue Zeit published Bernstein’s article ‘Der Streik als
politische Kampfmittel’.
Notes 581
291. The three-class electoral system {Dreiklassenwahl) was introduced in Prussia in keeping with
the electoral law of 30 May 1849, after the defeat of the 1848-49 Revolution. This system
provided for high property qualifications and, consequently, contributed to unequal repre-
sentation.
292. The reference is to the Croatian border regiments stationed in the Military Border Area, a
special military region of the Austrian Empire along the frontier with Turkey.
Ruthenes (Ruthenians)—the name given in the nineteenth-century West-European
ethnographical and historical works to the Ukrainian population of Galicia, Bukovina and
the Eastern Carpathians, who were separated at the time from the rest of the Ukrainian
people.
293. A reference to Karl Marx. ‘Le Capital’. Extraits faits par M. Paul Laforgue, Vilfredo Pareto
wrote the introduction. This book was published by Guillaumin in Paris in 1893.
294. Joseph Baernreither, a Liberal deputy, tabled a draft electoral reform on 13 October 1893; it
granred voting rights in parliamenrary elections only to workers eligible for health insurance.
They were to form a special curia. The draft law restricted to twenty the number of worker
deputies elected in this way.
295. On 3 November 1893 opponents of the electoral reform assembled in Vienna’s Ronacher
Hall. This meering sparked a protest among Social-Democrat workers who responded by a
demonstration which resulted in clashes with the police.
296. Engels sent this letter with the cheque to E Sorge’s address in Hoboken; see this volume, pp.
229.
297- Engels indicated the following address on the envelope: Frau Liebknecht, Kantstr. 160,
Charlotenburg/Berlin (Germany).
298. Karl Liebknecht, who together with his brother Theodor was doing his tour of duty in the
Guards Corps of Engineers (Gardenpionieren) sought a court referendar’s job
(Gerichtsreferendar) at Hamm. Eventually he was offered to choose between Arnsberg and
Paderborn (Westphalia).
299. Bimetallism (double currency)—a monetary system based on two metals (chiefly, gold and
silver) with a fixed ratio to each other as legal tender.
300. In 594-593 B.C., Solon, an Athenian statesman and lawgiver, brought in a number of
reforms so as to remodel the state and economic system of Athens. The situation was char-
acterised by an acute struggle between the aristocracy and the people. The most important of
Solon’s reforms was one that abolished the land tenure debts of the Athenian peasants and
prohibited bondage for defaulters, etc. Solon and his laws solidified Athens as a slave-
owning city-state and laid the keystones of Athenian democracy.
301. A reference to the controversy over the McKinley protectionist tariff adopted in November
1890 (William McKinley was one of the leaders of the Republican Party [and President of
the United States in 1897-1901]). The new tariff provided for a dramatic rise in duties on
merchandise imported to the United States and, as a consequence, sent consumer prices up.
The situation of the worrking class deteriorated as a result. The tariff bill invested the
President with the right to increase import duties in the future as well. Engels commented on
this legislation in his arricle ‘The American Presidential Election’ (see present edition, Vol.
27, pp. 329-31).
302. This letter was written on a postcard. Engels indicated the following address: H. Schlüter
Esq., 936 Washington St., Hoboken, N.J., US America.
582 Notes
303. The Berne Copyright Convention was signed on 9 September 1886 by Great Britain,
Germany, France, Italy and other countries.
304. Humpty Dumpty—egg-shaped figure of a well-known nursery rhyme:
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,
Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.
All the king’s horses
And all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.
305. In 1867 Benjamin Disraeli, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, played a crucial role in
carrying out the Second Reform Act of 1867.
306. Engels wrote the draft of the reply on the reverse side of the letter which Paul Arndt had sent
on 4 December 1893.
307. On 20 August 1893 Jules Guesde was elected to the French Chamber of Deputies from the
town of Roubaix (see this volume, p. 182).
308. The Dupuy cabinet fell on 25 November 1893 after three-day debates on the government
declaration in which Charles Dupuy leveled sharp attacks at socialism. The united socialist
group in the Chamber took a firm stand against the course of the government majority and
championed social reforms. The new cabinet, headed by Jean Casimir-Périer, ran into major
difficulties at the very outset as Jean Juarès, speaking in a debate on the tax reform, tabled a
motion whereby small farms were to be tax exempt. This proposal, made on behalf of the
socialist parliamentary group, was carried by a majority of votes; however, Casimir-Périer
annulled the results of voting to prevent a fall of the new cabinet.
309. In 1893 the anarchists committed a number of terrorist acts in Paris. Thus, on 9 December
1893 Auguste Vaillant threw a bomb into the hall where the French Chamber of Deputies
was in session. The government retaliated by the laws against the anarchists (see Note 383)
and by increasing the police budget.
310. Laura Lafargue was at the time translating into French Engels’ Ludwig Feuerbach and the
End of Classical German Philosophy (see present edition, Vol. 26); the translation was pub-
lished in the journal L’Ere nouvelle (No.4 and No. 5, 1894); Engels had read the MS of the
translation.
311. Sir Henry Roscoe’s and Carl Schorlemmer’s work appeared in English under the title A
Treatise on Chemistry. Volumes I-II I. London-New York, 1877-92; the whole edition
comprised 9 books.
The German name of the work was Ausführliches Lehrbuch der Chemie. Bände I-IV.
Braunschweig, 1877-89. Julius Wilhelm Brühl continued the series beginning with Volume
V; after C. Schorlemmer’s death the nine-volume edition was completed in 1901.
312. Carl Schorlemmer’s manuscript on the early history of chemistry, as mentioned by Adolf
Spiegel in the obituary Carl Schorlemmer, was never published. This MS, written in German
and 650 pages long, is in Manchester University library.
313. A reference to the English edition of Carl Schorlemmer’s The Rise and Development of
Organic Chemistry which came out in Manchester and London in 1879. The German text
was published in 1889 as Der Ursprung und die Entwicklung der organischen Chemie in
Brunswick. Arthur Smithells prepared a new English edition which was published in London
and New York in 1894 under the same title as the 1879 edition.
Notes 583
314. A. Dworzak wrote a letter to Engels on 24-28 November 1893 in which she congratulated
him on his 73d birthday.
315. A reference to the so-called ‘original minute-book’ fabricated by Prussian police spies and
presented at the Cologne trial of Communists in 1852 as the chief evidence for the
prosecution against members of the Communist League. See present edition, Vol. 11, pp.
420-43.
316. Engels never realised this intention.
317. Edouard Vaillant framed a draft law on abolishing the regular army and replacing it with a
national milita; all the Socialist deputies put their signatures to it.
318. At the trial of Spanish anarchists in Madrid in 1890 it came out that one of them, Munoz,
was a police agent. All the defendants were sentenced to 7 years of forced labour.
319. Speaking of the harmony between Carnot and the Russian tsar, Engels implied the Franco-
Russian alliance sealed in those days (see Note 177). About the anarchist police bombs, see
Note 309.
320. Engels sketched out a version of his reply on the reverse side of Giuseppe Cànepa’s letter of
3 January 1894. Cànepa asked Engels to find an epigraph to the weekly L’Era nuova due to
appear in Geneva as of March 1894 ‘which in a few words could synthesise the Socialist
ideal and set off the new era against the old era that is epitomised in the Dantesque words:
one people rules, and the other languishes’. For the quote given by Engels, see present
edition, Vol. 6, p. 506.
321. On 5 January 1894 Die Arbeiter-Zeitung (No. 9) carried the article ‘Das allgemeine
Wahlrecht eine “konservative Maßregel’”; cited in this article was a passage from K.
Kautsky’s article ‘Ein sozialdemokratischer Katechismus’ published in December 1893 by
Die Neue Zeit (Bd. I, NN 12 and 13, 1893-1894). The publication in Die Arbeiter-Zeitung
proved the inadequacy and harm of a general political strike in the struggle for electoral
reform.
322. The first congress of the Austrian trade unions, held in Vienna from 24 to 27 December
1893, set up a single centralised organisation and endorsed a single strike statute for all the
unions. The congress spoke out against a general strike as a tool in the struggle for universal
suffrage.
The Czech Social-Democrats held their congress on 24-26 December 1893 in Budweis
(the present name, Ceské Budejovice). It passed a decision on forming a Czechoslavonian
Social-Democratic Party [Ceskoslovanská Sociálne domekraticka strana] on the basis of the
principles proclaimed by the Unification Congress of the Austrian Social-Democrats at
Heinfeld in 1888 (see Note 272).
The proceedings of the congresses held by the Austrian trade unions and the Czech
Social-Democrats were covered by Die Arbeiter-Zeitung (NN 1 and 2) on 2 and 5 January
1894.
323. The fourth Congress of the Social-Democratic Party of Austria was held in Vienna on 25-
31 March 1894. The Congress passed a resolution stating that the Austrian workers
intended to campaign for universal suffrage using all available means, including a general
strike. The congress also adopted new Party Rules and resolved to continue with the annual
May Day celebrations by holding demonstrations for an 8-hour day, universal suffrage and
in support of international brotherhood among all working people.
584 Notes
324. Engels wrote the following address on the envelope: G.W. Lamplugh Esq., Geological Survey, 28 Jermyn
St., S.W.
325- Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy was first published under the pen name Democritus Junior in
1621. George William Lamplugh sent a copy of the ninth edition published in London in 1800.
326. Engels wrote the draft of his reply on the reverse side of Henri Ravé’s letter of 1 January 1894.
327. Engels alludes to Karl Höger’s speech at the congress of the Austrian trade unions (see Note 322).
328. Engels wrote these lines in the left margin of Albert Delon’s letter of 19 January 1894 in which the sender
asked for permission to translate Volume II of Das Kapital into French. The whereabouts of Engels’
letter to A. Delon is not known.
329. Engels replies to W Borgius’ letter of 19 January 1894. The journal Der sozialistische Akedemiker (No.
20, 1895) published this reply for the first time together with the addressee’s name; the subsequent
publications gave the wrong name, Heinz Starkenburg.
The condensed English version of the letter was first published in: K. Marx, F. Engels, V.I. Lenin, On
the Theory of Marxism, International Publishers, New York, [1948].
330. On 26 January 1894 the newspaper Vorwärts published a lengthy article entitled ‘Ein edles
Brüderpaar’ which claimed that Theodor Reuß and Heinrich Oberwinder had, beginning
in 1886, been publicly exposed by the press as police spies.
As R. Fischer wrote in his letter of 27 January 1894, Reuß had voiced protest over this article and
denied any connection between his departure from The Daily Chronicle and the exposures in Vorwärts.
On 14 January 1894, Fischer also asked Engels if he remembered a second publication on Reuß in
Vorwärts .
331. The Erfurt Congress of the German Social-Democratic Party took place on 14 to 20 October 1891.
Among the other issues, the Congress discussed and adopted a new Party Programme which, despite
some shortcomings, was essentially based on Marxist principles. The criticism of the original draft of the
Programme, which Engels made in his work A Critique of the Draft of the Social-Democratic Programme
of 1891’ (see present edition, Vol. 27), applies in part to the adopted Programme. The decisions of the
Erfurt Congress sealed the Marxist trend in Germany’s working-class movement.
332. Apparently a reference to the fee for the Engels pamphlet Internationales aus dem ‘Volksstaat’ (1871-75)
published in Berlin by the Vorwärts Editorial Board.
333. Engels left for Eastbourne on 9 February or thereabouts because of poor health; he stayed there until 1
March 1894.
334. The reference is to the Engels article ‘The Future Italian Revolution and the Socialist Party’ (see present
edition, Vol. 27, pp. 437-40) published by Critica Sociale (No. 3) on 1 February 1894; Victor Adler
probably did not finish the translation of this article for Die Arbeiter-Zeitung, however, it appeared in Der
Sozialdemokrat on 12 July 1894 under the heading ‘Friedrich Engels über die Lage in Italien’.
335. Engels probably means the violent repression by the crew of the German cruiser Die Hyäne of a mutiny
of native soldiers in the Cameroons on 21 December 1893.
336. Eduard Bernstein, Karl Kautsky and other authors were preparing a series of works on the history of
socialism. In this connection Kautsky asked Engels in his letter of 7 February
Notes 585
1894 whether it would not be better to call it History of Communism. The book appeared in Stuttgart in
1895 under the title Die Geschichte des Sozialismus in Einzeldarstellungen.
337. Engels jotted down the draft of his reply on the reverse side of the letter from Professor Gizycki of Berlin,
dated 14 February 1894; Georg von Gizycki asked Engels to contribute an article to the weekly Ethische
Kultur on the ethical designation of the woman.
338. This letter was written on a postcard. Engels indicated the following address: Ed. Bernstein Esq., 50
Highgate Road, London, N.W.
339. Eduard Bernstein advised Engels to read Giordano Bruno’s book Del’Infinito, Universo e Mondi which
appeared in 1893 in Berlin; the title of the German translation was Von Unendlichen, dem All und den
Welten.
340. Pertaining to the Socialist Party of the Italian Working People [Il Partito socialista dei lavo-ratori italiani]
founded in 1892 at a congress in Genoa. The Party took a resolute stand in distancing itself from the
anarchists; in 1895 it changed its name and came to be known as The Italian Socialist Party [Il Partito
socialista italiano].
341. Engels congratulated Adelheid Dworzak and Julius Popp on their marriage which took place early in
February 1894.
342. In February 1894 the French Chamber of Deputies debated the issue of corn tariffs. Jean Juarès proposed
a law which provided for a state monopoly on grain imports. Jules Guesde supported this motion.
343. The Congress of the Socialist Workers’ Party of Germany in Wyden (Switzerland) was held in August
1890. That was the first illegal congress of the German Social-Democrats following the introduction of
the Anti-Socialist Law of 1878 (see Note 15). The Congress criticised the anarchist stand of Johann Most
and Wilhelm Hasselmann, who rejected all legal means of struggle, advocated individual terror and
launched an open campaign against the Party leadership; it expelled them from the Party.
The Congress unanimously decided to strike out the word ‘legal’ from the statement contained in Part
II of the Gotha Programme of 1875 to the effect that the Party was working to attain its goals ‘with all
legal means’. The Congress confirmed the status of Der Sozialdemokrat as the Party’s official organ.
344. As August Momberger wrote to Engels on 26 February 1894, he wanted to take part in disseminating
socialist ideas among foreigners resident in Wiesbaden, the English in the first place. He asked Engels to
recommend the significant socialist, socio-political and natural science works, as well as some English
journal similar to the German Die Neue Zeit.
345. On 12-29 July 1894 Britain had a parliamentary election which gave the Conservatives a majority of over
150 votes in the Commons. Many candidates from the Independent Labour Party, among them Keir
Hardie, were blackballed.
346. Speaking in the Commons on 19 March 1894, Randolph Churchill proposed a bill banning members of
the Liberal cabinet from interfering in the course of future parliamentary elections and from speaking in
the constituencies.
347. Engels means the articles published anonymously by Der Arbeiter-Zeitung (Nos. 19-22) on 6, 13 and 16
March 1894; apparently they were written by Victor Adler. The article that Engels refers to appeared on 6
March 1894, likewise without a signature; it was entitled ‘Die Wahlreform Stadnicki’. It criticised the
draft of an electoral reform suggested by the coalition government of Alfred von Windischgrätz. The bill
envisaged only an insignificant increase in the Reichstag representation by setting up a fifth curia.
586 Notes
348. The draft of this letter, which Engels wrote on the back side of Panait Musoiu’s letter of 24
February 1894, is extant. The texts of the draft and the letter are identical.
Musoiu told Engels he had translated into Roumanian Socialism: Utopian and Scientific
and The Manifesto of the Communist Party. He asked Engels to write a preface to a second
edition of these works.
349. In the summer of 1894 Victor Adler had to serve a prison term of 2.5 months on several
counts: 14 days for a public insult to the district commissioner of the town of Ceska-Lipa,
one month for his speech at a public rally in Vienna’s Schwender Coliseum on 30 October
1893 and yet another month for his speech in the same ‘coliseum’ on 28 January 1894.
350. By using the conventional symbols adopted in biology (for the male sex and for the female
sex), Engels meant Die Arbeiter-Zeitung, and Die Arbeiterinnen-Zeitung, a newspaper for the
working women. Both were published in Vienna.
351. An excerpt from this letter was first published in English in K. Marx, E Engels, V.I. Lenin,
Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism. International Publishers, New York, 1972.
352. Carlism—onslaughts of the feudal reactionaries who unleashed two civil wars in Spain, in
1833-40 and in 1872-76, in the form of dynastic feuds between two lines of the Spanish
Bourbons. Defeated in these wars were the Carlists, supporters of Don Carlos the Elder,
whom they had proclaimed king in 1833. The Carlists relied on the backward strata of the
peasantry and opposed forces interested in Spain’s capitalist development. The two Carlist
wars resulted in a weakening of the feudal-clerical strata and a strengthening of the positions
of the bourgeoisie.
353. The Spanish anarchists had been perpetrating acts of terrorism since the late 1880s (in 1889
they bombed the royal palace).
354. Benno Karpeles sent Engels his book Der Arbeiter des mährisch-schlesischen Steinkohlen-
Reviers. In his letter of 19 March 1894 he praised Engels as a scientist and author of the
work The Condition of the Working-Class in England and as an outstanding socialist.
355. In her letter of 11 April 1894 Laura Lafargue told Engels that the French anarchists (liber-
taires) were out to publish one of the works of Eugen Dühring. In this connection Bonnet,
the secretary of the Editorial Board of the journal L’Ere nouvelle, suggested that a transla-
tion into French of Engels’ work Anti-Dühring should be begun without delay so as to have
it ready before the appearance of Dühring’s book. Such a translation did not materialise at
the time.
356. Speaking in the Reichstag on 7 April 1894, Earl von Kanitz proposed a state monopoly of
grain imports and exports; the state was likewise to fix grain prices. The Social-Democrats
voted against; on 14 July 1894 the motion was rejected by 159 votes against 49.
357. Marx’s Speech on the Question of Free Trade was published by L’Ère nouvelle (no. 6, 1894)
and by Le Socialiste (No. 194-196, on 23, 30 June and 7 July 1894).
358. The English translation of Marx’s Speech on the Question of Free Trade was published in
Boston in 1888; it was prefaced by an introduction (Free Trade) written by Engels; it was
published in Boston and London in 1889. The Italian translation of Marx’s speech was pub-
lished in La Critica Sociale (Nos. 7 and 8) on 1 and 16 April 1894; the same periodical car-
ried Engels’ introduction on 1 and 16 May and 1 June 1894 (Nos. 9, 10 and 11) [see also this
volume, p. 297] ; both works then appeared in a booklet published in Milan in 1894.
359. Engels wrote the following address on the envelope that still remains: Sig. aw° Filippo
Turati, Portici Galleria VE. 23, Milano, Italy.
Notes 587
360. Engels means A. Loria’s article ‘Karl Marx’ published in La Nuova antologia di scienze,
lettere ed arti on 1 April 1883 (see present edition, Vol. 47) as well as the preface to Volume
II I of Capital (see present edition, Vol. 37).
