AT LE PERREUX 

London, 3 December 1891 

My dear Lafargue, 

After your formal repudiation of all those passages in the Bordeaux 
report ‘ of which I had a right to complain, it only remains for me to 
take back all the wounding words I may have used about you and 
outright to ask your forgiveness. 

As my only excuse I shall describe for your benefit the situation in 

“ See this volume, pp. 297-98.-> G.W. Plechanow, ‘Zu Hegel’s sechzigstem Tode- 
stag’, Die Neue Zeit, 10. Jg. 1891/92, 1. Bd., Nr. 7-9.-‘° See this volume, pp. 306-07. 

which I found myself. One evening * The Evening Standard arrived with 
the Reuters report you know about 3°°; the next evening a bundle of 
newspapers from Laura, amongst them the Jntransigeant with the re- 
port in question; then a cutting from yet another paper with the same 
report. All three versions were in agreement on the main point. So 
what conclusion could I have come to other than that Laura had 
read those reports and that, if she had sent them to me without 
a word of comment, they were to all intents and purposes accurate. 
Hence Paul must have said something of the sort. 

Again, it contained things — whether true or not— which could 
only have been said by you or by Ranc. If said by Ranc, you would 
certainly not have hesitated to advise me of a fact that could have the 
gravest repercussions on the situation of the German socialists — well 
then? 

Just so. For our friends in Germany it would mean at best the re- 
introduction of the Anti-Socialist Law,'! frenziedly acclaimed by all 
the Chauvins in our ruling classes, the suppression of our newspapers 
and meetings, of all our literature and, in the event of war, the arrest 
of all the z#anges at the very time when we would have most need of 
them to take advantage of the impending revolutionary moment. It 
would also mean the implantation of an element of discord, of mis- 
trust, between French and German working men at the very moment 
when unity was more necessary than ever. 

Thanks to the stupidity of our enemies, these accounts have not yet 
been cited in the German press. But the Embassy will undoubtedly 
have made use of them in its reports. And although your disavowal, 
which was at once passed on to Berlin,” has lifted a terrible weight 
from my mind, there is always the danger that the German govern- 
ment will keep this accusation up its sleeve so as to imprison our best 
men at the outbreak of war and annihilate them with an accusation 
that would be doubly appalling at a time when chauvinist passions 
were running riot. So your disavowal would go only half way towards 
protecting them and this is why. 

You say that the reporter embroidered the article by Ranc. But 
that embroidery, such as it is, would not have been possible had not 
Ranc at least sketched out the design on the canvas. I haven’t set eyes 
on that canvas. So please be so kind as to send me either the article it- 
self or at least a copy of the relevant passages; or else let me know the 

* 23 November -” See this volume, pp. 301 - 02. 

name of the paper and the date of the number in which it appeared so 
that I can seek it out here. Then we shall at least know what the at- 
tacks will be which we shall have to parry. 

Yours ever, 

F. Engels