Letter to August Bebel, September 13-14, 1886

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 13 September 1886


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


ENGELS TO AUGUST BEBEL

[IN PLAUEN NEAR DRESDEN]

London, 13-14 September 1886

Dear Bebel,

What I find odd about this whole Bulgarian and oriental business[1] is the Russians having only just realised that, as a result of the annexation of Alsace, etc., they have become the arbiters of Europe, as indeed was pointed out to the members of the International by Marx as long ago as 1870.[2] The only possible explanation for this is the universal adoption since the war (in Russia in 1874) of the Prussian Landwehr system which takes between 10 and 12 years to produce a commensurately powerful army.[3] Russia and France now also possess such an army, hence the fun can now begin. And that is precisely why the Russian army, which supplies the hard core of Pan-Slavism, is now exerting such tremendous pressure on the government that the Tsar[4] is faced with only two possibilities—he must either overcome his old animosity to the French Republic and enter into alliance with it, or he must persuade Bismarck to endorse Russia's oriental policy. For Bismarck and William,[5] the alternatives were, either resistance to Russia and the prospect of a Franco-Russian alliance and world war, or the certainty of a Russian revolution as a result of an alliance between the Pan-Slavs and the Nihilists,[6] or again submission to Russia, i.e. betrayal of Austria. That from their own standpoint Bismarck and William could not have acted otherwise, seems obvious to me, and this represents a great leap forward, in that the incompatibility of the Hohenzollerns' interests and those of Germany has now been made plainly and overwhelmingly manifest. The very existence of the German Empire is being imperilled by its Prussian foundations.

Temporarily—until after the winter, that is,—the affair will probably be glossed over, but the Pan-Slavs' appetite grows with eating, and they will never have such a favourable opportunity again. If the Russians succeed in occupying Bulgaria, they will also go on to attack Constantinople, unless insuperable obstacles—say an Austro-German-British alliance—intervene. Hence Bismarck's desperate plea for an actively anti-Russian policy on Britain's part, a plea he now gets The Standard to re-echo almost daily in the hope that Britain will avert a world war.

At all events, Austrian and Russian rivalry in the Balkan Peninsula is becoming so acute that war is more likely than the preservation of peace. And that will be the end of localised warfare. But what the outcome will be—who will win—we cannot say. The German army is certainly the best and the best-led, but is only one amongst many. The Austrians are an unknown quantity, both numerically and militarily, especially as regards leadership, and have always been dab-hands at getting their best troops beaten. The Russians, as always, are deluding themselves as to their strength which, on paper, is enormous; though exceedingly weak in attack, they are strong in the defence of their own country. Their weakest point, aside from the high command, is a lack of suitable material to officer the vast masses; the country does not produce the required number of educated people. The Turks are the best soldiers, but the high command is invariably execrable, if not suborned. Finally, the French are also short of officers, because too politically advanced to tolerate an institution such as that of one-year volunteers; also because the French bourgeois is (personally) utterly unwarlike. Lastly, the new organisation has never been put to the test anywhere save in Germany. Hence these quantities are very difficult to estimate, either numerically or qualitatively. Of the Italians, it may be said with certainty that, given equal numbers, they would be beaten by any other army. But how these various quantities will group themselves, either with or against each other, in a world war is equally incalculable. Britain's importance—that of her Navy and that of her vast resources—will grow as the war goes on and, if she withholds her troops at the start, it may, in the end, be a British corps of 60,000 men which finally turns the scales.

All this presupposes that nothing happens inside the countries concerned. But in France a war might well bring revolutionary elements to the helm, while in Germany a defeat or the death of the Old Man[7] might result in a violent change of régime, which in turn might lead to a regrouping of the belligerents. In short, there will be chaos of which the only certain outcome will be wholesale slaughter on a hitherto unprecedented scale, the exhaustion of the whole of Europe to a hitherto unprecedented degree and, finally, the complete collapse of the old system.

