ENGELS TO PAUL LAFARGUE*”’ 

AT LE PERREUX 

London, 11 May 1889 

My dear Lafargue, 

We have never called you anything but ‘the so-called Marxists’ and I 
would not know how else to describe you. Should you have some other, 
equally succinct name, let us know and we shall duly and gladly apply it 
to you. But we cannot say ‘aggregate’,**° which no one here would 
understand, or anti-Possibilists, which you would find just as objection- 
able and which would not be accurate, being too all-embracing. 

Tussy must have returned you your letter to the Star yesterday. Since 
Tussy’s translation of the Convocation had already been in the hands of 
the Star the day before that, your paraphrase of the said document stood 
no earthly chance of being inserted. 

What we need are letters from Paris, sent direct to the Star, bearing the 

4 Lazar Wischnewetzky 

Paris postmark and refuting the Possibilist calumnies which appeared in 
Saturday’s and Tuesday’s editions, namely, that Boulé’s election 
campaign was run on Boulangist money, that Vaillant had acted as an 
ally of the Boulangists, etc.?6 1 should say that you could do this 
perfectly well without ruffling your newly-found dignity as the one and 
only Catholic Church in matters connected with French Socialism. 

No other daily is so widely read by working men as the Star—the only 
one to which we have a measure of free access. In Paris, Massingham had 
Adolphe Smith for his guide and interpreter and was steered by him into 
the arms of Brousse and Co., who took possession of him, refused to let 
him go, made him tipsy with absinthe and vermouth, and thus succeeded 
in winning over the Star to the cause of their congress and making it swal- 
low their lies. If you wish us to be of use to you over here, you must help 
us regain some influence over the Star by demonstrating that the course 
which it has been led to embark upon is a dangerous one and that, in fact, 
Brousse and Co. have been feeding it with lies. And here nothing will 
serve but letters of complaint about such articles, sent direct from Paris. 
Otherwise we shall be told as before that no one in Paris has complained, 
hence these things must be true. 

Aside from the Star we have only the Labour Elector, a very obscure 
and distinctly shady paper which depends on money from unavowed 
sources and is therefore highly suspect. You could most assuredly do 
with a bit of publicity here in England, so bombard the Star with 
complaints—you, Vaillant, Longuet, Deville, Guesde and tutti quanti.* 
But if you leave us in the lurch, you can’t complain if your congress is 
passed over in silence by the press and if the Possibilists are regarded 
over here as the only French Socialists and yourselves as a worthless 
clique of intriguers and nincompoops. 

For the past three months Tussy and I have done virtually nothing 
but labour on your behalf; we had won the first battle with Bernstein’s 
pamphlet,>° when Liebknecht’s inertia and irresolution lost us in rapid 
succession all the positions we had previously gained. Now that we are 
back on the defensive and threatened with the loss of even those posi- 
tions we originally held, it is very hard to find ourselves similarly aban- 
doned by the French when a few letters, however short, arriving at the 
right moment, could prove so very effective. But if you are bent on 
losing all means of publicity in England at the very time when it could 
be of greatest moment to you, there’s nothing we can do about it; I, for 

a all the rest 

one, will certainly have learnt my lesson; I shall go back to Volume 3,? 
abandoned for the past three months, and shall not be unduly upset if 
the congress comes to nothing. 

To organise lodgings and eating-places for the delegates is an excellent 
idea—Bebel wrote and told me about it and, since Paris in July will be 
positively swarming with people, this is of the utmost importance. 

We shall have Laura’s English translation*™* printed. As for the 
German translation, one has appeared in the Sozialdemokrat of which 
one sentence towards the end was amended by Bernstein (No. 3 in your 
invitation) as being too dangerous for the Germans. Send the French text 
of the Convocation which is to be signed by everyone to Bebel and 
Liebknecht so that they can let you know what passages they cannot 
sign without compromising themselves in the eyes of the law, for other- 
wise you will run the risk of not getting any German signatures. I shall 
wait until I have heard from Bebel before printing the German transla- 
tion here, and shall first submit to you the changes he suggests. 

It is some time since Labusquiére’s name has appeared in the 
Possibilist press—can he, too, have joined the ranks of the malcon- 
tents?4?” The incipient disorganisation of the Possibilists is undoubtedly 
agreeable to ourselves, but our onslaughts upon them, combined with 
the congress, may well bring about a return to unity. In any case, the 
disintegration is not yet so far advanced as to make any impact on the 
Possibilists’ allies abroad. 

Herewith cheque for £20.—As for Ferry’s coup d’état,** it might well 
fail, for in 1889 the foot-slogger is much more of a Boulangist than he 
was a Republican when he disrupted MacMahon’s coup.!”8 The worthy 
Boulanger would not be so stupid as to evoke a call to arms over the 
High Court affair, but the same might not apply if there were to be a 
direct violation of the Constitution. That Ferry will not surrender 
power, direct or indirect, without a struggle, I can readily believe. But 
there is a risk. 

Yours ever,