Letter to Eduard Bernstein, January 6, 1882

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 6 January 1882


First published, in Russian, in Marx-Engels Archives, Book I, Moscow, 1924
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 46


ENGELS TO EDUARD BERNSTEIN

IN ZURICH

London, 6 January 1882

Dear Mr Bernstein,

I am writing to you in haste today in order to shed some light on the peculiar expressions that occur in the last number of the Égalité[1] on the subject of the Sozialdemokrat. The point is that, out of the goodness of his heart, Guesde engaged for the German section of the paper a person known to be the mortal enemy of everything appertaining to 'Zurich',[2] and the said person was unable to refrain from thus expressing his displeasure that the Sozialdemokrat should survive and not the Laterne. You would oblige us and serve the cause by taking no notice of this. If it happens again, we shall at once put a stop to it. By contrast, we were delighted that the Sozialdemokrat should not have hesitated to accuse the deputies of downright cowardice, thus bringing matters to a head, something which many of them, had Bebel not been there, would doubtless have sooner avoided.[3]

The Egalité people, by the way, have been luckier than, au fond, they deserved. Malon and Brousse made horrible fools of themselves in connection with Joffrin's candidature by putting forward a watered-down programme — in defiance of the congressional resolution passed at Rheims,[4] and quite simply suppressed one of the points discussed there, just because it happened not to suit their book (Egalité, No. 4, p. 7, Paris). In this way they put the Egalité in the right which, in the circumstances and on tactical grounds, was absolutely imperative — not Guesde and Co., but Malon and Co., were the real autoritaires,[5] the strivers after dictatorship.[6] And, now that the struggle has come out into the open, I need hardly say that our sympathies lie wholly with Guesde and his friends. Moreover, the Egalité is, and always has been, infinitely superior to the Prolétaire as far as content is concerned. Malon and Brousse are again behaving like true Bakuninists: they accuse others of hankering for dictatorship and, under pretence of maintaining their 'autonomy', want to rule the roost themselves without regard for party resolutions.

Marx is at Ventnor in the Isle of Wight, but writes to say that the weather is atrocious, worse than here. Well, it will soon change, no doubt; at all events, there would now seem to be no real danger of a relapse. The haste the bourgeois press was in to disseminate the news of his confidently anticipated demise did him no end of good: 'Now I must live to a ripe old age, if only to spite the damned rascals.'

Kautsky will have to be patient for a few more days. Schorlemmer is still here, which means that the most that I can do is dabble in natural science; on top of that, there's all the coming and going which won't be over until next week. Then, when time's no object, as Schorlemmer says Darmstadt-fashion, I'll write to him about the Poles.[7]

Kindest regards to him and you,

from yours

F. Engels

  1. ↑ 'Allemagne', L'Egalité, 3rd series, No. 4, 1 January 1882.
  2. ↑ Carl Hirsch
  3. ↑ In one of his toasts (Tischreden) Martin Luther likened the world to a drunken peasant unable to mount a horse (D. Martin Luthers Werke, kritische Gesamtausgabe, Tischreden, Weimar, 1912, Bd. I, S. 298).
  4. ↑ Engels is suggesting that in his article 'Deutsche Flüchtlinge in London', printed by Der Volksstaat on 30 July 1876, Gustav Rasch was prevaricating when he wrote that during his encounter with Marx and Engels in London they discussed 'human rights, the autonomy of nations, the social republic and those executed in Baden'.
  5. ↑ authoritarians
  6. ↑ 'Paris', L'Égalité, 3rd series, No. 4, 1 January 1882. See this volume, p. 171.
  7. ↑ See this volume, pp. 191-95.