Letter to Karl Kautsky, April 30, 1891

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 30 April 1891


First published in Aus der Frühzeit des Marxismus. Engels Briefwechsel mit Kautsky, Prag, 1935
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 49


ENGELS TO KARL KAUTSKY

IN STUTTGART

London, 30 April 1891

Dear Baron,

I have before me your letters of the 5th and 25th. Ad vocem Brentano[1] —Herkner, to whom I sent a copy, has replied to the effect that, while the allegation of deliberate falsification could not be substantiated, Marx had nevertheless, if no doubt unintentionally, used quotations in Capital of such a kind that no clear idea could be obtained of Gladstone's real views, etc.—on the whole, everything you'd expect of so 'ardent' a disciple of Brentano's.

You will have got my postcard about Rave.[2] Laura Lafargue is going to read over and correct his translation of the Origin,[3] otherwise I could hardly have entrusted him with the thing. He will probably take some time over your Morus[4] which he wishes to translate; he spoke of having to do 'more rewarding, i.e. better paid' work.

I cannot begrudge Schmidt the lectureship—something he and his parents have dreamed of for years. And in present-day Switzerland even a Marxian stands some chance. True, you have thereby lost a most reliable—if not most tractable—fellow editor; however, someone will doubtless turn up to whom you can entrust much of the mechanical stuff, at any rate.

If Liebknecht were to leave Berlin for Leipzig many people besides yourself would be instantly overjoyed. But I don't believe it will happen. It would mean his abdicating. In Leipzig—what historical irony!—he would be the Social-Democratic Bismarck of Friedrichsruh[5] which would eventually lead to a rumpus. Whether things will go on much longer without there being one is in any case questionable.

The Peruvian affair interests me very much; I should be glad if you could send me the Ausland articles.[6] But tell me when you have got to have them back, and I can regulate my reading accordingly.

I wrote to Rave about your Morus as follows[7] : Le "Thomas Morus" de Kautsky contient un aperçu généralement juste, et sous beaucoup d'aspects original, de la période de la renaissance dans les pays de réforme protestante, et surtout l'Angleterre. C'est de cet aperçu général des conditions historiques de la période que se dégage la personnalité de T. More, comme enfant de son temps. La renaissance italienne et française, par conséquent, ne figurent dans le livre qu'à l'arrière-plan. J'écrirai à Kautsky un de ces jours, et je le prierai de vous envoyer son livre, je crois que vous trouverez, qu'il vaut bien la peine d'être traduit.[8]

I have no recollection whatever of Marx's Geneva memorandum.[9] We are now engaged in sorting out the old letters and newspapers and I shall see if I can find it. But just now I haven't got much time to look, let alone do notes, etc., on it. I have got to make sure of getting back to Volume III[10] and have firmly resolved to be ruthless about refusing any more work—were it only 3 lines—unless of the utmost urgency, and likewise to restrict my correspondence to bare essentials, until I have done with Volume III. First, of course, there's the Origin[11] which I shall, I think, get round to next week. Meanwhile Louise will search for the Geneva document. However, it may take some time; the quantity of stuff is tremendous and the disorder even more so.

As you will have seen, the Vorwärts has altered course somewhat[12] in regard to the miners' strike.[13] Liebknecht is hopeless in such matters. The man has only two colours on his palette, black and white, with no nuances in between, so what can one do? Our chaps in Berlin see everything solely from their own standpoint. Thus they sometimes forget that, unlike the party veterans, the miners cannot be expected to have the kind of discipline that would have been drilled into them by the Anti-Socialist Law; they also forget that every new group of workers accrues to us as the result of injudicious and necessarily unsuccessful wild-cat strikes which, however, are inevitable in the circumstances. I shall write to Bebel about this.[14] You can't just enjoy what is pleasing in a movement; you also have to put up with its momentary unpleasantnesses. Come to that, the strict discipline of a sect cannot be maintained in the case of a big party, nor is this altogether a bad thing.

As for Lafargue, don't let yourself be confused. Lafargue is a bit of an enfant gâté[15] and is enamoured of his prehistoric theories which do not by any means always hold water. Hence his Adam and Eve[16] are dear to his heart and seem to him far more important than Zola, for whom he's just the right sort of chap.[17] And the delay over the paradisal Platonists—who only learnt what's what when chucked out by old Jahweh—coming as it does so hard on the heels of the affair of his other, economic, article,[18] is to him a personal affront. Now, all of a sudden, he expects the Neue Zeit to carry nothing but Adam and Eve articles, as though it had been in the habit of doing so before. Now he looks for a contrast, which is non-existent, between the old and the new Neue Zeit, and behaves as though the paper had never before contained any articles d'actualité.[19] I find the Neue Zeit far better than it used to be—no one, surely, can expect me to read the serials; it has at last succeeded in getting Schippel to write really good articles that are a pleasure to read. That a weekly must give more space than a monthly to actualités goes without saying. If you could find a niche for Adam and Eve before too long, then all would be well.

