Letter to Karl Kautsky, October 17, 1884

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 17 October 1884


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


ENGELS TO KARL KAUTSKY

IN ZURICH

[London,] 17 October 1884

Dietz tells me that the spelling has been changed.[1]

'Had Kautsky,' he writes, 'added a brief comment when sending the ms., you and I would have been spared the task of alteration.'

Not a word about the thing being kept quiet until 3 whole sheets had been printed (though this may not have been Dietz's fault).

Is old Bachofen still alive and is he still in Basle? I should like to inscribe a copy to him.

The preface[2] is in course of preparation, i.e. I am first of all ploughing through the whole of Zur Erkenntnissb again. It will repay the trouble; only by a really close investigation does one properly appreciate the stupendousness of the nonsense preached here, nonsense that literally overwhelms the few flashes of insight which, though admittedly not new, are nevertheless accurate and, for Germany, commendable. Capital, Book II, will be very illuminating on this point. Regards to Ede.

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ The reference is to the German edition of Marx's The Poverty of Philosophy, which appeared in Stuttgart in January 1885 (see Note 118). The book included, in place of Marx's preface, his article 'On Proudhon' (see present edition, Vol. 20) and two appendices: an excerpt from Marx's work A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy on the theory of the English socialist John Gray (see present edition, Vol. 29, pp. 320-23), and a translation of the 'Speech on the Question of Free Trade' (Vol. 6).
    At one time Die Neue Zeit was printed in a distinctive orthography proposed by Bruno Geiser.
  2. ↑ F. Engels, 'Marx and Rodbertus'. b [J. K.] Rodbertus Jagetzow, Zur Erkenntniss unsrer staatswirthschaftlichen Zustände.