1876
(PAY ATTENTION TO THE ADDRESS; IT IS 4 [1] NOW
INSTEAD OF 1 , BUT SAME STREET)
My dear Friend,
It gave me great pleasure to see your handwriting again at last. My interpretation of your silence was correct, that is to say it tallied with your own explanation. I assure that we over here have also experienced more than enough mudslinging, though it was not done in so brazenly public a manner (and even that wasn't lacking in the early days after the Hague Congress[20]). But here one might say with Chernyshevsky: 'He who treads the path of history must not be afraid of getting besmirched'.[146]
I sent you the last fifteen livraisons du* Capitalh at the beginning of January, namely on Monday 3 January (I made a note of every copy I sent off at that time, which is why I know the date). However, I'm not surprised that you haven't had them, for no less than three copies consigned to Paris from here did not arrive, and fresh ones had to be sent off. At the beginning of January there is such a HURLY-BURLY in the post office over here that to send anything by post is irresponsible. I shall send you a further fifteen numbers this week. I only regret that you didn't get consignment No. 1, since it is precisely this part, in particular the section on the accumulation process, that I have substantially revised and hence would like you to have read.
Engels and I cannot come to Philadelphia[14]' because we have too much work on our hands — I, especially, have even less time to spare inasmuch as MY STATE OF HEALTH still compels me to lose ABOUT 2 MONTHS taking the cure at Karlsbad.
78. Engels to Philipp Pauli. 25 April
We intend to apply ourselves to the Communist Manifesto; but the time is not yet ripe for a decision on the appendix.[148]
And now I have various requests to make of you:
1. Might I have my 'Tribune'* articles (ex, I think, Weydemeyer's effects) which had been kept by our friend Meyerb before his untimely death. I have got none of them.
2. Could the American book catalogues from 1873 up till the present be sent to me from New York (needless to say at my own expense)? The point is I want to see for myself (for the second volume of Capital) what has appeared that might, perhaps, be of use as regards American agriculture and relations of landownership, ditto as regards credit (panic, money, etc., and anything connected therewith).[62]
3. There is absolutely nothing to be gleaned from the English newspapers about the present scandalous goings-on in the United States.[1] Have you by chance kept any American PAPERS that refer to them?
With warmest regards from all the family.
Totus tuus,c
Karl Marx
78
ENGELS TO PHILIPP PAULI
IN RHEINAU
London, 25 April 1876
122 Regent's Park Road, N. W.
Dear Pauli,
I really don't know how we can thank you and your wife for all the kindness and friendship you have shown our Pumps,d so much so that she evidently feels completely at home with you. If her year en pension remains in her memory as the happiest of her life, it is you and your dear wife she has to thank for it.
She has told us of a nice little scheme which she devised when with you, and apparently with your help, aimed at bringing us all together at Whitsuntide. Unfortunately, as is usually the case with girls of her age, she has forgotten to tell us the most important thing of all, namely when in June her holidays begin. If I remember rightly, Miss Schupp said the holidays were in July, this being the hottest month of the year. So I shall first have to extract more accurate information from Mamsell Pumps on this point before I and my wife can come to any decision.
I hardly need tell you that it would give us both great pleasure to spend Whitsuntide with you at Rheinau.[100] Unfortunately my wife always feels somewhat seedy in the springtime, and for that there is only one doctor — sea air, so I shall see whether I can't send her there for a few weeks, in which case the trip to Germany would do her twice as much good.
We were quite delighted when Pumps wrote to say that Mrs Pauli had decided to come to England with us. That is splendid, and we only trust that Pumps is voicing not simply a hope but a firm decision to be implemented without fail, even if the Whitsuntide excursion comes to nothing through Pumps having possibly made a miscalculation about her holidays, for after all the summer lasts a long time and she will have to be fetched whatever happens. However, we prefer to hope that Pumps is right and that the combined strategical operation will go off splendidly. Needless to say we shall do everything we can to make your wife's stay here as agreeable as possible and to induce her to prolong it until you yourself come to fetch her. Projet contre projet!'' Schorlemmer and Allman, if the latter hasn't gone away, would also be summoned, and the former will probably spend a fortnight with us at the seaside as he did last year. So we shall regard the thing as settled, the only point at issue being whether it takes place a fortnight earlier or later.
Schorlemmer was here for a few days in March; he looked very well and was very cheerful.
We got Mrs Pauli's letter in due course and were glad to learn that the pudding, after its long Odyssey, had arrived undamaged at its destination and had met with approval.
80. Engels to Marx. 24 May
With warm regards from my wife and myself to you, your wife and the children.
Most cordially yours,
F. Engels
79. Marx to Pyotr Lavrov. 18 May
Dear Friend,
Pio's address is 15 Hargwyne Street, Stockwell, S. W.
Yours ever,
Karl Marx
80
ENGELS TO MARX
IN LONDON
Ramsgate,[151] 24 May 1876 3 Adelaide Gardens Dear Moor,
I have just received the two letters enclosed herewith.[152] The curse of paid agitators, of the semi-literate, lies heavy on our party in Germany. If things go on at this rate the Lassalleans will soon be more lucid than anyone else because they assimilate less rubbish and Lassalle's writings provide the least noxious form of agitation. I wonder what this man Most really wants of us and what we should do to satisfy him. Obviously, these people imagine that Dühring, by his scurrilous onslaughts upon you, has rendered himself invulnerable vis-à-vis ourselves, for, if we make fun of his theoretical nonsense, it will look as though it's out of revenge for those personalities! The ruder Dühring is, the more humble and propitiating we are to be, and can, in fact, thank our stars that Mr Most, besides requiring us to point out Mr Dühring's howlers kindly and privily to him (as if nothing more than howlers was involved) in order that he might eliminate them from the next edition,[153] shouldn't ask us to kiss his most worthy of posteriors. This fellow — Most, I mean — has contrived to do a résumé of the whole of Capital[1]^[4] without understanding a word of the thing. Of this the letter provides striking proof while showing up the fellow for what he is. All such nonsense would be out of the question if only, instead of Wilhelm,[3] there were at the top a man with some modicum of theoretical insight, someone who wasn't eager to print every and any kind of nonsense — the crazier the better — and commend it to the workers with all the authority of the Volksstaat.
Enfin,h the business has made my blood boil, and the question is whether it isn't about time we seriously reconsidered our position vis-à-vis these gentlemen.[153]
So far as that silly ass Wilhelm is concerned, all this is simply a welcome pretext to dun us for manuscripts. What a party leader!
I enclose an interesting news item from Constantinople in yesterday's Daily Newsc; one is all the more prepared to credit the man in that the softas' revolution lo6 goes very much against the grain with him. The affair in the east is about TO COME TO A HEAD; the Serbians' renewed attempt to raise a loan, likewise their suspension of bills of exchange and the fresh demands of the Herzegovinian insurgentslo7 are all evidence of the extent of Russia's machinations there. I am curious to see what turn things will take.
We've had our first rainy day here; yesterday there was only a brief shower. I hope all continues to go well with Jenny.[158] Lizzie and I send our love to all of you, the Longuets and Lafargues.
Your
F. E.
81. Marx to Engels. 25 May
I have just noticed that Wilhelm has sent me the whole of Most's manuscript1M in a wrapper. Who knows whether that is interna-tionally admissible and hence whether it will arrive? Would you go and see some time if it's there and, IF SO, send it to me? I shall be staying here until the Friday of next week![1] Mrs Leeson will show you where she keeps any papers, etc., that arrive for me.
81
MARX TO ENGELS
IN RAMSGATE
[London,] 25 May 1876
Dear FRED,
At the same time as this letter I am posting off Most's manuscript[159] in the inadequately packed state in which it arrived. I opened the enclosed scrawl from Wilhelmb because I thought it had something to do with Most's affair. In addition, I removed from your house a communication from the GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY intending to forward it to you because I thought it was a business letter, but now discover it to be simply a PROGRAMME OF
TOURIST ARRANGEMENTS.
I consider that, if one is to adopt a 'position vis-à-vis these gentlemen' one can do so only by criticising Dühring without any compunction. He has obviously been secretly at work among the literary loutish careerists devoted to him in order to obviate such criticism; they for their part have been counting on Liebknecht's weakness of which they are well aware. It was, BY THE BY, Liebknecht's duty, and he should be told as much, to let these laddies know that he had repeatedly asked for such criticism and that we had long (for the business started after my first return from Karlsbad[43]) refused on the grounds that the work was too paltry. As he knows, and as his letters to us go to prove, the thing only seemed worth doing when, by repeatedly passing on to us the louts' letters, he drew our attention to the threat of debased propaganda within the party.lob
As regards Mr Most in specie,[3] he must by the nature of things regard Dühring as an authentic thinker because of the latter's having broadcast the discovery, not only in a lecture to workers in Berlin, but subsequently in black and white, that Most was the only one to have made some sense out of Capital.[160] Dühring systematically flatters these louts — something they cannot complain we do. Most and Co.'s vexation over the way you dumbfounded the Swabian Proudhonist[161] is typical. It serves as a terrible example before which they quail, and they are trying to prevent such a thing ever happening again by means of tittle-tattle, stalwart bonhomie and outraged brotherly love.
Certainly, the root of the trouble is and will remain Liebknecht's want of manuscripts, in which, generally speaking, his editorial talent seems to be concentrated. However, the pettiness with which he avoids according Becker's history of the French Commune[13] so much as a word of recognition, let alone publishing an extract or two from it, proves that even the want of manuscripts is not the only governing factor.
You may remember that, in a recent conversation we had about Turkey, I drew your attention to the possibility of a puritan party (based on the Koran) amongst the Turks. This has now supervened. According to a news item from Constantinople in the Frankfurter Zeitung, there is a plan, if things continue as they are, to remove the Sultan and put his brother in his place.[162] The correspondent, who speaks Turkish and has much personal intercourse with Turks in Constantinople, insists inter alia that they know very well what Ignatiyev is up to, and that he is the source of all the disquieting rumours circulating among the Christians in Constantinople. Of one thing we may be sure: the Turks are not to be got rid of WITHOUT HARNESS ON THEIR BACK, and the Russians, who did not dare (or, perhaps, could not, due to lack of money) act swiftly and thus seize time by the forelock, may perhaps by the present ADVENTURE contribute more to the collapse of their own régime than to that of the Turks in Europe.
Jennychen is well, but the little boy is somewhat seedy, though it's nothing of consequence, the doctor says. He is to be called Jean (after Longuet's father) Laurent (NICKNAME OF LAURA) Frederick (in your honour).
The Copenhagen people have invited me by telegram, as well as in a letter to Pio (who left on Mondaya), to attend a working men's congress (beginning of June).[163] It's fantastic to suppose I should now be able to give guest performances of this kind.
Today our park has been boarded off. Funny how ancient Teutonic customs survive as curiosities in England. This is the safeguarding of 'genuine freehold' by fencing off and hence separating it from the common mark.
Pumps has written long letters to my wife and Tussy. Even if the spelling sometimes isn't up to scratch, she has really made astonishing progress in the matter of style and ease of expression, which are far more important.
Kindest regards to Madame Lizzy.
Your
K. Marx
What a jackass Dizzyb has become! At a moment when England is completely isolated, he insists on keeping a dozen or more Fenians to himself![164]
As regards 'Richter'/ Liebknecht shouldn't confine himself to mere HINTS when uttering warnings of this kind.[165] While there may be a possibility that my address book disappeared along with Richter, I don't for the time being believe it.
The fact of Eichhoff's working for Arnim was, of course, known to us long before Liebknecht, nor is there anything in the least surprising about it, in view of Eichhoff's hatred of Bismarck and Stieber. Notabene, in the Frankfurter Zeitung there is a Prussian warrant against Arnim, in accordance with which he is to be relieved of his money and handed over to the Berlin police; the authorities abroad will have their expenses paid and are assured of their services being requited in kind! (This on account of the suppression of documents for which he had already been sentenced.) [166]
82. Engels to Marx. 28 May
82
ENGELS TO MARX[52]
IN LONDON
Ramsgate, 28 May 1876
Dear Moor,
It's all very well for you to talk. You can lie in a warm bed — study Russian agrarian relations in particular and rent in general without anything to interrupt you — but I have to sit on a hard bench, drink cold wine, and all of a sudden drop everything else and break a lance with the tedious Dühring.[155] However, it can't be helped, I suppose, even if it means letting myself in for a controversy to which there is no foreseeable end; for otherwise I'll get no peace, and anyway, amicus[3] Most's panegyric on Dühring's
Cursus der Philosophie[159] has shown me exactly from what quarter and how the attack must be made. It's essential to include that book as well because in many crucial points it reveals the weak sides and foundations of the arguments contained in the Ökono-mie more clearly.[167] I shall order it straight away. For there's no philosophy proper — formal logic, dialectics, metaphysics, etc.—in it at all, rather it's supposed to present a course in general knowledge in which nature, history, society, state, law, etc., are discussed in what purports to be an internal relation. Again, there is a whole chapter in which the future, or so-called 'free', society is depicted in its less economic aspects and, inter alia, a syllabus is already laid down for the primary and secondary schools of the future. Here, then, one finds platitudinousness in an even simpler form than in the political economy, so that, by taking both books together, one can kill two birds with one stone by exposing that side of the fellow as well. As regards the magnanimous chap's view of history — that it was nothing but rubbish till Dühring came along — the book affords one the additional advantage of being able to quote his own preposterous words. ANYHOW, I HAVE HIM ON THE HIP Now.b My plan is laid—j'ai mon plan. I shall begin by taking a wholly objective and apparently serious look at the stuff; then, as evidence of its nonsensicality on the one hand and platitudinousness on the other begins to mount up, my treatment of it will become correspond-ingly severe until eventually I come down on it like a ton of bricks.
In this way Most & Co. will be deprived of the plea of 'uncharitableness', etc., while Diihring will still get his deserts. These gentlemen ought to be shown that we have more ways than one of dealing with such folk.
I hope Wilhelm[3] will print Most's article in the Neue Welt, for which it was evidently written. As always, Most is incapable of copying and has Dühring write the most absurd nonsense about natural science, e.g. the detachment of rings (according to Kant's theory) from fixed starsl
The trouble with Wilhelm isn't simply a want of manuscripts, something that could be overcome by printing more articles on topical questions, etc., as was done in Hepner's and Bios' time. It is Wilhelm's urge to make good the shortcomings of our theory, to have an answer to every philistine objection and to have a picture of future society, because that's another thing about which your philistine is always pestering them with questions; he is, besides, intent on being as independent of us theoretically as possible, and in this, considering his complete ignorance of theory, he has always been far more successful than he himself is aware. But he has thus put me in the position of having to remind myself that, compared with the theoretical bunglers on the Volksstaat, Dühring is at least an educated man and his operab are better at any rate than the products of these subjectively and objectively obscure gentlemen.
You were absolutely right about the Turkish business and I only hope the affair will proceed satisfactorily; during the past week it appears to have hung fire somewhat and an oriental revolution, more than any other, calls for a prompt decision. The Sultanc— and this is the reason for the complaints about his constant requests for money — has accumulated a vast HOARD in the palace, so vast that the softas[156] have demanded that he hand over £5,000,000 of it, which means that there must be far more. The presentation of the Gorchakov Note of 3 emperors will, one may hope, bring the matter to a head.
Please convey my best thanks to Jenny and Longuet for the honour they have done me; I shall try and show myself worthy of it. I trust the little boy with the three potent names is all right again.*[1]
My re-reading of early history and my studies in the field of natural science have rendered me yeoman service where Dühr-
83. Marx to Friedrich Adolph Sorge. 14 June
inga is concerned, and have done much to make things easier for me. Natural science, in particular, is a field in which I feel very much more at home and one in which I am able to move about with a fair amount of freedom and assurance, albeit with considerable caution. I am beginning to see an end even to this task.[169] The thing's beginning to take shape in my head, no small contributory factor being the idle existence here at the seaside, where I am able to turn over the details in my mind. In so vast a field it is absolutely essential to break off one's systematic studies every now and again, and ruminate upon what one has learnt.
Ever since 1853 Mr Helmholtz has been continuously harping upon the thing-in-itself and hasn't got it sorted out yet. The fellow doesn't hesitate to go on calmly bringing out reprints of the balderdash he had published before Darwin.[170]
Lizzie and I send our love to all of you. We shall be returning to London '3l on Friday.b I'm very glad to hear that Pumps is doing so well in the matter of stylec; I, of course, have noticed it too, if to a lesser extent.
Your
F. E.
83
MARX TO FRIEDRICH ADOLPH SORGE[171]
IN HOBOKEN
[London, 14 June 1876]
Dear Friend,
I am today sending you for the third time livraisons[4] Nos. 31-44 of Capital"; should you once more fail to receive them, let me
84. Marx to Wilhelm Liebknecht. 14 June
know immediately, then I shall pick a SERIOUS QUARREL with the GENERAL POST OFFICE here. As for meddling by Dr Kugelmann (resp. Meissner, which I cannot credit, though I shall inquire further from the man himself), I was greatly surprised to hear of it since I am not yet a 'goner' and hence no one apart from myself has any say in the disposal of my writings.[172]
By 'scandalous goings-on' I meant what you suppose, but shan't be needing it until towards the end of September.[3]
Shall send you a copy of the Most,[1]'[4] corrected by me, forthwith; didn't put my name to it because I should then have had to make even more alterations (I had to delete the bits about value, money, wages and much else, and substitute things of my own).
