page 98 NOTES   [1] The Housing Question by F. Engels consists of three parts all written during a sharp controversy in which Engels was attacking bourgeois and petty-bourgeois schemes for solving the housing question.     Part One is a direct reply to the anonymous articles under the heading "The Housing Question" which were reprinted by the newspaper Volksstaat (Nos. 10, 11, 12, 13, 15 and 19 for February 3, 7, 10, 14 and 21 and March 6, 1872) after first appearing in the Austrian workers' newspaper Volkswille. It later transpired that the author was the Proudhonist A. Mülberger, doctor of medicine. On May 7, 1872, Engels wrote to Liebknecht: "As soon as I have time I shall write you an article on the housing shortage attacking the absurd Proudhonist views on this question contained in a number of articles in Volksstaat ". By May 22, 1872 he had written Part One entitled "How Proudhon Solves the Housing Question" which was published in Volksstaat Nos. 51, 52 and 53 for June 26, 29 and July 3, 1872.     During October 1872 Engels wrote Part Two of his work entitled "How the Bourgeoisie Solves the Housing Question". In it he criticised the bourgeois, philanthropic methods of solving the housing question which had beon set forth more fully in E. Sax's book, The Housing Conditions of the Working Classes and Their Reform. This part was published in Volksstaat Nos. 103 and 104 for December 25 and 28, 1872 and in Nos. 2 and 3 for January 4 and 8, 1873.     Part Three of Engels's work was written as a new reply to Mülberger who had been given an opportunity by the Volksstaat to reply to Engels's criticism on its pages. Engels worked on this part in January 1873, and it was printed under the heading "Supplement on Proudhon and the Housing Question" in Volksstaat Nos. 12, 13, 15 and 16 for February 8, 12, 19 and 22, 1873.     After publication in the newspaper Volksstaat all three parts of Engels's work were issued as separate pamphlets by the Volksstaat Publishers, the flrst two, Zur Wohnungsfrage and Zur Wohnungsfrage. Zweites Heft. "Wie die Bourgeoisie die Wohnungsfrage löst", appeared in 1872 and the last, Zur Wohnungsfrage. Drittes Heft. "Nachtrag über Proudhon und die Wohnungsfrage", in 1873. Part two was also printed by the newspaper Volkswille Nos. 3-9 for January 1873. page 99     In 1887 this work was reprinted under the tille Zur Wohnungsfrage. Zweite, durchgeschene Autlage. Hottingen-Zürich, 1887. In preparing this edition Engels introduced certain amendments and additions to the original text and wrote a preface to it.    [table of contents]   [2] Volksstaat (People's State ): central organ of the German Social-Democratic Party (Eisenachers) published in Leipzig from October 2, 1869 to Seplember 29, 1876 (initially twice a week, and from July 1873 three times a week). The newspaper expressed the views of the revolutionary section in the German working-class movement. It was repeatedly persecuted by the government and the police for its bold revolutimlary statements. Its editorial board kept changing as a result of the arrests of the editors, but the paper remained under the general guidance of Wilhelm Liebknecht. August Bebel, head of the Volksstaat publishing house, also played an important role.     Marx and Engels had close contacts with thc editorial board of the newspaper which regularly carried their articles. They attached great importance to the Volksstaat, followed its activities closely and criticised its mistakes, thus helping it to follow a correct line. As a result it was one of the best workers' newspapers of the seventies.    [p.5]   [3] This refers to the five thousand million franc indemnity imposed on France under the Treaty of Frankfurt signed in 1871 at the end of the Franco-Prussian War.    [p.5]   [4] A. Mülberger's reply to F. Engels's articles was published in the newspaper Volksstaat for October 26, 1872, under the title of "Zur Wohnungsfrage (Antwort am Friedrich Engels von A. Mülberger)."    [p.6]   [5] See p. 34-35 of this book and Note 16.    [p.6]   [6] The Neuva Federacion Madrilena (New Madrid Federation) was founded on July 8, 1872, by La Emancipacion editors who had been expelled from the Madrid Federation by its anarchist majority after the newspaper had exposed the activities of the secret Social Democrat Alliance in Spain. After the Spanish Federal Council refused to admit it, the New Madrid Federation applied to the General Council which recognised it as a federation of the International on August 15, 1872. The New Madrid Federation waged a determined struggle against anarchist influence in Spain, spread scientiftc socialism and fought for the creation of an independent proletarian party in Spain. Engels contributed to La Emancipacion. The New Madrid Federation members founded the Socialist Workers' Party of Spain in 1879.    [p.7]   [7] This refers to representatives of Katheder-Socialism: a trend in bourgeois ideology between the 1870s and 1890s. Its representa- page 100 tives, primarily professors at German universities, preached bourgeois reformism under the guise of socialism from university chairs or "Katheders" and the trend became known ironically as "Kathedersozialismus". It sprang from the exploiting classes' fear of the growing influence of Marxism and the upswing of the working-class movement, and also from the bourgeois ideologists' attempts to find new ways of suppressing the working masses. Its adherents claimed that the state was a supra-class institution capable of reconciling the hostile classes and introducing socialism gradually without infringing on the interests of the capitalists. Their programme was limited to introducing insurance against sickness and accident and certain measures in the sphere of factory legislation, etc., with the aim of diverting workers from the class struggle. Katheder-Socialism was one of the ideological sources of revisionism.    [p.8]   [8] The Anti-Socialist Law was introduced in Germany by the Bismarck government with the support of the Reichstag majority on October 21, 1878. According to this law all organisations of the Social-Democratic Party, mass workers' organisations and socialist and workers' publications were prohibited, socialist literature was made subject to confiscation and Social-Democrats were persecuted. However, with the active assistance of Marx and Engels, the Social-Democratic Party succeeded in overcoming the opportunist and "ultra-Left" elements in its ranks, and greatly strengthened and extended its influence on the masses by correctly combining legal and illegal activities while the Anti-Socialist Law was in force. Under pressure from the mass labour movement the law was repealed on October 1, 1890.    [p.9]   [9] The Eifel area (the Rhenish province of Prussia) was little suited to agriculture due to its soil and climatic conditions -- mountains and vast areas of bogs and barren land. It was farmed by small peasants with backward methods. This resulted in periodic crop failures and growing poverty. In this article Engels refers to events which took place in 1882 when after a few years of bad harvests and steadily falling prices for agricultural produce the Eifel area was stricken with famine.    [p.10]   [10] Thirty Years' War (1618-48) -- a general European war caused by the feud between Protestants and Catholics. Germany was the chief scene of the hostilities and was made the object of military looting and the expansionist ambitions of rival foreign powers. The war ended in 1648 with the Treaty of Westphalia, which sealed the political fragmentation of Germany.    [p.10]   [11] This refers to the uprising of Ihe Paris proletariat on June 23-26, 1848 and to the Paris Commune of 1871.    [p.14]   [12] An allusion to the biblical legend according to which during the page 101 exodus of the Israelites from Egypt the faint-hearted among them were driven by the hardships of the journey to long for the days in captivity when at least they had enough to eat.    [p.23]   [13] Bazaars for the equitable exchange of products of labour were established by workers' co-operatives in various British towns. The first one, known as the Equitable Labour Exchange Bazaar, was established by Robert Owen in September 1832 in London and existed until the middle of 1834. At these bazaars the products of different trades were exchanged through the medium of labour notes, whose unit of value was a single working hour. These establishments were a Utopian attempt at organising a money-free exchange in a capitalist economy and soon went bankrupt.    [p.29]   [14] La Emancipacion -- a weekly newspaper, organ of the Marxist sections of the First International in Spain, appeared in Madrid from June 1871 to 1873. See Note 6.    [p.29]   [15] The last two paragraphs were worded as follows in Volksstaat No. 53 for July 3, 1872:     "We have seen above that the rent price (Mietpreis), commonly called house rent (Mietzins), is composed as follows: 1) a part which is ground rent; 2) a part which is profit (not interest) on the building capital; 3) a part to cover repairs, maintenance and insurance. Interest on capital is included in the house rent only when the house is mortgaged.     "And now it must have become clear even to the blindest that 'the owner himself would be the first to agree to a sale because otherwise his house would remain unused and the capital invested in it would be simply useless.' Of course. If the interest on loaned capital is abolished no house-owner can thereafter obtain a penny piece in rent for his house, simply because house rent [Miete] may be spoken of as rent interest [Mietzins]. Sawbones is sawbones."     In Engels's The Housing Question, Part I, published as a separate pamphlet by the Volksstaat publishing house in 1872, there is the following note to the phrase "Interest on capital is included in the house rent only when the house is mortgaged":     "For the capitalist who purchases a house a part of the price rent which consists of ground rent and building expenses may appear as interest on capital. But it makes no difference for him whether the house-owner lets his house himself or sells it to another capitalist for the same purpose".     In preparing the second edition of his work in 1887 Engels edited these two paragraphs and made a number of amendments (see present edition pp. 6-7).     The present edition follows the 1887 edition version of these two paragraphs.    [p.35]   [16] The reference is to Proudhon's Système des contradictions économiques, ou Philosophie de la misère, T. I-II, Paris, 1846.    [p.37]   [17] E. Sax, Die Wohnungszuslände der arbeitenden Klassen und ihre Reform, Vienna, 1869.    [p.39]   [18] Illustrated London News -- illustrated weekly founded in 1842. Ueber Land und Meer (On Land and Sea ) -- German illustrated weekly which appeared in Stuttgart from 1858 to 1923.     Gartenlaube -- the abbreviated name of the German petty-bourgeois literary weekly Die Gartenlaube. Illustriertes Familien-Blatt (Arbour. Illustrated Family Magazine), which appeared from 1853 to 1903 in Leipzig and from 1903 to 1943 in Berlin.     