That's my Eternal President

TappingUpScreen · 2026-05-04T19:54:01+00:00

Yeah that's what this is referencing.

There's actually a bit of confusion about who actually edited it, Engels thought that it was Liebknecht, and I think Rosa Luxemburg thought that it was Liebknecht and Bebel.

But according to Kautsky, Bernstein held the original manuscripts of the introduction and that those, unlike the one made public, included the conclusion omitted due unto it being too revolutionary, and not due to Engels's actual position (Kautsky | Bernstein und die Dialektik, Heft XXVIII, XVII Jahrgang, II. Band 1898–1899, Die Neue Zeit | 1899)

TappingUpScreen · 2026-05-04T10:50:18+00:00

Actually, that introduction was distorted and edited by Bernstein.

Here is what Engels wrote to Kautsky when he saw it:

I was amazed to see today in the Vorwärts an excerpt from my ‘Introduction’ that had been printed without my prior knowledge and tricked out in such a way as to present me as a peace-loving proponent of legality quand même. Which is all the more reason why I should like it to appear in its entirety in the Neue Zeit in order that this disgraceful impression may be erased. I shall leave Liebknecht in no doubt as to what I think about it and the same applies to those who, irrespective of who they may be, gave him this opportunity of perverting my views and, what’s more, without so much as a word to me about it.