IN. LEIPZIG 
London, 14 November 1879°°7 
Dear Bebel, 

Many thanks for your communications, as also those of Fritzsche 
and Liebknecht,”* which have at last enabled us to get a clear idea 
of the facts. 

4B. Augusti, Ein verhaengnisvolles Jahr. In: Kélnische Zeitung, Nos. 247-302, 6 Sep- 
tember-31 October 1879. 

That things have not, from the start, been exactly straightfor- 
ward, however, is evident from earlier letters from Leipzig and the 
muddles and misunderstandings with Hirsch generally.* The latter 
could not have happened if, from the start, the Leipzigers had put 
paid to Zurich’s pretensions to censorship. Had they done so and 
informed Hirsch of the fact, everything would have been all right. 
But since they didn’t, I can only conclude, after again comparing 
commissions with omissions, present communications with previ- 
ous letters from all concerned, that Héchberg wasn’t altogether 
wrong when he told me that Zurich had imposed censorship solely 
on Hirsch’s account, it being unnecessary in the case of Vollmar. 

As regards the financing,” I’m not particularly surprised that 
you should take matters so lightly. For this is the first time you’ve 
had a go at the thing. But Hirsch had already been through this 
particular mill with the Laterne and, as for us, who have so often 
witnessed such things and even experienced them in person, we 
can only endorse his request that careful consideration be given to 
this point. Freihett, despite all subsidies, is left at the end of its 
third quarter with a deficit of £100=2,000 marks. I have never 
known a German paper, banned at home, that could have 
survived without substantial subsidies. Do not allow yourselves to 
be dazzled by initial successes. The real difficulties involved in 
smuggling become manifest only with time, and multiply con- 
stantly.”” 

What you say about the attitude of the deputies and of the party 
leaders generally to the protective tariffs question corroborates 
every word of my letter.“ It was bad enough, in all conscience, that 
a party which prides itself on being so superior to the bourgeois in 
the sphere of economics should, when first put to the test in that 
sphere, prove just as divided, just as ignorant, as the National 
Liberals °*° who could at least plead a genuine clash of bourgeois 
interests in extenuation of their inglorious collapse. But it was 
even worse that that split should have been seen to happen, that 
your attitude should have been wavering and uncertain. Once you 

a The following is deleted in the manuscript of the draft: ‘If the Zurich trio had no 
pretensions to censorship, why were those pretensions, which were so loudly and 
insistently voiced by them, not immediately quashed by Leipzig? Only two things 
were needed to induce Hirsch to go to Zurich: 1. Information about the true facts 
of the case, such as we have now had, 2. Notification to the effect that we, the 
Leipzigers, have written to the Zurichers telling them that they are not to inter- 
vene officially in the editorship, and, if they nevertheless do so, you musi take no 
notice; you are responsible to us and to us alone’. - > of the newspaper Der Sozial- 
demokrat - © See this volume, pp. 400-01. 

knew that unity was unattainable, there was only one thing to 
do—declare the question to be a purely bourgeois question, which 
indeed it is, and abstain from voting.’ But the worst thing of all 
was permitting Kayser to make his lamentable speeches and to vote 
for the Bill at its first reading. It was not until after that division that 
Hirsch attacked him,°’? and if Kayser later, at the third reading, 
voted against the Bill, he only made matters worse, not better. 

The resolution in congress is no excuse.™' If the party proposes 
to regard as binding all the earlier resolutions made by congress in 
the easy-going days of peace, it will be placing itself in fetters. The 
constitutional basis upon which a living party functions must not 
only be self-created, it must also and at all times be susceptible to 
change. Inasmuch as the Anti-Socialist Law** makes congresses 
and hence the amendment of earlier congressional resolutions 
impossible, it also abolishes the binding force of those resolutions. 
A party that is deprived of the opportunity of passing binding 
resolutions can only look for its laws to its living and ever 
changing needs. But if it seeks to subordinate those needs to 
earlier resolutions that are now dead as a doornail, it will be 
digging its own grave. 

So much for the formal aspect. However, it is the content of 
that resolution that really invalidates it. In the first place it is 
incompatible with the programme in that it admits of voting 
indirect taxation. Secondly it is incompatible with essential party 
tactics inasmuch as it permits taxation to be voted for the 
present-day state. Thirdly, however, it implies, translated into 
plain language: 

The congress admits to not being well enough informed about 
the question of protective tariffs to pass a definite resolution, for 
or against. Hence it declares itself incompetent in this matter, 
inasmuch as it restricts itself, for the benefit of the dear public, to 
the enunciation of a few commonplaces, some of them meaning- 
less, some incompatible either with each other or with the party 
programme, and then proceeds gladly to wash its hands of the 
whole affair. 

And is this declaration of incompetence whereby what was, in 
peace-time, a purely academic question was swept under the 
carpet,—is this declaration,” now that, in time of war, the question 

@ The following is deleted in the manuscript of the draft: ‘to invoke the point in 
the programme that rejects all indirect taxation and the tactics which prohibit voting 
this government any taxes, and to adopt as the sole precept abstention from 
voting’. - > In the manuscript of the draft: ‘this wretched piece of trash’. 

has become a burning one, to be considered as binding upon an 
entire party until legally invalidated by a new resolution which 
present circumstances preclude? 

This much is certain: whatever the impression made on the 
deputies by Hirsch’s attacks upon Kayser, those attacks reflect the 
impression made by Kayser’s irresponsible action upon Social- 
Democrats abroad, whether German or non-German. And it is 
high time it was realised that the reputation of the party has to be 
kept up, not only within its own confines, but also in the eyes of 
Europe and America. 

