1874
Dear Wenzel,
Engels informed me of your letter to him.[2] Hence these lines. After my return [3] a carbuncle broke out on my right cheek, which was operated on; later it had several smaller successors, and I think that at the present moment I am suffering from the last of them.
Incidentally, don't worry at all about newspaper gossip and still less answer it. I myself allow the English papers to announce my death from time to time, without showing any sign of life. Nothing annoys me more than to appear to be supplying the public with reports of my state of health through my friends (you are the great sinner in this respect). I don't give a farthing for the public, and, if my occasional illness is exaggerated, it at least has the advantage that it spares me all sorts of requests (theoretical and otherwise) from unknown people in every corner of the earth.
My best thanks for the kind words from the Lady Countess and Fränzchen.'*
I am very glad to receive the Frankfurter Zeitung and find all sorts of interesting things in it.
The relative victory of the ultramontanes and Social-Democrats in the elections[4] SERVES MR BISMARCK AND HIS MIDDLE-CLASS TAIL RIGHT. More another time.
Your
K. M.
•' Gertrud and Franziska Kugelmann
3-406
2. Engels to Wilhelm Liebknecht. 27 January
Apropos. O n the advice of my friend, Dr Gumpert (of Manchester), I have now rubbed quicksilver ointment in the place concerned at the first trace of carbuncle irritation and find that it works quite specifically.
What has happened to your friend, 'Dr Freund' of Breslau,a
who in your opinion was so promising? It seems, après tout, que c'est un fruit sec.
2
ENGELS T O WILHELM L I E B K N E C H T
IN HUBERTUSBURG
London, 27 January 1874
Dear Liebknecht,
I am glad you give me an occasion to write to you; what with the many different things I have had to deal with recently, our correspondence would otherwise just come to a halt. Ad rem, then.
A short while — perhaps a week — before the Geneva Congress, [5]
we received a little pamphlet of 16 pages from Geneva. It was signed by Perret, Duval and about another 6-8 names, [6] for the most part, like the two referred to, leaders of the Geneva International and the noisiest opponents of the Jurassians. The pamphlet contained the statement that the Hague Congress was in the wrong, that it was necessary to weaken the General Council, abrogate its powers of suspension, transfer it back to Europe and at the same time debar London for two years (the fools — as if we were pining to have it here!), etc., etc. This was followed by a letter from Perret. Although it was he above all who instigated and conducted the whole row with the Bakuninists, he declared that these concessions would have to be made since this would ensure that 'des sections jurassiennes'—by which he means the one in Münster-Moutier — joined forces with them.— Both Perret and the other Genevans had left us in the dark about this new development right up to the very last moment; they had failed to reply to our enquiries about the situation in Geneva and hence omitted to dispel the illusion they themselves had fostered that we could rely on unconditional support in Geneva — particularly since it was their doing that the London General Council had joined in the quarrel with the Bakuninists and become more and more deeply embroiled in it. Indeed, Perret had misled us only two weeks before, when he wrote telling us that the membership of the
Comité Romand had been changed and that he had resigned! WELL, since all the information pointed to the fact that the Congress would be a purely local event in Geneva, or at most a Swiss Congress with negligible participation from abroad, we FINALLY decided not to attend.[3] Subsequent events proved us right, and Beckerb was able to tell these sudden Genevan converts to 'anti-authoritarianism' that they could pass whatever resolutions they liked, but that no one would pay any attention and everything would be overturned at the next congress.
In the meantime, however, the whole intrigue came to light. Behind the affair was none other than that adventurer Cluseret, who had also inspired their celebrated pamphlet. The fellow imagined the moment had arrived for him to place himself at the head of the International and have the General Council transferred to Geneva. This latter notion had flattered the local bigwigs, who hoped to convert the International into a local Swiss gossip shop in which they could all play first violin. At the same time, M. Perret was in constant touch with Jung here, who, in the manner he had adopted since The Hague, told him a heap of lies about the powerful support they could count on here if they reduced the International to an organisation concerned only with rendering support to STRIKES, etc.
The Geneva faiseursc followed his lead, and this resulted in the establishment of the Union des Travailleurs, a paper without anyone behind it but Cluseret, Perret & Co., together with their projected Ligue universelle.[7] So the whole thing was a new, somewhat modified scheme to make the International serve the Genevans' ends.
But the project was still-born. The paper published reports from Germany, Belgium and France, all of which were written in Geneva; only the London reports were by Jung, and those were as full of lies as only Jung has learnt how to lie in the last fifteen months. When they tried to have their little plans adopted in the Geneva sections they failed everywhere without exception. The Belgians would have nothing to do with them, and now the Sheffield Congress has also given them short shrift, as could have been foreseen by anyone who knows anything about English TRADES UNIONS.[8] SO that spells the end of their little plan, and M. Perret can now resign indeed.
So you can see how the very same little jackasses who deliberately ruined the Geneva Congress became turncoats immediately after it, and tried out a new swindle, which luckily has come to nought.
The pamphlet on the Alliance,[3] incidentally, has achieved its aim. The entire dissident press, which was an artificial phenome-non, sustained only by the prestige of the International, has now collapsed. The Brussels Internationale and probably also Le Mirabeau have folded up, not to mention the Liberté. The same thing has happened to the plethora of Spanish and Italian papers. I cannot say with assurance whether La Federacion and the Bulletin Jurassien are still appearing, but I think not. This sectarian press will be replaced by a better one BY AND BY, but it will take time and that will do no harm. The bad elements will have to wear themselves out completely before better ones can come along.
Over here the whole mass of workers' leaders in the pay of the bourgeoisie, and in particular of Samuel Morley, are trying their hardest to get the bourgeois to elect them to Parliament as WORKING MEN'S CANDIDATES. They won't succeed, though I would gladly see the whole crew there and for the same reasons as I welcome the election of Hasenclever and Hasselmann and still only regret the absence of my Tölcke. The Reichstag ruined Schweitzer, and it will ruin them too. It is the end of swindling and forces one to show one's colours.
The elections in Germany[4] place the German proletariat at the head of the European workers' movement. It is the first time that the workers have voted for their own people en masse and have put themselves forward as a party in their own right, and throughout the whole of Germany at that. It can hardly be doubted that measures to restrict the franchise will follow, though
3. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge. 14 February
not for a year or two. How right that feudal socialist R. Meyer[3]
was in his contention that the General Association of German Workers would become increasingly international — despite its bosses — was confirmed by the second ballot in Frankfurt when the jackasses finally had to vote for Sonnemann and acted quite correctly: first vote for our own man, and then, if it is clear that he won't get in on the second round, vote for the opponent of the government, whoever he happens to be. This was a very bitter pill for the bosses. But history has its laws, and even the mighty Hasenclever cannot prevail against them.
You have already had news of Marx. He is better, but still needs to take care not to overwork. This morning we went out walking on Hampstead Heath, something he ought to do every day; however, it shows you that there is no question of his having to remain indoors, etc.
I assume that the Reichstag will just let you serve out your sentence, so it would be very good if Jacoby were to be elected.[9]
I intended writing something about Germany for the Volksstaat, but have been so involved in economic and statistical material that it threatens to become a small, or even a full-size, book.[10]
Best wishes to Bebel.
Your
F. E.
3
ENGELS TO FRIEDRICH ADOLPH SORGE
IN HOBOKEN
London, 14 February 1874 Dear Sorge,
Just a very hasty note to let you know that around a fortnight ago I sent you 1 parcel with 12 Alliancesh and the day before
4. Engels to Wilhelm Bios. 21 February
yesterday, 2 parcels, each with 50 copies of the English Rules,[3] i.e. 100 in all.
I have managed to get hold of around three hundred copies of the German Rules here, and the English Federal Council has promised me a further 400-500 English ones. As soon as I have them, I shall send you the whole lot, together with some Alliances, per PARCELS COMPANY. The post is becoming too expensive; the English Rules cost 4 shillings! To save you problems with customs duties I shall refer to you on the cover as GENERAL SECRETARY, I.W.A.
It was obvious that the New York movement would slip out of your hands as soon as PUBLIC MEETINGS and other demonstrations replaced real work and organisation.
I suppose the German gentlemen will have found out by now what it means to join forces with the Yankee swindlers.
Your
F. Engels
More soon!
ENGELS TO WILHELM BLOS
IN LEIPZIG
London, 21 February 1874
Dear Friend Bios,
Things received with thanks. I enclose the article on the English elections.[11] The first of a series on the Military Lawc will follow in a few days; the secondd as soon as I have obtained a copy of Moltke's speech.
5. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge. 27 February
Jacoby's conduct is irresponsible.[9] If he did not wish to take up his seat he should have requested the Party Committee in advance just to put him forward as a mere 'name' in completely hopeless constituencies. The workers have neither the money nor the time to squander on empty gestures of this sort. The most strenuous efforts will be needed to get Bracke in, and victory there is doubly important since it is in a rural constituency. Jacoby has disqualified himself for good with this. The man is just too much of a sage. And his reasons are so trivial and vulgar-democratic! He hurls abuse at force as something reprehensible in itself, even though we all know that, when it comes down to it, nothing can be achieved without force. If Lob Sonnemann had written such things, that would not be so bad, or Karl Mayer of the Schwäbischer Beobachter—but a candidate of our party! However, it is a good thing that he has reduced himself to the level of a mere 'name'.
And in fact it is all very fine and logical: on the one hand, he rejects force, on the other, parliamentary legal action — what is left then but pure Bakuninist abstention?
Yours in friendship,
F. E.
Liebknecht's letter arrived yesterday.
ENGELS TO FRIEDRICH ADOLPH SORGE
IN HOBOKEN
London, 27 February 1874
Dear Sorge,
The things listed on the back of this letter were sent off to you today in a parcel addressed to F. A. Sorge, * General Secretary I.W.M. Association, 25 Hudson Street, Hoboken, N.J. via New York, per Continental Parcels Express Company (W. Wheatley & Co.—
6. Marx to George Moore. 26 March
New York Agents: W. H. Bucknam & Co., 57 Broadway). Carriage forwarded, Value declared £10.*
The BRITISH FEDERAL COUNCIL has become so lackadaisical that I have not yet managed to extract an official price for the English Rulesa from them — only a POSTCARD from Barry saying, I THINK
I /._?!). Will. !>(>!
I am charging 2 shillings each for the Alliances^ but in return am paying the carriage of those sent by post.c
I have to leave in an hour for a few days, so farewell and keep your chin up. Your police seem to want to outdo even those in Versailles.
Your
F. Engels
6
MARX TO GEORGE MOORE"
IN LONDON [Draft]
London, 26 March 1874 1 Maitland Park Road, N. W. Dear Sir,
It is quite understood that you are welcome to take your time in order to decide upon your course of action in regard to your private settlement with me.
But there was another item in my letter[12] of which you have taken no notice. In order to save expense, always caused by lawyers' letters, I had called upon you to send me the £2. 15s. due by Mr Lester Collier to the firm, and which, according to the award, are to be paid to me like all the rest of the outstanding debts.
Now to-day some incidents have come to my knowledge which give to the whole transaction with respect to the collecting of the outstanding debts a very ugly look.
Messrs Merriman, Powell, et Co. had, as I told you in my last letter, written to the different firms (except Mr L. Collier) in order to call in the sums due by them. To-day, at their offices, they showed me three letters till then received in reply.
The first letter is from Mr Dickes (dated 25 March). He states therein that he 'paid his debt on 31st January 1874' and that the receipt he holds is signed 'Received for Moore and Le Moussu. L. Rocher'.
The second letter is from the Gardeners' Chronicle (dated 25 March), and, according to it, 'they have paid all up on February 26'.
The last letter (dated 25 March) is from Mr Turner (Dover). He states that he 'holds receipt from Messrs Le Moussu and Moore'.
I suppose that the other letters still to drop in will be cut upon the same pattern.
