Marx-Engels Correspondence 1894

Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge

Abstract

November 10, 1894

On the Continent success is developing the appetite for more success, and catching the peasant, in the literal sense of the word, is becoming the fashion. First the French in Nantes declare through Lafargue not only (what I had written to them) that it is not our business to hasten by direct interference of our own the ruin of the small peasant which capitalism is seeing to for us, but they also add that we must directly protect the small peasant against taxation, usurers and landlords. But we cannot co-operate in this, first because it is stupid and second because it is impossible. Next, however, Vollmar comes along in Frankfort and wants to bribe the peasantry as a whole, though the peasant he has to do with in Upper Bavaria is not the debt-laden poor peasant of the Rhineland but the middle and even the big peasant, who exploits his men and women farm servants and sells cattle and grain in masses. And that cannot be done without giving up the whole principle. We can only win the mountain peasants and the big peasants of Lower Saxony and Schleswig-Holstein, if we sacrifice their ploughmen and day labourers to them, and if we do that we lose more than we gain politically. The Frankfort Party Congress did not take a decision on this question and that is to the good in so far as the matter will now be thoroughly studied; the people who were there knew far too little about the peasantry and the conditions on the land, which vary so fundamentally in different provinces, to have been able to do anything but take decisions in the air. But there has got to be a resolution on the question some time all the same.

<"ireland">...

Anglo-Saxon sectarianism prevails in the labour movement, too. The Social-Democratic Federation, just like your German Socialist Labour Party ^[365], has managed to transform our theory into the rigid dogma of an orthodox sect; it is narrow-mindedly exclusive and thanks to Hyndman has a thoroughly rotten tradition in international politics, which is shaken from time to time, to be sure, but which has not been broken with as yet. The Independent Labour Party is extremely indefinite in its tactics, and its leader, Keir Hardie, is a super-cunning Scot, whose demagogic tricks are not to be trusted for a minute. Although he is a poor devil of a Scottish coal miner, he has founded a big weekly, The Labour Leader ^[366], which could not have been established without considerable money, and he is getting this money from Tory or Liberal-Unionist, that is, anti-Gladstone and anti-Home Rule sources. There can be no doubt about this, and his notorious literary connections in London as well as direct reports and his political attitude confirm it. Consequently, owing to desertions by Irish and radical voters ^[367], he may very easily lose his seat in Parliament at the 1895 general elections and that would be a stroke of good luck — the man is the greatest obstacle at present. He appears in Parliament only on demagogic occasions, in order to cut a figure with phrases about the unemployed — without getting anything done — or to address imbecilities to the Queen ^[A] on the occasion of the birth of a prince, which is infinitely banal and cheap in this country, and so forth. Otherwise there are very good elements both in the Social-Democratic Federation and in the Independent Labour Party, especially in the provinces, but they are scattered; yet they have at least managed to foil all the efforts of the leaders to incite the two organisations against each other.

Footnotes

<"nA">A. Victoria. — Ed.

<"n365">365. The Social-Democratic Federation — an English socialist organisation founded in August 1884, on the basis of the Democratic Federation. It united heterogeneous socialist elements, mainly intellectuals. The Federation was for a long time led by reformists, with Hyndman at the head, who followed an opportunist and sectarian policy. The group of revolutionary Marxists in the Federation (Eleanor Marx-Aveling, Edward Aveling, Tom Mann and others) opposed Hyndman’s line and fought for the establishment of close links with the mass working-class movement. After the split in the autumn of 1884 and the formation in December 1884 by the Left-wingers of an independent organisation — the Socialist League — the opportunists became more influential in the Federation. Under the influence of the revolutionary-minded masses, however, revolutionary elements kept forming in the Federation and dissatisfaction with the opportunistic leadership grew.

The Socialist Labour Party of America was founded in 1876. Most of its members were immigrants (chiefly Germans) who had little contacts with the native American workers. As its programme the party proclaimed the struggle for socialism, but, owing to the sectarian policy of its leadership, which ignored work in the American proletariat’s mass organisations, it did not become a genuinely revolutionary Marxist party.

<"n366">366. The Labour Leader — an English monthly founded in 1887 as Miner. From 1889, under its new name, it appeared as the organ of the Scottish Labour Party, and in 1893 it became the organ of the Independent Labour Party. James Keir Hardie was its editor up to 1904.

<"n367">367. General Parliamentary elections were held in England from July 12 to 29, 1895, and were won by the Conservatives with a majority of more than 150 seats. Many candidates of the Independent Labour Party, including Keir Hardie, were blackballed.