361. Henry William Lee, writing to Engels on 13 April 1894, asked him to give a lecture to
members of the Social-Democratic Federation.
362. Probably a reference to the newspaper La Réveil Ouvrier, the organ of the local organisation
of the French Workers’ Party in Calais.
363. The reference is to the proof sheets of the French edition of Marx’s Speech on the Question
of Free Trade (see note 357).
364. The Italian translation of Marx’s Speech on the Question of Free Trade, put out in La Critica
Sociale, was made from the Russian text published as a supplement to Marx’s work Misère
de la philosophie (Poverty of Philosophy) and translated from the German edition of 1885 by
Georgi Plekhanov.
365. Engels wrote the following address on the envelope: Sig. aw° Filippo Turati, Portici Galeria
VE. 23, Milano, Italy. The MS has the mark made by Turati: R 17/5.
366. First published in English in: The Socialist Review (London), 1908, II I-VII I, p. 32
(abridged).
367. This is how Engels referred to members of the Socialist Labour Party of North America
founded in 1876, in which German emigrés continued to figure prominently.
368. Boris Krichevsky, a Russian emigré Socialist, had sent Engels the Russian translations of
Marx’s works The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte and Wage Labour and Capital with
Engels’ introduction to the 1891 edition (see present edition, Vols. 11,9,26); both works,
published in Geneva in 1894 in the series Social-Democratic Library, were translated into
Russian by Krichevsky. He told Engels in his letter that the same publishers undertook the
printing of Engels’ article ‘On Social Relations in Russia’ (in the series of his articles Refugee
Literature) [see present edition, Vol. 24]. Krichevsky asked Engels to write a preface to the
Russian edition of the above article. However, the printing was stopped because of protest
from Engels who had earlier given Vera Zasulich the copyright. This article appeared in V
Zasulich’s translation in The Library of Contemporary Socialism (Geneva, 1894) under the
title ‘Friedrich Engels on Russia. 1) A Reply to P.N. Tkachev (1875), 2) The Afterword
(1894)’.
369. First published in English in: K. Marx and F. Engels, On Britain. Moscow, Foreign
Languages Publishing House, 1953 (abridged).
370. Some of the works written by Engels in 1871-75 were republished in Berlin in 1894 in a
separate edition entitled Internationales aus dem ‘Volksstaat’ (1871-75).
371. On 7 June 1894 Nikolai Danielson told Engels he had not recieved the next sheets of
Volume II I of Das Kapital. He recommended a translator for the German edition of his
Essays on Our Post-Reform Social Economy.
372. The Russian edition of Engels’ work The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State
appeared in St. Petersburg in 1894. It was published with deletions made by the censor, in
particular relating to Marx and his works.
373. N. Danielson had sent Engels the first two volumes of statistical data filed by the
Department of Trade and Manufactories of the Russian Finance Ministry for the 1893 World
Columbian Exhibition in Chicago: The Industries of Russia. Manufactures and Trade:
588 Notes
with a General Industrial Map, St. Petersburg, 1893. Russia was among the countries participating in the
exhibition sponsored by the U.S. Congress to commemorate the quadricennial of America’s discovery
and its discoverer, Columbus.
374. Eugéne Turpin, a French chemist who in 1885 invented melinite, a powerful explosive, was accused of
trying to sell his invention to a foreign power; he was cleared of this charge. However, he was
nevertheless sentenced to five years in prison for publishing in 1889 a pamphlet on this episode. Turpin
was pardoned on 10 April 1893. The newspaper Le Temps said on 2 June 1894 that the aim of the whole
affair was publicity for the firm exploiting the Turpin invention.
375. An allusion to the case of the Building Society whose director, Spender Jabez Balfour, had fled overseas.
Anthony John Mundells, an MP from Sheffield, President of the Board of Trade and, until 1892, Director
of the New Zealand Loan Company, had to resign on 12 May 1894. Acting together with James
Fergusson and John Gorst, he in 1893 closed down the company that had become the target of a public
investigation.
376. Stanislaw Zablocki in his letter of 3 June 1894 asked for permission to publish the Polish translation of
Engels’ article ‘The Polish Proklamation’.
377. The central organ of the Austrian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party Die Arbeiter-Zeitung was a weekly
newspaper in 1893; it became a semiweekly in 1894 and a daily as of January 1895.
378. The French President S. Carnot was assassinated by Santo Caserio, an Italian anarchist, on 24 June 1894.
On 17 August 1893, the Aiguesmortes salt mines in Southern France were the scene of bloody clashes
between French and Italian workers; the cause of the conflict was that the employers were paying higher
wages to the French workers than to their Italian mates.
379. Apparently Engels wrote this letter after Hellmut von Gerlach had visited him late in June 1893 on Major
Otto Wachs’ recommendation.
380. Der Sozialdemokrat (Zurich) on 24 December 1887 promulgated a list of Berlin police agents. Among the
agents exposed by Swiss Socialists was Heinrich Oberwinder, formerly a member of the First
International (see also Engels’ letter to Paul Lafargue of 29 December 1887, present edition, Vol. 48).
381. For cited passages see present edition, Vol. 37, Part I, K. Marx, Capital, Vol. II I, present edition, pp. 374,
378, 382.
382. In connection with a third German edition of Anti-Dühring due for publication, Engels revised somewhat
the Marx-written Chapter X of the second part of this work; the title of the chapter was From
‘CriticalHistory’(see present edition, Vol. 25, pp. 211-43, and also p. 15); the third edition of Anti-
Dühring was off in Stuttgart in 1894.
383. Using the anarchist acts of terror as a pretext, the French government enacted laws against anarchists, the
vague wording of which made it possible to apply them against Socialists as well. The first enactment was
endorsed in December 1893 after August Vaillant had thrown a bomb in the French Chamber of Deputies
(see Note 309); the second enactment was approved at the end of July 1894 after the assassination of
President Carnot by the Italian anarchist Caserio (see Note 378), against heavy resistance from the
Socialists and some of the Radicals. These two bills imposed restrictions on freedom of the press and
provided for special courts to handle cases of violation of the laws on the press.
Notes 589
384. Twenty-two German emigrés took part in the Scotch miners’ strike being held at the time. In their latter of
19 July 1894 signed by August Siegel and other German miners, they asked Engels to send their message
to the Executive of the German Social-Democratic Party in which they requested a loan of 300 marks;
they also asked Engels to approach Julius Motteler and other comrades in London with a request for
material assistance.
385. First published in English in K. Marx and F. Engels, On the United States, Progress Publishers, Moscow,
1979 (abridged).
386. Concerning Paul Lafargue’s negotiations with the Paris publisher Charles Marie Delagrave about the
publication of his work Origine et évolution de la propriété (see Note 567).
387. F. Turati wrote, on this letter with his own hand: ‘Scritto a Treves. R[isposto] 2./8./94. Tornato a
rispondere 678794/ (‘Written in Treves. Replied 2787947. In receipt of reply a new letter was written
6./8./94.’)
388. In 1893-94 Sicily was the stage of sporadic peasant revolts caused by the aftermath of an economic crisis
and abuses of the local administration. The revolts were crushed by brute force.
389. It was stated on the reverse side of the letter that the parcel and the letter with it were for Victor Adler; the
parcel contained newspapers that could not be sent to Austria, while enclosed in the letter was about two
pounds sterling. Engels was asked to get this letter to the addressee; the signature was illegible.
390. At the request of Pablo Iglesias, Engels wrote the appeal ‘To the English Socialist and Working Men’s
Organisations’ (see present edition, Vol. 27) in which he gave notice of the forthcoming 4th annual
Congress of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party. He sent similar appeals also to the Social-Democrats of
Austria and Germany.
The Fourth Congress of the Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party took place in Madrid from 29 August to
1 September 1894. The Congress heard reports of the Party’s National Council and of a delegate who had
attended the International Socialist Working-Men’s Congress in Zurich (held in 1893, see Note 229); it
discussed the issue of the Party press and adopted the new Party Rules. The Congress received numerous
messages of greeting from the British organisations to which Engels had appealed, as well as from the
Socialists of Britain, Austria, Germany and other countries.
391. A reference to the Gas Workers’ and General Labourers’ Union, the first union of unskilled workers in the
history of the British labour movement. It was formed in late March-early April 1889 under the conditions
of a mounting strike movement. A major contribution to the foundation and work of the union was made
by Eleanor Marx-Aveling and Edward Aveling. The Union campaigned for the legal eight hours. It gained
considerable influence within a short span of time; as many as 100,000 gas works employees joined it
within a year.
392. A reference to the Fourth International Socialist Working-Men’s Congress (Second International) which
met in London in July 1896.
393. Engels was taking a rest in Eastbourne from 14 August to 18 September 1894.
394. Engels probably refers to the speeches made at the Zurich International Socialist Working-Men’s
Congress (see Note 229) by some members of the French delegation who leveled sharp criticism at the
parliamentary activity of Socialists and put forward the idea of social revolution by means of a general
strike. Among the members of the French delegation was Paul Arndt, a Paris correspondent of the
newspaper Vorwärts.
590 Notes
395. In his letter to Engels on 12 August 1894 Eduard Bernstein wrote about the International Congress of
Textile Workers held in Manchester in July 1894; in his opinion, it was an attempt to divorce trades-union
congresses from socialist congresses. In this context Bernstein also mentioned Paul Arndts article about
the Manchester Congress, which appeared in Vorwärts on 2 August 1894. (Subsequently Engels received
the issue of the newspaper Der Textil-Arbeiter with commentaries on the Congress.) Bernstein asked
Engels what he thought of the Manchester Congress and of the decision of the conference of the Social-
Democratic Federation (see Note 44) to convene an exclusively socialist congress prior to the congress of
1896 (see this volume, pp. 340-41, 343). The present letter contains Engels’ reply to Bernstein’s
questions.
396. The 27th Annual Congress of the British Trades-Unions was held in Norwich on 3-8 September 1894.
The Trades-Union Congress spoke out for the legal eight hours and for the nationalisation of all means of
production, distribution and exchange; for Engels’ assessment of this congress, see this volume, pp. 341,
343-44, 347.
397. In his letter of 15 August 1894, Thomas Clark asked Engels if he could vouch for Stanislaw Mendelson
‘as a yearly tenant’.
398. Filippo Turati wrote to Engels in his letters of 2 and 6 August 1894 he had made inquiries about Felice
Pasquali, an Italian emigré in London (see this volume, pp. 333, 338-39) and received contradictory
references; thus, some called him ‘seccatore di prima sfera’ (‘a burr of the first water’).
400. Together with his letter of 2 August 1894 Filippo Turati sent Engels a photograph of a mold cast in
Florence from the bust of K. Marx and asked him as well as Eleanor Marx-Aveling to confirm the
likeness of the replica before it was cast.
401. Engels means the Exceptional Law on Public Security passed by the Italian Parliament on 14 July 1894.
This law, enacted with the aim of combatting the anarchists, was used by the Crispi government against
the working-class movement and Socialists as well. It banned the Socialist Party of the Italian Working
People (Il Partito Socialista dei lavoratori italiani), closed worker organisations and worker periodicals;
arbitrary arrests, searches and trials assumed mass proportions. All this notwithstanding, the Italian
Socialists kept up their struggle and, in January 1895, they convened in Parma illegally for a third
congress of their party.
402. Belfast was the venue of the Twenty-Sixth Annual Trades-Union Congress. It recognised the principle of
collective ownership of the means of production and distribution and supported the demand for the legal
eight hours.
403. The International Congress of Trade Unions, convened in London in November 1888 at the initiative of
the British trades unions, involved delegates from Belgium, the Netherlands, Denmark, Italy as well as
representatives of the the trade-union organisations in France. However, Germany and Austria were not
represented—trade unions were illegal there and could not send their delegates. The Congress called on
the working people to wage a struggle for labour protection laws and for the legal eight hours; it adopted
a decision on convening an International Working-Men’s Congress in Paris in 1889 (see Note 227).
404. A reference to the 14th Annual Conference of the Social Democratic Federation, held in London on 5 and
6 August 1894.
Notes 591
405. New Unionism—a development in the British trade-union movement at the end of the 1880s
in the shape of the ‘new’ trades unions. Unlike the old craft unions—admitting craft workers
exclusively—the new unions were open to labourers as well. The new labour organisations
were formed by the various trades employed in a given industry (general unions). British
Socialists, in particular Eleanor Marx-Aveling and Tom Mann, played a major part in setting
up the new trades unions. Engels made an appraisal of New Unionism in his article ‘May 4 in
London’ and in the Preface to the 1892 English Edition of The Condition of the Working
Class in England (see, present edition, Vol. 27).
406. The 12th Congress of the French Workers’ Party {Le Parti ouvrier français) took place in
Nantes on 14-16 September 1894 in a situation characterised by a mounting peasant move-
ment, reactionary onslaughts and growing differences in the French Socialist movement. The
Congress pointed to the heavier commitment of the French working people against the anti-
Socialist laws of 1893-94 (see Note 383) and distanced itself from the anarchists who, by
their terrorist acts, provided a pretext for adoption of these laws. In one of its major decisions
the Congress adopted the motivational part of the Party’s agrarian programme and
incorporated a number of specific demands into it. For Engels’ critique of the Nantes
agrarian programme see The Peasant Question in France and Germany (see present edition,
Vol. 27).
407. This and the preceding paragraph deal with an article on Volume II I of Das Kapital which
E. Bernstein intended to write for Die Neue Zeit (see Note 542); having read the proof sheets
of Volume II I, he told Engels in his letter of 5 September 1894 about the errata he had
found. Bernstein refused to fulfill H. Schlüters request to contribute an article on the same
subject for New Yorker Volkszeitung.
408. As Eduard Bernstein wrote to Engels on 5 September 1894, Joseph Edwards invited him to
write a series of articles on the situation of the German Social-Democratic Workers’ Party
and its plans for the future; the proposed materials were intended for The Labour Annual, a
publication that J. Edwards was editing. Bernstein also told Engels that Edward Aveling had
advised him not to take part in that publication.
409. An allusion to the Chino-Japanese War of 1894-95 which ended in China’s defeat. By the
Peace Treaty of Shimonoseki, Korea, overrrun by Japan, received nominal independence.
China ceded a number of its islands (including Taiwan) to Japan. China was also to pay a
war indemnity of 200,000,000 taels.
410. First published in English in K. Marx and F. Engels, On Colonialism. Progress Publishers,
Moscow, 1959 (abridged).
411. The fees for the articles which Engels wrote for Die Neue Zeit were being sent, according to
his instructions, to V. Adler for the Austrian Social-Democrats. However, since the royalties
due for the chapters for Das Kapital, published in the same periodical, had been remitted by
mistake to V Adler’s account, Engels asked for the reimbursement of the sum to Marx’s
heirs at the expense of his article ‘On the History of Early Christianity’ (see present edition,
Vol. 27).
412. On 14 and 21 October 1894 Belgium had its first elections in accordance with the new
electoral law adopted on 18 April 1893 (see Note 276). The Belgian Workers’ Party
succeeded in having 30 of its representatives elected to the Chamber of Deputies.
By calling the Belgian elections a second victory, Engels meant to say that the first victory
was won in April 1893 when the Belgians gained universal suffrage.
592 Notes
413. Georgi Plekhanov in his letter of 30 October 1894 asked Engels for permission to look through the files
of the newspaper Die Neue Rheinische Zeitung and the journal Die Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Politisch-
ökonomische Revue which Engels had in his custody.
414. This letter was written on a postcard on which Engels indicated the following address: ‘Herrn Carl
Hirsch, Red. der Rheinischen Zeitung, Hämmergasse 37, Köln, Germany.’
415. This letter was written on a postcard on which Engels indicated the address: ‘Mrs. Aveling, 7 Gray’s Inn
Square, W.C.’
416. The reference is to the anonymous note ‘Die Verleumderischen Hetzereien Hyndman’s carried by the
newspaper Vorwärts (No. 262) on 9 November 1894. It said Hyndman’s attacks on the German Social-
Democrats elicited disapproval among the British Socialists and workmen.
417. First published in English in an abridged form in K. Marx and F. Engels, Correspondence. 1846-1895. A
Selection with Commentary and Notes. London, Lawrence, 1934.
418. Engels refers to a congress of the Social-Democratic Party of Germany held in Frankfurt am Main on 21-
27 October 1894. The co-report on the main issue on the agenda—the agrarian question—was made by
Georg von Vollmar, the leader of the Bavarian Social-Democrats; he insisted on augmenting the agrarian
programme by clauses expressing the interests of all the peasantry, including the affluent strata. Some of
the delegates, August Bebel among them, voiced objections. The congress elected a commission that was
to draft the final text of the Party’s agrarian programme as a supplement to the general programme. In
addition, delegates heard the reports of the Party Executive Board and the Party group in the Reichstag; it
considered such issues as the role of trusts and other major capitalist amalgamations, May Day
celebrations, etc.
The final account of the proceedings of the Frankfurt Congress of the German Social-Democratic
Party was published by the newspaper Vorwärts (No. 254) on 31 October 1894.
419. A reference to P. Lafargue’s report ‘La propriété paysanne et l’évolution économique’, presented on
behalf of the National Council of the French Workers’ Party to its Nantes congress (see Note 406).
Lafargue’s report was also published by Der Sozialdemokrat (No. 38, supplement) on 18 October 1894.
420. Engels’ work On the History of Early Christianity (see present edition, Vol. 27), translated into French by
Laura Lafargue, appeared in the journal Le Devenir social (nos. 1 and 2, 1895) under the title
Contribution a l’Histoire du Christianisme primitif.
All. In his Letter to the Editors of ‘Vorwärts’ {see present edition, Vol. 27) Engels refuted the statement made
by Georg von Vollmar at the Frankfurt Congress of the German Social-Democratic Party.
422. This letter was written on a postcard on which Engels indicated the following address: Ed. Bernstein
Esq., 50, Highgate Road, N.W.
423. Engels wrote this letter on a postcard on which he indicated the following address: Ed. Bernstein Esq.,
29, Red Lion Square, W.C.
424. A reference to the polemics between Karl Kautsky and Georg Ledebour in the newspaper Vorwärts in a
discussion after the Frankfurt Congress of the German Social-Democratic Party (see Note 418). On 20
November 1894 Vorwärts carried Kautsky’s protest against Ledebour’s contention to the effect that
Kautsky—in his article on the Erfurt Programme—and Georg von Vollmar and others—in the debates on
the agrarian question
Notes 593
at the Party Congress—had said there would be only petty peasant property in a socialist society.
Vorwärts published Ledebour’s objections on 21 November 1894.
425. On 14 November 1894 August Bebel spoke at a party meeting in Berlin’s second constituency with a
critique of the stand taken by Georg von Vollmar and other Bavarian Social-Democrats at the Frankfurt
Congress of the German Social-Democratic Party (see Note 418) and of the resolution adopted by the
Congress on the agrarian question. Bebel’s speech was published by the newspaper Vorwärts (No. 268)
on 16 November and reprinted in La Critica Sociale (No. 23) on 1 December 1894.
