London, 9 January 1884° 

Dear Kautsky, 

(Why must we continue to bore each other with ‘Mr’?) The news 
about the coronation scenery is absolutely typical and has aroused 
much mirth; at the same time we have taken care that it does not leak 

* See this volume, p. 54.-° 1883 in the original 

out prematurely over here; i. e. before the scenery has been delivered 
and paid for.'? Not a soul knows about it apart from Schorlemmer, 
Lenchen and Tussy. 

Many thanks for Frankel’s address. 

So far as purely theoretical matters are concerned, Deville’s sum- 
mary“ is the best that has yet appeared. He has understood every- 
thing aright, though his use of terminology has been very lax and this 
I have amended in the manuscript. On the other hand the descriptive 
part is treated far too cursorily, with the result that some of it is to- 
tally incomprehensible to anyone unfamiliar with the original. Again, 
what would make for much greater ease of comprehension, particular- 
ly in a popular account, namely the Azstorical emergence of manu- 
facture and large-scale industry as consecutive historical periods, 1s 
pushed much too much into the background. (We aren’t even told 
that ‘factory legislation’ does not operate at all in France, but only in 
England!) And, finally, he gives a full summary of the entire contents, 
including stuff which Marx had had to bring in if his account of scien- 
tific developments was to be complete, but which is not necessary to 
an understanding of the theory of surplus value and its consequences 
(and this alone is what counts in the case of a popular summary). Si- 
milarly as regards the number of coins in circulation, etc.” 

But then he also quotes verbatim from Marx’s recapitulatory prop- 
ositions, having given no more than an incomplete account of the as- 
sumptions upon which they were based. Consequently these proposi- 
tions are frequently so distorted that in the course of my perusal I of- 
ten found myself wanting to contest a proposition of Marx’s, the limi- 
tations of which are made plain in the original by what goes before; in 
Deville, however, they are accorded absolutely universal, and hence 
false, validity. I can’t change this without redoing the whole ms. 

Now as to your translation of this,'?”7 my position vis-a-vis Meissner 
compels me to adopt an entirely neutral position. As soon as you 
write and tell me definitely that you will take the thing on, I propose, 
and I have already discussed this with Tussy who shares my view en- 
tirely, to act as follows: I shall write to Meissner saying that someone 
intends to publish Deville’s piece (which I shall send Meissner) in 
German and that I can see nothing in this that might damage the 
sales of Capital — boost them, more likely; I shall then add that I can- 

* G, Deville, Le Capital de Karl Marx. Résumé et accompagné dun apergu sur le socialisme 
scientifique.-” See Capital, Vol. I, Part I, Ch. III, Sect. 2b (present edition, Vol. 35). 

not stop it but that, if he intends to take preventive action, he might 
let me know and I shall then pass this on. 

Seen in the abstract (i.e. disregarding Meissner), a new popular 
and short account (half the size of Deville) of the theory of surplus 
value is much needed, and Deville’s work is, so far as theory goes, far 
better than the rest. What should be dropped are 1) detailed refer- 
ences to the individual chapters and subsections of Capital and, 2) any- 
thing that is not necessary to an understanding of the theory of sur- 
plus value. This will involve rewriting the descriptive part from the 
beginning, and also considerable abridgement. It would allay the 
worst of Meissner’s misgivings, especially if we changed the title to 
e.g. Unpaid Labour and Its Transformation into Capital or something of 
the kind. 

At worst the thing could be printed by Dietz and published in 
Switzerland, like Bebel’s Frau.'* 

So give the matter some thought and drop me a line. 

I enclose the two photographs* for you and Motteler. 

The business of the missing no. of the Sozialdemokrat has since been 
cleared up —- the greatest success scored by Social Democracy to date 
is to have contrived to put 53 weeks into a_year,—a real miracle. 
Just let them carry on like that and we'll all live two per cent 
longer. 

Kindest regards to Bernstein and yourself from 

Yours, 
F.E. 

I had intended to enclose a one pound money order from Schorlem- 
mer but it is now too late; must do so in my next. When does Tussy’s 
and my subscription expire? Up till yesterday she had not received 
her Sozialdemokrat either. Might it have been forgotten? Kindly look 
into it.