APPENDICES
I Carl Marx of No. 1 Maitland Park Road Haverstock Hill in the County of Middlessex, Doctor of Philosophy, do solemnly and sincerely declare as follows:
That the statements contained in the paper writing now produced and shown to me marked with the letter "A" purporting to be a Memorial addressed by myself to The Right Honourable Richard Assheton Cross, Esq., M.P., Her Majesty's Principal Secretary of State for the Home Department, praying for the Grant of a Certificate of Naturalisation under the provisions of the Act of Parliament made and passed in the 33rd year of the Reign of Her present Majesty Queen Victoria, Cap. 14 intituled "An Act to amend the Laws relating to the Legal Condition of Aliens and British Subjects", are true as therein set forth.
And I make this solemn Declaration conscientiously believing the same to be true and by virtue of the provisions of an Act made and passed in the 6th year of the Reign of His late Majesty King William IV intituled "An Act to repeal an Act of the present Session of Parliament intituled 'An Act for the more effectual Abolition of Oaths and Affirmations taken and made in various Departments of the State, and to substitute Declarations in law thereof and for the more entire suppression of voluntary and contra-judicial Oaths and Affidavits and to make other provisions for the abolition of unnecessary Oaths'".
Declared at Number 82 Saint Martin's Lane in the County of Middlessex this first day of August One thousand eight hundred and seventy four J Before me
Christ. R. Cuff, A London Commissioner to administer oaths in Chancery,
[signed] Karl Marx
38* Detective Officer's Special Report
METROPOLITAN POLICE OFFICE
Scotland Yard
17th August 1874
Carl Marx.—Naturalisation. With reference to the above I beg to report that he is the notorious German agitator, the head of the International Society, and an advocate of Communistic principles. This man has not been loyal to his own King and Country.
The referees Messrs Seton, Mathesen, Manning, and Adcock are all British born subjects, and respectable householders. The statements made by them with reference to the time they have known the applicant are correct.
W. Reimers — Sergeant J. Williams — Sergeant
2. Speeches by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels at the Meeting Held to Celebrate the 36th Anniversary of the German Workers' Educational Society in London, February 7, 1876
Comrade Carl Marx then spoke about the work of the Society since its inception. The Society had been founded in 1840 by Carl Schapper in collaboration with 6 other like-minded persons. There existed an organisation within the Society, "The League of the Just",[612] which had its seat in various countries and opposed the oppression of the people. Four or five nationalities had been involved in the foundation of this Society. In 1845[613] a congress had been convened in London at which the Communist Manifesto had been worked out and whose motto was: "Proletarians of All Countries, Unite!" Marx then gave a most interesting account of the associations in those days, stating that the number of members had reached a level of 400-500. In March 1848 the Society was closed down by the British government,[614] which was otherwise not so swift to resort to police measures. The Chartist movement, which had received a great deal of support from the Society, may have been the cause of the closure. The organisation called "The League of the Just" was dissolved in 1849,[615] whereupon many members moved to America. In the fifties the Society worked more by itself, though it had always remained a refuge for the persecuted and oppressed. Marx then went on to discuss the present movement, stressing that the Society had contributed to its rise and he hoped that it would continue to do so.
Comrade Frederick Engels then recalled a faithful champion of truth and justice, Wilhelm Weitling. He was in fact the first person to try to spread the Communist idea in Germany. He was extradited by Switzerland to the Prussian government, which kept him in prison for a considerable time without any grounds. Weitling had died in America. His book Garantien der Harmonie und Freiheit had appeared at the advice of his friends. The speaker further recalled Comrade Moll, who had been one of the first members and had been killed in Southern Germany in the battle for freedom. The speaker then came to the movement in Germany, saying that in his view it had achieved a strength unmatched in any country hitherto. The speaker was of the opinion that the socialist movement was bound to go forward, since agitators such as Bismarck, Eulenburg and Tessendorf were active on its behalf. [...]
Comrade Wroblewski, speaking in French, said: As long as there are Poles alive, the great movement of workers will have defenders in them; they will show by word and deed that their place is wherever the cause of the proletariat is being fought for. Speaker pays tribute to the workers' movement in all countries.
3. Frederick Engels' Notice on the Death of His Wife, Lydia Burns
I herewith notify my friends in Germany that in the course of last night death deprived me of my wife Lydia, née Burns. London, September 12, 1878
4. Account of Karl Marx's Interview with the Chicago Tribune Correspondent
KARL MARX
SPECIAL CORRESPONDENCE OF THE TRIBUNE
London, Dec. 18.— In a little villa at Haverstock Hill, in the northwest portion of London, lives Karl Marx, the corner-stone of modern Socialism. He was exiled from his native country— Germany — in 1844,[619] for propagating revolutionary theories. In 1848 he returned, but in a few months was again exiled. He then took up his abode in Paris, but his political theories procured his expulsion from that city in 1849, and since that year his headquarters have been in London. His convictions have caused him trouble from the beginning. Judging from the appearance of his home, they certainly have not brought him affluence. Persistently during all these years he has advocated his views with an earnestness which undoubtedly springs from a firm belief in them, and, however, much we may deprecate their propagation, we cannot but respect to a certain extent the self-denial of the now venerable exile.
