Letter to Karl Kautsky, April 7, 1891

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 7 April 1891


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


ENGELS TO KARL KAUTSKY

IN STUTTGART

London, 7 April 1891

Dear Kautsky,

Your letter has just arrived. Pity you weren't able to induce Schmidt2 ' 4 to join you there; he'd have been just the man for you. Meissner writes to say that he has only now sent off the review copies of the 4th edition[1] along with the Anti-Brentanob 96 and that both have gone to the Neue Zeit. So you can begin forthwith; at all events you should have both of them before your article is printed.[2] If not, write to O. Meissner, citing me and this communication.

An Alsatian, Henri Rave, presently in jug, who translated Bebel's La Femme[3] and is now translating my Origin[4] under Laura Lafargue's supervision, wants to know whether your Thomas Morus[5] is worth translating. I have recommended the book to him but at the same time written to say that I would ask you to send him a copy so he can make up his own mind about it. Address: H. Rave, détenu à la prison, Poitiers (Vienne, France).

Just now the French are fully occupied with their own affairs, namely May Day and the attendant negotiations with the Possibilists of both Allemanist[6] and Broussist3 persuasion — in which our own chaps are acting as arbitrators!! — etc., and also with their Socialiste, which explains why Paul Lafargue has done no work for the Neue Zeit. 2 ' 6 Odd that the French should be adopting exactly the same policy towards the crumbling ranks of the Possibilists as that recommended by Marx in his accompanying letter of 1875 for adoption towards the Lassalleans.[7] And, indeed, they have done so successfully up till now — a success that will doubtless be sealed by the Brussels Congress. 135

Many regards.

Your

F.E.

  1. ↑ of the first volume of Capital
  2. ↑ Engels means the article by Karl Kautsky and Wilhelm Eichhoff, 'Wie Brentano Marx vernichtet', published in Die Neue Zeit, 9. Jg., 1890/91, 2. Bd., Nr. 32. It was a review of the fourth German edition of Volume I of Capital and of Engels' work In the Case of Brentano Versus Marx (see present edition, Vol. 27).
  3. ↑ A. Bebel, Die Frau in der Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft and La Femme dans le passé, le présent et l'avenir. Traduction française par Henri Rave. Paris, 1891.
  4. ↑ L'Origine de la famille, de la propriété privée et de l'état. Traduction française par Henri Rave. Paris, 1893.
  5. ↑ K. Kautsky, Thomas More und seine Utopie.
  6. ↑ Engels means the signs of a forthcoming dissociation within the Possibilist Workers' Party (see Note 3). At their congress in Châtellerault, 9 to 15 October 1890, the Possibilists split into two groups — the Broussists and the Allemanists. The latter formed an organisation of their own, the Socialist Revolutionary Workers' Party. The Allemanists retained the Possibilists' ideological and tactical principles but, in contrast to them, attached great importance to propaganda within the trades unions, which they regarded as the workers' principal form of organisation. The Allemanists' ultimate weapon was the call for a general strike. Like the Possibilists, they denied the need for a united, centralised party and advocated autonomy and the struggle to win seats on the municipal councils.
  7. ↑ This refers to the merger of two trends in the German working-class movement — the Social-Democratic Workers' Party (the Eisenach group), led by August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht, and the Lassallean General Association of German Workers, led by Wilhelm Hasselmann, Wilhelm Hasenclever and others — which took place at a congress in Gotha, 22-27 May 1875. The party thus formed adopted the name of Socialist Workers' Party of Germany. Thus the split within the German working class was overcome. However, the draft programme of the united party (formulated basically by Wilhelm Liebknecht, whose main concern was reconciliation) contained serious mistakes and fundamental concessions to the Lassalleans. Marx, in his Critique of the Gotha Programme (see present edition, Vol. 24, pp. 75-99) and in his letter to Wilhelm Bracke of 5 May 1875 (ibid., Vol. 45, pp. 69-73) and Engels, in his letter to Bebel of 18-28 March 1875 (ibid., Vol. 45, pp. 60-66), approved the establishment of a united socialist party in Germany, but warned the Eisenach leaders against precipitate action and ideological compromises with the Lassalleans. They criticised the erroneous propositions in the draft programme, but the congress adopted it, with only minor amendments.