Letter to Karl Kautsky, August 30, 1884


ENGELS TO KARL KAUTSKY

IN ZURICH

[Worthing, 30 August 1884]

Letters received. Have ordered G. Adler's little pamphlet: will doubtless be able to get hold of it in London.[1] Thank you for the particulars. The man shall be dealt with. Am busy with the Poverty

and hope to finish it while still here. A good deal of the philosophical part needs to be translated into the appropriate Hegelian jargon.

There is no hurry about Bachofen's Antiquarische Briefe. Meleager

" 19 August

has already figured in his Mutterrecht; this aspect is of importance to me in the present instance only in conjunction with the view I have put forward.[2]

Over here 4 musicians, with the help of misleading music, are mak- ing propaganda for Bismarck by informing the English in a brand of Rhenish-Franconian totally incomprehensible, even to me, that they pledge their souls and bodies to live for thee alone, etc., and that Strasbourg is a city wondrous fair.[3] Regards to Ede.

Your

F. E.

Send things to London from now on. We go back on Tuesday.

  1. In his letter of 26 August 1884 Karl Kautsky drew Engels' attention to the fact that, in his work Rodbertus, der Begründer des wissenschatftlichen Sozialismus, Georg Adler described as mistaken Engels' claim that Rodbertus had borrowed his doc trine of crises from Sismondi (see present edition, Vol. 25, p. 273, Engels' foot note).
  2. See present edition, Vol. 26, p. 238.
  3. An allusion to two traditional German airs.