Letter to Eduard Bernstein, January 28, 1884

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 28 January 1884


First published, in Russian, in Marx-Engels Archives, Book I, Moscow, 1924
Published in English in full for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 47


ENGELS TO EDUARD BERNSTEIN

IN ZURICH

London, 28 January 1884

Dear Bernstein,

You will have got my letter of the 1st, as will Kautsky that of the 9th.[1] I am in some doubt about the latter, being unsure of the number of the house (38?); I also sent him the photographs he wanted.[2]

My inquiry today concerns the following: Various things among Marx's papers will be suitable for the party archives; just now I am in process of sorting his books, etc., and am glad to be again in a condition to do so. Besides these, however, there is a good deal of superfluous stuff which would be very useful to an editorial library for the party organ[3] and is superfluous here, as we have in duplo.[4] Firstly dictionaries: 1) the big French-German Mozin-Peschier, 5 volumes quarto, binding very dilapidated, 2) the old Italian Jagemann, also very good, 3) Spanish, Dutch, Danish, perhaps even more. I can't yet be sure whether Tussy might not want to keep one thing or another; if not shall I send them to Zurich with the remainder? Besides these, one thing or another will continue to turn up and could be offered to you, once I know that you are interested.

Further, as regards Justice. This paper has suddenly been launched upon the world by Hyndman with insufficient financial and absolutely no literary preparation. To-Day might survive and within 6 to 12 months pave the way for a weekly. But as it is the two of them are bound to sap each other's strength. Hyndman, however, cannot wait and will probably burn his fingers yet again. They have asked me to contribute, but I refused on the grounds of lack of time. One can send stuff to To-Day without hesitation; but this won't do in the case of a weekly purporting to be a party organ until one knows the whys and wherefores. It is apparent from the complete dearth of ideas in the first two numbers that the chaps are at their wits' end and are looking to new contributors for further material. In short it has misfired and only an unexpectedly favourable turn of events can put it on its feet.

In case Mr von der Mark or anyone else should again speak of our 'concessions' to the anarchists,[5] the following passages prove that we had proclaimed the cessation [Aufhören] of the state before the anarchists even existed: Misère de la philosophie, page 177:

"La classe laborieuse substituera, dans son développement, à l'ancienne société civile une association qui excluera les classes et leur antagonisme, et il n'y aura plus de pouvoir politique proprement dit, puisque le pouvoir politique est précisément le résumé officiel de l'antagonisme dans la société civile."[6]

Manifesto, end of Section II: 'When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared... the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organised power of one class for oppressing another.[7]

The last issue of the Sozialdemokrat was again very good. Cheerful and plenty of meat in it. Admittedly this last does not always depend upon the editors. Your rendering of Lafargue is truly delightful; the German substitutions cheered me up enormously.[8]

Regards to Kautsky.

Yours,

F.E.

  1. ↑ See this volume, pp. 73-75 and 75-77.
  2. ↑ The reference is to the third congress of the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany which was held illegally in Copenhagen from 29 March to 2 April 1883, with 60 delegates taking part. The congress was to work out the German Social Democrats' political line on the social reforms being carried out by the bourgeois government, to decide on the party's tactics and the position to be taken by Der Sozialdemokrat, its printed organ, given the Anti-Socialist Law in Germany (see Note 37). The congress unanimously called on the party to expose the demagogy of Bismarck's domestic policy, endorsed the stance of the main printed organ and the general line of conduct of the parliamentary group (see Note 49). It further made it incumbent on every party member, including the Social-Democratic representatives in the Reichstag, to observe party discipline and help carry out party decisions (see also Note 16).
  3. ↑ i.e. Der Sozialdemokrat
  4. ↑ duplicate copies
  5. ↑ On 2 December 1883 Wilhelm Ludwig Rosenberg, editor of the New Yorker Volks-Zeitung, organ of the Socialist Labor Party of the USA, published an article signed 'von der Mark'. It alleged that the state was an abstract concept, a 'union of individuals'. Responding to this, Eduard Bernstein used the pseudonym 'Leo' when publishing in Der Sozialdemokrat, No. 52, 20 December 1883 an article entitled 'Der Sozialismus und der Staat' in which he quoted verbatim statements Engels had made in Socialism: Utopian and Scientific about the historical role of the state and his assessment of Lassalle's term 'free state' (see present edition, Vol. 24, pp. 320-21). Bernstein also stressed that, in contrast to the anarchists, the Marxists suggested beginning not with the abolition of the state, but with the transfer of power to the proletariat. On 3 January 1884 Rosenberg continued the polemic by publishing another article in the New Yorker Volkszeitung with the title 'Herr Leo'. In it he tried to prove that Engels and Bebel were making a concession to the anarchists and alleged the Marxists believed that, following the withering away of the state, there would ensue a situation marked by an absence of authorities.
  6. ↑ 'The working class, in the course of its development, will substitute for the old civil society an association which will exclude classes and their antagonism, and there will be no more political power properly so-called, since political power is precisely the official expression of antagonism in civil society' (K. Marx, The Poverty of Philosophy, present edition, Vol. 6, p. 212).
  7. ↑ See present edition, Vol. 6, p. 505.
  8. ↑ No. 4, 24 January 1884.