| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 13 January 1882 |
ENGELS TO MARX
IN VENTNOR
London, 13 January 1882
Dear Moor,
First, I enclose £ 20 in 4 bank-notes à 5 GK 53969, 70, 71, 72. London, 7 October 1881. I have in addition given Lenchen[1] £ 10 so that she can pay the RATES and still have something in hand. Next week, larger amounts will become available and then, after your return, we shall be able to make further plans.
I'm very glad that you should feel strong enough to be able to travel alone in future.
I skimmed through part of the Schramm-Bürkliade[2] and was greatly tickled by it. Even before 1842, Cieszkowski had already written a book on natural philosophy (botany)[3] and, if I am not mistaken, also contributed to the Deutsche, if not actually the Hallische Jahrbücher.[4]
Our Parisian friends have reaped what they had sown. What we had both of us told them would happen has actually come to pass. They have, by their impatience, ruined what was a first-rate position which, if they were to have made the most of it, called precisely for discretion and the ability to wait and see. For Malon and Brousse had set a trap for them in true old Alliance style — calumny in the form of mere hints, no open naming of names, and supplemented on the sly by word of mouth; they went straight into it like so many schoolboys (Lafargue in the van), inasmuch as they counterattacked by name, and were then dubbed disturbers of the peace. Moreover, their argument is so utterly puerile; as soon as one reads their opponents' retort, this leaps to the eye. Thus Guesde suppresses important qualificative passages of Joffrin's because they don't suit his book, and fails to mention the fact that, despite his opposition, the Comité national declared Joffrin's programme to be more radical than the programme minimum, thus giving Joffrin the party's blessing. A fact which he, of course, triumphantly parades before Guesde.[5] Then Lafargue words his articles in such a way as to enable Malon to say in reply: 'But have we ever maintained that the struggles of the medieval communiers[6] against the feudal aristocracy were anything but class struggles — and do you, Mr Lafargue, contest this?' — And now we get jeremiad after jeremiad from Paris, saying that they have been hopelessly defeated and, at the next meeting of the Comité national, would even be set upon physically, and Guesde is as despairing as he was uppish 4 weeks ago, and can see no salvation in anything short of secession by the minority. And now, finding to their astonishment that they are having to lie on the bed they have made,— now they come to the laudable conclusion that they must eschew all personalities!
I am sending you an old Kölnische Zeitung which, however, contains a very interesting article on Russia.
Incidentally, the factum (anti-Guesde) in the Prolétaire, written by Malon and Brousse and signed by Joffrin, is a splendid example of Bakuninist polemics and very much in the style of the 'Sonvillier circular',[7] but ruder.
So the ukase has been issued re the reduction of vykup[8] payments. Having regard to the colossal nedoimki,[9] the paltry per cent or two will, no doubt, make a great deal of difference! But every million it doesn't get makes a difference to the Russian Treasury.
Bismarck, by the way, has had better luck than might have been expected: the Reichstag has endorsed his pilgrimage to Canossa by a 2/3 majority.[10] But that would seem to be about the only thing upon which this Reichstag is able to agree. A fine majority: feudalists, ultramontanes, particularists, Poles, Danes, Alsatians, a few men of Progress, demoscratchers and socialists!
Ad vocem[11] pilgrimages, this morning I met Furnivall wearing a blue ulster, belted at the waist, and a broad-brimmed hat — he looked exactly like a pilgrim going to the Holy Land on a quest for St Anthony's beard.
Kindest regards to Tussy.
Your
F. E.