426. The agrarian programme sparked great controversy within the International Working-Men’s Association
(First International). It was hammered out in an acute struggle against the Proudhonists, who were
insisting on the immutability of petty private ownership of land, and the Bakuninists, out to prove that
with the abolition of inheritance, private property—including private ownership of land—would wither
away. After prolonged debates the Brussels Congress of the First International (1868) and then its Basel
Congress (1869) recognised the abolition of private ownership of land and its transformation into public
ownership as a necessary condition.
427. The anonymous note ‘On the Fourth Volume of Karl Marx’s Capital’ (see present edition, Vol. 27) was
written by Engels in reply to an editorial carried by the newspaper Vorwärts (No. 266) on 14 November
1894 about the publication of Volume II I of Capital. The editorial contained false data on the nature of
the manuscript of Volume IV; in addition, the editors wrongly assumed Engels had given up his intention
to have it published. Engels’ refutation was published by Karl Kautsky in Die Neue Zeit (No. 9), 1894-95,
Vol. 1.
428. Engels refers to the Draft of a Law on amendments and addenda to the Criminal Code, the Military
Criminal Code and the legislation on the press (‘Der Entwurf eines Gesetzes, betreffend Änderungen und
Ergänzungen des Strafgesetzbuchs, des Militärstrafgesetzbuchs und des Gesetzes über die Presse), known
for short as the Subversion Bill (‘Umsturzvollage’). It envisaged harsh punishment for ‘the intention to
effect an overthrow of the existing state system’ even in the absence of a criminal act, and also for an
encroachment on religion, monarchy, matrimony and property. The government tabled the draft law in the
Reichstag in December 1894, but the top German legislature rejected it in May 1895.
429. On 26 October 1894 Reichskanzler Leo von Caprivi was forced to resign; he was succeeded by Fürst
(Prince) zu Hohenlohe-Schillings.
430. In his letter of 12 November 1894 Nikolai Danielson told Engels about the publication of Pyotr Struve’s
book Critical Notes on the Question of the Economic Development of Russia and asked permission to
quote passages from Engels’ letters to him in his comments on the above book.
431. A reference to the second congress held by the Bavarian Social-Democratic organisation on 30 September
1894 in Munich. It was attended by 160 delegates. Two questions were on the agenda: 1) the activity of
Social-Democratic Deputies in the Bavarian Landtag and 2) agitation among the peasants. Georg von
Vollmar and Karl Grillenberger drew support from the majority of the congress which approved the
activity of the Social-Democratic parliamentary group and adopted a decision on setting up a special
organisation of the Bavarian Social-Democratics under the central guidance of the Landtag deputies—von
Vollmar, Karl Grillenberger and others.
Sonderbund—an ironic analogy with the separatist union of reactionary Catholic cantons in
Switzerland in the 1840s (see Note 273); here Engels means the separatist leanings of the Bavarian
Social-Democrats.
594 Notes
432. Engels means the two editorial materials probably written by Wilhelm Liebknecht: the
leading article in the newspaper Vorwärts (No. 273, 23 November 1894) under the title ‘In
eigener Sache’ and a note under the same name carried by Vorwärts (No. 274, 24 November
1894) in the section Zur Diskussion über den Frankfurter Parteitag. The editors said in the
former article they were ‘diametrically opposed’ to what Bebel had said at the meeting in
the second constituency of Berlin (see Note 425). In the latter publication the editors said
that in the leading article in Vorwärts on 23 November 1894 they had meant only ‘Bebel’s
pessimistic appraisal of the entire course of the proceedings at the Party Congress and its
spiritual level’ (about the Frankfurt Congress see Note 418).
433. Engels means the anonymous article ‘The Movement in Germany’ published in Justice (No.
568) on 1 December 1894. The author of that article reproached the editors of Vorwärts for
their silence about the differences among the German Social-Democrats over the agrarian
issue and the attacks on Justice and Hyndman. A reply to that article appeared in the next
issue of Justice (No. 569) on 8 December 1894; it was E. Bernstein’s statement ‘The
Vorwärts and Justice . To the Editor of Justice in which he rebutted the accusations.
434. A reference to A. Bebel’s speech in the second constituency of Berlin on 14 November 1894
(see Note 425).
Georg von Vollmar and Karl Grillenberger replied with a press polemic. Thus, on 17 and
21 November 1894 Grillenberger published notes in his newspaper Frankische Tagespost in
which he commented on the above speech and which were reprinted by the newspaper
Vorwärts (Nos. 271 and 274); on 20 and 24 November 1894 von Vollmar burst into print in
the newspaper Münchener Post with a series of articles entitled Bebel’s Fahnenerhebung
which soon after were reprinted by the newspaper Vorwärts (Nos. 273, 274 and 276) on 23,
24 and 27 November 1894. A.Bebel responded by two statements and four articles under the
general title Zur Diskussion über den Frankfurter Parteitag. Zur Entgegnung which were
published by Vorwärts in November-December 1894.
435. Filippo Turati wrote to tell Engels on 28 November 1894 that a Socialist group of Italian
university students was planning to release an Almanocco socialista per l’anno 1895 and
would like to have a short note from him.
436. On 6 December 1894 the members of the Social-Democratic faction in the Reichstag did not
rise but remained seated as the Reichstag President von Levetzow had proposed the health of
Emperor William II , and the other deputies had stood up to shout three ‘hurrahs!’ Such
behaviour of the Social-Democratic group was qualified as lèse-majesté, thereupon the district
court of Berlin decided to start criminal proceedings against Liebknecht. On 11 December
the Reichskanzler, Prince zu Hohenlohe, demanded that the Reichstag approve the court
decision. But on 15 December the Reichstag rejected this demand by 168 votes against 58.
437. A reference to the speech made by Georg von Vollmar at an open Social-Democratic meet-
ing in Munich on 1 June 1891 on the targets and tactics of the Party under the conditions of
the ‘new course’ so-called proclaimed by the Caprivi government. He attempted to get the
Social-Democratic Party to cooperate with the ruling classes in matters of both domestic and
foreign policy, especially in the event of a war within Russia. Von Vollmar’s speech, which
received approval from the bourgeois press, was condemned at Party meetings, by most of
the Party’s newspapers and then at the Erfurt Congress which took place on 14-20 October
1891.
438. Engels refers to the polemics of the newspaper Vorwärts with Georg von Vollmar, which was
touched off by his article ‘Le socialisme de M. Bismarck et le socialisme de l’empereur
Notes 595
Guillaume’ published by the French journal Revue bleue. Revue politique et littéraire in June 1892. Von
Vollmar claimed that some of the planks of the Erfurt Programme of the German Social-Democratic Party
were akin to the state socialism of Bismarck and Emperor William II . This article sparked off a wide
discussion in the Social-Democratic press. The newspaper Vorwärts, in its editorials on 6,12,21 and 22
July 1892 (Nos. 155,160,168,169) censured von Vollmar’s views.
439. In 1867 Georg von Vollmar served as a volunteer in a detachment in the employ of the Papal States.
440. On 12 December 1894 Wilhelm Liebknecht spoke in the Reichstag in debates on the state budget for
1895-96 and other bills. Liebknecht devoted most of his speech to the Subversion Bill (see Note 428) and
to the issue of lèse-majesté (see Note 436).
441. On 13 December 1894 Witold Jodko-Narkiewicz asked Engels for permission to translate his work The
Peasant Question in France and Germany (present edition, Vol. 27) for the Polish journal Przedsmit. The
translation was published in No. 12 of this journal for 1894.
442. The archives of German Social-Democracy were set up in 1882 to preserve for posterity the manuscripts
of figures prominent in the German working-class movement (including those of Marx and Engels), the
literature on German history and the international working-class movement as well as related press
publications. With the abrogation of the Anti-Socialist Law (see Note 15) these archives were moved
from Zurich to Berlin.
443. Marx died before completing the MS of his Theories of Surplus Value for publication; this work
constituted a relatively independent part of a larger manuscipt dated 1861-63 (see present edition, Vols.
30-34). Nor could Engels realize in his lifetime the intention of publishing the Marxian manuscript as
Volume IV of Capital. It was K. Kautsky who had The Theories of Surplus Value published in 1905-10.
444. This letter was written on a postcard, with the following address: Monsieur Pierre Lavroff, 328, rue Saint
Jacques, Paris - France.
445. On 11 December 1894 the Italian Prime-Minister Giovanni Giolitti had to hand to the Parliament the
documents on abuses in La Banca Romana (Roman Bank); (see Engels’ article ‘The Italian Panama,
present edition, Vol. 27) whereupon a commission of inquiry was set up.
446. Engels indicated the following address on the postcard on which the letter was written: G.W Lamplugh
Esq., 28 Jermin St., S.W.
447. Only an excerpt from this letter to Paul Singer has come down; it was quoted in the article ‘Berlin
Bierboykott’ published in the newspaper Vorwärts (No. 1) on 1 January 1895.
448. The text of this letter without the opening greeting. The initial phrase is published in the present edition,
Vol. 27, under the title ‘Message of Greetings to the Austrian Workers on the Daily Publication of the
Arbeiter-Zeitung.
AA9. On 23 December 1894 Laura Lafargue told Engels that the newspapers Le Peuple (Lyon) and Réveil du
Nord (Lille) of the French Workers’ Party would thereforth be daily publications.
450. The Manifesto of the Communist Party was published in the monthly L’Ére nouvelle (Nos. 9-11) in
September-December 1894. Laura Lafargue, who wanted to have it published as a separate pamphlet,
asked Engels on 23 December 1894 for advice about the preface. The
596 Notes
pamphlet that appeared in 1895 with the L’Ère nouvelle Publishers had the short prefatory note which had
preceded the text of the first publication.
By referring to the ‘four prefaces’ to the Manifesto Engels meant one, to the London German-
language edition of 1890; those to the German editions of 1872, 1883 and 1890, and probably the preface
to the Russian edition of 1882 included into the preface of 1890.
451. Alfred-Léon Gérault-Richard, a Blanquist, was the first to be convicted in keeping with the French law of
July 1894 against the anarchists (see Note 383); he received the maximum punishment—one year in
prison and a fine of 3,000 francs for his article in the newspaper Le Chambard in which he attacked
President Jean Casimir-Périer. Thereupon, on 6 January 1895, Blanquists nominated his candidacy in the
13th constituency of Paris. Gérault-Richard was elected to the Chamber of Deputies and set free.
452. Engels wrote the following dedication to Victor Adler on the title page of Volume II I of Das Kapital:
‘Seinem Victor Adler, London. 1/1.95 (‘To my Victor Adler, London. 1.1.95’).
453. After the publication of Volume II I of Das Kapital in December 1894 Engels began preparations for
republishing the earlier works written by Marx and himself, including those published by the New-York
Daily Tribune in the 1850s. Therefore in January 1895 he resumed his correspondence with Ludwig
Kugelmann who for many years had been collecting the works of Marx and Engels for his library.
454. In September 1893, during his trip to the European continent, Engels had two meetings with L.
Kugelmann in Berlin to discuss the planned publication of the works of Marx and Engels.
455. As L. Kugelmann wrote to Engels on 7 January 1895, Hermann Meyer, who emigrated to America after
the 1848 Revolution, had been collecting Marx’s works. After Meyer’s death in a shipwreck in 1875, the
books and other documents that still remained in his collection fell into the hands of his nephew, Max
Livingston of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Having learned of this, Kugelmann asked Lvingston to send on
Marx’s works in his possession. Livingston replied in his letter on 21 March 1876 that he had only the
articles and reports written by Marx for the New-York Daily Tribune in 1851-58 (see also Note 559).
456. On 28 December 1894 L. Kugelmann wrote this to Engels: ‘Indicated in the list of ‘errata’ for Volume II I
is also “page 352, line 13 from top”, but I have found none.—Will you not give the correct place in the
Neue Zeit and Vorwärts?’
457. In his letter to 11 August 1894 Hermann Schlüter asked Engels to approach Eduard Bernstein with an
invitation to contribute a series of articles on Volume II I of Das Kapital for the newspaper New-Yorker
Volkszeitung (see also this volume, p. 345).
E. Bernstein’s articles under the general title Der dritte Band des ‘Kapital’appeared in Die Neue Zeit
(13.Jahrgang, 1. Band, Nr. 11-14, 16, 17) in 1894-95.
458. On 3 May 1894 the workers of Berlin breweries declared a ‘beer boycott’ to protest against
the firing of about 300 coopers of the Ricksford Union of Brewers who had taken part in
the May Day demonstrations of 1894. The brewery workers pressed their demands for hav
ing May 1 as a day off, for reducing the working day to 9 hours, a legal status for the trade-
union organisations of brewers, an independent court of arbitration, and for the reinstate
ment of the sacked workers with compensation for damages. The owners of large breweries
responded by a mass lockout. However, since the beer boycott attained a wide scope, in
September 1894 the employers had to enter into negotiations with the workers and meet
their demands by and large. An arbitration court, comprising representatives of employers
and workers, was likewise set up. The beer boycott was stopped on 26 December 1894.
Notes 597
459. As Karl Kautsky wrote to Engels on 29 December 1894, Wilhelm Liebknecht had found the original of
the letter Marx had written to Johann Baptist Schweitzer; he also said that Liebknecht was going to offer it
to Dietz Publishers for publication. However, Liebknecht did not know that this letter had been published
as an article—under the name ‘On Proudhon’—by the newspaper Der Sozial-demokrat in February 1865
(see present edition, Vol. 20). Kautsky also told Engels he had found certain differences between the
manuscript and the printed text of the article.
460. Probably a reference to Ernst von Köllers speech in the Reichstag on 15 December 1894. Speaking in the
debates on court proceedings against W. Liebknecht (see Note 436), von Köller advocated suffer
disciplinary liability for Reichstag deputies.
461. Engels mentioned A. Bebel’s speech in the Reichstag on 15 December 1894 in the debates on bringing W.
Liebknecht to court trial (see Note 436). Bebel drew attention to the violation of Article 30 of the
Constitution which prohibited court prosecution of deputies for statements made in the Reichstag.
462. A reference to the constitutional conflict of February 1860 in Prussia between the Prussian government
supported by the Junkertum, on the one hand, and the bourgeois majority of the lower house of the
Prussian Landtag, on the other, over appropriations for army reorganisation.
463. Writing to Engels on 26 November 1894, Paul Stumpf voiced his apprehensions about the differences at
the Congress of the German Social-Democratic Party in Frankfurt am Main in October 1894 (see Note
418) which, in his view, showed the inadequate theoretical grounding of the young party members.
464. A reference to the German People’s Party (Deutsche Volkspartei) founded in 1865; it comprised
democratic elements of the petty bourgeoisie and to some extent those of some other strata of the
bourgeoisie—for the most part from the southern German states. The German People’s Party opposed the
Prussian hegemony in Germany and championed a Great German Reich, so-called, which was to include
Prussia and Austria. Although it steered anti-Prussian policies and put forward democratic slogans, the
People’s Party expressed at the same time the particularist aspirations of the individual German states. It
was against Germany’s unification into unified democratic republic.
465. An allusion to the stay of Marx and Engels in Mainz on 7-9 April 1848 en route from Paris to Cologne.
While in Mainz, they met local members of the Communist League, including Paul Stumpf, to discuss the
unification of workers’ associations for participation in the German revolution of 1848.
466. In his letter of 6 September 1894 Pasquale Martignetti asked Engels to tell Edward Aveling that the
attempt to publish in Italian his work The Student’s Marx had not come off.
467. Martignetti’s Italian translation of the preface which Engels had writen to Volume II I of Capital was
published in the journal Le Rassegna agraria, industrials, commerciale, letteraria, politica, artisticaNo.l/2
for January 1895.
468. A reference to the note written by Louise Freyberger (Kautsky)—’Aus den Trades-Unions’—and
published by Die Arbeiter-Zeitung (No. 15, 15 January 1895; signed: K.L.); also, to the anonymous report
England, published by the same newspaper on 5 January 1895 (No. 5) in the feature Aus den
Organisationen.
598 Notes
469. This dispatch by Louise Freyberger (Kautsky) about the report of Mrs. Crawford to the newspaper
Weekly Dispatch on 6 January 1895 was published by Die Arbeiter-Zeitung (No. 10) on 10 January 1895
(signed: K.L.).
470. In his letter to Engels on 27 December 1894 Victor Adler asked him to invite Emile Vandervelde as a
correspondent for the Vienna newspaper Arbeiter-Zeitung. A similar request was uttered with respect to
Paul Lafargue as well (see Note 477).
471. On 27 December 1894 Victor Adler wrote in his letter to Engels about his plans to have the Arbeiter-
Zeitung publish the article ‘Karl Marx in Wien’ and asked if Engels could help him with the material for
it. He also said he had found some of the data in the newspaper Der Radikale published in 1848 by Alfred
Julius Becher.
On 24 January 1895, the Arbeiter-Zeitung published Max Bach’s article ‘Karl Marx in Wien” which
drew upon the facts supplied by Engels (see also this volume, p. 434).
472. An English excerpt from this letter was first published in Marx and Engels on Malthus. Edited by Ronald
L. Meek, Lawrence and Wishart, London, 1953.
473. Engels wrote this letter on a postcard with the following address: Herrn Dr. L. Kugelmann, 20 BI
Warmbüchenstr., Hannover, Germany.
474. On 9 August 1848 the Prussian National Assembly approved the motion of one of the deputies, Julius
Stein, whereby the War Minister Schreckenstein was to issue an order providing for a voluntary discharge
of army officers opposing the constitutional aspirations of the people. Yet no such order was issued. On 7
September 1848 Stein tabled his motion again and demanded an immediate vote on it. The proposal was
adopted by 219 votes against 143; as a result, the Auerswald-Hansemann government had to tender its
resignation. The Pfuel cabinet that succeeded did finally issue the order on 26 September 1848, but it
remained on paper only.
475. In the preface to Volume II I of Capital Engels took a critical view of certain tenets of George
Stiebeling’s work Das Werthgesetz und die Profit-Rate. Leichtfaßliche Auseinandersetzung einiger
wissenschaftlicher Fragen. Stiebeling’s letter was published in Die Neue Zeit, 13. Jg.1894-95, 1 Bd., No.
18.
476. Speaking on 7 January 1895 in the Reichstag debates on the proposed Subversion Bill (see Note 428),
Ignaz Auer argued there were no valid motives for its introduction.
477. P. Lafargue began to cooperate with the Arbeiter-Zeitung. His first article “Der ‘Panama Bazillus’” was
published by this newspaper on 8 January 1895-
478. A hint at the Reichstag speech on 10 January 1895 by the German War Minister General Bronsart von
Schellendorff in the debates on the Subversion Bill (Die Umsturzvorlage, see Note 428). He tried to
validate the necessity of this legislation by pointing to the activity of ‘instigators’ who had to be
combatted with the aid of law and right.
479. Speaking in the Chamber of Deputies on 10 January 1895, Etienne Millerand proposed that Gérault-
Richard be released from prison (see Note 451) and demanded a broad discussion on the issue. But the
Chairman of the Council of Ministers Charles Dupuy opposed the Millerand proposal and put a vote of
confidence on the agenda. The Millerand proposal was turned down by 294 votes against 205. Gérault-
Richard was pardoned only after the resignation of President Casimir-Périer.
