Letter to Karl Kautsky, March 5, 1892

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 5 March 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, 5 March 1892

Dear Baron,

Your ms.[1] goes off by registered mail today. I have only been able to read the first 16 pages. If I were you I should omit the better part of this introduction. The reasons why a programme should have a commentary, etc., etc., in short, all those reflections of yours about why the pamphlet was written, only serve to weaken the impact and deter the reader from persevering. You must plunge straight into it — you could have no better justification. I cannot give an opinion of the way the rest, the major part, is arranged. So overwhelmed am I by work of all kinds that I don't know whether I'm coming or going. Nothing but trifles, but quite scandalously time-consuming. I long to have time for Volume III[2] and every day am invariably robbed of it. Well, we shall get round to it some time or other.

Ten copies of Neue Zeit containing my article[3] received with thanks. Simply amend the name Hodgskin and the figure 1824 in the next edition, and include a note saying that in the original these read such and such, obviously a slip of the pen or printer's error.[4]

Menger is a jackass and will so remain. His critique of bourgeois law[5] is throughout nothing but a vindication of the 'police state' as opposed to the 'constitutional state'. True, the law, especially bourgeois law, is stricter and more rigorous than police despotism which may sometimes appear humane precisely because it is despotic. If I had the time, I should soon put paid to this empty talk which is possible only in backward countries such as Germany and Austria.

I am glad you are agreeable to the Luther idea.[6] There's no rush. Cunow's letter returned with thanks. I look forward to seeing the ideas he has worked out about class.[7] He has made some very nice discoveries about the Peruvian gens. He had sent me the stuff and I thanked him for it.

You will also be getting the Peruvian community system — I have just looked at it.

I don't think you are in any danger for the time being. So changeable and multifarious are the cravings in Berlin that none could really be satisfied; now all at once it's the liberal bourgeois who's the bête noire. Liberalism is at the root of all socialism, so if one is to act radically one has got to smash liberalism, whereupon socialism will automatically wither away. For the present we may observe this exceptionally cunning manoeuvre with quiet amusement. Once the liberal philistines have been driven wild — and they are, it seems, really being whipped into a fury willy-nilly — then there'll be no more false alarms so far as we are concerned. Apart from the fact that in Germany there are also rulers to whom this wind from Berlin provides the not unwelcome opportunity of currying favour at little expense and thus extracting capital for particularism and reserved rights.[8]

When the street rioting began in Berlin[9] I was somewhat concerned lest it result in the ardently desired fusillade, but when the rowdies cheered young William,[10] thereby placating him, I knew that all was well — but just let the Kölner Leitung be locked up along with Peus,[11] and we may well see some fun.

So in my view, in so far as there is any danger, it is primarily confined to Prussia, and the greater it becomes there, the better off you people in the small states will be.

Now I have got to write to Sorge—the American mail goes today— so FAREWELL. Aveling, who has just come in, sends his best wishes. Regards from one household to the other.

Your

F.E.

  1. ↑ This refers to Kautsky's brochure, Das Erfurter Programm in seinem grundsätzlichen Theil erläutert, published in Stuttgart in 1892.
  2. ↑ of Capital
  3. ↑ 'Der Sozialismus in Deutschland'
  4. ↑ In a letter to Engels of 19 September 1890 Jules Guesde pointed out an inaccuracy in Engels' letter of 2 September to the leaders of the French Workers' Party (see present edition, Vol. 27, pp. 233-34) concerning the resolution of the 1889 Paris International Socialist Workers' Congress on the procedure for the convocation of the next congress. Engels considered that authorisation to call it had been given to both the Swiss and the Belgian socialists. Formally it was the executive committee, to be set up by the Swiss socialists, that had to decide where to call the congress, in Switzerland or in Belgium. In essence, however, Engels was right since the executive could not function without agreeing its steps with the Belgians (see also Note 26).
  5. ↑ A. Menger, Das bürgerliche Recht und die besitzlosen Volksklassen.
  6. ↑ See this volume, pp. 342-43.
  7. ↑ In his letter of 19 February 1892 Kautsky told Engels that Heinrich Cunow was going to write a work on the 'class organisation' of the Australoids. It appeared under the title Die Verwandtschaftsorganisation der Australneger (1894).
  8. ↑ This refers to the special rights (independent administration of the postal service, telegraphy and railways, a degree of autonomy in military matters, and other rights) of the south German states, mainly Bavaria, Württemberg and Saxony, incorporated in their treaties of accession to the North German Confederation (November 1870) and in the Constitution of the German Empire (April 1871). Representatives of Bavaria, Württemberg and Saxony on the Council of the Confederation formed a special foreign policy committee vested with the right of veto.
  9. ↑ Demonstrations and rallies of unemployed took place in central Berlin, particularly in front of the royal palace, on 25, 26 and 27 February 1892. Accompanied by serious lumpen-proletarian violence, they were broken up by the police. The German Social-Democratic Party emphatically condemned the outrages and urged the workers to stay away from these demonstrations.
  10. ↑ William II
  11. ↑ On 15 February 1892 the Social-Democrat Wilhelm Peus was sentenced to 26 months' imprisonment and 5 years of suspension of civil rights for lèse-majesté. Speaking in Magdeburg on 26 October 1891, he had declared that the monarchy served no useful purpose and its abolition was no crime.