Letter to Wilhelm Liebknecht, March 1, 1879

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 1 March 1879


First published, in Russian, in Marx-Engels Archives, Vol. I (VI), Moscow, 1929
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 45


ENGELS TO WILHELM LIEBKNECHT

IN LEIPZIG

London, 1 March 1879

Dear Liebknecht,

We have again tried to come to an arrangement with The Whitehall Review through Barry, if only in regard to the Reichstag reports, but the jackass insisted on the articles being signed; so we had to give him a flat refusal and let him go. The negotiations lasted a pretty long time and, until matters had reached the stage of oui ou non,[1] there was, of course, nothing we could tell you.

The election in Breslau[2] has made a splendid impression here too. Still more, however, the speed with which Bismarck is ruining himself. He really is coming 'one cropper after another'[3] —going de chute en chute. He has now lost virtually all of his apologists in the English press—even The Times, which was very deeply involved with him, is trying to extricate itself.[4] Now that he's become a protectionist, the English, of course, are all the more reluctant to have anything further to do with him. Even in Germany, come to that, a reversion to the protectionist system would be downright reactionary. Still, it's excellent that Monsieur Bismarck should again be drifting towards dissolution.[5] Only let him drive the German philistines really wild and even they will lose patience in the end, particularly if their pockets are affected.

And as for the MUDDLE Bismarck is making in the field of foreign policy, that is altogether beyond compare.

Most's little paper[6] seems to be making good progress—he turns up from time to time, but not often, and we cannot, of course, accept any responsibility at all for its contents. But we wish it success, of course, as we do anything that is moving in the right direction, however imperfect its methods may be.

Your

F.

  1. ↑ yes or no
  2. ↑ On 5 February 1879, the western constituency of Breslau (Wroclaw) held by-election occasioned by the death of the deputy Heinrich Bürgers. The ballot, conducted against the background of the Anti-Socialist Law (see Note 462), demonstrated the strength and unity of the working class. The workers' deputy Julius Kràcker failed to win a majority, but did poll over 7,500 votes.
  3. ↑ In the original 'von Fall zu Fall'—a phrase that came to designate unpredictable and indefinite policies. In connection with the Berlin Conference (1876) of Russia, Germany and Austria-Hungary (see Note 430), the Austro- Hungarian Foreign Minister Gyula Andrâssy stated that the three great powers had not reached a definite decision on the Eastern Question but had agreed to coordinate their positions 'von Fall zu Fall'. Applying the phrase to Bismarck's policies, Engels puns on the word 'Fall', 'failure', changing the meaning of the expression to 'one cropper after another'.
  4. ↑ In February 1879, The Times printed a number of articles dealing with Bismarck's finance policies. Some of them, e.g., the leader of 13 February 1879 devoted to the opening of the German Reichstag, questioned the purposes of Bismarck's protectionist policy.
  5. ↑ 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.
  6. ↑ Freiheit. See this volume, p. 312.