| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 3 December 1892 |
ENGELS TO AUGUST BEBEL
IN BERLIN
London, 3 December 1892
Dear August,
I was delighted by what you said in your letter of the 22nd about the disinclination you people feel for any further 'nationalisation' of the party press. 82 So there's no need to waste any more words on the subject.
As regards the May Day celebrations, I concede that you were perfectly right so far as the Berlin resolution was concerned. But the fact remains that the general impression you produced in Brussels was that in future you too would celebrate on 1 May and not invoke the permission not to do so that was granted purely by way of an exception. So you shouldn't be surprised by the hullabaloo to which the Berlin resolution has given rise. But your intention of getting Congress to settle on Sunday as the day on which celebrations should be held in future is likely to hit on some snags. Except for the English everyone will be against it, many of the smaller parties out of sheer bravado. It would be a sorry retreat and the last people to join in its official proclamation would be those who secretly reserve the right to do likewise, whether it was proclaimed or not.
Well, yesterday evening I got a rabid letter from Bonnier (he never writes any other kind) in which, having read your article in the Neue Zeit, 83 he declares in the name of the French that, if the first Sunday in May were to be adopted, they would drop the whole business of May Day. Jamais, he writes, notre parti n'acceptera (le dimanche) et nous sommes bien décidés à tenir ferme.[1] And he believes you people are playing with fire.
I wrote and told him[2] 1. that things are never as black as he paints them, 2. asking who had authorised him to speak in the name of the French party, 3. that before May 1893, and between then and August '93 in Zurich 56 and between then and May '94 much might happen
that we didn't expect and that, with 3 acute political crises in the offing (Army in Germany, 76 Panama in France 60 Ireland in England 77) and a general industrial crisis, we probably had better things to do than bicker about how best to demonstrate on 1 May '94, when we might have work of a very different nature to do; 4. how his proposal to allow the English, and them only, to celebrate on the Sunday chimed in with French logic; 5. that I knew of only one party—the Austrian 81—which had any right to reproach the Germans, that the May Day celebrations in Berlin more than made amends for those in Paris and 6. that I had passed on his ultimatum to you, but purely as his own private opinion.
The man is consumed by an irrepressible urge to be up and doing but, such being the case, he shouldn't have gone to Oxford where he is all on his own with red Wolff[3] who is completely out of everything. It's a priceless idea, wanting to direct the European labour movement from Oxford—the last genuine remnant of the Middle Ages still to be found in Europe—but for us it makes an infuriating amount of unnecessary work and I shall protest in no mean terms to Paris about this go-between. The really unfortunate thing is that he's the only person who understands German save for Laura, and she lives out of town.
For the rest, the Party Congress went off quite well, but subscribing to the resolution 84 despite the sundry rubbish it contains, must have been a bitter pill for Vollmar to swallow.
Ede came to see me, bringing with him a whole bunch of letters from K. Kautsky—who had also written to me—all of them concerned with the Neue Zeit, and wanting me to add my mite. My opinion is that, if you accept the change proposed by Dietz, you should think it out and prepare for it properly, and not go ahead till January, otherwise it will be altogether premature. 85 But speaking generally, I should say that, since becoming a weekly, the Neue Zeit has to some extent relinquished its old character in favour of a new one which it has not been completely successful in assuming. The paper is now being written for two sets of readers and cannot do full justice to either.
If it is to become a popular, part-political, part-literary and artistic and part-learned journal, à la Nation, then it will have to move to Berlin. The political section of a weekly must be written at the hub of things, on the eve of publication, otherwise it will always be lagging behind. And,
save for the correspondents, those working on the political section must always be in the same place. The idea of editing a review in Berlin and London and publishing it in Stuckert[4] doesn't seem feasible to me. In any case there would be a 20 or 30 per cent difference in subscriptions between a Berlin and a Stuttgart weekly. I am regarding this simply from a bookselling point of view, having no more than a nodding acquaintance with the other aspects that need to be considered and about which you out there will be better informed than I.
But if the Neue Zeit undergoes these changes, it will appeal to only one section of its former public and will have to be organised solely for their benefit. It would then no longer be open to those articles from which it has hitherto derived its greatest and most enduring value—the longer, learned papers which run on through 3 to 6 numbers. Hence, alongside the Neue Zeit there would have to be a predominantly learned monthly— if necessary even quarterly—journal with a correspondingly restricted circle of subscribers, and this would have to be offset by raising the price if the paper was to be kept going.
