Letter from Friedrich Engels to Wilhelm Liebknecht, May 4, 1871

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 4 May 1871


First published, in Russian, in Marx-Engels Archives, Vol. I (VI), Moscow, 1932
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 44


ENGELS TO WILHELM LIEBKNECHT

IN LEIPZIG

[London,] 4 May 1871

Dear Liebknecht,

Enclosed an article for the Volksstaat.[1] The Antwerp cigar-makers maintain that, at the time of the great German cigar-workers' STRIKE, they had sent a contribution of 3,000 frs in support. The STRIKE in Antwerp and Brussels is still in progress and, if this story of the 3,000 frs is correct, it would damn-well be the responsibility of the Germans to pay it back. Please, try to find out about it and, depending on the result, write something on it briefly in the Volksstaat.

We have greatly enjoyed Bebel's speeches and articles here. His speech in the debate on Basic Rights was excellent,[2] and the elegant superiority with which he, a worker, poured ridicule on the assortment of priests, Junkers and bourgeois, was really by far the best thing that has yet happened in the entire Berlin spittoon.

We heard with pleasure that you were going to visit us soon. You can, of course, stay both with me and with Marx; we shall arrange all that.

Jenny and Tussy are in Bordeaux with Lafargue, arrived there last Monday.[3]

Best regards,

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ F. Engels, 'Once Again "Herr Vogt" '.
  2. ↑ Bebel was released from detention on 28 March 1871 and on 3 April he spoke in the German Reichstag during the debate on the proposition made by the representatives of several bourgeois parties to include articles 'on basic rights' (freedom of the press, association, speech, etc.) in the German Constitution. Bebel asserted that in the German Empire all these rights were purely abstract and that all possible measures, including the use of revolutionary force, had to be taken for their genuine implementation.
  3. ↑ 1 May