Letter to Friedrich Adolph Sorge, December 31, 1884

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 31 December 1884


First published in Briefe und Auszüge aus Briefen von Joh. Phil. Becker, Jos. Dietzgen, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx u. A. an F. A. Sorge und Andere, Stuttgart, 1906
Printed according to the original
Published in English in full for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 47


ENGELS TO FRIEDRICH ADOLPH SORGE

IN HOBOKEN

London, 31 December 1884

Dear Sorge,

I trust that your health has improved, as mine has, although I am not yet quite my old self again—very nearly, however.

Capital, Book II (some 600 pages of print) will go to press in January. The editing will have been completed in about 10 days' time, after which all that will remain to be done is the revision of the fair copy. It's been quite a task — there were 2 complete and 6 partial texts!

Then, as soon as I have attended to a few urgent intermediate jobs, it will be the turn of Book III.[1] There are 2 complete texts and a notebook of calculations[2] ; this, too, will run to some 600 or 700 pages.

Finally, Book IV, Theories of Surplus Value, from the earliest manuscript of 1856-61. It is still in limbo and cannot be taken in hand until everything else has been completed. There are about 1,000 closely written quarto sheets.

I am completely revising my Peasant War and making it the pivot for my whole history of Germany. It will be some task. But the preliminary studies are as good as finished.

The English translation of Capital is coming along slowly, more than half having been finished. Tussy's husband, Aveling, is helping with it, but doesn't do it as thoroughly as Sam Moore, who is doing the main part.

This summer Schorlemmer was subjected to a domiciliary search in Darmstadt for suspected distribution of the Sozialdemokrat.[3]

Great uproar amongst the philistines has earned us some 500 votes.

On Saturday the DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION here was disrupted. Hyndman, an adventurer who had gained control of the whole affair, was unmasked as a fomenter of strife between the members, a withholder of correspondence intended for the COUNCIL and a founder of BOGUS BRANCHES in the provinces so that meetings and congresses might be packed with his own creatures. Though a vote of censure was passed on him, the majority resigned, mainly on the grounds that the whole organisation was simply a racket. And it's true. They haven't got 400 paid-up members, and their readers consist of sentimental bourgeois. They now intend to start a new organisation (Morris, Bax, Aveling, etc.) and leave Justice and To-Day to Hyndman and his lot (Fitzgerald, Champion, Burrows, etc.), while they themselves, having at last recognised the weakness of their own effectives, will start off with a little MONTHLY.[4] As the capitalists who provided the money have also resigned (they, more than anyone else, were sensible of their exploitation by Hyndman) he, Hyndman, will either have to pay for his own unprofitable papers himself or else sell the entire party, in so far as it adheres to him (this will transpire in a week's time), to the highest bidder. And, being intent on getting into Parliament at the next elections, he will have to hurry.

Petty-bourgeois prejudice of every kind is to be found among the German deputies, as, for instance, the desire of the majority to vote for the steamship subsidies 'in the interests of industry'. Which provides me with correspondence and to spare. Luckily we have Bebel there who invariably gets hold of the right end of the stick, and I therefore hope that the whole thing will go off without our being discredited. Ever since I have conducted the 'official' correspondence with Bebel instead of with Liebknecht, not only does all go smoothly, but something actually comes of it, and my views are presented to the chaps in their entirety. Bebel is a really splendid fellow and I hope he won't ruin his health which is none too good.

But now here's to a Happy New Year and an improvement in your own health — regards to Adolf.[5]

Your

F.E.

Thank you for the Volkszeitung in which the wise man expresses his reservations about the abolition of the state. If I were to try and reply to such doubts, I would simply have to shelve my other work. Apropos, the Volkszeitung is no longer sending me its weekly edition.[6] So if there's anything interesting in it, I should be obliged if you could possibly let me have it.

  1. ↑ See this volume, pp. 88-89.
  2. ↑ See present edition, Vol. 37 (Engels' Preface).
  3. ↑ When he visited his relatives in Darmstadt in the summer of 1884, Carl Schorlemmer was detained by the authorities on suspicion of bringing illegal literature into Germany. Being a British subject, however, he succeeded in avoiding punishment (see also F. Engels, 'Carl Schorlemmer', present edition, Vol. 27).
  4. ↑ The Commonweal
  5. ↑ Adolf Sorge jun.
  6. ↑ Wochenblatt der N. Y. Volkszeitung