480. On 24 December 1894 Edouard Vaillant sent Engels a number of draft laws on labour legislation and
agrarian issues which Socialist deputies had tabled in the Chamber of
Notes 599
Deputies. He asked Engels to pay particular attention to the draft law on agricultural communal holdings.
481. Engels hints at a group of French Blanquist emigrés (E. Vaillant, Fr.-É. Cournet et al.) who, in June 1874,
published in London the pamphlet Aux Communeux {On Communal Property).
482. The daily La Petite République (before 1893, La Petite Republique Française) on 12 January 1895
published an article by A.G. Rouanet; like the article of A.L. Gérault-Richard in Le Chambart (see Note
451) it was directed against the President of the French Republic, Casimir-Périer.
On 12 January 1895 Amand Rouanet, a Socialist deputy, made a proposal in the Chamber of Deputies
providing for a cut in the pensions paid to the holder of the Legion d’honneur order; such pensions were
not to exceed 1000 francs. The aim of this motion was to prevent arbitrary decorations being conferred on
all kinds of parvenus. Rouanet intimated, however, he had no hope for an unbiased voting on his proposal
(Rouanet recalled the deputies had rejected the proposal on Gérault-Richard’s liberation). At this point the
President of the Chamber of Deputies demanded that Rouanet leave the assembly hall, which he had to do
in spite of protests from some of the deputies.
485. The reference is to Laura Lafargue’s letter of 12-13 January 1895 about the testamentary dispositions
which Engels had made concerning Marx’s literary heritage.
486. The French President Jean Casimir-Périer resigned on 15 January 1895. The day before, the Chamber of
Deputies had declined his proposal on the order of proceedings in the inquiry into the government’s
involvement in major financial speculations (see Note 487).
487. Late in 1894 the French Chamber of Deputies raised the issue of the agreements concluded in 1883 by the
government and the railroad company. These agreements gave the company virtually a free hand in
speculation for as long as ten years; but the government refused to revise them. Then, on 14 January 1895,
Etienne Millerand proposed to look into the matter and exposed the role David Raynal, the then Minister
of Public Works, had played in that deal. The Chamber approved this motion by 263 votes against 241. A
parliamentary commission of inquiry in 1896 found Raynal not guilty.
488. The leader of the Radical Party (see Note 86) Georges Benjamin Clemenceau had gained the reputation of
a ‘government toppler’ for, as a result of his incessant interpellations in the Chamber of Deputies, the
following cabinets had to resign: of Gambetta (1882), Freycinet (1882), Ferry (1885) and Brisson (1885).
By calling Clemenceau ‘the late’, Engels intimated that the Radical Party had lost some of its former
influence.
489. A reference to the article La Situation by Jean Juarès which was published by the newspaper La Petite
République (No. 6855) on 20 January 1895. Juarès proposed a package of the following reforms: pensions
for industrial and agricultural workers at the expense of factory and land owners; new shop regulations
providing for worker participation in decision-making; an institution of labour protection inspectors;
worker profit-sharing at the enterprise
600 Notes
level; steps to improve soil fertility. In February 1894 he tabled a motion in the Chamber of Deputies for
a state monopoly of grain imports with the aim of raising the grain prices.
490. A reference to the following works of Ferdinand Tönnies: ‘Neuere Philosophie der Geschichte: Hegel,
Marx, Comte’ (Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie, Bd. 7 for 1894) which disputed the tenets of P.
Barths book Die Geschichtsphilosophie Hegels und der Hegelianer bis auf Marx und Hartmann; and
Pestalozzi als Sozialpädagog {Sozialpolitisches Centralblatt, 3 December 1894).
491. Comtism or positivism—a trend in philosophy, sociology and historiography that surfaced in the 1830s;
its leading exponent was Auguste Comte, a French philosopher and sociologist. The positivists extended
the methods of natural science to social studies. They viewed the historical process as slow evolutionary
changes and denied the role of revolutions.
492. This note to F. Tönnies’ article ‘Neuere Philosophie der Geschichte: Hegel, Marx, Comte’ (see Note 490)
says this in part: ‘Hervorragende englische Comtisten gehörten zu den Mitbegründern der
“Internationale”, deren General-Sekretär K. Marx war...’ (‘Illustrious English Comtists were among the
founders of the “International” the Secretary-General of which was K. Marx’).
493. The reference is to the statements in defense of the Paris Commune made in the press by positivists
Edward Beesly and Frederick Harrison between March and September 1871. Thus, from March to June
1871 The Bee-Hive Newspaper carried a series of articles by Professor Beesly; the opening article was
entitled ‘On the Paris Revolution’. In May and August 1871 The Fortnightly Review published two big
articles by Harrison in support of the Commune.
494. The idea that besides working men, factory-owners and merchants were also among the industrialists so-
called producteurs was formulated by Saint-Simon in his Catéchisme des industriels, published in Paris in
1823-24.
495. In his letter of 12 January 1895 Ludwig Kugelmann asked Engels for the names of German publications
in which works by Marx and Engels had been published, signed or unsigned (see also this volume, p.
500).
496. On 23 January 1895 Victor Adler wrote to Engels that the publication of the Arbeiter-Zeitung ‘was
making very good progress’: as many as 14,000 copies were being printed daily instead of the planned
10,000, while on Sundays the circulation reached 22,000 copies.
497. Engels means the Liberal Party’s Right Wing akin to the Conservatives and expressing the interests of big
industrial, commercial and financial bourgeoisie.
In 1893 the Gladstone cabinet tabled a second edition of the draft Home Rule Bill (see Note 77) which
riled the Liberal Party’s Right Wing. Having declared themselves ‘independent’, the Right-Wingers
actually sided with the Conservatives.
498. A reference to the second electoral reform of 1867 in Britain. Town residents—house-owners and tenants
who had been resident for not less than a year and whose annual rent was not under £10—received voting
rights. In counties the property qualification was reduced to £12 of rent per annum. As a result, the
number of eligible voters increased more than twofold (with voting rights being granted to part of
industrial workers).
499. Engels refers to an article in the Arbeiter-Zeitung (No. 26) on 26 January 1895 in which the editors
reported the confiscation of the paper’s evening issue of 24 January and stated that since a larger part of
the confiscated circulation had nevertheless reached the subscribers, a repeated publication of the issue
was not necessary.
Notes 601
500. This excerpt from Emily Crawford’s report in The Weekly Dispatch of 27 January 1895 was
published by the Arbeiter-Zeitung (No. 32) on 1 February 1895 in Louise Freyberger’s
article ‘Zur Charakteristik des neuen Präsidenten’.
501. On 9 January 1895 the newspaper Vorwärts published an appeal of the Union of Women’s
Societies to the German women ‘of all classes and all parties’ urging them to sign a petition
to the Reichstag and Landtags to concede women the right of association and assembly in
those German lands where they had not yet this right. Writing in Vorwärts on 24 January
1895, Clara Zetkin ran a sharp critique of this appeal on the grounds that it lacked a class
approach. She stressed that ‘the women’s question ought to be considered only in the context
of the total social question’ and called on the proletarian women not to put their signatures
on the petition.
502. Engels indicated the following address on the envelope of this letter: Herren Dr. W.
Ellenbogen. IX Wasagasse 22. Wien.
503. Engels wrote these lines on a paper chit, and he gave the following address: Madame
Beldinsky, 2, Regent’s Square, W.C.
504. Zemstvo—elective district councils instituted in some provinces of European Russia in
keeping with the local government reform of 1864.
505. Engels means the statement made by the Russian Tsar Nicholas II on 29 (17) January 1895
at a reception for deputations of the Russian nobility, zemstvos (see Note 504) and town
communities on the occasion of the royal marriage. The tsar dismissed as ‘idle dreams’ the
desire of some zemstvo representatives to participate ‘in the affairs of domestic government’
and gave it to understand he would ‘safeguard the autocracy principle as firmly and stead-
fastly as had his lamented parent’.
506. The Committee, set up to prepare the International Socialist Working-Men’s Congress due in
London in 1896, suggested that henceforth it be named as an International Congress of
Socialist Working Men and Trade Unions. In this connection Tomasz Jodko-Narkiewicz, a
Polish Socialist emigré, asked Engels in his letter of 31 January 1895 what he and German
Social-Democrats thought of the suggestion.
507. In his letter of 30 January 1895 Richard Fischer told Engels about the plans of Vorwärts to
release in a separate edition a series of articles which Marx had written for Neue Rheinische
Zeitung. Politische-ökonomische Revue in 1850 on the 1848-49 Revolution in France (see
present edition, Vol. 10, pp. 47-131) and asked for his agreement to the proposed publica-
tion. He also asked him to write an introduction (see also Note 529).
508. A reference to the fifth and sixth authorized editions of The Manifesto of the Communist
Party published in Berlin in 1891 and 1894, respectively.
509. The protocols of the Zurich Congress were never issued by Vorwärts. They appeared in
Zurich in 1894 under the title: Protokoll des Internationalen Sozialistischen Arbeiter-
kongresses in der Tonhalle Zürich vom 6. bis 12. August 1893.
510. Après nous le déluge [‘After us, the deluge’]—a saying attributed to Madame de Pompadour
and addressed to King Louis XV of France.
511. The final version of the text of the Introduction to Karl Marx’s The Class Struggles in France,
1848 to 1850 (1895) contained no explanatory notes from Engels in it.
512. The reference is to Richard Fischer’s speech in the Reichstag on 6 February 1895 during the
debates on worker representation in settling moot issues among workmen and employers.
602 Notes
Fischer criticised the social policies of the Centre Party (see Note 71) which did not go
beyond demands for minor social concessions (like, for instance, granting recognition to
working-men’s alliances), while leaving aside the workers’ vital interests: shorter working
hours, social insurance and guarantees for freedom of association.
513. Appended to this letter were the titles of the first three chapters of Marx’s work The Class
Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850 (see Note 507). Engels suggested changing the original
titles ‘The Defeat of June 1848’, ‘June 13, 1849’ and ‘Consequences of June 13, 1849’ (as
given by Marx in Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Politische-ökonomische Revue) for: I. ‘From
February to June 1848’, II . ‘From June 1848 to June 13, 1849’, and II I. ‘From June 14,
1849 to March 10, 1850’, respectively. As Chapter IV Engels suggested materials on the
revolutionary events in France from ‘The Third International Review’ published by the
Neue Rheinische Zeitung. Politische-ökonomische Revue(No. 5-6) for 1850; he entitled this
chapter ‘The Abolition of Universal Suffrage in 1850’ (see present edition, Vol. 10, pp. 47-
145). The above work—The Class Struggles in France—was to be published as a separate
booklet.
514. Louis Napoleon Bonaparte used the decision by the French National Assembly in May
1850 to abrogate universal suffrage, to seize power and impose dictatorial rule. Following
the coup d’état of December 1851 he re-instituted universal suffrage in an election to the
Legislative Corps.
515. Engels indicated the following address on the envelope: Julius Motteler Esq., 30, Hugo
Road, Tufnell Park, N.
516. Acting on Engels’ request, J. Motteler had made inquiries in Germany and, having received
a letter from a Johann Meyer in which Theodor Barlen’s person was confirmed, sent it to
Engels (see this volume, p. 452).
517. Concerning the French translation of Engels’ work On the History of Early Christianity (see
present edition, Vol. 27) made by Laura Lafargue (see also Note 420).
518. A reference to the lecture L’Idéalisme de l’histoire which Jean Juarès delivered in Paris
early in 1895.
519. Stoicism—a philosophical system founded by Zeno and current in Ancient Greece between
the late fourth century B.C. and the sixth century B.C. The Stoics believed that all events
were the result of divine will and that therefore man should be calmly accepting and free
from passion, grief or joy.
520. Engels refers to Y. Zack’s article ‘Historical Materialism’, published in the first issue of the
journal Russian Heritageïot 1895, and also to N.Mikhailovsky’s review ‘Literature and Life’,
published by the above journal in 1894 (No. 1).
521. In his letter to Engels on 20 February 1895, G. Plekhanov called N. Danielson a ‘reactionary
and Utopian, all in one’.
522. Refers to Engels’ fifth article ‘On Social Relations in Russia’ (see present edition, Vol. 24,
pp. 39-50) in the series Refugee Literature which, alongside the first and second articles, he
included in the collection Internationales aus dem Volksstaat (1871-75), as well as to the
Afterword (1894) which Engels had written for this collection (see present edition, Vol. 27,
pp. 421-33).
523. Writing to Engels on 20 February 1895, G. Plekhanov described Tsar Nicholas II as ‘the
young idiot of the Winter Palace’ whose speech of 29 January 1895 ‘has done a great service
to the revolutionary party’.
Notes 603
524. J. Motteier told Engels in his letter of 28 February 1895 that on 18 February he had been attacked in his
house by two anarchists who had identified themselves by false names— Alexander Cohen and Zimmer.
525. National workshops-were set up by the Provisional Government of France immediately after the February
Revolution of 1848 for jobless workers, artisans, office employees, school teachers as well as petty
entrepreneurs who were given menial jobs at miserable wages.
526. According to the local government reform on 1888, the London County Council could be elected by all
male citizens who were eligible to vote in parliamentary elections, as well as by women 30 years and
older. The London County Council, which controlled taxation, local budgets, etc., was elected every three
years. The 1889 and 1892 elections brought victory to the Progressists, a group comprising bourgeois
Liberals, members of the Fabian Society (see Note 43) and Socialists; it defeated the group of Moderates
that united the Liberal Unionists (see Note 206) and the Conservatives. At the elections of 2 March 1895,
the Moderates gained a few new seats in the London County Council because of the refusal of the
Socialists to vote in a bloc with the Progressists.
527. Nikolai Danielson wrote in this letter that the passage in Engels’ preface to Volume II I of Capital about
Marx’s research on Russian land ownership made him want to find out if there were any notes written by
Marx on this topic.
528. In his letter to Engels of 10 March 1895 N. Danielson enclosed a message to Andrei Konov, a Russian
emigré in Berlin who undertook the translation. N. Danielson’s book Essays on Our Post-Reform Social
Economy was translated by G. Polonsky and came out in Munich in 1899.
529. On 6 March 1895 Engels received a letter from Richard Fischer, the Executive Secretary of the German
Social-Democratic Party, who requested him to soften what appeared to be the stridently revolutionary
tenor of the manuscript of the Introduction to Karl Marx’s The Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850
(1895); R. Fischer feared the moot points would be taken advantage of by the enemies of Social-
Democracy, a making it easier for the government to push through the Subversion Bill (see Note 428).
Being obliged to fulfill the request of the Party’s Executive Board, Engels agreed to make some
amendments in the text and omit some of the passages, e.g., ones dealing with the armed struggle which
the proletariat was to wage against the bourgeoisie. Engels admitted that the original text of the
Introduction ‘suffered somewhat’ as a result of such deletions (see this volume, p. 480).
530. May laws—the four laws adopted at Bismarck’s initiative in May 1873; they provided for strict state
control over the activity of the Catholic Church. These laws marked the culmination of the Kulturkampf
(‘Struggle for Culture’) policy.
531. Mennonites—an evangelical Protestant Christian sect founded in the 1530s-1540s in Friesland by
Anabaptists who, after the defeat of the Peasant War of 1524-26 and the Münster Commune of 1534-35,
abandoned their revolutionary aspirations. Named after Menno Simons, the founder of this sect,
Mennonites oppose the taking of oaths, infant baptism, military service, and the acceptance of public
office; they favour plain dress and plain living.
532. The movement for universal suffrage organised by the Social-Democrats gained new momentum in
Austria in 1895 (see Note 270). There were 12 mass rallies in Vienna on 19 February 1895, in support of
this demand. The newspaper Arbeiter-Zeitung carried regular reports by V. Adler on this matter.
533. The English text of this letter was first published in K. Marx and F. Engels, Selected Correspondence,
Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1965.
604 Notes
534. In May 1895 Engels wrote the article ‘Law of Value and Rate of Profit’ conceived as an
addendum to Volume II I of Capital. It was published shortly after his death by Die Neue
Zeit (14.jg., 1. Bd., Nos. 1,2 for 1895/96) under the heading: ‘Fr. Engels’ letzte Arbeit:
Ergänzung und Nachtrag zum dritten Buch des ‘Kapitals” (see present edition, Vol. 37).
Engels intended to write yet another article, ‘The Stock Exchange’, but could not go
further than the general outline (see present edition, Vol. 37).
535. The reference is to Peter Fireman’s article ‘Kritik der Marx’schen Werttheorie’ published in
the economic and statistical yearbook Jahrbücher für Nationalökonomie und Statistik for
1892 (3. Folge, Bd. 3). Engels gave a positive appraisal of this article in his preface to
Volume II I of Capital. However, Conrad Schmidt took exception to this assessment: writ-
ing to Engels on 1 March 1895, he said Fireman had only repeated what Professor Wilhelm
Lexis had found before him.
536. A reference to W Lexis’ article ‘Die Marx’sche Kapitaltheorie’ published in the yearbook
Jahrbücher fur Nationalökonomie und Statistik (11 Bd. ) for 1885, and C. Schmidt’s book
Die Durchschnittsprofitrate auf Grundlage des Marx’schen Wertgesetzes published in Stuttgart
in 1889.
537. The West Frankish Kingdom came into being after the disintegration of the Frankish Empire
of Charlemagne (Charles the Great). According to the Verdun Treaty of 843, it was divided
among Charlemagne’s three grandsons. The West Frankish Kingdom occupied a territory of
roughly what is now France.
538. Assises of Jerusalem (Assises de lérusalem)—a code of laws for courts in the Kingdom of
Jerusalem established by the medieval crusaders after the First Crusade; this kingdom was in
existence from the end of the eleventh to the late thirteenth century.
539. A reference ot the two articles by Paul Lafargue: ‘Breve risposta - domanda ai critici di Marx
circa la teoria de valore’ and Replica di Lafargue published by Critica Sociale, Nos. 20 and
22 on 16 October and 16 November 1894.
540. The letters to P. Lafargue and A. Labriola have not been found.
541. In his letter of 5 March 1895 K. Kautsky told Engels about J. Platter’s critique of Volume II
I of Capital in the Swiss journal on economic and social policy—Schweizerische Blätter für
Wirtschafis- und Sozialpolitik (1. Märzheft, 1895)—under the title ‘Die Lösung’. Kautsky
added he had declined E. Ferris offer for publication of his article in defence of the Marxian
theory of value.
542. In March 1895 Victor Adler, the editor of the Arbeiter-Zeitung, was sentenced to a seven-
week term in prison for the paper’s criticisms of the Austrian government. He was incar-
cerated in the Vienna prison Rudolfsheim from 18 May to 18 June 1895.
543. This is in reply to Carl Hackenberg’s letter to Engels of 8 March 1895 in which he asked for
more information about the activities of Hermann Becker, a German lawyer and journalist,
in 1848-50; C. Hackenberg planned to write a biography of H. Becker. Probably unable to
verify data on the events 45 years ago, Engels allowed himself some inaccuracies in his
reply.
