Letter to Thomas Allsop, December 14, 1879

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 14 December 1879


First published in the language of the original (English, facsimile) and in German, in Neues Deutschland, Nr. 107, Berlin, 19 April 1970
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 45


ENGELS TO THOMAS ALLSOP[1]

IN LIMINGTON

London, 14 December 1879 122 Regent's Park Road, N. W.

My dear Friend,

I am very sorry indeed to learn that you have been ill and are not yet completely restored to health. I hope your legs will soon be all right again so as to allow you to stir about—I know how you will miss your usual exercise.

We are all pretty well here so far, our patients and half-patients seem to come round gradually.

The man in The P.M.G.[2] does indeed to some extent divine that there are breakers ahead, but as a true Philistine, he seems unable to distinguish appearances from reality. No doubt the crash in Russia is impending and may break out any time. And no doubt, the collapse of Russian despotism must re-act with immense force upon Germany and Austria. But whether an immediate outbreak there be probable or whether it even have chances of success, is more than I pretend to know. The man is quite right, too, in saying that the system of drilling the whole male population, as is now the rule all over the continent, will end in revolutionising these monster armies from within. But this is a process requiring some little time, and as far as Germany goes, it is only lately showing itself. This constant penetration of fresh revolutionary elements into the army, noticed with every new yearly batch of recruits, has been the principal motive for introducing the [Anti-] Socialist law.[3] And how little this Socialist Law, with all its terrorism, has effected, has again been shown last Thursday. At the last election in 1878, at Magdeburg, our candidate[4] only got ¼ of the votes given; now there was a fresh election there, and he very near got the full half of the votes, and stands a chance of passing at the second ballot.[5] The joke of the thing is, that this candidate of ours is a natural son of old William, the emperor, by an actress, Miss Viereck, whilom the old fellow's mistress.

Anyhow, the outbreak in Russia must hasten the movement in Central and Western Europe. The governments of Vienna and Berlin will lose heart when they have no longer that unfailing mainstay of all reaction—the absolute Russian government. And the moral effect of a revolutionary successful movement in Russia upon the masses in Central Europe must be immense.

The worst would be, to us, if Russia, to avoid revolution, launched into foreign war. But so long as they have not the French Alliance, they scarcely venture.

Anyhow, by next spring this Russian crisis, which we think here is the most important one since 1848, must come to a head either one way or another, and I hope you will recover your full strength so as to enjoy the stirring times which are, it appears, still in store for you.

Very faithfully yours

F. Engels

  1. ↑ Engels is answering Thomas Allsop's letter of 12 December 1879, in which the latter asked for Engels' opinion of the article from The Pall Mall Gazette enclosed in the letter. Allsop did not mention the title of the article or the date of the paper, so it can only be conjectured that this was one of the four articles dealing with the crisis of the autocracy in Russia printed on 4, 9, 10 and 12 December by The Pall Mall Gazette: 'The Czar and His People', 'Kill or Cure for Russian Despotism', 'What Next in Russia' and 'The Collapse of Authority in Russia'.
  2. ↑ The Pall Mall Gazette
  3. ↑ The Anti-Socialist Law (The Exceptional Law Against the Socialists) was introduced by the Bismarck government on a majority vote in the Reichstag on 21 October 1878 to combat the socialist and working-class movement. It banned all party and mass workers' organisations and the socialist and workers' press, and sanctioned confiscation of socialist literature and persecution of Social-Democrats. But the Social-Democratic Party, in accordance with the Constitution, preserved its group in the Reichstag. By skilfully combining illegal and legal methods of work and suppressing reformist and anarchist tendencies within its ranks, the party managed substantially to strengthen and extend its influence among the masses. Marx and Engels actively assisted the party's leaders.
    Under pressure from the working-class movement, the law was repealed on 1 October 1890. Engels examined it in his essay 'Bismarck and the German Working Men's Party' (present edition, Vol. 24, pp. 407-09).
  4. ↑ Wilhelm Bracke
  5. ↑ On 7-13 September 1874, a number of organisations that had found themselves outside the International due to their refusal to recognise the Hague Congress resolutions (see Note 20) held a congress in Brussels that declared itself the seventh congress of the International Working Men's Association. It was attended by members of anarchist groups from Switzerland, Spain and Belgium, two Lassalleans—members of German workers' organisations in Belgium—and Eccarius, who had been delegated by the breakaway faction of the British Federation. The congress revealed disagreement among the participants, including the anarchists themselves, on the issue of the working class' attitude to the state.