Manchester, 11 December 1851

Dear Marx,

Herewith I return Reinhardt’s letter as well as the one from
Pieper which I had been keeping for a time because of the
happenings in Cologne.

It seems that the 700 vagabonds’ great expedition to Paris, so
loudly proclaimed by the press, will not take place; and little
L. Blanc, too, to judge by his renewed groans of pain in today’s

a i.e. democrats and socialists of various trends - » What do you think?

234, Engels to Marx. 11 December 1851 511

o

Daily Newsis, even if allegedly not in London, at least for the
time being in safety. The first jeremiad” was divine by comparison
with today’s. Peuple frangais—noble fierteé—courage indomptable—
éternel amour de la liberté—honneur au courage malheureux’—and
thereupon the little fellow makes a demi-tour @ droite’ and preaches
trust and union between the people and the bourgeoisie. Vide
Proudhon: Appel a la bourgeoisie, page 2.And such reasoning! If
the insurgents were beaten, it was due to the fact that they were
not the vrai peuple’; the vrai peuple cannot be beaten; and if the
vrai peuple failed to fight, this was due to the fact that it didn’t
wish to fight for the National Assembly; true, it may be objected
that, once victorious, the vrai peuple would itself have been a
dictator, but it was taken so much by surprise that it could
never have thought of that and, after all, it had so often been
duped before!

It’s the old, vulgar, democratic logic of the kind disseminated
whenever the revolutionary party suffers defeat. Le fait est? in my
opinion, that if, this time, the proletariat failed to fight en masse, it
was because it was fully aware of its own prostration and
impotence and was prepared to submit with fatalistic resignation
to a renewed cycle of Republic, Empire, restoration and fresh
revolution, until such time as it regained fresh strength from a few
years of misére under a rule of maximum order. I’m not saying
that this will be so, but it seems to me to have been at bottom the
instinctive attitude which prevailed among the people of Paris on
Tuesday and Wednesday," and after the introduction of the secret
ballot and the resulting retreat of the bourgeoisie on Friday. It is
nonsense to say that this was not an opportunity for the people. If
the proletariat wants to wait until confronted by the government
with its own question, until a collision occurs in which the conflict
will assume a sharper and more definite form than in June
1848,it may have to wait a long time. The last time the question
between proletariat and bourgeoisie was posed with any degree of
precision was on the occasion of the 1850 electoral law, and then
the people chose not to fight. This and the perpetual references to
1852 were of themselves proof enough of inertia for us to make a

aL. Blanc, ‘To the Editor of The Daily News’, The Daily News, 11 December
1851. - & Address of the French Exiles to Their Countrymen, by Bernard le Clubiste,
Louis Blanc and others, The Daily News, 5 December 1851. - French people —noble
pride—indomitable courage—eternal love of liberty—all honour to courage in
adversity - 4 right-about turn -¢ A reference to the section ‘Appeal to the
Bourgeoisie’ in the introduction to Proudhon’s Idée générale de la Révolution au XLX¢
siécle. - # true people - § The fact is - 2 and 3 December 1851

fairly gloomy prognostication for 1852 also, always assuming that
no trade crisis supervened. Universal suffrage having been
abolished and the proletariat elbowed off the official stage, it is
asking rather too much to expect the official parties to pose the
question in a way that will suit the proletariat. And how did
matters stand in February? At that time the people were just as
hors de cause> as they are now. And there can be no denying that
if, at a time of revolutionary development, a revolutionary party
begins by allowing things to take a decisive turn without itself
having any say in them, or if it does intervene and fails to win, it
can be regarded with some certainty as temporarily done for.
Witness the insurrections after Thermidor and after 1830.%And
the gentlemen who now so loudly maintain that the vrai peuple is
biding its time, are in danger of gradually finding themselves in
the same boat as the powerless Jacobins of 1795-99 and the
Republicans of 1831-39, and of making thorough fools of
themselves.

