London, 18 December 1889 
[Draft] 

Dear Mr Trier, 

Many thanks for your interesting communication of the 8th.°” 

Since you ask my opinion about the recent dramatic events in 
Copenhagen*! to which you fell victim, let me begin with one point 
upon which I am not of one mind with you. 

You reject on principle any kind of collaboration, however transient, 
with other parties. I am revolutionary enough not to deprive myself even 
of this recourse in circumstances in which it would be more to our 
advantage or at any rate do us least harm. 

That the proletariat cannot seize political power, which alone will 
open the doors to the new society, without violent revolution is some- 
thing upon which we are both agreed. If the proletariat is to be strong 
enough to win on the crucial day, it is essential—and Marx and I have 
been advocating this ever since 1847—for it to constitute a party in its 
own right, distinct from and opposed to all the rest, one that is conscious 
of itself as a class party. 

This does not mean, however, that the said party cannot occasionally 
make use of other parties for its own ends. Nor does it mean that it 
cannot temporarily support other parties in promoting measures which 
are either of immediate advantage to the proletariat or spell progress in 
the direction of economic development or political freedom. I would 
support anyone in Germany who genuinely fought for the abolition of 
primogeniture”> and other feudal relics, of bureaucracy, protective 
tariffs, and Anti-Socialist Law and restrictions on the right of assembly 
and of association. If our German Party of Progress or your Danish 
Venstre*!8 were genuine radical-bourgeois parties and not just a miser- 
able bunch of windbags who creep into their holes at the first threat 
uttered by Bismarck or Estrup, I would by no means unreservedly reject 
any kind of temporary collaboration with them having a specific end in 
view. When our deputies vote for a motion tabled by a different party— 
as they all too often have to do—even this could be described as a form 

of collaboration. But I would be in favour of it only if its immediate 
advantage to ourselves or to the country’s historical progress towards 
economic and political revolution was instantly apparent and worth the 
effort. And provided the proletarian class character of the party were not 
jeopardised thereby. Thus far and no further I am prepared to go. You 
will find this policy propounded as early as 1847 in the Communist 
Manifesto*; we pursued it in 1848 in the International, everywhere. 

Disregarding the question of morality—a point I am not concerned 
with here and shall therefore not discuss—I would, as a revolutionary, 
countenance any means, the most violent but also what may seem the 
most moderate, that were conducive to the ends. 

Such a policy demands insight and strength of character, but what 
policy does not? It exposes us to the dangers of corruption, or so say the 
anarchists and friend Morris. Very well, if the working class is an assort- 
ment of blockheads and weaklings and downright venal blackguards, 
then we might as well pack up at once, for in that case neither the prole- 
tariat nor any of the rest of us would have any business to be in the polit- 
ica] arena at all. Like all other parties, the proletariat will be best taught 
by its own mistakes, and from those mistakes no one can wholly save it. 

In my opinion, therefore, you are wrong when you elevate what is 
primarily a question of tactics to the level of a question of principle. And 
so far as I’m concerned, the only question that confronts us at the start 
is a tactical one. A tactical error, however, may in certain circumstances, 
lead to an infringement of principle. 

And here, so far as I can judge, you are right in criticising the tactics 
of the Hovedbestyrelsen.» For years the Danish Left‘ has been acting out 
an undignified comedy of opposition, nor does it ever tire of demon- 
strating its own impotence to the world at large. It has long since missed 
the opportunity—if ever it had one—of avenging the infringement of the 
Constitution>”* by force or arms; indeed, an ever increasing proportion 
of the Left would seem to be yearning for reconciliation with Estrup. A 
genuinely proletarian party could not, or so it seems to me, collaborate 
with a party of that kind without in the long run forfeiting its class char- 
acter as a working men’s party. Hence, in so far as you stress the class 
character of the movement as arguing against this policy, I can only agree 
with you. 

4 See present edition, Vol. 6, pp.477-520 — > Central Executive — ° the Venstre 
Party 

Now as regards the methods adopted towards you and your friends 
by the Hovedbestyrelsen, such summary expulsion of an opposition 
from the party certainly occurred in the secret societies of 1840-51; the 
very secrecy of the organisation made this inevitable. It also occurred— 
not infrequently—among the English Physical Force Chartists°”> under 
the dictatorship of O’Connor. But the Chartists, being a party specifi- 
cally organised for the use of force as their very name implies, were 
subject to dictatorship, and expulsion was an act of military discipline. 
On the other hand I have heard of no such high handed procedure in 
time of peace save in the case of the Lassalleans in J. B. von Schweitzer’s 
‘rigid organisation’; von Schweitzer had to make use of it because of his 
suspect dealings with the Berlin police, and in doing so only precipi- 
tated the disorganisation of the General German Workers’ 
Association.°”6 It would be most unlikely to occur to any of the social- 
ist labour parties presently in existence—now that Mr Rosenberg has 
happily made himself scarce in America *°!—to treat along Danish lines 
an opposition it had nurtured in its own bosom. No party can live and 
prosper unless moderate and extreme tendencies grow up and even 
combat one another within its ranks, and one which expels the more 
extreme tendencies out of hand will merely promote their growth. The 
labour movement depends on mercilessly criticising existing society, 
criticism is the breath of life to it, so how can it itself avoid being criti- 
cised or try and forbid discussion? Are we then asking that others 
concede us the right of free speech merely so that we may abolish it 
again within our own ranks? 

If you should wish to publish the whole of this letter, I should have 
no objection. 

Yours sincerely