Letter to Hermann Schluter, November 26, 1886

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 26 November 1886


First published in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXVII, Moscow 1935
Published in English in full for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 47


ENGELS TO HERMANN SCHLÜTER

IN HOTTINGEN-ZURICH

London, 26 November 1886

Dear Mr Schlüter,

Very many thanks for your communication re J. Ph. Becker.[1] As to his moving to Zurich, that is a matter I would rather leave to you to deal with direct. You say that the need for it is perfectly obvious; to you in Zurich that may seem entirely right, but to me here in London, where I am less able to weigh up the pros and cons, the case looks different. And for that reason I cannot possibly persuade him to move, at the drop of a hat, to Zurich from Geneva to which, after forty years, he has grown accustomed, having become, so to speak, part and parcel of the place. Accordingly I have so far said not a word about the matter.

The English translation[2] is all but done and once I have paid off my most pressing debts in the shape of letters owed to correspondents, I shall at last be able to attend to the items in suspense reposing in my desk. In order of seniority these are as follows:

1) Italian translation of Wage Labour and Capital[3] 10 months old, 2) French ditto of the 18th Brumaire, 8 months old, 3) your Chartist ms., 5 " 4) and 5) my Housing Question, etc., and the Mordspatrioten.[4] To these you have now added 6) and 7).

6) Theory of Force.[5] You are welcome to go ahead, but what do you mean by 'correspondingly altered'? The purely positive part amounts to no more than a few pages while the anti-Dühring polemic is itself positive and indispensable both factually and technically. However if you simply mean the deletion of individual passages having no particular relevance to the question of force and merely serving to link together the rest of the text, then I agree. This will amount to about 25 pages and is rather little. In my view the 2 chapters, Morality and Law: Eternal Truths and Equality, could be similarly revised and added on, since these also revolve round the materialist-economic view of history, in which case the whole could be entitled On Law and Force in World History or something of the kind.

7) On Social Relations in Russia.[6] If you reprint the little pamphlet as it stands I have no objection; a preface to it would mean my embarking on further Russian studies, for which I have absolutely no time; a preface without further studies would provide nothing new and would therefore best be omitted. The articles relating to it in the Volksstaat would also best be omitted. No. 3 was an attack on Lavrov who since then has given us no cause to bring up the old business again and, like the beginning of No. 4 (attacking Tkachov),[7] it contains nothing, save for one or two perhaps tolerable jokes, that could be of any interest today, let alone have any effect as propaganda.

If Ede is not wholly engrossed in the Eternal Feminine,[8] kindly tell him that in my view the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION[9] ought now to be handled somewhat differently. The stupidity of the government, the inaction of the working men's Radical Clubs vis-à-vis the enormous growth in the number of 'unemployed' and, finally, the wisdom of the SOCIALIST LEAGUE, whose constant preoccupation with its own rules and regulations leaves it time for nothing else, have provided the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION with so splendid a pitch that not even Hyndman & Co. have yet managed to queer it. The SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION is beginning to be something of a power, since the masses have absolutely no other organisation to which they can rally. The facts should therefore be recorded impartially, in particular the most important fact of all, namely that a genuinely socialist labour movement has come into being over here. But one must be very careful to draw a distinction between the masses and their temporary leaders and, in particular, make sure you don't identify yourselves with the latter in any way, for it is virtually certain that before very long these political adventurers will, with the impatience that is born of ambition, again commit the most appalling blunders. As soon as the movement has acquired substance, either it will keep these gentlemen in check or they will destroy themselves. Hitherto the irritation felt by the majority has simply taken the form of dull, unconscious dissatisfaction, but it is in this way that the ground has been prepared for sowing.

In America, apart from New York, the real movement is running ahead of the Germans. The Americans' real organisation is the KNIGHTS OF LABOR which is as muddle-headed as the masses themselves. But it is from this chaos that the movement will evolve, not from the German sections — the Germans, that is, who, for the past 20 years, have proved incapable of extracting from their theory what America needs.[10] But this is just the moment when the Germans might exert a very enlightening influence — if only they had learnt English!

