ENGELS TO FRIEDRICH ADOLPH SORGE
IN HOBOKEN
London, 14 November 1891
Dear Sorge,
A line or two in great haste before the last post goes. You will have heard by cablegram about Lafargue's victory.[1] It was brought about by M. Constans, who is as stupidly cunning and doltish as Bismarck, if not more so. 1. In a scandalously biassed trial he blamed Lafargue for the government's fusillade at Fourmies and got him sentenced to a year's imprisonment. 2. Having thus made Lafargue enormously popular in the Département du Nord, and after the latter had been put up for the first seat to become vacant at Lille, Constans kept him in prison, contrary to the precedent established 22 years earlier by the Empire itself, instead of releasing him for the period of the election; 3. when, in the first ballot, Lafargue polled 5.005 votes, i. e. only 780 fewer than were needed for an absolute majority, Constans still did not release him, despite being severely rapped over the knuckles by the Chamber. Since the Radical candidate,[2] Roche, who had polled 2,274 votes, then proceeded to step down in favour of Lafargue, Lafargue's victory was assured.
But the best thing about it is that that idiot Constans further succeeded in making Lafargue's election into an événement thereby seriously endangering his own position. For on 31 October, when a demand for Lafargue's release was made in the Chamber by Millerand, the proposal to go over to the order of the day was carried by 240 votes against the Radicals' 160. But only because 170 Monarchists did not vote. This was the first time the Radicals had voted against the government since the Boulangiade, thus demonstrating that the government can be toppled at any moment by the combined votes of the Radicals and Monarchists. And when, after Lafargue's election, a motion for his release was again tabled on 9 November, it was only the prospect of those combined votes that forced the government to abandon its intention of opposing the motion.
But now that the Cabinet is torn by dissension and Freycinet would rather obtain his majority through the Radicals, whereas Constans would rather do so through the Monarchists and against the Radicals, now that Constans has incurred the odium of the workers by his actions since May Day and his friend Rouvier is the most notorious and corrupt man in the Ministry, while Carnot, for his part, finds Constans intolerable because the latter is trying to succeed him, Carnot, as President of the Republic, all these parliamentary fluctuations assume significance. For the recurrence of ministerial instability in France is another guarantee of peace, since the Tsar would be chary of going to war arm-in-arm with a French government that is liable to topple any day.
Again, these symptoms are significant so far as France's domestic situation is concerned. A large number of Radicals — Millerand, Hovelacque, Moreau, etc.— realise that they simply can't do without the workers and that the government's duplicity in introducing into the Chamber bills ostensibly favourable to labour while ensuring that these are thrown out by the Senate, is something that just won't do. But if Lafargue should now get in and the small 7 or 8 strong socialist group — all of them small fry and incapable of any initiative — thus obtain a leader, things might soon begin to change. Only on condition, however, that Paul himself doesn't allow his eighth or twelfth part of negro blood to run away with him.
In Germany everything is going swimmingly. In Munich 344 itself Vollmar suffered an even more decisive defeat than at Erfurt.[3] The opposition is virtually non-existent, and will soon be completely under the wing of the police. Any newspaper reports to the contrary, particularly such as are cabled to you, are false—I have seen some prime examples of this.
What will happen about the Vorwärts I cannot say. It has improved, but Hirsch isn't going to join it. Not that I really regard this as a misfortune.
Regards to your wife.[4]
Your
F.E.
- ↑ In his letter of 24 October 1891 Bebel informed Engels about the results of the Erfurt Congress. He also advised him of the party Executive's decision, adopted at his, Bebel's, proposal, to make available 400 marks for Lafargue's election campaign.
- ↑ The radicals were a parliamentary group in France in the 1880s and 90s which had split away from the bourgeois party of moderate republicans (the 'opportunists' or 'Gambettists'). They continued to uphold a number of bourgeois-democratic demands virtually dropped by the republicans: abolition of the Senate, separation of the Church from the State, introduction of a progressive income tax, and others. They also demanded a limitation of the working day, pensions for the disabled, and other socio-economic measures. In 1901 the radicals set up a party of their own. It spoke, above all, for the middle and petty bourgeoisie.
