London, 19 July 1884 

Dear Kautsky, 

Did not get the letter from you and Ede until this morning, al- 
though postmarked Zurich 17/7. 

I agree to your proposals, provided the thing now goes ahead. If 
our workers can read Roman Just as easily as German characters, 
I would myself, of course, prefer Roman. Format about the same as 
Entwicklung’ — Bebel’s Frau '? was too large. If you believe you can 
sell 5,000, I am quite agreeable. So just get on with it and let me have 
the proofs soon. The arrangement with Schabelitz is also quite satis- 
factory.?°* 

So the only reward we get for the consideration we have shown 
Dietz is his regarding us all as his enemies! 

That the Neue Kert is to cease publication 7° is no misfortune for the 
party. It is becoming increasingly clear that the great majority of l- 
terary party men in Germany belong to the ranks of those opportunists 
and pussy-footers whom the Anti-Socialist Law,*’ adversely though 
it may affect their pockets, has placed in exactly the right /zterary at- 
mosphere; they can express themselves uninhibitedly, whereas we are 
prevented from giving them a piece of our mind. Thus the very fact of 
having to fill up such a review every month demands considerable 
forbearance, and entails the gradual encroachment of philanthropy, 
humanism, sentimentality —in short all the anti-revolutionary vices 

* F. Engels, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific. 

of your Freiwalds,* Quarcks, Schippels, Rosuses” et al. People who re- 
fuse on principle to learn anything and who turn out nothing but lite- 
rature about literature and a propos of literature (°/,) of all German 
writing today consists of writing about other writing) will, needless to 
say, produce more sheets per year than those who mug up a subject 
and attempt to write about other books only when 1) they have mas- 
tered those other books, 2) the latter contain anything that is worth- 
while. The preponderance of these gentlemen in literature published 
in Germany, a preponderance created by the Anti-Socialist Law, is un- 
avoidable so long as that Law endures. On the other hand, we have 
a weapon of altogether different calibre in the shape of the literature 
appearing abroad. 

It would be delightful if you were to come to this country. But 
I don’t know whether you ought to count with such certainty on the 
New Yorkers. Over 3 months ago Aveling was taken on as London 
correspondent and, though he has written regularly, he has not yet 
had a penny. Here on the spot there’s nothing to be earned. Neither 
Justice nor To-Day pay, and if there’s anything to be picked up else- 
where in the press, everyone is on to it like a pack of wolves. 

The clairvoyance in the Neue Welt ? is the best thing that could 
have happened. That sort of ‘erudition’ regularly degenerates into 
such-like nonsense. The cruder the better —it will be over all the 
sooner. I did so laugh when I got your postcard. A few more such au- 
dacious Geiseriads and the chap will have to pack his bags. 

Hyndman’s book,‘ like the man himself, is a pretentious, imperti- 
nent jumble in which he, too, continually tries to pick holes in Marx 
(for not being an Englishman; Hyndman is the most jingoistic John 
Bull imaginable) and yet is so ignorant of English history that it’s all 
wrong except for what he has learnt from the Germans. But Hynd- 
man is about to come a cropper here; true he has, with his own and 
Morris’ money, now bought up the entire movement, financially 
speaking (likewise To-Day which Bax is unable to carry on for want of 
resources, and which has now been transferred lock, stock and barrel 
to Hyndman), but his eagerness to play the dictator, his envy of all 
potential rivals and his persistent self-promotion, have rendered him 
suspect to even his surest friends, and his position in the Democratic 
Feperation 9° is growing shaky. Cet homme n’ira pas loin, il ne sait pas 

* Freiwald Thiringer—pen-name of Max Quarck-° Robert Schweichel-* to the 
New Yorker Volkszeitung-? H.M. Hyndman, The Historical Basis of Socialism in England. 

attendre.*On top of that, Fustice is becoming ever sillier, and I hope 
that this initial phase of the movement here will very soon be over’; it 
is becoming dreadfully unedifying. 

With your bacillum, you have given Geiser an opening 2°’ which, 
however, he may with any luck be too stupid to exploit. Both forms, 
baculus and baculum, are current, hence either gender so far as the 
derivation is concerned. But bacillus has long since been exclusively 
adopted in biology. 

As I shall probably be going to the seaside for a bit at the end of 
this or the beginning of next month, I should be grateful if I could 
have Rodbertus’ Zur Erkenntniss now.° I shall return it immediately, 
along with the Normal-Arbeitstag, etc., but it is necessary for me to 
have seen the thing because he himself maintained in 1879 that Marx 
had made use of it without due acknowledgment.!8” No such accusa- 
tion could ever be brought against Marx save by people without any 
idea of the hair-raising ignorance it requires so much as to assert any- 
thing of the kind. Anyone who has read Ricardo— and even in 
Adam Smith there are passages enough to this effect —- must after all 
know what is the ‘source’ of surplus value without having to read the 
great* Rodbertus first. 

Your 
F.E.