| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 7 March 1883 |
ENGELS TO AUGUST BEBEL
IN LEIPZIG
London, 7 March 1883
Dear Bebel,
I shall have to reply to you from memory today as I must have left your letter with Marx, but first of all I should like to congratulate you on your release the day after tomorrow.[1]
The rapid advances in German industry you have described please me enormously. What we are now experiencing is the second Bonapartist empire in all its aspects: the stock exchange is mobilising all capitals that are still wholly or partially idle by attracting them and rapidly concentrating them in a few hands; the capitals thus made available to industry are ushering in an industrial boom (which is by no means necessarily the same thing as a high level of business activity) and, once the affair gets going, it will continue to accelerate. Only two things distinguish the era of Bismarck from the era of Bonaparte III: The latter owed its prosperity to what was relatively free trade; the former is making headway despite protective tariffs that are wholly uncalled for, particularly in Germany. And, secondly, the Bismarckian era is putting far more people out of work. This is partly because the increase in population is much greater in our case than in that of France where two children are the rule, partly because Bonaparte, thanks to his building operations in Paris, generated an artificial demand for labour, whereas in our case the milliard era came to an early end; but again it must partly be due to other causes about which I am not clear. At all events philistine Germany is at last becoming a modern country, and that is absolutely vital if we are to make rapid progress.
When one reads the German bourgeois papers and the speeches in the Chamber one might imagine that one was living in the England of Henry VII and VIII; the same complaints about danger from vagrants, the same outcry for the forcible suppression of vagrancy — the cachot[2] and the lash. Here is the best proof of how rapidly the producers are losing touch with their means of production, of how rapidly the smaller enterprises are being supplanted by the machine and the perfecting of the machine. But what could be more ludicrous and despicable than those bourgeois who hope that moral sermons and penal methods sermons will enable them to do away with the inevitable consequences of their own actions. It is a crying shame that you are not in the Reichstag; this is a theme that would be right up your street.
The precedent you set in the Saxon Landtag by calmly taking the oath has had its imitators. The Italians have unanimously declared that the oath need not be a stumbling-block and Costa took the oath without demur. And, after all, these are people who declare themselves to be 'anarchists', even though they vote and are elected by vote!
There has been a scandalous delay over my pamphlet in Zurich, but the printing ought to be done by now; whether the binding will take as long in tin-pot Zurich, I don't know. At all events I am still awaiting copies, having as yet had none. The part on the 'Mark' will clarify much of Maurer for you; the man's writing is atrociously slipshod but the content is excellent. I have read the book 5 or 6 times and shall reread it next week after I have again been through the relevant material in the remainder of his collected works.
We were most delighted at the way the virtuously religious Puttkamer was dealt with, first by Grillenberger in the Reichstag and then several times in the Sozialdemokrat. He will be on his guard now!
Little Hepner has reprinted Unsere Ziele in New York, allegedly improved and with a little picture that is said to represent your portrait but in fact represents an honest to God YANKEE. As I only have the 1st edition, I can't say whether or what changes have been made by him for the worse/better. If you haven't got his edition I can send you one; after all, you had better see what the Americans think you ought to look like.
Now I must close, for I must go and see Marx whose health is still not really making the progress it should. If it were two months from now, the warmth and air would do their work but as it is there's a north-east wind, a storm almost, with flurries of snow, so how can a man expect to cure himself of a long-standing case of bronchitis!
Regards to Liebknecht.
Your
F.E.