| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 19 May 1892 |
ENGELS TO VICTOR ADLER
IN VIENNA
London, 19 May 1892
Dear Victor,
I have reached an understanding with Dietz and he with Wigand in regard to a new edition of the Condition of the Working-Class in England, the initial benefit of which will be a fee of 1,000 marks. Dietz promises to pay 1/2 in the autumn and 1/2 in the New Year of 1893 but August, who is over here, believes we can get at least part of it out of him even sooner. Also an additional fee of some sort for Neue Zeit articles. Now I should like to pass this on to you Austrians but would take the liberty of making a few stipulations regarding its use; these I have discussed with August who agrees to them.
For even though I may be unfamiliar with the details, I know well enough for practical purposes that your activities on behalf of the Austrian party are being continually hampered by the inability of that self-same party to secure for you the material position that would permit you to devote all your time and energy to the cause. I also know that the misfortunes you have met with of late have involved you in expenditure and that the party is unable to offer you the means with which to meet it. So I regard it as one of the prime conditions for the continued growth of the Austrian movement that you should be given an opportunity firstly to weather the present period of exceptional expenditure and, secondly, to secure for yourself, if possible, the necessary increase in pay which cannot yet be provided over there. The former is the more essential, but the latter is bound up with it. I should now like to put a suggestion to you, namely that the above fees should be placed at your disposal for either the former or the latter purpose or both — how they are to be used will then depend entirely on circumstances which you alone will be competent to judge. I need hardly add that there would then be no grounds for acknowledging in public, say, receipt of these sums.
I trust you will do me the pleasure of accepting my proposal. I know from my own experience, even though that was long ago, how greatly one's ability to work, will to work and time for work is restricted by the economic struggle for existence and we three[1] here are all of the opinion that you can do the Austrian party no greater service than to fall in with this little scheme.
Your May Day celebrations made a very good impression over here, the more so since Paris did not in fact participate this year as a result of the squabbles going on there. However Lafargue writes to say that in 22 places (the biggest being Roubaix and Marseilles where we got everyone home) we gained a majority on the city council — four hundred seats in the first ballot and a further 200 in the second.[2]
The effect this has had can be gathered from the Orleanist Soleil which I am sending you.
Many regards, then, from
Your
F. Engels