Letter to Karl Kautsky, May 17, 1892

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 17 May 1892


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


ENGELS TO KARL KAUTSKY

IN STUTTGART

London, 17 May 1892

Dear Kautsky,

You will have got the postcard about Werner-Weiler.[1] Meyer told me directly after the Edinburgh Congress that he had spotted Weiler there.

To apply that epithet to me was really very silly.[2] You would be doing a kindness to me and certainly to others as well, if you pointed out to him, at any rate for his future guidance, that he must accustom himself to our less grandiose terminology, failing which you will have to correct his stuff accordingly.

Hirsch is in Frankfurt all right and Meyer is in his debt since at Meyer's request he used to shout out at appropriate moments the admonition: 'Mr Meyer, you ought not to drink so much.' It was the funniest bosom friendship between a Jew — and what an archetypal Jew! — and an anti-Semite I have ever known. It still makes me laugh, just writing about it.

Now as to the business of Louise, I should, if I were you, let the matter rest.[3] That she bears your name is the result of your own voluntary action. That you are no longer together is likewise the result of your own initiative. That there is a possibility of mistaken identity is again entirely your own doing. She is now using the only name she is entitled to bear under Austrian law and I can see absolutely no reason why she should evade that necessity.

Let me be perfectly frank with you. All of us here, not least myself, have grown very fond of Louise, as was already the case when you were over here together. When the business of the divorce began, she behaved from beginning to end with a magnanimity we could not admire too greatly and, since arriving in this country, she has become so dear to me that I regard her just as I do Pumps, Tussy or Laura, just as though she were my own child. When you were here, she showed you that she bore you no grudge whatsoever. But enough is enough.

Nobody can expect her to bear whatever unpleasant consequences may arise from your actions. Were you to put to her what you told me in your letter and were she to come and ask my advice, my answer would be an uncompromising 'No!'

Mistaken identity has also occurred on the other side, but she merely laughed about it. And supposing she did oblige you, what would be the result? Louise Kautsky and Louise Kautsky would be joined on the stage by yet a third Louise Strasser-Kautsky whereupon the comedy of errors would degenerate into pure farce. It would be of no help to you, while she would have to go into long explanations with all and sundry about the how, the who, the when and the wherefore.

So as I have said, let sleeping dogs lie. Your having parted is really quite a good thing and Louise is perfectly content with this state of affairs. But no one will ever be able to undo what you have done and it is you, after all, who must bear the consequences. And this particular consequence is really not so trying as to warrant any sort of fuss being made about it.

Tussy is of the same opinion and August, to whom I have shown both your letter and the foregoing,[4] is fully in agreement with it.

So don't worry, the whole thing will automatically right itself.

Your old friend,

F. Engels

  1. ↑ Rudolf Hermann Meyer, in his article 'Der große Generalstab und die nörgelnden Zeitungsschreiber' intended for Neue Zeit (see Note 479), mentioned a carpenter by the name of Werner as one of the German representatives at the 1879 Edinburgh Congress of the British Trades Unions (see Note 478). According to Meyer, Werner set forth Marx's ideas at the congress. In his letter to Engels of 13 May 1892 Kautsky suggested that in reality it may have been Adam Weiler and asked Engels whether this was so. The Editors do not have Engels' postcard mentioned here at their disposal.
  2. ↑ In his letter of 13 May 1892 Kautsky wrote that Rudolf Meyer had described Engels as the 'oldest and greatest of the living political economists' in his article (see Note 477). Despite Engels' objections, the phrase was kept. The article appeared in Die Neue Zeit, 10. Jg., 1891/92, 2. Bd., Nr. 35, 36.
  3. ↑ In his letter of 13 May 1892 Karl Kautsky expressed the desire that Louise Kautsky, his former wife, should use the double name Strasser-Kautsky (Strasser was her maiden name) in her public activities.
  4. ↑ August Bebel and Paul Singer visited Engels in London approximately between 14 May and 1 June 1892.