AT LE PERREUX 

London, 2 January 1889 

My dear Laura, 

All our best wishes for the New Year to yourself and Paul! 

We got into it in a very queer way—we went as usual to Pumps’ in a 
cab, the fog was thickening—in Belsize Road we stuck fast—the man 
had to lead the horse; by and bye that was not sufficient; a man with a 
lantern took hold of the horse and led; after a full hour’s drive in the dark 
and cold we arrived at Pumps’ where we found Sam Moore, Tussy and 
the Schliiters (Edward never turned up) and also Tauscher. Dinner of 
course was an hour late in consequence of our adventure. Well, it got 
blacker and blacker, and when the New Year came, the air was as thick 
as pea-soup. No chance of getting away; our cabman, ordered for one 
o’clock, never arrived, and so the whole lot had to stop where they were. 
So we went on drinking, singing, card-playing and laughing till half-past 
five, when Sam and Tussy were escorted by Percy to the station and 
caught the first train; about seven the others left, and it cleared up a little; 
Nim slept with Pumps, Schorlemmer and I in the spare bed, Percy in the 
nursery (it was after seven when we went to sleep) and got up again at 
out 12 or 1 to return to Pilsener etc.; the sun shone brightly on a beauti- 
fully frozen ground. The spree agreed with all of us most amazingly and 
none of us is any the worse for the bout. The others drank coffee about 
half past four, but I stuck to claret till seven. 

I am glad to hear that the Boulangitis was a personal affection of 
Paul’s though the Parti ouvrier pretends that Guesde and Deville have 
given in to him.75 What you say about the Possibilists we are 
perfectly agreed on,*?6 but I was bound to place before you and Paul 

244 Letters ~ 1889 

the excuses which Liebknecht and others—for instance the Belgians— 
may draw from the tender treatment the Boulangists undoubtedly 
have had from our side. All I insisted on from the beginning, and all 
Paul declined to let me have, was a clear and unmistakeable assurance 
that the Boulangists should be treated as bourgeois enemies quite as 
much as the Cadettists.3*” For under no circumstances could I encour- 
age our German friends to attend a congress the convokers of which 
had so far forgotten the old traditional policy of the proletariat as to 
coquet with a bourgeois party, et encore un parti tel que les 
boulangistes.* 

Well, the impending Paris election must bring our people to their 
senses—that was my first thought on Hude’s death,*” and indeed the 
Troyes Congress has taken at least one step in the right direction by 
proclaiming the necessity of an independent socialist candidature*”? (I 
hope Vaillant’s who seems to me at present the only one to unite a certain 
number of suffrages, as our own people appear to be quite out of the race 
at this moment). But no paper says what the other resolutions of the 
Congress are; there have been individual anti-Boulangist pronunciamen- 
tos (though none of Paul’s that I saw) but nothing on the part of the 
Congress officially except the above resolution. 

Now Liebknecht will come to Paris about middle of January**° and I 
have to write to Bebel in a few days.» Therefore if Paul wishes me to act 
in the interest of their congress, he must enable me to do so by a clear 
and unequivocal declaration as to what our people may expect of him 
and the others with regard to the Boulanger mania. And the sooner the 
better, there is not much time to lose. 

I have never doubted the really anti-chauvinist character of the 
Marxists, but that was the very reason why I could not conceive how 
they could think of an alliance open or disguised with a party which lives 
upon chauvinism almost alone. I never asked more than the open 
acknowledgment that Cadettists and Boulangists, dass sie alle beide 
stinken,° surely such a self-understood thing I ought to have had long 
ago! Also the Troyes resolutions I ought to have. 

If there has been an idea of getting some of our people into the 
Chamber by having them placed on the Boulangist list, that would be far 
worse than not getting into the Chamber at all. After all, if the poor old 

* and, moreover, a party like the Boulangists — > See next letter — ¢ that both of 
them stink (Heine, ‘Disputation’, Romanzero) 

Socialiste had been kept alive somehow or other, we should be better off, 
I think. 

Cunninghame Graham was here last Sunday week—a nice fellow, but 
always in want of a manager, otherwise brave to foolhardiness, alto- 
gether much of an English Blanquist. 

Love from Nim, Schorlemmer and myself. 

Ever yours affectionately, 

F. Engels