Letter to Friedrich Adolph Sorge, March 3, 1887

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 3 March 1887


First published, slightly abridged, in Briefe und Auszüge aus Briefen von Joh. Phil. Becker, Jos. Dietzgen, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx u. A. an F. A. Sorge und Andere, Stuttgart, 1906 and in full in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXVII, Moscow, 1935
Printed according to the original
Published in English in full for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 48


ENGELS TO FRIEDRICH ADOLPH SORGE[1]

IN HOBOKEN

London, 3 March 1887

Dear Sorge,

I am sending off simultaneously with this a package containing 1 Commonweal, 1 To-Day, 3 Gleichheits and 4 copies in German, 4 copies in English of Aveling's second circular.[2]

The Executive over there is going to the most amazing lengths to obtain approval for its puerile action against Aveling. You will see from Aveling's circular (no doubt you will also have had a look at that of the Executive) what they tried on with the sections. But since then, and without waiting for the sections' vote, they have handed over the whole business to the Board of Supervisors in the hope that the latter may get them out of the soup. Aveling, of course, is also taking it up with the Board of Supervisors, to which he is now sending all the documents, and we shall see how things turn out.

The Executive is wisely confining itself to the age-old and, to German expatriates, eternally new story of squandering the workers' pence; so presumably the additional charges of attempted embezzlement, etc., are only being disseminated in private. No doubt you will find some opportunity of putting the circulars to use.

We have good reason to be satisfied with the elections in Germany.[3]

The increase in the number of votes is marvellous, especially considering how much pressure is being exerted not only by the government but also by the industrialists who, wherever feasible, presented the workers with the choice either of being dismissed or of voting compulsorily for a Bismarckian. I fear this will again be in evidence in the second ballot, the results of which are not yet known over here. The Pope[4] is forbidding Catholics to vote for us, the men of Progress[5] voluntarily prefer a Bismarckian to a Socialist, while the industrialists exercise outright coercion—so if in these circumstances we capture one or two more seats it will be a victory truly won.[6] But it's not the number of seats that matter, only the statistical demonstration of the party's irresistible growth.

You suggest that our people have made fools of themselves in electing such men as Geiser, Frohme, Viereck, etc. There's no alternative. They have to take the candidates as and where they find them. That is a fate shared by all workers' parties in parliaments where there is no remuneration. Nor does it matter. The chaps are under no illusion regarding their representatives; of this the best proof is the total defeat of the 'parliamentary group' in its trial of strength with the Sozialdemokrat.[7] And the deputies are well aware of it; the gentlemen of the right wing know that, if they are still tolerated, it is only by reason of the Anti-Socialist Law[8] and that they will instantly be thrown out on the day the party regains its freedom of movement. Even then, all will be by no means well with the representation but I think I'd rather see the party superior to its parliamentary heroes than the other way round.

Nor need you worry about Liebknecht. They realise perfectly well what he's like in Germany. I have seldom known a man about whom the opinions of the most diverse people are so closely agreed as they are about Liebknecht. While he imagines he's got them all eating out of his hand, they are sizing him up quite critically. His incorrigible optimism, particularly about anything in which he himself has a hand, his firm belief that he is the life and soul of the movement, the chap who does everything and manages everything for the best and that it's only the other 'jackasses' who spoil things, his urge to create order everywhere and to cover up all contradictions by resolving them into commonplaces, his yearning for outward and momentary successes, even at the expense of enduring losses—all this is very well known. But our people also know that all these failings are only the obverse of most valuable qualities and that without those foibles he simply could not achieve what he does in fact achieve. So long as he has Bebel at his side he won't perpetrate any serious blunders although he may cause a lot of unnecessary trouble and strife. And when it comes to parting from the philistines, he will defend them up to the very last, but at the crucial moment will be found in the right place.

I hope that your health will improve with the coming of spring.

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ A passage from this letter was first published in English in Karl Marx and Frederick Engels Letters to Americans. 1848-1895.A selection, New York, International Publishers, 1953.
  2. ↑ This refers to Aveling's letter of 26 February 1887 which was circulated, in printed form, to the sections of the Socialist Labor Party of North America and other socialist organisations. It was a detailed answer to the accusations levelled at Aveling by the party's Executive on 7 January 1887.
  3. ↑ On 14 January 1887, Bismarck dissolved the Reichstag in view of its refusal to endorse the proposed seven-year military budget (the bill on the septennate). The elections to the new Reichstag, held on 21 February, were attended by a brutal campaign of terror, directed above all against the Socialist Party. Nevertheless, the Social Democrats polled 763,128 votes (10.1 per cent of the total), 213,038 more than in the 1884 elections. However, owing to the undemocratic additional ballots law the number of Social Democratic deputies declined to 11, as against 24 in the previous Reichstag.
  4. ↑ Leo XIII
  5. ↑ The Party of Progress, founded in June 1861, advocated the unification of Germany under the aegis of Prussia, the convocation of an all-German parliament, and a liberal Ministry responsible to the Chamber of Deputies. Fearing a popular revolution, it did not support the basic democratic demands - universal suffrage and the freedom of the press, association and assembly. In 1866 the Party of Progress split. Its right wing founded the National Liberal Party, which capitulated to the Bismarck government. After the final unification of Germany in 1871, the Progressists continued to describe themselves as an opposition party, but their opposition was purely declaratory. In March 1884 they merged with the left wing of the National Liberals to form the German Free-Thinking Party (Die Deutsche Freisinnige Partei).
  6. ↑ The second ballot, in eighteen constituencies, brought the Social Democrats another five seats in the Reichstag (Breslau-West, Elberfeld, Frankfurt am Main, Hanover and Solingen).
  7. ↑ At the end of 1884, Bismarck, seeking to activate Germany's colonial policy, demanded that the Reichstag should vote an annual subsidy to shipping companies to enable them to operate regular lines to East Asia, Australia and Africa. The left wing of the Social Democratic parliamentary group, led by August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht, came out against the government scheme. The right wing, which made up the majority (Dietz, Frohme, Grillenberger and others), intended to vote for the subsidy, on the pretext that it would help promote international communications. Under pressure from the majority the group decided that the issue was of a non-fundamental nature and every deputy should be free to vote as he chose (see Der Sozialdemokrat, No. 50, 11 December 1884). The sharp critique of the proposed subsidies in Der Sozialdemokrat and in resolutions of the party leadership forced the majority of the Social Democratic group to somewhat modify its stand during the discussion of the matter in the Reichstag in March 1885. The group made its support for the subsidies conditional on the adoption of a number of its own proposals. Since the Reichstag rejected these, all Social Democratic deputies voted against the subsidies.
  8. ↑ The Anti-Socialist law (Gesetz gegen die gemeingefahrlichen Bestrebungen der Sozialdemokratie) was introduced by the Bismarck government, with the support of the majority of the Reichstag, on 21 October 1878, as a means of combating the socialist and working-class movement. It imposed a ban on all Social Democratic and working-class organisations and on the socialist and workers' press; socialist literature was subject to confiscation, and Social Democrats to reprisals. However, under the Constitution, the Social Democratic Party retained its group in parliament. By combining underground activities with the use of legal possibilities, in particular by working to overcome reformist and anarchist tendencies in its own ranks, the party was able to consolidate and expand its influence among the masses. Marx and Engels gave the party leaders considerable help. Under the pressure of the mass working-class movement the Anti-Socialist Law was repealed (1 October 1890). For Engels' characterisation of the law see his article 'Bismarck and the German Workers Party' (present edition, Vol. 24, pp407-09).