OUR CORRESPONDENT HAS CALLED UPON HIM
twice or thrice, and each time the Doctor was found in his library, with a book in one hand and a cigarette in the other. He must be over 70 years of age. His physique is well-knit, massive, and erect. He has the head of a man of intellect, and the features of a cultivated Jew. His hair and beard are long, and iron-gray in color. His eyes are glittering black, shaded by a pair of bushy eyebrows. To a stranger he shows extreme caution. A foreigner can generally gain admission; but the ancient-looking German woman(1) who waits upon visitors has instructions to admit none who hail from the Fatherland, unless they bring letters of introduction. Once into his library, however, and, having fixed his one eye-glass in the corner of his eye, in order to take your intellectual breadth and depth, so to speak, he loses that self-restraint, and unfolds to you a knowledge of men and things throughout the world apt to interest one. And his conversation does not run in one groove, but is as varied as are the volumes upon his library shelves. A man can generally be judged by the books he reads, and you can form your own conclusions when I tell you a casual glance revealed Shakespeare, Dickens, Thackeray, Molière, Racine, Montaigne, Bacon, Goethe, Voltaire, Paine; English, American, French blue-books; works political and philosophical in Russian, German, Spanish, Italian, etc., etc. During my conversations I was struck with
HIS INTIMACY WITH AMERICAN QUESTIONS
which have been uppermost during the past twenty years. His knowledge of them, and the surprising accuracy with which he criticised our National and State legislation, impressed upon my mind the fact that he must have derived his information from inside sources. But, indeed, this knowledge is not confined to America, but is spread over the face of Europe. When speaking of his hobby,— Socialism,— he does not indulge in those melodrama-tic flights generally attributed to him, but dwells upon his Utopian plans for "the emancipation of the human race" with a gravity and an earnestness indicating a firm conviction in the realization of his theories, if not in this century, at least in the next.
Perhaps Dr. Karl Marx is better known in America as the author of "Capital", and the founder of the International Society, or at least its most prominent pillar. In the interview which follows, you will see what he says of this Society as it at present exists. However, in the meantime, I will give you a few extracts from the printed general rules of
THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY,
published in 1871, by order of the General Council, from which you can form an impartial judgment of its aims and ends. The preamble sets forth(2) "That the emancipation of the working classes must be conquered by the working classes themselves; that the struggle for the emancipation of the working classes means not a struggle for class privileges and monopolies, but for equal rights and duties, and the abolition of all class rule; that the economical subjection of the man of labor to the monopolizer of the means of labor — that is, the sources of life — lies at the bottom of servitude in all its forms, of all social misery, mental degradation, and political dependence; that all efforts aiming at the universal emancipation of the working classes have hitherto failed from want of solidarity between the manifold divisions of labor in each country", and the preamble calls for "the immediate combination of the still disconnected movements". It goes on to say that the International Association acknowledge "no rights without duties, no duties without rights",—thus making every member a worker. The Association was formed at London "to afford a central medium of communication and co-operation between the Workingmen's Societies in the different countries, aiming at the same end, namely: the protection, advancement, and complete emancipation of the working classes". "Each member," the document further says, "of the International Association, on removing his domicile from one country to another, will receive the fraternal support of the associated workingmen."
THE SOCIETY CONSISTS
of a General Congress, which meets annually; a General Council, which forms "an international agency between the different national and local groups of the Association, so that the workingmen in one country can be constantly informed of the movements of their class in every other country". This Council receives and acts upon applications of new Branches or Sections to join the International, decides differences arising between the Sections, and, in fact, to use an American phrase, "runs the machine". The expenses of the General Council are defrayed by an annual contribution of an English penny per member. Then come the Federal Councils or Committees, and local Sections, in the various countries. The Federal Councils are bound to send one report at least every month to the General Council, and every three months a report on the administration and financial state of their respective branches. Whenever attacks against the Interna-tionals are published, the nearest Branch or Committee is bound to send at once a copy of such publication to the General Council. The formation of Female Branches among the working classes is recommended.
THE GENERAL COUNCIL
comprises the following: R. Applegarth, M. J. Boon, Frederick Bradnick, G. H. Buttery, V. Delahaye, Eugène Dupont (on mission), William Hales, G. Harris, Hurliman, Jules Johannard, Harriet Law, Frederick Lessner, Lochner, Charles Longuet, C. Martin, Zévy Maurice, Henry Mayo, George Milner, Charles Murray, Pfander, John Roach, Rühl, Sadler, Cowell Stepney, Alfred Taylor, W. Townshend, E. Vaillant, John Weston. The Corresponding Secretaries for the various countries are: Leo Frankel, for Austria and Hungary; A. Herman, Belgium; T. Mot-tershead, Denmark; A. Serraillier, France; Karl Marx, Germany and Russia; Charles Rochat, Holland; J. P. McDonnell, Ireland; Frederick Engels, Italy and Spain; Walery Wroblewski, Poland; Hermann Jung, Switzerland; J. G. Eccarius, United States; Le Moussu, for French branches of United States.
During my visit to Dr. Marx I alluded to the platform given by J. C. Bancroft Davis in his official report of 1877,[620] as the clearest and most concise exposition of Socialism that I had seen. He said it was taken from the report of the Socialist reunion at Gotha, Germany, in May, 1875.[621] The translation was incorrect, he said, and he
VOLUNTEERED A CORRECTION,
which I append as he dictated:
First—Universal, direct, and secret suffrage for all males over 20 years, for all elections, Municipal and State.