Indeed, it seems to me altogether necessary, if the party publishers wish increasingly to secure a monopoly of party publications, including learned ones, that they should not aim at bulk sales for everything, whether suitable for that purpose or not. An original paper on political economy is bound to be primarily a detailed treatise, nor can it be expected to sell in bulk. Similarly, a genuine historical work, the outcome of independent research, does not lend itself to publication by installments. In short, I think there should be two separate departments, one for bulk sales, the other for ordinary, slower-moving sales through booksellers, in smaller quantities and at a correspondingly higher price.
What happens when an attempt is made to boost sales beyond the limits called for by the nature of the case is something I have learned from my own experience. Though written as popularly as possible, my Anti-Dühring is by no means a book to suit every working man. But along comes Dietz, takes over part of the Zurich edition and then tries to boost sales by remaindering the thing at a reduced price with 11 assorted booksellers. This is not at all to my liking and next time I shall be on my guard. It is the only longer work I have written since 1845 and, whichever
way one looks at it, it is degrading to see it treated in that way. By the by, there's no need to say anything to Dietz about this—the thing is over and done with and cannot be altered, nor would I have mentioned it to you had it not provided an apt illustration of what I mean by the wrong way of selling books.
For the rest, times are growing critical. Every morning when I read the Daily News and such French papers as have arrived, it takes me right back to '47. At that time, too, one expected some further scandalous revelations each morning and one was seldom disappointed. The Panama affair 60 beats everything that went on in the way of corruption under Louis-Philippe and under Bonaparte II I. The initial outlay, including bonifications to the press and Parliament, amounted to 83 million francs. This will be the ruin of the bourgeois republic, for the Radicals 86 are as deeply implicated as the Opportunists. 87 On every side attempts are being made to hush things up, of course, but the more they are hushed up the worse they get. Once the revelations were under way and a few people had become irretrievably implicated in the scandal, these had perforce to cover themselves by betraying their accomplices and showing that they had only been swimming with the stream. Already the committee is in possession of such enormously compromising statements that there's no holding back; a few may slip through the net, but large numbers have already been named and, of course, the fewer the names that are compromised the greater the odium that attaches to the bourgeois republic. Though much may still happen in the meantime, this is nevertheless the beginning of the end. Fortunately all the monarchist parties are completely done for, nor will it be at all easy to find another Boulanger. 6
Herewith an extract from Lafargue's letter for the Vorwärts—but do ensure that the paper gives no indication whatsoever that the letter emanated from a deputy. 88
What Liebknecht entirely overlooked in the matter of Bismarck's Ems forgery was that that's the sort of thing diplomats do in secret but never boast about. 75 But if one of them does happen to boast about it, the breach of etiquette is such as to render him persona non grata. After this it will never again be possible to appoint Mr Bismarck Imperial Chancellor, otherwise any foreign government could refuse to enter into negotiations with a man who not only is not above using such methods, but actually boasts of having used them. The Imperial Government would risk incur-
ring a general international boycott were Bismarck to become Chancellor again. I believe it would do a lot of good if this were said on the floor of the Reichstag.
Many regards to your wife.[5]
Your F.E.
[Postscript from Louise Kautsky]
Dear August,
It seems to be my fate that my space should be rationed because I once over-stepped the mark and wrote a leader, so rather than look at your last letter, I shall look instead at the pretty inkstand that invites kind, happy thoughts and was inaugurated with the proofs of the second volume of Capital. Thank you very much for it—how good you both are; now that I'm equipped, I am, it seems, likely to run on and to be rapped over the knuckles for so doing. Well, that isn't what I was intending to write about—all I meant to say was that not once this week have I been able to get round to writing, there having been, alas, so much to prevent me—glass-workers, transport workers, Reumann, Victor,[6] meeting of the unemployed and, last but not least, the Jews. They are not getting the Vorwärts, August, so could you please make inquiries? Then, some time ago, I asked if you could let me have another copy of the Vorwärts' report on the Congress, but you probably forgot—I'd like two if at all possible, otherwise one; it's the report on the Party Conference I want, not the one made by you people at the Conference. Victor enjoyed the time he spent with you and wrote saying that to him it seemed as though the poor Austrians were standing guard in the wet and the cold, whereas you people were sitting snug in your encampment, despite the struggle and the fighting. Then there's another thing—I still have two English reports on the International Glassworkers' Congress 89 to spare. Would you like one? It's very interesting, but you would have to write a few lines about it by way of justification and send a sample copy, and would you please ask Fischer if he might perhaps write something for a Bavarian paper, in which case I would send him the other copy. I would, of course, send them without any strings attached but I feel responsible because it's the English who have to pay for the whole thing, so I'd be grateful if you'd let me know. I must close, so more anon; it's time for the post and I must close. With loving kisses to you and Julie,
the Witch
[Postscript from Engels]
Please convey my most sincere thanks to the parliamentary group for their kind telegram last Sunday. 90