Letter to Friedrich Engels, July 25, 1877

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To Engels in Ramsgate

London, July 25, 1877

DEAR FRED,

Best thanks for the billet doux.

Another word about Neuenahr. If one keeps going unintermittently to Karlsbad, one is forever staking one’s last card. If, however, one has recourse to a less potent spa, there will always be a last resort should things take a turn for the worse. And one has to treat one’s physique with as much diplomacy as everything else.

Herewith, ditto, an excerpt from Geib’s letters to Hirsch. Hirsch regrets not having Liebknecht’s letters with him because, he says, we should see from them that Liebknecht has been agitating vigorously against the Dühring clique for months. Liebknecht, it would seem, has to swallow a great deal of trouble which he conceals from us.

What do you think of the workers in the United States? This first eruption against the oligarchy of associated capital which has arisen since the Civil War will of course be put down, but it could quite well form the starting point for the establishment of a serious labour party in the United States. There are moreover two favourable circumstances. The policy of the new President will turn the Negroes into allies of the workers, and the large expropriations of land (especially fertile land) in favour of railway, mining, etc., companies will convert the farmers of the West, who are already very disenchanted, into allies of the workers. Thus a fine mess is in the offing over there, and transferring the centre of the International to the United States might, post festum, turn out to have been a peculiarly opportune move.

You will recall that Challemel (I don’t know how the name is spelt) de Lacour wrote a caustic, perfectly insulting anti-Mac-Mahon article in the République Française in which, inter alia, he spoke of the ‘blessure opportune’, failing which he [Mac-Mahon] would have been relegated to the same gloire-liste as the Frossards, Faillys, etc. Thereupon notification was given in the official papers that the République was to be prosecuted for this libellous article. But it wasn’t and, as Hirsch says, for the following reason: the famous Stoffel, mortal enemy of Mac-Mahon who dismissed him from the army and with whom he had a tremendous row during Bazaine’s trial, called on Gambetta and offered, should the trial proceed, to give evidence about Mac-Mahon’s EXPLOITS during the battle of Sedan. This soon became known in the Elysée and the prosecution was dropped.

Ad vocem Broglie. As you know, he had discharged his debts in the first ordre moral government but now once more found himself in difficulties, of which the whole of Paris was aware. He was waiting for the death of a very old and frail relative (stinking rich) in Switzerland, a Mrs von Staël (a relative of the famous VIRAGO). This person died on 13 March 1877, leaving her whole fortune to a lady and—not a FARTHING to Brogue. Whereupon, like Dolleschall, he said: ‘Now it’s a question of daily bread. Now I have nothing to count on!’

Your reply to the Berliners would be seasonable. The fellows must be made to feel that, if one is long-ENDURING, one is also capable of digging one’s heels in.

I shall see whether the TRIP with Hirsch can be arranged. Today he is at the Crystal Palace, which means that I’m unlikely to see him until tomorrow afternoon (since he writes his articles for the Vossische, etc., in the mornings).

Salut.

Your

Moor

Sample of the ‘great perspicacity’ of the armchair socialists:

‘Not even great perspicacity such as is at the command of Marx is able to solve the task of “reducing use values’” (the idiot forgets that the subject under discussion is ‘commodities’) ‘i.e. vehicles for enjoyment, etc., to their opposite, to amounts of effort, to sacrifices etc’ (The idiot believes that in equalising values I wish to ‘reduce’ use values to value.) ‘That is to substitute a foreign element. The equation of disparate use values is only explicable by the reduction of the same to a common factor of use value.’ (Why not simply to—weight?)

Thus dixit Mr Knies, the critical genius of professorial political economy.

Excerpts from letters from Geib to Hirsch.

1. Hamburg, dated 3.6.77

(Concerning the founding of the reviews): ‘A comrade, Karl Höchberg, in Berlin’ (in Hirsch’s view a ‘comrade’ of the ILLUSTRIOUS Eugen Dühring), ‘native of Frankfurt am Main, has undertaken to make the party an annual gift of 10,000 marks for literary purposes. Having thus been made independent, we resolved at Gotha to publish, as from 1 October, not only the Review but also a Social-Democratic news-letter—autographed—such as we had privately discussed the previous year at Gotha. You immediately sprang to mind as editor of both papers. The review is to come out twice a month and the news-letter two or three times; six times while the Reichstag is in session, etc.

‘Höchberg, who has a degree and is about thirty years old, will help as required with the editing of the Review, but will not have any administrative say in it. The editor of both undertakings is to have an annual salary of 3,000 marks... Everyone I have asked so far is agreed that the editing could be entrusted to no better hands than yours.’

2. Hamburg, 5.7.77: ...’The review will come out as from 1 October... Höchberg, who will probably approach you direct, will assist you with the editing of the review. This I envisage as follows: You either hand over to him, or make some arrangement with him about, certain departments which he is to administer, such as, e.g., philosophy, history, natural science. New books in this sphere will be discussed by Höchberg... If it transpires that you have to devote your entire attention to the news-letter, it will be easy to make some other arrangement. In this connection I would mention Dr Wiede, who is a keen party member, speaks and writes French, English and Italian, has travelled widely and was himself proposing to publish a socialist review in Zurich. When he was here recently I dissuaded him from carrying out his plan, etc’ (but to no effect!)

3. Hamburg, 18.7.77.

‘...You have definitely accepted so far as the news-letter is concerned’ (i.e. Hirsch proposes to try the thing out for a month in August). ...’We have still not settled anything definite in respect of the review. As you have refused, we have latterly been engaged in verbal negotiations here with Höchberg. Here we had to consider the circumstances that the Leipzigers are all, to a man, opposed to the review’s editorial board being composed solely of newcomers to the party. Everyone likes Höchberg well enough, but not Wiede. It is feared that a weak editorial board—and an unknown one might ultimately turn out to be weak—in Berlin might easily be led into Dühringian channels, thus sowing the seeds of fatal dissension within the party. Not that I myself take such a gloomy view of it, though in one respect I agree with all the rest, namely that in the first quarter the review must be co-edited and signed—in other words, launched—by a lettered man, a comrade known to the whole party. I believe that you could do this quite well...’ (whereupon, however, Hirsch declares that he won’t do it).