Letter to Paul Lafargue, October 3, 1889

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 3 October 1889


First published in full in: F. Engels, P. et L. Lafargue, Correspondance, t. Il, Paris, 1956
Printed according to the original
Translated from the French
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 48


ENGELS TO PAUL LAFARGUE

AT LE PERREUX

London, 3 October 1889

My dear Lafargue,

So after all ours is the only Party able to register an increase in strength at the elections. Altogether, though our information is by no means complete, we can reckon on 60,000 votes for our candidates, i.e. those put forward by the groups represented at our congress[1] and, in addition, 19,000 which may be accounted ours (the candidates being neither Possibilists nor 'Radical Socialists'), but to which we would not venture to lay claim in the absence of further advice.

But how comes it that we over here have been left without any statistical information regarding the elections except for that contained in the bourgeois press, from which we cannot possibly deduce the position of all those unknown candidates? How are we to know how many votes are ours when the papers fail to classify the candidates save in the vaguest possible manner? Yet I should say that it would be very much worth your while to keep German and English Socialists informed about your doings, seeing that you no longer possess a paper through which this might be done. And, as you know, we over here are all of us ready to work in the interests of your Party as, indeed, we have always done to the very best of our ability; but if you French gentlemen will not deign to keep us au fait with las cosas de Francia[2] we shall be powerless, and more than one of our number will tire of a task so little appreciated by those for whom it is performed.

So as soon as possible after the poll send us a complete list of Socialist candidates belonging to the groups represented at our congress, as also of other Socialists (if any) who are neither Possibilists nor Radical Socialists, with the number of votes cast for each in both the first and the second ballots. We cannot here run the risk of having our facts contested by men like Hyndman, etc., as is bound to happen if we are again thrown back on our own sources of information.

At the congress you set up a National Council[3] which passed certain resolutions. Not one of you deemed it necessary to breathe a word to us about it; and if I hadn't come upon the thing by chance in the Madrid Socialista, it would not have appeared either in the German Sozialdemokrat or in the Labour Elector—and, what is more, two months after the event.

You yourselves must realise that, by carrying on in this way, you are playing into the hands of the Possibilists and of their friends in this country.

I have written and asked Bebel[4] to send some money for Guesde's election campaign, of the importance of which I am very well aware. I hope it will be voted, but it must be remembered that the Germans have already contributed 500 fr. towards the congress, 1,000 for Saint-Etienne,[5] 900 for the congress report (the first instalment of which hardly redounds to the credit of those who compiled it and who seem to have gone to undue pains to garble the names),3 2,500 for the Swiss paperb for which, furthermore, they are holding more than 3,500 fr. in reserve. In all, 8,400 fr. voted for international purposes, and this on the eve of their own general election! And, after all these sacrifices, M. Jaclard goes and gratuitously insults them in the Voix by calling them machines who vote to order.[6] As if it was the Germans' fault that the workmen of Paris are Possibilists or Radicadets[7] or Boulangists or nothing at all! It would seem that, in Jaclard's eyes, the Germans' ability to accept a majority vote and to act in concert of itself constitutes an insult to the Parisian gents, and that, if Paris marks time, the rest are forbidden to march on.

But if memory serves me aright, M. Jaclard is a Blanquist for whom Paris is therefore a holy city, Rome and Jerusalem at the same time.

To come back to the elections. If it is true that Guesde and Thivrier stand a chance, and if they are successful, we shall be vastly better placed in the Chamber than the Possibilists.—Baudin appears to be a certainty, then there's Cluseret, Boyer and Baslu,[8] one or the other of whom will succeed and, with four or five such, Guesde could form a group which would not only impress the Chamber and the public, but would also place the Possibilists in a rum sort of position. It was the co-existence in the Reichstag of our deputies and those of the Lassalleans which, more than any other circumstance, brought about a merger between the two groups, i.e. the capitulation of the Lassalleans.[9] In this case, too, our group would be the stronger and would end up by forcing the Dumays and the Joffrins to enter its orbit, so that the Possibilist leaders would have to choose between capitulation and abdication.

For the time being, however, all this is the music of the future.[10] But of one thing you may be sure, and that is that Boulangism is in extremist And to my mind that is something of the utmost significance. This has been the third attack of Bonapartist fever; the first, involving a genuine and great Bonaparte, the second a bogus ditto,d the third a man who isn't even a bogus Bonaparte, but simply a bogus hero, bogus general, bogus everything, whose chief attribute has been his black charger. And, even with this charlatan-cum-adventurer, it was a dangerous business—as you know better than I. But the acute stage of the attack, the crisis, is over, and we may hope that the French people will now cease to suffer from such Caesarean fevers—proof that its constitution has grown much more robust than it was in 1848. But the Chamber was elected to combat Boulangism and is suffering the consequences in the shape of an inherently negative character, which leads me to doubt whether it will be capable of reaching its natural term. Unless the majority becomes convinced of the necessity for constitutional revision, it will soon have to be replaced by a new Chamber with a revisionist but anti-Boulangist majority. You, being better acquainted with the elements that make up the new majority, will be able to tell me if I am wrong. But I believe that, had it not been for the Boulangist episode, there would by now already have been a revisionist republican majority, or at any rate a healthy minority.

