ENGELS TO F. WIESEN |” 

IN BAIRD (TEXAS) 

London, '*’ 14 March 1893 
122 Regent’s Park Road, N. W. Dear Comrade, 

An accumulation of work has prevented me from replying any sooner to 
your note of 29 January. 

I don’t see why it should necessarily represent an infringement of the 
Social-Democratic principle if a man puts up candidates for some political 
office for which election is required and if he votes for those candidates, 
even if he is engaged in an attempt to abolish that office. 

One might consider that the best way to abolish the Presidency and the 
Senate in America would be to elect to those posts men who had pledged 
themselves to bring about their abolition; it would then be logical for one to 
act accordingly. Others might consider this method to be inexpedient; it’s a 
debatable point. There could be circumstances in which such a mode of 
action might also involve a denial of the revolutionary principle; why it 
should always and invariably be so, I entirely fail to see. 

For the first objective of the labour movement is the conquest of political 
power for and by the working class. Once we are agreed on that, differences of 
opinion between upright men, in full command of their wits, as to the ways 
and means of struggle are unlikely to give rise to a dispute over principles. 

In my view the best tactics in any given country are those which lead most 
quickly and surely to the goal. But in America in particular that goal is still a 
very long way off, and I believe I would not be wrong in attributing to this 
very circumstance the importance which is still sometimes attached to such 
academic issues over there. 

I authorise you to publish these lines—unabridged. 

Very sincerely yours, 

F. Engels