Letter to Conrad Schmidt, June 12, 1889

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 12 June 1889


First published in Sozialistische Monatshefte, No. 17, 1920
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 48


ENGELS TO CONRAD SCHMIDT

IN BERLIN

London, 12 June 1889
122 Regent's Park Road, N. W.

Dear Sir,

A thousand apologies for having been so thoroughly remiss in answering the inquiry in your esteemed letter of 15 April.[1] Contrary to my intentions I have got involved in the debate over the international congress and have thus taken upon myself a great deal of work, corre- spondence, running about, etc., which unfortunately has meant my neglecting a mass of other things, among them many letters, which remain unanswered.

So as not to keep you waiting a moment longer, I must inform you that I have not seen the pamphlet in question[2] since the time it appeared in Cologne, nor, to my knowledge, is there a copy among Marx's papers. The pamphlet came out shortly before the trial began and I have never heard of a second part. Something of that kind would probably have been advertised in the Neue Rheinische Zeitung but all I can find there is the announcement, which first appeared on 9 July 1848, of this one pamphlet, described as Part I; the proceedings began on 5 August. There are no advertisements for a second part in the intervening numbers and I feel sure it never appeared. After his acquittal Lassalle would have had no cause to continue with a critique whose sole purpose had been to secure that acquittal.[3]

I am most anxious to see that piece of yours,3 which has found a berth at last. I shan't be able to read the article on Kant in the Vossische until after the post has gone, so for the present I can do no more than say how very grateful I am to you for sending it.

If you join the Vossische and are required to belabour the East, the Standard is the only paper I would commend to your attention. Of all the London and, possibly, European, papers (a few in Hungary excepted), none is better informed on the East in so far as Russia's inter- ests are concerned. A day or two ago, for example, it was first with the news of Russia's little scheme, which has now re-emerged into the light of day, for a greater Serbian empire under the Prince of Montenegro—a little scheme whose furtherance has, for the present, been entrusted by the Russian government to the pan-Slav Comité so that, depending on circumstances, the former can either itself pursue it, or shelve it again for a while; 2., with the news of the secret agreement between Tsar[4] and Shah[5] whereby Persia would not grant railway, shipping, etc., conces- sions without Russia's approval and, in case of war, would place Khorassan at the Russians' disposal (i.e. make possible their strategic encirclement of Afghanistan). Months often go by without anything of this kind appearing in the Standard, but then the disclosures usually come thick and fast. The Standard is supplied with the stuff by Russophobes in the Conservative Party, the army and the Indian Civil Service.

I fear that, once Russia has fixed up the conversion of her debt[6] and acquired thereby a financial status she has never enjoyed before, the pan- Slav party on the one hand and, on the other, the need to provide employment for the army (whose younger, educated officers are without exception constitutionalists,[7] hence far in advance of the Prussians), thus keeping its mind off political conspiracies, will precipitate the Russian government into war. What will happen then, no one can tell; the old oracle of Delphi comes to mind: Croesus by crossing the Halys will ruin a mighty realm.

In any event much will be destroyed in the process, including, perhaps, the German army, provided a certain conceited young rascal[8] is given a bit of time to disorganise it.

Meanwhile there has also been the splendid business of the coalminers' strike,[9] which illuminated the whole situation like a flash of lightning. That's three army corps that have come over to us. So until my next and with best wishes,

Yours sincerely,

F. Engels

  1. ↑ Pertaining to C. Schmidt's letter to F. Engels of 15 April 1889. Seeking a publisher for his work Die Durchschnittsprofitrate auf Grundlage des Marx'schen Werthgesetzes; C. Schmidt asked to send him F. Lassalle's book Der Criminal-Prozefi wider mich wegen Verleitung zum Cassetten-Diebstahl oder: Die Anklage der moralischen Mitschuld, Koln, 1848. Schmidt thanked Engels who had offered him to give letters of recommendation to A. Bebel and W. Liebknecht.
  2. ↑ Ferdinand Lassalle, Der Criminal-Prozeß wider mich wegen Verleitung zum Cassetten-Diebstahl oder: Die Anklage der moralischen Mitschuld
  3. ↑ As a lawyer, Lassalle conducted Countess Sophie Hatzfeldt's divorce proceedings in 1846-54. In February 1848, he was arrested on a charge of abetting the theft of a casket with documents with intent to present them to the court. Lassalle was held in custody till 11 August 1848, when acquitted by the jury.
  4. ↑ Alexander III
  5. ↑ Nasr-ed-Dir
  6. ↑ In March 1889 a new external Russian loan was issued to a sum of 175 million gold roubles for the conversion of the older 5 per cent bonds.
  7. ↑ Engels must have meant representatives of the bourgeois opposition of the latter half of the 19th century and the early 20th century, particularly, the Russian liberal gentry who were playing a significant part in the zemstvos. These liberals exhibited much moderation, lack of will and loyalty toward the tsarist autocracy, and sought to come to terms with tsarism through petty reforms. Zemstvos were bodies of restricted local self-government introduced in Russia in 1864.
  8. ↑ William II
  9. ↑ The German coal miners' strike in the Ruhr was a major event in the German working-class movement of the late 19th century. It began on 3 May 1889 in the Essen and on 4 May in the Helsenkirch coal mining districts; then it spread to the entire Dortmund area. At its height the strike action involved as many as eighty thousand miners. The main demands were: higher wages, an eight-hour working day and recognition of the worker committees. Frightened by the scope of the strike action, government bodies had the entrepreneurs make a promise to fulfil some of the miners' demands. As a result, some of the miners resumed their work in mid May. However, the mine-owners broke their promises, and a meeting ooal miners' delegates on 24 May decided to continue the strike action. The threat of reprisals and the new promises made by mine-owners resulted in the termination of the strike in the beginning of June.