More anon. Warm regards from the whole FAMILY.
Your
K. M.
84
MARX TO WILHELM LIEBKNECHT[173]
IN LEIPZIG
[London, 14 June 1876]
Herewith — for communication to those concerned in Chemnitz — a copy of Most's thing, with corrections of what are often very bad printing errors.[1]'[4]
Warmest regards from one family to the other,
Your
K. M.
85. Marx to Pyotr Lavrov. 14 June
[Address in Marx's handwriting on the postcard]
Via Ostend W. Liebknecht, Esq.,
11, Braustrasse, Leipzig (Germany)
85
MARX TO PYOTR LAVROV
IN LONDON
[London,] 14 June 1876
Dear Friend,
Engels will already have informed you that Liebknecht and his friends have reason to regard Richter as under suspicion—of spying.[160] If this were to be confirmed, it would also explain why my address book — containing the addresses of my correspondents in various countries—-should have disappeared after the last visit which Richter deigned to pay me. The grave disquiet this business is causing me is solely on account of a few people in Russia.
Pio should be warned as well.
Yours ever,
K. Marx
86. Marx to Pyotr Lavrov. 15 June
86
MARX TO PYOTR LAVROV
IN LONDON
[London,] 15 June 1876
My dear Friend,
I am delighted to see from your letter that the suspicions about R.a cannot be anything other than figments of the imagination.
Liebknecht first wrote to Engels, telling him that certain suspicions attached to R. and that he (Engels) should privately warn our Russian friends in London.b l6r> Engels replied that he would do nothing so long as Liebknecht had not informed him of the facts upon which those suspicions were based. Then Liebknecht wrote saying that one evening, while in the company of several members of the Volksstaat's despatch department and some other working men, R., who was not altogether sober, tried to filch a packet of letters (from the Volksstaat) intended for the post, that his friends did not try to stop him, but went with him to the post office and made him post the packet. The matter was reported to Liebknecht, so that it was not he, but the working men — who had previously trusted R. implicitly — who raised the alarm. Liebknecht himself says that the adage 'in vino Veritas"[2] is very far from being gospel truth, but nevertheless the incident gives food for thought. As you well know, once a suspicion of this kind has been aroused, other evidence invariably comes to mind which, however vague, lends itself to unfavourable interpretation.
In my opinion, Liebknecht was doing no more than his duty in reporting the matter; neither he (and up to a point this also applies to me) nor his friends were aware of the intimate ties between R. and yourself; otherwise he would certainly not have thought it necessary to have you informed. Misunderstandings of this kind can best be cleared up by plain speaking. In the life of a militant party one must be ready for anything; I, at any rate, was not at all surprised when I was accused of being one of Mr Bismarck's agents.
Engels was here last night. I asked him if he had written to you; he said he had not; he did not think it right to write to you on the subject, since Liebknecht had enjoined him to inform you
87. Engels to Pyotr Lavrov. 16 June
privately, and he had not yet had time to go and see you. I told him I had written to you, whereupon he said he would also write.[3]
I shall write and give Liebknecht the gist of your letter. At the same time I feel that it might be better not to let R. know anything about what has happened. When Liebknecht shows my letter to his friends, the latter — I feel sure — will do all in their power (for they are honest working men) to right the wrong they have done their comrade.
Last week's Pall Mall Gazette carried an article fulminating against Russia's financial policy.(1)
Yours ever,
K. Marx
87
ENGELS TO PYOTR LAVROV
IN LONDON
[London,] 16 June 1876 122 Regent's Park Road
My dear Mr Lavrov,
A short while ago Liebknecht wrote asking me to inform you that R.c was under suspicion and, since I could not undertake such a mission without so much as a single fact to go on, I told him so outright.
Here is his reply, which I pass on to you in strict confidence:
'Last winter R. tried in the most conspicuous way to get hold of a packet of letters that was due to be sent me in Berlin. He was tipsy and, in consequence, went about it clumsily so that he was caught out. For hours, befuddled as he was, he was obsessed by the thought of getting hold of the packet, and in this he succeeded, but was forced by his companions to drop it into the letter-box, which he did after an attempt to substitute it had failed. Those who were present on this occasion had, up
88. Engels to Pyotr Lavrov. 30 June
till then, been absolutely convinced of his honesty, but now they began to «under. Drunkenness, it is true, sometimes brings strange thoughts into a man's head, but nothing that had not already been there when he was sober. In vino Veritas" does after all have a modicum of truth in it. I shall not mention here other highly suspicious circumstances, these not being so grave as the one I have related. But it is noteworthy that R. should have repeatedly offered himself as intermediary in the carrying of letters and that he should have asked for introductions to all manner of party members.'(1)
I am sorry that repeated interruptions should have prevented my passing on this communication before now; I really don't know what to make of the thing.
I trust that this letter finds you in good health. My regards to Mr Smirnov.
Yours ever,
F. Engels
88
ENGELS TO PYOTR LAVROV
IN LONDON
London, 30 June 1876
My dear Mr Lavrov,
To console you for the ban placed by Mr Bismarck on Vperedb
in Germany, I must inform you that, six days since, I saw it on public display in bookshop windows in Heidelberg.[1]'[4] Mr Bismarck
89. Engels to Marx. 25 July
has not yet discovered a way of teaching all his policemen the letters of the Russian alphabet.
Yours ever,
F. Engels
89
ENGELS TO MARX
IN LONDON
Ramsgate,[175] 25 July 1876 11 Camden Square Dear Moor,
Have written to Lafargue asking him to let us know what day he is arriving, Friday or Saturday.[15]
Herewith Wilhelm'sa letter with enclosure by Most. You see what sort of people they are — both of them. Take Wilhelm's portentous attitude to the 'attempts at a rapprochement'.b As though one — that is anyone — could become involved with canaille who have been convicted of such treason! And as though any kind of rapprochement could lead to anything! What is supposed to happen when they have effected it? If, circumstances being what they are and the situation what it is, these people want to resume the role of the International, LET THEM PLEASE THEMSELVES AND BAD MANNERS
TO THEM!
The COLLAPSE of the Serbs is stupendous.[176] The campaign was intended to set the whole of Turkey in flames, and everywhere the tinder is damp — Montenegro has betrayed the campaign for her own private ends, Bosnia has absolutely no intention of rebelling now that Serbia proposes to liberate her, and the worthy Bulgarians aren't lifting a finger. The Serbian army of liberation is having to live at its own expense and, after a swashbuckling
90. Marx to Engels. 26 July
offensive, withdraw into its robber's lair without having been seriously defeated anywhere.— No doubt that will also serve as a lesson to the Romanians, in which case the Russian plans will be pretty well in the soup.
For the rest, I console myself here with Dühring's philosophy[3]— never before has anyone written such arrant rubbish. Windy platitudes — nothing more, interspersed with utter drivel, but the whole thing dressed up, not without skill, for a public with which the author is thoroughly familiar — a public that wants by means of beggar's soupb and little effort to lay down the law about everything. The man is as if cut out for the socialism and philosophy of the milliards era.[118]
Your
F. E.
90
MARX TO ENGELS
IN RAMSGATE
[London,] 26 Julyc 1876
DEAR FRED,
SEASIDE or no SEASIDE, you must recall that you did not leave till last Mondayd; moreover, according to the RELICTS living at No. 122,e you will both of you be returning in the middle or at the end of this week (or so I was informed only yesterday).[175] As for last week, Laura (and I accompanied her, as my wife had written to say she was very unwell) spent the second part of it in Brighton (Lafargue came down on Saturday and returned with myself and Laura on Sunday); Longuet and Jennychen, however, were still SCHOOLBOUND.[177] The Lafargues will be coming down to Ramsgate this Friday or Saturday, and will return on Sunday, since Laf argue cannot interrupt his BUSINESS[94] and Laura has to resume her teaching on Monday. The only week she will have off is the last week in August. (She has got to make up this week for the one day she missed last week, which, in this heat, is far from agreeable.)
I shall pass on the contents of your letter[15] to the other members of the family.
My wife was still very unwell when we arrived, and slightly better when we left her. As soon as she feels fit enough she will certainly wish to spend a few days in Ramsgate. During the next day or two Lenchen will be completely taken up with the preparations for Tussy's trip.[178]
We were told in Brighton that Madame Bravo used to be a ballet dancer and Madame Cox her DRESSMAKER. During my wife's stay in Brighton, Mrs Bravo gave GREAT PUBLIC (plus ou moins[3]) DINNER PARTIES there.
In the last Bnepedz! there's a disgustingly sycophantic article about Bakunin's funeral,b at which Guillaume, Brousse, the two Reclus and l'illustre0 Cafiero were the chief ACTORS. Bakunin is depicted therein as the 'giant' of the Revolution. We are promised a sequel by the same correspondent on the subject of the plans put forward after the funeral for a coalition between the two Internationals, namely the Jurassians who want a 'FREE FEDERATION' of workers, and the Germans who aspire to a 'People's State' f Volksstaat]. To achieve this, it was said, all that was needed was to reframe Article 3 of the Rules in accordance with the version adopted at the 'Congress of 1873' (Guillaume's congress).[179] In a short paragraph in the Volksstaat (I don't know whether you've read it yet) Liebknecht declares that nobody could desire this more than we (i.e. he); but, incorrigible TALKER that he is, goes on to say: 'Let us see deeds instead of words'.d Naturally, he is gratified that Mr Guillaume should proclaim the 'People's State' the be-all and end-all of the non-Bakuninist International. Lavrov clearly consid-ers it a good BUSINESS MANOEUVRE to accept Bakuninist articles, thus also committing that PARTY to his paper.e
The Brighton AQUARIUM has really come into its own since the time (three years ago) when I witnessed its beginnings.[180] In accordance with the compromise it has reached with PARSON POWER, it
91. Engels to Philipp Pauli. 11 August
now stays open on Sunday afternoons (until the evening), but on the arid condition that the poor devils of EXCURSIONISTS shall not obtain a drop of liquid, not even undistilled water. You ought to go and have a look at it one of these days.
Love to the whole FAMILY and kind regards to Madame Pauli.a
Your
Moor
91
ENGELS TO PHILIPP PAULI
IN RHEINAU
Ramsgate, 11 August 1876 11 Camden Square
Dear Pauli,
On Fridayb I duly proceeded to Cologne as planned and would have gone on overnight to London via Ostend had not the confounded midge bite on my left hand swollen to truly colossal proportions. So I went to an hotel in Cologne and held my hand in iced water for about an hour, which relieved the worst of the inflammation; on Saturday to England via Flushing. At Chatham I found a train going to Ramsgate and came straight here.[175] When I arrived in London on Tuesday I found Schorlemmer at the Marxes preparing to leave for Darmstadt on Wednesday, where he will doubtless arrive today.
It's still very fine here, moderately hot summer temperatures and a cool wind off the sea, on top of which the bottled beer is excellent and salt water bathing 'a proper treat',0 as Nadler's seamstress would say.[181] His stuff has made me laugh a lot; the small town patriot of '48 is particularly well portrayed.[182]
The crossing from Flushing was once again as smooth as glass; I'm heartily sick of it by now; a bit of tossing about is all part of
92. Engels to Pyotr Lavrov. 15 August
the game, otherwise one has no idea of having been at sea. But that's something I can have whenever I want here aboard the pleasure boats which sail every afternoon.
We are staying here until Monday fortnight and in London shall, I trust, retire from the very idle life we've been a-Ieadin' of.
The trip and the sea-bathing have done my wife a great deal of good, so I have reason to hope that I shall also be able to get her through the winter in passable health. Both she and I send our kindest regards to you, your wife and the children, and in the hope that Rheinau's gnat population will shortly diminish I shall close because of incipient table-laying.
Yours ever,
F. Engels
92
ENGELS TO PYOTR LAVROV
IN LONDON
Ramsgate, 15 August 1876 11 Camden Square My dear Mr Lavrov,
On my return from Germany l7s I found awaiting me your letter of the 7th which I hastened to pass on to Liebknecht.[15] Since the people concerned are completely unknown to me, there was little else I could do.[183]
I hope our poor Smirnov will have strength enough to get over his illness. He has been working harder than the delicate state of his health allows, and he would be well-advised to take it a bit easier. With warmest regards both to him and to yourself.
Yours ever,
F. Engels
93. Marx to Engels. 19 August
93
MARX TO ENGELS[13]
IN RAMSGATE
Karlsbad, 19 August 1876 Germania Dear FRED,
I am writing to your London address since I don't know whether you are still living at the seaside.[175]
First, our adventures en route.[176] As I had planned, we spent a night in Cologne — left there at 6 o'clock in the morning, our next staging post being Nuremberg. We arrived in Nuremberg at about five in the afternoon, not intending to leave for Karlsbad until the following evening (it was the 14th and we had informed our Karlsbad landlady that we would be arriving on the 15th). Our cases were unloaded and entrusted to a man with a barrow who was to accompany us to the nearest inn, just beside the railway station on the outskirts of town. But at the said inn we were told there was only one room left, and at the same time the landlord conveyed to us the awful tidings that we were unlikely to find accommodation elsewhere since the town was overcrowded, partly as a result of a millers' and bakers' convention, partly by people from all over the world who were on their way to state musician Wagner's Festival of Fools at Bayreuth.[184] And such was the case. We spent ages wandering about the town with the barrow beside us; neither the smallest beer-house nor the biggest hotel could offer us asylum; all we gained was a nodding acquaintance with the (highly interesting) birthplace of German handicraftsmen. So we returned to the station; there we were told that the town closest to Karlsbad, whither we might still be transported by rail, was Weiden. We took TICKETS for Weiden. However, the worthy guard had already had one (if not more) over the eight; instead of making us get out at Neunkirchen, from which there was a new branch line to Weiden, he carried us on as far as Irrelohe (that's roughly what the beastly place is called)(1) and we had to spend two whole hours travelling back (in the direction opposite to that from which we had come) so that we finally arrived at Weiden at midnight. Here again the only hostelry in the place was full to overflowing so that we had to possess our souls in patience on the hard chairs at the railway station until four o'clock in the morning. Altogether, the journey from Cologne to Karlsbad took us 28 hours! Add to which, it was outrageously hot!
Next day at Karlsbad (where it hasn't rained for six weeks) what everybody was talking about, and what we experienced in our own persons, was the excessive heat! Likewise the water shortage; the Tepl looks as though it's been almost completely drained. Deforestation has reduced it to a sorry state; at times of heavy rain (as in 1872) it floods everything, in hot years it disappears altogether.
Incidentally, the excessive heat has let up during the past three days and, even on really hot days, we found wooded glens, long familiar to me, where it was bearable.
Tussychen, who was rather unwell during the journey, is recovering visibly here and, as always, Karlsbad is having a wonderful effect on me. During the past months the horrible feeling of heaviness in the head had shown signs of returning, but now it's completely gone again.
Dr Fleckles passed on a piece of news that astonished me very much. I had asked him whether his cousin, Madame Wollmann from Paris, was here; I met her last year — a most interesting lady. In reply he said that her husband had lost the whole of his own fortune, as well as his wife's, speculating on the Paris Bourse so that the family, now in desperate straits, was forced to retire to some German backwater. The curious thing about this affair is that Mr Wollmann had made a large fortune in Paris as a dyestuffs manufacturer; he had never gambled on the Bourse but had soberly invested the money not required for his business (as also that of his wife) in Austrian state bonds. All of a sudden he went a bit wrong in the head; he regarded the state of Austria as unsound, sold all his bonds, and quite secretly, without the prior knowledge of his wife or of his friends Heine and Rothschild, and in anticipation of a rise, he speculated on the Bourse in — Turkish and Peruvian securities! — until the last farthing had gone down the drain. The poor woman was just in process of furnishing her newly rented hotel in Paris when, one fine day, without any warning at all, she heard that she was a pauper.
Professor Friedberg (at Breslau University, medicine) tells me today that the great Lasker has brought out anonymously a semi-fictitious work entitled Experiences of a Man's Heart? These exceedingly boastful experiences are preceded by a fulsome foreword or introduction by Mr Berthold Auerbach. What Lasker experienced was this: that all women (including a daughter of Kinkel's) fell in love with him, and he proceeds to explain, not only why he didn't marry the whole lot at once, but why he didn't even so much as clinch matters with a single one of them. It's said to be a veritable Odyssey of a milksop's heart. Hot on its heels came a parody (likewise anonymous)a so HORRIBLE that, at great loss to himself, Otto'sb big brother0 bought up every copy of the Experiences he could lay hands on. 'Duty' calls me from my desk. So until next time, in so far as I am not prevented by the magically stupefying effect of the hot alkaline tipple from scrawling a line or two. My love to Madame Lizzy.