Second—Direct legislation by the people. War and peace to be made by direct popular vote.
Third—Universal obligation to militia duty. No standing army. Fourth—Abolition of all special legislation regarding press-laws and public meetings.
Fifth—Legal remedies free of expense. Legal proceedings to be conducted by the people.
Sixth—Education to be by the State,—general, obligatory, and free. Freedom of science and religion.
Seventh—All indirect taxes to be abolished. Money to be raised for State and Municipal purposes by a direct progressive income tax.
Eighth—Freedom of combination among the working classes. Ninth—The legal day of labor for men to be defined. The work of women to be limited, and that of children to be abolished.
Tenth—Sanitary laws for the protection of life and health of laborers, and regulation of their dwellings and places of labor, to be enforced by persons selected by them.
Eleventh—Suitable provision respecting prison-labor. In Mr. Bancroft Davis' report there is
A TWELFTH CLAUSE,
the most important of all, which reads: "State aid and credit for industrial societies, under democratic direction." I asked the Doctor why he omitted this, and he replied:
"When the reunion took place at Gotha, in 1875, there existed a division among the Social Democrats. The one wing were partisans of Lassalle; the others, those who had accepted in general the programme of the International organization, and were called the Eisenach party. That twelfth point was not placed on the platform, but placed in the general introduction by way of concession to the Lassallians. Afterwards it was never spoken of. Mr. Davis does not say that it was placed in the programme as a compromise having no particular significance, but gravely puts it in as one of the cardinal principles of the programme."
"But," I said, "Socialists generally look upon the transformation of the means of labor into the common property of society as the grand climax of the movement."
"Yes; we say that this will be the outcome of the movement, but it will be a question of time, of education, and the institution of a higher social status."
"This platform," I remarked, "applies only to Germany and one or two other countries."
"Ah!" he returned, "if you draw your conclusions from nothing but this, you know nothing of the activity of the party. Many of its points have no significance outside of Germany. Spain, Russia, England, and America have platforms suited to their peculiar difficulties. The only similarity in them is the end to be attained."
"And that is the supremacy of labor?" "That is the
EMANCIPATION OF LABOR."
"Do European Socialists look upon the movement in America as a serious one?"
"Yes; it is the natural outcome of the country's development. It has been said that the movement has been imported by foreigners.
When labor movements became disagreeable in England, fifty years ago, the same thing was said; and that was long before Socialism was spoken of. In America, only since 1857 has the labor movement become conspicuous. Then Trades Unions began to flourish; then Trades-Assemblies were formed, in which the workers in different industries united; and after that came National Labor Unions.[622] If you consider this chronological progress, you will see that Socialism has sprung up in that country without the aid of foreigners, and was merely caused by the concentration of capital and the changed relations between the workmen and their employers."
"Now," asked our correspondent, "what has Socialism done so far?"
"Two things," he returned. "Socialists have shown the general universal struggle between capital and labor,—
THE COSMOPOLITAN CHARACTER,
in one word,—and consequently tried to bring about an understanding between the workmen in the different countries, which became more necessary as the capitalists became more cosmopolitan in hiring labor, pitting foreign against native labor not only in America, but in England, France, and Germany. International relations sprang up at once between the workingmen in the different countries, showing that Socialism was not merely a local, but an international problem, to be solved by the international action of workmen. The working classes moved spontaneously, without knowing what the ends of the movement will be. The Socialists invent no movement, but merely tell the workmen what its character and its ends will be."
"Which means the overthrowing of the present social system," I interrupted.
"This system of land and capital in the hands of employers, on the one hand," he continued, "and the mere working power in the hands of the laborers to sell as a commodity, we claim is merely an historical phase, which will pass away and give place to
A HIGHER SOCIAL CONDITION.
We see everywhere a division of society. The antagonism of the two classes goes hand in hand with the development of the industrial resources of modern countries. From a Socialistic standpoint the means already exist to revolutionize the present historical phase. Upon Trades-Unions, in many countries, have been built political organizations. In America the need of an independent Workingmen's party has been made manifest. They can no longer trust politicians. Rings and cliques have seized upon the Legislature, and politics has been made a trade. But America is not alone in this, only its people are more decisive than Europeans. Things come to the surface quicker. There is less cant and hypocrisy than there is on this side of the ocean."
I asked him to give me a reason for the rapid growth of the Socialistic party in Germany, when he replied: "The present Socialistic party came last. Theirs was not the Utopian scheme which made some headway in France and England. The German mind is given to theorizing, more than that of other peoples. From previous experience the Germans evolved something practical. This modern capitalistic system, you must recollect, is quite new in Germany in comparison to other States. Questions were raised which had become almost antiquated in France and England, and political influences to which these States had yielded sprang into life when the working classes of Germany had become imbued with Socialistic theories. Therefore, from the beginning almost of modern industrial development, they have formed an
INDEPENDENT POLITICAL PARTY.
They had their own representatives in the German Parliament. There was no party to oppose the policy of the Government, and this devolved upon them. To trace the course of the party would take a long time; but I may say this: that, if the middle classes of Germany were not the greatest cowards, distinct from the middle classes of America and England, all the political work against the Government should have been done by them."
I asked him a question regarding the numerical strength of the Lassallians in the ranks of the Internationalists.
