Letter to Friedrich Adolph Sorge, September 27, 1890

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 27 September 1890


First published abridged in Briefe und Auszüge aus Briefen von Joh. Phil. Becker, Jos. Dietzgen, Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx u. A. an F.A. Sorge und Andere, Stuttgart, 1906 and in full in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXVIII, Moscow, 1940
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 49


ENGELS TO FRIEDRICH ADOLPH SORGE

IN HOBOKEN

London, 27 September 1890

Dear Sorge,

Both your letters of the 10th of this month have arrived. Today I am enclosing some copies of the last issue of the Sozialdemokrat with the usual newspapers. You might care to have some extra copies of this historic issue.

Your information about Schewitsch is probably correct.[1] When he passed through London, he ran into Tussy at a meeting and told her he had heard that I had expressed myself in very malicious terms about him, which was why he preferred not to call on me. I lay this at the door of the noble Jonas — though it may also have been due to the prickings of an uneasy conscience. It's the same old story as with so many Russians — une jeunesse orageuse et une vieillesse blasée[2] as one of them has put it.

Grunzig is a belletrist. And the rebellious little undergraduates in Germany are also belletrists (more triste than belle[3] ) who are out to revolutionise the whole of literature. This explains the whole business of the Volkszeitung article,[4] for the MUTUAL ASSURANCE CO. run by these gents also comprises Grunzig. Come to that, if a chap's called Grunzig or Greulich[5] he'd do best to vanish without trace.

I spent half of August and September in Folkestone near Dover, and this extra recuperation after the trip to North Cape has done me a power of good. I am refreshed and once more game for anything and, indeed, have an enormous amount to do — everybody looks to me now.

Much will now be clarified by the congresses — Lille, 9 October, French parti ouvrier[6] [7] (ours); Calais, 13 October, ditto trades unions; Halle, 12 October will be the most important.[8] I shall now tell you what is going on (for your own information — nothing whatever must get into the press about it):

The Brussels chaps, entrusted by the Possibilists with the convocation of their congress in Belgium,[9] invited the Liverpool TRADES UNION congress,[10] who accepted with alacrity. In this way the English are committed and we have been placed in something of a predicament. After consulting the people over here, therefore, I asked first the French and then the Germans[11] to pave the way for the amalgamation of both the 1891 congresses, always supposing it is possible to obtain acceptable terms, namely, sovereign powers for the congress — which the Possibilists refused to concede to us last time —, the convocation to be the responsibility of both mandatories of both the 1889 congresses, the procedure for the sending of delegates to be determined beforehand, and a few other details. The French and Germans have agreed. Since a number of representatives of foreign parties will in any case be going to Halle, I proposed that a preparatory conference be held there with a view to settling the preliminaries.[12] This, too, is well in hand. Well, I suppose that every kind of asininity will nevertheless be perpetrated there; Tussy will probably be present and put a stop to some of them but the chaps are so GUSHING in international affairs, just when this attitude is least called for, that things may take a different course from the one I have set them on. At any rate I don't rule that out. But nevertheless I think it will turn out all right.

For a start, by holding our own congress in 1889, we showed the smaller nations (the Belgians, Dutch, etc.) that we were not prepared to let them have it all their own way, and next time they'll mind their p's and q's.

Secondly, the Possibilists would appear to be in a state of complete disintegration.[13] Brousse, who controls the clique of Possibilist municipal councillors and, through them, the Labour Exchanges,[14] is openly at war with Allemane who controls the Paris trades unions and, more significantly still, is for peace with our people. Allemane wants to get into the Chamber in place of Joffrin, now defunct; Brousse wants Lavy or Gély to get in. They are so much at daggers drawn that Brousse did not dare to appear at Joffrin's funeral where Allemane acted as master of ceremonies. They have also had a row with their few supporters in the provinces. And finally their coming out in opposition to the May Day demonstration[15] did them enormous harm in the eyes of the Belgians and Dutch. Brousse and Allemane are also warring quite publicly in their papers.[16]

So favourable are the circumstances—aside from the enormous moral invigoration derived by the Germans from their electoral victory and its consequences, namely the overthrow of Bismarck and of the Anti-Socialist Law,[17] and which is directly responsible for making them the paramount party in Europe — that even with faulty tactics we can hope for victory. Either we shall succeed in obtaining fusion on a rational basis, in which case the congress will be dominated by the German and French Marxists, or the Possibilists and the few who support them will be so manifestly put in the wrong that the English (the new TRADES UNIONS) will desert them; for in that case we should again be able to conduct in this country a campaign as in the spring of 1889, and with even better success.

I am very glad that you intend to write for the Neue Zeit. If you find the conditions of payment unsatisfactory — needless to say, you must be paid at American rates — don't hesitate to tell them what you want, and refer the chaps to me. The Neue Zeit could become an organ of great importance. Bernstein will write from this country, Lafargue from Paris, and Bebel will do the weekly survey on Germany; that he can make a brilliant job of it has already been demonstrated in the Vienna Arbeiter-Zeitung. I never formed a definite opinion about events in Germany until I read Bebel's articles on them. The lucid, objective way in which he presented the facts without allowing himself to be swayed by his own preferences was unsurpassed.

The Sozialdemokrat leaves a very big gap. However, before two years are out we shall be quarrelling openly with little Willie and then we may see some fun.

Regards from Schorlemmer who is here, and from myself to you and your wife.

Your

F.E.

I expect to get the 4th edition of Capital, Vol. I shortly, whereupon you shall instantly have a copy. The preface[18] might provide matter for the Volkszeitung.

