Letter to Carl Eberle, April 24, 1894

ENGELS TO CARL EBERLE

IN BARREN

London, 24 April 1894 122 Regent's Park Road, N. W.

Dear Comrade,

Your letter of 21 March arrived a day or two ago as did the album of Barmen you so very kindly sent me, and I should like to say how very grateful I am to the Social Democratic Club in Barmen and, in particular, to the compiler of the album, for this kind and for me both flattering and agreeable gift. Indeed it was an unexpected pleasure to be able to see the enormous changes that have taken place in Barmen during the twenty years that I have been away. I feel completely lost. Other than by the station and on one, the older, side of the Werther Bollwerk, I can no longer tell where I am from the pictures. Even the view taken on the Neuenweg, which surely cannot be more than a few minutes walk from the Bruch, is utterly strange to me. Only our old house remains unaltered.

Though it is cheering to see these signs of an upheaval that has changed the Barmen of my youth from a small philistine backwater into a large industrial town, what nevertheless pleases me most is the fact that people there have also experienced a significant change for the better. Had that not been the case, Barmen would even now be represented in the Reichstag by an out-and-out Conservative, some thoroughly sanctimonious 'swell', nor could there be any question of a Social Democratic Club in Barmen, while the last thing that would have occurred to Barmen's working men would have been to honour me with an album. Fortunately, however, the revolution in the appearance of the town is attended by a revolution in the minds of its working men and for us that is a guarantee of a far mightier and more comprehensive revolution in the world as presently constituted. With sincere regards,

Yours,

F. Engels