THE LAST DECADE 4 II^4 iimischief and are always ready to join muddleheads from the allegedly
'learned' caste. Utopian socialism, especially, which for decades we have
been clearing out of the German workers' heads with so much effort
and labour - their freedom from it having made them theoretically
(and therefore also practically) superior to the French and English -
Utopian socialism, playing with fantastic pictures of the future structure
of society, is again spreading like wildfire, and in a much more futile
form, not only compared with the great French and English Utopians,
but even with - Weitling. It is natural that utopianism, which before the
era of materialistically critical socialism concealed the latter within itself
in embryo, can now, coming belatedly, only be silly, stale, and reaction-
ary from the roots up... ,^82The Social-Democratic Workers' Party set up at the Gotha Congress
certainly embraced many different sorts of socialism: Johannes Most advo-
cated something very near anarchism, 'philanthropic' socialists were
legion, and Dtihring's decentralised and highly egalitarian communes
were very attractive to the Eisenach wing of the Party. Dtihring's struggle
to overcome the difficulties caused by the disability of his blindness
together with his outspoken radicalism in the face of university authority
gave him a popularity in Berlin (where he taught) that only later would
be tarnished by developing megalomania and violent anti-semitism. In
general, Diihring considered his attack on Marx to be 'from the left' and
criticised what he called Marx's Hegelian scholasticism, his economic
determinism, his dependence on Ricardo and the vagueness of his ideas
011 the future communist society. Nevertheless, in spite of his witty charac-
terisation of Marx as an 'old Young Hegelian', he rated him very high
and held his works in considerable esteem. In 1877 the Party Congress
almost passed a resolution to stop the publication of Engels' anti-Dtihring
articles. Johannes Most proposed the resolution, declaring that Engels'
articles were 'without interest for the majority of readers of VorwUrts'.m
Uebel managed to carry a compromise resolution that they be published
m a scientific supplement. In view of the 'demoralisation of the Party'
caused by Liebknecht's opening the door to all comers, Marx welcomed
the anti-socialist laws passed by Bismarck in October 1878. In the summer
two attempts on the life of Wilhelm I had naturally infuriated Marx^84 as
they at once gave Bismarck the excuse to ban all Social-Democratic
organisations, meetings and publications, a ban that was to be maintained
lor twelve years.
Marx's displeasure at the situation in Germany centred once again
around a new publication. In August 1879 there appeared the first number
of a Jahrbuch edited by three exiles in Zurich: the same Hochberg who
had started Die Zukunft, Karl Schramm (a Social-Democratic journalist),