ENGELS TO RUDOLPH MEYER 7” 

IN PRUHONICE NEAR PRAGUE!” 
London, 19 July 1893 

Dear Mr Meyer, 

It is, I agree, quite interesting that those worthies the Conservatives should 
believe (desire) that Caprivi might destroy Social-Democracy. *** Just let him 
try. A new Anti-Socialist Law '° can only strengthen the party in proportion 
to the individual existences it destroys. Anyone who has got the better of 
Bismarck need have no fear of his successor. Any attempt to abolish or 
tamper with universal suffrage will revive the old oracle: ‘If you cross the 
Halys, Croesus, you will destroy a great empire.’ If Caprivi does away with 
universal suffrage he will destroy a great empire, namely that of the 
Hohenzollerns. 

So you have found violations of the theory and practice of agriculture in 
Bebel’s Frau“? Well, it is scarcely possible to provide a critique of today’s 
wasteful and generally uneconomic management of agriculture and industry, 
along with tips as to how, given the social order that automatically arises out 
of economic conditions, this could be done differently and better, and at the 
same time as to how, given shorter working-hours for each individual, 
production could be significantly increased—all this, I say, is scarcely 
possible without exposing oneself to attack by people with a practical 
knowledge of one branch or another. Hence Bebel is obviously either 
expressing himself badly or has failed to understand his authority when he 
says that the yield of a cornfield can be increased threefold or more by fully 
exploiting the protein content of gluten. There can be no question of that. I 
could point to a dozen or more minor inaccuracies of a like nature, but they 
don’t affect the main issue. 

Similarly in the case of the transport of meat from regions overseas. 
Hitherto enough has been available for shipment in one form or another to 
Europe. But with growing demand and a growing tendency to change over 
from pasture-land to arable—in those regions too—this is bound to 

“A. Bebel, Die Frau und der Sozialismus, Chapter 22. 

reach a peak before long and then decline. Whether it comes about a few 
decades sooner or later is largely immaterial. 

However, the main objection you raise is that work on the land cannot be 
done by industrial labour and that in agriculture the reduction of the working- 
day to a uniform period throughout the year is impossible. Here you have 
misunderstood Bebel the turner. 

So far as hours of work are concerned, there is nothing to prevent us from 
taking on at seed or harvest time, or whenever a quick supply of extra labour 
is needed, as many workers as may be required. Assuming an eight-hour day, 
we can put on two, even three, shifts a day, Even if each man were to work 
only two hours a day—in this special employment—eight, nine or ten shifts 
could be put on in succession, once we had a sufficiency of people trained in 
the work. And that and nothing else is what Bebel is saying. Similarly, in 
industry one wouldn’t be so thick-headed, assuming a two-hour shift 
engaged, say, in spinning, as to keep increasing the number of spindles until 
each spindle produced what was required of it when run for two hours. 
Rather, one would keep the spindles running for between ten and twelve 
hours, while the operatives would only work for two, a new shift being put on 
every two hours. 

Now as to your objection about the poor town dwellers who are spoiled for 
agricultural work for life, you may very well be right. I readily admit my 
inability to plough, sow, reap, or even lift potatoes, but luckily we have in 
Germany so huge a rural population that by intelligent management we could 
without more ado drastically reduce each man’s working hours and still 
retain supernumeraries. Supposing we tured the whole of Germany over to 
farms of between 2,000 and 3,000 morgens*—more or less, depending upon 
natural conditions—and introduced machinery and every modern 
improvement, would we not then have more than enough skilled labour 
amongst the agricultural population? But obviously there is not enough work 
on the land to keep that population busy throughout the year. Large numbers 
would idle away much of their time if we didn’t employ them in industry, 
just as Our industrial workers would waste away physically if they were 
denied the opportunity of working in the open air and particularly on the 
land. I agree that the present grown-up generation may not be up to it. But we 
can train young people to that end. If, for several successive years, the lads 
and lasses were to go into the 

* 0,25 ha 

country in summer when there is something for them to do, how many terms 
would they have to spend cramming before being awarded their doctorates in 
ploughing, harvesting, etc.? You are surely not suggesting that a man should 
spend his whole life doing nothing else, that, like our peasants, he should 
work himself silly before he acquires some useful knowledge of agriculture? 
And that and that alone is what I infer from Bebel’s book when he says 

that production itself, as also a person’s training, both physical and mental, can be 

brought to its highest level only when the old division of labour between town and country, 
between agriculture and industry, has been done away with. 

Now as to the question of the profitability of the large estate as against 
that of the small farm, this can, in my view, be simply explained by the fact 
that in the long run the large estate engenders the small farm just as much 
and just as inevitably as the latter, in its turn, engenders the former. In 
precisely the same way as cut-throat competition gives rise to a monopoly 
and vice versa. This cycle is, however, inextricably bound up with crises, 
with acute as well as chronic distress, with the periodically recurring ruin of 
whole sections of the population, and likewise with the vast dissipation both 
of the means of production and of what is produced. And since we have now 
fortunately reached a stage at which we can dispense with these worthies the 
big landowners no less than with the landed peasants, and agriculture, no less 
than industry, has likewise now reached a stage of development which, in 
our view, not only admits of, but demands, its appropriation en bloc by 
society, it is up to us to break the circulus vitiosus.“ To that end the big farms 
and large manorial estates provide us with a much better opportunity than the 
small farms, just as in industry large factories are more readily suited to that 
purpose than small workshops. And this is reflected in the political sphere in 
that the rural proletarians on the big estates become Social-Democrats, just 
like the urban proletarians, once the latter are able to exert pressure on them, 
whereas the unsuccessful farmer and urban artisan arrive at Social- 
Democracy only by the devious route of anti-Semitism. *'’ 

To say that the owner of a manorial estate—LORD or SQUIRE—who has 
emerged from feudalism, will ever learn to run his affairs as would a 
bourgeois and, like the latter, be capable of regarding it as his first duty, 
come what may, to capitalise each year a proportion of the surplus value 

* vicious circle 

secured—such a statement runs counter to all experience in all previously 
feudal countries. When you say that these gentlemen are compelled by 
necessity to stint themselves of much that goes with the way of life appro- 
priate to their station, I quite believe you. But that they can ever learn TO 
LIVE WITHIN THEIR INCOMES AND LAY BEYOND SOMETHING FOR A RAINY DAY is 
quite outside my experience. It has never yet happened, or at most by way of 
an exception, and certainly not in the case of the class as such. After all, 
these people have existed for the past two hundred years thanks solely to the 
assistance of the state which has seen them through every crisis... 

Yours, 
Friedrich Engels