London, 23 February 1888 
122 Regent’s Park Road, N.W. 

My dear Nieuwenhuis, 

I informed Kautsky of the contents of your letter immediately it 
arrived and understand that he has since seen to everything you wanted. 

The news from here is pretty good on the whole. The various social- 
ist organisations have refrained from forcibly accelerating the natural, 
normal and hence somewhat slow process of development of the 
English working class; hence less fuss, less vainglory, but also less disap- 
pointment. Moreover they get on amongst themselves. As to setting the 
masses in motion, that has been taken care of by the incomprehensible 
stupidity of the government and the imperturbable cowardice of the 
Liberal opposition. The Trafalgar Square affair! did not simply 
breathe new life into the working men; the deplorable way in which the 
Liberal leaders behaved then and subsequently is driving more and 
more radical workers over to the socialists, the more so as the latter 
behaved very well on that particular occasion and were to be seen 
everywhere in the front rank. Cunninghame-Graham is a declared 
Marxist and at the meeting last Monday”#* demanded outright that the 
nation confiscate all the means of production. So here too we are repre- 
sented in Parliament. 

The best proof of how far the workers over here have advanced is 
provided by the radical working men’s clubs”? in the East End. What 
impressed them above all was the example set by the New York election 
campaign in November 1886;’ for what America does makes a greater 
impression over here than anything the whole of the continent of 
Europe may do. The example set by New York made it clear to the chaps 
that in the end the workers would do best if they formed their own 
party. When the Avelings returned, they seized on this mood and since 
then their activities have proved most effective in these clubs—the only 
political workingmen’s organisations of any importance that exist here. 
Both Aveling and his wife give several lectures a week down there and 
exert a great deal of influence; there’s no doubt that they are now the 

most popular speakers with the workers. The main thing, of course, is to 
wean the clubs from their dependence on the great Liberal Party, prepare 
the ground for their own labour party and gradually bring the chaps 
over to conscious socialism. For, as I have said, the cowardice of the 
Liberal leaders, as also of the majority of London Liberal and Radical 
Members of Parliament, has been of enormous help to us over here. The 
people who were elected 3 or 4 years ago as workingmen’s representa- 
tives, the Cremers, Howells, Potters, etc., are already completely played 
out. Were a second ballot to be introduced here instead of the matter’s 
being decided, as it now is, by a relative majority at the first ballot, we 
should be able to organise a labour party within six months; under the 
present electoral system the creation of a new, third party is made very 
difficult. But it will come, no question of that, and in the meantime we 
can content ourselves with the knowledge that we are advancing all 
along the line. 

An English edition of the Communist Manifesto, revised by myself, 
will be coming out in the next week or two; I shall send you one—there’s 
a big demand for it over here, which is also a good sign. 

You too will have been delighted at our brilliant victory in the 
Reichstag in Berlin. Bebel surpassed himself.??> He came to stay with me 
last autumn!” and I only hope that gaol suits you as well as it does 
him. He says he always feels very much better afterwards (he suffers 
from nerves and in gaol his nervous excitation dies down). 

Shall you be coming over here again next summer? 

With kindest regards. 

Yours, 
F. Engels