Letter to Karl Kautsky, October 20, 1884

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 20 October 1884


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


ENGELS TO KARL KAUTSKY

IN ZURICH

London, 20 October 1884

Dear Kautsky,

Have sent you by registered mail proofs and pp. 49-96 of the Poverty ms.[1] I did no more than skim through them, nor was I able to compare them with the ms. Please get this done at once. I am asking Dietz to send the remainder to you and only the proofs of the preface to me; I should have begun this today had I not again been robbed of my best working time by the afore-mentioned proof-correcting. But tomorrow I shall get down to it; my preface will, I think, come first, then Marx's article from the old Social-Demokrat as locum tenens for his preface.

I was on the point of asking you about Nonne, Mme Lafargue being anxious to know something about this neighbour whom they regarded with suspicion. Then came the 'Execution' in the Paris press.[2]

Everyone is astonished that the Prussians should have appointed and paid (?) such a clumsy brute.

Joynes of To-Day has just been to see me. They have been wanting for some time to publish an English version of the Entwicklung,[3] the rights to translate which I had long since conceded to Aveling. They don't want him, however, he and Hyndman being[4] rivals, and tried to insist upon my accepting Shaw, who does not know German and proposes to translate from the French. This I took the liberty of declining and referred him to Aveling whom, in any case, I like better every day. These little literary intrigues make up the greater part of the internal history of the movement in this country. Nor is this their only trouble. A week ago last Tuesday[5] Mme Lafargue attended a meeting of the COUNCIL of the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION during which they were bickering about some trifle or other to such good purpose that the air was buzzing with cries of DAMNED LIAR. Great fun, it seems. The only men in whom I have any confidence are Bax and Aveling, both thoroughly good chaps, intelligent and sincere, but in need of a great deal of help. I don't give much for the others, in so far as I have had the opportunity to judge them.

I have now also got Mr Mommsen just where I want him. In his Römische Forschungen he wrote a lot of nonsense about enuptio gentis[6] ; I went into the matter and have now extracted all the relevant passages.[7] If anyone of the Mommsen school should try to fault me in regard to Roman history (quite possible in regard to form, but not substance), I shall be able to oblige.

Hirsch has sent me the Frankfurter Zeitung with a feuilleton on Lippert's Geschichte der Familie.[8] The book is obviously barefaced plagiarism from Morgan and Bachofen, with a few trimmings from other easily discoverable sources.

Warmest regards to Ede.

Your

F. E.

Another thing I haven't yet seen is your feuilleton in the Frankfurter Zeitung.[9] Have you still got it? I will send it back.

  1. ↑ The reference is to the German edition of Marx's The Poverty of Philosophy, which appeared in Stuttgart in January 1885 (see Note 118). The book included, in place of Marx's preface, his article 'On Proudhon' (see present edition, Vol. 20) and two appendices: an excerpt from Marx's work A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy on the theory of the English socialist John Gray (see present edition, Vol. 29, pp. 320-23), and a translation of the 'Speech on the Question of Free Trade' (Vol. 6). At one time Die Neue Zeit was printed in a distinctive orthography proposed by Bruno Geiser.
  2. ↑ In a note headed 'Exécution d'un agent provocateur' the Paris newspaper Le Cri du Peuple, No. 356, 18 October 1884 reported that Heinrich Nonne, a Hanoverian living in Paris, had been exposed as a provocateur and police spy and expelled from the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany (see also Note 166).
  3. ↑ F. Engels, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. See this volume, p. 400.
  4. ↑ more or less
  5. ↑ 14 October
  6. ↑ exogamy
  7. ↑ See F. Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State (present edition, Vol. 26, pp. 225-28).
  8. ↑ H. Kaltenboeck, 'Familie und Ehe', Frankfurter Zeitung und Handelsblatt, No. 278, 4 October 1884 (morning edition).
  9. ↑ K. Kautsky, 'Aus dem Nachlasse von Carl Marx', Frankfurter Zeitung und Handelsblatt, No. 263, 19 September 1884 (morning edition).