Your
Moor
No Kovalevsky here. What I have got is a stout volume, sent me by Lavrov, about the functions of the 'state' in the future.0 Anyway I am also putting off reading it till some future time. Just now everything's future here after the drums of the music of the future[185] at Bayreuth.
Swarming with Russians here. Have just heard from my wife that you are still in Ramsgate. I am therefore sending the letter straight there.
94. Engels to Jenny Marx. 20 August
94 ENGELS TO JENNY MARX
IN LONDON
Ramsgate, 20 August 1876 11 Camden Square Dear Mrs Marx,
My best thanks for Tussy's letter which we have promptly forwarded to Jenny.(1)
Lenchen b has had a curious and distinctly unpleasant turn while down here. Last Tuesday she went bathing with my wifec and was assailed by a violent headache which persisted for three days. On Friday she had another try and was at once assailed by the same headache, this time more violently. On Friday evening it was again very bad and she simply could not sleep. It was not until Saturday afternoon that she managed to get a little sleep, but then came another violent attack which, however, died down in the late evening, whereupon she slept soundly and today is ALL RIGHT again. The result is that, this year at any rate, she would be well-advised not to repeat the bathing experiment.
Lenchen wanted to return to London no later than tomorrow, but we have persuaded her to give herself another day in which to recover completely from what have sometimes been extraordinari-ly violent attacks, so now she doesn't intend to return until Tuesday. We thought, if you were to come here on Wednesday and stay until Friday week, then we could all return to London together.[175]
Since STEAMERS take at least 30-31 days from the Cape, Carolinchen d could not, after all, arrive before 3-4 September, i.e. 3-4 days after your return.
We have had to put up with some pretty oppressive heat here — a few days ago there were thunderstorms and, since yesterday evening, there has been a lot of rain, but it's clearing up again now. My wife is in very good health, and bathing suits her particularly well. Both she and Lenchen send their warm regards.
Your devoted
F. Engels
95. Engels to Marx. 25 August
95
ENGELS TO MARX
IN KARLSBAD[17]»
Ramsgate, Friday, 25 August 1876
Dear Moor,
Your letter arrived here on Tuesday and is now circulating among your daughters.[3] No one here envies you your 28 hours of roving between Cologne and Karlsbadb; on trie other hand, there's been much wagering as to the amount of Bavarian 'liquid' that helped to see you through your many vicissitudes.
A week ago on Monday Lenchenc arrived here from Hastings where she had been spending Sunday with Jenny and the Lafargues; despite being rather seedy, she went into the water, thereby incurring a frightful headache that lasted two days; a second attempt only made matters worse, so she had to give it up. She went home on Tuesday, and the day after that, the day before yesterday, your wife turned up here; she is noticeably better than she was — six weeks ago at any rate. She does a great deal of walking, her appetite is good and she seems to be sleeping very well. After being fortified by me at the station with a glass of port, she and Lizzie are loafing about on the SANDS and rejoicing at not having to write any letters. Sea-bathing has done Lizzie a power of good and I hope that this time it will last the winter through.
At this moment Ramsgate is populated almost exclusively by small GREENGROCERS and other quite small SHOPKEEPERS from London. These people stay here a week, for as long as the RETURN TICKET is valid, and then make way for others of the same ilk. It's the former day-trip public which now takes a week off. At first sight one would think they were working men, but their conversation immediately betrays the fact that they are RATHER ABOVE THAT and belong to quite the most disagreeable stratum of London society — they're the kind who, in speech and manner, are already preparing themselves, after the inevitably impending bankruptcy, for the no less inevitably impending career of COSTERMONGER. And now, let Tussy imagine her old friend Gore on the SANDS of a morning, surrounded by 30 or 40 dames de la halled of that ilk.
In view of the ever denser stultification induced by the seaside, the most suitable reading has, naturally enough, been Mr Dühring's natural philosophy of reality.[3] Never have I encountered anything so natural. Everything occurs naturally since everything is regarded as natural that occurs naturally to Mr D., which is why he invariably takes his departure from 'axiomatic propositions', for what is natural requires no proof. As far as banality goes, the thing is absolutely unprecedented. Poor though it is, the part dealing with nature is by far the best. Here, at any rate, there are still some withered remains of dialectical phraseology, but no sooner does he touch on social and historical conditions than the old metaphysic prevails in the form of morality, and then he gets well and truly onto the wrong tack and turns helplessly round and round in circles. His horizon barely extends beyond the area covered by the common law of the land [186] and, for him, Prussian officialdom represents 'the state'. We shall be returning to London a week today [75] and then I shall at once settle down to work on the fellow. The nature of the eternal truths he preaches will be apparent to you from his three bêtes noires—tobacco, cats and Jews — and they get it hot and strong.
Tussy's letter to Lenchen has just arrived here; I shall forward it to London directly.
With their hullaballo about TURKISH ATROCITIES,[187] The Daily News and old Russell have done the Russians a signal service and splendidly paved the way for the latter's next campaign, which may begin as soon as the liberal gents have taken the helm here. The liberal provincial press is even now sounding the alarm and, since OLD Dizzyb has retreated to the HOUSE OF LORDS,[188] it will no doubt be the liberal ranters who will lay clown the law in the next session in the COMMONS. Not a word is said, of course, about the infamies perpetrated by the Montenegrins and Herzegovinians. Luckily the Serbs are getting knocked for six[1]'[6]—even Forbes, who, by the way, is again the one solitary rational war correspondent, speaks with unmistakable admiration of the superior military prowess of the Turkish troops — and it isn't so easy for the BtAUH qapbc to intervene.
Your wife and Lizzie send much love to Tussy as also to yourself.
Your
F. E.
96. Engels to Ida Pauli. 27 August
96
ENGELS TO IDA PAULI
IN RHEINAU
Ramsgate, 27 August 1876 11 Camden Square
Dear Mrs Pauli,
The midges must indeed have been hard at it if you have felt obliged to follow in the footsteps of the emancipated Russian ladies and smoke cigarettes. I hope, however, that like us, you have had cooler weather for the past three or four days and hence freedom from midges. Here, we've been positively frozen and have had to have the windows shut, while my wife has been hankering for fur jackets. On Friday night in London it was only 6 degrees Reaumur, and in Liverpool the melons have been positively frozen hard.
Mrs Marx has been staying with us since Tuesday.31S9 She has made a fairly good recovery, but will probably have to leave before Tuesday as she is expecting a nieceb from the Cape of Good Hope by then.
Despite the weather, we are persevering with our bathing as the sea is still warm and, with this wind, the breakers get better and better and keep one warm; it's precisely these cold sea-baths that have the most invigorating effect, and my wife's health has improved wonderfully since she's been going into the water. On Friday we repack our bags and shall then, I hope, at last settle down again. We are now both heartily sick of lounging about; my wife longs for her kitchen and I for my writing-desk and both of us for our big, roomy bed.
Marx's address in Karlsbad is: Dr. Marx, Germania, Schlossberg, Karlsbad.[178] I heard from him a few days sincec; the Karlsbad water was doing both him and his daughter Tussy a great deal of good, but unfortunately it has a tiresome sequel: for months afterwards one may neither tipple nor eat salad or suchlike palatable things. He will stay there until mid-September at least and maybe a week longer, depending on the cure and the effect it has.
At the same time as yours we received a letter from Pumps. I shall reply to her as soon as I get back to London; here, where
97. Marx to Max Oppenheim. 30 August
idleness is an institution, it always requires an effort of will to sit down and write.
What's the position about Pauli's trip to England? He must surely almost have completed his building operations at the factory and, being so fond of rough seas, he shouldn't put it off too long.
Mrs Marx asks me to send her warmest regards and my wife and I send you, Pauli and the children our love. I am sending Pauli a newspaper today. Well, may you all keep well and happy and, whenever the beer is especially good, spare a thought for
Your sincere friend,
F. Engels
97
MARX TO MAX OPPENHEIM
IN PRAGUE
Karlsbad, 30 August 1876 Germania, Schlossberg
Dear Friend,
My daughter and I have been here for the past two weeks and, despite changeable weather and rain, intend to persevere for another two weeks.[178] We should be very glad to see you here. At any rate, drop us a line.
Very sincerely yours,
Karl Marx
98. Marx to Jenny Longuet. End of August-beginning of September
9 8
MARX T O JENNY LONGUET [1 6]
IN HASTINGS
[Karlsbad, end of August-beginning of September 1876]
My Darling,
I was delighted to see from your letters, one of which unfortunately went astray, that your health has improved and that Hastings is suiting the fine little chap(1) and that he already has a presence of his own. Macte puer vitute!b
Here we jog along from day to day, as mindlessly as the cure demands if it is to be successful. Latterly we have virtually ceased our excursions into the mountain forests owing to the sharply changing weather,—now April showers, now a cloudburst, then sunshine again. But the cold that suddenly set in after the prolonged heat is now quite gone again.
We have made many acquaintances of late — aside from a few Poles, mostly German university professors and doctors of other descriptions.
Everywhere one goes one is plagued with the question: 'What do you think of Wagner?' It is highly typical of this latter-day Prusso-German imperial court musician that he, plus wife (the one who was divorced from Bülow), plus the cuckold Bülow, plus their mutual father-in-law Liszt, should all four be living together harmoniously in Bayreuth, cuddling, kissing and adoring one another, and generally enjoying themselves. If, moreover, one reflects that Liszt is a Roman monk and Madame Wagner (first name Cosima) his 'natural' daughter by Madame d'Agoult (Daniel Stern)—what better Offenbachian libretto could one possibly conceive than this family group with its patriarchal relationships? Or again, the goings-on of the said group might — like the Nibelungen [19]°—be made the theme of a tetralogy.
I hope, dear child, that I shall find you well and happy. Give Longuet my best regards and my little grandson a dozen kisses from his GRANNY.
Adio
99. Marx to Max Oppenheim. 1 September
100. Marx to Max Oppenheim. 6 September
99
MARX TO MAX OPPENHEIM
IN PRAGUE
[Karlsbad,] 1 September 1876
Dear Friend,
I had never given up the idea of spending a day or two in Prague with my daughter, but did not wish to say anything about it in my letter to you, because I wanted to entice you here.[178]
Mais les affaires sont les affaires*; perhaps on closer reflection you may find that a trip to Karlsbad might after all be of benefit to your health. I await your final decision on this score.
I wouldn't mind very much what the weather as such was like if it didn't to some extent clash with the conditions of the cure.
My daughter sends her warmest regards.
Yours very sincerely,
Karl Marx
100
MARX TO MAX OPPENHEIM
IN PRAGUE
[Karlsbad,] 6 September 1876
Dear Friend,
Your sister's letter enclosed; her news of the aventures de Norderneyh was of the very greatest interest to my daughter0 and myself. I have seen your sister's portrait and heard many complimentary things about her in Hanover, and had hoped to
101. Marx to Max Oppenheim. 9 September
make her acquaintance at your home in Prague; however, I see from your letter that she is still staying in Aachen.
My cure ends on Sunday.[3] Monday is therefore the day appointed for our departure for Prague[178]; nevertheless, it's possible that our stay at Karlsbad will have to be prolonged. My daughter has suddenly become unwell. I hope it's nothing serious; I'm expecting a second visit from the doctor" this evening. You shall have further information as soon as I can communicate something more definite.
Yours very sincerely,
Karl Marx
101
MARX TO MAX OPPENHEIM
IN PRAGUE
[Karlsbad,] 9 September 1876 Dear Friend,
Very many thanks from self and daughter0 for your kind letter. She had a nasty fever, had to stay in bed for three days and at this moment is still confined to her room; but she is now quite out of danger thanks to the speedy intervention of Dr Fleckles junior. It's unlikely we'll be able to leave for Prague before Wednesday.d
However, I'll notify you of the exact day before our departure.
Trusting meanwhile that we shall see you again shortly.
Yours,
Karl Marx
102. Marx to Ida Pauli. 10 September
102
MARX TO IDA PAULI
IN RHEINAU
[Karlsbad,] 10 September 1876
My dear Mrs Pauli,
My warmest thanks for your kind invitation. I'm sorry to say that an unfortunate contingency has arisen which precludes my taking advantage of it.
Today, you see, our four weeks' cure came to an end.[178] As a result of the constant changes of weather, however, my daughter[3]
went down with a cold, fever, etc. For the time being she is confined to her room and I shall of necessity have to prolong our stay here. As I must be in London on an appointed day because of certain business matters, I shall be able to make even fewer diversions on the return journey. But to postpone is not to abandon. Perhaps we shall meet again next year.
With kindest regards from my daughter to you and Mr Pauli.
Yours very sincerely,
Karl Marx
103. Marx to Max Oppenheim. 12 September
I'm most grateful to you for your kind concern; fortunately my daughter[3] has completely recovered; mais elle l'a échappé belle.b She
104. Engels to Pyotr Lavrov. 15 September
was on the brink of pneumonia; speedy action by Dr Fleckles jun., her doctor, saved her from a long and dangerous illness.
As a result of this contingency, however, we shall have to stay here until Fridaya for her to undergo after-treatment. We shall leave Karlsbad at 10.47 and arrive in Prague (State Railway Station) at 5.50 in the afternoon.
So until we meet again,
Yours very sincerely,
Karl Marx
104
ENGELS TO PYOTR LAVROV
IN LONDON
[London,] 15 September 1876 122 Regent's Park Road, N. W.
My dear Mr Lavrov,
At the bottom of this note I append a few observations that Liebknecht has just sent me on the subject of the people you mentioned in your letter.b You will see that Liebknecht disclaims all responsibility for what D.c may have written and what Ch. might have done.
I trust Mr Smirnov is getting better.
Yours ever,
F. Engels
'The letters from me, which G.e allowed to fall into the hands of the police, were from the outset intended for Stieber's eyes — not, however, the numerous letters from the Russians. L. is mistaken if he imagines that I confided in any Russian refugee. I take no responsibility for such people's chatter, and chatter they do to a fearsome extent. Ch. went to Berlin not at my behest, though admittedly I was aware of it; there was no longer any damage to be done there.'[2]
105. Marx to Ferdinand Fleckles. 21 September
Dear Fleckles,
I am sending you POST-HASTE a line or two concerning an urgent matter.
A medical examination of my friend, Nikolai Utin, aged 35, has indicated incipient fatty degeneration of the heart. Karlsbad has been recommended to him, but since he is exceptionally busy in the spring, summer and autumn — he is an engineer in charge of big railway and similar undertakings — he can only spare time for treatment in December and during the winter months.
Since he is greatly afraid of the cold, he would like to know whether he might not go to Vichy rather than Karlsbad.
It is of course difficult, perhaps impossible, to reply to such a question without knowledge of his person. But at all events you will be able to give a general opinion as to whether Vichy might serve as a substitute for Karlsbad in cases of this kind.
The man in question is one of my dearest friends and for that reason I take the liberty of appealing to your friendship and requesting your early reply (to my London address: 41 Maitland Park Road, London). The childb and I leave here for home tomorrow.[178]
Yours very sincerely,
Karl Marx
106. Marx to Wilhelm Bracke. 23 September
[From Eleanor Marx in French]
Dear Doctor,
I've just received the photographs from Karlsbad — but only eleven — have you got one of them? If so, send it off to me — if not, will you tell Hirsch?
I'm eagerly awaiting the letter you sent to London. Let me have some news about 'Marion', which interests me greatly — and work away at the last acts.
Good-bye — write and send me your portraits.
Yours sincerely,
Eleanor Marx
106
MARX TO WILHELM BRACKE
IN BRUNSWICK
London, 23 September 1876
Dear Bracke,
A French work by Lissagaray, Histoire de la Commune (500-600 pages), is now being printed, publisher, H. Kistemaeckers, librairie contemporaine, Boulevard du Nord, 60, Bruxelles. This will be the first authentic history of the Commune. Not only has Lissagaray made use of all the published sources — he is also in possession of the material inaccessible to all others, quite apart from his having witnessed with his own eyes most of the events he depicts.
Yesterday I had from him a letter addressed to him by Julius Grunzig of Berlin, in which the latter offers himself as translator.
D'abord,* I don't know Grunzig; perhaps you can let me have some information about him.
Secondly, however, he says nothing whatever about where the thing is to be published or how and, even if we could use Mr Grunzig as translator (this depends entirely on his ability to do such work), he would be taken on only as translator, and in no case would he be entrusted with its publication.
I would suggest that you undertake to bring out this work, which is of importance to our party and of interest to the German reading public at large. But Lissagaray — who, needless to say, as a refugee in London, isn't exactly in a bed of roses — must, in return for the German publication rights conceded by him, get a share of the profits which you yourself should determine.
As for the translation, I would send Grunzig — since he was the first to apply and is also recommended by Most — some sample sheets to translate in order to assure myself of his competence.
