ENGELS TO PAUL LAFARGUE*”’ 

AT LE PERREUX 

London, 7 March, 1890 

My dear Lafargue, 

Election time? is over at last. Impossible to do anything amidst such a 
commotion, such comings and goings and perpetual running of errands. 
But never mind, for once it’s all been worth while. Our working men 
have made the German Emperor? travailler pour le roi de Prusse* and 
have sent the Gaulois reporter out to Le Perreux.°!* 

The worthy William is first and foremost an emperor. One cannot, as 
you seem to suppose, send a Bismarck packing as simply as all that. Only 
give the quarrel time to come to a head. William can no more part 
company so abruptly from the man who compelled the younger man’s 
grandfather? to turn himself into a panjandrum, than can Bismarck from 
the same William whom he, Bismarck, has accustomed to seeing himself 
as a Frederick II’. But there is one thing, and one thing only, upon which 
both will be agreed, and that is to open fire on the Socialists at the earli- 
est opportunity. On all other matters, divergence, and later on, an open 
breach. 

The 20th February marks the beginning of the revolution in 
Germany,° and that is why it is our duty not to let ourselves be prema- 
turely crushed. As yet only one soldier out of four or five is ours—on a 
war footing, maybe one in three. We are making headway in rural areas, 
witness the elections in Schleswig-Holstein and, more especially, in 
Mecklenburg, not to mention the eastern provinces of Prussia.!> In 
three or four years’ time we shall have won over the farm labourers and 
hired hands, in other words the staunchest supporters of the status quo, 
and then Prussia will cease to exist. That is why we must, for the time 
being, advocate lawful action, and not respond to the provocations they 
will lavish upon us. For short of a blood-letting, and a pretty rigorous 
one at that, there will be no saving either for William or Bismarck. 

* to the Reichstag — > William II —¢ to work for the King of Prussia, i.e. for noth- 
ing — 4 William I - © See this volume, p-454 

Letters ~ 1890 457 

These two stalwarts, it is said, are in a blue funk and have no settled 
plan, while Bismarck is kept pretty busy combatting the innumerable 
court intrigues of which he is the object. 

The petit bourgeois parties will muster on common ground, namely 
fear of Socialists. But they are no longer the parties they were. The ice is 
cracking and will soon begin to break up. 

As for Russia, she will yet need many millions from France before she 
is fit to go to war. Her army is equipped with weapons that are 
completely out of date, and there is still some doubt as to whether 
Russian soldiers should or should not be issued with repeating rifles; the 
Russians are extremely steady when fighting in massed formations— 
which, however, is no longer done; as sharp-shooters they are useless 
and totally lacking in personal initiative. Besides, where find the officers 
for all these men in a country without a bourgeoisie? 

The April and May numbers of Die Neue Zeit and Time will carry 
articles of mine on Russian foreign policy.? We over here are trying to 
wean the English Liberals from Gladstone’s Russophilia; the time is ripe, 
for the unheard-of cruelties perpetrated on political prisoners in 
Siberia! have made it almost impossible for the Liberals to continue in 
this strain. Aren’t they talking of it in France? But your bourgeoisie has 
grown almost as stupid and rotten as in Germany. 

As for Time, it is not a Socialist review, quite the contrary; Bax quails 
at the very thought of the word ‘socialism’ appearing in its pages. By not 
replying to his ‘reply paid’ telegram you have drawn down upon yourself 
his sovereign displeasure. But it would be a mistake for you to take 
offence as he has done. Time could not carry an article signed Lafargue 
too often. Nor could it possibly take one that had appeared in the 
Nouvelle Revue,” just as Mme Adam would not take it if it had already 
appeared in Time. And as for an arrangement that would ensure simul- 
taneous publication, would Mme Adam really lend herself to that? Do 
try and be reasonable. The article has been placed with her and in her 
company it will make a world tour. 

Aveling and Tussy intend to publish ove article a month by a 
foreigner. The English public would stomach no more and, since you 
had had an article in the February number,‘ this gave Bax an excuse to 
reject a second one, the more so since, a few months from now, nobody 

4B Engels, ‘The Foreign Policy of Russian Tsardom.’ — > P. Lafargue, ‘Rousseau et 
lEgalité, réponse au professuer Huxley’, La Nouvelle Revue, t. 63, 15 mars, 1890 
—°¢ P. Lafargue, ‘Darwinism on the French stage’, Time, February 1890 

458 Letters ~ 1890 

will be talking about Huxley’s attack on Rousseau. And all this, just 
because you failed to send the ‘reply paid’! It’s piffling, but that’s Bax all 
over! 

Poor Laura! Let’s hope she has no further dealings with Castelar. 
He’s a man I find as repellent as I did the handsome Simon von Trier in 
1848 whose conversation was wholly made up of SCRAPS taken from 
Schiller and of whom the Frankfurt Jewesses, young and old, were all 
enamoured. Thank you for Iglesias’s letter which I shall return in my 
next. The man Back is a German Russian from the Baltic provinces 
who, some ten years ago in Geneva, used to bring out a Baltic review* 
(in German) and whom old Becker, for want of anyone better, 
attempted to convert to Socialism. He has also sent an article to 
Kautsky on the Spanish party he himself invented, but Kautsky gave me 
the MS without having printed it. What cheek—a Balto-pseudo- 
Russian, putting himself at the head of a Spanish party consisting of 
three officers and no men! 

I had wanted to add something about Laura’s dogs, but it’s already 
five o’clock and the new GONG (a present from Aveling) is summon- 
ing us to dinner. Between Laura and Nim, duty pulls in two directions, 
but my stomach joins in the fray and settles the matter. Nim might scold 
me, and Laura ts far away. 

Good wishes to you both, 
FE.