Letter to Eduard Bernstein, Not earlier than July 25, 1884

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 25 July 1884


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 47


ENGELS TO EDUARD BERNSTEIN

IN ZURICH

[London, not earlier than 25 July 1884]

Dear Ede,

You may send the enclosed to Auer if you wish; I have contrived it with that in view.

As regards the apportionment of constituencies,[1] I assure you that I, too, have often been annoyed about it, but it is due to the desire to proceed, in purely tactical matters, in accordance with general principles and this always happens at congresses where everything is made to look so nice and simple. Dual candidatures are, of course, useless as a rule; but if you reckon that in the doubtful constituencies the best people are more likely to get in than the others and you therefore put them up there, you must either tolerate dual candidatures in their case or run the risk of their not being elected at all. So if you're totally opposed to dual candidatures, you must put up the best people in the safest constituencies. But then it is odd that this relegation to doubtful constituencies never happens to Liebknecht but only to Bebel, and that e. g. at the last election Liebknecht had, if I am not mistaken, two quite good constituencies.[2] Enfin[3] such things cannot be avoided. Nor must one forget that a battle always has its ups and downs and hence not be put out if the downs sometimes tend to predominate.

At all events, this much is certain: so long as we have the Sozialdemokrat, their worships the opportunists may do as they wish; and even if they gained control of the parliamentary group (which is after all only possible if Bebel is not re-elected), they wouldn't have won, not by a long chalk. What are their intentions towards the masses? The latter keep pressing these same people onwards whether they like it or not. And if the Wise Men also succeeded in gaining command of the Sozialdemokrat, this would be of shorter duration than the Sozialdemokrat's first weak-kneed period which at the outset also met with support, even among the better of the 'leaders', but was utterly rejected by the masses.

As to the Vast Erudition of the celebrated non-atheist,[4] I shall be highly delighted if it takes every possible opportunity to parade itself. An equally mysterious savant[5] crops up in Paul de Kock's Amant de la lune; when, having gone to the utmost trouble, people finally get the measure of his erudition, they discover that it consists in a couple of conjuring tricks with corks. Think of all the trouble we went to before this celebrated man finally consented to provide us with just a few samples of his erudition! And how pretty they are! And he has actually got as far as clairvoyance.[6] What more could we want? — cela marche![7]

Regards to Karl Kautsky, also from Schorlemmer.

Your

F.E.

Tell Manz, who has written to me, that a portrait just like mine is now being done for him and that he shall have it as soon as it is ready; in a sprawling city like London, however, I can't chase after things personally and must therefore depend on other people.

  1. ↑ On 16 July 1884 Eduard Bernstein wrote to Engels that the voters' mood did not favour the Social Democrats in the constituencies where August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht were standing at the forthcoming elections (see Note 194) and that the Right-wing Social Democrats Bruno Geiser and Louis Viereck had the better constituencies.
  2. ↑ See Engels' letter to Bernstein of 30 November 1881 (present edition, Vol. 46).
  3. ↑ Well
  4. ↑ Engels is referring to Bruno Geiser's attacks on atheism in his article 'Das Innere der Erde. Eine Auseinandersetzung über den gegenwärtigen Stand einiger Fragen der Wissenschaft' which was published in Die Neue Welt, Nos. 14 and 15, 1884.
  5. ↑ Saucissard
  6. ↑ Nos. 20, 21 and 22 of Die Neue Welt for 1884, the editor being Bruno Geiser, published an article by Karl du Prel called 'Der Somnambulismus'.
  7. ↑ He's doing well.