Letter to Friedrich Adolph Sorge, October 29, 1887

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 29 October 1887


First published in Briefe und Auszüge aus Briefen von Job. Phil. Becker, Jos. Dietzgen, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx, u. A. an F A. Sorge und Andere, Stuttgart, 1906
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 48


ENGELS TO FRIEDRICH ADOLPH SORGE[1]

IN ROCHESTER

[London] 29 October 1887

Am sending you by today's post the Austrian calendar (Österreichischer Arbeiter-Kalender) with a biographical note,[2] ditto Commonweal. Bebel and Bernstein are here in order, amongst other things, to make preparations for next year's international congress.[3] Bebel most satisfied with the St Gall congress and likewise with the state of affairs in Germany.

Faced with spontaneous agitation on the part of the unemployed, both parliamentary groups[4] in this country have shown how very much out of touch they are with the masses. Commonweal, as you will see, is completely at its wits' end.

  1. ↑ Engels wrote this letter on a post card. He indicated the address on the back - F. A. Sorge Esq., Rochester N.Y., U.S. America.
  2. ↑ Apparently this refers to the biography of Engels, written by Karl Kautsky for the Osterreichischer Arbeiter-Kalender of 1888.
  3. ↑ The German Social Democrat Congress held at St. Gallen adopted a decision (along with other resolutions (see note 174)) on convening an international labour congress to consider the issue of labour legislation. Almost simultaneously, a similar decision was passed by the British Trades Unions Congress (see note 165). The trade unions convened their congress in London in November 1888; the German Social Democrats abandoned theilan and took part in the convening and holding of an international socialist labour congress in Paris on 14-20 July 1889, first suggested by the French Workers' Party (see note 33); it stood at the beginnings of the Second International (see note 473).
  4. ↑ The reference is to the Social Democratic Federation (See note 62) and the Socialist League (see note 21).