Letter to Friedrich Adolph Sorge, March 16, 1887

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 16 March 1887


First published, slightly abridged, in Briefe und Auszüge aus Briefen von Job. 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
Printed according to the original
Published in English in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 48


ENGELS TO FRIEDRICH ADOLPH SORGE

IN HOBOKEN

London, 16 March 1887

Dear Sorge,

Very many thanks for your letters of 28 February and 2 March along with enclosures, and also for all the trouble you have taken. I return herewith the Executive's circular[1] as we have got a copy. Concerning the Volkszeitung's article (so the charming Jonas had suppressed Aveling's answer for a whole month before deciding to print it), we promptly sent Jonas the enclosed reply today. Should he not print it and if you could then put some sort of pressure on him, that would be splen- did.[2] But his article does seem to indicate a partial retraction.

The great controversy over the dubious items in Aveling's accounts will no doubt have now been resolved by our circular of 26 February.[3]

Nevertheless it is strange that people should make a fuss about details such as these which cannot possibly be understood except in context— that these people haven't said to themselves that they ought first to hear what the other side has to say about that context before permitting themselves to pass judgment. Every one of these items would also have appeared in Liebknecht's accounts if he had ever submitted any. But

what he said was this: the party must meet all my expenses and I shan't put down anything at all. And with that they were satisfied. The fact that Aveling subsequently met virtually all the expenses incurred, e.g. in Boston, not only by Liebknecht, but also by his daughter,[4] is not mentioned by the Executive, although these are shown in the accounts and we were decent enough not to put it in the circular. Thus, during the time they were travelling together, Liebknecht ordered all their wine, etc., to be sent up to Aveling's room and hence charged to Aveling's account. The Executive knows all about it and is keeping it dark. But shabbiest of all is their failure to send us their circular, released over there on 7 January, until 3 February, so that they had a clear month in which to spread their slanderous stories at their leisure before we so much as discovered what Aveling was actually accused of.

Pending further information, I don't believe that the resolution was accepted by the majority of the sections. If I am to go by what Aveling and Tussy say, the Knights of Labor[5] attitude is directly opposed to the views of all the sections in the West. And if this should nevertheless prove to be the case, the whole 'party' can go to the devil.

It is truly fortunate that you should send me the Sozialist. Hitherto I have been able to pass on my second copy, which I get from the Executive, to Kautsky or the Avelings, so that it has been turned to good account. This week no paper has arrived from those charming people, from which I can only conclude that the next Nos will contain more scurrilities about Aveling.

A letter has been sent to Müller in St Paul asking him if he would also publish the 2nd circular of 26 February.[6] While the Executive, covertly, as is its wont, makes the most of every journalistic ploy, it evidently intends to push the responsibilities onto Aveling should he himself be the first to go into print.

To us over here it seemed quite natural that Aveling should not reply to the New York Herald. The article was quite abysmally absurd, on top of which they both say that it is not the custom in America to reply seri- ously to such tomfooleries. From my own knowledge of the Herald it is most unlikely that the paper would have accepted it. And when the arti- cle was reprinted over here, Aveling replied at once.[7] But even if Aveling had replied to the Herald article, how would that have helped him vis- à-vis the Executive} It sounds to me like a lame excuse by Shevich. All in all I'm surprised at the utter spinelessness of most of the people in

New York as revealed by this affair. The Executive spreads whopping lies and everyone believes them—from Jonas to Shevich and the Wischnewetzky's! So the Executive would appear to be a great author- ity in New York after all.

No more time now, alas, to send you various newspapers today; they will leave tomorrow—post about to go,

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ This refers to the Circular containing accusations against Aveling (see note 3) which was directed by the Executive of the Socialist Labor Party to the party's branches on 7 January 1887. It was signed by Wilhelm Ludwig Rosenberg, Hermann Walther and others.
  2. ↑ This refers to Aveling's answer to the article in the New Yorkeolkszeitung, No. 10, 12 January 1887 (see note 26). The answer was published by the paper on 2 March, Issue 52,1887, alongside another attack on Aveling, an editorial headlined 'Affaire Aveling noch einmal'. To this second article Aveling answered by a letter dated 16 March 1887, mentioned here, which, as the rough copy shows, had been written by Engels. It was published on 30 March, in Issue 76.
  3. ↑ 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 Americnd 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).
  4. ↑ Gertrud Liebknecht
  5. ↑ 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 ohe 1890s the organisation disintegrated.
  6. ↑ In a letter dated 28 February 1887 Sorge informed Engels that a long statement in support of Aveling, signed by K.H. Muller, had appeared in the Chicago Arbeiterzeitung. Sorge sent Engels a clipping from the paper. On Aveling's second Circular see note 47.
  7. ↑ On 30 December 1886 The New York Herald published an article headlined 'Aveling's Unpaid Labor', containing accusations against Aveling (see note 3). Cabled to London, it was reprinted, abridged, in The Daily Telegraph (1 January 1887) and The Evening Standard (13 January 1887). After the publication of the article in England, Aveling cabled a denial to America, which appeared in The New York Herald on 10 January 1887. An official denial by the Avelings addressed to the Executive of the Socialist Labor Party was published in the Herald on 15 January 1887.