However that may be, the three cases already certified give cause not only for actions before a County Court, but, I am afraid, for actions for embezzlement.— This is at least the opinions expressed by Messrs Merriman, Powell, et Co., considering 1) that this money has been taken up not only after the dissolution of partnership, but while the lawsuit was pending,and after a notice of warning sent by Messrs M., P., and Co. to Mr Shaen on 22nd January; 2) that the fact of the drawing in the money was kept not only secret with regard to myself, but before the judge, Mr Harrison, when he was in presence of the three partners scrutinising every single item of the list drawn up originally by you of the outstanding debts, a fact which Mr Harrison, when summoned as a witness, will have to confirm; 3) that after the award had been communicated to the parties concerned the appropriation of the money was still withheld from my knowledge.
I must now request you to write me at once as how far you have acted in common with Mr Le Moussu in every single case. The moment my final instructions are once in the hands of my solicitors — and you understand that I am not at all inclined to be bothered with this affair longer than is strictly necessary — it will be no more in my power to stop such disagreeable proceedings as these 'very ugly facts' may give rise to.
Yours truly,
Karl Marx
7. Marx to George Moore. 28 March
7
MARX TO GEORGE MOORE
IN LONDON
[Draft]
[London,] 28 March 1874
To Mr G. Moore
Your yesterday's letter contains assertions which rest partly upon a misstatement and partly upon an erroneous interpretation of facts.
Firstly. Your misstatement of facts. In the first statement of my solicitors in the hands of Mr Harrison at the time of his arbitration I declared not only that I had received the money collected from The Engineer and The Farmer (but of no other 'etc. ' which figures in your letter) but that I had spent it (and something more) in paying Messrs Longuet and Griset.[3] On the first day of our examination I handed over the respective receipts to Mr Harrison in proof of my declaration.
Mr Shaen having said in his counter-statement that I was not appointed liquidator of the concern, I replied that being the only creditor of the concern, I had a perfect right to act as my own liquidator. This declaration of mine is also contained in my written answer to Shaen's counter-statement, which I handed over to Mr Harrison, on the second day of our examination, and which he has now returned to my solicitors. In his award Mr Harrison has literally endorsed my claim by appointing me my own liquidator. Moreover, Le Moussu having further stated in his own oath to Mr Harrison that I had already laid hold on the machines,—which was not literally exact, but true in that sense that you held then the machines for me — I denied in no way his statement.
There was, therefore, on my part, no concealment of facts.
Secondly. Your erroneous interpretation of facts. In order to prove Le Moussu's mendacity in which he had the boldness to persist when being on oath before Mr Harrison, I proved that the money was not collected by him, that the money [was] collected in my name, [that] on the contrary the invoices were made out by you, handed over by you to Longuet, [and the mon-
8. Marx to Jenny Marx. 19 April
ey was] collected by him in the name of the firm, and that my very name was not mentioned in Mercurer. This transaction...[3] T h e judicial proceedings having once begun, I took no step whatever to get at the outstanding debts. You will now have to judge for yourselves whether my proceedings have any analogy with yours. I come now to another point. In your letter you say:
'I have received the money from Dover, the Gardeners' Chronicle and I will send you Collier's Account.'
You do not mention Dickes, but I expect that in your next letter of Monday I shall receive all the details.
In conclusion let me remark that in regard to the legal character of the past proceedings, I have only communicated to you not my own view, which is not yet at all settled, but an opinion provisionally expressed by my solicitors, Mr Merriman and Mr Powell, at the interview I had with them, in presence of another gentleman, on Thursday last.b
Yours,
K. Marx
8
MARX TO JENNY MARX[13]
IN LONDON
Ramsgate,' SUNDAY [19 April 1874] 16 Abbot's Hill
Dear Jenny,
16 Abbot's Hill — vis-à-vis M m e Williams — that is the address of the 'CLIFF' where I have lodgings. But NEVER MIND! There was no price fixed for it either. T h e landlady first asked for £ 1 and then came down to 12 shillings. They are incidentally perfectly decent 'folk'; the man, a COACH BUILDER, seems also to dabble in art. H e 19 1874
has painted, and not just daubed, a very idealised and RATHER enigmatic figure who stands guard at the entrance to a certain place. And in the middle of the front-garden there is a ToM-THuMB-sized clay figure of Napoleon I, standing on a brick pedestal, dressed in black, yellow and red, etc., A VERY MANLY MAN, AND WELL DONE. The landlady has a n u m b e r of children, including a six-week-old KABY who often makes his presence felt in a very disagreeable manner.
T h e air here is delightful, but despite all the walking I do, I have not yet managed to get good night's sleep.
The place is not quite deserted, but it is the HOME BREWED PEOPLE who are most in evidence, as yet.
I hope that Jennychen is feeling better a n d that the EXCELLENT LITTLE MAN" is not suffering too much with his teeth. Both mother and son are constantly in my mind.
Apropos. Tell Tussychen who found Tennyson's Alexandrovna! so amusing, that there is nothing new under the sun (even though she is sufficiently well versed in the Bible to need no telling). In June 1872 the comte du Nord (subsequently Tsar Paul, the MADMAN, who was travelling under this name) found himself in Paris with his young wife. He was present at a session of the Académie Française at which M. de la Harpe read out a poetic epistle to his Altesse impériale}[1] Each stanza ended with the word 'Petrovich' (son of Peter), of which Grimm remarks:
'Apostrophe répétée, plus ridicule encore pour les oreilles russes qu'elle n'est étrange pour les nôtres. Ce mot, lorsqu'il n'est pas précédé de quelque épithète qui le distingue, est aussi familier en russe que le serait celui de Toinette ou de Pierrot en français'.0
Tussy will be doing Tennyson a great favour if she sends this piece of information to the Quiddities and Oddities Journal. GIVE MY THANKS TO ENGELS FOR HIS LETTER.15 Such a punctilious correspondent is seldom met with in our temps corrompu? Adio and greetings to everyone.
Your
Karl First published in Annali, an. 1, Milano, Printed according to the original 1958
9. Marx to Jenny Longuet. Between 20 and 24 April
9
MARX TO JENNY LONGUET[16]
IN LONDON
[Ramsgate, between 20 and 24 April 1874] Dear Jennychen,
I am sending the épreuves* today. Please let me have them back after Longuet has looked through them. I shall then make a definitive version of the copy to be sent to Paris.[17]
Today was the first day I have been able to do even the slightest amount of work. Up to now, despite baths, walks, marvellous air, care with my diet, etc., my condition was even worse than in London. Proof that the matter had reached a crisis point and that it was high time for me to disappear. For the same reason I am delaying my return, for it is absolutely vital for me to be fit for work when I come back. Engels' letter,[15] saying that he is arriving today, reminds me of one of the reasons, I SUPPOSE, for your not coming. How is your health? I am convinced that a few weeks at the SEASIDE would restore you completely. At present it is in fact more pleasant and soothing than during the actual season.
I hope that my darling Putty ' will still recognise me. Tell Tussychen that the 'SACRED MUSIC'—sacrée musique, as she translated it — was not actually known by this name among the frivolous Parisians, but that what it referred to had come from Italy, where they have always turned the Divine into a comedy, and was known as 'concerts spirituels'[1] in Diderot's day.
Pour la bonne bouchec Grimm retells the following witticism of the Chevalier de Bouffiers:
'Les princes ont plus besoin d'être divertis qu'adorés; il n'y a que Dieu qui ait un assez grand fonds de gaieté pour ne pas s'ennuyer de tous les hommages qu'on lui rend,''[1]
Adieu, my darling.
Your
O L D NicK e
10. Marx to Maurice Lachâtre. 12 May
10
MARX TO MAURICE LACHÂTRE
IN BRUSSELS
[London,] 12 May 1874
Dear Citizen,
It was not until today that I despatched to Paris the proofs[3] you sent me. I had a relapse; my doctorb sent me to the seaside resort of Ramsgatec and forbade me to do any work. It is as if the devil himself were involved. Now I am feeling better and hope I shall at last get it finished. There will be some three more instalments in all (including the instalment I have begun).[17]
I am much obliged to you for your amendments, etc. I have altered the sentence to which you drew my attention.
You will remember that I wrote to you in St Sebastian saying that Bismarck was backing Thiers, but that the Prussian ambassador, Arnim, was, with the King'sd support, conspiring with the royalists. Bismarck has finally toppled Arnim and caused him to be recalled from Paris.
Yours ever,
Karl Marx
Roy's manuscript was finished long ago, but as the whole thing had to be reworked from start to finish, the printere in Paris has not yet received my version, of which only the draft has been done.
11. Marx to Ludwig Kugelmann. 18 May
11
MARX TO LUDWIG KUGELMANN[1]
IN HANOVER
[London,] 18 May 1874
Dear Kugelmann,
I have received everything: your letters (including some kind lines from your dear wife and Fränzchen[3]), the 'Meyer' (police-socialist, faiseur,h literary scribbler),[18] the cuttings from the Frankfurter, etc., and finally a letter from Madame Tenge.
I am very grateful to you, your family and Madame Tenge for the kind interest in my progress. But you do me an injustice if you ascribe my failure to write to any other cause than shaky state of health, which continually interrupts my work, then goads me on to make up for the time lost by neglecting all other duties (letters included), and finally puts a man out of humour and makes him disinclined to activity.
After my return from Harrogate[3] I had an attack of carbuncles d'abord, then my headaches returned, insomnia, etc., so that I had to remain from the middle of April to 5 May in Ramsgate (SEASIDE).0 Since then I have been feeling much better, but am far from being quite well. My specialist (Dr Gumpert in Manchester) insists upon my going to Karlsbadd and would like to make me travel there as soon as possible, but I must finally complete the French translation! which has come to a full stop, and, apart from that, I should much prefer it if I could meet you there.
In the meantime, while I was unable to write, I worked through a lot of important new material for the second volume.e But I cannot start on its final composition until the French edition is completed and my health fully restored.
So I have by no means yet decided how I shall spend the summer.
The progress of the German labour movement (ditto in Austria) is wholly satisfactory. In France the absence of a theoretical foundation and of practical COMMON SENSE is very evident. In England at the moment only the agricultural labourers' movement shows any advance [19]; the industrial workers have first of all to get rid of their present leaders. When I denounced the fellows[3] at the Hague Congress[20] I knew that I was letting myself in for unpopularity, slander, etc., but such consequences have always been a matter of indifference to me. Here and there people are beginning to see that in making that denunciation I was only doing my duty.
In the United States our party has to fight against great difficulties, partly economic, partly political, but is making headway. The greatest obstacle there are the professional politicians, who immediately try to falsify every new movement and change it into a new 'floatation business' ['Gründungsgeschäft'].
Notwithstanding all diplomatic moves, a new war is inevitable au peu plus tôt, au peu plus tard,h and before its conclusion there are hardly likely to be any violent popular movements anywhere, or, at the most, they will remain local and unimportant.
The visit of the Russian emperorc is giving the London police a great deal to do and the government here will be glad to get rid of the man as soon as possible.[21] As a precautionary measure it requisitioned forty police (mouchards[6]), with the notorious police commissioner Bloche at their head (Ali Baba and the forty thieves), from the French government, to watch the Poles and Russians here (during the Tsar's stay). The so-called amnesty petition of the Poles here is the work of the Russian embassy; in answer to it the Poles here issued an address, written and signed by Wroblewski, which is aimed at the English and which has been distributed in large numbers at the Sunday MEETINGS in Hyde Park. The English press (with very few exceptions) is obsequious — the Tsar is after all 'OUR GUEST'; but for all that the real feeling against Russia is incomparably more hostile than it has been since the Crimean War,[22] and the entry of a Russian princesse into the royal family has aroused rather than disarmed suspicion. The facts— the arbitrary abrogation of the decisions concerning the Black Sea in the Paris Treaty,[23] the conquests and trickeries in Central Asia, etc.—irritate John Bull, and Disraeli has no chance of remaining at the helm for any length of time if he continues Gladstone's unctuous foreign policy.
12. Engels to Gottfried Ermen. 1 June
With my warmest greetings to your dear family and Madame Tenge.
