in Paris

London, 24 November 1886

My dear Laura,

I hope you got the letters from America which I sent you yesterday; today I can keep my word and write: Our people have really hit on a favourable moment for their trip; it falls in the period when, for the first time, a real workers’ party is arising in America and coincides with what was practically an enormous success, with the Henry George ‘boom’ in New York! Master George is a pretty muddled fellow, and since he is a Yankee, he has his own, not very grandiose, panacea, but his confusion is a very clear expression of the present state of development of thinking in the Anglo-American working class, and we cannot exactly expect the American masses to be theoretically perfect within six or eight months – the existence of this movement. And considering that the Germans in America are anything but a good and equal copy of the workers in Germany, but rather the elements that at home were excluded from the movement – Lassalleans, disappointed ambitious men, sectarians of every kind – I am, at any rate, not sorry that the Americans are beginning independently of them, or at least of their leadership. The Germans can and will act as a ferment, and will in the process themselves undergo a good deal of useful and necessary fermentation. The inevitable starting point in America is formed by the Knights of Labor; they are a real power and will certainly represent the first form of the movement. Their ridiculous organisation and their very unreliable leaders – who are used to the methods of the corrupt American party system – will very soon bring about a crisis within that association, and then a more suitable and effectual organisation can develop from it. I believe all this will not take very long in the country of the Yankees; the decisive stage has been reached where from now on the political emergence of the working class as an independent party is assured.

From America to Russia it is only a step.¹ Tussy told me last summer that Lavrov had asked her to write something about Lopatin, and would ask me to do the same, as he wanted to publish something about him. I told her that L[opatin], as far as I knew, was still awaiting his trial, and that under these circumstances Lavrov would certainly not publish anything that could worsen his situation; she should therefore write to Lavrov again to find out how things stood (for I almost had to assume that Lavrov had been informed that Lopatin was dead) and what I should write about him. Since then I have heard nothing more of it. Now I see from the newspapers that a new nihilist trial is impending in Petersburg, and from the way it is reported, it probably also concerns Lopatin, if he is still alive. Would you be so good as to ask Lavrov, when you see him again, how matters stand and what in his opinion I should do in regard to L[opatin], for I shall always be ready to contribute with my testimony to the confirmation and acknowledgment of the great services he has rendered to the cause, provided I know what is needed and what his situation at the given moment is.

Thanks to the stupidity of all its rivals and opponents, the Social Democratic Federation is beginning to become a power. The government saved them from a fiasco² when it forbade their procession on Lord Mayor’s Day, and thus helped them to a seeming triumph by allowing them to hold a so-called meeting on Trafalgar Square the same afternoon. And when afterwards the Social Democratic Federation called a meeting for last Sunday on Trafalgar Square, the same government turned this into a real triumph, by first announcing that ready artillery would be brought to St. James’s Park, and then withdrawing this ridiculous plan. Thus this meeting – the first whose quiet and peaceful course the Social Democratic Federation had proclaimed – was blown up by the government into a great event; but when it passed off quietly and peacefully, the bourgeois and philistines³ concluded that the Social Democratic Federation, whatever its own strength might be, nevertheless had a very large following. The fact is that the Socialist League is too deeply absorbed in discussing its own statutes with its anarchist members to have a moment for the events outside 18 Farringdon Road. And since the radical clubs of the East End are taking no initiative whatsoever with regard to the unemployed, the Social Democratic Federation has no competitor, is alone in the field and treats this question, which each succeeding winter poses anew, entirely as it sees fit. And they have lately been undeniably more sensible in their mode of action – lately, that is to say, in the last fortnight. How long this will last, no one can, of course, say. Hyndman est capable de tout.

This Professor Menger, who seems to have frightened people all over the Continent with his insolent impertinence, is a quite ordinary place-hunter, who has his eye on the Ministry of Justice. I have given K[autsky] the necessary materials and partly worked them out myself, so far as was necessary; if we can manage it, he will get his come-uppance in the very first number of the ‘N[eue] Z[eit]’ for January 87!⁴ Of course the liberal newspapers have kicked up a terrible row about his revelations, just as they did about Vogt’s. Only times have changed, and we can now hit back effectively. The conspiracy of the bourgeois press in 1859 against us was a thousand times more effective than Bismarck’s infamous Anti-Socialist Law.

You cannot imagine how glad I am that the book is at last printed off. It was impossible to do anything else in the meantime. The arrangements were necessarily very complicated; proofs had to be sent to Edward, Moore and me, which of course caused delays and continual urging on the part of S. Sonnenschein & Co. Moreover, as I only found out the other day, the book was printed in – Perth! And on top of that, the rather careless way of working of the office of S. Sonnenschein & Co., through which everything had to pass. Finally, the usual story: neglect and delays on the part of the printer in summer; then at the end of September, everything at breakneck speed – precisely for that part of the MS. which needed the most careful final revision – and constant attempts to throw the blame for the delay on us. Large-scale industry⁵ in publishing may be all very well for periodicals, novels and current literature, but for works of this kind it is not the right thing, unless the MS. is perfect down to the dotting of every i; otherwise: woe to the author!

And now how about your, yours and Paul’s, journey to London? Tussy will leave New York on 25 Dec., Christmas Day, so she will be here about 6 January. But that is no reason why you should stay away so long; on the contrary, we hope to have you here for Christmas. And Paul has no excuse this time, and I would not accept any either; in France everything is very quiet, no trials, no prison sentences, no great meetings, no excitements, and it is quite out of the question that anything will still happen during la saison des étrennes. And you, after having let summer and autumn pass, you will have to put up with the fogs – aren’t you a little bit longing for them? Incidentally, the fogs treat us quite decently for the time being, for here it is clear and bright, while since Monday not only the City but also Kilburn has been dark and gloomy. So please make up your minds and let us know how many days before Christmas you will turn up here. Nim is getting very impatient and is capable of coming to fetch you if there is another delay.

And with that I remain,

Yours affectionately,
F. Engels

¹ “It is only a step.” – German rendering of the French phrase.  
² The manuscript has ‘four’ (a blunder for ‘fiasco’).  
³ In the handwriting German: Spießbürger.  
⁴ The original manuscript has the following phrase in German: ‘bekommt er sein Fett schon in der ersten Nr. der „N.Z.“ Januar 87’.  
⁵ In the handwriting German: Große Industrie.