Immediate victory for ourselves could only be produced by a revolution in France, which would confer on the French the role of liberators of the European proletariat. I do not know whether this would be the best thing for the latter; however it would raise ideal French chauvinism to the nth degree. A revolution in Germany following a defeat would be of use only if it led to peace with France. Best of all would be a Russian revolution which, however, can only be expected after severe defeats have been inflicted on the Russian army.

This much is certain: A war would above all retard our movement all over Europe, completely disrupt it in many countries, stir up chauvinism and xenophobia and leave us with the certain prospect, amongst many other uncertain ones, of having to begin all over again after the war, albeit on a basis far more favourable even than today.

Whether or not there is war, this much has been gained. Your German philistine has been shocked out of his lethargy and at last finds himself compelled to intervene actively in politics. Since numerous intermediary stages will have to be gone through between today's Prussian Bonapartism with its semi-feudal foundations and the socialist republic which will be our first stage, it can only be to our advantage that your German citizen should at last be forced to resume his political responsibilities and oppose the present régime, if only to make it get some sort of move-on. And so I look forward keenly to seeing what happens during the coming session of the Reichstag. Since I do not get any German papers at the moment, I should be greatly obliged if you would send me some from time to time, when they carry reports of important sittings, particularly those concerned with foreign policy.

Liebknecht, too, had a great deal to say about the indignation provoked in Germany by Bismarck's kow-towing to the Russians.[8] He spent several days with me at the seaside in Eastbourne,[9] was in very good spirits and, as always, 'everything was going swimmingly'. Since the gentlemen of the right wing are no longer stirring up any trouble to speak of and have had to knuckle under, Liebknecht could again give vent to quite revolutionary utterances and do his best to pass himself off as the most resolute of men. I intimated pretty plainly that I knew more about these goings-on than he might, perhaps, care for but, since he was completely on the right track, there was absolutely no reason why our intercourse should be other than exceedingly cordial. I am unaware of, and hence not responsible for, anything he may have told you in his letters about the matters he and I discussed.

14 September

Having again been interrupted, I must make sure that I finish this in time for the evening post so that you get this letter by Thursday[10] morning at the latest. The Hungarian parliament will also be convening in the near future when the Bulgarian affair is sure to be brought up. The best thing for us would be for Russia to be peacefully or forcibly repulsed, in which case the stage would be set for revolution there. The Pan-Slavs would join in, only to find next morning that they had been duped. This was a point upon which Marx always expressed himself with the greatest conviction—and I know of no one who understood Russia, both as regards internal and external matters, as well as he. He maintained that, as soon as the old régime had been destroyed in Russia, no matter by whom, and a representative assembly had convened, no matter of what kind, Russia's policy of aggression would cease and domestic questions take precedence over everything else.[11] And the repercussions on Europe, once this last stronghold of reaction had been destroyed, would, he said, be tremendous; we in Germany would be the first to feel them.

Liebknecht's ship arrived in New York yesterday morning at 3 o'clock, that of the Avelings several days earlier.[12] If it's as hot there as it is here—now, at 4 in the afternoon it's 25 degrees Centigrade[13] here in my room—their tub-thumping is going to make them sweat a bit.

In France the good work still goes on. The method of agitation that was tried out at Decazeville is now being repeated at Vierzon where there is a strike on.[14] Vaillant, whose home it is, is taking a leading part there. In Paris, the Radicals are working for us, as is Bismarck in Germany. They have got themselves into a frightful mess over the bucket-shops, and Clemenceau, though he had no need to do so, has nevertheless become too deeply involved with that crew to be able to keep out of it altogether. Thus the rift between him and the erstwhile radical working men yawns ever wider, and his loss is our gain. Our people are behaving with great address and I am surprised at the amount of discipline shown by the French. It was just what they lacked, and now they are acquiring it, but against a background of a wholly revolutionary tradition which, in France, is taken for granted and is innocent of all those philistine misgivings which are the bane of our Geisers and Vierecks. Next time, even with the scrutin de liste,[15] we shall score considerable successes in France. And it is precisely because everything's going so marvellously, both there and in Germany, and because a couple of years of uninterrupted internal development, helped along by the events inevitable in the circumstances, would contribute so enormously to our progress—it is precisely because of all this that I wouldn't exactly wish for a world war—but history recks little of that! It pursues its course and we have to take it as it comes.

