| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 22 December 1894 |
ENGELS TO VICTOR ADLER
IN VIENNA
London, 22 December 1894
41 Regent's Park Road, N. W.
Dear Victor,
So the offer of money[1] has at last reached the stage at which we can get down to business. Louise will be letting you have further details.
As regards correspondents over here, please give M. Beer a pseudonym that will so distinguish him from all the other correspondents as to obviate any possibility of confusion. The man is very green so far as England is concerned and sees things through Galician-Talmudic spectacles.—I hardly imagine that E. Bernstein will be able to send you a great deal; as it is, he seldom has much time to spare for articles for the Vorwärts and prefers to work for the Neue Zeit.
Lafargue has asked whether you could make use of him as a contributor. I told him that in the first instance you would have to consider Frankel but that I was unaware of all the circumstances and would write.[2] He—Lafargue—is a lively and interesting writer but his stuff, like the Gallus reports he sends to the Vorwärts, is all in French. His wife does not write German either and speaks it only on fairly rare occasions. Nor is she as fluent as Tussy. I don't know whether it would be convenient for you to do the translating over there yourselves. Lafargue would naturally have a fee in mind, since he has lost his deputy's salary. I couldn't tell him anything about that either.
Things are getting complicated on the Continent. In your country electoral reform is assured—and nowadays, when something like that gets under way, it is not so easy to stop—while Russia is seeing the beginning of the end of Tsarist omnipotence, for it is improbable that autocracy will survive this latest change of monarch; in Italy they are heading straight for a revolution that may cost the monarchy its head, and in the German Empire Little Willie[3] seems intent on crossing the Halys and destroying a great empire. You could hardly wish for a better moment at which to found a daily newspaper— material in plenty and what's more, of a kind
that the other parties are bound to distort and misconstrue, whereas our party is the only one that will construe it aright from the very start.
And now a Merry Christmas to you, your wife (to whom please convey my warm regards) and your children.
Yours,
F.E.