[IN BERLIN] 

London, 11-12 December 1884 

Dear Bebel, 

The point of my last letter* was as follows: 

Among the newly elected members some were known to me, who, 
by education and temperament, would throw in their weight with 
the right, bourgeois wing of the parliamentary group. In view of the 
tremendous blandishments suddenly extended to us after our victo- 
ries by all the other parties, it seemed to me not impossible that the 
said gentlemen might fall for the bait and be prepared to make a 
statement such as that demanded of us by, for instance, the Kélnische 
Keitung as a condition of the repeal of the Anti-Socialist Law *!!——a 
statement would only have to go a hair’s breadth further to the right 
in surrendering the party’s revolutionary character than did, for in- 
stance, Geiser’s speech during the Anti-Socialist Law debate, which 
Grillenberger printed alongside yours.*?? The gentlemen of the Lib- 
eral Party are soft and would be content with very little; a small con- 
cession on our part would have satisfied them, and it was that small 
concession I feared since it would have discredited us beyond all 
measure abroad. [ knew, of course, that it would not be made by you. 
But you, i.e. we, might have been outvoted. Indeed, the least sign of 
a split — in speeches — would have done enormous harm. That is the 
reason -— and the only reason —I thought it my duty to provide you 
with support against such an occasion by supplying you with a few 
handy historical arguments which, perhaps, might not be so fresh in 
your mind as in mine. And so that you might show the letter to others 
if you thought fit, I omitted all allusions to those for whom it was, ul- 
timately, intended. 

Nobody is gladder than I that my fears have proved unfounded 
and that the power of the movement should have been such as to 
carry away even the bourgeois elements of the party and that the par- 
liamentary group had kept abreast of the electorate. And I must con- 

* See this volume, pp. 220-23. 

fess that I find Singer, who spent a short while here this Sunday * and 
will be coming to see me again next Sunday, a completely changed 
man. He is beginning to believe (quite literally) that he might yet 
experience something in the nature of a social transformation. I trust 
that it will last and that our ‘eddicated’ chaps will ultimately resist 
the temptation of showing the other parties that they’re not ogres. 

I have never been mistaken about our proletarian masses. The 
progress of their movement — assured, confident of victory and, for 
that very reason, cheerful and good-humoured —-is exemplary and 
beyond compare. No European proletariat could have stood the test 
of the Anti-Socialist Law so splendidly nor, after six years of oppres- 
sion, have responded by demonstrating how greatly its power had in- 
creased and its organisation been consolidated. None could have 
brought that organisation into being, as was done here, without any 
pretence at conspiracy. And, now that I have seen the electoral mani- 
festos of Darmstadt and Hanover,*?° I have ceased to worry about 
the possibility of having to make concessions in the new districts (con- 
stituencies). If, in both those towns, they could speak in such revolu- 
tionary and proletarian terms, then all is won. 

It is greatly to our advantage that in Germany the industrial revo- 
lution should not really have got going until now, whereas in France 
and England it is for the most part complete. In those countries, the 
division into town and country, industrial districts and agricultural 
districts, is complete to the extent that such further change as there is 
will be very gradual. The bulk of the people grow up in the condi- 
tions in which they will subsequently have to live; they are so used to 
them that even fluctuations and crises come to be regarded almost as 
a matter of course. Added to which is the memory of earlier, unsuc- 
cessful movements. In Germany, by contrast, everything is still in 
a state of flux. What remains of the old, self-sufficient rural industrial 
production is being superseded by capitalist cottage industries, while 
elsewhere capitalist cottage industries are in their turn making way 
for the machine. And it is the very nature of our industry, lagging as 
it does far behind all the rest, that makes the revolution ” such a fun- 
damental one. Since large mass-produced articles, for the popular as 
well as the luxury trades, are already monopolised by the British and 
French, pretty well all that is left for our export industry is the insigni- 
ficant stuff which, however, also runs into very large quantities, and is 
first manufactured by cottage industries, not being machine-made 

* 7 December -° Altered in an unknown hand to ‘social revolution’. 

until later when it is produced in bulk. In this way cottage industries 
(capitalist) are introduced into far wider fields and make an even 
cleaner sweep. If I except the Prussia of the Eastern Elbe area, i.e. 
East and West Prussia, Pomerania, Posen and the larger part of 
Brandenburg, as well as Old Bavaria,* there are now few districts 
where the farmer is not being increasingly caught up in cottage in- 
dustries. The area thus” revolutionised will,° in Germany, be larger 
than anywhere else. 

