Letter to August Bebel, December 30, 1884

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 30 December 1884


First published abridged in: F. Engels, Politisches Vermächtnis. Aus unveröffentlichten Briefen, Berlin, 1920 and in full, 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 AUGUST BEBEL

IN PLAUEN NEAR DRESDEN

London, 30 December 1884

Dear Bebel,

I hasten to reply to your letter. Friend Singer would seem to have digested only such of my remarks as accorded with his own views: one soon learns how to do this in business where it may sometimes help, but in politics as in science one should, after all, learn to take an objective view of things.

To begin with, I told Singer that I had not yet by any means given the matter adequate thought (my attention having been drawn to it only the evening before by the Sozialdemokrat),[1] and that what I was saying could by no means be regarded as my final verdict.

Next, I went on to say that, under certain circumstances and on certain conditions, it might be admissible to vote for it, i.e. if the government were to undertake to accord to the workers the same state aid it was now prepared to accord to the bourgeoisie. In particular, that is, the leasing of state-owned land to workers' cooperatives, etc. Since I know very well that the government will not do so, this is another way of saying that those who would like to vote for it should be shown how they can vote against it with a semblance of decency and without doing violence to themselves.

I further told Singer—and this seemed news to him — that in parliamentary life one may often find oneself in the position of having to vote against something which one would privately like to see carried.

Well, yesterday I wrote to Liebknecht about other matters and took the opportunity of giving him what was now, after long reflection, a considered view of the case.[2] In many respects it tallies almost word for word — get him to read you that bit of my letter some time — with what you say, although your letter did not arrive until this morning. Where I diverge from you is, briefly, as follows:

1. You are above all a party versed in economics. You, or some of you, have at various times made a great show of the party's superiority in this field, yet as soon as you were confronted in practice with your first economic question, you fell out — over protective tariffs.[3]

But if the same thing is going to happen each time an economic question crops up, what is the point of having a parliamentary group at all?

2. On principle, you ought to vote against it. I told Liebknecht so plainly enough. But suppose the majority want to vote for it? In that case, the only thing to do is to persuade them to attach such conditions to their vote as will excuse it, at any rate to the extent that no odium attaches to them in the eyes of Europe, as would otherwise inevitably happen. Those conditions, however, are, and can only be, such that the government cannot agree to them, i. e. that the majority of the parliamentary group, should they attach those conditions to their vote, will not be able to vote for it.

Needless to say, I could never have considered an unconditional vote in favour of presenting the bourgeoisie with working men's pennies. But neither, for that matter, could the cardinal question — the disruption of the parliamentary group — have been envisaged in this context.

To my mind, your best way of dealing with all such questions, if you want to take account of the voters' petty-bourgeois prejudices, is to say: 'On principle we're against it. But since you wish us to make positive proposals and since you maintain that these things would also be of benefit to the workers, which we contest in so far as anything more than a microscopic advantage is concerned — well and good. You must place workers and bourgeoisie on an equal footing. For every million you take from the worker's pocket and give to the bourgeoisie, directly or indirectly, you must give the workers a million; the same applies to loans made by the state.' I. e. more or less as follows (only by way of an example and without regard for the particular form it would have to assume for Germany, since I am too little acquainted with the details of existing legislation):

1) The granting of subventions and advances to workers' cooperatives, not for the purpose, or not so much for the purpose, of starting up new businesses (which would be no better than Lassalle's proposal, with all its deficiencies) as, in particular, in order to

a) take on lease and farm cooperatively state-owned land (or other types of landed property);

b) purchase for their own or the government account and operate as cooperatives factories, etc., which, at a time of crisis or, perhaps, due to bankruptcy, have been shut down by their owners or have otherwise come on the market, and thus pave the way for the gradual transition of all production to cooperative production.

2) Preference to be given to cooperatives over capitalists and the latters' associations in all public contracts, and on the same terms; i. e. as a general principle, contracts for public works to be accorded wherever possible to cooperatives.

