1863
Dear Frederick,
Happy New Year! I've had so much running about to do this week, not to mention SICKNESS, that I never got round to acknowledging receipt of your letter containing the money.(1)
No reply from Brockhaus so far.b I've heard, by the by, that the 'head of the house', as Bangya used to say, is absent from Leipzig.
Through Abarbanel, my wife made the acquaintance in Paris of a certain Reclus, who has some sort of a POSITION in economic literature, and also knows German. The said R., together with Massol (an agent in COMMERCE) who doesn't know German, and a number of others, is willing to apply himself to my work.c They have a Brussels publisher at their disposal. In Paris, party spirit and solidarity still prevail within the parti socialiste. Even chaps like Carnot and Goudchaux are saying that, come the next upheaval, Blanqui ought to be made leader.
Burnside would seem to have perpetrated grave tactical blunders at the battle of Fredericksburg.[489] He was clearly shy about employing so large a force. But as regards the basic folly, 1. his having waited 26 days, a contributing factor was undoubtedly outright betrayal by the military authorities .in Washington. Even the New York CORRESPONDENT of The Times admitted that it was weeks before Burnside received equipment that had been promised at an earlier dated; 2. the fact that he did, nevertheless, proceed to make this attack is symptomatic of the man's moral weakness. The worthy Tribune was beginning to question his ability and to threaten him with dismissal. Out of enthusiasm and ignorance, that paper is doing a great deal of harm.
The Democrats and McClellanists naturally howled in unison in order to make the setback seem worse than it was. The 'rumour' that McClellan, 'the Monk' of The Times, has been called to Washington, must be laid at Mr Reuter's door.
'Politically', the defeat was a good thing. It wouldn't have done for the chaps to have had a stroke of luck before 1 January 1863. Anything in that line might have led to a cancellation of the 'Proclamation'.[468]
The Times and co. are hellish annoyed by the workers' meetings in Manchester, Sheffield, and London.[490] It's excellent that the scales should thus be removed from the Yankees' eyes. Not that Opdyke (MAYOR of New York and POLITICAL ECONOMIST) hadn't already declared at a meeting in New York:
* 'We know that the English working classes are with us, and that the governing classes of England are against us.'*
I greatly regret that Germany should not be staging similar demonstrations. They cost nothing and are very remunerative 'internationally'. Germany would be all the more justified in doing so in that she is helping the Yankees more in this war than France did in the eighteenth century.[491] It's the same old stupid German failure to emphasise or to vindicate in the eyes of the world what the country really accomplishes.
Have had a letter from Izzy, together with a pamphlet." Contents of letter: I am to send back the Roscher.(2) Contents of pamphlet: Continuation of the lecture on the Prussian Constitution.c Substance: Lassalle is the greatest politician of all time, and of his own in particular. It is Lassalle, AND NO MISTAKE, who has discovered — and this on the basis of a theory untainted by any premises and pure without any qualifications — that the true constitution of a country is not the written one, but consists in the real 'relations of power', etc. Even the Neue Preussische Zeitung and Bismarck and Roon subscribe to 'his' theory, as he proves by means of quotations. Hence his public may rest assured that, just as he has discovered the correct theory, so he is in possession of the correct solution for the 'present time'. And that solution is:
266. Engels to Marx. 7 January
'Since. the government continues its military expenditure, etc., despite the resolutions of the Chamber, etc., thus belying the existence of a constitutional government, etc., the Chamber will prorogue until such time as the government declares that it will desist from that expenditure'."
Such is the power of 'stating the facts'. To save them work, he has provided the wording of the decree to be promulgated by the Chamber.
Old Heiman(1) has safely removed to Abraham's bosom. Regards and COMPLIMENTS OF THE SEASON TO THE LADIES.b
Your
K. M.
I see that there's been a fall in cotton prices. In my opinion, however, this is only temporary.
266
ENGELS TO MARXc
IN LONDON
Manchester, 7 January 1863 d
Dear Moor,
Marye is dead. Last night she went to bed early and, when Lizzyf wanted to go to bed shortly before midnight, she found she had already died. Quite suddenly. Heart failure or an apoplectic stroke. I wasn't told till this morning; on Monday eveningK she was still quite well. I simply can't convey what I feel. The poor girl loved me with all her heart.
Your
F. E.
267. Marx to Engels. 8 January
267
MARX TO ENGELS[239]
IN MANCHESTER
[London,] 8 January 1863
Dear Engels,
The news of Mary'sa death surprised no less than it dismayed me. She was so good-natured, witty and closely attached to you.
The devil alone knows why nothing but ill-luqk should dog 'everyone in our circle just now. I no longer know which way to turn either. My attempts to raise money in France and Germany have come to nought, and it might, of course, have been foreseen that £15 couldn't help me to stem the avalanche for more than a couple of weeks. Aside from the fact that no one will let us have anything on credit — save for the butcher and baker, which will also cease at the end of this week — I am being dunned for the school fees, the rent, and by the whole gang of them. Those who got a few pounds on account cunningly pocketed them, only to fall upon me with redoubled vigour. On top of that, the children have no clothes or shoes in which to go out. In short, all hell is let loose, as I clearly foresaw when I came up to Manchester[483] and despatched my wife to Parisb as a last coup de désespoir? If I don't succeed in raising a largish sum through a LOAN SOCIETY OR LIFE ASSURANCE (and of that I can see no prospect; in the case of the former society I tried everything I could think of, but in vain. They demand guarantors, and want me to produce receipts for rent and rates, which I can't do), then the household here has barely another two weeks to go.
It is dreadfully selfish of me to tell you about these horreurs at this time. But it's a homeopathic remedy. One calamity is a distraction from the other. And, au bout du compte? what else can I do? In the whole of London there's not a single person to whom I can so much as speak my mind, and in my own home I play the silent stoic to counterbalance the outbursts from the other side. It's becoming virtually impossible to work UNDER SUCH CIRCUMSTANCES. Instead of Mary, ought it not to have been my mother, who is in any case a prey to physical ailments and has had her fair share of
268. Engels to Marx. 13 January
life...? You can see what strange notions come into the heads of 'civilised men' under the pressure of certain circumstances.
Salut.
Your
K. M.
What arrangements will you now, make about your ESTABLISHMENT? It's terribly hard for you, since with Mary you had a HOME to which you were at liberty to retreat from the human imbroglio, whenever you chose.[493]
268
ENGELS TO MARX(1)
IN LONDON
Manchester, 13 January 1863
Dear Marx,
You will find it quite in order that, this time, my own misfortune and the frosty view you took of it should have made it positively impossible for me to reply to you any sooner.
All my friends, including philistine acquaintances, have on this occasion, which in all conscience must needs afflict me deeply, given me proof of greater sympathy and friendship than I could have looked for. You thought it a fit moment to assert the superiority of your 'dispassionate turn of mind'. Soit!*
You know the state of my finances. You also know that I do all I can to drag you out of the mire. But I cannot raise the largish sum of which you speak, as you must also know. Three things can be done:
1. LOAN SOCIETY. To what extent my guarantee would serve here remains to be seen — scarcely at all, no doubt, since I am not a
HOUSEHOLDER.
269. Marx to Engels. 24 January
2. Life assurance. John Watts is MANAGER of the European Life & Guarantee Society, of which the London OFFICE is certainly in the DIRECTORY. I don't see what there is to prevent you insuring your life for £400, and he will certainly make you a loan of £200 on the policy, since that is his business. If not completely RUINOUS, this is definitely the best way. So, you had best go straight to him, inquire about the TERMS and then inform me of them straight away.
3. If the worst comes to the worst, I might be able to raise about £25 in February—certainly not before — and am also prepared to sign a bill for £60, though I have got to have every assurance that it won't have to be paid till after 30 June 1863, i.e. be assured of an extension until then. I must be given the necessary guarantees to that effect. In which case you would have to extract what was lacking from your uncle in Hollanda without fail.
I can see no other possibility. So, let me know what steps you take and I will see to my side of it.
Your
F. E.
269
MARX TO ENGELS[239]
IN MANCHESTER
[London,] 24 January 1863
Dear Frederick,
I thought it advisable to allow some time to elapse before replying. Your position, on the one hand, and mine, on the other, made it difficult to view the situation 'dispassionately'.
It was very wrong of me to write you that letter,1' and I regretted it as soon as it had gone off. However, what happened was in no sense due to heartlessness. As my wife and children will testify, I was as shattered when your letter' arrived (first thing in the morning) as if my nearest and dearest had died. But, when I wrote to you in the evening, I did so under the pressure of circumstances that were desperate in the extreme. The LANDLORD had put a-BROKER in my house, the butcher had protested a bill, coal and provisions were in short supply, and little Jenny was confined to bed. GENERALLY, under such CIRCUMSTANCES, my only recourse is cynicism. What particularly enraged me was the fact that my wife believed I had failed to give you an adequate account of the real state of affairs.
Indeed, your letter was welcome to me in as much as it opened her eyes to the 'non possumus? for she knows full well that I didn't wait for your advice before writing to my uncleb;- that I couldn't, in London, have recourse to Watts whose person and OFFICE are both in Manchester; that since Lassalle's latest dunning noticec I have been unable to draw a bill in London and, lastly, that £25 in February would not enable us to live in January, still less avert the impending crisis. As it was impossible for you to help us, despite my having told you we were in the same plight as the Manchester workers, she could not but recognise the non possumus, and this is what I wanted, since an end has got to be put to the present state of affairs — the long ordeal by fire, ravaging heart and head alike, and, on top of that, the waste of precious time and the keeping up of FALSE APPEARANCES, this last being as harmful to myself as it is to the children. Since then we have been through three weeks such as have at last induced my wife to fall in with a suggestion I had made long ago and which, for all the unpleasantness it involves, not only represents the only way out, but is also preferable to the life we have led for the past three years, the last one in particular, and which will, besides, restore our SELF-ESTEEM.
I shall write and tell all our creditors (with the exception of the LANDLORD) that, unless they leave me alone, I shall declare myself insolvent by the FAILING OF A BILL IN THE COURT OF BANKRUPTCY. This does not, of course, apply to the LANDLORD, who has a right to the furniture, which he may keep. My two elder childrend will obtain employment as GOVERNESSES through the Cunningham family. Lenchen is to enter service elsewhere, and I, along with my wife and little Tussy, shall go and live in the same CITY MODEL LODGING HOUSE in which Red Wolff8 once resided with his family.
Before coming to this decision, I naturally first wrote to sundry acquaintances in Germany, naturally without result. At all events,
270. Engels to Marx. 26 January
this will be better than going on as we are, which is impracticable, in any case. It was as much as I could do, and involved all manner of humiliations, to obtain by dint of false promises the peaceable withdrawal of the LANDLORD and butcher, together with the BROKER and a bill of exchange. I haven't been able to send the children to school for the new term, since the old bill hasn't been paid; nor, for that matter, were they in a presentable state.
But by adopting the above plan I shall, I think, at least attain tranquillity without intervention of any kind by third parties.
Finally, a matter unconnected with the above. I'm in considerable doubt about the section in my book that deals with machinery.(1) I have never quite been able to see in what way SELF-ACTORS changed spinning, or rather, since steam power was already in use before then, how it was that the spinner, despite steam power, had to intervene with his motive power.
I'd be grateful if you could explain this. Apropos. Unbeknown to me, my wife wrote and asked Lupus for £1 for IMMEDIATE NECESSITIES. He sent her two. It's distasteful to me, but factum est factum."
Your
K. M.
Abarbanel is dead. Sasonow, too, has died in Geneva.
270
ENGELS TO MARX[237]
IN LONDON
Manchester, 26 January 1863
Dear Moor,
Thank you for being so candid. You yourself have now realised what sort of impression your last letter but oneb had made on me. One can't live with a woman for years on end without being fearfully affected by her death. I felt as though with herc I was burying the last vestige of my youth. When your letter arrived she had not yet been buried. That letter, I tell you, obsessed me for a whole week; I couldn't get it out of my head. NEVERMIND. Your last letter made up for it and I'm glad that, in losing Mary, I didn't also lose my oldest and best friend.
To turn to your affairs. Today I went straight to Watts, whom I had believed to be still in London; he does have an OFFICE in London, by the way, at No. 2 Pall Mall. It's no go with him. His company has stopped making loans. He gave me another address. The man is willing but, depending on the circumstances, requires two or even more SURETIES for the interest, premium and repayment. Unfortunately, we can't comply with that. Whom .could we find? Gumpert, at most, but it's doubtful whether he would be acceptable. In addition, a third person would in any case be required, since neither of us has citizen status and, finally, the EXPENSES are deductible from the LOAN in advance, so that little would be left.
It then occurred to me to sell part of trie yarn bought on spec and, instead of repaying the amount to Ermen (to whom the money belongs), send it to you. This might possibly have worked, since the matter wouldn't have come up for discussion until July and much can change in the meantime. But NO CHANCE. Today the market is so flat that I would have had to sell at a loss rather than a profit and might not even have managed to make a sale at all this week.
I can't borrow any money. E. might, and probably would, refuse me, and I can't lay myself open to that. To borrow from a third party up here, a usurer, would mean giving E. the best of reasons for releasing himself from his contract with me. And yet, I can't stand by and see you carrying out the plan you told me about in your letter." I therefore had a go at old Hill's bills, helped myself to the enclosed for £100 on John Rapp & Co., due 28 February, and endorsed it in your favour. I don't imagine it will come to light before July, and then we'll have a further reprieve. It is an exceedingly daring move on my part, for I'm now certain to incur a deficit, but the risk must be taken. I assure you I should never have dared do it had not Charles,b who had drawn up a sort of balance sheet covering all items over the last six months, told me this afternoon that in my case the thing works out at approx. £30
à £50 more than I might have expected. I have made about £330 à £350 during the six months.
271. Marx to Engels. 28 January
But equally you yourself must now realise that, as a result of the unusual exertions I have had to make since 30 June 1862, I have really been drained dry and you shouldn't therefore count on any remittances at all from me until 30 June, save perhaps for trifling amounts. What the prospects will be after 30 June God only knows, for we're earning nothing at the moment, since the market is no longer rising.
The bill itself is as good as CASH. Freiligrath will be delighted to discount it for you; there's very little paper better than that in circulation. But be so kind as to acknowledge receipt; a great deal of mail is being stolen just now and, since you're not in COMMERCE, anyone can pass himself off as Dr K. M.
Your
F. E.
271
MARX TO ENGELS[369]
IN MANCHESTER
[London,] 28 January 1863
Dear Frederick,
A strange concatenation of events made it quite impossible for me to write to you yesterday to acknowledge receipt of your letter enclosing the bill.
I am well aware what a risk you were running in thus affording us such great and unexpected help. I can't tell you how grateful I am, although / myself, in my inner forum, did not require any fresh proof of your friendship to convince me of its self-sacrificing nature. If, by the by, you could have seen my children's joy, it would have been a fine reward for you.
I can tell you now, too, without beating about the bush that, despite the straits I've been in during the past few weeks, nothing oppressed me so much as the fear that our friendship might be severed. Over and over again, I told my wife that the mess we were in was as nothing to me compared with the fact that these bourgeois pinpricks and her peculiar exasperation had, at such a moment, rendered me capable of assailing you with my private needs instead of trying to comfort you. Domestic peace was CONSEQUENTLY much disrupted, and the poor woman had to suffer for something of which she was in fact innocent, for women are wont to ask for the impossible. She did not, of course, have any inkling of what I had written, but a little reflection should have told her that something of the kind must be the result. Women are funny creatures, even those endowed with much intelligence. In the morning my wife wept over Marie[3] and your loss, thus becoming quite oblivious to her own misfortunes, which culminated that very day, and in the evening she felt that, except for us, no one in the world was capable of suffering unless they had children and the BROKER in the house.
In my last letter I asked you about the SELF -ACTOR.[1]' The question, you see, is as follows: In what way, before its invention, did the so-called spinner intervene? I can explain the SELF-ACTOR, but not the state of affairs that preceded it.
