London, 19 November 1892 
Dear August, 

This time your Party Congress *' didn’t go off as brilliantly as it did on the 
last occasion. The debate on the question of salary leaves a very 

* 17 November 

nasty taste in one’s mouth—not that I think the English or French would have 
done any better in that respect—though Louise refuses to admit as much. As 
I know from long experience, what we are up against here is one of the 
limitations imposed upon the outlook of working men by the conditions 
under which they have lived hitherto. The same people who think it perfectly 
natural for their idol Lassalle to have a private income and live the life of a 
consummate sybarite are denouncing Liebknecht for wanting, as their paid 
editor, barely one-third of that sum, although the paper yields them five or six 
times as much. * To be dependent, even on a labour party, is a hard lot. And, 
quite aside from the question of money, it’s a most otiose position for anyone 
with any initiative to be editor of a paper belonging to the party. Marx and I 
were always agreed that we would never accept such a position and that the 
only paper we could have was one that was not financially dependent even on 
the party itself. 

If taken too far, your ‘nationalisation’ of the press >’ would have very 
material drawbacks. It’s absolutely essential for you to have a press in the 
party which is not directly dependent on the Executive or even the Party 
Congress, i.e. which is in a position unreservedly to oppose individual party 
measures within the programme and accepted tactics, and freely to criticise 
that programme and those tactics, within the limits of party decorum. As the 
Party Executive, you people ought to encourage a press of this nature— 
indeed initiate it, for you would then exert far more moral sway over it than if 
it were to come into being partly against your will. The party is outstripping 
the strict discipline of earlier days; with 2 or 3 millions and an influx of 
‘heddicated’ elements, more latitude is needed than what has hitherto not 
only sufficed but actually proved a useful restraint. The sooner you people 
adapt yourselves and the party to this changed situation the better. And the 
first step is a formally independent party press. It is bound to come about but 
it would be better if you were to allow it to come about in such a way that it 
remains under your moral sway from the outset and does not arise in 
opposition to yourselves. 

You people blundered badly—not in Berlin but at Brussels °*— over the 
question of the May Day celebrations. You must have known at the time 
what you could promise and perform, and yet you went and promised more 
than you are now able to perform. I consider your own speech on the subject 
no whit inferior to Victor’s and readily believe that a stoppage of work in 
Germany would demand sacrifices out of all proportion to victories and 
gains.» But when the strongest party in the world suddenly 

sounds a retreat in this way, the general impression this produces is very bad. 
Noblesse oblige. You are the fighting force, the corps de bataille of the 
modern labour movement and, what you promised in Brussels, you were 
morally bound to do. Now, while it is undoubtedly better not to follow up 
one stupidity with another, far greater one—granted the crucial importance 
just now is not to interrupt the German party’s victorious progress—you 
should nevertheless consider what kind of impression this Berlin resolution is 
going to make on the world at large. The affair would also seem to have 
aroused indignation in France and the chaps there will doubtless be giving 
you a piece of their mind. You cannot afford to inflict such moral injury upon 
yourselves again—so in Zurich you must have the courage of your 
convictions and declare outright that you cannot commit yourselves to a 
stoppage of work; then, though people may be angry with you, they will not 
be able to reproach you with breaking your word and beating a retreat. °° It is 
nonsensical to try and organise the movement uniformly in each individual 
country. The Austrians, to whom a stoppage of work on May Day is 
necessary, and who are accordingly prepared to make those very sacrifices 
which you rightly repudiated in your particular circumstances, are as justified 
in acting as they do as you were; now, however, they can make reproaches to 
which you can offer no answer. For by their very conduct they have proved 
that the impossibility clause laid down at Brussels does not apply. 

We over here have not yet had the state socialism debate. 

I must congratulate you on your resolutions. They are really first-rate and 
I know of only one person who could have improved on them, namely Marx. 
The resolution on state socialism, like that on anti-Semitism, hits the nail on 
the head. And it is precisely resolutions of this kind that have in the past been 
the Achilles’ heel of the German movement; they have been sloppy, 
indeterminate, nebulous and cliché-ridden—in short, for the most part a 
disgrace. Fortunately they are so untranslatable that anyone translating them 
into a foreign language is compelled to read into them a meaning which they 
themselves do not possess. 

Below is a theatre drawn by Louise or Aveling. For the past week the 
page thus embellished has been repeatedly placed amongst my writing paper, 
which is why it now has the honour of finding its way to you. ”’ 

Enclosed you will find’ the twaddle talked by the seven Swabians * 

“ The enclosed text is missing. 

of London—the Fabians ** of the Chronicle’—about the Party Congress. The 
poor souls are in a mess. The great Shaw, having in May urged upon you the 
necessity of collusion with the Liberals and demonstrated that, failing such a 
policy, nothing could result but defeat and disgrace’, now admits in a speech 
to the Democratic Club that they have been scandalously done in the eye by 
the Liberals and that all they had reaped on the occasion of the elections 
was—defeat and disgrace; also that the Liberals, together with the Tories, are 
now out to do the workers in the eye! And these are the people who propose 
to teach you ‘practical politics’! In fact he now actually says that the two old 
parties have but one and the same policy and that, barring them, there is 
nothing but—Social Democracy! This will, I think, have the effect of a cold 
douche on our good Ede.” Cordial regards to your wife and all the friends. 

Your 
F. E. (in the stage box) 

[Postscript from Louise Kautsky] 

Love from the Witch herself; my enthusiasm for May Day isn’t quite so extreme.