ENGELS TO JOHANN PHILIPP BECKER
IN GENEVA
London, 20 November 1876 122 Regent's Park Road, N. W.
Dear Becker,
We have duly received your circular addressed to the Zurich section[1] and are likewise of the opinion that the time has come to oppose the Bakuninists' pretensions to form an International off their own bat.[2] Whether it is possible to achieve reorganisa- tion on the basis you propose, namely a federation of the big organised national bodies, is, I should say, very doubtful, since legislation in most countries prohibits such associations from corresponding, let alone amalgamating, with associations abroad. But that is a side issue and could easily be got round or altered, once people are fully convinced that the continued existence of each one of those big organisations is of greater importance than its formal entry into an international society. As it is, you will encounter in the Germans the same Platonic indifference which, as a party, they invariably evinced towards the old International.
My chief purpose in writing to you today is to propose a fresh field of activity for you in this connection. The Portuguese, with whom I still correspond and who are very well organised, complain loudly of the lack of attention shown them by our friends. They say that the German-Swiss, Germans, Austrians, Americans, etc., have not only failed to pass on information to them, but have not even replied to their letters, whereas they have been regularly inundated with parcels, invitations to congresses, felicitations, etc., by the Jurassians, Bakuninist Spaniards, Italians and Belgians, so that the Portuguese workers have come to regard these as the only people who still have any interest left either in the International or the Portuguese movement. As you will realise, they must be stout fellows indeed who nonetheless don't let themselves be side-tracked, and that such is the case will be apparent to you from the following letter which they sent to the Bakuninist Congress in Berne:
'We have been invited by the Federation of Cadiz to send representatives to the Berne Congress and have since then read, in the Bulletin jurassienne, the circular convening that Congress and setting forth its agenda. Not having received this invitation until very late on, the Portuguese socialists are unable to send any delegates; nevertheless, their Federal Council has resolved that we assure you of our moral solidarity with socialist workers all over the world, and state that we never have called that solidarity in question, nor ever shall let it be called in question; accordingly, the express compact of solidarity which you propose to conclude seems to us a formality that could well be dispensed with. 'Subscribing as we do most ardently to the unification of all proletarians, we send you our fraternal greetings. Long live the International Working Men's Association!'
Well, I shall write and tell these people about your plan and also send them one of your circulars, although it's doubtful whether they understand German. But you would be well advised to get in touch with them immediately. You can write to them in French; should they reply in Portuguese, I can translate the answer for you.
You might get the above letter published in the Tagwacht, likewise the fact that on 5 January and the following days they are going to hold a congress in Lisbon and will present a new party programme for discussion.[3]
The address is:
E.C. Azedo Gnecco
Rua do Bemformoso 110, 2°
Lisbonne, Portugal.
That's where their paper, O Proteste is brought out; it's been going for over a year.
I hope that you will achieve something worthwhile and, if we can lend you a hand by providing addresses, etc., we shall gladly do so. Only you mustn't overburden us. Both of us, Marx and I, have quite specific theoretical work to do, of which, so far as we can now see, no one else would be capable, even if they were willing, and we must make use of the present universal lull to complete it. Yet who knows how soon some event won't suddenly involve us in the practical movement again? All the more reason for us to make use of the brief respite to carry the no less important theoretical side a little bit further.
Apropos. We have paid through Frankel for 12 instalments of the 12 copies of Stunden der Andacht[4] ordered by Marx and myself; hence we still have to pay for 3x12 instalments à 25 cts.=9 fr. If that is correct, let me know and I'll send you a money order.
The Vorwärts will shortly be publishing a critique of Dühring by me.[5] They had pestered me dreadfully before I took on this disagreeable task[6] —disagreeable because the man is blind so that the contest is unequal, and yet the chap's colossal arrogance precludes my taking that into account.
Your
F. Engels
- ↑ The circular of the Central Committee of the German-language sections to the Zurich section, drawn up by Johann Philipp Becker, was published as pamphlets in German and French in Zurich in October 1876 (see Note 231). It criticised the proposal advanced by the Zurich section of the International to take part in the anarchist congress in Berne scheduled for October of that year (see Note 200).