Your
K. M.
12
ENGELS TO GOTTFRIED ERMEN
IN MANCHESTER
London, 1 June 1874
Dear Sir,
A fortnight's absence from London, and subsequently a slight cut in my hand which however disabled me for some time from writing, have caused some delay in my replying to your letter of the 16th April.
When, in 1869, we discussed the conditions on which ultimately I left the business,[24] I certainly gave you reason to hope that, even after the lapse of the five years stipulated, I might consent to allow you to retain my name in the firm. But this was always made dependent upon certain contingencies.
Had these contingencies been realised, I should have been quite willing, on application, to allow you to continue the use of my name in the firm.
But certainly, no word ever uttered by me could have induced you to consider yourself entitled to continue using my name after the 30th instant as a matter of course, and without my express permission.
The principal amongst these contingencies were:
1) That there should occur no collisions between the Manchester house, and that of my brothers" in Barmen. I am glad to say, that none such have occurred, and that moreover, from what I heard of my brothers last autumn, none are likely to occur, the two houses scarcely ever coming into competition.
2) That Mr Acton's views as to my not incurring any liability should prove correct.
Now I have consulted upon this point ever so many lawyers, and they are one and all unanimous as to my responsibility for all the debts of the firm so long as I allow my name to remain in the firm.
If you would be good enough to send me Mr Acton's opinion on the point written by himself, I believe I could make short work of this misunderstanding.
The point is so notorious, that it is laid down in plain terms in all handbooks on the law of partnership. I quote from one by a barrister of high reputation:
'If any retiring partner consent to be held out to the public as connected with the firm, as for instance by allowing his name to be written over the shop, or used in the advertisements or invoices of the firm, he will continue liable'
So that, if there can be anything positive in English Law (which I should not risk to assert), it must be this point.
But even supposing Mr Acton to be right on this point, and all the other lawyers wrong, the contrary opinion of the others would merely prove the point to be such a knotty one that, if the very improbable case now under consideration should ever occur, and if my money should not go to the Creditors, it would surely go to the Chancery Lawyers.[25]
However, I shall be quite willing to give my consent to the old firm being continued for a period not extending beyond the 30th June 1875, on the condition of your giving me a distinct promise, that after the 30th of September 1875 my name shall not any longer appear as that of a partner on any goods sent out by the firm.
You see I am quite willing to do everything to facilitate the change of firm, giving you the use of my name there, where it is of most value to you, on the tickets and wrappers, for three months longer than you ask for.
Hoping that this letter will find you in good health and spirits, I remain
Yours very truly,
Fr. Engels
14. Marx to Engels. 15 July
13. Marx to Ludwig Kugelmann. 24 June
Dear Kugelmann,
I have at last decided to go to Karlsbad in the middle of August with my youngest daughter Eleanor (known as Tussy). You must therefore see about lodgings and inform me approximately how much it will cost per week. What happens later will depend on circumstances.
My best greetings to the Lady Countess and Fränzchen.[3]
Your
K. M.
The Austrian government would be stupid enough to put difficulties in my way; it is therefore advisable to let nobody know anything of the intended journey.
14
MARX TO ENGELS[26]
IN RAMSGATE
Ryde, 15 July 1874 11 Nelson Street[27]
Dear FRED,
It is really shameful of me not to have written to you before, but, as is well known, it is very hard to find time when one is absolutely idle. This ISLAND is a little paradise, above all for the gentlemen who have everywhere turned the best-situated land into their own parkland. We have made a tour round the island by BOAT, have been in Ventnor, Sandown, Cowes, Newport and also on a number of walks. It is too hot to pursue the latter with any thoroughness, although compared to London, the temperature is doubtless very moderate.
Religion seems to thrive here among the NATIVES, but apart from that they are practical people. 'VOTE FOR STANLEY, THE RICH MAN', we found on posters all over the district. The Town Council of Ryde, on which various members of the Ryde Pier and Railway Company have seats and whose proceedings replace those of the House of Commons in the local press, is a true model of JOBBING.
Our LANDLORD is a SCRIPTURE READER FOR THE POOR, and his theological library, ABOUT TWO DOZEN VOLUMES, adorns our SITTING-ROOM. Although he is a member of the CHURCH OF ENGLAND, I found Spurgeon's sermons among them. In Sandown, where I took a hot bath, I found a similar LIBRARY in the bathhouse, and one can scarcely move an inch without seeing posters advertising pious MEETINGS. And in fact, the PLEBS here is very poor and seems to seek its chief distraction in the church. It would be quite interesting to investigate how what was originally a community of fishermen became reduced IN NO TIME to this state of religious self-abasement. It is certainly not the result of 'over-population', since all told there are not even 100,000 genuine inhabitants.
My health is improved, above all no pills required. But my head, despite everything, is still not completely right.
Laurachen gave us great pleasure with her visit last Saturday.[3]
Unfortunately, she had to return again on Monday evening. When we went down to the pier to see her off, we witnessed the arrival from Brighton of a Temperance gang back from an excursion. Half of them were drunk. As an old Englishman next to me remarked, it was 'THE WORST LOT HE HAD EVER MET WITH IN HIS LIFE', and neither have I ever actually experienced such a mob of stunted, loutish and smutty-minded idiots all at once, the women as ugly as sin, all of them 'young people'. For FOREIGNERS this SAMPLE of FREEBORN BRITONS would have been an amazing sight.
It is a matter of great regret that the Emperor of Russiab didn't break his neck in Saxony. You will have seen from the newspaper reports that if the Russians promised to give Bismarck a European sanction for his Articles of War at the Brussels Congress, what they really intended was to take up the issue of MARITIME RIGHTS 2S on the basis of their earlier preparatory work in Paris (1856).c If
15. Engels to Marx. 21 July
Gladstone had been Premier instead of Disraeli, the trick would have worked. As things stand, the congress can only be a FAILURE.
The abortive assassination attempt on Bismarck[2] seems, for all that, to have momentarily turned his head. Would he otherwise have talked, despite the waters at Bad Kissingen, among other things, of 'the freedom' that he himself and those who fell in the war have fought to acquire for Germany? The handsome William a
for his part must consider it against all etiquette that no one thinks it worth the trouble to take a shot at him any more.
In France it is the fear of DISSOLUTION that makes the fellows so coy. MacMahon is obviously by no means as resolute as he pretends to be, despite his Royal Prussian Order in Council. He is too well aware that a coup d'état would make him dependent on the Bonapartists and would put a speedy end to his septennium.[30]
On the other hand, he is afraid of a DISSOLUTION without previously regulating or 'organising' his authority as Marshal. If the Rurals[31]
put their interests before their ideological fancies, they will make it 'possible for him to rule' despite his reluctance. But has anything as comic as this conflict and its heroes ever been seen in world history? If the Republic pisses its way to survival, certainly no one will have been more innocent of the deed than the professional republicans themselves.
With best regards to Mrs Lizzy and Pumps.
Your
Moor
n igia Published in English in lull lor the first time
15 ENGELS TO MARX
IN RYDE
Ramsgate, 21 July 1874
11 Abbot's Hill Dear Moor,
Last Fridayb evening I received out of the blue a letter from Gumpert posted in London; he has gone there to have an 21 1874
operation and asked us to visit him when it is all over (Saturday). I telegraphed and wrote to him at once ls and have received a reply today saying that the operation went off all right and that he hopes to be up again in a few days. Depending on what he says in his next letter, I shall visit him either this week or early next, when I have to be in London on business and to fetch Pumps.
I hope that your head has finally given in to the sea air and has ceased to rebel.
The Carlists have indulged in the pleasure of shooting a Prussian officer. So the Prussian fleet can go off there and take its revenge without delay, instead of blockading you in Ryde. It seems obvious that one way or the other the Prussians will come into conflict with Spain. In the meantime, Bismarck is putting his injured wrist to good use.[29] There will certainly be new legislation on the press, assembly, associations, etc.
I fear that you are deceived in William.[3] I suspect that from now on he will regard it as one of the chief duties of all his ministers to take all bullets upon themselves in peacetime, in accordance with the Constitution. The only aspect of constitutionalism that he takes seriously.
Friend Dizzyb will probably want to become a minority minister once more now that his crack-brained SQUIRES have compelled him, perhaps for the first time in English history, actually to revoke two parliamentary measures passed by his predecessors: the school business and now the ENDOWED SCHOOLS COMMISSION.[32] The jackasses don't know what they are doing by overturning the traditional unassailability and once-and-for-all establishment of laws which have been enacted. This certainly knocks quite a hole in the Old English tradition of loyalty. A few more tricks of that sort and this Tory Parliament will find itself in quite the same position as the Versailles Assembly vis-à-vis the electorate, and it will cling to its septennium just as desperately as MacMahon.[30]
But what a blockhead that man is! First the Prussian MESSAGE,0 and then the abdication of the author of the MESSAGE,[33] and now the self-same MacMahon begs for a postponement, immediately after almost giving the order to charge! I think all this will come to nothing, the Assembly will pass contradictory resolutions, will adjourn its sessions until the winter, without any result, and will then start to go round in circles once again until a majority has been created in favour of dissolution. If it achieved anything, it
16. Marx to Maurice Lachâtre. 23 July
would be a sheer FLUKE, a lucky shot at billiards, and up to now this Assembly hasn't a single FLUKE to its credit.
What a financier this Magne is, wanting to squeeze even more money from already overstrained indirect taxes! And he was the financial wizard of the Second Empire! Gambetta really looks very dignified in comparison, as he stands there with his big drum with which to convert the three men of principle, Blanc, Quinet & Co.! And the beaten Italians and the beaten French celebrate the 'supremacy of the Latin race' in Avignon and Arqua over the corpse of Petrarch![34] While at the same time the German philistine revels in the Kulturkampf[55] and his English equivalent gets drunk for CHURCH AND STATE. VERILY the ruling classes are going to seed at the same rate everywhere, and even our German citizens do not lag behind the times in this respect.
Best regards.
Your
F. E.
16
MARX TO MAURICE LACHÂTRE
IN BRUSSELS
[London,] 23 July 1874 41 Maitland Park Road, N. W.
My dear Fellow Citizen,
After receipt of your last letter but one,[36] I myself informed Rochefort of its contents, but he had already made an agreement with the English publisher who brings out the Lanterne anglo-française in London.
As to the delay with our publication,* you may rest assured that no one is more distressed by it than I am. It is not, as you appear to imagine, merely a question of details and of minor corrections of style; rather I had, indeed am still having, to do virtually the whole thing over again. Once condemned to this thankless task I added here and there some important new developments," which will give the French edition — as I shall incidentally point out in the afterword — a value not possessed by the German original.[3] As to my French friends, they can only be of use on a few points of phraseology.
My earlier letters must have convinced you that physical weakness alone has prevented my finishing it. My health has been further aggravated by family misfortunes: Mrs Longuet's only child, a little angel ten months old,b has been taken from us by a sudden choleric attack, while my youngest daughter0 has been suffering for months past from a serious illness.
However my physician"[1]—who has given me strict instructions to refrain for the time being from work of any kind — says that a stay at Karlsbad and the taking of its mineral waters will effect a complete cure. I leave on the 15th of August, so that I shall be able to resume work at the end of September, and you have my guarantee that the task will be finished by the end of November.[37]
At present the delay cannot be of much importance, seeing that the dead season has begun.
In any case, the previous delays, for which I was in no way responsible, and the total lack of publicity occasioned by the state of affairs in Paris, had long since killed off sales by instalment.[38] I have in my hands a letter from you (from San Sebastian) in which you say so categorically, adding that it would be impossible to set things in motion again until after the sale of the complete work.
I shall always be most grateful for the interest you have taken in this publication and for the patience with which you have put up with tiresome incidents. The need for a scientific basis for socialism is making itself increasingly felt in France, as everywhere else.
