Letter to August Bebel, January 19, 1885

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 19 January 1885


First published abridged in: Th. Höhle, Franz Mehring, Berlin, 1956 and in full in: Marx and Engels, Works, Second Russian Edition, Vol. 36, Moscow, 1964
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 47


ENGELS TO AUGUST BEBEL

IN BERLIN

London, 19 January 1885

Dear Bebel,

I hope you have had my last registered letter concerning the matter of the Steamship Bill (of 30 or 31 December).[1] Today I must trouble you with an inquiry. Mr Franz Mehring has now written to me for the second time asking me to place at his disposal material for a biography, etc., of Marx and, amongst other things, has the nerve to presume that I send him 'on loan' to Berlin irreplaceable editions of ours which he is unable to procure over there! I shall not reply, but send a message via Hirsch. But if I am to strike the right note, I ought to know something more definite about his past and present and about his attitude towards the party. Generally speaking, all I know is that, some time before 1878, he was pretty roundly taken to task in the Volksstaat and the Vorwärts for being a reptile and a defector from the party and, from the few writings of his which have fallen into my hands, I have seen that he was making literary use of such intimate knowledge as he had of the movement to dole out liberal portions of 'truth and fiction'[2] about it to your philistine, and to pass himself off as an authority in such matters. If he has done anything especially underhand that might single him out from the rest of the literary rabble, it would be most helpful for me to know it.[3]

Then there's another thing. I am being strongly urged to bring out a new edition of my Condition of the Working-Class. I can do absolutely nothing about it before finding out what my legal position is in regard to Wigand, the previous publisher.[4] I have asked Liebknecht about this umpteen times, and on each occasion he has undertaken to obtain the information for me from Freytag, but none has ever been forthcoming. And who was the first to express surprise that nothing had been settled? Why, Liebknecht, of course. Now since it would be folly to entrust him with any further errands, I must once again bother you, and ask you to obtain for me from Freytag, or some other Saxon advocate, a reply to the enclosed questions. As soon as I have that reply I can, and intend to, proceed.

To return to Germany's industrial position, I readily concede that enormous progress has been made since 1866, and more especially since 1871. But the contrast with other countries still remains, nonetheless. England had had the monopoly of mass-produced articles and France that of the finer luxury and fashion goods, and in this respect there has not, after all, been any change worth mentioning. In iron, it is true, Germany is, together with America, second only to England; but she is very far from attaining the level of English mass-production and can only hope to compete by selling at a loss. In cotton, Germany manufactures only subsidiary articles for the world market. The massive quantities of yarn and other woven goods (SHIRTINGS and other mass-produced articles) for the Indian and Chinese market are still an English monopoly, and such competition as there may be in this sphere comes, not from Germany but from America. In woollen goods, too, England still dominates the world market, ditto in linen (Ireland). Birmingham is still the centre for hardware for domestic use, etc., as Sheffield is for cutlery, and the greatest threat of competition is still posed by America, not Germany. Machinery (with the exception of locomotives), England and America.

In the matter of fashion goods, France has lost a lot of ground. Here, too, fashion has changed considerably, and this certainly applies to Germany also. Both countries, however, and Germany in particular, produce in the main 2nd, 3rd and 4th class goods and still to a large extent depend on the Paris fashions. Meanwhile it is obvious that, in the case of buyers who consist almost exclusively of parvenus, 2nd and 3rd class articles play a considerable role and can be sold to these boors as 1st class goods.

One thing, however, is certain: the large bulk of German exports is composed of a mass of what, seen individually, are more or less insignificant articles, the manufacture of which, in so far as fashion comes into it, depends largely on the theft of Parisian patterns — e.g. the women's coat trade in Berlin — as is openly admitted in the Kölnische Zeitung. Moreover, foreign cloth is largely used for the purpose.

I believe the world market can be more accurately sized up from this country than from over there; but in doing so I have regularly followed the specialised German trade reports and hence see both sides of the picture. I wish I could sometime spare a moment to write something from this standpoint on the subject of protective tariffs in Germany. They are completely cock-eyed. German industry developed and became capable of exporting under a system of free trade more comprehensive than in any other industrial country save England — and it is being restricted by protective tariffs in the very sphere in which it is capable of exporting! That the exporters should be demanding protective tariffs is characteristic of Germany — we must have them so as to be able to sell to other countries at a loss and yet show a profit at the end of the year! What we give to other countries must be paid back to us at home, just as we present other countries with the surplus value and make our profits from deductions made on wages!

N. B. That worthy citizen Mehring is the author of the 'leading articles' in the Demokratische Blätter, which he sends me as an earnest of his principles.

Your

F.E.

  1. ↑ See this volume, pp. 240-43.
  2. ↑ 'Wahrheit und Dichtung' in the original, which is a paraphrase of the title of Goethe's autobiographical book Dichtung und Wahrheit, 'Dichtung' meaning 'poetry, fiction'.
  3. ↑ Engels' negative attitude to Franz Mehring which he expresses in this letter had to do with the fact that from the mid-1870s Mehring started to criticise Social-Democratic theory and tactics in the bourgeois-democratic press. His position was summarised in the pamphlet Die deutsche Sozialdemokratie, ihre Geschichte und ihre Lehre; eine historisch-kritische Darstellung, three editions of which were issued in 1877, 1878 and 1879, respectively, by the publishing house belonging to the Weser-Zeitung, a National-Liberal (see Note 243) newspaper based in Barmen. Captivated by the Kantian philosophy, Mehring believed that the history was made by the 'strong personalities', while the workers' movement and, consequently, Social Democracy were not the natural result of the social development.
    In the early 1880s Mehring had been revising his views on the socialist movement. Having joined the Socialist Party of Germany in 1891 he became one of its left-wing leaders. Engels' attitude to Mehring changed accordingly; right up to his death in 1895 Engels repeatedly praised Mehring's journalistic and academic endeavours.
  4. ↑ The reference is to Engels' The Condition of the Working-Class in England. From Personal Observation and Authentic Sources (see present edition, Vol. 4) which was put out in early 1845 by Otto Wigand's publishing house in Leipzig. In 1872-73 Engels discussed with Liebknecht the plan for a second edition of his book since the latter was planning to publish it in a socio-political literature series with the participation of the editorial board of Der Volksstaat (see present edition, Vol. 44, pp. 375, 477). It is clear from the letters which Wilhelm Liebknecht and Adolf Hepner wrote to Engels in early 1873 that they helped to sort out Engels' legal relations with the Leipzig publishing house. However, this matter was not clarified for the next 12 years (see Engels' letter of 19 January 1885 TO AUGUST BEBEL, this volume, p. 253). The second authorised edition of The Condition of the Working-Class in England was not published until 1892 by Dietz.