Letter to Karl Kautsky, January 28, 1889

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 28 January 1889


First published in: Aus der Frühzeit des Marxismus. Engels Briefwechsel mit Kautsky, Prag, 1935
Published in English in full for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 48


ENGELS TO KARL KAUTSKY[1]

IN VIENNA

London, 28 January 1889

Dear Kautsky,

Today I have a proposal to make to you which has Ede's, Gina'sb and Tussy's blessing.

I foresee that in the most favourable circumstances I shall have to continue to spare my eyes for a very long time if they are to get right again.

And that rules out the possibility, at least for several years to come, of anyone taking down the ms. of Book IV of CapitaP'5i at my own dictation.

On the other hand, I must see to it that not only this but Marx's other mss. remain usable even in my absence. There is no way of my doing so other than by giving coaching in these hieroglyphics to people who can, if necessary, take my place and in any case help me with the editing in the meantime. And for this purpose you and Ede are the only ones I can employ. So for the time being I propose that that is what the three of us should do.

But then the first thing to be tackled is Book IV, and Ede is too preoccupied with the editing of the Sozialdemokrat and with the many hold-ups and intrigues that are part and parcel of the shop here. But I imagine that, after a bit of coaching and practice and with the help of your wife,[2] you would in the course of, say, two years, find sufficient time to turn the 750 pages or so of the original (a good part of which will probably be dropped as having been included in Book III[3] ) into a legible ms. Once you were able to read the writing fairly well, you could dictate to your wife and then things would go faster.

Now I have worked it out as follows: if, as hitherto, I could dictate to Eisengarten for 5 hours a day, that would take me a year—allowing for interruptions. In return I would have to pay Eisengarten £2 a week—£100. So that is what it would cost me in any event and, if you are prepared to take the work on for that amount, that is what I shall pay. Spread over two years it would mean a payment of £50 each year; should the work go ahead faster, payment would be forthcoming sooner. We here are of the opinion that in these circumstances you might perhaps have no objection to returning. I would suggest that I pay you in quarterly advances of £12.10, for progress would be slow at first and faster later on, and hence there would be no sense in proposing that payments should be related from the outset to the quantity of work done.

Ede simply cannot wait to be initiated in the hieroglyphics. I have in fact some other mss. for him and shall likewise give him coaching, but I told him, of course, that I could only pay one of you and this he readily accepted.

What I have in mind here is the ultimate publication at some later date—though perhaps this won't be possible during my life time—of collected editions of things by Marx and myself, and it is in regard to this particular matter that I would now like to make the necessary provisions. I have also mentioned it to Tussy and we can expect all possible help from that quarter. Once I have got you both to the stage of reading Marx's handwriting well, a heavy load will have been lifted from my shoulders and I shall then be able to spare my eyes without neglecting an important duty, for by that time there will be two people, at any rate, to whom the mss. are no longer a book with seven seals.

Apart from Lenchen, only Ede and Aveling and their wives know of my plan and, if you are in agreement, no one save the two of you need know anything about the details of the affair. It might also provide Louise with a congenial occupation.

So give the matter some thought and, if you agree to it, come over as soon as you can. You'll be able to secure Schlüter's furniture at little cost and at the same time attractive, if temporary, lodgings. Louise will doubtless want to get her course and exams[4] over first, but how that can be arranged is something of which the two of you are better judges than we over here.

Boulanger's election[5] is bringing the situation in France to a head. The Radicals, in their haste to come to power, have made themselves the servants of opportunism and corruption and by doing so have virtually become a breeding ground for Boulangism.[6] But it bodes ill for Paris that in its rage at these goings-on it has cast itself into the arms of a barely disguised Bonapartism. For the present, the only conclusion I can draw from all this is that Paris is renouncing its traditional revolutionary mission. Fortunately the provinces are better. The worst of it is that the danger of war looms ever larger and that Bismarck can now have a war whenever he wants one. He only needs to provoke another Schnaebelé-type incident—which Boulanger won't be able to swallow as Ferry did.

Best wishes to Louise from Nim and myself,

Your

F. E.

Give my regards to those trusty friends who sent me their New Year's greetings, in particular Frankel. You all seem to be going strong again over there.

  1. ↑ An excerpt of this letter was first published in the language of the original (English) in the book: K. Marx, E Engels, Letters on 'Capital', London, 1983.
  2. ↑ Louise Kautsky
  3. ↑ of Capital
  4. ↑ Louise Kautsky was attending obstetrics classes.
  5. ↑ In the by-election scheduled for 27 January 1889 in Paris (see notes 328, 329), the following candidacies were nominated: Georges Boulanger - from the Right-wing groups, Edouard Jacques - from the Republican Party (this candidature received support from the Possibilists as well), and the labourer Boule - from the Workers Party (see note 33) and the Blanquists. In a bitter electoral struggle, General Boulanger received about 250,000 votes, Boule 7,000 votes.
  6. ↑ After his resignation from the post of War Minister, General Boulanger continued to whip up a revanchist campaign with the support of the chauvinist elements of different parties, from the radicals to the monarchists. On 8 July 1887, when Boulanger was leaving for Clermont-Ferrand to assume command of the 13th Corps, his supporters staged a chauvinist demonstration at the Lyons railway station. Boulangism was a reactionary movement in France in the mid-1880s, led by ex-War Minister General Boulanger. It urged a revanchist war against Germany to win back Alsace, annexed by Germany in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71. In alliance with the monarchists, the Boulangists sought to capitalise on the masses' discontent with the government's policy. Their large-scale demagogic propaganda was especially effective among the lower ranks of the army. France was under the threat of a monarchist coup. Measures taken by the republican government, with the support of the progressive forces led to the collapse of the Boulangist movement. Its leaders fled from France.