London, 2 February 1881 

Dear Mr Bernstein, 
Enclosed a letter to Kautsky, which kindly forward; I don’t know 
whether the Vienna address I was given is still the right one. 

* F. Engels, Outlines of a Critique of Political Economy (present edition, Vol. 3, p. 439). - 
> See previous letter. 

The 5 nos. of the Sozialdemokrat since the year began testify to 
a significant step forward. Gone are the melancholy, despairing tones 
of a ‘beaten man’, the complementary grandiloquence of stuffy re- 
spectability, the incessant revolutionary rhetoric @ /a Most alternat- 
ing with philistine tameness, finally the constant preoccupation with 
Most. The tone has become lively and purposeful. The paper will no 
longer act as an opiate if it stays like this; rather it will put new heart 
into our people in Germany. As you have the Neue Rheinische Zeitung 
you would do well to take a look at it occasionally. The mockery and 
contempt with which we treated our opponents were precisely what 
brought us in almost 6,000 subscribers in the 6 months prior to the 
state of siege °° and, although we started again from scratch in No- 
vember, we again had the full tally and more by May °49. The Kélni- 
sche Keitung has now admitted that in those days it only had 
9,000. 

As it seems that you are short of material for your feuilleton, you 
might, sometime, reprint the poem from No. 44 of 1848: “This morn- 
ing I went to Düsseldorf’; possibly with the title ‘A Socialist-Eater of 
1848’ (feuilleton to the Neue Rheinische Keitung of 14 July 1848) and, 
under it, the author: Georg Weerth (died Havana, 1856).  So just 
keep it up! 

Yours, 
F. E. 

‘Thou shalt not steal’ and the apology for the execution of 
Louis XVI are very good.