Letter to Karl Kautsky, August 22, 1884

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 22 August 1884


First published, in Russian, in Marx-Engels Archives, Vol. I (VI), Moscow, 1932
Published in English in full for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 47


ENGELS TO KARL KAUTSKY

IN ZURICH

(please omit Brighton from the address, makes the post office here do silly things)

Worthing, England, 22 August 1884
48 Marine Parade

Dear Kautsky,

Have just received your letters which were somewhat delayed, as you did not put the number of the house; also the mental faculties of our postal drudges over here are of the very lowest order.

Poverty. The manuscript I have here has now been revised. Apart from slight misinterpretations of those niceties of French that can only be properly learnt in France itself, there was not much to alter. For rapports[1] I usually put Verhältnis rather than Beziehungen because the latter is too indefinite and also because Marx always rendered the German Verhältnis as rapport and vice versa. Moreover in rapport de proportionnalité, for instance, rapport, being quantitative, can only be rendered as Verhältnis, since Beziehung has primarily a qualitative meaning. I must make a few more notes on this subject. I await your next manuscript. The passages relating to Hegel and things Hegelian can only be gone through in London, as I shall need my Hegel for the purpose. I shall do all I can to finish it as quickly as possible. But Capital, Book II, ought also to be finished at the same time and there is a hell of a lot still to be done to it; and in this particular clash of interests the latter must, after all, take precedence! However I shall do my utmost. But when must you have the preface? I shall reply twice to Rodbertus, once in the preface to Capital, Book II,[2] and again in that to the Poverty. There is no other way, since both works will be appearing more or less simultaneously and Rodbertus' accusation was couched in such formal terms.[3] In Capital I must assume an air of dignity, whereas in the preface to the Poverty I shall be more at liberty to speak my mind.

If you leave Zurich, you would certainly do better to come here rather than go anywhere else, with the possible exception of Paris. Obviously the material aspect enters into it since you, having been duly installed as a married man, can no longer afford to take the risks a bachelor would. Besides, Paris is said to be just as expensive a place to live in as here. And for study the BRITISH MUSEUM is, after all, incomparably better; the Paris library cannot hold a candle to it so far as people like us are concerned, partly because of the difficulty of using the place, shortage of catalogues, etc., etc. I trust the matter can be arranged.

As to what you want to do in regard to my pamphlet, you are bound to be a better judge than I; so do what you think appropriate.[4] However I'm prepared to bet that the thing will be banned.

Like Ede, I believe that in regard to Bebel you have allowed yourself to be much too much influenced by first impressions. True, his last letter also evinced a certain lassitude and a desire to rest. If there is no other way he ought to be allowed to do so for a time; but would he be able to, even if he were temporarily to absent himself from the Reichstag? This much is certain: he is irreplaceable in Germany and must be kept going, must, if necessary, spare himself, so as to be fit for action at the crucial moment.

It also seems to me that you are too censorious about the people in Germany — i.e. the masses. Since time immemorial, progress has been damned slow in the case of the new blood; most of them were à la Geiser and Viereck. That the Anti-Socialist Law does more harm than good in this case in certainly not in doubt. However so long as so much forbidden literature gets into the country, the ground will be prepared nevertheless and, when the air has cleared again, it should be possible to speed things up in this respect also, and to do so more quickly than would have been the case had there been no interruption.

But now I must write to Ede. It is one o'clock and the post goes at two!

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ relations
  2. ↑ See present edition, Vol. 36. F. Engels, 'Marx and Rodbertus'.
  3. ↑ This false accusation against Marx is contained in Johann Karl Rodbertus' letters to Rudolf Meyer of 29 November 1871 (in Briefe und socialpolitische Aufsaetze von Dr Rodbertus-Jagetzow. Published by Dr R.Meyer, Vol. 1, Berlin, [1882], p. 134), and to J.Zeller of 14 March 1875 (in Zeitschrift für die gesammle Staatswissenschaft, Vol. 35, Tübingen, 1879, p. 219). Engels rebuffed Rodbertus' accusation in the preface to the first German edition of Marx's The Poverty of Philosophy ('Marx and Rodbertus', present edition, Vol. 26) and also in the preface to the second volume of Marx's Capital (present edition, Vol. 36).
  4. ↑ In a letter of 18 August, 1884 Karl Kautsky suggested to Engels that he should advertise the forthcoming publication of his work The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State and include its preface in Die Neue Zeit with a view to preventing the book being banned in Germany. The September issue of the journal carried an announcement that this work was to appear shortly together with excerpts from Engels' preface (see present edition, Vol. 26, pp. 129-276).