Letter to Natalie Liebknecht, December 24, 1889

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 24 December 1889


First published in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXVIII, Moscow, 1940
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 48


ENGELS TO NATALIE LIEBKNECHT

IN LEIPZIG

London, 24 December 1889

Dear Mrs Liebknecht,

First of all my most sincere thanks for the greetings you and your son[1] so kindly sent me on my last birthday, which was a most merry occasion. We all had to sit up until midnight so as to kill two birds with one stone, for the next day was Aveling's birthday and this we proceeded to celebrate together.

We were glad to hear that you are all in the best of health. We, too, are getting on pretty well; Nimmi has had some bad colds and all of us have had attacks of rheumatism—not that it can be wholly avoided in this climate, but so long as it doesn't get too bad, no one complains about it.

All is also well with the Roshers, except that last Sunday Papa Percy caught a bad cold which very nearly developed into pneumonia. However he's improving though it will, of course, put paid to any Christmas jollifications so far as he is concerned and he won't be allowed to leave the house tomorrow. At the moment Pumps is without a maid; the last one upped and left a fortnight ago while she and the children were out, and when Pumps returned she found the house deserted and locked and, since she had no key, the company had to come round to me and await Percy's arrival; until then they were unable to get in. So here too, you see, all kinds of petits misères[2] keep cropping up.

There will be a big party here tomorrow evening if Pumps and her chil- dren are able to come; besides them, the Mottelers, Fischers and Bernsteins will be coming, as will the Avelings, of course, and then there'll be Schorlemmer, who has been here since yesterday. The number coming corresponds exactly to the number we can, at a pinch, find place for. Nimmi is busy cooking and baking—the plum puddings were made a week ago. It's an awful chore, with no purpose other than to bring on attacks of indigestion! But such is required by custom, and one has to conform. Nevertheless we'll make merry, even if we're sorry for it on Boxing Day.

Ever since the dock strike,[3] when she worked day and night on the committee—the real executive work was done by 3 women—Tussy has been deeply involved in the strike movement. While the dock strike was on, a small strike broke out in Silvertown[4] on the furthest outskirts of the East End, some 3,000 people. She was in the thick of it, organised a branch of the union for the girls and had to make her way there every morning—after 12 weeks, however, the strike ended in defeat. She is presently taking part in the gas strike in South London[5] and on Sunday morning spoke in Hyde Park, but it isn't so exhausting, of course, and gives her more free time. She and Aveling will be taking on the assistant editorship of a monthly[6] which has been acquired by E. B. Bax with effect from 1 January and that will be work enough in itself. Besides this she is secretary to two women's trade societies.

I also got a letter from Liebknecht yesterday[7] and would ask you to be good enough to thank him for it on my behalf. He will doubtless be with you tomorrow. We over here are anxiously awaiting the verdict at the Elberfeld trial.[8] I have long since lost all faith in the Prussian judi- ciary and only trust that Bebel won't be convicted along with others.

The people in Paris are, it seems, to have a daily paper again—but my hopes on this score have so often been dashed that I won't really believe it until I see it. Our French parliamentary group of eight men has not done at all badly up till now and has shown remarkable discipline when one considers that they have come together from all parts of France and are, to a great extent, strangers to one another.

And now, dear Mrs Liebknecht, I should like to send my best wishes for a merry Christmas and a thoroughly enjoyable New Year to you, Liebknecht, Theodor and all the other children, not forgetting Mrs Geiser. I heard from the Schlüters yesterday; they seem to be getting on pretty well.

With warm regards from Nimmi, the Roshers and myself

Yours very sincerely

F. Engels

  1. ↑ Theodor Liebknecht
  2. ↑ little calamities
  3. ↑ The strike of the London dockers from 12 August to 14 September 1889 was a major event in the chronicle of the British labour movement of the late 19th century. It involved thirty thousand dockers and over thirty thousand - largely unskilled - workers of other trades not affiliated with the trade unions. Displaying tenacity and organisation, the strikers succeeded in their demands for higher wages and better working conditions. The strike contributed to stronger proletarian solidarity (with about £50,000 being donated to the strike fund) and promoted working-class solidarity. It gave rise to the dockers' union and other trade union organisations uniting a large number of general and unskilled workmen; the 'new trade unions' emerged as a result. The text of the excerpts from this letter coincides with some passages from a series of articles by E. Bernstein in the newspaper Der Sozialdemokrat (No. 35, 31 August, No. 36, 7 September and No. 37, 14 September 1889) on the London dockers' strike; these articles were written on F. Engels' advice.
  4. ↑ In September-December 1889, there was a strike in Silvertown, a district in London's East End, by workers engaged in the production of underwater cables and rubber articles. The strikers, about three thousand strong, demanded higher pay rates (both hourly and piecework rates), higher pay for overtime and on holidays, as well as higher wages for women and children. Eleanor Marx-Aveling was actively involved in the organisation of this strike, during which she helped form the Women's Branch of the Gas Union. The strike, which continued for nearly three months, ended in failure: the Silvertown workers were supported by other unions, notably the Gas Workers and the Dockers unions.
  5. ↑ The Gas Workers Strike in South London took place in December 1889, February 1890. It was touched off by the failure of the company owners to honour the earlier agreement on an eight-hour working day, higher wages, and employment priority for unionised workers, members of the Gas Workers' and General Labourers' Union (see note 565). Among other things, the strikers demanded that three activists of the Union, dismissed from their job, be reinstated. The strike action did not succeed in the absence of vigorous support from other unions, the dockers' union in particular.
  6. ↑ Time
  7. ↑ An allusion to W. Liebknecht's letter of 20 December about the Elberfeld trial and his own difficult conditions.
  8. ↑ The Elberfeld trial of members of the German Social Democratic Party took place from 18 November to 30 December 1889. Brought to trial were 87 party members, among them A. Bebel (Reichstag deputy), E Harm, G. Schumacher, K. Grillenberger and E. Rollinghoff. The aim of this put-up trial - which the Social Democratic press described as a Monster trial and compared to the Cologne trial of the Communist League of 1853, staged by the Prussian police - was to prove the existence of a 'secret alliance' led by the Social Democratic faction of the Reichstag with a far-flung network throughout Germany. About 500 witnesses were summoned to testify. However, the government failed in its attempt to have all the defendants convicted. Forty-three, A. Bebel among them, were acquitted, while the others received prison terms ranging from 14 days to 6 months.