Letter to Laura Lafargue, February 26, 1890

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 26 February 1890


First published in: Einheit, No. 11, 1955
Reproduced from the original
Published in English in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 48


ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE[1]

AT LE PERREUX

London, 26 February 1890

My dear Laura,

Since last Thursday evening when the telegrams announcing victory came raining in here thick and fast, we are in a constant intoxication of triumph, brought, provisionally at least, to a climax this morning by the news that we had obtained 1,341,500 votes, 587,000 more than 3 years ago. And yet—next Saturday[2] the orgy may begin again, for the stupe- faction of all Germany at our success is so enormous, the hatred against the Kartell[3] swindlers so intense, and the time for consideration so short that fresh successes, as unexpected as those of last Thursday, are quite possible, though I for one do not expect many of them.

The 20th February 1890 is the opening day of the German revolution. It may be a couple of years yet until we see a decisive crisis, and it is not impossible that we have to pass through a temporary and severe defeat. But the old stability is gone for ever. That stability rested on the super- stition that the triumvirate Bismarck, Moltke, William, was invincible and all-wise. Now William is gone and replaced by a conceited Gardelieutenant? Moltke is pensioned off, and Bismarck is very shaky in his saddle. At the very eve of this election, he and young William had a squabble over the latter's itching to play the working men's friend; Bismarck had to give way and took care to let the philistine know he had done so; he himself evidently wished for 'bad' elections, in order to give his master a lesson. Well, he has got more than he bargained for, and the two have made it up again for once. But that cannot last. The 'Second old Fritz[4] only greater', cannot and will not stand leading by the chancellor's hand, in Preussen muss der König regieren[5] —this he takes au sérieux, and the more critical the time, the more divergent will be the views of these two rivals. One thing is certain to the philistine: the man he can trust is losing his power, and the man who holds the power, he cannot trust. Confidence is gone even among the bourgeoisie.[6]

Now look at the state of parties. The Kartell[7] has lost a million votes, has had 2Vi milliions for, AV2 against itself. That ministry of Bismarck's parliamentary power has gone to smash, and all the King's horses and all the King's men cannot put Humpty Dumpty together again. To form a government majority, there are but two parties: the Catholics (centre[8] ) and the Freisinnigen.[9] The latter, although already burning with the desire to form a fresh cartel, cannot do so—as yet at least—with the Conservatives, but only with the National Liberals,[10] and that gives no majority. The Centre? Bismarck reckons upon it, and the Catholic Junkers of that party are eager enough to unite with the old Prussian Junkers. But the sole raison d'être of the Centre is hatred of Prussia, and just you try and make a Prussian government party out of that! As soon as the Centre becomes anything like that, the Catholic peasantry—its force—break loose, while the 100,000 votes the Centre had less (against 1887) have been taken away by us in the Catholic towns, see Munich, Cologne, Mainz, etc.

So this Reichstag is unmanageable. But Bismarck's last resource, a dissolution, will hardly help him. The confidence in the stability of things being gone, the supreme factor now is the discontent with the oppressive taxes and increasing dearness of living. That is the direct consequence of the fiscal and economic policy of the last 11 years, and by this Bismarck has driven the people right away into our arms. And Michel is rising against that policy. So the next Reichstag might even be worse.

Unless—Bismarck and his master—on this point they will always agree—provoke riot and fighting and crush us before we are too strong, and then alter the constitution. That is evidently what we are drifting to, and the chief danger to be avoided. Our people, you have seen, keep excellent, wonderful discipline; but we may be forced to fight before we are fully prepared—and there is the danger. But when that comes on, there will be other chances in our favour.

Nim's dinner bell—so good-bye for to-day—more about your dogs in more peaceable times—also about Paul's articles.

