Letter to Laura Lafargue, January 6, 1892

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 6 January 1892


First published, in the language of the original (English), in: F. Engels, P. et L. Lafargue, Correspondance, t. III, Paris, 1959
Published in English in full in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 49


ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE

AT LE PERREUX

London, 6 January 1892

My dear Laura,

The pears have arrived in very good condition, the few that were urgently in want of being devoured, have been at once attended to, and the rest is being gradually, thankfully and pleasurably consumed. That the old Fry's Cocoa box should return to us with such agreeable contents, and as they say of expired directors in joint-stock companies, 'offer itself for re-election' next Christmas, was a pleasant surprise indeed.

Paul wants to know about the constitution of the Board of Health.[1] I will try to find it out, but am afraid I shall have to ask Tussy or Edward to hunt it up at the British Museum. If I only knew the year when the Board of Health was instituted, I might get the original Act of Parliament — if Sam was here, we should have it in a jiffy.

Your intermittent husband seems to be indeed seized with the fever of the wandering Jew — perhaps he wants to supersede him by the wandering Nigger[2] ? Anyhow the proposition about separation of Church and State in the sense of the Commune was the best thing he could do, it stops their mouths at once. Especially now when the French Clergy begin to face the eventuality and try to make it out that they ought to be, in that case, disestablished as the Church of Ireland was,[3] that is to say not only keep all their property, but have the salaries capitalised and bought off in a lump sum — les milliards de l'Eglise! après ceux de M. Bismarck![4] The priests are too much in a hurry for to pronounce this is to make it impossible. If the thing was kept quiet, and sprung upon the people all at once in the shape of a government proposition, the surprise might pass, and the Radicals would only be too glad to swallow it — but to have it discussed in public beforehand, is to ensure its failure. The French Republic, with its revolutionary principles of civil law, cannot buy off the Church in the way the English semi-feudal monarchy did. Here the system developed by Lassalle in Vol. 1st of his System der erworbenen Rechte16 is alone applicable, as it was exclusively applied by the Great Revolution. See Bernstein's Introduction to Lassalle's Works,[5] if you have not got it I'll try to get it. It is Lassalle's only juridical Leistung* and not a great one, but quite correct juridically. We ought to start it in France, and then set Longuet to work the Radicals in that sense.

I have to interrupt again. Old Harney is laid up with bronchitis in Richmond — same complaint which last spring brought him to the grave's edge. I must go and see him, but hope to be back in time to finish that letter. I am crushed with work, there are 1) proof-sheets and new preface of new English edition of Lage der arbeitenden Klassen in Englandl 2) revision of Edward's translation of Entwicklung des Sozialismus— with another new preface, 3) German translation of my articlel in the Almanach before anybody else seizes upon it, 4) a lot of letters to answer. And then possibly I may return to Vol. IIId where just the very difficultest chapters of all await me.

4.30 p. m. Just returned from Richmond where I found old Harney much better — hope it will last.

I suppose you have got Louise's Arbeiterinnen-Leitung with the Vienna Arbeiter-Leitung direct from Vienna. Your article reads uncommonly well, Tussy's article will be in next number,[6] and as the paper is by its nature insatiable, I can only say that all further contributions will be thankfully received, in the meantime I send you Louise's thanks which like all thanks are double-edged, viz. 1) thanks for favours received, 2) 'a sense of favours to come', as the bourgeois said.

Poor Adler is sadly overworked, and moreover, the momentary rest he gets, he only gets as the nurse of his wifel who is seriously ill — they are at Salô, Lago di Garda, for the present. And as Victor is responsible for the filling of the paper, you do an indirect kindness to him and the Austrian party by helping to fill the women's paper with good matter; the bourgeoises émancipées would only be too glad of an opportunity of deposing their crotchets and nostrums in the working women's organ.

Pumps has been out of sorts a bit, so that she could not come during the holidays, but we shall have her and the children here in the course of this month.

What in the world made Vaillant fight that fool Gégout— égout? Love from Louise and myself to both of you. And do keep in mind the obligation you are under to come over here with Paul before long. It will do some of our working men good to see a live French député socialiste. A vous de coeurh

F.E.

  1. ↑ The Boards of Health were municipal bodies in Britain concerned with health, sanitation and social security. In his letter of 31 December 1891 Paul Lafargue asked Engels to tell him about the Board of Health in London because he intended to submit to the Chamber of Deputies a proposal for the establishment of similar bodies in France.
  2. ↑ Between December 1891 and early February 1892 Paul Lafargue made several canvassing tours in France, addressing rallies and workers' meetings in Lille, Lyons, Boulogne, Bordeaux, Nantes, Toulouse and other cities. As he told Engels in his letter of 26 December, these tours were, above all, part of the campaign for the municipal elections due on 1 May 1892.
    Referring to the tours in a letter to Engels on 28 December, Laura Lafargue jokingly called her husband the wandering Jew. Engels, in his reply, alludes to Lafargue's black origin.
  3. ↑ The bill on the disestablishment of the Church in Ireland (1869) applied solely to the Church of England, which had an insignificant following in Ireland. The bill put an end to the privileges of the Anglican Church and placed it, legally and financially, on an equal footing with the Catholic and the Presbyterian Church. It abolished tithes and various ecclesiastical offices. The Church of England also had to relinquish a small part of its land holdings, whose revenue was now to be used for charity and assistance to Ireland's other Churches and also to raise the salaries of the remaining Anglican priests. The bill on the disestablishment of the Church in Ireland was passed by the Gladstone government, alongside other measures, to pacify the Irish national movement.
  4. ↑ the thousands of millions of the Church! After those of Mr Bismarck!
  5. ↑ 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).
  6. ↑ This refers to the Viennese Arbeiterinnen-Zeitung. Engels' phrase 'Hyaena-paper' is based on Schiller's Song of the Bell, which compares women revolutionaries to hyaenas.
    The first issue of the newspaper, which appeared on 1 January 1892, carried contributions by Laura Lafargue, 'Ein Gruß aus Frankreich', and Louise Kautsky, 'Aus England'. On 5 February an article by Eleanor Marx-Aveling, 'Wie sollen wir organisieren?', was published.