| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 6 November 1892 |
ENGELS TO AUGUST BEBEL
IN BERLIN
London, 6 November 1892
Dear August,
All this time I have been slaving away dutifully at Volume II[1] and not, I'm glad to say, without success. Today I may already be said to be fairly past the main obstacle, the credit system—upon which nothing remains to be done but the technical editing—which, however, is of a complex and time-consuming nature.[2] I have greatly enjoyed the work, firstly because I have discovered so many brilliant new sides to it—ask Louise,[3] to whom I have read quite a lot of it out loud—and secondly because it has also shown me that, when all's said and done, my old noddle is still up to the mark, even where relatively difficult things are concerned. The worst havoc the years have wrought is in the sphere of memory whose doors are no longer so easy to find or to open, which means a general slowing down. This is something I can very well put up with, however.
But though I may have broken the back of the work, it's very far from finished. Besides this section there still remain the two last ones (rather less than 1/3 of the whole) which I haven't so much as looked at yet, and then comes the final, technical editing of the whole which, while not difficult, is all the more tedious and wearisome for that. It will probably take me the whole of the winter—and then there'll be the proofs—coinciding with those of the 2nd ed., Vol. III.
I have made time for it by forcibly suppressing in all my correspondence in so far as it wasn't absolutely vital. Not my correspondence with you, however, although I cannot reply so promptly or in as much detail as I should like. Well, you won't, I suppose, have any objection if it means that the Witch[4] takes up her pen rather more often instead of me.
Lafargue has still to learn that, amongst bourgeois politicians, promises are made only to be broken.[5] In any case his intentions would have been frustrated by Standing Orders which preclude debate on such questions. He is still rather too much of a tyro on the floor of the Chamber; however he has promised to frequent it more regularly in future. They now want to publish the documents in pamphlet form.[6]
I expressed myself badly in speaking of Hans Müller.[7] I didn't mean that you, as the Party Executive, should take any notice of his concoction and still less that you should do so in the manner suggested by me. But if a polemic against the angry young man was embarked upon under your aegis, then, etc. it seems to me absolutely essential that the party should criticise its own antecedents on such occasions and thereby learn to do better. True, the blunders committed at the time of the Steamship Subvention,[8] etc., are over and done with, but the same people are still around and some, at least, are capable of acting as before. It all the blunders perpetrated by the parliamentary group and by some of its members are to be concealed under a mantle of love, this would, in my opinion, be tantamount to breeding Independents.[9] Messrs Frohme, Blos, etc., should acquire a thicker skin. Am I wrong in attributing certain motions redolent of 'Independence', tabled at the Party Congress by the Solingen people, to the latter's opposition to Schumacher's bourgeoisification and philistinisation?[10] A touch of retrospective veracity in the Neue Zeit would do no harm and you, with your tact and expertise, would be the right man for the job—but whether, of course, your position on the Executive doesn't make this inadvisable is another matter. One way or the other, however, such criticism must eventually be expressed.
It was with pleasure that I read the report of your Executive last night.[11] Very good. Calm, objective, adhering to the facts which are allowed to speak for themselves and only at the end a few necessary brief words denoting proud self-confidence. We shall have to see if Aveling can't get some extracts from it into the press. But over here you are virtually boycotted out of sheer English chauvinism. The existence in Germany of a labour movement with procedures so different from those of the British movement and which, though contemptuous of the TRADES UNION and politico-parliamentary rules here considered sacrosanct, nevertheless goes on from strength to strength, is exceedingly galling to people in this country. And I don't mean the middle classes. The old Trades Unions regard each of your victories as a defeat for themselves and their own methods. The Fabians[12] are riled at your forging ahead despite your having declared war upon all bourgeois radicals. The leaders of the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC FEDERATION[13] detest you for refusing either to have secret dealings with them or to join the mutual admiration society which Justice has long been trying to make you accept, now by dangling a carrot, now by cracking a whip. Because of the vast ignorance of the English masses in regard to foreign affairs and their hereditary arrogance which leads them to look on a foreigner as a second-rate human being and everything occurring abroad as of little account, a conspiracy of silence is easily imposed. The Chronicle[14] is in the hands of the Fabians where labour matters are concerned, Justice has been led by Hyndman to espouse the cause of that rotter Gilles, the Workman's Times likewise believes that nothing's any good unless based on a big English-style TRADES UNION organisation—so where are we to get the thing published? Only in the bourgeois press, as a news item of general interest. If, for the space of no more than a year, we could find a paper willing to open its pages to straightforward accounts of the German movement, the whole business would come to an end. For there is enough latent internationalism, if nurtured, to put paid to the stupid arrogance of the British, at least in the majority of cases. But as it is...!
The Workman's Times is threatening to close down. There's more to this than meets the eye and we're trying to find out what. Nothing like that happens over here without jiggery-pokery of some sort.
Now ad vocem[15] Vollmar. As I see it, the man was attacked most ineptly. The pitfall in this case was the phrase state socialism. That phrase does not express any clear-cut concept but, like 'social question', etc., is simply journalese, a mere cliché from which anything or nothing may be inferred. To contest the true meaning of such a word is sheer waste of time; for its true meaning consists precisely in its not having any. It would have been difficult to avoid examining this supposed concept in the Neue Zeit and what K. Kautsky has to say about it is, in fact, very good (except that he too supposes that the thing has absolutely got to have a true meaning).[16] But it is doing Vollmar an immense and quite unnecessary favour to contend with him in political debate about what state socialism is or is not—there's no end to such pointless political palaver. As I see it, what ought to be said at the Party Congress is this: 'My dear Vollmar, what you imagine state socialism to be is all one to us, but on various occasions you have said such and such about the government and our attitude towards it, and that's where we have got you; what you have said runs just as much counter to the tactics of the party as do the pronouncements of the Independents, and it is for this you have got to answer! Only on the score of his unashamed arse-crawling to William[17] and Caprivi is he vulnerable, indeed very much so, and it was to this particular point I wished to draw your attention before the Party Congress.
Enclosure from the Witch.[18] Cordial regards to your wife and yourself. We are glad to hear that there's an early prospect of your visiting us. Could be MOST BENEFICIAL politically over here; we shall do the necessary spadework. We quite agree with you about a weekly.[19] It would be tremendously effective abroad where we still very much feel the loss of the Sozialdemokrat; a good weekly survey of party events would be invaluable abroad.
Your F. Engels