Letter to Laura Lafargue, June 3, 1888

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 3 June 1888


First published, in the language of the original (English), in: F. Engels, P. et L. Lafargue, Correspondance, t. II, Paris, 1956 and, in Russian, in Istorichesky Arkhiv, No. 2, 1956
Published in English in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 48


ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE

AT LE PERREUX

London, 3 June 1888

My dear Laura,

I am very sorry you do not see your way to come just now; the woodruff having failed in your garden would not have mattered, because Nim has got some and we are going to have it tonight; it would be so nice if you were here to take your share. We have 6 bottles of Moselle to sacrifice tonight.

Our Zurich friends[1] are getting used to London ways a little, and it is time, for their notions of the possibilities of a settlement here were uncommonly kleinstädtisch.[2] Next week I hope the principal questions as to locality etc. will be settled and then there will be less difficulties and discussions.

Paul's arguments about Boulanger are rather derogatory to the French character. First he says, c'est un mouvement populaire, but not dangerous because Boulanger is an ass. But what to think of a peuple capable d'un mouvement populaire in favour of an ass? This he explains thus: En France on patauge pendant un temps donné dans un semblant de parlementarisme, puis on réclame un sauveur, un gouvernement personnel... en ce moment on réclame un sauveur et Boulanger se présente.[3] That is to say: the French are such that their real wants require a Bonapartist régime, while their idealistic illusions are republican and do not go beyond parliamentarism. Why, if the French see no other issue than either personal government, or parliamentary government, they may as well give it up. What I want our people to do, is to show that there is a real third issue besides this pretended dilemma, which is a dilemma but for the vulgar philistines, and not to take the muddling philistine and au fond chauvinistic Boulangist movement for a really popular one.[4] The chauvinistic claim, that all the history of the world is to resolve itself into the recovery of Alsace by France, and that until then nothing shall be allowed to happen—this claim has been far too much bowed to by our friends in France, by every one in fact, and this is the upshot. Because Boulanger incorporates this claim, which has been silently admitted by all parties, he is powerful. His opponents— the Clémenceaux and Co.—do not, dare not contradict that claim but are too cowardly to proclaim it openly, and therefore they are weak. And because the movement is at bottom chauvinistic and nothing else, therefore it plays into Bismarck's hands who would be only too glad to entangle that poor devil Fritz[5] into a war. And all this at a time when even among the German philistines the consciousness is dawning that the sooner they get rid of Alsace the better, and when Bismarck's crazy passport regulations[6] are an open confession that Alsace is more French than ever!

The revolution in our household which I have been trying to set about for more than a year has at last been accomplished. Last night Annie left under notice from me, and we have another girl. Nim will at last be able to do no more work than she really likes and to have her sleep out in the morning.

Enclosed the cheque that Paul wrote about. Being Sunday, I must close, before the people come.

Ever yours affectionately,

F. Engels

Keep in mind that you must come this summer or autumn at latest!

  1. ↑ Eduard Bernstein, Julius Motteler, Leonard Tauscher and Hermann Schlüter
  2. ↑ provincial
  3. ↑ In France they dabble for a time in a semblance of parliamentarism and then they clamour for a saviour, personal government... at the moment they are clamouring for a saviour and Boulanger presents himself
  4. ↑ The French Socialists differed in their attitude to Boulangism (see note 137). Some of them, including P. Lafargue, at first erroneously qualified Boulangism as a 'popular movement' with little regard for the aims of this movement and Boulanger's personality. The Workers' Party majority with Jules Guesde at the head and the greater part of the Blanquists led by M.E. Vaillant adhered to a policy of non-interference with respect to Boulangism by regarding this movement only as a bourgeois party; they said they were loath to intervene in partisan strife among the bourgeois parties. Yet the sectarian stance of non-interference isolated the party from the popular masses and gravely prejudiced its influence in the home country.
  5. ↑ Frederick III
  6. ↑ The decree adopted by the German Ministry of the Interior on 22 May 1888, prohibited free passage of the French into Alsace and Lorraine. All foreigners crossing into Germany from France were supposed to have passports with a visa from the German embassy in Paris.