544. With the outbreak of the 1848 Revolution in Germany Marx and Engels moved from Paris to
Cologne where they arrived on 11 April 1848. On 15 April or thereabouts Engels set off on a
tour of German towns and returned to Cologne on 20 May 1848. In 1848-49 H. Becker was
one of the leaders of The Cologne Democratic Association (see Note 547).
545. C. Hackenberg had asked Engels if H. Becker had stayed put in Cologne in the spring of
1848 or he had undertaken trips to other towns to propagandise his ideas.
Notes 605
546. C. Hackenberg had inquired about H. Becker’s attitude to the Schleswig-Holstein issue.
This issue, concerning the Danish duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, became particularly
acute during the Revolution of 1848-49. Backed by Prussia, the German population of these
regions in March 1848 had begun a war of national liberation against the Danish monarchy.
547. The Cologne Democratic Association—formed in Cologne in April 1848; until April 1849
Marx and Engels had been among its leadership.
548. Der Kölner Arbeiterverein {The Cologne Workers’ Union)—a working-men’s assocation
founded on 13 April 1848. Owing to the influence of Marx and Engels, it became a major
centre of revolutionary activity involving working men and peasants.
549. Engels means The Central March Association, named after the March 1848 Revolution in
Germany. Founded in Frankfurt am Main at the end of November 1848 by Left-Wing
deputies to the Frankfurt National Assembly, it had branches in various German towns.
550. The Neue Rheinische Zeitung never published any articles signed by H.B.
551. Engels answers C. Hackenberg’s question whether he knew of the book Ungarns Fall,
allegedly by H. Becker.
552. The Westdeutsche Zeitung, published by H. Becker in Cologne, was launched on 25 May
1849 immediately after the termination of the publication of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung.
Heinrich Bürgers did not take part in setting up the Westdeutsche Zeitung.
553. The reference is to the Cologne Communist Trial when members of the Communist League
were framed on the basis of forged evidence and perjury; they were accused of ‘conspiring’
against the Prussian state. The trial took place in Cologne from 4 October to 12 November
1852. Hermann Becker was among the defendants; he was sentenced to five years’ impris-
onment in a fortress (see this edition, Vol. 11: Marx, ‘Revelations Concerning the
Communist Trial in Cologne’).
554. In October 1894 Pablo Iglesias was sentenced to a forty-day term in prison for leading a
strike action of Malaga textile workers.
This strike broke out in the first half of October 1894 at the textile mills of Marquis
Larios in protest over the decision of the entrepreneurs to disband the Textile Workers’
Union and punish 19 workers active in it. The four thousand strikers were joined by workers
in other cities, Madrid included. The Spanish Socialist Workers’ Party, led by P. Iglesias,
captained the movement of Spanish workers in support of the Malaga strike. Despite the
intervention of the government which sided with the factory-owners, the 80-day strike action
ended in a workers’ victory. P. Iglesias appealed to Engels with a request to help in rallying
British working men and Socialist organisations to support of the striking Spanish workers.
555. Writing to Engels on 16 March 1895, Carl Hirsch asked to review the four articles he had
written for Das sozialpolitisches Centralblatt: i) ‘Intensifikation der Arbeit und Verkürzung
der Arbeitszeit’, published on 8 January 1894—No. 15; ü) ‘Intensifikation der Arbeit und
ihr Widerstand’, published on 19 February 1894—No. 21; üi) ‘Die ökonomische und die
sozialpolitische Schätzung der Arbeitskraft’, published on 14 January 1895—No. 16; and
iv) ‘Die Verdichtung der Arbeit unter sozial-politischem Gesichtspunkt,’ published on 18
February 1895—No. 21. C. Hirsch wanted to have these articles published as a separate
booklet.
606 Notes
556. Refers to the by-election to the Reichstag in Cologne, due on 13 May 1895. It was between
Franz Lütgenau, a Social-Democrat, and Adolf Greiß, representing the Centre Party. A.
Greiß won.
557. The Cologne-published newspaper Rheinische Zeitung which, in 1894-95, was edited by
Carl Hirsch.
558. Ludwig Kugelmann had been looking for the earlier writings by Marx and Engels for the
publication of a complete collection of their works (see Note 453). In July 1846 the journal
Das Westphälische Dampfboot had published, anonymously, Marx’s and Engels’ Circular
Against Kriege (see present edition, Vol. 6, pp. 35-51); and in August and September 1847 it
had published Chapter 4 of the second volume of The German Ideology. ‘Karl Grün: Die
Soziale Bewegung in Frankreich und Belgien (Darmstadt, 1845) or ‘The Historiography of
True Socialism’ (see present edition, Vol. 5, pp. 484-531).
559. L. Kugelmann, acting on Engels’ request in connection with the preparation of a complete
collection of Marx’s works for the press (see this volume, p. 504), got in touch with Max
Livingston. On 21 March 1895 Kugelmann informed Engels of Livingstons reply: 18 years
before he had commissioned Friedrich Sorge to send Hermann Meyer’s heritage (see Note
455) to London.
560. Wilhelm Liebknechts speech in the Reichstag on 2 March 1895 during the debates on the
budget committee s report on appropriations for the maintenance of the army. Liebknecht
spoke out for a dissolution of the regular army and setting up instead militia-type forces after
the Swiss model.
561. A reference to the book Die Vorläufer des Neuren Sozialismus which appeared in 1895 as the
first volume of Die Geschichte des Sozialismus in Einzeldarstellungen published in Stuttgart
by K. Kautsky, E. Bernstein, P. Lafargue, F. Mehring and others. The first part of Volume
I—Von Plato bis zu den Wiedertäufern—was written by K. Kautsky; the second part
includes contributions by K. Kautsky, P. Lafargue, C. Hugo as well as E. Bernstein’s
Kommunistische und demokratisch-sozialistische Strömungen während der englischen
Revolution des 17.Jahrhunderts.
562. The Anabaptists (lit., those baptised again) belonged to one of the most radical and demo-
cratic religious-philosophical trends in Switzerland, Germany and the Netherlands during the
Reformation. This sect denied the vailidity of infant baptism and practised baptism of adults.
563. Die Taboriten—the title of the sixth chapter of Part II I of the Kautsky work Von Plato bis
zu den Wiedertäufern. The Taborites (so called after their camp in the town of Tabor in
Bohemia)—a radical trend in the Hussite movement. In contrast to the Calixtines, they
formed a revolutionary, democratic wing of the Hussites; their demands reflected the striv-
ing of the peasantry and the urban lower classes to put an end to feudal oppression and all
manifestations of social and political injustice.
564. The Reichstag at its session on 23 March 1895 rejected, by 163 votes against 146, the pro-
posal to send a message of greetings to Bismarck on the occasion of his 80th birthday.
Voting against were Social-Democrats, deputies of the Free-Thinking Party, the Centre
Party, those representing the Polish lands, and others. This decision aroused the anger of
Emperor William II who sent a cable to Bismarck expressing his profound indignation over
the incident; he said the Reichstag decision was ‘in gross contradiction to the feelings of all
German princes and their peoples’.
Notes 607
565. In December 1878 Bismarck proposed a draft reform of customs tariffs to a Reichstag
commission set up for the purpose. Following debates in the Reichstag, this bill was adopted
on 12 July 1879. It provided for a substantial increase in the customs duties on imports of
iron, machinery, textiles, grain, cattle, fats, flax, timber, etc.
566. The Centre Party (see Note 71).
567. A reference to P. Lafargue’s work Origine et évolution de la propriété which came off the press
in Paris in 1895. At the publisher’s suggestion, it appeared under the same cover as Ives
Gugot’s work Réfutation de l’essai sur l’origine de la propriété which refuted P. Lafargue’s
conclusions.
568. An excerpt from this letter was first published in English in K. Marx, Selected Works. In two
volumes. Vol. 2, International Publishers, New York, 1936.
569. On 30 March 1895 the newspaper Vorwärts carried the leading article ‘Wie man heute
Revolutionen macht’ which cited, without prior consent from Engels, selected excerpts from
his ‘Introduction’ to Marx’s work The Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850. The aim was
to represent Engels as a protagonist of an exclusively peaceful takeover of political power by
the working class.
Shortly before the appearance of this work in a separate edition, the ‘Introduction’ had
been published in the journal Die Neue Zeit (13. Jg., 1894/95, 2. Bd., Nr. 27, 28) in the same
form as in the separate edition (see Note 529). The original version did not see print even
after the threat of a new Anti-Socialist Law in Germany had been over.
570. Engels means Ein Wort des ‘Adressaten’—the introduction which Julius Wolf wrote to F.
Bertheau’s book Fünf Brief über Marx an Herrn Dr. Julius Wolf published in Jena in 1895.
In his Introduction J. Wolf replied to Engels’ critical remarks on his address in the preface to
Volume II I of Capital (see present edition, Vol. 37).
571. The draft of this letter was written on the blank part of a page of Harry Quelch’s letter to
Engels of 1 April 1895- H. Quelch asked Engels for an interview about the contemporary
condition of the working class in the May issue of the newspaper Justice.
572. An English excerpt from this letter was first published in: K. Marx, Selected Works. In two
volumes. Vol. 2, New York, 1936. The full English text of the letter appeared in Frederick
Engels, Paul and Laura Lafargue. Correspondence, Vol. 3, 1891-95, Moscow, [1963].
573. An allusion to P. Lafargue’s book Le droit à la paresse. Réfutation du ‘Droit au travail’ de
1848, published in Paris in 1883.
574. This chapter of P. Lafargue’s work Origine et évolution de la propriété bore the title
‘Collectivisme consanguin’.
575. Lex Alamannorum (The Law of the Alamanni)—part of the Leges Alamannorum, or the
records of the common law code of the Alamanni (Alemanni), the Germanic tribes which
invaded and settled in Alsace and part of Switzerland in the early 5th century A.D. The
Alamannic laws, dating from the 6th to 8th centuries A.D., reflected the transition from the
primitive tribal system to early feudal society.
576. Lex Salica (Salic Law)—a code of laws of Germanic tribes, including the Salian Franks.
Recorded in the early 6th century A.D., this code reproduces various stages of archaic court
proceedings and is regarded as an important historical document illustrative of the evolution
of Frankish society from the primitive communal system to nascent feudal society. The
Salians were a tribe of Franks who settled along the Ijssel River, in the Netherlands, in the
4th century A.D.
608 Notes
577. On 3 April 1895 Richard Fischer told Engels—who had begun preparing for publication of
the early works of Marx from the newspaper Rheinische Zeitung—that Hans Baake, a
German Socialist, was planning a similar edition. Baake’s plans never materialised.
578. A reference to the following articles written by Marx and published by the Rheinische
Zeitung in 1842-early 1843: Proceedings of the Sixth Rhine Province Assembly. First Article.
Debates on Freedom of the Press and Publication of the Proceedings of the Assembly of the
Estates; Proceedings of the Sixth Rhine Assembly. Third Article. Debates on the Law on Thefts
of Wood; Justification of the Correspondent from the Mosel (present edition, Vol. I, pp. 132-
81, 224-63, 332-58). Engels never realised his intention to have these articles published in a
separate edition.
579. Engels alludes to Boris Krichevsky, a Russian Socialist, who, without his consent, had pub-
lished in 1894 the Russian translation of Marx’s works The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis
Bonaparte and Wage Labour and Capital (see note 368). This publication was undertaken in
the series ‘Social-Democratic Library’ (original in Russian).
580. Engels had stayed in Berlin on 16-28 September 1893 (see Note 262).
581. This letter was first published in English in: K. Marx, F. Engels, Letters on ‘Capital’,
London, 1983.
582. N. Baudeau’s work Explication du tableau économique published in 1846 in the book
Physiocrates. Avec une introduction sur la doctrine des physiocrates, des commentaires et des
notices historiques, par E. Daire.
583. Refers to the royalties for Marx’s The Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850, published in
Berlin in 1895. Engels had written an introduction to this edition (see Note 507).
584. By the Mosel article (subsequently, the Mosel articles) Engels means the Marx article
‘Justification of the Correspondent from the Mosel’ published in January 1843 in five num-
bers of Rheinische Zeitung. Marx had planned five parts of this article (see present edition,
vol. I, p. 334); however, only two parts had been written and published (ibid., pp. 334-58).
585. In his letter to Engels on 27 January 1894 R. Fischer proposed that works by Marx and
Engels should be published in installments. In his opinion, this did not exclude the possi-
bility of a complete collection of works, as Engels had contemplated.
586. The second German edition of volume I of Das Kapital was published in 1872-73 in nine
installments. Marx wrote an afterword to the entire edition.
587. Marx had been writing articles for New-York Daily Tribune from August 1851 to 1862 at the
suggestion of the paper’s editor Charles Dana. A significant number of contributions,
especially on military matters, were written by Engels at Marx’s request. Some of the dis-
patches were co-authored by Marx and Engels. The articles which Marx and Engels wrote
for New-York Daily Tribune have been published in volumes 11-17 of the present edition.
588. On 14 April 1895 Vorwärts published a note entitled ‘Parteipresse’ informing readers about
the changes in Le Socialiste: the larger format of this periodical, the appointment of A.
Zévaés as editor-in-chief and of René-Auguste Chauvin as managing editor.
589. At Engels’ request Laura Lafargue told him in detail about the characters in Molière’s plays
in her letter of 6 April 1895. Engels showed an interest in Sganarelle in view of Achille
Loria’s theory that he personified vulgar common sense.
590. The reference is to ‘true socialism’, a trend that gained wide currency in Germany in the
1840s, chiefly amongst the petty bourgeois intellectuals. Critical of capitalism, True
Notes 609
Socialists idealised the pre-capitalist way of life (medieval guilds, etc.) and believed Germany could reach
socialism without passing through the stage of capitalist industry. True Socialists would hold forth on
friendship and solidarity, and preach against participation in political activity and the struggle for
democracy; they denied the necessity of a bourgeois-democratic revolution in Germany. The views of
‘True Socialists’ were sharply criticised by Marx and Engels.
591. Writing to Engels on 21 March 1895, Ludwig Kugelmann suggested publishing a complete collection of
works by Marx and Engels, beginning with articles published in Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher and
The Manifesto of the Communist Party .
592. Probably a reference to the copy of Marx’s The Class Struggles in France, 1848 to 1850 the receipt of
which L. Kugelmann acknowledged in his reply letter to Engels on 14 July 1895.
593. Some of the data given by Engels in this and in the preceding paragraph and referring to his curriculum
vitae are erroneous: he was in Bonn after 8 October 1842, the day when he had completed his military
service in Berlin; Marx left the editorial board of the Rheinische Zeitung on 17 March 1843, and his
statement to this effect was published in the newspaper on 18 March 1843. The ban on Rheinische
Zeitung of 1 April 1843 was issued on 21 January 1843 with the adoption, on 19 January of the same
year, of the decision by the Prussian government to close down the newspaper; this decision was
published in the Kölnische Zeitung on 26 January and in the Düsseldorfer Zeitung on 27 January 1843.
Marx left Cologne for Bad-Kreuznach in May 1843.
594. On 18 April 1895 the Berlin Polizei-Präsidium imposed censorship over theatrical performances of Die
Freie Volksbühne Gesellschaft (see Note 256). Its steering committee replied by stopping performances
altogether, while its president, Franz Mehring, appealed to the court and demanded the defence of the
right of free expression. Since the court had rejected this plea, the Free Popular Stage Society disbanded
in March 1896, but it was reinstituted in the spring of 1897 with a new charter.
595. Engels refers to the copies of the two articles written by Marx for the Rheinische Zeitung in 1842:
‘Debates on Freedom of the Press and Publication of the Proceedings of the Assembly of the Estates’, and
‘Debates on the Law on Thefts of Wood’—the copies which R. Fischer sent him on 6 May 1895.
598. On 15 May 1895 Carl Hirsch, then cooperating with the Rheinische Zeitung, told Engels about criminal
charges being brought against A. Hofrichter, the managing editor of that newspaper. The criminal
proceedings had been instituted by Schellmann, the superintendent of a reformatory at Braunweiler, since
the newspaper had accused him of intensifying the inmates’ work. The editors asked Engels to find James
Politt, a British journalist who had, at the request of British factory-owners, visited a number of German
prisons, including one at Braunweiler, and had described his impressions in the newspaper The
Hardwareman. The Rheinische Zeitung editors wanted Politt as a witness at the trial.
599. Engels had written the rough copy of this letter somewhat earlier, on 12 May 1895.
610 Notes
600. In his letter of 6 May 1895 to Engels, K. Kautsky asked him to write a section on the First
International for Volume IV of Die Geschichte des Sozialismus in Einzeldarstellungen; this
volume was to come out in 1897.
601. In his reply to Engels on 25 May 1895 K. Kautsky wrote that he and E. Bernstein had not
asked Engels for contributions to Die Geschichte des Sozialismus only because in the winter
of 1893-94 he, Engels, had been busy preparing the manuscript of Volume II I of Capital for
the press.
602. In his work Von Plato bis zu den Wiederstäufern K. Kautsky had translated Ulrich von
Hutten’s Epistolae obscurorum virorum as Briefe unberühmter Manner, like Johannes Janssen,
the author of Die Geschichte des deutchen Volkes set dem Ausgang des Mittelalters, Kautsky
believed the accepted translation of the Epistolae’s name was not clear enough.
603. In 1890-95 Friedrich Adolf Sorge had written a series of articles for the journal Die Neue
Zeit on the labour movement in the United States in a period from the 1830s to 1892: ‘Die
Arbeiterbewegung in den Vereinigten Staaten’. As far back as 21 November 1891 Engels
had suggested that these articles should be published in a separate edition and had promised
to find a publisher (see present edition, vol. 46). However, this publication did not
materialise at the time. A book of his articles in Russian translation appeared in St.
Petersburg only in 1907, i.e., after Sorge’s death (1906).
604. Engels wrote this letter on a postcard and gave the following address: Herrn Richard
Fischer, Buchhandlung des Vorwärts, Beuthstr. 2, Berlin, Germany.
605. A. Hofrichter probably intended to have these articles reprinted in the Rheinische Zeitung.
606. Concerning the additions and alterations for the revised German translation of Nikolai
Danielson’s book Essays on Our Post-Reform Social Economy (original in Russian). The
author had sent these corrections enclosed in his letter to Engels of 1 June 1895 for A.
Konov, the translator.
The German edition of this book appeared only in 1899 in G. Polonsky’s translation.
607. The reference is to Engels’ work What Have the Working Classes to Do with Poland (present
edition, Vol. 20) which, translated into Polish, was published by the journal Przedswit (No.
7) in July 1895 under the title: Klasa robotnicza a rwestya polska.
608. Engels wrote the following address on the envelope of the letter: Sig. avv° Filippo Turati,
23, Portici Galleria V.E. Milano, Italy. The first page of the letter has the note written by
F.Turati: ‘Riferito al Arturo Labriola. 1.7.95’ (‘Told Arturo Labriola, 1.07.95’).
609. On 19 June 1895 E Turati asked Engels for permission to allow Arturo Labriola to make a
précis of Capital for publication in Italian.
