London, 5 January 1889 

Dear Bebel, 

First of all let me heartily reciprocate your kind New Year’s wishes. 

Today, fog permitting, I must write to you by request concerning two 
delicate matters. Both have to do with the fear that Liebknecht might 
commit the party to a not altogether desirable course when, as has been 
announced, he visits London and Paris**° (if he comes on his own, that 
is), nor, in view of his dependence on passing moods (which again is 
often due to self-deception), can I altogether disagree with the chaps. 

In Paris it is a question of the congress or rather two congresses—the 
Possibilists’ and our own, in other words the international congress 
decided upon at the Trades Unions Congress in Bordeaux in November?! 
and again at the Socialist Congress in Troyes.*”? Lafargue is afraid that 
Liebknecht has had dealings with the Possibilists and that you might 
perhaps send delegates to their congress. I have written and told Lafargue* 
that in my view you cannot possibly do this. The Possibilists, having joined 

in mortal combat with our people, the so-called Marxists, have now set 
themselves up as the one true church which absolutely prohibits any inter- 
course, any cooperation with the others—Marxists no less than 
Blanquists—and have formed an alliance with the one true church over 
here (the Social Democratic Federation), an alliance not the least of 
whose aims is to oppose the German Party everywhere so long as it refuses 
to join this unsavoury league and cease associating with other Frenchmen 
and Englishmen. Moreover, the Possibilists have sold themselves to the 
present government, their fares, congress expenses and periodicals are paid 
for out of secret funds, and all this on the pretext of combating Boulanger 
and defending the republic, hence also France’s Opportunist exploiters, the 
Ferrys, etc., their present allies.!? And they defend the present Radical 
government which, in order to remain in office, must do all the 
Opportunists’ dirty work for them, a government which ordered an assault 
on the people on the occasion of Eudes’ funeral332 and in Bordeaux and 
‘Troyes, just as in Paris, is more rabid in its opposition to the red flag than 
any government before it. To go along with this gang would be a denial of 
your entire foreign policy to date. Two years ago in Paris the same lot made 
common cause with the venal English trades unions against the socialist 
demands°* and if they took a different stand over here in November,”° it 
was because they had no alternative. Moreover, it is only in Paris that they 
are strong; in the provinces they’re a negligible quantity, proof of this being 
that they cannot hold a congress in Paris because the provinces would 
either stay away or prove hostile. Nor are they able to hold one in the 
provinces. Two years ago they went to a little place tucked away in the 
Ardennes**; this year they expected to find accommodation in Troyes, 
where several of the labour town councillors, having betrayed their class 
after the election, had joined them. But they were not re-elected and the 
comité—their own comité—extended an invitation to all French Socialists. 
Thereupon, dismay in the Paris camp; an attempt to rescind this—in vain. 
And so they didn’t go to their own congress, which was taken over and 
brilliantly run by our Marxists. What the provincial trades unions think of 
them can be seen from the enclosed resolution passed at the Bordeaux 
Trades Unions Congress in November. On the Paris Municipal Council 
they have 9 men, whose main purpose it is to oppose, on no matter what 
pretext, Vaillant’s socialist activities, to betray the workers and in return to 
secure not only grants of money for themselves and their supporters but 
also sole control of the labour exchanges.*!” 

* See this volume, p.239 

The Marxists, who control the provinces, are the on/y anti-chauvinist 
party in France; the stand they have taken on behalf of the German 
labour movement has made them unpopular in Paris, and to send dele- 
gates to a congress there that is hostile to these people would be to cut 
off your nose to spite your own face. They also know how best to comb 
at Boulanger,’ who stands for the general feeling of dissatisfaction in 
France. When Boulanger wanted to hold a banquet in Montlucon, our 
people took 300 tickets so as to put to him through Dormoy—a most 
able little chap—some highly categorical questions about his attitude to 
the labour movement, etc. When the worthy general learned of this, he 
cancelled the whole banquet. 

The fog precludes any further writing today. More in a day or two. 

Your 
EE.