| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 30 March 1881 |
ENGELS TO AUGUST BEBEL
IN LEIPZIG
London, 30 March 1881
Dear Bebel,
Viereck (a postcard from whom I enclose) wants me to give you an account of the Boston meeting; but here too, as commonly in combined operations, there has been hitch after hitch; 1. Harney wrote a week later; 2. he forgot to enclose the newspaper report which I did not get till yesterday. Today I gave this to Kautsky, who is over here, for him to work on for the Sozialdemokrat. 126
The meeting in Boston was first-rate; ill-advertised but nevertheless attended by 1,500 people, '/s German. The first speaker was Swinton, an American communist who came to visit us here last summer and is the proprietor of a big New York paper.[1] Then Fritzsche. Finally, Wendell Phillips, the great anti-slavery man who, with the exception of John Brown, did more than anyone else for the abolition of slavery and the prosecution of the war, and is the foremost speaker in America — maybe in the world. He returned thanks to the Germans and gave them credit for the fact that in 1861, in every large city, it was the German gymnasts who shielded him with their own bodies from the American mob, and who kept St Louis in the Union. 127 To give you just one example of how he spoke:
'Being as far as I am away from the field of battle, I would not presume to criticise the method of combat. I look at Russia, 4,000 miles away, and see what a nightmare weighs on the shoulders of the people there. I only hope that someone will be found to relieve them of it. And if the dagger alone can do it, I say: Welcome to the dagger! Is there any American here who would disapprove? If he would, then he should look (pointing to a picture on the wall) at Joe Warren who died at Bunkers Hill.'"
That was on the 7th of March. On the 13th a bomb did what the dagger had been unable to do. 128
According to today's Standard, Most is to be prosecuted by the British government because of the article on the assassination attempt! 129 If the Russian Embassy and Gladstone are absolutely intent on making a great man out of the silly nincompoop, no one can stop them. At the same time, it's far from certain that Most will be found guilty. The moral indignation about the bomb in the big newspapers was largely a matter of observing the proprieties, something your bourgeois here never omits to do, if only for appearances' sake. The humorous papers, which reflect public opinion far more faithfully, have taken an altogether different view of the case and, by the time the trial draws to a close, much may have changed in this respect, so that it's far from certain whether the 12 jurymen will reach the unanimous verdict that is called for.
To return to our American friends, Wendell Phillips' championship (induced by a young American journalist, Willard Brown, who was over here last year, when he consorted much with Marx and generally did his utmost for them with the American press and gave them the boosting they needed) is of the first importance. Their success has altogether exceeded my expectations and shows that Bismarckery has fallen greatly in the esteem of the Germans, even middle-class Germans, in America. However Viereck's[2] hopes of a second trip with Liebknecht would hardly seem practicable; it is inadvisable to turn up twice in rapid succession. Moreover, such a trip — anyhow inadmissible before next year — ought to have been rendered unnecessary by the great event in Petersburg and its inevitable consequences. Alexander III, whether he wants to or not, will have to take some decisive step to get things moving, but before that there might be a short period of intensive persecution, and Switzerland will no doubt soon embark on mass expulsions. Meanwhile old William,[3] if not actually on his last legs, becomes dottier and dottier, Bismarck grows daily more rabid and seems absolutely intent on playing the part of a rampaging Prussian Roland, the bourgeois parties go further off the rails every day, while the government's taxation mania sees to the rest. Even if we all sat with our hands in our laps, events would forcibly propel us to the fore and pave the way for victory. It is a real pleasure to see a revolutionary world situation we have long predicted mature into a general crisis, blinkered opponents do our work for us, and the inexorability of a development that is heading for universal collapse prevail in, and as a result of, the general confusion.
Regards from Marx and from your
F.E.