| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 3 January 1895 |
ENGELS TO KARL KAUTSKY
IN STUTTGART
London, 3 January 1895
Dear Baron,
Firstly, a very Happy New Year from one household to the other, and, secondly, my thanks for the amusing report of the MARE'S NEST discovered by Liebknecht. Hardly had I read the first couple of lines of your account than I realised that it could only refer to the old business with Schweitzer and for me that gave twice the savour to the humour of the situation. 459
Incidentally it will be sufficient if you make a note in your own copy of the variations of the original from the printed text and let me have them some time or other for insertion in mine. I would rather not enter into correspondence with Liebknecht about the copyright of the original ms., for it is improbable that it would get us anywhere.
Parts of Fireman's article[1] are, I agree, rendered so complex by his mis-
guided incursions into other aspects of Marx's theory and by all manner of metaphysical, i.e. anti-dialectical divagations, as virtually to conceal the fact that, by a happy chance, he has been able to get closer than anyone else to the crux of the problem. Hence the total ineffectuality of the article. Only someone who gives his undivided attention to the specific problem under discussion will make the discovery that here is something which, if pursued, will lead to the solution of the whole problem.
It would seem that you will be having a thoroughly lively year in Germany. If Mr von Köller carries on in this way, 460 no thing is impos- sible—conflict, dissolution, granting concessions, coup d'état. Obviously he would also be content with less. The Junkers would be happy enough with more generous douceurs, but to obtain these he will have to appeal to certain cravings for personal domination and pander to them to the point at which elements of resistance are also brought into play, and it is here that chance— i.e. what is involuntary, incalculable—comes into play. And to secure those douceurs he will have to raise the spectre of conflict—if he goes a step further, the original aim, the douceur, will become of secondary importance and then it will be a case of Crown versus Reichstag, of bend or break, and that's when the fun may begin. At the moment I am reading Gardiner's Personal Government of Charles Ia in which the parallels with present-day Germany are so close as to be almost absurd. As, for instance, the arguments over immunity from the consequences of actions performed in Parliament. Were Germany a Latin country, a revolutionary conflict would be inevitable, but as it is, you can't be certain about nowt, as Jollymeier[2] used to say.
Meanwhile the business of the peasants has quietly fizzled out, though August's attack was most meritorious nevertheless and made good much of which had been omitted at Frankfurt. 425
The worthy Bavarian socialists who favour reserved rights will be in no hurry to burn their fingers again.
Amongst the various small factions over here things are, for the moment, jogging along in the usual dilatory way. Though their mutual squabbles are no longer so heated, the intrigues behind the scenes are being conducted with proportionately greater zeal. The masses, on the other hand, who are being instinctively drawn towards socialism, are experiencing a growing urge for conscious and unified action. Though less clear-sighted than individual leaders, the masses are certainly far better than the leaders as a whole, yet the process of acquiring consciousness is slower than elsewhere, since pretty well all the old leaders also have an interest in diverting this burgeoning consciousness into one specific channel or another, or, to put it crudely, in vitiating it. Well, one must just be patient.
So once again a Happy New Year and many regards.
Yours,
F. Engels