London, 12 September 1892 

Dear Schmidt, 

A few days ago I came back from Ryde where I had been paying 
an involuntary six-week visit to Pumps.°7° A tiresome but otherwise 
insignificant complaint ruined both my holiday and a continental 
tour in the course of which you might otherwise have very possibly 
seen me in Zurich. 

I look forward to seeing your other papers on the rate of profit. Fire- 
man didn’t send me his article? — can one get hold of that particu- 
lar number? If so, I shall order it, provided you can tell me exactly 
which number it was, and also the title of the article. To print the sec- 
tion on the rate of profit separately and in advance is quite out of the 
question, for you should know that in Marx everything is so interre- 
lated that nothing can be torn out of context. In any case— 
always provided my health holds out and J am left in peace —I shall 
be done with Volume III‘ this winter (but please don’t breathe 
a word about this; I know how often something has intervened), 

 Julie Bebel-° P. Fireman, ‘Kritik der Marx’schen Werttheorie’, Jahrbiicher für Natio- 
nalokonomie und Statistik, 3. Folge, Bd.'3, Jena, 1892.-° of Capital 

whereupon the poor professorial soul will be set at rest upon that 
count, only to be plunged instantly into an even worse state of 
agitation. 

As regards Marx’s view of history, you will find an article of mine 
about it in the next number of the Neue Zeit — it has already appeared 
over here in English.? 

The Germans are utterly useless on the subject of money and cred- 
it. Many years ago Marx himself mercilessly ridiculed Knies. 
The most useful things in English are Tooke’s An Inquiry into the Cur- 
rency Principle, 1844 and Fullarton’s On the Regulation of Currencies, 
2nd ed., 1845, both of which are only to be had second-hand. Every- 
thing there is to be said about money gua money may be found in the 
first volume of Capital. In the third there will, of course, be a great 
deal about credit and credit money; it is that particular section that is 
giving me most trouble. 

Roger’s Economic Interpretation of History is in many respects a 
very instructive book, if exceedingly superficial theoretically 
speaking. There is, of course, no question of an interpretation a 
la Marx. 

Your essay in the Neue Zeit* gave me great pleasure. It’s as if cut out 
for this country, since the Fasran Socirry °” positively pullulates with 
Jevons-Mengerians *?2 who look down with infinite contempt on 
a Marx they have long since outdistanced. If there were a review over 
_ here that would take it, I would, with your permission, get Aveling to 
translate it under my supervision. But just now nothing is likely to 
come of this, there being no such review. 

As regards the worthy Independents,**? their fate is of their own 
making. For years the party has endured their yapping with truly an- 
gelic patience and even at Erfurt 2°! it gave them ample opportunity 
to substantiate their mendacious tittle-tattle, but a million people 
cannot go on forever putting up with the obstructionism of fifty 
young whippersnappers who reserve the right to cast aspersions with- 
out having to substantiate them. Now that they’ve been chucked out, 
now that they have the chance of showing what they are capable of, 
all we get is endless lies and vituperation. And what, may I ask, has 
been achieved by those who showed some promise — the Kampff- 

°C. Schmidt, ‘Die psychologische Richtung in der neueren National-Oekonomie’, 
Die Neue Zeit, 10. Jg. 1891/92, 2. Bd., Nr. 40, 41. 

meyers, Ernsts, Millers et al.— now that they are no longer under the 
thumb of the party leadership? Their paper* is utterly without sub- 
stance and apart from that they produce nothing. If these gentlemen 
believe they are capable of something, why don’t they do it? Nor is 
the case in any way altered by the fact that, in polemicising against 
them, as in so much else, the Vorwarts is sometimes clumsy and all too 
often overshoots the mark. Did not these gentlemen, even before the 
split, treat the parliamentary group and the party leadership to lan- 
guage no less intemperate than that used by the Vorwdrts against 
themselves? In addition they are by and large completely harmless. 
In Germany they are as moribund as anyone else who detaches him- 
self from the big movement. Now that the movement has grown 
strong actually inside Germany and is directed from within that 
country, the societies abroad are the only favourable breeding- 
ground for the kind of wrangles I have had to endure for 45 years in 
the society over here. Up till 1860 the best chaps were, as a rule, 
abroad; now the position is reversed. The societies abroad consist of 
very impermanent elements who very seldom attain the average level of 
those at home, stand outside the movement in Germany to which 
they are merely extraneous appendages, and, since they rarely have 
any genuine occupation, are bored and hence far more susceptible to 
petty squabbling. 

I am aware that you have many childhood and university friends 
amongst the Jungen, but it’s something you must come to terms 
with. Indeed it’s perfectly possible to remain good friends despite po- 
litical differences. But we’ve all had to go through the same thing, in 
my case, in my own pious ultra-reactionary family. And then there is 
always the possibility of exerting a beneficial influence on your old 
friends by guiding their footsteps towards study rather than rodo- 
montade. If the gentlemen would only go on with their studies, the 
more serviceable amongst them would soon come to their senses. But 
I’m afraid that the chronic megalomania so rampant among these 
people will prevent them from so doing. And as for provocation and 
embitterment, these are things that are unavoidable in the circum- 
stances. ‘I came not to send peace but a sword.’” 

@ Der Sozialist- » Matthew 10:34 

In the next few days I shall let you have the Condition of the Working- 
Class.* 
With kind regards 

Your 
F. Engels