William Morris: The Man and The Myth. R Page Arnot 1964
Throughout his overseas correspondence in the 1880s Engels constantly deprecates the tendency abroad to overestimate developments in Britain. He himself, as a young German in Manchester, had generously overestimated the possibilities: fifty years later the old German, now the doyen and guide of European Socialism, warns against being misled by surface appearances, still less by any claims put forward from these ‘officers-without-an-army’. For example, his letter to Paul Lafargue of 20 March 1886 concludes:
There is absolutely nothing to do here at the moment. But with Hyndman who knows his way about in crooked politics and is capable of every folly to push himself forward – with Hyndman on the one hand and our two political innocents [avec nos deux bébés en politique] on the other, the prospects are not brilliant – and there the socialist journals abroad go shouting at the top of their voice that socialism in England is advancing with giant strides! I am very glad that what passes for socialism here is not advancing at all.
Three months later Engels, by this time becoming exasperated with the ‘political infants’ of the Socialist League, writes to Laura Lafargue that he has ‘had several visits from Bax and one from Morris lately’ and says of the latter: ‘Morris is a settled sentimental Socialist.’
It must of course be remembered that in none of his correspondence after the death of Marx does Engels give unqualified praise to any Briton, middle-class or working-class. Outside the circle of the Marx family, there is no Englishman or Scotsman for whom Engels has really a good word to say. The relative weight of his sardonic comments may be found by putting them in the scales with those on HM Hyndman, who is denounced for opportunism, sectarianism, jingoism and treated as an enemy.