Letter to Paul Lafargue, May 19, 1892

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 19 May 1892


First published in: F. Engels, P. et L. Lafargue, Correspondance, t. III, Paris, 1959
Printed according to the original
Translated from the French
Published in English in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 49


ENGELS TO PAUL LAFARGUE[1]

AT LE PERREUX

London, 19 May 1892

My dear Lafargue,

What a rottenly organised statistical service you have over there! In Germany we should have had the results 3-4 days after the 2nd ballot, whereas such information as is to be found in the Socialiste of the 15th is barely accurate and largely incomplete.[2] But that will come in time. You'll discover that nothing fires the imagination of the masses more than a splendid, well set out array of figures announcing electoral victories. In particular this is of prime importance when it comes to making workmen realise the extent to which universal suf- frage lends strength to their arm. Don't forget to complete your statis- tics for 1 May 1892 — for comparison with the figures for the '93 par- liamentary elections when they come out. If things improve, and of that I am convinced, you will see how effective it can be when friends and enemies alike are able to ascertain what advances have been made, how much ground has been won, in a year.

After all, the winning of 22 councils and 600 seats is not to be sneezed at! 4 2 9 And the Soleil which you sent me and which, now that Bebel has finished with it here, is on its way to Adler in Vienna," confirms as much in distinctly peevish terms. Bravo!

Now what have the others gained, the Broussists,[3] Allemanists,[4]

Blanquists? The first must have had some success or lack of it at Cha- tellerault etc. etc., the second in the Ardennes, the Blanquists in Le Cher. Or did you include them in your list?

I congratulate you most of all on the fact that in France, too, Las- salle's 'single, compact, reactionary mass',[5] the all-party coalition opposed to the Socialists, is beginning to take shape. In Germany we have had this for years and in the big industrial centres the anti- Socialist mass is already mustering its forces for the 1st ballot so as to bar our way. The whole of Germany's official history, if we disregard the influence of young William's[6] entourage, a most heterogeneous

camarilla which leads him a pretty dance, is shaped, on the one hand, by Socialist influence which is causing the bourgeois parties to com- bine into one large party of straightforward resistance and, on the other, by the interplay of divergent interests amongst those parties, which draws them apart from one another. The Reichstag's legisla- tion is simply the product, the result, of the conflict between these two opposing currents, the second of which, the disintegrative cur- rent, is gradually dwindling to a trickle.

Well, the same old game is beginning in France. There is no better sign of progress, for it shows that they fear you, not as a riotous force liable to act on the spur of the moment, but as a regular, organised, political force.

I have had misgivings similar to those you express about the inex- perience of the new councillors. After the wholesale replacement of an administration there is a period of between 6 and 10 months when the seats of power are occupied by the council's permanent employees who are quite prepared to let their new masters burn their fingers in experiments of a more or less dangerous nature. This is particularly the case where the new incumbents are Socialists. They should be ad- vised to bide their time until they feel they can stand on their own feet in their new surroundings. Otherwise the old reactionary officials will wreck everything, and the blame will fall on our people.

As for the daily newspaper,[7] a fresh start must be made. I hope you will succeed better,v£.vr TIME. In any case, you will be able to set up your editorial headquarters. Are you going to have a 'political edi- tor' — Guesde?

Have you really formed a group in the Chamber or is the matter still up in the air?

A thousand greetings from Louise and Bebel 473 to Laura and you. Give her a hug in my behalf and tell her that as soon as the telephone has been properly installed, I will use it to have a cask of Pilsner sent to her.

Yours,

F.E.

Singer too is here, he is staying with the Bernsteins. LOUISE SAYS SHE WISHES LAURA WOULD TELEPHONE HER AN ARTICLE FOR VIENNA. I have just received a letter from Gumpert on Schorlemmer. You will know that the latter has been physically and mentally sick for

4 years now. In the last two years he has been unable to come here ei- ther for Christmas or for Easter. Last year, when we were to go on a sea voyage round the British Isles, he was put out of action within the first 24 hours. Recently he wrote his brother[8] and me to tell us not to write him since he was unable to answer. In reply to my en- quiry Gumpert informed me that he found Schorlemmer extremely feeble after what was a rather light case of influenza. Today he has written to tell me that this feebleness, physical and intellectual, is growing worse daily, that it is, in fact, senility pure and simple, that he had made him draw up his will, that he fears that within a very short time Schorlemmer's mental powers will be gone, and that the end is approaching. Poor devil! A talent of the first order fading away. You would not have recognised him had you seen him during these last few years—all his vivacity and good spirits are gone, he no longer takes an interest in anything. I am writing to his brother—he will be desperate. Imagine Schorlemmer dying of senility while his mother lives on in good health!

  1. ↑ In his letter of 3 September 1890 Joseph Bloch put two questions to Engels. The first concerned the interpretation of Roman historian Cornelius Nepos' statements on consanguine marriage in Ancient Greece. The second was formulated thus: 'Are economic relations the only determining moment or do they merely form, in a certain sense, a solid basis for all other relations, which can then become factors in their own right?'
  2. ↑ On 15 May 1892, Le Socialiste (No. 86), the newspaper of the French Workers' Party, published an official report of the Party's National Council on the showing of the party's candidates in the first round of the municipal elections held on 1 May 1892 (see Note 429).
  3. ↑ See this volume, p. 420.
  4. ↑ 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 con trast to them, attached great importance to propaganda within the trades unions, which they regarded as the workers' principal form of organisation. The Alleman ists' ultimate weapon was the call for a general strike. Like the Possibilists, they de nied the need for a united, centralised party and advocated autonomy and the struggle to win seats on the municipal councils.
  5. ↑ In connection with the forthcoming Erfurt Congress of the German Social- Democratic Party its Executive reprinted — in Supplement I to Vorwärts, No. 233, 6 October 1891—its own draft of the party programme and that put forward by the Editorial Board oîNeue %eil (see Note 299), and published, in the same supple ment, a number of other drafts and proposals submitted by party organisations and individuals in the course of the debate on the programme.
    The proposition concerning 'one reactionary mass', criticised here by Engels, figured in the programme of German Social-Democracy adopted at the union con gress in Gotha in 1875 (see Note 63). It was not included into the programme adopted in Erfurt.
  6. ↑ William II
  7. ↑ This concerns the plan for turning Le Socialiste, the weekly newspaper of the French Workers' Party (see Note 146), into a daily. Engels had asked Laura and Paul Lafargue to keep him informed of the progress of the negotiations. The plan failed to materialise.
  8. ↑ Ludwig Schorlemmer