| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 23 September 1894 |
ENGELS TO KARL KAUTSKY
IN STUTTGART
London, 23 September 1894
122 Regent's Park Road, N. W.
Dear Baron,
Your appeal for documents on the International[1] reached me while I was still in Eastbourne. Unfortunately I couldn't ask Ede to look out something for you, as I had brought the keys to my cupboards with me and he would have had to search through several of them—I myself hardly know where I am amidst the disorder of my old papers. Then, on our return the following day (Tuesday), I looked out something for Ede and we asked him to call that evening but he had to finish the article for the Neue Zeit.[2] On Wednesday morning the things were collected by Ernst,[3] but were brought back that same evening by Ede who said that it was now too late and that in any case you already had something. What I had found was in any case nothing out of the ordinary. It is difficult to find an unknown document of the Internationals that will, of itself, still have a telling effect today.
Many thanks for the Entwicklung in Armenian. Luckily I can't read it. As regards the fee for Marx's chapters, kindly deduct this from, or alternatively charge it against, the fee for my own article[4] and remit it to me for the heirs. Should mine be insufficient, kindly set off the difference against future contributions.
Needless to say copies of the complete issue will do just as well as off-prints of the article. I only need them for one or two quite specific incidental purposes.
The payment of fees to the Austrians remains in force until further notice. The Italians are beginning to fill me with dread. Yesterday that blatherer Enrico Ferri sent me all his recent writings along with an over-cordial letter which only served to make me feel less cordial towards him than ever. And yet one is expected to send the chap a courteous reply! His book on Darwin-Spencer-Marx[5] is an atrocious hotchpotch of insipid rubbish. The Italians will long continue to suffer from this their younger generation of heddicated bourgeois. I shall doubtless soon have to do something to put an end to the ominous increase in my popularity (which the chaps are not fostering without a considerable eye to business). Meanwhile I shall make a bit of an example of Achille Loria in the preface to the 3rd volume.[6]
The war between China and Japan signifies the end of the old China and with it the total if gradual revolution of the entire economic base until the old ties between agriculture and rural industry have been dissolved by big industry, railways, etc., the result being a mass exodus of Chinese Coolies, to Europe included and hence, for ourselves, an acceleration of the debacle[7] and an intensification of the conflict to the point of crisis. Here we have another splendid quirk of history—China is all that is left for capitalist production to conquer, yet the latter, by the very fact of having finally conquered her, will itself be hopelessly compromised in its place of origin.
Many regards from one household to the other.
Yours,
F.E.
We shall shortly be moving to 41 Regent's Park Road, nearer to St Mark's Church; more details anon.