Letter to Karl Kautsky, January 9, 1884

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 9 January 1884


First published, in Russian, in Marx-Engels Archives, Vol. I (VI), Moscow, 1932
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 47


ENGELS TO KARL KAUTSKY

IN ZURICH

London, 9 January 1884[1]

Dear Kautsky,

(Why must we continue to bore each other with 'Mr'?) The news about the coronation scenery is absolutely typical and has aroused much mirth; at the same time we have taken care that it does not leak out prematurely over here; i. e. before the scenery has been delivered and paid for. Not a soul knows about it apart from Schorlemmer, Lenchen and Tussy.

Many thanks for Frankel's address. So far as purely theoretical matters are concerned, Deville's summary[2] is the best that has yet appeared. He has understood everything aright, though his use of terminology has been very lax and this I have amended in the manuscript. On the other hand the descriptive part is treated far too cursorily, with the result that some of it is totally incomprehensible to anyone unfamiliar with the original. Again; what would make for much greater ease of comprehension, particularly in a popular account, namely the historical emergence of manufacture and large-scale industry as consecutive historical periods, is pushed much too much into the background. (We aren't even told that 'factory legislation' does not operate at all in France, but only in England!) And, finally, he gives a full summary of the entire contents, including stuff which Marx had had to bring in if his account of scientific developments was to be complete, but which is not necessary to an understanding of the theory of surplus value and its consequences (and this alone is what counts in the case of a popular summary). Similarly as regards the number of coins in circulation, etc.[3]

But then he also quotes verbatim from Marx's recapitulatory propositions, having given no more than an incomplete account of the assumptions upon which they were based. Consequently these propositions are frequently so distorted that in the course of my perusal I often found myself wanting to contest a proposition of Marx's, the limitations of which are made plain in the original by what goes before; in Deville, however, they are accorded absolutely universal, and hence false, validity. I can't change this without redoing the whole ms.

Now as to your translation of this,[4] my position vis-à-vis Meissner compels me to adopt an entirely neutral position. As soon as you write and tell me definitely that you will take the thing on, I propose, and I have already discussed this with Tussy who shares my view entirely, to act as follows: I shall write to Meissner saying that someone intends to publish Deville's piece (which I shall send Meissner) in German and that I can see nothing in this that might damage the sales of Capital—boost them, more likely; I shall then add that I cannot stop it but that, if he intends to take preventive action, he might let me know and I shall then pass this on.

Seen in the abstract (i.e. disregarding Meissner), a new popular and short account [half the size of Deville) of the theory of surplus value is much needed, and Deville's work is, so far as theory goes, far better than the rest. What should be dropped are 1) detailed references to the individual chapters and subsections of Capital and, 2) anything that is not necessary to an understanding of the theory of surplus value. This will involve rewriting the descriptive part from the beginning, and also considerable abridgement. It would allay the worst of Meissner's misgivings, especially if we changed the title to e. g. Unpaid Labour and Its Transformation into Capital or something of the kind.

At worst the thing could be printed by Dietz and published in Switzerland, like Bebel's Frau.[5]

So give the matter some thought and drop me a line. I enclose the two photographs[6] for you and Motteler. The business of the missing no. of the Sozialdemokrat has since been cleared up — the greatest success scored by Social Democracy to date is to have contrived to put 53 weeks into a year,[7] —a real miracle. Just let them carry on like that and we'll all live two per cent longer.

Kindest regards to Bernstein and yourself from

Yours,

F.E.

I had intended to enclose a one pound money order from Schorlemmer but it is now too late; must do so in my next. When does Tussy's and my subscription expire? Up till yesterday she had not received her Sozialdemokrat either. Might it have been forgotten? Kindly look into it.

  1. ↑ 1883 in the original
  2. ↑ G. Deville, Le Capital de Karl Marx. Résumé et accompagné d'un aperçu sur le socialisme scientifique.
  3. ↑ See Capital, Vol. I, Part I, Ch. III, Sect. 2b (present edition, Vol. 35).
  4. ↑ On 29 December 1883 Karl Kautsky informed Engels that he was planning to publish in Germany Gabriel Deville's Le Capital de Karl Marx. Résumé et accompagné d'un aperçu sur le socialisme scientifique (see Note 81) which had just appeared in Paris. On Engels' advice, Kautsky decided not simply to publish a translation but wrote a work of his own in accordance with the instructions Engels gave him in this and subsequent letters (see this volume, pp. 101 and 462); Kautsky's work appeared under the title Karl Marx's Oekonomische Lehren. Gemeinverständlich dargestellt und erläutert von Karl Kautsky, Stuttgart, 1887.
  5. ↑ The second, illegal, edition of August Bebel's book Die Frau und der Sozialismus was printed in Dietz's works in Stuttgart but appeared under the auspices of the Zurich publisher Schabelitz with the title Die Frau in der Vergangenheit, Gegenwart und Zukunft in 1883. The first editon was issued in Zurich-Hottingen in 1879.
  6. ↑ In his letter of 17 March 1883, Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis, on behalf of the Dutch Socialist Workers' Party, asked Engels to 'pass on our homage and grateful acknowledgement, to the Marx family and to all those who join us in mourning at the grave of the master'. Nieuwenhuis also informed Engels that he planned to translate his work Socialism: Utopian and Scientific into Dutch, which he actually did in 1886. Nieuwenhuis further enquired about Engels' plan with regard to Volume II of Marx's Capital, further study of the English labour movement after 1845 and the reissue of Engels' The Condition of the Working-Class in England.
  7. ↑ Der Sozialdemokrat, No. 1, 1883 did not appear on Thursday, as usual, but on Monday, 1 January, whilst No. 2 was published the following Thursday, 4 January. The last issue for that year, No. 52, appeared on Thursday, 20 December, whilst on 27 December the newspaper was not published at all. The following issue, No. 1, did not appear until 3 January 1884.