London, 1 April 1890 

Dear Kautsky, 

I have just received the Russian Sotsial-Demokrat and have compared 
my article* with the Neue Zeit. I now find that Mr Dietz has had the 
impudence to alter without reference to ourselves various passages 
which he had not even scored in red. Not one of these passages infringes 
the penal code or contravenes the Anti-Socialist Law;>* they were, 
however, too strong for philistine tastes. 

Yet I have behaved as decently as possible and have done all I could 
to make the elimination of harmful matter easier for him. But censor- 
ship of this kind, carried out behind my back, is something I won’t 
stand for from any publisher. I shall therefore write to Dietz expressly 
forbidding him to print the remainder of the article in any form other 
than that in which it appears in the proof corrected by me, and by that 
I mean word for word. What else I shall do remains to be seen. At all 
events, Mr Dietz has made it impossible for me to send further contri- 
butions to a periodical in which one is exposed to this kind of treat- 
ment. 

Your 

F. Engels