Nor is there any denying that the effect which the establishment
of the secret ballot has had on the bourgeoisie, the petty
bourgeoisie and, au bout du compte, upon many proletarians as well
(as all the reports go to show), casts a curious light on the courage
and insight of the Parisians. It has clearly never occurred to many
of them how fatuous is the question posed by Louis Napoleon, or
to ask what guarantees there were that the votes would be
correctly recorded, yet the majority must have seen through this
humbug and have nevertheless persuaded themselves that every-
thing was now a1 ricut, merely in order to have a pretext for not
fighting.

According to Reinhardt’s letter, according to the fresh revela-
tions each day brings about the infamies perpetrated by the
soldiery and in particular their outrages on the boulevards against
any and every pékin quelconque, n’importe’ whether worker or
bourgeois, red or Bonapartist—according to the accumulating
reports of local insurrections even in the remotest places where no
one expected any resistance,” according to the letter in yester-
day’s Daily News from a French ex-deputy and commergani,’ it
would indeed seem that the appel au peuple’ is taking an
undesirable turn for Bonaparte. The mass of the bourgeoisie in
Paris would not appear very much to reuisn this new régime and
the deportation laws it has imposed. Military terrorism is
increasing too rapidly and too brazenly. ?/; of France is in a state

a.February 1848 - > uninvolved - ¢ in the end - 4 civilian of any description, no
matter - businessman - f appeal to the people :

of siege. I believe that after all this the bulk of the bourgeoisie
won't vote at all, that the whole electoral farce will come to
nothing; for in all the doubtful localities, where Louis Napoleon’s
opponents will turn up in crowds to vote, the gendarmes will stir
up trouble with the voters, and then the whole electoral procedure
will be declared null and void there. Then Louis Napoleon will
declare France to be en état d’aliénation mentaleand proclaim the
army the sole saviour of society and then the whole dungheap will
be plain to all and Louis Napoleon in the middle of it. Yet it is
precisely through this business of elections that things could take a
very nasty turn, if by then any really serious resistance to an
established government could still be expected.

The fellow’s assured of a million votes from officials and
soldiers. There are also half a million Bonapartists in the country,
maybe more. Half a million, maybe more, irresolute townspeople
will vote for him. Half a million stupid peasants, a million mistakes
in adding up, that makes 3'/, millions already—more than the old
Napoleon could boast in an empire which included the entire left
bank of the Rhine and Belgium, ie. certainly 32 million
inhabitants. Why shouldn’t he be content with that to start off
with? And were he to get them with, perhaps, | million against
him, the bourgeois would soon fall into his lap. But maybe he
won't get the 2'/, millions and maybe—though this might be
asking too much of the probity of French officials—he will not
succeed in having himself credited with mistakes in adding up to
the tune of 1 million. At all events a great deal depends on the
measures he is forced to take in the meantime. Anyhow, what’s to
prevent the officials from chucking a few hundred ou?s” into the
ballot box before the voting starts? Il n’y a plus de presse‘— nobody
can verify it.

At any rate it’s unfortunate for Kraptlinskithat funds should
be falling again, and for L. Blanc that he should now have to
recognise England as a free country.

In a few months’ time the reds are bound to be given another
opportunity of proving their mettle, perhaps actually when the
voting takes place; but if they again hang back, then I shall give them
up, and then, even with the finest of trade crises, all that they can
hope for is a sound thrashing which will most assuredly eliminate
them for several years to come. What is the rabble worth if it has
forgotten how to fight?

4 non compos mentis - > Ayes - There’s no longer any press - 4 a character in
Heine’s ‘Zwei Ritter., here Louis Bonaparte

Is Pieper back in London? I wanted him to do something for
me about books in Frankfurt and don’t know whether he is still in
Brighton.

The worst of it is that you will now run into difficulties with
Léwenthal. It would have been best had the contract already been
concluded.

Liverpool Market—quiet at yesterday’s prices; Manchester
Market—firm. Some overtrading going on to the Levant. German
buyers continue keeping out of the Market.Your
F. E.

F, Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 1, Stuttgart,