Letter to Laura Lafargue, March 28, 1895

ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE

AT LE PERREUX

London, 28 March 1895
41 Regent's Park Road, N. W.

My dear Löhr,

If you were in danger of being flooded, it was just the reverse with us— four weeks without water, and at the end of the frost the canalisation blocked up as the result. A fine mess it was. London was thrown back into barbarism by this month of hard frost, and the Standard with truly British Conservatism congratulated us on the fact that the non-supply of water was a proof of the high civilisation attained here, while it pitied the uncivilised cities of the Continent where the water-pipes had not frozen. Well, thank goodness, it's over.

You grumble at the mythical union and real squabbles of the French Socialists—they are babies at that game, compared to the English. They are especially interesting—the English Socialists I mean—since Social Democratic Federation 44 and Independent Labour Party 114 fight each other under the cloak of a pretended harmony. This harmony goes exactly as far as their common hatred of John Burns, and allows the Social Democratic Federation to invite Keir Hardie to speak at their Commune meeting; at which meeting Keir Hardie (read his speech in the Labour Leader^[1] ) directs hidden attacks against the Social Democratic Federation to which that body replies in Justice.^[2] The Social Democratic Federation says the Independent Labour Party has no right to exist, the Social Democratic Federation being the only true orthodox church; and the Independent Labour Party says the Social Democratic Federation ought to allow itself to be absorbed in the Independent Labour Party. Their latest exploit was at the County Council Election where both of these organisations put up candidates, and only against 'Progressives'; 526 the result was: 1,300 votes in all out of 486,000, and the election of 4 Moderates (Conservatives) for seats held formerly by Progressives, and the cry of triumph in both Justice^[3] and Labour Leader^[4] that they had beaten the Progressives. Imagine the Paris Socialists voting with Clericals, Monarchists and Opportunists 87 against the parties claiming municipal autonomy for Paris, and you have the exact counterpart of the Socialist vote in London. But—to support the Progressives would have been to acknowledge that John Burns had behaved well in the County Council, and to endorse the policy of Sidney Webb and the Fabians 43 who, muffs though they be as Socialists, are really doing very good work municipally, and fighting energetically and cleverly for an autonomous London. And so the 'Socialists' prefer to support the party which refuses to allow London its self-government and fights hard to keep the County Council powerless. Now the County Council is the next and best and easiest-to-be-conquered piece of governmental machinery—the working class could have it tomorrow if they were united. And what would Parliament be with a Socialist autonomous Council for London!

The Berlin people are republishing Mohr's articles in the Revue der Neuen Rheinischen Zeitung on France 1848-50 and I have written an introduction which will probably first appear in the Neue Zeit. It has suffered somewhat from the, as I think, exaggerated desires of our Berlin friends not to say anything which might be used as a means to assist in the passing of the Umsturzvorlage in the Reichstag. 428 Under the circumstances I had to give way. 529 But this Umsturzvorlage and the absolutely uncertain state of things in Germany—splendid though it be for the general progress of our party— upsets a good deal of my calculations. I was, I believe you know, getting ready the Lassalle correspondence; 284 for that I have to compare a lot of old papers, letters, etc. But if the new bill passes, neither the letters nor my notes and introduction will be printable in Germany. And a reprint of our old articles of 1843-52 will be equally impossible. So I am compelled to neglect all this until we can see somewhat clearer wie der Hase läuft.^[5] In the meantime I am taking up Vol. IV of the Capital, 101 reading and correcting the parts already copied out by Karl Kautsky and shall then arrange with Tussy about her continuing the work.

Things in Germany are decidedly becoming critical. The latest escapade of young William^[6] —his tiefste Entrüstung^[7] at the Reichstag's anti-Bismarck vote 564 is big with serious eventualities. First as a symptom; it shows that he has now not only 'a slate off but that the whole of his slate roof is getting out of order. Then as a défi.^[8] I have no doubt our party will reply to that in the Reichstag, and although the thing may appear to be buried for the moment, the conflict is there and will crop up again. There is no doubt, we are facing in Germany a modern Charles I, a man possessed by Cäsarenwahnsinn.^[9]

Then look at the confusion the fellow creates in the ranks of the bourgeois parties. The Conservative Junker he in turns cajoles and repels; their clamour for state-secured rents he cannot satisfy; the alliance between landed aristocracy and large manufacturers, founded by Bismarck [in] 1878 by means of his protective tariff, 565 has gone to pot over conflicting economic interests; the Catholic party, 566 who hold the balance of power in the Reichstag with their 100 members, was on the best way of being bribed into voting for the Umsturzvorlage, when the Bismarck vote and the Entrüstunskaiser^[10] throw them at once back into opposition—and that means furthering the splitting up of the Catholic Centre into an aristocratic-bourgeois wing and a democratic, peasant and working men's wing. Everywhere confusion and disunion, pushing William to a coup d' état to assert his divine right to absolute power and to get rid of universal suffrage, and on the other side the silent and resistless advance of our party manifesting itself at every election for any post accessible to working men's votes. This does look critical—qui vivra verra^[11] !

In a day or two I shall write to Paul about his half of his double-bedded book.^[12] He has got a strange bed-fellow! 567

Ever yours

F. Engels