London, 25 August 1881 

Dear Bebel, 

I would have replied sooner to your letter of 13.5.'97 But, after the 
Leipzig ‘local’, 19° I waited to see whether you might perhaps send 
me another forwarding address; as you haven’t I am using the old 
one, and also enclosing a letter from Tussy Marx to Mrs Liebknecht, 
for whom we haven’t got an address either. 

Bernstein still writes to say he wants to leave the Soztaldemokrat, and 
now proposes that Kegel be taught the ropes and, once he knows 
them, appointed in his place. My view is that any change would be 
for the worse. Bernstein has made good, so greatly exceeding our ex- 
pectations (for instance, his articles on ‘intellects’! were, trifles 
apart, quite excellent and written along exactly the right lines) that it 
would be hard to find anyone better. Kegel hasn’t proved himself, at 
any rate in this sphere, and, as things stand now, all experimentation 
should be avoided. I have urgently requested Bernstein to stay,? and 
believe you could do no better than give him similar advice. In his 
hands the paper is getting better and better, and so, too, is he. He has 
genuine tact and is quick on the uptake — just the reverse of Kautsky, 
who is an exceptionally good chap, but a born pedant and hair- 
splitter in whose hands complex questions are not made simple, but 
simple ones complex. Like all the rest of us, I am very fond of him as 
a person and, in longer articles of the review type, he might occasion- 
ally do something pretty good, but even with the best will in the 
world he can’t go against the grain, c’est plus fort que lui.» On a news- 
paper, a doctrinaire of this kind is a real disaster; even Ede‘ was 
forced to append a critical note to one of his articles in the last Sozzalde- 
mokrat. On the other hand, he has written a fly-sheet for the consump- 

@ See this volume, pp. 85-86 and 128.-° it’s too much for him-* Eduard Bern- 
stein 

tion of peasants in Austria? in which he gives proof of something of his 
mother’s gift for short story writing; aside from one or two erudite 
expressions, it’s really good and should be effective. 

I wrote to Liebknecht about the speeches in the Landtag, and in 
reply '°° was told that these had been a matter of ‘tactics’ (but I had 
pointed out that it was precisely those tactics that prevented us from 
siding openly with him) and that speeches of a different kind would 
shortly be made in the Reichstag. True, this has now been done by 
you ?°°-——- but what is one to think of Liebknecht’s unfortunate and 
wholly unnecessary remark about the ‘Reich Chancellor’s hones- 
ty’ ?°'? It may have been meant ironically, but that’s not evident 
from the report, and what capital the bourgeois press made out of it! 
I have sent no further reply — it does no good, after all. But Kautsky, 
too, has told us not only that Liebknecht is writing letters all over the 
place — e.g. to Austria — saying Marx and I are in complete agree- 
ment with him and had sanctioned his ‘tactics’, but also that people 
believe him. This really can’t go on indefinitely! Again, the Fretheit 
has got a lot of fun of Hartmann’s* speech on the Accident Bill ?°? 
which, if the passage they quote is genuine, was certainly a pretty 
wretched affair. 

In France, working-class candidates obtained 20,000 votes in Paris 
and 40,000 in the provinces ?°° and, if their leaders hadn’t perpetrat- 
ed one stupidity after another since setting up the collectivist work- 
ers’ party, things would have gone even better. But there, too, the 
masses are better than most of their leaders. For instance, several Par- 
isian candidates lost thousands of votes through using empty revolu- 
tionary verbiage (as much part of the business in Paris as patter is of 
trade) in the provinces as well where it was taken seriously and peo- 
ple asked: ‘How can you make a revolution without weapons and or- 
ganisation?? For the rest, developments in France are taking their 
regular, normal and very necessary course along peaceful lines, and 
that is a very good thing just now, for otherwise the provinces could 
not be swept earnestly into the movement. 

I understand very well that your fingers should itch, when every- 
thing’s going so nicely for us in Germany and you, having your hands 
tied, cannot reap the fruits of victories that are all but falling into 
your laps. But this does no harm. Many people in Germany have set 

* [K. Kautsky,] Der Vetter aus Amerika, eine Erzdhlung für Landleute, erbaulich zu lesen. - 
> Minna Kautsky-° Georg Wilhelm Hartmann 

too much store by overt propaganda (Viereck, who was completely 
cast down by the impossibility of making overt propaganda, is just 
one striking example of this), and too little by the real impetus of his- 
torical events. It can do nothing but good if experience acts as a cor- 
rective in this case. The fact that we cannot reap the fruits of our vic- 
tories at the moment in no way means that they are lost to us. The gal- 
vanising of the indifferent, inert masses can only be effected by actual 
events and even if, in present circumstances, those thus galvanised are 
left in a state of some considerable bewilderment, the word of deliver- 
ance will, when the time comes, strike home with all the more force; 
the effect upon state and bourgeoisie will be all the more drastic when 
the 600,000 votes ?°* are suddenly multiplied threefold, when, besides 
Saxony, all the big towns and industrial districts fall to us and even 
rural workers are, for the first time, so situated as to be intellectually 
accessible to us. To take the masses by storm in this way is of far great- 
er value than to win them over gradually by overt propaganda which, 
under present circumstances, would in any case quickly be stamped 
on. As things are now, the Junkers, clergy and bourgeois cannot allow 
us to cut the ground from under their feet and hence it is better to let 
them take care of this themselves. For a time will surely come when 
a different wind will blow. Meanwhile it’s you people who must in 
person go through the mill, it’s you who must endure the infamies of 
the government and the bourgeoisie, and that’s no laughing matter. 
But mind you don’t forget any of the dirty tricks played on yourselves 
and on all our people; the day of retribution is nigh and it must be ex- 
ploited to the full. 

Your 
F.E. 

Viereck is in Copenhagen. Address poste restante, Copenhagen.