I am inserting certain things into the section on machinery.[494]
There are some curious questions which I originally failed to deal with. To elucidate these, I have re-read all my note-books (excerpts) on technology[493] and am also attending a practical (purely experimental) course for working men given by Prof. Willis (in Jermyn Street, the Institute of Geology, where Huxley also lectured). For me, mechanics presents much the same problem as languages. I understand the mathematical laws, but the simplest technical reality that calls for ocular knowledge is more difficult for me than the most complicated combinations.
You may or may not know, for of itself the thing's quite immaterial, that there is considerable controversy as to what distinguishes a machine from a tool. After its own crude fashion, English (mathematical) mechanics calls a TOOL A SIMPLE MACHINE and a MACHINE A COMPLICATED TOOL. English technologists, however, who take rather more account of economics, distinguish the two (and so, accordingly, do many, if not most, English economists) in as much as in one case the MOTIVE POWER emanates from man, in the other from A NATURAL FORCE. From this, the German jackasses, who are great on little matters like this, have concluded that a plough, for instance, is a machine, and the most complicated JENNY,[4] etc., in so far as it is moved by hand, is not. However, if we take a look at the machine in its elementary form, there can be no doubt that the
[11] Mary Burns - b See this volume, p. 446.
industrial revolution originates, not from motive power, but from that part of machinery called the WORKING MACHINE by the English, i.e. not from, say, the use of water or steam in place of the foot to move the spinning wheel, but from the transformation of the actual spinning process itself, and the elimination of that part of human labour that was not mere EXERTION OF POWER (as in treadling a wheel), but was concerned with processing, working directly on the material to be processed. Nor, on the other hand, can there be any doubt that, once we turn our attention from the historical development of machinery to machinery on the basis of the present mode of production, the only decisive factor is the working machine (e.g. in the case of the sewing-machine). For, as everyone knows today, once this process is mechanised, the thing may be moved, according to size, either by hand, water or a steam-engine.
To those who are merely mathematicians, these questions are of no moment, but they assume great importance when it comes to establishing a connection between human social relations and the development of these material modes of production.
Re-reading my technological and historical excerpts has led me to the conclusion that, aside from the invention of gunpowder, the compass and printing — those necessary prerequisites of bourgeois progress — the two material bases upon which the preparatory work for mechanised industry in the sphere of manufacturing was done between the sixteenth and the mid-eighteenth century, i.e. the period during which manufacturing evolved from a handicraft to big industry proper, were the clock and the mill (initially the flour mill and, more specifically, the water mill), both inherited from Antiquity. (The water mill was brought to Rome from Asia Minor in Julius Caesar's time.) The clock was the first automatic device to be used for practical purposes, and from it the whole theory of the production of regular motion evolved. By its very nature, it is based on a combination of the artist-craftsman's work and direct theory. Cardan, for instance, wrote about clock-making (and provided practical instructions). German sixteenth-century writers describe clock-making as a 'scientific (non-guild) handicraft', and, from the development of the clock, it could be shown how very different is the handicraft-based relation between book-learning and practice from that, e.g., in big industry. Nor can there be any doubt that it was the clock which, in the eighteenth century, first suggested the application of automatic devices (in fact, actuated by springs) in production. It is historically demonstr-able that Vaucanson's experiments in this field stimulated the imagination of English inventors to a remarkable extent.
In the case of the mill, on the other hand, the essential distinctions in the organism of a machine were present from the outset, i.e. as soon as the water mill made its appearance. Mechanical motive power. Primo,(1) the motor for which it had been waiting. The transmission mechanism. Lastly, the working machine, which handles the material, each existing independently of the others. It was upon the mill that the theory of friction was based, and hence the study of the mathematical forms of gear-wheels, cogs, etc.; likewise, the first theory of measurement of the degree of motive power, the best way of applying it, etc. Since the middle of the seventeenth century almost all great mathematicians, in so far as they have concerned themselves with the theory and practice of mechanics, have taken the simple, water-driven flour mill as their point of departure. Indeed, this was why the words Mühle and MILL, which came to be used during the manufacturing period, were applied to all driving mechanisms adapted for practical purposes.
But in the case of the mill, as in that of the press, the forge, the plough, etc., the actual work of hammering, crushing, milling, tilling, etc., is done from the outset without human labour, even though the MOVING FORCE be human or animal. Hence this type of machinery is very old, at least in its origins, and, in its case, mechanical propulsion proper was applied at an earlier date. Hence it is virtually the only kind of machinery that occurs during the manufacturing period as well. The industrial revolution began as soon as mechanical means were employed in fields where, from time immemorial, the final result had called for human labour and not therefore — as in the case of the above-mentioned tools— where the actual material to be processed had never, within living memory, been directly connected with the human hand; where, by the nature of things and from the outset, man has not functioned purely as POWER. If, like the German jackasses, one insists that the application of animal POWERS (which is just as much voluntary motion as the application of human powers) constitutes machinery, then the application of this form of locomotor is far older than the simplest of manual tools in any case.
Izzy, as was inevitable, has sent me the speech he made in his defence (has been sentenced to four months) before the court.[49]' Made puer virtute.b To begin with, that braggart has had the pamphlet you've got, the speech on 'the workers' estate', reprinted in Switzerland with the pompous title Workers' Programme.[498] As you know, the thing's no more nor less than a badly done vulgarisation of the Manifesto* and of other things we have advocated so often that they have already become commonplace to a certain extent. (For instance, the fellow calls the working class an 'estate'.)
WELL. In his speech before the Berlin court, he had the effrontery to say:
'I further maintain that this pamphlet is not just a scientific work like so many others, a mere compendium of ready-made answers, but that it is, in very many respects, a scientific achievement, an exposé of new scientific ideas.... I have ushered into the world comprehensive works in varied and difficult fields of scholarship, sparing myself neither pains nor nocturnal vigils in my endeavour to enlarge the frontiers of scholarship as such, and I may, perhaps, say with Horace: militavi non sine gloria!' But this / myself tell you: Never, not even in my most comprehensive works, have I penned a single line that was reasoned with more rigorous scholarship than was this production from its first page to its last.... Cast an eye, therefore, on the contents of this pamphlet. The contents are nothing less than a philosophy of history, compressed into 44 pages.... It is an exposé of the objective, reasoning thought process, which has underlain European history for more than a millennium now, a discovery of the innermost soul, etc.'
Is not this the most egregious effrontery? The fellow evidently thinks himself destined to take over our stock-in-trade. And withal, how absurdly grotesque!
Salut.
Your
K. M.
Get Lupus to give you today's Star, and take a look at the letters it has reprinted from The Morning Herald on the subject of The Times and Delane.
272. Marx to Engels. 13 February
272
MARX TO ENGELS[369]
IN MANCHESTER
[London,] 13 February 1863 Dear Frederick,
I enclose divers Urquhartiana. Of late, the fellows have really distinguished themselves by their stupidity. Take, for example, their 'philosophy' with regard to the movement in the UNITED
STATES. 3 • I'd have written before now, but for some twelve days I've been STRICTLY forbidden all reading, writing, or smoking. I had some kind of inflammation of the eye, combined with a most obnoxious affection of the nerves of the head. Things have improved to such an extent that I am venturing to write again for the first time at this moment. In between whiles I indulged in all manner of psychological fantasies about what it would feel like to be blind or insane.
What do you think of the Polish business?[499] This much is certain, the ERA OF REVOLUTION has now FAIRLY OPENED IN EUROPE once more. And the general state of affairs is good. But the comfortable DELUSIONS and almost childish enthusiasm with which we welcomed the revolutionary era before February 1848, have gone by the board. Old comrades such as Weerth, etc., are no more, others have fallen by the wayside or gone to the bad and, if there is new stock, it is, at least, not yet in' evidence. Moreover, we now know what role stupidity plays in revolutions, and how they are exploited by blackguards. Incidentally, the 'Prussian' enthusiasts for the 'Italian' and 'Hungarian' nationalities[500] are already finding themselves in a fix. The 'Prussians' are not going to deny their Russian sympathies. This time, let us hope, the lava will flow from East to West and not in the opposite direction, so that we shall be spared the 'honour' of the French initiative. Apart from that, the adventure in Mexico is providing a truly classical epilogue to the farce of the LOWER EMPIRE.[501]
The 'Herzenian' soldiers[502] appear to be setting about things in the traditional manner. However, there's little to be deduced
273. Marx to Engels. 17 February
therefrom, either in respect of the masses in Russia, or EVEN the bulk of the Russian Army. We know what was done by the 'intelligent bayonets' [5 0 3] of the French, not to mention our own Rhineland ruffians in Berlin in 1848. But at present you should WATCH The Bell, for Herzen et cie. now have the chance to demonstrate their revolutionary integrity — in so far as it is compatible with Slav PREDILECTIONS.
The Urquhartites will probably say that the Polish insurrection was stirred u p by the St. Petersburg cabinet as a'diversion' from Urquhart's INTENDED INVASION OF THE CAUCASUS.504
In the UNITED STATES things are going damned slowly. I hope that J. Hooker will extricate himself.
Well, make sure you first let me know what you're doing with yourself in Manchester now. It must be a damned lonely place for you. I know from my own experience how the region round Soho Square still sends a shiver down my spine if I happen to be anywhere near there.[506]
Salut.
Your
K. M.
273
MARX T O ENGELS [2 4 9]
IN MANCHESTER
London, 17 February [1863]
Dear Frederick,
I am really worried by your silence. I hope you aren't ill. Conversely, I hope I haven't again given offence malgré moi.* If, in my letter, acknowledging the £100, I discussed machinery, etc.,b
this was really done to divert you, and distract you from your misery.
274. Engels to Marx. 17 February
The Polish business and Prussia's intervention[507] do indeed represent a combination that impels us to speak. Not in person, partly so as to avoid any appearance of competing with the student Blind,(1) partly so as not to deny ourselves entry to Germany. But the Workers' Society here would serve well for the purpose. A manifesto should be issued in its name,[308] and issued IMMEDIATELY. You must write the military bit — i.e. on Germany's military and political interest in the restoration of Poland. I shall write the diplomatic bit.
Well, OLD BOY, let me have an answer and, if you've got anything on your mind, SPEAK OUT LIKE AMAN in the assurance that no one takes a warmer interest in your weal and woe than does
Your
Moor
274
ENGELS TO MARX[249]
IN LONDON
Manchester, 17 February 1863
Dear Moor,
You must excuse my long silence. I was in a vety forlorn state, and it was high time I extricated myself from it. I tried Slavonic languages but the loneliness was unbearable. I had to force myself to seek distraction. That helped, and I am now my old self again.
The Poles are really splendid fellows. If they manage to hold out until 15 March, there'll be a general conflagration in Russia. At first, I was devilish afraid the business might go wrong. But now there would seem to be almost more chance of victory than of defeat. Nor should it be forgotten that the younger members of the Polish emigration have a military literature of their own in which ail matters are discussed with special reference to Polisii conditions, or that, in that literature, the idea of guerrilla warfare in Poland plays a leading role and is discussed in great detail.[509]
Oddly enough, the only two leaders to have been named so far are Frankowski, a Warsaw Jew, and Langiewicz, a Prussian lieutenant. The Russian messieurs, in view of their ineptitude, are bound to suffer appallingly as a result of guerrilla warfare.
Have you seen that Bakunin and Mierostawski are dubbing one another liars, and are at loggerheads over the Russo-Polish frontiers? I have ordered[3] the Kolokol, from which I shall presumably find out more about it.(2)'b Incidentally, I shall have to do some hard swotting before I can work my way through it again.
The Prussians are behaving infamously as always.[507] Monsieur Bismarck knows that it will be a matter of life and death for him if there's revolution in Poland and Russia. Not that there's any hurry over Prussian intervention. So king as it's not necessary, the Russians won't permit it, and when it does become necessary, the Prussians will take care not to go.
If things go wrong in Poland, then we shall probably face a year or two of acute reaction, for in that case the ripaBOCAaBHwo H,apbr would again become head of a Holy Alliance,[511] which last would again cause Monsieur Bonaparte to be looked on as a great liberal and champion of nations by the stupid crapauds? Apropos, how funny it is to see the entire English bourgeoisie pitching into Boustrapa,[167] now that Kinglake has made public a small, improperly digested and improperly heard fragment of the same tittle-tattle about him and his LOT(3) as we've been telling them for ten years without their believing us. Revelations about the court in Paris are again becoming quite the rage and, in the Guardian, Mr Tom Taylore is portentously dishing up all that stuff re la Solms, Bonaparte, Wyse, the Jecker affair, etc., that we've long known far more about. There's only one thing of interest, namely that Jecker had already supplied money for the Strasbourg or the Boulogne conspiracy — which, Taylor doesn't know. This, then, accounts for the connection.
Things don't look too good in YANKEELAND. Indeed, by a stroke of irony not uncommon in world history, the Democrats have, in the eyes of the philistines, now become the WAR-PARTY while the
275. Engels to Marx. 19 February
bankrupt poetaster Ch. Mackay is once more thoroughly discredited. I also hear from private sources in New York that the North is continuing to arm at a quite unprecedented rate. But, on the other hand, signs of moral prostration are daily more in evidence and the inability to win grows daily greater. Where is the party whose victory and avènement* would be synonymous with prosecuting the war à outrance" and with every available means? The people have been cheated, more's the pity, and it's lucky that peace is a physical impossibility or they'd have concluded it long since, if only so that they could again devote themselves to the
ALMIGHTY DOLLAR.
A Confederate major who took part in the fighting at Richmond(1)"b as a member of Lee's staff, recently told me that, according to documents which Lee himself showed him, the REBELS had no fewer than 40,000 STRAGGLERS at the end of this battle! In particular, he spoke with great respect of the FEDERALS' western regiments, but is in other ways a jackass.c
275
ENGELS TO MARX
IN LONDON
Manchester, 19 February 1863
Dear Moor,
As regards Poland I am entirely of your opinion.d I've been .toying with the idea of a pamphlet for the past fortnight. However, your suggestion is better, as it means that the diplomatic stuff goes in at the same time and it's an advantage to do the thing together.
How many sheets is the whole to amount to and how many of those do you think ought to be devoted to my bit? The form it
276. Marx to Engels. 20 February
takes will more or less depend on this. Who will print it? And when will your bit be ready lor printing? About machinery a anon.
Your
F. E.
276
MARX T O ENGELS
IN MANCHESTER
[London,]-20 February 1863
DEAR FREDERICK,
I think our best course re the Polish business would be as follows:
The proclamation for the workingmen, i.e. in the name of the Society,[508] should amount to one sheet of print at most, military and political TOGETHER. SO, write that first. I shall then fit mine in. The Society will print this. However, it would also be a good idea for us to deal with the subject in greater detail in a pamphlet, [5 1 2] and there you must determine the number of sheets entirely in accordance with the material. The diplomatic bit, which I am READY to do at any time, would in fact only be an appendix. As TO a publisher, I intend to write to Hanover IMMEDIATELY you advise me of the number of sheets.
Apropos, send me a power of attorney for Bücher re Duncker, apropos Po and Rhine.h
Your
K. M.
277. Engels to Marx. About 21 February
277
ENGELS TO MARX
IN LONDON
[Manchester, about 21 February 1863]
Dear Moor,
I shall send you the stuff for the manifesto"—quite brief—, but it is pretty sure to contain a good deal that partly encroaches on your province — you will have to deal with this.
Ad vocemb pamphlet: I thought of dividing the thing up as follows: 1. Russia's military position vis-à-vis the West and South before, 2. ditto after, the 3 partitions of Poland, 3. ditto after 1814,51S 4. the attitude of Russia and Germany after the restoration of Poland. (Something will have to be said here about Prussian Poland, linguistic boundaries, and the statistical proportions of the mixed population.) All in all, at most 3-4 sheets; title: Germany and Poland. Political-Military Considerations on the Occasion of the Polish Uprising of 1863.[512] It would then be up to you to go over your notes in the meantime and prepare them to the extent of being able, immediately on receipt of the ms., either to fit them in at the appropriate places or include them as an appendix and refer to them as necessary. If you have any further observations to make about this, write and tell me as soon as possible so that I can bear them in mind.
