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Title: Engels to Florence Kelley-Wischnewetzky, London, 2 May 1888
Description: Engels on the removal of the Sozialdemokrat to London and the boycott of his writings by the London socialist cliques.
Author: Friedrich Engels
Date: 1888-05-02
URL: https://marxismo.school/archivo/marx-engels/cartas/originales/1888-05-02%20Engels%20to%20Florence%20Kelley-Wischnewetzky
---


*Letter from Friedrich Engels to Florence Kelley-Wischnewetzky in New York, London, 2 May 1888. Written in English. Text from: F. A. Sorge (ed.),* Briefe und Auszüge aus Briefen von Joh. Phil. Becker, Jos. Dietzgen, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx u. A. an F. A. Sorge und Andere *(Stuttgart, 1906), pp. 299-300. Sorge prints the letter abridged. The rows of dashes are his; […] marks a further paragraph he leaves out. [Spanish translation](https://marxismo.school/archivo/marx-engels/cartas/1888-05-02%20Engels%20a%20Florence%20Kelley-Wischnewetzky)*

London, May 2nd 1888.

Dear Mrs. Wischnewetzky.

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[…]

— — — — Please tell Sorge that according to present arrangements the “Social Democrat” is going to be removed to London. But it will be well to keep this quiet for the present; when our friends intend this to be talked about and to get it into the newshunting press, they will no doubt arrange that themselves.

I am boycotted here almost as much as you are in N. Y. — The various socialist cliques here are dissatisfied at my absolute neutrality with regard to them, and being all of them agreed as to that point, try to pay me out by not mentioning any of my writings. Neither “Our Corner” (Mrs. Besant) nor “To-Day” nor the “Christian Socialist” (of this latter monthly however I am not quite certain) have mentioned the “Condition of the Working Class” though I sent them copies myself. I fully expected this but did not like to say so to you until the proof was there. I don't blame them, because I have seriously offended them by saying that so far there is no real working class movement here, and that, as soon as that comes, all the great men and women who now make themselves busy as officers of an army without soldiers, will soon find their level, and a rather lower one than they expect. But if they think their needle-pricks can pierce my old well tanned and pachydermatous skin, they are mistaken.

Yours very truly

F. Engels.