Letter to Friedrich Adolph Sorge, March 10, 1887

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 10 March 1887


First published, slightly abridged, in Briefe und Auszüge aus Briefen von Joh. Phil. Becker, Jos. Dietzgen, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx u. A. an F. A. Sorge und Andere, Stuttgart, 1906 and in full in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXVII, Moscow, 1935
Published in English in full for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 48


ENGELS TO FRIEDRICH ADOLPH SORGE

IN HOBOKEN

London, 10 March 1887

Dear Sorge,

Postcard of the 22nd and letter of the 25th of February received. You guessed rightly. It would have been useless to send a copy of the long letter, since the wording of the complaints in the Executive's circular is not only milder but differs materially, while everything else up till now has been private tittle-tattle. The way people in Europe view the affair is evident from Singer's reply to the circular sent him by Aveling.[1] 'It's the old story though it's a pity that the Avelings also have to suffer through it.'[2] I sent you 4 copies of this circular in English and 4 in German; no doubt you will have received them, as also my letter of about a week ago.[3]

La Wischnewetzky is incapable of translating the Manifesto. Only one person can do that, namely Sam Moore, and he is working on it at this moment; I already have the first section in ms.[4] In this connection, however, it should be remembered that the Manifesto, like virtually all the shorter items by Marx and myself, is still much too abstruse for America. The workers over there are only now entering the movement; they are still quite raw and, particularly as regards theory, tremendously backward, owing to their generally Anglo-Saxon and particularly American nature and upbringing—hence it is to practice that the lever must be directly applied and for this purpose entirely new literature is required. I have already suggested to la Wischnewetzky that she bring out separately a popular digest of the main points in Capital in the form of short pamphlets.[5] Once the chaps are more or less on the right path, the Manifesto cannot fail to make an impact; just now the impact will only be felt by a few.

Your remarks about Das Kapital in English have been passed on to the publisher[6] [7] who came back with a very practical answer to the effect that a favourable article in the North American Review would be enough to create a demand for an American edition and, for that reason, he would like to skim the cream off first. As it is, the thing is selling very well in America too; another big bookseller besides Bordollo has been ordering away merrily,[8] while sales over here have been so brisk that all but 50 copies of the first edition have been snapped up and the second—still at the same price—is printing. And this despite very little advertising and before any of the large papers mentioned it. The first serious review appeared in the Athenaeum of 5 March—very favourable.[9] The rest will now follow suit and help us sell the second edition, after which the cheap edition can doubtless come out.[10]

Irrespective of what the Socialist Labor Party may purport to be and however much it may take the credit for the successes achieved by the work of its predecessors, it is the only labour organisation in America which by and large stands on our basis, it is distributed in more than 70 sections over the whole of the North and West and as such, and only as such, have I recognised it. I have expressly stated that it is a party only in name.[11] And I'm convinced that the gentlemen of the Executive were very disappointed by my preface[12] and would rather have done without it. After all, they themselves belong to the school of which I have said that it will ruin the party if it gains the upper hand. And they seem to be intent on doing so. In Justice here, Rosenberg has attacked the Knights of Labor on account of the longshoremen's strike[13] ; though he may not be altogether wrong about individual facts, he shows insufficient awareness of the course the movement is taking, a course that will quickly destroy the party if these chaps remain in control. It is precisely the follies of the place-seeking leaders of the Knights of Labor and their inevitable conflicts with the Central Labor Unions[14] in the big cities of the East that must provoke a crisis within the Knights of Labor and bring it to a head. But the blockhead doesn't see it.

Over here the unemployed agitation by the Social Democratic Federation[15] has also proved to be a complete flop; the church parade in St Paul's was a silly attempt to ape the Chartists and was likewise a flop,[16] in short nothing has happened yet. Next autumn things may get better; It would be desirable if, in the meanwhile, the rascals at the head of the Social Democratic Federation were to fade away and disappear.