Your
F. E.
278. Marx to Engels. 21 February
278
MARX TO ENGELS[369]
IN MANCHESTER
[London,] 21 February 1863
Dear Engels,
At the HEIGHT of my own crisis I wrote to Dronke.[42] ABOUT A MONTH AFTER that, I had a letter from him to say that he had been away. Yesterday, he turned up here unexpectedly and left today after a further meeting.
He told me (the initiative was his) that he wanted to help raise a substantial sum, so that I could work in peace for a year. He then mentioned you. I told him (I didn't think it necessary to go into detail on this occasion) that you had done a great deal and would not have a penny to spare for many months TO COME." His rejoinder: 'It's not a question of months but of one to two years.' He is to discuss the matter with you personally.
To what extent all this should be taken seriously or is simply bragging, you will best be able to judge for yourself.
Apropos. My 'liver' is very swollen, add to which I have twinges of pain when I cough and feel some discomfort when pressure is applied. Will you inquire from Gumpert about a household remedy. If I go to Allen, the upshot will be a complete course of treatment and for that, quite apart from numerous other considerations, I have no time just now.
My chief anxiety about the Polish affair[499] is that beastly Bonaparte will find a pretext for moving up to the Rhine and extricate himself from a nasty situation again.
Send me (since you have more material to hand on the subject) a few notes (detailed) on the conduct of Frederick William the Justfa in the year 1813 after Napoleon's failure in Russia. This time we must go for the dismal House of Hohenzollern.
I left Dronke in doubt as to whether the second volume was already being printed or not.[310]
Salut.
Your
K. M.
I have just noticed in the 2ND EDITION of The Times that the Prussian Second Chamber has finally done something worthwhile.[514] We shall soon have revolution.
279. Marx to Engels. 24 March[369]
Dear Frederick,
You must know that for the past few weeks eye trouble has almost entirely prevented me from reading or writing. Hence the need to make up for lost time by some hard slogging. HincA my silence.
Dronke has sent me £50. The enclosed letter from Dr Kugelmann, which kindly return, will show you what muddle-headed fellows these German 'party members' are. My work on economics[310] 'isn't opportune' and yet I am expected, for the sake of the cause, to carry on with the whole business after this volume has appeared, merely for the theoretical satisfaction of a few high-minded souls. What I am expected to live on while engaged in my 'inopportune works' is not, of course, a question these gentry worry their heads about for one moment.[51]'[1]
The Langiewicz affair is disgusting.>lb But I am hoping that it won't put paid to the business yet, even temporarily. Meanwhile, I am deferring the work on Poland'[12] so as to be able to see EVENTS when they have reached a rather more advanced stage.
Politically, the view I have reached is this: that Vincke and Bismarck do, in fact, accurately represent the principle of the Prussian State; that the 'State' of Prussia (a very different creature from Germany) cannot exist either without Russia as she is, or with an independent Poland. The whole history of Prussia leads one to this conclusion which was drawn long since by Messrs Hohenzollern (Frederick II included). This princely consciousness is infinitely superior to the limited mentality of the subject that marks your Prussian liberal. Since, therefore, the existence of Poland is necessary to Germany and completely incompatible with the State of Prussia, the State of Prussia must be erased from the map. Or the Polish question simply provides further occasion for proving that it is impossible to prosecute German interests so long as the Hohenzollerns' own state continues to exist. Down with Russian hegemony over Germany means just the same as away with mischief, with the old sodomite's brood.(1)
What strikes me as very significant about the latest turn of events in America is the fact that they are again proposing to hand out letters of marque.[517] Quoadb England, this will put an entirely different complexion on the matter and may, UNDER FAVOURABLE CIRCUMSTANCES, lead to war with England, so that self-satisfied John Bull will find not only his COTTON but also his CORN WITHDRAWN from under his nose. At the beginning of the CIVIL WAR Seward had, off his own bat, had the presumption to accept the resolutions of the 1856 Congress of Paris as provisionally valid for America, too. (This came to light with the publication of the despatches concerning the Trent affair.)[518] In Washington, Congress and Lincoln, enraged at the OUTFITTING OF SOUTHERN PIRATES in Liverpool, etc., have now put an end to the lark. This has greatly alarmed the Stock Exchange here, though the faithful hounds of the press are obeying orders, of course, and not mentioning the affair in the papers.
You will doubtless have noted with satisfaction how Pam, the old scoundrel, is playing precisely the same game as in 1830/31[519] (I have compared his speeches) and likewise getting The Times to play it.c This time the progress of the affair is so FAR GOOD. Louis Bonaparte is about to find himself in the soup (when this happened to the luckless Louis Philippe in 1831 the whole of Europe suffered) and IN A VERY UGLY DILEMMA WITH HIS OWN ARMY. Mexico[4]" and those genuflections before the Tsar in the Moniteur (into which Boustrapa [167] was pushed by Pam) might well cost him his neck. So great was his alarm that he ordered the publication of the despatches demonstrating that his good will had been thwarted 24 1863
by Pam alone. (Although his CASE was identical, the luckless Louis Philippe went so far as to allow the impudent Pam to claim in Parliament that *'if it were not for the perfidy of the French and the intervention of Prussia, Poland would still exist'*.) H e believes that he will thereby influence PUBLIC OPINION in England, as though the latter were not satisfied with Pam's SOP to the effect that Bonaparte wanted to reach the Rhine! And as though Pam did not manufacture three-quarters of this PUBLIC OPINION himself! T h e wretched Plon-Plon hadn't the courage to say that Pam was working for Russia; rather, he maintains that wicked Russia is seeking to foment discord between France and England! "[20] Here once again I recognise the * very image of my homme du Bas Empire,*[501] the wretched fellow who never dares stage his coups d'état au delà des frontièresb without the permission of Europe's Supreme Authority. Had the wretched fellow the courage to tell the unvarnished truth about Pam (or simply threaten to do so), he could saunter u p to the Rhine undisturbed. But now he has bound himself hand and foot, thus delivering himself completely into Pam's power, as did Louis Philippe before him. Much good may it do him.
T h e goings-on in Staleybridge and Ashton are very cheering.c'[21]
So the double chins and pot-bellies have at last ceased to 'respect' the prolétaires. E d m u n d Potter d makes a great fool of himself today in The Timese which, faced with the unpopularity it now enjoys in such large measure, POUNCES UPON THAT ASS in order to CATCH a ha'pennyworth of popularity."
Salut.
Your
K. M.
280. Engels to Marx. 8 April
Dear Moor,
I have been meaning to write to you for the past six days and have been continually prevented from doing so. Especially by the worthy Eichboff. The poor devil allowed himself to be so thoroughly cheated in Liverpool by Prussian lieutenants on the run and commercial swindlers that he has become responsible for about £100's worth of debts OVER AND ABOVE the capital that was thrown down the drain, not by him, but by his partner. He'd come here, he said, to stay for some time and would accept any post that was offered him; he was making a great mystery of what he was doing here, etc. However, it soon became apparent that, instead of looking round for posts, he was engaging in all kinds of mysterious agency transactions and it's now plain to me that he is conducting a BLOCKADE-RUNNING BUSINESS TO THE CONFEDERATE STATES on behalf of little Dronke, who is very deeply involved in this line. H ence all the secrecy, though the GREENNESS of our friend is such (it is really beyond all bounds) that the secret keeps leaking out all the time. Enfin* the chap has little to do just now, and I'm often saddled with him in the afternoons. Since he refuses to be straightforward with me, I can't, of course, do anything much to help him, save in cases where he actually asks my advice.
I fear the Polish business is going wrong.[499] Langiewicz's defeat',lb would already seem to have made its mark in the Kingdom.b' The Lithuanian movement is by far the most important because 1. it extends beyond the borders of Congress Poland[022] and 2. because the peasants here play a greater part and the thing, if one looks towards Kurland, becomes unmistakably agrarian but unless this movement makes good progress and revives that in the Kingdom, I don't imagine the prospects are very considerable. Langiewicz's conduct seems to me as very dubious. Which party first broke the contract of alliance — which was absolutely essential to the success of the uprising — it will be difficult to establish. But it would be interesting to know how much truth there is in the rumours that link Mieroslawski, on the one hand, and Koscielski, on the other, with Plon-Plon." If I'm not mistaken, Branicki has long since been a Plonplonist.
The worthy Kugelmann certainly seems to have the most wonderfully magnanimous plans for you. That men of genius must also eat, drink and be housed and even pay for these things, is much too prosaic a notion for these honest Germans, and to suspect them of so much as harbouring it would be virtually tantamount to an insult. I should like to find out who the know-all was who confided to him that I have disowned my book.'[23] You will doubtless enlighten the good man on this score. As to the new edition (which, according to the same premises, would certainly be ANYTHING BUT opportune), this is not a suitable moment in any case,-now that the English proletariat's revolutionary energy has all but completely evaporated and the English proletarian has declared himself in full agreement with the dominancy of the bourgeoisie.
I have read the new things by Lyell and Huxley,[1]' both very interesting and pretty good. Lyell has some rhetoric but also some fine witty remarks, e.g. where, having vainly quoted all the naturalists in an attempt to establish the qualitative difference between men and apes, he finally quotes the Archbishop of Canterbury' as asserting that man differs from beasts by virtue of religion. Apropos, just now the old faith here is being well and truly sniped at, and from all sides. It will soon be found necessary to concoct a platitudinous system of rationalism for the protection of religion. Owen got someone to reply to Huxley in The Edinburgh Review, the answer conceded all the essential facts of the case and took issue only with the phraseology.'[1]
Little Dronke evidently thought there was something tremendously heroic in his intention to raise £250 with his banker on my acceptance and actually pay the expenses and interest, amounting to less than £15, himself. My refusal, when confronted with such heroism, to undertake to provide the £250 within a year — you're the best judge of why I couldn't do sob—struck him as mesquin[1] in the extreme. I assure you that, but for you, I would have kicked
281. Marx to Engels. 9 April
the little blackguard in the arse. I was so annoyed that I got tight and while still in a state of tightness wrote you a furious letter[232]
on the subject, which doubtless contained some pretty splendid stuff, for I have absolutely no recollection of what I wrote. I merely mention the matter how, so that you can view it in its proper context.
Vale.
Your
F. E.
281
MARX TO ENGELS[369]
IN MANCHESTER
London, 9 April 1863
Dear Frederick,
Little Tussy was delighted with the letter and its contents and cannot be dissuaded from replying in 'person'.
I have known all about Mieroslawski's Plonplonism[524] for years now through J. Ph. Becker and Schily. Anyway, I had deduced it even earlier from a book he published during the last Russo-Turkish war.(1) One of the things the magnanimous fellow proposed therein was the partition of Germany into 2 countries. But I've never heard anything of the kind in connection with Koscielski. As for M.'s ludicrous vanity and boundless credulity the minute his vanity is tickled, Becker sent me a highly comical account of it from Italy in 1860.
Izzy has already brought out 2 more pamphlets about his trialb;
luckily he has not sent them to me. On the other hand, the day before yesterday I received his open reply to the central working men's committee for the Leipzig working men's (read louts') congress.[325] He gives himself all the airs of a future working men's dictator — self-importantly dispensing the phrases he has borrowed from us. He solves the wages v. capital problem 'with delightful ease' (verbotenus(2)). The workers, that is, are to agitate for general suffrage, after which they are to send people like himself into the Chamber of Deputies, armed 'with the naked sword of science'. Next they organise workers' factories, for which the state advances the capital and, BY AND BY, these institutions spread throughout the country. This, at any rate, is surprisingly new! Let me quote a sentence for you:
'If, today, a German labour movement is already discussing the question as to whether the association should be conceived in the light of his' (Schulze-Delitzsch's) 'ideas or of mine, the merit is largely his; and that is where his true merit lies — a merit which cannot be esteemed too highly.... The cordiality with which I acknowledge that merit should not prevent us, etc'
Ça irab\ At the very time when Palmerston was in Glasgow, another great man announced his coming, the student Karl Blind. Prior to his arrival, he sent an item to the Glasgow North British Mail under the heading 'M. Karl Blind', beneath which the paper had inserted the ominous word 'COMMUNICATED'.
This remarkable communique—written by himself, like all the items about him circulating in the press, and inserted in the paper by that jackass McAdam — opens with the following unique introduction:
*'At the present moment when a patriot exile is about to visit Glasgow, for the purpose of bringing under public notice the merits of the Polish question, it is fitting that a few remarks should be made upon his political career, and more especially so from the unfortunate fact that he is comparatively unknown in Scotland. German by birth and German by exile, Mr Karl Blind's efforts have not come so prominently and so persistently before Europe as to have gained for him universal admiration from the liberating party, or universal execration from the oppressing party. He has hitherto stood in that middle way, where he has the honour of being both beloved and hated; but in these two contending ranks which have rendered to him their tribute after its kind the whole of Europe is not ranged, Mr Karl Blind having the satisfaction of knowing there is a third section of his friends who are simply indifferent. He therefore comes before the 9 1863
Scottish public with perhaps less prejudice against him than has been the case with most of the distinguished exiles who preceded him'.*a
There follows a short biographical note on the GREAT UNKNOWN in which Scotland and THE THIRD SECTION' OF MANKIND are informed that the said 'MR KARL BLIND' IS A NATIVE OF BADEN, AND WAS ORIGINALLY, LIKE
KOSSUTH AND MAZZIN1, TRAINED TO THE LAW. T h a t t h e ' B A D I S H REVOLUTION' W a S
THE RESULT OF HIS PROPAGANDISE, t h a t t h e 'GOVERNMENTS OF B A D E N AND THE PALATINATE' had sent him to Paris in June 'IN THE CAPACITY OF DIPLOMATIC: ENVOY', etc., and that he acts 'IN THAT SPIRIT OF COOPERATION WHICH SO
DISTINGUISHES THE MORE CELEBRATED EXILES:'
Isn't that 'naice'b? My wife has now been confined to bed for a fortnight and has gone almost completely deaf, heaven knows why. Little Jenny has had another attack of diphtheria of some sort. If you could send me some wine for both of them (Allen wants little Jenny to have port), I'd be most grateful.
Here in London a parson (as distinct from the atheists who preach in John Street) has been giving deistic sermons for the public, in which he makes Voltairian fun of the Bible. (My wife and children went to hear him twice and thought highly of him as a humorist).
I attended a TRADE UNIONS meeting chaired by Bright.y2b H e had very much the air of an INDEPENDENT D'[1] and, whenever he said 'IN THE
UNITED STATES NO KINGS, NO BISHOPS', t h e r e was a BURST OF APPLAUSE. T h e working men themselves spoke very well indeed, without a trace of bourgeois rhetoric or the faintest attempt to conceal their opposition to the capitalists (who, by the by, were also attacked by papa Bright).
How soon the English workers will throw off what seems to be a bourgeois contagion remains to be seen. So far as the main theses in your book' are concerned, by the by, they have been corroborated down to the very last detail by developments subsequent to 1844. For I have again been comparing the book with the notes I made on the ensuing period. Only your small-minded German philistine who measures world history by the ell and by what he happens to think are 'interesting news items', could regard 20 years as more than a day where major developments of this kind are concerned, though these may be again succeeded by days into which 20 vears are compressed.
282. Marx to Engels. 18 April
Re-reading your work has made me unhappily aware of the changes wrought by age. With what zest and passion, what boldness of vision and absence of all learned or scientific reservations, the subject is still attacked in these pages! And then, the very illusion that, tomorrow or the day after, the result will actually spring to life as history lends the whole thing a warmth, vitality, and humour with which the later 'grey on grey' contrasts damned unfavourably.
Salut.
