| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 3 November 1893 |
ENGELS TO KARL KAUTSKY
IN STUTTGART
London, 3 November 1893
Dear Baron,
1. Howell. His book Conflicts, etc., is a fat compendium of 536 pages and would in my opinion find few buyers in Germany, especially since all the earlier history and some of the later stuff is cribbed from Brentano.[1] Howell's Trades Unionism New and Old, 235 pp., is a shorter excerpt which appeared it 1891 and is also a year more up to date in regard to facts. If it was checked, provided with notes and translated in abbreviated form, it might possibly find buyers.
But Dietz must not allow himself to be cheated again as he was by Sonnenschein through Stepniak 288 over the £25, which was just money thrown down the drain and which, besides, gives English publishers a false impression of their German colleagues business acumen. One ought not to make oneself an object of derision to such people. The only way to impress Englishmen is to insist on one's rights.
Well then, if one is to protect one's translation rights, the first part of the translation must, in accordance with international law, be published one year after the appearance of the original. In that case one is protected for three years in the country and language concerned, Otherwise not. According to this, neither Howell nor his publisher[2] have a claim to anything, legally speaking. Only considerations of decency could come into it. If Dietz is willing to conduct negotiations with Howell via Aveling (who is well acquainted with such matters) on a verbal basis and authorise him to offer, say, £2.10 = 50 marks, if pushed. Howell would probably consent to the translation absolutely gratis. I don't see why one should needlessly stuff money down the throats of the supercilious English so that they can brag to us Continentals about the commercial value of their books not only here but over there, while we poor devils are expected to be grateful when they do us the honour of translating us, even though we haven't been asked. And that blackguard Howell, to boot!
2. I can understand that you should wish to go to Vienna. 289 Austria is now the most important country in Europe, at any rate for the moment. It is here that the initiative lies, which in a year or two will have its repercussions in Germany and other countries. The good Taafe has set the ball rolling and it won't come to a halt so very soon. 270 Such being the case, it is only natural that every Austrian should wish to co-operate, for there's going to be enough to do. I was delighted with the Viennese; they are splendid fellows if sanguine, sanguine to a degree, no Frenchman could do better, and that means that they should not be spurred on but rather reined in, lest the fruits of long years of work be dissipated in a single day. Last night Ede read out to me what you had written to him about an article on the strike as a political weapon. I firmly advised him against writing the article. 290 To my mind the affair of the three-class electorate 291 has already earned him quite enough of a reputation as a man who has lost touch with the masses and who, from without, from his writing-desk, discourses in doctrinaire fashion on questions of immediate practical moment.[3] But I am also generally of the opinion that the effect of such an article could not be other than extremely harmful at this particular juncture. However cautious it might be, and however impartial and considered the language in which it was couched, the Vienna Volkstribüne would pick out the passages that suited its own book, reprint them in bold type and use them to scare off those who have enough trouble as it is in restraining the Viennese from embarking on hare-brained escapades. You say yourself that barricades are out of date (though they might come in handy again as soon as a third or two-fifths of the army had turned socialist and it was imperative that they be given an opportunity of changing sides), but a political strike must either score an immediate victory—simply by means of a threat (as in Belgium 276 where the army was very shaky)—or else end in a colossal fiasco or, finally, lead direct to barricades. And this in Vienna where you could be shot down without more ado by Czechs, Croats, Ruthenians, 292 etc. Once this business in Vienna has been settled one way or the other, either with or without a political general strike, the question will still be topical enough for the Neue Zeit. But just now a public discussion of the general theoretical pros and cons of this weapon could only be grist to the mill of the FIREBRANDS in Vienna. I know how difficult it is for Victor to counteract the magic power exerted on the Viennese masses by the catchword 'general strike' and how happy he will be if only he can put off the day of reckoning. That being so we ought, in my opinion, to take the utmost care not to do or say anything that might encourage the impetuous elements.
The Viennese working men should wait until the suffrage has given them the means to take stock of themselves and of their friends in the provinces; they will then be appraised of their strength and of how it compares with that of their opponents.
Incidentally, things might get to the stage when a general strike would be carried out under the aegis and more or less for the benefit of Electoral Reform Minister Taaffe. That would be the height of irony.
3. Once again my thanks for the Parlamentärismus[4] which you presented to me personally in Zurich.
4. As regards Heine's letter, 260 Tussy tells me she will give you her permission provided that Laura also agrees. I have hardly seen anything of Tussy lately—since I got back 189—and then only for an odd moment or so. Both of them are tremendously busy and, because of meetings, they hardly ever put in an appearance on Sundays. However I should like to take another look at the letter before I say anything definite. The matter is open to considerable misinterpretation and must be given much thought.
5. Volume III.[5] Fair sheets. When the time comes I shall see to it that these sheets are placed at your or Ede's disposal section by section, pro vided, that is, I can get them out of Meissner. For I already need another copy for the Russian translation and Meissner is growing old and is no longer so accommodating as in the past. However I shall do my best. There are six sections in all, each of which I shall send you separately after it has come off the press.
Since returning I haven't done a stroke of work on the above but next week I hope finally to buckle to again.
6. The thing by Guillaumin and V. Pareto has just been sent to me by Lafargue—extracts were made by Lafargue; the introduction was evi dently written by a bogus vulgar economist. 293
To come back to the general strike, you ought not to forget that nobody was more delighted than the Belgian leaders that the affair should have turned out so well. They have had an anxious enough time and might have been forced to implement their threat; they themselves knew only too well how little they could accomplish. And this in a primarily industrial country with a thoroughly shaky and ill-disciplined militia-style army. But if, in such a country, there was nevertheless a chance of achieving something with this weapon, 276 what hope could there be in Austria where the peasant predominates, industry is sparse and relatively weak, the big towns are few and far between, the nationalities have been set at odds with one another and the socialists make up less than ten per cent of the total population (of adult males, naturally)! So for heaven's sake let us avoid taking any step that might tempt the working men, who are in any case impatient and thirsting for action, to stake their all on one card—and, what's more, at a time when the government wants this and could use provocation to bring it about.
The Vorwärts will always remain the same old Vorwärts. Of that I was left in no doubt while in Berlin. So I'm glad that the weekly[6] is to come out, for it will give the party an opportunity of appearing, at least in foreign eyes, in a form it need not be ashamed of. The Vorwärts comes out in Berlin, is read almost exclusively in Berlin (nine-tenths of sales) and, as a product of Berlin, is always viewed with indulgence. The weekly will also act as a counterweight to the Vorwärts influence on the rest of the party press. How things will work out as regards the mutual relationship of the two organs remains to be seen. I don't imagine that they will come to blows. The Vorwärts' subsidiary title of 'Central Organ' is of no importance whatever. They are welcome to the catchword.
At any rate, all kinds of changes are taking place in our party press, I am curious to know what will become of the Neue Zeit; 85 its reversion to a monthly was at all events a bold move. I don't believe that in the long run the weekly will prove a serious competitor.
So the best of luck when you visit Vienna. When you get there you might pay my respects to the Lowenbräu next to the Burgtheater; it used to be our midday headquarters.
With regards from household to household.
Your, F.E.