Letter to Laura Lafargue, March 15-16, 1886

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 15 March 1886


First published, in the language of the original (English), in: F. Engels, P. et L. Lafargue, Correspondance, t. I, Paris, 1956
Published in English in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 47


ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE

IN PARIS

London, 15-16 March 1886

My dear Laura,

You complain of the weather, and you are in Paris! Look at us here — nothing above freezing-point for the last ten days, a cutting east wind, of which you don't know which is the worst, the north-east or the south-east,— and to-night a fresh couche de neige[1] on streets and roofs. Nim is at her second cold, but it's getting better, I had one too, Pumps and Percy are in the same boat too, fortunately the children are well. However there must be an end to this some time, only I wish it would come.

The English Capital is at last getting into shape and form.[2] I have the whole ms. here and begun revising. Saving the 1st chapter which will require a severe overhauling, the first 200 pages of the original German are ready to go to press. I saw Kegan Paul last week, declined his proposals of two years ago and submitted mine. They were accepted in principle. This, with a man like Kegan Paul who is on all hands described as extremely slipping, means very little, and I expect there will be a tussle with him yet. But that matters nothing at all, because our position in the market has improved wonderfully and we have at least one other good firm who will be glad to take it on very favourable terms. As soon as the thing is concluded I will let you know.

The book will be published end of September so as not to come out in the dead season, and this gives me time to do the revising work thoroughly. Practically 300 pages of the original are revised, but the last 500 I have not as yet looked at, and there are some very difficult chapters there. And it would never do to hurry over them.

Broadhouse-Hyndman goes on translating 'from the original German' in To-Day.[3] He has in the sixth monthly number just finished Chapter I. But his 'original German' is the French translation now, and he insists on proving that with French he can play ducks and drakes quite as much as with German. The thing does so little harm, so far, that Kegan Paul never even mentioned it. But it has done this good that I have got Moore and Edward to finish their work. You have no idea how difficult it is to get hold of this To-Day. I have paid in advance but have to dun them almost every month for my copy, moreover it comes out at all times of the next month. Tussy last year went and paid for a copy to be sent to you but as far as I have heard it was never sent! However there is nothing whatever in it except — Christian Socialism!

You will have seen from Justice— that at least you do receive in exchange for the Socialiste — how Hyndman keeps up his alliance with Brousse and even ignores the new proletarian party in the Chamber.

To me, this appearance of a parti ouvrier[4] in the Palais Bourbon, is the great event of the year. The ice is now broken with which the Radicals[5] had so far succeeded to cover the working masses of France. These Radicals are now forced to come out in their true colours, or else follow the lead of Basly. The latter they will not do for long, nor willingly. Whatever they do, they must alienate the masses and drive them to us, and that quick. Events move rapidly, the Decazeville affair could not come more opportunely than it has done.[6] C'est coup sur coup![7] And a very good thing it is that this takes place not in Paris but in one of the darkest and most reactionary and clerical corners of la province. I am exceedingly curious to learn how the affair has terminated to-day in the Chamber.[8] But whatever is done, must turn out to our benefit.

The reappearance of France on the scene of the proletarian movement comme grande puissance[9] will have a tremendous effect everywhere, especially in Germany and America; in Germany I have done my best to let them know the full importance of the event, and sent Basly's speech[10] to Bebel; Camélinat[11] will follow as soon as I get it back from Kautsky. How furious Longuet must be that his old friend and as he believed protege Camélinat has turned his back upon him!

At the same time, our Paris friends have done whatever they could to pave the way so that the event, when it came, found a terrain préparé[12] Their action since the elections has been perfectly correct — their attempt to rally all revolutionary proletarian elements, their forbearance towards the Possibilists,[13] their limiting their attacks to those points and facts which showed Brousse and Co. as simple obstacles to union — all this was just what it should have been. And they are now reaping the fruits: Brousse has been driven into a position where he must find fault with Basly and Co. and thereby sever the last bond which still united him to the movement of the masses. Savoir attendre[14] —that is what our friends have learnt at last, and that will carry them through. Paul will be, if he likes, in the Palais Bourbon before Longuet.

A citoyen Hermann has applied to me for an addressed adhesion to what I suppose is your meeting on the 18th.[15] I send it[16] to you herewith 1) to be sure that it falls into the proper hands and 2) that you and Paul may look over and mend my rickety French.

Now good night, it's one o'clock and I must look over some papers yet to get them out of the way of to-morrow. Kind regards to Paul.

