concur with the answer that is given in the original (The Civil War, 
pp. 19 ff.).* Iam sending you a copy in case you have not got one 
there. It is simply a question of showing that the victorious proletariat 
must first reshape the old, bureaucratic, administratively centralised 
state machine before they can use it for their own purposes; whereas, 
since 1848, all bourgeois republicans, so long as they were in oppo- 
sition, have heaped abuse on that machine but, no sooner in office, 
have taken it over intact and made use of it, partly against reaction 
but to an even greater extent against the proletariat. That the Com- 
mune’s unconscious tendencies should, in The Civil War, have been 
credited to it as more or less deliberate plans was justifiable and per- 
haps even necessary in the circumstances. The Russians have very 
properly appended the passage from The Civil War to their transla- 
tion of the Manifesto.1°* If there hadn’t been such a great 
rush over getting it out, we could have done this and one or two other 
things. 

Apropos. You once spoke of Guesde’s disreputable past, or some- 
thing of the sort. I know absolutely nothing about that. Un- 
doubtedly just a pack of lies on Malon’s part, but I should be glad if 
you would enable me to clear the matter up. 

I shall shortly be sending you one pound sterling from Schorlem- 
mer for his subscription, the balance for party purposes. It’s too late 
to take out a money order today. 

At last things have got moving again in Russia. The affair of the 
sledge and the Tsar is most suspect,'** that of Sudeikin, on the other 
hand, crystal clear.!35 We should like to send Alexander a telegram 
wishing him ‘a happy holiday’. 

Has Tussy Marx sent you To-Day and the last numbers of Progress? 
If not I shall attend to this. These two are completely divorced from 
the TRADES UNIONS movement and are in fact run by a very motley so- 
ciety. Bax is very honest but still somewhat green, Aveling is good but 
has little time in which to familiarise himself with economics, a sub- 
ject utterly foreign to him. Joynes is an unreliable chap (once 
a schoolmaster at the big doss house at Eton, travelled to Ireland with 
Henry George, was arrested with him and lost his post; is therefore 
looking around to see what’s doing) and Hyndman, an ambitious 
party leader in partibus infidelium, provisionally in search of a party 

* See present edition, Vol. 22, pp. 328-35.-” Alexander III-° It means literally: 
in parts inhabited by unbelievers; here: nominally. 

and meanwhile issuing orders into the blue,— come to that a pretty 
shrewd fellow.* One’s best course is to do justice to the aspirations 
without identifying oneself with the persons. At all events, the publi- 
cation of To-Day and the transformation of Progress into a socialist 
journal is of great significance at this particular juncture, now that 
the poor in the East End or London are beginning to find their voice. 
On top of that, all over the country we have chronic overproduction 
which now seems to be hastening on the crisis. Circumstances are 
favourable, but whether the people who have taken the matter in hand 
are a match for those circumstances remains to be seen. This time it’s 
hardly likely to remain without a sequel, as have so many previous 
curtain-raisers. 

Now basta. I haven’t written a letter as long as this for the past 
three months. Schorlemmer and I send our cordial regards to all our 
friends. 

Yours, 
F.E.