Letter to August Bebel, April 16, 1892

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 16 April 1892


First published in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXIX, Moscow 1946
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 49


ENGELS TO AUGUST BEBEL

IN ST GALLEN

London, 16 April 1892

Dear August,

I must say it was a damnable disappointment when your telegram arrived. Well, illness is something that can't be helped, and I only hope you had so far recovered as to manage the journey all right and that you are now enjoying the benefits of the mountain air. On the other hand you're now duty-bound to bring Mrs Julie[1] with you in May — something towards which I have done my bit in the enclosed note which I beg you to endorse in the strongest terms.

As regards the Parisians, two men turned up here before your letter had arrived. I arranged for them to come again the next day, Wednesday,[2] [3] for I felt sure your letter would have arrived by then. When it came, I went to see Julius[4] and Louise went to see one of the men — somewhere at the back of beyond — but found no one and left a written message. At last, on Thursday evening, one of them turned up (the other having already departed on Wednesday morning), told me that, because of certain circumstances, the matter had been postponed, and said they hoped to manage without the assistance of you people to whom they would have recourse only in case of extreme need. We'll discuss it further when you come over. It isn't urgent.[5]

Why, on leaving St Gallen, you should first want to return to the imperial sand box,[6] we cannot understand. Once there, you'll resume your drudgery, day after day will go by and your health will begin to suffer again, whereupon the doctor will come and you'll be unceremoniously bundled off to Karlsbad[7] after all. I'm a passionate advocate of Karlsbad — for other people that is, not for myself—because I saw how it put Marx to rights again[8] ; had he been able to take advantage of it eight years earlier, he might still be alive today. It is wonderfully effective for all disorders of the stomach and liver and I would strongly advise you to take these capital waters (capital because it yields physiological surplus value for you and economic surplus value for the landlords of Karlsbad) for 4 or 6 weeks in June, when Dr Fleckles, Marx's and Tussy's friend — she will tell you about him — will provide what other entertainment you need; he is one of the wittiest men in Europe.

I should have written to you before, but in order to avoid odious slander, I have had to write a most odious foreword.[9] It's a typical English affair. Aveling translates my Entwicklung des Sozialismus for a SOCIAL SERIES of which each volume costs 2.50 marks. I say it's a swindle to sell the little thing at that price. No, says Aveling; the chap — the publisher — is quite aware of what he's doing — one booklet is too fat, the other too slim, and it ultimately averages out (particularly for anyone who happens to find nothing of interest except in the slim volumes). Moreover, the publisher, having seen the German original, knows all about it. Well and good. The thing's completed and, by dint of tremendous leading of type, they have managed to make some 117 pages of it. Now the publisher — he's called Sonnenschein[10] but at times seems unable to see, however bright the sunshine may be — discovers that it's insufficient after all and asks me to write a good, long foreword. Well, it's not as straightforward as all that. For the first time I have got, as it were, to put myself on show before the heddicated[11] British public, and it requires some thought. Anyway, what emerged was a long dissertation about this, that and t'other, through which ran a consistent leitmotif— scathing mockery of the British bourgeoisie. I look forward to seeing what the British philistine will have to say about it. I shall let the Neue Zeit have it in German and hope it will amuse you all.

Well, to avoid missing the post, Louise and I would ask you to give our regards to Frieda[12] and Simon — perhaps they too will come to London some time? — while remaining

Yours, etc., or not etc., as the case may be,

F.E.

  1. ↑ Julie Bebel
  2. ↑ 13 April
  3. ↑ In late March 1890 the Jungen, a group of Berlin Social-Democrats, including Max Schippel, published an appeal under the title 'Was soll am 1. Mai geschehen?', urging the workers to hold a strike on the 1st of May. The appeal reflected the specific attitude of the Jungen, crystallised in 1890, as a petty-bourgeois semi-anarchist opposition group within the German Social-Democracy. The hard core of the group was made up of students and young literati (hence the group's name) who claimed the role of the party's theoreticians and leaders. Paul Ernst, Paul Kampffmeyer, Hans Müller, Bruno Wille and others were the group's ideologues. The Jungen ignored the change in the conditions for the party's activity after the repeal of the Anti-Socialist Law. They denied the need for using legal forms of struggle, opposed participation in parliamentary elections and the use of the parliamentary platform by the Social-Democrats and demagogically accused the party and its Executive of opportunism, violation of party democracy and promotion of the interests of the petty bourgeoisie. In October 1891 the Erfurt Congress expelled some of the opposition leaders from the party.
    A reply to the above-mentioned appeal of the Jungen was given on the party's behalf by the Social-Democratic parliamentary group in a statement entitled, 'An die Arbeiter und Arbeiterinnen Deutschlands!' (adopted in Halle on 13 April 1890).
  4. ↑ Motteler
  5. ↑ This refers to a plan for the merger of two groups of Russian revolutionary émigrés— the Emancipation of Labour Group and the Circle of People's Will Veterans. The plan had the support of the German Social-Democratic Party, which was willing to provide the necessary funds. The talks between the two groups were to take place in London in the spring of 1892, with Frederick Engels, August Bebel and Georgi Plekhanov participating. The plan failed to materialise.
  6. ↑ Berlin
  7. ↑ Karlovy Vary
  8. ↑ Marx went for treatment to the Karlsbad (now Karlovy Vary) spa in August-September 1874, August-September 1875 and August-September 1876.
  9. ↑ An untranslatable pun, Nachrede—slander and Vorrede—foreword.
  10. ↑ Sunshine
  11. ↑ In the original: jebildeten (Berlin dialect).
  12. ↑ Bebel's daughter, married to Ferdinand B. Simon.