The American militia system is in practice nothing but a kind of national guard of middle-class volunteers, and as much as 10 years ago Hyndman wrote to Marx from America saying that the middle classes there did a vast amount of drill so as to protect themselves against the workers. Proof of how utterly useless this is against an external enemy may be found in all the wars the United States has ever fought using newly formed regiments of volunteers (enlisted men)—on the largest scale of all in the Civil War when the militia melted away completely. Even when I was in America I heard of the militia regiments' ARMORIES which were said to be veritable fortresses in the heart of New York. Until such time as every working man has a rifle and a hundred live rounds at home, the whole thing will remain an absurdity.[20]

Your old friend

F. E.

As you know, Mother Besant has now joined Grandmother Blavatsky's (Blamatsky's?)[21] Theosophists. Now, writ large in gold on her garden gate at 19 Avenue Road, is the legend: THEOSOPHICAL HEADQUARTERS. Such is the result of Herbert Burrows' love.

  1. ↑ As regards F. Engels, In the Case of Brentano Versus Marx.
  2. ↑ See this volume, pp. 163-64.
  3. ↑ F. Engels, L'Origine de la famille, de la propriété privée et de l'état. Traduction française par Henri Rave.
  4. ↑ K. Kautsky, Thomas More und seine Utopie.
  5. ↑ Bismarck's estate where he lived after his resignation.
  6. ↑ The reference is to Heinrich Cunow's article 'Die altperuanischen Dorf- und Markgenossenschaften', published in the journal Das Ausland, Nos 42-44, 20 and 27 October and 3 November 1890, of which Kautsky had informed Engels in his letter of 5 April 1891. Engels made use of Cunow's article in preparing the fourth edition of The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.
  7. ↑ What follows is, presumably, an excerpt from Engels' letter to Henri Rave of 7 April 1891, which is not extant in full (see this volume, p. 165).
  8. ↑ 'Kautsky's Thomas Morus contains a survey, by and large correct and in many respects original, of the Renaissance period in the countries of the Protestant Reformation, notably England. It is from that general survey of the historical conditions of the period that T. More's personality emerges as the child of his times. In this book, therefore, the Italian and French Renaissance figures only in the background. One of these days I shall write to Kautsky and ask him to send you his book. I believe you will find it well worth translating.'
  9. ↑ This refers to the Instructions for the Delegates of the Provisional General Council. The Different Questions (see present edition, Vol. 20, pp. 185-94) drawn up by Marx for the delegates to the Geneva Congress of the First International (3 to 8 September 1866). In connection with the discussion on the programme of German Social-Democracy, Kautsky offered to publish the Instructions in Neue Zeit, along with the programme of the French Workers' Party, the theoretical introduction to which had been written by Karl Marx (see present edition, Vol. 24, pp. 340 and 638). In his letter of 25 April Kautsky suggested that Engels might write the commentary and notes to the projected publication.
  10. ↑ of Capital
  11. ↑ the fourth German edition of The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State
  12. ↑ Engels probably has in mind the leading article on the miners' strike (see Note 228), headlined 'Sie haben's erreicht!', and the article 'Der Streik der Bergarbeiter', published in Vorwärts, respectively No. 96, 26 April, and No. 97, 28 April 1891.
  13. ↑ The miners' strike in question started spontaneously in the Ruhr on 16 April 1891, spreading eventually to almost the whole of the Rhine-Westphalia coal region. The strikers' main demands were for higher wages and an eight-hour working day. The strike ended in defeat for the workers at the beginning of May. In his letter of 25 April Kautsky criticised the stand taken by Vorwärts, which was demoralising the strikers by predicting their defeat.
  14. ↑ See this volume, pp. 182-83.
  15. ↑ spoilt child
  16. ↑ P. Lafargue, 'Der Mythus von Adam und Eva. Ein Beitrag zur vergleichenden Mythologie', Die Neue Zeit, 9. Jg. 1890/91, 2. Bd., Nr. 34, 35.
  17. ↑ In his letter of 25 April 1891 Kautsky told Engels that, writing to him, Paul Lafargue had remarked critically on Neue Zeit after it had become a weekly, pointing out that it was carrying few serious and independent articles. Kautsky also said he intended to order Lafargue an article on Emile Zola.
  18. ↑ This article by Paul Lafargue, intended for Neue Zeit, did not appear in it. In his letter to Engels of 6 February Kautsky characterised it as slipshod and containing serious mistakes, and asked what he should do with it. The article was published later in La Revue socialiste, t. XVI, No. 93, 1892, under the title 'La théorie de la valeur et de la plus-value de Marx et les économistes bourgeois'. For Engels' assessment of it see this volume, pp. 140-42.
  19. ↑ topical articles
  20. ↑ In his letter of 25 April Kautsky asked for Engels' opinion of the US militia system and expressed the view that the Social-Democrats must favour conscription and the universal arming of the people.
  21. ↑ Helena Blavatsky