| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 23 September 1882 |
ENGELS TO AUGUST BEBEL
IN LEIPZIG
London, 23 September 1882
Dear Bebel,
We have had a fine old fright on your account. A week ago yesterday, on Friday the 15th inst., 2 people from the Society[1] came to see me at 10 o'clock at night in order to ascertain the truth of the report, which had already appeared (with obituary) in 2 issues of the Citoyen, that you were dead. I told them that it was highly unlikely but could say nothing definite. As I had a boring visitor sitting with me, who wouldn't go although I had ceased to utter a word, it was not until after 11 that I was able to hurry round to Tussy Marx and found her still up. She had the Bataille, likewise with an obituary, but with no details as to the source of the news which was, however, considered to be beyond doubt. Hence general consternation. The greatest misfortune that could befall the German party was at least a strong probability. That there should have been no mention of it in the English papers, exulting as they were over Egypt, was only too understandable. Well, on Saturday evening my Sozialdemokrat failed to arrive, which sometimes happens, but on Sunday morning I was lucky enough to discover that Tussy had got hers and, to judge by its contents, the news seemed highly improbable. To have consulted German newspapers in cafés would have been hopeless from the start, since they replace them each day. And so we remained in a state of the most excruciating uncertainty until finally, on Monday evening, the Justice arrived with an official denial.
Marx had just the same experience. He was at Vevey on Lake Geneva and read the story in the reactionary Journal de Genève which naturally retailed it as being beyond doubt. He wrote to me the same day absolutely aghast.[2] His letter arrived that same Monday evening and so I was able to convey to him by the early post the happy news that the whole thing was an invention.[3]
No, old fellow, you won't be allowed to peg out on us at such a tender age. You're 20 years younger than I am, we have many a jolly battle ahead of us and, when we have fought them side by side, it will be your duty to stay in the firing line, even though I may have cut my last caper. And, since people alleged to be dead are supposed to live longer, you, like Marx, have now doubtless been condemned to a good long life.
But who in heaven's name brought this nonsense up — is that liar Mehring at the back of it again?
Did you get my last letter — written some 2-3 months ago? The one in which I replied about the tamer elements in the party?[4]
Meanwhile you will have seen that your wish that I should contribute openly to the Sozialdemokrat has been met on several occasions. Moreover I yesterday sent off to Bernstein the first two of the three Dühring chapters which are to come out in German after the French edition and which I have extensively revised and popularised. The rest is finished but I shall keep it here, provided it does not upset the printing arrangements, so that this, the most difficult section, can be thoroughly gone over again. An appendix will follow in the shape of a lengthy note on early German common ownership of land. When you go to quod I would advise you to procure from one library or another:
G. L. v. Maurer, Einleitung in die Geschichte der Marken-, Hof-, Dorf und Städteverfassung in Deutschland,
also his Geschichte der Markenverfassung in Deutschland. It is very necessary that someone in Germany should familiarise himself to some extent with the subject — a person capable of reading these things with an open mind and without ready-made 'cultivated' preconceptions. These are the chief works and a knowledge of them would mean that you would have extremely solid foundations to go on in any debate about landownership or agrarian questions.
Judging by the few articles he has written in the Sozialdemokrat (on the possible repeal of the Anti-Socialist Law), Vollmar would appear to have turned out very well. I should be glad if this also proved to be the case elsewhere; we could damned well do with some efficient chaps.
Marx is slowly recovering from his three attacks of pleurisy. For his long-standing, highly troublesome, sleep-inhibiting bronchial cough he had recourse while in Argenteuil to the nearby sulphur springs at Enghien, but in view of the bad weather did not, out of consideration for his general condition, effect the complete recovery that would otherwise have been virtually certain. After that he went to Vevey for three weeks with Madame Lafargue, intending to leave there the day before yesterday, first for Geneva, then Paris and then, given passable weather, to come over here for a few weeks in October. Under no circumstances ought he to spend the winter in London, but whether in the south of England or elsewhere is for the doctors to decide. However I can tell from his letters that there has been a steady improvement, albeit hampered by the bad summer.
Where exactly are you chaps at this moment? It seems as though you have all been turned by the 'Lesser' into a lot of Flying Dutchmen, just as Marx has been by his illness.
Give Liebknecht my kindest regards when you see him.
The whole Egyptian affair is an act of vengeance by the Jews (Rothschild, Erlanger, etc.) for their erstwhile expulsion from Egypt under Pharaoh.
Your
F. E.