ENGELS TO PAUL LAFARGUE
AT LE PERREUX
London, 25 September 1890
My dear Lafargue,
Bebel has written to say that he is in agreement with us as regards Belgium. I have now suggested that he send out invitations to a preliminary congress 'to discuss means of preventing a repetition in 1891 of what happened in 1889, namely two rival and independent working men's congresses'; to invite everyone, Belgians, Swiss, the two Danish parties,[1] Swedes, Italians (have you any addresses?), Spaniards and English (the Parliamentary Committee, the Eight Hours League,[2] the Social Democratic Federation and the Socialist League).
As to your resolution to insist on the sovereignty of the congress in respect of only 3 questions, to wit verification of mandates, drawing up of the agenda, and method of voting, it seems to me that you are treading on distinctly dangerous ground. It means that, so far as all other questions are concerned, you accept the resolutions passed by former Possibilist congresses and that, when each case crops up, you call for a fresh debate in order to get rid of these obstacles. It means that you recognise the series of Belgian-Possibilist congresses, including the London caricature of 1888,[3] as the working men's only genuine means of international representation and that you debase ours of 1889 to the status of an act of rebellion as groundless as it was fruitless.
So consider what you would be doing. You intend to propose, with no reservations other than those cited above, that there should be one man, one vote. And at the last Possibilist congress,[4] three delegates from each association were admitted. True, those three were allowed only one vote, but unless all the congress's time is to be wasted on roll-calls, how can this be verified? Whoever is going to stop the Belgians' sending three delegates from each of their little associations and lording it over the congress by courtesy of your own proposal? And how many times will you be able to extract a roll-call from a vociferously impatient congress?
It seems to me that you have been carried away by the Possibilist debacle.[5] Don't forget that from now until September 1891, when the congress will probably be held, many things can happen. Why abandon the important positions we hold today? Between now and then we may be in dire need of them. Remember that there are Possibilists pretty well everywhere, not least in Belgium.
I haven't had your paper. Has it in fact come out?
Regards,
F. E.
- ↑ The Danish Social-Democratic Party, formed in 1876, had a reformist and a revolutionary wing. The latter, led by Gerson Trier and Nikolai Petersen, was grouped round the newspaper Arbejderen. In 1889 the revolutionary minority was expelled from the party and formed an organisation of its own. However, due to the sectarian mistakes of its leaders, it failed to develop into a mass proletarian party.
- ↑ This refers to the Central Committee of representatives of radical and socialist clubs and 'new' trades unions which was set up in the spring of 1890 to organise a demonstration in London on 4 May. In the subsequent months the Committee continued its activity, its aim now being to organise the struggle for a legal eight-hour working day, the implementation of the resolutions of the 1889 International Socialist Workers' Congress and the establishment of a workers' party. In the summer of 1890 the Legal Eight Hours and International Labour League was formed on its basis.
- ↑ Engels means the London International Trades Union Congress held in November 1888. Representatives of Belgian, British, Danish, Dutch, Italian and pro-Possibilist French trades unions attended. The organisers of the congress had made participation conditional on the official election of delegates by trades unions and thereby denied access to the German and Austrian Social-Democrats and French Marxists. However, the reformist leaders of the British Trades Unions failed to impose their line. Despite their resistance, the congress appealed to the working people to fight for labour protection legislation and a legal eight-hour working day. The congress decided to call an international workers' congress in Paris in 1889, entrusting the Possibilists with its organisation.
- ↑ This refers to the campaign launched by the Possibilists in France and their supporters within the Social Democratic Federation to discredit the International Socialist Workers' Congress. Another congress, called on the Possibilists' initiative, was being held in Paris at the time. It was only attended by 13 foreign delegations, most of them representing fictitious organisations. The attempt to bring the two congresses together failed because the Possibilist congress made merger conditional on a revision of the credentials of the delegates attending the Marxist congress. The Possibilist congress declared for the restoration of the International. It decided to hold the next congress in Brussels in 1891 and instructed the Belgian Workers' Party to convoke it.
- ↑ Engels means the signs of a forthcoming dissociation within the Possibilist Workers' Party. At their congress in Châtellerault, 9 to 15 October 1890, the Possibilists split into two groups — the Broussists and the Allemanists. The latter formed an organisation of their own, the Socialist Revolutionary Workers' Party. The Allemanists retained the Possibilists' ideological and tactical principles but, in contrast to them, attached great importance to propaganda within the trades unions, which they regarded as the workers' principal form of organisation. The Allemanists' ultimate weapon was the call for a general strike. Like the Possibilists, they denied the need for a united, centralised party and advocated autonomy and the struggle to win seats on the municipal councils.