Letter to Laura Lafargue, December 17, 1890

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 17 December 1890


First published, in the language of the original (English), in: F. Engels, P. et L. Lafargue, Correspondance, t. II, Paris, 1956
Published in English in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 49


ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE

AT LE PERREUX

London, 17 December 1890

My dear Laura,

Two pieces of good news. First. Your usual box of puddings, cake and sweets, for Même and brothers, has been sent off yesterday as usual and hope will reach by Friday[1] at latest. Otherwise please apply to the Bureau des Expéditions Grande Vitesse, Gare du Nord, or at 23 Rue Dunkerque, P. Bigeault or 18 Rue Bergère, chez E. D'Odiardi.

Second. Louise Kautsky remains here for good. So my troubles are settled. She seems to like it better after all than setting other people's children into this world.[2] And we get on capitally. She superintends the house and does my secretary's work which saves my eyes and enables me to make it worth her while to give up her profession, at least for the present. She wishes me to send you her kindest regards.

Padlewski deserves a monument and a life pension. Not so much for polishing off that vile brute Seliverstov than for delivering Paris from the Russian incubus. The change in the Paris press since that execution is indeed wonderful and if a voyou[3] like Labruyère finds it to pay him to get Padlewski out of the way, the revulsion of feeling generally must be very great indeed. Even the Boulangists and the Intransigeant have to follow suit.

But it's genuine Parisian. Argument and reason is no use against this chauvinistic enthusiasm for the Czar's[4] alliance. All at once a fact occurs, which lightens up the mental darkness like a flash of lightning. Now they see that they are making themselves accomplices of this Russian official infamy, and that, if they themselves have not the courage to get out of it, a Pole has, and can they assist in sending that Pole over to bourgeois 'justice'? The enthusiasm for the Czar is at once transferred to the Poles and Nihilists, and the Czar is in for it, for his trouble and his money spent.

All the same, the effect would hardly have been so great if our people had not so constantly and determinedly attacked the Czar.

Anyhow, je m'en réjouis.[5] Pumps has all at once come round. Louise and I coaxed her a bit. After the talking to I had given her, Percy gave her another, and now she is friendliness all over, not only with Louise, but also Annie. Well, I hope it will last, and if it does not, it will be her own fault and then I shall be in a clear position and act accordingly. This time I can be master and I shall.

How is Paul's affair with Levraut getting on?

Fortin writes to say that he and Paul wished to publish the 18 Brumaire in the Socialiste but required my consent. That of course I gave him with pleasure.— He also said the Revue Socialiste wanted the same and also the Misère de la philosophie for republication. I said as to that, Marx would never forgive me if I entrusted any ms. of his to the hands of such people who were capable of making all sorts of changes in it; as to the Misère, after all the disappointments I had with that, I should consent to its republication in book-form only, and only after having full guarantees for the execution of the promise.

What Paul writes about the part of the Rothschilds in the Krach[6] Baring seems not without foundation.[7] The Barings are rich enough to pay all losses and have plenty left. So that the guarantors will be perfectly safe. But the Barings cannot remain a first rate firm and cannot therefore continue to be financial agents of the Argentine Government. There the Rothschilds will naturally step into the Barings' shoes. And in order to squeeze the Argentine Government into compliance, the French and German Argentine committees must resist the very sensible (in the interest of all parties) proposals of the London Committee, and insist upon cash payment of the coupons which the Londoners are willing to suspend for 3 years and have the amount transformed into a new debt. And the gobemouches[8] of the Paris press, payés comptant[9] work hard in the interest of the Rothschilds.

I am afraid this will be the last long letter you will have for some time. I am so overworked that correspondence will have to be confined to the necessary minimum. I have an urgent quarrel with Brentano on my hands (preface, 4th edition of Capital[10] ) and those sort of things I cannot dictate.

Love to Même.

Ever yours,

F. Engels

Bien des choses à Paul.[11]

  1. ↑ This refers to the item 'Tell Tale Straws' in Justice, No. 337, 28 June 1890.
  2. ↑ Louise Kautsky studied obstetrics in Vienna.
  3. ↑ guttersnipe, hooligan
  4. ↑ Alexander III's
  5. ↑ I am glad.
  6. ↑ row
  7. ↑ Lafargue gave his version of the Rothschilds' role in the bankruptcy of the Baring Bank in his letter to Engels of 19 November 1890. See F. Engels, P. et L. Lafargue, Correspondance, t. II, Paris, 1956, pp. 440-41.
  8. ↑ simpletons
  9. ↑ paid in cash
  10. ↑ In his preface to the fourth German edition of Volume I of Capital in June 1890 (see present edition, Vol. 35) Engels described in detail Marx's 1872 polemic with the German economist Lujo Brentano, who had accused Marx of misquoting a passage from Gladstone's parliamentary speech of 16 April 1863 in reproducing it in the Inaugural Address of the Working Men's International Association and in Volume I of Capital. Brentano's reaction to Engels' presentation of the case was the pamphlet Meine Polemik mit Karl Marx, Berlin, 1890, the introduction to which was published in Deutsches Wochenblatt, No. 45, 6 November 1890. On 4 December this journal carried a note containing two passages from Gladstone's letters to Brentano of 22 and 28 November 1890 in which Gladstone asserted that Brentano was right. Engels replied in a brief article, 'In the Case of Brentano Versus Marx' (Die Neue Zeit, 9. Jg., 1890/91, 1. Bd., Nr. 13) and, at greater length, in a pamphlet of the same title, published in April 1891, which contained a large number of documents, including the above-mentioned article (see present edition, Vol. 27).
  11. ↑ Best regards to Paul.