ENGELS TO KARL KAUTSKY
IN STUTTGART
London, 25 October 1891
Dear K.K.,
My congratulations on the acceptance of your draft programme at Erfurt and on the deletion of 'one reactionary mass'.[1] I have not yet had time to compare your draft in detail with the programme as finally accepted.
I have proposed to Dietz that the fee for the 2nd edition of The Poverty of Philosophy be divided equally between all 5 concerned — 240 M for the 3 heirs and 160 M for the 2 translators, assuming 400 M to be the total, or pro rata if not. I hope you will agree to this so that we can get the business settled once and for all. The heirs are not entitled to the whole fee for this edition.
I have also asked Dietz to hand you on my behalf a copy of the new edition[2] of the Origin, etc., a bound copy, that is.
Everything went off really splendidly at Erfurt.[3] Auer's and Fischer's speeches in particular caused us a great deal of merriment. But those two thoroughly deserved a chance to vent their wrath on the 'opposition'. Pit a Bavarian against a Berliner and there'll be damned little left of the Berliner at the finish. But the behaviour of these gentry, like that of Vollmar, shows how greatly that little crew had overestimated their own power. Retreats such as these are quite unheard of. But it could not fail to make an impact abroad, and over here it has meant a resounding defeat for Hyndman who first took Gilles publicly under his wing and obviously believed his boasts about the collapse of the German party — he would now like to disassociate himself from the scoundrel if he could. Incidentally, Gilles has been elevated in Figaro to the status of great man!
You may, if you wish, put an announcement in the Neue Zeit to the effect that the following will be coming out in Swan Sonnenschein's & Co.'s SOCIAL SERIES: 1. my Condition of the Working-Class[4] in Wischneweizky's translation, 2. my Entwicklung des Sozialismus[5] translated by Aveling, 3. Ede's introduction to Lassalle translated by Tussy.[6]
Louise has suggested to me that it might be in the interest of the Neue Zeit to send a copy regularly to the editor of The Review of Reviews, W. T. Stead, Mowbray House, Norfolk Street, Strand, London, W. C. The thing has a sale of over 100,000 copies and prints extracts from reviews from all over the world together with the contents (titles of articles) of all of them, no less than 23 of these are from Germany, including the Deutsche Revue, Ueber Land und Meer, Gartenlaube, Nord und Süd, Preußische Jahrbücher, etc., etc. From the Economic Journal our draft programme's demands. Since Stead is a thoroughly mad sort of chap, albeit a brilliant businessman, it may well be of benefit to us and, on occasion, prove enormously effective if you were to send him copies — for whenever there's a chance of creating a sensation, he ruthlessly seizes on it, irrespective of the source. The thing would also be enormously useful to you people, costs only 6d. a month and contains a tremendous amount. It would save your reading any other English revue.
Now I must go out for a spot o' fresh air; the Avelings and Edes[7] will be arriving for luncheon shortly.
Your
F.E.
Monday, 26 October
I am sending you a copy of The Review of Reviews in which Stead butters up Mother Besant with the intention of instructing her in Christianity.[8] He obviously wants to win fame as the man who led her back to Jesus. There's one way to do that. For Mother Besant invariably shares the religion of the man who downs her.— Ede and Tussy agree to my proposal about the distribution of the fee.
Lafargue obtained 5,005 votes in Lille, the two Opportunists 4,174 together and the Radical, Roche, 2,272; the latter stepped down in favour of Lafargue. Hence, if an Opportunist is to get in, 3,000 abstaining Monarchists will have to support him in the second ballot. A most satisfactory position, therefore.[9]
- ↑ See this volume, pp. 261-62.
- ↑ the fourth German edition
- ↑ The Erfurt Congress of the Social-Democratic Party of Germany met from 14 to 21 October 1891. It was attended by 258 delegates.
The congress was preceded by a sharp ideological struggle between the party's revolutionary hard core and the Right- and Left-wing opportunists, who had stepped up their activities and created the atmosphere of a party crisis in German Social-Democracy.
There had been sharp debates at meetings and in the press on the party's programme and tactics, set off by the public pronouncements of Georg von Vollmar, leader of the Bavarian Social-Democrats, who sought to impose an opportunist reformist tactics and lead the party away from class proletarian positions (see Note 270).
