ENGELS TO FRIEDRICH ADOLPH SORGE” 

London, November 11, 1893 

Dear Sorge, 

Herewith a letter to Mrs Kelley (ex-Wischnewetzky) which I would ask 
you kindly to forward to her.* As soon as you know her present correct 
address, perhaps you would also be so good as to forward her the enclosed 
cheque for £1. 12.11 of the Union Bank of London. 

You should read the article by Autolycus” (Burgess) ** on page 1 of today’s 
Workman’s Times on the Fabians’ manifesto.© These gentlemen, who for 
years have declared that the emancipation of the working class can only be 
accomplished through the Great Liberal Party, who have loudly proclaimed 
that during elections any independent action by the workers vis-a-vis other 
candidates, Liberals included, is covert Toryism, who have let it be known 
that the permeation of the liberal party by socialist principles is the sole 
object in life for a Socialist,’ now declare that the Liberals are traitors, that it 
is impossible to deal with them and that in the next elections the workers 
should, without regard for Liberals or Tories, put up their own candidates 
with the help of £30,000 which are meanwhile to be found by the Trades 
Unions—assuming that the latter do the Fabians this favour, which they 
assuredly won’t. It is an outright paterpeccati’ by these supercilious 
bourgeois who would graciously condescend to liberate the proletariat from 
above, provided only that the latter were sensible enough to realise that such 
a raw, uneducated mass could 

* See this volume, p. 230 - ° [J. Burgess] Autolycus, ‘In a White Sheet’, Workman’s Times, 11 
November 1893. -° ‘To Your Tents, oh Israel!’, The Fortnightly Review, No. 323, New Series, | 
November 1893. - “ confession of guilt 

not liberate itself and would come to nothing save by the grace of these 
canny advocates, literati and sentimental old women. And now the first 
attempt by these gentlemen, an attempt heralded by drums and trumpets as a 
worldshaking event, has gone so splendidly awry that they themselves must 
admit as much. That is what’s so funny about the affair. 

Warm regards to you and your wife. I hope you will both get through this 
winter better than the last. Over here it is already starting to turn wintry. 

Yours, 
F.E.