610. In the article ‘Un fatto personale che infolge una questione generale’, published under the
pseudonym Noi (‘We’) in the Critica Sociale (No. 10) on 16 May 1895. E Turati reproduced
a passage from the letter which Engels had written on 8 January 1895 to Pasquale
Martignetti (see this volume, pp. 407). Writing to Engels on 1 July 1895, E Turati apolo-
gised for not having indicated the author of the passage quoted.
F. Turati wrote the above article in reply to A. Labriola’s articles on the situation in Italy,
which were published anonymously on 3 and 7 May 1895 by the Liepziger Volkszeitung. In
them Labriola had criticised the stand of the Italian Socialist Party at a parliamentary elec-
tion (see Note 611).
Notes 611
611. At the election to the Italian Parliament on 26 May and 2 June 1895, the Italian Socialist Party, which had
joined in a coalition with the Radicals and Republicans against the Crispi government and its supporters,
gained 17 seats in the Parliament.
612. Engels wrote these lines on a postcard showing a view of the Eastbourne beach. Laura Lafargue wrote the
following address on this card: Monsieur Paul Lafargue, Le Perreux, Siene, France.
613. Engels wrote this letter on a postcard to the following address which he indicated on it: Herrn Richard
Fischer, Buchhdlg. des Vorwärts, Beuthstr. 2, Berlin S.W. 19; Germany.
614. In April 1895 the Paris monthly journal Le devenir social carried Edward Aveling’s article ‘Les sans-
travail en Engleterre’ in which he claimed that Keir Hardie, the leader of the Independent Labour Party,
denied the fact of unemployment in Britain. In June 1895 the French youth monthly La jeunesse socialiste
reprinted excerpts from this article. On 6 July 1895 the journal Labour Leader carried a refutation from K.
Hardie.
615. Engels wrote these lines on a postcard and indicated the following address: Ed. Bernstein, Esq., 29, Red
Lion Square, W.C. London.
616. Engels wrote this letter on a postcard to the following address: Mrs. Aveling, Greenstreet Green, near
Chislehurst, Kent.
617. Apparently a reference to the proposal made to E. Aveling in June 1895 by the Glasgow organisation of
the Independent Labour Party (see Note 114) to nominate his candidacy at the forthcoming parliamentary
election. Aveling declined for reason of poor health. This was reported in The Labour Leader (No. 67) on
13 July 1895 (see Note 614).
618. A reference to the work of Eleanor Marx-Aveling translating into English the French edition of G.
Plekhanov’s pamphlet Anarchism and Socialism’ (original in Russian). The English edition, to which
Eleanor wrote a preface, was published in London in 1895.
619. This letter was written on a postcard with a view of Eastbourne. Engels gave the following address: Sig.
Filippo Turati, Portici Galleria V.E. 23, Milano, Italy.
620. A reference to the first part of A. Labriolas article ‘En memoire du Manifeste du parti communiste’
published by Le Devenir social (No. 3) in June 1895; the second part of this article appeared in the next,
July issue of the journal.
621. This letter, discovered in the late 1970s in the National Archives of Classic German Literature at Weimar,
opens the correspondence of Engels with Arnold Ruge, a German journalist. Their first meeting took
place in late March 1842 in Berlin where Engels was doing his military service. The present letter sheds
additional light on Engels’ little-known article on Dante which Engels mentioned in his second letter to
Ruge on 15 June 1842 (see present edition, Vol. 2, p. 543), an article which has not survived.
622. A. Ruge complied with this request. In a review published by the Deutsche Jahrbücher fur Wissenschaft
und Kunst (Nos. 126-128) on 28, 30 and 31 May 1842 he praised Engels’ work Schelling and Revelation.
Ruge stressed in particular the author’s clarity in his exposition and critique of the Schelling philosophy.
this pamphlet; however, the supplements to No. 71 and 73 and 12 and 14 March, 1843,
respectively, carried Pfützer’s review (Pfützer was the paper’s Dresden correspondent): II ber
die Broschüre an die Hohe Zweite Kammer der Sächsischen Ständeversammlung.
625. Marx—at the time editor of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung—wrote this letter in reply to
Friedrich Kapp, a German National-Liberal, who was copperating with the newspaper,
about the delay in the payment of royalties that were due to him. Acting on Marx’s advice,
on 11 December 1848 Kapp presented a promissory note to the newspaper, but it was not
paid. Later Marx reimbursed the required sum to him.
626. Marx wrote the address on the envelope: M. Fr. Kapp. Paris. Avenue Breutell 28.
627. This letter was first published in the Catalogue de la vente a l’Hôtel Drouot le 16 novembre
1893 with a note attached to it that Marx had addressed the letter to ‘son collaborateur et
secrétaire Reinländer’. It must have been George Friedrich Rheinländer, a German salesman
in 1850s-1860s, who then emigrated to London.
628. The present letter was addressed to Philip Stephen King, the owner of a London bookselling
firm that dealt in official government publications, draft bills, statistical reports and
communications from academic and state institutions overseas. In the 1860s, 1870s and
1880s Marx approached King on several occasions with a request to send reference litera-
ture to him (see also present edition, Vols. 42, 43).
629. Engels made his will already in Marx’s lifetime, bequeathing all his property to Marx. After
Marx’s death Engels drew up another will according to which all his property was divided in
equal shares among Marx’s daughters Laura and Eleanor, the children of Jenny (the
deceased daughter of Marx) and Helene Demuth, Marx’s housemaid.
630. Lincoln’s Inn {Inn of Court)—one of the four London legal societies with the exclusive right
to admit persons to practice at the bar.
631. This document is reproduced from the copy made by E. Bernstein and Louise Freyberger
(Mrs. Kautsky), with the following postscript which A. Bebel wrote on the envelope: ‘The
letter with codicils, dated 14 November 1894, to Engels’ Testament. Lay in the drawer of
Engels’ desk’.
632. This letter is a limerick jotted down by an unknown person. Engels signed his name with a
pencil. First published in English in the German edition of the works of Marx and Engels: K.
Marx, F. Engels, Werke, Bd. 38. Berlin, 1968.
633. These lines were written by Louise Kautsky (Freyberger) on a postcard. Engels wrote the
following address: Mrs. Natalie Liebknecht, 160, Kantstraße, Charlottenburg Berlin.
634. In that letter Isaak Hourwich, a Russian economist living in the United States, told Engels
about the forthcoming Russian-language publication of his work The Economics of the
Russian Village and asked him to supplement it with an appendix of the notes which Marx
had made from Russian statisical books.
635. Hermann Engels wrote this draft with a pencil on the back of L. Siebold’s letter to F. Engels
of 22 July 1895.
This letter must have been rewritten in a fair copy by Louise Freyberger (Mrs. Kautsky)
and sent to L. Siebold.
636. The reference is to L. Siebold’s letter of 22 April 1895 in which he asked for Engels’
opinion concerning the publication of sketches on the history of chemistry from C.
Schorlemmer’s literary remains (see Note 312).
613
NAME INDEX
British Federal Council (1872-73); supported the 380, 383, 404, 425, 438, 497, 537, 538, 542
so-called socialist wing among the Conservatives
Bebel, Johanna Carolina Julie (1843-1910)—
in the 1890s.—84, 142
August Bebel’s wife.—9, 10, 31, 37-8, 52, 131,
Barth, Ernst Emil Paul (1858-1922)—German 172, 180, 188, 191, 193, 207, 227, 246
philosopher, sociologist and teacher, taught at
Becher, Alfred Julius (1803-1848)—Austrian
Leipzig University from 1890.—164, 165,429
musicologist and lawyer, an active participant in
Baudeau, Nicolas (1730-1792)—French abbot, the 1848 revolution in Austria, editor of Der
economist, Physiocrat.—493 Radikale, shot after the capture of Vienna by
counter-revolutionary troops.—410
Bauer, Bruno (1809-1882)—German idealist
philosopher, Young Hegelian; author of the works Becker, Hermann Heinrich (“Red Becker’) (1820-
on the history of Christianity; radical, National 1885)—German lawyer and journalist; member of
Liberal after 1866.—194, 503 the Communist League from 1850; sentenced to
five-year imprisonment at the Cologne Communist
Bauer, Edgar (1820-1886)—German philosopher and
Trial (1852); member of the Party of Progress in
writer, Young Hegelian, Bruno Bauer’s brother
the 1860s, later a National Liberal, member of the
and associate.—194, 503
Prussian Chamber of Deputies (1862-66) and
Bauer, Stephan (1865-1934)—German economist Reichstag (1867-74); chief burgomaster of
and statistician; an editor of the Zeitschrift für Cologne (from 1875).— 410,471-72
Social- und Wirtschaftsgeschichte, professor of the
Becker, Johann Philipp (1809-1886)—German
High Technical School in Brunn (Brno); later
revolutionary, took part in the democratic
emigrated to Switzerland.—493
movement of the 1830s-50s, the international
Bax, Ernest Belfort (1854-1926)—English socialist, working-class movement and the 1848-49
historian, philosopher and journalist; one of the revolution; prominent figure in the First
first exponents of Marxism in England; an active International and delegate to all its congresses,
member of the Left wing in the Social-Democratic editor of the Vorbote, an active member of the
Federation; a founder of the Socialist League Swiss working-class movement; friend and
(1884); one of the publishers of The Commonweal associate of Marx and Engels.—82, 85, 141,481
(from 1884).—36, 95, 148, 277, 299 Becker, Max Joseph (d. 1896)—German engineer,
Bebel, Ferdinand August (1840-1913)— prominent democrat, took part in the Baden-Palatinate
figure in the German and international working- uprising of 1849, after its defeat emigrated to
class movement; turner; member of the First Switzerland and subsequently to the USA.—500
International; deputy to the Reichstag from 1867; Beer, Max (b. 1864)—German Social-Democrat,
a founder and leader of the German Social- emigrant in London from 1894; correspondent of
Democrats and the Second International; friend the Vorwärts, author of several works on the
and associate of Marx and Engels.—3, 5, 10, 15, history of socialism.—392, 510
16, 20, 25, 29, 30, 31, 32-5, 39,47, 48, 52, 66, 71,
Beesly, Edward Spencer (1831-1915)—British
87, 90, 91, 99, 106, 113, 120, 122, 124, 131, 139,
historian and politician, Radical, positivist
140, 141, 142, 160, 168, 172, 175, 178, 179, 180,
philosopher, professor at London Univer-
181, 183, 184, 185, 186, 188, 191, 193, 196, 199,
203, 215, 217, 228, 232, 245-46, 271, 280, 300,
337, 362-3, 364, 367, 373-5, 378-9,
616 Name Index
sity; supported the International and the Beust, Friedrich {Fritz) von—school principal,
Paris Commune in 1870-71.—431 Anna von Beust’s son.—179, 183, 540
Benary, Franz Simon Ferdinand (1805-1880) Bismarck-Schönhausen, Otto Eduard Leopold,
—German orientalist and an expert on the Prince von (1815-1898)—statesman of
Bible.—329 Prussia and Germany, diplomat; Ambas-
sador to St Petersburg (1859-62) and Paris
Bennigsen, Rudolf von (1824-1902)—German
(1862); Prime Minister of Prussia (1862-72
politician, advocate of Germany’s unifica-
and 1873-90); Chancellor of the North
tion under Prussia’s supremacy; President of
German Confederation (1867-71) and of the
the National Union (1859-67); leader of the
German Empire (1871-90); carried out the
Right wing in the National Liberal Party
unification of Germany; introduced Anti-
from 1867; deputy to the Reichstag (1871-
Socialist Law in 1878.—51, 52, 89, 158,
83 and 1887-98).—101
164, 167, 179, 202, 243, 458, 485
Béranger, Pierre Jean de (1780-1857)—French
Blaschko, Alfred (1858-1922)—German der-
poet and song writer, author of political
matologist, professor; published several
satires; democrat.—426 articles on problems of social hygiene in
Bernstein, Aaron (pseudonym A. Rebenstein) Die Neue Zeit in the 1890s.—67
(1812-1884)—German journalist and short-
Blatchford, Robert Peel Granville (pseudonym
story writer, petty-bourgeois democrat, Nunquam) (1851-1943)—British socialist,
founder (1853) and editor of the Berlin journalist, an editor of The Workman’s
Volks-Zeitung, Eduard Bernstein’s uncle. — Times, The Clarion and other workers’
207 newspapers in the early 1890s; one of the
Bernstein, Eduard (1850-1932)—German founders and leaders of the Independent
Social-Democrat, journalist, editor of Der Labour Party (1893).—420
Sozialdemokrat (1881-90); a leader of the Blocher, Hermann (1867-1942)—Swiss jour-
German Social-Democrats; came out with a nalist, Social-Democrat; later abandoned
revision of Marxism from a reformist stand- the working-class movement.—194
point in the mid-1890s.—35, 37, 49, 53, 92,
127, 183, 192, 207, 224, 226, 237, 306, 336, Bios, Wilhelm (1849-1927)—German Social-
345-6, 348-9, 387, 392, 400, 468, 481, 510, Democrat; journalist and historian; an editor
of Der Volksstaat (1872-74); deputy to the
511, 512, 513, 517, 522, 533, 537, 538, 539,
Reichstag (from 1877), belonged to the
542
right wing of the Social-Democratic
Bernstein, Regina { Gine) (née Zadek; Schaffner group.—26
by first marriage)—Eduard Bernstein’s
Blumenfeld, Josef Solomonovich (b. 1865)—
wife.—91, 207, 271, 337, 346, 393, 517,
Russian Social-Democrat; emigrated to
522, 534
Switzerland in 1891; member of the Eman-
Bervi, Vasily Vasilyevich (pseudonym TV. cipation of Labour group; helped to bring
Flerovsky) (1829-1918)—Russian econo- out Social-Democratic literature in 1893
mist and sociologist; enlightener and demo- and 1894.—317
crat, Narodnik Utopian socialist; author of
Boelling, Hedwig (née Engels) (1830-1904)—
The Condition of the Working Class in Engels’ sister; Frederick Boelling’s wife. —
Russia.—450 418
Beust, Adolf von—physician, Anna von Beust’s Boguslawski, Albert von (1834-1905)—
son.—179, 183, 540 German general, author of numerous works
Beust, Anna von (née Lipka) (1827-1900)— on war history and military art.—447, 458,
Engels’ cousin.—178, 179, 180, 540 459
Name Index 617
Bonnier, Charles (b. 1863)—French socialist, Bucher, Lother (1817-1892)—Prussian official and
journalist and prominent figure in the Workers journalist; deputy to the Prussian National
Party; lived in England for a long time; Assembly (Left Centre) in 1848; emigrated to
contributed to the socialist press.— 15, 20, 46, 48, London after the defeat of the 1848-49 revolution;
56, 64, 66, 72, 156, 171, 182, 216, 243, 262, 285, later a National Liberal, supporter of Bismarck.—
315, 324, 326, 332 243
Borgius, W.—214
Bueb, Fernand (b. 1865)—German Social-Democrat;
Boulanger, Georges Ernest Jean Marie (1837- journalist; member of the Reichstag (1893-
1891)—French general, War Minister (1886-87), 1900).—154
sought to establish military dictatorship.—16, 51,
Bürgers, Heinrich (1820-1878)—German radical
59, 68, 69, 75, 76, 156,190
journalist, contributor to the Rheinische Zeitung
Brand, Ignaz (1844-1916)—Austrian Social- (1842-43); member of the Communist League
Democrat; founder of a Vienna people’s book (1848), an editor of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung,
publishing house.—508
one of the accused in the Cologne Communist
Braun, Adolf (1862-1929)—German Social- Trial (1852); subsequently a liberal.—471
Democrat; journalist, an editor of the Vorwärts
Burgess, Joseph (pseudonym Autolycus) (b. 1853)—
and other German and Austrian Social-Democratic
prominent figure in the English working-class
newspapers in the 1890s; author of a few works on
the trade-union movement.—372 movement; knitter; an editor of The Workman’s
Times (1891-94); a founding member of the
Braun, Heinrich (1854-1927)—German Social- Independent Labour Party (1893).—228, 229
Democrat, journalist; one of the founders of Die
Neue Zeit, an editor of the Archiv für soziale Burns, John Elliott (1858-1943)—prominent figure
Gesetzgebung und Statistik and other newspapers in the English working-class movement; a leader
and magazines.— 372, 460 of the New Trade Unions in the 1880s; head of the
London dockers’ strike (1889); went over to the
Brentano, Lujo {Ludwig Joseph) (1844-1931) —
liberal trade unionism in the 1890s, M. P. (from
German economist; one of the major
1892); held ministerial posts in liberal govern-
representatives of armchair socialism.— 146, 223,
365 ments.—8, 23, 103, 131, 139, 269, 285, 356, 483,
484
Brett—English wine merchant.—418
Burton, Robert (pseudonym Democritus Junior)
Bronsart von Schellendorjf, Walter (1833-1914) —
(1577-1640)—English divine and author of The
Prussian general, War Minister of the German
Anatomy of Melancholy (1621). —259
Empire (1893-96).—419
618 Name Index
Casimir-Périer, Jean Paul Pierre (1847-1907) Churchill, Randolph Henry Spencer, Lord
—French statesman; Prime Minister (1893- (1849-1895)—British Statesman, a leader
94), President of the Republic (1894-95).— of the Conservative Party, Secretary for
245, 369, 420, 425 India (1885-86), Chancellor of the Exche-
quer and leader of the House of Commons
Cato, Marcus Porcius (Cato the Elder or Cato from July to December 1886.—279
the Censor) (234-149 B. C.)—Roman
statesman, general and writer, was elected Clark, Thomas—house owner in London. —
censor in 184 B. C; his rigorous censorship 338
became a byword.—66 Clayton—stock-exchange broker in London.