"The party of Lassalle," he replied, "does not exist. Of course there are some believers in our ranks, but the number is small. Lassalle anticipated our general principles. When he commenced to move after the reaction of 1848, he fancied that he could more successfully revive the movement by advocating co-operation of the workingmen in industrial enterprises.[623] It was to stir them into activity. He looked upon this merely as a means to the real end of the movement. I have letters from him to this effect."
"You would call it his nostrum?" "Exactly. He called upon Bismarck, told him what he designed, and Bismarck encouraged Lassalle's course at that time in every possible way."
"What was his object?" "He wished to use the working classes as a set-off against the middle classes who instigated the troubles of 1848."
"It is said that you are the head and front of Socialism, Doctor, and from your villa here pull the wires of all the associations, revolutions, etc., now going on. What do you say about it?"
The old gentleman smiled: "I know it.
IT IS VERY ABSURD;
yet it has a comic side. For two months previous to the attempt of Hoedel,[625] Bismarck complained in his North German Gazette that I was in league with Father Beckx, the leader of the Jesuit movement, and that we were keeping the Socialist movement in such a condition that he could do nothing with it."(3)
"But your International Society in London directs the movement?"
"The International Society has outlived its usefulness and exists no longer. It did exist and direct the movement; but the growth of Socialism of late years has been so great that its existence has become unnecessary. Newspapers have been started in the various countries. These are interchanged. That is about the only connection the parties in the different countries have with one another. The International Society, in the first instance, was created to bring the workmen together, and show the advisability of effecting organization among their various nationalities. The interests of each party in the different countries have no similarity. This spectre of the Internationalist leaders sitting at London is a mere invention. It is true that we dictated to foreign societies when the Internationalist organization was first accomplished. We were forced to exclude some Sections in New York, among them one in which Madam Woodhull was conspicuous. That was in 1871.(4) There are several American politicians — I will not name them — who wish to trade in the movement. They are well known to American Socialists."
"You and your followers, Dr. Marx, have been credited with all sorts of incendiary speeches against religion. Of course you would like to see the whole system destroyed, root and branch."
"We know," he replied after a moment's hesitation, "that violent measures against religion are nonsense; but this is an opinion: as Socialism grows,
RELIGION WILL DISAPPEAR.
Its disappearance must be done by social development, in which education must play a great part."
"The Rev. Joseph Cook, of Boston,—you know him—" "We heard of him; a very badly informed man upon the subject of Socialism."
"In a lecture lately upon the subject, he said: 'Karl Marx is credited now with saying that, in the United States, and in Great Britain, and perhaps in France, a reform of labor will occur without bloody revolution, but that blood must be shed in Germany, and in Russia, and in Italy, and in Austria.'"(5)
"No Socialist," remarked the Doctor, smiling, "need predict that there will be a bloody revolution in Russia, Germany, Austria, and possibly in Italy if the Italians keep on in the policy they are now pursuing. The deeds of the French Revolution may be enacted again in those countries. That is apparent to any political student. But those revolutions will be made by the majority. No revolution can be made by a party,
BUT BY A NATION."
"The reverend gentleman alluded to," I remarked, "gave an extract from a letter which he said you addressed to the Communists of Paris in 1871. Here it is: 'We are as yet but 3,000,000 at most. In twenty years we shall be 50,000,000-100,000,000 perhaps. Then the world will belong to us, for it will be not only Paris, Lyons, Marseilles, which will rise against odious capital, but Berlin, Munich, Dresden, London, Liverpool, Manchester, Brussels, St. Petersburg, New York,—in short, the whole world. And before this new insurrection, such as history has not yet known, the past will disappear like a hideous nightmare; for the popular conflagration, kindled at a hundred points at once, will destroy even its memory.'(6) Now, Doctor, I suppose you admit the authorship of that extract?" "I never wrote a word of it. I never write
SUCH MELODRAMATIC NONSENSE.
I am very careful what I do write. That was put in Le Figaro, over my signature, about that time. There were hundreds of the same kind of letters flying about then. I wrote to the London Times and declared they were forgeries(7); but, if I denied everything that has been said and written of me, I would require a score of secretaries."
"But you have written in sympathy with the Paris Communists?" "Certainly I have, in consideration of what was written of them in leading articles; but the correspondence from Paris in English papers is quite sufficient to refute the blunders propagated in editorials. The Commune killed only about sixty people; Marshal MacMahon and his slaughtering army killed over 60,000. There has never been a movement so slandered as that of the Commune."
"Well, then, to carry out the principles of Socialism do its believers advocate assassination and bloodshed?"
"No great movement," Karl Marx answered, "has ever been inaugurated
WITHOUT BLOODSHED.
The independence of America was won by bloodshed, Napoleon captured France through a bloody process, and he was overthrown by the same means. Italy, England, Germany, and every other country gives proof of this, and as for assassination," he went on to say, "it is not a new thing, I need scarcely say. Orsini tried to kill Napoleon; Kings have killed more than anybody else; the Jesuits have killed; the Puritans killed at the time of Cromwell. These deeds were all done or attempted before Socialism was known. Every attempt, however, now made upon a Royal or State individual is attributed to Socialism. The Socialists would regret very much the death of the German Emperor(8) at the present time.
He is very useful where he is; and Bismarck has done more for the cause than any other statesman, by driving things to extremes."
I asked Dr. Marx
WHAT HE THOUGHT OF BISMARCK.
