Letter to August Bebel, October 29, 1884

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 29 October 1884


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


ENGELS TO AUGUST BEBEL

IN PLAUEN NEAR DRESDEN

London, 29 October 1884

Dear Bebel,

Your telegram arrived here a minute or two after six and was hailed with cries of delight.[1] I at once sent off postcards to people here and in the provinces to make its contents known and also advised Paris[2] where the first news they hear of anything is invariably garbled and contradictory. Very many thanks for sparing me a thought in the midst of the electoral hurly-burly. I have also informed the Society.

It is more than I expected. I am less concerned just now with the number of seats that will eventually be won; the obligatory fifteen are assured[3] and the main thing is the proof that the movement is marching ahead at a pace that is as rapid as it is sure, that constituency after constituency has been carried away by it and has ceased to be a safe seat for the other parties. But what is also splendid is the way our workers have run the affair, the tenacity, determination and, above all, humour with which they have captured position after position and set at naught all the dodges, threats and bullying on the part of government and bourgeoisie. What Germany could damned well do with is reinstatement in the world's esteem; Bismarck and Moltke can make her feared; respect, genuine esteem, such as is only accorded to free, self-disciplined men — that respect will only be exacted by our proletarians.

The effect on Europe and America will be enormous. I have hopes that in France it will provide fresh impetus for our party. Over there people are still suffering from the aftermath of the Commune. Great though its influence on Europe may have been, it has also seriously set back the French proletariat. To have been in power for three months — and in Paris at that — and not to have radically altered the world but rather have come to grief through their own incompetence (such being the biassed fashion in which the matter is understood today) — is proof that the party is not viable. That is the specious argument usually advanced by people who fail to realise that, while the Commune was the grave of early specifically French socialism, it was, for France, also and at the same time the cradle of a new international communism. And this last will be duly set on its feet by the German victories. Mme Lafargue, who is here and sends you her warm regards, is also of this opinion.

Similarly the news will make a strong impact on the English-speaking proletariat in America.

You will have received my registered letter[4] as also my postcard of the day before yesterday.

My main worry just now is whether you yourself have pulled it off in your doubtful constituencies.[5] In view of the many new elements who are in any case joining the parliamentary group, it is precisely at the beginning that you are so urgently needed, lest you find yourself subsequently presented with faits accomplis in which you had no part. I also know you are not in the best of health and you must at all costs conserve yourself for the party and the more critical times that lie ahead of it. But no doubt everything will work out satisfactorily.

I wanted to tell you more about the Rodbertus business, but it's no longer possible this evening. As for Schramm himself, he will already have had an adequate dressing-down from Karl Kautsky.[6] In the preface to the Poverty0 I have already clarified Rodbertus' attitude towards us and this will, I think, suffice until I am able to deal with him more thoroughly in the preface to Capital, Book II.[7] Should it prove necessary to do so in the interim, I can step in again. More about this anon.

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ At the Reichstag elections on 28 October 1884 — the outcome of which August Bebel telegraphed to Engels — and at the second ballots held in early November, the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany was able to increase its number of seats to 24 as against 13 at the previous elections. It received 549,990 votes, or 238,029 more than at the 1881 elections.
  2. ↑ The letter mentioned has not been found.
  3. ↑ The election result meant that the Social-Democratic group was able to initiate legislation for the first time, since the Reichstag's rules accorded this right only to parliamentary groups with 15 or more seats.
  4. ↑ The letter mentioned has not been found.
  5. ↑ Bebel was elected to the Reichstag in Hamburg I (12,282 votes) and Dresden I (8,620 votes at the first ballot and 11,106 at the second) constituencies. He did not receive the required number of votes in Leipzig and Cologne.
  6. ↑ See this volume, pp. 193-95. F. Engels, 'Marx and Rodbertus'.
  7. ↑ See present edition, Vol. 36.