Yours ever,
Karl Marx
17. Engels to Jenny Longuet. 2 August
18. Marx to Engels. 4 August
IN LONDON
Ramsgate, 2 August 1874 11 Abbot's Hill
My dear Jenny,
I was sorry I did not see you again before my return and now write to you to remind you of your promise to come over here for a short time.[39] We are staying here till Tuesday fortnight and can accommodate you any day. After all you have gone through both bodily and mentally during these last weeks, it is absolutely necessary for you to have some change of air and change of scene, and I am sure you require the seaside quite as much as Mohr and Tussy require Karlsbad. Do take me for your doctor for the nonce and let me prescribe a short term of sea air for you. The sooner you come the better it will be for you. Mrs E.a was quite vexed I had not brought you with me there and then. She and Pumps send their loves to you.
Please remember me to Longuet and believe me yours ever faithfully and affectionately
F. Engels
18 MARX TO ENGELS
IN RAMSGATE
[London,] 4 August 1874
DEAR FRED, Jennychen will join you the day after tomorrow; she'll probably leave by the 12 a.m. train from Maitland Station, Kentish Town. I shall come down with her for the day.[39]
19. Marx to Friedrich Adolph Sorge. 4 August
My four referees, Manning, Matheson, Selon and Adcock, all assembled at the SOLICITORS at precisely 12 o'clock on Saturday; the various STATEMENTS before the MAGISTRATE were taken care of and the papers were delivered to the HOME OFFICE by the SOLICITOR the same day. He thinks that a decision can be expected this week.
Enclosed a letter from Lafargue of which I forgot to inform you.
For the last two days I have had the beginnings of a carbuncle on the left buttock. It will probably succumb to the mercury ointment. Sleep badly; I had taken the little chap" to my heart. Best regards to all at home.
Your
K. M.
19
MARX TO FRIEDRICH ADOLPH SORGE[41]
IN HOBOKEN
[London,] 4 August 1874
Dear Sorge,
My long silence cannot be excused at all; cependant il y a des circonstances atténuantes}" That damned liver complaint has made such headway that I was positively unable to continue the revision of the French translationc (which actually amounts almost to complete rewriting), and I am very unwillingly submitting to the doctor'sd orders that I go to Karlsbad. I am being assured that after my return I shall be fully able to work again, and being unable to work is indeed a death sentence for any man who is not a beast. The journey is expensive and so is the stay there, and what is more, it is not certain whether the foolish Austrian government might not expel me! The Prussians would scarcely be so stupid, but they like to talk the Austrians into such compromising measures; and I actually believe that the false newspaper reports that Rochefort wants to go to Karlsbad, etc., stem from Mr Stieber and are, in the final analysis, aimed at me. I have neither time nor money to waste and have therefore decided to apply for British naturalisation,[40] but it is very likely that the British HOME MINISTER,[3] who decides on naturalisation like a sultan, will upset my plans. The matter will probably be decided this week. In any event, I am going to Karlsbad, if only because of my youngest daughterb who was seriously, dangerously ill, is only now able to travel again, and has also been told by her doctor0 to go to Karlsbad.
About a week ago we were afflicted by a great misfortune, the death of Jenny's (Mme Longuet's) eleven-month-old BABY,[6] a truly lovable child. He fell victim to a foudroyante attack of gastro-enteritis.
I have given Beifuss a receipt for the monies transferred to me (and which would have been of much greater use in New York, since I need American things from time to time, publications, I mean). You must also convey my thanks to Section I for the splendid box of cigars.
The few Frenchmen (I mean of those who still stuck to us in The Hague) later turned out for the most part to be rascals, in particular M. Le Moussu, who cheated me and others out of significant sums of money ' and who then resorted to infamous slanders in order to whitewash his character and present himself as an innocent whose beautiful soul has gone unappreciated.
In England the International is as good as dead for the present. The Federal Council in London exists as such only in name, although some of its members are active individually. The great event over here is the reawakening of the AGRICULTURAL LABOURERS.[19] The failure of their initial efforts does no harm, au contraire. As for the urban workers, it is regrettable that the whole gang of leaders did not get into Parliament. That is the surest way of getting rid of the rascals.
In France workers' syndicates are being organised in the various big cities and are in correspondence with one another. They confine themselves to purely professional matters, nor can they do anything else. Otherwise they would be suppressed without further ado. In this way they are keeping some sort of organisation, a point of departure for the time when freer movement will again be possible.
By their own practical impotence, Spain, Italy, and Belgium demonstrate the content of their super-socialism.
In Austria our people are working under the most difficult conditions; they are compelled to move with the greatest caution. Nevertheless they have made one great advance: they have prevailed upon the Slav workers in Prague and elsewhere to act together with the German workers.[42] During the final period of the General Council in London I had tried in vain to achieve an understanding of this sort.
In Germany Bismarck is working for us. General European conditions are such as to increasingly wage a general European war. We shall have to pass through it before there can be any thought of decisive overt activity on the part of the European working class.
My wife and children send you their best regards.
Your
Karl Marx
Despite errors of all sorts, the publication of B. Becker's pamphlet on Lassalle's movement(1) is very useful in putting an end to the sect.
You will have noticed how semi-taught philistine fantasies make their appearance in the Volksstaat from time to time. Such stuff emanates from schoolmasters, doctors and students. Engels has told Liebknecht off about it, which he seems to need from time to time.
In judging conditions in France, especially those in Paris, it should not be forgotten that alongside the official military and political authorities the gang of epauletted Bonapartist blackguards is still secretly active out of which the great republican Thiers formed the military courts for slaughtering the Communards. They constitute a sort of secret tribunal of terror; their mouchardsb are everywhere, making the Parisian workers' districts, in particular, unsafe.
20. Marx to Ludwig Kugelmann. 4 August
20
MARX TO LUDWIG KUGELMANN ]
IN HANOVER
[London,] 4 August 1874
Dear Kugelmann,
About a week ago I wrote your dear wife a few lines,[12] telling her of the death of my only grandson[3] and the serious illness of my youngest daughter.b This was not an isolated but rather an acute outbreak of an illness from which she has long suffered. Eleanor is now up again, much sooner than her doctor (Madame Dr Anderson-Garrett) had dared to hope. She is able to travel, though of course still delicate. Madame Anderson thinks the Karlsbad waters will help considerably to restore her health, just as Dr Gumpert ordered rather than recommended me to go there. It is naturally difficult for me to leave Jennyc now (I mean IN ABOUT two weeks). I am in this respect less stoical than in others and family afflictions always hit me hard. The more one lives, as I do, almost cut off from the outside world, the more one is entangled in the emotional life of one's own circle.
You must send me your exact Karlsbad address by all means and, in particular, make my excuses to your wife and Fränzchend
for not answering their kind and affectionate letters.
Your
K. M.
21. Marx to Ludwig Kugelmann. 10 August
21
MARX TO LUDWIG KUGELMANN[1]
IN HANOVER
[London,] 10 August 1874
Dear Kugelmann,
I cannot leave here before 15 August (Saturday)[43] and shall take about 4 days to get to our destination, since Tussy(1) must not exert herself too much.
Salut
Your
K. M.
22. Engels to Marx. 12 August
Dear Moor,
Peasant Warb received with thanks. Be so good and write at once a few lines about how you are, if you have not done so already. Jennyc has heard from Longuet that your leg is not all it should be and she is so worried about it that yesterday she was talking about going back to see you. The sea is visibly doing her good, the bathing is also good for her and her cough is gone, as far as I can judge. Unfortunately, she is still suffering from insomnia somewhat, and I do not know what to do about that except to advise her to try and snatch a little sleep after meals, which she has just done with success.
23. Marx to Engels. 14 August
In general, it would be good if you could write to her more frequently; you know how much she is attached to you.
Your
F. E.
23
MARX TO ENGELS[44]
IN RAMSGATE
[London,] 14 August 1874
DEAR FRED,
I suppose you will have received the letter [12] I posted to you last Tuesday[3]? If not, we shall have to ask the Post Office to look into it, since another letter that Tussychen wrote likewise failed to arrive.
On going through the accounts with my wife yesterday, it turned out that she had had many additional expenses. So I gave her some of the money intended for my trip[43]: £16.5sh. for the LANDLORD and £15 for herself. For the moment I do not need more than what is left after I have made various purchases for the journey, and since I do not expect to be leaving Karlsbad before 18 or 20 September, you could send me what money I need then out of the next quarter's allowance.
However, it is very improbable that I shall be able to stay in Karlsbad. Last week there was a trial in Vienna where the accused was indicted on a number of counts, including the charge that he had sent a photograph of the 'Social Communist K.M.' (as the prosecutor described me) to London. Admittedly, this charge was not held by the court to be a criminal act.
New arrests have been made at all the Russian universities,[45] and it is obvious that throughout Europe the attempt is being made once again to turn the 'International' into a bogey.
24. Marx to Jenny Longuet. 14 August
HOWEVER THAT MAY BE, I shall set off tomorrow, since otherwise I shall arrive too late in the SEASON.
Tussy is feeling much better; her appetite is growing in geometric PROPORTION, but it is the characteristic feature of these women's ailments in which hysteria plays a part; you have to pretend not to notice that the invalid is again living on earthly sustenance. This too becomes unnecessary once recovery is complete.
The carbuncle did not develop into anything big, but it did go deep. Since yesterday the discharge has quite stopped, so it is starting to heal. A real blessing that I did not set off earlier. It could have been really unpleasant while travelling. HOWEVER, it was idiotic of Longuet to write about it to Jennychen. If there is any harassment in Karlsbad, I suppose I shall be compelled to beat a retreat to Hamburg. Borkheim is away.
With best regards to all.
Your
K. M.
Has Jennychen received the Lanterne which I posted off at the same time as the Peasant War*?
If Rochefort fails to produce a good Lanterne this week, he will have to be written off. The French government is doing all that is humanly possible to ridicule other people.
24
MARX TO JENNY LONGUET[16]
IN RAMSGATE
[London,] 14 August 1874 My darling Child,
I think that you will have received at long last the letter[12] I addressed to Engels last Tuesday.b If not, enquiries should be made at the Post Office, since such irregularities should not be allowed to pass without comment.
It was very wrong of Longuet to alarm you with the story of my carbuncle. Yesterday morning the so-called core came out, putting an end to the discharge. I then immediately put a plaster on it, which likewise began to have its usual effect. So you can see, my dear child, that all is well in this respect.
As far as my naturalisation is concerned,[40] my SOLICITOR had not received any further NEWS from the HOME OFFICE by last night. I shall go and see him again today. Come what may I shall take my departure tomorrow evening.[43] At the worst I should find myself forced to retreat from Karlsbad to Hamburg, which would be vexing enough, if only on account of the expense. After a long period in which neither the 'International' nor myself had attracted any attention, it is very curious that my name should have figured again JUST NOW in trials in Petersburg and Vienna, and that ridiculous RIOTS in Italy[46] should be connected not only with the 'International' but (see the reports from Rome in today's Daily News[3]) directly with me. The insinuation of the Rome correspondent that the INTERNATIONAL RIOTERS are acting on behalf of the Papists smells very much like a recipe provided by Bismarck.
Yesterday's Evening Standard contained a small LEADER which began with the words: 'THE INTERNATIONAL HAS BEEN SCOTCHED,BUT NOT KILLED.'b This was with reference to the arrest of 80 people in Marseilles,0 something which is said to be secretly linked with the Italian farce, although the true connection was in fact very PALPABLE: Bazaine s'est échappé.[4] Donc—as compensation Mac-mahoniste—80 Communards à Marseille sont arrêtés^ The Standard, which at the level of sheer police nastiness can vie with The Daily News, goes on to comment that these REVOLUTIONISTS become very conservative as soon as they can lay hands on the smallest bit of property, and that they are nothing but penniless rabble, etc. In the same issue there is a telegram from Marseilles according to which one of the men arrested is a millionaire. BRAVE FELLOWS, THOSE BRITISH GENTLEMEN OF THE FREEST PRESS IN THE WORLD! Moreover, it is a remarkable fact that various French (Parisian) papers which I have seen — including some very conservative ones — do not make any attempt to link the Italian farce with the 'International'.
Now to another topic. Frankel and Utin were here yesterday evening. The latter brought the news that Madame Tomanovsky has got married. (What he was uncertain about — quite between ourselves — was whether her imminent confinement had been prepared before or after the wedding. Nor did he have any details yet about the fortunate husband.a) Frankel was very upset by this unexpected blow.