- ↑ The Erfurt Congress of the Social-Democratic Party of Germany met from 14 to 21 October 1891. It was attended by 258 delegates.
The congress was preceded by a sharp ideological struggle between the party's revolutionary hard core and the Right- and Left-wing opportunists, who had stepped up their activities and created the atmosphere of a party crisis in German Social-Democracy.
There had been sharp debates at meetings and in the press on the party's programme and tactics, set off by the public pronouncements of Georg von Vollmar, leader of the Bavarian Social-Democrats, who sought to impose an opportunist reformist tactics and lead the party away from class proletarian positions (see Note 270).
Vollmar's campaign provided a pretext for fresh attacks on the party (summer and autumn 1891) by the Jungen, a petty-bourgeois semi-anarchist opposition group within German Social-Democracy formed in 1890. Their stronghold being the Social-Democratic organisation of Berlin, they were also known as the Berlin opposition. The group's specific character was determined by students and young literati claiming the role of the party's theoreticians and leaders. Foremost among them were Paul Ernst, Hans Müller, Paul Kampflfmeyer, Bruno Wille, Karl Wilderberger and Wilhelm Werner. The Jungen ignored the fact that the repeal of the Anti-Socialist Law had changed the conditions the party was operating in. They denied the need to employ legal forms of struggle, opposed Social-Democracy's participation in parliamentary elections and use of the parliamentary platform and demagogically accused the party and its Executive of protecting the interests of the petty bourgeoisie, of opportunism and of violating party democracy. The leaders of the Berlin opposition levelled especially fierce attacks at the party's leaders— Bebel and Liebknecht. The sectarian anarchist activities of the Jungen held a grave danger to the party's unity. The paramount task facing the Erfurt Congress was to overcome the crisis in the party and consolidate its ranks.
The congress discussed the report of the party Executive, the activities of Social-Democratic deputies in the Reichstag, the party's tactics, the draft of its new programme, and various organisational questions.
The ideological struggle continued at the congress too, especially over party tactics. A report on this issue was presented by Bebel. He — in his report and speeches — as well as other speakers (above all Singer, Liebknecht and Fischer) gave a resolute rebuff both to the Left and to the Right opportunist elements. By a majority vote the congress endorsed Bebel's draft resolution on tactics. It pointed out that the main objective of the working-class movement was the conquest of political power by the proletariat and that this end would be attained not through a chance concatenation of circumstances but through persevering work with the masses and skillful employment of every form and method of proletarian class struggle. The resolution emphasised that the German Social-Democratic Party was a fighting party employing the traditional revolutionary tactics. Vollmar and his supporters, finding themselves in isolation, were forced to retreat. The congress expelled two leaders of the Jungen — Werner and Wilderberger — from the party for their splitting activities and slander; a number of other Jungen leaders announced their resignation from the party and walked out of the congress.
The main achievement of the congress was the adoption of a new programme for German Social-Democracy. A report on it was presented by Liebknecht.
The Erfurt Programme being essentially Marxist, was an important step forward compared with the Gotha Programme. The Lassallean reformist dogmas had been dropped. The new programme scientifically substantiated the inevitability of the collapse of capitalism and its replacement with socialism, and pointed out that, in order to be able to restructure society along socialist lines, the proletariat must win political power.
At the same time, the programme had serious shortcomings, the principal one being its failure to state that the dictatorship of the proletariat was the instrument of the socialist transformation of society. Also missing were propositions concerning the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of a democratic republic, the remoulding of Germany's political system and other important matters. In this respect, the criticisms made by Engels in A Critique of the Draft Social-Democratic Programme of 1891 (see present edition, Vol. 27, pp. 217-34) also apply to the version of the programme adopted in Erfurt.
The resolutions of the Erfurt congress showed that Marxism had firmly taken root in Germany's working-class movement.
- ↑ Katharina Sorge