Letter to Johann Philipp Becker, January 30, 1879

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 30 January 1879


First published in: F. Engels, Vergessene Briefe (Briefe Friedrich Engels' an Johann Philipp Becker), Berlin, 1920
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 45


ENGELS TO JOHANN PHILIPP BECKER

IN GENEVA

London, 30 January 1879

Dear Old Man,

It hardly needed a postcard from you for me to bestir myself on your behalf.[1] From a friend in Manchester[2] I have received one pound to be used for victims of the Anti-Socialist Law.[3] I could not put it to better use than by passing it on to you, and I have

also added a second, for which you should get a remittance of 50 frs 40 from Basle and get it, probably, the day after you receive this letter. I have retained the receipt. Anything more that can be done later on, will be done.

As to agencies, there's nothing doing.[4] Business here is absolutely rotten, and no one wants to take any chances.

So far as the Précurseur is concerned, I would, if I were you, tell the people in Geneva once and for all that I was not in a position to pay out anything whatever in respect of the paper. It is a crying shame. Not only do you take upon yourself all the worry and the work, getting nothing in return, but on top of that you are expected to cough up the expenses. But the Genevans have always been like that. Ever since Calvin and his predestination,[5] they have regarded themselves as the chosen people and expected everything to fall into their laps. It was thus in the case of the Egalité, when Utin had to supply both the work and the cash. It was thus in the case of the great building workers' strike, when the International had to provide the cash,[6] but knocked in vain at the Genevans' doors when there were strikes elsewhere.

We were much tickled by the news that, like Achilles, the great Guillaume has withdrawn sulking into his tent.[7] This was bound to happen. The anarchists weren't worthy of the name until anarchy broke out in their own midst. Still, Guillaume was at least the great Bakunin's successor—but that an upstart like Brousse should propose to turn the world upside down—why, it's positively ludicrous.

Over here Most is publishing a little sheet, the Freiheit, for the communist Workers' Society[8] ; so far it has sold well.[9] We wish it all prosperity but otherwise, of course, have nothing to do with it, nor are we in any way responsible for its contents.

In Germany, by the way, things are going rapidly downhill. A walloping for the Reichstag[10] —such is the latest and best [piece of news]. Only let it carry on like this, with more and more taxes on top, and the good Bismarck will yet be surprised by his petty bourgeois, who are going to the devil fast enough as it is. Apart from the unavoidable suffering it will bring down upon individu- als, nothing could be of greater advantage to us on the whole than what is now happening. Any harm Bismarck could do us, he has already done; what he is now doing affects our opponents, the petty bourgeois men of Progress,[11] and, with time, will also affect the liberal big bourgeoisie.

So let him keep it up! And aside from this, affairs in Russia are going ahead splendidly, and that's the main thing. If there's an explosion there, then William,[12] too, might as well pack his bags.

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ On 26 January 1879, Johann Philipp Becker wrote to Engels about the financial predicament his family was in now that he had lost his job as a correspondent following the introduction of the Anti-Socialist Law banning the entire socialist press.
  2. ↑ Probably Carl Schorlemmer.
  3. ↑ The Anti-Socialist Law (The Exceptional Law Against the Socialists) was introduced by the Bismarck government on a majority vote in the Reichstag on 21 October 1878 to combat the socialist and working-class 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. But the Social-Democratic Party, in accordance with the Constitution, preserved its group in the Reichstag. By skilfully combining illegal and legal methods of work and suppressing reformist and anarchist tendencies within its ranks, the party managed substantially to strengthen and extend its influence among the masses. Marx and Engels actively assisted the party's leaders.
    Under pressure from the working-class movement, the law was repealed on 1 October 1890. Engels examined it in his essay 'Bismarck and the German Working Men's Party' (present edition, Vol. 24, pp. 407-09).
  4. ↑ See this volume, p. 348.
  5. ↑ The theological system of John Calvin, a Protestant reformer of the 16th century, emphasised the doctrine of predestination and salvation solely by God's grace.
  6. ↑ During the strike and lockout of Geneva building workers in March-April 1868, the General Council of the International arranged for financial assistance to the strikers. Money was received from France, Germany, the United States, Britain, Austria and Belgium.
  7. ↑ A reference to Guillaume's resignation from the Jura Federation (it fell apart in 1878) of the so-called anarchist International and his departure from Switzerland to Paris in May 1878.
  8. ↑ The reference is to the German Workers' Educational Society in London founded in February 1840 by Karl Schapper, Joseph Moll and other members of the League of the Just. After the establishment of the Communist League in 1847, the leading role in the Society was assumed by the League's local communities. Marx and Engels were actively involved in its work in 1847 and 1849-50. On 17 September 1850, Marx, Engels and some of their followers left the Society in protest at the domination of the Willich-Schapper group, and rejoined it only in the late 1850s. After the foundation of the International Working Men's Association, the Society with Lessner among its leaders, became its German section in London. The London Educational Society existed until 1918, when it was closed down by the British government.
  9. ↑ The first issue of the Freiheit appeared in London on 4 January 1879.
  10. ↑ On 31 December 1878, the government submitted for the Reichstag's consideration a bill on its deputies' disciplinary responsibility (the so-called muzzle bill). It was spearheaded against the Social-Democratic deputies and the democratic opposition in the Reichstag and came up for debate on 4-7 March 1879. The bill granted a specially appointed commission the right to punish a deputy if 'he failed to show restraint in his attacks on speakers from among the opposition', and even expel him from the Reichstag. On 7 March, the deputies turned down the bill by a majority vote as infringing their democratic rights.
  11. ↑ A reference to the Party of Progress formed in June 1861 (its most eminent members were Waldeck, Virchow, Schulze-Delitsch, Forchenbeck and Hover- beck). The party's programme included the unification of Germany under the aegis of Prussia, the convocation of an all-German Parliament, and the formation of a strong liberal ministry accountable to the Chamber of Deputies. Fearing a popular revolution, the Party of Progress gave no support to the basic democratic demands—universal suffrage and freedoms of the press, association and assembly. In 1866 the party split, and its Right wing founded the National Libera] Party, which capitulated to the Bismarck government.
  12. ↑ William I