Letter to Wilhelm Liebknecht, February 25, 1886

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 25 February 1886


First published, in Russian, in Marx-Ensels 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

London, 25 February 1886

Dear Liebknecht,

It's really quite impossible to do anything about getting your Russian speech[1] published in this country for, as you know, the big newspapers are barred to us and the monthly Commonweal is too small to take on that sort of thing. You will have to see to the matter yourselves, e. g. by getting in touch with the Standard correspondent as Longuet, for instance, did in Paris with Mother Crawford, the Daily News correspondent. Knowing that the Reichstag has no real say in anything, the British press very rarely mentions it, save for quite short telegrams. If you had not virtually confined yourself to Faerber's view of the harm suffered by German capitalists,[2] but had introduced the present eastern imbroglio[3] and blamed it on Bismarck as the man who, because of the loan, has the Russians eating out of his hand, your speech could not have been passed over in complete silence. But what you say about the worthlessness of Russian paper is common knowledge even in this country.

Now as regards those charming German literati who infest the neutral border zone between ourselves and the armchair[4] and state socialists, and want to pocket all the advantages to be derived from our party while carefully shielding themselves against any disadvantage arising out of intercourse with us— I've just had another demonstration of what shits the said literati are. An importunate fellow by the name of Max Quarck — nomen est omen[5] —wrote to me saying that Deville in Paris had given him exclusive rights to translate his abridgment of Capital, and asking me to recommend him to Meissner and write a preface for him.[6] It was all a lie, a fact of which I have received confirmation from Paris and as he himself informed Kautsky in a letter the selfsame day. And now the wretch has the effrontery to suggest that I should beg his pardon for his having lied to me! Just let him try that again, the scoundrel.[7]

You people will find you have competitors in France. The three working men, Basly, Boyer and Camélinat, since joined by Clovis Hugues, have set themselves up in the Chamber as a socialist labour group[8] in opposition to the Radicals,[9] and when, at a meeting last Sunday, the Radicals tried to inveigle the constituents into passing a vote of no confidence, they met with a resounding defeat — so much so that at the meeting they themselves had convened, the Radicals did not dare to open their mouths.[10] These three French working men will make more of an impact in Europe than your 25 because they sit in a Chamber which, unlike the Reichstag, is not a debating society, and because they have shaken themselves free of the milk-and-water petty-bourgeois following which hangs like a millstone round your necks. Clemenceau is now faced with a last crucial decision, but we can be almost sure that he will not hesitate to join the bourgeois camp, in which case, though he will indeed become a minister, he will be done for.

Your

F.E.

  1. ↑ Liebknecht's speech in the Reichstag on 8 February 1886 (Stenographische Berichte über die Verhandlungen des Reichstags. VI. Legislaturperiode. II. Session 1885/86, Vol. II).
  2. ↑ The reference is to the third congress of the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany which was held illegally in Copenhagen from 29 March to 2 April 1883, with 60 delegates taking part. The congress was to work out the German Social Democrats' political line on the social reforms being carried out by the bourgeois government, to decide on the party's tactics and the position to be taken by Der Sozialdemokrat, its printed organ, given the Anti-Socialist Law in Germany (see Note 37). The congress unanimously called on the party to expose the demagogy of Bismarck's domestic policy, endorsed the stance of the main printed organ and the general line of conduct of the parliamentary group (see Note 49). It further made it incumbent on every party member, including the Social-Democratic representatives in the Reichstag, to observe party discipline and help carry out party decisions (see also Note 16).
  3. ↑ 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 Political Situation in Europe' (present edition, Vol. 26, and also this volume, pp. 512-20 and notes 478 and 634).
  4. ↑ economy which emerged in the last third of the 19th century in response to the growth of the workers' movement and the spread within it of the ideas of scientific socialism. They preached bourgeois reformism at universities, passing it off as socialism. They alleged that the state, specifically the German Empire, was above all classes and could help achieve improvements in the condition of the working class by way of social reforms.
  5. ↑ the name tells all (Quark = curd or cottage cheese in German; fig. rubbish)
  6. ↑ See this volume, pp. 384-85 and 405.
  7. ↑ In 1884 and 1885 Die Neue Zeit carried a number of articles by Max Quarck. Engels vehemently protested against Quarck contributing to the journal (see this volume, pp. 164 and 258).
  8. ↑ See this volume, pp. 409-10.
  9. ↑ The Radicals — in the 1880s and 1890s a parliamentary group which had split away from the party of moderate republicans in France ('Opportunists', see Note 236). The Radicals had their main base in the petty and, to some extent, the middle bourgeoisie and continued to press for a number of bourgeois-democratic demands: a single-chamber parliamentary system, the separation of the Church from the State, the introduction of a system of progressive income taxes, the limitation of the working day and settlement of a number of other social issues. The leader of the Radicals was Clemenceau. The group formed officially as the Republican Party of Radicals and Radical Socialists [Parti républicain radical et radical-socialiste] in 1901.
  10. ↑ Ibid., p. 414.