Letter to Friedrich Adolph Sorge, April 30, 1890

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 30 April 1890


Part of this letter, in the language of the original, was first published in Die New Yorker Volksezeitung on 10 May 1890. A fragment of the letter was published in English for the first time in Labour Monthly, 1934, No. 5, pp. 309-11
Published in English in full in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 48


ENGELS TO FRIEDRICH ADOLPH SORGE

IN HOBOKEN

London, 30 April 1890

Dear Sorge

If, next Sunday, a gigantic demonstration for the eight hour day takes place here in London, this will be thanks only to Tussy and Aveling. Tussy represents her Silvertown working women on the council of the Gasworkers' and General Labourers' Union and enjoys so much popularity on that Council that no one calls her anything but our mother. The gas workers—the best of the new Unions—were greatly in favour of the 8 hours demonstration for, besides having fought for and secured an 8 hour day for themselves, they had also learnt how insecure in practice is such an achievement, liable as it is to being reversed by the capitalists

"Katharina Sorge - b How awful!

at the first opportunity; for the gas workers as for the Miners, the main thing is that it should be legally established.

Thus it was the gasworkers and the Bloomsbury Socialist Society[1] (the best section, which seceded from the Socialist League 2 years ago and of which Lessner, Tussy and Aveling are members) who initiated the thing, and obtained a strong following among the smaller Trades Unions and the Radical Clubs,[2] which are increasingly splitting up into socialist working men's clubs and middle-class Gladstonian clubs. In all sincerity, they approached the London Trades Council[3] and suggested they take part in the proposed demonstration in Hyde Park. That body (next year it, too, will be in our hands), consisting mainly of representatives of the old skilled Trades Unions, realised that there was no avoiding the thing and attempted to gain control of it by a coup de main.

In collusion with the Social Democratic Federation[4] (Hyndman), they applied to the Commissioner of Works and reserved Hyde Park for the 4th of May, something the others had as yet failed to do. For whenever a large meeting is to be held in the park, prior notice must be given to the Commissioner of Works, who then stipulates how many platforms may be erected, etc. Since the regulations also prohibit the holding of any other meeting at the same time on the same day, these gentlemen imagined they now had the upper hand and, having monopolised the park, would be able to order the original committee about.[5] They had applied for 7 platforms, intending to allow the Social Democratic Federation to have two of them—thus, or so they thought, preserving a semblance of impartiality towards the socialists while at the same time gaining a socialist ally.

Hence they decided that only Trades Societies, not political associations (thus excluding the clubs), were to parade with banners and provide speakers. They edited the resolution, omitting all mention of the legal 8 hours day and referring only to the 8 hours to be striven for by means of Trades Union action. Not till they had arranged the procession, the routes to be taken, etc., did they call a meeting of delegates—of Trades Societies only. When this took place, 1. Tussy was not admitted on the grounds that she was not herself employed in the calling she represented! (and yet Mr Shipton, the secretary of the Trades Council, hasn't done a hand's turn in his trade for 15 or 16 years!!) 2. An amendment calling for the re-introduction of the legal 8 hours day into the resolution was not allowed to be put to the vote or debated—this matter having already been settledl 3. The delegates were given plainly to understand that the Trades Council was the man in possession, that the Park was his for the 4th of May, and if they did not like it they could leave it alone.

Much wrath and consternation among the delegates of the original committee. The following day the tables were turned, however. Aveling went to the commissioner of Works and told him that, unless the original committee were simultaneously awarded a sufficient number of platforms, there would be a set-to; luckily the Tories are in power (the Liberals would have prevaricated and conceded nothing) and cannot afford to make any more enemies amongst the workers—Aveling was awarded seven platforms, and now it was the turn of the gentlemen on the Trades Council to eat humble pie, for a clash at this juncture would really have shown how weak they were.

Our committee then buckled to, settling the details of its plans and of the routes to be taken by the procession—these it published forthwith—and thus was first to be ready. Yesterday Aveling and Shipton met and so arranged matters as to preclude all possibility of a clash, which means that Sunday's meeting will be one of the biggest there has ever been.

You may get this published in the Volkszeitung and also in the Workmen's Advocate; I should be only too pleased if it were to come back to the gentlemen in English from America.

