Letter to Karl Kautsky, February 1, 1892

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 1 February 1892


First published in Aus Frühzeit des Marxismus. Engels Briefwechsel mit Kautsky, Prague, 1931
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 49


ENGELS TO KARL KAUTSKY

IN STUTTGART

London, 1 February 1892

Dear Baron,

Herewith Labriola's letter to Tussy; I don't believe that you could pull off publishing it without creating bad blood amongst divers persons in Italy, and in the end it would be the German party that would have to suffer for it, in as much as the latter would be held responsible for taking sides with or against those people who felt affronted by the article. For in Italy things are in such a mess that all kinds of people are sure to feel affronted, whether rightly or wrongly, as indeed I have written and told Labriola. And those people would then be driven into the arms of the Possibilists,3 Hyndmanists, Fabians 87 and God knows what other dogs-in-the-manger.

I have written and told Labriola that I thought it better not to publish but would leave the matter entirely in your hands and that you two should sort it out between you. At all events, Tussy wants to have the letter back.

It recently occurred to me that an account of Luther based on his actions and writings is urgently called for. In the first place a rectification not only of the Protestant legend, but also of the blinkered Catholic attack upon it by Janssen (who is now doing so well in Germany) would certainly not come amiss just now, and there is a distinct need for a demonstration, from our standpoint, of the extent to which the Reformation was a bourgeois movement. Also of particular importance would be a parallel between Luther before and Luther after Karlstad, the Anabaptists and the Peasant War,[1] on the one hand and, on the other, the bourgeoisie before 1848 and after that year. Likewise a detailed demonstration of how this transformation came about in Luther's case. There's still something to be accomplished in this field, and without any need for undue study; also it's something for which you are particularly fitted as a result of your Thomas Morus.[2] And again you have in Stuckert[3] a library on Protestantism that is second to none. Surely that would be better than translating Rogers[4] whom any child could translate. Greetings from one family to the other.

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ Engels means the evolution of Martin Luther's views. In his early, radical period Luther formulated his teaching, in which the masses of the people saw a reflection of their revolutionary sentiments. In late 1521 the Reformation led by Luther began to distance itself from the plebeian and peasant elements, with Luther himself gravitating to the side of the German princes who supported the Reformation.
    This split in the Reformation camp was reflected, among other things, in Luther's critique, in December 1521, of the radical Church reforms carried out by the theologian Andreas Rudolf Karlstadt in Wittenberg, the centre of the Reformation.
    During the Peasant War in Germany (1524-26) Luther openly sided with the enemies of the insurgent peasants, his attitude reflecting that of the majority of German burghers, who had gone over to the side of the feudal lords for fear of revolutionary action by the masses.
  2. ↑ K. Kautsky, Thomas More und seine Utopie, Stuttgart, 1888.
  3. ↑ The Anti-Socialist Law, initiated by the Bismarck government and passed by the Reichstag on 21 October 1878, was directed against the socialist and working-class movement. The Social-Democratic Party of Germany was virtually driven into the underground. All party and mass working-class organisations and their press were banned, socialist literature was subject to confiscation, Social-Democrats made the object of reprisals. However, with the active help of Marx and Engels, the Social-Democratic Party succeeded in overcoming both the opportunist (Eduard Bernstein et al.) and 'ultra-Left' (J. Most et al.) tendencies within its ranks and was able, by combining underground activities with an efficient utilisation of legal means, to use the period of the operation of the law for considerably strengthening and expanding its influence among the masses. Prolonged in 1881, 1884, 1886 and 1888, the Anti-Socialist Law was repealed on 1 October 1890. For Engels' assessment of it see his article 'Bismarck and the German Working Men's Party' (present edition, Vol. 24, pp. 407-09).
  4. ↑ On 26 January 1892 Kautsky informed Engels that J.H.W. Dietz had requested him to translate James E. Thorold Rogers' Six Centuries of Work and Wages. The History of English Labour (London, 1886). In this connection Kautsky asked for Engels' opinion of the book.