- ↑ On the proposal of the anarchist Jura Federation, which withdrew from the International since it refused to recognise the resolutions of the Hague Congress (see Note 20), a congress of representatives of some workers' and socialist organisations (mostly anarchist and Proudhonist) took place in Berne from 26 to 30 October 1876. Since the International Working Men's Association had officially ceased to exist by decision of the conference held in Philadelphia in the summer of 1876, one of the issues discussed in Berne was the so-called solidarity pact that, or so the congress organisers hoped, would resurrect the International on the basis of their programme. In this connection, the participants in the Berne congress made an attempt to involve representatives of the German Social-Democrats in its work (see Note 192). A decision on this question was postponed until the next congress. However, the international socialist congress convened in Ghent in 1877 (see Note 324) turned down the anarchists' proposals and confirmed the resolutions of the Hague Congress.
- ↑ The first congress of the Portuguese workers was held in Lisbon from 1 to 4 February 1877. It gave the final shape to the Portuguese Socialist Party founded in 1875, adopted party rules and a programme drawn up along the lines of the Gotha Programme of the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany see Note 73), and elected a Central Committee. At the request of Azedo Gnecco, made in his letter to Engels of 21 January 1877, in late January Marx and Engels sent a letter of greetings to the congress also signed by Friedrich Lessner, Paul Lafargue and Maltman Barry. The congress received another such letter from the leadership of the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany. Engels appraised the work of the congress in his essay 'The Workingmen of Europe in 1877' (present edition, Vol. 24, pp. 216-17). Johann Philipp Becker had a note on the forthcoming congress of the Portuguese socialists published in Die Tagwacht, No. 96, 2 December 1876. The letter of greetings to the congress signed by Marx, Engels, Lessner, Lafargue and Barry has not been found.
- ↑ J. Ph. Becker, Neue Stunden der Andacht.
- ↑ F. Engels, Anti Dühring.
- ↑ The publication of Eugen Dühring's Cursus der Philosophie als streng wis senschaftlicher Weltanschauung und Lebensgestaltung and the second edition of his Kritische Geschichte der Nationalökonomie und des Sozialismus (1875) made his views very popular in Germany. Among the German Social-Democrats, he acquired such followers as Johann Most, Friedrich Wilhelm Fritzsche, and Eduard Bernstein. Even August Bebel came under his influence for a short time. In view of this, in his letters to Engels of 1 February and 21 April 1875, Liebknecht proposed that the latter use Der Volksstaat to criticise Dühring's views. Engels did so for the first time in the essay 'Prussian Schnapps in the German Reichstag' carried by Der Volksstaat in February 1876 (see present edition, Vol. 24). Marx agreed with Engels that Dühring's views had to be exposed to serious criticism. Engels interrupted the work on Dialectics of Nature which he had begun in May 1873 and made a start on Anti-Diihring (see present edition, Vol. 25). It took him over two years, from May 1876 to July 1878, to complete it. Part I of the book was mainly written between September 1876 and January 1877 and was printed in the Vorwärts as a series of articles under the heading Herrn Eugen Dühring's Umwälzung der Philosophie in January-May 1877. Part II was written in July-August 1877. Marx contributed Chapter X. This part was published under the heading Herrn Eugen Dühring's Umwälzung der politischen Oekonomie in the Wissenschaftliche Beilage and the supplement to the Vorwärts in July-December 1877. Part III was written mostly between August 1877 and April 1878 and appeared in the Vorwärts in May-July 1878 under the title Herrn Eugen Dühring's Umwälzung des Sozialismus. The book aroused strong resistance on the part of Dühring's followers. At a regular party congress held in Gotha from 27 to 29 May 1877, they tried to prevent the publication of Engels' work in the party's central organ. Anti-Diihring appeared in the newspaper with lengthy intervals. In July 1877, Part I of the book was published in Leipzig as a separate pamphlet. In July 1878, Parts II and III were also published there as a separate pamphlet. The first complete edition of Anti-Dühring, with Engels' preface, appeared at the same time. In late October 1878, following the introduction of the Anti-Socialist Law in Germany, Anti-Dühring was banned along with Engels' other works.