Your
K. M. First published abridged in Der Briefwechsel zwischen F. Engels und K. Marx, Bd. 3, Stuttgart, 1913 and in full in MEGA, Abt. III, Bd. 3, Berlin, 1930
282
MARX TO ENGELS
IN MANCHESTER
[London,] 18 April 1863
Dear Engels,
Lassalle sent me the enclosed piece of nonsense marked in red (the newspaper is that of E. Meyen[528]) a week ago today; so, it arrived just one day after I had written you the letter in which I gave you a short excerpt from Izzy's latest pamphlet." He now clearly expects me to enter the lists on his behalf. Que faire?b
Your
K. M.
283. Engels to Marx. 21 April
283
ENGELS TO MARX[369]
IN LONDON
Manchester, 21 April 1863
Dear Moor,
It is hard to say what is to be done about Lassalle; après tout,(1) I'd have assumed it to be beneath the great Izzy's dignity to reply to such petty Meyenian tittle-tattleb with the heavy artillery of a formal démenti. Let the chap clear up his own messes; if he's any good, he needs no testimonials from you, and why should you compromise yourself, now that you've told him that he can't go hand in hand with us, or we hand in hand with him?c Anyhow, what arrant stupidity to involve himself in the affairs of the Schulze-Delitzsch louts[329] and try to form a party for himself out of that, of all things, on the basis of our earlier works. The very endeavour of S.-D. and other such rabble in these bourgeois times to raise the outlook of the louts to the bourgeois level must needs be welcome to us, for otherwise we'd have to deal with this business during the revolution, and in Germany, where the small state system so greatly complicates matters, we might be confronted with this piddling stuff as something new and practical. That is now disposed of and we now have our opponents where we want them; the lout has achieved self-consciousness and thus finds himself in the ranks of the petty-bourgeois democrats. But to regard these fellows as representatives of the proletariat — it took Izzy to do that.
Lupus and I were greatly amused by the funny tale about student Blind.d Lupus has had another severe attack of gout, aggravated by the obstinate way he insists on going out and giving lessons when not yet fully recovered, and only sending for the doctor when it's far too late and he's used up all his medicine. But it's no use remonstrating; 'I'm going!'
Latterly I've been reading Russian history in reverse, i.e., first Catherine and the partition of Poland,[313] then Peter I. I must say that one would have to be an oaf to work up any enthusiasm for the Poles of 1772. After all, in most parts of Europe at that time the aristocracy was caving in with decency if not esprit,'e even though its general maxim may have been that materialism consists in what one eats, drinks, fucks, wins at gaming or is paid in return for one's knavery; but no aristocracy save the Polish adopted so stupid a method as selling itself to the Russians. In other respects, the general venality of the gentils-hommes'' all over Europe presents a very jolly spectacle. Another thing that greatly interested me was the matter of Monsieur Patkul. This fellow was in fact the founding father of Russian diplomacy generally, and already possessed all its wiles in nuce.h If you haven't been able to procure his reports to the Russian government, published in Berlin in 1795,' we'll try and get ourselves a copy by advertising in the Buchhändlerbörsenblatt. How small, by the way, were the contributions made by his successors! Always the same turns of speech, always the same approach, whatever the country. A necessary ingredient, come to that, is the objectivity of your Livonians,[330]
whose interests, far from being national, are at most local and private. A Russian would never be capable of such things.
Another very pretty affair is the coup d'état Catherine II brought off against Peter III. It was here Boustrapa[167] learnt his most important lessons; the Russian commonness served him as a model down to the very last detail. It's ridiculous the way all such dirty dealings are invariably repeated in every particular.
I have no port at present nor is anything good in that line to be had ON THE SPUR OF THE MOMENT. However, I'll look out for some, and meanwhile go down into the cellar to fetch up some hock and some claret (the former for the healthy, the latter for the invalids). -For which reason I shall now close this letter, enclosing a few STAMPS for little Tussy.
Your
F. E.
There are duplicates of some of the STAMPS. Over here these may be used for swaps. I can supply large quantities of Italian, Swiss, Norwegian and certain German ones.
284. Marx to Josef Valentin Weber. 22 April
284
MARX T O JOSEF VALENTIN WEBER
IN LONDON
[London,] 22 April 1863 9 Grafton Terrace, Maitland Park, Haverstock Hill Dear Weber,
Will you stand surety for me with a LOAN SOCIETY (for £ 1 5 to £30)?
I would not have troubled you with this request if
1. the matter were not an entirely formal one, entailing no risk to yourself, for I shall be getting £200 from home at the beginning of July;
2. Pfänder, who would otherwise have been my second surety, had not unexpectedly had to go to Manchester for several weeks.
In addition to other cases of illness in my family, I myself have been suffering from my periodic liver complaint for many weeks now and have thus been literally incapable of writing a single line. Hence the delay over the work for the Societyb which was more disagreeable for me, of course, than for the Society itself.
Salut. Your
K. M.
285. Engels to Marx. 20 May
Moro viejo, Mora viejo, EI de la vellida barbae What's the matter with you, no longer sending word of your fortunes and rebus gestisc? Are you ill or stuck fast in the depths of political economy? Or have you appointed little Tussy your correspondence secretary? OR HOW?
What do you think of the worthies in Berlin who have come to the conclusion that it is questionable whether their president is permitted to call a minister to order, should the minister say that, for all he cared, the whole Chamber could be triple damned, etc.[511] Never has a parliament clung more patiently and more inopportunely to the thesis that the bourgeois opposition, in its struggle with absolutism and the Junker camarilla, is under an obligation to let itself be kicked. It's our old friends of 1848 all over again. However, on this occasion times are somewhat different.
Lassalle's goings-on and the rumpus they have created in Germany are really becoming obnoxious.[332] It's high time you finished your book[310]; if only to provide us with propagandists of a different kind. In other respects, it's quite a good thing that an audience for anti-bourgeois stuff should be recaptured in this way, though it's disastrous that friend Izzy should thereby carve out a position for himself. However, that's something we have never been able to prevent, any more than the heroic swordsman's postures assumed in public by Karl Blind vis-à-vis the Grand Duke of Baden.a
By the way, if you want to see how much time it takes before new scientific discoveries, even in wholly unpolitical fields, make any headway, you should read Lyell's Antiquity of Man. Schmerling in Liege had discovered the fossilised human skull from Engis and shown it to Lyell as far back as 1834,b when he also brought out his thick book.' Nevertheless, it was only quite recently that anyone thought the thing worthy of serious investigation. Similarly, Perthes'[1] in Abbeville had correctly identified the flint instruments in the Somme basin and their geological age as early as 1842, but it was not until the end of the fifties that the thing was noticed. Such are those scoundrels, the patriarchs of science.
Lupus has again suffered severe attacks of gout but is better now.
I am also working hard at Serbian and the ballads collected by Vuck Stef. Karadzic.e It comes more easily to me than any other Slavonic language.
286. Marx to Engels. 29 May
Enclosed a few more STAMPS. A great deal of thieving in this article is going on at the OFFICE just now.
Your
F. E.
286
MARX T O ENGELS [6 7]
IN MANCHESTER
[London,] British Museum, 29 May 1863
DEAR FREDERICK,
My long silence will AT ONCE be explicable to you if you picture to yourself a badly swollen liver with AIL ITS 'APPURTENANCES'. For ABOUT 12 weeks now I have been enduring more of this NONSENSE than ever before. Nor can you have any conception of how it affects a person's morale, namely the feeling of heaviness in the head and paralysis in the limbs. More specifically, one can't bring oneself to do anything, not even, inter alia, to write letters. For the past two weeks the thing has again been endurable. This business has made writing of any kind so impossible that, despite various repeated attempts, I have not managed the stuff on Poland,[533] which I'm very glad of now, since it would have simply deprived me of the chance of going to Prussia without being of any immediate benefit.
Meanwhile I wasn't, of course, idle, though unable to work. What I did, on the one hand, was fill in the gaps in my knowledge (diplomatic, historical) of the Russian-Prussian-Polish affair[534] and, on the other, read and make excerpts from all kinds of earlier literature relating to the part of the political economy I had elaborated.[535] This at the BRITISH MUSEUM. Now that I am more or less able to work again, I shall cast the weight off my shoulders and make a fair copy of the political economy for the printers (and give it a final polish). If it were possible for me to retreat into isolation at the moment, the thing would progress very quickly. A T ALL EVENTS, I shall take it to Germany in person.[3] Little Jenny is not quite her proper self. She has had a nasty cough for the past fortnight.
As to Izzy, he had — or so I've been told in confidence by Freiligrath (he showed me Izzy's letter)—asked F. to write a poem for him on the 'new' movement,[536] i.e. sing Izzy's praises. However, he was mistaken in F. In his letter he says inter alia: 'Each day hundreds of newspapers carry my name to the furthest corners of Germany.' 'My proletarians! etc' Well, since F. won't sing his praises, he has found another poet. Herewith a sample:
'Thou German proletariat, come heed The clarion call, nor any longer stay! Here stands a man prepared to pave the way To thy prosperity. Be thine the deed] He hath no truck with lofty parliaments, Nor doth he flaunt his gift of eloquence, Speaks for us all with homely wit and colour, Man of the People, Ferdinand Lassalle!
'Tis not for others, not to fill their purse That you shall sweat and toil your lives away, While they wax sleek and richer every day And you more ragged as your lot grows worse. The fruits of labour shall be yours alone, 'Tis you shall reap the harvest you have sown. So hearken all unto the man of valour, To the virile voice of Ferdinand LassaUe.'
Made puerl* If that isn't sauce for the gander! My warm regards to Lupus. Now don't indulge in tit for tat but let me hear from you soon.
Salut.
Your
K. M.
287. Marx to Engels. 10 June
288. Engels to Marx. 11 June
287
MARX TO ENGELS
IN MANCHESTER
[London,] 10 June 1863
Dear Engels,
A bill [of exchange] (the BUTCHER'S) on myself for £6 falls due next Monday (15 June). If you can let me have the money by then, it could be returned to you later, as soon as the transaction with Dronke has been completed."
Salut.
Your
K. M.
What do you make of La France, EH? And Poland? And our 'valiant compatriots' in Berlin?
288
ENGELS TO MARX[369]
IN LONDON
Manchester, 11 June 1863
Dear Moor,
Herewith £5 Bank of England note R/X 46271, 31 Jan. 1862,
Manchester. " _ » _ " 5 • • _ " _ " S/R 92394, 14 Oct. 1862, London, with which the butcher will, I hope, be placated. Since I cannot post the letter myself, it would be best if you would acknowledge its receipt.
I was very worried by your long silence but have meanwhile heard that you were unwell and hope that that is now over. How is little Jenny's cough?
Latterly, things would not seem to have been going so well in Poland. The movement in Lithuania and Little Russia is evidently weak, nor do the insurgents in Poland seem to be making any headway. The leaders are all either killed in action or captured and shot, which would, seem to show that they have to expose themselves a great deal in order to egg on their men. Qualitatively the insurgents are no longer what they were in March and April, the best chaps having been expended. However, these Poles are always unknown quantities, and affairs might take a turn for the better, although the odds against it are worsening. If they hold out, they might yet become part of a general European movement which would be the saving of them; on the other hand, should things go wrong, it will be all up with Poland for the next 10 years, for an insurrection like this exhausts a people's fighting potential for many years to come.
I should say that the chances of there being a European movement were good because the ordinary citizen has once more rid himself of all fear of the communists and might even, if need be, go into action with them. The French elections prove this no less plainly than do the goings-on in Prussia since the last elections.[537] However, I scarcely think that a movement of this kind would originate in France. The election results in Paris were altogether too bourgeois; wherever the workers put up candidates of their own, they lost, nor for that matter did they have the power to force the bourgeoisie to put up radicals. Besides, Bonaparte knows how to keep large cities in check.
In Prussia they would still be chattering away if the good Bismarck hadn't put a stop to it.[538] Whatever turn things may take there, peaceful constitutional progress is now at an end and your philistine must get ready for the fray. And that's enough to be going on with. Little though I esteem the valour of our old friends the democrats, it is, nevertheless, here more than anywhere else, I should say, that combustible material is accumulating and, since it is scarcely possible that the Hohenzollerns will fail to perpetrate the worst blunders in FOREIGN POLICY, it might well happen that, with half the troops deployed at the Polish frontier and the other half on the Rhine, Berlin would be left free and a coup would result. It would be a poor enough outlook for Germany and Europe were Berlin to find itself in the van of the movement.
What surprises me most is that a peasants' movement should not have arisen in Greater Russia. In this instance, the Polish uprising would seem to have had a positively unfavourable effect.
In America things are in a pretty pickle. FIGHTING JOE'S" rodomontade has made him look a frightful ass,[539] Rosecrans slumbers and Grant alone is performing well. His move on Vicksburg from the south-west to the north-east, his isolation of the relief army, his repulse of the same, then the rapid advance on Vicksburg and even the energetic if fruitless assaults, are all first-class. I do not believe it will be possible to muster enough relief troops on time. On the other hand, we have so often seen American generals suddenly perform well for a couple of weeks and then revert to the most dreadful bungling, that it's quite impossible to tell what their future moves will be.
I was already familiar with Lassalle's poem (genitivus objectivusb) from a pamphlet Siebel sent me and which you presumably have as well. Very jolly. The chap's now operating purely in the service of Bismarck and, one of these days, wheVi Monsieur B. tires of him, he might well find himself under lock and key, making the acquaintance of Prussian common law, which he always seems to confuse with the Code.[540] It's nice, by the way, that, after the stand he took in Vogtibus,[25] he should now find himself under the aegis, not only of the Augsburger,c but also of the Kreuz-Zeitung.
I am now reading Kinglaked and am becoming more convinced than ever that somewhere in every Englishman's brain a board is nailed up beyond which nothing penetrates.
Your
F. E.
289. Marx to Engels. 12 June
289
MARX TO ENGELS[369]
IN MANCHESTER
[London,] 12 June 1863 British Museum
Dear Engels,
I hereby acknowledge the £10 with many thanks. Being uncertain whether you would be able to send the money for Monday, and in view of the great fear of bills of exchange which obtains in this house, I had simultaneously written to Dronke.[42]
For the past four weeks little Jenny has again had a slight cough. Today I sent her to see Dr Allen.
I myself am not quite fit either, but am rid of my worst complaint.3 IN THE MEANTIME, which would certainly delight Vogt, I have been wolfing sulphur![54]'
Izzy has sent me (and you, too, perhaps) the speech he made in court about indirect taxation!1 One or two individual bits are good, but for one thing it is, on the whole, written in an unbearably officious, chatty style, with absurd pretensions to scholarship and consequentialness. In addition, it is essentiellement the confection of a 'pupil' who cannot wait to make a name for himself as a 'thoroughly learned' man and original scholar. Hence the abun-dance of historical and theoretical BLUNDERS. One examplp may suffice (should you not have read the thing yourself). To impress the court and the public, he tries to give a kind of retrospective history of the argument against indirect taxation and therefore, going back at random beyond Boisguillebert and Vau ban, cites Bodin,' etc. And here he shows himself to be the schoolboy par excellence. He omits the physiocrats, clearly ignorant of the fact that everything A. Smith, etc., wrote on the subject was cribbed from them and that in general they were the protagonists where this 'QUESTION' was concerned. Likewise, 'indirect taxation' is, in true schoolboy fashion, seen as 'bourgeois taxation', and so indeed it was 'in the Middle Ages', but not today (not, at least, where the 12 1863
bourgeoisie is developed), to discover which he need seek no further than Mr R. Gladstone et co. in Liverpool.[542] The jackass doesn't appear to know that the argument against 'indirect' taxation is one of the platforms of the English and American friends of 'Schulze-Delitzsch' et cie, and hence isn't at any rate directed against them — the FREETRADERS,[543] I mean. Again, in true schoolboy fashion he applies a proposition of Ricardo's to the Prussian real estate tax. (Quite wrong, this.) Quite touching, how he imparts to the court 'his' discoveries, the fruit of the most profound 'learning and truth' and of terrible 'night vigils', namely that,
in the Middle Ages 'landed property' prevailed, in later times 'capital', and at present the 'principle of the workers' estate', 'labour', or the 'moral principle of labour'; and, on the same day as he was imparting this discovery to the louts,[466] Senior Councillor to the Government Engel (knowing nothing about him) was imparting it to a more distinguished audience at the Academy of Singing." He and Engel exchanged 'epistolary' congratulations upon their 'simultaneous' scientific findings.
The 'workers' estate' and the 'moral principle' are indeed achievements on the part of Izzy and the Senior Councillor to the Government.
