Letter to Johann Philipp Becker, December 12, 1878

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 12 December 1878


First published in: F. Engels, Vergessene Briefe (Briefe Friedrich Engels' an Johann Philipp Becker), Berlin, 1920
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 45


ENGELS TO JOHANN PHILIPP BECKER

IN GENEVA

London, 12 December 1878 122 Regent's Park Road, N. W.

Dear Old Man,

We are all most sorry to hear that things are going so badly with you and, so that you may at least have some help straight away, I have taken out a money order for you for £2 sterling on which, according to the information here, you will be paid 50 frs 40 over there. I have been told to retain the order here, as an order will be sent you by the Swiss post office in Basle, so unless this is done at once, you must complain. I shall see if I can get hold of some more money for you very shortly.

It will, if my own experience is anything to go by, be virtually impossible to obtain any agencies for you here. Having been out of business for almost ten years, I have seen all my commercial connections gradually die a natural death; when a man no longer has anything to haggle over, you see, he's no longer of any interest to those gentlemen. However, I shall see if there's anyone I might be able to sound out, although I can't for the time being hold out any prospects for you.

As for the Précurseur, by the way, if the paper doesn't pay for itself I wouldn't, if I were you, expend a single sou on it.[1] I cannot see why you should sacrifice yourself for the benefit of the Genevan workers and their local Genevan politics. If they want a paper, let them pay for it themselves. It's enough in all conscience that you should have to bear the brunt of the worry and the work. Considering all the sacrifices you have made, you really do have the right to call these people together and tell them that you can't go on paying, and that if they want to keep the paper going they must provide the resources themselves.

Today the news has reached us by telegraph that the Federal Council proposes to suppress the magnanimous Guillaume's Avant-garde.[2] I don't know whether it will really happen, but if for one reason or another the last Bakuninist organ were to disappear, and the Genevans proved unwilling to provide the resources, the Précurseur could all the more readily succumb.

Borkheim is still at Hastings, on the coast, confined to bed with the left side of his body paralysed and will recover, if at all, only very slowly. In other respects he seems cheerful enough, and writes from time to time.

Luckily the Prussians have now also placed a ban on my Dühring.[3] Henceforth nothing may be sold in Germany that is directed against bogus socialist rowdies. Thus every anti-Bakuninist publication by Greulich,[4] myself, etc., has been banned. In Bismarck's estimation, anarchist and Dühringian cliquishness should lessen our people's cohesion and bring about what he most ardently desires—an attempted coup that would enable him to shoot. Despite all this, our workers in Germany are behaving altogether admirably, and I hope that they will bring the entire Prussian empire to rack and ruin. This much, however, Mr Bismarck will have achieved: When the set-to begins in Russia—and it won't be long now—things will also be pretty well au point in Germany.

With warmest regards from Marx and his wife, and hoping to hear better news of you soon,

from your old friend,

F. E.

  1. ↑ From 1877 Johann Philipp Becker was editor and publisher of the Swiss socialist journal Le Précurseur.
  2. ↑ '(From Our Own Correspondent. The Socialist Movement. Berne, Dec. 11)', The Times, No. 29436, 12 December 1878.
  3. ↑ F. Engels, Anti-Dühring.
  4. ↑ H. Greulich, Der Staat vom sozialdemokratischen Standpunkte aus. Eine Auseinandersetzung mit den Anarchisten.