Letter to Karl Kautsky, September 18, 1890

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 18 September 1890


First published in Aus der Frühzeit des Marxismus. Engels Briefwechsel mit Kautsky, Prague, 1935
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 49


ENGELS TO KARL KAUTSKY

IN STUTTGART

London, 18 September 1890

Dear Kautsky,

I have had your letters of 22 August and 8 September. I should really have answered the first from Folkestone where I spent a month. But I overlooked the bit about your leaving for Stuttgart[1] on 25 August and so didn't know where to write to.

The little rumpus among the students soon collapsed. C. Schmidt was able to keep out of it and Bebel writes to say he is ALL RIGHT. Apart from that I know no more about the silly business than you do.

The editor in you was certainly well to the fore when you tried to involve me in your critique of the programme.[2] But you know yourself that I have no time. Nicego[3] !

In view of the many plans that are of necessity being made in Germany these days, only to be replaced by others, no purpose would be served by my seeking to comment on the plans you told me about in your last other than to say that I know of nobody here whom I could recommend for the Neue Zeit and the Schwäbische Tagwacht. Schmidt would be unlikely to want to leave Berlin. Cannot Bebel get hold of anyone for you?

A telling blow has been struck in Liverpool.[4] And by a quirk of history the noble Brentano happened to be present on the platform to witness the collapse of his contention,[5] which he had been disseminating with such tenacity and passion, that the English TRADES UNIONS were the best defence against socialism!

The struggle is now in full swing. An eight hours' legal working day—that was the critical turning point and with its acceptance came the collapse of the empire of the old, conservative labour movement that was based on capitalist relations of production. The socialisation of land, mines and transport was universally conceded, while that of the other means of production had the support of a large minority. In short, things are now moving and the events between 1 and 4 May have greatly contributed to this. The 4th of May was the pronunziamento,[6] the Liverpool congress the first skirmish.

The Belgians have taken advantage of the congress to invite the English to an international congress in Belgium, a most perfidious manoeuvre. In Liverpool the delegates from the new unions, which of late have been making impassioned calls for international action, accepted with alacrity. Since the Belgians have hitherto been able to do nothing off their own bat save issue an invitation to the Possibilist congress in Belgium, the above manoeuvre is intended to force our hand. This time the English are seriously committed, thanks to the idiotic nature of our resolutions in Paris concerning the place and the convocation of the next congress,[7] which condemn us to inactivity while the others act.

Something has got to be done about it. Having discussed the matter with the others over here, I wrote to France[8] and as soon as there is anything definite in the wind, you will doubtless hear from Ede or me. For the present, absolute discretion is called for, as well as a cautious approach to the Belgians' action (in the meantime it would be best simply to record it in the press), lest any unnecessary obstacles should arise. Will you be going to Halle on 12 October?

There'll be an article by me[9] in the final No. of the Sozialdemokrat which will cause a good deal of annoyance over there. But I can't pitch into the literary gang without also taking a sideswipe at the philistine element in our party, which provided the former with a pretext for a row. Indirectly, of course—a valedictory number is not the place for attacks. For that reason I was glad that the literati forced me to square accounts with them beforehand.[10]

I continue to get good news from Sam Moore in Africa. Every 6 or 8 weeks he goes down with fever for 2 or 3 days, but the attacks are very mild and leave no after-effects.

Schorlemmer is back here, having arrived from Manchester yesterday evening. Since his return from the Norwegian trip he has been suffering from deafness and buzzing in the ears—a stubborn aural catarrh; though it is improving somewhat, it has undone the good effects of his 6 weeks' holiday.

According to the English, young William[11] went to Norway simply because he could play at sailors there without getting seasick. Indeed you can sail from Skudenes in the south right up to North Cape without ever leaving perfectly calm water, and only in 2 or 3 places are you likely to suffer 2 or 3 hours of seasickness. And as for the fjords! They're so calm that the smallest lake in the Alps is a storm-tossed ocean by comparison. A landlubber of an admiral can feel as safe there as on a drive from Charlottenburg[12] to Potsdam. It so happened that the young man sneaked past us in a torpedo boat while entering the Sunelv Fjord from the Geiranger Fjord. When we landed in Molde, Schorlemmer and I climbed the Moldehaj, a vantage point approximately 1,300 feet above sea level (the same as the one that appears in Ibsen's Fruen fra Havet (The Lady from the Sea) which is set in Molde). At the top we found half a dozen young lieutenants from the fleet below, dressed in civilian clothes. I thought I was back in Potsdam. The same old haw-haw voices of the Prussian guards,[13] the same old ensigns' jokes, the same old subalterns' swagger. By contrast we later ran into a bunch of engineers who seemed quite nice, decent fellows. And the sailors, who were to be seen all over the place, really were splendid lads. But as for the admirals—what obesity!

Frederick Engels

  1. ↑ Stuttgart
  2. ↑ In his letter to Engels of 8 September 1890 Karl Kautsky said he intended, after the Halle party congress (see Note 12), to publish in Neue Zeit a series of articles criticising the party programme adopted at the Gotha congress in 1875. The prospective authors included Engels, Bebel, Auer, Bernstein and others.
  3. ↑ Absolutely none (Russ.)
  4. ↑ The Congress of the British Trades Unions in Liverpool met from 1 to 6 September 1890. It was attended by 460 delegates representing more than 1.4 million organised workers. A considerable number of delegates represented new trades unions, in which a certain influence was wielded by the British socialists. Despite resistance from the leaders of the old trades unions the congress adopted a resolution urging the legal introduction of the eight-hour working day and recognised as desirable the participation of trades unions in international workers' associations. It also decided to send delegates to the International Socialist Workers' Congress which was due to meet in Brussels (see Note 135).
  5. ↑ An allusion to L. Brentano's Die Arbeitergilden der Gegenwart.
  6. ↑ See Engels' letters to August Bebel of 9 May and to Laura Lafargue of 10 May 1890 (present edition, Vol. 48).
  7. ↑ In the autumn of 1890 the General Council of the Belgian Workers' Party, acting on a mandate from the Possibilist congress (see Note 53), sent out invitations for an international workers' congress to be held in Brussels in 1891. Since the executive committee of Swiss socialists set up on the instructions of the 1889 Paris International Socialist Workers' Congress (see Note 51) for the purpose of convoking another congress had failed to take any action until September 1890, the danger arose of two international congresses being held simultaneously in 1891.
  8. ↑ See previous letter.
  9. ↑ 'Farewell Letter to the Readers of the Sozialdemokrat'
  10. ↑ 'Reply to the Editors of the Sächsische Arbeiter-Zeitung'
  11. ↑ William II
  12. ↑ a suburb of Berlin
  13. ↑ In the original: janz die alle Jardesprache (Berlin dialect).