General Cecilia bored me for 3 to 4 hours the day before yesterday. Among other things, he told me that they (id est^ as we already knew, he and his party, C. Martin) were founding a school for the French refugee children. In it, he said, l'enseignement de l'hygiènec was to play a part, as well as économie sociale, and would I do him the favour of composing A PRIMER for this on the English pattern? He also told me with great indignation that in one of its latest issues Le Figaro had made the grotesque assertion that the Republic had ruined France by its appointment of 4 generals qui s'appellent: Crémieux, Glais-Bizoin, Cecilia— et Lissagaray! I whispered this flattering piece of news into the latter's ear that very evening.
I am just gossiping on because I scarcely dare mention the only subject which interests you. The house is as silent as the grave, now that our little angeld is not there to animate it. I miss him at every turn. My heart bleeds when I think of him, and how can one get such a sweet, lovable little chap out of one's mind! But I hope, my child, that you will be brave for your old man's sake.
Adieu, my darling Schwärzchen,e
Your loving,
OLD NICK*
25. Marx to Engels. 1 September
25
MARX TO ENGELS[16]
IN LONDON
Karlsbad, Austria, 1 September 1874 Germania, am Schlossberg
Dear FRED,
By next Wednesday[3] I shall have been here for two weeks and my powder, ALIAS MONEY, will just suffice for a third week. If you should write to me, please use the above address, but put Miss Eleanor Marx on the envelope. The cure has done wonders for Tussy; I am feeling better but my insomnia has not yet been overcome.
We are both living in strict accordance with the rules. We go to our respective springs at 6 every morning, where I have to drink seven glasses. Between each two glasses there has to be a break of 15 minutes during which one marches up and down. After the last glass, an hour's WALK, and finally, coffee. Another cold glass in the evenings before bed.
I am not allowed to drink anything but pure Pumpenheimerb; Tussy, on the other hand, DAILY receives a glass of Pilsner beer, which makes me envious. The doctorc prescribed for me by Kugelmann, an Austrian, very like the celebrated General Cecilia in his mannerisms, speech, etc., felt some initial anxiety at the prospect of my staying here. On his advice I have registered as Charles Marx, Privatier,d London, and this 'Privatier[7] meant that I had to pay double the usual spa taxes, both for Eleanor and myself, into the worthy municipal treasury. But it did remove the suspicion that I might be the notorious Karl Marx. Yesterday,e
however, I was denounced as such in the Viennese scandal-sheet
Sprudel (a spa paper), and the Polish patriot Count Plater (a good Catholic and liberal aristocrat) was bracketed with me as 'head of the Russian Nihilists'.[48] But this has probably come too late, since I already have the municipal receipt for the spa tax I have paid. I could also have lived much more cheaply than where Kugelmann has lodged me, but his arrangements were useful and possibly
26. Engels to Marx. 5 September
essential, in view of my specific need to appear respectable. I shall not travel back via Hanover under any circumstances, although Kugelmann does not yet know it, but shall instead take the southern route by which I came. The man irritates me with his grizzling and carping — and the sheer brutishness with which he quite baselessly poisons both his own life and that of his family. On the other hand, it is quite possible that I shall have to remain in Karlsbad for five weeks.
The surroundings here are very beautiful, and one cannot have enough of the walks here over the wooded granite mountains. But there are no birds in these forests. Birds are healthy and do not like the mineral vapours.
I hope that Jennychen is feeling somewhat better. Best regards to all from
Moor
26
ENGELS TO MARX[49]
IN KARLSBAD
London, 5 September 1874
Dear Moor,
Arrived back safely last night, or rather at 2 a.m., after a very rough but splendid sea-crossing[39]—waves up to 20 feet high. Jenny rather sea-sick at first, but better after creicrâx'&Eia[3]; [she spent] the whole time on deck in a warm, very well-sheltered place. Her chief problem is now irregular sleep, the poor girl spends the whole night brooding over her dead baby,b and there is nothing that can be done about it.
Last Sundayc I wrote to you[15] at Kugelmann's address, enclosing a CROSSED CHEQUE for £30 made out to him. Should you be unable to cash it, telegraph Miss Burns: CHEQUE RETURNED, and then either send or bring the cheque back with you and I shall send notes. This is for the worst eventuality; I couldn't manage things otherwise, but assume that on arrival it will be all right. If the sum is insufficient, as I almost suspect from your letter which was waiting for me here," just drop me a line, and more will follow. At any event you must take the cure for as long as the doctor thinks necessary, and I enclose a further 2 £5 notes which I happen still to have for all eventualities — the first halves now, the second to follow in a few days. PARTICULARS OF NOTES AT FOOT.
Also waiting for me was a letter from Mesa[50]—a very pleasant surprise, very nice of him.
That the cure should begin by making your insomnia worse if anything seems normal to me in view of the inevitably stimulating effect of the waters. If you keep your doctor informed about the progress of this symptom, he will modify his orders accordingly, and make sure that the matter does not become too serious.
Jenny wrote to Tussy this week — I think it was Tuesday or Wednesday, the letter will probably have arrived by now.
Jenny suffered no after-effects from the tour of the caves, so that even a two-hour trip in an open carriage in the rain last Tuesday — the weather came down on us on the way home — went off well. She was in any case well protected with umbrella, WATERPROOF and SHAWL. On the whole, however, we had constant fine weather up to the very last days, while reports are that it has rained mercilessly on the continent.
Jersey has changed significantly since we were last there.[51] A tremendous amount of building, elegant villas, large hotels, dear, almost English prices in them, and at the market, too, everything more expensive; the London market forces prices up even here. The French language is rapidly disappearing, even country children speak almost nothing but English among themselves, and people under 30 almost all speak English without a trace of a French accent. Only the older notables cling to French. There are also two small railways there now on which you never hear a word of French. In the season 5 different entrepreneurs organise excursions around the island every day. We went on one with more than 150 people in 8-9 carriages. The public: philistines, CLERK and VOLUNTEER, and snobs all providing much occasion for amusement and sometimes annoyance. On such trips even in Jersey the TRUE BRITON casts off his laboriously acquired DOMESTICA-TION, but resumes it all the more conscientiously at the table d'hôte.
27. Engels to Friedrich Adolph Sorge. 12[- 17] September
The growing supply of money among certain up-and-coming individuals — one can scarcely speak of strata — in the lower English middle class, and the SPREAD of luxuries and of the affectation of RESPECTABILITY associated with it, could be seen very clearly in Jersey precisely because Jersey is still counted a cheap and hence unfashionable little island. The RESPECTABILITY STANDARD of travellers to Jersey seems to diminish each year — an observation, incidentally, which we made also in Ramsgate, where no one complained about it more bitterly than the wretched barber who cut our hair so short last April.
Nunc autem domine dimittis*—I still have a pile of things to write, and it is time to have this letter registered. Best regards to Tussy, ditto Wenzel.b
Your
Generalc
D 67, 77773 and 4, London, 13 July 1874. 2 £5- BANK OF ENGLAND NOTES, 1st halves enc.
27
ENGELS TO FRIEDRICH ADOLPH SORGE[52]
IN HOBOKEN
London, 12[-17] September 1874
Dear Sorge,
The invoice you requested enclosed.[1]* As far as the German Rules e are concerned, please look in the books to see whether the printing costs for them were paid for by the old General Council or not. I think not; they were charged up to me privately by the
Volksstaat and, to the best of my knowledge, I have never been reimbursed. However, if the amount appears in the account book as one laid out by the General Council here, then obviously the copies will be inherited by the new General Council and the balance in its favour vis-à-vis myself rises to £6.3.6. Unless you have any claims on the money, which of course take precedence, the present General Council can use it as it wishes, if you agree. I have advanced £32 for the cost of printing the Alliance[1] and shall certainly lose something like half of it, so that there may be a nice little counter invoice at the end of the year. The fact is it would be idiotic to hand the money over to these nonentities who are only there to make sure that everything goes wrong.
With your resignation[53] the old International is entirely wound up and at an end anyhow. And that is a good thing. It belonged to the period of the Second Empire, when the oppression throughout Europe prescribed unity and abstention from all internal controversy for the workers' movement, then just reawakening. It was the moment when the common, cosmopolitan interests of the proletariat could come to the fore. Germany, Spain, Italy, and Denmark had only just entered the movement or were entering it. In reality, the theoretical character of the movement in 1864 was still very unclear throughout Europe, that is, among the masses. German communism did not yet exist as a workers' party, the Proudhonism was too weak to be able to insist on its particular fads, Bakunin's new trash did not yet exist even in his own head, and even the leaders of the English TRADE-UNIONS thought they could enter the movement on the basis of the programme laid down in the Considérants* of the Rules.c The first great success was bound to explode this naive conjunction of all factions. This success was the Commune, which was beyond doubt the child of the International intellectually, though the International did not lift a finger to produce it, and for which the International — to that extent with full justification — was held responsible. When, thanks to the Commune, the International became a moral force in Europe, the row began at once. Each tendency wanted to exploit the success for itself. The inevitable decomposition set in. Jealousy of the growing power of the only people who were really ready to continue working along the lines of the old comprehensive programme — the German Communists — drove the Belgian Proudhonists into the arms of the Bakuninist adventurers. The Hague Congress was actually the end — and for both parties.[20] The only country where something could still be accomplished in the name of the International was America, and by a fortunate instinct the executive was transferred there. Now its prestige is exhausted there too, and any further effort to galvanise new life into it would be folly and a waste of energy. For ten years the International dominated one side of European history — the side on which the future lies — and can look back upon its work with pride. But in its old form it has outlived itself. In order to produce a new International like the old one — an alliance of all the proletarian parties of all countries — a general suppression of the workers' movement like that which prevailed from 1849 to 1864 would be necessary. For this the proletarian world has now become too big, too extensive. I think the next International— after Marx's writings have been at work for some years — will be directly Communist and will openly proclaim our principles.
Stahl from Chicago was here. A man of much practical ability, like most German Americans. I liked him in other respects too, but this does not mean that he won't do anything silly in Germany. Even he is not entirely immune to that conciliation nonsense.
The Belgians and the Bakuninists are now holding their congress in Brussels.[54] For reports see The Times, London, of 10 September et seq.(1) Fourteen full delegates: one German (Lassallean), one Frenchman, one Spaniard (an unknown called Gomez), one Schwitzguébel. The remainder all Belgians. General disagreement on all essentials, concealed by the fact that they did not debate, but only narrated and listened. Admittedly, I have only seen one report. The Italians announced what amounted to their resignation; a public International could only harm them, they intended in future only to conspire. The Spaniards are leaning in the same direction. For the rest, they just tell each other lies about the colossal movements they are creating. And they imagine they will still find people who will be taken in.
Mr Bastelica, too, has become a Bonapartist agent. In Strasbourg, he made approaches of that nature to Avrial, a former member of the Commune, and was, of course, shown the door. One by one, these anarchists all end up in the same way.
Mesa has written to me from Madrid saying that he will have to go to Paris because government persecution is becoming more than he can bear. So we are back in contact with Spain once
[50] more.
In Germany things are going splendidly despite the persecu-tions, in part because of the persecutions. The Lassalleans have become so discredited by their representatives in the Reichstag that the government had to start harassing them just so as to convey the impression that they are a serious movement. That aside, ever since the elections, the Lassalleans have found it necessary to cling to the coat-tails of our people.[4] It was a real stroke of luck for Hasselmann and Hasenclever to have been voted into the Reichstag. They are visibly ruining their reputation there: either they will have to join our people or make a mess of things off their own bat. Either course will finish them off.
Mr Jung thought it fitting to write to Liebknecht and make advances to him! Liebknecht sent me the letter and I have shown it to people who will reveal this to Mr Jung.
