Friedrich Engels

[Translated from the French]

["Le Socialiste" No. 10, October 31, 1885]

Citizens,

In your issue of the 17th you publish an extract from a private letter which I addressed to one of you. This letter was written in haste, so that, in order not to miss the courier, I did not even have time to read it through a second time. Permit me therefore to elucidate a passage which does not render my thought clearly enough.

When I spoke of Mr Clemenceau as the standard-bearer of French radicalism, I said: “It is very important that he should not come to power as a defender of property against the communists, but as the saviour of the Republic from the monarchy. In that case he will be more or less forced to keep what he has promised: in the opposite case he would (here one must insert: perhaps) behave like the others, who, like Louis-Philippe, considered themselves the best of republics: we are in power, the Republic can sleep peacefully; it is enough that we have taken possession of the ministries, so tell us no more of the promised reforms.”

In the first place, I have no right whatsoever to assert that Mr Clemenceau, if he were to come to power in the usual way of parliamentary governments, would inevitably act “like the others”. Moreover, I am not one of those who explain the actions of governments simply by their good or evil will; this will itself is conditioned by causes independent of them: by the general situation. Here, therefore, it is not a question of the good or evil will of Mr Clemenceau. In the interest of the workers’ party, the question is that the

Radicals should come to power in such a situation as to have only one means of maintaining themselves in power: to put their programme into practice. Let us hope that the 200 monarchists in the Chamber will be sufficient to create such a situation.

London, October 21, 1885

F. Engels