IN BORSDORF NEAR LEIPZIG 3+ 
London, 4 February 1885 

Dear Liebknecht, 

So you have sent me that literatus after all; I trust it is the last of its 
kind. Surely you can see for yourself how these impudent rascals are 
misusing you. The man is quite incorrigible, just like his friend 
Quarck —they’re both Quark *—, and if they fall into line with you 
people and you accept them, I shall fall somewhat out of line. Won’t 
you ever get it into your head that this semi-educated pack of literati 
can only spoil and adulterate the party? From what you say, Viereck 
ought never to get into the Reichstag either! The petty-bourgeois ele- 
ment in the party is increasingly gaining the upper hand. They want 
to suppress Marx’s name as much as possible. If things go on like this, 
there will be a split in the party, on that you may depend. You blame 
it all on their worships the philistines having been affronted. But there 
are moments when that must be done or else they get above them- 
selves. Is then the subsection on German, or true, socialism” to be- 
come applicable again 40 years later? 

For the rest Iam keeping well, though I have a hellish lot to do and 
cannot write long letters. 

Your 
F.E.