ENGELS TO FRIEDRICH ADOLPH SORGE"”! 

London, 16 September 1887 

Dear Sorge, 

Letter of 1 September received. I hope your leg will gradually 
improve again; rest and patience, that’s the main thing. 

This summer has been appallingly disrupted and my house full of 
visitors from all over the world, as it will continue to be until the middle 
of October since I am expecting Bebel in a fortnight’s time. I shall not 
be able to look out Marx’s letter about George!? until I can get things 
in order, i.e. until the new bookcases I have ordered arrive and provide 
me with more space. Then you shall at once have the translation. 
There’s no hurry. Let George get himself into rather more of a fix. His 
repudiation of the Socialists'! is by far the best thing that could have 
happened to us. His elevation to the status of standard-bearer last 
November was a mistake that was unavoidable and was bound to have 
repercussions. For the fact remains that the masses can only be set in 
motion along a course—usually a circuitous one—appropriate to the 
country and the circumstances concerned. Everything else is of 
secondary importance, provided only they are galvanised into life. But 
on each occasion the penalty has to be paid for the blunders which 
inevitably ensue. Thus, it might have been feared in this instance that 
the elevation of the founder of a sect to the status of shield-bearer might 
have encumbered the movement with sectarian nonsense for years to 
come. By chucking out the founders of the movement, by constituting 
his sect a special, orthodox, Georgian sect, and by proclaiming his 
borné views to be the bornes* of the movement as a whole, George is 
saving the latter and ruining himself. 

Needless to say, the movement as such still has many unpleasant 
phases to go through—unpleasant in particular for anyone who lives in 
the country and has to endure them. But I am absolutely convinced that 
things are now going ahead over there, and perhaps more rapidly than 

4 limits 

here, despite the fact that, for the time being, the Americans will have to 
learn almost exclusively from practice, and relatively little from theory. 

The New York Executive’s reply to my note is deplorable. Nor do I 
expect very much of their congress.'%. The chaps in the east—the 
sections—don’t seem to be up to much and yet there seems little likelihood 
of the Social Democratic Party’s centre of gravity shifting to the west. 

The Trades Union Congress over here has again gone to show that a 
revolution is taking place within the old trades unions. It was resolved, 
in opposition to the leaders, notably Broadhurst, and to the other labour 
members of parliament, to form an Independent Labour Party. An 
armchair socialist and Austrian parliamentary deputy* was quite amazed 
at the vast changes that had come about since he was last here in 1883. 

I haven’t heard a word, or seen anyone, from France since Lafargue 
left for Jersey, where he is spending a week or two. 

1 shall write to you about Germany as soon as I have discussed things 
over here with Bebel. 

As regards politics generally, everyone is getting ready for old 
William’s> death, whereupon the Russians will behave rather more cock- 
ily in the East and Bismarck will egg them on in order to maintain his own 
position. But J hardly suppose it will come to a war. The uncertainty of 
what a war might entail is so great, the reciprocal intention of cabinets to 
betray each other so manifest, the certitude that the war would be more 
violent, bloody, costly and prostrating than any previous war (10 or 12 
million soldiers locked in battle) so indubitable, that everyone is uttering 
threats but no one has the courage to begin. But it’s a game that may 
unleash a war without their wanting it, and therein lies the danger. 

Five thousand copies of Kautsky’s work on Marx’s theory have 
already been sold. 

And there I must stop for today—time for the post and for dinner. 

Your

F.E.