Letter to Friedrich Adolph Sorge, October 12, 1889

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 12 October 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 English in full for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 48


ENGELS TO FRIEDRICH ADOLPH SORGE[1]

IN HOBOKEN

[London,] 12 October 1889

Herewith as usual the Labour Elector and Commonweal.

The International Review is said to have already met its end, thus quickly has Hyndman ruined it by his mismanagement. Bax, however, is in negotiation over another revue[2] ; if he acquires it, Aveling will probably be his assistant editor. The revolution in New York[3] gets funnier and funnier; the attempts by Rosenberg & Co. to remain on top à tout prix,[4] while amusing, are fortunately doomed to failure. Your exchanges with the nationalists[5] in the Workmen's Advocate[6] have gladdened me, firstly because one can recognise old Sorge from 10 miles off and, secondly, because they have once more provided me with public proof of your existence.

I don't know whether I wrote and told you that Sam Moore left for Asaba on the Niger (Africa) in June as Chief Justice for the territories of the English Niger Company. I received the first letter from there yesterday; he finds the climate very good and apparently salubrious; the heat is not very great—75° F in the mornings and 81°-83°[7] in the afternoons. Cool, therefore, by comparison with New York. Thus the 3rd volume of Capital will probably be translated into English in Africa. I am working on the 4th edition of the 1st volume; the quotations are all having to be revised to conform to the English edition, but it can't be helped. After that I shall buckle down to the 3rd.

Longuet arrived yesterday to fetch his two elder boys,[8] who have been staying with Tussy. As a result of the Opportunists'[9] abstention he polled 800 votes fewer than his opponent. Of our people about 6 were elected, but not, alas, Guesde.

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ Engels wrote these lines on a post card. On the back was the address: F.A. Sorge, Esq., Hoboken N J, US America. About the English publication, see note 343.
  2. ↑ Time
  3. ↑ The reference is to the changes within the Executive of the Socialist Labor Party of North America (note 3) that had occurred as of September 1889; these changes reflected the factional struggle in the party ranks. National Secretary W. Rosenberg and several members of the Executive were removed from the leadership. A sequel to the ensuing split was the holding of two separate conventions in Chicago. The convention of 12 October 1889, held by a group of party members who had rallied around the newspaper New Yorker Volkszeitung, adopted a new party programme that reflected the views of its progressive wing.
  4. ↑ at all costs
  5. ↑ De Leon and others
  6. ↑ A reference to a polemic between Friedrich Sorge and Daniel de Leon who shared the views of the 'Nationalists' at the time (see note 503).
  7. ↑ 23.5° and 27-28°C
  8. ↑ Jean and Edgar Longuet — See this volume, pp. 384-7
  9. ↑ Opportunists was the name given in France to the party of moderate bourgeois republicans upon its split in 1881 and the formation of a left-wing party of radicals under Georges Clemenceau. The name was first used in 1877 by Henri Rochefort, a journalist, after the leader of the party, L. Gambetta, had said that reforms were to be implemented at 'an opportune time' ('un temps opportun').