He replied that "Napoleon was considered a genius until he fell; then he was called a fool. Bismarck will follow in his wake. He began by building up a despotism under the plea of unification. His course has been plain to all. The last move is but an attempted imitation of a coup d'etat[626]; but it will fail. The Socialists of Germany, as of France, protested against the war of 1870 as merely dynastic. They issued manifestoes[627] foretelling the German people that, if they allowed the pretended war of defense to be turned into a war of conquest, they would be punished by the establishment of military despotism and the ruthless oppression of the productive masses.[628] The Social Democratic party in Germany, thereupon holding meetings and publishing manifestoes for an honorable peace with France, were at once prosecuted by the Prussian Government, and many of the leaders imprisoned.[629] Still their Deputies alone dared to protest, and very vigorously too, in the German Reichstag, against the forcible annexation of French provinces.[630] However, Bismarck carried his policy by force, and people spoke of the genius of a Bismarck. The war was fought, and, when he could make no more conquests, he was called upon for original ideas, and he has signally failed. The people began to lose faith in him. His popularity was on the wane. He needs money, and the State needs it. Under a sham Constitution he has taxed the people for his military and unification plans until he can tax them no longer, and now he seeks to do it with no Constitution at all. For the purpose of levying as he chooses, he has raised the ghost of Socialism, and has done everything in his power
TO CREATE AN EMEUTE."
"You have continual advices from Berlin?" "Yes," he said, "my friends keep me well advised. It is in a perfectly quiet state, and Bismarck is disappoited. He has expelled forty-eight prominent men,—among them Deputies Hasselmann and Fritzsche, and Rackow, Baumann, and Auer, of the Freie Presse.[631] These men kept the workmen of Berlin quiet. Bismarck knew this. He also knew that there were 75,000 workmen in that city upon the verge of starvation. Once those leaders were gone, he was confident that the mob would rise, and that would be the cue for a carnival of slaughter. The screws would then be put upon the whole German Empire; his pet theory of blood and iron(9) would then have full sway, and taxation could be levied to any extent. So far no erneute has occurred, and he stands to-day confounded at the situation and the ridicule of all statesmen."
Signed: H.
5. Sir Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff's Account of a Talk with Karl Marx ( from a Letter to Crown Princess Victoria)
February 1, 1879
Madam,
Your Imperial Highness,(1) when I last had the honour of seeing you, chanced to express some curiosity about Carl Marx and to ask me if I knew him. I resolved accordingly to take the first opportunity of making his acquaintance; but that opportunity did not arise till yesterday when I met him at luncheon and spent three hours in his company.
He is a short, rather small man with grey hair and beard which contrast strangely with a still dark moustache. The face is somewhat round, the forehead well shaped and filled up — the eye rather hard but the whole expression rather pleasant than not, by no means that of a gentleman who is in the habit of eating babies in their cradles — which is I daresay the view which the Police takes of him.
His talk was that of a well-informed nay learned man — much interested in Comparative Grammar which had led him into the Old Slavonic and other out of the way studies and was varied by many quaint turns and little bits of dry humour, as when speaking of Hesekiel's life of Prince Bismarck he always referred to it, by way of contrast to Dr. Busch's book, as the Old Testament.(2)
It was all very positif slightly cynical — without any appearance of enthusiasm — interesting and often, as I thought, showing very correct ideas when he was conversing of the past or the present; but vague and unsatisfactory when he turned to the future.
He looks, not unreasonably, for a great and not distant crash in Russia; thinks it will begin by reforms from above which the old bad edifice will not be able to bear and which will lead to its tumbling down altogether. As to what would take its place he had evidently no clear idea, except that for a long time Russia would be unable to exercise any influence in Europe.
Next he thinks that the movement will spread to Germany taking there the form of a revolt against the existing military system.
To my question "But how can you expect the army to rise against its commanders?" he replied — you forget that in Germany now the army and the Nation are nearly identical. These Socialists you hear about are trained soldiers like anybody else. You must not think of the standing army only. You must think of the Landwehr[633]—and even in the standing army there is much discontent. Never was an army in which the severity of the discipline led to so many suicides. The step from shooting oneself to shooting one's officer is not long and an example of the kind once set is soon followed.
But supposing I said the rulers of Europe came to an understanding amongst themselves for a reduction of armaments which might greatly relieve the burden on the people what would become of the Revolution which you expect it one day to bring about?
Ah was his answer they can't do that. All sorts of fears and jealousies will make that impossible. The burden will grow worse and worse as science advances for the improvements in the Art of Destruction will keep pace with its advance and every year more and more will have to be devoted to costly engines of war. It is a vicious circle — there is no escape from it. But I said you have never yet had a serious popular rising unless there was really great misery. You have no idea he rejoined how terrible has been the crisis through which Germany has been passing in these last five years.[634]
Well I said supposing that your Revolution has taken place and that you have your Republican form of Government — it is still a long long way to the realization of the special ideas of yourself and your friends. Doubtless he answered but all great movements are slow. It would merely be a step to better things as your Revolution of 1688 was — a mere stage on the road.[635]
The above will give Your Imperial Highness a fair idea of the kind of ideas about the near future of Europe which are working in his mind.
They are too dreamy to be dangerous except just in so far as the situation with its mad expenditure on armaments is obviously and undoubtedly dangerous.
If however within the next decade the rulers of Europe have not found means of dealing with this evil without any warning from attempted revolution I for one shall despair of the future of humanity at least on this continent.