There's one thing you people should learn from the French. For 50 years all revolutionaries there have subscribed to the rule that the accused should refuse to give the examining magistrate any information whatsoever. The latter has the right to ask, the accused has the right not to answer, not to incriminate himself and his comrades. This—once it has been generally accepted to the extent that any deviation from it ranks as quasi betrayal—is of enormous advantage in all trials. One is still free to say what one likes at the public proceedings. But at the preliminary investigation all records are so worded as to falsify the statements made by the accused who is browbeaten into signing by all manner of subterfuges. You should see for yourselves sometime.

Your

F.E.

  1. ↑ 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 Zeitung, 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).
  2. ↑ K. Marx, 'Second Address of the General Council of the International Working Men's Association on the Franco-Prussian War'.
  3. ↑ Landwehr—the army reserve formed in Prussia during the struggle against Napoleon. In the 1840s it consisted of men under forty who had done three years active service and not less than two years in the reserve. In contrast to the regular army, conscription to the army reserve took place in cases of extreme necessity (war, or threat of war).
  4. ↑ Alexander III
  5. ↑ William I
  6. ↑ Nihilists—a term used in the 1860s to describe the progressive-minded Russian intellectuals of different social estates. The Nihilists refused to recognise the dominant ideology and morality, rejected religion and demanded freedom of the personality. 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 completely disappeared from polemic writing, although it was used later on occasions by reactionary political commentators as a label for revolutionaries. In West European 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).
  7. ↑ William I
  8. ↑ Engels analysed Bismarck's relations with Russia in his letter to Paul Lafargue of 25-26 October 1886 (see this volume, pp. 512-18) which was subsequently published as an article entitled 'The Political Situation in Europe' (see present edition, Vol. 26).
  9. ↑ Engels was on holiday in Eastbourne from 7 August to 4 September 1886.
  10. ↑ 16 September
  11. ↑ See K. Marx, 'The Question of the Abolition of Serfdom in Russia', present edition, Vol. 16, pp. 51-53.
  12. ↑ At the invitation of the Executive Committee of the Socialist Labor Party (see Note 549) Wilhelm Liebknecht took part in a campaign tour of the United States to raise money for the German Social Democrats' election fund. Eleanor Marx-Aveling and Edward Aveling made a trip around the United States at approximately the same time (see Note 601). Liebknecht stayed in Eastbourne with Engels for four days, left Liverpool on 4 September and arrived in New York on 13 September where he met the Avelings. In New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Detroit, Chicago, Pittsburgh, Washington and other cities he gave talks and lectures on the theory and history of socialism, the state of the workers' movement in Europe and other subjects. This trip, which he completed on 26 November, raised 16,000 marks for the German Social Democrats' election fund. On his way back to Germany, Liebknecht stayed with Engels in London from 5 to 10 December, following which he set off on his way home to Borsdorf near Leipzig.
  13. ↑ 77 degrees Fahrenheit
  14. ↑ The reference is to the strike by the workers at the Vierzon (department of Cher) factory of the Société française de construction de matériel agricole which began on 4 August 1886 in response to the dismissal of some of them due to the crisis in the engineering industry. The events in Vierzon were widely reflected in the French press, as Laura Lafargue wrote in her letter to Engels of 20 August 1886.
  15. ↑ Until 1885, France was divided into 'small constituencies', each sending one representative to the Chamber of Deputies. In June 1885, on the initiative of the moderate bourgeois republicans, a system of voting by department lists was introduced. Under this system, which operated until 1889, small constituencies were combined to form larger ones each corresponding to a department. Now a voter received a ballot paper with names of candidates from different parties, but he was obliged to vote for the total number of candidates to be elected, with one deputy for every 70,000 people. A deputy was considered elected in the first ballot provided he had received an absolute majority of votes; a relative majority was sufficient in the second ballot.