Letter to Wilhelm Liebknecht, January 10, 1888

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 10 January 1888


First published in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXVIII, Moscow, 1940
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 48


ENGELS TO WILHELM LIEBKNECHT

IN BORSDORF NEAR LEIPZIG

London, 10 January 1888

Dear Liebknecht,

As regards expatriation, things are unlikely to move very rapidly. However contemptible the German bourgeoisie may be, such cowardice calls for a modicum of courage and in my view it will take Bismarck a year to knock that courage into them. But quite a lot can happen in a year. By intriguing against the Crown Prince,[1] Monsieur Bismarck has tripped up badly and if, after the old man[2] has pegged out, the Crown Prince's turn lasts only six months, it will be enough to throw everything into confusion and thoroughly undermine the philistine's confidence in the permanence of the Bismarckian system. After that the insolent lad William[3] is welcome to take his turn; he'll do far more good than he can do harm. So I trust that your visit to America next year will only be a temporary one[4] and that we shall see you here both on the way out and on the way home. You will find plenty of work to do in America for, as you say, the chaps over there have bungled things badly.[5] The Americans themselves are still too new to the movement as a whole and too unfamiliar with it not to perpetrate a series of stupendous blunders. But we can also come to their assistance and in such a case a man like you, who is familiar with the English movement and capable of handling an English audience, would be exceedingly useful.

There's nothing new to report here. The old Communist Society[6] is going steadily downhill, being now in the hands of the rascally Gilles; it is becoming increasingly chummy with the anarchists whose headquarters are now in London. The Trafalgar Square affair[7] is being celebrated afresh with the wholesale sentencing—both in the magistrates' and in the criminal courts—of those who took part in the demonstration. Graham and Burns are to appear shortly. If they too are sentenced, the London juryman will, by his action, have passed a vote of thanks to Warren and the police, which can only further the split between the classes. The workingmen have an enormous hatred of the police and at the next election the stupid Tories will have cause to be aware of it.

I wish you belatedly a Happy New Year and let's hope there will be peace both internally and externally. I have no wish either for war or for attempted coups. Everything is going much too famously for that.

Your

F. Engels

  1. ↑ Frederick William (later Frederick III)
  2. ↑ William I
  3. ↑ Frederick William's son (William II)
  4. ↑ Probably Wilhelm Liebknecht wrote in his letter to Engels that in case of a prolongation of the Anti-Socialist Law (see note 52) he and his family would have to emigrate to America. One of the additional clauses to the law envisaged banishment and deprivation of citizenship (expatriation) for Social Democratic activities (see also note 220).
  5. ↑ Engels means the leaders of the Socialist Labour Party of North America (see note 3).
  6. ↑ This refers to the London German Workers' Educational Society. It was founded by members of the League of the Just Karl Schapper, Joseph Moll and Heinrich Bauer in London in 1840. In 1847 and in 1849-50 Marx and Engels took part in its activities. The Society changed its name in subsequent years. From the 1870s it was called the Communist Workers' Educational society. Soon after the introduction of the Anti-Socialist Law in Germany (see note 52), the Society was overruled by the faction that rejected the tactics adopted by German Social Democracy for the period of operation of the Law. It opposed combining legal and illegal methods of struggle, objected to the Social Democrats' use of the Reichstag platform and favoured individual terrorism. In March 1880 a considerable part of the Society's members formed an independent organisation of their own, retaining the Society's name. This new Society declared that it would be guided by the principles and tactics of German Social Democracy. The remainder of the members, in particular the followers of Johann Most, stuck to their extreme Left views. They operated under the same name.
  7. ↑ An allusion to the events of 'Bloody Sunday' in London's Trafalgar Square on 13 November 1887 (see note 185). Among those arrested were the prominent figures in the socialist and trade union movement Robert Cunninghame-Graham and John Burns. On 18 January 1888, the two men were sentenced to 6 weeks' imprisonment. However, they were soon set free under public pressure (see note 246).