I have not been able to bring myself to write to the fellow since the beginning of this year.
If I commented on his stuff, I'd be wasting my time; besides, he appropriates every word as a 'discovery'. To rub his nose in his plagiarism would be absurd since, in view of the state they are in after he has finished with them, I have no desire to relieve him of our ideas. Nor would it do to accord recognition to such rodomontade and indiscretions. The fellow would instantly exploit it.
So, there's nothing to be done but wait until he ultimately boils over. Then I shall have a very nice excuse, namely that (like Senior Councillor to the Government Engel) he is for ever insisting it's not 'communism'. So, in my reply, I shall say that, had I wished to take any notice of him, these repeated asseverations of his would have compelled me
1. to show the public how and where he had cribbed from us; 2. how and wherein we differ from his stuff.
290. Marx to Engels. 22 June
Hence, so as not to compromise 'communism' in any way or injure him, I had ignored him completely.
Come to that, the chap is making all this hullabaloo out of sheer vanity. Throughout 1859 he was heart and soul for the Prussian liberal bourgeois party. Now he may find it more convenient to attack the 'bourgeois' under the AUSPICES OF THE GOVERNMENT than to attack the 'Russians'. To rail against the Austrians and adulate the Italians has always been as typical of your Berliner as to keep one's trap shut about the Russians, which is what the valiant lad does.
Salut.
Your
K. M.
290
MARX TO ENGELS
IN MANCHESTER
[London,] 22 June 1863
Dear Engels,
The 'little man" writes to me today from Liverpool saying that the business of the moneyb has got to be settled, i.e. decided, now, since he must attend to it in person and may have to leave on business any day. Believe me, I find it highly disagreeable that you should assume ANY OBLIGATION WHATEVER towards the little man on my behalf. Mais que faire?c
I have been going to the British Museum and shall continue to do so until the end of this month since, if only for the sake of my liver, I must do all I can to elude the nagging at home that is the inevitable consequence of PRESSURE FROM WITHOUT. As soon as peace is restored, I shall devote myself to the fair copy of the beastly book, which I intend to hawk round Germany myself.d Once that is
291. Engels to Marx. 24 June
done, then will be the time to get a French translation under way in Paris and cast round in London with a view to an English rendering. For, on this occasion, if only because of Izzy, it's imperative that we don't hide too much of our light under a bushel.
Salut.
Your
K. M.
291
ENGELS TO MARX
IN LONDON
Manchester, 24 June 1863
Dear Moor,
I have absolutely no idea what the little BUSYBODY" wants. Why doesn't he write and tell me that he wants the matter settled now? He wrote and told me that, if I didn't reply, he would draw on me as arranged. So far as I'm concerned, if a matter is settled, it's settled and I therefore thought it totally unnecessary to send him another written assurance a fortnight before the date stating that I would do what I had already undertaken to do, both verbally and in writing. Basing myself on your letter, which casts quite a different light on his motives, I have now written to him as requested.[232] My acceptance will be for £250. Make sure he sends you the whole amount, since he has undertaken to pay the expenses and interest himself.
Have finished Kinglake.b Never before has there been anything as superficial (though some of the material is very good, if scrappy), stupid and ignorant as his Battle of the Alma. Only la part des français' is well and accurately depicted — in general, at least. Otherwise, much that is highly amusing to the military reader.d
292. Marx to Engels. 6 July
Things are going rottenly in Poland. The Polish government's grand effect, the mass uprising in June, has obviously come to grief[544] owing to a shortage of weapons and, failing any external imbroglios, a gradual decline is now inevitable.
Your policy in regard to Izzy is quite right." Besides, what's the use of all this camaraderie towards a chap who either finds himself compelled by circumstances to go along with us at a crucial moment, or else openly becomes our enemy. To allow the fool to steal one's ideas for years on end and be rewarded for it by having to answer for all his stupidities — that's a bit too much.
Someone has sent for me.
Your
F. E.
292
MARX TO ENGELS[369]
IN MANCHESTER
London, 6 July 1863
Dear Engels,
D'abord,u my best thanks for the £250. ABOUT four months ago Dronke sent me £50, and today £200.
Unfortunately, little Jenny still isn't quite as she should be. The cough hasn't completely gone yet, and the child has grown too 'light'. I shall send her to a resort with the others as soon as the school term is over. Although I have great confidence in Allen, I should be glad if Gumpert, who I presume will be going on holiday on the Continent, would pay us a flying visit here, see for himself how things are, and let me have his opinion. To be frank, I am much alarmed about the child. To lose flesh at this age seems to me most dubious.
Palmerston PLAYS HIS OLD TRICKS in the Polish affair." The Notes presented to the Russians had originally been sent from St. Petersburg to London.b Pam bought Hennessy from Urquhart by giving the said Irish blackguard a remunerative post (sinecure) with a Franco-English railway in France. Indeed, the venality of the POLITICIANS here eclipses anything that goes on in that line on the Continent. No one at home or in France can have any conception of this absolute shamelessness. As for 'COUNT Zamoyski', I had repeatedly told the Urquhartites that the fellow betrayed the Poles in 1830/31 by leading an intact corps across the Austrian border instead of against the Russians. In the end, this fellow has aroused their suspicions because of his perpetual personal underhand dealings with Pam.c
The SOUTHERNERS' expedition against the North[543] was, in my opinion, forced on Lee by the clamour of the Richmond PAPERS and their SUPPORTERS. I regard it as a coup de désespoir? This war, by the by, is going to be a lengthy business, which is, so far as European interests are concerned, altogether desirable.
Izzy has sent me yet another pamphlet, his speech at Frankfurt am Main.e Since I now spend 10 hours a day working ex officio at economics,[310] I can hardly be expected to waste my leisure hours on reading these schoolboy essays. So, for the present the thing's been filed away. My spare time is now devoted to differential and integral calculus. Apropos, I have a superfluity of works on the subject and will send you one, should you wish to tackle it. I should consider it Jo be almost essential to your military studies. Moreover, it is a much easier branch of mathematics (so far as mere technicalities are concerned) than, say, the more advanced aspects of algebra. Save for a knowledge of the more ordinary kind of algebra and trigonometry, ho preliminary study is required except a general familiarity with conic sections.
Will you write me a reasonably well-founded assessment of the enclosed pamphlet by the 'Duc du Roussillon'—you may still have some recollection of him under the name of 'Pi'f—-since he writes to me daily asking me for my 'opinion'?
If at all possible in this heat, will you take a reasonably close look at the enclosed. 'Tableau Économique' which I am substituting for Quesnay's table[546] and let me know your objections, if any. It embraces the whole process of reproduction.
As you know, A. Smith sees the -NATURAL' or -NECESSARY PRICE- as being composed of wages, profit (interest) and rent — i.e. as wholly resolved into revenue. This nonsense has been taken over by Ricardo, although he excludes rent from the catalogue as being purely fortuitous. Nearly all economists have taken this over from Smith, and those who contest it succumb to some other folly.
Smith himself is conscious of the nonsensicality of subsuming the gross product of a society simply under revenue (which may be consumed annually), whereas in' the case of each individual branch of production he resolves price into capital (raw materials, machinery, etc.) and revenue (wages, profit, rent). If this were so, a society would have to start each year de novo,(1)" without capital.
Now as regards my table, which figures in one of the last chapters of my work by way of recapitulation, the following is essential to a proper understanding of it:
1. The figures, which are arbitrary, represent millions. 2. Here means of subsistence are taken to mean everything that goes into the consumption fund each year (or might without accumulation, which is excluded from the table, go into the consumption fund).
In Class I (means of subsistence) the gross product (700) consists of means of subsistence which are, by their very nature, not therefore included in constant capital (raw materials and machinery, buildings, etc.). Similarly, in Class II, the entire product consists of commodities that constitute constant capital, i. e. re-enter the process of reproduction in the form of raw materials and machinery.
3. Ascending lines are dotted, descending ones continuous. 4. Constant capital is that part of capital that consists of raw materials and machinery. Variable capital that which is exchanged for labour.
5. For example, in agriculture, etc., one part of the same product (e.g. wheat) goes to form means of subsistence, whereas another part (wheat, for instance) re-enters reproduction in its natural form (e.g. as seed) as a raw material. But this does nothing to alter the case, since such branches of production figure under Class II or Class I according to which capacity is involved.
6 1863
6. The hub of the matter, then, is as follows:
Category I. Means of subsistence. Working materials and machinery=e.g. £400 (i.e. that part of these that is included in the annual product as déchet"; that part of the machinery, etc., which is not used up does not figure at all in the table). The variable capital exchanged for labour = 100, reproduces itself as 300, since 100 replaces wages in the shape of the product, and 200 represents surplus value (unpaid surplus labour). The product=700, of which 400 represents the value of the constant capital which, however, has passed entirely into the product and must hence be replaced.
In the case of this relationship between variable capital and surplus value it is assumed that the worker works '/a of the working day for himself and (2)/ä for his NATURAL SUPERIORS.
Hence 100 (variable capital), as is indicated by the dotted line, is paid out in money as wages; with this 100 (indicated by the descending line) the worker buys the product of this class, i.e. means of subsistence for 100. Thus, the money flows back to capitalist class I.
The surplus value of 200 in its general form = profit, which, however, is split up into industrial profit (commercial included), and further into interest, which the industrial capitalist pays in money, and rent, which he likewise pays in money. This money paid out for industrial profit, interest and rent, flows back (indicated by descending lines) since the product of class I is bought in return for it. Hence all the money laid out by the industrial capitalist within class I flows back to him, while 300 of the product, 700, is consumed by the workers, entrepreneurs, MONIED MEN and LANDLORDS. In class I this leaves a surplus of products (of means of subsistence) of 400, and a deficit of constant capital of 400.
Category II. Machinery and raw materials. Since the gross product of this category, not only that part of the product which replaces constant capital, but also that which represents the equivalent of wages and surplus value, consists of raw materials and machinery, the revenue of this category cannot be realised in its own product but only in the product of category I. Disregarding accumulation, as is done here, category I can, however, buy only as much from category II as it needs for the replacement of its constant capital, while category II can lay out on the product of category I only that part of its product which represents wages and surplus value (revenue). Hence the workers in category II lay out their money, = 133 Vs, on the product of category II. The same thing happens with the surplus value in category II, which, as sub I. is split up into industrial profit, interest, and rent. Hence 400 in money flows from category II to the industrial capitalists in category I, who, in return, transfer the remainder of their product, =400, to the former.
With this 400 in money, class I buys what is necessary to replace its constant capital, =400, from category II, to which the money paid out in wages and consumption (by the industrial capitalists themselves, the MOWED MEN and the LANDLORDS) thus flows back. Hence category II retains 533'/3 of its gross product, and, with this, it replaces its own constant capital, which has been used up.
The movement, partly within category I, partly between categories I and II, also shows how money flows back to the respective industrial capitalists in both categories, money which will again go to pay wages, interest and rent.
Category HI represents reproduction as a whole. The gross product of category II is shown here as the constant capital of society as a whole, and the gross product of category I as that part of the product which replaces the variable capital (the wages fund) and the revenues of the classes which share the surplus value between them.
I have put Quesnay's table underneath and will explain it in SOME WORDS in my next letter.
Salut.
Your
K. M.
Apropos. Edgar Bauer has been given a post in — the Prussian Press Department.
293. Marx to Engels. 15 August
293
MARX TO ENGELS[369]
IN MANCHESTER
[London,] 15 August 1863
DEAR Frederick,
May the devil take me, as the red one(1) used to say, if I didn't get up every morning this week with the firm intention of writing to you. But no sooner did I reach my study than I allayed my conscience by pleading that all I wanted was to add half a dozen lines to the manuscript at the point where I had broken off the day before.[547] And once I had departed from the path of righteousness, I saw that the evil deed is accursed in that it must constantly engender evil.b
My family left for Hastings last Friday.[548] The departure took place so tardily because Lenchen had had to spend a fortnight in Germany in connection with family affairs.
The enclosed photographs[549] (the children forced me to have mine taken) will soon be followed by those of Jenny and Laura.
In one respect, my work (preparing the manuscript for the press) is going well. In the final elaboration the stuff is, I think, assuming a tolerably popular form, aside from a few unavoidable M — C's and C — M's.c On the other hand, despite the fact that I write all day long, it's not getting on as fast as my own impatience, long subjected to a trial of patience, might demand. At all events, it will be 100 p. c. more comprehensible than No. l.d When, by the by, I consider my handiwork and realise how I've had to demolish everything and even build up the historical sectionc out of what was in part quite unknown material, I can't help finding Izzy a bit of a joke; for he has already got 'his' political economy in hand and yet everything he has peddled around hitherto has shown him to be a callow schoolboy who trumpets abroad as his very latest discovery, with the most repulsive and impertinent garrulity, theses that we were doling out 20 years ago as small change to our PARTISANS, and ten times better at that. In other respects, too, this 15 1863
same Izzy is storing up in his MANURE factory our party faeces excreted 20 years ago which he proposes to use as fertilizer for world history. Thus, for instance, he got the Nordstern to print a letter of support from 'Herwegh' (who has undoubtedly given proof of his platonic love of the 'principle of labour').[3] Because the same Nordstern is edited by that ne'er-do-we'el Bruhn, whom Lassalle bought from Blind. Thus, Izzy has nominated 'Moses Hess' his 'proconsul in the Rhine Province', etc. And he still seems unable to shake off the idée fixe that his praises should be sung by Freiligrath, who would never dream of doing so. For he has again got his Leipzig 'proconsul'b to SUMMON F. urgently, citing the good example of G. Herwegh. If only he knew how F. and I had laughed about this renewed onslaught!
'Oh Izzy, Oh Izzy, didst thou not see That Herwegh and Moses thy gallows would be?'
The philistines down here are furious with The Times for having fobbed them off so nicely over the CONFEDERATE LOAN.[550] After all, those worthies might have known if only from Cobbett's disclosures, that The Times is nothing but a 'COMMERCIAL CONCERN', which doesn't give a damn how the BALANCE turns out, providing it is a BALANCE IN ITS OWN FAVOUR.[551] The Times chaps, such as /. Spence—'THAT MAN', according to the Richmond Enquirer, 'WHOM WE HAVE PAID IN SOLID GOLD'—obtained the LOAN SCRIPS partly for nothing, partly at a 50 p. c. DISCOUNT on the nominal rate. So, to cry them up till they reached 105 was a nice piece of business.
It is, I should say, of prime importance to the UNITED STATES that they should seize the remaining ports, Charleston, Mobile, etc., because they may be involved in a clash with Boustrapa [167] any day now. That same imperial Lazarillo de Tormes is presently caricaturing, not only his uncle,c but even himself. For after all, the 'SUFFRAGE' in Mexico is a pretty caricature, not only of the SUFFRAGE whereby he turned himself into a Frenchman, but also of that whereby he made Nice and Savoy French.[552] I myself am in no doubt that Mexico will be the hurdle at which he'll break his neck, provided he hasn't been hanged first.
The Polish affair has gone completely off the rails because of this same Boustrapa, and the influente his intrigues have given the Czartoryski party. Colonel Lapinski, who returned a few days since from the ill-fated trip he undertook with Bakunin and to which Palmerston put so neat an end on the Swedish coast,[553]
complains bitterly about the committees in Warsaw, London and Paris being wholly under Bonap.-Czartor. influence.
Our fatherland would seem to be in a pitiful state. In the absence of a licking administered from without, there's no doing anything with these curs.
Apropos. Since you wrote your book about England,3 a second Children's Employment Commission Reportb has at long last appeared. It shows that all those horrors that were banished from certain spheres of industry by the FACTORY ACTS, have proliferated with redoubled vigour wherever there is no control! It would make a splendid sequel to your book, once the complete reports have come out.
My congratulations to Gumpert. At any rate, he has seen to it that his marriage did not remain childless.
In Borchardt's case, the flesh would appear to be more urgent than befits his priestly office. And he'll make all the other Jewesses jealous.
Is Lupus back? If so, give him my kindest regards. There's nothing I should like better just now than to have you here for a couple of days so that I could chat and go drinking with you. It's such a long time since we were together.
