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Special pages :
The Situation (October 1885)
| Author(s) | Frederick Engels |
|---|---|
| Written | 12 October 1885 |
Printed according to the newspaper
Translated from the French
Source : Marx-Engels Collected Works, Volume 26
This is an extract from Engelsâ letter to Paul Lafargue. The complete text of the letter has not been traced.
Engels wrote this letter in connection with the first ballot to the French Chamber of Deputies, held on October 4, 1885 amidst general discontent with the home and foreign policy pursued by the party of moderate bourgeois republicans (the so-called opportunists, see Note 208) who had been in power since 1879.
During this period the countryâs economic situation had deteriorated (state budget deficit, growing taxes and increased borrowing, etc.); the promises given during the election campaign, such as the abolition of the Senate, separation of the Church from the state, introduction of progressive income tax, and others, were not kept; colonial adventures caused discontent among the popular masses; many of the partyâs leaders were exposed as corrupt. All this brought victory to the monarchists in the first ballot. The French Socialists regarded this as their own defeat and Lafargue wrote about it to Engels on October 7 and 11. Engels deemed it necessary to explain the situation to them and did so in his letter of which an extract was published in the newspaper of the French Workersâ Party.
Similar ideas expressed by Engels in his letter to Eduard Bernstein of October 8, 1885 (see present edition, Vol. 47) were utilised in the leading article of the Sozialdemokrat, No. 42, October 15, 1885.
The letter was published in English for the first time in: Frederick Engels, Paul and Laura Lafargue, Correspondence, Vol. I, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1959, pp. 310-11.
London, 12 October 1885
...I cannot see that the 4 October was a defeat, unless you have been prey to all sorts of illusions. It was a matter of crushing the opportunists[1]; they have been crushed. But in order to crush them pressure from two opposing sides was needed, from the right and from the left. That the pressure from the right was stronger than one might have thought is obvious. But that makes the situation much more revolutionary.
Rather than Orleanists and Bonapartists in disguise, the bourgeois, both big and small, opted for Orleanists and Bonapartists who were open about it; rather than men who seek to get rich at the expense of the nation they opted for those who have already become rich by robbing it; rather than the conservatives of tomorrow, the conservatives of yesterday. That is all.
Monarchy is impossible in France, if only because of the multitude of pretenders. If it were possible, it would be a sign that the Bismarckians are right to speak of the degeneration of France. But this degeneration affects only the bourgeoisie, in Germany and in England as well as in France.
The Republic still remains the government which divides the three monarchist sects[2] the least, permitting them to unite as a conservative party. The moment the possibility of a monarchist restoration becomes a matter for discussion, the conservative party splits up into three sects; whereas the republicans will be forced to group around the only government possible; and, at the moment, it is probably the Clemenceau administration.
Clemenceau is still an advance on Ferry and Wilson. It is most important that he comes to power, not as the bulwark of property against the communists, but as the saviour of the Republic against the monarchy. In this case he will be more or less forced to keep his promises; otherwise he would be behaving like the others who thought, like Louis Philippe, that they were âthe best of the republicsâ[3]: we are in power, the Republic can sleep peacefully; our takeover of the ministries is enough, so do not speak to us any more of the promised reforms.
I believe that the men who voted for the monarchists on the 4th are already frightened by their own success and that the 18th will yield results that are more or less in favour of Clemenceauâs supporters,[4] with some success, not of esteem but of scorn, for the opportunists. The philistine will say to himself: âAfter all, with so many Royalists and Bonapartists, I need a few opportunists.â Anyway, the 18th will decide the situation; France is the country of the unexpected, and I am wary of expressing a definitive opinion.
But, come what may, there will be radicals[5] and monarchists present. The Republic will run the necessary danger in order to force the petty bourgeois to lean a little more to the extreme left, which he would never have done otherwise. It is precisely the situation we communists need. Up till now, I see no reason to believe that there has been any deviation in the exceptionally logical course of political development in France: it is still the logic of 1792-94; only the danger which was caused by the coalition then, is today caused by the coalition of monarchist parties at home. If one examines it closely, it is less dangerous than the other one was...
F. Engels
- â The opportunistsâthis name was applied to the party of moderate bourgeois republicans in France after its Left wing split away from it in 1881 to form the Radical Party headed by Georges Clemenceau. The name, proposed by the journalist Henri Rochefort, derived from the words of Party leader LĂ©on Gambetta that reforms should be carried out âat an opportune timeâ.
- â The reference is to the Orleanists, the Bonapartists and the Legitimists. See also Note 202
- â The expression "the best of the republics" ("Voici la meilleure de rĂ©publique") is attributed to La Fayette, who used it on July 31, 1830 when the members of the Paris Municipal Commission fulfilling the functions of the Provisional Government after the overthrow of Charles X had a meeting with Louis Philippe, the Duke of Orleans, who had been proclaimed King of France.
- â Since at the elections of October 4, 1885, most of the candidates did not receive the required number of votes, a second ballot was fixed for October 18. It brought victory to the deputies from the party of moderate republicans (opportunists) (see Note 208) and the Radical Party (see Note 212). The Chamber of Deputies numbered 382 republicans, among them 180 radicals and 202 monarchists.
- â The radicalsâa parliamentary group that emerged from the party of moderate republicans (opportunists, see Note 208) in the 1880s-90s. The radicals relied mainly on the petty bourgeoisie and partly on the middle bourgeoisie and championed such bourgeois-democratic demands as a singlechamber parliamentary system, separation of the Church from the state, introduction of progressive income tax, limitation of the working day and solution of some other social problems. In 1901 the group acquired official status as the Republican Party of Radicals and Radical Socialists (Parti rĂ©publicain radical et radicalsocialiste).