| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 4 May 1891 |
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
AT LE PERREUX
London, 4 May 1891
My dear Löhr,
Yesterday was glorious, both as to weather and demonstration. Louise, Sam Moore and I went there at 2,[1] the platforms extended in an immense arc across the Park,[2] the procession began to march in at 2.30 and had not done by 4.15, indeed fresh processions came in up to 5 o'clock. I was on Edward's platform with Sam, Louise on Tussy's. The crowd was immense, about the same or more even than last year.
Now a little gossip about the history of the affair. It has been almost exclusively Edward's and Tussy's work, and they had to fight it through from beginning to end. There was of course a deal of friction, but the Trades' Congress last September at Liverpool[3] and the changed majority (in favour of legal 8 hours) had considerably smoothed the way. Shipton was awfully polite to Edward, but obstructive in many small matters, and threatened to throw up everything if his right (divine?) to be Marshal in command of the procession should be ever questioned. Well, they let him, it will probably be the last time he will appear hoch zu Ross.[4]
The principal thing was that the resolution was passed in the form proposed by our people, and that they carried in the joint committee (5 from the Trades Council,[5] 5 from the Demonstration Committee).
Now for the fun — the Social Democratic Federation.[6] At first they sent 3 delegates to the Demonstration Committee where Edward was Chairman. But after a few meetings they remained absent, and were struck off the rolls. Then the Social Democratic Federation applied to the Trades Council for 2 platforms for themselves, as they had last year. But Shipton himself suggested to the Joint Committee that this would never do, and it was rejected, as in the same way every Trades Union might have asked for 2 platforms. Then the Social Democratic Federation announced in their Moniteur that they would hold a meeting of their own with four platforms and red flags.[7]
Unfortunately they had to join our procession from the Embankment in order to get into the Park in an orderly and showy manner, and once there, marched off about 100 yards and held there their promised meetings — without proper platforms, we had big carts, they only chairs. They were just near enough to reckon upon some stragglers from our overflow, and just far enough to show how few of them they were able to attract.
The decisive thing had been, for them, the resolution of the Demonstration Committee: that every association affiliated to them should pay 5/- for every branch towards general expenses. Thus, the Social Democratic Federation would have had either to pay 5/- for the many bogus branches they exhibit in their Moniteur, or else own they were bogus. And that decided their final retreat.
They have been made to feel their real position, and that is: the same position which the Germans of the Socialistic Labor Party in America[8] hold there, that of a sect. And that is their position, though they are real live Englishmen. It is very characteristic of the Anglo-Saxon race and their peculiar mode of development, that both here and in America the people who, more or less, have the correct theory as to the dogmatic side of it, become a mere sect because they cannot conceive that living theory of action, of working with the working class at every possible stage of its development, otherwise than as a collection of dogmas to be learnt by heart and recited like a conjurer's formula or a Catholic prayer. Thus the real movement is going on outside the sect, and leaving it more and more. The Canning Town Branch of the Federation sticks to Edward and Tussy in spite of Hyndman and marches with our people, and that is their strongest branch. Since the Dockstrike '89 the Social Democratic Federation had for a time profited by the general socialist revival, but that is over now, they are fast for cash for their new Hall in the Strand, and the decline has set in again. And as their friends and allies the Possibilists are eating each other up as fast as they can, they cannot even brag with their grand foreign connexions.
Sam Moore was very much struck with the immense progress made here during the 2 years of his absence. He, by the bye, is very well, likes the climate and easy life amazingly and will, I am almost sure, be homesick for Africa after a while.
I saw Cunninghame Graham on our platform (No. 6, Edward's, see Chronicle) but he could not tell me much more about Paris than was said in Paul's letter Friday afternoon.[9] After all I hope the Committee's demonstration in the evening was not a failure, as, Graham says, was that of the Broussists. If we cannot work together, we have all an interest in having as much of a demonstration as possible.
It's no use crying over spilt milk, but I cannot help thinking that our friends made a slight mistake, thanks to the usual French inclination of miscalculating the strength of the relative forces. A very heroic disposition sometimes, mais ce n'est pas la guerre.[10] After all we intended to work as usual with the Blanquists, and they were not bound by the resolutions of Calais and Lille.[11] These resolutions could only bind our people; the Blanquists too might have passed resolutions as to the 1st of May and then said they were bound by them. Why then determine beforehand by our own selves and without our only allies, how the demonstration was to be arranged in Paris where we are in an, at present, decided minority? Why thus froisser[12] our only allies? Froisser them still more by the plan of delegations to the mairies[13] and summonses to all the élus[14] to meet the delegates there? a plan which on the face of it they were sure to repudiate? I am not at all astonished that they fell into the arms of the Allemanists after this. At least that is the view I came to from the information I possess, there may be another side to the case but I do not know it.
We have very little news from Germany to-day. Hamburg had a splendid procession, 80,000 according to Daily Telegraph. From Berlin very little news; the Havas of Berlin, Wolff, has orders from Government to suppress everything, and the London correspondents are all under the influence of the Freisinnigen,[15] and do exactly the same.
When we came home last night, we wound up with a Maibowle[16] the Maikraut[17] of which Percy had sent us from Ryde. We put in 4 bottles Moselle, 2 claret, 1 Champagne, and finished it — we, Bernsteins and the Tussy's. Late in the evening Cunninghame Graham came in and actually had two or three glasses of it — he seems to have left his teetotalism at Tangiers. There is a slight but rather agreeable Kater,[18] kept in proper bounds this morning by a bottle of Pilsener.
Why did not Paul turn up? Graham says he was too tired — his name figures as a speaker on platform 8, with Jack Burns.[19]
Viele Grüsse von Louise. Dein alter[20]
F.E.