Letter to Edward R. Pease, January 27, 1886

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 27 January 1886


First published in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXVII, Moscow, 1935
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 47


ENGELS TO EDWARD PEASE

IN LONDON

[Draft]

[London,] 27 January 1886

Dear Sir,

In answer to your kind note of yesterday I regret to say that my time is so entirely taken up by urgent work on hand, that I cannot possibly for at least a year to come undertake any fresh engagements whatever.

Having said this much, I need not enter upon other considerations which might stand in the way of my writing the article you desire. But I may state at all events that the party to which I belong, has no fixed ready-made proposals to submit. Our views as to the points of difference between a future, non-capitalistic society and that of to-day, are strict conclusions from existing historical facts and developments, and of no value—theoretical or practical — unless presented in connection with these facts and developments. The economical aspect of these points of difference I have tried to establish and to explain in my book Herrn E.D. Umwälzung der Wissenschaft 2nd ed. p. 253 to 271; reprinted in my pamphlet Die Entwicklung des Sozialismus etc. 3rd ed. p. 28-48.[1] Shorter I cannot possibly do even this partial abstract, where neither political nor non-economic social questions are even touched. To give you a résumé in 600 words is therefore a task utterly beyond my powers.

I am yours faithfully

  1. ↑ The reference is to Engels' Anti-Dühring and Socialism: Utopian and Scientific (see present edition, Vol. 25, pp. 254-71 and Vol. 24, pp. 306-25).