Yours most affectionately,

F. Engels

16th March. Just seen the ordre du jour[17] adopted by the Chamber.[18] It sounds rather different to all previous ordres du jour voted under similar circumstances. It is a decided victory for us, and Freycinet too pfeift aus einem andern Loch als früher. La situation devient sérieuse pour MM. les Radicaux.[19]

  1. ↑ cover of snow
  2. ↑ The idea of translating Capital into English occurred to Marx as early as 1865, when he was working on the manuscript (see Marx's letter to Engels of 31 July 1865, present edition, Vol. 42). The British journalist and member of the International's General Council, Peter Fox, was to help Marx find a publisher. However, this matter was not settled due to Fox's death in 1869. The English translation of the first volume of Capital, edited by Engels, did not appear until after Marx's death, in January 1887, and was published by Swan Sonnenschein, Lowrey & Co., London. The translation was done by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling between mid-1883 and March 1886. Eleanor Marx-Aveling took part in the preparatory work for the edition (see also this volume, pp. 33 and 127-28).
  3. ↑ In October 1885 To-Day began to publish the English translation of the first volume of Capital done by Henry Mayers Hyndman (pseudonym John Broadhouse). Engels criticised the beginning of this translation (of the first and a part of the second sections of Chapter One) carried by To-Day, vol. 4, No. 22, in his article 'How Not to Translate Marx' (see present edition, Vol. 26). The translation was published in the journal up to May 1889 inclusive; it covered the first seven chapters and a large part of Chapter Eight of the first volume.
  4. ↑ workers' party
  5. ↑ The Radicals — in the 1880s and 1890s a parliamentary group which had split away from the party of moderate republicans in France ('Opportunists', see Note 236). The Radicals had their main base in the petty and, to some extent, the middle bourgeoisie and continued to press for a number of bourgeois-democratic demands: a single-chamber parliamentary system, the separation of the Church from the State, the introduction of a system of progressive income taxes, the limitation of the working day and settlement of a number of other social issues. The leader of the Radicals was Clemenceau. The group formed officially as the Republican Party of Radicals and Radical Socialists [Parti républicain radical et radical-socialiste) in 1901.
  6. ↑ 3,500 miners went on strike in Decazeville (department of Aveyron) on 26 (27?) January 1886 in response to the ruthless exploitation to which they were exposed by the owners of the Aveyron Association of Coalmines and Foundries. At the beginning of the strike, the miners killed Watrin, the manager of the collieries, who had refused to heed their demands. The government sent troops to Decazeville. The strike continued until mid-June and evoked a broad response in France; the events led to the formation in the Chamber of Deputies of a workers' group which supported the miners' demands. The strike ended in the surrender of the company to the miners; an increased rate was promised, and the obnoxious officials dismissed.
  7. ↑ One follows upon another.
  8. ↑ See this volume, p. 428.
  9. ↑ 'as a great power'
  10. ↑ E.J. Basly's speech in the Chamber of Deputies on 11 February 1886 (Le Cri du Peuple, No. 837, 12 February 1886).
  11. ↑ Z.R. Camélinat's speech in the Chamber of Deputies on 11 March 1886 (Le Cri du Peuple, No. 866, 13 March 1886).
  12. ↑ fertilised soil
  13. ↑ Possibilists—followers of a reformist trend in the French socialist movement between the 1880s and the beginning of the 20th century. It was led by Paul Louis Marie Brousse and Benoît Malon who caused a split in the French Workers' Party in 1882 by forming their own party called the Workers' Social-Revolutionary Party (see Note 201). Its ideological basis was the theory of municipal socialism. The Possibilists proclaimed the 'policy of possibilities' to be their principle; at the beginning of the 20th century they became part of the French Socialist Party.
  14. ↑ To be able to wait
  15. ↑ On 18 March 1886 two thousand people gathered in Paris to commemorate the fifteenth anniversary of the Paris Commune. The meeting was addressed by Paul Lafargue, Jules Guesde, Louise Michel, Gabriel Deville and Oury. Engels sent a letter of greetings which was published in Le Socialiste, No. 31, 27 March 1886 (see present edition, Vol. 26, pp. 406-07).
  16. ↑ F. Engels, 'On the Anniversary of the Paris Commune'.
  17. ↑ Order of the Day
  18. ↑ 'Règlement de l'ordre du jour', Le Cri du Peuple, No. 867, 14 March 1886.
  19. ↑ sings another tune than before. The situation is getting grave for Messrs the Radicals.