3) The removal of all legal obstacles and difficulties that still stand in the way of free cooperatives, i. e. above all the reinstatement of the working class within the common law — pitiful though this may be — by the repeal of the Anti-Socialist Law which, after all, is the ruin of all trade associations and cooperatives.

4) Complete freedom for trade associations (TRADE UNIONS) and their recognition as legal persons with all the latters' rights.

By demanding this, all you demand is that equal consideration be accorded to workers and bourgeois alike; and if gifts to the bourgeois will allegedly boost industry, will not gifts to the workers boost it far more? Without any such quid pro quo, I fail to see how a Social Democratic parliamentary group could vote for anything of the sort. If you confront the people with such demands, the electorate, too, would soon stop pestering you about state aid for industry in the shape of gifts to the bourgeoisie. All these are matters which could be initiated here and now and actually set in train within the year, being obstructed only by the bourgeoisie and the government. And yet, as things now are, these are important measures whose impact upon the workers would be a very different affair from that made by steamship subsidies,[4] protective tariffs, etc. And the French are demanding essentially the same.

But now for something else which has only just come to light. The outcome of the division will, as likely as not, be determined by the Social Democrats. And what utter asses you would look in the eyes of the whole world if this business of donations to the bourgeoisie were to be the work of your votes] And without any quid pro quo! I really do not know what, in that case, I should tell the French and the people over here. And what a triumph for the anarchists, who would say exultantly: 'There you are — they're out-and-out philistines!'

I shall go into the other matters another time, since I am anxious that you should not for a moment be in doubt as to my views on this point. I trust that the change in your business affairs[5] will above all be beneficial to your health. With all good wishes to you and your family for the New Year.

Your

F.E.

That there won't be enough money is clear as day. And another thing I told Singer was that anyone who votes for it must, if he is to be consistent, also vote for colonies. As regards the point about money, see my letter to Liebknecht.[6]

  1. ↑ Engels is referring to the Social-Democratic Association of the Netherlands which was formed in 1881 and united in a single party the Social-Democratic associations of Amsterdam, The Hague, Haarlem and Rotterdam. The associations had been formed in 1878-81 with the active involvement of former members of the Dutch section of the First International. Nieuwenhuis was among the founders of the new organisation.
  2. ↑ See previous letter.
  3. ↑ The reference is to the speech made by Max Kayser on 17 May 1879 with the agreement of the entire Social-Democratic group in the Reichstag in support of the government plan to introduce protective customs tariffs. Marx and Engels sharply condemned Kayser's action in defending a proposal put before the Reichstag in the interest of large industrialists and big farmers and to the detriment of the masses. They further criticised the lax attitude shown to Kayser by a number of German Social-Democratic leaders (see present edition, Vol. 24, pp. 259-61).
  4. ↑ In late 1884, Bismarck, seeking to step up German colonial policy (see Note 292) demanded that the Reichstag approve annual subsidies for steamship companies to organise regular services to Eastern Asia, Australia and Africa. This demand led to disagreements within the Social-Democratic group in the Reichstag. The Left wing headed by August Bebel and Wilhelm Liebknecht came out against supporting the government's policy. The Right-wing majority in the group (Dietz, Frohme, Grillenberger, etc.) intended to vote for the subsidies under the pretext that they promoted international links. Under pressure from the majority, the parliamentary group decided to declare the subsidies issue to be of no major importance and give each member the right to vote as they thought fit (see Der Sozialdemokrat, No. 50, 11 December 1884). The sharp criticism expressed in Der Sozialdemokrat and the resolutions adopted by the party leadership led the majority of the parliamentary group to somewhat modify their attitude to the government's project when it was discussed in the Reichstag in March 1885 and to make their support conditional on the Reichstag accepting a number of the group's proposals. It was not until after the Reichstag declined to endorse the proposals made by the Social-Democratic group that they voted against the subsidies.
  5. ↑ In a letter written on 28 December 1884 Bebel informed Engels that on 31 December he intended to surrender his shares in the workshop producing door and window handles which had been formed in Berka a. W. in 1876.
  6. ↑ See previous letter.