In the course of conversation Carl Marx spoke several times both of Your Imperial Highness and of the Crown Prince(3) and invariably with due respect and propriety. Even in the case of eminent individuals of whom he by no means spoke with respect there was no trace of bitterness or savagery — plenty acrid and dissolvent criticism but nothing of the Marat tone.
Of the horrible things that have been connected with the International he spoke as any respectable man would have done.
One thing which he mentioned showed the dangers to which exiles who have got a revolutionary name are exposed. The wretched man Nobiling, he had learned, had when in England intended to come to see him. If he had done so he said I should certainly have admitted him for he would have sent in his card as an employé of the Dresden Bureau of Statistics and as I occupy myself with Statistics it would have interested me to talk with him — What a pleasant position I should have been in he added if he had come to see me!!"
6. Account of an Interview of Karl Marx with John Swinton, Correspondent of The Sun[636]
KARL MARX
One of the most remarkable men of the day, who has played an inscrutable but puissant part in the revolutionary politics of the past forty years, is Karl Marx. A man without desire for show or fame, caring nothing for the fanfaronade of life or the pretence of power, without haste and without rest, a man of strong, broad, elevated mind, full of far-reaching projects, logical methods, and practical aims, he has stood and yet stands behind more of the earthquakes which have convulsed nations and destroyed thrones, and do now menace and appal crowned heads and established frauds, than any other man in Europe, not excepting Joseph Mazzini himself. The student of Berlin, the critic of Hegelianism, the editor of papers, and the old-time correspondent of the New York Tribune, he showed his qualities and his spirit; the founder and master spirit of the once dreaded International and the author of "Capital", he has been expelled from half the countries of Europe, proscribed in nearly all of them, and for thirty years past has found refuge in London. He was at Ramsgate,[63] the great seashore resort of the Londoners, while I was in London, and there I found him in his cottage, with his family of two generations. The saintly-faced, sweet-voiced, graceful woman of suavity who welcomed me at the door was evidently the mistress of the house and the wife of Karl Marx. And is this massive-headed, generous-featured, courtly, kindly man of 60, with the bushy masses of long revelling gray hair, Karl Marx? His dialogue reminded me of that of Socrates — so free, so sweeping, so creative, so incisive, so genuine — with its sardonic touches, its gleams of humor, and its sportive merriment. He spoke of the political forces and popular movements of the various countries of Europe — the vast current of the spirit of Russia, the motions of the German mind, the action of France, the immobility of England. He spoke hopefully of Russia, philosophically of Germany, cheerfully of France, and sombrely of England— referring contemptuously to the "atomistic reforms" over which the Liberals of the British Parliament spend their time. Surveing the European world, country after country, indicating the features and the developments and the personages on the surface and under the surface, he showed that things were working toward ends which will assuredly be realized. I was often surprised as he spoke. It was evident that this man, of whom so little is seen or heard, is deep in the times, and that, from the Neva to the Seine, from the Urals to the Pyrenees, his hand is at work preparing the way for the new advent. Nor is his work wasted now any more than it has been in the past, during which so many desirable changes have been brought about, so many heroic struggles have been seen, and the French republic has been set up on the heights. As he spoke, the question I had put, "Why are you doing nothing now?" was seen to be a question of the unlearned, and one to which he could not make direct answer. Inquiring why his great work "Capital", the seed field of so many crops, had not been put into English as it has been put into Russian and French(1)
from the original German, he seemed unable to tell, but said that a proposition for an English translation had come to him from New York.[638] He said that that book was but a fragment, a single part of a work in three parts, two of the parts being yet unpublished, the full trilogy being "Land", "Capital", "Credit",[639]
the last part, he said, being largely illustrated from the United States, where credit has had such an amazing development. Mr. Marx is an observer of American action, and his remarks upon some of the formative and substantive forces of American life were full of suggestiveness. By the way, in referring to his "Capital", he said that any one who might desire to read it would find the French translation much superior in many ways to the German original.[640] Mr. Marx referred to Henri Rochefort the Frenchman, and in his talk of some of his dead disciples, the stormy Bakunin, the brilliant Lassalle, and others, I could see how his genius had taken hold of men who, under other circumstances, might have directed the course of history.
The afternoon is waning toward the twilight of an English summer evening as Mr. Marx discourses, and he proposes a walk through the seaside town and along the shore to the beach, upon which we see many thousand people, largely children, disporting themselves. Here we find on the sands his family party — the wife, who had already welcomed me, his two daughters with their children, and his two sons-in-law,(2) one of whom is a Professor in King's College, London,(3) and the other, I believe, a man of letters.(4) It was a delightful party — about ten in all — the father of the two young wives, who were happy with their children, and the grandmother of the children, rich in the joysomeness and serenity of her wifely nature. Not less finely than Victor Hugo himself does Karl Marx understand the art of being a grandfather; but, more fortunate than Hugo, the married children of Marx live to cheer his years. Toward nightfall he and his sons-in-law part from their families to pass an hour with their American guest. And the talk was of the world, and of man, and of time, and of ideas, as our glasses tinkled over the sea. The railway train waits for no man, and night is at hand. Over the thought of the babblement and rack of the age and the ages, over the talk of the day and the scenes of the evening, arose in my mind one question touching upon the final law of being, for which I would seek answer from this sage. Going down to the depth of language, and rising to the height of emphasis, during an interspace of silence, I interrogated the revolutionist and philosopher in these fateful words, "What is?" And it seemed as though his mind were inverted for a moment while he looked upon the roaring sea in front and the restless multitude upon the beach. " What is?" I had inquired, to which, in deep and solemn tone, he replied: "Struggle!"
