| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 16 January 1895 |
ENGELS TO FRIEDRICH ADOLPH SORGE
IN HOBOKEN
London, 16 January 1895
41 Regent's Park Road, N. W.
Dear Sorge,
Have received card of 6th and letters of 19th and 31st Dec. Many thanks. And may I again heartily reciprocate your and your wife's good wishes for the New Year.
By way of a New Year's greeting Stiebeling sent me his grotesque riposte together with the suggestion that I should get the Neue Zeit to print it!! I replied to the effect that its columns were not at my disposal but that I had told K. Kautsky (which is true) he would be doing me a special favour were he to ensure that the thing was disseminated as widely as possible.[1] The man is a blockhead.
I cannot understand how it was that you should have failed to receive Volume II I[2] until five days after Schlüter had got his. I posted both at the same time on 12 Dec. and the receipts for both are still joined together. I enclose them herewith in case you should wish to lodge a complaint,
I have for some time been aware of the temporary decline of the move- ment in America and it is not the German socialists who will stem it. Though America is the youngest it is also the oldest country in the world. In the same way as you have, over there, the most antiquated furniture designs alongside your own vernacular ones or, in Boston, cabs such as I last saw in London in 1838 and, in the mountains, seventeenth century STAGE COACHES, alongside PULLMAN CARS, so too you continue to sport all the old mental trappings which Europe has already discarded. Everything that is outmoded here may persist in America for another generation or two. Karl Heinzen, for instance, not to mention religious and spiritualist superstition. Thus you still have old Lassalleans amongst you, while a man like Sanial, who would now seem passé in France, is still able to play a role over there. This may be attributed on the one hand to the fact that, over and above its concern for material production and the accumulation of wealth, America is only now beginning to find time for untramelled intellectual work and the preliminary training this demands; on the other hand, it may also be attributed to the dual nature of America's development, still engaged as it is on the one hand in the primary task of reclaiming the vast area of untamed country, while being already compelled on the other to compete for first place in industrial production. Hence the UPS AND DOWNS of the movement, according to which point of view takes precedence in the average person's mind—that of the urban working man or that of the peasant engaged in reclamation. In a couple of years' time all this will change and then we shall witness a great step forward. The evolution of the Anglo-Saxon RACE with its ancient Teutonic freedom happens to be quite exceptionally slow, pursuing as it does a zig-zag course (small zig-zags here in England, colossal ones on your side of the Atlantic) and tacking against the wind, but making headway none the less.
Here in Europe the New Year will bring with it a very complex state of affairs. In Germany the peasant question has been pushed into the background by the Subversion Bill and the latter—by young William (his Song to Aegir, the lord of the waves, owes its inspiration solely to the seasickness from which he invariably suffers, which is why he and his Fleet always make for the calm waters of the Norwegian fjords). The young man has thrown Germany into complete disorder, no one knows where he stands or what the morrow will bring, the confusion in governmental circles, as in the ruling classes generally, grows worse from day to day and, during the debate on the Subversion Bill, the only people with cheerful expressions were our chaps. But it really is too marvellous! At the head of the anti- subversionists stands a man who is unable to desist from subversion for five minutes on end. And the aforementioned young William has now fallen into the clutches of the Junkers who, in order to keep him in a frame of mind in which he is prepared to give them extra help with their bankrupt estates, are presently dangling before him the carrot of more taxation and more troops and warships by their ostentatious advocacy of regis voluntas suprema lex,[3] and are egging him on to dissolve the Reichstag and stage a coup d'état. At the same time, however, these gentlemen, Köller & Co., despite their ostentatious catchwords, are so poorly endowed with courage that they are already prey to all manner of forebodings, and it may well be asked whether they will not take fright when the moment for action comes.
And as for France! There, as in Italy, the bourgeoisie precipitated itself head first into corruption in a manner that would put America to shame. For the past three years all efforts in both countries have been directed towards finding a bourgeois government—admittedly not free from corruption—but whose immediate involvement in public scandal is nevertheless so slight that a parliament could support it without unduly violating the commonest decencies. In Italy Crispi will hang on for a little while longer only because the King[4] and the Crown Prince[5] are as deeply implicated in the banking scandals as he is himself.[6] In France, our forty-five or fifty socialist deputies have just toppled their third Ministry on the count of actual corruption, and Casimir-Périer has gone tumbling after. Presumably his intention is to pose as the one and only saviour of society, get himself re-elected with an immense majority, and thus con- solidate his position, But it's a risky game. At all events there is nothing stable about France either, and this year may see new elections, not only in England, but also in Germany and France, which will be of crucial im- portance this time. On top of that a crisis of the first water in Italy and, in Austria, the certainty of electoral reform—in short, things are growing critical throughout the whole of Europe.
I was very pleased to hear that you and your wife are feeling better. Let us hope the improvement continues.
Many regards to you and your wife from the Freybergers and
Yours
F. Engels