Letter to Laura Lafargue, September 9, 1889

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 9 September 1889


First published, in the language of the original (English), in: F. Engels, P. et L. Lafargue, Correspondance, t. II, Paris, 1956
Published in English, abridged, in: Frederick Engels, Paul and Laura Lafargue, Correspondence. 1887-1890, Vol. 2, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1960
Published in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 48


ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE

AT LE PERREUX

London, 9 September 1889

My dear Laura,

Today I have the pleasant task of remitting you cheque for £14.6.8, one-third share of Meissner's Remittance of £43,—the account is to follow. A fourth edition of Vol. I[1] is impending, maybe before New Year we shall begin printing it.

Tussy was here yesterday with Liebknecht, his son and daughter Gertrud, Singer, Bernstein, Fischer, etc. etc. She is still over head and ears in the strike.[2] The Lord Mayor's[3] , Cardinal Manning's and Bishop of London's[4] proposals were ridiculously in favour of the Dock Companies and had never a chance of acceptance. This is the busiest time; from Christmas to April nearly no work is done at the docks, so that the real purport of delaying the advance to January would have been to delay it till April.

You will have Liebknecht in Paris in about a week, that is if you are there still. And also his wife and one or two more of the family.

Domela[5] and his Dutchmen seem to stick to their new line. Another proof that the little nations can play but a secondary part in Socialist development, while they expect to be allowed to lead. The Belgians will never give up the idea that their central situation and neutrality give them the manifest destiny of being the central seat of the future International. The Swiss are and always were philistines and petits bourgeois, the Danes had become the same and it remains to be seen whether Trier, Petersen and Co. can move them on out of this their present stagnation. And now the Dutch begin the same way. None of them can forget and will forget that at Paris the Germans and French led the way, and that they were not allowed to occupy the Congress with their pettifogging troubles. Never mind, there is a greater hope now of French, Germans and English pulling together, and if the little babies get obstreperous, nous en ferons cadeaux aux possibilistes.[6]

Liebknecht now is awfully anti-possibilistic, says they have turned out rogues and traitors and it's impossible to act with them. Whereupon I told him we knew that six months ago and told them—him and his party—so but they knew better. He pocketed that in silence. He is not at all as cock-sure of his infallibility as he used to be—at least if otherwise, he does not show it. Otherwise he is personally the opposite of what he is in correspondence—he is the old jovial hail-fellow-well-met Liebknecht.

But I must conclude. I have got the two boys[7] here who were enchanted at little Marcel's[8] letter. They have been to the Zoo and want to write to their cher papa and I must clear out from the desk.

Success to Paul in the Cher—I fully expected his fate at Cette, the town being too small not to be outvoted by the 74 hamlets making up the circonscription[9]

Nim's love.

Affectionately yours

F. E.

  1. ↑ of Capital
  2. ↑ The strike of the London dockers from 12 August to 14 September 1889 was a major event in the chronicle of the British labour movement of the late 19th century. It involved thirty thousand dockers and over thirty thousand - largely unskilled - workers of other trades not affiliated with the trade unions. Displaying tenacity and organisation, the strikers succeeded in their demands for higher wages and better working conditions. The strike contributed to stronger proletarian solidarity (with about £50,000 being donated to the strike fund) and promoted working-class solidarity. It gave rise to the dockers' union and other trade union organisations uniting a large number of general and unskilled workmen; the 'new trade unions' emerged as a result. The text of the excerpts from this letter coincides with some passages from a series of articles by E. Bernstein in the newspaper Der Sozialdemokrat (No. 35, 31 August, No. 36, 7 September and No. 37, 14 September 1889) on the London dockers' strike; these articles were written on F. Engels' advice.
  3. ↑ Henry Aaron Isaacs
  4. ↑ John Lubbock
  5. ↑ Nieuwenhuis
  6. ↑ we shall make a present of them to the Possibilists
  7. ↑ Jean and Edgar Longuet
  8. ↑ Marcel Longuet
  9. ↑ constituency