| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 10 May 1883 |
ENGELS TO AUGUST BEBEL[1]
IN BORSDORF NEAR LEIPZIG
London, 10-11 May 1883
Dear Bebel,
That you would sooner not sit in the Reichstag, I am ready to believe. But you can see what your absence has made possible. Some years ago Bracke wrote to me saying: Bebel is, in fact, the only one of us possessed of real parliamentary tact.[2] And I have found this constantly confirmed. So there's probably no alternative but for you to return to your post at the first opportunity and I should be delighted were you to be elected in Hamburg so that necessity relieved you of your doubts.[3]
Certainly, agitational and parliamentary work becomes very boring after a time. It is much the same thing as advertising, puffing one's wares and travelling around are in business: success is slow in coming, and some never achieve it. But there's no other alternative, and once you are in it you've got to see the thing through to the end, if all your trouble is not to have been for nothing. And the Anti-Socialist Law means that this, the only course to have remained open, simply cannot be dispensed with.
Despite the way it was written, the report on the Copenhagen Congress enabled me to read sufficiently between the lines to amend Liebknecht's, as always rosy, version of things.[4] At all events I perceived that the half-and-halfs had suffered a severe defeat and this, I admit, led me to believe that they would now draw in their horns. Yet such does not seem to be the case, or not to that degree. We have never been under any illusions about these men. Neither Hasenclever nor, for that matter, Hasselmann, should ever have been admitted, but Liebknecht's undue haste over unification — against which, at the time, we protested for all we were worth — has landed us with a jackass and also, for a while, with a rascal.[5] In his day, Bios was a lively, courageous chap but after his marriage, etc., the stuffing was soon knocked out of him by the difficulty of making both ends meet. Geiser always was an indolent, self-opinionated fellow and Kayser a big-mouthed commis-voyageur.[6] Even in 1848 Rittinghausen was a nonentity; he's only a socialist proforma, in order to enlist our help in achieving his direct government by the people. But we have better things to do.
What you say about Liebknecht is something you have doubtless long been thinking.[7] We have known him for many years. Popularity is the very stuff of life to him. Hence he has got to conciliate and conceal in order to postpone the crisis. Besides, he's an optimist by nature and sees everything through rose-tinted spectacles. That's what keeps him so lively and is the main reason for his popularity, but it also has its disadvantages. So long as I corresponded only with him, not only did he report everything in accordance with his own rosy views, but also withheld everything that was unpleasant and, upon being questioned, replied in such an airy and off-hand way that, more than by anything else, one was unfailingly needled by the thought 'Can the man suppose us so stupid as to be taken in by it?' agitation but involving us over here in a mass of useless letter-writing; a perpetual stream of projects whose only outcome was to burden other people with extra work — in short, as you will understand, all this made a really businesslike and down-to-earth correspondence of the kind I have conducted for years with you as well as with Bernstein a sheer impossibility. Hence the constant bickering and the honorary title he once jokingly conferred upon me here of being the rudest man in Europe. My letters to him were, it is true, often rude, but the rudeness was conditioned by the contents of his own. No one knew that better than Marx.
Again, for all his valuable qualities, Liebknecht is a born schoolmaster. If a working man in the Reichstag happens to say me instead of I, or pronounce a short Latin vowel as a long one, and the bourgeois laugh, he's in despair. Hence he has to have 'eddicated' men, like that weakling Viereck who, with a single speech, would make us look more foolish in the Reichstag than would two thousand wrong 'mes'. And then, he can't wait. A momentary success, even if it means the sacrifice of a subsequent, far greater one, takes precedence over everything else. You people will discover that in America, when you go there in the wake of Fritzsche and Viereck.[8] Their mission was a blunder as great as the over-hasty unification with the Lassalleans who, six months later, would have come to you of their own accord — but as a disorganised gang without their bankrupt leaders.
As you see, I speak to you quite frankly — in confidence. But I also believe that you would do well firmly to resist Liebknecht's persuasive blandishments. Then he's bound to yield. If really confronted by a decision, he will certainly adopt the right course. But he would rather do so tomorrow than today, and in a year's time rather than tomorrow.
If a few deputies were in fact to vote for Bismarck's Bills, thus planting a kiss on his backside in return for having theirs kicked, and if the parliamentary group failed to expel these people, I too would, of course, be capable of publicly disassociating myself from a party prepared to tolerate such a thing. To the best of my knowledge, however, that would be impossible, having regard to existing party discipline whereby the minority has got to vote with the majority. But you are better informed than I.
Any split that took place while the Anti-Socialist Law is in operation I should look upon as a misfortune, since all means of communicating with the masses have been cut off. But it may be forced on us and then we shall have to look facts in the face. So if anything of the sort should happen — no matter where you are — I should be glad if you could inform me and do so at once, for my German papers always arrive very belatedly.
Bios, when he went to Bremen after being expelled from Hamburg, did indeed write me a very plaintive letter[9] to which I sent a very firm reply. Now, my papers have for years been in the most shocking muddle, and finding this particular one would be a day's work. But some time I shall have to put them in order and, if needs be, shall send you the letter in the original.
Your view of the business conditions is being corroborated in England, France and America. It is an intermediate crisis like that of 1841-42, but on a much vaster scale. Generally speaking, it is only since 1847 (because of Californian and Australian gold production which resulted in the world market becoming fully established) that the ten-year cycle has clearly emerged. Now, when America, France and Germany are beginning to break England's monopoly of the world market and when, therefore, overproduction is beginning, as it did before 1847, to assert itself more rapidly, the quinquennial intermediate crises are also recurring. Proof of this is the complete exhaustion of the capitalist mode of production. The period of prosperity no longer reaches its full term; overproduction recurs after only 5 years and, even during those 5 years, things in general go downhill. Which, however, is very far from proving that, between 1884 and 1887, we shan't have a period of pretty brisk trade, as happened between 1844 and 1847. But then the great crash will quite surely come.
11 May. I had wanted to write and tell you more about the general state of trade, but meanwhile it is time for the registered mail. Till next time, then.
Your
F. E.