All this if there is no war. The Portland Place HUMBUG[11] defeat will at least postpone that but, on the other hand, the amassing of armaments by all the powers will have the reverse effect. And if war does come, then goodbye to the Socialist movement for some time. Everywhere we shall be crushed, disorganised, deprived of elbow-room. France, bound to Russia's chariot wheel, will be unable to move and will have to renounce all revolutionary pretensions for fear of seeing her ally go over to the other camp. With the forces of the two sides pretty well equal, England will be in a position to tip the scales in favour of whichever side she may take. This will hold good for two or three years to come but, if war does break out later, I am willing to wager that the Germans will be beaten hollow for, within three or four years, young William[12] will have replaced all the good generals with his favourites—imbeciles or fake geniuses, like those who commanded the Austrians and Russians at Austerlitz,[13] and each with a prescription for military miracles in his pocket. And just now Berlin is swarming with that breed, which has every chance of success since young William belongs to it himself.

Give Laura a kiss from Nim and me. I shall be writing to her soon.

Yours ever,

F. E.

  1. ↑ The International (Socialist) Working Men's Congress was in session in Paris on 14-20 July 1889, on the centennial of the storming of the Bastille. In fact, it became a constituent Congress of the Second International. Taking part were 393 delegates, representing the worker and socialist parties of 20 countries of Europe and America.
    The Congress heard the reports of representatives of the socialist parties on the situation in the labour movement in their countries; it outlined the principles of international labour legislation in respective countries by supporting demands for a legislative enactment of an 8-hour working day, prohibition of child labour and steps toward the protection of the work of women and adolescents. The Congress stressed the need of political organisation of the proletariat and of a struggle for implementation of democratic demands of the working class; it spoke out for a disbandment of regular armies and their replacement by armed detachments of the people. It resolved to hold, on 1 May 1890, demonstrations and meetings in support of an 8-hour working day and labour legislation.
  2. ↑ French affairs
  3. ↑ During the International Socialist Working Men's Congress in Paris (see note 473) 206 French delegates held two separate conferences; this led to the formation of the National Council of the French Workers' Party (see note 33). Elected to the Council were Camescasse, Crepin, Dereure, Deville, Guesde, Lafargue and Laine for the practical guidance of the party. The next party congress, convened by the National Council in Lille on 11-12 October 1890, finalised the set-up and the functions of the Council. The report on the setting up of the National Council, referred to by Engels, was published in the Labour Elector, No. 38, on 28 September 1889, under the headline 'Foreign Notes: France', pl98.
  4. ↑ The whereabouts of this letter is unknown. It must have been written on 24 September 1889. On 27 September A. Bebel wrote the following in reply: 'At the moment the proposal is put to the vote whether we should give money for the French election or not. It is also my opinion that the 'money should certainly be assigned for Guesde's election if the proposal is endorsed. I have clearly stated that'. It was said in P. Lafargue's letter to E Engels of 7 October 1889, that A. Bebel, on a commission from the party leadership, had sent 500 francs for Guesde, and 610 francs for Lafargue.
  5. ↑ During the International Socialist Working Men's Congress in July 1889 the German delegates passed 1000 francs to the French delegates as relief for the families of disaster victims at one of the mines of Saint-Etienne.
  6. ↑ This article by Charles Jaclard - which he wrote for his weekly feature in the newspaper La. Voix and which he entitled 'Lundis socialistes' - was published on 30 September 1889.
  7. ↑ Cadettists was the name by which members of the Societe des Droits de L'Homme et dn Citoyen were known. The Society was set up on 25 May 1888 by bourgeois radicals and moderate republicans for combating Boulangism. The Possibilists became affiliated with this organisation. Its name came from Rue Cadet, where it was located.
  8. ↑ A reference to the forthcoming second round of the general and parliamentary election of 1889. The candidates mentioned by Engels gained a majority of votes in the first round and thus were eligible to run in the second.
  9. ↑ Refers to the unification at Gotha in 1875 of the Social Democratic Workers' Party set up in 1869 (the Eisenach party) and of the Lassallean General Association of German Workers founded in 1863. The party programme, adopted by the Gotha congress, incorporated as its essential part some of the ideas of the Lassallean agitation concept, a fact that elicited sharp criticism from Marx and Engels.
  10. ↑ The expression 'music of the future' gained popularity with the publication, in 1861, of Richard Wagner's letter to Frederic Villot, the custodian of French museums, under the title: 'Zukunftsmusik. An einen franzosischen Freund' ('Music of the Future. To a French Friend').
  11. ↑ Boulanger, who had lived in Portland Place in London
  12. ↑ William II
  13. ↑ The battle of Austerlitz (Moravia) on 2 December 1805, between the Russo-Austrian and French armies, was won by Napoleon I.