London, 2 October 1886 

My dear Laura, 

To begin with the beginning, I enclose cheque for £42,13.4, being 
one-third part of Meissner’s remittance of £128.-* which I hope you 
will receive and get cashed all right. 

Tam sorry you cannot come just now while the weather is fine, but 
if you feel such a decided home-sickness after London fogs and 
our beautiful winter, you can be suited too. Nim undertakes to ac- 
commodate you at any time, Christmas or otherwise, and if we have 
other visitors at the same time, she undertakes to accommodate 
them too. So that is settled, and we shall this time not be disap- 
pointed. 

I also forward 2 Volkszeitungen which please return, as they belong to 
Edward and he will expect to find them here on his return (his papers, 
etc., are forwarded to me in his absence). °°! From these you see that 
la république cosaque— Mohr’s solution of Napoléon’s” alternative: 
ou république ou cosaque?° — flourishes in New York as luxuriantly as 

* See this volume, p. 494.-' Napoleon I’s 

in Paris. It is lucky for them that the first attempt at intimidation 
came so soon and was so clumsily executed. 

I am afraid Paul exaggerates the significance of the Paris verdict in 
so far as it is a symptom of the accessibility of the industrial bourgeoi- 
sie for socialist ideas. °°° The struggle between usurer and industrial 
capitalist is one within the bourgeoisie itself, and though no doubt a 
certain number of petty bourgeois will be driven over to us by the cer- 
tainty of their impending expropriation de la part des boursiers,* yet 
we can never hope to get the mass of them over to our side. Moreover 
this is not desirable, as they bring their narrow class prejudices along 
with them. In Germany we have too many of them, and it is they who 
form the dead weight which trammels the march of the party. It will 
ever be the lot of the petty bourgeois—as a mass——to float undecid- 
edly between the two great classes, one part to be crushed by the 
centralisation of capital, the other by the victory of the proletariat. 
On the decisive day, they will as usual be tottering, wavering and 
helpless, se /aisseront faire,” and that is all we want. Even if they come 
round to our views they will say: of course communism is the ultimate 
solution, but it is far off, maybe 100 years before it can be realised — 
in other words: we do not mean to work for its realisation neither in 
our, nor in our children’s lifetime. Such is our experience in Ger- 
many. 

Otherwise the verdict is a grand victory and marks a decided step 
in advance. The bourgeoisie, from the moment it is faced by a con- 
scious and organised proletariat, becomes entangled in hopeless con- 
tradictions between its liberal and democratic general tendencies here, 
and the repressive necessities of its defensive struggle against the pro- 
letariat there. A cowardly bourgeoisie, like the German and Russian, 
sacrifices its general class tendencies to the momentary advantages of 
brutal repression. But a bourgeoisie with a revolutionary history of its 
own, such as the English and particularly the French, cannot do 
that so easily. Hence that struggle within the bourgeoisie itself, which 
in spite of occasional fits of violence and oppression, on the whole 
drives it forward — see the various electoral reforms of Gladstone in 
England, 79° and the advance of Radicalism in France. *?% This 
verdict is a new étape. And so the bourgeoisie, in doing its own work, 
is doing ours. 

* on the part of the stock-brokers- letting events follow their own course 

But now I must conclude. I want this letter to be registered 
and have still to write to Tussy by first post. 

Yours affectionately, 
F. Engels