The London May Day demonstration May 1892
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
AT LE PERREUX
London, 5 May 1892
My dear Laura, A few lines in a hurry. What was intended as a defeat for us here, has ended in a veritable triumph. We had only two platforms on Sunday, but they were the only ones that drew, both public and press. You will have seen our involuntary caricatures in the Daily Graphic I sent you. Platform No. 14, the international platform, was the great success of the day. By a conspicuous piece of good luck, Roussel of the Bourse du travail was, it seems, sent out of the way of Prudent Dervillers and Argyriades by them and Adolphe Smith and came on our platform, so that we had two Frenchmen, two Russians/ a German, Bernstein, an Austrian, Louise, a Pole, Mendelson and a Jew/ besides la Espanola Mrs C. Graham and the Britishers* The demonstration itself was immense, even compared with the two previous ones, and showed that things are moving here, though they move in that peculiar roundabout way in which the English delight. In the evening we had the Mendelsons, Bernsteins, Tussy and Edward of course, and Bonnier brought Roussel, we were very jolly, had a Maibowle, and fat Roussel was effusively delighted, while Argyriades and Co. owned next morning to him, they had been bored to death in the company where they had, or rather had been, moved (sans calembourg!) I am very anxiously awaiting the Socialiste to learn something about our electoral successes on May 1st in France, the papers you sent me do not contain anything to go by, and surely if we had not secured majorities, we must have got in at least some minorities. cured majorities, we must have got in at least some minorities. Anyhow I am glad the thing passed off quietly everywhere.
*Edward Aveling, Eleanor Marx-Aveling, William Morris, Thomas Mann, Peter Curran
Engels to Bebel. 7 May 1892
The fact that we had good weather for May Day and you did not, serves you right. You should have been over here and then you’d have been able to see what it looks like when 600,000 people foregather in one place ; it was really tremendous; and an impression like that leaves one in no state to sustain even such criticism as is called for by the deplorable scheming and squabbling before the event, and yet sustain it one must.
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