Letter to Paul Lafargue, September 2, 1891

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 2 September 1891


First published abridged in Le Socialiste, No. 51, Paris, 12 September 1891 and in full in: Marx and Engels, Works, Second Russian Edition, Vol. 38, Moscow, 1965
Published in English in full for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 49


ENGELS TO PAUL LAFARGUE[1]

AT LE PERREUX

London, 2 September 1891

My dear Lafargue,

So you are back once more 'neath Madame Pélagie'[2] s hallowed and sacrosanct vaults — in la citta dolente fra le perduta gente[3] but it won't last long, I trust, and before your 'year' is up we may have Constans there in your place. At all events it's a great pity that you weren't able to go to Brussels before you got nabbed; the effect would have been magnificent. But no matter; I am very happy about the congress[4] none the less. In the first place the total COLLAPSE of the Brousso-Hyndmanian opposition; it was as though it had never exist- ed, as though the Possibilist congress of 1889[5] had simply been a phantasmagoria. Heaven forbid that these gentlemen should be- come our 'friends' — if they did, they would become a pest; as ene- mies they would be a source of amusement, as in the past.

Next, the exclusion of the anarchists. The new International has resumed at the point where the old one broke off. Here, 19 years later, we have out-and-out confirmation of the resolutions at The Hague.[6]

Lastly, the door has been thrown wide open for the English TRADES UNIONS — a move which shows how well the situation has been under- stood. And the utterances committing the TRADES UNIONS to the class struggle and the abolition of wage labour mean that this did not even require our making any concessions.

Hence we have every reason to be pleased. The Nieuwenhuis inci- dent has shown that the working men of Europe have at last pro- gressed beyond an era dominated by high-falutin verbiage and that they are aware of the responsibilities incumbent on them: it is a class constituted as a militant party, a party which reckons with facts.[7]

And the facts are taking an increasingly revolutionary turn.

In Russia there is already famine; in Germany there will be famine in a few months' time; the other countries will suffer less, this is why: it is estimated that the 1891 harvest will be in deficit to the tune of 4 million QUARTERS (11 '/2 million hectolitres) of wheat and 30-35 mil- lion QUARTERS (between 87 and 1011/2 million hectolitres) of rye; in the latter case this enormous deficit mainly affects the two rye consuming countries, Russia and Germany.

That will give us a guarantee of peace until the spring of 1892. Russia won't make a move before then. Thus, assuming the absence of some inconceivable blunder on the part of Berlin or Paris, there won't be a war.

O n the other hand, will Tsarism come through this crisis? I doubt it. There are so many rebellious elements in the big cities, especially in Petersburg, that they are bound to seize the opportunity, now to hand, of deposing that drunkard Alexander III, or of placing him under the control of a national assembly — perhaps it will be he him- self who takes the initiative in convening it. Russia (i. e. the govern- ment and the young bourgeoisie) had done an enormous amount of work towards the creation of big industry on a national scale (see Plekhanov in the Neue Zeit[8] ) and that industry will be stopped in its tracks because its only market — the domestic one — will be denied it on account of the famine. The Tsar will see what comes of having made Russia a SELF-SUFFICIENT COUNTRY independent of abroad; he will have an industrial crisis on top of an agricultural crisis.

In Germany the government will reach a decision, too late as al- ways, to abolish or suspend the duty on corn. That will break the pro- tectionist majority in the Reichstag. The big landowners, the squirear- chy, will no longer want to support the duties on industrial products; they will want to buy IN THE CHEAPEST MARKET. Thus we shall probably see a repetition of what happened at the time of the vote on the Anti- Socialist Law: a protectionist majority, itself divided by divergent interests arising out of the new situation, which finds it impossible to reach agreement on the details of a protectionist system, all the possi- ble proposals being only minority ones; there will be either a rever- sion to the free trade system, which is just as impossible or — dissolution, displacement of the former parties and of the former ma- jority, a new free trade majority opposed to the present government. That will mean the real and definitive end of the Bismarckian period and of stagnation in home affairs (I am not speaking here of our own party but of parties which might 'possibly' govern); there will be strife between the landed nobility and the bourgeoisie, and between the protectionist bourgeoisie (one section of the industrialists) and the bourgeoisie favouring free trade (the other section of the industrialists and the merchants); the stability of the ministries and of the country's domestic policy will be shattered, in other words there will be move- ment, struggle, vitality, and it is our party that will reap the whole benefit. If things take this turn, our party will be able to come to pow- er round about 1898 (Bebel puts it as early as 1895).