Should you accept the proposal, the original would be sent to you (and/or the translator) in batches, so that the German translation might appear pretty well simultaneously with the French original.
Publication by instalments, as proposed by Grunzig in his letter, is inadmissible since the thing would then appear in German sooner than in French, and the Belgian publisher would object to this.
As regards payment of the translator, that is a matter to be settled exclusively between yourself and him.
You would oblige me by letting me have an early reply so that no time may be lost, and I can, if needs be, write to another publisher.
With best regards from myself and Engels.
Yours,
Karl Marx
My address is: 41 Maitland Park Road, N.W., London.
107. Marx to Wilhelm Bracke. 30 September
107
MARX TO WILHELM BRACKE
IN BRUNSWICK
[London,] 30 September 1876
Dear Bracke,
I had already learnt of your transactions with B. Becker from your various letters to Engels, since we always show one another everything that has a bearing on party interests.
As soon as I received your letter, Engels and I ventilated every aspect of the question and came to the conclusion that consideration for Becker is not in any way incompatible with your publication of Lissagaray's work.(1)
1. You terminated your ENGAGEMENT with B. Becker, purely on business grounds—long before there was any mention of Lissagaray's work — after he had abruptly turned down your proposals. Moreover, you paid him 300 talers by way of compensation. That meant that the matter was settled, nor could it possibly be assumed that, from then on, your house would refrain from printing any works relating to the history of the Commune.
2. In so far as Lissagaray's work competes with Becker's,b such competition is going to arise whether the work is published by you or by someone else. (Liebknecht just now offered to have it published by the Volksstaat printing office, an offer we would in no circumstances accept.) Lissagaray's work will be appearing in Brussels in a few weeks' time, whereas Becker won't have finished his until May 1877. So any injury he may incur thereby is in any case inevitable.
3. Although Becker's and Lissagaray's books have the same title—History of the Commune—they differ completely in kind and are works which, had not commercial or other considerations intervened, might very well have been brought out by the same publisher.
Becker's work is at best a compilation, written from the German critical standpoint, of material concerning the Commune which is available to anyone in Paris.
Lissagaray's book is the work of a participant in the events described (and to that extent it is in the nature of a memoir), a participant, moreover, who had at his command a wealth of manuscripts stemming from the protagonists in the drama, etc., which were not accessible to anyone else.
The only possible connection between the two works is that Becker will find in Lissagaray's book a fresh source which he cannot afford to leave out of account and which may necessitate extensive alterations to his manuscript, in so far as this has already been completed.
Your interest in the publication of Lissagaray's book is the same as induced you to commission Becker to compile the material— namely party interest which you can satisfy, as said above under 1., without remotely infringing your publishing ENGAGEMENTS originally entered into with Becker.
So much for that point. As regards Mr Grunzig, I should like you to make inquiries from Most concerning the man's character. Should the particulars prove satisfactory, I would tentatively send Mr Grunzig a first sample sheet for translation so as to be able to judge whether he is up to this far from easy work.
Lissagaray has sent me the first five printed sheets. From this I see that it is a luxury edition, only thirty lines per page. If the French original runs to 500-600 pages, it will, in an ordinary German edition, hardly run to more than 400 pages.
Your stipulation as to the apportionment of profits meets with my complete approval; should it yield nothing, Lissagaray, like you yourself, must and will rest content with that.
As regards the translator's fee, that is a matter for you alone to decide. It is no concern of the French author.
As regards all the other stipulations — number of copies, design, prices, etc.—the decision is yours alone. (For Lissagaray has given me plein pouvoir[3] to act in his name.)
On the title-page you should print: 'Translation authorized by the writer of this work.'
On the title-page of the French original Lissagaray will put 'tous les droits réservés* so that you will be able to confiscate any eventual German translation that competes with yours.
With cordial regards,
Yours,
Karl Marx First published, in Russian, in Marx-Printed according to the original Engels Archives, Book I (VI), Moscow, 1932 Published in English for the first time
108. Marx to Pyotr Lavrov. 7 October
108
MARX TO PYOTR LAVROV
IN LONDON
[London,] 7 October 1876
My dear Friend,
I have just received a letter from Paris (from an employee[2] at Lachatre's booksellers) from which it transpires that the banning of Capitalb is simply a myth, a myth, moreover, assiduously disseminated by the police and by Mr Quest himself, the judicial administrator appointed by the late Buffet as sequestrator of Lachatre's booksellers.[38]
Because it had been published under the state of siege, Capital—now that the state of siege has been raised — could only be banned by the regular courts, and the authorities fear a scandal of this kind. So they are seeking to suppress the book by underhand methods of intrigue.
You would greatly oblige me by advising me of the contents of the letter in which your agent Guyot mentions the banning of the book.c Kovalevsky, for his part, has Russian friends in Paris prepared to attest that even Lachatre's booksellers has refused to sell them the work.
Armed with these proofs I shall be able to threaten Mr Quest — a great miser, albeit a millionaire — with legal proceedings and a demand for damages and interest. It is only through the force of such threats that he has finally ordered the printing of the last fifteen instalments.[11] Under French law he is, vis-à-vis myself, merely Mr Lachatre's representative, his deputy, and must fulfil all the conditions laid down in my contract with the latter.
Last September's Revue des deux Mondes contains a so-called critique of Capital by Mr Laveleye.e Only by reading it can one get any idea of the idiocy of our bourgeois 'thinkers'. Mr Laveleye is, however, naive enough to admit that, once you accept the doctrines of Adam Smith and Ricardo or even—horribile dictu[1]— those of the Careys and the Bastiats, there is no means of escaping the subversive doctrines of Capital.
109. Marx to Wilhelm Liebknecht. 7 October
I congratulate you on your LEADING ARTICLE in Bnepedb! on Pan-Slav lyricism in Russia.[2] It is not only a masterpiece, it is above all a great act of moral courage.
Yours ever,
Karl Marx
How is Smirnov's health progressing?
j 928 Translated from the French Published in English for the first time
109
MARX TO WILHELM LIEBKNECHT
IN LEIPZIG
London, 7 October 1876 41 Maitland Park Road, N. W. Dear LIBRARY,[15]
According to a letter you wrote to Engels, you told the Congress that Engels was going to deal with Dühring. Instead, much to his displeasure, he found — and showed me immediately on my arrival from Karlsbad [178]—a report in the Volksstaat according to which you had said that I (something I would never dream of doing) was going to take issue with Mr Dühring.[191]
Resolve for me, O Oerindur, this dichotomy of nature!c
Engels is busy with his work on Dühring.d It entails a considerable sacrifice on his part, as he had to break off an incomparably more important piece of worke to that end.
The fact that your Congress proffered a fraternal hand to Guillaume and Co., is, given the form it took, relatively innocuous.'[92] However, any real co-operation with these people, who have systematically worked to bring about the dissolution of the International, is to be avoided under all circumstances. The very few working men in the Jura, Italy and Spain whom they are still leading by the nose, may FOR OUGHT I KNOW be upright men. They themselves are incorrigible intriguers who, now that they have discovered their nullity outside the International, would like to worm their way in again through the back door so that they may resume their previous role.[193]
I had already been in communication with Bracke about the translation into German of Lissagaray's book before your proposal[2] reached me; I have concluded an agreement with Bracke.[194]
It is about time the Volksstaat, or rather, I should now say, the Vorwärts,*[95] put a finger at last on the real source of the rot in dealing with the oriental question.[196] In one of its most recent numbers the Kölnische Zeitung says that one might echo the words of a famous diplomat: 'Il n'y a plus d'Europe!,h; once upon a time it was possible to speak of other powers, now the stage is held by only one power — Russia!
But why is this? The German papers, in so far as they aren't dancing to Russia's tune, now heap reproaches on Disraeli, now accuse Andrâssy of weak-minded vacillation.
Yet the nub of the matter is—Bismarck's policy. He embarked on it after Sedan[113] during the Franco-Prussian War. At this moment he is hamstringing Austria (and even England, relatively speaking) by his official flirtation with Russia; indeed, he is hamstringing the entire Continent. The passage (according to the latest advices) of armed Russian troops through the Romanian provinces (under the auspices of a Hohenzollernc) has led everyone in Paris and London to believe in the existence of an offensive and defensive alliance between Russia and Prussia. In fact, by his policy of conquest in France, Bismarck has disarmed Germany vis-à-vis Russia and condemned her to the shameful role she is playing at this moment, et qui est véritablement 'la honte de l'Europe'^
Here in England a turning-point has been reached; the curtain is about to fall on the sentimental farce staged by the Whigs in their haste to reconquer the LOAVES AND FISHES OF OFFICE and for which an appropriate chorus has been provided from among the workers — such canaille as Mottershead, Hales et tutti quanti"— under the influence of bourgeois FIVE POUND NOTES; Gladstone has sounded the retreat, ditto Lord Russell, and now only the brazen Bob Lowe (the Australian ex-demagogue, the creature who, during the recent reform movement, followed the example of Edmund Burke and branded the working class a SWINISH MULTITUDE) is making a fool of himself with his talk of the AUTOCRAT OF ALL THE RUSSIAS AS 'THE ONLY FATHER OF THE OPPRESSED'. Amongst the London workers, it is precisely the most progressive and resolute who have staged a PROTEST MEETING against the Pan-Slavophiles. They realise that, each time the working class acts as chorus to the governing classes (to a Bright, Gladstone, etc.), it is perpetrating an infamy. Caeterum censeo[11] that it behoves you to write a LEADING ARTICLE revealing how sorry a figure is cut by the German-Prussian, ostensibly anti-Russian, bourgeois press which, while at most presuming to criticise the ministers of other countries, maintains a most devout silence in regard to its own Bismarck. With warmest regards to your family.
Your
Moor
Apropos. The rascal from Antwerp, whom Guillaume and Co., by their intrigues among the unwitting Dutch workers, foisted upon the Hague Congress[20] as its provisional president, one van den Abeele, has now himself been unmasked by his own people as an agent of the French government and has accordingly been thrown out of those sections of the International still eking out an existence in Belgium. This, after another of the same clique, Mr Bastelica, had publicly disclosed in Strasbourg that he was a Bonapartist agent! b
[Note at the beginning of the letter]
The Frankfurter Zeitung's 'unbaptized crusader'0 is playing a thoroughly grotesque role in the oriental imbroglio.
110. Marx to Leo Frankel. 13 October
110
MARX TO LEO FRANKEL[198]
IN BUDAPEST
London, 13 October 1876 41 Maitland Park Grescent, N. W.
Dear Frankel,
I could not answer your long letter, for which I am much obliged, because I was not clear about your situation, that is, did not know whether a letter from me might not be to your detriment if intercepted by chance, no matter how harmless its content might be.[199] Will you be so kind as to explain to me, if possible, the following: What is the relationship between sown plains and highlands (the latter used possibly as pasture)?
You are quite right to take part in editing a workers' newspaper." As for the so-called Swiss international congress,[200] it is the work of the Alliancists — Guillaume and Company.[201] Knowing that they are worth absolutely nothing by themselves, they deem it necessary to step again into the limelight under the banner of 'unification', which they could not do alone.[202] Their plan was supported by the Malons, Pindys and other Arnoulds, who, frightened at the fact that the workers are 'acting' in Paris without them, are out to bring themselves back to people's minds as patented representatives of the workers. On the other hand, Guillaume's group cunningly took in Bebel while he was in Switzerland. However, this matters but little. The Gotha Congress did not appoint any official representative to the Swiss congress but contented itself with general rhetoric about the community of workers' interests.[192] Meanwhile I sent a warning to Leipzig, and if any of them goes to the congress as a private person, he will take a negative stance on the blandishments of long-standing conspirators against the International. How you acted as a former member of the General Council and a delegate to the Hague Congress[20] is entirely understandable. You must not in the least succumb to the intoxication of reconciliation, a state in which scheming villains always swindle honest fools.
They have just begun printing Lissagaray's bookb; he is now busy reading the first proofs. The scoundrels, the so-called labour leaders (Englishmen), those whom I exposed at the Hague Congress, swallowed during the Russo-Bulgarian campaign over atrocities[187] a handsome amount of five-pound notes from the great leaders Gladstone, Bright, Robert Lowe (the man who during the latest reform agitation [197] called the working class a swinish multitude(1)), Fawcett and others. But the plot is coming to a terrible end. These labour leaders, Mottershead and others, are the same dogs with whom it was impossible to hold a meeting against the butchers of the Commune.
I am sending you the latest issue of The Diplomatic Review. Despite the space it gives Urquhart to unload his inanities, the journal contains weighty facts concerning the Bulgarian epidemic of atrocities by which Russia has fooled the whole of Christian liberal Europe.b
I inform you on evidence from the most trustworthy source — and it would be a good thing to publish this fact in Hungarian papers — that some months ago the Russian government suspended the payment of interest due at fixed intervals to the Russian railways, and this completely in secret; every single department received private notification with orders to hold its tongue (and we know what that means in Russian). All this notwithstanding, the news of the fact reached not only me but also Renter's Telegraph Agency (the biggest member of the Holy Trinity of European telegraph agencies, Reuter — Havas — Wolff) but the good man withheld the news at the special request of the Russian Embassy in London.
In any case, this is an edifying symptom of Russia's financial embarrassment. Should the English bourgeois feel it, he will again become pro-Turkish, for no matter how much the Turks owe England, it is nothing compared to the Russian debt.
Warm regards from my whole family.
Your
K. M.
112. Marx to Thomas Allsop. 16 October
111. Engels to Ernst Dronke. 15 October[203]
Liverpool, 13 October 1876. E. Dronke. Replied 15 October'[1] that 1 had written to E. Blank.[15]
112
MARX TO THOMAS ALLSOP
IN LIMINGTON
[London,] 16 October 1876 41 Maitland Park Road, N. W.
My dear and honoured Friend,
A few days since Mr Leblanc informed us of the decease of your wife, but I find it even now almost impossible to address you a few lines. Those who had the privilege of knowing and admiring your noble companion for life, dare not intrude with empty words of consolations. It was in fact but her love for you, her fear to leave you alone that enabled her to resist so bravely to increasing ailings and to struggle so hard with nature for her own existence. Your love of mankind, your passionate interest in its general life, will, I hope, enable you to bear even with this irreparable loss.[204]
Your most devoted friend
Karl Marx
113. Engels to Emil Blank. 16 October
[Copy]
113
ENGELS TO EMIL BLANK
IN LEUTESDORF
[London,] 16 October 1876
To E. Blank
If then, upon the POLICY being deposited with you, you are prepared to open a credit of £150 for Dronke, I would gladly pay you that amount through Hermann [3] as soon as desired, likewise any possible expenses arising out of the transaction.[203] As soon as Dronke repaid the money you could remit it to me in any way you chose, and return the POLICY to him.
114. Engels to Thomas Allsop. 17 October
122 Regent's Park Road, N. W.
My dear Friend,
I have just been informed by Marx of the very, very heavy blow which has fallen upon you in the shape of the death of your wife. I fully realise the dreadful, dreary feeling of loneliness which this bereavement, after fifty years of happiness, must have thrown you into. At the same time I know your character well enough to be assured that, with time, you will get the better of it, and not give way to despondency. You are bound to live until you see at least the first instalment of the victory of that cause for which you have
115. Engels to Ernst Dronke. 20 October
now worked and struggled for fully two generations; and there are events now preparing in the East which must hasten, and may bring about, the downfall of the old political and social system. In the meantime, rest assured that from the depth of my heart I feel with you in your affliction, and so does my wife. I say no more. I know that consolation in such a case would seem a mockery. With heartfelt sympathy
Ever yours faithfully,
Frederick Engels
115
ENGELS TO ERNST DRONKE
IN WATERLOO
[Copy]
[London,] 20 October 1876
To Dronke
My brother-in-law Blank writes to say that he absolutely and categorically refuses to enter into a transaction such as you suggest.[203] Furthermore, he tells me he severed all connections with Hinsberg, Fischer 8c Co. three years ago, as is indeed the case.
I am sorry that nothing has come of the matter, since I should have liked to help you in so far as it was in my power to do so.
116. Engels to Ludwig Kugelmann. 20 October
116
ENGELS TO LUDWIG KUGELMANN
IN HANOVER
London, 20 October 1876
122 Regent's Park Road, N. W. Dear Kugelmann,
You may give Mr Caro the most positive assurances that, aside from announcements of family events in the more distant past and personal statements signed with his name on the Vogt affair, etc., Marx has never written one line for the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung,[205] and, if the gentlemen in Breslau[3] know better, we can only treat it as a joke. We don't even know Mr Caro by name, though his friendship with Gorchakov leads us to suppose that he knows relatively little of Russia, for Gorchakov would not be on such a footing with people who were too well versed in this subject. So let us hope that the order which is still lacking will shortly pop into the buttonhole that is pining for it.
