Letter to Hermann Bahr, early June 1893

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written June 1893


First published in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXIX, Moscow, 1946
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 50

ENGELS TO HERMANN BAHR

IN LONDON

[Draft]

[London, beginning of June 1893]

Dear Sir,

I regret that I am unable to comply with your request.[1] In the first place, it so happens that my party comrades in Germany are conducting an election campaign against, among others, anti-Semitic candidates,[2] which means that at this juncture party interests preclude my expressing an impartial opinion about anti-Semitism.

In the second place, I believe that my party comrades in Vienna and in Austria generally would never forgive me were I to allow myself to be interviewed for the Deutsche Zeitung.

I remain, Sir, etc.

  1. ↑ In his letter of 31 May 1899 Hermann Bahr, an Austrian journalist, asked Engels to explain his stand on anti-Semitism and the Jewish problem; he intended to have this material, along with the pronouncements of other persons on this subject, published in the Vienna newspaper Die Deutsche Zeitung.
  2. ↑ By anti-Semitic candidates, Engels means representatives of Die Christlich-soziale Arbeiterpartei (The Christian Social Worker Party) founded in 1878 by Adolf Stoecker, a reactionary German political figure and advocate of anti-Semitism. This party saw its aim in combatting the socialist movement; subsequently it used the slogan of anti-Semitism to mount a demagogic campaign against financial capital. Its members succeeded in winning support among the backward strata of the peasantry and artisans in some districts of Germany; this success had a part to play in the setup of the poll. In 1895 A. Stoecker transformed his organisation into Die Christlich-soziale Partei. About the election to the German Reichstag, see Note 204.