| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 25 November 1891 |
ENGELS TO AUGUST BEBEL
IN BERLIN
London, 25 November 1891
Dear Bebel,
I had been trying to find time, in the intervals of work on Volume III[1] now proceeding at a good, brisk pace, to answer your letter of the 15th, when some news arrived which compels me to write forthwith. At a meeting at Bordeaux on the 22nd[2] Lafargue is alleged to have said that in 1870 he had servi le pays à sa manière en communiquant à M. Ranc des plans qui, si l'on en avait tenu compte, pouvaient complètement changer la face des choses. Ces plans lui étaient communiqués par des frères de l'Internationale en Allemagne, parmi lesquels se trouvaient plusieurs officiers de l'armée allemande[3] . Now Lafargue cannot have said this, but I can't for the life of me think what he did say. However, the thing is so patently silly and the accusation so monstrous that you people probably ought to reply to it before you hear what Lafargue actually said. In order to ascertain the facts, I at once wrote yesterday, and again today, to Laura and to Lafargue himself,[4] to whom I also said that you would probably have to take immediate countermeasures and that if you showed a total lack of consideration for him, he would have to lump it. Not that he really deserves any; but all the same I would beg you not to act in anger which, as so often in my own case, always leads one to do something stupid; rather you should do all you can to ensure the continuance of concerted, or at any rate parallel, action with the French workers. You will, of course, repudiate any suggestion that the above preposterous assertion could apply to yourselves—that goes without saying. You did not yourselves, directly or indirectly, send the French government in Bordeaux either military information or plans from German officers, having, so far as I know, had no connections of any kind with officers at that time. So the more vigorously you repudiate this truly insane accusation the better, though I would suggest that it would nevertheless be advisable, and also less conducive to eventual complications, for you to repudiate only the report as such, without as yet holding Lafargue responsible for it. After all, this would not preclude a further statement as soon as the text is known; I shall let you have this the moment I get it.
What Lafargue can have said and what he had in mind, I simply cannot conceive. For neither did we, the General Council of the International in this country, have any connections of any kind with German officers, and thus were never in a position to send him 'plans' of that description from gentlemen of that ilk. And even if he had been able to establish connections elsewhere in France upon his revisiting that country—I believe in 1868, after his marriage (or in 1869—I couldn't exactly say at the moment)—he concealed the fact from us so carefully that nothing whatever transpired before his return to France in 1880, nor, for that matter, has it done so since.
At all events, he has committed a quite unpardonable blunder—whether he told lies or tales out of school is something he himself must decide—and placed you people in a position such as might very well rob you of all desire for international intercourse. While I foresee the nature of the deluge that is about to engulf you, I cannot yet see how it is to be stemmed. I can only suppose that it's the eighth or sixteenth part of negro blood which flows in Lafargue's veins and occasionally gains the upper hand that has led him into this quite inexplicable folly—it is, to put it mildly, a quite inconceivable piece of stupidity.
In view of the large number of German officers who settled abroad in 1848/49 and after, there is always the possibility that something of the kind came into his hands, but to make the frères d'Allemagne[5] responsible really does take the cake.
Should you so wish, I shall at all times be prepared to testify that on no occasion during the war was the General Council of the International in a position to pass on to France information of any kind deriving from you, other than what was to be found in your own newspapers; indeed I should be prepared to make any statement that might help to clear you of the slightest suspicion of conniving at such foolishness. For if anything of the kind did happen, you people were as innocent of it as the unborn babe.
Nevertheless, these confounded vexations gave way to joy last night upon our learning from The Evening Standard of the victory in the Halle elections. This does after all go to show that, despite all the blunders made by individuals, we as a mass continue to advance.
Apropos, what I wrote on the postcard—I thought somebody over there would be able to read it—was Russian: Da zdrdvstvuyet Berlin! Long live Berlin!
But now, luckily, it's time for the post—registered, which is safer, so I shall deal with the contents of your letter in my next. The Russians would appear to be drawing in their horns; the bankers in Paris have had difficulty moving the loan and the Russian government has had to take back a third or more as unplaceable—on this occasion the unpatriotic character of capital again appears in a favourable light.
Writing to your wife[6] is another pleasure I shall have to keep in store. She will have had a letter from Louise.
Your
F.E.