Letter to Pasquale Martignetti, March 30, 1892

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 30 March 1892


First published, in Italian, in Mefistofele, Benevento, 29 aprile 1892
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 49


ENGELS TO PASQUALE MARTIGNETTI

IN BENEVENTO

London, 30 March 1892

Dear Friend,

I can no longer lay my hands on the issue of Lotta[1] you mentioned in your postcard of the 26th, but in any case it would in my view be a mistake and an offence against the best interests of the party were a socialist to give the first subaltern who came along the opportunity of killing him.[2] By employing what for them would be the perfectly safe method of duelling with a socialist, it would be an easy matter for young officers to gain not only a great reputation for dash, but also rapid promotion, and, what's more, make away with our best people. We ought not to let ourselves in for that kind of thing.

Circumstances might arise in which even our own people might find that a duel was unavoidable; a French or Italian deputy might be forced to engage in a political duel should the refusal of a challenge be more injurious to the party than its acceptance, especially if it was our own deputy who was responsible for the affront. But to agree to a duel or even provoke one except in cases of dire necessity is, to my mind, absurd.

I am sending you the English translation of my Die Lage der arbeiten- den Klasse in England which has just come out. I trust it will be of use to you in your English studies.

Yours ever,

F. Engels

  1. ↑ Lotta di classe
  2. ↑ In a postcard of 26 March 1892 Martignetti asked Engels to state his views on duelling in connection with a report in the Lotto di classe that a young Italian so cialist, Arturo Zambianchi, had challenged an officer for an affront.