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ This refers to Aveling's letter of 26 February 1887 which was circulated, in printed form, to the sections of the Socialist Labor Party of North America and other socialist organisations. It was a detailed answer to the accusations levelled at Aveling by the party's Executive on 7 January 1887 (see note 32).
  2. ↑ P. Singer's letter to Engels of 7 March 1887.
  3. ↑ See previous letter.
  4. ↑ In his letter of 20 February 1887 Sorge suggested to Engels that Florence Kelley-Wischnewetzky should be asked to translate the Manifesto of the Communist Party into English for publication in the USA. This project did not materialise. An English edition of the Manifesto, in Sam Moore's translation and edited by Engels, appeared in London in 1888.
  5. ↑ See Engels' letter to Florence Kelley-Wischnewetzky of 13-14 August 1886 (present edition, Vol. 47)
  6. ↑ William Swan Sonnenschein
  7. ↑ On 20 February 1887 Sorge informed Engels that the English edition of Volume I of Capital was not selling well in the USA, and suggested sending copies of the book to the editors of leading American journals for reviewing.
  8. ↑ Part of the English edition of Volume I of Capital was bought by the American firm Scribner & Welford, which gave the book a new title page, reading Capital. A Critical Analysis of Capitalist Production; from the German by S. Moore and E. Aveling, and edited by Frederick Engels, N.Y., Scribner & Welford, 1887, 2 v.
  9. ↑ An unsigned review of the English edition of Volume I of Capital appeared in the London literary and critical journal Athenaeum, No. 3097, 5 March 1887.
  10. ↑ The third, cheap English edition (10s 6d) of Volume I of Capital appeared in London in 1888. Copies of the first two editions (both 1887) were sold at 30s.
  11. ↑ Engels means the following passage, referring to the Socialist Labor Party of North America, in his work 'The Labor Movement in America'. 'This section is a party but in name, for nowhere in America has it up to now, been able actually to take its stand as a political party' (see present edition, Vol. 26).
  12. ↑ Engels' article 'The Labor Movement in America' (see Notes 11 and 12)
  13. ↑ Justice, No. 164, 5 March 1887, carried an item by Wilhelm Ludwig Rosenberg, secretary of the Socialist Labor Party of North America, headlined 'Letter from America - The Great Strike', which characterised the longshoremen's strike in New Jersey as an unmitigated defeat for the workers, incurred through the fault of the Knights of Labor leaders. The party, Rosenberg stressed, must not support this organisation. The Knights of Labor (The Noble Order of the Knights of Labor) was an American workers' organisation founded in Philadelphia in 1869. Originally a secret society (up to 1878), it included mostly unskilled workers, among them black workers. The Knights' aim was the promotion of co-operatives and mutual aid societies. They took part in a number of working-class actions, but the organisation's leadership opposed workers' participation in political struggle. It forbade members of the organisation to take part in the 1886 general strike; however the rank and file ignored the ban. After the strike the Knights' influence among the workers began to shrink. Towards the end of the 1890s the organisation disintegrated.
  14. ↑ The Central Labor Unions were mass trade union centres of US and foreign workers, both white and black, in a number of American cities in the 1880s. The first was formed in New York in 1882. Many of these centres joined the American Federation of Labor (AFL), set up in December 1886.
  15. ↑ The Social Democratic Federation was a British socialist organisation, the successor of the Democratic Federation, reformed in August 1884. It consisted of heterogeneous socialist elements, mostly intellectuals, but also politically active workers. The programme of the Federation provided for the collectivisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange. Its leader, Henry Hyndman, was dictatorial and arbitrary, and his supporters among the Federation's leaders denied the need to work among the trade unions. In contrast to Hyndman, the Federation members grouped round Eleanor Marx-Aveling, Edward Aveling, William Morris and Tom Mann sought close ties with the mass working-class movement. In December 1884, differences on questions of tactics and international co-operation led to a split in the Federation and the establishment of the independent socialist league (see note 21). In 1885-86 the Federation's branches were active in the movement of the unemployed, in strike struggles and in the campaign for the eight-hour day.
  16. ↑ In 1886 and 1887 the Social Democratic Federation conducted a broad campaign of agitation among London's unemployed. The church parades were a form of this agitation, practised in early 1887. It was an attempt to address the unemployed from the pulpit. One parade, on 27 February 1887, took place in front of St Paul's Cathedral. During the sermon, parade participants proclaimed socialist slogans. After the service the Social Democratic Federation held three meetings in the streets, the speakers including John Burns, George Bateman and Fielding. However, this form of agitation failed to produce tangible results and was abandoned.