Letter to August Bebel, August 14, 1892

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 14 August 1892


First published in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXIX, Moscow 1946
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 49


ENGELS TO AUGUST BEBEL

IN BERLIN

Ryde, 14 August 1892
The Firs, Brading Road

Dear August,

I share your hope that by the beginning of September I shall have so far recovered as to be able to travel at least as far as Berlin. Should this be the case, I shall without fail pay a flying visit to Berlin — my sole destination in fact, for by then the Engelskirchen folk will have dispersed to the four winds.

The only question is whether it is going to be possible. And of that I cannot as yet give you any idea. I know from experience that in such cases 3 or 4 weeks' rest is absolutely essential if I am to recover my mobility, and any premature exertion or excessive exercise, however slight, will set me back by a week or a fortnight. But unfortunately one cannot tell until it's too late whether the exertion is premature or the exercise excessive.

On top of that I am, after all, 5 or 6 years older than I was at the time of the last bout, and have undeniably allowed more alcohol to pass through the inner man this year than I normally do in three. So I shall have to resign myself to a somewhat longer cure, even if the inflammatory symptoms have not resulted in any organic changes in the shape of adhesions or lesions or scarring.

At all events it will not be until very late in the day that I shall be able to tell from observations what the position is. You must keep me properly informed of the addresses at which my letters and, if needs be, telegrams, can reach you, especially in the case of Vienna, and how long you propose to stay there, so that Louise doesn't leave for London at the same time as I for Berlin.

Last Monday[1] and Tuesday I was in London where I saw the Avelings and put my house in order. Thus the cure was interrupted until Wednesday. Now I am lying absolutely still and, of course, feel correspondingly better. I hope in a week's time to be able with impunity to allow myself at least a modicum of exercise. I shall let you have a bulletin as soon as there is anything to report.

Needless to say, I shall now have to observe 'sobriety and moderation' in regard to alcohol. I had indeed been surprised at my continued ability to tolerate the stuff so well, and had grown overconfident as a result. Well, we must hope that the consequences do not persist too long. I must revert to my former principle of abstaining for a fortnight or a month every so often. Not that I regard abstaining from drink as any more of a hardship than refraining from smoking, provided there is good reason for it.

I have not had an answer from Louise to the letter I wrote to her a week ago today. The Sunday postal arrangements over here are abominable.

One good piece of news: Mr Seidel's intrigues, aimed at preventing the accursed Marxists from having any say in the preparations for the Zurich Congress,[2] would seem definitely to have misfired.

Greulich wrote to Tussy on behalf of the Zurich Committee requesting her to draft a letter of invitation to the English TRADES UNION Congress[3] and also to do their English translations. The letter arrived when the Avelings were on the point of leaving for Norway and Tussy, of course, immediately drafted the invitation, and generally placed herself at the committee's disposal; she sent me Greulich's letter when she was actually on board the steamer.

And now for another: a period of slack trade and the manufacturers' threats to knock 10 per cent off wages has suddenly cured the Lancashire cotton operatives of their enthusiasm for 10 hours and opened their eyes to the advantages of the 8 hour day. Even the leaders are already said to have switched horses. Thus the 8 hour day has triumphed in England. The resistance of those factory hands who enjoyed the protection of the 10 hour day was the principal weapon in the bourgeois arsenal. They'll lose it, come the September congress.[4]

K. Kautsky did not make use of the enclosed passages from the Avelings' article in the Neue Zeit.[5] When he wrote, he said this had had to be done for technical reasons; may be, but again it may have had something to do with Ede's comical respect for the FABIANS and Bax's (he's in Zurich) interest in the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION.[6]

At all events, you'll find the passages interesting and they form an essential part of the overall picture.

You might get the Vorwärts to print the following questions:

1. Is it true that the 'Independents' in London, i.e. those who were thrown out of the Communist Workers' Educational Society,[7] have founded a club and rented Grafton Hall, a large building in Fitzroy Square, for the purpose?

2. That to help raise the considerable sum required for this, Mr Baginski, who earns at most £3 a week, made a contribution of £500 sterling = 10,000 marks?

3. That Mr Hochgürtel, likewise a working man, contributed another £500 and that, to the question as to where he had got the money, he returned the strange reply that he had divorced his wife, and thus obtained her money?

4. That the brewer who supplies beer to the club advanced another £1,200?

5. If all this be true, where did this money come from and who provided the brewer with the collateral without which no one would be so stupid as to advance so large a sum?

Warm regards to your wife[8] and children,

Your

F.E.

The Roshers send their kindest regards.

  1. ↑ 8 August
  2. ↑ This refers to the third International Socialist Workers' Congress, held in Zurich, 6 to 12 August 1893.
  3. ↑ The 1892 annual Trades Union Congress, held in Glasgow from 5 to 10 September, discussed labour representation in Parliament, co-operation, factory inspection and other questions and pronounced itself in favour of introducing the eight-hour working day. At the same time it turned down an invitation to the third International Socialist Workers' Congress in Zurich (1893) received from its preparatory committee, and decided to call another international congress — on the eight-hour day issue. This could interfere with the congress of the Second International being prepared by the Marxists and split the international working-class movement.
    Engels emphatically opposed these actions of the British union leaders. He sent letters to Germany, Austria, Spain and France recommending the socialist parties to publicly condemn them (see present edition, Vol. 27, and this volume, pp. 522-24, 528-29, 530-31, 533-35).
  4. ↑ The 1892 annual Trades Union Congress, held in Glasgow from 5 to 10 September, discussed labour representation in Parliament, co-operation, factory inspection and other questions and pronounced itself in favour of introducing the eight-hour working day. At the same time it turned down an invitation to the third International Socialist Workers' Congress in Zurich (1893) received from its preparatory committee, and decided to call another international congress — on the eight-hour day issue. This could interfere with the congress of the Second International being prepared by the Marxists and split the international working-class movement.
    Engels emphatically opposed these actions of the British union leaders. He sent letters to Germany, Austria, Spain and France recommending the socialist parties to publicly condemn them (see present edition, Vol. 27, and this volume, pp. 522-24, 528-29, 530-31, 533-35).
  5. ↑ Engels means the article 'Die Wahlen in Großbritannien' by Edward Aveling and Eleanor Marx-Aveling, published in Die Neue Zeit, 10. Jg., 1891/92, 2. Bd., Nr. 45. In editing it, Karl Kautsky had omitted the passages in which the authors criticised the sectarianism and opportunism of the Social Democratic Federation and the Fabian Society (see this volume, pp. 497 and 515).
    On 8 August 1892 Kautsky wrote to tell Engels that the article had remained unread for some time owing to his absence, with the result that publication had been delayed by a week and the article had had to be abridged for lack of space.
  6. ↑ The Social Democratic Federation, set up in August 1884, consisted of English socialists of different orientations, mostly intellectuals. For a long time the leadership of the Federation was in the hands of reformists led by Hyndman, an opportunist sectarian. In opposition to them, the revolutionary Marxists within the Federation (Eleanor Marx-Aveling, Edward Aveling, Tom Mann and others) worked for close ties with the revolutionary labour movement. In the autumn of 1884 — following a split and the establishment by the Left wing of an independent organisation, the Socialist League (see Note 49) — the opportunists' influence in the Federation increased. However, revolutionary elements, discontented with the opportunist leadership, continued to form within the Federation, under the impact of the masses.
  7. ↑ 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.
  8. ↑ Julie Bebel