Letter to Paul Lafargue, August 27, 1890

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 27 August 1890


First published in full, in German, in Einkeil, Nr. 11, Berlin, 1955
Printed according to the original
Translated from the French
Published in English in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 49


ENGELS TO PAUL LAFARGUE

AT LE PERREUX

Bellevue Hotel, Folkestone, 27 August 1890

My dear Lafargue,

Yes, we're at the SEASIDE and what's more, until your letter of the 4th inst. reached me, no one had suggested my going to Le Per- reux, which, by the way, I should have done with much pleasure had it not been for the perfectly good reasons which I mentioned to Laura and which she evidently found acceptable at the time. We have been here for the past fortnight in a small PUBLIC HOUSE; the land- lady, a most handsome woman, looks after us very well, but the place is a long way from the sea and not FIRST CLASS. We have our fourth bed in the parlour.

As I am somewhat uncertain about my balance at the bank, being unable to compare my books, I can only send you a cheque for ten pounds, which I enclose.

There has been a students' revolt in the German party.[1] During 2 or 3 years a crowd of students, literati and other young déclassé bourgeois invaded the party, arriving just in time to take most of the editorial posts in the new papers that were then proliferating. In their usual fashion they regarded their bourgeois universities as socialist Saint-Cyrs entitling them to enter the party in the rank of officer, if not of general. These gentry all dabble in Marxism, albeit of the kind you were acquainted with in France ten years ago and of which Marx said: 'All I know is that I'm not a Marxist.' And he would doubtless say of these gentry what Heine said of his imitators: 'I sowed dragons and I reaped fleas.'

These worthies, whose impotence is equalled only by their arro- gance, found support in the new recruits to the party in Berlin — a peculiar Berlinism, combining impudence, cowardice, rodomontade and GIFT OF THE GAB, would seem to have temporarily come to the sur- face. The young university gents now had a chorus.

They attacked the deputies[2] for no reason at all and no one could explain this sudden recrudescence. The truth is that the deputies, or most of them, didn't take sufficient notice of the little wretches. Admit- tedly Liebknecht conducted the polemic on behalf of the deputies and the Central Committee with a rare lack of finesse. But then along came Bebel, their main target, who, at two meetings in Dresden and Magdeburg, proceeded to demolish two of their newspapers.[3] [4] The Berlin meeting was guarded by the police who surreptitiously egged on the opposition or else got others to do so. But it's all over never- theless and the congress is unlikely to have to concern itself further with the matter. This little stunt has done us good inasmuch as it has demonstrated the impossibility of allotting a LEADERS' role to the Berli- ners. All very well, perhaps, if they'd been Parisians—but we have had enough and more of your Parisians.

The revelations about Boulanger in Figaro must be astounding. Could you let me have them? It is sad for the 247,000 or, rather 274,000 nincompoops, who in January 1889 allowed themselves to be taken in by that bogus panjandrum.[5]

In Kovalevsky's book[6] there is an important bit in which he assigns a place between the matriarchate and the mark (or mir) community to the patriarchal family group of the kind that existed in France (Franche-Comté and Nivernais) up till 1789 and still exists today amongst the Serbs and Bulgars under the name of zadruga. He tells me that in Russia this is the generally accepted view. If the thing were to be confirmed, it would clear up a number of difficulties in Tacitus et al., while at the same time raising others. The chief fault of Kovalevsky's book lies in the illusion of legality. I shall be discussing this in the new edition of my book.[7] Another fault (not uncommon amongst Russians who dabble in science) is an exaggerated faith in recognised authorities.

Nim and Pumps send their love. Give Laura and Même a kiss from me.

Yours ever,

F.E.

  1. ↑ See this volume, p. 5.
  2. ↑ of the Social Democratic group in the German Reichstag
  3. ↑ Sächsische Arbeiter-Zeitung and Volksstimme
  4. ↑ The Social-Democratic meetings mentioned by Engels were held respectively: the one in Dresden on 10 August 1890, that in Magdeburg on 13 August and that in Berlin — scheduled for 20 August — on 25 August. All three fully endorsed the policy of Bebel and the Reichstag Social-Democratic group, led by him.
  5. ↑ The second ballot in Paris on 27 January 1889 was contested by Georges Boulanger for the Rightists, Jacques for the Republican Party, and Boules, a navvy, for the Workers' Party and the Blanquists. The Possibilists backed Jacques. The campaign was marked by high tension. Boulanger scored a major victory with a vote of about 250,000. Boules polled 17,000 votes.
  6. ↑ M. Kovalevsky, Tableau des origines et de l'évolution de la famille et de la propriété
  7. ↑ F. Engels, The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State.