The Daily Worker Newspaper, April 4, 1925, Page 8

‘Engels and His False Friends By T. J. O’FLAHERTY. HE un-Marxian Marxists of the United States and particularly that collection of hothouse theorists, segregated under the banner of the socialist labor party, have unearthed every stray remark, and debauched the literature of pre-war socialism in an effort to prove that Marx and Engels were not revolutionists but blind worshipers of the tool of produc- tion to whose progressive march alone could be attributed all the forward leaps of civilization and to which the emancipation of the working class could be trusted without the explod- ing of a fire cracker or even the scratching of a finger. Let the tool of production do the work! The reformists masquerading under the camouflage of revolutionary socialism would observe its progress and carefully note down every devel- opment, branding all those who insist- ed on working class organization for the overthrow of capitalism, as crazy adventurers. — b Communists have all the admira- tion in the world for the tool of pro- duction and they know that its devel- opment is more responsible for the , Changes that have come over the face of society than all the kings and princes, generals and statesmen that ever lived. But this world is com- posed of human beings as well as in- animate instruments of production and destruction. The master class are in possession of both and when the working class refuse to work the pro- ductive machine at the terms dictated by the bosses, the latter will turn the @estructive machines on them with damaging effect. Hence the need of capturing the governmental power which controls the tools of destruc- tion. : The reformists spurn revolutionary action and hold that no permanent progress can be made unless it is done according to the laws of civiliza- tion—-whtever” eRey are. In other words, the workers are advised to watch the social panorama go by with folded arms and wait until capitalism digs its own graveyard and drops peacefully into it. Whereupon the working class, led by the hothouse theorists will appear, issue a proclam- ation and declare that the co-opera- tive commonwealth has arrived. Marx and Engels, the two outstand- ing giants in the intellectual galaxy of social revolution, up to the time of their deaths and until the star of Len- in appeared over the horizon, received lip service from the many bodies of the reformists until the revolutionary implications of their théories rose out of the seething cauldron of world war like a pillar of fire. And when the Russian Bolsheviki began tw trans- late Marxism into action un?-* the’ leadership of Lenin, all the pseudo- Marxists who worshipped at his shrine while he remained the harmless peda- gogue scurried like rats into their cellars and came forth with little odds and ends that they hoped would prove that Marx and Engels did not believe in the use of every servicable weapon with which to overthrow capitalism, but confined themselves to the ballot alone, which was touted by the re- formists as the high water mark of civilization. . One of those cave prowlers, an old fossil employed by the socialist labor party to make the teachings of Engels fit the mild mannered socialist patriot- ism of that organization, emerged from his search with a piece written by Engels in 1895 as an introduction to Marx’s Class Struggles in France, 1848-1850, in which Engels is repre- sented to have renounced the idea of force as a “pacifist adorer of legality at any price” as Engels puts it. How this erime was committed against the veteran Engels is shown by letters written by Marx’s co-worker to Karl Kautsky long before the latter turned traitor to the social revolution. In view of the many attempts made by the betrayers of Marxian socialism to pose as the logical successors of Marx and Engels*and transform the revolutionary lions into pacifist lambs, the following excerpt from Kautsky’s book should prove of interest. A. M. Simons omitted this -part of the book in his American translation. In this book Kautsky renounced the claims of the revisionists before he himself turned away from Marxism. This passage from Kautsky’s book re- futes the claims of those who would make a babblipg pacifist and a legal- ist mumbler out of the intellectual collaborator and founder of modern socialism, Karl Marx: s 2 @ It is being attempted, among other things, to set me in opposition to Frederick Engels, who formerly in- deed, so it is said, felt likewise very revolutionary, but became reasonable shortly before his death, recognized the untenableness of his revolutionary standpoint, and also acknowledged it. Now it is correct that in 1895 En- gels, in his well-known preface to Marx’s Class Struggles in France, pointed out how much the conditions of the revolutionary struggle had changed in comparison with 1848. We must, in order to be victorious, have great masses behind us “who under- stand what is to be done,” and we, the ‘impossible: FOREST OF BANNERS. By JOHN LASSEN (Translated by Simon Felshin) ber that the so-called revolution bill, which, in order to render more diffi- eult the socialist propaganda, pro- o0sed severe additions to the existing ‘aWS, Was on December 5, 1894, laid before’ the German Reichstag, which on January 14 referred it to a com- mission, where they deliberated upon it over three months’ long. Exactly at this time the introduction -of Engels was written. How seriously Engels regarded the situation, is evident from a later pass- age of the same letter, where he wrote: “An electoral reform, which brings us into parliament, I hold in Austria for absolutely certain, unless a sudden general period or reaction sets in. For such they appear to be working vio- lently in Berlin, but there, unfortu- nately, they do not know, even from day to day, what they want.” Already earlier—on January 3—im- mediately before he set about the composition of his introduction, En- gels had written to me: “You are having, so it seems, a right lively year in Germany. If Herr Von Koller so continues, nothing is Conflict, dissolution, OVERTY is displaying its tatters ; and now the tatters are fluttering in the wind. The sun glides with sparkling lustre over the tatters, The wind turns up their red, yellow and blue colors. Like a forest of banners they sway in the wind: : The workman’s overalls, the little child’s blue dress bleached from ~ much washing, tattered stockings and sheets which are really only patch upon patch; torn union-suits are hanging here and , khaki colored shirts, blood-red and dank blue handkerchiefs, decorated with white dots. Oh, how many patches, how many patches! tam not lying, ! say in all seriousness, that there are more patches than clothes. And