Just now I'm writing a work on Mr Dühring for the Vorwärts in Leipzig.[153] For this purpose I need the review of Capital which you sent to Marx in March 1868 and which, if I'm not mistaken, was published by Dühring in a periodical appearing in Hildburg-hausen. ° Marx simply can't find it. Knowing how conscientious you are in all matters, I presume you have something about it among your notes from that time — the name, perhaps, of the periodical and the No. of the volume in which the thing appeared. If you could let me know this, I would order the volume and have it here within a few days. But if you can't, you should, under no circumstances, write to Dühring about it, for the slightest — even if indirect — contact with the man and, still more, the very slightest service rendered by him would impair my freedom of criticism in a matter in which I should preserve it to the utmost.
Work on the second volume b will be started again in a few days. If, by the way, one wishes to correct all the inanities about Marx that circulate in learned circles, one would have one's work cut out. Yesterday, for example, a Russian told us about a Russian professor who stubbornly maintained that Marx was now engaged solely in Russian studies and was doing so because firmly convinced que la commune russe ferait le tour du mondec\
117. Marx to Pyotr Lavrov. 21 October
The war in the Orient will doubtless really get going soon.[207]
Never before have the Russians been able to strike under such favourable diplomatic circumstances as now. Militarily speaking, on the other hand, circumstances are less favourable to Russia than in 1828, and financially very unfavourable, since no one will lend her anything. Just now I'm re-reading Moltke's history of the war of 1828-29a; a very good book although the man could not be frank about political matters.
Thank you for the Schäffle article.
Your
F. Engels
117
MARX TO PYOTR LAVROV
IN LONDON
[London,] 21 October 1876
My dear Friend,
Enclosed a cutting from The Pall Mall Gazette. This extract from your leader (in No. 42 of Bneped?>!b) is badly translated, even though it was done by Sir etc. Rawlinson. Kovalevsky informed me of it and also sent me the thing. He asked me to lend him No. 42 of your journal, but not even the prettiest girl in France can give more than she's got. I had already sent it to Utin (Liège).
Kovalevsky also told me — you could make use of it in your journal[208]—that a detestable Russian clique, which purports to represent the leading Russian men of letters, and has announced its venture in these terms to Rawlinson and other English notables, intends to publish a review in London for the purpose of acquainting the English with the true politico-social movement in Russia. Golokhvastov would be editor-in-chief, with other col-
;l [H. K. B.] von Moltke, Der russisch-türkische Feldzug in der europäischen Türkei
118. Engels to Ernst Dronke. 1 November
laborators from that disgusting journal rpaoicdaHUHba and also, so it is said, Prince Meshchersky.
The Russian government has already given signs of its insolvency by ordering the Bank of Petersburg to announce that it would no longer pay foreign bills of exchange in gold (and/or silver). I had been expecting this, but what passes all understanding is the fact that, for two or three weeks before settling on this 'disagreeable' measure, the aforesaid government had again perpetrated the folly of seeking artificially to maintain the rate of exchange in the London market. This has cost it nearly twenty million roubles; it might just as well have thrown the money into the Thames.
This absurd operation — the artificial maintenance of the rate of exchange at government expense — belongs to the eighteenth century. Today it is only the alchemists of Russia's finances who can go in for such things. Since Nicholas' death these grotesque, periodically repeated, manipulations have cost Russia at least 120 million roubles. But it is typical of a government which still seriously believes in the omnipotence of the State. Other governments do at least know that 'money has no master'.
Yours ever,
Karl Marx
118
ENGELS TO ERNST DRONKE[209]
IN WATERLOO [Draft]
[London,] 1 November 1876 Dear Dronke,
I am writing today to tell you what I was on the point of telling you last Friday[6] when you categorically refused to let me intervene in any way.
I am not in a position to lose the sum of £150, still less £200, nor, by the same token, to gamble with it. If I were still in business,[210] when any loss incurred could be made good in the course of time, that would be a rather different matter. Hence, even if I were on a different footing with Götz, whom I barely know by sight, and even if I didn't find the whole transaction highly unpleasant, in that it can't be carried out without the prior knowledge of Kyllmann, and therefore of Dr Borchardt, I would, under no circumstances, undertake a guarantee of the kind you want.
Even if I were still in business, I obviously couldn't consider gaily staking, for old friendship's sake, the sum of £150 on a business about whose standing I know absolutely nothing. But all the same I could have gone further than I can now when it's no longer possible for me simply to write off a loss of this order. On the other hand, I should be glad to help you so long as it's simply a question of making funds available to you for a stated period without my incurring a risk of this kind.
You had offered my brother-in-law[3] a POLICY amounting to £300 as collateral security. I told him that if he was willing to agree to your proposal I would pay him the £150 in the event of your not having paid it at the end of 6 months.b I could have raised the sum by then, which I was unable to do at that moment, and he would then have held the POLICY as security for myself. But he refused so much as to entertain the thing. Had you then made me exactly the same offer as you made my brother-in-law, I should not, it is true, have been in a position to advance you the £150 immediately, but no doubt something might have been arranged. Now, however, the latest American drawing has brought me a 5/20 bonus, the result being that I am in a position to make available over £150; it is at your disposal for a period of 6 months, provided you give me the POLICY as security. It will in any case be as safe with me as with anyone else, if not safer.
I have told you in all frankness how I see the matter and how far I'm able to go. Maybe you have other proposals to make, in which case I shall be glad to consider them. Just one final word: Whatever we may arrange, let it be arranged strictly between ourselves, with no third party, giving of guarantees,etc.; it's much simpler.
119. Marx to Wilhelm Bracke. 6 November
119
MARX TO WILHELM BRACKE
IN BRUNSWICK
London, 6 November 1876 Dear Bracke,
I have been comparing Grunzig's translation — first sheet — most scrupulously with the original[3] and am about to inform him that I cannot accept his services.
In fact, to correct it (an occasional correction will doubtless be necessary with any translator) would take more time than if I were to translate it myself from start to finish. But I haven't the time for that. I cannot again go through the painful experience I endured in connection with the French translation of Capital.[17]
I'd be glad to have Kokosky, but he entirely lacks the deftness, the lightness of touch, which is precisely what the translation of this book needs.
I have already taken soundings in another quarter[211] but doubt whether the person in question will have the time. Meanwhile, it would be as well for you to cast round if possible for a professional translator in Leipzig. Since the book in question is not intended purely for working-class readers, it would be foolish to go and look for a translator specifically within a party that is not well endowed with literary talent, i.e. to proceed from the outset on the assumption that the translator must be a party man.
From what I hear, B. Becker has found a publisher in Switzerland.b
Yours sincerely,
K. M.
The conciliation congress in Berne—Engels and I wrote and told Liebknecht the moment we heard of the Germans' intention to send their delegates to it — is, and has been from the start, nothing but a Bakuninist intrigue.[200] What is more, proof of this reached us a few days ago from Portugal/ More anon.
120. Marx to Collet Dobson Collet. 10 November
120
MARX TO COLLET DOBSON COLLET
IN LONDON
London, 10 November 1876 41 Maitland Park Road, N. W. My dear Sir,
In communicating to you some éclaircissements* on the last movements of Mr Gladstone, I do so on the express understanding:
1) that until January next they be kept secret (this refers of course not to Mr Urquhart);
2) that if made use of in the January number of the Diplomatic Review, it be done in the form of a correspondence, dated from Rome, Naples or Vienna. Regard to the security of third persons renders these precautions necessary.
Since some time a Russian lady, Madame Nowikoff, has established her autumn and winter quarters in London; during the remainder of the year she travels on the continent or sojourns at Moscow. She is the wife — practically divorced, if not legally — of Mr Nowikoff, Russian dragoman at Constantinople,[13] who is himself the brother of the Russian ambassador at Viennac (the latter has, I believe, been recently removed from Vienna to Constantinople).
Excluded in Russia from 'la bonne compagnie' because of her matrimonial embarrassments, Madame Nowikoff plays nevertheless a certain part at Moscow where her saloon is frequented by
Frondeurs, at the same time that other compatriots suspect her of being a subaltern agent of the Third Division. (The Third Division means the secret State police, a Star Chamber on a colossal scale, the main lever of the Russian governmental machine.) A busybody, she intrudes everywhere, on scientific congresses at Brussels, old Catholic meetings in Germany, etc. Once very handsome, she has now reached a certain age between 45 and 50, and pretends only to intellectual charms. Very amiable and adroit, she possesses indeed the qualities which, as the French say,
'distinguent la tripoteuse russe'.d Still it would be a mistake to range her with the higher order of that species; her mind is of a very superficial cast.
At London Englishmen (professors of science, literary men, politicians), Frenchmen, Slavs and Russians meet in her saloon. One of its principal attractions is the cavalier servant of the lady, 'son ami intime', as she calls him — Count Beust, the Austrian ambassador.
Some London papers having met the 'Bulgarian atrocities',[187]
ushered in by Mr Schuyler, with the 'Turkestan atrocities',[212] told by the same Mr Schuyler, Madame Nowikoff (in collusion with General Gorloff, the military attaché to the Russian Embassy at London) addressed a letter to Mr Gladstone, till then a perfect stranger to her — a letter, set off with an enthusiastic eulogy of his chivalrous exploits on behalf of the downtrodden Slavs, but really intended to give him lessons on the Turkestan events and to protest indignantly against the alleged foul slanders of some London prints. In answer to this missive she received a friendly reply, written and signed by Madame Gladstone.
Since then, Mr Gladstone has paid several visits to Madame Nowikoff who improved her opportunities so well that a literary campaign against the shameless revilers of Russian humanitarian-ism was at once resolved upon.
Two letters, the one by Madame Nowikoff, but anonymous, the other written by Gorloff and signed with his name (the which letter Mad. Nowikoff communicated to Mr Gladstone), were to be published in the Daily News as forerunners to an article of Mr Gladstone himself (in the Contemporary Review), so that he might refer to Gorloff's letter as a 'document justificatif. The gist of Gorloff's letter was the denial of General Kaufmann's atrocious order to General Golowatscheff,[213] as published by Mr Schuyler. The public denial of the authenticity of that order with Gorloff's signature would have derived a certain value from the circumstance that Gorloff occupies a double position; he is an attaché of the Embassy, but depends at the same time on the Russian war ministry, and might therefore have been considered its authorised spokesman.
However, at an interview of Mr Gladstone with Madame Nowikoff, she received, and communicated to him, a letter from Gorloff to the effect, that Schuwaloff, the ambassador, had forbidden him (Gorloff) to sign his letter with his name, as it might compromise the embassy. (Schuwaloff, of course, would not have cared a pin to see a lie publicly signed by Gorloff; but, as the Russian war minister, Miljutin, is the enemy both of Schuwaloff and Kaufmann, and a man not to be trifled with, Schuwaloff stood on his guard.)
Thereupon, by request of Mr Gladstone, Gorloff's letter was amended and abridged, that is to say, its invectives against the English revilers were suppressed, Mr Gladstone considering it more becoming to reserve that part of the business for himself; it was, moreover, agreed that Gorloff's letter should be signed 'A Russian'[3] and that of Madame Nowikoff 'Another Russian'.*[1] As to Mr Gladstone's article for the November number of the Contemporary Review,0 he had not only read it in manuscript to Madame Nowikoff; it was in fact but a summary of the lessons taught by the Muscovite Egeria to the English Numa.
In this article (see Contemporary pp. 883, 884) Mr Gladstone speaks of Gorloff's letter in the following terms:
'The defence so far as I find it supplied by a letter recently published in the Dai/31 News, with the signature of "A Russian", which, as I learn from a friend, has the sanction of General Gorloff, military attaché at London.'
The passage is so worded as to make the public believe that 'A Russian', the writer to the Daily News, and General Gorloff are two different persons, the one having written and published the letter, the other sanctioned it after its publication; that Mr Gladstone became first acquainted with the letter of 'A Russian' through the columns of the Daily News; that only after having read it in that paper^ he 'learned from a friend' that 'Gorloff has sanctioned it'. The most admirable trait is certainly the discreet introduction of Gorloff's name and the hiding of Madame Nowikoff under cover of 'a friend'.
When Madame Nowikoff, borne up by Gorloff's written testimony, had succeeded to impress Mr Gladstone with the conviction, that General Kaufmann's 'authentic' order to Golowatscheff was a myth,[214] she gave, amidst her Russian friends, rather freely vent to by no means flattering animadversions upon English ignorance and credulity. Having been appointed (some time after the last Polish insurrection, [15] and in succession to the hangman Muravieff) governor of Wilna, Kaufmann contrived to overact even his part, so that General Berg, the commander of Warsaw, addressed a letter to the Czare showing the impolicy to continue that man in his office, from which he was indeed at last removed. Such were the dispair and the disgust which his ferociously infamous treatment of the Poles had evoked at Wilna, that its inhabitants actually welcomed as a saviour General Potapoff, his successor, one of the most notorious villains in the Russian service. (This same Potapoff was put at the head of the Third Division, when Schuwaloff exchanged this honourable post of spy-in-chief at home for that of Ambassador abroad.)
Muravieff was a Muscovite patriot who, in his merciless execution of the Czar's orders, was convinced to apply the only method sure to save the Empire from dismemberment. Kaufmann, on the contrary, is an intriguer, eager to outdo in atrocity even the common run of Russian generals, in order to make the Muscovites forget his foreign origin, to ingratiate himself with the Czar, and to oust Mr Miljutin from the war ministry which he covets.
Before the publication of the letters in the Daily News and Mr Gladstone's article in the Contemporary Review, I had been kept au courant of the incidents told in this letter. I had every reason to be convinced of the authentic character of my information, but if I had entertained the least doubt, it must have vanished after I saw in print what I knew beforehand.
Meanwhile the company of Madame Nowikoff has been enriched by a hopeful newcomer, Mr Mackenzie Wallace, a young man who, during his five years' residence in Russia, has learned the language of that country and become more or less familiar with its social state. He is now, like a true Briton of the 19th century, on the look out for 'realizing' his acquirements on the best market.
Yours truly,
Karl Marx
121. Engels to Ernst Dronke. 13 November
121
ENGELS TO ERNST DRONKE[216]
IN WATERLOO
[Draft]
[London,] 13 November 1876
Dear Dronke,
Since only five payments à £14=£70 have been made on the policy up till now, and it might well be that in the meantime you would find yourself compelled to make use of the money in another way and be unable to raise it on the 21st inst., and since I am actually advancing more than twice the amount already paid on the policy, you will pardon me if I prefer to make the payment myself in this instance, and I await your advice as to when. On the other hand, in order to oblige you so far as I can, I do not propose to set off against the £150 the £10 lent to you here, which means that I am advancing you £160 in all, and this at 5%, repayable 1 May '77.
You received here £io £160
CHEQUE 10 November 1876 "10 To Drake & Son "60 Payment on policy "14 94
Herewith CHEQUE for balance £ 66
I've got such frightful bronchial catarrh that I have been condemned to stay indoors in dressing-gown, slippers and a state of TEETOTALisM, hence can't go out to get any bank-notes.
[Note at the end of the letter]
LIFE ASSOCIATION OF SCOTLAND 5 Lombard St., E.C. DUE 21 Nov. AT LATEST.
122. Marx to Wilhelm Bracke. 20 November
122
MARX TO WILHELM BRACKE
IN BRUNSWICK
[London,] 20 November 1876
Dear Bracke,
Enclosed the first French sheet for Mile Isolde Kurz for her sample translation; the latter must be returned to me at the same time as the French original (for purposes of comparison).[194]
It is Lissagaray's opinion — since his book will be out by the beginning of January, whereas the difficulties over the translation will cause a delay — that it would be better after all to publish the German edition by instalments.
Also enclosed the great Guillaume's MISSIVE.[217] What I find particularly amusing is 'que pensent les socialistes de langue française'.[3] These socialistes 'de langue française' are, of course, wholly embodied in the Reclus brothers (secret co-founders of the Alliance[201] but otherwise unknown so far as socialist works are concerned) and De Paepe, who is Dutch by birth but in other respects Belgian.
I hope you will pull it off at the elections; a demonstration of this kind on the part of the peasants would be significant.[218]
Yours,
K. M.
123. Engels to Johann Philipp Becker. 20 November
123
ENGELS TO JOHANN PHILIPP BECKER
IN GENEVA
London, 20 November 1876 122 Regent's Park Road, N. W.
Dear Becker,
We have duly received your circular addressed to the Zurich section[219] and are likewise of the opinion that the time has come to oppose the Bakuninists' pretensions to form an International off their own bat.[200] Whether it is possible to achieve reorganisation on the basis you propose, namely a federation of the big organised national bodies, is, I should say, very doubtful, since legislation in most countries prohibits such associations from corresponding, let alone amalgamating, with associations abroad. But that is a side issue and could easily be got round or altered, once people are fully convinced that the continued existence of each one of those big organisations is of greater importance than its formal entry into an international society. As it is, you will encounter in the Germans the same Platonic indifference which, as a party, they invariably evinced towards the old International.
