London, 22 May 1883 

Dear Old Man, 

How can you suppose that J might somehow be able to find paid 
literary work for a young party member”? After all, it is years since 

@ The following words were added in the newspaper: (Lombardic swear-word for: 
nothing at all).-° Ludwig Klopfer; see next letter. 

I had any sort of contact with German publishers apart from Meissner 
(on account of Capital), let alone with newspapers and _peri- 
odicals. So what could I do? Even if the man could translate the 
other way round, from German into French or English, I should be 
unable to help him find work. You would certainly do better to ap- 
proach Liebknecht who after all has the Neue Zeit and connections in 
plenty. 

We shall be saddled with Marx’s house until next March, so there 
is no need to be over-hasty about the removal or plans for the future. 
Moreover a tremendous amount of work is involved in getting these 
papers in order. What surprises me is that Marx has actually saved 
papers, letters and manuscripts from the period prior to 1848, splen- 
did material for the biography which I shall of course be writing and 
which, inter alia, will also be the history of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung 
and of the movement of 1848-49 on the Lower Rhine, as well as 
the history of the rascally emigration in London between 1849 and 
1852 and of the International. 3° The first task is the editing of Vol- 
ume IT of Capital* and that is no joke. There are in existence 4 or 
5 revisions of Book II, of which only the first is complete, the others 
having been merely started on'’; some labour when you're dealing 
with a man like Marx, who weighed every word. But to me it is 
a labour of love; after all I shall be back again with my old com- 
rade. 

For the past few days I have been sorting letters from 1842-62. As 
I watched the old times pass before my eyes they really came to life 
again, as did all the fun we used to have at our adversaries’ expense. 
Many of our early doings made me weep with laughter; they didn’t, 
after all, ever succeed in banishing our sense of humour. But there 
were also many very serious moments in between whiles. 

This is in confidence; mind you, don’t let a word of it get into the 
papers. Such information as is ripe for imparting will be published by 
me from time to time in the Sozialdemokrat. Bernstein is getting on 
very well, he is eager to learn, is witty and has an open mind, can put 
up with criticism and is quite free of all petty-bourgeois moralisings. 
But our lads in Germany have also been truly magnificent, ever since 
the time that the Anti-Socialist Law 3’ liberated them from the ‘ed- 
dicated’ gentlemen who, in their ignorant academic muddle- 
headedness, had attempted prior to 1878 to instruct the workers from 
on high, an attempt that was, alas, condoned by all too many of the 

‘leaders’. This worthless lumber has not yet been entirely cleared 
away, but the movement has again taken a decidedly revolutionary 
turn. That is precisely what is so splendid about our lads, the fact that 
the masses are far better than almost any of the leaders; and now that 
the Anti-Socialist Law is compelling the masses to take care of the 
movement themselves, now that the influence of the leaders is reduced 
to a minimum, the movement is better than ever. 

Your old friend 

F. Engels