Letter to Edouard Vaillant, March 5, 1895

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ENGELS TO EDUARD VAILLANT

IN PARIS

London, 5 March 1895
41 Regent's Park Road, N. W.

Dear citizen Vaillant,

I was unable to reply sooner to your letter of 8th January—at the moment our friends in Germany are having to hurry as much as possible with the publication of all works, brochures, articles, etc., now in preparation before the new reactionary legislation which is now threatening them is enforced. That has kept me, and is still keeping me, busy from morning to night with both literary work and the accompanying correspondence.

To return to your draft laws, the first, No. 384, agricultural delegates, deals with an institution of indisputable importance; as a means of propaganda among farm workers it will have a very favourable effect; but it has no chance of becoming law, particularly in France, where the inspection of factories is still so neglected.

No. 928, communal agricultural land. This draft goes into too much detail for me to pass knowledgeable judgement on it. First of all one would need to know whether, in the great majority of cases, this communal land does not consist of forests, moorland, heath or, at very most, land suitable only for grazing, and where agriculture proper cannot be practiced to advantage. Such is the case in Germany and, if I am not mistaken, in a large part of northern France. In these cases, farming such land, unless kept within very narrow territorial confines, would risk falling into the errors of the National Workshops of 1848. However, as I have just said, one needs very specialised knowledge to form an opinion on this subject.

No. 933, an eight-hour working day and a minimum wage for workers, etc., employed by the state, corresponds more or less to what has been instituted here by the County Council, and in part also by the ministries of war and the navy. A measure very useful both as an example for the capitalists, and as a means of propaganda; however, the day before yesterday the workers abandoned the County Council Progressives who had introduced these measures. Three of these progressives have been blackballed because tiny minorities (50 to 300 votes) were cast for 'socialist' candidates who are more or less 'revolutionary', but these minorities were sufficient to ensure the election of reactionary 'moderates'.

No. 939, ministry of labour, etc. This subdivision of work, which would remove some of the functions of the ministry of the interior and unite them with new functions hitherto neglected seems to me to be very useful. As for the details of the attributes of the new ministry, we can discuss this at greater length when the idea becomes feasible in practice.

I see these proposals simply as a means of propaganda, since with the present house there is no chance of seeing them accepted. From this point of view, we would first have to assure ourselves of their efficacy, and then determine whether or not they might be of interest for future action by the party when we are in a position to proceed to positive legislative activity. It is from this angle that I have formulated my criticism, and here I find just one point that seems to me to be dubious; whether it is wise to promise 40 million annually to the peasants in a form and for a purpose so clearly defined. The peasants could one day present us with this promissory note, and at a time when we might have better uses for such a sum.

Thank you for your comments concerning Wroblewski. I have calculated that the roughly 45 socialist deputies receive a total of 400,000 fr. annually from the state, and that it would not perhaps be wholly impossible to provide on the basis of this sum, an annual income of, say, 1,200 francs to the sole surviving general of the Commune. I am perfectly well aware that the requests made by electoral constituencies on the funds of their deputies are not very reasonable, but here it seems to me to be a question of the honour of the whole of revolutionary France. It will be difficult to make the world understand that the survivors of and successors to the Commune are represented in the house by 45 deputies, and that a party of this size is not, however, capable of guaranteeing its most senior general against the most extreme poverty. And indeed, I still dare to hope that it will be found possible to use this means of enabling him to live out his life, without exposing him to the humiliation of a public subscription.

Here socialist sentiment (it is far more a sentiment than a clear idea) is continuing to make progress among the masses, but the existing organisations and their leaders are also continuing with the disputes and rivalries that keep them powerless. It is a matter for despair for those who do not know the English character; in any case the European continent would seem about to give the English the impetus it so needs. That band of swindlers who govern and exploit France shamelessly will not retain support much longer. The same is true for Italy, where bribery and corruption is even more shameless. In Germany, everything is leading to a crisis, generals and high-ranking officials are openly calling for a coup d'état. The end of the century is taking a decidedly revolutionary turn. In France, the socialists are the only serious and honourable party, in Germany they are the only real opposition party; if a crisis comes, there will be no other party to turn to except this. In Austria, everyone agrees that the socialists will enter parliament, and it only remains to decide through which door. And in Russia, little Nicholas II has done us the service of making revolution absolutely inevitable.

Yours sincerely,

F. Engels