London, 14 February 1884 
122 Regent’s Park Road, N. W. 

Dear Old Man, 

There is no reason for you to worry about my health; the thing 
was a long drawn-out but not at all dangerous, and is steadily 
abating. 

I have sent Laura a copy of the note with the New Year’s 
greetings. 

I have also taken out a money order for five pounds to enable you, 
old chap, to cosset yourself and your wife a bit. I hope that the com- 
paratively mild winter and the better time of year now approaching 
will put you both on your feet again. 

I have found a few things that emanated from you but cannot yet 
say whether there are any more. There’s a whole big hamper full of 
letters, etc., to be looked through. As soon as I’ve sorted it out, I shall 
send you everything that turns up.!?° 

Now, as regards your plan, it is the circumstances presently pre- 
vailing in Germany that are the first consideration. From time to time 
I get information on the subject direct from Germany and, according 
to this, the despotism of the police is unrestrained and the govern- 
ment is determined to put a stop to any public agitation by our party, 
no matter what the pretext for that agitation or under what name it is 
conducted. The fact that Social Democrats are at the back of it is 
enough for any meeting to be dispersed, any attempt to have a say in 
the press smothered and any participant expelled from a locality sub- 
ject to the state of emergency. The experience of the past six years 
cannot leave us in any doubt as to that. 

Now I am of the view that the appropriateness, timing and object 
of a renewed attempt at mass agitation are things we who live abroad 
are utterly incapable of deciding, and that this must be left entirely to 
those in Germany who have to endure the pressure there and who 
know best what is possible and what is impossible. So if you approach 

Bebel or Liebknecht, and they deliberate the matter there, it would, 
in my view, be for them to decide the pros and cons, and for us to 
abide by their decision. 

Come to that, things aren’t going too badly in Germany where agi- 
tation is concerned, although the bourgeois papers suppress most of it 
and only sometimes and despite themselves emit an anxious moan: 
about the rapidity with which the party is gaining ground instead of 
losing it. The police have opened up for our men a quite splendid 
field — the omnipresent and unremitting struggle with the police 
themselves. It is being conducted everywhere and. continuously with 
great success and, better still, with great humour. The police are de- 
feated and —ridiculed into the bargain. And, in the circumstances, 
I consider this struggle to be more useful than any other. Above all, it 
keeps contempt for the enemy alive in our lads’ minds. No worse 
troops could be sent into action than those of the German police; even 
when they have the upper hand they suffer moral defeat, and our 
lads’ confidence in victory grows from day to day. The effect of this 
struggle will be such that, as soon as the pressure at last lets up (and 
that will happen on the day things get cracking in Russia) we shall 
not be numbered in our hundreds of thousands but in our millions. 
Among the so-called leaders there may be plenty of rotten stuff, but 
in our masses J have unmitigated faith, and what they lack in revolu- 
tionary tradition, they will increasingly be taught by their guerilla 
war with the police. And, say what you will, we have never yet seen 
a proletariat learn in so short a time to act collectively and march 
shoulder to shoulder. Hence, although nothing may appear on the 
surface, we can, I think, confidently look to the day when the alarm is 
sounded. Phen just watch them stand-tot 

Fraternal greetings from your old friend 
F. Engels