7. Statement on the Closure of L'Egalité[641]
The editorial board of L'Egalité* had concluded an agreement with a printer6 for two years, under which the latter bore the expenses and shared the profits equally with the editorial board. A sale of 6,000 copies would cover the expenses. The first issue sold 3,800 copies straightaway. But by the third issue the printer already declared that he no longer wished to pay out money in order to disseminate ideas which he did not share; henceforth he would pay only for the setting and the paper, the editorial board would have to provide the rest. Reference to the contract did not help. Accept or the paper closes (c'est à prendre ou à laisser). In return, he finally allowed the editorial board to receive the income from advertisements and sales outside Paris. Four days later the printer declared that this also had to stop; the editorial board would have to take over the newspaper on its own account. Since the board lacked the resources to do this, the newspaper was thus doomed. The editorial board will sue the man for breach of contract, but the newspaper remains dead and buried. The whole secret is that the man is being given a large Orleanist paper to print and has evidently been told that he must first show the damned socialists the door; after all, they had committed the crime of advocating the confiscation of the Orleans fortune.
NOTES
AND INDEXES
Endnotes
[610] Getting ready to travel to Karlsbad for medical treatment in August 1874, Marx applied to become naturalised in Britain. This was a precaution against possible reprisals by the Austrian authorities. Marx left for Karlsbad on August 15, having failed to receive a reply to his application. This document is an official blank on which information about Marx (in italics in the text) has been entered in a clerk's hand. Only the signature is Marx's. The special report by W. Reimers and J. Williams was written on a separate blank. Appended to the application are the statements made by Marx's referees written on special blanks, as well as the letter of Morris R. Willis, Marx's lawyer, to the Secretary of State for the Home Department of August 29, 1874, requesting to know the reasons for the refusal to grant a Certificate of Naturalisation.
[612] See Note 378.
[613] The reference is to the second congress of the Communist League held on November 29-December 8, 1847 (see Note 220). A number of its members also belonged to the German Workers' Educational Society in London.
[614] As is clear from the correspondence of the members of the London District of the Communist League with the League's Central Authority (see letters of March 15 and June 18, 1848 in Der Bund der Kommunisten, Dokumente und Materialien, Vol. I, Berlin, 1970, pp. 726-28 and 804-07), in early March 1848 the owner of the pub where the members of the Educational Society used to assemble cancelled the lease, and the meetings could no longer be held there. The author of the letter of March 15 stressed that in future the Society's meetings would be held only, under police surveillance, and that the British government had established strict supervision over the connections between foreign revolutionaries and the Chartists (see Note 368).
[615] An inaccuracy in the text: the reference is to the dissolution of the Communist League in November 1852.
[616] See Note 14. P- 566
[617] See Note 26.
[619] Marx left for Paris late in October 1843.
[620] The reference is to the report of the American Ambassador to Berlin J. Ch. Bancroft Davis dispatched to the US Secretary of State Hamilton Fish on February 10, 1877. The part of the report referring to the socialist movement in Germany was printed in the official publication: United States. State Department. Papers Relating to Foreign Relations of the United States, Washington, 1877, pp. 175-80.
[621] This refers to the programme of the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany adopted by the unity congress in Gotha in May 1875.
[622] The first national trade union in the USA — the National Typographical Union — was founded in 1850. By die 1860s the country had a whole network of local trade union organisations. In August 1866 the National Labor Union was formed in Baltimore, and in December 1869 the Noble Order of Knights of Labor in Philadelphia, which on January 1, 1878 became a legal body. Both organisations, while experiencing a strong petty-bourgeois influence, nevertheless advocated social reforms, including the eight-hour working day, women's rights, and higher wages. The economic crisis of 1873 and the prolonged slump which followed were the causes for vigorous strike action of American workers, with its peak being the miners' strike in Pennsylvania (the Long Strike) of 1874-75 and the national railway strike of 1877.
[623] See Note 96.
[625] See Note 268.
[626] The reference is to the Anti-Socialist Law promulgated on October 19, 1878 (see Note 289) and the introduction of a minor state of siege in Berlin (see Note 418).
[627] On July 12, 1870 the Paris members of the International published in the Réveil an anti-war manifesto addressed to the workers of all nations, which was reprinted by Der Volksstaat, No. 57, July 17, 1870. A number of similar addresses were issued in France at that time. On July 16 a workers' meeting in Brunswick convened by the leaders of the German Social-Democratic Party issued an address in protest against the war preparations made by the ruling classes, and for solidarity with the manifesto of the International's Paris members. Workers' meetings in Chemnitz and Munich also adopted similar manifestos and resolutions.
[628] Marx quotes from memory his "First Address of the General Council of the International Working Men's Association on the Franco-Prussian War" written between July 19 and 23, 1870, and issued by the General Council as a leaflet at the outset of the war (see present edition, Vol. 22, pp. 3-8).
