AT LE PERREUX 

Ryde, 17 August 1891 
The Firs, Brading Road 

My dear Laura, 

We are still here, Schorlemmer and I, awaiting fine weather which 
is very slow to come; now and then we have had a fine day and could 
venture on an excursion but on the whole we had our enterprising 
spirits damped by the glorious uncertainty which is common to the 
law and the climate of England; not a few times, too, damped and 
even wetted by but too certain rain. Anyhow we may thank our stars 
that our plan[s] of circumnavigating this island (not Wight, which we 
have twice sailed round but Great Britain) were nipped in the bud, 
for we should have caught it and well too. So we are here admiring 
the British Fleet which is moored opposite us and awaiting the 
French which is to come up the day after tomorrow. 

So poor Paul has entered upon his term of Ste Pélagie 7°”? —I hope 
he’ll keep his spirits up! It’s a long bout of enforced rest, but then 
France ¢’est P’imprévu and nobody knows what will turn up within 

* Katharina Sorge-° is unpredictable 

a twelvemonth. I am afraid you will find Le Perreux about as solitary 
as he will Ste Pélagie, well we must have you over here in London off 
and on, which may be done I hope without very great difficulties, for 
surely you will not be bound by your family of pigeons, hems, etc., etc. 
So I hope you will arrange to come by and bye after you have made 
Paul as comfortable as circumstances will permit. 

Our Russian friend* wrote to me about 3 weeks ago: ‘We are on 
the eve of a famine’, and indeed that prophecy has been but too soon 
fulfilled. While the French Chauvins and Russian pan-Slavists frater- 
nise and hurrah at each other,? this fact nullifies all their demon- 
strations. With a famine at home, the Czar cannot fight. The utmost 
he will do is to use the present mood of the French bourgeois for his 
own ends, by blustering and threatening, but he will not strike 
a blow, and if the French bourgeois should go too far, he will leave 
them to shift for themselves. What the Russian, government aims at, 
at present, is the closing of the Dardanelles in time of war to all navies. 
That he will get the French to subscribe to, and then, when Glad- 
stone comes in here, as is hoped, at next general election, the grand 
old Russophile is to be coaxed into agreeing to it too. With the two 
great naval powers bound hand and foot by such an agreement, the 
Czar is master of Constantinople which he can surprise any day, and 
the Sultan is but the Czar’s care-taker on the Bosporus. That is the 
plan, to which the bourgeois republic at Paris is to act the part of 
cat’s-paw, and when it has done its duty as such, it may go to the de- 
vil for aught the Czar cares. That is the reason why the Czar submit- 
ted to listen to the Marseillaise and to humour the representatives of 
a Republic. 

Anyhow, peace is assured — unless some people turn crazy — for 
this and the greater part of next year. That is the principal effect of 
the famine in Russia. 

But there are others. There wiil be internal commotions in Russia, 
and they may lead to a change; it is even likely they will cause some 
change, bring about some movement in that pool of stagnation; but it 
may be, that this is not only le commencement de la fin mais la fin 
elle-méme.” 

In Germany the failure of the crop seems certain too, and there the 
present and still rising famine prices will bring about the breakdown 

* N.F. Danielson, see this volume, p. 230.- the beginning of the end, but the end it- 
self 

Engels to Laura Lafargue. 17 August 189} 229 

of the Bismarckian fiscal policy and the protective duties. There, too, 
the old system will be shaken to its very foundations and nobody can 
tell how far that may go. Anyhow it will again swell our ranks amaz- 
ingly, and help us to conquer the country districts where we are 
gaining ground wonderfully. There have been two by-elections in 
East Prussia on the borders of Russia, in thorough country districts, 
where two years ago we had about 400-500 votes together, this year 
we had about 3,000 78°! And if we get the rural districts of the six 
eastern provinces of Prussia (where large landed property and large 
farming predominate) the German army is ours. 

According to The Standard of to-day,? neither Hyndman nor 
Brousse had turned up, and Allemane was to take charge of the Possi- 
bilists.? So as far as that class of opposition is concerned, it looks like 
a walk-over for our people. That question once disposed of, there will 
remain but little real work for the Congress; unless the various velle- 
ities of a restoration of the ‘International’ venture to come out.’ I hope 
they will not, for that would cause new splits and throw us back, here 
in England at least, for years to come. The thing is an absurdity in 
every respect, especially so long as neither in France nor in England 
there is one strong and united party. If that were the case, and both 
united heart and soul with the Germans, then the end would be ob- 
tained without any formal union, the moral effect of the three great 
western nations acting together would suffice. But so long as that can- 
not be, all attempts at restoring an International would bring one of 
the petty nations, probably the Belgians, into an undeserved promi- 
nency and end in quarrels. The fact is, the movement is too great, too 
vast to be confined by such hampering bonds. Still, there is a hanker- 
ing after this restoration and Bonnier was full of it last time I saw him. 
Certainly he looked rather perplexed when I told him my objections 
and had not a word to say — but will that stop him and his friends in 
Brussels? 

On Thursday” I expect to be back in London; Adler will come 
from Brussels for a few days, perhaps also Bebel. As soon as I am in- 
formed about the Brussels proceedings I shall send you a letter for 
Paul, in the meantime kind regards to both of you from Schorlem- 
mer, the Pumpses and 

Yours ever, 
F. Engels 

* See this volume, p. 221.-° 20 August 

Had letter from Tussy from Brussels, but written before Sunday’s 
meeting.'3° Shall not know anything of what happened by the time 
this has to be posted. 18th August, 11 in the morning.