Letter to Friedrich Adolph Sorge, October 18, 1890

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 18 October 1890


First published 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
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 49


ENGELS TO FRIEDRICH ADOLPH SORGE

IN HOBOKEN

[London,] 18 October 1890

Dear Sorge,

The Kalender[1] has arrived — Lenchen sends her thanks! Have today sent you a whole parcel of odds and ends — relating to the congresses. The Possibilists are done for; Allemane, Clément, Faulet, etc., and the majority of the Paris workers have expelled Brousse from the party and he, in turn, has expelled them. Hence a split.[2] All that remains to Brousse are the leaders who are dependent on him (because of documents about the dirty tricks perpetrated by each of them), i. e. the municipal councillors and the paid officials of the bourse du travail,[3] and — Mr Hyndman who, to my intense glee, declared his solidarity with Brousse in the last number of Justice}'1

At all events, both factions are now ruined and in process of total disintegration, a process we must hope will not be disturbed by intervention from our people. Our congresses, on the other hand, went off splendidly. First Lille — the French 'Marxists' as a party,[4] then Calais— the TRADES UNIONS, under their direction[5] ; then Halle, the crowning of the whole. ' 2 Tussy was at Lille and Halle, Aveling at Lille and Calais. I have not yet heard how the international negotiations went at Halle.[6] At all events, throughout this week we have been second to none in the eyes of the world's press. Best wishes

Your

F. E.

  1. ↑ Pionier, Illustrirter Volks-Kalender
  2. ↑ 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.
  3. ↑ Labour Exchange 'The Split in France', Justice, No. 353, 18 October 1890.
  4. ↑ 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.
  5. ↑ The National Congress of Trade Unions, meeting in Calais from 13 to 18 October 1890, supported the resolutions of the Lille Congress (see Note 38) calling for a demonstration on 1 May and a miners' strike.
  6. ↑ 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).