Letter to Karl Marx, September 5, 1869

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 5 September 1869


First published abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 4, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in MEGA, Abt. III, Bd. 4, Berlin, 1931
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 43


ENGELS TO MARX

IN LONDON

Manchester, 5 September 1869

Dear Moor,

Got back here again midday yesterday[1] from Ostend. I arrived in London at 6.15 in the morning, found a train going here at 7.30, and journeyed on through, since I had scarcely slept all night, and was good for nothing else. I also thought you were away with Jenny, and only here heard the contrary. This delay in your departure looks a little queer to me; I can't think that the Basle Congress[2] is alone to blame, and I am forced to ask myself whether it is not a money matter. When you asked for the £75 I sent you 100, imagining you could use the rest for the journey; since, however, I did not state this in so many words, you perhaps found another use for it; if this is so, telegraph me tomorrow morning (before 10 o'clock if possible), saying how much you need. We shall, you see, be leaving for Dublin tomorrow evening,[3] and I shall be going into town around 11-12 to look after money matters, so I could deal with this at the same time.

[4]

I was in Engelskirchen for a few days. People in Germany are becoming increasingly stupid. It is true that the workers' movement is closing in upon them threateningly, and they all flirt with it and have NOSTRUMS of all sorts, but their intelligence has not become any sharper; the opposite is true. My brother,[5] for instance, wanted to solve the social problem by 'redeeming labour', just as he redeems factory installations, buildings, machinery etc., by, for instance, putting a groschen on the price of each pound of yarn, and thus paying off the workers who have become old, sick and disabled! The bonhomme[6] was very surprised when I explained to him how hopelessly naive and absurd this idea was, and he finally promised to read your book[7] Concerning the Prussian journeymen's provident funds, he gave me an article in Engel's statistical journal; the most blatant infamies of the statutes of Saxony are not present there, but otherwise everything similar.[8]

The greatest man in Germany is undoubtedly Strousberg. The fellow will soon become German Kaiser. Everywhere you go people talk of nothing but Strousberg. Incidentally, the fellow is not as bad as all that. My brother, who had negotiations with him, has described him very vividly to me. He has a lot of humour and some brilliant qualities, and, in any case, is immeasurably superior to Hudson the RAILWAY KING. He is now buying up all sorts of industrial establishments, and immediately cuts the working time to 10 hours everywhere, without reducing wages. He also has the clear knowledge that he will end up a really poor wretch. His main principle is: only swindle share-holders, but deal fairly with contractors and other industrialists. In Cologne I saw his portrait on exhibition; not bad at all, jovial. His background is completely dark; some say he is a qualified lawyer; according to others he kept a brothel in London.

Wilhelmchen[9] has now fallen so low that he may no longer say that Lassalle cribbed from you, and wrongly at that. This has emasculated the whole biography, and only he can know why he continues to print it.

And he has declared the miserable Felleisen, not even the Vorbote, the journal of the bumpkins in Switzerland.[10] They are a fine bunch. Cf. the debate about social-democratic, democratic- social, or social-democratic + democratic-social workers' party at the Eisenach Congress. And Rittinghausen their prophet![11]

Wilhelm still makes no mention of the 18th Brumaire. Here, too, he would have to 'omit' various things that 'might upset' him and others!

With best wishes from all of us to all of you.

Your

F. E.

Enclosed—a picture for transmission to the zoologist Vogt. Liebknecht can arrange this through his friend Goegg. It is democratic in front and socialist behind, thus completely orthodox and democratic-socialist.

  1. ↑ 4 September
  2. ↑ A reference to the Congress of the First International held in Basle on 6-11 September 1869. It was attended by 78 delegates from England, France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Austria, Italy, Spain and North America. Marx was not present at the Congress but took an active part in preparing it. The General Council Minutes include his speeches dealing with individual items on the Congress's agenda: the agrarian question (6 July), the right of inheritance (20 July) and public education (10 and 17 August) (see present edition, Vol. 21).
    The question of the right of inheritance was entered on the agenda, which was approved on 22 June 1869, at the suggestion of the Geneva Section headed by the Bakuninists. They proposed to annihilate the right of inheritance, believing this to be the only means of eliminating private property and social injustice.
    At the General Council meeting of 3 August, Marx read out a Report of the General Council on the Right of Inheritance, prepared by him,which was approved and submitted to the Congress on behalf of the Council. However, at the Congress itself the question of the right of inheritance provoked a heated debate. Despite the opposition of Liebknecht and De Paepe, Bakunin managed to win some of the delegates over to his side. No resolution concerning this matter was passed.
    After discussing the land question for a second time (the first discussion of land ownership took place at the Brussels Congress [see Note 138]) the majority of the Basle Congress delegates voted for abolishing private property in land and converting it over into common property; the Congress also passed resolutions on the unification of trade unions at the national and international levels.
    The Basle Congress was the scene of the first clash between supporters of Marx and Engels, and the followers of Bakunin's anarchist doctrine. The latter failed to assume leadership in the International Working Men's Association. The Basle Congress confirmed that the General Council was to remain in London.
    In order to consolidate the unity and organisation of the International, the General Council was granted a right to expel from the International any section that did not comply with its Rules, on condition that the Federal Council and the Congress approved.
  3. ↑ Engels, Lizzy Burns and Eleanor Marx toured Ireland from 6 to 16 September 1869.
  4. ↑ See this volume, pp. 353-54.
  5. ↑ probably Rudolf Engels
  6. ↑ honest fellow
  7. ↑ the first volume of Capital
  8. ↑ Hiltrop's essay mentioned by Engels, 'Ueber die Reorganisation der Knappschaftsvereine', appeared in the Zeitschrift des königlich preussischen statistischen Bureaus, nos. 4, 5 and 6, April, May and June, 1869. The magazine was edited by Ernst Engel. Engels examined the rules of the miners' guilds (guild funds) in the coalfields of Saxony on Marx's instruction, and in February 1869 prepared a report on this question for the General Council (see Note 281).
  9. ↑ Wilhelm Liebknecht
  10. ↑ The item published by Liebknecht in the Demokratisches Wochenblatt, No. 35, 28 August 1869, read: 'It has been decided in Eisenach that alongside with the general party organ (Der Volkstaat, for the present, the Demokratisches Wochenblatt), there should be a press organ for Austria—Die Volkstimme, and for Switzerland, Felleisen'
  11. ↑ Engels refers to the lengthy discussion at the Eisenach Congress (see Note 373) around a name for the party, which involved, among others, the German petty-bourgeois democrat Rittinghausen. The name agreed upon was the Social-Democratic Workers' Party (Sozial-demokratische Arbeiterpartei). A report of the Eisenach Congress was published in the Demokratisches Wochenblatt, No. 33, and supplements to nos. 33 and 34, 14 and 21 August 1869.