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would always retain a copy for himself) was conducted in a spirit of relentless
opposition to the Bakuninists.
The famous pamphlet on Bakunin's Alliance, which was a report of the
commission of the Hague Congress, and which most caustically lashed and exposed
the Bakuninist policy and tactics, was written by Engels and Lafargue. Marx
contributed only to the concluding chapter, though he was, of course, in complete
accord with the indictment of Bakuninism.
After 1873, Marx left the public arena. In this year he completed the second
edition of the first volume of Capital and was editing a French translation which was
finally published in 1875. If we should add to this a postscript which he wrote for the
old book about the Communist League, and the small article written for the Italian
comrades it would make up the sum total of everything Marx had published up to
1880.. As much as his shattered health permitted him he continued to labour over his
magnum opus, the first draft of which Marx had completed in the early sixties. But
he did not succeed in making ready for publication even the second volume over
which he was then labouring. We know now that the last manuscript which was
incorporated in this volume was written in 1878. Any strenuous intellectual work was
a menace to his overwrought brain. During these years Marx's family and Engels
were in perpetual fear for Marx's life which was always threatened by a sudden
stroke. The mighty organism, once capable of superhuman labour, was gradually
becoming weaker. Engels' touching care, his efforts to do everything possible to
restore his old friend to health, were of little avail. Before Marx lay his great work in
the rough, and as soon as he would feel a trifle better, as soon as the danger of death
would become more remote, as soon as the physicians would allow him to work a few
hours a day, he would resume his labours. The consciousness that he would never be
able to complete this work was a continuous torture to him. "To be incapable of
work," Marx would say, "is to any human being who does not wish to be simply an
animal the equivalent of a death sentence " After 1878 he was forced to give up all
work on Capital in the hope that he would be able to return to it at some more
auspicious time. This hope was not fulfilled. He was still able to make notes, he still
kept up with the development of the international labour movement and took an
active intellectual part in it, answering numerous inquiries which were coming to
him from various countries. His list of addresses reached particularly imposing
dimensions toward the beginning of the eighties. Together with Engels, who at this
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time took over most of the work, he again became a well-informed man, an expert on
the rapidly developing labour movement within which the ideas of the Communist
Manifesto were gaining ascendancy. A great deal of credit in this matter was due to
Engels who, in the seventies, and while Marx was still alive, was developing a very
energetic activity.
The struggle between the Marxists and the Bakuninists in the First
International has often been greatly exaggerated. There were indeed quite a few
Bakuninists, but even among them there was a variety of elements, united only in
their onslaught on the General Council. Things were much worse with the Marxists.
Behind Marx and Engels there was only a small group of people, who were
acquainted with the Communist Manifesto and who understood fully all the
teachings of Marx. The publication of Capital was in the beginning of very little help.
For the vast majority it was in the full sense of the words a granite rock at which they
most diligently nibbled; that was all. The writings of the German socialists during the
first half of the seventies, even the brochures written by Wilhelm Liebknecht, who
was a student of Marx, show the deplorable state in which the study of Marxian
theory was at that time. The pages of the central organ of the German party were
often filled with the most grotesque mixture of various socialist systems. The method
of Marx and Engels, the materialist conception of history, and the teaching about the
class struggle -- all this remained a sealed book. Liebknecht himself so little grasped
the Marxian philosophy that he confused the dialectic materialism of Marx and
Engels, with the natural-historical materialism of Jacob Moleschott (1822-1893), and
Ludwig Buchner (1824-1899).
Finally, Engels took upon himself the task of defending and disseminating the
tenets of Marxism, while Marx, as we have seen, was vainly trying to complete his
Capital. Engels pounced now upon an article that especially appealed to him, now
upon a fact of contemporary history in order that he might illustrate with individual
cases the profound difference between scientific socialism and other socialist
systems, or throw light on some obscure practical question from the point of view of
scientific socialism, or show the practical application of his method.
Since the famous German Proudhonist Mulberger was publishing in the
central organ of the German Social-Democracy a series of articles dealing with the
housing question Engels, seizing upon this as a good pretext showed the chasm that
separated Marxism from Proudhonism (Die Wohnungsfrage). Besides this
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magnificent supplement to Marx's book, Poverty of Philosophy, he cast the lucid light
of Marxism upon one of the chief factors determining the condition of the working
class.
He republished his old work, the Peasant War in Germany, with a new preface
in order to illustrate to his young comrades the manner in which the materialist
conception of history might be applied to one of the most important episodes in the
history of Germany and the German peasantry.
When the German Reichstag was discussing the question of how the Prussian
landowners made secure their profitable business of rendering the Germans into a
habitually drunken people, Engels proceeded to write a brochure Prussian Schnaps
in the German Reichstag, in which, besides exposing the desires of the Prussian
Junkers, he explained the historic role of Landlordism and Prussian Junkerdom. All
these works of Engels added to his other articles dealing with German history made
it subsequently possible for Kautsky and Mehring to popularise, and develop in their
works on German history, the basic ideas of Engels.
But Engels' greatest services belong to the years 1876 and 1877. In 1875 the
Lassalleans and the Eisenachers had united on the basis of the so-called Gotha
Programme -- a poor compromise between Marxism and its distorted double, known
by the name of Lassalleanism. Marx and Engels protested most vigorously, not
because they were opposed to unification but because they demanded a change in the
programme in accordance with their suggestions. They insisted, with very good
reason that though unification was indubitably necessary, it nevertheless, was not at
all desirable to adopt a bad programme as the theoretical foundation of this
unification; that it would be preferable to postpone the adoption of a programme for
a little while and to be satisfied in the meanwhile with a general platform fit for
everyday practical work. In this affair August Bebel (1840-1913) and Wilhelm Bracke
(1842-1880), were also opposed to Liebknecht.
Only a few months later Marx and Engels had occasion to be convinced that
in the matter of theoretical preparation the two factions were on the same low level.
Among the young members of the party, the intellectuals as well as the workers, the
teachings of Eugen Dühring (1833-1901), the famous German philosopher and
economist, were winning wide popularity. At one time he had been assistant
professor at the Berlin University, and had won great sympathy owing to his
personality and the daring of his remarks, unusual for a German professor. Though
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