Kladderadatsch -- illustrated satirical weekiy published in Berlin from 1848 onwards.     Fusilier August Kutschke -- the poet Gotthelf Hoffman, who wrote a nationalist soldiers' song during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71.    [p.40]   [19] Le Socialiste -- French weekly newspaper founded by Jules Guesde in Paris in 1885. It was the organ of the Workers' Party until 1902, then the organ of the Socialist Party of France from 1902 until 1905 when it became the organ of the French Socialist Party.     Articles on the colonies in Guise were published in Le Socialiste Nos. 45 and 48 for July 3 and 24, 1886.    [p.50]   [20] Harmony Hall -- the name of the communist colony founded by the British Utopian Socialists headed by Robert Owen at the end of 1839 in Hampshire. It existed until 1845.    [p.50]   [21] See V. A. Huber, Sociale Fragen. "IV. Die Latente Association", Nordhausen, 1866.    [p.51]   [22] Engels is referring to allegations made by the German bourgeois economist Adolf Wagner in a number of his books and speeches to the effect that the economic revival in Germany after the Franco-Prussian War and particularly the five thousand million franc indemnity would considerably improve the condition of the working people.    [p.68]   [23] The reference is to the conferences of the German and Austrian emperors and their chancellors which took place at Gastein in August 1871 and in Salzburg in Seplember 1871 to discuss measures for combatting the International. Engels calls these conferences the Stieber conferences after the name of the head of the Prussian political police Stieber, thus emphasising their reactionary nature.    [p.68]   [24] Blanquists -- adherents of the trend in the French Socialist movement headed by an outstanding French Utopian Communist Louis Auguste Blanqui (1805-81).     They supported secret conspiratorial action in place of revolution- page 103 ary party activily, ignored the factors necessary for the nctory of an uprising and scorned contact with the masses.    [p.74]   [25] "Internationale et révolution. Apropos du congrès de la Haye par des réfugiés de la Commune, ex-membres du Conseil Général de l'Internationale", London, 1872.    [p.74]   [26] Mülberger's articles published in February and early March 1872 in Volksstaat were later put out as an off-print: A. Mülberger, Die Wohnungsfrage. Eine sociale Skizze. Separat Abdruck aus dem "Volksstaat", Leipzig, 1872, S. 25.    [p.77]   [27] P. J. Proudhon, Idéé générale de la Révolution au XIX siècle, Paris, 1868.    [p.82]   [28] See Note 16.    [p.82]   [29] P. J. Proudhon, De la justice dans la révolution et dans l'église. T. 1-3, Paris, 1858.    [p.82]   [30] P. J. Proudhon, La guerre et la paix, T. 1-2, Paris, 1869.    [p.84]   [31] Malthusianism -- the reactionary theories of the English economist Thomas Robert Malthus who maintained in his work, An Essay on the Principle of Population, that the population growth exceeds and always will exceed the output of consumer goods and that as a result of this "absolute law of population" poverty and hunger are the unavoidable lot of the masses. Proceeding from this "law" Malthus's followers assert that wars, epidemics and natural disasters have a "beneficial" effect upon the development of mankind because they reduce the population.     Karl Marx proved the fallacious reactionary character of Malthusianism and demonstrated that there is no natural law of population common to all stages of development of human society, that every socio-economic formation has its specific law of population, that the cause of the impoverishment of the working masses under capitalism lies in the capitalist mode of production which engenders mass unemployment and other social evils, and that the transition to the communist mode of production will ensure such a high level of labour productivity and such an increase in the output of consumer goods that every man will be able to fully satisfy his needs.    [p.84]   [32] Uncle Bräsig -- a comical character in the works of the German humorist and novelist Fritz Reuter.    [p.84]   [33] F. Lassalle, Das System der erworbenen Rechte. Eine Versöhnung des positiven Rechts und der Rechtsphilosophie. Th. 1, Leipzig, 1861.    [p.84]   [34] The reference is to the administrative reform carried out under the District Ordinance for the Provinces of Prussia, Brandenburg, Pomerania, Poznan, Silesia and Saxony passed by the Prussian Government on December 13, 1872. The reform authorised communities to elect elders who had previously been nominated by the landlords.    [p.86]   [35] Engels paraphrases here the words of Mephistopheles from Goethe's Faust, Part I, Scene 6.    [p.91]   [36] Engels, acting secretary-correspondent for Denmark, was aware of the great achievements of Danish Socialists in disseminating the decisions of the International on the agrarian question from his correspondence with the Danish Socialist Louis Pio. In a letter to Louis Pio at the end of April 1872 Engels praises highly the article on the socialist transformation of agriculture through co-operatives which was published in the Copenhagen newspaper Socialisten and reprinted by all the periodicals of the International. Engels stresses that "thanks to local conditions and their great political ability the Danes are now in the vanguard on this extremely important question of enlisting the small peasants and landless peasants into the proletarian movement".    [p.94]