Letter to August Bebel, July 23, 1892

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 23 July 1892


First published in Bolshevik, No. 14, Moscow 1935
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 49


ENGELS TO AUGUST BEBEL

IN BERLIN

London, 23 July 1892

Dear August,

With your usual perspicacity you rightly guessed that I would be sending you this letter via the Witch. So to begin with let me thank you for the Imperial and Royal Railway Timetable and assure you that I shall set my 'new course' by the above right royal document. I have already fathomed a few of the mysterious signs and wonders to be found therein and within the next fortnight hope to get to the bottom of them all, thereby ensuring that I don't find myself stuck anywhere.

Well, my plans are as follows: Next Wednesday[1] I go to Pumps in Ryde whither all letters will be forwarded. Shall stay there until about 10-15 August, depending on circumstances, for I am awaiting a letter from Barmen,[2] the contents of which will determine the day of departure. I shan't go to Barmen, as I have so many nephews and nieces there that duty visits alone would take more than a fortnight. But I want to spend a few days in Engelskirchen where my brothers go in turn for the summer holidays. Thence, on or about the 18th or 19th, to Zurich where I must pay a visit I have been promising for years to my cousin Mrs Beust and family. I shall let you know as soon as I arrive and shall then go on to St Gallen on the 24th or 25th. If you fetch me, so much the better. We would then set out for Stuckert0 on the Neckar's banks, pick up Uncle Georg and carry on to Munich and — via the Alps if possible — to Vienna, etc. She will be able to tell you the rest by word of mouth (I don't mean Mrs Beust who is the grammatical subject but the Witch who is in any case a most ungrammatical one).

According to Tussy, the elections here in the East End of London have aroused wild enthusiasm. The workers have at last realised that they are capable of something if only they have the will. The Liberal spell has been broken and, what's more, correspondents from [3] far and wide have been proclaiming in the Workman's Times that an INDEPENDENT LABOUR PARTY is all that is needed. Facts and facts alone are what impress hard-headed John Bull and these cannot fail to do so.

The Vollmariad provides further proof that the man has completely lost touch with the Party.[4] A break with him is bound to come, probably this year or next; he seems intent on ramming state socialist inanities down the Party's throat. But since he is an artful intriguer and since I have had wide experience of campaigning against people of this sort — Marx and I often made tactical blunders when confronted by this kind and had to pay dearly for it—I shall now take the liberty of offering you a few tips.

What these people are mainly after is to put us formally in the wrong and that we must prevent. Otherwise they'll keep harping on this side-issue in order to obscure the main issue of whose weakness they are aware. So be careful what you say both in public and in private. You will have noticed how cleverly the fellow made use of your remark about Liebknecht[5] so as to foment trouble between him (Liebknecht) and yourself—after all he is perfectly well aware of your attitude to one another! — and thus place you in a quandary.

Secondly, since it is important to them to obscure the main issue, you must avoid giving them any cause to do so; any side-issue they may raise should be dealt with as briefly and conclusively as possible so that it is disposed of once and for all. As for yourself, however, you must if at all possible ignore all side-issues or red herrings that may arise, whatever the temptations. Otherwise the debate will range ever wider and the original bone of contention will gradually disappear from view. In which case there will no longer be any chance of a decisive victory. So far as the intriguers are concerned, that might be success enough, but for us, at any rate, it would be a moral defeat.

Thirdly, it follows from 1. and 2. that, when confronted by such people, purely defensive tactics are best until such time as they land themselves in a real predicament—then you open up with short, devastating artillery bombardment before going in with the bayonet for the coup de grâce. Here, as nowhere else, it is a matter of husbanding one's ammunition and reserves until the last moment.

Every time we departed from these rules when fighting the Bakuninists, Proudhonists, German academics and other such riff-raff, we had to suffer for it and that is why I now submit them to you again for your consideration.

Well, warm regards to yourself and Mrs Julie[6] from

Your

General

Siegel's last letter is enclosed at his request.

  1. ↑ 27 July
  2. ↑ See this volume, p. 473.
  3. ↑ c Stuttgart
  4. ↑ Engels means the polemic between Vorwärts and Georg von Vollmar provoked by his article 'Le socialisme de M. Bismarck et le socialisme de l'empereur Guillaume', published in the June 1892 issue of the French Revue bleu. Revue politique et littéraire. Vollmar maintained in this article that some propositions of the Erfurt programme approximated to the state socialism of Bismarck and William II. The article caused a broad polemic in the Social-Democratic press. Vorwärts rebuffed Vollmar in a series of editorials, headlined 'Staatssozialismus', in its Nos 155, 160, 168 and 169; 6, 12, 21 and 22 July 1892.
  5. ↑ To disprove Vollmar's assertions that Bebel was interfering in the affairs of Vorwärts, Bebel stated in a private letter to Vollmar that he had not seen Liebknecht, the editor of Vorwärts, for a whole fortnight. However, Vollmar, in his article 'In eigener Sache' published in Münchener Post, No. 161, on 19 July 1892, distorted this in a way suggesting that Bebel was accusing Liebknecht of neglecting his duties. Bebel denied Vollmar's allegations in Vorwärts, No. 168, on 21 July 1892.
  6. ↑ Julie Bebel