My chief purpose in writing to you today is to propose a fresh field of activity for you in this connection. The Portuguese, with whom I still correspond and who are very well organised, complain loudly of the lack of attention shown them by our friends. They say that the German-Swiss, Germans, Austrians, Americans, etc., have not only failed to pass on information to them, but have not even replied to their letters, whereas they have been regularly inundated with parcels, invitations to congresses, felicitations, etc., by the Jurassians, Bakuninist Spaniards, Italians and Belgians, so that the Portuguese workers have come to regard these as the only people who still have any interest left either in the International or the Portuguese movement. As you will realise, they must be stout fellows indeed who nonetheless don't let themselves be side-tracked, and that such is the case will be apparent to you from the following letter which they sent to the Bakuninist Congress in Berne:
delegates; nevertheless, their Federal Council has resolved that we assure you of our moral solidarity with socialist workers all over the world, and state that we never have called that solidarity in question, nor ever shall let it be called in question; accordingly, the express compact of solidarity which you propose to conclude seems to us a formality that could well be dispensed with. 'Subscribing as we do most ardently to the unification of all proletarians, we send you our fraternal greetings. Long live the International Working Men's Association!'
Well, I shall write and tell these people about your plan and also send them one of your circulars, although it's doubtful whether they understand German. But you would be well advised to get in touch with them immediately. You can write to them in French; should they reply in Portuguese, I can translate the answer for you.
You might get the above letter published in the Tagwacht, likewise the fact that on 5 January and the following days they are going to hold a congress in Lisbon[3] and will present a new party programme for discussion.[220]
The address is:
E.C. Azedo Gnecco Rua do Bemformoso 110, 2° Lisbonne, Portugal. That's where their paper, O Proteste is brought out; it's been going for over a year.
I hope that you will achieve something worthwhile and, if we can lend you a hand by providing addresses, etc., we shall gladly do so. Only you mustn't overburden us. Both of us, Marx and I, have quite specific theoretical work to do, of which, so far as we can now see, no one else would be capable, even if they were willing, and we must make use of the present universal lull to complete it. Yet who knows how soon some event won't suddenly involve us in the practical movement again? All the more reason for us to make use of the brief respite to carry the no less important theoretical side a little bit further.
Apropos. We have paid through Frankel for 12 instalments of the 12 copies of Stunden der Andachtb ordered by Marx and myself; hence we still have to pay for 3x12 instalments à 25 cts.=9 fr. If that is correct, let me know and I'll send you a money order.
The Vorwärts will shortly be publishing a critique of Dühring by me.c They had pestered me dreadfully before I took on this
124. Engels to Gustav Rasch. End of November
disagreeable task[155]—disagreeable because the man is blind so that the contest is unequal, and yet the chap's colossal arrogance precludes my taking that into account.
Your
F. Engels
124
ENGELS TO GUSTAV RASCH[221]
IN VIENNA
[Draft]
[London, end of November 1876]
Dear Mr Rasch,
The Schaible in question always has to go rushing into the breech on Blind's behalf wherever the latter has made things too hot for himself.[222] That's what happened in the 1859 affair. Blind (at the end of May or the beginning of June 1859) had printed in London an anonymous flysheet, Zur Warnung,[3] in which Karl Vogt was accused of allowing himself to be bribed with Bonapartist money and was denounced as a Bonapartist agent of the press in Germany. There was a request for its dissemination. This flysheet, printed in F. Hollinger's print-shop in London, was reproduced in Das Volk, a German paper printed in the same print-shop, from the original type which was still set up. Liebknecht saw the corrected proof, with corrections in Blind's handwriting, in this print-shop, and sent the flysheet to the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung, which reprinted it in June. Thereupon Vogt sued the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung for libel, the latter asked Liebknecht to provide proof; he turned to Blind, who stated that he had played no part whatever in the matter. Vogtb now distorted the matter, making out that Marx was the man behind Liebknecht and had written the flysheet. This now gave rise to a dispute between Marx and Blind in the columns of the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung.
Using affidavits sworn by the compositor, Vögele,—i.e. legal instruments — Marx proved that the latter and Hollinger had set the type for the flysheet which had been written in Blind's hand. Blind persuaded Hollinger to make a false declaration, namely that the flysheet had not been printed in his shop and that Blind had not been the author; in addition, together with Hollinger, he persuaded the compositor Wiehe to make an equally false statement to the effect that, having worked for Hollinger for 11 months, he could corroborate the latter's assertions. Relying on this, Blind declared the statement that he was the author to be a downright lie. At this, the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung terminated the controversy.[3] Marx replied with a printed circular in English, declaring the above statements made by Blind and his witnesses to be a DELIBERATE LIE, and Blind himself to be A DELIBERATE LIAR (London, 4 February 1860).b Blind remained silent. But on 8 February 1860, the compositor Wiehe swore an affidavit before the stipendiary magistrate at Bow Street which contradicted his earlier statement:
1. he had not been employed by Hollinger for 11 months, 2. he had not been working at Hollinger's at the time the flysheet Zur Warnung was published,
3. he had heard from Vögele at the time that he (Vögele) and Hollinger had composed the flysheet in question, and that the manuscript had been in Blind's handwriting,
4. he himself had subsequently broken the types that were still standing into columns for reprinting in the Volk,
5. and had seen Hollinger give Liebknecht the proof-sheet corrected in Blind's hand and heard that, immediately afterwards, Hollinger had expressed his regret at having done so,
6. he had signed his earlier statement under pressure from Hollinger and Blind. Hollinger had promised him money while Blind had said he would give proof of his gratitude.0
Marx had copies of these documents circulated among various circles, and this elicited a reply. On 15 February a statement from Schaible appeared in The Daily Telegraph ; Schaible sent it (copy) to Marx, who replied [12] saying that this changed nothing, either as regards Blind's obtaining false testimony by underhand means, or as regards Blind's criminal CONSPIRACY with Hollinger to obtain by underhand means Wiehe's signature for the spurious forged document.
Now, as then — Schaible to the rescue!(1)
Such are the facts. I know nothing further about the sorry fellow.
One more thing. Should you again do me the honour of referring to our encounter in London, might I request you to refrain in future from suggesting I talked about matters which were never the subject of discussion between us.[223] As to the self-determination of human beings, I could only have said that, viewed in this general way, it makes no sense to me. As to the autonomy of nations, if I discussed it at all it was to deny the southern Slavs the right to use it as a pretext for lending themselves to Russian expansionist plans, just as I now heartily applaud the drubbing inflicted on the Serbs[176]; to the best of my knowledge, however, we never discussed a social republic or the executions in Baden. Again, you have only what were entirely fortuitous circumstances to thank for the fact that, consequent upon your article, Marx did not declare that he had never seen you, and hence could not possibly have conducted these conversa-tions.
I could not reply sooner as someone had borrowed my copy of Marx's Herr Vogt, in which the above may be found on pp. 55 et
seq.,b and did not return it until yesterday.
Cordial regards.
Yours,
F. E.
Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXVI, Moscow, 1935
125. Marx to Collet Dobson Collet. 9 December
125
MARX TO COLLET DOBSON COLLET[224]
IN LONDON
[London,] 9 December 1876
My dear Sir,
Mr Gladstone's exhibition at yesterday's conference[225] prompts me to communicate — for your and Mr Urquhart's private information — a recent exploit of this sensational statesman.
About a week ago he wrote a letter to Madame Nowikoff telling her that the Morning Post was sold to the Austrian government and that the Russian government ought, on its part, to buy London newspapers, in order to influence British opinion. Even Mad. Nowikoff found this a rather strange proceeding on the part of an English ex-premier. In the same letter he asserts that his popularity is daily increasing and that he feels sure of soon upsetting the Disraeli cabinet.
Mr Gladstone has evidently lost his senses. From some hints given to me, I believe that Mad. Nowikoff, on her return to Russia, will receive a visit on the part of the secret police and be courteously invited to hand over the letters of Mr Gladstone in her possession. By these letters the Russian government will keep him in bondage.
This communication is strictly private; any indiscretion would expose third persons to great danger.
Yours faithfully,
Karl Marx
126. Marx to Engels. 11 December
126
MARX TO ENGELS[226]
IN LONDON
[London,] 11 December 1876 DEAR FRED,
Kovalevsky came to see me yesterday, asked for the Hanssen[22]'; told him he should have it tomorrow evening; at the same time agreed that he and I should call on you that same evening (Tuesday).
I am sending you the Hanssen which, as I did, you will polish off with ease in a couple of hours.
Written about book-binding.
Salut. Your
K. M. After the conference (St. James)[225] Mr Gladstone entered the gallery where Madame Novikov was sitting, offered her his arm—pour montrer* (or so he said according to Novikov's account) que l'alliance entre l'Angleterre et la Russie existe déjà"—and, with her on his arm, strutted through the vast throng which made way on both sides; he a relatively small, skinny chap, she a veritable dragoon. She remarked to Kovalevsky: que ces Anglais sont gauches!c
Generalissimus Chernyayev had twice asked Novikov by telegraph whether he should also appear at the conference; she had to tell him that Mr Gladstone would be pleased to see him personally but thought a public appearance inexpedient.
At the conference (admission by TICKET) Harrison (who, in his article 'Cross and Crescent' in the Fortnightly,0 makes great play with a few HINTS recently picked up from Kovalevsky) told Howell to his face that all the workers present without exception belonged to a paid band well known to him (Harrison).
Unfortunately Charles Darwin also lent his name to the rotten demonstration; Lewes refused to do so.
127. Engels to Philipp Pauli. 16 December
127
ENGELS TO PHILIPP PAULI
IN RHEINAU
London, 16 December 1876
Dear Pauli,
Yesterday I sent you, carriage paid, per CONTINENTAL PARCELS EXPRESS and thereon per German Imperial parcel post, a crate addressed to: Dr Pauli, Mannheim (Chemical Works, Rheinau), Germany, containing a PLUM PUDDING for your wife,(1) a currant cake baked for you by my wife,b a book, a small box of handkerchiefs and a small ink-pot for Pumps. As the crate would not hold anything further, we were forced to put a new dress for her into the crate containing the pudding for the Schupps; that's the worst of these crates — one just has to take them as one finds them; they are German toy manufacturers' crates.
Should the small crate fail to turn up by Wednesdayc at the latest, you had better make inquiries at the parcels office in Mannheim; the postal service is responsible for it — that office and CONTINENTAL PARCELS EXPRESS are agents one for the other. However, I hope that everything will arrive all right since we sent the things in good enough time for them to arrive before the Christmas bustle, which the Imperial postal service admits it can't cope.
Your two letters have arrived and I would thank you belatedly for the information about Schmidt. Similar news from Frankfurt[228]: Sonnemann, whom he gave as a reference, doesn't know him either, but one of the editors of the Frankfurter Zeitung knows him as a 'professional lèse-majesté man' and ditto a martyr with intent who later, 'on the strength of his martyrdom, became perhaps a bit of a schnorrer' (North German term for a cadger). He wrote to me again, whereupon I drew his attention to the bogus references he had given me " and since then have heard nothing more from the elephant on crutches.
I shall see to it that you get the articlesI5S in one form or another as soon as several have come out. Later on they will come out in a separate edition which you will also receive, of course.
During the past four or five days my wife has got very much better for no apparent reason; it's almost miraculous how these
128. Engels to Hermann Engels. 18 December
sort of things seem to happen in the case of women between 40 and 50. I only hope it lasts.
The small crate also contains some Christmas evergreen, holly with its ritual red berries, for sticking into the pudding when it's dished up. The holly's right on top, so that the customs men get their fingers pricked.
And now, warmest regards from my wife and myself to you all, and a merry Christmas!
Your
F. Engels
128
ENGELS TO HERMANN ENGELS
IN ENGELSKIRCHEN
London, 18 December 1876
Dear Hermann,
I have safely received your two letters of 14 and 17 November, made the appropriate entries and found the statement of the account to be correct, save for an item I had not previously been advised of — payment of 90.68 marks to Emil Blank on 24 January 1876. I presume this is the total of the amounts I owed him for various consignments of wine sent to me through his firm over here. In which case this, too, is in order.
I return herewith the Indian paper; the characters are badly defaced Devanagari or Sanskrit characters,[229] which is why I was only able to read one word; it's a kind of Jong-hand, whereas all I've come across is printed characters. It would seem to be a Central Indian dialect, since in the North they mostly use Arabic characters.
True, I have again been allotted another £600 gas shares at par (which show me a profit of about 60-70 per cent) but on the other hand sundry Americans came my way at the last drawing, so that at the moment I don't need any money other than the interest due to me. Since, however, all my gas companies will be issuing new shares or debentures in the course of this year, it's very nice for me to know that I can call on you at any time for £300-£500; for sometimes the whole amount has to be paid up at once and that means getting hold of money quickly.
Many thanks for your information about Schaaffhausen.[3] I had rather suspected that the rumours I had heard were exaggerated; however, Mevissen's resignation from the board might well be a sign that the rats have begun to desert the ship.
I am positive that war is not far off.[207] The Russians have got so deeply implicated that they can no longer turn back, and the Turks will, of course, resist any incursion into their territory. Come what may, England will protect Constantinople and the Straits, though we've by no means reached that stage yet, and I'm convinced that the Turks will best cope with the Russians if they are left to fend for themselves. The position between the Danube and the Balkans is one of the strongest in Europe, and as long as no railways or highways are built there, the strength of a Russian army that could be employed and provisioned there, would be limited to a maximum of, say, a hundred to a hundred and fifty thousand men at the outside. Hence it will probably be a protracted war fought out within the quadrilateral of fortresses Ruschuk, Silistria, Varna, Shumla,b and this the Turks are better able to withstand than the Russians. All that Bulgaria's so-called autonomy boils down to is the expulsion of the Turks from this strong position and the exposure of Constantinople to a Russian invasion. And the Turks, of course, aren't going to let themselves be bullied into this by any conference.[230] If you'd like to know exactly what obstacles the Russians will encounter there, give yourself a Christmas present in the shape of Moltke's Russo-Turkish Campaign of 1828/29,c Berlin 1845.d It's a very good book which will, at the same time, provide you with the specialised maps you will need for the impending war. This time it will be different from 1828 in that:
1. the Turks have an army, 2. Silistria, Ruschuk, etc., are ringed with modern, detached
FORTS,
3. the Turks have, after the English, the most powerful fleet of iron-clads, and are in complete control of the Black Sea,
129. Engels to Johann Philipp Becker. 21 December
4. the Russian Army is in the throes of reorganisation and hence hardly fit for war.
Love to Emma(1) and the children, and the compliments of the season from
Your
Friedrich
129
ENGELS TO JOHANN PHILIPP BECKER
IN GENEVA
London, 21 December 1876 122 Regent's Park Road Dear Becker,
Have received your post card, the Précurseurs and two copies of the French address.[231] If you could send a few more copies of the same, they would be most welcome (in French,—we'd be sending them on to Paris); we shall be glad to pay for them as soon as we know how much, say, 20 copies would cost.
Herewith money order for 15 francs, of which 9 fr. for the amount still outstanding on the Stunden der Andachtb and 6 fr. for two half-year subscriptions to the Précurseur for Marx and myself. You can send me both the numbers as this saves postage, and I can give Marx his. It's a very good thing that we have a French paper in Switzerland again; the Jurassians are hopelessly addicted to cliquism and calumny, and it will enable us to demonstrate that peace with them is an impossibility. I couldn't send you articles regularly because I don't want to tell lies, and all that can be said of the workers' movement here is that it has degenerated into Trades Unionism of the pettiest variety, and the self-styled leaders, not excepting Eccarius, are tailing after the liberal bourgeoisie in order to tout their services as agitators against the alleged Turkish atrocities,[187] and advocate the betrayal of the Balkan peninsula to the Russians in the interests of humanity and freedom.
The fact that De Paepe attended the Berne Congress[200] is wholly consistent with his previous attitude. Since the time of the Hague Congress[20] he had officially remained with the seceded Belgians,[232] but as leader of the opposition, and is now really doing some good by persuading the Flemings to come out in favour of universal suffrage and factory legislation. This is the first sensible thing that has been done in Belgium. Now the Walloon braggarts will also have to co-operate. But for our people in Germany to have fallen into the Jurassian trap was inexcusable. Bakuninist organs everywhere exulted to high heaven when it became known that the Germans would be sending delegates to the Congress.[192] Liebknecht knew exactly what he was doing; in reply to a question as to what we thought of the proffered conciliation and what position we would adopt, I had told him: no position at all[15]; the fellows were just the same as they had always been, and if anyone wished to burn his fingers by having any truck with them, let him do so. And then they went and acted in this silly, gullible way, as though they were dealing with the most noble, honest men.
Have you had the New York, or rather Philadelphia, resolutions regarding the dissolution of the General Council[233]? In case you haven't I am sending you a few copies; it might provide you people with fresh grounds for taking the thing in hand.
