ENGELS TO FLORENCE KELLEY-WISCHNEWETZKY" 

[London,] 27 January 1887 
122 Regent’s Park Road, N.W. 

Dear Mrs Wischnewetzky, 

Herewith I send you, at last, the Preface.!!!2 No sooner had the 
Avelings returned? when I was seized with a slight conjunctivitis which 
was however sufficient to prevent all regular work especially as the short 
time I could each day devote to writing was unavoidably taken up by 
urgent correspondence. Although my eye is not yet quite free from 
inflammation, yet I have managed to get through the Preface and hope 
the delay will not have inconvenienced you too much. 

As I have not been able to keep a copy I must request you to return 
me the MS when done with. I suppose you will be good enough to see it 
through the press. 

I hope Dr Wischnewetzky has arrived safe after a good passage. I 
regret that I could not have him all to myself for a couple of hours, but 
he just dropped in at an evening when, for the time being, the old 
‘International’ was made to undergo a practical revival. 

The movement in America, just at this moment, is I believe best seen 
from across the ocean. On the spot, personal bickering and local 
disputes must obscure much of the grandeur of it. And the only thing 
that could really delay its march, would be the consolidation of these 
differences into established sects. To some extent, that will be unavoid- 
able, but the less of it the better. And the Germans have most to guard 
against this. Our theory is a theory of evolution, not a dogma to be 
learnt by heart and to be repeated mechanically. Je weniger sie den 
Amerikanern von Aussen eingepaukt wird und je mehr sie sie durch eigne 
Erfahrung—unter dem Beistand der Deutschen—erproben, desto tiefer 
geht sie ihnen in Fleisch und Blut Uber.* When we returned to Germany 
in spring 1848, we joined the Democratic Party as the only possible 

* The less it is drummed into the Americans from outside and the more thor- 
oughly they test it—with Germans’ assistance—by personal experience, the 
more deeply will it penetrate their flesh and blood 

means of gaining the ear of the working class; we were the most 
advanced wing of that party, but still a wing of it. When Marx founded 
the International, he drew up the General Rules in such a way that all 
working-class socialists of that period could join it—Proudhonists, 
Pierre-Lerouxists, and even the more advanced section of the English 
Trades Unions; and it was only through this latitude that the 
International became what it was, the means of gradually dissolving 
and absorbing all these minor sects, with the exception of the 
Anarchists whose sudden appearance in various countries was but the 
effect of the violent bourgeois reaction after the Commune and could 
therefore safely be left by us to die out of itself, as it did. Had we from 
1864-73 insisted on working together only with those who openly 
adopted our platform—Where should we be to-day? I think all our 
practice has shown that it is possible to work along with the general 
movement of the working class at every one of its stages without giving 
up or hiding our own distinct position and even organization. and lam 
afraid that if the German Americans choose a different line they will 
commit a great mistake. 

I hope you are by this time perfectly restored to health and that your 
husband and children are well too. Kind regards to Dr Wischnewetzky. 

Very truly yours 

F. Engels