Letter to Karl Marx, September 21, 1868

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 21 September 1868


First published in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 4, Stuttgart, 1913
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 43


ENGELS TO MARX

IN LONDON

Manchester, 21 September 1868

Dear Moor,

Enclosed returned the Schweitzer stuff.[1] The man is an idiot to believe that he can bribe you with such a letter. In making you chief of 'Europe' in general, he hints delicately that your kingdom is, for this very reason, not in any country in particular, i.e., strictly speaking, not of this world. He appoints you Pope so that you may anoint him Kaiser of Germany, and thus give a kick to Wilhelm.[2] In any case, it is worth much that you have this letter in your hands.

I think you should, above all, point out to the philistine that his workers' congress[3] only makes sense if it is a genuine workers' congress, not merely a feeble imitation of his Hamburg congress; i.e. if Schweitzer sees to it that non-Lassallean elements are also represented. So far, there is no sign of this, and Schweitzer does not appear to have taken any steps in this direction. Whether he 'can make friends' with Wilhelm and others or not, is completely immaterial; in a matter like this he must go along with them. Then, regarding the statutes, you could write to him that what counts is less what is in them than how they are handled.

The fellow obviously wishes to push out Wilhelmchen, Bebel and consorts, and be able to appeal to something in writing from you for this purpose. That must be very important to him, otherwise he would never have written you this letter, which delivers him absolutely into your hands for ever. You are quite right that he sees that a few Lassallean phrases will no longer do and that he must expand.

If I am not mistaken you also gave Wilhelmchen copies of the 18th Brumaire.h Some of them should be brought here, I no longer have a copy.

I shall write to Gaudissart.[4]

The Spanish business[5] could end all the war clamour. La innocente Isabel[6] was the only reliable ally that Louis[7] had, and if a revolution should be victorious in Spain, the whole constellation will assume a different character. The affair will probably be decided very quickly; I believe the Innocent Lady is foutue.[8]

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ In a letter of 15 September 1868, Schweitzer wrote TO MARX: 'I consider you to be the head of the European working-class movement — not only through democratic election but by the will of God. You can also be assured that I will promote your intentions as best I can. Of course no prestige is great enough to prevent one, under certain circumstances, from adhering to one's own opinion. I believe, however, that conflict does not arise easily. When it appeared to me that you were not right, subsequent consideration showed me, at least until now, that I was mistaken myself. Yet I cannot find much in common with your followers—at least with some of them.
    '...I intend to get you the Statutes which we want to propose to the organisation at the congress after they have been discussed by a limited number of persons, so that before the congress, has started you will have a chance to note the points which may not tally with the spirit of the [congress's] organisation, although this shouldn't occur.
    'It may happen that it will be too late to send the Statutes to you; however, I shall try to make the dispatch possible.'
  2. ↑ Wilhelm Liebknecht
  3. ↑ A reference to the general congress of the General Association of German Workers convened by Schweitzer and Fritzsche on 26-29 September 1868 in Berlin with the permission of the Hamburg Congress of the Lassallean Association to discuss the establishment of trade unions (see Note 104). Represented at the congress were mostly workers from North German towns. The workers' societies comprising the Nuremberg organisation headed by Bebel and Liebknecht were refused permission to send their members to the congress. As a result the Berlin congress promoted the foundation of a number of unions built after the pattern of the sectarian Lassallean Association and brought them together in a single general union. Schweitzer became president, while the most prominent members of the General Association of German Workers headed the individual, and for the most part newly-established, unions. Marx sharply criticised Schweitzer for such an organisation of the congress, which brought about a split in the German trade unions (see this volume, pp. 134, 135), and for the adoption of the Statutes, which went completely against the goals and nature of the trade-union movement.
  4. ↑ Sigismund Borkheim
  5. ↑ A reference to the bourgeois revolution in Spain (1868-74) which began on 18 September 1868 with a naval mutiny in Cadiz against the reactionary monarchy of Isabella II. The masses, supported by almost all the royal troops, were actively involved in the revolution. As a result, state authority passed to the bourgeoisie and bourgeois landowners, who on 18 October formed a provisional government headed by General Francisco Serrano. The Constituent Cortes, convened in February 1869, passed a bourgeois-monarchist constitution which proclaimed Spain a hereditary monarchy and introduced a number of bourgeois freedoms (universal suffrage for men, freedom of press, assembly, associations, etc.). Against the background of fierce class clashes, a bourgeois- democratic federative republic was proclaimed in Spain in 1873. However, in 1874, big bourgeoisie and landowners engineered a restoration of the Bourbons.
  6. ↑ Isabella II
  7. ↑ Napoleon III
  8. ↑ finished