| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 14 October 1892 |
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
AT LE PERREUX
London, 14 October 1892
My dear Lohr,
Thanks from Louise and myself for your letters this morning. Had one from Paul from Bordeaux last night. Business first. Enclosed you find
1. Manifest des sozial demokratischen Ausschusses (Executive) Braunschweig 5. September 1870[1] with a letter from Mohr and myself but which Paul better quote as from Mohr, who, I believe, signed it. This is referred to in the MS. extracts under No. II I (on page 2).
2. First and Second Addresses of the General Council of the International on the War, July 23rd 1870 and Sept. 9th 1870. With French translation made, I believe, in Geneva; it very likely requires revision both as to correctness and style.
3. A series of MS. extracts received from Bebel who with his wife set to work at once to supply us with what we wanted.
I think this will be sufficient for Paul's speech, though I don't envy you the task of translating all these things, especially the rather lax style of our Reichstag orators.
Anyhow, now Paul is armed and need not depend upon Liebknecht's promises which are sooner made than kept, as a rule.
I am glad Paul is going to take part again in the debates of the Chambre, and if he is wise, he will attend the Palais Bourbon assiduously during this last session of the present Parliament. I have some notion that electors want to see and hear something of the parliamentary activity of their deputy, and if they do not, there may be a risk not only of losing his seat, but also of not so easily securing another. After all, as things are now, both in France and Germany, electoral success in many places at least, depends on the votes of a number of hangers-on of the party, men that are influenced by petty considerations, and whose simple abstention may lose the seat. Then, too, Paul's first speech showed evident signs of embarras, caused by his not being used to the new atmosphere where he had to live, move and have his being; and the sooner and the more he gets used to that and to the parliamentary forms, standing orders, and business habits of the Chambre, the better. This time he will have to show them that their howlings and interruptions will not intimidate him, and if he only tries, I am sure he can do it. I don't know French Chambers, but it seems to me, in a similar case I should take no notice of interruptions, reply to none of them, and in the last extremity call upon the president to ensure to me my right of being heard. (Capital advice on the part of one who notoriously cannot keep his own temper!)
Arndt you describe quite correctly. I see from Liebknecht's report on his journey[2] that he gives Arndt a mild slap but a slap anyhow, and probably he will have been told, at Marseille, of the proceedings of Blanquists and Allemanists. Liebknecht seems quite intoxicated with his triumph and, for the moment, plus français que les français eux-mêmes[3] Unfortunately he always deals in extremes, and I can only hope that he will not be goaded, by patriotic bullies in the Reichstag, into tumbling head over heels into the opposite extreme. So far, his attitude in his speeches in Mannheim etc. has been all that could be desired.
I understand your news about Roubaix to this effect that the people there will ask Paul to stand for the Chamber next autumn. That would be very good, Roubaix would be a pretty safe seat, while Lille seems rather shaky, to be carried at a period of extra local excitement, but very uncertain, so far, at ordinary periods.
Anyhow, ça marche en France[4] (everything but the Journal quotidien!).[5]
and Carmaux shows not only the progress of our ideas among the working-class, but also the fact of the bourgeois and the government knowing it. The self-contained attitude of the people there—et encore des méridionaux, des Gascons gasconnants![6] —and the quiet but determined way in which the socialist town-councils proceed without any possibilist weakness or concessions, show an immense progress. The more the French are coming to the front, the more I shall be glad. The Continental movement, to be victorious, must be neither all French nor all German, but franco-allemand. If the Germans taught the French how to use the suffrage and how to organise strongly, the French will have to penetrate the Germans with that revolutionary spirit which the history of a century has made traditional with them. The time has passed for ever where one nation can claim to lead all the rest.
The Socialiste does not contain, in its report, the resolution of the Congrès syndical of Marseille with regard to the Glasgow affair, nor any allusion to it. How is it that this business is enveloped in such mystery?
Aveling's article, of The Pall Mall Gazette,,[7] is also published in the Workman's Times. Do you still receive that paper?
Love from Louise and Yours affectionately,
F. Engels