Letter to the Editors of the Vorwärts, November 12, 1894

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According to the Party press, in the agrarian debate of the Frankfurt Party Congress on October 25 Comrade Vollmar cited the resolutions of the French Socialist Congress at Nantes, “which have met with the explicit approval of Frederick Engels”. According to the Vorwärts of November 10, this is also being spread around by the hostile press. I am therefore forced to declare that there is an error here, and that Vollmar must be completely misinformed with regard to me.

As far as I can recall, I have only sent two messages to France in relation to the Nantes programme. The first, before the Congress, in reply to an enquiry by a French comrade, stated in essence: the development of capitalism irrevocably destroys the landholdings of the small peasantry. Our Party is quite clear on this point, but it has absolutely no occasion to speed up this process even more by its own intervention. There is nothing to be said in principle against properly selected measures designed to make this inevita-ble fate less painful for the small peasantry; if one goes further, if one wishes to maintain the small peasantry in perpetuity, I am of the opinion that one is striving for something economically impossible, sacrificing principle, becoming reactionary.

The second message, after the Congress, confined itself to the assumption that our French friends would stand alone in the socialist world with their attempt to perpetuate not only the small peasant proprietors but also the small tenants exploiting outside labour.

Thus, in so far as I have voiced any opinion at all on the question, I have declared the opposite to what Vollmar was reported.

Once having become involved in this matter, I find it difficult to get out of it without expressing myself more plainly. I therefore intend to offer the Neue Zeit a short article outlining and explaining my viewpoint.

London, November 12, 1894

F. Engels