[lbo-talk] Celebrating Christmas with Engels....

[Mike Ballard]

ENGELS was not only democratic in his opinions; he was thoroughly democratic in
feeling as well. His manner of living showed in many characteristic ways that
he came from a good middle-class home, but he had chosen a girl of the lower
middle classes as his life’s companion; and in the choice of his associates he
recognised no class distinctions. At the same time he did draw distinctions.
Those who wished to be invited to his social evenings must either have done
good service in the Socialist cause, or must be of some consequence
intellectually. On the other hand, if Socialists they need not necessarily be
Marxists. In this respect there was little of the pedant about the co-founder
of the Marxist school. Even Socialists who were not Social Democrats were
tolerated. Dr. Rudolph Meyer, the friend of Karl Robertus, a
Socialist-Conservative, and formerly the publisher of the Berliner Revue, was
often among the guests at Engels’ house, during the time of his stay in London.
His passports were his expert knowledge in the sphere of political economy, and
the circumstance that he was living in exile, having been persecuted by
Bismarck. As a good East-Elber he was no enemy to alcohol, and one evening at
Engels’ he drank a regular skinful. It was extremely droll, quite conscious of
his condition, he kept on shouting, in a slightly thickened voice: “Well, well,
if any one had ever told me that I, a Prussian Conservative, should one day,
here in London, be made squiffy by the Revolutionary Communists!” This was on
Christmas Eve, and then, to be sure, such things might well befall one in
Engels’ house.

Christmas was kept by Engels after the English fashion as Charles Dickens has
so delightfully described it in The Pickwick Papers. The room is decorated with
green boughs of every kind, between which, in suitable places, the perfidious
mistletoe peeps forth, which gives every man the right to kiss any person of
the opposite sex who is standing beneath it or whom he can catch in passing. At
table the principal dish is a mighty turkey, and if the exchequer will run to
it this is supplemented by a great cooked ham. A few additional attractions –
one of which, a sweet known as tipsy-cake, is, as the name denotes, prepared
with brandy or sherry – make way for the dish of honour, the plum-pudding,
which is served up, the room having been darkened, with burning rum. Each guest
must receive his helping of pudding, liberally christened with good spirits,
before the flame dies out. This lays a foundation which may well prove
hazardous to those who do not measure their consumption of the accompanying
wines.

In this connection I cannot help thinking of an evening at Engels’ which
preceded the Christmas celebrations. It was on the day when the dough, or
rather paste, for the Christmas puddings was prepared. An enormous quantity was
made, for there was not a single friend of the house who did not receive a
Christmas pudding from 122 Regent’s Park Road. Professor Karl Schorlemmer,
Engels’ medical adviser, Dr. Gumpert of Manchester, friend Sam Moore in
Yorkshire, the old Chartist, Julian Harney in Jersey, Peter Layoff, the
honoured leader of the Russian Socialists, as well as Marx’s sons-in-law, Paul
Lafargue and Charles Longuet in Paris, various intimate friends in London, and,
if I am not mistaken, some friends in Germany as well, were always remembered.
Hence, on a given day, about a fortnight before Christmas, the lady friends of
the house turned up early in the morning, and worked on until the evening,
chopping great heaps of apples, nuts, almonds, candied peel, etc., into little
bits, and stoning and chopping pounds upon pounds of raisins; and as may be
supposed it was a thoroughly cheerful party: As the ingredients were prepared
they were put into a huge tub. Later in the evening the male friends of the
house arrived, and each of them was required to lay hold of a ladle that stood
upright in the tub, and stir the paste three times round; a by no means easy
task, which needed a good deal of muscular strength. But it had rather a
symbolical meaning, and those whose strength was inadequate were mercifully
exempted. The concluding touch was given by Engels himself, who descended into
the wine-cellar and brought up champagne, in which we drank to a merry
Christmas and many other things as well...

(Eduard Bernstein, 1915, My Years of Exile) 

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bernstein/works/1915/exile/ch09.htm 

Watch the communist manifestoon!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1oGIffyVVk

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