Karl Marx, Frederick Engels: Frederick Engels
- ISBN-10
- 0717805484
- ISBN-13
- 9780717805488
- Series
- Karl Marx, Frederick Engels
- Pages
- 657
- Language
- English
- Published
- 1975
- Publisher
- International Publishers
- Author
- Karl Marx
Description
At last! Engels' Letters, Jan. 1887 -- July 1890. In addition to letters to Marx's family, to friends and to publishers, Engels is focused on working class developments in France, Germany, Britain and the USA. He documents the struggle in Germany against the Anti-Socialist Law, and notes the increasing S-D success in Reichstag elections. He fears rivalry between European powers will bring war, which would weaken the young socialist movement. He urges French socialists to organize a proper daily paper, to be less fractious in their dealings with the international movement and to make more effort to communicate with other parties.
In England he castigates the old-style trade unions and warmly welcomes the development of the new unions, in which Eleanor Marx played a major role.
Many letters concern the two 1889 Int'l Paris Congresses organized by the Workers Party of France and the Possibilists. Engels has trenchant comments on the competing strands within the French and international movements. Building on the success of the 1889 conferences, an international celebration of May Day was organized in 1890. These events were the beginnings of the Second International.
Other letters are taken up with his work editing Marx's writings, especially Capital v. 2. He also corresponds with U.S. publishers about his own work, especially the U.S. edition of The Condition of the Working Class in Britain.
He comments on Bismarck's relationship with three generations of German emperors -- both William I and Frederick III died in 1888, to be succeeded by William II, of whom Engels had a very low opinion. He is critical of both German and French nationalism, and particularly of the Boulangistcurrent in the French working class movement, which he sees as part of the recurring French problem of Bonapartism.
The letters also show the personal side of Engels. There are visits from Eleanor Marx, Schorlemmer and many others, and his attention to holidays and celebrations. Although Engels was a formidable political analyst and opponent, he could also be a very warm friend.
