| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 21 August 1893 |
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
AT LE PERREUX
Merkurstr. 6, Zürich-Höttingen
21 August 1893
My dear Löhr,
I have been in Switzerland for some weeks. 189 Louise, Dr. Freyberger and I left August 1st via Hook of Holland, met Bebel and his wife at Cologne, passed one night at Mainz, the next at Strasburg, the third at Zürich. Thence I went to Thusis in Graubünden where I met my brother[1] and family and stayed a week, returned to Zürich just in time for the closing of the congress and am now staying with my cousin Mrs. Beust.
As to the elections of yesterday, 208 we are in complete uncertainty and shall be so until this afternoon—no papers being published in Zürich on Monday mornings. So anything to be said on that subject must be delayed until end of this letter.
I found Germany completely metamorphosed. Steam chimneys all over the country, but where I passed, not numerous enough over a small district, to create a nuisance by their smoke. Cologne and Mainz are transformed. The old town is there still where it was, but around or aside of it has arisen a larger and newer town with splendid buildings disposed according to a well- arranged plan, and with large industrial establishments occupying distinct quarters so as not to interfere with the aspect or the comfort of the rest. Cologne has made most progress, having nearly trebled its inhabitants—the Ring is a splendid street, there is nothing equal to it in all England. Mainz is growing, but at a slower rate. In Strasburg you see too distinctly the separation between the old town and the new district formed by university and government buildings, an external addition, not a natural growth.
Paul naturally will be most curious to hear about Alsace. Well, the French may rest satisfied. In Strasburg, to my astonishment, I heard nothing but German spoken. Only once, two girls, Jewesses, who passed me, spoke French. But this is very deceptive. A very intelligent young Socialist, who lives there, told me that as soon as you go outside the city gates, the people speak, and purposely, nothing but French. In Mülhausen[2] too, he said, 4/5ths of the population, working men and all, speak French. Now this was not the case before the annexation. 247 Since the railways were opened, the French language began to spread in the country districts, but even now the French they speak is to a great extent of their own manufacture. But anyhow it is French, and shows what the people want. When the annexation took place, I once said to Mohr: the consequence of all these attempts at regermanisation will be that more French will be spoken in Alsace than ever before. And so it has turned out. The peasant and workman stuck to their German dialect as long as they were Frenchmen; now they do their utmost to shake it off and speak French instead.
Such arrant fools as these Prussians you never saw. They flattered the nobility and bourgeois who, they ought to have known, were hopelessly frenchified, and bullied the peasants and workmen, who, at least in language, had retained some remnant of German nationality. The country is under the thumb of maires,[3] gendarmes, tax-gatherers, appointed by the central government and mostly imported from abroad, who do as they like and live among themselves, separated from and detested by the people.
All the old oppressive laws of the French Second Empire 248 are scrupu- lously maintained and enforced, and sometimes even improved upon by old ordinances dating from the ancien régime and unearthed by learned functionaries who have discovered that the revolution has forgotten to state expressly that they are repealed! Moreover, all the chicanery innate to Prussian officials, is imported and improved upon. The consequences are natural. When I asked my friend: then, evidently, if the French by some chance or other were to return, nine-tenths of the people would receive them with open arms, he said that was so.
In Strasburg the old bourgeoisie keep quite to themselves and do not mix in any way with the intruders. With the rest of the people, Bebel is very popular, wherever he was recognised, they came to the shop doors and saluted him. You may be sure he will bring the state of things in Alsace before the Reichstag in a fashion different from that of those asses of protestataires who seem to rejoice in every fresh measure of oppression, for fear the people might get reconciled with the new régime, and who consequently have lost the best part of their hold on the population. In this case as in every other, it will turn out that our party is the only one that can and will do what is really wanted.
(This moment a telegram from Roubaix to Greulich's house that Guesde is elected. Hurrah! Hope to hear this afternoon about Paul's victory. 249
As to the Congress 229 it was a pity that our people had not at least 5-6 men here. 250 The one effect has been obtained: Blanquists 20 and Allemanists 21 have made themselves eternally ridiculous and contemptible devant le monde socialiste.[4] But now this falls on French socialism generally; now the others speak simply of 'the French', and that is very unlucky indeed. Had there been even a small minority of Marxists, that would not be the case. But if you find in English and continental socialist papers the French Socialists treated as a set of chaps who do not know their own minds for two minutes together, and who will vote by acclamation the greatest piece of nonsense if thereby they think they can aggravate les allemands,[5] You need not be astonished. I have heard Swiss Socialists (and the German Swiss have very strong French sympathies) declare that now it was evident that chauvinism was ineradicable in the French mind, and I had to tell them what things—gall and wormwood to every chauvin[6] - had been able to say in French in your Almanac,[7] without any bad results anywhere. So you see the fiasco of these spouters falls upon all France, our people included. And Jaclard with his peevish articles in Justice makes it worse still. Well, I hope the elections will put us in a position to show to all Europe that Jaclard and Allemane ne sont pas la France.[8] And yet I believe Jaclard voted in very many cases with Bonnier and the small vanishing minority.
The women were splendidly represented. Besides Louise, Austria sent little Dworzak, a charming little girl in every respect; I fell quite in love with her and whenever Labriola[9] gave me a chance, eloped with her from the entanglements of his ponderous conversation. These Viennoises sont des Parisiennesnées, mais des Parisiennes d'il y a cinquante ans.[10] Regular grisettes. Then the Russian women, there were four or five with wonderfully beautiful leuchtende Augen[11] and there were besides Vera Zasulich and Anna Kulischoff. Then Clara Zetkin with her enormous capacity for work and her slightly hysterical enthusiasm, but I like her very much. She has ascended the Glärnisch, a mountain full of glaciers, a very severe effort for a woman of her constitution. Altogether I had the happy lot to fall from the arms of one into those of the next and so on; Bebel got quite jealous— he, the man of the 'Frau',[12] thought he alone was entitled to their kisses!
Now I leave a bit of room for this afternoon's news. The Beust boys wish to be remembered. Louise is in Austria, Bebel and Bernstein are still here. By 4th September Bebel and I are off to Vienna, up to then the above address holds good.
Good luck to Paul!
Ever your old
General[13]
4 p.m. News that Paul is en ballottage[14] —please say how the chances stand— and that Ferroul is beaten, and Jourde in ballot. A few lines on the results gen- erally will be gladly received as bourgeois papers are not to be trusted.