Letter to Laura Lafargue, February 4, 1889

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 4 February 1889


First published in full, 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 for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 48


ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE[1]

AT LE PERREUX

London, 4 February 1889

My dear Laura,

The news about the Egalité (ominous name, égalité devant la mort[2]

I hope not!) is good news indeed and I await anxiously the results.[3]

That the Blanquists would be brought to their senses, as to the extent of their journalistic capacities, was pretty clear—but that this necessary experience would eat up the necessary funds for a paper, was clearer still.

So it's well that another speculative bailleur de fonds[4] has turned up. That our people can make a paper a success they have proved at the Citoyen and the Cri where in both cases other intruders tried to make capital out of our people's success and came to grief. And the composition of the comité is in their favour, the Blanquists secure them the majority on economic questions, and the Hovelacque elements will help holding Blanquist madcap notions in check. But how long will these various elements hold together? Anyhow, let us wait till everything is shipshape. The Boulanger election[5] I cannot look upon otherwise than as a distinct revival of the Bonapartist element in the Parisian character. In 1798, 1848 and 1889 this revival arose equally from discontent with the bourgeois republic, but it took this especial direction—appeal to a saviour of society—entirely in consequence of a chauvinistic current. And what is worse: in 1798 Napoleon had to make a coup d'état to conquer those Parisians he had shot down in Vendémiaire;[6] in 1889 the Parisians themselves elect a butcher of the Commune. To put it mildly, Paris has, at least temporarily, abdicated as a revolutionary city; abdi- cated, not before a victorious coup d'état and in the midst of war, as in 1798; not six months after a crushing defeat, as in December 1848; but in the midst of peace, 18 years after the Commune, and on the eve of a probable revolution. And when Bebel says in the Vienna Gleichheit:

'Die Pariser Arbeiter haben sich in ihrer Mehrheit einfach erbärmlich benommen — mitt ihrer sozialistischen und klassenbewussten Gesinnung muss es sehr traurig stehn, wenn nur 17,000 Stimmen auf einen sozialistischen Kandidaten fallen und ein Hanswurst und dema- gog wie Boulanger 244,000 Stimmen erhält'[7]

— Nobody can say that he is wrong. The effect upon our party every- where has been that if Floquet has suffered a crushing defeat, so have we. Cutting off your nose to spite your face is no doubt also a sort of policy, but what sort?

Well, Boulanger is now sure to be master of France unless he commits some egregious blunder, and the Parisians will have their bellyful of him. If the thing goes off without war being brought on, it will be something gained—but the danger is great. Bismarck has every reason to hurry on a row, because William[8] is doing his best to ruin the German army by putting his favourites in the places of the old generals, and if he is allowed to proceed, in five years hence the Germans will be led by noth- ing but nincompoops and conceited jackasses. And how Boulanger, once in power, can outlive the effects of the universal désillusionnement which he must produce, without going to a war—that is more than I can see.

In all this mess it is but a poor consolation that the Possibilists have ruined themselves a little sooner than they would have done otherwise. But such as it is, let us rejoice over it. I send you two Recht voor Allen in which you see how they are getting treated by the very mass who insisted on their presence at the Congress.[9] Bernstein has given it them this week in the Sozialdemokrat[10] too, and even Hyndman has not the courage to stick up for them in Justice. To take his revenge, he writes a letter to Bax (5 Canning Road, Croydon) and asks him what it was that he, Bax, said about this point at the office of the Sozialdemokrat and what was repeated to me yesterday by Joos (one of the men there). I should be the more glad of this, as Bax was here yesterday too and never mentioned a word to me about it—it came out only after he had left. He can tell Bax that I told him so.

Well, I hope the new paper[11] will come out; we must take the situation as it is and make the best of it. When Paul gets to work at a paper again, he will brace himself up for the fight and no longer say despondingly: il n'y a pas à aller contre le courant[12] Nobody asks of him to stop the current, but if we are not to go against the popular current of momen- tary tomfoolery, what in the name of the devil is our business? The inhabitants of the Ville lumière[13] have proved to evidence that they are 2 million 'mostly fools' as Carlyle says, but that is no reason why we should be fools too. Let the Parisians turn reactionists if they cannot be happy otherwise—the social revolution will go on in spite of them, and when it's done they can cry out: Ah tiens! C'est fait—et sans nous—qui l'aurait imaginé[14]

With Nim's love

Ever yours F. E.

Doesn't Paul want any cash?

  1. ↑ Excerpts from this letter were first published in French in the journal La Pensee, No. 61, 1955. Concerning the first publication of this letter in the language of the original (English), (see note 40).
  2. ↑ equality before death
  3. ↑ Laura Lafargue informed Engels about the termination of the publication ohe Blanquist newspaper Le Cri du Peuple and about the foundation of a new organ, the newspaper Egalite. Its editorial committee comprised representatives of the revolutionary wing (the Guesdists) - Jules Guesde, Paul Lafargue, Gabriel Deville; the Blanquists were represented by Edouard Vaillant, Ernest Granger and Place; the Possibilists - by Benoit Malon; and the Independent Radicals - by the municipal councillors Alexandre Abel Hovelacque and Boule. Its first number came out on 8 February 1889. At first Egalite carried articles by Jules Guesde, Paul Lafargue and other Marxists. But as early as 3 March of the same year the Guesdists and the Blanquists, collaborating on the editorial staff, broke with Jules Roques, an entrepreneur financing the paper (see note 380). From that time on Egalite ceased to be an organ of the Socialists.
  4. ↑ investor (Jules Roques)
  5. ↑ In the by-election scheduled for 27 January 1889 in Paris (see notes 328, 329), the following candidacies were nominated: Georges Boulanger - from the Right-wing groups, Edouard Jacques - from the Republican Party (this candidature received support from the Possibilists as well), and the labourer Boule - from the Workers Party (see note 33) and the Blanquists. In a bitter electoral struggle, General Boulanger received about 250,000 votes, Boule 7,000 votes.
  6. ↑ Engels means the coup d'etat of 18 Brumaire (9 November 1799) when Napoleon Bonaparte imposed a military dictatorship; also, the election, on 10 December 1848, of Louis Bonaparte to the presidency in France. On 12-13 Vendemiaire (4-5 October) 1795, the government troops under General Bonaparte crushed a royalist uprising in Paris.
  7. ↑ 'The majority of Paris workers behaved downright despicably - their socialist and class consciousness must be in a sorry state indeed if a socialist candidate only gets 17,000 votes and a clown and demagogue like Boulanger polls 244,000 votes.'
  8. ↑ William II
  9. ↑ The reference is to the editorial article 'Boulanger en Bourgeois Republiek', carried by the Hague-based newspaper Recht voor Allen and to the report filed by Souvarines in Parijsche Brieven, XV and published on 1 February 1889.
  10. ↑ E. Bernstein, 'Boulanger's Sieg in Paris,' Der Sozialdemokrat, 3 February 1889
  11. ↑ Egalité
  12. ↑ there is no going against the current
  13. ↑ Luminary City
  14. ↑ Just look! It's done - and without us - who could have imagined it!