Letter to Wilhelm Liebknecht, December 28, 1885

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 28 December 1885


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


ENGELS TO WILHELM LIEBKNECHT

[IN BORSDORF NEAR LEIPZIG[1] ]

London, 28 December 1885

Dear Liebknecht,

Borkheim died in Hastings on Wednesday, 16 December, and was buried on the following Monday. An attack of pneumonia on the pre- vious Sunday swiftly brought about his end. He had had tuberculosis for 12 years and during the final ten years, after the whole of his left side had become paralysed, he never left his bed save for a few brief intervals each day. He bore his sufferings with exceptional resilience and indomitable cheerfulness, always kept up with the political and social movement, and was a subscriber to the Sozialdemokrat until the very end. Up till a year ago he received a pension, first from two, then from one, of the houses for whom he had previously worked as sales- man and/or buyer. Last year we collected amongst his friends here a subscription big enough to ensure that he had what he needed. You might perhaps put a short obituary in the Sozialdemokrat5 ' °; I prefer not to thrust myself to the fore on an occasion like this. There is no objection to your doing it and, besides, you are better acquainted with his activities in Baden.

As regards Russia's finances,[2] herewith a further word on the latest critical turn the affair has taken:

A fortnight ago the Russian government obtained through Bleich- röder and the Russian Bank a further loan, but only of 20 million roubles, which was, according to reports, heavily over-subscribed in Berlin. Depending on whether this is taken to mean roubles in specie or in paper, and that's something you can ascertain over there, it rep- resents roughly either 60 million marks or else a mere 40 million. The loan was intended to secure the advances made by the Russian Bank to the government. As usual, the same old hollow excuse. How hollow became evident a few days later! About a week ago it was reported in the English papers that the Russian government had ordered the Russian Bank to sell the Russian aristocracy's (doubtless the Credit Bank's) mortgage bonds for 100 million roubles. The German press,

enlarging on this, stated that in return the Bank was to advance the government 75 million of the proceeds. Thus the government is pay- ing the Bank at best 20 million roubles in gold and is borrowing in re- turn 75 million roubles extra. But since the realisation of 100 million mortgage notes is a highly tedious operation, especially in Russia, this means, in other words, that 75 millions in new paper money are to be created and loaned to the government. Before the holidays the rouble was standing at 23'jgd. (instead of 39d.) over here and is bound to go even lower — as it will also do internally; in their present financial predicament the device they have to use to give some support to their ruined currency (the 20 millions in gold, when the Bank gets it) serves only to bedevil their paper currency even further. 1789 is on its way — even without the Nihilists[3] — expedited by the government itself.

One may further conclude from the above that Bismarck is hold- ing his Russians on a short rein and will not authorise the release of German funds other than on a hand-to-mouth basis lest the Russians should get too uppish and do the dirty on him in the Balkans.[4]

I can only suggest the main points for you to work on, but you will have little difficulty in finding out further details in Berlin.

This Christmas we — the Avelings, the Kautskys, Pumps and her husband,[5] Schorlemmer, Lenchen and I — sat up drinking to our hearts' content and making merry until four in the morn- ing.

A Happy New Year to you.

Your

F.E.

Schorlemmer sends his best wishes.

  1. ↑ Following the introduction of a local state of siege in Leipzig in 1881 (see Note 67), Wilhelm Liebknecht, August Bebel and other German socialists had been forced to leave the city. They settled in the village of Borsdorf near Leipzig.
  2. ↑ Liebknecht wrote to Engels on 26 November 1885 asking his assistance in obtain ing material in English on the financial situation of Russia for a'speech he was to make in the Reichstag about the granting of a German loan to Russia. Liebknecht made use of Engels' recommendations during his Reichstag speech of 8 February 1886 (see also Note 551).
  3. ↑ Nihilists — a term used in the 1860s to describe the progressive-minded Russian intellectuals of different social estates. The Nihilists refused to recognise the domi nant ideology and morality, rejected religion and demanded freedom of the per sonality. They advocated equality between the sexes and called for the study of the natural and exact sciences. Towards the end of the 1860s the term almost com pletely disappeared from polemic writing, although it was used later on occasions by reactionary political commentators as a label for revolutionaries. In West Euro pean writing, the term was applied to participants in the Russian revolutionary movement of the 1870s and 1880s, notably the members of the Narodnaya Volya (People's Will).
  4. ↑ The reference is to the so-called Bulgarian crisis which began in September 1885. In the night of 5-6 September an uprising of Bulgarian patriots occurred in Plovdiv, the capital of Eastern Roumelia (Southern Bulgaria), which, according to the 1878 Treaty of Berlin, was under the control of Turkey (see present edition, Vol. 45, Note 430). The Turkish governor was overthrown. Roumelia was reunited with Bulgaria and Grand Duke (formerly Prince) Alexander Battenberg of Bulgaria proclaimed himself ruler of the united Bulgaria on 8 September. Russia, showing its displeasure at the rapprochement between Battenberg and Austria-Hungary which had begun some time previously, recalled its officers from the Bulgarian army. Reports on this were carried by the Kölnische Leitung, Nos. 276, 277, 278 and 279, 5, 6, 7 and 8 October 1885.
    On the subsequent course of the Bulgarian crisis, see Engels' article 'The Po litical Situation in Europe' (present edition, Vol. 26, and also this volume, pp. 512-20 and notes 478 and 634).
  5. ↑ Percy White Rosher