ENGELS TO WILHELM BRACKE
IN BRUNSWICK
London, 24 April 1877
Dear Bracke,
It is hardly likely that you will get the photographic plate from Paris since Lachâtre is in exile and his business has been sequestrated by the government; the publishing house is being administered by an arch-reactionary[1] who is doing all he can to ruin it.[2] For that matter, the portrait is a rotten one and Marx quite unrecognisable[3] ; if you like, we can send you a better photograph. I shall be glad to write the biography for you. Tell me how many Kalender pages you'd like at most and at least, so that I know how much space I can take up, ditto the delivery date.[4]
The three stenographic reports received with thanks[5] ; a pity your subject was not a better one; if one is constantly compelled to cite witnesses who provisionally withhold their names, one is in a poor position. But all the same, the purpose has been achieved since a favourable vote in that company is, presumably, out of the question.[6] Bebel's speech is excellent—lucid, matter-of-fact and to the point.[7]
I should never have suspected any kind of Diihringian influence had Liebknecht told me the plain truth and promised me redress.[8]
There was a definite agreement that an article should appear every week[9] ; when I complained that it was not being adhered to, Liebknecht kept me waiting for ten days or more and during that time, despite his presence in Leipzig, there was no sign of rectification; finally he wrote and told me that I should spare him unnecessary objurgations—that was all, not a word about any future redress. Now, since I had no idea what influence other people might have over the editorial board, the only course open to me was to assume the above and, by means of an ultimatum, compel Liebknecht to keep his promises. I have written and told him he may, if he wishes, show the relevant letters from me to anyone he chooses, and hence, so far as I am concerned, they are at your disposal. Over here people are literally overwhelming me
with reproaches on the grounds that J have allowed the articles to be printed as mere stop-gaps so that no one could follow the thread. And when you consider it is now at least the sixth time that this tale has recurred, that I have been given the finest and most unequivocal promises, only to see, without fail, the very opposite happen, you will realise that in the end one grows sick of it.
So the Russians are in Bucharest.[10] I trust the Turks will at once occupy all their Danubian fortresses in the locality facing the Romanian bank and turn them into bridgeheads. In particular Calafat (Vidin), Giurgevo (Rustchuk) and Calarashi (Silistria).[11]
That would force the Russians to lay siege to these fortresses on both banks, i.e. beleaguer them with twice the number of troops, thereby losing a great deal of time. But with every soldier the Russians have to leave behind in Romania, it will become easier for the Turks to meet them in the open field and prevent them from taking the fortresses. I likewise trust that Abdul Kerim will, as promised, send 20,000 Circassians to Romania to destroy the railways and do some thorough foraging. All honour to Straus- berg for constructing the Romanian railways with such splendid ineptitude that they are already letting the Russians down.
Re trade regulations. Cross, the Home Secretary here, has brought in a BILL whereby all the many and sometimes conflicting laws governing the limitation of working hours are to be brought together within a single act[12] and thus become enforceable for the first time. I will try and get hold of the thing and send it to you or Liebknecht so that the liberal jackasses may see for once what a Conservative minister has the nerve to do in that line over here.
Time for the post and for a meal. Regards to all our friends.
Yours,
F. E.
- ↑ Adolphe Quest
- ↑ Under the contract signed by Marx and Maurice Lachâtre in February 1872 (see Note 17), the French edition of the first volume of Capital was to appear in instalments. The delay in the publication, which took four years (1872-75), was caused, alongside the circumstances mentioned in this letter, by the growth of political reaction following the Paris Commune. In mid-1875, the French government transferred legal rights over Lachâtre's publishing house in Paris to Adolph Quest, an official who procrastinated with the printing of the last instalments of Capital and did his best to obstruct its dissemination.
- ↑ A reference to the portrait of Marx in the French edition of the first volume of Capital (see this volume, p. 287).
- ↑ In Mid-June 1877, Engels wrote a short biography of Marx which was published in the Volks-Kalender for 1878 (see present edition, Vol. 24, pp. 183-95).
