...[ must let you know the result of my first meeting with Engels, 
because I think some of his opinions will be pleasing for you. 

We talked a great deal about Russian matters, about how the 
cause of our political and social revival is likely to proceed. As was 
to be expected, our views were in total agreement; each of us kept 
finishing off the ideas and phrases of the other. He too believes 
(like both Marx and myself) that the task of a revolutionary party 
or a party of action in Russia at the present time hes not in 
propagating the new socialist ideal and not even in striving to 
realise this by no means fully elaborated ideal with the help of a 
provisional government composed of our comrades, but in 
directing all forces towards 1) either forcing the Tsar to convene a 
Zemsky Sobor,°” 2) or by means of intimidating the Tsar, etc., 
causing profound disorder that would result in the convening of 
the Sobor or something similar. He believes, as I do, that such a 
Sobor would inevitably lead to a radical, not only political but also 
social reorganisation. He believes in the tremendous significance 
of the electoral period, in the sense of incomparably more 
successful propaganda than all books and whispered communica- 
tions. He regards a purely liberal constitution without profound 
economic restructuring as impossible, and therefore does not fear 
this danger. He believes that enough material for the restructuring 
of society on new principles has accumulated in the real conditions 
of the people’s life. Of course, he does not believe in the 
instantaneous realisation of communism or anything like that, but 
only of that which has already matured in the life and heart of the 
people. He believes that the people will find themselves eloquent 
spokesmen to express their needs and aspirations, etc. He believes 


592 Appendices 


that no forces will be capable of halting this reorganisation, or 
revolution, once it has begun. Thus one thing only is important: to 
smash the fatal force of stagnation, to knock the people and 
society for a moment out of the state of inertness and immobility, 
to cause disorder which will force the government and the people 
to set about internal restructuring, which will stir up the calm 
popular sea and arouse the attention and enthusiasm of the whole 
people for the cause of a full social reorganisation. And the results 
will show themselves, precisely those results which are possible, 
desirable and practicable for the time in question. 

All this is devilishly brief, but I cannot write in any more detail 
at the moment. Moreover all this may not be entirely to your 
liking, so I will hasten to convey to you with literal accuracy other 
opinions of his which are most flattering to the Russian 
revolutionary party. They are as follows: 

“Everything now depends on what is done in the immediate 
future in St. Petersburg, to which the eyes of all thinking, 
far-seeing and perspicacious people in the whole of Europe are 
now turned.” 

“Russia is the France of the present century. The revolutionary 
initiative of a new social reorganisation legally and rightly belongs 
to it.” 

‘*... The collapse of Tsarism, which will destroy the last bastion of 
monarchism in Europe and put an end to Russia’s ‘aggressiveness’, 
Poland’s hatred of it and a great deal more, will lead to a 
completely different combination of powers, smash Austria to 
smithereens and arouse in all countries a powerful impetus for 
internal reorganisation.” 

...1t is unlikely that Germany will decide to take advantage of 
the Russian disorders and move its forces into Russia to support 
the Tsar. But if it did do so, all the better. It would mean the end 
of its present government and the beginning of a new era. 
Annexation by it of the Baltic provinces is pointless and 
impracticable. Such seizures of opposite (?) or adjoining narrow 
littorals and bits of land, and the resultant ludicrous configura- 
tions of states, were possible only in the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries, but not now. Moreover it is no secret to anyone that the 
Germans constitute an insignificant reactionary minority there.” (I 
am adding this point for Y.P.* in view of her ultra-patriotic 
opinions on this point.) 


2 Yulia Petrovna—the pseudonym of Galina Chernyavskaya-Bokhanovskaya.— 
Fd. 


Appendices 593 


“Both Marx and I find that the Committee’s letter to 
Alexander III°” is positively excellent in its political essence and 
calm tone. It shows that there are people with a statesmanlike cast 
of mind in the ranks of the revolutionaries.” 

May I hope that all this is sufficiently flattering and sieaiag for 
you and that you will thank me for these lines? Do you remember 
that I said Marx himself had never been a Marxist? Engels told me 
that during the struggle of Brousse, Malon and Co. with the 
others, Marx used to joke: “All I know is that I am not a 
Marxist!”...°°°