London, 29 October 1884 

Dear Bebel, 

Your telegram arrived here a minute or two after six and was 
hailed with cries of delight. I at once sent off postcards to people 
here and in the provinces to make its contents known and also 
advised Paris °° where the first news they hear of anything is inva- 
riably garbled and contradictory. Very many thanks for sparing 
me a thought in the midst of the electoral hurly-burly. I have also 
informed °° the Society.? 

It is more than I expected. I am less concerned just now with the 
number of seats that will eventually be won; the obligatory fifteen are 
assured *°” and the main thing is the proof that the movement is 
marching ahead at a pace that is as rapid as it is sure, that consti- 
tuency after constituency has been carried away by it and has ceased 
to be a safe seat for the other parties. But what is also splendid is the 
way our workers have run the affair, the tenacity, determination and, 
above all, humour with which they have captured position after posi- 
tion and set at naught all the dodges, threats and bullying on the part 
of government and bourgeoisie. What Germany could damned well 

do with is reinstatement in the world’s esteem; Bismarck and Moltke 
can make her feared; respect, genuine esteem, such as is only accord- 
ed to free, self-disciplined men— that respect will only be exacted 
by our proletarians. 

The effect on Europe and America will be enormous. I have hopes 
that in France it will provide fresh impetus for our party. Over there 
people are still suffering from the aftermath of the Commune. Great 
though its influence on Europe may have been, it has also seriously 
set back the French proletariat. To have been in power for three 
months — and in Paris at that— and not to have radically altered the 
world but rather have come to grief through their own incompetence 
(such being the biassed fashion in which the matter is understood to- 
day) — is proof that the party is not viable. That is the specious argu- 
ment usually advanced by people who fail to realise that, while the 
Commune was the grave of early specifically French socialism, it was, 
for France, also and at the same time the cradle of a new interna- 
tional communism. And this last will be duly set on its feet by the 
German victories. Mme Lafargue, who is here and sends you her 
warm regards, is also of this opinion. 

Similarly the news will make a strong impact on the English- 
speaking proletariat in America. 

You will have received my registered letter as also my post- 
card ''! of the day before yesterday. 

My main worry just now is whether you yourself have pulled it off 
in your doubtful constituencies.? In view of the many new elements 
who are in any case joining the parliamentary group, it is precisely at 
the beginning that you are so urgently needed, lest you find yourself 
subsequently presented with fazts accomplis in which you had no part. 
I also know you are not in the best of health and you must at all costs 
conserve yourself for the party and the more critical times that lie 
ahead of it. But no doubt everything will work out satisfactorily. 

I wanted to tell you more about the Rodbertus business, but it’s no 
longer possible this evening. As for Schramm himself, he will already 
have had an adequate dressing-down from Karl Kautsky.* In the 
preface to the Poverty” I have already clarified Rodbertus’ attitude to- 
wards us and this will, I think, suffice until Iam able to deal with him 
more thoroughly in the preface to Capital, Book I1.° Should it prove 

@ See this volume, pp. 193-95.- ° F. Engels, ‘Marx and Rodbertus’.- © See present 
edition, Vol. 36. 

necessary to do so in the interim, I can step in again. More about 
this anon. 

Your 
F. E.