| Author(s) | Friedrich Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 16 April 1890 |
My dear Laura,
At last! a free hour to write a line to you. I am pestered almost to death with letters, verbal and other applications of all sorts, and wish I could shut myself off for a month or so—for I find it impossible to reply to all my letters, much less to do any serious work.
Many thanks for the kind wishes in your poem but I am afraid the Lord on high and the lord below will settle my hash for me some day and find me a place somewhere. But that need not trouble us now. And now a little business:
1) Will you give me Longuet's address?
2) Will Paul procure me the title, publisher's name, etc. of a pocket edition (cheap) of the Code Napoléon)[1] as at present in force, for Sam Moore (les cinq codes suivant, civil, procédure civile, pénal, procédure criminelle, de commerce[2] and price.
3) Enclosed a bill found in last lot of French newspapers.
The Parisian workmen are acting now indeed as if they had but one purpose to live for, and that is to prove how utterly undeserved was their revolutionary reputation. It's all very well for Paul to repeat over and over again that they are Boulangists out of pure opposition against the bourgeoisie—but so were those who voted for Louis Bonaparte, and what would your Parisians say if the German workmen, to spite Bismarck and the bourgeoisie, threw themselves blindfold in the arms of young William? It is plainly cutting off your nose to spite your face, and the Parisians have still so much left of their former esprit that they can still back up the worst of all possible causes by the best of all possible reasons.
No, the cause of this suicide of Boulangism lies deeper. It is Chauvinism. The French Chauvinists, after 1871, resolved that history should stand still until Alsace was reconquered. Everything was made subordinate to that. And our friends never had the courage to stand up
against this absurdity. There were fellows at the Citoyen and Cri[3] who howled with the masses against everything German, no matter what, and our friends submitted to that. The consequences are there. The only excuse for Boulangism is la revanche, Alsace reconquered. What not one party in Paris ever dared to oppose, is it a wonder that the Parisian workmen now cling to as a gospel?
But in spite of French patriots, history did not stand still—only France did, after the fall of McMahon.[4] And the necessary consequence of this French patriotic aberration is that the French workmen are now the allies of the Czar[5] against not only Germany, but against the Russian workmen and revolutionists too! In order to preserve to Paris the position of revolutionary centre, the revolution must be crushed in Russia, for how to reconquer, without the help of the Czar, the leading position belonging to Paris by right?
If the desertion en masse to Boulanger of the French or rather Parisian workmen should cause socialists abroad to consider them as completely déchus[6] there would be no cause to be astonished. What else can they expect?
Of course, I should not be so hasty in my judgment. This momentary aberration should not lead me to such a conclusion. But it is the third time that such an aberration recurs since 1789—the first time Napoleon No. I, the second time Napoleon No. 3 was carried to the top by that wave of aberration, and now it's a worse creature than either—but fortunately the force of the wave, too, is broken. Anyhow, we must apparently come to the conclusion that the negative side of the Parisian revolutionary character—chauvinistic Bonapartism—is as essential to it as the positive side, and that after every great revolutionary effort, we may have a recrudescence of Bonapartism, of an appeal to a saviour who is to destroy the vile bourgeois qui ont escamoté la révolution et la république[7] and in whose traps the naïfs ouvriers[8] have fallen—because, being Parisians, they know everything from birth and by birth, and need not learn like vulgar mortals.
So I shall welcome any revolutionary spurt the Parisians may favour us with, but shall expect them to be again volés[9] afterwards and then fly to a miracle-performing saviour. For action I hope and trust the Parisians to be as fit as ever, but if they claim to lead with regard to ideas, I shall say thank you.
By the bye Boulanger is so deep down now that the other day Frank Rosher who was in Jersey on business—a boy of 22, and the most conceited snob in London—called on him and was received courteously and both assured each other of their mutual bienveillance et protection![10] I hope the 1st of May will not disappoint the expectations of our French friends. If it turns out a success in Paris, it will be a heavy blow to the Possibilists and may mark the beginning of an awakening from Boulangism. The 1st May resolution was the best our congress took.[11] It proves our power all over the world, is a better revival of the International than all formal attempts at reorganization, and shows again which of the two congresses[12] was representative.
I am afraid I shall not be able to take one of your two dogs. The one is a bitch and Nim objects firmly to have again to do the massacre of the innocents, and the other is a pointer, id est a sporting dog, and there are most absurd laws here with regard to them—I could not take him out to Hampstead without being stopped by the police as a potential poacher; that is the reason why pointers, fox-hounds, setters, etc. are kept only for real sporting purposes and never, as with us on the continent, for private amusement. Voilà ce que c'est que de vivre dans un pays aristocratique.[13]
In Germany we shall have to keep the 1st May as quiet as possible. The military has strict orders to interfere at once and not to wait for requisition from the civil authorities, and the secret police—on the point of being discharged—are straining every nerve to provoke a collision. In fact if the telegrams just to hand by Reuter are worth anything, they are beginning already and have found a few anarchists to provoke some 'outrages'.
Nim says she can't come, her gardening days are over. She has rheumatism in the hip-joint—not much, but there it sticks.
By the bye our Paris friends seem to go all to pieces. There is the Parti socialiste—a paper to work the Municipal elections, that I can conceive as a rational purpose. But then there is Okecki's Autonomie, and then a daily paper, the Combat in Boyer's hands, and now Guesde wants to organize a lithographic correspondence—why this looks like an attempt at gaspillage[14] —they all cry after a daily paper and now they have one they don't seem to use it—or are they all at sixes and sevens? I cannot make it out.
Ever yours,
F. Engels