Salut.
Your
K. M.
'Pi' has been answered.' Apropos. Among the curious information I have gleaned at the Museum, was the following:
'Verum inventum, hoc est, munera Germaniae, ab ipsa primitus reperta, non ex vino, ut calumniator (an Englishman, that is) [quidam] sceptice invehit, sed vi inami et corporis et reliquo orbi communicata, etc.', auctore Michaela Makro, Francofurti, 1619.
The mimera and discoveries Germaniae are:
294. Marx to Engels. 12 September
'Roman imperial dignity, gunpowder, book printing, religious reform, the medicaments of Theophrastus Paracelsus, the secrets of the Rosicruc.ians"'*[14]— Inventum politicum, bellicum, lilteraricum, theologicum, medicum, chymiaim.'*
294
MARX TO ENGELS
IN MANCHESTER
[London,] 12 September 1863
Dear Frederick,
My family has been back for ABOUT 10 days.(1) Little Jenny is much better and has stopped coughing. She is now taking salt water baths at home, i.e. baths with sea salt. ABOUT 2 months ago I, too, started taking a bath at home every morning, sluicing myself with cold water from head to foot, since when I have been feeling much better.
The most interesting acquaintanceship I have struck up here is that of Colonel iMpinski. He is without doubt the cleverest Pole — besides being an homme d'action' — I have ever met. His sympathies are all on the German side, though in manners and speech he is also a Frenchman. He cares nothing for the national struggle and only knows the racial struggle. He hates all Orientals, among whom he numbers Russians, Turks, Greeks, Armenians, etc., with equal impartiality. He spent some time here in company with Urquhart, but, not content with describing him as a 'humbug', he actually doubts his probity, which is unjust.
The 'Circassian' princes exhibited in England by Urquhart and Lapinski'd were two — menials. Lapinski maintains that Urquhart is being well and truly led by the nose by Zamoyski, who in turn is himself simply a tool of Palmerston's and hence, by this circuitous route, of the Russian Embassy. Although of Catholic stock, he (Lap.) finds Urquhart's relations with the Catholic bishops in 12 1863
England highly suspect. As soon as 'action' was called for, he says,—e.g. the equipping of a Polish corps to invade Circassia,504
which -L., too, regards as the best diversion — Urquhart allowed himself to be dissuaded by Zamoyski. By and large, Urquhart only wants to 'talk'. He is a 'big liar' and he (<Lap.) took it particularly amiss that he should have made him (•£,.) his co-liar without consulting him beforehand. Not a soul in Circassia knows Urquhart, who spent only 24 hours there and doesn't speak the language. By way of illustrating U.'s imaginative powers, he mentioned the latter's boast that he (Urq.) had killed Chartism in England!
There has been another purge of the National Government in Warsaw.[555] This had been infiltrated by Czartoryski's supporters as a result of the intrigues of Bonaparte and Palmerston. Three of these were stabbed and that, pro nunc? has intimidated the rest. (The said Czartoryski party was headed by Majewski.b) The power of the National Government is evident from the fact that the Grand Duke Constantine accepted a passport from it for a journey abroad. According to -£.., Herzen and Bakunin are thoroughly cHAPFALLEN because your Russian, upon being scratched a little, has again revealed himself to be a Tartar.
Bakunin has become a monster, A HUGE MASS OF FLESH AND FAT, and is barely capable of walking any more. To crown it all, he is sexually perverse and jealous of the seventeen year-old Polish girl who married him in Siberia because of his martyrdom/ He is presently in Sweden, where he is hatching 'revolution' with the Finns.[553]
In Poland, £,. said, it had been necessary de prime abordd to disregard the peasantry, that 'ultra-reactionary rabble'. But they were now ripe for the fray and would rise at the government's call for a levée en masse."
Without Austria, he went on, the movement would have come to grief long ago and, if Austria were to close her frontiers in earnest, the rebellion would be done for in 3 weeks. But Austria was cheating the Poles. Solely out of desperation, because Francis Joseph knew that he was threatened by a Russian-Serbian-Romanian-Italian-French-Hungarian-Prussian bomb did he go to Frankfurt, and it was for the same reason that the Popef had issued his latest edict in support of Poland.[556]
295. Engels to Marx. 24 November ,
L. told me there could be no doubt whatever that it was not just Bangya who had an understanding with Russia, but also Stein, Türr, Klapka, and Kossuth.
His aim now is to raise a German legion in London, even if only 200 strong, so that he can confront the Russians in Poland with the black, red and gold flag,[170] partly to 'exasperate' the Parisians, partly to see whether there is any possibility whatsoever of bringing the Germans in Germany back to their senses.
What's lacking is money. Efforts are being made down here to exploit all the German societies, etc., to this end. You must be the best judge of whether anything can be done in this LINE in Manchester. The cause as such would appear to be excellent.
Give my regards to Lupus and tell him that I've sent on his letter to Eccarius.
Salut.
Your
K. M.
295
ENGELS TO MARX[237]
IN LONDON
Manchester, 24 November 1863
Dear Moor,
As I have heard nothing more from your wife, I can only hope your health has improved in the meantime, and that you are rid of your boils. The main thing is to stick to wine-drinking and meat-eating. During the past few days my evenings at the office — the only time I can contemplate writing private letters— have been much interrupted, otherwise you'd have heard from me before.
Things are getting critical in Germany. In one way, the Danish business[557] has come at the wrong time, while, in another, it can only precipitate the crisis. Funny, how the English press is suddenly finding the Schleswig-Holstein question so absolutely crystal-clear, when for years it has claimed it was so complicated that, as Dundreary(1) says, 'NO EELLOW CAN UNDERSTAND THAT'. For us, however, the admissions in the English press suffice. But what a masterly stroke the Protocol of 1852 was on the Russians' part! So long as my only source of information was the stupid Free Press, I couldn't make head or tail of it; really, the gift those jackasses have for confusing everything surpasses even Dundreary's. That Prussia and Austria should have signed the Protocol was an unspeakable infamy, and those concerned must pay for it with their blood.
Again, it's really rather funny that the whole question of the succession should now turn on whether the Augustenburg fellow, as the child of a morganatic marriage, is qualified to succeed.b
In Prussia, Bismarck's insolence would seem to be wavering a bit after all. The disavowal of the Landrat election intrigues, and the repeal of the Press Decree are significant omens.[539] J'espère qu'ils ne reculent que pour mieux sauter}c Lassalle, too, is playing a part in the press controversy. Wagener was tactless enough (vis-à-vis his tacit ally, Lassalle) to cite his opinion of the liberal pressd in justification of the Press Decree.e This evoked roars of laughter and bad jokes from Virchow and Gneist. Lassalle has made a thorough mess of his campaign, which won't, of course, prevent him from beginning all over again. Yet the jackass could have found out perfectly well from the Manifesto" what attitude one ought to adopt towards the bourgeoisie at times such as these.
Many regards to your wife and the girls.
Your
F. E.
296. Marx to Engels. 2 December
297. Engels to Marx. 3 December
296
MARX TO ENGELS[239]
IN MANCHESTER
[London,] 2 December 1863
DEAR FREDERICK,
Two hours ago a telegram arrived, saying my mother(1) was dead. Fate laid claim to one of our family. I myself have already had one foot in the grave. Circumstances being what they were, I, presumably, was needed more than my mater.
I have got to go to Trier to settle the question of the legacy. Was in much doubt as to what Allen would say, as it is only 3 days since I first began taking a recuperative WALK of half an hour a day.
However, Allen has given me 2 enormous bottles of medicine to take with me and actually thinks it advisable for me to go. The wound hasn't stopped discharging yet, but all along the route I should find good Samaritanessesh to apply the plaster for me.
I must now ask you to send me enough money by return to enable me to leave for Trier forthwith.
Salut.
Your
K. M.
297
ENGELS TO MARX
IN LONDON
Manchester, 3 December 1863 Dear Moor,
Herewith U/O 16055 & 56, two fivers, in all £10, dated Manchester, 13 Jan. '63, for your trip to Trier. I trust our compatriots' Schleswig-Holstein enthusiasm won't spoil your visit too much. I've swotted up the whole question[324] and have come to the conclusion
1. that the Schi.-Holst, theory is a lot of rubbish; 2. that in Holstein the Augustenburg fellow would certainly seem to be in the right[558];
3. that in Schleswig it's difficult to say who is entitled to succeed — but the male line, if at all, only as Denmark's vassal;
4. that the London Protocol is certainly valid in Denmark, but is certainly not so in Schleswig and Holstein because the Estates were not consulted;
5. that the German right to Schleswig is confined to the south, which is German by nationality and free choice, so that Schleswig would have to be partitioned;
6. that at present Germany's only chance of liberating the Duchies lies in our starting a war against Russia for the benefit of Poland. Then Louis Napoleon would be our obedient servant, Sweden would instantly throw herself into our arms, and England, hoc est(2) Pam, would be hamstrung; then we could take anything we liked from Denmark with impunity.
THEM IS MY SENTIMENTS. I'd like to enlarge upon them in a pamphlet, if you could find a publisher for it in Germany.[500]
Needless to say, I'd put my name to it. Qu'en dis-tu?b
Lupus is better, but still a bit unsteady on his pins. Many regards to the FAMILY. I was damned glad to see your scratchy scrawl again.
Your
F. E.
298. Marx to Engels. 4 December
298
MARX TO ENGELS[67]
IN MANCHESTER
[London,] 4 December 1863
Dear Frederick,
Very many thanks for the £10. Ditto, retrospectively, for the port. It has done me a power of good. Besides the wine, I have (up till now) been having to swill f/2 quarts of the strongest London STOUT every day. It struck me as a good theme for a short story. From the front, the man who regales HIS INNER MAN with port, claret, stout and a truly massive mass of meat. From the front, the guzzler. But behind, on his back, the OUTER MAN, a damned carbuncle. If the devil makes a pact with one to sustain one with consistently good fare in circumstances like these, may the devil take the devil, I say. Incidentally, I still feel light-headed and my knees are those of a broken-down hack, but I imagine the journey will put a stop to all this. Little Tussy told me apropos the OUTER MAN: 'BUI IT IS YOUR OWN FLESH!' By the by, I can't speak too highly of Dr Allen's behaviour towards me. He remarked, by the by, apropos the operation, that GERMAN PHILOSOPHERS were always self-consistent.
As regards the 'sea-girt',l by and large, I agree with you.h
Obviously, the whole succession business is merely of diplomatic significance. As TO DENMARK, she is not, I think, bound by the Treaty of London38n in as much as the Danish Parliament was intimidated by Russian warships when the vote was taken. I enclose herewith Urquhart's nonsense,c R. Schramm's nonsense,d
lastly a Danish pamphlet, which is of interest on at least two counts, 1. with regard to the fellows from whom the Schleswig-Holstein movement originally stemmed; 2. with regard to the stand taken by the peasants in Holstein.
In today's Times you will find under the heading 'Schleswig-
299. Marx to Jenny Marx. 15 December
Holstein' an item by Dr Thudichum that is typical of German historiography."
I shall certainly get hold of a publisher for you in Germany. So, buckle to straight away.
I shall drop you a couple of lines as soon as I am in Trier. I also have to go to Holland, for my uncle1' is my MONSTER creditor.[161]
Salut.
Your
K. M.
But one mustn't irritate the Danes. They've got to understand that Scandinavians and Germans have a common interest in opposing Russia and that nothing could be more advantageous to themselves than the separation of the German element.
299
MARX TO JENNY MARX2M
IN LONDON
Trier, 15 December 1863, Wednesday Gasthof von Venedig
Dear sweet darling jenny,
I arrived here exactly a week ago today. Tomorrow I am going to Frankfurt to see Aunt Esther' (NB: the lady, who was in Trier, was formerly in Algiers, and lives with my aunt, is also my father's sister, also an aunt, is called Babette,d familiarly 'Bäbchen', is rich). From Frankfurt I shall go to Bommel," as I wrote my unclelj
yesterday, probably to his dismay.
If I have been so long in writing to you, this was certainly not out of forgetfulness. Quite the reverse. I have made a daily pilgrimage to the old Westphalen home (in the Neustrasse), which interested me more than any Roman antiquities3fi2 because it reminded me of the happiest days of my youth and had harboured my greatest treasure. Moreover, every day and on every side I am asked about the quondam'(1) 'most beautiful girl in Trier' and the 'queen of the ball'. It's damned pleasant for a man, when his wife lives on like this as an 'enchanted princess' in the imagination of a whole town.
The reason I didn't write was that every day I hoped to have something definite to say, but up to this moment don't yet know of anything definite. For this is how matters stand. On my arrival I naturally found everything under seal save for such furniture as was in daily use. My mother, with her usual mania for assuming 'supreme command', had told Conradi not to bother about anything; she had so arranged matters that Uncle would see to 'everything'. What she gave Conradi was a notarial copy of a sort of will, which contained nothing but the following terms: 1. She left all the furniture and linen to Emilie[13] with the exception of the gold- and silverware; 2. To her son Carl she leaves the 1,100 talers, etc.; 3. To Sophie,b father's portrait. That's all there is to the will. (NB: Sophie has 1,000 talers a year, for the most part given her by the Philipses. So, after all, you see, my relations are decent 'folk'.)
Apart from this scrap of paper, my mother had lodged another (now invalid) legally attested will. This was of an earlier date and was nullified by the more recent will. It had been drawn up before Emilie's marriage. In it she had made Emilie the beneficiary of everything of which she was entitled to dispose. In addition, she had appointed Uncle Martin'(2) and Uncle Philips her executors. She — or rather her bibulous notary Zell (deceased)—forgot to repeat this clause relating to executors in the scrap of paper which now alone is valid and which I have described above, so that if Uncle is the executor, it is only thanks to our bonne grace? (For which I, of course, have my own 'reasons'.) As yet, I know nothing about the actual value of the estate, because all the papers are in the sealed cupboard. The seals have not yet been removed because of the time-consuming formalities that have to be gone through before the Dutch powers of attorney (for Jutai and Sophie) can arrive here. So far as I am concerned this will take too long. I am
300. Marx to Engels. 22 December
therefore giving Conradi power of attorney. Besides, there's nothing left here in Trier (Grünberg[563] was sold long ago) except 5 casks of 1858 wine, which my mother refused to sell at the right moment, and some gold- and silverware. This will be shared out equally among the heirs. The real assets, however, are all in Uncle's hands.
My mother died at 4 in the afternoon of 30 November, on the very day and at the very hour of her marriage. She had predicted that she would die at that time.
Today I am attending to the things for Mr Demuth and Lieschen. I shall write to you at greater length from Frankfurt or Bommel. Greetings and much love to everyone. Above all and in particular, please give the CHINESE SUCCESSOR" a thousand kisses on my behalf.
Your
Karl
(I hope to be able to send you some money in my next letter.)
Works, Second Russian Edition, Vol. 30, Moscow, 1963
300
MARX TO ENGELS[239]
IN MANCHESTER
Zalt-Bommel, 22 December 1863
Dear Engels,
You will see from the address that I am back in Holland, where I arrived safely yesterday. In Trier, where the papers and effects left by my mother had been placed under seal, the unsealing could not take place because the Dutch powers of attorney, which must pass through the hands of an endless succession of authorities, had not yet arrived. I left a power of attorney for my brother-in-law Conradi for submission to the Department of Trier and proceeded to headquarters here, firstly because my uncle3
holds by far the largest part of the assets, secondly because he is the executor of the will. However, in any case it will be another 5-6 weeks before I receive payment of the money. Since my wife has to pay a butcher's BILL for £10 on 10 January 1864 (i.e. a bill of exchange), I should be very glad if you could attend to it.
The carbuncle has gone the way of all flesh, but now for good measure my back is wickedly plagued with furuncles and last night, for example, thanks to these pestilential objects, I couldn't get a wink of sleep which would, after all, only have been fair after travelling here from Frankfurt a.M. The husbandb of a cousin' of mine is the town's only doctor and medical officer of health, so I am not in want of Aesculapian assistance.
