Appendices
IN NEW YORK
National-union of Gasworkers and General Labourers
of Great Britain and Ireland.
Registered Office — 144, Barking Road, E.
W. Watkinson, President W. Byford, Treasurer W. Thome, "General Secretary W. H. Ward, Assistant Secretary
[London,] 25 January 1891
Mr Samuel Gompers for the American Federation of Labour [8 4]
Dear Comrade,
During the recent visit of Comrades Bebel, Liebknecht and Singer on the occasion of Frederick Engels' 70th birthday, they met representatives of the Gas Workers and General Labourers Union [1 6 4]
(comprising about 100,000 men and women belonging to over seventy trades) and of several other Unions and Organisations, besides John Burns, Cunninghame Graham, M. P., and others. At this meeting the feeling was very strong that the time had come to bring about a close and organised relation between the labour parties of the different countries. The most immediate question is that of preventing the introduction from one country to another of unfair labour, i. e. of workers who not knowing the conditions of the labour-struggle in a particular country, are imported into that country by the Capitalists, in order to reduce wages, or lengthen the hours of labour, or both. The most practical way of carrying this out appears to be the appointing in each country of an International Secretary, who shall be in communication with all the other International Secretaries. Thus, the moment any difficulty between capitalists and labourers occurs in any country, the International Labour Secretaries of all the other countries should be at once communicated with, and will make it their business to try to prevent the exportation from their particular country of any labourers to take the place on unfair terms, of those locked-out or on strike in the country where the difficulty has oc-cured. Whilst this is the most immediate and most obvious matter to be dealt with, it is hoped that an arrangement of the kind proposed, will in every way facilitate the interchange of ideas on all questions between the workers of every nation that is becoming every day and every hour the most pressing necessity of the working-class movement.
If your organisation [84] agrees with the views of the Gasworkers and General Labourers Union, will you at once communicate with us, and give us the name of the Secretary appointed by it to take part in this important movement?
Yours fraternally,
W. Thorne (General Secretary) Eleanor Marx-Aveling (On the behalf of the Executive Committee)
2. Louise Kautsky to August Enders. 15 December 1891
IN ERFURT
London, 15 December [1891] 122 Regent's Park Road, N. W.
Dear Comrade,
When your letter arrived yesterday, Engels was on the point of leaving. However he read your letter and asked me to reply. In the first place your letter arrived much too late for the circular to be translated and put into the papers. In this instance the bourgeois papers were sooner and better advised of the Germans' intentions than were the comrades over here. To the best of my knowledge Mr Dublin, the German delegate, has not yet seen any of the more prominent comrades, besides which the London TRADES COUNCIL [196] has taken charge of the affair. According to today's papers there was a meeting yesterday at which not one German spoke English well enough to be able to translate. A letter from Mr Liebknecht was read out. At this stage we should only make ourselves look silly were we to tag along behind the rest in the name of the German Party and hence we might as well save ourselves the trouble. So far as I can see from the papers, the meeting went well for the compositors. The English trades unions will do everything they can. If in future you have anything of this kind, will you please send it to Bernstein first. Over here we say, as do the Avelings everywhere, that it is he who represents the German Party and in my view Döblin ought to have gone to Bernstein. Please don't regard this letter as an answer from Engels. He merely agreed that the things should not be published.
With Social-Democratic Greetings,
Louise Kautsky
Mrs Aveling, who is as familiar as anyone with English affairs, is in full agreement with what I have written.
Published for the first time Printed according to the original
3. Eleanor Marx-Aveling to Paul Lafargue. 15 April 1892
AT LE PERREUX
[London,] 15 April 1892 65 Chancery Lane, W. C.
My dear Paul,
We sent you some days ago a copy of the ChronicleA containing a statement with regard to Adolphe Smith and the representation of the French Workers at the forthcoming demonstration in Hyde Park.[463] In the Workman's Times of this week — I send you a second copy tho' I believe you get one regularly — you will see some notes referring to this under the heading of (I think) 'London notes', and in any case over the signature of Autolycus — i.e. Burgess, Editor of the Workman's Times. Now the result of this paragraph has been much greater and much more unpleasant than you can probably imagine, and unless very disagreeable complications are to follow, you must absolutely write to the Chronicle and the Workman's Times on the subject. That is, of course, if the organisations for which M. Adolphe is the mouthpiece are, as we surmise, simply the Possibilist ones.