There. I haven't discussed other countries because they are not so directly affected by the agricultural crisis. But suppose this agricul- tural crisis were to unleash, here in England, the acute industrial crisis we have been awaiting for the past 25 years, what then?

In a quarter of an hour we shall be leaving for Highgate to plant an ivy cutting on Marx's grave. Motteler brought it back three years ago from Ulrich von Hutten's grave (Island of Ufenau, Lake of Zurich) and it has grown marvellously on my balcony.

I have had Bebel and Adler from Vienna with me here for the past few days; they are very pleased about the congress.

Enjoy yourself and make good use of the opportunity you have been offered of 'concentrating' on work, as the Berlin journalist said when thrown into jug in 1841.

With best wishes,

Yours,

F. E.

  1. ↑ This letter was first published abridged and with editorial changes in Le Socialiste, No. 51,12 September 1891, in the form of an article headlined 'Le congrès de Bru xelles', which was reprinted in German translation in Vorwärts, No. 216, 16 Sep tember 1891,— in the column 'Politische Uebersicht' — under the headline 'Über den Brüsseler Kongreß und die Lage in Europa (Aus einem Brief an Paul La- fargue)' (see present edition, Vol. 27, pp. 233-34). In English an excerpt from this letter was first published in: Frederick Engels, Paul and Laura Lafargue, Corres pondence, Vol. 3, 1891-1895, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1963.
  2. ↑ Ste Pélagie—a prison in Paris.
  3. ↑ the city of woe, 'midst the lost ones below (Dante, The Divine Comedy, 'Inferno', III).
  4. ↑ The International Socialist Workers' Congress met in Brussels, 16-22 August 1891. The 337 delegates represented the socialist parties and organisations and nu merous trades unions in many European countries and the USA. By a majority vote the congress debarred the anarchists from taking part in its deliberations. Repre sentatives of British trades unions attended. The American delegates included trades unionists, as well as socialists.
    The congress discussed labour legislation, strike action and boycott, militarism and the celebration of May Day.
    The resolution on the first question called on workers the world over to join forces for the fight against capitalist rule and, where workers possessed political rights, to use these to free themselves from wage slavery. The resolution on strikes and boycott recommended the workers to make use of these methods of struggle and stressed that trades unions were absolutely essential to the workers.
    The attitude of the working class to militarism was in the centre of the congress deliberations. Wilhelm Liebknecht's and Edouard Vaillant's reports on this issue and the draft resolution tabled by Liebknecht pointed out that militarism was an inevitable product of the capitalist system, that socialist society alone could put an end to it and bring about international peace and that the socialists were the true party of peace.
    The leader of the Dutch Social-Democrats, Ferdinand Domela Nieuwenhuis, who took a semi-anarchist stand, tabled an alternative resolution, under which so cialists in all countries should, in the event of war, call on their respective people to proclaim a general strike. The vast majority of the delegates voted for the resolu tion tabled by Liebknecht.
    Referring to the resolutions of the Brussels Congress, Engels pointed out that 'in matters of principle as of tactics the Marxists have been victorious all along the line' (Engels to F.A. Sorge, 2 September 1891).
  5. ↑ This refers to the campaign launched by the Possibilists in France and their support ers within the Social Democratic Federation (see notes 3 and 29) to discredit the International Socialist Workers' Congress (see Note 51). Another congress, called on the Possibilists' initiative, was being held in Paris at the time. It was only attend- ed by 13 foreign delegations, most of them representing fictitious organisations. The attempt to bring the two congresses together failed because the Possibilist con gress made merger conditional on a revision of the credentials of the delegates at tending the Marxist congress. The Possibilist congress declared for the restoration of the International. It decided to hold the next congress in Brussels in 1891 and in structed the Belgian Workers' Party to convoke it.
  6. ↑ This refers to the Hague Congress of the International Working Men's Association, held 2-7 September 1872. It marked the culmination of the struggle Marx, Engels and their comrades-in-arms had waged for many years against every kind of petty- bourgeois sectarianism in the working-class movement. The congress condemned the Anarchists' splitting activities and expelled their leaders from the Interna tional.
  7. ↑ The Social Democratic Federation, set up in August 1884, consisted of English social ists 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 sec tarian. 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 in creased. However, revolutionary elements, discontented with the opportunist lead ership, continued to form within the Federation, under the impact of the masses.
  8. ↑ G. Plechanow, 'Die sozialpolitischen Zustände Rußlands im Jahre 1890', Die jHeue Zeit, 9. Jg. 1890/91, 2. Bd., Nr. 47-51.