Folkestone near Dover, 21 August 1890 

Otto von Boenigk, Esq., 
Breslau 

Dear Sir, 

I can only reply to your inquiries '° briefly and in general terms, 
for otherwise I should have to write a dissertation on the first 
one. 

Ad I. So-called ‘socialist society’ is not, in my view, to be regarded 
as something that remains crystallised for all time, but rather as being 
in process of constant change and transformation like all other social 
conditions. The crucial difference between that society and condi- 
tions today consists, of course, in the organisation of production on 
the basis of common ownership, initially by the nation, of all means of 
production. I see absolutely no difficulty in carrying out this revolu- 
tion over a period, i.e. gradually. The fact that our working men are 
up to it is borne out by their many productive and distributive asso- 
ciations which, wherever they have not been deliberately wrecked by 

* Wroclaw 

Engels to von Boenigk. 2! August 1890 19 

the police, are managed no worse and far more honestly than the 
joint-stock companies of the middle classes. I fail to see how you can 
talk of inadequate education among the masses in Germany, now 
that our workers have given such striking proof of political maturity 
in their victorious struggle against the Anti-Socialist Law.'! The ar- 
rogant, pontifical presumption of our so-called educated men seems 
to me a far greater obstacle. Admittedly we are still short of techni- 
clans, agronomists, engineers, chemists, architects, etc., but if the 
worst comes to the worst we can buy them, just as the capitalists 
do, and if a stern example is made of a traitor or two— of whom 
there will assuredly be some in such company—, they will find 
it in their interest to cease robbing us. But apart from specialists 
like these, among whom I also count school-teachers, we shall 
manage very well without the rest of the ‘educated’ men; e.g. the 
present heavy influx of literati and students into the party will be 
attended by all manner of mischief unless those gentry are kept 
within bounds. 

With proper technical management there would be no difficulty in 
leasing the large Junker estates east of the Elbe to the present day la- 
bourers and/or farm servants for communal cultivation. If there are 
excesses, it will be the Junkers’ own fault, since it was they who, heed- 
less of all existing educational legislation, were the cause of the peo- 
ple’s becoming so brutalised. 

The biggest obstacle is presented by the small farmers and the im- 
portunate, educated smart-Alecks whose superior knowledge of 
a subject is always in inverse proportion to their understanding of it. 

Assuming, therefore, that we have an adequate number of support- 
ers among the masses, the socialisation of large-scale industry and of 
the farms on the big estates can be carried out very quickly, once we 
have gained political supremacy. The rest will soon follow at a faster 
or slower pace. And when the large sources of production are ours, we 
shall be masters of the situation. 

You speak of the absence of a uniform opinion. This does exist — 
but it is to be found among the educated men who come from aristo- 
cratic and bourgeois circles and who have absolutely no idea of how 
much they still have to learn from the working man. 

Ad 11. Mrs Marx was the daughter of Regierungsrat von Westpha- 

len of Trier and the younger sister of the von Westphalen who 
was minister of reaction in Manteuffel’s government. 

Yours faithfully, 

F. Engels