ABSTRACT
One of the last letters Engels read came from Kautsky asking advice on the agrarian question, an issue closely associated with the revolutionary strategy Engels had advanced at the end of the AntiSocialist Laws. Engels believed that the proletariat and other progressive forces would need to establish a democratic republic. In Germany this revolution might be violent, precipitated perhaps by a Junker attack on the Reich constitution. To win, the workers would want at least passive toleration from the peasantry but active support from the rural proletariat, especially that of East-Elbian Prussia. Engels predicted,
Sow the seed of social democracy among these workers, give them the courage and solidarity to insist on their rights and it is over with Junker rule. . . . The elite regiments of the Pruss ian army will become social democratic and with this will occur a shift in power which carries a whole revolution in its lap.