they are fluttering in the wind like war-tattered flags. > “And that is what they are. Work is a battlefield. An immense battlefield. ; The shirts, the overalls, the union suits, the handkerchiefs and socks back from there mutilated ... And now they are fluttering in the wind. An unemployed worker sets the phonograph to grumbling. The machines whirr in the work-room. Under the low ceiling the air grows thick and envelopes the workers, Only a tiny strip can be seen of the far, far sky. How good it is that the wash is fluttering out in the yard. Thus you learn that at least outside there is air, and you see that the sun pours out its radiance with a sparkling freshness of Spring. You learn that... For poverty is displaying its tatters. —_—_— “revolutionaries,” the “overthrowers,” were prospering far better by legal methods than by illegal means and overthrowal, But let it not be for- gotten, he meant that only for the situation of that time. Whoever will know how Engels’ propositions are to be understood, must compare them with letters of Engels to which I re- cently referred in the Neue Zeit {(XXVIL, 1, p. 7). From these one learns that he protested vigorously against the appearance of being “a pacifist adorer of legality at any price.” In that passage of the Neue Zeit I wrote: “The introduction to Marx’s Class Struggles is dated March 6, 1895. A few week after that the book appeared in public, I had asked Engels to let me have the copy of ‘the introduction for publication in the Neue Zeit. Thereupon he answered me on March 26: “Your telegram at once answered: ‘With pleasure.” Per wrapper follows the text in proof with the title: In- troduction to the reprint of Marx’s ‘The Class Struggles in France—1848- 1850,” by F. E. That the contents of the copy consist of the old articles out of the ‘N. Rh. Z.’ (‘Neue Rheinische Zeitung’), is stated in the text. My text has suffered somewhat from our Berlin friends’ apprehensive doubts about te revolution bill, to which in- deed I was obliged, under'tho eircum- stances, to accomodate: myselfi”. To understand this, one must remem- ine coup d’etat. Of course, they will also put up with less. Tho junkers would be quite satisfied with augumented presents, but in order to obtain these, they will appeal to certain appetitas of, personal ambition, must to a cer- tain extent give way to these wher- ever the factors of the opposition then come into play, and then enters into play the contingency, which is called the involuntary, the incalcul- able. Im‘order’to make sure of the presents, one must threaten with con- flict—has ‘it gone one step further, then the original object—the presents ‘becomes. a secondary matter; then stands crown against reichstag, bend or break, then can it become merry. I am just reading Gardiner’s ‘Personal Government of Charles 1’; things of- ten agree to the point of absurdity with the Germany of today. Thus the arguments in respect of the immunity of the acts committed in parliament. Were Germany a romance land, so would the revolutionary conflict be in- evitable, but so—we don’t know noth- ing for certain, as Tollymeier (Schor- lemer) says.” Thus grave and fraught with con. flict did Engels regard the situation at that, time when the revisionists make him proclaim, that the era of unconditional legal and peaceful de- velopment has dawned and is forever assured; the era of revolutions lies behind us. a! But when the Vorwarts, in order in- deed to influence favorably the com- mission’s deliberations over the revo- ution bill, put together and published some pieces of the introduction in a way that, taken by themselves alone, they conveyed the impression which, according to the subsequent assertiong of the revisionists, was intended by Engels, then the latter flared up in hot anger. In a letter of April 1, he wrote: “To my astonishment I see today in the Vorwarts an extract from my introduction, printed without my prev- ious knowledge and rigged up in such a@ way that I stand forth'as a pacifist adorer of legality quand meme (at any price). So much dearer to me it is, that the whole is now appearing in the Neue Zeit, in order that this dis- graceful impression may be effaced. [ shall speak my mind to Liebknecht about it very decidedly, and.also to those, whoever they be, who have giv- en him this opportunity to distort-my meaning.” : He did not suspect that soon after- wards intimate friends, who above all - were called upon to protect his views from distortions, were to come to the opinion that this distorted view had been his real one, and that what to him seemed disgraceful, signified the most glorious achievemetn of his life; the revolutionary fighter had ended is “pacifist adorer of legality at any price.” Should these arguments not suffice o mark the standpoint of Engels to- wards revolution, then let us refer to mother article, upon “Socialism in Germany,” which, in 1892, but a few years before the introduction to Marx’s Class Struggles, he pub- lished in the Neue Zeit. There he wrote: “How often have not the bourgeois expected of us, that we should re- nounce under all circumstances the use of revolutionary methods and re- main within legal limits, now that, the exceptional law having fallen, the common law is again restored for all, for the socialists also! Unfortunately we are not in the position to do the Messrs. Bourgeois this favor. Which, however, does not hinder that at this moment it is not we whom ‘legality destroys.’ On the contrary, it is work- ing excellently for us, so that we should be foolish did we violate it, so long as things proceed thus. Much nearer lies the question, whether it is not precisely the bourgeois and their government which will violate law and status, in order to crush us by force? We will wait for that. Mean- while: ‘Shoot first, if yoa please Messrs. Bourgeois.’ “No doubt they will shoot first, One fine morning the German bour- geois and their government will grow tired of watching with folded arms the spring tide of socialism flowing over everything; they will seek ref- uge in illegality, in the act of vio- lence. What will it avail? Force can smother a small sect in circumscribed area; but the power is yet to be dis- covered which is able to root out a party of over two or three, million | men, spread over a great. empire. The — momentarily superior power of. the counter-revolution can postpone the triumph of socialism, perhaps fon some years, but only in order that it may then become so much the more complete and final. The Walden Book Shop 307 Plymouth Court (Between State and Dearborn Just South of Jackson) CHICAGO Second-Hand Books Used Communist, Labor and Eco- cold: Ang’ bushameed "at cut bate’ “Daily” Book Exchange — 805 James St., Pittsburgh, Pa.