London, 9 March 1890 

Dear Liebknecht, 

My congratulations on the 42,000 votes that have made you the 
premier élu de l’Allemagne.” When, in future, you are interrupted by 
a Kar-, Hell- or any other Junkerdorf>, your retort can be: ‘It would take 
a dozen of the likes of you to muster as many constituents as I’ve got. So 
draw in your horns—if you can!’ 

After the prolonged intoxication of victory, we over here are sobering 
down by degrees, but without any unpleasant after-effects. I had hoped 
for 1,200,000 votes and everyone said I was unduly sanguine; now we see 
that my figure was too modest.°! Our lads have behaved quite magnifi- 
cently, but it’s no more than a beginning and they’ve got a hard fight 
ahead of them. Our successes in Schleswig-Holstein, Mecklenburg and 
Pomerania? mean that we shall now be making tremendous headway 
amongst the agricultural labourers of the East. Now that the towns are 
ours and word of our victories has penetrated to the remotest baronial 
estates, we shall be able to kindle, in rural areas, a blaze of quite a differ- 
ent order from the flash in the pan of 12 years ago. In three years the agri- 
cultural labourers will be ours and with them the crack regiments of the 
Prussian army. Nor can this be prevented save by one means, the ruthless 
application of which is now the only point upon which little Willie and 
Bismarck are still agreed, namely a hail of shot to the inevitable accom- 
paniment of an acute reign of terror. To this end, they will seize upon any 
pretext and, once Puttkamer’s ‘cannons’¢!! have sprayed the streets of a 
few big towns with shrapnel, there will be a state of siege throughout 
Germany, the philistine will return to his right mind again and vote 
blindly as directed, and we shall be crippled for years to come. 

@ the first among the elected in Germany - > A play on words in the original. 
Engels made up this word by analogy with the names of two Reichstag deputies 
-° A literal rendering of this German expression would be: “Withdraw into your 
foreskin, if you’ve got one.’ -4 See this volume, p.456 — © William II 

This is something we must prevent. We must not, in our triumphal 
progress, allow ourselves to be diverted from our purpose, we must not 
spoil our own game or prevent our enemies from doing our work for us. 
So I agree with you to the extent of saying that, for the present, we 
should conduct ourselves as peacefully and constitutionally as possible 
and avoid every pretext for a clash. True, your philippics against the use 
of force in any form and under any circumstances seem to me inoppor- 
tune, firstly because none of your opponents would believe you, they 
are not as stupid as all that, and secondly because your theory would 
make anarchists even of Marx and myself, since we were never inclined, 
like good Quakers, to turn the other cheek. This time you have defi- 
nitely overshot the mark somewhat. 

Nieuwenhuis is, to my mind, more or less innocent of the article to 
which you are replying;°!? according to what we have heard over here, 
Croll is the crib-biter who refuses to leave you in peace—he’s said to be 
a trouble-maker par excellence. These people from little countries are 
our bane in the international field—they are excessively demanding, 
expect always to be handled with kid gloves while themselves being as 
rude as they please, and constantly feel themselves slighted because they 
cannot always play first fiddle; all the trouble and strife at the last 
congress, both before and during it, was caused by them alone—first the 
Swiss with their deluded idea that they could get the Possibilists to 
defect, then the Brussels people, and after them the Dutch. Well, no 
doubt our German victory will put them more or less on the right track 
and enable us to be magnanimous. 

Will you please let me know in advance when you intend to cross the 
Channel. We’ve only got one spare room, and in the spring it is often 
occupied—as at Easter, for instance, by Schorlemmer, while the 
Lafargues or Louise Kautsky might also be coming; so a bit of manage- 
ment may be necessary to keep it free for you. 

Since you specifically give a Dresden address, I can only take it as an 
indication that I should write to you there. 

The Nineteenth Century is, after The Contemporary Review, the most 
highly thought-of journal in this country—but since I am always confus- 
ing the two, I shall not be able to provide details until later today when the 
Avelings have arrived. Meanwhile, 1 would simply say: 1. Get them to pay 
you well, 2. Under English law the article belongs to the journal and the 
editor can make what alterations he likes unless you have a prior agreement 
to the contrary. In such a case I stipulate, 1. that the copyright remains 
vested in me, 2. that no alterations are made without my express consent. 

Evening. The Nineteenth Century belongs to Mr Knowles: Gladstone 
sometimes writes for it and for the Contemporary, which belongs to 
Percy Bunting, whom you were taken to see by la Schack. Otherwise I 
have nothing to add to the above. Knowles is every inch a businessman, 
so beware. 

Regards from Nim, the Avelings, the Edes, Dr Zadek and Mrs 
Romm-Zadek, likewise Pumps and Percy, all of whom are here. 

Your 
EE.