London, 30 October 1882 

My dear Lafargue, 
I should be glad if you would send the daily Egalité regularly 
to the 

Editors of the Sozialdemokrat 
Zurich, Switzerland. 

In return, they will send you the Sozzaldemokrat. The exchange-—a 
daily for a weekly paper-— may not be fair, but all the same it is you 

a 

prison (literally: cage tower) 

j02 193. Engels to Paul Lafargue. 30 October 1882 

who will benefit. The idea is to keep the editors of the Sozialdemokrat in 
touch with what is going on in Paris and, as you yourself will realise, 
it is impossible for a + proletarian editorial board to subscribe to all 
the sheets that keep springing up and disappearing in Paris. 

Up till now, the Sozzaldemokrat’s chief source of Parisian news has 
been Vollmar, a German Reichstag deputy and ex-officer who was 
paralysed as a result of a wound. He is a friend of Malon’s, so you can 
imagine the extent to which the latter has turned him against your 
party. To that end he has not only made use of the many mistakes 
with which you have unfailingly supplied him (an example being 
Léon Picard’s absurd article about the Germans in Paris last Sep- 
tember *'°) but, as is his wont, has also told him one lie after another. 

For all that, Vollmar is a good chap; in Germany he issued a pam- 
phiet so impossibilist 9*° that he will no longer be able to remain 
a Possibilist in France. It would be worth finding an opportunity to 
talk to him and get him to see the other side of the coin. I haven’t got 
his Paris address, but it shouldn’t be difficult to find. 

In Zurich [ am bringing out a German edition of Socialism: Utopian 
and Scientific with a great many addenda. I shall send you some 
copies as soon as they arrive. The thing will be about twice as long as 
your translation. ?° Would there be any chance of publishing a new 
French edition based on this German one? 

Again I repeat that, for you, it is of the utmost importance to keep 
the Sozialdemokrat informed; Bernstein could not be more willing, but 
from over here we cannot keep him in touch with things of which we 
ourselves are so often left in ignorance. You would do well to seek 
occasion to write to him, asking for information of some sort, etc. It is 
by such innocent means that Malon succeeds in ingratiating himself 
with others, means which you persist in ignoring. You should remem- 
ber from time to time that Paris is no longer the capital of the world 
(which no longer has a capital) and less still the world itself. 

Love to Laura. 

Yesterday Marx dined with me and in the evening we all had 
supper at his house, after which we sat together drinking rum until 
one o’clock, and today he has left for Ventnor. 

Yours ever, 
F.E.