Letter to Wilhelm Liebknecht, October 25, 1890

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 25 October 1890


First published in: Marx and Engels, Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXVIII, Moscow, 1940
Printed according to the original
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 49


ENGELS TO WILHELM LIEBKNECHT

IN BERLIN

L[ondon,] 25 October 1890

I am sending you, addressed to your office, today's Justice containing an article by A. S. Headingley (alias Adolphe Smith), in which the lot of you, and yourself in particular, are branded Possibilists.[1]

The writer is an Englishman born in Paris, literatus vulgarissimus, who was in Paris at the time of the Commune and afterwards came to this country with a MOVING PANORAMA of Paris and the Commune; as a speculation this was a total flop, something for which he never forgave us, for he had believed that the General Council of the International would drum up a nightly audience for him. He therefore became an intimate of the branche française10 in which all the mouchards[2] and scoundrels — Vésinier, Caria, etc.,— foregathered to hatch plots and, with the help of French fonds secrets, published newspapers in which to attack the General Council — des calomnies ordurières[3] . For the past eight years or so he has been Brousse's principal agent here and the intermediary between him, the SOCIAL DEMOCRATIC Federation here,[4] and sundry Belgians (he is resident interpreter at the Possibilists' and miners' international congresses). The evil intent will be obvious to you, as will the stupidity — these chaps have utterly failed to understand the Halle resolution and believe that the Possibilists, who are killing themselves off in France, can be salvaged in Germany. POOR FELLOWS!

Your

F.E.

  1. ↑ A. S. Headingley, 'French and German Possibilists', Justice, No. 354, 25 October 1890.
  2. ↑ police spies
  3. ↑ filthy calumnies
  4. ↑ The Social Democratic Federation, set up in August 1884, consisted of English socialists of different orientations, mostly intellectuals. For a long time the leadership of the Federation was in the hands of reformists led by Hyndman, an opportunist sectarian. In opposition to them, the revolutionary Marxists within the Federation (Eleanor Marx-Aveling, Edward Aveling, Tom Mann and others) worked for close ties with the revolutionary labour movement. In the autumn of 1884 — following a split and the establishment by the Left wing of an independent organisation, the Socialist League (see Note 49) — the opportunists' influence in the Federation increased. However, revolutionary elements, discontented with the opportunist leadership, continued to form within the Federation, under the impact of the masses.