Letter to Paul Lafargue, November 3, 1892

Author(s) Friedrich Engels
Written 3 November 1892


First published in: F. Engels, P. et L. Lafargue, Correspondance, t. III, 1891-1894, Paris, 1959
Printed according to the original
Translated from the French
Published in English for the first time in Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 50


ENGELS TO PAUL LAFARGUE

AT LE PERREUX

London, 3 November 1892

My dear Lafargue,

I am plunged up to the eyes in the 3rd Volume of Capital which must be completed once and for all. I am working on the least edited and most difficult part: banks, credit, etc.[1] I cannot interrupt the work for anything whatsoever, otherwise I should have to start from the beginning all over again. Hence all my correspondence is interrupted and I can write you only a few words.

It is most unfortunate that you believed in Millevoye's promises, who flouted you like a good politician[2] — in future you will know that in politics such people pass for GENTLEMEN. I get letter after letter from Germany in which they complain about your absence at the critical moment and I warn you that it will be difficult to have our people undertake work for debates from which the principal speaker for whom the work is done absents himself. Publication in pamphlet form[3] will not have a hundredth part of the effect of a parliamentary speech; that's a matter on which our Berlin people are well qualified by experience to pronounce.

The least you might do would be to send a delegate to Berlin on the 14th,[4] that would enable you to have it out with our people over there. So do try to send someone; it's an expedition that will pay.

You will have seen the reports in the papers of the ghastly effects, in Dahomey, of the new projectiles.[5] A young Viennese doctor[6] who has just arrived here (ex-assistant to Nothnagel) saw the wounds made by the Austrian projectiles in the Nurmitz strike, and he tells us the same thing. There's no doubt that people in danger of being shot to bits in this manner will want to know why. It's a capital thing for maintaining peace, but also for curbing the so-called revolutionary inclinations, on whose outbursts our governments count. The era of barricades and street fighting has gone for good; if the military fight, resistance becomes madness.

Hence the necessity to find new revolutionary tactics. I have pondered over this for some time and am not yet settled in my mind.

I am beginning to go out again a bit. I had nearly three months as a prisoner at home; now I am starting to walk, but little and slowly; but at least I realise that it will soon be over. And about time, as I feel that the lack of exercise in the open air must come to an end. And when I am completely restored, we can, I hope, arrange things so that you and Laura give us the pleasure of spending a few weeks with us. We have so many things to discuss, and it is time Laura saw London again.

Love from Mme Kautsky.

Ever yours,

F. Engels

  1. ↑ In his preface to Volume II I of Das Kapital (written in October 1894), Engels noted that Part V presented 'the chief obstacle in preparing it for the press' (Division of profit into interest and entrepreneural income. Capital yielding interest). Engels completed the bulk of this work in the spring of 1893 (see present edition, Vol. 37. pp. 8-9).
  2. ↑ Engels refers to L. Millevoye's statement in the Chamber of Deputies on 29 October 1892 with a question concerning W. Liebknechts speech of 25 September 1892 in Marseille (see Note 5). P. Lafargue did not attend that session. Millevoye thus broke his promise to Lafargue not to speak up before his (Lafargue's) return from Carmaux.
  3. ↑ All the required materials mentioned in the letter were handed over to Paul Lafargue through Engels. But since Lafargue's planned statement in the Chamber of Deputies never took place, Lafargue used them subsequently in his pamphlet La Démocratie Socialiste Allemande devant l'histoire which came from the press in Lille in 1893. It bore the follow-ing imprint (after the Preface and the Afterword): Conseil national du Parti ouvrier. J. Guesde, P. Lafargue.
  4. ↑ The French Workers' Party (see Note 11) was not in a position to send its delegate to the Berlin congress of the German Social-Democratic Party (see Note 51). Instead, it sent a message of greetings signed by Guesde and Lafargue.
  5. ↑ Engels means the colonial war unleashed by France against the West African state of Dahomey in 1890. In the latter half of November 1892 French troops captured the country's capital. In 1893 Dahomey became a French colony ruled by a governor-general. In the course of this colonial expedition the French forces were the first to use artillery shells containing the powerful explosive, melinite.
  6. ↑ Ludwig Freiberger