Throughout the Rhine Province, from Trier to Frankfurt a.M. and thence via Giessen and Cologne right up to the Dutch frontier, I heard nothing but abuse of Prussia. Little, very little, Schleswig-Holsteinianism. For the most part, it was regarded as 'Prussian artfulness'.
I spent only one day in Frankfurt (where I had to visit two old auntsd) and hence wasn't able to see any publishers. However, I spoke to an acquaintance who will write to me here (after he has consulted with a publisher on my behalf) .e
When writing your pamphlet/ it might be better if you were now to include some actual events as well, not forgetting the systematic blunders perpetrated by the Prussian government, the men of Progress[371] and the regular — since 1815 inveterate— Schleswig-Holstein HUMBUGGERS.[324]
Salut.
Your
K. M.
You might drop me a line or two. Address Charles Marx, CARE OF Mr Lion Philips, Zalt-Bommel, Holland.
'Tu n'es pas un Yankee, s'écria le fanatique... Depuis que tu es ici, je t'observe. Dans la figure du Saxon il y a du taureau et du loup; dans la tienne il y a du singe et du chien. Tu
301. Marx to Ferdinand Freiligrath. 23 December
as peur de la liberté, tu parles de ce que tu ne sais pas, et tu jais des phrases. Tu es un Français!* (195-196, Paris en Amérique by Edouard Laboulaye.) (Paris 1863.)
301
MARX TO FERDINAND FREILIGRATH
IN LONDON
Zalt-Bommel, 23 December 1863 Dear Freiligrath,
Your letter arrived today, having been sent on to Trier by my wife and from Trier to this address by my sister.(1) I left London two days after you called (on Monday(2)). Otherwise, I should have had to keep traipsing into the CITY to see to the issue of powers of attorney for the executors of the will, which, in view of my physical condition at the time, would have been more irksome than a sea-crossing.
'Dr Liebknecht' has been living in Berlin for about a year now. His address is: 13 Neuenburger Strasse. I know nothing about the affair.SM But one thing surprises me about the bookseller. He continued to pay Wilhelm Liebkn. the fees on behalf of the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung throughout the time L. was its correspondent. Hence it was in his power to deduct L.'s debt.
It was inexcusable of L., no matter what the circumstances, to make improper use of your name. But you have no responsibility whatever towards the bookseller, since Williams could have recovered the money himself.
Warmest regards.
Your
K. M. First published in the supplement to: Printed according to the original F. Mehring, The Freiligrath-Marx Correspondence, Moscow-Leningrad, 1929 (in Published in English for the first Russian) t l r a e
302. Marx to Engels. 27 December
302
MARX TO ENGELS[67]
IN MANCHESTER
Zalt-Bommel, 27 December 1863
DEAR FREDERICK, I wrote and told you last Wednesday about the recurrence of my furunculosis and the 'bitter' night I passed.3 The next day Dr van Anrooij discovered that a damned carbuncle had reappeared beside the furuncles, almost exactly beneath the site of the old one. Ever since then — leaving aside the ill-effects of such a discovery on one's morale — I have been in loathsome pain for much of the time, particularly at night. My uncle,b a splendid old BOY, applies my poultices and cataplasms with his own hands, while my charming and witty cousin' with the dangerously dark eyes nurses and cossets me in exemplary fashion. Nevertheless, in view of these circumstances, I would gladly set out for HOME, but that is temporarily out of the question on physical grounds. The Dr has opened up the agreeable prospect of my being troubled by this loathsome complaint until well into January. He will tell me when my condition permits a removal to London. However, this second Frankenstein on my back is less ferocious BY FAR than was the first one in London, as you will already have gathered from the fact of my being able to write.
I gave up smoking completely 2 V2 months ago and it's unlikely that I'll start again very soon.
Anyone wishing to spew up politics in disgust should take it daily in the form of the telegraphic pills dispensed by the small Dutch newspapers.
However, we are in for a spectacle, and the comical thing so far as Germany is concerned is that it will start with a movement in favour of the 'legitimate' duke,d accompanied by clamorous requests for a 36th potentate.'''''
Those scoundrelly parliamentary cretins, who had assembled in Frankfurt a.M., set aside without debate a resolution moved by a German from Posen in which the TRUE QUESTION between Germany and Russia was presented in highly comprehensive and rational form.[51]* 27 1863
My best wishes for the New Year. Will you also convey them to Lupus?
Your
K. M.
P.S. Apropos. Like all 'dametjes',[3] my cousin keeps an album, and I've promised to help her collect photographs for it, inter alia yours. If you have a spare photograph perhaps you would be so good as to enclose it in the letter I trust you will at long last be writing m e here.
P.S. I was about to place this letter in its envelope when the Dr walked in and, without more ado, operated on me again. T h e business was over IN NO TIME AND NOW THINGS WILL GO ON SWIMMINGLY.
1 8 6 4
303
Endnotes
[489] 19 This refers to the abortive offensive of the Union army under Burnside on the Confederates' strongly fortified positions near Fredericksburg, on the southern bank of the Rappahannock (Virginia), in December 1862. The Union forces had reached Fredericksburg on 17 November but it was not until 13 December that they began to cross the river and advance. On the night of 14 December, after a series of unsuccessful attacks, Burnside's troops were forced to withdraw to the northern bank.—437, 439
[468] r'8 Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation of 22 September 1862 declared all Black slaves in the rebellion-ridden states free as of 1 January 1863 and granted them the right to enrol in the army and navy. But as the freed Blacks were given no land, they continued to be exploited by their former masters, the rich planters, who had retained their dominant position in the South. Nor did the emancipation end racial discrimination. The Confederate forces that invaded Kentucky on 12 September 1862 were defeated by the Unionists at Parryville on 8 October.—420, 428, 440
[490] 10 In late December 1862, workers and democrats in London, Manchester and Sheffield held mass meetings of solidarity with the Union states in their struggle to end slavery.—440
[491] " Marx obviously means the active participation in the US Civil War of immigrant Germans, veterans of the 1848-49 revolution in Germany. This applied, in particular, to Joseph Weydemeyer, a close friend and associate of Marx and Engels. During the American War of Independence (1775-83) France was helping the North American colonies against Britain, her rival in trade and the struggle for colonies.—440
[483] 3 This refers to French armed intervention in Mexico (see Note 411). By crapauds (French: toads; figuratively, nonentities) Marx means the Bonapartist generals.—431
[494] Marx means the section on machinery in Notebooks V and XIX-XX of his Economic Manuscript of 1861-63. Later this material formed the basis of Chapter XV of Vol. I of Capital (see present edition, Vol. 35).—446, 449
[11] 1 ' Marx followed the movement for the emancipation of peasants in Russia using a variety of sources, among them the Prussian Allgemeine Zeitung. In the present case, he presumably drew on an article 'Rußland und Polen', reprinted in the Allgemeine Zeitung of 6 December 1859 (No. 340) from the Neue Hannoversche Zeitung, and the article by the Allgemeine Zeitung's St. Petersburg correspondent 'Zur russischen Leibeigenschaftsfrage und die Finanz-Verhältnisse des Staats', Allgemeine Zeitung, No. 3 (supplement) and No. 5 (supplement), 3 and 5 January, 1860.—4
[49] This refers to the separate peace concluded by Prussia with the French Republic in Basle on 5 April 1795. It was the result of French victories and French diplomatic skill in exploiting the differences between members of the first anti-French coalition, above all Prusso-Austrian friction. The peace with Prussia initiated the collapse of the coalition; Spain concluded a separate peace treaty with France in Basle on 22 July 1795.—19
[498] Marx means the second publication of Lassalle's speech of 12 April 1862 (see Note 466). It appeared in Zurich in 1863 under the title Arbeiterprogramm. Ueber den besondern Zusammenhang der gegenwärtigen Geschichtsperiode mit der Idee des Arbeiterstandes.—451
[502] 302 An allusion to Alexander Herzen's 'Fraternal Appeal to Russian Warriors', published in Kolokol (The Bell), No. 155, 1 February 1863. It called on Russian officers and soldiers to receive as brothers the Polish recruits brought into the army under the levy declared in Poland by the Tsarist government in October 1862.—453
[503] In 1849, the bourgeois republican Armand Marrast, President of the French Constituent Assembly, requested General Changarnier to bring in troops for the protection of the Assembly, which was being threatened by the Bonapartists. Changarnier refused, declaring that he disapproved of 'baïonnettes intelligentes', i. e. soldiers meddling in politics.—454
[506] Marx's eight-year-old son Edgar died at 28 Dean Street, Soho, on 6 April 1855.—454
[308] See notes 253 and 285.—291
[509] In 1861 a Polish youth society was formed in Paris by the most active element of the Polish national liberation movement. In October of that year the society started a military school in Genoa to train officers for an insurrection in Poland. The instructors at the school, which was later transferred to Cuneo (also in Italy), prepared a number of military manuals and had them published in Paris.—456
[508] Marx carried out this plan, if only in part, at the end of October 1863 when he wrote a 'Proclamation on Poland by the German Workers' Educational Society in London' (present edition, Vol. 19) which was published in November as a leaflet on behalf of the Society (see Note 3).—455, 458
[514] On 18 February 1863 the liberal majority in the Prussian Chamber of Deputies criticised the Prusso-Russian convention against the Polish insurgents (see Note 507) and passed a resolution urging the Prussian government to remain neutral.—461
[8] Marx means his work on the second instalment of A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy (see also Note 35).—4, 17. 23, 274, 280
[12] There was an abortive black uprising in the town of Bolivar, Missouri, in December 1859. Marx refers to a note published in the New-York Daily Tribune on 30 December 1859 (No. 5830).—4, 7
[517] Letters of marque were licenses granted by the state to private persons to seize and destroy enemy and neutral vessels carrying cargoes for enemy states. The Paris declaration of 1856 on maritime law (see Note 378) abolished privateering.—462
[518] On America's stand with regard to the resolutions of the 1856 Congress of Paris see Marx's article 'The Washington Cabinet and the Western Powers' (present edition, Vol. 19). On the Trent affair see Note 366.—462
[519] Marx is referring to Palmerston's treacherous policy towards Poland. The immediate occasion for these comments were extracts from Palmerston's speech on Poland in the House of Commons on 23 March 1863, given in The Times and The Morning Star on the following day. Marx's manuscripts for the book on Poland he intended to write (see Note 512) contain the following passage from The Morning Star of 24 March: 'For he told the House of Commons again last night that his view of the Polish question was quite unaltered — that he adheres now to the position he took up in 1831: that our obligations are exhausted by a note "representing in friendly terms to the Emperor of Russia considerations as to the arrangements he would make for the re-establishment of tranquility in Poland".' (See Marx-Engels Archives, Vol. XIV, Moscow, 1973, p. 512.)—462
[20] •° On 24 January 1860, Britain and France signed a commercial treaty which envisaged a temporary reduction of import duties on English cottons and woollens and French silks and the lifting, from July 1860, of duties on imported raw materials.— 8
[21] >] This refers to Fischel's pamphlet Despoten als Revolutionäre, published anonymously in Berlin in 1859. The same year it appeared in English under the title The Duke of Coburg's Pamphlet. See also p. 153 of this volume.—8
[22] 12 When writing this letter, Marx evidently had not yet received Vogt's pamphlet. What he calls the introduction was actually the second section. The first contained a verbatim report of the court proceedings against the Allgemeine Zeitung in Augsburg in October 1859. Vogt had sued the newspaper for reprinting, in June of that year, Karl Blind's anonymously published pamphlet Warnung zur gefälligen Verbreitung, which exposed him as a Bonapartist agent (Marx calls it, for brevity, Zur Warnung; for details of it see his polemic Herr Vogt, present edition, Vol. 17, pp. 111-32). Marx likens Vogt's piece to the petty-bourgeois democrat Müller-Tellering's libellous pamphlet Vorgeschmack in die künftige deutsche Diktatur von Marx und Engels (Cologne, 1850)!—9
[23] •' By the gang of imperial rascals (Reichshalunkenbande) Marx means Karl Vogl and his associates, an allusion to the fact that Vogt had been a member of the Imperial Regency (see Note 154). Marx also often sarcastically refers to him as the 'Imperial Vogt', the German word Vogt being the medieval name for bailiffs appointed by the German Emperor.—10, 12, 23, 34
[524] Plonplonism—from Plon-Plon, nickname of Napoleon Ill's cousin, Napoléon Joseph Charles Paul Bonaparte, who led a Bonapartist faction that sought to distract the masses from struggle against the existing regime by means of large-scale social demagoguery and ostensible opposition to the policy of Napoleon III. Plon-Plon took an equally demagogic stand on the national liberation struggle of the Hungarian, Italian and Polish peoples and acted, in effect, as a vehicle of Napoleon Ill's foreign policy, recruiting supporters for it among bourgeois and petty-bourgeois democratic émigrés.—466, 505
[325] In her letter of 14 June 1861 Sophie von Hatzfeldt touched on the possibility of Engels' return to Germany following the amnesty proclaimed in Prussia (see this volume, pp. 247-49) and in this connection wrote that Ludwig Simon had been officially notified that he would only be allowed to return to Prussia if he petitioned the King for a pardon.— 299
[528] This refers to an item in the Berliner Reform of 10 April 1863 which gave a distorted account of the talks on the joint publication of a newspaper Marx had had with Lassalle when visiting Berlin in the spring of 1861. On 13 April 1863 Marx wrote a refutation, which was published by the Berliner Reform on 17 April (see present edition, Vol. 19).— 469
[329] This refers to the victory of the Northerners, commanded by N. P. Lyon, over the Missouri pro-Secessionist militia led by Governor Jackson at Boonville on 17 June.—300
[313] This letter has not been found.—293
[330] Marx means the victory of the Republican Party in the 1860 elections (see Note 231).—301
[332] At the Battle of Waterloo, on 18 June 1815, the Anglo-Dutch and Prussian forces, commanded by the Duke of Wellington and Blücher, defeated Napoleon's army.—301
[533] Marx means the manifesto on the 1863 insurrection in Poland (see Note 508) which he intended to write jointly with Engels on behalf of the German Workers' Educational Society in London (see Note 3).—474
[534] :>34 This refers t o Marx's work on the book on Poland which he planned to write in collaboration with Engels. Its tentative title was Deutschland und Polen. Politisch-militärische Betrachtungen bei Gelegenheit des polnischen Aufstands von 1863 (see this volume, pp. 455 and 459 and Note 512).—474
[535] r>35 gy t h e t j m e w n e n he was making the excerpts in question Marx had written the greater part (Notebooks I-XXI) of the Economic Manuscript of 1861-63 (see Note 310). The excerpts are in eight 'Supplementary Notebooks' (Beihefte), marked with the letters A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H. When writing the last two notebooks of the 1861-63 manuscript (XXII and XXIII), filled up between May and July 1863, Marx was already drawing on the 'Supplementary Notebooks'.—474
[536] By the new movement Marx means the General Association of German Workers, the political organisation founded at the congress of workers' associations in Leipzig on 23 May 1863. Lassalle was elected president of the Association. Its establishment was a milestone in freeing the German workers from the influence of the liberal bourgeoisie and forming an independent political organisation of tfje proletariat. However, the reformist programme imposed on the Association by Lassalle (see Note 525) was an obstacle to its becoming a revolutionary party of the proletariat. Lassalle's policy was meeting with growing opposition within the Association from Liebknecht, Becker, Klings and other members who relied on the support, of Marx and Engels.—475
[537] s 3 7 Engels means the elections to the Corps législatif in France held on 31 May and 1 June 1863, and the elections to the Chamber of Deputies of the Prussian Diet on 6 May 1862.—477
[538] xjjg p r u s s j a n Djet was closed down on 27 May 1863, ahead of time (see Note 531).—477
[540] -j-his refers to the Code civil, the Civil Code adopted in France in 1804. It was introduced by Napoleon I in the conquered regions of West and Southwest Germany and remained in force in the Rhine Province after its incorporation • into Prussia in 1815.—478
[25] Lassalle took an unseemly stand on Marx's controversy against Vogt. In November 1859 he had virtually prevented Marx from publishing a declaration against Vogt and Blind in the Volks-zeitung (see present edition, Vol. 17, pp. 8-9). In this connection Marx wrote to Engels, on 26 November, that Lassalle was, in effect, 'piping the same tune as Vogt' (present edition, Vol. 40, p. 542). In late January 1860, after the publication of Vogt's libellous pamphlet Mein Prozess gegen die Allgemeine Zeitung, Lassalle wrote to tell Marx of his displeasure with the latter for sharing the opinion, current in democratic circles, that Vogt was a paid Bonapartist agent. In a letter written at the beginning of February, Lassalle sought to dissuade Marx from bringing a lawsuit against the National-Zeitung for reprinting Vogt's calumnies.—10, 252,
