Letter to Karl Kautsky, January 26, 1892

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 26 January 1892


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


ENGELS TO KARL KAUTSKY

IN STUTTGART

London, 26 January 1892

Dear Baron,

Proofs of the articled promptly returned yesterday. I cannot attend to those of the Anti-Proudhone as I have got to tackle Volume IIIf without delay and look over the English translation of the Entwicklungg, which I cannot refuse to do since it is I, after all, who will be held responsible for anything of that kind that appears in London; so I can take on absolutely nothing else whatever.

If the Berliners should object to anything in my article, I would ask you to substitute dots. There can be no question of toning things down because the French original is generally accessible and I might be accused of falsifying the text. I should be grateful if you would send me the proofs of the Poverty—for I've got to take another look at the prefacea in any case.

I have written and told Dietz,[1] by whom I've been saddled with a draft for an address to Bebel on the 25th anniversary of his entry into Parliament,[2] that in future all my fees are to be sent to Adler. As it is, the Berliners get the lion's share, since I can't deprive them of those accruing from what is published by the Vorwärts publishers. So it's only fair.

Well, the happy result of Julius'b underground activities was to get Gilles evicted from the Society[3] by 48 votes to 21, at 3 o'clock on Sunday morning.c He (Julius) conducted the campaign most ably and called in here on Sunday evening; he was full of beans and gave us a delightfully humorous account of his negotiations with the Society members whom he conjured up to the life. It was the same old story. At first the dullards thought they were only 7 strong, a figure which, on further investigation, turned out to be more like 50—good men, if sluggardly—but once they'd been got together and galvanised into action, Gilles was done for. It's a matter of some significance because, in the eyes of the English, it has knocked the ground from under his feet; Hyndman is the only one who now has him hanging at his coat-tails, nor will he be able to shake him off.

Hyndman has also suffered some severe defeats. See the account in last week's Workman's Times of the delegates' negotiations at the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION HALL, Strand, concerning the FREE SPEECH MEETING at the World's End, Chelsea. On that occasion he was hard pressed by Shaw, Burns and Tussy. Burns said that, if it came to the point, he hoped it would not be necessary to go and look for speakers in the LAVATORIES (as for Hyndman in Trafalgar Square), etc. Hyndman, he went on, could have saved the day if, instead of the untenable World's End (300 men constitute an OBSTRUCTION OF TRAFFIC, whereupon the police have got to intervene), he had stuck to Sloane Square which he had relinquished on being fined one SHILLING. The GASWORKERS said they would attend if there was any prospect of a fight, and would provide speakers if Hyndman would preside.[4] In short, his cowardice was at long last brought home to him. On Sunday he fared even worse at the delegates' meeting about the same subject. A SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION man said that the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION was too weak to carry the thing off on its own and since it apparently was on its own, ought to drop it; someone else said that it wouldn't do for Hyndman to be arrested since the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION was solely dependent on subsidies from MIDDLE-CLASS PEOPLE, ESPECIALLY Hyndman and Hunter Watts. The jackass has got so involved in his own intrigues that things may go badly for him. The real nub of the matter, as he himself had privately said, was this: if the squabbling over the World's End RIGHT OF MEETING could be kept going until the dissolution of Parliament, it would ensure his being returned in Chelsea (for which he is standing).

Many regards and my congratulations on the birth of your second son.a But surely it is now time you slowed down the tempo a bit? We are glad to hear that motherb and child are doing well. Over here influenza is still on the rampage; Percy had it, and pneumonia immediately afterwards; I anxiously await news of Pumps. Louise also had a touch of it, likewise Aveling.

Well, once again warm regards from Louise and

Your

General

  1. ↑ The Editors are not in possession of the original of this letter.
  2. ↑ The Editors are not in possession of the original of this letter.
  3. ↑ Engels means the German Workers' Educational Society in London, which was founded by Karl Schapper, Joseph Moll, Heinrich Bauer and other members of the League of the Just in 1840. After the establishment of the Communist League, its local branches played the leading role in the Society. In 1847 and 1849-50, Marx and Engels took an active part in its work. On 17 September 1850, they and a number of their followers retired from the Society because most of its members had sided with the adventurist sectarian minority (the Willich-Schapper faction) which was challenging the Marx- and Engels-led majority in the Central Authority of the Communist League. Marx and Engels resumed their work in the Society in the late 1850s. When the First International Working Men's Association was founded, the Society—then led, among others, by Friedrich Lessner—became its member. The London Educational Society was closed by the British government in 1918.
  4. ↑ At a joint session of the freedom of speech committee and representatives of socialist and workers' organisations on 24 January 1890, the delegates of the Union of Gas Workers and General Labourers declared that they were not going officially to participate in meetings at the World's End.