Letter to August Bebel, August 25, 1881

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 25 August 1881


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 46


ENGELS TO AUGUST BEBEL

IN LEIPZIG

London, 25 August 1881

Dear Bebel,

I would have replied sooner to your letter of 13.5.[1] But, after the Leipzig 'local', 198 I waited to see whether you might perhaps send me another forwarding address; as you haven't I am using the old one, and also enclosing a letter from Tussy Marx to Mrs Liebknecht, for whom we haven't got an address either.

Bernstein still writes to say he wants to leave the Sozialdemokrat, and now proposes that Kegel be taught the ropes and, once he knows them, appointed in his place. My view is that any change would be for the worse. Bernstein has made good, so greatly exceeding our ex- pectations (for instance, his articles on 'intellects'[2] were, trifles apart, quite excellent and written along exactly the right lines) that it would be hard to find anyone better. Kegel hasn't proved himself, at any rate in this sphere, and, as things stand now, all experimentation should be avoided. I have urgently requested Bernstein to stay,3 and believe you could do no better than give him similar advice. In his hands the paper is getting better and better, and so, too, is he. He has genuine tact and is quick on the uptake—just the reverse of Kautsky, who is an exceptionally good chap, but a born pedant and hair- splitter in whose hands complex questions are not made simple, but simple ones complex. Like all the rest of us, I am very fond of him as a person and, in longer articles of the review type, he might occasion- ally do something pretty good, but even with the best will in the world he can't go against the grain, c'est plus fort que lui.[3] On a news- paper, a doctrinaire of this kind is a real disaster; even Ede[4] was forced to append a critical note to one of his articles in the last Sozialde- mokrat. On the other hand, he has written a fly-sheet for the consump-tion of peasants in Austria[5] in which he gives proof of something of his mother's[6] gift for short story writing; aside from one or two erudite expressions, it's really good and should be effective.

I wrote to Liebknecht about the speeches in the Landtag, and in reply 199 was told that these had been a matter of'tactics' (but I had pointed out that it was precisely those tactics that prevented us from siding openly with him) and that speeches of a different kind would shortly be made in the Reichstag. True, this has now been done by you 2 0 0—but what is one to think of Liebknecht's unfortunate and wholly unnecessary remark about the 'Reich Chancellor's hones- ty' 2 0 1? It may have been meant ironically, but that's not evident from the report, and what capital the bourgeois press made out of it! I have sent no further reply — it does no good, after all. But Kautsky, too, has told us not only that Liebknecht is writing letters all over the place — e.g. to Austria — saying Marx and I are in complete agree- ment with him and had sanctioned his 'tactics', but also that people believe him. This really can't go on indefinitely! Again, the Freiheit has got a lot of fun of Hartmann's[7] speech on the Accident Bill[8] which, if the passage they quote is genuine, was certainly a pretty wretched affair.

In France, working-class candidates obtained 20,000 votes in Paris and 40,000 in the provinces 203 and, if their leaders hadn't perpetrat- ed one stupidity after another since setting up the collectivist work- ers' party, things would have gone even better. But there, too, the masses are better than most of their leaders. For instance, several Par- isian candidates lost thousands of votes through using empty revolu- tionary verbiage (as much part of the business in Paris as patter is of trade) in the provinces as well where it was taken seriously and peo- ple asked: 'How can you make a revolution without weapons and or- ganisation?' For the rest, developments in France are taking their regular, normal and very necessary course along peaceful lines, and that is a very good thing just now, for otherwise the provinces could not be swept earnestly into the movement.

I understand very well that your fingers should itch, when every- thing's going so nicely for us in Germany and you, having your hands tied, cannot reap the fruits of victories that are all but falling into your laps. But this does no harm. Many people in Germany have set too much store by overt propaganda (Viereck, who was completely cast down by the impossibility of making overt propaganda, is just one striking example of this), and too little by the real impetus of his- torical events. It can do nothing but good if experience acts as a cor- rective in this case. The fact that we cannot reap the fruits of our vic- tories at the moment in no way means that they are lost to us. The gal- vanising of the indifferent, inert masses can only be effected by actual events and even if, in present circumstances, those thus galvanised are left in a state of some considerable bewilderment, the word of deliver- ance will, when the time comes, strike home with all the more force; the effect upon state and bourgeoisie will be all the more drastic when the 600,000 votes 204 are suddenly multiplied threefold, when, besides Saxony, all the big towns and industrial districts fall to us and even rural workers are, for the first time, so situated as to be intellectually accessible to us. To take the masses by storm in this way is of far great- er value than to win them over gradually by overt propaganda which, under present circumstances, would in any case quickly be stamped on. As things are now, the Junkers, clergy and bourgeois cannot allow us to cut the ground from under their feet and hence it is better to let them take care of this themselves. For a time will surely come when a different wind will blow. Meanwhile it's you people who must in person go through the mill, it's you who must endure the infamies of the government and the bourgeoisie, and that's no laughing matter. But mind you don't forget any of the dirty tricks played on yourselves and on all our people; the day of retribution is nigh and it must be ex- ploited to the full.

Your

F.E.

Viereck is in Copenhagen. Address poste restante, Copenhagen.

  1. ↑ The programme of the movement, led by the Reform League (its leading bodies included members of the General Council of the International), bore the direct influence of Marx's ideas. He favoured an independent position of the English working class in the reform campaign. Unlike the bourgeois parties, which confined their demands to voting rights for householders and tenants, the Reform League, on the insistence of the General Council, demanded manhood suffrage. However, the vacillations of bourgeois radicals and the conciliatory policies of trade union leaders allowed the English bourgeoisie to split the movement and prevent implementation of the measures proposed by the General Council. In the end, in 1867 a reform was introduced that granted suffrage only to the petty bourgeoisie and the top strata of workers.
  2. ↑ The Wagner Festival Opera House opened at Bayreuth with a performance of Wagner's tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen (see Note 190) on 13-17 August 1876.
  3. ↑ it's too much for him
  4. ↑ Eduard Bernstein
  5. ↑ [K. Kautsky,] Der Vetter aus Amerika, eine Erzählung für Landleute, erbaulich zu lesen.
  6. ↑ Minna Kautsky
  7. ↑ Georg Wilhelm Hartmann
  8. ↑ In his letter to Marx of 9 October 1876, Leo Frankel wrote that he had heard rumours about the forthcoming unity congress in Switzerland (see Note 200) at which Marx's and Lassalle's followers were to be present, and asked what his attitude to the congress should be.