[54] Engels means the annexation of Savoy and Nice by France as a result of the war it waged in alliance with Piedmont against Austria in 1859. This act exposed Napoleon Ill's aggressive designs.—20
[542] Marx means the bourgeois philanthropist Robert Gladstone and his associates in Liverpool.—480
[466] ,,() On 12 April 1862 Lassalle made a speech at a meeting of handicraftsmen in Oranienburg, a suburb of Berlin. It was published as a pamphlet under the heading Ueher den besondern Zusammenhang der gegenwärtigen Geschichtsperiode mit der Idee des Arbeiterstandes. The pamphlet was confiscated and legal proceedings instituted against Lassalle. On the second publication of this speech see Note 498.—420, 480
[544] Widespread discontent with the policy of the bourgeois and landowner party of the 'Whites', who usurped the leadership of the uprising (see Note 499) In April-May 1863, prompted the revolutionary elements within the insurgents' organisation in Warsaw to take over power at the end of May. One of the slogans of the new National Government, composed of moderate 'Reds' (see Note 516), was the formation of a universal militia with a view to enrolling the peasant masses in the guerrilla struggle. However, within ten days the 'Whites' reasserted themselves in the National Government. Reluctant openly to reject the popular slogan of a universal militia they 'postponed' its implementation indefinitely. As a result, the insurrection remained fragmented and failed to assume nationwide proportions.—483
[546] 54b xhe Tableau économique given below by Marx corresponds to the Table of the Reproduction Process contained in Notebook XXII of his economic manuscript of 1861-63, p. 1394 (see Note 310). Later Marx gave an analysis of the reproduction and circulation of the aggregate social capital in Capital, Vol. II, Part III (present edition, Vol. 36). On Quesnay's table see Note 436.—485
[547] In late July or in August 1863 a new stage began in Marx's work on Capital, when he rewrote the 1861-63 manuscript (see Note 310) producing, by the beginning of 1866, a third rough draft of the theoretical part of Capital (three books). In the present letter Marx writes about his work on Book I.—488, 530
[548] Marx's wife and daughters spent three weeks on holiday in Hastings, on the South coast of England, from 14 August to 4 September 1863. The main reason for their stay was the health of Jenny, the Marx couple's eldest daughter, who had been unwell throughout the spring and summer of 1863.—488, 583
[549] These photographs have not been found.—488
[550] In March 1863 bonds were issued in a number of European countries for a 7% Cotton Loan of the Confederate States of America to the tune of £3 million. Although not officially quoted at the London Stock Exchange, they were rapidly distributed thanks to the publicity given to the loan by The Times.—
[551] 5:11 In his article 'Bourbon War and the London Newspaper Press' published in Cobbett's Weekly Register, Vol. 45, No. 6, February 8, 1823, pp. 354-81, William Cobbett described The Times as follows (p. 375): 'Here is a pretty concern!.., it is a trading concern; a concern for making money; a concern with which truth or falsehood can have nothing at all to do.'—489
[552] After seizing Mexico City in 1863, the French interventionists on 18 June set u p a S u p r e m e Junta, composed of 35 conservatives nominated by the French commander. T h e junta called an assembly of notables, who on 10 July proclaimed Mexico an 'empire' under the rule of Archduke Maximilian of Austria, a placeman of Napoleon III. Marx ironically compares this 'suffrage' by the Mexican notables with the elections of 10 December 1848 in France, in which Louis Bonaparte secured the Presidency of the French Republic, and with the referendum he held in 1860 in Savoy and Nice, after their annexation by France as a result of the 1859 Austro-Italo-French war.—489
[14] On 11 December 1859 Szemere wrote to tell Marx that he intended to publish a pamphlet on Hungary and asked Marx to help him in having it translated into English and published in Britain. Szemere's pamphlet appeared in Paris in 1860 under the title La Question hongroise (Î848-1860) and in London, in Bentley's publishing house, the same year, under the title Hungary, from 1848 to I860.—5
[555] On 17 September 1863 the bourgeois and szlachta (gentry) party of the 'Reds' formed a new National Government, which operated until 17 October.—492
[556] 5.->h y\n a s s e mbly of German princes was held on Austria's initiative in Frankfurt am Main from 15 August to 1 September 1863 to discuss a draft reform of the German Confederation. In view of William I's refusal to attend, it ended in failure marking another defeat for Austria in its struggle against Prussia for supremacy in Germany. The edict in support of Poland issued by the cardinal vicar of Rome, called for a solemn procession and public prayers in favour of Poland in early September.—492
[170] In reply to Marx's question about the programme of the Deutsche Zeitung, Fischel wrote on 30 May 1860 that one of its slogans was 'Black, red and gold' (i.e., the unification of Germany, black, red and gold being its national colours).—144, 493
[557] D5/ The death, on 15 November 1863, of the childless King Frederick VII terminated the personal union of the duchés of Schleswig and Holstein with Denmark. The enthronement of Christian IX, named heir to the Danish Crown by the London Protocol of 8 May 1852 (see notes 324 and 380), and the promulgation, on 18 November, of a new Constitution proclaiming the final incorporation of Schleswig and Holstein into the domains of the Danish monarch led to a rise of the anti-Danish national liberation movement in the two duchies and a sharp aggravation of Danish-German differences.—493
[558] 3o8 This refers to Friedrich of Augustenburg. On 30 December 1852 his father, Christian of Augustenburg, renounced the Danish throne in favour of Christian IX. However, after the death of Frederick VII (see Note 557) Friedrich of Augustenburg on 16 November 1863 proclaimed himself Duke of Schleswig and Holstein as Frederick VIII.—494, 496
[161] Under the 1858 Plombières agreement, France was to get Nice and Savoy for taking part in the forthcoming war against Austria on the side of the Kingdom of Sardinia. Although in the course of the Austro-Italo-French war (see Note 46) France violated the agreement by making a separate truce with Austria in Villafranca on 11 July 1859, it did, nonetheless, obtain Nice and Savoy under the Turin treaty of 24 March 1860.—132
[13] '•^ In his letter of 16 December 1859 (it has not been found) Marx probably asked Szemere to help him out of his financial difficulties. In his reply of 29 December Szemere informed Marx that his efforts had been to no avail.— 5
[563] 5 6 s Grünberg—a small vineyard that belonged to Marx's father.—500
[371] 871 Engels means the victory won by the Party of Progress at the elections- to Prussia's Chamber of Deputies in November and December 1861. The Party of Progress, formed in June 1861, spoke for the German bourgeoisie. Its slogans were the unification of Germany under the aegis of Prussia, the convocation of an all-German Parliament, and the formation Of a strong liberal Ministry responsible to the Chamber of Deputies. Fearing a popular revolution, the Party of Progress gave no support to the basic democratic: demands — universal suffrage, freedom of the press, freedom of association and freedom of assembly.— 331, 501
[249] An extract from this letter was first published in English in: Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The Civil War in the United States, New York, 1937 — 241,
[239] First published in English in full in The Letters of Karl Marx, selected and translated with explanatory notes and an introduction by Saul K. Padover, Prentice-Hall Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1979.—220, 409, 424, 427,
[493] This refers to the lodgings occupied by Mary and Lizzy Burns (see Note 386).—443
[2 3 7] Excerpts from this letter were first published in English in a footnote in The Letters of Karl Marx. Selected and Translated with Explanatory Notes and an Introduction by Saul K. Padover, Prentice-Hall Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1979.—216, 223, 413. 446, 493
[369] p a r t o r this letter was first published in English in: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Correspondence. 1846-1895. A Selection with Commentary and Notes, Martin Lawrence Ltd., London, 1934.—330, 399, 403, 419, 422, 448, 453, 460,
[3] The German Workers' Educational Society in London was founded in February 1840 by Karl Schapper, Joseph Moll and other members of the League of the Just (an organisation of German craftsmen and workers, and also of emigrant workers of other nationalities). After the reorganisation of the League of the Just in the summer of 1847 and the founding of the Communist League, the latter's local communities played the leading role in the Society. During various periods of its activity, the Society had branches in working-class districts in London. In 1847 and 1849-50, Marx and Engels took an active part in the Society's work, but on 17 September 1850 Marx, Engels and a number of their followers withdrew because the Willich-Schapper sectarian and adventurist faction had succeeded in temporarily increasing its influence in the Society and caused a split in the Communist League (see present edition, Vol. 10, pp. 483 and 632). In the late 1850s, Marx and Engels resumed their work in the Society. It existed until 1918 when it was closed down by the British government.—3, 94, 103, 232, 342, 517, 533
[1] An excerpt from this letter was first published in English in: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Correspondence. 1846-1895. A Selection with Commentary and Notes, Martin Lawrence Ltd., London [1934]. Marx began his letter on a form of the General Bank of Switzerland under the letter from Freiligrath, who was manager of the bank's London branch.— 3
[4] This refers to the refusal by Freiligrath, former member of the Communist League and an editor of the Neue Rheinische Zeitung, to help Marx unmask the Bonapartist agent Carl Vogt. In a statement published in the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung on 15 November 1859, he declared that he had nothing to do with the accusations levelled at Vogt. In so doing, he virtually dissociated himself from the attempts to establish the author of the anonymous anti-Vogt flysheet Zur Warnung, which had been launched by Karl Blind and was falsely attributed to Marx by Vogt. Marx deals with the matter in Herr Vogt (present edition, Vol. 17) and in his letters to Engels of 19 and 26 November 1859, and to Fieiligrath of 23 and 28 November 1859 (present edition, Vol. 40).—3, 9, 11
[499] In January 1863 an uprising against Tsarist oppression erupted in the Kingdom of Poland (see Note 513). It was an expression of the Poles' striving for national independence and of the crisis of feudal relations within the Kingdom. On 22 January 1863 the National Committee, which headed the uprising, put forward a programme of struggle for Poland's independence and a number of democratic agrarian demands. In May the Committee constituted itself the National Government. However, its inconsistency and indecision, in particular its failure to abolish the privileges of the big landowners, alienated the peasants, the majority of whom stayed away from the uprising. This was one of the main causes of its defeat. The movement was, by and large, crushed by the Tsarist government towards the autumn of 1863, though some units of the insurgents continued the struggle until the end of 1864. The leaders of the uprising pinned great hopes on help from the West European powers, but these confined themselves to diplomatic representations and, in effect, betrayed the insurgents. The Polish uprising was enthusiastically supported by Russian and West European democrats.—453, 460, 464
[500] ]vjarx probably means the Little Germans (see Note 24) who supported the national liberation struggle of the Italians and Hungarians against Austrian domination, their aim being a weakening of Austria, Prussia's main rival in the drive for the unification of Germany 'from above', under the supremacy of the ruling classes.—453
[501] This refers to the French intervention in Mexico (see Note 411). The Lower Empire (Bas-Empire in French) is the name sometimes given to the Byzantine Empire and also to the late Roman Empire. In a more general sense, the name is applied to any state going through a period of decline and disintegration. Marx means the Second Empire in France.—453, 463
[507] In 1863 the Prussian government, fearing the spread of the Polish national liberation uprising to the parts of Poland held by Prussia, and hoping to win Russia's support for its endeavours to unite Germany under Prussian supremacy, offered the Tsarist government military aid for the suppression of the uprising. On 8 February, on Bismarck's initiative, the two Parties concluded the Alvensleben convention (so called after the Adjutant General of the King of Prussia, who signed it) on joint action against the insurgents. The convention was not ratified.—455, 456, 537
[511] Engels speaks about the possible revival of the Holy Alliance, the association of European monarchs founded at the Congress of Vienna on 26 September 1815 on the initiative of Emperor Alexander I of Russia and the Chancellor of Austria, Metternich, for protecting the 'legitimate' regimes restored after the victory over Napoleon and for suppressing revolutionary and national liberation movements.—456, 505, 513, 543
[167] 107 Boustrapa—nickname of Louis Bonaparte, composed of the first syllables of the names of the cities where he staged putsches: Strasbourg (30 October 1836), Boulogne (6 August 1840) and Paris (coup d'état of 2 December 1851, which culminated in the establishment of a Bonapartist dictatorship).—139, 456, 462,
[512] The pamphlet, on which Marx worked from mid-February to the end of May 1863, failed to materialise. Marx's numerous manuscripts, drafts and excerpts on the subject were published by the Institute of Marxism-Leninism of the CC CPSU in the Marx-Engels Archives, Vol. XIV, Moscow, 1973 and also in Warsaw in: Marks K., Przyczynki do historii kwestii polskiej (Rekopisy z lat 1863-1864), 1971. No manuscripts by Engels relating to the pamphlet in question have been found.—458, 459, 461
[42] This letter by Marx has not been found.—15, 17, 33, 34, 40, 71, 77, 104, 118,
[310] This refers to Marx's work on the second instalment of A Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy, which he started on completing his polemic writing, Herr Vogt (see Note 38). In the period 1861 to 1863 he produced a vast manuscript (200 sheets of print), the second rough draft of Capital—292, 315,
[51] Engels evidently means the book Lassalle was writing, Herr Bastiat-Schulze von Delitzsch... (see Note 36).—20
[2 3 2] This letter by Engels has not been found.—211, 238, 240, 253, 257, 300, 309,
[67] An excerpt from this letter was first published in English in The Letters of Karl Marx. Selected and Translated with Explanatory Notes and an Introduction by Saul K. Padover, Prentice-Hall Inc., Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey, 1979.—32,
[539] 339 Unionist General Joseph Hooker, defeated by numerically inferior Confederate forces at Chancellorsville, Virginia, on 2-4 May 1863, and himself wounded in the fighting, on 6 May issued an order congratulating his army on its 'achievements of the last seven days'.—478
[543] The Free Traders were British industrialists advocating non-interference bv the state in business, notably the repeal of the protectionist Corn Laws. Their centre was Manchester. The movement was led by the textile manufacturers Cobden and Bright, who founded the Anti-Corn Law League in 1838.—480
[553] In March 1863, Polish refugees in England fitted out a corps of about 200 Poles, Frenchmen and Italians for participation in the Polish uprising. Commanded by Colonel Lapinski, they were to sail to Lithuania on the steamer Ward Jackson and join the insurgents there. However, the expedition failed due to poor organisation and inadequate security precautions. On arrival in Malmö, in April, the ship and the members of the expedition were detained by the Swedish authorities. Bakunin who had joined the corps at the Swedish port of Hälsingborg, after the detention of the ship, went to Stockholm, where he stayed till October trying to establish contacts with Swedish and Finnish revolutionaries.—490, 492
[324] "fhe Schleswig-Holstein question was prominent in nineteenth-century European diplomacy. The Congress of Vienna (1815) recognised the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein to be possessions of Denmark in personal union with the Danish King. At the same time, Holstein was declared a member of the German Confederation. During the 1848-49 revolution, an anti-Danish national liberation movement developed in the duchies which was, however, defeated. At a conference in London attended by representatives of Austria, Britain, Denmark, France, Russia and Sweden, a protocol on the Danish succession was signed on 2 August 1850 which proclaimed the indivisibility of the Danish Crown possessions, including the two duchies. This document formed the basis for the London Protocol of 8 May 1852 on the integrity of the Danish monarchy (see Note 380). Denmark's attempts to fully subject the duchies aggravated Danish-Prussian relations and were exploited as a pretext for intervention by Prussia, which regarded the reunification of Schleswig and Holstein with Germany as the first step towards the union of Germany under Prussia's aegis.—299, 496, 501