| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 22 January 1895 |
ENGELS TO PAUL LAFARGUE
AT LE PERREUX
London, 22 January 1895
My dear Lafargue,
How lucky you are, you French! You bring down a Ministerd; then the whole Cabinet follows him and by way of aftereffect the President of the Republic is involved in the general collapse.[1] Three Cabinets and one President finished off 484—that's not doing too badly. The socialist group seems to have succeeded to the role of the late Clemenceau 488—and will play it better, I hope. It is now established that no ministry can exist without at least the help of the extreme Left. That will lead to the dissolution, to which the growing stench of the opportunists' corruption is also leading. 87 In which case you will be returned in greater strength, both numerically and morally; that can lead to the formation of Lassalle's 'great reactionary mass', 214 the coalition of all the bourgeois parties against socialism, a mass which is always formed at a time of danger, afterwards to be dissolved again into its various and mutually opposed groups of interests; large landowners, large manufacturers, high finance, small and middling bourgeoisie, peasants, etc. But, each time it is reformed, it gains solidity until the day of crisis, when we shall have a compact mass confronting us. We have had this process of continual concentration and dissolution in Germany ever since our Party numbered more than 20 members in the Reichstag; but in your case, it will go faster because decisive power is in the hands of your Chamber of Deputies.
Mr Faure may do what he likes, he cannot halt this process of forming into two opposing camps, nor the confusion which is necessarily born of this interplay of opposing forces, attraction and repulsion, within the milieu of the bourgeois parties. That is precisely the milieu we need, and which the existence of a socialist group creates everywhere, however little power it may have in Parliament. You will race ahead; it is the Party's progress itself that will first subdue and then eliminate the intestine and traditional quarrels.
The addition of 30 Radicals has brought you luck, without them the group would not have had cohesion. Without Millerand you would not have been able to take advantage of the political situations as you have done. And Jaurès, indeed, seems full of goodwill—if he develops rather slowly it is perhaps a good thing for him and for us. Though frankly, in economic matters he needs further schooling. His Bills for immediate reforms in the Petite République 489 article are not quite as wild as his Bill for a corn monopoly, 13 but they are calling on the bourgeois for sacrifices incompatible with the advance of capitalist industry, so that in their eyes they are tantamount to immediate expropriation; whereas, on the other hand, he proposes improvement of the soil at the nation's expense, of the soil which would remain private property, and under conditions perpetuating the small peasant and which would create a new Panama 60 for the big landowners who would laugh at the 'obligation' etc. with which the Bill saddled them. This is to see as a complete abstraction the environment in which one lives and in which these reforms would be carried out. So long as the air is not cleansed by the removal of all the parliamentary and financial rogues, this improvement of individual landed property at everyone's expense would end as a colossal theft; and when we have got rid of these gentlemen, we shall be strong enough to do better than that.
The presidential crisis furthermore will have a capital effect on European politics. The Franco-Russian alliance is becoming more and more lenitive, insofar as the Russian hope of seeing the restoration of the monarchy emerge from the presidential crisis suffers repeated disillusionment. At the same time the Triple Alliance 126 has ceased to exist except on paper; bankrupt Italy slips through its fingers, Austria is only retained: by fear of war with Russia, for which she would foot the bill; this danger vanishes as Russia loses the chance of using the French army when she sees fit; young William[2] has made himself far more disagreeable to his friends than to his enemies. So that, with the complete revolution in weapons since 1870 and, in consequence, of tactics, there is a total uncertainty about the outcome of a war where so many imponderables are involved and regarding which all the calculations made in advance are based on fictitious quantities. In these circumstances we seem to be assured of peace and even the most frenzied bourgeois chauvinists of the Déroulède type can keep calm: the Prussians have taken over responsibility in Alsace for maintaining and nourishing French patriotism.
Herewith cheque for twenty pounds; if that can do you until the beginning of April, I should be glad; at that time I shall have certain payments coming in which will allow me to be more liberal. But, if needs be, I could perhaps, after all, send you ten pounds in March—we'll see.
Greetings from the Freybergers. Kiss Laura very warmly for me.
Ever yours,
F. E.
I am sending you a report of the Norwich Trades Union Congress. 396