En attendant, vive la révolution allemande[11]

Ever yours

F. E.

  1. ↑ This letter was first published, in the language of the original (English), in F. Engels, P. et L. Lafargue, Correspondance, t. 2 (1887-1890), Paris, Ed. sociales, 1956.
  2. ↑ 1 March 1890 was the date of the second round of an election to the German Reichstag; the first round was held on 20 February 1890. As many as 20 socialist deputies were elected in the first round, and 15 in the runoff (see also note 599).
  3. ↑ The Kartell was a coalition of conservative parties - die Deutsch-Konservative Partei, die Deutsche Reichspartei (Freikonservative) und die Nationalliberale Partei - which was formed after Bismarck had dissolved the Reichstag in January 1887 (see note 15). Supporting the Bismarck government, Kartell won the election of February 1887 by obtaining the largest number of seats in the Reichstag (220). Assisted by the coalition, Bismarck was able to secure the passage of reactionary laws in the interests of the Junkers and the big bourgeoisie (imposition of protectionist tariffs, higher taxes, etc.) (see note 152). However, he could not get the Reichstag to prolong the Anti-Socialist Law. The exacerbation of differences among the parties affiliated with the Kartell and the electoral defeat of 1890, with only 135 seats secured in the Reichstag, resulted in the disintegration of the coalition.
  4. ↑ William II
  5. ↑ in earnest
  6. ↑ The Berlin dialect in the original. This refers to William II. The phrase means "King must rule in Prussia."
  7. ↑ The Kartell was a coalition of conservative parties - die Deutsch-Konservative Partei, die Deutsche Reichspartei (Freikonservative) und die Nationalliberale Partei - which was formed after Bismarck had dissolved the Reichstag in January 1887 (see note 15). Supporting the Bismarck government, Kartell won the election of February 1887 by obtaining the largest number of seats in the Reichstag (220). Assisted by the coalition, Bismarck was able to secure the passage of reactionary laws in the interests of the Junkers and the big bourgeoisie (imposition of protectionist tariffs, higher taxes, etc.) (see note 152). However, he could not get the Reichstag to prolong the Anti-Socialist Law. The exacerbation of differences among the parties affiliated with the Kartell and the electoral defeat of 1890, with only 135 seats secured in the Reichstag, resulted in the disintegration of the coalition.
  8. ↑ The Centre was a political party of German Catholics formed in June 1870. It expressed the separatist and anti-Prussian sentiments current in West and Southwest Germany. (The seats of its Reichstag deputies were in the centre of the hall, hence the name of the party.) The Centre's following consisted of socially disparate sections of Catholic clergy, landowners, bourgeois and peasants. Its deputies usually took a noncommittal attitude, manoeuvring between the pro-government parties and the Left opposition groups. Although it opposed the Bismarck government in the mid-1870s and early 1880s, the Centre voted for its measures against the working-class and socialist movement. Engels gave a detailed characterisation of the Centre in his work The Role of Force in History (see present edition, Vol. 26) and in his article 'What Now?' (see Vol. 27).
  9. ↑ The reference is to the German Party of Free Thinkers (Freisinnigen) formed in 1884 with the unification of the Party of Progress and the left-wing National-Liberals (see note 45). One of the leaders of the party thus formed was Richter, a Reichstag deputy. Reflecting the interests of the middle and petty bourgeoisie, this party was in opposition to the Bismarck government. The National-Liberals - a right-wing bourgeois political party between 1867 and 1918, first on the Prussian scale and, as of 1871, as an all-German party; one of the bulwarks of the bloc of the Junkers and the bourgeoisie.
  10. ↑ The National-Liberal Party, the party of the German and, above all, the Prussian bourgeoisie, formed in the autumn of 1866 as a result of the split of the Party of Progress. The policies of the National-Liberals reflected the capitulation of a significant part of the liberal bourgeoisie to Bismarck's Junker government, after Prussia's victory in the Austro-Prussian war of 1866 and its subsequent pre-eminence in Germany.
  11. ↑ In the meantime, long live the German revolution!