[629] On September 5, 1870, after the defeat of the French army at Sedan, the Committee of the German Social-Democratic Workers' Party with its headquarters in Brunswick issued a manifesto (Manifest des Ausschusses der social-demokratischen Arbeiterpartei. An Alle deutschen Arbeiter!) urging German workers to organise mass meetings of protest against the expansionist plans of the Prussian government. The Manifesto included parts of Marx's and Engels' "Letter to the Committee of the Social-Democratic Workers' Party" of August 22 and 30, 1870 (see present edition, Vol. 22, pp. 260-62). On September 9, members of the Brunswick Committee, Bracke, Bornhorst, Spier, Kühn and Gralle, as well as a printer, Sievers, were arrested for publishing the Manifesto and in November 1871 brought to trial on the fabricated charge of disturbing public order.
[630] On November 26, 1870, when the German Reichstag discussed the question of credits for the war against France, Bebel and Liebknecht demanded that credits be refused and peace with the French Republic promptly concluded without annexations. The entire Social-Democratic group in the Reichstag together with Bebel and Liebknecht voted against the granting of credits on November 28. After the Reichstag session closed on December 17, Bebel, Liebknecht and Hepner were arrested and charged with high treason.
[631] On November 28, 1878 a minor state of siege was declared in Berlin (see Note 418). The next day 67 members of the Social-Democratic Party, including their leaders Auer and Fritzsche, received deportation orders.
[633] See Note 90.
[634] The protracted economic crisis began in 1873 after the period known in history as Gründertum (see Note 84).
[635] The reference is to the Glorious Revolution of 1688 (the overthrow of the Stuart dynasty and the enthronement of William III of Orange in 1689), after which constitutional monarchy was consolidated in England on the basis of a compromise between the landed aristocracy and the bourgeoisie.
[636] Marx's interview with John Swinton, at that time editor of the progressive New York newspaper The Sun, took place in August 1880. Following the publication of an account of the interview Marx wrote to Swinton on November 4, 1880: "I have at the same time to thank you for your friendly article in The Sun" (see present edition, Vol. 46). After the interview, Marx kept in touch with Swinton for some time and sent him, at the latter's request, the French translation of Capital. Marx's interview with Swinton was reprinted in the collection: John Swinton, Current Views and Notes of Forty Days in France and England, New York, 1880, pp. 41-45. Swinton used this interview in his speech at the meeting organised by New York workers on March 19, 1883 on the occasion of Marx's death. See Der Sozialdemokrat, No. 15, April 5, 1883, and Truth (San Francisco), April 7, 1883.
[63] 63 Revelations Concerning the Communist Trial in Cologne is a forceful work in which Marx exposed the unseemly methods used by the Prussian police state against the communist movement. The pamphlet was published in Basle in January 1853, but in March almost the whole edition (2,000 copies) was confiscated by the police in the Baden frontier village of Weill on the way to Germany. In the USA the work was first published in instalments (on March 6 and April 2 and 28, 1853) in the Boston democratic newspaper Neue-England-Zeitung and at the end of April 1853 it was printed as a separate pamphlet by the same publishing house. In 1874 this work was reprinted in 13 instalments in Der Volksstaat (Leipzig), with Marx named as its author for the first time. Preparing a separate edition of the Revelations, Wilhelm Liebknecht, the editor of the newspaper, on October 29, 1874 requested Marx to write a preface for it. On January 27, 1875, Der Volksstaat published Marx's epilogue to the Revelations dated January 8, 1875. The Revelations appeared as a book in Leipzig in 1875, reproducing the text from Der Volksstaat with this epilogue.
[638] Marx probably referred to Karl Daniel Adolph Douai's proposal to have Capital translated into English. As is clear from Sorge's letter to Marx of July 19, 1878, this plan had not been carried through. The English translation of Volume One of Capital appeared after Marx's death, in 1887. It was prepared by Engels, Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling.
[639] Originally, while working on his economic manuscripts, Marx had planned to write six books: on capital, on landed property, on wage labour, on the state, on international trade and on the world market (see Marx's letters to Lassalle of February 22, 1858, to Engels of April 2, 1858, and to Weydemeyer of February 1, 1859, present edition, Vol. 40). The plan was not realised. Questions of ground rent and credit were dealt with, at some length, in Volume Three of Capital
[640] The reference is to the authorised French translation of Volume One of Capital (see Note 108). Marx made substantial changes and additions in the manuscript of the translation. He believed that the French edition had an independent scientific value. On its basis, changes were introduced into the subsequent editions of Volume One in German, Russian and other languages.
[641] This statement, written before February 26, 1883 probably by a staff member of L'Egalité (perhaps by Paul Lafargue) in view of the closure of the newspaper of the French Workers' Party, was sent by Engels to the Sozialdemokrat editorial board. It was enclosed with the letter of February 27-March 1, 1883 to the editor, Eduard Bernstein. "L'Egalité has gone phut again," wrote Engels, "and I would ask you to publish the following facts (see enclosed slip of paper) in the Sozialdemokrat" (see present edition, Vol. 46). The translation of this statement into German was probably made by Engels. The facts cited relate to the fourth and fifth series of L'Égalité, whose publication was terminated and resumed several times since its foundation in 1877. The fourth series appeared from October 24, 1882 and throughout 1883. The fifth series was published between February 15 and 26, 1883. The statement appeared in Der Sozialdemokrat, No. 11, March 8, 1883, and was prefaced by the editorial note: "After a brief existence L'Egalité was unfortunately forced to close. The following has been written to us in this connection."