Eastbourne, 17 August 1889 
4 Cavendish Place 

Dear Liebknecht, 

I have put off answering your letter of 19.4 until after the congress 
because there seemed to be no prospect of agreement beforehand; the fact 
is that our ways were utterly divergent. And even now I shall make no 
mention of your attempts to foist your sins of omission on to other people. 

You say: “Your complaint that, even in the matter of the congress, I 
was “as usual” prevented by “unforeseen circumstances” from carrying 
out my duty, is more than merely blunt; it is downright insulting.’ 

You can only make an insult of my words if you distort their meaning, 
turning something passive—that it is the usual thing for such and such to 
happen to you,—into something active—that you deliberately make a 
habit of such and such. You thereby turn a complaint of weakness into a 
complaint of wilfulness and there you have your insult ready-made. 

But you must yourself by now have noticed that you very often 
happen not to be at home when someone wants to keep you to your 
word or to make a quite common or garden request. What about the 
Aveling business in America?? At the beginning, while the turpitude of 
the New York Executive was still fresh in your mind, you wrote: 

“The New Yorkers owe Aveling an apology; I shall demand one of 
them and, if they dig their heels in, shall come out publicly against them.’ 

But later on, when it came to doing as you had said, it was a different 
matter: You sent a statement that was neither one thing nor the other, and 
did Aveling no good and the New Yorkers no harm,—unforeseen 
circumstances! And it was only gentle pressure from me that induced you 
to make a statement containing at least part of what you had promised. 

Even in your letter of 19.4. you can’t help providing fresh proof. 
Under the aegis of your name as editor, your son-in-law* brings out a 
series of books. You, knowing what he’s like, entrust him with the selec- 
tion, the editing—in short, the entire management of the thing. The 

4 Bruno Geiser 

inevitable happens. There appears, under your name, a trashy work by a 
more than dubious scoundrel, a really vile concoction in which the said 
ignorant scoundrel presumes to improve on Marx.* This vile concoction 
is recommended to German working men as instructive reading along 
party lines by the appearance on the title page of your name as editor. That 
such a vile concoction should be published somewhere or other is, of 
course, a matter of complete indifference, nor would it be worthy of 
mention. But that it should be published by you, under your sponsorship, 
as having been sanctioned and recommended by you (for what else does the 
appearance of your name on it signify?)—that is what’s intolerable. Of 
course your son-in-law pulled the wool over your eyes—you’d never have 
done it deliberately. But now, when it’s your bounden duty to rid yourself 
of the said vile concoction, to declare that you have been scandalously 
imposed upon and that not so much as one more sheet of it will appear 
under your name—what happens? You devote an entire page of your letter 
to the unforeseen circumstances that prevent you from doing so. 

Why then the moral indignation over my having for once called this 
habit of yours by its proper name? Anyhow, I’m not the only person to 
have remarked on it. And if anyone has been insulted on this occasion it 
is I rather than you. 

If you have taken any further steps in the Schlesinger affair, I for one 
have heard nothing of it. But one thing I do know: if you put a stop to the 
publication of Schlesinger’s vile concoction, I shall be able to let the matter 
rest at that. But should a sequel or conclusion appear under your name I 
shall owe it to Marx to make a public protest. I trust you will not let things 
go as far as that, for I feel sure that this changeling that has been foisted 
onto you is altogether more than you can stomach. And as, no doubt, you 
yourself realise, Mr Geiser cannot be allowed to sell for a mess of potage 
the position you have attained in the party, the fruit of forty years’ labour. 

I have been here a fortnight and shall probably stay on through the 
first week in September—in the same house I was in when you left for 
America.‘%6 

Warm regards, 

Your 
FE.