Letter to Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis, December 19, 1885

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 19 December 1885


First published, in Russian, in Istorik-marksist, No. 6 (40), Moscow, 1934
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 47


ENGELS TO FERDINAND DOMELA NIEUWENHUIS

IN THE HAGUE

London, 19 December 1885

Dear Comrade,

I have despatched per PARCELS CONTINENTAL EXPRESS a package ad- dressed to you containing the three Parliamentary Reports for which you asked. As you will see from the enclosed intimation, the first HOUSE OF LORDS report on prostitution is no longer to be had.

You are perfectly right in refraining from any kind of violent rebel- lion over there. This would only entail unnecessary sacrifice and set the movement back by decades. Next year it will be a hundred years since the Prussians first plundered Holland,[1] and nothing would please Bismarck more than to celebrate the centenary by a repetition ofthat 'epic deed'. The thirst for annexation, as yet no more than a harmless and impotent desire, might in that case assume more tangible form.

I shall send you by post the second edition of my Anti-Diihring which has just come out. 208

Always at you service in the common cause, I remain

Yours very sincerely,

F.E.

  1. ↑ Engels is referring to the Prussian armed intervention of 1787 in the Netherlands, which was aimed at crushing the uprising by the opposition party of'patriots'. The party had used the defeat of the Dutch in the war with Britain (1784) to seize power and expel Stadtholder William V. The Prussian forces invaded the country and restored him to power.