Letter to Friedrich Adolph Sorge, February 23, 1889

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 23 February 1889


First published 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
Printed according to the original
Published in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 48


ENGELS TO FRIEDRICH ADOLPH SORGE[1]

IN HOBOKEN

London, 23 February 1889

Dear Sorge,

Your postcard of 19 January and letter of 10 February received.[2] I take The Labor Standard and shall give Mrs Wischnewetzky's articles to Tussy, who will use them, should the 'Labor Movement' happen to be re-issued. The stuff in them is typical of America. Neglect of fire precau- tions, etc., on that scale simply would not pay in Europe. But it's the same attitude as you take to railroads and everything else; provided only that they exist, no matter how, that is sufficient.

Thank you for the item on Appleton.[3] On being approached, Sonnenschein said he had sold 500 copies of the cheap edition to Appleton.

I didn't see Der arme Teufel. It is Motteler's favourite reading and that is something no one will begrudge him. Any remarks it makes about

[4]

I shall write and tell Kautsky what you have said about Rappaport.[5]

Lack of material and a desire to be versatile mean that many get in who have no business to be there. Kautsky has been in Vienna since July and won't be returning here before July.

I have sent you The Holy Family by registered book packet along with some French stuff. But you mustn't tell Schlüter that I sent it to you; I had more or less promised him my spare copy for the archives[6] before my trip to America, but you come first. It will probably arrive in March or April.

In addition to this—all of them by today's post—there's a further parcel of French stuff as well as Commonweal and Gleichheit. Lafargue's and Deville's lectures[7] are no longer to be had here and I can't get a reply out of the authors. However I keep pegging away at them.

You will have received the copies of the Egalité. The Blanquists have had no luck with their Cri du Peuple; having bored people to tears, they found themselves compelled to join forces with Guesde, Lafargue, etc. (which Vaillant wanted to do from the beginning but was outvoted). In addition there are a few discontented Radicals. Up till now they have all got on well together—let's hope it will remain so. Some more copies will go off shortly.

During the latest election in Paris the Possibilists thoroughly disgraced themselves and actively supported the Opportunist Jacques.[8]

The workers are now beginning to desert them. In the provinces, which are far better than Paris, they have lost all support. Their attempt, with the help of the English Trades Unions and of Hyndman, their trusty ally over here, to arrange an international congress in Paris without our Frenchmen but with the Belgians, Danes, Dutch and hence, or so they hoped, the Germans as well, is proving an ignominious failure. The Germans say they will not attend either congress if 2 of them are held in Paris. And both parties have been summoned to a conference at The Hague on the 28th of this month[9] ; of the Germans, Liebknecht, Bebel and Bernstein will be there, and so will the Dutch and Belgians. Lafargue is going. So they must either eat humble pie or face universal opposition.

In Germany things are getting more and more confused. Now that old William[10] is dead and Bismarck is tottering, the philistines have lost all confidence in the wielders of power. That vain young fool,[11] the new, greater version of Old Fritz[12] (pour rire[13] ) wants to be Emperor and

Chancellor in one; the arch-reactionaries, priests and Junkers at court are doing their utmost to incite him against Bismarck and to bring about a clash—and meanwhile little Willie is pensioning off all the old generals and replacing them with his favourites. Another three years and the commands will all be in the hands of impudent coxcombs and the army will be ripe for another Jena.[14] Bismarck knows this and that is what might induce him to embark on a quick war, especially if that vagabond Boulanger gets to the top. And then we'll have a pretty state of affairs: an alliance between France and Russia which will completely rule out any revolution in France, for otherwise Russia will turn against her. But I hope it blows over.

Warm regards to your wife.[15]

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ A fragment of this letter was first published in English by Labour Monthly, London, 1934, No. 3, and in full in Marx K., Engels E, Letters to Americans. 1848-1895, A Selection, International Publishers, New York 1953, I.E. Mins (trans).
  2. ↑ Engels might have made a mistake by indicating the date, 19 January. He meant the post card of 29 January and the letter of 10 February, sent by Friedrich Sorge, who called Engels' attention to F. Kelley-Wischnewetzky's article on child labour, carried by the newspaper The Labour Standard on 19 and 26 January 1889.
  3. ↑ On 29 January 1889, F. Sorge sent a cutting from the New York newspaper Standard to Engels with an advertisement announcing a sale of the English edition of Volume I of Capital by the American book dealers Appleton and Co.
  4. ↑ Aveling, no matter what they may be, are downright lies.374
  5. ↑ A reference to Philipp Rappaport's article 'Uber die Arbeiterbewegung in Amerika' published in the journal Die Neue Zeit, No. 2, 1889. In his letter of 10 February 1889 F. Sorge pointed to the poor quality of the article and said it would be better to publish excerpts from Edward Aveling and Eleanor Marx-Aveling, The Labour Movement in America (see note 89).
  6. ↑ The German Social Democratic archives were set up at the Zurich Conference of the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany held on 19-21 August 1882. Their purpose was to preserve the manuscripts of prominent figures in the German labour movement (including the works of Marx and Engels), and documents pertaining to the history of Germany and the international working-class movement, and the labour press. The initial site of the archives was Zurich. The first materials were collected by Eduard Bernstein. From April 1883 the archives were in the custody of Hermann Schluter. In June 1888, following the expulsion of some members of the Sozialdemokrat editorial staff and co-workers from Switzerland (see note 81), the archives were moved to London and, after the abrogation of the Anti-Socialist law (see note 52), to Berlin.
  7. ↑ The reference is to a series of lectures by Paul Lafargue and Gabriel Deville (Cours d'Economie Sociale) on Marx; these lectures were arranged by a circle at the Socialist Library of the French Workers' Party on Sundays as of 23 January 1884. Lafargue's series of lectures was called Le Materialisme economique de Karl Marx. To his second lecture Paul Lafargue gave the following title: Le Milieu naturel. Theorie darwinienne. Gabriel Deville entitled his course of lectures L'Evolution du capital. There were five lectures in all: Genese du capital, Formation du proletariat, Cooperation et manufacture, Machinisme et grande Industrie and Fin du capital. The lectures were published in the press and in separate editions in 1884.
  8. ↑ In the by-election scheduled for 27 January 1889 in Paris (see notes 328, 329), the following candidacies were nominated: Georges Boulanger - from the Right-wing groups, Edouard Jacques - from the Republican Party (this candidature received support from the Possibilists as well), and the labourer Boule - from the Workers Party (see note 33) and the Blanquists. In a bitter electoral struggle, General Boulanger received about 250,000 votes, Boule 7,000 votes.
  9. ↑ A reference to the International Socialist Conference in the Hague convened on 28 February 1889 (see note 385).
  10. ↑ William I
  11. ↑ William II
  12. ↑ Frederick II (Frederick the Great)
  13. ↑ in jest
  14. ↑ Engels refers to the defeat of the Prussians and Saxons at the hands of Napoleon at Jena (14 October 1806).
  15. ↑ Katharina Sorge