London, 15 September 1889 
122 Regent’s Park Road, N.W. 

Dear Kautsky, 

I am taking advantage of its being Sunday morning to write you a 
letter, which I should have done long since—but for interruptions! First 

* Jean and Edgar Longuet — Marcel Longuet — © constituency 

the congress*”? and all it entailed, then Eastbourne, whither the after- 
math of the congress in the shape of letters of all kinds still pursued me 
and, on top of that, six persons in one room—reflection or repose impos- 
sible. Then back home, only to find Paul? and the soldier,» not to mention 
2 children,‘ here, then the dock strike,? etc. Today at last a brief respite. 
Longuet’s two sons,‘ who have come to stay, do not disturb me. 

We are all of us, Nim, Tussy, Edward and myself, tremendously sorry 
that your relations with Louise should have ended in so negative a fash- 
ion. But there’s no help for it. You two alone are competent to judge, and 
whatever you think is right, the rest of us must accept. But what I don’t 
understand—if I can be said to understand anything at all of this busi- 
ness—is your continual use of the word ‘compassion’—that all you now 
feel for Louise is ‘compassion’. Louise has conducted herself throughout 
with such heroism and such womanliness that we cannot admire her 
enough. If anyone is to be pitied in this affair, it certainly isn’t Louise. 
And I still maintain you have perpetrated a folly which you will yet live 
to regret. 

As I have already told Adler, this turn in your relations does nothing 
to alter the proposal I made you in regard to the ms. of Volume IV.* The 
work has got to be done and you and Ede are the only people to whom 
I can entrust it. The business of the archives?” has, Paul tells me, like- 
wise now been settled which means, no doubt, that you will be coming 
over here again this winter, when we can discuss and make a start on 
what is to be done. Because of the damned congress I’ve been able to do 
no work at all on Volume III since February, and even now I am kept 
from it by the necessity of bringing out a fourth edition of Volume I, 
which I must attend to first. It’s no great task but when one is not 
allowed to spend more than three hours a day at one’s desk, it tends to 
be rather long-drawn-out. And then we have got two months of perpet- 
ual fog and darkness ahead of us. 

A correspondent in St Petersburg has informed me that the Revue du 
Nord has published a translation of your Klassengegensätze in 
Frankreich and that this has caused a furore in Russia. When you come 
over here I shall give you a hint or two as to how you might, perhaps, 
extract money from Russia for your articles. 

@ Paul Singer — > Wilhelm Liebknecht - * Gertrud and Theodor Liebknecht - 
4 Jean and Edgar Longuet — ¢ of Capital. See this volume, p.257 

Your articles on the miners in Thuringia? are the best you have done 
so far—a genuine study that deals exhaustively with the main issues and, 
moreover, aims simply at investigating the facts and not, as in your paper 
on population? or that on the primaeval family,‘ at confirming a precon- 
ceived opinion. That is why you have succeeded in producing something 
substantial. The work throws light on an important part of German 
history and, though there may be a few minor gaps in the argument, this 
is of no real moment. Reading it, I realised clearly for the first time (what 
I had only dimly and vaguely perceived in Soetbeer4) the extent to which 
gold and silver production in Germany (and Hungary, whence precious 
metals were distributed throughout the West via Germany) provided the 
final impulse which, between 1470 and 1530, put Germany in the lead 
economically in Europe, thereby making her the focal point of the first 
bourgeois revolution, in the religious guise of the so-called Reformation. 
The final impulse in the sense that the guild crafts and the commission 
trade reached a relatively advanced stage of development, thus turning 
the scales in Germany’s favour rather than in that of Italy, France or 
England. 

Liebknecht has now come to see that there’s nothing to be done with 
the Possibilists!?; when you’re talking to him he’s not nearly so cocksure 
as he otherwise tends to be, particularly when he writes. How lucky it 
was that the Possibilists refused, since a union of the two congresses 
would have led to fighting and general loss of life and we should have 
been hugely discredited. The campaign launched by the Possibilists and 
the Social Democratic Federation with a view to casting doubts on our 
people’s credentials has failed miserably.*”* Not only were Adler’s reve- 
lations about the possibilist Austrians* (in the Labour Elector here) quite 
devastating, but in this country—and this made an even greater impact 
over here—the idiots had admitted Burns to the credentials committee, 
whereupon he mercilessly demolished the credentials of the Social 
Democratic Federation in the columns of the Labour Elector. Hyndman 
represented 28 people! The entire Federation, alleged to be but 1,925 
strong, consists, in fact, of less than half that number! 

4Die Bergarbeiter und der Bauernkrieg, vornehmlich in Thüringen’ — > Der 
Einfluss der Volksvermehrung auf den Fortschritt der Gesellschaft ... - © Die 
Entstehung der Ehe und Familie ... — 4 A. Soetbeer, Edelmetall-Produktion und 
Werthverhältniss zwischen Gold und Silber seit der Entdeckung Amerika’s bis 
zur Gegenwart ~ © F. Engels, ‘Possibilist Credentials — J. Burns, “The Paris 
International Congress’ 

The Trades Union Congress*”? was Broadhurst’s swan song. Burns, 

Mann and Bateman, the only people to know the details of the charges 
against Broadhurst, were tied down here by the Dock Strike, and 
Broadhurst benefited from it; but the congress was rigged, everything 
having been done to ensure that only Trades Unionists of the old type 
attended, as was still feasible on this occasion. Nevertheless, there is 
every sign that the old is in the process of disintegration. 

In Denmark the old party leadership have put their foot in it badly 
over the matter of the congress, and the opposition, Trier, Petersen, etc., 
are gaining ground.*! You ought to engage Trier as correspondent for 
the Arbeiter-Zeitung—Gerson Trier, Ahlefeltsgade 16, Copenhagen. 

The Dock Strike has been won. It’s the greatest event to have taken 
place in England since the last Reform Bills*°° and marks the beginning 
of a complete revolution in the East End. The reason for the universal 
sympathy shown by the press, and even by the philistines, is, 1. Hatred 
of the monopolistic Dock Companies who, instead of writing off the non 
existent capital they have squandered, fleece the shipowners, business- 
men and workers so as to be able to declare dividends on it; 2. The knowl- 
edge that the Dockers are voters and need to be cajoled if the 16 to 18 East 
End M.P.s of Liberal and Conservative complexion wish to be re-elected 
(which they won’t be; this time there’ll be Labour M.Ps). What decided 
the victory was the £14,000 from Australia, whereby the Australian 
workers will prevent themselves from suddenly being landed with a mass 
influx of English workers. Burns, Champion, Mann and Tillett have 
earned their laurels, while the Social Democratic Federation was nowhere. 
The strike is to England what the coalminers’ strike*> was to Germany— 
it means that a new system, a vast army, has entered the labour move- 
ment. If we can now get by without a war, the fun may soon begin. 

Guesde is standing for parliament in Marseilles, Lafargue in Saint 
Amand (Cher). 

Kindest regards to Adler. 

Your 
F. Engels 

As I don’t know whether you still have your hedgehog’s apartment.* 
I am sending this to Adler, whose address is a safe one. Have received 

4Engels has ‘Igelwohnung’, a pun on ‘Igelgasse’, literally “Hedgehog Alley’, the 
name of the street where Kautsky lived in Vienna 

only Nos 1 and 4 of the Arbeiter-zeitung. Is it still in the land of the 
living? Are you still getting the Labour Elector? I’m sending you a copy.