Letter to Wilhelm Liebknecht, May 12, 1886

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 12 May 1886


First published, in Russian, in Marx-Engels Archives, Vol. I (VI), Moscow, 1932
Printed according to the original
Published in English in full for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 47


ENGELS TO WILHELM LIEBKNECHT

IN BORSDORF NEAR LEIPZIG

London, 12 May 1886

Dear Liebknecht,

The French papers (of which I have sent at least 3 parcels) were simply intended to give you an opportunity of reading at first hand some of the news about the brilliant turn things have taken in France. Since you take the Cri du Peuple, I need only send you the Intransigeant, etc. Lafargue sends me one now and again, when something happens, and I thought that in this way they could be turned to further account.

As regards Clemenceau, the moment may very well come when you would do better to drop La Justice. He is being pushed over onto the conservative, markedly bourgeois, side by, on the one hand, the immediate prospect of a ministerial post, and, on the other, by the to him unexpectedly rapid growth of the Workers' Party. Even from his own point of view he is behaving stupidly. But that's how all these bourgeois are, even the most progressive. Longuet will soon have to choose, if he doesn't want to ruin himself utterly. Gaulier's candidature, supported solely by the press unaided by the comités radicaux-socialistes, cost the Radicals[1] 50,000 voters who have come over to us and are now the loudest in their denunciation of their one-time chiefs. In the absence of colossal blunders — the movement is already strong enough now to absorb minor errors without damage to itself—we shall obtain between 1/4 and 1/3 of the seats at the next elections in Paris. And, now that they have something real to do, our people are behaving in quite exemplary fashion.

But to write for Justice without being paid is stupid. The paper is perfectly well able to pay; after all, its chief editors — deputies — are paid by the State.

Bebel has written to say that his voice is apt to give out after several days of exertion, and needless to say I told him that for an American STUMP tour the very first prerequisite was a voice that is proof against anything.[2] Whether he's not making too much of the business, I naturally cannot say, but it would in any case be quite a risk; once you're over there, you yourself will discover soon enough what the Yankees demand in return for their good money. If he doesn't go, you must at any rate make sure that no one of the tame, petty-bourgeois breed is sent with you.

No doubt the Chicago affair[3] will put paid to the anarchist farce in America. The chaps can shout their heads off if they want, but pointless rowdyism is something the Americans refuse to put up with, now they have become an industrial nation.

There's nothing favourable to report of the so-called 'movement' over here. Hyndman loses more ground every day, having completely forfeited the confidence of his own people, and the LEAGUE[4] is increasingly coming under anarchist leadership. Since The Commonweal became a weekly — without adequate supplies either of money or talent — Aveling has had to resign his (honorary) editorship in favour of Bax who, like Morris, is strongly influenced by the anarchists.[5] The two gentlemen will have to learn in corpore vile[6] ; they'll soon be sick of it and it's a real stroke of luck that these teething troubles will have been left behind before the masses join the movement, which at present they obstinately refuse to do. It's just as it was in France; a really big working class cannot be got moving by exhortation, but when things have reached the right stage, the least impulse is enough to precipitate an avalanche. And that's what will happen over here as well, and soon. Most probably it will be the financial collapse of the big TRADES UNIONS under the pressure of chronic overproduction that will mark the moment when the eyes of the English are opened to the inadequacy of 'self-help' and of Radicalism. So [see you] here this autumn!

Your

F.E.

Tomorrow week Mrs Pfänder will be sailing for America to stay with her brother-in-law in New Ulm, Minnesota.

  1. ↑ 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.
  2. ↑ See this volume, p. 429.
  3. ↑ In the spring of 1886 the United States witnessed a mass proletarian campaign for the eight-hour working day (see Note 581). Up to 65,000 people went on strike in Chicago in the first days of May. Workers clashed with police at a meeting held on 3 May. During the following day's protest meeting in Haymarket Square an agent provocateur threw a bomb which exploded and killed seven policemen and four workers. The police opened fire on the crowd, as a result of which a number were killed and over 200 wounded. Mass arrests were carried out and the leaders of the Chicago Labor Union brought before the court. Despite the broad campaign in defence of the accused in the United States and a number of European countries, four of them — Albert R. Parsons, August Spies, Adolph Fischer and George Engel— were hanged on 11 November 1887 on the decision of the US Supreme Court. In memory of the events of 1886 in Chicago, the International Socialists' Congress held in Paris in 1889 resolved to proclaim 1 May International Workers' Day.
  4. ↑ The reference is to the Social Democratic Federation (see Note 300) and the Socialist League. The Socialist League was formed in December 1884 by a group of English socialists who had left the Social Democratic Federation. Its organisers included Eleanor Marx, Ernest Belfort Bax, William Morris and others. 'The Manifesto of the Socialist League' (see The Commonweal, No. 1, February 1885) proclaimed that its members advocate 'the principles of Revolutionary International Socialism' and '...seek a change in the basis of Society ... which would destroy the distinctions of classes and nationalities'. The League set itself the task of establishing a national workers' party adhering to international stand, assisting the trade union and co-operative movements. In its initial years the League and its officials took an active part in the workers' movement. However, in 1887 the League's leadership split into three factions (anarchist elements, the 'parliamentarians' and the 'antiparliamentarians'); its links with the day-to-day struggles of the English workers were gradually weakened and there was a growth in sectarianism. In 1889-90 the League fell apart.
  5. ↑ In May 1886, The Commonweal started to appear weekly instead of monthly. Edward Aveling used this as an occasion to leave the editorial board which was increasingly being influenced by anarchist ideas. Aveling's letter of resignation was made public in the first weekly issue (No. 16) of 1 May 1886. The letter merely said that 'the necessary demands of a weekly on an editor's time can only be met by those in relatively more fortunate positions'. Thereafter Aveling contributed to The Commonweal from time to time on a freelance basis.
  6. ↑ from bitter experience