In Geneva an Italian and French paper is appearing under the aegis of the Terzaghi of whom we drew a character-sketch in our Alliance de la Démocratie Socialiste? This person is now said to be abusing the Bakuninists. For, having long tolerated him, although he had already been denounced by us as a police spy, they were nevertheless eventually compelled to throw him out as such. He is simply a mouchara\b while his henchman Bastelica is a Bonapartist agent — in Strasbourg he published an invocation to the French workers to restore the Empire.
There's nothing to be done in Italy, Bakuninists everywhere, and in Spain I no longer have any address, but may soon be sent one.
Kindest regards, Your
F. Engels First published in: Marx and Engels, Printed according to the original Works, First Russian Edition, Vol. XXVI, Moscow 1935 Published in English for the first time 1877
130
Endnotes
[145] Marx, On America and the Civil War. Edited and translated by Saul K. Padover, New York, 1972.—114, 250
[146] Marx is expressing a familiar idea voiced in Nikolai Chernyshevsky's review of the Russian edition of Henry Charles Carey's Letters to the President on the Foreign and Domestic Policy of the Union and Its Effects, as exhibited in the condition of the People and the State: 'The course of history is not the pavement of Nevsky Prospekt... Those who are afraid of getting grimy and dirting their boots, should not take up public work' (Sovremennik, Vol. 85, Part II: 'Contemporary Review', January 1861, p. 51. In Russian).—114
[14] Tennyson's poem, written on the occasion of the arrival in Britain of Grand Duchess Maria Alexandrovna, fiancée of Prince Alfred, the Duke of Edinburgh, was entitled 'A Welcome to Her Royal Highness Maria Alexandrovna, Duchess of Edinburgh, 7 March 1874'; each stanza ended with the word 'Alexandrovna!'.—14
[148] The reference is to the publication of the English translation of the Manifesto of the Communist Party in the United States of America. As a delegate to the Hague Congress of the International in 1872 Sorge had brought with him the English translation of the Manifesto made by Hermann Meyer and asked Marx and Engels to look it through. They promised to make the necessary additions and corrections, but an excessive workload prevented them from doing so.—115, 276, 283, 414
[62] No. 140, 2 December 1874. After Marx's intervention, the error was set right
[100] Marx is referring to the delay in the printing and distribution of the French
[151] Between 20 May and 2 June 1876, Engels and his wife Lizzie Burns were on holiday in Ramsgate.—117, 124
[152] Engels received Wilhelm Liebknecht's letter of 16 May 1876 and Johann Most's letter. Liebknecht wrote: 'A manuscript by Most enclosed, which will show you that the Dühring epidemic has hit even people who are otherwise quite sensible; it needs to be dealt with. Send the manuscript back.' On Most's manuscript, see Note 159.—117
[158] On 10 May 1876, Jenny, Marx's daughter, gave birth to a son, Jean Laurent Frederic Longuet, who was called Johnny in the family.—118
[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
[161] Nationalökonomie und des Socialismus, Berlin, 1875, p. 570.— 120 61 Marx is referring to Engels' work The Housing Question; its first and third parts
[162] contain criticism of Arthur Mülberger's articles which were reprinted
[163] under the general heading 'Die Wohnungsfrage' by Der Volksstaat in February-
[164] March 1872 from the Austrian workers' paper Volkswille (see present edition,
[165] Vol. 23).—120 62 On 30 May 1876, a palace revolution overthrew Sultan Abdul Aziz and
[166] enthroned his nephew Prince Murad (Murad V) who had a reputation as reformer. On 4 June Abdul Aziz was assassinated.— 120 6S On 6 June 1876, the congress held in Copenhagen re-established the Danish Social-Democratic Workers' Party which had been originally founded in 1871 as a section of the International and dissolved by the government in 1872. Up to 1884, it was called the Social-Democratic League. The congress approved rules and a programme based on the principles of the Gotha Programme of the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany (see Note 121). Louis Pio was elected chairman, and Paul Geleff the second chairman of the Executive.—121 64 At the House of Commons sitting on 22 May 1876, one of the Irish M.P.s inquired of Prime Minister Disraeli whether the government intended to amnesty the Fenians who were still in prison. Disraeli stated that 15 Fenians remained imprisoned, and that the government had no intention of pardoning them since it regarded them as 'criminals and deserters'. The statement provoked a storm of indignation among the Irish M.P.s. The Fenians were Irish revolutionaries who had taken their name from the 'Féne', the ancient population of Ireland. Their first organisations appeared in the 1850s among the Irish immigrants in the USA, and later in Ireland itself. The secret Irish Revolutionary Brotherhood, as the organisation was known in the early 1860s, aimed at establishing an independent Irish republic by means of an armed uprising. The Fenians, who expressed the interests of the Irish peasantry, came chiefly from the urban petty bourgeoisie and intellectuals, and believed in conspiratorial tactics. The British government attempted to suppress the Fenian movement by severe police reprisals. In September 1865 it arrested a number of Fenian leaders, who were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment (O'Donovan Rossa received a life sentence). In 1867, following the abortive attempt at an uprising, hundreds of Irishmen were thrown into prison. Marx and Engels, who repeatedly pointed to the weak sides of the Fenian movement, their reliance on conspiracy and sectarian errors, nevertheless had a high regard for its revolutionary character and did their best to encourage it to embark on mass struggle and joint action with the English working class. In the 1870s, the Fenian movement declined.—121 lb5 In his letter of 16 May 1876, Wilhelm Liebknecht warned Engels that he and his friends had reason to suspect Dmitry Richter of espionage. Later the suspicions were proved to be unfounded (see this volume, pp. 155-59).—121, 126, 127 lb6 ~[-he German diplomat Count Harry von Arnim, who had been ambassador to France since 1872, was recalled from Paris in April 1874 for obstructing Bismarck's policies. On his departure, he took with him important documents from the embassy archives. This caused his arrest in Germany in October 1874
[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
[167] and in December he was sentenced to three months in prison by a Berlin court.
[156] Eduard Bernstein. Even August Bebel came under his influence for a short time. In view of this, in his letters to Engels of 1 February and 21 April 1875, Liebknecht proposed that the latter use Der Volksstaat to criticise Dühring's views. Engels did so for the first time in the essay 'Prussian Schnapps in the German Reichstag' carried by Der Volksstaat in February 1876 (see present edition, Vol. 24). Marx agreed with Engels that Dühring's views had to be exposed to serious criticism. Engels interrupted the work on Dialectics of Nature which he had begun in May 1873 and made a start on Anti-Diihring (see present edition, Vol. 25). It took him over two years, from May 1876 to July 1878, to complete it. Part I of the book was mainly written between September 1876 and January 1877 and was printed in the Vorwärts as a series of articles under the heading Herrn Eugen Dühring's Umwälzung der Philosophie in January-May 1877. Part II was written in July-August 1877. Marx contributed Chapter X. This part was published under the heading Herrn Eugen Dühring's Umwälzung der politischen Oekonomie in the Wissenschaftliche Beilage and the supplement to the Vorwärts in July-December 1877. Part III was written mostly between August 1877 and April 1878 and appeared in the Vorwärts in May-July 1878 under the title Herrn Eugen Dühring's Umwälzung des Sozialismus. The book aroused strong resistance on the part of Dühring's followers. At a regular party congress held in Gotha from 27 to 29 May 1877, they tried to prevent the publication of Engels' work in the party's central organ. Anti-Diihring appeared in the newspaper with lengthy intervals. In July 1877, Part I of the book was published in Leipzig as a separate pamphlet. In July 1878, Parts II and III were also published there as a separate pamphlet. The first complete edition of Anti-Dühring, with Engels' preface, appeared at the same time. In late October 1878, following the introduction of the Anti-Socialist Law in Germany, Anti-Dühring was banned along with Engels' other works.—118, 120, 122, 175, 201, 207, 218, 220, 227, 236, 249, 254, 258, 283, 289 15fi On 22 (10) May 1876, Constantinople witnessed a mass demonstration of the softas, Moslem students of theology and constitutional law. One of their basic demands was the convocation of a representative body to approve the state budget. The Sultan was forced to meet some of the softas' demands. Specifically, he dismissed the Grand Vizier (Prime Minister) and the Sheikh ul Islam (head of the Moslem clergy).—118, 123, 293
[169] nine months, but in the meantime Arnim had departed for Switzerland for
[170] medical treatment. Since he refused to return to Prussia, a warrant for his
[171] arrest was issued on 16 May 1876, no matter what his whereabouts. On 21 May
[172] the warrant was carried by the Berlin press and reprinted by other German
[173] newspapers in the course of the next few days.—121 67 This is probably a reference to Eugen Dühring's Cursus der National- und Socialb'konomie einschliesslich der Hauptpunkte der Finanzpolitik. Engels made a thorough critical analysis of this work in Anti-Diihring, notably in Part II entitled 'Political Economy' (see present edition, Vol. 25).—122 M A reference to the Berlin Memorandum of Russia, Austria-Hungary and Germany, to which France and Italy also acceded. It was drawn up on 13 May 1876 by the representatives of the three states: Gorchakov, Andrâssy and Bismarck. The Berlin Memorandum, which was addressed to the Turkish government on the occasion of the uprising in Bosnia and Herzegovina (see Note 157), demanded that a two-month truce be concluded with the insurgents. The Memorandum was to be handed to the Turkish government on 30 May, but the plan was not carried through due to the palace revolution in Constantinople on that same day (see Note 162).—123 69 Engels is referring to Dialectics of Nature, which he began in May 1873 and, having written the 'Introduction' and drafted about a hundred notes and fragments, had to interrupt work on it in May 1876 to write Anti-Diihring (see Note 155). After Anti-Diihring had been completed and published, Engels returned to Dialectics of Nature in mid-1878 but had to interrupt it again in order to prepare for the press the manuscripts of the second and third volumes of Capital following the death of Marx. Dialectics of Nature remained unfinished (see present edition, Vol. 25).—124, 254, 420 70 Darwin's main work, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life, appeared in 1859.—124 71 Marx wrote on the envelope of this lett.er: 'Mr. F. A. Sorge, Bez. 101, Hoboken, N. J., via New York (U. States), per next steamer.' The date has been established by the postmark.— 124 72 In a letter of 4 April 1876 (see this volume, p. 115), Marx requested Sorge to send him the articles published by the New-York Tribune of which he was the author. In his reply of 2 June 1876, Sorge wrote that Kugelmann had asked several months earlier for these articles to be included in Marx's complete works planned by the Hamburg publisher Otto Meissner. Sorge had received this information from Livingstone, who kept the articles from the Tribune after Hermann Meyer's death. Livingstone refused to send them to Kugelmann without Marx's knowledge.—125 73 This letter was written on a postcard (the original is kept at the Karl-Marx-Haus in Trier). The date has been established by the postmark.— 125
[118] found.—87 3 The reference is to the battle of 1 September 1870 during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71, in which the French army was smashed. The crushing defeat at Sedan speeded up the collapse of the Second Empire and led to the proclamation of a republic in France on 4 September 1870.— 88, 155, 251, 297 4 On Marx's and Engels' attitude to the German socialist Gustav Adolph Köttgen, see their 'Letter from the Brussels Communist Correspondence Committee to G. A. Köttgen' (present edition. Vol. 6, pp. 54-56).— 88 5 The introduction to Grün's book was published under the heading 'Ueber Weltanschauungen. Präludium zur Philosophie in der Gegenwart' in Die Wage, Nos. 33-38, 20 August-17 September 1875. The book itself was completed in March 1876 and issued by Otto Wiegand's publishing house (K. Grün, Die Philosophie in der Gegenwart. Realismus und Idealismus, Leipzig, 1876). In May 1873, Engels had made a start on one of his principal works, Dialectics of Nature.— 88 6 A reference to the anonymous and undated pamphlet published in Brussels under the title Quelques mots d'un groupe socialiste révolutionnaire russe à propos de la brochure: Alliance de la Démocratie socialiste et l'Association Internationale des Travailleurs. The pamphlet was presumably written by Michal Kasper Turski. It was spearheaded against Marx's and Engels' work The Alliance of Socialist Democracy and the International Working Men's Association (see present edition, Vol. 23). Lavrov wrote to Engels on 20 September 1875: 'You have probably seen a small pamphlet that Nechayev's anonymous followers have published in Brussels as a response to the pamphlet about the "Alliance". But, of course, neither the group nor its writings are of any value whatsoever.' In late September-early October 1875 Lavrov sent a copy of the pamphlet to Engels.— 91 7 In a letter to Marx of 25 September 1875, Peter Imandt enclosed an article, 'The International Working Men's Association. By an Internationalist', carried by The Dundee Advertiser on that day. 'The enclosure will show you that The Dundee Advertiser has a very good friend of yours among its correspondents. I was surprised to see the article this morning, and have no idea where it originates,' he wrote.— 92 8 Under the terms of the peace treaty signed after its defeat in the Franco-Prussian war of 1870-71, France paid 5,000-million-franc reparations to Germany, which contributed to the rapid growth of German economy. The period of feverish business activity, which witnessed the mushrooming of railway, industrial, construction and commercial joint-stock companies, banks and credit and social security companies and was accompanied by large-scale speculation, stock-exchange swindles and machinations, has come to be known as Gründerjahre (or the period of Criindertum). By 1873 it had resulted in a crash followed by an economic crisis, which lasted well into 1877.—92, 131, 218, 304, 335, 405, 447
[177] From 1874, Charles Longuet taught French at the King's College in London, and Jenny Longuet — German at Clement Dun's school. In 1880, after the Paris Commune members had been amnestied, Longuet returned to Paris.—132, 378, 391, 447
[94] After his withdrawal from the engravers' firm in the summer of 1873 (see Note 11), Lafargue bought a photolithographic and etching workshop in the hope of solving his financial problems.— 75, 132, 447
[179] Marx gives an account of the resolution passed at the meeting held after Bakunin's funeral on 3 July 1876. The anarchist congress (the so-called sixth general congress of the International Working Men's Association) held in Geneva from 1 to 6 September 1873 approved new Rules for the Bakuninist International. Article 3 declared complete autonomy of the federations and sections of the Association.—132
[180] Marx and his daughter Eleanor spent a few days in Brighton in March 1873.—132
[181] Engels is referring to the poem 'Die hochdeutsche Nähdersmädle' included in a selection written in the Palatinate dialect: K. G. Nadler, Fröhlich Pah, Gott erhältst, Frankfurt a.M., 1851, p. 144. Engels used this book in his work The Frankish Period (see present edition, Vol. 26, pp. 81-107).—133
[182] Engels probably means, above all, the poem 'Herr Christoph Hachstrumpf..." in Nadler's book (see Note 181).—133
[183] In his letter to Engels of 7 August 1876, Lavrov stated that a young man, a Russian socialist residing in Berlin and corresponding with German Social-Democrats and Russian socialists (Grigory Gurevich), had carelessly allowed some letters addressed to him, including letters from Liebknecht, to be opened at the post office, after which they had fallen into the hands of the police. On 6 August, Lavrov received a letter from one Dekhterev in Leipzig, who informed him, allegedly on behalf of the German Social-Democrats, that a certain Chernyshev had been despatched to Berlin to investigate this matter (see this volume, p. 147).—134
[184] The Wagner Festival Opera House opened at Bayreuth with a performance of Wagner's tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen (see Note 190) on 13-17 August 1876.—135
[185] 'Xhe music of the future'—Richard Wagner's music, whose principles he expounded in his Zukunftmusik. Brief an einem französischen Freund (1861) addressed to Frederic Villot, keeper of the French museums, and in his book Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft.—137, 192, 443
[186] x h i s law also known as Prussian Law (Allgemeines Landrecht für die Preussischen Staaten) was promulgated in 1794. It included criminal, state, civil, administrative and ecclesiastical law and bore the distinct imprint of obsolete feudal legal standards. After the annexation of the Rhine Province to Prussia in 1815, the Prussian government tried to introduce Prussian Law into various legal spheres there to replace the French bourgeois codes in force in the province. This was done by introducing a series of laws,' edicts and instructions aimed at restoring the feudal privileges of the nobility (primogeniture), Prussian criminal and marriage law, etc. These measures were resolutely opposed in the province and were repealed after the March revolution by special decrees issued on 15 April 1848.—140
[75] This refers to the Programm und Statuten der sozial-demokratischen Arbeiter-Partei, adopted at the general German workers' congress in Eisenach in August 1869 and published in the Demokratisches Wochenblatt on 14 August 1869. The congress founded the Social-Democratic Workers' Party of Germany, subsequently known as the Eisenachers. For the most part the programme complied with the principles of the International Working Men's Association.—60, 70
[188] On 12 August 1876, Disraeli was made Earl of Beaconsfield, and from that moment on became leader of the Tories in the House of Lords.—140
[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
[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
[38] Catholic clergy and abolishing the Catholic Church's right of supervision over
[191] Marx is referring to the report of the second congress of the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany held in Gotha from 19 to 23 August 1876. It was printed in Der Volksstaat, Nos 98-102", from 23 August to 1 September in the section 'Kongress der Sozialisten Deutschlands'. This particular reference is to the part of the report featured by Der Volksstaat, No. 102 on 1 September. Reporting on the debate with Dühring, its author, Julius Motteler, mistakenly mentioned Marx instead of Engels. Wilhelm Liebknecht rectified the misunderstanding in his letter to Marx of 9 October 1876.—154
