London, 24 April 1894 
122 Regent’s Park Road, N. W. 

Dear Comrade, 

Your letter of 21 March arrived a day or two ago as did the album of 
Barmen you so very kindly sent me, and I should like to say how very 
grateful I am to the Social Democratic Club in Barmen and, in particular, to 
the compiler of the album, for this kind and for me both flattering and 
agreeable gift. Indeed it was an unexpected pleasure to be able to see the 
enormous changes that have taken place in Barmen during the twenty years 
that I have been away. I feel completely lost. Other than by the station and on 
one, the older, side of the Werther Bollwerk, I can no longer tell where I am 
from the pictures. Even the view taken on the Neuenweg, which surely 
cannot be more than a few minutes walk from the Bruch, is utterly strange to 
me. Only our old house remains unaltered. 

Though it is cheering to see these signs of an upheaval that has changed 
the Barmen of my youth from a small philistine backwater into a large 
industrial town, what nevertheless pleases me most is the fact that people 
there have also experienced a significant change for the better. Had that not 
been the case, Barmen would even now be represented in the Reichstag by 
an out-and-out Conservative, some thoroughly sanctimonious ‘swell’, nor 
could there be any question of a Social Democratic Club in Barmen, while 
the last thing that would have occurred to Barmen’s working men would 
have been to honour me with an album. Fortunately, however, the revolution 
in the appearance of the town is attended by a revolution in the minds of its 
working men and for us that is a guarantee of a far mightier and more 
comprehensive revolution in the world as presently constituted. With sincere 
regards, 

Yours, 
F. Engels