Letter to Rudolph Meyer, July 19, 1893

ENGELS TO RUDOLPH MEYER

IN PRUHONICE NEAR PRAGUE 139

London, 19 July 1893

Dear Mr Meyer,

It is, I agree, quite interesting that those worthies the Conservatives should believe (desire) that Caprivi might destroy Social-Democracy. 238 Just let him try. A new Anti-Socialist Law 15 can only strengthen the party in proportion to the individual existences it destroys. Anyone who has got the better of Bismarck need have no fear of his successor. Any attempt to abolish or tamper with universal suffrage will revive the old oracle: 'If you cross the Halys, Croesus, you will destroy a great empire.' If Caprivi does away with universal suffrage he will destroy a great empire, namely that of the Hohenzollerns.

So you have found violations of the theory and practice of agriculture in Bebel's Frau^[1] ? Well, it is scarcely possible to provide a critique of today's wasteful and generally uneconomic management of agriculture and industry, along with tips as to how, given the social order that automatically arises out of economic conditions, this could be done differently and better, and at the same time as to how, given shorter working-hours for each individual, production could be significantly increased—all this, I say, is scarcely possible without exposing oneself to attack by people with a practical knowledge of one branch or another. Hence Bebel is obviously either expressing himself badly or has failed to understand his authority when he says that the yield of a cornfield can be increased threefold or more by fully exploiting the protein content of gluten. There can be no question of that. I could point to a dozen or more minor inaccuracies of a like nature, but they don't affect the main issue.

Similarly in the case of the transport of meat from regions overseas. Hitherto enough has been available for shipment in one form or another to Europe. But with growing demand and a growing tendency to change over from pasture-land to arable—in those regions too—this is bound to reach a peak before long and then decline. Whether it comes about a few decades sooner or later is largely immaterial.

However, the main objection you raise is that work on the land cannot be done by industrial labour and that in agriculture the reduction of the working-day to a uniform period throughout the year is impossible. Here you have misunderstood Bebel the turner.

So far as hours of work are concerned, there is nothing to prevent us from taking on at seed or harvest time, or whenever a quick supply of extra labour is needed, as many workers as may be required. Assuming an eight-hour day, we can put on two, even three, shifts a day, Even if each man were to work only two hours a day—in this special employment—eight, nine or ten shifts could be put on in succession, once we had a sufficiency of people trained in the work. And that and nothing else is what Bebel is saying. Similarly, in industry one wouldn't be so thick-headed, assuming a two-hour shift engaged, say, in spinning, as to keep increasing the number of spindles until each spindle produced what was required of it when run for two hours. Rather, one would keep the spindles running for between ten and twelve hours, while the operatives would only work for two, a new shift being put on every two hours.

Now as to your objection about the poor town dwellers who are spoiled for agricultural work for life, you may very well be right. I readily admit my inability to plough, sow, reap, or even lift potatoes, but luckily we have in Germany so huge a rural population that by intelligent management we could without more ado drastically reduce each man's working hours and still retain supernumeraries. Supposing we turned the whole of Germany over to farms of between 2,000 and 3,000 morgens^[2] —more or less, depending upon natural conditions—and introduced machinery and every modern improvement, would we not then have more than enough skilled labour amongst the agricultural population? But obviously there is not enough work on the land to keep that population busy throughout the year. Large numbers would idle away much of their time if we didn't employ them in industry, just as Our industrial workers would waste away physically if they were denied the opportunity of working in the open air and particularly on the land. I agree that the present grown-up generation may not be up to it. But we can train young people to that end. If, for several successive years, the lads and lasses were to go into the country in summer when there is something for them to do, how many terms would they have to spend cramming before being awarded their doctorates in ploughing, harvesting, etc.? You are surely not suggesting that a man should spend his whole life doing nothing else, that, like our peasants, he should work himself silly before he acquires some useful knowledge of agriculture? And that and that alone is what I infer from Bebel's book when he says that production itself, as also a person's training, both physical and mental, can be brought to its highest level only when the old division of labour between town and country, between agriculture and industry, has been done away with.

Now as to the question of the profitability of the large estate as against that of the small farm, this can, in my view, be simply explained by the fact that in the long run the large estate engenders the small farm just as much and just as inevitably as the latter, in its turn, engenders the former. In precisely the same way as cut-throat competition gives rise to a monopoly and vice versa. This cycle is, however, inextricably bound up with crises, with acute as well as chronic distress, with the periodically recurring ruin of whole sections of the population, and likewise with the vast dissipation both of the means of production and of what is produced. And since we have now fortunately reached a stage at which we can dispense with these worthies the big landowners no less than with the landed peasants, and agriculture, no less than industry, has likewise now reached a stage of development which, in our view, not only admits of, but demands, its appropriation en bloc by society, it is up to us to break the circulus vitiosus.^[3] To that end the big farms and large manorial estates provide us with a much better opportunity than the small farms, just as in industry large factories are more readily suited to that purpose than small workshops. And this is reflected in the political sphere in that the rural proletarians on the big estates become Social-Democrats, just like the urban proletarians, once the latter are able to exert pressure on them, whereas the unsuccessful farmer and urban artisan arrive at Social-Democracy only by the devious route of anti-Semitism. 217

To say that the owner of a manorial estate—LORD or SQUIRE—who has emerged from feudalism, will ever learn to run his affairs as would a bourgeois and, like the latter, be capable of regarding it as his first duty, come what may, to capitalise each year a proportion of the surplus value secured—such a statement runs counter to all experience in all previously feudal countries. When you say that these gentlemen are compelled by necessity to stint themselves of much that goes with the way of life appropriate to their station, I quite believe you. But that they can ever learn TO LIVE WITHIN THEIR INCOMES AND LAY BEYOND SOMETHING FOR A RAINY DAY is quite outside my experience. It has never yet happened, or at most by way of an exception, and certainly not in the case of the class as such. After all, these people have existed for the past two hundred years thanks solely to the assistance of the state which has seen them through every crisis...

Yours,

Friedrich Engels