Marx is in Karlsbad drinking the waters to restore his liver.[43] He has had a lot of bad luck. Scarcely had he managed to recover somewhat in July on the Isle of Wight"' when he had to return because his youngest daughter[3] suddenly fell seriously ill. No sooner had he arrived than Jenny's little boyb died at the age of about one year. That really hit him hard again. I think that once his liver is all right again the cure may more easily have an effect on his overworked nervous system. All the doctors prophesied that Karlsbad would do him a lot of good. Up to now the Austrian government has left him in peace, and he will probably be leaving at the end of this week.
The squabbles in New York, which made it impossible for you to remain in the General Council any longer, are just as much proof as consequence of the fact that the thing has outlived itself. When circumstances no longer allow a society to act effectively, when the first thing to be done is simply to keep the bond of union tied so that it can be used again when the occasion arises, there are always people to be found who cannot fit themselves into this situation, definitely want to play the BUSYBODY, and demand that 'something be done', and this something can then only be folly. And if these people succeed in getting the majority, they compel everyone who does not want to bear the responsibility for their absurdities to resign. What good fortune that we did not send the minute books over!
The French refugees are in utter chaos. They have all fallen out with each other and with everyone else for quite personal reasons, money matters for the most part, and we are now almost entirely rid of them. They all want to live without doing any real work, their heads are full of imagined inventions which would bring in millions if only someone would enable them to exploit their discoveries, a matter of just a few pounds. But anyone who is naive enough to take them at their word will be cheated of his money and denounced as a bourgeois into the bargain. Le Moussu has behaved more disgracefully than anyone and now stands exposed as a charlatan pure and simple.[3] All these people have been horribly demoralised by their dissolute life during the war, the Commune and in exile, and the situation really has to be desperate to rescue a Frenchman once he has let himself go. The great mass of politically unknown French workers, on the other hand, has simply abandoned politics for the moment and found work here.
Best regards.
Your
F. Engels 17 September 1874
General Council of the International Working Men's Association
On account with F. Engels
Account No. 1 b
1873 Nov. Received per Serraillier £16— Sept . Telegram to New York £1.16-" 25 copies 'Alliance'c by post 21-£2.10.-1874 Feb. 12 21-£1-4--12 21-£1.4-» 100 Engl. 'Rules'd by post lVsd. £12.6 » 400 lVad. £2.10-" 300 Ger. Id. £1.5-£11.1.6
Balance in favour of the General Council £4.18.6
28. Marx to Engels. 18 September
Account No. 2
1874 August. Printing costs of L'Alliance advanced by F. Engels £32.-.-U p to now have received payment only for the above-mentioned 49 copies for America (not reckoning postage) £4.18.-There remains owing to me £27.2.-(Accounts with Darson and Meissner still : ==
to be settled.)
London, 17 September 1874
28
MARX T O ENGELS [1 6]
IN LONDON
Karlsbad, 18 September 1874
Dear FRED,
We shall set off on Monday (1); we shall make for Hamburg via Leipzig,[43] where I shall stop off for a while and see Wilhelm. b
You know that I am very lazy when it comes to writing, but on this occasion that was not the cause of my stubborn silence. The first three weeks were spent almost without sleep. Together with the exertion here that will make it all clear to you.
Although you drink only in the morning (evenings, before going to bed, we have a cold glass from a special spring brought into the house), the fact is that the whole day you find yourself caught u p in a sort of machine that hardly leaves you a minute.
F. Engels
Up at 5 or half past 5 in the morning. Then 6 glasses from different springs, one after the other. There must be at least a quarter of an hour between each glass.
Then breakfast is prepared, beginning with the purchase of pastry appropriate to the cure. After that, a walk lasting at least one hour. Finally, some of the very excellent coffee available here in one of the coffee houses outside the town. This is followed by a walking tour through the surrounding hills; at ABOUT noon you return home, but have to take a bath every other day, which takes up yet another hour.
There follows a change of toilette; puis" luncheon in a local hotel.
Sleeping after meals is strictly forbidden (it is allowed before meals) and rightly so, as I have become convinced after a single attempt. So, another tour, alternating with an excursion. Return to Karlsbad 6-8 in the evening, a light snack, and — to bed. This programme is varied by visits to the theatre (which always closes at 9, like all other ENTERTAINMENTS), concerts and reading room.
The effect of the waters is to make my head very IRRITABLE. SO you will appreciate how unbearable Kugelmann has become in the long run. He had been so considerate as to give me a room between his and Tussy's so that I enjoyed him, not just when we were together, but also when I was alone. I patiently endured the way he incessantly poured out his solemn, long-winded balderdash in his deep voice. I had greater difficulty in putting up with the gang of Hamburg-Bremen-Hanover philistines, male and female alike, who simply refused to leave me in peace. But my patience came to an end finally when he inflicted his family scenes on me. The fact is that this arch-pedant, this pettifogging, bourgeois philistine has got the idea that his wifeb is unable to understand him, to comprehend his Faustian nature with its aspirations to a higher world outlook, and he torments the woman, who is his superior in every respect, in the most repulsive manner. So it led to a quarrel between us; I moved to a higher floor, completely liberated myself from him (he was having a ruinous effect on my cure) and we only became reconciled once more just before his departure (which took place last Sundayc). However, I declared point-blank that I would not visit him in Hanover.
A man who turned out to be quite an agreeable companion was Simon Deutsch (the same one I had the row with in Paris, and who looked me up without more ado here). In addition half the
29. Marx to Max Oppenheim. 20 September
local medical faculty soon assembled round my daughter[3] and me; all very acceptable people for my present purpose when I have to think little and laugh often. Also Knille, the painter from Berlin, a very charming chap.
Shall regale you in London with some amusing details of my adventures with Hans Heiling Kugelmann.
The more one hears of the details about the 'situation in Austria' the more one becomes convinced that this state is coming to the end of the line.
Up to now I have lost about 4 lbs (imperial weight) and even with my hand I can feel that the fat on my liver is in a status evanescens. I believe that I have finally achieved my purpose in Karlsbad, at least for a year. It would give me great pleasure if I could find a few lines from you awaiting me at Meissner's in Hamburg.
With best regards from Tussy and me to Madame Lizzy and Pumps.
Your
Moor
I was invited to go to Ischl (by Dr Kraus, editor of the Wiener Medizinische Zeitung*) and to Prague by Mr Oppenheim (the brother of Mrs Kugelmann and a very agreeable man), but after a certain stage is reached, one longs to be back at home.
29
MARX TO MAX OPPENHEIM
IN PRAGUE
Karlsbad, 20 September 1874
Dear Friend,
My daughter[3] and I had been eagerly looking forward to spending a few days with you in Prague and we had made all our
30. Engels to Marx. 21 September
arrangements yesterday to make our way tomorrow (Monday) to the old Hussite city. Today, however, simultaneously with your kind letter, we received news from Hamburg which makes it imperative for me to choose the direct route via Leipzig in order to settle some business.[43]
However, all is not lost. I am almost certain to be coming back to Karlsbad next year and will incorporate the visit to Prague in my travel plans from the very start. Your sister'[1] will already have written to you how very anxious I am, quite apart from the varied points of interest which Prague itself has to offer, to extend my personal acquaintance with yourself beyond the brief intermezzo here at the spa.
Farewell and rest assured of my feelings of friendship towards you; my travelling companion sends her best regards.
Yours,
Karl Marx
30
ENGELS TO MARX
IN HAMBURG
London, 21 September 1874
Dear Moor,
I would have written to you long before, had it not been for the fact that the news from Karlsbad left me in doubt whether a letter would still reach you.
Delighted to hear that Karlsbad has borne fruit. Once your liver is back in working order, it will be possible in due course to calm down your nervous system again after the further stimulation provoked by the cure. You will also have to continue the treatment on your return and should bring instructions with you from Karlsbad about how to proceed. It was absurd of you not to have gone via Dresden; the journey is much prettier and some idle touring would have done you good just now. But there is still time to visit the Holstein coast from Hamburg and you should in any case spend a few days there, it is very attractive. If you are SHORT OF CASH Meissner can give you an advance and we shall pay him back from here.
You will have seen reports of the Brussels congress[54] in The Times; they were obviously written by Wingfield, or whatever his name is, who was in The Hague. IT WAS A MISERABLE FAILURE: 14 people, all Belgians apart from 2 German Lassalleans (Frohme from Frankfurt and?a), Schwitzguébel, 1 Spaniard, Gomez, and Eccarius.—Rochat has sent us a highly entertaining account of the nonsense in a small Brussels paper, La Gazetted
Furthermore, the two Scheusc and the restless Frankel were within an ace of destroying the German communist society here.[55]
Determined to prove that they could act, they arranged a public meeting in their pub and invited the Lassallean robber band of Zilinski
et Co., whom they had such difficulty in ejecting only 2 years previously! I learned of it only when it was too late, gave Frankel a piece of my mind and also gave him instructions about what to do, whereupon, naturally, he did the opposite. WELL, as was to be expected, Zilinski turned up with 50-60 men (while from the society there were barely 10 men!), packed the committee with his own supporters and they HAD IT ALL THEIR OWN WAY. Finally, the meeting was adjourned, and so we were spared the worst, but it is not over yet. Since I have not yet seen Lessner (who must have something on his conscience, otherwise he would have come), I have not yet had a reliable report on what transpired. Frankel is very peeved about his act of heroism and your wife has given him a good scolding. The Scheus appear to be IRREPRESSIBLE MEDDLERS.
In Leipzig you will perhaps have a chance to see Bios who is being released tomorrow or the day after. At any rate, you will have heard that the Cologne workers want to publish a daily paper and Bios has approached me to find out whether they could call it Neue Rheinische Zeitung—Bios is to be the editor. Since it was not possible to confer with you — at the start of your stay in Karlsbad and before any news had arrived from you — I had to make a provisional decision. CONSIDERING that this is the first time that these people have approached us IN A BECOMING MANNER, 2. that it is unlikely that we shall ever publish a Neue Rheinische Zeitung again ourselves, if only because of the provincial nature of Cologne, J had no objection quant à moi,[3] and I also hazarded the opinion that you too would agree to it. Jenny,b whom I consulted as your representative, was also of this opinion. It would have made a very shabby impression on the Rhineland workers if we had refused. However, if you have any objections there is still time to reverse the matter.[56]
The Volksstaat under Wilhelm' is becoming worse and even more boring thanks to the tendency to accept materials uncritically just to fill up space. Only here and there is there anything readable.
I am deeply immersed in the doctrine of essence. Back from Jersey, I found Tyndall's and Huxley's speeches in Belfast[57]
waiting for me, which once again reveal the plight of these people, and the way they are stuck fast in the thing-in-itself and their cry of anguish for a philosophy to rescue them. This brought me back again, after all manner of interruptions on the first week, to the theme of dialectics. In view of the feeble mind of the natural scientists, the great Logic[6] can only be used sparingly, although as far as dialectics are concerned, it goes much more nearly to the heart of the matter. But the account of it in the Encyclopaedia,,e on the other hand, could have been tailor-made for these people, the illustrations are taken largely from their own subject and are striking, and at the same time, because of the more popular presentation, they are freer of idealism. Now, since I neither can nor will exempt these gentlemen from the punishment of having to learn from Hegel, it is clear that there is a veritable treasure-trove here, all the more so since even today the old fellow can give them a number of tough nuts to crack. Tyndall's inaugural lecture, incidentally, is the boldest speech to have been delivered in England to such an audience, and has created a tremendous impression and panic. It is evident that Haeckel's much more incisive manner of speaking has not let him rest. I have the verbatim report in Nature, which you can read here. His acknowledgement to Epicurus will amuse you. So much is certain: the return to a genuinely reflective view of nature is making much more serious progress here in England than in Germany, and people here seek salvation at least in Epicurus, Descartes, Hume and Kant, rather than in Schopenhauer and Hartmann. The
31. Engels to Laura Lafargue. 15 October
French thinkers of the eighteenth century, of course, are still taboo.
In New York, the rowdies and braggarts have obtained a majority in the General Council, and Sorge has abdicated[1]' and completely retired. All the better. It means that we have absolutely no responsibility for the nonsense any more and it will soon die a natural death. How fortunate that we have records of the proceedings!
