| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 1875 |
Note from MECW :
Engels wrote the fourth article in the Refugee Literature series on the advice of Marx. Having acquainted himself with Tkachov's Offener Brief an Herrn Friedrich Engels. Verfasser der Artikel " Flüchtlings-Literatur" in Nr. 117 und 118 des "Volksstaat" (Zurich, 1874), Marx passed it on to Engels with the following note upon the cover: "Go to it, but in jovial fashion. So stupid, that Bakunin may have contributed. What Peter Tkachov is above all trying to tell his readers is that you had treated him as an enemy, and he therefore invents all manner of disputes that never occurred" (see Marx's letter to Engels, February-March 1875, present edition, Vol. 45).
The article was printed by Der Volksstaat, Nos. 36 and 37, March 28 and April 2, 1875.
Excerpts from it were published in English for the first time in the collection: K. Marx, F. Engels, On Literature and Art, Progress Publishers, Moscow, 1978, pp. 114, 408-09. In full, it appears in English for the first time.
The readers of the Volksstaat have suffered a misfortune. Some of them may still remember that, in my last article on "refugee literature" (Nos. 117 and 118),[1] I dealt with some passages from the Russian periodical Forward and a pamphlet by its editor.[2] Quite by chance I happened to mention a Mr. Peter Tkachov, who has published a little pamphlet attacking the aforementioned editor,[3] and with whom I had only concerned myself as little as was absolutely necessary. I described him, to judge by the form and content of his immortal work, "as a green grammar-school boy of singular immaturity, the Karlchen Missnick, as it were, of Russian revolutionary youth"[4] and pitied the editor of the Forward for deeming it necessary to bandy words with such an adversary. I was soon to learn, however, that the boy Karl is beginning to get cross with me[5] and entangling me, too, in polemics with him. He publishes a pamphlet: Offener Brief an Herrn Friedrich Engels by Peter Tkachov, Zurich, typography by Tagwacht, 1874. The fact that, in it, I have all sorts of things foisted on to me that Mr. Tkachov must know I have never maintained would be a matter of indifference to me; but the fact that he gives the German workers quite a false picture of the situation in Russia, in order to justify the activities of the Bakuninists in relation to Russia, makes a reply necessary.
In his open letter, Mr. Tkachov consistently sets himself up as a representative of Russian revolutionary youth. He maintains that I "dispensed advice to the Russian revolutionaries ... urging them to enter into an alliance with me (!)"[6]; at the same time I had depicted them, "the representatives of the Russian revolutionary party abroad", their efforts and their literature in the "most unfavourable colours to the German labour world"; he says: "You express your utter contempt for us Russians because we are so 'stupid' and 'immature', etc. "...green grammar-school boys", as you please to call us"—and finally there follows the inevitable trump-card: "By mocking us you have done our common enemy, the Russian state, a valuable service." I have subjected him, Mr. Tkachov claims, "to every conceivable kind of abuse".[7]
Now, nobody knows better than Peter Nikitich Tkachov that there is not a single grain of truth in all this. First, in the article in question, I held no one responsible for Mr. Tkachov's utterances other than Mr. Tkachov himself. It never occurred to me to see him as a representative of the Russian revolutionaries. If he appoints himself as such, thereby transferring the green grammar-school boy and other pleasantaries from his shoulders on to theirs, then I must definitely protest. Among Russian revolutionary youth there are, of course, as everywhere, people of widely differing moral and intellectual calibre. Yet its general level, even after taking full account of the time difference and the essentially different milieu, is undoubtedly still far higher than our German student youth has ever attained, even during its best period in the early 1830s. Nobody but Mr. Tkachov himself gives him the right to speak on behalf of these young people in their entirety. Indeed, even though he reveals himself as a true Bakuninist on this occasion, I nevertheless doubt at the moment whether he has the right to conduct himself as the representative of the small number of Russian Bakuninists whom I described as "a few immature little students, who inflate themselves with big words like frogs, and finally gobble one another up". But even if this were the case, it would only be a new version of the old story of the three tailors of Tooley Street in London, who issued a proclamation that started, "We, the people of England, declare"[8] etc.* Thus, the main point that needs to be made is that the "Russian revolutionaries" do not
* What's the betting that Mr. Tkachov will say that, with the above anecdote, I have betrayed the proletariat by depicting tailors as such in a "ridiculous light"![9]
come into it, now any more than before, and that for Tkachov's "we" it is necessary to substitute "I", throughout.