You know that 2 years ago, when in the face of violent opposition we managed to force a demonstration,[58]'' you came and spoke from the platforms of the Demonstration Committee. You know that last year your Party was again invited by us, and your letter, stating the reasons why you could not send a delegate was publicly read at the Demonstration. During all this time the London Trades Council 1!)6
working then as now with Mr Hyndman and the English Possibilists, refused to have anything to do with the 'foreigners'. And do not forget the very important fact that the Legal Eight Hours Day demanded by Shipton and Co. is not our Legal Eight Hours Day. They only want the 8 hours day legalised in order that over-time may be more highly paid.
Now seeing all this our Committee [20]° who have held steadfastly to the whole Paris programme,[586] and specially the strongest body not only on our Committee, but the strongest of the New Unions [164]— that of the 'Gas Workers and General Labourers'[520]—are deeply
" Daily Chronicle hurt and surprised at the insult offered them in the Chronicle. Thome came up here on Wednesday and said that he thought it doubly strange as his Union, long before the International Secretariats were thought about, had entered into correspondence with the' French Parti Ouvrier,[146] and he wanted to know why they were now to be insulted. This is only one case out of many. I can't tell you the disastrous effect this will have if you don't reply.
Yesterday I had a long talk with the General on the subject (Edward is very ill with a bad throat)—and we both agreed, that you, as foreign Secretary of the 'Parti', must send a line to the Chronicle. The delay you can easily explain by the fact that you have been visiting your constituents and Fourmies. You should write — if that is the fact — that M. A. Smith speaks only for the Possibilists [3] who are the reactionary party and represent — you know what. That the Parti Ouvrier attended the 1st demonstration of the Legal Eight Hours Committee, that although it could send no delegate, it was at one with that Committee last year, and (this we all hope) that your Party will be represented on our platforms this year. The Possibilists are sending 2 delegates. Surely you could send one. Could not Delecluze come? It would cost very little to come from Calais? And you could also nominate Bonnier. Those 2 (I know you can't come) would counterbalance the others.
In any case, my dear Paul, you must write a line to the Chronicle (or better still let Laura write it!) and copy that and send it, with further details if need be, to the Workman's Times. But this must be done at once.
Yours,
Tussy
Why don't you get your Verriers* to join the International Bottle-makers' Society? Their not doing so is a great pity — and 'tis only 4d. (8 sous!) per annum per member!!
time
[1] glassworkers
4. Eleanor Marx-Aveling to Laura Lafargue. 22 April 1892
4
ELEANOR MARX-AVELING TO LAURA LAFARGUE
AT LE FERREUX
[London,] 22 April 1892
My dear Laura,
Enclosed a reply from the sweat Adolphe" to Paul's very excellent letter. I am writing to you from the General's, as I wished to ask his opinion before writing to you on the matter. He agrees with me that some answer should go, if you can induce Paul to send it. I know, of course, he is busy, but you may be sure that a reply is necessary here. It need not be long.
But who sends Lavy? Is it the Broussists,[3] or is it, as Smith [463] writes, the joint Committee? That makes all the difference. But a few facts as to the real strength of the Parti Ouvrier would have a good effect here, and anyhow I hope the elections of May 1st[429] will show our real strength.
Get Paul to write, or rather, as I said before, do you write. (We all recognised your 'Roman hand' in the Chronicle article.)
Just time to catch the post. Love from the General and Louise and
Yours,
Tussy
5. George Bernard Shaw to August Bebel. 29 May 1892
IN BERLIN
29 May 1892 Our aims are as advanced as those of any other body of Social Democrats in England or in Germany, and our methods are as like the German party methods as is possible in view of the facts that we have no second ballot in England as you have in Germany, whilst on the other hand our House of Commons has command of the army, so that when we capture that we capture everything. The result is that whereas you can always run your S. D. candidate against both Liberal & Tory (as we should call them) with the certainty of winning at the 2nd ballot if you have a majority as against the Tory, we in England would be defeated at the 1st ballot by the division of the labour vote between the Liberal and the S. D., both being beaten by the Tory. Therefore, our only chance where the workers are not completely organized is to force the Liberals to accept our men as their party candidates. At the last City Council election the S.D.F. [2 9] ran independent candidates and they were all badly beaten, the Fabian Society[87] ran 6 of its members as 'Progressives' and they were all triumphantly successful. Meanwhile we are agitating for the introduction of the 2nd ballot here and urging the workers to organize themselves independently and break loose from the Liberals. If you and Paul Singer were to take the command of the Fabian Society, you would find yourselves compelled to take the same course and if you make a careful study of the work that has been done for some years past in spreading the S. D. idea in this country, I am sure that you will find that the Fabians who are a small and a poor body of men, have done as much as any other body in forwarding that work. You will readily understand that those enthusiastic socialists who have had no experience of practical political work accuse us of compromising our principles and intriguing with the Liberal party. I have already explained to you how we find ourselves as Possibilists, compelled for the present either to force our candidates on the Liberals or to suffer defeat and disgrace at every election.
