| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 22 June 1885 |
ENGELS TO AUGUST BEBEL
IN PLAUEN NEAR DRESDEN
London, 22-24 June 1885
122 Regent's Park Road, N. W.
Dear Bebel,
I hasten to answer your letter of the 19th, received this morning, so that my reply may reach you before you set off on your long journey.
Generally speaking I have been kept informed about recent events, at least so far as public pronouncements are concerned, and have thus been able to read the various effronteries of Geiser and Frohme, as also your short, trenchant replies.[2]
All this mud-slinging is largely attributable to Liebknecht, with his predilection for educated know-alls and for men in bourgeois occupations who can be used to impress your philistine. Nor can he resist a literary or business man who flirts with socialism. But in Germany these are the very people of whom one should most beware, and it is they whom Marx and I have ceaselessly combatted since 1845. Once you've let them into the party, in which they everywhere push themselves to the fore, dissimulation becomes the rule, either because their petty-bourgeois standpoint is in perpetual conflict with that of the proletarian masses, or because they try to vitiate this latter standpoint. Nevertheless, I am convinced that, if things ever really come to a head, Liebknecht will be on our side,— asserting, what's more, that he had never said anything else and that it was we who had stopped him from letting fly any sooner. However, a little object-lesson will have done him no harm.
The split will come as sure as eggs is eggs, but I still maintain that we must not provoke it while the Anti-Socialist Law is in operation. If it is forced upon us, then there'll be nothing for it. But we must be prepared. And that, I think, means hanging on for all we're worth to three positions: 1) the Zurich press and bookshop, 2) the management of the Sozialdemokrat and 3) that of the Neue Zeit. These are the only positions still in our hands and, notwithstanding the Anti-Socialist Law, they suffice to keep us in touch with the party. All the other positions in the press, though held by philistines, count for very little by comparison with these three. You should be able to foil many of the plots against us. In my opinion, you ought to do everything you can to ensure that, by hook or by crook, these 3 positions remain in our hands. How to set about it you will know better than I. Not surprisingly Ede and Kautsky feel very insecure in their editorial seats and are in need of encouragement. That people are busily intriguing against them is obvious. And they're a couple of competent and really first-rate chaps. In matters of theory, Ede is a very clear-sighted man and, what's more, is witty and has a gift for repartee, but he is still somewhat lacking in self-confidence — nowadays a most unusual trait and, if you consider the megalomania common to even the most insignificant lettered nitwits, a very fortunate one, relatively speaking. Kautsky has picked up a frightful lot of rubbish at university but is doing his utmost to unlearn it again, and both men are reliable, able to tolerate honest criticism and have a correct grasp of essentials. In view of the appalling new generation of literati that has attached itself to the party, two such people are pearls beyond price.
I entirely agree with what you say about our parliamentary representation generally and about the impossibility — in time of peace, as at present — of creating any really proletarian representation. The necessarily more or less bourgeois parliamentarians are an evil no less unavoidable than the professional agitators foisted upon the party from amongst those workers boycotted by the bourgeoisie and hence unemployed. This was a phenomenon already strongly in evidence among the Chartists during the 1839-48 period, and was apparent to me even at that time. If remuneration for deputies is introduced, these fellows will range themselves alongside the predominantly bourgeois and petty-bourgeois, i.e. the 'educated', representatives. But all this will be overcome. My confidence in our proletariat is as absolute as my mistrust of the utterly abject German philistines is unlimited. And when things liven up a bit, the struggle will similarly become keen enough to be conducted con amore, while the irritation caused by the pettiness and philistinism with which you now have to contend en détail and with which I am familiar from long experience, will evaporate in the wider dimensions of the struggle and then, too, we shall get the right sort of men in parliament. But it's all very well for me to talk — I'm over here, while you are having to do the dirty work, and that is certainly no joke. Anyhow, I am glad that you are physically fit again. Spare your nerves for better times; we shall need them.
The greater part of Capital, Book III, has now been dictated from the manuscripts and set out in a legible hand. This preliminary work will be pretty well complete in 5 or 6 weeks' time. Then there will be the very difficult final editing which will require a considerable amount of work. But the thing's brilliant and will have all the impact of a thunderbolt. I daily await the first copies of Book II,[3] one of which will instantly be forwarded to you.
Your old friend
F. E.
23 June. Too late to register this today, so won't go off till tomorrow.
24 June. Berlin papers received with thanks.