London, 30 November 1881 

Dear Mr Bernstein, 

If any one outside event has contributed to putting Marx more or 
less to rights again, then it is the elections.? Never has a proletariat 
conducted itself so magnificently. In England, after the great defeat 
of 1848,? there was a relapse into apathy and, in the end, resigna- 
tion to bourgeois exploitation, with the proviso that the Traprs Unions 

fought individual battles for higher wages. In France the proletariat 
disappeared from the stage after the 2nd December.?!° In Germany, 
after 3 years of unprecedented persecution and unrelenting pressure, 
during which any form of public organisation and even communica- 
tion was a sheer impossibility, our lads have returned, not only in all 
their former strength, but actually stronger than before. And strong- 
er in one crucial respect, in that the movement’s centre of gravity has 
shifted from the semi-rural districts of Saxony to the large indus- 
trial towns. 

The bulk of our people in Saxony consist of hand-loom weavers, 
who are doomed to obsolescence by the power-loom and are only just 
enabled to keep going by starvation wages and secondary occupa- 
tions (gardening, toy carving, etc.). These people find themselves in 
an economically reactionary situation and represent an obsolescent 
stage of production. So they are not born representatives of revolu- 
tionary socialism — not, at any rate, to the same degree as are the 
workers in large-scale industry. Hence they are not reactionary by 
nature (as, for instance, the remaining hand-loom weavers eventually 
became over here-— the hard core of the ‘Conservative Workinc Men’) but 
cannot be relied upon in the long run. This is also very largely due to 
their appallingly miserable condition, which means that they have 
far less power of resistance than townsmen, and also to their disper- 
sion, which makes them easier to enslave politically than the inhab- 
itants of large towns. The facts reported in the Sozialdemokrat* fill 
one with admiration for the heroism with which so many of those 
poor devils continued to stand firm. 

But they are not the right kind of nucleus for a great national mov- 
ement. In certain circumstances — as in 1865-70 — their poverty ren- 
ders them more readily receptive to socialist views than the inhabi- 
tants of large towns. But this same poverty also makes them unreli- 
able. A drowning man clutches at any straw, nor can he wait for 
a boat to push off from the bank and come to his rescue. The boat is 
socialist revolution, the straw, protective tariffs and state socialism. It 
is significant that there, in our old constituencies, it was almost only 
conservatives who stood any chance against us. And if, on a previous 
occasion, Kayser could talk such rubbish about protective tariffs 77° 
without anyone’s venturing any real objection, whose was the 

* ‘Warum sind wir in Glauchau (Sachsen) unterlegen?’, Sozialdemokrat, No. 47, 17 No- 
vember 1881. 

blame — as Bebel himself remarked in a letter to me ??! —-if not the 
constituents’, and Kayser’s in particular? 

Now everything’s different. Berlin, Hamburg, Breslau, Leipzig, 
Dresden, Mainz, Offenbach, Barmen, Elberfeld, Solingen, Nurem- 
berg, Frankfurt am Main, Hanau, as well as Chemnitz and the Erz- 
gebirge districts— that’s backing of quite a different order. A class 
that is revolutionary by reason of its economic situation has come to 
be the nucleus of the movement. Aside from that, the movement is 
evenly distributed over the entire industrial area of Germany and, 
from being restricted to a few local centres, has only now come to be 
a national movement. And that is what frightens the bourgeois most 
of all. 

As regards those who have been elected, we shall have to hope for 
the best, although I find it very difficult to do so where some of them 
are concerned. But it would be a disaster if, this time, Bebel were not 
to be returned.??? For there will be many new elements— each 
armed, no doubt, with his own little schemes — whom Bebel alone, 
with his unerring tact, would be able to keep in order and prevent 
from making asses of themselves. 

As regards the French, it would now be best simply to let Messrs 
Malon and Brousse have their head, and show what they can do. But 
it’s unlikely to come to that. One of these days the Egalité will ap- 
pear; Brousse will, as before, be guardedly libellous, launching at- 
tacks in the Prolétaire without naming names, while the others, fall- 
ing headlong into the snare, will, in their attacks, name names from 
the outset, whereupon they will be hailed as disturbers of the peace, 
sectarians, spreaders of dissension and budding dictators. Nothing 
can be done to stop this. The fellows are completely incapable of 
waiting until their opponents have got into a mess of their own con- 
triving, but must perforce take issue with them and thus give them 
a longer lease of life. Left to their own devices Malon and, more espe- 
cially, Brousse would scupper themselves (and probably each other) 
within 6 months. But as things are, it may take longer. 

Like almost all such congresses, the Congress of Rheims ??° served 
to impress the outside world but, seen in the cold light of day, was 
a swindle. Of the ‘federations’ represented there, only the Centre, 
Nord and Est really exist; the others exist only on paper. The Al- 
gerian federation had elected the bourgeois Henry Maret (radical depu- 
ty) as its delegate!!, which just shows what kind of allies Malon has 
got. Guesde had wanted only properly organised federations to be re- 

presented on the Comité national — but his proposal was turned down. 
This was misrepresented, i. e. suppressed, in the official account in the Pro- 
létaire.* Thus, half the delegates to the congress and on the Comité na- 
tional represent nothing at all, or at best only castles in Spain. The haste 
to declare the Prolétaire, already completely taken over by 
Malon and Brousse, an official gazette was due solely to the desire to 
steal a march on the forthcoming Egalité. As usual, none of the reso- 
lutions on organisation were determined by expediency but by the 
opportunist considerations of the parties concerned. 

Here is something that will give you an idea of Malon’s Marxo- 
phobia: last spring he asked Lafargue, when the latter was in Paris, to 
obtain from Marx a foreword to the new edition of Malon’s Histoire du 
Socialisme; needless to say, Lafargue laughed in his face and told him 
he must have a very poor idea of Marx if he thought him capable 
of lending himself to such humbug. 

G. Howell, luckily not returned as ‘labour candidate’ for Stafford, 
is undoubtedly the biggest blackguard of all the polzticanti> ex- 
working men here. He was until recently secretary of the Trapes 
Unrtons ParuiaMentary Committee (needless to say, a salaried post) and 
took occasion to cook the books, this being only hushed up with some 
difficulty; however, he was given the sack. 

Within the next few days I shall write to K. K. of Kasburg* about 
the Polish affair.2?* In the meantime, give him my best regards. 

Marx is still very run down, isn’t allowed to leave his room or 
engage in any serious occupation, but he is visibly gaining weight. 
His wife is growing ever weaker. 

With best regards, 

Yours, 
F.E.