And this brings me to the report.” However good it may be at 
the start and however skilful—in the circumstances—the treat- 
ment of the protective tariffs debate, this does not atone for the 
concessions made to the German philistines in the third part. Why 
the altogether superfluous passage about ‘civil war’, why such 
deference to ‘public opinion’ which, in Germany, will always be 
that of the beer-swilling philistine; why, at this point, the total 
obliteration of the movement's class character? Why give the 
anarchists that pleasure? And, what is more, all these concessions 
are utterly useless. The German philistine is cowardice incarnate; 
he has no respect for anyone who does not inspire fear in him.” 
But anyone who tries to curry favour with him he regards as one 
of his own kind and accords him no more respect than he accords 
to his own kind, which is to say none at all. And now that the 
storm of beer-swilling philistine indignation known as_ public 
opinion has, as is generally admitted, died down and the burden 
of taxation has in any case reduced these people to pulp, why go 
on with this billing and cooing? If only you knew what it sounded 
like abroad! It’s a good thing for a party organ to be managed by 
men immediately involved in the party and the struggle. But were 
you to spend only six months abroad, you would feel quite 
differently about this quite uncalled-for self-abasement of the 
party deputies before the philistines. The storm that broke over 
the French socialists after the Commune was, after all, a very 
different kind of thing from the uproar about Nobiling*” in 
Germany. And how much prouder and more self-confident was 
the bearing of the French! Where, in their case, may such 
weaknesses, such kow-towing to opponents, be discerned? They 
remained silent when they could not speak freely, they let the 

542 

a The following is deleted in the manuscript of the draft: ‘Bismarck treats him as 
he deserves, i.e. spurns him, and he therefore idolises Bismarck.’ 

philistines shout till they could shout no more, they knew their 
time would surely come, and now it is here. 

I can well believe what you say about Hochberg.” Indeed, I 
have absolutely no objection to him as a private individual. I also 
believe that it was only the anti-socialist campaign that made him 
realise what, in his heart of hearts, he wanted. That what he 
wanted was bourgeois and not proletarian was something I 
tried—probably in vain—to make him see.* But once he had 
formulated a programme, I must have credited him with more 
than German philistine weakness had I assumed that he would not 
try to gain recognition for it. Héchberg before and Héchberg 
after that article’! are, indeed, two different persons.” 

But now, in No. 5 of the Sozialdemokrat, I find a contri- 
bution from the Lower Elbe‘ in which Auer uses my letter as a 
pretext’ to accuse me—-without mentioning my name _ but 
leaving small room for doubt—of ‘sowing the seeds of suspicion in 
regard to the trustiest comrades’, i.e. of calumniating them (for 
otherwise I should be perfectly justified in so doing).“ Not content 
with that, he falsely attributes to me things as stupid as they are 
infamous, and which were not contained in my letter at all. Auer, 
or so it would seem, supposes that J want something or other of 
the party. But as you know, it is not I who want anything of the 
party; on the contrary, it is the party that wants something of me. 
As you and Liebknecht know, all I have ever asked of the party is 
that it should leave me in peace so that I can complete my 
theoretical works. You know that, for the past sixteen years, J 
have nevertheless been approached over and over again with the 
request that I write for party organs, and that I have actually done 
so, that I have written whole series of articles, entire pamphlets at 
Liebknecht’s express behest—such as The Housing Question and 
Anti-Dihring. I won't go into details about the kindnesses the 
party has bestowed on me in return—e.g. the agreeable transac- 
tions in congress on the subject of Dühring.*° Again, you know 
that Marx and I have voluntarily conducted the defence of the 
party against its opponents abroad throughout the party’s exis- 
tence, and that we have never asked anything of the party in 
return, save that it should not be untrue to itself. 

a See this volume, pp. 393, 413. - > The following is deleted in the manuscript of the 
draft: ‘at least so far as the party is concerned’. - ¢ [I. Auer,] ‘Von der Niederelbe, 
23. Oktober’, Der Sozialdemokrat, No. 5, 2 November 1879. - 4 See this volume, 
pp. 394-408. - ¢ The following is deleted in the manuscript of the draft: ‘I have no 
intention of discussing Auer’s attack, as stupid as it is infamous and provoked. I 
should, however, remark that Auer appears to imagine...’ 

But if the party asks of me that I should contribute to its new 
organ," it is only to be expected that it should at least ensure that, 
while negotiations are still in progress, I should not be calum- 
niated as a calumniator in the self-same organ and, what is more, 
by one” of its nominal co-proprietors. There is, so far as I am 
aware, no literary or other code of honour to which this would 
conform, and I believe that even a reptile ** would not stand for 
such treatment. Hence I must ask you: 

1, What satisfaction can you proffer me for this unprovoked 
and rotten insult? 

2. What guarantees can you offer that nothing of the kind will 
ever happen again? 

For the rest, all I want to say about Auer’s insinuations is that 
we over here underestimate neither the difficulties the party has 
to contend with in Germany, nor the significance of the victories 
won in the face of them and the hitherto exemplary conduct of 
the party masses. It goes without saying that every victory gained in 
Germany gladdens our hearts as much as any gained elsewhere— 
more so, indeed, seeing that from the very. start the German party 
developed in accordance with our theoretical propositions. But for 
that very reason we cannot but be particularly concerned that the 
practical conduct of the German party, and notably the public 
utterances of the party leadership, should continue to accord with 
the general theory. Undoubtedly our criticism will be displeasing 
to some; yet no amount of uncritical praise could, after all, be of 
such value to the party‘ as the presence abroad of a couple of 
men who, uninfluenced by confusing local conditions and the 
minutiae of the struggle, compare from time to time what has 
been said and what has been done with the theoretical tenets valid 
for any modern proletarian movement, and in whom that party 
may see reflected the impression its actions have made outside 
Germany. 

Most cordially yours, 

F. Engels