Quant à la grande politique,h we can fortunately LET IT TAKE CARE OF ITSELF; there will be time enough to laugh about it all when you return.
Otherwise everything here is ALL RIGHT, Jenny looked very well the day before yesterday and was in high spirits. Wroblewski is better and has used the electricity. There was never any question of amputating his arm, only of cutting out a piece of muscle in which, in all probability, a nerve end had become lodged, thus causing the pain. But he must have felt terrible and our money came in the nick of time.
Regards to Meissner from me; I shall be writing to him myself about various matters.
Warmest regards to Tussy, à revoir.
Your
F. E.
31
ENGELS TO LAURA LAFARGUE
IN LONDON
[London,] 15 October 1874 122 Regent's Park Road, N. W. My dear Laura,
If I sent you only one of the three articlesc it was, firstly, because I thought you would have had the two previous ones from
32. Marx to Max Oppenheim. 17 October
your Mama and, secondly, because of No. 1 I had given the few extra copies I had to the Poles for propaganda, and because of No. 2 I had no extra copies at all. I send you now my copy of No. 1 which I shall thank you to return at your convenience; as to No. 2 I have lent it to a friend and as usual not received it back, so that I must get it first before I can send it to you.
Of the Bauernkrieg* I expect to be able to send you, in a few weeks, a new edition with a few words added to the introduction,b
but otherwise unaltered; as usual, the notice given me was too short.
With kindest regards to Lafargue.
I remain
very affectionately yours,
F. Engels
Mrs Engelsc sends her kindest regards to you both.
32
MARX TO MAX OPPENHEIM
IN PRAGUE
London, 17 October 1874
1 Maitland Park Road, N. W.
Dear Mr Oppenheim,
A few days ago I posted off one Capital and one 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte for you and one copy of each of these books for Dr Gans jun. Would you be so kind as to send his copies on to him; he lives in Rosengasse, No. 17, 1st floor, Prague.
When I took my departure from Karlsbad, I did so with the intention of proceeding directly to Hamburg in order to settle my business with the booksellerd there and then to return to London
33. Engels to Hermann Lopatin. About 20 October
as soon as possible to resume my work. I soon discovered, however, that the after-treatment following the strict regime of Karlsbad is not to be taken lightly and so had to spend almost another two weeks romping around Dresden, Leipzig, Berlin and Hamburg. [4 3] Had I foreseen this — and my daughter" and I both regret our mistake — I would have first come to see you in Prague.
Mais l'homme propose et le chemin de fer dispose![1]
I hope that your health has improved and that your business may one day soon bring you in this direction.
My daughter sends you her best regards.
Yours very sincerely,
K. Marx
33
ENGELS T O H E R M A N N L O P A T I N [5 8]
IN PARIS
[London, about 20 October 1874]
...But such was not at all my intention. O n the contrary, I toned down as much as I possibly could, because after perusing the pamphlet: PyccKoü cou.iwi'bHO-peeojiwulioHHOü Monodejicuf I really could no longer bear any grudge to our friend for the uncommonly severe and really unjustifiable expressions he had used towards us. As far as I am concerned nous sommes quittes? and I am ready to shake his hand any time if he takes the thing as easy as I do.
1875
34
Endnotes
[5] The Geneva Congress of the International Working Men's Association took place between 8 and 13 September 1873. Marx and Engels reversed their original intention to take part in its work, since the mounting reprisals against the working-class movement and financial difficulties precluded its being a truly international assembly. Unable to send their own delegations, nearly all the International's organisations handed over their mandates to the delegates of Romance Switzerland. When debating the Rules, the majority led by Johann Philipp Becker confirmed the Hague Congress resolutions (see Note 20) to extend the sphere of competence of the General Council, notwithstanding the opposition of the Swiss delegates Henri Perret and Theodore Duval. The congress emphasised the need for the working class to wage a political struggle. New York remained the seat of the General Council. The Geneva Congress of 1873 was the last congress of the International Working Men's Association.—4
[8] On 14 January 1874, the Sheffield trade union congress refused to declare its solidarity with the Ligue universelle des Corporations ouvrières (see Note 7 ) . - 6
[10] In 1873-74, Engels concentrated on research into German history as he was planning a treatise on the subject. His intention, however, failed to materialise. Judging by the preparatory materials, Engels planned to cover the period right up to 1873 with particular emphasis on the time since the French Revolution. Part of Engels' manuscript, entitled Varia on Germany, is to be found in Vol. 23 of the present edition, and a more detailed version, in Marx-Engels Archives, Russian Edition, Vol. X, Moscow, 1948.— 7
[11] This letter from Marx to George Moore, like that of 28 March, dealt with the business of the firm holding a patent for engraving work; the partners were Paul Lafargue, Benjamin Le Moussu and George Moore. In late summer 1873, Lafargue withdrew from the firm and Marx took his place. The firm fell apart in the spring of 1874.—10
[13] An excerpt from this letter was published in English for the first time in: K. Marx, On History and People, McGraw Hill Book Company, New York, 1977. It appeared 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.—13, 135
[18] Marx is referring to Rudolph Meyer's book Der Emancipationskampf des vierten Standes, which appeared in Berlin in 1874 in instalments. The second instalment was sent to Marx by Kugelmann on 15 April 1874.—17
[21] In May 1874, Alexander II arrived in England to strengthen Russia's contacts with the British government. The stated purpose of the Tsar's visit was to see his daughter Maria Alexandrovna, the Duke of Edinburgh's wife.—18
[22] T h e Crimean War (1853-56), or the Eastern war, was waged by Russia against the allied forces of Britain, France, the Kingdom of Piedmont and Turkey for supremacy in the Levant. It ended in Russia's defeat and the signing of the Paris Peace Treaty in 1856. In acoordance with this treaty, Russia renounced its claims to the 'protection' of the Christian subjects of the Turkish Empire, agreed to the neutralisation of the Black Sea and was forbidden to have military bases and warships there, and recognised the collective protectorate of the great powers over Serbia, Moldavia and Wallachia, which remained under the Sultan's sovereignty. Russia also pledged not to erect fortifications on the Aland Islands.—18, 272
[23] The international conference involving Russia, Britain, Austria-Hungary, Germany, France, Italy and Turkey, held in London in January-March 1871, produced a convention that revoked articles XI, XIII and XIV of the 1856 Paris Treaty. The ban on the presence of Russian and Turkish warships and strongholds in the Black Sea area was lifted.—18
[24] The Ermen-Engels partnership contract signed on 30 June 1864 for a term of five years, which had made Engels a co-owner of the Manchester firm of Ermen & Engels, expired in the summer of 1869. The terms of Engels' withdrawal from the business were set forth in the draft agreement drawn up by him on 2 December 1868: '1) Mr Engels retires from business on the 30th June 1869 and engages not to be interested, either directly or indirectly, as principal or assistant, in any similar or competing business either in England or on the Continent for the term of five years after that date. 2) Mr Engels consents that Mr G. Ermen, if he should think proper to do so, continues the firm of Ermen and Engels as long as he is a partner in the concern. 3) Mr G. Ermen pays Mr Engels on 30th June 1869 the sum of £1750, seventeen hundred and fifty Pounds St. 4) Mr Engels to have the right of keeping £5000 in the concern at 5% Interest between 30th June 69 to 30th June 1870. Manchester, December 2nd 1868.' On 1 July 1869, Engels left the Manchester firm of Ermen & Engels and wholly devoted himself to party, scientific and journalistic pursuits.—19
[25] The Court of Chancery or Court of Equity—one of the high courts of England, which after the judicial reform of 1873 became a division of the High Court of Justice. The jurisdiction of the court, presided over by the Lord Chancellor, covered matters concerning inheritance, contractual obligations, joint-stock companies, etc. In a number of cases the powers of this court overlapped those of other high courts. In contrast to the English common law accepted in other courts, the legal proceedings in the Court of Chancery were conducted on the basis of the so-called law of equity.— 20
[26] An excerpt from this letter was published in English for the first time 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.—21, 82, 222, 324
[27] In the second half of July 1874, Marx took a rest cure in Ryde on the Isle of Wight. Engels was in Ramsgate (Eastbourne) between mid-July and mid-August 1874.—21, 43
[31] The Rurals (the Assembly of the Rurals, the French Rural Assembly)—a derogatory nickname of the French National Assembly convened in February 1871 in Bordeaux and made up mostly of provincial landowners, officials, rentiers and tradesmen elected in the rural constituencies. The majority of the deputies (430 out of 630) were monarchists.— 23, 57
[29] Bismarck spent July and August 1874 at Bad Kissingen where an assassination attempt was made on him on 13 July. It was organised by the Catholic clergy enraged by the Kulturkampf policy he was pursuing (see Note 35). Bismarck was wounded by a shot fired by the artisan Kullmann.— 23, 24, 312
[32] In 1870, the Gladstone government introduced a reform of public education which provided for the opening of secular schools controlled by locally elected school boards (alongside parish schools) at which religious instruction was no longer compulsory. The reform was attacked by the Conservatives. In mid-July 1874, one of them, Lord Sandon, proposed an amendment to the law of 1869 which had established the Endowed Schools Commission. He suggested that the money be henceforth distributed by the Charity Commission, which would have allowed the church to regain the ground it had lost in school education. Sandon's Bill was strongly opposed by the Liberals.— 24, 67
[33] Pierre Magne, the finance minister in the Mac-Mahon government, tried to eliminate the enormous budget deficit of 1873 (149 million francs), among other things by greatly increasing indirect taxes on all everyday necessities. In July 1874, his proposals were discussed in the French National Assembly. They were opposed by the left-wing deputies, who feared discontent and possible mass protests. After a stormy debate, some of Magne's proposals were rejected, and he was forced to resign.— 24
[34] In July 1874, Padua and Arqua (Italy), Avignon and Vaucluse (France) hosted a festival to mark the quincentenary of the death of Petrarch, the great Italian lyric poet. The choice of venues was not accidental. The 'new man', as Petrarch has been called, spent his last years in Arqua near Padua. In Avignon, the Popes' residence from 1309, he was ordained, which gave him access to the papal court. In Vaucluse near Avignon, Petrarch spent four years (1337-41) in total seclusion, and later repeatedly returned there to work and rest. It was here that he wrote or conceived most of his works.— 25
[36] government sought to subjugate the clergy and cripple the Party of the Centre.
