Letter to Richard Fischer, March 8, 1895

ENGELS TO RICHARD FISCHER

IN BERLIN

[London,] 8 March 1895
41 Regent's Park Road, N. W.

Dear Fischer,

I have taken as much account as possible of your grave objections al- though I cannot for the life of me see what is objectionable about, say, half of the instances you cite. 529 For I cannot after all assume that you intend to subscribe heart and soul to absolute legality, legality under any circumstances, legality even vis-à-vis laws infringed by their promulgators, in short, to the policy of turning the left cheek to him, who has struck you on the right. True, the Vorwärts sometimes expends almost as much energy on repudiating revolution as once it did—and may soon do again—on advocating the same. But I cannot regard that as a criterion.

My view is that you have nothing to gain by advocating complete ab- stention from force. Nobody would believe you, nor would any party in any country go so far as to forfeit the right to resist illegality by force of arms.

I also have to take account of the fact that my stuff is read by foreigners as well—Frenchmen, Englishmen, Swiss, Austrians, Italians, etc.—and I simply cannot compromise myself to that extent in their eyes.

I have therefore accepted your amendments with the following exceptions: 1. Slip 9, re the masses, now reads: 'they must have realised what they are coming out for'.^[1] —2. next paragraph: the whole sentence about going into battle deleted; your suggestion contained an outright mistake. The slogan 'going into battle' is used daily by the French, Italians, etc., if with less serious intent.—3. Slip 10: 'Social Democratic subversion which presently owes its existence to'; you wish to remove the 'presently, thus changing present into permanent, and relatively into absolutely valid, tactics. This I will not and cannot do without making an eternal ass of myself. I shall therefore avoid the contradiction of terms and say: 'Social Democratic subversion to which it is of very great benefit just now to abide by the law.'^[2]

Why you should see anything dangerous in the allusion to Bismarck's procedure in 1866, when the constitution was infringed, I find utterly in- comprehensible. If ever there was an argumentum ad hominem,^[3] I should say that this was it. However, I bow to your wishes.

Well, I can go so far and no further. I have done everything in my power to spare you embarrassment in debate. But you would be better advised to adhere to the standpoint that the obligation to abide by the law is a legal, not a moral one, as indeed, has been so nicely demonstrated to you by Boguslawski^[4] (who has got the pip); and that it ceases absolutely when those in power break the law. But you people—one or two of you at any rate— have been weak enough not to oppose your adversaries' pretensions as you ought to have done, and to accept the obligation to abide by the law as being also a moral one and binding under all circumstances, instead of telling them: 'You are in power, it is you who make the laws; if we infringe them, you can deal with us in accordance with those laws and we must put up with it, that and nothing more—we have no further obligations, and you no further rights.' That's how the Catholics behaved in the face of the May Laws, 530 likewise the Old Lutherans in Meissen and likewise that Mennonite 531 soldier who figures in all the newspapers, and it's a standpoint you people must not betray. The Subversion Bill 428 is in any case doomed; a thing of that sort cannot even be formulated, let alone put into practice and, given the power to do so, the chaps will manage to muzzle you and harass you in any case.

If, however, your intention is to make the chaps in the government see that we only want to bide our time because we are not yet strong enough to help ourselves and because the army is not yet thoroughly disaffected—if such is your intention,

My dear fellows, then why the eternal bragging in your press about the party's victories and the enormous strides it is

making? Those chaps know as well as we do that victory is almost within our grasp and that in a few years' time there will be no stopping us, and that is why they are already anxious to get us by the scruff, though unfortunately they don't know how. Nothing we say can alter that fact, and they know all this as well as we do; they likewise know that, once power is ours, we shall use it for our own purposes, not theirs.

So when next there's a general debate in plenary session, mind you uphold the right of resistance to as good effect as did Boguslawski on our behalf, and do not forget that your audience also comprises old revolutionaries—French, Italian, Spanish, Hungarian, and English—and that the time may again come—how soon, no one can tell—when the deletion of the word 'legal', effected donkey's years ago at Wyden, 343 will really be consummated. Take a look at the Austrians whose threat to use force, should suffrage not soon be forthcoming, could hardly be plainer! 523 Think of your own unlawful actions at the time of the Anti-Socialist Law, 15 a law they would like to foist upon you again. Legality for so long as and to the extent that it suits your book, but not legality at any price, not even as a manner of speech!

Yours,

F.E.

Too late now to put quotations into German (most already have been in the text^a) already made up into pages.

The proofs are being sent to Hamburg from here.