Vollmar's campaign provided a pretext for fresh attacks on the party (summer and autumn 1891) by the Jungen, a petty-bourgeois semi-anarchist opposition group within German Social-Democracy formed in 1890. Their stronghold being the Social-Democratic organisation of Berlin, they were also known as the Berlin opposition. The group's specific character was determined by students and young literati claiming the role of the party's theoreticians and leaders. Foremost among them were Paul Ernst, Hans Müller, Paul Kampffmeyer, Bruno Wille, Karl Wilderberger and Wilhelm Werner. The Jungen ignored the fact that the repeal of the Anti-Socialist Law had changed the conditions the party was operating in. They denied the need to employ legal forms of struggle, opposed Social-Democracy's participation in parliamentary elections and use of the parliamentary platform and demagogically accused the party and its Executive of protecting the interests of the petty bourgeoisie, of opportunism and of violating party democracy. The leaders of the Berlin opposition levelled especially fierce attacks at the party's leaders— Bebel and Liebknecht. The sectarian anarchist activities of the Jungen held a grave danger to the party's unity. The paramount task facing the Erfurt Congress was to overcome the crisis in the party and consolidate its ranks.
The congress discussed the report of the party Executive, the activities of Social-Democratic deputies in the Reichstag, the party's tactics, the draft of its new programme, and various organisational questions.
The ideological struggle continued at the congress too, especially over party tactics. A report on this issue was presented by Bebel. He — in his report and speeches — as well as other speakers (above all Singer, Liebknecht and Fischer) gave a resolute rebuff both to the Left and to the Right opportunist elements. By a majority vote the congress endorsed Bebel's draft resolution on tactics. It pointed out that the main objective of the working-class movement was the conquest of political power by the proletariat and that this end would be attained not through a chance concatenation of circumstances but through persevering work with the masses and skillful employment of every form and method of proletarian class struggle. The resolution emphasised that the German Social-Democratic Party was a fighting party employing the traditional revolutionary tactics. Vollmar and his supporters, finding themselves in isolation, were forced to retreat. The congress expelled two leaders of the Jungen — Werner and Wilderberger — from the party for their splitting activities and slander; a number of other Jungen leaders announced their resignation from the party and walked out of the congress.
The main achievement of the congress was the adoption of a new programme for German Social-Democracy. A report on it was presented by Liebknecht.
The Erfurt Programme being essentially Marxist, was an important step forward compared with the Gotha Programme. The Lassallean reformist dogmas had been dropped. The new programme scientifically substantiated the inevitability of the collapse of capitalism and its replacement with socialism, and pointed out that, in order to be able to restructure society along socialist lines, the proletariat must win political power.
At the same time, the programme had serious shortcomings, the principal one being its failure to state that the dictatorship of the proletariat was the instrument of the socialist transformation of society. Also missing were propositions concerning the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of a democratic republic, the remoulding of Germany's political system and other important matters. In this respect, the criticisms made by Engels in A Critique of the Draft Social-Democratic Programme of 1891 (see present edition, Vol. 27, pp. 217-34) also apply to the version of the programme adopted in Erfurt.
The resolutions of the Erfurt congress showed that Marxism had firmly taken root in Germany's working-class movement.
- ↑ The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844
- ↑ Socialism: Utopian and Scientific
- ↑ An announcement on the forthcoming publication of Engels' works here mentioned appeared in Die Neue Zeit, 10. Jg., 1891/92, 2. Bd., Nr. 9, S. 283.
An English edition of Bernstein's preface to the works of Lassalle (see Note 178) appeared in Eleanor Marx-Aveling's translation in 1893 under the title 'Ferdinand Lassalle as a Social Reformer'.
- ↑ Eduard and Regina Bernstein
- ↑ 'Character Sketch: Mrs Annie Besant: — Portraits of the Leading Officials of the Theosophical Society', The Review of Reviews, Vol. IV, No. 22, October 1891.
- ↑ In the second round of the elections to the Chamber of Deputies in Lille, on 8 November 1891, Paul Lafargue defeated the government-backed candidate, Lucien-Hector Depassi, by 6,470 votes against 5,175. In view of Lafargue's election to the Chamber, the government was forced to release him from prison on 9 November.