Letter to Karl Kautsky, December 27, 1891

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 27 December 1891


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


ENGELS TO KARL KAUTSKY

IN STUTTGART

London, 27 December 1891

Dear Baron,

A line or two in haste. I have fallen very far behind with everything as a result of a five-day fog which (abetted by tippling) has again affected my eyes somewhat and, on top of that, the following extras:

1. Proof correction of the English CONDITION OF THE WORKING-CLASS[1] of which so far 6 sheets remain unread.

2. Revision of Aveling's translation of Entwicklung des Sozialismus[2] which has got to be done properly; since I live in the place of publication I shall ineluctably be held responsible for every slip.

3. The colossal amount of correspondence, swollen by the festive season.

Not to mention a working day greatly curtailed by having to spare my eyes.

You will understand that, since work on Volume III[3] must be resumed as soon as possible and thereafter continued without interruption until finished, I shall only be able to run through your ms.[4] very cursorily, but what can be done I shall gladly do.

The new things about exchange value and value in the third edition of Capital[5] derive from handwritten addenda of Marx's, of which unfortunately there are very few, while such as there are were elaborated in the very difficult circumstances of illness. Marx spent a long time searching for the mot juste and made a lot of corrections.

So far as Fireman[6] is concerned, it is certainly quite plausible that, if 1/2 = 1/2 = 1/3 = 1/4 = 1/5, etc., occurs in practice, then one fraction or another should correspond to the proportion whereby profit and surplus value coincide (crudely speaking, for it is also subject to all manner of reservations). However, the chap is nevertheless to be commended for having lighted on this idea. If he is agreeable, please send me his paper. It will, indeed, have to remain closeted in my desk until such time as I write the preface to Volume III,[7] at which point, provided it is really worth the trouble, I shall be able to accord it a place alongside other attempted solutions. I can do no more and with that Schmidt, too, was content. If he doesn't like it, let him publish his paper and see what happens.

That poor R. Meyer should be reduced to taking refuge with us is almost tragic. POOR DEVIL, in addition to bad luck and diabetes, he has found out just what his conservative friends, wherever they may be, are like.

Having boxed Gilles' ears, Aveling is in even less of a position to reply to his flysheets. Gilles doesn't of course publish that kind of filth in the press over here, and no one could expect Aveling to sue him for LIBEL and spend several hundred pounds on bringing a law-suit only to see Gilles vanish into thin air on the eve of the proceedings. Labouchère, when accused of LIBEL, was asked by defending counsel: 'HAVE YOU EVER BROUGHT AN ACTION FOR LIBEL?' 'No,' came the reply, 'I NEVER WAS SUCH A FOOL.' Whereat judge and lawyers alike pronounced him one of the leading authorities ON THE LAW OF LIBEL.

The Berliners, or Liebknecht at any rate, have made fools of us over the compositors' strike. Mr Döblin, who came over here on behalf of the compositors, bearing letters of introduction from Liebknecht to everyone you can think of save Ede and myself, has not only ignored the German party over here, but has treated it de haut en bas[8] and denigrated it, at any rate in a negative sense. At Burns' he said the party had done nothing whatever for them, whereas it had in fact donated 20,000 marks. And when Sanders who was there asked him whether the entire party press hadn't backed them up, he was forced to admit that it had. And then Liebknecht writes asking me to do everything I can for the compositors, but omitting to tell me what he and the party have done and not so much as mentioning the fact that one of the chaps' representatives is over here. In the circumstances I could not, of course, do anything — after all, it was only through the English press that I learnt what was afoot and I wasn't a fool as to impose myself on a man who had carefully shunned the party and dealt with the TRADES COUNCIL direct. This, as you can imagine, was grist to the Hyndman-Gilles mill—'Now you can see,' they say, 'that there's nothing whatever behind the much vaunted German party. Even the workers don't want to have anything to do with it and say it's no good.' And only this week we see the fruits thereof in the Justice in which Gilles publicly sides with the Independents.[9] A piece of good luck, as it happens, for it means that Hyndman will compromise himself and put his foot in it just as he did of yore with Brousse & Co.

The German bosses will be fools if they don't now introduce linotype machines which are increasingly being used by all the big newspapers both here and in New York.

Burns was horrified to learn that the compositors are given 21 M a week strike pay whereas here it's never more than 10 or 15sh. at the outside.

When the compositors sent someone over here, our Berlin chaps should either have insisted that he act in concert with Ede, the German party's representative here, or else have refused to co-operate. The party is no longer under any compulsion to throw itself at the heads of these aristocrats of the working class.

Last Sunday[10] Ede was burgled and lost £10, as you may already have heard. His nerves are in a very bad state and he needs rest and fresh air.

Thanks for your good wishes. Our entire household, including Tidlums, wish you and your wife[11] and your son[12] the best of health and happiness in the coming year. Tidlums has grown into a large, majestic tomcat, the sultan of all the female cats in Regent's Park Road and the terror of all competitors and rivals.

Your

F. Engels

  1. ↑ F. Engels, The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844.
  2. ↑ F. Engels, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific.
  3. ↑ of Capital
  4. ↑ This refers to Kautsky's brochure, Das Erfurter Programm in seinem grundsätzlichen Theil erläutert, published in Stuttgart in 1892.
  5. ↑ K. Marx, Das Kapital. Kritik der politischen Oekonomie. Erster Band. Buch I: Der Produktionsprocess des Kapitals. Dritte vermehrte Auflage, Hamburg, 1883.
  6. ↑ Peter Fireman had sent Kautsky the manuscript of his article 'Kritik der Marx'schen Werttheorie'. In his letter of 7 December 1891 Kautsky informed Engels of its contents. The article was published in Jahrbücher der Nationalökonomie und Statistik, Dritte Folge, 3. Bd., 1892. Engels analysed it in the Preface to Vol. III of Capital (see present edition, Vol. 37).
  7. ↑ In the ms: of the third edition
  8. ↑ with contempt
  9. ↑ F. Gilles, 'The Independent Socialists in Germany', Justice, No. 415, 26 December 1891.
    On 20 October 1891 Karl Wilderberger and Wilhelm Werner—leaders of the Jungen expelled from the party at the Erfurt Congress (see Note 301) — called a meeting in Berlin. Since the Berlin party leaders refusing to co-operate with this opposition group were at the congress, the two considered this an opportune moment for an attempt to win the support of the Berlin party organisation and have it condemn the decision of the congress. When news of their activities reached Erfurt (a telegram had been sent from Berlin and read out at the congress), the Berlin delegates sent a letter to Berlin protesting against the decisions of the congress being discussed before its conclusion. The letter, signed by Theodor Metzner, was published under the heading 'An die Parteigenossen Berlins!' in Vorwärts, No. 246, 21 October 1891.
    On 8 November the Berlin opposition called another meeting at which it constituted itself the Union of Independent Socialists (1891-94). Its organ was Der Sozialist, which appeared from 1891 to 1899. In the summer of 1893 the newspaper was taken over by the anarchists.
  10. ↑ 20 December
  11. ↑ Luise Kautsky, née Ronsperger
  12. ↑ Felix Kautsky