London, 29 November 1886 

Dear Sorge, 

Today I have delivered the last corrected proofs of the Preface* to 
the publishers, thus finally ridding myself of this incubus. I hope to be 
able to send you a copy of the translation in a fortnight’s time. 
Mrs Liebknecht arrives here the day after tomorrow to await her hus- 
band who left New York only the day before yesterday. 

The Henry George boom naturally brought a vast amount of 
dirty business to light, and I’m glad I wasn’t there. Nevertheless, it 
was an epoch-making day. The Germans simply have not realised 
how they can use their theory as a lever that will set the American 
masses in motion; they themselves do not for the most part under- 
stand the theory and treat it in doctrinaire and dogmatic fashion as 
something which, having once been learnt by rote, is sufficient as it 

4 F, Engels, Preface to the English edition of Volume I of Capital. 

stands for any and every need. To them it is a credo, not a guide to 
action. Besides which, they refuse to learn English on principle. 
Hence the American masses have had to find a way of their own and 
would appear to have done so for the time being in the Knicuts or La. 
gor ©°° whose muddle-headed principles and ridiculous organisation 
would seem to match their own muddle-headedness. From all that 
I hear, the Knicuts or Lazor are a real power, particularly in New En- 
gland and the West, and are daily becoming more so as a result of the 
brutality of the capitalist opposition. It is, I believe, necessary to 
work in their midst, to form, within this still fairly malleable mass, 
a nucleus of men who know the movement and its aims and will thus au- 
tomatically take over the leadership of at least some part of it when, 
as is inevitable, the present ‘Order’ disintegrates. The worst aspect of 
the Knicuts or Lazor is their political neutrality whose only result is 
the sharp practice of the Powderlys, etc. But this last has had its sting 
drawn by the response of the masses in the November elections, more 
especially in New York. In a country that has newly entered the 
movement, the first really crucial step is the formation by the workers of 
an independent political party, no matter how, so long as it is distin- 
guishable as a labour party. And this step has been taken far sooner 
than we might have expected, and that’s the main thing. That the 
first programme of this party should still be muddle-headed and ex- 
tremely inadequate,* that it should have picked Henry George for its 
figurehead, are unavoidable if merely transitory evils. The masses 
must have the time and the opportunity to evolve; and they will not 
get that opportunity until they have a movement of their own — no 
matter what its form, providing it is their own movement —in which 
they are impelled onwards by their own mistakes and learn by bitter 
experience. 

The movement in America is at the same stage as it was at home 
before 1848; the really intelligent chaps will at first play the same role 
over there as did the Communist League before 1848 among the 
working men’s associations.” Save that in America things will move 
infinitely faster; for it is completely unprecedented for a movement to 
achieve such electoral successes after an existence of barely eight 
months. And what is still lacking, the bourgeois will make good; no- 
where else in the world do they behave so outrageously and tyranically 

* See Der Sozialist, No. 40, 2 October 1886.-° See F. Engels, ‘Preface to the 
-1888 English Edition of the Manifesto of the Communist Party’. 

as there, and your judges knock Bismarck’s imperial pettifoggers into 
a cocked hat. When the struggle is conducted by the bourgeois with 
weapons such as these, it will rapidly come quickly to a head and, un- 
less we in Europe bestir ourselves, the Americans will soon steal 
a march on us. But just now it is doubly necessary to have a few chaps 
on our side who are thoroughly versed in theory and in well-tried 
tactics and who can also speak and write English, since the Ameri- 
cans, for good historical reasons, lag far behind in all theoretical mat- 
ters; true, they did not bring with them from Europe any medieval in- 
stitutions, but instead a mass of medieval traditions— religion, En- 
glish common (feudal) law, superstition, spiritualism—in short, 
every kind of balderdash that was not immediately harmful to busi- 
ness and now comes in very handy for the stultification of the masses. 
And if people are available whose clear grasp of theory enables them 
to tell the Americans what the consequences of their mistakes are like- 
ly to be, and make them see that any movement which does not 
constantly bear in mind that the ultimate goal is the destruction of 
the wage system, must necessarily go astray and come to nothing, 
then much silliness can be avoided and the process be considerably 
curtailed. But it must be done in English, the specifically German 
character must be sloughed off, and this the gentlemen of the Sozzal- 
ist are hardly qualified to do, while those of the Volkszertung may be 
shrewder, but only in regard to business. 

The American elections this month made a tremendous impact on 
Europe. The absence up till now of a labour movement in England, 
and more especially in America, has been the great trump card of 
radical Republicans everywhere, notably in France. Now these chaps 
are utterly dumbfounded — Mr Clemenceau in particular who, on 
2 November, witnessed the collapse of all that his policy was based 
on. ‘Just look at America,’ he never tired of saying, ‘that’s a real re- 
public for you—no poverty and no labour movement!’ And it’s the 
same with the men of Progress and ‘democrats’ in Germany and 
over here — where they are just experiencing an incipient movement 
of their own. What has completely stunned these people is the fact 
that the movement is so strongly accentuated as a labour movement, 
and that it has sprung up so suddenly and with such force. 

Over here it was the absence of all competition on the one hand 
and the stupidity of the government on the other that enabled the 
gentlemen of the Sociat Democratic FEDERATION 3°° to assume a posi- 
tion to which they would never have ventured to aspire 3 months ago. 

The hoo-hah that was created about the plan — never seriously con- 
templated — to form a procession behind the Lorp Mayor’s* Show on 
9 November, and the similar hoo-hah later on, about the Trafalgar 
Square meeting of 21 November” when, despite talk of bringing up 
the artillery, the government eventually had to back down— all this 
at long last compelled the gents of the Sociat Democratic Feperation to 
hold a quite ordinary meeting on the 21st, without any hollow rhodo- 
montade or pseudo-revolutionary demonstrations with their obbli- 
gato plebeian accompaniment,— and all of a sudden the philistines 
began to feel respect for the men who had stirred up so much dust 
and yet behaved so reputably. And, since no one except the Sociat 
Democratic Feperation bother about the unemployed whose numbers, 
in these days of chronic stagnation of trade, increase substantially 
every winter and who suffer extreme want, the Soca, Democratic Fe. 
DERATION can hardly fail to win. In this country we now have the be- 
ginnings of a labour movement, anp No Mistake, and if the Soctat 
Democratic Feperation is the first to reap the reward, this will be due 
to the cowardice of the Radicals and the stupidity of the Socrazist 
Leacue 346 which is bickering with the anarchists, is unable to shake them 
off and hence has no time to spare for the real live movement that is 
taking place there under its very nose. How long, for that matter, 
Hyndman & Co. will continue to act in this relatively rational way 
remains to be seen. I anticipate that, being in too much of a hurry, 
they will before long again perpetrate the most colossal blunders, 
whereupon they’! discover that, in a serious movement, this simply 
won't do. 

In Germany things are getting nicer and nicer—sentences in 
Leipzig of up to 4 years’ hard labour for ‘insurrection’! °° They are 
absolutely determined to provoke a rumpus. 

I now have 7 lesser jobs in my desk — Italian and French transla- 

tions, prefaces, new editions, etc.—and then inexorably on to 
Volume III.4 

Your old friend 
F.E