  1. ↑ In two letters of 10 September 1890 Sorge informed Engels that Schewitsch had moved to Riga after the pardon by the Tsar.
  2. ↑ a stormy youth and a blasé old age
  3. ↑ more sad than beautiful
  4. ↑ A reference to an article by Julius Grunzig headlined 'Die Vorgänge im Lager der deutschen Socialdemokratie', in New Yorker Volkszeitung, No. 217, 10 September 1890. It stated views in the spirit of the Jungen.
  5. ↑ Grunzig resembles grunzen (grunt), Greulich — greuel (horrid, dreadful).
  6. ↑ Workers' Party
  7. ↑ The Eighth Congress of the French Workers' Party met in Lille on 11 and 12 October 1890. It was attended by about 70 delegates, representing more than 200 party groups and trades unions from 97 towns and localities. The congress revised the party Rules and finally determined the composition and functions of the National Council. The following persons were elected to the Council for the period 1890-91: Jules Guesde, Louis Simon Dereure, Leon Camescasse, Quesnel, Georges Edouard Crépin, Paul Lafargue and Joseph Ferroul. Le Socialiste was made the party's official organ. The congress called for a peaceful demonstration to be held on 1 May 1891. It rejected the proposal for a general strike put forward by the 1888 Bordeaux trade union congress and pronounced for an international strike of miners as the vanguard of the working class capable of representing the interests of all workers. On the Workers' Party see Note 146.
  8. ↑ The first Congress of German Social-Democracy to be held after the repeal of the Anti-Socialist Law met in Halle between 12 and 18 October 1890. It was attended by 413 delegates and 17 guests. The congress endorsed the new party Rules adapted to the task of turning the party, under the conditions of legality, into a mass working-class organisation. It abandoned the party's hitherto operative, Lassallean programme and, on Liebknecht's proposal, decided to have a new programme drafted for the next party congress, which was to be held in Erfurt, and published three months before the congress for discussion by local party organisations and in the press. The congress also discussed the party press (Berliner Volksblatt was made the central organ) and the party's stance on strikes and boycotts. The party adopted the name Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands (Social-Democratic Party of Germany).
  9. ↑ In the autumn of 1890 the General Council of the Belgian Workers' Party, acting on a mandate from the Possibilist congress (see Note 53), sent out invitations for an international workers' congress to be held in Brussels in 1891. Since the executive committee of Swiss socialists set up on the instructions of the 1889 Paris International Socialist Workers' Congress (see Note 51) for the purpose of convoking another congress had failed to take any action until September 1890, the danger arose of two international congresses being held simultaneously in 1891.
  10. ↑ The Congress of the British Trades Unions in Liverpool met from 1 to 6 September 1890. It was attended by 460 delegates representing more than 1.4 million organised workers. A considerable number of delegates represented new trades unions, in which a certain influence was wielded by the British socialists.
    Despite resistance from the leaders of the old trades unions the congress adopted a resolution urging the legal introduction of the eight-hour working day and recognised as desirable the participation of trades unions in international workers' associations. It also decided to send delegates to the International Socialist Workers' Congress which was due to meet in Brussels (see Note 135).
  11. ↑ See this volume, pp. 28-29 and 40.
  12. ↑ The International Socialist Conference in Halle was held on 16 and 17 October 1890, while the Congress of German Social-Democracy was meeting there (see Note 12). The conference was attended by German Social-Democrats and the representatives of nine socialist parties who took part in the congress as guests. In keeping with Engels' recommendation, the conference decided to hold a united socialist congress in Brussels in 1891 (see Note 135) which was to be attended, among others, by the Possibilists and their supporters. The Possibilists' participation was made contingent on their recognising the complete sovereignty of the congress — none of the decisions of the earlier congresses, the 1889 Possibilist congress included, was to be binding on it. For details see Engels' article 'The International Workers' Congress of 1891' (present edition, Vol. 27, pp. 72-75).
  13. ↑ Engels means the signs of a forthcoming dissociation within the Possibilist Workers' Party (see Note 3). 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.
  14. ↑ The labour exchanges in France, manned by representatives of various trades unions, were mostly operated by the municipalities in large cities. The government gave them support and, not infrequently, financial aid, seeking to exploit them for diverting the workers from the class struggle. The labour exchanges created jobs for the unemployed, founded trades unions, trained union activists and organised strikes.
  15. ↑ The Possibilists refused to take part in the demonstration on 1 May 1890 on the grounds that Boulangist and other agents of the reaction were going to participate and that the demonstration might harm the cause of the working class.
  16. ↑ Le Prolétariat and Le Parti ouvrier
  17. ↑ The Anti-Socialist Law, initiated by the Bismarck government and passed by the Reichstag on 21 October 1878, was directed against the socialist and working-class movement. The Social-Democratic Party of Germany was virtually driven into the underground. All party and mass working-class organisations and their press were banned, socialist literature was subject to confiscation, Social-Democrats made the object of reprisals. However, with the active help of Marx and Engels, the Social-Democratic Party succeeded in overcoming both the opportunist (Eduard Bernstein et al.) and 'ultra-Left' (J. Most et al.) tendencies within its ranks and was able, by combining underground activities with an efficient utilisation of legal means, to use the period of the operation of the law for considerably strengthening and expanding its influence among the masses. Prolonged in 1881, 1884, 1886 and 1888, the Anti-Socialist Law was repealed on 1 October 1890. For Engels' assessment of it see his article 'Bismarck and the German Working Men's Party' (present edition, Vol. 24, pp. 407-09).
  18. ↑ F. Engels, 'Preface to the 4th German Edition of Capital, Vol. I'.