[92] Annolied (The Song of Anno)—a poem written by an unknown author in the late 11th century in Middle High German in praise of Anno, Archbishop of Cologne.— 74
[193] From 1869 onwards, Bakunin and his followers, who had set up their own secret organisation, the Alliance of Socialist Democracy (see Note 201), within the International, sought to take over the leadership of the IWMA and to replace its programme with their own. Following the Hague Congress of 1872 (see Note 20), the anarchists openly advocated a split in the International. Beginning in 1873, they endeavoured to unite the socialist organisations of various countries under their supremacy with a view to 'restoring' the International. These attempts suffered a fiasco at the international socialist congress in Ghent in 1877 (see Note 324).— 155, 247
[95] This is a draft of Engels' reply to Patrick John Coleman's letter of 19 May 1875. It was written down on the last page of Coleman's letter informing Engels about his intention to go into trading business and requesting him to become security for him.— 76
[196] Complying with Marx's request, Liebknecht wrote a long article, 'Die Schande Europas', which was carried by the Vorwärts, No. 6, 13 October 1876.—155
[113] (Ausschuss). The Executive Committee elected at the Gotha Congress had five
[198] The German original of the letter has not been found.—157
[199] Marx's apprehension had been aroused by the fact that Leo Frankel was not released from Budapest prison until 27 March 1876 (see Note 144), and the Hungarian authorities had a chance to keep him tinder secret surveillance and intercept his correspondence.— 157
[202] in October 1868 as an international anarchist organisation which incorporated the secret conspiratorial organisation he had set up earlier in Italy (see Note 266). The Alliance had sections in Italy, Spain, Switzerland and in the south of France. In 1869, it applied to the General Council of the International Working Men's Association for admission. The General Council agreed to admit the sections to the International on condition that the Alliance was disbanded as an independent organisation. Having joined the International, Bakunin to all intents and purposes ignored this decision and incorporated the Alliance into the International under the guise of a Geneva Section (called the 'Alliance of Socialist Democracy. Central Section'). Marx, Engels and the General Council resolutely opposed the Alliance, exposing it as a sect hostile to the working-class movement which sought to split it and obstruct its independent development. At the Hague Congress of the International (1872), the Bakuninists sustained a shattering blow. Bakunin and Guillaume, the leaders of the Alliance, were expelled from the International.—157, 172, 200, 210, 257 2,12 In his letter to Marx of 9 October 1876, Leo Frankel wrote that he had heard rumours about the forthcoming unity congress in Switzerland (see Note 200) at which Marx's and Lassalle's followers were to be present, and asked what his attitude to the congress should be.—157
[197] The reference is to the mass electoral reform movement in England in 1865-67 The programme of the movement, led by the Reform League (its leading bodies included members of the General Council of the International), bore the direct influence of Marx's ideas. He favoured an independent position of the English working class in the reform campaign. Unlike the bourgeois parties, which confined their demands to voting rights for householders and tenants, the Reform League, on the insistence of the General Council, demanded manhood suffrage. However, the vacillations of bourgeois radicals and the conciliatory policies of trade union leaders allowed the English bourgeoisie to split the movement and prevent implementation of the measures proposed by the General Council. In the end, in 1867 a reform was introduced that granted suffrage only to the petty bourgeoisie and the top strata of workers.— 156, 158
[204] Also extant are a few lines of the letter's rough draft: "... her warm glowing heart was always open for the wrongs and woes of humankind; she felt for the oppressed, the struggling, the lowly. How deep, how bitter must be your sorrow, your solitude and loneliness!..."—159
[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
[205] In connection with the Vogt affair Marx had four statements printed in the Augsburg Allgemeine Zeitung: 1) 'Letter to the Editor of the Allgemeine Zeitung' (No. 300, 27 October 1859); 2) 'Declaration' to the Editorial Board of the Allgemeine Zeitung (supplement to No. 325, 21 November 1859); 3) 'To the Editors of the Volh-Zeitung' (supplement to No. 48, 17 February 1860); and 4) 'Declaration' to the Editorial Boards of the Allgemeine Zeitung and other German Newspapers (supplement to No. 336, 1 December I860). See present edition, Vol. 17, pp. 3, 8-9, 12-13 and 19-20).—162
[208] p a r t 0f this letter was published by Lavrov in Vperyod! (Forward!), No. 44 on 1 November 1876.—163
[209] Engels drafted this letter on the back of Ernst Dronke's letter to him of 31 October 1876, in which Dronke requested him to be his guarantor for the receipt of a £200 loan (see also Note 203).—164
[210] Engels left the Ermen & Engels firm on 30 June 1869.—165
[211] Marx is referring to the talks with Wilhelm Bios. On 16 November 1876 Bios accepted Engels' proposal that he translate Lissagaray's Histoire de la Commune de 1871 (Engels' letter has not been found). However, on 14 November Wilhelm Bracke wrote to Engels that he had already found a translator (Isolde Kurz) (see Note 194).—166
[212] A reference to the Khiva military expedition undertaken by K. P. Kaufmann, Turkestan's Governor-General. In the course of the campaign against the Khiva Khanate launched in March 1873, it was conquered by the Russian army, which ruthlessly exterminated the nomadic Turkmen tribes that put up resistance.—168
[213] On 18 July 1873, K. P. Kaufmann, Governor-General of Turkestan, gave the order to General Golovachev to exterminate the Turkmen tribe of Jomuds who refused to submit to the conquerors of the Khiva Khanate. The English translation of the order was published by Eugene Schuyler, American Consul in Constantinople, in the book Turkistan. Notes of a Journey in Russian Turkistan, Khokand, Bukhara, and Kuldja, London, 1876.—168
[214] Following the Daily News publication of letters that cast doubt on the authenticity of Kaufmann's order to Golovachev, Eugene Schuyler had a letter published in The Times on 16 November 1876. The author stated that he had seen the original document and reminded readers that the extracts quoted by the Russky mir magazine (2-14 February 1875) and by The Times (6 April 1875) in the report marked 'Hamburg, 25. März' had not been disputed at the time.—169
[216] Engels wrote this draft letter on the back of Ernst Dronke's letter to him of 12 November 1876. Dronke proposed that he himself should make the payments on the policy he had given Engels as security for the money he had been advanced (see Engels' letter to Dronke of 1 November 1876, this volume, p. 165). Dronke also promised that the annual payments on the policy would be made on 22 November.—171
[217] Marx is referring to James Guillaume's letter which Bracke had forwarded to him enclosed in his own letter to Marx of 14 November 1876.—172
[218] Wilhelm Bracke, who believed that the working class can succeed only through an alliance with the peasantry, was actively engaged in agitation among the latter in the 1870s. At the German Reichstag elections of 10 January 1877 (see Note 237), he was nominated at the Brunswick 1st electoral district and was supported by a large number of rural voters. He lost the main elections but won the by-elections in the Glauchau-Meerane district on 22 February.— 172
[219] The circular of the Central Committee of the German-language sections to the Zurich section, drawn up by Johann Philipp Becker, was published as pamphlets in German and French in Zurich in October 1876 (see Note 231). It criticised the proposal advanced by the Zurich section of the International to take part in the anarchist congress in Berne scheduled for October of that year (see Note 200).—173, 200
[220] Xhe first congress of the Portuguese workers was held in Lisbon from 1 to 4 February 1877. It gave the final shape to the Portuguese Socialist Party founded in 1875, adopted party rules and a programme drawn up along the lines of the Gotha Programme of the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany see Note 73), and elected a Central Committee. At the request of Azedo Gnecco, made in his letter to Engels of 21 January 1877, in late January Marx and Engels sent a letter of greetings to the congress also signed by Friedrich Lessner, Paul Lafargue and Maltman Barry. The congress received another such letter from the leadership of the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany. Engels appraised the work of the congress in his essay 'The Workingmen of Europe in 1877' (present edition, Vol. 24, pp. 216-17). Johann Philipp Becker had a note on the forthcoming congress of the Portuguese socialists published in Die Tagwacht, No. 96, 2 December 1876. The letter of greetings to the congress signed by Marx, Engels, Lessner, Lafargue and Barry has not been found.—174
[221] The rough draft was written on the back of Rasch's letter to Engels of 13 November 1876.—175
[222] In 1876, a polemic between Gustav Rasch and Karl Heinrich Schaible began in the Vorwärts. It was triggered off by Rasch's article 'Deutsche Flüchtlinge in London', carried by Der Volksstaat, No. 88, 30 July 1876, and Schaible's 'Antwort eines Deutschen auf Gustav Rasch's "Deutsche Flüchtlinge in London'", which appeared in the Vorwärts, No. 19, 12 November of the same year. On 13 November Rasch wrote to Engels requesting information about relations between Schaible and Blind and the former's behaviour during Marx's campaign against Vogt. Rasch wrote that the notes he wanted from Engels would be used in his reply to Schaible's article. Rasch used Engels' reply in the article 'Antwort eines Deutschen auf Gustav 33-406 Rasch's "Deutsche Flüchtlinge in London" ' printed by the Vorwärts, No. 5, 12 January 1877. Without mentioning the source, Rasch quoted in full the part of Engels' letter dealing with Blind and Schaible.—175
[12] Marx's letter has not been found.—10, 31, 33, 34, 75, 176, 189, 193, 222, 270, 276, 311, 353, 376, 382, 412
[223] Engels is suggesting that in his article 'Deutsche Flüchtlinge in London', printed by Der Volksstaat on 30 July 1876, Gustav Rasch was prevaricating when he wrote that during his encounter with Marx and Engels in London they discussed 'human rights, the autonomy of nations, the social republic and those executed in Baden'.—177
[224] The address on the envelope is in Marx's hand: 'C. D. Collet, Esq., Sunny Bank Highgate'.—178
[226] An extract from this letter was published in English for the first time in: K. Marx, On History and People. Arranged and edited, with an introduction and new translations, by Saul K. Padover, McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, [1977].—179
[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
[228] Engels then goes on to retell and quote a letter from one of the editors of the Frankfurter Zeitung, Eduard Sarny, of 5 September 1876, which was a reply to Engels' inquiry, most probably to Leopold Sonnemann, made on 2 September 1876.—180
[229] Devanagari—the character in which Sanskrit is usually written and printed.— 181
[230] 2S0 Engels is referring to the Constantinople Conference of Ambassadors of European States that took place between 11 and 23 December 1876. Its participants agreed to demand that Turkey grant autonomy to Bosnia, Herzegovina and Bulgaria.— 182
[231] Johann Philipp Becker evidently sent Engels two copies of the circular 'Association Internationale des travailleurs. Réponse du Comité central des sections de langue allemande en Suisse à une lettre de la section de Zurich, concernant le congrès international de la secte des antiautoritaires, du 26 Octobre 1876 à Berne'. Engels received the German edition of the pamphlet containing this circular in October or November 1876 (see Note 219).—183
[232] On 25 and 26 December 1872, Brussels was the venue for the congress of the
[233] International's Belgian Federation, at which the Bakuninists and Proudhonists had the majority. The congress rejected the resolutions of the Hague Congress (see Note 20) and declared its refusal to maintain relations with the General Council in New York. It further decided to accede to the resolutions passed by the international anarchist congress in St Imier (15 September 1872), which had openly declared a split in the International. In a resolution passed on 30 May 1873, the General Council stated that the Belgian Federation had thus placed itself outside the International Working Men's Association.—184 238 The resolution to dissolve the General Council and the International Working Men's Association was adopted at the latter's conference held in Philadelphia on 15 July 1876. The documents of the conference were published as a pamphlet entitled Internationale Arbeiter-Association. Verhandlungen der Delegirten-Konferenz zu Philadelphia, 15. Juli 1876, New York, 1876.—184
[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
[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
[153] This is probably a reference to Dühring's Cursus der Philosophie als streng wissenschaftlicher Weltanschauung und Lebensgestaltung, Leipzig, 1875. Engels criticised the book in his Anti-Dühring (see present edition, Vol. 25, Part I, 'Philosophy').—118, 162, 180, 195
[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
[3] Marx, accompanied by his daughter Eleanor, took a rest cure at Harrogate between 24 November and 15 December 1873.— 3, 17
[159] Johann Most's manuscript was a panegyric on Eugen Dühring's Cursus der Philosophie, which appeared in 1875. Most's article about Dühring was printed in September-October 1876 in the Berliner Freie Presse under the heading 'Ein Philosoph'.—119, 122, 218 60 Marx is probably referring to Diihring's opinion of Most's pamphlet Kapital
[160] und Arbeit (see Note 154) made in the second edition of his Kritische Geschichte der
[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
[155] The publication of Eugen Dühring's Cursus der Philosophie als streng wissenschaftlicher Weltanschauung und Lebensgestaltung and the second edition of his Kritische Geschichte der Nationalökonomie und des Sozialismus (1875) made his views very popular in Germany. Among the German Social-Democrats, he acquired such followers as Johann Most, Friedrich Wilhelm Fritzsche, and
[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
[175] Engels was on holiday in Ramsgate between 24 July and 1 September 1876. In early August, he and his wife took Mary Ellen Burns back to her boarding house as her holidays were over. On 5 August, he returned to Ramsgate.—130, 131, 133, 134, 135, 138, 140
[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
[176] In late June 1876, Serbia and Montenegro declared war on Turkey in support of the popular uprising which had flared up in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the summer of 1875 (see Note 157). However, the ill-prepared offensive of the Serbian army was halted as soon as early July and, after its defeat had opened up the road to Belgrade for the Turkish troops, Russia categorically demanded the immediate cessation of hostilities against Serbia and Montenegro and an armistice. After a ceasefire lasting six weeks, in February 1877 Turkey and Serbia signed a peace treaty on the terms of status quo ante. On 31 March 1877, a conference of European powers in London issued a protocol that enjoined Turkey to conclude a peace treaty with Montenegro, cease its arms build-up, etc. Turkey having rejected the Russian ultimatum to comply with the London Protocol, Russia declared war on it on 24 ( 12) April 1877, and Montenegro became a Russian ally.—130, 140, 177, 237, 255, 296
[178] Between 15 August and 15 September 1876, Marx, accompanied by his daughter Eleanor (Tussy), was in Karlsbad taking a cure for the third time. Having completed it, he spent a few days with Max Oppenheim in Prague, and then, after brief visits to Kreuznach and Liège, returned to London on 22 September 1876.—132, 135, 139, 141, 142, 144, 145, 146, 148, 154, 440, 442
[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
[187] In April 1876, a national liberation uprising began in Bulgaria. It was brutely suppressed by Turkish troops in May. The press in many countries expressed its indignation at the 'Turkish atrocities'.— 140, 158, 168, 183, 447
[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
[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
[194] Considering it very important to familiarise workers with the true history of the
[200] On the proposal of the anarchist Jura Federation, which withdrew from the International since it refused to recognise the resolutions of the Hague Congress (see Note 20), a congress of representatives of some workers' and socialist organisations (mostly anarchist and Proudhonist) took place in Berne from 26 to 30 October 1876. Since the International Working Men's Association had officially ceased to exist by decision of the conference held in Philadelphia in the summer of 1876, one of the issues discussed in Berne was the so-called solidarity pact that, or so the congress organisers hoped, would resurrect the International on the basis of their programme. In this connection, the participants in the Berne congress made an attempt to involve representatives of the German Social-Democrats in its work (see Note 192). A decision on this question was postponed until the next congress. However, the international socialist congress convened in Ghent in 1877 (see Note 324) turned down the anarchists' proposals and confirmed the resolutions of the Hague Congress.— 157, 166, 173, 184
[201] The Alliance of Socialist Democracy was founded by Mikhail Bakunin in Geneva
[192] The Berne anarchists sent an invitation to the Gotha Congress of the Socialist Workers' Party of Germany held in August 1876 to take part in their congress to be convened that October. The anarchists expressed their hope for a 'reconciliation' and co-operation with the German Social-Democrats. However, as Liebknecht wrote to Marx on 9 October, the Gotha Congress turned down the proposal that official representatives be sent to Berne. Julius Vahlteich was present at the anarchist congress as a guest from Germany (see Note 200).—154, 157, 184
[203] This note was written by Engels on Dronke's letter of 13 October 1876, in which Dronke requested Engels to help him obtain a loan of £150 to ease his precarious financial position.—159, 160, 161
[207] Engels' forecast based on an in-depth analysis of European policy in the Levant proved correct. The Russo-Turkish war began on 24 April 1877 and ended in defeat for Turkey. On 3 March 1878, the preliminary San Stefano Treaty (see Note 430) was signed, which granted complete sovereignty to Serbia, Montenegro and Romania.—163, 182, 191, 192, 216, 222
[225] On 8 December 1876, St James' Hall in London was the venue for the national conference on the Eastern Question. Its chief organisers came from the Liberal Party.—178, 179