I am now sending you a few Stars, which will be comprehensible to you in the light of the above (NB each article as a rule contains news emanating both from our side and from the other lot, in addition to that obtained by the reporters themselves, all of it lumped together indiscriminately).

Further, the May number of Time. Also a bundle of Combats (belongs to us, Guesde editor-in-chief) and with them the Vienna Arbeiter-Zeitung. The object of the threats of expulsion in Bebel's article[6] is Schippel—one of the chief intriguers and a great adept in sharp practice, whom Liebknecht discovered several years ago and introduced into the party but now mortally detests. Luckily Schippel is a coward, like Hyndman.

This is our first major victory in London and it shows that we now have the masses behind us in this country too. Four strong branches of the Social Democratic Federation, which is to have two platforms of its own, will be marching with us and are represented on our committee. The same applies to many of the skilled trades—the old, traditional leaders side with Shipton and the Trades Council—the majority with us. The whole of the East End is on our side. The masses over here, though not yet socialist, are well on the way there and have already got to the stage

  1. ↑ The Bloomsbury Socialist Society, which had the local branch of the Socialist League (see note 21) as a nucleus, took form as an independent organisation in August 1888, after breaking with the Socialist League where anarchist elements had gained the upper hand. The Society was led by E. Marx-Aveling and E. Aveling; one of its members was F. Lessner, a friend and associate of Marx and Engels. In subsequent years the Bloomsbury Socialist Society carried on active propaganda and agitation work in London's East End. It was one of the organisers of the May Day demonstration of 1890. Its representatives were among the Central Committee that organised a meeting in London's Hyde Park on 4 May 1890 (see note 643).
  2. ↑ Radical Clubs began to emerge in London and other cities in the 1870s. They consisted of bourgeois radicals and workers. In the Clubs of London's poorer areas, such as the East End, the workers predominated. The Clubs criticised the Irish policy of Gladstone's Liberal government and urged an extension of the suffrage and other democratic reforms. From the early 1880s they engaged in socialist propaganda. In 1885 London's Radical Clubs united in the Metropolitan Radical Federation.
  3. ↑ The London Trades Council was elected at a conference of trade union delegates held in London in May 1860. The Council headed the London trade unions, numbering many thousands and was fairly influential among the British workers. In the first half of the 1860s it led the British workers' campaign against intervention in the Civil War in the United States, in defence of Poland and Italy, and later for the legislation of the trade unions. The leaders of the large trade unions played a major role in the Council.
  4. ↑ The Social Democratic Federation was a British socialist organisation, the successor of the Democratic Federation, reformed in August 1884. It consisted of heterogeneous socialist elements, mostly intellectuals, but also politically active workers. The programme of the Federation provided for the collectivisation of the means of production, distribution and exchange. Its leader, Henry Hyndman, was dictatorial and arbitrary, and his supporters among the Federation's leaders denied the need to work among the trade unions. In contrast to Hyndman, the Federation members grouped round Eleanor Marx-Aveling, Edward Aveling, William Morris and Tom Mann sought close ties with the mass working-class movement. In December 1884, differences on questions of tactics and international co-operation led to a split in the Federation and the establishment of the independent socialist league (see note 21). In 1885-86 the Federation's branches were active in the movement of the unemployed, in strike struggles and in the campaign for the eight-hour day.
  5. ↑ The reference is to the 'Central Committee of representatives of ' new trade unions' and of radical and socialist clubs (about the radical clubs, see note 22) set up for organising the 4 May demonstration in London. The Committee continued its activities in subsequent months in pursuit of the struggle for a law on a eight-hour working day and for implementing the decisions of the socialist International Working Men's Congress of 1889; it came out for setting up a workingmen's party. The leader of the Central Committee was E. Aveling, who maintained close contacts with Engels. In July 1890 the Committee gave rise to an organisation which came to be known as 'The Legal Eight Hours and International Labour League'.
  6. ↑ A. Bebel's report was published in Die Arbeiter-Zeitung, No. 17, on 25 April 1890 in the regular feature: 'Ausland. Deutschland' and marked: 'Berlin 22 April'.