Cavendish, Spencer Comp ton, Duke of Devon- —539
shire (1833-1908)—English statesman, ini-
Clemenceau, Georges (Eugene Benjamin)
tially a liberal, MP, the recognised leader of
(1841-1929)—French politician, statesman
the Liberal Unionist Party from 1886.—279
and journalist; leader of the Radicals from
Cerny Wilhelm (b. 1864)—Czech Social- the 1880s; founded La Justice.—155, 332,
Democrat, joiner, member of the Chamber 427
of Deputies of Austria-Hungary.—334
Cleveland, Stephen Grover (1837-1908)—
Chamberlain, Joseph (1836-1914)—British American statesman, twice (1885-89 and
statesman, liberal, Liberal Unionist after 1893-97) President of the United States. —
1886; M. P. from 1876; member of the 124
Cabinet for many years.—272, 279
Cluseret, Gustave Paul (1823-1900)—French
Champion, Henry Hyde (1859-1928)— politician; member of the First Interna-
English socialist, publisher and journalist; tional, sided with the Bakuninists; a Com-
munard, after the defeat of the Commune
emigrated to Belgium and then to the USA;
Name Index 619
returned to France after the amnesty; mem- Crosland, Sir Joseph (1826-1904)—English
ber of the Chamber of Deputies from 1888, manufacturer, conservative, M. P. (1893-
sided with the socialists.—72 95).—103
Cohen, Alexander.—452 Cross—chief of the solicitors’ office Cross &
Sons in London.—539
Colajanni, Napoleone (1847-1921)—Italian
politician, sociologist and journalist, Cunow, Heinrich Wilhelm Karl (1862-1936)
Republican; took part in the national-liber- —German Social-Democrat, historian,
ation movement in Italy; close to the social- sociologist and ethnographer.—257
ists in the 1880s and 1890s; deputy to the
Parliament from 1890.—96
D
Columbus, Christopher (1451-1506)—
Genoese-born navigator, discoverer of Dakyns—English geologist, member of the
America.—198 First International since 1869, an acquain-
Comte, Auguste (1798-1857)—French tance of Marx and Engels.—259
philosopher, founder of positivism.—430 Dalziel, Davison Alexander (1854-1928)—one
of the founders of a British information
Constans, Jean Antoine Ernest (1833-1913)—
agency, Conservative, M. P.—89
French statesman, moderate republican;
Minister of the Interior (1880-81 and 1889- Danielson, Nikolai Frantsevich (pseudonym;
92).—68, 75 Nikolai-on (1844-1918)—Russian econo-
mist and writer; an ideologist of Narodism
Constantine I, the Great (c. 285-337)—Roman in the 1880s-90s; translated into Russian
Emperor (306-37).—449 volumes I (together with Hermann Lopatin
Cotar, M. P.—French socialist.—132 and N. N. Lybavin), II and II I of Marx’s
Capital, corresponded with Marx and
Crawford, Emily (née Johnson) (1831-1915)— Engels for several years.—109, 143, 212,
British journalist, Paris correspondent of 255, 280, 372-3, 412, 450, 455, 488, 516
several English papers.—64, 106, 380, 409,
Dante Alighieri (1265-1321)—Italian poet.—
434
256, 529
Crispi, Francesco (1819-1901)—Italian states-
Darwin, Charles Robert (1809-1882)—English
man, initially a bourgeois republican, par- naturalist, founder of the theory of evolution
ticipant in the national-liberation movement by natural selection.—349
in Italy; champion of constitutional
monarchy from the late 1860s; a leader of Debski, Aleksander (1857-1935)—Polish
the so-called bourgeois Left, Prime Minister socialist, a founder of the Prolétariat Party
and the Polish Socialist Party (1892); an
(1887-91 and 1893-96).—369, 390, 423,
editor of the Przedswit in 1893; later with-
519
drew from the working-class movement. —
Croesus—last King of Lydia (560-546 B. 312
C.).—168
Delagrave, Charles Marie Eugène (1842-1934)
Cromwell, Oliver (1599-1658)—leader of the —French publisher.—332
English Revolution, Lord Protector of Eng- Delecluze, Mark Louis Alfred (1857-1923)—
land, Scotland and Ireland from 1653.— French socialist, formed a section of the
266 Workers’ Party in Calais (1882).—184
Croon, Berta—sister-in-law of Hermann De Leon, Daniel (1852-1914)—prominent
Engels, Frederick Engels’ brother.—179 figure in the labour and socialist movement
620 Name Index
in the USA, leader of the Socialist Labor Party of 50, 53, 68, 91, 127, 217, 220, 223-24,
North America (from 1891); lawyer; founder of 310,365,514
the Socialist Trade and Labor Alliance (1895).—
Dietzgen, Eugen (1862-1930)—American journalist;
198 emigrated from Germany to the USA in late 1880-
Delon, Albert (b. 1857)—French socialist, physician; early 1881; took part in the American socialist
initially a possibilist, a Guesdist from 1893, movement; Joseph Dietzgen’s son, publisher of
contributed to a number of socialist magazines.— his father’s works.—300
264 Disraeli, Benjamin, Earl of Beaconsfield (1804-
Demuth, Frederick Henry Lewis (1851-1929) — 1881)—British statesman and author; a Tory
English worker, mechanic, Helene Demuth’s son, leader; Chancellor of the Exchequer (1852, 1858-
a close friend of Eleanor Marx-Aveling, took an 59 and 1866-68); Prime Minister (1868 and 1874-
active part in the English working-class 80).—241
movement.—533 Domanico, Giovanni (1855-1919)—Italian socialist,
Demuth, Helene (Lenchen, Nim) (1820-1890) — member of the anarchist Italian Federation of the
house-maid and friend of the Marx family; after International and later of the Italian Socialist
Marx’s death lived at Engels’. —38 Party, withdrew from the Party in 1899.—149,
151, 162
Dereure, Louise Simon (1838-1900)—French
socialist, Blanquist; shoemaker; member of the Dragomanov, Mikhail Petrovich (1841-1895) —
First International, a Communard member of the Ukrainian historian, ethnographer, journalist and
French Workers’ Party from 1882.—358 public figure.—90
Deroulede, Paul (1846-1914)—French politician and Dronke, Ernst (1822-1891)—German writer, “true
writer; took part in the suppression of the Paris socialist”; later member of the Communist League
Commune; an active Boulangist; member of the and an editor of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung
Chamber of Deputies (1889-92, 1898).—16, 155, (1848-49); after the 1848-49 revolution emigrated
428 to Switzerland, then to England; associate of Marx
and Engels.—471, 530
Deville, Gabriel Pierre (1854-1940)—French
Dühring, Eugen Karl (1833-1921)—German eclectic
socialist, propagated Marxism, member of the
philosopher and vulgar economist, petty-
French Workers’ Party, journalist, author of a
bourgeois socialist; his philosophical views were a
popular exposition of the first volume of Marx’s
mixture of idealism, vulgar materialism,
Capital; delegate to the International Socialist
positivism and metaphysics; he also concerned
Workers’ Congresses in 1889 and 1891.—150,
himself with the problems of natural science and
173, 390, 448
literature; a lecturer at Berlin University from
Devonshire, Duke of—see Cavendish, Spencer 1863 to 1877.—291
Compton
Dupuy, Charles Alexandre (1851-1923)— French
Diamandy, George (1867-1917)—Romanian statesman, a moderate republican; Minister of
socialist, journalist; while studying in Paris, Education (1892), Prime Minister (1893, 1894-95,
headed an international socialist group of students; 1898-99).—245,426
founder and editor of L’Ere nouvelle (1893-94).— Dworzak, Adelheid (Popp by marriage) (1869-
171, 221-22, 264 1939)—Austrian socialist; factory worker, later
Dietz, Johann Heinrich Wilhelm (1843-1922) — journalist, an active participant in the Austrian and
German Social-Democrat, founder of a Social- international women’s movement; an editor of
Democratic publishing house; deputy to the the Arbeiterinner-
Reichstag from 1881.—49,
Name Index 621
Ferry, Jules François Camille (1832-1893)— the Paris Commune and the General Council
French lawyer, journalist and politician; a of the First International (1871-72); a
leader of the moderate republicans; member founder of the General Workers’ Party of
of the Government of National Defence, Hungary (1880); associate of Marx and
Mayor of Paris (1870-71), Prime Minister Engels.—172, 232, 391-92, 481
(1880-81 and 1883-85); pursued an active
Frederick II (the Great) (1712-1786)—King of
colonial policy.—172
Prussia (1740-86).—504
Feuerbach, Ludwig Andreas (1804-1872)—
Frederick William (1620-1688)—Elector of
German philosopher.—529
Brandenburg (1640-88).—166
Fichte, Johann Gottlieb (1762-1814)—Ger-
Freyberger, Louise—see Kautsky, Louise (née
man philosopher.—163
Strasser).
Fireman, Peter (b. 1863)—Russian-born
Freyberger, Ludwig (1863-1934)—Austrian
American chemist, lived in Germany and
physician, refugee in London, Louise Kaut-
the USA.—377, 401,463
sky’s husband (from 1894).—22, 116, 180,
Fischer, Inka—Richard Fischer’s daughter.— 272-73, 276, 284, 292, 300, 311, 327, 332,
37, 38, 346 334, 337, 344, 348, 370, 376, 391, 411, 416,
Fischer, Richard (1855-1926)—German 424, 428, 435, 437, 439, 440, 442, 448,
Social-Democrat, journalist, compositor; 449-50, 457, 486, 490, 507-08, 509, 517,
secretary in the Executive Committee of the 522, 532, 534, 535, 538, 540-42
Social-Democratic Party (1890-93); mem- Fribourg, Ernest Eduard—prominent figure in
ber of the Reichstag (from 1893).—40, 52, the French working-class movement;
268, 437-8, 443-4, 457-59, 490-91, 496-98, engraver, subsequently businessman; Right-
499, 501-02, 504, 515-16, 521 wing Proudhonist; a leader of the Paris sec-
Fischer—Richard Fischers wife.—521 tion of the International; author of L’Associ-
ation internationale des travailleurs which
Flerovsky, N.—see Bervi, Vasily Vasilyevich. was hostile to the International and the Paris
Fortin, Edouard—French socialist, journalist, Commune.—98
member of the French Workers’ Party,
Frohme, Karl Franz Egon (1850-1933)—Ger-
translated into French several of Marx’s
man journalist, Social-Democrat, a Lassal-
works.—211, 216, 221-22
lean in the 1870s, belonged to the reformist
Foulger—English publisher.—204, 218 wing of German Social-Democracy; deputy
to the German Reichstag (from 1881).— 26,
Fournière, Joseph Eugène (1857-1914)—
100, 106
French socialist, a founder of the French
Workers’ Party, sided with the possibilists in
1881, later supported Millerand; member of
G
the Chamber of Deputies.—331
Francis Ferdinand Karl (1863-1914)—Arch- Gardiner, Samuel Rawson (1829-1902)—
duke of Austria, heir to the throne of Aus- English historian.—402
tria-Hugary from 1896; assassinated at
Sarajevo, Serbia, on 28 June 1914.—370 Garibaldi, Giuseppe (1807-1882)—Italian
revolutionary, democrat; led the struggle of
Francis Joseph I (1830-1916)—Emperor of the Italian people for national liberation and
Austria.—17, 219, 228, 240-41, 273, 370 the unification of the country in the 1850s
Frankel, Leo (1844-1896)—jeweller, promi- and 1860s.—94
nent figure in the Hungarian and interna- Garibaldi, Menotti (1840-1903)—Italian
tional working-class movement; member of soldier and statesman; Giuseppe Garibaldi’s
Name Index 623
son; businessman from the early 1870s, deputy to quer (1852-55, 1859-66) and Prime Minister
the Italian Parliament (from 1876).—94 (1868-74, 1880-85, 1886, 1892-94).—87, 104,
108, 272, 356
Geiser, Alice (b. 1857)—Weilhelm Liebknecht’s
eldest daughter, wife of a German Social- Goblet, René (1828-1905)—French statesman and
Democrat, Bruno Geiser.—282 politician, lawyer; Radical, repeatedly held
ministerial posts in the 1880s; senator (1891-93);
Gerault-Richard, Alfred Léon (1860-1911)— French
one of the managers of La Petite République
journalist, socialist, member of the Chamber of
(1891-93).—210
Deputies (1895-98).—396, 419,421
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von (1749-1832)—
Gerisch, Karl Alwin (1857-1922)—German Social-
German poet.—440
Democrat; machinist; member of the Executive
Committee of the Social-Democratic Party of Goldenberg, Jossif (lossif) Petrovich (pseudonym
Germany; deputy to the Reichstag (1894-98).— Meshkovsky) (1873-1922)—Russian Social-
280 Democrat, studied abroad since 1890.— 213
Gerlach, Hellmut von (1866-1935)—German Gorst, Sir John Eldon (1835-1916)—English
journalist; contributor to Das Volk in the 1890s.— statesman, Conservative, M. P., Chancellor of the
315, 316 Exchequer (1891-92).—311
Gilles, Ferdinand (born c. 1856)—German journalist, Gottschalk, Andreas (1815-1849)—German
Social-Democrat; moved to London in 1886; physician; member of the Cologne community of
contributed to the Londoner Arbeiter-Zeitung, the Communist League; President of the Cologne
member of the German Workers’ Educational Workers’ Association (April— June 1848);
Society in London, was exposed as a police spy exponent of “Left” sectarian tendencies in the
and expelled from the Society in 1892.—18 German working-class movement.—471
Guérard, Benjamin Edme Charles (1797-1854) ter of Prussia (from March to September
—French historian, author of a few works 1848).—415
on the history of medieval France.—489
Harcourt, Sir William George Granville
Guesde, Jules (real name Mathieu Jules Bazile) Venables Vernon (1827-1904)—English
(1845-1922) prominent figure in the French statesman, liberal, Home Secretary (1880-
and international socialist movement; a 85), Chancellor of the Exchequer (1886,
founder of the French Workers’ Party 1892-94, 1894-95).—410-11
(1879); leader of the revolutionary wing of
the French socialist movement for many Hardie, James Keir (1856-1915)—prominent
years.—6, 15, 20, 66, 135, 155, 172, 182, figure in the English working-class move-
185, 197, 209, 243, 245, 250, 272, ment, miner, later journalist; founder and
274,315,325,420,434 leader of the Scottish Labour Party (from
1888) and of the Independent Labour Party
Guillaumin—French publisher.—226 (from 1893); an active member of the
Guizot, François Pierre Guillaume (1787-1874) Labour Party; was first elected to parliament
—French historian and statesman, Orleanist; as independent workers’ candidate in
Foreign Minister (1840-48) and Prime 1892.—8, 84, 87, 88, 102, 103, 356-7,
Minister (1847-48); virtually directed the 411,483,525,526
home and foreign policy of France from Harney, George Julian (1817-1897)—promi-
1840 to the February 1848 revolution; nent figure in the English working-class
expressed the interests of the big financial
movement, a leader of the Chartist Left
bourgeoisie.—266
wing, editor of The Northern Star, Democ-
Gülich, Gustav von (1791-1847)—German ratic Review, Red Republican and Friend of
historian and economist; protectionist.— the People, lived in the USA from 1862 to
267 1888 (with intervals); member of the First
International; associate of Marx and Engels.
Gumpert, Eduard (d. 1893)—German physi-
cian in Manchester, friend of Marx and —112
Engels.—18, 101, 137, 138, 155 Harrison, Frederick (1831-1923)—English
Gumpert, Mrs—Eduard Gumpert’s wife.— lawyer and historian, radical, positivist,
155 active member of the English democratic
movement in the 1860s, member of the First
Guyot, Ives (1843-1928)—French politician, International.—431
economist and journalist, member of the
Chamber of Deputies, Minister of Public Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich (1770-1831)
Works (1889-92).—489 —German philosopher.—121, 165, 301,
463
Heine, Heinrich (1797-1856)—German poet.
H —189,225,234,243,449
Heinzen, Karl Peter (1809-1880)—German
Hackenberg, Karl—German historian, Her-
journalist, radical; took part in the Baden-
mann Heinrich Becker’s son-in-law and
Palatinate uprising of 1849; emigrated to
biographer.—470-72
Switzerland, later to England and in the
Händel, Georg Friedrich (1685-1759)—Ger- autumn of 1850 to the USA.—422
man composer.—56, 314, 315
Helfand, Alexander Lazarevich (pseudonym
Hansemann, David Justus (1790-1864)—Ger- Parvus) (1869-1924)—Russian Social-
man capitalist and politician; a leader of the Democrat, refugee in Switzerland from
Rhenish liberal bourgeoisie; Finance Minis- 1886, later in Germany; contributed to the
Name Index 625
Laura—see Lafargue, Laura. international company which built the Suez Canal
(1859-69); chief of the Panama Canal Co.;
Laveley, Emil Louis Victor, Baron de (1822-1892)—
following the Panama Canal scandle was
Belgian historian and economist.—98
sentenced in 1893 to five-year imprisonment.—
Lavergne-Peguilhen, Moritz von (1801-1870) — 69, 106
German historian and economist.—135
Lessing, Gotthold Ephraim (1729-1781)— German
Lavrov, Pyotr Lavrovich (1823-1900)—Russian writer, critic, philosopher of the Enlightenment.—
sociologist, philosopher, revolutionary journalist; 135
an ideologist of Narodism; member of the First
International, took part in the Paris Commune; Lessner, Friedrich (1825-1910)—prominent figure in
editor of the magazine Vperyod. (1873-76) and the the German and international working-class
newspaper Vperyod. (1875-76); friend of Marx movement; tailor; member of the Communist
and Engels.—62, 96, 143, 153, 254, 258, 388-89 League from 1847; took part in the 1848-49
revolution; defendant at the Cologne Communist
Lazzari, Constantino (1857-1927)—prominent figure
trial (1852); emigrated to London in 1856;
in the Italian working-class movement, a founder
member of the German Workers’ Educational
and leader of the Italian Workers’ Party (1889)
Society in London and of the General Council of
and the Italian Socialist Party (1892); sided with
the First International (November 1864 to 1872);
the anar-chosyndicalists.—341
took part in the British socialist movement (the
Ledebour, Georg (1850-1947)—German Social- 1880s-90s); friend and associate of Marx and
Democrat, lawyer; later a Centrist.—367 Engels.—127, 141, 533, 538-541
Lee, Henry William (1865-1932)—English socialist, Lexis, Wilhelm (1837-1914)—German economist and
secretary of the Social-Democratic Federation statistician, professor at Göttingen university
(1885-1913).—294, 335 (from 1887).—463
Meding, Oskar (pseudonym Gregor Samarow) Mignet, François Auguste Marie (1796-1884)
(1829-1903)—German writer, author of —French historian.—266
cheap historical novels.—282 Millerand, Etienne Alexandre (1859-1943)—
Mehring, Franz (1846-1919)—prominent French politician and statesman, lawyer and
figure in the German working-class move- journalist; radical in the 1880s; member of
ment, philosopher, historian and journalist; the Chambers of Deputies from 1885;
author of several works on the history of headed the so-called group of independent
Germany and German Social-Democracy socialists in the 1890s, later withdrew from
and of a biography of Marx; member of the the socialist movement; held several high
German Social-Democratic Party (from official posts.—113, 155, 156, 185, 197-98,
1891); a regular contributor to Die Neue 210, 244, 249, 262, 318, 325, 332
Zeit, one of the leaders and theoreticians of
the Left-wing of the German Social-Demo- Millevoye, Lucien (1850-1918)—French jour-
cratic Party.—135, 148-49, 503-04, 505 nalist and politician, Boulangist, member of
the Chamber of Deputies (1889-93 and
Meissner, Otto Karl (1819-1902)—Hamburg
1898-1902).—5, 21, 29
publisher, printed Marx’s Capital and other
works by Marx and Engels.—22, 189, 226, Miquel, Johannes von (1828-1901)—German
293, 310, 363, 365, 390, 497 lawyer, politician and financier, member of
Mendelson, Marya [Maria] (née Zaleska; the Communist League up to 1852, a leader
Jankowska by the first marriage) (1850- of the Right-wing National Liberals (from
1909)—Polish socialist, active member 1867); deputy to the North German and the
among the Polish revolutionary emigrants; German Reichstag (1867-77 and 1887-90);
Stanislaw Mendelson’s wife.—79, 90, 96, Finance Minister of Prussia in the 1890s.—
122, 131, 304, 305, 338, 352, 502, 533 3, 219, 472
Mendelson, Stanislaw (1858-1913)—Polish Mohammed (Muhammad, Mahomet) (c. 570-
socialist, journalist; a founder of the Polish 632)—founder of Islam.—520
Socialist Party (1892); publisher and editor
Mohr—see Marx, Karl.
of the Przedświt, withdrew from the work-
ing-class movement from the mid-1890s.— Momberger, August.—277
60, 62, 122, 184, 304, 305, 338, 502, 534
Montesquieu, Charles Louis de Secondat, baron
Meshchersky, Vladimir Petrovich, Prince (1839- de La Brède et de (1689-1755)—French
1914)—Russian writer and journalist, an sociologist, economist and writer.—165
ideologist of the reactionary nobility,
monarchist.—75 Moor—see Marx, Karl
class movement; a founder of the Dutch Social- (from 1875), leader of the Home Rule League
Democracy (1881); went over to anarchists in the (1877-90); President of the Irish Land League
1890s.—20 (from 1880).—87
Nokov (Nokoff), Stojan (1872-1959)—Bulgarian Pasquali, Felice (real name Nicolo Giolotti)— Italian
Social-Democrat, lived in Geneva in 1889-94; a refugee in England.—333, 339
founder and leader of the Bulgarian Social-
Paul—see Lafargue, Paul.
