Letter to Paul Lafargue, October 31, 1891

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 31 October 1891


First published, in Russian, in Voprosy istorii KPSS, No. 7, Moscow, 1965
Printed according to the original
Translated from the French
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 49


ENGELS TO PAUL LAFARGUE

AT LE PERREUX

London, 31 October 1891

My dear Lafargue,

Louise and I send you our hearty congratulations on the result of last Sunday's[1] vote. 'It's magnificent' and it is 'war'.[2] True there may have been some 4,400 abstentions and missing voters, but more than 3,100 of those who abstained would have been needed to rally round your opponent if Dépasse was to surpass you by passing you (a pun, alas, passing through like an attack of diarrhoea, let's hope it will pass!). And no such thing has ever been known. And you yourself have won an intoxicating victory. So a week tomorrow we shall drink to your definitive victory[3] —though we shan't forget you tomorrow either.

I see from the newspapers sent me by you and Laura that the press, both governmental and of radical tendency, has at last been compelled to take notice of your election. The nonsense talked by Le Tempsh cannot but be of use to you. Once the ice has been broken, anything these gentlemen may say will work in your favour. Even the worthy Pelletan of La Justice has had to come down on your side.

Should you be elected, that would be a further embarrassment to the Chamber: whether to vote or whether not to vote for your release.

What on earth is this new split that is about to happen amongst the Chamber's radicals, between Millerand, Hovelacque and Moreau, on the one hand, and the bulk of the Clemencists on the other? You speak of the possibility of joining forces with the former.[4] But up to what point are they keeping in step with you? To the best of my knowledge the nominally 'socialist' radicals in the Chamber have hitherto been merely the detritus of Proudhonism and, as such, the avowed opponents of the socialisation of the means of production. And in my view it would be impossible for us to effect a merger, form a group, with people who don't subscribe to that, at any rate in principle. Alternatively I believe we might enter into a more or less temporary alliance with them, but not a merger. However there has evidently been some new development I don't know about and I shall await further word from you before forming an opinion. How truly splendid it would be if the radicals in the Chamber began to come over to our side — symptomatic indeed!

I'm delighted that you and Laura should have found my article3 both good and topical — but what will the others — Argyriades & Co. of the Almanack1 — say? In all my experience I have never had the good fortune to comply with the wishes of those gentlemen, those friends of all the world, having found that, whenever I have done an article at their request, it has always been quite different from the article they requested. Alongside the solemn lucubrations of Mr Benoit Malon and other choragi of Parisian socialism, that would be well-nigh impossible. Besides it's all one to me. I warned Laura in advance that the situation would compel me to write things that many people would find distasteful. Well, she asked for it and I obliged. I know very well that the Socialiste won't hesitate, but as for the Almanac, that's another matter. Anyway we shall publish the thing one way or another and it will probably cause a rumpus.

At Erfurt everything went off very well.[5] The jackasses of the opposition left the representatives of the whole party in no doubt that they were indeed jackasses and poltroons undeserving of sympathy. They are either fools or covert anarchists or policemen. Last night there were meetings in Berlin at which delegates had to submit their reports, thereby probably demolishing the gentlemen of the opposition.[6] Vollmar, on the other hand, has had to recant, not only at Erfurt, but also, and more specifically, at Munich[7] before his own constituents. They rejected a resolution proposed by him in which he sought, without unduly infringing the resolutions passed against him at Erfurt, to introduce various passages acknowledging the point of view he had espoused in his reactionary speeches. Vollmar himself was forced to propose a fresh resolution, viz. outright submission to the Erfurt resolutions, and this was passed unanimously. As Bebel points out in a letter to me, whoever leaves the party or is shown the door by the party is, in political terms, dead.[8] Mr Vollmar is well aware of this and has taken good care not to do something that would place him in such a position. But that won't prevent him from being the most dangerous intriguer in our party.

[9] [10]

Anyway things are going ahead in Germany and before long the same thing will happen in France. We shall, perhaps, avoid a war and, since we are slow and methodical, that may give the French a chance to overtake us again by pulling off some mighty coup. It augurs well for the fin de siècle and could put 1793 in the shade.

What idiots your bourgeois and the Russians are! In a war, England with her fleet and her command of the sea would hold the balance — which is why those gentry are impelling her into the arms of the Germans by teasing her on the subject of Egypt[11] !

Love to Laura — the Viennese women's paper[12] hasn't appeared yet — for want of money, no doubt.

Yours ever,

F.E.

  1. ↑ 25 October 11 Presumably Engels has in mind the leader 'Il y avait trois élections hier...', Le Temps, No. 11118, 27 October 1891.
  2. ↑ Engels paraphrases a saying attributed to the French general Bosquet (see Note 241).
  3. ↑ Engels means the runoff election, which was due on 8 November 1891.
  4. ↑ In his letter of 24 October 1891 Lafargue told Engels that, if elected to the Chamber of Deputies, he intended to form a single group of 60 to 80 M. P.s, consisting of socialists and those radicals who had supported him at the elections (see Note 336).
  5. ↑ In his letter to Engels of 8 September 1890 Karl Kautsky said he intended, after the Halle party congress (see Note 12), to publish in Neue Zeit a series of articles criticising the party programme adopted at the Gotha congress in 1875. The prospective authors included Engels, Bebel, Auer, Bernstein and others.
  6. ↑ Five large Social-Democratic meetings were held in Berlin on 30 October 1891, with delegates to the Erfurt Congress speaking. The speakers included, among others, August Bebel, Wilhelm Liebknecht, Paul Singer and Ignaz Auer. The main topic discussed was the congress decision on the opposition of the Jungen (see Note 301). The vast majority of the audience supported the Erfurt resolutions.
  7. ↑ Reporting on the Erfurt Congress at a Social-Democratic meeting in Munich on 26 October 1891, Vollmar regretted the expulsion by the congress of some of the leaders of the Jungen from the party (see Note 301). The meeting rejected Vollmar's draft resolution on party tactics. In its unanimously adopted resolution on the report, submitted by Carl Oertel, it declared itself in agreement with the congress decision on tactics and recommended all party members to take it as a guide.
  8. ↑ The reference is to Bebel's letter of 29 October 1891.
  9. ↑ First page of Engels' letter.TO PAUL LAFARGUE
  10. ↑ of 31 October 1891
  11. ↑ Engels means the presence of British troops in Egypt, which was part of the Ottoman Empire. France and Russia were trying to make Turkey demand their withdrawal.
  12. ↑ Arbeiterinnen Leitung