Page:Karl Kautsky - Frederick Engels - 1899.djvu/20

 when Engels published the article in the "Volkstaat" (1876). The pamphlet, "The Bakunist on Labor," which discusses the Anarchist revolution in Spain, is greatly valued by us Austrians.

The other popular articles of Engels are for the most part polemic in character, but the polemic is only the occasion for a positive development of different phases of their own theory.

That they are not obsolete even now is shown by the fact that new editions are constantly required. This is the case among others with "The Housing Question," a polemic against the little bourgeois Proudhonist Muhlberger. This appeared first in 1872 as a series of articles in the "Volkstaat," then in a separate publication, a new edition of which has just been issued in Zurich with a preface characterizing the later industrial development of Germany, which renders it of value even to possessors of the first edition.

In 1875 there appeared in the "Volkstaat," and also as a separate publication, the pamphlet on "Social Conditions in Russia," a polemic against the Bakunists. This gave an opportunity to apply modern scientific socialism to Russian conditions and relations. Of special interest is what Engels says of the Artels (Mirs), the ancient productive organizations, the village communism, and the significance of these institutions for socialism.

Two years later Engels published his polemic against Duhring. This was the year before the beginning of the anti-socialist legislation. A part of the German Social Democracy lulled itself in the most evident illusions. Many already saw the day nearing when a Social Democratic majority in the German Reichstag would bring in the "Socialist State," and were racking their brains as to how this could be best and easiest accomplished. The Social Democracy was the rising sun, and not only the proletariat turned toward it, but the whole mass of discontented elements within the possessing class—unappreciated geniuses who hoped to find among the laborers the recognition the bourgeois denied them, anti-vaccinationists, nature healers, writers of all kinds. It was difficult to distinguish these people from those industrial elements who came to us because of an actual interest in the proletariat, and not merely out of envy of the bourgeoisie. The younger and more inexperienced of the comrades welcomed these new-comers. It must be true that victory was not far away when doctors and professors betook themselves to the Social Democracy.