Democratic students’ organisation in Switzerland;
returned to Bulgaria in 1894; village teacher.— Pauli, Ida—Philipp Viktor Paulis wife.—80
152
Pauli, Philipp Viktor (1836-d. after 1916)— German
Nothnagel, Hermann (1841-1905)—German and chemist, friend of Marx and Engels.—79
Austrian clinicain, director of a clinic in Vienna
Pearce, Ada—medical nurse.—542
(from 1882).—21, 399
Pease, Edward Reynolds (1857-1955)—English
socialist, a founder and leader of the Fabian
O Society, its secretary.—335
the Panama Canal affair was exposed in Say, Jean Baptiste Léon (1826-1896)—French
1892.—69 statesman and politician, economist, mod-
Roy, Joseph—translator of the first volume of erate republican; an editor of the Journal des
Marx’s Capital and Feuerbach’s works into Débats; deputy to the National Assembly
French.—172 from 1871; Finance Minister (1872-82, with
intervals).—274-75
Rudolph Franz Karl Joseph (1858-1889)—
Austro-Hungarian archduke and crown Schachert, Michael (b. 1869)—Austrian Social-
prince, committed suicide.—370 Democrat, an editor of the Arbeiter-Zeitung,
member of the chamber of Deputies.—285
Ruge, Arnold (1802-1880)—German radical
journalist and philosopher, Young Hegelian; Schattner, Ernst (born c. 1879)—Regina Bern-
deputy to the Frankfurt National Assembly stein’s son by the first husband.—337, 349,
(Left Wing) in 1848; a leader of the German 391,517,522
petty-bourgeois refugees in England in the
1850s; became a National Liberal after Schattner, Käte (born c. 1881)—Regina Bern-
1866.—194, 480, 504, 529 stein’s daughter by the first husband.—271,
337, 391, 517, 522
Rutenberg, Adolf(1808-1869)—German jour-
nalist, Young Hegelian; an editor of the Schelling, Friedrich Wilhelm (1775-1854)—
Rheinische Zeitung from 1842; a National German idealist philosopher.—529
Liberal after 1866.—503 Schlüter, Anna—Friedrich Hermann Schlüters
Ryba, Amelia (Seidl by marriage) (1876-1952) wife.—207
—Austrian Social-Democrat; a leader of the
Schlüter, Friedrich Hermann (1851-1919)—
women’s Social-Democratic movement. —
German Social-Democrat, manager of a
263
Social-Democratic publishing house in
Zurich in the 1880s; a founder of the
S archives of the German Social-Democrats;
emigrated to the USA in 1889 where he
Saint-Paul, Wilhelm{c. 1815-1852)—Prussian took part in the socialist movement; author
army officer, then an official in the Ministry of several works on the history of English
of the Interior; censor of the Rheinische and American labour movement.—75, 207,
Zeitung in 1843.—504, 530 237-38, 301, 330, 345, 382, 399, 422
(1872-74); one of the founders of the (1878) and leader of the Christian Social
Socialist Labour Party (1876); friend and Party close to the extreme Right wing of the
associate of Marx and Engels.—23, 31, 73, Conservative party, deputy to the Reichstag
119, 140, 196, 198, 235, 248-51, 271, 282, from 1881.—99
299, 330, 355-59, 377-79, 381, 421-24, 500,
Struve, Pyotr Berngardovich (1870-1944)—
513
Russian economist and journalist, “legal
Sorge, Katharina—Friedrich Adolph Sorge’s Marxist”.—213, 372, 412
wife.—76, 143, 301, 379, 424
Stumpf, Paul (1826-1912)—German mechanic,
Spatzek—Russian official, a Bohemian by member of the German Workers’ Society in
birth.—102, 108 Brussels (1847), member of the Communist
Spencer, Herbert (1820-1903)—English posi- League, took part in the 1848-49 revolution
tivist philosopher and sociologist.—349 in Germany, member of the Social-
Democratic Party of Germany.—41, 405
Spiegel, Adolf—German chemist.—138, 246
Stadthagen, Arthur (1857-1917)—German
Social-Democrat, lawyer, deputy to the T
Reichstag (from 1890), an editor of the
Vorwärts.—43 Taaffe, Eduard, Earl von (1833-1895)—
Austrian conservative statesman, Prime
Stegmann, Carl—German journalist, Social-
Minister (1868-70 and 1879-93).—199,
Democrat, a compiler of Handbuch des
202, 205, 206, 211, 219, 224-25, 240-41,
Socialismus.—4
262, 273, 370
Stein, Julius (1813-1889)—Silesian teacher
Tauscher, Leonard (1840-1914)—German
and journalist; democrat; deputy to the
Social-Democrat, compositor member of the
Prussian National Assembly (Left wing) in
General Association of German Workers
1848.—415
from 1865, manager of the German Social-
Stepnyak—see Kravchinsky, Sergei Mikhalovich. Democratic printshop in Zürich in 1880-
Sternberg, Lev Yakovlevich (1861-1927)— 1888, then of the London printshop of the
Russian ethnographer, for his work in the Sozialdemokrat (1888-90), editor of
People’s Will organizations was exiled to Schwäbische Tagwacht in 1893-1903.—68
Sakhalin (1889-97) where he continued Thierry, Jacques Nicolas Augustin (1795-1856)
ethnographic study of the local popula- —French historian.—266
tion.—54
Thiers, Louis Adolphe (1797-1877)—French
Stiebeling, George—German-born American historian and statesman, Prime Minister
socialist, statistician and journalist, member (1836, 1840); deputy to the Constituent
of the Central Committee of the First (1848) and Legislative (1849-51) assem-
International’s sections in the USA; member blies; head of the Orleanists after 1848;
of the Socialist Labor Party of the North chief of the executive power (1871); dealt
America; author of several economic brutally with the Paris Communards (1871);
articles.—127, 377, 415, 421 President of the Republic (1871-73).—184
Stifft, Andreas (1819-1877)—Austrian demo-
Thivrier, Christophe (1841-1895)—French
cratic journalist, took part in the 1848-49
socialist, miner, later wine merchant, mem-
revolution in Austria; later abandoned
ber of the French Workers’ Party, member
public activity.—414
of the Chamber of Deputies from 1889.—
Stoecker, Adolf (1835-1909)—German Protes- 72,188
tant clergyman and politician, founder
640 Name Index
Vincent, Charles Edward Howard (1849-1908)— Webb, Sidney James (1859-1947)—English socialist
English politician, Conservative MP (from and public figure, a founder of the Fabian Society;
1885).—102 together with his wife Beatrice Webb wrote
several works on the history and theory of the
Viviani, René Raphael (1863-1925)—French
English labour movement.—125, 484
politician and statesman, lawyer; “independent
socialist” in the 1890s, later repeatedly held Westermarck, Edward Alexander (1862-1939) —
ministerial posts.—331 Finnish ethnographer and sociologist.—
147
Vogelsanger, Johann Jacob (1849-1923)—Swiss
Wiesen, F.—German socialist in America,
Social-Democrat, journalist, magistrate in Zurich
contributed to the Volks-Anwalt.—119, 126
(from 1892).—275
William I (1797-1888)—King of Prussia (1861-88)
Volkhovsky, Felix Vadimovich (1846-1914)—
and Emperor of Germany (1871-88).—158, 166
Russian revolutionary, Narodnik; refugee in
London from 1890; editor of the Free Russia William II (1859-1941)—King of Prussia and
(from 1895).—32, 37 Emperor of Germany (1888-1918).—15, 17, 20,
28, 125, 159, 160, 166, 358, 369, 381, 383, 390,
Vollmar, Georg Heinrich von (1850-1922)—
404, 419, 423, 426, 428, 447, 485, 490
German Social-Democrat, journalist; a leader of
the reformist wing of the German Social- Wilson, Daniel (1840-1919)—French politician,
deputy to the National Assembly from 1871,
Democrats; repeatedly elected deputy to the
moderate republican; son-in-law of the President
German Reichstag and the Bavarian Landtag.—
of the Republic Jules Grévy; was involved in a few
27, 28, 49, 271, 357, 367, 374-5, 378-9, 381, 383,
financial swindles; prosecuted on the charge of
404
selling orders (1887-88).—37
Aegir (Ger. myth.)—the lord of the waves.— Cadet Rouselle—a character in French songs
423 and fairy tales; a simpleton who had three
houses, three suits, three nats, three hair on
Agnes—a character in Eugen Richters pam-
his head, etc.—129
phlet Sozialdemokratische Zukunftsbilder.—
100 Christ, Jesus (Bib.).—329
Neptune (Rom. myth.)—lord of the sea.—192 (Gibraltar) and bringing death to all
Paul (Bib.)—one of Christ’s twelve apostles. mariners.—371
—329 Sganarelle—a character in Molière’s
Scylla and Charybdis—two female monsters comedies; a conservative bourgeois, a
living on either side of narrow straits crafty, rude and envious person.—499
645
INDEX OF PERIODICALS
Elberfelder Zeitung—a daily published under various names from 1789 to 1904; it merged with
the Elberfeld Allgemeine Zeitung m 1834 and assumed the name Elberfelder Zeitung.—503
L'Ere nouvelle—a French socialist monthly published in Paris in 1893-94; contributors to the
journal were Jules Guesde, Jean Jaurès, Paul Lafargue and Georgi Plekhanov.—171, 211, 221-
22, 290, 292, 293,332,360
L'Era nuova.—256
The Evening Standard—an English conservative evening daily founded in London in 1827;
appeared as a morning newspaper The Standard from 1854, and as The Evening Standard
along with The Standard'from I860 to 1905.—202, 448
Le Figaro—A French conservative daily published in Paris from 1854.—4, 20, 23, 105, 141, 155
The Fortnightly Review—an English journal dealing with problems of history, philosophy and
literature. Founded by the radicals in 1865, later turned liberal; published under this title in
London until 1934.—228, 229
La France—a republican daily published in Paris from 1861 to 1939.—5, 6
Frankfurter Zeitung und Handelsblatt—a democratic daily published in Frankfurt-am-Main from
1856 (under this title from 1866) to 1943.—271, 375
Free Russia—an English radical monthly of the Friends of Russian Freedom society published in
London from June 1890 to January 1915; its editor in 1891-95 was Sergei Stepnyak-
Kravchinsky.—90
Le Gaulois, Journal de Defence Sociale—a French conservative daily published in Paris from 1868
to 1929.—6
Gazeta Robotnicza—a Polish-language weekly of the German Social-Democrats and Polish social-
ists published in Berlin and Katowice in 1891-1919 in collaboration with the editors of the
Przedswit.—96
Gluhlichter-Humoristisch-satirisches Arbeiterblatt—a Social-Democratic fortnightly published in
Vienna in 1889.—378
L'Illustration Journal universel—an illustrated literary journal published in Paris since 1843.—
136
L'Intransigeant—a newspaper published in Paris from 1880 to 1948; its founder and editor-
in-chief was Henri Rochefort (1880-1910); expressed radical republican views in the 1880s-
90s.—105
La Jeunesse Socialiste—a French monthly published in Toulouse in 1895.—525
Justice—a weekly published in London from January 1884, a newspaper of the Social
Democratic Federation; appeared under this title from 1884 to 1925.—27, 125, 182, 278,
290, 294, 377, 411, 483, 484, 487
648 Index of Periodicals
La Justice—a daily newspaper of the Radical Party; published in Paris from 1880 to 1930; the
organ of the Radical Party's left wing in 1880-96.—182
The Labour Elector—a socialist weekly published in London from June 1888 to July 1894 under
the editorship of Henry Hyde Champion.—84, 142
The Labour Leader—a monthly published from 1882, initially under the title The Miner, and
under this title from 1889 as the journal of the Scottish Labor Party, and of the Independent
Labour Party from 1893; became a weekly in 1894. Its editor until 1904 was James Keir
Hardie.—356, 411, 415, 420, 421, 434, 483, 484, 525
Lotta di Classe—an Italian socialist weekly, the central organ of the Italian Workers' Party;
published in Milan from 1892 to 1898.—78
Lumea noua—a newspaper of the Social-Democratic Party of Romania, appeared in Bucharest as
a sequence of the Munca. It was published daily in 1894-98 and weekly 1898-1900.—358
New York Daily Tribune—a newspaper founded by Horace Greely and published from 1841 to
1924, a press organ of the American Left-wing Whigs till the mid-1850s and later of the
Republican Party; it fought against slavery in the 1840s-50s; Marx and Engels contributed to
it from August 1851 to March 1862.—413, 432, 498
New Yorker Volkszeitung—an American German-language socialist daily published from 1878 to
1932.—Its editor was Friedrich Hermann Schlüter.—382, 400, 401
Nuova Antologia di Scienze, lettere ed arti—an Italian newspaper published monthly in Florence
from 1866-1878 and then fortnightly in Rome from 1878 to 1943.—448, 466
The Pall Mall Gazette. An Evening Newspaper and Review—a conservative daily published in
London from 1865 to 1920.—7, 12
Le Parti socialiste. Organe du comité révolutionnaire central—a Blanquist weekly published in Paris
in 1890-98.—252
La Petite Republique Française—a radical republican daily which appeared under this title in Paris
in 1875-93; in 1893 it took the name La Petite Republique.—138, 198, 210, 249, 318, 331,
361,421,427
Pionierkalender—see Pionier. Illustreirter Volks-Kalender.
Pioneer. Illustrierter Volks-Kalender—an American German-language socialist yearly published by
the editors of the New Yorker Volkszeitung in New York from 1883 to 1904.—237, 282
La Presse—a daily published in Paris from 1836; a newspaper of the Republicans in 1848-49, and
of the anti-Bonapartists after the coup d'etat of 2 December 1851.—58
Przedswit—a Polish socialist magazine, published in 1880-1914 (from 1891 in London, as a
weekly).—312, 518
Punto Nero—an Italian socialist daily published in Reggio-Emiglia in 1894.—333
El Socialista—a weekly of the Socialist Workers' Party of Spain published in Madrid from
1885.-139,287,336
Le Socialiste, Organe Central du Parti Ouvrier—a weekly founded by Jules Guesde in Paris in
1885; appeared with intervals until September 1890; press organ of the Socialist Party of
France from 1902-1905 and of the French Socialist Party from 1905.—6, 7, 12, 30, 124, 135,
185, 209, 210, 277, 315, 332, 344, 358, 370, 499
La Société Nouvelle—a French monthly dealing with problems of sociology, art, science and
literature; appeared in Brussels and Paris from 1884-1914 with intervals.—361
Der Sozialdemokrat—a Social-Democratic daily published in Berlin in 1894-95.—355, 366,
368, 377
Der Sozialdemokrat. Organ de Sozialdemokratie deutscher Zunge—a daily press organ of the
Socialist Workers' Party of Germany, published in Zurich from September 1879 to September
1888, and in London from October 1888 to 27 September 1890. Its editor in 1878-80 was
Georg Heinrich von Vollmar and in 1881-90 Eduard Bernstein. Marx and Engels were among
its contributors.—28, 226
Der Sozialist—a weekly published in Berlin from 1891 to 1899; it was a newspaper of "inde-
pendent" socialists from 1891 to 1893.—361
Sozialpolitisches Centralblatt—a Social-Democratic weekly, published under this title in Berlin in
1892-95; its editor was Heinrich Braun.—After a merger with the Blatter fur sociale Praxis in
1895, it appeared as Soziale Praxis.—213, 372, 466, 468, 492
The Standard—a conservative daily, founded in London in 1827.—and published to 1916; it
emerged from The Evening Standard.—448, 483
Das Volk—a weekly of the Christian Social Party, published in Berlin from 1889.—316
Volks-Anwalt—a German-language weekly of the Socialist Labor Party of North America pub-
lished in 1889-98 in Cincinnati, then Baltimore, Buffalo and Cleveland.—315
Der Volksstaat—central organ of the Social-Democratic Workers' Party published in Leipzig from
2 October 1869 to 29 September 1876 (twice a week until July 1873, then three times a
week). General direction was in the hands of Wilhelm Liebknecht. An important part was
played by August Bebel, who was in charge of the Volksstaat Publishing House.—The paper
regularly carried articles by Marx and Engels.—6, 68
Volkstimme. Organ der Sozialdemokratischen Partei Ungarns—a German language weekly pub-
lished in Budapest from 1872.—355
Index of Periodicals 651
Zeitschrift fur social-und Wiztschafisgeschichte—a journal on historic economic and social prob-
lems published in Freiburg and Leipzig in 1893-1900.—53
A European Herald—a Russian historical, political and literary journal of liberal trend, published
in St. Petersburg from 1866-1918; from 1868, monthly.—409
General Redistribution—a Russian journal of the revolutionary Narodnik organization of the
same name, published from early 1880 to late in 1881; of the five issues in all, the first two
appeared in Geneva and the rest, three, in Minsk.—489
Russian Life—a liberal daily published in St. Petersburg in 1890-95.—440
Russian Heritage—a literary, scientific and political monthly published in St. Petersburg from
1876 to mid-1918; a journal of the Liberal Narodniks from the early 1890s.—450
652 Index of Periodicals
SUBJECT INDEX
Broussists, 70, 106, 114, 120, 197, 249, 310, —and general strike, 257, 261
324 —edition, Wage-Labour and Capital, 508
Bulgaria, 152,358,495
D
philistines, philistinism, 8, 26, 45, 59, 142, Society, Its Growth and Outcome, by E.B. Box
279,375,430 and W Morris, 277, 282, 299
philosophy, 429-30, 463-64 Socialism, Utopian and Scientific, by Engels,
37, 74, 123, 259, 263, 278, 281, 349,
pietism, 265 371
Poland, 84, 96, 305, 312 Spain, 87, 287, 334, 337, 473, 481
political economy, 168-70, 460-66, 468-69, —Malaga strike, 473
475-76, 492 —Spanish Workers' Socialist Congress,
Madrid (1894), 334-35
positivism, 430-31 See also anarchism
Possibilists, 18, 161, 197, 327, 358 "state socialism", 27, 28, 34, 275-76, 291, 326,
Poverty of Philosophy, by Marx, 293 381