London, 22-24 June 1885 
122 Regent’s Park Road, N. W. 

Dear Bebel, 

I hasten to answer your letter of the 19th, received this morning, so 
that my reply may reach you before you set off on your long journey. 

* Marx’s manuscripts 

Generally speaking I have been kept informed about recent events, 
at least so far as public pronouncements are concerned, and have thus 
been able to read the various effronteries of Geiser and Frohme, as 
also your short, trenchant replies.*!? 

All this mud-slinging is largely attributable to Liebknecht, with his 
predilection for educated know-alls and for men in bourgeois occupa- 
tions who can be used to impress your philistine. Nor can he resist 
a literary or business man who flirts with socialism. But in Germany 
these are the very people of whom one should most beware, and it 
is they whom Marx and I have ceaselessly combatted since 1845. Once 
you’ve let them into the party, in which they everywhere push them- 
selves to the fore, dissimulation becomes the rule, either because their 
petty-bourgeois standpoint is in perpetual conflict with that of the | 
proletarian masses, or because they try to vitiate this latter stand- 
point. Nevertheless, I am convinced that, if things ever really come to 
a head, Liebknecht will be on our side,— asserting, what’s more, that 
he had never said anything else and that it was we who had stopped 
him from letting fly any sooner. However, a little object-lesson will 
have done him no harm. 

The split will come as sure as eggs is eggs, but I still maintain that 
we must not provoke it while the Anti-Socialist Law *’ is in opera- 
tion. If it is forced upon us, then there’ll be nothing for it. But 
we must be prepared. And that, I think, means hanging on for all 
we're worth to three positions: 1) the Zurich press and bookshop, 
2) the management of the Sozialdemokrat and 3) that of the Neue Zeit. 
These are the only positions still in our hands and, notwithstanding 
the Anti-Socialist Law, they suffice to keep us in touch with the party. 
All the other positions in the press, though held by philistines, count 
for very little by comparison with these three. You should be able to 
foil many of the plots against us. In my opinion, you ought to do 
everything you can to ensure that, by hook or by crook, these 3 posi- 
tions remain in our hands. How to set about it you will know better 
than I. Not surprisingly Ede and Kautsky feel very insecure in their 
editorial seats and are in need of encouragement. That people are 
busily intriguing against them is obvious. And they’re a couple of com- 
petent-and really first-rate chaps. In matters of theory, Ede is a very 
clear-sighted man and, what’s more, is witty and has a gift for repar- 
tee, but he is still somewhat lacking in self-confidence — nowadays 
a most unusual trait and, if you consider the megalomania common 
to even the most insignificant lettered nitwits, a very fortunate one, 

relatively speaking. Kautsky has picked up a frightful lot of rubbish 
at university but is doing his utmost to unlearn it again, and both 
men are reliable, able to tolerate honest criticism and have a correct 
grasp of essentials. In view of the appalling new generation of literati 
that has attached itself to the party, two such people are pearls 
beyond price. 

I entirely agree with what you say about our parliamentary repre- 
sentation generally and about the impossibility — in time of peace, as 
at present —of creating any really proletarian representation. The 
necessarily more or less bourgeois parliamentarians are an evil no less 
unavoidable than the professional agitators foisted upon the party 
from amongst those workers boycotted by the bourgeoisie and hence 
unemployed. This was a phenomenon already strongly in evidence 
among the Chartists during the 1839-48 period, and was apparent to 
me even at that time. If remuneration for deputies is introduced, 
these fellows will range themselves alongside the predominantly 
bourgeois and petty-bourgeois, i.e. the ‘educated’, representatives. 
But all this will be overcome. My confidence in our proletariat is as 
absolute as my mistrust of the utterly abject German philistines is un- 
limited. And when things liven up a bit, the struggle will similarly be- 
come keen enough to be conducted con amore,* while the irritation 
caused by the pettiness and philistinism with which you now have to 
contend en détail and with which I am familiar from long experience, 
will evaporate in the wider dimensions of the struggle and then, too, 
we shall get the right sort of men in parliament. But it’s all very well 
for me to talk — I’m over here, while you are having to do the dirty 
work, and that is certainly no joke. Anyhow, I am glad that you are 
physically fit again. Spare your nerves for better times; we shall need 
them. 

The greater part of Capital, Book III, has now been dictated from 
the manuscripts and set out in a legible hand. This preliminary work 
will be pretty well complete in 5 or 6 weeks’ time. Then there will be 
the very difficult final editing which will require a considerable 
amount of work. But the thing’s brilliant and will have all the impact 
of a thunderbolt. I daily await the first copies of Book II,” one of 
which will instantly be forwarded to you. 

Your old friend 
F. E. 

* Here: with enthusiasm. - > of Capital 

23 June. Too late to register this today, so won’t go off till tomor- 
row. 
24 Fune. Berlin papers received with thanks.