Kindest regards to everyone.

Yours,

F. Engels

  1. ↑ On 4 November 1886 Schlüter wrote to Engels informing him of the successful conclusion of talks with Johann Philipp Becker on the granting of material assistance in return for his writing his memoirs (see this volume, pp. 498-500). The plan did not materialise as Becker died on 7 December 1886.
  2. ↑ of the first volume of Capital (see Note 56)
  3. ↑ by Marx
  4. ↑ F. Engels, 'Introduction to Sigismund Borkheim's Pamphlet In Memory of the German Blood-and-Thunder Patriots. 1806-1807.'
  5. ↑ This is Engels' reply to the suggestion made by Schlüter that he revise three chapters from the second part of Anti-Dühring for publication as a separate pamphlet under the title The Theory of Force. They contain an exposition of the materialist views of the correlation between economics and politics. Engels subsequently changed his plans and decided to add a fourth chapter giving concrete form to the main propositions using the example of the history of Germany from 1848 to 1888 and analysing them from the viewpoint of a critique of Bismarck's policies. The pamphlet was to be called The Role of Force in History. Engels worked on the fourth chapter at a later date, between late December 1887 and March 1888, but did not complete it. The unfinished work, as well as various plans and fragments, were not published until after Engels' death (see present edition, Vol. 26, pp. 452-510, 511, 578-80).
  6. ↑ The reference is to the article 'On Social Relations in Russia' from the Refugee Literature series, published in Der Volksstaat from 1874 to 1875 (see present edition, Vol. 24, pp. 3-50); this article also appeared as a separate pamphlet in late June-early July 1875 in Leipzig. The third and fourth articles of the series to which Engels refers did not have any titles of their own. Schlüter's plans to publish a pamphlet Soziales aus Rußland were not carried out at the time. The first, second and fifth articles in the series, together with an afterword specially written by Engels ('Afterword (1894) to On Social Relations in Russia, present edition, Vol. 27) appeared as a collection of articles by Engels published in Berlin in 1894 as Internationales aus dem 'Volksstaat' (1871-75).
  7. ↑ In the original mistakenly articles Nos. 1 and 2.
  8. ↑ See this volume, p. 501.
  9. ↑ Social Democratic Federation — an English socialist organisation founded in August 1884 and based on the Democratic Federation (see Note 99); it united different socialist elements, mainly drawn from the intelligentsia and part of the politically active workers. The Federation's programme stated that all the wealth should belong to labour — its only source, it called for the socialisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange, for the set-up of society of 'complete emancipation of labour'. It was the first socialist programme in England, which was on the main based on Marx's ideas. The leadership of the Federation was in the hands of Henry Mayers Hyndman, who was prone to use authoritarian methods, and his supporters, who denied the need to work in the trade unions. This doomed the organisation to isolation from the working masses. As a counter to Hyndman's line, a group of socialists within the Federation (Eleanor Marx-Aveling, Edward Aveling, Tom Mann, William Morris and others) campaigned for the establishment of close links with the mass workers' movement. The disagreements in the Federation over questions of tactics and international cooperation (attitude to the split in the French Workers' Party; see notes 201 and 348) led in December 1884 to a split and the foundation of an independent organisation called the Socialist League (see Note 346). In 1885-86 the local branches of the Federation took an active part in the unemployed movement, supported the strike campaign and the fight for an eight-hour working day.
  10. ↑ The Socialist Labor Party of the United States (originally called the Workingmen's Party) was founded at the unification congress held in Philadelphia on 19-22 June 1876 as a result of the merger between the American sections of the First International, led by Friedrich Adolph Sorge and Otto Weydemeyer, and the Labor Party of Illinois and Social Democratic Party, led by Adolph Strasser, A. Gabriel and Peter J. McGuire. However, the party failed to become a mass organisation throughout the country due to the sectarian policies pursued by the leadership which neglected to form links with the mass organisations of the indigenous American proletariat, and due to the predominance of the Lassallean influence in a number of local organisations.