[37] With this end in view, it passed laws (1871-75) curtailing the rights of the
[38] Catholic clergy and abolishing the Catholic Church's right of supervision over
[41] the 1870s and the early 1880s, as the working-class movement began to grow,
[42] Bismarck effected a reconciliation with the Catholic Church in an effort to
[44] An excerpt from this letter was published in English for the first time in: K. Marx. On Education, Women and Children. Arranged and edited with an introduction and new translations by Saul K. Padover. McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, 1975.—33
[45] In November 1873-March 1874, Russia witnessed mass arrests among the revolutionary-minded intellectuals and students in St Petersburg, Moscow, Kiev, Odessa and some other cities. The arrests broke up the Narodnik (Populist) group of the so-called Chaikovists (after the name of N. V. Chaikovsky, one of its founders). The members of the group conducted propaganda among the workers, in particular they read extracts from the first volume of Capital and published revolutionary literature. They were the first to issue Marx's work The Civil War in France in Russian. The majority of those arrested were involved in the 'trial of the 193' in 1877-78, the biggest political trial of the Narodniks in Tsarist Russia.— 33
[46] A reference to the abortive attempts by Italian anarchists to launch an uprising in Bologna and Apulia early in the morning of 8 August 1874.— 35
[48] On 30 August 1874, the Viennese newspaper Der Sprudel reported: 'The long-standing leader of the International, Marx, and the head of the Russian Nihilists, the Polish Count Plater, have arrived at Karlsbad for a cure.' The next issue (No. 19, 6 September 1874) stated that Count Plater was associated neither with the Russian Nihilists nor with the International.— 37
[49] This letter was published in English for the first time, in an abridged form, in: K. Marx, F. Engels, Selected Letters. The Personal Correspondence, 1844-1877. Edited by Fr. J. Raddatz, Boston, Toronto, [1981].—38, 243
[51] Engels spent the time between 28 July and 8 November 1857 at seaside resorts, including St Hélier in Jersey, where Marx visited him in early October.—39
[52] An extract from this letter was published in English for the first time in: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, Correspondence. 1846-1895, Martin Lawrence Ltd., London, 1934.—40, 122, 258, 275, 282, 299
[53] Sorge withdrew from the General Council on 12 August 1874 and informed Engels about this on 14 August; his official resignation followed on 25 September.—41
[56] The plan to start a workers' newspaper called the Neue Rheinische Zeitung in Cologne failed to materialise at that time.— 50
[57] Engels is referring to John Tyndall's inaugural address to the 44th congress of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, which opened in Belfast on 19 August 1874 (the address was published in Nature, No. 251, 20 August 1874), and to Henry Huxley's speech 'On the Hypothesis that Animals Are Automats, and Its History' made at the Association's meeting of 24 August (Nature, No. 253, 3 September 1874). Engels used Tyndall's speech in his Dialectics of Nature (see present edition, Vol. 25, p. 481).—50
[58] The only passage of this letter by Engels to have survived is the one quoted by Hermann Lopatin in his letter to Pyotr Lavrov of 27 October 1874. Engels wrote this letter in reply to Lopatin's letter of 15 October dealing with Engels' articles Refugee Literature. Lavrov was sharply criticised in one of them for his conciliatory attitude towards the Bakuninists (see present edition, Vol. 24, pp. 19-21). Lopatin quotes the passage in English and introduces it in the following way: 'Engels himself sent me his short article. In the letters that we exchanged in this connection he assures that he has tried to show restraint and did not wish exploiter à fond this issue.'—53
[1] This letter was published in English for the first time in Letters to Dr. Kugelmann by Karl Marx, Co-operative Publishing Society of Foreign Workers in the USSR, Moscow-Leningrad, 1934.—3, 17, 21, 31, 32
[2] Worried by the report of Marx's illness in the Frankfurter Zeitung, Ludwig Kugelmann wrote to Engels on 13 January 1874 asking him for more information concerning the state of Marx's health.—3
[3] Marx, accompanied by his daughter Eleanor, took a rest cure at Harrogate between 24 November and 15 December 1873.— 3, 17
[4] In the Reichstag elections of 10 January 1874, the German Social Democrats scored a significant victory. The number of votes cast for them rose from 41,461 in 1871 to 171,351; six deputies (including Wilhelm Liebknecht and August Bebel, who were serving a prison sentence at the time) were elected, as against two at the 1871 elections. For the first time, three seats went to the General Association of German Workers which polled 180,319 votes. Alongside the left-wingers, the clerical Party of the Centre (see Note 423) also managed to strengthen its position. Marx referred to its members as the 'ultramontanes'. The latter advocated unlimited authority for the Catholic Church and opposed the Kulturkampf (see Note 35) pursued by Bismarck. Engels learned about the results of the elections from Kugelmann's letter of 13 January 1874.—3, 6, 43
[6] The reference is to the address 'Compagnons, notre Association traverse...' issued in Geneva in August 1873 and signed by H. Perret, C. Bernard, T. Duval, M. Josseron, P. Detallancourt, H. Renauld and Laplace. Timed to coincide with the Geneva Congress (see Note 5), it was directed against some of the Hague Congress resolutions (see Note 20) on organisational issues.—4
[7] The Ligue universelle des Corporations ouvrières was set up in late 1873-early 1874 by Perret and other members of the Swiss working-class movement. The attempts by the League's founders to involve German and British trade unions in its work having failed, the League ceased to exist.—5
[9] In the Reichstag elections of 10 January 1874, Johann Jacoby failed to obtain a majority vote in any of the constituencies where he had been nominated. At the second ballot held on 27 January, he was elected in the Leipzig Constituency, but refused to take up his seat in protest at the Imperial Constitution. As a result, the Social-Democrats lost one seat in the Reichstag. Jacoby's conduct was criticised by Der Volksstaat, 20 February 1874.—7, 9
[12] Marx's letter has not been found.—10, 31, 33, 34, 75, 176, 189, 193, 222, 270, 276, 311, 353, 376, 382, 412
[16] This letter was published in English for the first time 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.—15, 34, 37, 45, 55, 87, 143, 188, 191, 267, 416
[17] A reference to the French edition of the first volume of Capital. An attempt to translate Marx's principal work into French was first made by Charles Keller, a member of the Paris Section of the International. Between October 1869 and April 1870, he translated about 400 pages which he sent to Marx for editing, After the defeat of the Paris Commune, however, Keller was forced to emigrate to Switzerland, where he embraced Bakuninist views, after which Marx terminated co-operation with him. In December 1871, Paul Lafargue assisted Marx in concluding a contract for the publication of Capital with the progressive French journalist and publisher Maurice Lachâtre. The contract was signed on 15 February 1872. Under it, Capital was to appear in 44 instalments, one printer's sheet each. The work appeared between 1872 and 1875 in two instalments at a time, but was sold in series of five instalments each, making nine series in all. The last instalments having come out, the series were stitched together and sold as separate books. The first volume of Capital was translated into French by Joseph Roy. Marx did not think much of the effort and made a vast number of alterations, in fact, revised the book. As he himself said, the authorised French translation had an independent scientific value alongside the German original. In this edition, the first volume of Capital is published in Engels' authorised English translation with the interpolations from the French edition given in the Appendix (see present edition, Vol. 35).— 15, 16, 17, 26, 56, 57, 58, 70, 75, 80, 93, 113, 166, 276, 282, 287
[15] Engels' letter has not been found.—14, 15, 24, 38, 66, 130, 132, 134, 159, 180, 184, 195, 201, 219, 243, 257, 271, 316, 345, 369, 375
[19] The agricultural labourers' movement for shorter working hours and higher wages in the central and eastern counties of England began in March 1872 with a strike in Warwickshire, where the Agricultural Labourers' Union was set up. In May 1872, the National Agricultural Labourers' Union was formed under Joseph Arch's leadership and by late 1873 its membership had reached about 100,000. By April 1874, the strikers managed to win a pay rise.—18, 29
[20] The Hague Congress (2-7 September 1872) of the International Working Men's Association was the most representative in its history. Present at the congress were 65 delegates from 15 countries. It took stock of the campaign against Bakuninism within the International and mapped out a programme of action suited to the new conditions that had emerged after the Paris Commune. Its main decision was to endorse the London Conference (1871) resolution on the political action of the working class concisely formulated as Art. 7 a of the International's Rules. The congress also reached a number of decisions aimed at consolidating the Association's organisational structure. After the congress, the Bakuninists declared their disagreement with its resolutions, causing what amounted to a split in the International. The Hague Congress laid the foundation for future political parties of the working class in various countries.—18, 42, 114, 156, 157, 184, 214, 258, 339
[30] On 20 November 1873, the French National Assembly passed a law on the septennium, which allowed Mac-Mahon to hold the post of president of the republic for seven years (up to 20 November 1880). This signified consolidation of the President's individual power and bolstered the monarchists' position. The monarchist parties' attempts to have the National Assembly dissolved and the monarchy restored made in the summer of 1874 provoked indignation in republican quarters. Fearing an outburst on the part of the republican-minded masses, on 9 July Mac-Mahon issued an address to the Assembly stating that he would use all available means to retain the power granted him for the term of seven years. At the same time, he demanded an early introduction of new laws that would, to all intents and purposes, secure his dictatorship. Specifically, he demanded that the President be given a right to dissolve the Assembly, announce new elections and form the majority in parliament.— 23, 24
[55] The reference is to the German Workers' Educational Society in London founded in February 1840 by Karl Schapper, Joseph Moll and other members of the League of the Just. After the establishment of the Communist League in 1847, the leading role in the Society was assumed by the League's local communities. Marx and Engels were actively involved in its work in 1847 and 1849-50. On 17 September 1850, Marx, Engels and some of their followers left the Society in protest at the domination of the Willich-Schapper group, and rejoined it only in the late 1850s. After the foundation of the International Working Men's Association, the Society with Lessner among its leaders, became its German section in London. The London Educational Society existed until 1918, when it was closed down by the British government.—49, 351, 363, 364, 434, 443
[39] the schools. Bismarck used the anti-Catholic campaign to bolster Prussian
[40] influence in the Polish lands under Prussian jurisdiction. In the second half of
[43] consolidate the forces of reaction, and most of these laws were repealed.— 25, 84 In his letter of 24 June 1874 Lachâtre requested Marx to pass on his proposal to start a joint magazine or newspaper in London to the French émigré journalist Rochefort.— 25 Marx (accompanied by his daughter Eleanor) took a cure at Karlsbad from 19 August to 21 September 1874. Having returned to London on 3 October, he resumed work on the French translation of the first volume of Capital and finished editing the last instalments in late January 1875 (see this volume, pp. 55-56).—26 Under the contract signed by Marx and Maurice Lachâtre in February 1872 (see Note 17), the French edition of the first volume of Capital was to appear in instalments. The delay in the publication, which took four years (1872-75), was caused, alongside the circumstances mentioned in this letter, by the growth of political reaction following the Paris Commune. In mid-1875, the French government transferred legal rights over Lachâtre's publishing house in Paris to Adolph Quest, an official who procrastinated with the printing of the last instalments of Capital and did his best to obstruct its dissemination.— 26, 153, 227 Jenny Longuet's health was shaken by the death of her first son, Charles, in late July 1874. On 6 August, Marx took her to Ramsgate, where Engels was on holiday at the time. Marx stayed with .them until 9 August. In the second half of August, Engels with his family and Jenny Longuet took a trip to Jersey and returned to London on 5 September.—27, 38 Before leaving for Karlsbad for medical treatment in August 1874, Marx applied for British naturalisation to the Home Office as a precaution against possible reprisals by the Austrian authorities. The application was, however, turned down, ostensibly because Marx had failed to be 'loyal to his own King and Country' (see present edition, Vol. 24, p. 564).—28, 29, 35 An extract from this letter was published in English for the first time in: K. Marx and F. Engels, Letters to Americans. 1848-1895. A Selection. International Publishers, New York, 1953.—28, 410 Marx is referring to the inaugural congress of the Austrian Social-Democratic Workers' Party illegally held in Neudörf on 5 and 6 April 1874. Present at it were 74 delegates, 10 of them representing Czech workers' organisations that favoured a single Austrian Social-Democratic Party incorporating workers' organisations in the Slav territories. The congress founded the party and elected its leading bodies. The Délnické listy (Workers' Paper) published in Prague in Czech was to become the party's central printed organ alongside the Gleichheit.—30 On 15 August 1874 Marx, accompanied by his daughter Eleanor, left for Karlsbad (Karlovy Vary) on doctors' recommendations, where he stayed from 19 August to 21 September. On the way back to London, Marx stopped off in Dresden, Leipzig, Berlin and Hamburg. In Leipzig, where he stayed approximately from 25 to 28 September, he had talks about the state of the German working-class movement with Wilhelm Liebknecht and Wilhelm Bios, as well as with members of the Leipzig party branch. While in Hamburg on 29 September-1 October, Marx met Social-Democratic leaders.— 32, 33, 35, 43, 45, 48, 53, 58, 119
[50] Engels is probably referring to José Mesa's letter of 24 August 1874. The latter wrote that despite his enforced move to Paris he still kept in touch with members of the Spanish section of the International Working Men's Association in Madrid, on which Engels could rely, and supplied a number of addresses.—39, 43
[54] On 7-13 September 1874, a number of organisations that had found themselves outside the International due to their refusal to recognise the Hague Congress resolutions (see Note 20) held a congress in Brussels that declared itself the seventh congress of the International Working Men's Association. It was attended by members of anarchist groups from Switzerland, Spain and Belgium, two Lassalleans — members of German workers' organisations in Belgium — and Eccarius, who had been delegated by the breakaway faction of the British Federation. The congress revealed disagreement among the participants, including the anarchists themselves, on the issue of the working class' attitude to the state.—42, 49