ENGELS TO WILHELM LIEBKNECHT
IN BORSDORF NEAR LEIPZIG
London, 16 April 1888
Dear Liebknecht,
I was on the point of answering your letter of the 4th when your second one arrived with an enclosure for Karl Kautsky and giving me to understand that my answers no less than your questions were already things of the past.
All I want to do now is point out how this is connected with the Social Democratic Federation's circular.[1]
1. The Social Democratic Federation still poses as the only socialist organisation in England and the only one entitled to act and speak on behalf of the movement over here as a whole. This was why it was necessary, having regard to the preparations for the congress, to emphasise that position, the more so as the Socialist League[2] in its present form will probably fizzle out before long and the Social Democratic Federation would like to absorb the disjecta membra.[3] Fortunately, however, that won't come off, for if it did the same old personal squabbles would at once begin all over again.
2. The Social Democratic Federation is closely in league with the Possibilists in Paris and, since these in their turn are in league with Broadhurst & Co.,[4] the Social Democratic Federation must manoeuvre. This second reason is the crucial one. Hyndman & Co. have become so deeply embroiled with the Possibilists that they can no longer draw back, even if they wanted to.
My opinion of all this congress business? I'm barely capable of expressing one, since I haven't the faintest idea of what has been discussed and anyway views change, kaleidoscope-fashion, even in your own case. By and large I regard all such congresses as exceedingly risky unless one is absolutely sure of success from the outset and, unless something definite and attainable is to be discussed, as somewhat unnecessary. The small fry, in particular the Belgians, have the chief say and, since the foreign department in Belgium is run, not by the Flemings, but by the old Brussels clique—the Brismée family—the same old dish is served up every time. But to want to hold your congress over here,[5] one week after the Trades Unions have held theirs, would spell utter ruin. Your funds would be used up, your people would run off and you'd be irredeemably delivered up into the arms of London's wirepullers—ad majorem gloriam Hyndmanni.[6]
That Geneva is the place where the French—never mind what sort—ought to hold a congress to celebrate the French Revolution of 1789 and à propos of the Paris Exhibition[7] is something you'll certainly never get them to believe.
So even if your congress doesn't materialise, it will, in my view, be no great disaster. In any case the agenda is needlessly restricted. A congress convoked by our Reichstag group would, after all, be attended exclusively by socialists and anarchists, not by Trade Unionists pure and simple. A social-democratic congress could throw the anarchists out, a general workingmen's congress cannot, and they are capable of being thoroughly obstreperous.
Fritz had better make haste and perk up—from the point of view of his health; otherwise Bismarck will prove too much for him. I hope that Bismarck goes too far and gets sacked, the dissolution to be followed by fresh elections under some sort of interim administration. That would provide a nice dose of désillusionnement for the philistines. But obviously when you may be condemned any day to have your throat slit by the doctors[8] you're unlikely to have much zest for a serious fight. And on his own showing Bismarck is already defending himself tooth and claw.
Kindest regards.
Your
F. E.
Was the stuff we sent you on Saturday what you wanted? If not, there has been a misunderstanding. The German is by Eccarius.[9]
- ↑ Engels means Die Erklärung der Sozialdemokratischen Föderation Englands in Sachen des nach London einberufenen internationalen Gewerkschaftskongresses which was published by the newspaper Sozialdemokrat on 14 April 1888. The Declaration came in view of the intended convocation by the British trade unions of an international congress of labour unions in November 1888 (see note 165). The Declaration was a response to the protest of the German Social Democrats against the decision of the Parliamentary Committee of the Trades Unions Congress of Great Britain (see note 269) on conditions for representation at the Congress: only delegates officially elected by trade unions were to attend. Thereby the German Social Democrats were unable to take part on account of the enforcement of the Anti-Socialist law in Germany. In its Declaration the Social Democratic Federation voiced its discontent at the protest of the German Social Democrats.
- ↑ The Socialist League was founded in December 1884 by a group of English socialists who had withdrawn from the Social Democratic Federation (see note 62). The League's organisers included Eleanor Marx Aveling, Ernest Belfort Bax and William Morris. 'The Manifesto of the Socialist League' (see The Commonweal No. 1, February 1885) stated that its members advocated 'the principles of Revolutionary International Socialism' and sought 'a change in the basis of Society ... which would destroy the distinctions of classes and nationalities'. The tasks of the League included the formation of a national socialist party, the conquest of political power through the election of socialists to local government bodies, and the promotion of the trade union and co-operative movement. In the League's early years its leaders took an active part in the working-class movement. However, in 1887 the League split into three factions (Anarchist elements, 'parliamentarists' and 'anti-parliamentarists'). With sectarian tendencies growing stronger, the League gradually distanced itself from the day-to-day struggle of the British workers and finally disintegrated in 1889-90.
- ↑ scattered limbs (Horace, Satires, I, 4)
- ↑ The reference is to the rapprochement of the leadership of the Social Democratic Federation (see note 62) and the Possibilists (see note 19). Starting in 1884, the Federation, acting through its organ Justice, conducted a broad campaign in support of the Possibilists; it recognised them as the principal organisation of French Socialists and maintained no relations with the French Workers' Party (see note 33). The Social Democratic Federation was the only socialist organisation to support the Possibilist International Congress in Paris in 1889 (see note 478). An allusion to the Parliamentary Committee, an executive body of The Trades Union Congress of Great Britain formed in 1868 and uniting the British trade unions. As of 1871 the Parliamentary Committee was annually elected by Trades Union Congresses as a steering body of the trade unions in between the congresses. It was designed to nominate trade union MPs, support draft bills tabled in the interests of the trade unions, and prepare regular union congresses. Henry Broadhurst was the parliamentary Committee's Secretary from 1875 to 1890. In 1921 the Parliamentary Committee was replaced with the Trades Union Congress General Council.
- ↑ The Congress of the German Social Democratic Party at St Gallen (see note 174) passed a decision to convene an international labour congress in 1888. However, the party's Executive stated its readiness to refrain from the convocation of that congress and to participate in a congress being convened in London by the Parliamentary Committee of the British Trades Unions (see note 165). Following its unsuccessful negotiations with the Parliamentary Committee which had stipulated unacceptable conditions for representation of German Social Democracy at the London congress, the party's Executive reverted to the resolution of its congress.
- ↑ to the greater glory of Hyndman
- ↑ The international exhibition which was to be held in Paris in 1889
- ↑ Frederick III had larynx cancer
- ↑ Probably the reference is to the work of Johann Georg Eccarius Eines Arbeiters Widerlegung der national-ökonomischen Lehren John Stuart Mill's republished by the Social Democratic Publishers of Zurich in 1888. Originally written in English for the journal The Commonweal (10.11.1866, 27.3.1867), it first appeared in German in 1869 as a pamphlet in Eccarius' translation.