- ↑ Bracke sent Engels the stenographic reports of the German Reichstag sessions of 16, 17 and 18 April 1877 (Stenographische Berichte über die Verhandlungen des Deutschen Reichstags. 3. Legislaturperiode, I. Session 1877, Bd. I, Berlin, 1877, S. 489-594), at which the changes in the trade regulations were discussed.
- ↑ The Reichstag session of 18 April 1877 discussed Bracke's proposal to reconsider the election of the National Liberal Dr. Weigel from Kassel on the grounds that pressure had been put on the voters. He said, in part: 'The credentials commission stated first of all that rejection had been proposed without any evidence and without supplying the names of the individuals concerned... I should like to draw your attention to the fact that the persons involved are essentially dependent people, workers, for whom the mere mention of their names in the protest is often sufficient for them to lose their jobs or bring about other unpleasant experiences.'
- ↑ In the discussion of the Bill on the trade regulations proposed by the Catholic Party of the Centre (see Note 423), Bebel spoke at the Reichstag session of 18 April 1877 in defence of the alternative Social-Democratic Bill which provided for a set of measures aimed to shorten working hours, introduce labour protection, etc. He embarked on a sharp polemic with representatives of the bourgeois parties.
- ↑ See this volume, pp. 217 20. 17 406
- ↑ The publication of Eugen Dühring's Cursus der Philosophie als streng wis senschaftlicher Weltanschauung und Lebensgestaltung and the second edition of his Kritische Geschichte der Nationalökonomie und des Sozialismus (1875) made his views very popular in Germany. Among the German Social-Democrats, he acquired such followers as Johann Most, Friedrich Wilhelm Fritzsche, and Eduard Bernstein. Even August Bebel came under his influence for a short time. In view of this, in his letters to Engels of 1 February and 21 April 1875, Liebknecht proposed that the latter use Der Volksstaat to criticise Dühring's views.
Engels did so for the first time in the essay 'Prussian Schnapps in the German Reichstag' carried by Der Volksstaat in February 1876 (see present edition, Vol. 24).
Marx agreed with Engels that Dühring's views had to be exposed to serious criticism. Engels interrupted the work on Dialectics of Nature which he had begun in May 1873 and made a start on Anti-Diihring (see present edition, Vol. 25). It took him over two years, from May 1876 to July 1878, to complete it. Part I of the book was mainly written between September 1876 and January 1877 and was printed in the Vorwärts as a series of articles under the heading Herrn Eugen Dühring's Umwälzung der Philosophie in January-May 1877.
Part II was written in July-August 1877. Marx contributed Chapter X. This part was published under the heading Herrn Eugen Dühring's Umwälzung der politischen Oekonomie in the Wissenschaftliche Beilage and the supplement to the Vorwärts in July-December 1877.
Part III was written mostly between August 1877 and April 1878 and appeared in the Vorwärts in May-July 1878 under the title Herrn Eugen Dühring's Umwälzung des Sozialismus.
The book aroused strong resistance on the part of Dühring's followers. At a regular party congress held in Gotha from 27 to 29 May 1877, they tried to prevent the publication of Engels' work in the party's central organ. Anti-Diihring appeared in the newspaper with lengthy intervals.
In July 1877, Part I of the book was published in Leipzig as a separate pamphlet. In July 1878, Parts II and III were also published there as a separate pamphlet. The first complete edition of Anti-Dühring, with Engels' preface, appeared at the same time.
In late October 1878, following the introduction of the Anti-Socialist Law in Germany, Anti-Dühring was banned along with Engels' other works.
- ↑ In March 1877, the Romanian government agreed to let Russian troops pass through its territory. On 24 April Russia declared war on Turkey.
- ↑ Calafat, Giurgevo and Calarashi—the Romanian names of the towns on the left bank of the Danube; Vidin, Rustchuk (Ruse) and Silistria (Silistra)—the Bulgarian names of the towns on the right bank of the Danube.
- ↑ In 1877, the British Home Secretary Richard Assheton Cross introduced a Bill providing for measures to regulate working hours, specifically in the domestic industry and workshops. The Bill limited the working day of adolescents to 10 V2 hours and supplemented the law of 1874 on restricting child labour. The Bill became law in 1878.