Furthermore, the fact that the worker in a cottage industry usually 
goes in for a bit of agriculture makes it possible to depress wages to an 
extent unknown elsewhere. What used to be the small man’s good 
fortune — the combination of agriculture and industry——has now 
become the most effective means of capitalist exploitation. The po- 
tato plot, the cow, the little bit of husbandry, makes feasible the sale 
of labour power below its proper price, indeed necessifates this because 
it binds the worker to the soil which, after all, provides part of his 
nourishment. Hence, in Germany, industry becomes capable of ex- 
porting because the customer, more often than not, is presented with the 
entire surplus value, while the capitalist’s profits derive from deduc- 
tions made from the normal working wage. This applies to pretty well 
all rural cottage industries, more so in Germany than anywhere else. 

Moreover, our industrial revolution, set in train by the revolution 
of 1848 and its bourgeois advances (puny though these were), was 
enormously speeded up 1) by the removal, between 1866 and 1870, 
of internal obstacles* and 2) by the French milliards, destined as 
these were for capitalist investment.°°% In this way we have achieved 
an industrial revolution that is more thorough:going and fundamen- 
tal, more extensive and comprehensive than in any other country; we 
have done so with a completely fresh, intact proletariat, undemoral- 
ised by defeat and, finally — thanks to Marx——with an insight into 
the causes of economic and political developments and into the prere- 
quisites for the impending revolution such as none of our predecessors 
possessed. But for that very reason we are under an obligation to win. 

As regards pure democracy and its future role, I am not of your 
opinion. That it plays a far more subordinate role in Germany than 
in countries long since industrialised, goes without saying. But that 
will not prevent it gua extreme bourgeois party — which, after all, it 
@ Old Bavaria: Upper and Lower Bavaria and Upper Palatinate. - ‘industrially’ in- 
serted in an unknown hand- ‘ ‘hence,’ inserted in an unknown hand-¢ See 

this volume, pp. 221-22. 

had already made itself out to be at Frankfurt — from acquiring, at 
the moment of revolution, a temporary significance as the last sheet- 
anchor of the bourgeois and, indeed, feudal economy generally.*3* At 
such a moment the entire reactionary mass will align itself behind it 
and swell its ranks, whereupon all erstwhile reactionaries will act as 
though they were democrats. It was thus that, from March to Sep- 
tember 1848, the entire feudal-bureaucratic mass swelled the ranks of 
the Liberals in order to keep down the revolutionary masses and, 
having done so, kick out the Liberals as a matter of course. It was 
thus that in France in 1848, from May until Bonaparte’s* election in 
December, the purely Republican party of Le National,?*° the very 
weakest of them all, was able to hold sway thanks only to the forces of 
reaction, all of which rallied to its defences. It has always been thus in 
every revolution: The tamest party still capable of governing takes its 
turn at the helm precisely because the vanquished look to it as their 
last hope of salvation. Now we cannot expect to have the majority of 
the electorate, 1.e. of the nation, already at our backs when the cru- 
cial moment comes. The whole of the middle and the residue of the 
feudal, land-owning class, and the better part of the petty bourgeoisie 
as of the rural population, will then rally round the most extreme 
bourgeois — in word by now the most extreme revolutionary — party 
which will, I think, most probably be represented in the provisional 
government, indeed might actually form its majority for a time. How, 
as a minority, one ought noé to act in such a case was demonstrated in 
Paris in 1848 by the Social Democratic minority in the February gov- 
ernment.*? However, for the moment this question remains an aca- 
demic one. 

Now in Germany matters might take a diffetent course, and this for 
military reasons. As things are at present, an impulse from without 
would be unlikely to come from anywhere but Russia. Should it fail to 
come, and the impulse emanate from Germany, the revolution could 
only emanate from the army. An unarmed population confronted by 
a modern army is militarily an altogether infinitesimal quantity. In 
that event — when our reserves of 20- or 25-year-olds, who do not vote, 
but train, would go into action— pure democracy might be given a 
miss. But here again the question is, at present, still academic although 
I, as representative, so to speak, of the party’s Great General Staff, 
am obliged to bear it in mind. At all events, on the crucial day and 
the day after that, our only adversary will be collective reaction centred 
round pure democracy and this, I think, ought never to be lost from view. 

* Napoleon III 

If you people table motions in the Reichstag, there is one thing you 
should not forget. State-owned land is for the most part rented out to 
big farmers, only very little being sold to smallholders whose plots, 
however, are so diminutive that these new smallholders are reduced 
to hiring themselves out by the day to the large farms. What should 
be demanded is the leasing of large, undivided estates to cooperatives of 
agricultural workers to be farmed communally. The Empire possesses 
no estates and this will presumably provide a pretext for throwing out 
any such motion. But I believe that this firebrand ought to be cast 
among the agricultural day labourers, which is quite possible in view 
of the many debates about state socialism. This and this alone will en- 
able you to rope in the agricultural workers. It is the best way of 
showing them that they are ultimately destined to run the big estates 
of those who are now their lords and masters, and to run them for the 
common weal. And with this friend Bismarck and his demand that 
you make positive proposals ought to be satisfied for a while. 

Warmest regards. 

Your 
FE, 

12 December 1884