Letter to Eduard Bernstein, October 22, 1884

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 22 October 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, 22 October 1884

Dear Ede,

I am laying aside my preface[1] to inform you:

1. That I am sending you herewith, by registered mail, Marx's 'Speech on the Question of Free Trade'. This irreplaceable copy, acquired with much difficulty at second-hand, must be returned to me after use.

2. That I consider it necessary to print in the form of an appendix at the end of the Poverty the passage from A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy concerning John Gray, the first precursor of Proudhon and Rodbertus, from p. 61, 'the theory that labour time', etc., up to the end of the section on p. 64.[2] Would you be so kind as to send it to Stuttgart forthwith? I refer to this appendix in the preface. Between us we shall have completely demolished the whole of this aspect of petty-bourgeois socialism and disposed at the same time of the reply to Rodbertus' Utopia, for I shall use the preface to make good any other deficiencies.

Whether or not you use the libre échange[3] as an appendix is for you to decide; I can't think where else to put it, and can hardly imagine it would be effective simply as a pamphlet — as to which you are better judges than I.

If Dietz should raise any difficulties regarding the Gray appendix, it might be included after the preface and the article on Proudhon from the Social-Demokrat (the old one). But included it must be, as you yourselves will find.

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ F. Engels, 'Marx and Rodbertus'.
  2. ↑ 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.
  3. ↑ 'free trade'; Engels is referring to Marx's 'Speech on the Question of Free Trade'.