NOTES
AND INDEXES
Endnotes
[584] This letter was addressed to the leaders of the American Federation of Labor (see Note 84). Similar letters were sent to other countries. The proposal they contained for appointing in each country a secretary for international ties met with a broad response. In her letter to Samuel Gompers of 26 March 1891 Eleanor Marx-Aveling listed the names of the secretaries appointed in ten countries.— 557
[196] The London Trades Council (the Council of all London Trades Unions) was formed in May 1860 at a conference of various London trades unions. The Council was composed of the leaders of the biggest ones. In the earlier half of the 1860s it headed the workers' campaigns against British intervention in the USA and in support of Poland and Italy. Later it fought for the legalisation of the unions. In the early 1890s the Council, which embraced mostly old-established unions, opposed the movement for the formation of new ones and for the eight-hour working day, but popular pressure compelled it to take part in the May Day demonstrations.— 150, 155, 167, 185, 323, 370, 380, 386, 402, 559, 560
[58] The Possibilists refused to take part in the demonstration on 1 May 1890 on the grounds that Boulangist and other agents of the reaction were going to participate and that the demonstration might harm the cause of the working class.— 47
[20] This letter was first published in English in: Frederick Engels, Paul and Laura Lafargue, Correspondence, Vol. 2, 1887-1890, Foreign Languages Publishing House, Moscow, 1960. A passage from this letter was first published in French in: Le Socialiste, No. 115, 24 November 1900.—21
[586] Eleanor Marx-Aveling means the demands for international labour legislation put forward by the 1889 Paris International Socialist Workers' Congress (see Note 51).— 560
[520] This refers to the New Trades Unions, which were called into being by the rise of
[146] Engels refers to the various trends within the socialist movement in France. The Marxist trend, headed by Jules Guesde (hence its other name, Guesdists) and Paul Lafargue, was represented by the Workers' Party, founded in 1879. From the outset this trend was torn by a sharp ideological struggle, as a result of which the party, at its St.-Etienne Congress in 1882, split up into two groups — the Guesdists and the Possibilists (or Broussists). The Guesdists retained the name of Workers' Party. Its programme, adopted at the Havre Congress in 1880, was drawn up with the participation of Marx. The Guesdists' strongholds were France's industrial centres. More specifically, they relied on individual groups of workers at the large plants of Paris. The party saw one of its principal tasks in winning the backing of the working masses. In the 1880s and 90s it achieved a measure of success in propagating Marxist ideas among France's workers. An important role in this was played by Le Socialiste, the party's newspaper. Marxists were active in the trades unions and led the workers' strike struggle. The party mounted a large-scale campaign in support of Paul Lafargue, whose election to the Chamber of Deputies in 1891 was a major success for the French socialists. The party also did a great deal to promote international socialist ties and expose the aggres-sive nature of the foreign policy of the French bourgeois republic, in particular of the 1891-93 Franco-Prussian alliance. But the party's leaders did not always pursue a consistently Marxist policy and made opportunistic mistakes, particularly on the peasant question in the 1890s. Marx and Engels criticised them on various issues, helping them to work out a correct line for the working-class movement. For the Possibilists (or Broussists) — see Note 3.— 116
[1] The letter is written on a postcard. The address is on the back: Herrn W. Liebknecht, Südplatz 11, Leipzig, Germany.— 3, 17
[429] At the municipal elections held in France between 1 and 8 May 1892 the Workers' Party scored a considerable success, polling over 100,000 votes and getting 635 socialists elected. In 26 towns the socialists obtained more seats than any other party and in Roubaix, Marseille, Narbonne and Toulon they headed the municipal councils.—370, 392, 400, 404, 411, 413, 420, 423
