Letter to Friedrich Adolph Sorge, September 2, 1891

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 2 September 1891


First published abridged in Briefe und Auszüge aus Briefen von Jvh. Phil. Becker, Jos. Dielzgen, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx u.A. an F.A.Sorge und Andere, Stuttgart, 1906 and in full in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXVIII, Moscow, 1940
Printed according to the original
Published in English in full for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 49


ENGELS TO FRIEDRICH ADOLPH SORGE

IN HOBOKEN

London, 2 September 1891

Dear Sorge,

I have shown your letter about Mrs Schlüter[1] to Louise Kautsky who may be relied on implicitly and is acquainted with the circumstances. She takes the view that Mrs Schlüter has simply fired a warning shot and that she'll come back to him all right, providing Schlüter refuses to be intimidated. Nor does she believe that a third party would be required to nudge her into a decision of this kind. She did the same thing several times in Zurich — or something like it. Admittedly Schlüter's repeated infidelities have given her cause to rebel, but she regularly forgives him and the only people to suffer are those who take her wrath and her fulminations seriously. Louise is the last person to side with Schlüter in this affair or even excuse him — she and all of us know exactly what to expect of him in this respect — his cock regularly runs away with him. But, though his wife invariably threatens to leave him, she nevertheless falls into his arms again when it comes to the point — and thus there's nothing left for a third party to do.

The Bernsteins return from Eastbourne today. Sanial and Mac Vey are here and will be calling on me tomorrow. I was in Ryde[2] for a month staying with Pumps and accompanied by Schorlemmer who, however, is now back in Manchester. Every time he has a cold he goes extremely deaf and is no good for anything; otherwise there's nothing wrong with him. I am keeping well but shall have to get out and about a bit more if I am to bring myself fully up to the mark again. Adler from Vienna and also Bebel were here for 3 days, very cheerful and satisfied with the Congress.[3]

I have sent you a pile of documents as well as the Weekly Dispatch containing the interview Mother Crawford had with Liebknecht in Paris.[4] That interview will cause a rumpus; at any rate Liebknecht talked a great deal of nonsense. From all I hear he has grown quite thin! He looks rotten and is apparently at loggerheads with everyone; in Brussels he kept himself quite apart from the Germans and Austrians. Again, the best of our chaps are amazed at the disagreement that exists between him and the vast majority of the party on virtually every point. His editing of the Vorwärts has been quite deplorable, he has done nothing himself, has got Geiser to write leading articles for it, and has propounded the most peculiar views, in short there's the making of a catastrophe here and it may come all the sooner as a result of that interview.

The old dispute with the Broussists,[5] etc., has fizzled out; the Broussists were not represented at all in Brussels, nor did Hyndman dare go, while the people he did send squabbled and made asses of themselves; he now seeks a prop in Nieuwenhuis who has gone off his head, but that won't get him anywhere. In matters of principle as of tactics the Marxists have been victorious all along the line; the intriguing will still go on behind the scenes and their attacks on me, the Avelings, etc., in Justice will, I trust, continue as before, but there is no longer any public opposition to us as a whole.

The Volks-Tribune's account of the Congress is the most detailed. I have already read 6 proof-sheets of the new edition of the Origin of the Family, etc.[6] Besides the new introduction, there will be many additions in Chapter 2[7] ('Family') and also a few later on.

The Brussels Congress has again ratified the Hague resolutions in that it too has thrown out the anarchists. That ought to be emphasised in the press over there. On the other hand it has left the door wide open to the English TRADES UNIONS and no doubt the better ones among them will walk in through it before long. These are the two most important resolutions. It's delicious that the English should now be the most reactionary of all, and that for their sake things have to be toned down! But we can afford to do so, for it is now merely a question of months, or at most a year or two, before they come round. True, the next TRADES UNIONS Congress will try to overturn the LEGAL EIGHT HOURS resolution passed at Liverpool but even if this succeeds — with the help of the textile workers who swear by 10 hours — it will only add more fuel to the flames. Things are moving— there's nothing more for us to do.

Kind regards to your wife.[8]

Your

F.E.

  1. ↑ Anna Schlüter
  2. ↑ In the summer and autumn of 1891 Engels repeatedly interrupted his work and left London owing to overstrain. From 26 June to 24 August (with intervals) he rested with Carl Schorlemmer and George Julian Harney in Ryde (Isle of Wight) at the home of Mary Ellen Rosher (Pumps), the niece of his wife, and roughly between 8 and 23 September he toured Ireland and Scotland with Mary Ellen Rosher and Louise Kautsky.
  3. ↑ The International Socialist Workers' Congress met in Brussels, 16-22 August 1891. The 337 delegates represented the socialist parties and organisations and numerous trades unions in many European countries and the USA. By a majority vote the congress debarred the anarchists from taking part in its deliberations. Representatives of British trades unions attended. The American delegates included trades unionists, as well as socialists. The congress discussed labour legislation, strike action and boycott, militarism and the celebration of May Day. The resolution on the first question called on workers the world over to join forces for the fight against capitalist rule and, where workers possessed political rights, to use these to free themselves from wage slavery. The resolution on strikes and boycott recommended the workers to make use of these methods of struggle and stressed that trades unions were absolutely essential to the workers. The attitude of the working class to militarism was in the centre of the congress deliberations. Wilhelm Liebknecht's and Edouard Vaillant's reports on this issue and the draft resolution tabled by Liebknecht pointed out that militarism was an inevitable product of the capitalist system, that socialist society alone could put an end to it and bring about international peace and that the socialists were the true party of peace. The leader of the Dutch Social-Democrats, Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis, who took a semi-anarchist stand, tabled an alternative resolution, under which socialists in all countries should, in the event of war, call on their respective people to proclaim a general strike. The vast majority of the delegates voted for the resolution tabled by Liebknecht. Referring to the resolutions of the Brussels Congress, Engels pointed out that 'in matters of principle as of tactics the Marxists have been victorious all along the line' (Engels to F.A. Sorge, 2 September 1891).
  4. ↑ Subsequently Engels learnt, from a letter from Laura Lafargue written on 3 September 1891, that the so-called Liebknecht interview published in the radical Weekly Dispatch of 30 August 1891 was a concoction by the paper's Paris correspondent, Emily Crawford. Liebknecht disavowed the interview, declaring in Vorwärts, No. 206, 4 September 1891, that he had not met any correspondents or granted any interviews during his latest visit to Paris.
  5. ↑ 'Internationaler sozialistischer Arbeiter Kongreß', Berliner Volks-Tribüne, supplements, Nos. 34, 35; 22 and 29 August 1891.
  6. ↑ the fourth German edition. See also this volume, pp. 199, 201, 204, 215 16.
  7. ↑ Chapter 3 in the manuscript
  8. ↑ Katharina Sorge