ENGELS TO AUGUST BEBEL""” 

London, 24 January 1893 

Dear August, 

I continue. Aveling’s verbal accounts have reinforced a suspicion pre- 
viously entertained by me, namely that Keir Hardie nurtures the secret wish 
to lead the new party ''* in the same dictatorial fashion as Parnell led the 
Irish, and that his sympathies incline more towards the Conservative than 
towards the Liberal opposition party. He has said openly that, come the next 
elections, there should be a repetition of Parnell’s experiment whereby he 
forced Gladstone to toe the line and that where no Labour candidate can be 
put up, people should vote Conservative by way of giving the Liberals a taste 
of their power. '*° Now this is a policy which, in certain circumstances, I 
myself have demanded of the English, but to proclaim something of this sort 
in advance, not as a possible tactical measure, but as tactics to be pursued no 
matter what the circumstances smacks strongly of Champion. Especially 
when, at the same time, Keir Hardie refers disparagingly to the extension of 
the suffrage and other reforms, which alone might be expected to give reality 
to working-class suffrage over here, as purely political matters which must 
take second place after social demands—eight hours, industrial safety, etc. 
Though, renouncing as he does their enforcementhy Labour M.P.s, he fails to 
explain how these social demands are to be implemented unless by grace of 
the middle classes, or else by means of indirect pressure exerted by Labour’s 
casting vote in the elections. I draw your attention to this knotty point in 
order that you may be informed should occasion arise. For the time being I 
do not attach any particular importance to the matter since at the very 

worst Keir Hardie is likely to err gravely in his estimate of the workers in the 
industrial districts of the North of England, who are not a flock of sheep, and 
since he will, in any case, encounter opposition enough in the Executive. But 
a tendency of this kind ought not to be completely ignored. 

I look forward very much to seeing the stenographic report of Singer’s 
speech about the Stock Exchange; in the Vorwarts it read quite excellently.* 
But in dealing with this subject there is one point which all our chaps tend to 
overlook. The Stock Exchange is an institution in which the bourgeois 
exploit, not the workers, but one another; the surplus value that changes 
hands on the Stock Exchange is already extant surplus value, the product of 
past exploitation of labour. Only when that process is complete can it serve 
the hanky-panky on the Stock Exchange. To begin with, the Stock Exchange 
is merely of indirect interest to us, in the same way as its influence and its 
repercussions on the capitalist exploitation of labour are merely indirect and 
exerted in a devious way. To suggest that the workers should take a direct 
interest in, and wax indignant over, the fleecing on the ‘Change of the 
Junkers, manufacturers and petty bourgeois is to suggest that the workers 
should resort to arms to protect the possession by their own immediate 
exploiters of the surplus value they have filched from those self-same 
workers. What an idea! But as the finest fruit of bourgeois society, as the 
breeding ground of extreme corruption, as the forcing house of the Panama © 
and other scandals—and hence, too, as a first-class means for the 
concentration of capitals, for the disintegration and dissolution of the last 
remnants of natural cohesion in bourgeois society and, at the same time, for 
the destruction of all obligatory moral concepts and their inversion into their 
opposite—as an incomparable element of destruction, as the most powerful 
accelerator of impending revolution—in this historical sense the Stock 
Exchange is indeed of immediate interest to us. 

I see the Centre "' has moved that there be a stay of prescription for the 
period in which the Reichstag suspends prosecutions. Since the Centre is the 
dominant party the motion seems likely to be carried. '”! Should this happen, 
it would seem to me inappropriate to make the government a gratuitous 
present of the above limitation of parliamentary rights without any quid pro 
quo. The quid pro quo should consist in the express acknowl- 

* Vorwarts, No. 17, 20 January 1893 

edgement that the Reichstag’s right of suspension is also applicable to penal 
detention. Otherwise the Reichstag would again be beating a retreat— 
whatever legal plausibility the measure might seem to possess. 

The bogey of war has again raised its head. Herewith Dalziel’s despatch 
from today’s Daily Chronicle—as a youthful competitor of Reuter, Wolff and 
Havas, Dalziel is more readily open to such reptilian manoeuvres. |” The 
affair as such is absurd. The Russians are simply not prepared for war and 
would have to be quite off their heads to embark on one now. There is, of 
course, a possibility that, after the failure of the last Parisian loan, '* they 
would only be able to obtain money in Paris if war were really imminent or 
had already broken out—but that would be a counsel of despair. What cannot 
be completely ruled out is the possibility that the Opportunists *’ and Radicals 
*° in France will seek to save themselves from Panama by means of a war or 
at any rate have this at the back of their minds as a last recourse. But where 
could they find the pretext that would justify them in the eyes of the world? 
As I have said before, in the next war England will play a dominant role on 
account of its naval supremacy. '~* And as it happens, England has just played 
a nasty trick on the French in Egypt. '” To gain England’s support, in the 
present state of tension between the two governments, there would have to be 
a casus belli which, even to your philistine, would seem a gross provocation, 
and this Caprivi will not provide. 

The more information I gather on this point, the more I am struck by the 
fact that Bismarck formed the Austrian resp. Triple Alliance. '*° simply in 
order that he might, on the eve of the now inevitable war, give Austria to 
Russia in exchange for France: Leave me France and I’ll leave you Austria 
and Turkey and, what’s more, unleash Italy against Austria via Trieste and 
Trient.* And he clearly imagined he would pull it off. Reflect for a while on 
the course of history since 1878 '’’ and you will, I believe, come round to my 
view. 

To me Tutzauer’s hire-purchase speech in the Reichstag Report 
(Vorwarts) of the 21* is quite incomprehensible. He wasn’t speaking as a 
Social Democrat but as a furniture salesman. '** How could this have hap- 
pened? The Young '”’ will be overjoyed. 

Last night there was a concert and ball for the benefit of the Society. © I 
stayed until 11 o’clock and shall now presumably be exempted for a while 

* Modern name: Trento. 

from such obligations; Louise* had to stay at home because of neuralgia in 
her side. She is a bit better, but still suffers a lot of pain which, Freyberger 
says, will persist for another day or two. Otherwise her cold is on the mend 
and her voice and general condition have also improved. She sends you and 
your wife her warmest regards, as does 
Your 
FE.