[29] The Social Democratic Federation, set up in August 1884, consisted of English socialists of different orientations, mostly intellectuals. For a long time the leadership of the Federation was in the hands of reformists led by Hyndman, an opportunist sectarian. In opposition to them, the revolutionary Marxists within the Federation (Eleanor Marx-Aveling, Edward Aveling, Tom Mann and others) worked for close ties with the revolutionary labour movement. In the autumn of 1884 — following a split and the establishment by the Left wing of an independent organisation, the Socialist League (see Note 49) — the opportunists' influence in the Federation increased. However, revolutionary elements, discontented with the opportunist leadership, continued to form within the Federation, under the impact of the masses.— 24, 43, 57, 123, 126, 131, 140, 155, 185, 190, 219, 333, 335, 370, 380, 386, 402, 449, 471, 475, 484, 493, 497, 508, 515, 542, 545, 563
[87] The Fabian Society was a British reformist organisation set up by a group of intellectuals in 1884 and led by Sidney and Beatrice Webb. The Society's name derives from Fabius Maximus, a Roman general of the 3rd century B. C. nicknamed Cunc-tator (Delayer) for his tactic of evading a set battle in the war against Hannibal.— 75, 113, 342, 404, 449, 468, 493, 497, 502, 515, 526, 563
[84] The American Federation of Labor—leading US trade-union centre, formed in December 1886. Composed mostly of skilled workers, it initially played a positive part as a rallying point for the American working class, particularly in the struggle for the eight hours day. Its programme bore an imprint of socialist ideas.— 74, 113, 557, 558
[164] The Union of Gas Workers and General Labourers, Britain's first trades union of unskilled workers, was set up in late March-early April 1889, against the background of the rising strike movement of the 1880s and 90s. Eleanor Marx-Aveling and Edward Aveling played an important role in organising and leading the union. It put forward the demand for an eight-hour working day and within a short time became very influential among large sections of the working class. About 100,000 gas workers joined it during the first year. The union gave great help in organising the famous London dock strike in 1889 (see Note 198). The strike and the Gas Union's activities gave rise to the Dockers' Union, another large organisation of unskilled workers, which in its turn contributed significantly to the establishment of more mass trades unions, to the fight for the eight-hour day and to the organisation of May Day demonstrations of British workers in the 1890s. The gas workers readily responded to socialist and internationalist ideas, preached to them above all by Eleanor Marx-Aveling, and exerted an important influence on the labour movement in Ireland, where they initiated mass trades unions embracing, among others, farm labourers. The National Union of Gas Workers and General Labourers of Great Britain and Ireland (the union's full name) maintained links with workers' organisations in other countries. Eleanor Marx-Aveling and William Thome represented it as delegates at the International Socialist Workers' Congress in Brussels (see Note 135).— 128, 138, 167, 197, 219, 225, 300, 313, 367, 371, 403, 557, 560
[4 6 3] In his letter to George Shipton, published in Daily Chronicle of 11 April 1892 in the column 'The Eight Hour Demonstration', Adolph Smith wrote about his talks with the leaders of the Possibilists (see Note 3) in Paris on sending delegates to the May Day demonstrations being organised by the London Trades Council (see Note 196). The idea was to give the demonstration an international character and deal a blow to the prestige of the Marxist-led Legal Eight Hours and International Labour League (see Note 200).—402, 562
[3] The Possibilists (or Broussists) were a trend in the French socialist movement. Their leaders — Paul Brousse, Benoît Malon and others — advocated the gradual transformation of the capitalist system into a socialist one by means of reform, through a 'policy of pursuing the possible'. In 1882 they caused a split in the French Workers' Party (see Note 146) and formed a new party named Fédéracion des Travailleurs socialistes. In the 1890s the Possibilists lost a great deal of their influence; in 1902 the majority of them joined the reformist French Socialist Party, founded by Jean Léon Jaurès.^3, 24, 126, 140, 155, 162, 164, 167, 183, 186, 190, 193, 208, 211, 224, 229, 238, 241, 260, 291, 292, 342, 348, 360, 367, 370, 381, 401, 423, 484, 520, 524, 533, 561, 562