AT LE PERREUX 
London, 22 January 1895 
My dear Lafargue, 

How lucky you are, you French! You bring down a Minister*; then the 
whole Cabinet follows him and by way of aftereffect the President of 

* Reference to Pierre-Jean de Béranger’s Le vieux Célibataire -° It’s getting hot! - William II -* 
Charles Dupuy 

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the Republic is involved in the general collapse.* Three Cabinets and one 
President finished off ““‘—that’s not doing too badly. The socialist group 
seems to have succeeded to the role of the late Clemenceau ***—and will play 
it better, I hope. It is now established that no ministry can exist without at 
least the help of the extreme Left. That will lead to the dissolution, to which 
the growing stench of the opportunists’ corruption is also leading. *’ In which 
case you will be returned in greater strength, both numerically and morally; 
that can lead to the formation of Lassalle’s ‘great reactionary mass’, *'* the 
coalition of all the bourgeois parties against socialism, a mass which is 
always formed at a time of danger, afterwards to be dissolved again into its 
various and mutually opposed groups of interests; large landowners, large 
manufacturers, high finance, small and middling bourgeoisie, peasants, etc. 
But, each time it is reformed, it gains solidity until the day of crisis, when we 
shall have a compact mass confronting us. We have had this process of 
continual concentration and dissolution in Germany ever since our Party 
numbered more than 20 members in the Reichstag; but in your case, it will 
go faster because decisive power is in the hands of your Chamber of 
Deputies. 

Mr Faure may do what he likes, he cannot halt this process of forming into 
two opposing camps, nor the confusion which is necessarily born of this 
interplay of opposing forces, attraction and repulsion, within the milieu of 
the bourgeois parties. That is precisely the milieu we need, and which the 
existence of a socialist group creates everywhere, however little power it 
may have in Parliament. You will race ahead; it is the Party’s progress itself 
that will first subdue and then eliminate the intestine and traditional quarrels. 

The addition of 30 Radicals has brought you luck, without them the group 
would not have had cohesion. Without Millerand you would not have been 
able to take advantage of the political situations as you have done. And 
Jaurés, indeed, seems full of goodwill—if he develops rather slowly it is 
perhaps a good thing for him and for us. Though frankly, in economic 
matters he needs further schooling. His Bills for immediate reforms in the 
Petite République **’ article are not quite as wild as his Bill for a corn 
monopoly, '’ but they are calling on the bourgeois for sacrifices incompatible 
with the advance of capitalist industry, so that in their eyes they are 
tantamount to immediate expropriation; whereas, on the other 

* Gean Casimir-Périer - ° See this volume, p. 275 

hand, he proposes improvement of the soil at the nation’s expense, of the soil 
which would remain private property, and under conditions perpetuating the 
small peasant and which would create a new Panama “ for the big 
landowners who would laugh at the ‘obligation’ etc. with which the Bill 
saddled them. This is to see as a complete abstraction the environment in 
which one lives and in which these reforms would be carried out. So long as 
the air is not cleansed by the removal of all the parliamentary and financial 
rogues, this improvement of individual landed property at everyone’s 
expense would end as a colossal theft; and when we have got rid of these 
gentlemen, we shall be strong enough to do better than that. 

The presidential crisis furthermore will have a capital effect on European 
politics. The Franco-Russian alliance is becoming more and more lenitive, 
insofar as the Russian hope of seeing the restoration of the monarchy emerge 
from the presidential crisis suffers repeated disillusionment. At the same time 
the Triple Alliance '*° has ceased to exist except on paper; bankrupt Italy 
slips through its fingers, Austria is only retained: by fear of war with Russia, 
for which she would foot the bill; this danger vanishes as Russia loses the 
chance of using the French army when she sees fit; young William* has made 
himself far more disagreeable to his friends than to his enemies. So that, with 
the complete revolution in weapons since 1870 and, in consequence, of 
tactics, there is a total uncertainty about the outcome of a war where so many 
imponderables are involved and regarding which all the calculations made in 
advance are based on fictitious quantities. In these circumstances we seem to 
be assured of peace and even the most frenzied bourgeois chauvinists of the 
Dérouléde type can keep calm: the Prussians have taken over responsibility 
in Alsace for maintaining and nourishing French patriotism. 

Herewith cheque for twenty pounds; if that can do you until the beginning 
of April, I should be glad; at that time I shall have certain payments coming 
in which will allow me to be more liberal. But, if needs be, I could perhaps, 
after all, send you ten pounds in March—we’ll see. 

Greetings from the Freybergers. Kiss Laura very warmly for me. 

Ever yours, 
F. E. 

Iam sending you a report of the Norwich Trades Union Congress. *”° 

* William IT 

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