I am supposed to have given him "advice". I haven't the faintest idea what he is talking about. I may have let fly a few blows, Peter Nikititch, but advice? Be so kind as to furnish proof.
At the end of my last article, I am supposed to have urged him or his ilk to enter into an alliance with me. I will pay Mr. Tkachov ten marks in Bismarck's coin of the realm[10] if he can demonstrate that.
I am supposed to have maintained that he is "stupid", and he puts the word in quotation marks. Although I would not deny that he has hidden his talents—if that is the appropriate word here—under a bushel of considerable size in both these works, it is open to anyone to ascertain that the word "stupid" does not occur once anywhere in my article. But if all else fails, the Bakuninists resort to bogus quotations.
Further, I am supposed to have "mocked" him and portrayed him in a "ridiculous light". Granted, Mr. Tkachov will never be able to force me to take his pamphlet seriously. We Germans are widely reputed to be boring, and must have richly deserved this reputation on many an occasion. That does not, however, oblige us in all circumstances to be as boring and pompous as the Bakuninists. The German labour movement has acquired a singularly humorous character from its skirmishes with police, state prosecutors and prison-warders; why should I deny it? Mr. Tkachov has full permission to mock me and depict me in a ridiculous light, if he can manage it without imputing any lies to me.
Now the incomparable accusation: by portraying Mr. Tkachov in a light befitting him and his works, we have "done our common enemy, the Russian state, a valuable service"![11] Similarly, he says at another point: by describing him as I have, I am breaching "the basic principles of the programme of the International Working Men's Association"![12] Here we see the true Bakuninist. These gentlemen, as true revolutionaries, shun no means against us, particularly in the dark; but if one fails to treat them with the greatest respect, if one drags their antics into the light, criticises them and their ringing phrases, then one is serving the Tsar of Russia and breaching the basic principles of the International. Precisely the opposite is the case, in fact. The one who has done
mass arrests in Russia, it was not the educated nor the students, but the workers who were in the majority.[13]
Second, I undertake to fly to the moon, even before Tkachov liberates Russia, as soon as he proves that I have ever, anywhere, at any time in my political career, declared that conspiracies were to be universally condemned in all circumstances. I undertake to bring him back a souvenir from the moon as soon as he proves that any other plots are mentioned in my article but the one against the International by the Alliance. Indeed, if only the Russian Bakuninists really were to conspire seriously against the Russian Government! If only, instead of fraudulent conspiracies based on lies and deceit against their co-conspirators, like that of Nechayev,[14] this "typical representative of our present-day youth" according to Tkachov, instead of plots against the European labour movement like the Alliance, fortunately exposed and thus destroyed—if only they, the "doers" (dejateli), as they boastfully call themselves, would at last, for once, perform a deed proving that they really possess an organisation and that they are concerned with something else apart from the attempt to form a dozen! Instead, they cry out loud to all and sundry: We conspire, we conspire!—just like operatic conspirators roaring in four parts: "Silence, silence! Make not a sound!"[15] And all the tales about far-reaching conspiracies only serve as a cloak to hide nothing more than revolutionary inactivity vis-à-vis governments and ambitious cliquishness within the revolutionary party.
It is precisely our ruthless exposure of this entire fraud in the Komploitt gegen die Internationale that causes these gentlemen to wax so indignant. It was "tactless". In exposing Mr. Bakunin we were seeking "to besmirch one of the greatest and most selfless representatives of the revolutionary epoch in which we live", and with "dirt", at that. The dirt that came to light on this occasion was, to the very last particle, of Mr. Bakunin's own making, and not his worst by any means. The pamphlet in question made him out to be far cleaner than he really was. We simply quoted § 18 of the "Revolutionary Catechism", the article stipulating how to behave vis-à-vis the Russian aristocracy and bourgeoisie, how "to seize hold of their dirty secrets and thereby make them our slaves, so that their wealth, etc., becomes an inexhaustible treasure and a valuable support in all kinds of undertaking".[16] We have not yet
related how this article has been translated into practice. This is a story that would be long in the telling, but it will, in due course, be told.
It thus turns out that all the accusations Mr. Tkachov has made against me, with that virtuous mien of injured innocence that becomes all Bakuninists so well, are all based on claims he not only knew to be false, but were also a pack of lies that he himself had concocted. Whereupon we take our leave of the personal part of his "Open Letter".